Hello from Burkina Faso
Day 6 of traveling finds us in the capital of Burkina Faso. It seems that the farther away from Mauritania the better our lives get. I just had strawberries for the first time since leaving the States. I would love to give a full update on our travels but of course do not have a lot of time on the internet. I will have to settle for the highlights:
- Seeing the regional capitals and other volunteers of Mauritania on our way through
- Finding volunteers along the way in other countries
- Getting a "direct" bus that included two vehicle changes and one expected overnight
- Buying beer from a brothel
- Delicious street food (all you can eat for $0.50)
- Watching the world get greener as we go south
- Passing through a village at the time that Obama was being inagurated and seeing a parade that included 20 ft tall puppets
I will give more of an update and put up pictures when I can. Today we are going to try to make it into Ghana after we take care of some visa issues, hoping to be in Accra for the conference in a couple of days.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Travels to Ghana
How to know when you are leading a good life: when your breaks between vacations are not long enough to post photos of them. I had really hoped to get them up, but internet is slow and I spent most of today making a new door for the bathroom of the house in Boghé. I have become known as McGyver here. Now I need to get back to site because in 4 days I am leaving for this http://www2.ug.edu.gh/ecolabconference/index.php environmental conference in Ghana and a bit of traveling around the country. Then as I said before I will be going to the West African International Softball Tournament. I feel bad being done for so long, but I don't know when I will be in Africa with time to spare again so I am trying to make the most of it. I promise I will get pictures of all of my travels up when I get back. Also, sorry I haven't had time to get through all of the christmas emails or respond to the christmas cards. I will get to them and know that I appreciated them all very much.
Talk to you in February!
z.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Travels
I’ve done so much traveling I don’t even know where to begin with this update. I’ll just hit the highlights I guess.
- Nouakchott, the capital city, is actually a city. I suppose that does not mean much, but it was the first time I had seen a restaurant for 6 months. There is even an American owned restaurant, which represents exactly half of the U.S. businesses in this country; the other is a book store. You can buy beer at a couple of places. There is a beautiful beach, that is completely undeveloped and no one goes there. This leads me to further believe that our definition of a good enjoyable life just does not match the Mauritanian definition. Perhaps because the whole country is kind of like a beach with no water, actual beaches are not that interesting.
- Christmas: It was hard not to be home for Christmas, but having almost all of the volunteers (100+, or over a third of all of the Americans in the country) together for a big party at our country directors house really made it a lot easier and enjoyable.
- Host family: After Christmas I visited my host family from training again. I know it’s unlikely but I wish you could all have the experience of having an entire village be excited to greet you at once. It is an amazing feeling and one of the ways that I prefer their culture to ours. After a few hours of greeting I still had not seen my favorite little girl in the village, Binta. I kept asking around and people were telling me that she was not around and I began to be pretty bummed out. However, just then she walked around the corner of a fence and saw me. As soon as she did, her jaw dropped, she put the back of her hand up to her mouth, and froze. It was one of the cutest things I have seen in my life.
- Saint Louis: First of all, we all were able to get out of this country to the more liberal Senegal. That in itself was nice. However, St. Louis is a place I would go to if I was vacationing from the states. It is a series of two small islands just off the coast. I’ll get pictures up when I can. The smaller, farther out island is split between a thriving local fishing industry on one side and beautiful beaches on the other, where Elise and I and a few other volunteers stayed. The larger of the two islands resembles New Orleans, with a square in the center and tons of bars and little shops. I spent most of my time on the beach and drinking beer, usually the two together, but when I was not doing that I was riding around on a rented moped. For the number of toubabs that were there, we did pretty well to only have one pocket picked/mugging/choking, only one girl punched in the face by an unprovoked guy, and only one person fall off a moped (that was me). I think we also scared the PCVs from Senegal with how intense we are, that is apparently a regular occurrence. St. Louis was definitely the highlight of the trip and if any of you come to visit me, I will take you there.
- Dieouk: After New Years we had another training in a small village not far from Rosso. This village is pretty much the model village for all of Mauritania. There were more trees than houses and the streets were lined with them. They had a problem with dune encroachment, but they stabilized them. They also have a huge garden that is extremely well managed by the cooperative. It gave a lot of hope to all the volunteers who are trying to make the same thing happen in their village.
- Nouakchott, the capital city, is actually a city. I suppose that does not mean much, but it was the first time I had seen a restaurant for 6 months. There is even an American owned restaurant, which represents exactly half of the U.S. businesses in this country; the other is a book store. You can buy beer at a couple of places. There is a beautiful beach, that is completely undeveloped and no one goes there. This leads me to further believe that our definition of a good enjoyable life just does not match the Mauritanian definition. Perhaps because the whole country is kind of like a beach with no water, actual beaches are not that interesting.
- Christmas: It was hard not to be home for Christmas, but having almost all of the volunteers (100+, or over a third of all of the Americans in the country) together for a big party at our country directors house really made it a lot easier and enjoyable.
- Host family: After Christmas I visited my host family from training again. I know it’s unlikely but I wish you could all have the experience of having an entire village be excited to greet you at once. It is an amazing feeling and one of the ways that I prefer their culture to ours. After a few hours of greeting I still had not seen my favorite little girl in the village, Binta. I kept asking around and people were telling me that she was not around and I began to be pretty bummed out. However, just then she walked around the corner of a fence and saw me. As soon as she did, her jaw dropped, she put the back of her hand up to her mouth, and froze. It was one of the cutest things I have seen in my life.
- Saint Louis: First of all, we all were able to get out of this country to the more liberal Senegal. That in itself was nice. However, St. Louis is a place I would go to if I was vacationing from the states. It is a series of two small islands just off the coast. I’ll get pictures up when I can. The smaller, farther out island is split between a thriving local fishing industry on one side and beautiful beaches on the other, where Elise and I and a few other volunteers stayed. The larger of the two islands resembles New Orleans, with a square in the center and tons of bars and little shops. I spent most of my time on the beach and drinking beer, usually the two together, but when I was not doing that I was riding around on a rented moped. For the number of toubabs that were there, we did pretty well to only have one pocket picked/mugging/choking, only one girl punched in the face by an unprovoked guy, and only one person fall off a moped (that was me). I think we also scared the PCVs from Senegal with how intense we are, that is apparently a regular occurrence. St. Louis was definitely the highlight of the trip and if any of you come to visit me, I will take you there.
- Dieouk: After New Years we had another training in a small village not far from Rosso. This village is pretty much the model village for all of Mauritania. There were more trees than houses and the streets were lined with them. They had a problem with dune encroachment, but they stabilized them. They also have a huge garden that is extremely well managed by the cooperative. It gave a lot of hope to all the volunteers who are trying to make the same thing happen in their village.
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