Word: camels
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High up on his camel, Adam Mahamoudane surveys the scene below him. The dry, sandy riverbed is a sea of color. Some 60 camels mill about, stirring up the dust and leaving apple-shaped footprints in the sand, while riders rest on their haunches in the shade of acacia trees. Most of the men - Tuareg nomads from the small oasis town of Timia in the West African nation of Niger - wear loose fitting, black trousers, with yellow or white edging around the hem. Over the trousers hangs a cotton robe held at the waist by a colorful belt. Many wear...
...camels lope up to the start line, men shouting, animals bellowing. The riders sit on camel saddles, their feet resting forward in the curve of each camel's neck. A bridle runs back from a silver ring through each animal's right nostril. The camels crowd together as the starter raises his starting stick, but before he can drop it, a huge cheer sends the camels lurching forward in one heaving mass. Their long legs kick forward, riders bobbing to and fro atop 60 dancing humps. The race comprises two laps of Timia's valley floor - less than 4 miles...
...theory of international trade: the salt farmers, the transporters and the traders each stick to what they do best. There was a time when the salt ferried by the Tuareg was worth more than gold or silver, and trade routes crisscrossed north Africa from Timbuktu to Cairo. Today, the camel caravans have mostly disappeared, replaced by overloaded trucks which tire less easily and require fewer men. Adam and his town folk are part of a dying breed. "It's very difficult," the boy told me. "I'd have preferred to have been in the pasture looking after the camels...
...wonder. On the camel caravan, Adam and the men wake at 3am and begin walking at just after 4. They eat breakfast on foot; Adam races between the walking men serving tea and a porridge made of dates, millet and goat's cheese. They walk until 10am, and then ride through the heat of the day, then stop as the sun sets and feed the camels before eating their own meal, usually more porridge or dried fruit. "The worst thing is when you run out of pasture and the animals get tired," says Adam's uncle, Ebuche Saghdou, who made...
...side of a dune one day's camel ride from Timia, a camel skeleton bakes in the searing sun. A few patches of heat-hardened skin cling to the chalky, white bone. The sun bleached vertebrae of the neck lie in a graceful curve where the animal fell; a couple of ribs have been pulled away by a scavenger. "I feel my life has been hard and I know Adam's will be hard too," says Adam's uncle Saghdou. His eyes hang low in his weathered face, dragged down by time. "The desert is our enemy. It's like...