ramadan

tanya (here after referred to as her mauritanian name, sala) and i have officially been at site for just over a week and a half now. we each found a room with a family to stay in. my family lives on the "outskirts" of town and is really big. the father, hamidou, has three wives, only one of which i've met. there are upwards of nine children ranging from a nursing child to a 17-year-old. hamidou speaks french, but he is often not at the house all day and so application of my language skills is starting right away.

and now it's ramadan. which means that no adults are eating or drinking anything during the day. i'm trying to be respectful of this religious holiday and so am eating only a little during the day in my room and trying to at least stay hydrated. sala and i have broken fast at several different households, which really is a neat experience. water, obviously, is the first thing at dusk prayer call. then tofam, a yogurt/water drink. often followed by gosi, a thick porridge and at my house (because of our large garden) watermelon. then banaf, a personal favorite of mine: meat and potatoes with sauce and bread. there's usually a dish after this too, rice and fish if it's available.

ramadan also means that everyone is tired and doesn't want to do anything during the day, which is definitely a challenge. we just got done with training and everyone is so excited to get started and now it's almost like we have to wait another month.

so my usual day starts with a bucket bath and some chilling with the fam. then i usually go to either sala's house or she comes over to mine. we take a walk to the jeere (market) and greet people there, whether or not we are buying anything. greeting is the most important thing here. and that's not an exaggeration. an old lady chewed me out my second day in town because i greeted the whole family but not her individually. cultural differences, to say the least. sala and i usually spend the day at one another's house, reading, napping, trying to keep the flies away. around 4 or 5 we've taken a walk out to the bridge a few times where the "river" has almost flooded some homes because of the amount of rainfall this year. around 630 or 7 we head to someone's house to break fast. then back in the mosquito net to the end of another day.

i've been to the gmc (girls' mentoring center) and there's a lot of work to do. the solar panels need to be fixed, the computers assessed, there needs to be a meeting with the mentors, and the girls need to be chosen for this year. it's going to be interesting to pick up where the last volunteer left off. she left early, at about the year mark of her service, for a number of reasons, the final one being a misunderstanding that turned ugly in mid-june. i'm just starting to understand the circumstances of what happened there, and it will definitely be a challenge to pick up some pieces and repair some people's sense of pride.

that being said, i will do my best to keep things updated. hopefully tomorrowish i'll put up the link to sala's blog so you can get another description of our "adventures" there.

as for today, we are in kaedi. took a taxi brousse ride into town this morning, stopped at the market to get some veggies, and immediately made the most delicious spaghetti i have ever had. or maybe i've just been almost-fasting for a week.

miss everyone. love.