Working in Chinguetti, Part II

During our week in Chinguetti we had many offers for similar gardening work, but we didn’t even want to consider it. The white moors don’t do manual labor, and the black moors at least have to be given enough food to sustain them. We were only getting one meal a day, and we were still sleeping outside.
Back in town, we were hanging out next to a shop when we decided to play a little music. We attracted a crowd of mostly children as I drummed and Susan and Jonathan played their recorder and tin whistle. Some of the older men cleared the kids away to get a better view of us. Everyone loved it and one men even gave Jonathan some cigarettes. Then a large, very stern man came up and asked me if I was a tourist. I gave him a vague answer. Then Jonathan whispered to me, “I think that guy’s 5-0”. He kept asking questions out of character of curious civilians, so we just responded in English, saying that we don’t speak French. It worked, and he eventually left us alone. We asked Abdullahi about him later, finding out that we was indeed a cop, and that he is crazy, but nothing for us to worry about.
Our first meal with Abdullahi was a delight. We did not eat at his guesthouse, but went with him to his home and ate with his family, all crowded around a large dish, eating with our hands. His darling young wife made a meal of rice with an onion sauce and a little bit of chicken. His three little children were adorable, and we stayed there long after dinner, drinking tea, and making music. Even though we weren’t making ideal wages, we felt that this kind of experience made it worth it.
The next four days were a constant challenge to get anything done beyond our four hours of work. We would try to get started by seven or eight to beat the heat of the day, but by the time we were finished, it was blazing, and we were beat. We also had to use this stationary period to do some badly needed clothes washing, further inhibiting our ability to explore the rest of the town.
In the beginning, Abdul would come by and bring us tea, bread and cheap smokes (at $.35 a pack they were easy to give away) for Jonathan and Susan. By the end, though, he had turned cold to us. Our dinners became sparse, and we would usually eat bread and jam when we got home because we were still hungry.
It wasn’t until the fourth day that we finally managed to explore the old town, the real draw of Chinguetti. We crossed the wadi, shook the aggressive trinket-hawking women and wandered deep into the mostly uninhabited stone ruins. Pictures should do it more justice than my descriptions.

The minaret of the Chinguetti Mosque, built in the 13th century, is the second oldest minaret in continuous use.

I apologize for the number of photos of the same mosque

Even here, satellites. Surprising

Anybody that still lived in the old town seemed to want us to join them for tea, but we avoided them, knowing that the tea would be tainted with sales pitches for jewelry and handicrafts. Unlike many historic areas, this place was not well-protected, allowing us to climb in, through, and up many of the abandoned buildings. We talked about ways that we could move into one of the more intact homes and squat there, allowing us to live without breaking our backs moving sand all day. We thought about visiting one of the four libraries in the old town that contained ancient Islamic scripts, but that we require finding somebody that held the key to them, and paying about $4 per person. Too steep for us.

Can you find Susan?

Before dinner, we had a tea invite from Abdul, a young black moor donkey driver (that donkey connection) that Jonathan and Susan had met the day before. He and his family were very fun to be around and we really liked the relaxed nature of their home. We told him to come to our garden the next day and we would prepare tea for him.

After dinner that night, we performed the tea-making for Abdullahi and his family, as we had been practicing to get it right. It is not a simple procedure, and there are many intricate steps to get it just right. The most difficult part is pouring the tea back and forth between the cups to get a foamy head that fills half the glass. We did it fairly well, though they seemed unimpressed, as getting it perfect every time is second nature to them.
During our conversation with Abdullahi that night, he told us that he had been married to his wife for six years. We asked how old they were, and he said he was 26, and she was 24. This was possible, but I doubted it as a few days back, he had told us that he had owned the guesthouse for ten years. Most likely he was near forty, and his wife was probably closer to twenty. Young girls getting married to much older men is common here, as in much of the world and I would not have been surprised if he had told me the truth. But I saw it as the same kind of lie as Jonathan and Susan tell about their “marriage”. Even if everyone knows it is a lie, it is easier to fib when dealing with people that don’t fully understand your culture.
On our last day of work, Abdullahi barely spoke to us. He came by around ten to look at the situation of the well. For the past few days there had been a black moor working on building a new wall along the stairs that lead down to the well (yes, stairs that lead down into the well). Abdullahi would usually come by to oversee him and move a stone here and there. The day before, though, there was some sort of accident, and the wall came crashing down into the well. We turned and watched as they observed the rubble as the dust settled. A few moments passed and they decided that meant the workday was done. So now they were back, casually trying to get the rocks back out of the well. I smiled on the inside, knowing that it was not my problem and we would be gone the next day.
After work, Abdul, the black moor donkey driver, came by for tea. We relaxed in our little hut while Jonathan prepared it. After so much time and effort on getting the tea just right, Jonathan was offended when Abdul tasted the first cup, but didn’t finish it. He said it needed more sugar. Jonathan fumed. Of course, in this part of the world it seems necessary to put in plenty of sugar, impossible to put in too much. The next two cups tasted perfect, though Jonathan was too annoyed to put the effort in to make the frothy head.

This guy's tea sucks!

Hangin' out in our hut.

Abdul, fellow donkey-driver

In case you wondered what I would look like after a week of digging sand.

When Abdul left, we forced ourselves to have some energy to walk to the next village, about three km away. When we got there, though, we decided not to explore the village, but play in the surrounding dunes instead. Running up dunes and rolling down them ensued. We tired ourselves out in our races before watching the sun go down. We walked through the village at dusk and admired their well-manicured date palm gardens. This tiny town couldn’t rely on tourism and therefore seemed much more skilled at date harvesting. The gardens in our oasis seemed decrepit compared to these.



We got completely lost in the dark on the way back, but seeing as it was a straight shot through sand to get back to our village, we just ended up in the wrong part of town. When we finally located ourselves, we made our way back to the garden and changed into our nicest, freshly washed, desert threads for our final dinner with Abdullahi.
We expected it to be at least a little bit of a cause for celebration. I know we were excited to be finished with our work, and we were actually proud of the progress we made. We hoped for some sort of gratitude from Abdullahi.
Nothing. Abdullahi hung out in another part of the house while we ate alone. His wife served us the most comical dish of my life. We were starving, and when she took the lid off the large plate, there sat nothing but plain couscous, with a single boiled carrot draped across the top. After she left us alone I burst out laughing. I am not the kind to expect any fancy food, especially when eating in a family’s home in a developing country, but this was obviously intentional. I might have been annoyed if it was just couscous, but the lone carrot on top, a sorry excuse for either garnish or vitamins, was just hilarious.
After dinner, one of the family boys came in to make us tea. The previous nights he was a lot of fun, and we would spend time drumming and dancing with him and his brothers. This night was different, though, and as he prepared the tea, I heard the dreaded word cross his lips discreetly, barely audible, “cadeaux?” I was shocked, and acted like I didn’t hear, hoping that I hadn’t. Abdullahi, or maybe his wife, had obviously told him that since we were leaving then he might as well ask. A few minutes later he said it again. We all ignored it. At some point, Abdullahi came in, seeming excessively tired. He layed down after exchanging a few words with us and eventually dozed off to sleep. We tried to say goodbye to him, but he did not respond, sleeping or at least pretending to.




We left, disappointed and confused by the direction our relationship with Abdullahi and his family had gone. We went to the only shop that remained open and bought some bread, as we were still hungry, but too tired to cook. We stayed up late, talking and trying to figure out what had gone wrong. We later found out (from some very knowledgeable young Americans living in Mauritania) that, as we had imagined, the more we acted like the black moor working class, the more we were treated in such a way. Maybe Abdullahi didn’t mean it intentionally, but just grew into treating us as he would normally treat anyone working for him. For this, it was worth the experience. I wouldn’t want to have done something wrong to lose the pseudo-friendship we had started with, so it was better this way. Not many people get to take a step into the shoes of the slave class in a country that still has slavery.