Male Beauty Contest

Niger. Sahel. Standing in a moving row,  Wodaabe nomad men, including these two, are swaying more than dancing the gerewol while showing to a parallel row of women facing them the whiteness of their eyes and teeth. More than anything, the gerewol is a male beauty contest between clans. A few women, selected by the elders for their own beauty, are kneeling between the two rows of opposite genders. They will select the best looking men and take them to the bush. Folded on their heads are the blankets they will use to rest in pairs.

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Shared Sadness

Ecuador. Andes Mountains. Otavalo. Otavalo Indian waiting for a bus after buying a piglet at the market.

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A Whiff of the Traditional Colombian Countryside

Colombia. Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Pueblo Bello. Farmer.

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Morocco's Leapfrogging Berbers

Morocco. High Atlas Mountains. Ait Haddidu Berber girl leapfrogging.

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Legendary Africa

Benin. Near Boukombe. Somba women. Spears and fly chasers, male attributes, signal the new higher class of girls parading in their dikuntiri (initiation). Recognized as adults,  they may formally join the husbands to whom they were legally married  in childhood. They are crossing a harvested millet field under a sky whitened by the harmattan, a  sand-loaded wind blowing from the Sahara to the north.

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Look at the Yellow-haired, Blue-eyed Monkey. What Do you Think he is Doing, Looking at us through the Big Eye he is Holding to his Face?

Brazil. Amazon rain forest. Yanomami Indian boys. They decked their hair with bird's down. They colored their skins with urucu (achiote) and charcoal.

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The Strong Backs of the Weaker Sex

Colombia. Guajira Peninsula. Waiuu Indian woman carries 60 kilos of salt to a truck. It took two men to heave it on her back. Much heavy weight in the developing world is carried on women's backs. And are they strong! I once watched a woman in the Marquesas Islands lift a drunk men who was nagging me in her tiny restaurant, carry him to the street, and throw him out the door.

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Across Africa on a Vespa Scooter

Once, in a previous life, and as a first of many great adventures, I rode a Vespa 125cc from Brussels, my home town, to Cape Town through the length of Africa. Here I was, in this scratched image, struggling against the Sahara,  and later among the Pygmies of the Congo's Ituri forest.

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Sensual Desert Woman

Niger. Sahel. Tuareg woman sitting under her leather tent . Though Moslem, Tuareg Women like her enjoy freedom and rights that Western women could only envy.

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