Barefoot to Timbuktu

In 1989 the Swiss-American artist Ernst Aebi passed through the Araouane oasis in the Sahara as part of a caravan. The few inhabitants were poor and extremely religious, so Aebi spontaneously decided to help these people who had known neither fruit nor vegetables. Aebi, who had made a lot of money in real estate in Manhattan, stayed for three years, helping the villagers build a network of wells and gardens, until civil war drove him out. He returned to Araouane in 2008, a film crew in tow.
—DH