This weekend some Nouakchott Peace Corps staff decided to take a trip up to Nouadhibou – which means we finally received our packages. Yesterday we opened them and it was like Christmas. Literally. Favorite items included coffee, Vanity Fair, a book illustrated completely in letter forms called The Serif Faerie (thanks Tim & Amber), dish towels (I know it sounds weird, but these are luxury items Alexa, thanks!), and Christmas ornaments from 2006. The package the ornaments came in was stamped with a November 2006 from London and also with a July 2007 postmark from Nouakchott — I guess it was in some sort of intercontinental purgatory between then. So yesterday I merrily dug through crushed melted Scandanavian Christmas cookies and strung up lights while singing Jingle Bells. Sounds strange, right? It gets stranger.

I had just taken a bite of what I could almost identify as marzipan when the honking started outside. Then the screaming. Then the yelling. And then the exploding. Sam and I rushed to the window. Crowds of people were running in various directions, wiping their eyes on their boubous and mulafas from clouds of tear gas. Off in the distance I could see a herd of people running across the street, a police pickup truck following. The truck then abruptly skidded around the corner, racing toward our apartment with three officers dressed in riot gear holding on in back. Without slowing down, tires squealing, it turned in front of our apartment. The site of the police approaching made everyone scurry inside except for five or six people milling about a public faucet, presumably washing their eyes out. One of the officers in the truck took their stillness as an invitation to throw out another tear gas canister. They didn’t even stop to watch it explode.

Something approximating this scene continued throughout the afternoon, the tear gas growing so thick we could smell it through our closed windows. Police seemed to only escalate the chaos — and we didn’t even know why it was even happening in the first place. Sam and I poured over news sites and kicked ourselves for leaving our cell phones at a fellow volunteer’s house. Meanwhile people were dragging furniture and debris into the middle of the street, then setting it on fire. In response the military surrounded our apartment and we could see the soldiers below loading (rubber bullets? I hope?) their machine guns. Throughout Nouadhibou the sound of exploding tear gas canisters continued, followed by covered heads and frantic running. CNN.com had nothing.

The chaos lasted around 5 hours. Eventually the military seized control of the streets and at sunset the view out my window changed from something I’ve only seen on the news to the usual deserted streets of Nouadhibou during Ramadan. It was time to break fast. I really think the police could’ve held off on the tear gas and just waited until sundown. People gotta eat and I know I’m usually pretty docile after not eating all day.

So what happened? I had my suspicions, all of which were wrong. They weren’t rioting over the US finally releasing a Mauritanian prisoner from Guantanamo Bay who claimed US soldiers had urinated on the Koran. They also weren’t rioting over the forcible deportation of hundreds of Gambian, Senegalese, and Malian transients out of nearby Western Sahara. Nor were they particularly upset about the Moroccan elections. No, this was all started because of – get this – meat. According to locals and Peace Corps, a white moor woman bought meat from a black butcher, and then tried to return it. I guess this insulted the butcher and prompted him to throw the meat at the white moor lady. Fire in the streets and tear gas soon followed. Of course. Somehow I feel this cannot possibly be the entire story. I mean: Meat + Throwing = Tear Gas X Martial Law? What?

Footage to come; we videotaped numerous memorable moments which I hope to edit over Carmina Burana or some other similarly dramatic music. Maybe a Christmas song of some sort. Anyway, my lights look beautiful. Thanks to everyone for the goodies.