THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Separating Chad and Cameroon was the Chari River, meandering, muddy yellow and drought-depleted, between ragged shoals.  On the Chadian side, heat-stricken teens hawked sugar cane and Cokes in feeble voices; caftaned beggars circulated listlessly, led by bony-kneed children, intoning plaintive verses from the Qur’an; giant trucks with ALLAHU AKBAR! (God is Most Great!) painted at the top of their cracked windshields lumbered past, the pointy horns of their panting cargo – cattle from Nigeria – spiking the white-hot sky.

Tayler/Wind, 2005