Current Context/ Political Drama this week

So anyway, less background more current. That last post was sort of an attempt to explain why things have been so crazy in the weeks since I've gotten here. As of late, the UN has put some pressure on the Government of Sri Lanka to submit to an investigation of war crimes for the events of the final months of the war. The United States sent a panel to interview and question people. Samantha Power, the leading genocide expert in the United States was here. This was a huge deal (SIPA people understand) but her visit got little to no mention in the press, which is mostly government owned and controlled. At the same time the North province has been cut off for foreigners. I can only gain access with special permission from the ministry of defence. There is no likelihood of that, and I'd normally flaunt the rules and charm my way past, but in this case, if you get caught you're probably jailed forever. There will be no visits to the northern province for me this summer!

The European Union also put pressure on the government via a trade deal. The trade deal, known as the GSP came with a list of agreements. This time the agreements had everything to do with war victims and lists of dead combatants. Let's just say that this 17 point list was not well received, in fact it was rejected by the government.


The government sees itself as victors in a war on terror and their ends justify whatever means they used. Rajapaksa, the president says that he wants to protect the dignity of the war heroes. That pretty much means the government will not tolerate any sort of inquiry or questioning from anyone. Yes, it makes them look like they have a huge amount of things to hide. I know. But SL sees it as an attack on their sovereignty. A comparison to the United States is usually made, where the US would never submit to an inquiry in the international criminal court for any accusations for events in Iraq, Gauntanamo or Afghanistan. I understand and agree with the reality of that sentiment, but it doesn't make the situation any better.

So this brings us to last week. Last week was particularly dramatic as the UN continued to push for a panel. In this time, one parliament member suggested that Sri Lankan citizens storm the UN to show their contempt for the panel. Over the weekend the minister backtracked and said that it was not to be taken as a threat. Well, people prepared themselves and "besieged" the UN office, blocking all the workers in it. They set up a stage in front of the office. Police officers looked on, all but condoning this crowd burning a Ban Ki Moon in effigy with posters that said "Ban Ki Pimp, US Puppet, Ruiner of the UN." Harsh words, also many parliament members were protesting. The UN had to shut down operations for several days. In that time Wimal Weerawansa, the minster of Housing, and a very popular parliament member announced he would fast unto death to get the United Nations to drop the panel.
So imagine a man dramatically laying on a bed, refusing food and water for two days, in the street outside the UN compound with tons of cameras and press around. Total farce. The government promised no harm would be done to UN employees but made no efforts to try to stop or break up the protests. This went on for 5 days straight. The hunger strike lasted about 2 days.

Disclaimer- these crowds were nonviolent, and I was banned from seeing the protests by my office.

So there it stands, the political drama of the week.

Short Updates, Current Political Situation

Ok so I've been really horrible in updating the blog, I know I know. I'll admit. Politically things happen so fast here that its really hard to keep up with all the developments without confusing yourself! Honestly. Sri Lanka is having a very interesting summer for politics.

Constitutional reforms, political protests, US Panels, UN panels, IEDs, it's a lot! I'll try to break things down as best I can.

May 19 2010 commemorated the anniversary of the end of the 30 year long Civil War. You talk to some people and they'll describe it as a war for independence but anyone remotely attached to the government calls it the end of the war on terror and claims that “terrorism no longer exists in Sri Lanka.” There is much dispute about what actually happened around the end of the way in May 2009. It is known that at that point the government was doing what it could to try to crush the LTTE. At the same time the LTTE decided to use a human shield, catching many civilians between the two sides. As their occupied area got smaller and smaller, you can imagine what happened. On May 19 the leader of the LTTE was killed in battle and the war was declared over.

Again, as I've mentioned before, this is just a gist of the situation and not an in-depth analysis. It's tough, because I understand how relieved people are that the war is over. Most of the fighting took place in the north and east but much of the retaliation was deliberate attacks on important places in Colombo and cultural sites around the country.

What kind of effect does 30 years of civil war have on a population? Imagine boarding a city bus every day afraid that someone on it is strapped with explosives. There was a point at which there was at least one bus bombing a month in Colombo. You're terrified and at the same time mostly desensitized to the violence around you because it doesn't always hit home due to its random nature. It becomes seen more as an inconvenience when traffic has to be re-routed because of a bomb blast. Every Sri Lankan has lost a family member or friend during the course of the conflict. To be able to live in a place of steady, yet random violence, you have to become desensitized. The war became a part of life. The government was able to take great liberties with rule of law and infringing upon people because the conflict could always be used as an excuse for any sort of action. There are still checkpoints all over the city, you can and will be stopped at any point by police officers looking to see your ID or passport. In my case, I carry my passport everywhere so the sidetracking is minimal. If you're stopped without your passport or state ID you could be jailed.

Its affected different parts of the country differently, and in all ways shaped the way members of government work, act and campaign. Rhetoric here is absolutely amazing. At no point in the country's history was there a military draft or forced conscription of adult males. Every member of the military is a volunteer. In doing to majority politicians had to walk a curious line to ensure recruits.

Wait so what the hell is it that you're doing this summer? I'm interning as a part of my Applied Peacebuilding course. I've been assigned to a local NGO to assist in their research. The research topic is a collaboration of both mine and the organization's interests.

Yeah, but you're not someone I'd consider a theatre buff. That's true! I've got a healthy case of enthusiasm for theatre but for me what's important to my research is looking for locally-sourced and culturally sustainable efforts towards maintaining peace and working on issues of violence. Yeah, its a mouthful, but I like local approaches to problem-solving. Forum and applied theatre is just that. That and these theatre forms have history – through out the war they were never censored or interfered with by the government or the major political parties or the LTTE. And both sides of the conflict have a history of theatre performances and groups thus making it a pretty good fit for integration of peace initiatives.

So what does this entail? Heavy background research and then detailed interviews with playwrights, actors, producers and critics. I'm looking to focus on theatre methods and themes relating to reconciliation. Sri Lanka's 30 year civil war was officially ended by the government May 2009. That doesn't mean the issues that caused it were resolved. It means that the greater responsibility will be placed on the citizens as crucial steps are taken to reunify the island.
So I've been working 9 to 5 doing background research and hope to start interviews next week. I've been able to view online a very good example of Devised Theatre based off experiences in an IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp, that was an incredibly moving piece of very high quality.

Email me if you want a link to what this sort of theatre represents.

I've posted photos on facebook, will post more as my travels continue.

Day 1 - First Impressions

Day 1
The plane flies over India, flitting onwards towards Colombo, as it prepares to land I have my face about 2 inches from the window, trying to take everything in that I can in those final two minutes. I see scores of palm trees, red roofed houses and small brown rivers. The ocean looks amazing. When we finally land the first thing I see is very jarring. Helicopters painted with a jagged green and brown camouflage stripes are parked right next to the landing strip. Makeshift bunkers with slots for guns also dot the runway. It was an instant reminder that this is a country recently at war.

I grab my bags and get off to wait for the taxi to pick me up. I'm breathing deeply like I've just stepped onto the moon, trying to get lungfuls of the damp Sri Lankan air. The heat isn't bad but the humidity hits like you like a punch and causes you to sweat profusely. I sort of stagger around, trying to take it all in, the typical airport horde is there, clambering for family members, bags, etc.

Then my ride screeches up. I hurl my bags into the back of a green mini van and I instantly remember what I've forgotten since I've started my research on Sri Lanka. Driving is BRITISH style here. Riiiiiight. I jump in shotgun with the driver so I can remind myself throughout the drive to look right then left to avoid being mowed down by a bus or a three wheeler. Shortly into the trip the driver pulls out a glass bottle of liquor and starts drinking from it. I stare at him in disbelief as well he's on the job, the job is driving and its maybe 9:30 am. “Hey buddy isn't it a little bit early for that?” My words dont register. We pass giant buddhist temples, lovely homemade lanterns and color-blocked flags everywhere. Apparently I've just missed Vesak, the celebration of Buddha's birthday, which is a shame because from the aftermath it looked like a hell of a party.
As we make our way through town clouds roll in on the horizon and then open up, drenching the whole place. At this point I connect the two words - MONSOON and SEASON and realize I didn't even pack an umbrella. How's that for prepared?

I dashed out of the rain into my host family's house, an older woman welcomes me and I sit down, only to face a pair of 7 foot tall pair of elephant tusks curving over one of the most beautiful dark carved wood couches I have ever seen. I couldn't help but stare. I hadn't seen elephant tusks outside of a musuem. We went over some basics and then she showed me to my room, and handed me a chilled glass liquor bottle exactly like my driver had, full of cold water. It ends up everyone here keeps glass bottles...

Sri Lanka Background

Sri Lanka Facts & History

I realize I'm again heading off to a place most people don't know of at all so I figured I'd attach some backround on Sri Lanka and its history.

BIG HUGE FAT DISCLAIMER: this is amateurish research performed by me and doesn't even begin to really address most of what has happened since 1983. Also its biased. So nobody get any thoughts in their head that I'm an authority on this. Because I'm clearly not.

Name: Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

Population: 20 million

GDP: 40.6 Billion USD

Ethnic Makeup: Sinhalese 74% Tamil 12%

Religions: Buddhism, Hindu, Muslim, Christian

This background is ripped directly from my final project proposal, but I think it sorta gives an idea of what's going on.


Sri Lanka is a tear drop shaped island with 20 million inhabitants. Sinhalese make up 74% of the population and are concentrated in the densely populated southwest. Sri Lankan Tamils, citizens whose South Indian ancestors have lived on the island for centuries, total about 12%, live throughout the country, and predominate in the Northern Province.1 The main religions are Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Sri Lanka gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1948.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are a separatist group born out of the Tamil community’s reaction to the Sinhalese nationalist movement of the 1970s. During that time Tamil political groups were actively protesting against the Sinhalese-run government's policies that were exclusionary towards non-Sinhalese Sri Lankans. This political movement continued to grow, militant groups were formed and separatists began to advocate for an independent Tamil State (Tamil Eelam). Groups became more active as their protests were increasingly violently repressed by the government. It is in this context that the LTTE formed and started to fight for a Tamil homeland independent from the south of Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan army fought back to regain control of the North during the 1970s, but at that time they were weak, unorganized and poorly equipped to handle guerrilla warfare tactics or
terrorism. It would take several years for the army to modernize and be able to respond to such threats. The violent conflict that many have witnessed was mostly triggered by the slaying in 1983, by the LTTE, of thirteen government soldiers in an ambush, which sparked widespread riots. In their aftermath, 125,000 Tamils living in the South left for the Tamil Northern province.2 Many Sinhalese left their homes in the North permanently. The riots also spurred a mass migration of Tamils out of Sri Lanka, causing the North and South to become extremely polarized and the two ethnic groups to become increasingly exclusionary. Both the LTTE and Government Army have been accused of mass human rights violations against all involved in the conflict. There is not enough space to go into detail here, but accusations of attacks on civilians, violent, forced migrations and recruitment of child soldiers are well documented in the media.
 
The First Peace Accord between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan army was facilitated by India and signed in 1987.  As a result, Sri Lanka allowed 100,000 Indian troops to monitor the ceasefire on both sides. After three months of ceasefire the LTTE declared war on the Indian Peacekeeping force.  Many cease fires have been signed between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government and none have yielded a sustainable peace. Since 1989 until present, coinciding with Sri Lankan regime change, there have been peace initiatives with positive responses from the LTTE. Many peace agreements and ceasefires have been signed and then broken in the conflict's 26 year history. Each new government in Sri Lanka has attempted a peace negotiation with the LTTE. A number of political leaders who were involved in the political engagement with the LTTE directly or indirectly-Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi of India, President Premasada and Ministers Gamini Dissanayake and Ranjan Wijertne of Sri Lanka, A. Amirthalingam and Neelan Tiruchelvam of the Tamil United Liberation Front- have all been assassinated by the LTTE for reasons that are linked to negotiation failures.3  The government continued to negotiate with a separatist movement that in the past has used ceasefires to reorganize and arm itself and continue fighting. This also seems confusing when confronted with the fact that negotiation carries such an extreme personal risk to its facilitators on both sides of the Sri Lankan conflict.
 
Sri Lanka entered the global economy in the late 1970s.  It became a market economy and received World Bank and IMF loans to facilitate development. This had a lot of influence on governmental action throughout the conflict. If peace is to be considered a precondition for prosperity, then development aid may be an incentive for recipient countries affected by conflict to cooperate with donor agencies. In highlighting the link between conflict and peace, development objectives become increasingly tied to security agendas.3 The Sri Lankan government continued to negotiate with the LTTE due to international pressure, which sometimes were preconditions to financial assistance. Meanwhile, the LTTE was able to mobilize support from the Diaspora and the international community when confronted with attacks from the government. This powerful minority was able to lobby and make donor countries take a tougher stance on Sri Lanka when it came to conditions of aid as well as bilateral trade. The Sri Lankan government continued to cooperate in negotiations with the LTTE knowing that it would receive additional aid, regardless of the outcome of the negotiations. It was impossible to determine whether aid was distributed to the north or east of Sri Lanka.

Current Context:
The situation changed drastically in May 2009. The leader of the LTTE Velupillai Prabhakaran, was killed in battle, the group surrendered and the government declared a “peace.” The government retook control of the north and east. As is probably obvious, this government declaration doesn’t not resolve the conflict or address any of the issues that caused it. Most recently the context has changed through the presidential and parliamentary election process. On January 26, Mahinda Rajapaksa was re-elected for a second term. He has since placed his main presidential opponent and former employee Sarath Fonseka in jail for an attempted coup, almost immediately after winning. Riots followed after this as election results were disputed, much of the support for Fonseka came from Tamil dominated north and eastern parts of Sri Lanka. Voter participation in the former conflict zones was also particularly low compared with the rest of the country. Parliamentary elections took place on April 8, with Rajapaksa's party winning 144 of the 225 seats.4 The ruling party is just short of the two thirds vote it would need to amend the constitution. Voter turnout was considered very low, which leaves a lot of open questions. Sri Lanka is in an especially unique position of being able to lay the groundwork for constructive change as this nation tries to mend broken relationships and avoid the path back towards civil war. The conflict dynamic has added a certain level of politicization to Sri Lankan elections in the past. Polling stations became sites of intimidation and violence as LTTE members tried to force citizens to boycott elections in the past. The government has been accused of using state materials to promote their party’s campaign within IDP settlements with allowance for competitors.
The conflict also has left a legacy of mass migrations. Hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans have been forced to leave their homes on several occasions. Certain groups were only allowed 24 hours before they were removed. There have been several waves of displacement since 1983 at the start of the conflict. The United Nations is an active player in the resettlement process that has been occurring since May 2009. They estimate that 93,000 internally displaced people await resettlement in the north and east.

Next Up Sri Lanka

Latest blog post:

Hi all its been approximately one year since I last posted on Underneath the Charging Sky.
Since then I got accepted to Columbia University's International Affairs School – SIPA and started classes in the fall. These last nine months have certainly been a challenge, albeit it a welcome one. I've met amazing people and have been pushed to my personal limit when it came to economics, papers and groupwork. The class I liked the most was Applied Peacebuilding- at SIPA there are certain classes in such high demand that you actually have to apply for entrance into the class and try to justify your being there. The professor chooses the applicants for the class. Due to some stroke of luck I was actually accepted, and the first several weeks of the class was spent picking a local partner abroad that needed an intern for summer work. The real lure for my interest in this class was the post-conflict development aspects. The professors arranged Terms of Reference for each organization available. As students we had an embarrassment of riches when it came to picking projects – places like Lebanon, East Timor, Kenya & Jordan, just to name a few. The partnering organizations also varied, from United Nations Offices to grassroots organizations.

Upon choosing a project I got in touch with my counterpart and we contacted each other weekly to plan out what the project would be. I chose the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Sri Lanka.
Wait – Sri Lanka? I thought you were Africa Girl! This is true, I had a big internal struggle in deciding where I would be this summer and I decided Sri Lanka would be best. I felt I could learn the most from the Sri Lanka conflict and apply it to my career in the future. And let's be honest, working in Sri Lanka has no negative bearing on my plans for the future. I've spent a lot of time studying and researching the conflict as an undergraduate was well as a part of my graduate work.
So here I am again. Sitting in the Dubai airport waiting for my connecting flight to Colombo. This airport actually has a live lobster tank in it.
I'm very excited and am having trouble imagining what Sri Lanka will look and feel like. I have many pictures in my head but none do justice. I've researched the academic side where everything is cut and dry, the development indicator side where everything just corresponds to numbers, and lastly the tourism side, where everything looks like a mawkish postcard sunset and there is no mention of the atrocities that occurred in the past. I can't reconcile these images. I just have to go live there and see for myself. I promise to keep you all posted on the sights sounds & experiences of Sri Lanka this summer via my blog.

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!

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.

WAIST and other exciting news:

Ok by the tone of my last blog I was pretty much at my wit’s end over the situation at the CFPP. Just as I was about to quit the place forever, the director showed up with 8 computers for us to use!! Hooray! Progress!! Things just tend to progress super slowly around here. Patience certainly pays off. I really am learning to be more patient out here in Nema, I swear! Also, I gave away one of the puppies to the Italian Volunteer Pietro. He lives in a big house at the end of town and his guard wanted a guard dog. So there you go. I got to keep the puppy that I originally rescued and I wont be outnumbered by animals at my house anymore. Pietro was also nice enough to give us a ride from Nema to Nouakchott right before we had to leave for Dakar. Because we are so far from the capital traveling is VERY expensive. So me and my sitemates will do almost anything to get a free ride out of town. While I was in Dakar my friend Moctar offered to feed my dog for me! How nice was that? This was an issue I figured I’d encounter, Mauritanians generally dislike dogs, in all ways. People just cannot understand why you would want one in your house or even near your family! There’s a big cultural gap there. There is one exception to the rule- dogs can guard your home. So, as a single unmarried woman living alone, people don’t seem to be bothered by be owning a dog, they often breathe a small sigh of relief when they find out I’m not totally alone at night. So anyway, Moctar said these words to me “I’d keep the dog with my family but I hate dogs, but if you want I’ll feed her for you while you’re gone” I swear he is the sweestest man in Nema, if not all of Mauritania.
So onto WAIST. WAIST stands for the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. It has been taking place every year for 35 years at the American Club in Dakar. The American club is basically a country club for expats on the outskirts of the city. The Mauritanian Pirates have been winning the tournament every year for at least 6 years and its a big source of pride for our Director. Many other PC teams from other countries have teams as well as embassy staff, marines and locals. Its quite a great mix of people. Basically every aspect of WAIST- from the Tee shirts to the tickets to the homestays to the snack was organized by a team of soccer moms, which was wonderful. I played on the C team, which was the least competitive and had a lot of fun goofing around and getting our buts kicked by 13 year old expat kids who actually knew how to play softball. Also, we held our reputation for the pantless inning. Sorry mom and dad but there are photos of that on the internet! There were also cheap beers, mimosas, hotdogs and Doritos, so I gotta say that kept me happy for 4 days!
A few words on Dakar- the more time I spent there, the more I wanted to live there. I love it! The city is huge and the options for things to do are endless! It is nothing like Nouakchott. And sorry, I don’t mean to trash it but its not cosmopolitan at all. Most of us just go to the only bar in town for a total lack of other things to do. Dakar is huge and happening and the people seem great, it’s a great place for Expats. Bars, nightclubs, movies, everything! It reminded me a lot of NYC, if it had a beach running alongside it instead of the Hudson river. People were selling strawberries and peaches in the streets and I even saw signs for real supermarkets! Also, the CFA goes a lot farther in Dakar than the Ougiya ever does in Nouakchott. So yes, if I am ever offered a job in the vicinity of Daker I am totally taking it! Also, my French is improving and I’d like to live in a francophone city so I don’t totally lose it.

It took me 4 days to get back to site by car. That’s right, a 4 day journey. 2 days in Senegal and 2 days in Mauritania. I was going to travel overland through Mali but then I found out that the visa was going to cost more than my entire trip home through Mauritania, so I changed my mind. Now that I’m back at site everything is kicking back into high gear. The computers are now up and running at the CFPP so I can actually write and use hour long lesson plans! And the students are getting intensive French lessons every morning. And they installed fans in the classroom so the computers don’t overheat! And they made us all cute little work jacket thingies with the CFPP insignia on it! Don’t worry I will get a class picture this week I promise!!
On top of all of that excitement my most of the PC management team is coming out to visit us and do site assessments in our region to place volunteers for next year. I’m also scheduling microfinance meetings with my director. Also, my sitemate Edna is out of town (in the USA lucky girl!) and I am covering her 5th year English classes (the worst of the worst lycée age) for the next two weeks. And on top of all of that I don’t have water any more and need to find a vessel for my water supply. Its nice to be this busy, I really can’t complain.

The best thing about going to Dakar? I went to the airlines and booked a flight to NY for this summer! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!! See you August 12-26th in AMERICA !!!
HELL YEAH!!!

Last and least important- the hot season is creeping up on me slowly, can I get a small shipment of powdered drink mixes and maybe some craisins? You guys rock!


-HEATHER

I figured you might want to watch this

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.

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!

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

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.

1,001 Reasons I Wont Marry You Or Your Brother/Son/Uncle/Grandpa etc

This probably sounds ridiculous in the American context, but lets face it- I get marriage proposals every day in Mauritania. If someone doesnt ask me if I'm married, they ask me why I'm not married or they ask me to marry them on the spot. Dont think that this is just some phenomenon that only sketchy people out in the street ask me this, friends, coworkers, delegates from the Women's Ministry (that last one really gets on my nerves). This could be in a professional setting, in someone's house or in the street. At first I would be offended and pissed, but I have to reiterate that the mindset here is that women marry by 17 or 18 but men get married by 30 or 40. (Thats right, men normally marry women who are less than half their age).
So when people find out I'm 23 and not married, they get really worried about me, like I'm damaged goods and occasionally offer me their brother or cousin etc to marry. I then crack a big smile and explain that I'll be married after I finished my schooling (grad school or Phd). Then I remind them that I'm really pretty, why would I have to worry about finding a husband? Women then tend to smile and usually agree. I use this excuse for coworkers and women I am friends with.

There are other times when I can have more fun with the marriage refusal. This is when people I dont know and have never met try to get me to marry them or the poor schmucks they work with (these are the women's delegation, I can't think of a more ironic title for these do nothing government drones.) Thats when I decided I've got nothing to lose anyway and I come up with a list of culturally appropriate reasons I shouldn't marry a random mauritanian stranger on the spot. They are as follows. Note that just one excuse doesnt deter them, you need to use most of them in succession to really disturb a person and get them off the marriage warpath. None of these reasons happen to be true, but they work! Really, I wish you could see the looks on people's faces!


REASONS I CANNOT MARRY YOUR ____________ (Son, uncle, brother, grandfather, random friend, cousin, absolute stranger)

I dont like couscous
I dont like goathead
I cant eat goathead
I only eat hamburgers and french fries, and my husband would have to cook them for me
I dont like bosse or aish
I dont like children
I hate children and cannot have them
I want a husband who has 50 camels in the countryside, speaks english and will cook for me
I dont know how to cook
I dont know how to clean
I dont know how to make tea
I dont wear moulafas
My husband has to drive a brand new mercedes and have a huge house in Nema
This man is too old
This man is too young
This man is too ugly
I dont have contacts at the embassy and I cant get you a visa
I want two or more husbands
I want a man who will do everything for me
I want a keg at my wedding

The last reason might be the most offensive to Mauritanians...