I am being received,
yet again,
with extending hospitality and this time I feel guilty; it is too much, it is overwhelming;
yes,
I am grateful and humbled but
I curse it too.

Why is this, out of all things, so hard? Why is it that sometimes, receiving is harder than asking?

…

The train rolled into Choum at dawn. After having clung to the edge of the carriage for what must have been an hour, marvelling at the sandy dawn, I packed my things, anticipating, scared I would not get off in time, scared the train wouldn’t stop. I sloppily crammed everything into the backpack. The tent was blowing around too much for me to roll and so I shoved the untidy bundle into a plastic bag. I knew we were there from looking at the GPS location. I had felt the train slow down. When I climbed up to look over the edge again I saw people doing the same from the other carriages. Another set of tracks lay to the right of us with carriages loaded with iron ore standing, waiting. In the horizon I saw a long, hazy shape: a plateau. The train was rolling in, slowly slowly.

Men were running between the two tracks, cars with signs saying “ATAR” passed, all were stopping to shout up at me: taxi, taxi, then ran on as I shook my head. The movement stressed me. Inside the moving carriage I hoisted up the bag, heavy, secured the plastic bag with my tent on my arm. I couldn’t hold it all and climb up at the same time. My carriage-mate had woken up and was looking at me, I gestured the plastic bag at him and he took it. I tried carefully my steps on the ladder. I reached the edge and waited. Would the train stop completely, or was this as slow as it would get? With my heart in my throat I swung my legs over.

Don’t look down, don’t image being mangled.

The weight of the bag, my sweat, adrenaline. Finally, somehow, I was on the outside of the carriage, facing my neighbor. He was still looking at me, sharp eyes through the hauli and I saw for the first time how dark his skin was, the shape of his cheekbones and nose. I took the bag from him, thanked and stayed on the ladder, no idea what to do. Through the goggles I couldn’t get a clear sight of the ladder going down or the distance to the ground. The movement of the people below made me feel like I should hurry, convinced me: this was not a real stop and the train only slowed down here in Choum before continuing on to Zouérat. Against all better judgment I made my way down, until the final step. I reached my foot down and met only air. If only I could see the distance to the ground. Trust, hope, I thought. Then threw down the plastic bag and took the step.

…

I haven’t slept, I remind my self, only rattled around in the iron carriage all night so of course everything is harder and will get to me. Now, my imagination shepherds me to familiar ideas of independence and equal exchange;
you should pay for yourself, they whisper.
You should receive gracefully, echoes from the other shoulder, and however I turn I am cornered.

…

The backpack yanked me straight back and I smacked into the ground with a yelp. The train kept moving past as I unfolded my limbs slowly to see if I was hurt. A little pain, but OK. Nothing broken, only chock. I carefully got up and walked back to where my bag had dropped. Then started walking, unsteadily, in the same direction as the train.

A few minutes later the train came to a stop.

People started climbing out from the carriages and packages started making their way out, hands efficiently catching on the ground. I could have waited just a little. When I cast an eye on the ladders I noticed the two lower steps which I had not seen through my goggles and thus missed as I made my way down. The fall could have been lower, too. I sighed, smiled a little, happy that I was all right, and kept walking.

The two trains stood in parallel, two long rows of identical carriages, one full of iron ore. I’d read that one train could be up to three kilometers long, consisting of around two hundred connected carriages. People were making their way between the trains, some traversing the tracks between the carriages but I didn’t dare to try. After a time came the familiar relaying rumble, shuddering through the track. The empty train started moving again. Soon after the other one started in the opposite direction, headed for Nouadhibou. Eventually the tracks were left free.

The sun was just about to rise behind the plateau. I followed the only road, aimless; I had noticed that the cash I had in my pockets was gone. It was cold, windy. I placed my backpack on the ground a short bit from the road, then sat atop it, claiming the first-row view of the sunrise.

…

The money itself is not a problem, really; I don’t know exactly when it was taken but I can assume by whom and I don’t hold a grudge. It’s not even that big of a logistical problem, assuming that in Atar, the next town, there will probably be an ATM. It’s just that… after the weeks of being so kindly kept, I had an idea of being free and independent, moving in a way that made sense to me. Instead I feel… guilty, trapped; unsure what my boundaries are, what I should do.

…

Some children spotted me and came over, their curiosity familiar, and I sighed but put on a happy face; better to be a friendly stranger, no matter how tired. They greeted me and then hung around, not seeming to know what they wanted from me. The oldest girl was pulling her hands tighter into the sleeves of her hoodie and I asked her if she was cold. She agreed that she was. I asked them then if they liked Mauritania and after a few smiles and thumbs up they seemed happy enough to leave me in peace. The sun had come up above the plateau and I closed my so, so tired eyes into it. I could feel my head wanting to lull. A few crows flew above, landed to hop around nearby. Behind a house just next to me I saw a man busy killing a sheep. I watched the process as much as I could while trying not to stare. First, the live sheep led to the table, lying on it, then the throat sliced, (fast), a muffled cry (fruitless), a back leg kicking out. I wondered where the exact point of death was, or if it was a slow transition. If the body kept being alive while the soul-self had disintegrated, or if it was still there, the leg fully aware of its kicking.

I followed the road until it curved. The village ended just two hundred meters or so away, the road opened up, all flat and straight. I sat down again. Three teenagers spotted me this time, made their way towards me, two girls, a younger boy. They stood just a meter or so away, greeted me and lingered. I was polite but uncomfortable as they spoke to each other. One of the girls took up her phone and pointed the camera towards me. I stayed passive until they tired and walked back. Sighed. I knew I should stop loitering and just go to the auberge already, knew that I was awaited and would be received despite not having any cash.

…

And the guilt brings in more guilt, drawn in by strings of association to what has been crossing my mind already.
The guilt of: why am I from a country where this, this trash is not normal? Why did I get to grow up in countries with infrastructures in place to prevent children’s feet from walking bare and being cut by sharp plastics?
The guilt of: what makes me even a worthy guest to begin with? Why was it easy for me to get a passport with which it is easy to travel the world, move this particular body across borders and waters which harvest lives of other bodies?
The guilt of: what trash am I myself leaving for my great-great grandchildren just by living and consuming? Trash which my ancestors did not leave for me?

…

I asked people for directions using my hands and few words. The answeres told by hands, too; the rest flew past my understanding but in a village this small, a general direction is enough. I crossed the tracks again, zig-zagged on the sand roads between the low concrete houses with tin roofs and walls blasted by sand. Choum is very quiet. People were just starting to wake up and move about. I spotted a big Mauritanian flag ahead. That had to be it.

Surrounded by a wall neater then the rest, painted even, the metal door to the compound was open. I folded myself and the backpack through it. Inside was tidy and orderly; a space in the middle surrounded by chairs, small thatched huts lined up along the far wall, a bigger house just to the right with a rooftop terrace and some smaller houses to the left, some thatched, others concrete. It was quiet and empty. I closed the door, metal creaking, then spotted a sink to my right and made my way there, happy to wash my face. When I was done I heard a voice behind me and turned.
“Hello. What is your name?” The man speaking was my age, face soft and smiling. I greeted him.
“We have been waiting for you,” he said. “The train came in hours ago, where have you been?”

He introduced himself as Ali. Later I found him out to be the brother of my friend in Nouakchott. I told him about my wandering and about not having any money on me.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said and invited me into the small house next to the entrance. “Do you want breakfast?”

The floor was covered with a rug and I gratefully took my shoes off and entered into the shade. My eyes adjusted. The TV was on and another man was lounging in a sofa on the far end of the room, scrolling on his phone. He greeted me and resumed. Ali sat down on the floor next to a gas tube with a small kettle and I took off my backpack, then took my seat on a small cushion on the floor and leaned my back to the wall. Ali shot a tray of breakfast-stuff toward me and I gratefully ate the white bread with sweet jam and honey. He prepared and offered me small glasses of sweet-sweet foamy tea, poured from high. I looked around the room. A pile of mattresses reached the ceiling along one of the walls, stuff was filling the shelves along another; I took it to be the staff room and storage, the place where they kept the stuff for their desert tours. My tired muscles softened, the bones seemed to release from all the rattling on the steady ground. The noise from the TV was soothing and I lay down and closed my eyes, just for a moment. In seconds I entered a grateful slumber.

…

“We have a hut prepared for you,” Ali said when I woke up.

I had already offered to pitch my tent in order to not cause trouble (“It’s no trouble,” Ali had assured me) but in the end I received the offer, grateful to be comfortable, to not go through the hassle of pitching and packing and moving things while being so, so tired. We shared lunch and I marveled at the two men effortlessly chucking balls of rice into their mouths while my own rice (I had refused the spoon offered, so this was all on me) mostly landed in my lap and on the floor. It was delicious though. Then I dragged my stuff and my tired self into the shade of the hut, closed the curtain and found my self alone.

The hut was neat, comfy and shaded. Only a small, stray breeze snuck in through the thatched dome, leaving the big wind to roam outside of the compound walls. I took a shower, kicked my dusty clothes into a pile and sprawled, limp on the thick mattress; I can be how I want here. I will be left in peace.

…

I grit my teeth and force relaxation into my self, force to succumb to the feeling of being small, the feeling of injustice, swirling like a rag doll in the forces. My pockets are empty and my mind is full, spinning on loose, pointless threads;

I am doing what I can,
no I am not,
I didn’t put the systems in place,
I am enforcing them, benefiting from them,
I didn’t choose this life,
yes, I did,
what else can I do?

I don’t know.

Rest.

And I do. The heavy blanket protecting bones, bones pressing into exhausted muscles attached to the harsh head hanging limp from the neck, all protected from the light breeze coming in through the straw, the mattress insulating from the ground below, swallowing, sucking all doubts into itself, filtering, emotions sinking, seeping like groundwater down, toward the Earth’s core, it doesn’t matter; sleep is stronger than guilt, than worry, than me. Sleep heals.

…

(This story told in pictures and video.)