April/May

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)…..

1. Read Warren Buffet’s million page biography
2. Learned to make the following from scratch
1. Cheese
2. Pretzels
3. Fermented juice we like to call wine
4. Chocolate filled doughnuts
3. After many rounds of watching, I learned to make three rounds of Mauritanian tea
4. Watched almost four complete seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, something I never would have watched at home.
5. 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)
6. Translate songs from my ipod into French in my head, and then into Hassaniya if I’m feeling extra ambitious
7. Taught my host sisters to thumb war and arm wrestle
8. Perfected French braiding my own hair
9. Watched Mauritanians try to sing along with English music
10. 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

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!

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...

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.