Mauritania

Chapter extracts from the first draft

 

I estimated about an hour's daylight as I stood drinking a cold coke outside one of the many general stores of central Atar.

Atar is not an inviting town. The square, featureless cement buildings lined the dusty streets. Scrawny goats fed on bits of paper blown by the hot dry wind. A few old men sat huddled nearby. Wrapped in tattered robes, they watched me suspiciously. A group of grubby kids had already gathered, pestering me with "donnez cadeau".
"Ah, piss off, will you", I said to them, unable to tolerate their chants even for a moment. I was getting to the end of Africa: I was getting tired. I looked at the kids surrounding me. Their hair was matted with dirt, their clothes were in rags and their dark almond eyes teary from being constantly irritated by the dust.

 

Had Africa hardened me so much that I now no longer felt any empathy for these poor little buggers who lived wretched lives in these desert towns? The drought had not only taken their parent's wealth - their goats and camels. But it had also taken their culture, their traditions, and now they were left with nothing. "I'm sorry", I said, more for the lifestyle that the drought had denied them, than as an apology for not giving them a gift. "Cadeaux fini. Voyage in Afrique tres longue", I said, and pointed to the map I had drawn on the side cover of the bike.

 

They all gathered to look, and a small boy traced with his finger, the route I had scratched into the plastic. I had only drunk a little of the coke. I gave the bottle to the boy who hungrily gulped a few mouthfuls of the warm softdrink before it was snatched by an older boy and then by another until a moment later it was finished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

one woman’s motorcycle journey of discovery available late 2012.