Thanksgiving!

As difficult as it was to spend my first Thanksgiving away from my family (and my first in 4 years away from eddie), I had a really great Thanksgiving here in Mauritania with all the other PCVs. About 25 of us got together and tried our best to transport all of American traditions here.
That started with a party Thursday night with Mariah Carey being played at midnight (because the Christmas season officially starts the day after Thanksgiving haha). Friday we went to the market early (10 am our time, 5 am your time) for some black Friday shopping (thinking of dad of course getting up at the crack of dawn). Unfortunately, the concept of sales doesn’t really translate here hahaha… below are some pics of use in the market getting frustrated when some of the shopkeepers tried to rip us off… normal black Friday shopping frustration, Mauritanian style.

Then we spent the rest of the day cooking a huge Thanksgiving feast (because the teachers had school on Thursday we had our big dinner on Friday instead) and was it a feast… I am still amazed at some of the great things we can make out of what is available in Mauritania (although some of it was boxed food sent from America too help us out). We had Mashed potatoes, gravy, pasta salad, okra casserole, squash, stuffing, duck, barbeque chicken (brought to you by Ryan), sautéed veggies/beef, cornbread, banana cream pie, pumpkin pie, and carrot cake. It was absolutely amazing… and all done with two burners, a toaster oven, and an open pit grill.

The rest of the night was sooo much fun… the Thanksgiving themed hats were a huge hit (thanks mom!) and after a little nap following the outrageous amount of food I ate, I was ready for round 2 of the party. All and all, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend what could have been a really difficult day. It was so nice to talk to everyone back home, I could just imagine you all sitting around at Grandmas and Papas passing around the phone (sorry about the little delay, I’m so used to it I kind of forgot how obnoxious it could be!) I’ll be spending the rest of the day today starting to make some Christmas decorations for the regional house and bringing the spirit of the season to Africa!

Club de Basket

Today was the first day of basketball club and it went sooo well.. the girls really had a great time!! Apparently the University of Texas Womens Basketball program donated about 70 basketballs to my center last year but they were still in their boxes so when i started cleaning the center a few months ago i found them and decided that i def wanted to have physical activities part of the center. There is a basketball court at the lycee (built by peace corps years ago) right by my center.

Considering that most of these girls have never played a sport in their lives they really enjoyed themselves. Mark and Ryan helped me out and we ran a few drills and then jsut they them shoot around for about an hour and a half and we finally had to pull the balls away from them- they didnt want to stop playing!

"les actualites"

So as another new craft project for my center im making a bulliten board of current events (or les actualites in french) for my center titles Mauritanie et la Monde (Mauritania and the world). so many people here have no idea of current events, geography and other culture in general (minus Barack Obama haha) so i am trying to collect newspaper/magazine clippings (preferably with pictures) that would interest the girls. For example, I have an article on a girls' basketball club in the arab section of Jeruselam (thanks Vicki!). I want to try and make a connection with the rest of the world and Boghe.

So if you see anything that might be good I would really appreciate you sending them to me! Thanks!

first few days

So the first few days of my center went better then expected. The girls were all so excited and eager to be a part of the center... i tried my best to make them let down their guard and realize that the center was a place were there is no one there judging them on their thoughts or dreams. For one of the activities i gave them all journals and told them that these journals were like diaries for no one to read but themselves and the first journal entry was what do you want to do after you finish high school. It took about 10 minutes of me giving examples of what they could write for the girls to finally get it... they have never been encouraged to shoot for the stars, talk about what they dream of doing with their lives. I hope that it got them thinking a little bit about what they want in life and what they have to do to get there.

Another thing i did was the write out your name and use an adjective to describe each letter... describing what an adjective was was a little harder then i thought it would be but the girls caught on and were thrilled that they were supposed to decorate the papers with whatever they wanted using the craft supplies i had. Creativity is another thing that was kind of dropped to the wayside out of necessity and it felt great to watch the girls get so excited about coloring and drawing and decorating the room with their artwork (we put them all on the walls).

Now Im trying to create somewhat of a schedule for the center, which is harder then it sounds because a lot of the girls have classes until 6pm and the sun starts to go down around 630... ive spent hours starring at an excell sheet i made trying to come up with an answer that doesnt exist. well i mean it does, but i was just hoping to have classes after school and not on the weekends but it seems like that wont be an option now.

first day of basketball class in on saturday!! ankle length skirts, mulafas, and all!

Work update

Things at my gmc (girls mentoring center) have finally started to pick up these past few weeks as the school year finally begins to get under way here. Unlike america, even when the government says school will start on a certain day, it doesnt. Directors dont come and teachers arent given schedules till a few weeks later and after about a week of class actually starting kids start to show up regularly. Kind of frustrating when im so eager to get my center up and running but i am dependant on school being in session to do so. But the past few weeks i have been trying to get the word out about the center from talking to teachers, putting up posters, talking to girls around the school and going into classes.

To apply to be a member girls had to write an essay on "what is the importance of girl's education" and be between a 2eme-5eme grade level (about the equivalent of 7th-10th grade). I got a lot of responses and was very happy to see that i was able to pick out my ideal number of girls for the center. I have 26 girls, split pretty evenly throughout the 4 grade levels. Tomorrow I am going to post the list of new members and then sunday will be the first day of the center! (we have an islamic sunday-thursday work week). Im planning on having two days of getting to know you activities and then, inshallah, will have a little open house on thursday for the girls, their parents, school directors, and other important women/people in the community. The center will be open probably about 4 days after school for a few hours and will also meet one morning a weekend for basketball club (exact times and days are dependent of the girls availability).

Eddies coming to visit!!

Its official, Eddie just bought his plane ticket to come visit me in February!! I am so happy right now i cant take the huge grin off my face!

All of PC Mauritania goes down to Dakar for Presidents day weekend to participate in WAIST, a big softball tournament with expats in west africa (including all the PC west africa countries). Its the weekend that PCVs here in mauritania look forward to most because its a huge party/vacation in the most metropolitan city in west africa. Dakar also has the cheapest flights into west africa so eddie is going to fly in the day after the tournament ends, feb. 18th, and i will already be there to meet him! We are going to spend two weeks traveling through senegal along to coast north and south of Dakar. unfortunately, mauritania is just too far away and it is not worth the time, effort, or money to travel all the way to show eddie my site. also, mauritania requires a visa (while senegal doesnt) so we're just going to stick to traveling in senegal.

we have only started to plan out exact places that we want to go/things we want to see, but right now it includes Dakar, Ile de Goree (known for its role in the slave trade), Ile de n'Gor, Saint Louis (old captial of colonial french west africa), Le Parc National de la Langue de Barbarie, camel rides and camping in the desert, and Toubab Dialao. Im trying to make sure eddie gets to see a lot of traditional africa along with the more touristy things.

Im so happy that i will get to see eddie in only a few months! I am also starting to look for flights to come home this summer after my school gets out, so probably sometime mid-july.

Obama in Africa

While it sucks not to be home for such a monumental election like the one today, there is no better place to be then in africa. All this past week I have been stopped by strangers on the street asking “tu as voté?” and I love to see their reaction when I give a little fist pump and say “yes I did! Barack Obama!”. Today I wore my new Obama/Biden shirt around and was practically cheered wherever I went (shout our to carrie dietrich for the shirt!). Africans absolutely love Barack and I love that so many people here are interested in American politics. My host family has been watching the french news coverage of the election and they always go above and beyond to make sure i understand everytime the anchors mention the election. its funny because people here hardly seemed to notice a coup even took place and rarely will take sides on their national politics but are so interested and informed about my national politics.

Also, ryan (one of our brousse volunteers) got the debates mailed to him so a bunch of us watched those this past weekend which really made the election feel real. Its hard to imagine when you fill out a write in ballot in the middle of the African desert that there actually is an election going on sometimes. we had a blast watching all the hilarious things that we had read about sarah palins preformance in the vp debate too hahhaha...

tonight me and the other 1st year volunteer in boghe are crashing at the regional house along with 2 other brousse volunteers to follow the election throughout the night online. things are looking good... crossing my fingers that ohio finally pulls through!!!

Halloween party!

This past weekend Boghe had the big Halloween party for PCVs in Mauritania and it was soooo much fun! We had about 50 people here for a full blown American costume party and it turned out so well! I was kind of nervous because that is a lot of people to have in town (think no kitchen to make food in, no real bathrooms, and a tiny house). We talked to the restaurant guy next to us and he promised to be open all the time for those 3 days (normally they are just open for a few hours at night) and we borrowed a bunch of matelas and lessos (sitting mattresses and floor mats) from my GMC. We also had some of the more crafty guys in our region rig up a string of colored light bulbs across from the regional house to the tree in our yard and back. We also have a homemade ping pong table that we won in a tournament against the region next to us during Halloween last year set up in the yard. It was like a garden party but in the African desert with cheap gin. We had a little preparty on Thursday then Friday was the big costume party. Below is a picture of whole group in front of our regional house and another of us all hanging out under the tree in our courtyard!

Me and my friend Julie Ann planned matching outfits, I was Sarah Palin and she was John McCain (she had shaved her head on swear in day haha). It turned out sooo much better then I thought it would and everyone totally loved it. All of the costumes were really funny and creative especially considering that we had to make everything or find it somewhere in the African thrift stores. Here are some more pics from the night!

all my sitemates from pk7 reunited!

it was still around 85 at sunset so the sweatshirt had to come off! i tried my best to stay in character...