A couple of notes before you start reading: 1) this is really long, so be prepared, and 2) as with everything I post, this must be taken solely as my opinion of my current situation. I am by no means an authority on Mauritanian culture and have only lived with one family for a couple of weeks. I offer but a glimpse into the way I and a handful of other people live here; this cannot be taken as a representation of the way all�or even most�Mauritanians live.
After two weeks with my host family, I�ve settled into a routine and am relatively comfortable here. It took some getting used to, and there are things I�m still not thrilled about, but a person can adapt to just about anything, it seems. Having the other Peace Corps trainees nearby has been invaluable; everyone�s doing their best to support each other through this period. We�re all anxious to become more comfortable with the language and culture, learn what we need to do our jobs, and get started on them. For most of us, September 15th, the day of our swearing-in as official Peace Corps volunteers, can�t come soon enough.
This is not to say that I�m miserable here. There are good days and not-so-good. A typical day begins around 6:30am, when the sun comes up, the roosters start crowing, the livestock starts running into my mosquito tent (one of the goats fell on me this morning�luckily, it was one of the little ones!), the adults start preparing for the day, and the babies start crying. Morning has never been my favorite time of day and it�s been hard to get myself up to face the chaos of the morning here. Everyone sleeps outside. We do just about everything outside, actually, and together. They have a large tent in the front yard under which most activity takes place. I very much look forward to the nights it rains because it means I can�t sleep outside (I don�t sleep under the tent and the rain is a deluge) and that it cools down enough to tolerate sleeping in my room (once the door is closed, it becomes a bit of a sauna if it�s at all warm out). Sleeping in my room is blissful in part because of the privacy factor�there�s very little of it here, though my family is really conscientious about giving me my space�and because I get to wear shorts and a tank top to bed. Because seeing a woman�s legs is so culturally inappropriate, when I sleep outside, I still wear long skirts. I never thought I would be so excited about wearing pjs, but I find that there are a lot of things that thrill me here that didn�t used to.
A number of you will be pleased to know that I bathe more often here than I was accustomed to doing in the States. Certainly not in an effort to be clean�a state of cleanliness is temporary, at best, here�but out of necessity. Skin caked in sweat and sand is much more prone to infection. I was talking with another trainee yesterday and realized, once again, how low my standards currently are. I anticipate getting some disgusting illness(es) here, but I�m hoping not to come away with something I have to deal with for the rest of my life. So if I have to bathe daily to keep my body�s first line of defense in good working order, I�ll do it. Oh, and when I say bathe I�m not referring to standing under a lovely stream of temperature-controlled water, I�m talking about dumping cups full of water over you while holding your breath because you�re standing 3 feet from the hole into which people relieve themselves. My family is, I think, relatively well-off, in that we have electricity and a faucet in the front yard from which to retrieve buckets full of water. Again, this is one of those things you just get used to and, though a shower might be nice every once in a while, bucket baths can be rather pleasant as well. It�s pretty funny to watch sand-colored water run out of your hair, rinse after rinse. I think the sand actually helps keep my hair relatively grease-free, and not having mirrors most definitely helps me not care what I look like.
Appearances are important here, though, which I experienced firsthand the other day. The women in my family hand-dye moulafahs to sell at the market. A moulafah is a long, flowy piece of fabric that�s tied and wrapped around a woman until she�s almost completely covered. They�re quite beautiful and Mauritanian women have a way of wearing them that amazes me. My family gave me one that I waited a few days to wear because I knew it wouldn�t be easy. They were ecstatic when I wore it, though, and I got a lot of positive attention as I walked around Ka�di that day. I think people really appreciated my effort to fit into their culture and were much more willing to talk to me (for better or worse�I still didn�t really understand them!). Also, the kids here wear western clothing, mass-produced dresses and t-shirts and such. So I think my wearing the moulafah moved me from that toubab (�foreigner�) and younger state, to one of more respect. Though it was hot and cumbersome (we�re talking about 6 meters of fabric that one has to keep wrapped around her body�this is not easy!), I think it may be worthwhile to get used to wearing them as a means to establish a respected position in the community. And they�re kind of cool. I�m just not very adept at� well, doing just about anything in them. I think it�ll take a while for me to get into wearing a moulafah every day, particularly as I don�t know where I�ll be placed ultimately and, though our host families are supposed to resemble the community in our permanent sites, I don�t know that this is what they�ll wear there.
My host sisters put henna tattoos on my hands and feet the other day. With any luck, you�ll be able to see the photo of my hands. Given that I can�t keep my feet clean for more than 6 seconds after bathing, I decided to skip the foot photos. The henna that they do for special occasions, like weddings, is quite intricate; what they did to me this time is not.
The women in my family dye and sell moulafahs; I�m not sure what the men do. They�re very rarely here, which is typical in Mauritanian society. I haven�t entirely figured out all the relationships among family members, but here�s what I know: I have a host mother, Lala, who�s often at the market. She is the mother, I think, of the four women in my household: Rohaiya, Jemela, Tete, and Fatimatoua. Rohaiya and Jemela are married and have kids (two each, I believe, but, again, it�s hard to say). Jemela�s husband was here for a visit the other day; he works in Nouakchott, the capital city, which is about a five and a half hour drive from here. There are two men that come to our house around 7:30 or 8:00 each night, one of whom I believe to be Rohaiya�s husband. The men sleep here but are usually gone by the time I�m up and about in the morning; I�m not sure what they do, if anything (there�s a great deal of unemployment here). And I�m not sure who the other guy is. Affection between people of the opposite sex here is very rarely seen, so I haven�t been able to make the connection between him and one of the women. There are a lot of kids (eight, I think) and I�m sad to say that I can�t always get the right name with the right one. It doesn�t much matter, though, because they don�t talk to me. They still watch me all the time. But there�s a pretty strict hierarchy in my family (which is not the case in every family here�the Wolof and Pulaar cultures are a bit more liberal) and the kids pretty much stay out of the way of the adults and do what they�re told. And they�re told to do a lot. I�m sure my host sisters and mom went through it when they were kids, but they have to do very little these days. The kids take care of each other, bathe each other, get water for the adults, clean up, take care of the animals, etc. The women prepare food and take care of the babies. And delegate. As an adult and a guest, I am expected to do very little, if anything. I asked to use the broom the other day to clean up my room and I had to insist that I didn�t want one of the kids to do it for me. My family found it quite amusing when I assisted my younger brother with washing his hands yesterday. I�m a little concerned that I�ll offend them by trying to be too helpful, which is completely counterintuitive for me as a guest in their house.
Ah, so, back to my day� I drag myself out of my mosquito net, put it away, take a bucket bath, and run to Hassaniya class (yes, I�m still always late). This is not an easy language to learn and I�m not always thrilled with the way in which I�m being taught (it�s just a matter of different learning styles; my teacher�s quite knowledgeable and enthusiastic). One of the things that makes it complicated is that Hassaniya is not a written language. One can write it using the Arabic alphabet, but it hasn�t been codified, so things like English-Hassaniya dictionaries are hard to come by (the PC put a small one together), and spellings are often inconsistent, which it makes pronunciation difficult. And it is a language obsessed with endings. Not only does one have to conjugate verbs for I, you (masculine), you (feminine), him, her, we, etc., but you have to add appropriate endings to nouns as well. For instance, if I want to say �my mother� it�s umi, but if I�m talking about your mother, it�s either umak (if I�m talking to a male) or umik (female). Thank god that I�ve studied other languages in which this is the case (though never to this extent) and that this isn�t a completely foreign concept to me. I�m slowly making progress and know that I�ll be ok by the time we get through training. I can�t quite see how right now, but I will be.
Our class goes from 8 to 1:30, then I come home for lunch. I�m still struggling with the food, which is prepared with a lot of oil and consists mainly of starches. We usually have rice and fish, with a few vegetables, for lunch. The food is pretty tasty, but it doesn�t sit well. And I�m concerned about not having a balanced diet, as the amount of meat and vegetables is limited and they have to be shared among a number of people. The adults typically eat together, so there are 5 or 6 people eating from one plate. One of my host sisters is breast-feeding (which they do quite publicly here) and another I think may be pregnant (it�s hard to tell with the moulafahs!), so I feel like I should leave the nutritious stuff for them, as I have a nice stash of multivitamins in my room. It�s also just difficult to pull off good pieces of fish using only your right hand. I try to eat during the break in our class. The boutique usually has freshly-baked bread and I pretend I don�t know where the flies that land on it just were, and peanuts are readily available for protein. So I make do. We go back to the lycee (the PC training center) on Tuesday night and I�m looking forward to having three square, American-friendly meals a day, plus snacks. Hopefully, these periodic visits to the lycee will keep me healthy until such time I can cook for myself (inshallah��God willing�).
The afternoons are HOT and there�s not much to do. People here seem quite comfortable doing a lot of sitting, and lying, and maybe some lounging. I tend to read or write, but I�m getting more comfortable with simply staring off into space or observing the kids and/or animals. (One of my little host sisters, who�s probably 5 or 6, comes out every afternoon, without fail, and I don�t know what she�s saying, but she�s definitely telling on someone, and then that person gets called out and yelled at. It�s quite the routine.) Most afternoons, I go to the internet caf� or try to hook up with other trainees. My language skills are not good enough yet that I can really converse with my family. I anticipate that, later on in training, I�ll spend more time just hanging out with them, chatting. As it is, I spend a fair amount of time hanging out with them, but talking is a challenge. I am looking forward to the point at which I can at least understand what they�re saying, because my sisters are all very nice and seem like fun people.
When I return from my afternoon excursion, I�ve usually had enough time off of Hassaniya to pull out the workbook and do my homework. We have TDAs (I can�t remember what that stands for� PC loves acronyms and this is one for �work you have to do�) that require us to ask our family questions to discover vocabulary and such, but I�m having trouble getting them to help me. They try, but they seem to speak to me only in nouns and don�t get when I�m trying to ask them a question. They simply translate whatever I just said. For instance, I was supposed to ask a family member about their daily routine the other day (get up, brush teeth, make breakfast, etc.). I asked my host sister what she does each day in French. So she then told me how to say �what do you do?� in Hassaniya. And no matter how many times I tried to impress upon her that I was trying to ask what SHE does, she didn�t get it and kept repeating the translation. So we�re struggling a bit there.
The family only brings out the television (a small, black and white one) in the evening. They usually watch what seem to be these horrible soap operas in Hassaniya and the news. There�s evening prayer call around 7:30, at which point the men appear, and it gets dark around then, so I put away the homework and� you know� do nothing. We eat dinner a little after 9, typically. Dinner in the dark is interesting. It�s often pasta or couscous with meat (oh, and lots of oil, of course), but I can�t see enough to know what kind of meat they�re serving. And I don�t much care, but I�ve decided that if I can�t pull it apart with one hand, I�m not eating it. It seems to be mostly fat and gristle, or other parts of the animal that don�t come in those lovely styrofoam packages we have in the States. I may reach a point at which I�m so desperate for �meat� that I�ll eat it, but, for now, I�m not really comfortable doing so. We go to bed very shortly after eating, so I figure the less I eat, the better. I�m hoping that, when I get to my permanent site, I can make it clear that I�m not going to be eating a big meal just before bed and simply have bread or something.
I�m very lucky that we eat as early as we do and go straight to bed afterwards, though. There are a number of trainees whose families eat later and stay up �til all hours entertaining guests and such. (Visiting and being visited are very important parts of the culture here and we have a few regular guests, which makes sorting out relationships all that much more difficult.) All in all, I�m pretty comfortable with my family�s routine. I�m convinced that they�ve hosted trainees before because they�re very good about letting me do my own thing and not hovering over me too much. They try to be helpful, but there are some trainees whose families still won�t let them set up their own mosquito nets at night. All the hospitality is very nice, but it�s a little much for us independent Americans, who are accustomed to taking care of ourselves.
Other cultural notes� there are not a lot of foreigners here, and the kids, especially, make a big deal of us. It�s a bit like being a celebrity and, let me tell you, I don�t envy Madonna one bit. They call us toubabs or nazranis (Christians), and try to touch us (I haven�t figured out quite why) and, at times, ask for money because, we are, of course, rich. The kids have very little to do and will simply follow me to wherever I happen to be going. (These are kids in the neighborhood; my family�s kids are very polite. I think they�d hear it if they weren�t.) They talk to us in their limited French and love to ask about the time (I think that�s all they know��bonjour,� �ca va bien?� and �quelle heure et-il?�). There are times I find this all sort of amusing and other times I can�t stand it.
Cars here take precedence over everything else. This is difficult for me to grasp, with my DC �hit me and see what happens� attitude. I think drivers know this about toubabs and seem to veer particularly close to the side of the road on which we happen to be walking. Most people don�t own cars and the ones who do have pretty run-down ones, generally. Trucks are a key form of transportation and I�ve been rather horrified at where people ride on them (I don�t see the luggage rack on the top of a Volkswagen van as an appropriate place to sit; Mauritanians don�t seem to share that view).
Speaking of being horrified by safety issues� kids here play with any and everything. This includes trash, in some cases, though I haven�t seen my kids doing that. There is no way that they�re not totally dirty after playing in the same yard the livestock runs around (and defecates) in, though. And I realize that the knife my family uses to prepare food is not all that sharp, but it still freaks me out that the babies play with it and no one seems to mind.
Though my family�s been very good thus far about not getting into my stuff, we�ve been warned that once you bring something out, everyone will want to touch it. Thus, I haven�t pictures of my house or family as I don�t want to deal with everyone playing with my camera just yet (we�ll see if I�m able to get some pics uploaded today). I borrowed a fellow trainee�s computer to type this so I didn�t have to pay for time at the internet caf� (and their keyboards tend to stick), so I�ve been holed up in my room for quite some time in an effort to protect his laptop from the curiosity of the kids. As such, I�m about to suffocate, so I will end this epic website update and go get ready for another fantastically greasy meal. I hope everyone is doing well and would love to hear from you, as always. If you write, tell me all the fantastic things you�re eating�my imagination is the only thing keeping my taste buds happy here� and it�s only been three weeks. Oh, and anyone who�s thinking to visit me, I don�t want to discourage you�I think this is a great place to see and there are aspects of the culture that are truly amazing�but please realize it will not be easy or necessarily fun. This is not vacation. I will be more than happy to leave the country to meet up with people in places where drinking is acceptable, however, so if you want to visit West Africa but are wary of using latrines and makarreshes and taking questionably safe taxi brousses to get around on the mostly unpaved roads of Mauritania, let me know and we�ll discuss our other options. With that disclaimer, however, if you�re up for an adventure, I�d love to have you!
Finally, I know that there are about a million things that I�m leaving out. If you have questions about anything I�ve talked about or anything I�ve missed, please send me an email and I�ll get some info up about it as soon as I can.
July 9, 2005
What an interesting day. We moved to our host families� homes today, where we�ll stay for the next 10 weeks while we�re in training. I knew already that my language group was going to be studying Hassaniya, the local Arabic dialect. What I didn�t know, however, is that our families were going to be told to speak to us only in Hassaniya. And it wouldn�t really matter anyway, as two of my older host sisters are the only ones who speak any French, so now our household�s combined knowledge of French equals that of a 2-year-old. Needless to say, I�m a bit lost. Our language classes don�t start until Monday, so I have the rest of today and all tomorrow to kill listening to them talk around/at/about me.
The children are fascinated by me and one of the babies can�t stop staring. The whole family (and it�s a big family!) seems very nice, though I�m struggling a bit with the hygiene. There are goats running around the yard where we hang out. They eat from the same plates we do (when we�re done) and I�m not sure how those plates are cleaned. I just went a bought a makarresh that will be used only by me and only in the bathroom; this is not the case for the other makarreshes in the household. (A makarresh is like a teapot, only used for a number of things that have nothing to do with tea, mostly cleaning oneself.) Talking about disease transmission in my health sector training sessions all the time doesn�t help. You don�t have to be an expert to see the issues, though. It�s a little scary because I know I won�t be able to avoid getting sick, but I�ll do what I can, and maybe, once I know the language better (or at all), I can talk to them about some ways to make their environment healthier.
I didn�t think I�d get back to the internet caf� this soon, but, as luck would have it, I have no idea how to communicate with my family and we had a bit of a misunderstanding. My host mom was at the quick orientation session this morning and apparently got that I was supposed to return to the training center at 3pm. I didn�t hear that at all, but thought maybe I missed something that was said in French. I tried to tell them I didn�t think I needed to go to any classes until Monday, but they couldn�t understand me (I don�t blame them�my French really sucks). So we went to the training center and talked to one of the current PC volunteers who happened to be there. She doesn�t know Hassaniya, though, so she couldn�t figure out why my host sister, who had escorted me there, thought I was supposed to be there. While the volunteer was trying to figure out what was going on, my sister said something about returning at 6pm and left. So I decided to take advantage of the time and go to the market, which I hadn�t really checked out yet, and see if the internet caf� was open which, obviously, it is. The only issue is getting home� I don�t really know where I live yet. I can always just head back to the lycee (the training center) and wait for someone to come pick me up. What ridiculousness. With my poor sense of direction, though, wandering around �til I find the house is not a good idea. Streets here don�t really seem to have names. Or be �streets,� per se. So I�m off� to wait�
July 7, 2005
So, here I am in Mauritania. We had an interesting time getting here last Friday, with delays in New York that made us think we�d miss our flight from Paris to Nouakchott (Mauritania�s capitol). Thankfully, there were delays there, too, and we arrived in Mauritania safely, though exhausted. Our luggage was not so lucky. Most of it finally
arrived on Tuesday, though some bags weren�t brought until yesterday and a few didn�t arrive at all (we�re holding out hope that they�re still in transit). Mine made it intact and, for as �earthy� as I can be, I was ecstatic to have familiar shampoo and clean change of clothes.
It�s hard to stay clean here. It�s hot, of course, and constantly dusty. It�s wonderful when there is a breeze, but if it picks up too much, it can get uncomfortable for the eyes. I�ve resigned myself to the fact that my skin will pretty much always feel gritty from the sand. It�s not so bad, once you get used to it. I think I�ll be saying that a lot in the next two years.
It�s amazing how quickly we adapt. We arrived in Mauritania last Saturday afternoon and drove to Kaedi, on the southern border, to start training on Sunday. Since then, we�ve adjusted to a new climate, new friends, new food (some have made that transition better than others!), a new bathroom system, and a new way of looking at modesty. As it is a Muslim nation, many women here cover their heads. We do not, for now, but likely will when we leave the Peace Corps training center and get out into the world. Women need to keep their legs covered at all times, particularly the knees. We�re staying in big single-sex rooms�16 women in mine�so we�ve taken to coming into the room and stripping off our slips and any other superfluous clothing to try to escape the heat. The other day, I found myself horrified when someone stood backlit in a doorway and I could see the outline of her legs (which is incredibly taboo here). Funny how quickly our standards change.
I�m not sure how to describe all the other changes. We sit on mats on the floor all the time; our backs are loving it. We sleep on mats on the floor, too, and outside if it�s nice enough. There�s very little in the way of air conditioning here (only in the computer room and nurse�s office), so sleeping outside is an excellent option� until a sandstorm kicks up or lightning illuminates the sky. Then, everyone packs up their �matelas� and mosquito nets and comes back inside. Needless to say, getting a good night�s sleep has been tough.
We�ll be moving on Saturday, which should help with the sleep deprivation (I hope�I�ve been exhausted for the last two weeks). The 46 new trainees are split up into groups of 3-4 people for our next 10 weeks of training. We�re individually placed with families in villages outside Kaedi. We�ll come back to Kaedi every couple of weeks for technical trainings with our sector (health is mine; the others are agroforestry, environmental education, small enterprise development, education (English and primary school), and information & communication technology). They base our host family placement on language, as this is where we�ll do the intensive language training (with a language instructor, not just the family). I still don�t know where I�ll be placed permanently but, during training, I should learn the language I�ll ultimately speak and the community should look something like the one I�ll end up in. So perhaps I�ll have a better idea of where I�m going once we get to the host family�s community. I�m not exactly counting on it, though, as I speak very little French and may just learn that in training and use French to learn the local language once I get to wherever I�ll be. Either way, I�m not really worried. It�ll be tough, but it�ll come.
I am, surprisingly, not worried about much. I�m just taking everything in right now and feel very good about my decision to come here. We�ve had a few health sector sessions in which we�ve talked about the health system of Mauritania (or RIM, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania) and the kinds of things that need attention here. It�s goig to be incredibly challenging, but I�m much more confident and motivated now that I�m here and have gotten a feel for what we might be doing. I�ll be working on health education, but still don�t know quite what that means. We�ve met with our sector directors a couple of times now, and I expressed to him an interest in working on basic nutrition, water & sanitation, and maternal/child health. There are so many issues to work on here, though, I�d be happy doing just about anything, because it�s all important.
Overall, I�m very happy to be here and extremely excited about getting started on a project (though it�ll be a few months before I do). The communication situation here is rough, and I�ll probably not be in touch for at least two weeks. I�ll update the site (and download pics, if possible) as often as I can. I�d love to get letters and emails, though it�s hard to read email when time�s limited and the internet caf� connection is lackluster. And if you have something larger than a letter to send, send it in a padded envelope rather than a box; they�re less likely to get opened before they get to me. Not that I need anything; I brought more luggage than I can carry.