Hello Folks!
**NOTE: This email was written on my laptop at the house where I'm staying before reaching a computer so if you emailed me asking questions or filling me in on stuff that I ask about again in here its probably because I got your email after I wrote this one, so don't worry I did get them I just didn't write back to them at the moment)**
I've been putting off writing this email because I have almost nothing to report…aside from the fact that I have been sworn in as a Volunteer (hurray! No more stage!). So what that means is that I'm at my permanent site now in Selibaby (and missing my family and friends from home AND my new family and friends from Rosso!) doing well but mostly doing nothing at all. I have not found a house yet and I have not started work yet (Sunday, maybe...I get a tour of the health facilities at least and probably start going a few days a week…) but I have met my counterpart who is an amazing woman who works with malnourished children in the hospital and is incredibly motivated and excited to work with me and immediately gave me a new name (Hi, nice to meet you! My names Shelby Perry, except that's not right anymore, I'm Marieme Fall, oh wait, just kidding, now I'm Amineta Ba…) with her nom de famille, Ba.
Now before I continue let me share a little bit about Mauritanians and their names. Nearly every (or possibly every) Mauritanian name has another name (or several others) that they are somehow related to that they refer to as their "bean eating cousin." Being called a bean eater here is like a silly little insult that people tease each other with, and so every family has another family that they tease back and forth with the term "bean eating cousin."
I came to site with my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director, basically the guy in charge of all the health volunteers) Daouda Diallo, and was introduced to my counterpart by him. My counterpart wasted no time giving me my new name and Daouda turned to me and said "You're new name is Amineta Ba, and now I can call you my bean eating cousin!" So there you have it people, I am my APCD's bean eating cousin.
There is little else to report because I have done almost nothing since I got to Selibaby so instead of sharing stories about me I'll tell you about the little scorpion that could, Pinchy. A few days ago when I rolled up my mosquito net tent I found a pretty good sized (about the size of…hmm…I dunno…my thumb) scorpion squashed under it (I know what your thinking…eeeeek! But they aren't poisonous and if they get you it only hurts really really bad for a while, like a bee sting on crack so no worries…well…no major worries…). After mentioning him to the others and seeing that the other volunteers were unconcerned, I figured there was nothing to worry about and finished rolling up my tent until Sam said "oh man, he's still alive!" I turned around and sure enough the little bugger was racing around, tail and pinchers held high. I hightailed it out of there and Sam caught him in a bucket and little Pinchy became the mornings entertainment. Emily caught some bugs and tried to get Pinchy to fight them but when he wouldn't and watching him roam around the bottom of a bucket got old we sort of set him off to the side and forgot about him….until the brilliant thought occurred to someone, Lets drown him! That's the humane thing to do…right? (I should share that we didn't want to squish him because if he dies in one piece Morgan's friend would like to dry him and shellac him and make him into a necklace, apparently…) So we fill the bucket with water, watch him wander around at the bottom looking for all the world like a shrimp, and then got bored and wandered off to do other things.
A few hours later, when we all came fleeing back to the house to hide from/watch and awesome and impressive storm we found little Pinchy, at the bottom of a bucket of water, may god rest his soul. Sam put him in a Tupperware to admire then we set him aside to have dinner and watch a movie. Everyone went to bed and little Pinchy rested peacefully in his Tupperware coffin. (Now don't go getting soft on me and feeling all bad for little Pinchy because we gave him a cute name…he's a scary scorpion remember?) So the next day after breakfast and a morning of house hunting with my bean eating cousin and a few more hours of nothing another little rainstorm hit and we all headed inside to take refuge and out of the kitchen comes Sam with Pinchy in his little Tupperware coffin, or I guess in this case the more appropriate name for it would be cage not coffin because there was Pinchy, back from the dead, kicking and screaming. Well, ok, not screaming, but you get the idea. Anyway, that's the story of Pinchy. When the rain dried up a little and the roads became passable Sam headed back to his village (2 days late…yay for the Guidimaka!) with Sari for posting and with little Pinchy in tow and I have heard nothing of him since, or any of them for that matter, they don't have cell phone service in Wolumboni.
So that's my life at the moment…nothing exciting, at least nothing outside of Pinchy! But surely more to come! Right now its Ramadan so all the Mauritanians are fasting and tired all the time, but not me! No shuttle until October (and I'm told they're not terribly reliable here anyway…) which means no mail or packages until then UNLESS the Guidi volunteers pitch in and get a post office box here, which is something we're considering so keep yours eyes out for a new address, I'll email it as soon as I know. For now though the address is the same, except for one important detail, from now on when sending me mail please address it to:
Shelby Perry, PCV
Corps de la Paix
BP 222
Nouakchott, Mauritania, West Africa
Air Mail/Par Avion
Thanks to all of you who have already sent mail, it's really the most exciting thing ever to get mail here, even just a card or a few photos. I love it! I'm going to start writing letters and post cards soon, but you can only buy post cards in Nouakchott and I don't get to go there until Christmas so what I meant to say was letters, just letters.
Love and hugs for all of you,
Shelby/Marieme/Amineta
PERSONALIZED PS's:
Dad and Mom: Love you tons and miss you bunches! I'm going to try to put up more photos soon and I wanted to ask a favor of you guys…if its not too much trouble, which I know it might be so no worries if it doesn't work out, but if you could save some of my photos off of facebook and print them on my photo printer (you can even just put them on a pen drive and stick it right in the printer and do everything on the touchscreen) I should have left enough ink for at least a few and plenty of photo paper, and mail them to me (ok as I type it I realize that this is kind of asking a lot because you'll have to go to the library to get them and my printer might not even be out anymore but if it is, you guys can use it as much as you want, and if you can do this I would be very thankful but if you can't no worries at all!) I would just love to have some photos of Africa here with me to give to my family back in Rosso and such. How's everything else? Keep sending me pictures of my lil Josey! I was looking at my photos from summer on my computer the other day and she's so tiny in all of them, I can't imagine what she must look like now! Is the apartment almost done? Mom, how're things going with the whole work thing? Good so far? I'm doing amazingly well all things considered, I'm not nearly as home sick as I thought I would be having nothing to do all the time and therefore lots of time to sit and think, but I'm sure that will come later…for now I'm feeling good, overwhelmed but excited and starting to put things in perspective. I did have giardia, have had it this whole time (though it goes dormant and then comes back for awhile then goes away, etc and I didn't have all the symptoms just bad days and good days) but at any rate I'm on an antibiotic now that made it way worse for a day and now I'm feeling good! Not really much else to share…love you!
Cory: I sent you another e-mail, but i just wanted to say thanks again no matter what you decide to do and i'm so sorry i jumped the gun on that, i really thought it was toast! i hope school and everythings going swimmingly! I'm at the peace corps bureau right now and i found that theres a webcam here so if i can figure out how to make this work maybe we can skype someday or something...i'll keep you posted!
Becca: we g-chatted...you know whats up..but i miss you anywho! have a rocking time in thailand!
Becky: Wow! sounds like you had an amazing journey! i'm doing okay with the weather, but its the rainy season right now which means humid humid humid! when thats over i head its gorgeously cool (dropping down to something like 70 in december!) and thats when there are lots of veggies in the market and i'll have a salad again....omgosh i can't wait! as far as the conservative scale goes mauritania is right below all those countires that make women wear burkas except here they don't have to cover their face with it and its called a mulafa, but lucky me! i'm in the south, which is basically senegal (don't tell them i said that, thats the standard insult for anyone even remotely annoying around here..oh they must be senegalese!) so its on the less conservative side of things, in fact its a down right party compared to the north. I can sometimes even go out without covering my hair! and i can wear pants is i have a shirt that reaches my knees! its crazyness! thats all for now..miss you! love you! tell eric i said hello and have some good times down there in the dirty south for me!Merry Mer: Oh how i miss my old stomping grounds! i can relate to the wishing you were still in school thing, all those worries seem so small now that we have to decide what we're doing with the rest of our lives! lucky for me i put mine on hold to go find myself here in africa, crazyness i know! keep your chin up, the whole job thing will work out i'm sure. if you ever need a reference you just send 'em right to me, i'll say glowing things about you if they want to call me in africa! love you! miss you! tell all the plattsburgians i said hi!
Rose: its been too long my friend, i hope vegas is treating you well and don't let me forget to send the rest of my emails to you, approximately the longest email update from africa you could possibly imagine when you put them all together! hope alls well with you, miss you and love you!
Hobbit: MY LOVE! no i did not get the package because i won't get any until october but now i'm WAY WAYYYY excited for october because i know i have a bunch of cool stuff headed my way! i'm so soooooo sorry to hear about you and Takis...whats his deal? doesn't he know you're the best thing that ever happened to him? its okay though, you'll get through it cuz your tough and you still have me and phat rabbit! love you! miss you! i'll write a real letter as soon as i can!
i'm really out of time now, so i'll respond to everyone else next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment