Antibiotics, toe-socks, and other delights

As I write from the desert, Jeremy is preparing for his final departure from Amazonia for many months. Just beginning fieldwork myself, I cannot imagine how it must feel to finish. Bravo! It will be a thanks-filled holiday, indeed, this week. After a 5 day series of antibiotics, I am back in good health. The diagnosis by some Cuban doctors working in the camps was an intestinal parasite. Now, as the cold sets in, it seems like everyone in the camps is getting chest and head colds. It is a riot to see people walking around in winter coats, gloves, and hats. It's still getting into the 80s in the day. But I am growing to appreciate the seriousness with which people take bundling up against the sand, sun, and cold and have fully jumped on-board. I have loaded up on all sorts of warm clothes, including head wraps to wear on top of the malafa, long-underwear to wear under your mulafa, and even toe-socks (all the rage here). As Jeremy travels home on Thanksgiving, I will be celebrating anti-biotics and toe-socks with the handful of other Americans living in the camps. I have been self-assigned to take care of the sweets and am in the process of puzzling over possible dessert menus given my very limited access to ingredients here in the camps.

With my body cooperating, I have been able to get more into the rhythm of things here, which I can only describe as simultaneously busy and lazy. There is always something going on (another round of tea to prepare for another round of visitors), and dozens of things to do (pushed back by ever more rounds of tea), but never a particular rush to get things done. In addition to the everyday busy laziness of things here, the past couple of weeks has been filled with special activities surrounding two big visits. One was the short visit of a Human Rights Watch team including my friend, Bill, from New York. They were here to investigate the overall humanitarian situation here as well as some particularly disturbing allegations of slavery in the camps. Slavery was widespread among the Saharawi until the war and the formal eradication of slavery in the new republic. While the team found no evidence of bonded labor, they did find some evidence that former slave families remain constrained in their freedom of marriage and movement by their former owners.
The other big visit was by a set of religious scholars from Minneapolis who came here to meet with some top Algerian and Saharawi imams (religious leaders) here. Although I described both parties of these meetings as "religious," what most impressed me about the conversation was that it was cast not at the level of "religion," i.e. the historical institutions of Christianity or Islam, but at the level of "truth." All of the speakers seemed to talk quite negatively about those who act in the name of exclusive truth (religion), and instead chose to discuss what they believed to be infinite truth. To that end, a large focus of the conversation was on how to live a righteous life in a violent world. What I took from the conversation as someone who is entirely new to "the books" was the following question: How does one live God's truth without alienting other living truths? Quite a remarkable conversation to observe in the middle of the desert. Then again, not at all unusual here...

...unfortunately, Maddy's internet connection timed out here...Blogger saved her work up to this point, and this is Jeremy (hi!) pushing the "publish" button from Santarém. Hope the connection cooperates soon, Maddy...I love you and thank you for the well-wishing as I wrap up here! Beijos.

The Flashlight Maniac

Last week in Castelo de Sonhos, Military Police apprehended a man suspected of being "The Flashlight Maniac," a fugitive murderer who had escaped from a Mato Grosso prison in 2003. The Maniac is alleged to have killed as many as 16 people between 1999 and 2001, and his trademark move was to sneak up on young couples in parked cars, emerging from the woods with only his flashlight. The Maniac would then knock on the window of the car, use the light to temporarily blind one of the passengers, then rip open the door and begin bludgeoning his victims to death.

Rumors have circulated for years that the Maniac was hiding out somewhere around Castelo. The police followed a series of reports to an abandoned goldmine 50 km west of the village, and arrested the suspect without incident.

I took this photo after I interviewed the suspect, who claimed his name was "Josué." Pictured is the flashlight that police found on him in the old goldmine, compared with a photo of a flashlight that the Maniac had used in a 2001 murder. Outside the barracks where I spoke with the supposed "Maniac," a crowd of about 150 Castelo residents were threatening to turn into a lynch mob. "Josué" was eventually removed from the barracks, handcuffed, and spirited off in a Military Police truck to another jurisdiction. I should point out that this only happened after a few people, myself included, pleaded with the police to respect the prisoner's civil rights (he was being held in violation of habeas corpus) and to remove him before the mob invaded the police barracks to kill the suspect.

Another wedding, another stomach bug

Or is it the same old bug from the beginning of my trip that just won't leave me alone?

In any case, since the last wedding (read, goat/camel-meat-eating bonanza) I attended one week ago, the battle against my stomach bug has grown even fiercer. The troubling thing is that I didn't even eat the meat this time (which meant that I got an earful from my new, dear host and friends). Still, my body's rejection of desert meat seems to be the most common explanation for why I've been out on my back for much of the last week. Luckily, I had already made the move into Haha's house and had my own room to crash in. Things with the family have been wonderful. It turns out that in addition to the two small boys I also have two host sisters. I hadn't known about them because neither of them lives at home: onem Hadiga, is in Algeria studying and the other, Mariam, lives with Haha's mother down the road (not uncommon here). All of the kids, including the boys Mustafa and Cory, are very affectionate, even with me. Although everytime I speak to them in Hassaniya, they cannot help but laugh!