On nights when the wind hisses across the dunes, the old man sits on his
straw mat, draws a blanket around his shoulders and counts his money.
In the morning, Sidahmed Ould Magaya, 75, will be trapped inside his concrete
house, the wooden door sealed shut by a wall of sand accumulated overnight. In
exchange for 1,500 ougiya (about US$6; €4.50), workers will liberate him,
hauling the yellow sand away in burlap bags.
At that rate, he has to sell a goat a month to pay for the mounting cost of
keeping the desert at bay in a country where the dunes are said to be shifting
at an estimated rate of 3 to 4 kilometers (about 4 to 6 miles) per year,
according to government data.
Throughout Mauritania, a desolate, dune-enveloped country twice the size of
France, men and women wage a daily battle against the sand.
With less rain falling now than in years past, the dunes have become dry and
unstable. Global climate change bears part of the blame, as does the local
practice of uprooting the scraggly trees that once dotted the landscape to use
as camel feed, firewood or for insulation, leaving nothing to hold back the
mountains of sand.
When the winds ...