Badass Tuareg

So we go to Gorom-Gorom, a market town in the far north of Burkina at the wrong end of a 12ish hour bus journey, half of which is spent just a few miles outside of Gorom-Gorom where the wheel literally came off the bus and we had to wait for six hours while the driver, sundry mechanics and general hangers-on stared quizzically at the axle, smashed it with sledgehammers and then continued their quizzical staring, as if to work out if the battering had made any difference.

When we got back and washed our shirts, enough sand came out to carpet Blackpool pleasure beach. Just walking around you got a dry mouth from all the dust.

Now the Tuareg, the local nomad dudes, have a solution to this which involves never showing your mouth. They wear blue cloths wrapped round and round their faces, and if they're bona fide Tuareg they'll never show their mouths if there's higher-status Tuareg about.

You can look at this as fascinating authentic tradition etc, which in one way it is. On the other hand, it's hard to believe that the Tuareg haven't cottoned to the fact that this shadowy Schehezerade getup makes them look pretty damn cool. These days, they like to accessorise with aviator sunglasses with gold-plate rims. It sometimes feels that you've wandered into a casting call for a Martin Scorsese-directed Star Wars sequel.