12 Oct 2008 1 Comment

by s.moua in Uncategorized

Ramadan wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. We were told during stage that Ramadan is the hardest month because there’s just nothing to do. I guess it helped living in the regional capital and being around other volunteers all the time. Anyways, there are more people in Atar now that Ramadan is over. School started today; teachers and students are slowly drifting in. However, school is usually not fully in session until one or two weeks after the start date.

The other Atar volunteers and I have been meeting with Sharon’s (the 2^nd year Small Enterprise Development volunteer) counterpart who has been introducing us to his women co-ops. Before the end of stage, Amanda and I came up with the idea to develop a project where we would connect Mauritanian women who are able to produce crafts and sell it online. They have really awesome wax prints and mulafa fabrics here that can be used to make really cool clothing, décor, etc… Our goal is to create something like www.tenthousandvillages.com and www.mercadoglobal.org. We also hope to raise awareness about the importance of education – particularly for girls.

Once I got to site, I told Sharon about it and she introduced me to her counterpart. It has been quite an experience trying to communicate the ideas in French. Things are going faster than I expected (which is good). Nonetheless, right now we’re focusing on just meeting the women and seeing how it goes. I think this project is more important now that two tour operators (I think) have cancelled their trips here as a result of the recent attack on Mauritanian soldiers. Many people in Atar depend on the tourist season for their income and it’s horrible that there might not be that many tourists this year.

In other news, we’re planning to have an open house for the GMC at the end of this month. We hope to open the GMC for the year in November.