In the arid southwest of Madagascar, the village of Ampotaka survives months without rain thanks to an extraordinary tradition: living baobab trees are hollowed out and transformed into giant water tanks.
Mamody has inherited the knowledge of generations before him. He carefully digs a new cistern inside a baobab, which will heal and eventually store thousands of liters of precious rainwater for his family.
But this ancestral practice is slowly disappearing. As plastic containers replace the old reservoirs, Mamody may be the last man still digging baobabs, preserving a survival technique that helped make life possible on the Mahafaly plateau for more than a century.
Mamody has inherited the knowledge of generations before him. He carefully digs a new cistern inside a baobab, which will heal and eventually store thousands of liters of precious rainwater for his family.
But this ancestral practice is slowly disappearing. As plastic containers replace the old reservoirs, Mamody may be the last man still digging baobabs, preserving a survival technique that helped make life possible on the Mahafaly plateau for more than a century.