Now For the Big Goodbye

It's not imminent or anything, but I will have to start wrapping this up and saying goodbye to people very soon. I'm coming home in July, which, after 2 years here, is no time at all. I got kind of reflective on my whole experience here as Alex and I were sweating our tails off while waiting for 2 hours for a beat up car to leave some dusty little Senegalese village (these are things I will absolutely try to forget....) Anyway, we were talking, and I told her why I joined Peace Corps in the first place. A lot of volunteers here joined to "make a difference" or to help people. I could pretend to be noble and say I joined for those reasons, but that's completely untrue. I joined Peace Corps because I wanted to travel and see things, and I had NO IDEA what I wanted to do with myself after college. I have accomplished both of those goals. I have LIVED in Mauritania for 2 years. I have an entire life here that I will need to leave behind in a few weeks, and I'm not sure if I'm equipped to do that. I love my host family, and they love me. We have been eachother's family for 2 years, and that will be difficult to just walk away from. Sure, I'll call often. But it's not really the same as sitting around all day shooting the breeze. Who will help my host sisters with their homework? Who will play with the baby when it starts crying? I'm sure that my space will be filled shortly, but these are things that I will miss.

Then, there's teaching. Two years ago, I had zero interest in being a teacher. I figured that this is something I would do for 2 years, then move on. Even this summer, I was on the fence. Now? I LOVE teaching. I love working with teenagers, their energy, their dramas, and watching them grow up. I love being a part of that process. If I have been happy during my second year here (and I absolutely have), then I can attribute a great deal of that happiness to my students and the other teachers at school. I'll miss Mohamed Vall, the Arabic teacher, coming in every morning and trying out something new in English. I'll miss my Moor boys in Third Year screaming "What's uuuuup, Teacher?" when I walk in the room. I plan on teaching in the US when I get home, but I know it won't be the same. There is such a strong sense of community in Mauritania, and teachers are integral parts of it. My students run on over to my house at all hours of the day if they want help with homework, want their grades, or just want to say hi. I love that, and I know that it will not be the same in the US.

I am looking forward to going home, to seeing my family and friends, to being somewhat clean again, and to not looking totally ragged and gross all the time. However, I am just now realizing that there's a huge loss involved with coming home. It kind of kills me just thinking about it. I had thought about staying a third year here, but realistically, as much as I have loved it here, it's time to go home. I figure the best way to deal with it is to just suck it up, rip of the Band- Aid, and get on the plane (where they have red wine and airplane food that is better and more nutritious than anything I have eaten in 2 years!) Flame on, Mauritania. Tu me manqueras.

And Then My Heart Broke....

I've tried to keep these blog posts pretty optimistic and upbeat, and to be fair, that's not too hard to do here if you look for the right things. Until last night, I would say that my service has been pretty idyllic. Ok fine, Peace Corps posted me to the hardest country that still accepts volunteers. All things considered, it hasn't been too difficult. Fine, little kids yell "Toubab" alot. And we did have a really fun indicent within our first few weeks at site, when I woke up in the middle of the night to find a strange man in my room in the middle of the night, stroking my leg. I wish that was as bad as it got here, and until yesterday, it was.

Last night, I was hanging out with my host family, just like any other night. My host sister, Aissata, was visiting us from Kaedi, where she lives these days with her husband and two babies. The girls and I did homework, and we were just sitting down to eat dinner. In Mauritania, meals are served around a large communal bowl. Before eating, everyone washes their hands in a "muskil", which is a pot that you use to pour water over your hands with a large tub beneath it to catch the water. Aissata was washing her hands just as my host brother, Alassane, walked over to sit down. I didn't hear what Aissata said to him. I just saw him wind up and hit her. Let's be clear. When I say "hit her", I mean he hit her so hard in the face that he knocked her across the yard. He must have had something in his hand, because she was literally airborne. Blood and teeth flew everywhere. Of course, it wasn't enough to hit her once. He went back for more as soon as he recovered his balance, pushing Rougi, my heavily pregant host sister, out of the way like a rag doll. We finally got enough bodies in between them to stop it, but not before a coal stove got knocked over, burning half of the people in the yard, or before every person in my family started hysterically crying. We got Aissata into Rougi's room, where she was screaming and lunging at Alassane so hard that it took 3 women to keep her from going after him with some blunt object in her hand. Alassane was outside, screaming about how she's a woman, and has to show him respect. I checked Aissata's mouth to make sure she still had some teeth left, and made sure her face didn't look fractured. Then I checked out Souadou, the youngest, who got pushed over the hot coals when the stove fell. The I went into my room and sobbed. I haven't cried like that in years.

I know that women get treated like dirt in this country most of the time. I am reminded of it daily, when every man I meet tells me that I should marry him, or asks me for "english lessons", aka. to sleep with him. No matter how idiotic and lazy men can be here, they can do no wrong. They are born with silver spoons shoved up their orifices, and they get treated like gold throughout their lives. The men in my host family get twice the amount of food as the women do, even though it's the women that are working all day. Your average Pulaar man spends his day sitting under a tree sleeping. Women are viewed as stupid, petty, and less than second- class citizens. Your average Mauritanian girl will be married by age 15 to a man twice her age. If she was allowed to go to school at all, she usually has to give up her studies by 9th grade, when her family forces her to get married. This brand of Islam allows beating your wife if she is disobedient, so in all likelihood, she will experience domestic violence many times throughout her life. I know all these things. I get condescending attitudes everyday from men, I fight like hell to keep my girls in school, and I do what I can to boost their self- esteem along the way.

I know all of these things in the back of my head, but this is the first time I had experienced in first hand. I've had many of my girls come to school with black eyes, but this was the first time I saw the sheer violence of it, and the first time I saw it happen to someone I love. Aissata is intelligent, confident, and has a good heart. She is easily one of my closest friends here, and the person that I feel like I relate to best. Seeing her get beat up last night was the hardest thing I have ever experienced. It was so much worse a half hour later. I was still crying in my room, and Kadia, my host mom, and Aissata came in to check on me. Aissata, with a swollen face and missing teeth, laughed and told me that it was HER fault, that she shouldn't have made fun of Alassane. She said it was nothing. I screamed, "NO, THIS IS NOT NOTHING. In America, he'd already be in prison." My host mom laughed and said that this is "our way".

I love this country. I love it, but it makes me ill. How can this happen? How can anyone let this happen? What kind of sick moron hits his sister like that? And what kind of society allows it? I can't condone it, and I will not. I pray that Mauritanian women stand up, and they fight. I hope they fight like hell, and keep fighting. For my part, I will never forget last night. I will never forget the way that Aissata looked as I checked her over after we got Alassane away from her. And I will never forget that these girls, my girls, deal with this everyday. I don't know what I can do, other than what I am already doing. I try to educate these kids in a responsible way, keeping equality in my classroom, and building up the girls when I can. Is it enough? No. For the first time in my service, I am rendered speechless, useless. And my heart? Broken.

Things I Will Miss About West Africa

Granted, I still have four months left. But, this year gas flown so fast. I have almost officially decided to come home in July instead of extending a Third Year. So, now that I am wrapping things up, I have really started to think about what I will miss when I'm gone. Here are my favorite things about this region...
1. Mauritanian tea, 3-4 times a day. When I first got here, and I had headaches in the afternoon, my students always asked "Teacher, did you drink tea after lunch? Because if not, your head will hurt. You'll die". I laughed. Now? I recognize the error in my ways. I MIGHT actually die if I don't drink my afternoon tea.
2. The way the sun rises over the sahel as I'm running in the morning. It's exceptionally beautiful.
3. The fact that a burger in West Africa is served with lettuce, tomato, mayonaise, egg, ketshup, and fries on the burger. It's DELICIOUS. Naf Burger in Nouakchott? Easily the most delicious burger in the world.
4. (Background, I taught my Third Years a lesson one afternoon on American slang. I taught them things like "What's up", "Nice", "Cool" "I'm freaking out", etc.) My favorite result of this lesson is that Hadrami, one of my favorite students, greets me every morning screaming "What's uk, Teacher?" I could tell him that it's actually "what UP", but seeing as how the whole thing is adorable, I'm going to let it slide.
5. Doing homework at night with my host sisters by candlelight. They also love when I put on Shakira to "help them think". HA, right.
6. Daily market runs. I know exactly how fresh my veggies are.
7. Riding into Kaedi on the EARLY morning car. The view of the desert in the morning from the back of Mahmoud's pickup truck is pretty incredible.
8. My host family's morning coffee. I have yet to be able to duplicate it... or even come close to duplicating it.
9. Fama Thiam, by little host sister.
10. I will miss that my "professional" teaching clothes consist of outrageously loud wax print or tie-dyed clothing, complete with a head wrap that sticks up at least 6 inches from my head on all sides.
11. Moors. I LOVE those Moors.
12. African non- English speakers singing to American rap music.

This list will inevitable get longer as my departure date gets closer. Our COS Conference starts on March 28 I believe. Inshallah, I will get my official COS date then.

Why There is No Breakfast Club in Mauritania

Last week, Lindsay and Alex convinced me to read "Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Piccoult. Generally, I think she's terrible, but they swore by this book, so I caved in. The book is about a school shooting, and basically how the social fabric of high school life, the "popular kids", the teasing, and the cliques drove one boy to shoot up his cafeteria. The book is a little different in that it gives a really in-depth look at the shooter, his family, and his life. Of course I was disturbed by the shooting itself, but what disturbed me more is the hell that these kids put this boy through in the years preceeding. Unfortunately, everyone can relate to this book. I can't think of a single person who didn't sell their soul to fit in in high school, whether it was with the popular kids or with some other social clique. In Severna Park, where I went to high school, there were at least 3 tiers of popular kids, followed by the athletes, the drama kids, the goth kids, the skaters, the punks, the band kids, etc. Everyone tried to hard to fit in somewhere, and once you had your nietch, you fought like hell to keep it. High school, while having its high points, was a crucible of humiliation, stress, insecurity, and pain. And why? What for? Because everyone wanted to be one of those popular kids that treated everyone else like dirt. The backstabbing, the rumors, the teasing... everything.
This is not meant to be a disillusioned reflection on high school. What really killed me about this book was how not a single Mauritanian student could relate to any of it. As a college teacher, I spent the majority of my time with Mauritanian teenagers. I teach what would be the rough equivalent of 8th- 11th grade. If I were a teacher in America, I would be faced with the same old eveyday, the cool kids, the geeks, the cliques, the drama. In Mauritania... nothing. My students generally all kind of hang out together, with little exception. Of course, there are some pretty strict divisions. Boys and girls don't socialize because it's socially unaceptable for unmarried men and women to spend any significant portion of time together. They flirt innocently during the 10 o'clock break, but that's about the extent of their social contact. Likewise, Moors tend to hang out more with Moors, and Pulaars with Pulaars. However, because Lexeiba is so mixed, you will find Moors and Pulaars hanging out at school. Apart from that, everyone is kind of on an even plane. The boys all go behind the school to smoke during break, even though their meeting spot is not limited to smokers. Everyone goes back there, regardless of age or race. The girls sit under the trees, sometimes divided by ethnic group, but more often, just kind of mixed together. There are NO cliques here, so the kids just talk to whomever they happen to be sitting next to. There is no pressure to impress, no pressure to act a certain way. Some kids are "cooler" than others, but that tends to be because they are the "bad" kids. Ely, for example, is probably the coolest guy in my 3rd year class because he is decent looking, he wears tight t-shirts, smokes cigarettes, and listens to Shaggy (I know, Shaggy, right?). However, that doesn't actually mean to much. As far as I can tell, he doesn't prefer to spend time with any of the boys in his class over others. Also, there is no dating here, so that whole dimension is just gone. Even if you make an idiot out of yourself in front of that guy you like, who cares? You're still going to marry someone 15 years older (or younger than you, if you are a guy) because your parents tell you to do it.
The weird thing is I was totally oblivious to all of this until I read "Nineteen Minutes". I mean, I remember high school, but Mauritania and the social structure here has become such second nature to me that I didn't even realize that none of this stuff existed here. I think what it comes down to is this: this is a VERY collectivist society. The collective social happiness of society will always trump over individual happiness. There are no individuals here, but rather members of families, tribes, towns, ethnic groups, etc. The social hell that exists in American high schools could never happen here because of the animosity and hatred it would create. These identities that we carve for ourselves and the boundaries and rules they create, they just do no exist here. On the one hand, this is why my "Expressing Your Opinion" lesson is always a nighmare. On the other hand, it makes high school a much more enjoyable experience, which is probably good, because these kids have enough to distract them from learning. They don't need any added social pressure.

Islam in West Africa

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/world/africa/13mali.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5070&emc=eta1

An interesting article in the NY Times about the American military presence in West Africa. We see the Marines in Nouakchott all the time, and according to the Times, they are here training West African nations to secure their borders against al-Qaeda. Necessary and unnecessary. Necessary because countries like Mauritania and Mali share thousands of miles of border in the middle of the Sahara desert with countries that house active and dangerous al-Qaeda cells. Yes, 12 military personel were brutally murdered in Mauritania in September, and al-Qaeda claimed responsibility. Yes, there have been several attacks since my service began, and some branch of al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for all of them.
Then, there's the part of me that agrees with this Malian gentleman in the article. I have found Mauritania to follow a very peaceful, relatively accepting branch of Islam. Yes, I occasionally encounter people trying to save my soul by converting me. Yes, prothlesizing is illegal here. However, Americans are popular here, and al-Qaeda has a weak, if any, following with the general public. I understand Mauritania's strategic value and the need to secure it against extremists, but luckily, I believe that this is one job for the American military that is entirely do-able.
Anyway, read the article.

Africa loves them some Obama!

The first call I got giving me the results of the Presidential election came at 4:13am on November 5. I was dead asleep when Mr. Ba, one of my former students, woke me up with "Obama won! Obama won! AHHH! Congratulations!" He studies English at the University of Nouakchott, and he and his friends stayed up to watch the results. The next day, I had a lot of people yelling "OBAMA!!!!!" as I walked thought my village. He is a black man, and he is now President of the United States. If you were looking for a more inspirational figure for African youth, you'd be hard- pressed to find it.
Africans love this man, and so do I. They're hoping for a lot of foreign aid and attention to Africa. I'm hoping he starts cleaning up at home first. At any rate, I could not be happier with the results, nor could the majority of West Africa. Obama! WOO HOO!

THINK, America!

I would like to forewarn everyone that this blog post has NOTHING to do with West Africa. I feel compelled to write after hearing the BBC report on the Vice Presidential debate yesterday. They aired snips from the debate. In one particular part, they aired Biden and Palin debating on taxes cuts and the present state of the economy. Palin presented a point, and Biden buried her in his response. She then came back with "Now, I'm not gonna answer questions like you're used to. I'm not a Washington insider. I speak for the common people" and Middle America, blah blah. She then proceeded to say nothing using the simplest words possible. It is at this point that I became completely OUTRAGED.
What exactly is Sarah Palin saying? Is she implying that the American people are too stupid to understand politics, so she has to dumb it down for them? And why is a Vice Presidential candidate dumbing anything down at all? WHY, oh why, are we content to have our politicians say they "speak to us" when they talk down to us? Do we have no mental capacity? Do we doubt our own ability to THINK?
In 2000 and 2004, we elected a president that spoke to the "common man". Yes, Mr. C Student, Average Joe. Eight years later America is caught in two expensive, unending wars, our economy is in shambles, and we have lost many of our allies in the international sphere. In short, we're a mess. This is the President that spoke to Middle America. He dumbed things down in his election campaigns too, saying he spoke to people, when in reality, I believe he couldn't grapple with the issues in the first place.
Now we have Sarah Palin running as Vice President on the Republican ticket. She is also SPEAKING to the people. Fine. Why is it do desirable for her to water down politics? Is she dumbing things down for us, or for herself? Either, I believe, are dangerous. In lowering the bar of intelligence for the American people, she sells us short. We are human beings, blessed with critical thinking ability and rational thought. We should be able to use them. We should be pushed, be forced, be proud, to understand campaign issues that affect this country. We have the ability. Why not have someone, finally, demand that we use them?
If, in fact, Palin dumbed these issues down for herself, then that is even more dangerous. If McCain dies, she becomes the President. Unfortunately, Mrs. Palin, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES is a job that requires intelligence. I don't want Middle America, one of the good ol' boys in office. I want the most qualified person possible to lead us. I want the best of the best, someone with great intellect and ability, a President who towers above everyone else. I'm sorry, but President of the United States is a job that demands all of these things. Can Sarah Palin deliver? I believe that the answer is a resounding NO.
So, in short, Sarah Palin, you do not speak to me. I am a middle class woman, like yourself, and in fact I am insulted and outraged that you dare even try to speak to me on that level, and I can only hope that the rest of your audience feels the same way. You speak to a country of with one of the best educational systems in the world, of highly intelligent people who THINK. Don't belittle them, or yourself.