Calling All Teachers!

From the first day at the teacher training college I felt like I belonged in the room of loud, talkative, and outgoing trainees. I shared even more in common with my classmates because they came from across the country for the multicultural, project-based focus of the program.

Fast forward ten years and I have now become a teacher-trainer. I jumped into action this year with an intense program that began just a few days after I arrived back from my summer vacation. After finishing two out of three weeks, the end is just around the corner. 

I have been so delighted to have the chance to coordinate this program, which brought together teachers working throughout Mauritania to participate in a training led by an experienced facilitator brought all the way from Australia! I have been bombarded with the endless details needed to run the program but my belief if strong that it is all worth it!

Being in a crowded room of noisy, passionate teachers reminded me of the exhilarating feeling I felt when I started my classes at Evergreen. I love being a room filled with teachers. Even though it has been frustrating every day to get the teachers to focus and to try to stop their endless socializing, I realize how important it is for the teachers to have that unstructured time to laugh and joke with their colleagues. I can only imagine how much they have to share with each other.

Because teaching requires adults to spend many hours each day alone in the presence of teenagers, although teachers are not alone, the work can be quite isolating. In the context of Mauritania, the teachers may be the only ones who speak English in the villages where they are sent to teach. This only adds to the isolation. Since the government lacks the funds and resources to provide on-going professional development, many teachers have been teaching for years without receiving any training or opportunity to share experiences with their colleagues. By coordinating this program, I am hoping to contribute to the efforts of bridging that gap. I also want to establish a foundation for future training, whether done by the teachers themselves or another expert from abroad. 

During the past two weeks, I have been reminded of the path I have taken to arrive here. I remember working harder than I have ever before throughout my two years of teacher training. I also remember observing my professors working around the clock to plan, facilitate, review, and evaluate the sessions. These professors have left an enormous impact on my life and I know that I am now doing my best to follow in their wise footsteps. I hope that one day these trainees will also become trainers!

Taxi Drivers

Taxi drivers are my friends. They carry me in safety to where ever I want to go. They show me all the best restaurants and are excellent tour guides. They help carry my heavy boxes and bags from place to place. They almost always have a smile in store, even during a traffic jam. 

In Mauritania, the taxi drivers are all of those things, and more. People come from all over West Africa to drive taxis in Mauritania so it is always a good start of the ride to ask the friendly driver where he is from (all taxi drivers here are men). Recently, I have had drivers from Niger, Ghana, the Gambia, and Guinea. Often, the drivers never intended to be relegated to the road. They came here with the sea on their minds! 

Since Mauritania is near Europe, and the lack of control at the Ports, many young Africans come here to catch boats headed for the coast of Spain. You can read more about this issue here. When I met a taxi driver from Ghana, I asked him what in the world would bring him to Nouakchott. I was surprised when he began recounting his entire ordeal to me. 

Roger arrived in Nouakchott and paid someone 4,000 Euro for a place on a large boat with 100 other people. He was at sea for several days before the ship was intercepted by immigration officials. Everyone on board was arrested and incarcerated for two weeks. When it was finally time to see a judge, Roger's case was denied. Soon after, Roger was on a plane with a one-way ticket back to Nouakchott. 

Now Roger has no money to pay for his return trip to Ghana. He said he didn't want to take another ship, especially after the unfortunate journey of the friend he traveled with from Ghana who decided to try again. He was lost at sea. Even if Roger did want to try, it would take a long time for him to save enough money to make the trip. Roger is stuck in a place that is not home and cannot offer a better life than the one he was desperate to leave behind. 

Since meeting Roger, I have met many more taxi drivers with variations of this story. Despite the dangers at every step of the journey, everyday hundreds of young men risk losing everything for the promise of opportunity. Yet after hearing these stories, I have not gained a better understanding of why intelligent, strong people would take this bold decision. I have, however, gained a clearer picture of the journey and the many obstacles encountered. It has become even more incredible for me to imagine how anyone actually manages to successfully complete their journeys. Of course, a whole new set of challenges awaits the undocumented immigrants when they finally arrive. 

After telling me his story and dropping me off to wherever it was that I was going, Roger offered to show me the market where Ghanaian women serve up the best plates of Red Red, Fufu, and Jollaf rice. I haven't yet taken him up on that offer but I have added it to my list of things to do.


By providing a personal testimony of their lives, taxi drivers can provide insight into issues we may otherwise only read about in the newspaper. In the fascinating country of Mauritania, taxi drivers have astonishing stories to tell!

Time Flies

Ten months. Half a bottle of balsamic vinegar. One large bottle of Advil. Two bottles of sunscreen. Three bottles of olive oil. Four tanks of gas for my stove. Five notebooks. Six batteries for my flashlight. Seven Uniball pens. Eight lightbulbs. 


These are some of the things that I used throughout the year that can be counted. There are many other things I use everyday that I could never hope to measure, such as the number of bottles of water, pounds of coffee, or cans of chickpeas consumed. 


When I live in the United States, I never keep track of how much of things I use. I simply buy what I need and forget about it. Yet living abroad forces me to plan and monitor what I need, since I carried most of these things with me from home. 


This year as I was planning in my head what I needed to bring, I thought that I would barely need anything. A seasoned traveler knows that nearly anything can be bought locally anywhere in the world. I like to think of myself as a simple person who is content to live a simple life with the basic things. Yet when it came time to actually fill my suitcases, I found them stuffed with non-essential things, such as bags of dried black beans, cornmeal, pecans, and chocolate bars. Of course, I don't NEED these things to survive. They simply make me happy to have. 


I am back in Nouakchott with refreshed supplies for another year. I can now stop counting what I use and just enjoy my remaining time in this city that is slowly becoming my home. 

Cousins

Today I opened my computer to look for a document. I saw one I didn't recognize the title of and opened this lovely little surprise:

10 WAYS WHY I LOVE MY COUSIN DEEDI

1. COUSIN DEEDI IS REALLY REALLY CURIOUS
2. SHE HAS ALWAYS GOT MY BACK
3. SHE IS REALLY FUNNY
4. P.S I LIKE TURTLES
5. SHE IS ESPECIALLY REALLY COOL AND AWESOME AND MODERN
6. GREAT STYLE
7. ADVENTURES THAT YOU HAVE TAKEN ARE REALLY AWESOME
8. CARES ABOUT EVERYTHING ESPECIALLY THE EARTH
9. UNDERSTANDS THAT THERE IS ONLY FUN IN FAMILY REUNIONS
10. FINALLY BUT NOT LEAST VERRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYY HELPFUL 

SINCERELY:YOUR COUSIN... LOVE YOU TONS 

Swearing like Sailors

It is true what they say about sailors swearing. Yesterday on my flight from Paris to Nouakchott I had the good fortune of sitting next to two swearing sailors, Vitali and Erline. There was a total of 38 sailors on the plane. They were the entire international crew of a fishing boat headed for the Canary Islands the following morning. It was time for the necessary annual repairs, such as fan replacement for the coolers, etc. To my right was Vitali, a 22-year-old Russian sailor. His Sailor's Identity Card listed the names of the six ships he previously worked on. 

I didn't see Erline's card, but his must have been significantly longer. Erline was originally from Norway. He wanted to be an electrician but didn't have the grades needed to further pursue his studies in this field. At 15, Erline met a crew of sailors with expertise in radio repair. Soon after, he followed them to the high seas, where he spent the rest of his career across the globe, from Iraq, to Mozambique, to Mauritania. Erline's shirt said, "Urban Surf Culture," which somehow seemed ironic given that he has been on a ship for most of the past 33 years! They both drank insane amounts of alcohol throughout the trip. 

Since Vitali spoke no English (or French), Erline moved over to sit next to me during the stop in Casablanca. Erline told me that the coast of Mauritania has the best fishing in the world and he would know, since he has seen most of it with his own eyes! He also told me that the best work is in ships carrying ores, since the cargo takes a long time to load and gives the fishermen time to explore the cities where they land. Most of Erline's life has been spent on ships carrying oil, which is dangerous work and has brought him to the forefront of many wars. 

Although I loved hearing Erline's stories about his adventures, the irrelevance of Morse code in today's technological age, and his greatest regrets (he would not share his number one regret, only his second), my eyes were becoming heavier and heavier with each passing hour. I finally had to tell him that I needed to rest and wanted to watch the JLo movie playing on the screens above. To my surprise, Erline put on his headphones too and looked over at me from time to time to share in a laugh or change in the plot line. I was nearly shocked when Erline laughed at the jokes, especially because the movie was not really funny. The thought that this tough and hardened sailor could genuinely find JLo hilarious made me laugh too, so that despite my extreme fatigue, Erline and I were laughing together throughout most of the awful movie. 

Meeting these sailors on the flight to Nouakchott reminded me of why I live here and how fortunate I am to be able to work in Mauritania. I love meeting the diverse range of people who live and work in this country of never-ending paradoxes. 

Girls Weekend

This year when I was home some of my friends from the East Coast joined me for a girls weekend in Virginia! I thought it would be fun to have some African outfits made for the occasion. I imagined that the ladies would wear them for a photo and we would all have a laugh. 

I was delighted when my friends all put the outfits on right away and wore them for the rest of the weekend. I was very happy when Jennifer brought cassava flour with her from Madison and we tried our cooking skills with peanut stew and fufu. 

The next day we wore the outfits to go canoeing and have a picnic. We even ventured to Dinosaur Land, a magical place located near the cabin where we were staying! 

I picked a simple pattern and design for the outfits. I asked a tailor in Nouakchott to make the seven outfits with a shirt and matching plain wrap skirt that could be used later as a picnic blanket/towel/tablecloth, etc. 

The end result may be a bit old-fashioned, but I could not be prouder of my brilliant friends! They are always up for anything! Even climbing into the jaws of a gigantic shark....

I can't wait to see next year's shenanigans!

72 Hours in Thilogne

My last destination in West Africa before heading home for summer vacation was Thilogne, Senegal. I was invited by my friends living in the United States to visit their families. 

I stayed with the family of one of my former students in New York. I hope he has the chance to visit his family this year because it all seemed too unfair. Because he couldn't get time off work from Walmart, I got to spend a week hanging out with his two wives, five children, and entire extended family, in addition to all of his friends. I was even able to see his new house before him! 

Every two years, a community organization of Thilogne coordinates a massive cultural festival. The festival includes many types of events, from community service projects to music concerts, etc. 

My favorite event was a traditional event when local goat herders all come together to demonstrate their strong herding skills! I loved the energy and excitement of the crowd! It was magnificent!

Traveling to Thilogne was one of the highlights of the year. Meeting more of my friends children, wives, and families strengthened my understanding of the many sacrifices they make each day and the source of their continued strength and motivation. 

I plan on visiting my new friends in Thilogne soon and I also hope I can participate in the next Festival in 2012!