Food

I've had a couple of questions about food/preparing meals, so I will attempt to answer them here. As I have said before, there is a severe lack of variety. This is due to three factors: food is expensive, 70% is imported, and culturally there is a preference for simple diets. At my training site, breakfast (kacitari in Pulaar) was usually sour milk, bread, tea, and leftovers from the night before. Lunch (botari) was always rice and fish with veggies. Dinner (kirtari) was usually either rice with a little meat scraps or maccaroni with a little meat scraps. Dinner is the only one where there was any variation and even then, not much.

At my site it will be important to find a family to eat with for a number of reasons. First, sharing meals is tentament in Mauritanian culture, so much so that it is basically requried to establish a relationship with anyone. Second, there is no refregiration to speak of so everything must be bought fresh. Also for similar reasons of lack of cooking equipment, the process of preparing food is much more difficult. If I decided to cook all of my meals for myself, I could easily spend half of everyday just on food prep. At my training site thats exactly what one of my sisters did. (and she had help!) I think this might be one of those differences that doesn't fully translate via text, you have to experience it to really understand. Its similar to Amish have to prepare meals in a way but much more difficult.

Now a PCV!

So I am currently at my regional capital, where my bank and access to internet is, and shortly I will be heading out to my site for realseys. This post is mostly info because I don't have a lot of time. Here goes:
- I am now officially a PCV and brother in service to my AmeriCorps sister.
- I met the US ambassador
- A lot of people have been asking about my internet access, I don't think that I will have it at my site but I will definitely have it when I come into the regional capital every couple of weeks. I will have internet at my site so I can write posts and then quickly publish them. Thus, communication on my end should be better even though I won't have internet.
- The old one still works, but my new address is as follows:
Zach Swank, PCV
Corps de la Paix
BP 17
Bohge, Mauritania
West Africa
- I should be back relatively soon as I have not been able to get to the bank today so I am low on cash, probably in less than a week.
- Pulaar is coming along, I tested at intermediate mid on a scale of (novice > intermediate > advanced > superior). I can use it for basic conversations but need much more practice to make it actually useful for my work.
- Pictures are coming soon I promise! Everyone shared one connection at center and uploading pictures was just not possible
- As always packages are met with ridiculous amounts of joy. In addition to everything on the previous post, books I should read, spices, and various kinds of tea would all be much appreciated.
- I have been getting a lot of letters and I promise I will be writing back. Life has been pretty crazy these last few months and I had less control over my time than I have had since middle school. Also Ramadan should ensure that I have plenty of time to write. Please send more.
- Some things I am very much excited about: having my own place, having control of my time, not having to move again, the hammock I made, making my own tea without sugar, working on my Pulaar, starting to make connections for my work. The biggest thing though is having control over how I spend my time.
- Speaking of my place. As of this moment, my roommate is in Senegal (i think) so it looks like I will be crashing somewhere else for a couple of days. Alaa cadelle (no problem)

Still not a PCV yet...

Well, we are into our final week of training! I am a little nervous about being out there on my own in my village, but mostly I am excited to finally begin doing what I have wanted to do for years. We have more info sessions today and tomorrow, then swear in on thursday, friday to recover, and then we leave saturday for our sites.

Leaving my training site was a little hard. There were about 15 people crying total. Tough to leave my host family and tough to leave the village as everyone was literally in my family. I will definitely be going back to visit whenever I am in the area.

Its a little weird right now because we are all just sort of waiting to be sworn in. Even though we still have info sessions all of the work of staging is over. For the first time in a few months I don't have any work I need to be doing. The break is definitely enjoyable, but a little weird. Its a good intro to Ramadan which will start at the end of this week; no one will be much this next month but fast. It will be interesting to see how much work I will be able to accomplish...

Coup D'Etat

Yup, that happened. The military took the president into custody. When I heard that, I thought, oh that's interesting, and then went to shave. (It was not totally unexpected). All the same, I AM IN A COUNTRY THAT JUST HAD A COUP AND IS NOW RULED BY THE MILITARY. Pretty exciting stuff. I honestly a little disappointed that I haven't received any frantic phone calls. If I had, I would have said that everything is ok. Travel is restricted/not really possible, but not much else has changed. No one really knows what will happen now, especially since this just happened 3 years ago and was carried out by pretty much the same people. All the same, no one anticipates any security threats for PCVs. Thus, life goes on, just under military rule now. (again) haha.

This brings to mind some other things that are normal for me but are pretty interesting out of context:
- Watching the chief of my village play with a flashlight as a novel thing
- The fact that there are refugees being resettled in my village
- The fact that everyone in my village was at one point a refugee
- More to come

I thought I would have more time to post info but today was pretty packed and now I'm headed back my village. I won't be back online till the 22nd when I will be here for my final week before swear in. Sorry I couldn't provide more info.

Also I think some one just tried to call me. Try again if you did.

I have a NEW home!

So the place that I was talking about before that I loved but didn't get, I now apparently have. I have pictures of it that I promise I will put up when I can.