gittlemana

The Jungle

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:04:47 GMT

I had just grabbed my towel when I heard it fall. I looked down and saw it, lying on its back, twitching its six legs in an effort to right itself. I am not afraid of cockroaches. In Boghe I didn’t mind when they’d scurry across my flip-flopped feet as I was using the latrine. No, I minded. But I still wasn’t afraid. But now I just stared at it. I was barefoot, my new flip-flops outside in Thai tradition. The easiest thing to do would be to squash it with… something. A shampoo bottle? A book? Not Salman Rushdie! Not even Julian Barnes.

I covered myself with the newly de-cockroached towel and contemplated my options. It didn’t seem right to squash it while it was struggling like that. I could spray it with deet, something I do to most things smaller than me. But a creature that could survive an atomic blast could probably withstand a few sprays of repellent. I could sweep it outside. But maybe cockroaches can fly. Maybe it would get flustered and end up on my bed. Then I remembered. When I had a scorpion in my room in Boghe, I covered it with a cup and piled books on top of that. I waited a week until I noticed the smell. Then I removed the cup and threw the carcass outside. That could work. I wouldn’t really be killing it, I convinced myself. I firmly placed my garbage can on top of the cockroach, who was still kicking its six disproportionately long legs. I felt victorious. I took a shower.

Unjust!

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:22:50 GMT

There was that first night in Bangkok when I thought nearby fireworks were bombs and tried to hide under my bed. And there was that time I had to jump off a moving bus when I realized I’d missed my stop. And, if you count irrational fears, that time I had to walk through a herd of water buffalo on my way to work. But after I got settled in Mae Sot, my first week and a half at the Burma Lawyers’ Council (BLC) passed uneventfully.

I spent my first week at work reading up on Burmese legal issues, from forced prostitution to political prisoners. I was placed with the legal analysis team, whose work is entirely in Burmese. I sat quietly, reading quietly, wondering if I was going to spend my summer elbow deep in prisoners’ affidavits.

An English speaking coworker thought it would be a good idea for the legal analysis team to engage in a little cultural exchange. In what turned out to be a very frustrating exchange of the team’s broken English and my nonexistent Burmese, we discussed the differences between the legal systems of Burma and the United States. A really difficult concept to discuss with limited vocabularies. Without the wonders of hand gestures, we would have been stuck at the words “criminal” and “prosecutor.” My supervisor, a Burmese refugee perfectly justified in his stubbornness, suggested quizzing the new intern. He told me snippets of Burmese law, and I had to respond with “just” or “unjust.” He explained, “Burmese prosecutors work under the authority of the General Prosecutor.” I looked at him blankly. He yelled, “just or unjust?!?” I said I wasn’t sure – I would need more information about this general prosecutor and the system in general. He hit his head with his hands and said, “No! It’s UNJUST! Can’t you see that?!?” I nodded, more out of acquiescence than agreement. Bad lawyer move, Andi. I quickly learned the proper response to anything Burmese: Unjust!

I was talking to another NGO worker recently, who said that the oppressive and murderous Burmese government has instilled such hatred in its victims that the critical thinking of its refugees has been whittled down to mere criticism. The Burma Lawyers’ Council publishes tirades against the military junta with such descriptive titles as “Has the SPDC lost its mind?” to “It’s clear to see the government is crazy.” I’m not sure of the efficacy of such embittered statements. This led me to wonder what, if anything, they could do to effect positive change.

A mission of the BLC is to disseminate information about the rule of law in Burma to international advocates and activists. Seeing revolution as forever imminent, the staff also grooms refugee lawyers to reinstate the rule of law in Burma once the junta falls. Perhaps it is this preparation, not the passionate tirades against the regime that will create a better future.

I know it’s not my place to change the tone of the organization’s publications, and I don’t want to belittle the experiences of my coworkers. I think I’ll fall into the hysteric criticism for now, to understand my coworkers’ perspectives if for nothing else. I’ll wait a little longer to unleash the dispassionate legal analysis that was drilled into me this past year.

Anything else would be, yes… unjust.

Attached!

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:44:33 GMT

When I was in sixth grade, I planned my wedding. It would take place in a clearing in the woods, I’d wear a wrinkled linen dress, and the cake would be a raspberry nut loaf with cream cheese icing. Everyone, except my dad and other people with toenail issues, would be barefoot. I hadn’t worked out the color scheme. Maybe green and white? All I knew is that there wouldn’t be any pink. Even back then I hated pink. It was all planned except for the identity of the groom, though I was hoping for Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio. They probably wouldn’t like pink either. It would be a good match.

As I grew older, I realized that I didn’t really like nut loaves, that a forest clearing would probably have tons of mosquitoes, and that Johnny most likely had other plans.

So I decided to make the most of my Peace Corps experience and have a Pulaar wedding with my boyfriend Aaron on March 11th.

Seriously.

Living in such a conservative culture, Aaron and I joked about how much easier our relationship could be if we were married. We would laugh about it. One day we didn’t. When we seriously considered doing this, we agreed that we didn’t want to be married in real life. Just in this fake Peace Corps life. We asked some close Mauritanian friends who suggested that we have an attachment ceremony instead of a marriage. It’s kind of like an engagement party. Aaron would give my host family a dowry (yes, a dowry), we’d sign something that says we’re planning on getting married someday, and from them on we’d be fiancés. We agreed to do it. We would have a traditional Pulaar celebration with local dress, food, and music, and follow it up with a not-so-traditional American party with the other volunteers.

As we talked to more Mauritanians, we realized that an attachment is the same as a marriage. So we wouldn’t be fiancés in the eyes of Mauritanians—we’d be jam galle and jam suudu. But still nothing but sitemates in the eyes of Americans.

So, the details: Traditionally, Mauritanians write up something like a prenup. Aaron and I wrote the conditions for our marriage contract. We decided that he wouldn’t take me from my family (we both like living with our host families), he would help me with the housework (he knows I can’t cook), and he wouldn’t take a second wife. Aaron nixed the last one. Because you just never know…

On March 10th Aaron and I, feet as cold as they can be in Mauritania, went to the Mayor’s office to sign our contract. We brought his host dad and my host mom as witnesses. The local official signed the contract. Aaron signed the contract. Our witnesses signed the contract. I reached for the pen and was told that I couldn’t sign. Women can’t sign contracts. But it’s my marriage! But you’re a woman. We wanted to do this for the cultural experience and we were sure as hell getting it.

And that was it. We were married. People asked me if I felt any different. I didn’t. Isn’t marriage supposed to be a life-changing event? Even a fake marriage? I felt like I had taken medicine and I was waiting for it to kick in.

The next day, we had our celebration. About 20 volunteers and an inflatable swimming pool came to our wedding. Aaron and I spent the day dressed in local boubous (muumuus with so much fabric I tripped over myself). Mine was green, his was orange. We had matching embroidery. We had a great lunch, definitely the best I’ve had in country. We had freshly slaughtered sheep (otherwise it’s just not a party) with vegetables on white rice with so much oil that it ran all the way to the elbow by the time I was finished eating. There was good Pulaar music and even better Pulaar dancing. We ended the party when there only street children left, fighting for leftover popcorn and chips that had fallen on the ground.

We had an American party that night for the volunteers. Because we wanted to have as many religions involved in our wedding as possible, our friends lifted Aaron and me in chairs for a traditional Jewish dance. I never realized how scary it is to be three feet above the ground in a chair held up by drunken Peace Corps volunteers. Maybe it’s a good thing I never had a bat mitzvah…

In the week following the attachment, the medicine finally kicked in. My friends who have known me for a year and a half as Andi or Binta started calling me “Demba’s wife.” Even my close friends started talking me only to ask questions about Demba. Where is your husband? Is he healthy? He’s so young! You’re not. So I started responding to being called “jam suudu Demba.” What a dutiful wife. Aaron hasn’t given in so easily. He was heard in the market the other day saying, “She’s more than a wife. She has a name! Call her Andi!” Sign of a keeper.

Child Abuse and Student Revolt

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 09:25:32 GMT

My class was going really well. I was teaching the interrogative form to a class of all-male terminal year students. After about an hour, the surveillant entered the room. The job of a surveillant is to discipline the students, but ours normally spends his time in his office drinking tea and shouting orders to whoever happens to be passing by. I figured he had an announcement for the students, and I didn’t mind the interruption because I knew my lesson would probably run short. He took attendance which is usually my job, but this was nothing out of the ordinary. After calmly calling the students numbers (the students here have numbers, not names), he said that there were some students in the class without numbers. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. Several non-registered students come to my class to learn English from a native speaker. I see nothing wrong with this. He approached one of the non-registered students, and took off his hat, hit him on the head several times, then picked him up and threw him into a metal door. The student hit the door and fell to the ground. My stomach twisted. The other students erupted into laughter. Another non-registered student met with the same fate. Yet another scurried out a window, aided by his classmates. The surveillant left, threatening the students that he would come back tomorrow and check for auditors. I tried to regain control of the students, my voice shaking for the first time ever in the classroom. I couldn’t imagine that students had been beaten simply for going to school. I have been teaching English for the past year and a half—why? There are so many other problems in my community than a lack of proper English grammar. Why do I go through the motions of teaching English, ignoring the elephants in the classroom?

But this day I continued teaching, as if the interrogative form was the most important issue to discuss. I made the students do a writing exercise so I could give my faltering voice time to recover. Apparently, students in other classes were also being beaten harshly. After a few minutes, a deluge of students, some mine and some not, came into my classroom. Utterly confused, I asked the students to explain the situation to me. They said that they all came into my class so they’d be safe. Safe? How could I keep them safe? We discussed child abuse in English. As long as it was in English, I figured it still counted as class. They vented their anger, using “injustice” in every sentence. I told them about American laws about child abuse and the consequences for an American teacher if he were to beat students. Then the students decided to revolt. They marched out of the classroom and shouted in the high school courtyard, crying that their rights had been violated. I continued teaching to four interested students. Or students who feared the repercussions of revolting.

My next class was an all-female class. During the class, a director whom I admire for his honesty and good judgment came to discuss the incident with the students. He briefly mentioned the beating, claiming that all adults make mistakes. He proceeded to talk about the shame he feels about working in Boghe high school. He said that everyone realizes that the school is not a serious place to learn. The reason? We don’t pay enough attention to the attendance book. In order to improve Boghe’s reputation, we must be vigilant about taking attendance. He then described an elaborate scenario where the attendance book could save a student’s life. I listened, annoyed at the treatment of the beating but glad that this director was at least making an effort to talk to the students. When the bell rang, the students left. I started packing up my books to leave, before jumping up and calling all the students back into the classroom. I had forgotten to take attendance.

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 13:51:19 GMT

I settled back into Boghe a few weeks ago and celebrated the beginning of my second year by moving in with a new family. It’s a completely different experience than living alone. My three-year old sister yells “Andi artii!” (Andi came home) whenever I walk into the compound. I’ve never been greeted like that upon returning home. We all sleep outside with our mosquito nets in a single row, all 12 of us, and I feel like I’m really a part of this family. As the newest addition, I’m at the end of the row and practically in the goat pen. We all get up at dawn, while the morning heat is still bearable. The older children beat the younger ones to wake them up, and I try to scramble off my mat as quickly as possible to set a good example. Eager to make up for a year of living alone, I’ve been offering to help with the household chores. I am now an expert at chopping okra, dicing goat intestines, and cleaning up baby vomit. Well, maybe not an expert. I was crushing okra last night using a huge mortar and pestle, and when I looked into the mortar to see how gooey the okra was becoming, I hit myself on the forehead with the pestle. I hope no one noticed. The other night, my mom wanted to kill a chicken for dinner, and gave the youngest kids the job of chasing down the rooster. I sat on a mat, cutting onions, watching the kids chase the chicken back and forth across the compound. I watched it like it was a tenns match, following the troupe from one side of the house to the other, getting hungrier and hungrier. My little brother, Bye, finally grabbed it and ran over grinning. The chicken soon met with my mother’s hatchet, but for me it was one of those moments when I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.

We are almost half-way finished with Ramadan. I’m not fasting, mostly because I know I’d cheat and Allah would find out anyway. Lately I’ve been going without food due to illness, but I can’t give up water in this climate. I was given the job of taste-testing the food used to break fast because I’m the only one in the family allowed to eat before sundown. The other night my sister said, “Here, try this meat and tell me if it’s rotten.” But I also get to taste the hibiscus juice and see if it needs more sugar added. So it averages out to be a pretty sweet job.

As expected, classes did not start as scheduled. The students are trickling into the lycee and the teachers are fighting hunger and thirst and attempting to teach their lessons. I have several projects for the new school year, including giving computer classes to male students. I worked solely with girls for my first year, but I think computer skills are of use to both genders, so I’m broadening the reach of my classes. There are two computers in the school library, and I asked my school administration if I could use them to teach my classes. They told me that the librarian doesn’t let anyone, student nor teacher, into the library. He guards the only key. This seemed counterproductive. I couldn’t have correctly understood. Maybe my Pulaar is still rusty from vacation? My director repeated it to me in French. No one is allowed in the library, which is filled with books and other resources in addition to the two computers. Why? Because he wants the computers to stay in good condition. So, I’m starting off the year with this big frustration. My goal for the next few months is to convince the librarian of the benefits of allowing people access to the computers.

The Real Mauritania

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 16:47:14 GMT

After my long vacation through West Africa, I thought I was ready to settle down in Boghe and wait for school to start. After realizing I had only seen a small section of this country in which I claim to live, I decided to go on a last minute trek up to the northern part of the country with my friend Cailin. We visited volunteers in the remote village of Ouadane, which is probably the most interesting site in Mauritania. It reminded me a lot of Dogon Country with its ruined old city. We headed to Chinghetti, supposedly the seventh holiest city of Islam, to see real sand dunes and ride camels. We have camels in the south, but they're more like pests instead of meat and transportation. We took a two-day camel ride out to an oasis near Chinghetti. I would imagine that after thousands of years of camel riding, people would design a more comfortable saddle than the one my butt was subjected to for those two days. Though my thighs may never forgive me, the scenery was amazing. The endless dunes were unmarked by trees, donkeys, or tourists. It made for an isolated site for the two volunteers there, but it was a great place to spend a weekend.

After getting our fill of the desert and starting to crave anything other than the standard northern diet of meat and couscous, Cailin and I hopped on the top of an iron ore train headed out to an industrial town on the Atlantic. We climbed a car and settled down on a mound of iron ore rocks. Within minutes we were covered in dust, our skin and clothes matching the rocks perfectly. We arranged some rocks and tried to make ourselves relatively comfortable for the 12-hour journey. The train ran at night, and we were woefully unprepared. We had one package of crackers to split between us for dinner and we didn't have anything warmer than our t-shirts. I ended up huddled in a ball in the corner of a car, trying to cut down on the biting wind. It's during moments like these that I remind myself that I could have chosen law school...or a job that doesn't require me to travel on top of an iron ore train to get from one town to another. I reminded myself that the trip was free and that I had never done it before, which recently have become reasons enough to do just about anything.

In the middle of the night, the engines of the train broke off from the train and left all the cars of iron ore and dozens of passengers stranded in the middle of the desert. I fell asleep and tried not to worry about it until the morning. A few hours after waking up, another train passed us. People madly climbed down from our cars and ran over to the approaching train. Not wanting to be stranded in the desert with little water and a few crackers, Cailin and I scrambled down our car with our bags and followed the crowd. The other train wasn't stopping to let us get on, so people ran and jumped and grabbed onto a car. I ran as fast as my little rubber flip flops could carry me alongside the train, threw my bag on top of the 12 foot-high car with what I imagine was superhuman strength, and jumped. I felt like James Bond, jumping onto a running train. I grabbed on to the side of a car and a big moor woman who had already made her way to the top of the car pulled me up with one hand as if she were doing something as effortless as drawing water from a well. Cailin met with equal success and we were on our way once again with a little more adrenaline in our systems than before.

We finally arrived in Nouadhibou, filthy and tired. We found a hostel and made arrangements to spend the night. I was annoyed at the unwelcome stares I was getting, but I blamed it on being a foreigner in a rarely visited country. I stood in disbelief when I finally saw myself in a mirror. My skin was completely silver. Everywhere. I took a welcome shower and scrubbed and scrubbed. I am still a little shiny, and I wasn't able to get all the black dust off my face so I now look like a punk rocker with a bad eyeliner job. It was still worth it.

Tomorrow we head back to Nouakchott to take care of work-related errands, and then it's back to home-sweet-Boghe to face school and Ramadan.

Ghana - First Impressions

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 15:25:44 GMT

At some ungodly hour in the morning, I boarded a bus for Kumasi, Ghana. I was as prepared as I could be for the 20-hour journey. I had crackers, filtered water, and a dozen short stories to pass the time. I sat across an aisle from two Dutch med students who were volunteering at a hospital in Accra. As I found foreigners tend to do on long bus rides, we became friends before the bus left the garage. At the Burkina/Ghana border, my two new friends had visa troubles. The police demanded $100 from each of them in order to reenter Ghana. They scrounged up all their money and came up with $120. I had $80 on me for my week in Ghana. Though a little voice was telling me not to do it, I gave them all the money I had. They crossed the border and promised to pay me back the next day. I insisted on staying in their hotel with them and accompanying them to the bank. I played it off on my bad sense of direction in a new city, but I really just wanted to make sure I would get paid back. Everything went smoothly. We went to the bank in the morning together and I received my $80. Trusting people works sometimes. I left Kumasi shortly after for the relatively short 6-hour trek to Accra. The bus was sold out, but a really nice attendant offered me an extra seat. I figure it was fate’s way of thanking me for helping out the two Dutch girls at the border.

I was shocked at how different Ghana is from Mauritania. It is lush, green, and filled with Christianity-inspired signs like “Jesus is my savior hair salon,” God Almighty french fries,” and (a personal favorite) a chain of boutiques called “Except God.” When I met up with Rachel in Ghana, I felt like I was home. I stood in awe of her nice apartment, complete with shower and toilet paper. Her place is in a swanky neighborhood of Accra where there were stores and restaurants reminiscent of the U.S. For the next week, Rachel and I began catching up on a missed year of Chicago-related gossip.

After a few days of enjoying cheap beer, pizza, Ethiopian food, and other luxuries of Accra, we headed off to Cape Coast for two days. We toured a colonial slaving fort (a sobering visit that got my mind off what new fabric I should buy) and ate dinner on the beach. The next day, we visited a rainforest with a canopy walkway. We crossed from tree to tree on swinging creaking wooden bridges that seemed to be miles above the forest floor before returning to the beach town. When I was in Accra I met a Peace Corps volunteer who was posted to Cape Coast where she taught art in a school for the deaf on the beach. For the hundredth time on this trip, I kicked myself for not requesting Mali or Ghana as my Peace Corps site. Apparently filling in the “no preference” box sends you to the desert.

The Folded Corner and Other Problems

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 15:24:50 GMT

As I was walking with Rachel down a busy well-lit road, I was mugged. I lost my purse which fortunately didn’t contain much of value, except for my plane ticket back to Mauritania. A member of Peace Corps Ghana staff came with me to the police to file an official report. I stood at the counter, relaying the unfortunate event to an officer who wrote down every detail. Behind him was a cage containing a dozen men in boxer shorts. I shuddered at whatever Abu Ghraib-esque torture might be going on after office hours. As the officer was asking detailed questions about the contents of the purse (A camera? What kind? A digital? Disposable? How many shots were left?) another policeman approached the dozen half-naked caged inmates. He announced that he was going on a run to buy fruit. What did they all want? The inmates conferred with each other. 10 apples and 20 bananas. No, more apples than that. Oh, maybe pineapple too. The officer made a list. So maybe it’s not Abu Ghraib after all.

After I finished dictating the report to the officer, he gave his sheet of paper to another officer who transcribed it onto another sheet. He, in turn, gave it to someone else who rewrote it on yet another piece of paper. The process took ages. I finally took the three copies to another officer whose desk was covered in ripped pieces of paper, whose job it was to write the official report. He searched all over his desk for a piece of paper suitable for a report. He finally found one sheet, but it had a folded corner. He covered his mouth and stared at it for a while. He asked another officer what he should do. They discussed their options. They could cut off the top, including the offensive corner, or maybe the entire side. Or they could just cut off the corner. Or they could find a new sheet of paper. Nope, they couldn’t find anything. I watched in amazement. Finally, I suggested that they unfold the corner and simply use the sheet as planned. After some disagreement, they followed my advice. After another hour, I had an official Ghanaian police report in my hands—my most unique souvenir.

Home Sweet Home

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 15:23:10 GMT

Losing my plane ticket to those three inconsiderate muggers changed my travel plans. Faced with buying another ticket and expensive Malian visa, I decided to fly to Dakar and head overland to Mauritania. I arrived in Dakar after midnight and headed to the cheapest hotel in my guidebook which also happened to be a brothel. I laid one of my big wrap skirts down on the bed for extra protection. As I was falling asleep, I made a mental list of things to worry about the next day. I had made the trek from Dakar to Nouakchott before, and had encountered trouble finding a taxi, crossing the Senegal River, and dealing with border guards demanding bribes for the return of my passport. I needed no such list. I got a taxi at a fair price and headed off to the border early in the morning. At the border, I met an undercover policeman who accompanied me across the river. When the Mauritanian guards insisted I pay them for the privilege of entering their fine country, he flashed his badge. They completed my paperwork, offered apologies, and I was on my way.

Though my travels made me want to give up Mauritania for any other country, I remembered why I like living here when I was finally back in Boghe. My host family was thrilled to see me again. My host mom hasn’t given birth to her 10th child yet, but she looks ready to pop. My little sister lost another tooth and my 3-year old brother can now have conversations with me. I feel a little weird being back after traveling for a month, but I’m starting to feel like this is my home again.

Burkina, buses, and parasites

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:59:28 GMT

I left Jeff after our Malian adventure and set off for Burkina Faso. I was constantly assured that the bus to the border would come "toute de suite," but of course it never came. I ended up hitching with a soda distributor who was bringing bottles to stores all the way to the border. An English girl named Emily, who apparently had the same luck with buses, was also in the soda truck. I found out she was also going to Ouagadougou, so we arranged to get bus tickets together at the border town. She is a volunteer in Ghana, so we did the usual compare and contrast between our host countries for the 10 hour bus ride. Upon arrival, we found a shady but really cheap hostel for the night. The next morning was spent trying to get my Ghanaian visa (the whole point of going to Burkina Faso.) Emily and I spent a few days together, and I introduced her to the Peace Corps style of travel. I ate street food for every meal (if it's skewered and sold on a corner, it must be delicious) and shared my "if it looks clean, it is clean" water purification test. After two days of eating unidentifiable meat, she got sick. She went to a clinic and found out she had parasites. I suggested she probably got them in Mali. Before she met me. I swear. But I still felt guilty for forcing my travelling style on her. I stayed healthy, but probably because the parasites are just hanging out in my intestines with ohter ones that have been there for months.

In another effort to save money, I spent a night with a Burkinabe family that I knew through a friend of a friend. I spent the night surrounded by people who were speaking a language I didn't understand, pausing only to ask in French, "Why aren't you talking?" Explaining that I didn't speak the local language caused rounds of laughter. I had flashbacks to Peace Corps training. They were extremely generous and helpful, and even offered my hot water for my bucket bath. I wondered why I had never thought of that before. Early the next morning, I boarded the 24 hour bus to Ghana...

Coup and Mali

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 10:53:12 GMT

August 3, the day Jeff and I were ready to leave on our Malian vacation, the military took advantage of the president’s absence and had a quick little coup. They took over the airport, presidential palace, and various ministries and declared that a military tribunal would run the country for two years. Everything in the capital was strangely calm. There were no protests, no violence. Had I not heard the news report on BBC, I wouldn’t have known there was anything different. As quickly as it started, the coup was finished. Businesses took their mandatory portraits of the former president down from the wall, leaving large non-faded rectangles of paint in every office. Masses of what I can only assume consisted of every Mauritanian in the capital ran through the streets yelling and honking their horns in celebration. The volunteers celebrated in our normal way—beer and billiards.

Jeff and I managed to get a flight to Bamako on the 6th. We spent a few days exploring the capital, which seemed so green and developed. Malians (women too!) sped around on mopeds, past food stalls selling cucumbers that reminded me of donkeys and tropical fruit I haven’t seen since Wegman’s. I wandered through the markets, stopping every couple of feet to buy more street food and cursing Peace Corps for placing me in a country that didn't have plantains.

After a few days in the capital we took a 10 hour bus ride out to the gateway of Dogon Country. I had heard raves about the cliff villages and the beautiful hikes in that area, but I was still shocked at the rugged beauty of the Dogon cliffs. And sometimes scared. There were times when I would look up a cliff we were about to climb, shoot Jeff a "you want me to do what now?" look, and concentrate on the beauty of the villages on the plains. Maybe I didn't need to see the cliffs up close anyway. Whenever I started climbing I got over my fear and the awe once again set in. I ended eour first day feeling proud of myself for conquering my fears, for physically interacting with nature, and for doing something so adventurous. On the second day we stopped in a touristy village and I saw 60-year old women climbing the same rocks. I guess what I was doing wasn't that adventurous after all. I loved Dogon Country when I was hiking with Jeff and our guide, but I always felt a little uncomfortable whenever we were in a more touristy village. One night, we were sitting next to a group of Americans who were comparing real estate markets and traffic patterns in various towns. Never take the Boston expressway on a weekend. I'm sure these were very nice people, but for the first time I realized I was more comfortable with an African family than with other Americans. I snuck off and found a roof to sleep on, away from the hoards of tourists who probably packed their own toilet paper.

Throughout our five days in Dogon we hiked through mountain villages, little homes built into the side of cliffs (why would anyone make a home there? No wonder some Malians thought their ancestors could fly...), and spectacular waterfalls. I became insanely jealous of the Malian peace corps volunteers. My legs are still sore from what was the only exercise I've done in the past year, but I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

Aioun AIDS Theater Project

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 19:22:00 GMT

At the end of June, I accompanied another volunteer and 20 high schoolers from her village to Aioun, a city in the eastern part of the country. The kids had been practicing skits related to AIDS education for weeks. On June 22, all of us packed into a prison van, armed with water, ice, and hundreds of local songs for what would turn into a 17-hour journey. We traveled through the night to avoid the hellish daylight heat, and I was foolishly looking forward to catching up on some much-needed sleep en route. The kids spent the entire trip singing and dancing (quite a feat when everyone is packed into the back of a van) and drumming. At first, it was a Peace Corps moment. Those are the moments when I’m so happy to be here and I realize there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing at this point in my life. After a few hours, I just craved sleep. We stopped a few hours before our final destination and napped in the sand dunes. Becky (the other volunteer) and I laid down an American-comfort distance apart from each other, just for two other girls to lie down between us. We slept a little bit before continuing to Aioun. There was another Peace Corps moment somewhere between lying down in the sand and crawling back into the prison van at dawn.
The students had their first performance at midnight on the 23rd. Becky and I sold 100-ouguiya tickets out of our now empty prison van. The kids got through one skit as well as a song about the importance of abstinence, fidelity, and condoms before a thunderstorm broke up the performance. The rainy season had officially started.
The second night went much better. We encouraged all the volunteers in town to see the performance. There were skits about the scientific details of the virus, stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS, opportunistic diseases, and female circumcision. At first I was a little nervous about that final sketch, especially since Aioun is a more conservative town than my hometown of Boghe. Since the beginning of my service I didn’t know how to discuss such a sensitive cultural issue with Mauritanians. I want to shed light on this practice that mutilates girls and reinforces the gender power lines, but I don’t want to say “Americans think this is bad so you shouldn’t do it either.” After talking to other volunteers, I decided the best way to discuss female genital mutilation (FGM) is by highlighting the health problems related to it. It’s harder to argue with health than culture. The students in the theater group put together a skit in which the lesson was to bring your own razors when you get your baby girls circumcised in order to avoid HIV transmission. Becky and I watched the skit and politely suggested some revisions. In the final version, women who want to get their babies circumcised talk to a doctor who tells them about the various health-related consequences of FGM. He says that the Koran does not demand such an action (though many Mauritanians still believe it does) and finally tells them that these serious health reasons are enough to stop the practice of female circumcision. The skit ended up tiptoeing around this delicate yet serious issue. I’m not sure of another way to address it.
The otherwise sober event ended with a local song and dance. Pairs of boys and girls danced a choreographed routine before a lively improvised session. I don’t know how these girls do it—they move their backsides independently of their bodies with shakes that would put Beyonce to shame. I’ve tried it but I look more like a hula-hooper having a seizure.
The performances were well received by the community, and I was glad I had the opportunity to see Mauritanian teenagers so dedicated to a project. I am currently brainstorming methods of integrating theater activities into future programs at the Boghe Girls Mentoring Center. Becky has since continued to take the group to other towns and villages in the south of the country.