I'm baaaaack!

I think it's been a month since my last blog post, but considering that I also haven't checked my email for a month, this doesn't seem quite as long.  Since my last post, we first-year volunteers celebrated our four-month anniversary and more recently, celebrated Halloween.  I left M'Bout trying to explain to my host family and friends there about American Halloween celebrations, and although they were definitely sympathetic, I think they had a hard time picturing it.  Speaking of my family and friends in M'Bout, John and I have decided that we have successfully begun to "integrate" into our community.  Although we have little to show in terms of our girls' mentoring center at this point (we have a promise for a space and a possible community contact/mentor), I can't describe how good it feels to walk around town every day and have people recognize you / know your name and to know where to find things at the market and even to know who to talk to around town in order to get things done.  I don't think I've ever lived in a small town before, but I'm really enjoying the "small town" feel of M'Bout.  And...I took some photos around town before I left, so hopefully, I'll be able to put those online tomorrow.

I wasn't sure where to start writing this post because it's been so long since my last one and so much has happened (and not happened at the same time) and because each day is truly an emotional roller coaster.  So, I decided to give you a quick recap of three random days from my journal:

-- [October 7] John and I made our way back to M'Bout from Kaedi by taxi for the first time.  Previously, we had always been fortunate enough to get a free ride from friends, but because most everyone we knew was out of town, we went down to the garage to find a car.  We arrived at the garage before 8AM and found three cars going to M'Bout.  We each bought a ticket in the front of the car.  (There are different prices for the cab of the pickup truck and the bed.)  We waited under the hangar until 11AM when John asked the driver when exactly he was planning on leaving.  He said we'd probably leave around 4PM!  We were irate!  We had been waiting and having people awkwardly stare at us for hours only to realize that we could have walked back to a fellow volunteer's house and hung out!  We left our stuff in the car, went back to the house for lunch, and then took a cab back to the garage around 3PM.  We FINALLY left Kaedi at 5:30PM!  I call it the ride from Hell because it was bumpy and slow and I was packed in to the backseat with John and two other (rather large) Mauritanians.  Needless to say, I was completely exhausted when we arrived back in M'Bout at 9PM.  Only took over 12 hours to finally return to site.  You can see why we don't come in that often!

-- [October 14]  John and I met a couple of NGO workers in M'Bout, which gave us some promising contacts for our mentoring center.  Eventually, we'd like to use these people as teachers at our center.  Also, my host brothers and sister went to school for the first time today.  I wasn't sure if class had officially started (it hadn't) because they went to work in the fields that morning and didn't go to school until after lunch.  I think they have to pick up their schedules.  I think I've written this in a couple of letters, but the school system here is completely baffling to me.  Also, I was very excited at this point about traveling to Lexeiba (the closest site to M'Bout) to visit two other volunteers and to see Lexeiba's girls' mentoring center.  It's always really nice to see some familiar faces and bounce ideas off the second-year volunteers.

-- [October 24] I went for a run in the morning, then to John's house for some oatmeal, and then to the mayor's office to chat.  Sometimes, this is an infuriating experience because the mayor is a little chauvinistic and tends to ignore me because I'm a woman.  Normally, I choose not to socialize with these sort of men here, but he's our main community contact so I'm forced to tolerate it.  He seems to really like John though.  This experience made me think a lot about my sense of self here in Mauritania.  I wrote in my journal that "I think I need to remind myself from time to time of who I really am / the core of my being.  I'm confident in my sense of self, but sometimes this place shakes me.  All of a sudden, I'm helpless and incompetent in things that I used to take for granted.  I think there are times when all I can do is hope that I will learn from this experience and never feel like this again.  Deep down inside though, I'm confident with myself, and I think life would be a lot scarier if this wasn't so."

Okay, like I said before, each day is really a roller coaster, so don't think that I'm constantly worrying about things or upset or unhappy.  There's a lot of times when I'm laughing at something my host brother did or watching a baby goat (that's cheesy, isn't it?) or greeting people around town.  My journal tends to be a place for me to vent, so I may focus on the negative, but I wanted to give you a sense of my life at site.

Can't wait to hear from you all soon!  Get out and vote tomorrow; we'll be waiting eagerly by our short-wave radios for the results!