Silver and Cold

Just a quick update. Life is good, after several attempts I have finally managed to post some pictures on picassa. The Thanksgiving photos are cleverly titled "Thanksgiving 2008".

The temperature has taken a down swing and it is pleasant. I woke up freezing today and zipped my sleeping bag all the way up and covered my ears in the mummy hood. It was amazing! Kristy called me crazy, but admits she is often much colder then is pleasant. I know that you at home are reading this and thinking wow it must be cold as you are looking around and seeing the snow, sleet, and ice. The temperature is probably around 70 degrees but a 30 degree drop is going to change any ones mind about what cold really is.

It is hard to believe that in a few short weeks it will be the Winter Solstice and Christmas and then New Years. We will go to Nouakchott for X-mas and then off to St. Louis, Senegal for New Years! Hurray for a developed city in a partially developed country! There will be more to come and I will update about my classes soon.

Stay safe and warm.

Sweetness

It is the eve before Thanksgiving and I think that I will be too busy to come by and do some interwebbing so here it is my Thanksgiving post. This one will be different then the usual yearly soap box standing and ranting.

We all by now know that we stole our home in America from others who probably stole it from others and everybody thought it was a great idea and that the god of their choice supported it.

This year I am thankful for so much.

I will start with how thankful I am for my bad days. The days that I am wrought with despair and think what the heck am I doing here, those days make the rest of them sweeter then high fructose corn syrup. I am surrounded by jaw dropping poverty, intense hunger, and some of the darkest ignorance I have ever encountered.

I am thankful for the accident that was my birth on a continent in a country that is fruitful and where possibilities are limitless.

I am thankful that I did not grow up only to fall short like the 95% of students don't make it college here.

I am thankful that I was born in a a place of hard work, integrity, and education are the driving forces that will lead to the life that you wish to live.

I am thankful that the work I do here has some impact however small as it is.

I am thankful for the new and old friends that I have.

I am thankful that I was welcomed so warmly to our temporary home here in Kaedi.

I am thankful for the people who have cared enough to try and ensure that Kristy, myself, and the rest of the Gorgol has had an American meal in this place so far from home.

I am thankful for the love that I have found in my wife and that she is always there to support me.

Thank you friends and family for reading and supporting us through this.

American Pie

Life continues as it often does, it is slow and steady here. Thanksgiving is on my mind a lot, it is really astounding how much more I like America being away from it. I will stand firm on my dislike on the origins of this holiday, don't get me wrong.

I do not really have anything of note to report, and I am merely writing to let all who will see that I am alive and well.

Work is work. Students are not much different the world over. Some want to learn, some want to talk, and I believe that they all crave structure and will press boundaries just to see what they can get away with. My Teacher Trainer stuff is slowly starting I hope that this is like The Tortoise And The Hare and that I will keep a good pace my whole time here.

I am currently learning Hassanya, it is a dialect of Arabic. I never knew that my mouth could make some of those noises. Like any language it is coming along slowly and the more I practice the better I will become.

We have resigned that our landlord is not going to fix our plumbing and have started repairs
ourselves. It is a bit of an adventure going into a hardware store and having to describe what the piece your looking for.

Ghouls Night Out

I would like to wish everyone a blessed Samhain (Happy Halloween). We were able to spend the night of Halloween with friends we hadn't seen a while, it was a great time, almost too great. Holidays remind me how much I miss home, its kinda a bummer.

It almost doesn't really feel like it is November because it is hot, still. Regardless of how much Mauritanians tell me its cold, I disbelieve it. I am actually looking forward to the cold season that everyone talks about. Supposedly within a few weeks it will be sweater weather until noon for over a month.

I started my classes, its really hard to tell how many students I have. I expect to get a roster within a couple weeks so I will know for sure but from my attendance I have a class of 40 and a class of 45. More kids will filter in though, I know it. There are still even a lot of teachers that are not here yet. I never really thought that work ethic was something that I thought I would miss but I do, a lot. I will do what I can to lead by example. I have hope to be able to start my teacher trainer job soon I have tentative plans to meet with the DREN and director of my lycee {high school} to discuss where I will be most effective, what they want out of my, and to try and propose some of the ideas that I have.

If I Had A Hammer

School officially started on the 12th, the same day that we in the Gorgol voted absentee style in the coming presidential election. I hope that my vote is more productive than the first day of school.

On the first day of school I got up early made myself pretty all "guy with the tie" lookin' and moseyed over to the lycee. I arrived as expected before many people but not first. I get there shake hands speak some bad-yet developing French and meet some people and left about an hour and a half later. The first day is really the first day they start planning the new year. I was able to tell the man who would make my schedule I would be available for 4 - 6 hours a week and was told to come back next week. I dropped by almost every day and went to the DREN a similar number of days to do the same thing. (Director Regional of Education National) {it's a bad French translation, can you dig it?}

The next Sunday, I show up same deal as before a shirt and tie and all that jazz. The guy with the schedule showed up about 2-3 hours after I left. So, Monday I get my schedule I have two classes a week one that day. I enter an empty class stand there, check out my new chalk courtesy of a heartfelt care package by writing my name on the board, "Mr. Sisco". It felt good to wear that hat again. One kid shows up to see the American teacher, he is not my student but we talk for a few minutes. This story ends with me finding two kids that are supposed to be in my class standing around talking to their friends. I pretend to be mad at them (Don't smile till after December) and instruct them to be actually in class and on time next week, in'shalla.

I Turned Into A Martian

It has recently come to my attention that I have not shared too much about what life is like here, and I only really share the high and low lights and while these are usually the best stories they leave a bit out of the main picture. I will try to show you faithful readers a bit more of what my life is like here, please take into account that these are only my experiences and observations and that like there is no pinnacle American experience there too is no pinnacle Mauritanian experience.

BLEH that made me sound super duper lame.

First off the country here is young, the culture and the people are ancient but the country has only been developed independently for less than 100 years. Think about America less then 100 years old. There are very few paved roads, inconsistent supply of water, electricity, and phone communication (I am sure this goes for television too but I rarely see one in more than passing.) Many people I encounter have farm animals: goats, sheep (not fluffy ones either), donkeys, cows, and horses. There are houses here that are made of adobe and when it rains or if you touch it, it falls apart. Education is not the key to a fruitful career and the system is built (it seems) to weed out people than to prepare them as good citizens. What I knew of as poverty has reached new levels here. There are no services for those that are handicapped in any official sense, I will come back to this.

I have yet to meet a Mauritanian that is not Muslim, and doubt that I ever will. Being that they are Muslim they are very much fatalists and this effects all aspects of life. This is even apparent in speech, many every day used often phrases include: Peace be with you, With the help of God, and Thanks be to God. The fatalist part of life here effects what we as Americans would think of as progress. Life is slow here and people are very patient, things happen when they happen - when God makes them happen - not a moment before. Like going to the post office and I can see my package and I am standing at the counter the people that are working there will help me when they get around to it, if I get frustrated it is my ideas of customer service that is getting in the way my happiness.

I used to think of America as the single serving culture but that was until I came here. Thinking about tomorrow or next time is not really done too often here. You buy enough food for today, enough tea for now, and enough goods for now. This is augmented by a lack of refrigeration as a common place practice, and if you have a fridge you will probably make bags of ice to sell as opposed to keeping a gallon of milk in it. I have not eaten more fresh food in my life ever.

The idea of individual success and property is odd, people have their own stuff and definitely have pride and shame. People often defer to the success of superiors and their pride of their elders. Anything that you may like or want is able to be asked for. Those are nice pants, can I have them? A compliment is almost the same as asking for it. The family and the community are extremely important and one of the pillars of the Islamic faith states that you must give to charity, and people do. If you have no food ask a neighbor there is always room for more around the bowl. It is absolutely common practice to invite yourself to a neighbors for lunch or dinner.

Kristy and I have a hard time just walking into peoples houses or telling the few that we have met, we want to eat with you, we feel that the burden is greater because there are two of us (the people we met have so little and it is hard to think that our presence at their bowl is not taxing on the nutrition of the family) and I get tired of rice and fish for lunch, it's the national dish.

I mentioned earlier that there is no formal aid for those who may need it to be fruitful citizens, no special needs classes, no handicapped parking, nothing but open hearts and homes. People who need to be taken care of simply are. There is a lady who I imagine lives at the intersection of the paved roads (there are 2 here in Kaedi and they meet) She never stands and I imagine she cannot. She wears odd things on her head, throws trash, and sometimes yells. (outbursts of emotion are not common here) In the conditions here with the heat and harsh life it would not take long for someone to wither and die but she has lived the same way for years, she is taken care of because it what is supposed to happen, and the same can be said for all of those in need.

To cap this off, the people here are kind, a boy helped carry things back to the market for me when he was half my size, and children help us when we are lost. Sometimes they call us names, and throw rocks but that is not as common.

We are put up with better then we would be in the US. Imagine someone who doesn't share your basic beliefs, is half your age, and are a different color entirely, they barely speak your language coming to your work and telling you that they are here to help you do things better. Americans would run them out of town or belittle them at every chance.

I will happily answer questions about our lives if you have them. Email or comment me with them.

Within A Mile Of Home

Locusts have come and pretty much gone they were not the biblical style plague I expected but still at times a bit of a bother. This is the biggest one I seen, it's in our room.

Ramadan is over! This is a great thing because the Mauritanian people will now be as productive as they ever are. I still have yet to meet the people I will be working with and for but expect that next week this will happen. School starts on the 12th of October, In'Shalla. Which means I could actually be teaching a whole class by Halloween.

I have updated my Picasa account with 3 new albums just for those of you who have forgotten what we look like and/or want to see where we live. The albums are titled: Road to Kaedi - pit stop, Eid ul-Fitr, and Our home in Kaedi. Go gawk at them at your leisure.