Like many other Americans, I have never been very interested and actually sitting down and watching a presidential inauguration but this election and new president has bought a breath of fresh air to everything having to do with American politics. Tuesday I went to Aleg (a large city about an hour north of Boghe) to visit my friend Amanda (another girls’ education PC volunteer). Although we didn’t have cable to watch the inauguration, we watched it across the street from her house with a local family on the French news channel ‘24’. Their cable did have English CNN but if we watched that the Mauritanian family wouldn’t be able to understand it so we watched the inaugural proceedings dubbed in French (if you concentrated real hard you could zone out the French and hear just the English). It was an amazing moment watching Barack Obama take his oath and literally feeling hope for our country and the worlds future coming back to me. There were a few tear jerkers, quickly followed by cheering all around when Bush boarded his helicopter to Texas.
After watching the live inauguration we went over to the regional house and started downloading all the inauguration stuff we could find and watch it all over again in English on a projector with all the other volunteers in her region (followed by watching a lot of this seasons ‘Office’ episodes that we downloaded!) It was nice to spend just a few days hanging out, making great (attempts) at American food and seeing Amanda, her GMC and Aleg.
On a side note, I am extremely pleased with some of Barack’s first few moves, including the closing of what I have always considered one of Americans biggest moral faults, Guantanamo Bay. I have hope in the future and it feels good...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Christmas Travels
Right now im at the end of a much needed, and very extensive, christmas break. We left Boghe on Christmas Eve morning and arrived in Nouakchott in time to have an amazing pizza for lunch and check into our air conditioned hotels. You cant even imagine how amazing simple luxuries are when you’ve been deprived of them for so long… First of all our hotel room. It was so nice that I would compare it to a Holiday Inn, complete with hot water showers and tubs, big comfy beds, an American movie channel and air conditioning. I would have been happy just to spend my 3 weeks vacation in that hotel room. Second, the food selection is unbelievable. Little burger and sandwich restaurants are everywhere (with real cheese available on everything!). Also, there are little supermarkets that have some american products that I can bring back to site like canned food, cereal, and cheese.
Anyways, back to my christmas celebrations. Christmas Eve Obie, our PC country director, has a big celebration for us at his house with amazing american food, all organized by him and paid for out of his own pocket. Christmas day is the same with all day festivities, a big buffet, christmas movies being played in his little movie theater room, and other american embassy staff and local mauritanian pc staff stopping by. It takes a lot to make missing christmas back home hurt a little less and he makes sure it happens. All 130 or so of us come in from our sites around the country, get put up in hotels and then are provided this amaazing 2 day long christmas party.
These are some pics from the Christmas day mass we went to in Nouakchott. Although Mauritania is an Islamic Republic, There are 3 catholic churches throughout the country to support the non-Mauritanian population. Please note the nativity scene in wax print fabrics (what my complets are made from) and the dance party that erupted on the alter after mass was over (to French Christmas carols with an African band).
After that we went to St Louis, Senegal for New Years and it was AMAZING… I absolutely fell in love with that city. Think a kind of run down version of New Orleans meets a Caribbean beach. Besides the fact that Senegal is in every way the promised land to mauritanian PCVs, St Louis has so much character and history. It was the very first french settlement in africa and the capital of all of French West Africa until it dissolved in the last 50s so it is very developed with a very old fashioned architecture feel. Our hotel had very european hostel set up with about 12 dromatory style room all coming off a courtyard and almost completely booked by other Mauritania PCVs. Although my hotel was located on the island (the center of town) other volunteers had rooms on the pennisula, which looks out onto the Atlantic Ocean. We spent most of our days having parties on the beach (alcohol is legal in Senegal!!!!), playing in the ocean, and walking around the old town and shopping. There are also tons of cool resturants and bars to go to at night.
New Years Eve its self was sooooo much fun… we had a little preparty in our hotel courtyard (we had the best staff ever) and then basically all of PC Mauritania went to this one really cool indoor/outdoor bar that had some cool music and african drummers. After that we tried to go to a club but a series of unfortunite (and hilarious) events got us kicked out pretty fast… I think the people in PC Senegal got a little scared of us. Imagine over 100 kids who live whats known as one of the hardest of all PC countries (and is dry) being let loose in a crazy party town like St Louis with alcohol… It was absolutely a blast though and i had such a time in Senegal, I cant wait til WAIST (and eddies visit) in just a few weeks!
After St Louis all the first year volunteers came back up to Nouakchott for a week of training… although the actual sessions can be very boring I will never complain about getting put up in a hotel and getting to spend a week in the capital. On one of our afternoons off me and some of my friends got pedicures which was mcuh needed after wearing nothing but sandels in the hot dry desert for 6 months. Also, because of the whole Gaza situation, Nouakchott has been kind of crazy and full of protests in support of Palestine. As one of only 3 Arab League nations who recognizes Isreal, it is a very controversal topic. Although I really don’t have access to that much news information (all the good stuff is in arabic or if im lucky french), Ive heard that both the Mauritanian ambassdor has left his post in Isreal and the Isreali ambassador here has left his post (you can find more about the current situation in mauritania by clicking aroudn onlien for a few minutes). The protests have been pretty peaceful, mainly just marching in the streets and sometimes burning tires and throwing rocks at policemen. But all and all, I still feel very safe so theres no need to worry!
Tomorrow i leave to go back to Boghe and inshallah will be having a little second christmas there (hopefully all of my packages have arrived sicne ive been gone). Ill make sure to send thank yous out as soon as possible to let everyone know if ive recieved your package or not.
Anyways, back to my christmas celebrations. Christmas Eve Obie, our PC country director, has a big celebration for us at his house with amazing american food, all organized by him and paid for out of his own pocket. Christmas day is the same with all day festivities, a big buffet, christmas movies being played in his little movie theater room, and other american embassy staff and local mauritanian pc staff stopping by. It takes a lot to make missing christmas back home hurt a little less and he makes sure it happens. All 130 or so of us come in from our sites around the country, get put up in hotels and then are provided this amaazing 2 day long christmas party.
Here are some pics of our party at Obie’s house…
These are some pics from the Christmas day mass we went to in Nouakchott. Although Mauritania is an Islamic Republic, There are 3 catholic churches throughout the country to support the non-Mauritanian population. Please note the nativity scene in wax print fabrics (what my complets are made from) and the dance party that erupted on the alter after mass was over (to French Christmas carols with an African band).
Here are some pics from the PC bureau in Nouakchott… it is probably the most beautiful office building I have ever seen (or maybe ive just been in this country too long). Complete with Christmas tree and all!
Next we went to PK7 to visit our host families from training (where I was from june-august learning Pulaar). Me, Julie Ann, Ryan and Matt all came back to visit for 3 days and 2 nights and our families were sooooo happy to see us! My host grandpa, who is very senile and never affectionate to anyone ie. hit my 5 year old host brother in the head with his cane for doing something wrong, who knows what) even cried when he saw me… the whole little village was so excited to see us again. All of us got our old rooms back (ie. the villagers kicked out whoever it was who normally stays in that room). I gave my family pictures that my mom had printed off and sent to me of me with them and they LOVED it. And although they wanted me to come back and visit as soon as possible, I had to break the news that it probably wouldn’t happen til school was out of session for the summer.
After that we went to St Louis, Senegal for New Years and it was AMAZING… I absolutely fell in love with that city. Think a kind of run down version of New Orleans meets a Caribbean beach. Besides the fact that Senegal is in every way the promised land to mauritanian PCVs, St Louis has so much character and history. It was the very first french settlement in africa and the capital of all of French West Africa until it dissolved in the last 50s so it is very developed with a very old fashioned architecture feel. Our hotel had very european hostel set up with about 12 dromatory style room all coming off a courtyard and almost completely booked by other Mauritania PCVs. Although my hotel was located on the island (the center of town) other volunteers had rooms on the pennisula, which looks out onto the Atlantic Ocean. We spent most of our days having parties on the beach (alcohol is legal in Senegal!!!!), playing in the ocean, and walking around the old town and shopping. There are also tons of cool resturants and bars to go to at night.
New Years Eve its self was sooooo much fun… we had a little preparty in our hotel courtyard (we had the best staff ever) and then basically all of PC Mauritania went to this one really cool indoor/outdoor bar that had some cool music and african drummers. After that we tried to go to a club but a series of unfortunite (and hilarious) events got us kicked out pretty fast… I think the people in PC Senegal got a little scared of us. Imagine over 100 kids who live whats known as one of the hardest of all PC countries (and is dry) being let loose in a crazy party town like St Louis with alcohol… It was absolutely a blast though and i had such a time in Senegal, I cant wait til WAIST (and eddies visit) in just a few weeks!
After St Louis all the first year volunteers came back up to Nouakchott for a week of training… although the actual sessions can be very boring I will never complain about getting put up in a hotel and getting to spend a week in the capital. On one of our afternoons off me and some of my friends got pedicures which was mcuh needed after wearing nothing but sandels in the hot dry desert for 6 months. Also, because of the whole Gaza situation, Nouakchott has been kind of crazy and full of protests in support of Palestine. As one of only 3 Arab League nations who recognizes Isreal, it is a very controversal topic. Although I really don’t have access to that much news information (all the good stuff is in arabic or if im lucky french), Ive heard that both the Mauritanian ambassdor has left his post in Isreal and the Isreali ambassador here has left his post (you can find more about the current situation in mauritania by clicking aroudn onlien for a few minutes). The protests have been pretty peaceful, mainly just marching in the streets and sometimes burning tires and throwing rocks at policemen. But all and all, I still feel very safe so theres no need to worry!
Tomorrow i leave to go back to Boghe and inshallah will be having a little second christmas there (hopefully all of my packages have arrived sicne ive been gone). Ill make sure to send thank yous out as soon as possible to let everyone know if ive recieved your package or not.
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