Mauritania

“My parents were desert nomads, like all our parents here. They kept a few animals. We were in the wilaya (administrative region) of Inchiri, that was the spot where we dwelt, 200 kilometres or more away… In the society where my family lived, poverty was not like the poverty we see today. At that time, poverty didn’t really exist. We lived on milking our animals, and when we needed money, we sold one of them… This was the way life went in society at the time. Today, when someone is poor, he’s really miserable, and you can see it. In those days, the poor person had fewer animals than the rich person, and that was all. They sold them the same way and lived the same way.”

Bneita, seller of spare parts in Nouakchott.