Walking to school only takes ten minutes

As the title suggests, walking to one of my three schools only takes ten minutes. You’d think this is hardly enough time to assemble a montage of weird. But you’d be wrong.

8:45am
Leave my house. Wave to neighbor children who chant – in no particular order – aleykum (half of “peace be with you”), bien (well), bonjour (hello), ca (half of “how are you”), isselaam (the other half of “peace be with you”), madame (me), monsieur (decidedly not me), and va (the other half of “how are you”).


8:46am
Continue down my street. Two children catch up to me, match my pace. "Miyeteyn?" one proposes. This means two hundred, as in ougiye, as in gift comma please give me. I shake my head and respond in Hassaniye, “I don’t have any money.”

He repeats himself and offers the large green, slightly decomposing bundle he is carrying. I ask him what he’s got; it’s food, he says. I ask if it’s for people or for animals.

“For animals,” he says.
“I don’t have animals at my house.”
Incredulously, “you don’t have animals?”
“Nope.”
“Miyeteyn?”

I look at him puzzled. He offers simply: you could eat it. I laugh in spite of myself, and he joins me, understanding his proposition is ridiculous. His younger companion is slower to catch on, and interrupts our laughter with “miyeteyn?”


8:47am
Pass the bakery. A slightly post-adolescent male beckons from the doorway, “monsieur.” I correct him lightheartedly, “madame.” His response is in French, simply: “five.” I ask the obvious: “five what?” He gives me what could only be called “the eye” and asks me in a sultry Arabic accent to come inside. I respectfully decline.


8:51am
Almost to the center of town. A group of melifahs approach, all forty-something. I notice one looking intently at me. Further inspection reveals a large carrot in her hand, half hidden by the folds in her veil. She is holding it near her crotch making extraordinarily phallic gestures. I say the first thing that comes to mind, the Arabic word for “welcome.” Volunteers often use this word in such unsavory contexts, and the local women love it. Together, we erupt in peals of laughter. Incredulous, I realize I just shared a penis joke with Mauritanian women in veils. I shake my head, continue toward school.


8:52am
Pass the town square. Someone calls my name. I turn my head to see a small Mauritanian man bounding down the stairs from the amphitheater. It’s Jacouba, one of my English students and a teacher at the French Alliance. He lands in front of me, greets me in his normal exuberant style.

We talk for thirty seconds before my skin begins to complain under the morning sun. I realize Jacouba has not broken a sweat. This is all the more impressive that he is dressed for late autumn in Ohio: undershirt, polo tee shirt, long sleeved button down shirt, and a vest. He is talking about how English classes are so interesting, so fabulous, such an interesting social tool to gather people of different professions, languages, cultures, countries, but I can barely concentrate. I am still processing his multi-layered outfit. He finishes praising the volunteers, fires off a cheery greeting, and I am still left speechless, hotter having witnessed his fashion sense resist melting.


8:54am
Almost to school. A car whizzes past me. The driver screams in Doppler from the window: "nti zeyne!!". I was and am still unsure how to translate this. Hassaniye is not the richest language, and zeyn has a number of meanings: good, beautiful, cute, breath-taking, delicious, etc. Think of a positive connotation and zeyn covers it. I am thinking “you are delicious” is not what the driver intended, but one never knows…


8:55am
Cue end credits.

St. Patty’s Day, part 2: eleven arguments against open-toed shoes

Sunday night. Finally. I force my key into the lock, step into my courtyard, my space. After hiking over boulder-strewn canyons, fitfully dozing on unforgiving dirt surfaces, teaching in classrooms dusty with sand and chalk, all I want is a shower and some sleep. I walk into my bedroom and flick on the dim light attached to my fan (my overhead light has been broken for months). While slinging my bags on the floor, I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I shine my cell phone toward the noise. Yes, movement, I’m sure of it now. I creep across the room, armed with a phone and the scarf I just peeled from my head. Scuttling across the concrete floor, my visitor darts into the light. He is armed with two pincers, eight legs, and one thick, muddy yellow-colored stinger. He is three inches long, which is significant in a scorpion-sized world. He does not know how to find the door.

My stomach sinks. I’m exhausted, I’m dirty, and how on earth am I going to get this arachnid out of my house without one, killing him, and two, getting his venomous tail lodged in my flesh?

First things first, I need a light. Better quality than my nokia torche¹. I immediately call KM, meet her in town, and borrow her 21-led burn-your-retinas flashlight². I enter my house, much more cautiously than before, hear scampering clicks of tiny legs, and lunge for my mattress. A mere six inches off the floor, I realize this will afford me significantly less protection than I’d like. If my little friend can climb, I’m as good as stung. At least I’ll see his stinger administering the soup: I’m now armed with a spotlight, a large cup and a broom. We chase each other around the room a bit, I yelp, he pinces, I dodge, we dance, we both get rather agitated. Finally, he gets caught in a cloth in front of my bookcase, and I come to a conclusion. I heave a sigh and begin conversing with my house guest.

“Look little guy. I’d try to scoop you in this cup if I could. I’d throw you outside and let you sting someone else to your intravascular system’s content. But frankly, you are pissed, and I am an all-too-easy target for your vengeful little tail.”

I pause, waiting for an improbable response to ease my guilt and insulate my karma. Instead, he scratches and scurries under the cloth.

“So look,” I continue, “I’m sorry. I’m going to have to kill you. With this broom. Several feet from my vulnerable toes. But I’m sorry. Really. I’m sorry.” And then I beat the little bugger to death.

The scorpion is still in my house, bludgeoned, messy and hidden under a laundry basket. I can’t bring myself to throw him away, and I irrationally expect to meet his friends by moonlight in my courtyard. Strange that Saturday night’s worst fear was Sunday’s night’s after-dinner debacle is now every night’s paranoia. In a few weeks, I’m sure my arachnophobia will fade and my conscience will recover. For now, at the end of the day, walking through my doorway, I’ll step lightly, slightly guiltily.


1: The nokia torcheis the Target brand of West African cell phones: dependable, no-frills, cheap. The “torche” refers to the dim little bulb embedded in the phone. Diurnally, my nokia is communication; nocturnally, it is protection against stepping in a pile of Mauritania (e.g. goat droppings, fish heads, diapers, open cesspools).

2: This astonishing flashlight has the rumored ability to “blind God” and is the first step in the “blind first, then stab” defense policy of female Atar volunteers.

St. Paddy’s Day, part 1: a party, on the rocks, shaken and stirred

Volunteer life, I have realized, revolves around holidays. In Mauritania, fêtes come in many flavors: Muslim (Ramadan), Christian (yep, kids get off for Christmas and Easter), national (Mauritania’s Independence Day), international (Women’s Day) and even secular (each cacophonous election cycle). Essentially, RIM PCVs count down the days to the next socio-culturally sanctioned reason to skip work. We then celebrate heartily, return, recuperate, and immediately begin planning the next holiday. Don’t misunderstand, we are yoked oxen in the meantime, working seven days a week, planning and executing substantial projects, and accumulating street credit on behalf of all future volunteers. That said, we revel in our holidays.

This past weekend, we honored Saint Patrick. Born circa 389 A.D., he brought Christianity to Ireland and provided mankind an excuse to drink heavily beginning 7:30am, every March 17th until the Kingdom happens to come. Unfortunately, my work schedule prevented an early morning start, but by 1pm, the Adrar volunteers had packed into a 4x4¹ bound for Teyaritt, an oasis ~15km outside of the city.

Our fearless driver Momo, who had flown recklessly over dunes and destroyed roadway, lost his nerve at the entrance of the canyon. Brittle acacias armed with thorns wove between enormous boulders littering the canyon floor. The only flat surfaces visible were large, black faces of rocks jutting perpendicularly skyward and the ceiling of the sky itself – hardly drivable terrain. After securing a ride back the next day (a “maybe”-turned-shaky-“inshallah” from Momo), we took our tuna, bread, beverages² and green tee shirts into the gorge.

The canyon walls were several degrees steeper than sheer. Looking up, up, up, the cliffs bowed with incredible weight and threatened to collapse over our heads. Red-brown rock dominated the landscape, filled every inch of our peripheral vision. We vaulted over boulders, stumbled into ravines, and bruised tanned elbows. The hike lasted just short of 45 minutes, but in the heat of 2pm Mauritania desert, it felt considerably longer. Just when the ligaments in my knees could take no more rock-hopping impacts, I heard someone gasp ahead of me, “it’s paradise.”

It was indeed paradise. We had taken a fork at the end of which was a blue green pool, sparkling in the sunlight. Water dripped from walls dressed in green, leafy vines. The rock faces seemed taller, more majestic now that they framed a hidden, perfect lagoon. We immediately stripped down to suits and plunged into the icy water. Refreshing barely begins to express the moment.

We dove off pocked ravine walls, followed warm currents of water, scrambled over algae-covered stones, and let tiny fish nip at our toes. Eventually, our core temperatures sufficiently chilled, we headed for the shore to administer music (a playlist thoughtfully named “have a Guinness”) and beverages. Swimming, giggling, photographing, and fire building ensued. Rumor has it that a few of us tried high altitude cliff diving, some had an Irish-Scottish accent war, another had an involved fight with a sticker bush, and yet another fell asleep with her feet soaking on the pool shore. I will neither condone nor claim any of these feats, on my or anyone else’s behalf. Just anonymous skeletons in the closet of our future political careers.

From one perspective, the party was pretty tame. True to Mauritanian form, when the sun went down, so did we. In fact, the fire lasted longer than I did. Around midnight, I woke with my head precariously close to long-dead coals and my feet… let’s say precariously close to the water. Freezing, still clad in a bathing suit, and flummoxed by the zipper on my sleeping bag, I inched my way up the shore and bundled up best I could. Unfortunately, the nylon cocoon only works when zipped. As a result, I was exposed to chilly breezes (the hypothermia from which I could have sleepily ignored) and would be attacks from phantom scorpions (the fear of which kept me in a half-conscious, paranoid stupor until sunrise).

The sun did finally rise, and I found myself on a 45 degree incline, my feet braced against a rock, my face and shoulder in the dirt. My sleepless night no longer a mystery, I clambered further up the bank to seek level, dry ground and a few winks before everyone else braved the crisp morning. I found a small patch of sand, rehabilitated my zipper in the faint of dawn, and promptly drifted off.

Eventually, the sunlight, blinding and persistent, demanded my attention. We ate a piecemeal breakfast of hardboiled eggs, peanut butter, bananas and bread. Reluctant to leave (and still frozen, stiff from last night), we bottled and treated water for the hike back and sunned ourselves poolside for a few more hours. Only an overnight vacation, but memorable, certainly. Well, mostly.

The hike back out was uneventful, rocky, sweaty. And, mashallah, Momo arrived at the canyon entrance just as we did, smiling and waving from his dust covered truck. We barely arrived in Atar just in time to write a lesson and go (directly and unshowered) teach an English class. The increasing temperatures mean decreasing attendance lists, so KM and I combined our depopulated classes and taught “party vocabulary” tag-team style³. Productive, professional, if a little pungent. And a great segue from a festive Teyaritt getaway into a fruitful work week in Atar.


1: 4x4 is pronounced “cat cat.” Naturally, this should strike me as French (as in quatre quatre) but more often than not, it strikes me as cute in that small feline sort of way.

2: Um. Beverages. St. Patty’s Day. This is what we call “duh.”

3: Party vocabulary in an English class taught to Mauritanian adults included phrases such as “to invite guests,” “to prepare food,” and “to clean up the mess.” St. Patty’s Day vocabulary (“accent war” or “homebrewed brousse wine” for example) was less relevant, less tame, and thus excluded from the lesson.

Saving face worldwide

I was leaving my house this morning when I heard the telltale shift of boubou fabric approaching me from behind. As a young, white moor man passed me, his sandal caught on a tin can half buried in the dirt. He broke into a light jog, his body language asserting, “no, I didn’t trip; I meant to change my pace at exactly the moment when I should have stumbled.” It’s comforting to know that certain human coping mechanisms are universal.