18th to 31st of December, 2017.
Nouakchott is sand. Be in the streets is like coming back to my childhood when most of the streets in my town were what we used to call “earth streets”. The difference is that here, the streets are made of sand. Most of them.
Even on my first two days here, when the weather it was good, the sand was on the streets. After that, with the fog all the time, everything becomes sand.
So that is all that you have to say about Nouakchott? Sand? No, of course not. But since this is what caught my attention, this is the biggest thing about Nouakchott, I had to start with it. Or I could start talking about how most of people here think I am a man. I feel glad sometimes because is just reinforcing that woman / man are just political categories, but also it means that, for most of them, to not have hair makes you look like a man. Anyway, that also put me in two different situations on the streets: first, people do not bother me too much because they think I am a man; second, they always keep their eyes on me, trying to understand what kind of human being am I. As anyone could…
Moulay looks very different from the CS. As most of them. Or maybe all of them. Social networks and their photos: always making you feel better! Bullshit! Oh! So you are saying that you expect one physiognomy and when they show up you get disappointed? No! I am talking about be able to recognize people! Most of them I almost could not know if were they for sure. That is my point.
We come to the apartment and after talking a bit, Liz join us. She is from Washington D.C. and it is nice to finally meet someone from there. The funny thing is that we have a lot of things in common. I also meet her husband that night, Med, and we end up in a kind of private restaurant. They eat the fish and chicken, I have the cuz-cuz and the vegetables plus the delicious fried bananas.
Next day I do not know exactly what to do. Nouakchott is completely different of any other city I have been until now. I mean, there is no such thing as “Places to visited in Nouakchott”. You just walk on the streets. Maybe because of that people get so surprise when you tell them you are coming here just for tourism.
Basically the first days I walk around, going to Moulay’s Book Shop, which is really near the house, so different of what I imagined and also so different of what was a few years ago when he opened (I saw a interview he made to a local channel), when it was not dominated by the sand and disorganization. But maybe is not his fault or no Mauritanian fault. It is the sand. Everything, day by day, ends up eaten by the sand. Lost their life to the sand. The shine is gone. All that remains is the sand.
Here, more than in Morocco (maybe because it is not a tourist city), almost all women use the hijab. And also because there are not too many tourists, almost no one, they are always looking to you on the streets. For the men, most of them use the famous traditional robe, Derraa: this long square poncho, made of a thin fabric, that supposed to be comfortable for the Summer and Winter and let them carry their stuff with safety. It is usually blue or white. The shoes, for most of them are sandals. Sometimes with socks.
About the food, there are a few things: at lunch, I eat with Moulay at the library, most of the days, the traditional rice with fish (Thieboudienne or Ceebu Jen) or with chicken (Marou Diouk) plus some vegetables. Once, I have lunch with Liz at a Syrian restaurant, and we have a really good tortilla sandwich, with vegetables, mushroom and cheese. At night, we usually have the cuz-cuz with chicken or fish plus vegetables and French fries. But we also ate a delicious Falafel once or some pizza. I taste the Camel milk (a little different weird taste); the Bissap (a purple juice made from Yibiscus flower) which is made as infusion but should be drunk really cold; at the beach, I tasted the Touba Coffee (black coffee with a lot of spices and honey); on the corners there are always a lot of women frying and selling our Bolinho de chuva (Little cake of Rain) from Brazil but here they called them Benna; and for last, the date fruits (I think they taste like healthy chocolate).
Every day that I go to Moulay’s Book Shop, somebody new appear. Later, Moulay and Liz tell me that they are going over there just to meet me. Loki! Sometimes I would just not care but other times looks like they are trying so hard to be nice that I just prefer not even show up over there anymore. Of course most of them are married, what makes everything worse. Not all of them talk a lot with me, mainly because of the language barrier. So basically, “my problems” are with a poet who lived for two years in Angola, so he speaks Portuguese; and a linguistic who studied in Turkey and has a huge ego. They both, as Moulay, proclaimed themselves Feminists. I have my doubts. For the two first ones, even though they seems like nice guys, there is something about them that I do not like. Maybe it is this whole thing about be a man and they acting like jerks because cannot control their instinct. Maybe it is something more. About Moulay, he is always making a lot of sexist jokes, doubting of my intelligence and capacity, offering to do stuff for me or carrying my stuff, to resume, acting as I was uncapable of doing anything by myself.
To finished the subject, one night me and Moulay go to a Coffee to meet some of his friends and those two guys are there, followed by another one who also speak English, Moualy’s neighbor (a simple man) and a misogynistic one who does not speak English. What is of course so unfair for me. So they start to talk about Feminism and differences between woman and man. Time to time they translate for me what they are talking about it. But it does not matter anyway: first, because I could not argue with the stupid one, and second because he just spits it up, since he affirmed be a woman-hatter since the beginning with no intention of changes. Of course if you tell them about the term “women-hatter” they will completely disagree and said that they love women and could not live without them. They just really believe women are inferior in everything. That is all.
The traffic here is as chaotic as in Morocco. The difference is that the Mauritanians do not walk fast when they are crossing the streets, as the Moroccans, no. They slowly cross to other side so either do they have to wait to cross or, what happen most of the time, the drivers use their horn a lot.
My first Saturday here we supposed to go all together to the beach, but at the end, is just me and Moulay. So we decide to go by walking. It is over one hour and for me there is also the thing of knowing a little bit more of the city.
The beach is way more full of people than I expected. Because the Fish Port is super active and it happen all days, there are always a lot of boats in the sea and a lot of people in the land waiting to buy the cheapest fishes.
The view of the boats at the sand and at the sea is gorgeous because they are all full of colors. The smell, of course, is the biggest problem. And the dirt too.
The sea is so beautiful and so calm, with just one line of waves breaking really close to the sand, that looks like a big swimming pool and I feel sad for not be here in hotter days. The nicest thing is we find a starfish. The pictures unfortunately were not that nice as I always imagined but what we can do?
My first Sunday it is pretty busy but really great! In the morning, me and Liz go to look for some presents. She want sweaters for Med and Moulay. It takes us a long time to find them and a lot of her money (in my opinion). In the end, even I got a present! She bought me a beautiful rainbow color dress. It is really nice of her. Back at home, after wrapping the presents, we eat some Mac and Cheese and go to her friend’s house, Shawna. We take two taxis to get in there.
Their big blue house is nice already from outside. They have this Mauritanian guy who is a kind of driver, guard and helper in the house. Shawna looks like an North American girl (actually she reminds me the mother of Macaulay Culkin, in Home Alone, the actress Catherine O’hara) and she is really nice. With her husband, Cid, she is cooking a lot of treats for Christmas: beautiful brownies that she decorates with cream and M&Ms; ginger muffins with cheesecake cream on top; chocolate bars with biscuits and chocolate balls; and my first eggnog ever! It is so delicious! But it is without bourbon.
So we started to talk about Shawna’s son, Ben, and how cute he is considering his age, thirteen. He tell her everything so they have this really great relationship. And for me, after everything she tell us, he sounds like those boys from the Hollywood movies, the nicest guy on the classroom. Like Peter Parker. Unfortunately, and the three of us knew that, he will have his heart broken a few times. I just really hope that this never change his character. Alora, Shawna’s daughter, is just eight years old but is so polite and smart that she looks like also as a Hollywood’s movie girl: like the Owlsen’s twins. She teach me a little of French, read my top where there is her dog’s name (my Fiends’ top), then we sing Pink, So what, because, as her mother, she also loves Pink. We also help Shawna a little bit in the kitchen, separating the green and red M&Ms. Cid is also pretty nice, with a great sense of humor, and of course when you have two such nice kids, they definitely got that from some good parents and good education. So at the end, they become my favorite family in the world.
10 Years Around the World 