Written on November 18, 2007, Hotel de l’Amitié, Oualata, Mauritania
I slept on a mattress in the hotel courtyard under the crescent moon and the stars. The sounds are mostly the bleating of cattle and the chirping of birds with occasional human songs or chants as well. This magical place has already made its way into my novel. Aside from a few details, like plastic bottles, one has the impression of living centuries ago.
The walls of the hotel are a lush red-brown clay which contrasts spectacularly with the light sand of the hotel compound floor. Artisans here etch designs into the walls and paint them, yet each year the rains wash some of their work away, so each year they repair and renovate their dwellings and so continues the cycle of the seasons here in Oualata.
I was so stressed and exhausted, I took one day completely off yesterday, except for my writing. I might as well have done so, because it was Saturday and today is Sunday, so the only site I can see today is the old city. The library and the painted houses are open tomorrow and Mr. Moulay will give me a tour of the houses so I can see their painted interiors.
Yesterday, the woman who I assume is Mr. Moulay’s wife showed me how one of her boys has a bad burn from boiling tea water on his arm. I gave her some medicines to try to help him heal more quickly and to relieve the pain. Apparently, he slept much better last night than he has for the last eight nights, so we are all happier today.
Mr. Moulay just told me that some Americans are arriving today from Nema, which may mean that Brooke, one of the Peace Corps volunteers from Ayoun and perhaps some others are on the way here.
The truck guys from Koumbi Salah, Baba and Sidi, were off having tea while I spoke for awhile with Hassan, then he sent me off with them after they had already picked up some passengers along the way. Baba got the owner guy to translate that he too wanted a cadeau. I asked if I had already paid for the ride and they agreed I had. The first third of the ride to Timbedra, Sidi the navigator wanted to get in on the act and kept nagging me for a gift. I kept telling him to talk with Hassan if he had any problem. But he just wouldn’t stop after dozens of times, so I just put my fingers in my ears and sulked for awhile. Only that seemed to work. I felt actually quite hurt because I had through we were becoming friends, or at least buddies. I sat without speaking and pondered the situation — the needs some people have or feel they have, the stereotype of the rich foreigner, what it means to give, to ask, and to demand, and how to set limits to make my voyage even possible. I nearly cried.
Finally, we arrived in Timbedra. I gave Baba Ahmed, the driver, and Sidi Mohammed, the navigator, each a small packet of tea as a gift, then we said our goodbyes. The meditation on this experience brought me to a place where I could thank the rip-off artist who brought me to Aoudaghost for helping me to learn a lesson.
In Timbedra, I hitched a quick ride to the garage for Nema. I waited awhile for a vehicle that didn’t look like it was leaving anytime soon, since they drive wanted a total of nine passengers. After two other passengers had paid, and I had wisely withheld paying, another driver offered to take me for 3000 ougiya instead of the first car’s price of 1000 ougiya, but with the advantage of having no other passengers, and more importantly of leaving right away. We did actually leave fairly soon thereafter, following an argument between all the drivers at the garage and a threat to call the police. Of course, the driver I went with packed the back seat with passengers, but at least didn’t try to push any more into the front seat with me. We got underway, and the driver, a Malian from Bamako who already had four kids by two Mauritanian wives, grilled me about how to get to America to make lots of money. I explained the usual four ways I know of and discussed at length with him why it would be difficult for him to marry an American woman.
We arrived at Nema and I dragged my bags through the sandy market streets to the “permanent garage” for Oualata. For some reason, the driver wouldn’t sell me the more expensive seat in the front of the vehicle. While sitting on the sidewalk waiting, I say “es salaam aleykum” to virtually everyone who passes by and chat with whomever seems interested or interesting. Most of the conversations are in halting French or minimalist Hassinaya/Arabic about where I am from, where I am going, and what is my name. I tried to telephone the Peace Corps volunteers here that the Ayoun volunteers had mentioned, but it was impossible to find a phone, and I didn’t have a Mauritanian “puce” or SIM card for my travel cellphone.
Written on November 18, 2007, Hotel de l’Amitié, Oualata, Mauritania
The truck ride from Nema to Oualata was the most trying ride I’ve ever had, and I’ve been in some pretty horrible rides. I tried to reserve a place in the cab, but the truck owner said he wouldn’t be able to tell me if that was possible until 3pm. I had arrived at the “garage” around 11:30am. When some other passengers came along and he no doubt sold the cab seats to them, he glanced at me smiling. Somehow I knew he hated my guts, although I had never done anything to him. The problem continued with the owner of the truck not ensuring the truck bed was clean. Some animal, probably a goat, had pissed on the fiber netting and the driver hadn’t washed the netting or the truck bed since. The owner managed to pack my bag where the pissy portion of the netting was. When I protested, he face broke into a wide smile. I sarcastically laughed back and him and he back at me. I handed him 1000 ougiya and told him that’s all the seat he gave me was worth. He looked worried for a second, then greedily demanded the other 1000 ougiya for the price of the ride. My plan, after being relegated to the truck bed, was to position my bag so I could rest my back in relative comfort against it while riding. That plan was foiled because I couldn’t stand to sit down in the pissy netting. I was already immersed in the stink of it within five minutes after getting on the truck. The terrain was at times comparable to some of the worst bumpy and sandy desert roads I encountered in out-back Sudan. But what made the ride absolutely miserable was the way the truck owner packed myself and the other passengers in the bed of the truck along with a continually protesting goat and all our baggage. While some passengers admittedly rode in relative comfort up front, that is, squished in the seats of the large cab of the truck, the rest of us squatted, perched, and squirmed as the truck bumped and swerved for hours. At the last moment on the way out of town, I saw a toubab, a white woman, wandering the streets of Nema who I would coincidentally meet again later on. The route to Oualata seemed never to end, winding and twisting, at times backtracking for the correct route. Once we spotted a town and my spirits lifted only to have my hopes crushed by finding out it was another town and we still had a long ride to come. Every cloud has its silver lining and this trip was no exception. The sunset was exquisite. When we stopped for evening prayers, one fellow taught me how to put on a turban properly and we reshuffled ourselves in the truck bed. For about twenty minutes, I was actually comfortable — that is, until we picked up another passenger along the way, a handsome young fellow with deep brown doe eyes, startled by my appearance, but sitting basically in my lap with my legs spread wide and squished down below everyone else’s body parts. By the time we arrived in Oualata, I worried my legs and neck had received serious damage. After proceeding under a crazy welcoming town arch, the truck stopped at a police outpost. I tried explaining the name of the hotel where I wanted to go, but no one understood until I tried saying the name of the hotel’s owner and suddenly they figured out where I wanted to go. The “streets” were dark except for electric street lamps located at seemingly random spots around the town. The police officer took my passport to a little mud-brick building where he slept, ate, and conducted his duties. He insisted on copying my name and passport number, although he couldn’t spell in English or French. Eventually, he wrote my name in Arabic, even though I offered to write it several times myself for him. Meanwhile the passengers on the truck were getting restless and, preparing to abandon me there, the driver brought my bags to me. I groaned and the police officer said it was OK to leave, so I started dragging my bags back to the truck just as it was preparing to go. I yelled “Merde” (“Shit”) loudly. The truck waited for me to get my bags back on board, then started to leave without me having a chance to crawl back on so I had to thwack the side of the truck until the driver stopped, then clambered on board completely and utterly exhausted and nearly hysterical with stress. The driver dropped everyone else but me off first, and I even helped him unload several heavy sacks of grains and vegetables. Finally, the truck arrived at the hotel and Mr. Ahmed Moulay came out front to greet me. My final moment of high stress ended when he answered that there was indeed room at the inn, so I grabbed my large bag and he my small one, waved a quick goodbye to the driver, and entered the hotel compound.
I had just over an hour to tour the site of the ancient city of Koumbi Salah. I left my orange bag sitting in the ruins to mark the place where we would meet.
It’s amazing how important the locals like Hassan feel it is to show me the “mosque” at each ancient village, even though I’m pretty sure the Wagadu kingdom wasn’t an Islamic kingdom. The site is vast and I wandered around imagining what it must have been like to ride a horse or walk through the city. I saw what looked like the remains of houses and many pottery shards, although no where near as many as at Aoudaghost. Both sites look like they could use a lot more excavation than what has already happened there so far.
Written November 15, 2007, Bus station in Timbedra, Mauritania
This morning, I woke fairly early and caught a car for Timbedra at the garage in Ayoun el Atrous where all the “luxury” Mercedes taxis picked up passengers, squishing three in front and four in back.
I met a fellow from Dubai in United Arab Emirates on the way to an Islamic school in Nema. He had an iPod with the Koran on it, which he chanted aloud while riding in the car. The driver was fascinated by the iPod. Once I arrrived at Timbedra, I took another car to register with the local police and then to another car depot in Timbedra where I purchased a ticket to ride on an old truck to the ancient city of Koumbi Salah. The driver from the first Timbedra station to the second was a good fellow from Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania on the west coast. The guys here at this second station were telling him I’d have to spend the night and visit the chief of the town to go to the ancient city of Koumbi Salah. I just want to go there directly and head onward since I am short on time and don’t want to face more involuntarily carnivorous meals or pay lots more cash to guides who don’t seem to know anything.
Written November 16, 2007, Bus station for Oualata in Nema, Mauritania
The trip to Koumbi Salah was bumpy desert and I was quite happy I paid a bit extra to ride in front with the Baba Ahmed, the driver, and one other passenger. The passenger was a pushy 24-year-old who tried to tell me I had to slide over more toward the driver. The only problem was that he was in the better seat by the door and I was already seated diagonally and very close to where the driver had to reach to shift the gears. So, I told the guy that I couldn’t move over, but that if he wanted to switch places, we could do that. That surprised him a bit. After awhile he started with what has become an all-too-familiar anthem here in West Africa: “Donnez-moi un cadeau.” (“Give me a gift.”) Perhaps it’s a cultural difference, but it seems to me that a gift is given, rather than asked for. Finally, he got off the truck. Next, we drove in circles for awhile through a village called Walowo or something like that, two villages before Koumbi Salah, which is apparently where they always got lost. The sunset was beautiful — two of my favorite colors — purple and an almost rose-tinted orange.
After the sunset, I was the only passenger remaining in the truck, so I tried to teach the driver and Sidi Mohammed, his navigator, some French and learn some Hassinaya (the Mauritanian Arabic dialect) from them. Despite my initial feelings of frustration toward the driver for not putting me on the first truck to Koumbi Salah, I eventually started feeling like he, Sidi, and I were becoming friends. In fact, I was a bit attracted to Sidi. We arrived in the dark of night and I ended up sleeping in an earthen shack next to a family’s tent in what they call here the brousse or countryside. They fed me some bassi, small brown couscous with fresh milk directly from a nearby cow (and sometimes, although not this time, some sugar). They loved my head lamp and kept asking to use it and play with it. I had to explain that I needed it for camping in the desert.
I heard drumming and chanting in the distance as I feel asleep totally exhausted around 8:30pm. I woke around 6am to the arrival of a truck. Hassan, the owner of the property, had arrived in the middle of the night and woke up to ask me for 10000 ougiya for the visit to Koumbi Salah and the ride back to Timbedra, although not for staying at his place, he was careful to point out. I figured he just pocketed the money and gave the truck driver the standard amount for the trip.
Finally, I arrived back in Ayoun. I promptly got ripped off for another 300 ougiya by a taxi driver who didn’t tell me that I could easily walk to Mohammed’s office near the Hotel Aioun, rather than taking a taxi. I went to visit Mohammed because I had to change money again. He seemed happy to chat with me and we eventually did our business. Then, he fortunately kept chatting with me because an American woman named Sarah stopped by his office. She is with the Peace Corps, stationed in Ayoun for two years after her initial three months of training in another Mauritanian city. Mohammed invited both of us to lunch at his place: couscous with meat prepared by his house boy, plus bottled water and the traditional three pressings of tea. He had the TV on. The houseboy also brought a pitcher of water with a bowl that had a strainer cover with a bar of soap on it, so we could wash our hands before eating. Mohammed had satellite television so we commented about the violence of American television shows and crazy new reality shows like one showing people bungee jumping from a skyscraper. Sarah had to go meet some Peace Corps folks, but after we said our good-byes to Mohammed, she walked me over to the Hotel Aioun. Later that evening, after I handwashed some clothes and was napping at the hotel, Sarah came by with two other Peace Corps volunteers and invited me over for dinner. I accepted and we feasted on some squished Uncle Eddie’s vegan cookies and some Batty (endangered species) dark chocolate with cacao nibs I had brought from San Francisco. We didn’t spoil our appetites for the excellent meal another Peace Corps volunteer named Brooke prepared at Sarah’s place, which was a meeting place for volunteers in the area due to its size and space for visitors to crash. The meal consisted of an amazing salad and pesto pasta. I hadn’t seen so many good fresh vegetables in quite awhile. For dessert, we had ice coffee and freshly baked brownies! We discussed the rioting that had taken place at the food depots around Mauritania after the government raised prices significantly on key foodstuffs. Sadly, the police killed one 18-year-old guy in Timbedra and another person in another town. Apparently, an opposition leader was inciting very young students to throw rocks and riot, and apparently no one was actually going hungry. We conversed about contemporary politics, the role of the Peace Corps and NGOs, my project, and other topics. All in all an excellent evening with the possibility of a reunion with some of the folks at the Festival in the Desert in January, plus some contacts in Nema and the recommendation for the Hotel de l’Amitié in Oualata. After a round of goodbyes, two of the guys walked me back to the hotel.
Next we visited a village near the ancient city for tea. They presented us with bowls of cow milk to drink… it wasn’t very fresh and I had trouble drinking all of it. Among the village residents of various ages was an elderly woman who reminded me of Virginia Davidson, a friend who remains part of my inspiration for this whole project.
We drove to another village where the driver led several men in prayer with a nice chanting voice. We again drank bowls of milk, this time so fresh it was still a bit frothy and quite tasty. Then, we drove through the desert back to Tamchekett. The driver invited me to his place for couscous with meat on top even though I had explained about my vegetarianism. Fortunately, the meat wasn’t mixed with the couscous. He offered to open a can of carrots and peas, but I was so sickened by how much I had to pay him t hat I had lost my appetite. He actually had the gall to ask me for a present after I paid him an enormous sum. Because he son was apparently afraid of me, he said I had to stay elsewhere, rather than taking the opportunity to help his son learn about other cultures and people who are different. Also, it was quite late and I’m sure his son would have been asleep any minute.
So, he took me 7km to another village where he left me to stay with a driver who had a truck scheduled to go to the Tamchekket virage the following morning. The driver was really a nice guy as was the owner of the truck who came along for the ride. The bed of the truck was covered by branches and a fiber netting so that cattle could be stored beneath where the baggage was fastened to the truck and where the passengers who couldn’t fit into or pay the higher rate for the closed cabin area of the truck would ride.
I slept on a mattress pad provided by the owner of the truck, in whose home I spent the night. A young woman was wide awake and noisy much of the night playing with a cell phone. So I didn’t get much sleep, but the view of the stars was exquisite. About 5am, the truck drove up and lights shone at me and the owner of the house. We woke up and went to the truck. I had to ride in the truck bed on top of the uncomfortable branches. (Little did I know how luxurious that ride actually was in comparison to at least one later ride to follow.) I was scared that someone could fall off because we were traveling very rapidly through the dark on very bumpy desert roads, along with vegetation like bushes and every so often a tree.
I felt quite bumped, shaken, and bruised by the time we arrived back at the virage. On the way, I discussed with the driver and the vehicle owner how much the other man had given them for me to ride in the truck. They said 3000 ougiya… I told them I paid that man 5000 ougiya for the ride and that they should get the rest of the money from him. They kindly took me along with them past the virage to Tintane, a city on the way back to Ayoun el Atrous. There we stopped first at a cow market to sell the cow that rode in the truck with us, then to the nearby goat market to sell the dozen goats that rode with us.
While the driver and “guide” prayed, I wandered the ruins of the old city. Among rocks tumbled from ancient walls, shards of ancient pottery, and fragments of what looked like forged metal, I imagined the life of the people who apparently occupied this city of the Wagadu (Ghana) kingdom around the 8th to 11th centuries.
At the virage, I switched to a 4×4 vehicle with a driver who probably already overcharged me for the first ride, but then really took me for a ride by vastly overcharging me for the two-hour ride to the ancient city of Aoudaghost.
The city was beautiful, surrounded by eroded mountains of layered brown stone with caves and also by unusually orange sand dunes, probably due to the presence of lots of iron. The driver let air out of the tires to get more traction in the sand. (That’s a picture above of the guy who overcharged me so much.)
