The Village Shop
Mali 2000
The village was at the foot of the Bandiagara Escarpment. The houses and storage buildings looked like little witches houses. Only large enough for two or three people to fit inside, the roofs were thatch, tilted and came to a point at the top.
The hut in the photo was the village shop, I think. A man had gone inside to open the little window and the woman with the baby on her back asked him for something. I don’t remember what she was handed, maybe a sack of grain.
The ground was covered with rocks. Like the Ethiopians of Lalibela, the Dogon were an agile group. We hired a few men to carry our supplies to the top of the Bandiagara. The other men of the tribe accompanied us out of curiosity or boredom. To walk to the top of the cliff was a piece of cake for them.