Part of the Homes/Men/Women in my life....

MOHAMMED ALI AND THE LONGEST TRAIN IN THE WORLD (MAURITANIA)


Well, one cannot miss a chance to have a ride on what boasts to be ‘the longest train in the world’. In California I used to count the wagons of the very long trains in the central agricultural area. My record was 120 wagons. This train is said to be about 3km long. It plies between a town in the desert called Zouerat where iron ore is extracted and its own
port in Nouadhibou and the journey lasts 17 hours.
After I had bought my ticket in the bare dessert area a tall young men presented himself as my ‘protector’. Wearing an elegant brown, full-length robe and a black turban around his head with only the eyes exposed, it was the look to turn one weak at the knees! (Sorry, Peter O’Toole). He said his name is MOHAMMED ALI and that he lived in both France and Mauritania. He had a haughty, commanding air and told me that he knew who the well-known thief was among the passengers who were gathered under the only shade besides the bare rail tracks. But he assured me that I would be looked after. Did I say I was weak at the knees? My saviour!
The train finally arrived and I was overwhelmed by the sight and sound of this incredibly long and hissing ‘monster’ from no-where slowly passing us and nine minutes later, coming to a shuddering halt. I had counted 144 wagons plus the two front engines and the end carriages, one of which was a passenger coach.

The subsequent melee to climb the high step into the coach was exhilarating if not a bit frightening. Everyone with a free arm was grabbing, pushing and slapping his or her way onto the narrow steps. Combined with bags, baskets, suitcases, 5-liter bottles of water, all manner of plastic containers, babes in arms, it was worse than any flight from a menacing monster. I doubt if Hollywood could recreate it and Michael Palin certainly did not experience it!

In all of this my saviour managed to get my rucsac passed over and demanded there and then that I give him the equivalent of 1/3 of the train fare for “protection”. How could I refuse in all that chaos? Protection was not mentioned again and as I was in a compartment with mainly women and children and endless pieces of luggage stacked in every nook and cranny, blatant thieving would have been impossible. Anyway, at night, as there are no lights, there is a watchman who patrols the carriage and MA never came near our compartment. While trying to find luggage space on the rack above my seat, the train begins to move and I hear the lady behind me, dressed in traditional clothes, talking in Arabic. I assume it is to her son, but I turn around and I’m back in London: “hello dear, the train is leaving and its only just over an hour late. See you in 17 hours. Put the kettle on”. The mobile phone is everywhere! And then she lit a cigarette… Later I show her son my Japanese fan. To him it is magic and he hides his head under his mother’s arm for ages, afraid I might produce more magic. And of course, my white skin is off-putting…and later I show him how to soften an orange and turn it into a “drink”. He is delighted-- but scorns my paper cut-out magic.

The carriage windows are uniformly either permanently stuck up or down, mostly crazed, so filthy that one cannot see through them or totally missing.
The 6-seat compartment in which I settled, was one of the best: remnants of the original velour remained on the backs and some of the foam seats were still partly covered by tatty pieces of cloth. Others are well-worn one-square pieces to protect one’s posterior from the erupting springs and hard wood dividers. That night, on the lurching and bucking train (empty iron ore wagons) I nearly cracked all my ribs on one of the divides as I tried to sleep across two seats.

During the evening, M A removed his turban and his exposed face lost its mystery.
He came into the compartment and helped himself to my oranges without a
‘s'il vous plait' and I began to feel distinctly ‘taken over’. I could never manage a conversation with him and I began to realise that his French is limited, despite his boast that he lived in France. On another occasion, when he was giving me a ‘tourist ride’ I asked “pourquoi ici les voitures roulent a gauche?"- to me so
obviously “why must vehicles drive on the left side of the road?” He did not understand the question and made no attempt to explain anything. However in the train I
managed to communicate in sign language and when we arrived in Zouerat, the taxi to town cost 400 each rather than the 300 each I had been told about by others. Naturally, MA took this money from me and I later learnt to observe him silently pocketing the difference every time I paid for something.

We took another taxi to his ‘home’, but I never found out the relationship to him and assumed the women were ‘sisters’. The women were very understanding and accepted me without question. I was exhausted and had a delightful scrub in a hamam with one of the girls, but by the end of the day MA had summoned me for various projects and we had 11 taxi rides in all, which of course meant that I paid for both of us every time. In most of Africa, taxis charge by the person and never seem to move unless there are 7 adults in them and the luggage spaces are impossibly crammed. None of the taxis have a smooth section of paneling and most doors do not work unless someone closes/opens it from the outside.

In the evening, just before sunset, we took a taxi to the nearby oasis/mining town. We followed the range of iron-ore-filled mountains to our left with the setting sun straight in front of us. The hills are cruelly scarred by years of mining. When one thinks of the daily train load of about 150 wagons filled with ore, you can imagine the way the hills have been reduced. And it is here that traffic has to drive on the left of the road. Why? The village we visited is a typical broad-street oasis town and I enjoyed walking around and watching the setting sun whilst MA went off to do his usual mysterious activity. Our taxidriver back was resentful as no other users appeared and we eventually left in the dark with a half-load.

The following day I decided to return on the full train to a place where I could get a taxi to Atar in the desert. MA insisted on accompanying me to the train station. By this time I was fed up with his insistence and told him that I could get a taxi on my own. He said he had no money and I was not sympathetic. I had paid the women for my hospitality and he did not like that. Much later, he was seen on one of the ore wagons where people can ride for free. He was in jeans and just another youth……