With love from Timbuktu
IT IS NOT often that Phil Paoletta receives disgruntled emails about his and Ali Nialy’s project, but when he does, it’s because someone thinks their West Africa-based company is a scam.
The duo started Postcards From Timbuktu in 2016 with a mission to help unemployed tour guides gain an income by sending cards from a city that’s become shorthand for a far-flung, if not imaginary, place.
“They think Timbuktu isn’t a real place and we’re printing fake postcards and stamps to make it seem like something’s coming from a place in a joke,” Paoletta said.
It then falls to Paoletta to explain that Timbuktu is, in fact, a real city, that the person who wrote the message is not a grifter, à la
