We go on a journey - Reading piece with questions for children
I cannot believe it. At last I am standing here with my friend, Peter, in the streets of Timbuktu. A lot of people think this place do not even exist, but this place is real. It is found in the Sahara desert, Mali, West Africa.
We started with our journey six and a half thousand kilometers away, in South Africa, where we got on a plane. From Abidjan we took the bus and traveled all the way through West Africa. We traveled through Abidjan, Korogo, Mopti and then we stopped in Timbuktu.
This town use to be a very important city where more than a 100 000 people lived, but now there are only about 15 000 inhabitants found here. It is not easy living in a desert and most people decided to move and try and find a better or easier life. Timbuktu was started centuries ago by the Tuareg nomads.
(For enrichment you can read more about this tribe here)
We are ready to explore en we look around and wonder where we can go. There are no tar roads, just a lot of sand and dust and the buildings almost all look the same and are build with clay bricks.
Very few tourists comes to Timbuktu so the people quickly know that we are not from there.
While we are walking around, looking for a restaurant, a young boy joins us. His speaks English and wants to know from which country we are.
We give him the opportunity to guess and he names three countries - Germany, Spain and the Netherlands - every time he names a country he says something in their native language.
We are very impressed and when he hears we are from South Africa he asks us to teach him a few phrases from one of the 11 languages of South Africa.
He is very clever and he picks up learning the phrases very easily.
He offers us his service to be our guide. We tell him that we do not have money but he does not want any, he just wants to show us the town he loves so much.
We are so surprised when he takes us to very interesting places like the mosque. He tells us a lot about the history of Timbuktu and he makes sure that every time he shows us something, we teach him something new to say in our language.
When it is time for us to leave, Haman comes and wish us well. He also gives us each a Tuareg cross.
He was so helpful and we really enjoyed our time in Timbuktu. Once we have saved some money again, we will definitely come back and visit Haman again.
Answer the following questions
- How many characters are in the story and who are they?
- Who becomes their tour guide? How do you know he is not doing it for the money.
- In which place does this story take place?
- Why do we call this a short story and not a novel? What is the difference between the two?
- What did the tourists get from Haman?
- Think about any place you have visited. What did you like most about the place, what did you like least.
- Draw a picture of something you bought/got as a present in a place you visited.
- Do your own research on the history and sites of Timbuktu.
- Watch the video to learn more about it.
