One outcome of their sharpening poverty is that some nomads take advantage of special areas developed by aid groups that offer water, food and other relief for them and their animals.

Nomads walk through the desert sand.

More also now travel and settle, albeit briefly, near towns to shop at markets and to be closer to some semblance of stability.

Every Saturday, Inaka trudges some five miles to the village of Ber, 40 miles east of Timbuktu, to buy and trade goods at the market. One recent day, he brought with him slices of goat cheese his wife had made earlier in the week. He hoped that selling the cheese would help him buy sugar, tea, tobacco and a gerba, a water container made from a goat carcass.

As he tried to sell the cheese, Inaka ran into other nomads, some seeking to sell animals, others there to restock on rice and millet and other staples. They hugged and chatted and laughed. And, eventually, Inaka sold his cheese.

Then Inaka returned to where he had camped for more than a week. The nomad's camp--two tents made of camelhide--was littered with all that he owned: scattered and torn clothes, a metal bowl, a goat-skin sack, a straw cradle, three leather pillows, four straw mats, four gerbas, a small burner filled with charcoal, a teapot, a bag of sugar, a can of tea.

Inaka greets a friend at the market. He trudges about 5 miles to the village of Ber, 40 miles east of Timbuktu, every Saturday to buy and trade goods.

Inaka had come to this spot with his wife and three children nearly two weeks earlier. Within walking distance stood three other tents, belonging to two of Inaka's brothers and a family friend. Nomads often travel together, then set up tents several hundred yards from each other. In desperate times, they share grain and care for each other's animals.

Dozens of Inaka's animals roamed near his tent. He owns 5 donkeys, 25 sheep and 4 goats. He has no camels. Goats supply milk and cheese. Sheep skin provides, among other things, warm coverings for the sometimes-chill desert nights. Donkeys, the cheap substitute for camels, are long-distance transportation.

Fadimata Malaoulaou, left, and Inaka's daughter, Fotoya Ag Sididi, carry Lalli Ag Sididi, 8 months. They live in tents near each other and help with the daily tasks.

"The animals are my life," said Inaka, a sharp-featured man with caramel-brown eyes, bronze skin, gray chin stubble and deep wrinkles rippling out from his eyes. "If the animals die, we die."

During the past year, parts of Mali's north have received little rain, and nomads have suffered. The conditions revived wrenching memories of 1973, when the country experienced a drought that killed thousands of animals, forcing some nomads to even abandon life in the desert.

Nomads and animals share the same water source in the desert.

Inaka has lost some 20 animals since 1995. In mid-September, one of his sheep, sick for days, died. The nomad slit its throat, and in the late afternoon light, knelt 15 yards from his camp, used two hands to scoop a shallow sandy grave and buried his animal.

"This costs [$33], so it's very painful for me," the nomad said, still kneeling. "If it had grown bigger than this, I could have got [$50] for it."

If animals continue to die, and he cannot feed his family, Inaka will more than likely find help from several relief agencies that work with nomads.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

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