OCF Mauritania

I’ve just spent a very fun week hanging out with ladies and learning how to tie-dye. The volunteer who lived in Maal before I came, a girl named Jen, came back to do a training for the local women’s cooperatives. There were classes on sewing, tie-dying, and boutique management, and she brought in three great Mauritanian ladies from Nouakchott to teach them. I spent most of my time hanging out in the tie-dye class, though I didn’t actually get to do any of it myself. It’s much easier than I imagined, and I’m now inspired to do lots when I get home. They learned everything from wax stamping to tying and sewing patterns with string – lots of fun! The prettiest patterns are from a technique they call salad, where you scrunch the fabric up on a smooth surface and then toss spoonfuls of different colors over it. I did my part to support the cooperatives by purchasing a few items...

Life’s been pretty busy since school got out, surprisingly. I’ve been running all over the place (Nouakchott, Aleg, and I’m headed for Kaedi tomorrow), and with all the kids back in Maal for the summer I have a few more people to hang out with. Lots of them, including my friend Meshry, who speaks English very well, go to school in the cities. It’s fun to have them around.

I’m also busy packing and cleaning and squaring everything away before I take off for Afghanistan on the 12th! I’m terribly excited! I’m getting some new clothes (since everything I have is pretty much worn through and stained beyond recognition) and getting fancy henna done, since that’s the Mauritanian thing to do on special occasions. It’s a long, long, long, boring process that involves someone putting tape on your hands and feet for hours, then henna paste, then they wrap you up in plastic bags and leave you to marinate for a couple hours more. But when it’s done it looks really cool! I hope lots of people come to hang out and keep me company, ‘cause I won’t be able to read. I’m going to have some tagine made (that’s a meat and sauce affair that you eat with bread) to attract some entertainment. And then the next day I take off for Aleg, then Nouakchott, then Paris, London, and Islamabad! Perfectly thrilling. :)

Well, that’s all the new news at the moment. Happy Summer to everybody!

Quick note

Mauritanian mail is slow and unreliable + I've run out of American stamps = Could someone send me a few (if you'd like to be sure of getting any more letters)?

Thanks!

Oh, and .... I've finally gotten my passport back with two exotic visas inside! My plane leaves July 12th. Hooray!

Perhaps I spoke too soon...

Most of you have heard me say (probably on several occasions) that I never wanted to be a teacher. Accordingly, I didn't go into this whole English teaching thing expecting to enjoy it much. So here I am at the end of my first year. The finals are graded, the reportcards are filled out, and I'm at least semi-free for the summer. The verdict? Actually, I think I like teaching quite a bit. I feel fairly at home in front of a classroom of kids whose language I can't even speak very well. Most of them are lazy and slow to pick up everything, but those who actually want to learn are great, and I have a good time working with them.

The two things that frustrate me are the language barrier (I can tell them what to do and explain basic concepts, but lecturing them on their lack of work ethic is a bit beyond my powers) and the lack of logic or critical thinking skills that's endemic in the Mauritanian school system. The focus here is entirely on memorization, and kids - with a few exceptions - seem entirely unable to infer anything, understand complex concepts, or produce original work. A related problem is that there's no diversity of experience here. Even if I ask open-ended questions, their responses are likely to be identical. After all, most of them were born and raised in Maal, and all of them eat bread for breakfast, rice for lunch, and couscous for dinner, pray five times a day, live in a rectangular house made of sand bricks, drink tea at every opportunity, know at least 20 people named Mohamed, and wear either a mulafa (female) or a boubou (male). With their limited vocabulary it's difficult to get beyond the basics, and accordingly I know every answer before it's given. Exercises are pretty boring, too, since they reuse approximately 15 words:

school
go
rice
sleep
tea
fish
study
pen
drink
copybook
house
eat
play
meat
water
wake up
name

The advanced kids know a few more, like:

pray
goat
mosque
shirt
vegetables
walk
car
football
father
mother
etc.

Anyway... I can only conclude that if I'm enjoying teaching under those conditions, I'd like it a whole lot if I were teaching kids who spoke English and had at least a smidgeon of creativity.

Despite the annoyances, I'm fairly satisfied with this year. At least some of the kids learned a little English - and now that I know their levels and a few good tricks, I'm sure next year will be better. I'm really looking forward to starting fresh and concentrating on developing their vocabulary and speech. Most of them will never really know any English, but a few have the potential to actually learn something, which would improve their chances of getting a good job in Nouakchott or even in Europe or America. That would be pretty cool.