Puppy Rescue/Moulafa Musings

Another day wasted at the Cfpp it seems the more I try to get the girls to work hard and show up on time, the more they feel like being lazy and skipping class. My translator has quit on me, well everyone here says he's sick but its been over 2 weeks now and it doesn't look like he's going to be coming back. My director has left again for Nouakchott, he has promised to bring computers but who knows?
Oh yes, also news of note: two weeks ago I rescued two puppies. I came home after a hard morning at the CFPP and was reading in my room and I kept hearing this screaming noise, and then I heard lots of kids yelling. This yelping/screaming kept up and it was kinda nerve shattering and I couldn't identify it. Suddenly it all clicked after the third time I heard it I realized that the noise was the sound of a puppy screaming! I didn’t recognize it at first then suddenly I remembered a thanksgiving day years ago when my dog Major was a puppy and lept up and bit the top of his crate, he was basically hanging by his teeth, howling in pain. At that point I threw my sandals on and ran outside in the direction of the sounds. Right around my house, outside my wall was a group of kids surrounding a small puppy, the ringleader was whipping it with a plastic cord, it was screaming in pain and blood was pouring out of its nose. As soon as they saw me running at them the kids all got scared and scattered. It ends up that they had two dogs but I couldn’t outleg both of the boys holding the dogs (one was 14 and booked it out of there). At this point I was screaming in Hassaniya and totally out of my mind as I wrenched the poor dog from the kids' hands. I went back home, grabbed my purse (its large and made of a rice sack) and put the dog in it and set off to try to find the other dog. I walked all over my neighborhood with several girls who were are part of the group who were torturing the dogs. Apparently they took the dog to the market but I could not for the life of me communicate it to anyone that I was looking for dogs until I ran into one woman who seemed to be the aunt/neighbor/grandmother of some of the girls. When I explained what happened, she got upset but then promised that if she saw the other dog she would bring it to me. I went home after that and tried to clean up and feed the one puppy, and within the hour there was a crowd outside my door of older woman who found and brought me the other puppy! I don’t even know how she knew where I lived but I was happy to see the other dog. So at this point I have two puppies and I haven’t named them yet, they’re very cute but get into everything and are total dustballs on account of the sand here in Nema. I have yet to name them, if possible I’d like to give one to an expat to adopt but I haven’t been able find one yet! I’d like to give them a good pair names but honestly I don’t even know if they are boys or girls! Can I get some advice on that? And maybe some name ideas??

This weekend I went to one of my student's boutiques, she was kind enough to gift me a moulafa. I have one stipulation about moulafas- basically if you give me one as a gift, I am sure to wear it to the CFPP and teach class in it. Moulafas are 6 meters of fabric that you drape around you and they come in every color, print and thickness you can imagine. The majority of them are sheer, but she gave me a "gauze" kind that is not see through. I see moulafas as a lot like blue jeans: you have your dark indigo denim, startched and pressed, which is one kind of moulafa the crinkly "new" kind, then you have your "vintage" wash lighter, broken in kind of jean, which is a gauze moulafa. I find the gauze, like old jeans much more comfortable and easy to wear. Wearing a new starched up moulafa really feels like you're wearing wrapping paper, it kinda does its own thing. It takes a bit of time and experience to get good at tying a moulafa. You have to knot certain ends together so that the moulafa hangs on your shoulders and you don’t trip on it (if you're short like me). This morning I didn't have the time to mess with tying my moulafa (lets be honest its cold out and I overslept) so I went over to my neighbors house, and asked them to help me. They were honored and thought it was pretty funny to have this half dressed (by their definition, I was in pants and a tee shirt) white girl run over to their house to get a moulafa tied on. As much as it may irritate me to wear, the moulafa is really a symbol of pride for white moor women. They love wearing them and weeks of work go into many of the hand-dyed moulafas. This last week I also started to meet with a tie-dye cooperative in Nema. Due to Nema’s location, when I first got affectated here I didn’t think tie dye coops existed. Being two days from the capital tends to hurt the quality and consistency of the supply of your dyes and fabrics. And also, Kaedi, a big town along the Senegal river is well known for its tie dye. A good quality tie-dye is often called “Kaedi” quality, and they stand out amongst others. Cooperative Houda as they are called are known in Nema for making quality moulafas. They want to work with me, and I hope to teach them accounting skills and microfinancing. They have also offered to teach tie dye classes with girls in the community, things are starting to look up!

-HEATHER/Fatou