Life in Mbagne

Hi,

This is Lauri's dad writing for her. We call her almost every week and get the latest news. She has access to a computer only every few weeks so she asked me to try to update everyone on the latest happenings.

Ramadan ended last week and everyone has a big party when it ends. Lauri joined with some of her American friends and participated in a big eating fest. She ate from 10 to 4 and was absolutely stuffed and had to go back to her house.

Although Lauri was sworn in to the Peace Corps a month ago, she has yet to do much significant work. They plan to open the center next week. She worries about her ability to speak Pulaar, the local dialect of Arabic. However, she said later when she thinks about how little she knew 2 months ago and even 1 month ago, she knows that she has made lots of progress. I am sure that when she starts working with the local girls in the classroom her abilities will grow rapidly. Her mentor tells her not to worry and everything will be fine. The mentor has probably gone through this with other PC volunteers.

It seems that the young boys like to harass her by throwing sticks and rocks at her door. Lauri grabbed one of them and took him home to his mother. The mother said to call the police next time and give him a good rap on the head. I reminded Lauri about some local boys here who liked to throw rocks at her. Seems that some things do not differ around the world. I remember getting into rock fights when I was a boy. Good thing no one was hurt.

Lauri is enjoying herself in Mbagne. The time flies by during the day because the days are getting shorter. She gets up in the morning, tidies up the house, visits others for tea, and goes to the market to get the day's food. She has termites in her house and spends some time each day trying to kill them by pouring salt water on them. An exterminator is a possible future option.

That's it for now.

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.

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

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....

Saying goodbye to my good friend...BEER

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.