Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Tea Under the Tree



My family and I. L-R Selma, Hejarah, Jacob, Boba holding baby Summer, Ali, and I.


Ilne, Ali, and Billel.



My neighbor Boita, Austin, and I.


Neighborhood kids. Me, Halima, Minetou, and Aicha.


My friend's host siblings, Mohammed and Mama.


My neice, Ilne and I.

Our first week in Africa was spent doing orientation. We had lots of cross culture, technical sessions, and ice breakers to just meet all 77 of us. We met with our facilitators and got to tell them specifically what we wanted and expected out of our two year service here. My biggest expectation was to be fluent in Hassaniya, which is the local dialect of Arabic. And of course- become a kick ass English teacher.

At the end of the week we got our announcements for home stay training. Or to be correct, community based training. This is the first time since the 1980s that training is done in Rosso. Every other year it has been in Kaedi. I got placed in a neighborhood of Rosso called Satara. I am also in a language class with three other PCT's learning Hassaniya.

The first day out of the Center, we get dropped off at our facilitator's house and met one member of our family. My sister Selma came. We actually thought we had the same name for a couple of minutes because Mauritanians have a hard time pronouncing Summer and it kept coming out Summa, which was mistaken for Selma. So we had a good laugh and my sister took quite kindly to me.

We take a walk home and I meet the rest of my family. I live with my mother and 4 sisters. My mother is Boba, and my sisters are named Habus, Dalah, Selma, and Coumba. Habus and Coumba have their own families. Dalah was pregnant and Selma is engaged.

It was just a bit awkward the first week. I'll have to admit, the culture takes a lot of getting used to. Plus add the fact that I cannot communicate with them... there was a lot of charades going on for a couple of weeks. Turns out in my neighborhood there were a good amount of Americans living near me, so I wasn't too lonely.

Home stay, while we are officially trainees is broken up into three sections. The first third, is meant to focus on learning our language. About a month into it, I felt comfortable enough to communicate. Peace Corps does a good job of making sure we have a handle on our language. My facilitator has been doing this for 11 also, so he is an awesome teacher. Plus we are in class 6 hours a day, and 5 days a week.

We are also supposed to integrate into the community and work on learning the culture. Some how I became the best American girl in Satara because I wore mulafahs, which are the veils that Moor women wear and I got my hair braided. My family is really nice and we had our own jokes and mannerisms that we would all laugh about. My sister that was pregnant had her baby and named it after me, so her name is either Summer or Marieme, just like me. Names are pretty interchangeable and I have certainly learned to answer to a lot of things.

In Mauritania, when a child is born, a big party exactly one week after the birth. It's a naming ceremony, so that's when she was officially named. My family went all out with the festivities- it was quite exciting. People from all over the country- there were even a few people that came all the way from the Algerian border. It was also the first time I saw a camel in close vacinity. He was hanging out in our yard because we were going to eat him for lunch. YUM!

The first 3rd of orientation ended on July 22nd when did site placements and visit!!