27.08.06 - 16:52

Here's a random tidbit from my trip to Atar a couple of months ago:

I was traveling to Tawaz on taxi brousse along with two volunteers - Alexis and Alison - and a sweet Pulaar lady, who was one of Alison's colleagues. As usual, I was listening to my mini-disc player. My headphones were the earbud sort, so I offered an earphone to the Pulaar lady so that she could listen as well. It was a perfunctory gesture, but to my surprise, she accepted.

We listened to some Coldplay songs. It was incredibly surreal, watching the crumbling mud-brick buildings pass us as we bumped down the road, listening to some angst-ridden British guy singing alongside a sullen guitar, sharing it all with a magenta-attired Mauritanian woman.

After a few minutes, I began to translate the songs for her. "See, he really loves this girl, but now their relationship is breaking apart and he's really sad. He wishes it could begin all over again." She just nodded with a blank, but serene face. I wondered what she was thinking. Did the love-lost theme resonate with her, or in a world of marriages of obligation, did she think the singer's pain minor and fleeting? Had she ever felt what he felt? Did she love her husband? All sorts of roadblocks to my really knowing her, things upon which I place value and, probably, she doesn't as much.

Just this one little moment, crystalized, and then she gave my headphone back and it was gone. The world was once again mundane, and I wasn't reading meaning into anything.

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