Progress on the Work Front.
I went to see my community counterpart yesterday, his name is Mohammed. If Mauritania was a drinking game, one would take a drink every time one met someone named Mohammed. I was very persistent in my quest as I tried to stop in both Tuesday and Wednesday morning, but his door was padlocked. We had had “protests” around town on those mornings, so his absence was understandable. Many Mauritanians were hanging pretty close to home on those days. I was finally successful on Thursday. I have been remiss in seeing him because 1. it is very frustrating to try communicate in French and b. I don’t want to put myself in a position to turn down his work offer. When I met him back in early August, during the site visit, he said he’d like me to come in a couple of times a week and do some data entry. It ain’t gonna happen because 1. we shouldn’t take a position that legitimately a Mauritanian could do for pay and 2. I dun wanna type. I must say, his French is getting much better.
I don’t know how he became involved with the Peace Corps but. He has been working with the SED volunteers in Atar for many years and is therefore, extremely patient with my bad French (unlike my landlord) and endless questions. See his picture on my flickr photos, I believe under the Site Visit album, or whatever the heck flickr calls them. He speaks very slowly, uses complete phrases (few pronouns as they are extremely confusing in French) and will re-explain something a number of times, using a variety of words, until I get it. He ought to be canonized. He occasionally throws in a bit of English, but that is cheating. He runs a lending program for Artisans and Small Businesses, which, if I recall correctly, is funded by mostly private funds, their origins I know not. We talked about the protests that had been going on around Mauritana, which are partly, a reaction to the high price of food and goods. And sadly, I believe, we concluded that there is no real solution to the problem which seems to be the result of the high cost of petrol. In my opinion, a little bit of competition in the supply chain couldn’t do them much harm either.
While I had his attention, I mentioned my idea of a cultural fair for the tourists which he thought it was a good idea. I don’t know if I have mentioned my festival idea before to you. During training I had the brilliant idea to create a weekly fair, exposition if you will, for the tourists. They fly in on Sunday via 2 charter plans from France, spend a night or two in Atar, then they hightail it out of town in their 4WD, off to Chinguetti and/or Oudane. Atar isn’t at first, second, third or forth glance, all that attractive of a place to spend much time. So off they go to spend their hard earned and valuable euros elsewhere in the Adrar. I assume that after a week of camel trekking, ancient ruin hopping and 4WDing through the dunes, they head back here. They must get in sometime on Saturday night, as the Market on Sunday morning is overrun with toubabs, before they catch their charter flight back to France. (Note to self, do not faire le marche on Sunday morning unless self wants to pay exorbitant rates for everything) Anyway, my idea is for the city to host a weekly festival, complete with music, food, tea making classes and vendors on either Saturday or Sunday evening. I need to gather the tour guides (quite a few are PCRIM friendly) as they know what the tourists want and will bring the tourists; the mayor’s office, as someone needs to fund the music, security, furnishings and other sundries; the police, of course there are 3 different law enforcement agencies, which agency I need, I do not know. What I do know is that if I include the wrong police force, this event will never fly. There is also a National Bureau of Tourism office and truck that drives around town but I can’t tell if it’s the governmental agency or just a travel agency with a lofty name. And last but not least, the vendors. How I am going to pull all of this coordinating off is beyond me? Hence the importance of local support and advise, like my counterpart. So far, all that I have run the idea passed have thought that it is a great idea. It’s not so far fetched as Atar usually holds a similar, albeit less organized, exposition on its outskirts when the Paris/Dakar Rally comes screaming through town in January.
Our goal as I understand it, here in the Peace Corps, is to bring and help implement ideas that the community deems useful. Creating a point of contact between artisans and tourists seems like a worthy project for a SED volunteer with a little shot of party planning on the side. I hope that after giving my counterpart a couple of weeks to ponder the festival, devise his own vision and possibly taking the bull or part of the bull, by the horns, in getting this idea off of the ground.
I have been reluctant to make this move; torn between waiting for my language to improve and diving in straight away. But if I wait for my language skills to solidify, the tourist season will be over, forcing me to wait a full year to implement a plan. I have a short WOO (window of opportunity) so on Thursday, I officially started the ball rolling. Let’s give those tourists a place to spend their money in our fine city. Wouldn’t it be great to have it written up in Lonely Planet? We are to meet again on December 3 at 4 pm. Inshallah.
Also on Dec 3, we are going to set a time for me to meet the presidents of the 44 women’s cooperatives here in Atar. Hopefully not all at once; how many Fatimatous can you meet in one day? I believe he wants me to bring along other volunteers when I meet with the cooperatives (either he feels that they could have something to offer these ladies or he is frightened of my French). I suggested our health volunteer, Kristen, and he thought that would be a great idea. She could hold some public health classes. We, PCRIM ATAR also need to get local women involved in and deeply committed to the GMC (girls mentoring center), so possibly these cooperatives would be a good source for those kinds of contacts as well. At least, that is what I think he said. (all in French)
The only sour not of the meeting was at the conclusion. I attempted to get myself invited over for lunch. All through training the trainers kept preaching that it’s okay to invite yourself to lunch. That is the way it’s done around here. They actually suggested going around your town, tasting everyone’s cooking, then selecting those households that you would honor with your presence at meals. I have found this part of integrating difficult. I just can’t quite bring myself to 1. invite myself to lunch and 2. commit myself to 3-4 hours of stilted conversation of if I am married and why not, along with the silence staring at each other as my French vocabulary runs dry. So I make the leap because the last and only meal I had at his house way back at site visit, was delicious. I blurt out a “How about me coming chez you for dejeuner”. Sadly, after I said it he responded with “Je ne comprends pas”. I don’t understand. This stopped me short. I tried again to say I wanted to “dejeuner chez vous avec votre famille”, just in case he thought I meant just he and I. Again, he looked oddly at me. Yikes, could he possibly think I am trying to get him alone; or, doesn’t he want me to come for lunch; or, I really butchered my French; it’s hard to speak off of the cuff. This didn’t seem likely as thus far, he had understood everything I had said in the last 45 minutes. Or maybe, just maybe, he was pretending to understand me…., and I didn’t really understand him,….so our conversation, which earlier seemed so clear, was actually an episode from the twilight zone. Either way, I dropped the subject, bid “a bon journee” and took my leave.
I’ll stop in again early next week just to say hi and confirm le 3 Decembre.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I went to see my community counterpart yesterday, his name is Mohammed. If Mauritania was a drinking game, one would take a drink every time one met someone named Mohammed. I was very persistent in my quest as I tried to stop in both Tuesday and Wednesday morning, but his door was padlocked. We had had “protests” around town on those mornings, so his absence was understandable. Many Mauritanians were hanging pretty close to home on those days. I was finally successful on Thursday. I have been remiss in seeing him because 1. it is very frustrating to try communicate in French and b. I don’t want to put myself in a position to turn down his work offer. When I met him back in early August, during the site visit, he said he’d like me to come in a couple of times a week and do some data entry. It ain’t gonna happen because 1. we shouldn’t take a position that legitimately a Mauritanian could do for pay and 2. I dun wanna type. I must say, his French is getting much better.
I don’t know how he became involved with the Peace Corps but. He has been working with the SED volunteers in Atar for many years and is therefore, extremely patient with my bad French (unlike my landlord) and endless questions. See his picture on my flickr photos, I believe under the Site Visit album, or whatever the heck flickr calls them. He speaks very slowly, uses complete phrases (few pronouns as they are extremely confusing in French) and will re-explain something a number of times, using a variety of words, until I get it. He ought to be canonized. He occasionally throws in a bit of English, but that is cheating. He runs a lending program for Artisans and Small Businesses, which, if I recall correctly, is funded by mostly private funds, their origins I know not. We talked about the protests that had been going on around Mauritana, which are partly, a reaction to the high price of food and goods. And sadly, I believe, we concluded that there is no real solution to the problem which seems to be the result of the high cost of petrol. In my opinion, a little bit of competition in the supply chain couldn’t do them much harm either.
While I had his attention, I mentioned my idea of a cultural fair for the tourists which he thought it was a good idea. I don’t know if I have mentioned my festival idea before to you. During training I had the brilliant idea to create a weekly fair, exposition if you will, for the tourists. They fly in on Sunday via 2 charter plans from France, spend a night or two in Atar, then they hightail it out of town in their 4WD, off to Chinguetti and/or Oudane. Atar isn’t at first, second, third or forth glance, all that attractive of a place to spend much time. So off they go to spend their hard earned and valuable euros elsewhere in the Adrar. I assume that after a week of camel trekking, ancient ruin hopping and 4WDing through the dunes, they head back here. They must get in sometime on Saturday night, as the Market on Sunday morning is overrun with toubabs, before they catch their charter flight back to France. (Note to self, do not faire le marche on Sunday morning unless self wants to pay exorbitant rates for everything) Anyway, my idea is for the city to host a weekly festival, complete with music, food, tea making classes and vendors on either Saturday or Sunday evening. I need to gather the tour guides (quite a few are PCRIM friendly) as they know what the tourists want and will bring the tourists; the mayor’s office, as someone needs to fund the music, security, furnishings and other sundries; the police, of course there are 3 different law enforcement agencies, which agency I need, I do not know. What I do know is that if I include the wrong police force, this event will never fly. There is also a National Bureau of Tourism office and truck that drives around town but I can’t tell if it’s the governmental agency or just a travel agency with a lofty name. And last but not least, the vendors. How I am going to pull all of this coordinating off is beyond me? Hence the importance of local support and advise, like my counterpart. So far, all that I have run the idea passed have thought that it is a great idea. It’s not so far fetched as Atar usually holds a similar, albeit less organized, exposition on its outskirts when the Paris/Dakar Rally comes screaming through town in January.
Our goal as I understand it, here in the Peace Corps, is to bring and help implement ideas that the community deems useful. Creating a point of contact between artisans and tourists seems like a worthy project for a SED volunteer with a little shot of party planning on the side. I hope that after giving my counterpart a couple of weeks to ponder the festival, devise his own vision and possibly taking the bull or part of the bull, by the horns, in getting this idea off of the ground.
I have been reluctant to make this move; torn between waiting for my language to improve and diving in straight away. But if I wait for my language skills to solidify, the tourist season will be over, forcing me to wait a full year to implement a plan. I have a short WOO (window of opportunity) so on Thursday, I officially started the ball rolling. Let’s give those tourists a place to spend their money in our fine city. Wouldn’t it be great to have it written up in Lonely Planet? We are to meet again on December 3 at 4 pm. Inshallah.
Also on Dec 3, we are going to set a time for me to meet the presidents of the 44 women’s cooperatives here in Atar. Hopefully not all at once; how many Fatimatous can you meet in one day? I believe he wants me to bring along other volunteers when I meet with the cooperatives (either he feels that they could have something to offer these ladies or he is frightened of my French). I suggested our health volunteer, Kristen, and he thought that would be a great idea. She could hold some public health classes. We, PCRIM ATAR also need to get local women involved in and deeply committed to the GMC (girls mentoring center), so possibly these cooperatives would be a good source for those kinds of contacts as well. At least, that is what I think he said. (all in French)
The only sour not of the meeting was at the conclusion. I attempted to get myself invited over for lunch. All through training the trainers kept preaching that it’s okay to invite yourself to lunch. That is the way it’s done around here. They actually suggested going around your town, tasting everyone’s cooking, then selecting those households that you would honor with your presence at meals. I have found this part of integrating difficult. I just can’t quite bring myself to 1. invite myself to lunch and 2. commit myself to 3-4 hours of stilted conversation of if I am married and why not, along with the silence staring at each other as my French vocabulary runs dry. So I make the leap because the last and only meal I had at his house way back at site visit, was delicious. I blurt out a “How about me coming chez you for dejeuner”. Sadly, after I said it he responded with “Je ne comprends pas”. I don’t understand. This stopped me short. I tried again to say I wanted to “dejeuner chez vous avec votre famille”, just in case he thought I meant just he and I. Again, he looked oddly at me. Yikes, could he possibly think I am trying to get him alone; or, doesn’t he want me to come for lunch; or, I really butchered my French; it’s hard to speak off of the cuff. This didn’t seem likely as thus far, he had understood everything I had said in the last 45 minutes. Or maybe, just maybe, he was pretending to understand me…., and I didn’t really understand him,….so our conversation, which earlier seemed so clear, was actually an episode from the twilight zone. Either way, I dropped the subject, bid “a bon journee” and took my leave.
I’ll stop in again early next week just to say hi and confirm le 3 Decembre.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I love you and miss you all.
Keep those cards and letters coming
Other news and information:
The Mayor of Atar, who we just finally met, resigned.
We have many silversmiths here in Atar, but from what I have seen of their wares, it’s not so fashionable. Could someone or everyone, pop some magazine or catalogue of current styles in metal jewelry in the mail? Something I could show them that they could replicate. Something that the tourists would actually want to purchase.
Movie to watch for: En Attendant Le BonHeur
It was filmed in Nouadibou, Maritania. I understand the scenery, enormous sand dunes tumbling into the Atlantic, is spectacular and it gives a good picture of dress and environs of Mauritania. The story is not said to be too terribly interesting.
1 comment:
Hi Madame Toubab,
I've really enjoyed reading your blog and seeing the pix too..thanks for sharing your experiences with us! Keep your chin up, it will take persistance and tenacity to see your goals happen, which is why you're great for this Peace Corps position. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day and know you're in my thoughts & prayers. Stay safe!
Chris
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