There was a time in Mauritania when I was the equivalent of a small African child and would greet the arrival of white landcruisers in town with an excitement typically reserved for presents on Christmas morning.

I remember one day in particular, when some Europeans arrived in my dusty desert outpost of Tidjikja. I was walking back from the clinic when a landcruiser glided by, and I caught a flash of white skin in the cool, air-conditioned interior. At that moment, it took everything I had in me not to yell “Nasraniya” and chase after the car with the same awestruck wonder that most Mauritanian children did. Instead, I picked up my jaw, which was hanging somewhere by my feet, adjusted my veil, and hurried home to share the news with the other volunteers.

As if it weren’t already evident from the above story, white landcruisers hold an iconic status in the minds of most Peace Corps Volunteers. While the sentiments attached to these vehicles may shift depending on country of service, the gist is usually the same – white landcruisers represent the outside world and a level of comfort not usually known to Peace Corps volunteers who casually throw around phrases like, “poo hand.”

In Mauritania, I unequivocally greeted their arrival with joy as their presence could only mean one of two things. Either a Peace Corps car had arrived with several months worth of care packages in tow - a regular Santa Claus on wheels - or adventurous tourists had stopped by en route to the ancient city of Tichit. Either way, it was something new to interrupt the daily doldrums of life and work in Tidjikja.

When I began work in Rwanda, my perspective shifted. In the wake of the 1994 genocide, the country was inundated by international development agencies and NGOs, and each of these organizations brought an accompanying fleet of vehicles with their colorful logos emblazoned on the side. Landcruisers were suddenly everywhere, even in my city of Rwamagana, and the urge to chase after them like a small child quickly vanished. Nor was my sponsoring organization – The ACCESS Project – a stranger to this creature comfort as we conducted daily field visits in our equally iconic white Toyoto Helix.

But somehow, the landcruiser retained an air of elitism in my mind despite their uncommon prevalence in Rwamagana. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer after all and that meant living life as part of my community. When the landcruiser and its occupants sped back towards the capital at the end of each day, I remained to eat tasteless ubugali with my family, play with my neighbor’s kids, and dread my icy cold shower in the morning. In the same vein, anytime I had to get anywhere else for non-work reasons, I crammed into the pea-sized, broke down mini-buses with everyone else and their mother (literally).

Given my perspective of the landcruiser culture heretofore, you can imagine my surprise then (mixed with some modicum of shame) when I crossed over that yawning gulf between Peace Corps Volunteer and development worker while working in Malawi this summer. It produced an odd sense of internal dissonance. Now I’m the one who speeds away from the dusty village in the white landcruiser, back to my friends in the capital, creature comfort food, and entertainment. No longer do I worry about scorpions creeping towards my bed in the middle of the night, as in Mauritania.

Of course, this is all to say that you never really leave Peace Corps. You leave the village, but you never surrender that perspective which enveloped you so completely, enabling you to welcome new and different people into your circle of family and friends and prodding you to not just explore, but to live a different culture. This same perspective is what drove me to learn what little Chichewa I could in the two months I am here and to observe what social norms I know of in Malawi. This, in contrast to certain expats who behave as though they live in Las Vegas and not the capital of one of the poorest countries in Africa.

Another hand me down from Peace Corps - I insist on living as frugally as possible. This standard has led me to rely on the local minibuses and my own two legs for transport while in the capital. These two options don’t strike me as the worst possible, especially when fares are as cheap as they are. But there are obviously some expats who would be very reticent to use local transport.

Case in point - at a party two weeks ago, I happened to meet some guys who invited me to go swimming with them at their country club the day after. I jumped at the opportunity, and, when they asked me where and when they should pick me, I replied that I would just catch the minibus which travels from my neighborhood to theirs. The two guys looked at me incredulously, asked if I really took the minibuses, and then broke into laughter. Suffice to say, I decided not to join them for the swim. Beyond my transportation choices, I must give the impression of being a Peace Corps volunteer in other ways as several other expats have assumed that I am a volunteer. Perhaps it’s the eau-de-poor graduate student that I put on each day?

While integration à la Peace Corps is no longer possible for me in my current position, I remain thankful that I at least recognize this shift in my perspective and am unafraid to live a life as part of a community – taking minibuses or walking, chatting with newspaper vendors, bargaining in the market, and sharing meals with Malawian friends in their homes.

My vacation this past weekend to Lake Malawi further demonstrated this new divide. At one of the lodges, I ran into some Peace Corps volunteers. They wore kitenge (wax print), spoke Chichewa with the local staff, and when they ate their cheese pizzas, you could readily observe how much they savored the food compared with their diets in the village. At the end of the day, we all left Cape Maclear. Tellingly, I packed into my friend’s SUV for the ride back to the capital, and they jumped into the flat bed of a truck, wrapped their faces with kitenge, and prepared for the dusty ride back to the village. We smiled at each other and waved goodbye. It was as if I was riding away in a white landcruiser.

Picture: Me and the members of my current project in Chinthembwe, Malawi - right before leaving to return to the capital

3:57AM: The roosters crow way too early here. Momentarily roused, I drift back to sleep thinking, “that damn bird’s broken again” and dreaming of roosters strutting around with giant snooze buttons on their head. But then he crows again, and I’m forced to peak one eye open and blindly search for my phone. The room is still dark, but the moon is bright and casts a silver light through the gauzy white mosquito netting. My phone blinks neon blue in the dark, and I see that, indeed, it’s just as early as I thought it was.

That bird has been broken ever since I arrived in country. He crows at the ungodly hour between 3:30 and 4:00AM and then again 12 hours later in the afternoon. I’m pretty sure he and the rest of his compatriots need to be reset, if there were a way to do so, but I also know that this is the standard reveille for most Malawians. It’s something I learned my first day in country when my counterpart, in depositing me at my guesthouse, said “Okay, see you tomorrow at 7:30!” I thought it might be a one-time affair to arrive at work so early, but going on day 15, it seems to be the norm. The day begins and ends early, with most Malawians going to bed by 8:30 or 9:00. As Malawi, located in the Southern Hemisphere, is now entering its winter, I don’t know if this is just a seasonal quirk. Regardless, it’s a schedule, along with the roosters, which I must adjust to for the next few months.

Malawi – the little I’ve seen of it thus far - is a beautiful country. It has vegetation similar to that of Rwanda – friendly waving banana leaves, spiked palms, dense avocado trees and other trees which resemble some variation of an oak. It is hilly though not in any readily observable manner; the curves of the land are hidden by the dense vegetation. On the outskirts of the capital, the land immediately converts to farmland with wave after wave of maize and red-tipped long grass stretching out before you. I have yet to visit the famed Lake Malawi, but I know its waters will only compound the beauty of the country. Indeed, most of what I have observed outside the capital of Lilongwe has been on trips to my eventual site in Ntchisi. The district features a similar topography to the capital though it is, obviously, much more rural.

One thing available in my district which I have yet to find in the capital are field mice - grilled on sticks and ready to eat. Bon appétit! I really thought my friend, Malcolm, was joking when he mentioned this local delicacy. Even when my driver motioned to a small boy holding a stick by the roadside and said “mice,” I didn’t put two and two together. I looked to the ground and said, “No, that was a boy,” convinced he was confusing English words. He shook his head at the naïve American and smiled. It was only upon seeing another small boy by the road that I finally noticed the mice dangling from the stick he carried. We’ll see if I get up the gumption to try mice before I leave the country… me thinks not.

What I have seen of the capital, I have explored mostly on the weekends, as I don’t have much time during the actual week. Some friends and I ventured to a land dedication ceremony on Sunday and were treated to a local dance exhibition that reminded me of they way boys treat girls in elementary school. It was pretty fantastic, featuring giant papier-mâché animal replicas with male actors underneath who would occasionally break ranks to chase the female singers. A giant red, white, and black snapping turtle and what appeared to be an antelope would pursue the women after which the females would cautiously creep back towards the animals, whispering things behind cupped hands. Twenty-four hours after the fact, I’m still not quite sure what I actually witnessed. I’ve also made it out to a few dance clubs in town, which allowed me to watch men stalk women in a different way. Err, awkward…

In addition to my weekend explorations, I have also resumed my role of “the odd white girl who runs.” Waking at 5:30 each day, I’m able to log a few miles before I have to report to work and, in turn, provide countless Malawians with some early morning giggles and/or heart attacks. I have yet to hear anyone say to me, “What the hell is that?” as they routinely did in Mauritania, but there is one older gentleman who every day without fail will take a few wary steps back as he sees me approach and then scamper across the road to walk on the other side. I really want to smile and greet him with something akin to “I come in peace,” but instead we usually meet at the point in my run when I’m snotty, red-faced, and barreling towards the proverbial finish line. Perhaps this forthcoming week…

Though I’ve highlighted those rarified moments above when my “otherness” was readily apparent, in general, Malawians have been wonderfully cordial and welcoming. They have a slow, sarcastic wit that isn’t showy, but always makes you chuckle in retrospect. And the Malawians with whom I work seem genuinely honest and motivated to change their own circumstances and that of their compatriots. Having travelled throughout West and Central Africa, I wonder if perhaps I really have found “the warm heart of Africa.”

The room was bare - a green-sheeted examination table pushed up against the far wall and a large desk, cluttered with papers, bisecting the room’s length. A lone poster fluttered on the wall, moving every time the door swung open or shut. The lack of other adornment so typical of Western medical offices was not uncommon here at the Ruhunda Health Center. More striking, however, was the absence of a sink or even a bucket in which health center staff and patents could briefly wash their hands.

The general consultation room at Ruhunda routinely sees an average of 60 patients each day. This is where Juvenal Niyomugaba, the Vice Titulaire at Ruhunda, practices. Beginning at 8:00 each morning and working until 4:00 or 5:00 each evening, Juvenal consults with patients, treating them for a wide assortment of illnesses and conditions including respiratory illnesses, malaria, pre and postnatal consultations, and general wounds and skin infections. As they enter the room, he congenially greets them with a handshake and then proceeds to investigate their aches and pains or dress their wounds. Despite the otherwise professional nature of the visit, the health center’s lack of running water made it difficult for Juvenal to wash his hands between consultations except for the few moments when he was able to take a quick break.

“I am busy every minute of the day - in consultations with new patients, meeting with past patients, and performing administrative tasks,” said Juvenal. “I am a professional, so I know the importance of hand washing between patients, but how can I do it when there is no sink and no bucket to wash my hands with and I have to go outside to fetch water? It’s not possible.”

Unfortunately, this unsanitary and poor clinical practice was not singular to Juvenal’s service. Rather, it was an intolerable condition shared among all rooms and health professionals at the health center. Most notably, neither the delivery room nor the pediatric and adult consultation rooms at Ruhunda had access to running water. That any doctor would be forced to deliver a child without immediately washing his or her hands before and after performing procedures is unfortunate and reveals the sometimes perilous risks inherent to both practitioners and patients when water is not available.

Ready and reliable access to water is critical in determining the quality of care offered at health centers in Rwanda. Rwandans face a daily onslaught of pathogens and parasites which threaten their health in both small and large ways. Soil transmitted helminths, amoebas, and general bacteria and viruses exploit the country’s poor hygiene, resulting in increased morbidity and lowered productivity among both working adults and students.

Water is an easy remedy to these problems, especially in health centers where people are most vulnerable. Not only does water enable equipment sterilization equipment and hygienic care, but its presence in health centers also allows health professionals to role model good hygiene and hand washing.

Unfortunately, many health centers must operate without this basic service. According to the 2008-2009 Ministry of Health Annual Statistical Booklet, only 59% of health centers nationwide are connected to either the local or national water grid. The rest must rely on a combination of rainwater harvesting, surface water from nearby lakes or rivers, and wells and boreholes. Even those health centers already connected to a water grid must struggle to bring water inside their health centers; they are often forced to carry water in buckets from an outside tap on to the grounds of the health center. Before local Access Project Peace Corps Volunteers applied for and received water grants from Appropriate Projects, both Ruhunda and Musha Health Centers were among Rwanda’s many health centers without internal running water.

The villages of Ruhunda and Musha are both located in the Rwamgana District in the Eastern Province of Rwanda. Ensconced in the folds of gently rolling hills in rural Rwanda, they both host small communities of small scale and subsistence farmers. While both Ruhunda and Musha are relatively close to the nearest regional capital, Rwamagana – a mere 20 and 30 kilometers, respectively - the cities remain largely untouched by modernity. Although electricity and cell phone coverage are available, few in these largely agricultural cities use these resources.

But in March and April of 2010, the Ruhunda and Musha Health Centers took a critical step in their path towards modernization and improving the care they provide. With assistance from Access and its Peace Corps Volunteers, funding from Appropriate Projects, and the initiative and leadership of the health center titulaires, sinks were finally installed and connected to running water at both health centers, thereby eliminating previous practices of hauling water by bucket and sporadic hand washing.

The projects were organized and executed by Peace Corps Volunteers Colleen Laurence and Kara Rogers in coordination with the Rwamagana District Health Advisor, Charles Ngirabatware. The volunteers worked with Appropriate Projects, an initiative of Water Charity, to coordinate the funding of each project. According to the description on their Website, Water Charity aims to complete small but critically important water and sanitation projects working exclusively with Peace Corps Volunteers serving throughout the world. They mandate that each project present a complete solution to a problem, use appropriate technology, finish quickly, and cost no more than $500.

At Ruhunda, the project outfitted both the general and pediatric consultation rooms as well as the delivery room with sinks. Similarly at Musha, the consultation, pharmacy, surgery, and pediatric rooms received sinks and were connected to the local water source. From start to finish, the projects took on average two months to finish, and the positive results were visible immediately. A combined population of 22,167 people from the cities of Gishari, Munyiginya, and Ruhunda (all served by the Ruhunda Health Center) and 15,432 people within the Musha Health Center catchment area now receive a higher standard of care when they visit the local health center. In follow-up visits after the conclusion of construction, nurses and technicians applauded the improvements and noted an unexpected benefit from the water project – namely, their health had improved as well!

During the application process, Gerard Kaberuka, Titulaire of the Ruhunda Health Center, said, “Everyone knows that water is the source of life. If we receive water, then we receive life. Water will decrease disease prevalence and improve the quality of services offered at the center.” Now, thanks to Water Charity, water flows freely and life blooms in a healthy environment at Ruhunda and Musha.

Since first writing, several other projects to install internal running water in health centers have been organized and completed by Peace Corps Volunteers in conjunction with Water Charity. Jessica McGhie facilitated projects at three separate health centers in the northern Musanze District to install running water in the hospitalization, consultation, and pharmacy services at two centers and pipe in and treat the water at another. Similarly, Colleen Laurence has just completed her second project at the Murehe Health Post in Rwamagana District which installed sinks in the maternity, consultation, and laboratory services and connected them to the on-grounds water source. Her colleague in Rwamagana, Jenny Boyd, is currently working with the staff at Rubona Health Center to install water in their maternity, consultation, and laboratory services. The combined impact of these projects will affect the over 125,000 people who seek care at these health centers.

A copper cloud of dust kicked up from the tires as our truck pulled itself up the steep hill towards the Muyumbu Health Center. Every few minutes, Anatole, our driver, would swerve to avoid the gaping potholes in the road and the yawning precipice which bordered it. Originally, these drives to rural health centers were a bit of a bother, but, by this point, I was unfazed by the constant jostling and, instead, used the time to catch up on sleep or debate politics with Charles. In this sense, the day was like any other.

It was a Wednesday morning, and we were running late as usual. I was dozing in the back seat as we zoomed over the steep terrain. Suddenly, the car lurched to a stop so quickly that my head banged into the front seat. As the dust settled, I rubbed my forehead and hastily scanned the perimeters of the truck. Did we run over something? A goat? A small child? “Charles, what happened?” I asked, still looking around. He was unresponsive, gazing out the window. “Charles, qu’est qui se passé?” I demanded, wondering if he had understood my harried question in English.

“Look.” That was all he said. I followed his gaze to an adjoining pasture which I hadn’t noticed in my frenzied search. There, over 30 long-horned, Ankole cows grazed in blissful ignorance of our white truck and its gawking onlookers. “We stopped for cows?!” I asked, not meaning to shriek in the process. The higher octave must have caught Charles’ attention because he then turned to me and proceeded to patiently explain the merits of each respective cow, noting their color, the size and shape of their horns, and their thickness and breadth. While this educational session didn’t calm me as Charles had perhaps hoped, it did serve another purpose, as a useful introduction to an element of Rwandan culture to which I previously hadn’t paid much heed before our drive-by cow-gazing that day.

This episode took place about three months ago, but since then I have been witness to several other moments when Rwandans displayed an almost undue reverence for cows. Instead of going to a country home or lake house for the weekend, I visit people’s pastures and cows; neighbors offered me gifts of cow butter when I first arrived in Rwamagana; and when lusty men try to woo me, they call me “cow eyes.” (Charming, right? You boys in the US could learn a few lessons from your African counterparts :P) In any case, through conversations with Charles and other Rwandan friends, I eventually came to appreciate their attitude towards cows and how it developed.

Long-horned cows or inka are woven into the fabric of Rwanda’s history, culture, and language even though they are actually an exotic species to region. Cows were introduced to the fertile Great Lakes region early on by traders and thrived in the environment, unique in Africa for its ability to host grazing livestock. Inevitably, cows became important fixtures of life in Rwanda, and their significance continues to this day. Not only do they provide milk and other dairy products critical for sustenance, but they also have symbolic importance in Rwandan culture. It’s difficult to escape them; cows are everywhere, physically and figuratively. When visiting a friend or family, you often sit down to share news over African tea (milk and tea with ginger); in dances performed at religious and cultural events, the women rhythmically sway and throw up their arms in a graceful V-shape, palms outward to mimic the slope and curve of cow horns; and, when I first arrived in Rwamagana, old women routinely asked me, “urushaka amata?” (Do you want milk?), sly smiles playing over their lips. I was always hesitant when responding to this question but, out of politesse, usually said yes. At this point, the women would always throw up their hands in a “Thanks be to God” salutation and call for their eldest son. I eventually figured out that “urushaka amata?” had a double meaning – are you looking for a husband? Needless to say, I don’t accept milk as often as I once did now.

Cows are also used as an informal currency in Rwandan culture, and the number of cows attributed to an individual is often used to gauge that person’s stature in the community. Once, towards the beginning of my service in Rwanda, Charles shyly admitted that he had over 20 cows at his pasture in Gisenyi and invited me to come visit them sometime. As I made more connections, I met more individuals who seemed similarly abashed while divulging the number of cows to their name. Eventually, I realized that these seemingly modest admissions of wealth were not modest at all, but a way to slyly establish their position and power in relation to others without overtly bragging.

In a culture which so glorifies cows and the stature they confer, it’s easy to see how this system could be manipulated to create and/or sustain a hierarchy. In fact, this is exactly what happened when Belgian colonialists assumed control of the Ruanda-Urundi region from the Germans in 1923 following the conclusion of World War I. Before Belgian’s began their governance, ethnic identity was a much more fluid concept. The Tutsi-Hutu distinction was not determined based upon physical appearance, as the Belgians preferred to believe and eventually instituted, but rather by the number of cows one possessed. The prevailing class system featured a minority Tutsi upper class and lower classes of Hutus and Tutsi commoners; however, one’s Tutsi-Hutu designation could change depending on the number of cows he or she acquired. For example, a Hutu pastoralist who attained a significant number of cattle would come to find himself and his family considered Tutsi.

The Germans and Belgians co-opted this economic system to create puppet rulers of the Tutsis, using Hamitic theory as its religious support. Individuals with 10 cows or more were labeled as Tutsi, issued an identity card, and educated through the public education system creating an educated Tutsi elite. Conversely, all those with 9 cows or less were labeled as Hutu and systematically disenfranchised by Belgian colonialists and the Tutsi class of rulers. In 1926, the Belgians also abolished the local posts of “Land Chief,” “Cattle Chief,” and “Military Chief” which further stripped Hutus of any local power they might have had over the land. Eventually, the labels which were originally economic in nature (akin to our labels of blue collar and white collar perhaps) became forever attached to physical traits.

It’s April - Genocide Memorial Month in Rwanda - and during this time of searching reflection and remembrance, I can’t help but wonder how the genocide would have been different or even if it would have occurred at all had these labels not been manipulated. Would the original economic divisions between Hutus and Tutsis have fomented into mass genocide as well or might they have found outlet in some of the socialist movements which gripped Africa in the wake of independence? But these “what if’s” are useless in retrospect. They do not heal the physical and mental wounds left by genocide nor do they address the very real issues of living and working in this developing country…of preventing this still very stratified society from shattering yet again.

Some believe that cows could still help this divided society even as many revile them as part of the problem. In 2006, President Kagame instituted a program to distribute cows to 250,000 of the poorest households at absolutely no cost. His hope and that of the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources is that the cows will help support low-income households through milk and manure production. Heifer International also has an active presence in Rwanda and, since 2000, has been working to distribute cows throughout communities as part of their “Fight For Peace” initiative. When Heifer provides a family or household with a cow, they also educate those individuals about zero-grazing technology, better breeding practices, and conflict mediation techniques.

And yet while some, like Paul Kagame and Heifer, seek to increase Rwandans’ access to cows, others aim to limit it. It’s interesting to examine some of the compelling efforts at present to modernize Rwanda’s economy. The organization One Acre Fund is working in several districts to measure the actual worth of cows – the foodstuffs which they produce, their social value, and their monetary value at the time of sale versus their buying price. Though they are still in the process of conducting their evaluation in several districts, the results from some completed surveys reveal that, in general, “cows are not worth their fat.” The money which people use to buy, feed, and keep cows is not equivalent to the money and stature received in turn, especially for those small-scale and subsistence farmers who are only able to keep one or two cows at most. One Acre Fund argues that the money spent on cows would be better spent on education, health, and improving agricultural practices. One of my closest friends here, an English Education volunteer in Cyangugu, is working with Once Acre Fund’s campaign to educate Rwandans and help them to reevaluate the worth of their cows compared to health insurance, school fees, and nutritious food. It’s difficult work, she confessed to me, but she has faith that the “right” priorities will eventually prevail. Honestly, I’m a bit conflicted on the subject of livestock aid and am inclined towards the skepticism of One Acre Fund till proven differently.

Some of my language facilitators during training seemed similarly convinced that owning and obsessing over cows was a passé practice and that the importance of cows in Rwandan culture would fade as individuals confronted the necessities of modernization. Perhaps there is some merit to their claims, but, in speaking with my best friend, Janet, she seemed equally insistent that Rwandans would never fully free themselves of their ties to cows. I also asked Janet, who was recently engaged, whether she would accept money in lieu of cows at her dowry ceremony. She seemed affronted by the idea and immediately nixed any possibility thereof. According to her, when a family gives the bride’s family money in exchange for her hand, it is akin to selling her whereas if they give cows, they honor her and her family. Not being Rwandan, both practices seem terribly antiquated to me, but a small part of me (the anthropologist inside) wishes that Rwandans still practiced their previous custom in which a male member of the bride’s family took a spear and threw it as far as he could in the bride-groom’s pasture. According to tradition, all the cows between that male and the place where his spear landed would be apart of the dowry and herded from one pasture to another in an elaborate ceremony involving both families.

Alas such ceremonies are untenable now, but, at least for the time being, cows remain entrenched as both figurative and literal presences in Rwanda, and I hope this doesn’t change any time soon. Honestly, I’m not ready to wave goodbye to this cow-crazed culture just yet. I mean, where else can I use the insult I just learned? Kunnywa cy’inka. Roughly translated, “shit on your cows.”

Ensconced between folds of gently rolling hills in rural Rwanda lies the Ruhunda Health Center. This clinic is fairly typical by African standards. Cows graze in the adjoining pasture; mothers and tired children wait in negligibly clean, open air sitting areas; and staff members support operations in the maternity and general consultation wards by running buckets of water from a pump outside. It’s no Beth Israel or even Patient First in America, but it is suffices, meeting the needs of the 22,167 people whom it serves in the villages of Gishari, Munyiginya, and Ruhunda. To them, the clinic is merely an extension of their daily reality - poverty - and there is little which they can do to change that. At Ruhunda, patients can access a range of services, including maternity, general consultation for children and adults, minor surgery, family planning, vaccination, and voluntary counseling and testing for HIV, among others. The center also runs a successful community health worker (CHW) program which trains Joe Schmo Rwandans to go into communities and conduct information sessions on a range of health topics. A cursory review of the facilities and programs in place at Ruhunda would yield a positive review in the eyes of many a Rwandan health official. They would interpret the above description as evidence that Ruhunda is a self-sustaining health center. But they would be wrong. Oversight and planning of any kind is minimal. Reform is needed to improve the quality of care offered at Ruhunda and the countless health centers like it, but change won’t originate in top down Rwandan reform or by peasant uprising. Nor can we entirely rely on staff members who are too consumed by processing patients quickly and day-to-day survival to be the whistle blowers. There can be no doubt that the Ruhunda Health Center is in great need of additional reform and aid. The real question is what type of aid do they need most. Different people would answer this question differently. Jeffrey Sachs might visit Ruhunda and proclaim the need for increased bed net distribution to allay the high prevalence of malaria, one of Ruhunda’s most frequently-treated afflictions. If Bono trekked out to Ruhunda, he might lobby for increased ARV monitoring and distribution as the keys to success. Scarlett Johansson would probably talk about malnutrition, kitchen garden demonstrations, and maybe a de-worming campaign. And me? What is my recipe for improvement at Ruhunda? An annual budget plan, drug requisition formulas, and a modem to update antivirus definitions on the center’s three out of four functioning computers. This, my friends, is the less sexy, but equally important aspect of development work. Allow me to clarify. I say “sexy” because concepts like financial management and data processing do not pull at the heartstrings like AIDS orphans or school fees. Terms like these will never grab headlines and will forever struggle to grab the attention of most development workers. And yet these issues are equally as important and influence the quality of service for patients with illnesses like malaria, AIDS, and malnutrition. How can a health center with no annual budget in place afford to plan vaccination campaigns, buy or replace equipment, or even pay its staff? If the pharmacy is stocked out on mebendazole, how will they treat 5-year old Esperance who has contracted ascaris worm and subsequently suffers from malnutrition? Indeed, how can a center expect to achieve progress on any front if they fail to accurately record and analyze monthly data? This is what The Access Project and I, as a member of this organization, strive to improve each day. Peace Corps assigned me to The Access Project – a project run out of Columbia University and The Earth Institute - in early December. In the beginning, I had only a vague idea of the organization and its goals. “They focus on macro-level management and infrastructure issues,” I told people, not really knowing what I meant by those words. But my friends seemed to buy it, nodding their heads knowingly in response. I bought into this hazy idea too, intrigued by the prospect of working on big picture issues after concentrating so heavily in health education on the ground in Mauritania. After a few weeks in “the field” - traveling to remote health centers, interviewing staff members, and surveying record books and general conditions - the heretofore fuzzy objectives of The Access Project became increasingly defined. Suddenly, I was cross-checking health metrics data, brainstorming methods to streamline insurance information, and admonishing health center directors to purchase internet modems. In between, practicing English with every other Rwandan, of course. Suddenly, I understood how useful a business mentality could be if applied to the health system. Each of the centers I visited was functioning below its optimal capacity because of poor management and/or lack of obvious incentive to change its current practices. Believe it or not, the resources and money were there; all they needed was a little training, a push or, more likely, a shove in the right direction, and, most importantly, a change in mindset about their responsibility to provide the best care possible…which is where my work begins. Each day, my fellow team members and I drive 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours out to health centers tucked away in remote corners of the district. Our team of four consist of Anatole The Hun, our driver; Charles “The Strongarm” Ngirabatware, former politician and head of Access in the Rwamagana District; our resident number cruncher and erstwhile bookie, Pascal; and yours truly, the supposed tech guru (laughable, I know). You’ll have to pardon the nicknames; I like to pretend that our cadre is a highly-specialized team akin to the one amassed by Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible, just without the marshal arts and bloodshed. It spices up long drives. When we arrive at the health centers, the act ends, and we all set to work on our respective tasks. Pascal meets with the accountant and/or the insurance manager to discuss budget plans, review financial records, and check insurance enrollment. Charles discusses necessary improvements in infrastructure, planning and coordination, and human resources with the center director. He also steps in whenever Pascal or I need help applying pressure or, in my case, translation in one of our sectors. Officially, I split my time between data management and IT, but, more often than not, I end up teaching Excel 101, virus prevention, and how to use System Restore to rooms crammed with administrators. Crowding around a beat up laptop, we wile away hours on end, experimenting with different formulas, plugging data into graphs, and reveling in the mystery that is file creation. On slow days, I start scanning all computers at one time and reward the staff member with the lowest number of infected files. They love to mock the person with the most computer viruses; it’s an interesting spin on peer pressure. In those sectors which record information electronically like Finance, Data, and Insurance, I stress weekly and quarterly data back-up. I never thought I’d derive as much pleasure from IT as I did from health education, but I do. The joy on Victoire’s face when she master’s graph creation in Excel is the same as Aminetou’s when she learns how to convince others not to use skin lightening cream. Some might perceive my IT and data management lessons as a drop in the bucket in terms of effectiveness, but I know they’re not. I’ve seen the results – the spike in efficiency and tech comfort, the greater care afforded equipment at the center, the increased awareness and response to predominant health issues among health center staffs. This is the less sexy side of aid at work. If you’d like learn more about the efforts of The Access Project, you can read up on them at www.theaccessproject.com. I am also in the process of applying for a grant to install running water in the maternity and general consultation rooms at the Ruhunda Health Center. If you’d like to donate to my specific project, wait a week and then look for it at http://appropriateprojects.com. Applying MBA practices to health care management is not a revolutionary thought in the world of international development. In the wake of massive, billion dollar aid programs which produce mediocre results, academics and practicians have long hailed the need for increased oversight and application of a business-like mentality to development work. “Reward results, not grandiose plans!” they cry. I get it. Now, I understand their arguments in a very real sense. Only, my battle cry is a bit different and, again, not as catchphrase-worthy. If I yelled, “Improved efficiency, monitoring, and management!” into the LiveAid crowd, I would probably get a few polite claps, some confused shrugs, and the overwhelming sound of crickets. But it’s true. We need to focus on the managerial and systemic roots of certain problems in order to improve the overall quality of care and response to those big name diseases. (In America too!) Don’t misunderstand me. There is a place and need for both types of aid when well executed and successful. After all, we’re all playing on the same team, and Bono and Company, more so than I, have the ability to raise the profile of poverty in modern conscious. Likewise, Jeff Sachs and I both share the pipe dream that is the Millennium Development Goals even if I do have beef with its feasibility. And in the end, how can I begrudge Oprah and Angelina their orphans and bed nets?

Swinging back and forth in the wind, the fuzzy tennis ball taunted them from 15 feet above. Each girl craned her neck and stared disbelievingly at the ball hanging from the tree. Meanwhile, the coordinator explained their group objective, grinning mischievously at each girl who let out an exasperated snort in return. They were supposed to do what? Kiss the ball? What type of camp was this anyhow? But when the whistle was blown, each girl began to examine the situation and each other anew. How could they, a group of 12 teenage Rwandan girls, facilitate success of this mission? After a short consultation, they selected Peace, a petite girl with a short haircut and sassy fashion sense, to be their first guinea pig, slowly lifting her above their heads. She yelped and closed her eyes in mock terror while a handful of girls from below shouted instructions. Trying to rise out of her squat position in the air, Peace suddenly became airborne as the support from below disintegrated, and the girls crumbled into a heap of winces and limbs akimbo. There was some grumbling. Peace stepped back warily as Grace, a taller teen of similar sassy disposition, stepped forward. This time, those girls who before had contributed half-heartedly with one hand on their hips, sturdily planted their feet and reached up with both hands to support the girl who hovered nearer and nearer the elusive tennis ball. They were so close. Peace shouted advice, and other girls relayed words of encouragement as they pushed forward and Grace lengthened her torso, reaching toward the ball. SMACK. Grace grinned and lifted her arms in triumph while the girls screamed excitedly below. And then they were all the on the ground again, but, this time, as victors. Their smiles broke their faces, and carefully constructed cool posteriors vanished. They had won. To my mind, this was the turning point of Camp GLOW [Girls Leading Our World]. Randomly assembled girls from all over Rwanda - of different religions, ethnicities, backgrounds, and talents - began to dissolve previously constructed conceptions and view each other anew for their inherent potential and worth. They also conquered a physical representation of the challenges which they will very likely encounter in their journey to become leaders and confident, self-assured women. Throughout the weeklong camp facilitated by myself and other health volunteers, we worked with the 70+ girls to develop communication, team-building, goal-setting, and negotiation skills. We also sought to increase their knowledge with regards to entrepreneurship, career development, and various health topics like nutrition, hygiene, and HIV/AIDS. It is difficult to quantitatively measure the success of projects like Camp GLOW. Sure, by its conclusion, 70+ girls knew how to properly use a condom and negotiate for its use. This knowledge is wonderful and not to be undervalued; however, I count success in other ways as well. I found it in the desire of one young girl to become a pilot; in the close camaraderie of girls of Hutu and Tutsi decent; in the marked change from whisper to strong, confident speech in one girl; and in the general realization that the glass ceiling in Rwanda needs shattering, and they are the group to do it. Some might say that women have already broken through the glass ceiling in Rwanda, especially those who measure gender equality by legal rights and political representation. If women divorce their husbands in Rwanda, they are automatically entitled to 50% of their joint assets. This economic safety net provides women with some security and independence if they find themselves in an abusive relationship. But this assumes that all women are aware of this right, which is not always the case. Also, some of you may know that an awesome fifty-six percent of the Rwandan parliament is currently comprised of female MP’s, one of whom came to speak to the girls at Camp GLOW. Moreover, several women occupy positions of authority as cabinet members, and President Kagame has openly committed himself to the issue of girls and women’s empowerment in the country. But, as most women and men admit, this is mostly rhetoric aimed at making the country appear progressive for the benefit of foreign aid. In reality, the vast majority of women in Rwanda remain boxed in, stifled in speech, action, and dream. Of course, the degree of burden and discrimination varies depending on several factors, including socio-economic class, education, age, location, and even religion. Women of little means in rural areas are taxed the most, charged with a multitude of responsibilities from general cooking, cleaning, and raising of children to production of marketable goods and support of extended family. Often, their husbands “contribute” by spending all available money on beer at the neighborhood bar. I don’t want to say that this situation is the rule, but is not the exception either. Unfortunately, this group of women often has the lowest level of education and is, thus, ill placed to argue for a change in their situation. There are associations and NGO’s aimed at helping and educating women about their legal rights, but they are often located in the larger cities where rural women do not know they exist and, in any case, rarely venture. Women in urban areas are situated a bit differently. More often than not, they have a higher degree of education. Some have finished secondary school and may have continued their education at one of the colleges in Rwanda or in a neighboring country. At the very least, this grants them a bit more independence and authority in negotiating relationships in addition to aiding them in their employment search. But society does not will them to continue indefinitely in these ventures. Regardless of ambition or potential, marriage is the end goal in this hetero-normative society (homosexuality does not exist according to Rwandans). To be complete, you must have a husband or, conversely, a wife. I have only met a handful of women for whom marriage is not a box on some checklist. Sandrine, a close friend, is engaged to be married, but she has no illusions about her relationship with her fiancée, Patrick. “I know he’s frightened by my independence. He worries that I won’t cook for him once we marry. Maybe I won’t. But I love myself as much as I love him, and he knows that too.” I stand in awe of Rwandan women most days – their physical and emotional strength. As I huff up a steep hill, they jog past me with a full jerry can on their heads, smiling and greeting the tired muzungu. Which is why I am so frustrated by the situation of most Rwandan women. Their brilliant strength and potential cut off at the knees by the legacies (and present-day realities) of gender-based violence, HIV/AIDS (3.6% women, 2.9% men in Rwanda), and general discrimination. They receive little to no actual encouragement despite the lip service which the government continues to give to the issue of gender parity. I am reminded of two Rwandan beer advertisements which I recently saw. One features a giant beer bottle surging up through concrete and the message, “Turbo King: The mark of a man.” Another advertisement features a suited Rwandan gentleman holding a beer with “The taste of la reussité (success)” next to him. Of course, the underlying message of both ads is that power and success are the domain of men, not women. It is against this backdrop of such overt misogyny and favoritism that Rwandan women live and fight each day. The government is progressively loosening those ties which keep women strapped down, but it is happening without any concurrent shift in mindset in the general population. Of course, Camp GLOW is a step in the right direction. We must expand the bounds of what is possible for future generations. In this way, we will be able to change Rwandan society’s conception and valuation of women not only as mothers and wives, but also as innovators and sources of novel perspective and strength. However, it is not enough to cheerlead from the sidelines. If Rwanda truly desires parity between men and women, then they must engage and provide women with the tools to do so – employment centers, maternity leave, girl’s education campaigns centered on awareness-raising, college counseling, and halting harassment by teachers. On the last night of camp, one of the girls in my group approached and asked to speak with me. Diana was one of the more reticent girls in my group, hesitant to offer her opinion and self-conscious about her English vocabulary and accent. But her smart eyes and slow, expansive smile belied a wisdom earned only through experience and the trials of emotion. Sheltering ourselves in a corner, she quickly launched into a mixed French and English account of her specific troubles. She revealed to me that she was an orphan of the genocide and now resided with a catholic nun who was supportive, but could not help her financially. While she had finished secondary school and scored well on exams, she feared her dream of becoming a doctor would never come to fruition because of her financial situation. She understood the necessity of working her way through college; however, she was unsure where to begin her employment search. “I do not want to do prostitution,” she emphasized, but opening her hands and gazing at me searchingly, I knew that the possibility had crossed her mind. In that moment, I struggled to come up with some advice and/or comfort that would be relevant to her, something that wouldn’t sound hollow. All weeklong, we had discussed “Dreams, Goals, and the Tools to Achieve Them,” but when these grandiose words met reality, they seemed like empty shells – beautiful, but useless. Is this what we have to offer the young women of the world? Beautiful words? They deserve more, and we must do more than simply affirm their equality if we want them to become global citizens.

Holding the fraying rice sack wide open, we waited as the man with the shovel began scooping up rusty dirt and dumping it in. One-fifth... one-quarter…half. My partner and I looked at each other, sizing up our joint strength, and then nodded at the man to keep shoveling. Three-quarters. We put up our hands for him to stop and began to carry the weighty gunnysack to its destination – a primary school classroom whose floor was presently two feet below the doorstep. Our collective objective this morning was to prepare this classroom along with four others in similar half-constructed states. The plastic cut into our hands, and our shoes caught on rocks, as we hauled the sack the 100 feet or so to the classroom. But we made it eventually, heaving the dirt over a wall and then retreating back to pick up another load. He said something indecipherable in Kinyarwanda at that point. A blank look must have registered on my face because he just smiled, shook his head, and said “murakoze” (thank you). That, I understood. I really felt like saying “thank you” to him though. In the course of that morning, I saw an entire community rally together with the sole objective of serving others and building their community. Young and old. Rich and poor. Politician, soldier, and civilian. Everyone came out, arriving early and carting their own supplies – torn rice sacks, split jugs and canisters, shovels and hoes. I saw women weighed down in front by sacks of dirt but balanced by another weight in back – a baby; I saw the mayor ditch his entourage for a shovel and dig in, literally, next to men in torn t-shirts and promotional caps; and I saw incarcerated prisoners, wearing their scarlet letter jumpsuits, living and working once again in a community. They had temporarily traded their chains for gunnysacks and tools so that they too could contribute and help further develop the country. Excited to finally work their muscles again, they readily dove into the work and, after settling in a bit, began to exchange hesitant smiles and conversation with us. They were just as curious about us muzungus as we were about them, and, for a while, it was kind of like a zoo, with each group scratching their heads and observing the other. The random assemblage of persons collectively intent on one purpose is probably one of my favorite elements of Umuganda. Everyone – every man, woman, and child in Rwanda – participates in this monthly service ritual. On the last Saturday of each month, Umuganda shuts everything down from 8 in the morning until 12 while Rwandans stream out of their homes and into their communities, onto highways, and into construction sites. Sometimes, they pick up trash outside their homes and businesses. Other days, they participate in neighborhood projects, building schools, community spaces, and the like. This past Saturday, my 35 fellow stagieres and I along with the Peace Corps Training Staff joined community members from a Nyanza neighborhood to fill in the floors for five new classrooms at the local primary school. About 400 people participated for the entire time with hundreds of others stopping by for shorter intervals, lending a hand to our project before continuing with another. Throughout the morning, scattered showers interrupted our work and forced us under the awning of the nearby school. As we waited for the storms to break and our muscles to recharge, we attempted to chat in Kinyarwanda while the Rwandans, amazed that we were trying to learn THEIR language, guffawed at our verbal missteps and then generously offered advice. More than once, I unintentionally emasculated a man referring to him as an akagabo or “a small man.” His friends would then crack up and throw punches at his shoulders as they praised me for my witticism. Meanwhile, I stood bewildered, wondering what the hell I had just done to this poor man. They tried to practice their English too. The prisoners who accepted our full sacks of dirt with a quiet “thank you” early on were soon shouting “Good Morning, Good Morning!” to every passerby by late morning. Upon the conclusion of work, the mayor threw aside his shovel and took up his usual prop. The drizzling rain muffled his voice through the megaphone, but his message and intent were clear as he stood, staring out into the crowd. He tried to make eye contact with everyone as he thanked those assembled and urged them to remind those few non-participants that they too had a responsibility. Everyone is accountable to their community. After some more praise sprinkled with admonitions, the mayor surrendered the megaphone to the community. Now, the second objective of Umuganda – to build community cohesiveness and communicate information - would officially begin. The meeting didn’t last much longer because people had begun to resemble sodden cats, but a few community members shared brief updates and aired concerns. Even now, almost a week after our scant hours of gritty work, I’m still a bit in awe at the collective spirit and mission of Umuganda. Though we, as Americans, are often more than happy to devote time and energy to service each month and, for some, every day of each week, it’s different somehow. I can’t really put my finger on why exactly. Perhaps it’s the universality of their commitment that seems novel and refreshing. Or maybe it’s the fact that they don’t seem to perceive Umuganda as mandatory community service but more so as a civic responsibility. Honestly, I’m curious whether a program like Umuganda would even work in the States. Granted, groups of people frequently gather to pick up trash and/or beautify areas in the US, especially for special events like Earth Day. However, I wonder if Americans would view something like Umuganda as infringement on their time and liberty, as a requirement rather than an opportunity. To those friends of mine back home who study service learning and/or examine the willingness of our generation to serve, I present to you another vision of service, one which seems very nearly wholly altruistic. Though introduced through a nationwide initiative, it is not mandatory and takes shape in the autonomous acts of individuals and communities. I wonder, is it possible to mold future generations of Americans to this concept? Maybe yes, maybe no. In visiting other countries, I have come to better understand and appreciate the unique individualism which Americans often cultivate in their personhood and which may or may not lend itself to an Umuganda-like program in the States. Unfortunately, the greater world often associates this individualism with cocky moves and international missteps by certain Administrations, but I like to think that we, as volunteers, expose them to a different kind of individualism. A few days ago, I was walking home after language class when the skies opened up and flooded the Nyanza countryside with blankets of rain. Every Rwandan took their cue and scuttled for the nearest shelter. Me, I decided to keep on strolling, savoring one of the few moments when I could actually embrace my Otherness. Maybe it was my rugged American individualism which kept me out there as my shoes slid every which way and my already loose pants began to sag. Or perhaps it was the two songs on repeat in my head – “Storms in Africa” by Enya and Carla Bruni’s “Plus Beau de Quartier.” As much as I’d like to believe that the Rwandans who peered curiously at me from windows and doorways saw my rainy day promenade as an act of individualism, I know they probably just chalked the incident up to another crazy muzungu move. For some reason, I’m okay with that label. As Carla Bruni would say, “Regardez moi, Je suis la plus folle de Quartier.”

As we descended into Kigali, rain slashed at the airplane windows, blurring the twinkling lights in the darkness below. Through the night, I noticed a glowing, red crescent in the distance. Puzzled, I pressed my face to the window. Once again, I was a kid at the candy shop, eyes large with excitement and desire. It was too late for it to be a sunset and, besides that, it was raining buckets. What the hell is that, I thought. Turbulence rocked the plane, and the answer occurred to me as I was flung back into my seat. Volcano. I flew to the window again, catching one last glimpse of a fleeting orange line before settling back into my seat. So far, I knew only a few things about my new country of service – there was lots of rain, and there were volcanos – but it was enough for me to conclude that my time in Rwanda would be drastically different from my 14 months in Mauritania. When I first told friends and family I would finish my remaining 11 months of Peace Corps service in Rwanda, they looked at me like I was crazy. “So you’re moving from terrorists to genocide?” some asked incredulously. Others queried, “Isn’t there a famous hotel there?” - a reference to the movie, Hotel Rwanda, I believe. Honestly, I can’t really explain all the reasons I decided to stick it out, first, in Mauritania, and, now, in Rwanda. “Masochism?” some of my friends replied decidedly. And, while Peace Corps volunteers do have a penchant for self-abnegation, that was not the answer. Suffice to say, I didn’t feel like my time with the Peace Corps was over. I still have something to contribute and am excited by the prospect of doing so in country which is actively trying to rebuild itself in the wake of a genocide which, quite literally, reduced it to rubble. Speaking recently with the United States Charge d’Affaires in Rwanda, she compared the country to a phoenix rising out of the ashes. In the days which followed our arrival, proof of this rebirth was evident throughout the country, both in Kigali and in our training site of Nyanza. Touring Kigali - a city of verdant, cascading hills - I saw brightly colored billboards trumpet progressive messages of gender equality, AIDS prevention, and respect for children. Green space, gardens, and community art dotted the capital’s avenues and intersections. And the streets! Swept clean each night so that no trash besmirches the city’s appearance come daylight. In general, the country’s commitment to sanitation and sustainability is admirable, but it becomes that much more impressive when considered in light of the handicaps encumbering most developing (and developed) countries in their efforts to build sustainable futures. They’ve even outlawed non-biodegradable plastic bags! This revitalization is more than some mere aesthetic face-lift though; it is also economic and emotional in nature. President Kagame has made no secret of his ambition to make Rwanda into the “Singapore of Central Africa.” In the near future, Rwandans see themselves developing into an intelligence driven society with business, technology, and science at its hub. To this end, the country underwent a mandatory sector-wide shift in 2008 from French to English. Almost overnight, nurses, doctors, government officials, teachers, and the like were expected to achieve an intermediate level in a language which before had been the privilege of those fortunate enough to continue on through secondary school and university. All schooling heretofore in French would continue in English regardless of level. Imagine the United States suddenly changed its national language and all existing operations to Spanish. Granted, the Hispanic community and a few bilingual Americans would survive the switch, but, in general, utter chaos and revolt would reign. One might expect Rwandans to react similarly, and yet they don’t! More or less, the gauntlet has been thrown, and they’ve accepted the challenge, enrolling in classes, practicing English with anyone willing, pushing themselves and each other in their combined efforts to build a brighter future for their country. The class of 36 English Education volunteers whom I accompanied to Rwanda will be a critical part of this initiative, invited by President Kagame who actually was taught English and Chemistry by a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda. But why this manic drive to change? This desire to overhaul history and create an entirely new platform? The answer is both deceptively simple and incredibly complex - genocide. Many of you already know of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide when the majority Hutu population of Rwanda brutally massacred hundreds of thousands of the minority, ruling Tutsi population – an event in which the international community both contributed and failed to intercede. Prior to colonization, the distinction between Hutu and Tutsi was much more fluid, changing with economic status. With the arrival of Belgian officials and Catholic priests, those differences which before had been based on the number of cows an individual had – not necessarily physical characteristics – became the means of controlling a formerly autonomous and well-organized society. The Belgian government installed Tutsi’s in positions of authority over the Hutu population thus cementing division between Rwandans and sowing the seeds of jealousy and spite which would later produce inexplicable hatred and rage. I won’t delve any further into the subject right now. If you are unfamiliar with this sad episode in humanity’s history, I encourage you to research the wealth of material available on the subject. To help, I’ve included a few links to interesting articles and titles of books at the end of this posting. Our second morning in country, we were fortunate enough to visit the Kigali Memorial Center which serves as both final resting site for hundreds of genocide victims and as a museum. Situated upon a gently slopping hill that overlooks the city’s colorful streets, chocolate soil, and sleepy banana palms, the museum would seem to proclaim the glory of Rwanda’s natural beauty. As it is, it is instead a marker, a reminder, and even a warning to all future generations of the dark capacity of mankind. Like the Holocaust Museum or the Isle de Goree’s Maison des Esclaves, the museum seems haunted by the spirits it commemorates. A Cornell University sweatshirt riddled with bullet holes hangs, empty of its model; a pile of femur bones lie, forever barred from fulfilling their potential; a picture of a smiling 6-year old Alfonsine tells us that her favorite food was biscuits, her best friend - her sister, and her cause of death - machete. Throughout the museum, an emotion magnet constantly yanks at your feelings and composure, stealing your breath, pushing and pulling you between rage and a sorrow that seems incomplete. Even now, weeks after visiting, my emotions are still raw from the experience. When I see jump-suited genocidaires walking to gacaca trials or glimpse an angry scar on the arm of a colleague, I flinch. I can’t imagine how actual Rwandans must feel as they strive to move past their bloodied history. They all seem so stoic, consciously admitting that which they can and can no longer control. The government has prohibited the use of ethnicity, surrendering past divisions in order to build a cohesive national identity. In general, Rwandans have accepted these steps, recognizing their own need to move on. This in itself gives me and my fellow stagieres strength to move forward with them. At some point, we plan to begin English classes at the local prison which guards several individuals suspected of participating in the genocide. I suppose this cheery stoicism despite tragic pasts and overwhelming odds has been one of the greatest similarities between Mauritania and Rwanda thus far. When I met my 61-year old host mother, Hilarie, this past Saturday, her energy and joy bubbled forth in everything she did – bouncing up and down as she squeezed me to her chest and rearranging my organs in the process, introducing me to friends and strangers while walking home. I’m pretty certain she also serenaded me with a song about the beautiful children I will have, but I was too petrified by the thought to ask her. After such warmth, I was shocked later to learn of the loss of some of her own family members during the genocide as well as her adoption of several children who were orphaned in the process. Such generosity is unique, and I feel fortunate I will have the opportunity to live and work among such a compassionate group of people over the next year. While visiting my host mother’s house recently, I received a shocking yet endearing introduction to this element of Rwandan culture. I was sitting, sorting beans with one of Hilarie’s friends. As Hilarie left the room to fetch another bowl, her friend reached over and gently slapped me on the face, saying “Komera” as she did so. Needless to say, I was a little taken back and more than a little bewildered, wondering what cultural faux pas I had committed. Then I remembered. My first day of class, and Zilpah explaining that the traditional greeting, “Komera” was often followed by a slap. It roughly translates as “Be Strong” and is intended to hearten individuals for the journey ahead. In retrospect, I can’t help but smile at that perfect baptism into Rwandan culture. Komera.

Sporting a gauzy melafa, spectacles and carrying a notebook and pen, Fatimata Ball sat among the other health professionals, ostensibly blending into the group. It was an intimate group of 20 – doctors, nurses, sage-femmes, and birth attendants - many of whom already knew each other. But I doubt any questioned her presence. “Probably, a newly assigned nurse or sage-femme,” they thought. That is until the introductions began, and she acknowledged the real reason she was here. In lilting, but calm and confident French, Fatimata introduced herself as both a fellow health professional and nurse as well as “une seropositif” (HIV-positive).

The reaction was muted, a few loaded glances and some shifting in seats. I was worried there would be an audible gasp or someone would walk out of the room, but this was an AIDS Conference, and they were trained health professionals, after all. Though silent at the start, Fatimata's presence was profoundly felt for the remainder of the two-day conference, and, I hope, is still felt by many attendees today. Her story is a powerful one, of conflicting identities and emotions. It is unfortunate, but I know she wouldn’t call her situation a tragedy. Instead, she would embrace her life as a story of trial and triumph, of rebirth and recognition of further purpose. Only she can do her story justice – her strong voice and warm, confidential manner - but in order to understand her impact, one must know her story. I hope you’ll click on the following link to learn more about Fatimata's story.

"Fighting AIDS in Mauritania"

But why was Fatimata's presence necessary in the first place? Plenty of individuals in Africa and, indeed, worldwide can grasp the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic without listening to the personal stories of those affected. A quick examination of the 2007 USAID report reveals more than enough to produce alarm:

- Number of people living with HIV in 2007: 33.2 million

- People newly infected with HIV: 2.5 million

- AIDS deaths in 2007: 2.1 million

These statistics are so horrifying that they almost defy imagination. It’s kind of like looking at the number of deaths that resulted from the Holocaust and the American Civil War; the numbers are so gross that they almost overshadow the events and stories couched within them. Which is precisely the problem. It is dangerous to reduce this disease (and others) to just statistics. To do so blinds us to the shifting realities and social trends that perpetuate diseases’ spread.

In the months leading up to the conference, I discovered through various conversations and observations that this was sadly the case among most of the health professionals and community members in my region of Mauritania. Ignorance, racism, misinterpretation of statistics, and a host of other factors had blinded the very individuals entrusted with the health of the community, to the reality right before their eyes. The epidemic just didn’t seem real. In their minds, AIDS was something that occurred in the rest of the world and among the black African population, not in their belani (white moor) subset. Furthermore, some individuals refused to believe that “good Muslims” could contract HIV. Needless to say, the implications of such a mentality are disastrous; it disarms the proverbial firewall and reduces health workers’ ability to effectively educate, motivate, and counsel the community.

And yet, to some degree, I can understand their conscious and unconscious reticence to acknowledge AIDS presence in their lives. Not only is it terrifying to accept AIDS as a legitimate threat, but the Tagant is a seemingly low-risk region. Centrally located in Mauritania and at the end of one of its primary highways, Tidjikja remains one of the more isolated cities in the country. Unlike higher risk environs, Tidjikja and the other cities of the Tagant region do not share an international border nor are its cities highly trafficked on the Road of Hope. Honestly, I do not doubt that the number of HIV-positive individuals in the Tagant is lower than in other regions; the last study was done in 2001. However, the number of individuals who have contracted the virus since then has undoubtedly grown. Travel in and out of the Tagant region has increased; divorce and remarriage are still common practices; and condoms are under-utilized as a means of birth control and protection. The dearth of HIV/AIDS educational activities and discussion in the community and a lack of motivation among community members to get tested merely compound the problem.

In discussing these factors with Ghallet, a local sage-femme, and with Dr. Moustapha ould El Moctar, the regional chief of health services, we came to the conclusion that the best way to effect the most change was with a conference. While any of us could venture into the community and do an AIDS sensibilization, we understood that those individuals closer to the community, the perceived authorities on health-related issues, would have greater success and exponentially increase our outreach. The primary challenge for us then was to shock these professionals out of their comfort zone and force them to confront this new reality. Enter: Fatimata Ball.

And Fatimata did exactly that. She hammered at their misconceptions and previously constructed walls and conventions. She said, “Look at me. I’m a good Muslim woman. I am a trained health professional. I am a Mauritanian. I am infected. And I’m not the only one!” On the last day of the conference, I sat, watching Fatimata share laughs and trade stories with some of the assembled nurses and birth attendants… Tirelessly working to tear down any remaining mistaken beliefs. As proud as I was and as hopeful as I wanted to be in that moment, I couldn’t help but question whether the attending health worker’s would actually take Fatimata's story to heart and implement the lessons of the conference? I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. The next day, my friend, Selem, called, asking me to accompany her to a brousse town to do an AIDS sensibilization. A week later, Hamoud, a math teacher in Gnimlane, requested AIDS materials and help in planning his village’s own AIDS conference.

I am immeasurably proud of these individuals and the others who have so wholly embraced the message of the conference, but my favorite moment was perhaps this past Saturday during my weekly Club Santé meeting. I was discussing HIV/AIDS and STI’s – still touchy subjects for Muslim students even though they are exposed to them beginning in primary school. Suddenly, in the midst of answering questions on protection and prevention, one student raised his hand and asked, “Teacher, est-ce que nous pouvons faire le depistage?” (Can we take an HIV test?). I was completely blown away. While testing remains free and confidential to all Mauritanians at the regional hospital, few individuals, much less students, know of this service and even fewer take advantage of it because of the stigma attached to it. Instead, the entire class jumped at the proposition! It may sound a bit morbid, but I'm honestly looking forward to next week when I will escort them to the hospital for their first test. Inshallah, all the results will be negative, and the students will feel empowered to encourage others to faire le depistage (get tested).

Two lessons that continue to resonate with me in the wake of these two seminars:

1. We must never become immune to the individual lives caught in the crossfire of disease, violence, and/or other tragedy… even if it does make it easier to digest and cope.

2. Nor must we let these tragedies rule our perspective, forever dampening our outlook. Never lose faith in the ability of individuals to adapt, to change, and to grow.

It would be the first volleyball game in the history of Gnimlane. The net was up and boundaries measured and marked to a tee in the sand; the invitations had been sent to village bigwigs; and the “toubab circus” had arrived in town to show off some mean skills on the court. Diego, another Tagant PCV, had organized the event with the help of the local PE teacher and had invited myself and the other volunteers to demonstrate the game. It didn’t matter that few of us had ever played volleyball outside of high school gym class. It’s an American sport, we thought. How can we lose against Mauritanians? Little did we realize what lay in store for us during our two-day tourney.

To kick-off the event, we decided to run a few practice sets and give the growing crowd an introduction to the game. But, before we even stepped onto the court, the two other female volunteers and myself had another challenge to face. Turning my back to the horde of onlookers and kicking off my sandals, I gingerly began to untie my wrap skirt. I honestly felt like I was doing a striptease even though I was wearing a pair of pants underneath and had my hair conservatively covered. The crowd of Mauritanians round us feigned interest in the warm-up, but the circle they maintained around our female subset betrayed the true objects of their attention. Wide-eyed, some blatantly gawked at us and exchanged looks with friends. “Women? Wearing pants! How scandalous?!”

We had decided collectively to wear pants, as opposed to skirts, for the event. Add a bit of female empowerment to cultural and athletic objectives of the match. After all, we would be judged bizarre regardless because we were females playing a sport. Why not enjoy greater mobility if we’re already going to hell in a hand basket? Once we were skirt-less and prepped for the match, we weaved our way through the crowd and joined the others on the court. We began to practice setting up and serving the ball while simultaneously trying to retrieve the rules of the game from the recesses of our brains. By the end of our 30-minute warm-up, pip-squeak children, wearing broken sandals and confused grins, were beating balls with their fists and watching them sail over their heads, into stray camels and patches of date trees. I had to laugh whenever they got really frustrated because they would resort to soccer moves, juggling and kicking the ball around the court.

We played a few initial matches in which the toubabs were divided evenly between the two teams. We performed decently enough, or so we thought, and the Mauritanians culled from the crowd seemed to get a knack for the game as well. Then our friend, Dehan, grinning mischievously, threw down the proverbial gauntlet and announced that we would now have a Mauritania versus Toubab match. The crowd sent up a whoop, and children scattered in search of absent friends and siblings who might miss the spectacle. And what a spectacle it was! We began the match just as the sun began to dip in the sky and continued to dig, serve, set, and spike until the sun was a slit on the horizon.

Without going into too much detail, suffice to say, that while we were able to take one set of the three we played, the Toubabs suffered a pretty humiliating defeat at the hands of the Mauritanian team. Yup, we actually lost at our own game. Granted, their team was lead by two very athletic men, and I was a better cheerleader than player, but these are just excuses for the real reason we lost... I think my sister-in-law hit the nail on the head when she joked that our loss was Allah’s revenge for wearing pants in front of good Muslims. Tsk, tsk, hobaras (sluts).

In all honesty though, aside from the initial gawk session, the Mauritanians didn’t seem care that much about the pants. As toubabs, we often get a free pass to do things Mauritanians consider inappropriate. We, of course, earned a few snickers from the teenage boys, but we were never at risk for a public stoning. If anything, they were more shocked that we were using our muscles and playing the game at all! Given my experience there a few months ago, their shock at our athleticism wasn’t really a surprise. While visiting Gnimlane in November, I was asked by the Math teacher there quite literally if I could walk 1km to the school ( He was one of the more progressive members of the community, well educated, and a big joker, so I immediately dismissed his comment with a laugh. Just a bit of routine female ribbing, I thought. However, after a minute of him looking at me expectantly, I realized he was serious. “Of course, I can walk there!” I cried. In the moment, it was easy to laugh off the experience and chalk it up to ignorance, but in retrospect, Hamoud’s question strikes at a larger issue. Mauritania is an incredibly gender-stratified country and, as such, men and women harbor deeply ingrained doubts as to women’s capabilities.

As you might have gathered from my previous entry on body image or from Oprah’s recent interview with a Mauritanian woman, the concept of women being active, much less playing sports, is a kind of anathema to this culture. Ideal women are immobile masses and good Muslims focused on the hearth and home. A few months ago, I read a book called Feeding Desire about a group of Moors in Niger. In it, Rebecca Popenoe, an anthropologist and former Peace Corps volunteer, creates a window into this culture in which largess is beauty incarnate. Contradicting the western mentality that places obesity and laziness in direct correlation, she notes that, “women’s work is the work of the stomach.” By increasing their body mass, women increase their families’ social and physical capital and thus contribute to their own welfare and that of their families’. This type of social arithmetic understandably seems very foreign to our western mindset besieged by skinny models and diet fads. Indeed, it may be hard to believe women can increase their sex appeal by eating more, but it’s true. In the land of the Moors, cankles are cool, asses attractive, grossesse gorgeous, and fat is oh so fine.

Given how closely this society clings to traditional mores and perceptions of beauty, I have not yet confronted the issue outright. Between lectures on the beauty of stretch marks and having balls of cous-cous shoved in my mouth, there just never seems to be an appropriate time to discuss the health risks associated with obesity. Instead, I have to tackle the subject in a more indirect manner, namely through the promotion of exercise. With both men and women, I talk about ways to faire le sport - walking instead of taking a taxi, gardening, stretching, etc. I then go on to explain what it does for your heart and rave about how good I feel after I exercise. My audiences usually smile and nod. Surely, some dismiss my rants as Western mumbo jumbo, but, more often than not, the individuals with whom I’m speaking already know that exercise is good. Sometimes, they’ll even boast to me how far they walked that day and nudge doubtful onlookers, emphasizing, riadh zeyn is-siha! (sports are great for the health!). Yet, as with most every other issue here, the real obstacle remains converting knowledge into action, especially among women for whom playing sports necessitates a revolutionary spirit and much more planning.

Before exercising, women must think about several factors which could influence their activity. Specifically, they must consider what they can wear to allow for both mobility and cultural sensitivity (pants under a melafa?), where they can exercise out of sight of men, when they can find the time to do so, and what exercises they can actually do in the middle the desert, sans equipment. In light of these obstacles, it is no wonder so few women choose to exercise. Thus, in addition to informal conversations about the benefits of exercise, I also try to demonstrate feasible activities for women – walking or running at the airport in the morning, dancing, and gardening.

For example, at 6am each morning, my alarm goes off, mingling with the static-filled prayer calls from the nearby mosques. As much as I want to hit Snooze, I always groggily pull myself out of “bed” (i.e. get up off the ground) and prepare for my morning run. I’m not going to cloak my runs at dawn in altruism; I run for my own sanity and so that I can feel somewhat accomplished even if I drink tea for 6-hours a day. That said, I like to think my runs have a dual purpose – maintaining my own health and illustrating women’s capacity to exercise and push themselves. The men walking home from the mosque have grown accustomed to my shadowed figure jogging past. They no longer point their flashlight at me and query, dhaak shinhu? (what the hell is that?). Based on the comments I receive from women in the market, I also know that those men go home and talk to their families about the strange female toubab they saw running that morning.

More exciting than my morning runs though is the weekly ballet class I just started to teach at the Girls Mentoring Center. I’ll admit the classes are a little unorthodox. We often mélange traditional Moor dance with ballet’s plies and ronde de jambes, and we do warm-up to Estelle feat. Kanye West and floor exercises to Chris Brown. It’s more than a little odd, but I’m so ecstatic to see these young girls embrace activity and exercise that I just kind of go with the flow. We’ve only had two sessions thus far, but the girls really seem to enjoy the classes. They pull me aside afterwards to show me their perfected chainé turns and petition me to bring back my own dance videos from the States. Based on my interactions with this younger generation, I know that a progressive perspective will guide their response to issues like obesity, nutrition, and exercise. There is hope on the horizon, but in the meantime, another generation of women remains handicapped in their levels of activity.

Ingredients:

- ¾ cup beautiful seaside vistas and scenery

- ¼ cup horse cart rides in the Senegal brousse

- ½ cup expats shocking me out of my RIM isolation

(substitution: foreign PCVs)

- 1 cup random realizations of global interconnectedness

(You went to UVa? You have a brother in VA and want to pay for my hotel room?)

- 2 gallons cheap Senegalese wine

- 5 doggie bags cheese and chocolate in varied forms…pizza, ice cream, pastries

- 2 tbsp Akon blaring from taxis

- 1 tsp clothing liberty – short skirts, bathing suits…FREE AT LAST!

- 1 pinch bemused annoyance while haggling at the market

(Really? You’re going to call me a racist for not buying your Hello Kitty backpack?)

Preparation:

- 3-hour ride by horse cart and pirogue, preferably with “Roll Out” and/or collection of Disney songs blaring from portable iPod speakers

- Add in shock and awe when confronted with Dakar’s beauty, BMWs, diversity, and good food. Stir ingredients until you become sufficiently awkward as a result of previous isolation

- Simmer Senegalese wine until 4am or till it a dreadful hangover residue appears. This will curdle the aforementioned shock and awe so that you can mix in new friends and the shared amazement that, “Yes, we do live in Africa.”

I’ve come to love Mauritania, to embrace its “quirks” and even call it home. And yet Senegal is a definite welcome respite from the desert, camels, and conservative Moor culture. In my several months of blogging delinquency, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to the Promised Land two times – once during New Years and then again last weekend - and each time I cross over to the other shore, I am immediately stunned by the difference.

The land is verdant; dazzling birds and wax print flash and snap before the eye; men actually speak to women, shaking their hands congenially; some people even parlent le français. Oh, the novelty! At no time was this disparity more apparent than when I sat at a small resort on the Senegalese River, next to a sparkling pool, sipping wine, and watching trash burn on the opposite shore. Here I was, surrounded by blossoming beauty, wearing a bathing suit, trying to discern the natural elements in my rosé, and across the waters, Mauritania was literally burning to the ground. I had to chuckle at that moment and raise my glass in a silent toast to my dry host country. Salut mes amis!

I must note though that before we arrived poolside at our “plush” resort in Richard Toll, we experienced 3 intense hours of bumping and bouncing over an island in the Senegal River in our less than trusty horse cart. Gripping the edges for dear life and sorely feeling every miniscule anthill, we simultaneously battled passing Ballonites trees and jammed to tunes on our boombox. A cloud of copper dust announced our approach, and herders and small children often stopped to stare at the misplaced toubabs belting out “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. Their faces in those moments were nearly priceless. Of course, save for stopping our Disney sing-a-long, we were always thankful to descend from our horse drawn chariots, that is, until we saw the next mode of transport. Enter: the pirogue - a rickety wooden canoe unsafe for crossing by any reasonable person’s approximations. Yet, time and again, we loaded not only 10-14 toubabs with copious amounts of baggage on to this contraption, but also the aforementioned horse cart. We were accompanied on each watery voyage by a struggling horse that seemed to snort in panic and fury at its lot in life. As sorry as I was for those poor beasts, I was grateful for their company; watching them traverse the schistosomiasis-infested waters distracted me from my own precarious situation. Alas, even after our last pirogue kissed the shore, we had to pack in for another 2 hours of travel by taxi brousse. Suffice to say, we certainly earned our drinks poolside by the end of the voyage.

If Richard Toll (named for a former French Governor) was my first taste of the land of milk and honey, then Dakar was the Elysium Fields and Eden rolled into one. Site of the annual 4-day West African Invitation Softball Tournament (W.A.I.S.T), Dakar has the fortunate responsibility of playing host to a vast influx of Peace Corps volunteers and expats from neighboring countries including Mali, the Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, and, of course, Mauritania. Over the course of the 4-day frenzy of Americana, teams of oddly-outfitted and sometimes sober PCVs battle each other and expat teams to prove that malnutrition has not completely denuded our muscles of tone and ability. Yes, we can take a shot and then hit a ground rule double; yes, we can field hoppers and line drives in underwear; yes, we can coach and slosh white wine from the sidelines; in short, YES, WE CAN!

In past years, our rough and tumble crew of Mauritanian PCVs has earned a reputation for working and playing hard during the tournament. And, rightfully so. The intoxicated antics and pantsless playing of our “C” Team, the Scallywags, tend to draw both scowls and howls of laughter from dedicated parents and competitors while our “A” and “B” teams, the Pirates and Buccanneers, stun competitors with our ability to swig beer while rounding bases. We are further buffeted by our amazing fan base, the Seamen, who rake the ground with plastic hooks, run caped in pirate flags, and scream “YAARRR!” and “We’ll capture your booty” from the sidelines. This year, yours truly, was El Capitan of Team B, the Buccaneers. Sadly our team faired poorly, matched against the champions of the previous year and several other powerhouse teams, including a group of missionary children (ages 10-15). That was a low point, needless to say, and we definitely felt a bit judged. Fortunately, the Pirates, our “A” Team, avenged our honor, rallying to win the W.A.I.S.T Social League Championship by 11-5 against a local team of Senegalese sluggers. I wish you all could have seen some of the amazing plays turned by the Pirates over that weekend; their intensity and skill combined for an amazing chemistry on and off the field.

When not partaking in the gush of Americana which consumed the W.A.I.S.T tournament and its outliers, my friends and I tried to explore and savor the city of Dakar. We stuffed ourselves silly at countless patisseries, ice cream parlors, and pizza meccas while traversing the city’s exploding boundaries by foot. One such expedition led us to Sandafa Market, located in the heart of the downtown area. In retrospect, I can’t really recall what objective brought us to this notorious haven of fiercely persistent hawkers and pickpocket bandits - cheap wax print? knock-off designer sunglasses? lingerie which would make Fredericks blush? I forget, but I do remember the very real need for a massage and ice cream which followed our mad progression through the crowded streets. At one stand where, my friend, Julie, was bargaining assiduously for soccer jerseys, Yates and I had to simultaneously swat away the searching hands of peddlers and decry charges that we were racist because we did not want them to touch us and/or did not want to buy a Sanrio hatbox. Needless to say, we were happy to escape that area, relatively unscathed, no wallets lost.

Among the city’s other gems, one of my favorites was the Isle de Gorée. This deceptive island is located just off the southern tip of the peninsula and, despite its beauty, is the site of one of the world’s notorious breaches of humanity. Riots of flowers explode from the walls of tiny passages creating a chaotic harmony with the island’s buttery yellow, rose, and red colonial houses. Meanwhile, Senegalese continue to live and flourish on the island that had previously bred such vice. School children play soccer, their blue UNICEF backpacks jouncing as they juggle the ball; artists and boutique owners hawk wares on uneven cobbled streets; and brisk businessmen walk off the ferry to meet their families for dinner. Honestly, at first glance, it all just seems so quaint that it’s hard to believe the island was one of the most notorious slave debarkation points in West Africa.

Here, individuals were de-individualized - herded, discarded, raped, dehumanized. Like its sister spots in Guinea-Bissau, the Gambia, and Ghana, the Isle de Gorée’s Maison des Esclaves (House of Slaves) has an eerie emptiness to it. One touches the black stonewalls, looks out the narrow windows at the roiling sea, and feels, more than hears, echoes of past horrors…. Women, men, and children packed like sardines into small, humid cells; looking out upon the ocean which will either be your death bed or your carriage to another kind of death; wondering whether your weight will earn you passage to new horrors or a place upon the jagged rocks. I had the opportunity to visit Elmira – another slave debarkation point - in Cape Coast, Ghana a few years back, and I remember walking away with the same feeling of sad, quiet wonder at our capacity for evil. And, also, our ability to survive. It’s hard to describe, but, in my experience, the best comparison stateside is the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

Ferrying back, the sun’s orange globe began to set over Dakar’s well-developed skyline, and I knew that while justice had begun its revolution, turning the fortunes of many in this city, it was not nearly complete. And so I began my voyage home to Mauritania, where the simple needs of many go unfulfilled daily …

November has definitely arrived in Mauritania. The weather is slowly creeping southward on the thermometer, and, though lacking the turkeys, tinsel, and general hustle and bustle of the holiday season in the States, I have found comfort in a different kind of plenty and excess here. For the first time since my arrival, vegetables and fruit are abundant and cheap thanks to a plentiful harvest during the cold season. This may seem negligible to many of you; however, the added benefits of these nutrients are of paramount importance to my malnourished body and those of Mauritanians. Rule of thumb: a hearty, nutritious meal means a happier Colleen. Now if I could only find a glass of wine to accompany my delicious repasts…: p

Moreover, the hospitality of my Mauritanian friends is more forthcoming now that I have made salient strides with Hassiniya and further integrated into the community. I no longer squirm with impatience as I sit hour after hour, drinking kasse after kasse of tea and discussing religion, marriage, gender relations, and a host of other topics, important and unimportant alike. Even work is beginning to pick up! This past weekend, I ventured en brousse with three other volunteers. Together, with the aid of several women’s cooperatives, we planted 150 trees aimed at delaying desertification and distributed vegetable seeds to 7 cooperatives. My interest has also been piqued by several health and community issues, and more and more projects appear on the horizon every day. Specifically, I hope to begin a Health Club at the local lycée (high school) and, subsequently, hand-washing and dental hygiene campaigns in the primary schools. Of course, this is all assuming I receive approval and first finish my wall mural. Big “if’s.”

In any case, given the good fortune I have experienced of late and the impending Thanksgiving holiday, I thought it appropriate and in good tradition to share a list of those things for which I thank God each day (Il Hambulilah). They are big and small and might otherwise be inconsequential was I not in Mauritania. However, they have made me smile on days when all seemed hopeless and have seen me through the rough patches I have encountered thus far. In the spirit of good humor and all things ying-and-yang, I am also including a companion Gasar Amar-ak List. In Hassiniya, Gasar Amar-ak translates as “May God shorten your life,” and, as harsh as this may seem, it is a phrase used without reservation by many a frustrated Mauritanian and Peace Corps volunteer. In this list, you will find those things which have dampened my spirit at times and might just give me a few wrinkles before I leave. So, without further ado, I present my first annual Thanksgiving Il Hambulilah / Gasar Amar-ak list. Enjoy!

Il Hamdulilah:

- Kiddy –It’s our version of Nutela and is thus equivalent of crack for us, chocolate-starved volunteers.

- Prayer call – Good for laughs when garbled and can also be incredibly beautiful at times

- Tea time! – Always laden with sugar and served up with a good dose of culture, the Mauritanian ritual definitely rivals its counterpart in the UK. It’s going to be a hard habit to break back in the States.

- My Northface sleeping bag

- Iste, the cold season

- BBC radio

- Early morning runs, watching the desert sun rise over the dunes

- Motivated, intelligent, hospitable, and open Mauritanians

- A sense of humor – Not only has it helped me to put many an experience in perspective, but it has also been a wonderful tool, effectively deflecting any unsavory offer whether be it tea with the local construction workers or slaying a goat for an upcoming festival.

- Well-stocked Peace Corps libraries – I will never want for books to read.

- Emails, calls, letters, and photos from home

- Care packages – Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Haha.

- President-elect Barack Obama

- My Mauritanian friends and counterparts, Tagant site mates, PCV friends, and the RIM Peace Corps Staff

- Family, Friends, and Relatives Stateside - I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I couldn’t do

this without your support!Gasar Amar-ak:

- Ants, Scorpions, Blister Beetles…really, anything that wakes me up or hurts me

- Goats

- Mulafas

- Sand, sand everywhere

- Demands of “Cadeau, Madame” from ½ a mile away

- Marriage proposals – See November 13th Blog Entry

- Taxi Brousse rides – See October 15th Blog Entry

- Prayer call at 4, 5, and 6 am, respectively. Make up your minds people!

- Intestinal parasites

- The economic crisis

- Coup d’Etats

The rock hit me squarely on my right ankle. The shock at impact was quickly replaced by a bubble of humiliation and fury as I heard the peal of laughter over my shoulder. I swung around angrily and swiftly singled out the culprit - a young white Moor, about 8 or 9 years of age, noticeable for his smirk and his rapid backtracking into the pool of children. Rarely have I ever wanted to physically hurt someone, so badly.

"IJI!" I commanded. The children slowly gathered, surprised by my forceful tone and eager for the ensuing showdown. At that moment, I had no idea what I was going to do, but I remember feeling a tinge of shock and pride at my ability to recall the imperative in Hassiniya. Sadly, that is where my linguistic adeptness left me. After demanding where his mother and father were (in Nouakchott where he lived) and then chastising him with a few "Maa Zeyn’s" (not good), I was spent. He said, "Pardon Madame," but I knew it wasn’t sincere. I wanted to tell him about the destructiveness of violence and respect for authority, but how do you do so in broken Hassiniya to a child who should already understand that?

His compatriots held him fast and called on me to hit him. Tempted though I was, I frowned and refused. Ah ha! My Achilles heal was revealed; the restraint which I viewed as a strength merely denoted weakness to the children. As I began to walk away, the children took up my chant of "Maa zeyn," not to reprimand their friend, but to mock the retreating toubab. I couldn’t stand it, but all I could do at this point was shoot dirty looks at them. Anything more would have been fuel for their fire. I resolved to tell my counterpart, whom I was going to visit, and have her take care of any further discipline. She later did and, upon asking him why he threw the rock at me, he responded, "Hiye nasaranyi. Hiya jaay min Amerik." (She’s a foreigner. She comes from America). Enter: discrimination and racism [stage right]

In theory, this experience shouldn’t have happened. I was in one of the nicer neighborhoods of Tidjikja, walking to an evening English lesson with my counterpart’s daughter. I was wearing a mulafa - which normally commands greater respect for the modesty and cultural integration it connotes. I had also greeted the children gathered around the soccer field in Hassiniya and humbly explained to them that I couldn’t play soccer as well as them. Passing the edge of the field, I thought our interaction had come to an end and was about to chalk it up to one of those pleasant memories I would recall right before bed. That’s when the rock was thrown. I don’t want to over dramatize the event. After all, the rock’s physical impact left little more than a bruised knot and the two scabs I now see. That said, it shook me up that day, throwing me off balance. "We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Welcome to the new Oz - Tidjikja, Mauritania. The flying monkeys here are kids with stones, and even ruby red mulafas won’t save you."

In reality, several proverbial rocks have been thrown at me in my short time here, and I expect many more. Not all are bad, and many, indeed, have been wonderful revelations and experiences. Actually, I think it’s good to be knocked off balance every now and then; it forces you out of your comfort zone, forces you to readjust. However good or bad, those proverbial rocks universally seem to strike just when you’re getting comfortable, nestling into the proverbial Lazy-boy. Such is life in a different country and interaction with a different culture. Sadly, the rocks of late have been of the same make and mold as the one hurled at me by the young boy - laced with prejudice, veiled in racism. As I will soon relate, sometimes these negative sentiments have been directed at me, and sometimes, they have been directed at other ethnic groups in the country. Regardless, they have all been eye-opening.

I have been very fortunate of late to make several new friends in the community. My two "housemates" - Jenniba Sou and Aishaba - are affectated to teach primary school in Tidjikja and arrived a few weeks ago. It’s nice to finally have some company in the compound and, as French teachers, they always challenge me linguistically when I roll out of bed at 6am. But when I want to gossip or learn some new risqué dance moves, I head over to Coumbise and Coumba’s house. Unfortunately, these two fabulous ladies will be returning to Nouakchott within a week’s time, but I have enjoyed their spark and colorful perspective on life in the past month. I have also befriended several individuals working in the health sector and with community improvement. Ali is an anesthetist at the hospital; Jum is the manager of World Vision’s Tidjikja branch; and Hajetou is a sage femme at the hospital. In addition to being warm, welcoming, and extremely intelligent, each of these new friends shares one other thing in common. They are all Pulaar.

Briefly, being of any descent other than White Moor in Tidjikja automatically singles you out for attention. The community is composed almost entirely of White Moors, and they make sure that you know it, especially if you are of African, rather than Arab, descent. Pulaars hail from the Fula African group and their population extends across all of West Africa. In Mauritania, Pulaars maintain many governmental administrative positions and are known widely as the intellectuals in the government. According to the Cross-Cultural Manual provided us during training:

Though there are, of course, friendships between people of the various racial groups, there is also considerable wide scale mistrust between White Moors and Pulaars. Pulaars perceive the White Moors as being racist, powerful, and nepotistic people who use their political influence unduly to gain control over the other residents of the country. In return, the White Moors are typically distrustful of Pulaars. Much of the conflict of 1989 was centered between the White Moors and Pulaars. (Peace Corps Mauritania. Cross-Cultural Manual. 2008.) I want to say at the start that neither group is without fault or responsibility for the poor relations which exist at present. Over the past few weeks, I have heard individuals from both groups make snide comments about the other; I have also heard them make positively glowing statements. These are the proverbial rocks of which I spoke earlier. They came from the mouths of friends - White Moor, Pulaar, and Wolof, friendly, intelligent, generally progressive - and it was thus all the more surprising when their comments were negative in orientation. One of the most well-educated men I have met in Mauritania basically said intermarriage between the ethnic groups was abhorrent. He also said, "Cheating on your fiancé with another woman is like deciding to eat couscous instead of rice for lunch. It’s really not a big deal." As you can well imagine, I have since decided to take most of his comments with a grain of salt J On the flip side, my Pulaar friends routinely joke about the sedentary lifestyle of Moors and their bland diet of couscous, meat, and water. They also voice resentment routinely for the Moor’s treatment of them as second class citizens. To the Pulaar’s credit, most Moors usually dismiss such commentary as the disgruntled grumbling of the minority and tell them, in not so many words, to get over it.

As an intermediary with friends on both sides of the divide, I wince a little each time I here these comments. Sometimes, I correct them; sometimes, I’m ashamed to say, I let them slide. Those who make the comments never seem willing to change their mind, but I try every now and then. I sit in the open air market with my Pulaar friends each day, smiling and inviting the frowns of the White Moors walking by. Similarly, last night, a man bluntly told my counterpart’s daughter, whose father is a Black Moor and whose mother is a White Moor, that her darker complexion wasn’t very desirable. She nervously laughed it off, partly because she had already internalized this mentality. I wanted to say, "Lay off, buddy! She’s only 14 years old!" Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, my narrow Hassiniya limited the diatribe I had in store. I couldn’t say much more than, "In my opinion, she is very beautiful, and men will have to fight for her in a few years time." It’s the truth; they will.

Last night, she also confided in me that she dreams of being a doctor and holding a cabinet-level post in the Mauritanian government. This confession was another sort of rock, but it did not sting me the way the others had. It was a welcome rock that definitely threw me for a loop. Rarely do I hear young girls voice such ambitious aspirations in this country, and in the wake of her announcement, I wanted to hug her and shout, "Il hamdulillah!" (thanks be to God!).

…Upon second thought, I think some of the rocks hurled at us are actually gems in disguise. We just have to dust them off a bit to find their true nature, their real purpose.

“So have you met that chief who you're going to have your 20 kids with?”

This question was sent to me by one of my best friends not too long ago. Indeed, it is one I have received many times over from friends and family members over the past few months. Obviously, this question and its cousins are flip in nature and are posed in jest. But inquiring minds want to know, and I am not one to withhold information from my adoring fan base. So, to all those desirous to know about my new hubby and how many babies I’ve popped out since my arrival, I am happy to report that I am still batting zero on the marriage and baby front. [Cue Mom/Dad: sigh of relief]. However, that is not to say I haven’t had the opportunity to change that reality. In fact, I have had at least 83 chances, approximately, to jump on the nuptial bandwagon (4 proposals/wk x 20.5 wks). Eat your heart out Jane Austen.

“Why,” you might ask, “have I received so many offers?” This is an excellent question which I ask myself every time I am faced with a fresh proposal. Of course, it has a very simple answer that is neither my Helen of Troy beauty nor my baffling intelligence and wit; p Quite simply, I’m an American; I have fair skin; I’m the walking, talking, breathing image of Beverly Hills compared to most Mauritanians; and, at 23 years of age, I am past due for marriage by most Mauritanian standards. Indeed, many women shake their heads in disbelief and pity upon discovering that I am still single at 23. “What? You’re 23, and you have no husband or children? Here, take my son.” I kindly deflect these offers and typically conjure up an imaginary financé working in the States. Usually, this satisfies the female interrogators though some will persist and urge me to take a Mauritanian husband in addition to my American beau. The men, however, are a bit more persistent. They adjust their starchy boubous, strike enigmatic poses, and try to woo me with proposals like the following:

“Fair Colleen, I beg your hand in marriage so that I can spirit you away to my wonderful desert palace. There, you will feel no want for anything that is in my

power to give you and we can raise our family and grow old together in peace.”

[Reality: Toubab, I want you marry me. I have big house with parents. You live us there. Boutique close to house. There you buy everything. I also want many children for to build first Mauritanian national soccer team. You like this, yes?]Take note all you single men out there: this is no way to woo a lady.

Fortunately, it is more than acceptable to reject these “grandiose” offers with a simple, “No, you’re ugly” or “Psh, you’re way too old for me!” Though seemingly blunt and harsh to us, they seem to do the trick every time, humorously turning down the offer while producing a few chuckles among the surrounding Mauritanians. In any case, as an ambitious woman with only 23 years of age to her credit, I am not seeking marriage at this point in my life and have grown a bit tired of the constant inquiries and proposals. That said, it has been very interesting to learn about the Mauritanian rituals of courtship firsthand, turning down offers and attending the weddings of friends. From these experiences, I have been able to piece together a rough understanding of the marital norms and practices in this country. This is where the Women’s Studies major in me comes to the forefront.

It goes without saying that marriage occupies a predominant position in Mauritanian society. Basically, the family supersedes the atom as the basic building block of life here. As such, the connections formed to create a family assume the utmost importance. Depending on ethnic background and location, the practices and standards which surround marriage vary. For example, some ethnic groups practice polygamy; others do not. Some localities are more accepting of romantic notions of love; others resist its impending tide. In general though, marriage is not about love or romance, but about practicality and function. For this reason, some marriages are still arranged, matching extended family members and/or first or second cousins together. Though marriage between family members is universally disagreeable to us, Mauritanians reason that marriage between cousins ensures the background and moral character of the parties while keeping wealth within the family and continuing family lines.

As you can well imagine, there are times when such antiquated practices conflict with modern mentalities and the appeal of romantic love. One of my roommates, Aisha Ba, is a victim of this clash, having recently married one of her cousins. According to her family, it was a good match, but, to her mind, it was a decision which forced her to abandon the man she truly loves, Oumar. Oumar lives and works in Tidjikja, and he and Aisha Ba had been together for roughly four years before her marriage. She is the only individual I know of who has had such an experience. No doubt, there are others who share her fate, but I take heart in that, with the urbanization of society and greater exposure to media, a growing number of Mauritanians are making their own choices with regard to marriage partners. Ali, my facilitator during training, ended up marrying his wife after a bitter struggle with her family because they objected to his ethnicity. He is a black moor, and she is a white moor. They disregarded the family’s protestations, married, and, though they fell out of grace with her family for some time, they have now reunited and rekindled the relationship. Happy endings are possible, but, as with everything here, you have to fight for them.

I also see hope in the rising age of marriage for women. Previously, it would not be uncommon for a young Mauritanian girl to marry by the age of 15 or 16. Now, there is a greater variance in the age of marriage for young women. Indeed, I have some friends who are 25 or 26 and are content to still be single. “Raajel ijiib mushkila,” [men bring problems] they tell me as they crook their heads and give me knowing nods. “Haani schwey,” [wait a little] they advise me. I tell them they don’t have to worry about me; I’m not jumping off that cliff anytime soon. But they just pat my leg and repeat their advice. I guess it’s worth noting that most of these women work, many as teachers, and have thus benefited from more education than others. Though they are presently unmarried and happy to be so, I have faith that they will all eventually marry. It’s a stepping-stone of life here, whether you like it or not.

Unfortunately, there are some girls who discover this reality far too early. Unlike my Mauritanian spinster friends, young girls en brousse are not exposed to as much alternative culture and education as women in urban centers and still marry as young as 13 or 14. The mantle of wife and mother is foisted upon these young girls as soon as they are of child-bearing age, and their health definitely suffers as a result. For example, I have met several girls at Tidjikja’s maternal health center who came from the brousse for treatment. They looked like they were in their mid-30’s when, in actuality, they were only 17, 19, 22. They had already bore several children, many before their bodies were developed enough for that experience. They came from areas which would really benefit from outside influence; however, those areas are so geographically isolated that I wonder if, when, and how this will ever come to pass. I have hope, but I am also realistic. Ethnicity, location, economic status, and education will continue to function as critical factors in determining marital norms, and, for the time being, young girls en brousse will suffer as a result.

When the stick-like model, Twiggy, became vogue in the Sixties, I assumed, stupidly perhaps, that the rest of the world followed suit. And, indeed, the vast majority of the developped world did conform to this new ideal. Britain, France, Italy, the US - paragons of the fashion industry - kowtowed to the revolution, promoting thiness instead of largess. The volumptuous hour glass figure typified by Marilyn Munroe fell from its status as the ideal body image and soon attracted other associations, some none too favorable. We were thus propelled towards our current situation in which 10 million women and girls suffer from Anorexia and/or Bullimia in the United States alone. Krispy Kreme donuts are not savored, but counted towards a weekly amount; exercise is a means to an end; and every mirror becomes some version of carnival funhouse.

Given my opposition to such regulation and to the singularity of this beauty ideal, I thought I would rejoice in the alternative I found here in the RIM - a society which values largess. Alas it is with mixed emotions that I report that the situation is not as wonderful as one would believe and contains many of the same flaws as the West.

As I reported in an earlier entry, I will be living for the next two months with a Moor family of rare means; they can comfortably support my extended family of 8-12 people. Unlike those Christian Children's Fund commercials, there are no distended bellies or emaciated babies to be found in my house nor, honestly, in the community at large. Rather, one discovers the exact opposite, especially among the Moor women. The Moor culture - both black and white - values largess among its women. How this came to pass, I do not know. I can only speculate and say that it stems from the expectation that women bear as many children as possible, thus necessitating a greater girth to support the increased frequency of births. As in Ancient Rome, wealth is also manifest in womens weight; the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to sit around all day, popping grapes in your mouth and having servants fan you with palms. In present day Mauritania, the Roman slaves are replaced with the children of the family; the entertainment takes the form of Tunisian soap operas; and, instead of grapes and wine, you pop dates and drink a milk and sugar libation called Zreg .

In any case, it is this culture into which I stepped nearly three weeks ago and which I have since observed as an active participant. A few notes on Mauritanian eating customs before I continue:

- Men and women typically eat seperately though there are occasions when they will share from the same bowl (i.e. among family members, special occasions, visitors)

- Meals typically consist of (1) a carbohydrate base of rice, cous-cous, or macaroni (2) some type of meat whether it be camel, goat, sheep, or fish (3) and, if you're lucky, some generic vegetables like potatos, carrots, and cabbage

- The family hierarchy is readily apparent within the first few minutes of a meal. The eldest male or female is the first to dig in, distributing the choicest portions appropriately among the guests and other members of the household. In my case, this means that all the carrots and potatos are pushed in my direction. The children may have their own seperate dish or they may eat with the adults. In the latter case, the children nearly always receive slim-pickings.

This last observation presents a paradox of sorts, for as much as society values largess, the nourishments of children is of secondary importance. The dietary satisfaction of women of marrying age takes precedence above all others. There is no situation like the one in A Christmas Story where Ralphie's mom is unable to eat a hot meal because she is overly concerned with the eating habits of her children. Rather, you find the exact opposite - skinny children and stretch marked-women.

Of course, I have seen some malnourished children, but more often than not, the malnourishment from which children suffer is not due to a lack of food. Instead, they often suffer from an absence of the necessary nutrients and dietary diversity required by growing bodies. The technical name for this for this malady is Kwashiorkor, and symptoms typically include a swollen abdomen, dermatitis, and decreased pigmentation of the skin.

I alluded earlier to the fact that I was an active participant in the above observations and, indeed, my American background does not grant me immunity at mealtime. Each day, I am urged again and again to cross over to this new Mauritanian ideal of beauty. No more than 2 minutes after sitting down to a meal with my family, I am hounded by chants of "Occule! Occule! Occule hecta, Zeina!" In francais, this translates as "Mange! Mange!" This verbal bombardment last until I finally throw my hands up in sated submission, sputtering rice and shouting "Shabat! Shokran!" I've learned that reciting this phrase three times over seems to do the trick. I have progressed to a point where I am now more bemused than annoyed by their persistant urgings. It's difficult not to laugh when your sixty-year-old grandmother, blue eyes staring you down, grabs her belly and shakes it in your face to convey the need to gain weight. She will also physically reposition me so that I can more easily each the plate. Though such invasions of personal space are a bit disconcerting, I have learnt to take a deep breath and to put things in perspective. Afterall, they are only concerned for my welfare and, more importantly, my state as a skinny, single woman.

Imagine their disbelief and discontent when week after week I continue to drop pounds rather than add them. Oddly enough, I share their disbelief because, in my mind, I have adopted their diet and sedentary lifestyle and, therefore, should be adding weight. I eat several times a day, beginning at 7am and sometimes concluding as late as 11pm with dinner. During the day, I attend class a 1/2 mile away, but the remainder of the day-to-day routine is spent lying on my matela, reading, or writing. Some members of my family likewise lie around like a pack of seals, watching Tunisian or Brazilian soap operas each day. And on the weekends, they hardly stir at all! Granted, this is partially a result of the heat which is so intense during midday as to cause no one to want to move from one place. Everyone slips into a mild coma between the hours of 12-4, myself included.

Obviously, such a static lifestyle has definite consequences. Diabetes is rampant throughout the country and, while few statistics are available, the disease is clearly beginning to challenge the health care system here in much the same way that it has in the US. Unfortunately, the increasing availability of imported food and thus refined sugars in some areas of the country promises to exacerbate this already dire problem. Fortunately, there are steps we can take to reverse this trend. Obesity remains a sensitive topic to broach and a difficult lifestyle to change; however, I hope to work with both Mauritanian men and women to shift perceptions of beauty towards a more healthy ideal. Convincing men of this health necessity is key since they help to determine beauty standards and support largess at present.

Please consider this post to be my first report on body image in the RIM. Once I actually begin to work and interact with individuals on this issue, I will be able to expand on some of the simplifications included in this entry and share them with you.

Aside from body image issues, life here continues in much the same pattern though sprinkled with a few more random experiences. A week ago, I returned home to a surprise backyard party hosted by family and proceeded to dance the night away with a bunch of Mauritanian children. You haven't lived until you have boogied with a random Moor boy while listening to Akon, haha. More amusing than my party experience though was the scene I witnessed as two Moor boys duked it out over the right to dance with my fellow stagiere, Brandon. In a country with such rigid gender norms and mores, I was surprised to see such blatant male affection; however, I soon discovered that such displays are the norm and do not signal any homosexual tendencies. Men routinely hold hands here while strolling through the streets and market. Chalk up another point for surprise. Mauritanian culture always has me peering around the bend, trying to discern what will come around the corner. And yet I am perpetually caught off-guard by what I see.

On another unrelated note, I was also able to attend mass today for a second time at a quaint chapel tucked away amidst the garbage strewn streets. Though the mass was conducted solely in French, I was able to piece together portions of the readings and found comfort in the serene atmosphere, our voices spiraling up through the heat towards the stained glass windows.

One week from today, I will return after a week-long adventure to my permanent site and future home. Hopefully, I will be able to post another update at that point. Till then, wish me "Bonne Chance!"

"This is the true story...of 9 strangers (and sometimes a goat)... crammed into one broke ass sedan...forced to ride together under the hot desert sun...to find out what happens...when people stop being polite...and start getting real. The Real World: Taxi Brousse." Anyone who has traveled abroad can attest that foreign transportation is a veritable goldmine of adventure. The eccentric characters, the nearly-missed connections, the baffling maze of airport gates, and the multitude of other factors all combine to create anecdotes which are forever cemented in one’s memory. When I visited Ghana three summers ago, its system of mass transport via trotro certainly proved true to form. Indeed, I can still recall the absolute shock I felt upon discovering that it was a goat I felt under my seat and not the excessively hairy leg of my friend. Similarly, though my father did his best to pilot our manual diesel rental car in Spain, we did not escape unscathed. I wonder how many heart attacks we caused Spaniards with our herky jerky navigation of Seville’s narrow allies and steep garage ramps. Alas, though lacking many of the elements present in Ghana and Spain, my travels in Mauritania have confirmed this general trend. Interesting tales of transport, both good and bad, are in abundance after only 4 months in country as I will soon relate.

Mauritania is a fairly large country and is, therefore, already difficult to traverse. However, when busted Mercedes and Peugot rejects from the 80s are forced into battle with a 100+ heat index and veritable mountains of sand which stir with each breeze, the already long journey becomes that much more "interesting." As you can well imagine, I have heard countless horror stories of taxi brousse from former and current volunteers. Fortunately, I have been spared many of the unbearable elements of such travel thus far. For example, never have I had a screaming baby hoisted upon me nor have I had to endure any conversion attempts or slandering of all things American. That does not mean that I am without any notches on my proverbial belt though. Actually, I have acquired quite a few in the past two weeks when I decided to venture beyond the bounds of my beloved Tidjikja.

As the end of Ramadan neared and the society of Tidjikja became increasingly anxious to finish their difficult rite of penance, I decided a change of scenery was in order. After nearly a month at site, it was time to tour some of the other jewels in the Tagant region. My first stop: Gnimlane, a brousse site about 26km outside of Tidjikja and home to one of closest friends. The 40-minute journey to this site was relatively uneventful aside from the 3 hour wait which preceded it. Though I had been warned repeatedly about Mauritanian’s lax conception of time and even appreciate it at times, I couldn’t help but become frustrated by its interference with my plans. I had wanted to leave at 2 and instead left at 5. No matter. Once we were en route, I did a mental shrug and was soon taken in conversation with a Senegalese Rastafarian who was working in Tidjikja. It was my first opportunity to really speak French after one month at site, and I was grateful even if I had to wait 3 hours for it. Plus I exited the taxi with an invite to sample some Senegalese cuisine once he returns from Nouakchott :)

After a short respite in Gnimlane during which we celebrated Ead (the end of Ramadan) and entertained the community with our American antics, we were ready to taxi again. But not before I fended off several marriage proposals and received a plate with meat and potatoes immediately after explaining that I was a vegetarian. (Haha, they just don’t seem to get it). Two days after arriving, we hitched another ride and high-tailed it to Nbeika, an oasis at the edge of the region’s border.

Again, this taxi brousse ride was not without incident. At first, everything seemed to progress smoothly. Our driver was traveling to Nouakchott and offered to cart us along in return for gas money. Though this would constitute carpooling in the States and would generally be smiled upon, it is considered an illegal activity in Mauritania for anyone who is not an official taxi driver. Subsequently, at every gendarme stop en route to Nbeika, we were given the evil eye and a severe chastising. Yet we drove away each time without having to pay a charge, so all seemed well until the last 5km of our journey. At that point, the car began to jerk and sputter and finally came to a stop but a few miles away from our destination. Ahh, such is life en taxi brousse… With the late morning sun beating down on us, the six of us heave ho’ed and pushed our chariot back into life. Yes! Victory! We hopped back in the car, cruised for another kilometer and then came to a halt again. To complete the story, reread the above four more times.

Fortunately, our trip out to MocMata the next morning proved far less eventful and much smoother despite the considerably rougher terrain. Regardless the prize at the end of the journey would have been worth the worst taxi brousse ride. Mocmata is a hidden gem in the Tagant. Its burgundy, rust, and gold painted walls tower over a canyon bed strewn with tiny pools and lazy crocodiles which snap and sun alternately. While we only spent two days enjoying MocMata’s splendor, it was a welcome respite. I even got to go swimming - an activity which is nearly impossible in any Islamic country. Of course, as chance would have it, a sandstorm flooded the canyon and kept us wading in our pool till the storm’s energy was spent…or so we thought. While hiking up the canyon walls after our dip, the sandstorm reared its ugly head yet again. We eventually made it back to our campsite looking like a pack of antique Roman statues. I have since concluded that sandstorms are more formidable opponents than crocodiles.

Though our trip to MocMata was relatively uneventful, I cannot conclude this entry on travel and transportation in Mauritania without relating what happened no more than a week later. I was crammed into the middle seat of a Peugot with two large Moor women whose starchy mulafas knew no boundaries. Despite the lack of space and suffocating fabric, it had been a pretty good journey. We had just passed the halfway point, making good time, and were careening down the mountainside. That’s when it happened. The car door closest to me sprung open leaving me exposed to the craggy depths below. Shock was quickly replaced by fear and then by a fervent desire to save my life. Somehow, I was able to hold on to the door while yelling at the driver to stop in a series of different languages and expletives. Naturally, he didn’t stop till we came to the bottom, several minutes later. Perhaps he didn’t hear me or perhaps he thought I was strong enough to survive the gaping precipice below. Regardless, I viewed him in a little darker a light for the rest of the journey, and I now perceive the expression, "precious cargo" in a whole new way.

I have no doubt that other adventures en taxi brousse will arise over the course of the next two years. After all, each ride is like an episode of The Real World, always crammed full of drama. However ridiculous my future exploits en taxi brousse, inshallah, they will all conclude with me arriving safely at my destination. In any case, you can be sure that I will keep you all posted on any other interesting moments which warrant attention.

Aside from my adventures en route, life here has begun to assume some semblance of a routine though still with a touch of the bizarre. I run alongside a pack of camels a few mornings each week and then trip over to the hospital for a few hours. Most people there believe me to be a doctor, and so I spend a good 15% of my time explaining that, indeed, I do not have my medical degree. As if I wasn’t already thinking about a 180 career change, the disbelief and disappointment on the faces of patients when I tell them that I am neither a doctor nor a sage femme is impetus enough to compel anyone into the profession. The other 85% of my time there has been divided between computer and typing lessons with my counterpart, Ghallet, general observation, and reorganizing the dust-choked library. In general, work and community integration is progressing much more quickly now, and I am trying to observe as much as possible in anticipation of future health education projects. For my next entry, I’ll be able to elaborate a little more in those respects. Till then, maa selaam!

Wisps of hair snuck out from underneath my hastily arranged head scarf, and my 80s style t-shirt hung dangerously low over my shoulders. No doubt, I was probably flashing some mad ankle too. No matter. I was in a battle of wills with a formidable opponent, and the chaste and modest appearances demanded by Islam would have to be sacrificed if I was to win. And I would win.

The sky was a dusky orange as the sun began its ascent in the Mauritanian sky, and its rays cast me and my opponent in a theatrical light. The crumbling ruins which were to be the stage for this showdown suddenly took on the feel of an Old Western shoot out. We had the sand, the tumbleweeds, and even the nervous onlookers played by a Mauritanian mother and her child. All that was lacking were firearms and my opponent’s opposable thumbs.

Yes, it’s true, my adversary was none other than an adorable 6-month old puppy, aptly named Toubab or Tua for short. But beware her searching brown eyes and brindled coat of fur. She may be cute, but she knows how to run (especially away from you), as I well discovered that morning. It was 6:30am, and, already, I had spent half an hour desperately chasing this dog I was looking after for another PCV. Her sleek, greyhound-like body was always just a hair beyond my reach as she bounded around the convergent piles of trash and cut stone. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the key to my success. Gingerly picking up the hoof of a newly slain goat, I called out to Tua in my sweetest voice. Being an innocent and sweet puppy, she failed to realize the Trojan horse which my bait presented and immediately galloped over. As she sunk her teeth into the chop of goat, I grabbed her collar. Yes! Victory was mine! The Mauritanian mother and child breathed sighs of relief and smiled encouragement as I heaved Tua away in my vice grip. To my mind, I had won the battle, but I have a sneaking suspicion Tua had the same thought. After all, she looked nothing but happy as she drooled over her tasty conquest.

This anecdote is just one of many in a collection from my two-week long stint babysitting Tua. While out and about in town, every experience, however mundane, automatically became ridiculous because of Tua. This is due in large part to Mauritanians unfounded fear of all dogs. Walking by with Tua straining at the leash, child and adult alike would always shy away, taking slow steps backwards lest she suddenly attack. As a result, I think I have acquired an interesting reputation about town - one which combines fear, respect, and probably a hint of amusement. It also seems my personhood has become synonymous with that of Tua. Though I was heralded as Zeina ("the Beautiful") in Rosso, now I am greeted more often with cries of "Zeina Kelb!" which translates literally as Zeina the Dog. Believe me, the irony of this transition is not lost on me. Haha.

Regardless I remain nothing but grateful for my time with Tua. Though she has been the source of many an awkward and inconvenient moment, she has also been the impetus for many amusing conversations. For example, while walking Tua with Kat one morning, a Mauritanian gendarme (policeman) approached our awkward posse. He asked if this was my dog, and after confirming that it was, he began speaking rapidly in Hassiniya. At first, neither Kat nor I were able to discern what he was asking; however, once he began to mime eating, the puzzle pieces fell into place. "Are you going to eat that dog?" he asked. "Of course not!" I said, bemused by his question; "I’m taking care of her for a friend." Then, for lack of anything better to say, I asked if he ate dog routinely. He replied in the negative, leaving Kat and I perplexed as to why he would ask such a question and curious as to what other misconceptions Mauritanians might have about us Americans.

Another amusing experience occurred while running with Tua early one morning. Towards the tail end of my run, I encountered a middle-aged woman sorting rice and singing by the side of the road. As I approached, she hastily flagged me down and shouted out, "Is there anything wrong? Are you okay?" I assured her I was fine and was simply exercising (a concept which is typically quite foreign to Moor women if you’ll remember). She shook her head and said, "Yes, I understand that, but you’re being followed by a dog!" Her eyes widened, and she pointed a trembling hand at Tua to convey the gravity of the situation. At this point, I became quite confused. I looked at the leash in my hand which held Tua in check and then back at the woman. It was one of those moments when all I could think was, "Ummm, did I miss something here?" Upon recovering my senses, I explained that I was running with the dog, not away from her, and pointed to the leash to demonstrate that it was I who was in control. At this, she shook her head, called me "Mejnuune," (crazy) and went back to sorting rice. I wanted to shout, "Who’s calling who ‘Mejnuune!’lady," but refrained.

In addition to the conversational benefits of Tua’s presence, she also has the advantage of increasing my personal security. Anyone who has ever had a dog will understand the absolute devotion with which dogs protect you from harm. Living alone for the first time and in a foreign country, no less, did not inspire much confidence and comfort in me. As such, I was happy to welcome to Tua to my new digs, even when she woke me up at 5am to inform me that the cat had just jumped over the rock wall. Good job keeping watch, Seargent Tua. Very valuable information.

There was one moment when I was genuinely grateful for her presence though. It happened as we were walking through Kat’s neighborhood in the late afternoon. We had just rounded the corner when we came face to face with Them. It was like a meeting of the Jets and Sharks but without the jean jackets and crescendo of West Side Story music. As they stared us down with their beady eyes, we began to freak, questioning whether we should turn back and cede the turf to them. Before we could act, they pawed the ground and began to advance in unison, led by the meanest sheep I have ever seen. I have no idea what kind of havoc a pack of goats and sheep can wreck on two women and a dog (probably very little…if any), but our common sense failed us at that point. Kat and I cowered while Tua leaped to the rescue, barking at the ringleader and chasing them away. Suffice to say, we were both embarrassed and relieved. Feel free to make fun of me as soon as you stare down a stubborn sheep and its pack of cronies.

In any case, Tua’s owner will be returning from her trip to Mali the day after tomorrow, and so I will soon be waving goodbye to my furry friend. As remiss as I will surely be without her, I am looking forward to getting a full night of sleep and having little children approach me again. Plus I’m kind of tired of being a Dog.

Greetings from my new home in Tidjikja! I write this entry while perched in my "bay window," looking out on my lakeside domain at the slick bodies of Mauritanian children escaping the heat in the nearby reservoir. At the risk of sounding like Michael Jackson, I really wish I could join them. The heat is punishing even today, on my birthday, and the prospect of jumping in those muddy brown waters (likely infested with fresh water parasites) is tempting nonetheless. Of course, such actions are wildly inappropriate for women in this culture and so, in order to evade retribution by stoning, I resign myself to reign in my impulses, cover my head, and peer at the world from behind my rock wall.

What I see from my encampment is a study in juxtaposition. Beyond the verdant growth crowding around the banks of the reservoir is the exact opposite – namely, vast expanses of sand interrupted here and there with the occasional palm tree and brush. A smattering of patron (expensive) houses and government buildings make up the rest of city before it cascades into yellow dunes and chocolate mountains in the far distance. As different as this landscape is from the coastal environment in which I was raised in Virginia Beach, I can’t help but find a stark beauty in the austere meeting of sky and terra cotta as far as the eye can see. It calls forth both a sense of isolation and a sense of adventure.

Perhaps I’m a little biased, but I also believe Tidjikja, the capital of the Tagant region and my home for the next two years, to be one of the more charming cities in the country. Though the city contains crumbling ruins and ancient palmeries, it is comparatively pretty young, established in the late Nineteenth century by a group of nomads. The nomads were led by a wizened, blind old man with a gift for discerning water sources. Upon reaching this area, he tapped his stick on the ground and proclaimed this land to be a prime place for development. He went on to do the same for four other cities, installing one of his sons as chief in each locality before leaving. Pretty convenient means of establishing a nepotistic dynasty, eh? Inshallah, I’ll be able to add more information on the history of the city and region over the course of the next two years; however, this must suffice for now.

More generally, the city is located smack dab in the middle of Mauritania, an 8-10 hour taxi brousse ride east from Nouakchott. Divided up into three quadrants by a series of batas (river beds which are, more often than not, sand beds), Tidjikja, like every other city in Mauritanian, eschews any real sense of urban planning save for the concentration of government buildings and the hospital on the central "island." Instead, it features a few paved streets and a mass of alleys through head-high rock walls and past half-constructed compounds. Despite its drawbacks, there is an innate charm in this crumbling urban atmosphere, and it certainly qualifies as one of the cleaner cities in the whole of the country. Moreover, though it is the capital of the region and thus has many of the advantages of "urban" life, the city has retained a small town feel both in its layout and in the mentality of its inhabitants. This isn’t entirely surprising given that only 8000-10,000 people live within its bounds, depending on the season. The population grows substantially during the Summer months when scores of families trade the noise of Nouakcott, Rosso, and other cities for the tranquility and blistering heat of Tidjikja. The region is also heralded for its abundant palmeries which produce dates during the late Spring and Summer months. We, myself and the other newly-initiated volunteers, arrived at the start of September, just as many families were leaving for the permanent residences, so it’ll be interesting to observe the transition next year.

Speaking of which, I am happy to report that I am now an official volunteer with the United States Peace Corps. Seventy-five of my fellow compadres and I were sworn-in on Thursday, August 28 in a short, but powerful ceremony attended by our invaluable facilitators, the RIM Peace Corps staff, and the US ambassador and his wife. Decked out in our most mushasha (bling bling) outfits –gauzy mulafas, starched boubous, bright wax print complis – we sat sweating bullets, a result of the indefatigable heat and our excitement. At last…after what seemed like an interminable two months at times, we would be able to begin the work, the experience of a lifetime for which we had all waited for so long. We were at the end and at the beginning – at the end of one phase of learning and cultural integration and on the brink of yet another. Perhaps it was a cathartic release of all the stress from the past two months or maybe it was the solemn oaths we swore to uphold and protect the values represented in the Constitution. Regardless, I found myself wiping tears away with my left hand as I raised my right, moved by the chords of patriotism and charity touched upon in the Oath. It was an unusually refreshing moment when all the cynicism which one might feel towards the American people, its political policies, and its controversial figureheads simply melted away and exposed the best elements of our country’s heritage and its future. Inshallah, I will leave this country in two years time imbued with the same hope of that moment as well as a good dose of realism.

Following the Swear-In Ceremony was an event which had teased us all with its prospect for the past two months…our party. After all, what initiation would be complete without a raucous hotel party in an Islamic country? Without going into too much detail, let me simply recount what I can remember from the night: chasing shots with Orange Fanta, racing around the entirety of the party with my running buddies (twice), dancing/bouncing, falling down (a lot), and lying down in an ant hill while waiting for the shuttle to the Peace Corps compound. Lessons learned among others are that Senegalese gin is simultaneously heavenly for its availability and evil for its toxicity and that ant bites take longer to heal than any other wound I’ve ever had. All said and done though, it was a wonderful last hurrah followed by a much-needed day of recuperation before our massive parting of ways. Fortunately, I was able to recover in time to visit my family in Rosso one last time before leaving, and, while there was sadness on both sides, I know and they know that this is not the end of our relationship. The colorful cast of characters which gradually morphed into my family over the past two months, who gave me so much without reservation, will always retain a special place in my thoughts and prayers. I can’t wait to visit them in a year’s time when I return to welcome the next class of volunteers. But first things first…let’s get through the first year…

Though many of you expected me to jump right into the thick of things, to begin work on day one, I must admit that I have yet to start nearly a week and a half after arriving. Our first few days in town were commandeered by our coordinator who guided us to government office after government office to do protocol (greasing the wheels of government figures). Alas even after this phase concluded, we had to commence our respective hunts for housing - an oddly challenging task given the recent exodus of Summer vacationers. I was fortunate enough to claim a room in a compound which is rented out by a Moor family next door. I am alone in the compound at the moment save for the dog I am currently babysitting for another PCV; however, three other women will join me in a months time when they are affectated (assigned) to the area to teach French.

I attribute my late start to a number of factors, chief among them the limitations resulting from the rigors of Ramadan, our inability to effectively communicate in Hassiniya, and, quite honestly, our own lassitude. As many of you already know, Ramadan falls during the ninth month of the Muslim year and commemorates the revelation of the Koran to Mohamad in 700 A.D. During the 29-30 days which compose this religious observance, men and woman fast from sunrise to sunset abstaining from food, water, and worldly pleasures. This practice is intended to encourage self-discipline and to recall the hunger of the poor. It is also believed that sins committed during the year are forgiven if one keeps fast during this holy month. As one can well imagine, fasting in the harsh heat of Mauritania is debilitating and, as such, little substantial work is accomplished throughout the month. As such, I have low and, therefore, realistic expectations for my first month at site. My primary objectives will be to work on my language skills and to establish a rudimentary work schedule at the PMI (maternity health center), CREN (nutrition center), and hospital. I’ll keep you posted on how I fair on both accounts.

Till next time…maa selaam.

Hello All,

First and foremost, let me confirm that I am safe and sound and have yet to feel any reverberations from the coup d'etat which took place yesterday. Indeed, I feel as if this event has upset the nerves of my parents more than it has any Mauritanian or Peace Corps volunteer.

For those who have yet to read about the situation on the news, allow me to provide a few details. The New York Times has a pretty encompassing article describing the events of the day, the motivations of the military junta which seized control, and some speculation on what will come to pass in the weeks and months to come. You can find it at the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/world/africa/07mauritania.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin. As The Times relates, this is not the first coup to grace Mauritania's sable sands. Since the RIM gained independence from France in 1960, there have been about 10 coup d'etats. The last one was in 2005 and was, ironically enough, conducted by the same General who staged the coup today; I guess he has a flair for the dramatic. Until recently, Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz had supported President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi; however, a series of decisions by Sidi to enter into talks with controversial political and religious figures upset his previous support. Charges of corruption and poor leadership fanned the flames of resentment and led to a vote of no-confidence a few weeks ago. Since that time, unbeknownst to me, there have apparently been whisperings of a coup in the making, a coup which finally came to fruition today. The President and the Prime Minister were taken into custody in the early morning hours and are now being held at an indeterminate spot. A military junta led by Abdelaziz has assumed control of the government and will continue to operate in that capacity for as long as necessary. Unfortunately, I have no idea what their demands are and, therefore, no idea when they might release the President and Prime Minister. The United States, the EU, the African Union, and a scattering of other countries have called for the release of the President and PM and the restoration of the democratically-elected officials to office. Refusing to meet these demands might mean the cessation of aid from the EU and the US.

While I would recommend that everyone read the article above (because Mauritania isn't in the news often), I would advise everyone to take the news coverage with a grain of salt. Much of the uproar over this coup (if there is any) is overblown. Life drifts by as it usually does here in Rosso. There were no protests, no riots, and minimal discussion among the Mauritanian staff here at the Peace Corps training facility. A friend residing in Nouakchott informed me that the capital's atmosphere is similarly tranquil and pensive. My brother, Pacha, alone among my family members, has a definite opinion on the coup; he insists that the coup was for the better as it rids the country of a do-nothing president who was observedly corrupt. Most other members of my family consider themselves apolitical and are, therefore, unconcerned. Among the volunteers, we seem to have adopted a Hakuna Matata mentality. Though we are all on standby, ready to evacuate if necessary, we tend to view the coup a bit more shallowly than we probably should. It's the first event to have upset our daily routine of language classes and chubbagin, and I am ashamed to admit that it was kind of exciting. Obviously, my perspective would change if anyone had been injured or killed as a result.

That said, I acknowledge that a coud d'etat in a fledgling democracy does much to undermine the structures and processes set in place. If people are conditioned to expect change whenever desired, both stability and a tolerance for those ideals and attitudes different from one's own is sacrificed. Whether this sacrifice is worthwhile varies with each case. In any case, what has happened has happened, and I feel content to observe the transitioning government from the sidelines. I'll try to keep you all updated as frequently as possible.

Aside from that exciting interlude, life continues in much the same way as before. The circus of which I always feel apart remains both an amusemant and a trial at times. We are all circus performers, entertaining the hordes of Mauritanians with our hilarious and foreign antics. We dress in bizarre costumes, and we dance like monkies eager for treats; we crowd into our clown cars and conduct toubab parades on the way to class; we are always walking the tightrope, balancing our many responsibilities and new considerations, afraid of falling from grace in either the eyes of the Peace Corps or a Mauritanian. Sometimes, we wobble, thrown off balance by some force, but then we descend safely into the safety net of support among our fellow volunteers and family. Thank goodness.

Regardless of how well we perform our acts though, we remain clowns at the end of the day. According to a volunteer about to end her service, at the end of our two years here, we will still be perceived as the clown who lives next door and not the neighboor. Though I continue to discover more and more similarities between our culture and theirs, it seems the yawning gap between us and them in their eyes remains to large to bridge irregardless of our successful integration.

The role of star performer is one equally shared among all the PCV's and is indeed amusing at times. Our antics and attempts at integration make us all chuckle, Mauritanian and American alike. Running in the early morning while men in boubous stare agog in amazement; dancing as well as possible while tightly enscounced in a mulafa; preparing the tea and splashing half the water outside the demi-tasses - we make a wonderful freak show sometimes.

Of course, there are other times when the fish bowl mentality becomes tiresome. I don't like the stares I receive when I jet past early-morning market goers. I don't enjoy being compared to other female PCV's based on the frequency with which I wear a veil. And, while my Hassiniya language skills are admittledly pitiful at the moment, the laughs I receive when I practice aren't terribly encouraging.

All said and done, we are here, in part, to make their lives better and, if I can do that though laughter, even at my own expense, then I will gladly don my proverbial clown costume and red nose. Raise the bigtop and let the toubob show begin!

The flies indiscriminately hop from leg to leg, and a mixture of dirt and other questionable substances (read: donkey dung) perpetually cakes my feet. I have also become accustomed to the dried sweat perpetually coating my body and, as a result, no longer sense my own smell/stench, if it indeed exists. All this, and yet I am still heralded with "Beautiful! Beautiful!" as I walk down the street each day. How might this social paradox come to pass, you might ask? Allow me to explain...

"Aane' esmi Zeina Sidebe"or for the anglophones in the audience, my name is Zeina Sidebe. Upon arriving at my homestay 6 days ago, I was quickly baptized into the Sidebe family with the new name, Zeina. Technically speaking, I was named after both my younger sister and my aunt, Zeina the Deuxieme and Zeina the Premiere respectively, but I like to think that my family recognized my inherent loveliness and thus decided to give me the name, Zeina, which translates as "beautiful" in Hassaniya - a local language. In addition to my new name, my family also gifted me with a pair of shower shoes, a bucket for showering, and, most importantly, a mulafa (Arab veil, google it). As a Women's Studies major at UVa, I disected and discussed the Islamic tradition of veiling women in class after class, but never believed that I would soon share something in common with the objects of my studies. Inside my compound, I can pretty much dress as I please - long skirt, tank top - but once I step beyond its mud-colored, plaster walls, I done my "costume" quicker than Superman in a telephone booth. I can't lie; it's an adjustment. No more low cut shirts or pants of any sort; forget boobs, revealing anything above your ankles is considered flashing here. That said, it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It's yet another aspect of life in Mauritania about which you have little choice other than to laugh and roll with it. For example, when the wind kicks up, whipping sand in your eyes and wrapping your mulafa around your face, and you subsequently trip on your overly long mulafa and fall in the middle of the market to cries of "Toubab! Toubab!" In those moments, you have little choice but to laugh at life's ridiculousness here in the RIM.

In any case, life since my last post has been an interesting mixture of eventfulness and uneventfulness. As wonderful as it has been, moving in with my Mauritanian family was an even greater transition than the one experienced when we first arrived in the country. I know I can expect another big jump when I move to my permanent site in late August/September. I live with the Sidebe (Sid-a-bay) Family - a large, well-educated, fairly wealthy, and greatly respected family - in the Satara neighborhood of Rosso. While at home, I am continually meeting new family members, distant and immediate in relation. As a result, I'm still trying to figure out the family tree in all its varied dimensions and have, on occasion, passed family members on the street without properly greeting them. Quite the slight to those third cousins of mine.

On the whole though, I am incredibly fortunate. I have my own room with lock and carpet; the house has electricity, three TV's, and running water for its shower; and my family respects my space and my vegetarian diet, allowing me to eat rice, potato, and carrots for almost every meal. They even bring me salad-like meals on occasion! My family has also been incredibly patient with my stumbling but steadily improving French and Hassiniya language skills. Each night, no matter how tired I may be, I receive lessons in gutteral-sounding Hassiniya with the aid of my entire family. As we sit in the courtyard, enjoying our late night round of tea, they quiz me again and again on the words for the various body parts, days of the week, and numbers. At night, I also have private lessons in French and Hassiniya with my younger sister, Zeina, in return for English lessons. Thus I am perpetually a sponge for cultural and linguistic information - during the day with my language tutor and at night with my family. While tiring, it is a wonderful arrangement and has enabled me to assimilate so much more quickly than I otherwise would have. I mean...how can watching Brazilian soap operas dubbed over in Arabic all day not be enriching? You tell me.

Alas it is time for me to sign off once again. Tonight, I'm spending the night at the Center with the other Health Education volunteers and am treating myself to some good ole fashioned American fun with some card games. Bon nuit!

Bonjour and asalam aleikum from my new home in Mauritania. My apologies for not setting this up before I left. As you can imagine, I had my hands full with last minute goodbyes, buying the necessary equipment, and loading up on chocolate and other now unavailable goodies...hint hint, care package senders ;)

In any case, after a year-and-a-half journey and much to-do, myself and the rest of my crew have arrived safe and sound after a very long journey. Little sleep was to be had on the 9-hour flight over, and, unfortunatley, the bus ride from Senegal to Rosso, just over the border in Mauritania, provided little more repose. That said, we were treated to an hour of creative dancing and amusing children just before we crossed over in the ferry to Rosso. I've come to realize that it's the little things like MC Hammer moves, new friends, and a sense of humor which make 7 hours bus rides and the fish bowl feeling tolerable. [Fact - I now know what it feels like to live like a fish, every move, word, and signal analyzed and interpreted.]. It's an interesting feeling, and I know I should only expect more of it. We are now and forever will be Toubabs (foreigners) :).

Once we arrived at the site, we were greeted by a humungous gathering of local staff, PC staff, and other volunteers - all so warm and welcoming. As we were running late, we quickly received a tour of the facility including the last frontier in plumbing, Turkish Toilettes. Without going into too much detail, it basically involves squatting over hole and using water from a marakesh rather than TP to clean yourself. Intimidating as it was, we all quickly adapted. What other choice did we have for the next two years? We then proceeded on to a lunch of rice, fish, and vegetables. I volunteered to eat with 4 other Mauritanian men and was able to practice my french and meet some of my language tutors all at once. Our conversation was jumbled but intelligible. Hopefully, it bodes well for the rest of my linguistic acclimation which I will be tested on tomorrow. Esperez-moi, "Bonne Chance!"

The remainder of our first day was spent in the typical Mauritanian fashion - resting, reading, conversing, sprinkled with a mid-afternoon snack, pre-school style. Later, we had a similar dinner of couscous and vegetables and then slept under the stars as a group. Fortunately, I have found several other committed vegetarians, and the PC is willing to provide adequate meals for this week alone. After that, it's up to us to figure out our eating arrangements with our homestay family and explain our eating restrictions if we choose to do so. Apparently, many Mauritanians remain confused by the vegetarian lifestyle, and those PCV's who stick to the diet often find themselves somewhat stunted socially if they do not make further adjustments to meet with community members. In any case, I'm still making up my mind about remaining a vegetarian. Regardless, I have resolved to eat fish so that I can get enough protein - a fact which I'm sure is a comfort to my parentals.

Our second day started off early with morning prayer waking us at 5:30am roughly. As much as I wanted to stick in the proverbial earplugs, I found the chanting absolutely gorgeous. It reminds me of the mid-day calls to prayer overheard in some areas of Accra, only magnified 10 times. As much as I would love to record, my good friend, Miss Staci Raab, informed me that to do so is against Islmaic law. In any case, thus far today we have had some brief overviews to administrative policy, cultural cues, and language lessons in all 4 of the local languages. As you can imagine, the latter was my favorite. In the afternoon, I was able to venture out into the Rosso market and try out my skillz. Alas I'm not ready to handle the full course of greetings, but I was sufficiently pleased with my Hassinaya (Arabic) "Asalam Aleikum" and response.

Other than that, I feel fine, and I'm having a great time. As much as I miss some of my creature comforts and my family and friends in the US, I don't regret my decision in the least. There will be hard days and hard weeks, and I know I will want to go home at least once. But when the skys turn black, proverbially or litterally with a sandstorm, I hope I will be able to maintain some perspective and a sense of humor. I also plan to recite a favorite phrase of mine which is also, coincidentally, the name of my blog, "Timshel." For those among you of Jewjish descent, you may have heard this word before. Those familiar with the passage on Cain and Abel in the Bible might also recognize it. Most generally, it means "Thou Mayest." I discovered it first in John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" and have been hooked since. This one word is captures human nature and its potential for both good and evil; taken a step further, one might say that it means we are defined by the choices we make in life. In an increasingly globalized world in which identities are both explored and boiled down, I find it comforting to look not to those elements which might divide me from future friends and family, but to look to those choices and actions which define us now and will define my time here.

One final note before I sign off - I do have my cell, but it costs me a lot to call everyone back home. My number is as follows: 011 222 420-3981. If you download Skype Out ($60/yr), you can reach me easily in my new home among the camels and the scorpians.

Dinner is ready. Pictures to come. My love to you all!

~ Coll