Trying to get out of the Oasis
Day 4
Thurs July 21st
Start: Terjit
Mid: Terjit
End: Terjit
Time to explore the region! Both Nate and Erika are geographers from school and Erika is also a geologists. We climbed passed the rocks to the oasis and higher into the outer region to look down. Erika told about what she could tell from the rock patterns of the formation of this region while Nate gave a geography lesson of desert geography. The dunes we could see in the distance with Erika explaining their shapes and how they form. I have an interesting picture of Nate holding his GPS unit to figure out the coordinates of Terjit, while Erika is holding my compass with a hand glass to identify rock crystals. Following the scientific route I began to throw rocks.
“What are you doing?”
“Throwing rocks.”
“Why?”
“Gravity!”
Although it was joke, there is a deep implication of inertial mass (the mass you feel when you push something) to gravitational mass (the mass you feel when the object falls). To this day no one can prove they are the same! Even Einstein had to assume it to get his General Relativity theory. I began dropping rocks down the cracks of the boulders and watching the interactions: it falls, it bumps into a bigger rocks that inertial mass, then it falls again, gravitational mass. They should be equal, but can it be proved? I think so.
For a few hours we hiked up the boulders getting higher and higher. At the top the oasis could be covered up by your hand. Looking around you feel you were in Arizona or some other rocky place. Except for the occasional camel you saw in the distance.
A French family was also hiking the cliffs and their guide pointed out a snake. We each took a picture of it and just watched it for a while. It never moved. The French family did, they moved on, but the snake did not. Was it dead? Don’t know. We didn’t want to take pictures of a dead snake that’s nothing impressive. With a very good distance away I threw small pebbles around it. Nothing. On the last pebble it snapped up and struck the small pebble coming at it, a good fifteen feet from us. It’s alive. We left and headed back down.
We had a problem to figure out, of when to leave and how. We wanted to make it to Atar, which was about an hours drive north. The only cars going there were coming from Nouakchott and it would take all day to reach the intersection. If we reached the intersection by around 3pm that would give us enough time to catch a driver going to Atar. We had a few volunteers living in Atar which we had contact information for from the Mauritanian Peace Corps office, so finding a place to sleep wouldn’t be problem.
With a few hours of doing laundry by hand, and waiting for them to dry, we decided to leave the oasis today and try to reach Atar by nightfall. Patrick assisted in the money transaction to paying for the night’s stay and walked with us to the village right outside the oasis (which actually is Terjit, but most people know the oasis as Terjit).
In the village, as Patrick is trying to buy cigerattes, Nate’s talking to the truck drivers, the village children and women are distracting Erika and I by putting Henna tattoos on her hand, to go through our bags. They didn’t get very far as Nate rushed over and grabbed them. Only the top of one bag was partially opened.
In the distance we saw a storm approaching and was wondering what to do. We could either take cover and lose possible transportation out of town, or wait alongside the road for transportation but get soaking wet. Erika convinced us to go inside. The wind started blowing harder and the sand blew in our face like tiny needles. I had to look down, while having one hand covering an ear and because of the wind had to walk at an angle else I go with the wind. The sand-storm was blowing in people’s houses and our entire bags were covered with dirt and so were faces.
It started raining as we were heading back to the village from the road. We took cover behind some guy’s house which had corrugated roof and every drop could be heard. The roof was held open by pieces of wood. In the corner we had our lunch: Sardine sandwiches and Twizzlers. A few minutes later we heard commotion and followed the Mauritanian village men outside. Nate and I watched as a water flowing down from the plateaus was reaching the village. A small river was being formed right in front of us. We took pictures before going back to the shelter.
Fifteen minutes more commotion. Another river had formed on the other side of the village and the two were now combining to forma small flash flood. All the men were running around with shovels to the meeting point. I raced up a small hill to take a few pictures. On top of the hill were women watching the men and when they saw my camera they did the opposite of what they usually do if men were around. They showed their faces, smiled, and asked for the pictures taken. I took a few of flood and then a few more of the women next to their straw-and-mud huts. In one hut every single woman came out and stood in a line to have their picture taking in the rain.
My camera broke. It wouldn’t shut, the lens was exposed to the elements and I had to hold it tight so no rain or sand could get in. When I got back to the shelter even Nate and Erika couldn’t close the lens, they couldn’t rotate the dial to close it. Eventually, after hours of playing with it I got the dial to rotate using my leatherman as leverage. Going back and forth I was able to get the gears working again and the sand out. But for a day or so every time I wanted to take a picture I needed to pull out the swiss army knife and use the ice pick to rotate the dial to turn it on. The camera is fine now.
When the rains stopped we went back to a small hotel which a fifteen year old boy was running, well, more correctly, had the keys to. We figured out a price by writing in the fresh wet sand which the kid eagerly agreed. We wanted dinner for three and mattresses to sleep on for one night. Agreed. In the middle of the compound there was a big storage room which we felt was the best place to sleep. The rooms were too stuffy and outside it would rain. They brought big mats down for us to lay on, and even mattresses that were wet. The pillows were only half-wet. With only having a sardine-sandwich that day we ate all but three bites of the food bowl they put in front of us. These food bowls are big enough for a whole family and us three ate it all. The kids finished it up and locked us in.
We couldn’t get out. The compound was locked from the outside, although we could walk around. We suspect it was more a security concern for them, but we wanted some drinking water from the shop around the corner.
The sleeping arrangement was settled: A burrito. Our bags would be the meat and we would be the toppings. The mat was long enough to wrap around all of us, so we all three laid down with all of our bags to my right and I grabbed the other end of the mat and passed it down. Peace Corps Burrito.
We were cold, wet, but full from food. We went to bed at eight o’clock.
Thurs July 21st
Start: Terjit
Mid: Terjit
End: Terjit
Time to explore the region! Both Nate and Erika are geographers from school and Erika is also a geologists. We climbed passed the rocks to the oasis and higher into the outer region to look down. Erika told about what she could tell from the rock patterns of the formation of this region while Nate gave a geography lesson of desert geography. The dunes we could see in the distance with Erika explaining their shapes and how they form. I have an interesting picture of Nate holding his GPS unit to figure out the coordinates of Terjit, while Erika is holding my compass with a hand glass to identify rock crystals. Following the scientific route I began to throw rocks.
“What are you doing?”
“Throwing rocks.”
“Why?”
“Gravity!”
Although it was joke, there is a deep implication of inertial mass (the mass you feel when you push something) to gravitational mass (the mass you feel when the object falls). To this day no one can prove they are the same! Even Einstein had to assume it to get his General Relativity theory. I began dropping rocks down the cracks of the boulders and watching the interactions: it falls, it bumps into a bigger rocks that inertial mass, then it falls again, gravitational mass. They should be equal, but can it be proved? I think so.
For a few hours we hiked up the boulders getting higher and higher. At the top the oasis could be covered up by your hand. Looking around you feel you were in Arizona or some other rocky place. Except for the occasional camel you saw in the distance.
A French family was also hiking the cliffs and their guide pointed out a snake. We each took a picture of it and just watched it for a while. It never moved. The French family did, they moved on, but the snake did not. Was it dead? Don’t know. We didn’t want to take pictures of a dead snake that’s nothing impressive. With a very good distance away I threw small pebbles around it. Nothing. On the last pebble it snapped up and struck the small pebble coming at it, a good fifteen feet from us. It’s alive. We left and headed back down.
We had a problem to figure out, of when to leave and how. We wanted to make it to Atar, which was about an hours drive north. The only cars going there were coming from Nouakchott and it would take all day to reach the intersection. If we reached the intersection by around 3pm that would give us enough time to catch a driver going to Atar. We had a few volunteers living in Atar which we had contact information for from the Mauritanian Peace Corps office, so finding a place to sleep wouldn’t be problem.
With a few hours of doing laundry by hand, and waiting for them to dry, we decided to leave the oasis today and try to reach Atar by nightfall. Patrick assisted in the money transaction to paying for the night’s stay and walked with us to the village right outside the oasis (which actually is Terjit, but most people know the oasis as Terjit).
In the village, as Patrick is trying to buy cigerattes, Nate’s talking to the truck drivers, the village children and women are distracting Erika and I by putting Henna tattoos on her hand, to go through our bags. They didn’t get very far as Nate rushed over and grabbed them. Only the top of one bag was partially opened.
In the distance we saw a storm approaching and was wondering what to do. We could either take cover and lose possible transportation out of town, or wait alongside the road for transportation but get soaking wet. Erika convinced us to go inside. The wind started blowing harder and the sand blew in our face like tiny needles. I had to look down, while having one hand covering an ear and because of the wind had to walk at an angle else I go with the wind. The sand-storm was blowing in people’s houses and our entire bags were covered with dirt and so were faces.
It started raining as we were heading back to the village from the road. We took cover behind some guy’s house which had corrugated roof and every drop could be heard. The roof was held open by pieces of wood. In the corner we had our lunch: Sardine sandwiches and Twizzlers. A few minutes later we heard commotion and followed the Mauritanian village men outside. Nate and I watched as a water flowing down from the plateaus was reaching the village. A small river was being formed right in front of us. We took pictures before going back to the shelter.
Fifteen minutes more commotion. Another river had formed on the other side of the village and the two were now combining to forma small flash flood. All the men were running around with shovels to the meeting point. I raced up a small hill to take a few pictures. On top of the hill were women watching the men and when they saw my camera they did the opposite of what they usually do if men were around. They showed their faces, smiled, and asked for the pictures taken. I took a few of flood and then a few more of the women next to their straw-and-mud huts. In one hut every single woman came out and stood in a line to have their picture taking in the rain.
My camera broke. It wouldn’t shut, the lens was exposed to the elements and I had to hold it tight so no rain or sand could get in. When I got back to the shelter even Nate and Erika couldn’t close the lens, they couldn’t rotate the dial to close it. Eventually, after hours of playing with it I got the dial to rotate using my leatherman as leverage. Going back and forth I was able to get the gears working again and the sand out. But for a day or so every time I wanted to take a picture I needed to pull out the swiss army knife and use the ice pick to rotate the dial to turn it on. The camera is fine now.
When the rains stopped we went back to a small hotel which a fifteen year old boy was running, well, more correctly, had the keys to. We figured out a price by writing in the fresh wet sand which the kid eagerly agreed. We wanted dinner for three and mattresses to sleep on for one night. Agreed. In the middle of the compound there was a big storage room which we felt was the best place to sleep. The rooms were too stuffy and outside it would rain. They brought big mats down for us to lay on, and even mattresses that were wet. The pillows were only half-wet. With only having a sardine-sandwich that day we ate all but three bites of the food bowl they put in front of us. These food bowls are big enough for a whole family and us three ate it all. The kids finished it up and locked us in.
We couldn’t get out. The compound was locked from the outside, although we could walk around. We suspect it was more a security concern for them, but we wanted some drinking water from the shop around the corner.
The sleeping arrangement was settled: A burrito. Our bags would be the meat and we would be the toppings. The mat was long enough to wrap around all of us, so we all three laid down with all of our bags to my right and I grabbed the other end of the mat and passed it down. Peace Corps Burrito.
We were cold, wet, but full from food. We went to bed at eight o’clock.
posted by Mike | 4:24 PM
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