Revelations

field journal

What an amazing day (or two) of revelations. The only order I can muster is chronological, so here goes…

First, I wrote extensively in my cross cultural journal about my unexpected pseudo interview with Brahim re: slavery and racial tensions in Mauritania, but I feel like the discussion bears revisiting. To be honest, I had no idea why we were assigned the cross cultural slavery TDA (trainee directed activity, essentially PCV homework) since I had witnessed absolutely none in a month of living here. I wrote up the TDA, explaining that all work in my family was equally distributed and that I barely understood the assignment. After my discussion with Brahim, however, I finally started to grasp the reality and relevance of slavery here in the RIM and even noticed buried examples of racism within my family. My mother’s aversion to Erin’s elephant print skirt from Kaedi or the Pulaar music playing the other day that was decidedly “maa zeyn” (not good)… dominoes were falling into place. In any case, I was able to rewrite my TDA from a more enlightened perspective. Although I am only recently and partially educated, I feel one hundred times more prepared for my site– an overwhelmingly conservative, white moor city – than I was just last week.

Second, yesterday after our environmental timeline interview, I was able to witness firsthand the expression of what I would call white moor assimilation. Ginger’s dad Ba, a black moor living next door to a former slave community, provided a perfect – if sad – example of the very phenomenon Brahim had explained just hours before. To hear Ba claim complete equality with the bidhani (white moor) population while simultaneously accepting his own child’s hypothetical slavery… it was too surreal. Some theory I hate to see in practice, and assimilated oppression is best kept in hypotheticals.

Revelation number three: I have never met any of my siblings. This one really rocked my world, especially since I was sure I had one sister and five brothers. Turns out, I only have one brother, someone I’ve never met named Jacob who lives in Nouadhibou. Everyone else – Kadijetou sqiire, Muhammed, Lemine, Muhammed Lemine, and Haruman are all adopted. In fact, the first two, to whom I’m closest, belong to my aunt Aichetou, who prior to today was unmarried without children. Nope, she’s got a husband who visits occasionally and two kids that have been raised by her sister, my mom, Teitta. As curious as I was about my family tree, I never mustered the courage to ask beyond the obvious. Children and ages are such sensitive subjects here… And to be honest, I’d rather live in ignorance punctuated by mind blowing revelation. In other words, I’d like to live in extremes. Big surprise, I know.

Revelation number four is petty but relevant when your wordprocessor consists of a tattered notebook and a bic. You know the saying “sometimes, you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you?” I now know the Maurtanian equivalent: “sometimes the ink bleeds on the page, sometimes it gets stuck in the pen for no apparent reason making you wish you had brought two boxes worth of pens from the States.”

Home assumes a new location as I pack my bags again...

Final revelation: I met my dad today. This is strange, since I thought I had already met my dad two weeks ago when some man named Hassain stripped me of my Muslim name after a failed conversion attempt. I still don’t understand how, even with my then limited language skills, I could have misidentified someone as my dad and received confirmation from other family members, but I am glad to have been mistaken. The following I know now to be true:

- my dad did not try to send me home
- my dad did not try to convert me or take my name away from me in front of my mom
- my dad did not “ask me over for tea” in front of my mom (a very weird moment at the time since she just laughed)
- my dad did not suggest that my best friend Frances was my zewje (wife) and then throw strange glances in my direction

All in all, this revelation is the most pleasant. My actual dad is a true gentleman with great French and a pleasant speaking voice. It was a treat to see Teitta interact with him, up talking all night like young kids in love. It’s a shame that I leave for Kaedi tomorrow, but there is little you can do with unlimited wants and limited time. I cannot very well stay here in Sabualla and also go to site visit. Home assumes a new location as I pack my bags again.