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!

My Brush with Death

Ok so I had to go into the capital for a dentist appointment, stayed for a couple days then got back into taxi brousse to get back to Nema. Taxi brousse is you know, your standard third world transportation, an aging mercedes benz with over 180,000 miles on it, patched up tires and upwards of 7 people in the car (not counting pantless babies). Those who travel in taxi brousse are your stereotypical Mauritanians, sun scorched, wrinkled, missing a few teeth, constantly praying, trying to marry me/convert me to Islam, singing Islamic praises to Allah over the roar of the engine at upwards of 100 miles an hour. Imagine four morbidly obese women in the back of a merc sedan. Believe me, I'll reenact this one for you all when I'm home. Just imagine it, hardly seems possible. So anyway. Yesterday morning I left Kiffa (8 hours from Nema normally at 8 am) that should have put me back in Nema before sundown, which is good for your safety. Why? Well, I never really cared about it before, I've had a few accidents/unsafe things happen to me in taxi brousse. (We swerved to avoid another car, off -roaded and hit a few boulders, almost hit a camel, got stuck on the side of the road with a flat and no spare, and no cell phone or water, miles from the nearest town, etc). There comes a point when its just like, hell with it,lets sit till help arrives someone will inevitably stop. There's no point in being angry about it.

So last night I was stuck in a town one hour outside of nema ( timbegra I hate that place, have blogged about it before) for about 4-5 hours (I stopped wearing a watch because when I realize I've been on the road for 16 hours I get bitchy). Since no one travels to my town ever it takes like, 5 hours to get a car half filled with people before deciding to go. It was hot out and I ran out of water and was fantasizing about drinking cold delicious american drinks- like slurpies, ralph’s Italian ices, snow cones and cold koolaid. So things were fine I was in the front seat and had the entire seat to myself (not normal, usually you have to pay double for that). It got dark pretty quickly in the last hour of the ride. The entire 1200km stretch of the road from Nema to Nouakchott is not lit, has no streetlights. We were about 12 km outside of Nema, I was zoning out listening to my ipod when a camel steps out on to the road. They feed off the trees at night. They literally stand in the road munching on tree branches as cars whiz by them at speeds of upwards of 100 miles an hour. And the fact that they're big dumb herd animals doesn't help. They scare easily at night; they also wheel back in front of the car when they should be running away from the vehicle quickly approaching them. The driver slammed on the breaks, I had just enough time to look up, see the camel torso coming at the windshield before I ducked down and covered my face in my hands. The camel hit the windshield and vaporized it before rolling over the front of the car and landing on the road again, and it managed to scramble off to the side of the road. It lay there on the side of the road, groaning in pain. We skidded to a stop and the windshield fell into my lap, I was covered with tiny shards of glass. Everyone got out of the car and someone had to open my door up to get me out because I was in shock, the first thing I did was spit out the mixture of dust, glass and camel hair that entered my mouth on impact. I was shaking, my knees were knocking and I was breathing hard. But every one of us in the car just looked around and looked each other over, no one was seriously hurt. So I just started yelling "WE'RE NOT DEAD!!!" because really, that was the only thought in my head at the time. I had a flashback to my driver's ed lecturer (Mel, and Funnyboy remember this) telling us about a guy that hit a moose and became a paraplegic. At this point there were a lot of Islamic phrases that were uttered by the driver and the two other passengers in the car. We all (me included) thanked god and Allah that the camel didn't bust through the windshield and kill us all. (Bismillah, Merhebe, ALHUMDILLULAH, etc). The car was totaled. At this point a crowd of people gathered and had flashlights, they shined a light on me and in my heightened sense of euphoria I totally missed the fact that my right hand was dripping in blood and I was covered in thousands of razor sharp bits of glass. A Gendarme medic stopped by in a car and helped by brushing me off; I looked down and realized my shirt and bra were FULL of glass. So I walked over to the side of the road, grit my teeth and stripped my shirt and bra off and let this gendarmerie medic dude brush the glass off my breasts with a scarf. That was probably the most embarrassing thing I've had to endure since being here, being topless in front of a crowd of people, but it was that or risk cutting myself to ribbons. It’s a good thing breasts are not a big deal over here, nobody even gawked when they realized I was covered in glass. To be honest, everyone breast feeds over here, so in some ways an uncovered head is more offensive than a bare breast. After that we were driven to the gendarme post in nema, they filed a report then drove all of us to the hospital. At that point I called the PCMO to let her know what had happened and asked her to send my sitemate Sarah to the hospital, because really, I was totally out of it and needed someone there with me, and I couldn’t get a hold of her. My Hassaniya and French weren't really functioning at this point. Our conversation went something like this: "So are you alright? Is anyone hurt? ...Well I'm pretty sure the camel's not gonna make it (laughter) but I'll be fine." I was just so happy to be alive that I was mildly euphoric about it. At the hospital they asked me a bunch of questions, checked me over for bruises and contusions, cleaned the cuts in my hand and then offered x-rays and prescriptions for ibuprofen and antibiotics. All in all not bad for the Nema hospital. I refused the x-rays and at that point the gendarme stepped in and asked me to fill out some paperwork, I was asked if I wanted to press charges or seek financial damages against the driver of the car. They were very clear and very insistent about my rights, and respected me when I declined to press charges because from my view in the front seat, the driver wasn't at fault. Camels feed at night, and if he hadn't reacted so quickly we'd all be in far worse shape. It sounds pretty silly but, hundreds of people die on the road due to hitting camels in places like Mauritania. It’s common around here. It's the risk of driving at night on unlit roads, and it is almost unavoidable when you live as far away as I do. The driver felt terrible, and made sure that I was taken care of and driven home, and he even stopped by my house this morning to make sure that I was alright before leaving town again. So yeah, I almost died last night in a car crash with a camel. The funniest/messed up thing? I called my dad and told him the story, and he asked me, "So they put the camel down, right?" And I thought to myself, no, that’s about $400 of camel meat sitting on the side of the road, which is NOT going to go to waste. You do not shoot something to put it out of its misery if you can feed the whole town with it instead. I cannot be sure of this, but it is likely that after the crash b/c the camel was still alive, they slaughtered it hallal style (slitting its neck and letting it bleed out- this is the only way Muslims eat meat). And the camel is probably on the meat market now in Nema, because it is a delicacy out here.

Yeah, so that’s my brush with death story. Hopefully you learned a little bit about Mauritanian culture along the way.