Feminism and Dreams of Food, Actualized by Yours Truly. Accept No Substitutions.

Well.  We do celebrate American holidays here.  And although they don't compare to being with friends and family, they are something of a trip.  For Thanksgiving we did our best with ingredients sent from home (thanks to those families that sent pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce in cans) and drank until we forgot what a terrible terrible country this is.  (conservative elements who read this blog: you will forget I mentioned alcohol!)

I didn't cook for Thanksgiving, but since then I have started making, if I do say so myself, delicious meals: chilis & soups & sauces & peanut pad thai & cakes & cookies all from scratch.  Everyone raves.  But it is hard to get certain things here.  Certain spices.  We can get, say, sugar and salt and flour, although (and this is extremely gross) you have to sift out nasty little brown bugs and squiggly larvae.  But everything else needs sent from home.  So you can certainly send me spices.  We are out of nutmeg in the region house.  I made, from my own recipe, a carrot-and-squash soup and a spice cake and used the last of that.  Plus chicken bouillon and chili mixes and brown sugar and baking powder/soda.  Dessert and soup and spice mixes in general are really awesome.  If someone would send me canned cherries I could make a really bitchin' pie.  Gorgol thanks you in advance.

Site is...fine.  But I will say that it has gotten harder, and particularly wearing as a woman alone in a village.  The culture is oppressive to me, and I think to any American-educated adult female.  Living here has made me more aware of women's rights violations.  Even more than that, I have never had more respect for the women who demanded equality (and continue to demand it) in America.  I never before realized what enormous bravery is required to walk against the tide of culture.  I can't imagine it happening here in my lifetime, not with women's education (and education in general) being what it is.  But for those who think there isn't any truly good work left to be done in the world, look to Mauritania.  Peace out, y'all.  Send me letters and boxes!  LOVVVVVVE!

Some Pictures. Which took forever to load.

Here you see me in my current and actual room, sporting henna and a new wutte for Juulde Koorka.  I wasn't sure when the timer was going off...can you tell?

This is one of my (bratty little) CBT site host brothers.  But I haven't seen him in two months, so I've forgotten his brattiness and am only able to remember the cuteness...

This is the boutique that my CBT host family ran.  It's just in front of the house.  Check out the selection!  Actually, the one boutique in my current site has even less.

This is my room back at CBT.  I much prefer my setup now.

Home sweet CBT home.

I tried uploading more, but the Internet is playing the game Merry Havoc.  So we will have to be content with this little taste of Mauritania in pictures.  I really miss you people.  Way too much.

Gettin' Brousse-y

First off it must be said that Slim Jim's has my celebrity endorsement as the best beef jerky in existence.  However, I am, generally speaking, rather over jerky in general.  And trail mix.  And protein bars.  I've heard Hormel's makes some kind of non-refrigerated bacon that I find very intriguing.  And...Velveeta!...soup mixes...Skittles...coughcoughcough...

On with the show.  "Brousse" is a French word for the bush (the Mauritanian outback where I live).  And getting brousse-y is the PCV terminology for what happens to those of us posted alone in bush villages.  Like me!  Does it happen?  What are the symptoms?  It does happen, and the symptoms seem to be most in exhibition on return to English-speaking society.  The first sign is a non-stop verbal diarrhea that can go on for hours.  The second sign is subtler, a desperate need to communicate how unfair it is that we make so much effort to understand and involve ourselves in the culture of host country nationals while they seem to basically write off this effort (the thinking must be along the lines of: "it's just daily life, talking in Pulaar is a natural state, and I am so awesome it is a gift to this American to spend time with me and in fact they should give me some money").  Luckily a few days in the city rubs away some of the cynicism and bitterness, at least enough to make me look forward to getting back home.  NOT the actual travel.  That is hell.  But the being home.

I do, in fact, look upon my house in my little village as home, and my host family as actual family.  I'm not sure whether or not I'm joined in this affection by anyone other than my two-year-old nephew Ibra, but kid love is more sincere anyway.  Okay, I am going to have to wrap this up, because I have to pee and the fact that I am seriously tempted to squat outside is vaguely horrifying me.  I have a vague plan to write soon and describe more exactly the terrors of traveling in Mauritania.  Mashalla!

More Disjointed Rambling from Africa

Good news: Ramadan has finished!  Bad news: I cannot find my camera-to-computer cord so there are no pictures to show you.  Sorry!  We're working on getting one sent.

Ramadan ended with a big three-day party.  Everyone, including myself, purchased a new outfit, and henna-ed our palms and feet (an interesting experience in and of itself, as it involved getting plaster taped, covered in gritty goop, and then wrapped in plastic for 2 or 3 hours.  I couldn't touch anything or move, so it was a bit interminable).  Slaughtering a sheep is also traditional, so I got to watch that occur.  Gross.

Anyway, we ate ALL DAY.  I lost count of the meals that I ate during the day, but it was at least 3.  And then everyone gets together with their "fedde", which is an age group, and eats more.  It was a bit like a potluck.  Yup, that's right, more eating.  And everyone expects you to eat out of their dish.  I was so full.

The first day my community contact took me to her age group, the late thirties-late forties-ish group.  Just imagine, not only am I the youngest person in a group of loud household directors, but this is all in Pulaar.  Oh man.  The next day I insisted on going to my actual age group.  We make tea and this milk made with blue mint candies that is pretty much the most delicious thing I've had here.  It's amazing and I promise to make some when I get back to the States.  Oh, and then we had another meal after the fedde.

In other news, I've moved from my old residence.  There was this long drama about the room I was supposed to have, the nice one the last volunteer had.  The son of the head of the household had decided that he wanted to keep that room (I had said at site visit he could stay in there until I arrived, big mistake).  If I understand correctly, he is trying to obtain a second wife.  Hm.  But the room I was staying in did not have a functioning door (I closed it with a rock).  Not really long-term acceptable.

Now I'm living with the village chief in his brand new house, which is quite patron.  And he has a solar panel so I can charge my cell phone.  My new family is phenomenal, and the women of the household are such wonderful examples for me of good behavior in this culture.  It's a good situation.

I'll be in Kaedi again next weekend to cast my vote.  Don't forget to vote, America!

The Longest Month

As you can see I've escaped to Kaedi to send you a clandestine message via the Internet. Well, it isn't secret really. Actually I think this is a public blog. So my little village is very welcoming, although very little and very isolated. Ramadan has started, and it's a rough ride. From sunrise to sunset, no one eats or drinks (excepting the children, the pregnant women, and me). As the day wears on, people slowly become more and more irritable (and less and less patient with my Pulaar). Mostly everyone lays around all day, and I for one don't blame them for that. People continually ask me if I am fasting, to which I reply "No, I can't. I'm not strong, like you!" My own personal answer to that question would have to be "Not in a million years would I go without water for a day when I have water to drink. This is AFRICA! It's HOT! I'm dripping sweat as we speak!"

Because it's only the kids eating, they prepare gosi (which is a sort of overly sweet, slightly tart milk porridge) or, for variety, boiled rice paste. I have taken to preparing food in my room because the only meal I like porridge for is breakfast (and even then I prefer oatmeal). And boiled rice paste? Do I need to explain that one?

Breaking fast is a big deal. It happens at sundown and in stages. Right at sundown, someone comes on the mosque loudspeaker to announce that everyone can eat and drink. We drink bissop (an awesome juice made with leaves, tastes a little like cranberry juice), Nescafe, tufam (a type of slightly sour sweetened milk), and sometimes other beverages. We eat bread, and some dates too, but mostly just drink until our stomachs are full. Then a bit later comes a meal, typically fried fish and sauce and something like fries and onions. We eat that with bread. But wait there's more... A third meal, which can be many things but is often also fish, but with rice and veggies this time. By this time it is between 9:30 and 10:30 or much later, depending on the family. I try to break fast with different families, it's a great way to meet people, and they love it when you visit.

So, until Ramadan ends, these are my days: trying to avoid angering the crabby people all day, then trying to refuse too much food all night. In case you were wondering, it's impossible to eat enough. No matter how much I actually eat, they say "You didn't eat!" and "You need to eat" or just "EAT!" Which was actually the first word I learned for sure in Pulaar. :D

I've been writing a lot of letters, so start expecting those in the next month or so. Hugs and kisses!

The New Volunteers of America

Well, my class and I (minus one Early Termination—they expected more, but we are super hard-core!) have now finished Stage and are now full Volunteers, with all the capitalizations that entails.  I'm in Kaedi again, trying to rest up in the one night I'll be spending here.  For some reason my feet and ankles have been chewed to pieces by the local wildlife.  I counted 30 bites on one side of one foot before counting them became too itchifying.  Blame that on the rainy season—plenty of standing water!  At least I have my malaria pills!

Tomorrow I have protocol, which is what we call our greeting of the local officials.  I'll meet the Wali, the Hakem, the Mayor, and various others.  I'm not sure what the equivalent in America would be (except for the mayor, of course!) but feel free to look that up.  And then I have to run around like a chicken sans head in the market trying to snatch up a leeso or three (floor mat for sitting on/"carpeting" for my room), a makaresh of my very own (or butt pot, as we call them), some cups, a tea service, a matlah (a sleeping/lounging mat), a mirror if I can find one (who knows what I look like anymore?!), food, and various other necessities.

When I get to my site I'll probably spend most of the day receiving visitors/visiting.  Hopefully I'll have the chance to at least set up my mosquito net!  I've got to run (sorry this is short!), but rest assured I miss you all so very much!  And expect some letters in the next month, because it's Ramadan and I'll finally have time to write them!

The Last Week Before Swearing In...

Oh goodness, a lot has happened since I could last post!  There was a military coup (see http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/aug2008/maur-a11.shtml for a pretty clear picture of what has happened thus far) and two days later I had my 25th birthday.  In my village, I'm pretty sure my birthday was a bigger deal (my sitemates snuck into my room with breakfast in the morning when I went to use "the hole" and surprised me so much I almost clocked them with the makaresh).  Yes, I'm quite safe and perfectly fine.  Life continues exactly as it has and the coup is not much discussed or mentioned day-to-day.  I was in Pulaar class at the time, and my teacher got a call.  To us he says: "The president is overthrown.  Let's make tea."

That's how things happen here.  Tea is what we do.  :)

I'm almost finished with CBT training and in a week I will be a full-blown Volunteer with all the capital V's inherent in that title.  You can imagine I'm pretty excited.  I'm also a little sad today because I left my village for the last time (until I visit again, inshallah).  A sitemate of mine started crying and I had picked up my two-year-old brother and when I tried to put him down he didn't want to, and so I started crying.  And then one of my host aunts started crying, and that was it for me.  I'm a little melancholy at the moment, but I'm listening to Guns N Roses, so hopefully that will jolt me out.  Classic rock, yar!

Hm...stories out of Mauritania: for the first time I had bought fabric and had it made into an outfit for swear-in, then wore it because I was excited to have a local outfit.  Some old woman I had never met before and who didn't even know my name came up and said "Give me that".  There's something of a cadeau (gift) mentality here in regards to white foreigners—we are all rich, apparently.  Someone forgot to give me my salary for being a white girl!  Dang!  So I get asked for my possessions all the time.  It gets old REAL fast.  Anyway, she told me to give her my new outfit, and I said no, and then tried to explain to her that a) I don't actually have a lot of money, b) I really like this outfit, and finally c) I'm very tall and it's hard to get clothes that fit.  Keep in mind my language is oh, somewhere around the level of a five-year-old.  So I finally just walked away, and within the next couple of days she came back and told me she was mad at me for not giving her my new clothes and that I was not a nice person.  That was a frustrating conversation.  But I carry on with the knowledge that all of YOU care about me!

Because some people asked: 

Foods that are good to send: sticks of minty gum, Cliff bars, jerky, tuna, dried fruit (apples, white peaches, cherries, cranberries, etc), cereal (Captain Crunch PB, Cheerios of every flavor, Kix, anything really), honey roasted peanuts, any other nuts, pudding, fruit snax, brownie or cake mix, pancake mix, instant mashed potatoes, hot chocolate, fancy tea from SereneTeaz (mom!), parmesan cheese, Velveeta, Easy Mac, peanut butter, chips (Bugles, Cheezits, Fritos, Goldfish, etc), cookies (Famous Amos, Pepperidge Farm, Teddy Bears, Oreos, etc), M&Ms of every kind, Skittles, Starbursts, sour gummies, and honestly anything that you feel inspired to send will be consumed.  In my birthday package from my family (just received this last week, thanks Mauri-Mail, lol), I got Skittles and literally savored each little piece for about a minute.

Magazines are really cool too: Newsweek or equivalent, Yoga Journal (I am a hippy, after all), Shape or fitness equivalent, Cosmo (am also a girl!), Philosophy magazines (there is a serious lack of philosophizing/deep thinking for me!), special interest magazines that seem interesting.

Any new books that the world thinks are amazing.

Pens (they're epically bad here)

Paper (for drawing and also for writing letters—and envelopes!)

Puzzles (sudoku or logic or whatever)

Playing cards, Uno, Skip Bo, etc

Oxy-clean (for clothes that seem to have yielded to several shades of gray) or hilarious t-shirts

Crafty projects that you think would take much too long (I have a lot of time)

Pictures of you smiling!

Any pirate gear (our softball team which will play against PC Mali, Senegal, etc in February is the Buccaneers and it's a pretty huge deal here).  If someone can find a Jolly Roger for my wall, I think it would make me laugh every day.

We all live for boxes out here.  In my journal, on the day I got a package from my family, the entire entry is basically just raving about how wonderful it is :).

Ramadan is coming up in September (a Muslim month of fasting).  They don't eat from dawn until sundown and apparently everyone gets extremely crabby.  On the plus side, I will finally have some time to write the letters I've been dying to send!  The village I've been in had never had Trainees or Volunteers before and did not really understand the writing of letters (when I try, they come sit very close next to me and take the letter to exclaim about my writing or the paper or pointing to words and asking me what they say, etc.).  Everything is a group activity in Mauritania, and things that really AREN'T group activities (i.e. writing letters, reading, studying) are incredibly difficult to accomplish!  Luckily, however, my village I'm posted to has had Volunteers before who have fought these battles on my behalf.  And I am excited to start sending more news!

I love you very very very much, my family and my dear friends.  I miss you all more than anything!  It's very difficult to be away from you in another country.  I love you I love you I love you and I wish I could say it a billion times and give you hugs.

Notes Out of Kaedi

Well, shave about 15 lbs off of my picture. Adjustment sickness will do that to you. But seriously, send me food. Ha ha ha... seriously.

I'm writing a quick note to you now from Kaedi, regional capital of Gorgol. My future village is also in the Gorgol region, although somewhat smaller (in theory around 400 people). We have 8 wells, although there are rumors of a robinet being put in (that's basically a faucet) so cross your fingers for me. I was ill for most of my site visit, but I did see that the village has many beautiful neem trees (including one with an enormous canopy in my front yard) and I have a small private courtyard off of my room. That's all I have time for, so for now I'll leave you with:

TODAY'S MAURITANIAN DIFFERENCE: In the market, to catch your attention, shopkeepers will hiss and snap at you. And they're not trying to be mean, but it's pretty distracting. It's also fairly impossible to browse, especially for fabric. "This is pretty, soooo pretty!" they say in French, Pulaar, etc, pulling out fabric after fabric and literally draping them on you.

Suli Key @ CBT

Hello to the States and all friends therein!

So: Mauritania. It is hot. Very hot and very sandy. And the sand lives in the air and on everyone and everything. Yesterday I spent a half hour hiding from a sandstorm in a bathroom. By bathroom I definitely mean concrete box with a hole in the floor. It wasn't airtight, so I came out coated with a very fine layer of grit. It's like a daily exfoliation, whether I want one or not.

Goats are very gutsy. They will climb the grass huts and come into houses and eat out of the communal bowl if they are allowed. I was lounging with my host family in the salon a few weeks ago and a goat basically climbed my host mother. Everyone laughed and one of the kids chased it out—it climbed back over her and everyone laughed again. Every animal must be shooed with a different noise (goats are "Gis") or the locals laugh at you.

Actually, they laugh when I do or say things correctly too. I'm studying Pulaar, which is a dialect of Fula (a widely-spoken language). The HaalPulaar laugh often and long: at me, at one another, at animals, and whenever we can't communicate. So we spend a lot of time laughing.

Right now we are in the middle of Community-Based Training (CBT), and I am living with four other Trainees in a small village several kilometers outside of Rosso. We spend our weekdays (Sunday-Thursday) studying language and culture in class and with our family. They call me Danja So (that is an approximation as I cannot actually pronounce it!) after my host mother. My American name they pronounce Sooley Kay (in Pulaar phonetic spelling, it's Suli Key), which I think is adorable.

Tea is a big deal here. It is made with black tea, mint, and a lot of sugar. It is served in shot glasses and there are three rounds. The first round is a strong and a little bitter, the second sweeter, and the third is basically syrup. They use the same tea leaves for all three rounds and keep adding sugar. I think it is delicious, which is good because it is served often. By my host family, by other families when I visit, and so on, etc.

Alone time is pretty much nil, as this is very much a "we" society and quite different from the "me" society of America. No one hangs out or naps alone—we just roll over and go to sleep in front of everyone, and naps are the order of the day when it's hottest. It's also very difficult to read or write in public. People definitely want to be included in everything I'm doing, or they want to talk. And talk they do. Apparently if my stomach is running, it is everyone's business and merits constant discussion. They still ask me "Is your stomach running? Does your stomach hurt?" And I answer, because that's just how things go here.

There's so much to say, but I have to go eat now, and it will probably be some variation of meat and rice. I do miss American food very much when I think about it, especially the variety. I like the food, but every meal I apparently need to be told to eat, even when I have food in my mouth and in my hand. It is eaten out of a communal bowl, without utensils. I'm learning to ball rice, but it isn't easy!

I miss you all, write me letters, and enjoy your conveniences!

Sara Cate, PCT

After months and months (and months) of hedging around when people ask after my doings, I can finally say "I'm in the Peace Corps."  I'm not a Volunteer (the title every Trainee covets), but I'm still enormously proud of being a part of this amazing organization.  Staging in Atlanta, GA has been somewhat surreal, a condition aided by the anti-malarial medication we are now all on.  Yay!  Night terrors and visual disturbances!  Don't worry and don't inundate Washington with calls, I haven't experienced any such side effects.

In all seriousness, staging has allowed me to meet some of the people that I will be depending on for hugs and social connection the next couple of years (which doesn't let any of you off the hook, I am still expecting multitudes of letters).  They are a fantastic bunch—if a person is judged by their companions, I will be sure to get an A and a blue ribbon.  I just hope I can remember all their names!

Soon we will all scramble through airport security, a nine hour flight, and a five-hour bus ride to Mauritania, hopefully managing to catch the raggedy edges of sleep at some point before jumping into training.  I have never been farther away from the U.S. than Toronto, Canada, so this is an exciting time for me and for many.  Don't be afraid if I drop out of contact for a while—I expect to be very busy the next three months before swearing in—but if you want to keep in touch, letters are the most reliable way of doing so.  I'll definitely leave a note here when I am able, so check back at least once a month.  I miss you, friends and family.  Stay well!