afrique-in' out

Gone but not forgotten

2009-10-05T12:46:00.004Z

I have been in America for exactly 49 days. The most surprising thing to me is how not surprising the whole experience has been. For hours upon hours, we Peace Corps Volunteers had sat around in Mauritania and described in great detail all the American foods we missed. I was sure that the first time I entered a supermarket or Wal-Mart again, I would probably pass out from over-stimulation.

But truth be told, things haven't been that weird. In fact, it's disturbing to me how difficult it actually is to remember that that other whole WORLD really exists -- still, and always. I'm wandering the grocery store, and Fati is walking to the produce market. I'm eating on-demand pizzas and Chinese food and ice cream, and Aicha is preparing rice with fish, again. I'm surfing YouTube on my MacBook, and Abdoul is dancing while his sister keeps the beat by banging on a plastic cup.

How is that possible?

Two weeks after getting home, I ended up in Atlantic City for the first time in my life. It was OVERWHELMING. I didn't want to be a drag on any of my friends, but I absolutely could not enjoy myself. I stood on a balcony and looked out at the crashing ocean waves and tried to comprehend that those same waters touch the shores of Mauritania. I looked up at the full moon, and all it meant to me was that Ramadan was half over. I stumbled in a daze through the casinos because I couldn't make my eyes focus on anything. Ka-ching. Ka-ching. I saw a happy African-American family hustling back to their hotel room, and I actually thought, Do you know what your life could have been? Is it even appropriate to have thoughts like that?

But America's great. Of course it is. Do I love electricity, hot showers, air conditioning, endless endless endless food, online shopping, driving, jeans, my piano, my cat? Sure. Those things are awesome. But I guess now I just know that that's not all there is, and that it's pretty possible to live without them -- though admittedly very, very different.

I had been planning a three-week trip to America to participate in two weddings and reenergize a bit before the new school year in Mauritania. Because of the circumstances in which we left Africa, it turned out that I got to be here for a total of seven weeks. All things considered, I am glad that it ended up that way -- because somehow even with twice as much time I feel like I've had barely any free time. America is BUSY! I don't even know where the time goes! But I saw countless familiar faces and ate countless amazing meals (and oh, desserts!) and went to a Red Sox game and reunited with some Mauritania friends in Ohio and drove from Texas to New Jersey and -- and so I guess that's where the time goes. It's been a blast.

That being said, I'm ready to go now. Running all over the country to play with friends and be part of beautiful weddings and spend money I don't have is probably not real life, and certainly not sustainable. So I'm looking forward to returning to Africa, in a big way. I'm glad that I had this buffer period to process my emotions and mentally say goodbye to Mauritania, and now it's time for the next chapter.

I am super psyched about Rwanda. I've been doing my homework, and the verdict is that there is a lot of exciting stuff going on there right now. Every other day I find another article online lauding all the progress Rwanda has made in recent years. Stuff is happening, and they want English teachers to be a part of it. That's pretty cool. I fly out this Wednesday.

So, with this entry I will end my blog on Peace Corps Mauritania. Thanks to all you faithful readers, and I invite you to continue following me in my future home. I have set up a new blog site with a new look. Farewell to austere desert; on to green and gorillas. Find me here:

http://JACinRwanda.blogspot.com
(My improvements include an option to sign up to receive
an email each time I update with a new entry, if you're interested.)
Perhaps the saddest part of leaving Mauritania was that I have so few pictures of my family and friends and life in Dar El Barka. In fact, I have more from my six weeks living at the training site in PK7. I had planned to take a bunch of photos right before I went back to America. You never know. So my beloved Jobalel -- the family patriarch who was known as "Baaba," but whom in my mind I always called "Old Man Winter" -- will be remembered solely in my mind, and journal entries. But I guess it's fine because he will always be something different to me than anything you could get from looking at a photo.

Here is a smorgasbord of memories. Goodbye, Mauritania. (I'd write that in Pulaar, but of course there is no word for goodbye.)

(View album here)

Moving forward

2009-08-19T12:10:00.006Z

On Monday, August 10th, I was told that the Peace Corps would be suspending its program in Mauritania, and I could not return to my village to collect my belongings or say my goodbyes.

On Monday, August 17th, I was at my mom's house in Kennett Square, PA.

Really weird.

All last week was a whirlwind, to say the least. Paperwork upon paperwork, medical screenings and blood draws and skin tests, psychiatric counseling, all the while trying to relish my very last moments with the other RIM PCVs who have come to mean so much to me over the last 14 months. And then the question of the future: where to go? What to do? The Peace Corps Washington staff presented a lot of options to us...

I could direct-transfer to another country (most likely West Africa, they said) immediately, and I'd be there in the next week. I could go home to collect myself a bit and re-enroll in a new country within the next 12 months, although there'd be no guarantee that I could get a contract for only one more year -- I might have to start a new full term of 27 months. I could participate in a short-term commitment abroad called Peace Corps Response. I could use my status as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) for non-competitive eligibility for federal positions, like working at Peace Corps Headquarters or with the Civil or Foreign Service. Or I could just call it a day and start grad school apps.

Oh, and please make this decision in the next 48 hours max, thanks.

It was tough. But I am very, very happy to announce to you that I will be continuing my Peace Corps service as an English teacher in Rwanda.

Immediately I feel the need to defend my decision, because I know what thoughts it inevitably invokes in most people's minds: she's been evacuated from a place with a growing presence of al-Qaeda -- and now this is what she's chosen as her next step? Out of the frying pan, into the fire?

I would like to cite Fareed Zakaria, respected author and current editor of Newsweek International. Just a month ago, he was interviewed by CNN and spoke of why Rwanda is "Africa's biggest success story." He says:

You remember what happened in there just 15 years ago -- over a period of 100 days 800,000 men, women, and children were killed -- most of them slaughtered with knives, machetes, and axes by their neighbors. It is perhaps the most brutal genocide in modern history. By the time it ended, one tenth of the country's population was dead. Most people assumed that Rwanda was broken and, like Somalia, another country wracked by violence, would become a poster child for Africa's failed states. It's now a poster child for success.

President Paul Kagame wants to make Rwanda into the "Singapore of Africa." In recent days he has made incredible reforms and is ramping up a huge push towards science and technology. He plans to make the entire country WiFi-ready in the next few years. He has outlawed plastic bags.

Additionally, President Kagame nixed the colonial French as an official language and declared that all instruction (beginning in primary school) would be henceforth conducted in English. Slight problem: shortage of qualified English teachers.

Enter the Peace Corps, which reopened its Rwanda program in January of this year after suspending it in 1993. On October 5th, I will be leaving with at least 12 of my fellow RIM PCVs, including some of my closest friends: Ryan, Mark, Matt, Scott, Ashley, Megan, Colleen, Brandon, Michele, Lindsay, Austin, and Marta.

It's crazy! It's fast! It's, yes I know, RWANDA! But I assure you that it is a safe place for us to be (U.S. News and World Report agrees), and I am so unbelievably excited about the coming year. We will be arriving alongside some brand-new PCVs and going through the language training to learn Kinyarwanda. The other RIM PCVs and I will be helping to conduct the technical training (Model School, etc.) for the new class, since Rwanda is a new program and does not have any veteran volunteers to offer assistance.

I will continue to blog and will inform you when I have the new site set up and ready. In the meantime, I intend to post a few final photos/videos on this blog as I say farewell to my time in Mauritania.

It's surprisingly hard to be back. For months and months we had all dreamed of being in that far-away, magical place called America. I had always thought I would be bursting with joy when my feet hit the ground, but when I stepped off the plane in Dulles I felt overwhelmed and empty and confused. Where am I? How did I get here? Is this real? I was so out of practice with flying that I forgot to put my precious Leatherman knife/multitool in my checked luggage and had it confiscated.

I forced my feet to shuffle through the airport, and I spotted a popular Peace Corps advertisement. Perhaps you've seen it:

And I almost stopped in my tracks. It's not true, I wanted to tell everyone around me! That's not a promise! I joined the Peace Corps, and there's still so much I "should've" done. I should've given my clothes to my sisters, I should've taken a video of my little brother singing and dancing, I should've emptied my local bank account and distributed it among all my friends in the village...

But in this life, you never know. All I can do is move forward.

A final enormous _THANK YOU_ to all of you who have contacted me in the wake of this. Your support has been humbling and amazingly sustaining, and I appreciate it, more than you know.

So long, PCRIM.

Leaving Atlanta -- June 20, 2008

Goodbye dinner in Dakar -- August 12, 2009

Not what I had planned

2009-08-10T23:31:00.009Z

All of Peace Corps Mauritania arrived to the Senegal training center in Thiès on July 28. For a few days, we had some legitimate professional development sessions. But then we kind of started running out of things to do... It's no fun to live in limbo, and I for one was really wishing there was any kind of timeline for how soon we would receive the verdict on Peace Corps Washington's security check of our country. I cannot be ungrateful for all the nice amenities available to us at the center, but we were getting a little antsy.

It was like one big summer camp, as we tried to fill our time as much as possible. We had two big volleyball tournaments. A Senegalese drum troupe came and performed for us, and I tried my hand (and feet) at a little African dancing. We visited a famous tapestry museum/factory, where they reproduce beautiful local paintings onto large-scale wall hangings (to the tune of about $6,000 USD apiece). Several of us attended mass at the Keur Moussa monastery, which has artwork of biblical scenes depicted in an African style while the monks sing in native languages with traditional instruments. We went to the Lac Rose, a lake that appears pink in color due to the high salt concentration of the water. And then we went down to a beach town called Popenguine, where we rented out a gorgeous ocean-front house for two nights. We even bought a live pig and had a roast!

We returned from the beach to Thiès on Saturday evening. Dinner was served, and then staff announced that we'd have a quick meeting. At 9 PM? We joked to each other that it was probably just a meeting to tell us we were having another meeting tomorrow. What could be sooo important that it couldn't just wait 12 hours?

Well, this: we were informed that two hours ago, a suicide bomber had blown himself up in front of the French embassy in Nouakchott. [Very informative video on France 24]

My chest seized up. Everyone's faces were shock, only shock. There were a few palpable moments of silence, just the rain continuing to fall, and fall; just the thunder.

And in my mind? Game. Over.

I had held such hope up to this point -- and not falsely, I felt. We had talked about the "possibility" of not returning to RIM, but I had not really thought this would happen. If anything, I predicted that Washington would recommend we close the far northern and eastern regions of the country and consolidate us to the Senegal River (where there is no history or evidence of any extremist trouble). But this was a whole new story. A punch in the gut. You don't shake this off, dust it over. In that one sentence, my hope plummeted to 0%. That night I couldn't even sleep. My head swam.

Today we moved from the training center to Dakar, because Senegal's new training class arrives in a few days and they needed to prepare the space. We arrived to a luxurious hotel, and with my poolside room and more high-speed wireless internet, it seemed this strange "vacation" would continue at least a few more days.

We were to have a briefing at 5:30 PM, so we all gathered. When we walked in the conference room, there were Cheez-Its and Double Stuf Oreos waiting on a table for us. Odd as it may sound, that's when I knew it was all over. That stuff doesn't exist in West Africa, and the fact that it was here was not a good sign.

Then out walk about eight white people we've never seen before. Not a good sign. One is introduced as Jody Olsen -- the national director of the entire Peace Corps.

Not a good sign.

Ms. Olsen begins by telling us how much she loves Mauritania and how dear it is to her heart. She personally traveled around there two years ago, and she speaks fondly and enthusiastically of it often. (This is not lip-service; I know this to be true.) She goes on: "That is why it makes it all the more difficult for me to tell you that you are not going to go back there."

I knew it was coming -- we all knew, really -- but hearing those words was unpredictably paralyzing. It's like having many of your friends die AND your house burn down, all at once. What do you do? Tears spilled down my face. And wouldn't stop. Even our country director was crying, and hugging everyone after the meeting.

Starting tomorrow, we have a four-day "transition conference" led by the aforementioned white people, most of whom flew in from Washington to assist us. There are a lot of logistics to figure out, and many options for us to choose from. We can go home, or we can direct-transfer immediately to another country, or we can take the middle road and go home but re-apply for a new country, essentially jumping the queue of current applicants. Whatever we choose, we will all be done with Peace Corps Mauritania by this Friday. I still have a lot to process and think about.

No goodbyes. My host family in Dar El Barka (all 20+ members, many of whom I don't have so much as a photo -- you don't take pictures of the day-to-day living). The mayor, who was so kind to me. My coworkers at school. My students, my precious precious students. My neighbor, who I was teaching English. Our tailor. Our landlord. My Boghé driver. My Pulaar teacher. My host family from training in PK7.

This is the last photo I took in Dar El:

They're just living life. Fatimata is braiding Thillo's hair, while Thillo separates the hair extensions in her lap. Mariam's baby Samba sits and amuses himself nearby, probably with some trash he picked up. Fati Sidi sits in the middle, next to her mosquito net-covered "bassinet" of sorts. It holds her newborn Kadia Moussa, born July 3rd. Molel, on the left, has just given toddler Papa the communal cup of water. When he's through, she will replace it on the clay pot serving basin, and head back to the kitchen hut to check on lunch's progress.

I know that they performed variations of this scene today, and they will do it tomorrow, and the next day, and next month. But I will never again be there for it.

Just when you thought...

2009-07-29T20:16:00.011Z

It was all going so well. Our interrupted-service folks cleared out of Mauritania, and while it was quite sad, we were all moving forward. Those of us who had chosen to stay were renewed with energy to face the tough year ahead, albeit with reduced numbers. The worst was behind us... or so we thought.

It is true that Mauritania has been making international headlines as of late for less than desirable events. The biggest controversy surrounds the shooting and killing last month of an American citizen in Nouakchott. I didn't mention it on this blog because quite frankly I feel that, while lamentable, it was not any direct challenge to my personal safety. The individual in question was known for Christian "proselytizing," an illegal act in an Islamic republic. (Foreigners in Mauritania have every right to their own religion, but they are prohibited from trying to convert others.)

Unfortunately, there has been a lot of media hoopla in the wake of the murder, and whenever the name "al-Qaeda" starts to be thrown around, people (perhaps rightly, perhaps not) tend to get anxious. Peace Corps Washington are among this lot. Two weeks ago, unbeknownst to us, our country director got a call saying that Washington wanted to shut down our program here. He protested on our behalf, and the agreement reached was that PC Washington would send a team over to do a countrywide safety and security check. The catch? They wanted all PCVs to be out of our sites while this investigation takes place.

Cut to me, in Boghé, last Thursday afternoon. I'm preparing to head to Bababé, a town 30 km to the southeast, to help with a three-day Eco-Health Camp. About 50 girls and their chaperones from all over Mauritania would be in attendance. I cannot take any credit for the planning of this camp, but many PCVs -- in particular, Zach Swank -- spent hours and hours coordinating the logistics. He had collected matelas (sleeping pads) and mosquito nets, had spent several full days digging holes for tree-planting, and had ordered 5,000 beignets (small donuts) and 200 balbastiques (frozen juice in a bag) to be prepared. Everything was ready to go.

Then we all get word: the camp is cancelled. All of Peace Corps Mauritania is going to Senegal, for an undetermined amount of time but "a minimum of 10 days." Be in Nouakchott by Monday. Oh yeah, and also, we are going to "test" our Emergency Action Plan, so pack up all your belongings "as if" you are never coming back.

What?!

Needless to say, we were all pretty surprised and confused. A friend in Boghé graciously gave me and another PCV a ride out to our sites on Saturday so that we could gather our things. I had explained the situation to my host family as best I could in Pulaar, but they still didn't quite understand. "Can't you at least stay for lunch?" they asked. Sorry, not today. "You will be back, inshallah," everyone agreed. Inshallah, I repeated to myself. I snapped a few photos with the kids, and we were on our way back to Boghé.

Thus, yesterday the 50-strong legion of Mauritania PCVs descended on the Peace Corps training center in Thiès, Senegal. With a population of 300,000, this place dwarfs any Mauritanian towns but the capital. And the training center here is essentially a tropical oasis. We were near drooling as we breathed it all in after our 13 hours on the bus ("shouldn't" have been quite that long, but unsurprisingly we broke down once or twice). For this indefinite stay here we are blessed with a plethora of amenities not offered at our own center in Mauritania: high-speed wireless internet, actual mattresses (not foam pads) on wooden beds, private rooms, air-conditioning AND ceiling fans, Western flush toilets with toilet paper, showers -- and oh, these green, green trees! (I am reminded of a García Lorca line from a Spanish lit class in college: Verde que te quiero verde -- Green, how I love you, green!)

As for the presidential election in Mauritania, victory went to General Aziz, who led the coup last August. Being an employee of the U.S. government, I am advised not to voice a position on local political issues. Instead I will let you form your own judgment of this man, with the following Wall Street Journal excerpt published just prior to the voting here:

A small, mustachioed man portrayed on posters wearing mirrored sunglasses and banker suits, Gen. Aziz has turned the breakup with Israel -- a popular move here -- into a centerpiece of his campaign. At one recent rally, the general said he is "honored" to be considered a "foe of the Jewry." In speech after speech, he has accused challengers of plotting with American Jews against the Mauritanian state.

"If I win the election, I will give them plane tickets so they'd go to that Zionist state that they love so much," the general thundered last weekend. At the entrance to the shuttered Israeli Embassy, Gen. Aziz's campaign has planted a tent festooned with his portraits next to a crossed-out Star of David.

(Wall Street Journal, 17 July 2009)

His personal beliefs aside, the important thing about Aziz's election is that the U.S. now accepts this government as legitimate, which means sanctions will be lifted, which means Americans should begin to be issued visas again. U.S. Ambassador Mark Boulware had a Q&A session with us in Nouakchott before we left, and he is optimistic about the future of U.S.-Mauritania relations. Aziz is supposed to swear in August 5th, so after a bit of lag time, our diplomatic relations ought to be back to status quo before the coup d'état.

In conclusion, I'm just hangin' and livin' the good life in Senegal until Peace Corps Washington decides whether Mauritania is a safe place to be. Our director feels certain that our country is not dangerous with regard to, for example, Islamic extremists (and certainly not more dangerous than some of our neighbors like Mali and Niger). And I can honestly say I have never felt unsafe -- I was more at risk walking the streets of Boston or Austin than Boghé or Dar El Barka. But we shall see what the final word is from on high.

Got my per diem and I'm good to go. Welcome to Senegal...

Picking up the pieces

2009-07-15T19:12:00.008Z

Unexpectedly, it has been a very busy couple of weeks. A total of 20 PCVs from the 71 in my class decided to "interrupt" their service and head home, and in their wake I've been all over the place helping to pick up the pieces. We each came to this country with an 80-pound luggage limit -- but you wouldn't believe how much stuff one can accumulate in a year!

I went overnight with Yates to her village Olo Ologo (only 17 km from mine) to give a hand with her things there. The one passenger vehicle that services that area didn't get us in until 7:30pm, so most of our laboring was done by the light of one flashlight hanging overhead. We made piles: stuff to leave with her host family, stuff that needed to go back to Peace Corps in Nouakchott, stuff to donate to the other PCVs in Boghé, stuff that I claimed for myself (ah, the few bittersweet perks), and just one duffel bag of things that Yates wanted to take home to America. While we sorted, her work partner sat with us and made conversation. "Maybe once the elections are over, and things are more peaceful, then you can come back here, right? You'll come back here to live?" We shook our heads; it's not that easy, we repeated. Then her host father came over to talk with me and expounded on all the virtues of Koumba Demba (Yates's Pulaar name). "All this time she has lived with us, and I never once saw her get upset, I never once saw her get frustrated. She is so good to us." I know, I said. I wanted to cry. "Please come back and visit us," they all insisted to me. "Because if we see you, it's almost like seeing Koumba Demba."

Me, Yates, and Teresa with the Peace Corps security guards at Christmas
We awoke before sunrise, and the car taking us to Boghé pulled right into Yates's compound so we could load up her baggage. A small crowd gathered around us. No one likes goodbyes, of course, but in Mauritania it's a whole new level of awkward for me. To start, it doesn't help that the word "goodbye" literally does not exist in Pulaar. Everyone just keeps saying, "Thank you, thank you," and if they're feeling especially emotional, they will ask you to greet people on their behalf -- greet your parents, please, greet your family, greet every person in America (yes, that one gets used). On top of this, Mauritanian culture shuns physical affection, so there are no hugs. Most people don't touch you at all, but if you're close with them they will shake your hand and hold it a few seconds. So I shook my share of hands and promised, yes, to greet every person in America. Then we climbed onto the big white van, and we left Olo behind.

Unfortunately, that morning I came down with giardia, a fun little parasite that seems to afflict almost all PCVs at one point or another. Truthfully, the biggest surprise is that this is the first time it's gotten me. So during my last precious moments with Yates, I was curled up in a fetal position, moving only to run yet again to the bathroom -- which, I remind you, is just a hole in the ground. Without being too graphic, I'll just tell you that I graced that hole with my presence 19 times in 24 hours. But Peace Corps is really great about getting us the prescriptions we need, so once I took my round of meds and a healthy portion of Gatorade, I was back on my feet. And probably a few pounds lighter.

Since then life has been a hurricane of cleaning and sorting, packing and unloading, organizing and trashing. Everyone who went home (Interrupted Service folks as well as the 60-ish PCVs who are now finishing their two years) left behind loads of goodies. As I consolidated their bequeathals, I also did a grand, two-day clean-up/clean-out of the Boghé house. There are only a few options for trash disposal here: burning, burying, or throwing it over the wall to be cherished by street children. I used all three methods, though I will say that burning is the most satisfying. I personally inherited a wealth of treasures: all kinds of clothing (American and Mauritanian both, including a fancy outfit for the next big holiday), all kinds of precious care-package food, really nice toiletries, two battery-powered handheld fans (such luxury!), 10,000 francs CFA (about $20 USD), and... drum roll... many, many buckets.

(Aside: now, I realize that as a Westerner in a developed country, you probably do not get all jacked up about buckets. I don't blame you. But oh, the humble bucket! You may ask what cause one has for a bucket, but the question is more what can't you do?! They come with and without lids, in many colors and sizes, each serving a different purpose. Take today as an example. I did the dishes, with four buckets as usual: one with the dirty things, one with soapy water for washing, one with clean water for rinsing, and one to set the finished things in to dry. Next I did my laundry, using two buckets -- wash and rinse. For both of these activities, I got my laundry detergent out of a sealed bucket. I hung the clothes on the line, and when they were dry, I collected them in a clean bucket. Then I got some food and spices for lunch out of a few ant-proof/mouse-proof buckets, which I sorted through while sitting on another bucket.)

My region has gone from 12 PCVs last year to 6 for the coming year. As we start this new chapter, Mauritania too looks toward the future. The presidential election will, inshallah, take place this Saturday, July 18th. This excerpt from a good article paints an accurate portrait of the palpable fever over here:

[The] electoral battle, a novelty in a ramshackle capital which is more used to coups, has enthused its residents, as much as anyone can be enthused in temperatures of 43 degrees centigrade. Its streets, where sand drifts across the tarmac, are plastered with posters, and nomadic-style tents have been erected in every suburb. Blaring loudspeakers praise the rival candidates at such volume that passing camels and donkeys pulling carts are sent into a panic. With six days to go, diplomats consider the race too close to call.

(from The Telegraph, 12 July 2009)

Should be very interesting. Thank you, everyone, for your support during this tough time of rebuilding! Peace Corps Mauritania: the few, the ostensibly insane.

It's going down

2009-07-02T19:55:00.002Z

Back when we were just hearing whispers of Americans being denied visas to come here, PCVs speculated all kinds of possible outcomes. Of course, we hoped (and frankly, assumed) that in the end our new class would be granted their visas, and training would go on as planned. We also toyed with crazier ideas -- what if we all get sent home? What if we get offered a new assignment? But we agreed that the most difficult thing would be if our training class got canceled, AND the rest of us were expected to stay here.

Turns out there was one scenario still tougher than that.

These past 10 or so days have been a whirlwind, roller coaster time of confusion. We started hearing of some nebulous threats to Americans, but truthfully I felt (and still feel) perfectly safe. In the midst of that, due to continued difficulties with visas and the somewhat uncertain political situation here, our training class was officially canceled. Up to this point, Peace Corps had been hoping just to postpone the class until after elections July 18th, but now all those applicants are receiving new placements in other countries.

The blow was devastating, heartbreaking. I was in my village, and I learned the news from various phone calls and text messages. For the next day or two, I lived in what I termed a "waking coma." I had absolutely no motivation to do anything. No new volunteers. No new blood. No one with whom to share our hard-earned wisdom. I went through my calendar and crossed out essentially all my plans for July and August. We will not be hosting newbies in Boghé for Site Visit (when they get to see their future homes for the first time -- a really emotional and exciting time). I won't be helping at Model School or other Q&A training sessions. And there will be no swear-in, around which I specifically had planned my vacation.

I wanted to just dust myself off and say, yes, this is unfortunate, but things change and you need to make a new plan. But how could I when I felt like I didn't have any idea what was going to happen? There were so many rumors still floating around that maybe all PCVs would be leaving, or being re-assigned, or who knows. No one had any answers. In the days following that news, I jumped every time I heard my phone sound, because I thought at any moment I was going to get word that I should pack up and leave.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. I went through life in a daze, slowly-so-slowly coming to terms with this new reality.

Then Tuesday, crash.

Our country director officially announced the offer of "interrupted service." What this means is essentially two choices: stay and finish as planned, or leave early with the full benefits of having completed your two years of service. If you go home, you can opt to be done with Peace Corps, or you can re-apply for a new assignment.

I had had a lot of time to think, and I knew what I wanted. I'm not ready to leave yet. I'm excited about my classes next year, I adore the kids in my English Club, I feel like I finally know Pulaar, I have an amazing host family, and it took me this long just to understand how things work in this country. I know where to buy things, I know how to go places. I want to stay.

But everyone's situation is different, and there are many PCVs who are choosing to leave. They each have their reasons, and I respect them. But that doesn't make it any easier as I'm hearing, one by one, the names of other volunteers who have given their official notice. It looks like they will all be out of the country within two weeks, some sooner. My dear friend Yates leaves Boghé in five days. She was planning to visit my village next week, and she has care packages on their way here for her birthday. I got a phone call from Summer, who announced, "I'm just calling to say goodbye." Because her site is so far away, I will not even get to see her before she goes. So much is changing so fast.

At the beginning of June, Peace Corps Mauritania numbered about 130 volunteers. Between the second-years finishing, the cancellation of our new class, and the group choosing interrupted service, my best estimation is we may be left with less than 50 by the end of this month. At least 13 Girls' Mentoring Centers across the country now have no PCVs assigned to them. There will unquestionably be a nationwide shortage of English teachers. Financially, too, there will be strain on all of us -- those who are left to pick up the pieces.

Could use your support and prayers. Don't know what else to say.

Dogon: doggone good

2009-06-18T14:52:00.031Z

// June 21, 2009 (my one-year anniversary of arriving in Africa!) -- EDIT: I originally posted this a few days ago, and then yesterday Blogger sent me an email saying they'd had a bug in their system that affected 0.05% of their users -- including me. It reset the addresses of ALL the photos I'd posted, which is why they've been appearing as broken links. It took me a while, but I was able to fix everything just now so the pictures should be properly showing again. //

Most likely, you at some point in your life have suffered the hassle of a delayed flight. The crowd groans as that dreaded announcement is made. A few irate passengers start yelling at the attendant behind the desk (as if that poor soul has anything to do with the postponement). "This is an outrage!" "I have a very important meeting!" "I've been here two hours already!" "I want my money back!"

But eventually, you give up fighting, and you go grab your double tall iced nonfat caramel macchiato, and you hunker down with your laptop and the free wireless internet. In the air conditioning.

In Africa, however, delays do not go quite as such. The bus ride from Bamako, capital of Mali, back to the border of Mauritania ought to take something like six hours. It's a straight shot, all on a newly paved road. We left our hotel at 7 AM. We crossed the border around noon -- the next day.

The long-distance buses in Mali were not exactly kind to us. Sure, I expected them to be hot, I expected them to be uncomfortable, I expected the tattered upholstery, and I certainly expected utterly nonsensical delays -- but a few of our experiences went above and beyond. My patience found new heights never before realized. You want to cry, then you want to scream, then you do scream, and you do cry, and then you’re finally so beaten down that you just go numb. And I force myself to remember that sometime soon, this will all be a memory.

Example: we had hoped our ride from Bamako out to the Dogon Country would put us into our destination before nightfall. But the bus stops constantly, and the passengers pour off, going to relieve themselves or grabbing bread and cold drinks from roadside vendors. There is absolutely no sense of urgency.

At 11 PM, the bus pulled over and the engine was cut, with no explanation. We were no more than halfway along our route. After some inquiry, we learned that the driver was tired and intended to sleep here for the rest of the night, and we could continue at 7 AM. Despite our best efforts, Teresa and I could not get any money refunded to us, but we did successfully procure our bags from the storage chambers. We flagged down another bus, where we had to pay again, and we reached our stop at 3 AM.

We had to wake up our tour guide to come fetch us from the bus station, and as if we didn't feel bad enough about that already, we later found out that he was very ill with malaria at the time. Then after arriving at his house -- sweating, filthy, hungry, exhausted -- we discovered that my bag was open and had been looted on the bus. Among the random things stolen were all my contact lenses (a three-week's supply of dailies) AND my glasses. I was so worn down I couldn't even think about it, so I just collapsed on my mattress pad outside to fall asleep.

But then it started raining.

Also, this was Teresa's birthday.

What are you gonna do.

All that misery aside, however, I absolutely loved our trip to Mali. Bamako is a really neat city. As much as I appreciated Dakar in Senegal, it is just SO big and SO much more developed than anything else in West Africa, so it feels more like Europe. Bamako is big and has a lot to offer, but it is unquestionably Africa. People dress similarly to the Pulaars of Mauritania, and almost everyone is Muslim, but it's not quite as conservative. Certainly attitudes toward females are more open -- it's not strange to see shoulders (shock!), and many women scoot around on ever-present motorbikes. We found some excellent restaurants and a surprisingly well-presented national museum, and we oohed and aahed over all the beautiful green trees (curse that creeping Sahara in Mauritania!). Oh yeah, and alcohol is not illegal. Overall, big thumbs up for Bamako.

And then there was the mystical Dogon Country -- hailed by Lonely Planet as one of the "top 10 places to see before you die." How to describe it? Visually reminiscent of the American West, but with ancient African villages thrown in the mix. Sheer soaring sandstone rock faces, with straw-and-mud huts nestled protectively into the cliffs. We hiked through the area for three days. It was physically exhausting as we climbed up and down under the relentless sun, but worth it for the breathtakingly beautiful sights. My photos do it no justice, of course, but they can give you an idea. (These uploads are brought to you courtesy of the internet in glorious Nouakchott, far faster than that of poor little Boghé.)

Teresa and I after we finally made it to Dogon... with our Malian beers

This is how we crossed the plunging gorges: by scooting over a few little sticks. Looks pretty safe, right?

Houses built into the cliffs

A Dogon girl looks out over her village, split into three sections for animists, Muslims, and Christians

Collection of "fetishes," that is, skulls and furs and other animal parts used for traditional medicine and rituals

...thus, this monkey is perhaps not long for this world.

Traditional mud-built mosque

The Dogon are known for their indigo dyeing

These girls were very excited when they discovered their reflection in Teresa's sunglasses

Baby crocodiles! Eek!

Some villagers enjoy watching an amazing video on Joe's camera of a grown-up crocodile eating a chicken

Ta-da!
Unfortunately, while in the Dogon, we received news that was something of a one-two punch: first, the Mali-Mauritania Peace Corps soccer game had been cancelled, due to some potentially dangerous political goings-on in Mali. A big bummer, especially since we fully intended to return home victorious.

But worse news than that: our new training class, who were due to arrive in-country today, June 18th, has been pushed back indefinitely. We had heard rumors for some time that the Mauritanian government was refusing to issue visas to Americans, a result of the unstable political situation since the coup last August. We were all hoping this could be cleared up in time for the new trainees, but needless to say, it was not. All the current PCVs are very disappointed. The presidential elections that were supposed to take place June 6th were postponed until July 18th, but it is not clear what will be the result of that. We’re all watching and waiting...

Very good to talk fine and beautiful

2009-05-30T07:28:00.014Z

A lot is happening! I have a new room, so that's a huge blessing. I've gotten pretty much settled, although I have a few things to buy here in Boghé this weekend to put on the final touches. Figured I might as well use this unfortunate situation as cause for some re-decorating! Photos of Room 2.0 will be up sometime in the near future, inshallah.

This school year is all but OVER! So hard to believe. Classes finished the week before last, and final exams began this past week. I will give my tests on Sunday and Monday, and then once I submit my final grades I am pretty much a free agent until school resumes in early October. I will be undertaking some minor projects in my village, and I'll be helping to train and welcome the new class of PCVs, who are slated to arrive June 18th. (We are so excited to receive them!)

But I will also have some time to relax and to travel a bit. First order of business: MALI! It's the largest country in West Africa, and it borders us to the east and south. Peace Corps Mauritania will be playing Peace Corps Mali in the "Olsen Cup," a soccer match for the ages. It would seem a shame to travel such a great distance and not sightsee a little, so a few friends and I plan to visit the capital Bamako and the legendary Dogon Country. Wish me well -- over the course of a week I will be braving more hours of public transportation than you could possibly imagine! ;) Game on...

I will greatly miss my English Club kiddies, some of whom are graduating on to high school. To close out the year I held an essay contest, with two questions to address: What are your plans for the future, and why do you want to learn English? The results were precious. Some said they wanted to be doctors or soccer stars, and many said they wanted to study in America. There was no shortage of heart, if grammar perhaps was lacking. I quote: "I do like to learn English. I learn English, because, English is tongue nationality world English is very good to talk fine and beautiful to write and to talk, thank you." This one in particular touched me: "Next month school will finish unfortunately I will miss my teacher english woman's because you love student and explanation clearly and speak as student are understood well, I LOVE ENGLISH AS I LOVE MEAT AND RICE."

For our final meeting of the club, every student was in attendance. I was so happy -- they didn't know it, but I had a huge surprise in store. I had printed up "certificates of excellence" for them when I was in Boghé. Each was emblazoned with the student's name in fancy script. I knew this was going to be a really big deal to them, since most of them have barely ever even seen a computer, let alone had something printed personally for them. (Keep in mind, this is a place where official school report cards -- and schedules, and everything else -- are all written by hand.)

But it doesn't end there. Due to the generosity of some very kind donors, I had 18 fresh, new French-English dictionaries to present to these students as gifts. To unveil the big news, I wrote a short paragraph on the blackboard. The kids started copying the text obediently -- and an excited buzz mounted as understanding dawned. I handed one book to each student, and they were beside themselves. When I asked if I could have a photo, they were so enthusiastic that you may have trouble even finding me in the shot...

A few days later, I went to my family's house for lunch as usual. There was a man sitting next to my father, but I didn't think much of it because it's not odd for us to have guests. The man greeted me. I responded dutifully -- and he exclaimed to my father in disbelief, "She really speaks Pulaar! It's so amazing!" A minute later, someone called out to me by name. The man again got worked up. "Your name is Raky?! They gave you that name here? How incredible!" I started to wonder what this guy's deal was. I thought most everyone knew me by now.

We all ate in silence, as is polite. After the bowls had been cleared, the man greeted me once again. Then he said, "Do you know why I'm here? I'm here for you." My immediate reaction was a churning in my stomach: not another hopeful suitor! But this guy seemed much too old for that. Maybe I had misunderstood?

No, I had heard him correctly. He went on to explain that he is the father of one of my students. I recognized the boy's name immediately -- he is one of my brightest, and a faithful member of English Club. The father told me he'd heard so much about me that he just wanted to come and greet my family. "You're a good person," he said. "Thank you so much, SO much."

Suddenly I realized why the man didn't know me. That kid doesn't even live in Dar El Barka. The father had traveled from another village, in the heat of the day, just to make this visit.

I did the appropriate thing by averting my eyes and mumbling, "Mashallah, mashallah" -- all things are from God -- but I couldn't help my cheeks flushing as across my face crept an unshakeable grin.

A house; a home

2009-05-16T01:20:00.009Z

It's been a rough few weeks.

And that is by all standards putting it mildly.

Since September I have lived in the one-room guest quarters of a much larger house in Dar El Barka. The beautiful big house sits empty almost always, but three weeks ago a woman about 40 years old arrived from the capital, Nouakchott. She told me her father had just died, and she was so distraught that she'd left the city and come here to her mother's home village to escape for a bit. I felt sympathy for the woman, naturally, so when she insisted that I eat dinner with her that night, I agreed. And then when she insisted I spend the night with her in the big house, I again obliged.

Within half an hour she already felt comfortable enough to sit completely naked in front of me. Decidedly not normal here -- but I didn't want to judge. She rambled incessantly, pausing only for drag after drag on her cigarette. It was overwhelming to say the least, but I kept her company while she cried and cried through the night.

The woman quickly began to treat me somewhat like a servant. She asked to borrow my cell phone, and my gas burner, and she asked me to go fetch her things from the little corner store. I still felt bad for her, so I continued to obey even though I was getting a bit annoyed.

Fast-forward a few days -- and I was at my wit's end. The woman had declared that she hates everyone in Dar El Barka (except me, inexplicably), and she would stand up on her balcony with or without clothing and scream at children passing by. She hired cars every single day to drive her the hour to Boghé because she simply couldn't survive without icy Cokes. And when she left, she would order that I stay at the house to "watch" it and not let a soul come in. I felt like some bizarre Cinderella. She returned from one such trip with a huge new stereo and car battery to power it, and then she began blasting music each day -- ALL day long, from 6 in the morning to after midnight. She had my cell phone almost continuously, but I had trouble refusing her because she kept transferring huge sums of credit to my account. And if at any point I did try to say no to her, she would inevitably cry, "My FATHER is DEAD!"

In general, she wouldn't leave me in peace. After a few truly absurd incidents, I was at a tipping point. I couldn't live my life anymore. She wouldn't even allow me to visit my family (as if she had that authority!), because she told me they were bad people and thieves. Some of my sisters tried to come greet me one night, but this woman screamed and yelled at them to stay away from her house.

It was too much. Finally I really put my foot down, and we had some strong words. I told her calmly that I was not her slave -- but she flipped and called me an "American imperialist" and then accused me of making this into "the Cold War." She stormed off, and I took this as my opportunity to flee to my family's house for the evening.

I decided I just needed to coexist with this woman while she stayed in the village -- one or two weeks, she'd said -- and then everything could go back to normal. So for the next several days, I was nearly invisible. While at home, I stayed completely locked up in my room, quiet as can be, and I slipped out at times to head to school or to my family's house. This crazy woman continued to blast her music, but I slept with earplugs. An inconvenience, but I felt empowered. I felt in control. Hold on for one more day...

Last Saturday morning I was in my room, happily enjoying some America-sent chai tea and oatmeal, listening to the BBC and doing a crossword -- a.k.a. the perfect start to a day in Dar El. At around 9, this train wreck of a woman came banging on my door. I opened it, and she was standing there with my counterpart (Peace Corps liaison in the village). He greeted me, then stepped back in hesitation. The crazy lady started railing on him: "You tell her now. You tell her right now!! This is not a hotel, this is not the Hilton." What could she possibly be talking about? My counterpart approached me again with some reluctance and announced: "You need to get all your stuff and come up to the mayor's, and we will look for a room." What?? I said I didn't understand, so he switched from Pulaar to French. No, see, I understood -- but I just don't understand.

Finally the woman tired of this and marched over to me herself. "Take your things, come on!!! They'll find you a room." But where, I asked? "I don't know where, just do it!!" In hopeless confusion, I asked: "But --" "There is no but!!!" "I just want to know why," I said. "THERE IS NO WHY!! Now, come on!!" Right now? "Yes, right this minute!! I'm trying to go somewhere, and now I'm going to be late having to wait for you so I can lock this up. Let's go!!" And with that, she just haphazardly started grabbing things off my floor and scattering them all on the ground just outside my doorway. Are you serious?

Too, too many thoughts rushed through my head. Her behavior was entirely irrational and inappropriate, but at the end of the day there wasn't much I could do about it. The room is technically her property. She declared that I had to be out in five minutes. I barely had time to comprehend. Everything. Everything that had made this room my home. My curtains, my photos, my calendars, my clothes line, my beautiful window screens that I had installed myself. In a daze, I threw it all in random bags and boxes and tried unsuccessfully not to cry.

The room was empty in 15 minutes, an unbelievable feat. My counterpart appeared again and said we should take everything up to the mayor's, next-door. It felt degrading and depressing to carry all my things out of this place I had treated so well. Some young girls, about 11 years old, watched us from under a tree for the first load or two, and then they scampered over to greet me. "Raky, we want to help you," the ringleader said. Fine, I sighed, just be careful. Looking at my mess of stuff, she picked up a cardboard box -- and balanced it on her head to carry. Because that's how you carry heavy things here. For some reason, seeing this almost broke me.

And so it has been a long week since then. I have been offered another room in an empty house next to the mayor's, but the door is not secure and needs to be replaced. In the meantime, I have been staying in the mayor's living room, with all my possessions. It's less than ideal, although his house does have some amazing perks like electricity and a real shower.

Please do not mistake this psychopath for being representative of the sort of people I interact with typically. She is anything but. Everyone in Dar El has been exceedingly kind to me throughout this ordeal. Several people, including the village chief himself, have sought me out specifically to apologize for this woman's behavior and declare that she is just out of her mind and no one knows what to do with her. They've also told me that I'm better off away from her -- and, of course, they're right.

May 16, 2008, was my last night at my apartment in Austin, Texas. From that time until I left for the Peace Corps, I didn't have a room of my own.

But stone and wood don't make a place home.

So, a new era. Inshallah.

Le club d'anglais

2009-04-26T01:25:00.006Z

All school year long, I've wanted to start an English Club. After-school activities here are an entirely alien notion, but I was determined to get one off the ground for the sake of my really bright students. Of course, there is a certain chain-of-command one needs to go through before making something like this happen. Namely, I needed to speak with my school director. Sounds simple enough, right?

The gentleman who had been our director last year was due to return in October -- but he never did. We were assigned a new director, with whom I spoke right away. He was enthusiastic about my club plans, right up until the time that he got re-assigned a few weeks later. For a while, we had no director, and then #3 came along. I was certain I was off to a bad start with him when in our very first meeting I had to ask off for Thanksgiving.

Then this director disappeared. No one really knew where he was. The surveillants (disciplinarians) and teachers begrudgingly had to schedule our Trimester 1 exams ourselves. I returned from December break to a still-directorless school. With no single person in command, week after week I could not get approval for my club.

February at last marked the return of Director #3. My next task was trying to make this man understand what exactly were my intentions. It's amazing the amount of red tape there was to go through at a school with only seven teachers. The director said I needed to talk to both "coordinators." No one had even told me we had such a thing!

But after many conversations and repeated explanations, plans were laid. While in Boghé I typed up and printed out formal invitations to the club for a total of 20 of my best students in 3rd and 4th years. I presented these during class, calling out each one's name for all to hear. These kids never get any kind of honor or recognition for their hard work, and I wanted to make it seem like a big deal, something they should be proud of.

Each school day runs from 8-noon and then 3-5, so I figured if we had club directly after that, all the kids would already be there anyway. Many of my students live in nearby villages, not in Dar El Barka, so they have to walk long distances to get to school and back. So my idea was to meet every Tuesday at 5pm.

But that was only an idea... The very week I'd set to begin, the school decided that from now on, we'd have classes from 8-2 straight and be done. Meaning that now my 5:00 club was NOT immediately after school. Wonderful. Like I could really expect kids to trudge all the way back to school in the worst heat of the day -- for an optional activity? I started counting the strikes against me.

The big day arrived. I left my house and walked to school, entirely prepared to be let down one way or another. I had informed the director, both so-called coordinators, the head surveillant, as well as all the kids... but I expected to find an empty schoolyard, and no one around to open the gate. "Oh, you meant today?"

But I found the groundskeeper and after a few minutes I was in a classroom. I checked my watch. Still a few minutes to spare. I sat down at a desk to wait. On the chalkboard in front of me was a science lesson taught previously that day. It was about electricity. It seems cruel to make kids learn about it if they don't even have it. But I digress.

I totally psyched myself out: It's so HOT right now. And anyway, they probably forgot. I didn't even remind them! It was over a week ago that I gave out those invitations... But, one girl had seen me earlier that day and asked me about it. So maybe if just she comes, at least it'll be something...

My thoughts were interrupted by a skid in the dirt just outside my door.

One of my kids, on his bike.

It was all I could do not to LEAP from my chair. And he opened a small floodgate. Sixteen kids showed up! I was beside myself!! I wanted to hug every one of them.

We've now met twice. It may be the highlight of my week. Mainly I've been teaching them how to use a French-English dictionary, so that we can do more fun activities using them. I've accumulated seven dictionaries now (but I humbly beg you to send more!), so I drag them all with me in my backpack. These kids have never seen a dictionary in their lives. They're 16 years old and don't know what alphabetical order is. These books are magical to them. On my way out of the schoolyard, I walked behind two of my boys, chatting to each other in Pulaar: "Dictionnaire ine moyyi dee!"

My own rendering? "How sweet is that dictionary?!"

La fête Pâcques

2009-04-12T08:34:00.002Z

I write to you from inside my mosquito net, in the yard of the Boghé house. I hear: rap cassettes that neighbors blare loudly every night; the shuffling of feet and a pair of Pulaar voices (I can't hear the words, but the cadence is obvious); the insistent crickets; an occasional car whooshing by; a donkey braying in heaving gasps; the clip-clip of a horse's hooves pulling a cart on the pavement. It is late, past midnight. The moon is up, waning gibbous, which I can tell you without looking. Bailey, the house dog, is asleep at my feet -- if I'm fortunate, we'll make it through the whole night without her waking up and insisting to be let out of my tent. But probably not.

It's Saturday night, and Easter is tomorrow. That's why I'm in Boghé again, even though I was just here last weekend. On Thursday I mentioned to my host family that I was planning to head into town the next morning (weekends start on Friday, Muslim-style). "Tomorrow?!" They were incredulous. "No way, you'll never find a car." They proceeded to tell me that there was going to be a huge festival in Dar El, with mayors and village chiefs in attendance from many surrounding areas. There was to be music and singing and dancing and even theatre, they claimed. "Tons of people will be coming here," they vowed, "but no car will possibly be leaving."

But it's a religious holiday for Christians, I tried to tell them, very important. "Oh, I get it," they responded. "So you will eat lots of food! For three days!!" -- because that's what a religious holiday means to them. Food is part of it, I thought dryly, but so are photographs with gigantic rabbits, and joyful searches for chicken eggs -- oh, but not regular ones, ones that we've painted bright colors, and put candy inside of. Think these concepts will translate culturally?

As the idea sunk in that I might not be able to spend this special day with other PCVs as I had originally planned, I grew increasingly sad. I let my mind wander over memories of other Easters. When had I not been with family or close friends? When had I not been to church? It almost seemed like a cheap shot to try to pray to God to let me find a way to Boghé, like a "come on, I'm doing this for you!" But could I really spend it this year as just another day in my village, while everyone else goes about their business? The thought depressed me.

Not one to give up easily, I still got up before dawn on Friday to go sit by the road and search for a car. I'll spare you the gritty details, but let's just say not only did I find a car, but I made it to town in probably the fastest time ever. I was here by 8 AM. Alhamdulillah -- thank God!! (Is it sacrilege to say I actually thought, "It's an Easter miracle!")

So, we bought some eggs, blew out the yolks, decorated and dyed them (and dyed Bailey's tail baby blue). We will hide them tomorrow for a competitive big-kids hunt! Along with PCVs Yates and Mark, I've planned a nice little Easter meal. I have some canned turkey (about as close to ham as we can get in an Islamic republic). And thanks in part to American care packages, the menu will also comprise stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy, okra casserole, buttered corn, bread, and jello. Can't wait! Right now I'm listening to a favorite playlist of "Jesus tunes"... so that's sort of like church? Take what I can get.

Quick school update, because I know I haven't mentioned it much lately. I feel like we're always on vacation -- which isn't far from the truth. Trimester 3 is underway, but not for long! The other trimesters lasted 12 or 13 weeks, but this one had already been cut short by over a month because of presidential elections scheduled for June 6th. (Since August this country has been run by a military usurper, do you recall?) But now, the buzz among teachers is that final exams will be pushed up even earlier. Essentially, I will probably only see each of my classes five or six times this whole trimester. It's crazy. And sad.

I have fun with them. Last week I taught agreeing and disagreeing vocab with my 4th-years. I offered some statements, which they could raise their hands and agree or disagree with. I started with generally accepted truths, like "Akon sings wonderfully" and "English is fun" (they agree emphatically!). Then I threw some curve balls: "Barack Obama is ugly." "To drink alcohol is good." These kids freaked out! "NO, TEACHER!! Sorry, but I disagree! That is NOT true!" You have to smile.

Pulaar and Hassaniya speakers alike refer to the school spring break with a French phrase, "la fête Pâcques." This literally means "the Easter holiday" (despite the fact that spring break was two weeks ago). I'm no Islamic scholar, but in my understanding Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet -- but not as one who rose from the dead to take away the sins of the world. So, they know the word Easter, but have no idea what it means.

Some things here are worth explaining, and others you just let go. "Yes," I told my family. "We will eat lots of food, for three days!"

Bonnes Pâcques à tous!

The hierarchy of pests

2009-04-02T01:00:00.007Z

#10. LOCUSTS. That's right, locusts. I know what you're saying. I too thought they were a biblical plague sort of deal, not really around anymore. Wrong. Picture legions of ginormous grasshoppers (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-style), and they keep senselessly jumping and flying into your face. They are awful. But fortunately, they are not around for the majority of the year.

#9. SCHISTOSOMA. Schistosoma is a microscopic flatworm responsible for causing schistosomiasis, the second most devastating parasitic disease (after malaria). They are found in tropical fresh water. The bottom line: because of these little guys, Peace Corps forbids me to swim in the cool and beautiful river 20 yards from my front door. It is a painful thing.

#8. MAURITANIAN STREET CHILDREN. Oh, wait. Should they not count as "pests"?
#8. CREEPY MAURITANIAN MEN. Still no? Fine...
#8. ROOSTERS. They start crowing long before dawn. I've developed a fantasy of punching one in the throat mid-cockadoodle. But really, the roosters are tolerable since I get woken up by the prayer call most mornings anyway.

#7. LIVESTOCK. This includes goat, sheep, and cattle (they're longhorns, shout-out to Texas!). These creatures comment and protest loudly all. day. long. What do you imagine to be the sounds of an African village? Joyful native songs and an occasional elephant trumpet? Not for me. It's all "MEHHHH!" and "MOOOO!"
// EDIT: I don't even know how I forgot about the god-forsaken donkeys. Their gasp-screeching is in a class by itself.

#6. TERMITES. They eat all our books. It's tragic.

#5. TOADS. At dusk, the "running of the toads" commences and I see scores of them come hopping out of every crevice and shadow. Sometimes it makes me laugh out loud. (Again, the biblical plagues are brought to mind.) The thing I can't get over is that they are so DUMB! I often discover a toad that is holed up in a corner of my room, too confused to find its way back to the door. And almost daily I have one floating dead in my latrine (or a live one still squirming in vain). Pretty gross, but I figure if they're stupid enough to keep falling in the same hole, they probably don't deserve to live.

#4. ANTS. They are a definite nuisance, but I confess that deep down I really respect them. They are SO GOOD at finding food! Constantly they impress me. Favorites are anything with sugar, nuts, or meat (i.e. beef jerky). I have to have my food SEALED, or they will immediately swarm! Ziploc bags are no match -- only Tupperware and buckets with airtight lids get the job done. Sometimes I leave a candy wrapper in the middle of my floor just to see how long it takes the ants to find it. I am at peace with them because at least they have a clear purpose in life. Oh, one other thing, though: when they bite you, it KILLS.

#3. MICE. I don't have them in Dar El Barka (alhamdulillah -- thank God!), but we have a serious mouse problem at the house in Boghé. Now, as I just said, I have to keep all my food locked up tight because of the ants anyway. But mice are peculiar little beasts. Food is not the only thing they're after. They'll chew through thick plastic bags and cardboard boxes to get to... A bar of soap? Toothpaste? Moist towelettes? The rubber grip on a pen?! Nothing is sacred.

#2. MOSQUITOES. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about a mosquito. They whine up close to your ears. They bite you so discreetly that you don't even notice, until that unmistakable itching starts burning a minute later. AND on top of all this, they spread an incredibly deadly disease, malaria! I put on insect repellent every single night, and I sleep inside a net, but still I get bitten on average 10 times a day. The only reason mosquitoes are not #1 on my list is because at least they are relatively slow enough that you can clap them dead in your hands if you see one.

And the bane of my existence:

#1. FLIES. You know those infomercials on TV when they show the "starving kids in Africa," and there are flies just all over the place? This isn't added for dramatic effect. They are everywhere, at all times. They buzz around incessantly and land on your food. Ryan had a theory in our Pulaar class that it was always at his most frustrated when a fly would land square on his face. The worst is that they are really fast, so they're hard to kill. They laugh in the face of fly paper, I've learned. My mom sent me a fly swatter, and fortunately that's been really helpful. I'm putting no dent in their population, but swatting gives me a profound sense of satisfaction. As I watch them struggle in their final moments, I often ask them aloud, "What was your life worth?"

Homecoming

2009-03-28T00:05:00.004Z

When you travel out of town for the weekend, how do you get back home? Let's say you don't have a personal vehicle... Do you buy an Amtrak or Greyhound ticket, carefully checking the scheduled departure times?

Here's how I get home from Boghé (where I am able to use electricity and internet to write these lovely blogs for you). It's never the same thing twice, but this is what happened last time.

In the morning I walk the 15 minutes to the market, which is the center of activity and home to the "garage" for cars heading out of town. (So it is called anyway, even though it's just a dirt clearing that serves as a parking lot.) I search for "my" driver Moctar, who lives next-door to me in Dar El Barka and drives to Boghé daily for supplies. He lost his cell phone a couple months ago, so now looking around for him in person is the best way to get a hold of him.

Today, as many days, my search is in vain. I do, however, spot another vehicle that I know to be headed to Dar El. It's a big white van resembling a paddy wagon -- indeed, PCVs call them prison vans. This one in particular is more deluxe than most and has careful lettering painted on the driver's door: "Air Dar El Barka," a man's name, and a phone number. (Don't ask me why it says "Air," in English no less. No one would mistake it for a plane.) I save the number in my cell phone.

I walk back from the market, still hoping against hope to spot Moctar. He has a nice pick-up truck, and since he likes me, he always saves me a seat in the front with him (the other option is hanging on for dear life in the bed of the truck). But still no dice today. Air Dar El Barka it shall be. I dial the number, and with my best Pulaar I explain my situation. I ask the man if he's leaving this afternoon. "Of course, of course," the driver tells me. I ask what time, knowing full well that this question is foolish since it means nothing -- as you will soon see. He says, "1:00, or 2:00." Fine by me.

At 12:15 my phone rings. It's the driver: "Come to the garage, we're leaving right now!" Fortunately, I've been here long enough to know that I still have some time to spare. I finish eating my lunch and gather my things. Then, just in case this guy is really serious about "right now," I spring for the luxury of a taxi back to the garage. The fare is 60 ouguiya, about $0.24 USD. (FYI, "taxi" is defined as any vehicle that you can successfully flag down. In America this is typically referred to as hitchhiking.)

I spot my prison van, and I talk to the driver. "Yup, no problem," he says. I find a spot in the shade to sit down on my backpack and wait. Next to me a girl, aged 14 or so, is selling cold drinks out of a small cooler. She takes one look at me and immediately says in French, "Give me a present." I force myself to remember that this is acceptable behavior here and not considered rude. "No," I tell her flatly. I've gotten pretty good at this.

Then I have an idea. "Do you know Barack Obama?" I ask her in Pulaar. "Of course!" she brightens. "He's the President of America!" I pull from my bag the special inauguration edition of Time, which my mom has just sent me from the States. The girl scoots toward me eagerly. For the next full half-hour, we pore over every single photograph. The girl is full of questions: "Is he really black? Is he Muslim? Is that his house? Is that his wife? Is her hair real, or a weave?" We attract a small crowd, but the girl protectively smacks away the hands of other children who try to turn the pages.

When we finally finish, she thanks me profusely. Then, as an afterthought, she tugs off her ring and thrusts it toward me. "A present?" I ask. Her eyes light up as she nods. I proudly put it on my finger. It's hideous, bright orange-y fake gold. I love it.

It's now past 1:00. About an hour later, the driver tells me he just needs to go pick up some supplies and he'll be right back to get me.

At 4:30, I board the vehicle.

The other passengers and I sit on jugs of oil and 50-kilo rice sacks that cover the floor from wall to wall. One man has in his lap a baby goat, umbilical cord still visible. We all pay our fare so that the driver can buy enough gas for the trip. We pull out of town at 5:15. I walk through my door at 6:30.

I take time at my house only to drop my things and find my gifts for my family. I always bring them back something from Boghé. This time it's mandarin oranges (a true indulgence) and ever-needed tea. I hustle over to their house.

"HAI-YO!" exclaim Faasidi and Goggo when they spot me. (It's not a Pulaar word exactly, more a sound effect expressing delight at someone's arrival.) They run over and engulf me in hugs -- a gesture that really has to be earned here. Everyone falls over themselves greeting me. "How are you? Are you healthy? You returned safely? Are you tired? How was the trip? How is everyone in Boghé? Are they healthy? Welcome, welcome!" Everyone has been sitting on a thin woven mat on the dirt ground, but they bring out a large foam pad for me. The children, starved for attention in my absence, commence a cartwheel contest for my adjudication. "Raky, Raky! Watch me!" Three-year-old Fatimata drapes herself across me and accidentally calls me "Mommy."

Over 6 hours to go 40 miles. But it's so good to be home.

How lovely to be a woman

2009-03-07T11:08:00.006Z

In honor of International Women's Day on March 8th, I write on the glory of being female in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. (As a side note: all girls here are exempt from going to school on this day. Does this seem counterproductive to anyone else?)

Constantly I am asked the question: "Ada yidi gorko?" In Pulaar this means "Do you want a man?" -- that is, a husband. My go-to response is wagging my finger while sucking my teeth and declaring, "NO! Men are so much trouble! They are all the same!" This gets everyone laughing and, if I'm fortunate, defuses the whole situation. But several gentlemen in my life here are relentless. I get regular phone calls and text messages from would-be suitors. I have a neighbor who proposes to me on a daily basis. When he drops by my family's house, everyone thinks it's very funny to say, "Raky, your fiancé is here!" I tell him that he is crazy. He just replies, in complete seriousness, "But I really want to go to America..."

The fact that I am 24 years old and unmarried makes me all but an old maid. People can scarcely understand it. From the age of about 15, girls in this country are expected to be looking for a husband. To wed at 12 is not strange. From what I've seen, marriage is rarely based on love. (Tellingly, in Pulaar the word for "to marry" is an active verb for men and a passive verb for women -- it is something that happens to the female.) Polygamy is also practiced by some. Men are permitted to have up to four wives, although I haven't seen more than two at once (since the man is expected to provide for each woman equally). As foreign as this idea may seem to us in America, many Mauritanians have tried to convince me that polygamy is a great thing, because it puts far less stress on the first wife in terms of household duties.

It is not strange to see men and women eating around separate bowls at large family meals. When getting into a taxi with strangers, the passengers may do quite a bit of rearranging so that a man does not have to sit next to a woman (if they are married, it's possibly acceptable). At the bank in the capital city, there are four lines of male tellers to assist men, and one female teller for women. At prayer call, men are expected to go to the mosque and pray there with his "brothers." Women pray at home, as the children cry and crawl all over them.

I am grateful to be in the southwest of Mauritania, with the Pulaar people who are fairly liberal regarding women. The major ethnic group in the rest of the country is the Moors, of Arab descent. Moor women almost always wear a mulefa, the full-length veil. The director of my school is a Moor. Before he enters his office in the morning, he shakes the hand of each teacher and greets them. (Greetings are extremely important in this culture.) When he gets to me, though, he just passes me by without a word and certainly without touching me. Did I mention all the other teachers are male?

A taste of WAIST

2009-02-20T22:29:00.012Z

Alhamdulillah! I have returned to Boghé after a fabulous few days in Dakar, the capital of Senegal and most cosmopolitan city in West Africa. We thought Nouakchott was a "promised land" at Christmas time, but Dakar made it pale in comparison! Highways! High-rises! High-rollers! And high prices! =P

The cause for travel was the 36th Annual WAIST, the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. It's quite the affair, with 32 teams this year from Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, The Gambia, and Guinea. Many players are Peace Corps Volunteers, but there are also a few ex-pat teams (UN and embassy staff) and some Senegalese nationals. Peace Corps Mauritania classically has a strong representation at the event, and 2009 was no exception. We packed 100 of us onto two coach buses (what luxury!) to make the voyage from our training center in Rosso. It took roughly 10 hours door-to-door, including the laborious border crossing. We entered three teams in the competition: the Pirates, the Buccaneers, and the Scallywags. I was one of our host of spectator-cheerleaders.

Also participating in WAIST were two of my friends from Boston University, Andy and Annicka, who are both PCVs in Senegal. Totally random that we all ended up so close together in West Africa.

The games took place over Saturday and Sunday, with simultaneous play on four ball fields. Two were provided by Boston's own Suffolk University, which has a satellite campus in Dakar. Concession stands sold fabulous treats like hot dogs, pulled pork, ice cream, and beer (none of which exist for us in Mauritania!). Our "A" team Pirates went undefeated to make it to the play-offs on Monday. The championship field overlooked beautiful cliffs right on the ocean. Our opponents were formidable, but we persevered -- and captured first place in the social division! The pride! The glory!

We took some time to soak in some of the Dakar sights. We relaxed on tranquil, deserted beaches. We ate delicious Indian curry and Italian gelato. We bought cheese and lunch meat and chips and salsa in an overwhelming grocery store (with overwhelming European-import prices).

We fought our way through the artisanal marketplace, amidst all the vendors hawking their goods and imploring us in English, "My sister! My friend!" I tried to use my impoverished volunteer status for leverage in bargaining, but the sellers laughed and absolutely refused to believe that I lack electricity. "God will pay you for your work," one offered, in French. "Yes," I replied, "but God doesn't buy me earrings!" Another helpful strategy was using my Pulaar (Senegal is about 25% Pulaar). In such a big tourist area, I would imagine they don't see too many white girls speaking their native language! That was usually good for knocking a few thousand francs off the inflated asking price -- even better when coupled with sucking of the teeth and a disapproving finger-wag, traditional signs of distaste here. My friends and I ended up with a happy menagerie of ebony and teak hand-carved creatures:

Another highlight was passing through the colonial town of Richard Toll, on the river that borders Senegal to the north. You can see Mauritania just on the other side, and somehow it is a completely different world. I enjoyed a tender steak and a glass of wine poolside in this lush garden. Compare with my dusty, beloved little village of Dar El Barka, immediately over the river. So close, and yet...

P.S. I hope you enjoy all the photos. I painstakingly sat at this computer for hours (literally) in order to post this many for you!

Come to prosperity

2009-02-01T00:15:00.003Z

I went to my family's house at 1pm, like usual. There was hardly anyone around on this particular day, but I figured they were at the market -- Saturday is our market day when vendors come from all the surrounding villages to sell produce, and a few vans come from Boghé (the "big city") with fancy things like dangly earrings and perfume and jugs of cooking oil. It's an important day for my family to make money (or not) with what they've grown that week.

Just before 2:00, my sister brought me a single bowl and spoon (Mauritanians all eat with their hands, and I do this on occasion to "integrate," but my family knows I prefer a spoon and they are great about providing me one). No one seemed to be joining me. Had they already eaten? I didn't question it too much because there are frequently things that I don't understand here, so I just started eating. It was a decent hunk of fresh fish, a slice of squash, cabbage -- and neverending rice. Whenever they give me a personal portion, it's absurdly huge. I ate a bit dutifully, and then they dutifully asked me if I was really only going to eat so little, and to please have some more. Finally they gave up and my sister Kadia started picking at it, and she called the smallest children over. I immediately felt bad that I'd eaten as much as I had, as they scrounged at my leftovers.

I sat there awhile reading the magazine I'd brought with me, even though still no one was around. The old man came and sat in silence with me. Finally he said my name. "Today is not good," he announced in Pulaar. Why, I asked? He looked tired. "It's not good," he repeated. Then he said something else in Pulaar, but I didn't understand. He gave a tight-lipped, wry smile.

I looked up the word in my dictionary when I got back to my room. It means "poor person." As in we're so poor today we couldn't eat lunch? But they still fed me...

Talk about giving poverty a face. It's not "somewhere in Africa people are starving." It's Kadiata Ann. It's Abdoul Thille. It's my favorites whom I love and who love me and love life. I want to give them all the money they need, I thought, so these children never have to miss another meal.

But they're only one family.

But still they are one.

But money doesn't solve the problem. That's such a typical Western response. Will education help you? I pray to God it does.

As I struggled with these thoughts in my journal, the sunset call to prayer came over the mosque loudspeaker. Haya ala salah -- come to prayer. Haya ala falah -- come...

To prosperity.

"Yes, we can" vs. "No, you can't"

2009-01-20T22:14:00.006Z

Today Barack Hussein Obama is President of the United States of America. I was so fortunate to be able to come to Boghé and watch the ceremony live on a friend's satellite TV (dubbed over in French). As our new president spoke of reaching out to the world, I sat between two black African Muslims. A child of three years old fussed in the corner and was reprimanded by his parents as he kept loudly calling out the names he's heard so often now: "Wah-sheen-ton! Leen-con! BARACK OBAMA!"

It is a happy day.

Now that we have begun our second trimester of school, the size of my English classes has leveled off a bit from what I was originally assigned. Here are my current numbers:

1st year (ages 10-17) : 15F + 18M = 33 students
2nd year (ages 12-19) : 24F + 48M = 72 students
3rd year (ages 13-20) : 19F + 35M = 54 students
4th year (ages 13-22) : 7F + 25M = 32 students

You can see that in each year there are more males than females, and this only becomes more pronounced in the higher levels. I'm sure you can guess the reasons: young pregnancies/marriages (as young as 12 is not uncommon), responsibilities at home, lack of importance given to girls' education.

So I have 191 students altogether. I want very much to know all their names -- this was crucially important to me as a teacher in the States. But it's quite difficult here when I see my kids each only once a week. Also, here all students are assigned numbers, so when I take roll, I am not calling out their names. It's just "Number 1? Number 2?" I don't like it. It feels a little too Auschwitz to me. But besides that, many kids have similar names. I have two girls in 1st year with the exact same first, middle, and last name. I have 10 boys named Oumar and 13 named Mamadou. It's a constant effort.

In America we have a general notion that with enough positive reinforcement, children will gain confidence in their abilities and thus achieve great things. (Look at Obama with "Yes, we can!") It is the opposite here. Lately I have been helping my sister Goggo with her French homework. She is in the 4th year of primary school. Traditionally teachers here use a lot of rote memorization, so I sit with Goggo as she painstakingly repeats the same short paragraph out of her book, over and over and over. The other night she sighed at last and asked me, "Am I getting it or not?" "Yes, of course you are! You're doing great," I told her. "No, she's not," her older brother interjected, "she's terrible. She can't do anything." The thought is that this will make the girl want to work harder and she will eventually succeed.

I disagree. I wanted to slap him.

And now for something completely different... I leave you with a fun picture of me and Amanda a few weeks ago in Nouakchott. We found a Mexican restaurant called Fiesta, which was very exciting to us. On the tables they had little napkin holders with various names of Mexican towns. This one is "Matamoros," somewhere I've been, a border town with Brownsville, TX:

Why was this humorous to me? Because the name Matamoros in Spanish means "Kill Moors." (This here in Mauritania, literally "Land of the Moors.")

Holiday travels

2009-01-06T16:56:00.009Z

Happy New Year to everyone! I have been having a wonderful vacation -- and it's not over yet. ;) December 23rd I bade so long to my Dar El Barka family, sang Christmas carols to myself as I sat on the side of the road at 6:30am to wait for the Boghé car, and made my way into town to see all the PCVs from my region of Mauritania. Our halls were decked with paper snowflakes and care-package tinsel, and we even made everyone little stockings -- stuffed, too, of course!

Then on Christmas Eve it was off to Nouakchott, our promised land. Strange that I'd been in this country over six months and still hadn't seen the capital. Lonely Planet describes Nouakchott as "hastily constructed," "lacking charisma," "discombobulating," "shambolic," "unbelievably filthy" -- but for us it is truly, to borrow phrase, a land flowing with milk and honey. Peace Corps put us all up in hotels that blew my mind... Real beds! Hot showers! Western toilets! Bathtubs! TV! Remote-control air conditioning! Fridge! Wireless internet! And don't even get me started on all the amazing things you can eat here that aren't available most anywhere else in the country -- cheese, ice cream, pizza, Italian & Chinese food. We didn't know where to begin! Plus our country director generously hosted all 120-some of us PCVs at his home for an exquisite homemade dinner.

Although Mauritania is an Islamic republic and all its people are Muslim, ex-pats are free to practice their own religion. So a group of us found the one Catholic church in Nouakchott and attended mass on Christmas morning -- what a cool experience, about 400 people from all over Africa and Europe. And I also squeezed in some time to watch my favorite "It's a Wonderful Life" on my laptop. It was about as good as Christmas could get without being home!

After all that, my training sitemates and I headed back down to PK7 to visit our old host families for a few days. When we asked the taxi driver to let us off on the side of the road, he was sure we were mistaken, because it's definitely the middle of nowhere. But as we walked through the sand, past the power plant that does not power PK7, our families spotted the white kids lugging hiking packs and came running to hug us all. They were sooo overjoyed! We were served endless tea (of course), and my family made a special trip into Rosso the next day to buy the finest fish they could afford. I am continually humbled by the amazingly selfless Pulaar people.

The next stop on our agenda was historic Saint-Louis, Senegal, the former capital of all French West Africa and now a quaint little beach town that many call a "run-down New Orleans" (no surprise, as the French influence is still quite evident, and the town hosts an international jazz festival every May). My mom asked me if Senegal is much different than Mauritania. When you take the ferry across the Senegal River, the people still speak the same language and have the same religion and come from the same families -- the border town even has the same name -- but it's an entirely different world. Immediately. Over 90% of the people are Muslim, but they are almost all black (unlike in Mauritania, where there is racial tension between the roughly equal numbers of Arabs and blacks). Dress is much less conservative in Senegal. Alcohol is not prohibited. Infrastructure, i.e. roads and available transportation, is infinitely better. And even in the smallest corner stores, there is such a variety of *things* that you just can't buy in Mauritania. Potato chips, roasted peanuts, and yes, beer -- we were impressed again and again.

It was hard to leave, but all the first-year PCVs made our way back to Nouakchott for our Early Term Reconnect conference, where I am now. We were surprised to find out about this mess in Gaza (hard to keep up with the news when you're on the road), and even more surprised to see the reaction in Nouakchott. Mauritania is one of three Arab countries to have diplomatic relations with Israel, and many people here are not too happy about that. There were some marches this week, some tires burned and rocks thrown, but nothing you all should worry about. We watched some of the demonstrations from afar, high up inside the Peace Corps Bureau (it's in the tallest building in the country). We are safe and sound, as we were assured yesterday in person by the U.S. Chargé d'Affaires to Mauritania. Just makes life a little more interesting...

May all your Christmases...

2008-12-23T19:30:00.005Z

The other day, my brother Alassane held up an eggplant and asked me what it was called in English. (Everyone in the family enjoys learning as much vocab as possible.) I told him, and he repeated the new word. Then the 15-year-old sister Kadia informed me that in Pulaar, it's called aubergine. "Actually," I told her, "aubergine is French. In Pulaar it's batayse." Everyone roared appreciatively. "You're right! Kadia doesn't know Pulaar, but you do! Raky is a true African!"

I've mentioned that I still don't know how the 17 people in my family are all related. There are many reasons for this. First of all, it's considered rude to ask people directly how many children they have. It is not strange for children to call their parents by their first names, or, alternatively, to call relatives who are not their biological parents "Mother" and "Father." Husbands and wives don't typically wear rings, nor do they publicly show any affection. Women always keep their family surname. And oftentimes in villages like mine, the husband lives and works off in a bigger city and only comes to visit on major holidays -- so a woman may be married and you wouldn't even know it, although she will live with the husband's family. And similarly, children from very small villages without a school often go to live with relatives where there is one. Thus, you can see where my difficulty arises... I have learned some helpful hints, though, such as the fact that many children are given their father's first name as their middle name. This is how I discovered that Fatimata Samba is the daughter of Samba. But then there is the practice of a mother and father giving their child two totally different names. That same child is called Fatimata by her father (and everyone else), but her mother calls her Mariam. Confused yet??

In any case, I got to meet a few new family members to add to the mess during the Tabaski celebration the week of December 8th. It was nice to be off from school for a few days and to eat some good food. Banafe is my favorite dish -- a mutton stew with big chunks of potato. I also had a very traditional outfit made, which really impressed my family. They gushed, "When you wear that in America, everyone will say you are so beautiful!" I don't know, you be the judge:

I gave my Trimester 1 final exams this week, and now my vacation has officially begun! I am headed tomorrow to our national capital, Nouakchott, to spend Christmas at the country director's house with all of Peace Corps Mauritania. Then my friends and I will travel back down to PK7 to visit our host families from training this summer. After that we will ring in the new year with a few days in Saint-Louis, Senegal -- the land where alcohol is not illegal! ;) And finally, all the first-year PCVs will be back in Nouakchott for our five-day Early Term Reconnect conference. I won't be back in my village until January 10th. I am much looking forward to these amazing couple of weeks spent with friends (and electricity and running water and showers and real beds)!

Are you familiar with this song "Do They Know It's Christmas Time At All?" It was a collaboration of musicians for Band Aid, raising funds to eradicate poverty worldwide. U2's Bono was the driving force behind it, and while I respect him and appreciate his efforts, I find this song so absurd. "And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas..." No, there won't, but there won't be any in Austin, TX, either. Is it less of a Christmas? "Do they know it's Christmas time at all?" No, Bono, I'm here to tell you they don't -- but did you know it was Tabaski?

True, there won't be snow, but there just might be rain -- which is nearly as unexpected! The wet season here runs from July to October, and it is very rare for any rain to fall outside that time. But a few nights ago, I was awoken in the night by a distinct pitter-patter on my roof (and by the grumpy goats outside my wall, unhappily stirred from their slumber). And my first thought was -- it's not possible! It's a Christmas miracle!

And so, may your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases... be wet.

Where the love-light gleams

2008-12-06T11:01:00.006Z

OK, first of all, I take back what I said about the cold season. Even with a hoodie, I was shivering waiting for a car to Boghé yesterday! And I laughed because I'm sure it couldn't have been much below 68 degrees. What would I do in Boston these days, I wonder? But we PCVs all keep complaining, "I was freezing last night!" Guess we're fully "integrated" and are already wusses about our tolerance of cold.

Thanksgiving was a great time spent with friends here. There aren't exactly any turkeys in Mauritania, but we did find a duck! (Bought live, of course, but I did not take part in the subsequent slaughtering.) We had quite the spread, including some helpful goodies sent from America. Our menu comprised: duck, chicken, mashed potatoes & gravy, stuffing (Stove Top & homemade), cranberry sauce, cornbread, squash, beef & veggie kebabs, ranch dip, okra casserole, macaroni salad, "pumpkin" pie (actually a squash), carrot cake, and banana cream pie. Not bad for Africa!

Teresa and I were really excited to have our own little "Black Friday" shopping, as we browsed the market for fabric to make new outfits. With all the ceaseless bargaining and crowds of people, it felt almost as stressful as in the U.S.!

My mom sent me a little cardboard "Christmas tree-in-a-box," so I happily set that up in my room this week. I even indulged a bit and used some of my precious laptop battery power to listen to holiday tunes. It seemed appropriate to start with "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." I find it so hard to really comprehend that it's the Christmas season in America. Time kind of stands still here. The next song on my playlist was "There Is No Christmas Like a Home Christmas" -- and I couldn't help it, I got a little misty-eyed. But then Bing Crosby reassured me that "Christmas Eve will find me / where the love-light gleams / I'll be home for Christmas / if only in my dreams..."

And I have good times to look forward to here. This Monday is Tabaski, the biggest Muslim holiday of the year! Everyone gets a fancy new outfit made, and relatives travel long distances to be together. My family has been eating rather cheap dinners the last few nights, and I know it's because they're saving up for the big FEAST next week. I am told there will be endless portions of goat (the traditional celebration meal). And of course, we're off from school for a few days!

So, I'm having hybrid holidays. The best of both worlds, perhaps?

Three cups of tea

2008-11-26T22:27:00.003Z

"Cold" season has arrived to Mauritania, although don't be misled by this misnomer; the unforgiving sun still beats down at 100 degrees just about every day. At night it does cool off a bit more than in the summer, and the breeze blows as my family wrap themselves in sheets and say, "It's so cold! Tonight, Africa is like America!" It is probably 80 degrees. So far the biggest change is that I actually have the option now of sleeping indoors -- before, it was too stifling even to consider.

I love my adopted family in Dar el Barka. Smiles and laughter abound at their busy little compound, with 17 people who live there. Three months in the village and I still haven't figured out how they're all related! There are a clear Baaba "Father" and Yaay "Mother" (everyone calls them that, regardless of whether you're actually a niece or grandson or in-law). Beyond that, I just think of everyone as my sister or brother. Their names and approximate ages:

- Hamet Abdoul, 63/M
- Kadia Moussa, 54/F
- Fati Sidi, 30/F
- Samba, 25/M
- Molel, 20/F
- Aïcha, 19/F
- Mariam, 17/F
- Kadia, 15/F
- Jeynaba, 14/F
- Alassane, 13/M
- Goggo, 11/F
- Aïssata, 8/F
- Abdoul, 8/M
- Fatimata, 3/F
- Amadou, 2/M
- Samba, 7 mos./M
- Raky, 6 mos./F

Teaching is keeping me busy, as I struggle to create a curriculum relevant to students' lives here. The other day I was planning a vocab lesson on pastimes and hobbies, and I had a lot of trouble choosing which terms to include. Obviously, there was no "go to the movies," "surf the internet," "go to the mall," or "play video games." But even many of the things I myself do for fun here, without electricity, are far outside the realities of these kids: read books (for fun?), write in my journal, write letters, listen to the news, cook (for fun?!).

One activity I had no doubt about including was "to drink tea." It is a HUGE part of Mauritanian life. Always in three rounds, the whole process takes anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours. The amazing thing to me about people here is that they can just... sit... endlessly! They lie on the matela foam pads and contentedly let the minutes pass, periodically murmuring thanks to God. Me, I grow too restless and consequently always bring something to busy myself with -- a book or a crossword. You can take the girl out of America...

It was fitting, then, that a book I just finished during such endless tea sessions was Three Cups of Tea (Mortenson/Relin). It tells the heroic true story of a mountaineer-turned-humanitarian who has, against great odds, devoted his life to building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (I teared up often while reading it, but I always tried to wipe my eyes quickly because I couldn't imagine trying to explain to my family, in Pulaar, why looking at a book would ever cause one to cry!) Greg Mortenson's endeavors are awesomely inspiring.

It is the sad truth that Muslims today are so terribly misunderstood by much of the West. The extremely-misguided extremists poison the name of the faithful masses. At its heart, Islam is a beautiful way of life that promotes peace toward ALL people, love toward family, kindness toward strangers. Mauritanians -- even the poorest among them -- have shown me this so evidently in their ceaseless hospitality. It breaks my heart to know that some Americans would hate these people, my family here, just for bearing the title "Muslim." My praises to Mortenson for transcending petty cultural misunderstandings to accomplish the great task of providing education to those who have been denied it. For surely it is by EDUCATING ourselves -- with knowledge about the world and about each other -- that all doors are opened!

And that is why every night, my sister Goggo kneels in the dirt, with a flashlight in one hand and a pen in the other, as she diligently completes her homework.

And that is why I am here. To teach, but more to learn.

American in Africa listens to Brits discuss African-American

2008-11-11T23:33:00.003Z

Well, I ended up getting a ride into Boghé today on the bed of a UNHCR truck (the United Nations refugee agency). It was straight out of Hotel Rwanda. Unbelievable.

I came in midweek because my associate director is visiting my site on Saturday. It's nice to have some flexibility with my travels since I don't teach on Tuesday or Wednesday, but truthfully I am pretty busy these days. I try to hang with my family as much as I can, to keep improving my Pulaar. But I spend a fair amount of time planning my lessons, sitting on the floor in my room with a pen and paper. I basically have to create all my own material from scratch, for four different levels. I'm really enjoying it, though. Last Monday we did Describing People, and I made my students discuss the U.S. presidential candidates: "John McCain is very old. Barack Obama is beautiful." Their words, not mine! ;)

Everyone on this continent is fired up like CRAZY after this election. They can't believe that a "noir-américain" will really be President of the United States! They proudly claim Obama as a true son of Africa. My family here, mostly illiterate in this dusty little village without electricity, just constantly repeat his name (which they can actually pronounce, unlike his predecessors' "Zorz Boose" and "Bickington") and ask me all about him. Then they quiz each other and recite what they know: "He's black, AND American. His father is African. His father is Muslim, but Barack is Christian. He has two children, girls. If January dies [Pulaar phrasing for "at the end of January"], he will be President."

My buddy Rick Diamond in Austin, TX, posted an excellent "44 Things about the 44th President" on his blog. I respect Rick so much and love all that he had to say. "Obama's political and philosophical values are, for me, the best of what Christianity says it is about but mostly isn't about." I can only echo his sentiments.

On the night of the 4th, I set up my mosquito net on my roof for the best possible shortwave and cell phone reception. I listened to BBC coverage that started at 10pm (5pm EST), but it goes off the air here at 11. Then NOTHING broadcasts to West Africa in English, French, or Spanish between the hours of 11pm-3am. How cruel! I tried to get some sleep, but it was impossible. It felt like Christmas Eve.

As the results came in, I started to just cry. And cry, and cry. I couldn't believe it -- what an amazing moment in history! It was 5am as Obama began his speech. I found it beautiful. "To those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world... a new dawn of American leadership is at hand." I smiled.

He was still speaking as over the bullhorns here came the morning prayer call. A new dawn.

Halloween, election, video!

2008-11-02T12:46:00.003Z

This is just a mini-update. I came into Boghé again this weekend for a little Halloween celebration with the other Americans. We had a blast! I decided to take advantage of my short hair and pulled off a pretty sweet McCain, with Teresa as Ms. Palin:

Not bad, right? Especially considering the few means at our disposal! Teresa struck gold finding that red cardigan at a "dead toubab store" (Salvation Army rejects) here in Boghé. Ryan's family sent him a DVD of the presidential debates, so we watched some of that yesterday. Very exciting stuff. We broke into cheers when Obama mentioned doubling the Peace Corps -- woot woot! We all voted absentee a few weeks ago, and our ballots were specially delivered to Washington via the diplomatic pouch. Many Mauritanians are really excited about the election, too, and the prospect of a "noir-américain" taking office. They listen to updates on shortwave radio. I will be tuning in with bated breath come Tuesday night!

Note: Mauritania does not observe Daylight Saving Time, so as of today, I am 5 hours ahead of the East Coast.

I hope I wasn't misleading in my last post. I am NOT unhappy with my assignment in Mauritania. Yes, it is without a doubt one of the toughest countries that Peace Corps serves, with a wide range of challenges -- but that just makes us RIM PCVs that much more hardcore! ;) Really, I am loving getting to know the people in my village and to see what their lives are truly like. I laugh often. I see shooting stars every. single. night. I love teaching, and my students are so enthusiastic they literally fall out of their chairs to volunteer. I am happy.

Something fun to leave you with... my friend Dave is awesome and edited together a few videos I had sent him. (Believe it or not, the internet is so incredibly slow and spotty here that it was actually more efficient for me to burn the videos to CD and mail them to America, to be uploaded there.) Some footage is from my training site at PK7, and the rest is more recent from Dar El Barka. Hope you enjoy!

It's a lot of things, but not posh

2008-10-25T10:11:00.004Z

Unsurprisingly, there is no universal "Peace Corps experience." I think often about how different my service might be if I were in a country where people speak English (Nigeria, The Gambia) or where the color of my skin did not automatically set me apart from the locals (Eastern Europe). In some places, Peace Corps gets the nickname "Posh Corps," but there is little about my experience that might be mistaken for posh. Among past and current PCVs all over, I repeatedly hear Mauritania referred to as "one of the toughest" places to serve. I guess it's a combination of things: the climate is oppressive, the dress is very conservative, alcohol is illegal, and we lack a range of amenities and infrastructure that you can find in other developing countries.

What is my life like? I have been drawing some comparisons...

It's kind of like college. All my life's possessions are in one room (including food). I don't study or do laundry as much as I probably should. I'm far from the old friends I know so well. Alcohol is forbidden. I get care packages (thank you!!!). Easy Mac is gourmet living.

It's kind of like being elderly. I go to bed early and get up early. I spend a fair amount of time reading and doing crosswords. I sometimes don't have control of my bowels (yikes). And I talk to everyone around me about past experiences in this far-away world that they don't know and likely never will.

It's kind of like camping. I sleep outside in a tent. I squat to pee. I cook over a fire.

It's kind of like being OCD. Near EVERYTHING in my room is inside plastic bags. I sweep my floor and wash my hands incessantly.

It's kind of like being a child. I take afternoon naps. I pick up toads [to get them out of my room!]. I play dress-up, or it feels like it anyway. I kill bugs for fun. I eat with my hands.

It's kind of like being a nurse. I daily self-dispense my meds and vitamins. I am vigilant in observing the bug bites and/or rashes I constantly get. I always inspect my poop for any signs of problems -- how many consecutive days of diarrhea has that been? Do I see blood, or mucus? And when I often have dull cramps, I have to diagnose the cause -- did I eat or drink something contaminated? Am I reacting to the anti-malaria meds? Do I need to run to the toilet immediately, or can it wait?

Posh, right? ;)

I often recall Will Ferrell in Zoolander: "I feel like I'm taking CRAZY PILLS!" I mentioned something to a local colleague about missing electricity, and he asked in all seriousness what I would need it for. And then on the subject of food alone: a legit dinner I was served one night consisted of hot macaroni in a soup of sugar milk. Can you imagine? Meanwhile, most people think it's absurdly hilarious when I say that Americans often eat sandwiches for lunch. Everyone knows that rice and fish is what you eat for lunch, obviously. They also can't believe that many Americans eat dinner at 5 or 6 p.m. "But what do you eat at NIGHT?!" (Here they serve dinner anywhere between 8 and 10:30, depending who you eat with.)

But it is good. I am so grateful to be able to see how these people really live -- and even so, though I am living without electricity or indoor plumbing, I know that I am not at all living the life of a villager. I try to be on their level, but I have my fancy water filter and American skin creams and medicines and beautiful books, not to mention my iPod and computer. I often look at my sturdy Chaco sandals sitting in the dirt next to the Africans' cheap plastic flip-flops, and I ponder that one could buy a baguette roll of bread here every day for a year and a half -- or this pair of pretty shoes.

School began on October 19, ALHAMDULILLAH (thank God)! And contrary to what I had heard, students really did show up for the first week of class. I had expected to have around 12 hours of teaching per week, but unfortunately I currently only have 6. It may change, but in the meantime this gives me plenty of time to create and implement my secondary projects in the community. I am teaching 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-year students of collège, somewhat equivalent to 7th, 8th, and 9th grades in the U.S. Two of my classes have about 55 students, and the other has 75. There are more boys than girls, but I am encouraged by how many girls I did see. We are very fortunate in Dar El Barka to have a new middle school compound this year. The desks are ample, and the blackboards are wide and clean. I am very grateful! The first days of class went quite well, and I am really excited about the year.

(P.S. Thank you so much for your personal emails and comments. Unfortunately, I am not able to reply today because the internet connection is even more painfully slow than its usual snail's pace. But I will answer you all eventually!)

Pulaar ine weli kay

2008-10-11T22:23:00.005Z

I live in a village where everyone's* mother tongue is Pulaar. Varieties of this language (under an umbrella called Fula) are spoken throughout West, Central, and East Africa by 25 million speakers. My strand is essentially understood in Mauritania, Senegal, and The Gambia.

[* = Everyone with the exception of the hakem, who is the first-in-command sovereign bigwig of Dar el Barka. Like the vast majority of political higher-ups in Mauritania, he is a Moor and thus speaks Hassaniya, a dialect of Arabic. From what I can tell he barely knows any Pulaar at all -- nevermind that, meanwhile, few of the villagers communicate in Hassaniya. But why on earth would one ever need to SPEAK with the people he governs? I digress.]

Everyone who has been to school also speaks the colonial language of French, to some degree. This is therefore my fallback when I can't get my point across in Pulaar; we both stumble along in a language neither of us particularly excels in, but it often gets the job done. By necessity, Pulaar frequently borrows words from French where the concept has not existed in traditional society -- terms relating to technology, medicine, commerce. Examples include: cell phone, battery, bank, school, bandage, store, bathroom, paved road, car, gun, alcohol, sweater, electricity, law, rent, clock, faucet, table, plate, vote.

As a perpetual student of linguistics, I am intrigued by the way our minds choose our words and conversely how language can shape our thoughts (psycholinguistics). Interesting finds in Pulaar:

- The word leydi means country, land, nation, ground, sand, and floor. So to ask people where they're from, you ask, "What is your sand?"
- The generic word for "medicine" is the same for "trees."
- Rather than having separate words for "sister" and "brother," there are only "older sibling" and "younger sibling" (each of which you can specify as male or female). Birth order is more important than gender.
- The same word is used for "to like" and "to want," thus rendering it hard to compliment your friend's possession without insinuating that you want to take it from him.
- "Airplane" is literally "flying boat."
- The word fesaade means "to be intelligent"; it is also used for "to be vaccinated."

Pulaar lacks the nuances and complexity of English -- no subordinate clauses, no past perfect progressive -- but Pulaar speakers are so much more concise. They have single words that mean, for example: "to remember and say something during a meal," "to feel sand grains while chewing" (more common than I'd like), "a person with a lower lip smaller than the upper lip," "to leave one's husband's compound after a dispute," "to dig holes for sowing a second time," and the ever-useful "a death message broadcast on the radio" (I'm not really sure yet on the usage of that one).

Also, it is near impossible to make a statement in the future tense without adding the Arabic inshallah (or Pulaar's borrowed version so Allah jaɓi), meaning "if God wills it." When I say to my family that I'm going home to rest but I'll be back for dinner, they all murmur, "Inshallah, inshallah." In fact, in Pulaar "if" and "when" are the same word: "Every morning, if I wake up, I get dressed." I guess you never do know.

School was originally supposed to begin October 5th, but God didn't will it. Between the coup and Ramadan and lingering unresolved teachers' strikes, the start date is now "October 12th, inshallah." I've heard rumors we may not begin until November...

What ships are built for

2008-09-28T22:10:00.007Z

Think about the last time you moved to a new place. How did you figure out where everything was? Where to buy food and household sundries, where to find public transportation? You probably looked it up online, or in the phone book, and you plotted your way on a map. Maybe you asked a friendly neighbor for help. But what if there ARE no phones, no internet, no maps (no roads in the first place, anyway) -- and oh yeah, you only kindasorta speak your neighbor's language?

Well, sir, then life is an adventure! ;)

Example: say you feel like a burger today. What do you do? Go to McDonald's. Or, if you're more industrious, go to the grocery store and pick up some ground beef. But what if you had to buy the whole live cow? This is my life. I have the choice of buying an unhappy braying goat, a chicken with its feet tied together, or a still-flopping fish. I just laugh -- I wouldn't even know where to begin! So when I cook for myself, I stick to veggies, beans, macaroni. And fortunately, when I eat with the locals, the women know how to prepare the fresh river fish excellently.

My hair is growing. Compare two weeks to four:

There is no such thing as "Africa." There really isn't. When people here ask me about how certain things are in Amérique, I find it funny, because of course America is so big and diverse. Kennett Square is not Compton is not the Great Lakes is not Vegas is not Hawaii. BUT how much bigger is Africa? In our Western minds, it's all elephants and lions and bright fabrics and oversized jewelry. But, like anywhere, there are rich and there are poor and everything in between. I guess the difference is whether poverty is the exception or the rule.

It has struck me that many of my friends are in positions surprisingly similar to mine right now. No matter where in particular you are or what you're doing, if you're brave and determined (which the people I love unquestionably are), then you are always facing the unknown. You are constantly putting yourself in a position of temporary discomfort, in aim of a grander goal. It would always be easier to just stay, just settle, but if you're really alive then you can't.

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." - William Shedd

(Maybe this is not all so deep. But it spoke to me, and it made me fiercely proud of all of you for braving your own uncharted waters.)

Getting better all the time

2008-09-14T12:14:00.007Z

Ramadan is halfway over... alhamdulillah! I am settling into a sort of routine in Dar el Barka, and it's really good. I am staying at the mayor's sister's. She has the largest and most beautiful house in the village, with a mosaic-tiled courtyard and flowering gardens, but I've yet to meet her because she evidently spends very little time here. I haven't even been inside her actual home -- I'm staying in a little guest house, one room with a large storage closet.

One of the nicest things is that the courtyard is all enclosed within a six-foot wall, so I have some privacy. This is more or less my life these days:

7:30-10:00am. Roll out of bed, because the sun has peeked above my courtyard wall and is shining in my face -- I always sleep outside. This is the most glorious time of day, when it's light but the air is still cool. I take a bucket bath, maybe do some laundry, tidy/sweep up my room. Eat a granola bar. Treat myself to a fruity drink mix in my water bottle.
10:00am-1:00pm. Stay inside my room because it's getting hot by now. Write in my journal, study some Pulaar. Inevitably someone will come to "greet" me. This involves them strolling into my room uninvited, doing the typical extended Pulaar greeting ritual (Peace upon you! Did you spend the night in peace? How are you doing? Are you healthy? How are you with tiredness? How are you with the heat? How are you with work? Thanks be to God, may you live long -- etc.!), and then after all this commotion, the guest just plops down on the floor and we both sit awkwardly for a few minutes of complete silence. Finally he or she will abruptly stand up, say, "Ey-oh! Thank you," smile, and leave.
1:00-2:00pm. I gather my things and wander next-door to the mayor's house, where I can use the kitchen. As far as Mauritania goes, it's incredibly nice, with a Western stove and (almost always) running water. My meals are slooowly getting more adventurous. I don't have a lot to work with! Also, I have to be careful to make exactly enough for one meal, because there's no way to save food for later. I was really proud of myself yesterday for making some semblance of French fries -- peeling & chopping the potatoes with my pocket knife, drenching them in oil, throwing in a ton of heavenly garlic & black pepper, and voilà! Not too shabby. (That being said, I have added to my wish list at right some kitchen-y things that would make my life much easier!)
2:00-4:30pm. This is when the sun is so oppressively hot that it's hard to do anything, so I usually just rest. At 3:00 I listen to the BBC Focus on Africa on my treasured shortwave radio.
4:30-6:00pm. More reading, Pulaar, crosswords, singing to myself. Set up my net tent for the night. (It takes three trips -- one to drag out the tent, then my foam pad mattress, and finally my pillow and sheet.)
6:00-7:00pm. Evening RUN! I figured I needed to start exercising since I just sit around all the time. My courtyard is big enough for me to do laps around the inside, without being gawked at by the villagers. The temperature has dropped enough by this time of day that I don't die of heat exhaustion, although I immediately douse myself in a bucket bath. Simple joys.
7:00-9:30pm. Head over to visit my fam on the other side of the village. The old man is the guard/gardener for the mayor's sister, so his family just kind of adopted me. I couldn't be happier because they are so friendly and generous! I still haven't figured out everyone's name or how they're related, but we hang out, and they always want to learn English. "Sank you, Raky!" They make me an excellent dinner, for which they even give me my own individual bowl and spoon.
9:30pm Wander back home -- down the narrow dirt path, over the tree root, through the herd of 70-something resting goats, past the abandoned tire, past the World Vision compound, past the house that has a TV (I think they have solar panels, or maybe it runs on batteries), and finally my obnoxiously large two-story house comes into view. See if you can guess which is my yard:

I collapse happily into my net tent. Doing nothing is certainly exhausting! ;)

(P.S. On phone calls: several of you have said you've tried to call my new Senegal number without success. I know it is frustrating! I don't always have great reception, plus the networks get clogged at night when many people use them. I can only say try, try again -- thank you!)

The hardest part?

2008-09-07T17:59:00.005Z

Everyone always says that Pre-Service Training is the hardest part of your Peace Corps service -- that once you get posted to site, you have more independence and life is thus easier.

I arrived in Dar el Barka on Tuesday, and these last days have by far been my most difficult since coming to Africa.

Up to this point, I have constantly been in the company of other Americans, but now it's just me in a village of a few thousand Mauritanians who all know my name (Raky!), as I struggle to learn theirs. The people are SO kind. I feel like my Pulaar is terrible, but day by day it's getting better. Often someone will rattle off a long sentence to me and I'll catch only the last word or two, but I fill in the gaps with whatever I assume they meant and I answer accordingly. This might get me into trouble soon, but so far so good.

My days are long, in no small part because school hasn't started yet. I've been trying to walk around the village and meet people, but it is pretty tiring. Also, it's Ramadan, so everyone is fasting and essentially just sleeping the daylight hours away. So, I've had a bunch of down-time in my room just reading and intermittently engaging in self-pity. I try not to be jealous of other RIM PCVs -- I wish I had a sitemate, I wish I had the internet, I wish I had electricity, I wish I had running water -- because let's face it. I obviously didn't come here because I thought it would be "easy."

That being said, your communication with me TRULY invigorates me. Please keep up the blog comments, emails, letters -- and I have great news about phone calls! I just bought a Senegalese cell number because it's supposed to have better service at my site. And it's much cheaper for YOU to call than Mauritania! All around, awesome. I still will keep the other number for when I travel outside of my site. Please use the one listed first (011.221.77.518.70.13), and keep in mind to check for rates to Senegal, not Mauritania. Onesuite.com is 26 cents a minute.

MISS YOU ALL, love to you via the glorious internet in Boghé!

I accept!

2008-08-31T19:11:00.008Z

I write to you now as an official PCV -- Peace Corps Volunteer! ;) Click to enlarge:

On Thursday we had our swear-in ceremony. It was beautiful and incredibly moving! I got all choked up. The U.S. Ambassador to Mauritania was our guest of honor, and he led the 76 of us in repeating the oath of office:

I, Julie Ann Clark, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, domestic and foreign, that I take this obligation freely and without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties in the Peace Corps by working with the people of Mauritania as partners in friendship and in peace, so help me God.

We had a delicious lunch to celebrate (chicken! a rarity here), and then we got to have a special Q&A session with the ambassador. His name is Mark Boulware, and I was super excited to meet him.

I was really impressed. He was quite personable and friendly one-on-one, but composed and intelligent as he answered our questions on the fly. We asked mainly about the recent coup and the U.S./international reaction. He stressed how, although Mauritania has had many coups in its short history, this is the first time the military overthrew a genuinely democratically elected president. Ambassador Boulware has spoken personally with General Abdelaziz, urging him to use discretion in the days ahead.

After the Q&A, a bunch of the new PCVs started preparing our spectacular feast for dinner (cooking for 100+ people takes some time!), but I had other plans. As a metaphor for this new beginning, I shaved my head. No, I haven't lost my mind! It's something I have wanted to do for a long time, and there is no better time. My head is covered here whenever I go out anyway, so it's kind of a fun little secret I'm hiding. ;) My friend Megan jumped ship with me (although she opted to keep a little mohawk), and Brandon did the shearing honors.

Now I am in Boghé, my departmental capital, with all my new region-mates. We're taking care of some protocol (meeting with local officials) and picking up household wares. On Tuesday I will move to Dar el Barka, my NEW HOME! All the PCVs assure us that "the hardest part is over"... fortunately, I have a good month to get settled because school doesn't start until October. However, I will be arriving just as Ramadan begins, when everyone fasts (from food AND water!) until sundown each evening. I am not required to fast with them, but it means I will have to fend for myself as far as meals are concerned. There are not exactly any restaurants in the village. Should be interesting. Send treats! =)

Coup-ka-doodle-coup

2008-08-25T20:59:00.001Z

I think this article gives a nice overview and assessment of the coup situation in Mauritania.

Until we meet again, PK7

2008-08-24T21:50:00.002Z

My time living in PK7 is through. Unbelievable! This means I have been gone from America for nearly 10 weeks, and I am about to swear in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer this Thursday -- inshallah. All the trainees returned to the center today, and we will be here until Saturday when we each depart to our permanent sites. Prrretty sweet.

The other toubabs and I decided to sponsor a little fête last night to thank our families for their generosity. On Friday, Ryan and I were sent to the Rosso market with a shopping list of goodies for the celebration. I had to buy a duffel bag just to be able to carry all the stuff we got, while Ryan carried a sack of 15 kilos (that's 33 pounds) of potatoes on his head -- in the heat of the day! That's true commitment.

Yesterday we all said our sad goodbyes to our families and had a relaxed final day at PK7. Around 6pm, they dragged a sheep away to be slaughtered. I had wanted to watch, just for the experience, but it proved far too gruesome for me. Slitting the throat, peeling off the skin... that's intense stuff. The turnaround time from baying beast to delicious dinner was impressively short. The food was the best I've had in Mauritania so far. Lots of pepper and garlic, per the Americans' request! And where usually we have no beverages at all, this night we drank sweet, sweet bissap -- with ICE, a true luxury. (They insisted on waiting until nightfall, when it's a breezy 75 degrees, to sip this icy treat. What do we drink as the sun beats down? Steaming hot tea, of course.) After dinner we had an impromptu dance party, and the women painted henna on Teresa and me as a special going-away gift.

As our car pulled away this morning and our families all waved, I was blinking back tears. The community in PK7 has been AMAZING to us... here's to hoping for just as good a time in Dar el Barka.

Photos below. I have some videos, but they are near impossible to upload. I will keep trying this week.

"The moon has been taken"

2008-08-18T12:17:00.002Z

Many of you are confused about where exactly I am these days, so I want to clarify. The training center for Peace Corps Mauritania is in Rosso, a decent-sized city you can find on many maps. For the past two months, I have been living with a family in PK7, which is a tiny village 7 km outside Rosso. I go into the city often (every weekday the past couple weeks for Model School), and it is there that I am able to get online. This Saturday is my last day at PK7! All the trainees will be back at the center for a few days before our official swear-in as Peace Corps Volunteers on August 28 (inshallah -- God-willing!). THEN I will move to Dar el Barka, my permanent site where I will spend the next two years. My mailing address is Boghé because that is the closest city to Dar el Barka.

It is hard to believe that training is almost over. It flew by! I am really excited to settle in to my permanent site -- living out of a duffel bag is running its course. Model School has been really great overall. My kids have been a bit rambunctious at times, but I relish their enthusiasm. We will have a special ceremony for all the students when they "graduate" next Sunday.

So, I am very aware of the moon cycle here. We eat outside every night, and it's a plus when we don't have to use flashlights. I had been getting excited for the full moon, but I was very surprised to see it partially eclipsed! Eclipses are pretty fun to watch, so we toubabs were enjoying it. Our families kept telling us something about the moon, but we didn't recognize one of the Pulaar words. I assumed they meant something like "the moon is covered" or "the moon is incomplete." Later, they repeatedly told me that this moon was "very bad." I asked why, and they laughed. I said, "It's not bad. No problems!" and they laughed some more. I noticed that the men had stayed at the mosque a lot longer than usual, and the women and children were murmuring extra prayers as well.

The next day, I learned that the expression they had been repeating to me was "The moon has been taken," and they were all praying that Allah would forgive them their misdeeds and please bring back the moon. I attempted to sketch a little astronomy diagram and explain it in Pulaar. It went something like, "Sun is here. Earth is here -- Mauritania. Moon is here, behind Earth. No problems, no problems!" They either semi-understand, or just think I'm absolutely insane.

P.S. Thankyouthankyouthankyou for your emails, letters, and phone calls! They mean more to me than you know. Shout-out to my mother for her amazing care package, which included Bicycle playing cards (I never knew luxury until I touched them!) and a fly swatter (it could not be worth more to me if it were solid gold). I hope to post more photos and perhaps video next week (inshallah) when I have more internet time at the center. And I will answer your emails ASAP!

Cuckoo for coups!

2008-08-11T07:34:00.001Z

I have to be honest. When I first heard on Wednesday that there had been a military coup in Mauritania, my first reaction was to want to laugh. No, this is not an appropriate response, but for those of you who don't know, I experienced a coup while living in Ecuador in 2005. What were the chances of it happening again? (I guess pretty high, when you look at Mauritania's track record.) It seems far less exciting the second time around. Now I can understand why the Mauritanians hardly bat an eye. Rest assured that all is safe and well on my end. If you are interested in my personal thoughts on the matter, please email me.

I am a few hours from the capital city, so life just goes on as normal here. Goats still graze with or without a president.

On Teaching in the RIM

2008-08-11T07:33:00.001Z

Peace Corps Volunteers serve in a variety of sectors, including Health, Agroforestry, and Small Enterprise Development. My sector is Education -- Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). I have mixed emotions about this assignment. I've had some experience teaching in the States, and I've enjoyed it a great deal. However, I'm not sure how I really feel about specifically teaching English here. Am I sending the message that these kids need to learn English so that they can be educated/employed in a "better" country and leave this place behind? I don't want that to be the connotation, but what else is the practical use of learning this language? In any case, as of 1999 here, English education is mandatory from middle school onwards, so my presence is helping meet the demand for trained teachers.

Teaching holds an interesting position in Mauritania. It demands more preparation than many other professions, with four years of university and one year of pedagogy. Teachers are respected and well-regarded within their communities, but they are paid quite poorly. My language teacher says he was earning $100/month after 16 years of experience.

The conditions of the school buildings are, far and wide, nothing like we are accustomed to in the States. Water-damaged, paint-peeling walls and dirt floors are par for the course. There is frequently a shortage of seats, with students crammed shoulder-to-shoulder into what benches there are (understandable when they pack as many as 90 kids in a classroom at times! I am fortunate because my classes will probably only be around 50 each). Books are rare. The teacher writes notes and exercises on the blackboard, and students diligently copy it all down into their notebooks, which are their de facto texts. Allah help you if you have sloppy handwriting. I laugh now when I think about how grumpy my coworkers and I all used to get when the photocopiers would break... I won't be having that problem here! ;)

Yesterday began Week 2 of a three-week "Model School" for us 15 TEFL trainees to do some student-teaching and observing of veteran teachers. We have a slew of real, live Mauritanian kids (middle school and high school) who have signed on to show up to English class every day and keep us on our toes. So far I have taught four classes and really had a blast. (Keep in mind, these are kids who have volunteered to come to school on their summer vacation, so they are generally quite eager to learn and participate!)

The best-laid plans...

2008-07-29T12:18:00.001Z

Well, I prepared a blog update that I was going to post for you all last week, after we got our permanent site assignments. Buuuut then the internet wasn't working at our training center the night before we were leaving. And then I got sick and had to be left behind at the center while everyone else went out to visit their new homes! BUT everything worked out in the end -- big thanks to all my fellow PC-ers who took care of me (and shout-out also to antibiotics). And due to the magic of the internet, I am still posting that entry right now as if it had been July 21st. Don't be confused. ;)

So Dar el Barka is AMAZING! I could not be happier with a site placement, honestly. It is right on the river, absolutely beautiful. For me it is the perfect happy medium between a village and a city. We have some of the amenities of a city (running water, electricity, cell phone service, some corner stores, a big market once a week) without all the litter and traffic and crowds. And they just built a brand new building for the middle school, so it's really nice. I am pretty excited.

I was also given a new name -- again! When I arrived to Dar el Barka, they asked me my name in America, and I told them. Then they asked me my name in Mauritania, and I declared proudly, "Houley Sow!" And they said, "Nope! Your name is Raky Mamadou Wane." (The first name is pronounced "Rocky," which I find rather awesome.) They chose to name me after the mayor's wife, which is a big deal because I guess she is from a pretty important family. All I know is when I introduce myself, people seem to be really impressed! This could also be because of my amazing Pulaar skills. I kid.

One more thing: I have a new and improved mailing address. The old one still works because it's just the Peace Corps HQ, but this one will reach me faster. Please USE it!! You guys don't want me looking like a big loser over here, do you? Mail equals life and wealth and power! Just kidding, but seriously. 94 cents can buy you my undying affection. It's that easy! Check it, over in the right panel.

DAR EL BARKA-bound!

2008-07-22T01:47:00.002Z

Today was a very important day for all of us back at the training center. They announced our permanent site assignments -- aka home for the next two years!! My placement is Dar el Barka. Let me tell you what I've learned about it:

Population: 7,000 people (although population counts here are extremely flexible)
Location: On the Senegal River, 60 km west of Boghé (the departmental capital in the south Brakna region). It's right off a brand new paved road, which is a big deal because it makes the town much more accessible than previously.
Language: Pulaar and French
Ethnic Groups: Pulaar and Black Moors
Assignment: I will be teaching English at a middle school, which they are trying to turn into a boarding school to accommodate students that live up to 40 km away in less accessible villages. The school currently has 202 students (78 female) in four grade levels.

Annnnd that's about all I know right now. The UN and World Vision have active projects there, so that's encouraging. I leave tomorrow to go visit this new place for a week, so I'll let you know all about Dar el Barka when I return, of course!

I was surprisingly wistful to leave my village PK7 on Saturday. I will be gone for 12 days, and my family was very sad to see me go. It really is home right now.

Bonus reading material: here's a good article talking about the refugee repatriation issue in the south of Mauritania. We have several of these UN tents on the fringes of PK7.

La vie en PK7

2008-07-20T22:41:00.000Z

Staging/arrival pix

2008-07-20T22:35:00.002Z

Finally!

Life in the slow lane

2008-07-12T14:45:00.005Z

Close your eyes. You're at the beach. Aaah... The sun is hot, but the breeze is blowing sweetly.

Now. Take away the ocean. In its place, add 60 goats, 15 longhorn cattle, a handful of donkeys & chickens, 1 skittish dog, 1 skittish cat, 5 cement-and-tin-roof buildings (3 two-rooms and 2 singles), and 12 straw huts. Welcome to PK7. This is my life:

7:30am. Wake up inside my mosquito net tent. Realize AGAIN that I am actually living in Africa. Congratulate self on braving another night of wild malaria-pill-induced dreams.
7:45am. Put on a long skirt so I can head to the open air latrine without offending anyone. Once inside, happily remove clothing and enjoy my solar shower. Attempt to clean body, though never entirely successfully.
8:15am. Get greeted at my door by my mother Houley (my namesake), who brings me oatmeal-esque millet porridge. Shortly after, a child brings me Mauritanian tea (with fresh mint and LOTS of sugar, specially poured to give tons of foam, served in tiny shot glasses).
8:55am. Walk the 100 yards to the thatched-roof hangar in my language facilitator's courtyard, where I have Pulaar class with Teresa, Ryan, and Matt. Baila teaches us on a blackboard in the sand, and we copy everything into our notebooks. Tea magically shows up about every half hour.
2:00pm. Eat lunch with my mom, grandmother, 2 aunts, 15-year-old married cousin, and 11 children under the age of 13. The women toss me the best pieces of meat. Even as food is in my hand, I will inevitably be encouraged to "Eat, eat."

3:00pm. Lounge around under the big tent with all my family. Take tea, again. Sweat. Fall asleep.
5:30pm. Evening language class.
7:30pm. Play cards with the toubabs (universal term for non-Africans). We gamble with drink mix and Vache Qui Rit (heavenly processed cheese).
9:00pm. Head back to my room. Avoid the camels who meander across our village at dusk. Fall asleep waiting to be called to eat.
9:30pm (or 10:00, or 10:30). Dinner. It is now dark. The cruel fate is that a bright, unnecessarily illuminated power plant overlooks PK7, but we do not have electricity ourselves. The faint glow is enough to fumble around with as we eat in the dark. The ladies keenly prepare night-friendly food (think macaroni instead of boney fish). Sit and chat with the fam for at least half an hour. By "chat" I mean listen to endless Pulaar and try to pick out vocab from time to time. Intermittently they will all say, "Houley, Houley!" and try to get me to understand something. I occasionally succeed, and we all laugh a lot. It's a good game.
11:00pm. In the haven of my closed room, change into SHORTS and a tank top. Rejoice at finally being able to lay prostrate on my back (not acceptable for women in public because it's "suggestive"). Drift to sleep listening to critters scurry across my floor. Smile because I am safe in my precious net tent.

Movin' to the country

2008-06-27T00:06:00.003Z

Taking advantage of this amazing wireless internet to update you one more time this week, because this is our last night at the training center! Tomorrow morning I will head to a homestay family, where I will live until the end of August when I complete training. My village doesn't even have a name; it's simply "PK7," for point kilomètre 7, i.e. the village at mile marker 7. Awesome. But I found out today that my language assignment is Pulaar, which means that my permanent site will definitely be in the south of the country. This is VERY exciting to me because the south has a milder climate and more liberal attitudes towards women!

Up until now, I have been with the 80 other Americans in my training class, but tomorrow is where it "gets real." If I'm fortunate, someone in my family may speak French, but otherwise, I will be completely immersed in Pulaar. Let's just say, gestures will be helpful! I've already had a hilarious time with that at the market. On Sunday (the Muslim work week runs Sunday through Thursday) I will begin my intensive language training 7 hours a day for the next 9 weeks. Peace Corps language trainers are raved about, so I am really excited to learn. It's gonna be wild!

I want to put any of your fears to rest by saying it is very clear to me that the Peace Corps has two priorities: my safety & my health. We have had a lot of training this week on how to be safe here, but really there is not much crime anyway. Also, I have received a slew of vaccinations (yellow fever, meningococcal, rabies, typhoid, Hepatitis A & B) and anti-malaria meds, and the medical office is on-call 24 hours a day. I also learned how to take my own blood smear by pricking my finger, which made me quite nervous, but that is really the hardest thing I've had to do in training!

I've enjoyed hanging out with my fellow trainees (called stagières) and getting to know everyone. We've gotten pretty successful at eating with our hands (try it with spaghetti -- that's a good laugh), and I even ate camel. I had no idea! I totally thought it was cow beef.

I drink A LOT of water every day, 4-5 liters. Consequently I am well familiar with the latrines here. They are not so bad. It's not honestly that hot outside, just sticky because we are in the south where it's humid (and I'm wearing a long skirt every day!). But the weather is beautiful & cool in the morning until about 10am, then the day is hot & sunny, and by about 5pm it is breezy & cooling off again. At night it is just perfect.

That being said, I cut my hair the first full day we were here. That was enough! I just see no point in having long flowing locks when they're tied back all the time anyway, so I took off about 10 inches. My friend Summer did a great job, and I am very pleased.

Bismillah! Nous sommes arrivés!

2008-06-22T21:11:00.000Z

AFRICA! I really cannot believe it!!!!

Here we are at the BRAND NEW Peace Corps training center in Rosso, Mauritania. We are so spoiled that we actually have WIRELESS INTERNET! Can you believe it?! I will only be here until Friday, but still... pretty amazing.

So much to tell! Our few days in Atlanta were jam-packed but very useful. There are 77 of us in my training group, and everyone is genuinely really cool and friendly. My roommate Jackie & I scored free drinks from our waiter when we told him we were moving to Africa the next day:

The flight to Dakar, Senegal, was 9 hours. It went very smoothly, and I was beyond delighted to play the in-flight trivia game live against my fellow passengers! Also, one of the clues in the Delta crossword was a five-letter word for "Peace ____."

We arrived at 4:40am local time. Clearing customs, gathering baggage, and loading (REALLY loading!) our poor buses took two full hours, and then we were on the road. Five hours to get to the border, and then another two hours to be able to cross. Fortunately, our bus was sitting by a busy marketplace, which was quite entertaining to watch:

Finally, we rolled our bus onto the ferry, and over the river to Mauritania we WENT!

The PC training center is just over the border. The entire staff was lined up to meet us, and my eyes welled up with tears as I looked out the window & saw how happy they all were to meet us. We then, one by one, shook hands with every single staff member (probably 50 of them!). Greetings were thrown out at us in many languages, and I tossed back some Asalaam aleykums to the delight of some of the locals. =) I was one of the first through the welcome line and promptly strode into our meeting room -- only to be called after by a staff member in halted English: "Shoes! Please!" Yes, of course. On the ground in Africa for about one minute flat and already had committed a faux pas. You never wear shoes inside on the mats.

Since yesterday, we've gotten crash courses in cultural training. Highlights include how to eat with your hands -- a fun game! You roll up a little ball of the rice/couscous with a piece of vegetable or meat, and pop the whole thing in your mouth. Right hand only, please! Left hands are dirty -- they're your toilet paper. ;) This morning we practiced basic greetings in French, Hassaniya (Arabic), Pulaar, Soninké, and Wolof. LOVING it!

Slept outside last night in my mosquito net tent. It's awesome. Our neighbors' radio serenaded us 'til the wee morning hours with American pop music (I can rest in peace knowing that Rihanna & her umbrella have made it even here). And then the morning prayer calls began at 5:30am. Strangely beautiful. They are more "call"-like than I had realized, with men on bullhorns chanting and intoning, "Bismillaaaaaah," welcoming the new day in the name of God.

We will be at the center until Friday, when we go to our host families around Rosso. I will live with them until the end of August, when training ends. We are officially sworn in as volunteers, and then we all disperse to our permanent sites for the next two months.

Rest assured that I am safe, healthy, and very, very happy!

Africa Ain't No Thang

2008-06-17T14:37:00.003Z

Bags are packed:

(Shout-out to Dave Cowell for my amazing Mauritania tote)

My checked bags are only a cumulative 59 pounds! I am a rock star.

Besides my fabulous friends & family, here is a short list of things I know I'll miss:

cold Vitamin Water
pashmina scarves
hot showers with good water pressure
a fluffy big bed
bubble tea
pub trivia nights
lying by the pool
The Economist
Kieran cat
piano
Journey, my wacky awesome church in Austin
Crocs
wireless internet on my laptop (and reading the news in bed)
fake caring about the Red Sox (Boston pride -- even in the face of last nite's meager performance in Philly, eek!)
reading old entries in my journal (I'm bringing a fresh one, can't afford to lose the current one)

I'm off to Atlanta in about an hour, where I will meet up with the approximately 75 volunteers going with me to Mauritania. We'll have a whirlwind couple of days getting immunizations & picking up our visas, and then we ship out Friday afternoon. Bring it on.

Now you're in Africa...

2008-06-11T05:01:00.005Z

I'm so ready to go! I fly to Atlanta a week from today. Can't wait to update you all on my adventures...

For now, enjoy this wonderful song written by my dear friends Brandon, Dave, and Melody, on our last evening together in Austin.

Introducing... my life!

2008-05-09T05:57:00.003Z