Published on September 28, 2024 at 9:52 p.m. / Modified on September 28, 2024 at 9:54 p.m.
He wouldn’t leave his little concrete cube for anything in the world. Mahjoub Abdoulaye has his room, his own space. Certainly, his only room only offers space for his mattress, but he can find himself there alone, listening to music, wandering on the networks when he has credit, like a young Mauritanian of 22 years old . The problem: the sand which is slowly piling up at the bottom of its only window. Inside. The dune goes beyond the top of the glass pane and gradually intrudes into Mahjoub’s room. She wasn’t there when the cube was built. But with climate change, the desert is advancing very quickly in Chinguetti.
This small town in eastern Mauritania has always lived as a “gate to the desert”, which allowed it to become a prestigious stopover for the caravan trade of the Sahara, and an obligatory passage for West African pilgrims from Mecca . The old town had to be cleared of sand in 2004, the result of an accumulation of storms.
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