15 teen girls helped make this video to support the empowerment and education of women in their country of Mauritania. They held a film festival April 2009 to present it to the town. It was the first of it's kind.

--------

Sixty years have passed since the founders of the United Nations inscribed on the first page of their Charter B the equal rights of women and men. Since then, study after study has shown that there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.

International Women’s Day is celebrated worldwide on March 8. It was started in 1908 in New York City. Female immigrant workers from joined forces with women from the tenements and marched to Union Square demanding higher wages, better living and working conditions, and the right to vote.

--------

For a country divided by social repression, racism, poverty, and political corruption, the pictures really show something incredible.

English:

Arabic:

I’ve never been a fan of windy season here.

This town is a small blip in a vast desert, with the collective forces of about five abused trees to block wind storms that race across the desert every year. Last year, for about a month, I would walk around town with some random piece of fabric over my face, sunglasses over top like a weird faceless mannequin. Often I would laugh and cry out of ridiculousness and pain because I would find myself pumping my arms and legs, chin to my chest, talking myself up like the little engine that could, and taking what I thought were huge steps only to realise I was going anywhere at all.

This year it has been refreshingly mild, and it caught me forgetful and unprepared.

I had been back across town 3 times to the bank, but because of the wind, the computer was down. This meant – no money. On my last return trip, I found myself in my usual windy-season gait – chin down, seemingly huge steps. I was trying to keep my headscarf from blowing away while balancing an armload of books, when a car sped past, right by my side. The gust of the speeding car, with the wind, managed to create a little wind tunnel that blew my skirt wide open and right up to my waist. With my arms all tied up in headscarves and books, all I could do was watch it happen. Just like everyone else in the street.

My friend had a good laugh. She told me, if it’s windy she always wears long dresses over her skirts as double protection. She would never think of wearing a shorter top.

Better yet: if it’s windy season, wear underwear.

When I was a teenager, I had bizarre luck with lady justice. My family would tease me because I had managed to be sued three times before I reached the age of 18. At one point, watching TV during the afternoon, I got a call from a woman asking for my Drivers License number and other personal information. When I asked her why she would need that, she informed me that she was my lawyer and would be representing me in court.

I’ve got a list of items I like to file under ‘They didn’t tell me about this in Life 101.’ Not surprisingly, this country has single-handedly flooded that file beyond capacity. So why am I surprised at my stunned speechlessness when I’m informed that I’ve been summoned to court?

First of all, the family of this stalker guy came to Akjoujt to meet with me. They wanted to know exactly what happened, as well as offer their apologies for everything that happened. While we were discussing what would come of it, they told me it would all be discussed in court the next day. Court?! I’m translating this word correctly, right? A judge? Yes. Trial? Yes. Was I supposed to know about this? I guess so, because I was stopped in the road that evening by a truck of policemen with my court summons, in Arabic.

I didn’t even expect this town to have a court house, or a judge, seeing as it a hole in the middle of the desert of a third world country. We just moved up from donkey carts to decrepit taxis 6 months ago. So, when I was asked if I had a lawyer, I coughed out another speechless stare. Despite the judge robes this guy had, fur-collar and everything, this was more interrogation than trial. It was myself, a translator (who, thankfully, I knew), a scribe who wrote everything out by hand with carbon paper, and a judge that (I was informed later) had only started his job 10 days earlier.

It turned out to be 5 hours of interrogation in a country that doesn’t recognize mental illnesses. If a person is considered to be slightly nuts, even if they are a fully capable and/or dangerous person, they are thrown in the all-encompassing category of ‘mejnuun’ – crazy. They cannot be tried in court, nor are they even held accountable to the religious tenants of faith. They are simply tolerated as the harmless kooky relative at the dinner table – talked over, laughed at, and excused of all behaviour.

Filed away under this chapter of ‘Now you know…:’

You can go to court anywhere - even in the middle of the desert where camels are sauntering down the road outside the window.

“Hayley, what is ‘deek’?”

“What is what?”

“Deek.”

“Is this an English word?”

My friend got a piece of chalk and wrote out for me in big letters: D. I. C. K. Deek.

“Where did you hear this word?”

My friend has taken to using chat rooms to help him practice his English. He will chat and when he doesn’t understand a word, he’ll look it up in his pocket dictionary.

“I was talking to this woman in Australia and she asked me if I had a big deek.”

I explained the word to him and he hurriedly erased the chalk letters off the board. We had a little chat about different kinds of English, as well as different kinds of chat rooms, and the reasons why he wasn’t finding these words in his pocket dictionary.

“What did you think ‘deek’ meant?”

“I thought it was a disk, like a part of a computer.”

“So what did you say to the woman after she asked you if you had a big deek?”

“I told her – Yes. Very. I have a 75 Gigabyte.”

My spirit collapsed this week in a way I haven’t known. Something broke, and I didn’t come back. Strangely, at the same time, my heart got loved today in a way I really needed to know – healed in an irreversible way.

Why did I snap? I couldn’t take people not caring. I couldn’t take the laziness, hatred, ill-gotten gain, futility, cruelty, and general apathy. I didn’t want to be that one who cared – always fighting over things that aren’t right; feeling like some nagging sore on their apathetic life.

So, I stopped. I tried to survive in the territory by their rules – all the rules I hate. I could watch myself becoming un-human. Even more, I could watch that inhumanity become instinctive.

And today, that man was so evil – something bent and twisted – and I didn’t have the strength to fight. I ran.

I was in a street full of people, yelling, trying to get away, doing my best somebody-help-me-out, and I could watch the people just standing and staring. Staring. Watching me like a goat.

The thing is, Boubecar knew the minute I ran in his store. And, he stepped in. He protected me and helped me liked someone worth being loved.

The moment? It wasn’t while I watched Boubecar stand between me and that man – taking up the full frame of that doorway, not about to let anything get by. It was after he had waited for the man to be long gone and told me to sit and stay with him for a while. At that point I broke. They weren’t scared tears. They were tears because I was safe. Finally. Finally – there was someone else there who realised we were the same, and stepped in.

I’m convinced the greatest evil in the world is to stand with what my friend calls bras croisées – crossed arms. To do nothing. Just a stare. My children will never do this.

---

Koura lives through beyond what I consider to understand. She lives in a world where she is doublely classified – she can only ever be what her skin color will allow her, and what her gender will allow her. She was put in jail after having the government take away her job and her citizenship card, and escaped to live for over a year in hiding while all of her family and friends were displaced or disappeared during a nation-wide genocide. For 20 years she has given her time in service to a community of people that judge her every habit based on her color, and continue to have all the rights, opportunities and power despite doing nothing to earn it, or to work for it. While I accept that I am always a stranger in this place, she lives as a stranger in her own country.

I asked Koura the other day to remind me of an important question I had for her.

“What do you do when you are tired – tired in your heart? You are so tired with people who are horrible, and lazy, and who don’t care. What do you do with a tired heart?”

“Do you mean when you’ve had enough? When you don’t want to care anymore? You cry out to God and ask for his forgiveness because that’s the opposite of what you should think.”

…the very reason why a Muslim tailor was there at all.

Made it. Day coming to an end. I needed to be strong today, but I just couldn’t. It was an icing on the cake day – a day when it all heaps up into one giant pile. I crumbled. You just long for someone else to stand up for you, to come to your rescue. I know life isn’t like that, but I just couldn’t muster it today. I’m starting ‘don’t eat other people’s crap’ week. But I pray God allows me the grace not to become just another angry person, and for once, we don’t just keep recycling it all.

I’m the unfortunate sort that is disposed to never being satisfied enough with what she’s got or where she is. For better or for worse, I’m always crossing over into new territory, or another’s side.

As a human being, you are where you’ve come from – where you were born, your last name, how you’ve grown up, the color of your skin, and the amount of money in your bank account. At the same time you are who you decide you are – you are who your choices make you. And in the middle, that fine line, that’s where you try and exist.

Lines I walk:

American – Mauritanian

Woman that speaks her mind – woman that has a limited vocabulary and can hardly speak at all

Woman that covers her head – Woman that likes to wear short skirts with sneakers.

Moor – Pulaar

Hayley – Mariam

People give a lot of romantic impressions of integration and the magical adventure of becoming ‘one the people’. Some stranger comes to an unknown land, faces stares and discrimination, rises past the challenge, and receives some new identity as part of a new culture. I harp on the inefficiency of international organisations that dole out donations to communities without an integrated counterpart to advise them. Integration is necessary, but it’s not what I think.

---

Integration: an elusive ideal

The fine line sits on my doorstep waiting to greet me the minute I decide what I’m going to wear in the morning. I have a random hodgepodge of Mauritanian clothes that are a perfect analogy to the racist culture and past that divides this country culturally and politically, and my life that is involuntarily stuck in the middle:

I look to one pile of cloth hanging on nails on my shelf. Should I wear the traditional mulefa (veil) that is traditional to the northern culture here? Not today. I can handle it some days, but most often I get increasingly annoyed trying to keep my body parts covered while this behemoth bed sheet catches and rips on every last piece of scrap laying about this country.

I look to the other pile of folded outfits stacked next to the veils. Maybe I should wear the wax-print Pulaar clothes that are much simpler to wear and not so conducive to itchy neck-sweat? Unfortunately I am reminded that these outfits put me at odds with torrents of parents in town who base the level of the education of their girls based on the relative morality, er, clothing style of their teacher. In the end, I do both, as I’ve always done - never picking a side; never being fully Mauritanian one way or the other. And, never been entirely myself for that matter. Even when it comes to picking what I’m going to wear, whatever the success or my reputation in town, I must come to the point that I will never be Mauritanian no matter what I do. If people don’t want you to fit in, you never will. Some people will push you down if you’re standing up, or kick you’re when you’re already laying down. They are just that way. Unfortunately, this culture, and the subsequent poverty, breeds a lot of them.

In the end, I settle into my fine line and exist as the one Hayley that will ever exist, and my own journey of changing and growing. That’s as far as I can go. And to those around me, they can know me as such, or they can miss it entirely.

----

Integration: the surprise city

For the past month I’ve been living out of a jerry can of water for all my water-ly needs. It’s no absurdity for this country. It definitely harkens back to my early days of learning how to drink around the strings of algae in my water cup, learning how to shower my whole body with only a couple cup-fulls of water, and sitting by the road with my bucket trying to sort through the tribal wars of well-access in a language I couldn’t speak. Although, considering there is a government water company in this town, and water access, it has been frustrating to live for a month with only a jerry can of water to be shared between two people. I take my clothes to a friend’s house to wash, shower once a week, and as long as there isn’t any visible bug poop in my bowl, it’s clean and ready to be used.

The water company decided to dig up pipes in our area of town to install new ones. I live in the oldest part of town on the edge of Akjoujt. The locals don’t even considerate it the same town because it is so “far”. The company required that all residents needed to pay for a water account with the company and get new pipes installed. After waiting for the “just a couple days” to turn to a “couple of weeks” to sludge on into “next month,” I went to the water company to sort things out. Both the head of the company and the adjunct are gone (spending their days and money in the capital), and that leaves a paid employee who really can’t do anything. His suggestion? Myself and the neighbours should buy the water pipes and meter reader (of which you cannot buy in this town), dig a trench into our houses, connect the pipes and install our meter reader ourselves, and then come pay them for a water account. Or, more like, come pay them for a job they didn’t do and a service they didn’t offer. I have a better idea – I’ll dig a trench and stab the water pipe with a metal stake so water spews out and then we can all have water. He told me it wasn’t that big of a deal. I told him that’s because he has water. If he didn’t, he’d be pretty upset too. He told me I was right, and laughed at me.

At this point, I left to huff my way home. Fighting for some kind of sense, some kind of logic, some kind of justice, is all too common – and all too commonly followed with laughs. On the way home I yelled at a kid to get a hold of his donkey cart that almost ran me over, flailed my arms like a drama queen and shouted at him that he was a crazy animal. I continued on home, go-sa-romar-ing (‘may God shorten your life’) every rock, house, and animal, every animate and inanimate object on my way.

It was then that I realised – I’m finally becoming like the locals. I was like every other local that cusses out their kids, yells unwarranted criticisms at strangers across the street, doesn’t even bother to burry their trash but just throws it out the window, rolls over and goes back to sleep at the thought of the futility of trying to make their life better. I did it. I integrated. I’m one of the locals.

-----

I’ll never get a grade in integration class. I will willingly take that resignation (unless I’m willing to gain 80 pounds, convert, and drink my body weight in sugary tea all day long). Integration is a give and take – an exchange, an equation. I give some, you reciprocate – integration.

Last year, the girls of the Centre had practice learning about desertification and trees that can grow in this climate, as well as how to plant trees and take care to make sure they survive. We started a tree nursery at the school. This year, as part of a town-wide beautification project, the mayor of the town has planted donated trees around town and given them to local families to water and protect them. If the tree grows, the family receives a bag of wheat.

The mayor came to us to ask if the girls could help with the process. He needed to teach the participating families about the trees, and further, how to take care of them. We came up with the idea to have the girls create skits to present to the families about the essentials of tree-care. It was the first time that these girls have ever had an opportunity to create skits (they didn’t know how).

They worked for 2 weeks to prepare them, discussed ideas, wrote out dialogues, and brought props. Most girls in this culture have great difficulty speaking out loud in front of others – they will cover their mouths, cover their faces with their veils, laugh uncontrollably or even cry. The day before the presentations, we had final run-throughs – it was a major accomplishment for these girls to see what each other had done.

As the families started arriving they were giddy with backstage jitters. About 50 family representatives showed up to see the skits and we had them split up into three different classrooms. In each class, we gave a speech explaining what would be happening, and the girls presented themselves and their skits. The entire presentation would take about 10 minutes. 10. Minutes.

The first group of girls began and were shortly heckled throughout their skit by the families in the audience. They were heckling the girls’ language – it wasn’t their language. These girls were Pulaar. The audience was Moor. They were simply heckling to disgrace the girls.

The second group, a group of to-the-bone, Arabic speaking Moor girls, didn’t fare much better. As they started, a group of women got up, and walked through the girls’ skit and left, taking about 15 families with them. The girls were immensely strong and acted through it, much to the delight and laughter of the few families left. However, it was discouraging day to say the least.

The girls and I had a talk the next day about the difficulties of awareness campaigns and introducing new ideas. They couldn’t understand how people could just yell through their presentations and give them no respect. They were baffled that the audience didn’t even congratulate them on their work and effort.

These girls are not even my girls, and all I could do was shake my head and try to resurrect the small amount of joy they had from presenting something they had worked so hard to prepare. As I was leaving one girl told me, “Those people don’t know anything. All they do is yell about their goats. They’re just bediiya* people.”

(*Bediiya means countryside).

---

For such an untouched country, I’ve often wondered where all the wild life is. Evidently, 30 years ago, there used to be lions, elephants and monkeys, but crippling droughts killed the land, moved out all the animals, and moved in all the sand. The country has never recovered. The most we have are jackals, from which families on the edge of town will stave off by putting rotting meat around the perimeters of their land.

Walking home the other day, I came across some unexpected wildlife in the road. Two donkeys were attacking each other. I’ve seen a lot of animal sex in this country. I’ve even seen my naked, elderly house mom chase a horny donkey down the road with her walking stick. But this was two donkeys trying to kill each other. I stayed pinned against a house trying to find my way out. At one point, one donkey bit the other in the neck and then ripped out a piece of his flesh. I waited it out and then just took a running bolt to avoid get caught in the middle.

Close to home a little girl came up to me and asked if I saw the wild donkeys.

“Did you see them Mariem?!”

“Did I see who?”

“The wild donkeys!”

“Yes I did! I was scared. Are you scared of them?”

“Yes! They are crazy. But that’s just because they are just bediiya donkeys.”

He hadn’t stopped Christmas from coming! It came! Somehow or other, it came just the same!

A few Christmas sightings in Mauritania:

Lump of Coal

No Christmas oranges in my stocking please. Toss the list, Santa old man, and just stuff my stocking full of coal.

When I was up North for Thanksgiving, one of the volunteers posted to the capital said how she’s been having trouble finding propane to fill up her tank and so she’s had to resort to using “charbon”.

**There’s two kinds of fuel here – propane and charbon. They make the charbon by burning wood, and seeing the very present issue that we live in a desert – the option of burning wood for fuel is not terribly sustainable.**

This Nouakchott volunteer was getting mixed information from all the propane vendors in town. No one really knew why there wasn’t any more propane coming in. So, she went to the gas company to find out. The gas company closed their doors. The leader of the military junta, in an attempt to force a better life for the people of his country, demanded the gas company drastically lower the prices of propane. They explained that there is a base limit to the price of propane so that they can still make profit – basic business economics, etc. However, ultimatums and digging in your heels seemed to be the juntas method of choice. So, as of November, the gas company closed its doors and stopped selling propane.

It was only a matter of time, when the lack of incoming fuel would hit towns in the interior of Maurtania. At the start of December, right before the biggest muslim holiday of the year, people ran out of propane. Empty propane tanks piled up, and bags of broken charbon showed up in their place.

What will people do to make their food, their bread, and their tea? Use charbon, I guess.

What will they do when there is no more charbon? Burn more trees, I guess.

What will they do when there are no more trees? Or no trees to begin with?

Suggestion: every Mauritanian could become vegetarians and eat salads for every meal. But strangely, I don’t think the suggestion of sacrificing a vegetable for the holiday would go over so well. Morning of the holiday, all the men gather, the ouleman prays, the men pray, and instead of bringing up the sacrificial lamb to slit its throat, then the ouleman peels the skin of the sacrificial carrot. Not so much.

Ryan and I decided we would live off of cookies.

So this year Santa, please skip the goodies, and bring us each a big ol’ lump of coal. (Or, our government back.)

----------------

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

The chilly blustery weather here does put me in the mood to sing carols to myself. In particular, I’ve taken a new fondness to that carol, Let It Snow.

I was at my bosses house, and her mother continued again with the usual course of conversation;

“Do you know the fire? It’s hot - a really hot fire! See this lighter, it’s like that, but big and all around. You will be in the fire. Do you understand? You will burn in the fire. Just pray now, pray now and you won’t burn in the fire. Do you see this lighter?...”

Cue carol:

Oh the weather outside is frightful…

But the fire is so delightful…

And since we’ve no place to go…

The answer’s no, oh it’s no, oh it’s no.

It’s one of those songs you keep to yourself, perhaps. I in turn, hummed it in my head, and passed on the offer with the usual, “No thanks.”

----------------

Swaddling Cloths

The other day Ryan said he wanted to go as Santa for the Christmas party.

I looked at myself wearing my 12-feet-of-bedsheet mulefa, and thought – “Hm, swaddling cloths. Maybe I could go as Baby Jesus?”

Now, when I walk around town, I can’t help but think I’m seeing fully grown Baby Jesuses just milling about. If that isn’t a Christmas sighting…

This is an excerpt from an email I sent my Dad on November 5th. It's another view of "B-Day" on this side of the world.

-----------

I was giddy all day today. You wouldn't believe it here - everyone is happy!

People were calling me to congradulate me and stopping me in the streets. Most people I know stayed up through the night next to a radio or a television to hear the results. My neighbor's brother called from Nouakchott at 4 am just to say that Barack won. A lady I work with called me first thing in the morning to say, "Congradulations for America. Congradulations for everyone." At school, the principal told me that America is a true Republic now - not black or white, but a nation of citizens. This is a major victory for many, many more people than I think we realise.

I didn't stay up to hear the results (Arabic radio - don't really understand it). But another volunteer called me a 4 am to let me know. Today I went over to visit a friend and her husband has a television where you can switch the languages. I got to watch part of Obama's acceptance speech. I sat in that little room by myself and cried. I still get moved just thinking about it.

It's especially memorable sharing this with my friends here. It's a pretty stark contrast now that they are under a military junta and they have no rights. And then, to see a black man (they understand this full well), who has such a mixed background, become elected by the people of a country to be their leader - truely unbelievable.

I went to buy some stamps to mail a letter today - the post man told me, "This is extraordinary. Finally, America has shown that a nation really can be free. Anyone can meet their dreams. Only in America, only there can you find freedom like this."

It made me sad to hear him say "Only in America," but all the same I completely understand. We are unbelievably lucky. Today is truely an amazing amazing day. Al-hamdullilah.

Evidently I don't know my poop. Funny, I thought my education in poop has been quite extensive in this country. Not only have I experienced the inevitable that veteran volunteers always inform new volunteers on their arrival - You will poop your pants. Pray it's not while you're in a car - I can also tell the type, consistency, and make-up of poop simply from the smell of it wafting on a breeze. I live in poop, smell poop, pick my food out of poop - I'd like to say I know my poop. Not so.

We'd finished tea and seeing as it was Friday, nobody really wanted to get up to go anywhere. Why not play a round of 'Seeguh'...

---------------

Sidenote: What is Seeguh?

- 8 flat sticks that are black on one side and white on the other

- A large mound of sand about two feet long

- Poke two rows of dots along the top with your fingers, and draw a line from each dot down both sides (ie: from an aerial view, it looks like a centipede).

- Poke another row of dots along the base of each side of the mound - one dot for each line.

- This mound of sand is the playing board.

- There are two teams and each team has their playing pieces. Each team wants to collect all the other team's playing pieces.

- You move your playing pieces along the "board" depending on what number you rolled (via the 8 Seeguh sticks). If you land on the dot occupied by a playing piece of the opposing team, you take it. This is good.

You thought counting cards was tricky - what if you could train yourself to roll the dice in a certain way so as to always land on a certain number? That's how Seeguh goes. You pick up all 8 sticks in your hand and throw them down. Everyone has their own trick or system to throwing Seeguh sticks - rolling them off the fingers, stacking them in a tight row, throwing them up and catching them like a baton. But, when you throw them down you are looking for a certain number of sticks turned to the black side or the white side. Basically, you get good enough that you can throw whatever combination of Seeguh sticks so as to chase your opponent around the sand pile and steal all their peices. If you're a bad Seeguh stick-thrower (ie: me), good luck.

------

The first time I ever played 'Seeguh' I thought you just threw sticks in the air and were amazed at the patterns they made when they landed. Obviously, I feigned interest. I figured - simple country, simple game. Not even! These folks are so good at throwing sticks they can call a number and it lands like they want. I should get together a group of Mauritanian Seeguh players and hit up Las Vegas. It could be an African variation on that guy from MIT who whipped his students into gambling geniuses and took Vegas by storm. The problem is, I have a long way to go. When I come to play, it's like a death sentence for who's ever team I get assigned to. That poor Mariem - can't throw her sticks. And, evidently that's not the only thing I'm novice at.

I've been informed I throw sticks like a child and I don't know my poop.

We were pushing together the sand to build the mound and my friend tells her boy to run and get some twigs and poop. This is the two teams: sticks versus poop. The boy came back in, and as I'm snapping the sticks to make little playing pieces, my friend's brother pinches a big piece of poop between his thumb and forefinger and holds it to my face. "Do you know what this is?" Of course I knew what it was, not to mention it was an inch from my nose. "So what is it? Do you know what it's called?" I told him, "Yes - it's zbel (poop)." At this, the whole room burst into laughter. Knee-slapping and so forth proceded, simply from the fact I called this egg-sized turd a piece of poop.

Who knew? For all the failed attempts I've had trying to make a joke, or at least not be the joke, all I needed to do was say 'poop' and it would have them all rolling.

Evidently I was sorely mistaken. It wasn't poop. It was a camel turd - an all-holy camel turd. If I really wanted I could eat it. This was not poop. Leave it to Mauritania - there is yet more to learn about poop.

The game went on, twigs versus turds, and I still can't throw sticks.

It's cold again.

The first few weeks when the weather suddenly switches from cold season to hot season, or back to cold again, are rough. Last week when the temperature never made it above 90 degrees, I thought my little bundled huddle would just contract in on itself until there was nothing left of me. I rallied my resources that I got after experiencing cold season last year - two sweaters, some long johns, socks, a toque, scarf, and a couple blankets. The nights aren't so bad because you can just stay in your sleeping bag. Taking a bucket bath, however - I get a noticable grimmace on my face just thinking about it.

In the summer I would scoop water over me all day long if you let me. But in the cold season, it's prison showers. That's how my mind envisions them. Approaching my little shower room with my bucket is like being transfered between prison facilities. You enter a little cell of a room, strip naked, squat down, pour some cold water down your back and cough expectorantly from the shock. After I cough I always expect to see some little pack of dope surprisingly just pop out of my rectum. Busted!

This last week was bad. I did my usual layering, boiled water, even made some tea, but I was still cold. Plan B. I took to taking a shot of cheap whiskey after each bucket bath.

My mother would always put out a contractable tissue box of dixie cups for when guests came to visit. My bathroom, on the other hand - one will find a flask and a shot glass nice tucked neatly to the shampoo and conditioner. Crude, but at least I'm keeping my hygene up. Ask any Mauritanian during cold season, is not easy to do.

I guess this is how it goes this year.

Cold season Prison showers:

Strip! Squat! Cough! Slam it.

I've spent the past year filling my brain with vocabulary in three different languages, writing it down, aimlessly repeating it to myself, struggling to use it in sentences - sometimes successfully. Since August I've put it all on hold trying to fill my mind with GRE vocabulary. As glad as I am for the thorough study guides I had, I was mildly frustrated that I was studying so furiously to learn more words in a language that I do not use. But evenmore, what really frustrated me is how those rediculous vocabulary words sucked up my mind. I couldn't form a sentence without my ticker of a brain trying to squeeze in five million adjectives at 5 syllables a piece. Do I not already have enough translation work to do without my brain proposing I try and translate things like 'equanimity' and 'obsequious'? I'm sure I spent most of the last two months walking around with a gapping-wide silent hole of a mouth while my brain fought this stupid vocab battle in my head.

Being a novice to the GRE world (hopefully never a well-acquainted veteran), I can't say a whole lot about how I did. Pretty good about sums it up. I will say the testing took forever. It's been a while since I've taken such a stamina-requiring test. A good part of my adrenalin got eaten up during the hour that it took to complete the scantron - the one where you write in you surname and fill in the appropriate bubbles below. The GRE obviously didn't take into account that the rest of the world, unlike Americans, haven't been filling out scantrons since they were fetuses. The surname section alone must have taken 30 minutes to complete. The proctor continued to re-iterate that one only needed to fill out the first four letters of the last name, but this causes an obvious problem. Probably more than 75% of the people in this country have a last name that begins with "Ould" or "Mint" - as in "son of" or "daughter of." That doesn't make much for differentiation between exams. But then, to try and rectify it, putting in the complete last name includes writing down the names of your fathers and tribe for up to 3 generations (depending on how generationally pretentious you are). Example: Mohammed ould Sidi Ahmed Ould Mohammed Abdellahi ould Kader. Another scantron, please?

The other amusing event was the instinctual settling-in and complete disregard for time. We ended up having a 30 minute break - drawn out from a 5-minute break - because people would need to use the bathroom (amusingly ironic considering most people just pee in the street), or the would need to be sure to take advantage of the water cooler provided by the American Embassy. Mauritanian hospitality isn't just that when someone comes to visit, or sit down with you, you offer them something to drink. It is further that you need to fill the cup all the way up to the brim until the liquid plumes into a quivering bubble just above the lip of the glass. The result is a 30-minute train of Mauritanians ever-so-carefully baby stepping back to their desks, cautiously cradeling their quivering over-loaded dixie cups.

Us volunteers finished off the day with ice cream and swimming at the beach - brains free of vocabulary. It was...good.

‘Salka-Says’ – Simon has been replaced.

Normally every day greets me with a new round of the game. Sitting in my chair, one of the kids will pop over and scriptedly say, “Mariem, Salka says she needs….” It’s like some kind of category game played on long road trips. And the list of possibilities is not far off.

Salka says she needs…

A needle, a big water bottle, a little water bottle, a piece of rubber, black thread, fingernail clippers, some shoes, a shovel, some gum, salt, some paper and a pen, a box, a goat body…

The list is about as endless as each new round that keeps coming.

“Mariem, Salka says…”

---------------------

She was waiting for me in the door way. We’ve both known for a while we lack the language skills to skirt the obvious. So, why mince words? “You’re mad with me, aren’t you?”

I had been frustrated and disheartened for days, but when it came to answering why I was mad at her, it came out in a mush of language and tears. I hate that.

In the earlier days of our friendship, the family would treat me with a lot of respect – minding my space and my ‘American ways’. In the last several months, ever-repeating rounds of Salka-Says, someone coming in and out of the house without question, greetings being reduced to a simple ‘Hey. What’s up?’ only to carry on with other matters; these all have been compounding on themselves. Add on to that stuff getting broken in the house and old promises to fix things just sitting idle in neglect. Eventually the usual cultural discrepancies began to take on a form of ill intent.

I was beginning to think time was showing its true colors, and my fears were breaking me down. All this time they’d just been using me, using me for my whiteness, and what they think are endless resources. It was all a façade. I’m just another white person. I was pretty heartbroken.

I expressed all this to her and I watched two tears gain weight in her eyes. It was her turn to talk now. I could tell from these tears we were trying to translate more than just words.

‘You are my daughter. You are my sister. You are our family. We come to you, because you are our family. This is our nature. I have lived here for a long time, and I know a lot of people. If I needed something, I could go to anyone in the neighbourhood, down the street, or on the other end of town. But, because you are like one of us, we come to you first. In everything, we go to family first. When we come over, we sit down, just as when you come over you just open the door and come into the room. We greet, but only because it’s good to see each other, not because we’re strangers. We are in two houses, and when you came, the wall in between was like a curtain between us. But now we have taken down the curtain. With family, there is no curtain. That is why we come to you, not because we just want everything you have. Everything we have is yours. We could go to anyone else, but we come to you because everything that concerns us, concerns you. And everything that concerns your life, concerns us. You must tell us your nature, and when it changes. I know our natures are not the same, and I do not always know the way you are. But you must tell me, and I will always respect them. Without that, I will not know on my own. Know that we are in your life because you are dear to us. You are my daughter and you are like me.’

We shook hands in the traditional way to show we understood. The handshake fell into a hug. And when all the words had collapsed, we just hung on to each other for a while. Feeling each other crying made us cry even more.

I know from life that often we neglect those closest to us. People will often put more effort into appeasing their friends than caring for their families. Being ‘a part of the family’ does not always have the best connotations. I think the benefits are greater, but also more demanding than mere as acquaintances.

Here I have a family explaining that their ease with me, their seeming lack of formalities or social graces, and their absorption of all my life into theirs, is not so much an abuse or trying to use me up. Perhaps that’s more the suspicion from my need to self-preserve and control my own surroundings. Obviously my nature is a giant clash with the offer being presented me. I guess this here is more of an invitation – to let my guard down and consider them, trust them, as family. Consider myself as part of the family, and be that as well.

When you live in a small country inconsistently dependent on random connections, you become very lax in your crossing with random people. Everyone is worth an exchange or an encounter or a trade of some sort. Not to mention, you probably know them, are related to them, or they know you.

I was determined to get up North to my friend’s village of Tawaz. I have tried multiple times to visit her up there, only to be deterred by some unforeseen circumstance. It was now Ramadan. With the town dead and no work, now was as good as time as ever and I was determined to get there.

It was day three of waiting from 7 am to 10 pm for cars and I wanted to take matters into my own hands. Normally, I call the guy that works the taxi station and he finds me a car, and sends them to my house. Ramadan is all messed up with strange travelling times, people not being able to go anywhere because they are dying of fasting, and/or no one travelling at all. The latter was the case and my friend apologized that he still couldn’t find me a car.

Thursday morning I grabbed my bag and headed out on the one road that heads north. I had to laugh as I was walking up the middle of the road, bundled up like a snowman in 120 degree heat so I wouldn’t get burned. I finally found a big rock and hunkered down in its shade. Not 30 minutes passed but a small dot appeared on the horizon. I forget that people literally live in the middle of nowhere. A man had appeared from nothingness to bring me a bottle of water. We sat, talked, threw rocks at the deserted road, and unsuccessfully tried to find me a ride. At 12:30 I gave up and decided to re-start my search at 5 pm, after the heat of the day.

Heading back into town, I met a farmer and his kid on a donkey cart. I gave him the short of my story and told him I was heading home. He protested saying that it was much too far to walk when it was so hot out. I couldn’t argue. He was right. So, I went with them to their house. Thankfully, among him, his two brothers, and his sister, no one was fasting.

I entered the house, cool from the shade and breeze, and was met with the expectant gift for visitors at this time of day – a punch bowl of watery, sugary sour milk called zrig. I gladly took the big bowl, had several huge gulps and felt the life come back into me.

I’ve been here a year, and I’ve passed the intimidation caused when a family doggedly insists you eat and drink everything they give you. But, these people we particularly insistent to the point it kind of scared me. It wasn’t the first time, so I took that bowl and downed it.

Punch Bowl of Milk #1

Throughout the day, we had a great time, managed to talk for hours about who knows what, played sticks, took naps, and examined their pocket watch with the scene of Mecca engraved in both sides. In this time we ate, and ate, and drank and drank. Right along to the normal passing of events, they were just as dogged about the drinking, and the bowls of milk kept coming. I welcomed the bloating with a little less enthusiasm this time.

Punch Bowl of Milk #2 and #3

It was coming on 6 pm and I needed to start my car search again. Midst making of my parting greetings, the sister protested, “Wait! You can’t go yet! I’m making you some zrig.” “I’ve just drank 3 bowls and eaten so much, I really truly can’t.” We went back and forth on this issue, until she pushed the bowl in my hands and gave me that look that I’d only ever seen when my Mother yelled at me with my middle name. There was a moment of silence while the stare sank in.

Punch Bowl of Milk #4

I made it to the road and walked again. I walked the other way this time and around 9 pm I met 2 cars that had pulled into a boutique for water. It was two separate men in two separate cars. I asked the second fellow as he was passing:

“Hey! Are you going north to Atar?”

“Yes.”

“Can you give me a ride?”

“Where are you from?”

“I live here, in Akjoujt?”

“No. What is your nationality?”

“I’m American.”

“Are you a volunteer?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Get in. I’ll give you a ride.”

Turns out these two men were heading north for the unexpected death of his aunt. The man I was riding with had and ex-wife that worked with the Peace Corps for 10 years. He was pretty fond of volunteers and I was happily riding shotgun in his new Toyota. We only paused in conversation when our caravan pulled over to the side of the road. We were a good 80 km out in nowhere, with nothing but the moon lighting up the empty desert around us.

“Excuse me. We just need to stop for a moment.”

Okay.

“You are welcome to come.”

We got out and began walking, the three of us into nothingness. This doesn’t surprise me all that much. People literally live in the middle of nowhere. The other man, who had quite a hurried pace spoke up for the first time,

“Sorry about this. We won’t be long.”

Okay.

“It’s just…we need milk.”

Ah. Of course. You need milk.

We came up to a random hut, with two dudes sleeping outside. Upon seeing us, they jumped up and started preparing stuff. Within a couple minutes, yet again, I had another punch bowl of warm camel milk in front of me, being told to drink. It turns out, this was a well known milk hut. As I was nursing my bowl of camel milk, man #1 complained and asked milk dude to go inside and get something. Milk dude comes back and is straining the camel milk through a strainer into another bowl. I watched in the moonlight as the strainer filled with odd, clear chunks; my bowl, unstrained, still at my lips. Evidently, I was drinking true “country-style”. Whatever, in a couple hours it would degrade to a taste of rotting people in my mouth. And, as I was informed, I had better drink more before we go.

Punch Bowl of Milk #5

I got in around midnight. I parted ways with our little caravan, free of charge. I got to the little village the next morning, feeling satisfied with my efforts, and feeling the runs from paying out in milk. Barf.

Every day we would go in the same boutique, buy some bread and have the same scripted conversation with the boutique owner. He would heave his diva sigh and complain how he never had enough sleep and was oh so tired. I know people can work crazy hard to make a less than a living here, but this conversation was getting tedious and annoying.

Fine then, turn your boutique over to us and we’ll work in it for free. You just sit there and get some rest and we’ll work. He seemed to like the arrangement and we were scheduled for the four o’clock rush.

I worked the bread and butter station, while Becca worked the change box and the random house-hold items. It worked out pretty well. She would tag the Pulaar speakers and I would take the Hassaniya speakers. It was a fair trade for being saved one day of Alioun complaining about his tiredness.

One man came in asking in Hassaniya for a plastic sac. I told Becca to grab him a sac from the bundle of bags next to her. When she offered it, he protested that he wanted a small plastic sac. We looked around trying to find smaller sacs, not even sure if we’ve ever seen one. Was he looking for oil sacs? Couscous sacs? We didn’t know, and he continued to re-iterate that he wanted really small plastic sacs. ‘No! Small! Look under the counter! Under!’ Oh. Those sacs.

He paid for the condoms and went on his way.

I hear they have roasted peanuts on every corner.

Yeah! And really cold water in sacks.

I heard there’s a lady that makes sandwiches with fried chicken, lentils, AND beans!

We could get beer!

*hushed dreamy silence*

Senegal. This is our promised land. I bet the French had no comprehension of the repercussions of their actions when they decided to develop Senegal and not Mauritania. You can literally stand on one side of the Senegal river, 100 feet wide, standing in outright poverty, dirty wells, and no electricity, and look at bars, clubs, groceries, and phone booths on the other side. Thus, we choose to travel across through Senegal when we have to travel to opposite ends of Mauritania.

This last trek, a group of six of us were trying to make it back across the country for the swear-in of the new volunteers. We left Boghe (along the southern border) to travel down to Ndioum, Senegal, only to travel across and back up into Mauritania. The crossing from Boghe to Ndioum is spliced up by the river and you actually have to cross the river three times. The most common way is to rent a horse cart that takes you the whole route from Boghe to the main road in Ndioum, and then catch a taxi west to Richard Toll. It’s a simple and regular trip.

Our trek was predated with a bunch of rain storms which made the stretch from Boghe to Ndioum a little more difficult, but certainly not unthinkable. We had trouble finding horse carts to take us the regular route, but eventually we found a couple to take us the entirety of the way. Normally a few hours of crossing, the trek took us ten hours, four of which we walked in knee-high mud. The bandits of horse cart drivers led us out to the middle of nowhere, far from any village, and then demanded we pay 6 times as much to go any farther. Becca being a Pulaar-master spent 45 minutes reasoning and arguing with the crooks, to no avail, and we left walking away in the mud. The bandits followed and we struck a deal for the rest of the way, with no money, no water, and dreaming of a beer at the end of the road.

Travelling is always trouble, but this one stretched me beyond repair. We were waiting on River Crossing Number 3 and a man approached wanting to take his herd of rams across as well. Having all day to do this and nowhere to go, the boat men decided to do this on our bill and loaded the herd of rams into the canoe. One at a time, they flung in the rams on their backs – a stacked, all-hoof salute to the sky. Then we crawled in the little carved out canoe, squatting on tin cans to keep us dry. Then they loaded the horse cart on the back and tied the two horses to either side. The canoe was clearing the river by the width of my finger. Why did they need to stuff this canoe beyond capacity? Call it a Jenga-syndrome, I don’t know, but they just kept adding and adding.

All across the river, I steadily watched one ram’s eyeball unconfidently assess the proximity of the river to his head. Frankly, I don’t blame him. He started consorting with his upturned friends, and mutiny was certainly in mind. Surely as I white-knuckled the canoe’s edge, the rams began flipping and dive-bombing into the river. They missed the horses, swam out in a bleating spray, and we made it to the other side without dive-bombing ourselves. The other side was only met with more crooks. As we tag-teamed arguing with the crooks, this was the what was left of our once-strong band of pioneers: one of us sat, dehydrated and silently staring into the water, two more sat chugging milky-brown river water given from a house nearby, I had pulled my scarf over my head and was uncontrollably and maniacally laughing, and two more sat next to me taking shots of whiskey and chasing them with Flintstone vitamins. So this is the Oregon Trail, to the land of the free.

Fitting with how we started off with jerks and crooks, it continued for the rest of the trip. Even in the bitter end, after we thought at least one honest taxi man had restored all our lost faith in humanity, he claimed we didn’t pay the agreed amount. As police tried to clear up the argument, we were out of stamina, and just staggered off, stunned and in search of peanuts.

Maybe it’s the comparison to the new volunteers, but I’ve been noticing that my language skills are not as bad as I thought they were. For so long I sat mute, just wondering and plotting what these Mauritanians were talking about. Turns out, it’s not all that exciting of a revelation. Tea, the travesty of not having tea, goats, camels, rain, how much rain, the new price of rice, and that’s about it. All that to say, you do come across conversations you are really glad you could translate.

My friend and I were travelling from Kaedi to Boghe which is normally about an hour or so. Rides are normally a rag-tag of errors, and this trip had a rag-tag of travellers. I was next to a typical higher class male who thought talking to you and testing your language skills was his born right. Somehow squished in the back were three women that had finagled a ride for just part of the trip. Now, disgusting smells are no revelation to me anymore. (Half the time, it’s probably me.) But, one of these women must have been a worker in the meat market. That or, she has been sleeping in a carcass for the past decade. I mean, everyone’s noses shrivelled up when this lady greeted her way into the car.

The trip was not going fast, and our need for fresh air was driving us mad. I did happen to have a cherry scented candle still in my sac from America, and we didn’t waste time in pulling it out. Becca and I took turns breathing deeply with our faces shoved in a plastic bag. We looked at the Mauritanians next us and could tell they were in just as much pain as us. We passed them the cherry sniff-bag and soon it was being rotated around the car, everyone getting high on a little cherry-scented salvation.

They asked me what it was, and I explained it’s like musk or incense, but also like fruit. You light it with a fire and then it smells a lot like fruit. This explanation was met with definite approval as the sniff sac passed another round. At one point, all-knowing Mauritanian man piped up with a revelation. ‘Hey woman! Take your musk and put it by the window and that way, as the wind passes by, it will take the smell and fill the car with incense.’ Seemed like a good enough idea. We tried it, but quickly reverted back to the intensity of the sniff-sac.

As the sniff-sac passed around, meat woman continued to sit unfazed in the back. At one point, man to my right broke the silence and said out loud to the car,

Man: “Ahhhh. Your musk smells so good.”

Meat woman from behind: “Well, thank you.”

Man: “I wasn’t talking about you.”

Ha. I am really glad I understood that bit of conversation.

There was a military coup d’etat in Mauritania the first week of August. I was in a taxi traveling to the capital for a mandatory volunteer meeting. We were called and told to turn around, but, the taxi had already arrived and we had to hike into the city through the protests.

I’ve never been in a coup d’etat, but on an inkling, I’ll say that an over-thrown government in unstable West Africa is probably not the best thing. I understand that the President and Prime Minister are still in holding, but a coup d’etat Mauritanian-style is not quite the stories one would normally read about.

While I was with her at the time, I attribute this account to my friend Becca. She captures the essence of the coup pretty well:

-----------

Coups Are For Lovers (http://beccainwafrica.blogspot.com/)

August 6, 2008 marked the day of a coup d'état in Mauritania, West Africa. Non-violent, much like the one in 2005, the first democratically elected president (Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi) and his prime minister were taken from their homes and are now in the custody of General Muhammad Ould 'Abd Al-'Aziz and his military supporters.

When we heard news of the coup, I was already in nouakchott, the capital. I came in a few days early for what was supposed to be our mid-service training (one of the few opportunities we have in such a large, sparsely populated country to see everyone in our training class in the same place at the same time (and it ended up being cancelled). Sala, my site mate, got a text from one of our friends who works for the UN that essentially said, "Lie low. There's been a coup."

We called our safety and security officer to confirm or deny and were told to stay in our hotels until further notified. A half bag of skittles and a quarter of a bad elijah wood movie later (Try Seventeen, also starring Mandy Moore and that chick from Run Lola Run) we got an update that we could leave to get food if we stayed within a few blocks of the hotels.

We, naturally, went for hamburgers.

Our opportunities for iron and protein intake are generally few and far between, so without a second's hesitation, we each ordered a "menu burger": miscellaneous meat patty, ketchup, mayo, cheese, mystery sauce, and fries (at least the colonization of West Africa by the French paid off somehow) on a soggy-ish bun. Oh, and I almost forgot-- the egg. God, I love the europeans.

Hunkered down in a restaurant, scarfing down burgers -Ii used to be a vegetarian-- we felt no sense of urgency, no threat. Even moments before, walking down the street in broad daylight, occasional truckloads of Sidi supporters or otherwise yelling and honking to display their discontent or excitement, we felt very much at ease.

Post-burger we stopped at a mini-mart/ corner store to buy supplies in case we got stuck in the hotel: cokes, juice, snacks, Smacks breakfast cereal, milk, bananas, crackers, and water. We were set.

Back to the hotel, a mere three blocks from the bank we saw earlier on tv with all the military and their guns guarding outside it. and what the first thing we did when we got to Hayley's room?

We made s'mores.

Marshmallows she brought back from her vacation home to America on the ends of bobby pins, cooked over a black cherry- scented candle and melded with hershey's (and mauritanian) chocolate on a graham cracker-ish cookie. I think my standards of taste have definitely been lowered after being here for a while, but that legitimately might've been the best smore I've ever eaten. Al humdililah.

Fast forward through a nap, shower, music, drinks, and general goofing off until nighttime. Any place you can get alcohol here is generally closed by around 11:30 pm, so most evening need to be started pretty early by american standards. By the time we got to Shenker's, a bar reserved solely for ex-pats, it was maybe only 9:00.

A beer here, even bottom of the line, costs 1,500 ouguiya (=$6 US), which is roughly my daily salary on a peace corps budget. So, I was at a one beer max, nursing the same leff for an hour and a half. I had struck up a conversation with a twenty-something scotsman I had spoken with the night before. He was working on an oil rig off the west coast of Mauritania, and would be in Nouakchott for just a few weeks. A good red beard and a good conversationalist, we chatted until they started to shut down the bar.

He walked me to the door (the gentleman!) and when we got to the door he gave me a sweet, very nice, very respectful, goodnight kiss (don't worry mom). The other PC volunteers and I caught cabs back to the hotels, got into beds with real mattresses and amazing pillows in air conditioned, quiet rooms and we let our minor beer buzzes lull us into a fitful sleep.

If there's one thing Mmauritania does well, it's a relaxed, non-violent overthrowing of the government. And if every coup d'état includes a burger, smores, a warm shower, beer, and a goodnight kiss, well then, I think that's pretty alright.

I grew up Canadian and would ultimately attribute more of my ‘nationality’ to her than to America. Supposedly, as I’ve been informed, only immigrants and people who can’t speak English refer to the States as ‘America.’ Case in point.

Despite my confused upbringings, there is no doubt where my love lies. Being back home in America was short of glorious. Come July the 4th, I would have outshined any patriot or troop of veterans with my gleeful flag-waving.

-----------------

I re-adjusted to American-life pretty fast. I specifically remember dreaming of turning on faucets, and yet showers quickly moved from mind-boggling to simple routine. There was one difference I could never shake. It would leave me completely paralyzed and panicked.

Choices. My mind was baffled. So many choices.

More often than not my mother would find me strangely magnetized to the open fridge, not too sure what to do or how I got there. My sister installed daily field trips to the grocery to accommodate my inability to walk at normal, human-like pace around the store. On a layover at the Atlanta airport, I set out with the goal to choose some lunch from the long terminal stretch of fast food options (sights I’ve dreamed of for the past year). I wandered that terminal four times, panicking at the loss of time, and ended up on a bench sipping on a box of milk.

The last few months I’ve spent travelling around both America, Mauritania, and Senegal. Between running lessons for new volunteers at the training centre, taking time to visit friends in other villages, and America, I haven’t really cared too much for blogging. Surely enough, you can chalk my blog up to yet another dejected and ignored good intention. And almost as predictable as the first, it is followed up with another good intention. Weekly updates are back.

On the education note:

A close friend of mine lives in a small Hassaniya village about 4 hours North of my town. She is starting a project with her community to improve their school through a program called Peace Corps Partnership Program. Note that it is through this program that most all PC projects world-wide get funded. I added her project here for you to look at. There is a website to look at, and hopefully the pictures are up. Take a look and at least get acquainted with her's or any other PCPP projects.

----------

As some of you already know I am working with my community, Tawaz, to reconstruct the ceilings of my elementary school through Peace Corps Partnership. When the elementary school was originally constructed it was made of corrugated zinc. So, when its 120 outside we

all know this is not far fetched to say its about 150 degrees inside these classrooms. Starting in May these students cannot study past 11:30 in the afternoon.

This is where the fund raising begins. My community will be contributing 25% either in money,

materials or labor where as I will fund the last 75%. So, if you know of any organizations, churches, friends or family state side who would be willing to donate to my project here is the direct website:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=682-099

If that link does not work people can always go to www.peacecorps.gov

Click on 'Donate Now' and scroll down to 'Donate to a Volunteers Project.' Click on that and then scroll down to Mauritania where you will find my school improvement project next to my name K.Young.

"Surprise! The BAC is today."

I got this text from my site mate last week while I was down in the capital for a training conference. The BAC is the series of final exams to get a high school diploma. They are pretty extensive exams of a grade for which most students don't ever even reach, and even fewer pass.

These exams are scheduled for a month from now. However, the teachers decided to bump the BAC exams up a month, by complete surprise. They were re-arranging to accommodate yet another strike - the third one this year. Unfortunately, the strike has gone on ahead. This means, unofficially, school is over for the year - no exams, no grades, no one passes, no one fails, nothing. The whole year is a wash.

It completely blows my mind how seemingly impossible it is to get any form of normal education here. This is really just the topping on a massively crap situation. Ever since the start of working here I have been baffled at how surprisingly stupid the majority of kids are. And, I don't say that accusingly.

Where do you start?

The government decides a couple years ago (a smart move) to yet again change the schooling system back to the bilingual system (Arabic and French). Could you imagine showing up for the first day of school and finding out that half your classes are in a foreign language, but still just as hard? Right.

Primary school is required by law for all citizens. But, the schooling is ridiculous. Teachers will pass kids into College (middle school) who can barely write their name. After doing the after-school French reading program this year, I had to laugh at what was expected for kids to do. I could probably throw a book at their heads and they would learn more.

What else can we add in there?

Teachers that don't show up to school because they take on a different job to make some money (I hate it but what do you do when your country has a food crisis). There are constant strikes; kids can't always go to school because they're running the household from the time their seven years old - or they can't even get from their village to the one middle school 20 miles away.

No High School for you.

Throw in a hand full of other things like, classrooms of 70 - 80 kids, lack of supplies, school rooms made with tin roofs in 120 degree heat.

Then, tell these kids that all their work that year counts for nothing. The teachers are going on strike. How do you even care at that point?

It all sounds incredibly dramatic. It is.

The only thing is, I work with girls on a daily basis to help them improve their education. And, we both put in time to savor that last bit of desire to keep working (even if you're 23 with kids and still trying to pass High School) to get a decent education. This frustrates me, and these kids are stuck here. It's just so damn hard.

Thankfully they see enough of the result of non-education to be pretty turned off by it. Work hard, be smart, and find a way to make a life for yourself. Or, stay in this brown bucket of a town, in the middle of nowhere, laying on the floor of dirty boutique drinking tea all day, trying to ignore the chaos of the 6 children you bore from 5 different men before the time you reached 35.

-----------

A Cyber Cafe just opened up in town so I took the opportunity to teach the girls about the Internet and how to research information. Benches were moved by donkey cart across town, arrangements were made and we were able to throw it all together in a days' time.

We did a basic lesson on the Internet (thanks random course of COMM 110) , and how to research information. I had them research influential African women of the 21st century. I figured I was pretty smart by doing all the research ahead of time to make sure the information was easily findable, easily readable, and relatively safe.

..Hayley gets tired and stops one woman short...

As it turns out, this last woman on my list is a Somalian Muslim-dissident, who is a pretty out-spoken activist over the constraints and abuses of Islam. She actually is pretty amazing and has done incredible work with European governments to harbour and protect Muslim dissidents from Africa and the Middle East. However, when I spent several months (and still am) convincing people that I'm not teaching crazy religious material, trying to convert their daughters, or the like; questions about denouncing Islam and defacing the Prophet is not really something I want to take on.

Girl pulls up the first search item on a page entitled, The Problem is the Prophet and the Koran....Mohamed was a pedophile.

Crap. This is not the kind of expand-your-mind experience I was going for.

*Needless to say - it turned out really well. Count your blessings.

The Opening Ceremony was mild chaos.

Translation: it went great!

We had about 100 people show up. All the “chub-chub” showed up – the governor, the prefect, the mayor, army officials, Heads of Departments, Directors and Presidents of various committees (some real, some not). Teachers showed up. Workers with the GMC showed up. And, all the girls came with members of their families. I got there extra early, because, well, it’s Africa. Things break, people show up 2 hours late, translation takes 4 times longer, and mostly, I have no idea what I’m doing. Often I am asking local people their opinions on how to do something because I want to know the Mauritanian way of doing things. They will often look back at me like, “Why are you asking me? Just tell me what to do.” --------- In Mauritania, a person in charge does not ask the opinion of people they work with. And then, there’s me. So, either I have to figure out exactly what I want to tell people (and think of 5 different ways to say it, because I know we won’t understand each other the first time around), or we go around in circles: “So, what do you think about this idea?” “What do you want me to do?” “How would you address this issue?” (Blank stare) “What do you want me to do?” “I came up with this idea, what do you think about…” *This is normally where my friend Koura will start pacing and cussing me out in Wolof. ------------- Set-up: this meant the director of the school, the school groundskeeper, and myself walking around school buildings, squinting at the sun, trying to calculate which area of dirt would be shaded the longest. Of course, after set up, I did it wrong, and thankfully the Director had the good sense not to ask me, and just to change it. Who would have known for presentations that officials always sit facing the general public, divided by a random table with a tablecloth? (Tablecloth – essential). Where do the presenters go? They just stand somewhere to the side. We got the GMC all arranged, proudly displaying the most expensive items. We arranged a person with a truck to go pick up milk and drinks we ordered the night before from the boutique down the road. Ribbon cutting? Where do we get ribbon? Here. Some coloured plastic strings I’ve been saving. I gave them to a visiting volunteer. Without hesitation she tied them around her toe and braided them into a nice little ribbon. I love PCVs. Wait. Wait. The officials showed up. Evidently this means – start now! I gathered my massive blue mulefa, a gift from a friend for the opening, shuffled to the front (or, side) and gave out my loudest “Is-salam-u a-lay-kum!” (a couple times). I did my opening speech in Arabic which I had practiced with the neighbours all night the night before. The Mayor spoke. The Adjoint Wali spoke. And two GMC members read their entrance essays about why girls’ education is important in Mauritania. I stood by and tried not to display the obvious - I didn’t understand a word they were saying. I congratulated all the girls and then we were off to the GMC for the ribbon cutting. We did tours of the Center, milk and drinks were devoured at light-speed, and everyone seemed mighty content with the mild chaos. --------- A friend asked me, “So, what does it take, exactly, to open a Center like this?” I just stared at him blankly and then kind of chuckled. Where do you start?! It’s hard for me to believe that I went from being food-dropped in some random town in the desert, where I didn’t speak the language, no one knew who I was and really didn’t care, I had no job, and anybody I was to work with were non-existent or never showed up to work. The ministry to which I was assigned (invited to work with) was just an empty building that housed a random sleeping person and broken office supplies. There are so many small things that seem to take years – like finding a someone to stamp a piece of paper; or finding someone with a photocopier; visiting people every day just to have tea (but really so they don’t forget who you are); going back to the tailor and the carpenter a million times to keep drawing little pictures of what “it’s supposed to look like.” And then there are things that somehow just come together. One of those things is the people I work with. Right now I’m working with about 12 local Mauritanian volunteers. Some of them have other jobs, and some of them are mothers that left school before the age of 12. There are 4 teachers that have agreed to give language lessons in Arabic or French. I work with two other teachers to teach computers. We are also training two local women to be computer teachers for the center next year – one in Arabic, one in French. There is also the local mid-wife, and we work together to plan courses on reproductive health – in a place where sex-education is non-existent. Then, there is Koura, Khady and Hawa who are three women I work with to run the center, help facilitate courses with the other local volunteers, and they are learning to teach courses. Most of the people I work with I just met by chance somewhere. (And some of them, I just invited myself into their lives until they decided they were okay with me). We’ve gone through all mess of hurdles together – from officials scolding me for working with “River People” (a.k.a.: slaves); to others not allowing me to work at all; to people disappearing for months at a time; to strikes; to getting permission from people and forming relationships only to have them replaced by the government the next day. Square One is a place I have visited often. This is what I figure: A good starting point – Being bored, lonely, and desperate enough that you go out every day with the understanding that you are going to create yourself a job, no matter what it is, and no matter what it takes. (Drinking my body weight in watery-milky drink? I can do that.) Good continuing point – Act on your instincts.

Just do it (even if it doesn’t make sense).

Keep doing it.

If the relationships around you are good – you’re doing something right.

I can't believe it. It's actually open. It actually exists.

10 months.

30 girls in Junior High and High School.

12 local Mauritanian volunteers.

Me.

The Girls' Mentoring Center of Akjout is officially open.

(Pictures..Stories...to come. In the mean time - woo hoo!)

It’s a fish? Yes.And, it’s a person? Yes. A Woman.And it’s where? In the sea. Go to Nouakchott, or Nouadhibou, to the beach. They are there.

Half-fish and half-women. Mauritanians swear they exist. We chuckle under our breath, half out of our superior education, and half out of sheer amusement. We try and get them to explain and instead we only get plain factual statements.

Half-fish. Half-women. It’s as simple as that. They live in the sea.

My friend was telling me how an English student tried to get her to explain and English word – angel. What is that? She reverted to a dependable system – draw it on paper. She drew a classic stick-person angel with the head, triangle robe/dress, two wings and a halo. The questions began:

Is it a man? No. A woman? No. Well, maybe. Maybe either. We don’t know. What are those? They are wings. Yes, like a chicken. Yes, they fly, but not like a chicken. They fly really, really high in the sky. And, what is that? It’s a circle. No wait, not a circle. It glows. Hm. It’s like a hat. But, like a light, too. Yes, a hat-light. All angels wear them. Where are they? They live in the sky. Up there. (points). Yes, up above, but you can’t see them. Yes, even with hat-lights, you can’t see them.

Uni-sex, flying people with hat-lights. It’s as simple as that. They live in the sky.

As my friend said – “Everyone has their mermaid”. -------- Mermaids exist. It’s true.

I needed to check out for myself. And sure enough, it’s been confirmed, there are mermaids that live in the sea. In fact, even up to 30 years ago, in a rich neighbourhood of Nouadhibou, wealthy Mauritanians would dig pools and fill them with sea water. Then they would catch a mermaid and keep them in the pool to talk to them. But, only for one month. Mermaids can only live in man-made pools for one month and then they need to return to the sea – back to their mother, the large cow that lives in the sea and births mermaids.

How do I know? Well, this is what I’m told - There are a lot of things about the sea we never see and we will never know. And, there are twice as many things about women that we never see and will never know.

This is how I know. Mermaids exist.

I’ve had the same image in my head for the past couple days - those little stress-ball dolls with the red eyes and alien ears. You squeeze them and the eyes and ears pop out, on the cusp of explosion, but they retract back in so, thankfully, you can squeeeeze them out again. - “He’s angry with you.” - Raised eyebrows - “He’s angry that you took the report to his office.” - Lack of words. Didn’t he say to take it to his office? - “He doesn’t want you to deliver it. He wants me to.” - Should I just send it by carrier-pigeon, then? What does he want?! - “You need to go get the report, bring it back, I’ll sign it again for a 2nd time, and then I’ll take it to him.” - Are you serious?! Squeeeeeze. Pop. Pop. I’ll do it. I thought we had somehow coo-ed the beast to sleep. Wooed him in some way, long enough to tip-toe past him and let him go back to sleep. All we need to do is pass, and frankly, the beast could care less if we do. But now, right now, he cares. And, it’s making me crazy. The Head of the Education department had some words with me last week. (This is the same dude that when I was meeting with the mayor, the Heads of the school and Ministry of Women’s Affairs, bust into the meeting on a 10-minute long tirade speech. I stood to the side, trying to avoid all contact with this man. When he paused long enough to breath, he turned around to me, “You! What do you want?!” This was only to be informed by the High School director that we were actually in a meeting and I was in the process of explaining something when he interrupted. “Oh. Oh! Well, why did you stop?! Go!”) Now, once again, he’s not impressed. “What are you doing?!” “Moving in computers.” “Who gave you permission to work at the school?!” “You did.” “Do you have papers for that?” “Yes.” “Do you have papers signed by me?” “Yes.” “Well, what are you doing here?! I didn’t know about this at all.” “Yes, we’ve been discussing this with you since November.” Squeeeze. Pop. Pop. This is a completely useless conversation, but I need to have it anyway... “I am the boss…. do you have papers signed by me?” Squeeeeeeeze Pop Pop Pop.. The only problem is I must operate under the permission of this guy. Everyone must. So you try and find the most expedient way to soothe the rash demands of his ego, and keep working. I spent two days writing up a report of all the activities of everyone I’ve worked with since I’ve been here. I made sure all the translations were correct – both in French and in African politics. I attached minutes from meetings with officials (I knew it was a good idea to write this down), copied forms, proposals made by committees of school officials and the mayor, got all the officials on our Girls’ Mentoring Centre committee to sign it. And stamp it. We shant forget those stupid, pointless, all-too-powerful stamps. Man, Mauritanians like those stupid stamps. Isn’t that what a signature is? (Strangely enough I have a friend that’s waiting to start an agricultural co-operative because she can’t afford a rubber stamp for the co-op. I’ve tried to understand the power of these stamps, and I don’t think I want to anymore.) I dropped it off at his office with his secretary. Forget the 30 minute walk in a sandstorm to do it. He told me to do this right away and that I did. Like I said, I just want to get past the beast and let him get back to not caring. But, I found out today, he didn’t want me to drop it off. He wants the Director of the High School to drop it off – to a secretary. And all the meanwhile – we still can’t open the Centre. How many times can a white girl deliver the same report that’s not going to be read? I think I’m about to find out. Update: The center is still on hold. Mauritanians with jobs go on with there senseless stamp-filled busy work. Mauritanians without jobs shake their heads. And the girls who showed up for an essay contest to be a part of the center loose a little bit more faith in the adult-capacity to come through on their promises. Although, we are looking at using this time to start training adults, future teachers, for the center. We can’t teach girls, but we do have materials and can teach volunteers. Still, I feel bad for these girls.

Working with men in a sexually-repressed conservative society: *Sigh* That’s me. Trying to ask a question about teaching computers while the grown men giggle and bury their faces in each other’s shoulders. It then takes 30 minutes to get back on topic because they sent some kid to retrieve their selection of prized tea caisses (what basically look like shot glasses used for horrible sugary tea) brought back from Senegal. You know, I could be the fine owner of such tea caisses. I just need to say the word. It would be a special gift. Thanks, but I really just want to talk about this teaching and, anyway, I’m bad at making tea. Giggle giggle giggle – she said she’s bad at making tea. Giggle giggle. Meeting adjourned.

My holidays here are rather switched around. I flop between Mauritanian holidays – which I will unfairly minimize to goat killing, goat eating, and walking around in new clothes; and "our" holidays – the atrocious attempts to import American holidays into our lives here. Most often this involves a gathering of American volunteers trying to escape (or at least ignore) the fact that they aren’t at home by making some silly activity that is highly fun, and highly non-culturally sensitive. For volunteers that spend a great deal of effort trying to blend in and learn the customs of another culture, we find great delight in doing exactly the opposite for our holidays. For this Easter holiday, that amounted to our annual Trash Pick-up/Half Desert-Marathon. I went back up North to Atar to join about 20 other volunteers for the festivities. The first day we held a community-wide trash pick-up – a bizarre but appreciated novelty in a world easily described as a sandy trash pile. Mauritanians would probably never do it out of their own volition, but if asked their opinion, they would all agree that there is too much trash and it smells horrible (whilst a goat shreds and splays diaper shards all over the street). We did manage to collect a small child-army that gladly disposed their regular trash-playing activities to hang out with the strange white people with gloves on their hands. It wasn’t long before a fellow volunteer had a line of children, trash in hands, marching down the streets chanting “Fee-cees! Fee-cees!” declaring their incumbent attack on all known trash forms. Meanwhile, I was sharing a thinning plastic bag with 3 little girls, trying to carry its hold of tin shards, diapers, animal parts, and mysterious wads of hair. The next day was the Half-Marathon. I’d say it held loosely to the “Marathon” part of the title. I ran it as a relay with a couple friends, so really, I only ran a Sixth-Marathon. Thankfully, my two friends agreed to put a long-held theory of mine to the test – capes make people run faster. Through a series of attempts, we managed to find a shop that sells spandex fabric (actually, strangely common in this one district); purchase the fabric which all resembled psycholdelic geometric patterns or horrible floral couch print; explain to a tailor (while wearing a skirt) what spandex pants are and that we wanted one pair for a girl and two others for two men; take it to another tailor who fixed the first tailor’s misunderstanding; and run the marathon in our mis-matched spandex pants and capes. The run was gorgeous – through a desert canyon, down sandy paths, in and out of sleepy little African villages with their stick huts of friendly…no, confused-looking…almost, horrified-looking Mauritanians. Oh. Right. I’m wearing florescent floral spandex with shiny hot pants over top. I guess my attempts to cover up myself with my cape are rather futile. That evening, all us volunteers went out to an oasis about 45 minutes out of town and camped out that night. I’ve been to an oasis before, but this was incredible. I cannot believe I live so close to this. We spent the late afternoon hanging out in little spring pools carved into the rocks, under boughs of drooping palm trees. At night, the rocks around the pools shimmered intermittently with glow-worms. And to celebrate, we had night-time-glow-worm-oasis-pool-dance parties.

Atrocious? Yes, if you are counting our lack of cultural-sensitivity. But, I guess that's the point. Home-life remembered. Friends celebrated. Sanity saved.

We all know how we feel about Santa Claus. It doesn’t even matter if there’s little kids around, we’ll still talk about him just because he makes us feel good. I mean, he’s a jolly guy. He likes cookies.

I'm coming to think charity is rather similar.

I had the thought today while hanging out in the home of my friend and her kids – are they a charity case? I looked around and saw the size of the room - no bigger than a small office (or a spacious cubicle), and it’s the home shared by two adults and six kids. Yet, I never think of that. I think how every day they clean their house (even sweeping the dirt – yes, clean-er dirt), make it look as respectable as they can (even though it’s disgustingly full of flies), and that we all just ate a full meal in this little place. It’s a nice home, and it’s as normal to me as seeing feet at the bottom of my legs.

My thoughts on charity: it’s a genuinely selfish and cowardly attempt at self-preservation, trying to convince yourself that you’ve got a goodness that, in reality, takes true guts and sacrifice to attain. The thing is, charity is only ever seen from one side. It’s seen from the side of the person that wants to believe in (and suck dry) its apparent goodness. The recipient often doesn’t care about this part. “Good or not, whether it came from a charitable heart or not, who cares? I just know I’m hungry.” In fact, it’s completely inhuman to see ourselves as charity cases. A charity case is too dependent and we’ve got too much pride for that.

In which case, through charity’s eyes, does the way I live my life now make me a charity case? I don’t think so. I think I live very well. When a friend came from America and gasped at the state of my bathroom/shower, I couldn’t understand it. I had cleaned it especially well before she came and it was the best it ever looked (and smelled).

People don’t see themselves as charity cases. People don’t see themselves as the carnal animals charity would have them be – thank God we’re made with some level of self-respect in ourselves.

So true charity, I think, has absolutely nothing to do with personal goodness. True charity would, then, need to be on a level that’s not so visibly associable to goodness. I don’t know. But, it’s more consistent than that.

And, it knows that there’s no such thing as a charity case.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a terrible memory. I’m still working on memorizing my family members’ birthdays. I’ll let you know how that goes. I just figured this was due to some underdeveloped part of my brain – I didn’t read enough books growing up, I faked my way through much of High School English, or I spent too much time as a child just staring at the sky trying to see if I could detect the curve of the earth with my eyes. I wouldn’t say I’m all too glad for this deficiency. Although, when I do remember something, it makes for a pretty poignant event. I remembered home yesterday. I remembered the amazing smell of clean dirt (Yes, clean dirt. It exists. I could cover myself with it). I remembered the cold, wet feeling of walking to school in the early BC drizzle. I remembered driving to work with my sister (when I didn’t have to calculate if I ate enough rice at lunch to last me the walk across town). I remembered the life of my “former self” and remembered how many things I genuinely love encompass all that. It was too much. I could barely stand each second I remembered. Is this why I forget- to cope, to adapt, to change over to a side of life so foreign to me? Those things I remembered yesterday mean so much to me. I get angry and defensive at the thought of letting them slip away into forgetfulness. But, I have to. I have to, just to be here. So what do I do with these things that I love – my “former life?” Part of me pushes to try and transfer them into my life here, letting myself be conspicuously different because of who I am and what I love. It means walking next door just to hug the life out of my neighbour, because my life here (in every physical sense) is so void of physical touch I almost forgot that I had physical feeling beyond just sweating. So here’s a question: going back to that old life “back in America,” if you will, what will I need to forget then? What new loves will I sacrifice just to cope? To what extent do I even want to cope, or do I just accept a life of unsettledness? There are some things I don’t want to forget: - Understanding what it means to be clean - Understanding what it means to be full - The feeling of the air right when the sun starts to go down – it’s like feeling you just made the biggest accomplishment for making it through this day. - What a full moon means to me now - the difference a full moon makes and how much light it gives. It makes it a lot easier when trying to make a hopeful midnight dash to the “toilet”, but it makes life more difficult when you actually see the bugs in your food right before you put it in your mouth. - The day I genuinely envied a chicken when it shat on my mat, because that was more poop than I’d been able to muster in weeks.- The prayer-call man at the mosque next to my house. Every night he hoarks a loogie over the load speaker in the middle of his “Allllaahh.h.hhh..(Cough. Hoark. Spit)…hhu Ahkbar.” - Living in a culture where you don’t close your door to anyone, whether you hate them or not. (The list is still growing).

Flip flops. Check.

Head-scarf. Check.

Wrap-around skirt. Check.

Normally when I’m about to go work outside I get on my work-jeans, or some shorts and a t-shirt, and some running shoes. It makes sense, no?

This past weekend I spent my time doing mason work, building up a stone wall around my compound. Flip-flops and a skirt for walking in uneven sand and hauling large heavy bricks over my head? Totally reasonable. Yes, I know, it makes about as much sense as the time I tried to walk 30 minutes to-and-from a well, in the pouring rain, hopping puddles with a 25 gallon bucket of water on my head, and what did I wear? – A giant bed-sheet wrapped around my whole body. (This is not abnormal – it’s called a mulefa).

All the same, this is the way dressing always is. Pants seem like such a distant memory that I didn’t even think twice about dressing up in a skirt and flip-flops before I began mixing cement and hauling bricks down the road (tripping over myself the whole way). Perceptions change easily when you’re surrounded. In this case – clothes that make no sense.

Yesterday it was 105 degrees outside. I passed a teenage boy, happily strutting down the road in his new outfit – a fluorescent one-piece ski-suit, zipped up to his chin.

(Okay, maybe not all perceptions change. That was hilarious.)

-----------

You’ve been “shallahed”.

I often think that the second it’s too late – the very same second that I’ve realised I’ve been duped. “Inshallah” – “God willing” – gets thrown around as some culturally-sanctioned safe-guard when you feel like being lazy and dishonest.

Phrase: “Absolutely, I’ll be there!…Inshallah.”

Translation: “There’s no way I’ll show up. You are a completely ridiculous white person, and I have no intention of working with you.”

To me, this word is the equivalent of walking away from a conversation and chuckling under your breath, “Heh…sucker.” I’m sure it had very honourable and respectful connotations when it was first created, but I hate that word. It drives me nuts. It especially drives me nuts because in a town in the Sahara, with no access to a car, and walking everywhere all bundled up in too many clothes, many many many “inshallahs” have led me on hours-long Mauritanian chases, er, goose chases, in 120 degree heat in the middle of the day. In other words, from my experience, I’ve garnered this:

You’ve been “shallahed” = one frustrated Hayley with a nasty case of heat stroke.

Like in any instance where you truly hate something, what do you do? You overcompensate in the complete opposite direction. This is why I find myself trying to do whatever I can to follow through on anything I tell a Mauritanian. I feel this need to prove to them that if you are going to do something – do it. Even if I know something was a stupid idea and I’ll regret it later, I still make myself do it. It’s like my little “Stick it to the Man” of the Inshallah world.

But now, this drive is to the degree that I’ll do it to myself. What does that prove? Absolutely nothing.

-----------

I had made up my mind that morning that I would come back home later on in the day and finish off the last of the cement work. I still had to fill in some gaps with cement and scrap rocks. There was no rush, really. I could have just left it. For some stupid reason I told myself I’d come back to do it at the end of the day (mistake number one), and for some even more idiotic reason, I couldn’t just let myself admit to stupidity. I told myself I would, and I had to follow through.

It’s the curse of the inshallah. It plagues me now. I refuse to use the word, and yet I overcompensate by forcing myself to follow through on any idea I have. And what did this curse get me last night?

- Doing the work all by myself. Everyone else (for good reasons) had gone to bed.

- Balancing a bowl of wet cement in one hand while balancing on one-foot on a rock, so as to reach the top of the wall. (This was after I already fell through a turned-over bucket, and fell off a 3-foot metal saw-horse...still with the bowl of wet cement).

- Attempting to do masonry by moonlight.

- Going to bed completely covered in cement, and utterly frustrated for following through on a completely idiotic idea.

The curse of inshallah – damned if I do and damned if I don’t. But, I have a wall.

I'm an English expert, right? I guess that's my one claim to fame in this place. It's quite astonishing how much (as a Westerner) we downplay our command of the English language. In our mind, it's not a very showy skill. But, for much of the rest of developing world it's worth it's weight in gold. I've had adults run at a sprint just to track me down and ask me the location of English classes.

In this country, the local language is just that - local. Even another Arabic-speaking country might not understand them. So, for some people, it's their only hope of communicating with the world outside their borders. And considering that world (Western) pockets the majority of the world's money, I would want to communicate with them too.

You may have more to offer than you think. In other words, get out those grammar books.

----------

It was time to put my English expertise to work. My site-mate had emailed me while I was still coming back to Akjoujt, and I caught her email in Nouakchott. Her and her husband got stuck in Dakar and would not be back to run their community English course that night. I was planning on just posting a note saying the class was postponed, but with a little more fore-thought I remembered that I couldn't write Arabic. Problem. I should just teach the class. Plus, this would be the perfect time to exert my English expertise.

I arrived in Akjoujt, dropped my bags, downed a quick lunch of rice and fish with my neighbors, and went straight to class. Wouldn't you know it, things are back to normal in Akjoujt. I resumed the same old argument with the mayor's office - they said they would provide a classroom to teach English classes, and it has never materialised. We've been trying to work with them for weeks on these community english classes but they are lazy and never follow through on what they say.

Sure enough, when I arrive, the promised classroom is locked and the Mauritanians sitting outside by the road. I find the guardian sleeping and ask him to open the class. He says there is no class today and the vice-mayor says to have it in another side building. Problem. 1) There is class today, people are here, and some of them have walked 30 minutes or more just to get here. 2) We are looking at the side building and it's filled up floor-to-ceiling with desks and chairs covered in inches of sand. We go through quite a bit of useless bickering until I finally asked the students if they wanted to have class. They said "yes."

Perhaps it was the culmination of too many arguments with this vice-mayor. Perhaps it was that I had too much pride to let him cancel this class. Perhaps it was the heat that was making me increasingly hasty (and pissed off). Together with my English army, we took those desks out of the room and set them up in a circle by the side of the road. Done. Road-side English lessons.

It wasn't until I was standing in the middle of this desk-circle that I realised I had no chalk, no blackboard, and writing in the sand doesn't work as well as one might think. But, this wouldn't be Mauritania if I wasn't constantly trying to do something without a clue as to how.

Time to put that English expertise to the test.