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Self-Medicating [May. 18th, 2006|01:17 pm] Hot tea with honey and lemon, ibuprofen and decongestant, cough drops galore. So I got a cold from one of my baby friends. Ha, a cold. It’s about 110 degrees right now. It’s not the highs that are so bad as that is stays unbearably hot about 20 hours a day. It was 96 at 7:30AM today! One to five AM is still pretty sweet, as long as you’re sleeping under the stars, which all the cool kids are these days. I just finished reading Angela’s Ashes, hacking up my lungs and feeling glad at least I don't have consumption. Earlier this week Leah and I convinced Andrew that life would be better with a shower and that we were willing to contribute funds if he had one installed at his house. He goes to ask his landlord about it and less than 2 hours later, he’s got a shower. I go over there at least twice a day now, ahh. Showering is practically therapy in this climate. It’s hot and dusty and nasty all the time. Tuesday, when my cold became full-blown, I pulled myself out of school during recess and went to Andrew’s to shower and self-medicate. As luck and years of other people’s care packages would have it, I had all the makings of a home-from-school-feel-better lunch. I drank hot chocolate while making matzo ball soup and tapioca pudding. I rested the rest of the day and was able to go to class yesterday, though I’ve lost much of my voice. So teaching without a voice isn’t too much fun, but after I told the kids what was up (and kicked a few of them out for behaving like chattering donkeys), they were patient and we had a nice lesson. Not much is going on in Kiffa, so Leah, Andrew and I have fallen back on our old pastime of cooking (and eating) up a storm. In the past month we’ve made delicious calzones, Pakistani, Chinese, and Mexican feasts. We’ve perfected pudding pops and Leah found someone in the market who makes actual ice cream. None of us has gained any weight yet, I guess we’re just sweating it all out. Another Assaba pastime is the “off”, as in Cake Off (Luke’s carrot vs Caleb’s banana), Monkey Off (who’s the best at changing a lightbulb without a ladder?), etc. We just like having friendly competitions, thus was born the Cute Off. My host brother vs. Leah’s. Leah and I both being biased, we can’t decide. Leah’s created a poll on her blog (follow my friend’s link at the top of the page) among these two and a couple wild cards. Check it out and vote. We’re busy at the GMC, having finally secured a second room for the computers. I’m working on a project with the girls to paint world maps on one of our walls and then we’ll do them at their schools too. Next weekend we’ll be taking a few of them to Kaedi on an exchange. The girls have been writing letters back and forth the the Kaedi GMC girls and Leah suggested that we have some of our girls train their penpals to can vegetables and learn how to crochet or tie-dye from the girls there, so that’s what we’re doing. I’ll get to see Jenny and my old old host family from training and the south one last time before the rains and the humidity. My time here is winding up quickly and I’ll be out of this oven before you know it. My plans for the summer – and life – are still up in the air, but I’m hopeful for the future. I’m pretty sure that wherever I end up, I’ll be showering in my own house. link 1 comment|post comment

Meanwhile…back in Kiffa [Apr. 16th, 2006|11:26 pm] While I was away, Leah and my counterpart had a cage fight over the electricity and other vital things over at the GMC. Nebghouha won, but I’m pretty sure we’re in for round two this week. Most of the time, all I can think is, Ha ha ha, I’m leaving, ha ha ha. Luckily, Leah’s championing our cause and taking care of business. Still, I’ll add dealing with Nebghouha to the list of things I won’t miss. See Andrew’s post for the rest of the list; we have a lot of the same experiences. It’s about a million degrees here, I’m not kidding, average day-time highs of 115F. So since I’ve been back the new cute thing my host brother does is ask to borrow my phone to call Milagros. You don’t know who Milagros is? She’s the star of French-dubbed Brazilian soap opera that we watch on the Senegalese and Malian TV channels. She is a housekeeper, the illegitimate daughter of the patron. She’s a plucky tomboy trying to make her way in a difficult world and Allasane loves her. One night they showed a phone number on the screen at the end of the episode, some sort of trivia thing, but Allasane has it in his head that that’s her number. I said to him that she doesn’t speak Soninke, Pulaar or Hassaniya, so how are you going to talk to her? I’ll speak French to her. Duh. So we make fake phone calls to Milagros, pretty fun. Today Allasane and I went to Leah's so that he could play with her host brother, Bongaida. They're in the same class at school and are little buddies. They've been on break for two weeks and were both bored out of their skulls, so we arranged a play date. We also had the bright idea to have an online cute-off. She's going to put their pictures on her blog and you the people will vote, so we will know once and for all who's got the cutest host brother. You can access her blog through my "friends" link, if you haven't already. While I was gone, Hawa’s father in law died and she went to Kaedi to present her condolences. Then her husband, Buna, came to Kiffa for a few days. He’s in the National Guard, stationed in Rosso, in the extreme south-west of the country, so they don’t get to spend a lot of time together. The last time he came here was at the end of Ramadan and they’ve gotten together a couple of times since then in Nouakchott when Hawa’s travelled there for work, but the majority of the time they’re apart and missing each other. He calls her every night, it’s really sweet and kinda sad because their work keeps them apart. Anyway, a couple days after I got back I went for a run while she and Allasane were still asleep. When I got back from my run, Allasane was having his breakfast at the table and Hawa was sitting in her room, getting ready for work, but she looked so sad. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she’d just gotten her period. I said something sympathetic, because nobody likes getting her period, then I realized that she was sad because she’d hoped to be pregnant. We talked about that a bit and she’s been checked out and is all systems go for babies. She said, “but if Buna’s got a problem, I don’t know what we’ll do…” I tried to reassure her that it could just be timing and sometimes it takes a while. I told her that one of my aunts was married for ten years before she had her first baby, and now she’s a grandma. That seemed to make her feel better. She’s only 29, so they’ve got time yet. Anyway, gotta go to bed now, school starts at 7 during the hot season! link post comment

Midnight at the Oasis [Apr. 16th, 2006|07:53 pm] So after COS conference, a big group of us (~35) went up to the tourist capital of Mauritania, the Adrar region. Keith, a volunteer in Atar, the regional capital, organized a trash clean-up and fun run. I came to run and arrived the night beforehand. We got up at 5, had breakfast and were at the start by 6:30. Once the water stations were all set up, we started the race, a bit after sunrise, at 7:15. It was already heating up. We took a rocky-washboard dirt track out of town through a gorgeous little canyon. There were some scrub trees and cool rock formations and by a few kilometers out, I was running by myself. It was just me and the Europop (love my ipod) and every once in a while I’d see Andrew and Andy ahead of me, or just a tumbleweed. It was so cool, running solo through the desert. Every few kilometers there were a couple volunteers with water and candy for us, which was really nice and kept us going. Past the canyon, about 12k into the run, there’s a monster of a hill, but at least it’s paved. I just went slowly up till that point, enjoying the scenery and the view of the village at the base of the hill. The volunteers at the water station at the top of the hill threw water balloons at us, which was refreshing. Once I got to the top of the hill, Andrew wasn’t far ahead of me. I caught up to him in the last 5k (ok, he was walking at that point) and finished 20k in 2:15. Keith, Jarad, Jeff, Sam and Andy were all ahead of me, but I finished first among women. I hadn’t even trained that much and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to finish it. I credit carbo-loading and the supporting volunteers with that, especially Alison, best cheerleader in Mauritania! After the race, we were all glad to get a shower and some rest before lunch and the trip to Tergit. We mostly sat around Keith’s house until we were supposed to go, talking. I remember that Tyler and Sam were having what seemed like a recurring conversation about musicals. Pro and con, basically. Then there were last-minute negotiations with the driver and the first group was off. I went with the second group and ended up sitting with Tyler on the way there. Sure enough, he talked about musicals the whole way there! I’d heard about Tergit from other volunteers and I’d read Will’s description of it, but I was still bowled over by the place. It was about 45 minutes away from Atar, half of that off-road. Once the truck let us off, we walked into the mouth of this box canyon and immediately it was ten degrees cooler. There were plants and palm trees everywhere and a little creek running out to meet us. The farther we walked in, the cooler and greener it was, it was just unreal that such a cool, lush, green place existed in the middle of this barren hotness. Don’t ever pass up a chance to go to an oasis; it’s like stepping back in time. At the very end of this canyon, there’s a natural pool and a place where you can drink spring water dripping off the rock face. It’s cool and pure and wonderful. The creek twists around in these limpid pools full of pollywogs. Further up into the closed part of the canyon are stone steps that take you up to a cooler, cement-lined pool and then steps up to the top, where you can overlook the palms and the slate walls of the canyons to the escarpments beyond. Near the low pool, there were khaymas (local tents) with mats and matelas set up for us. We stayed for about $6/person instead of ten, friend prices. The boys had borrowed a car battery and hooked it up to a stereo so we’d have jams and Christa, Nicole, April and Rachel made a playlist that we danced to all night, well, till midnight, when the music stopped. Periodically, we’d go cool off in the pool and then go back to dancing. I don’t know where I was when some old French tourist came up to the group to curse us out. I guess he didn’t appreciate the music, but he had other issues. He called us deplorable people, living off our parents in France. He was so uninformed! In the middle of his harangue, he slapped Christa. She wasn’t hurt, but still, how rude! The boys got all up in arms about that and Señor Frog beat a hasty retreat, fortunate for him. Later on Rachel, Sam and I sat under a palm tree surrounded by glowworms and fireflies and just took it all in. I kept waking up in the night, but then I’d look up to a starry palm canopy, an almost-full moon, the breeze that kept us warm and smile. The place is magical and I hope it stays that way. After the first group left in the morning, before dawn, the rest of us picked up all the trash and took pictures. Ari said it reminded her of Cinqueterre in Italy. Anyplace like that is a place I want to be. Don't take my word for it; take a look at the pictures: adriana.smugmug.com link 1 comment|post comment

Fun Overload [Apr. 6th, 2006|05:39 pm] Whew! I'm exhausted! Six days of good food, fun times with friends and learning how to get back into life in the US...I know, doesn't sound like much, but when you're used to the (slow) pace of life here, having meetings all day and parties every other night will wear you down fast! The group of second-year volunteers, most of whom will be finishing up our service this year, spent a great few days together, ostensibly learning how to readjust to life as productive members of American society (in America!), but also spending some QT together as a group. We stayed at a cute little bayside resort in little thatched-roof bungalows. Jenny was my roommate, ever so nice to hang out with her again. We had a Midsummer Night's Dream-themed party, which was fun, of course. Our facilitator for the conference, the ambassador's wife, was herself a PCV in Turkey in the 1960s, so it was an especially warm and personal time together, one big Peace Corps family. On the last day, we took a trip to a bird park, where we saw some warthogs. They were huge! I couldn't tear my eyes away long enough to take a picture before they spooked and ran off, tails in the air. I was expecting something the size of a bulldog, but they're like full-grown pigs on long legs with huge, curvy tusks. Just like Pumbaa in The Lion King, but huge! Even the fact that I was left behind for an hour or so at one of the stops wasn't so bad; I had the chance to talk to some nice local women. And clean up. Since I got stick in the mud and couldn't get back to the cars before they pulled away. The mud was thick, black ooze, the kind of stuff that would be tar, if you gave it some time. Ick! I lost a shoe to it. But we had warthog for lunch, so that was good. We're back in the capital now, but a bunch of us will be going to Atar this weekend for a trash clean-up/fun run. I haven't been training as well as I could have been, but I feel ready to at least attempt the half marathon. In other good news, much more exciting, my cousin had a baby! A surprise girl! And she's a cutie; I can't wait to see her at home! Love, a. link post comment

Fat Sunday [Mar. 25th, 2006|11:10 pm] So I’m over at my Malian friend, Karim’s, house, mostly chatting with his three-year-old, Diko. We’d already “read” a copy of Newsweek & she agreed that the Palestinian suffragettes were pretty, but that the “policeman” (a Hamas militant, complete with ski mask and RPG launcher) was not. Then she pretended to braid my hair, but really checked me for nits (all clean!) and then swirled it around some. We’re pretty comfortable with each other, so I didn’t mind when she decided to rest a hand on my left breast. When she started squeezing and asking who it was (her Hassaniya’s not that great), I swatted it away, but her curiosity motor was gunning. She tried to be nonchalant with, “Oh, you’ve got boobs, me too. Mine are biiiiig, see? Okay, now you!” She’s at least 10 years away from being able to hold up a two-piece, but you’ve gotta admire the strategery. When Karim entered the room, she explained to him that I had boobs and that she wanted to see them. He asked her why and she replied that she just wanted to drink a little. The fact that I’m dairy-free doesn’t much matter to her, since she still apparently likes to chomp on her mom from time to time despite Hawa’s milk being long gone. Then Karim told Diko that if I did nurse her, she’d turn white or “become a toubaboo,” my very favorite member of the toubab, touback, toubacka family and the one most commonly uttered by Bambarans, the dominant tribe in Mali. She stopped asking me to show her my boobs and started asking me to give them to her. Luckily, her mom set down lunch right then, saved by the Mafé! It’s one of my favorite local dishes, a peanut-butter based sauce served over white rice. Hawa’s is the best and she’s even shown me how to make it. So we busied ourselves, washing hands and splashing each other (OK, that was all me). Diko forgot about my boobs during lunch, and afterwards I blew raspberries on her belly, we played “this little piggie” on each other’s hands and feet before making some fake phone calls. That’s one of my favorite activities to do with Allasane, my little host brother, and it made me miss him. The Hawa I live with has been in Dakar for the past two weeks at a UN training and Allasane’s been staying with a friend of hers. I had lunch with them last week and he’s having fun playing with Mariem’s kids. Our house is pretty lonesome these days, so I’ve been hanging out at Andrew’s and the French volunteers’ houses some. I’ve also taken to picking up strangers’ babies in the market and asking how much they cost. Everyone knows it’s a joke, but sometimes an older sister will act scandalized or quote me something around a dollar, in which case it’s my turn to act scandalized. At yet another Hawa's house, this one a girl from my GMC, I saw an owl for the first time. Her brother saw it in a tree outside of town, shimmied up and brought it home. It was too little to fly and it hadn't eaten since he'd captured it, four days prior. It was sad, but also cool to see something that may as well have been made up, for all I'd seen of them. It was really soft and reminded me of David Bowie in Labryinth. I took pictures of it because it was just so beautifully tragic. I told them that a thing like that can't live in a house and that it wasn't happy. The things a goner for sure. In happier news, Caleb’s dad’s visiting all the way from America and he brought loads of goodies with him, including my iPod, so I’m back in music thanks to my mom, Madeline and Denis. I also have Girl Scout cookies, heh heh heh. He brought a jar of salsa and I couldn’t help but hug him! We had an awesome Mexican feast; each time we do, it just gets better and better. Of course, I ate so much that I was in gut-wrenching pain all the next day. Luckily, we had an off-night before the next dinner party. We’d invited the French volunteers over partly just to do it, partly because they’d not yet been to Andrew’s new place and partly because we had a can of turkey gizzards we didn’t know what to do with. We’d inherited a can of “gesiers de dinde” from some old volunteers who’d probably gotten them from French expats. We’d heard that they were really good sautéed atop a green salad. So that was one dish, it got even crazier from there. Our resident Belgian decided to make a typical Belgian dish, tuna and peaches (surprisingly yummy). Jeremy made bruschetta, Andrew did scalloped potatoes. I recreated a creamy pumpkin soup with local squash and had just received a care package from an awesome former Kiffa volunteer, so we had (pork!) salami and pistachios to start and chocolate fondue-dipped fruit for dessert. Heather sends me packages and words of wisdom every so often, it’s really cool. Who would know better what I need at this point in my service? She sent me travel guides for my Close of Service trip, magazines, sweet and salty snacks, lotion and nail polish, Kenyan chai, top-shelf toothpaste and a massive bar of 70% cacao heroin. Unfortunately, it wasn’t ziplocked, so it ran all over the place. As I was lugging my precious booty home from the post office, a local shop owner asked me what it was, since the corners of the box were all grease-stained. Sardines? Nah, I don’t think so. Are you sure you don’t have sardines? I dunno, let’s have a smell. Mmm. Cocoa butter. Chocolate, much better than sardines. So my twenty-seventh year on this planet finds me licking molten chocolate off most everything else in the box. At first I thought it was mint chocolate, but that was just the toothpaste interfering. I stopped when I got to the magazines and just put the box in the fridge. So once the chocolate hardened up, I carefully scraped it off the magazines and box. The bar was so big that I’d salvaged a good deal of it and by melting it with cream, butter and a shot of booze for fondue, it was really good. The magazines all still smell like cocoa butter, mmm. This weekend at the GMC, Andrew’s teaching the girls how to preserve fruits and vegetables so they can enjoy them all year round, instead of just during the peak of the season. Right now the markets are chock-full of cheap local produce and in a few months there’ll be nothing but expensive yucky imports. Man, is he awesome or what? Tomorrow he’s supposed to be teaching the girls how to make hibiscus syrup, but he’s taken two big naps today and is still out cold, so I don’t know if that’s going to happen. I hope he’s not sick; he’s the heartiest of us all. Next week’s midterms at school and I’m not scheduled to proctor exams until Wednesday, so I’ll have lots of time to catch up on my emails and reports before my director comes at the end of the week. I’m going to Nouakchott with him on the way to our Close of Service conference, where we’ll learn how to tie up all the loose ends here and have one last hurrah as a group. And then many of us will go to Atar to pick up trash, run and have another last hurrah at the beautiful oasis hideaway of Tergit. I’m uploading pictures now too, check ‘em out: Adriana.smugmug.com link post comment

Any Requests?! [Mar. 6th, 2006|12:23 pm] Apparently several (lots?) of people I don't even know read this, so let me know what/whom you'd like to hear about. Like if you're the parent/friend of a fellow volunteer back home and I hear some juicy gossip about him/her, I can totally clue you in. And if you're my friends or family and you're wondering about any certain aspect of my life here, ask me about it. link 1 comment|post comment

Rapid-Fire Highlights [Mar. 2nd, 2006|08:32 pm] So it’s been a while and Andrew’s preparing a scrumptious Pakistani feast, so this is going to be brief, but intense. I had a wonderful time at WAIST, can’t believe I ever entertained notions of not going. I’ll tackle my inbox soon, sorry if it’s been a while since you’ve heard from me. Before WAIST: Brock came to Kiffa with his MOM, the lovely Donna, a brave and charming lady. We had a delicious dinner thanks to Caleb and good conversation, natch. It’s always cool to see Mauritania through the eyes of a visitor, like seeing it again for the first time. And apparently there are people who read my blog that I don’t even know, people in New York, a man named Ed, and probably more too. A little weird, a lot cool. Donna told me, “It’s like you have another angel.” Very sweet. Then Jeremy and I rode to Nouakchott together, which was a good chance for us to bond a little. Bridging that first-year, second-year gap is tough sometimes, because we share so many experiences with our respective classes, especially during training. Leah and I are at the same site, so we spend lots of time together, but Jeremy’s my only other first-year region-mate and we only get to see each other sporadically. So cheek-to-cheek in bush taxi, that’s where you get to know a person. It’s always better to ride with someone you know, even if it’s just to complain about everyone else. After eating and showering the country-side dirt-cake off, I felt like going out. I texted like everyone I knew and only my faithful party-partner Andrew agreed to try to hit the town with me. Bad news, Wednesday in Nouakchott, not a great night. The cool bar/club was closed and the sketchy one was empty. So we had ice cream, not bad. The next day was our Safety and Security session, where we were told lots of stuff we’d already been told and learned some new stuff. A couple of the embassy guys came out to brief us on the political situation and other Ameri-Mauritanian issues. It was the first time in a long time that I’d heard the phrases “good guys” and “bad guys” bandied around like they were going out of style. You know, the Team America mentality, we’ve got the white hats and really cool weapons, they’ve got the black hats and hearts to match. Whew, I’d nearly forgotten about that. I guess that’s just not the way I think. One of the reasons I’m not taking the Foreign Service Exam this time around. After that, I got in touch with my friend Khadija, who owns and operates her own beauty salon. On the eve of WAIST, I wanted to get my hair did. The boys had grown mustaches and shaved Mohawks for the occasion and it was decided that we girls were to get our hair braided à la pirate wenches? Bo Derek? I don’t know, but a lot of us did it. Lots of girls had it done at site, but I’d seen Khadija work and wanted her to do my hair, so Cailin and I went to her house around 6. Would you believe that my hair didn’t get finished until after midnight? Six! Hours! Halfway through I realized that I wouldn’t be going to dinner and dancing like I’d been jonesing to, and I got sad and mad. But then like an hour into that, Khadija showed me a mirror. I couldn’t be mad anymore, she was doing such a kick-ass job. How vain am I? I’m in love with my braids! It’s been two weeks and I’m not taking them out! Ever! They’re so comfortable and cool-looking. This is really a milestone for me because when I first got here, the white-girl braid-job was soooo anathema to me. Slowly but surely I’ve gotten comfortable with a lot of stuff, like covering my head, but I never thought I’d like having my hair braided. Now I do, go figure. I still can’t get behind the henna-hands and –feet, but maybe that’s just because I hate the smell of henna. Jenny gave me this pomade to put in my hair and it looks like clear Vaseline, but it smells exactly like old-school Strawberrry Shortcake dolls, mmm. WAIST: We drove down in a caravan of three buses. Sixty of us, what a scene. The two other buses kept getting flats, five or six in total. My bus didn’t get any flats, but as we were caravanning, we stopped when they did. Since we’d piled all our luggage against the doorway (no storage space), we had to jump out of and climb into the bus all day long. The beginning was pretty comical, but by mid-day we were just like the Dukes of Hazzard. Jeff boosted (catapulted) me into the bus many a time, which was fun and funny. I sat between him and Zack the whole way. We had a good time talking about Adam Sandler movies, chewing Bubble Yum, listening to and passing around iPods. We were on the road for sixteen hours that day, from 6am to 10pm, and the only time it got dicey was when about half of the bus decided to have an impromptu sing-along and the rest of us sucked it up and tried to tune it out. But when we arrived, it was all worth it. Dollar beers all around, then Jenny, Heidi, Stephanie and I met our host for the weekend. Julie is the Political Officer at the embassy, lives in a big house with her huge Rottweiler pup, Baby. She lives next door to the President of Senegal and her pad is phat! Her chef made us a big tray of lasagne and sugar cookies, Julie gave us carte blanche on the DVDs, hi-speed internet, Vonage (free calls to the US), her home gym, a fully stocked fridge and pantry. We tried to go out that night, but we’d missed the rendez-vous with our friends and spent an evening arguing with cabbies. Not fun, and the third night in a row that I’d gotten all dolled up to go out and then been shafted. Luckily, it was the last. Jenny and I slept in a room with matching comfy twin beds. The next day we slept in and had a pancake breakfast with Julie and then joined our friends out at the field. Our teams had been winning and there’s just something about ball games and hot dogs and beer that’ll bring a tear to your eye if you haven’t seen them in a while. Good clean American fun, batting cages, skee-ball, roller rinks, oh home sweet home! So we ate, drank and were merry all the live-long day. Then we went out for Ethiopian food, good, spicy stuff and then out Dancing, yay. The next day we played more ball, won the tournament, just like last year. It’s a bizarre phenomenon, how a team that’s never practiced, much less played together, manages to win this thing twice in a row. There’s just so much energy coming from all of us, it’s really awesome to be a part of. After WAIST: On the way back, I rode from Dakar to the border with six first-year volunteers, which was another good opportunity to get to know some “new kids” better. Some of them are super duper cool. When we approached the Mauritanian border, I just wasn’t ready to go back and I suggested that we go to Richard Toll, a sleepy little town about 20k away and swim in the pool. I wasn’t serious when I said it, but one of the newbies took me up on it and we went with it, called our director and asked permission to stay an extra night in the land of plenty and got into another cab while all our friends prepared to cross the river back to dullsville. When we got to Richard Toll, it was a little too late in the day to swim, but we got beers, watched a big riverboat (like Disneyland style) roll by, had some food, and played some pool. The next day, I made it to Nouakchott just in time for BLTs with Molly and some friends. Oh man, do I love BLTs. Keith, the Bacon Connection, brings it from Canada once every couple months, sooooo goooood! And he brought some Philly cream cheese too, oh man, I was in food heaven. The next day I rode back to Kiffa with Caleb and Jeremy. We bought out the whole back seat, instead of rolling with four in the back, like “normal.” It was comfortable, pretty fast, and the company was good. The very next day, I had people coming to town for the GMC Mentor’s Conference that had been foisted upon me. I don’t even have mentors! The homestays worked out fine and Caleb cooked us amazing meals all weekend. There were only a few minor bummers: someone who stayed at Andrew’s house stole his brand-new bottle of shampoo and the banana cream pie leftovers, how rude! The other was more indicative of my shortcomings as far as my work here goes. Like I said, I don’t have mentors. When we invited the GMC girls to participate in certain conference events, at least one of them got upset that all these other centers have women working at them and we don’t. She started arguing with the facilitators while I was getting lunch and it was apparently a big scene. I went to Hawa’s house to speak with her afterwards and tried to help her understand that I do want mentors, that I am very conscious of the language barrier and we’re all working to get these things up and running as best we can. I’ve focused on academics, so I’ve found a lot of teachers to come in and work with the girls, but I haven’t yet found mentors. The mentors are the people who’ll take over the place once the volunteers leave, in the big sustainability pipe dream. Hawa had apparently suggested a woman from her family to work with us and I’d shot her down. I don’t remember this, but I probably happened and I just didn’t understand what she was saying. So since this episode, I’m trying to give the girls more of the reins. I’m asking them to find teachers and mentors and they made the calendar of activities for March yesterday. The calendar has always bewildered to them, and yesterday I learned why. When I had them do it, they wrote the days from right to left, starting with Saturday and ending with Friday. It’s hard for me to read it, but now I understand why they had a problem conceptualizing the calendars I’d made in the Western style. Leah’s working on getting someone trained to teach them computers, get this: in their local languages! That’ll probably work a lot better than the two of us trying to mime computer lessons. So I’m starting to give up control and am sure it’ll work better for everyone this way. My home life’s pretty awesome, Hawa’s cool as ever. Alassane’s gotten over his bronchitis and, sadly, lost his tooth while I was away. But he’s got a whole mouthful of them and I’ll be the tooth fairy yet, I’m sure. Andrew’s house is all set up and nice, and across the street from our new office, sans creepy landlord. All is well, and Caleb’s dad is bringing my iPod from America. I'll be in shape for that half-marathon next month, ha ha ha. Luckily, the full marathon's been cancelled. My training is happening in fits and starts, due to an inherited bum knee and lots of lazy bones. A bunch of little kids ran with me today. I had the bad luck to pass them while they were on their way to school. Normally, such a situation would make me want to brain them all, since I'd rather not be mocked while I exercise, but it was pretty funny. After a couple minutes, they were all huffing and puffing and dropping like flies. Ha! Brevity, alas, is not my forté. XOXO, a. link 3 comments|post comment

Much slow news [Feb. 8th, 2006|12:08 pm] Mr. Miyagi Died. Yeah, Pat Morita, of Karate Kid fame died some time ago. I just heard about it recently and that’s the biggest reason I can think of why my running mental soundtrack is said film’s theme song. Why don’t we have more power ballads these days? Having the Karate Kid song in my head helps cheer me up when I feel like throttling my students. It’s been a rough week at school. I’ve had to have the directors come in and yell at the kids, and I’ve kicked more of them out and confiscated more phones than usual. Nice phones, phones with digital cameras. Their houses probably don’t have running water, but the kid’s got a Razr. Go figure. It’s all part of the back-assward priorities problem. When I went to Venezuela just before coming here, one of my uncles there explained to me why Costa Rica is better than Venezuela. If a person has some money in Costa Rica, the first thing he would get is a house, second would be an education for his children, third, a car. But in Venezuela, the first thing everyone wants is the newest Nikes. Here it’s cell phones and cool clothes. Not education or infrastructure. Sure, they want that stuff too, but they’d rather someone else paid for it. The bling they’re willing to shell out for. My school administration is really supportive and come yell at the kids when I ask them to, but things aren’t getting any better. One kid stuck his head in my class window today and made some lewd suggestions. How am I supposed to teach in that environment? How on earth is it that I’m getting propositioned by fifteen-year-olds? I’ve had my fair share of experience with creeps, and young creeps are way more disturbing to me than old creeps. Blech. I only understand half of what they’re saying, but I wish it weren’t even that much. Anyway, it’s the Karate Kid song that takes me back to my happy place. The other song I’m hearing a lot these days is the Mauritanian national anthem, which is reminiscent of the “Dragnet” theme song, only with much less drum and much more bugle. Or as Andrew said, high school band practice. Bad. And the reason I’m hearing this is that Herr Interim President had been making speeches all this week, one about how the former president sold Mauritania’s soul to the oil people, the others probably having to do with the furor over the Danish cartoons. I’m sorry, but I can do nothing but scoff at heads of state these days. The dude also welcomed the presidents of Senegal and Mali to Nouakchott this week, and the news coverage is just plain silly. No less than fifteen minutes of hand-shaking at the airport. Real-time, but not live. Literally hundreds of people lined up to shake visiting big dudes’ hands. That’s the news in Mauritania. I think all the demonstrations have wrapped up, which was the old news. The last day of drama here was this past Thursday, but I heard that there were some “strikes” again on Monday in other cities. All weekend, from Friday morning until Monday morning, I was operating under the misinformation that one of the students who’d been injured here had died in the hospital. It turns out the dead guy came from a fight in the market, not school. Fortunately for me, I guess. Another bit of news floating around is that a volunteer was raped by some locals a while back. When it happened, I got a call from Nouakchott saying that a “serious incident” had occurred and that while the Peace Corps isn’t keeping information from us, they can’t say anything about what happened, in order to protect the volunteer’s privacy. So when Hawa, the Mauritanian lady I live with, came back from Nouakchott, she asked me about it and I of course didn’t know what had happened, but she did. She’d read all about it in the Mauritanian newspaper, including the volunteer’s local name, the location, lots of stuff. Due to that and other things too, we’ve all got a mandatory security briefing with some embassy folk next week, right before we head down to Dakar for WAIST, that’s the West African Intermural Softball tournament for the uninitiated. AKA the best weekend of the year for Mauritanian volunteers. I didn’t think I’d feel like traveling again so soon, but I do. I haven’t completely settled back into my routine since the holidays. I’ve been meaning to get up and run most every day, but have only made it out a handful of times. Part of the reason is that I haven’t been able to get to sleep and stay up reading most of the night. When I do finally get to sleep around 3 or 4, there’s a slim chance that I won’t ignore my alarm at 6:30. I try to sleep, but it just ain’t happening. I’ve taken to keeping books on either side of my bed and alternating them. Read for a while, try to sleep, pick up the other book, read that for a while, repeat. I finished a couple books about Vietnam vets and one about the Hell’s Angels that way. Chain-reading, if you will. When that gets old, I start organizing my room. In one such effort early this morning, I discovered that the mouse that had magically disappeared from our kitchen has taken up residence in my room. It’s so nice and cozy that even mice want to live there! That’s the bright side, that and I don’t think there are any babies. Yet. I thought maybe I’d get up the courage to trap it with an oatmeal can, but then envisioned freaking out and waking up the whole house to boot and decided against it. So I filched a mouse trap from Andrew’s house this morning and soon my room will have one teeny tiny murder scene. I’ve got the chalk all ready for the outline. Yesterday I started Julie Powell’s book about mastering “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” I’ll probably finish it today. It’s not just that I’ve got like six extra hours to read at night, but it’s really good too. Even if she’d just cut and pasted her blog into book form, I would have gladly read it all over again. Better still, the book incorporates all the great stuff from the blog and tells more about what was going on in her life at the time. I love her writing soooo much. Bonus: it came to me from my mom via Lisa in an intercontinental Christmas package. The books from her went right to the top of the trunk-full of books in my queue. I’m back in the picture-taking business too. Or I will be once I get to know my new camera a little better. It’s not that I’m technophobic, it just takes me a while to trust my machines. It was after well over a year with my previous camera before I dared try the “video” feature. And now it’s dead. So the new guy sits in my room and we eye each other warily. I’m sure I’ll get down to reading the manual soon, since I’ll want to be taking pictures at WAIST. Alas, I am still mourning the loss of my iPod, but things are getting better (Karate Kid strikes again). And I’m sure that one of these days, I’ll start running again. Not in time to train for a marathon by April, mind you, but approaching that. At least I’ve stopped watching Oprah. I thought it made me feel better, but really it just made me feel glad not to be addicted to smack, porn, Manolos or whatever the obsession du jour is. It’s healthier for me to read, study French, exercise or even interact with people than to sit around watching the poor slobs on Oprah and Dr. Phil. The TV’s always on, but I can read or hang out with Hawa and Allasane without getting sucked in. They almost exclusively watch Malian music videos, Senegalese news and this one Brazilian soap opera dubbed into French, none of which much interests me. Allasane spent almost a month in Nouakchott and came back knowing more French than before, which is pretty rad. He's about six and his maternal language is Soninke, but he also speaks Pulaar, another tribal language. He walked into the living room the other day, where I was reading, TV off, and said “Ça c’est quoi?” which is broken West African French for a polite “WTF?” His Hassaniya’s getting better too, so we have caveman conversations now. He’s about to lose one of his front teeth; he wiggles it for me about five times a day. His little gums are changing and you can tell the new teeth are all getting ready to come in, so cool. I’m going to try to convince Hawa to let me be the tooth fairy. The local version is not nearly half as fun: wrap the tooth in a piece of fabric and throw it onto the roof at night, wake up real early the next day to look for the rooster in the tooth’s place. You usually don’t see one, according to Hawa. And we don’t have chickens, so the odds of Allasane seeing one are pretty slim. Yes, I could dig some tooth fairying, and I think the little man would too. Hopefully it doesn’t fall out while I’m in Dakar. Andrew got back on Monday and in his nearly two whole days here, he’s fixed the fridge, organized the house, and found a place for our new bureau. I’d spent two unsuccessful weeks looking, but didn’t find anything nearly as cheap, clean or convenient as the place he found. He puts me to shame and I love him for it. I can’t even feel bad about comparatively biffing it; he’s just super good at finding stuff. It’s like his superpower. He and Leah are leaving tonight for Agmamine and Kankossa. There’s a nutrition training happening and Leah’s never been down there. Last night around midnight I got a text message saying that we’ll be hosting a mentors’ conference here in two weeks. Hah! While we have no mentors, there’s no shortage of nice Kiffists willing to feed and lodge complete strangers for money. So we’ve got that to plan too. Hawa’s birthday’s on Monday, the big 2-9. I’m trying to figure out what kind of cake to make. I’ve been cooking at home some recently, which is nice. Nothing fancy, just stuff like pasta and sauce, but they like it, so I’m feeling confident enough to whip out the good old American pancake breakfast sometime soon. I think they can handle it. link post comment

Local Unrest! [Feb. 3rd, 2006|11:42 am] So I was on my way to school the other day when I noticed a lot of kids in the streets. One little bastard even threw a rock at me. Didn’t hit me, not even close, but still. I’m not talking about little kids, these are the junior-high and high-school kids I see most every day. So something’s up. I continue on to make an inquiry at the electric company, as part of my quest for a new office, there are all these other things to think about, like the utilities. After we talked about that a bit, I asked the electric dude what was up with the youth. A third party chimed in that they were unhappy about a cartoon that appeared in a Danish newspaper defaming the prophet Mohamed. Blasphemy thousands of miles away! I know, let’s go on strike! So the kids are on “strike.” But strikes here have a very local flavor. Not only did they walk out of class at 10, the proceeded to throw rocks at the school, breaking windows and causing general mayhem. I’d heard about this before, when I asked about all the broken windows at my school, but I hadn’t seen any “action” until this week. So they call out the national guard and the regional director of education (DREN) to restore order. I see all this happening and wonder, hmm, should I keep walking to school? Maybe not. So I call my director, Bagga, in Nouakchott and ask him if he knows what’s up and what he thinks I should do. He called up his buddy, the DREN, who said that order had indeed been restored, which is what I’d also heard in the meantime by calling my fellow teachers who were still at school. Bagga told me to lay low for the day, just in case. I don’t have class on Thursdays or Fridays, but yesterday the students went on strike again. The guard was called out again and this time they threw tear-gas grenades and beat kids. The only reason I know this is that I have a friend who works at the hospital and she says four kids were taken there, including at least one girl. And at least two of the kids have head injuries. The kids I ran into in town last night said they were planning to “demonstrate” again today and sure enough I saw guards riding through town, standing up in the back of pickup trucks. Hopefully things will calm down by Monday, when I’m supposed to teach again. I don’t really know what the kids hope to accomplish by plundering their own schools. They want to be heard by the authorities was all I could get out of them, but why would the governor listen to a bunch of destructive punks? And they’re the ones who suffer broken-down classrooms. I mean, I guess I could see something like this in the past as a symbolic stance against colonialism, breaking down what the imperialists built. But our high school was the gift of another government to the people of Mauritania. Guess which government? Iraq. Ain’t that a kick in the head? So the school’s 24 years old and broken down, mostly because nobody maintains anything or values it enough to not throw rocks at it. And my school administration’s asked me when I’ll be building them a wall and latrines and fixing the doors and windows. link post comment

Ingratitude Attitude [Feb. 3rd, 2006|10:56 am] So recently the lack of gratitude around here has been grating on me. In the beginning, we learned how to say thank you in the local languages and we also learned that we’d probably never hear it. What I am hearing is just a totally different attitude towards gift-giving. I’m trying to make my peace with it. Some examples. The man at the store doesn’t have change, so he gives me candy instead of my change. I give the candy to one of my neighborhood urchins, Youma, a crazy-headed girl of about 3 who roams the streets and loves to shake my hand. I give her the lolly and the response isn’t thank you, but “Aisha, give me candy!” Hmm, that’s what I just did. I just gave you candy, why are you asking me for candy instead of being grateful that I gave you something? Weird. So I go home. After lunch some days Hawa, the lady I live with, gives the leftovers to the brick-makers next door. They eat their own lunch, I’m sure, but when you’re humping cement ten hours a day, overeating’s not really a danger. So in the course of doing the dishes, I go over to the wall that separates our yards and recuperate the bowl. This time I got a thank you. Not a simple thank you, but “thanks, that was good, next time, give me more.” Hmm, yeah, that doesn’t jibe too well with me. So I’ve been worrying this over the past few days and have decided that it’s just a completely different attitude to receiving gifts. Whereas if I were given a gift, I’d say thanks and think that it was kind of the person to think of me, to give me something that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Gift-giving here is just a billboard saying you’ve got extra stuff or money and the logical response from nearly everyone is, give me more. It can be discouraging at time, like no matter how much we do here, it won’t be enough. In Caleb’s village, the local women’s cooperative president sat him down a while back and gave him a “what have you done for me lately” trip, the result of which was a grant for about $2,000 worth of materials to enlarge their garden and plant a bunch of fruit trees. After submitting the grant, Caleb realized he could reconfigure existing fence posts and make the extension without having to buy new posts, which are expensive. He talked that over with president big boobs and the local honchos and they all agreed on it. When the money came through, Caleb ordered the materials, but not the fence posts and used that money to dig a well in the garden. Come yesterday, when he and his band of merry men go to undo the fence to extend it on two sides, like they’d discussed numerous times, big boobs herself forbids it. Says that Caleb can’t take the posts from her garden for his garden. His garden? Like he’s not leaving in 6 months, like he didn’t get all this stuff for them? So Caleb’s here now, blowing off steam and meeting with World Vision, who built the original garden, to see if they can smack some sense into the local yokels. link post comment

Not for the faint of heart... [Jan. 13th, 2006|04:24 pm] Hi there, before i get to the meat of this message (a really gross story), thanks everyone for the birthday messages and calls and serenades and CAKE! I lazed around my house all day, watching american movies. then caleb, maddy and i went to check out the rally, which was in town for the night. the american team dropped out, but we met some cool brits and were amazed by all the tricked-out vehicles and planes and choppers, big big stuff for kiffa. then my friends made me dinner and a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, mmm. so anyhoo, yesterday i went to the GMC to check on our tree nursery. as soon as i opened the door, i smelled something rotten. i thought, oh great, someone left some food in here and it's putrefied over the couple weeks we've been out of town. but no! i soon found the source of the stink, a cat. a really dead, smelly, rotten cat. it must've been let in by accident and then trapped while we were out of town. i wussed out and waited for caleb to come and remove it. the worse part was that it exploded upon pickup and then maddy and i ended up herding a pile of maggots into a box. so incredibly gross. anyway, that's my story, hope that never happens again. link 1 comment|post comment

Last hurrah in nouakchott [Jan. 7th, 2006|11:50 am] So i've now been out of my site for nigh on a month, but i'll be going back tomorrow. i'll be taking caleb's host mom back to kiffa so she can get back to the village by monday, in time for the big muslim holiday. In the past few days, i've been helping out with the first year education volunteers' in-service training in between meals and running. i've been hitting up a local hole in the wall, mama africa, pretty regularly. for about a dollar, you can get a good wolof lunch or dinner, rice and fish, mafe, rice and sauce, beans, banafa, chicken, etc. i'm looking forward to going back to site and settling into my routine, but my host family won't be there, since they're going to spend the feast in kaedi. bummer. but a lot of my fellow volunteers will probably be staying with me, so i won't be lonely. we've gotta figure out what to do with all the stuff from luke's house and where we're moving our regional bureau. that'll be fun. school will start again in about a week. i've gotta grade tests and plan lessons, say hello to all my friends in kiffa and meet sidi's new baby. it's going to be wierd without luke, that's for sure. anyway, gotta get all ready to leave. peace out, a. PS. i've finally uploaded my fall photos: adriana.smugmug.com Unless my camera gets fixed and comes back to me, that's the last of them. finally i've caught up on this and now it's time to tackle my inbox. link post comment

Vietnamese New Year [Jan. 7th, 2006|11:21 am] I love St. Louis (san lou-wee); it's just a really chill place to be. I'd go back there any time for lots of reasons, but maybe the biggest reason would be la Saigonnaise. It's this Vietnamese restaurant at the northern tip of the island. It's nice, tablecloths, decor, waterfront views and all, but the food is the real star and not at all overpriced. The owner is this auntie mame-y vietnamese lady who's got glamour shots of herself all over the restaurant. I'd been there twice before on previous trips and have been thinking about caramel pork and spicy beef and springrolls for a while. I went there twice again during my 4-day sojourn and discovered the ecstasy of their spareribs. Man, i would seriously go back there right now for some of those. Like when i spent all of 6 hours in portland, mostly at this restaurant called montage. i would honestly go back to portland just to go to montage. is there a name for this disease? sheesh. Anyway, st. louis has a lot going for it as the former capital of French West Africa. Loads of colonial architecture, some well-maintained, some falling down, all charming and crawling with bougainvillea and baobabs. I just love the bright colors and wrought iron and the light bouncing off the water. If you're ever in senegal, i totally recommend st. louis. We stayed at a hotel on the peninsula, got one room to stow the bags and then three big tents on the beach for sleeping. I spent some QT on the beach and now have some pretty awesome tan lines. The water was kinda cold, as the atlantic in winter is apt to be, but it was nice to swim a bit, something i don't get to do nearly as often as i'd like. one night we had a bonfire and roasted sausage and veggies on the beach. on new year's we went out to a club called L'iguane and danced all night. then we left and heard some 80's music at another place and danced there. then we bought some delicious grilled beef sandwiches off a lady on the street and made it back to the hotel for a long morning of sleeping in. In the morning, we went back to town and had a new year's breakfast of cafe au lait and some really good burgers, little charred patties with shredded white cheese, a fried egg, french fries and lotsa ketchup on good fresh buns, mmm. then we went back to the beach and then back to the vietnamese place for dinner, a solid new year's day. the next day thirteen of us took a minibus to rosso, senegal and then spent a good long while getting across the border. a small group can get by in a few minutes, but whenever we're in big groups, they take forever and ever to write our names in the ledger and stamp our passports. ah well. luckily, my dad called me while we were waiting. it was nice to talk to him on his birthday and if he'd called before or afterwards, i wouldn't have been in network. we had taxis waiting for us when we finally got through and because our driver was trying to pull a fast one on the taxi garage, we ended up having to switch cars and then going super slow, making it to nouakchott after nine. then we went to dinner, where i had a gorgeous popeye pizza (spinach, creme fraiche and ham). in case you haven't noticed, i'm hungry, sorry if the food descriptions are too much. link post comment

Christmas in the Sandbox [Jan. 7th, 2006|10:43 am] Same as last year, we had Christmas Eve dinner at Obie's house. Obie's our country director, did Peace Corps twice, and is super cool about opening his home up to us, be it for laundry-doing, movie-watching, game-playing or holiday-celebrating. Last year we had a mexican feast and i'd been wondering how on earth he was going to top himself. i needn't have feared. this year's christmas was an olde english supper, complete with two crown roasts, four shoulders and four legs of lamb, two huge fish, candied beets, vinegared green beans, oyster stuffing, sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, and many many puddings. we ate, we each brought a present to exchange, we danced, we slept, woke up and ate some more. For brunch on the 25th, we made french toast, scrambled eggs, sausage and latkes, since hanukkah was starting too. double holiday mmm. after resting off the holiday at molly's, she, tarn and i had a late supper of maple BLTs, courtesy of keith, our woodside oil company friend who goes home every month and comes back with suitcases bursting with pork. We made BLT bruschetta, since we couldn't get adequate sandwich bread, but it worked out extremely marvelously well. we made a spread by mixing this garlic jam that a local women's cooperative makes (think pureed garlic and sugar) with mayo, put that on pan-grilled slices of bread, topped them with crisp-cooked maple bacon (from canadian costco!) and chopped lettuce and tomato. we immediately went into bacon raptures, called keith to thank him, then went into a bacon coma, after which we surely would have gone to bacon heaven if we hadn't been so young and hearty. fortunately, we came out of our stupors and played a game of scrabble. it didn't beat christmas at home, but it wasn't too bad. the next day i met a mauritanian friend of mine at her hair salon. khadija is a lady i met through julie when we were all together in morocco. she's really cool and independent and open and i've been meaning to hang out with her, so i went there and we went to her house together for some good rice and fish. i asked her about buying some wax for my legs and she said, oh, i've got a friend who does that, let me call her up. so toutou comes over and takes me to her sister's salon, where they determine that my hair is "strong." that means that they slather my legs and arms with this concoction made of a raw egg, powdered milk, water and the powdered leaves of the baobab tree, which they usually put on couscous. they fanned me until it dried and then they rubbed it all off. alas, my hair was still "strong," so they mix sugar and water and coat me in a syrup. once that had dried, they pulled it off me along with the hair, using the wax. the kicker is that when it was all over, they rubbed laughing cow cheese into and then off my skin. i was smooth and soft and dairy-licious. The next day i went with caleb to visit his host mom, Magou, who was in town. I'd spent some good times with her in agmamine, their village, and was happy to see her again. Magou's 60 years old, super sweet, very hard-working and just plain cool. She was surrounded by her progeny and kept saying, oh, i'm getting fat, all i ever do here is sit around and eat! in the village, she spends most of her day in the garden or the fields cultivating. we had really good rice and fish and then i scooted off to do some grocery shopping because molly's mom came to town and we were having a little dinner party in her honor. we had green salad, taboule, hummus, carrot chips, four kinds of cheese (!) and crackers, wine, kebbe and fatayers from a local lebanese joint and then chocolate cake and rice pudding with lingonberries for dessert, mmm... Molly and her mom were leaving the next day for Dakar, but she'd left me the spares so that i could come over for leftover lunch. Tragedy of tragedies, i'd left the spares in molly's house and didn't realize my stupidity until they were airborne. so i tried my best to break in without breaking the lock, then contemplated getting a locksmith to change the lock for me, but finally i gave up on the dream of leftover lunch and went over to some embassy people's house for dinner and movies. I got to see team america and eurotrip, which were pretty funny. The real bummer about not having molly's keys was that i'd left my sleeping bag in her house and needed it for the trip to st. louis, but luckily it ended up not being too cold. link post comment

Dakar to Nouakchott and bust! [Jan. 7th, 2006|09:38 am] So thinking back to the week of December 19th, Molly and I left our brothel/hotel and took municipal bus line number 11 as far as it would go towards the Rose Lake. The distance was 30k max, which took about 2 hours, but it was a nice ride, with nice people, gave us a chance to see the city of Dakar recede slowly...all for about 25 cents. As we were getting ready to leave the bus, we asked the guy in the little cage in the back who takes your money and gives you a ticket how to get a car to the Rose Lake and then one of our fellow passengers piped up that he was going there too and we could all get a car together. So that's what we did, super easily we rode the rest of the way to the Rose Lake with our new friend, the driver and Bob Marley. Our traveling companion told Molly that he had hash in case we were interested, which we weren't, but it's the thought that counts I guess. We got to the Rose Lake and went to our new friend's brother's auberge, where they were getting everything ready for the Dakar Rally that will be coming through soon. Then the dude pulls out a brick-size of weed, not kidding, out of his pants. he's got another plastic packet of some chaw-looking stuff, turns out it's hash from afghanistan. so we bid him farewell and walk to the other side of the lake, where there's a cute little auberge. molly and i settled into our little round hut and rest a bit before hitting the lake. Rose Lake gets its name from how it looks during dry season, when there's so little water and the minerals are really concentrated and it turns Bright Pink, like those science fair project crystals. but now, just after the rains, it's just kind of yellow. the really cool thing about it is that it's ten times saltier than the ocean and you float like a cork. we did that for a while, molly was in heaven because she's always wanted to swim in brackish water and she got her wish. then we rested again and went to bed early to the sounds of the ocean. the next day we had coffee and then split a cab with a french couple to thies and then took a car to rosso, senegal, where we'd cross the river back to mauritania. on the way, we saw lots of stuff that we wouldn't see in mauritania, like eucalyptus, mango and papaya trees, flamboyants and jacarandas, piles of local yellow-green oranges, watermelons, baskets, pottery and drums, all on the side of the road. Once at the river, we had an easy time of getting across and catching our friends in rosso, mauritania. We watched christmas movies and caught up with the folks there. I went for a run and i got to this place outside of town where it smelled exactly like barbecue sauce, no joke, and on the way back, same thing. bizarre, but delicious. the next morning teresa made us her famous hash browns and we set off to find a car to nouakchott. there was a nearly-full landcruiser, so we decided to take that rather than wait for a smaller car to fill up. about an hour into the ride, we stopped to fix a flat, which took a pretty long time. about twenty minutes after that there was a bump and then we saw said tire rolling alongside us. molly and i laughed because it was just so ridiculous and the guy next to me shushed us, because apparently the appropriate response was to freak out and/or pray. so we sat on the side of the road again while they fetched the tire, tried to fix it and finally deemed it irreparable. our friend the shusher gets us a ride with the next car that passes to the tune of 1000 ouguiyas. we ask the original driver for a partial refund since he didn't get us to our destination, but the jerk refuses, so we lose the money. the bonus is that this new driver takes us straight to molly's place and we don't have to worry about finding an in-town taxi from the garage, where they'd normally drop us off. Back safe in Nouakchott, we rested up. then will, suzanne and molly b. came over and we celebrated solstice with sparkling cider and candles and mauritanian adaptations of solstice tales. and we made stir-fry and salad for dinner, mmm... It's about at this point that i realize that not only is my camera DOA, but my iPod has crapped out as well. i need to get them back to the US pronto. Then brock and his academic advisor, kurt, roll up from selibaby and not only is kurt nice enough to take my sad little electronics home with him and mail them to my mom, but he lets us do laundry in his apartment. laura gave molly and me an intense introduction to bikram yoga in the meanwhile and then we went out for pizza. link post comment

Family reunion in Dakar [Jan. 4th, 2006|10:05 am] part one in a series of updates, holidays full of fun stuff and not too much time on the computer... i left my site mid-december to fly (woo-hoo!) to dakar with my friend, molly, and my director, bagga. after a few very exciting hours in the airport (really) we were off to the westernmost point in west africa. the delay at the gate wasn't super tedious because 1. we were Going to Dakar (!), 2). we were Leaving Nouakchott, 3. in an Airplane, 4. there were lots of people we knew on the flight too. Hawa, the lady i live with was on her way to zambia for a UN conference and she was going through dakar on her way to johannesburg. leopold, a world vision honcho and former neighbor of luke's in kiffa was flying home to see his mom and work on the house he's building in his village. and there was a family of americans that i'd met in nouakchott who were on their way to nairobi on vacation. they had three kids under five, so we played with them some. finally we boarded and were greeted by an overwrought crew. apparently air mauritanie can't keep a plane in the air, so their routes have been contracted to a small dutch company, denim air. these flying dutchmen and women seem to have been beaten down a bit by africa, but we and all of our luggage made it to dakar safe and sound and only 2 hours late. we took the shuttle to the sofitel, which is maybe the nicest hotel i've ever stayed at. molly and i checked into our room and jumped on the bed for a while before grabbing a bite to eat and then meeting chuck downstairs. Chuck is my dad's first cousin, but we'd never met before. he was in town for a symposium he'd organized and had invited me to come and bring a friend. he's a really cool guy and we had a great time together, lots of laughing and eating and story-telling, all my favorite things. The symposium itself focused on English-teaching in resource-challenged contexts, which is exactly what i'm doing, so it was really useful and informative for me teaching-wise. the symposium was bookended by opening and closing dinners, complete with local dancing, theater and a fashion show, not to mention really good food. The first morning i woke up in a nice clean bed, got suited up and took a run along the edge of the peninsula, watching the dawn over the water and enjoying the presence of other runners (not something i see in kiffa). There were little kids walking to school, baobab trees, birdsong and the scent of jasmine everywhere, it was pure magic. Then i woke molly up and we toodled down to the Breakfast Buffet, complete with bacon and sausage and juices and pastries and cheese and melon and omelettes and waffles and crepes. um, i just drooled. must move on. we'd worn our bathing suits under our clothes so that we could go straight from breakfast to the pool overlooking the beach, now that's planning ahead. we swam for a while, mostly floating belly-up, ahhhh. then we cleaned up and met chuck in the lobby and set out for adventure. We went to a nice little museum featuring craftwork from all over west africa, masks, wall-hangings, jewelry, traditional costumes, sculpture, that kind of stuff. not a lot of stuff from senegal, but lots of really cool art. then we checked out the catholic cathedral, which was pretty neat. they don't have many statues for some reason, but they made up for it by having figures painted to look like statues in alcoves. and out front, holding up the facade, there were four angel-shaped columns, but the neat thing was that the angels had african faces. then we took a trip through a local market, not really looking for anything, but we were befriended by a senegalese university student who spoke english and wanted us to go to his uncle's fabric shop, "just to look." after picking out some nice stuff, molly and chuck went through the bargaining dance with mohamed's uncle. we even feigned walking out, it was textbook west african negotiation. then chuck invited mohamed to have lunch with us at a local restaurant. we had some really good mafe and chicken yassa and talked to mohamed. then we had gelato, mmm. after our idyllic weekend at the sofitel, molly and i decided to stay on in dakar on our own dollar, which meant leaving the sumptuous digs and finding a place more in our price range. interesting fact, one night at the sofitel costs as much as my livelihood for a whole month in mauritania. so we stayed a more of a 'budget' joint, more like what would be called a brothel in polite circles. but it was fine and we still got to go swimming at the sofitel. molly and i did that and tooled around town on their lovely municipal bus system while chuck went to goree island with his group. we met up for a really good dinner at a portuguese-style restaurant before chuck caught his flight home. i was sad to see him go, but i think we'll meet up again someday. and dance! he's 62, but he loves to dance, my kind of cousin! :-P link post comment

GMC, Gathering, Goodbyes [Dec. 8th, 2005|10:45 am] To catch up, we opened our Girls' Mentoring Center about a month ago and we're running full-tilt: academic tutoring weekdays, computer lessons for the girls and the teachers on Sundays and Fridays, respectively, and last Saturday Caleb helped us start a tree nursery. We've got about 60 tree seeds ready to sprout and we'll out-plant them in the girls' yards and schoolyards in a few months if all goes well. Leah's helping out when she can, but she's got a pretty intensive language class schedule (14 hours a week!), so it's still mostly just me and the girls. It's going well, really rewarding and lots of fun. Speaking of fun, Thanksgiving rocked Kiffa pretty hard. We had about 35 peeps in town and ate and drank and danced for four days solid. It exceeded our expectations to say the least! We had some electricity problems, but otherwise things went really smoothly. And the food! Oh, the food! It was good good good. Thursday Andrew mastered a Pakistani feast; curries, chapattis, char, all kinds of goodness. We tried to bake most of the desserts on Thursday too. Jenny and the Gorgol/Brakna girls arrived in the wee hours during a blackout, but we found them under the blanket of stars. Friday we spent all day shopping, cooking and enjoying each other's company in preparation for what turned out to be a veritable cornucopia at sunset. Here's what we made: Meat: Beef Kabobs Roasted Chickens Pot Roast Chicken and Dumplings Starch: NOODLES Mashed Potatoes Sweet Potatoes Potatoes au Gratin Stuffing from Scratch Stovetop Asian Pasta Salad Veg: Ginger Glazed Carrots Green Bean Casserole Cabbage/Carrot/Apple Salad Green Salad Tomato Salad Cheesy Southwest Corn Mashed Squash Sides: Deviled Eggs Waldorf Salad Cranberry Sauce Dessert: Pumpkin Pies Key Lime Pie Apple Pie Cheesecake Blueberry Crumble Banana Bread Carrot Cake Brownies Pecan Pie Angel Food Volcano + Blackberry Lava Chocolate Pudding Pineapple/Blueberry/Cranberry Cobbler Pineapple Upside Down Cake Peanut Butter Fudge Libations: Brousse Wine Mixed Drinks Real Wine (from glass bottles!) Kool Aid Fruity Punch Egg Nog My Brousse wine (home brewed from hibiscus blossoms) turned out to be okay tasting and extremely potent, yar. Matt brought 10 liters of a much nicer vintage; I simply must get the recipe! We had so many talented people around, almost everything turned out wonderfully. Suzanne spoiled us with mango salsa and tortilla chips from scratch and then buffalo wings and onion rings on Saturday. It was a really nice opportunity to get to know some of the new volunteers better too, there are a lot of cool kids and excellent cooks in the bunch and I hadn't had the chance to really converse with many of them until then. On Saturday we rented a pickup and went out to a little box canyon about 70k east of Kiffa and 5k off the road, where there are a couple of spring-fed ponds that house a pod of nile crocodiles. Last time I saw some snouts and backs in the water, but this time all we found was a dead baby croc, about 3 feet long. He'd gotten tangled up in some fishing wire, which must have come from some schmo. So sad, ah well, let's take it home so the others can see it. That sounded like a good idea until George Washington (the croc) started to stink to high heaven and we had to leave him be. As Monday the 28th was Mauritanian Independence Day, a lot of people stuck around until Sunday or Monday and we ate, drank, danced, listened to music, watched "Tommy Boy" and just had a ball until the circus left town. We'd borrowed a tent from a friend of ours, "Nice Lady" is what we called her for the first year or so until we learned how to say her name, Dehde. Twas such a nice time, there was just one little thing that sucked a lot... Luke, the sitemate I've probably passed my best and toughest times with, got a job offer to head an NGO's new operation in Chad. It's a great opportunity and a big step up in the world, so I'm happy for him. We knew that his leaving here early was a possibility, but it just got finalized and he's flying out tonight. Big suck for us. Andrew and his sister are traveling so Caleb's stayed around to help Luke, Leah and me tie up loose ends around here, ech. Mostly we're drowning our sorrows in beef. Leah cooked her very first meal ever last night, Sloppy Joes and fries for us and three of our Mauritanian friends, mm-mm good. Caleb made milkshakes out of vanilla pudding, frozen bananas, date paste and honey, mama mia! The other night he made pizza and a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, dee-lightful. It's a good thing I'm running these days, or I won't be able to fit into pants the next time I'm in the capital. I'll be flying to Dakar in about a week with my friend Molly to meet my cousin Chuck, who was a PC volunteer in the Philippines in the 60's. His outfit is hosting an English-teaching symposium and he's invited me to meet him there and spend a nice weekend in the biggest city in West Africa. I haven't met any of our East Coast family yet, so I've been looking forward to this trip for about a year. After that, Molly and I will meander back to Nouakchott for the big Christmas to-do at Obie's house. He's our country director and his house is just like one in the US, big couches, a huge DVD collection and a gy-normous kitchen. Throw in about 50 Americans cobbling together a temporary family, and you know it's going to be a good time. Almost as good as the real thing. After that I'm probably going back to Dakar with Caleb to pick up a treadle pump for a well in his village and then we'll get back up to St. Louis for New Year's and amazing Vietnamese kwee-zeen. After that, I wanted to go to Mali or Ghana with Cailin and Jenny, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen, for want of funding. Ay! But by that time, I'll probably want to get back to site, even though our "Christmas Break" for school is December 31st-January 11th, I've got plenty of stuff I've been meaning to do and people I've been meaning to visit but haven't been able to because I've been busy working (really!), so I'll have the time to do that and celebrate my birthday before school and the GMC get up and running again. So everybody have a fun safe holiday season and if I don't spend it with you this year, I'll see you next year! xoxo, Adriana link post comment

My week as a mom [Nov. 22nd, 2005|10:40 am] So the lady I live with was away "en mission" all last week, nine days in total, leaving me in charge of her 6-year-old brother. I didn't think it was going to be such a big deal, but I'm exhausted. I kept saying, it's just like "Big Daddy;" we even played until he threw up once. Most days, I'd get up early and go for a run, get him a bucket of bathing water, drag him out of bed and have him shower and dress while I made us breakfast. About the time I'd finished with that and put it on the table, he'd be struggling with his shoelaces, so I helped him out there, then we ate and he went off to school. When he came home at noon, I'd usually be at school, so the housekeeper would be there to eat lunch with him and then send him back into the trenches at three. When he got out at 5, he'd go to Hawa's office (UNFPA) and wait for me there with the guard. Since we opened the GMC last week (more about that later), I was there most evenings until 6ish, then I'd pick him up and we'd walk home together. Most nights, we'd go over to Luke's and eat dinner with him, and Andrew and Rachel if they were around. He loved going over to Luke's because there's lots to play with there, especially Luke. They had a fake-laugh off nearly every night. Another of their standbys were fake phone calls, which were hilarious. The boy, Alassane, speaks Soninke as his maternal language, Pulaar next best, and just a smattering of Hassaniya and French. So what he could verbally communicate to me was very limited, like "water" in French and "I'm full" in Pulaar. We used pantomimes for most everything else, including, "I'm hungry," "Brush your teeth," "Take a bath," and "If you don't stop that right now, I'm going to bury you in a shallow grave." Fortunately, Hawa got back late last night and was infinitely grateful; the kid and the house are both in one piece, so I guess I did alright. I think I'll need a week to recuperate, but no! Thanksgiving is mere days away and we've got loads of work to do to get ready. So far we've fenagled mattresses out of local patrons, enough for everyone I hope. We've painted a fair bit of Luke's house, which now bridges psychedelic and tasteful. We've done some shopping, lugged home 25 kilo sacks of onions, potatoes, sugar, etc, etc. We just got word this morning that our turkey had some sort of problem crossing the Mali/Mauritanian border, but we'll get some birds and kill them, mark my words. I hope everyone back home has a great Thanksgiving...we've got a lot to be thankful for. xoxo, A. link 2 comments|post comment

[Nov. 8th, 2005|06:08 pm] Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted, sorry about that. Ramadan came and went, I went to Agmamine and Nouakchott and school started twice. On the big official grand opening of school day, October 3rd, I came to school bright and early and was pleasantly surprised to receive a schedule. Already, this puts us two weeks ahead of what happened last year. So I’ve got my schedule in hand and I ask the directors and some of the other teachers, does this mean we’ll start teaching this week? Oh, no, not for another two weeks at least. So I went with Caleb to his village and spent a good ten days helping him tend the garden, playing Scrabble and studying for the GRE. Agmamine’s a really cute little village, with a lake and a dune and lots of trees and gardens. Caleb spends a lot of his time working with the women and children in the garden and in the fields. I helped him some and played with babies some too. There are a ton of cows in the village, so there’s lots of fresh milk; we drank it fresh from the cow, morning and evening. I even got to try to milk a cow, but didn’t get much milk. They let the calf nurse for a little while, and then they tie it to the cow’s leg while you hold a bowl between your knees and milk. It’s not as easy as it looks and the udders are really slimy! There’s an orphaned calf in the village too; they named it “Ijle,” which means orphan. The cows won’t let it nurse, so the villagers catch a nanny goat and let Ijle nurse off of her. It’s pretty funny to see. Caleb’s got a really cool tree nursery going on, so we planted some trees in people’s yards and gardens. He’s got neem, moringa, tamarind, baobab, lusaina and eucalyptus seedlings right now and he’s gotten everyone excited to have trees in their compounds. Pretty much every morning we’d weed, pick beans and hibiscus leaves for lunch, basil for tea and carry them and buckets of water back to the house from the garden. It’s a few hundred yards from the wells to the house, which is a nice little workout. In the afternoon Magou, Caleb’s host mom and the nicest Mauritanian ever, would make us a lunch of rice and beans from the garden. Then we’d read and sleep and rest until the heat let up. Usually around 5 we’d go back to the garden to water it and then back to the house to shower and rest before dinner. Caleb’s family was fasting, so we’d break fast with them at sunset with zrig (sour milk drink), dates, more beans and tea. When Suzanne came, we started playing Scrabble day and night too. By that time the moon was getting full and we played by moonlight. One night there was a wedding right next to Caleb’s yard, where we slept. The music was going all night, oy. I’m not a fan of Moor music, it’s all out of tune guitar and cat-scratch singing, no thanks. Then Caleb, Suzanne and I went to Kankossa, where we made ranch flavored potato chips from scratch, mmm, and split up. Suzanne went back home to Selibaby and Caleb and I went to Kiffa. I checked in with school, taught class one day, attended a very long and boring teachers’ meeting and then Caleb and I went to Nouakchott to take the GRE. We arrived Thursday evening and on Friday morning at 7:30 my director called me to say that he’d need me to stay in town for a few extra days to help with the program evaluation. I’d only planned to stay the weekend, so I had to get in contact with my school administration to tell them that I wouldn’t be in class the following week, but it worked out fine. The beginning of the school year is always like this in Mauritania, it takes a couple weeks to get rolling. This fact compounded with Ramadan happening around the same time means that classes don’t really start until after the holiday, which is now. So I got to hang out in Nouakchott for a little while, took the GRE, which went well. It’s a shame I can’t be a professional test-taker, since I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but enjoy and excel at standardized tests. Sick, I know! After the test, a bunch of us went to the beach and then made a scrumptious Italian feast of fried eggplant and zucchini, green salad and spinach lasagna with ice cream for dessert. Then Lisa and I met up with Will and Miriam to go out. We went dancing at the Salamander and it was fun, but between that and the last time I went dancing there, I’ve lost the toenails on both my big toes, yikes. Lisa, the new Lisa, one of three Lisas now, is a third year education volunteer from Chad. She’s done a lot of traveling and is super fun and she’s replacing Miriam in her village. She says Chad’s a lot like Mauritania, but even less developed. It seems that they have even less of what we have little of here. Crazy! So Lisa, Julian, Jessica and I were chosen to take part in this “Stakeholder’s Workshop,” an evaluation of the education program involving all interested parties. There were a handful of Ministry representatives, Education, Women’s Affairs, etc, plus school directors, inspectors and teachers, including us the volunteers and two RPCVs. Our facilitator, Brownie Lee, was a volunteer in Benin in the early sixties and has pretty much lived in West Africa since. The education program head who came from Washington, Linda, was a volunteer in the Philippines in the sixties, but has spent most of her time since then in Haiti. She had a lot of amazing stories and as it turns out, she was a volunteer with my distant cousin Chuck. So they reconnected through me, which was nice. Next month I’m going to meet him for the first time in Dakar for the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Symposium. I’ve been back in Kiffa for about two weeks now, just getting ready to re-open the Girls’ Center and fixing up my new room. My new house is sooooo much nicer than my last one. We have running water (just a tap in the yard, but much better than nothing), a fridge, an oven, separate shower and toilet facilities, and not one but three satellite dishes. I could do without the TV, but the rest is wonderful. We’ve got three pets too, a sheep, a goat and a lamb. I think we’re going to eat them one day, but whatever. Hawa’s a really great cook and is super nice. Her six-year-old brother has come to live with us and he’s really cute and fun, likes to dance around all the time. We had such good food on Eid il Fitr, the holiday at the end of Ramadan. We slaughtered a ram and roasted it, served that with fries, grilled onions and bread. Hawa made chakri, home-made couscous in home-made yogurt with fruit and raisins. Luke came over with a carrot cake and some of the Frenchies in town came over with yummy sweets too. The only bummer was when I put my camera on the TV to take a timer picture of Luke, me and Andrew and my flowing African robe caught on the TV stand, causing the camera to do a face-plant. So now it won’t close, much less work. I’ve gotta figure out how to get it fixed sometime soon, because lots of good times are coming up and I’d hate not to be able to capture them. We’re getting geared up for Thanksgiving, should have a pretty big crowd and a very yummy menu. We’re still trying to get a (live!) turkey from Mali, gosh I hope we do, but if we don’t, we’re going to cook up a bunch of chickens. We got brownie mix, a no-bake cheesecake and a brick of Velveeta in a care package from Racey, a former volunteer in our region, mmm. And I’m brewing 40 liters of bush wine, made with hibiscus blossoms, baker’s yeast and lots of sugar, though I’m not sure how it’ll turn out, since it’s my first batch. I have been making yogurt from scratch though, which took about four tries, so my confidence is pretty high these days. The weather's cooling off enough that I can sleep *inside* at night, woo hoo! And there are vegetables in the market, even bell peppers and lettuce!!! I’m rambling, and I know I’ve forgotten some stuff, but I’m going to end it. In summary, I’m doing well, feeling happy, got a good work/fun balance going on. Now all I’ve gotta do is figure out what comes next… Happy 50th (!) Birthday to my mom, a real-life super-woman. xoxo, Adriana link 1 comment|post comment

Return to Kiffa! [Oct. 3rd, 2005|11:34 am] Leah and I made a triumphant return to Kiffa last week, just before the rains washed it all away. Not quite, but impressive nonetheless. Lots of mud-brick houses fell down, including Andrew's, lots of walls came down, and there's still water everywhere. Luke and I both live in cement houses, and the rain was so heavy for two days solid that it seeped right through our rooves and soaked everything. I'm living with a Mauritanian named Hawa now. We talked about living together last year, and while I was on vacation she got a house and saved me a room. She's Soninke (black African), so very different from the white Moors I was living with last year. For instance, she taught me how to do my laundry properly yesterday, whereas I'd never seen my other family wash anything. She loves to cook and will teach me her moves in the kitchen too, yay! I waded to school today for the "official opening" and actually got a schedule. This is way more than I was expecting, based on last year, so it's cool. I'll be teaching freshmen, the level I taught last year, and sophomores, so maybe I'll have some of my (good!?) students from last year. There's still no way classes will begin within the next two weeks, everyone will take their time to roll in, especially with Ramadan starting tomorrow. So I'm going to Agmamine with Caleb. His village is really cute and nice, on a lake, he has a big garden, nice family, etc. So no phones or internet for a couple weeks, I'll just be studying for the GRE and helping in the garden. It's been nice to be back here, seeing my friends, students and various characters around town. link post comment

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