What Color Is Your Thumb?

=== What Color Is My Thumb? ===
As children growing up in Alameda, California, my sister Angela and I had two competing gardens. They were just off the garage of our red brick house. I remember that period of my life partly because of our awesome cars: a bronze four door Volkswagen Dascher and a green Camero with a 350 cubic inch V8 engine and no air conditioning!

But back to gardening. I don’t remember my plot very clearly except for the pumpkin plants snaking around my plot with their bright orange mutant gourds. If anything successfully grew there, it was because my mother did the work for me. My mother’s thumb is unquestionably green.

Yesterday, with the generous help of Caleb (agro-forestry volunteer in my region) I started on my first Mauritania garden, and this time around I don’t have my mother here to do my bidding, or my weeding.. Caleb’s grand design calls for a two meter square plot, hemmed in with four wooden boards and poles on each corner for stability and shade/wind cloth support if needed. It’s good to have him around because he knows his stuff. I’ll be starting out with tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, pole beans, and cantaloupe, seeds courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service (thanks Mom!).

After spending about seven bucks on pick-axe to break through the rocky soil (or more accurately, the soily rocks), Caleb took a healthy back swing and cracked the darn thing in half on the first try. We’ll try again today with a stronger pole. And lucky for us, a family of cows seems to have moved in next door, so we shoveled a few buckets of cow pies for our soil mixture. It’s hard work in the Mauritanian sun, so we’ll try mostly in the mornings and evenings, with plenty of breaks for iced tea!

=== Bring in the next witness, please ==="Luke, I like your newsletter, but it's not long enough." I hear this ALL the time from my readers. However, I'm extremely busy with my Ramadan "Nap All Day" campaign" so I will offer you a compromise. My site mates have GREAT journals, and you can read more about them and get the links below.Adriana Publico, English Teacher Extraordinaire, Kiffahttp://www.livejournal.com/users/adrianapublico/Adriana is my site mate and up until recently, my house mate (she found a family yesterday, near my house!). Her journal is fun to read, and it's interesting to see how she sees the same events in a different light. Call it female intuition, or maybe her quirky take on the world. Adriana is a lot like me -- we're both sarcastic and tend towards perfectionism -- and we're both Cal grads. Kudos to the Peace Corps placement office for putting three Cal grads within 100 kilometers of each other. If the three of us together can’t manage to find the Big Game on shortwave, satellite TV, or something, it will be a true discredit to our institution of higher learning.Andrew Medley, Baby-Weigher, Kiffahttp://www.andrewmedley.com/ (click 'web journal')Andrew is actually a health volunteer, but right now that means he weighs a lot of babies. Actually he does a lot of things and will do even more "things" once he's settled . Andrew and I have fun together, talking about Islam and current events, development and NGOs, but mostly making fun of each other. After a question about condensation/evaporation he said "Luke are you science impaired?" I cannot resist opportunities to strike back, usually relating to his shortcomings in American pop culture. "Who sings Losing My Relgion? Are you serious? Did you grow up in PAKISTAN?" The problem with this line of questioning is that Andrew grew in Pakistan and REM is not popular there.Caleb Judy, Agro/Forestry, Agmaminehttp://www.livejournal.com/users/calebjudy/Agmamine is a small village near Kankossa, which is three hours south from Kiffa down a dirt road. There, sleeping under a tiny hanger with several cows, goats, and donkeys you will find Caleb Judy, one of my classmates, and a very fun guy. There are several best things about Caleb. For instance, he is a very hard worker (worked tobacco farms in Kentucky during his teenage summers), he is extremely positive and never complains even though he has a very difficult site ("The Real Peace Corps" as I call it), and also he is funny (dryer than the harmattan winds). Also, we both produced comedy events during college. For instance, he brought Dave Chappelle to Eastern Illinois University, and I Dave Attell to Berkeley. I prefer my Dave, but I think his several thousand seat house and $50k plus budget outranks my shoe-string pub affair considerably. Let’s call it even and just say that his journal is great reading.Molly McCollumhttp://mollytania.diaryland.comMolly is a second year health volunteer in Kankossa. She's awfully smart, and funny too. Not only that, but she doesn't always laugh at my jokes, which is humbling, and makes me work harder. In addition to many interesting health projects, Molly is collecting Mauritanian folktales, and I hope she writes them up and puts them on her site soon, because they are fascinating. I said "Molly, I hope you publish these stories, because I can already hear you on NPR talking about them."That lead to a conversation about how she doesn't like NPR, mostly because of Car Talk. She's not the first person I've met who's hatred of the Tappet Brothers’ sour lemons and nails on the chalkboard Bean Town accents has caused them to dislike the entire National Public Broadcasting corporation! I however, maintain that the show is funny (their Russian driver Pickup Andropov, that's clever!) and should be syndicated here in Mauritania. "Yes, hello, peace be upon you, I have a Mercedes 190 diesel with 347,000 kilometers on it, andit stalls when I shift into second gear, do you think that maybe God is angry with me?..."

Trick or Treat for Polio

=== Trick or Treat for Polio ===
Polio still exists in Africa, which is something of a “can things get worse?” inspiring statistic, given how long ago it was eradicated in most places. The detection of a small number of cases in Africa (partly due to ignorance and stupidity vis-à-vis vaccines in Nigeria I am led to believe) has lead to a near continent-wide vaccination campaign led by UNICEF.

For two days I was able to accompany a vaccination team through the outskirts of Kiffa. Armed with an over the shoulder beverage cooler containing chilled vials of one of history’s most deadly viruses, two Mauritanian health workers and a Peace Corps volunteer trudged through the sand and heat in search of children under six.

The routine raised few eyebrows with residents, who are used to door-to-door health care, but it was fascinating and hilarious through an American perspective. Here’s what happened at a typical visit with a fictitious American parent’s reaction in parentheses:
Hello, how are you! Mind if we sit down in your living room? (What are you doing in my house and what do you want?)
We want children less than six years of age. (Why? Are you kidnappers? Recruiting the cutest little army in the world? You still haven’t said who you work for, and none of you have a uniform of any sort or even a name tag.)
Ok, one at a time, I’m going to squeeze some drops of fluid on your children’s tongues. Come here little girl, now has she already been vaccinated? (Woah, woah, woah, take your hands off my daughter. You just opened the vial with your MOUTH, and I didn’t see you wash your hands before you connected it to the dropper. You have mentioned nothing about the potential risks of this vaccination or why my children are getting it even though I told you they already got it.)
Ok, we’re all finished. Luke, write “three over three” on that wall over there so the supervisors will know we vaccinated all eligible children. (Hey, why are you writing fractions on my house in charcoal? That’s ugly!)

But as the Peace Corps tells you a hundred different ways during training, we’re not IN Kansas anymore, and the campaign seemed to go smoothly. The children were generally afraid of the vaccine, which ironically takes four seconds if you cooperate but is quite unpleasant when thrashing around and screaming. My involvement was limited to taking new plastic droppers out of their packaging (each vial gives 15-20 doses depending on wastage caused by the “Thrash and Scream” group), holding children’s arms or legs down, and the graffiti as mentioned above.

I was accompanying a male health worker and one female. The man let me know how he felt about working with the woman right away. “There are so many problems working with women in Mauritania,” he said immediately. He didn’t openly criticize her work, but after telling me the morning of Day Two that he thought she was giving too many or too few drops on a number of occasions, he took the reigns and gave the drops. But with all the thrashing and screaming, I thought I detected a number of instances when children were given three drops, or one drop with the second landing on their cheek or chin or forehead depending on (what else) the “thrash quotient.” Not that I would have done better.

Being the only white guy around, many people assumed I was a doctor and wanted my opinion on every malady in the household. “Have you ever seen this before,” a father asked, pointing to a three year old daughter who could not walk and stood only with great difficulty under quivering legs. “And what can you do about it?” Or the starving boy, maybe three years old, whose skin stretched around his rib cage and knee-caps appeared to burst out of his legs. “I’m sorry, I am not a doctor,” I said in each case. And I truly was sorry looking at some of these children. But sometimes there was levity. An old man came up to me and asked: “Do you have any medicine to make me young again?”

It was a fascinating experience, even though temperatures lingered above 100 degrees and we worked through lunch the first day and stopped for 30 minutes to snack on peanuts and crackers the second day. I ate donut holes (or beignets as they are called here) and Cliff Bars throughout the day and bowls of zrig which one out of five or so households gave us. Unless you read about a case of polio in central/southern Mauritania, consider our campaign a success. And if you do hear about one, do me a favor and don’t tell me!

=== Slightly Informed ===
The internet fills me in on current events. Phil Spector’s pinned against the wall. Conan slays Leno in ’09. Bush defeats McGovern.. Ok I made that one up. Google News is a great way to get a lot of headlines shoved in your face, but it’s hard to know what’s important.

At any rate, I’m amused that in some coverage of Spector’s murder indictment, equal attention was given to the man’s contribution to pop music as to the events bringing about the death of Lana Clarkson in February 2003. Statements like “inventor of the ‘wall of sound’” and “the genius behind such groups as The Ronnettes” book-ended such copy as “dead in a pool of blood in the entrance hall.”

Spector referred to the District Attorney as “Hitler-like” and his assistants as “storm-trooping henchmen,” a good way to endear yourself to any judge according my sources in the criminal justice field.

In serious news over here, there have been recent announcements relating to the stability of the Mauritanian government. A couple coup attempts were announced in the last few weeks, and an assassination attempt on a government official just the other day. We’re all doing just fine 600 kilometers from Nouakchott and it’s hard to find anyone who knows anything or even seems interested. If you find any news sources that seem to be reliable, feel free to send them to me…

=== Oh, NO, Houseguests! ===
In one of my favorite movies, (Barcelona) a cocky U.S. Naval Officer goes to visit his cousin who’s working in Spain. The cousins have a mixed history, and the host asks how long his guest plans to stay. The answer is vague, and the conversation proceeds roughly like this:
Guy 1: It’s said that guests, like fish, begin to stink on the third day.
Guy 2: I think you’ll find I begin to stink on the first day.

When I signed the lease on a big house in a regional capital, I also tacitly agreed to be the Peace Corps hostel in the Assaba region. But I’m happy about it. You get lonely all by yourself, and plus, Peace Corps volunteers stink like fish categorically, so I won’t even notice.

My first guests, Annika from Kankossa and Caleb from Agmamine (a 100 family village seven kilometers from Kankossa through sand and knee deep water) visited this past weekend. We had a great time, cooking, drinking iced tea, listening to music, lunching and dining at our favorite restaurants and friend’s homes… you know, that laser-like focus on sustainable development that makes Peace Corps Headquarters proud. ; )

=== The Quaker House ===
Quaker Oatmeal is consumed in large quantities at my house. We already have four empty cans, which make great containers in a country without Tupperware parties. Three have been labeled – close pins, salt, tea – and the fourth will come to a vote between nails, condoms, batteries, or yellow cake uranium.

Thus I have decided that my house is now called The Quaker House. I’m not a Quaker, but hey, Richard Nixon was, and they stand for peace and I’m in the Peace Corps… If anyone has a life-sized cardboard cutout of that walrus-like actor who used to tell us that eating Quaker Oats was “the right thing to do,” please send it by DHL ASAP.

The first time we purchased oats here (ask for ‘Kwokker’) it was 900 Ougiya, nearly 4 dollars. Second time, different store, it was 600. Third time, 500. We’re thinking that the true price is 600 but that the third guy has a crush on Adriana, so we’ll keep buying from him and hope to lock in the 500 price for 2 years!

=== New Mauritanian Wallet: The Wheelbarrow ===
One can never forget the amazing stories of hyperinflation in Weimar Germany or Bolivia… people burning money for cooking fuel or pushing a cash-laden wheelbarrow to the market to buy bread. The situation isn’t that bad in Mauritania, but it’s far from ideal. The largest bill is 1000 Ougiyas, about 3.7 American dollars at the time of this writing. Imagine doing your shopping in the States – cash only! – and all you have are one and two dollar bills. It works for a soda and a bag of animal crackers, but how about a new transmission for your car or a $300 cell phone? Earth To Central Bank of Mauritania – let’s see a 5,000 or 10,000 note soon. It’s all borrowed money anyhow!!!

=== The Calm Before A Famine ===
Most of the world has heard about the locust plague making its way through Mauritania and neighboring countries. I have seen the creatures but am just starting to understand the level of devastation. Just one example: the World Vision research garden we visited in August has reportedly been completely decimated.

Planes are spraying as much as they can, but it appears that “too little, too late” is the cliché we’re looking at. USAID just pledged $3.2 million; let’s hope it’s put to good use, and quickly.

Two pilots and a mechanic from South Africa’s Cresmond Avation have been in Kiffa for a few weeks now, and Adriana and I joined them for dinner at the Auberge Phare du Desert, an Honest-To-God decent hotel (A/C, flush toilets, showers) about eight kilometers from town. Brent #1 (both pilots are named Brent, #1 is Kiwi, #2 South African) showed me printouts of the days spraying runs, plotted precisely with GPS technology. He claims that during the last locust outbreak in Mauritania, a Moroccan team of seven pilots sprayed in several months what “The Brents” did in five days. I don’t doubt it. The team is serious about their work and correspondingly frustrated about working in Mauritania. You simply have to adjust to a slower pace and more mistakes here, and while I’m getting used to it, I’m not working on a government contract where you literally get paid by the hectare.

The dinner was excellent – beef skewers with French fries and cold and bubbly Cokes. I found a guy milking camels on the way out to the hotel, so I had a half liter of that. Surprisingly no one wanted to try any, and frankly I’m not sure I can recommend the stuff.

Like camels, locusts are strange enough to be almost awe inspiring. In their early stages, they hop about in groups (called hopper bands), eating everything in site, including each other (a squished hopper will almost immediately be gobbled up by his so-called friends). After they grow up, they take flight and move in impressive swarms, practically blacking out the sun at times. Cars coming through Kiffa are routinely choked with dead locusts, poking out of the grill and every seam in the car’s body.