Or imagine the village as a sort of time travel. Aside from the flip-flops, a few random plastic items, the US-surplus wheat that my family eats, and the ancient radio and flashlight that my family uses, this place could very easily be 500 years ago. There's no electricity, running water only in the sense that there are a few public faucets around town to supplement the well water, and people commute to work in the fields on donkey carts. The houses are made of mud brick and most of the roofs are branchs. I doubt that anything done in that village has changed (or been improved upon) since the Medieval period. Even the language they speak is the closest modern dialect to Classical Arabic
Peace Corps Volunteer Greg in Mauritania; Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land (reconstructed)
(Note - This is a reconstruction and expansion of a post I wrote after my first week of Community Based training in mid-July. The original post that I wrote in Kaedi did not work because I ran out of time. I decided that I should take advantage of high-speed, reliable internet access while I have it.)
So, we were finally taken to our homestays where we will be for the rest of training. I am in the tiny Black Moor village of M'Beidia, about 25km west of Kaedi off the road to Nouakchott. My sitemate James and I are learning Hassaniya Arabic.
There were three groups of us in the Peace Corps car going to the CBT sites west of the city. The first two villages were really close to the city, within a five minute drive. After the other groups were squared away, we drove out to our site. And drove. And drove. In the 25 minutes it took to drive to M'Beidia, we passed maybe two other villages, and a whole lot of nothing else. As we went along I noticed that there were fewer and fewer trees and vegetation and a lot more brown as we went west away from Kaedi. We are the farthest out of the training sites this year.
At first there were three of out here. We pulled up to M'Beidia and sat under a tree to meet our host families and drink the first of many rounds of tea. Luke was named Abu. I was named Siddi, which they told me is a popular name which means Master or Sir. They named James Abdarathman, slave of God. Abu, Siddi, and Abdarathman. Can you spot the one that is not like the others?
So we go home with our families, and it turns out I do not actually live in the village of 200 people. I live in the suburbs east of the village of 200 people. My house is a good 50 feet from the next house, where the average is probably less than 10, and there is a good 500 feet of open space between my house and the village proper. A little closer to Mecca I suppose. Beyond my house there is nothing, only brousse for miles until the next village. I've renamed the area around my house Town and Country East. Makes it feel a little bit more like home. Except for the sand, houses made of dirt, and the abject poverty, it's exactly like the original Town and Country.
I am living with the Abade family, which makes me Siddi ould Abade, Master son of Abade. Strangely, my host father is named Aleyn, not Abade. I have no idea who this Abade character is. My host mother is named Izza. I have 7ish brothers (not sure exactly who all the children are who run around the house yet) and one sister. The sister's name is Kumba. Don't ask me the brothers' names, all I know is that one of them is named Abu, one is Hammad, and another Mohammad...and five or so more. I'm pretty sure Izza is pregnant with a nineth sibling. That's a lot of babies. Maybe I should ditch the mini Gateway Arch and coloring books as gifts for the family, and give them some condoms.
What is my village really like? Well, imagine going camping for three months ... in an oven. Or a tanning bed. I'm not sure how it works out scientifically, but out here we're about a mile from the sun. I busted out my temp guage one day to see how hot it really gets, and I stopped looking when it reached 119 degrees F. As far as I can tell it hasn't gotten below the low 80s. I'm glad that the heat broke it, because it suddenly gets a lot hotter every time I looked at it. After a few days, the weather stopped being so bad though. It's amazing how quickly your body adjusts.
Or imagine the village as a sort of time travel. Aside from the flip-flops, a few random plastic items, the US-surplus wheat that my family eats, and the ancient radio and flashlight that my family uses, this place could very easily be 500 years ago. There's no electricity, running water only in the sense that there are a few public faucets around town to supplement the well water, and people commute to work in the fields on donkey carts. The houses are made of mud brick and most of the roofs are branchs. I doubt that anything done in that village has changed (or been improved upon) since the Medieval period. Even the language they speak is the closest modern dialect to Classical Arabic.
With such extreme conditions, it is not surprising that our numbers dwindled. Luke took one week at this place, and he was gone. He waited a few days to be polite, but all our convincing couldn't get him to stay. He missed his girlfriend and family and such things, and out here, if you have anything like that back home, then you're gone. I don't blame him for going, but it sucks that his quitting leaves just James and me out here in somebody's version of Hell. We can't even play Monopoly anymore. I see many a boring day ahead for CD and Abda.
