First dispatch from my site

So I am now on day 4 of two years at my site ;)! (well technically I am not there now, but I was this morning and I will be going back soon) The first thing that I want to share is that I love my town. Its in a very green area, it rained last night, I can see senegal, the people are awesome and seem to be very receptive to the type of work I am going to be doing. For example:

I was in a hardware store/boutique and randomly struck up a conversation with a guy named Usman who happens to be in charge of the work that World Vision is doing in my town. From that meeting I was invited to a meeting the next day with a number of community members and the head of World Vision Mauritania. At that meeting I met someone who is the president of one of the parent teacher associations AND an environmental organization in town. I also met someone who specificially requested a project on Moringa, a very beneficial tree that the PC is trying to promote. Also a number of other people have approached me randomly asking to talk about how we can work together. This doesn't necessarily mean my job will be easy, but the fact that there are a number of people who want to work with me rather than have things done for them should make it fun.

Another thing that comes to mind is that I feel that I am probably failing horribly at describing what life is like here, this is because it is drastically different. Yet, at the same time it is surprisingly the same. To make matters worse, I can only guess at what your preceptions are. I am not saying this in a defeatest manner, only as a recognition that I need to address what my experience is fundamentally like here. I will think about this and put it in a later post.

To end this post on a more upbeat note, here are some snippets of what I have learned recently:
- In Mauritania if you are going to be waiting for lunch for 45 minutes (read two hours) that is too short of a time to bother walking the two minutes to go back to your house to get something to do.
- Don't get lost and keep asking for directions at dinner time during Ramadan unless you are hungry.
- When the kids beg you for money, telling them you will only give them money if they give you money first doesn't work because they will. However, saying that they have to give you their pants is effective.

Well, that's it for now, as once again my time on the internet is short. I promise to begin writing on my laptop at my site, writing letters, and to post more pictures. I don't exactly know when the next time I will be on the internet will be, but two weeks is probably a good guess.