Now I am going to talk about the worst experience which I had in Mauritania. It happened only 2 days before my departure to Senegal. When I was staying in Maison des artistes our neighbor who lived opposite to the Maison had 2 dogs, one of them light brown and another one dark. Most of the time they just slept in front of the house in the sand and didn't pay much attention to the people. When I went to the dinner with Papis the dogs slept in front of the Maison des artistes and when we walked by the light brown dog lazily lifted his head and then put it down again and continued to rest.

The following day we woke up late in the morning and we around 10:30 am we went to a shop to buy something to eat. Papis was making tea on a gas bomb when we heard a very loud gunshot. I didn't know what happened and I thought at first that gas exploded, but then we looked out the window and saw the light brown dog lying on the road and his leg was twitching. Then we heard another shot and we though that the other dog was killed too, but as we learnt later he escaped and survived the slaughter. A soldier shot a dog of our neighbor. Then the dog was taken into the van and only a pool of blood remained on the road. We spoke to the owner of the dogs but she said she couldn't do anything about it. The van was parked nearby and I went there, shaking with anger, but when I arrived the van left. Then I went to the Maison des artistes where we cried in the kitchen. When Ridiaw came he asked me if I slept well and I said yes and I tried to avoid looking at him, but he turned my face to the light and saw the traces of tears. Although I initially enjoyed my stay in Maison des artistes after what I have seen I just wanted to get out of this terrbile country as soon as possible.