An idiot abroad.
Back in '87 or '88, I forget which, while on hols, I illegally crossed the border from Senegal to Mauritania in a clapped out, windowless minibus full of stoned Senegalese musicians.
I think the original intention was to visit some warrior's graves and have a bit of a picnic and do some drumming on a 200 mile long beach before heading back to St.Louis, a large town near the border.
The journey took hours and hours and bloody hours. The driver had asked me earlier if I had a passport of any other form of identity with me; I didn't, I didn't think I'd need them as I had no idea we were about to wander into the kind of place the foreign office advises against visiting and I definitely hadn't expected to cross an international border.
When I told him I had nothing with me he glanced at the other guys and shrugged. "We'll take the bush route then, wouldn't want to get caught with this Tubab (foreigner) would we?"
There was general agreement that, nope- being caught with this Tubab wouldn't go at all well with the authorities.
I asked why but they just laughed it off and told me to chill and everything will be cool though maybe the cops would think I'd been kidnapped or something equally hilarious.It meant that we had to cross a river or two but this didn't seem to faze this driver who had eyes as red as the sunset from puffing on the local weed.

This had me wondering for a moment, had I been kidnapped? I mean, I'd had a drink and a smoke or two with these guys and met up with them a few times, they seemed alright. Perhaps they were about to rob me and cut me up for fishing bait; you hear these stories.

As it turned out, the trip was fun and mostly without incident, the one exception; this shitheap minibus being flagged down by a gun carrying guy in army gear just back inside the border. Soldier? Opportunist bandit? I didn't know. He saw my white face and began to question the driver; who was really stoned off his face. The driver giggled nervously and explained that "oh no, we hadn't been anywhere really, definitely not been across any border and that this tubab was a famous visiting recording artist from the United states of Europe" ; clearly bullshit.
The soldier glared at me and asked to see my travel documents, in French. My French is fairly crap but I understood exactly what he wanted. I answered that I didn't understand him and shrugged.
Staring into my eyes he very slowly and with much menace said something in a local dialect, I grinned like an idiot praying he wasn't planning to drag me away. The driver replied and the soldier glanced at the driver, cracked up laughing then waved us on as we all fell about laughing. Joining in the merriment, I had no idea why.

Apparently he asked me ,to my face, something like "Are you as stupid as a newborn goat?" (or whatever passes for an insult in those parts) A question which the driver was happy to report that "yes, in fact he's so stupid we had to show him how to wipe his arse" or another witty quip. It was obvious that he was testing me for a reaction, to see if I understood what he said.

I'd just been into a country in the middle of a serious diplomatic incident in which Senegal had been implicated in a coup. In Mauritania they were executing people and I'd just turned up there, in its trouble stewn Southern district with no papers and no excuse.

tldr? I'm a fucking idiot.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Fri 27 Jan 2012, 22:41, Reply)