My new home

Hello World,

I will add pictures in another post but here are some notes about my home for the next two years:

The town has about 10,000 people in it, which is significantly bigger than what I had expected to say the least. It is right on the main road which makes it easy to get to. The Senegal River is a few km away and a little difficult to get to. I will have running water, cell service, and electricity at night. Which is pretty cushy. I almost feel like I am not "roughing it enough" but I know that that line of thought is garbage and will enjoy the amenities that I do have. Also, if anything they will make it easier for me to actually do my job. Speaking of which, there are a couple of schools and a number of cooperatives that I will be able to work with so there is no question of not having anything to do. There is also a rocky hill, which I like to call "the mountain", overlooking the city which will make for a sweet spot to chill when the sun is not beating down. I don't have a house yet but I am looking at getting my own place or splitting a house with some one else and then I will pay a family to cook for me. Lets see what else... My counterpart seems pretty excited and in general people were very happy to have me there.

Which gets to a point that I have to address about my work that became more apparent to me while I was visiting my site: I am not here to change anyones life. Mauritania, while it may import 70 percent of its food and seem like a totally distant land, is in no real danger of falling off of the face of the earth and that goes for the people in it. Basically I am here to work on environmental education and to what I can when they have requests of me, I am not here to really change the way they live. This is for two reasons. One, the notion of backwards developing countries is just as wrong as the notion of native americans as savages. Two, their way of life is infinitely much better suited to the land and available resources than mine. That's not to say that there aren't things that could be done in a better way, that is true for every culture of the world, just that I won't be doing any "saving" while I am here. I fully knew that before coming here but that point was really driven home when I saw the conditions of my site. However, there will not be a shortage of work for me to do either, it just first and foremost has to be in respect of Mauritanian culture.