the only family reunion that could be crazier than my own

Megan and I were invited to the Niang family reunion in Jider El Moghen. So far we have learned to love the Niangs so we were really excited. They are a Wolof family and had people coming in from all along the Senegal river, both the Mauritanian and the Senegal side. Since the reunion was hosted in Jider, our friends, NDieye and Bobacar were in charge of providing the food. We went over at 8 in the morning to peel potatoes and slaughter some sheep. They bought 40kilos of potatoes, same amount of onions, and killed 2 sheep for one of the biggest feasts I have ever been a part of. It was my first sheep slaughter and it was really gross, I have to admit I felt kind of wrong watching it. If you want to see pictures check out my new album, "Vegetarians and Anna close your eyes." It did taste delicious though. The women were in their element sitting around gossiping and laughing and making food. Then the family came to town, easily over 50 people. They definatly brought with them a little Woolof flavor. As the first guests arrived, some of the women turned the giant metal bowls over and started banging on them like drums and all of the guests started dancing and waving their arms in the air as only African women can do. They tried to make us dance too but lets face it, African women have a little more junk in the trunk and are inherently better at shaking it than us toubabs- who did some lame form of the cabbage patch and ducked quickly out of the circle. Even the grandmas were getting their groove on. When I return to the states I expect this sort of welcoming so all of you better start perfecting your dance moves now. I am sure that Kare has some sort of African music CD that you can practice to; right?

Another note on these women is that they are absolutely beautiful with perfect Beyonce bodies, and a lot of the men are taller than the average basketball player in America. Hollywood and the MBA should do some major recruiting here. Actually, I am just kidding about that because I would not want to necessarily corrupt their peaceful lives. It is interesting because so many people here just assume that since you are American you must be rich. We have had some very interesting conversations with people telling them, to their disbelief, that there are poor people in America. In my opinion, which is clearly just an opinion, being poor in America is more desolate than here because at least in Mauritania people are taken care of. It is part of their religion to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. Regardless of their religious obligations however, Mauritania is also a very hospitable country and I have seen many families make excess food for every meal to give to the poorer families or the can kids. Can kids are those kids whose parents are so poor they cannot take care of them so they are sent to live at the mosque where they are given cans and told to ask for money on the streets. It is very sad, but for the most part they do not look overly malnourished, and I have seen many kids with food at the end of the day. Anyways, what I am trying to say is that I feel like life here is rich with support from family and community. It is fun to talk to people and have them understand that America is a land of opportunity but it also comes with sacrafice. For instance, they find it incredible that I both attended university and had a job; and my college was not free. We explain how hard some people have to work just to scrape by and it helps them appreciate the value of tea time and siestas I think.

We also found a Woolof tutor at the reunion. His name is Oumar and I can actually understand his french, so that is pretty cool. We will start next week sometime. I don't know how ready I am to try to learn a 3rd language in 4 months but I think it will be really beneficial to learn Woolof in my community. Plus the African languages are so much more fun to say than arabic. "Leggy leggy" is see you later. Fun right?

Oumar also caught us up on some gossip in town and I now feel like part of the in crowd. It seems as though melodramas even happen in conservative countries; maybe it is all the spanish soap operas they watch.

I have been getting pretty good at handy work too. Megan and I have made shelves from one log piece of wood, and we made a fence for our garden. We will start planting soon.

As far as work goes, I am in Rosso now and starting tomorrow I will be attending a week long AIDS conference with both Mauritanian individuals and Peace Corps. It is a training of how to work with people with AIDS and how to do different workshops. I am pretty excited, I think it will be interesting. When I return to Jider I think my first project will be a simple one that doesn't require much language. I plan to do a mural on the wall of the dispensaire that illustrates healthy foods and food groups. This way I can hang out and get to know my co-workers better, as well as practice my language. I also will be able to take advantage of small lessons on malnutrition with people who come by and ask what I am doing.

Megan and I got hennaed again the other day by the mayor's little sister. It was fun to hang out with her family because her 9 children are crazy! They served us dinner while we were there and Megan had not gotten the bags off her hands yet so she had to eat spaghetti noodles with bags on her hands with a spoon. It was really entertaining.

Anyways, that is all for now I think. Check out my pictures for illustrations of all this.