One night in the Niger desert, they appeared to me.
Our eyes met.
Time passed.
I don’t know what I saw.
I can’t forget it.
I put myself in their tracks.
From Agadez, I take the road leading north.


I left Guinea two or three years ago
Senegal
Dino, my name is Dino
I left Senegal
Before I moved from Mauritania to France
I am a Ghanaian from Ghana
I come from Nigeria
I left Senegal a year ago
I came here
I spent 3 months here
I went through Algeria, I left Algeria and I entered Morocco
To get into Spain, they beat me on the wire fence
They turned me back, they took me to Mali
The people perished,
if I manage to get to Europe, they send me back
People die in the oceans
I left Morocco,
I went via In Salah, Ouargla, El Golea, Gardaïa, Oran, Maghnia
I carried on and got to Tamanrasset
From Tamanrasset to the border at Assamaka
Assamaka to In Guezzam, Arlit, Agadez

This is where I’m sitting.
Where are the bags?  Bring your bags here.
Here’s the last bag.
Where are the people in the middle?
Friend, here’s another bag.
Friend, pass me the bag.
If you’ve finished with the stick, give it to me.
Put the bag behind you.
Where’s my bag?
It’s fallen down behind.
There’s some space here.
You already know where you’re sitting!
I can’t see where we’re all going to sit.
Where are the people who are going in the middle?
We’re here.
Get in, but only the people going in the middle.
In the middle, in the middle.
There’s a seat here.
Hold on, hold on.
Who’s sitting here?
Where is he?
Stop pushing me!
Can’t you keep quiet?
I’m fine here.
Hold on.  Hold on. Be careful!
Where are you sitting? Sit in the middle.
Sit down everyone. I don’t want anyone standing up.
Take your foot away!
No one’s to stand up.
Be careful where you put your feet.
Come and have a look.
Squash up more. Make room for him.
Just push your way in, there’s no problem.
Where? Where? Where should I sit?
Move it both ways.
Careful. You mustn’t break it.
Try to lower it.
That’s it.
There’s even a white man.
Moussa, as he’s working for his money.
No one knows how much.
It’s dripping down the side.
Is it heavy?
It’s not heavy but it’s very windy.
Where can I sit to keep the wind off?
Wherever you like.  There’s wind everywhere in the Sahara!


The sand is soft isn’t it ?
Yes.
We’ll see which way we need to go.
Well done.
Three kilos is too much in the tyres.
Three kilos ?
Yes, it’s like…

Everyone get down.
Get down and go round the front.
Get down, go over there.

        
Are you all right ?

My God, it’s beautiful here.
Where?
Here!
You know what I said to the driver?
"On the side as you go up the hill
"there are some rocks and you stop there."
He replied: "That’s exactly where I was going to stop.
"It’s the right spot."
OK.
It was exactly the right spot.
That’s right.
That day I said to myself, there’s someone
in this car with the same name as me.
If you look closely in this car,
there’ll be someone with the same name as me.
That’s normal when there’s a lot of people.
I heard them calling him.
If you can’t drive in forwards gear, you have to reverse.
Do you understand?
If you can’t make the car go forwards,
then you reverse.
It goes “bac bac bac”,
and then it gets going, mate!
And when it’s hot, it starts boiling like a pot.
Who didn’t cut the branch properly and left the roots on?
You can put it in like that. It’ll burn.
No. The branch isn’t dry.
No, it’ll catch.
It’ll dry as it burns,
you could cook with it.
The whites want to understand
what makes people leave.
It’s to find a solution.
You have to tell the truth.

We’ll die of cold here
No
It won’t kill us?
I hope not, you’ll manage
we have to stay like this, we can’t lie down, the cold comes up

It’s not a recent thing.
Don’t throw any water on him.
He’s just got cold.
That’s what it’s like with travellers like these.
Sometimes they fall off like that and they get back on straight away.
They fall off, they get back on.
They’re not used to travelling.
You over there, sit down!
Tell them to move forward.
Try to squash up and push your foot in.
Tell the people up front to sit down.
Tighten them, tighten them both.
There’s one here.
He knows, it’s his job.
Unscrew that over there.
Where’s the 10 spanner?
Here it is.
Which spanner are we looking for?
There are the gendarmes,
there’s the police and there are bandits.
They realise all that.
Yes, they realise that.
I’ve worked over there, I have, and I can tell you that
there are lots of them, not just one.
Because sometimes,
when they go there,
they attack them, take everything they’ve got,
and leave them like that.
I’ve personally seen people
in the mountains
who are standing up but dead, in those mountains.
That’s between Djanet and the mountains going down towards Libya.
I’ve seen lots of things I really don’t like to see.

Berliet marker number 19.
They still have 300km to go before they cross the Algerian border.
I shan’t see them again.

That’s where they’ve got to.
They’ve crossed over into...
the day after tomorrow, they’ll be in Libya,
Libya, tomorrow,
tomorrow evening, they’ll be in Libya,
because there, you see,
they’ve reached the end of the mountains, almost made it
where they’re going because those people walk really well,
and they don’t get thirsty.
They are very good.
They are very good, very good, very good. Wait,
I’ll just check.
All those people, they’re together.
You see, that’s where they cross, they’re crossing, almost,
they’ve only a little way to go before they come into
Libyan territory.
There, Algeria, they’re already there...
Yes, they’re all together.