Spring Break

Well, I have just finished my first week of school since returning to Akjoujt from a well deserved break. I spent my spring break, I actually got two weeks because the Lycee d'Akjoujt wouldn't allow me to monitor tests, in Atar and Nouadhibou. I went to Atar for the third annual trash pick-up/demi-marathon. I had a good time partying it up with other volunteers, while helping the community. The gender dynamics of this weekend party was strange for the Peace Corps. Typically, there are way more girls than guys at events due to the higher rate of female volunteers as a whole. This particular party, however, had way more dudes than ladies. As a result, it turned into a pretty awesome/silly man party with lots of wrestling, practical jokes, nudity, and Point Break watching. The main party of the Atar marathon was at an oasis called Terjit. This place is absolutely beautiful, and the pool makes an excellent party local. Lets just say, I had a pretty good time.

After the marathon I hung around in Atar and then took the iron ore train to Nouadhibou with some second year volunteers heading to the COS conference in Nouakchott. The train was cold and dirty, but something I'm glad to have done. The train leaves from Choum, roughly three hours to the north of Atar, where you climb into train cars filled with powdery iron ore. Twelve hours later you arrive in Nouadhibou. Nouadhibou was fantastic, although I'll have to visit again to tell you if it has anything more than good food and television. I essentially spent all my time eating hamburgers and chinese food and watching John Langdon's collection of VHS tapes. I also got to catch up on new episodes of the Office, which was nice.

My fourth and sixth year students are preparing for the national exams and I am delightfully busy. The English teacher for the sixth year students was asked to quit while I was at WAIST, and I was asked to take on the classes. Unfortunately, these students are so far behind the national syllabus it will be difficult for any of them to pass the national exam in June. I don't know if I can remedy the situation, but its my job to try. The hot season has begun. I have not idea how hot it really is, but it is hot enough that I sweat almost twenty four hours a day. School should keep me busy the next month, but I am eagerly awaiting my trip to St. Louis for Jazz Fest.

Also, Akjoujt now has cheese. Massive wheels of gouda. Take that every other volunteer in Mauritania!

WAIST

Well I have had a very busy six weeks. The weeks leading up to February I was busy teaching and making up classes for time I would miss in Senegal for WAIST and on vacation with Heather. WAIST is the West African International Softball Tournament played at the Club Atlantique in Dakar. I traveled to Nouakchott for a mandatory safety and security meeting and then the virtually mandatory WAIST personal grooming session, before boarding a chartered bus for a eleven hour trip to Dakar. I had been looking forward to WAIST for the last several months and it lived up to my expectations. The event is a three day softball tournament for expatriates in the region. Peace Corps volunteers sent teams from Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, and Guinea. There were also several other teams made up of Americans living in Dakar. The Club Atlantique is a sporting club in Dakar and is frequented by Dakar's large expatriate community. There is a pool and bar, so I pretty much had my bases covered. The club is right next to the Atlantic ocean and you can hit a foul ball from one of the fields into the ocean if you pull the ball enough.

I had just finished playing one and half games as the starting shortstop for our B-team, when I looked up and saw a Brussels Airlines plane coming in to land. I asked myself, "Ryan what time is it? When does Heather's plane land? Is that her plane or are you confused? How many beers have you had?" I decided to not risk it and ran off the field to the nearest road and flagged down a cab. Well, I was right it was her plane...so I couldn't have been that out of it.

Heather and I stayed in downtown Dakar for the next four or five days. Downtown Dakar was a bit overwhelming for someone who has been living in Mauritania for the last nine months. There are tons of people everywhere, big buildings, good food, and the city is huge. I liked it a lot. I continued to play in the softball tournament until our team was eliminated. I then proceeded to support our A-team, which had a legitimate chance of winning the tournament. Our team progressed to the championship game, where I played the banner on my trumpet fresh from the states and cheerleaded with my trumpet throughout the playoffs.

We ended up losing in the championship game, but a fun time was had by all. After the tournament Heather and I spent the next day on the Ile de Goree. This was one of the places where slaves embarked for the Americas. The island is super picturesque and cars are not allowed on the island, which makes it incredibly different from Dakar. The next day Heather and I traveled to St. Louis Senegal and spent the next four or five days there eating, drinking beers, and going to the beach. I like St. Louis alot, it is so chilled out and a great place to relax.

After St. Louis Heather and I traveled to Mauritania. The beginning of the journey went well, but crossing the border to Mauritania was a giant hassle. Heather did not have a visa, which means that the border police had to do a little extra work. Crossing the border with a visa is already a pain, but the police were super pushy for bribes because Heather didn't have one. In the end we waited for almost four hours, had to pay the chief 7000 ougiyas, and had a terrible time.

Heather visited my site for about 18 hours. Thats pretty much all the time you need to see Akjoujt. We ate lunch at my neighbors house and she was given a veil like all the moorish women wear in Akjoujt. Heather flew out the next day from Nouakchott.

I then traveled back to Akjoujt. It was an awesome car ride, I was in the back seat of a car making a pillow shipment to Akjoujt. I was conscious for about three minutes of the three hour car ride. After returning to school, I discovered that one of the other English teachers had been fired and was not going to be replaced. So I am working more than before. Oh well, being busy makes it a bit easier to live here.

Winter in Akjoujt has arrived. We have highs in the seventies and eighties now and the winds have changed and now blow from the northeast. The winds are insanely strong. If you look to the north during the day, the sky is brown with sand blowing from across the Sahara. The lack of trees for thousands of miles lets the wind really build up and during the day it is sometimes really difficult to even walk from place to place. I am looking forward to returning to Senegal in a few weeks, where there are trees its not as dusty.

The school year is now half way over. Working in a Mauritanian school has been very interesting. I teach the fourth and fifth years of high school students(there are six years), which is equivalent to high school sophomores and juniors. The age ranges of students though is from 14-24 and attendance more resembles a college setting than a high school. Attendance is not mandatory and the final exam is such a large percentage of the final grade that simply passing that test allows a student to advance to the next year. Students are advanced by school year and not by subject. Thus, I have students that will fail English, but pass enough of their other courses to move on. But, they will be expected to complete the next years English competencies without passing the previous years prerequisite. This means that I have students who are unable to write the Latin alphabet, but will be advanced to the next level of English.

I have had a fun time interacting with the other Mauritanians at the Lycee. I teach an English class for professors, where we go over basics and then I explain slang terms to them. Afterwards we hang out and one of the professors houses and play cards and watch crap action movies in English with Arabic subtitles. My friend Cheikh Sidi recently asked if I had any dvds. I only had one, the TU-BYU game from this season. The teachers had no idea what was going on, but they are now TU fans. Heather is going to bring the TU-Bowling Green bowl game in a few weeks and I will have them watch that as well.

In house news, I have moved out of my house and I am staying with my sitemate, Hayley, until I find another place. My house was broken into during October, during Christmas break, and again last week. Unfortunately, Akjoujt is in a bit of a housing crunch right now. Akjoujt attracts quite a bit of labor from other cities in Mauritania due to the copper mine in town. The mine is expanding and so more people are moving to the city and taking any available housing. Hopefully, I'll find a place before I go to Senegal in two weeks.

Heather is going to be visiting in two and a half weeks. We are planning to spend time in Dakar, I have to play softball, and then check out the beaches and wildlife parks in Northern Senegal. We will also head up north to Mauritania and visit Nouakchott and Akjoujt. I think Akjoujt will be a day trip, there isn't a ton to see, but it would be interesting to have someone I have known for longer that seven months see where I live and talk about it to other friends. I am looking forward to seeing her and all the goodies she is going to bring with her. New skinny pants, American candy, rum, a good sleeping bag, etc.

Also, I recently found out that I'm going to be an uncle and my other sister is moving to Taiwan. I have so many people to visit throughout the world, I think the summer/fall of 2009 is going to be a ton of fun. I'd like to hit Germany, England, Taiwan, the Phillipines, and South Africa. Along with whatever I have to travel through to get there.

Well I haven't posted since before Christmas. Here is a recap of the festivities. I traveled down to Nouakchott from Akjoujt, about a two and half to three hour ride, on the 23rd. I greeted all of the other Peace Corps Volunteers I had not seen since September. I proceeded to chat it up and then a game of "Pens" went down. This was a game created during the occasional immense boredom of stage. It involved yelling, trying to throw a pen into a cup or upturned lampshade, and then some pelvic thrusting towards your opponents. Justin(the bearded guy sitting next to me and a volunteer in Tintane) and I won the game and two beers at the bar in Nouakchott. Later I ate pizza.

Christmas Eve, I purchased cheese (went for the Rocquefort), kiwis, and deli meat at the supermarket in Nouakchott and then commenced the two week foodfest. That evening, I went to the Country Director's house for the annual Christmas Eve Party he throws. The food was crazy, as is his house. I had nachos with bean dip and hummus. I had been participating in a Fantasy Football League with a number of other first year volunteers in Mauritania. I and a volunteer in Rosso, Mike, ended up in the Super Bowl. We had lamented not being able to actually watch the football games that made up our Super Bowl. Then we realized...it was monday night...Obie(the Country Director) has a sweet television set up...all we have to do is stay up til three in the morning and we can watch the deciding game. That night ended at five am...I lost.

Christmas Day was fairly typical. I returned to Obie's house after getting like four hours of sleep. Obie had donuts and I ate a lot of his donuts. After sufficiently feeding myself, I went to the beach. The beach in Nouakchott is surprisingly clean and nice. I went bodysurfing with some buddies and returned just in time for Christmas dinner. We had turkey, quiche, mac and cheese, bbqed sheep, pie, lasagna, and lots of other stuff. I literally made myself sick. I also met the U.S. Ambassador to Mauritania.

Boxing Day I had to go to the Peace Corps Bureau for a meeting about the murder of four French tourists in the interior of the country outside of Aleg. Then I went to the beach. Then I went to the bar. Somewhere in there I probably ate lebanese or chinese food too. I essentially kept the same program of eating and hanging out until virtually the entire Peace Corps in Mauritania relocated to St. Louis, Senegal.

St. Louis is pretty sweet. The part I stayed on is an island. This part of the city reminded me of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Not as racy, Senegal is still a predominantly Muslim country, but the buildings share the same French colonial architecture. In Senegal the big boutiques sell ham and cheese. I partook of these sandwiches. Then, I went to the beach. After lounging at the beach for five or six hours, I returned to my hotel. Then I went to the clubs. Quite a few Mauritanian volunteers and Senegalese volunteers frequented the Iguana during this trip, which produced a dance club filled with a ton of Americans. More Americans than I had seen in a long time. After the club I would eat a sandwich about four am and then wake up at ten to hit up the beach. This was my program during the stay in St. Louis. I puppy on top came and sat on my lap. We named him Flag after the local beer. New Years was fun, I remember singing with some African Band. We had told them it was one of the volunteers birthdays. Below is me, Levin, and Justin on New Years Eve.


I ate a pizza in St. Louis with an egg on top. I also ate a hamburger in Nouakchott with an egg on top. Both things are delicious. The egg on the pizza fused with the cheese to create a substance better than its sum. The beef and egg on the hamburgers provided the protein I needed to be at my finest.

We returned to Nouakchott, we had to cross the Senegal river this time on a canoe, for training. Training was work, but it was work in Nouakchott. I relaxed, went to the beach, and ate some more good food. For our final meal in Nouakchott Justin and I went with some girls to a Tunisian restaurant. The food was good, but it was not an eggburger. As soon as we finished we went to eat another meal, its a long trip to Akjoujt and I would need the strength.

After jamming ten people in a station wagon bound for Akjoujt, I arrived home. I discovered my house had been broken into. A pack of cards, a can of peppers, and some hand sanitizer was missing. The didn't take a hundred dollar bill or the ipod charger they failed to steal in October. My house was broken into again this week and again nothing was taken. As a result, I am searching for a new house. The real pain is how heavy my air conditioner is and how I had to carry it from my house to Hayley's (my sitemate) for storage and repair the hole in the house it made.

School is going well. I have started an English class for the other professors at the Lycee. We are also starting English classes for the community. I am also growing a monster beard for the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. It will probably turn into a monster mustache, but nothing is set in stone.