Military Coup in Mauritania

Have no fear faithful readers...I am a-okay. More later

Crap It's August

Damn, July did slip by. It's August. Evidently, time does fly by when you are having fun. Being that it's August, let the countdown begin. Just 17 more days will my birthday. Gets those cards and letters in the mail.

Cheers from here

Back Safe and Sound

I don’t want to let July slip by without making a post. To be honest, I have not been too terribly inspired. The heat in the Sahara melts away anything cleaver from my brain before it can blossom into a story.

In the last week a number of pcv’s have come up for a visit (why they would come here in July vexes me, but they do) Anyway, to a person, each gets out of the car and remarks on how hot it is up here. Far hotter then their sites. What the hell! Wow is that depressing. I knew it was hot, but I just assumed everywhere here was hot. Christ, everyone is always talking about how hot Nema is. Apparently not. Lucky me living in the furnaces for hell.

So as I have nothing witty to tell, let’s just go with some news. Atar utilities are on the border between very challenging and untenable at the moment. The electricity has been out since I arrived back from France coupled with inconsistent Water. To be factual, I now have power from about midnight to 8 – 9 in the AM. However, that isn’t really very useful. So, I have unplugged my refrigerator (that which keeps me sane) until such time that I can actually use it. What is the point of having things cold when you can’t open the door to get them out…or put things in? Grrrrooooowwwwl.

France was Paradise. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to sit around a table, eating delicious food, drinking lovely wine and talking with friends and family. It has been so long since I have been able to hang out with those of my ilk and it felt great. I went to the Cote D’Azur, Paris and the Cote D’Emeraud. (pull out your maps) All were lovely and picturesque. The French were warm and charming…even the bloody waiters.

It was a trip of firsts. I got to sit in the cockpit when we landed in Orly. Holy crap that was exciting. Someday, over cocktails, I’ll tell you the story of how that came to pass. It’s quite good and not fit for prying eyes who read blogs not for enjoyment but checking for appropriate content. A woman needs her secrets and mystery, don't you think?

I also ate Stingray wing for the first time in my life. It was quite tasty with a lemon butter caper sauce.

At the end, I spent a few days in the Netherlands with my good friends Lydia and William. We didn’t venture far but I had a great time. They live in a bucolic area with enormous Belgian’s as their neighbors. The cows in the Netherlands are incredibly lazy creatures. We passed field and field of ladies in repose which is something I am not sure I have seen before. W & L assures me that that is why Dutch dairy products are so delicious…relaxed, happy bovines. I have to tell you, at first glace I thought the livestock in Europe was quite portly. Each field we past in both France and Holland were full of rolly polly beasts with big butts and bellys. How could they possibly hold up their great hulk with those stubby legs. I suddently realized how accustomed I have become to seeing only severly emaciated animals. My heart broke a little.

But back to the food, I have to give a shout out to the best meal that I had while in France. For my last dinner in Paradise, Emmanuel, Janet and I went to a little restaurant that is adjacent to the train station in their village of Gif. Les Sauvages Saveurs. It’s been written up quite a number of times and has some Michelin stars yet my family had not been there yet. We started with Carpaccio soaked in Asian spices (read gingery), followed by a Filet of Lieu (another funny story) on a mound of sweet potato puree, surrounded by gnocchi and drizzled with a creamy ginger sauce………..Oh MaMa! For desert we had a Crème something or other. It was a mound of sweet, creamy goodness with a light ginger glaze surrounded by rounds of candied ginger. Yes I can remember each bite lo these many days later. I pray that they are still around when I next return to Gif.

The next day, I hop on a flight back to Nouakchott-got bumped to 1st class again. Okay, coming back wasn’t too bad. I went out for coffee, pizza, beer, wine….all the treats the capital has to offer. I also paid a visit to the dentist to have my permanent crown installed (is that the word). Things were going so far so good.

The following day I took a long taxi brousse back to Atar and its useless utilities and storm aftermath. I tell ya, after seeing the sight of my house, which was full of sand and my hyma which was all a kilter from a storm; I nearly headed back to the airport. But I didn’t. I chose the next best thing; I threw a little tantrum. Just for a little bit though as I had to pull myself together what with my new sitemates (5 new in Atar, 10 new to the Adrar) arriving in just a few hours. I felt compelled to greet them with a modicum of enthusiasm. I think I pulled it off. However, they would be a better judge of my success.

So now, I am spending far too much time on facebook. Is it me or is it the slowest bloody site on the web?

Later today I am off to Nouakchott for a few days for our MTR (mid term reconnect) then down to Rosso to teach a session on CereAmine to the new volunteers.

Cheers from here

Aoujeft Training

This past weekend I helped with another CereAmine training in a town about 1.5 hours from here called Aoujeft or Owjeft or Aujeft, take your pick. The spelling changes from sign post to sign post. Aoujeft is a town that by my impression, is being engulfed by sand dunes, at least, the old part of town where I spent all of my time. I have not been so physically uncomfortable since I got out of Stage in Boghe, and you all remember how miserable that was. It’s hard to believe that that misery was just one year ago. The year feels like a lifetime and yesterday all at once. The trainer, Zeina and I left on Thursday evening in a very comfy ride. Comfy is defined as the car only having 4 passengers rather than the requisite 6. The ride took longer than expected because it seemed as though we were driving around in circles out in the dunes just a few kilometers out of town. I could see the town but we couldn’t quite seem to make it. The driver wasn’t lost, we were merely dropping some fella off out in the middle of nowhere. We finally arrive and everyone notices that Zeina is 8 months, 4 weeks, 5 days and 36 hours pregnant. How did I miss that? (go to the flickr photos and see if you can pick out the pregnant woman) I know that in the South, in the African culture, one doesn’t mention someone’s pregnancy. You don’t want to attract God’s wrath. It is the same reasoning behind having bridesmaids in a wedding, to confuse the evil spirits. I am not sure if the same goes in the Moor culture, so to be safe, we don’t say anything.

First thing we do after we arrive is deposit Zeina at our counterpart, Amenitou’s house. Amenitou is a cross between the Energizer Bunny and Joan Rivers. It felt odd to just leave Zeina at a house of strangers, but I am assured that that is how it is done here. And considering how pregnant she is, I was fairly certain she didn’t want to trudge up and down any more sand dunes than necessary. So off we go, Jolene, Heather and I, to organize for the next day. Thankfully, a Peace Corps vehicle had come through Atar on its way out to Aoujeft a couple of weeks before and I could send the grains along with them. To your door service in and Land Rover is far, far superior to lugging 39K over wretched sand dunes on foot. So the 3 of us take some time, sit down, and go over our game plan. We trudge back up the sand dunes for dinner at Amenitou’s house and then trudge back down to Jolene’s for some shut eye, dripping puddles of sweat all along the way. Amenitou did not join us for dinner as she was orchestrating the movement of a sand dune.

Yes, the town is moving a sand dune. Apparently, this particular dune is the route into town and had become too steep which made entering Aoujeft treacherous. As I hadn’t seen the beginning of this project, I couldn’t really wrap my brain around what and how this was being accomplished, or actually if anything was being accomplished. But nonetheless, great hordes of folks would gather on the offending dune each evening around sunset, many with shovels and rice sacks, and many just for what appeared to be moral support. Those with shovels shoveled and those with rice bags dragged them loaded with sand away until late, late in the evening. Mind you, they didn’t move the sand far, just to the side, or bottom of the dune. I suspect that the next good wind storm will put all of the sand right back to where Mother Nature had so carefully placed it before, but what do I know.

So we are back at Jolene’s for some shut eye with the alarm set for bright and early. I take a quick shower, in the yard (more on the facilities later) to wash off the sand and sweat and cool myself down so that I can fall into deep slumber. I need my beauty rest as Heather and I are to slog back up the damn dune to pick up Zeina and escort her to the training location. Jolene’s task was to organize the movement from the grains that are being stored at the Jardin des Enfants to the training location.

Jolene’s place is astonishingly Spartan. She has no electricity, no source of water (well or robinet) and no toilet; although every other house I visited in Aoujeft had at a minimum of 2 of those 3 luxuries. For water, one must walk across a sand lot to the Jardin Des Enfants to fill your 20L bidon at their spigot and drag the blasted thing back. For nature’s call, during daylight hours, one goes back to the Jardin to use that toilet. During darkness, one merely pees in the yard. God knows what happens if one had to do any real business in the middle of the night. Or worse, what would one do if one was stricken, as we so often are, with some nasty intestinal crud ? I suppose one would just lay in the Kindergarden yard and hope for death or health, which ever came first. Luckily I didn’t have to face that dilemma. She also has no wall to speak of surrounding her compound, so I am rather sure a few of the neighborhood goats cuddled up with me during the night. And lastly, she has no roof. Well, she has a roof, but not one that would hold the weight of a slumbering body. So we had to lie in the yard which is oddly, not covered with sand, but with boulders. I am still asking myself, and anyone else I can find, how she has lived like this for 2 years

At any rate, I am clean and damp so I fall asleep. But not for long, as soon as I dry I am drenched in sweat. I haven’t been this hot at night since last summer in my beloved Boghe. Oh how I longed for my rooftop perch. Being up on the roof gets you up into the breeze and up off the sand and its store of ambient heat from the searing hot, Saharan sun. It is easily 10 degrees cooler up on a roof. I pass the night tossing and turning on the rocks, slick with my own sweat and snuggled with my goats. As you can imagine, I sure was bright-eyed the next morning.

Day 1: Friday the 13th

It was blistering hot. Bright and early, Heather and I trudge up the dunes to fetch the trainer as scheduled. But there is no one home. We trudge to a neighbor’s house where we ran into the rest of the participants the previous evening. No one home there either. We trudge back to Aminetou’s house to pilfer her kitchen equipment and trudge yet again, back down to the training facility. Let me clarify, this training facility is a vacant house owned by Aminetou. It’s 7:30 am and we are drenched with sweat. We arrived at the training locale and many of the women had gathered, quite early by RIM standards. We had suggested that the training start at 8 am but it seemed that Aminetou had scheduled it for 9 am so we waited for the rest of the women to arrive. By that time, the sun had taken over most of the courtyard (see flickr photos) and we were pressed into the little shade left against the walls. With great relief, unlike the first training, these ladies embraced the soap. We had to buy more for the second day. They would rinse, lather and repeat, all the way to their elbows, between each step and before and after each meal. It was such a relief. I only had to become cranky pants at one or two women on only a couple of occasions.

We spent the day cleaning, washing, roasting grains and getting to know each other. It was a physically miserable, miserable day. I was filthy and my eyes were red and swollen from the sweat that dripped off my brow all day. I think I made a faux pas though at the end. It’s kind of hard to tell as the women spoke Zero French and I speak Zero Hassaniya (yet again). Also, the cadence and tone of their language makes it incredibly difficult to decipher mood. They might just as easily be telling you off as wishing you a happy birthday; Hassaniya is just harsh on the ears. My error was that I took a bucket bath right next to the cistern. I just threw my BouBou over the doorway for a bit of privacy and rinsed off. As I always have soap in my purse, it was easy peasy. In my defense, I saw one of the RIM ladies doing it earlier in the day…so I figured what the heck. I was desperate to get the sweat, sand and grim off of me and cool down. Add to that the fact that I didn’t want to spend any more time in the toilet at that house then absolutely necessary and you can see my rational and motivation to bath where I did. My clue that I might have done a no-no was that when Heather went to follow suit, she was shooed into the nasty bathroom. Ah well.

We finally broke about 6:30. Heather, Jolene and I go back to Jolene’s place to reorganize for the next day, sort out the money and receipt so that every ouguiya is accounted for, and relax a bit. We trudge up the sand dune yet again, for dinner, which was served really late. We weren’t entirely sure we were going to get dinner. While we were sitting around on the natte out on a sand dune waiting, the cook took a 45 minute nap. Also, the women who came from out of town were suppose to be eating with us but they were no where to be seen. We had been told by Aminetou to purchase a kilo of meat to feed everyone, but no one was there. Then when the plate finally came, there was so little meat on it, we were suspicious. Where did all of that meat go? As Aminetou was on Sand Dune duty, there was no way to find out. When I am working with HCN’s I am often confused as to the who, what, where, when and most perplexing, the why of things. For example, we tried all day to explain to the women that we needed more equipment to work with. They had been given a list, in Arabic, of items needed. And further, the PC Staff went over the list again, when he delivered the grains, in fluent Hassaniya. Yet, after all of that, we didn’t have nearly enough tubs, bowls or Marmit’s (the big cooking pots). One of the difficulties setting up a training where the women travel in from surrounding villages is that you can't ask them to lug along all of their kitchen equipment. Therefore you have to rely on the women that live locally to empty out their kitchen. Which didn't seem to happen, Jolene ended up empting out her and her neighbor's kitchen. To avoid this problem for the next day, before we broke for the evening, the trainer explained that we needed more large vessels and sifters for the following day. After dinner, we trudged back home to bath in the yard and go to bed.

What happened in during the night? The wind kicked up and a sandstorm took hold. Evidently, Allah wanted her sand back where she put it. Being far too hot to go inside, we just suffered through it. Truth be told, I was too tired to be conscious enough to suffer. I’d just wake up every once in a while, reposition on the boulders and try to keep the sheet wrapped tightly around my head to keep the sand out. In my book, sand and wind are far superior to heat and sweat. Heather urgently disagrees. The direction of the wind was from my feet so it kept blowing up my neck and into my nose. If I would have had any sense I would have turned around….but I didn’t. I just tried to sleep. Besides, I already knew the comfy spots between the boulders. Although I had the sheet folded into 8ths, just to protect my head, every time I moved, a shower of sand would come sifting through the fibers onto me. What a night. What a mess. Another bleary-eyed morning.

Day 2:

We show up in the am and once again, most women were there bright and early. They had already started the tea and were awaiting a bowl of CereAmine. To that end, they proceed to light the charcoal to heat up two enormous pots. This seemed premature to me as we hadn’t finished making it yet, which we try to convey, but no one was listening. It's like herding cats. Then, in walks Aminetou. She flips out (at least I think she did) about the coals being started and possibly that we were sitting around and hadn’t started working yet. (At least I think those were the problems, as I said, it was all in Arabic). The coals made sense to me but the not starting work did not as the flour had not been delivered from the miller and we couldn’t do anything until after that happened. She was speaking very, very, very harshly to everyone, (or wishing us happy birthday) I tried to calm her down with a bit of success. She calmed down for a bit, but she flared up again. The poor woman needs more sleep, we all needed more sleep. The flour finally arrived with a receipt larger than anticipated. I quickly pull out my phone (it has a calculator) to figure out the problem. This is another tricky part of doing projects. One has to be careful that the resources are being spent and distributed appropriately and not lining the pockets of a favored relative or vendor. And 32kg at 40 um per Kilo is not 1500um. With one issue pending about last night’s meat, I wanted to make sure that all knew that I was keeping track of each Ouguiya. After that, and many a ruffled feather, we started working.

And no, there was no more equipment brought for the mornings work. Arrrggghhh. It is so difficult to get a straight answer or give a directive around here. Just trying to record the participant’s names and birth years is impossible. Heather explained that many don’t know their birth year but I am not buying it. Everyone in this country has to carry an ID card and present it at every check point and their birth years must be on that card. My belief is that the women were just messing with us. I will confess, I am not keen to shout out my birth year anymore. So they were probably having a few laughs at my expense. It certainly isn’t the first time in my life that has happened and I am confident it won’t be the last. Honestly, teasing is a way of life here. I suppose they believe that the levity eases the stress. Fo me, on this particular day, not so much. Ir was yet one more straw to the camel’s back of communication challenges. As they say, timing is everything.

As for equipment, come to find out that those handy dandy “high tech” sifter (they look like a big can with wire on the bottom) are not used in the villages, that’s only for city folk In the villages, they just tie a mulafa over the tub (see flickr photos) and push the flour through. It all worked.

About 10, in the middle of the sifting, they finally start heating up the CereAmine. At this point we have an accident. As one woman was carrying the Marmit to a more protected place, out of the sand storm, she turned and in the process she sloshed boiling water all over another’s hand. I chased the burned hand around trying to pour cool water on it. Said victim finally slowed down and lets me do it. I then had to get some ice. Glace is what it’s called. I try to get someone to point me in the direction of a boutique that has a working freezer. I pulled out a 100 um and they gave it to a kid who hurries off. Kid returns and I get the wounded one to sit and hold the ice on the burn for awhile. No more did we settle down from the burn then one of the little one’s came in the room howling. Lots of snot, crocodile tears and cries of agony. She had been stung by a scorpion between her toes. Poor little thing. I took the ice from the burn victim, she’d had it on 20 minutes, and put it on the little one’s foot. They all looked at me as if I was nuts. I tried to explain that it won’t fix the sting but it will help with the pain, at least that is what our first aid handbook recommends. Scorpion sting care was the first paragraph that I read. I hope to never put it to use on myself. I pulled out the change from the 100um and send another child off for another chunk of ice. The silver lining, all of these accidents provided us the perfect opportunity for a first aid lesson.

We finally finished sifting the CereAmine about 11. Time for a little celebration. Drums, dance, laughter. All the while, the sand storm is blowing outside.

After that we spend an hour or so going over our lessons: “What is CereAmine and how does it improve the Mauritanian diet”, Sanitation, the all new Burn Care, and Setting the cost of the product.

Next we gave out Certificates and the booklets. Interestingly, somehow there were more certificates being written then there were women in the room.

These trainings are an emotional roller coaster. Most of the time they are fun, but there is also alot of stress involved in corralling, cajoling and managing a large group of Mauritanian women particularly with no common language. There is also the problem with allocation of resources, primarily food. Within a family or a cooperative every little thing is scrupulously divided equally. It feels almost fanatical they way the portion and reportion the plates of food so that everything is equal. The women spend a good deal of time doing this before each meal. It is so important, that in my family in Boghe, once the plate was portioned, it was then inspected by my Mother who inevitably, moved a tad from here to there. But get outside the sphere of family, coop or tribe and it’s becomes brutal free-for-all. I have had the pleasure to attend 3 GMC closings this spring and each one of them turned to chaos as soon as snacks were served. We serve enough snacks so that each girl can have a piece of fruit, a little cake and a couple of cookies, you know, what you’d normally do at a party. Well at these parties, some of the girls took handfuls. Some were hording. It's not that all or even the majority acted so badly. It's that those who were acting so badly did so unblushingly and with absolutely no shame. I had to ask a couple of girls to open their mulafa and I took back 6 bananas and scores of the little prepackaged cakes. In Tawaz, some of the big girls bullied the younger girls into giving them their portion. Many times, these were their big sisters. The debacle left me so flustered and annoyed with the girls that I didn’t get any photos of the younger girls making bracelets which in hindsight, I regret. I can’t imagine that my older sisters would force me into forking over my goodies at a party. And if they had tried to take my food, I know I wouldn’t have given it up without a tussle. And it’s not just the girls; there was a similar incident at a recent gathering of grown women in NKC. When the cans of evaporated milk for the coffee, were placed on the table some of the women procured them all and put them in their purses. Mind you, the cans had already been opened. So these ladies must have had evaporated milk spilled all over the contents of their bags. Consequently, there was no cream for the coffee. Giving out snacks is awful. It feels like I am on the back of a truck like you see on the news, unloading supplies at a refugee camp and everyone is pushing, crowding and grabbing whatever they can. (Note to self, not the job for me). Needless to say, it is disturbing to witness seemingly sweet girls who were just working together beautifully turn unabashedly greedy.

This all leads back to Aoujeft, and since we are training women from various cooperatives, we are keen to be sure that everyone gets an equal amount of all that there is to divvy up. Being from the outside, I don’t really know where the power lies in this group, this community. So, when things seem suspicious, like where did all of that meat go, why did I pay more for the milling than I should have, where are all of the kilo’s of CereAmine, it sends up a few red flags that I feel I should heed. But worry not, all was well. The meat did get where it was suppose to, everyone was fed and the milling costs worked out as well.

Finally, lunch is served. I should have taken a photo. The plates contained more meat and vegetables then you would ever find in a Mauritania home even in the best of times. Food is cooked here to a temperature that would melt gold. Everything is brought to a molten, furious boil. The plate was a molten pile of Orzo pasta. I dug my hand in and promptly withdrew it as the food was way, way, way, way, way to hot to hold. Hymie Hotta! So I just sit there, I am sure it will cool down this century. Besides, it’s really too hot to eat anyway. The woman sitting next to me tore apart a nearby box to fan my portion. I dig in again. Wow, still way to hot. She then teaches me the correct method for eating molten food with your hand. You fan it, then scrap up just the first cooled layer, ball it and pop it in your mouth. She balls it up and handed it to me. I take it and pop it into my mouth. I then attempt this feat for myself, scraping the top layer of pasta into my hand to ball. And I can’t. Pasta is impossible to ball. I just shove the handful, sloppily into my mouth. Seeing my struggle, my neighbor proceeds to hand me pre-made balls for nearly every bite I get. I nearly fall over laughing. It was just like being transported back to training, but in Boghe, they just handed me a spoon. (see flickr photos, my savior is in the photo titled “Group Shot” in the solid white mulafa on the far front right).

The sandstorm persisted the rest of the afternoon. I finally pull into Atar that evening tired, hungry and filthy, but very happy to be home sweet home.

Cheers from here,

I am leaving for France next week so you won't be hearing from me for awhile.

Footage of Mauritania

Video footage of a segment on the food crisis and Mauritania with video footage:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june08/food_04-29.html



There is also a commercial on local arabic tv by Mattel, the cell phone company that was just released that has spectacular footage of Mauritania. It's filmed so beautifully, you'll want to come visit. Heck it made me rethink the place. I'll try to find it and post it. However, if someone finds it first, please forward it on to me.



Cheers from here



ps, posting more photos and a little video clip on flickr

Yeah, I'm Bad

Okay, so today, I was feeling really cocky. Like, hey, I’m cool; I’ve got this Mauritanian thing whipped, Yeah, I am invincible. Yeah, I am in the toughest post in Peace Corps, but I’m OKAY. I was up with the sun. Did some laundry; did some dishes; set out on a long, long walk and was back while it was still reasonably cool and not too late to eat breakfast at breakfast time.

Yeah, I was feeling pretty sassy. If not a little sweaty, so into the shower I go. I’ve got some time on my hands because for once, I have no where to be all day. So I shampoo, luffa, exfoliate with ginger, pumice my heels, the whole shebang. Man do I have the PC gig wired, I can actually feel refreshed and spiffy clean with a bucket bath in a Turkish toilet. Did I mention that I am invincible? To put the cherry on the sundae, I dump the remaining water in the bucket down the toilet so it has that extra clean, extra fresh ginger fresh (the exfoliating scrub) scent. As I lift the bucket, a scorpion comes out from beneath and runs over my naked, wet foot. It takes a second for me to register that it is not just a big roach, disgusting in and of itself. Once I do, I start hopping around like a mad woman. Holy Christ! I bludgeoned the little devil with a makaresh severing the dreaded tail. He wasn’t too big, maybe a couple of inches long, but in this instance, size does not matter. I nearly have a heart attack. Thank god it didn’t sting e. 2 seconds after I think I have this whole deal under control, Africa sends me a little sompin sompin that scares the wits out of me.

Cheers from here,

Puzzlemeister

Happy Mother’s Day/Memorial Day and we landed another Rover on Mars. GO NASA!

Well this is quite a weekend. Yesterday was Mother's Day here in the RIM. It didn't appear to be much of a holiday for the mothers. The children were out of school and all the businesses were closed, thus mom was stuck monitoring the children and cooking a big feast for everyone in the household. This seemed to be quite a gyp (is that a slur on gypsy’s? And I just learned that gypsy’s is a slur on Egyptians. Who knew?) and a little backwards, if you ask me. The RIM could use a good CoCos for which to take Mom to brunch.

And today, I just remembered, is Memorial Day. Oh, all of those outdoor BBQ's that must be going, adding to your carbon footprint. I am very jealous to be missing the BBQ and the Indy 500.

Also, today was the first day that working at the Feeding Center. To be perfectly candid, I was apprehensive about this commitment I had made to Genevieve. I recall quite vividly my one and only babysitting experience. I HATED it. You may not know that about me, but I don't really like little children. Let me rephrase that. I am more comfortable and would rather do the physical work associated with little kids than sitting down on the floor and play tinker toys with them. So, I show up at the center hoping to just dive into cleaning, weighing, cooking, medicine dolling, etc........But no, I introduce myself and my intention and am thusly escorted to the room full of 40ish kids. I am then given my very own group of 8 3-4 year olds and a big wooden train puzzle. These 8 little darlings (well and frankly the whole room of 40) look at me as if I am about to eat them for breakfast. Mind you that there have been a number of French volunteers that have come through this center, months at a time, from October till about a month ago; so why this (my) new toubab face is frightening, I can not say. Anyway, we attempt this puzzle together for a bit. I try to get their names but can’t. Between the noise of the other children and the hard to pronounce Arabic names, and yet again, our lack of a common language, I can’t get a one. I do manage to tell them that my name is Sharon and not Nassraniya. Back to the puzzle. How in the hell do you teach someone the strategy of puzzling. Okay, I try, in vain, to explain that the wheels on the train should always be on the bottom, making it a bit easier to figure out which way the puzzle pieces should fit. Neither should the cows shouldn’t be upside down, nor the boat, nor the sheep, again, a clue as to the correct positioning of the piece. Mind you, they speak only Hassaniya and I can't get any of that idea conveyed in French. I am lacking this very specific vocabulary: puzzle, piece, upside down, turn it over, other way, a little to the left, right center, position, shape, wheels, caboose, engine, get your fingers out of your nose, etc. Needless to say, we had a tough time with this little puzzle. I don't believe they had ever done a puzzle prior to my arrival. Then, happily, saved by the bell. Genevieve showed up and there were clearly some doings in the office that I should look in on. Yippee, up I jump to the office.

After about 15, she leaves, I return to my post as the Puzzlemeister, and my crew of 8. Well, apparently they have done this puzzle before-many times- because when I returned they had torn it apart and reassembled it sans moi, in perfect order with no bloodshed. What next you ask? We proceed to do the puzzle a couple more times. After a bit, the center manager comes over to observe the proceedings and give her input on puzzle strategy. Let’s just say that she is far more severe in her puzzling. Puzzling is apparently a much more serious endeavor then I had naively thought. She also had way more vocabulary with which to express her strategy, because they hopped to it. “We’ll have no shenanigans during this round of the puzzle”.

Somewhere along the line we, me and the 3 year olds, start discussing (using the term very loosely) body parts: Nose, Eyes, Ears, Mouth, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. You see where I am going with this don't you? Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes, Head Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Tooooooes. Eyes and Ears and Mouth and Nose. Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes. Well, I can't exactly get a rousing chorus going but we manage to get through it a couple of times. The little ones are having as difficult time pronouncing and memorizing the body parts as I was their names. They are intently watching my mouth to see exactly how one says “mouth”. At this English lesson, I even have staff’s attention. Let me assure you, "shoulders" is really difficult for the Mauritanian tongue to handle. And Mouth? I considered Mlouf a success.

At this point it’s 10 am, time for a meal. I am not sure if this meal is considered breakfast or lunch, so let's settle on brunch. Brunch consisted of CereAmine. (Yahoo) I think I explained in my "Day in the Life” blog about how children eat here. They certainly don't take 3 bites, walk away, come back in 10 minutes, take 3 more bites, walk away, watch TV, come back take 3 more bites as my young niece and nephews did, leaving soggy bowls of cereal on the counter all morning and prolonging the meal for hours. This food is wolfed down. If they don’t wolf it down or don’t appear to be serious about ingesting this repast, their cup taken away and given to another child to relish or at least wolf down. These tikes eat every drop, scraping the bottom and shaking the bowls to get every little morsel. Okay, so brunch is over in 10 minutes flat.

The Big News. Over the course of the morning, I have managed to fall in love. In my group of 8 3-4 year olds is the most beautiful cherub I have ever laid eyes on. I think 3 is the perfect age, just a wee bit independent and just a weep bit clingy and still small enough to lift easily. I can’t tell if it is a boy or a girl. It is dressed in jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt, so my impression is that he is a boy. He has shortish curly brown hair, a round belly, enormous brown eyes and the longest doe lashes you have ever laid eyes on. Finally he lifts up his sweatshirt to reveal a frilly t-shirt underneath. And, it appears, through my acute observation, that except for this one little boy in my group of 8 girls, all of the other groups are segregated by sex. So now I assume she is a girl. Not that it matters, because we have fallen in love. After lunch she sits nearly on top of me and I can barely take my eyes off of her. But enough romance.

Brunch is over. Let the drumming and dancing can begin. Drumming and dancing are forbidden before the brunch. I was told that we would get no quiet learning done if that rule wasn’t imposed as the girls would prefer to dance all day. The boys, not so much. They were, as to be expected, reticent about this whole, getting up in public, dancing business. But out come the tomtoms, which are plastic buckets turned upside down, and the rhythm takes over the room. Doe eyes stays very close to me; I clap and she dances. The others come too. I am the piedpiper.

Well about 11:15 and it’s time to say goodbye. One mother arrives and she promptly joins into the dancing. Another mother arrives and dances too. I assume this pickup process will take 30 – 40 minutes as the mother’s arrive to collect their little ones. But no, in mass, the remaining 40ish, 3-4 year olds leave ALONE. They just step through the gate into the road, heading home on the streets with only their little selves for protection, company and sound judgment. I gasp; my heart does a little flip; as does my stomach. I wasn’t at the center early in the morning to see them arrive alone, so I had forgotten that part of my stage life with the children in my family in Boghe. Children here are out in the roads playing alone, or being attended by a slightly older sibling as soon as they can walk. They are sent to the market to fetch such and such or to neighbors to deliver such and such as soon as they can walk surefooted. It is very, very, very difficult to witness coming from the land where little ones are coddled to the point of removing lead paint, mommy and me classes and car seats. I will need to brace myself, steel my heart for Wednesday’s mass exedux, my second day as Puzzlemeister, for this rough side of Life in the RIM.

The center manager, Fatematou, is very nice, patient with my french and unruffled by the chaos of 40 children. She seemed pleased with my interaction and presence and she said that she was glad to have me there…so all in all, a grand success.

Cheers from here,

Check out my new Photos on Flickr