12 May 2007 - 18:29
Camels can round-house kick.
Yeah, I didn’t know that either, and I paid for it.
I spent the last three days with our Administrative Officer and the PC CFO from HQ in DC (that’s Peace Corps Chief Financial Officer from Headquarters in Washington, District of Columbia, for the acronym-challenged). George, the CFO, is a great guy, and so is our AO, David, but conversations between the two of them consisted of 40% acronyms (most of which I didn’t know), 40% PC financial jargon (again, Greek to me) and 20% conjunctions and articles, so in between three-way discussions about life as a PCV, politics, religion, and 1000 questions about Mauritania, I spent a lot of time with my mp3 player this week.
Anyways, the three of us went up to the Adrar, site of the vast majority of Mauritania’s tourist traffic, since George wanted to see some of the country. We first headed out to Chingetti, the legendary 7th holiest city of Islam (don’t ask what cities #3-6 are – no one knows), important waypoint on the ancient camel caravan routes of old, and home to many centuries-old manuscripts of Islamic literature. The well-known mosque was less than impressive, but the tour of one of the oldest, largest, and most renowned libraries in the city was very informative and interesting, mainly due to the friendly and knowledgeable tour guide who operates the place.
We spent the third day of our trip, yesterday, at a small box canyon discovered by two Atar volunteers a few miles outside the city, which has a year-round pool of water beneath a waterfall that runs in the rainy season. The 5-km hike into the canyon was entirely along the bed of the seasonal river, covered in boulders, which made for slow going, as most of the rocks were quite large and hard to navigate. But the pond was well-worth the hike – surprisingly clean, despite the fact that the French military use it occasionally as a training site, as evidenced by the zip line over the pond, the finishing point of a ropes course further up the mountain. It was filled with small fish that nibbled at us occasionally and some bizarre freshwater jelly fish that stung a little, but thankfully devoid of crocodiles, unlike the other two ponds I’ve seen in canyons in Mauritania. It’s not often that one has the chance to swim in the middle of the Sahara Desert, but I fully enjoyed the experience – the cold water contrasted nicely with the hot, dry air.
But the main excitement happened en route to the pond. A little ways into the mouth of the canyon, we had passed a herd of camels returning from the water hole. The very last camel in the group was moving much slower than the others, and we soon saw why – its front legs were hobbled together with a piece of rope about six inches wide. This is a common Mauritanian practice, commonly thought to keep one’s camels from wandering too far away, but which actually doesn’t work very well, and is just a mean thing to do to the animals. It makes it hard for the camels to move quickly, which often results in accidents or near-accidents with cars on the road, swerving to avoid camels that can’t run to get out of the way. It’s especially rough on a camel that has to hop along boulders, three-legged race-style, in order to get a drink of water.
So I decided to cut the cord for him so he could walk. After living for two and a half years in very close proximity to these malevolent, smelly, stupid beasts, I should have known better than to try to help this fellow out, but my humanitarian side got the better of me, and I went ahead. Having had some experience with camels, I knew two things about dealing with them – you have to avoid their mouths, which spit and bite, and you should also stay clear of their hind legs, which they kick out like horses do when they are mad. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of the third trick that camels have up their sleeves (hides?) – camels know kung fu. This one in particular, I’m sure, was a kung fu master, and as I approached in my attempt to free him from his fetters, I received a round-house kick to the arm. Wow. What just happened?!? I was more stunned than hurt, even though my arm is still a little sore. The camel, agitated and still bound, continued along, bumbling through boulders. I hope he tripped and bruised his leg as bad as he bruised mine. Jerk.
