Agadez, part 3 (Fatima's home)

Our final evening in Agadez was spent at Fatima’s house. She is a wonderfully generous woman that Jeanel and I met on the streets in Old Agadez. We were wandering through the residential area of the old city and Jeanel struck up a conversation with Fatima. One thing led to another and we were invited to her house for tea.



This is on the way into the house. There were several rooms, so I’m not sure if it was a family area, with each sub-family group having a separate living space or not.



Fatima, left, shows Jeanel the embroidery work she does to raise money. In addition to making blankets, pillow cases and sheets, she makes hats (like she’s wearing in the first photo). In the lower part of the left-hand side of the frame you’ll see the tea pot and glasses.



During our chat, the light was amazing outside, so I ventured out with some of the neighboring kids. They wanted to clown around for the camera, and since I don’t speak Hausa, I couldn’t tell them to be serious. Oh well.



More boys horsing around, throwing hand gestures that I have no clue what they mean...



It was really interesting because the boys wanted to be all “macho.” The drive to be manly is something we see here in America, but I wasn’t aware it existed in these other cultures. It was pretty funny, because the boys are probably 9 or 10 and were doing their best to give me serious (almost mean looking) expressions.



I’m not sure who this girl is, but I really dig this portrait, with her head scarf on.



This is the same girl, only inside the house area. The girls were more agreeable for portraits (maybe because they were older). They didn' insist on looking right into the camera, which I liked. I was not able to verbally communicate with them, but was grateful that they understood by my pointing that I wanted them to look in a certain direction.



This is Fatima’s 17-year-old daughter in the home. In the city, a lot of the structures are built with the mud or mud brick, as the rural houses are, but city homes have the beautiful tapestries draped over the walls. I think the beautiful, lace-like wall covering makes these photos more interesting.