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.