Digging a Garden

Two days after the computer fiasco I felt I needed some manual labor to take my mind off the computer's uncertain fate. Our country cottage on Dodson Hollow must have been calling to me because I decided to dig a garden. Peace Corps encourages us to dig gardens. It saves us money on vegetables, and sharing extras with neighbors is a great way to make friends. However, as you may remember, I live on a sand dune. The soil has few nutrients to speak of. Water soaks into the sand immediately. Gardens are tricky business in the Sahara. Some PCVs in my region had been trained to dig gardens though, so after consulting them I set off on my mission. I needed to dig a large rectangular pit, remove the largest rocks, and use goat manure from neighbors as fertilizer. Other PCVs assured me that if I showed up at neighbors with a shovel, explained that I was building a garden and that I needed manure, and asked where their goat pens were, my neighbors would gladly oblige. They clearly have never tried this in Chinguetti: my neighbors were wholly confused.

My first problem was that I didn't have a wheelbarrow. A bucket would have worked alright, but it would have required too many trips. Let's be serious, it's hot here and I'm lazy. Nevertheless, I figured it wouldn't be to difficult to find a wheelbarrow. I showed up at my host family's (I had conveniently given them a goat earlier that month, so I didn't feel bad asking for a little manure), shovel in hand, and explained my objective to the servant, Aziza, in tentative Hassaniye.

“I'm going to make a garden. I need fertilizer. Can I have some goat manure?”

“Yes of course!”

She then led me to her own garden and stared at me expectantly.

“...uhhhh... the goat pen?” I asked.

“Why do you need the goats?”

“For fertilizer...” I was beginning to question my accent, and I had looked up the word for fertilizer in our Peace Corps Hassaniye dictionary, but I wondered if the word had been wrong. That happened a lot.

“I don't understand. You should wait until Aishitou [host mother] returns.”

“Okay, thank you.” While leaving I realized I still needed a wheelbarrow. Except I didn't know the word for wheelbarrow. “Do you have a wheel...” [Insert “pushing wheelbarrow” motion.]

“Yes!” She led me over to the wall, where sure enough, instead of a wheelbarrow there was a large old wheel resting against the building.

“Alright, nevermind, thank you.”

Thinking perhaps I might have more luck with another neighbor, I headed down the street. After trying to explain what I was after, I was shown another garden. Something wasn't clicking.

Finally, I asked my site mate to help me. She gave me a different word for fertilizer and a “more used” word for “goat manure.”

I headed back to the first family. This time I was much more successful, and they gave me a old rice sack to carry the manure. I loaded the sack to the brim and began to head to my house.

“What are you doing?!” Aziza screamed at me.

“Uhhh... making a garden. I needed fertilizer... you said I could have this.”

“But what are you doing with the manure?”

“I'm using it as fertilizer.”

I started to leave again, but she continued to scream at me:

“What's wrong with you? What are you doing with the manure?”

Something still wasn't clicking. So I called my wonderful site mate Jessica (who has been here a year already and whose Hassaniye is much better than mine) and asked her to explain the situation over the phone. Two seconds later Aziza said, “Okay.” And handed me my phone back. “What did Jessica say?”

“She said you were making a garden and needed the manure for fertilizer.”

...I'm still not sure where my accent got in the way of the communication, but I'm pleased to say the garden is now done and packed full of goat manure. This is just a small example of the communication fiascoes that can occur even when I think I have the vocabulary to explain myself. Oh Hassaniye.

A near death experience... (the computer, not me)

The day after I was introduced to my new office, Chinguetti received some more wonderful news: we were finally going to get electricity, 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. I went to the office that morning, excited to plan new computer classes for the mayor. However, when I first arrived at the Tourism Bureau, the electricity was out. Turns out there had just been some kinks in the new system, but the mayor assured me the power would be up and running that morning. Sure enough, an hour later, the lights flickered on. I was apprehensive about plugging in the computer – there would likely be surges when new houses were “turned on” to the system throughout the day. However, the mayor assured me the power worked wonderfully, and I proceeded to plug my computer in.

As soon as the cord was plugged into the wall, the cord erupted in smoke. I immediately unplugged the computer again, packed everything up, and left for the day. I was terrified the computer was fried. That would make teaching computer classes much more difficult. It would also put an end to my computer-based Arabic studying. I was hopeful though that my Dell cord with a built in surge protector had saved my computer.

That night I found out that the power company had “accidentally” sent 380V electricity through Chinguetti the first day of the new power system. The mayor's computer was completely fried – the monitor erupted in smoke – and many families lost their cell phones. After I heard this, I was less optimistic about the fate of my own machine.

The next day, as I was volunteering at a French-run elementary school feeding center, I mentioned the story to a French friend of mine. The most frustrating part about all of this is that my house was not scheduled to be hooked up to the new power system for several days, so I would have no way to test the computer. “You should just come by our compound and try it there,” he suggested. So, that afternoon, I popped by with my fingers crossed and with the computer in tote.

I plugged in the computer, though I assumed at least the cord was fried. To my surprise, the small light on the computer flickered: the computer was charging. I quickly turned on the computer, ecstatic it still worked. However, as the computer was loading, it turned off again. The “charging” light was no longer on. Then, a second later, the light turned on again. I tried turning on the computer again: this time I was greeted by something a friend calls “the blue screen of death.”

“Windows has been shut off to protect your computer. Please bring your computer to your local Dell service agent.”

Shit. Nothing about this can be good. The description of the problem implied something was wrong with the battery.

I then shut down my computer, packed it up for two weeks, and waited until I came to Atar to test it with a friend's Dell power cord. I hoped – though I was not optimistic – that the blue screen of death had appeared just because the battery was completely dead and I repeatedly tried turning on the computer while the cord was shorting out. Worst-case scenario: the computer's battery was in fact fried. That would have made my job more difficult over the next 20 months, but not impossible. The mayor had one other computer that had not been plugged in so I could teach computer classes on that computer, and in my travels to Atar each month I could type up anything that was absolutely necessary.

With great pleasure, however, I can now say that the computer works fine. As soon as I get a new power cord in the mail (thanks mom and dad) I will be able to study Arabic again and I twice as many people will be able to sit in on the computer class. I'll also be able to make advertisements for the English, computer, and accounting classes that will be starting up in the next month – Alhamdulilah! (Arabic: Thank God)

New Office

A couple weeks ago I received a wonderful surprise. I was sitting in my compound, just starting some laundry, when I heard a loud, persistant knocking. I went to the door where a man told me that the “mere” (French for “mother”, pronounced like the English word “mare”) was waiting for me. “Who?” The “mere”, over there on the other side of town. Neither of my host mothers lives on the other side of town, but I thought perhaps I had misunderstood, so I asked him to wait for one second while I put on more appropriate clothing. He said, “No problem.” But he walked away. I called after him to wait, but he did not. So I quickly dressed and left. I walked around my section of town thinking perhaps someone was looking for me. But nobody was out. Then, for some reason, I wondered if maybe he meant the “maire” (French for “mayor”, pronounced the same), who was on the other side of the town. I had been trying to meet the mayor since I came to Chinguetti. In Mauritania it is very important to meet with all local officials frequently to show the proper respect and to keep them informed about your projects. It helps ensure they don't feel like we are working behind their backs – a common fear. However, the mayor of Chinguetti was never around. Two months into my stay and I had not yet met they mayor because he was always either in Nouakchott or “attending meetings.” So, that day, I figured I would swing by again. Perhaps the mayor was waiting for me, but if he wasn't it would be a good idea to try to meet him anyway – I hadn't stopped by in a couple weeks.

I arrived at the mayor's office and was greeted by the man who had come to my door. Sure enough, the mayor had been waiting for me, and he quickly informed me he was looking forward to my work in the tourism industry and he said he wanted to show me my office.

My office? “Offices” aren't common for Peace Corps Volunteers, so I wasn't expecting too much. He then led me to the “Tourism Bureau” located within the same compound as the mayor's office, handed me the keys, and said I was to report to work at 8:30, Sunday through Thursday. He handed me all the keys for the office, and I asked if anyone else would need these keys. “No, just you work here.”

The tourism bureau has a television, a DVD player, 24/7 power (Chinguetti only has power three hours per day, if that). None of it has been used since the bureau was built. Besides the fancy equipment, the office was full of random postcards. “You will sell those for 200 um [about $0.90] each,” the mayor said. He also asked if I could teach computer classes or English classes. “Both.” I'll be starting in with those classes, as well as accounting classes, in the next month.

Turns out the television and DVD player were not able to reach the single outlet in the room, so they have likely never been used. Sorting through old papers there, I discovered the tourism bureau (and the entire mayor's compound) had been built by the European Union, which explains why the building has such fancy equipment that is completely unused: nobody knows how to use the equipment. Furthermore, DVDs are not even available in Chinguetti. In any case it will be nice to have a working space so close to the mayor, though I must admit I hope he doesn't expect me to sit and sell postcards all day. If anything this new space will give me a place to organize other projects, and it will provide a place for these classes.

Man vs. Wild

I killed my first scorpion two weeks ago. It had been terrorizing my house and yard by night for weeks. Now that the weather is cooling these nocturnal creatures are becoming more active. Talk about motivation to keep your room clean: lifting a dirty article of clothing to find a scorpion underneath is enough to make a 21 year-old man jump and scream like a school girl. Believe me, it happened. Several times. You may know of my irrational fear of spiders. Well, scorpions are like spiders - except they've got a stinger. And huge pincers. And they move crazy fast. They should probably go extinct ASAP.

I had seen this specific scorpion a few times in the prior couple weeks. At first I responded by avoiding the situation entirely: I slept outside on a raised platform where I hoped the scorpion could not get me. Unfortuantely it has since grown too cold to sleep outside. (Oh what I would give for the good ol' days of 100 degree nights!) One night it dropped into the upper 50s, which those of you have read The Tomato Paste Incident (September 2008 entry) will know is far too cold for a body grown accustomed to 120 degree scorchers that has lost 30 pounds of insulation.

I began sleeping inside the night before the night I rid myself of this nasty specimen. That first night posed no problems. I neither saw the beast nor heard it scuttling about my one-room house. Somehow I fell asleep, and did not think about it at all the next day.

However, that night, just as dusk was settling, I was sitting on my matela (a piece of cloth-covered foam used for sleeping by night and lounging by day) and writing in my journal when I heard a familiar faint scratching not far from me. I looked down and saw the gigantic heinous creature 18 inches from my hand, crawling between the wall and my matela. Its sickly brown, pointed legs were touching my matela... I sleep on that matela... Nasty. After shrieking, flailing, and fleeing the room, I regained my senses. Kind of. The creature had to die. I grabbed a big rock and re-entered the battleground. At first I didn't see it, which left me especially terrified: it could be anywhere, and it was about to become too dark to see properly. My room at this time was rife with objects under which the nasty bugger could hide (read: my room was a mess, as usual) and I began carefully picking up miscellaneous items. Then, I caught a glimpse of it in the distance. It hid behind my row of books in the corner. The rock would not fit between the books and the wall so I agitated the books and scared it out into the open. In the center of my room I carefully danced around it with the grace of an elephant avoiding a mouse. It successfully avoided several rounds of real-life Whack-A-Mole before disappearing once again.

I was reasonably convinced for a brief moment that this was in fact a magic scorpion that could make itself invisible because I have NO idea where it went. One second it was in the middle of the room running toward a corner, and the next, it was gone. I scoured the room in vain, carefully lifting each article of clothing and every book strewn about. At this point I was already half an hour late for dinner, so I decided to leave and to resume the hunt later, in the dark.

During dinner my host family could tell I was gloomy, as could my sitemate, Jessica, and I relayed the story to all of them. My host mom became very solemn and serious – she obviously understood how terrifying magical scorpions can be. Jessica resolved to help me hunt after dinner. She had killed two scorpions during the year she already spent in Chinguetti, and she even sounded chipper when she added, “I like killing scorpions.” We returned to my house and re-searched the entire room. No scorpion. I would have just given up if I hadn't been so scared that this fiend would re-appear after I fell asleep and that it would snuggle up next to me in bed.

I left the room to look again outside, and thank Allah, it appeared immediately. It was on a rocky bit of ground next to the kitchen. I wailed for Jessica to bring her scorpion-hunting prowess and, more importantly, the giant rock she was holding.

“Holy cow, it's a huge one!”

“Uh, yeah, I know. That's what I've been telling you all along.”

She then dropped the rock on top of the scorpion, but the crafty little bugger had nuzzled up next to a rock on the ground and was safe in the small triangle between the rock Jessica threw, the rock on the ground, and the ground itself. That was when the scorpion made its fatal assumption. Over the course of the previous weeks I had whined and run away every time I saw the thing, and it had become arrogant. It thought it could scare me again. It also probably assumed we didn't have another rock. Actually, it probably just wanted to make a mad dash for its home, which involved running directly at Jessica and me. Jessica, who had been standing in front of me and who was now sans weapon, shrieked and backed into my chest. I grabbed another rock, and with a light in one hand and a rock in the other, I awkwardly ambled around my sitemate and came face-to-face with the beast. It continued to run directly at us. It chased us out of the rocky area and onto the smooth, sandy part of the yard. With a soft thud, the rock from my hand ended the monster's reign.

I wish that were the end of the scorpion saga at chez-Carl.

I naively assumed my scorpion days were over that night. If Jess had only killed two during a whole year, certainly I would not see too many more, right?

One week ago I found another. It was stealthfully scrambling over the same rocky area where the first took refuge moments before its demise. The new one was much more moderate in size. It, however, ran the other way and scuttled into a crack the moment my light discovered it. I haven't seen it since. Hopefully it doesn't use its magical scorpion powers to snuggle with me at night.

On Logical Reasoning

Hypothetical situation: If someone decided to send me something via snail-mail, and that person asked me for mailing instructions, I'd first give them a address. I'd then tag on a request to write my address in red ink and draw Islamic religious symbols on the envelope or package. The new Peace Corps Mauritania Volunteers were told by former PCVs that Mauritanians are quite superstitious and that the mail service will not dare mess with any package that has been addressed as such. Nobody really knows if this is true anymore; it's just something that keeps getting passed down, and everyone keeps passing on those instructions to friends and family assuming that someone who knew this fact started the rumor, while of course acknowledging that there's a decent chance it doesn't make any difference at all.

Here in Mauritania one encounters several habits and customs like this – customs that have been handed down for generations that nobody questions. That explains why my host mother, a traditional doctor, poured goat's milk into my host sister's eyes when my host sister complained of her eyes hurting. Her eyes have since digressed considerably (though doubtfully due to the milk), and she's going to Nouakchott, the country's capital, to see a regular doctor. She's lucky she has the means to do so.

This same host mother once boasted of how “healthy” her diet was while she was pregnant with her youngest child. She ate plain couscous, and ONLY plain couscous, for the last seven months of the pregnancy.

This may also explain why I listened to a mother scold her daughter, telling her not to use soap to wash her hands before eating because... the daughter was sick. I briefly asked for a clarification – surely I misunderstood something in my limited Hassaniye – only to have the mother repeat that she did not want her ill daughter to wash her hands with soap. Before I could ask any follow-up questions the mother left the room to bring in the meal. The encounter was especially alarming since we then all ate from a communal bowl with our hands, and this daughter sat immediately to my right. I carefully avoided making any facial expressions, but I also carefully avoided any bits of rice she may have touched.

In Mauritania this type of logical reasoning, this trust in someone who hopefully knows better, is especially apparent to individuals who have been inundated with scientific studies on nutrition and health. But these studies are not readily available here. Chinguetti has not even had electricity for the past month, how could one expect people to be up-to-date on the most current trends in diets and hygiene? After all, aren't those “theories” about “germs” and “vitamins” just western trends anyway?

Furthermore, changes in patterns can be especially unnerving. If my “red ink” theory is accurate, and if someone sent a letter addressed in black or blue ink that did not come through, I would be heartbroken (if I ever find out about it). Changes in patterns can be risky. My host family in Rosso certainly agreed. They became uneasy one night during a lunar eclipse. Back in August we had a total lunar eclipse during a full moon. I watched it and kept expressing how cool and beautiful I thought it was. My host mother was horrified. In her limited French and my limited Hassaniye we had a very basic conversation:

Host mother: Look at the moon. It's bad.

Carl: Why is it bad?

HM: Because, look at it. It's bad.

C: But what's bad about it?

HM: Because Allah did that. He's punishing us. We must pray now.

It turns out that many PCVs had similar conversations with their host families that evening. And, sure enough, near the time they started praying, the eclipse began to recede. This only cemented the notion in their minds: Allah had been punishing them, and their praying helped solve the problem. Similarly, my belief in the mail superstition was only reinforced when I received a package from my parents that had been addressed in red ink and had an Islamic star and crescent on the top flap. I received the package just fine, so clearly my theory had worked, right?

I should qualify this entire entry by stating that I am not trying to make Mauritanians out to be uneducated or uninformed peoples. Furthermore, I have since encountered many Mauritanians who understand perfectly the nature of “eclipses.”

I will say though that it has made for some interesting encounters. After the eclipse, for example, I tried offering that “lunar eclipses” were natural phenomena that occurred when the Earth's shadow landed on the moon. Nope. That was clearly wrong. What a stupid American.

Returning to the “red ink” theory: I have no idea if addressing packages in red or adorning them with Islamic symbols actually helps or not, but on the off-chance that it does, I wouldn't want to risk not getting a care package. I've only ever heard of one PCV not receiving a care package, and sure enough, this package had not been addressed in red ink. Again, this is far from any sort of empirical proof. But when accurate information is not cheaply and readily available, superstitions will take hold. Some are even accurate. My host mother told an extremely overweight woman who appeared to be suffering from diabetes that she should be more active and walk more often. Other times it results in goat's milk being poured into eyes. I have no idea if the “red ink” theory is one that happens to be true or not, but I'll continue endorsing it religiously.