Desert mysteries revealed

on the mat vi Sabualla

Some realizations about the desert:

1. Sand. It is everywhere, on everything, in every orifice and pocket and bag. As a result, “clean” is a ridiculously relative term. As is “stinky.” I find my tolerance for odd (read: ripe) smells increasing daily (I apologize in advance to Frances and any other olifactorily sensitive readers…). Rule of thumb: if I can shake it out, flick it off or ignore it, it’s wearable/usable/clean.

2. Ants. Ants serve an invaluable service in the desert: they eat what I won’t. More often than necessary, my mom Teitta gives me a handful of camel biscuits (think animal crackers but rounder, crunchier, drier, blander). I am chronically overfed so the biscuits are secretly stashed for later. Typical destinations include the folds of a paisley bandana, my daily head covering of choice. Or between the sandy fabric of a Peace Corps-issue matela and a pile of letters I can’t send home because the post office in the regional capital closed. Or an already-tattered courier bag (good purchase by the way, Ma’am) over stuffed with Hassaniye dictionaries and unreliable Mauritanian pens. Or, rarely, in a dusty corner on the cement floor of my room. Inevitably, though, the biscuits reach their final destination: often not my belly, but that of a resourceful ant. When I first arrived in Sabualla, I greeted ants with the bottom of my shoe. Now, I welcome them in my home, my bandanas, my book bag. Eat those camel biscuits you persistent little nmil (ants). Thanks to you, I’ll neither stockpile cookies, nor suffer the stench of rotting food: a fair trade-off in the communal desert routine of Mauritania.

3. Ishshems. Or, sunlight. The sun here baffles me. At its most direct, it does not burn. It heats my body to feverish levels but also cools my water bottle (akin to July 3rd entry re: makeshift air conditioning). It warms the stagnant Saharan air but creates fierce jet streams and cooling thunderstorms. Prominent as it is in the natural landscape, there is no Hassaniye word for “sun;” instead they name the sunlight shems (likewise, they name the moonlight qamal but not the moon). If the Inuit have dozens of names for snow, you’d think sahelian nomads would christen the flaming ball of fire that makes the desert The Desert. Instead, I find myself riding through the desert under a sun with no name… [trails off into song]