“I accompany them one morning, and we walk through the desert for a couple of hours until we see a well, but much to my surprise it is solar powered. Some modernisation has crept in thanks to an NGO installing this technology for them. The nomad herdsman switches on the solar. Water jerks forth into the wells for the livestock to quench their thirst.” Sonia Shah
MAURITANIA – PART 1
The Narrative of Sonia Shah
I arrive in the town of Chinguetti, considered to be the seventh holiest Islamic city and one of the ancient towns through which passing camel caravans from long gone used to stride past, carrying various goods.
Antique, beaten down Mercedes taxis clank through across the vast strips of desert floor of the town, their exhaust pipes burping rigorously through their read end. I jiggle along in these tottering vehicles across the town, anticipating to break down at any moment , but surprisingly they’re as sturdy as a camel’ s back.
Beyond the town’s outskirts, I hope to encounter the desert nomads and get a taste of their insolit life. With the dense desert making up over seventy percent of the country, nomads aren’t something I’d expect to come across these parched terrains . Much to my surprise, several nomadic groups still thrive in between the chunky butter scotch desert dunes and swirling sand bowls, straddling across several towns and villages.
Many have migrated to nearer towns as the tufts of green insidiously shrink, while the desert continues to fold over extensively, leaving less and less of the vegetation for the nomads’ animal livestock to graze on . Yet a few families sit still with time, speckling themselves across these barren lands, endlessly sipping copious amounts of their proverbial sugar infested tea in miniature glasses from dusk to dawn.
Late afternoon as the sun is about to resign, my guide tracks down a nomadic family. Their plain white cloth tents appear over the isolated landscape. The interiors of their homes burst into patches of kaleidescope, the perfect shelter for several hours against the perverse heat that they have to endure!
A member of the family busy themselves with lifting a steaming tea pot. Boiling brown water tinted from the tea leaves cascade over a foot, gently splashing across a few pocket- sized glasses laid out across on a metallic tray . I gawk at the lengthy, repetitive process of back and forth tea pouring, which can last from minutes to even over half an hour to create a frothy mousse to amplify the taste before serving to visitors. The ritual of tea drinking can also last from several minutes to many hours.
The activity isn’t just reserved under nomadic tents or urban roofs. Similar routines can take place on mats placed on soiled grounds next to a gas station or even a garage as locals wait with patience as their cars go through an examination for any repairs needed from the rough and tough desert terrains! Drivers and passengers indulge in the same activity in shabby, scanty litter filled rooms as everyone awaits the departure of the vehicle to their next destination. I’ve lost count of the immense tea drinking invitations, but I decline each invitation due to the high sugar content.
Is it any wonder that there is a pharmacy every few metres in the capital and small towns . Some cities across the globe are strewn relentlessly with churches , mosques, bars and pubs. ..Here it’s pharmacies that dominate the streets profiting from the poor unhealthy eating habits ! The goat or camel milk that I’m offered under the nomads’ tents is doused in sugar too! I content myself with water instead and politely decline with a friendly smile.
Goats and camels, belonging to the nomads freely roam around their camp . In the morning , a female member rocks camel / goat milk back and forth inside a cylindrical goat sheep skin. Soon, she places a blazing coal fire under the rocking goat skin container, enabling the milk to turn into butter or cheese or a butter milk flavour . The men take the goats and camels to graze in the morning and return to their camp late afternoon.
I accompany them one morning, and we walk through the desert for a couple of hours until we see a well , but much to my surprise it is solar powered. Some modernisation has crept in thanks to an NGO installing this technology for them . The nomad herdsman switches on the solar. Water jerks forth into the wells for the livestock to quench their thirst. Finally, we fill up his water containers and load them onto his camels and walk back to the camp only for more tea camel / goat drinking rituals to follow ! As evening sets in, one of the men invite me to watch how they bake bread in the desert.
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The natural heat and coal is as good as an oven. He kneads some dough , moulds it into the shape of the earth and buries it inside the sand for some time, covering it with more sand and charcoal, later following the same process to bake the other side . I hesitate to eat the bread as the surroundings of the floor are occasionally caked in camel and goat droppings, but my guide assures me the heat has killed the germs . The local nomad unearths the baked bread , scrapping any charcoal off with fine sand! I take the plunge.
Fortunately, the delicious fresh bread doesn’t wreak havoc on my stomach, much to my wonder.
In the evening the elderly man heading the family returns from a 40 day trip, after having walked along with a herd of camels and a group of Russians across the ancient trade routes and the towns and villages that dot the Mauritanian desert! He speaks a little French, unlike the other members of his family. He reveals how exhausting his journey has been! I am stumped by the stamina that he possesses to endure such a tedious, lengthy journey, but this is the norm of nomads who migrate from one land to another to sustain their livelihood.
The journeys can last day for just a few hours to a few days and at times weeks! The following morning, a lady pounds away at the dried goat meat that her family has perched against a tree . The bones are pulverised into powder to add some flavour to their food and the dried meat hanging out in the sun usually lasts a few weeks for the family to devour! I say my goodbyes to the family.
I traipse through the Sahara, along with one of the nomad men and his camel. The time has come for him to stock up on various food supplies from the town of Chinguetti. Usually, the masses will rely on a vehicle to take them to a town to buy food supplies, but here, out in the wild, the nomads simply rely on their camels. Three hours later, we arrive back into Chinguetti town The following day, I head to Tirjit , an oasis village surrounded by mountains and peach coloured deserts flowing out of them…
As the heat starts to stir in, I take a respite in the rivulets and streams of the oasis until evening . As I try to make my way out after a couple of hours, I lose myself in the weave of the palm trees and steadily fading into silhouettes against the mountainous backdrop. I arrive at many dead ends and panic as the light starts to flap…
I cry out for help as I know I’m not far from the local population, but nobody’s home. Eventually, I find a way out and come across a traveller who’s surprised to see me exiting from this side of the oasis… I explain the mayhem I tangled myself up in . He asks me why I didn’t shout for help! I explain that I did to which his response is ” Was that you ! I thought it was some kind of unusual bird!” We both burst out laughing despite the brief gravity and hysteria I encountered! And finally, I explore the fish port in the capital where the locals heave in loads of fish late afternoon.
Donkey wagons on the shore await to be loaded to be taken to the fish market. And further along fishermen drag their boats onto the ” parking” bay of the beach by placing lengthy cylindrical bars under the boats to trundle the boats through to finally put them to rest in a spot until the next day ! As always , Africans find an ingenious and creative solution once more to easen a problem! But in between, my mind obsesses over embarking on a 2nd nomad trip but in more remote areas of Mauritania…
And so I go in search of how to go about it as soon as I finish my first nomadic trip. In the midst of it all, I follow the sounds of drumming and high shrilled singing through the dark sandy paths of the town. With the help of 2 villagers at long last, we locate a pre wedding celebration. I indulge in the jubilance while pondering over the thought of tracking another group of nomads who still live like their ancestors – where any sign of technology and modernisation are even more invisible.
To be continued….
Part 2
