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.

Tomorrow is the last day of school for the year. We will have a week out of classes before the students come back and do their end of the tri-mestre exams. As soon as the students come back for exams though, I will be leaving for two weeks of liver-pounding fun in Nouakchott and St. Louis. I am inconceivably excited to leave Akjoujt for a while and spend some time with friends I have not seen for three months.

The last month has been fairly action packed, in a Mauritanian sense. I went with the other volunteers from Akjoujt and the volunteers in the Adrar region to Atar for thanksgiving and then on to Chinguetti for a camel trek. I ate a ton of food, including cherry and pumpkin pies (thank you heather), good chicken, mashed potatoes, pesto, and other stuff I can't recall. The camel trek was really enjoyable. Although camels aren't a particularly comfortable animal to ride and it is much to cold in the desert for my now uber thin blooded self. The massive sand dunes around Chinguetti are amazing...just endless nothingness.

On the way to Atar we were accompanied by a goat. This goat was a gift to Kristen (PCV Atar) and what is a camel trek without adequate sustenance. There was no room in the truck for the goat, so we did the Mauritanian thing and strapped him in a burlap sack to the roof of the vehicle. Two hours later we arrived in Chinguetti, Mark (PCV Atar) having been peed on by this goat through an open window, me having no more feeling remaining in my legs, and the goat sufficiently tenderized from regular "bumps" on an unpaved African highway. The key to any good goat meal is in the preparation. The two hours of tenderizing, and the Moroccan who prepared this goat, resulted in the best goat meal I have ever had.

Work in Akjoujt has been pretty normal. My two fifth year classes are enjoyable, because the students listen to what I say. My fourth year class is extremely frustrating, because they talk constantly and then complain about not understanding. Aparently, the students have complained to the school administration that my American accent is incomprehensible and they are used an English accent instead. So I suppose I'll start throwing in some "by joves," "prams," and "lifts" to appease them.

It will be interesting spending a Christmas outside of the U.S. or rather inside a country that doesn't celebrate christmas. I kind of forgot about thanksgiving until it came, and then was kind of bummed out to miss out on football, turkeys, etc. I suppose Christmas will be the same. I'll have a really fun time in Nouakchott and St. Louis with friend, but it would still be nice to see family...and eat ham.

It is good to hear that TU throughly thrashed Houston on their way to a conference championship. Dustin's mentioning of a tailgate ham made me think, why hadn't we thought of that before? I was somewhat dumbfounded to see that Kansas and Missouri are both ranked in the top ten, I guess you leave the country and everything goes to hell.

Last weekend I left Akjoujt for the first time in two months. I and the other volunteers in town (Hayley, Christine and Aaron) all went to visit other volunteers in Atar and have a halloween party. It is the peak tourist season in Atar and it was interesting to see tons of white people walking around. It felt weird to be somewhat anonymous again. We had a fun time in Atar, but mostly it was nice to get out of town for a few days. We will be heading back that way for thanksgiving and then further east to Chinguetti to do a three day camel trek over thanksgiving weekend. Chinguetti is an ancient town and the seventh holiest city in Islam. After that its only three weeks or so until we head to Nouakchott/St. Louis.

Prior to going to Atar for halloween we attended a party at our "club" for our friend Mario who was leaving Akjoujt to go to work in Zambia. Mario does an awesome karaoke version of all of Bon Jovi's greatest tunes. For this party we had a karaoke contest, with the winners recieving some spirited beverages. The karaoke machine gives you a score if you are on pitch and have the correct rhythm. A singles and a duet champion were proclaimed, I am proud to say the team Peace Corps won both prizes. Aaron won the singles and Hayley and I the doubles.

The next night we went to the home of Mario, he lived with a number of other filipino miners, and had a meal. I have never eaten so much good food in my entire life. We had fried chicken, steak, prawns, french fries, some delicious filipino meat bread, doughnuts and about ten thousand cold ones. I almost exploded...and then we did it again the next night. The filipino's have similar hospitality to the mauritanians, which is you should eat until you are considerably uncomfortable. Their food, however, I like.

In work related news, I gave a test this week to my English classes. I had to fail six students because of cheating. Generally, these were students who had not been attending classes and so did not know the material. These students decided though to cheat off of other students who hadn't attended classes. I would hope that if you are going to give the effort to cheat that you should at least be smart about it.

Thats about all thats been going on...I'll try to update again in the next few weeks.

Long time no post...

Well I finally have a bit of internet access after spending the last six weeks without it. Quite a bit has happened since I lasted posted.

1) I swore in as a Peace Corps volunteer
2) I left my family in Kaedi and moved into my own house in Akjoujt
3) I survived the boredom of Ramadan
4) I started my work as a teacher
5) I was robbed

I swore in as a volunteer on Sept. 6. This involved a number of speeches in languages I do not understand, meeting the deputy ambassador for Mauritania, me swearing to uphold the US Constitution and going to a bitchin' party later that night. Memories of the party are fleeting, but some footage of me dancing and singing jubilantly/impairedly is available in some areas of the country. We had a mexican fiesta for our food at the party, and when we ran out of tortillas for the bean dip I was forced to rely on the obvious backup of grilled chicken.

I left my family earlier in that week. While I was eager to move to Akjoujt and have my own space, my family in Kaedi had about thirty people in the same compound, it was somewhat sad to leave these people who had helped me so much over the past ten weeks.

After our Sept. 6 swear-in party and the day of recuperation that followed, all of the volunteers left Kaedi for our respective sites. This was a tough day. Saying goodbye to good friends that you had seen everyday over the previous ten stressful weeks, but this will make Christmas even more fun this year as we will all return to Nouakchott for a week of rest and relaxation before going to Senegal for new years and more rest and relaxation.

A week after arriving in Akjoujt with my sitemates Hayley, Christine and Aaron, Ramadan began. I did not fast for ramadan. In Sept. the temperature was typically between 45 and 50 celcius during the day. Being unable to drink water during those periods is devotion I was not willing to exhibit, especially since I am not a muslim. Life during Ramadan kind of grinds to a stop. People are too tired to do anything during the day except sleep and get very little sleep during the day as they attempt to eat enough for an entire day while the sun is down. School started in the middle of Ramadan on Oct. 1. Therefore, school did not really start at all.

My teaching schedule is four hours on Monday and Friday mornings. I wish they would have given me more hours, but this is what I was assigned. I have had a number or requests to teach English outside of the school, including a request from Mauritania's first female governor. Hopefully I will be able to find something to keep me busy during the middle of the week, besides going to our club.

I taught my first class with students on Monday Oct. 8 and during that class my home was robbed. The iron bars on my bedroom window were ripped off and the thief entered and removed my Ipod and digital camera. This kind of fucking sucked. I had not uploaded the pictures from my time in Mauritania and the Ipod was my form of western entertainment. Akjoujt's finest are on the case, but I am writing that down as a loss. What angers me the most is that the robbery happened while I was doing a job for the community, which the community had explicitedly requested. That was frustrating.

That is a brief synopsis of the past six weeks. Other things that happened include:

1) I Ate sheep head
2) Watched a number of rugby matches and have concluded that the sport is crap
3) Found out I have lost 50 pounds since arriving in Mauritania
4) Climbed a mountain, which is actually just a big hill in the middle of the desert
5) Consumed quite a few of Danish's finest refreshments
6) Bought a new boubou, a traditional berber robe for the end of ramadan fete

On my agenda for the next couple of weeks is teaching, a meeting with the governor to set up a conversation class for Mauritanian government officials, a goodbye karaoke party for a filipino miner, catholic mass, and a halloween party/road trip to Atar.