the long delayed update
okay, so when i said occasional email updates, i really didn't intend
for it to be this infrequent. forgive me? the internet ate my previous
attempts. someone told me today that it's august 17 and i realized i've been away from home for a hell of a long time. it's been sort of hard to keep track: unlike the streets of home where every bank keeps you up to date with flashes of date, time, temperature, flying conditions, whether or not you've fed your cat... well yea. i haven't seen a calendar or clock since i got here
(minus those brought by other peace corps kids). but i have seen a million
other things. i'll try to limit myself to 100 in this go.
1. for the last month and a half i've lived in kaedi, which i think i
mentioned in my sole previous update. kaedi has one paved road. at one end is
the river; at the other is the airport, where in the evening herds of
cattle wander over the runway coming back from the fields. it's deserted
during the day--like everything is--but at sunset teenage girls walk up and down in their own packs. women here wear either mulafas--a really light piece
of fabric that wraps over the head and around the body, or a boubou--which
usually consists of a wrap skirt and giant flowy dress over. the only
reason i mention it is because these clothes--tie-dyed, or solid bold pinks or yellows or blues--almost glow against the sand at dusk. it's beautiful.
almost everything in kaedi is a little faded: the paint is chipping,
the dust keeps the sky from being really blue, sometimes the sand in the
streets almost runs together with the mud of the buildings... but the clothing is immaculate. it makes me wish i knew how to iron.
2. in kaedi i'm living with a host family, which is totally african in
its makeup, that is, i'm not 100 percent sure how half of the people in my
house are related. in any case, in my neighborhood i am fatou ndiya (FAH-tou
En-JIY) host kid of talib and ami ndiaye and somehow related to aminata
(a 30-ish business-oriented unmarried (very unusual) woman who works in
the capital but is visiting for the summer), Coumba (a 17-year-old who
cooks and sweeps every surface possible in exchange for board, i think. maybe
she's a niece) and Ky, my host-toddler three year old, whose scream echoes
through an unfurnished concrete house like... it needs no explanation.
also in the house occasionally is another fatou, the soon-to-be divorced wife
of talib's former coworker (right) and her baby daughter. it's a full
house.
3. we sleep outside on most nights-- i am a pro at tying slipknots to
stick up a mosquito net these days. usually by dark there is a breeze and
it's actually pretty nice. whoever hinted that mauritania would be a dry
heat simply because it's got a desert written across it on the map: i'm sad
to report that at least along the river in kaedi, it's a very humid 114
pretty regularly. the good news is that by noon, all significant movement
stops. for the last month i've had language classes six hours a day: from 8 to noon, then 4 to 6. the four hour break accounts for lunch, then a round
of tea that can take an hour or so to finish (three rounds of tiny
glasses, each round a little sweeter). that's when you get to fall asleep on the floor.
4. after awhile you stop swatting at the flies and just let them land
on your face. it's really a ploy by all those agencies trying to get money
in tv commercials, showing little kids with the flies. no doubt the kids
are starving, but dude, everyone here has got flies on them if they stand
still long enough.
5. i'm pretty damn good at eating with my hands now. the secret is to
form a ball by rolling in around in the palm. most of the time lunch chez moi
consists of rice and fish, which is cool, because couscous is really a
bitch sometimes. i get it all over my skirt. dinner, which is outside
in front of the tv, is some kind of potatoes with bread and meat, or cous
cous with milk. the couscous plus milk is interesting because there usually
aren't enough bowls to go around, so we eat in shifts (all other meals
are served in one big plate on the ground. for a while we had a lot of
company, so there were ten people around the bowl. i actually had to sit on my host mom a little).
6. favorite image of kaedi: on the main road to my house there is the
light turquoise shell of a car just in front of a boutique, buried up to the
wheel wells in sand. my friend nancy and i agree that if it were moved to a
solid white wall gallery, it could pass for modern art.
7. or maybe my other favorite: the host 3-year-old climbing ami's
back like a mountain while ami is hunched over the food bowl, finishing it
off mauritanian woman-style (skinny is not chic here). ky climbs, then
stands on her back, singing. ami doesn't flinch. she keeps eating.
8. i almost got run over by a donkey cart. on the paved road the donkey
carts vie (or is it vye? editor, please?) for space with ghetto cars (i
mentioned those before too, i hope). the safest place to be is on the
sand far away... but one day this cart went off-road trying to pass some
slower-moving cars, and we actually had to jump out of the way. when it
tried to get back on the road the cart tipped, leaving three people on
the side of the road. it was great.
9. i'm almost out of time, and paranoid about sending stuff, so really
quickly: i got to leave kaedi for five days to see my site, the place
where i'll actually be living for the next two years. it's called selibaby
(sel-i-bah-bee), in the dip between mali and senegal. it's absolutely
amazing. during the rainy season the roads flood and you can't get
there, or leave. it was a 14 hour car ride since we couldn't go the more direct route; the last four hours are off-road, as the pavement quits just south of kiffa. (for anybody who likes to check out maps, we drove from kaedi through aleg and kiffa, then south through kankossa, right along the border with mali). selibaby is beautiful; somewhere in between desert and brusse, there are date palms and mango groves and mud houses (which, like the roads, fall apart during the rainy season). i have another 100 things to say about
that, so i'll save it for another one.
10. thank you everyone who has sent letters, it's so great to hear
stuff about home, or about virtually anything on the other side of the
atlantic. please keep up with the random articles and such... i'm really doing well and so glad that i'm here, even though i know i'm going to miss running water for the next two years (selibaby=water barrels delivered by
donkey)... that's another story. i hope everyone is great. more, more frequently i hope, soon.
for it to be this infrequent. forgive me? the internet ate my previous
attempts. someone told me today that it's august 17 and i realized i've been away from home for a hell of a long time. it's been sort of hard to keep track: unlike the streets of home where every bank keeps you up to date with flashes of date, time, temperature, flying conditions, whether or not you've fed your cat... well yea. i haven't seen a calendar or clock since i got here
(minus those brought by other peace corps kids). but i have seen a million
other things. i'll try to limit myself to 100 in this go.
1. for the last month and a half i've lived in kaedi, which i think i
mentioned in my sole previous update. kaedi has one paved road. at one end is
the river; at the other is the airport, where in the evening herds of
cattle wander over the runway coming back from the fields. it's deserted
during the day--like everything is--but at sunset teenage girls walk up and down in their own packs. women here wear either mulafas--a really light piece
of fabric that wraps over the head and around the body, or a boubou--which
usually consists of a wrap skirt and giant flowy dress over. the only
reason i mention it is because these clothes--tie-dyed, or solid bold pinks or yellows or blues--almost glow against the sand at dusk. it's beautiful.
almost everything in kaedi is a little faded: the paint is chipping,
the dust keeps the sky from being really blue, sometimes the sand in the
streets almost runs together with the mud of the buildings... but the clothing is immaculate. it makes me wish i knew how to iron.
2. in kaedi i'm living with a host family, which is totally african in
its makeup, that is, i'm not 100 percent sure how half of the people in my
house are related. in any case, in my neighborhood i am fatou ndiya (FAH-tou
En-JIY) host kid of talib and ami ndiaye and somehow related to aminata
(a 30-ish business-oriented unmarried (very unusual) woman who works in
the capital but is visiting for the summer), Coumba (a 17-year-old who
cooks and sweeps every surface possible in exchange for board, i think. maybe
she's a niece) and Ky, my host-toddler three year old, whose scream echoes
through an unfurnished concrete house like... it needs no explanation.
also in the house occasionally is another fatou, the soon-to-be divorced wife
of talib's former coworker (right) and her baby daughter. it's a full
house.
3. we sleep outside on most nights-- i am a pro at tying slipknots to
stick up a mosquito net these days. usually by dark there is a breeze and
it's actually pretty nice. whoever hinted that mauritania would be a dry
heat simply because it's got a desert written across it on the map: i'm sad
to report that at least along the river in kaedi, it's a very humid 114
pretty regularly. the good news is that by noon, all significant movement
stops. for the last month i've had language classes six hours a day: from 8 to noon, then 4 to 6. the four hour break accounts for lunch, then a round
of tea that can take an hour or so to finish (three rounds of tiny
glasses, each round a little sweeter). that's when you get to fall asleep on the floor.
4. after awhile you stop swatting at the flies and just let them land
on your face. it's really a ploy by all those agencies trying to get money
in tv commercials, showing little kids with the flies. no doubt the kids
are starving, but dude, everyone here has got flies on them if they stand
still long enough.
5. i'm pretty damn good at eating with my hands now. the secret is to
form a ball by rolling in around in the palm. most of the time lunch chez moi
consists of rice and fish, which is cool, because couscous is really a
bitch sometimes. i get it all over my skirt. dinner, which is outside
in front of the tv, is some kind of potatoes with bread and meat, or cous
cous with milk. the couscous plus milk is interesting because there usually
aren't enough bowls to go around, so we eat in shifts (all other meals
are served in one big plate on the ground. for a while we had a lot of
company, so there were ten people around the bowl. i actually had to sit on my host mom a little).
6. favorite image of kaedi: on the main road to my house there is the
light turquoise shell of a car just in front of a boutique, buried up to the
wheel wells in sand. my friend nancy and i agree that if it were moved to a
solid white wall gallery, it could pass for modern art.
7. or maybe my other favorite: the host 3-year-old climbing ami's
back like a mountain while ami is hunched over the food bowl, finishing it
off mauritanian woman-style (skinny is not chic here). ky climbs, then
stands on her back, singing. ami doesn't flinch. she keeps eating.
8. i almost got run over by a donkey cart. on the paved road the donkey
carts vie (or is it vye? editor, please?) for space with ghetto cars (i
mentioned those before too, i hope). the safest place to be is on the
sand far away... but one day this cart went off-road trying to pass some
slower-moving cars, and we actually had to jump out of the way. when it
tried to get back on the road the cart tipped, leaving three people on
the side of the road. it was great.
9. i'm almost out of time, and paranoid about sending stuff, so really
quickly: i got to leave kaedi for five days to see my site, the place
where i'll actually be living for the next two years. it's called selibaby
(sel-i-bah-bee), in the dip between mali and senegal. it's absolutely
amazing. during the rainy season the roads flood and you can't get
there, or leave. it was a 14 hour car ride since we couldn't go the more direct route; the last four hours are off-road, as the pavement quits just south of kiffa. (for anybody who likes to check out maps, we drove from kaedi through aleg and kiffa, then south through kankossa, right along the border with mali). selibaby is beautiful; somewhere in between desert and brusse, there are date palms and mango groves and mud houses (which, like the roads, fall apart during the rainy season). i have another 100 things to say about
that, so i'll save it for another one.
10. thank you everyone who has sent letters, it's so great to hear
stuff about home, or about virtually anything on the other side of the
atlantic. please keep up with the random articles and such... i'm really doing well and so glad that i'm here, even though i know i'm going to miss running water for the next two years (selibaby=water barrels delivered by
donkey)... that's another story. i hope everyone is great. more, more frequently i hope, soon.