If happy and crazy had a love child

back in Sabualla

Bipolar as my existence tends to be, I am making an attempt – in certain areas – to strike a balance. My quest for the middle ground is framed by two of today’s happenings: a melifa presentation and an afternoon garden visit.

My family this morning was all smiles when I stepped out of my room in a new Kaedi dyed melifa. Teitta could hardly contain herself as she applauded my fashion sense and proclaimed me Mauritanian for the day. The enthusiastic reception confirmed both my decision to wear the melifa at all and my decision to wait a few weeks before unveiling my veil, as it were.

Confirmation was welcome since the melifa is a tricky beast. These full-body veils are usually administered by force, host mom tenderly restraining you while sisters wrap you head to toe in nine yards of cloth. For a Mauritanian volunteer, it is the equivalent of a tattoo: once inked, you can’t easily go back. Each day thereafter, the skimpy three yards of long skirt and head scarf is painfully inadequate; your family expects more. Like it or not. Because I actively decided to wear a melifa, though, I could embrace it on my own schedule. Because I deliberately (miraculously) delayed the event, I was not fulfilling my family’s expectations but rather giving them a gift. That, and I was practicing for the inevitable melifa required in the conservative city of Atar.

Strange then, that volunteers in Atar do not wear melifas. Reeling is a forceful word, but I am certainly processing my revised fashion destiny. Why such shock? Why not relief? Initially, I thought it was the loss of an expectation: I had already resigned myself to the unwieldy mass of fabric and now had to adjust back to Old Navy skirts. I quickly realized though, clothing was not the issue. The issue was culture.

Why don’t we have to wear melifas? Why is it acceptable to reject local culture, especially for something as clear-cut as appropriate dress? My fellow volunteers and trainees were quick with a response: we don’t like melifas and we just collectively refuse. Implicit in this unanimous reply was a request verging on threat: don’t cave in to the melifa and ruin it for all future volunteers. When I proposed wearing a mix of local and American clothing, I received only hostile glares.

Which brings me to balance. I can understand occasional resistance to the melifa; even the simplest activities become agonizing events with so much extra fabric. I bear witness to difficulties from the khyme to the garden. But if clothing plays a role in integration, why should we make no effort? Why should I be chastised for participating in Mauritanian culture? Isn’t that why we are here? Each time I search for advice on this subject, I am instructed not to “ruin it for all of us” and each time I consult my gut, it is either silent or indecisive.

Awaiting melifa resolution, I’ll move on to the second happening of the day that revolves about the issue of balance. Tonight, the trainees visited our plots for the first time in two weeks. We expected dried up watermelons or half goat-eaten cowpeas or maybe under watered tree seedlings. What we found, however, was largely unexpected: our small gardens almost entirely tilled over. Granted, my yields were short of spectacular, a meager spread of cowpeas and an okra or two. But what remained resembled the aftermath of an agricultural apocalypse. Burms destroyed, okra and the start of small peanuts buried, grass and dirt chunks littered everywhere. Erin’s loss was more pronounced; she mourned the death of melons, peas, carrots and almost sprouted beets, two plots mercilessly tilled.

I am well aware that out plots grew on borrowed land and that we asked the cooperative to water the greenery in our absence. It is possible, nay one hundred percent probable, that their tilling efforts were well-intentioned. Hence a shrug and a helpless giggle on my part after I had a minute to digest the destruction. Regardless of intentions, this miscommunication merited a brief discussion with the coop, if only to ensure that the same thing does not happen to next year’s volunteers. Surprisingly, my site mates did not agree. “This is a good lesson for future PCTs: don’t expect to maintain a pristine plot if the land doesn’t belong to you. Let them learn the hard way, like us.”

Which brings me again to balance. Why such an extreme lesson? True, our loss was meager trivial; a few plants still remain and training is nearly over. Still, there must be a grey area between forcing the coop to sign an eighty page contract and allowing them to rip up our plots at will. Beggars should not be choosers, but are we really beggars? Although we are borrowing the land, doesn’t this community benefit from our presence? By resolving this issue with the coop, are we really robbing next year’s PCTs of a valuable lesson? Don’t we experience enough failure and loss without purposefully manufacturing it? Can there not be a mix of protection and exposure, especially during training?

I suppose I should consult the Peace Corps calendar. Clearly, I missed where “question everything” is scheduled… Despite my best efforts, I expect the onslaught of questions to continue while answers remain elusive. And I’ll take it with a slightly disoriented but persistent smile. It will be my own personal balance of happy and crazy.