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Measles, malaria, polio, tuberculosis, malnutrition, conditions preventable elsewhere, plague residents. A one-legged beggar makes the rounds of the village compounds.

At 9 a.m., it is already over 90 degrees an full of choking wood smoke in the compound, where this woman prepares breakfast of millet.

A newborn, whose umbilical cord has just been severed, was delivered by a midwife since thee are no Western-style doctors.

The Hausa, the dominant ethnic clan in Niger, form intergenerational households inside of compound walls.

Members of the Hausa tribe receive their facial scars not long after birth in what's called a naming ceremony.

Bricks, used in the construction of houses and walls, are made at a mud pit on the village outskirts in the hot afternoon sun.

young boys dig from the bank clay to be used in making bricks. As the drought grows, work of any kind, income of any kind, is treasured.

A young girl drawing water from a deep well. The water in Safo is full of giardia and other parasites. Untreated village water causes vomiting, diarrhea, and sometimes death.

Drought has stricken this region for four and half years, drastically reducing wildlife and crop production. Transportation, as it has been for centuries, is by foot, donkey or on oxcart.

Safo, home to 3,500 members of the Hausa tribe, was once a land of forest, wild animals and plentiful food. But for nearly five years, the great river that fed the community has been dry as dust. The road into the town is across this dry river bed.