"When did terrorism stop being sexy?"

(Quote from Julie Ann Clark after the BBC headline news “Focus on Africa” didn’t mention the 12 Mauritanian soldiers killed by Al Qaeda, instead spending hours on whatever political mess in going on in South Africa.)

I've spent the last few days in Dar El Barka to visit my past PK7 sitemate Julie. The village is about an hour outside of Boghé and is still in my region (important because we aren’t allowed to travel outside our region for the first 3 months of service). It’s a really beautiful village right on the river and right off the new paved road (with a brand-new middle school where Julie will be teaching English). She is the 1st PCV at her site and really lucked out on housing… she lives in the gated courtyard of the mayor’s sister’s house in the guest house, but the mayor’s sister has yet (in almost a month) to ever live in the house so Julie has a huge garden, pavilion, balcony, and housekeeping staff all to herself. The picture above left is taken from her balcony over looking her garden, the village’s mosque, the mayor’s house, and the river.

Although Julie’s site is only 40 miles away from Boghé, the whole process of finding the pick up that was going to Dar El Barka, waiting for the car to fill up and stopping along the way to pick up/drop off people took a little over 4 hours. Still not too bad of a trip by Mauritanian standards because we didn’t get ripped off, the car didn’t break down, and we got real seats instead of having to ride in the bed of the truck.

Above left is a picture of Julie in her guest house with the main house in the background. The river looked so amazing and it was such a tease to see all the kids playing in it since there is no proper way for grown white women like us to go swimming. Julie’s pseudo host family (its actually the family that works at the mayor’s sisters house) was so hospitable and generous. We went to visit them to “break fast” both nights I was there and although they knew that me and Julie weren’t fasting for Ramadan, they still insisted that we eat first because we were their guests. The older girls in the family (about me and Julies ages) are mostly newlyweds with little kids and were so excited to show off the new English words that Julie had been teaching them.

Overall it was a great first trip… I feel successful at braving the taxi brousse situation (that’s what all forms of taxis are called here) and am so happy that I finally got to visit Julie at her site.

A picture from the inside of the pickup on my way back to Boghe! gives you kind of an idea of what the countryside looks during the rainy season in Southern Mauritania.