June 30, 2012

portrait sketches

players at Medina 3, Nouakchott

Taylor's at Medina 3, Nouakchott

jeweller at zeinart concept
more of the sketches I post in Urbansketchers here

Refugiée Tuareg

Khadijetou Walet Khalit
Khadijetou walet Khalit, Touareg, left Bamako at the end of January 2012 and travelled to Timbuktu in search of her mother and family. Phones weren't working and she was really worried about their whereabouts. By the time she reached this northern town of Mali her family had already left by foot moving towards the frontier with Mauritania. At the same time military and civilians had started to attack the homes of the touaregs based in Bamako destroying everything and creating a wave of fear in the touareg community that forced many to leave the country empty handed. ( those attacks of civilians were due to the news reaching the capital that a Touareg liberation movement had been fighting the Malian military forces causing a lot of deaths)
 The Malian army attacked the vehicle she was travelling with and she got really scared thinking her hour had arrived.  She finally met them on the 7th of February in the city of Fassala in the Mauritanian border. From there they all moved to the refugee camps of M'Bere.
At the refugee camp she worked with the Mauritanian Croissant Rouge. She has now been for a month in Nouakchott. There are today more than 70.000 refugees in the camps and at least 4.000 touaregs in the city of Nouakchott.

June 28, 2012

Piano lesson at CIMAN

 Jaime is a spanish volunteer at CIMAN the Nouakchott Music School. Twice a week he gives piano lessons for two hours. The first our to the small ones and the second hour to teenagers. The school struggles to survive because of lack of funds and the few volunteers they have is what keeps it going. A first in Mauritania she is in her second year of existence. The school offered free lessons to local musicians to teach them to read music but no one seems to have been interested.

June 07, 2012

reading club


the blue hair is my mistake
Discussing The great Gabsy by  F. Scott Fitzgerald.