fishermen

this. this is a fishing expedition. or, really, an expedition of mine to find the fishing port of nouakchott. i found it, and was delighted by its noise. and colour. and madness.

the objective was to unload the boats as fast as possible. to use the vessels as wave breakers and to shield the waiting crowd.

the men, dressed against inevitable wetness, carried the fish uphill. up over the sand. from sea to ancient pickup trucks. children - those brave and blessed with height - followed the men, waiting for lapsed attention.

and in between balancing - measuring what was required to bridge sea and truck, traversing the return, swatting those daring, reaching children - their free hands stretched upwards. 

pocketing silver for themselves, 

those wet fish men.

towards the light

between the first and second police van it is possible to discern a peaceful crowd of protesters. the vans are charging the crowd.

this is difficult to see, though not to imagine.

rock throwing, tunisia

i thought about trying to revisit the revolution.

to assess, somehow, what the passage of time had done, or revealed, or not. either way.

there were snippets of conversations - in a car, in a cafe, with a taxi driver.

but somehow it was all a little vague, a sense of wondering, of waiting, of not yet, of soon and shortly and nearby.

so we passed the afternoon throwing rocks at the sea,

though i never did see the splash

where are my glasses

george, how long have you been in this shop?

how old are you?

thirty

take that and add sixteen years, that’s how long…

<click>

what the fuck is wrong with my glasses?

they are my glasses

i thought my glasses were fucked

and we both laughed

cliff hanger

this is the third and final car that i found. all abandoned in the most unlikely of places. all of them driven off cliffs. 

the first two were in such remote locations that they would have been driven off-road for considerable distance before plunging to their final resting places. it was at least obvious, with this third car, where the road was.

it struck me that it would have been far easier to simply drive the cars into the forest and set them on fire.

but here, the car is king.

far, far away

we shared two cigarettes and talked.

talked about justice, talked about language, and talked about honour. we talked about culture and exile and longing for home.

and a longing for a place that you left twenty-five years ago. and a longing for a place that lies beyond reach. and a longing, a longing for justice. 

mostly, i just listened.

music by sivan perwer, from his album xezal xezal

stare xiii

abu rami. ex-army, semi retired, carpark attendant ; smokes a pipe, cheeky smile, office covered in graff. lucky bastard.

hybrid bike

it went like this:

cool bicycle (using the formal arabic word for bicycle)

huh?

your bike, it’s cool. what is it called?

cycle. it’s called cycle (the name for bicycle in omani arabic)

it’s cool

thanks

how did you make it?

well, i took a big new cycle, then changed the front so it would be smaller

yeah

then i got iron added (a strip of iron wrapped around the back tire which makes an awesome noise when you drift the bike), then i painted it white, then i changed the colour and then i changed the handle bars

cool. i’ve never seen a cycle like this in all my life. it’s the coolest cycle ever

yeah (lit. ‘normal, normal’)

he rides off - almost hitting another cyclist - and drifts around the corner…

watch out!

yeah (‘normal, normal’)

and that my friend, is how you drink the jabana in kassala

an incense burner, a bowl of sugar, a thimble sized coffee cup, a clay coffee pot filled with ginger spiced coffee (jabana), on a plastic stool, on a crazy angle, beautiful granite mountains as the backdrop and a fucking plate of popcorn.

that’s all. 

so did anything happen here during the revolution?

no, not really. i got drunk the night before and was still drunk in the morning when my friends woke me to tell me the news. that mubarak had stood down.

what did you do?

i ran out into the main square screaming obscenities against the government, but everyone told me to go back inside. 

and?

that was it. except that night, a crowd gathered outside one man’s house and they demolished the front of the house.

the front of his house?

the council had wanted to widen a particular road for a very long time, and all the other houses had agreed, so everyone had demolished the front of their own homes. except one man, he wouldn’t agree. 

that night everyone came and demolished the front of the house for him. and now the road is wider. 

that’s what happened here during the revolution.

—

see this, this demolished room? this room we are sitting in?

yes.

the muslims came at night and destroyed it, during the night of the revolution.

why did they destroy it?

they destroyed it because i am the only christian man in this town, and they want me and my family to leave. they thought i wanted to build a church, but i don’t. they thought that they could scare me.

are you scared?

only from god. they don’t scare me, and i won’t leave.

and now, what will you do?

now? 

now.

now, i sell cigarettes from this room.

this demolished room.