Peace Corps Take Two: Becky in Ukraine

I'm Moving...my blog that is.

2010-07-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

Peace Corps has been encouraging us for quite some time to password protect our blogs. When I was in Mauritania I thought this was unnecessary because I could count on one hand the number of people I knew who could speak English or use the internet, and maybe no one who could do both. I now know many people who have mastered both the internet and reading English (okay..maybe not mastered). I have decided to move to a site where I can password protect. If you get info from my mom, she'll e-mail the password. Otherwise, I'll put it on facebook or you can e-mail, or just try to figure it out since it's not very tricky.

Thanks for reading!

The new site is: https://beckyrobinson1.wordpress.com/

Almost there!

2010-06-06T03:39:00.000-07:00

Don’t really know where to start…I know it’s been a while since I’ve written, but then again, my parents are probably the only ones keeping track. Things have been going great here in Ukraine. Summer is an amazing time to live here. It’s warm, and there are flowers and fresh fruits and vegetables everywhere. We have one week of training left, and on June 14th, I’ll finally know where I’ll be living for the next two years. As of right now, I have absolutely know idea, which I think is how Peace Corps likes it. I’m very excited for training to be over, but I will really miss my family. They’ve been so nice to me, and as my language improves and we can actually talk, I am now only starting to realize how amazing they are. I will definitely be back to visit them.

They’ve kept us pretty busy these last couple of months. Since our third week, we’ve been teaching health classes in Ukrainian. Oh, funny story (not really). We get assigned our topics, the first week, after only being here three weeks, my partner Matt and I were assigned to teach about spiritual health. You can imagine how that went. I don’t even think I can teach that in English. But lessons have been getting easier every week. As part of our training, we also ran a summer camp. The camp included first through tenth graders, which made it a little hectic, but is was really fun. We also held an “Ivanivka’s Got Talent” talent show. The house was packed and we raised a good amount of money for the culture house. We also had to dance and sing on stage, and we managed to learn a Ukrainian song (plus, we got to wear traditional outfits!)

That’s about all. A lot of working and studying and hanging out with the fam. I’ll write more when I know where my site is.

I always like to end with something fun, so I’ll give you some of my favorite Ukrainian superstitions:

Don’t whistle inside. Whoever owns the house will lose all their money.

Women, don’t sit on anything made of concrete without at least a blanket under you. It will freeze your ovaries and you’ll never have babies.

If you just drink vodka, you won’t be hungover the next day, no matter how much you drink. But if you drink just a little beer and a little vodka, expect to feel horrible the next day.

That’s all for now. I hope to hear from many of you soon. Enjoy summer in America!

Check out the new pictures!

The First Week!

2010-04-11T02:09:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Ukraine. I apologize for being under the radar for so long, and I especially apologize to any of you who had to calm down my parents when they hadn’t heard from me in over a week. I assure you that I am alive and well, and if you are reading this post, that means I successfully made it to the big city to use the internet and buy a cell phone.

Besides the lack of communication with the states, things here are going really well. I am in training village about 20 minutes away from the larger city of Chernihiv. There are 1,600 residents, and the school, which is K-11, currently has 169 students. However, despite being in a small village, I’m living the high life: shower with hot water, toilet, and electricity ALL THE TIME! So yeah…no complaints here. So far my days have been filled with language and technical training for Peace Corps (along with 4 other American classmates), as well as a few other activities, including a 3 AM Easter service, playing cards and battle ship in Ukrainian, and working in the fields to help prepare for the planting season, although I‘ve only done this one once, so we‘ll see how it goes. I’m loving it!

Probably the most important factor to my happiness here is the fact that yet again, I’ve lucked out with an amazing host family. There is a dad, Vitalick, mom, Natasha, and a daughter, Nastia, 11. It’s a pretty great situation for me, because even though they’re supposed to take care of me, both Vitalick and Natasha are in their early thirties, so it’s not really like they’re my parents (hear that Mom and Dad: I’m unsupervised!). A very important note about this family is that they speak no English, so we’ve been playing a lot of charades and my Ukrainian has been progressing quickly purely out of necessity. Nastia is very sweet and has all the attitude one would expect of the eleven year old girl. Vitalick in a very jolly man and loves to sing along with the TV and make dumb jokes to the point where Nastia rolls her eyes and says something I don’t understand but which I can only imagine means, “Daaaaaaad, you’re embarrassing me!”

I probably spend most of my time with Natasha. She is incredibly nice and always has a smile on her face. She is a professional cook and works at a restaurant in Chernihiv three days a week, which means fabulous Ukrainian food for me. We hang out in the kitchen and we “cook” together, and by that I mean I cut things and she does all the heavy lifting. I think my favorite thing about her is how patient she is with my language skills. She just seems to really want to talk to me even if it means it will take 15 minutes just to clarify one sentence. But hopefully it is paying off, because I feel myself understanding more and more every day.

While I have many funny stories about misunderstandings and what-not, I’ll leave you with the two that are currently in my mind.

Who’s on first? (this whole conversation should be written in Cyrillic, but I don‘t know how to change the language on my computer so I’ll use the English alphabet)

Natasha: Brat zvatea? (What’s your brother’s name? in the most simplistic Ukrainian she can possibly use for my sake)
Me: Brat zvatea Bret. (My brother’s name is Bret).
Natasha: Tak. Brat. Zvatea? (Yes. Brother. Name?)
Me. Tak. Zvatea Bret. (Yes, name Bret).
Natasha: Ni “Brat”, z-v-a-t-e-a? (Not “brother”, name?)
Me: Ya rozumiyou. Zvatea B-r-e-t. (I understand. Name Bret.)

Well, we went on like this for a little longer until I finally wrote down the word for “brother” and the word “Bret“, we both saw that there was one letter difference, and now everything is under control.

Group Hug

The days when Natasha works, she generally comes home between 9 and 10, which is also when I go to bed because at the end of the day of speaking a language that I don’t really speak, my brain hurts and I have to rest it. Well, on Monday Natasha came home from work as I was getting ready to go to bed.

Natasha: djkeoidljdwoeibnowidn? (No idea what she said)
Me: Huh?
Natasha: djkeoidljdwoeibnowidn? (Still no idea)
Me: Ya ne rozumiyou. (I don’t understand).
Vitalick: grhskjgfjdfjeufgjkfghdfjlksfdl? (still clueless…)
Me: goofy grin.
Vitalick: something, something, something, word-I-recognize-as-”dictionary”.
I go get my Ukrainian-English dictionary, and Vitalick flips through to find the word he is looking for. He points to the word.
Me: Sad? (I thought maybe it was the wrong word.)
Vitalick: Tak. Ty “sad”? (Yes. You “sad”?)
Me: Ni. (No)
Vitalick: Dobre (good). Vitalick (points to himself), Nastia, i Natasha “looooove” Becky.

Then the four of us group-hugged it out in the middle of the living room before I went to bed. The next day I told my language teacher about it and she said Vitalick had gone over to her house (we’re next door neighbors) that morning very concerned that morning because apparently at 7 AM that morning, I hadn’t been smiling as much as I usually do. Go figure.

Anyway…Moral of the story, I have Ukrainians here who, even after only a week, are very concerned that I am happy. I’m so happy I decided to come here, and I think it’s going to be an amazing two years. I’ll leave you with that. Check out the new pictures. Keep me posted on what’s going on at home.

Here we go again!

2010-03-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Family and Friends,

It's about that time again. Time to pack, gorge on American food, reassure my mom I'll be careful...you know the drill. I'm four days away for leaving for Peace Corps Ukraine, and I'm very ready (other than the whole packing thing). I've really enjoyed my time back in the good ole' U.S. of A, but I'm very excited to get started again.

I'll make this post short and sweet. Thanks so much to everyone for all your support over the last two years, and for what I imagine will be continued support over the next two. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail or give me a call this weekend if you want to catch up. I'm not sure how often often I'll post during my three months of training, but I promise to keep you all posted on the successes, and more likely, the mayhem, or Peace Corps Ukraine.

Thanks again for being such enthusiastic blog readers. I'll miss you all!

Love,
Becky

And so it begins............

2010-01-21T12:11:00.001-08:00

Setting: It is 32 degrees, raining, and I’m waiting at a stop light to cross the street. There is a middle aged woman and an older woman waiting with me. The middle aged woman crosses the street before the light has changed.

Old Woman: Blah blah blah blah blah? Blah blah blah blah blah blah? (My interpretation: Did you see that woman cross the street? Why didn‘t she wait for the light to change?)
Me: Huh? (Blank stare)
Old Woman: Blah blah blah blah blah? (Look on her face: are you stupid?)
Me: (Nervous laugh and a dopey grin that say “yes, I am stupid”)
Old Woman: Blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah? (My interpretation: you don’t speak Ukrainian, do you?)
Me: No (Nervous laugh as the light changes as I quickly cross the street).

So where did this scene take place? Ukrainian Village in Chicago, of course. Today I took a little field trip (I know, I picked the most disgusting day weather wise I possibly could). Due to weather conditions, I didn’t do as much exploring as I would have liked, but I did make it to the National Ukrainian Museum (www.ukrainiannationalmuseum.org), and spent a few hours looking around the exhibits. I would highly recommend it to anyone who lives in Chicago. They have several cultural exhibits displaying clothes, jewelry, and art work, as well as exhibits about political events that have occurred in the country. Plus, because I think I was the only visitor, I got a private tour of the museum. Not too shabby for the $5 suggested donation. Everyone I met who works there speaks English and all the written material in both Ukrainian and English. Seriously, check it out!

After the museum, I wanted to walk around a bit, and I stumbled into a Ukrainian grocery store (by stumbled in, I mean I followed my nose to the bakery in the back). I figured perhaps I would try something. I saw some powdered borscht that I thought of purchasing for this cold day, but decided instant soup was pretty lame, so I made my way to the back where the deli/prepared foods were. I was kind of just browsing, but not surprisingly since most people don’t just browse in the deli department, the women behind the counter gave me a look to hurry up and make my choice.

I’ll leave you with one more script.

Me: What is this? (pointing to a plastic container containing the colors white, pink, and yellow)
Deli Lady: (looking alarmed that I had spoken to her in English) Um, uh…It is one part onion, one part potato, one part fish, and one part uhh…. (yells at another girl across the store to get the word for something….the response is beet)
Me: (In my head: Beets are gross but I guess I’ll have to get used to them eventually). Okay, I’ll take it.
Deli Lady: Good. You like pork?
Me: (giving her my skeptical eyes) Yes.
Deli Lady: Good you take pork too. (She puts a deep-fried pork something in a Styrofoam container).

I didn’t really want pork, but hey, it was already in the Styrofoam and everything…I proceed to the checkout, pay $6.09 for my two items, and walk away from my first taste Ukraine.

Speaking of a taste of Ukraine, after returning home, I had to taste my items. So far I’ve only been able to get myself to have one bite of each. Unidentified-deep-fried-pork-ball actually isn’t that bad, but it kind of tastes like fish. I’m worried about a pork product that tastes like a crab cake, but we‘ll see. Plastic-container-filled-with-various-products is a different story. After further investigation, it kind of looks like that seven layer Mexican bean dip you buy at the grocery store. Here are the layers: VERY salty fish, grated potatoes, onions, beets, a very thick layer of sour cream, and what looks like crumbled hard boiled egg yolk. I’m going to try to work up the courage to take a second bite of this one, but I don’t know that it’s going to happen.

So there you have it. My first taste of Ukraine. During my two years of service if you ever find yourself pining away for me, just hop on down to Ukrainian Village and take solace in the fact that we are enjoying the same food, language, and culture.

That’s all for now. I hope you’re all doing well. Hope to see many of you before I leave.

New Continent, New Job, New Experience

2009-12-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's right. I'm moving to Ukraine. Much to the dismay of my parents, after the evacuation from Mauritania, I decided re-enroll for another two years of service. I have just received my placement as a youth development volunteer in Ukraine, leaving at the end of March. So now for some frequently asked questions (okay, they actually haven't been asked that frequently since I just got my placement yesterday, but I know how your minds work. I know these questions are on the way).

You were evacuated in August. What have you been doing since then?

Well, I’ve been doing some baby sitting and will be doing some dog sitting soon. If anybody has any odd jobs that need to be done before then end of March, I’m your girl. I went on a month long road trip with one of my best friends from college through California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. Besides that, I’ve been doing a lot of something I NEVER did when I was in college before I left for Peace Corps: hanging out and relaxing. I know, six months is a long time to “hang out”, and I agree, but right now is not a great time to find a job, and at least I know I have a job at the end of March.

Two more years? Really? That sure seems like a long time.

It does SEEM like a long time, but it’s actually not that long. My first year of service flew by. Peace Corps did give all the evacuees the option to take a one year posting in another African country. However, I decided that I either wanted to do two years or nothing. The way I see it, I spent my first year of service trying to get a handle on language, the community, and my job. I was so excited to start my second year and really be able to get something done. So basically, if I took a one year posting, I never would have gotten to that second year. I will have to do that first year over again in Ukraine, but I will also get to make it to that second year, and that will make the two year commitment completely worth it.

What made you pick the Ukraine?

Well, first of all, I didn’t pick it. Peace Corps did. I did, however, request to be in Eastern Europe. There are two main reasons for this. The first is about trying to move on from Mauritania. I really did love it there, and it was devastating to have to leave my host family. It would be very difficult to take a post so close geographically to Mauritania but to also know that I couldn’t go back there. The second reason is just about my own personal experience. I spent a semester studying in South Africa and was able to travel quite a bit around the region. Now I have also spent a year in West Africa. Peace Corps is able to provide me with a great opportunity to live a place I never would have considered before.

At the end of the day, I see it like this: Mauritania was a huge surprise. It was not at all what I pictured when I heard I was going to Africa. I didn’t know anything about it and really hadn’t heard of it at all. But I loved it. So I can’t imagine there is any other country that I will not find a way to love. I’m sure the Ukraine will be no exception.

What will your job be?

My job description sounds pretty similar to my job in the RIM. I’m working with at risk youth. As in Mauritania I’ll be working with extra curricular programs, except unlike the RIM, I won’t be working exclusively with girls.

So that’s about all. Nothing else that interesting going on. Feel free to e-mail if you want to meet up before I leave (but you have over three months!)

Have a happy holiday!

It's Official...Evacuation

2009-08-10T17:31:00.000-07:00

All of us boarded buses heading out of Camp Peace Corps. We arrive at a very nice hotel in Dakar with a pool and air conditioning. We are told we have an hour or so to settle in, go for a swim, and then head into a meeting with our country director. We walk into what we think is going to be a meeting just with Mauritanian Peace Corps staff, and end up being introduced to "the security team". As soon as I heard the word "team", I knew all hope was lost. One member of the team is actually the head of the national Peace Corps program. Though she had the unfortunate job of breaking the news to us, I think many of us appreciated that she is spending with us about half of her last ten days in office before Obama's new pick takes over.

As you've noticed, there has been a lot of instability in Mauritania since the beginning of my service last year. As I suspected, they have decided we will not be allowed to return to Mauritania. Today was obviously a very sad day for all of us, but I'm trying to remember that this also opens up a whole world of possibilities for the future. I will be back in America (again) probably within the next week. I've got a lot of ideas about what comes next, but I'm pretty sure it involves more Peace Corps service. I'm not going to write all the details here, because I don't know them all, but I'll be sure to keep you all updated.

Welcome to Camp Peace Corps...anyone up for a game of limbo?

2009-08-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I wanted to give you all a quick update, because a lot has happened in the last week, and a lot will continue to happen in the weeks to come. Since coming back from America, I’ve been at “Camp Peace Corps”. It is actually the training center for the Senegalese volunteers, but they have kindly offered to let us use it while the Washington security team checks on the safety of Mauritania. It really does feel a lot like camp. There are group volley ball games, cabins, and a mess hall. We even went on a little excursion this weekend, and we all rented a house on the beach. So yeah, it’s been pretty awesome…that is except for the dark cloud over all of our heads.

There is a very real possibility that my two years in the Peace Corps will be cut short. In addition to the events I described in my previous entry, last night, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in the capitol, killing himself and wounding a few others. We still have not heard final word about our future in the Peace Corps, and though I am trying to hold out hope, I also know that the Peace Corps will always hold our safety as a top priority.

This has been a somber day for Peace Corp Mauritanian volunteers. Not just because it puts our future in jeopardy, but also because a country that we have grown to call home will now be thought of by the world as a dangerous and unstable place. We are always reminded that terrorists are extremists and do not represent the mainstream thinking. It will be very difficult for me to leave all those people who have done nothing wrong, although those that I have spoken to do understand.

Anyway, I wanted to let you all know what was happening here, safe and sound, in Senegal. I will post again as soon as we’re out of limbo. Thanks again for the great trip home!

Hey America, Thanks for the Memories!

2009-07-30T04:49:00.000-07:00

Hello friend and family. Today is my last day in America. I'm so glad I got to see so many of you in the last three weeks. I had a great time! I know many of you have asked if it will be difficult to go back, but I actually feel pretty ready. I'm ready to dive into year two and getting to skip over that period when I didn't understand anything.

Just a little update for you all. I know I've explained to many of you the issues going on in Peace Corps, Mauritania. For those of you who don't know, I'll give you the brief summary.

August 2008: There was a coup is.
May/June: The Mauritanian government decided to stop giving visas to Americans.
June: An American missionary was killed in the capitol by terrorists.
June: Peace Corps decided not to send a new training class.
July: Peace Corps decided to offer my training class "interrupted service", which basically meant we could end our service after our first year of service. Of our class of 70, 21 people decided to leave. I will be staying.
July 21st: General Azizz, the leader of the coup, won the election.

What does this all mean? It means that I will not be going straight back to Mauritania. Instead, my vacation will be extended by at least a week for a training session in Senegal. Yay! As always occurs in Peace Corps, there have been many rumors going around, and since I am here, and all my Peace Corps buddies are there, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. We are going to Senegal so that Peace Corps can do a security check on our sites in Mauritania. Also, I like to think, Peace Corps wanted to give us a little break since we've had kind of a rough year.

Here is the main thing to remember. I am perfectly safe in Mauritania! If it weren't safe, we wouldn't be there. I know it may seem like it's not, but I am safer in Mauritania than I would be in any other Peace Corps country. Because Mauritanians don't drink alcohol, that means there are no drunk driving accidents, but more importantly, it means people in general are less aggressive than they would be elsewhere. Mauritanians are very passive people, and I've never felt unsafe in Kiffa.

Okay. That's all. Again, I had a great time with you all while I was in town. I'll see you next year!

New Pictures!

2009-07-12T05:43:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! I'm back in America the beautiful. One of the benefits of America is quick internet, so I did a picture upload. Check them out here: Spring photos.

I'm sure I'll see most of you soon. Again, I'll be here until the 31st, so call me!

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July, everyone! Do you know why the 4th of July is amazing? Reason 1: It celebrates the independence of the home of Doritos, deep dish pizza, and Panera. Reason 2: July 4th is six days before July 10th, and July 10th is the start of my amazing mid service three week vacation.

Anyway, this blog entry is just to remind all of you that I will be home in less than a week. For those of you in Chicago, I would love to hang out. For those of you not in Chicago, at least give me a call so we can chat.

Can't wait!

Life is Tough When You're Famous

2009-06-09T03:12:00.000-07:00

In many ways, my life now resembles that of a celebrity. I’m not talking about anyone on the level of Brad Pitt or Oprah. Those celebrities are so high up on the famous scale that I would think most people would be too afraid to even approach them. No, I’m more on the level of a second rate reality TV star. People recognize me and know my name, but I’m not so famous as to be intimidating. In fact, most people have no qualms about coming up to me to discuss absolutely whatever, although, most of the strangers just give me some cliché lines. The most popular are, “You need to find a Mauritanian man. I know this guy…”, “Here, take my baby in your suitcase back to America,” and “Ah, America, Barrack Obama”. Every time someone says these things, they think they are being witty and original.

Here are the ways in which I think my life is similar to someone famous:

1. I only know about two percent of the people who know me.

2. Everyone and their mother knows where I live.

3. People love to watch me do mundane things, like buy tomatoes, do laundry, and read books.

4. People will “secretly” take pictures of me with their cell phones and send them to their friends. Cultural note: The first thing people do here when they come across some money is buy a super nice cell phone. Most of them have nicer phones than I do. However, they can never afford to call anyone on these super nice phones.

5. Parents on the street with their children will send their kids over to us to say “give me a gift” (I assume movie stars get the equivalent with “can I have an autograph”).

6. Whenever I wear new clothes, which is not all that often, everyone seems to notice, despite the fact that basically all my clothes looks about the same.

Okay, so I’m sure there are more reasons, but that’s all I have right now because it feels like it’s about 120 degrees today (just an estimate). Speaking of which, here are the ways in which I am not like a celebrity.

Celebrities have air conditioning and I have a hand held fan.
Celebrities have perfect complexions and I am covered in heat rash.
Celebrities make millions of dollars and I do not.
Celebrities have the paparazzi following them around to the most exclusive clubs and I am followed around town by hordes of kids on my endless search to find an ice cube.
Celebrities had do to something that requires talent (but I guess that’s arguable), and all I had to do was be white.

Now that’s really all. Too hot to proofread (if you’re a regular reader of mine, you’ll notice that’s a trend). And guess what! I’ll be home one week from tomorrow where no one will stare at me and all I have to do is walk to the kitchen if I want ice!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Language....

2009-05-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone ! I hope you’re all doing well. Things here have slowed down quite a bit (who knew that was possible ?). We have closed the center for the summer, I don’t really do that much work. I’ve been spending most of time reading, hanging with my fam, and of course, causing some mischief with my fellow Americans.

But anyway, to get to the point of this blog entry...I have a quick note on language. One of the great yet challenging things about Mauritania is the diversity here. In my house alone, there are Moors, Pulaars, Bombaras, Wolofs, and of course, me, the American. On a daily basis, I have conversations in English, French, and Hassaniya. Even more than that, people love it when you greet them in their native language, so on an average day, I greet people in five languages. Kind of crazy.

I was discussing this with my site mate, Edna, and we realized that Americans and Mauritanians feel very differently about language. Here in Kiffa, everyone can greet in Hassaniya, and can also probably do a basic greeting in French. Yet, even though they know I don’t speak Pulaar or Wolof or whatever other language they may speak, they insist that I greet them in their native tongue. With strangers, they expect us to look at them walking down the street and know what language to speak to them in. However, this is the opposite in America. As Edna and I were discussing, if I saw someone walking down the street and greeted them with a nice, friendly, “hola”, they would most likely be insulted. Why am I greeting them in Spanish? Is it because I am making an assumption just by looking at them that they are Hispanic? Or would it be my way of saying that I don’t think they are intelligent enough to learn English?

This is, of course, just one of many differences I have noticed since coming here, but it is also one of the biggest. In America, we are focused on creating unity between cultures. Here, people love to celebrate their differences. Both ways have their trade-offs.

I guess that’s all from here. I’ll be home in a little over a month! Yay! I’ll try to get some pictures posted soon. I hope you’re all enjoying the summer weather.

April/May

2009-05-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. But, as of today, I am writing from my newly fixed computer which has been broken since November. But mostly, my lack of writing has to do with the fact that many of the things I used to think were worth writing about, such as cute children and weird superstitions, are becoming more normal for me and thus do not seem noteworthy. It was fun getting used to all of our cultural differences, but it has now started to get a bit boring. So in the spirit of boredom, I have decided to dedicate this blog entry to all of the things I (along with my site mates sometimes) in order to fend off death by boredom.

Peace Cops is good for many things including fulfilling work (depending on the day), learning a new language, cultural exchange and self discovery. However, one of the least advertised benefits of the Peace Corps is that it finally gives you time to do all the things that before, if you’d heard someone did it, you would say “you’ve got way too much free time on your hands.” Well, I do have too much time on my hands, and here is what I’ve done with it (this is just a sample)…..

Read Warren Buffet’s million page biography
Learned to make the following from scratch

Cheese
Pretzels
Fermented juice we like to call wine
Chocolate filled doughnuts

After many rounds of watching, I learned to make three rounds of Mauritanian tea
Watched almost four complete seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, something I never would have watched at home.
Spent countless hours cleaning dirt out of rice (this one of the only jobs I’m allowed to do during Mauritanian meal preparation. I’m also allowed to smash the garlic from time to time)
Translate songs from my ipod into French in my head, and then into Hassaniya if I’m feeling extra ambitious
Taught my host sisters to thumb war and arm wrestle
Perfected French braiding my own hair
Watched Mauritanians try to sing along with English music
Watching ants! Sounds stupid, I know. But have you seen what they can carry? If you kill a fly, within in two minutes there will be a clan of a hundred ants ready to carry that thing off and eat it. It’s amazing!

Things on my agenda for the summer are to learn to whistle and gut a fish for the first time.

Anyway, I hope this has given you a closer glimpse into my life. It isn’t always glamorous with crazy Pulaar weddings and empowering young ladies and all. I have plenty of time for nonsense. If you have any ideas for stuff you would do if you only too much free time, please pass the ideas along. I will try them and let you know how they go, so you don’t have to waste time from your busy lives in America.

Speaking of America….I will be coming back to the most wonderful place in the world in two months! Yay!

Community Help

2009-03-18T05:41:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I know, two posts in one week. How lucky are you? Anyway, I'm writing to let you know about a project my site mate, Mike, is working on. Classrooms here are incredibly crowded (up to 100 students). There is always a vast portion of the students forced to sit on the floor, making it difficult to take notes as well as making it difficult for the teacher to answer students' questions. Mike is trying to raise money to buy more desks for his middle school where he is an English teacher. Donations can be made through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, a non profit organization. Any donations, even just a few dollars, would help a lot!

Thanks so much. I hope you are all doing well. You can find Mike's project here: Help Kiffa Schools

P.S. On an unrelated note, mark your calendars! I will be back in America between July 10-31. My plans so far include eating ice cream, going swimming, and sitting in the air conditioning!

Women's Day and Pictures!

2009-03-14T03:25:00.002-07:00

Hey everyone! Things here are going great in Kiffa except, of course, that is already incredibly hot but the Mauritanians are still telling me it’s cold. But anyway, last week was Women’s Day, and I would say it was a huge success. There were tons of activities going on all week, and our girls did skits about the importance of girls education and the dangers of forced and early marriage. In all, and would say they had an audience of about 60 people! We were really proud of our girls. They wrote and organized their skits completely on their own. Basically all we did was make sure they kept their skits under the 15 minute time limit. In general, it was just a festive week where I got to spend a lot of time hanging out with cooperative women I usually only see at the Women’s Ministry.

More importantly, I have posted some new pictures. Some of them are repeats because my mom couldn’t get them printed off the new program, so I’m back to the old one. So yeah, enjoy pictures of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Tabaski, and Women’s Day.

Facebook...

2009-03-04T05:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, so here is the deal. People always say that being in Peace Corps changes you, but for me, it just has not changed me exactly in the ways I was expecting. After five years of heavily resisting the idea of joining Facebook, I have recently come to realize that it is slowly becoming a necessary part of life, and it is inevitable that I will join eventually. The longer I wait to join, the more pride I will have to swallow before I do it, so I guess it is just time to suck it up and join. So yes, I am now on Facebook, which means you can now come find me.

I hope you are all well! Can't wait to hear from you soon.

WAIST and More!

2009-02-25T01:46:00.002-08:00

Hello my good friends. Sorry I haven’t written in so long. I am also going to apologize for not having any pictures. I forgot to bring my camera to Dakar. Here is a brief update about my life.

I spent the last week or so traveling, with my final destination being Dakar, Senegal, where I went for the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. I was lucky enough to get to stay with an Amazing family in Dakar. The husband works for the American Embassy in Senegal and their house had everything I could have wanted: stocked fridge, toaster, microwave, washer/dryer, and real mattresses. Even if I had never left their house, that would have been vacation enough for me. The softball tournament (which our team won, through no help of my own) took place at the American Club, which has a pool and is full of English speaking Americans! It was awesome to get to meet volunteers serving in other countries, though some of them are afraid of us because the Mauritanian volunteers tend to take over any place we go en masse.

Now I’m back at site and will probably be sticking around to the end of the school year. However, unlike in America where you always know when the end of the school year is, here we’re not quite sure. There is supposed to be an election here in early June, which means schools will close probably about a month before that. From what I have heard, the month before an election here it is impossible to get anything done, so it will kind of be like Ramadan Round II.

Work has been going well. The girls at the center are crazy, but that’s not unlike teenage girls in the states. We just started a class for women who have not been able to finish school, and we’re also working on the program for Women’s Day on March 8^th.

I think that’s about all from here, but as usual, I have some funny stories to share.

Story 1: I don’t actually live with my host family, but eat many meals with them. After dinner, it’s usually pretty late so two of my sisters will walk me home. There is a short way to go, but we always take the long way. One night I decided to ask my sister, Rama, 17 years old, why we always take the long way. She said it was because the short cut has a lot of dogs and she doesn’t like it when the say “ho ho” (this is what they think barking sounds like). The she told me that dogs in Mauritania eat people, and asked if dogs in America do too. I couldn’t just let an opportunity like that pass me by, so I said “Dogs in America don’t eat people like me. They only eat Mauritania girls.” She got a very worried look on her face, and I kept it going for about two minutes before I told her that really, dogs in America don’t eat people (and neither do dogs in Mauritania). I guess she believed the lie more than the truth, because a month later Rama’s mom told me that Rama never wanted to go to America because she was afraid dogs would eat her.

Story 2: I was hanging out with another branch of my host family (they have various members living in different houses) when I found myself alone with a four year old who only speaks Pulaar, Shohamar. Normally when I’m with kids who don’t speak French or Hassaniya I just speak to them in English because they don’t understand anyway. I said the word “yes” to him and he repeated to me “Yes we can!” I was very surprised, said “Where did you hear that?” His response was: “Barrack Obama. Yes we can!” I think this is an accurate representation about how Mauritanians feel about the President…even non English speakers can recite his motto.

Top 5!

2009-01-18T06:26:00.000-08:00

After living here for over six months now, I have developed a love-hate relationship with this country. Here is a list of some of the things I like and dislike, which I hope will give you all a little snapshot into my daily life here.

Hate (I don’t really hate anything here. These are more things that on a good day I can laugh off, but on a bad day, really push me over the edge).

Prayer Call: There are several Mosques surrounding my house, and they all do prayer call at a slightly different time, which means between 4:30-6 AM, I’m kept awake. How Mauritanians manage to sleep through it is beyond me. All the Mosques have loud speakers and there is one guy who sings into it. Without fail, he always clears his throat into the microphone. Why he doesn’t do this before he presses the “on” button, I’m not sure.
Zrigg: Zrigg is a mix of water, sugar, and some kind of milk (sour, condensed, powdered, or normal). Mauritanians LOVE this stuff. I was never a big milk drinker in the states, but there are two reasons why it’s even more terrible here. First, imagine on a really hot day when you’ve just walked all the way across town and you’re sweating bullets, usually all you’d want is a cold glass of water, but instead you get handed a big cup of full cream milk. Yum! Refreshing! Reason two is that Mauritanians will usually only have two or three cups to serve million people in the house. Because I’m the guest, I always get served first, which means everyone is waiting for me to chug my cup-o-cream so they can use my cup. So it’s 120 degrees, I’m covered and sweat, and chugging full cream milk. You’d hate it too (Note: I only know two Americans who enjoy zrigg).
Stomach lining: Yes, they eat this here. It tastes like eating a towel. Stomach lining, by definition, was not meant to be digested. Plus, when you’re watching them butcher the goat they just slaughtered, and you see the stuff that comes out of the stomach, eating its lining is that much less appealing.
Men on the street who want to marry me: I’m guessing this needs no explanation. I walk around with an airplane to America tattooed on my forehead, so many men feel that it could hurt to at least ask. I’ve been experimenting with different responses. “I’m already married” does little to deter my suitors unless I happen to be with an American guy at the time. “My bride price is $1 million”, usually gets a laugh and then I can be on my way. And when I’m feeling particularly sassy, “You are the 7^th person to ask me to marry you today. Why should a pick you?” This response usually shuts them up, and then I can walk away.
Brutal honesty: Mauritanians are brutally honest, beyond the point of anyone I’ve ever met in the states. They’ll say things like “You’re other American friend speaks better Hassaniya than you do,” or “hey, why do you have that zit on your face?” (these comments just come out of nowhere too). It can get a little awkward. On the plus side, when they give you a compliment, like “you look pretty today,” at least I know they are telling the truth.

Love

Kids: There are many reasons why I love kids in Mauritania. I will list just a few.

They’re always happy to see me. Whenever I walk into my family’s house, the kids chant “Noura jeyt, Noura jeyt”, which means Noura’s back. They then run at me full force to give me a hug. This always brightens my day.
“Porky Pig”: I’m not sure who coined the phrase, but it refers to kids wearing shirts but no bottoms. Seriously, kids here hate pants. They’ll wear shirts, shoes, and even parkas now that it’s “cold”, but their butts will be completely bare. My friend’s daughter goes to kindergarden and the first things she does when she comes home is takes off her underwear. It’s pretty hysterical.

Greeting: Here, you never just say “how are you?” and then continue on. You must always ask how someone is in at least ten different ways, and the answer is always, “thanks to be God”. But the real reason I like the greetings is because if you’re ever sitting in a room and there is an awkward silence, you can just start the greetings over again. It helps with the language the barrier.
Dance Parties: This is a daily ritual in my house. Mauritanians love to dance, so I don’t feel like such a freak when I start bobbing my head along to the music. One family in my house has a DVD player, so I made the kids a dance CD for their Tabaski gift, so now they can all sing along with some English music. Even the little two year old will sing “Jump On It”.
Sleeping Outside: Because when else in my life will I spend every night on the roof under the stars?
The “Bismillah” attitude: “Bismillah” means “welcome”, and Mauritanians take this very seriously. People really do go out of their way to make sure I feel at home with them. They always ask me if I would rather eat with a spoon than my hands (which I decline even though I really would rather have the spoon), and they’re always wanting me to take naps and showers at their house. Everyone here just wants me to think of their house as if it were my house. This attitude has really made the difference in me feeling comfortable in Kiffa.

So there is just a little glimpse at my everyday life. Besides that, work stuff is going well, as well as stuff with my family. I’ll be in Kiffa for about another month before we all go to Dakar, Senegal for the West African Intramural Softball Tournament. Should be pretty fun. Thanks for reading this far. Stay in touch!

Pictures

2009-01-16T11:43:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone. I would like to apologize to those of you out there sitting by their computers waiting for me to update (I'm pretty sure this applies only to my mom). To tide you over, here are some pictures. I've starting posting on a new site. These pictures are from Thanksgiving, Tabaski, the Girls Mentoring Center, and a bunch of others I take because my Mauritanian family asks me to. Pictures are really expensive to print here, so having someone back home get them printed (this would be my mom again) is a good way for me to thank people here for always giving me stuff and never asking for anything in return.

Anyway... enjoy the pictures, and stay in touch.

Pictures

It's been a while...

2009-01-11T02:29:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone and Happy New Year! So I know I haven't written in while, but I just wanted to let you know that things are going well. I've been on vacation in Senegal and the capital for the last couple of weeks, and now I'm back in town.

I'm going to make this short, but I promise to do a full update with pictures by the end of the week. Thanks to everyone who has sent letters recently. I really appreciate them!

Stay well and keep me posted on your lives!

Just a quick note

2008-12-02T03:00:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Here in Kiffa, our table almost resemebled an American Thanksgiving (minus the turkey). Seriously, there was even pumkin pie!

Okay, anyway...the real purpose of this posting is just to give you the address of the place where my site mate, Mike, posts his pictures. He is much more deligent with picture taking than I am, so I thought some of you might like to see them (especially because he'll post pictures of things like our new puppy that I would never post about).

Anyway, enjoy! Only three weeks until Christmas break!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike's Photos

Pictures!

2008-11-16T03:58:00.000-08:00

These are some pictures of my family here in Kiffa. Enjoy.

So it Turns out, I Do Have a Job!

2008-11-15T02:11:00.000-08:00

Hey all! So I know it’s been a while, and the reasons for that are as follows.

We haven’t really had power for the last two or three weeks, but as of yesterday, it seems to be back.
I have been working like crazy.

Reason number one needs no further explanation. Reason number two gets into the fun stuff. As I mentioned earlier, my partner Eric and I have been trying to move the Girls’ Mentoring Center to a new location. As it turns out, we have the perfect place. There is a youth center in the middle of town that had a room available. As it stands currently, the youth center attracts mostly boys who go there to play soccer and volley ball after school, so they were pretty happy at the idea of doing something to attract more girls to use the center’s resources. So Eric and I have been working 7 days a week trying to get the thing open. Luckily, last Tuesday, we had our first group of girls come and it was amazing!!!!!! We have 20 junior high girls who are super excited about doing just about everything: English, French, sports, theatre…they want to do it all. We’re also helping to get about 15 high school girls to come. In total, we’ll open Monday through Thursday afternoons for academic lessons for the girls, and on Friday mornings we’ll do fun activities. We’re also going to be open a couple mornings a week to hold classes in finance and such for women in cooperatives.

So yeah, that’s pretty much been my life for the past couple of weeks. It’s finally gotten a little cooler, so my life doesn’t revolve quite as much around trying to avoid the sun. And now for my favorite part of blogging: writing about things that would never happen back home.

Story 1: I am currently having a lot of trouble sleeping. It’s not because of stress, and with the power outage, it’s certainly not because people are playing their music too loudly. Instead, it’s because I sleep on the roof and there is a full moon, and it’s so bright it’s like trying to sleep with a spotlight in your face. I know: life is tough.

Story 2: There is this lady who “works” at the women’s ministry (I’m not actually sure if she works there or if she just hangs out). One day a little while ago, she took off her ring (which glows in the dark and is now my absolute favorite piece of jewelry) and bracelet and put them on me and then told me I had to come visit her at her store. I told her I didn’t know where her store is, and she assured me that I did. I then assured her that I didn’t, and then she said “Raasik digdig”, which means “Your head is broken”. She then wraps her hands around my neck and pretends to strangle me. Then she spends 5 minutes singing in Hassaniya and leaves. I should have probably mentioned first that this woman is at least 80 years old and is missing some teeth, if that helps you picture the scene at all.

Well, now I see this woman all the time. She’s always just kind of hanging around the office. A couple of days ago, she was angry with me because I still hadn’t gone to her store. So after we were done with a meeting for work, she grabs me by the hand and pulls me, along with my friend Eric (not the Eric who I work at the GMC with, but the other Eric), down the street towards her store. She has mentioned several times that she would like to marry Eric, but that is not the point. Anyway, so we finally get to her store, and it’s all stuff that has been hand painted by women from the co-ops, so it finally made sense why she was at work all the time. Then she starts looking through the store for gifts to give to Eric and me. By now, more and more co-op women start piling into the store to watch the freak show. She found a very nice purse for me (seriously…hand painted leather), and bunch of women started putting bracelets on me. Then, the old woman finds a hand painted gun holder for Eric. Just what he wanted! But they weren’t done…she still hadn’t found what she was looking for to give to the man she wants to marry. Eventually she pulls out this straw hat that must be a foot tall and puts it on Eric’s head and tells him it will help him keep the sun out of his eyes. He tried to just say thank you and carry it, but no, they wanted him to wear it home.

I only walked with Eric in that hat for a block or so before we parted ways, but seeing the reactions of people on the street to the white boy wearing a massive multicolored straw hat was enough to make it the best block I’ve ever walked!

Story 3: I have one other female site mate, Edna. Edna is Mexican-American, which is a key piece of information for this story. One day we were “spending the day” with my host family (people here never ask you just to come over for lunch. They ask you to spend the day with them, which usually means between 4 and 5 hours). Anyway, Bébé, one of my host sisters, turns to Edna and says, “Are your parents toubabs?” We both looked at each other and started laughing. Edna’s reply was “Not the same way Becky’s parents are toubabs”. Surprisingly, that was enough of an explanation for Bébé.

Story 4: I was eating dinner at my host family’s house the other evening, and was playing with one of my favorite kids in the world, Baba Tucksill (I’ll post pictures of him soon, and I know you’ll fall in love with him too). So Baba Tucksill was jumping and dancing around as usual, when one of my host sisters, Rama, starts yelling “Veda” at him, which I’ve heard them call him a lot. So finally I asked why they call him that. She points to his butt, and says “Because this is not big. It’s flat like a mattress.” First, I laughed so hard I cried, and then I decided that I will now only call him Veda because it is just too funny that his nickname is “Flat Butt”. So now if you were ever curious how to tell someone they have a flat butt in Pulaar, you can call them “Veda”.

Okay, now I’m really done. I’ll try to get some pictures up soon. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving if I’m not in touch again before then. Thanks to all of you have sent letters…they are always a nice surprise.

The Scariest Night of My Life!!!!!

2008-10-18T04:08:00.000-07:00

I know I said I would tell you about work stuff soon, but that’s just really boring compared to all the other stuff that goes in the crazy world that is now my life. So instead of talking about going through the process of trying to move the Girls’ Mentoring Center, I will instead tell you about the scariest thing that has ever happened to me.

In the U.S., you usually have to have an invitation to go to a wedding. Not so here in the RIM. If you know of a wedding going on, you just show up. On Wednesday, Bébé and her family were all going to the wedding of a very close friend of the family. Naturally, as I am seen as a family member now, I was expected to go with. Bébé and her sisters had tons of fun dressing me up like their little Barbie doll in all their Pulaar clothes (I’ll have pictures eventually, and there is a video, but we’ll get to that later).

So anyway, the wedding is broken up into an afternoon and evening part. The afternoon was pretty crowded, with all the women and their kids wearing their best clothes. I got paraded around to meet everyone, at some food, and generally had a pretty good time. The afternoon session, while open to everyone, seemed to be mostly people who at least knew the bride (the groom wasn’t there…he had to work and couldn’t make it out of the capital).

We went back to Bébé’s house to hang out for a bit, and then made our way to the evening part of the wedding. I was in no way prepared for what this meant. It was in this huge outdoor courtyard with a stage filled with what I estimated to be 300 people. However, because I was with people who were close to the bride, they were not content to just blend into the masses, as I would have preferred to have done. Instead, they wanted to go sit on the stage with the bride and her family. So here I am, surrounded by 300 Mauritanians, wearing Pulaar clothes that don’t fit me, sitting on stage. That, in itself was pretty terrifying, but as I got used to, I started to enjoy watching the wedding and watching all the Mauritanians getting up to dance.

If that is where the story ended, everything would have been okay. Unfortunately, Americans in Mauritania don’t get off the hook that easily. Towards the end of the wedding, and what actually ended up being the last official song, the DJ/Singer guy comes over to me and tells me he wants me to dance. I declined his offer because a) I don’t know how to Pulaar dance, and b) I don’t really like dancing in front of a courtyard full of strangers. This man, however, was not going to take no for an answer. He grabbed me by the arm and literally dragged me across the stage, giving me just enough time to grab Bébé’s arm and pull her along with me. So Bébé starts dancing and do my best to copy her, because hey, once you’re already in front of 300 strangers you have to do something (there was a video camera in my face, so there is a chance I have the horrifying event on tape).

So the song ends and sit back down and I couldn’t stop shaking. I yelled at my friends for a bit for laughing instead of helping me, but I was able to see the humor of the situation. Okay, still not done. The official party was over, and they kicked out a good chunk of the strangers, but that still left about a hundred people there. The drummers start the music back up again, the singer starts singing songs about different people, trying to get them to get up and dance (which they all did). Eventually, I hear him start singing in French, which I knew did not bode well for me. Yet again he grabbed my arm and dragged me across the stage again. Luckily, this time he kind of showed me how to dance.

After that round of dancing, I was done for real. But seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life. In the last four days, I’ve become a celebrity in the neighborhood. EVERYONE was at this party, and now there are always strangers who stop me as I walk down the street telling me they liked me dancing. Really, they mean they liked it in the way people like the circus, but I’ll take what I can get. There is another big family wedding coming up on the 30^th…I’ll be practicing everyday until then.

So anyway, as you can tell, I’m fitting in quite nicely here in Kiffa. I hope you’re all doing okay and enjoying the cool weather. By the way, this entry was kind of long so I’m not going to proofread, so please just overlook any errors.

Pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-10-06T06:04:00.002-07:00

Pictures from my first month in Kiffa.

End of Ramadan

2008-10-06T06:04:00.001-07:00

Ramadan has finally ended! The biggest thing this means is that we can finally start working. In fact, on our boss’ first day back into town she took us to go see the Wali, who is kind of like the governor of the region, to ask him for a new location for the Girls’ Mentoring Center. The end of Ramadan also means we celebrated a lot, and that is probably the most entertaining thing to share with you right now (work stuff next time, I promise!) I’ll keep this entry fairly short because the pictures are way more interesting.

As you may recall from my last entry, there was a new baby born at my house. His baptism happened to fall on the first day of the Ramadan celebration, and that meant that we killed three goats and ate meat all day. Now for those of you who don’t know me, which I know is a lot of you because my mom has told everyone in the Chicago metropolitan area to read my blog, I was a vegetarian for over ten years before coming here. Not any longer! I’ve transformed into a hard-core carnivore. All I can say is that those goats tasted good.

The house where Bébé, my host sister, grew up is about five minutes down the street, and most of her family still lives there. On the day of the party, she saw that we had way more meat than we could ever eat, so she asked me if I would mind bringing some over to her family’s house while she cooked lunch. I told her I would, and she started piling raw goat meat into a bucket. After it was all packed and ready to go, I picked it up, and I’m pretty sure it weighed around ten pounds. Just as I’m about to leave, she stops me and says, “wait”. She then proceeds to pick up the goat head, fur, eyes, and all, puts it in the bucket, and then tells me to leave.

So here I am, the girl who became a vegetarian because of the movie Babe, walking down the street with a bucket full of meat and a head. I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation all the way down the street. Needless to say, her family was very happy when the saw the bucket. Then I went back home, changed into my fancy Pulaar party clothes, and ate a protein filled meal.

The end.

Anyway, I hope you’re all doing well. Enjoy the pictures!

New Mailing Address

2008-09-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! I hope you’re doing well. Today I have just a quick note, but promise to write more and post pictures next week after the big end of Ramadan party. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks mostly just hanging out with the people at my house because they’re super cool. I’ve taught the kids how to play spoons and go fish, plus we play soccer and any other game that can be played with a soccer ball. My partner Eric and I even managed to do some work with this week and met with presidents of all the local women’s co-ops. When Ramadan ends, we’ll be able to work for real.

The main purpose of this posting is to let you know that we got a post office box! This means that I should get mail faster than waiting for the Peace Corps to bring it us (if you’ve sent any letter recently, I probably won’t get them until the end of October). The new address is:

Corps de la Paix
BP 47
Kiffa, Mauritania
West Africa

Don’t forget to write “Par Avion” on the envelope, otherwise it will get stuck on a boat and then you never know when I’ll get your letters.

I always like to end with a little anecdote, so here you go. The lady who lives in the room next door to me had a baby boy yesterday (which means wild baby naming party at my house next week!) Anyway, I saw her at around 9 in the morning kind of just laying there, but she seemed okay, so I didn’t worry about. Then I came home at around lunch time to eat with my family, and my host sister told me that the women had gone to the hospital. I asked if she had gone for the baby, and she said yes. At about 2:30, she walks in with a bunch of other women and a baby in her arms. She then proceeds to make lunch for her other two children and her husband went back to work. This morning, she up doing chores like normal. Crazy! I’ve never gone through the whole giving birth process, so I don’t really know what it’s like, but I’ve only heard from American women that it’s pretty tough. But this lady took about four hours to have a baby before going back to her normal life. Mauritanian women are hard core.

I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying the nice fall weather. I’ll write more soon.

My First Week at Site

2008-09-09T03:21:00.000-07:00

Hello, fom Kiffa Mauritania! First of all, thanks to all of you who have posted on my blog or e-mailed me. I usually just forget to publish the comments, but I do enjoy reading them and enjoy knowing that people back home are following my life here!

Things here are going pretty well. School doesn’t start until October, so it is I can’t really start working until then, but that gives me plenty of time to get to know the city, as well as meet people who can be potential work partners. I’ve been living in my new house for about a week now. I live in a multifamily unit where I have my own room, and the other people here are really respectful of my privacy. My original plan was to not have a host family in Kiffa because I wanted a little more independence. However, my landlord’s wife adopted me, and informed me that I would be eating with her family whenever I was home. She also gave me gift on my first night there. It was a pink lacy bra, but hey, it’s the thought that counts. Even though I didn’t originally want a family here, I’m so glad with the way things have turned out because they are super cool.

My landlord is Mohammed. Just a little side story about Mohammed…this is the most common name in the world, so you can imagine that in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, it is VERY popular. So during site visit, I had met Mohammed with one of the volunteers who had already been here a year and had discussed my moving into an empty room. Then when I came back last week, surprise surprise, with my amazing sense of direction, I had no idea where the house was. I knew what side of town it was in, so I set off with my friends Eric and Adam to find Mohammed’s house (I didn’t know his last name, in case you didn’t see where this story was going). So picture these three white kids walking down the sandy streets of Mauritania looking for Mohammed’s house.

We find some women on the street and I explain the problem: “We are looking for Mohammed. He lives in a big house with many families, and he works for the electric company”. They look at me like I’m crazy, and then keep asking me for his last name. After about five minutes of this we leave, hoping that if we walk around for long enough, I will recognize the house. Then one of the girls comes running down the street saying they found someone who knows the house of Mohammed who works for the electric company, so we follow the guy who says he knows, because hey, we couldn’t be any more lost than we were to begin with. Turns out, he did know Mohammed who works for the electric company, and it was the right Mohammed! So that is the story of how I cam to live with Mohammed Diallo (my new last name) and his family.

Okay, I’ll wrap this up briefly, if you are still even reading (it’s Ramadan, and I’m bored enough to write really long posts). So yeah, Mohammed’s wife is Bébé, and she is super nice, and a great cook. Both she and Mohammed are fluent French speakers. Their baby is Papa (yes, the mother is Bébé and the baby is Papa). He is at that really adorable age when is just learning how to walk. Mohammed’s sister and her baby also live with us. She doesn’t speak French, so she is a really good person for me to practice Hassaniya with. There are four or five other families who live in the house, and they include an nurse, a man who works for the forestry department, a man who used to be a language teacher for the Peace Corps, and a whole pack of kids for me to play with. So yeah, basically the perfect situation. I love it!

Okay, I’ll let you go. And as always, for those of you still leaving, I’ll leave you with a quick this-is-Mauritanians-make-me-laugh story. My host family has a TV with a billion channels, and they usually watch in French or Arabic (except when they’re watching Bollywood), and I sit and read or play with the kids. Last night they were trying to really nice and they turned on English channel so I could watch. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that we were watching an infomercial for a bathroom organizer.

Okay. Miss you all. Sorry for all the typos but it’s too hot to proofread. Keep in touch!

Pictures...Finally!

2008-09-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

I have finally posted some pictures of my host family and swear-in. Let me know what you think (or if this link doens't work).

http://picasaweb.google.com/beckyrobinson1/PeaceCorpsTrainingPics02

Fun Stuff

2008-09-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

So I’ve finally uploaded some pictures, and there should be more coming soon. Thanks to all of you who have sent letters and packages. You have no idea how much hearing from home can brighten up a Peace Corps Volunteer’s day…speaking of which, I am officially a volunteer and am no longer a trainee.

Swear-in was great. We all got dressed up in Mauritanian clothes, and the U.S. Ambassador came. Then we all cooked an American dinner and danced the night away!

My Site

I have moved into Kiffa and I love it. Everyone I have met has been super friendly. I officially signed my housing contract yesterday, and slowly started moving my stuff into today. Today was also the first day of Ramadan, which so far hasn’t really changed things much, except that I will eat lunch with Americans and only dinner with Mauritanians. I’ll post some pictures soon of my house and all the awesome people that live there.

Things I think are funny…

I think language generally reflects the priorities of society. For example, in Hassaniya, the words is-subh means not only morning, but also tomorrow, making it very difficult to say things like “tomorrow morning”. But, this makes sense in a country where time is a much more elastic term than in the U.S.

However, other terms are much more precise than anything we have in English. For example, “aana sabat” means “I’m full”, in terms of food, but “anna narwa” means “I’m full of drink”. Apparently what you’re full of is very important. There is also a phrase with the direct translation of “going through tea withdrawal”. I can’t remember the phrase because I’ve never used it. I’ve had more mint tea in the last two months than I ever expected to drink in my whole life.

Probably my other favorite difference between Hassaniya and English is when it comes to insults. In English, we have some tried and true insults that one might yell if they were angry (I will refrain from typing these phrases as this is a public site). Hassaniya insults, though, are so much more creative than our own. Here are some of my favorites (in their direct English translation):

May God burn your father
May Gad send you snakes
May God shorten your life

So next time you are angry, try saying this to someone and seeing what they reaction is.

Ok, that’s all from here. E-mail me to try to set up a Skype chat time in the next couple of months. Stay well and I hope to hear from you soon.

Ways My Life is Different

2008-08-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

Hey all! I just wanted to write you all a quick note. I swear in as a volunteer in about a week, and on Semptember 1st! Anyway, I wanted to give you some peices of my life here that are slightly different than back home.

We eat every meal with our hands. You ball up a bunch of rice, and mix it will fish and vegetables (or whatever is on the plate) and then pop in in your mouth. My family likes to make fun of me because I'm horrible at doing this. Lately, they've been making the rice extra oily so it balls up pretty easily, but that also means I have oil dripping everywhere. I'm also supposed to lick my hand when I'm done, but I have not taken this step. I prefer just to wash, and my family has accecpted this as just a strange thing their white girl does.
I sleep outside pretty much every night. This is pretty much the only time of the day when my body temperature feels slightly normal.
I am constantly covered in sweat, and then when the wind blows, the sand sticks to it. So even though I prefer to be clean, it is phyisically impossible to not be covered in a layer of sand all the time.
Everyone on my street knows my name and expects me to say hi to them when I pass (the fact that I've never seen them before doesn't matter). Though there are a bunch of Peace Corps Volunteers living in my neighborhood (just for training, not for my permenant site), we continue to be like celebrities. Everyone knows strange facts about us, pay attention to the close we wear, and know where we live. Especially for children, toubab-watching is an acceptable pasttime.

That's all about that for now. I'll leave you with a my-family-is-crazy-supersition of the week:
I pulled out a pillow to sit on it. My sister told me not to because if I did, I'd have a headache when I woke up in the morning. In this country, pillows are only for leaning on. Who knew?

Miss and love you all. I promise, pictures are on the way...it will be one of my Ramadan projects.

Full Update...Finally!

2008-08-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

I know I’ve promising to update you for a while, and now I am finally following through. I’ll try to keep it kind of short, so I don’t bore you. I promise pictures will be up by the beginning of September. It’s just that the internet is so slow when all the other trainees try to do it, that I don’t have the patience. Stories will have to tide you all over until then.

Site Visit

First things first….my permanent site is in Kiffa. On a unrelated note, on the drive out, we passed a bunch of herds of camels, and had those “Oh my gosh…I really live in Africa” moments. Kiffa is a regional capital towards the eastern side of the country. I like it a lot. There is one volunteer already there, and five of us just starting, plus another 6 who will be at other sites in our region. I actually have a work partner, Eric. We are both doing Girls Education and Empowerment, so I’m really excited about the amount of work we can get done together. The city itself is pretty big, and is on the road from Mali, which means we get a lot of cool products that pass through to be exported out of the Mauritanian capital.

Though it is a big city, it is much cleaner and prettier than Rosso, where I am doing training. With about a half hour walk, I can be out in the dunes, and during our site visit we went out there. I’ll give you more information about Kiffa once I officially move in the first week of September (it will be Ramadan, when most people don’t work, so I’m sure I’ll be bored and e-mailing more than usual).

Home Stay

My home stay is still going well, although I’m getting antsy to live on my own, and especially cook for myself. Here are just a few more of those fun stories about the ridiculousness that is my life here.

Sickness…. So all Peace Corps volunteers get sick. It’s a generally accepted fact that during your first few months you will get sick quite frequently. I was very lucky my first month, and was generally pretty healthy, but we all knew that I probably had some terrible illness coming my way to make up for my good fortune. When I got back from site visit, I finally got the dreaded illness, which is basically generic stomach problems and a raging fever (don’t worry, the story ends well, and I am currently healthy). I’ll spare you the details of the illness itself, but I thought you’d all enjoy knowing the things my family here tried to give me to make me feel better. They are, in order (remember, I was already feeling incredibly nauseous):

Sour milk with corn
Dairy products of all kinds
Spicy food
Lemons

It was the first time I refused food they offered me, but I had to do it. No sour milk and corn in this toubab’s system!

Stars…I tend to spend a lot of time looking at the stars at night. There aren’t any street lights, or much light at all for that matter, so they’re really bright and beautiful. Sometimes my sister star gazes with me, and she told me she is the only person in Africa is likes looking at stars, though I’m pretty sure this isn’t true. That actually has nothing to do with the story.

Anyway, on one particularly good stargazing night, I mentioned to my host mom how beautiful the stars were. She replied by saying (remember, I now live in an Islamic republic with a fairly pious family)

“God gave us these stars” Okay, I guess I can be on board with that.

“And all He was in return is that we are pure of heart…” Seems reasonable…

“That we don’t lie” Fair enough. Maybe we finally understand each other…

“And that we pray five times a day. That is the most important!” Oh, so close!

That’s all for now. I’ll be responding to all of your e-mails within the next week. I promise!!! I hope to hear from the rest of you. Also, in Kiffa, I’ll have pretty regular internet access, and will probably be able to use Skype, so e-mail me your Skype name and we can try and set up some time to chat.

Miss you all!

I'm alive!

2008-08-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I know I've been totally MIA, so I'll give you a quick update. I promise when I get to site, I'll post for real with pictures (plus, it will be Ramadan, when no one does anything, so I'll be bored out of my mind).

First things first, I know many of you have probably heard that there was a coup d'etat here this morning. I want to let you all know that I am totally fine. It was a bloodless coup, and while we have to wait and see how things pan out with this new president, it seems like things will continue to go smoothly. I want to assure you, if there is any danger at any point, the Peace Corps will move us out.

Next...I know I told you I'd update you on my site placement and then I never did. Anyway, my site is in Kiffa, a rather large regional capital in the Assaba region, towards the eastern part of the country. There will be five of us there, and I'm super excited about it. I'll give you more details on this later.

Lastly, we have three weeks left of training before moving into our sites for good. Things here are great. I'm still loving my host family, but I'm ready to be on my own and to eat something besides oily rice everyday.

That's all from here. Please e-mail me. I haven't heard from that many of you, and I'd like to. Besides that, I've posted a wish list, mostly because I know some people have asked what they can send. Mostly, I just love mail, so letters and cards would really make this feel more like home (I've also started my letter writing, so if I have your address, I might grace your mailbox with your presence).

Anyway, that's all from here. I miss you all.

Site Announement and Mermaids!

2008-07-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

I know it’s been a while since I was in contact, and I’m sorry. I’m currently back at the Peace Corps center, and we will all be taking a week to go visit our permanent sites, which they’ll tell us about on Monday. I’m super pumped to see everyone again.

Things with my host family is going great. We get along really well, and my host sisters and I have become really good friends. It will be sad to leave them in a month, but I’m ready to settle in at my permanent site and stop bouncing around so much.

Other than that, things are going great. I’m having tons of fun, learning a lot, and can’t wait to start working.

I promise, pictures are coming soon, but the internet moves so slowly, I have to wait until I develop the patience to do it. Here is a little story to tide you over until I write more! I miss and love you all!

Mermaids…

I showed my sisters some card tricks, and then when they asked how I did them, I told them that it was, of course, magic. The 19 year old told me that she did in fact believe in magic. She then asked me if I believed in vampires. I told her I did not, and she agreed. Vampires are not real.

Next, she asked me if I believed in mermaids, or more specifically, a water creature that is half woman, half fish. I could tell by her voice that she most definitely believed in mermaids, so I decided to not flat out say that I didn’t. Instead, I just asked her many questions about their existence.

Where do they live? Mauritania mermaids live in oceans, rivers, and lakes. How do they breathe underwater? With gills of course.

I then told her that we had a movie about mermaids, and she said she had a seen it. I said that you can’t always believe everything you see on TV. She said she knows, because she sometimes sees American TV shows where unmarried couples live together, and she knows that can’t be true.

Moral of the story….

Vampires-myth

Mermaids- real

Unmarried couples living together- unthinkable

My First Post from the RIM

2008-07-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

Oh man, I know it’s been a while, so I’ll give you all a quick update. Everything here in Mauritania is going great. It’s really hot, but other than that, I love it. The other Peace Corps trainees are really nice, and I love my host family. Here is my basic routine: everyday I have about 6 hours of language class trying to learn Hassaniya, which is a dialect of Arabic. In between that, I’m usually with my host mom and sisters speaking French/Hassaniya, eating with my hands, and taking bucket baths.

So far the best part has been my host family. I have a 19 and 13 year old sister who are helping me learn Hassaniya while I help them learn English. We play a lot of UNO and have a dance party at least once a day. They’ve also taught me how to wear a mulafa, which a big sheet that you use as a dress/head covering (pictures to come). Basically, they’re awesome.

A few other notes, just for amusement…

Every day when I walk down the street I am greeting by various children yelling “Bonjour toubab”, which means hello white person.

My sister really wants me to find her a toubab husband, and if I do, she is going to name her first child Becky.

We have three goats and two sheep that sleep next to the room. Since there is no trash disposal system here, the animals pretty much eat any garbage left on the property.

We had a pretty bad storm the other night. My family all sits in a room together in the dark (they made me turn off my flashlight) and they chant for the whole storm. This was probably one of the weirdest experiences I’ve had here.

Ok…that’s all for now. I promise to write more soon and post pictures! I miss and love you all, and hope to hear from you soon!

Less Than a Week!

2008-06-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! First, I'd like to thank everyone who came out to my house this weekend to say goodbye. I had a great time and I hope you did as well. I've posted an album of pictures. They're aren't that exciting but I just wanted to make sure I knew how to do it, and I've been promising some of these pictures to you all for a while now.

So yeah...the basics are that I leave on Tuesday, and until then I'll be with my family and finally trying to pack. Thanks again for all your support, and I can’t wait to hear from you all!

My First Post!

2008-05-19T14:52:00.001-07:00

I would like to start by saying that this is my first blog. Having never been on Facebook or Myspace, this a little strange for my, but since deciding to join the Peace Corps, I’ve had many requests for life updates, so I figured it was about time I moved into the 21^st century. I’m not sure how often I will have internet access once in Mauritania, but I will do my best to keep everyone up to date, and just let you know that I’m still alive and well. I expect that in return you will keep me posted on your lives.

Now, for some Frequently Asked Questions! (Feel free to e-mail if you have any others that I did not answer)

I’ve never heard of Mauritania. Is it in Eastern Europe?

No, Mauritania is not in Eastern Europe. I did not know much about Mauritania before receiving my assignment, so here are some basics I have learned since then, although, at this point I’m probably not much more useful than Wikipedia. The official name of the country is le Republique Islamique de Mauritanie, (aka the RIM). It is in the northwest corner of Africa, surrounded by Morocco and Algeria to the north, Mali to the east, and Senegal to the south. Mauritania is large, and I won’t know what region I will be living in until I’ve been in country for a few weeks. The majority of the country is desert (Saharan Desert to be exact), with slightly more fertile land on the west coast, as well as running along the Senegal River in the south. As you may have guessed, the weather there gets pretty warm.

Mauritania is a predominately Muslim country. Business and other formal interactions may be conducted in French (so finally I can use those six years of class I’ve racked up), but the majority of people speak one of four languages: Hassaniya (a dialect of Arabic), Pulaar, Wolof, and Soninke. My first two and half months in the RIM will be spent in training, with a heavy focus on learning the language.

What will you be doing?

The program I am a part of is called Girls Education and Empowerment. Most of the job revolves around the Girls Mentoring Centers. Some of these are already created, in which case I would be working in creating programs for young women, which include tutoring and other extra curricular activities. I could also be helping to start one of these centers. I’ll know more after I’ve been in country for a bit, and promise to post more details then.

And now for the most frequently asked question….HOW ARE YOUR PARENTS DEALING WITH ALL OF THIS?

The answer is, better than expected. They have been incredibly supportive, despite the fact that they are worried. So for those of you reading this who are my friends, if you’re in the Chicago area, either because you live here or are passing through, give them a call and come eat dinner with them (my mom is an excellent cook). I am the youngest child, and they are now officially empty nesters, and may need some company. For those of who are friends of my parents, make sure to call and check in regularly, and make sure to take them out and distract them every so often.

******************

That’s all for now. I’ll probably try to post at least one more time before I leave. I’ll be heading to Atlanta on June 17^th for two days of training, and then my whole training class to head to Mauritania together. I’m looking forward to seeing and/or speaking to most of you before my departure date. Thanks so much for all the support you’ve all given me. I really appreciate it.