Hotels-live.com - Photo @mike_hettwer - COURTING FESTIVAL - The young Wodaabe men preen for the ladies in their annual Sahara Desert courting festival known as the Gerewol. Every September they paint their faces yellow and lips black, hand sew their tunic

Hotels-live.com - Photo @mike_hettwer - COURTING FESTIVAL - The young Wodaabe men preen for the ladies in their annual Sahara Desert courting festival known as the Gerewol. Every September they paint their faces yellow and lips black, hand sew their tunics, then dance and sing all night near In-Gall. The Wodaabe women can select several men they will be romantically involved with for the next year. If the men are not beautiful or charming enough, it will be a very lonely year for them. I photographed this event three times and during the last one, a mile-high sandstorm rolled in slowly and blocked out the sun. The men adjusted their hats and feathers just before they were sent scrambling for shelter from the storm. Many times the best photos are not of the main event but what happens before, after or during unplanned circumstances. Our team was there excavating hundreds of Stone Age human skeletons for a National Geographic magazine story. #sahara #wodaabe #gerewol #in-gall #gobero #greensahara @thephotosociety @petergwin @Hotelslive by natgeo instagram.com/p/vYJmlToVbL/ Follow #Instagram @Hotelspaschers instagram.com/hotelspaschers and @Voyageslive #Twitter #TeamFollowBack #Natgeo #Voyage #Travel #TFB #FollowTrick www.facebook.com/125048940862168/photos/a.801751693191886... via Hotels-live.com www.facebook.com/pages/p/125048940862168 #Retweet #TeamFollowBack #F4F #TityFollowTrain via http://flic.kr/p/p7fLAZ