Sunday, June 28, 2009

More travel adventures

Well, obviously the biggest news from here (well, besides political instability and election problems…but that’s not news) is that we aren’t getting new volunteers anytime soon. Since the government still hadn’t issued visas, Peace Corps decided not to make the invitees wait in limbo and assigned them to other programs. We pretty much knew they weren’t coming, so it’s good that they don’t have to sit around and wait to hear. If/when the government (which will be decided in next month’s elections Inshallah) decides it will issues visas again, Peace Corps will look into opening the program, but it will most likely not be until next June. Bummer. So basically, the 71 of us still in country will be alone for the next year. The details aren’t really clear yet, but I’m sure we’ll know more after the elections.

After it turned out we weren’t going to Rosso for stage, John and I bummed around Kaedi for a while (and got rained in for a few days), then I headed back to Selibaby to say goodbye to my COSing regionmates and help move Shelby into the region house. I figured I would be there for a week or two, then head up to Kaedi en route to Nouakchott, then visit the north of Mauritania a little. There was just one tiny problem that I didn’t fully take into account in my travel planning: the rainy season. This is the first rainy season that we’re here for when we’re not traveling in and out of the Guidimakha in Peace Corps cars, and let me tell you, that makes quite a difference. It’s hard to plan a trip when you’re not sure when you’ll be able to get out of the region. I decided to travel on the 25th with the girls from the Selibaby Girls Mentoring Center, who were on their way to Nouakchott for the Girls’ Conference (each GMC sends 3 girls and a mentor to the conference where they get to meet strong, professional women, visit the university, see Nouakchott, go to the beach, etc.). Kim had already left Selibaby, so I took charge of the 3 girls and mentor. Sam and Levin were both on their way up to Kaedi, so they joined in as well. Then plan was for us to rent out a car in Selibaby, pick up the M’Bout crew on our way through, spend the night in Kaedi, then John and Cortney would take the girls up the rest of the way. Needless to say, it did not go well.

We planned to leave Selibaby around 7:30. I spent most of the night before lying awake, watching lightening and dust storms off to the east and thinking “shiiiiiiiiiit.” The driver showed up at the house at 6:30, and let me tell you, this was shocking because Mauritanians aren’t always the most time-conscious people. He explained that he was early because he was worried about the rain, so we rounded up the girls and got on the road around 7. It took about half an hour to get out of town because the driver wouldn’t go on the main road (he didn’t want to pass the garage because he would have to stop and give the guys there some money), so we took random back roads and got stuck a few time trying to get out. OK, no big deal, we finally got on the road and headed out.

This is where the real problem starts: the sky around us was getting really dark, mostly to the south and the east, and there was clearly a large storm rolling in. I had asked the driver before we left if he had a tarp to cover the bags, and he said he did. We ended up putting most of them inside the car (it holds 14 people and we were only 7 leaving Selibaby), but there were a couple on the roof. So he gets out and messes with something on the roof as the rain starts, and we keep going. Then the rain really came, and it came hard. Looking out to the side of the road, it almost looked like snow because there were huge puddles of water covering everything. Oh, and the car had no wipers. The driver kept putting his window down a little to wipe the windshield with a towel. Then he would put the window up and the car would immediately fog up, but no matter how many times Sam and Levin tried to explain it, the concept of hot air on the inside making condensation went way over his head. Oh well.

The mentor, Haji, started yelling at him, and when I asked her what was wrong she told me that he didn’t have a tarp and was refusing to stop to put the two bags on the roof in the car. They both belonged to one of the girls, and held all her clothes and stuff for the next week. He kept saying he’d stop in the next town, but then wouldn’t stop, so we’d yell at him again. After a few river crossing adventures, we made it to a decent sized town, and the driver announced we’d stay there until the river on the other side receded some.

Now, you have to understand, seasonal rivers here aren’t little streams. With as little as half an hour of rain, they become anything from slight annoyances to raging rivers of death that sweep away cars and trees. When that happens, there’s nothing you can do but wait. So wait we did. It was still raining, so I asked the driver to finally get the bags down. He refused. We started arguing, and he told me to get them down, so I told him that it was his job to which he replied that it wasn’t. So I called the guy at the garage who we had arranged the car with, and he yelled at the driver on the phone. Then the driver crossed his arms and refused to look at me or talk to me for a while before finally getting the bags down. Oh, and he pulled out a tarp that he’d had inside the car the whole time. Nice work. Sometimes drivers here are wonderful, and other times they act like they’re doing you a favor by letting you pay for a seat in the car, and you should really be thanking them.

So he stormed off to have tea somewhere, and the rest of us sat around. When he finally came back, he was in a much better mood—he bought some meat to cook for us, and even apologized to me. It was seriously shocking. So he grilled up some meat and onions, and we all sat outside of a little boutique and ate. We stayed in the town for about 2 hours, then decided to try to road. We made it about 2 minutes outside of town before we got stuck in the mud.

If you hadn’t realized by now, this driver was not particularly open to comments and suggestions. All he would do for about half an hour is try to get up this small, muddy hill, get stuck, try to back out, and try it all again. He wouldn’t turn the wheel or try a different way up (of which there were many) or put the car in the low 4 gear, all of which we tried to suggest. He pretended not to hear us. He kept yelling at a group of kids to come help, but it was a lot more fun for them to sit on a wall and watch him walk around the car again and again, staring at the tire holes. Finally he got one of the kids to bring him a shovel, and was able to fill in the holes enough to get up. We drove through the river and kept going.

After a few more tough spots (such as a new bridge that is passable but not entirely done so therefore not open which crosses one of the raging rivers of death—seriously, we would have drowned or been stuck there for a couple days waiting for the water to go down—which was luckily solved by a phone call to our amazing friend Luis, who got the guard to let us pass on the new bridge), we made it to a town that (in non-rainy season time) is about 45 minutes outside of M’Bout. There are a bunch of cars sitting there, and everyone says the road up ahead isn’t passable. So we get out, sit under a tent, and wait. And wait. And wait. We end up spending about 4 hours there, and after we’d had lunch and slept a bit, everyone was eager to go. We finally found the driver, who had wandered off somewhere, and he said we were waiting to see if any cars got through coming the other way. Now, no one had actually gone to check on the road for a good 3-4 hours, and I pointed out that there was a good chance that the cars on the other side were doing the exact same thing we were doing, meaning we were all sitting there like idiots for no reason. I kept trying to convince him to let us try to get through, and if it didn’t look safe we could come back. He refused, yelled a lot, stopped talking to me again, then finally said OK. We all got back in the car, and about 2 minutes out of town saw the problem.

A river had sprung up, and when one truck tried to get through, it got stuck. There were a lot of cars waiting around, trying to help or just watching, and they finally got the stuck car out of the river, after which several others crossed with no trouble. Then an army of giant trucks that carry road supplies went through, also with no problem. So at this point, the other side of the river was clear of cars, and all the drivers on our side were waiting around because no one wanted to be the first to cross. Good God. Finally one went through, and our driver followed. We made it through easily.

Now, from texting with John throughout the trip, I learned that M’Bout was totally cut off by the river there (the bridge right outside of town is nowhere near done and there were about 20 feet of water), so our plan to pick them up kind of fell apart. We didn’t want to spend the night on the side of the road, so we decided to push through to Kaedi (the road technically bypasses M’Bout by about 2 kilometers even though all the cars go into town, so we could get by but not in and out of the town itself). A lot of cars came through right after us, so we ended up in a caravan of sorts, with each driver stealing the other drivers’ spots in line and trying to get ahead and nonsense like that. By this point it was dark, so we carefully crossed a few more rivers before something I couldn’t see stopped us. The driver got out, so Sam and Levin went to see what was up. A crowd of men gathered around what turned out to be a small bridge that had partially been washed away. It was only about 3 feet up, but underneath was rushing water. So the men drag a large stone over and prop it up in such a way that if a driver keeps one wheel on the broken bridge and the other on the stone they can maybe get over. Great plan right? I’m still in the car at this point, with no idea what’s happening, but Sam and Levin come back saying we’re stuck. Suddenly, our driver rushes to the car so we can be the second ones to make it over. The guys (smartly) don’t get in, and before they had time to argue with him we’re starting over the make-shift bridge. What I heard afterwards is that once our front tires made it, the rock gave out, so the driver gunned the engine and somehow managed to get across. The guys said it was the scariest travel thing they’ve seen in their two years here. Everyone else was really mad at our driver for ruining the bridge so no one else could get through, but we just drove off. We finally got to Kaedi around 11. The trip, which usually takes 5-6 hours, took us 16.

So that’s been my latest adventure. Since it probably took as long to read this as it did for us to do it in the first place, I’ll stop here. I’m hopefully going up north for a camel trek next week, so stay tuned.

Oh, and for being such good sports, here are some pictures. Enjoy!


updated album

new album

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

pictures

After my mom's comment about posting everyday, here I am! Ha. But seriously, I just got some new pictures up so I thought I'd send out the link. They're mostly from St. Louis and around Selibaby, and there are a bunch of the Girls Mentoring Center end of the year party. Enjoy!

pictures

Monday, June 8, 2009

Yup, I'm still alive

Yeah yeah yeah, I know, it's been a really long time since I've posted. I have several excellent excuses ready:

1) I was finishing up my first year of teaching, which included holding review sessions 4 days in a row for my kids and then giving and grading 150 or so exams
2) John and I made a last-minute, sanity-saving decision to go to St. Louis (Senegal) with a bunch of other volunteers for Jazz Fest, so we were out of the country for a bit
3) Our bureau has been without power for a good 3 weeks or so now because the cord that needs constant duct tape repair by the electric company guy stretches from our room into the room next door, and the man with the only key to that room left for Nouakchott for several weeks. Fun. Which brings me to...
4) My lovely home of Selibaby was without power in almost the whole town for 15 days straight, and then it came on for about 10 hours before going out again for another 12, then on for 10, then just off. Grand.

Now I'm in Kaedi with John and have no excuse, so here I am. We left Selibaby yesterday afternoon (inside a truck, fancy fancy!) and spent the night in M'Bout. That trip wasn't too bad, especially when we got traided about half way there to another truck which only had a cow tied in the back with a net, so we went pretty fast (poor cow). We left M'Bout this morning in the back of an almost empty truck, which is actually much worse than sitting on a huge pile of stuff because you feel the bumps a lot more sitting on just a spare tire (which was so worn that little bits of metal were sticking out all over it...yeah that hurt) than on a big pile of bags. The driver was also going way too fast, so we got jostled around a lot. I spent a good portion of the trip clinging to the side of the car with my boubou poofing out behind me like a cape (faster than a cow-laiden truck, stronger than a scary old woman's handshake grip! it's a donkey! it's a goat! it's super toubab!). We made it with the usual scrapes and bruises but in one piece, and went straight to the post office to pick up John's mail (thanks to Allison for sending candy and to my mom for the cheese box--it made it!). We got to the house to see our very excited Maggie dog, who has gotten so big!! She magically remembered all of her training once we had cheese and bagel chips in our hands (sorry pupper, I love you, but this is cheese....).

I'll be in Kaedi for about a week or so, then heading down to Rosso to meet the new trainees. That's so unreal. I can't believe that all of a sudden I'm the person who's supposed to know stuff (sorry in advance to anyone coming to Mauritania on the 18th! Ha). We're closing in on our 1 year Mauritanian anniversary, with 71 of the original 77 still here. And we've got the heat rash, dripping sweat and layers of dirt coating our skin to show for it!

All of this also means that our 2nd year volunteers are heading out soon, most in the next month and all by August 6th, which will certainly be a transition. In the Guidimakha, we're losing 4 of the 9 volunteers in the region, so that will be strange. They'll certainly be missed (like crazy).

OK, that's about all the news for now. I'll try to be better about blogging (big Inshallah for power and the like). I hope everyone's having a great start to the summer back at home!!