Happy Thanksgiving. I have some time to kill before the car comes to take us to Kiffa, so I thought I�d try to catch up on some of the adventures of the past couple of months.
The day after we arrived in Maal, Beth and I were sitting in Abdat�s shop and the doctor assigned to Maal, who�s never there but stays in Aleg, showed up and said they were going on a mission to the badiya (�countryside�). He asked if I wanted to come, I asked how long they�d be gone, he said 4 days, and I said hell no. But then my counterpart came back from the health post and said she was going and I thought this might up my status in the community if, the day after arriving, non-Hassaniya speaking white girl goes off to rough it in the badiya in the name of health care. So I went. Not a fun trip by a long shot, but definitely worthwhile.
Maal is remote. Maal has only potatoes and onions available in the market, no other vegetables. No fish. No bottled water, no refrigeration. The badiya has even less. The people who live out there are phenomenally poor, probably part of the �less than a dollar a day� crowd. We went to maybe 20 different communities, some of them nothing more than a gathering of 10 or 15 tents. I�m sure we were served the absolute best food possible, and it was not very good (crackers in sauce with meat... odd combination, but I saw it a few times) and often not very plentiful. The second we arrived at our first destination, the doctor from Aleg, Di, pulled out an antibiotic and handed a sheet to each of us. We were to take a round right away, before we started drinking the water, and keep taking them throughout the trip. One of the other people along got a bottle of bleach from the many cases we brought and went to dump some in the big clay jar in which they keep water cool. I hadn�t been entirely sure what we were there to do, but I knew that part of the reason was that there were people with cholera that needed treatment. You get cholera from drinking contaminated water.
Thankfully, the people I was with coddled me a bit and someone, when they went back to Maal to drop off some of the members of our group, grabbed a couple of big jugs and filled them with water from Maal�s faucet, which filters through the water table and is (they say) clean. I still put a little bleach in it, but it was much better than drinking the badiya water. I didn�t even want to bathe in that water; they get it from shallow, probably hand-dug, wells and it�s still brown with dirt and sand. I wasn�t sure quite what the point was in bathing with it, as it may�ve been dirtier than I was, but I did it anyway. I had to put up with this for four days; the people in the communities we visited live like this everyday.
It turns out that the main purpose of our mission was to immunize babies and pregnant women. It looks a little different here than it does in the States. Here�s what happened: they pulled out a mat and we all sat down. The women started appearing from every direction (how they knew to come is beyond me, but things get around quickly in these small communities). The doctors and a couple of nurses (my counterpart being one of them) pulled vaccines out of the big coolers in the back of the pickup and started giving shots. No gloves, no alcohol wipes, no bandaids (they�d grab the kid�s shirtsleeve or shorts to put pressure on the site to stop any bleedng�mind you, kids� clothes here are dirty). I was very glad to see that they used a new, fresh-from-the-sterile-packaging syringe for each shot, even when they were giving multiple shots to the same kid. We had UNICEF syringe disposal boxes, and they were very careful to get all the syringes into the boxes, though many of the other bits of garbage, syringe wrappers, plastic vaccine vial tops, sometimes even the glass vials themselves, ended up as children�s playthings. A problem in Mauritania is not having enough incinerators (I think there are only a couple functioning in the whole country) for medical waste disposal, so I can�t be sure that the syringe boxes were properly disposed of later on, but... at least the kids weren�t getting into them. This whole system of delivering vaccinations was... very different. Not bad, necessarily; at least it was getting done, and they were doing the best they could with what they had. But this would never fly in the States. The doctors recognized that, and seemed to get a kick out of riding around from village to village immunizing kids and pregnant mothers, distributing meds, taking care of a couple of cholera victims (one of whom died), in this unconventional way. It made me realize that one, this stuff is getting done, though in a manner that looks nothing like it does in the West. And two, there are people here who realize its value and are doing it.
I was pretty uncomfortable the majority of the time we were out in the badiya. The others either seemed to be doing ok or, like the doctors, seemed to enjoy the adventure. It makes me wonder what my role should be, both now and well into the future. Obviously, I was not sent here to give anyone shots (though a number of people wanted me to, and one old woman insisted I look at her sick grandchild, regardless of the number of times I told her �Maani tabiba,� �I�m not a doctor�). But they didn�t need me to; they were doing it themselves. They didn�t need me to tell them how important it was or encourage them to do it. I�m sure they would�ve worn gloves had they had access to enough of them (they did when examining the pregnant women, but we only had a few boxes along). So what do I, as a PCV, need to do? What do we, as Westerners interested in helping Africans, need to do? It seems to be resources that are missing, not knowledge or concern for the well-being of the patients. At least on the professional�s side. The people they serve could almost always use more education on basic sanitation and such. We gave out a lot of bleach for people�s water over the course of the trip. Let�s just hope that they continue (and can afford) to use it once the supply we gave them is gone.
November 23, 2005
This is long overdue, I know. I�m not even going to try to sum up the past two months right now; it�s an overwhelming task. I�ll start with the present and see where that leads...
I�m currently in Aleg, my regional capital, having just finished a great meal with a family that one of the Aleg PCVs knows. We had mave for lunch, which is white rice (not greasy!) with meat and this sauce made of crushed peanuts and spices. It�s my favorite Mauritanian meal, and the only one I can really say I like and want to learn how to make so I can eat it when I get home (there are really only a handful of Mauritanian meals�rice & fish, rice & meat, mave, or couscous & meat�so saying it�s the only one I really like isn�t saying much; the rest are ok, too). Mave is not something white Moors typically make and peanuts are hard to come by in Maal, so I�ve only had it once since getting to site 2 months ago, though we had it both yesterday and today in Aleg. I�m a much happier person when I feel I�ve eaten well. And we certainly did today. This is not everyday fare, but for guests Mauritanians will often serve tagine before lunch, which today was a really good piece of lamb eaten with bread (tagine can also be meat & potatoes & bread). Then came the mave, followed by three rounds of mint tea, of course (they follow every meal, and come in between meals, too), and then, even though I was already stuffed, they served us cold pineapple. It was from a can and not super high-quality, but things like that no longer matter to me... I will eat anything that has any nutritional value (and some things that don�t, like these great chocolate-filled cookies from Turkey). And cold stuff is amazing. I�m ok with drinking tepid water most of the time, but every once in a while I�ll have a cold beverage and remember how wonderful refrigeration is. What a treat!
The family we ate with was very cool as well. I�ve been to Aleg every couple of weeks since being posted, so I�m getting familiar with the city and some of the people here. The people we lunched with today own a boutique where we�re able to find things like eggs and canned green beans (both hard to come by elsewhere), so they�ve seen me a number of times and when they invited Julian (the Aleg PCV) yesterday and he mentioned that I was in town, they told him to bring me along. Though my language skills still leave much to be desired, I can now understand a fair bit of slow, clearly enunciated Hassaniya, so I didn�t feel too left out, and the women we ate with were very nice and friendly. I�m taking off tomorrow, I think, to celebrate Thanksgiving with a bunch of PCVs in Kiffa, but the family insisted that when I get back to Aleg, before returning to Maal, I have to come by so they can henna me and put me in a moulafa and make me into a true Mauritanian. So that should be fun. Regardless of the activities, it�s nice to be invited somewhere. Mauritanians are supposedly famous for their hospitality, and it�s true that they�ll never turn you away if you ask for something, be it a cup of tea, lunch, a place to crash for days, or money. But I�m not great at asking for things and they�re not great at offering. So I�m often unsure whether dropping in on people is an obnoxious imposition or a welcome surprise.
There�s a lot I�ve yet to figure out about Mauritanian culture, and some I�ll probably never understand. Currently, I�m a little uncertain about my future and how much longer I�ll be here attempting to unlock these mysteries. I was a bit apprehensive about being posted to Maal, as it�s one of the harder sites in the country: no electricity, only a couple of communal faucets, no cell service, no landlines, no road, no vegetables. I can�t say that I love it there now, but things have gotten easier. I�ve gotten used to the daily routine, which requires a lot more time to do things like get water and cook and do laundry. Sometimes the mere idea of carrying out everyday tasks is exhausting. But, as I�m sure I�ve said before in reference to my Mauritanian experiences, a person can get used to just about anything. And I have. My counterpart, Hadjatu, and her husband, Abdat, have pretty much adopted Beth, the other PCV in Maal, and I into their family. I eat lunch there almost every day and spend most mornings hanging out with Abdat in his shop, trying to absorb some Hassaniya from the conversations going on around me (both because Abdat is often busy and because, as a 50-year-old Mauritanian man, he and I don�t have a lot to chat about). I�ve sort of given up on going to the tiny health post for now, as I wasn�t doing anything there and it�s kind of on the outskirts of town so people weren�t coming and going as they do at the boutique. And, naturally, I wasn�t doing any actual work there, I was just trying to learn the language, so Abdat�s is a better place to be.
Another reason I no longer worry about making an appearance at the health post is that, in trying to figure out how I can make this experience work for me, I�ve shifted my focus a bit onto doing the things that having a ton of free time and very few expectations placed on me allow me to do. So I get water and don�t worry if it takes an hour because the women are sitting there yelling at each other about whose jugs should be filled first. I do yoga every morning, and if there�s an interesting piece on the BBC while I�m getting dressed, I�ll take my time and listen to it. Oh, the other thing is that they�re only at the health post until noon-ish each day, so if I go to get water at 10 (the faucet isn�t usually available until 9:30 or so) and it takes an hour, it�s hardly worth it for me to head off to �work� after that.
Speaking of work... it�s frustrating not having anything to do. There are things that I see that I�d like to work on, but my language skills won�t really allow it. Both because I couldn�t hold a seminar on disease transmission�no one would understand me�but also because I�m not here to do things that the community members aren�t interested in doing, and I haven�t been able to ask. The one thing people tell me is that they want the water issue worked on. Here�s the situation: Mauritania is a desert. There�s not a lot of water in Maal. I want this issue worked on, too, because I don�t like the idea of the water table drying up during the dry season, which I�m told it will do, and then we�ll get our water from questionably clean wells outside town. I spoke to the hakem (which translates to �prefect,� which, as an American, I�m not quite sure what that actually means, but he�s kind of like a city manager) about it and he told me that they could install a faucet in each person�s house and in each boutique so that we could do away with this communal water system, but that�s not the real problem. The problem is there isn�t enough water, so even if every house had a faucet, there would still be times of year that nothing would come out of it. Other people/orgs have looked at this and haven�t made much headway; our conversation ended with him telling me that if I had a way to fix the water problem, �Bismillah� (�welcome�). So that�s that. I�m not totally done with it; there�s an American org in Nouakchott that might have some insights, but I�m not allowed to travel there yet (we�re supposed to spend the first three months of service in our regions).
This is, of course, assuming I stay. I�ve not fallen in love with Mauritania or the culture, and the challenge of living in Maal has been... well, challenging. And that�s not really what I came here for. I find my priorities changing and my ideas about where my life and career are going are quite different from what they were six months ago. For the past two months, I�ve really struggled with the question of whether I want to be here and whether, if I decide to stay, I can make myself be fully present. Not having access to any means of communication (save a satellite phone for emergencies) has been difficult, to say the least. All this has contributed to a lot of confusion, but that�s mostly been in my head. Then my body got in on the action. I�ve had back problems for a while now (JS: not your fault!) and travelling to and from Maal on what�s now hard-packed sand/dirt, bouncing along in the back of a pickup truck or on wooden benches in the prison bus, has been taxing. As has life here, in general, as we do many things, like washing clothes, squatting or sitting in awkward positions. Many Mauritanian women have serious arthritis by middle age (which also has to do with the fact that fat is beautiful here and they�re often rather overweight). My back has been telling me that making this trip into Aleg every couple of weeks to use the internet, phone people in and outside Mauritania, stock up on canned vegetables, and regain a little sanity, (oh and, at some point, do some work, as collaboration with other non-governmental orgs is pretty much impossible from Maal) is not going to work for two years. So I�ve asked my program director for a site change. This is not something PC likes to do, for many very understandable reasons. But when I told him that the other option is probably leaving the country altogether, he was willing to consider it. As of today, I�m not quite sure what�s going on�where I would move to, if it�s really even possible, if it�s really what I want. Part of me realizes that I have great opportunities to travel, get to know Mauritanians and other PCVs here, learn Hassaniya (which will, hopefully, facilitate learning Arabic at some point), and challenge myself in all the ways I really don�t want to right now (like living with the threat of being stung by a scorpion, which is a particularly poignant fear at the moment, having seen several of them in my house last week). But part of me also wants to go home, enjoy the snowfall, spend the holidays with my family, be able to talk to my friends whenever and as long as I want, and move on with the life that I now seeing going in a much different (and closer-to-home) direction than I ever envisioned before.
On that note, something I�ve been thinking about a lot here is how fortunate we are to have the infrastructure we do in the States. And the natural resources. I�m freaked out by the idea that I may not have water at some point (well, they�ll find some, it just may not be very clean). How much water do we waste in the States? I find that it�s possible to get thoroughly clean with about 4 liters of water for a bucket bath each day; a bathtub holds, what, 40? I would like to have electricity so I could turn on the lights at night and see if there are any deadly bugs lurking in the corners of my house; how many of us leave lights or TVs or radios on for hours on end out of laziness or forgetfulness? I love the idea of living someplace central so I can easily visit my friends and family whenever I want, but how much gas can I justify using for weekend jaunts? We, in the States, have so much technology available to us, and incredible financial resources and infrastructure to put it in place, but we�re not using it like we could be. Someone�s mom sent these Crystal Light packets that are the perfect size to pour into the individual-serving water bottles we all buy in the States. How many of those bottles get recycled? When you drop it in the recycling bin, do you actually know where it ends up? Where does the excessive packaging from the Crystal Light go; why is getting the canister and measuring it ourselves too much for us to do these days?
Let me get off my soapbox and make clear that I�m not trying to lecture. I just have a lot of time on my hands and these are the things I�ve been thinking about quite a bit, mostly in reference to my own behavior and that of the American government and corporations. We are incredibly lucky to have all we do in the States�the land we live on and grow food on; the public utilities that bring water, gas, and electricity to almost every home and business (some Mauritanian women were astounded when I told them, as we filled our jugs with water, that each house in the US has its own faucet; I decided not to even try to explain that most have several); the technology to do these things in the most efficient way possible. But are we taking care of these things the way we should be? Why are our still prohibitively expensive hybrids only getting 40-50 miles to the gallon? Why can�t we do better; why can�t we use ethanol? Why are companies producing individual-serving packets of everything? Consumer demand; are we really that busy? Why, with less than 5% of the world�s population, are we producing over 20% of the world�s greenhouse gases? Why did I hear on BBC the other day that there was a deadly tornado in Indiana in November? Tornado season is over; could global warming be contributing to all the devastating natural disasters the world has experienced lately?
Ok, so maybe I am trying to lecture a little bit. The things I see that could make life a lot better here are things that we take very much for granted in the States (myself included). They�re also often things that require resources and I wonder what the world will look like if everyone everywhere gets electricity and running water and we build roads and destroy ecosystems and desertification continues so vegetables are even harder to grow in the Sahel (though Las Vegas is in a desert, too, and it�s doing pretty damn well). And I wonder what my responsibility is as a happy consumer (well, in my former life, at least) of these conveniences. All the things I�m learning to appreciate are things that we could be doing better, we could be taking care of better, as the ones with the resources to do so and, in my view, the responsibility as the producers of much of the waste. Whether people in the States drive or take the bus to work does make a difference to someone halfway around the world; it�s amazing how we�re all connected like that. But it also makes a difference to the people in Louisiana who lost their lives or homes in Katrina and in Indiana to the tornado victims. It�s not just about hugging trees.
So... all that to say that I�m thinking a lot here, and about things I never considered that important before. Life is not quite turning out as I expected, but that�s the beauty of it, right? And there�s a lot more to live, and who knows what kick I�ll be on in two weeks, much less two years. And who knows where I�ll be in two weeks... though in two years, I�m pretty sure I�ll be back in the States eating turkey and stuffing with all of you, inshallah.