A retort to J Bryar (Grafton, Vermont)

Please keep in mind that my opinions about the Peace Corps are based solely on my experiences here in Mauritania. I cannot speak for all volunteers and do not claim to know their experiences. Many Peace Corps volunteers around the world have remarkable services. There are others, however, who constantly struggle through their two years. It is important to understand both experiences and is something that I cannot offer: this post is biased.

I have come to the realization that there exist at least two different and opposite camps in the Peace Corps organization. There are those, like me, who think that the institution should be changed and improved to better fit the needs of volunteers and host countries, and there are others who think that the Peace Corps is fulfilling its original purpose and hence should not be modified. In response to my post [At the midpoint: opinions on the Peace Corps], J Bryar made several good comments, and at first I began to doubt my originally held opinions. But upon further reflection I came to the conclusion that most of J’s statements are too idealistic and impractical.

Let me count the ways.

The Peace Corps from my experience, tends to emphasize cultural exchange too heavily. An “extended encounter session between the peoples of the U.S. and host country” may sound nice, but is it worth our while? Does it help anyone? And who benefits? I would think Americans, both volunteers and the political establishment, reap more from this exchange than do host countries. We volunteers are young, many lacking experience both professional and life, and this is an opportunity for us to better understand not only ourselves but also the world at large. For some, this experience will serve as a foundation for future international or political work. The mere existence of the Peace Corps, moreover, demonstrates American good will on the international stage at a time when such a thing is severely in need. The host countries, on the other hand, get to meet Americans, yes, and maybe enjoy the fruits of a handful of simple grassroots projects and community educational sessions if they succeed, but overall the benefits are nothing substantial.

In his comments, J cited the Chinguitti hospital as one of the positive impacts Peace Corps volunteers have had in Mauritania. I admit that the work some volunteers do is not insubstantial. After spending some 19 months in this country, however, I have yet to encounter one successful volunteer initiated project that has lasted through the years. And yes, many volunteers do provide language, technical and business skills classes that would otherwise be unavailable to host country nationals. However, little follow-up is ever done to ensure that these skills are utilized afterwards or if people find them useful in the first place. This is true in general of the institution itself. The true impact of the Peace Corps on host countries sadly cannot be assessed because the organization does not evaluate the activities of its volunteers and their consequent effects on host countries.

Regardless of what the objectives of the Peace Corps were at it’s beginning, it is important to realize that the times have changed. A two-year “encounter session” doesn’t cut it anymore. The world is a much smaller place than it was in 1961. In fact, one-half of the encounter session has already usually happened before volunteers ever get into their host countries: with the spread of radio and television, host nationals are evermore increasingly aware of American and European cultures. Also, over the past few decades, developing countries have become flooded with (mostly ineffective) aid organizations, causing their citizens to develop a “we are poor and deserve donations, so give it to us” mentality. This is one reason why volunteer-led grassroots projects in Mauritania consistently fail. In such a world climate, it’s important and necessary for the Peace Corps to reevaluate its mission and approach in order to be more effective.

In my opinion, for example, Mauritania needs a more effective Peace Corps organization, one that takes into account the not only needs of the country but also the technical expertise of its volunteers. This especially applies to Master’s International volunteers, like myself, who join the program expecting to apply their graduate level classroom lessons to real world situations. This, however, does not happen. There have been several cases where community needs and volunteer skills were only vaguely considered before volunteers were haphazardly placed into their sites without clearly defined jobs or projects. Consequently, whatever greater impact the Peace Corps could have had remained untapped.

Next, I feel it was offensive of J to state that many volunteers join the Peace Corps with the “arrogant naiveté of a 19th century missionary.” This is not true. I, for example, joined the Peace Corps to do work. I imagined myself working hard side-by-side with host country nationals, hands dirty and face dripping with sweat, and coming back home at the end of the day blissfully exhausted. I did not join the Peace Corps to spend two years of my life shooting the breeze with my friends and neighbors. I joined for the same reason that many people volunteer in the United States, to make a difference for the better.

Finally, I personally intend to pursue a career in international public health. The lessons that I have learned here in Mauritania about development work and how international aid organizations work have been invaluable. I appreciate my Peace Corps service up to date but wish that it had been more. I am indeed, at this point, more than halfway done with my Peace Corps experience. If I am wise and lucky, I will do great and good things in my lifetime, but come August 2008, the Peace Corps, for me, will come to an end.

In addition, there is a great op-ed piece in the New York Times regarding the Peace Corps and its current state, written by the former Peace Corps Country Director of Cameroon. He does a better job of arguing than I do. I urge anyone who’s interested to read it. The name of the article is “Too Many Innocents Abroad” by Robert L. Strauss.


Coming up next: RNN is pleased to present to you our Sunday Night Movie “Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner”. Dakotta Fanning stars as a single mother who must race against time, global warming and horrendous traffic to save her child from three major tornados, an end-of-the-world-like hurricane, and an Al-Gore-look-alike serial killer! Will she make it? Stay tuned…

A Stone-Cold Heart Have I (or the Realities of a Developing Country)

Some may say that I have a stone-cold heart.

I am not sappy. I am not one to make large emotional outbursts. I prefer calm and steady to turbulent and rocky in all situations. In addition to this, I consider myself a realist. And above anything else, I refuse to have a bleeding heart.

The States is so shrouded in a sea of wealth and utter comfort that people sometimes forget that life is a struggle. It is meant to be difficult. It is also meant to be unfair. That is human nature. Millions of people around the world break their backs and even sell their souls – daily – just to have a chance at seeing the next sunrise. This is reality. We, as a whole, will never be able to rid the world of this hard-working and abused subset of people. If the world is continued to be run as it is today, i.e. in a capitalistic fashion, we will always have people at the bottom rung of the ladder. It is unavoidable.

Some people get such a sickness of guilt when they think about the poor developing world that it makes them ill. You can see their eyes flood with tears as they watch the images of poor third world villages flash onto their television sets. They sit there and stare, in absolute sadness, at the starving children covered in flies, and they feel deep down, such sorrow. If they are so bent, they will get up from their comfy form-fitting sofas and chairs and make the five minute call so that they, too, can donate but pennies a day to save some unfortunate child halfway across the world. And after they put down the phone, they feel better. They have done something, however small, to make the world a better place.

I am not heartless. I want to help people, help to make their lives better and happier. It sounds idealistic, and it is idealistic. This is what I’m realizing during my time in Mauritania. I have seen how little those ‘pennies a day’ do when they finally reach Africa. I have seen the work of bleeding hearts, seen how they make bad situations worse, seen how emotionally charged people rush into doing something because “Something has got to be done, now!” I have seen all of these good intentions pave a dark and gloomy path.

What exactly is better and happier anyways? What might be better and happier for me is not necessarily true for others. Things are not always as black and white as we would want. I can’t save everyone. I can’t make everyone happy. I frankly don’t even care about everyone the same. If I must choose between bettering a friend’s life over that of a stranger’s, I wholeheartedly choose my friend’s.

Some people take for granted the superficial-ness of ‘plastic America’. They automatically feel sad for those things that we have learned to feel sorry for – starving kids in Africa, for example – and they worry not about those problems that our society wishes to sweep under the rug – the psychological problems that most youth in developed countries face on a daily basis, another example. We all are in fact conditioned so well, that even I find myself fighting a gut instinct to deem the prior more worthy than the latter. Is it really? – I ask you.

Before I ramble on even further, here is my message. Love and care about everyone around you. Don’t have a bleeding heart for Africa because it is Africa. If you want to make a difference in someone’s life, start at home. Make a difference in the lives of the people you already know and care about – your family and friends. Everyone has problems. They might not be as “sexy” as AIDS or prostitution or starvation or etc. (note: I mean “sexy” as in issues that get the most press time, the most attention, the most hype, etc.), but they are problems just as important and life threatening as those aforementioned. Get to know your family and friends. Ask them questions. Care about them and show them that you care. Show them that you love them. We all have but this one life – as far as anyone has been able to prove to me – so why not live it trying to make a difference in the lives of those closest to us first.

I’m terribly sorry about this. I’m not one to make soapbox speeches, but I wrote this while angry an impassioned. Since is it now written, and since I have nothing else to post, I post it grudgingly. Again, I’m terribly sorry. I will refrain myself from further such outbursts.

Morocco

I’m too exhausted, not to mention lazy, to delineate all of the tantalizingly juicy events from my Moroccan travels. What follows then are but some fleeting excerpts – not unlike the state of my writings in general.

The Arrival: I arrive into the Casablanca Mohamed V Airport at six o’clock in the morning. I stay there until seven in the evening, waiting for Lakshmy to arrive on her jet airplane. In the meanwhile, I read Thoreau’s “Walden” – a surprisingly wonderful book filled with insightful observations and commentaries that hold true for life especially today; I find the perfect sleeping chair, a small padded metal of a thing placed in a small room off into a corner, turned towards the glass window so that you can watch the clouds roll across the sky; I taste test all of the coffees being sold at the local vendors; and, of course, I people watch.

I realize sometime around one in the afternoon that Moroccans in general are very fashionable. Men choose to wear tight form-fitting clothes, even when their form is not exactly form-fittingly appealing while women opt for beauty over comfort and add flare to their tight blouses and skirts (or designer jeans for the more young and trendy) with matching heals and jewelry. It hits me as I turn to my imaginary Toto: I don’t think we’re in Mauritania anymore. The hours pass, and I continue to watch the ebb and flow of people: some hugging with tears of joy streaming down their faces while others weeping out promises to call when they arrive at whatever be their final destination. The day is beautiful outside. My eyes follow the sun’s path through the baby-blue sky, our existences separated only by large glassy windowpanes.

Lakshmy arrives sometime after seven in the evening. It makes me giddy to see her after such a long while. We hug and laugh and catch up. We head to the train station and then to our hotel and catch up some more over dinner before eventually heading off to bed.

The Mountain: The following day we make our way to Imlil, a tiny village located in the High Atlas Mountains. We reach the place sometime in the late afternoon. After some confusion about the location of our hotel, Lakshmy and I finally follow two old women, both hunched over with massive packs of grass on their backs, up a lengthy and steep incline to a house jutting out from the hillside, the top floor of which is our lodging. We drop our bags in our rooms and step out onto the balcony-porch.

The place is beyond all description: breathtakingly beautiful. The stars twinkle overhead, drumming is heard from a distant village over the mountains, and below us lies the darkened village of Imlil with a stream gurgling through its midst. I’m exhausted after a day of traveling. The dinner, soup and tagine, is hearty and delicious. The night chill feels good against my skin as I cup my glass of warm mint tea. We eat leisurely and soon thereafter, and grudgingly, retire to bed. I feel giddy again as I fall of to sleep.

The next morning Lakshmy and I wake up early and begin our trek to Nelter Refuge, the base camp located just below Jbel Toubkal, which at 4,167 meters is the highest peak in all of North Africa. Along the way we meet and make friends with a Moroccan family who is hiking to Sidi Chambouch, an Islamic pilgrimage site and home to a powerful witch doctor, located halfway between Imlil and Nelter Refuge. We reach the Refuge sometime in the afternoon. We find some food and rest up. We will climb to the summit of Toubkal the next morning. In the meanwhile, we meet some Moroccan Peace Corps volunteers, a somewhat crazy English-Paki girl planning on climbing the peak by her lonesome, a young German woman who was abandoned by her parents on a commune farm with her brothers and sisters when she was 16 and her climbing partner, a Dutch man who hates the Netherlands for its culture of forced and insincere politeness. The five of us – Lakshmy, myself, the Paki, Dutch and German – have a good enough time together that we decide to form a small climbing party amongst ourselves for the following morning.

That night I lie in bed, trying to fall asleep. I feel some trepidation about the following morning: I don’t have hiking shoes with me but only a pair of Chaco sandals. I imagine all the gruesome possibilities the climb may hold for me as I toss and turn and toss and turn and toss and turn...

We get up at four in the morning and grab some breakfast. By the time Lakshmy and I get outside, however, our climbing party has left without us. We start climbing hoping to meet up with them. Not twenty minutes into the climb, however, I find myself stuck halfway up a scree, on all fours and on the verge of tears. I can’t find any footholds; everything I touch begins a rock slide, and I look down the steep slope and imagine my demise. As it turns out, Lakshmy and I had taken a wrong, a very wrong, turn. We eventually manage to get off the scree, and we continue on our way, fully determined to reach the top. The climb is difficult, but we manage. After hours of stumbling over rocks and whatnots, we reach the ridge of the mountain and see the summit some 100 feet off into the distance. Lakshmy and I, however, choose not to pursue the peak, as we can’t find a suitable path to the summit, and frankly, making a wrong turn at this point could turn very disastrous. From where I stand, I can see the other side of the mountain: it is a steep and very long and straight fall to one’s death. The height had also given Lakshmy a bad case of the nerves. All in all, we decide we did all right for our first mountain climbing adventure. We look at each other, smile, turn back around and slide down on our asses all the way back to the Refuge, literally.

After a quick lunch, we climb back down to Imlil, exhausted. The sunset through the mountains, however, is – much like everything else so far in this country – amazing. We change our itinerary and decide to spend an extra day in Imlil enjoying the fresh mountain air. I am sorry to leave when we do, as we make our way to Marrakech.

The Passport (Marrakech): The day begins with Lakshmy retrieving money from her ATM account. We then head off into the market and wander aimlessly. Lakshmy is not soon thereafter lured into a harmless looking boutique selling postcards. I interest myself in cookbooks in the meanwhile. After paying the man for her purchases, we continue on our way and rediscover a clothes store where Lakshmy had wanted to buy some outfits. After choosing three or so and bargaining down to a reasonable price, Lakshmy reaches into her bag to get her money out. She, however, finds nothing of the sort. She had forgotten her money, along with her passport and credit cards, at the postcard store. We hurry back to the place only to find that there is no sign of Lakshmy’s moneybag.

The rest of the day is spent going from police station to police station. No one seems to want to help. Eventually I lapse into a foul mood and do a poor job of hiding it. At the sound of the evening prayer call, we return to the Djemma El Fna square and head back to our hotel. We refuse to let the situation dampen our spirits any further and head off into the square again as night falls. We pass the remainder of the time in Marrakech shopping and eating. Lakshmy, who had gotten more money out of the ATM, even makes a trip to a local hammam and comes out thoroughly refreshed and relaxed.

Fes: We follow Marrakech with Fes, where we meet up again with the British-Paki girl we had met on the mountain. She, in the meanwhile, had decided to travel out into the desert – in a moment of madness, as she later recounted – spent the night on a dune with a handful of Frenchmen, and had grudgingly refused an attempted seduction, as her heart already belonged to another.

Fes is a wondrous place. The medina is built into the hillsides, with narrow alleyways rising and falling, winding this way and that – all of it leading to some unforeseen sight or smell.

While there, we file a fake police report for Lakshmy’s passport, buy obscene amounts of embroidered products, and visit an overpriced McDonald’s. All in all, a good time is had by all.

Meknes: After Fes, we travel by train to Meknes. We spend some time walking around the medina and doing last minute shopping. Our time in Morocco is almost up.

Lakshmy unfortunately gets sick, and we can’t go to the ancient Roman ruins of Volubilis. I spend the day wandering the streets of Meknes, getting to know the city, while Lakshmy lies in bed. The British girl leaves us that day to catch her plane back to the UK. We all exchange emails and whatnots. It’s sad to see her go.

The Heart-to-heart and Goodbye: The following day, Lakshmy and I come back to Casablanca a day earlier than we had planned at the beginning of the trip. Lakshmy needs to go to the American Embassy to get an emergency passport.

That afternoon, Lakshmy and I take the grand tour of the third largest mosque in the world, an obscenely ornate building that is beyond any description I could provide. We also meet up with Ellie, a fellow Mauritanian Peace Corps volunteer. After a few quick hellos, Lakshmy heads off for her final hammam experience. I pass away the afternoon lying under a shady tree in a park and chatting the hours away with Ellie.

That night, after we send Ellie back to her hotel, Lakshmy and I find ourselves locked out of our own hotel room. While the hotel manager attempts to break down the door, we decide to grab a late night cup of coffee. Over coffee, I decide to spill my guts to Lakshmy and confess my sins, so to say. I had been in a somewhat tartish mood of late and wanted to apologize for my behavior as well as explain myself. It’s a good talk and after some time, we head back to the hotel to find that the door has been broken open. It is late, and we eventually fall asleep.

Lakshmy leaves early the next morning. We hug and say goodbye.

I go and see Ellie again before I leave for the airport later that afternoon. We spend the day walking around and eating good food. At 5 in the afternoon, I say goodbye for the second time that day and start my voyage back to Mauritania.

All in all, it has been a very good time. No regrets, whatsoever.

Well, there you have it folks, my adventures in Morocco! Laters ~

At the midpoint: opinions on my service and the Peace Corps

The Peace Corps is a volunteer-based organization. Individuals leave their homes for a period of two years for the opportunity to serve peoples around the world. It sounds idealistic, but is it? Who truly benefits from the Peace Corps?

Before I joined the Peace Corps, I had grand visions of doing some real good in the world, making peoples lives better and happier. I envisioned myself working hard under the burning sun, hands dirty, and sweat running brown down my face. Once I became a Peace Corps volunteer, however, I was immediately told that three-fourths of the organization’s mission is “the exchange of cultures”. Translation: the vast majority of a Peace Corps volunteer’s time is spent shooting the breeze with the locals. Actual work is not a priority.

Before joining the Peace Corps, several former volunteers with whom I spoke portrayed the in-country volunteers as lazy, drunk, white people. They explained that many volunteers do minimal, if any, work during their two years of service.

Mauritania is different. I feel that most volunteers here try very hard to find work. In a country lacking alcohol, work is the next best cure for depression. I’ve noticed, in fact, that the most content volunteers in this country are those who have the most work. If nothing else, work provides a means with which to pass the time. This is not to say, however, that work is abundant here. Some volunteers try as hard as they might never find or accomplish any substantial projects during their service. And if they voice the lack of work to their superiors, they are often reminded again that three-fourths of the Peace Corps mission is “the exchange of cultures”.

While work is sometimes difficult to find, it is important to note that overall, volunteers successfully finish a handful of projects, some of which are large and substantial, during their brief stints in the Peace Corps. These projects, while supposed to be sustainable, however are usually not, and they fail as soon as the volunteers leave the country. Sustainability, by the way, is a complex beast of a thing that I will comment more on later.

So, who does benefit from the Peace Corps? Is it the volunteers who get to experience the developing world in all its glory, or is it the local population who we, as volunteers, are supposed to serve? At present, I vote that the Peace Corps is a largely selfish endeavor on the part of Americans, and especially American youths. The actuality of the Peace Corps does little to improve the livelihoods or lifestyles of the people in those countries where it serves. The young American volunteers, however, gain experience and insight – if they choose to do so – of the culture and mentality of the developing world. Some volunteers may argue that there exist exceptions to this generalization: some locals are greatly changed through their contact with the Peace Corps. I don’t argue with this. As a whole, however, an American’s two-year service with the Peace Corps has minimal impact on the lives of those who he “serves”.

Are we helping?

Mauritania is a difficult place to work. Over the past 40 years, international aid donations have helped fashion a culture that refuses to be self-sufficient: the people demand for handouts as if they are owed such contributions from the developed world. People here survive with the bare minimum, but yet they are, as far as I can tell, content with their lives. They snub at being told how to better their lives especially if it means that they have to work just a little bit harder. It’s not that they are lazy. No, they simply don’t see the point of working harder if they are already living, in their eyes, satisfactory lives. And why work if donations are so easy to come by? This attitude is partly to blame for the lack of sustainable Peace Corps projects within the country. Locals simply refuse to continue the work started by volunteers during their services. It is in this way that several past “successful” Peace Corps projects have met their ends.

Teach a Mauritanian to fish, and he will curse you under his breath. Hand him a fish, and he will appreciate you and put out his other hand.

The Mayor of Kiffa once told my former housemate, Josef the French volunteer, that he prefers the French to Americans because Americans hate to give others their money. I feel that this attitude can be found throughout the country. So I ask again, are we helping and if so, who? We are in a country where no one wants our help. Even if we do something good here, will it last?

* * * *

All is not bad with the Peace Corps. As I start to work more closely with the various UN organizations here in Kiffa, I am realizing how little the people at the top truly understand what happens at the bottom. This lack of understanding results in the implementation of ill-formed projects that waste resources and encourages corruption. The Peace Corps, on the other hand, works from the bottom up. Volunteers understand the ins and outs of daily life and have a greater appreciation for which projects will actually benefit the communities.

I feel that other international aid organizations should look to the Peace Corps as an example to follow in this regard.

* * * *

As for I, I have been thus far adequate in my work as a Peace Corps volunteer.

All right, honestly, I don’t know people. It’s hard here. I’m not complaining. It’s partly what I wanted when I joined the Peace Corps – a challenge. And I’ve found that. Each day is a challenge for one reason or other. I also wanted to grow as a person, and I feel that I’m doing that too, slowly but surely.

I have no idea what kinds of changes my Peace Corps experience will have on me, and I will most likely not recognize these changes until I return home at the end of two years.

All in all, the Peace Corps experience has been a good one thus far {i.e. I’m still alive} and I’m looking forward to the second and coming year {i.e. I expect not to die by the end of the second year}.

Till we meet again, in that place where time has little sense and life full of meaning…

VAC and the Welcoming Committee

I have been given the immense honor, my friends, to be the Assabe Regional Coordinator for 2007-2008. Apparently, my good nature and impressive work ethic has made such an impression on other volunteers that, in a surprising act of democracy, I was voted to be the next coordinator…Oh! The power that I now wield: great forces will bow down at my RC mercy; no army will be strong enough to withstand my brute RC strength; and no damsel will be able to resist my infallible RC charms. Oh! The power!

Actually, no one else wanted the position, and I showed the slightest enough interest to be nominated and voted upon. The job is nothing glamorous. It entails being a “conduit”, as the Peace Corps terms it, between my fellow regional volunteers and the Peace Corps headquarters in Nouakchott. I also have to manage the regional Peace Corps bureau, i.e. pay bills and so forth. It sounds easy, but thus far in my first week on the job, I have managed to bankrupt the regional bank account and lose the regional bureau through unresolved rent negotiations {the owner wants to raise the rent and I refuse to let her do so!}. So, on the bright side, there might not be any need for my job relatively soon.

* * * *

Each quarter, the regional coordinators gather together to form a Volunteer Action Committee (VAC), the purpose of which is to communicate volunteer concerns and issues to the country Peace Corps staff. The first meeting was held at the end of June, a week before the arrival of the new Mauritanian Peace Corps trainees. The meeting went smoothly: the staff readily agreed to most of the improvements suggested by the VAC.

* * * *

Following the meeting, the VAC was given the task of the Welcoming Committee. The regional coordinators worked long and hard arranging the logistics for the arrival of the new class of trainees. Worry not, for we partied hard also. We didn’t want any repeats of The Shining (“All work and no play…”), especially with new blood on the way.

The trainees arrived into Dakar, Senegal on Wednesday morning. A group of us, me included, flew down from Nouakchott in a rented jet plane, all bleary-eyed at three in the morning, gathered the trainees and flew back to Mauritania. The following day and a half consisted of herding the new ones from their respective hotels to the Nouakchott bureau for official paperwork, medical exams, cultural presentations and so forth. I am relieved to report that no one died before they all headed down to Kaédi for the beginning of Stage 2007.

While the trainees were generally in good form, some appeared weaker than others. I have found, however, that outer weakness often hides inner strength. Everyone seemed to be in a cheery mood and glad, strangely, to be in Mauritania. I feel that most don’t know yet what they are getting themselves into. It will be interesting to see how many of the 72 survive this summer and become official volunteers. I hope that they all do, but I know that some people will terminate their services before then. It’s just how it goes.

Up next time: “One year done! What comes next?”

Jazz Fest ’07, Nouadhibou, and AIDS, AIDS, AIDS

Oh! Jazz Fest: a festival of jazz if you will: jazz, being that melodious rag of a thing that wanders into some smoke-filled room {the smoke: gray swirls wafting higher and higher into the darkness), settles onto a wooden crate, and slowly lulls you into an unpunctuated dream of easiness smudged with the grittiness of shattered hopes.

Oh! Jazz Fest! The experience had is nearly perfect: good people, an amazing venue, a lively nightlife, and the lack of actual jazz. The last, by the way, is what makes the event nearly perfect and not entirely so.

St. Louis is, in my opinion, a piece of paradise here on earth. The air is cool, the beach is warm, the streets are lively with the hubbub of daily activities, and people are smiling and singing. Sounds like paradise, no? Indeed.

During the festival, the RIM volunteers stay at two different hotels. One, located in the center of town, provides easy access to the seemingly never-ending nightlife, which by no means are restricted solely to nighttime hours. The other hotel, where I stay, is a 45-minute walk from the town center and only minutes from the beach. My few and precious days are spent relaxing on the hotel’s rooftop veranda, relaxing at the beach, relaxing at the RIM booth (where we “sell” Mauritanian produced odds and ends) and just plain relaxing.

There’s nothing more I can say about the trip, as the rest is better told in person…{A quick note though - a warning, if you will, bore out of my individual experiences: it is highly ill-advised to get smashed the night before one has to travel many a miles in cramped and most definitely uncomfortable conditions, as such a personal circumstance invites nothing but additional misery.}

* * * *

After St. Louis, I head north to Nouadhibou to help at the local Girls Mentoring Center – a Peace Corps run venture focusing on the education and mentorship of young Mauritanian girls. Nouadhibou is nice, but a little too nice. It is so nice in fact that I forget I’m in Mauritania. The weather is damp and cool, almost like the Northwest. The beaches are breezy and empty: Mauritanians don’t like going to the beach. Scattered on the shorelines are countless shipping boats, some – beached and rusted – look ghostly. At nighttime, we go to the Chinese restaurant, openly famous for it’s booze and prostitutes. The food is good, too.

I enjoy my time there, for the most part, but by the end of the trip I’m ready to leave and return to Kiffa. I think, dare I say, that I’m homesick…but I can’t. I come back to Nouakchott for a weeklong AIDS workshop organized by my boss. Kiffa, sadly, will have to wait.

* * * *

“Everyone has AIDS! AIDS! AIDS! AIDS! AIDS! AIDS!”

The AIDS workshop is held in Nouakchott and consists of a handful of volunteers and our counterparts. The workshop is run by two very enthusiastic Gambians and a Peace Corps staff from Washington D.C. The information presented is already familiar to most of the volunteers, but this matters not, as the aim of the gathering is to better equip the counterparts in educating the populations of their respective towns and villages on HIV/AIDS.

I notice early on that the room is oddly black and white: most of the counterparts are Africans and not Moors, the more conservative of the two groups. I, having no great like for the Moors, let out a slight smile at the observation.

The workshop is long and tiring. The counterparts are bossy, making group work difficult. In addition, the counterparts are too comfortable sharing various parts of their sex lives that I, frankly, find neither relevant nor appropriate for the workshop and venue. {I don’t want to know that you practice polygamy because you love sex, or that during the middle of foreplay you open a condom with your teeth, or that you married you underage cousin who later cheated on you, or…and it goes on.}

In the end, however, I feel that the workshop has been useful and educative to the counterparts. We spend the last day making plans for what we will do with the information that we have learned once we return to our respective sites. I hope that everyone will follow through, or at least make an attempt in doing so.

That’s all folks! Come back soon for another whirl around the Mary-go-Round! Wheeeee!

Summer 2007: plans and so forth

So here’s a quick update of my life as I approach the year mark in my Peace Corps service.


[My living situation]

The French volunteer that I have been living with since the beginning of this year has decided to terminate his service a year early so that he can be with his girlfriend. I’m sorry to see him go, as he is one of the few people in Kiffa who make me feel at ease. But with him gone, I need to move yet once again. Luckily, the second year volunteer in Kiffa is vacating her house in middle August. So I’m planning on staying at a friend’s house until August when I can move into my new, and hopefully final, residence in Mauritania.


[My working situation]

Work is coming along. I currently have three projects in Kiffa. First, I’m starting a preventive health education program at the Health Center. Second, I’m starting a health library, also at the Health Center. Third, I’m working with the World Food Program to help start and monitor community-based feeding centers.

Hopefully more projects will develop towards the end of summer.


[My traveling situation]

I’m planning on taking a few trips during this summer, and they are as follows:

June: St. Louis, Senegal – Jazz Festival (beginning of June) and a tentative trip to southern Senegal/Mali/Benin (end of June)

July: Kaédi, Mauritania – Eco/Health Camp (Helping out at a weeklong summer camp for young Mauritanian girls; beginning of July)

August: Casablanca, Morocco – Traveling around Morocco with Lakshmy (beginning to middle August)



All right, that’s all I can think of at the moment. Entries and emails may become somewhat few over the next few months, but I’ll try to write and update every so often. Ya’ll take care now…

Trying to understand the Mauritanian mentality

What follows is an attempt on my part to understand the mentality of the Mauritanian people.


[Per Diem]

Mauritania is flooded with foreign NGOs and international aid organizations. These groups often hold educational seminars. In some strange twist of history and behavioral conditioning, however, it has become necessary here to pay the individuals who attend these seminars simply for attending. This often sizeable payment is referred to as per diem. If those attending the seminar are required to travel, there is usually a traveling reimbursement that is separate from the per diem. If there is no per diem, it is unlikely that anyone will come to the seminar. Contrast this to the developed world where those who attend seminars have to pay in order to attend, the idea being that they will learn something and that they must pay for this information.

Some people hold the opinion that Mauritanians don’t value knowledge; that intelligence in this country gets an individual nowhere; that all the people in power have attained their positions through nepotism and corruption and that knowledge, if not burdensome, is unnecessary.

I agree with this partially. I think that Mauritanians have been conditioned to undervalue education because it does give any immediate wealth. Like the United States, people here are driven by instant gratification. But here, in a country that is ruled and ruined, in my opinion, by corruption, it is better to have cash jingling in your pockets and some abstract knowledge stuffed in your head.


[Ca n’est pas ma travaille]

My latest idea has been to start an educational program at the local health center. I want to use the health technicians who have small workloads to start leading educational sessions with the patients who come to the center. Preventive health education is something that is lacking in this country. Most of this education in the United States happens in the schools. The school system here, however, is so defunct that the little health education that is supposed to happen in the classrooms often does not.

I briefly mentioned my idea to the health technicians sometime last week. One of the technicians responded to my idea by saying that the activity is not part of her job description. [Just quickly, her job is to attend to severely malnourished children and then educate their mothers on how to prepare well-balanced meals.] I replied that education is very important and that while it may not be part of her job description, it is important for the community as a whole. She responded quickly by turning her head to the side and starting a conversation with someone else in another language. She managed to ignore me until I began to pack my things to leave.

I don’t understand it. I mean, here I am, giving two years of my life to help people in a different country who I probably will never see again, and yet she refuses to help the people in her own community just because it requires her to do just a little more work on her part. And on that last note, she currently does next to nothing – the malnutrition center, staffed by three technicians, receives only about ten children per month.

This is a specific example, but the same mentality exists throughout Mauritania. Nobody ever goes out of their way to do something if they do not get rewarded for it.


[Donnez moi cadeau]

Children in the streets, when they see a white person, scream Donnez moi cadeau! This holds true everywhere that I have been, including Senegal and Mali. I sometimes wonder if the kids think is a greeting, but then they put out their hands expecting a gift. And then I wonder if anyone ever really gives them anything as I smile and say Non! and walk away.

I feel white people get harassed more than I do. I tend to blend in with the locals here. Other volunteers, however, constantly complain about the children. From what little I have experienced, I pity the other volunteers: the children can easily become overwhelming. They’re like things constantly scratching and picking at your person, stretching and wearing you thin until you just can’t take it anymore, and then you break.


[The art of encouragement]

White Moors do not seem to understand the concept of encouragement. They are always quick to judge and to criticize.

While in Bababe during stage, I tried to teach the young boys my family how to draw. I gave them simple drawings to copy. They drew poorly, but I smiled and encouraged them on. One day, one of the mothers passed us where we sat on the floor. One of the boys got up to show her his drawing. He was excited and smiled so that his teeth showed. She looked at the piece of paper and said that it was not good. The boy’s looked down and sat next to me. I looked at the mother and said that the drawing was very good. She shrugged her shoulders and walked away.

The mother, in no way, was trying to be mean to her boy. I think encouragement in general does not exist in the Moor culture as it does in the Western world. Of course this is an overgeneralization, I know, but I notice more often than not Moors criticizing each other, putting each other down, laughing at each other and so forth. People generally don’t become upset, but they do get embarrassed.

During stage I also came to realize a lack of creativity in the Moor culture, and I wonder if this is due to the lack of a fostering society where individuals keep from trying new things for fear of being humiliated.

Mauritania is an interesting place, that’s for sure.



All right all, there’s much more to write, but I’m tired and the stars are shinning brightly tonight. My rooftop calls me to sleep.


Up next time…Hung up, time goes by so slowly – the Kiffa Music Mix 2007.

Mauritania: an introduction of sorts, parte deux

The following is the introduction to my master’s thesis. I wrote it some months ago and haven’t yet edited it so please pardon any and all mistakes.

Land and Climate

Situated in northwest Africa, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania is a largely desert country, measuring 1 030 000 square kilometers in size with a shoreline some 700 kilometers long. It is bordered by Morocco and Algeria to the north, Senegal and Mali to the south and east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The large expanses of flat plains that cover the northern and central regions are occasionally interrupted by ridges, sand dunes and rocky plateaus, which are often rich in iron-ore. The most significant of these deposits occur in Zouérat, in northern Mauritania. The southern portion of the country is mostly flat scrubland.

The rainy season occurs from the months of July to September; average annual rainfall in the Sahara region is less than 100mm while that in the south is approximately 600mm. The limited rains allow for some cultivation. Desertification, however, is a severe problem. The Sahara, which covers approximately 75% of the country, including Nouakchott, is slowly expanding southward. Wood has become scarce, with most cooking now being done on kerosene stoves. Further cause for environmental concern comes from increasing livestock herds, which as a result of additional wells and human population growth, is contributing to overgrazing.

Mauritania has recently experienced several natural disasters. Some 150 000 square kilometers of land were transformed into desert during the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, causing a mass migration of peoples towards the south. Apart from the Senegal River, surface water is scarce. This, along with a recent worsening of the water crisis has led to food insecurity, damage to infrastructures caused by advancing sands, and various health problems. In addition, drought stricken lands often become submerged in floods during the rainy season. These conditions have fueled urban migration, resulting in a 53% increase of the urban population and the appearance of several squatter settlements around urban centers within the recent past [Red Cross Annual Report: Mauritania {14 July 2006}]. Consequently, today only some 10% of the population is officially nomadic, compared 83% in the late 1960s.

Government and Economics

Mauritania is administratively divided into 13 regions, 53 departments and 218 communes. Despite its size, the country’s approximately 3 million people are limited mostly to towns and cities and a few fertile areas. Access to most of the population is limited, however, due to a lack of adequate roads.

Mauritania’s economy has languished in the recent past. The country is one of the poorest in the world, with a gross national income (GNI) per capita of US$560. This dismal situation is further exacerbated by a high national growth rate, which will see the country’s population double in the next 20 years.

More than three-quarters of its population live by traditional subsistence activities, predominantly animal husbandry. Agriculture along the Senegal River contributes to one-third of the gross national product (GNP). Use of irrigation systems is increasing; however, the government encourages cattle-raising and rain-fed farming methods, traditionally Moorish activities, to the detriment of black Mauritanians. While the fishing and iron-ore industries account for over 90% of export earnings, uncontrolled fishing practices and a weakening world iron market are devastating them.

Economic growth has also been undermined by political instability at the national level. Mauritania is currently in the process of ‘controlled democratization’, with a non-violent coup d'état occurring in 2005. It is hoped, however, that the first presidential elections, currently being held, in addition to recent debt relief and oil production will markedly improve the nation’s economic situation.

People

The Mauritanian people, almost exclusively religiously Islamic, are composed of a diverse array of ethnic groups. Socio-economic and cultural differences, however, between the traditionally nomadic Arabic-speaking Moor herders – who dominate the central and northern regions of the country – and the Afro-Mauritanian sedentary cultivators of the Halpulaar, Soninké and Wolof ethnic groups – who are concentrated mainly in the south – have given rise to racial discrimination and conflict. The most severe of this occurred in 1989 when some 40 000 to 50 000 black Mauritanians were expelled from the country on government orders. Racial tensions exist to current day.

Next time on “Adventures in Puddles”: What’s yellow and flies in the air? A fly with a gold tooth! – Reporter R. N. investigates French humor.

All those things, la vie quotidienne quoi, parte deux

[All the pretty things]

An inside joke –
Q: What will a Mauritanian do if you give them something pretty?
A: Probably burn it.

I’m not being judgmental...really, truly. All right, fine, maybe I am. I just find it really hard sometimes, I mean really hard, to help myself. The joke is actually pretty funny, if you’re in the right mood – i.e. after you’ve had a really bad day and you just want to scream. It’s also especially funny, in some twisted way I suppose, when on those particularly bad days you hear yet another story of Mauritanians destroying something functional built or organized by another volunteer or foreign NGO.

[Latrines]

Going to the bathroom consists of finding the local hole in the ground, i.e. latrine, and doing your business. The latrines are often small rooms with doors, thus allowing for privacy, and usually no roofs, thus allowing the midday sun to sanitize the place with its burning heat. There is no toilette paper, so people resort to washing themselves – using the left hand only – with water carried in large plastic kettles. Soap is always essential. In the countryside however, it’s often difficult to find a latrine. In such cases, you usually walk out into the middle of nowhere, find a spot where you feel comfortable and do your thing. Soap is also limited in these places, and so one has to be creative when trying to sanitize one’s hand afterwards.

On a side note, I hear the squatting pose is good for the leg muscles...

[Laundry]

Laundry is done by hand. The whole process – including soaking, scrubbing, rinsing and hanging – takes f o r e v e r. And while it is a good stress reliever at times, oh Lordy, Lordy! – How I miss washing machines! Plus, I can never get my clothes entirely clean. Come to think of it, I should just pay a local child to wash my clothes for me. I hear African labor is relatively cheap nowadays. And not only will the kid do a better job than me, but I’ll also be helping the local economy! As I see it, all pros and no cons...

[Prayer Calls]

Prayer calls happen five times a day, starting at the godforsaken hour of five o’clock in the morning. Sometimes I manage to sleep through it. Other times, the loud and raspy, and usually unpleasant, male voice blaring on the blow horn startles me awake. It’s not always so unpleasant though. Sometimes, especially in the afternoons, the prayer calls are filled with such a feeling of humbled joy that it makes me pause and appreciate all that is around me.

[The night sky]

The night sky in Mauritania is almost always amazing. It’s hard not to stare up into the stars and the darkness that surrounds them and not get lost in thoughts of hopes and dreams and questions about everything big and small. The few city lights that exist in Kiffa never dull the moon’s brightness, and one of the most enjoyable times for me is walking back home late at night with my moonlit shadow leading my way.

[Music]

Hassaniya music is not very nice to Western ears. At first, it sounds like it might be a torture device used by top secret agents to elicit important information from distrustful individuals leading to the eventual capture of some notorious evil-doer. It often consists of a high-pitched and tangy sounding guitar, accompanied by a rhythms section with a peculiar fascination with syncopation – sometimes even the syncopated beats are syncopated {Don’t ask me how; I just know it happens.} – and a shrill sounding singer with a preference for atonal melodies.

After some time, though, the music does grow on you...to some small yet noticeable degree.

[Walking]

RIM volunteers tend to walk everywhere, as we tend to lack the money to afford transportation. I don’t mean to complain, as I tend to enjoy walking. The whole process is very satisfying, with a beginning, middle and some final destination achieved. It’s not usual for volunteers in Kiffa to walk up to an hour in each direction to accomplish some random task. The only annoying bit is the midday heat, which usually takes a serious toll on the body and sometimes the mind. Otherwise, there is no other better way to travel, except by cars and motorcycles, of course, but Peace Corps won’t allow us to drive those...so walking it is!

Coming up next week: An in-depth interview with Dr. R. N. on his recent self-help phenomenon “How to Drink a Gin and Tonic Before You Apologize”.

After Emily Dickenson, but not so good

The stars are ageless.

[Sunset Boulevard]

Because the sun refused to rise,

The darkened sky remained.

Queer stillness spread upon the place

Like hands, on breasts, ashamed.

The snickering stars wept but lies

Of immortality.

And those tears, to certain demise,

The youth drank in folly.

Pride, grinning on the grassy field,

Casually noticed not

The fading moon somewhere yield

A sad sigh to his lot.

And beneath the orchard’s cover,

The old laughed at the sight;

That youth will come like his lover

And fade into sunlight.

rn

Cheers! – To the continuance of boredom and poor poetry!

All those things, la vie quotidienne quoi

Here follows a sparsely elaborated list, of all those things, that have become, over time, the not-so-out-of-the-ordinary. This is not so entertaining, so be forewarned.

[Sheeps, goats and donkeys; cats and dogs, also]

Sheeps and goats, with beady-eyes and stern faces, rule the streets. They will eat anything green that stumbles into their paths, gardens and trees included. They also eat trash and chase dogs. They are oftentimes dumber than they look and can be easily gotten rid of by the utterance of “Chee!” and the throwing of rocks {I prefer the big ones as I imagine they hurt…I mean to say, scare, more…}.

Donkeys are responsible for pulling carts. They are often badly abused. It is not unusual to see several donkeys, over the course of a half-hour stroll, with bloodied bruises and with sadness in their eyes.

Children kill cats and dogs. They can be seen chasing the animals through streets and alleys with rocks in their hands. The parents dislike cats and dogs and do nothing to stop their children’s actions. The whole thing is, in effect, a win-win situation, unless you happen to be the cat or dog.

[Taxi brousse]

People are shuttled from city to city in taxies brousses: Frankenstein-like cars too old and broken to be driven in any sensible place. Seating is always scarce, and so travelers are oftentimes squashed together into unbelievably small places. In an ordinary four-door passenger car, four people sit in the back while two squeeze into the passenger seat. In mini-van type vehicles, people, without count, are stuffed into the back, along with their luggages. If driving off-road, one must take a Helix truck, where one has the option of seating in the cab or the bed. The last Helix I rode in was with 26 other people; all of us sardined into the truck bed and sprawled on top of the cab. The ride was painful. I had a friend sitting on my lap, a young man’s legs around my torso, and luggage and various feet on my legs, and all this over bumpy terrain lasting for some six to seven hours. In short, travel in Mauritania is…an adventure.

[Urinating]

Men urinate in public. They find a wall and squat and pee. Women also urinate in public but not as frequently as men.

[Making Tea]

Mauritanians make tea for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and in all the times in-between. Tea is made, strong and sweet, in small teapots over charcoal or gas fires. It is served in a small casse, similar to a shot glass, in customarily three rounds. This is one of the few traditions in which Mauritanians seem to take intense pride.

C’est tous pour aujourd’hui : je suis fatigue.

Mais la prochaine fois, un secret, « le week-end perdu »…

[lonesome at sunset, he]

lonesome at sunset, he

stoops over cigarette smoke –

the warm expanse greeting stillness

steady-eyed, he gasps to

be touched, desperate for

passion, cut hotly like blindness

time comes to all, in time,

he reminds that part of him

that prides reason, above all else

and the last drag inhaled,

he descends, skin thick and dry,

from the dusk to open waters

rn

This is what happens when I get bored…really bad poetry.