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.