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October 30, 2004
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October 30, 2004 All, Happy Halloween (I’m quite proud of myself, I
remembered)!! I hear there is a party going on somewhere in this country but
I’m not there. I’ve been at site now for month and half now and its time
to relay a few odd stories. Frogs Now, I am living in my own fenced compound with running
water, my very own latrine (as opposed to using the “forest” behind my
house) and a nice concrete box to live in (sorry no mud hut for me), but it is
on a sand dune. Yes, like ones you
see in the movies, though smaller (I’m only on the edge) and they’ve planted
a “forest” on top to keep it from destroying the village. So my compound is pretty desolate, plants don’t really
grow well in pure sand, they like having water (though I could put up a nice
beach volleyball court). With that
in mind, you can imagine surprise at finding a frog hopping around in my
mosquito net at 2:00 in the morning. Yep
that pretty much came two breaths away from giving me a heart attack.
After finding my flashlight, rudely ejecting said frog and waiting for
the adrenaline to wear off, I proceed to go back to sleep; only to be awoken at
3:00 by the, soon to be, familiar thumping of a frog trying to get out of my net
by repeatedly jumping into it. Though less traumatic than the first experience
it was still quite unnerving. After
ejecting this newest frog (probably the same frog) I spend a good 5 min securing
the edge of my net and then happily enjoy the rest of the night sleeping in
peace. Now it turns out that these frogs really do like water (and
they are not some weird breed from outer space) thus a whole family of them have
decided to move in next to my faucet, so every time I need water, I avoid
stepping on them (harder than you think, they’ve got camouflage) and shoo a
couple away to so I can turn on the water.
Not what I expected living on a sand dune. Frogs in the desert freak me out. Cultural lesson #1: My kingdom for a chair The Moors are from a Nomadic culture; 50 years ago they were all herders moving from one patch of land to the next (or bandits preying on trade caravans), but years of drought has forced them into a more sedentary lifestyle. Meaning this culture is only one generation from living tents and running around the desert. As you can imagine this causes all sorts of interesting social aspects, many of which I’ll tell you about as I figure them out. The first has a direct impact on my posture. There are no chairs here; everyone sits on the floor on mats (or cushions if your lucky). This aspect is has logical roots, trees are scarce in the desert and if you moving your house every couple months you wouldn’t want to lug a bunch of furniture around. The novelty of this wears of after your legs fall asleep after the third or fourth time so I’ve decided to break with Moorish tradition and own furniture. Since you can’t buy furniture in town (they have no need for it) I have dredged up some of my old Boy Scout training and I’m beginning to make myself a bedroom set, kitchen and other essentials. Yeah it’ll be ghetto looking, but functional and I was able to buy an African style Lazy-boy and twin size bed (matching set) in a nearby Sonike village, so the big items were professionally done. Now the Sonike are Black Africans (but not Black Moor), which for some reason, makes whole lotta difference. And the difference between the Moors and the Black Africans leads me to a future lesson, the Caste System, which influences everything here and I’ll try to explain that sometime in the future, as I figure it out. Ride to Nouakchott In an effort to fix an intestinal adjustment that has lasted over a month I engaged in a 900 km Journey to the capital, in local transport. I can tell you that riding on the back of a pick up with 6 other people is an interesting experience here. Now I know what your thinking, “how can that be interesting we do that in the states”, ahh but we don’t do it in a Toyota pickup with a shortened bed (it’s a Quad cab) and with enough luggage to completely fill the back so there is no lip. To say the least you get pretty close to your traveling companions. And if you are still thinking its not so different, you would never have done it through a locust swarm. Yep tagging a locust at 50 mph hurts but after a couple hundred the left over goo starts to cushion the blows. Locust They eat everything, including my site mate’s newly planted garden. Now if you can listen closely to the attached mp3.
Ignore the sound of the compressor and listen to the crinkling sound,
that’s hundreds of loci devouring a garden, the entire garden.
They were even striping the bark off a couple bushes after they ate the
leaves. This was recorded in
downtown Nouakchott.
Life could be better here Kyle “still having fun in the desert” Marker P.S. Got a cell phone today my # is 011 222 686-8073 they gave me a 1000 UM discount for voting for a third party, ie someone that wasn’t Bush. |