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National Geographic : 2002 Jan
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A thousand years ago Khara Khoto's quarter-mile-long walls proclaimed its power and prosper ity. Conquered by successive waves of Mongol and Chinese warlords, the city finally perished when the Black River's course shifted-or was diverted, as leg end has it-cutting off the water supply. We trudge down the dune, surprising the lady who lives in the valley. Her name, Lao Ji tells us, is Diudiu, and she's 72. She was born to a semi-nomadic Mongolian family near here. She never had children, and her husband died in 1974, leaving her as the last of her family. With the same hospitality we'll find across the entire Badain Jaran, Diudiu sets up for visitors. She goes inside her house and fills a tea kettle with water from a small cistern, then walks outside to a mirrored solar collector the size of a TV satellite dish. At the dish's center, where the rays of the sun will be focused, Diudiu snaps the kettle into an iron fitting, then she pivots the dish to face the afternoon sun. In seconds the kettle is smoking. Within three minutes, the water is boiling furi ously. "I sold hair from my camels and sheep to buy this on the out side," she says, turning the mirrored face of the dish from the sun to retrieve the kettle. "It keeps me from having fire going all day." Diudiu invites me inside her house. A wide earthen platform for sleeping and sitting occupies the back wall. The other walls are lined with wooden pantries and lockers; the boxes hold bags of rice and dried meat, a few potatoes and wild onions in baskets, and some extra ALASHAN
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