Above Water

In the village of Tatiste in the Nigerian Sahel, it rains only two months of the year. Local men leave their homes for weeks at a time in search of fertile pastures for their livestock. Women walk tens of kilometres daily with plastic jerry cans to distant wells for drinking water. Hope for fundamental change comes only with an NGO's promise to build a two-hundred-meter borehole in the village, pumping water from a vast groundwater deposit to the surface. Against the backdrop of this event, under the rays of the scorching Saharan sun, we follow the dynamic coming-of-age of a young girl tasked with guarding her family's home and taking care of her youngest siblings.