In Mauritania, Naomi Schwarz joins other stowaways
on a long-haul railway journey. Photos by Craig Pusey
The first thing Moustafa Tahir does after he boards the train in northern Mauritania is to pour sand in the corner.
Before that, he helps his three travelling companions load the 10m-long empty freight car with their giant sacks of rice, onions and potatoes. They throw them from the sandy trackside up to one of the men waiting inside and then pile the sacks neatly along one wall of the car, alongside the rest of the baggage: boxes of tomatoes, cooking gas canisters and plastic bagfuls of who-knows-what. Then they all climb the slender ladder clinging to the front corner of the car, which is shaped like a lidless shoebox, and hop down into it.
Tahir speedily changes out of his bright blue and yellow jump-suit into dingy jeans and a tired brown shirt. The clothes have made this journey before. So has Tahir, many times. In fact, he undertook the 12-hour trip in reverse to arrive in Nouadhibou on the Atlantic coast this very morning. Two of his travelling companions, Hossein Selmoae and his son Moctar, have been in Nouadhibou longer. Moctar has been ill and this is where the nearest doctor is. The third traveller, Mohammed Sidi, does not discuss the reason for his visit to the city but, like the others, he is heading to the interior to go back to work.
The three men are employed by the mining company that operates the train. It mines iron ore in remote north-eastern Mauritania – a vast country framed by Algeria, Mali, Senegal and Western Sahara – and then transports it to the coast, 75,000 tons a day in three round trips of 700km. The train, once the world’s longest, stretches for 2.5km.
This was the return trip. The train had arrived earlier in the day, unloaded its cargo and was now heading back empty to the mines in Zouerate for another load.
Although iron ore had been offloaded, there is still plenty of unofficial cargo on board the train: people such as Tahir and his travelling companions who are journeying to Zouerate or somewhere along the way. As it happens, this particular group is en route to the small town of Choum, 460km due east from Nouadhibou, where their jobs are based. They have no alternative. Yes, there are highways in Mauritania – if you can call single lane roads ‘highways’ – but not in these parts. Here there is only sand, patchy scrub and a railway track.
The long, clanking train was never intended to carry passengers. The mining company laid the track in the 1960s soon after Mauritania gained independence from France. But as soon as the train started running, people began boarding.
So, as Tahir pours sand in the corner, his friends – now dressed in their own ragged travelling clothes – settle in for the journey. Without a change of clothes, with only two small backpacks and no sacks of food, my friend Theo and I have little in the way of our own supplies. e watch Selmoae lay out a queen-size blanket, now faded to the same rusty pink that leaches off the steel train cars onto everything that touches them. I play with the zip on the plastic case holding the blanket we bought brand new the day before. Our plan was to use it for protection against what we had heard would be biting winds and cold desert night. But, with the afternoon sun baking from above and the heat radiating from the hot metal below, the blanket is not needed yet. I think about spreading it, picnic-style, as Selmoae has done. Then I look at the smooth steel walls of the train car, above shoulder-height, and wonder how in the world I am ever going to climb out.
‘
Please take a seat,’ Selmoae says, gesturing to his faded blanket, as if inviting us into his home. The preparations for our journey are reaching completion and, with a steady rumble broken only by the thunderous crashes of cars straining at their joints, the train is stiffening up its sinews for the long rumble east. Now it is time to settle down to the business of being Mauritanian.
‘I’m going to make tea,’ says Tahir. We realise then why he has poured sand in the corner. On top of it he places charcoal to create a small fire, the sand acting to stop the charcoal rolling around the moving car. Using his body to protect the flames from the whipping wind, he adds tea leaves to the kettle of water and sets it to boil.
Theo and I met up with Tahir and his friends while waiting for the train. We asked to join them so they could tell us when to get off, as we were certain we would fail to recognise our stop in the dead of night – especially as it would be marked only by a sign indicating its distance from the coast. Like the others, Theo and I are travelling to Choum. We are going because it is the train’s closest stop to Atar, a place famed for ancient sites, spectacular sand dunes, date palm groves and relics of colonialism. It is also the jumping-off point for Chinguetti, Islam’s seventh holiest city. We are also travelling for the experience itself; for the chance to see hundreds of kilometres of the Sahara gradually changing colour as the sun sets, and for the thrill of being a stowaway.
When the mining company bosses realised local people were hopping into their freight wagons, they added a passenger car and started selling tickets. Even so, this train is not the Orient Express. Those that pay their way find that the passenger car – and there is only one or two at most, no matter how many ‘seats’ are sold – is a bare bones affair, with wooden benches and holes for windows. ‘There aren’t any bathrooms,’ a local guide had warned us darkly, implying the lack of facilities did not stop people from doing what they had to do.
Taking into account all of the above, many prefer to travel in the iron cars. Not only is it free but, some say, it can be more comfortable.
‘I don’t find it unpleasant,’ Tahir says, as he settles himself in the iron car. ‘I’m used to it. Once I arrive, I’ll take a shower, eat something hot and meet up with my friends. It’s not bad. I’ve ridden in the passenger car sometimes, but with all this baggage,’ he gestures to the assorted jumble, ‘we’d never fit.’
He stands up and tells us to do the same. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘We’re passing a village. There are probably around 60 people living here.’ It seems impossible. All we can see is a small cluster of houses surrounded by a vast tract of sand. It seems there can be nowhere for these villagers to go and nothing for them to do.
‘They’re shepherds,’ Tahir says. ‘And they probably sell cheap cigarettes to Moroccan border guards.’ He sits back down to pour out the sweet, minty tea. ‘Anyway,’ he adds after a moment’s consideration, ‘that village isn’t isolated at all. The train passes through it every day.’
ALL ABOARD
There are no signs, but you can catch the train a few kilometres south of Nouadhibou by a small building next to the roadside at around 3pm. A ticket seller wanders around with one-way tickets for 2,500 ougiya ($10). Alternatively, you can hop into a freight car for free.
The train
This comprises 210 iron cars, three engines, a dozen flatbed cars for transporting vehicles (including yours, for a fee) and other freight. This all adds up to about 2.5km of train stretching out farther than the eye can see. The train that leaves Nouadhibou around 3pm is the only one with a passenger car.
The stop
It takes 12 hours to cover the roughly 460km to Choum. Leaving mid-afternoon means arriving in the dead of night, but you will be met by drivers of 4×4 vehicles waiting to transport passengers to Atar. It takes another four hours on a bad road to reach the town. It costs 2,000 ougiya ($8) a seat, plus baggage fee (negotiable).
In reverse
You can also ride atop the iron (or in the passenger car), from Choum to Nouadhibou. Catch the train at about 6pm.
INSIDE AFRICA
AIRS SATURDAY
AT 18:30 AND
01:30; SUNDAY
AT 15:00 (CET).
