Motorcycle Ethnographies  |  Eid al-Fitr, Agadez, Niger, 5 July 2016
Channel: Eric J. Schmidt
Date: 13/07/2016

The best-laid plans of getting ahead of the crowd following the Sultan of the Aïr from his palace on Eid al-Fitr didn't quite work out, so we had to join in the procession through the old town of Agadez. First stop, seen at the end here, is the original mosque in town (not the iconic Grand Mosque), before everyone moved on to the burial grounds where the morning prayer was held. Since we were racing to keep up, I didn't have time to put my camera away, and on a whim decided to film from the back of the motorcycle leading me from one point to another. It's certainly not the way to get stable footage if you're not prepared with the right equipment, but I think this wound up capturing some of the energy of the day that might've been lost had things gone as planned.