Remote

Tchit, Mauritania 2005

Tchit is an ancient caravan stopover in the Sahara Desert. I’m guessing, but I think less than a thousand people live there. The population had recently dropped due to the slaughter of ten Tchit men by Islamist terrorists. The town had only one gun and everyone was fearful thinking that the terrorists would return. Our group was fearful as well. We had armed guards and we bivouacked in an abandoned fort.

We slept on the floor of stone huts. We kept the doors closed until the heat became unbearable. The walls had absorbed the day-long heat of the Saharan sun turning our rooms into ovens. In the middle of the night,  unable to bear the heat any longer, we dragged our sleeping bags outside onto the sand. Then we slept peacefully.

The photo above was taken after sundown which is when Ramadan officially ended. You can discern the time to break the fast during Ramadan when you can stand outside holding a white string and there is not enough light to tell if the string is white or black. I can report that the dancing started a bit early, but darkness soon followed. I used my fastest film, Kodak 3200 ASA and I pushed a stop or two. (Pushing means to increase the development time in the darkroom. My photos were always grainy in those days)

The villagers, men, women and children, gathered in an open place at the edge of the village. Some of the women seemed dressed for the occasion as they wore bright-colored clothes. (I’m stumped here for an English word for wrapping yourself in yards of fabric. It isn’t a dress, it isn’t a veil, it isn’t even a sari or a chador or a burka. It’s called a haik in Morocco, but who knows what a haik is?) So, anyway, they had dressed for a party. The men wore their gandouras as usual. Some had the voluminous Mauritanian gandoura, called a ‘grande boubou‘ in Niger. Made of multiple yards of fabric they endow even a skinny little man with stature.

The drumming began and the excitement grew. Men were the first to dance. They’d start jumping and yipping and get right in front of the drummers. It seemed as if there was a contest to see who could last the longest: the dancer or the drummer. When one dancer tired, another would take his place. Then once the fever pitch of excitement had died down, the men and the women began to dance. Not the men with the women. No. The men with the men and the women with the women. To be honest, it was more like a disco when everyone was dancing by themselves but checking the others to make sure they had the right moves.

I looked for someone with presence. I couldn’t find anyone. So, I just shot some wide-angled shots hoping that there would be some life in my photo. Expression is key here as well as in a portrait. (This is a group portrait, after all.) The woman in front second from left has it. She has presence. She has expression and she has a lovely pose. She makes my photo.

I used a magenta filter to add depth to the photo…the black white of it seemed too dead to me. I’ve looked at this photo many, many times but have never been pleased with it until the other day when enough time had passed for me to say that it’s ok. It shows life in a Saharan Village. That is more than enough for this photo to do.