Sheer terror

I promised a post.

So a French family was gunned down along Mauritania's main road, followed by the murders of some gendarmes in the north. Al Queda in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for these acts of "terrorism," though they appear to be nothing more than amateurish, cold-blooded murders. Two of those responsible for the tourist slaying were caught in, and extradited from, Guinea-Bissau.

Several months ago, a handful of terrorism suspects were arrested and detained in NKT. They were eventually released because, according to my roommate, Mauritania did not want to spark the ire of al Queda. Now, according to my roommate, they have discovered that at least two of the people involved in the recent garbage were among that earlier group.

This has affected my life only so far as an increased number of police/gendarme checkpoints which take about four times longer to clear. My faith in authority here, as per recent experiences, is scraping bottom. And for the small handful who have not heard the story, several weeks ago the police attempted to arrest me twice in one night.

Okay, the short version. My sitemates ET'ed (early termination), and we went out to celebrate on their final night here. We got a bit sauced at the Chinese restaurant, grabbed a bag of beer to go, and eventually left. Mere steps out of the restaurant, a shitty black sedan pulled up next to me, and a gendarme jumped out, ripped the bag out of my hand, and demanded to know its contents. Everyone else kept walking. Before I could answer, he told me to get in his car. He hadn't even looked in the bag. I laughed, told him there was no way I was going anywhere with him, and proceeded to tell him to give me my bag. He acted dumbfounded at my lack of acquiescence, repeated his demand, and again I laughed and told him to give me my bag. He called backup, and I found myself surrounded by three screaming men in military garb. I continued to laugh at all of them, and in retrospect, I'm slightly amazed that no one touched me. I called my director, told him I was being arrested, and handed the phone to the ranking officer. After a moment, he took the call privately in his truck, and the other two still-screaming men suddenly shut up. I started to ask where the problem had gone in Hassaniya. They ended up giving my bag back.

The second incident was even less. Me and another guy were walking a girl home around 3:00 in the morning. Admittedly, we were being a bit loud, but respect for silence is nonexistent here. A gendarme appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the other guy's wrist. He demanded we come with him to the police station, so the guy ripped his arm from the gendarme's grip and we laughed and kept walking. The gendarme screamed "CIA dogs" at us all the way down the block.

About 50% of the time I'm in a gregarious mood, and quite tolerant of the incredible amount of unnecessary bullshit and rudeness you receive on a daily basis. The other 50% of the time I carry a bit of a chip. I have a tendency to explode on people where at one point I would have walked away. I've spent over a year doing the hypersensitive cultural thing, in which one defaults all tense situations to personal error. But now, when someone gives me a shitty, taped, stapled 200um bill and refuses to accept the exact same bill the next day, I blow up so loudly and immediately that the argument is over before it began. It has made me enemies, and it has made me friends. And I find I'm more often treated with the respect that white people, as a rule, are not.

Hmmm. Not to sound bitter. I feel the need to add the disclaimer, "But I really don't hate this place," to most of my correspondence recently. And it's true; I don't. There are particularly good moments, like being sandwiched between two Moors in the front seat of a Mercedes sedan containing seven adults on a five hour trip through the desert, trying to name all the states in the US with the two guys flanking me while sharing my iPod with the driver, who speeds up noticeably to Justin Timberlake while attempting to sing along to a language in which he knows four words. But I'm more often surprised by poor behavior than especially nice behavior, which makes me think that I still have faith in the general good nature of people.

Allow me to end the ramblings with the promise of more structured post to come, and a shout-out to Kim C., who appeared from what seems like a previous life to brighten my inbox. Also, I've applied for a job in China.

There you go, Kyle.