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National Geographic : 1987 Aug
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at the University of Bayreuth in West Ger many and an expert on the ecology of Sudan, pointed to the holes high up in the trunks of some trees. "Those trees are used in a water storage system going back hundreds of years," he said. "When rains are abundant, water is taken from the ground and put into the tree trunk through the hole. During the dry season the owner of the tree sells the wa ter, taking it out by a bucket on a rope. If you read the 14th-century writings of Ibn Bat tuta, an Arab geographer, you will find a de scription of this storage system." The dunes increased in size and number as we neared Khuwei. They had not simply 166 rolled down across 125 intervening miles from the Sahara, Dr. Ibrahim explained, but because of drought and overuse of the land, winds had blown the sandy topsoil of the area into piles, or dunes. In the village it self the sand rose against some of the struc tures to roof level. "Once there was a green belt around this place, but the sand began accumulating about five years ago, and it hasn't stopped," said Abd El Monem Hassan, a schoolteach er in Khuwei. Other villagers gathered around, and some said it was the drought, the awful drought, that allowed the sand to take over. "My son did not see rain for the NationalGeographic,August 1987
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