Coups are for lovers

august 6, 2008 marked the day of a coup d'état in mauritania, west africa. non-violent, much like the one in 2005, the first democratically elected president (Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi) and his prime minister were taken from their homes and are now in the custody of General Muhammad Ould 'Abd Al-'Aziz and his military supporters.

when we heard news of the coup, i was already in nouakchott, the capital. i came in a few days early for what was supposed to be our mid-service training (one of the few opportunities we have in such a large, sparsely populated country to see everyone in our training class in the same place at the same time (and it ended up being cancelled)). sala, my site mate, got a text from one of our friends who works for the UN that essentially said, "lie low, there's been a coup."

we called our safety and security officer to confirm or deny and were told to stay in our hotels until further notified. a half bag of skittles and a quarter of a bad elijah wood movie later (Try Seventeen, also starring Mandy Moore and that chick from Run Lola Run) we got an update that we could leave to get food if we stayed within a few blocks of the hotels.

we, naturally, went for hamburgers.

our opportunities for iron and protein intake are generally few and far between, so without a second's hesitation, we each ordered a "menu burger": miscellaneous meat patty, ketchup, mayo, cheese, mystery sauce, and fries (at least the colonization of west africa by the french paid off somehow) on a soggy-ish bun. oh, and i almost forgot-- the egg. god, i love the europeans.

hunkered down in a restaurant, scarfing down burgers --i used to be a vegetarian-- we felt no sense of urgency, no threat. even moments before, walking down the street in broad daylight, occasional truckloads of Sidi supporters or otherwise yelling and honking to display their discontent or excitement, we felt very much at ease.

post-burger we stopped at a mini-mart/ corner store to buy supplies in case we got stuck in the hotel: cokes, juice, snacks, Smacks breakfast cereal, milk, bananas, crackers, and water. we were set.

back to the hotel, a mere three blocks from the bank we saw earlier on tv with all the military and their guns guarding outside it. and what the first thing we did when we got to hayley's room?

we made smores.

marshmallows she brought back from her vacation home to america on the ends of bobby pins, cooked over a black cherry- scented candle and melded with hershey's (and mauritanian) chocolate on a graham cracker-ish cookie. i think my standards of taste have definitely been lowered after being here for a while, but that legitimately might've been the best smore i've ever eaten. Al humdililah.

fast forward through a nap, shower, music, drinks, and general goofing off until nighttime. any place you can get alcohol here is generally closed by around 11:30 pm, so most evening need to be started pretty early by american standards. by the time we got to shenker's, a bar reserved solely for ex-pats, it was maybe only 9:00.

a beer here, even bottom of the line, costs 1,500 ouguiya (=$6 US), which is roughly my daily salary on a peace corps budget. so i was at a one beer max, nursing the same leff for an hour and a half. i had struck up a conversation with a twentysomething scotsman i had spoken with the night before. he was working on an oil rig off the west coast of mauritania, and would be in nouakchott for just a few weeks. a good red beard and a good conversationalist, we chatted until they started to shut down the bar.

he walked me to the door (the gentleman!) and when we got to the door he gave me a sweet, very nice, very respectful, goodnight kiss (don't worry mom).

the other pc volunteers and i caught cabs back to the hotels, got into beds with real mattresses and amazing pillows in air conditioned, quiet rooms and we let our minor beer buzzes lull us into a fitful sleep.


if there's one thing mauritania does well, it's a relaxed, non-violent overthrowing of the government. and if every coup d'état includes a burger, smores, a warm shower, beer, and a goodnight kiss, well then, i think that's pretty alright.