Danger has a Ski shop in the middle of desert. Not amidst some icy Siberian permafrost, but in Sahara. He stocks boards, ski boots, downhill and carving skis, as well as a pair of gargantuan jumping skis. Danger got his nickname when young, because he was hot-tempered and liked to brawl. Now he is married, has some kids and an airbag of wisdom. Most unbelievable items can be found in his shop. A pressure gauge from the times of Weimar Republic, dried chameleons, Fulani knives, Goethe’s Faust in Polish and an installation CD for the Leopard OSX operating system – an original from Nigeria. Here all kinds of people keep banging the nonexistent door knocker. His mischievous female relatives and acquaintances hide here when they flunk classes or try to get a fiancé on their own. Here bled out husbands seek refuge from greedy wives, girls from jealous boys, employees from their bosses and fat matrons from midday heat. The Ski shop is an asylum, an exotic retreat. Besides that, Danger can organise ANYTHING at reasonable price: from celebrations or weddings to cricket tournaments. In an environment somewhat familiar with bowling but not with cricket, mind you. After all his uncle on mother’s side is none less but sultan of Agadez. Danger has three mobile phones and many USB keys. Connections everywhere. No door closes on him. He, however, prefers to idle in his Ski shop. This is his kingdom, even though without land.

Here he can beckon his many apprentices anytime to make tea, scoop a cup of cold water from the large earthen jug or fetch a sandwich for a weary visitor. Tourist season is short, though. It wanes in March and is annihilated by sweltering heats of April and May when one waits with eyes half shut for the worst to pass and avoids getting ezis – a heat related flu. Then one waits for the beginning of the next season, come late autumn. Stories, anecdotes and memories are much appreciated during this period. Good narrators are in hot demand. Especially by girls. But money comes first, of course. Without money you are a zero: no promise of safety, no beauty. That is why during the dead season Danger travels from fair to fair all across West Africa and does business, mostly barter as there’s a permanent shortage of cash. Sniffing and piling stuff: religious objects, secular objects, imported objects; until customers begin to trickle in again. Tourists are good customers. Due to all that anti-muslim propaganda not many have come this year. The politics took a wrong turn. Sterilising people with fear. God willing, all will improve next year. Next year will be passable, one way or another.

Omar is a self-made thinker and philosopher. Gentle water smoothing sharp rocks. Though he spends most of his time in town, his heart beats for his native Azawak only – the vast area of imperceptibly undulating plains which stretch out west of Agadez deep into neighbouring Mali. He says Africans still believe Europe makes dreams come true, though it is well known what an illusion that is. The power of faith has no boundaries. Omar himself got lucky when young: he was spotted by an official of some nongovernmental organisation visiting the village school who provided him with a grant to study in Toulouse, France. He studied diligently and became an electrotechnician. He had talent, but lacked thick skin and fanatical perseverance, without which coloured students cant’t get a foothold in France. He wanted to return home anyway. He found a job in the uranium mine Arlit, where Saddam Hussein was shopping for atomic bombs, according to Blair & Bush, but soon realised this would ruin his health. He bought a plot of land in Agadez, at a carefully chosen yet at the time completely uninteresting location, and built two houses. The ample space between them allows for future plans, which seem quite feasible as the value of the plot, devoured by fast growing suburbs, is now tenfold. Besides, the neighbourhood has no mosquitoes, which means no malaria – the number one killer in Niger. There is a water tap next to the gate to his walled estate. He is in no hurry to install plumbing, as there is no sewage either. The tap is leaking. Omar solved the problem by planting a tree next to the tap, his only tree, which grows fast. His mother lives with him. She oversees the yard from a richly ornamented Tuareg bed, protected from the sun by a thick baldachin. Here guest can have a little sit down, exchange news and enjoy a fresh breeze.

In the city everybody is for himself, only God is for all, says Omar, while life on the countryside is permeated by solidarity. The sore wound of Agadez is underdevelopment, there aren’t many possibilities. One has to know the ropes, avoid fatalism, make do with what is at hand, be flexible. Omar calls this system I. I as improvisation.

He has been to Slovenia, where he presented his documentary about European tourists in Sahara. A film which reversed the logic of neocolonial voyeur’s gaze. Omar wasn’t exactly enthralled by our country – despite many nice things, such as green grass, full rivers, forests, fat cows and orderly traffic.

»The time here gallops so fast it should be tied up,« he said one evening after the screening.

(translated by Primož Trobevšek)