bucket of fish

fishermen

this. this is a fishing expedition. or, really, an expedition of mine to find the fishing port of nouakchott. i found it, and was delighted by its noise. and colour. and madness.

the objective was to unload the boats as fast as possible. to use the vessels as wave breakers and to shield the waiting crowd.

the men, dressed against inevitable wetness, carried the fish uphill. up over the sand. from sea to ancient pickup trucks. children - those brave and blessed with height - followed the men, waiting for lapsed attention.

and in between balancing - measuring what was required to bridge sea and truck, traversing the return, swatting those daring, reaching children - their free hands stretched upwards. 

pocketing silver for themselves, 

those wet fish men.

matchbox detail

rushing home

the taxi driver was mildly amused. i took his photo. we swapped phone numbers and i promised to send him a copy.

the light

usual suspects

end of day accounting, fish market

painted history

fishing boat detail, nouakchott

quiet time

manuscripts neatly arranged in the moulaye ahmed cherif family library. dating from the 13th century onwards, they cover a range of topics including astronomy, the koran and religious instruction.

iron sunset

ship graveyard, nouadhibou

prisoner of war

there is no formally demarcated border between morocco and mauritania, rather a three kilometre buffer between the final moroccan military post and the first mauritanian military post. a geopolitical no man’s land. it has been contested by the polisario.

the area is filled with land mines and there is just dirt tracks. on either side of the tracks lie hundreds of abandoned and rusted cars. it contains an informal settlement of would be migrants, neither able to return back through mauritania nor continue on to europe.