address updated

hey guys... i updated my address. It is basically just to Rosso instead of Nouakchott. It should get here faster that way. And I got my first letter from Amber!!! So far she is in the lead for my favorite friend! She dated her letter June 30, so it looks like right now it took about a month to get to me. I love you Amber. Keep em' coming everyone.

pictures are up... see if you can spot the toubabs (foreigners)

so as promised, some pictures are up... they are on the right hand side of the blog under the link for picassa web albums. enjoy!

A few more notes

My mom did a good job giving my account of my site but here are a few more notes. I have one more month of language training in Boumbry before I move to Jider El Mohgen. It is an awesome site because it is a mixture of all of the ethnicities here in Mauritania. It is mainly Hassaniya (which is good because that is what I am learning) but there is also a part of town that is pulaar (straw hut African culture) and some Wolof influence since it is right on the border of Senegal (which is the more liberal culture, I might even be able to wear pants!!!). Hopefully this means I will be able to learn a little bit of all the languages as well as all the cultures. Megan and I found a really cool house to stay in. There weren't very many options available and the other two options were already flooded after one rain so we were afraid they may not last through the rainy season of August. The house has 3 rooms and we negotiated a deal so that if we fix it up we don't have to pay rent which is awesome! It is a fixer upper though. It needs a latrine, new roof, recement the floor, bars on the windows, new doors with locks, a fence, a garden, we were thinking maybe some paint. I am kind of excited to have a project to do during Ramadan though because usually people don't do anything for a whole month. And we plan to invite some of the guys in our region out to visit our really cool town and then hit them with a "while you are here we have a few little projects to do..." No, I am kidding, they have all volunteered their time to help us build our "Barbie desert dream house". My region mates are all really cool so I am excited to spend the next few years with them. And Mary, the girl that lives in Rosso (our regional capital) has a really nice apartment equipped with stereo, tv with dvd, some jeopardy playstation, and a nice kitchen! We did have Mexican night and it was so good! Mary made tortilla chips from scratch and we had fresh salsa, chicken, etc and then danced to 80s music all night. I had a mosquito in my tent I think cause I woke up with about a million mosquito bites and my whole body itches like crazy. Last night Rocco made us apple pie and he downloaded the new batman movie onto his hard drive, so all 15 of us Trarza (my region) volunteers huddled around one computer and watched Batman. I am not entirely sure what happened cause it was hard to see but it was still fun to watch it! We went to model school to see what it will be like teaching in Mauritania and it is insane. The kids are so eager to answer questions, an as soon as the teacher asks one every student is out of their seat, hands up, snapping and yelling "Monsieur monsieur!" Our model school had about 20 kids in it, but most classrooms have 60-70 with kids sharing desks. I can't imagine the chaos. Jenny you should look into being a teacher here, you would like how eager the kids are. Anyways, I am currently uploading some photos but it is only letting me do it 5 at a time so we will see how many I get up.

it is Jidr-El-Mohgen, and "I couldn't be happier!"

I just talked to Jaime. She was going to blog today, but the Internet was down the entire day. She asked me to update everyone on her assignment. She thought we would all want to do a little research on her area. Well, I googled it and there is no information on the world wide web about this place! Figures. Today she went to Jidr-El-Mohgen to visit what will be her permanent site . It is about 100 kilometers inland from the ocean. It is located on the Sengal River. It is in the southern part of the country. There are only two roads in Mauritania and this not on one of them. So, the Peace Corps put her in a brusse taxi and sent her off to her new home away from home. She said the taxi is exactly like in the picture that I posted. It is only about 35 kilometers from Rosso, but the ride took an hour and a half over the desert. Certain times of the year this village is only accessible by boat. The taxi was full to the top. The men sit on top of the vehicle while the women, cargo, and animals ride inside. Today the taxi was filled with bags of cement. They did not have enough room to sit up straight. It was very, very hot in the car. At five o’clock sharp, the driver stopped and got the out of the car to pray. That takes approximately a half hour. Only the men pray in public. Women can only pray if they are alone or with only women. Jaime was sitting by a small window, which was covered with a grate. Just outside of the car a man slit the throat of a goat. She watched the goat bleed out on to the sand in the middle of the desert. She was hoping that when she arrived, her family would have prepared a dinner which would include fish since they live on the river. But they served macaroni and goat. She is getting tired of goat organs and rice. She has a new appreciation of beets! She said her family is very nice. The mom is a nurse at a community health center. The south is a more diverse area and it is less conservative, which makes Jaime happy. There is no electricity or running water in the area. Because it is on the river, there is a malaria problem. One of her projects will be malaria education. She will do a malaria caravan visiting villages up and down the river. They will teach people to make insect repellent using Neem tree leaves, soap, and oil. She hopes to encourage the women to make it, put it in baggies, and sell it at market to start a small business for themselves. Another project will be AIDS awareness, of course. She will work with visiting doctors and midwives and nurses to establish family health, community health, and feeding centers. At the feeding centers she will monitor red-zone children. They provide malnourished children with meals of porage and help educate and encourage the mothers. This will be the first health education program in this area, so it is a high priority site. There are other volunteers in the region. One guy who has been there a year now has a monkey that visits him regularly. Jaime will have a site-mate. She is very excited about that. Her name is Megan. She is in the English education program. Since Megan will be working at the local school, Jaime will have access to the children. She wants to buddy-up and use the school setting for more health education too. UNICEF is also going to be doing work in the region and Jamie is looking forward to working with them too. She will be staying at her site-visit for one week, then return to her community and language training in Boumbry for about three more weeks. She will be going back to Rosso around the 26th so she will blog then. They are planning a Mexican party including Sangria and Mexican food. She is very excited about that and claims that she has not had any alcoholic drinks since Atlanta. When she returns to Jidr-El-Mohgen it will be about the beginning of September, and that is the start of Ramadan. Jaime is so proud to be part of a group of volunteers who are the biggest group to go into Mauritania. They also are the first group who can claim that they got to “assignment” and not one person has gone home. What a wonderful group of people!
Jaime’s phone does work from there, which I am very grateful for. I wish all of you could hear how excited Jaime is. She is truly in her element.
In Jaime’s own words, “I couldn’t be happier!”

Taxi!

Like this, Jaime?

I guess grandpa has nothing to complain about. (Remember Norway?)

Shipping advice from another PCV/RIM mom:

Another mom sent a comment to me regarding my inquiry about shipping ideas. Thanks to her, I was able to send a box for $49.95 through the USPS. But, the "Priority Mail International — Flat-Rate Envelope" (9.5" x 12.5"): is only $11.95. That seems to be the best option, if anyone is interested in sending anything.

For the info that the postal clerks look at - go to http://pe.usps.com/text/Imm/mo_010.htm#ep1207199?

getting used to living en brusse

So I think i said last time that we were going to be visiting the local malnutrition and vaccination center. It was really cool! I have been so frustrated trying to learn this language and getting adjusted to different maladies, and it was refreshing to be reminded why I am here. There were 100 families that showed up with their multiple children to get their baby's weighed and arms measured. It was hot and it was a tiny little center with families waiting all around the building. There are no concept of lines so people just passed their kids up to the front of the room and shoved crying babies in my face for an arm measurement. The kids that were in the red are considered malnourished and are entered into the nutrition education program. All the children also got fed oatmeal so not only was the room hot from 100 bodies, but also from the stove. It was chaotic but very fulfilling. After the CREN we went to the market. I figured I would buy my country family something from the city, so I bought them some mint for their tea. When I gave it to them they all started laughing and my sister showed me to their garden that I did not know existed and the only thing in it was mint. I guess it is the thought that counts. 

That night we went to the wedding. We didn't even go until 11pm. All the women put on fair and lovely (skin whitening cream), orange makeup around their eyes, and dark lipstick which makes them look like they are dead, its really scary. The wedding was under a tent, and there was a pen in the middle of the room that looked like a boxing match. It was really used for dance-offs and when a couple made it to the pen to dance everyone on the sides would scream and clap. Our language teacher went with us and was our hero. If a guy came over to talk to us he would literally grab them by their arm and throw them away with a stern warning and a slap on the head. It is now official that everyone in the 3 neighboring towns know that the whiteys are here.

The next day we went back to Rosso for a 4th of July celebration at the Peace Corps camp. We watched Talledega Nights on a projector and had hamburgers made for us from the local butcher. It had a thin layer of camel meat, thick layer of french fries, peppers, eggs over easy, lettuce, and yes ketchup all on a bun. I was so full; but it was so satisfying! That night Peace Corps dropped us off back in Boumbry right as it was getting dark; but we could still see the storm coming in. My sitemate, Chelsea is afraid of storms at night so I took her bags and she was going to sleep in my room after she had dinner. I made my way to my room and the door was cemented shut, which was their way of fixing my lock. Therefore all three of us had to run through a sandstorm in the dark across the garbage heap to Tanya's room. We ate cold oatmeal in one of our tents and then had to all sleep in half of the room because the other half was leaking from the rain. The next day I took a rock and chipped away the cement until I could get into my room. We had to do laundry because all of my clothes smelled like stale rain water. The cutest little girl ever was not satisfied with the way we were doing laundry and came over to help us. She is only 5 and much more of an expert than us. In return we taught her and Brett Favre how to play "where the wild things are" UNO.  Yes I said Brett Favre; I couldn't believe it either but when I first got to Boumbry he was the first kid I saw. He always wears his old ratty beat up Packers jersey. You can barely make out the 4 on the back but he thinks he is so cool. I cannot believe that I am in the middle of nowhere Africa and Brett and his Packers have found their way to annoy me! The kid is cute though, he, like the rest of the kids, are obsessed with "Go Shorty, It's your birthday..." so whenever they see us they want us to sing the song to them even though we only know that line.

Julie you will appreciate this: the sand dune at my flop! We have been getting up early to explore the dunes and goat graveyards and introduce a little movement into our lives. I went to do a flip off the dune and my flip flop stayed in the sand and was sucked in! That day we went to visit some of the other trainees in a town 20K away. We took a taksi brusse which is just a taxi that drives up and down one of the two paved roads in Mauritania. You just stand on the side of the road and wait for one to pull over and it doesn't matter how full the car already is, everyone piles in. We were 8 deep in a tiny car, thank god we did not have our bags because I don't know yet how we will maneuver that. Even the roof of the car is piled high (about 3xs as tall as the car itself) with hay and bags and food and goats (litterally live goats)). It was an experience. MBallal was fun. We played soccer and ate dates in the palm tree garden. It was so pretty!

Tanya, Hooda is her Mauritanian name (which we are pretty sure is the name of her family's former goat) went to the capital Nouakchott the other day to meet her representative in congress. She said there is an ex-pat bar that you have to show an American ID to get into because they sell alcohol, but the main cool thing is that there is a POOL in it!!! She also went to an air conditioned pizza hut and had a calzone! We are going to Nouakchott for a Peace Corps Christmas Party and I can't wait! So Sam, Ryan, and Kev if you come visit you will get to meet all 150 volunteers and stay in our directors mansion. Word is he owns a pet tortoise too!

We also went to a soccer game in Boumbry which was, interesting. We walked up and the music literally screeched to a halt as the entire field stopped playing and stared at us with the rest of the sidelines. We did a quick wave and sat down to watch the chaos that is Mauritanian soccer. There are about 20 people to a team on the field at one time and there were maybe 4 people with shoes, another handful with one shoe, and the rest barefoot. They are pretty impressive though. One of the women that sat next to me (and by woman I mean she is a few years younger than me married to a man in his 30s and has 2 kids) asked if I was married. I said no and she looked very confused. Then she asked me something else that I did not understand and she grabbed my breast. I was so confused, but I guess that is the symbol for "have children?" it was embarrassing for me but no one seemed to mind.

I am starting to understand the language a little better; and yes I am starting to click as a response to questions. I am, however, fluent in charades! It doesn't help to learn the language when the goat eats my homework on a daily basis. Chelsea stressed at every meal how much she liked the vegetables and every day she got more and more. I wanted to stress how much I like the fish. And for those of you who know me, in the states I do not like fish, which goes to show how much I dislike goat organs. So we had fish for lunch and I went on and on about how good it was. As a result, the next night for dinner they prepared me my own special dish. They handed me bread and literally opened a can of sardines and dumped it into a bowl. YUCK. It was raw and still had eyes and smelled awful! My water bottle tasted so badly of sardines, I had to soak it in bleach, and I threw my toothbrush away. Figures. I guess I will stick to stressing how much I like carrots. 

We had our first daytime storm, which was awesome! It was my favorite day so far. The sky was so dark, and low to the ground; which we thought was just storm clouds. However, when it got closer we realized, with sand in our teeth, that it was a wall of sand followed by a powerful rain. There is something calming and reassuring about a storm in all its wrath. Maybe it is thinking about the places that the storm has been and where it is going that connects us and makes the world seem a bit smaller. It was thrilling to watch it come in. I got some cool pictures and will hopefully get them put up saturday night or sunday when I am back in Rosso for our official site assignments.... woo hoo!

Nights are getting less scary. I realized that most of the time when I freak out in the darkness I am doing it to myself. Not only by imagining scary things in my head, but literally like when I am brushing my teeth and the beads on my wrist are clinking and I jump and scream thinking it is some weird sound made by some gigantic Mauritanian insect only to realize it gets louder when I jump up and down. Try explaining that one to my host family in Hassaniyan. I just say "aane mejnuna"- I am crazy. I am getting used to the bugs though. I have a system now. If something is crawling on me I give it a light shake and if it leaves for a second it is a fly. If it continues to crawl, then it warrants a little more attention. 

It gets pretty chilly at night, and this is the hot season. Actually, it may still be 80 degrees but it feels cool! Sam if you are bored and want to make me a knit hat I would love you forever!!! To add to the list my mom already made for things you can send me (don't feel obligated, just some people have asked), I also will have a lot of down time so send books for me to read! I really want to read "No God but God" if anyone has that. I guess it is a good account of the Islamic religion and I figured while I was here in the Islamic Republic I might as well try to really understand it. It is incredible how devoted people in most third world countries are to their religion. They must spend 1/3 of their day praying or preparing to pray. I do not know the last time in my life that I devoted myself to something that I knew with such certainty in my heart to be true.

Shipping costs!

Wow! I went to ship a box to Jaime. It weighed about 9 1/2 pounds, and it was about 10 x 10 x 8 inches. I had it priced by the US PO. They wanted $90, and they said it would probably never arrive. DHL wanted $250. UPS and FedEx both wanted over $400. I guess Jaime lives in the most remote place on earth! If anyone else has any advice, please let me know. Hey, I was reading someone else's blog that came up when I googled "Mauritania Peace Corps blogs". He must be in Jaime's group. I could tell by the dates of his entries. Anyway, there was this youtube link and I watched it. If you watch, Jaime is in this group. She is laying on the floor on her tummy on the right side of the screen, in the front row. She has on a red shirt and a long skirt. At the end of the skit she stands up and turns toward the camera. You can see then that it is her. Check it out, I was excited!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwY3X5PRiJA

I talked to Jaime today!

I talked to Jaime today. She is still happy and fine. She has gotten over that 3 day sickness. She said that she will not be back in Rosso (where the Internet cafe is) until July 16th or 17th. She said she is keeping notes of all her (mis)adventures and will write about it all then. In the mean time, she said that 3:00 our time on Saturdays she will have her phone on and try to be somewhere where there is good reception. So if anyone wants to call her, that would be a good time. Otherwise they seem to have a mid day break at around 9:00am our time. She said she could get calls then too. Mike and Julie, I know you said that you wanted to call her so that is mainly why I am writing this. And Fern, (or anyone else who it interested) Jaime's wish list included:
dry fruit, granola bars, powdered drinks, packaged spaghetti sauce, (the kind you add water to and boil), and music! Her family has a boom box that plays cassette tapes. They love to dance, so Jaime wants to give them a box of music with a good beat (not rap.) She says they listen to Shakira. Sam, Ryan, and Kevin, Jaime is very excited about a Christmas visit and she says she already has a party lined up to bring you to!! Anyway, keep commenting! She is enjoying that too.

back at summer camp

So I know my blog is all over the place but I will only get a few hours to write every few weeks so they will be long when I do. Sorry. First, I forgot to tell you that as soon as I came to Boumbry they renamed me Mona so that is now my name. I don't know why Mona, I don't think it has any significance in the culture and they don't know what the Mona Lisa is. I am a sight to see in town because I am one of three white people so whenever we go anywhere we literally have a following. they see white person and automatically think 1. rich and 2. doctor. Therefore I have people coming up to me all the time saying "tabiiba, tabiiba" (doctor, doctor) I have a headache or my finger hurts here, what should I do. I have to explain that I don't know what to do and that I am only a volunteer. But I think most of the whiteys that come here are doctors and the like so that is how they relate. I even had a girl come up to me and say "last time a Peace Corps was here they showed us how to put a condom on a sick to prevent pregnancy so my boyfriend and I put a condom on a stick and had sex and I still got pregnant and I don't know what I did wrong." So education, it has become clear, is of utmost importance. My "sister" was also very confused as to how I got all the way here from America. I think she thought I literally flew here, until an airplane flew overhead and my "cousin" pointed to the sky and then it all clicked and she was amazed. 

But now I am back at summer camp; which is what we decided Rosso is because we have our own area and good food, lots of friends, funny skits, euchre, and childish games like assassin. I forget how easy we had it just 4 days ago and today I was spoiled. I took a real life shower and slept with a cool breeze, I sat in a chair when I had my update with my advisor, I had good food that did not consist of animal organs, and we even had ketchup with dinner! I'm not sure why because it was pasta but we did dip the hot dog buns (no hot dogs, just buns) in the ketchup and it was the best thing I ever ate!

At Boumbry there are a ton of flies that suicide bomb into eyes, nose, ears, mouth, any annoying place that they could invade they do. And there is something in the water that definately does not agree with my stomach, even after adding bleach. There are alot of weird bugs and I don't know yet if they are friend or foe. The goats eat my scarfs when I hang them to dry. They speak a crazy language that I am not sure I will ever really understand. Mulafaas are very constricting and are about 6 yards of fabric too long. I am also in a very conservative site where we are not allowed to show any ankle or hair. If the wind blows my mulafaa off my head there are 3 girls running up to fix it. Yet when we danced to the local drum band the girls were booty dancing with the best of MTV! I don't understand what is so offensive about my ankle and not about that. There is garbage everywhere. We decided to completely integrate into society we had to stop hiding all our garbage in the corner and eventually just throw it on the ground like everyone. She threw her zone bar wrapper on the ground and immediately turned around and hit her head on the beam of the khyema (tent). Karma. Religion is also everywhere. In Islam, if you look at the lines of your hands, the v shaped one is the number 8 and the straight one is 1 so you have 9 on both hands which together is 99 which is also the number of names for Allah. So many of the women sit around all day with their prayer beads and recite the 99 names of Allah over and over again, which ensures their entry to Heaven.

Just when I am so frustrated for all the uncomfortable things we are put through, I see the babies what are so malnurished their arms look like pencils, and the mothers with 10 children that don't have the means to feed them and I am reminded that I am in Africa and I have a purpose here and it makes it all worthwhile. And the community is so excited to have us. We went for tea at the chief of medicine's khyema yesterday and he was so excited to get to work and it crushed him when we told him we were only there for 2 months. He is the wealthiest man in the community and lives in a tent out of 2 suitcases which he packs up during the day to let guests come in for tea. 

Here, 80 % of Africans see a traditional medicine doctor rather than take advantage of the free health clinics set up by NGOs like UNICEF or WHO. We will be working with the medicine men in our towns because we don't want to completely run them out of business either. So, today we had one of the more respected medicine men come in and show us some of his craft. He is 80 years old and has been practicing for 60 years, ever since he recieved his teachings from the gins (spirits). He is alluring, mysterious, and a little scary, as I think all medicine men must be. He even has one opaque eye which is totally stereotypical in my mind. He had some sort of animal claw with him that he kept receiving phone calls from spirits on and he would talk to them in a secret language and then continue with his presentation. If he were on the streets of New York he would be crazy, but here he is praised! It reminded me of the but eels! haha. He kept pulling things out of his little Mary Poppins bag. All sorts of powders and tree bark and plants for every ailment, protection against firearms or snakes, potions to get married,etc. Some of my favorites were if you take 3 stones from every place you visit and bury it in your yard you will always be moving forward in life. I thought that was a good one for you Daphne with your collection ! I also liked the head of a boa constrictor he had in his bag that he said to soak in water and then rub the water on your wrists to cure arthritis. hmmm. 

Anyways, I have a long day tomorrow. We are going to learn how to make a garden in dry conditions, visiting the local hospital and vaccination centers, and then at night its back to Boumbry where we have been invited to a wedding! Weddings are crazy, the women put on "fair and lovely" which is a skin whitening cream they are obsessed with which is very bad for you. Then they put on crazy scary makeup and the wedding goes from 7pm tomorrow (thursday) night to 8 pm friday night! My kind of party! haha. Weddings usually start on Thursday because the president changed the weekend to Friday Saturday instead of Saturday-Sunday. There is a lot of dancing and they think it is hilarious to see tou baabs dance (whiteys) so I am sure I will be center of attention (second to the bride). But really I am excited because I here there is fruit!!! Well, good night!

woops... i ate an artery

so i am back in the whole in the ground computer cafe in rosso for some more health training. i saw my mom caught you up a bit already so i will just elaborate. i am in Boumbry and when i say my family only speaks Hassanaiyan(arabic dialect) I mean that they cannot even read Hassanaiyan unless it is written in Arabic letters so i am working on that too. right now i speak hassafranglish which is kind of cool to have so many languages being thrown around with such different people and to understand each other. pretty exciting. sand dune races were fun, if you can ignore the goat poopmine fields. it is funny that you cannot eat with your left hand but that they can play with goat poop with their right hands and still eat with it. gross. i guess there really is notmuch to do for entertainment in the desert. biddi (my teacher) said that when women are bored they "make baby" which is why some women have 12 kids. can you imagine being pregnant for 10 years of your life.
We had 3 big thunderstorms, which means that all of the local goats, chickens, dogs, flies, cockroaches; etc came into my room to seek shelter. i am like the snow white of the desert. the cockroaches are huge, sounds like people are walking around my room at night. good thing i have my tent. they are not as big as the camel spiders though, which are just as they sound; huge.
i turned down the kid who begged for annas hand in marriage, but there are tons of camals just wandering around and the babies are sooo cute so it is tempting. haha. there are also lots of long horned cows wandering. i think the most annoying animal is the rooster. i would love to drop kick one. it crows from 3 am until 1 in the afternoon.
so it was dark one night when we were eating at 11 pm and i took a bite of i thought goat and it was chewy and kept chewing without dissolving and so i just freaked out and swallowed but when i threw it up the next day it was a fully intact piece of artery. ,y sto,ache did not agree and i have been sick for 2 days. i have to go now, so much more to say tonite.