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 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. They live in tents near each other and help with the daily tasks. 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.