I am in Nouakchott now and the computers upload pictures way faster...

Kankossa Lake

More of the same: lots of skinny cows

Tavra

Tavra

Tavra

Merry almost-Christmas!! It definitely does not feel quite so much like the Christmas season in this 99.9% Muslim country, but now that it is so close I am getting excited all the same. I got into my regional capital last night and I am heading to Nouakchott this evening. Typically in Mauritania we spend Christmas at the Country Director’s mansion in the capital-I am excited because I have not seen Nouakchott yet.

Time in Kankossa passed quickly between Thanksgiving and now. Gardens are growing, and I am pretty sure that the only sunflower that sprouted in my garden was about to bloom just before I left. Language has been going better-it is at least not a daily struggle anymore. I started a tree nursery at one of my schools-baobab, moringa, Neem, and guava. Also, one of my site-mates and I are going to start adult English lessons after break.

The highlights of the last 3 weeks were Tabaski and a trip I took to Tavra, a village an hour south of here. Tabaski is the biggest holiday of the year for Muslims, and they slaughter a sheep and buy new clothes. If people can afford, they do this two days in a row. They kill the sheep in the morning and then eat a plate of it grilled, and then a plate of it with potatoes, and then a plate with cous-cous. Even for a large family, a full-grown sheep is an absurd amount of food to finish in a day. Similar to the post-Ramadan holiday, I was sick afterwards, but it was worth it just for the fresh grilled meat and the protein boost. I spent the first day of Tabaski with my host family, and the second with a friend and his family. His brother is a diplomat in Senegal, and it was interesting to talk to someone from Mauritania who has traveled extensively (36 countries!) and lives abroad, although it was also kind of depressing because it seems he has given up all hope for Mauritania.

A few days after Tabaski my site-mate Marta and I took a trip down to Tavra to visit another volunteer who lives down there. Tavra is a small Soninke village on the border with Mali. It was cool to see what life is like in a really small, isolated village here-even though Kankossa is very far from a paved road it is still a larger-sized town by Mauritanian standards. It was also interesting to see how culturally different Tavra was, both because of its size and because it is Soninke. Most men and boys would shake our hands, and kids never asked us for money or presents. Not quite like Kankossa! There are lots of huge rock formations around Tavra, and we went for a hike while we were there-check out the pictures!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying the snow or rain if you have it! I am gone from my site until mid-January, so expect a few more updates before then!

Tavra

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello! I am in Kiffa for Thanksgiving-so far it has been lots of movie-watching and food-eating, which hopefully will continue for the rest of the week. I am too lazy to think of new stuff to write on this blog, so I am just copying and pasting from the mass email I sent out earlier today. So unfortunately this may be a repeat for some of the regular readers of the blog (my immediate family).

School started in Kankossa (where I live) on October 12^th, although I use the term “started” loosely because it was about a week before kids showed up and another week before classes started. Regardless, it was nice to have a little more purpose to my days, compared to Ramadan. I am officially working at two schools-Ecole 1 and Ecole 2. They are both primary schools, which means 1^st grade through 6^th grade. The age range is about 6-15. Right now I am sitting in on classes and also starting school gardens, which is really fun. The garden at one of the gardens has started to sprout, even the sunflowers! The other day when I was working in the garden with the kids I had them get in a circle at the end and put their hands in, and then I counted to 3 and we all yelled “JARDIN!” (garden). It sounds silly, but they loved it. School is way different here, and by different I mean way less fun, so even a tiny fun activity like that is pretty novel to them. Working with kids outside the classroom is fun, but sitting in on classes is pretty uninspiring. There are some really good teachers here, but also some really bad ones. It’s not unusual to embarrass kids in front of the whole class if they don’t know something, and even though this is technically illegal now, they also get hit sometimes with a piece of rubber hose. Plus, the schools here are in bad condition. The Ministry of Education gives money to build schools, but no money for maintenance. This year all of the school supplies were donated from UNICEF. I think one of my bigger projects while I am here will be to help the schools find funding to do some repairs. Other plans for this year at least include: lots of tree nurseries, lessons on tree importance, painting a world map, and doing Earth Day celebrations. I hate taking my camera out around kids here because it creates a riot, but I will definitely try to post pictures of some/all of these things!

Since school has started I now have a loose routine to my day. I get up at 6:30 when the sun rises and the animals start making noise. I eat breakfast with my family, which is usually bread, peanuts, and tea. School here is 6 days a week from 8-1, so I do most of my work in the morning-going to schools and sometimes other offices around town. Then in the afternoon I spend about 3-4 hours eating lunch (rice and fish, rice and meat, or mafay (rice and peanut sauce)), either with my family or friends. Later in the afternoon I water my own (non-school) garden, read, visit people, and write in my journal. It gets dark around 7, and then I sit around with my family, eat dinner (always cous-cous), and then go to bed at about 9:30. The cold season is approaching, so even though it is still 100+ during the day it is cold enough at night that I have to sleep with a blanket.

Personally things are getting better here. My language never feels that good, but when I think about how much better I know Hassaniya now than three months ago, I realize I know more than I think. People here always ask me to teach them something in English, and then when I do they say “Aaah English is so difficult!” and I say “Yeah, see? That’s how Hassaniya is for me!” and then they say “No, you’re wrong, Hassaniya is not difficult.” Haha, I guess I will just have to come to terms with the fact that I will never be fluent, but at the same time I will never get stupider as long as I am speaking the language every day. I am constantly amazed at how I can be so happy one day here and then so unhappy the next, but that seems like a common Peace Corps experience. As work picks up I have less time to think about home and stress about personal things, which is good. Still, if anyone is interested, here are the foods from home that I crave most often: roast beef sandwiches, spaghetti, hot dogs (I thought I smelled one the other day), pop corn, chips, cheese, and wine.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. I am thankful for you!

Family and neighbors. The little boy bottom right, Papani, is the coolest kid in all of Mauritania.

A special shout-out to the Grabowski's with this one!

Back from en Brousse!

Finally I am somewhere with Internet, so I can update this again. I am in Kiffa for a couple of days after having spent about 5 weeks in Kankossa. Ramadan ended about a week ago, which meant that life in Mauritania has started up again. My first month here has been up and down, but it is definitely getting easier. School and the cold season are about to begin also, so I will have a little more to do. Here are some random glimpses of life in Kankossa:

A lot of Mauritanians here are interested in the U.S presidential election, and specifically Barack Obama. They always ask me if I am for McCain or Obama and discuss how Obama’s dad is from Kenya. Mauritania is very stratified along ethnic lines and has actually never had a black African president (they have all been white Moors of Arab origin), so the prospect of an African American president is really exciting for people here.

If there was a Mauritanian food pyramid, the five food groups would be: milk, bread, rice/cous cous, sugar, and meat. These things can be combined to make a surprising number of things, such as:

Rice+milk: ish

Small cous cous+milk: bossi

Large cous cous+milk+sugar: gossi

Milk+sugar: zrig

Bread+meat: taajin

The list goes on. Part of the reason for the limited diet is there is not a large variety of food available, but it is also cultural. Many Mauritanians, and particularly Moors, prefer a desert diet-basically just food you could find and survive on in the desert. It is considered more “pure.” We eat vegetables sometimes, but they are always very cooked; uncooked produce is for animals, not humans!

One day one of my site-mates and I were having tea at the Forest Bureau. We were laughing and talking with one of the three men who works there, who was explaining the Hassaniyan names for some of the native trees. He then asked me how to count to 5 in English, and I happily obliged, since lots of people here are interested in learning English and I always jump at the chance to prove that I know at least one language fluently. After asking me 1-5, he asked how to say “10,” so I told him, and then he asked how to say “20.” I said “twenty,” remembering about two seconds too late that the word “twenty” in Hassaniya is a derogatory term for a woman’s vagina. It was a blatant set-up. This 60 year old man proceeded to laugh in my face and told me how I should never say that in Mauritania.

That’s all for now-I will updating this again for sure at Thanksgiving, and possibly earlier in November as well. There is a travel ban on Peace Corps volunteers for the first three months of service, meaning that we cannot leave our region and should stay mostly at our sites. This ends in December, however, and after that I will be doing more traveling for training, social stuff, etc, so as a result I should be able to update this more!

A view from the dune behind my house. Unfortunately its been kind of hazy the last couple of days, but on clear days you can also see the mountains in the distance (see picture below) and it is really beautiful!

This is the view from the roof of my house. The rainy season is just finishing up-this was one of the last big storms.

This is the view looking back as we entered the Assaba region.

Real life begins

I am in Kiffa right now and I am getting ready to go to Kankossa this afternoon. Ramadan starts tomorrow, which makes me a little nervous; I hear it is a long and difficult month for everyone involved. Anyway, I probably will not be in contact for a while, but keep checking back, because I never know when I will randomly have internet access.

Almost a real volunteer

I am back at the training center in Rosso now for a few days.  On the 28th we will be sworn in as volunteers, and then on the 30th we all leave for our permanent sites.  I just had my language test, which I think I passed, so now I am at intermediate-mid level in Hassaniya, according to the Peace Corps.  Leaving PK-10 was sad but it was probably time; we had started playing hangman pretty competitively...

My family's baby goat agrees to sit for a photo.

One night after a soccer game a couple of us hiked up to the highest point in PK-10.  This is a view of one of the greener regions of Mauritania-this is less than 10 kilometers from the Senegal River.

This was my home-stay family's present to me before I left.

My room at my home-stay.  

Who are those mashasha's?

My site-mates and I got together and combined our food to have an American feast.  The highlights were powdered mashed potatoes and cheese/tomato/Pringle/Tobasco sauce sandwiches.

My two host-sisters and I at the wedding of a neighbor's daughter.  We are wearing mulafas, which Hassaniya women wear every day and I wear for special occasions (at least for now).

Home-stay ends tomorrow, which is definitely bittersweet. I really like my family and I hate to leave now that I am finally able to carry on a conversation and get my own water. On the other hand I am ready (sort of) to start the next two years of my life.

I thought before I came here that I would become really critical of everything about the United States after living in such a different country. I have decided, however, that living in Mauritania highlights both the good and the bad things about the U.S. As far as pros, seeing all the trash in every Mauritanian city makes me appreciate the basic infrastructure that we enjoy at home. There are places to put garbage, and pick-up is regular and dependable. On a related note, my friend here went to the post office to buy four stamps, but the post office only had three. The fact that she managed to get to the post office when it was open was a miracle. Another thing I am more appreciative of in the U.S is that we have one language. People here speak at least one (and often more) of the following: Pulaar, Wolof, Hassaniya, Soninke, French, and Arabic. I can walk four kilometers from my home-stay village and be somewhere where I can’t understand anyone. Teachers are required to teach in French in primary schools, but school children don’t necessarily understand French. Basic communication is something I realize that I took for granted as I try to learn Hassaniya and live in a multi-lingual country.

Seeing the way that people live here, however, has also made me realize (or maybe re-realize) how materialistic Americans are. This didn’t come as a surprise to me and I don’t expect this to sound particularly insightful, but I am constantly amazed at how much less stuff people have here and how much longer they use the stuff that they do have. I think about this every time I take a bath and use a different type of soap for my hair, face and body, or when I do laundry and hang fourteen pairs of underwear to dry. When I came to Mauritania I brought 70 pounds of luggage in two bags, and then put one bag in storage for the duration of training. Now I can barely remember what was in that bag, which goes to show how much I actually needed it. Living here has made my rethink how much I need; the quality of life for people here is certainly different in terms of material possessions, but I would hesitate to call it worse.

Life Continues

I have been back at my home-stay site for a few days and it has been really nice to be back. It is the only place I have stayed in Mauritania for any extended period of time, so it feels more like home than anywhere else here. I didn’t speak Hassaniya much during the 10 day site visit and I think my brain needed that time to let the language sink in, because once I got back to my home-stay my language was much better. It is a really good feeling to be able to understand what people say (sometimes) and be able to respond to them. I also feel like now that I can talk I don’t have to dance for laughs anymore, so that is another reason I have been feeling pretty good lately.

As far as interesting news for today, there was actually a coup in the capital! Late last night the president of Mauritania decided to fire all of the military officials, and then they arrested both him and the prime minister. This doesn’t actually mean much for the Peace Corps, but it is pretty cool to say that I have lived through a coup d’etat…

I hope you enjoy the pictures, and thank you to everyone who has sent me mail so far-I just received a bunch in the course of a week and it made me so happy!

These are the other people in my language class.  They are pretty cool.

This is the henna that I got on my feet.  It is kind of faded because I took this picture about a week and a half after I got it.  This is also a good picture of my mosquito bites.

This is a picture of my training site.  It looks much more "out-there" than it really is-this is the part of the village with fewer houses/tents.

This is the practice garden that we have made at our training site. It is not the ideal place for a garden because instead of soil, there is sand. We added a bunch of crushed goat poop to our beds, however, so we have managed to grow some watermelon, corn, and okra.

Back from Kankossa

I just got back from a visit to my permanent site and I am happy to say that it is beautiful. I think it will be a good place to live for the next two years. The other good news is that I just got a new chip for my camera in the mail, so now that my camera works I will be able to put up some pictures in the coming weeks and months. I am going back to my training home-stay site the day after tomorrow for three weeks, and then I swear in sometime at the end of August and go to Kankossa.

Site Announcements

Today we had site announcements, which means they told us our permanent sites for the next two years. The training staff drew a huge map of Mauritania in the sand and then called out our names one by one, and then we went and stood in our part of the map. So my home for the next two years will be.....Kankossa! Which probably means nothing to most readers of this blog, but is exciting none the less.

I don't know that much about it, but I am going there tomorrow to visit for a week. I do know that it is about 9000 people, they speak French, Hassaniya, and Puular, and it is by a lake. Earlier in training I talked to another EE volunteer who is just finishing her service there, and it sounds like she accomplished a lot, so I hope that I will be able to do the same!

Hennahennahenna

Last night I got henna done on my hands and feet-it looks super cool and smells like sunless tanner. Or rather, sunless tanner smells like henna. I think most people in the village knew that I wanted henna because every time I saw it on someone’s hands or saw it being done I would ooh and aah and generally make a fool of myself. The other day my host-sister told me that she would do it if I bought the henna and lemon necessary for the process. Apparently all women in the village know how to do it. Getting the supplies cost 100 ougeya, which is about 40 cents. It ended up being a very social affair: by the time my sister started on my foot about 10 women had shown up to offer advice and start on my hands. It turns out that although all women know how to do henna, they don’t all know how to do it well, which is pretty obvious as I now compare my four extremities. Overall I really like how it looks, though. On my left hand is my Mauritanian name in Arabic.

A cultural note: although women do henna just for fun, it is especially important for marriage. Most Mauritanian wedding pictures are extremely creepy photos of the bride with henna on her hands and the groom standing behind her holding up her hands. The henna party proved to be the perfect forum for more of the hilarious marriage talk that always goes on here, a good time for me to explain that I planned to study and work before I got married, and, as always, a good opportunity for people here to laugh in my face.

Happy 4th!

We ended up going back to Rosso for the 4th of July, which was a happy surprise.  I just got done eating a camel burger and drinking some Hawaiian punch.  I also played some Scrabble and watched a little bit of that terrible Will Ferrell ice-skating movie.  It has been really nice to see everyone again and have cold drinks!

The home-stay so far has been interesting and, for the most part, really good.  Similar to most of the posts I put on this blog, I don't know where to begin.  I am living in a village called PK-10, which is 10 kilometers from Rosso.  Although it is not that far, it is definitely considered a rural site.  There is no electricity or running water.  This is not as hard as it seems though, and I think in some ways it is better than a city site.  People located in Rosso for home-stay have been complaining that all their families do is watch T.V, whereas I get to sit in the tent all day and say things like "Big rain" and "I have one living grandmother" in Hassaniya. 

There are six people in my immediate family: my mother, Miriam, my father, Moctar, three brothers, Brahim, Sheemwat, and Neigi, and one sister, Tikibu.  I also have a 25 year old uncle who is around a lot named Mohamed.  He is the only one who speaks French.  A quick rundown of the fam:

Miriam: She is on the serious side and rarely understands anything I say in Hassaniya.  She makes mulafas (women's clothing) for a living.  She has been divorced once (I think).  Overall she is pretty nice and always tells me to eat more.

Moctar: He wasn't around for the first few days and then when he showed up he didn't look at me or talk to me, which I guess is normal.  He is really old.  Now he will respond when I say hello, so I guess that's progress.

Tikibu: She is the oldest, which means that she is basically the family servant.  She cooks a lot and helps me when I need to get water or do laundry or wash my hands before dinner.  I don't really want to know what she thinks of me since she probably has to do the same things for me that she would do for a small child.

Sheemwat.  He is 10 and I think he is always making fun of me because when he talks to me he gets yelled at or smacked.

Neigi: My favorite brother! He is 4 and very funny.  Like most boys between 3 and 6 years old, he rarely wears pants.

Brahim: He is 11 months old.

Mohamed: He just passed some big exam and I think he is planning on going to university soon.  He is pretty cool and the only person in my family who I can actually talk to in any intelligent way.

My typical day goes like this:

7:00: Awake! The rest of the family has been up for a couple of hours, probably since the first call to prayer.

8:00-12:00: Go to language class

12:00-4:00: This is lunch/siesta time.  Usually this is also the time that I bathe, do laundry, write in my journal, or go to the boutique for Fanta. It is important to note that it is impossible to do more than one of these things in this 4 hour period.

4:00-6:00: Language class.

6:00-8:00: Work on the practice garden.

8:00-10:00: Dinner and chillaxing with the family.

10:00: Sleep and malaria-med dreams.

Other stuff worth noting:

I was informed yesterday by Fatou, the boutique owner, that if I didn't gain weight I would never get a husband.  I told her I did not want to get married yet and then she told me that if I waited until I was wrinkly to get married no man would want me and I would cry.

There was a huge storm last night.  It was the biggest storm I have ever seen.  We could see it in the distance as we were gardening last night, and by the time I got home half the sky was black.  My tent had gone into lock-down, meaning all of the cloth walls had been tied down.  We went inside and then the storm started and we just sat and waited it out.  It was incredibly loud, especially since we have a tin roof.  My mom was chanting and my dad was pacing the perimeter of the tent checking for leaks.  It is hard to describe now, but it was one of the most intense things I have ever experienced.

A lot of the day is spent lounging in the tent, where it is perfectly acceptable to nap any time of day.  The only downside is that in Mauritanian culture it is considered too sexual for women to lie on their backs and men to lie on their stomachs.  It sounds stupid, but I miss lying on my back soooooo much.  I can only do it when I am alone in my room with the door locked!

It is funny that French has become my "safety" language.  No one speaks English here and I barely know Hassaniya, so when I come across a French speaker I say "Thank God!"  My French has become a lot better even in the two weeks that I have been in this country.

That's all for now, I think I will be able to post again around July 20th.

A Good Day

Today was good! We just got back from digging a practice garden in town. It was really hard work and also the only real exercise I have done since I arrived here, and after I got back to the training center and showered I was in such a good mood and my head was much clearer.  I am glad I have an assignment where I am going to be doing some physical labor, because it is difficult to exercise here due to cultural/heat reasons.  Because of the starchy diet and lack of exercise, female volunteers actually tend to get a "rice belly" by the time two years is up.  Fortunately large women are considered very beautiful here!

In two days we are leaving for our 3 week home-stays.  We find out tomorrow where we are going and what language we are going to learn (in addition to French).  This home-stay is apparently the first "make-or-break" part of training, meaning the first time where a few people decide to go home.  I am worried mostly about getting sick.  Some home-stays are here in Rosso, but since I requested a smaller village for my permanent site I think that my home-stay site will also be in a smaller community.  

Every time I post on this blog I feel like I am mentioning about 1/20th of the things that I want to, so if anyone has questions about things here just ask and I will answer them on the blog in hilarious Q&A format.  This is the last time I am going to update this before home-stay, so check back in 3 weeks to a month!

One Week

I left last Tuesday and now it is Tuesday here, although it feels like much longer since I left.  Lots of ups and downs today.  

The ups:

-I had my French oral placement exam today and it went well, although I was pretty fast and loose with the grammar

-I went into town and bought detergent (in French)

-Did my laundry

The downs:

-I felt really tired and fuzzy-headed all morning

-I have a bunch of mosquito bites

-We had a health lecture and heard a horror story about malaria, and then I realized that I hadn't taken my malaria pill the previous day

-I thought I had malaria

I felt a lot better after lunch though.  I think my problem here is that we eat such a light breakfast that by lunch I am having hunger hallucinations. So no malaria yet.  No one is sick yet either-I think that happens more when we go to our host families.  The heat hasn't been that bad.  We stay out of the sun during the hottest part of the day, and then in the evening it is cool and breezy.  

As far as adjusting, I think that it will get more difficult once we get to our host family sites.  Even though we are adjusting to the new culture and learning new things every day, our training center is still very American-friendly.  So far I think the hardest things to adjust to will be:

-The trash.  It is everywhere here.  In Rosso, where we are, it is on the side of every road-there are no sanitation or garbage services.  Before I came here I thought a trash pick-up program would be a possibility, but I don't know where it would go and just picking it up is not a sustainable solution.  The worst part is that once I get to my site I have to dispose of trash in the same way, since there is no other option.  It goes against my entire college major/assignment/environmental ethic, so we'll see....

-The long skirts.  I thought they were cool at first but I am slowly realizing that for two years I will not be able to show my legs above my ankles.

-The slower pace.  Even in training the meals and sessions always start late, and I am afraid that I won't get anything done while I am here.

-The culture. I'm not sure what to say about this yet, but it seems like the obvious one.

Overall things are going well though.  We are still in the planning phase of so many of the things that are going to happen during training, so I am excited for them to actually begin (home-stay, language, etc.).   

Salaam Aleykum!

Day two in Mauritania, and although we don't have toilet paper and can't drink the water we have wireless internet in our training center.  Although it is really slow... 

It has been such a whirlwind since we got here.  The flight to Senegal went all night and so we got to Dakar at around 4:30 am.  It was all black and then out of nowhere we could see the coast, and about a minute later we landed.  It was amazing!  It was also the first time I spoke French to someone who does not also speak English, when I frantically asked someone "Ou les toillettes??"

After that was taken care of, we took a 6 hour bus ride to Mauritania.  Senegal is beautiful.  I tried to watch everything out the window but once I started falling asleep I couldn't stop.  We arrived in Rosso early in the afternoon, and there was a huge line of people at the training center to greet us.  Previously the Peace Corps did training in a high school in Kaedi when it was out for the summer, but this is the first year that there is a permanent site.  

We have spent the past 24 hours mostly on cultural training and a little bit of language-now I can say "Hello, how are you" in Soninke, Pulaar, Wolof, and Hassaniya (and French).  I have realized that my French is not as bad as I thought, although to be fair I have only been talking to other Americans.  Another interesting thing is that we all eat with our hands out of a communal bowl, and only with our right hand, since our left hand is reserved for bathroom related activities.  In 5 days we leave to spend 3 weeks with our host families, which is when the real cross-training will begin, which is both exciting and terrifying! I have to go do some medical stuff now, but I will try to write again soon and include some of my more interesting personal thoughts in the next post.

Email me or post on the blog!!

Atlanta

I just finished staging in Atlanta, so tomorrow we fly out! I think there are 77 people in all who are going-I spent all of yesterday trying to learn names but took a break on that today. I also took my first malaria prophylaxis today, which is something I will continue to do every day for the next 27 months! I can't believe that I am going to be in Africa so soon. I don't think it will really set in until I get there! I only have 5 minutes of free internet left so that's all for now, but keep checking!

Test Post

My first post! It is Sunday night, and I leave for Atlanta on Tuesday morning.  After a two day staging event there, I fly to Senegal and then take a bus to Mauritania.  Not very much of interest to post on here yet...I have spent the last few days buying things on my packing list, which have included a mosquito net, vegetable seeds, duct tape, and four pounds of Gatorade mix.  I am not typically very good at keeping a journal (and so probably, by extension, a blog), but I will try to update this enough to make it worth reading during the next two years!