MAURITANIA

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The Desert and the Drum, written by Mbarek Ould Beyrouk and translated by Rachael McGill, tells the sad story of Rayhana, a Bedouin teenager who lives with her mother and their tribe in a camp in the desert. Her father left the family when she was six years old, angry because of his wife’s deference in all things to her brother, the chief.

Rayhana’s life is happy enough, and she has a circle of friends with whom she spends her free time. One day, an itinerant mining crew sets up camp near Rayhana’s tribe. The Bedouins are uneasy about having them nearby, and the chief tells them not to go near the miners. According to Rayhana, “We closed our eyes to them because, deep down, we were ashamed we had allowed their presence to be imposed on us, ashamed of our failure to understand it, to confidently accept or reject it.”

This seems very much like the way Rayhana would feel later, when one of the miners, Yahya, starts spending time with Rayhana and her friends and begins a flirtation with Rayhana. She enjoys the attention, but is horrified when he sneaks into her tent at night while her mother sleeps nearby. She is afraid to say anything, since she knows that she will be blamed, and ends up quietly letting him do as he pleases. One day, the mining crew leaves without a word, and Yahya disappears from Rayhana’s life.

He has left her pregnant, a fact that enrages her mother when she finds out. Her mother ensures that no one else in their tribe finds out by sequestering Rayhana far away until after she has given birth. Rayhana bonds with her baby boy, Marvoud, but then her mother gives him to someone else to raise. She and Rayhana go back to their tribe, and when Rayhana tries to find her baby later, she discovers that her mother has taken him somewhere else. In her anger, Rayhana steals her tribe’s sacred drum and heads off into the desert alone in search of her son.

Rayhana’s travels take her first to the town of Atar, and later to the capital city, Nouakchott. In both places, life is very different from her desert existence with her tribe. For most of the book, it feels as though everything is taking place in the distant past, so it’s a shock when cars and cellphones suddenly make an appearance. Rayhana adjusts the best she can, but she also has to cope with the knowledge that members of her tribe are looking for her and the tribal drum, and that they won’t stop until they find her.

Throughout The Desert and the Drum, I hoped for a happy ending for Rayhana, as her journey took her from carefree young girl, to the plaything of an unscrupulous man, to devoted mother, and finally to a fugitive from her tribe because of the stolen drum. As she says toward the end of the book, “Their pain was nothing to mine. They’d lost a drum; an object was no longer in its proper place. I had a crater in my soul. Only reunion with my child would fill the void.”

COOK

It was tough to find a recipe for a Mauritanian dish that I could veganize. Beignets are mentioned in several places throughout The Desert and the Drum, but not the Café Du Monde powdered sugar kind that we’re used to. The Mauritanian beignets are served with a spicy sauce made with “onion, garlic, tomato puree, pepper and salt,” but I couldn’t find a recipe for them online. Apparently camel and goat are staples of the Mauritanian diet, but as far as I know, no one is making vegan versions of those meats yet (although I saw a vegan lamb burger on the menu at a local restaurant recently). Finally, I found a recipe for Coconut Pepper Steak on the “What’s Cooking in your World?” blog, and decided I could veganize that.

I took a lot of liberties with this recipe. For the skirt steak, I substituted Gardein b’ef tips, and I used vegetable bouillon instead of beef bouillon. I couldn’t conceive of any way to deconstruct a coconut that didn’t involve hurting myself, so I bought a carton of coconut water and a package of Trader Joe’s dried, lightly-sweetened coconut strips, then rinsed off the top layer of sugar. And I couldn’t find corn flour, so I used coconut flour to thicken the sauce, since coconut was already part of the recipe anyhow. When I was done, I had a tasty enough dish, albeit a little too spicy, but I’m sure it bore no resemblance to anything that’s ever been eaten in Mauritania. Oh, well… 

GIVE

Although Mauritania faces severe consequences due to climate change, I couldn’t find a way to donate to any organization addressing that problem. GlobalGiving listed only one Mauritanian project on their website, but it was a good one – helping to educate 120 girls.

According to the project description, only 42 percent of females in Mauritania are literate. “Girls are restricted to chores inside the home as ‘house servants.’ This prevents them from attending school and developing the skills they need to succeed in life and understand their rights.” This program will provide a “dance program, which develops 7 cognitive & life skills – such as memorization, discipline, creativity – needed for success in school and life. The girls will receive 3 additional services to change their lives: sponsorship in formal education, psychosocial counseling, and nutritional support, enabling the girls to develop confidence, academic readiness, & the sustained ability to make positive life decisions”

More information about this project is available at: Educate 120 Girls in Mauritania - GlobalGiving.

 

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