cazinmauritania

Tabaski in Kaolack chez la famille Kane

Mon, 07 Mar 2005 18:59:35 GMT

Extract from a letter home, written 28th January

The journey down to Rosso, Mauritania was nothing short of a nightmare. The combination of having Master Pee in the car with us (I always knew there were issues between the Senegalese and the Mauritanians, or indeed most of the Maurs and pretty much any race other than them, but I’ve never before seen such open racism) and the imminent arrival of Tabaski meaning the gendarmes all needed money to buy sheep, meant we spent over twice the normal fare in police pay-offs and invented fines and tolls alone. I guess until they start paying civil servants a semi decent wage you can’t expect much more. The gendarmes are fairly decent blokes, it’s just their guns, uniforms and the power they abuse that makes them public enemy number one. But its also one of the things I love about Maurie – there’s no real rules and everything’s kinds malleable. It makes life a bit more interesting!

Anyway we got there in the end; and after getting all schoolma’amish with the border guard (he tried to convince us there was a ‘formalities charge’ but was silly enough to give us back our passports when we demanded them, do just got an earful about honesty instead of the 1000 UM he was hoping for) we were soon sat on a Pirogue crossing the Senegal river.

I’ve now crossed the border into Senegal three times and I’m always stunned by the huge difference just the other side of the river. It is so vibrant! The public transport is all beautifully decorated, the streets are cleaned and there is music, fruit and greenery everywhere. The touts and money changers in Rosso Senegal kinda know us now so we were greeted as old friends and not given so much hassle, plus on this side of the border having Master Pee with us was an advantage and made our passage much smoother. So without too much trouble we got ourselves a taxi straight through to Kaloack. Kaloack is right in the South so we got to see a lot of the landscape as we passed through, went through St Louis again and took a mini detour to Touba, a very religious place (and home to the delicious café touba!). The symbols of Senegal are the baobab tree and the lion and you just have to glance at the countryside to understand why – it looks just like Simba’s kingdom in The Lion King (although that was based on Zimbabwe), Savannah plains in which you expect to see lions roaming at any second. And the huge, gnarled baobabs are just every where. They are so beautiful, and absolutely GINORMOUS.

Our driver was pretty cool, he spoke very little French so I got to practise my Pulaa and Wolof on him which was quite fun. The only problem being that although he seemed to understand my faltering sentences, for the most part I didn’t have a clue what he was saying in response. We broke down just half and hour away and somehow the driver managed to pull the whole wheel off so we were stranded in a town ‘almost there’ for over an hour. But it was cool – we wandered round, bought sandwiches and watched a martial arts class in the local school. Somehow nothing could ruin the holiday mood and Pee was smiling properly for the first time in ages. That was enough to make us content.

The few days we spent with his family in Kaolack were just a continuous succession of memories that I will treasure for the rest of my life – days spent visiting the market (the second biggest in Africa apparently), meeting friends, ‘saluering tout le monde’); evenings spent in the dusty road under the Neem trees outside the house, chatting until the early hours of the morning with people constantly coming and going – making tea and a minty hot milk drink (created by Moussa, one of his brothers friends), occasionally wandering off to the boutique to buy Thiakri ( the most delicious thing ever invented) or Fanta, discussing everything from politics to rap music, learning Wolof, writing, drawing, playing football dancing … and always there was music and chatter.

Impossible to believe we were only there for a week – so much happened. Tabaski day when I saw my first sheep gorging ( and it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought); the day after when we paid for a bus and went to a river near a mangrove swamp with our recently made friends to swim and play football and just chat and sunbathe; talking to Aisha and Coumba (my namesake) – his two sisters who are both incredibly intelligent, beautiful women; learning Wolof off of Mbaye; flirting with his brothers; talking to his parents and planning, planning to go back someday.

It was with sad hearts we said goodbye and set off for Dakar but I count my lucky stars that I was given that opportunity. Even if Magali never gives me any more holiday I know that what I experienced there was special and unique – everything, down to his dad praying for us before we left, is locked away in my memory forever.

We only stayed in Dakar a couple of days, just long enough to go round the markets, discover Cadbury’s chocolate (not quite British quality but still rather a miraculous find), do a tour of the city and visit the Île de Gorée. We stayed with Mbaye’s aunt, all of us crowded on a huge mattress on her floor. It was so nice. We got to see Pee’s old shop in Dakar; the telltale sign that he used to work there being ‘lost time is never found again’ written in marker pen on the door in English. Wherever he goes, he leaves a profound English thought behind!

Oh I nearly forgot! In Kaolack we learnt Senegalese dancing – the Mballach and the Rhuss(!)- and on our last night we went to the local club and danced the Mballach so hard the sweat was dripping into my eyes so much that they stung, and blurring my vision. The Senegalese sure know how to dance ….

Back to Dakar – Goree was kinda hard. It represents the place where the slaves were taken to America. Its actual historical significance is apparently questionable but as a symbol it is hugely powerful. The ugly history of slavery is in stark contrast with this beautiful tropical island, and they sit very uncomfortably together. I felt almost uncomfortable to be drinking in the beauty of this place when it had such a terrible history. The four of us were there with three of the Senegalese people we now know – Pee, Mbaye and Moustapha (a friend who is doing an IT apprenticeship in Dakar and whose ambition is to be a computer genius. His English is also incredibly good, although he insists he’s ‘just trying my best y’know …’). Looking around the ‘maison des esclaves’ I couldn’t help myself but turn to them and say ‘Balma’ (forgive me). It is easy to forget how much the slave trade still blots the history of Africa. At home it was just something I studied at school, a really sad history lesson. Here it is a reality and it is these people’s ancestors who were taken.

They say they know it is not our fault: that we are not responsible for what our ancestors did. But being here, I see how they have to work to forgive our past and I feel a certain shame that I just kind of expect that forgiveness, expect a whole continent to just let us off with our horrific past behaviour and start with a clean slate, in fact not even that because everywhere you go here you can see how Africa is still being exploited by the powerful Western powers robbing her of her natural resources. It makes me so angry, it’s positively miraculous they’re willing to forgive us without recompense. But they do, Mbaye just squeezed my hand and said ‘You are forgiven’ (forgotten the words in Wolof). Its funny, we have a little joke with so many of our friends here –they’re coffee and we’re milk – mix the two together and you get the perfect drink … and although I like to think that racism isn’t such an issue any more in England (or Britain, sorry Lewis) I’m constantly being reminded that there is still a long way to go and only together can we fight the injustice that still remains. Coz there is still lots, they may be free, they may be independent, but these people are still suffering because of us. Their poverty and lack of opportunity compared to my comfort and the chances I have been given in life just seems so unfair. They are so clever, and so desperate to learn, but somehow so many end up as vendors on market stalls away from home, trying to earn money to give the rest of their family the best they possibly can. What can we do? There’s got to be something. Haha. Dropping the debt would be a start I guess, then campaigning to make the WTO be more fair … I dunno. Nancy says fair trade would begin to solve most of Africa’s problems …. I think she’s got a point. I don’t know but surely there must be something we can do. I don’t mean this as a lecture just as a question to raise. What do you think?

New Years in St Louis....mais CA BOUGE QUOI?!?

Mon, 07 Mar 2005 18:55:18 GMT

1st January 2005

It’s New Year’s Day; and I cannot think of a single place I’d rather be than where I am right now.

We are in St. Louis. And so far it totally rocks. We met the Peace Corps at le bac (the border crossing) on the 30th and without any hassle (Abs truly is a great man he knows EVERYONE making our life nice and easy with gendarmes) we were on the ferry crossing the river to Rosso Senegal. This was a little more hassle-ful with our passports ‘disappearing’ and 1000 CFA each being demanded for their reappearance. Luckily Em and I remembered our nice gendarme friend Oumar Diba and we phoned him, gave the phone to the dude in the police booth; they had a nice little chat and voila! Our passports miraculously reappeared free of charge. Oh how useful it is to have friends (another contact we made through Abs - I love that man).

We managed to find a minibus to take us from Rosso Senegal to St. Louis. It was really fun; kinda like a school trip ’cept I barely knew anyone and we are all much older, if not much more mature…..
(We Brits at 18 are the babies of the trip) but there was the same banter and singing and general larking about. And Em, Karl, Will and I sat at the front and played some crazy American card game which I didn’t quite understand and kept having seemingly random new rules introduced. Twas fun! Oh yeah, we got totally whipped but next time, next time…..

Ouch my head….. Guess this is that thing known as a hangover kicking in! Might go chill on the beach with my pounding head later.

So yeah, arrived in St Louis. Man is this place beautiful! Full of elegantly decaying French buildings – kinda like a crumbling Montmartre. Apparently it’s a bit like New Orleans – if that’s so I can’t wait for the ‘Caz and Em sexy adventure’ (ie travel plans we’ve made for the future) that takes us there. The hotel is on a little spit of land going out into the ocean so it is all palm trees and soft white sand. It is absolutely fabulous – by far the nicest place I’ve ever stayed. We’ve booked one room for bags and are all sleeping in khaimas pegged out in the sand. It really is as gorgeous as it sounds, 3 minutes walk in any direction and you’re at the waters edge. It’s like a little chunk of heaven on earth.

On arrival we dropped our bags and headed back into town – it was really nice just chilling and looking round and buying street food and other random things. Then we went back to the hotel and just hung out in the bar- not really doing much just chatting and messing about. So yeah, we ended up trying to teach people to ceilidh dance, which had the usual interesting results – hysterical laughter, people falling over, getting chucked into each other and thrown into walls and general mayhem. God knows why now but we also ended up talking like pirates for the whole night. But it was fun. That was our ‘chilling night’ so we headed to bed early in the hope of keeping ourselves nice and fresh for New Years Eve. And it worked!!! Woke up feeling great….Spent the day shopping, swimming, postcard writing, just generally being TOURISTS! And it rocked; I’ve never had so much fun being a tourist in my life. Then last night was the big night out. I had a fantastic time. It sure as hell beat any other new year I’ve known.

We were just queuing for showers after our dip in the ocean when Will came running over:

“It’s the most beautiful sunset, you have to come see it. Bring some tequila and in honour of the ocean we’ll drink it on the beach. Tequila sun…..whatever.”

So that’s how we said goodbye to the last day of 2004 – drinking tequila sunrise on the beach looking out across the pounding waves while the sun sank behind the horizon turning the sky all reds and pinks and purples. Its times like that make me understand what people are rambling about when they talk about ‘spiritual moments’ and ‘times of reflection’. Sat there watching the sun dip below the horizon, bidding goodbye to the old year as it crept gracefully away, I couldn’t help mull over the events of 2004. The year that brought me here. To this incredible beach with a delicious drink in my hand, surrounded by friends that I didn’t even know 6 months ago. It was perfect. Just perfect. And kinda like a miracle to be this happy, this content, living this dream of a life.

New Years Resolutions? I have to steal Karl’s I’m afraid and ‘make this year count’. Because it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to discover a place that noones even heard of. Even Royal Mail has trouble working out Mauritania…so far we’ve had stuff sent to Mauritius and even Iran! Guess at least they’ve been on an exciting trip!

Christmas...a challenge but we got through it. We even enjoyed it!!

Sun, 27 Feb 2005 21:43:23 GMT

Friday 7th January 2005

I’m gonna write this in retrospect because it’s now almost a month later but so much has happened and had happened that it’s impossible to write all at once anyway. So i’ll use this date as a starting point and begin filling in the gaps from there. So where were we on the 7th ? We were at Will’s using the washing machine to wash ALL our clothes and to go on the internet for free at the university, him having keys and all. It was a day I made sauce Diop for everyone….again….a day Lewis made Spanish tortilla….again….and me and him bickered like cat and dog…again. The first time I ever saw ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ (and yes I admit that after years of refusing to watch it, it was, actually, quite funny).

That was where we found ourselves a week into 2005 ; in a bungalow in the Sahara cooking, chatting, watching films and generally acting like any other family in the world – albeit ours is a little more dysfunctional than most. But I’d made it through and that was the main thing – I got through the two weeks I’d been terrified about ever since that day in late August when Grandad read the letter confirming my status as a PT volunteer down the phone to me. Even then, after I had finished shrieking and laughing and running around like a loon, when I had collapsed on the grass next to Georgina panting and smiling dreamily, when she turned to me and posed the question
“Are you scared at all?”
“A little…” I had to admit “I don’t know how I’ll cope at Christmas.”
For me that was always the unthinkable moment – Christmas without my family: without midnight mass and the huge over decorated tree in the corner of the living room; without the stupid toys and stockings and a cake so big it lasts to the end of January and doubles up as Grandads birthday cake. I’ve never been away from home over Christmas; never missed the traditional fry up for all the sword dancers on Boxing Day. And I was scared. But I made it. And in the end it turned out OK. Nancy bought all the ingredients and provided her kitchen so we could make a Christmas cake – I even got ground almonds sent out from home! (It must be one of the most expensive cakes ever made – the ingredients alone cost about the same as both our allowances for one month put together) and it was delicious, even if I do say so myself…

Christmas Eve was a Friday so we had the day off work anyway. We had a traditional turkey dinner at Nancy’s in the evening which was really lovely of her and then on Christmas morning Em and I wrapped ourselves up in blankets with a cup of tea and opened our stockings (yes, Santa managed to overcome the obstacle of us having no chimney and deliver to Mauritania. It’s amazing where a little bit of faith in the old man will get you). Helen called from home so I did get to chat to my family on Christmas day. It was strange standing on the veranda wall (best place for reception) in the warm sunshine, with a deep clear blue sky over head, to imagine everyone at home in the cold nestling round the fire unwrapping all their parcels. Christmas just isn’t right somehow when you can wear a light T-shirt without shivering and you’re wandering about in sunglasses. Seems like Christmas at home was a little more quiet this year too with neither Jonathan or I there; but they sounded in good spirits and despite being cut off before I could talk to dad I got off the phone with a smile on my face.

Thanks to our fantastic family and friends we had a little pile of presents from England to open on Christmas morning (in fact we get more through each morning still – it looks like Christmas might last til Easter this year!) and the arrival of Karl bearing gifts of vanilla ice cream and melafas really capped what was turning into a pretty good day. We toddled off to the garage to say Merry Christmas to Lew and the French boys (newly returned from the Adrar with Seb’s sister and Raphs brother in tow) and then we were off to Obie Shaw’s house for a Mexican themed celebration with the Peace Corps. It was a little strange eating tortilla’s and taco’s in lieu of more traditional fare but there seemed some kind of logic to it – there’s no point in trying to recapture the Christmas you’re missing out on because it will never match up. So you might as well make it totally different and just have a special day. We had a pignata and a secret santa involving all sorts of wangling and present swaps. I ended up with a box of Reese’s Piece’s at the end so I think I did pretty well out of it. Better than Em’s final present of rubber gloves and Vaseline (hmmmmmmm no comments there) anyway! Stu called in the evening and I ran outside, phone glued to my ear, to run up his phone bill by chatting for hours and hours. As I sat on one of the garden benches outside all you could see were other vols milling around doing exactly the same as me – trying to stay close to home and loved ones on Christmas day, phones attached to ears, gabbling away. It was a strange sight but there was a weird undercurrent of unity – we were all determined to enjoy it and make the most of it. It wasn’t until very late that night, walking back through the dust to the echoey early morning prayer calls that we realised what an effort it had been to keep smiling all day. It wasn’t that it wasn’t enjoyable, it was just hard work.

And it was just as great as I remembered

Sun, 27 Feb 2005 21:41:03 GMT

I’m sat in the living room of Abdahalli Salem’s house in Rosso. And it feels like home. Really it does. It’s incredible – my first trip to Rosso was amazing, it totally blew my mind. But I’d always assumed it was seen through rose-tinted spectacles; we’d only just arrived in Mauritania, it was our first time en brousse and of course everything was going to be new and wonderful and revolutionary. I was expecting on my return to be disappointed, for it not to be as great or exciting as I remembered. But I have to say that that just hasn’t been the case.
The voyage here could not have gone anymore smoothly – there were only four of us in the car so it was spacious and comfy, and the police did little more than smile and wave us through the (far fewer than last time – I’m assuming because the threat of a coup has died down for now) checkpoints. In less than three hours we arrived at Tiviski Rosso and Aziz, the chef du centre, took us to Diallo’s as he was waiting for the citerne and didn’t know that we’d managed to nick a lift off the Tiviski car. So we surprised Diallo a little t*by turning up at his house two hours earlier than he’d expected to meet us at the centre, but he hardly seemed put out about it. Quite the contrary in fact – we’d saved him the walk. Any little worries I may have had were pretty much quashed there and then. Diallo has just not changed – he’s still as open and warm and friendly as I remember – always laughing, always talking and joking. And it was just as if we’d never left – he remebered all our stupid little jokes from before, the little things and incidences that only I remember. And Abderrachmane (George) when we saw him next day, greeted us like long lost sisters. And it really did feel like we were back home, back where we belong. Rosso. With one exception – Bathily is no longer here I we didn’t know. Apparently the circumstances were a bit weird – he took two weeks holiday to visit his family in Kaedi and never came back. When he did come back (just before Magali left for Thailand) it was only to say he was leaving APLT, one of his parents was ill or something. She was so busy then, what with sorting out her holiday and Sidiya and giving me instructions and trying to organise the vaccination campaign that she must have forgotten to tell us. Either that or she just didn’t think that we’d be interested. Whatever the reason it was a bit of a shock and a little bit sad. I really liked Bathily and we shared some amazing moments – I’ll never forget lying side by side gazing up at the night sky while he explained all about the stars and the ways of the nomads, or riding with him and Diallo on the back of the Hilux hair flying in the wind and being battered by crickets while we shouted to make ourselves heard and laughed coz none of us could really hear or understand the other. Or that classic moment in the middle of the Grand reunion where he sauntered into the khaima where we were making tea with Montaga and randomly declared;
“My God! Woman! You are beautiful!” in such a perfect Oxbridge accent that he left Em and I completely stunned, jaw dropped and eyes boggling, able only to stutter
“Where on earth did you learn that?!”

Anyway enough of the reminiscing. As I said, he’s gone, leaving everyone a bit sad and, I think, a little let down. But that’s Mauritania; He is after all Mauritanian and such is life I suppose. It is full of chance meetings, hellos and goodbyes. Even if we don’t realise they’re forever. And of course there’s some new people who’ve arrived – N’Deksaad to replace Oumar Diop (who became ‘responsible’ at Boghé just before we arrived) and Diak who is still completing his ‘stage’ but who it appears will be replacing Bathilly. And they’re both really lovely – friendly, funny and open. So although we’ve lost one of the ‘family’, one of our ‘Grand frères’, in his place we’ve gained two. And that’s the circle of life I suppose. Like us. Next August will leave this country and we’ll have to say our goodbyes; but in September there’ll be two new girls coming to take our place. And soon we’ll be forgotten or just vague memories in the back of everyone’s minds.
So anyway we ate at Diallo’s house – an incredibly delicious meal, although it’s impossible to know what it was in the dark. Something with fish and onions in anyways. Zein. Zeina hatta. We met his family pretty briefly and then he took us to Abdahalli Salem’s house where after a fruitless hunt for ‘la material du thé’ he went and nicked some tea glasses off a mate and we all chilled in the living room and chatted and chatted as if it was only yesterday we’d last seen each other; while his hands absent mindedly and seemingly of their own accord went through the familiar ritual of tea making which accompanies every gathering of any type in this country. Abdahalli and his family were spending the night ‘en brusse’ so we had the run of the house for the evening. We made the most of it, sitting up talking till the early hours of the morning; we must have covered all subjects – from football to philosophy to recent gossip. He even had things to say about our love lives. And it was such a relief that the Diallo I remembered wasn’t just a figment of my imagination, but that he really is that cool. Bob; The first person we really clicked with in Mauritania.

Eventually we couldn’t possibly drink any more tea; and Diallo went back home, leaving us with the logic test of ‘how to put a mosquito net up with no hooks, only half the amount of nails you need and even them in the wrong places’ before we could finally sleep. Through sheer ingenuity we managed it in the end with the aid of my hair band, Em’s necklace and the doorframe. Exhausted but totally overjoyed that Rosso was just as great as I remembered, I crashed out on a matela under our makeshift mozzy net and slept right through.

Waking up next morning I tried to read and ignore the persistent tapping on the door since a) Em was asleep and I had no idea what I’d done with the keys and b) it couldn’t possibly be for us. After about an hour it suddenly hit me that this was probably the woman that Diallo told us would be turning up to make coffee (it’s the Mauritanian way, whatever you need you ‘find a woman to do it for you’. Except for tea making which is like a national hobby. The funny thing is, it’s not that they can’t cook – Abs is apparently ‘très forte,’ the big OD makes a damn good pasta sauce and even Diallo admits to being capable of making an omelette. I think they’re just lazy, it’s so much easier to ‘amener une femme’) Sure enough when I eventually found the key, in walked Coumba, Diallo’s cousin who helps out around the house and immediately got out the gas, some glasses, bread, coffee and left us boiling the water while she disappeared into the living room with a brush; Unfortunately she didn’t speak French and my level of Pulaar and Wolof is not exactly great, especially not first thing in the morning. So conversation was interesting; We muddled through, mostly communicating with smiles, hand signals, a lot of shrugging, a couple of random ‘adjaramas’ and words such as ‘café’ and ‘boutique’ which seem to be pretty ‘universelle quoi!’
So after a bit Diallo sauntered in, slouched on the sofa and proceeded to natter away, filling us in in more detail as to what’s been going on here since September and translating between us and Coumba. Soon ‘la famille Salem’ arrived, bringing with them the feeling of just having arrived back form holiday. While Mrs Salem (it’s awful, I just cannot remember her name. It’s getting embarrassing now – I think she’s called ‘Rhady’ but I can’t possibly ask again) bustled around getting more drinks (oooh yummy zrig! Actually she’s the only person I know who makes zrig I don’t dislike) and Abdahalli greeted us like a benevolent uncle; we played with their truly beautiful children (Leillah and Mariam – both olive skinned with smooth shining hair and huge dark eyes rimmed by curling black lashes. They’ve inherited all the best features of the white Maurs and you can’t help but adore them – even when they’re being cheeky or downright naughty. They have another son as well but I don’t know his name as we’ve never met him. At seven years he is the oldest and is apparently en brusse ‘to learn’. That’s the way of things I suppose but I can’t help thinking it’s a tough life for a little boy. I can’t imagine having to leave my parents at that age).
So after ‘reposing un peu’ (because you must never forget that ‘the brusse is dur. Tellement dur.’) we went off to see our first vaccination. Diallo had done the shift the day before and Abdahalli had a ‘mission’ for Nancy - waiting for a load of posters and publicity stuff to arrive from Senegal, so we went off with George and the two ‘newbies’ – N’Deksaad and Diak; I was worried it was going to be a bit strange – Rosso but not ‘our Rosso’ without the familiar faces of Daddy Addy, Bob and Jim. But I needn’t have worried – they may only have arrived recently but already they fit in perfectly with the APLT family here. N’Deksaad is older like Diallo; but like Diallo he is still young at heart – I think in their heads they must only be about 10! He knows quite a bit of English and randomly comes out with random phrases or sticks random English words into a flowing sentence of French. But he is an absolute sweetheart and has promised me Wolof lessons in exchange for song lyrics (he has a bit of a penchant for Rod Stewart, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan – surprisingly good taste for a Mauritanian! Usually it’s Blue and Celine Dion…) I got to admit I don’t have a great amount of faith; I’m still waiting for Pulaar lessons from Dorro which were promised a month ago. But I’m desperate to learn both languages so time will tell….
Diak is massive. He has to easily be 6 feet tall with incredibly huge hands and feet. He is the youngest I think, but quieter than the others and more thoughtful. He is absolutely lovely and has a dry sense of humour – the type that is rare but precious. He is Pulaar and has joined the growing list of people being badgered to teach me Pulaar (he taught me the phrase I most want to know – ‘Miwahwah Pulaar nufeyway’ – ‘I don’t speak much Pulaar’ so I’m hopeful). George is just George. Although in my memories he was always chilled out or asleep, this weekend he’s been super chatty and lively. He must have missed us…
Our mission this time around was to count cows. Just as dull as it sounds and actually quite hard because you get bored halfway through and there’s the permanent danger you might doze off or get distracted talking to someone and miss a few; and then the whole exercise becomes completely pointless. Next time I’m going to try and persuade them to let me inject a couple – I think they will because they’re cool like that – then I’ll learn something new and it’ll be much more interesting…
This morning we were up at the crack of dawn and out once again (This time with Diallo, George and Diak) No vaccinations today – we went to treat a lot of goats for Fasciolose, an illness affecting the liver which Diallo explained to us in great detail with the air of a kindergarten teacher; then at the end laughing at us with twinkling eyes, cigarette in one hand, syringe in the other like a pistol, declaring in amusement;
‘Vous! Tiens! Vous n’avez rien compris!’ while I indignantly declared the contrary. I always find it really interesting to see the vets at work, to see what all the pen pushing in the office leads to and to be reassured that the slog is worthwhile – that peoples lives are actually improved by APLT. Plus we get to practise the language (hassaniya this time) and I learn a little about illnesses and treatments and stuff. I’m hoping that when I get home my new found knowledge might help me understand Helen when she starts talking her scary vet talk – doubt it though, the extent of my knowledge so far is that Pulaar cows are completely wild, kepromec is used as a preventative against parasites (very common in Boghé) and you use Babemic and Nitrimic to treat fasciolose. I’ve got a long way to go yet!

We managed to persuade them that we really didn’t need to ‘se repose’ any more, so we were dropped off in the market square right next to the border crossing where Abs was still waiting for the courier from Dakar. We chilled little, chatted a little, explored a little and met a really cool Senegalese dude who works for the Red Cross in Richard Toll (A little Senegalese town just across the border).
Back home Abs wife let us help her prepare lunch – a real compliment for us as it means we’ve really been accepted into the family and are no longer viewed as just guests (I checked this out with the peace corp and they confirmed that it is a huge compliment so I’m feeling pretty chuffed). Out with Diak and N’Deksaad again this afternoon and I really can’t wait. This is totally where my heart belongs and once again I just don’t want to leave. Hopefully we’ll find an excuse to come back soon coz for me it will never be too early to be in Rosso again.

The return to the promised land...

Sun, 26 Dec 2004 09:08:40 GMT

I’m sat in the office in the middle of a power cut. They’re fairly regular here, and as most of the work is based on spreadsheets there isn’t much we can do except sit around and wait. Like everyone else. We’ve drawn up some pretty worksheets for our English lessons (Nancy has given us permission to teach 6 classes a week for 2 hours each class which should be fun. It’s great to have a little school of our own. At the moment we have 50 + applicants but I’m guessing that’ll drop to an easily manageable number pretty soon) and I’ve sorted through my courier, made all my nagging phone calls, chased elusive workers (why is it that the people you need always manage to disappear exactly when you need them) and I’ve finally run out of work to do so instead of just tapping my fingers or reading through the aliments folder for the fifth time I’ve decided to get this journal up to date……

…Ok now its about 5 pm and I’m waiting for Cheikh (the dude who drove us to Boghé the first time and who for some unknown reason still always calls me Catherrrrrrrine – I don’t mind, I’ll answer to almost anything me!) to turn up with the APLT car and give us a lift to Rosso. We were originally going with the citerne (milk tanker) and spent all afternoon (after the croissance delivery and a stop off at Nancys to take our Christmas cake out of the oven. Oh how delicious it looked and smelt and oooooooooooooh I can’t wait til next Friday when we get to taste it!) getting hold of the correct notes, permission forms and ‘Ordre de mission’. After getting our fingers burnt on that infamous trip to Boghé we’re uber careful about paperwork now! At four o clock I raced down to the gate of the factory to make sure the citerne didn’t leave without us, only to discover the Boghé citerne still hadn’t gone and we looked like facing a delay until 8ish (when asked what the problem was the guardian shuffled around a bit, glanced at his feet and muttered ‘well it’s the milk y’know…’ in the usual vague ‘Why is she asking weird questions again?!?’ way. Bless ‘im) I do love the people on the gate, they’re all really sweet and good for wasting time with even if they do avoid ever giving a useful answer to a question. Resigned to probably sleeping in the office tonight I went back inside and wrote my weekly ‘update’ email to Magali (she likes to hear whats going on once a week just to be sure we’re not cocking up too much in her absence). Was just getting really into it and writing beautiful flowing phrases in picturesque and most poetic French when Ely the citerne driver appeared in the doorway – resplendent in his dirty blue Boubou and raggedy striped Howli – panting as if he’d run the marathon.

‘Rosso’ he barked ‘Rosso….voiture….Cheikh’
faced by my totally blank expression he threw up his hands in exasperation
‘Tu connais Cheikh?...’ To be honest I wasn’t sure, I mean Cheikh’s hardly a distinctive name round here, but I nodded my head and smiled encouragingly (I mean even if I didn’t yet I probably would at some point and anyway what’s to be gained by being uncooperative?)
‘Aih Haih’ he exclaimed, nodding his head vigorously and smiling at me as if I was a very stupid dog. Who’d just learnt to sit.
‘Il pars……’ I smiled and joined in the vigorous nodding game in the hope to encourage him to be a little forthcoming. It seemed to work ‘….a Rosso. Voiture APLT. Tout suite’ So maybe fate was smiling on us, an APLT car had to beat the citerne. They’re all comfy 4x4’s. And it was leaving straightaway. Bonus! Unfortunately Em had disappeared to do some Tiviski work and I was almost drowning under an immense pile of papers. He made some crazy arm spinning gesture and started gabbling in Hassaniya……’errrrrrrrrrrrrm vite?’ I hazarded. Oce again he did the nodding dog impression. ‘Gotcha. Right errrrrrrrrrrrm attends… attends 5 minutes’ (holding up 5 fingers just to make certain). He nodded, repeated the crazy windmill hand thing and disappeared.
5 minutes later Em and I were sat outside the factory gate surrounded by luggage and looking as if we were moving house and not just going to Rosso for the weekend…three quarters of an hour on and here we still are. I’d forgotten that ‘tout suite’ in Mauritania means in a couple of hours, or tomorrow or maybe next week if we remember. Every now and then the guardien or one of the citerne drivers or some other random dude from the factory (we know them all but unfortunately I haven’t got a clue what any of them are called – you’re usually safe if you try Sidi, Mohamed, Houssein, Abdallahi or Cheikh. Or some mix of the above. To be honest they seem to answer to any name, maybe in my awful European accent they all sound the same or something…) pops his head round, has a little chat with us and then disappears promising ‘il viens tout suite!’ No sign yet. I don’t mind really, it’s quite nice sitting here watching the world go by. And people are shouting out to me in Poular and Wolof and Hassaniya (I think it’s their favourite game – ‘test the taobab’) and not only can I understand most of it but I can respond too. Albeit in short, crumbling sentences. Somehow it’s so much nicer when you know they’re just saying ‘Hello/Are you alright/Do you understand me/what are you doing?’ and it’s even cooler to see the looks on their faces when you give the right response. Or any response to be honest. It’s amazing how people open up when you know a couple of words in their language (even if they don’t really make sense). It lets you enter into the community, you become ‘one of the crowd’ and suddenly you’re in on the jokes instead of assuming you’re the butt of them. Tis cool. I have to say Poular is my favourite: it’s such a beautiful language and all of the words are so soft and emotive. By the time I go home I wanna be fluent: tis a long shot but where there’s a will there’s a way….

Ooooooooooooooh here comes the APLT car now, complete with CHeikh grinning like a loon and some really sweet Soninke dude I was chatting to earlier. Cheikh looks so sweet and childish in his colourful African pajamas, his dirty puffa jacket and his huge turban. ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah Catherrrrrine, tu viens?’ Looks like we’re off then. Argh hope we don’t ruin Abdallahi Salem’s carefully laid plans. Diallo was going to meet us off the citerne and now we’re gonna turn up ages early. Ah well it’ll work out. Somehow it always does.

20 days til Christmas....may the countdown begin....

Thu, 23 Dec 2004 12:19:11 GMT

We’ve just got back from looking at a house in the centre of town because errrrrrrrrrm it appears that we may be moving. Where and when we’re not sure yet but as we’re constantly having problems with our water supply and the landlords hiking the rent at the end of the month it seems pretty certain that we’ll be out by Christmas. In some ways it’s a real shame – this apartment is incredibly beautiful, it’s a nice area and we’re within walking distance of the boys. But on the whole I have to admit I’m really looking forward to it – it should be incredibly exciting. It all feels very mature and grown up – moving into a new place, house hunting, decorating etc. Tis adult style madness!!

Well life’s been fairly insane recently: our already overcrowded social life has expanded to include the Peace Corps, which seems to take up any free nights we had; Jo, our Desk Officer and Lavinia, the Director of PT just came out for their week long visit; and work has totally taken off with all of our little projects and initiatives getting under way, English lessons starting soon (although Nancy’s trying to censor who we teach which is sad because we just want to teach anyone who wants to learn. We’re developing a plan to teach everyone by having one on one tutorials for the people she really wants to learn and lessons for everyone…wish us luck, its gonna be hard work!!!) and Magali’s month long holiday leaving Sidiya (the ‘newbie’ who I’m training up to be ‘local coordinator’. He’s very smart and very enthusiastic and I reckon will do a really good job) Em and I in charge of the day to day running of APLT. We are in charge of an NGO – how scarily cool is that?!? But all this mad activity leaves us little time to chill out and sleep is becoming a rare commodity. We just bought some gorgeous ground coffee (oooooooooooh luxury) and worked out how to use the weird gas stove percolatory thing we found in our cupboard so we’re running on caffeine at the moment. Feeling a little wired and although I’m relishing the responsibility and loving being my own boss, I can’t wait til New Year when Magali has agreed to let us go to St Louis for a coupla days. We’re gonna need the break!!

But it’s definitely better to be too busy than have nothing to do and I like the idea that I’m being useful to someone. I feel like we are lucky to be in such a unique position: I get to go behind the scenes, to see how an NGO is run from the management right down to the grass roots, the people it has been set up to help. That’s such an amazing opportunity for someone of my age – I’m only 18 but already I’ve had an incredible insight into what is needed for a charity to do its job well. APLT may only be a small organisation but it is a true example of a small sustainable scheme that gives practical aid and I count myself incredibly lucky to have been given this experience. I just hope it stands me in good stead in the future.

So what have we been up to? Where to start…well we’ve got really close to the Senegalese. They’ve stopped being just these random people we know and have developed in my mind into a group of individuals with their own very distinctive personality traits, whom I care about very much. Cheikh has gone to Atar for the tourist season, leaving Master P in charge of the shop. I think he finds it lonely without his family and he now works pretty much 24/7 in the shop, but we have plans to celebrate Tabasky (a big festival where every household kills a goat) with him and his family in Senegal. That should be an incredible experience for us, I’m looking forward to it so much! We eat at his house sometimes and it is just the most incredible cuisine. We were there last night in fact and I tried Baobab juice for the first time ever. Truly saffna sap!

I miss Cheikh, he was so lovely to us when we first got here and somehow ‘marché capitel’ just isn’t the same without him chilling out in the dappled shade of the Neem trees, the one green thing left after the locusts swept through, making tea on his little gas ring while the traffic thundered past on each side. But he’ll be back after the season finishes in January and then I hope there’ll be more afternoons spent sat in the shade drinking tea, attempting to speak Wolof (or in reality just repeating random phrases we’ve learnt. My favourite memory has to be Em bouncing around after too much tea, giggling, flapping her arms like a loon and squealing ‘Now kom Pitchee, now kom pitchee’ – fly like a bird! – while I kept repeating ‘nopil sama djekel’ – shut up my dear – in a grumpy voice then bursting into fits of giggles as Cheikh just sat there smirking at us with a vaguely amused air) and listening to Paco jamming on his djenby (kinda like a tamtam) or telling folk t les and legends from Senegal in a voice that swoops and dips in the manner of a true storyteller. But even if it never happens again, those were days I’ll never forget.

Also the Peace Corps. We first met them on the night of The US elections, when Obie Shaw (the director) invited us to his home, which looks like a mini version of the White House, to watch the elections. That was a truly surreal night – the whole place was decked out in stars and stripes and none of us slept. In fact it was still ongoing when Em and I left for work the next morning; and here we were in the desert under a Khaima in Obie’s back garden surrounded by Americans (who incidentally are all Anti Bush. Big plus in my opinion)and eating a bizarre mix of traditional Mauritanian and very Western food. It was the closest to culture shock I’ve had since getting here! I had the strangest sense of displacement being with them – American culture is so similar to ours, but with so many slight differences. After two months here, seeing people in Boubou’s and melafas wandering round chatting in the mix of Arabic and French that is Hassaniya had become completely the norm to me (I’m even beginning to forget the value of English money. It’s a very bizarre feeling in your stomach when something as normal as a 50p piece seems so foreign to you.) To be in this house where everything was so familiar and yet so new at the same time was really tough. It was like being reminded of home, but a home you never really belonged to.

Luckily we met them soon after at a party at Miranda’s house; and they all came round for Lew’s 18th which was really nice. As we’ve got to know them that feeling of strangeness, of not quite belonging, has gone. It’s like two cultural awakenings in one – we celebrated Thanksgiving at Obie’s and there’s apparently a ‘softball’ tournament coming up, so we’re learning about American culture too! They really are amazing people – most of them live in the villages right in the desert, they integrate totally in their community (some even taking the tribal name) and learn all the local languages and dialects. It’s amazing how well respected they are here – people may disagree with American politics but the Peace Corps are officially ‘alright’. They are held up to us as shining examples of how it is possible for taobabs like us to integrate. Their language skills are legendary (everyone who tries to teach us usually starts off saying ‘I knew an American once, one of the Peace Corps. After 4 months he could speak fluently in Hassaniya/Wolof/Soninke/Pulaa…Absolutely no accent! It was formidabe…etc etc) but with us they are fairly Western: we go clubbing with them (a fantastic experience – you’v not experienced a real night club until you’ve danced the salsa with a man in a Boubou to O zone. Bizarre) watch films and just generally hang out. They’ve introduced Em and I to ‘Risk’ – a game where the aim is, well basically, to take over the World – and we discovered our hidden bloodthirsty natures as we proved shockingly good at backstabbing, betraying and generally terrorising the World. We got beaten in the end though, by Chris (ex Peace Corps, now works for the Embassy) as he annihilated me in a hard fought battle over ventral Asia. Risk. Reccomended to all. Truly brings out the evil in you. Whilst I’m plugging stuff I read an absolutely fantastic book on Maurie – ‘Travels in Mauritania’ by Peter Hudson. It’s out of print now but I’m dying to get my hands on a copy of it – the guy satyed in Mauritania travelling around for a long time and I was really impressed by his understanding and respect for the country, even if it is a little out of date now. Certain chapters still had a very familiar ring to them!!

Eid, aka everyone gorges themselves after Ramadan

Thu, 23 Dec 2004 12:11:39 GMT

Today is the Mauritanian equivalent of a bank holiday – a ‘jour de congé’ given by the President because apparently, noone was going to bother going into work anyway. Yesterday was Eid – ‘la fete’ after Ramadan. This is a day when people buy new Boubou’s to spruce themselves up a bit, eat a lot, sleep a lot and hang out with their friends. In fact that summarises most Mauritanian festivals really – dress up then eat a lot and sleep. I guess that’s all you can really do in the desert where it is generally too hot to move for most of the day and alcohol and debauchery (two favourite ‘western’ hobbies apparently) are illegal.

Well we all got into the general spirit of it by taking Friday off as a ‘pre-fete fete’ because we’d just got back on Friday from another week long stint in Boghé (this time photographing goats for the Zebunet – a scheme where Europeans ‘sponsor a goat’ and the sponsorship money is given to the herders as a loan to buy them. So I had to toddle along, trusty Minolta at my side, and take photos of the Zebu goats, then give them all names) and we were completely shattered. Then of course we had to see the boys and we somehow ended up staying at Miranda’s Friday night so by Saturday morning we were totally dead. Still am now, in fact think I…might…just…sleep.

Fri, 05 Nov 2004 16:53:53 GMT

Hello;

Well I tried to be all clever and update the journal onto disc in Magali's office then put it on to a computer here but it serves me right coz now the computer keeps corrupting the disc. So Im sorry for getting so behind; Ill put up what info I can retrieve and Em and I promise to do better next time
Cxxx

26th October 2004
I’m sat at the computer in Magali’s office, and I’m aware that we’ve been really bad at keeping up to date recently. Mostly due to power cuts or no connection at the internet café, Ramadan which means that nothing ever works and which is the favourite excuse for everything at the moment (it covers all manner of problems, from water shortages to car crashes….“well it is Ramadan y’know” and that makes it alright) a week in Boghé which is an internet less zone and the fact that we’re not very good at getting to the cyber. So my most sincere apologies, I’m gonna copy up a mix of mine and Em’s journals which should hopefully make it a little more interesting (her insights are generally much funnier than my rambling pontifications) and see if I can get this completely up to speed………..
C xxx

All photos taken by Karl Valentin

Mauritanian Christmas tree?

The desert near Nouabaghia

In da maison!!!

There was a more attractive photo but it got deleted

View from the boy's house - Eeeek!

The Long and Winding road to Boghé.

Tue, 12 Oct 2004 17:52:46 GMT

The long and winding road to the land of milk and honey .... Look how green it is!! This only lasts for a couple of months though and then its back to dunes, dunes and more dunes.

"First, don't panic. Second, pay!"

Well with the addition of a herder who wanted to go to Boghé, it turned out that there wasn't enough room for me and Caz in Magali's car and so it was arranged that we would go in the APLT van later. After waiting 3 hours the van turned up and (stupidly perhaps) we squished into the van with four men and a woman, all of whom we hadn't seen in our lives. The driver and a senegalese dude in a leopard print hat kept up a laid back discussion in their African-French chatter about the value of money and senegalese sugar, and the woman beside us in a beautiful lime green dress seemed to have car sickness. There was certainly a very hot, dry wind blowing as we passed out of the sprawling city of Nouakchott and into the desert. The great orange rolling dunes were so stunning, stretching right to the horizon, and i gazed at them hardly believing i was really there. I dozed as the landscape changed from complete desert to scrubby savanna and we passed through several police checks without any problem. Just outside Boutlimit at 7 o clock we stopped in the middle of the desert. Everyone got out to pray to the east. The sun was setting, and there was not a breath of wind. The whole desert was empty and silent except fot the sound of chanting and in the setting sun, it was spooky.

As it became dark the road became treacherous, having no street lamps and being barely wide enough for two cars. Everytime another car approached we had to slow practically to a stop to make sure we didn't crash. About ten minutes after we'd stopped to pray we had to stop again because of an accident that had happened only a few minutes earlier. A car had smashed into a lorry and there was a man lying dead in the middle of the road. People were trying to take his body away on a prayer mat and we sort of just had to sit and watch, in silence, in the dark.

It was unnerving to watch the headlights coming straight at us so i tried to sleep, a recurring day dream in my head; Potato and leek soup with a dash of cream, salt and pepper, and a hunk of brown bread and butter, followed by homemade apple pie with a dollop of frothy whipped cream. Mmmmmmmm my mouth's watering right now......

The car slowed to a stop and i opened my eyes to see we were at ANOTHER police stop. The driver wound down the window:
"Salaam Alaykum."
"Alaykum salaam."
"Yaak labasse?"
"Labasse elhamdulillah."
"Yaak el khair?"
"Ella khair elhamdulillah."
"Yaak ma tari bas?"
"Ma tari bas elhamdulillah."
"Yaak labasse?" etc etc and so on and so on.

"Who are you? Where are you going?" All normal questions.
"Can i see your visas?"
Hmmmm. Big hmmmmm. Me and Caz had both given our passports to Wa Nasanga to extend our visas but Nancy had said our Project Trust cards would probably do. We handed the bloke our PT cards and STA cards. He looked at them suspiciously. Then he handed mine back and kept Caz's, obviously unsatisfied! We tried to explain the situation but to no avail. We all sighed as the driver pulled over to the side of the road and turned the engine off. All was dark and quiet except for the muttering of the gendarme and their glowing cigarettes.
'Stupid gendarme' I thought. Do we look like we're gonna start the next Coup d'état?! I wasn't scared exactly, more wondering what to do, and what would happen next. We could see the lights of Boghé over the brow of the next dune. We tried to ring Magali, and Wa Nasanga, and Nancy. No-one replied. Then the driver came over.
"Erm....You wouldn't happen to have.....errr....1000 ouguiya?"
'Of course!' I thought. We rooted around and found 500. Off went the driver to negotiate. We sat in the dark, in silence.............
Then, a four wheel drive pulled up beside us and a familiar voice was calling to us in English!
"Emily? Caroline? Emily! Caroline! What are you doing?!"
We staggered towards the voice, unsure what was going on. Then i saw! It was Magali and the foolish Belgians, Omar Diop and a van full of the Boghé vets! Man i have never been so glad to see anyone in my whole life! Quickly Magali took the matter in hand.
"Get your bags and get in the van! Omar, will you go and sort this out please? Girls, What are you doing?! How can you be so stupid to come without visas?!"
We were sooo happy to see them, we threw ourselves into the back of the van and greeted the new vets like we'd known them all our lives. It seems Magali and the team were on their way back from another réunion when they passed us, lucky for us! She took us aside for a talking to:
"Firstly, in a situation like this; don't panic. Secondly; You pay."
Omar paid us out (i hope it goes under VSF expenses) and we flew off into the night with the wind full into our faces and the friendly new vets grinning broadly.
"Vachement!" i exclaimed, "Boghé est très beau!"

Well after a wee look round the centre in Boghé we went back to the Hotel(!!!) Azur where we were staying (i expect VSF paid) after the foolish Belgians refused dinner from the vets, saying they were too tired and would eat some biscuits. It was about 11.30pm by now and we were bloody hungry! But we crawled into bed and i fell asleep with the muttering of gendarmes in my ears and khaki uniforms and chanting prayers and foreign voices demanding visas running all through my mind...........

"Tap! Tap! Tap!" I woke suddenly, confused as to where i was.
"Tap! Tap! Tap!" Someone was knocking on our door! Magali went to the door and opened it a crack. There followed a conversation in French of which i understood very little except; 'I'm with the two british stagiares.'
I was still half asleep.
Magali came back and started putting her trousers on.
"We have to go out..." She said.
My mind raced...They came back for our visas? They're taking us to prison? We're going to be lined up and shot at dawn?!
"We have to go out and have dinner!" she said!!! What? I looked at my watch. Half past midnight. What? 'This is crazy!' i thought. But we all stumbled outside, rubbing our eyes, to see a group of grinning vets who had brought us a masive plate of roast chicken and chips and olives and peas, followed by goat milk semolinary stuff. Mmmmmmmm that meal was good, and possibly one of the most surreal I've ever had. Just don't tell Mauritanians que tu as faim just before you go to bed! We returned to bed, confused but content.

Under a mosquito net in a khaima at the home of Abdahalli Salem

Mon, 11 Oct 2004 18:06:54 GMT

Hi! Its Emily here! Caz has asked me to wite the Rosso and Boghé enties because she's getting abit bogged down writing about just how great it was! So firstly i apologise because really Caz is the writer in the family.....i just draw the pitures which unfortunately i can't put on here..... Anyway i'm just gona write up my diary fom the last two weeks which pretty much explains it all i think, excluding some of the political bits. Here goes.........

Thursday morning 30th September 10 to 7 - Abdahalli Salem's home

The sunrise here is so beautiful. Every morning i wake up just before sunrise and look over to the next khaima where people are praying. It would be spooky; the sound of chanting - but it just blurs into my dreams like the odd cow that strolls past, or dung beetle that crawls over my feet.

Abdahalli was encouraging us to stay til Sunday, insisting we'd do no work, just enjoy being en brousse (and do lots of eating and sleeping) but i think we're going back to Nouakchott with Magali. Its probly for the best as i seriously need a shower and a clean set of clothes, and a toilet. It is beautiful here. Everyone is relaxed and so kind and welcoming. When we go to visit the herders in the evening, and the sun is setting over the savanna and there are pulaar cows and straw houses that look like monkeys nuts, and the women light a fire while the children play and laugh....... i almost wish i hadnt been born into the life i was. but then i guess thats just the effect the dusky savanna has on you.
[Imagine picture of khaima]

Thursday 30th September
"L'Afrique est la solidarité. Les gens ne sont pas riches, mais on est complet."

That's something Dhiallo said today. I just thought it was such a beautiful thing to say. Dhiallo is one of the herders technicians (vet dudes) the other is Bathilly. I realy like them both and we made good friends with them this week and had such a wickid time. Especially riding across the savanna in the back of the VSF landrover. It's just the greatest feeling to crane your neck into the wind, looking up into the sky and all around the flat rice fields and palm trees and all kinds of different coloured birds and to feel the sun warming your skin and the warm wind cooling your face.
Anyway since Monday we've visited seven different groups of herders. We had to go with Magali, the important but foolish Belgians (who are high up in VSF) and the chief vet - Abdahalli Salem and Dhiallo and Bathilly, to visit all the remote groups of herders in the bush, so that they could sit and discuss all the issues surrounding herding and how to improve things. I personally found it quite difficult because they firstly asked the questions in French, then Abdahalli translated into Hassaniya, then Dhiallo or one of the herders into Pulaah. The pulaahs are the original groups of herders and they live in little villages way out in the savanna where they raise goats and cows for meat and milk. They make their houses from sticks and straw, shaped like monkey nuts and eat mainly meat and rice and drink zrig - a mix of milk, sugar and water - not particularly nice but you gotta be polite and drink the stuff i guess. Their cows have massive horns as a pose to the maurish ones which have small horns. I tell you though, i've never ate so much meat, drank so much milk or so much tea before in my whole life. I could seriously fancy a salad right now.

Typical Pulaa house, Ifra Sow, near Rosso.

Anyway by the end of the second day i could pretty much understand the entire french part of the conversation. And we learnt some pulaah too:
Bada = Hello
Bada Sili = How are you / ça va
Adjarama = Thank you

^^^ That's just to remind we for next week (when we're going to Boghé and there's camel herders there too)

The really cool thing about meetings here is that everyone lies on mattresses on the floor in their boubous and talks. People can just go to sleep if they get bored. (I did quite a bit!) It suddenly makes office meetings in starched suits, around tables.....on chairs (!) seem sooooooooo stupid! And we just went off half way through a couple of the meetings. Once at Ifra sow, one of the pulaah women took us to see her house and her children, and another lady showed us how to make tea. The pulaah people seem to all be really tall with long arms and legs and small heads. And the women wear baggy tops and skirts rather than melafas.
[imagine a picture of pulaahs (sorry the real thing is better)]
In the meeting of all the chief herders today were really quite bored. It was great to see all the chiefs in their best boubous and Abdahalli Salem looked positively kingly...but really there's only so much cow herding in hassaniya you can take. So we went to the tent where tea boy (Montaga aka Jack) showed us how to make Mauritanian tea. It's really quite a skill, you have to make all three cups different and you have to pour it between glasses to make it frothy. I asked Montaga why it had to be frothy and he said because it made it look pretty....So we've been practicing and i'm getting okay.....We've also been practicing eating with only our right hands. The first meal we had was meat and rice. I took the knife in my right hand and hacked off some meat...but then of course the food was in my left hand. B*******! We made quite a mess but no-one seemed to mind and it was really quite funny. Especially eating spaghetti with one hand, when it's difficult enough with a knife and fork at a table.

This is a Pulaa woman in Ifra Sow making tea - its a skillful job! But one I am learning slowly ....

Well, i've just had such a great time. Sleeping under a khaima, living en brousse, flying through the rice fields, lookibng at the african sky lying on the ground in a pulaah village. How cool! And this feels like true Africa, not desert but teeming with wildlife and plants.

We gave all our new friends british names, seem as they too now call us Astou and Coumba because it's easier to say. Well:
Dhiallo = Bob
Bathilly = Jim
Abderachmane = George
Montaga = Jack
Jamal = Tom
Abdahalli Salem = Harry
Abdahalli gave us hassaniya names too - Vatematou and Amenatou. Not quite as memorable as Astou and Coumba though. Well now i'm just so tired! We came home and everything smells and we really need to wash our clothes and ourselves but we have no water. The boys haven't for four days and theyre seriously pissed off and abit down. We went to see the four lads tonight in a pool club despite being completely knackered. We didnt even get there til half 12 anyway.
I'll probably think of other stuff i wanna say later. But right now too much as happened to remember it all. I.........so........tired.........

Wednesday 29th September
i forgot to say, i got my head attached to the door of abdahalli salem's long drop toilet and had to wrench out half my hair.
[imagine picture of me attached to the toilet door]

Friday 7.30pm

So. Badly. Bitten. Ow. Ow. Ow.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooow!!!

"I'll be there in 2 minutes coz we're only 30 seconds away" (nice one Lewis!)

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 19:29:25 GMT

We have just met our new neighbour! Well shes been our neighbour for almost 2 weeks now but its the first time we've ever met her. I was slouching around on the sofa wearing a vest topand a pair of very short shorts when a woman appeared just outside our verandah covered from head to toe by her melafa and beckoned me over. Ashamed to be showing so mluch flesh in front of someone so covered up, I was at a loss as to what to do (the culture really does start to affect you that much - you suddenly become aware of how much flesh people bare at home. Although noone puts direct pressure on you and alot of people wear vest tops and tight fitting trousers etc you become aware of stupid things like how exposed your ankles are. I personally definitely dont feel comfortable leaving the house without my shoulders and legs covered). To get back to the point, I was very curious to meet her and find out what she wanted, so reluctantly and hoping she wouldnt notice my very bare legs I walked out onto the verandah. She asked if my sister was inside and it took me a little while before I realised she meant Em! On reflection maybe it is a good idea if we are thought to be related, that way the boys can be our cousins or something and we wouldnt be in danger of getting a reputation when they leave our house late at night (his could get very confusing as they are already our 'husbands' when we want to get rid of unwanted male attention - is marrying a cousin OK I wonder?). Sorry, back to the lady in the very beautiful melafa - she introduced herself as Tzena, asked us if we knew the girls that lived here before, assured us that this was a very good neighbourhood overlooked by many 'gardiens' and invited us to her appartment upstairs sometime for Zrigg (a drink made of milk with water and sugar, not my favourite mauritanian cuisine), Mauritanian tea and a chat about the culture and traditions of the country, after which she elegantly disappeared.

Meeting Tzena really put the icing on the cake of today. Work is going really well - we have just started our second block of work for Tiviski with Siddee (Nancys son) and Magali seems very pleased with us. I only hope we havent done anything wrong as she has been too bust too busy to check up on us much and accuracy is very important! Tomorrow we are definitley going to Rosso until Wednesday - I am very excited and can't wait to see the herders whose names we have been logging for the last two weeks, as well as possibly meeting the famous Abdoulaye Salem, a vet who we have been sending supplies out to for the last week or so. Things really are on the up the last couple of days - Friday was a bit of a downer for me and I still haven't summoned up the courage to admit to blocking my SIM (I really am a total wuss) but we've had a wicked few days. We got a lift home from work off of Mohammed, the sweet techie guy yesterday, and then walked all the way to Magali's without getting lost (very impressive) to pick up some fish for our 'petit trolle'. Feeling very virtuous we allowed ourselves a taxi home and after grabbing some dairy producta and meat we'd bought for them, made our way round to the boys house for dinner and a video. It was a really nice, chilled evening. We had a delisious meal cooked by Lewis (his tomato sauce really puts mine to shame!) and crashed in front of Oceans 11 for a couple of hours. We also found our way up onto their roof, watched by Mohammed (another of their caretakers) who found the sight of us clambering up the side of their garage hilarious and who kindly donated a ladder to help us out. You get an amazing view of the city from there and we even managed to glimpse a few stars peeping through. I cant wait to see them properly though - Nancy says if you drive out into the desert on a clear night in Winter and lie on the ground it feels as if you might fall off of the earth right into the heavens.

The boys have done a really good job with their place - the comfy, clean and cosy looking flat we visited last night bears very little resemblance to the dirty, dusty room they first arrived to. I had a very strange experience last night looking through Karls digital camera - he has been fantastic about taking photos at every opportunity and before my eyes I could see us changing from the slightly pasty, unsure party who left Paris to the tanned, confident people having dinner last night. That really was a bit of a shock to me!

The perils of the beach!...

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 18:53:51 GMT

We have just returned from the beach and are taking a shower and chilling out with a cup of tea bafore going onto a party at Novotel with all the gang. The last few days have been a little weird - a lot of fairly crappy things have happened, but somehow they havent managed to ruin anything really. Im still having a fantastic time. It all depends on your outlook I suppose, if you expect to face some little obstacles and annoyances then theyre not quite as bad - thats just how life is. But Im gonna indulge a littla and complain anyway!!!

First of all I have managed to block my SIM card - suck a stupid mistake but one that has caused me alot of annoyance since. We can't get hold of Magali or the boys and its a work phone so naturally im freaking out a little! We went to the crowded beach today, at the insistence of the French guys and met up with the Senegalese. It was a really fun day - we swam and chatted and listened to the amazing beats they can summon out of their drums. Em and I were the last of the group to be given our Wolof pseudonyms, I am hanceforth known as Coumbe and Em as Astou. We have been promised a feast with music and dancing in honour of our names which should be really cool if it ever materialises. Despite losing my ring (a fairly precious christmas present) and having my favourite shoes - my very beautiful and comfortable Birkenstocks - stolen, it was still a very cool day. I may have lost some precious material possession but in the Senegalese, especially Big Cher who helped me out when I was feeling totally threatened by some pervy African guys in the sea and promised to teach me how to makes Senegalese tea, and little Cher, who said he'll teach me Wolof - I believe we have secured some friends who we can actually trust (something Em and I are finding very difficult here!) and I really hope that we do see a lot more of them.

We seem to have spent the last few days making up for the lack of marriage proposals on our first week here. From the taxi driver who offered me a cow (and some camels in the desert) to the guy who turned up at the door earlier and washed Ems clothes for her they've all been pretty random but very very funny! It is starting to grate a little now though, at the beach we were definitely not enjoying the attention (its ridiculous we were swimming in trousers and huge baggy T shirts, how much more covered up can you get?!?) and being in the sea surrounded by guys who wouldn't let me back to the shore really frightened me. It was the first time I felt out of control of the situation and I have neevr been more grateful than I was to Big Cher for wading in and dragging me out when he did.

Its not all as morbid as I'm making it sound, we're having a truly great time and every day its as if we learn not one but 20 or 30 new things. And there are loads of hugely positive things happeneing every day - I cannot believe it is only 10 days since we arrived I have learnt and changed so much. Every day you see a new perspective on something, a different way of looking at the world around you. Even if we all went home tomorrow we have gained so much life experience and learnt so much about different cultures and traditions, about being open minded and inquisitive and waiting before judging something or someone that I don't think a single one of us would not find ourselves changed or affected in some way.

We are becoming really close as a group too, there is barely a day goes by when we don't hang out together or have a meal at someones appartment (or hotel in Seb and Rafs case!). Today we all went for lunch at a moroccan restaurant in town, it was pricey but but the food was delicious and there was so much of it that not one of us managed to finish. Also Em and I are doing quite well at the moment as we went shopping in the market with Magalis gardener yesterday and his fantastic bartering skills plus the fact that Hassaniya is his mother tingue meant we spent far less than we normally do when we go there! He really was so kind and helpful to us, showing us how to find the best fruit and knocking a huge percentage off the price for us as well as sorting out our taxi back to work so we didnt spend ages haggling the taxi driver down to the 200UM price it should be. Anyway best get going now, we've got a busy night ahead of us and an eventful week with the visit of the VSF who arrive today and our proposed first trip to Rosso with them on Monday. I wonder if these things will ever stop being exciting and new and become just routine...

A little troll all of our own

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 18:20:44 GMT

I'm sat in the very posh, very expensive internet café near the boys house. At the moment the internet isn,t connecting properly, so we're all kinda sat around just waiting for something to happen. Noone seems too bothered though, and I can,t say its upsetting me too much - we have air con, a comfy place to sit and cute eye candy sitting behind the desk! We haven't seen the boys since Sunday, it feels like a very long time but in aa way its really nice to have time to find our feet and get to know our neighbourhood alittle by ourselves. Also, and Im not sure if this is pure coincidence, but our store cupboard seems to be very well stocked at the moment!!

We are slowly starting to get settled in at work; we have now met the much talked about, much revered Nancy and her son Siddee, who both seem really lovely and an absolute wealth of information on almost any subject linked to mauritania. This means our lunchtime conversation has suddenly become a lot more interesting! Work can often be quite frustrating at the moment, as we don't always know exactly what we should be doing and minor irritations like not being able to read the vets handwriting can hold us up for hours. However day by day we learn a little more, and slowly routines, names and faces are beginning to fall into place. We have made friends with Mai Muhna the secretary (always a useful ally as she controls the lunch slips and the photocopier!) and a young Wolof guy who works on the factory floor and is desperate to improve his English. the more friends we make the easier it gets, as everyone is really kind and they do all they can to make things run smoothly for us. Its also a really nice feeling to go into work or walk home through our neighbourhood and have people wave at us anhd shout out greetings.

Our 'marriage without sex' was finally completed yesterday, as Em and I welcomed the newest arrival to our offbeat little family - Magali's old cat who was in need of a new home after being bullied by Scar and Loulou (her 2 dogs). Fondly known as 'le trolle' because of his habit of breaking things when he was younger, he is the friendliest cat I have ever known and comes in useful for eating our leftover food and helping us combat the the cockroaches. He is dramatically cutting down our waste, which is useful as there is no rubbish collection and we haven't yet managed to make ourselves throw our rubbish on the streets like everyone else.

Big news of the day is that we have now recieved our first marriage proposal! A 30 something Maur guy offered us a lift to the cyber and en route tried to extract information about our marital status, address and telephone number. Suffice to say my name is now Laura and I have a fiancé back in England and live in a house full of work colleagues who don't let us invite anyone back. Em is now Sophie, married with a husbend who is coming to live with her next week. Even this didnt seem to put him off however - he painstakingly explained that its OK to have more than one husband in Mauritanis and after showing us his work, giving us his work, home and mobile numbers and extracting about 10 promises to call him tomorrow he dropped us off. All in all a very amusing episode!

We have spent the last week manically preparing for the visit of VSF (Vétérinaires sans Frontières), the Belgian NGO who fund APLT. As they are going to be checking up on her, Magali is of course very stressed out - running around trying to get accounts in order and prepare presentations for Friday when they arrive. Next week they will be visiting the herders 'en brousse' in Rosso and if Nancy agrees we will be accompanying them for our first trip into the real desert. Nancy has also promised to take us out one night when the 'rainy season' (hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm not too sure about that) clears so we can get a proper glimpse at those amazing starry Saharan skies!

Today we finally managed to make it to the Bana Blanc to buy eggs - a real luxury I must say, and I think tomorrow Magali is planning to come round the market with us so she should help in haggling over prices, something which can tend to be a real drain after a long and tiring day at work. It looks like things are not going to calm down for a bit as there are plans afoot to go to the fish market on Friday and to get some clothes made up and introduce ourselves to the Peace Corps next week. We still haven,t checked out the French Cultural Centre or the cinema yet, and after the VSF have left we have a provisional arrangement with Magali to try out a Haman (Turkish baths). At this rate it,ll be a long time before we run out of things to do! Whoever said this country was boring?!?

They came, they saw, they ate...

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 17:36:11 GMT

View from the boy's house - Eeeek!

We are in the middle of a swarm of locusts, a locust plague I suppose you could say. It is strange how something so destructive, something I thought would terrify or repulse me is actually so strangely beautiful. As far as the eye can see there are winged orange creatures flying around, their wings emitting a low buzz. Em says the swarms can be up to 10 metres long and standing on the wall of our verandah gazing at them I believe it. They dip and swoop and flock to the trees, forming what looks almost like black clouds constantly twisting and looping and reforming into different shapes. The children in the street carried on their game of football, the women sat talking quietly in the dust didn't even look up. And after 10 minutes of gazing in wonder Em and I did the same, returning to our appartment to mop up and write our diaries. After all, what else can we do? Life must and does go on. The weather has been strange all day - maybe if we had been here longer we would have recognised the signs. As it was we thought the oppressive heat, the wind that swept through our appartment knocking all our pictures off the wall, the dust that appeared seemingly from nowhere to cover everything in sight signalled the start of a sandstorm like the one we experienced on our first night here. Standing on Magali,s balcony, watching the clouds of orange dust sweep through the city followed by 10 minutes of heavy rain that dried almost as soon as it stopped falling was the moment I realised what people mean when they call the British climate mild. Here the extreme is the normal, noone even blinks to see a storm blow up in a matter of seconds. For example the locusts, I had just lit a citronella coil on our wall and turned to put the box inside. Turning back I suddenly heard a loud buzzing and looked up to see the sky almost black with these insects that had most definitely not been there a few seconds before. The speed at which these things appear and the atmosphere changes does not yet cease to amaze me. I can't believe that it ever will.

Today was our first day of work at the factory. We didn't do much as noone from the Tiviski side was really available to explain our job. Magali explained what we will be responsible for at APLT - mostly chaecking and verifying that everything is done correctly by the vets and herders in Rosso and Boghé and gave us the APLT report from January to June this year to read. Finally she left us with a very simple spreadsheet task and went home. After a few minutes we were finished and went to the restaurant for a meal of 'djiboutjhin' (fish on rice surrounded by vegetables and covered with some kind of sauce) before coming home via a bus, two taxis, the marché marocain, marché capitel and the Bana Blanc (a very expensive Lebanese store that sells all manner of western foods and things that can't be bought anywhere else. According to Magali's husband, aka 'Mr Buff' it is also the only place in the whole city that doesnt sell bad eggs.) We have also now got our SIM card off of Magali, but for some reason can't make it work yet. Hopefully it will soon or we'll have no way of contacting the boys.

Tonight if we can be bothered to walk the 15 minutes or so along the dusty roads surrounded by locusts we are going to Seb and Rafs for dinner. They have bribed the chef at their hotel with alcohol to cook for them, so hopefully we are heading to a delicious meal. The evenings so far have been really lovely. On friday, after an afternoon spent swimming in the sea (which is as warm as bathwater and has fantastic waves) with Lewis, Karl and Magali, we had the boys round for dinner. We cooked (or at least Em cooked and I prepped) Dhal. Feeling very proud of myself!! As none of the boys have started work yet and Magali had just given Em and I Saturday off, we made abit of a night of it and the boys stuck around til about 1. Yesterday we found our way to Lewis and Karls house (or at least their garage attached to a house) to hit the market and find a cyber café so we could contact home. After an hour or so having tea with Siddi, a kind of caretaker for the place they work at, we headed into town and bought our first (and possibly last) luxury item - a glass spaghetti jar covered in lemons! It really cheers up the kitchen and along with all the pictures, maps and posters we have stuck up, makes this place feel like 'our' home. After an hour spent in a cyber just arounf the corner from the boys house enjoying the air con, checking my e-mails and chatting to friends on MSN as if I'd never moved to another continent, we piled off to meet the French boys for lunch - Cheeseburger and fries (how far do you have to travel to escape fast food I wonder?!? I've even seen a place called McDal which I swear is the Saharan version of McDonalds).

On the way home we got some detergent from the 'rip off shop' - a minimarché near us which sells things for about twice the price of the market and on arrival I merrily set about handwashing my laundry basket of dirty clothes. Unfortunately the water stopped halfway through and I was left with a heap of soapy clothes and no way of rinsing them. I had no choice but to leave them to dry and rerinse them today when the water got fixed. Unfortunately the dye ran out of my trousers onto a couple of tops, ruining them a little. But who knows, maybe tie dye will be the next trend round here! So finally after all this excitement and westernisation, we finished aff our day by getting a taxi to the garage and all watching a video with pasta and tomato sauce cooked by Lewis. After listening to Seb and Raph jamming for a bit (they really are unbelieveably good) and almost falling asleep on my feet we got a cab home and went to bed.

Settling in...

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 20:46:13 GMT

Today is our third day in Mauritania and it is starting to feel a little more familiar. Yesterday we saw the flat we will be living in (homely and clean but the water isn't working so it smells a bit!) and had croissants with a Belgian lady called Sylvie. Her husband has travelled the world working and after a long time living in Australia, near Perth, they have now settled in Nouakchott working for the oil company Woodside, for the foreseeable future. She is an amazing lady, really strong and vibrant and dynamic. She reminded me of the kind of person I want to become, a photographer by trade and someone who tries her best to get things done. But she is no idealist, she knows the corrupt ways of the system and tries to combet them or work around them. I really hope that I will get the chance to meet her again, she reminded me what this is all really about.

After meeting Sylvie we were taken to Tiviski. The factory is very famous round here and Nancy (the président de Tiviski) seems to hold almost iconic status. Everybody has heard of it and if you mention you work there they instantly become more friendly, although they are so friendly already its hard to believe thats possible! The last two days we have all been doing an induction course with Magali in the room next to the APLT office at Tiviski. Today was amazing, she sent us to the market playing a 'city game' finding prices for things, buying some potatoes for her Belgian dinner last night and catching the bus (truly an unbelievable experience - literally a transit van with the back doors jammed open and a bench down each side. The conductor stands on the back and bangs the side of the bus to tell the driver when to stop and when to go. You are surrounded by people, maurs and Black Africans [Wolof/Soninke/Pulaa] all crammed together. Surprisingly its quite pleasant, the wind whips through the windows creating a nice breeze and the smell of sweat is not as overpowering as you'd imagine) and haggling over taxi fares. For me today was the best day so far, not that the other days haven't been amazing, just today has been even more so! The six of us let loose in the city, with Raph and Seb acting as translator and host all at the same time. The taxis we did get we all piled into - Em on my lap and two of the boys sharing the front seat. We met 'the Senegalese', Wolof people who Raph and Seb met yesterday through their mutual love of music. They were amazing, so friendly and genuine. They made us tea and gave us a present - necklaces for the boys and bracelets for Em and I and even promised to try and come with us to St Louis and show us around if we make it there for Christmas. I know Magali is cynical of anyone who befriends us and I can understand why - we are rich Europeans in a country of great poverty and people who are desperate to escape it, obviously they would see us as a route out either via money we ca give them, any contacts we may have or help with VISAs etc and it would be silly not to recognise this. We have been warned about marriage proposals and although we havent recieved any yet (maybe I don't look like a promising option!) it would be a miracle if we didn't reach the end of the year without SOMEONE seeking our aid. But the Senegalese at least dont appear that way, they are generous and ask nothing in return. They have expressed no wish to go to France (or anywhere else in Europe for that matter) and seem to enjoy their days spent sat in the road next to their stalls playing music and drinking copious amounts of mint tea. Their life can't be easy, they are market traders and live in the Cinquième (the poor area of the city, basically a shanty town) but I have not heard them complain.

We all went to Magalis for lunch, where Em and I have been staying since our arrival. The boys, who I dont think have eaten properly yet, were ravenous and quickly got through seconda and thirds of the beautiful food that Magalis husy band hyahyah conjured up. He is truly another product of this incredible yet strange country - half English, half Mauritanian he spends his days wandering around half dresses, cooking and (to quote Em) 'making himself look buff'. Hence our nickname for him, Mr Buff or Bouefy (for short). magalis house is unbelievable: they have a gym, a relaxation room and a whole room dedicated to reading comics, true luxury! But I am not sad to leave, staying there has been like staying in another world and I've loved every second (especially our walk in the desert with the gardener yesterday evening. Seeing the dunes that stretch almost to the other side of Africa was mind blowing!). Tonight though we will have a place of our own, a beautiful appartment that we can call home for the next year. i can't wait!

On est arrivé!

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 20:07:24 GMT

So after all of the heartache, all the planning, all the dreams and hopes and fears and goodbyes we finally arrive in Mauritania. Today is the day I have been dreaming of ever since I found out what a gap year was, and so far it has not disappointed. If anything it has exceeded any expectations I had. After a weekend of goodbyes and manic packing I found myself at 10.30 am Monday morning in a cab to Waterloo with the faces of everyone dear to me blurring in and out of my memory. Already things were not quite going to plan. Originally I was to meet Em and Lewis at Kings Cross and navigate them across London to meet Karl at Waterloo, however a 2 hour delay on their train put paid to that. So here I was, in the back of a Hackney cab for the first time in my life with two bags I could barely lift at my feet,unsure quite how or when the four of us would get to Paris and and trying to ignore the gnawing pain of leaving behind everything I know and love. But at the same time there was a strange excitement growing in my head, an excitement that built and compounded the closer to Nouakchott we got. Because the nearer we are the more it is an arrival and a new life rather than a tearful, heart-rending goodbye. Sitting here in the Mauritanian capital, the last year seems so worthwhile. We have finally achieved the dream we've all been working towards for so long now and there's a feeling that I'm about to learn things that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

So back to Monday - I was just starting to consider panicking when Karl phoned and reassured me that his mum had rebooked the Eurostar so we woyuld now all be on the same train a couple of hours later. The rest of the journey was relatively uneventful and at 5ish we were met at the Gare du Nord by Seb and Raph. Finally the group was complete.

Paris definitely lived up to my image of it, Seb and Raph (plus a couple of random friends) led us to our hotel, although they had little more clue than us where it actually was! After chilling for a bit in the 'hotel d'Amiens' - a very cute and quirky little place (fabric wallpaper, how cool!) we made our way back to the Gare du Nord and took the 'scenic route' round the main plaza for a while until we finally made our way to 'La Chapelle' and caught a train to Pigalle (slap bang in the middle of the red light district) where raph was meeting us to give us a little taster of parisien life. He led us to his place in montmartre, taking in the Moulin Rouge and les Doux Moulins (café from Amélie) on the way and giving us a very impressive impromptu little tour. Everything was just so (there really is no other word for it) Parisien...all the beautiful buildings, the wrought iron window bars, the quirky little streets and romantic smokey looking bars and cafés... To think i had the chance to live there, and I turned that down!We stayed at his for a while, met his parents, friends and brother then hung around his room while Lewis called home and raph tried to finish packing. Then onto a cool little bar for a 'demi' of beer, then back to the hotel for a well earned sleep.

This morning dawned far too early and by 7.15am Karl, Lewis, Em and I were packed into a taxi that had been sorted for us by Seb and Raphs families, speeding towards an extortionate 40€ fair and terminal 2 of Charles de Gaulle airport.

Sebs useful contacts got us through CDG with few problems and then (a few luggage juggles later) we were on the plane and heading off into totally unexplored territory (for me at least). getting to Africa was the most amazing feeling, as we flew down through Morocco you could see the coastline of Afric stretching out around us for miles and miles. Looking down from the height of the plane the Atlas mountains were reduced to mere dimples on the face of the Earth. It was my first real glimpse of Africa and it took my breath away! From the sky the whole of Morocco seemed to be hued in russets, scarlets, all different shades of red. But if Morocco was red then Western Sahara was orange; and as we flew deeper into the Sahara and further into Mauritania the oranges became a blur of yellow as all we could see stretching out for miles was sand. I have never seen such a deserted landscape, we couldne spot a settlement until we were almost on top of Nouakchott. And then suddenly this city, the capital of Mauritania, loomed into view. Large and sprawling in comparison to the rest of the country, small and insignificant compared to many other capital cities, Nouakchott has a quality all of its own. With few buildings more than one storey high and roads that consist of a strip of tarmac (if that) with desert either side, it is like no place I have ever seen before. Everywhere you look is sand - even peoples gardens consist of trees seemingly rooted in the Sahara.

The first thing to hit you is the heat. Quite literally. You step off the plane and it is like walking into a wall of hot air. It feels as if we are living in an oven - there is no let up. Even with air con on full blast in magali's house it feels like we are in a crowded gym, almost impossible to stop sweating (icky!). We were met off the plane by an airline official who took our passports, helped us through customs and generally tried to give us a hassle free time. People were still grabbing at our bags though, trying to carry them for a tip. Eventually one guy through sheer persistance managed to get my bag off of me. It is amazing how they don't give up, at one point 5 guiys were literally trying to wrest it from my grasp! Magali met us off the plane and we were quickly shepherded to her car, followed by a couple of beggars and some would be helpers, all desperate to get some money off of these so blatntly rich Europeans.

magali first took us to the market where she had to buy some fruit, once again a group of small boys latched onto us, hoping for the opportunity to eanr some money. We trailed Magali as she walked around, trying to find the best price and the best value fruit. Even feeling tired, headachey and as if I was walking around in a sauna, the market was not a sight to miss. A riot of colour and smells and a rich variety of ethnic groups wearing very different types of clothing (yet still all very African) meant there was always something to gaze at. Everywhere I looked was something different and new. A glance in any direction and there was some small incident to catch your eye and hold your attention. Nouakchott (and indeed Mauritania) is a very harsh climate, yet it is vibrant, exciting and in its own way very beautiful. Despite the heat and the sporadic homesickness, despite the heartache and longing that for home that hits me late at night when I should be sleeping, I can't overcome the feeling that this year will be the best of my life and that I'm going to love every minute of it.

One week

Sun, 05 Sep 2004 16:24:51 GMT

One week to go and its a really strange place to be, on the one hand I can't wait to get there but on the other I really REALLY don't want to leave. Its weird to think that this time next year I'll be back home with all this experience behind me and probably wishing I could live through my year in Mauritania all over again, this time last year we were planning the first big fundraiser for a gap year that was still just a fairly vague dream. So here I am sat at my computer in my own home in the september sunshine, soon I'll be in an internet cafe in the baking desert heat updating this journal. But you can repeat it over and over yet I think its not til you reach the airport that it finally hits you how real this year out is.

Last night we held a dinner for Oxfam/Save the children. For me personally it was a chance to say good bye and thanks to everyone who's been there for me over the last year, encouraging me and telling me I'm not going to regret this year. It was a really amazing night and for anyone who was there eating or helping (or both in some cases) thank you very much for contributing. We raised somewhere in the region of £2000 so it really was worth all the effort. And I got an amazing amount of fairly interesting if not all beautiful wall decorations out of it!

Ashwell Art on display in Mauritania

Anyway best go pack, something Ive been trying to do all week and haven't yet managed. Well Ive still got 8 days to fit it all in. But where do you start when you're packing for a whole year?...

11 day countdown

Thu, 02 Sep 2004 19:44:35 GMT

11 days to go....... scary....... meooooow (go away stuart).....wub. Oh god this journals already been taken over by freaks!!! But just to please you stu, ill post it anyway....mmmmbop