my life in sand

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As i mentioned in my last entry, i am a peace corps volunteer serving in mauritania. My site is called Aoujeft and it is in the northern part of the country, two hours away from the regional capital of Atar. It is a small site built on top of sand dunes. Quite alot of sand dunes actually which is not fun to walk in or when it is blowing fifty miles an hour because then the sand comes in my house. Think of a desert with tones of sand dunes and then picuture a city on top of that and you will have Aoujeft. I am speaking or trying to speak the local langauge Hassaniya and a bit of french mixed in as well. It is a dialect of Arabic and a very difficult langauge since it is also oral so the people do now write it, it is all speaking which is very hard to do. The people in my village our Moor which is on of the four ethnicities of people here in the country.
I have no power so my evenings are spent with either candles or flashlight, cooking, reading, writing or working on my lesson plans. I do have running water but it is not turned on every day. I teach three levels of classes, second year, third year and fourth year in the college, which is the equivalent to junior high and then freshman year of high school. The students are difficult to say the least. My second and third classes have about fifty five students in them and my fourth has about sixteen or so. They have a very hard time paying attention and the do not like to be quiet so it is hard sometimes to get through a lesson. Their are sometiimes not enough desks for the students and no textbooks.
I live on my own but my counterpart has adopted me into her family and I eat lunch or dinner with them every so often. The people here are very friendly, they are always giving you tea or zrrig, which is a local drink of goat milk, water and sugar, or they are always offering you something to eat. They are friendly but the men are somewhat annoying at times. They are always asking if i will them or if they can come back with me to the United States and if i can get them a visa and passport. During stage we were warned about this and the best way to deal with it is to joke about it with since most of the time they are joking but other days it is annoying. Since this is an Islamic country i have to wear a skirt all of the time but I do not cover my head.
Christmas was a nice break from the village. I went to the captial city, Nouakchott with all of the other volunteers in the country. Our country director was having a christmas party at his house which was very nice. It was nice to visit with the other volunteers in my traning class who are in the southern part of the country and who I havn't seen for awhile. In my region, the Adrar their are eleven people, five people in the regional capital of Atar and then the rest are scattered in various towns and villages surrounding atar. For new years most of the volunteers went down to San Louis in Senegal which is very pretty town right on the ocean. The town remeinded me of New orleans, with the french architecture. The beach was beautiful and we had fun just hanging out, swimming in the ocean and walking around town and eating all of the good food. Food in my village is very bland and limited. Rice, meat, couscous, potatoes and vegetables occasionally. The meat is usually goat or sheep but is not that good. So it is a nice change when I go the regional captial or the capital where i eat good food and stock up on some food to bring home with me. Well so long for now.

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