Dispatch
The last indigo pits at Kofar Mata
Five hundred years of dyeing in Kano has come down to a few dozen working pits and the men who still know the recipe.
North-West
Kano
Kano State
12.0022° N, 8.5920° E
A thousand-year-old commercial city that has never stopped being one.
About this place
Kano has been trading for longer than most countries have existed. It sat at the southern end of the trans-Saharan routes, and the habits of that trade — the dyeing, the leatherwork, the grain markets that set prices for half the north — are still the habits of the city. The old town inside the walls is a working neighbourhood, not a monument.
Everything from Kano
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People in Kano
Dispatch
The last indigo pits at Kofar Mata
Five hundred years of dyeing in Kano has come down to a few dozen working pits and the men who still know the recipe.
Field notes from Kano
Amina Yusuf
The road past the dye pits is empty by nine and lit the whole way, which is not what anyone expects of the old city at night. The lights went in two years ago. The traders I asked all mentioned it unprompted, and all mentioned it in terms of walking home rather than of business.
Where to go next
Editorial adjacency rather than distance — somewhere it makes sense to go from here.
