clean your plate

funny how, when people say "there are starving children in africa, finish your dinner," they are probably picturing what they imagine to be mauritania. they are picturing large families with pants-less kids with flies on their snot-nosed faces and calloused, shoe-less feet. they picture babies with thin limbs and protruding, malnourished bellies. it's the kids on the children international commercials that it only takes 12 cents a day to save. it is for this youth that countless americans clean their plates. day after day, mothers across the states reference this population in hopes that their offspring find some appreciation for their mashed potatoes and meatloaf.

so i was thoroughly confused when my host family started telling me one morning that that day was "Haraani." translated from pulaar, that means "to not be full." i kept thinking i misheard until i saw the meat my family bought for dinner. meat here, goat or sheep usually, is easily one of the most expensive things you can buy to eat. so i started paying attention.

one of the second year volunteers told me that they say everyone has to eat a lot on this day or they'll die in the next year. at my house it seemed to be nothing quite so dramatic. but, sure enough, the kids, who usually fall asleep long before the 930 pm dinner were, for the first and only time since i've been here, roused for the meal. ornery, tired, and literally pulled to a sitting position in front of the large bowl of pasta and goat, marietta, the 5 year old, blinked in angry confusion.

"Marietta, ñaam (eat). Marietta, hey Marietta," mom #2 accented the 'hey' with a little smack to my host sister's back. "Marietta. ummu do (get up), fin (wake up), ñaam (eat)."

I watched from the sidelines, leaning up against the mud brick wall of our communal room.

"Marietta," she said, and this is where i was surprised, "ñaam. ine waddi yimbe ñaamataa (there are people who don't eat)"

and all this time i was picturing them.

but come to think of it, don't know if i've seen a hungry person here. i won't say they don't exist by any means - i've only been here seven months after all. and sure, malnourishment is a present struggle here, but i just don't think people are starving. or an extension of that, homeless. i have yet to see someone - in lexeiba or kaedi or nouakchott or anywhere between - that is actually living or sleeping on the streets as we see so commonly in the good ol' US of A.

so why? close to no one here is rich by any standards, and everyone seems to be just making ends meet, day to day. how are they doing it? how does everyone, gender irrelevant, no matter the existence of physical or mental disability or illness have food to eat and a place to sleep?

i cannot tell you exactly or certainly why, but i can relay my inkling to at least some of the cause, and that is family.

if you introduce yourself to anyone here, they immediately ask you family name (thiam for me, pronounced "cham"). there are only about 10-15 last names total in pulaar culture, it seems, and this, really, is only a very slight exaggeration. so the odds that are pretty good that if the person you're meeting doesn't have the same last name, then their family is cousins with you*.

the family connection allows for immense support in so many facets. sala's host dad, for example, is diabetic and cannot earn money for them any more because of some minor paralysis. without hesitation, as the expected thing to do, the sons- who do not live in our town- send money and other things the family needs. there is no sense of burden or weight or resentment involved. this is just what is done.

on a smaller scale, every family cooks a lot of food all the time. granted the nuclear family here is, on average, about 6-8 people (just counting father, wife/wives, and their kids until they marry), but that does not account for th amount of rice at a meal. before every lunch or dinner, the person cooking (wife or daughter) portions out the meal. one bowl for the men, one for the women and young children, and then others. after everyone is done eating, several of the kids will be sent off carrying the other bowls of rice and fish or rice and peanut sauce on their heads. where are they going? other families' houses.

this could be due to family ties, but could also indicate the deep influence of islam here. i recently picked up an 'islam for dummies'-type book that we had in our regional library. author ruqaiyyah waris maqsood sites the Qur'an in the 'teach yourself' series entitled 'islam' that "muslims have a duty to look after themselves and their families and dependents, but after that is taken care of, Allah requires that they should look at their surplus money, capital, or goods and give...to God's service asking neither recompense nor thanks" (Surah 26:109). Additionally, he quotes the prophet muhammad as saying "he is not a believer who eats his fill while his neighbor remains hungry by his side."

in this way, not only are people of all physical and mental abilities kept within households despite what we would see or feel as monetary "burdens," but the community, as a whole, supports those families that are struggling more than others. with just enough for them and their children, any excess is given to those in more dire circumstances.

so the next time someone says "finish your green bean casserole, there are starving children in africa," eat it with a grain of salt. starvation is a desperate problem for many people throughout the world, no doubt. but know that most mauritanian mom's are saying the same thing.



*side note: being cousins usually leads to a teasing tangent in conversation where the person lovingly harasses you in one or more of the following categories: having a bad last name or no last name at all, the fact that your family is always hungry, the statement that you have no father and are a bastard child, or the ever-present accusation that you are, indeed, a bean-eater. nice, eh? :)