Hot In The City

It's getting to be exam time here in Mauritania and I find myself with fun new challenges. I will not actually be giving my exams and all four of them are at the same time. This means less and more work for me. Less because after Thursday Spring Break starts, I shudder at the thought of Mauritanians Gone Wild, and I have two weeks off. More because I have to make sure that the teachers giving my exams do it correctly. Only one of them speaks English and there is a chance one doesn't even speak French. I know that the class will be quiet and students will more then likely be timely, teachers here are not known for leniency. I know that this is their system and I am imposing my desires on their normal situations but I want to be there to support my students. I will be spending 15 min in each class each hour finding cheaters, spell checking the teachers writing, and answering questions.

There are a lot of things that are in the midst of changing right now, our 2nd year PCV's are preparing to go home and we are becoming very excited to receive the new class that will be coming in June. This transition reminds us how short our time here is and how much of a difference one motivated person can make.

From Me To You

12 hours riding to get to NDB totally worth it. First off the ride was cake because we hitched along with Mariam and Pedro. Really kind people that have let us be a part of this experience with them.

We come to the city and hooked up with some PCV's here. The life in the big city must be hard. There are nice amenities that would remind me too much of home, and the anonymity that comes along with living in an expat city would feel very lonely, I think. I feel very brussy here, looking around with wide eyes and exclaming that everyday life here is wonderous. It has to be what the acutal brusse PCV's feel when they come to Kaedi. We were welcomed to sleep at the home of another married couple and have had a great time. Their home is beautiful and the hospitality more than we hoped for.

We visited the port, it was a sight to see. There is a very large international fishing industry here. Lately they have been suffering due to economic sanctions based on the junta government. The sheer number of fish that were pulled from the ocean only to dry on the sand was staggering. We seen manta rays, sharks, and hammer heads. Neat and sad at the same time. It rained that day and for this I was thankful. A hot day with rotting fish innards not so pleasant I imagine. The day was capped with a couples dinner. Our hosts prepared a feast and we enjoyed good company.

The next day, this was inspiring. We visied Cap Blanche (The White Cape) and there is a Monk Seal reserve. There are 200 left alive and we were able to see one. Very cool, very very cool. The reserve was the cleanest place we have seen in Mauritania and the beasuty of it was awe inspiring. Later after we realized we have horrible sunburns we went and goofed off at a old French WWII military compound exploring bunkers and sitting on old cannons. I saw a camel pee for an eternity, they can retain a lot of water. We finished the night and our weekend with dinner at a Spanish restaurant fresh ocean fish, great. Oh I did some work in the morning too ;) connected with a PCV who has the same job as me up here.

Kristy will have her meeting in a few min and then we are off for the long ride home.

Island In The Sun

Another photo update, I posted 2 new albums one of WAIST and the other of our trip to the Ile de Goree. There is something like 80 photos that are new. I no longer have the mohawk it was not professional :( alls well that ends well. Going to Nouadibou for a meeting and site seeing, its a large city in the north of Mauritania. Its practically not even in the same country its like the European version of Mauritania.

ABC

www.becauseoftime.org and specifically http://www.becauseoftime.org/PhotoGalleries/PhotoAlbums/Scallywags2.15/index.htm has pictures of one of our WAIST games. So guy thought we were great and put images on his website. If you are going to be looking for it on your own its under Dakar+ and we are the Scallywags.

We just got internet back in Kaedi so please bear with us if you have been trying to contact us, and you could have called :P