I know that I never blogged about it or even emailed anyone about it, but yes, on December 24th a family of French tourists was gunned down in a small village outside of Aleg. Aleg is a regional capital (like Nema) that is 4 hours from Nouakchott, the capital. I never mentioned it to anyone at home because, well hell it was Christmas Eve and I am not about ruining Christmas, even if I'm not home for it. The following link is a France 24 newspiece all about extremism and Mauritania. I figured it kinda gave you a look at what Mauritania is like. Yes, I really live in a town like that, and sometimes speak like that too. I promise to try to make and upload videos that picture me doing daily things in Nema. I just don't have the DSL speed right now to make the a possiblity. Until then you could always watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YS9ayJWbu4
I feel as though the extremism is overhyped and has never been a problem for me. So fear not, dear readers, the Muslim Brotherhood knows better than to mess with Fatou Cisse.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
PCRIM Invitees Please Read
I know that there at least 20 of you out there stalking the blogs right now just as I did last year, you're probably freaking out about what to expect and what to pack here, my friend is about to leave the US to become a senegalese volunteer and this post is taken from an email I wrote her:
Ok so here’s a list of stuff I found helpful to bring to Mauritania, I spent a lot of time agonizing over what to bring beforehand. You’ll be ok even if you don’t check off every item on this list!! But anyway here goes:
Flash drive
OFF/DEET
Tupperware (to keep ants out of your stuff)
Spices
A battery powered headlamp
Nalgene for your treated water
Travel towel
European power adaptor (I didn’t get one before hand I’m kicking myself now I’ve been through a few here and they make my ipod freeze)
New books
DVDs of new movies
Stationary
Stamps (sounds weird but you can hand off your mail to someone visiting the states it happens often!)
Multivitamins
Immodium – to use if you get sick when you travel
Sunblock
Scarf/headwrap (you never know when you might need it)
Ipod cassette tape converter for cars (this is good for long trips in taxi brousse and PC vehicles its like $10 at target it’s an Ipod converter for a car cassette deck)
Tropic screen mosquito net
Sharpie markers
MR. Sketch markers (the fun smelling kind)
Good drawing paper
Pencils/colored pencils (all of this art stuff is good for when you do trainings in brousse, women need health info but might be illiterate, big placards and posters with illustrations are like gold out here)
Photo album with pictures of home/family/friends – people looooove to share photos and hear about your family and it’s a good language lesson to try to remember the names for aunt, cousin etc in your local dialect.
Star chart ( the night sky is crazy here!!)
World map
Ipod with music – download Dimi Mint Abba.Yousson Dor (sp!) Akon, Baba Maal these are all Senegalese/Mauritanian singers and will lend you some cred with your host family during Stage, also download the language lessons they give you on Hassaniya/Wolof/Soninke/Pulaar, listen to them a little before you get to Mauritania it may help!
Fun stuff from home, stuff that represents your home town, I have a tee shirt with a map of long island on it, lol
Host family gifts/neighborhood kid gifts small toys or candy, it works for when they help you out, you’ll see
Lots of underwear!!!
Dove wipes for when you want to feel clean but don’t have water to wash your face
Nice outfit, at least a black pair of pants (you can get fun shirts made! Clothing here is an adventure)
Food- koolaid mix, crystal lite or gatorade, sauce mixes, spices that you like that can make anything taste good (for me old bay or garlic salt work) Cliff bars for when you can’t face another plate of ceb u jinn (you’ll see what I mean by the end of your first month here!) some sorta baking mix you can use to win over 2nd year volunteers at your site (like blueberry muffin mix or something, they’ll go crazy over it!)
Computer- ok at this point you don’t know whether your site has electricity or not. I’m not a laptop person, and didn’t bring one, and figure its better that I dont get upset if/when it gets stolen. But then again if you have electricity or internet access it may be a lot easier to rely your experiences to your family. And when you get to Nouakchott it could be helpful to have lots of hotels have wireless. My blog kinda died b/c of my lack of internet access. But also bringing a laptop is an obvious sign of wealth and that could lead to a lot of problems at site with people’s perceptions of you as a rich foreigner. The choice is up to you, worst case scenario you could wait to see what site you get, then have your parents either ship it to you.
Let’s face it, Africa is everything and nothing you expected it to be, smell, look or taste like. I am amazed by things I see every day, be it intense beauty, charity, cruelty or poverty. The most important things you need to bring with you you’ll find within yourself- keep an open mind, learn to laugh at yourself when others do, just basically smile and greet and laugh a lot. This is a place of superlatives- you’ll be the sickest you’ve been in your life, eat the weirdest things and have the strangest experiences both happy and sad. But that’s ok, TIA- This is Africa and it’s gonna shape who you are for the rest of your life! People will try to test you, so keep an open mind but keep your guard up as well, study the local language as best you can and as hard as you can. Ask a lot of questions during Stage (pre-service training), always go to your language facilitator if you’re confused about things that go on in your family. Make friends with kids in your neighborhood if anything crazy happens you can get them to tell you who did what (this has to do with theft and rock throwing, some kids are fucking bad! I got hit with a rock on the way over to the bureau to write this email!) Remember that cultural relativity goes both ways, if someone does something that makes you feel uncomfortable or exploited let them know and put a stop to it. Keep that in mind. Also understand that you’ll acclimate to everything, the heat, the people, the marriage requests, the food, it all takes time. “Petit a petit l’oiseau fait la nid.” There will be certain cultural differences that don’t bother you, and some will drive you mad, its ok to let that happen, we’re all human. Everyone picks their battles , we all have one (and mine happens to be wearing pants). And also keep in mind, you and I will never become Mauritanian, no matter how hard we try to fit into the cultural cookie cutter and pick up the language. But just being ourselves will be enough. Have fun with it! Give everything a try, goat brains, dancing, henna, strapping a baby to your back, greetings in other languages. Don’t worry about site announcement, even the most conservative towns have liberal people in them who will probably search you out because you’re a westerner. All you need to survive in Africa you already have in you, the courage and will you’ve had your entire life, the last 23 years have been preparation for this moment. Just remember that times will get tough, but the first 3 months is the hardest and then you get your freedom back!
Ok so here’s a list of stuff I found helpful to bring to Mauritania, I spent a lot of time agonizing over what to bring beforehand. You’ll be ok even if you don’t check off every item on this list!! But anyway here goes:
Flash drive
OFF/DEET
Tupperware (to keep ants out of your stuff)
Spices
A battery powered headlamp
Nalgene for your treated water
Travel towel
European power adaptor (I didn’t get one before hand I’m kicking myself now I’ve been through a few here and they make my ipod freeze)
New books
DVDs of new movies
Stationary
Stamps (sounds weird but you can hand off your mail to someone visiting the states it happens often!)
Multivitamins
Immodium – to use if you get sick when you travel
Sunblock
Scarf/headwrap (you never know when you might need it)
Ipod cassette tape converter for cars (this is good for long trips in taxi brousse and PC vehicles its like $10 at target it’s an Ipod converter for a car cassette deck)
Tropic screen mosquito net
Sharpie markers
MR. Sketch markers (the fun smelling kind)
Good drawing paper
Pencils/colored pencils (all of this art stuff is good for when you do trainings in brousse, women need health info but might be illiterate, big placards and posters with illustrations are like gold out here)
Photo album with pictures of home/family/friends – people looooove to share photos and hear about your family and it’s a good language lesson to try to remember the names for aunt, cousin etc in your local dialect.
Star chart ( the night sky is crazy here!!)
World map
Ipod with music – download Dimi Mint Abba.Yousson Dor (sp!) Akon, Baba Maal these are all Senegalese/Mauritanian singers and will lend you some cred with your host family during Stage, also download the language lessons they give you on Hassaniya/Wolof/Soninke/Pulaar, listen to them a little before you get to Mauritania it may help!
Fun stuff from home, stuff that represents your home town, I have a tee shirt with a map of long island on it, lol
Host family gifts/neighborhood kid gifts small toys or candy, it works for when they help you out, you’ll see
Lots of underwear!!!
Dove wipes for when you want to feel clean but don’t have water to wash your face
Nice outfit, at least a black pair of pants (you can get fun shirts made! Clothing here is an adventure)
Food- koolaid mix, crystal lite or gatorade, sauce mixes, spices that you like that can make anything taste good (for me old bay or garlic salt work) Cliff bars for when you can’t face another plate of ceb u jinn (you’ll see what I mean by the end of your first month here!) some sorta baking mix you can use to win over 2nd year volunteers at your site (like blueberry muffin mix or something, they’ll go crazy over it!)
Computer- ok at this point you don’t know whether your site has electricity or not. I’m not a laptop person, and didn’t bring one, and figure its better that I dont get upset if/when it gets stolen. But then again if you have electricity or internet access it may be a lot easier to rely your experiences to your family. And when you get to Nouakchott it could be helpful to have lots of hotels have wireless. My blog kinda died b/c of my lack of internet access. But also bringing a laptop is an obvious sign of wealth and that could lead to a lot of problems at site with people’s perceptions of you as a rich foreigner. The choice is up to you, worst case scenario you could wait to see what site you get, then have your parents either ship it to you.
Let’s face it, Africa is everything and nothing you expected it to be, smell, look or taste like. I am amazed by things I see every day, be it intense beauty, charity, cruelty or poverty. The most important things you need to bring with you you’ll find within yourself- keep an open mind, learn to laugh at yourself when others do, just basically smile and greet and laugh a lot. This is a place of superlatives- you’ll be the sickest you’ve been in your life, eat the weirdest things and have the strangest experiences both happy and sad. But that’s ok, TIA- This is Africa and it’s gonna shape who you are for the rest of your life! People will try to test you, so keep an open mind but keep your guard up as well, study the local language as best you can and as hard as you can. Ask a lot of questions during Stage (pre-service training), always go to your language facilitator if you’re confused about things that go on in your family. Make friends with kids in your neighborhood if anything crazy happens you can get them to tell you who did what (this has to do with theft and rock throwing, some kids are fucking bad! I got hit with a rock on the way over to the bureau to write this email!) Remember that cultural relativity goes both ways, if someone does something that makes you feel uncomfortable or exploited let them know and put a stop to it. Keep that in mind. Also understand that you’ll acclimate to everything, the heat, the people, the marriage requests, the food, it all takes time. “Petit a petit l’oiseau fait la nid.” There will be certain cultural differences that don’t bother you, and some will drive you mad, its ok to let that happen, we’re all human. Everyone picks their battles , we all have one (and mine happens to be wearing pants). And also keep in mind, you and I will never become Mauritanian, no matter how hard we try to fit into the cultural cookie cutter and pick up the language. But just being ourselves will be enough. Have fun with it! Give everything a try, goat brains, dancing, henna, strapping a baby to your back, greetings in other languages. Don’t worry about site announcement, even the most conservative towns have liberal people in them who will probably search you out because you’re a westerner. All you need to survive in Africa you already have in you, the courage and will you’ve had your entire life, the last 23 years have been preparation for this moment. Just remember that times will get tough, but the first 3 months is the hardest and then you get your freedom back!
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
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
Mauritania, a place so devoid of flavor mayonnaise is seen as a spice…
I know its been a long time, I didn’t mean to let the blog die but I had a lot of traveling to do and emails to write and the internet connection is scarce at best. So I guess I’m just going to write up a bunch of posts and post them if/when I can. I got to the point where I even wrote postcards because I knew I wouldn’t be in touch with people. I went to the post office today to try to buy stamps but the man who sells the stamps wasn’t there. How’s that for luck? So I figured giving the internet another try. It hasn’t worked yet, since I’ve been in the bureau.
Teaching at the CFPP is going, and by going I mean limping along dragging one crippled leg behind itself. After coming back from Christmas break it was the Muslim new year, another holiday, and after that it has taken me a total of two weeks to get all of the students to attend class again as a group and show up at the assigned time. In that two weeks they stopped attending supplementary French lessons in the morning and my translator got sick/quit. So I am now without a translator and cannot pick Arabic up through the powers of ESP, so I’m really in a bind. On top of all of that I’m trying to figure out my schedule for taking vacations, but the CFPP itself does not know when their March break is yet, so they cannot let me request vacation. They do not know when classes will end for the year (sometime in june or july maybe? If they feel like it?) So I cannot plan going home to America because no one has their act together and wont let me leave. This is a big problem because they are postponing graduation until the start of the rainy season, which has a chance of stranding me in Nema. Its just amazing to me that not a single school vacation is fixed and no one can plan ahead until the minister of education decides when the vacation will be. This makes me so furious! And could cost me a lot of money!! I am on the verge of saying fuck it and just planning the trip when its convenient for me and my family, and not dick around with the ever rotating capabilities (or lack thereof) at the CFPP. On top of it all it has been continuously rumored that the CFPP will be getting more computers than the single one we have. This rumor has gone on since I have gotten to Nema. I have waited with bated breath several times and have constantly inquired as to when these computers could arrive. The building I am in only has one outlet, I’m not even sure if the center could sustain that many computers in one building. And we’ve recently been plagued by brownouts that cause the girls to lose all the work So we’ll see how this all pans out. I am about as frustrated as I can be with the center at this point and often wish I could quit. I feel as though I could better use my time giving lessons at the DREN where there are 5 computers and assisting women’s coops with accounting and good business practices. Instead I waste my time for 3 hours every day standing over women at a computer as they struggle to grasp what I mean when I say “fermez ca fenetre” even though I’ve been using the same materials, language and lesson plan for 3 months now. I don’t know how I’m supposed to make these women proficient at computers by June or July. This task seems impossible, and I tried to eliminate some of the girls who really cannot seem to grasp computers. It’s not their fault but by the end of class I’m so burnt out that I really don’t have the patience or the extra time to focus on the people who have fallen behind because of excessive absences or lateness. I just don’t. I’m excited for tonight because I am meeting with a women’s coop to discuss what I can help them with lessons-wise. I know that they want a sewing machine, I don’t know where I’m going to find one for them. I'm also not here to give out gifts.
Teaching at the CFPP is going, and by going I mean limping along dragging one crippled leg behind itself. After coming back from Christmas break it was the Muslim new year, another holiday, and after that it has taken me a total of two weeks to get all of the students to attend class again as a group and show up at the assigned time. In that two weeks they stopped attending supplementary French lessons in the morning and my translator got sick/quit. So I am now without a translator and cannot pick Arabic up through the powers of ESP, so I’m really in a bind. On top of all of that I’m trying to figure out my schedule for taking vacations, but the CFPP itself does not know when their March break is yet, so they cannot let me request vacation. They do not know when classes will end for the year (sometime in june or july maybe? If they feel like it?) So I cannot plan going home to America because no one has their act together and wont let me leave. This is a big problem because they are postponing graduation until the start of the rainy season, which has a chance of stranding me in Nema. Its just amazing to me that not a single school vacation is fixed and no one can plan ahead until the minister of education decides when the vacation will be. This makes me so furious! And could cost me a lot of money!! I am on the verge of saying fuck it and just planning the trip when its convenient for me and my family, and not dick around with the ever rotating capabilities (or lack thereof) at the CFPP. On top of it all it has been continuously rumored that the CFPP will be getting more computers than the single one we have. This rumor has gone on since I have gotten to Nema. I have waited with bated breath several times and have constantly inquired as to when these computers could arrive. The building I am in only has one outlet, I’m not even sure if the center could sustain that many computers in one building. And we’ve recently been plagued by brownouts that cause the girls to lose all the work So we’ll see how this all pans out. I am about as frustrated as I can be with the center at this point and often wish I could quit. I feel as though I could better use my time giving lessons at the DREN where there are 5 computers and assisting women’s coops with accounting and good business practices. Instead I waste my time for 3 hours every day standing over women at a computer as they struggle to grasp what I mean when I say “fermez ca fenetre” even though I’ve been using the same materials, language and lesson plan for 3 months now. I don’t know how I’m supposed to make these women proficient at computers by June or July. This task seems impossible, and I tried to eliminate some of the girls who really cannot seem to grasp computers. It’s not their fault but by the end of class I’m so burnt out that I really don’t have the patience or the extra time to focus on the people who have fallen behind because of excessive absences or lateness. I just don’t. I’m excited for tonight because I am meeting with a women’s coop to discuss what I can help them with lessons-wise. I know that they want a sewing machine, I don’t know where I’m going to find one for them. I'm also not here to give out gifts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
