Adventures in Mauritania

NGOs, Seinfeld, and Baseball Fans

2005-11-23T05:36:00.000-08:00

One recent summer evening I finished dinner, brushed my teeth, and zipped into my mosquito net for the night.

I picked up ‘The Master and Margarita’ (Bulgakov’s colorful weave of Pontius Pilate and Satan visiting Stalinist Russia) and tried without success to focus on the text. Maybe the weather – 97, humid, not the slightest insinuation of a breeze – had something to do with it.

Before clicking off my headlamp and surrendering to the heat I read one last sentence: “Then Nikanor Ivanovich was visited by a dream, at the basis of which undoubtedly lay the experience of that day.”

That night I dreamt I was working for the New York Yankees. I was in Yankee Stadium, standing on the edge the field during a night game, with none other than Jerry Seinfeld. My responsibility was to make sure that Mr. Seinfeld was enjoying the ballgame.

I was, to put it mildly, good at my job. My every word and gesture made Jerry explode with laughter, and our conversation was so good I don’t think either of us were following the game or even knew who was playing.

At one point he had me on his shoulders like a toddler. I looked down and said “Thank you for supporting the Make A Wish Foundation, Mr. Seinfeld.” We laughed hysterically until a solemn call to prayer flowed out over the stadium loudspeaker, and I opened my eyes to the dawn creeping towards Kiffa. God was Great, but Newman’s “Jerry!” was nowhere to be found.

Like Nikanor, my dream was also based on the experiences of the day. But instead of life in Moscow, I was absorbed in the broken promises of the international development business.

It’s an almost inevitable fascination as you travel around West Africa and get caught in the tangled web of programs, initiatives, and pledges spun across poor countries.

One example is a respected international NGO’s promise to donate mosquito nets to the health clinics in a friend’s village in Senegal – a promise that, even if kept will undermine the local economy. The rainy season has nearly passed, and the nets have not yet materialized. The villagers, waiting for the handout, never went out and bought nets themselves.

Instead of getting angry about this quiet scandal, I slapped my forehead and reminded myself that I joined THE PEACE CORPS! A development organization! Pondering my somewhat humorous fate, I thought of a silly analogy. It would be like getting a job with the New York Yankees and then complaining that all your coworkers are baseball fans.

Then, voila, the dream. But why Seinfeld?

During and after college I spent some time in the comedy business, performing (badly) occasionally and booking a gig in Berkeley. I hung out in comedy clubs as much as five nights a week, networking and studying the art of being funny on command.

My dream relationship with Seinfeld was inspired by his mentoring of Orny Adams (check out the interesting documentary “Comedian”). Adams, a marginally talented, manic-depressive comic befriends Seinfeld during his post-retirement effort to build a new club act from scratch. Suddenly, Adams gets top-notch representation and finds himself on Letterman and the road to success.

(This was a couple years ago, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him broken down on the side of that road with his thumb in the air now…)

It’s odd that the dream of most comics is to not have to do stand-up comedy anymore. Being funny under lights for 45 minutes every night in a different city is how you carve your comedic persona out of stone, but after 15 or 20 years, it’s only logical to want to scale it up. “Why don’t you record my show, and play it on television while I get some rest!”

Do development workers at the NGO level seek the same exit strategy? Do they hone their craft, implement their projects, and build their networks, with the hope of getting a job with The World Bank, the UN, USAID – so they can stop living grant-to-grant, have a nice office, and dispense money and advice to the NGOs that do the work?

That was the opinion of a European lawyer I met recently in Dakar, currently on assignment to the United Nations.

Someone once taught me that every industry – development, comedy, and baseball included – is a pyramid, with the folks on the bottom doing whatever they can to scratch their way up.

At the base of the comedy pyramid you have thousands of open-mic performers, willing to do just about anything for a paid gig. And in development you have the small-fry NGOs, ready to do just about anything for a grant.

Not that this is always a bad thing, but people are often willing to put aside their principles and play whatever tune their patron wants to hear.

Then you have the outliers, the folks that seem to burn on passion alone. In comedy, there’s Bill Cosby, whom Seinfeld visits on a pilgrimage of sorts in “Comedian,” to see how this now grandfatherly figure could possibly do a pair of two-hour shows, with no intermission, almost every night of the week.

In the development field, you have the folks who innovate and do their jobs well. And you have the NGOs that carry out their assignments with an eye towards making an appropriate and lasting impact in their communities. Not just checking off boxes or being the flavor of the month.

But as always, the top of the pyramid is small. The number of qualified staff members at the donor and NGO level is by definition limited by the amount of dollars raised. So consider Jeff Sachs & Co.’s plea to rapidly double or triple the amount of money spent on foreign aid programs. Given the already large amounts of cash shoveled into foreign aid programs, ‘absorption capacity’ is an unanswered question both for the deliverers and the recipients.

Think about it this way: could you double or triple the amount of comedy club headliners overnight? Or add 15 new Major League baseball teams and still have a good level of play? Some would argue we’re already stretched to the limit.

A staff member of a major development donor in Senegal suggested to me recently that the goal of Sachs’ drumbeat is mostly just to get Africa’s agenda “on the table.” And he went one step further, saying that this huge increase in aid “is never gonna happen, anyways.”

Then what is the point of putting it on the agenda?

At the end of the day, baseball is baseball, and comedy is comedy. It’s not life and death, and besides, the market will decide how many teams and how many HBO specials.

But the development business is fiddling with the existence of billions of poor people, who like the Senegalese villagers and their mosquito nets, are waiting for the handout.

We owe it to them to either deliver on our promises or, better yet, change the foreign assistance paradigm entirely. Now that’s a dream worth having.

A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall

2005-10-05T06:25:00.000-07:00

The rain came last week. And then something strange happened; it didn’t stop. Downpour downshifted into drizzle and settled in for two days. When it began I sat contentedly on the porch watching my foot-tall corn plants drink it in. At last, the rain!

But then came the leaks, one drip, then another, until all my buckets and bowls and pots and pans were catching water. Ploink, boip, cachink, ding…it sounded like an old west saloon shootout, bringing the smell of wet dog instead of death.

On the second evening text messages started coming from my site mate Andrew.

“I don’t know how much longer my poor house is going to hold up!”

“I can see light coming in through the roof!”

“Mud is coming into the room. I think the roof is going to fall.”

By morning it was time for an evacuation. Peace Corps contacted Kiffa’s World Food Program office and arranged a car. At the time I was in our leaky office, breaking down the computer system, putting everything in plastic bags, and hiding it in the driest corner.

I hitched a ride to the WFP office, and, dripping wet, presented myself to the director. He snapped his fingers, and suddenly I was in a pick-up truck with driver Mohamadou So, speeding towards Sagatar. (Nothing like being white in Africa, I thought…) Through town, right at the big mosque, around the hospital, and then dropping into a gully. So downshifted, plunged into the floodwaters, and shot me sideways glance, smiling as though to say “you think this baby can’t make it through a little water?” Water was coming over the hood of the truck, but we made it across coming and going.

We reached Andrew’s house and found his host family huddled under their concrete hanger. “How’s it going with the rain?” I asked. “The rain is good!” they answered. Even when their houses are falling, Mauritanians praise God for the rain.

We loaded the truck with Andrew’s belongings – mattresses, metal trunks, bags and buckets – in less than ten minutes. The footprint of the average Peace Corps volunteer is about one shoe-size above a camping trip.

On the way to my house, So pointed to piles of mud and logs and shaking his head. “See there, that was a house yesterday.” I shook my head too. What can you say?

Everyone expects a few thundershowers during Mauritania’s brief rainy season. Rumbles and flashes on the horizon, the temperature drops, everything becomes calm, and then it’s upon you. Sheets of water fall from the sky, punctuated by thunder claps and explosions of light. An hour later, it’s over.

But when rain falls in excess Mauritania just isn’t prepared. Brick and mortar turns to sludge, inviting gravity to finish the job. And then a year or two down the road, the locusts come, as they did last year, devastating the food supply and further entrenching the life-support system of foreign assistance.

The topic of Kiffa’s English Club the week before the storm was Hurricane Katrina. We talked about the devastation, the government’s response, and tried to imagine a similar situation in Mauritania.

“All the people would die,” my friend Issa said gravely.

Days later, the destruction was right before our eyes. Family and friends spread the news from other cities, like the dykes breaking in M’bout and destroying 400 homes, and some children drowning in another town.

Of course, the storm was but a fraction of a percent of the strength and scope of Hurricane Katrina. But wading through muddy water, helping to evacuate a friend, seeing the remains of families’ homes, I felt a cold irony. Just days earlier I was thinking about how hard it was, living in this desert, to relate to the biggest natural disaster in the history of my native country.

The recent rains were in many ways a catastrophe. But what falls quickly in Mauritania is rebuilt quickly too. There’s no insurance, but there’s little to insure. People will patch up their homes or build new ones without many complaints.

And the trickling sound of water filling the well next to my house reminds me that this inundation will mean more water for people, animals, and gardens over the next year. And, gulp, for the next plague of locusts.

Rearranging Deck Chairs on The Mauritania

2005-09-22T09:26:00.001-07:00

In one of the world’s poorest countries, mothers watch their children go hungry, men struggle to find work, the government robs its own people, and development workers discuss the difference between a result and an impact.

Imagine the scene: two-dozen development workers from an international NGO sit amidst empty soda cans and packages of cookies in an air-conditioned hotel. All eyes are on the facilitator up front, as flip charts are flipped, slides slide, and problems are pondered.

It’s all in French, and nothing makes sense. This is not terribly surprising, but then a slide is shown translating USAID’s latest project planning terminology into French. Inputs, outputs, results, impacts, projects, programs, objectives, strategic objectives.

What a relief! It’s not a language barrier I’m bumping into, but rather a nonsense barrier. What, after all, could possibly be the difference between a result and an impact? Or an objective and a strategic objective? And how could it possibly be worth an entire workday to talk about it?

The seemingly innocent tagging of the word ‘strategic’ onto an activity is the focus of this column. At first it looks clever, but in fact it is something that people who aren’t doing anything do to look busy.

I should know.

For awhile I worked in the field of strategic communications. Many of the most productive practitioners in this area call themselves public relations or PR professionals. I learned that the ones talking about strategic communications were the ones to be avoided at all costs.

The worst day in the history of mankind, according to Jean Jacques Rosseau, was the day the noble savage first drew a circle around a piece of land and said “that’s mine.” I’m not about to argue with a man who is far more famous and dead than I am, but I will nominate a second worst day: the first time someone put the word “strategic” in front of another word.

Strategic objectives. Strategic communications. Strategic planning. Dazzling, right? Intimidated, aren’t you? But what does it all mean? Nothing! So then, you can just take the word out, right? Not so fast. Try those words on their own. Objectives. Planning. Communications. They sound flat, like an AM radio in the 21^st century.

Let’s blow up this paradox from the inside by taking it to its logical extreme. I have an idea. In fact, it’s a strategy. No, even better. A strategic strategy. Let’s get back to basics and use words like “work” and “plan” and “task.” In fact, if your business or NGO’s plan has any words longer than five letters, take them out. Take it from me, you’ll be grntd to achev suces.*

* Nominated for “Worst Ending To A Blog Entry,” 2005 Blogger Awards

Applied Freakenomics

2005-09-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

In Freakenomics, Stephen Levitt’s much-hyped new book explaining social science phenomena in terms of economics, the author makes a provocative statement about parenting. Imagine your child plays regularly at the houses of two friends. One house has a swimming pool. The other has a gun. Your child is safer at the house with the gun by a factor of 100.

More than 500 children under the age of 10 drown in swimming pools every year in the United States. One of them lived across the street from my aunt and uncle Agnes and Bill in Franklin Square, New York. It’s always the same tragic story, with a baby/toddler/youngster slipping into the backyard while the caretaker is distracted. Five minutes later, a family is destroyed.

Upon my return to Kiffa in July, I walked down the rocky hillside from my house to the fast food restaurant run by a hard-working man named Boubacar. His quick and cheap sandwiches have kept me going over the last year, and what’s more, he is a friend. Boubacar taught me about Mauritania, the restaurant business, and life in general. He managed the business for someone else and was dying to strike out on his own.

Boubacar rarely took a day off, so I was surprised to see the restaurant shuttered on a weeknight. I got the story from another regular the next day.

It turns out that his son Sidi drowned while I was on vacation. Mauritania has very few swimming pools, but concrete reservoirs and tanks are everywhere, storing water for drinking, irrigation, or commercial activities. The back of the restaurant opened up onto a brick making enterprise, and Sidi must have somehow drowned in the concrete reservoir. The family packed up and left Kiffa without a trace.

Sidi was six years old, and he and his five-year-old sister Aisha were an adorable pair. Sidi was the lapdog, wanting to please his father, and Aisha made enough mischief for them both. As Boubacar observed, when he disciplined Aisha, her big brother cried. When he disciplined Sidi, his little sister laughed.

I returned to Kiffa with new ideas for Boubacar – how to get a line of credit sufficient to start his own restaurant – and with photos – one of me wearing the purple wax print boubou he gave me, and another photo of his family. It’s a grainy night-time shot, with the flash lighting up the dust and sand in the air. But the scene is clear enough – a family captured in time, just before a catastrophe. Boubacar looking proud, his wife Kumba smiling bashfully, and their two children. Aisha the troublemaker. Sidi the quiet kid who one time rescued a kitten and raised it with food scraps and condensed milk.

I will try to find Boubacar in Nouakchott, but with probably 20,000 Boubacar’s and no leads, it won’t be easy. If I do find him, I have the photos, and a few phrases of condolences from my Hassaniya book, which hinge on an idea that’s also familiar in much of America: trust in God, he has the master plan for our lives.

Reading Freakenomics from Mauritania has taught me that not all statistics are the same, and that they’re useless by themselves. The Western world’s obsession with data may be neurotic but it has benefits – every death is labeled, categorized, and pushed through regression analysis. Products are made safer. People are made aware. In the developing world, people fall into wells, get thrown from cars, die of preventable diseases, and are largely forgotten. At best, the information is fed to under-funded governments or development agencies that attack problems as best they can.

Now Kiffa is short one clean restaurant, one dedicated entrepreneur, one honest family, and, worst of all, one good little boy. A good little boy who liked to save kittens. Could you invent a sadder story than that?

The Peace Corps Reserves Problem

2005-09-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

In early August, the media unearthed a seemingly dull detail in the US military's recruitment policies. A newly enlisted soldier can now serve two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in lieu of the eight year on-call period following active and reserve duty.
Here's a dramatic re-enactment of a recruiter's pitch after Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz) and Even Bayh (D-Ind) slipped a few lines of text into the 2002 defense budget:

"All right, one more time. You got your 15 months of active, two years Reserve or Guard, then you're on speed dial for eight years in case things get ugly. Hey why the sour face? Ok, you're right. Eight years is a long time, the world is an unstable place. You're an intellectual. I like that. What if I told you that instead, you could teach English in Nighmaristan for 27 months?"

"Where do I sign?" the imaginary recruit asks, the recruiter smiles, and next thing the poor kid knows he's being screamed at face down in a mud puddle somewhere in Mississippi.

Three years ago when this legislation was being drafted, Peace Corps' congressional affairs staffers were apparently busy playing minesweeper at their desks on 20th and L Streets.

Peace Corps has since admitted it DIDN'T KNOW about the legislation until after it passed. Granted, it was buried in a 306-page bill, but isn't that why you hire legislative affairs staff?

Let me belabor the enormity of this ineptitude even further. Legislation is being drafted formalizing a linkage between Peace Corps and the U.S. armed forces. It's the very type of linkage that Peace Corps has fought FIERCELY since it was founded 40 years ago as an independent agency...AND THEY DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT!

Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez, who signs my $150/month paycheck but receives precious little praise in this newsletter (resume summary: former cop, oversaw Orange County municipal debt default, Bush supporter), was put in a comically awkward spot when asked by the Washington Post's Alan Cooperman to describe Peace Corps' role in shaping the legislation in question:

"There might have been a discussion, there could have been some dialogue on this, but obviously that didn't happen."

To carry the minesweeper analogy further, I think that qualifies as clicking on a mine. Next game try the 9x9 grid, guys.

Let's try both sides of this issue. If you look at this new military recruiting policy as just that, a military policy, it technically has nothing to do with Peace Corps. Members of the armed forces will apply to Peace Corps like everyone else, with no preferential treatment, says a PC spokesperson.

So veterans will face the same system -- the same nice but short on details recruiters, the same condescending and self-serving placement officers who seem to relish putting people light-years away from their skills and experience -- as the rest of us. Why all the fuss?

What's the difference between this and any employer that uses fixed term contracts telling its employees under what conditions they can leave? (Lawyers, I'm getting out of my league here I realize...)

Well, for starters, the U.S. military is not just any employer. It happens to be an employer that is rather disliked (or misunderstood, at least) in many of the countries where Peace Corps operates.

Let's take Luke in Mauritania as an example. Occasionally people ask about my connection to the U.S. Government. I state that Peace Corps is an independent agency, with no connections to the CIA, the military, or the State Department. People nod politely, but often they don't believe you. Why should they? The legislation in question creates an admittedly tiny connection, but still, there it is. On paper. A soldier or sailor can fulfill part of their military service obligation by serving in the Peace Corps.

And it's worse than it sounds. That's because what sounds reasonable to anyone who can read and understand this article might not play in much of the developing world. In my experience, poor and uneducated people have a bigger appetite for conspiracy theories than people with money and diplomas. Reputation management is delicate in any context; in a country full of conspiracy nuts, it's impossible. Even the weakest link, real or imagined, between Peace Corps volunteers and other arms of the U.S. government could put volunteers at risk.

A recent guest on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews (Matthews was a PCV in Swaziland from '68-70) imagined a chilling scenario: a terrorist group learns that a veteran who served in Iraq is now living in a remote village in Uganda, or Morocco, or why not, Mauritania. And he's armed with a shovel and a watering can. It's not unreasonable to think that this volunteer could be targeted.

This is what political scientists call unintended consequences with big smiles on their faces. You want to help two honorable organizations, and instead they gain little and put people at risk.

I say they gain little, because the tactic does nothing to deal with the actual problem at hand -- the military not hitting its recruitment figures. (Note: This is not about Peace Corps recruiting. They get 12,000 applicants for 4,000 PCVs and are ready to expand if given the cash the President always promises) Think about the average recruit. Can you make a compelling argument that this person is interested in being a Peace Corps volunteer? Admittedly, veterans make excellent PCVs. After all, they have technical skills, a work ethic, and toughness. Contrast that with your average 23-year-old English Lit graduate... But how many of these folks thought about Peace Corps before they enlisted? Probably very few.

I have the utmost respect for Sen. McCain, for both his own service to the United States and his promotion of national service. But I think he made the wrong call on this bill, and while the authors were able to get what they wanted quietly, we were bound to find out eventually.

At the end of the day, I am not worried, though. The issue is too far in the weeds to ever be noticed by 99.9% of the people I encounter. And that 0.1%? I'll think about that later and keep my shovel by the bed.

What interests me more is another recruitment opportunity: Peace Corps legislative affairs staff. How do you enlist for that gig? Decent pay, great location, plenty of time for minesweeper, and you don't even need to track what's happening on the hill. In Peace Corps parlance we call that The Easiest Job You'll Ever Love.

My Hero's Chili

2005-07-30T09:47:00.002-07:00

I don’t know Ben, but I respect him. Around 50 years ago, this fellow opened what is now a legendary black-owned restaurant in Washington, DC called “Ben’s Chili Bowl.” It’s a can’t miss late-night stop in the nation’s capital, so I absolutely had to go back on my recent visit.

Imagine walking into a narrow diner at three in the morning. You see a single row of vinyl booths on the left, a half dozen fry cooks on the right, and a line of 30 customers in various states of sobriety and alertness. 1970s funk music is blasting. Mirrors and signed publicity photos of African-American celebrities line the walls, and a collection of homeless people wait outside for change and extra food.

The workers are fast and efficient, and nothing like Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi, but still I didn’t want to mess up, so I rehearsed my order silently as I advanced in the line. Chili-cheeseburger, chili-cheese fries, vanilla milkshake. Chili-cheeseburger, chili-cheese fries, vanilla milkshake. When my turn came, I ordered well. When my food came, I didn’t leave a scrap. When the heartburn came at sunrise, I took it like a man. Just like Ben would have wanted.

Juicy Pants, Reassuring Bailey

2005-07-30T09:47:00.001-07:00

I took my seat on Jet Blue’s San Diego – New York flight. I had everything – Direct TV on the seat in front of me, a novel in my hands, and new people to spy on. I focused on the two seats to my right: a mother-daughter combo. The mom was cute, dark, petite, with a white sweat suit that looked trendy and expensive. Maybe it was those “Juicy” sweat pants I had heard about, with the word Juicy written across the butt. I could only wonder. The girl was maybe five, cute, smart looking. I listened intently and reviewed what I’d learned so far: the girl’s name was Bailey, and they were headed to New York.

We took off and minded our own business until Bailey’s mom spilled grape juice on her pants. Juicy pants. Juice on her pants. I laughed and tried to pretend there was something funny on the TV. She gave me the international sign of “I wanna get out!” so I stood up to let her find the lavatory. I settled back in and began devouring my new book, Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami. The mom had been gone quite a while, but I didn’t notice until Bailey began to cry. Her distress call punctured my zone of consciousness slowly, like a police siren coming from the other side of town. I looked over, and her whimpering turned to bawling, and then into body-wrenching sobs.

“What’s wrong, Bailey?” I said. She replied immediately, as though waiting anxiously for my question. “I want my mommy!” More sobs. Ok, she wants her mommy. Couldn’t have made herself more clear. I twisted around in my seat. Empty aisles. Not even a flight attendant slinging peanuts. How long had it been? Five minutes? Ten minutes? 30 minutes? She couldn’t have very well gotten off the plane.

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said, pretending we were old pals, “she went to the bathroom to clean off her pants.” Her juicy, juiced up pants. At least the crying had stopped, temporarily.

I glanced back at the cover of my paperback book, wanting to open it but thinking Bailey might need some distracting for a while.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“I’m four and a half, and I’ll be five in two days,” she said confidently.

Either her understanding of fractions wasn’t so good, or this girl was aging dangerously fast. She’d be older than me in 12 and a half weeks, I calculated. I put my sarcasm aside for a moment.

“Do you live in San Diego?”

“Yeah.”

“Going to New York on vacation?”

“No, my mom is taking me there for a class.”

That’s odd, I thought. What five-year-old San Diegan takes classes in New York? I pictured a chess champion, or the youngest holder of a seat on the New York stock exchange, or more likely a TV commercial actress. She looked just like the actress in “Life With Mikey,” that bad movie where Michael J. Fox plays a talent agent. Adorable, ambiguously ethnic, the kid could pass for Indian, Puerto Rican, Lebanese, whatever you need. And when she wasn’t crying, she was as cute as they come. She could promote breakfast cereals, toys, cookies, even cell phones and insurance if she had the right script.

She had calmed down a bit, but still I craned my neck to look back and again saw nothing. What happened to Bailey’s mom? I thought back to my first flight alone. I was around the same age, also going to New York from the west coast, and I sat next to a man who taught me how to play Solitaire. He showed me how to set up the columns, how to move cards, how to draw from the pile, how to put your aces in separate stacks. He was a kind and patient man, and I wondered if I could help Bailey get through this crisis. Did I have a deck of cards? Was Solitaire seven or eight columns? Instead, I imagined myself as a hostage negotiator, stalling with small talk.

“A lot of times on planes you have to wait a long time to use the bathroom,” She nodded. But another glance told me there was no line at the lavatory, and I hoped Bailey wouldn’t look back.

“Your mom will be right back.” She nodded again, a little less vigorously.

My eyes went back to the book, and I stared at the cover. A sliver of a Japanese girl’s face on the right, her right eye looking past the frame, half of her pink lips in view, one nostril. And on the left, an artist’s rendering of Sputnik, the Russian satellite. I had just started the book and didn’t yet grasp the connection between a young Japanese girl and the Russian satellite. Maybe it’s about a young history-obsessed woman who falls in love with another Cold War buff. Maybe Sputnik is a metaphor for something impressive, but essentially useless. A propaganda ploy. A public relations move. A dinging machine floating through spa-

“Excuse me.” A tap on my shoulder jolted me back to reality. It was Bailey’s mom, de-juicified at last. I stood up, she took her seat, and I sat down, wondering if I should say something. “Bailey was starting to miss you,” I reported, placing my bet on an understatement.

A Typical Day In LA

2005-07-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

Where in Los Angeles can you buy a shot glass, a cheap plastic bracelet and Chinese finger cuffs for 40 dollars? The answer is bar/adult playground Dave and Busters, and that’s what I did with my friends Chang and Mark on a warm July Saturday in Los Angeles after lunch at In’N’Out Burger and almost blowing up a gas station trying to jump a dead battery.

We won the bulk of our gift shop tickets playing Skee-Ball – bowling’s under appreciated cousin – but we did pretty well shooting baskets and playing the classic carnival game where eight people roll balls into holes and each player’s horse clunks awkwardly from right to left across the “track.” “Roll ‘em, race ‘em, horsy chase ‘em!” is the best description I’ve heard.

The modern video arcade features dozens of head-to-head racing games – Formula One, stock car, dune buggy, Jet Ski, Harley Davidson, big rig – and we tried them all. However, you realize pretty quickly that they are all essentially the same game. You just sit on a slightly different shaped thing, and the screen shows a barely modified track or cityscape. In any event, your game is over in 24 seconds and you walk away wondering how you ever got a driver’s license.

Chang drove home, because he won all the driving games. I was in the front seat struggling to get out of the Chinese finger cuffs (Chang refused to reveal the secret escape maneuver, and he isn’t even Chinese!), and watching Michael Douglas in “Falling Down” on the car’s in-dash DVD player. Yes, you heard me correctly. In America, you can have a DVD player installed in your car. It’s probably illegal, but it’s undeniably awesome.

So we’re creeping through LA traffic, losing our cool, and watching Michael Douglas creep through LA traffic, and lose his cool. For my money he gives the most enjoyable performance of his career, with Exhibit A being his disgruntled character’s justification for busting up a grocery store with a baseball bat: “I’m exercising my rights as a consumer.” Don’t try that line on the officer who nabs you for the unlicensed mobile movie theatre.

The rest of the day was punctuated by dinner at a Korean restaurant, watching old episodes of News Radio, falling off a hand-truck and almost breaking my neck, and staying up until sunrise talking about who knows what with friends old and new. Just a typical day in Los Angeles.

Book Review -- Serving the Poor Profitably

2005-06-13T08:56:00.001-07:00

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

By C.K. Prahalad

Wharton School Publishing

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid talks about reducing poverty at a time when rock stars and economists alike are calling for a mammoth increase in foreign aid. What’s the connection? Just that the folks crying about the stingy rich and the desperate poor are ignoring the force that has and will continue to bring about poverty reduction. Business.

University of Michigan professor C.K. Prahalad’s book uses b-school case studies to explore how corporations can profitably serve the planet’s four billion people living on less than $2 a day (the bottom of the economic pyramid, or BOP).

The prize is that often-painful business cliché – win-win. Companies profit while the BOP enjoys better products and services and the dignity of being catered to by a world that traditionally looks at them as charity cases. As the idea goes, poor consumers are empowered, their purchasing power increases, and the winnings get bigger. WIN-WIN, as it were.

Prahalad comes along at an important historical moment, because as Bono and Jeffrey Sachs sing in harmony for more money, the uncomfortable fact remains that anti-poverty programs as typically practiced are not effective. More bluntly, they don’t bring large numbers of people out of poverty. The countries with the most success in doing just that over the last 50 years (South Korea, China, India, etc) have put the development of strategic industries and a coherent development strategy well ahead of extending their hand for foreign aid.

While the book is at times poorly edited, overly focused on India, and lacking cohesion between case studies, it explores some brilliant business ideas that can turn the previously unreachable poor into empowered and paying customers.

Prahalad builds upon the provocative assertion of Hernando de Soto (the economist, not the explorer) that the world’s poor aren’t actually poor in the way that we think. His case studies show how an innovative approach to serving poor markets proves that the poor have money to spend and desperately want the goods and services that can improve their quality of life. They just can’t buy them with existing pricing or distribution systems.

Take CEMEX, a multi-billion dollar cement company that decided to profit on the observation that if you take a drive through most cities in Mexico, it seems like half of the houses are perpetually under construction. Even though Mexico’s poor already buy CEMEX cement, the company bet that it could serve them better by providing materials and advice on credit to small groups of homeowners.

CEMEX started a BOP-focused program called Patrimonio Hoy where three people from the same city form a group, make payments for 70 weeks, and have construction materials delivered to their houses along with architectural and building advice. The credit-savings scheme works such that after five weeks, materials worth the first ten weeks of payments are delivered (each member pays 120 pesos per week). This business model keeps customers honest (they are invested, lateness is punished, and they appreciate the trust), and CEMEX earns a 12.5% membership fee along with sales of its cement at a slight premium. After three years, customers seem happy. CEMEX has 36,000 of them across 23 cities in Mexico and is adding 1500 clients per month. And the default rate so far? Less than half of one percent. Unless the general manager is lying, that’s impressive.

The other case studies, for example Unilever’s distribution model in rural India using female entrepreneur sales reps in villages or Jaipur Foot providing high-quality prosthetic limbs at a profit for $50 show that poor people want your products and will pay for them too, on the right terms.

What is the right way to serve the poor profitably? Many of the tactics are not new – creative financing options, individual use packaging, and pyramid-style marketing programs just to name a few – but they allow scalability by tweaking the revenue and cost sides of the equation to suit the idiosyncrasies of emerging markets.

These tactics are important in serving the poor, but unfortunately, they often cannot reach the very bottom of the pyramid. CEMEX for instance targets people living on $5-15 a day, not less than $5. But it’s generally the case with development programs involving cost recovery that you won’t be reaching the poorest of the poor. The fact is an unfortunate one, but development work is full of harsh realities that are either heeded or foolishly ignored.

Prahalad’s thesis, that the world’s poor represents the biggest untapped growth opportunity in recent history can come off sounding a bit crass. But it’s not, because any profit-making scheme that exploits the poor is unlikely to be a lucrative long-term market for the company. Successful companies that push the boundaries of exploitation through high prices and oligopolies – the book gives Western Union as an example – can present opportunities to creative companies. CEMEX, for example, is outflanking money transfer firms by allowing Mexicans living in Los Angeles to wire money directly to cement distributors for their houses back in Mexico.

Environmental issues are brushed on lightly throughout the book, but most questions are left unanswered. For example, marketing to the poor with single servings of everything from coffee to shampoo is an effective strategy, but it can lead to streets filled with trash. However, in a developing country where the government has neither the budget nor even the interest in running a sanitation system, it hardly seems fair to blame corporations for giving customers small sachets of powdered laundry soap over a large bottle if that’s what they demand. Yet the environmental question is a big one, and perhaps another book is needed to address it in this context.

It must be said that Bono, Sachs and the rest of the MORE AID NOW chorus raise an important point – the rich world has ignored the poor world for too long, and it’s time for a change. But inviting the Fortune 500 to the table is the only way to bring about that other often-painful cliché – sustainable development. And it needs to go far beyond charitable giving or corporate responsibility programs. Prahalad and his b-school researchers are on the right track. It’s time for the business world to take their products to the poor.

Exclusive Excerpt from “The Casio Killer”

2005-06-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

Dan Brown’s latest Robert Langdon adventure

Chapter 96

AS THE complexity of the puzzle seared the synapses of his brain, all Robert Langdon could think was how much he hated pickles.

He tried to focus as he steered the rented Dodge Stratus into the parking lot of Houston’s First Methodist Church. After a nod to Stacy, they jumped out of the car and ran, hand in hand, towards the front door of the church. A drab, gray, boxy concrete structure, it was one of the least architecturally significant buildings in the history of religion. Langdon tingled with excitement.

He rapped three times on the massive oak slab door and listened, trying sort through the events of the previous 24 hours. The midnight call to his Cambridge house from the head of the Rocky Mountain Institute, desperately seeking his advice on a string of murders of the world’s top environmental scientists. Meeting geologist Stacy Bernstein, heir to the Vlassic pickle fortune, who despite the loss of her father just hours earlier seemed eager to sleep with him. The three victims, killed inside three churches in southeast Texas, all found with Casio calculators in their pockets. The number visible on the screen in each instance, 71077345. Taunting him like a numerical ghost.

“It’s one of the mmm-ost s-s-s-s-ophisticated encoding systems ever created by m-m-man,” Robert described to Stacy as they sat locked inside the walk-in freezer of a grocery store in Corpus Christi.

The discovery of the first example of an adding machine used as a code, Langdon explained through chattering teeth, won historian Rector Von Richter the Nobel Prize in 1924. Richter showed that Marco Polo secretly proposed to Princess Xei Xeling in 1292 through a message left on an abacus.

Langdon liked to use this example with students of his Crossword Puzzle Trivia Posing As Symbology course at Harvard.

“Does anyone know what came of Polo’s proposal?” he asked his class one autumn morning. Roland Vandenberg, star of the baseball team and class clown, raised his hand.

“The most annoying swimming pool game of all time?” The class roared with laughter and Langdon shook his head. A lifelong swimmer, Langdon new the Marco Polo pool game better than most. He considered telling his class that he wrote his Master’s thesis on it but realized they would never understand.

Snapping back to the present, Langdon grasped the polished brass handle of the church door, and finding it open, he entered. To the rear of the church a one-legged man in a kimono hopped towards the emergency exit. As they started in pursuit, something entered Langdon’s field of vision from above. He looked up, and a wave of nausea spread over him. Hanging from the rafters was a middle-aged man in Dockers and a cornflower blue dress shirt.

His jaw dropped as he recognized the victim – Jim Bundy, Professor of Oceanography at UC Santa Barbara and vociferous critic of offshore oil drilling.

Stacy pulled over a chair from the corner of the entryway and stood to get a closer look. “His chest pocket!” she gasped, reaching up towards his shirt. She removed a calculator and handed it to Langdon.

His eyes bulged as big as golf balls when he saw the familiar string of numbers. 71077345. Mocking him like the phone number of a girl who was screening her calls. Like Vittoria, for instance, the attractive entanglement physicist he slept with in “Angels & Demons” just hours after falling out of a helicopter.

“It’s the same code!” Stacy whispered.

“Yes, but what could it mean?” Langdon looked at his new friend, suddenly wishing she was Sophie, the cryptography expert from “The Da Vinci Code” who was cute, smart, and happened to be a direct descendent of the Son of God. He hadn’t seen Sophie since she cracked the keyless entry system to his Ford Expedition and fled his Cape Cod timeshare last autumn.

Langdon gave Stacy the calculator and did a handstand against the wall to try to regain his composure. For some reason, he always had his best ideas upside down.

Suddenly, the answer came to him like a fortune cookie with the answer inside. UPSIDE DOWN.

“Stacy, give me back that calculator,” he said, flipping back onto his feet and feeling the blood rush back to his legs. He turned the device around and looked at the screen.

ShELLOIL

“But what could it mean?” Stacy said breathlessly, looking over Robert’s shoulder. “It sounds like Yiddish.”

Langdon clicked his tongue in disapproval and smiled. “You’re a pickle heiress to your very core, Stacy,” he said, hoping he hadn’t said something anti-Semitic. But there wasn’t time for apologies. He had cracked the code.

He was already halfway to the car when Stacy ran out of the church, yelling. “She lloil? Shello il? Robert!”

An hour later, Langdon and his not-so-bright geologist friend were on a chartered jet headed to Alaska. He tried to rest, knowing that the very future of clean and renewable energy rested on his shoulders.

Foxhole Cooking

2005-05-18T10:50:00.002-07:00

For the first time in the history of foreign assistance, an international relief and development organization has issued a famine alert for its own employees. Due to poor grain harvests and dwindling livestock counts, Peace Corps volunteers in the African Sahel are dropping at an alarming rate. Size 12’s are wearing 4’s, and pants lacking drawstrings are now adorning scarecrows in vegetable patches.

The United States Government has responded to this emergency with typical generosity and efficiency. Until further notice, PCVs can request Meals Ready-To-Eat (MREs) from their medical office.

As a city volunteer, I generally get enough to eat and suffer only from monotony and small portions. In fact, the military rations are probably more closely intended for two married volunteers on the edge of the Sahara, who subsist on boiled grains, occasional meat, and their imaginations. We’re talking about two narrow individuals before Peace Corps, but now I’d estimate they weigh a combined 135 pounds.

So it wasn’t without a tinge of guilt that I sucked in my stomach and limped into the medical office complaining of blurred vision and a diet of boiled cardboard. I limped out with high-calorie, vitamin enriched, and surprisingly tasty proof that women play an important role in military policy and planning.

The days of You-Know-What On A Shingle are over. My entrée options include Vegetarian Fettuccini Alfredo, Beef Teriyaki, and Chicken Strips with Chunky Salsa. You can start off with jalepeño cheese spread on a vegetable cracker, or maybe some spiced apples. And for dessert, why not enjoy a cup of coffee and lemon pound cake?

The best part is there’s no stove required, thanks to the smartly named OPN63 NSN 8970-01-321-9153 heating unit. Just plop the main course into this plastic sack with a chemical wafer at the bottom, add water, and in 10 minutes it’s ready. They even throw in a kind piece of advice: “the contents will be HOT.”

I can’t find an expiration date anywhere on the packaging, but judging from the serial numbers on the rancid Snickers bars, I’m guessing our batch is from 1998. But the shelf-life is impressive, as the parts of the MRE are zipped up separately in high-tech shrink wrapping by DOD contractors like Sopakco Packaging, Mullins, South Carolina. I imagine the corporate tagline “You make it, we’re fixin’ to pack it.”

Each meal comes with an accessory packet containing plastic spoon, napkin/TP, wet wipe, tiny bottle of Tobasco sauce (I imagine tiny Mexican women squeezing tiny red peppers), matches, and beverage powder, everything it seems except for a temporary tattoo or hologram toy.

As if this all wasn’t quite enough, the boxes are stamped with nutrition information written in unmistakable Pentagon-speak. “Fortification Provides you the Additional Edge to Maximize Your Performance.” I suppose, but after the beef stew and brownie, the last thing I’d want to hear is “MOVE OUT, MEN.” I require a nap, sir.

From one perspective, MRE’s are a desperate last resort to starvation, and my level of enjoyment stems mostly from the memories of American food evoked in the face of monotonous desert fare. But still I’d say that MRE’s are so ingenious and fun, it’s only the low pay, physical requirements, and dislike of raised voices that’s keeping me from enlisting right now.

Until then, I’ll assume the diet and attitude of a 21^st Century Yossarian with a billet that’s decidedly more Rear Echelon.

No Respect

2005-05-18T10:50:00.001-07:00

My knowledge of the American comedy scene is on a serious time lag. First I read that Rodney Dangerfield died. Then someone tells me that Johnny Carson is doing the great open-mic in the sky, both of these events occurring last year. And finally I hear that Mitch Hedberg, one of the most talented comics of my generation, was recently found dead in his hotel room before a gig in New Jersey.

Now that I’ve dimmed the lights, allow me to introduce the shaky and blatantly opportunistic premise for this segment. Did you know that before getting his big break Rodney Dangerfield was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania? I found his final site evaluation hidden away in my regional office. Here are the highlights…

The Peace Corps, man, I’ll tell yah, it’s a racket, they pay you fifty bucks a month. I could make more dough juggling for the blind.

And you get no respect at all in the Peace Corps. No car, no money, no wife, no respect at all. People think I’m an albino panhandler, I tell yah.

A lot of drug use in the Peace Corps, though, I tell yah, I can’t keep up with these kids. The Peace Corps motto should be Semper High. Just my luck, no Marines in the audience, go ask your recruiter to explain that one.

But I smoked dope here in Mauritania one time, and I tell yah, it wasn’t pretty. Why’s that, I’ll tell yah why, there’s no good snacks. I got the munchies and ate my house. It’s tough, I tell yah.

Not a lot to do out here in my village, I can tell you that much. They don’t have dirty magazines here, so I have to watch my neighbor breast-feed her kids. The other night I asked if I could be next, that’s how bad it is.

My host family, that’s some group, I tell yah. My father is half Pulaar and half Moor. He wants to beat himself up but he’s too lazy. It’s tough. And his wife, I tell yah, she’s 16, she’s his cousin, sister, niece and possibly his mother too. It’s a mess.

You know they circumcise the women here? It’s supposed to make it impossible to enjoy sex. When I heard that, I called my ex-wife and told her it wasn’t my fault after all. Come on people, these are called jokes.

I got a local girlfriend though, I tell yah, but it’s not fair. I asked her for a strip tease, she showed me her eyes for two seconds. Not fair at all.

And the heat. I tell you it’s hot in this country. How hot is it? By my house there’s a road sign that points down and says “Hell, 15 meters.”

Hey, tough crowd, feels like I’ve been here two years. Ok, it’s been life changing, catch me next week at Ceasars Palace.

The Seven Year Switch

2005-05-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

As I was about to begin my English class one evening, a student spoke up. “Mr. Luke, this woman has something to ask you.” I had hardly noticed the lady and young girl in the corner, figuring that a new student brought her kid along. “Tell him, tell him!” she says to the girl in Hassaniya. Reluctantly, then, the girl says, in distinctly American English, “My aunt wants to know if you can teach me English so I don’t forget.”

Some believe that mefloquine, the anti-malaria drug of choice for Peace Corps, can bring about hallucinations, so I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. Teach me English? Most English teachers here can’t construct a sentence like that. I opened my eyes. The girl was still there, with her head cocked at an angle and an expression that seemed to say “well?????” I asked her some questions, and she replied in English, to my continued amazement. “How long have you been here?” I asked her. “I dunno, I kind of forget a lot of things.” I had to be hallucinating.

After that introduction I visited the girl’s family a number of times and established that Hoffman LaRoche Pharmaceuticals has not yet taken my mind. Here is what I know now.

Six years ago, a Moorish couple secured a visa to the United States and moved with their one-year-old daughter Fatimetou to Columbus, Ohio. How they got visas I’m not certain, but Fatimetou told me that her father used to be the President of Africa, which has got to carry some weight at the American Embassy. After a few years another daughter was born and given the name Christine. A few more years and another daughter, this one Lalla. Both of Fatimetou’s sisters are therefore American citizens. Fatimetou is not, to my knowledge.

Earlier this year, the children’s maternal grandfather became ill. The parents decided that the father would stay in Columbus (he works at a grocery store) and the mother would return to Kiffa with her daughters, to be with her ailing father.

Fast forward a few months to the present, and now you have a household in Kiffa featuring a widow, a dozen young adults and three little girls running or crawling around in varying states of American-ness.

Lalla, at around a year old, doesn’t say much. Christine knows English, but is shy, and after a couple visits she would climb on my head but not talk. Fatimetou makes up for them both.

“Why you always wearin’ that hunting hat?” she prods in a vaguely urban accent. “Why you always wearin’ crazy African shirts?” “What is wrong with you, anyways?” When she’s not riding a goat around the living room or begging a nickel off her aunt to buy candy, Fatimetou likes to tease dorky guys as much as any American girl, it seems.

I have my own questions. Are you going to school? Yes, no, sort of, I dunno. Did you get to see your grandfather when you got here? Whispered: we aren’t supposeta talk about dead people! Are you going back to Columbus? Yes, no, maybe, I dunno.

The mother speaks decent English and is generally busy with local politics, running the mandatory street-side boutique, and looking worried about, I presume, how to get back to Columbus.

“Do you have any painkillers?” she asks me one afternoon. “No,” I say, guilt meter shooting up because it’s a lie. “We brought a lot of stuff with us from America,” Fatimetou adds. “But you used it all?” I guess, watching her grandmother cough up phlegm onto her hand and fling it across the room out an open window. “No, we sold it.” Guilt meter drops back to zero.

I think about this family with mixed emotions. Living in Mauritania is difficult, but it’s not that bad for the middle class, so I wouldn’t feel terrible if these girls couldn’t return to America.

But what is in store for them here? Fatimetou and Christine will lose their English. They will be placed in atrocious public schools or perhaps slightly better private schools. They will be expected to conform to the role of a woman in Mauritania, which is changing but is nothing like life in America.

Will they be circumcised or force-fed or reduced to domestic servility? Probably not. From looking at the young black African girl who cooks and cleans and the satellite dish that brings in must-see Mexican soap operas, it seems this family is doing well for now. But that standard of living is most likely based on a few hundred dollars a month sent back from the US.

What was life like for Fatimetou in America? She remembers good things, like Wendy’s and pizza and playing in the snow. She also recalls darker details, like the convicted sex offender who lived in their neighborhood and the school shooting she witnessed one morning at her public school. She claims that she saw two older students fighting, and when she ran to tell a teacher she heard a gunshot. Looking back she saw a boy lying in a pool of blood. He died.

There’s a part of me that doesn’t believe a word Fatimetou says. She has mischief in her eyes, and she has been through a traumatic experience in the last three months, going back to a country and climate and a way of life that conjures up no memories whatsoever. But as rarely as it happens in America, kids do shoot each other and creepy men do introduce themselves to their new neighbors with police escorts. Maybe I’m just offended that she made fun of my hat.

As I sit in the family’s living room and force down a mouthful of mystery meat, at least I don’t fear being shot on the street. Living in Washington, DC, the cuisine was fantastic, but the walk home was more un-nerving. It’s one of the many tradeoffs a seven-year-old semi-American girl and I will have plenty of time to think about.

You Don't Remember Your Name

2005-04-13T09:10:00.001-07:00

Halfway between Kiffa and Nouakchott with Mike Dubrall and his daughter Annika (Kankossa), I brought up that old America song about the desert and the horse and not remembering your name. “I think that song was about drugs,” Mike replied. Was Annika blushing or sunburned? We changed the subject.

That may well be, but I just returned from a camel trek in the north of Mauritania, and without any drugs or alcohol our guides were unable to remember the names of two of the four members of our group. And they have THE SAME NAME! Just a bit eerie, perhaps?

Last summer fellow PCV Keith (Atar) began to develop plans for a camel trek that would live or die in infamy. The trip covered six days and 100 kilometers, starting at the oasis of Tergit and ending up in Chinguetti, Islam’s 7^th holiest city. Jarad (Aioun) and Jared (Kobeni) and I made our way to Atar and met Keith, departing for Tergit with our backpacks and two boxes of military rations (see story in next issue “Foxhole Cooking”).

Our goals for the trip were unspoken, but understood. Have a good time. No whining. Don’t fall off. Try not to kill each other.

So did we succeed? Mostly. But I can’t fairly describe the experience in a chronological account. Instead I offer two equally true interpretations of one day.

-A La Backpacker Magazine-
Day three. We woke with the sun, ate flatbread baked in the sand under hot coals, and left our campsite around eight o’clock. Walking just ahead of the camels, we ascended a gentle grade covered in jagged boulders and slices of sun-varnished slate, where spiny black lizards took cover from the already searing sun. We reached the summit and drank in the view – an ocean of dunes interrupted a few kilometers beyond by a menacing rock face.

Our young but knowledgeable guide Saleck led us down the hill and through the valley of sand. Each successive dune passed like the face of a wave. Lashes of hot wind whipped across the marbled sand, dotted with the tracks of beetles, snakes, and camels.

After nearly three hours we reached a hand-build wooden structure at the foot of the rock face and sought refuge in a woman’s home as the camels were led to a nearby well. She prepared tea and displayed her traditional Moorish crafts for sale – red and green tea pots, beaded necklaces, and carved wooden artifacts. We passed the day with this kind woman, trying to rest with the sun and sand occasionally breaking through the cracks in the canvas walls.

After lunch we ascended the small mountain to get a view of the route covered that day. As our thighs burned from the climb we named it Mt. Misery. At the peak we explored caves dotted with animal droppings, nothing large and hungry we hoped. After descending and collecting our belongings from the woman’s house, we continued our journey until finding a well at sunset and setting up camp for the night. Exhaustion prevailed, but a sense of accomplishment was close behind. We had reached the halfway point.

-From Hunter S. Thompson’s Private Collection-
“They made a G.I. Joe doll out of that guy?” I asked, effortlessly flipping my machete into the air. “It was called The Fridge G.I. Joe,” Keith repeated for the fifth time as Jarad lit military rations aflame, sending plastic fumes into our excrement filled cave on the top of a rocky hill in the hellish Sahara. An image of William “The Refrigerator” Perry celebrating a touchdown surfaced in my brain and was quickly replaced by a Victoria’s Secret model made out of ice cubes. “We’ll call this place Mount Fridge G.I. Joe,” suggested my personal assistant Zanzibar, the three foot tall Malagasy healer we found on day 41 half-buried in sand. The name stuck and we ran down the sandy rear face of Mt. Fridge G.I. Joe as our bare feet melted in molten lava and Jarad screamed “GET TO THE CHOPPER!!!!” Keith thought he actually was Arnold Schwarzenegger from “Commando” and began to cry under a thorny tree. I comforted him by singing “Careless Whisper” and promised that he could ride Jugenjebu our German camel after lunch.

We returned to the home of the overbearing woman who tried to sell us expensive junk, propose marriage to anyone who would listen, and brag about her head lice. And that’s when we realized that Jared had been transformed into a Billy goat and was being chased by Whitaker our British camel. Back on the endless route to wherever we were going, we debated the possibility of time travel in Hassaniya, agreeing that light goes “really really fast.” Jarad brought it all together with a story about his ex-girlfriend in El Paso. “Guilty feet have got no rhythm,” he admitted.

...Both versions are more or less true, you see? The lesson is that a drug and alcohol free excursion in the desert can be even more dangerous than America and Hunter S. Thompson combined. So let’s all say it together: “NEVER AGAIN!”

Sitting Under The Plastic Tree

2005-04-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

A popular West Africa travel guide describes the dark side of its industry: “Tourists create tremendous amounts of rubbish, particularly non-biodegradable packaging such as plastic bags and water bottles.” This, it continues, is a serious problem in areas where traditionally all trash decomposed naturally.

While there’s truth in this observation, it ignores several realities that make the environmental picture in West Africa much more complicated.

Let’s travel through Mauritania from city to town to village and see what the realities are, using my province, the Assaba, as an example. In Kiffa, a city of 50,000 with close to zero tourism, nearly every product purchased and consumed is made of or packaged in non-biodegradable materials. Combine this with desert winds and a lack of trash collection and you’ll understand why I commented in my first week that, “it seems the plastic bag tree grows very well in this country.”

From Kiffa travel 85 kilometers south through dirt and sand to Kankossa, a town of around 5,000 people. The local economy is still heavily influenced by plastic, because even without an improved road, 50-75% of the goods available in Kiffa make their way here, albeit at higher prices. Head seven kilometers southwest and you’ll reach Agmamine, a village with a population of around 1000. Because there is almost no commerce, you see few water bottles strewn about, and almost no plastic bag trees. But villagers still need buckets to bathe and wash clothes and haul water out of the well and to their door, and surprise surprise, these are the same plastic products sold in Kankossa. In this sense, Africa’s “traditional villages” are growing scarce indeed, but not thanks to tourism.

It’s a fact that globalization, or more specifically the opening up of Africa’s markets to imported products, means an increasing amount of plastic. But while westerners can identify the problem, they can’t solve it, and while they can propose solutions, they can’t fight market forces. There’s no doubt about it, plastic is just incredibly useful.

Think about it: lightweight, strong, rot and rust proof, easy to clean, and cheap. That’s why developing country businesses and consumers, with low levels of investment and income, love plastic. It scores high in a cost-benefit analysis, unlike many western-pushed development efforts, which tend to score low and thus fail no matter how hard the push.

I turn my head 180 degrees on my porch and spot the plastic items that nearly all other Mauritanian families have: buckets, bags and baggies of all sizes, floor mats, bottles, cups, shoes. And here’s a factoid that makes the already tired Globalization Kills argument even more trite: most plastic products sold in Mauritania are made in Senegal. Those evil Americans, I mean Europeans, I mean foreigners, I mean…West Africans? They must get foreign investment, the conspiracy theorist might comfortably imagine.

On a recent trip to Dakar I saw a ray of hope for the very real problem of plastic bag trees when I visited a nascent recycling business founded with the assistance of EnterpriseWorks/VITA, a US-based NGO (also my former employer). This company collects plastic waste like bags and sandals, chops it up using everything from machines to an old man with a machete, and sells it back to Dakar’s plastic manufacturers as pellets. With good management, good marketing, and good luck, this will become a profitable business, and plastic producers will as a matter of course churn out new products with a percentage of recycled material. Not because they’re environmentalists, but because it’s good business.

So here’s my two cents on the global energy and sanitation situation. Extracting petroleum from rock or ocean governed by myopic thugs will never foster political stability, civil society or economic development for all. Let’s take all the bright minds we can spare and make alternative energy more economical. Let’s work on market-based recycling. Let’s fight corruption and push for governments that collect more trash and buy fewer cars. And let’s encourage tourists to leave a small footprint.

But don’t cry out that plastic is destroying Africa. The alternatives – making everyday products out of wood or metal or not having them at all – could be just as bad or even more destructive.

Baguette Redux

2005-03-20T04:19:00.000-08:00

=== Baguette Redux ===
“Mr. Rabbit!” the man calls out in French, taking care not to unsettle the loaves of bread resting on his turbaned head. “Mister,” he repeats impatiently, “rabbit!”

I hear this plea whenever I enter Kiffa’s market, and when the mood strikes me I form bunny ears with my fingers and ask, as if for confirmation, “Mr. Rabbit?”

Before explaining I’d like to go out of my league for a minute. It seems that Mauritania absorbed little from its colonial days, when it comprised a large hunk of French West Africa until finding independence in 1960. Whether this can be attributed to the proud and sometimes insular Moorish culture, geographical isolation, France’s hands-off approach, or other factors, it’s difficult to tell, but on a daily basis one confronts two things to remind them that the French flag once flew here. The first looks like a baguette, and the second sounds like French.

But I’ll get to that and the rabbits in a minute. Daily life in Mauritania in my estimation tends to focus on “making do.” A house is a house if it keeps out the rain. A car gets you there, eventually. And a meal fills you up, however low in nutrients or flavor.

But it works, and there’s a rhyme and a reason. Poverty, isolation and an unforgiving desert are not the whimsical fantasies the developed world tends to see on PBS or guided tours, and the utilitarian nature of life here stems from these realities.

It boils down to a simple belief, strongly held by many the people I’ve had the pleasure to know here. Life is hard, my way works, and I probably couldn’t afford a “solution” anyhow. This is my life, as God has willed it.

So, then, the bunnies and the baguettes, you ask? We’re almost there. Those of you who read the New York Times food section might know that Wendy and Michael London (www.mrslondons.com) are two of the most respected bread and pastry chefs in New York, and maybe the world. As their nephew I’m in a biased position to judge anything edible, but I assure you that the bread here is mostly awful. It’s dense, wet, dirty, and at its best its flavor-less. I shudder to think what my uncle would have to say about it, after all, he practically lost his cool once when, I admitted to him that I’d been eating at Subway a lot. “That’s not bread!” he hollered, as though he’d just been shown a picture of a tennis racket.

“That’s not French!” is what many Parisians would probably say if they heard the language people speak here when they’re not using an indigenous language. I am complicit in this defamation, and in fact my French is just good enough to allow me to see its face. C’est pas jolie. But I’ve got one thing on these mobile bread hawkers. “Pain” is masculine, so when they preface it with la instead of a manly “luhhh,” they’re actually saying “lapin.” You probably just yawned and guessed that lapin means rabbit. Exactement!

The ghost of Edward Said might accuse me of sneaking my Orientalist arrogance into this column, but I don’t mean to imply that life here is a garbled translation of French culture. Far from it. From the surface down into the depths of the languages, customs, and beliefs, life in Mauritania evokes a certain charm that I’m willing to assert exists no where else. The frothy pour of tea from one glass into another, smoke wafting off the grey-white coals cooking the evening meal, the distant shriek of a bearded goat in seek of a companion. Stalked by the sun, life’s various manifestations often come to a boil as well.***

Is my role in this system to teach the bread sellers “le pain,” or to teach them to say it in English? Or to design a feasibility study to help the local bakeries streamline production, expand their product lines and reach new customers?

It’s all a bit overwhelming sometimes, so the truth is I tend to keep it simple. Sometimes I buy a rabbit, and sometimes I don’t.

*** During WAIST, teammate Keith was forced to drop for pushups after making infield errors. I did 20 on my knuckles after writing those two sentences.

=== No More Three By Fives ===
Timewarp Album Review For No Good Reason
Room For Squares
By John Mayer
Sony

Dreamy nostalgia sculptor disguised as pop singer John Mayer presents listeners with a laundry list of issues on his debut “Room for Squares” album. He loves your body, misses his mommy, and cherishes his freedom in an album that doesn’t always gel musically but contains many compelling moments.

More specifically, Mayer’s lyric writing is hit-or-miss, his songs place brilliance alongside meandering slop, and one song (Love Song For No One) feels like the intro music to a sitcom about a flight attendant. But the fatal flaw of the album as a whole is that it’s impossible to hate, and I weep predictably with each listen.

Jon Mayer The Guitarist is obviously proficient, showing his Berklee College of Music (didn’t graduate) pedigree when appropriate. He is able to craft original progressions and textures without bogging down the music with pretentious solos.

But Jon Mayer The Poet doesn’t come off quite as well. Sometimes he’s quaint, as for instance in “83” when he conjures up a touching vision of childhood, waxing “These days, I wish I was six again/ Make me a red cape/ I want to be Superman.” Then he shatters the mood by wondering out loud “what ever happened to my lunchbox.” Let’s see… rotting in a suburban landfill, reincarnated as a breadbox in a developing country…neither of these images help me enjoy your song, Mr. Mayer.

Other tracks suggest he’s shooting a bit high, like “Neon,” which reveals a limited understanding of the Periodic Table of Elements, while others convict him of writing directly to high school sophomores, as in his promise to “bust down the double doors” at his ten year reunion. Maybe it’s because mine is in September and I really would like to show ‘em, but puhleeze!

The beautiful and seemingly harmless little tune “3x5” warrants attention, as it actually contains life-shortening idiocy. The song hinges on the following false triumph: “Today I finally overcame/ Trying to fit the world inside a picture frame.”

The scenario Mayer paints could be imagined as something like the following. An up-and-coming performing artist has three major problems: (1) his travel schedule affects his relationship with his girlfriend, (2) he struggles to describe visual phenomena in words, and (3) he is battling a deep distrust – possibly stemming from his relationship with his father – of cameras.

He tells his lady friend that he wants to share his on-the-road experiences, yet he is proudly sending her a letter with no photos because the 30-second process of pulling a camera out of a fanny pack somehow drains his life force.

He recalls, awestruck, “You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes/Brought me back to life.” Excuse me? Obviously something prevented his sweetheart from being there that morning, let’s say her final exam before becoming an emergency medical technician. If he had merely gotten over his unhealthy hang-up he could have taken a nice picture. True, sometimes it’s hard to capture the sky’s nice bright colors on Kodakrome, and maybe it wouldn’t have “brought her back to life.” But maybe the girl isn’t as brain dead as our protagonist to begin with.

Then he claims “You’ll be with me next time.” Girl, don’t believe this two-faced, conflicted jetsetter for a second. You trust him enough to allow him to travel the world solo to please thousands of young female fans, and he returns the favor by never taking pictures? Don’t throw your life away to travel with the band. You’ll see plenty of sunrises through the windshield of an ambulance during your graveyard shifts.

But as I said, I love this album. It helps that some songs are near-perfect, like “St. Patrick’s Day” and that others serve as a sort of blanket apology. “Oh I’m never speaking up again” he laments at the end of the beautifully crafted chorus of “My Stupid Mouth.” Writing this review years after the record’s release, I can relax, knowing that Jon Mayer did not give up, and in fact has produced another album and is more popular than ever. I just hope the poor guy has come to terms with photography.

Mango Softballs in the Sun

2005-03-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting on the porch of my house in Kiffa, drinking deep from mother Africa* as I watch my sunflowers sway in the wind and eat the beignets delivered to my door by a sullen veiled girl. A typical day in Mauritania, making it almost impossible to believe that one week ago, I was playing “Living on a Prayer” on an upside-down acoustic guitar at a free beer bonfire overlooking the ocean in Dakar while a retired Marine Corps officer screamed at dozens of Peace Corps volunteers to immediately terminate their topless relay race.

Incoming Mauritania Peace Corps volunteers are told about the annual West African International Softball Tournament, (thrown by the US Embassy in Dakar and known as WAIST) with stories such as streaking at the Marine Corps bash, making Willie Mays catches in centerfield with a bottle of Senegalese whiskey in hand, or overwhelming the local home-stay families with around the clock drunkenness. Meanwhile, teams from other countries (with names like Team Asia, the Baobab Bashers, and the Guinea Fowls) are warned not to get too close to those crazed Americans coming out of the desert. After an almost nine month incubation in Mauritania, the first year volunteers in my group were ready for fun, and the second years were keen to show us how to keep the legacy, and the lunacy, alive.

At its core, WAIST is a softball tournament, and Peace Corps Mauritania fielded two teams, Pirates #1 and Pirates #2. Our better team placed second last year and could have held their own in the competitive draw, but alcohol is not allowed on the field so they opted for the still rather serious social league. I was smartly deemed unworthy of our A team and spent the tournament with Pirates #2 at first base yelling things like “play’s at any base,” and my Little League coach Joe Blinn’s head shaking lament, “walks will kill us.”

After losing two games the first day and staying out downtown through the night and partly into the morning, Pirates #2 trudged unhappily to the field at 8:30 in the morning after a breakfast of instant coffee and ibuprofen. The opponents, a team of 14 and 15 year-old American missionary girls, were already doing infield drills. Our warm-up consisted of a couple of lunges, a pep talk from our captain Mitch, and a round of Senegalese beers.

The game started on a typical Pirates #2 note when a routine ground ball sent our shortstop down to the ground, crawling on all fours looking for the ball. Or a contact lens, it was hard to tell. The ball was well in left-center by that point, heading towards the wall after finding its way through one and then two sets of outfielders’ legs.

One of the several runs that inning was driven in by the opposing pitcher, a 12-year-old boy who looked confused when I smacked him on the rear-end with my glove and said “way to go with the pitch, Mr. Carew.” I winked at their first base coach and said “kid probably doesn’t even know who Rod Carew is.” The coach laughed but failed to find the humor when I asked the next base runner, a pretty little blonde with tight running shorts and several years to go before operating a motor vehicle, what she was doing after the game. He called time and suggested I keep my bottle of beer in foul territory and my language in fair territory. (No one can prove that this actually happened.)

The final score was 16-6, and we were lucky to keep it so close. In the next contest we faced a team of Senegalese who spoke only French and Wolof. A Wolof speaker on our team tried to distract our opponents by yelling “TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS!” but this seemed to make them play better. After several rule disputes, we began to hear whispers that we were cheating. I lost patience when they refused to believe that a ball that starts fair but rolls foul can be ruled out of play, letting out a scream of “WE INVENTED THIS GAME!!!!” We lost by one or two runs, a difficult defeat that we lamented together but celebrated privately as it meant we could focus on cheering for our winning team and sampling the many varieties of local distilled spirits without the demands of hand-eye coordination.

Meanwhile our A team was playing incredible softball, making great catches in the field and clutch hits with runners on base, and I started up our national anthem at the beginning of the championship game, standing just meters away from the previous night’s topless relay race (which maybe I didn’t even see with my own eyes). Team Asia, a group of mostly Japanese and Koreans living in Dakar, was our unlucky opponent, and to a certain degree this was a grudge match. At WAIST 2004, they defeated us in the title bout that may or may not have involved some “minor” racial slurs. Details are fuzzy.

But in 2005, old wounds were healed, Pirates #1 were in fine form, and after our victory the two teams exchanged handshakes and even some jerseys in a spirit of generous cultural exchange. I cringe to think of what would have happened had we lost, however, conjuring up only the image of NATO accidentally bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

That about covers the softball. Each WAIST the US Marines who guard the American embassy throw a party, and this year a hundred or so Peace Corps volunteers and others packed the Marines’ beachside residence. Jared and I got our hands stamped at the door, and were immediately coerced by two enlisted Marines into a foosball massacre. At 3-0 down, we realized we were in trouble. At 6-0 we saw our last glimmers of hope dashed by the sarcasm that can only come from a salty sailor on his own turf. “Hey man, I think these guys are hustling us,” one jarhead said to the other. We kept our mouths shut and blindly spun the levers. At 9-0 we finally scored but were mercifully closed out by a phantom give-and-go that made me wonder if the table were somehow rigged. War Corps 10, Peace Corps 1. I kept my mouth shout and thanked them for the game, heading towards the throbbing of music I haven’t heard in a long time.

What I’m about to say is pure speculation. Allegation is too strong of a word, and none of this can ever be proven, even with photos, which are surely fakes if they do exist. Some members of the Mauritania contingent may have possibly, kind of, sort of gotten naked and ran around the house. I wish I could give you a more concrete account, but I’m going to have to leave it at that. Me, I was there, I think, though I’m not convinced that it even happened. And maybe I wasn’t there, after all.

And then at some point in the evening I may or may not have seen the Pirates de-facto leader, an enigmatic, mysterious, almost mystical figure I’ll call Darius, walking around the party wearing only a banana leaf tied around his waist. This may (or may not) be the same fellow who called from a Mauritanian jail to say that he was caught crossing the border illegally after hours on his return trip. It’s hard to say, and again, even harder to prove.

It’s safe to say that Team Mauritania, using it’s own twisted metric system, made a strong showing at WAIST 2005. Other Peace Corps teams seemed to admire us (you guys are so crazy!), and the non-Peace Corps teams dreaded our very existence, resorting to strategies such as trying to intimidate us with logic. However, I’ve learned that criticisms from expatriate soccer moms like “you guys have too many batters in your lineup!” tend to sound a bit off the mark when countered with comments like “take off your pants!”

After a few days on bush taxis I returned to site, self-sentenced to a thousand hours of volunteering in my community until WAIST 2006. English classes and computer lessons are gaining momentum, the beignets are still fresh every morning at 7:30, and my home and garden are slowly coming together. But no matter happens in Kiffa, I’m unlikely to forget what may or may not have happened last week in Dakar.

* Not to be confused with my legitimately bad writing, this is a reference to Susana Herrera’s novel Mango Elephants in the Sun, a re-telling of her two long, boring years in the Peace Corps in Cameroon.

Musical Ghosts

2005-02-03T05:59:00.000-08:00

I feel as though a certain cruel but poetic justice has been dispensed. After complaining some weeks ago about having thousands of songs playing in the wrong order on my shiny new mp3/CD player, someone stole both the player and most of my cds.

For a few days I sat dazed on my porch listening to the squawking magpies, screeching roosters and wailing goats in my neighborhood, trying to pick out recognizable melodies. “Did you hear that?” I asked Adriana, who had come over to cheer me up, or use my bathroom, I can’t remember which. “Did that rooster just sing the theme from the Washington Post March?” Adriana sighed. “You’re no fun without music,” she declared, and she skipped out to the market and purchased a Cougar Radio Cassette recorder.

This machine, for the benefit of people who haven’t fallen into money, is shiny, black, about the size of a travel pillow, and is manufactured in The Future (no country of origin is noted anywhere on the box, set up guide, or the unit itself). The Cougar features “Auto Stop,” which allows the cassette playing engine to automatically sense the end of a side rather than most other tape decks which continue to rotate and snap the tape right off the reel. The two-inch speaker mounted inside a shiny silver grill practically guarantees that after the end of side A, your ears will be ready for a little auto-stopping. I notice from reading the manual that my model lacks the optional “Disco Light Bulbs,” (I swear!) but I admit that it’s not bad for nine dollars.

Since there’s only a small window in the Mauritanian day when you can find a radio station not dominated by a woman wailing over a possibly broken stringed instrument, we are lucky that previous volunteers left us a time capsule of sorts: three blue medical kits full of old cassettes. The tapes fall into two basic categories: never listened to Christmas presents and college mix tapes dubbed during moments of personal crisis.

In the former category you have titles like Jazz-A-Live, Mad About The Orchestra, and Instrumental Gold, which is coincidental because I was recently wondering where in Mauritania I could listen to Lara’s Theme from Dr. Zhivago. The latter category of mixes is even more strenuous, as it requires you to plunge into the psychological morass of a late 20th century Peace Corps Volunteer. Tapes with faded labels sporting titles such as “Crappy Mix,” “Sarah’s Road Trip” or the mysterious “Step Aerobics 1” suggest that maybe I’ll use this as an excuse to spend more time out of the house.

The Drivers Must Be Crazy

2005-01-16T05:46:00.000-08:00

=== The Drivers Must Be Crazy ===
“Imagine you’re relaxing in your garden and someone comes in and starts having a barbecue.” Cigarette wedged in the corner of his mouth, a pot-bellied Frenchman in khaki pants and work boots floats a metaphor to summarize the American occupation of Iraq.

I nod politely, not wanting to offend a man offering front row seats to one of history’s most intrusive foreign incursions not involving a declaration of war.

I am speaking of the infamous Paris-Dakar rally race, now originating in Barcelona and just called “The Dakar.” Jean-Paul was one of the more than two thousand names on the enormous competition’s 2005 payroll, and I sat with him in the scrubby Mauritanian desert on a blue metal trunk, under an orange beacon signaling the end of Day 11.

The cars, trucks and motorcycles vying for first place on that windy day covered 695 unforgiving kilometers of sand and rock in Mauritania’s inhospitable middle (“c’est pas possible!” a Mauritanian friend squealed while studying the route). Indeed, just hours earlier, two-time moto champion Fabrizio Meoni crashed nine kilometers south of Atar. A helicopter evacuated him almost immediately, but despite all measures taken (vehicles are stenciled with rider name, country, and ominously, blood type), he died one hour later of a post-traumatic cardiac arrest. This was the second fatality of the week, and I was blissfully ignorant of both as I waved childishly to the haggard drivers as their battered vehicles – strapped with spare tires, tattooed with sponsor logos, and bursting with navigation equipment – limped through the gates of Kiffa Uninternational Airport.

As an American living in one of the staging towns, I seemed to puzzle all parties. “You live here? On purpose?” was the vibe I got from rally employees. “You live here? On purpose?” was offered by many Kiffans, as well.

Good taste probably dictates that a comparison not be made between the second Iraq war and the 2005 Dakar, but I dare anyone to furnish justifications for this race that sound even remotely as reasonable as the case for removing Saddam Hussein from power in 2003. The spirit of competition? Innovation in off-road technologies? A poor country GDP-sized profit? What accounts for the 40 fatalities – not including locals standing in the wrong place at the wrong time – suffered over the race’s 25 year history? [UPDATE: As I write this, I am informed that a five-year old Senegalese girl was crushed by a service truck on its way to Dakar.]

Like all auto-racers, these daring and fantastically skilled drivers compete of their own free-will, and participating countries surely get some cash thrown their way, so maybe it’s fruitless to argue whether The Dakar is “worth it.” But what’s undeniably true is that at the race’s conclusion on Africa’s westernmost point, the competitors, crews, cooks, and cameramen will pack their metal trunks and head home, leaving the residents of North and West Africa wondering what just roared by in a cloud of dust. Not a lot of upside for the average Mohamed, but no one in the race’s wake wants to miss a peek, either.

=== Quotable, Notable ===
REVELATION, from one of my conservative sources in reaction to a media clipping parsing the 2004 election: “It’s fascinating to hear how stupid and unprogressive I am!”
* ENGAGED, Ben Birken and Sarah Berkowitz (Birkenowitz?), and Nick van Brunt and Eva Swayzee. Please try to get married on two back to back weekends late in 2006 ok?
* WELCOME, to Haley Eileen Magnuson, born 9.5 pounds (mostly hair) on October 29th 2004 to happy parents Dave and Jaime. Hopefully in defiance of Haley’s name I will get to see her more than every 76 years.

=== Luke Responds to the Brits ===
Getting letters to the editor published is not my forte. In 1999 the Berkeley student paper printed my rebuke about some local non-issue, and I might have pointed out a Super Mario Brothers flaw to the Nintendo Fun Club newsletter back in ’88. But otherwise it’s a long list of rejections. But a recent Economist article hinting that poor Americans no longer can become prosperous roused my national pride, so I decided to give those ironic ultra-moderate-free-traders a piece of my mind. Via AIM you can read it even if they don’t!

SIR – Your report describing the demise of upward mobility (January 1st-7th 2005) in America neglected to mention the higher standard of living that all classes of Americans have achieved over the last quarter century. While most Americans still face economic challenges, growing home ownership and luxuries ranging from hot water to microwaves to the internet in almost every home have enabled comfortable lives for millions outside of the top fifth.

As an American living in a low income country, I am reminded daily that the United States is still viewed as the land of opportunity abroad. A friend tells me of his recent trip to the US, where after completing a computer training program he earned $600 a week performing manual labor. Compare that to $400 a month for his technology job in Mauritania, and a relatively high cost of living. Even in this conservative Islamic republic, the most frequent question I hear is “how can I get a visa?”

=== The Pudding Code ===
I’m back in Kiffa just over a week and already I’m ravenous. See, I just spent two weeks on a Christmas Break Culinary Rampage. Within minutes of arriving in Nouakchott, Caleb and I lit out for Pizza Lina. “Hawaian Pizza, can of Kronenburg 1664 and a banana split, please, and just bring it all at once!” In Dakar my addiction was schwarma – gyro meat wrapped in a pita with veggies and sesame sauce. One day I had three from the same place over a period of 6 hours waiting for a friend to arrive. She got there two hours after the last schwarma, so, hey, I thought, howsabout a pizza and a carafe of wine for a little after dinner snack? Why not?

In France, my parents treated me to one opulent feast after another. Chateaubriand, salad, soup, chocolate mousse, and whatever they and my sister couldn’t eat was a typical meal. You can call it a blessing if you want, but it’s not fair that it takes Guinness Book eating habits to move me from very skinny to skinny!

One bright spot for the next few weeks: my sister gave me about a dozen packages of pudding mix. They are all removed from their original packaging and labeled with a special code, to save space, you see. Yesterday I prepared “BUTT2” or butterscotch 2 and ate the two cups of creamy calories immediately. That’s 600 calories with 2% milk to be exact, but I use full cream. As I write this I’m eyeballing the package of “CHOCOBIG” which yields three cups. Maybe after that I’ll give the stove a rest and try my “INSTVANBIG” – big instant vanilla for beginners. That’s a whole lotta puddin, folks.

Music from A - Z

2004-12-16T04:21:00.000-08:00

=== Music From A to Z ===
The world follows a few clean and simple rules. Gravity pushes down. Money is expensive. And Pearl Jam’s debut album “Ten” starts with “Once” and ends with “Release.” You can’t drop a golf ball up, buy a new car for five dollars, or start “Ten” with “Alive” and conclude with “Why Go.” You just can’t!

I was somewhere over the Atlantic ocean when my attractive Air France flight attendant confirmed that the rules had just been broken.

“Excuse me, Madame, what’s the first song on Pearl Jam Ten?” I asked quickly as though it were one long, agitated word.

“Well, I don’t listen to your terrible American music,” she said loudly, and then followed in a whisper, “but everyone knows it’s ‘Once.’”

I pulled my elastic banded sleep mask down over my eyes with a whimper as my self-inflicted punishment was revealed: two years of alphabetized musical hell.

What music to bring to Peace Corps and how to play it is a big decision. Maybe in the olden days porters followed you dragging a harpsichord, but technology has made the decision more complicated. Will it be an mp3 jukebox, mp3/cd player, simple CD player, or a barebones portable cassette player? Not knowing what my site would offer, I took the middle road, copying my 150 or so CDs onto 15 mp3 CDs, which look just like normal CDs but play on computers or special CD players. I thought I was safe.

My flight to Paris began with the mentioned above shock and got worse in a hurry. The Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Blood Sugar Sex Magic” opened with “Apache Rose Peacock” instead of the badabadabing fade-in of “Power of Equality.” Dave Attell’s comedy album was mangled into 30-odd two minute tracks, completely out of sequence. Albums with numerically titled songs, such as the Beach Boys “409” or John Mayer’s “3x5” started off with that track instead of the legitimate opener.

Now, that might not mean much to casual music fans raised on best-of’s, compilations and bad radio, but to me, albums mean something. WHAT happens WHEN is ordained with no lesser significance than Anna Karenina being flattened by a train, or a sled engraved with the word “Rosebud” burning in a fireplace.

Peace Corps is a tumultuous experience, and every volunteer must have their pacifier. For me, it’s music, and on Day Two my pacifier was dipped in mud and shoved back into my mouth upside-down. But maybe it’s a good lesson in endurance, something for the resume. “I spent two years in the blazing deserts of Africa,” I can brag to employers or graduate schools, “and I adapted to having my favorite comedian say ‘thank you, Goodnight!’ at the end of his first joke.”

I hope you never have to experience this feeling. I have written a short ironic article about an aspect of my life in the Peace Corps; it follows below, and I hope you find it enjoyable.

==== Quotable ===
From New York magazine article on the murder of Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov: “If Paul were alive today,” said Serge Ossorguine, “he would be very disheartened by his murder.”

=== Been on my mind a lot lately ===
Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?

=== Chilling in the Second Hand Economy ===
In the 1990s a middle-class Barcelona family owned a medium-sized refrigerator. They probably never thought twice about it; maybe it preserved their leftover paella and chilled a bottle of wine before a dinner party. After a good many years, the fridge was deemed less than worthy and sold to second-hand traders, who slipped down the rugged coast of Africa to Nouakchott, Mauritania. Now, $150 later, it’s in my kitchen, cooling ice tea, a can of evaporated milk, and the last slice of a six kilo watermelon. Next to the Air Iberia sticker (from which I base my tenuous Spanish pedigree), we’ve slapped UN Volunteer and HIV/AIDS awareness stickers, and under a camel magnet (thanks Jay!) hangs a comic given to me by my DC roommate and now resident of southern Afghanistan, Joel H. It features two strange looking men sitting at a bar. One says to the other “if you’re going to hum, hum. If you’re gong to drink, drink. But please, stop whatever it is you’re doing now!”

Living in the third world, you grow accustomed to the second life of first world products (do I get an award for that word play?). Mercedes with a quarter million miles are eased out of Europe with the help of environmental regulations. Used clothing stores run a brisk trade, outfitting Kiffa residents in shirts saying things like “Pray Hard!” (not kidding!) and “Albany City School District.” Consumer goods near or past expiration dates crowd the shelves of epiceries, leaving traces of developed country liquidation sales.

For every product that seems logically designed for the Mauritanian market – my favorite being Rose full cream milk a English/Arabic logo and tetra-pak for years of un-refrigerated freshness – you find two that seem to have just shown up uninvited.

But they find a home eventually, or it moves on. It’s a ragged, motley, under-the-radar brand of capitalism, but to the folks here it’s as normal as cous-cous. (do I get penalized for that ending?)

=== Up To The Minute PCVmeter ===
Name: Luke Filose
Currently Reading: KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Agents, by John Barron
Just Read: The Possessed, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Coldest morning so far in Kiffa: 61 degrees Fahrenheit
Favorite Gadget: Solar camping shower
Favorite Food: Jello Instant Pudding (not available in stores)
Favorite Song: Billy Goat by Nick van Brunt
Favorite Album: “Talking Timbuktu,” Ry Cooder with Ali Farka Toure
Most satisfying moment: Hitting fast running goat with a rock at seven meters

Learning to Search

2004-12-12T08:51:00.000-08:00

=== Learning to Search ===
A few years ago a boss called me at home asking if I could locate and e-mail an INS document she was having trouble finding. Before the phone conversation was over, I had already sent it to her, and a few days later I finally divulged my secret: Google. So when a United Nations volunteer asked me to lead a session teaching high school students how to use Google to learn more about HIV/AIDS, I was excited. My French and Hassaniya still stay upright only with training wheels, but I certainly know how to use a search engine.

The class was part of a week long United Nations campaign to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and volunteer-ship. It was originally scheduled to start on a Monday, and Malick, the computer trainer sent from Nouakchott, was ready to teach when SONALEC cut the power “on accident” at the cyber café. Malick had to leave the next day, so that’s when I stepped in. Luckily, I had a translator – Abdul Baghry, science teacher at the Kiffa Lyceé and Red Cross volunteer – and fellow PCV Andrew oferred to help as well.

I expected my first teaching engagement in Mauritania to be a disaster, so you can imagine my delight in experiencing only a minor flop. The 10 computers in the main room could barely stay connected to the internet at the same time. Everyone was logged off halfway through the two hour class for no good reason, resulting in a 30 minute interruption. Students had very little knowledge of French, and in most cases knew just enough about computers to be dangerous. One student got frustrated with the performance of his computer and double-clicked Internet Explorer 12 times, resulting in 12 cascading windows that paralyzed his anemic machine. Another seemed annoyed when I told her that you actually need to spell key words more or less correctly if you want good search results. Sorry, but ‘Moritaynia’ isn’t going to get you very far. Other students decided they were more interested in checking out Arabic news sites. Even my translator wanted to check his e-mail by the end of the training. Hey, it’s free internet time, after all.

The bill of 10,000 Ougiya (about 40 USD) was picked up by the UN – your tax dollars at work. I think it was worth it. The nuances of Boolean operators will have to wait for another day, but at least ten Mauritanian high schoolers know that there’s an ocean of information on HIV/AIDS and everything else, if they can only afford a dollar an hour for the boat.

=== Mauritanian Financial Relief ===
In a past edition of AIM I bemoaned the state of Mauritania’s legal tender. The largest unit is 1000 Ougiyas (UM), between three or four American dollars. Nearly all the bills – 100, 200, 500, 1000 – are revolting to the eyes and nose. Notes are torn, taped, and stapled together, as well as being encrusted in filthy grime. Every bill must be checked to ensure that the serial number on the left matches the number on the right. A sleepy-looking shopkeeper who hasn’t dusted his shelves or picked up the trash in 17 years will spot mismatched serial numbers on a 500 UM note before you can walk out with your packet of cookies.

Don’t feel bad for me; relief is on the way. No, the government hasn’t wizened up enough to migrate to the West African CFA (heaven forbid Mauritania ever considers itself part of West Africa). But they’ve created a 2000 UM note and issued sparkling new versions of the existing increments. The 1000s are especially glorious. Yes, the deep almost purple-tinted turquoise looks a bit like Monopoly money, but no one plays that game here (except for the government, heh heh) and the bills are a crucial half inch or so shorter that allows them to actually fit into western wallets. 5000 and 10,000 UM notes are still needed, but at least with the 2000 you’ll only need 750 bills to buy that used Mercedes 190 diesel sedan.

The Village Life and The Gimme Economy

2004-11-10T06:09:00.000-08:00

=== The Village Life ===
Halfway into the ten kilometer walk to Agmamine – a village of a hundred or so families west of Kankossa – I thought my backpack was leaking. What else could explain the water streaming down my back, soaking my pants and shirt? Caleb took a peek. “It’s just sweat, don’t worry,” he said easily. The guy actually seemed to be enjoying the walk, while my aching back was about to start with the “are we there yets?”

Andrew and I joined Caleb for two days at his site, a beautiful village of thatched and mud huts resting on a sand dune next to Lake Kankossa. We departed Kankossa at 4:30 in the afternoon, with the aim of arriving just as the sun sets and families break their Ramadan fast. After a couple of short stops for water and photos (the walk is just trees, animals, and a dirt track road, like a desert nature preserve) we came upon Agmamine’s first houses as the sun disappeared beyond the lake, the call to prayer rang out, and families lit their cooking fires in the dimming light. Our backpacks fell heavily onto the dirt floor of Caleb’s house and we greedily broke fast with milk and dates. And we weren’t even fasting!

Coming from Kiffa, a city of 50,000 people with mostly gridded streets and walled compounds, there’s something incredible about descending onto a village of people living together with no fences, walls, or other distinction between what’s mine and yours. We slept a hundred feet from 50 head of cattle, and my only complain is it can be difficult to sleep through the night in Agmamine. There’s something about a donkey’s cry to give the illusion that it’s in great pain and is holding you responsible.

As an agro/forestry volunteer, Caleb has a number of projects in the works, including his own demonstration garden (about 200 times the size of my little plot). A 25 square meter garden demands a lot of fertilizer, so the three of us spent some time shoveling and transporting manure to his compost pile. We loaded up the wheelbarrow with fresh cow pies, and with one person pushing and two pulling with string we trudged through the sand to Caleb’s garden. We worked early morning and late afternoon and rewarded ourselves often – slightly chunky, sour milk (a bit like a yogurt drink) and fresh milk being my two favorite treats.

I still laugh at the fact that with all the cows in Agmamine, Caleb’s biggest culinary nemesis happens to be milk. He’s also not too jazzed about the local food, so after Andrew and I polished off our plates and bowls of milk, he said “thanks guys. Now they’re going to know that some white people DO eat and drink a lot.”

=== Humor Remembered ===
Early on the first day of Kiffa’s polio vaccination campaign, the man and woman on my team began walking in separate directions. “Ane lahi nbull” Hasan said. I said “definitely” and followed him, not thinking about what he said but assuming I should follow the man. When he saw I was following him, he stopped and said it again. “Ane lahi nbull.” I looked at Merriam. She said it a third time. Ohhhh, he’s going to go PEE. I’ll go with you, then, I said to her, trying not to look too embarrassed. Quick Hassaniya lesson: You now know that ibull is the verb “to pee.” Mbulti is “my bladder” and if you really have to go, you can say “mbulti lahi tishreg” which means “my bladder is going to burst.” I’m saving that line for my next long taxi ride.

=== The ‘Gimme’ Economy ===
Warning, I’m going to become momentarily philosophical. One of the most impressive aspects of the work of my last NGO (EnterpriseWorks) is that they don’t give things away. Period. From what I’ve seen about the NGO activity in Mauritania, it’s Handout Central. I’m still learning about how these organizations work, and I’m sure they do good work, but there’s something awry when a seemingly wealthy rural Mauritanian (has a large herd of cattle and owns a boutique) wants to enclose his garden and is waiting for a local NGO to donate fencing.

It makes sense for him – who wouldn’t try to get it for free? – but what effect does this type of activity have on economic development? In essence, NGOs and donor funded projects have become a permanent addition to the supply chain in almost every economic sector, all across the developing world. NGOs raise money, through development banks (say, the World Bank), bi-laterals (like USAID) and (World Vision or Lutheran World Relief, for instance) from generous individuals all around the world hoping to do some good.

The contortion of good intentions, whether its fencing given away to a farmer who could have afforded to buy it, or donated food and clothing that’s resold in the markets, doesn’t appear to hurt anyone in the short term. Joe gets a tax write off in Chicago, Mohammad the NGO agent makes his friend happy, and Brahim has a new fence to keep out the goats. But in my ever changing and admittedly ‘newbie’ opinion, the Handout Economy doesn’t only ignore sustainable development. It prevents it. And to think I haven’t even read Ayn Rand yet!

=== Book Review ===
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
By Haruki Murakami

It’s possible that Haruki Murakami is already amongst the world’s best novelists. Or at least, that’s what it says on the back of his 1985 novel about unicorns, data encryption, and split consciousness. But in all seriousness, Murakami is a master of modern day surrealism, and while “Hard-boiled” is one of his early books (A Wild Sheep Chase takes some of his techniques and brings them forward with more sophistication), it sings from beginning to end. Even the title, don’t you want to say it again and again?

Like most of Murakami’s work, “Hard-boiled” takes place in Japan and brings in gangster elements that aim to swallow up a down-and-out but generally likable business man. In this case, the protagonist (none of the characters are given names) seems like your average techie, but actually he mentally encrypts and decrypts sensitive data for the government using cutting edge equipment implanted via a procedure that burrows straight into his “core consciousness.” He realizes that he’s in the middle of a crisis that could end the world as he knows it when he comes home from a job one day and realizes that he’s been given a unicorn skull that some bad guys want to steal.

I know what you’re thinking, it sounds like science fiction, and there is a certain Blade Runner (or “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” to be more exact) quality to the book, but Murakami writes beautifully with delicate metaphors at every turn. For instance, a character doesn’t just fall asleep, sleep washes over him or casts a net over him, and he doesn’t just hurt from a wound, he waits at the crossing for a boxcar of pain to pass. And though his characters are anonymous, they come to life, like the 17 year-old chubby home-schooled girl genious who wears pink everything and makes surprisingly delicious sandwiches while he crunches numbers on a job.

There’s a great interview on Salon (Google search Murakami and Salon) that gives more information about the guy – he clearly has a love-hate relationship with Japan as he writes about his homeland but lives in the U.S. And he constantly drops in the names of western songs, movies, and books, for example his novel “Norwegian Wood.” Or maybe that’s just globalization talking. If anyone has any more Murakami lying around, I would be happy to write more reviews. Hint, hint!

What Color Is Your Thumb?

2004-10-19T06:29:00.000-07:00

=== 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

2004-10-13T03:17:00.000-07:00

=== 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.

The Book of Peace Corps

2004-09-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

===AIM Archives===
You’re not going to believe this, friends. Now you can re-read my posts and share them with friends, even though you erased the emails! I put them up on the web, but really, please don’t say you like my blog. It’s not a blog. It’s just that the word blog is in the name of the web site and I use them for the space. I don’t BLOG, ok?
http://lukepcrim.blogspot.com

===The Book Of Peace Corps===
It’s been two weeks at site, and I feel as though our presence in Kiffa is beginning to resemble an installation of Mormon missionaries. Instead of peddling eternal salvation in black suits, Adriana and I knock on doors around lunch and dinner time, hoping for cous-cous and sweet, milky zrig.

Andrew is set – he found a nice family just outside of town and has his meals there for a reasonable fee. I’ve found a house, but no regular place to eat yet. Adriana is still seeking both. But so far we can’t complain. In addition to the half dozen or so families we met through introductions from former volunteers or Peace Corps staff, we now are acquainted with another five or six families. For now, Adriana and I move as a pair, plotting our next meal with precision. “Let’s try so and so’s” one of us suggests, and armed with tea and sugar or dates or gum arabic as a gift, we open the family’s gate and peek in. After the initial greetings, you can measure the level of hospitality, but overwhelmingly, almost instinctually, they say “bismillah” and point to the tent or the salon, meaning sit down, relax, and stay awhile. You plop down on a mattress or a rug or the floor and drink tea, have lunch, and drink tea again, sometimes over a span of 3-5 hours. Don’t visit someone in Mauritania at their home if you have somewhere else to be.

Amazingly, you can do this at a complete stranger’s home with no hard feelings. Socializing is usually with the older children or family members your age, and often you don’t see the older folks at all. That’s out of respect, not indifference, as they figure that they’re cramping your style, when really, they are hoarding all the good stories and wisdom.

At first, it was hard to go about making friends like this, as I hesitate to “impose” and ask for things directly. But if a man moved to Mauritania and waited for invitations for supper, he’d surely starve within a week. So I chant the phrase “carpe diem!” endlessly under my breath and hit the pavement. I have to keep telling myself that as a rule people tend to make more food than they need, and that they like getting visits from white folks like us. Eventually I plan to settle on a few families for most meals (I’ll pay them or buy groceries), and also cook a few meals a week myself and with the other volunteers.

I am very fortunate with the discovery of my neighbours to the east. The father works for the Ministry of Agriculture and was quick to say that his home is “comme chez vous.” One woman roasts peanuts and sells them lightly salted and entirely delicious for a nickel a bag. The other woman fries up sugary donut hole type treats morning and afternoon, a welcome addition of calories to my diet.

A good number of the wealthier families in Kiffa have satellite television, and I’ve had to endure a lot of tube time so far. It’s difficult to phrase “actually I prefer not to watch television… I didn’t watch much in the states and it’s part of the reason I came here” in Hassaniya. But TV is nice because it means you don’t have to talk all the time, and while this is just a guess, I will hazard to say that Egyptian music videos are more powerful than any hallucinogenic drug, and much safer.

I will not kid you when I say that we watched a Cinemax style soft-core adult film with the naughty scenes cut out. It was called “The Fighters” and starred one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen. His character had a sort of “Shining” ability to see the future and was using it to fight crime, but chiefly he was using it to get into the pants of his female partner. I suspected the movie was a fraud, and when his partner said something like “You know Steve, I’d really like to know you better” followed by a savage cut in the film and suddenly breakfast…my suspicions were confirmed.

===Luke’s Up To The Minute Personal Statistics===
Age: 27 years, 1 month
Height: Still a smidge shy of six foot one, but a bigger smidge post-buzz cut
Weight: A lightning quick 150 pounds (down 10-15 from my fat pre-departure days but holding steady)
Favorite Song: Tie between John Scofield’s “Let it Shine” off Groove Elevation and Frank Zappa’s “Star Wars Won’t Work” from Make a Jazz Noise Here
Currently Reading: Thomas Friedman’s “From Beruit to Jerusalem”
Favorite New Personal Possession: Clear Plastic Pitcher and Set of 4 Tumblers (first batch of sun tea almost ready!)
Favorite Hassaniya Word: Majnuun, means crazy, but in a bad way
Favorite Food/Drink: 70 cent Chicken sandwich from newly discovered fast food joint down the hill from house
Number of blister beetle attacks suffered: 4
Number of blister beetles killed before they could “strike”: 100+

===The Innocents In Mauritania===
I’m nearing the end of Mark Twain’s “The Innocents Abroad” and it is now my mission in life to know more about that man (anybody got a biography of Mr. Clemens they want to send across the world?). I love everything about the book, a biting travelogue from a 19th century American travelling through Europe and the Middle East. I’ve selected a passage describing a small Middle Eastern city in a way that gives you a bit of Mauritania as well. But mind you this was written in 1869 and is a satire of the closed-mindedness of that time (at least one hopes):
“It is just like any other Oriental city. That is to say, its Muslim houses are heavy and dark and comfortless as so many tombs; its streets are crooked, rudely and roughly paved, and as narrow as an ordinary staircase; the streets uniformly carry a man to any other place than the one he wants to go to and surprise him by landing him in the most unexpected localities; business is chiefly carried on in great covered bazaars, celled like a honeycomb with innumerable shops no larger than a common closet, and the whole hive cut up into a maze of alleys about wide enough to accommodate a laden camel, and well calculated to confuse a stranger and eventually lose him; everywhere there is dirt, everywhere there are fleas, everywhere there are lean, broken hearted dogs; every alley is thronged with people, wherever you look, your eye rests upon a wild masquerade of extravagant costumes; the workshops are all open to the streets and the workmen visible; all manner of sounds assail the ear, and over them all rings out the muezzin’s cry from some tall minaraet, calling the faithful vagabonds to prayer; and superior to the call to prayer, the noises in the streets, the interest of the costumes—superior to everything, and claiming the bulk of attention first, last, and all the time—is a combination of Mohammadan stenches to which the smell of even a Chinese quarter would be as pleasant as the roasting odors of the fatted calf to the nostrils of the returning Prodigal. Such is Oriental luxury—such is Oriental splendor!”

I now have the problem of viewing everything I see here reflexively through this character’s lens… the stubborn and arrogant notion of people places and things being “improper” or “depraved” or “uncivilized” or “below average” as happens again and again in the book, is JUST TOO MUCH FUN! I suggest you try it on your next vacation wherever you go. But try to keep it inside your head, ok?

===Track The Heat===
Bookmark the following link and see what kind of weather I’m dealing with!
http://www.wunderground.com/auto/virtuallythere_jan3/global/stations/61498.html

Luke Goes To Disneyland Africa

2004-09-14T13:36:00.000-07:00

Greetings friends. It’s been a long time since I summoned up a newsletter, but I’ve been very busy. At least, busy for a Peace Corps volunteer. I find that my two hour mid-day nap is simply another appointment, not to be missed for any reason, so as you can imagine the day can go pretty quickly. I’m in Kiffa and just signed a lease on an AWESOME house. It’s enormous, near the market, has a great rooftop with a view of the city, and a huge yard with a giant stone wall around it (my late Uncle Michael, a master builder of 18th century stone walls in New England would probably not have been impressed, but it’s cool nonetheless!). There’s electricity, but no running water, and we already have plans to chip in and make it the regional house. That means painting, cleaning, gardening, and filling it with as many luxuries as we can afford. So get your shots and come visit me in a few months! Round trip flights (Nouakchott-Kiffa) are running 60 bucks and the plane leaves on Wednesdays. My apologies for the inconsistent temporal nature of the content below… Take care all – Luke

=== PHOTOS, sort of ===
http://ksuzannec.smugmug.com
Thanks to Suzanne, who wisely mailed some film home and had the photos posted online, you can see some pictures of our group at the web link above. I haven’t seen them yet, but Suzanne insists that they are good, and that there’s at LEAST one with me up there. Aren’t we the most attractive group of young Americans denied real food and showers for weeks on end?

=== Ready For Affectation ===
In just a matter of hours, I will be affectated. Don’t cry, have no fear, that just means in bureaucratic speak that I’m now a PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER! So you can write PCV instead of PCT on your letters (I’ll send you a Kiffa address soon but for now B.P. 222 in Nouakchott is fine) and be proud that I fulfilled the obligations of training. I was even rated “intermediate high” in Hassaniya, perhaps one of the most charitable acts in history. During my language test, the examiner asked me to tell him a story. I said “One night, a hedgehog went into my room, and I was very afraid because I thought he wanted to eat me!” That was my ENTIRE story.

The swearing in ceremony was a nice affair, with a colorful tent set up at the Kaedi lycee and plenty of breeze to keep us cool and armed guards to keep us safe. Speakers included the Deputy Mayor of Kaedi (a black African woman!), the director of one of the government ministries, Peace Corps RIM Director Obie Shaw, U.S. Ambassador to Mauritania, Joseph LeBaron, and three members of our group. Julian gave brief remarks in French, Jordy in Hassaniya, and Tarn in Pulaar. I was especially proud of Jordy as she sat next to me in language class for the last three months. Tarn, too, won my respect as Pulaar seems like a very difficult language. But Julian was fluent in French when he got here, so all he had to do was go up, look pretty, and talk into a microphone! But I kid, he was awesome too.

The Ambassador spoke in Arabic, then French, then English. I understood almost none of the Arabic, about 85% of the French, and frankly the English was confusing too – we were supposed to “plumb” or “plum” something out of our Mauritania experience, and also he assured us that something will be or was “adumbrated,” either for us or by us or to us. Suffice to say he has a doctorate from Princeton and a correspondingly impressive vocabulary.

I finally had occasion to wear the Ugandan outfit (dark red patterned pants, shirt and hat with gold embroidery) that I purchased back in ’02. It was a hit – the hat definitely makes the outfit work, otherwise you look like you’re wearing pajamas. It has a pan-African look (to symbolize my “commitment to sustainable development across the continent” I’m sure) and most people asked if I had it made in Mauritania. I lent my new bou-bou and pantaloons (which have an approximately 150 inch waist that you have to cinch up with a 6 foot long belt for about 15 minutes prior to wearing) to Jared who looked mighty fine in the ensemble.

=== P.S., I’m Affectated! ===
Yesterday, our first day in Kiffa, we got to play “protocol.” It’s sort of like going to Disneyland Africa. Dozens of fabulous attractions!!! First, visit the Wali (governor of the Assaba), then the Hakim (head of Kiffa district), then the mayor of Kiffa, then the head of the Gendarmarie (like FBI or sheriff), then the Chief of Police, then the Ministries of Rural Development, Health, Education, etc… A lot of these rides (especially “Wali Mountain”) have a very long line, but guess what, Toubabs get to skip to the front every time!!! The officials were generally very gracious and happy to see us (“call me anytime, I sleep with my cell phone next to my ear” or “I have no personal life, if you have a problem call me day or night.”), but maybe it was because Adriana wasn’t wearing a veil. Ooh la la!!!

=== Happy Birthday Sister ! ===
Everyone join me in wishing sister Angela a very happy 29th birthday. Angela, I’ll send you something Kiffa-ish soon and when you come visit, I’ll buy you the steak and French fries dinner at the restaurant Toure Koumbo ($1.84), and maybe throw in a Fanta (37 cents). Because I’m a big spender like that.

=== Presenting to the Choir ===
For a final project in training, each business trainee had to give a presentation to a group of local business people. No big deal, right? How about in Hassaniya? Gulp! I picked a topic that I thought was sufficiently vague and easy to bring audience participation in to compensate for the lack of content: a framework for introducing new products and services (for convenience store owners). Here’s a little lesson: if your subject has the word “framework” in it it’s going to be difficult to discuss in Hassaniya – beginning, advanced, whatever. Hassaniya is a spoken language for everyday life, not for teaching abstract concepts.

Armed with five notecards covered front and back, I gave the topic my best shot and I think our audience of four epicerie managers enjoyed themselves. At least, they enjoyed watching me TRY to speak their language. Although one of them teased me afterwards – “Hasan, you weren’t speaking Hassaniya. That was Arabic!” My teacher had warned me that a lot of the vocabularly was actually Arabic for the reasons stated above, so I wasn’t surprised to hear that, and also wasn’t too upset to learn some Arabic vocabulary.

The content was somewhat mediocre, I think, to put it charitably. And one thing I learned – Mauritanians aren’t particularly enthusiastic about “brainstorming.” We’re used to that in The States – it’s ok to fire off a handful of ideas, most of which turn out to be bad – but here I think folks here are more protective of their ideas and the reaction others might have. But maybe that’s true worldwide – anyone attempting comedy writing or media relations (try pitching a sketch/joke to a cynical comic or a potential news story to a jaded journalist) has to put aside the fear that their idea will be chewed up and spit back out like a bad piece of goat shoulder meat.

=== Final Town Meeting Lineup ===
Our last town meeting (talent show) was AWESOME! I’ll try to recreate the “set list” as best I can.

Introductory remarks – Luke with “special guest” sidekick Trip McKoy, a middle aged rancher from Texas sent to Mauritania to work with animal husbandry (played by Mike). [Luke: How old are you, Trip? Mike: I dunno, 47? I drink a lot.]
Keith and Jen sing “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard” (Luke on guitar)
PCV Katie sings a pretty song
Caleb present a hilarious poem backed by cutting edge ambient guitar work from Jared
PCVs Caroline and Dan tell a story
Tarn reads a poem in Pulaar (inspired by a period of solitary confinement in his house during a rainstorm)
Sarah sings “I Will Survive” – Luke on guitar (playing the Cake version, much to the confusion of the singer)
Stage 2004 Superlative Awards –Keith and his team of presenters (a la the Oscars) announced such awards as “Most Likely to Spend a Night in Mauritanian Jail,” “Most Likely to Marry a Mauritanian,” “Most Integrated,” and things like that. The prizes were somewhat fitted to the award. Our soon to be jailbird got a phone card, and our stagiare most likely to borrow your stuff got a really ugly shirt, with the justification that “no one will EVER want to borrow this!” It’s a red and blue short-sleeved collared shirt plastered with pictures of the American rapper “50 cent” and “Make Money or Die Tryin” in block letters.
Jared and Luke try to sing “Alive” by Pearl Jam (they can’t remember the lyrics and instead zoom ahead to the guitar solos which they hum in falsetto)
Keith and Luke bring down the house with “Livin’ On A Prayer” – the entire crowd sings along, especially on the chorus, driven by Keith’s aviator sunglasses and rock and roll instincts. Potentially the first ever public acoustic performance of this song.
Photo slideshow by Kyle that included some choice pictures of Luke – reading to children, playing Frisbee, sporting a Mohawk, kissing a severed goat head, etc, you know, typical Peace Corps stuff. I promise you will see pictures SOON!

=== Boring Geological Information About Kiffa ===
Longitude: -11.40 °
Latitude: 16.63 °
Elevation: 115 meters (on the Assaba Plateau)
Average Temperature: 17,000 degrees Celsius

=== Hassaniya Poetry, A Thing of Beauty ===
[Translated, probably badly]
The dung beetle has no politics
during the rainy season
He continues to roll the dung
but he doesn’t know who’s dung it is

The dung beetle is truly a magnificent site. I normally see one when I’m lying down outside in the evening, and I hear the sound of a mini-avalanche coming my way. From the shadows emerges an animal the size of maybe those erasers you put on top of a pencil, pushing a ball of dirt (with a special Cracker Jack surprise in the middle) the size of a GOLF BALL! And he’s going at a human’s walking pace, which appears very fast for a creature of its size, and with a cargo so hefty. I haven’t yet figured out where he’s taking his loot, but he flies all over the place, turning left, turning right, seemingly lost, but always in a hurry. Because of this bug, many Mauritanians, especially those who live “en brousse” or those who are especially poor, don’t have latrines or perhaps even feel the need for them. They walk a ways away from the house, do their business, and a few hours later the magnificent dung beetle has cleaned up for you.

A Basic Haircut

2004-08-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

An important question presents itself: what to do about the hair situation? I could spend $2 for a haircut, but the male trainees who have visited the local barbers so far would have been better off giving a rusty tuna can lid (as Patton Oswalt might say) to a toddler and saying “have at it!” Instead I gave my electric shaver to Jordy and asked for a basic haircut. What I ended up getting was a haircut for basic training. I thought Jordy was a safe choice because she's Italian and went to art school. But perhaps one should not entrust their head to a modern Italian artist – they might pursue a harsh premise, such as the Fellini Creative Crisis look, or in my case the Timothy McVeigh coif. But I joke, actually I quite like my first “buzz cut.” It’s fun to run your hands through it, I don’t need much shampoo, and it’s COOL. While I can’t really see what it looks like (my mirror is missing so I have to resort to looking in puddles of water), ladies of various nationalities have given me good reviews so far. "Nte shebib," they say (in my head), which means "you lookin' GOOD!"

=== We Love Maaouiya!!! ===

As you might have heard, there was reportedly an attempted coup d’etat in Mauritania. The political situation is truly a mystery to me 400 km from the capital, and don’t worry, I’m not in any danger, I swear! As a response to the “events” in the capital, a pro-Maaouiya rally was staged in Kaedi the other day. That’s President Al-Taya’s first name; apparently everyone knows him very well as you always refer to him as Maaouiya. The rally consisted of a few hundred, maybe thousand people who wandered around town shouting slogans and hob-nobbing with ministers and semi-bigwigs (Maaouiya stayed in Nouakchott). 1950’s looking trucks loaded down with happy but slightly bored looking folks and sporting a loudspeaker sputtered dust, smoke, and happy slogans along the road.

My vantage point was the roof of the auberge behind Sydu’s epicerie, where we talked Mauritanian politics. “Sydu,” I asked. “If you went out there and started saying ‘Maaouiya sucks! I hate him!’ would you go to jail?” “No,” he said with a smile, “but it would not be a good idea.” The conversation later turned to the United States and immigration (coincidence that talking about local politics makes him think about leaving?). “I know a guy,” he began, “who went to America for six months to work, and when he came back he built an enormous house, bought a new car, and got nice clothes.” I nodded, trying to guess where he would go next. “And do you know what he did there?” I shook my head. “He slept on the street, and everyday for money he would take peoples' dogs for a walk. That’s all!” I asked Sydu if he would do that if he had the chance. “No, not me,” he replied. "I want to stay here." But what if I could get Sydu a visa to the States, would he come? He’s single, no children, and he’d drive a cab, sweep up, mow someone’s lawn, and probably even walk their dog if he had to. Sheikh, the manager of Sydu's sums up a common feeling here. "I want to go to America to work, but I'm afraid of America." Afraid of what, the culture, I ask? "No, I hear that a violent crime happens every second!"

=== The Near Death Players ===

Town Hall Meeting – the periodic talent show at the Peace Corps training center has been an unexpected bonus for me. I’ve become the de-facto master of ceremonies and have been able to re-explore the realm of stand-up comedy. But I’ve thrown away my old open-mic shtick (sorry, or you’re welcome?); now all my jokes are about goats, gastro-intestinal distress (ok, no change there), bad food, and sometimes donkeys. It’s fun, even if the materials works about as reliably as a bush taxi. And I’ve even thrown in a few guitar performances to torture the audience in different ways.

For the most recent show I decided to try my hand as a playwright of sorts. In between classes I hammered out a one-act about a Peace Corps trainee going in for an evaluation with the Director. The boss calls him the worst trainee he has ever seen (You SUCK at the Peace Corps!). But it turns out he has the wrong file – same name but wrong year. He’s actually a model trainee and all is forgiven. Get it? Ok, so it’s no Moon For the Misbegotten, but it's my first attempt. As for the casting, the aloof director was perfect for Tarn, our highly-cultured PCT who isn’t afraid to drop “Tristan und Isolde” into conversation. And the trainee had to be Keith…why? I dunno, Keith just has that ability to connect with an audience, and, well, he’s easy to talk into last-minute stuff. They both agreed, but a couple hours before showtime, we have a problem. My stars are sick. Keith is laying down "in his trailer" groaning like a donkey pulling 50 sacks of rice, and Tarn is limping around the lycee with a Tubercular cough that echoes all the way to Selibaby. “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Keith says, looking up at me from his mattress. “Hack hack- I’m up for it- hack hack hack,” Tarn assures me amidst a fit of consumption. But when showtime rolled around they were dynamite. The skit went over well, despite the fact that the writing was too dense and the punchline slightly mixed up. Keith’s character grabbed his file from the director, “Hey, this file says 2004!!!” Uh, Keith, you’re supposed to say 1994, I say silently from the audience. “It IS 2004, John,” Tarn shoots back. Oh well, it’s Town Hall Meeting, not Masterpiece Theatre.

To make the moment even more surreal, the table serving as the Director’s desk was covered with about 50 opened condoms, left over from the medical session “demonstration” that morning. Your tax dollars at work… ;)

=== Riddle of the Week ===

What has thicker skin than an elephant, makes you cry, and is green, is the size of a grapefruit on the outside, and is the size of an orange on the inside? A Mauritanian Grapefruit!

=== Into Africa ===

Banana trees with their wide floppy leaves hanging down. Sprawling vegetation and oppressive humidity. This is the “Africa” that many have in mind when they apply to Peace Corps. Man do you get a raw deal in Mauritania, where you’re lucky to see a tree every 50 feet, and you soon learn to recognize 100 shades of brown. But the other day we got to go to the REAL Africa, a citrus grove near the village of Rindiau (just 10 minutes by car outside of Kaedi proper). Situated right on the Senegal river and well irrigated, this lush oasis of fruit trees is a rare site in Mauritania. Of course I’m kidding about being cheated out of the “real” Africa. There’s no such thing except for the fantasy one gets after too many episodes of Tarzan. And frankly, after a few nights sleeping outside in Kiffa with no mosquito net (and no bites the next morning), I might say that pictures of the Cameroonian rainforest will suffice, thank you.

=== Your Hassaniya is…a Joke ===

Hanging around at Sydu’s today I made myself comfortable on a stack of boxed milk as the chair were all taken. This was at the manager's suggestion; normally I try not to sit on the merchandise. Eventually a chair opened up and I pounced on it. “My butt is cooking the milk,”*** I offered in Hassaniya as a justification. One of the guys spoke up after the laughter died down. “Aziza and Fatimatu, they are learning real Hassaniya. But you, Hasan, you are learning JOKE Hassaniya.” It’s true. If it doesn’t rhyme or say something obnoxious, chances are I won’t remember it. I save up lists of meaningless rhyming phrases like “ebkem ib kem” (how much for a mute?) and “atrash b’ash” or (how much for a deaf?), sort of like Eminem preparing for one of his rap wars. Eventually I will meet a Hassaniya rapper and DEFEAT him in his own tongue!

*** Thanks to comedian Lord Carrett for introducing me to the concept of “butt-heat” and it’s workings.

We Built This City On Rock & Sand

2004-08-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. I just returned from my first visit to Kiffa – soon to be my home for the next two years. It was a good trip, and compared to the 20 hour road trip the Atar trainees faced coming back, a relatively easy voyage.

We went from Kaedi this time which takes most of an entire day (as does the Nouakchott -- Kiffa trip), and leads you north-west and then hooks east at Aleg, the home of MEAT in Mauritania. On our way home we practically watched our sheep get slaughtered and barbecued before our eyes! On the way over it was eight or so of us in a Peace Corps 4x4, pretty comfortable, all trainees and two facilitators, one for the Kiffa group and one for the Ayoun group (further east down the Road of Hope). The way back three of us brought facilitators for our planning workshop here in Kaedi, to facilitate our planning for the planning of many facilitations to come. Or something like that.

I should report that I had my first angry tirade against a shopkeeper who tried to sell me milk at 250 ougiyas instead of 200. A little backstory: I buy a box of milk or two everyday and it's always 200 in Kiffa and Kaedi, so before we left Kiffa, we stopped in an epicerie and I chugged my milk down on the spot. As I handed the woman 200, she said no, it costs 250. My travel-mates all had gone back into the car and were waiting for me as I argued with the lady. "EVERY DAY I BUY THIS FOR 200!" I practically yelled, feeling indignant not over the 20 cents but the PRINCIPLE of the matter. She was just trying to rip off a Toubab and thought she could get away with it. I heard a voice from the car, "Hurry UP, Luke!" I yelled back: "If you want to leave then come help me! I'm having a problem with my milk!" Several hours later, Adriana's counterpart was still laughing about that. "He couldn't get proper change for his milk, ha ha ha!!!" Oh, but I got it, and that shop keeper learned a LESSON! You don't mess with Luke's milk!

In Kiffa we stayed with the family of Amicire, my counterpart and instructor at the city’s vocational school. We took a quick tour of the campus – there’s workshops for woodworking, masonry, metalworking, and electricians (what is that field called anyhow?), as well as a computer room where I can teach computers or whatever else I decide. For now, I think I’ll focus on teaching how to build refrigerators using discarded milk cartons, as it seems to have about as much chance of success as me talking about basic accounting skills! I haven’t kept a check book since high school!

=== Hurts So Bad ===
Parody is like chewing gum for me. When I’m bored, nothing to do, don’t want to study, etc, I make fun of things. Which explains my growing list of Mauritanian parody songs… I’ve yet to figure out most of the guitar parts and transitions, but I’m planning a monster medley for the upcoming Town Hall Meeting (talent show) at the training center. Here’s a list of what I’m working with so far followed by the band who did the original:
We Built This City (On Rock & Sand) – Jefferson StarshipIt’s Hip To Be Moor – Huey Lewis & The NewsTin Shack – B-52’sSmooth Camel Racer – SadeDonkey’s Making Love – Bad Company

If you have any good ideas, or preferably BAD ideas, send them along and I’ll give a special PRIZE to any song parody I use in my medley. Prize delivery might take 12-14 weeks, on approved credit only, $12.99 shipping and handling fee.

Going To Kiffa With An Achin' In My Heart

2004-08-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Just a short message to let you know that my site has been selected; I'll be going to Kiffa, the capital of the central/southern Assaba region. This good news, I think. Sorry about the bad Zeppelin reference in the title of this email...

Here's a map of the countrywww.only-maps.com/mauritania-map.html

At around 32,000 people, Kiffa is one of the biggest cities after the capital Nouakchott. It's predominantly Moor with a few minority communities including Pular speakers and even some Malian immigrants. It's hot, of course, but relatively dry (my trainer said she rarely saw a mosquito) which is good for the malaria issue... I might well have electricity, cell phone no problem, but running water is still a work in progress, I hear...

My job will vary depening on what I decide I want to do and how the wind blows, but officially I'm assigned to a vocational school as a Business Education Advisor. Typically in this role volunteers teach basic business or computer classes, but I hope to do some more general small business/cooperative consulting in the community as well. I think they might go well together. I will not be taking over for another volunteer -- there has not been a PCV in Kiffa for a year or more... but I don't mind (I can do it MY way)!

And in other good news, Adriana and Andrew, two of my favorite stagiaires who's names start with A, will be in Kiffa too... teaching and doing health work, respectively. Caleb will be a couple hours south of us working the agriculture angle, along with my new friend Annika (Berkeley grad, as is Adriana) who is a 2nd year volunteer in Kankossa. And we're on the paved "Road To Hope" that goes from Nouakchott all the way to Nema 1200 km away so it's not too difficult to get around (not EASY, but not as bumpy) and volunteers should be passing through every so often.

There's even an airport that has flights every so often. I leave tomorrow morning at 6:30 am for a 5 day trip. We'll meet our counterparts, get to know the area a bit, and then take our first intra-city public taxi trip back to Kaedi for the remaining weeks of pre-service training. In a wacky coincidence, my counterpart is the husband of a former Peace Corps volunteer who I met in DC at a film screening...

Should be fun! More to come.

--Luke

Dust & Locusts: Two Potential Exports

2004-08-08T10:17:00.000-07:00

=== Dust Storm Coming ===I’ve just started my (camping!) shower one Saturday afternoon when I look up into the sky and notice some clouds. Why does it always seem to rain the day before we go to or from the training center, I wondered, feeling bad for the trainees who come in from further away on bad roads. Then, a moment later I look up again and see a fast moving cloud, and brown as the sun was hot moments before. Uh oh, a dust storm, and here I am half wet, in the buff, and my laundry is hanging on the clothes line. I figured I had about two minutes to get inside. Throwing my clothes back on and leaving my shower hanging from the wall, I dashed out of the bathroom and saw Bayeh (host sister) already taking my laundry off the line, one of a dozen acts of kindness you receive here daily. I got inside my room without eating too much sand and tied some twine to my door and anchored it to my backpack to keep it from blowing open… and here I am… typing the latest AIM dispatch in my clay bread oven slash bedroom.

=== Babow, Locust Fighter ===

There’s a new addition to the practically defunct Kaedi airport – a plane! And with that, a pilot, Ahmed Babow of the Mauritanian Air Force, I guess you would call it (no jets, as of yet). I met Babow at Sydu’s, the epicierie (basically The Peach Pit for you 90210 fans) which sits next to an air conditioned hotel of sorts… Our first interaction went like this:

Me: Isellam aleykum (Peace be upon you).

Babow: Are you a Muslim?

Me: No.

Babow: Then why are you speaking Arabic?

Me: I dunno… Are you English?

Babow: No.

Me: Then why are you speaking English?

Turned out he was kidding, and the conversation did continue. When he said he spent two years in Florida learning to fly, I couldn’t resist. “Oh, you graduated from Al-Qaeda’s flight school?” I asked. He laughed, and held out his hand for a semi-high-five-slap-hand-shake, a sign here that your joke was appreciated. In fact, when he left the Sates after graduation (he attended a civilian flight school in Ft. Pierce, Florida, with the sponsorship of the Mauritanian military), his American girlfriend advised “now don’t you go flying into any buildings, you hear?”

Babow is one of the lucky ones, and by that I mean Arab looking folks who want to learn to fly planes. He graduated just weeks after 9-11. Within a few days of the events, he said in so many words that the FBI knew his favorite flavor of ice cream and whether he cries during sad movies.

The other day, Babow asked me if I wanted to see his plane up close, and I agreed with the ecitement of a small child, partly my boredom talking, partly my life long interest in aviation. We walked out onto the tarmac past some other stagiares (sorry, ladies, I asked if you could join us but he said even one was probably too many) up to a boxy and tired looking Defender (an old British twin engine turboprop, from World War One, Babow joked). She holds up to nine passengers and goes slow but plays an important role right now in Mauritania. Tucked under each wing are tanks, holding not fluel but insecticide. Babow’s job is to fly straight into the locust swarms you might have heard about on CNN (one visited Kaedi last week) and score a few points for Mauritanian farmers and herders. “How many have you killed, Babow?” I ask him in front of a few other trainees who don’t know the back story. “Millions,” he replies, coldly, holding his smile just long enough to make the others uncomfortable. The plane was a veritable crime scene, with locust guts splattered all over the engines and windshield and front side of the wings. His first request to the maintenance crews? Windshield wipers.

Babow has all the swagger of Val Kilmer’s Iceman and claimed that his boubou cost $100 US. I’m not saying he’s lying, but I’ve asked him to take me boubou shopping to see if they really do get that expensive. I’m still not convinced that you stay cool in one of those things, especially with the poofy pirate pantaloons underneath, but they do look really nice and I should get some local threads while I’m in Kaedi, which is apparently known in West Africa for its fabrics and tye-dying. When I finally do get you some photos, I hope there’s at least one of me looking like a white guy trying to look like a Mauritanian guy.

=== Daily Thought ===

In our health handbook there’s a recipe for Home Made Roach Bait, which includes such mundane ingredients as flour, water, a chopped up onion, and then voila, boric acid! That’s probably how some would describe my tuna casserole. Bad dum bum. But then it goes on to say, “be careful, boric acid can be irritating to the skin.” CAN be irritating, they say. Are there people out there who LIKE boric acid on their skin? Is this a new trend in cosmetics? Ok, this bit is going nowhere, hope you are all well!!!

-- Luke

Watching Your Language

2004-08-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

== 17, 18, 19, ummm, let’s skip to 30 ===
Hassaniya can be a bit of a tight rope walk. One tiny slip and you’ve said something drastically different from what you intended. “I’m going to tickle you” can easily come out as “I’m going to take a, um…well… a you know what on you.” And I learned why kids here laugh when you teach them English numbers. The word “twenty” means “my little female reproductive organ” in Hassaniya, except not so delicately worded. So when I went to the bank the other day and said “Will you accept this 20?” maybe that’s why they escorted me outside?

=== Molasses. Glaciers. Sloths. Internet access. ===
Some things were just designed to be slow, and the internet access in Kaedi is no exception. During a presentation to the Peace Corps business trainees, the new general manager of the Association of Mauritanian Internet Providers spoke about the challenges of providing service in this country. I don’t envy him. There’s a government monopoly on the supply side, basically meaning that an internet café pays $300 or so USD a month for about 64 kilobits per secord or roughly enough for one dial up connection. Split amongst 15-20 computers it’s not hard to see why sometimes it takes 20 minutes to send one email. And when the line goes down, you still pay... Sounds a little like the heyday of AT&T, but worse…

He quoted the investment in the internet café in Selibaby as being $100,000 US. It’s hard to imagine how you could spend that much here on an air-conditioned room with 15 generic PCs, but I guess anything is possible… maybe it is expensive to make the required 12 color copies of the President who stares at you from every corner of the room? And is it just me or does he look like Vicente Fox’s long lost twin?

Back to the financial situation, some back of the envelope math led me to believe that at 200 ougiyas (less than a dollar) an hour you’d need five or more years to make your money back, assuming a pretty healthy profit margin an, ahem, that all computers are occupied 24 hours a day. In other words, government (or foreign aid) subsidies will be floating my ability to send emails for the foreseeable future.

Goat Head Picnic

2004-08-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

Greetings everyone. The weather in Kaedi is cool after a big rainstorm last night -- thunder and lightning and gusty winds forcing me to sleep inside my room, or oven as I prefer to call it. Everything is going fine -- I look forward to hearing from all of you, and my apologies if I can't respond to individual emails very effectively. Take care! -Luke, 222-688-0095

=== Goat Head Picnic ===

Last weekend I joined fellow trainees Jess and Jordy for a picnic in the country. Information was minimal as we headed out of town. “They slaughtered a goat.” “Somewhere outside of town.” “You’re invited.” That’s all I needed given the monotony of my routine the last couple weeks. Class, cous-cous, hang out at the deserted airport, a bottle of milk, more cous-cous, sleep… I realized I hadn’t left a 2 mile radius since arriving in Kaedi a month ago. So we piled into a 4x4 and rumbled out of town down a dusty road as jerry cans filled with water sloshed in the back. After 20 minutes we stopped at a large thorny tree and sat on mats. One of our hosts was already lighting charcoals next to a plate spilling over with meat. At the base of the tree, the remains of the goat rested ominously. Intestines, lungs, skin, still properly arranged. I tried a joke: “This goat looks sick.” As the cook went to work, we played cards, drank round after round of tea, and enjoyed the relatively cool breeze. The flat scrub around us was surprisingly green after the recent trains; I felt like I was on a poorly maintained golf course. After maybe an hour, one of the Mauritanians pointed up into the air. Hanging from a branch not 10 feet from our noses was the goat’s head. Now that’s a picnic! (picture of me with the goat head forthcoming)

The meat was good, the ice cold mango juice beyond description, and the company was great – six twenty-something Mauritanian guys, who all ganged up playfully on a seventh, a lot like my friends and I might do back home. He was a good natured and resilient character, with lots of catch phrases, such as “It’s good for your color,” which he said whenever he offered something to eat or drink. Every so often they’d wash and turn to the east to pray and I’d turn to the west and wave to America, or so I imagined.

In true Mauritanian fashion, we stayed a long time and drank gallons of tea. And also in Mauritanian fashion, when we roared off in a cloud of dust that afternoon, we left behind dozens of cans, bottles, bags, and other pieces of trash. The goats, or donkeys, or someone else will deal with it, I guess the thinking goes. Or perhaps with the lowest population density in all of Africa, there’s always a clean tree to sit under next time…

=== Blister Beetle Blues ===

A blister beetle lands on your arm. Three guesses as to what happens next… we were all told about this little beast upon our arrival, but I got to meet one face-to-face, unfortunately. Hanging out one evening, I felt something on my arm and looked over too late to catch the culprit… some redness, probably a mosquito bite, I thought (incorrectly). Had I washed the spot immediately I would have been fine, but some hours later I looked again and a one inch square blister had broken out, puffing up off my skin with a jaundicy yellow like make-up in a horror film. Ok, maybe not that bad. Taking the advice of some Mauritanian staffers, I waited about 24 hours and then popped the sucker. It was awesome! Ok, maybe not that good. (Don’t worry, I sterilized the entire city with alcohol swabs first…)

Though I thankfully haven’t yet seen some of the scarier insects Mauritania has to offer, I still feel as though I’ve been bitten or roughed up or harassed by pretty much everything you can think of… mosquitos, fleas, ants, beetles, and bugs I can’t yet identify. My sheets are already stained with the blood of the bugs unlucky enough to sneak their way into my mosquito net. I now feel like the “heroic” John Kerry when, posed with a death penalty question during a debate long ago, he apparently responded, “I know something about killing.”

=== Your teacher is crazy ===

Sydu is a 34 year old black Moor who works at a nicely stocked epicerie (like a 7-11, kind of) near the Kaedi airport. It’s on my way to town and language class and has a wonderful selection of refrigerated products including milk, water, soda, juice, and even frozen Western candy bars. So it’s inevitable that Sydu and I would have met, but the fact that we’ve become friends speaks more to his sense of humor/personality. We have fun. He speaks Hassaniya, French, some English, and even a few words of Spanish, so we communicate in a malange of four languages. “Mi casa, su casa” he said with a grin, as he offered me a chair. “Do you have change today?” I ask as a test, handing him 300 ougiyas for a 250 ougiya beverage. He pulls out a gem: “It’s your lucky day!” We both write down new words and phrases, but he has a knack for remembering almost everything I teach him, whereas I can scarcely remember the first letter of the Hassaniya equivilent of someone’s lucky day. He brings out his best new line when Peace Corps Business Trainee Meme (known as Nina back in Chicago) comes by. “Meme, you look like a million ougiyas today!”

=== A Toubab On The Wall ===

All eight or so business trainees were recently paired with local entrepreneurs to learn how the informal sector operates in Mauritania. I sat intently as counterparts were announced. A manager of a microfinance institution… a owner of a car parts store, a manager of a women’s tye-dying cooperative… and Luke, your counterpart is a… welder. A welder? What do I know about welding? What do I have in common with a welder other than that we both wear glasses at the office? I guess I would find out.

On my first visit, I followed PC Business Trainer Racey into the dark office of Mohamad Salek Ould Libchir, owner of the Menuiserie Metallique just off the main drag of the Kaedi market near the taxi park. Without looking at me, saying hello, or acknowledging my presence in any way, Salek turned to one of his workers and said “I’m going to the bank.” I stood confused for a moment, then stumbled up the steps from his office right into the maelstrom of a busy day at a welding shop. A power saw whined to my left as its teeth fought through a metal pole. To my right, a welding torch connected with a door frame, launching a cascade of sparks over my head. I slipped into a corner, hoping to observe the operations as a “fly on the wall” until Salek came back. That role was already taken by 40-50 actual flies buzzing around me, but I did my best. I met the employees one by one. A ragged bunch, ranging from 13 year old apprentice Hussein to 30-something Moussa. At Salek’s welding shop, bring your local language, because they don’t take English, or French if you want to be precise. Hopelessly lost in any conversation, I took in the noises and smells of the business. Metal dust filled my nose. The sounds of a sadistic dentist filled the air. After nearly an hour, Salek returned. I cornered him and asked him questions as he talked to five other people simultaneously. I struggled to understand his answers: between six and ten workers depending on the season, I’m the richest, best welder in Kaedi. Started in 1989, no, 89, no EIGHTY nine do you even speak French????, he seemed to say with his expression. I wrote furiously. He pointed at my pad of paper with a disapproving look. “So I can remember better,” I said. “You shouldn’t write with your left hand,” he said.

This relationship is going to take awhile, I thought…

=== Good Dog, Happy Man ===

Most Africans I know or have heard about aren’t much for pets. My Ugandan friends thought the idea a bit odd, an animal that serves no purpose and takes up resources. The story of the famous Ali-Foreman fight in Kinsasha goes that the Congolese were against Foreman from the beginning as he strolled off the plane with a German Shephard, the same breed the Belgians used as a tool of colonial oppression. So I was surprised to find that my host family in Mauritania has a dog. He’s nice enough, don’t get me wrong, though I would prefer he not crunch on a bone at three in the morning a foot away from my tent. But then one evening during dinner a neighbor’s cow wandered into our compound. A big, beautiful animal, with impressive horns, and a bellowing moan suggesting that he was a little lost. Our dog sprung into action, barking like mad, and guiding the cow out of the area. Ah, I get it, he’s a herding dog! It’s a herding culture. Sometimes it takes a while for things to click for me here. “Kelbne zein” I told my host father after the incident. Our dog is good! He nodded and grunted a little. No crap, he was probably thinking.

Proceed to Phase Two

2004-07-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

It's the end of Phase 1, a big accomplishment by any account. We've
successfully survived 2 or so weeks with our host families, 6 hours a day of language class and an assortment of minor illnesses and maladies. I have a few items of amusement for you this time, hope you enjoy, and that you are all having a good summer.

=== Mauritanian Bocce Ball ===
The same time each evening, a group of men gather on a sandy side street near
the Kaedi airport for a game of Patang. Or Batang. Or Batanga. Whatever.
Anyhow, the game is a lot like Bocce Ball so far as I can tell, and yesterday I was
coached on the ins and outs by one very intense fellow. He was a slightly pot
bellied black moor, with sagging blue jeans, and an almost handlebar mustache.
We sat against a crumbling brick wall, and he leaned in close to give me a
whispered play-by-play. “See that guy in the white shirt –Army Captain, very big man in town. And him, blue shirt, good player, a champion. Oh look, a good throw, but not close enough!”

Basically, three teams of three start off by throwing one small rock, that’s
the target. Then everyone gets three throws, and you try to get as close to the
little rock as possible and knock everyone else’s ball away in the meantime.
And no, my friend assured me, they don’t play for money. “It’s for the sport,
the competition, the fun of it,” he said. We’ll see what happens when I throw
1000 ougiyas onto the court and tell them it’s time to show them how the Toubabs play P/Batang(a)!

=== Bad Jokes Make the Medicine Go Down ===
I spent 24 hours in the infirmary this week, getting over my first Mauritanian
bug. Not a big deal. It was nice to have the company of PCT Dara, who might
not have enjoyed it as much as me. For example:
Dara: I wonder how the village people are doing?
Luke: You mean those really gay guys who dressed up and sang YMCA?
Dara: I have to go throw up now.

=== Host Dad Journal Entry #1 ===
Somehow I was able to get my hands on a journal written by one of the host
parents of a former Peace Corps trainee in Mauritania. You won’t find this anywhere else, so enjoy!

9 July – I got a new toubab today. His name is Phil, and I can already tell
he’s a real piece of work. First of all, he’s got 12 pieces of luggage, each
weighing about 100 pounds. The guy needs a whole crew of people to carry his
stuff, like he’s Livingston discovering the source of the Nile or something. But
actually it was cool because we got most of his bags yesterday and got to look
through them. I wonder if Americans always travel with that much hot sauce?

Let me count the stupid things he did in the first 20 minutes at my home.
First of all, he categorically cannot speak any useful languages, so he just smiled
and nodded as I introduced my wife, my kids, my neighbors. Within five minutes he used the word for animal dung when he meant to say “sea” or “river” or whatever he was going on about. And after he put his stuff in his room (which he’s sure to destroy with that little bottle of bleach!) he came out and sat on our new mat with his dirt encrusted sandals. Good one, Phil.

12 July – Phil brought out a photo album and showed us his ostentatious family and friends with all their jewels and wacky get ups. Everyone’s anorexic and acting overly happy in the photos. Ah, who is that you’re so tactfully pointing
at with your filthy left hand? Ah, your girlfriend, I see. Boy did she get lucky with this Peace Corps thing… man I crack myself up…

15 July – Brett has been here almost a week, and today he finally broke down
and washed some clothes; I think he figured that eventually one of my womenfolk would crawl over to his room and offer to do it for him. Sure… what do we care, he won’t smell any worse than that half brown half white goat with the broken leg who sleeps in his own droppings. So anyhow, he takes one bucket, fills it with water, and then puts like 15 articles of clothes in there. Total novice move. Then after a timid effort to actually clean the clothing a bit he has to take a break. He takes out one of his nine colored plastic water bottles and
rests under a tree awhile, swatting flies away, practically looking up into the
sky and mouthing the Toubab word for “mommy.” Finally, about two hours later he hung the clothes up on the line and they all blew off and got muddy. The clothespins are over there in the jar for next time, buddy!

17 July – Took Phil to my newphew wedding yesterday. Why do we even bother? I know we signed up for this and I do respect the mission of Peace Corps, you
know, to help American kids grow up and all that, but Phil, you have to get a
grip. First of all, he brings out his new “African clothes” which look ridiculous
on him and is asking everyone at the wedding all these ridiculous questions
like “how was your voyage” to someone you just met for the first time. Earth to
Phil, Uncle Moussa hasn’t traveled out of the neighborhood since ’81!

I May Be African...

2004-07-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

=== I May Be African… ===

Recently I had lunch at the home of another Peace Corps trainee, who is residing with the family of a local government official. After the meal we watched French television in the cool living room and sipped icy beverages. I told the host mother where I’m living, and she noted that there’s no electricity or running water in my neighborhood. “I may be African, but I could NEVER live like that,” she said. “How are you doing with it?” My actual answer: “fine, thanks.” My internal answer. “Well, I was doing just FINE with it until I realized that I could watch the Tour de France and drink sodas at your place! Thanks a LOT!”

=== Drawing A Crowd ===

Privacy takes a back seat to community in Mauritania. For example, as I write this, a dozen kids are standing around me asking me questions and laughing at me. Adults tend to leave you alone unless you address them, but the kids in Kaedi can be a rambunctious lot, not to mention disrespectful, obnoxious little“you know whats” from time to time. We deserve a bit of razzing, in my opinion, walking around like aliens in their world with strange clothes, contraptions, and languages. I’m working on ways to deal with the bad seeds, for example the ones at the river who dare stand two feet from your picnic and stare at your American tuna fish packets. “You’re bad!” “leave me alone” and the always charming “may God shorten your life” are good stand by’s, but I’m working on something along the line of “I’m going to talk to your father” to see if the fear of a beating gets them to leave me alone for a few minutes.

=== Greetings ===

One fact of life in Mauritania is a tightly knit community where a la Cheers “everybody knows your name.” In the developed world, most times you’re lucky to get a “eh!” from someone when you say hello. Here, when people greet, they really go for it.

Joe: Peace out, my friend!
Sally: Same to you!
J: Everything groovy?
S: Absolutely!
J: Good health?
S: Yeah, totally, thank God!
J: Work treating you well?
S: No problem at all!
J: The fatigue getting you down?
S: Not at all.
J: Everything ok with your trip?
S: Piece of cake, thank God.…

and then the reverse …Imagine what you’d say to someone you haven’t seen in years. Then imagine doing that every day with everyone. I’m getting used to it.

=== Analogies of the Day ===
Waiting for an e-mail to open at the Kaedi internet café is like watching a bad movie one frame at a time. Sending an email successfully feels like winning one of the rigged games at a carnival. Completing a bath in the average Mauritanian latrine grants you the same sense of relief that you get when you submit your tax return to the IRS. Doing “your potty business” successfully? Like getting your refund by direct deposit.

=== AIM Book Review ===
Dark Star Safari by Paul Thereux

Take a trip through Africa with one of America’s most arrogant contemporary writers. Sound like an enticing advertisement? Well, much like my last review (John MacEnroe’s You Cannot Be Serious), arrogance can cut both ways, and in Theroux’s case, it’s entertaining, and also obnoxious. Theroux is an accomplishedwriter (he has written 20 or so books including The Mosquito Coast, and that was a movie so he must be good...) and knows parts of Africa very well. In fact, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in the “early days” in Malawi, where he was kicked out for being friends with an enemy of the state. He ended up moving to Uganda and teaching for some time at Makerere University befriending a young professor who is today the country’s Prime Minister.

The premise of the book is simple, and almost suicidal: starting in Cairo, travel south to Cape Town without stepping onto a plane. No one in their right mind makes the trip between Ethiopia and Kenya, for example, overland. It's often interesting, and shocking to hear what he has to go through to successfully make it from A to B. But because of his in depth knowledge of Malawi and Uganda, thebook really shines during his various homecomings. Due to his ability to speak the languages and compare the standard of living almost two generations later, he’s able to draw insightful conclusions.

But his trips through the touristy parts of Egypt come off as trite (making fun of the habits of unsophisticated western tourists is boring, not tomention arrogant), although he is able to come up with some interesting stories in places he’s visiting for the first time. Hear about the sham stories of the Zimbabweans taking over white farms (some claim to be veterans to get the land but in fact never fought in any war) and you'll realize the complexity of the problems Africa faces. But solutions don't exactly abound in Dark Star. His advice seems to be stop all foreign aid programs immediately. Yes, that is one conclusion after reading what I call the unholy trinity of anti-development books (The Road to Hell, Lords of Poverty, Tropical Gangsters), but it's easy to say and would probably be worse than what we have today. It's worth a read, especially if you have a long trip coming up.

Lost White Man

2004-07-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

It's a hundred and ninety six degrees in Kaedi today, after a night of steamy rain which will surely bring more frogs and flies to my neighborhood. My word processor plugged in successfully today, so I'm giving you some "old material" that I wrote a few days/weeks ago? Enjoy the leftovers, and take care!

=== Lost White Man ===
One by one, the neighbors of a black moor household in the Jedida quarter of Kaedi, Mauritania, drop by with the same question: “How’s it working out with the white guy who can’t find your house?”

Or so I imagine after my first attempt to go home without my host brother Bakr. I figured it was time to try it alone, as the flooding to the north of our house had subsided enough to allow me to finally take the easy route – a 10 minute walk straight along the edge of the Kaedi airport with two turns, one at the end, one at the beginning. No problem.

I left class and made the first turn onto the main road along the airport. But lacking a good landmark to indicate my street, I got a little confused after about ½ a mile. I stopped, looked around, and wondered what to next. Then I spotted a pretty girl of about 10 years walking towards me. She flashed a timid smile with a few missing teeth – it was my niece Lahla, right? She said nothing, and I tried to communicate “your house” and “go” in Hassaniya. She looked confused. Then, she started leading me back in the other direction. I started to get worried… maybe this wasn’t my niece but someone who looks just like her? I decided to try my 911 phrase, my “lifeline,” that I needed to go to the house of Mohammad Salem, the name Bakr gave me, the name he assured me everyone in town would recognize. Her look was one of utter disbelief. Plan B… I asked an elderly man in his front yard if he spoke French. Nothing. Mohammad Salem? Nada. I asked a woman across the street. Blank stare. Some kids came up and shook my hand and said “Ca va?” Relatively sure then that I needed to go north, I pointed up the road and motioned to the girl to come with me. As we walked, a man passed nearby. “Sir, I am trying to find the house of Mohammad Salem.” He pointed at the girl. “She lives there,” he said in French. Turned out we were about 100 feet away the entire time.

=== One Scary Buye ===
In Hassaniya, buye means “my father.” It sounds like “Boo-ya!!! But no one here thinks that’s funny except for me. Buye here in Mauritania is the biggest, scariest, coolest looking guy ever. His name is Tayib, he has a shaved head, a mammoth chest, and hands that could palm a 4 foot stone basketball. I would be utterly terrified of him if I had never witnessed his favorite activity, playing with his 20 month old granddaughter Boyike. He lies down on his back, and picking her up with one hand, he tickles, kisses, sings, coos, and does what every other grandfather in the world does.

But that’s not to say that he doesn’t intimidate me from time to time. Normally I eat dinner on a separate mat with my host brother Bakr, but the other night I ate with buye, as Bakr wasn’t feeling well. The meal was my least favorite – millet cous sous with some goat and fish. The meat and fish was fine, but this type grain is pretty harsh – a sandy texture and slightly bitter flavor. I was holding my own until a fish bone slowed me down. “Mange!” buye said in a voice that made the ground shake. I pulled the bone from my mouth and managed to take in another ball of food. This time, some goat grissle had me in a bind. “Mange!” he bellowed. I finally was able to swallow and I tried my luck with my Hassaniya. Ana staykfate, or I’m full. “Mange!” A few more desperate bites, trying not to get any meat or fish. “Ana staykfate?” I said with the intonation of a beggar. “Ilhamdullilah” he said, or praise be to God. I washed up, never so happy to be done with a meal.

=== (Lack of?) Talent Show ===
The 43 stagiares of PCRIM had their first Town Hall meeting on Sunday, July 4th, basically a chance to perform any skit, song, dance, or other talent. I served as the emcee and got a good laugh from the trainers when I announced the objectives for the show at the beginning (all Peace Corps meetings start with the facilitator reading objectives from a flip chart). My impression of Woody Allen serving in the Peace Corps went over pretty well (dropping in as many lines from Woody Allen, Stand Up Comic as possible), as well as the suggestion that the program director had selected one of the trainees to serve in Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine. The rest of the show was a lot of fun and at 30 minutes, just about the most we could handle at the end of the day.

In honor of Independence day, one of the PCVs (Lisa from Nouadhibou) brought barbecue sauce for the chicken and cookies to go along with our baked beans and sliced mango. After the show we enjoyed a brief fireworks show in the lycee’ courtyard, which felt a bit more like being shelled by rocket artillery, but still, fun. The night cap, a spontaneous sing-along of American tunes – the Star Spangled Banner, God Bless America, and even Take Me Out to the Ballgame…

And it's ONE, ONE, ONE drug violation and you're out in the old Peace Corps...

First Impressions of a New Land

2004-07-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

First Impressions of a New Land
In my initial moments, what struck me was the dirt and urban decay. Trash filled the streets and people walked about aimlessly. But I thought, I can handle this. The temperature was bearable, and at least a breeze was in the air. The cityscape was bigger than Iexpected, and most people spoke decent (but not great) English. But then I realized that I was in Philadelphia for "staging" and not Nouakchott. I was getting ahead of myself.

Over three days of Peace Corps "Staging" or "stage" (pronounced in the French fashion) in Philly -- a crash course introduction to PC policies as well as the challenges and rewards of a cross-cultural experience -- I took in a lot. New people -- 44 of them -- new ideas, and even a few innoculations. The most fun has been the people, my "stage-mates" and hopefully future Peace Corps Volunteers. Most of us are young and all share the same sense of excitement, fear, and anticipation of what we will face inMauritania. We have one marrried couple (Todd & Saman), someone from a town of 1200 in North Dakota, a half Chilean, half-Scottish volunteer born in Los Angeles, a young man who studied abroad in Niger during college (I had never heard of the place at that point in my life), a former corporate software support specialist, and more than a few Michael Moore fans. Several groups made their way to see Farenheit9/11 -- I was, somewhat happily (Bush conspiracy theorists cover your eyes), unable to get a ticket. I'll catch it on video in a couple of years, or maybe Netflix Mauritania!

=== Roommate Problems ===
Stage was hosted by the slightly discombobulated staff of the Holiday Inn in Philly's historic district. My room was ready for early check-in at 11:30, while some trainees couldn't get a room until the evening. Upon entering my room, I noticed a hat on the dresser, and then looking further, several skirts and female tanktops hanging in the closet. I called the front desk, and had an interesting conversation with the attendent.
Me: Hi, I just checked in and there are female clothes in my closet. What might that mean?
Clerk: That means your roommate is already checked in.
Me: A minute ago you told me my roommate was John. Now, I don't know John, but I am going to guess that he doesn't wear jean skirts and orange tank tops.
Clerk: Sir, could you bring your bags downstairs and we'll get you another room?
Me; Well, is this my room? I'd prefer not to move my 900 pounds of luggage again if this is my room. Maybe this person checked out and left some clothing behind?
Clerk: [Unintelligable answer using three different tenses, points of view, and lines of reasoning]
Me: I'm just going to sit here and watch TV till you get this sorted out.

Well, it turned out that yes it was my room, yes a woman left some clothing behind, and yes John did finally arrive. But unfortunately, due to medical issues, he decided to withdraw from the Mauritania PC program. I hope that John can resolve the issuesoon and enter another program soon -- he seemed like a great guy with a lot to offer any country. Despite the reason, however, it was still the first ET (Early Termination) in the group. One down, 43 trainees left. One all too real reality TV show that will never see the light of day.

=== Nous sommes arrives!!! ===
With much anticipation and more than a little persperation, I lugged my guitar case and ever expanding carry on down the stairs of the Airbus A330 and onto the tarmac of the Nouakchott airport. As I stepped out of the plane, my hat was immediately blown off my head and sand filled my mouth and eyes like a fine powder. Chaos at baggage claim -- surely we were in Mauriania at last. Without any major hiccups we all made it to the Peace Corps Bureau in onepiece. The drive to the office was short but in five minutes of city driving we saw a smattering of Mauritanians going about their day along with a healthy dose of camels, donkeys, lots of garbage,and wrecked and decaying car hulls.

After a crash course on safety, security, eating, greeting and pooping in a foriegn land (the most I will explain is that for wiping you're given a "free flow" and "puddle and wash" method, useyour imagination), we were rewarded with delicious pizzas. A current volunteer asked me what I wanted. I jokingly responded "Hawaian" knowing it contains pork, a no-no for Muslims. Before I could say "kidding" she was back with my favorite - a full-fledged pineapple and ham pizza.

=== NKT to Kaedi ===
Wedensday we went in a 5 Toyota Land Cruiser convoy from Nouakchott to the training center in Kaedi, 420 km southeast of Nouakchott. We started out by traversing the city center and heading out oftown, settling on a smooth paved shot that goes practically straight to Kaedi. Outside of NKT it turns to desert quickly, and I mean rolling sand dunes and not an once of chlorophyll in any direction. As we inched closer to the equator the density of treesbegan to increase, small scrubby bushes and medium sized trees our driver Mohamed called Acacia.

The drive, normally about six hours, took almost two hours longer than usual for one reason: new PCTs can't hold their bladder very well. I drank about two liters on the trip and enjoyed several pit stops in the desert on the side of the road. This is an interesting process. Basically everyone who needs to go gets out of the car and walks off the road until they find a bush big enough to hide behind. The first time, one of the female PCTs didn't go very far and several cameras were popping off shots as she wentabout her business. It's safe to say that Peace Corps volunteers in Mauritania are not shy about their potty business and don't (or shouldn't!) expect a lot of privacy either. The training center in Kaedi, a secondary school on loan to Peace Corps for the summer, is a well organized and expertly staffed location. After arrival, we grabbed our bags and went down a handshaking assembly line, greeting approximately 25 staff members with Bonjour, ca va, and asalam aleykum. Greetings in Mauritania are a very big deal, and knowing the way to properly greet someone in Hassanyia (an Arabic dialect) or Pulaar is essential for success in Peace Corps. I've got a long way to go!

The temperature in Kaedi our first day was a hundred and something, suffice to say that I was wiped out from the trip. At night most of us have been sleeping outside in our mosquito net tents. The air is warm, but the breeze is fantastic. At 6-ish in the morningsleeping becomes difficult -- roosters, goats, donkeys and birds all give a shout, not to mention the call to prayer and my stage-mates who think that going RUNNING is a good idea!=== First Mauritanian Meal ===During our first evening in Kaedi we ate twice -- goat and rice the first time and lamb and cous cous the second time -- the idea being to look at what the Mauritanians do and try not to be offensive. It starts out with washing your hands in a basin (someone helps you with water while you soap and rinse and then you grab the kettle to help the next person) and then taking a seat at one of the mats without using your right hand for anything to make it dirty. The food is served, and with your left hand kept in the background (did I mention I'm a diehard lefty?), you grab a bit of the starch, squish it in your upper palm, and lick it off. Then you can go forthe meat (in the middle of the round plate) and mix it with the rice and continue with the balling up and eating off your hand method. There's not much drinking while you eat (that would fillyou up prematurely!) and no cleaing of your hands or face. Once you've had enough, you lick your fingers and lips and go back to the basin to clean up. BURRRRRRP!

=== TORNADO!!! ===
Sleeping outside under the stars and a full moon inside a free-standing mosquito net tent is a wonderful thing. Until you're woken up to a staff member walking around yelling TORNADO! What hereally meant was sand storm, and it ended quickly (and even turned into rain), but it felt a bit like a chemical weapons drill (gas gas gas!!!). We took down our tents, scrambled inside the dormitory, and closed all the windows as much as possible (they'remore like shutters, no actual glass here). The dust started filling the room and we wrapped wet t-shirts, bandanas, or sheets over our faces and tried our best to sleep in the stifling heat. "And to think," we all probably said to ourselves, "you signed up for this!"

=== Half the Pillow It Once Was ===
Last Friday was pack-up-and-clean-up day in DC, the culmination of several weeks of a Veblen-esque orgy of conspicuous consumption. All of my clothes, books and gizmos cowered in the corner of my tornado-stricken bedroom, wondering how I would ever fit them intoa large duffel bag, medium backpack and messenger bag. My secret weapon -- Space Saver vacuum pack bags. These things (thanks to Hava for telling me about them!) are simply large plastic bags withone sealable end and a nozzle on the top. After filling two with about 10 pounds of clothing each, the power of suction reduced them to shrivelled little beef-jerky-esque remains of their former selves. Rarely is it possible to wound someone with a pillow, but shrink it down to an almost white dwarf-like density and watch out!

===The Penultimate Supper===
My weeks leading up to Peace Corps have basically entailed eating,sleeping, working (if you can call 5 hours 4 times a week working),studying French and of course hanging out with Beth and others. But almost everything revolved around eating. The horror storiesof Mauritanian food -- you'll eat millet for 6 months straight, an alien will come out of your chest, etc -- convinced me to live large during my last days in the U.S. I expect to lose a few lbs in Mauritania, unless of course you all send me enough tuna packets and Balance Bars to gain weight, in which case I'll surely be fired by the Peace Corps for overtaxing their mail system.

My last big meal in D.C. brought me to my favorite restaurant in town -- Lalibela on 14th and P Street Northwest. It's the cheapest and most delicious Ethiopian food in town and is very authentic, towhich the many tables of taxi drivers can attest. Friends packed the outside patio table and kept the food coming -- lamb, kitfo (spicy ground beef), vegetarian dishes, tuna salad, and of coursethe "Sponge Bob Bread." Trivia time -- Ethiopian bread (injera) is made from the grain tef, which is so draught resistant that all polinated flowers will produce grain even if no rain falls from thetime of polination to the harvest.

So yes, I'm a little attached to Ethiopian food but I'll be working hard to make the transition once I'm in country. It'll be tough to shake the bias, though. The other day my cab driver and I werechatting about Lalibela and Ethiopian food and I told him I was going to West Africa. He shot me a look of absolute disgust and said, "Oh, they don't have real food in West Africa!" Sorry, millet and goat, when I eat you I'll be thinking of injera and lambtibs.

Thanks for reading to the bottom of this monster first-in-country issue. I hope all of you are well and happy and are not too HOT and sweaty!!!

--Luke