The Slacktard Email: Aka, what I have been up to for the last several months.

For some reason, both times I have returned back to Mauritania from America, I find my life as a volunteer turned upside down.

December: I spent the month at home for the holidays. It was time well spent and I got to see alot of people. I didn’t plan on going home but Christmas at home was great for me, considering the circumstances.

January: I returned back to site just as Israel starting bombing Palestine. I was honestly shocked to see how many Mauritanians took to the streets to protest against Israel. Nouakchott and Aioun were hotbeds of protest. I was driven through tear gas ridden protests upon leaving the capital to head to Aioun. The protests went on for several weeks. At times it was impossible to leave the house to go to the market. Students voiced their outrage by throwing rocks at the high school in an attempt to destroy it. Neighbors looked after us (to keep us from being injured in a protest) but it was extremely difficult to carry on as normal as the Arabic news channels blamed the US (by extension) for the deaths in Palestine. I really did not think that Mauritanians had the capacity to be this belligerant, ever. This is a complete turn around compared to how people behaved after the coup. The government succeeded in throwing out the Israeli Ambassador. I have another, angrier blog post about this, but I decided not to post it.
Mid January I recieved the news that a close family member had died, the day of his funeral my house was broken into.

By the end of January things were normal as they could be in Aioun, and I started up work again with the Aioun CFPP. The director assigned me 18 hours of class in 4 hour blocks, without a tutor. I was to teach computer theory to students who only knew Arabic. It started off as a struggle, and I realized that there really isn’t any point to stress myself out and bash my head against the wall trying to get people to learn in the wrong language when the CFPP has perfectly capable professors who are fluent in Arabic. I begged the director for a translator, he laughed at me and told me to “force” my students to learn French. I told him that was impossible and told me to contact him when he found an appropriate translator. He never called.

At this same time I encountered an amazing woman through my sitemate. Khadjia Mint Kardidi runs an NGO in Aioun and gives trainings to women. She is very successful but low on cash for trainings. She is a case example of something we in Peace Corps call a Community Power Broker. She’s smart, talented, and well respected, when she talks, people hang on her every word. When she plans a meeting, people actually attend. Best of all, she was on board with Peace Corps goals and wanted to work with us. In the end of January, my sitemate Susie gave a training on canning vegetables, Khadija led the training, and I led the business component, trying to get the women to figure out the cost of materials and how to set prices. The training was successful, and we did follow up several weeks after the training, the women knew the method for canning vegetables by heart. It was very impressive, considering they didn’t even write the steps down (Mauritania is not a literary society, books do not exist except the Koran). It’s something I wouldn’t have been able to do, and I had the directions written down in English!

After that first training, Khadija mentioned interest in training the Cooperatives in Aioun. She wanted to educate women on the basics of running a cooperative and responsibilities required of the executive members. I wanted to stress the importance of critical thinking and decision making before starting new business ventures. Our plans meshed well together and we decided to hold a 3 day long training. We invited the president and secretary general from 10 women’s cooperatives based in Aioun in February. The training was a success.

In early February I took a trip to the south of Mauritania the hard way. I met up with my friend Edna in Kiffa and we took a 15 hour long offroading trip to get to Selibaby. I actually had bruises on my head and shoulder from bouncing around in the cab of a toyota hilux. It gave me a ton of respect for the volunteers of that region, they offroad like that whenever they have to leave site! Selibaby was a great town, a 360 degree change from Aioun. People were friendly and spoke French. I was able to give a neem soap training to the Girl’s Mentoring Center and it went incredibly well. The students were so polite and well spoken! It was amazing how shaky my french was considering I’m used to peppering it with Hassaniya so people actually understand me in Aioun.
After Selibaby I headed down to Dakar to attend my second WAIST. WAIST this year was amazing. The Mauritanian pirates won the social league division, our country director was there and my american style homestay was amazing. Over 100 Mauritanian PCVs attended. Dakar, as per usual, was amazing, and crazy and bustling, and I got the sushi plate I look forward to every year. In the market near my hotel, they were selling tee shirts that say (in french) “If you piss me off, I’m going back to Senegal.” The sentiment made me laugh, because it is probably the reigning attitude of PCVs towards their communities on bad days. I didn’t buy a shirt that said that because I couldnt get a decent price.

I returned to Aioun after WAIST and held another business training with Khadija. This time we trained 20 cooperatives. It went well and it became clear that the cooperatives have a serious lack of artisinal skills that was limiting them from achieving their full potential. I planned to have a tie dye training when I found out that the funding I have been using dried up. There was a special Gender and Development fund that I was using to pay for the supplies for the conference (mainly lunch each day and transport money for the participants). We planned on holding the next training immediately but couldn’t.

March 8 was International Women’s day. I met multiple times with the Director of the Condition Femenine (Government post that deals with women’s issues) to try to make the festival a big deal. Last year, both Aioun and Nema had really huge parties to celebrate Women’s day. It was a good time to exhibit the work of artisinal cooperatives, as well as skits and performances by womens’ groups and girls’ clubs, not to mention local food vendors. I spoke with the director, and explained my plan of renting a large tent (and paying for it with Peace Corps $$) and having music and food, she seemed not enthusiastic. She then commenced in blowing me off, and I figured they had some sort of plan. Well, Womens’ Day arrived, I put on a veil and headed to the place where they were holding the ceremonies. The scene was a total mess, the cooperatives were stuck in the back of the meeting hall, trapped and no one could see their wares, the front of the room was choked with VIPs and the rest of the people attending were stuck outside in the sun for hours. There was no food or drink for sale and people were loud and pushy. All the dignitaries were hours late (you cannot start anything formal in this country unless you get a speech from the mayor, hakem, and wali) all of them were men. The CF director kept trying to drag me around to show off the white girl in the veil (definitely a downside to keeping in line with local customs). At this point I was dizzy and tired from sitting in the sun and wouldn’t have anymore of it, I left before all the bigwigs made their speeches.This might be my perspective as an embittered 2nd year volunteer, but what’s the point of having a womens’ day if you treat it like a total joke? Why even bother if you have to stand around waiting for men to show up and justify even having a day such as this? I took this a little personally, and am still frustrated that they turned me down even though I showed up with a plan for the day and money! I guess there are reasons why this woman is ignored by most of her colleagues. Its frustrating that they have money for skills trainings for women but it just gets wasted on whatever frivolties the CF Director wants.

The end of March was marked by our Close of Service Conference. It was a 3 day long conference that focused on handholding and trying to process our last 2 years in country. There was also a lot of career advice as well as pressure to apply for government jobs. It was also the last time I would see alot of our class of 60+ people who came over with me in 2007. I’m no longer afraid of entering into the job market, even though the economy remains a mess. It was also great to see old friends and hear about what their plans for the future are, many are going on to grad school, also there’s a large chunk of people heading on to Peace Corps China. It was a plan I myself considered.

So herein lies the big question, what are my plans for after August 6? I applied to 5 graduate schools in December, I got rejected by all but one. I am on the waitlist for Columbia University and plan to stick it out. I actually got rejected by my Alma Mater (AU grads who read this, the next time they call you for $$, tell them to go to hell for me!). I blame alot of this on the crappy economy. Needless to say, this was probably one of the toughest times being in Mauritania, all the waiting and rejection has made me miserable. There is nothing in Aioun to keep my mind of the crushing amount of defeat and rejection I feel besides old beat up paperbacks in our library. No food, no beer, no entertainment. Just heat and misery to get you through the day.

So at this point, I return home to insanely high student loan payments and no job, woo! I plan on moving to DC (sorry New Yorkers, I tried but NY doesn’t really have a develpment industry like DC does) probably by mid August-early September. At that point I will be applying for the spring term at a couple of grad schools in the area, and working my butt off.

So yeah, I haven’t posted in a very long time, but I just kept putting it off because I had nothing really positive or exciting to post about. So I just decided to clump it all together in a big fat whiney blog post, all negative-style. Sorry about that, but this isn’t a blog about how I moved to Africa and started censoring my reaction to things.

My official Close Of Service date is August 6, 2009. I will be bringing my dog, Nancy Sinatra with me. Take some pleasure in that.

Thoughts on the President Elect

Election day/night/early morning was quite a scene out here in Aioun. I'd like to thank everyone who voted on election day, please be aware that living in a country under a military dictatorship makes you much more appreciative of American Democracy!! I'd like you all to know that there were about 12 volunteers in town election night, frantically reloading CNN and NYTIMES webpages trying to glean any sort of information on election results. My friend has a chalkboard at her house and I drew a map of all 50 states and used red and blue chalk to color in each one. The pictures are on facebook. The strongest of us stayed up until 4 am when the election results were decided! It was like 8 consecutive years of Christmas saved up for some of us, and for others it was a crushing defeat. Also it was amazing to be in Africa as we elected the first African American president of the United States. I really do wish I was at home in NY or DC, but I'm happy for the unique experience I shared with my sitemates. Needless to say I am very happy because my candidate won. But I think that the ripple effect felt out here in Mauritania was much bigger than I expected. Perceptions of Americans changed dramatically November 5th. People kept stopping by my house to congratulate me, and wish us well. They are overjoyed that the president elect has an African Muslim father. I'm pretty proud of it too!

I'm also glad I wont get yelled at in the street for any more of George Bush's policies (Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, threats to Iran) anymore.

Another thing I'd like to mention is Obama's campaign promise to double the number of Peace Corps Volunteers by 2011. I'd like to start by saying that we need money more than we need volunteers at this time, our budget has been cut in half! But at the same time increasing our numbers could work at a time like this, with a new administration that is incredibly welcomed by most countries abroad.
Either way, if you'd like to support me, sign this petition below:

http://www.petitiononline.com/morepc/petition.html

Looooong Overdue Update

Ok so many many apologies for this long winded and way overdue email. Many things have changed in my life as a volunteer since the month of August!

August 6^th was an interesting day for me, especially since I was in the capital. A military coup was staged that morning and the president was supplanted and jailed. I know a lot of people were concerned about my safety, but really, it was probably one of the most nonchalant coups in history. People protested the overthrow of the president, (he was the first democratically elected one in the nation’s history) there were a few demonstrations, but thats about it. I was able to get onto my flight out of Dakar and head home for vacation. How did the coup affect Mauritania on a macro level? Well, aid money got incredibly tight. The United States government suspended all non-humanitarian aid, the funding from the European Union and the Millennium Challenge Corporation got cut. What does this mean for me? Peace Corps will continue its work as usual, although thanks to the state of the economy, this means on a super tight budget. How tight? Well, I found out while I was in the US on vacation that Nema, my site was to be closed and that I was to move out of it immediately. I was incredibly shocked by this, mainly because I was so far away and had no control over what was happening. Peace Corps did a very good job of convincing me that everything would be taken care of so I would have no problems when I got back. I was allowed to go back to Nema for 2 nights to say goodbye to everyone, it was really sad. I felt the worst because before I left, a lot of people joked with me and exclaimed that I would go back to the US and not come back to Nema because life there was so hard. Well, it ends up that I did have to leave Nema right after my trip home. People were really understanding, because it was not up to me to decide, and it was based off of Peace Corps concerns about finances and safety. Leaving was emotional and difficult because usually you are given 2 years to plan your goodbyes and not 5 days, but all in all it went well.

Let me tell you about my new site, Aioun El Attrouss. Aioun El Attrouss literally means “Eye of the Goat.” It is 4 hours away from Nema, and 14 hours away from Nouakchott. It is a large city and has a paved road that goes into Mali. It is much different from Nema in size, amenities and ethnic makeup. The town is much larger, much less isolated and has much more people. The houses are in much better condition, the town is actually growing and is not declining like Nema. On the amenities scale? Running water, an actual restaurant, boutiques that sell oranges, apples and bananas, these don’t seem like much to an outsider, but when you go from having nothing to something, it really does wonders for morale. I loved Nema, but it was the only Mauritanian regional capital without ketchup.

One of the biggest things I have noticed is the difference in attitudes of people. Aioun is an established site, it has had Peace Corps Volunteers for several decades as far as I can tell. Nema has not had volunteers since the late 1980s. Sometimes trying to get community members together to work on projects was incredibly difficult. People were unsure of who we were, what we stood for and what they could get out of us financially. Working at the CFPP in Nema was particularly difficult due to the language barrier. Being a Small Enterprise Volunteer in Aioun will be much easier. I have a new site mate who is also in SED so we will be able to work on projects together.

I must admit I haven’t been blogging at all these past couple of months for two reasons: its been Ramadan so I have very little to report and I’ve been spending all my free time studying for the GRE and getting into Grad School. I have applied to 5 schools and there’s a 50-50 shot I’ll be living in DC or NY next year, so at least half of the audience of this blog will be happy! I’ll be pursuing a degree in development studies or economic and political development, depending on the program I get into.

This past weekend I took the GRE in Bamako with a bunch of other girls from Aioun. It was pretty much a working vacation, I got to see the sites and night life of Bamako, and spent only one day taking the test! I think I did alright, hopefully better than when I last took the test. Thanks to PC Mali, we got really nice accommodations, the hotel we stayed at had a bar and a pool! Nothing like Nouakchott! And $2 half liter draft beers! We met a bunch of Malian PCVs who were really nice, all in all had a great time, and now its back to the grindstone for me. Classes at the CFPP should be starting soon, and I am currently working in a project with a restaurant. I’m trying to get them to really start taking account of their sales, and also working on some marketing strategies. I’ll keep you posted on their progress!

Also on the packages front: I know have a legit and stable address, so if you mail me things, I will likely get them in days/weeks instead of many months!

My new address is as follows:

Heather Wyllie

BP 4

Aioun El Atrouss

Mauritania

Love and miss you all, it was great to see everyone when I was at home! I’ll be back stateside before you know it!

Video As Promised!

Vacation Wrap Up/Sorry I haven't posted lately

Long overdue update, I realize I haven’t posted in over a month, I’ve been pretty busy as the mercury continues to rise higher and higher out here in Mauritania,

A few highlights:

I went off to Jazz fest in the beginning of May, it was quite a fun trip, once you got past the amount of time it took me to travel out for a 4 day long festival. Granted, Saint Louis is practically Disneyland to me at this point and I always have a good time. But to get there I have to spend 2 days in the car just to get to Nouakchott, overnight there and then head onto Saint Louis. But the clincher is that I have to cross into Senegal at Rosso, and then get across the river itself. Crossing is always an adventure based on the mode of transport you choose to go across on. You have three choices – the BAC ferry, which is a swarming mass of people, cars, semis and sometimes camel herds. You also have the pirogue option- a small boat that is always on the verge of sinking, you have a motorized option or a non motorized option. What baffles me the most is why nobody has bothered to build a bridge in the last 50 years? More goods and people could move between the two countries if we could try to smooth out this border crossing nightmare! The worst part is the customs officials, as soon as your little pirogue lands on Mauritanian side, a gendarme jumps on the boat and seizes every westerner’s passport and makes them wait around in the heat for hours till they realize they cannot extort any money from us, we’re peace corps volunteers for crissakes we look like refugees. There is also the “exit” fee, that some random guy with a booklet of yellow papers demands from you to exit the customs area, which is gated. Some days its 200 UM, sometimes its 100 UM. Its basically just a bribe, run by one man who pays the police to look the other way when he does it. When it’s a group of 10-20 westerners, the man makes quite a haul in the space of 2 minutes! All of this is done under these giant glaring posters, (paid for by your tax dollars) that say CORRUPTION HURTS ALL OF MAURITANIA which I find to be hilariously ironic. But, we’re Peace Corps volunteers so we do everything we can do avoid the fee, which involves me sneaking out a side entrance, avoiding the green ticket bribe guy and a scuffle ensues with the next 10 people who tried to follow me out. All 10 or so of us emerged victorious from the potential scam.

But anyways, Jazzfest was a blast, lots of Jazz music at night that you had to pay for at night, lots of fun drumbeats during the day. I spent most of my days at the beach, a Senegalese volunteer even dragged out a sawed in half windsurf board, which I proceeded to use. The surf was pretty rough but it was totally worth the scrapes and bruises!! I discovered two pretty great edible things in Saint Louis- YogoGlace and the EggBurger. YogoGlace is just that, basically a bag of frozen yogurt, no, not froyo from a food court mall, which totally grosses me out on a scatological level and I still cannot eat to this day. Just imagine a small bag of vanilla yogurt, straight from your freezer. This is a genius Senegalese product that only cost about 50 CFA, (maybe 10 cents American) and had all the goodness of yogurt. If you find that when I go home I have a small stash of Ziploc baggies full of yogurt in my freezer, do not judge me. Also, I have to get down to business about the culinary practice in Africa of putting a cooked egg on things. Where in America we might put cheese or another slab of meat on sometime (triple whopper from BK ringing a bell here anyone?) instead a fried egg is placed on top of said item. Restaurants put eggs on pizza, burgers, and schwarma sandwiches. And if you are a PCV in west Africa, that’s just about what you can afford on your salary. But anyway, I have to say the first time I tried an egg on a burger ( I had resisted it now since December) it was somewhat of a religious experience. I went into a hole in the wall joint one of my first nights there, ordered a burger, knowing that it had cheese on it and had my mind blown by the combo of egg, cheese, burger and delicious bun. Its like half breakfast sandwich/half burger. It was sooooo tasty that as soon as I had one I instantly wanted another. But I restrained myself, a little. Being as the burgers were so tasty and cheap, and the place stayed open till 4 am and then reopened at 10 am, I was there with my friends approximately every 12 hours! It was worth it.

After that I returned back to site, as its getting hotter and hotter than ever before. Lots of things are starting to break down in the heat. Mainly my patience for things out here and the power grid. Which leads to a lot of problems. Mainly the ice crisis of 2008 in Nema. For the last week or so power has been browning in and out at random intervals, my computer classes have been a mess due to lack or power, and power doesn’t stay on long enough for fridges to work and ice to freeze! This is a big deal, I (and many other Mauritanian kids) start roaming the streets like a zombie asking at every boutique for ice, but all they can sell me is a plastic bag of cold water for the same price!! So here is the issue, when its this hot outside, every item in your home is the same temperature, warm or hot to the touch, the walls, the floor, your clothes, the metal water filter where you keep your water. Imagine being thirsty and gulping down a hot glass of water in 120 degree weather. It’s the opposite of refreshing. So its wearing on my sanity a little bit, but I’m hanging in there and wake up each day hopeful for ice…

Also, I filmed a cooking show last night with my sitemates, expect that to be posted soon!

Sweatingly,

Heather

-Also, new invitees get off the internet and go hang with your friends/fam/pets! There is no insight you can glean from this post. You’re ready for Mauritania, see you in a couple of weeks!

Wave of the Future

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyOlFGCx2tA

Ok so i finally figured out how to make videos, expect many more in the future!

Allah My Friend

Many people want to know what its like to live in an Islamic Republic. I’m not estimating when I say that everyone living in Mauritania (with the exception of a handful of expats and missionaries) are practicing Muslims. I’d say that there are many differences culturally but that doesn’t make them bad! I really do enjoy the holidays that involve big goat feasts and new clothing!

Everyone actually does pray 5 times a day. People actually do try to convert me to Islam sometimes, most often during trips in taxi brousse. This can be annoying but it kind of makes sense. The taxi does stop during the trip so that everyone can pray at the appropriate times during the day and night. I’m the only one in the car who doesn’t go out to pray and people start to ask questions, just merely out of curiosity. (You’re not going to pray with us? Wait, you’re not Muslim?!) People get concerned because they are devout members of their faith and think their way is the only right path and they don’t want anybody to be left out in the cold, to rot in hell, so to speak. (sound familiar?) I blame this more on Mauritania’s lack of cultural relativity. (Another question I get asked often – Why are you not Muslim and wearing a Mulafa all the time? Dude, have you noticed I was not born here? They get confused when I tell them America doesn’t have camels.) Also, I tend to be up front with people about it. “Nope, I’m not Muslim, I think Islam’s great, but I’m not going to convert to appease you for this car ride.” It’s also a tough line to toe because people here are very wary/suspicious of Christian missionaries present in Mauritania. You completely lose your credibility if people suspect you are attempting to convert people. So declaring you’re Christian doesn’t exactly help the situation.

But thanks to the Koran there are several phrases that you can use to wriggle out of this sometimes awkward situation. El-kitab is the Islamic phrase that basically means, “Christians, Jews and Muslims, we’re all people of the book.” People tend to let the issue slide after I use that one. There’s also the phrase “You have your religion and I have mine” which I tend to use in French, but I have written down the Arabic equivalent somewhere.

As is the same in many Christian sects with the bible, most moral dilemmas can be solved by referring to the qu’ran or the Hadiths. What would Mohammad do in a given situation? What did he do in a given situation? “It is written that…”

I’d like to say one of the biggest differences here is the use of Allah in every day expressions and conversations (although, at least in my Catholic family we use a lot of god phrases but probably don’t even realize it!). You can invoke Allah in almost every turn of phrase. It is literally ingrained into the culture and the language. I even have started using them in emails and chats and conversations just because I’ve gotten so used to using them here in Mauritania. They’re absolutely unavoidable sometimes. The use of these words also gives you a good insight into the nuances of a culture and language rules. I’ve listed the ones I’ve used most frequently below. Often they’re used in combinations, but I’ll leave that for the end.

Salaam Aleikum- Peace be upon you

This is has a variety of uses, it is the number one used greeting, especially in Nema, as it is a predominately white moor town, reflecting its Arabic leanings/roots. I almost always start my greetings with Salaam Aleikum, it also works to get someone’s attention, call someone out if they’re being sketchy towards you without properly greeting you first, or to refute a statement in an argument and direct the conversation back to yourself. I know the last usage sounds pretty strange, but you can literally raise your voice and say “Hey! Salaam Aleikum” in a hard tone, and continue on with whatever you were arguing about.

Mashallah- thanks be to God.

This is a big cultural rule, when one compliments an infant, for example, you HAVE to add mashallah to the end otherwise its bad luck/you’re disrespecting Allah by not thanking him for this life. It also has to do with asking a person how many children they have, which is taboo, or counting the number of people in a room. It also is used when people ask you about your health or the heat, you add mashallah to the end.

Your baby is beautiful, mashallah!

Bismillahi- a beginning in the name of Allah

This phrase can be used dozens of times in a single day. As you can tell, it marks the commencement of an activity. Everyone says bismillah before they start eating a meal, getting into a car, sitting down at a station at my computer class. It can also sort of be used as an informal welcome or invitation, to come sit and eat or hang with a family.

Hey Fatou, Bismillahi! Take a seat, we haven’t seen you in a week!

Wallahi- As Allah has willed it

This is used as a pretty generic statement of positive affirmation. Roughly translated it could be “of course” or in certain situations “Hell yeah!” It can almost be a cheer.

I love this word for several reasons. I can use it with a sense of sarcasm and get people to laugh when I say, “Nema’s great,Wallahi”, when its 120 degrees outside, and I don’t have water or power and its Ramadan and everyone’s fasting. No one, and I mean no one, in Mauritania can pronounce my first or last name properly. Mainly because there isn’t anything similar or near it vocabulary or pronunciation-wise in French or Arabic. Wallahi is the closest thing to Wyllie soundwise. So whenever I say my name, I say afterwards, “you know, sort of like wallahi” and people usually laugh, but it helps. And then people just go back to calling me Fatou.

“Hey Fatou how’s Nema? Is it good or bad?” “It’s great, Wallahi!”

Inshallah- If Allah wills it.

This is probably the word a Peace Corps volunteer hates hearing the most, but probably abuses the most at the same time. It can basically be used as a “get out of a meeting/responsibility free card.” You can commit to something but then throw inshallah afterwards, and if Allah wills you to attend said commitment, well that’s awesome. But if you don’t show up, it was the will of Allah so technically people can’t be mad at you. It’s good for people who avoid responsibility. Often, when it comes to meetings or classes, I cannot get more confirmation that a person will show up besides inshallah. “Oh, I’ll be there, inshallah.” “But are you sure that you’ll show? Is it certain??” “Allah’s will is always certain you idiot, why would you ask that?!” There’s no point in arguing or trying to get clarification, they’ve already played the inshallah card. You do not question or debate Allah’s will. I learned that the hard way and pissed a few people off in the process.

The most common use of inshallah in Nema is as follows:

“The taxi will leave at 12pm, inshallah.”

(Which literally means, show up at noon we have no idea whether the car will leave today, tonight or tomorrow morning)

Alhumdilulahi- Praise be to Allah!

The best example of the usage of this word calls back my last post where we narrowly avoided death by camel collision. Alhumdilulahi was uttered hundreds of times after the car crash, and in the retelling it to my friends. We literally chanted it as a group when we were all outside of the car.

“ Fatou,you hit a camel in taxi brousse?! Are you alright?” “I’m fine, nobody was hurt, Alhumdilulahi!”(said with much gusto to show you’re truly thankful).

So if I ever use one of those phrases on the phone or in email, refer to this guide to get a better grasp on whatever it is I’m babbling about!