​In Search of Nowhere: Mauritania
Wanting to get away from everything for a while, I picked the most unheard-of destination I'd yet been to, the very dry Islamic Republic of Mauritania. At the western end of the Sahara, it's a place that seemed as travelable as Pluto: not just remote, but also lacking in the basic necessities. Water. Shelter. Vodka.
From the dire travel advisories issued by the US State Department — venom, terrorism, and other misadventure — one might wonder, "Who in their right mind would...?"
Me, that's who. Me, in my wrong mind. But don't let this alarm you; it's a fascinating, if somewhat difficult, place to go.
Below is an excerpt from Somewhere Found.
We drive north up the beach to where groups of young men and women picnic on the sand and parade their new cars up and down the main road. Mauritania is not a rich country, barely eking its way out of the world’s bottom quartile by GDP, making it all the more imperative for those with means to be seen having means. I notice that while the fish-market workers are entirely Black — and likely Haratin (a dark-skinned ethnic group) — these leisurely, middle- or upper-class young adults are lighter-skinned Arab-Berber Moors. Split between the regions of Sahara and Sahel (the semi-arid juncture of desert and savanna that crosses the continent), the land of Mauritania has had mixed demographics for centuries, during which time power dynamics coalesced into a de facto caste system. To put it more bluntly, but no less truthfully, Mauritania is a racist country. Each group — Arab and Black, to use a crass shorthand — makes up roughly half of the country’s population, but the class advantages and disadvantages are thoroughly skewed.
The racial divide is also apparent in the country’s intractable institution of slavery, a word that is sadly not a typo. Mauritania was the last country to ban slavery, by a 1981 presidential decree, reinforced by a criminal law in 2007. But the ban has been effectively toothless. Human rights groups routinely call the country out for the continued practice, which its leaders tend to disingenuously brush off with accusations of Western interference or conspiracy. Meanwhile, beyond all the NGO white papers and statistics, the actual slaves, overwhelmingly if not exclusively dark-skinned, continue to be born into the system, thereafter working on farms or as house servants. Here, too, the country sits at the world’s fringes.
I wonder how this racial dynamic plays out within our SUV. Ahmed is Arab-Berber; Georges is Black. They’ve worked together for years, it seems, and they chat amiably in Arabic as we make our way beyond the city limits. Or I think it’s amiable: Georges tends to shout what he says, his words sounding more like coughing at dust or biting an apple, but he punctuates it with throaty laughter and big grins. Only Ahmed speaks English, often in the form of arrogant advice. “You shouldn’t drink cold water. Is not good for you.” He wears a pale-blue boubou — a large sheet folded and stitched, with holes for the head and arms — and a black turban. In contrast, Georges is in trousers and a simple button-up, his head left bare. Whether due to race, class, dress, or role — he, the guide, versus Georges, the driver — Ahmed swans about with an air of presumed authority. By the third day it will become wearisome, just as my gulps of chilled water become increasingly defiant.
​
Leaving Nouakchott after only a single day, we head inland, climbing up zigzagged escarpments to the Saharan plateau. Ahmed keeps a sheaf of paper close at hand, photocopies of my passport to be handed out at each security checkpoint. By the time we reach the town of Atar, a bird-wise distance of 250 miles, he has handed out the last sheet and we stop to print up a new batch. I feel like a minor celebrity, my face and birth date spread among the country’s outposts like tabloid gossip. Perhaps I should sign the pages with fluid sweeps of a wide-tip marker. To Mohamed — Love your country! XOXO. I stick to a polite smile as the guards give a cursory glance. Most of them seem bored and indifferent, each day consisting of the same small hut, the same collection of papers, the same comings and goings of trucks and wind gusts.
Along these broad stretches of desert, the scenery shifts from white to gold to rust and back again, per the whims of whichever minerals have gathered in the sand. The breeze scatters the unsettled land across the road, the asphalt vanishing and reappearing under ribbons of swirling sand, as if infested by phantom snakes who shiver before the onrushing tires. On the car radio, in between static blackouts, electrified African string instruments and alternating male and female choruses play over a rhythm of drums and handclaps. Georges lowers the volume to once again bark at Ahmed, who responds ever knowledgeably, their rapid back-and-forth once again concluded with a smile from Georges. Free of obligations, and even the burden of thoughts, I watch the emptiness rush by outside, speckled with the odd clutch of camels or a wandering goat.
To read the entire chapter and many others, you can purchase the book here.
