photo: © Ben Seelt
After a little haggling, the taxi and driver cost me sixty euros a day, no matter how far we go, as long as I pay for lunch. After a while, I get used to the fact that the French he claimed to speak is more or less limited to oui and non. Meanwhile, he gets used to slamming on the brakes without question whenever I repeatedly ask him to stop in the middle of what looks like nowhere because I have spotted something again.
There is a small village along the road across the plain. We stop there for a cup of tea. Muslims do not drink beer, after all. I pick a spot along the dusty street, where men are fiercely playing checkers for money on a piece of cardboard with bottle caps, and photograph the scene. It is all very friendly as we sit there drinking tea, until a man in a flowing robe runs past and snatches my camera off the table.
With six grand worth of Nikon gear at stake, I get off the mark surprisingly fast and catch him at the corner. We tumble into a market stall in a tangle, and I see my Nikon fly through the air and smash against a wall. Out of sheer frustration, I give the lanky guy in the robe an enormous kick in the face—something I do not think I have done since elementary school.
The whole street is in an uproar. We return to our table in a procession, with the groaning man in the middle, where sixty worried eyes join me in finding that my camera now says nothing but ‘error.’ The lens hood is dead, but I can still attach and remove the lens.
They ask what I want to do now. Call the police, give him another kick in the face? Either is an option, but I cannot see the point in it.
After some resetting and swearing, the camera body comes back to life. I breathe a sigh of relief, along with the entire crowd. They ask what I want to do now. Call the police, give him another kick in the face? All of that is possible, but I cannot see what good it would do. So I say, "Just let him go," and watch him flee down the street like a wounded animal.
Later, back on the road, I discover that the AF no longer works, along with a few other things, and that I will have to shoot manually for the rest of the trip. Our driver, Achmed, tells me that by not demanding punishment or compensation, I have in fact just applied Sharia law.
Gesturing with his hands and feet, he also tells me that they have a king who believes that robbing tourists harms the economy, and that any local can therefore be sent to a prison that is no doubt nothing like Club Med for five years on the strength of a simple scribble on a note. Damage to the Nikon: 400 euros, plus a lot of blurry images.
