Site Visit

It was the last week in July when we were going to find out about our site placement. All the trainees packed up to go to the Peace Corps Center for sessions. The morning of site announcements- everyone's energy was just sizzling. There are three big days for trainnees. Home stay announcement, site placement, and swear in... so it was a pretty big deal.

Out on the sand, the staff created a huge map of Mauritania, with a label at each site a volunteer was going to be placed at. As each name got called out, we all cheered and ran to our site. This way, you could geographically see who was close to you and where you were in the country.

I am in a village named Agjert. It is about 40 kilometers from the regional capital Aioun El Attrous. My region is Hodh Ech Gharbi. Currently there is only one site further east then me, so I'm pretty much on the fronteir. Mali is an hour south and 2 hours east.

From Rosso it takes 2 days to get to site. We stayed overnight in Kiffa, which is the region's capital just west of us. It seemed the farther east we went the prettier it became. There are sand dunes, lots of camels, donkeys, date trees, etc. It is quite picturesque.

The first thing I noticed about Aioun is how rocky everything is. When i found out about my site, I told my host mother and she said the houses were made of rocks. And they are. Everything is stone cut in multiple shades of red and orange. There is a lot of hiking, caves, and beautiful rock features everywhere.

My site, Agjert is known for its date trees. I would describe it as a small suburb of Aioun. There are about 300 families which makes the town about 1500-2000 people. Every Monday villiages from all around have a market at our site.

I am living with my community counterpart who is another teacher. I have my own room in a family compound so I have enough privacy. I am going to be the first Peace Corps Volunteer at the site, and the first English teacher at the middle school. I am really excited about that.

We spent a little less then a week at site, and then returned to Rosso for more training.