coup d’etat

If you haven’t heard, there has been a coup d’etat in Mauritania; it happened this morning. I was in my language class when I found out. Another trainee, whose homestay site is en brusse (rural), sent Elise (who’s in my language class) a text message about it. So far, things are relatively smooth. I honestly do not know what’s going on besides the bits and pieces that I’ve heard from other people and what I read online. We’ll probably get more information from Peace Corps soon. I doubt that we’ll be evacuated since the last time there was a coup (in 2005) the volunteers were not evacuated.

On to other news… my host dad told my language facilitator that I can no longer use my fan during the day; I guess the electricity bill was a lot. I only feel slightly guilty since they’re getting paid 36,000 a month. I also do not eat breakfast and haven’t eaten dinner with them in the past few days. Oh well, I guess I just won’t be at home that much since there’s nothing to do at home.

Anyways, I feel like I’m pretty much cut off from the rest of the world. I have no idea what’s going on. I picked up my first Newsweek today and it was heavenly. LOL>

is this mauritania?

I’m back in Rosso - the land of trash and everything bad. =) My permanent site visit was great; I really like Atar. Atar is a regional capital in the north, and is a tourist town. The north is pretty hot but it’s not humid. It also does not have a lot of mosquitoes. yay! The current volunteers in the region and the new volunteers who are going to the region are pretty cool; it’s nice since we’ll be spending lots of time with each other.

It took us 8 hours to get to Atar from Rosso; we had to drive through Nouakchott (the capital). Since there are not enough Peace Corps vehicles to take everyone at once some of us had to take taxi brusse. It was not a pleasant experience since they try to cram as many people as possible into one car. I was in a station wagon with 6 other Peace Corps people on the way to and 7 on the way back from Atar. For the majority of the trip back I shared the passenger seat with Elise (a GEE volunteer who’s also in my language group). Another annoying thing about taking taxis in Mauritania is that drivers can stop whenever they want for the most random things. On the way to Atar our driver stopped to pick up his boubou and our driver on the way back insisted that we stop for tea. Basically, there’s no sense of customer service in Mauritania. Anyways, while we were in Atar we had to do protocol. Protocol consists of meeting local officials and our community contacts. We met with the Wali (governor), Hakim (prefect), the chief of police, and the regional coordinator for the Ministry of Women (I think) or la conditione feminine (CF) who is my supervisor. Besides doing protocol, we also checked out possible houses. At the end of our stay we all spent two days swimming at an oasis and a night at an augberge (resort?). I was really excited to be able to use toilet paper. LOL> We were originally planning to go to Tarjic but on the way there we discovered that the rain (early that morning) had created a river.

The people in Atar seemed nice and my community contacts seemed really excited to have us there. Last year’s Girls’ Education and Empowerment volunteer ET’d (early termination) one month in, so the center was ran by 2 second year volunteers. I’ll won’t be working alone; I’m actually paired up with another GEE volunteer - Brandon. I’m really excited to start working, i.e. planning. Furthermore, I’m excited that there are lots of things that I could do in Atar besides working my program. For example, two of the volunteers who are finishing their service taught English classes and they encouraged us to do the same. Nonetheless, there’s a lot more that I can do within my own sector. I’m really interested in working with girls who dropped out of school and girls who did not pass the BAC. The Girls’ Mentoring Center (GMC) in Atar is kind of small but we have two computers, internet and an air conditioner.

The first two pictures is of the “river” on the way to Tarjic and the last is of the GMC.

I’m enjoying all the email updates that I’ve received from several people. Thanks a bunch! This morning we had a mental health session and “receiving no mail from home” is on the list of things that make people depress. =) On another note, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much my courses at Denison have prepared me for the real world - or particularly the Peace Corps. Anyways, I miss talking with people about APIA issues so if you find interesting articles send it my way.

P.S. I updated my address on the left side. If you’ve already sent me a letter to the Nouakchott address - I’ll still get it. Also, if you want me to receive letters from me send me your address.

I’m going to ….

ATAR!!!! It’s in the travel guidebooks. =) So I’m up here for site visit and it’s pretty sweet. There are lots of mountains, canyons, etc… Who would have thought? I will update with more details when I return to the center.

In the meantime check out these pictures.

toubabs everywhere

all 77 of us at the airport waiting for our flight to Dakar, Senegal

Oops. I forgot to mentioned the previous entry that my Mauritanian name is Mouna. I feel like I’ll probably have to use it for my entire duration here since people always ask for my Mauritanianian name.

The kids here love to call us “Toubab” which means foreigner; but I think it’s derogatory since they’re not suppose to use it. Supposedly adults don’t use it but the other day this woman definitely said “Bonjour Toubab” to me. In relations to toubabs, there’s a store here sales used clothes from the states. A few nights ago, I had a dream (thanks to the malaria pills) about going to the toubab stores and finding books that I donated years ago. LOL> Besides being called toubab, I’m often called “Chinoise” [Chinese] or “chingili,” whatever that means, by adults and kids on the street. I’ve decided that I’m not going to tell people that I’m Hmong since it’s already complicated to do so in the states; I’m not going to try it in Hassaniye or French. I usually just say that my family’s from Laos.

I often dread the weekends (Friday & Saturday) here because there’s nothing to do. Sometimes I sit out with my host family but since they usually just watch tv all day long - there isn’t much to do. So I usually just sit in my room all day long with my fan on. I no longer have the urge to read nowadays because that’s all I do. Since I ran out of books to read, I’ve started borrowing from Elise (who’s in my language group). Besides that, my language group sometimes take walks and just hang out; that helps make the weekends go by faster. Last weekend, we went to my first Mauritanian football match but it wasn’t that entertaining.

On Thursday, the funniest but weirdest thing happened to me. I was walking with 3 other PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) to the market when out of nowhere, in the middle of the street, this woman came up behind me, hugged me and picked me up. Everyone on the street just stop and stared; her friends were laughing like crazy. Anyways, I guess there’s a fascination with petite, Asian girls here.

We’re all back at the center for a few days before we all leave for our permanent sites. I’m really excited to find out where I’ll be placed. I would love updates from people, so please send me updates. I’m able to check my email often since my homestay site is in the city. If you would like to send me a letter (I would love that even more) you can send it to:

Sia Moua

c/o Corps de la Paix

BP 222

Nouakchott, Mauritania

West Africa

I’ll put more pictures up in a few days with more updates. I promise.

Aane esmi Mouna.

sorry about the delay. i have been having problems with my laptop; so i have resorted to just using the computer at the cyber. anyways, here is a mini update:

It has been over a week since I moved to my homestay site and started my language class. I am learning hassaniya which is a dialect of Arabic. My homestay family has been great besides a few things, but they’ve been worked out. One, the first few days my host mom and this other lady who lives with them kept trying to make me pray with them even after I told them that my family goes to church. Second, they kept asking me to give them things and would get mad when I told them that I don’t have a lot of it. My language teacher/facilitator had to talk to them in order for them to stop. I was told that the families were told ahead of time to refrain from asking us for gifts, but I don’t know what happened. My host dad doesn’t ask me for things but he does tell me from time to time that he plans on going to the states to go marry an American. He also wants to stay at my place. I just respond with enshallah, which means if god wills it. LOL. People use that for everything. Anyways, I am glad it stopped because it was making me really uncomfortable. Nonetheless, I am still some what uncomfortable buying things for myself or bringing things home. So your probably wondering how i have been communicating with my family, huh? With my broken French and minimal hassiniya, of course.

I am definitely starting to feel better about being here. There are days where I hate it but I am pretty content most of the time. It definitely helps that I have my own room and a sense of privacy. Also, I bought a fan which I have to say is the best investment of my life. I am no longer waking up in my own sweat. Oh I forgot to mention that my homestay is in the city. Pretty sweet huh? We have running water and electricity.

We find out our permanent site placement in two weeks. Yay. I will do more updates soon.

I am starting to feel a lot better about Mauritania now. I am less homesick than I was previously. I think the heat really got to me. I am at the cybercafe so I do not have that much time to write. I will put pictures up soon.

OMG.

I don’t have that much time to write so here’s a quick summary about Mauritania. I’m having a hard time adjusting. I seriously should have thought more about coming to Mauritania. I’m can’t really deal with the heat - it makes me so tired and crabby. I took a trip to the market yesterday and was amazed to see all the trash; I guess there’s no garbage system. AAAh. Surprisingly, I’ve been rather homesick the past two days. I hope things will get better once we move to our homestay site (this Friday). If things do not work out, I’m coming home. However, I hope it doesn’t come down to that. I’m really excited about the program but I am so sick of all the training. I’ll write more when I get my laptop to work.

Atlanta!

So what have I been doing since I graduated? Obviously nothing profound. I’ve been catching up on sleep and eating food that I missed while I was at Denison. For example, mangoes are available just about anywhere; however, they’re usually ripe or almost ripe. I do not like ripe mangoes (majority of the time) , because when they’re ripe they’re sticky; I’m rather OCD about keeping my hands clean. I prefer to eat mangoes, when they’re still sour, with pepper, salt and fish sauce - the Southeast Asian way. =) So every time I buy mangoes I make sure that they’re green and they’re hard. Another fruit that I haven’t had in a while are guavas. They’re so good but rather pricey to get here. My mom bought two the other day and I ate both of them. LOL. Besides the fruits, I had tapioca/tri-color ( a dessert), steam rolls (like spring rolls but wrapped in a crepe type wrap), papaya salad ( Royal Thai has this dish, but it does not compare) and a noodle+curry dish. The only thing that I have not had yet are croissants from Trung Nam - this amazing French bakery own by a Vietnamese family. I’m planning to go get some this week. Talking about these food makes me wished I would’ve been willing to teach as long as I get to go to Cambodia. Gosh, it would’ve been amazing. Oh well, it’s okay since I wanted something different and Mauritania is going to be quite a change. Also, my parents are planning to take a trip to Laos and Thailand in the next year or two. I think they’re going to wait until I come back so that I can go with them. Yay! I’m so excited I really want to go to Laos since I haven’t been there yet. But I would love to return to Thailand - it’s one of my favorite places. This time, however, I will be going to the floating market (picture below) since I didn’t get to do that the last time I was there.

Besides eating and sleeping, I’ve also been watching lots of Thai lakorns (soap operas). My mom got me addicted to them; I used to watch them with her from time to time when I was younger since she understands/speaks Thai. But now they’re subbed, so I no longer need her to translate for me. =) Anyways, there’s suppose to a Lao movie coming out soon that I really want to watch call Sabaidee Luang Prabang/ Good Morning, Luang Prabang. It’s a collaboration between Laos and Thailand, and it’s the the first privately funded film since 1975 when the Communist government took over. I can’t wait to see it; I hope they sub it.

I’ve also been doing numerous chores. My parents are semi-remodeling our house so there are lots of projects. Last Saturday, my entire family spent the whole day doing landscaping work on our front yard. It was so tedious. In addition, I was “forced” to help my mom with the “garden”. I hate the “garden”; I hated it since I was a little kid. When I talk about the “garden” I’m not talking about a backyard garden (we have that too), I’m talking about about a plot of land (at least 30 minutes or more away) that my parents rent for the summer in order to grow a number of crops. However, this year, they’re using my uncle’s friend’s land (he lives an hour or so away from the cities). So on Memorial Day, my family and my aunt’s family (my mom and my aunt always share their garden) went to the garden for an entire day - from seven in the morning until 4pm. We planted corn, cucumber, watermelon, tomatoes, beans, cilantro, green onion, parsley, etc… My mom loves to garden; she can’t live without gardening. I was never good at gardening; I usually killed the plants and then got yelled at. Thank goodness, my mom no longer makes us go all the time now. We just have to show up once or twice. Hrmm. I guess this will be useful since I’m planning to have a garden in Mauritania (the Peace Corps suggested we bring seeds). But we’ll see how my garden turns out; I’m pretty sure nothing will grow.

I received my Peace Corps staging kit almost two weeks ago. I was so excited! I called the following day to book my ticket to Atlanta, which is the staging site. Well, there are suppose to be 80 of us in my group. Surprisingly, I’m actually some what nervous about meeting 80 strangers. It’s like freshman year all over again. Gosh, I always hate initial meetings because people are usually overly friendly and nice. Anyways, I’m leaving Minnesota on June 17th and the states on June 20th. We’re taking a direct flight from Atlanta to Senegal and then a bus?? to Mauritania since the training site is now in Rosso. I believe Rosso is on or by Mauritanian/Senagalese border.

Forget about stereotypes and generalization for a minute and read the following. Anne forwarded it to me and I thought it was hilarious and so true!!! The blue is westerner and the red is Asian/Chinese. I just posted some, not all.

Punctuality

It’s “Asian Time”. You’re suppose to be there at 5pm, but you leave your house at 5pm. =)

Contacts

This is self-explainable if you talk to me. LOL> My connection/relations stories are pretty complex.

Queue when Waiting

This is one of my pet-peeves. I think people crowd around because they think they’ll be served faster, which is usually true when you’re in an “Asian environment”. I was at an Asian wholesale store the other day, waiting in line to check out, when this lady just walked past me to the front to check-out; the clerk didn’t say anything. It was really irritating.

Transportation

LOL.

It’s Getting Closer

I can’t believe that I’m graduating in a few weeks. It just seems so unrealistic. I still feel like a First Year. Nonetheless, I’m excited to graduate. This year has just been physically and emotionally draining; I’m ready for a change of scenery. But I can’t wait for SENIOR WEEK! I just want this week and next week to be over already.

Okay. I’ve done several medical tests in the last month but they have not found anything wrong. All my tests were normal. I’m thinking that the severe abdominal pain resulted from stress. Anyways, I officially hate the hospital (and getting shots/getting blood drawn). I’m not a big fan of the Dentist either following the extraction of my wisdom teeth. =(

I’m looking forward to going to Mauritania in last than two months! I finally sent in my aspiration statement and resume a little over a week ago; I was over two months behind. I didn’t realize that I had to submit them within ten days of receiving my invitation until Katrina mentioned it to me over a month ago. Oh well, I don’t think it’s such a big deal since some people have just received their invitation and I’m sure others are still waiting. I believe there are usually 60-80 volunteers per group? So far we have around 30-something invitees on our PC Mauritania google list. Well, I’m suppose to be working on my French (using Rosetta Stone) but I haven’t had time to do it; I guess I’ll do it after graduation. I’m suppose to do at least 40 hours before staging.