Christmas

Macarie, our safety and security officer takes care of us. Hotta!



Christmas Dessert, YUMMY!



Fishing in the Senegal River.



The street our hotel was on.

Happy Holidays!!!

December was a busy month. When we are posted to our site we have a three month travel ban when we are required to stay in our regions. Our first day to travel around the country was the last week of November. So a lot of first years packed their bags to start visiting friends we haven't seen since August. My first visit was to Kiffa, a town 3 hrs away to visit my buddy on his birthday.

I spent a week in city, had a fun little birthday celebration complete with too many desserts, and just hung out with a bunch of friends I missed. After my vacation, it was back to school in Agjert for the trimester tests. Ahumdillulah I had a handful of kids that actually did pretty well and studied English. It's always nice when you can actually see and hear your hard work pay off.

After tests most of the volunteers go to Nouakchott, the country capital. For our class, it was our first time in the city. Restaurants, super markets, spas... it was paradise We spent Christmas Eve at our country director's house, (I.e. our main boss) where we finally got to see all of our friends. And meet the rest of the 2nd years.

Christmas Day, we went to one of the three churches in the country to attend mass... in French. But I'm pretty sure I got the jist of the message. Baby Jesus was born. At the end, the choir sang and danced until a big chunk of the congregation joined in clapping and stomping. Christmas African style. We had a blast.

After that I had a nice Christmas lunch at a creperie. Yum, cheese. By late afternoon, all of us returned to the country director's for the big Christmas dinner. Total, there are about 150 Peace Corps volunteers in the country. My estimate is volunteers, plus friends, and help there were close to 200 people at dinner. Needless to say, I don't know if I have ever seen that much food. And even though it was a Christmas pretty far from home, being surrounded by so many close friends, we made it a good one.

For New Years, it is PC Mauritania tradition to head down to Saint Louis, Senegal. It's a lively beach town and one of the bigger cities in West Africa. The hotels were amazing... luxurious compared to what I am used to. Hot water, a shower, a toilet, air conditioning (yeah, we did kind of need that in January), an actual bed. It was heaven. And the beaches had white sand and clear waters. I did a lot of relaxing in St. Louis.

The second week of January was ETR (Early Term Reconnect) in the capital to go over some of the basic points of Peace Corps Mauritania- in case we forgot. I was just happy to be in the city again. Unfortunately our meetings happened to be scheduled at the exact time the whole conflict between Hamas and Israel started escalating... so what do Mauritanianians do best? Riot! It started off as a protest towards the Israel embassay. A couple thousand people marched through the city, but then younger people started getting involved. High school kids left school to throw rocks at no one in particular, all clinging to their copy books. (Which I found a bit hilarious as a teacher.) People screaming “Allah Akbar” and cursing Israel and it's supporters. (America is the biggest one, if case you weren't aware.)

Then the fires started. The police had to use armed vehicles to attempt to control the crowd, so what's the best way to piss off authority? Light tires on every street corner downtown. Even when tear gas is thrown at you and rubber bullets were being shot. We were put on lock down, a state of emergency in where we are not allowed to leave our premises and be as vigilant as possible With the scenes going on outside, no one had to tell us twice. I happened to be in a hotel a couple blocks away from the Peace Corps main office. We saw lots of action from the windows. Even the cleaning ladies watched with us. It went on for a good 3 hours and then died down. Then for the next couple of days we went on with our meetings. But for those few days, the police presence in the city was huge.

Our first introduction to Nouakchott was certainly an experience we will keep with us for a while.



Riots in Nouakchott!!!



Watching the city burn...