Saturday, August 11, 2007
My assignment
August 9. So I got my site assignment and I love it. I will be in Mbagne, about an hour and a half from Kaedi. Still on the river, about 3000 people, much less trash and random animals in the street. It's really pretty and has lots of trees. I use the words pretty and a lot rather loosely though.... still third world. I have my own house, it was saved by the previous volunteer for me. It has two bedrooms, living room etc. I can sleep on the roof, and it has a really high fence. It's the cheapest rent yet at 24 dollars a month. I am really excited now, and actually looking forward to going back to language class.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Life in Mauritania
July 26, 2007
Ok, so here goes my description of Mauritania. and yes rather busy, still love you. Houses are adobe like with tin roofs, windows are made of metal. We have one paved road here, it’s about a mile long. The trash is definitely a problem as it’s everywhere. Lots of donkeys, goats, horses, and cows around. I think it’s really funny, goats just crack me up. Not really funny though because I eat them. It’s bizarre to see how my definition of good food has changed. We eat a lot of rice, starch in general actually. For breakfast I have bread and tea. For lunch it’s rice, veggies, and fish, but mostly rice. Dinner varies a lot like last night it was just saucy rice, but last week we had half a chicken. It was so good I almost cried.... we eat off one big plate with our hands. It’s fun and I feel like a kid again. It’s really quite easy to see malnourishment here. Although a lot of women are obese, they are also malnourished. I take prenatal vitamins...... Pulaar is really, really hard. I keep trying to explain why it’s so hard for me but there are so many reasons. It’s not a written language so the alphabet is just made up. It’s not like any other language, so you can’t say oh yeah I’ve done something similar to this before.... and my all time favorite part is that they are big on doubling up letters so you can say cooce or coce, one meaning cheap and one meaning vagina. This happens a lot. No, that wasn’t actually Pulaar but you get the point. The only way I think will learn Pulaar is because I really like haalpulaars, pulaar speakers. They are the south of Mauritania which has suffered a lot from slavery and racial hatred the rest of Mauritania. They are also much more liberal than the rest of the country. And our clothes are much cooler..... The rainy season is struggling to arrive; it’s about three weeks late. I get my site placement this weekend, keep your fingers crossed for Rosso....
love,Lauri
Ok, so here goes my description of Mauritania. and yes rather busy, still love you. Houses are adobe like with tin roofs, windows are made of metal. We have one paved road here, it’s about a mile long. The trash is definitely a problem as it’s everywhere. Lots of donkeys, goats, horses, and cows around. I think it’s really funny, goats just crack me up. Not really funny though because I eat them. It’s bizarre to see how my definition of good food has changed. We eat a lot of rice, starch in general actually. For breakfast I have bread and tea. For lunch it’s rice, veggies, and fish, but mostly rice. Dinner varies a lot like last night it was just saucy rice, but last week we had half a chicken. It was so good I almost cried.... we eat off one big plate with our hands. It’s fun and I feel like a kid again. It’s really quite easy to see malnourishment here. Although a lot of women are obese, they are also malnourished. I take prenatal vitamins...... Pulaar is really, really hard. I keep trying to explain why it’s so hard for me but there are so many reasons. It’s not a written language so the alphabet is just made up. It’s not like any other language, so you can’t say oh yeah I’ve done something similar to this before.... and my all time favorite part is that they are big on doubling up letters so you can say cooce or coce, one meaning cheap and one meaning vagina. This happens a lot. No, that wasn’t actually Pulaar but you get the point. The only way I think will learn Pulaar is because I really like haalpulaars, pulaar speakers. They are the south of Mauritania which has suffered a lot from slavery and racial hatred the rest of Mauritania. They are also much more liberal than the rest of the country. And our clothes are much cooler..... The rainy season is struggling to arrive; it’s about three weeks late. I get my site placement this weekend, keep your fingers crossed for Rosso....
love,Lauri
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Dirt and Donkeys
OK the pressure is on to have the first blog entry be fabulous: here goes....
So Ive been here for about a week and a half, and i am still having a hard time finding words to describe this place. Poor. Its not poor its insanley poor. and chaotic, with very little structure. Its hot to the point that if the world bank was like heres a million dollars to get rid of some of the trash in town Id choose to take a nap because a lot of the time it is simply too hot to work. And I dont know who at the cia said there might be slavery here because there is slavery, and its very apparent and very real.
With all of that said I am still glad I am here, hopefully to have some sort of impact on this place.
Its bizzare because even when i wake up in the morning i never have that o god where am i? its just like this very normal oh yes i am in my families yard, in a tent, in west africa. and it all feels very normal... Right now Im really struggling with this culturally appropriate bussiness. Its one of the PCs ideas on how we actually help our communies is by integrating. It partially makes sense but at the same time who are we trying to kid. I will never pass as Pulaar, and I also thought part of the PC was to represent America, but we have to hide a lot of the things like smoking and our forbidden calves??? How can you be an agent of change if you are just trying to blend in?
Send jolly ranchers and a bottle of whiskey..... thats supposed to be funny but i cant find the cexclamation point....
So Ive been here for about a week and a half, and i am still having a hard time finding words to describe this place. Poor. Its not poor its insanley poor. and chaotic, with very little structure. Its hot to the point that if the world bank was like heres a million dollars to get rid of some of the trash in town Id choose to take a nap because a lot of the time it is simply too hot to work. And I dont know who at the cia said there might be slavery here because there is slavery, and its very apparent and very real.
With all of that said I am still glad I am here, hopefully to have some sort of impact on this place.
Its bizzare because even when i wake up in the morning i never have that o god where am i? its just like this very normal oh yes i am in my families yard, in a tent, in west africa. and it all feels very normal... Right now Im really struggling with this culturally appropriate bussiness. Its one of the PCs ideas on how we actually help our communies is by integrating. It partially makes sense but at the same time who are we trying to kid. I will never pass as Pulaar, and I also thought part of the PC was to represent America, but we have to hide a lot of the things like smoking and our forbidden calves??? How can you be an agent of change if you are just trying to blend in?
Send jolly ranchers and a bottle of whiskey..... thats supposed to be funny but i cant find the cexclamation point....
Monday, June 18, 2007
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Some Interesting Facts.......
This Is Your Life (If You Are a Woman)The Independent UK
Wednesday 08 March 2006
1% of the titled land in the world is owned by women.
A baby girl born in the UK is likely to live to 81 - but if she is born in Swaziland, she is likely to die at 39.
70% of the 1.2 billion people living in poverty are women and children.
21% of the world's managers are female.
62% of unpaid family workers are female.
9% of judges, 10% of company directors and 10% of top police officers in the UK are women.
Women comprise 55% of the world's population aged over 60 years old and 65% of those aged over 80.
£970,000 is the difference between lifetime earnings of men and women in the UK finance sector.
85 million girls worldwide are unable to attend school, compared with 45 million boys. In Chad, just 4% of girls go to school.
700,000,000 women are without adequate food, water, sanitation, health care or education (compared with 400,000,000 men).
Women in full-time jobs earn an average 17% less than British men.
Women in part-time jobs earn an average 42% less than British men.
67% of all illiterate adults are women.
1,440 women die each day during childbirth (a rate of one death every minute).
1 in 7 women in Ethiopia die in pregnancy or childbirth (it is one in 19,000 in Britain).
In the US, 35% of lawyers are women but just 5% are partners in law firms.
In the EU, women comprise 3% of chief execs of major companies.
12 is the number of world leaders who are women (out of 191 members of the United Nations).
Men directed 9 out of every 10 films made in 2004.
Wednesday 08 March 2006
1% of the titled land in the world is owned by women.
A baby girl born in the UK is likely to live to 81 - but if she is born in Swaziland, she is likely to die at 39.
70% of the 1.2 billion people living in poverty are women and children.
21% of the world's managers are female.
62% of unpaid family workers are female.
9% of judges, 10% of company directors and 10% of top police officers in the UK are women.
Women comprise 55% of the world's population aged over 60 years old and 65% of those aged over 80.
£970,000 is the difference between lifetime earnings of men and women in the UK finance sector.
85 million girls worldwide are unable to attend school, compared with 45 million boys. In Chad, just 4% of girls go to school.
700,000,000 women are without adequate food, water, sanitation, health care or education (compared with 400,000,000 men).
Women in full-time jobs earn an average 17% less than British men.
Women in part-time jobs earn an average 42% less than British men.
67% of all illiterate adults are women.
1,440 women die each day during childbirth (a rate of one death every minute).
1 in 7 women in Ethiopia die in pregnancy or childbirth (it is one in 19,000 in Britain).
In the US, 35% of lawyers are women but just 5% are partners in law firms.
In the EU, women comprise 3% of chief execs of major companies.
12 is the number of world leaders who are women (out of 191 members of the United Nations).
Men directed 9 out of every 10 films made in 2004.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Counting down the days.....
Less than one month! I made my flight reservations today, which was very exciting and made it all a little realer. I'm flying out of Denver to Philly on June 24th, the Philly to Dakar on June 26th. So as for now I'm taking wise people's advise and eating lots of Sushi (I mean lots!) and ice cream. I've been packing a little bit at a time for a couple months now so I feel pretty good about that. It's hard though, because htere are some things on the list that I don't ever use in America, so I'm having a hard time justifying bringing them to Africa: like a camp chair. I prefer sitting on the ground or a cooler, bucket etc. I really can't see what that would look like either as the only white girl in town, busting out a collapsable chair all the time.... Who know's though? I'm running late on posting photos, because I have to coerce them out of friends before I can post them, but here's some funny April pics:
Much smaller than I thought it was... but Bonnae and I like to get dressed up in our tennis 
outfits and whack balls around. Bonnae makes fun of me for shoving balls up my skirt (no not like that...) so she shoved at least 8 of them down her shirt, claiming to now know what it's like to have breasts. Eight of them.....
outfits and whack balls around. Bonnae makes fun of me for shoving balls up my skirt (no not like that...) so she shoved at least 8 of them down her shirt, claiming to now know what it's like to have breasts. Eight of them.....
I made an unfortunate promise that I would go out dancing, and while I may like dancing at Red Rocks I don't do the whole in a club grinding with strangers thing (that's how you get diseases...he,he). So Bonnae and Amanda went to Sutra to Dance and Leah and I went to Left on Lincoln, to lie in big comfy chairs outside and drink. Great night!
It's funny because tennis and a night out in Denver are normally such small activities, but with the departure coming up soon, they are these very sweet moments that I know I'm going to miss. I feel a whole lot of those Budweiser "I love you man" moments coming on!
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