christmas eve eve eve party in Boghe

Its been crazy here recently because Boghe is on the way to the capital so a bunch of people whose sites are way far east (the capital is on the west coast), used it as a resting place. So our party that was just going to be a little region party turned into something a little bigger...

All of my regionmates put gifts in each other stockings and we decorated the house and listened to Christmas music… kind of like being at home right? Hahah… my favorite of the decorations was the let it snow window decal which is so ironic in so many ways. 1. glass windows don’t exist in this country and 2. we are surrounded by endless amounts of sand, no where close to the idea of a white Christmas. Thanks mom for that haha…

Its really nice because from Dec 24-26 all PC Mauritania volunteers are booked hotels rooms in the capital by the staff so that we can celebrate the holiday together and then we have a big get together at the country director’s house- complete with amazing American food. I cant wait to finally go to Nouakchott! Real hotel rooms, American television, pizza, toilets, grocery stores, and endless other goodies. Then im off to pk7 to visit my host family from training for a few days, then to St. Louis, Senegal to celebrate New Years and finally back to Nouakchott for some 1st year volunteer training… its going to be a nice long and much needed vacation!

work update

so i guess a few of you have been wondering why i dont blog about work, so i thought id write a little work update... work is going well, but like in america, work is work. It can be stressful and frustrating, especially with the language/cultural barrier. For example, after i finally got the center up and running, i had to cancel classes for 10 days because of the fete. And now with Christmas, New Years, and then a week long PC conference in Nouakchott, i am going to have to close the center for another 3 weeks. The goal of the centers are to been self sustainable so its a long term goal of mine to find maurtianians who are interested in helping me teach/manage the center. But for now the center will have to be closed while Im gone.

Its been really hard to put together a schedule because the most girls have night classes almost every school night and even when i plan sessions around their free time that can get confusing because their schedules change so often... very frustrating.

So far Ive had successful computer classes, a week of AIDS sessions (for worlds AIDS day last week), bball club, and a little session on how to use a dictionary (might sound unnecessary, but really is). Hopefully when I come back from break i can have some academic review sessions by local professors and have a session on succesful local women.

Tabaski

Today was the Muslim fete Eid al-Adha, otherwise known as Tabaski here in Mauritania. It is also known as the festival of meat, so you can imagine how much I look forward to this day haha… I started out the festival last night spending some time with my family and watching Arabic Food Network (mostly American/English food shows with Arabic subtitles). After about two hours of watching cooking shows I made a comment to my host mom about how none of the shows had any side dishes or veggie plates, it was strictly meat dishes. She was like duh, it’s the fete of meat tomorrow haha… I don’t know how I didn’t put two and two together.

This morning started off with everyone in the family working on our meal preparation early and me hanging around being skittish knowing that the ram tied to the tree in our courtyard was going to be killed soon. It is called the festival of meat because it is the celebration of the day that Abraham (Ibrahim) was going to sacrifice his son Isaac (Ishmael) and then God replaced Isaac with a ram to reward Abraham for his obedience. So sure enough sometime in the late morning I saw the ram untied from the tree by some men I didn’t know and made my way back to my room for a good hour so I would miss the gross part… my family had a little laugh but completely understood that I would much rather be in my room reading a book then in the yard with them killing a ram. Then the family gathered in our salon while they finished up food prep… it actually smelled really good and the soccer being played on the tv was kind of reminiscent of watching football on holidays back home. For lunch we had meat with onions in gravy and french fries (all in one bowl) with bread to dip in it. My host mom made me my own personal bowl with just the onions, gravy and fries… it was sooo good (normally Mauritanians eat family style to the extreme- one big bowl for everyone, usually around 10-15 people, with your hands).

After lunch we all dressed up in our tabaski finest and I wore my very first female boubou. Enjoy the pictures, I hope they make you laugh as much as I laughed at myself. My host mom had made it very clear that for the biggest fete of the year no normal complet would do (the wax print, short sleeve, tight fitting, matching top/bottom outfits I normally wear). A boubou was very necessary for this fete. So she had some people bring over hand dyed (and pretty expensive) fabrics and I choose one for her to make the boubou for me. When I came out of my room in my outfit the kids in my family had a field day… I finally looked like a Mauritanian woman (the complets are for girls before they have kids and at my age I should probably be wearing a boubou by their standards).

Here are some pics of my huge, traditional female boubou that my host mom made. it is a big dress/sheet thing with a match wrap skirt underneath.

The rest of the fete was much like the past fete (to celebrate the end of Ramadan about 2 months ago). The other Americans came over to my house to visit my host mom then we went to greet and eat with other friends of past or current PCVs. It was a long exhausting day but went pretty well. Also, there are only 2 fetes really celebrated in Mauritania each year so im done with them for a while, phew!

The picture on the left is all the Boghe PCVs (my sitemates) and my host mom in our salon and the picture on the right is me and my little host sister, Yiy (age 4).

The picture on the left is some Mauritanians in their Tabaski finest and the picture on the right are two little boys who were sooo cute in their traditional chaftans and pants.

Winter Wonderland

Winter has finally come to Mauritania! While it has been chilly a little bit in the early mornings for the past few weeks it is nothing compared to the temperature now. I know that a lot of it has to due with the fact that I’ve been living in 100 degree heat for so long, but it feels like its freezing here! Even during the hottest points of the day there is still a little chill in the air and anytime near sunset you have to put a sweatshirt on. Every night before the cold front came in I slept with a fan on me and now I’ve been sleeping in long sleeve shirts, pants, socks, and a thick wool blanket! Im curious how cold it actually is because at night it seems close to freezing.

We took some time to enjoy the cold and really kick our Christmas decorations into full gear. Heres a pic of the stockings me and Stephanie sewed (and Julie Ann wrote our names on with her amazing cursive glitter glue abilities). One for each of the 12 volunteers in my region... more crafting/Christmas decorations and pictures to come!

In light of the new weather changes, I have some very exciting things to add to my wish list (if you have been sweating non-stop for the last 6 months you would understand while it’s so exciting for me haha).
- Hot chocolate and apple cider packets
- chai tea

- warm clothes (stuff i already had in my closet but didnt pack to bring with me, not necessarily new stuff)

New Puppy!

So last Sunday night I was coming over to the regional house and a bunch of little kids were sitting around our door and then starting running toward me yelling “petit chien! Deux milles ouguiya!” (little dog, 8 dollars). Toubabs are known as the only freaks in Mauritania who keep animals as pets haha… I called out some of the other girls who were at the house and we talked it over (while falling in love with this scared to death dog and surrounded by kids in the street) but unfortunately we already have one dog and way too small of a house. So we told the kids sorry, we can’t take it, even though it killed to know that those kids were probably going to drown the dog or just leave it in the streets somewhere. We all went back in the courtyard and were hanging out outside when there was a yelp from the far corner of the yard and we realized that the kids had thrown the dog into our yard! He was so scared and shacking, but no broken bones thank god. We spent the next few hours trying what to do and calling people to see if anyone wanted it because there was know way to let this dog stay over night and not get attached to it. Luckily Ryan said that he wanted it so we have been spending all this week with this adorable puppy (named Nittany, Jo Pa just didn’t sound right haha). Him and Bailey (our other dog) are so cute together and I had to put up some pics of them.

On other more sad note, word must have gotten around that the Americans were adopting puppies because the next night another puppy got brought to the house and two others the night after that. Then the next day I got approached by a bunch of kids on my walk home who had a puppy they wanted to give me. Its so sad because animals are so mistreated here but theres no way that we could try and save them all. When Tiffany leaves in August she is planning taking Bailey back to America with her so hopefully I will be getting my own new puppy when I move into the house… inshallah!

Refugee Relocation

Here they are called "the 1989 events", when thousands of black african mauritanians were forced across the Senegal River by the arab mauritanians (and vice versa with the arab senegalese). They were forced to flee without their possessions and their property was taken in their absence. Its a very complicated situation (i suggest going on wikipedia and reading about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Events_in_Mauritania) and the effects of which are still being felt, especially in the south of Mauritania. For nearly 20 years black mauritanians have been living in UN refugee camps in senegal and recently the UN has begun to bring them back to Mauritania. Since Boghe is one of the largest border towns with Senegal, they have been using it to bring in the refugees and creating new villages for the refugees to live in. Below are some pics of their efforts this week...

These are classic "maurtanian style tents" set up in on of the open areas near the center of Boghe for the refugees to wait in between their river crossing and placement in their new homes.

The refugees being loaded into UN issue white canoes (very different from the traditional wooden ones ive been in!) with orange life vests (also a new concept for me!) on the other side of the Senegal River on a Senegalese island seperating the two countries.

On the far right is the UN canoes leaving Senegal and on the left is the UN tracks waiting to load the refugees and bring them to the Boghe town center.

Close up of UN trucks along the Senegal River.

On a side note, my host family in pk7 were returned refugees as well, who came back during an earlier attemp to return the refugees in 1997. The village was called pk7 (literal translation milemarker 7) because it was created at the whim of the UN in an effort to return the refugees (since their properties and previous homes/villages had been taken in their absence).

Baila's gift

The other weekend me and my other pk 7 sitemates finally got a chance to visit our teacher Baila and give him our little thank you gift for helping us learn pulaar during stage. Since we spent signifigant more time playing cards then learning pulaar we thought giving him a decks of cards with a photo of all of us at class would be a great momento (Ryans mom made the cards on snapfish and sent them to us, thanks!). And we were right, he loved the cards so much... his exact words were "i will guard this for my whole life with my diploma."

below is a pic of our teacher and us playing cars after we gave them to him... look hard to see our picture on the back of the cards...