long time no talk

December 4, 2008

Hiiiii!

So folks, get ready, this is going to be a long email! I haven’t written a real honest to god email in ages so grab a cup of tea, curl up in a blanket, and get cozy because this ones going to take awhile! I say that because rumor has it its getting cold there now, I mean, that’s what the word on the street is, it’s getting cold here too. Yeah, very cold, we were all shivering all night and most of the morning…goose bumps and all. Yeah, freezing, just like where you all are, this morning, in fact, it was all the way down to 70 degrees. Yup, jusssssssssssst like home folks, a real Vermonter here, freezing her heiny off in 70 degree weather, but there you have it. Hey when did it get to be December anyway? What is this? One minute its Halloween and we’re eating donuts off of strings in the backyard at our harvest party and I blink my eyes and everyone’s back for thanksgiving dinner eating ourselves into coma’s and now its December? At this rate folks I’ll be home in no time!

So I’ve been here 5 months and it feels like so much and so little at the same time! My French is improving but I still have a longggg long way to go, but now I at least have the language skills to tell people that I have only been here for 5 months and barely spoke French at all before I came so they should be thankful that I can say the things I can. My Pulaar vocab is improving too, I have a whole library of insults, and the standard “I’m leaving”, “I’m home”, “When night comes, come home” because that’s what my host dad says to me every time I go anywhere in the evening. My Pulaar teacher has accidentally (we hope its an accident!) forgotten our Pulaar lessons 2 weeks in a row now, so I’m just going on what I learn from my other “Pulaar Teacher” our neighbor and my brother’s friend Musa, who comes over and talks at me in Pulaar and I talk right back at him in English and then he yells at me in what he thinks sounds like English but really sounds like gibberish and then I yell back at him in actual English lovely little phrases like “you’ve lost your mind! I don’t even know what you’re doing right now you raving lunatic! You’re totally crazy!” and everybody laughs. Ahhhhh good times and fine memories from Mauritania! Somehow through all of this I have actually managed to pick up some pulaar though, so, all is well I suppose.

At any rate, that’s been my life lately, weighing babies, learning languages, and getting made fun of by my ridiculous family here. In the last package I received my parents sent me a Vermont life magazine with photos of Vermont foliage and changing leaves and other photos of the season. I brought it home with me to show to my family who flipped through it with the speed and efficiency of someone reading a magazine in a language they don’t speak, pausing only once or twice to remark on a picture or sound out a headline just to make me laugh. “C’est toi!” my little sister Hawa says, pointing to a picture of a woman in a wedding dress in front of a barn. “Oooo…un Rastafarian!” my host brother says pointing at a white man with dreadlocks in the UVM ad. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” (what’s this?) they ask at a photo of some American dessert product or another; and then they’re finished, not especially interested in “chez moi! Vermont!” all that much at all. Oh well, I think and grab the magazine back only a little disappointed in their reaction (I was expected lots of oooooo’s and ahhhhhh’s and a few c’est jolie’s through in for good measure) when Musa grabs the magazine from my hands and points to a picture in the seasonal spread on fall and foliage. “Here’s the reaction I was hoping for” I think. And Musa says to me in broken French “what’s this?” I don’t know what a scarecrow is called in French so I call it a fake person that we leave in the fields to scare off birds. “We have those here!” he says, “we leave them in the garden to keep the birds and monkeys out.” Yeah…same exact thing. “In Pulaar that’s called a demba nedDo.” (the D being a pulaar letter that doesn’t exist in English but involves breathing in to make the sound, kind of like the sound Homer Simpson would make if he were drowning) “Kaa demba nedDo!” he says. “Whats that mean?” I ask. Souley fills me in, “he called you a scarecrow.” So there it is, no interest whatsoever in Vermont life, but instead a handy new insult for my vocab.

This was about a month ago, since then it has spiraled out of control, last night I was walking home not even close to my house yet, and a man who was basically a complete stranger (he lives a house or two over from me but I don’t think I have ever talked to him in my life) walked past me and instead of greeting me with the standard nalleejam (good evening in pulaar) he busted out “Kaa demba nedDo!” with a big smile. Yes folks, if for some reason you decide to pay me a surprise visit here in Selibaby and you get all the way here and can’t remember my Mauritanian name just ask around for the scarecrow and surely everyone will know just who you’re talking about.

What else can I tell you about? I have lots of time on my hands, Monday is a fete so naturally no ones going to work or doing much of anything at all until at least Wednesday, in fact we even left work early yesterday because “the fete’s coming.” Of course I only ever work from 9am to noon, but it seemed completely normal to leave at 11:15 yesterday because there is a fete in 4 days. “See you Wednesday….or maybe Thursday…” said my coworker as we parted ways, leaving a touch of doubt in my mind as to whether or not I’ll work at all next week given that Thursday is the Mauritanian equivalent of Friday and if you are a Mauritanian and you don’t go to work on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, the chances of you coming on Thursday are not exactly very good. So I have at least the next 6, if not the next 10 days off, which would be exciting if when I worked I was actually busy or tired and in need of a break, but when I work I work no more than 3 hours a day and no matter how hard I try I actually have very little to do but read or write letters home when I’m at work. Last night I was so desperate for a cause as a health volunteer that I stole my host brothers cigarettes and promised to dole them out one at a time until he quit. The standard African’s answer to an American trying to get them to quit smoking: “But American’s are the ones who make cigarettes!” They say that as if its my fault that they smoke…grrr, I’m not a fan of that line of thinking! Its interesting to me that the best selling brand of cigarettes here are called American legends and they are manufactured in the European Union…so at least those aren’t my fault even if they do pretend to be American! So here are my health volunteery plans for the next few months: Anti-Smoking campaign, because its not my fault you smoke damnit! Nutrition seminars in Tabatha’s village for the skinny little kiddies, sex-ed and family planning at the health center for young mommies-they just learned about the female condom here when an NGO gave them a bunch to distribute, only they can’t seem to distribute them because no one knows what they are so Emily and I are going to have the awkward job of telling them, yes I enlisted back-up for this one because I’ll be red as a tomato explaining contraceptives to a bunch of women younger than me with 3 or 4 kids each. I have also been making pretty health posters for the hospital and 2 of them went up on Sunday, one more to go, photos as soon as possible I promise! And finally I’m hoping to organize a series of health talks at the girls mentoring center starting with one about skin-lightening cream because I absolutely hate the stuff. Look up skin lightening cream if you have a minute, its pretty disturbing stuff. So there you have it, all 5 months of my time here have lead up to this plan, wish me luck! Soon though I head to the capital for more health training and when I come back I’ll be on my way to some more projects that will hopefully look a little more impressive on my resume! Anywho that’s all for now, I’ll put pictures up on facebook soon and hopefully be full of amazingly exciting stories by my next email because I hit the road for Nouakchott for Christmas in about 2 weeks, followed by new years in St. Louis, Senegal on the beach baby! Then back to Nouakchott for Early Term Reconnect and In-Service Training and finally back to Selibaby, refreshed and ready to get back to my busy life of whatever it is I do here, except I’ll have spent so much time with other Americans I won’t remember how to speak any French or Pulaar anymore. Oh well, c’est la vie! Learning languages gives me something to do so I should be thankful. Love ya’ll, I’m sure I’m be online once or twice before Christmas but just in case I wish a Very Happy Holiday Season to you all!

Hugs and kisses!

Shelby

la rhume

11/20/2008

Hi Folks,

Its been too long since i've written and this is going to be short so sorry bout that. I seem to have attrapp-ed la rhume (that pure franglais baby...it means i have a cold) and possibly an eye infection, so here i am, the un-healthy health volunteer spouting health advice to people and sniffling. I'm told its the "saison du vent" (windy season) and everyone gets sick now, which certainly seems to be the truth given that its been insanely ridiculously windy all day every day for the past week, and everyone at my house has the sniffles (these things travel fast in the land of the communal cup, bowl, tea casse, everything). Its also evidently the season of eye infections, i was warned, i reluctantly gave up my contacts and picked up my sunglasses so that now i stumble around in blurry darkness, and still i seem to have a slight unhappiness in my left eye. It's not hard to see how this could have come about in a land where waste management doesn't really exist and its not uncommon to find both the feces and the bones of various animals in any given square foot of ground, when the winds pick up its not just sand they're blowing in your eyes if you know what i mean.

Still, its hard not to remain positive in the land of so many friends! I have millions of friends, i made three more on the way here. I made three friends, received one dinner invitation, and was told twice by random people that they will be returning to the US with me. A friend came over last night, he was a friend of my host brothers first but now i think he might come over half to see my brother and half to pester me, and he told me that i read too much and need to talk all the time so that i will speak pulaar in two months. Why you ask? So we can get married of course! A friend found me on my way to work yesterday and invited me to his house, me and any other white female friends i might like to bring along. I have gotten 4 business cards, 3 phone numbers, 2 dinner invitations, and a partridge in a pair tree since the last time i wrote an email. Everyone is just so friendly! Its weird though, they all seem to be men. Okay, so i'm not really this naive, i get phone numbers because i refuse to give out mine, i get dinner invitations for my friends because i refuse to go and they think if i can bring a friend i'll be more likely to come, and i never actually got a partridge in a pear tree through it would have been a nice gesture. Its not easy to make female friends here, mostly because the women work constantly, and the mens sole household chore seems to be making tea, the nature of which is purely social anyway. I drink 15 or so tiny cups of tea a day and talk in some interesting combination of languages with men during all my free time. This has been very informative and from our talks i have learned how to effectively stave off marriage proposals, at least for the time being. I HATE KIDS. that all you have to say. Men here want wives for the sole purpose of keeping their house and raising their children and as i am an american who can barely wash clothes let alone cook who doesn't want children, i am virtually unwanted...unless i can bring them to the states with me, then they might be willing to compromise. I love getting all womens rightsy on them, evoking the children debate and reminding them that as men than can have no possible comprehension of what childbirth is like and therefore have no right to tell me i have to have children, men here aren't used to women who stand up for themselves. "No babies for me, no thank you" works better than "I have a finace" or "i'm married" here. Interesting.

Thats all for now,
I have to go do some work or something now, Love and miss you all!

Shelby

"Taxi-ing"

11.05.2008

Hi Folks!

FIRST I need to say HAPPY (slightly belated) BIRTHDAY TO BECCA! 22! Hope it was fantastic! This winter we’ve been friends for 20 years, TWENTY YEARS! I love you and I miss you! Have a fantastic 22^nd year; I’ll see you sometime during our 23^rd!

So here I am, back in Selibaby, after my first real taxi brousse experience out to Gouraye to watch Levin and Sam make a very successful school garden at the elementary school there. Tabitha, Sari, and I, all came along so that we could pretend to be real volunteers with actual projects for a day. The trip out was my first time riding taxi brusse, and it went well, I’m told. Of course I had no idea as I had nothing to compare it to and I found it rather uncomfortable and a touch crowded (14 people in the back of a small pick up truck, 4 in the cab, 1 on top of the cab). I was tucked snugly in the back of the truck bed with the other 13 people back there and all their luggage, sitting on my backpack and listening to my old i-pod, who unfortunately broke again about half way though the trip. As far as I was concerned it was a touch too snug back there for my liking, considering we left at a steamy 11:30 in the morning and drove through all the hottest hours of the day and successfully sweated off all of my sunscreen and got a nice rosy glow on the top of my nose, which is now peeling off, but the others assured me that I was very happy with the situation, evidently there are frequently many more people stuffed into the truck bed, though I don’t see how that would be possible with out sardine stile stacking. At any rate, it was a beautiful scenic drive, we made good time, and we only had to get out and walk once where the road got rocky and the driver thought we might pop the tires with all that weight.

Once in Gouraye we commenced with the school garden, and it was really inspiring. About 20 students came with 2 teachers and took turns doing everything that needed to be done to prepare the beds and seed them. I took about 12 billion pictures, so keep your eyes out for those because I’m going to do my darndest to post them ASAP.

The whole thing too only about 2 hours and left us the afternoon to wander on foot out to Sounatu, a little Pulaar village where the boys needed to check on some trees they had planted. This was what Levin described as a 40 minute walk, which turned out to be just over an hour, but to be fair we took our time, taking pictures and visiting with some random French tourists we met along the way who are driving their way across Africa for no apparent reason. It was a beautiful walk and we saw shepherds with flocks of sheep and goats, a giant lizard, some snake trails in the sand, huge seasonal lakes filled with lily pads, and the always beautiful Senegal River, on the other side of which loomed the always illusive Senegal where they have things like paved roads and beer…jerks. The village was adorable, with all sorts of baby animals and cute kids trailing behind us wherever we went and picking the burs out of my skirt for me when I tried to do it for myself. The walk back sucked a bit, considering it was 1:00 pm when we left and it was hotter than hell outside. Just to put this in perspective, when we got back the t-shirt I was wearing was not only fairly thoroughly soaked in sweat, but it was also crusted with salt from all the sweat that the hot wind dried while I was en route. Gross right? Sorry, it was necessary to share that.

So that brings us to the trip back, taxi brusse ride numero deux pour moi (I’m so good at French!) and this one started out a little worse and ended a little better if you can believe it. (OK here’s where everyone who’s easily excitable when it comes to my personal safety should just skip ahead to the next paragraph…that’s you Dad). This time the taxi picked us up at the house we were staying at and was already packed and ready to go, the truck was a bit smaller than the first one and the entire truck bed was packed with luggage secured in place with a rope net with 8 people sitting on it already, 3 on one side with their legs hanging off the edge, a woman and her two small children in the middle, and 2 on the top of the cab. We had about 5 minutes to clamber on, and secure ourselves with all of our luggage before the truck started moving. I was sitting facing the back with my legs curled under the bumper, clinging to the net for dear life with my purse on my lap and some nice gentleman on the top of the cab was wearing my backpack backwards. I’m not going to lie, I was a bit scared. The roads are uneven deep sandy ruts through fields of dry grass sprinkled with scrubby trees covered with sharp thorns and our driver didn’t really seem to be taking his time (we were probably going about 30 mph, but it feels like a lot more when your on the bed of a truck with your legs flapping in the breeze). Anyway when we got going and I adjusted a little I started to feel much better and by the end of the trip it felt more like an amusement park ride than a taxi and we were all laughing at poor Tabitha who got the seat facing backwards on the middle of the tailgate and was literally caked with dust on every exposed surface, it really was hilarious. They dropped us right at Kim’s door and it was no hassle at all to get our luggage because ours had never been secured under the net anyway so no one even had to get off the truck. Fantabulous!

As fun as it all was, I think I’ll avoid taxi brusse whenever possible during the rest of my time here (aka be a giant homebody and just sit around here in good old Selibaby, which is just fine with me).

That brings us to election day, and the election day party. We had big plans (a bag of brownie mix and several Michael Moore movies to make us good and angry at the current administration and dreams of cold drinks and pita sandwiches from a local restaurant) which turned out to be a bit of a bust as the electricity had apparently been out since we left for gouraye the day before and no one had any cold anything, pita man didn’t have any pitas, and our little oven doesn’t work without electricity. As stubborn as I am, I refused to give up on the brownies though, so I tried and succeeded at making a brusse oven (a pot of sand with a lid over a gas burner that kind of unevenly cooks everything you put in it) and made a decent batch of alright brownies, with only one minor setback, the “oven” got so hot it heated up the whole little gas stove, melted off the knobs, and burned the hell out of our already disgusting pot holders, but everyone agreed that it was a worthwhile trade for brownies. Shortly thereafter the power came back on and we went out and got salads instead of pitas and I made another batch of much more successful brownies with caramel swirls, cookies and cream and chocolate instant pudding, and Luis came over with his internet and laptop and we kept up with election polls until I passed out at around 11:30. All in all a good night, oh, and kitty had kittens, 3, we named one Obama. Perfect. Now I must go because I am writing this on my laptop at Kim’s and its after 6, which is my self imposed curfew because I like to spend the evenings learning Pulaar with the fam, plus I think they get a little sad when I spend all day at Kim’s with other Americans. Every time I go back at the end of the day they say I’ve been gone for 4 months and have probably forgotten all my Pulaar and French because of all the English I spoke while I was gone. I don’t want that to happen! So here I go! Much love and happy thoughts! Dad, try not to think too much about the taxi brusse, its just part of life here, and besides I’m fine! Love you all!

Shelby

BANDITS!

October 22, 2008

Hello Lovelies!

I don't know what to write to you all because I've written so much lately in journals and letters and emails and messages that I can't remember who I have told what but I'm going to tell you about the "bandits" at my house and if I have already told any of you this…too bad.

During my long and arduous search for a family and/or place to live I visited many a household (like 4), eventually settling on the one I love with now. When I went to drop off the lease we had Emily and her host sister Hawa with me and as we walked away Hawa told Kim and Emily all about how I should not live there and the neighborhood was full of bandits. We found this disconcerting and didn't return to sign the lease until we had taken the time to ask around to see if there was any merit to this claim. We found that my host family has been housing volunteers forever and ever (15 years-ish) and no one seemed to have any qualms with the neighborhood so I went for it and signed the lease. Ok, before you all freak out and think I'm totally crazy for moving into the bandit filled neighborhood you should also know that after proclaiming that my new neighborhood was full of bandits (my new neighborhood being college, the very same quartier Hawa lives in herself, and about a 5 minute walk from her house) she announced that I should rent a little house from them and move in there, so though I trust her, I had some doubts as to her motives.

So, lease signed, I moved in and got settled. The family consisted of my host mother, Leldo Ba, whom I adore, even though we don't really speak the same language at all, my host father, whom I refer to as father figure because I don't know his name and who also doesn't speak any language that I do but is very nice, 2 older guys, Ibrahim and Souleymane, whose places in the family I couldn't quite figure out until much later, (Souley being my oldest brother at 27 and Ibrahim's place in the family being the basis of this entire story), an older sister Amineta, another big brother, Adama, a younger brother Alieu, and a little sister, Hawa. I spent plenty of time trying to divine Ibro's place in the family, as I had plenty of time to spare, until one day he up and disappeared. Souley asked if I had seen him and I admitted that I had not, but he had only been missing since breakfast and he would turn up. So the following evening hw still has not turned up and a gentleman pulls up in a truck looking for him. Souley informs him that we have not seen Ibro in a few days and they talk in angry hushed tones for a few minutes and then the man leaves. Oh man, what was that all about, I think, but before I can ask Souley tells me.

Ibro (who is 42) is my brother Adama's (who is 24) friend from Senegal and he was staying with us against the wishes of my big brother, Souley, because my father refuses to turn a friend of the family away, even though Souley didn't trust him. Souley maintained his distrust and never left Ibro at the house by himself, slept in the same general area, and watched him like a hawk. Evidently just a few days ago Ibro left and never came back, with some money that belonged to the man who showed up in the truck and now the whole of Selibaby is looking for him. Mystery solved, bandit found, and suddenly I feel a whole bunch more appreciative of my big brother who made sure I locked my bedroom door every time I wasn't in there, or if I was in there but I was sleeping (at first I just found this annoying, but now I get it). Before you all freak out and think I'm living with dangerous people know this, my family watches out for me more than I know, they take turns walking me to work if they hear the kids yelling toubob at me, they make sure my room is locked and my windows closed and they help me keep even the termites out of my room, they make me sleep right smack dab in the middle of the compound so that I'm surrounded while I'm asleep, and when a sand storm or anything else picks up they make sure I'm safely relocated into my locked bedroom. People here don't steal from friends or family or people who are good to them and for the most part they only steal out of desperation, Ibro stole because he had nothing else. I believe that he would never have done it if he had any other options but he had only days before asked me to ask my Portuguese road worker friend to get him a job, so I believe he was desperate. Don't worry about me, the bandits are gone. I'm safe now, but I still keep everything locked up like fort knox just in case.

I gotta go now, but I'm happy and healthy and doin just fine, and I saw a monkey yesterday so my life is complete, love and miss you all,

shelby

ps. i almost forgot to mention, i got so many wonderful responses to my last message i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who wrote to me....i'm so lucky to have the friends and family i do! love you guys!

Thank yous!

October 13, 2008

Merry Christmas!

Okay I know its not Christmas but that’s what today felt like here: shuttle day. When the shuttle driver saw me collecting my packages he said “oh tu es tres content maintenant n’est pas?!” Which means you are really happy right now aren’t you? I got Packages and/or letters from: Mom and Dad, Cory, Meaghan and Jilly, Elly, and Grandma and I want to give a great big heartfelt thank you to all of you, it was amazing! Boxes and letters and cards and magazines and so much more, so much more than I could even have hoped for so here are some individual personalized thank you’s:

Mom and Dad: Thank you so much for everything! You remembered everything, even the pictures for me to draw and the first thing I saw when I opened the first box was a jar of peanut butter and that was all it took, I was smiling ear to ear. I read every one of your letters mom, dad where were you on that? Too good to write to your little girl? Get on that! The letters are my favorite part, I love to hear what is going on there and I would love also to see photos if have any you could send! Thank you also for the water bottle, that’s amazing, its got the life straw water filter built right in! So cool! And how could I forget, the puppy treats! Puppy loves them, I gave her three and made her sit for them and she did, usually she won’t but I told her since they were special American dog treats she had to sit to get them and she did! I took a picture of me feeding them to her so you can see, but she looks creepy in it because her eyes are glowing yellow. At any rate shes perfectly content and sleeping on my feet right now and its adorable. You’ll never know how happy it made me to pick through my boxes of silly goodies, so thank you thank you thank you!

Cory: You have outdone yourself again, I was incredibly excited to get the letter in the first package with the rock from the grand canyon and the Sedona rock and the memory card full of amazing music which I’m listening to right now and the letter about your time at home, tell Eddy and Ali that I said hello and that I hope all is awesome in NH and happy belated graduation, I’m so sad I missed an old fashioned Peru woods party! Tell anyone else you talk to that I say hello too! The second package, the one you sent from school, there are no words to describe my happiness with that package. Obviously the i-pod (Awesome name choice by the way, Dayanand is the perfect next name in the saga of my ipod owning history, for being such a worldly ipod right from the get go!) is amazing and I’m am so lucky to have you and I know that but you went above and beyond by filling it with amazing music and movies and tv shows and everything, my regionmates have figured out how to watch them on the computer and are watching the Bourne Identity right now, I was too but I couldn’t concentrate on a movie with so many thank you’s running around in my head so I figured I would write this and then watch when I’m done. As if the ipod wasn’t enough, you also stuffed that box to the very top with so many amazing things! I’m very excited to have tea tomorrow morning that’s not served in a shot class and composed of 50% sugar! The spices are great and were immediately added to the collection we have going here that I have been going through so quickly with all my cooking that it felt awesome to be able to contribute back. Oh what else, the camelpak, I’m told will be great for carrying extra water on long taxi trips and I also have now made it a personal goal here to go on a camel trek in the sahara while wearing my camelpak and the moment I do you will be sent photos. The baby toys are going to a baby that lives with the family Emily, my site mate, lives with. The baby’s mother died during or shortly after childbirth and the baby is now being watched by Emily’s family during the day and spending the nights at the neighbor’s house, which I gather was her mother’s compound when she was still alive. She is so tiny, she just learned to roll over a few days ago and has been getting into all sorts of trouble ever since so I can’t wait to give her some toys to keep her busy. Thanks so much for all of it again, I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to have a brother as awesome as you, all the other volunteers are jealous!

Elly-belly!: I am better now that I have gotten your card and I found your letter adorable and hilarious! I love you tons and I’m so thankful for your thoughtful card and package fully of yummy granola bars and the like, I had no idea it was coming and the surprise made it that much better! Your card is going up on my wall for sure and the next time I get all artsy (almost once a day here…I have a lot of time on my hands) I’m making you a card and sending it out your way! Love you tons! I hope RPI is treating you well! Hugs and Kisses!

Meaghan and Jilly: Your package brought much mystery and much more happiness into my life. I can only assume that the card you sent separately went with this package because there wasn’t one in this package but the envelope didn’t fair very well and theres a chance it could have gotten away…I can also only assume that the M&Ms got away because I’m guessing you didn’t send an empty bag, but that’s what I got, an empty M&M bag with a little hole in the end…I think it spent a lot of time in the mail room and was visited by little mice friends, or a sketchy local character who was hungry, either way whoever got it probably deserved it a lot more than I do anyway because I have been so blessed to day any more would have been ridiculous! All the other goodies were intact and amazing, right down to the frosted animal crackers that reminded me so strongly of Meaghan Gallagher I almost broke my face in half I was smiling so wide. LOVE YOU SO MUCH! Write again and tell me how your doing, I so love to hear from either one and both of you! I will send you each a card as soon as I can that you will have to staple into the Lamb-gina journal for future smiles! LOVE YOU! XOXOX

Grandma: You’re letter made me so happy! I love that you are trying to be greener and using the canvas grocery bags, and the fact that they are the ones Cory and I made so long ago makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! I’m so happy Jen sends my emails to you, I was hoping you would be kept updated. Its funny to me how my being on the other side of the world has shown me how easy it is to keep in touch with everyone that I used to be so close to that I took them for granted, now I have such an appreciation for family and friends, because they mean everything here, that I’m desperate to hear from you guys way back over there! I hear from Ann and Jen and Kathy more now than I ever did before and I had no excuse not to be in touch, I just never made the time because in the states communication is so easy its completely taken for granted…why would I call or email now when I can do it just as easily any other time? That attitude let me feel okay about barely talking to you guys anymore and I’m sorry but that’s just dumb! You are my family and I hope if I take nothing else from this trip across the ocean, that I will at least learn to stop taking my family for granted and do a better job of keeping in touch! So there you have it, and to anyone else (like you mom, because I know you read every word of all my emails J ) reading this I think you should do the same! Family is family, whether through marriage or blood or adoption or whatever, so don’t let them forget how much they matter to you! I love you Gramma, and I’ll send you another card soon!

Okay, now I’m done with those, so the rest of you can stop pretending like you didn’t read that last part and keep reading here. One more quick thank you, to all those of you who have written me emails, if you have written and I have not responded it is not because I haven’t read them or don’t want them, I just sometimes have limited computer time but I love each and every email I get and I read all of them religiously because it’s the closest thing I have to being there with you guys and it makes me so happy to hear from you, you have no idea! Every time I go into the Peace Corps office and use the computer its like being in Americaland for a little while and it’s a nice break from Mauritania. It always feels weird to walk out after an hour or two on the internet and still be in the dusty, goat-filled streets of Mauritania. Not that I don’t love it here, I do, I just love it at home too, so I love to live the culture clash that switching gears from your emails to greeting random strangers wearing giant white or blue or green boubous in Pulaar causes in my head. You should try it sometime, its great, just make sure you’re okay at laughing at yourself because you’re going to have to do a lot of it here. When you talk to people, about 50% of the time you are both speaking a language you are not 100% comfortable with and most of time they know about as many words in English as I know in Pulaar/Soninke/Hassiniya/Wolof. It seems almost everyone here knows how to say “How are you? Fine!” in one big long string, because they learned the question and the response all at the same time, which I thought was funny until I realized that most of the time when they greet you in any of the languages here they do it in a similar manner, for example, if you learn French in Africa you are liable to greet someone in french by saying:

Bonjour! Ca va? Ca va bien? Comment allez-vous? Et votre travail? Et vos famile ? Ca va vos famile ? Tu va bien ? Bien alhumdulilah !

Which can be roughly translated as :

Hello! Hows it going? Its going good? How are you? And your work? And your family? How is your family? You are well? Well thanks be to god!

And they’ll say all of that, even if all you say in response is ca va once or twice. So now when I get text messages from my English-speaking host brother from Rosso that say:

“Hello. How are you? You are fine I hope and your family is nice and that you are fine. I hope you are fine. Good bye.”

Its totally normal, and only a little bit funny. Mauritania is awesome. I’m done writing now, love you all, I’ll write more later!

Shelby

Silence speaks louder than donkies...

October 11, 2008

I risked life and limb to get here this morning, just to write to you people, and to translate my resume into French for an NGO. It rained again last night, and I’m not talking a few shimmering sprinkles. The sky opened up and dumped water on this dried up little town like a freaking bucket. The streets are a mess, and my toes are coated in the deliciously squishy clay mud that this town is made out of.

I was woken up by the complete absence of sound at around 4am. That’s the first time that has ever happened here, total silence except for the quiet little plopping sound of toads jumping around on my mat, there was nothing else. It was creepy not to hear a single donkey bray and goat cry or dog bark or anything, and I just laid there in my mosquito net watching the moonlit yard. The lightening had already started in the distance at that point but I couldn’t hear any thunder, that’s how fast storms move around here. By 4:30 I was up, with the rest of my family, dragging all of our bedding into our rooms because the wind had picked up and it was laden with sand making sleeping outside uncomfortable to say the least. Once I was inside and settled back into bed the wind slowed down again and I considered moving back out, but thought better of it. By 5:15 not only was the wind back, but big fat rain drops were starting to fall. A few big fat drops of rain have fallen before during sandstorms, so I thought little of it and got up to shut my door to keep the toads from taking refuge in my room. Well by 5:30 it had picked up full scale and started downright pouring. The wind drove the rain in through the termite holes in my walls where it proceeded to melt the mud bricks and form little mud rivers down my walls, so I got up one more time and dragged my net into the very middle of the room and put buckets under the termite filled sandy mud puddles and thought about how crazy my life has become that this was not odd at all, simply tedious and annoying when I’m trying to sleep. In an effort to better appreciate the moment I snuck outside by myself into to morning darkness and pounding rain and just watched the power of the storm for a little while. I was cold and wet (though not soaked, I stayed under the eaves and refrained from dancing in the rain like I have been known to do in the past) and alone and gloriously ridiculously happy to be where I am right now living this every day.

A few nights ago, after a fantastic dinner of (here comes a combination that would be considered amazing only here…get ready) fresh live oysters with lime juice, amazingly strong and flavorful soft brie, and cold beer (all courtesy of Luis), Pot pie by Levin, and (my pride and joy) home made cream-filled, cinnamon sugar doughnuts freshly fried up by yours truly, myself, Luis, and the other volunteers who were in town become engaged in a big long conversation about peace corps service and how we all feel about what we’re doing and whether or not we’re doing any good and how fundamentally selfish it feels to me to be here (though no one else seemed to feel that way) and all of that jazz. Following the conversation, during which I learned a lot about myself, I wrote a big long journal entry that was accidentally even more revealing about my true character, sometimes when I get writing I write things about myself that I didn’t know were true until I see them committed to paper and its always a little bit scary to re-read them later. Without getting to self-help book on you, I’ll share this: I think I feel bad about my presence here because I was on some level hoping that when I got here I would find people in dire need of my help, however unrealistic and border-line sadistic that hope is, I wanted them to need me so much that I would come out of this service feeling like I had done something so wonderful, that I had helped so many people who couldn’t help themselves (it sounds worse and worse every time I put it into words). The reason I feel so bad about it now is that I have come here and found that they don’t need me, not really, not in the way I had sort of decided they would. I don’t feel needed, and therefore I have tipped the scales in the opposite direction of the way I was hoping.

I wanted to come here and do great stuff for everyone else and then as a lucky side effect, I would have this amazing experience and opportunity to grow as a person; but instead it’s the other way around. I am here growing and learning so much and taking so much out of this experience for myself, and as a lucky side effect I might do a few good things along the way. This is something that I’m having a hard time coming to terms with because I thought I was being selfless by coming here but clearly that’s not the case at all. So there it is, my daily dilemma, and for now, until I can think of a better way to deal with it, I’m just going to work on being okay with whatever comes out of this whole thing, and rely on the wisdom of Levin to make myself feel better, his wise words being something along the lines of: “How could you be doing harm here? I mean I guess if you try really hard you could mess things up pretty bad, but I don’t think it could happen on accident.”

So there you have it folks, I’m going to do my best not to accidentally make a big mess here, all the while appreciating all the wonderful things my service means to me.

Much love and as always, more to come,

Shelby

PS. A few new photos up on facebook if anyone is interested

Lies Lies Lies...

“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