Monday, January 26, 2009

Stranger Than Fishin'

Life has a way of sneaking up on us, all of us everywhere. This is one of those things that just happens. What has happened to Kristy and I in the RIM is that we now find ourselves busier than we have been in a long time.

Kristy's work is rolling along with Eco-Clubs starting at her 2 schools. The clubs will focus on the environment being awesome and ways to preserve and appreciate it. Preserving things is not a priority in a fatalist society, as God will do as they see fit.

My work is rolling along as well. I am getting through to some of my students, always a plus. I have started at least 1 English club for practicing that elusive and difficult language, more to come when I can motivate the teachers into it. I will start an adult English class tomorrow, inshalla, and there was a special request for a government officials English class. I have started to track teachers down myself because I have not been helped as I was promised. All this and I get loads of days off, weird huh?

We watched Obama swear in, there was an informal party to do so, good times. We really felt appreciated when he referred to people watching in small villages around the world. I hope that he is able to do some of the things he has promised, so far things are looking positive.

Kristy participated in a Karate demo here in town, she is now extremely popular.

Senegal is on next months ajenda, we will be participating in W.A.I.S.T. (West African International Softball Tournament). This is going to be great, but I am afraid the timing will stunt some of our prjoects.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

One Tin Soldier

After all our vacationing we had meetings in the capital to touch base with our peers and talk shop. It was a lot like our training, which was what it was.

When we came into town our taxi driver accused my brother of being behind some of the military stuff told me and that I was fabulously wealthy. I did what I could to explain that my brother is a stylist in Philadelphia, and I live life much as a Mauritanian in Kaedi.

The thing that greeted us was protests about the fighting in Gaza right now. People are not happy this much is clear. We are safe and the demonstrations are not anti-American, do not worry about us. There were times it was best to stay put or walk away from the crowds, but such is life.

Auld Lang Syne

New Years in St. Louis. This place was awesome! I am however getting ahead of myself, I'll start at the beginning.

Kaedi to NKT = 6.5 ish hour car ride. Its all in all not so bad but if you are going to be in a car that long it will be a task. We were home for 2 days with Marta and Aly it was a good time, we finally visited the river in Kaedi (took some pictures that I have ambitions of putting up soonish) We met up with Nema and 2 of her friends from 'Merica and did some fun going to another country stuff. Changing money, this was sweet. We go up early went to the place I thought was where you go to find that it was not open yet... I was 2 blocks in the wrong direction and felt silly for being as wrong as I was. When we finally get to the right place we know basically UM (ouguiya {ooh-gee-ah, thats the $ here) to CFA (Seneglase $ called say-fa) is life a 1 : 2 ratio where you get twice as many CFA for your UM. Nema being our hero and second year volunteer with mad language skills starts asking to trade money. The shops are not being very nice and they are offering us 1/5th of what we should be getting. This frustration is too much, we become indignant and storm off only to grab a Mauritanian friend to solve our problem. He goes and finds someone they say the same thing, but its correct. Problem was there is some out dated conversion method where you quote the money changing to be multiplied by 5 and we feel silly again. Thats solved and the group of us (7) cross the river without any problem and only sorta legally we just hop on a boat and go across, everyone does it. From there we ride about 8 hours in a series of buses to get to St. Louis.

This place was awe inspiring, there are 2 branches of a river that meet at the Atlantic making an island. This used to be the France's imperial capital of West Africa. The experience was like being on a real vacation and the details are hazy. We spent hours on the beach and felt like tourists. We rang in the new year in good spirits and good health.

I Won't Be Home For Christmas

Life was really busy I had little to no interwebbing force so I will be updating through what I would have written had I been able to...

It's true was not home at all not in Kaedi and not in USA. We passed the holiday in NKT. It was a good time there were so many of us in one place seeing many of our long lost friends for the first time in months. There were real restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, and good times to be had by all.

Kristy and I visited grocery store and it overwhelmed us. There were so many choices and things that we do not have access to, wow.

We decided that we would not go directly to St. Louis for New Years and come home for a few days and go through Senegal to get there when we do.