THE INDEPENDENT (Johannesburg, S Africa) 21 August 03 Grand old 'citizen' a croc
Kidal: A real live crocodile is the unlikely outsized good-luck charm of this north-eastern Malian town, where it has been a celebrated "citizen" since 1945.
A million and one legends surround this venerated creature who is believed to ward off the evil eye and protect the inhabitants of Kidal.
Kidal has attracted world attention recently, bad publicity that its inhabitants say they would have rather avoided. It was widely believed that the 14 European tourists taken hostage by an Algerian Islamic group were held in northern Mali.
The town's mostly nomadic population of 77 000 subsist on very little in the vast barren desert. Their lives are so hard, they need a mascot.
Brought to the area from Mali's interior by Jean Clauzel, a French colonial administrator, the crocodile has fascinated generations of visitors for nearly 60 years.
So small was the creature when it first arrived, that his tail resembled a grey lizard's, and he was given only a few weeks to live. But he survived, and was housed in the colonial fort that still crowns the town, before being moved next to the old prison, no longer in use.
The grand old "citizen" is preparing to move residence for the third time. He will be lodged in a basin between two date palms in the town's administrative offices.
There is no official budget to feed the creature, says Sissoko, the local administrative head. But, he explains, successive administrators have continued to look after the reptile, believing that their professional future depended on the mascot's longevity.
The local officials will have to turn a blind eye to townspeople smuggling themselves onto the premises at night to continue their tradition of leaving offerings of large chunks of meat for the crocodile.
"There are people who come here to feed the crocodile, hoping that it will protect them from bad luck," says a guard.
The hardy creature now three metres (10 feet) long, with half-closed eyes, swishes his tail as he lolls in the tank's warm greenish water. He has survived the extreme desert temperatures and tough winters of Mali for more than half a century. But fatigue and old age are beginning to take their toll.
The crocodile has also survived the Tuareg uprising in the 1990s, when even the rebels did not dare to touch it. "Everybody avoided shooting in the direction of the animal," an ex-rebel affirmed.
Grand old 'citizen' a croc