try anything, enjoy everything

4:30pm, 1 July 2006, Kaedi girl’s dorm

Up early for voyage into Kaedi. Ok, so it’s only 8am, but after two days of sleepless travel and twelve hours of training and innoculations, it feels crack-of-dawn-like. We pile into the same truck that herded us from the airport to Nouakchott Auberge two nights before. I am crammed into a gear shift, the 4-wheel drive lever, fellow volunteer Haley, and a non functioning air conditioning vent. I could not be happier. Strangely chipper in the oppressive heat, I immediately introduce myself to our driver, Nati, who is more than keen on conversation. Between my garbled French and his light hearted banter and blagues (jokes), we make five hours and five hundred kilometers fly by.

At the border of each region are gendarmes (police), high on power trips and desert fumes. They monitor (read: impede) traffic, inspect passing vehicles, and request paperwork or bribes. Nati waves his Peace Corps travel authorization at the guards and saucily requests that they mange ca (eat this) as we drive away in stitches of laughter.

I squint into the sun and take in the desert, my prankster friend, this journey. Nati’s lightly stained boubou – once white, now dingy cream – blends in to the pale sand, his wiry limbs and gnarled beard are grey with dirt and age. He points to the seemingly empty landscape, unfolding in expansive sandy patches and reminds me that this is not a “real” desert. Too many trees, he says. I double take out the window. To be honest, the dunes lining the route to Kaedi are peppered with more trees than I expected, little scraggly things with waxy leaves and crusted bark. Green, but pitiful. I am shocked – if not frightened – to hear Nati describe a Mauritanian location with even less greenery, roads, cars, people and livestock.

Oh, the livestock.

Anyone who has done long distance driving with me – be it backwoods Ohio, mountainous Vermont, Costa Rica or Ireland – knows my love for livestock. Happily, sheep and cows are everywhere, but the bread and butter of Mauritanian herding culture are goats and camels. So many camels. Nati teaches me animal names in French (chevres and chameaux) and wows me with a gruesome desert story. Stranded in the Sahara, a group of nomads were faced with scorching heat and impending dehydration. With no other options, one of the men opened up a camel for water. Just killed it, cut it open, removed the stomach, and used it as a water bottle. I look at Nati, incredulous, and ask him where he heard this story. I didn’t hear it, he explains, I was there. Je l’ai vu. Apparently, his desert survival skills are not limited to camel water bottles; Nati can also tell perfect direction without a compass, survive weeks in the desert without dying (no small feat, I felt sufficiently drained after just an afternoon), direct a caravan of volunteers with limited bladder capacity and tolerance for arid climates, manipulate a gear shift while someone sits on it, pee inconspicuously five feet from the road in about five seconds, and keep an American girl giggling for hours in 110 degree weather. I consider him my first friend made on the continent. And if I ever make it to Nouakchott (his workplace) or Oudin (his hometown), I’ll be sure to look him up.

We arrive in Kaedi, dazed and salty – from the sweat or sand, I can’t tell – and are greeted by the entire Peace Corps staff, lined up like a baseball team, ready to shake our hands. It is a gracious, if not confusing, welcome, and I take the rare opportunity to shake hands with the men. As a woman, this kind of cultural boundary might not be breeched again…

The volunteers heave already dusty bags onto mats spread over the dormitory floor and trudge to the refectoire (fancy Peace Corps name for cafeteria). Exhausted, we are corralled into lines at small plastic basins, each adorned with a makarej and soap. The first person washes his hands, then with his left hand, holds the makarej to help the second person wash his hands. The hand washing is assembly line-efficient and, like all things Mauritanian, communal. We guard our clean right hand, awkwardly suspending it in mid air, and stumble on to the floor around mats. Five or six people share a plate of goat, rice, peppers, tomatoes, olives and oil, eating with their right hand, leaning on their left. Khorou – a staff member seated next to me – wonders how I find Mauritanian eating. I nod vigorously, my mouth still full of delicious, if foreign, food: “it’s great” I mumble, as I go in for another handful. He is shocked that I am not shocked, surprised that I am not disgusted. Perhaps my cultural curiosity is novel? I make a mental note to remain willing to try anything, if only for the amusement of the locals.

Immediately following lunch, I run to my first training session in country. As in Philly, I have no idea what is going on or what to bring, but at least I have a time and place. I count myself lucky and make a second mental note to remain patient. I feel in tune with Mauritania and the local proverbs hanging on the walls of the refectoire:

“Little by little, the bird makes its nest.”
“Patience leads to success.”