Crafts
A loom, two sons, and a trade with no successor
Ousmane has been weaving for forty-one years. Neither of his sons intends to take over, and he says he understands.
The loom takes up most of the room, and Ousmane sits inside it rather than at it, feet in the pedal pit, both hands busy.
“A strip takes me a day. A machine in Dakar makes forty in an hour. I am not angry about it. I am just the last one.”
He still gets orders for weddings and for naming ceremonies, because a machine-made cloth is not the same gift. That, he thinks, will outlast him by a while.
Field reporter
Amadou
Films and writes from the road. Travels between Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Mali, and brings back what he finds.
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