Nomads I Have Known and Loved: A Thirty-Year Journey into the Cultures, Customs, Homes and Hearts of Africa's Tribal Peoples

In NOMADS I HAVE KNOWN AND LOVED Irma Turtle shares her 28 years of personal experiences among unusual and remote African tribes who welcome her into their tents, huts, and huge hearts. With insightful texts and photos she celebrates and documents their unique ancient cultures, rituals and traditions still persistently intact today. NOMADS memorializes the individual and collective beauty of these indigenous peoples; animates humorously unexpected encounters; and fills you with the same awe she feels. In 1984, frustrated with the lack of meaning in her life, Irma sets off on her own conscious search, leaving behind a major international career in advertising, including both Madison Avenue and Brazil. She is 40, has paid her dues doing what is expected of her by society at large, and it is now time to find out who she really is, what is really important in life and what she truly wants. Travel, tribal peoples, primitive societies and art are her great passions. A trip into the southern Algeria Sahara Desert to see the region’s 6000 year old rock art quickly and completely captivates her heart as she discovers the beauty of both the desert and its famous Tuareg nomads, the “Blue Men of the Sahara.” Soon back in New York she opens her own adventure travel company, Turtle Tours, with her very own market niche. She specializes in introducing Western travelers to remote tribal peoples with the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara as first destination. Her clientele grows with her as she expands to include other indigenous groups, each living for centuries true to their cultures and their traditions…and with almost no concessions to the modern world. She becomes intrigued with how they accomplish this feat. Irma quickly finds herself welcomed into tribal families, comfortably hobnobbing with local chiefs, delightedly holding babies named after her, and happier than she has ever been. And it is a fair trade. She is always a welcome guest, taking to her tribal friends the supplies they need…like coffee, salt, tea, sugar, cloth. She also takes other interested and adventurous travelers who, like herself, feel privileged to be among the tribal people of Africa. The niche is just right. It doesn’t take her long to exchange the persona of “white collar business woman” for “tribal godmother.” In 2001 Turtle Tours morphs fully into TurtleWill, her humanitarian foundation working in Niger, Mali and Ethiopia providing remote tribal peoples with primary and adult education, remote mobile healthcare and skills for economic development. NOMADS is a celebration of the diversity of humanity, as well as Irma’s testimony to the uncompromising ability of these special tribal groups to be who they are. Both scenery and people come alive as you are drawn into the glory of undulating feminine Sahara landscapes; of the magical, almost biblical beauty of a summer pasturage at dusk filled with the gentle lowing sounds of camels, cattle, sheep and goats belonging to ancient nomads; of the deeply haunting, melodically ululating sounds of the Tuareg women as they teach you under a starry midnight sky; the mesmerizing physical beauty of a tribal man bathing naked in a croc infested river, the openness and trust of a tribal elder to share ancient customs and rituals with total strangers, and reveal the secret “glue” that binds them to their cultures. NOMADS is a compilation of mutual love stories about deeply meaningful experiences and encounters Irma has in Niger, Mali, Ethiopia and Namibia among the Tuareg, Wodaabe, Hamar and the Himba. Irma easily conveys the love she feels for these tribal peoples. And they love her in return. As individuals and as groups, they help her to find the essentials of her own life. NOMADS I HAVE KNOWN AND LOVED, which for her was “both an honor and obligation to write,” is her way of saying thank you for her life of extraordinary experiences among them. Format 8.5 X 11”; 214 pages; 210 color photos, 56 full size,