Chapter 956: Economic Capital Nouadhibou

Xiao Peng left Western Sahara and entered Mauritania. It felt like he had truly arrived in Africa. This place was more in line with people's perception of Africa - tropical desert climate, drought, black people...

Many people think that all of Africa is black, but this is a misunderstanding. Generally speaking, North Africa is mostly populated by Arabs and Berbers, who are all white. In Mauritania, there are many more black people. Black people are the majority ethnic group here.

Mauritania is a big country in West Africa. Its land area is five times the size of Guangdong Province and it also has a long coastline. However, Xiao Peng does not want to go along the coast: he almost vomited when looking at the sea, so how could it be more comfortable to play in the desert?

In particular, Xiao Peng's first stop in Mauritania was Nouadhibou. After seeing the place, he became more determined to see the desert.

Nouadhibou is located at the border between Mauritania and Western Sahara. It is the second largest city here and is known as the "Magic City of Mauritania". It concentrates Mauritania's two major economic lifelines, fisheries and mining, and is the "economic capital" here.

It sounded so grand that Xiao Peng of course had to go and see it. However, he was almost shocked when he got there: although there were many vehicles and people here, the city was in an indescribable state of shabby condition.

When Xiao Peng went to refuel, the first person to greet him was not the gas station staff, but a group of children. They came over not out of enthusiasm, but to stretch out their hands to ask for money - there were also many idle young people sitting there doing nothing.

This place is right by the sea, with abundant fishery resources, so there's no shortage of fish vendors. But Xiao Peng couldn't really buy fish here. He couldn't understand why these freshly caught fish were all covered in a thick layer of salt before being sold. Was this the local eating habit?

However, since Xiao Peng is here, he has to walk around and have a look. When he arrives in Nouadhibou, he must of course visit the "ship cemetery" here.

There are at least more than three hundred abandoned ships on the beaches of Nouadhibou, and there are hundreds of stranded ships and shipwrecks in the Bay of Nouadhibou.

In the 1980s, when Mauritania's fishing industry was nationalized, non-profit vessels and foreign shipping companies simply dumped their scrapped ships here. Some ships are also stranded on the coast - these ships are caused by the fact that Mauritania is too "black".

If a ship runs aground in Mauritanian waters, the first choice of most ship owners is to abandon the ship.

The towing costs here are so high that they are no longer affordable!

Nouadhibou's ship repair industry is supposedly quite developed—of course, this is compared to other West African countries. These abandoned ships could be put to good use by repairing them or dismantling them for scrap metal. However, the cost of dismantling them here is prohibitively high. Consequently, the number of abandoned ships here has not decreased, but has actually increased.

Now many abandoned ships have become houses for local poor people, and many people simply live on these abandoned ships.

Because this is the EU shipping route, Mauritania's oil, steel, cattle, sheep and fisheries are mostly exported to the EU. Many EU ships coming here to pick up goods are very cautious and can easily run aground or collide with sunken ships. The EU can't stand this and has spent huge sums of money since 2012 to help their government salvage these abandoned ships to protect navigation safety in the bay, but the effect is really not great: the salvage is not as fast as the sinking...

This is not the case in China. If it were in China, these ships would have been cleaned up in minutes: this is all money!

Xiao Peng originally planned to go to the 'Seamen's Club' to rest for a night and then continue on his journey the next day.

He went there to relax, of course. Every "seamen's club" in every country in the world has a "men's program" without exception. Even North Korea is like this! And what about Mauritania?

But suddenly a boat approaching the beach caught Xiao Peng's attention:

Nouadhibou is an important part of the West African fishing grounds and its fishery resources are quite developed!

It is interesting to note that the coastline of Western Sahara is much longer than that of Mauritania. The two countries are neighbors, but the fishery resources in the Mauritanian waters to the south exceed those of Western Sahara. This is related to the coastal terrain of Mauritania: it is concave into a natural bay, and such an environment is more popular with fish.

How tattered is Nouadhi cloth?

Two or three kilometers away from the city of Nouadhibou is the edge of the Arguin Beach National Park. The purpose of this park was to protect seabirds. It stretches 80 kilometers along the Mauritanian coastline and is listed as a World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. Millions of seabirds breed and live here.

It sounds grand, but on the beach in the park, Xiao Peng saw dozens of simple houses, all made of wooden boards. The fishermen who lived there lived in them.

Although fishing is prohibited in the Arguin Beach National Park, Mauritanians can come here to fish: provided that their boats are not equipped with motors. So they use traditional sailboats.

Xiao Peng couldn't understand this: a country so poor, and Nouadhibou, known as the "Magic Capital of Mauritania," was so poor that Xiao Peng couldn't find a single building higher than three stories. And they created a "national park" in such a place, but they didn't allow people to fish with motor boats? How could the people survive?

Mauritanian waters are not without large, mechanical vessels: the waters outside the national park are largely occupied by large fishing vessels from major international fishing companies. They scoop up the vast majority of the fish stocks, but the Mauritanians' small sailboats can't reach that far! This means that most of Mauritania's seafood is taken by foreigners.

Why are they doing this? Establishing a national park here will earn Mauritania various financial and material aids from related organizations, and selling fishing licenses to large fishing companies will also generate significant foreign exchange. However, this money never reaches the people.

As I said, the poorer the place, the greater the gap between the rich and the poor.

Xiao Peng's interest was piqued by the fact that a sailboat had returned, apparently with a good harvest, but a group of fat women were making a fuss. Mauritania is one of the few countries in the world where being fat is considered beautiful. Families who can afford it will fatten their daughters up, lest they have difficulty getting married.

The group of women were arguing loudly in Arabic, a language Xiao Peng had already learned a lot about. Although he was not very fluent in, he could still understand some of it.

Why do they seem to be cursing? Aren't they happy with all the fish they've caught?

Xiao Peng drove over out of curiosity.