Here's the latest group email.


Hi everyone!

To start, I give my standard apologies for the length of this email and the length of time since the last one. Just read a paragraph a month and it will be like I’m actually being regular about writing! And we do have an internet connection at our office… but I guess it really isn’t helpful that for the last week, the speed has been 4 kbps. Well, let’s give credit where it’s due. It was 4.8 kbps. It literally took 5 full minutes to load the Gmail Sign-In page and then, that was it. We’ve been struggling with this for quite a while, one of many reasons I haven’t written sooner. The alternative, what I am doing now, is going to the slow, insecure, and virus-riddled internet café, infecting the hell out of my flashdrive. I think we’re switching phone companies next week, so here’s to us getting something that works soon! Keep your fingers crossed.

So, after going back to my site and settling in after two months gone, I got to go down south to help some more with training and again for the new trainees’ Swearing-In Ceremony. It was amazing to see so many of the new class had made it through. To date, it was the biggest training class Mauritania has seen and only a few left because they chose to. Compare that to several years ago when 50% of the group left during training. Wimps.

Okay, almost immediately after the new volunteers were sent to their respective sites, Ramadan started, the Muslim month of fasting hell. My sitemate Ellen and I fasted too, but I quit before she did and had to finish the month eating in secret. Wasn’t too bad, just had to get other non-fasting volunteers to buy my food, which was a little ridiculous. Anyway, I wrote a more detailed entry of this topic on my geek blog if you care to read more.

After Ramadan ended, I am still in shock about how busy I have been since then until now. Part of the reason is that our GEE volunteer (Girls’ Education & Empowerment) decided to quit and go home at the end of Ramadan, so it’s been up to Ellen and me to run the Girls’ Mentoring Center (GMC) here in town, on top of our own work. It’s a worthwhile center and we like working with the girls, but sometimes it’s hard taking over a project when it interferes with your actual job. For example, that GEE director from the capital was in town a few weeks ago and we spent two entire days just in meetings schmoosing with local authorities and forming committees. Guess how much of my actual work I got done? And then we get to explain to our counterparts in town why we haven’t been by to see them. Anyway, so that’s been keeping us extremely busy.

In addition, we’ve been teaching community English classes like we did last year, which are going well. Maybe we’ll be able to rid this town of the “How-are-you-fine” epidemic. This disease involves people greeting you with a question and its answer formed as one complete thought, though clearly there is little actual thought involved.

I’m also doing community Health classes, with mixed results. The concept is pretty simple. Sit down, listen to some health information for 30 minutes. In theory, they’d change their behavior, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? Anyway, some of the women think I’m there to give out things or medicines, or give exams, even after having the concept explained to them in their own language. Ha, I even went to a small village outside of my town and visited a kindergarten, thinking it was a health outpost, because the woman who runs tricked me and told me it was. So instead of teaching any health related material, I taught the kids the French alphabet for 4 hours. 4 HOURS. You would think somebody would pick up on it in that period of time. You would think so. And apparently, the next day, half of the children didn’t go back to the kindergarten! They thought I was a doctor and that I was going to come back and give them vaccinations. Ha, they surmised all of that from my butchering of the French alphabet. They’re smarter than I thought.

Oh and I had my first big event for World AIDS Day on December 1st, for which I did the unthinkable: I wore a mulafa, the type of veil all women here wear. The soiree even made the national newspaper through a local reporter, though of course my name wasn’t in it, nor was Peace Corps even capitalized, but hey, better than nothing! There were about 200 people or so, we had two musicians, a local health official giving a presentation in French and the local language, and a poetry contest. Even the Hakim, kinda like the prefect or regional commissioner in the US, came and “honored” us with his presence. The pictures didn’t turn out that great, but I attached a few to give you an idea. The last one is of us totally embarrassed when the singer whipped off his belt for some mysterious, though I’m sure totally reasonable, purpose.

We also were lucky enough to meet the new Ambassador and his wife, very nice and competent people. They were in town to visit our girls’ junior high school and promote girls’ education, for which the staff came and gave out backpacks. This I could have done without. Sure, it’s great, they have backpacks now, I just hope they use them, perhaps even for school. Not only that, people already confuse Peace Corps with the Embassy and are constantly asking for money as it is. So, with backpacks being handed out by the dozen (complete with an American flag patch on every one), I’ve already had to explain to 20 random people why I am not giving them a backpack. What fun. I included a picture of the Ambassador, his wife, my sitemate Ellen, and me (looking slightly confused) watching a short play at one of Ellen’s schools. Sorry I don’t have any pictures of the actual play!

On a side note: Ok, so I’m telling stories about the most exasperating, stupid, or ridiculous encounters that I’ve experienced in this country, because, well, they make better stories. Unfortunately, this may give the impression that life sucks and every Mauritanian is at some lower level on the Neanderthal scale. Fortunately, this isn’t at all true. I’ve met some incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, and sensible people that I’m really going to miss when I leave. And despite sarcasm and cynicism, I’m having a great and memorable time and this year is turning out to be even better than the last. So just a little disclaimer to clarify that I’m not drowning in misery, just swimming :)

Hmm, what else? From time to time I teach computer classes in French and the local language (which I wasn’t trained in, so that’s pretty hilarious to watch), I can translate between French and English for the new volunteers in town, and we’re socializing more than ever. We had some great Halloween and Thanksgiving parties. My neighbor gave me another goat, which we strapped to the top of the car and took with us up to our Thanksgiving Weekend Camel Trek. It was delicious. And this past Christmas was as fantastic as last year. For New Years, I went up to Nouadhibou. I was planning on going back down to Saint Louis, Senegal, but some friends were going up to NDB so it just seemed like a better and more relaxing solution. Seeing as how the city is really nice and developed and on the ocean and has grocery stores and Chinese restaurants and cheese and beer (albeit insanely expensive), it’s not a bad alternative. Plus, it’s giving me some time to just sit around and rest, hence the reason I’m finally getting a chance to write this email!

So guess this email is long enough and I hope it's kinda caught you guys up on my whereabouts from the last…several months I guess? Okay, I hope all is well with everyone. And I’ve added a few stories to the blog, so if you want a few extra and extremely sporadic stories, they are there to be read. And I attached a picture of two sitemates and me during a trip to the capital in case you've forgotten what I look like :) (And yes, those are beers at one of the only places in the country they are available. Can't you see how happy we are?)

Take Care and Happy Holidays!

Kristen

PS – If anyone ever feels motivated to send any care packages, just thought I’d give you the heads-up that there is a flat-rate box at the post office, so no matter how much you stuff in there and how heavy it is, it’s always the same price to ship it anywhere. Seeing as how shipping tends to be expensive, especially to here, it’s really a much more cost-effective means to ship stuff. Thank you if you do; they are rare and appreciated! - K