Fearful
Sahara Desert…somewhere near the border between Mali and Mauritania 2005
We camped near the family of these girls: several Touareg women and a multitude of children left alone in the desert near a water source. The skin of the women was stained with indigo. The girls in the photo wear a head covering made of cotton dyed with indigo but the fabric has been washed so many times that no dye has stained their skin.
The next morning as we got ready to leave the girls skittishly approached our camp. They were scavenging for any discards that would be useful to their mothers. They were frightened to death but perhaps more frightened of their mothers if they returned empty handed. We had a fire going, burning our trash including empty food tins. The girls crept to the edge of the fire and grabbed the hot cans with their bare fingers, keeping an eye on us in case we might not want them to take something so useful.