Category: Mauritanië 2014
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The beginning at the end of the world
3 & 4 April 2014 ~ The orange, pink and yellow mud plaster in Oualata is often decorated with white geometric medallion patterns on the outside; the interior walls are often decorated in curly patterns. I’m not sure whether these patterns are of Berber, Arab, or Soninke heritage, but it gives the town an appearance…
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La Route du Despair
The pickup truck’s rear is filled up with fridges, food, furniture, construction materials, a few goats, and who knows what else, until the cargo is more than twice the size of the pickup truck itself… and then some ten people clamber on top of the cargo. I’m about to experience one of those quintessentially Saharan…
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La Route de l’Espoir
There are many gueltas in the Sahara desert, and they’re often a lifesaver for nomadic herders. What makes this particular guelta special, though, is that it is one of the last places in the Sahara desert where the West African Crocodile still lives.
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Why not?
The sea is dotted with hundreds of pirogues, waiting to be brought ashore. The beach is littered with thousands of men, women and children, whose job is apparently to bring the fish from the boats to the traders. It’s a dramatic scene, and one that repeats itself every afternoon.
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GTA: Nouakchott
On the morning of my sisters’ birthday, I meet a couple from Bretagne, named Simon and Valerie. She works as an independent fashion designer, and he works on the local water quality authority. Their great passion, however, is west-African music. Their main reason for coming to this part of the world is to interview and…
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To the place of the winds
For the most part, this is a thoroughly uninspiring city; it was a fisherman’s village of only a few hundred people until the 1950’s, when Mauritania became independent. Since it had always tagged along as the most neglected colony within the colossal French West Africa, it had never needed a capital, or much of anything…
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A fairy tale with an anti-climax
I’m curious about the dinner invitation by Coumba, the sister of the bride at yesterday’s wedding. Cora calls her for me, and as luck would have it, Coumba can make it tomorrow evening. The following day, Edgar and Katie invite Adrian and me to join them on a trip to an oasis, about 50 kilometers…
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Happily ever after
Together we carry the table with the cakes onto the hotel courtyard / parking lot that serves as the wedding reception’s venue. A man with a video camera and a painfully bright construction lamp, whose job is to document every last detail of the wedding, follows and records our every move. This, of course, does…
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Of women, bandits and a fake tan
Chez Zaida is run, ofcourse, by Zaida. She’s a veritable powerhouse of a woman; black, fairly muscular, dressed somewhat in between Western and traditional styles, and giving her almost all-male staff orders in a calm but extremely authoritative way; there’s no doubting who’s boss here. Not that Mauritanian women are generally the stereotypical meek lambs;…
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Echoes of songs
His voice isn’t a pretty one; it’s rough, dry, and has only a limited range before it breaks. Neither is he a particularly talented singer; he’s off-pitch much of the time (and not in the desired quarter-tones of Arab music either), and changes between high and low notes are never smooth. Still, it’s an evocative…
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1/5th of a tourist horde
‘About five’ says Cheich, the owner of Rose des Sables, when I ask him how many tourists there’re staying in Chinguetti today. Chinguetti was founded in the 13th century, and it used to be a famous stopover for caravans of salt, gold, ivory and slaves making their way from sub-Saharan Africa to Moroccan and European…
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The best job in the world
What follows is a short description of the process involved with sending a package in Atar, Mauritania. Asking around to find the unmarked post office of Atar: 5 minutes. Knocking on the most obvious door, hearing no answer, walking all the way around the building without finding an open door, and asking a mailman where…
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Magic Carpet Ride
I feel the urge to pinch myself; am I really going to do this? The train isn’t here yet (although it should be), and the madness of what I’m about to do hasn’t really sunk in either. Finally, more than two hours after its scheduled departure, the train arrives. Three diesel locomotives chug by; five…
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NouadhiBoum
‘How long will you stay in Nouadhibou?’ ‘I think just one night.’ ‘Do you know where you’ll be staying? ‘Not yet, there’re a few options in the Lonely Planet that seem okay…’ ‘You can sleep at my house if you want?’ He says it casually, as if it’s nothing special. Considering that I’ve known him…
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