desert kingdom orientation

desert kingdom orientation

Mauritania, for those who don’t know (and I know many outside do not) is a large, mostly unpopulated country on the West Coast of Africa. It hovers like a pause, a broken sentence, in between Arab Morocco and Black Senegal. It is here that the unrelenting Sahara gives way into the scrubby Sahel, where Orthodox Islam confronts mystic Marabout brotherhoods, where the Oud is replaced with the Djembe, Arabic is replaced with Wolof, and paved streets crumble into sand expressways. There’s 3 million people in Mauritania, and probably 2 million in the capital city. Most of the country is uninhabitable, outside of bands of nomads. Mauritania as a country knows merely 60 or so years, so if you’ve never heard of it, it’s no fault of your own, the national identity as unsettled as it’s nomadic past.

The first city in the extreme North of the country is Nouadhibou, the overland travelers introduction to what one imagines to be the real African continent. It’s difficult to call it a city by Western standards. Even
more difficult to assess the size. The buildings are low, at most two stories, modern and concrete and hastily assembled. The markets have none of the cleaniness or order of Morocco. Rather the streets are intermittent paths of sand and garbage, the streetside sellers of wares are pushing the most pitiful product, and the blind and disabled beggars are too numerous to warrant attention. Goats roam about the streets freely, poking their noises into steaming and fly covered piles. Occasionally one can even see a cow or a grand bull longing about on the roadside, gazing off with a bored serenity at the ramshackle vehicles that blare their horns and weave down through the tracks, blazing trails of black smoke.

There’s a young Malian man hanging about the Auberge, talking with a Norwegian evangelical. We talk for a bit and try to work out some music. But when the Arab owner returns, there is some discussion, a problem of some manner, and he is all but chased out. The hotel owner complains to me "All these Africans, they see you, they say 'Hey American, how are you, be my friend,' because all of them are illegals, trying to get to Europe. They're not good people, you want to talk to them, you talk to them outside."

The Malian man returns later, and over the next days I follow him about through town. Cisse is from Mali, and like most Africans, is working here and there, trying to find a bit of money wherever he can. I walk around the town with my friend Cisse.

We are being tailed by a "friend," a man from Cameroon. As we travel our path back into the town, he begins to tell me of his travels. The man from Cameroon is sharply dressed, but not to an overwhelming degree. But he explains - he has lived in Europe, knows much of France, Amerstand, Germany, Belguim, and even has a son. That he recently returned from China. I happen to inquire into his occupation, and he laughs. He asks if he can trust me: "I am employed by a Swiss man. I am a businessman...but I dress simply not to invite too much suspicion. I work with a special chemical, an ink. With this ink, I can take money, any money, apply the ink and make a copy of the money...in minutes! You will see, I can make a copy of the money, then I will take the copy into the store, and it's undectable. If you just give me some money..."

I am a little dismayed and begin to think that this is all a concentrated effort to scam me, more dismayed at the insult to my intelligence that I would believe in a "magic ink." But I begin to see that his story is not even as much aimed at me as it is at my friend Cisse.

Noaudibhou is a center for commerce - of both things and of people. At the most extreme North of Mauritania, for many Subsaharan Africans, it is as clost to Europe as they can get. While many do come here to work, many others come here to acquire a boat and travel onwards to the Canary Islands. And rather than preying only the tourists, many of the people come here to prey on one another.

Cisse meets me one night and we travel through the dark streets, dodging honks and headlights, to his friends house. "Christopher, I want to take you to see the Malian community, to see how they live here. You will see." At the edge of town the large buildings give way to houses - not quite the shanty town, but the gated concrete that form the periphery. His friend's home is a simple room with five thin foam mattresses thrown on the floor covered in blankets. One man is sleeping in the corner, but the other three are lounging around. I have a seat alongside a gas tank with some cooking utensils.

Over the next thirty minutes many more people arrive and soon there are perhaps 12 people in the room. All are not men, but young boys, barely in their twenties. They are all from Mali, and though some of them speak a little French, it is a very little - most speak Bambara, the national language of Mali, which they insist I must learn. Through French and Cisse's translations, we talk about Mali, Mauritania, the problems with Morocco and the Arabs, and inevitably the conversation turns to America.

I am quite use to this conversation of dollars and costs of living in America. And I explain the amount of money that I make per month, and how much items cost in the United States. "But," I explain to Cisse, "we do have poor people in America."

"You do not have poor in America, not like Africa. In Africa," he points to his hand "you have people that pass ONE MONTH without TOUCHING money, not even coins. There are people in Africa that spend ONE MONTH hungry, without food to eat, always hungry. And the people WANT to work. You have, for example, a man who is INTELLIGENT, who WANTS to work, and he has nothing he can do. There is nothing for him. Africa, Africa is misery."

I explain my plan and my meager savings of $4000, that I hope to live off of for one year here. And they talk, in Bambara. They do the math, and calculate it into CFA. "Christopher, four thousand dollars, you know how many YEARS we would have to work for that money?"

"Yes, but it's a pittance in the US - I have friends who make $100,000 in one year." He translates and there's a lot of whistling and head shaking. One friend says something that sends them all laughing. "My friend, he says that he will have trouble sleeping tonight thinking about this."

"For me," Cisse laments, Africa is a prison. Look, for you, you want to travel to Morocco, to Mauritania, then you go to Senegal, then to Mali. For me, I can't leave Africa. I can go as far as Morocco, but not even to Spain.

"And for an African to go to America," he shakes his head. "I need someone to host me in America and I need to show them my bank account. If I am not a rich man, I will not go. I pray, my one wish, to the almighty, is that one day before I die, I will go to America. I do not want to go, I will go to America."

How can I possibly explain that America is not a paradise? I know the country, I know my home, I know my freedoms. But these I will never see it with the same eyes as Cisse, or as any African.
The Malian boys are here for some time, living along the border with Morocco and working odd jobs - construction, driving, cooking. They work everyday. At some time they will return to their homes and their families in Mali. There is no work there, so they come North as far as Mauritania to find some. But it is a hard country; the people are racist and the weather is cold (a balmy 60 degrees at night).

"You have to be a soldier to survive in Africa," Cisse says.




"There is another place you can stay, but I'm not sure you will like it." Cisse giggles. "You remember where we were last night? They have a house where some of the boys stay." He explains that it will lacking the amenities that I am used to, but he suggests I have a look, and if I don't like it move on. The house is in the "backstreet" of town, the ghetto, or more aptly described as the shanty or slum. North of the town, the sandy strip tilts upwards and out of the center, and the buildings disintegrate into a smattering of rust covered corrugated metal. The house I stay in however, is boasts a concrete wall, topped with cemented in broken glass of the third world anti-theft variety. Behind the flimsy metal door there is a sandy yard, crisscrossed with clothes lines. The bathroom is a concrete outhost, and the stench of fills the space. The house proper is a square room with 10 foot sides.

The boys who stay here are all from Mali. They are young, the youngest, Abu-barak is 18, but the oldest besides Cisse is no more than 25. They all speak Bambara and a sometimes a bit of French, and most of them also know Soninke, as they all come from the region of Kayes, on the border with Senegal . They are here for work, construction, fishing.

What most of them are saving for is a chance to get to Europe. Nouadibhou is a port town for fishing, but also a place for human trafficking. The tiny fishing boats are purchased cooperatively, fitted with a motor and filled overcapacity, sometimes with 80 or so people. A place costs around 300,000 UM and the voyage of 4 days is fraught with obvious danger. If they survive the travel, they will arrive in the Canary Islands, a Spanish colony. Here, they will wait in refugee camps for fourty days while the decision is made whether to send them onto Spain and grant them asylum, or pack them into a plane back to their home country.


I am also invited to come eat with the community. The house makes up one place of a large Malian cooperative here, and we walk around the corner to the center house. The men are hard at work, some are washing clothes. There is a woman sitting outside shielding her eyes from the sun, watching her tiny bags of peanuts for a sale that don't seem to move, and some children playing around on an old foosball table. Inside, there is a large metal bowl sitting in the middle of the floor with a flat plate covering it. "You've never eaten food like this before, have you," Cisse laughs. They remove the plate, and what commences is a quick lesson in how to east with your hands. The six of us dig into the bowl, ball up a small amount of rice on the ends of the fingers, and deftly slip the hand and fingers into our mouths, washing them clean. I manage to make a proper mess, but they try their best to ignore me.

"I am sick of eating like this, it's not healthy," Cisse complains. "Every day, the same food. Rice, sauce." And there is a certain regularity to the food. There is often a small amount of meat, perhaps a chicken thigh or a small section of fish, but amongst six or seven people, it is hardly enough food, and mostly rice at that.

"Christopher, I'm dying here in Africa. This place is a prison. You know, at night, any time, you ask me something, I'm awake. I can't sleep, all I can think of is to be in Europe, to get my papers."

Cisse talks incessantly about his "girlfriend," a Dutch woman who he has been in contact with for three years now. She is 45 years old, and they talk frequently with text messages or Skype. But the woman seems to have a history of ual vacations, and she keeps a tight control on Cisse in theory. Cisse only wants his documents, however "I will never betray her if she marries me. I will stay with her forever, you understand? But she is a bad woman, Christopher. She is not good."

This is Cisse's plan to get to America - marriage with a foreign national. "I will never take a boat, I tell the boys this. I will arrive there, but I will arrive on a plane."

And perhaps in different circumstances it would be easier.

That night as we are going to sleep, Cisse laments that Africans have lost their roots, even in Africa. "Look, you see these boys here. Abubaraka, Amadou, these are Arabic names. They can become Muslim if they want, but they need to keep their AFRICAN names. It's very difficult now to find someone with an African name. The Muslims, they come here and tell them to pray, they make them forget their roots. You know, at one time we had power here, from our ancestors. If we still had this, I would have no problem. If I wanted to go to America, all I would have to do is go to the airport, get on the airplane, and land in America. Nothing could stop me. This is the type of power we had. But we lost this."

So I help Cisse the way I can. I create a Myspace and Facebook account for him, and take his picture. I explain the ideal type of woman he should look for - 34 to 38, no children, divorced or single, living in New York - to facilate a desperate and easy intercontinental marriage and documents. He tells me "When I look for the woman online, I look for the FAT woman. You know why? I think Americans do not like the FAT woman. So she is the one to catch.



One day as we are walking along the streets on the edge of town, there is a fierce wind blowing. The sand drifts through the air in veils of granulate, and the horizon is transformed into a horrible yellowish orange. It is no cooler than 65 degrees, but the Malians are freezing. A large white SUV drives by with the blue banner of UNICEF.

"UNICEF, UN. Psh. You see this? They say they are here to help, driving around. They are all the same, they just come here to eat our money.

"Christopher, I'll explain something - the situation right now, they say slavery ended for us, but I explain to you, it's the same today." He grabs my arm and turns to me to emphasize his point. "We come from Africa, and we get on a boat, and get to Spain. Then they hold us for forty days. They come by and they ask 'How old are you? What can you do?' Europe is getting old, and they don't have enough young people. So they pick out the ones they want, and send them to work in Spain."
Cisse's story of being trapped in Africa is not so different from anyone I meet. Everyone wants to abandon the sinking ship. Whether the slavery comes from abroad or within, the continent is troubled. Cisse's story, I fear, is not too atypical.



the colonial backland

I travel onward to Nouakchott in a cramped grand taxi. Arriving in the city, I see exactly the chaos of Africa that I had once seen in my dreams (or nightmares). But my hotel is in the North of town, luxurious and secluded. The hotel, the camping, is further shielded from the street by a high wall and strategically placed trees. And in the interior, it is all too easy to remain hidden inside. Amongst the middle aged Europeans, we have our private compound and the only Africans here are those that are working, guaranteed not to hastle us as their paycheck consists of our continued presence. So for the most part, the people inside remain here, ducking out perhaps for a quick trip to the market (although the hotel boasts one of it's own). While the majority of the inhabitants of our walled city our French campers, the stoic and proper lot who spend the evenings over smuggled wine and cheese, there are a few strange characters that drift in from place to place. French Africa, like many of the playgrounds of the Western World is full of such creatures.

One character, a German man in his 60s - a short and stout thing with a whispy grey beard is much enjoyable to talk to - at first. He spends the days walking around the rooftop terrace in seclusion, practically in the , always watching the tourists below. He tells me of his adventures about North Africa "I camp out in a cave, outside of Nador. The fog comes in the morning, I can zee nothing of the city light. It iz like I am completely alone. But..." There is something a little odd in his stories, but I chalk it up to lack of language. Until, seemingly and without transistion, he deviates completey from reality.

"Because, you know, I waz many people, I waz Brahma, I waz Krishna...I waz Abraham Lincoln!" He shakes his head. "Over many times, I live and my parents uze de hypnoziz to try and kill me, but I muzt kill them first."

His story crumnles into a number of dreams, stories with no thread to follow. Indians begging for help as George Bush watches from the corner, with threats of and ual abuse. His mother an old French singer, his little brother Arnold Schwarzenegger, who he "kicked into hell." His friend, "ze actor" Bruce Willis, his enemies Kofi Anan and Fidel Castro. Riding a horse through Japan and dying from a posionous spider bite as he stood in a town square . When I’ve had about enough, I stand to leave, and he's mumbling to himself.

"I know all the pazt, and all the future, but there is nothing, nothing but heir."

"Here?" I ask.

"No, Hell, " he says, "Nothing but Hell" muttering as he climbs into his tent.

Another curious overlander is a tall middle aged man from Portugal. He’s making the trek through Africa, like many foreigners here, as a businessman, buying vehicles in Europe and selling for a minute profit. He’s lived in Africa for sometime, and married twice. The man has a perpetual sad look in his eyes, which are ringed with baggy pouches of flesh.

"You can have everything you want here. Everything is possible. Everything has a price. But be careful. I know many guys who come down here and laugh about it the men who got caught. And then a few months later, they're walking around with their friend. Be careful. And don't ever drink anything she gives you or eat anything she makes for you our of your sight."

"What do you mean," I ask, confused by the language. "They drug you and rob you?"

"No, they can put something in your food to make you fall in love with them." He pauses, staring at me, deadly serious. "Sacrifices, blood of an animal." He takes a drag from his cigaerette. "This happens to many men. This happened to me. There are mysteries in Africa."

And for a moment, I wonder. I've been assailed by two realities, and I'm not too certain either one is more valid. The German thinks the people are out to kill him, the Portuguese thinks all the women want are his money. Both believe in voodoo.
The continent seems to have a wear on those who’ve been here for too long. Sure, you have sickness, the malaria, and a nefarious standard of hygiene. The food here could weaken you. But the danger is what it does to your head.

The poverty in Africa is not really of the Sally Struther's distented belly fly covered variety. It is not a shocking explosion of death. It is more of a creeping illness that worms its way around you and strangles out the life. What happens to those people who stay here too long. The serious head shaking and cold eyes, granite features that speak to a heartless world, or the confusion of sacrifice of meaning.


"There's many French here, too many that after awhile become no different from the Mauritanians. I can't do that." A Scottish coat of arms and flag hang on his doorway, the only decoration in the room. "That," he says, pointing, "is to remind me where I come from."

I'm on the rooftop terrace of the English Language School in Nouakchott. It's one of the larger buildings, so the view from here as good as it gets - a few lights through the haze, the towering Mosques that are pegged on the horizon as navigational reference points.

Mohammad Abrahim is a Scotsman by birth. He has lived in Mauritania for a few years now, mostly in the desert, herding camels whilst planning a trek into the disputed and volatile territory of the Tuareg in Northern Mali and Niger. Circumstance and camel theft, personal vendettas and conflict left him with no money, and he found a job in Nouakchatt, where he has been living on the terrace.

I don't feel at all lost in Africa. Not yet. But I read these people like the warnings on the roadside. Caution, Danger, Alert. Pay attention. Whether in Africa or anywhere. But the stakes are high and the fate is serious, the madness is real, and they will remind you.


Nouakchott proper is a large city. Cars scream around sweeping curves in clouds of dust, weaving around woozy children inhaling leaking fumes from the barrels astride their donkeys. The sun is a ball of white light diffusing through a sandy veil of harmattan winds. Men carry rolls of poorly faked watches and boards pegged with disposable sunglasses, pushing through the Hassaniya marketplace of bustling men in blue paper robes that require constant readjustments. Syncopated shrill notes and noises from a cassete store while Islamic treatises answer from megaphones across the street. The traffic is locked and involved in immovable chaos, cars slipping by one another with inches and they chatter about in horn blasts. Fleshy overfed women waddle in the paths amongst the shoddy merchandise in wild colored and dyed robes.

Nouakchott is at once the future and the past, both apocalyptic and medival. The free wheeling capitalism, the unregulated goods, the heaping stacks of garbage, the sky all but blotted out, while the evening deadlock of a symphony of exhaust and horns, is a ready picture of an overcrowded future. But it is also at once strangely ancient - the castes and ranks, the slaves, the 'oliver twist' orphan boys begging in the streets in organized teams, the idealized beauty of overfed wealth, the blind and crippled beggars.

The sun is searing and relentless. The stark madness of Africa stripped of her shadows. The theory of the Mauritanian market is like most facets of the society - a traditional thrust immediately into the future sans adjustments. Like the stalls and congregates of sellers, the fishmongers, the vegatable sellers, the clothing, the modern businesses cluster together. The auto instruction schools are all huddled together with two blocks. The "draa" robes are stacked up in blue piles in unreleted but adjacent stalls. Rather than searching for a new market, they build the competing business right next door.

The capital is a city divided. The center is Arab, Hassaniya. Men in long flowing robes and the women covered in a variation of such. But Mauritania has a large sub-Saharan African population, and the immigrants cluster together in the shanytowns of bidonvilles around the periphery. The "unskilled" or more aptly, laborers, are coming here in droves. If you are a painter or work in construction, there are no jobs in Dakar. But Mauritania needs these people, even if they are willing to work for a pittance.

I find a place to live in Cinquieme ("fifth district" or "slave quarters" as a friend not to incorrectly refers to it). A narrow sand alleyway opens into a large courtyard where the woman are sitting, washing clothes or sitting behind candy and cigarettes or peanuts for a little change, where the kids clothes are clinging to their bodies like discarded rags and they flutter about the dirt barefoot playing made up games with garbage they've found, where the goats bray and dash about with those black agate eyes, the little ones butting heads in a play game of their future battles. I live in a room in a house behind a wall and metal fence. There's a sand yard with a small bathroom/shower, which means a concrete floor with a hole in the ground. Off the main house lies four or five doors. I live behind one of the doors, in a room I share with Amadou, and for my part I pay only 6000 Ougiya a month, or $35, but this is not the cheapest accomadation in the bidonville by any means. But enough about money. Africa has none and is getting restless.

I buy water in a bidon, a 20 Liter plastic bucket (hence the French term for the district, a “bidonville”) then carry it back here for drinking, washing, showering. When you have to buy and carry your water, you realize it's value, and when you dump it you can watch the desert absorb it quickly, leaving not a single trace.

Mauritania is booming and is growing fast. In the past ten years, the population is estimated to have doubled in Nouakchott, now reaching 2 million. In appearances, in mentality, it is simply a large village. There is nothing here but sprawl reaching outwards in the form of bidonvilles and rusty assembled shacks. Humans on humans settlements like a fistula crawling out into the desert.
Meanwhile, the desert is crawling into the Sahel. The sands are always on the move. In the most arid lifeless plains I've found rock carvings of antelope and fish. Now the sands move south. The freshwater comes from reservoirs underneath the town. But as the population grows, the level is sinking, the wells are deeper, access is more difficult. Nouakchott is running out of water. If any water does come, perhaps it will be in the form of oceanic flooding, the city not 6 kilometers from the ocean, and all lying below sea level. The long term prospects of the settlement do not bode well. But the immigrants and refugees keep coming, chasing opportunity and possiblity. This is the story of Nouakchott, the story of Mauritania, the story of Africa. There is no progress when the continent is sinking. Disaster lies ahead.

"All the problems of the world, you can see them here in Africa." A young man from Mali is sitting next to me on a seat fashioned out of concrete blocks. It is late afternoon, but the sun is still strong and it's nearly 80 degrees. We are sitting in alongside one of the main streets in Cinquieme friend describes it. Goats dart about honking cars plowing over the sand street. It's a busy afternoon, a wedding is in it's second day in a square behind some houses, but even from here you can hear the music and see the promenade of African's dressed in their finest - shiny fabric of purples and blues, the women in colorful billowy pieces and the most pristine hairstyles. They walk proudly through the refuse dump of smells and littered scraps admist foul sand, almost as if they are visible yet untouched, on a seperate plain from this disaster. Not all are so seperate. A little boy scurries by eyes unblinking and mouth ajar at hearing our English. He's barefoot and covered head to foot in dust as he steps through the goat droppings which are as ubiquitous as the sand.



As we often talk about problems in Nouakchott and Cinquieme, I inquire about organizations or for an introduction for some type of association, but the people know only of one and it closed after the boss in charge took all the money - "the locals steal it and the foreigners, they only come for a couple months and then leave" not enough to fully implement any plan. The first world aid becomes a rusted junk of some dream, perhaps shuffled into the back corner of a donkey stable or stacked with half empty paint cans, a charitable vacation, a moment of giving, a lifetime of reflecting. If charity is for vacationers, than rooting out societal solutions pragramatic anthroplogist, and requires a commitment as much in spirit as in time. Scientific triumph is borne of toil, but we expect social problems to be fixed by a vacation. The oncologist toiling away at a novel expression of tumor necrotic factor would not be similarly expected to discover, publish, and find fruition of results (thus "making a difference") in a three week biology camp, a science "gap year", or even a two year Government funded alternative to the arm services. Results are dictated by dedication in all endeavours. For our scientists and revolutionaries (because are the too really that different) tearing at the seams of an established order with the urge of the unsatisfied accomplishments, the ones that turn and shake the world, are commitment.

Last night, I dream that I stand on the to of some building. So high, that I can see all te cities of all the worlds spread me, like pages unfolded in a book, yet at the same time all on the horizon, their grey skylines and towering skyscrapers, I watch them engulfed in ash ans smokes as they are tumbled down and collapsing under the weight of monstrous waves and rocks from the sky. The destruction of the world, and it moves closer to me, there, on the top of the concrete edifice, as it rolls onwards like thunderclouds. "But it's okay, I tell her, We can go anytime, anywhere." And together, I whisk her off with me, it's somehwere in the 1970's in Brazil, and she's dancing a Samba in a Panama hat, laughing as the long haired guitarist play Raul, we're strolling along the evening glow of the sea. I know the world's going to end, we've both already seen it, the inevitability of crushing doom. But we have eachother and the sea and Brasil in 1970 and infinity, the worlds in all their times at our disposal. And as such, the future end, unmovable and fixed as it may be, for us, will never come.



boiling point


Mauritania as a country to live in provides numerous opportunities for excitement. The country has a bit of reputation for extermism however undeserved. Notably, the French family who was attacked in the past year by some bored white moor who wanted to gain recognition (and entry into the Al-Qaeda namesake club) thus causing the Paris to Dakar to be cancelled and French tourism to decline dramatically. Combined with the overall instability of a government where a coup d'etat precedes the election (the same rich people with new names), the recent flare up of discontent in Mauritania is about Israel and the murder march into Gaza.

Every since the ceasefire was shattered, the word is on every white Moor's tongue, and when I go through my general stroll which leads me out of my African enclave and into the Moorish Marche Capital, I can feel eyes on me that want more than just money.

"Where are you from? America? You are a real American? Are you Muslim? Are you going to convert, you should convert, you're religion <whatever it is> is wrong, there is only god, one prophet, Mohammed is his name. We go to the Mosque right now, you become a Muslim. Israel is murdering children right now...well?"

While I'm delighted not to hastled by the blue robe wearing money changers and the shopkeepers aren't as dismissive sellers as usual, their capitalism is now honed in on trying to sell me their religion, and with potential drastic consequences.

"American, from America. It's good you are not from Israel, or you would not have a chance."

My hand goes instinctively to the knife in my backpocket. Let's see who doesn't have a chance you cross eyed .

"Ah, really, interesting you say that. Being a Muslim and all. Selam Alaikam - peace be with you." I saunter off, eyes to the periphery.

But there are signs in the streets. Posters on the wall in three varieties display an artist rendition of the bulldog faced Saddam and an unintelligble screed in Arabic. Someone was caught trying to throw an nonfunctional explosive at the Israeli embassy.

Friday is the Muslim prayer day and it's difficult to find even the most essential business open. I'm sick and driving all over town looking for a pharmacy to buy an aspirin. But as usual, the streets are devoid of people, traffic even. It's an eerie calm, tumbleweeds, apocalpyse, Brazil during the world cup. An old African lady is sitting on a usual busy corner peddling her plastic bags of mint. I smile, and shake my head, and turn the corner almost walking into an armored police tank and twenty soldiers in full riot gear. They are facing the other direction, so don't see me when my heart lurches and my feet follow and I dart back around the corner. "Yes, hello, one bag of mint please, could you nicely tell me why there's men with assault rifles in front of the Patisserie?"

The next day was much the same, albeit a little more potentially dangerous, while I'm on the main avenue in the south of town, past the tent sellers and the industrial market of donkeys hauling rebar. Coming around the bend into full view I see a few hundred youths marching town the street in white robes, carrying sticks. I can't likely run...I step off the road. A blue robed Moor is walking buy and I quickly saunter up to him "Why hello, what seems to be the bustle here. Oh, a protest. Ah, yes, Israel. I'm American you see, but. Hmmm. They're coming this way, should I go around. No. Keep talking and I'll keep my head down and we'll look like best friends." I pass by alive and with my good Christian name in tact.

As the sun sets, I leave the glitter and glimmer of the nice side of town - the paved streets, the plentiful market, mind, nice by Mauritanian standard - and hop a cab back to the chaotic and dirty African quarter. "It's so tranquil here, beautiful" I say, sipping my coffee. "What are you talking about, all there is dust." He's right, and it turns the sun into a diffuse orange. "What's your religion?" one man asks. "Oh, you know, I don't really have one," I say being as evasive as possible. "And you, you're all Muslims?""No, no, I'm Christian, he's Christian, he's Christian, he's Muslim, he's Muslim. And it doesn't matter anyways. We're all foreigners here, we have to look out for eachother."


I'm holed up the Auberge Menata with a bunch of French tourists when the first loud bangs announce the commence of the prostests. There's the noise outside on the Avenue of angry voices, shouting, honking - rising in crescendo as they push towards the Israeli embassy. The crowd in the Menata is curiously oblivious to the sound, the mounting violence just meters from our colonial safety home, but soon this too is broken as the peppery clouds of tear gas drift over the high walls and trees that seperate the soveirgnty of this makeshift nation. The Frenchmen are running about now, bandannas of tshirts covering their faces, trying to decide if it's better to stand in the cloud or suffocate in their rooms. Some of them, in a poeticly appropriate gesture, climb into their cars and firmly slam their doors against the onslaught.

Now and then, we peer over the hedges and the wall. We can see smoke trails streaming through the air, and the banner of the Palestinan flag leading the march. The protestors push forward, rocks in hands and through the air, the police retaliate and push back with helmets and riot gear and heavy batons. Growing braver, I step outside. On the end of the avenue I count twenty police, in the midst they have a civilian figure on the ground which they occasionally pound with intermittent strokes of the baton. A young boy, no more than fifteen is standing in his blue draa robe. "You-are-terrorist," he shouts, at no one in particular, but in the direction of the world, his words broken and telegram like (you-STOP-are-STOP-terrorist-STOP). And this is essentially the element of the protest - young boys, angry with the news, but with the smiles and enthusiasm of sports fans. They are smiling and shouting, barricading the street and setting the rubbish bins on fire. Black smoke curls up through the trees. The waves of youths chase forwards and are chased back, in a repeating pattern, oddly reminiscent of Scooby Doo - at one moment the protesters are chasing the police, then the police are chasing them the other direction, then the police are carrying the protesters and everyone's being chased by a little dog.

As the youths break towards our street in large numbers, we quickly dart inside. Suddenly, there is a commotion and yelling at the large car door port. The last man runs inside, and I grab the front door, slam it shut and slide the lock, immediately as a large force slams against it. The door bulges as it is pounded, and the metal booms resound. A few of us stand in the sand on the other side, retreating and approaching, peering over the wall. It is then I notice a mob of police has gathered at the front door. A man unlocks the door, and it is thrown open as the riot police force there way inside, pushing him aside. A few police trickle inwards, shouting and pointing. Their looking for protestors who may have run and ducked inside. But even in their bullet proof vests and their black helmets, they look small and scared, especially when they see the mob of drunk Frenchmen, guarding their RVs and camper cars. The last view I see of the police is as one of their comrades shouts to them to retreat, and they realize what is happening. The five remaining police, fear consumed, scatter out the door and into the street to a shouting and screaming youth mob, rocks in hand, fleeing and pursuing close behind.

Eventually, as soon as it began, the protest and conflict simmers out. A fire still burns in the twilight, and every so often, an armored car or pickup full of police screams by, or a lone young boy jogs by through the smoke. One you passing shouts a slogan in Arabic, then turns to me, a smile in his face: "Israeli is finished, America is finished." If that is his goal, he'll have a long way to go. The protest here was aimed at the Israeli embassy, but with little planning or order, merely was the manifest of high tension and anger of a injury to "the team" by the others. So even while the young boys approached it with all the ruckus of a football game, they succeeded on destorying a good part of the town, and attacking the police - who are also Muslim and most likely agree with them. It's almost pointless to discuss the politics and motivations in a mobb attack, especially one perpetrated by boys hardly into puberty whose motivations are borne of hormones, not logic.

The French in the Auberge are muttering about leaving. A few take pictures, quickly darting in and out, a few laugh, but their is a certain fear, deservedly so. I watch a camper car woman, gruff and determinate, unfolding her her tables and chairs. She sets two cups on the table and two sets of silverwear. She sits down, settling into her seat, eyes forward on task at hand, admist the sand and the tear gas, spreading her Brie.



Late summer night, Zack and I are walking down Myrtle Ave., well out of Bed Stuy and into Fort Green. Headlights flash by and the daytime stores are closing their gates and locking their doors, the neon flickers on for the bar or the ubiquitous "Spanish Restaurant." The bodegas never close. It's loud, but peaceful in that typical stark contrast which we live in Brooklyn, against the constant barrage of Manhattan skyline just over the hill.

"And I was laying in bed with this woman, and suddenly nonchalantly, a duck wanders into the house, and I thought, 'where the am I?'"

"That's it. You stay too far gone, and you live between the cracks of the world. You're not home there, but you're not home back there either."

"And sometimes," I say raising a finger to accentuate the point, "I would find myself beseiged by memories of other times, unexpectedly. Like, clinging to a motorcycle in the Brazilian backland desert, all shrubs and dirt and vultures, and I found myself thinking about the time I fought with my friend and drove out to Aberdeen and left my car and walked out onto the pitch black of the beach at night, until I thought I had died. Or I'm trying to throw a line to hang my food in the quickly advancing Wyoming dusk from Grizzlies, and suddenly there I am in the VIP lounge of a Filipino nightclub in San Francisco."



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* while the country is certaintly surreal, that's why i'm still here. i'll likely be here for the next three months, working with Mauritanian musicians, particularly local hip hop producers. i have a new site for the recordings and general work progress, http://www.sahelsounds.com , check back soon...
check back soon...

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