Sunday, August 10, 2008

Business as Usual

So I was hangin' out on Facebook (as people do) when I noticed that a former work colleague and friend of mine was, in fact, in Mauritania. So, I thought, given the recent military coup there this past week, I'd shoot him a message and see what's going in Mauritania. This is what he said:
Re: Coup

Hey Tom, basically nothing is happening and for the most part people just kind of shrug and don't mind. This same guy, Abdul Aziz was involved in the last coup a couple of years ago. So basically people either give shrug responses and say they didn't like the president anyway because he didn't fix all their problems yet... or they give a shrug response because this guy has done it before and there wasn't any violence. Travel to Nouakchott was restricted for a day or two, which was more annoying than anything, and then there were a bunch of poorly organized and rather obviously staged parades in every major city. People are sheep. Okay, I gotta run, let me know if you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer more thoroughly.
Oh, and I'm here with the Peace Corps :)
-John

So, I guess it's business as usual in Mauritania thus far...

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