Update by numbers

So a lot has happened since the last time I updated this blog. I guess it makes sense that a lot would happen in the past two months or so since this last post given my glacial writing pace. Anyway a brief run-down of major events is probably in order.

1- With the organization “one laptop per child” and the local Tidjikja school district last april-may we had planned a distribution of 100 child size laptops in Tidjikja for this summer. That plan was foiled by the Mauritanian government who denied visas to the two people who were actually going to implement the project one of which was my brother Eli.
2- Thus the project was moved to a small town in Senegal where the teachers were happy but also surprised to have this project fall into their lap. I spent a couple weeks in Mboro Senegal helping out with the project mostly by showing teachers informally how to use the computers. I also got to visit with my brother in Senegal as he suffered from the hardships of life in Africa including cold beer brought to the school every afternoon, eating heaping plates of chebbougin (the delicious Senegalise rice and fish dish) as well as eating freshly caught fish on the beach.
3- Since the Mauritanian Government stopped giving visas to Americans the incoming class of Peace Corps trainees was cancelled. Usually every June there is a new class of 60-70 new volunteers so losing an entire class was a huge emotional and logistical blow to the Peace Corps Mauritania program.
4- And then to top it all off an American was killed in the capital city of Nouakchott prompting Peace Corps to offer all of the remaining volunteers “interrupted service.” This means that if any of us were worried about our security we could leave the Peace Corps and receive the full benefits (there aren’t too many) of returned Peace Corps volunteers. Out of the 70 or so people in our class about 20 decided to leave. When the class who is about down with their two years of service leaves Mauritania, Peace Corps Mauritania will have about 50 volunteers down from over 120 during the past year.
5- This all may have been a blessing in disguise as for the 50 of us that are choosing to stay we were all forced to take mental stock of our service and make a decision to stay meaning that we are all excited to be here for the next year and ready for the challenges that await us.
6- After making the decision to spend another year in Mauritania, I went to Kankossa a village in Southern Mauritania to help out with an environmental health camp. Girls came from all over Mauritania to spend three days in Kankossa, doing health and environmental lessons, planting trees, playing sports and making friends from all over the country. I think everyone, the girls, their chaperones and the volunteers all had a great time and hopefully learned a thing or two.
7- Now is the “geytna” or date harvest in Tidjikja. Moors have basically two traditional food sources their animals for meat and milk and dates so the date harvest is something that they take very seriously. Many families in the Tidjikja area have their own personal palmeries. Many native Tidjikjans who have moved on to bigger an better things (like say driving taxi’s in Nouackchott) come back to Tidjikja to spend time with their families and/or sit around and eat dates. So for now I am back in Tidjikja sitting around eating dates doing the occasional computer or English Lesson and waiting around for the next school year to start in October.

Thirsty?

The other day I was sitting in the Tagant Governor’s office (they call Governor’s Wali’s like that robot guy in that movie) when I got thirsty, this tends to happen frequently when the temperature is above 110 degrees. One of the security guards asked me if in America we drink water out of huge plastic containers wrapped in goatskin. I finished my drink and told him that in America every house has at least five or six faucets with running water 24 hours a day and realized that the way Americans and Mauritanians consume our beverages is about as different as any other cultural difference.

A bidon is a plastic container that holds about 10 liters of water and was formerly used somewhere in the developed world to hold vegetable oil or something similar. In Mauritania there are all bright yellow colored. Almost all of them are wrapped in either cloth or goat skin to keep them cold. Some people even store their water in an actual goat skin. They hang up what appears to be an empty goat in a shady area and use it to store water. It does a better job then the bidon of keeping the water cold. Most families have many bidons to store the majority of their water although there are methods including concrete reservoirs.

Many people keep bidon’s of water in public places for public consumption. Many houses leave a bidon in the street in front of their house for any thirsty passerby’s to drink. They usually have a cup tied to the bidon for anyone to use to drink from. This is probably not the most hygienic method but nobody really seems to mind. Most public places including the aforementioned governor’s office have bidon’s lying around for anyone to drink from and even outside of town I will sometimes find a yellow bidon in the shade of a tree waiting for any thirsty wanderers. It is also worth noting that a thirsty person can knock on anyone’s door and that person is obligated to give the thirsty passerby a drink of water “no questions asked.”

In Tdjikja, most people have one water faucet in there yard. My house is pretty typical in that I have 1 water faucet sticking up a foot out of the ground in the middle of the yard. I then have running water for a varying amount of hours every day. When I have water I fill up my concrete water reservoir as well as several other water containers. For people that don’t have faucets a man with donkey cart will come around selling bidons full of water every few days.

Encore

I have just received really big news. My brother, his friend James and I had been working on an application with an organization called one laptop per child. The organization has developed an innovative computer that is designed for children in developing countries. The organization was looking for people to bring these computers to communities across Africa to teach people basic computer skills. We applied to be those people and we were selected to distribute the computers in Tdjikja. You can see the details of the program at this link:

http://laptop.org/en/participate/get-involved/OLPCorps.shtml

The other day a friend told me an anecdote about the initial colonization of Mauritania that I think is worth sharing. My friend told me this story because while I was teaching one of his sons English another one of his sons who hasn’t yet started English kept saying “yes,” “yes,” “yes,” over and over again. When the French first reached Mauritania they obviously were faced with a language barrier. The French didn’t speak Hassiniya and the Moors did not speak French. One day a moor learned the word “encore” which means again but didn’t learn the meaning. For some reason or another Frenchman started hitting this man. He then kept saying the word “encore (again)” in an effort to get them to stop. The Frenchman was more than happy to comply with his request and kept hitting him again and again.

One of my favorite qualities about Mauritanians is that they are always eager to help someone out whenever they can even if it a strange request from an American. Last week I did a tree nursery project with one of my elementary schools. I wanted to use goat manure as fertilizer for the project. I walked into a random house near the school that had a few goats and asked them if I could take some goat manure for the school project. Note that finding a house with goats in Tdjikja is a little like finding a house with a TV in my hometown of New York City. It’s almost a 100% chance, although in America they probably wouldn’t give me their TV, even if I asked really nicely. These people not only gave me the manure but also insisted that I stay for tea and we even started a small tree nursery as their house.

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Questions and Answers

When professional writers use up all of their material they often recycle old material and show it in a new way to get more mileage out of the same material. My mother has been going around to classes in the elementary school where she works and giving presentation about Peace Corps, my service and the country of Mauritania. The kids seem to enjoy and ask a lot of questions. I have been answering their questions and I think that some of them may be of general interest. So here is my recycled old material:

How do they make bread?
The baker makes bread in a big oven. The oven is heated by a fire and
they use the oven to bake the bread. Almost everyone eats bread for
breakfast.

How many markets are there in Tdjikja?
There is one main market in Tdjikja. There are many women selling
vegetables and there are many small shops. There are also a lot of
small shops around the town.

How far is the market from your home?
The market is about a 10 minute walk from my house. Most people walk
everywhere they go instead of driving a card.

Have you seen any baby camels?
I have and they are very cute.

Do you like riding a camel?
Riding a camel is very fun. They are very big so it is very scary. It
is very scary when they stand up. You got on the camel while they are
kneeling on the ground. When they stand up it is very scary.

Do you like it there?
I like it in Mauritania. I have a lot of friends and it is interesting
to live with people from another culture.


How cold and hot is it in Mauritania?
It is very hot in Mauritania. During the middle of the day it can be
over 120 degrees. Most people just sleep between noon and 4 because it
so hot. It does get cold in winter but never cold enough to snow.

What is my house like?
My house has two rooms and one hangar. A hangar is like a permanent
tent in my yard. I spend most of my time there because it is too hot
in the other rooms.

Is camel meat good?
Camel meat is very good but it is also very expensive. So you can only have it for special occasions like weddings. You can eat everything on any animal except the feet and the skin.You can eat the hump of the camel and it is especially delicious although very fatty. I rode a camel for fun but some people still use camels for
transportation because they are very strong in the desert. They do not
need a lot of water so they are very good in the desert. They are also
very fast. People also use camels for meat and milk. Camel milk and
camel meat are both very good.

How do you bathe?
To bathe, I take bucket baths just like everyone else in Mauritania. First you fill up a bucket with water. Then you take a cup and pour the water over yourself. Then you clean yourself with soap. Finally you rinse yourself off with water. After that you are just as clean as after taking a shower in America.

How many hospitals are there in Tdjikja?
There is one hospital in Tdjikja my city. However, there are no hospitals in the rural areas surrounding Tdjikja. This is very difficult for the people who live in the rural areas who have to pay to come into the city when they are sick.

When do people join the Peace Corps
Most people join the Peace Corps after they finish college or in their twenties although there are people in their 50’s or even older who join the Peace Corps. Most people have a degree from college.

What do people wear?
Men wear boubou’s almost every day. Boubou’s are cloth garments that cover everything from your shoulders to your feet and often have fancy embroidery. Women wear Mulehfa’s which also cover the entire body and their hair. Since the culture is very conservative women keep their whole body and hair covered at all times.

What do you drink?
I mostly drink water and sometimes I drink milk. I drink fresh milk
because most people have goats or sheep that make milk. Sometimes I
also drink camels milk which is very good.

How do you get water?
I have a faucet in my house where I get my water. Some people don't
have faucets and have to get there water from a well. That is a lot of
work because they have to pull all of their water for cooking,
cleaning, and drinking from the well.

What do you do?
I teach kids about the environment. Mostly I plant trees and garden
with children and teach them about trees and gardening.

Do you have friends? What are there names?
I have many Mauritanian friends. Some of my friends are named: Dihan,
Habib, Mohamdi and Tijane. American names are very difficult for
Mauritanians to say. For example very few Mauritanians can say my
name: "Seth."

What do you eat?
Every day I, like most Mauritanians, eat rice for lunch and cous-cous
for dinner. Usually the rice has fish meat or beans with it. The
cous-cous usually comes with meat or beans.

Dinner Mauritanian style

I have been in Mauritania for 9 (count’em) months. After that much time eating rice for lunch and cous-cous for dinner I feel that a description of a typical Mauritanian meal is in order. This process is almost exactly the same everywhere in the country (at least among Hassiniya speakers) and in almost every household. Note that I am describing the meal from the mans perspective and that a women’s perspective would undoubtedly be different and include a lot more work.

Before the meal, the men wait in the nicest room in the house usually watching television or talking or just lying there. Nobody has any idea when the meal will come you just sit and wait. It feels like the meal is just going to fall out of the sky rather than from the work of the lady folk. Before the meal does fall out of the sky you have a couple of warning signs. First about 5 minutes before the meal is ready a little kid will bring over a mat like thing which the plate of food will later be placed on. Then they will bring out the handwashing apparatus. This consists of a plastic item called a “makeresh.” The makeresh looks like a plastic teapot and is used to pour the water for the handwashing. Hands are washed over a plastic catchbasin witch usually matches in color and size the makeresh. The makeresh is used before and after every meal and the odds of having soap included in this equation go up exponentially after the meal. Then all of the men sit around a big bowl of food. In America everyone has their own individual plate. Not so, In Mauritania everyone site in a circle around the same big plate. The meal consists of a starch base and meat or beans or if you are lucky some vegetables piled on top of the rice or cous-cous. Rice is almost always the starch for lunch and cous-cous is almost always the starch for dinner. Once everyone has washed their hands and has gathered around the table it is time to dig in. You eat the starch from your section and compete with everyone else for the goodies that are piled in the middle. You eat by rolling the cous-cous or rice into balls and then placing the meat, or vegetables into the middle of the ball. Note that this is all done with the right hand as the left is used for other purposes. If you are a guest, not just an American but any guest, you will be clearly instructed to “ewkel” or eat. This is not a request. At first I would just keep eating but now I am learning to say such pleasantries as “I ate” or “I am full” or “I ate so much that I can not eat any more,” which usually satisfy the hosts. When you are done eating you look the cous-cous off of your hand to indicate that you are finished. After everyone is done eating we all wash our hands and lean back on our mattresses and get ready to drink some tea.

On a completely unrelated note, the other day I told a Mauritanian that the number 13 was unlucky in America. He asked me why and I said that there was no reason. He seemed absolutely and utterly perplexed that the number 13 would be unlucky for no reason just as I have been absolutely and utterly perplexed at many Mauritanian beliefs.
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A tragic defeat

I apologize to my country and to anyone I have ever played volleyball with for what was probably the most embarrassing athletic defeat in a lifetime of embarrassing athletic defeats. In the first ever volleyball game in the history of Gnimlane (small village outside my site of Tdjikja) the American team lost to the Mauritanian team 3 games to 1. At the request of the Gnimlane’s physical education teacher we played this game so his students could watch and see how the game of volleyball was meant to be played. It turns out that we got the lesson in front of a crowd of probably around 100 people.

Just 25 kilometers (15 miles) away Gnimlane is a very different place than Tdjikja. I think one of the things that make it the most different is that most people in Tdjikja have television or at least the opportunity to watch television semi-regularly. In the absence of computers and newspapers, TV is an significant window to the world. The average Tdjikja high school student follows international soccer and can name the starting 11 for most major European clubs. In Gnimlane the teacher, introducing physical education, asked his students if they could name any professional soccer players. They all said Ronaldinho and that they knew him because he was on the back of some of their friends jerseys by virtue of the second-hand clothes market which makes up a good portion of a young Mauritanians wardrobe. He asked them where Ronaldinho was from and they said Brazil. He asked where Brazil was and they all thought it was a neighborhood in Mauritania.

In other culinary news, lunch the other day included goat eyes and brain and so now I can say that I am a person who has eaten both goat eyes and goat brain. The brain tasted like tuna. They told me that eating the brain would make me smarter. I am not sure about that but I do know that something gave me diarrhea. I am also not sure if they were implying that a goat was smarter than me and that if I ate the brain I might catch up.

WAIST!!!!!

I am back in Tdjikja, after a brief vacation in the promised land (Senegal), for a softball tournament and I have to say that I really enjoy being back at site. While, I have faith that work will continue to be slow, I am starting to feel established in the community and everyday Tdjikja becomes more like home.

One interesting side effect of becoming more established and improving my language and the cultural awareness is that now I am more alert to people being mean, either to me or to other people. Insults, conversion attempts, or simply actions that are inappropriate in this culture might have once passed by my naïve eyes in a blur of lightning-fast language. As I live here longer, I am getting better, (although I am still very far from perfect or even stellar), at understanding the insults, following the logic (if you can call it that) of the conversion attempts and generally becoming more aware of when someone is being insulted.

It is difficult to describe the air of jubilation that fills Mauritanian volunteers as we cross the border into Senegal into what feels like another world. We leave behind all of the frustrations of futile work in the middle of desert as we try and squeeze every last drop of fun out of our time in Senegal. This time we were in Dakar, the capital of Senegal and a surprisingly modern city of 8+ Million people, for a softball tournament, fitting titled WAIST (add an ed to the end if you are confused about the reason for the tournament). Peace Corps Volunteers from several West African countries as well as a handful of other random teams compete in the U.S. embassy sponsored tournament. The fields were incredible; the pool was beautiful and after 8 months in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania being able to order a cold beer from the bar was about as much as I could possibly ask for. And to top it all off I got to play a real game of Frisbee. Most of you reading this blog are probably aware of my unhealthy obsession with this sport. Yes I have been able to throw the Frisbee around occasionally here and I have even had some pickup games with other volunteers but never anything resembling an actually game. Between the other volunteers and a couple of American expatriates living in Dakar we were able to get together a decent game. When everyone ran into the center of the field to form a stack I nearly cried. I missed a diving lay-out catch in the end-zone but simply laying out was enough to bring a huge smile to my face.

Traveling in West Africa is certainly different than traveling in say western New York. I will use two examples to illustrate the difference: one example is mishwii and the other is the border crossing between Senegal and Mauritania. After a 5:00 clock departure from our hotel in Dakar we reached the garage in Rosso Senegal by mid-afternoon. Interestingly enough there is a town called Rosso Senegal directly across the Senegal River from Rosso Mauritania. Taxi’s that travel between cities will only drive between the garages of those cities. Think of a garage as a combination, bus stop/ taxi stand/restaurant/market much like a Senegalese Penn Station. We got out of our taxies which was not in walking distance from the river (Yes, Dad I know that anywhere is walking distance if you have the time, but we were tired from the 5:00 am departure). About two dozen Senegalese men surrounded the taxi and just started shouting various languages at us to see what we would respond too. English? Francaise? Espagnol? Pulaar? I chose to speak Hassiniya to gain some local credibility found someone that spoke Hassiniya and negotiated the price for a horse cart to take us to the river crossing. Three of us and an adolescent Senegalese boy climbed into the horse cart throwing our bags on the back of the cart. We held on to our bags with one hand and the cart with the other as we covered the distance to the river. Once we got to the river we hopped into a large canoe with about 30 of our closest Senegalese and Mauritanian friends for the short trip across the Senegalese River back to Mauritania. Travel tip: don’t do border crossings at lunch time. Upon reaching Mauritania we had to wait an hour and a half for the inspector to return from lunch and stamp our passports.

The most delicious part of traveling in Mauritania is Mishwii. On the overnight drive from Nouakchott to Tdjikja one usually stops along the way to eat Mishwii or barbequed meat. The driver usually pays for a plate to feed everyone in the taxi. Mishwii poses no dilemma for this carnivore as there is literally nothing but barbequed meat straight from the goat (you can recognize just about every body part) and a few scraps of bread which most of the men actually turn up their noses at and don’t finish. Someone will just cut the meat off of the bones into bit size pieces and everyone grabs little pieces of meat until everything including the bone marrow is gone, then everyone washes the meat down with the customary three cups of tea and then resumes the rest of the journey slightly more content and with much fuller stomachs.

By the way if any of you are interested in learning a little bit more about my experience there is an excellent book called Feeding Desires by Robin Penenoe (not sure on the spelling). She is an anthropologist who did here research with a group almost exactly like the Moors of Mauritania. Almost all of the words she uses are the same as Hassiniya, and her analysis and descriptions are very insightful.