Do you remember the moment when the no turned into a yes?

Beckwith: It was terrifying because we thought, "What if we blow this?" We had this one chance to take this picture and thought, "What if our exposure's not right? We know that they'll give us about five minutes to do it -- what if we don't load the camera right?"

I remember once, and thank God it only happened once, we loaded the camera and the film didn't catch on the sprocket, and we spent the whole day in the Sahara Desert with desert nomads, photographing a most wonderful ceremony. At the end of the day, we unrolled the film and suddenly realized what had happened, and we went into a total sulk. We went off to the corner of the nomad camp and looked so gloomy and blue that the nomads came over and said, "What's wrong with you?" When you're in nomad society, you're expected to be present and social all the time. We explained what had happened, and they said, "Oh, that's absolutely nothing; we'll do everything for you tomorrow that we did today, so start smiling again and come join us."

Fisher: The first trip we did with the Wodaabe was really extraordinary because it so typified their motto: "She who can't bear the smoke will never see the fire." Carol and I had decided to meet in Niger, in the capital. We flew in within three hours of each other, not knowing what flights we were on, waited for each other and took our bags and our little cameras and went down to the truck depot in the town, caught a truck -- and within six hours we were in the desert in a town called Abalak. In Abalak we knew that if we got off the truck we would actually meet some of the Wodaabe people who were coming into the market, because we had researched market days and Friday was market day in Abalak. So we literally had just arrived, on the back of a truck, got off at the market and walked around the market to find the Wodaabe corner. We found a chief who was called Hasan, and we said to him, "We have come to photograph the annual Geerewol ceremony where men do beauty dances to attract wives, and we're serious, we really would love to record it." And he said, "Absolutely, would you like to come with our family?"

It all happened so very quickly. "What you need to do," he said, "if you've got the money, is buy yourself a donkey and put the luggage on the back of the donkey, and then you're free to walk." So he helped us buy a donkey, and then that night we left the market with the nomads, with our little belongings on top of the donkey.

Six weeks later, we were still walking with the nomads. No ceremony had begun. And what was remarkable was that we actually learned at this stage that we were becoming very bonded to the family, and we knew that through this something very special would happen to our lives. Every day was very enjoyable; we walked about 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] a day in the midday sun -- I don't know why they walk in the midday sun, but they do -- and we actually managed to live off a calabash of milk a day. We didn't have other food with us at all and we were in the middle of the desert.

After about four weeks we looked at each other and thought, "We don't look bad! We really look healthy! In fact, we look the best we've ever looked!" And we realized that we were very lucky, as the two of us obviously have an enzyme inside the body that allows us to break down milk, which many Western people don't have. But we, like the Wodaabe, could get complete nourishment from just eating and drinking fresh milk from a calabash. And after six weeks, sure enough, the ceremony started, and we were the only outsiders to be there.

Beckwith: When the ceremony was over, the chief who had been our host came to bid farewell to us. It was so difficult to leave because we had become so close emotionally to these people. And I had managed to learn their language over a period of time, so that eliminated the need for an outside translator. When we came to leave, the chief came running behind us, scooping up sand from our footsteps, and he took this sand and he put it into a little leather talisman pouch over his heart, and said to us, "If I wear your footsteps over my heart, I know that in this way you'll return to me again." We've been back about 15 times since then to visit those Wodaabe nomads.

Looking back at your books and at all the years you've been doing this, what do you feel you've learned from Africa -- what have you taken away from the continent?

Fisher: We've realized that the ancient cultures of Africa, the still-whole belief systems, are very important in life. We've realized that one of the most important things is the passing on of knowledge from one generation to another, the benefit of elders in a community, where you can really learn from people who have lived and experienced and who can guide you through life. Another thing is that in photographing some of the initiation rites and the rites of marriage and courtship, we've realized how important it is that people have the chance to go through life being trained at each stage for the next situation in life: You don't go in blind to your next role; you go in with a feeling of confidence in your ability to be a good wife and look after a husband, bring up children, become a good lover, grind grain and do beautiful dances. Whatever is required of a woman, the teaching is always there -- and the same applies for a young man coming into manhood.

The other thing we realized is that Africans really understand that if you live in an environment, it is very important to pay homage to that environment, to always give back when you take something. For instance, agricultural people always offer a blessing to the ancestors and ask permission before cultivation. It's a kind of respect and a feeling of trying to live in a complete world rather than in friction against your environment. So the ceremonies that keep you in balance with your environment are very strong in the traditional world.

The other balancing ceremonies are the times when people can actually be in contact with their own spirit world; at these times people pay their respects to their own belief systems and have time to think about them and reflect on their own inner thoughts.

When we come back into the Western world, we realize that many of these very cherished values are actually missing from our world. People are growing up in apartments on their own; people have areas of loneliness or areas of trauma; they are put into roles that are too complex for them, or become initiated into adulthood just by taking a driver's license. And you think to yourself, there's no real concept of letting an individual move through life from one stage to another with a sort of regular balance of learning and harmony.

We hope that "African Ceremonies" actually captivates the world and helps people realize that there are still traditional values that are very important, that the traditions in our life are very important and that the ancient values that belong to all of our cultures are very relevant.

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