Nudibau, Mauritania – Eager students from all over West Africa extend their hands as teachers guide them through mathematics and classical Arabic. They then run out to meet their parents, who clean the houses, run informal taxis or intestine sardines ...

Chingetti, Mauritania – For centuries, poets, scholars and theologians have come for a trans-city trading post home Chingatti for more than a dozen libraries for homes with thousands of manuscripts. But it is now standing on the verge of oblivion. ...