Canadian attacker worked at Algerian gas plant<\/a><\/p>\n \tSo we needed a moment to stop, to experience something different visually and emotionally.<\/p>\n
\tWe needed the fish market.<\/p>\n
\tWhere the Sahara meets the Atlantic<\/p>\n
\tThere are few places in Mauritania where enterprise and enthusiasm are more visible than Nouakchott beach, the shoreline arm of the capital city, teeming with life, human and otherwise.<\/p>\n
\tWe are TV types, of course, so we chose to stand on that Nouakchott fish market at magic hour, the moment when the still-hot sun starts its slide into the horizon.<\/p>\n
\tThe light is delicious. And fishermen seem equally fond of it, as in that moment men pulled in their long wooden pirogues heaving with fish.<\/p>\n
\tThe fish are so plentiful you can see the oversized sardines crowding in the surf. Kids, barely breaking a sweat, bend over and scoop them up with their hands.<\/p>\n
\tWomen cooked up fresh offerings by the surf and strong young boys hauled crates of fish from the boats right to the waiting trucks and cars and off to market.<\/p>\n
\tWe ridiculous outsiders stood slack-jawed at this cacophony of enterprise in front of us.<\/p>\n
\tEasy targets maybe for the curious, and the criminal, unfortunately.<\/p>\n
\tFirst the curious. Kids practically shoved by their parents to stand beside us so pictures could be taken of those of us who looked so out of place.<\/p>\n
\tThere were lots of tiny ones giggling. It’s always a good day when you can hang out with kids.<\/p>\n
\tThen, came the well-dressed man who marched smartly towards us in the sand. I thought for sure I was somehow about to get into trouble for something. It’s usually a safe bet.<\/p>\n
\tTurns out he just wanted to talk, about global politics and the economy.<\/p>\n
\tBetween the noise of the people and the waves and the need to watch for the occasional fish slurping out of a crate all around us, it was hard to keep up with the conversation.<\/p>\n
\tBut it eventually boiled down to a scathing indictment of several countries, Canada included, for appearing to help itself to Mauritania’s wealth while, in his view, giving so little back.<\/p>\n
\t“You can’t even be bothered to have a real embassy here,” he shouted over the din. “You only care about your mines here.”<\/p>\n
\tIt was a half-hour, largely one-sided discussion that would have been equally (or perhaps more) at home at a university.<\/p>\n
\tThen he was off with a hearty wave and a smile. His points made. Again and again.<\/p>\n
\tA wayward BlackBerry<\/p>\n
\tWe decided to head out, too, sufficiently relaxed, maybe too relaxed.<\/p>\n
\tBecause just as we were within eyesight of the car, a swift-fingered soul lifted Stephanie’s BlackBerry and bolted, melting into the crowd.<\/p>\n
\tA pro, like so many pros all over the world. Phone gone, we declared, it happens. But Mauritania had another surprise in store for us.<\/p>\n
\tWe told our tale to one of our local friends who had already performed miracles for us.<\/p>\n
\tWith an outsized look of horror she grabbed her own phone and said “I will fix this.”<\/p>\n
\tBut how do you fix something like that. It is not as if the guy will return the phone, we thought. “Don’t worry, it’s just a phone,” we said.<\/p>\n
\tBut she insisted and made a stunning flurry of ever-louder calls to who knows whom.<\/p>\n
\tBottom line? She found Stephanie’s phone!. She found a guy who knew a guy who had it.<\/p>\n
\tA quick rendezvous in a market and voila. The sim card gone, good battery replaced for a junky one, basically useless to us but it was the phone.<\/p>\n
\t“See!” she said. “We look after our guests in Mauritania”<\/p>\n
\tYes they do.<\/p>\n
\tcbc.ca<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We knew we’d need to take a moment to just stop and soak it all in. For just over a week now, producer Stephanie Jenzer, videographer Ed Middleton and I were in Mauritania on the trail of the Canadian high school students who came to the desert from London, Ont., and found trouble in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azzaman.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azzaman.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azzaman.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azzaman.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azzaman.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azzaman.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azzaman.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azzaman.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azzaman.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Adrienne](\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/gfx\/images\/news\/authorbio\/2013\/01\/29\/adrienne-arsenault140x210.jpg\")
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