the road to nowhere is paved with chance-
there is only one way to go, from morocco through mauritania. one spectacular road that is actually paved. the road turns to sand, the sand into stories, and the stories into figs for you to taste through these dehydrated words:
day 1- sometimes when the bus is driving through the desert at night, i wonder if it will veer off the path, through the dunes into the ocean, with a sleeping foot pressed down on the gas pedal and dreaming. at moments i feel so asleep that i don't know the difference between trust and the inevitable; then i am jolted into consciousness by the sudden movements of the bus, swirving to save our selves from smashing into a toppling truck stacked with hay; breaking too fast around an invisible corner or in avoidance of the wild camels sleeping in the streets.
i can see the shape of these flatlands emerging in the moonlight; see where the arid ends in ocean and the wind and moon meet on the crests of waves. occasionally, intense gusts of the desert storm will whip clouds of crystal into the air, scarring the sides of the bus and blinding the infinite road ahead.
day 2-dahkla
this town is like the skeleton of something that happened by accident, the ghost of a hasty mistake. the inhabitants are a resistant entourage of nomads seeking substance in the desert and finding it only in eachother, then leaving. the streets are broken, doors locked shut and clothes suspended on the line, bleached by time and waiting for bodies but warming only the wind. the children here play soccer alone, kicking deflated balls against abandoned walls because they can't find eachother's feet..
day 3-there is nothing now but the occasional saharawi cayote. 360 degrees of flatlands, savage hawks perched upon low boulders; sand in the street; desert dying in oppressed ocean. in the morning it is blue, lunar light illuminating the surface of the sand; the rocks repeating themselves to the horizon.
day 4: noudibouh, mauritania:
how can i capture this? breathing in a pungent concoction of low tide and the feet of sheep. the tribes here build refuge out of refuse, suck water from the bones of goats and can turn a bag of flour twelve different ways for every meal of the week. and the scene is hypnotic to watch: the flight of garbage through the saharan sky. i am being blasted by sand and bottles and bags, the windturning tornados of trash that spin suspended above me. it is poetic and beautiful and difficult and mysteriously real.
a two hour wait in the bank to exchange $20 leads to an invitation for lunch with a saharawi family, which turns into an entire day till sunset of gift giving and tea drinking and being told to sleep. mamia takes me to her house, and we start with tea. we heat the water on hot coals, wash the first round of gunpowder green to release the strong first flush, saving the glass of dark brew and boiling another. after seven clumps of sticky sugar are dissolved in one smallpot of tea, you pour back and forth from two feet above the glass- from glass to pot and back again, creating a frothy collection of bubbles. and after an hour of frothing and pouring and spilling you are left with four tablespoons of sweet and potent tea to slurp and savor.
after this we prepare lunch. mamia's mother has a very special proposition for me. she has one brother, who lives in the desert and herds goats. he is unmarried-and today is my lucky day!! i must marry him, she tells me. i must!! she will teach me the koran and i will convert to islam. i can herd goats and drink from the milk of camels and live strangely ever after. i politely decline, and this is not the first time i've had to..
day 5: THIS is the impossible adventure you fear and desire simultaneously. we are back on the long road through mauritania to senegal. the sand speeding laterally across the street at the same speed we are travelling, 60km/hr. it is coming from the east, maybe algeria. this road took four years to construct, and i can see now that the desert's dunes could reclaim it in four hours. along the drive i see the skeletons of empty car wrecks, a graveyard of breakdowns and broken tires. i wonder what happened to the people inside them, if their bones became dust or sand or if they made it to their destination or if they even had one . and then i wonder what my own fate would be if the car suddenly stopped and i was 250 km from the nearest anything. but now i don't have to wonder, because our car just died here in this sandstorm.
i step out of the car and i can feel the wind's potential to carry me over the ocean like i am a hollow bird, made of nothing. and that is what i am in this element, an inconsequential obstacle to the vastness. if i were to sit for more than one hour, the crystals would stick to my skin, reclaim me for their kin and shape my fractalled figure into the dunes.
i get back in, covered in desert. i can build a sand castle on my pant leg and live inside of it. i start thinking about the half liter of water i have left, the brown banana and melting triangle of cheese to sustain me, and decide i'd better hitch for my sweet life..
time limps by and i climb into first car that passes-a decaying mercedes already full with a family of masked men. with a heartbeating melange of fear exhaustion uncertainty gratitude and necessity, i climb in...
we are quiet at first, till my timid french peeks through my lips with the courage to say the equivalent of "so, you guys from around here?" this ice breaker leads into an instant session on islam conversion. "you love allah? allah is your god? even if you don't know it yet, allah is your god." "yes of course, i mean, oui! uh, merci." they speak of the conflicting beliefs between the muslim world and the average christian american, the difficulties in reconciling politics and religions between countries and how terrible it is, and how god has granted them the strength to endure. i start sensing the depth of the tension when the expressions of their negative image of americans is followed by the question 'so, where are you from?'
canada. definately canada. of course, canada!! ah we love canadians, peaceful people, you are welcome here..praise allah! this innocent lie smooths things over quite well until we're stopped by the police and they demand my passport. i discreetly slip my incriminating document into the officer's hands, and he looks at me and says 'vous etes americaine?'
uh oh... 'sometimes..?'
we are quiet again. i pray for my precious life for the next 220 kilometers, during which there are three stops for prayer, two for tea and one for me, where i thank the infinite stars for my arrival in nouakchott..
