The Glorious Return

The Hodh Ech Garbi, my region is a two day travel from Rosso. So being cooped up in a car for multiple days can take a toll on anyone. As volunteers, we are accompanied by a Peace Corps staff who is in charge of making sure we are posted. Some more competent then others.

In theory, when you get to your region, the volunteer spends a couple of days in the regional capital, mine being Aioun, to go house shopping. We need things like matelas, which are small mattresses that Mauritanians sleep on, buckets for showers, mats, kitchen supplies- pots, pans, plates, silverware, etc. Since my site does not have a daily market or electricity, I also need canned food, oatmeal, coffee, etc. After we buy all these things, we are taken to our site by Peace Corps and dropped off.

Of course when put in practice, rules are bent. We get to site a little before noon, and that very day I am told to have everything ready by 5 pm . The morning was spent doing protocol and the markets are closed for the hottest part of the day so I had absolutely no time to do shopping. Nothing would have even been open. For some reason I was the only one to leave at a moment's notice. On the first day of posting a staff member is required to stay overnight. I have an inkling that mine wanted to get it over with, get to site and be rid of his duties.

I was told to hang out without any house wares and go back to Aioun by myself, go shopping, and return with everything alone. However, this is of course easier said then done. Travel is done by taxi brousse. Drivers go between cities and stuff as many people in a car as possible for a fee. Four in the front and four in the back is a very common sight. Sometimes you can't tell who the driver is because there are two people in his seat. They also charge for baggage. So having a mattresses and huge rugs and multiple bags is going to cost me. Add to this that I am American, which makes it ok to rip me off.

I make it to Aioun without a problem and stay with the other volunteers in the regional house. I do my shopping, etc. and hope I didn't forget to leave anything out. Here is the hard part. I plan on going back to my site in the same car with another volunteer, Jackie who lives in Awinat Zbil. (Loosely translated to cow shit.) She came into town to go shopping also. Since we have so much baggage, we have to go to find a local driver to drive to our house, load up our baggage, and take us to the garage where we can find cars that are going east, to other cities.
We make it to the garage and then have to haggle to get to our sites. All the while paying huge amounts for our baggage. Here's the fun part...

My site does not have a road, it is all sand. And my house is about a kilometer and a half away from the paved road. So the taxi stops at my town, the driver looks at me and says, “Agjert, this is your stop,” and leaves me on the side of the road. Literally. With a mattresse, my big traveling backpack, a normal back pack, my purse, and two buckets filled with food. I obviously can't carry all these things, so I ask to take him to my house. But no, I am crazy for asking him because can't I see that his tires can't drive in sand? Imagine being abandoned on the side of the road in the middle of Africa, feeling almost completely helpless. I was about to flip my shit. So I say good bye to Jackie who looked as freaked out as I was, and wave to her with all my shit.

What's a girl to do? I literally walked up to the first house I saw and told them about my problem. I was an English teacher and I am new to town, but need help getting me and all my stuff to my house. Fortunately they were nice about it. They said to wait there and if they saw cars going in to town, they would stop them. The offered me milk and tea. All of which took a little over 2 hours. But hey, I had time to kill and I needed to integrate in the community. It was getting dark and there were less and less cars and they all wanted to charge me outrageous prices for driving less then two kilometers.

I called my counterpart and told him where I was and he came with a car to come get me. Of course I had to pay him too. I should have known, anyone is willing to rip off the American, even your adopted family. With that, I said my good byes to the family that took in the crazy American for an afternoon and promised to come back for tea.

All in all a thirty minute drive back to site ended up taking almost four hours. This just goes to show how flexible you have to be, and not to be weary to ask for help from those around you. Otherwise you might go a little crazy.