Lenius worked with the children in a village, creating a science curriculum and establishing a school garden. She spoke French when she worked with other professionals, but with the family she stayed with and others in the village, she spoke Hassinya, an Arabic dialect. Sixty to 70 children filled each classroom, Lenius said, and life was "total chaos all the time." "I completely lost control of every aspect of life," she said, laughing. Practitioners of the Muslim faith, Mauritanians give power over their lives to God, she said. "God is in control; if He wills it, it will happen." But, while prayer was one of the few constants in everyday life, even that changed every day. The time for prayer depended on the angle of the sun. "I can't think of a place that's more opposite of America," Lenius said. "But I can't help but miss it. Every moment was exciting; you feel really alive there." She learned to live with unpredictability. "You're in the middle of a taxi trip from one city to another city, and for some reason the taxi driver pulls off and decides to make tea. So we're sitting under a tree at the side of the road for an hour, drinking tea. Time is completely different there." Unlike America, where there are "rules and regulations," the people in Mauritania, Lenius discovered, had a "different perspective of what freedom is." "I felt like I was living very simply but had the conveniences of the developed world. I had an education and, when I was in the capital, I had technology."
Donna Lenius discovers life's basic simplicities as Peace Corps Volunteer in Mauritania
Cannon Beach woman discovers life's basic simplicities during her explorations
By NANCY MCCARTHY
The Daily Astorian
CANNON BEACH - Donna Lenius is an explorer.
Whether she's examining the tidepools around Haystack Rock or living in a village in Mauritania, Lenius embraces the world around her.
As a result of her explorations, the marine educator for the Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP) doesn't take anything for granted. Her Peace Corps stint in Northwest Africa taught her to treasure the "basic simplicity of life. "
"I was constantly reminded of what it was like to have cold water," said Lenius. "It is so hot there. In the hot, hot season, the water would be shut off for a few hours so it wouldn't be wasted.
"In our culture, we seem to be disconnected with the resources we need for life. But in Mauritania, they really use what they have to the fullest extent."
Lenius joined the Peace Corps after graduating from Concordia College in Moorehead, Minn., with an environmental studies degree. She spent two years in Africa, from 2006 to 2008.
Lenius worked with the children in a village, creating a science curriculum and establishing a school garden. She spoke French when she worked with other professionals, but with the family she stayed with and others in the village, she spoke Hassinya, an Arabic dialect.
Sixty to 70 children filled each classroom, Lenius said, and life was "total chaos all the time."
"I completely lost control of every aspect of life," she said, laughing.
Practitioners of the Muslim faith, Mauritanians give power over their lives to God, she said.
"God is in control; if He wills it, it will happen."
But, while prayer was one of the few constants in everyday life, even that changed every day. The time for prayer depended on the angle of the sun.
"I can't think of a place that's more opposite of America," Lenius said. "But I can't help but miss it. Every moment was exciting; you feel really alive there."
She learned to live with unpredictability.
"You're in the middle of a taxi trip from one city to another city, and for some reason the taxi driver pulls off and decides to make tea. So we're sitting under a tree at the side of the road for an hour, drinking tea. Time is completely different there."
Unlike America, where there are "rules and regulations," the people in Mauritania, Lenius discovered, had a "different perspective of what freedom is."
"I felt like I was living very simply but had the conveniences of the developed world. I had an education and, when I was in the capital, I had technology."
She was, to some degree, also free of being restrained from cultural norms that separated men from women in social circumstances.
"I would always try to follow their ways, but I was always known as the 'American,'" Lenius said.
Although a woman wasn't allowed to be alone in a group of men, Lenius, the "American," occasionally would be invited to share a meal with a group of men as a guest.
Mauritanians reacted favorably toward Americans, Lenius said. "Speaking the language to them goes miles."
Sometimes, when she walked down a street and local residents recognized the American, Lenius would hear them shout, "George Bush! George Bush! "
"That was the one thing they knew about America," she said, noting that their access to world news was via a few radios and only one newspaper that circulated in the capital more than 400 miles away.
While violence occurred - four French tourists were killed, the Israeli embassy was attacked and there were food riots - it was far from the village where Lenius lived.
"It makes me mad and sad," she said of the violence. "I can see how easy it might be to explain to them about how the Western world has taken from them and convince them to go on some crazy mission because they have nothing to lose."
After her Peace Corps stint ended, Lenius taught outdoor education at a YMCA camp in the San Juan Islands. Then she heard about an AmeriCorps job opening in Cannon Beach. It was a natural: She had worked as a staff interpreter for three summers before graduating from college. Her sister, Kathy Lenius, who was a local reporter, had written a story about the program that intrigued Donna enough to lure her from Minnesota to Cannon Beach.
As an AmeriCorps worker, Lenius recruits volunteers to talk to Haystack Rock visitors about the tidepools, birds and other animals that make their home on the beach. She also is working on a curriculum and a DVD to educate students in classrooms before they visit the rock. Her AmeriCorps job will end in August.
Though the experiences in Mauritania and in Cannon Beach have been different, Lenius's explorations have taught her the same lesson: "to look at the world around you and apply what you learn to your life."
