Since my early years in Copenhagen in the 1940s seeing has been to me the gateway to knowing and understanding myself and the other. I sensed a special connection to the African continent already then. In 1970 I embarked on my first ethnographic fieldwork to the village of Mainé Soroa in Eastern Niger. I registered with all possible means (photographs, drawings, video) what goes on in front of my eyes. What I saw, was the process of transformation that the newly created African states were undergoing, We were losing our innocence while being introduced to the complexities of the so-called “post-colonial world”. The humanity I found among local people, and the lessons I learned during the time spent with them, inspired me ever since. They formed me as a person and shaped the way in which I have been practicing anthropology. I am grateful that over fifty years later this visual diary from Mainé Soroa consisting of photographs and drawings and accompanied by short texts is being published in book form.
Since my early years in Copenhagen in the 1940s seeing has been to me the gateway to knowing and understanding myself and the other. I sensed a special connection to the African continent already then. In 1970 I embarked on my first ethnographic fieldwork to the village of Mainé Soroa in Eastern Niger. I registered with all possible means (photographs, drawings, video) what goes on in front of my eyes. What I saw, was the process of transformation that the newly created African states were undergoing, We were losing our innocence while being introduced to the complexities of the so-called “post-colonial world”. The humanity 
