“Hiya Friends!
I have some extra time on my hands what with it being a holiday weekend here, and though I spent the first three days of this weekend, which just so happened to be the 3 day fete marking the end of Ramadan, gorging myself on mass quantities of food, I am content to spend the Saturday on the computer, away from endless greetings and various drinks and meals with random people. I have these moments all the time where I think ‘I should write about this in my next email’ and then I get here with my computer and all those moments have completely left me and I end up writing to you about whatever random event pops into my head. Well, I wish I could say this time is different but alas, I have nothing for you, so here’s another heap of random observations for your reading pleasure, or annoyance, whichever the case may be. For the record, if you are reading these hoping for some life changing insight or amazing and inspiring story of hope and wonder from the wilds of Africa, you’re reading the wrong e-mails. I don’t even know what I’m going to do here, I mean I’m hear with all this training on things that are important but how to do them is not what people need to know.
Yesterday I was having this discussion with Luis, a friend of ours from Portugal here working on the roads. I say I don’t know what I’m going to do here not because I’m feeling exasperated and overwhelmed already, on the contrary I have been loving it here so far and even though I feel I have done very little, I know I’m not supposed to have done anything but observe and learn right now and so that’s what I’m doing, but here is what I have observed (and also the source of my confusion on what I will do with my time here): In training I learned how to make a cream from a local tree that repels mosquitoes, how to make fly traps, proper methods of hand-washing, what foods a child needs to eat to combat dehydration and malnutrition. I learned how to run an animation or give a presentation showing how easy these things are to do and why they are important, but here’s what training didn’t tell me: People here have a hard time sparing water to properly wash their hands when they have to haul every drop from a well a few kilometers away from their house, or when they pay what are for them vast sums just for the privilege of a running water tap on their property. People know that mosquitoes are bad and should be repelled, but to ask these women, who prepare 3 meals a day from scratch, do all the laundry by hand in buckets, haul all the water, wash all the dishes, sweep the whole compound, care for their numerous children, goats, sheep, cows, donkeys, gardens, and all other household chores every day, to spare the hour or so it takes to mix up a batch of neem cream is essentially asking them to give up an hour of sleep in many cases, they work so hard. What I am beginning to see is that I have been given a tool box full of band-aid solutions to solve problems with roots so much deeper than can possibly be addressed by one volunteer, even with 2 years to live and learn these problems inside and out.
I have always been the type to try to shoulder burdens that I can’t possibly handle but this may very well be my biggest one yet, and the hardest part: On the surface everything looks fine. On the surface these people are poor, but that doesn’t matter to them, after all they have never known any other way. What I see when I’m here is that despite the precious little they have in material goods, they are rich beyond my wildest dreams in kindness and community and generosity; and here I am, a little American girl, with my backpack full of useless gadgets that I thought would be so handy to have here, that I paid more than the average Mauritanian makes in a year for, trying to tell them that everything will be better if they just wear neem cream every night and wash their hands with soap. As far as I’m concerned right now I’m doing more damage here than good, providing these people with a living, breathing, metric of the American dream, against which their life couldn’t possibly measure up in any visible way. Of course when it comes to the invisible means I have a hunch that the “American dream” leaves much to be desired. I hope that I’m doing at least a little bit of good for myself and maybe even the people I’m sharing this experience with (ie. You kind folks) just by seeing and showing how having so little can give you so much. Of course Luis says people here are so nice and so happy because of all the green tea they drink, but for whatever reason, on the surface everyone here is one hundred times happier than anyone I’ve encountered in the states.
Anyway the point is, I come here toting my American ideals and they have no place here, and if by some chance I plant some seeds here, when they grow into whatever they’ll be, I doubt they’ll be beneficial in any way to anyone here. Now before you all go getting worried that I’m feeling depressed about my choices or my service, know this, nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m so happy here Luis teases that I’m going to stay when my service is done. I know I just got here and I can’t let it get overwhelming yet, I’m just taking every step of every day as a learning experience, and hopefully, if nothing else, I will come out of this with a new understanding of finding the root of problems for any future aid or NGO work I might be able to do. So if nothing else, I’ll gain something from this, and hopefully I won’t mess anything up too bad while I’m here!
So, on that note, I’ll try to talk about something a little more hopeful! I have a little project, I’m making posters for the hospital pediatrics office about neem cream, moringa (an amazing tree that has every imaginable nutrient a malnourished child could possibly want in it, not to mention a million other uses), and oral re-hydration salts. I’m blundering my way through the French translations and will hopefully have the body of the posters written up and the basic layout done by the end of the week. I spoke to some Mauritanians about the wonderful moringa tree when I was trying to compose part of my poster, and I found that they have a lot of misinformation when it comes to moringa, at least I think its misinformation because if its not then it’s Mauritania’s best kept secret. I had my dictionary on my lap and I said to my friend Souleymane, “If someone asked you why Moringa was so good, what would you say?” Well he reached right over and took my dictionary and said “Moringa cures over 160 diseases” (Which could be true, it’s roots and seed pods have been found to have remarkable antibiotic properties) but then he continued, flipping through my dictionary on the French to English side, he found what he was looking for and pointed, “it cures this” he said, and pointed to the English translation: Cancer.
“It can’t possibly cure all cancers, maybe some but there are many types that have no cure at all,” I said.
“Perhaps not all, I don’t know, but some.” Okay, I’ll give him that, maybe. He continued flipping and selected another word, which he showed me, “this too” he said, pointing to diabetes.
“Hmmm…really? I don’t think so…at least they never said that in our training” I said.
“I think so” Souley replied and searched some more, coming up with his third and final example of the wonder cures of moringa: paralysis.
That was enough for me to realize that he was doing the traditional Mauritanian thing and trying to answer the question just to be nice, even if they don’t know the answer, because they don’t want to let you don’t by saying they don’t know. They’ll do that also with directions, if you ask someone how to get somewhere the peace corps recommends that you ask 2 or 3 people and take the general consensus as people here would prefer to give the wrong directions that have to tell you they can’t help you.
Teachers will do that too. As a teacher you are in a place of authority and respect, you don’t want to tarnish the reputation by not being able to answer the questions of your students, so whether they know or not, they’ll always give an answer. Its been going on for so long sometimes ts hard to tell if someone is making up the answer because they don’t know, or if they think they know but the person who was teaching them made it up because they didn’t know, and so on and so forth. Its really not as bad as it sounds, people don’t ask many difficult questions around here. There is no ponderings of the intricacies of life or science, most of those questions are answered by religion and here that’s basically law and as a rule, not questioned. That leaves silly questions (like how old are you) for people to lie about. Everyone lies about their age, at least all women; and some of them don’t actually know. My 13 year old host sister says she’s 9, Emily’s sister has a twin brother who is 20 but insists she is no older than 16. My sisters in Rosso told me at least 4 different ages each, and even after 3 months of living with them the only one I know the real age of is Saratou because my host parents told me she is the same age as me, she would never admit that though.
When people here ask my age and I say I’m 22 they assume that by that I mean 26, and if I’m 26 why aren’t I married? And if I’m not married, would I like to be? And if yes then would I be willing to marry an African? Will I live here after I’m finished with my service? And just like that I understand the lying, it’s just easier, I can’t answer these questions, and even if I could I don’t know that I want everyone here to know the answers. Now I lie, because I’m integrated (Je suis une vrai Africainne!), and it’s easier.
Am I married? No, but I have a fiancé, he’s waiting for me in the United States. He calls me every week and we don’t know when we’re going to get married but probably right after I’m done with my service here. He’s not going to visit because that’s expensive and we’re saving money for our wedding, you can’t talk to him when he calls because he doesn’t speak any French, or Pulaar, or Soninke, or Hassiniya. He has a job in the States but I can’t tell you what it is because I don’t know the word for it in French, but it’s something with cars. I won’t live here after I’m done, at least not right away, because his job is there and when I’m done I will miss him so much I won’t want to live with an ocean between us anymore. I’m a pretty convincing liar now, so that’s something else I can take away from this experience, easy guilt-free lying about my marital status.
Okay I think that’s enough for today, this has been another long one! I hope you guys haven’t run out of patience with my rambling e-mails yet! Someday I’ll get together all the emails that I have written and all the journals that I’m filling each day, and all the letters I’ve written and all the sketches and paintings of plants and cows and tea services and goats and I’ll put them all together in the worlds coolest scrap book that I’ll want to read over and over again to relive these days of my life but no one else will have any desire to see haha….it’s going to be great! You just wait and see! I love you all, keep emailing me you’re love! I have so much to look forward too: 2 weeks until shuttle day when I get all my mail and packages! So to anyone who as sent something that I’m going to get on this shuttle load, THANK YOU! I’m fully confident that this shuttle will make my month! Now I must go and compose an email to the PCMO to request more malaria pills on that very same shuttle.
Peace, Love, and Ice Cream (Jess, I still wear my Ben and Jerry’s bracelet everyday, my host family can’t believe I worked at a store that sold nothing but ice cream, I’m confident their disbelief is simply cleverly disguised jealousy)
Shelby
