Saharan Adventures: Story time

I am spending my last night in Mauritania in much the same way as I spent the first; listening to the call to prayer over a loudspeaker. Tonight I am in Bogue, a small town right on the Senegal River instead of in the captial city of Nouakchott. Today was the first day of Ramadan. I am staying in a 'eco tourist auberge' which really just means there isn't any running water. Aside from that it is a nice enough place and I am sitting outside in the breeze looking at the stars. Tomorrow I leave Bogue very early and drive 4 hours to Nouakchott for a series of meetings before boarding the plane. I spent today in a whirlwind tour of two of our community programs meeting with a women's association, watching a skit and dance troup by a girl's association, and seeing various other projects like health centers, nutrition monitoring centers, gardens and schools buildings. It was a busy day made all the more tiring by the 45 degree heat and the sun beating down on our heads as we examined latrine buidings for schools and the different plants in the gardens. It was a really good day and I have the pictures to prove it, but sadly I have no idea where I packed my SD card reader so you don't get to see any of them.

Today for lunch there were only three of us eating. Since it is Ramadan most of the staff are fasting but one of the staff here is Rwandan (and also not muslim) and another of the staff is pregnant. So we three ate together around a common plate as we sat cross legged on the floor. I really like the way people eat together here. There is something really hospitable and special about the routine. It starts with washing hands. There is a plastic container with water, shaped like a mix between a watering can and a kettle, and a basin with a bar of soap. You use the soap and water to wash your hands but it is awkward to both pour the water and wash your hands so you need someone to help you. It is this really nice little ritual of helping each other wash your hands; it reminds me of Jesus washing his disciples feet. Once everyone has washed their hands you gather around the common plate. Often it is a plate of just meat but thankfully today's plate was different. There was corn mixed with tuna (surprisingly yummy) gratted carrots, olives, fries, tomatoes and chicken. You grab a piece of bread and use it to pick up the rest of the food with your hands. Someone who has a lot of trouble with germs would probably not enjoy this process but I managed to ignore this for the most part. I like the communal part of the meal and the sharing and conversation. After everyone is finished eating you go through the ritual of washing hands once again, helping each other and passing the watering-can-kettle around in a circle.

Since I can't share any of my pictures yet, I'll end with a story.

There once were two men who lived in the same small village. One day one of the men (I wasn't clear on the how or why...) turned into a goat. When the sun set he turned back into a man. The two friends decided that this was an opportunity. So the next day the goat-man turned into a goat and his friend took him to the nearby town to the market and sold him to a man from a neighbouring village . That night, as soon as the sun set the goat-man turned back into a man and escaped from the man who had bought him. The next day the goat-man turned back into a goat and his friend took him back to the market. The same man who had bought the goat-man the day before was back again, since the goat that he had bought had escaped. So he bought another goat. That night his goat turned back into a man and escaped. Day after day the man bought a goat at the market and night after night his goat escaped.  The goat-man and his friend thought this was a great game and they were getting rich without having to do anything.
One day, a short time later, the goat-man and his friend were back in the market and the man from the neighbouring village came by. He bought the goat-man (again) and once he had handed over the money he pulled out a knife.
"What are doing with that knife dear sir?" asked the goat-man's friend.
"My friend, every day I buy a goat, but every night it escapes. This time I will slaughter it now so that it does not have a chance to escape!" explained the man from the neighbouring village.
"But it is better to wait until tomorrow to kill it." said the goat-man's friend."Really I think you should wait until tomorrow."
"But if I wait until tomorrow, I will have no goat to kill since all of my goats have escaped!" said the man lifting up the knife.
And so the goat-man's friend had to decide whether to let his friend the goat-man be slaughtered and eaten, or to admit to the other man their schemes in order to save his friends life.

This story was told to me twice and one time he let his friend die, and the other he admited the truth.
The End.

Saharan Adventures: Nearing the end

I've spent the last couple of days visiting different projects and meeting community members and sponsored children. It has been a whirlwind trip with a lot of driving. There is a good road between Nouakchott and Kiffa, but once you get off that road to get to the communities where we work, the trips get interesting. All of a sudden the road just sort of stops and you find yourself following well worn tracks in the sand. In some places even those disappear and you're just driving through fields and sand dunes. In some places it is what I imagine the Paris-Dakar Rally to be like. I have spent a lot of the past couple of days being thrown around the back seat of a Land Cruiser and I have the bruises to prove it. Eventually we reach our destinations, small towns in the middle of nowhere built where there is water at least part of the year. These towns don't make any sense right now at the end of the dry season, but I am told that ones the rains come the landscape changes completely, from dry and dusty to lush green grasslands and rivers cutting off communities from each other. From the towns where we have our project offices we go out into the surrounding communities, tiny villages seperated by kilometers of sand and dried out river beds. I was priviledged to be able to meet some of the community members and to celebrate with them the completion of a water system that provides clean water to 5 villages and the school they share. A beautiful old woman, back bent and skin wrinkled grasped my hand with surprising strength as she told me about the difference these water taps made to the health of their children. I was humbled to be invited into the home of one of the families, served sweetened milk and tea and told that this was my home, that I should feel free to visit it anytime. I sat with a shy girl sponsored through our project and when I asked why she was so quiet, found out that I was the first white person that she, or even her mother, had ever seen in real life.

This country is at once beautiful, desperate, magnetic and repulsive. The landscape is varied, from rolling sand dunes dotted with Nime trees and thorny bushes, to flat expanses of rocky nothingness. There is a string of mountains that crosses Mauritania reminding me of pictures I've seen of the grand canyon. These mountains hide valleys full of date palms and sand dunes, an oasis pitcuresque and exotic. The towns are teaming with people, selling and buying, donkey carts loaded with people and products, the streets bustling and full of garbage. The outlying areas seem sparsely populated with tents and small houses in little clusters in the middle of nowhere, seemingly deserted. Small herds of cows, camels, sheep and goats dot the landscape, crossing the roads and causing some heart stopping moments in the Land Cruiser. There are empty burned out car frames along the side of the roads, stripped of anything that could possibly be of value and left to rot, looking every bit like a decaying carcass in the hot desert sun. When the wind picks up it carries sand through the air like a cloud, getting in your eyes and nose. When I get to wherever I am staying at the end of the day I am always surprised by the amount of sand in my ears.

I only have two more days here. Part of me is sad that this adventure is almost over. The heat doesn't seem quite so oppressive, and the people are warm and welcoming. I am learning a lot and the work is going well. I have spent the past week speaking only French and I am pleased with how effortless that has been most of the time. However, a bigger part of me is really looking forward to heading back to Canada and to being out of the sweltering sun, back in the more reasonable temperatures of a Canadian summer.

Saharan Adventures: In between spaces.

I have a love/hate relationship with airports. Over the past several years I've spent an awful lot of time in them. Long layovers, delays, dealing with airline staff and finding terminals and gates. When I am in an airport I feel like I am in a holding pattern, not here, not there in the inbetween spaces. Most of the time I find this frustrating as I would rather be here or there and the inbetween is an inconvenience, something to be endured but not enjoyed. Sometimes though, that holding pattern, the inbetween is exactly what I need.

After two weeks in the feild in Mali- two weeks of interesting people, of eating chicken everyday at least once a day, and working long days - I took the bumpy 6 hour drive from San back to Bamako on Wednesday. Bamako is a sprawling city on the banks of the Niger river with streets packed with motorcycles, land cruisers and taxis fighting for position with pedestrians darting in and out trying to get from one side of the busy streets to the other. The air in Bamako is heavier than in San, more humidity and it has been raining there more than in the Segou Region where I spent the last two weeks. I didn't get to spend much time in the capital but it was an intriguing city that both attracted and repelled. I spent some time in meetings and had dinner with a collegue from Switzerland on Wednesday before heading to the airport on Thursday morning.

After going through security I found myself back in the inbetween space of the departures terminal. The international airport in Bamako has only one gate with a duty free shop and a small cafe where you can buy french pasteries and coffee. I only had enough CFA left to buy a small bottle of water but since there is no AC in the terminal it was an important purchase. My flight was slightly delayed so I found myself sitting in the same plastic seats you find in airports all over the world staring out the window at the UN planes (the blue helments arrived in country on Sunday. We passed several UN transport vehicles on the road to Bamako heading north) and at the Sahel stretching out behind the runway. This time the holding pattern was a welcome moment to collect my thoughts and to think and to clear my mind. Maybe it seems weird, but as much as I am looking forward to what is coming over the next couple of days in Mauritania I needed that hour to adjust and to prepare and to relax. The inbetween space, not in Mali, not in Mauritania, neither here nor there.

Flying into Nouakchott was almost like landing on the moon. The landscape below, becoming clearer the closer the plane came to the tarmac, seemed alien and strange and like nothing I've ever seen before. The flowing white sand interspersed with rockier red soil, the Sahel giving way the to Sahara. The buildings rising up, the same colour as the ground, everything bleached white by the sun. The heat when you get off the plane hits you in the face, almost physically knocking you back but their is releif in the breeze that blows off the Atlantic Ocean only a few kilometers away. Nouakchott is a quieter city, smaller and more reserved than Bamako. Women walking in their colourful hijabs, men in their long white robes. Both Mali and Mauritania are Muslim Republics but Mali is more permissive, if that is the right word. Christians are not allowed to prostelatize in Mali but churches are plentiful and well attended. In Mauritania I am told there are only two churches in the capital but they are forbidden to mark themselves with signs and it is illegal for a Mauritanian citizen to frequent them. The city is dotted with the spires of Mosques and you can hear the call to prayer echoing in the streets at dawn.

I am in the hotel in Nouakchott having a rare day off since the office is closed here on Friday. Tomorrow morning I'll be leaving early for the 8 hour drive through the desert to Kiffa. Even now in the hotel with the AC running and a tv playing american movies with arabic subtitles I feel like I am in a continuation of that inbetween space of the airport. Tomorrow things pick up again and the adventures and work continue. For now I am taking the time to rest up and finish some reports and to prepare for the upcoming meetings. I'm not here, not there. A holding pattern in the inbetween space.

Sahelian Adventures: A few pictures

Here are a few pictures of my time so far in San, Mali. The connection is a little slow so you only get a small taste :)


The moon above my Hotel in San, Mali




The rain is coming!

Keeping me company while I work