The Saharan city of Nouakchott was a small fishing village until 1957, when Mauritania attained independence. The new capital city of a young country, Nouakchott has changed quite a bit since the Sixties, with mosques, government buildings, and street markets rising up out of the desert sand. Spread out over land that constantly being encroached upon by massive dunes, and inhabited by a nomadic people that don't keep their tents pitched in one place for very long, the city is always in flux.