Thursday, June 18, 2009

It was only two months, I don't know what you're all complaining about...

Oh alright fine. Due to excessive grumbling to the complaint department from many sectors of my apparently loyal readership I have decided to write an entry to fill you all in on the recent updates of my life, Thrills-Ville that it is. I suppose after the lovely baseball debate last time I was just so enthralled it took me a while to recuperate. Though I have to say… my dad’s comment makes sense. I think I could really get behind a team named the “Brewers”. Particularly if they bring that mascot back…
Firstly, and most heavily weighing on our collective first year mind these days, is the cancellation of Stage due to difficulties regarding the visas for the trainees. Stage, for those of you who don’t know, is that magical time when lots of pale Americans show up speaking English and learn what it’s like to have diarrhea for 3-6 months straight while understanding little or nothing of what happens around them. The cancellation of this joyous time has caused us quite a bit of turmoil as I’m sure it has caused distress among those very same pale Americans (though they do seem to be handling it well what with all the camping trip planning and whatnot). The official terminology right now is that Stage (stage with a long A because it’s French, not a short A as in “The stage-coach ran over the cliff.”) is postponed, not cancelled. But some of us are of the mindset that this thing just isn’t going to happen because if you try to have a Stage in August, you’ll overlap with Ramadan which means you’ll have lots of cranky fasting people teaching languages and running the trainings as well as having our future ED, GEE, and EE volunteers all arrive at their sites the day that school officially starts. Now if you’ve been following my blog you know that the day school officially starts is usually quite different from it’s actual commencement of classes, but this is a stressful possibility nevertheless. No, it seems likely that there will be no new class of volunteers this year – which leaves my class here alone without our second years and no newbies to make us feel competent and knowledgeable. It also means we will have to revise our situations with the regional capitals and where brousse volunteers can stay when they travel in. It means many sites will go a year between volunteers both this year and next year as PCRIM tries to get back on a normal stage schedule. We even speculate that it could mean some volunteers getting moved around this year for the sake of sustainability of some projects such as GMCs. Some people even go to the extreme of our unmentionable subjects and discuss the possibility of being pulled from the country. Let’s hope not. To any of you newbies who might be reading this – we’ve been thinking about you since January and we’re enormously disappointed that you’re not here… really. Bummer. So that’s where we are with that… now moving on.
So since Emily and I were on our way to Rosso to greet the new Stage class when we heard the news that Stage was postponed, we ended up just crashing in Kaedi for about a week. It was nice to have some time to catch up with the puppy dog Maggie who is taking a short vacation to visit her buddy Kelbi before Kelbi goes on a trip to Texas in July. Now I’m back in M’Bout, living the life. The rains have started, which wouldn’t be such a big deal (it lowered the temperature maybe 20-30 degrees on average but raised the humidity level by 50%... I’m ambivalent) if it didn’t have such a drastically negative effect on the possibility of road travel in the Gorgol and Guidimaka. I’m specifically referring to the fact that when it rains a dozen small to medium size raging rivers spring up across the yet unfinished road from Kaedi- M’Bout -Selibaby and traveling has the potential to turn into something resembling one of those “Raging River Rapids” rides at a theme park. At the least, the condition of the dirt and gravel road/path degrades noticeably and in some places severely. On the other hand, a good chunk of our desolate desert sprouts to a lovely lush looking green in the course of about two days. Bonus.
At the end of this month is the Girls’ Conference in Nouakchott. Each GMC picks three girls to go to Nouakchott courtesy of Peace Corps for four or five days. They talk, they do yoga, they go see the ocean (it’s pretty impressive if you think about the enormity of the ocean compared with the water scarcity that’s a fact of life for many towns here) they see impressive women from Mauritania speak and it’s generally a good time had by all. Last year, the male GEE PCVs were placed in home stays alongside their charges and mentors. Not the best idea if you think about it. This year they’ve wizened up a bit and put us in a currently vacant apartment normally occupied by third year PCVs doing their third year in Nouakchott. The apartment is conveniently located close to the best milkshakes in the country. The conference is the 26-30 of this month and with uncertain travel conditions Cortney and I will be leaving M’Bout (hopefully with the girls and mentor from Selibaby) on the 25th to spend the night in Kaedi before making the final leap on paved road from there to Nouakchott the 26th. Hopefully it goes smoothly, cross your fingers for us.
After the Girl’s Conference we’ll be doing a short science experiment “camp” for the M’Bout GMC girls for 2 or 3 days. We’ll try to bring science to life a little bit the way it was brought to life for us. Science classes here lack funding, time, and motivation for demonstrations of the sort we hope to do. Suggestions are welcome. After the science camp we hope to go on a camel trek way up north around Chinguetti and then just after that I’ll be headed home! Alright, I think this is about enough of a blog entry to satisfy for a few weeks or months, good luck to all of you with whatever you’re up to. I like emails, letters, phone calls, and packages (I even like comments on my blog…)

5 comments:

Allison said...

WOW! Actual written words from you! Very exciting!

Sounds like you have an exciting few weeks coming up. I'm glad you are going on a camel trek. I'd love to join you.

Just think, only 6 and a half weeks and you will be home in Iowa! I can't wait!

Talk to you soon.
Love you lots!
Mom

Anonymous said...

Thank you thank you thank you for letting us hear from you. It is so good to know what you will be doing the next 6 weeks or so before you come home for a visit. It sounds pretty busy. Good for you :)
Can't wait to see you. Stay well and safe. God bless you.
Love,
Grandma

Emily said...

Dear Dork,
my parents were happy you finally blogged. See you tomorrow :)
<3 Em

Judy said...

Well..."finally" would suggest we have complained :-). Bad enough we bug Em to blog, we hold no expectations for you, I promise. That said, I do love it when you write, both for the content and the entertainment value. So keep it up...if you'd like...but fine if you don't...

See you in August!
Judy

Anonymous said...

Your name sounds familiar, wait, it will come to me...

Oh yeah, aren't you that kid that used to hang out in that upstairs room in the house on Duff years ago??? Seems to me THAT boy was a bit of a smartass, and you kind of sound like an adult version of that kid.

Love ya' TONS - POPS

Kinda miss that kid... maybe he will come back long enough to go fishin' at Berry Lake in the summer of 2010!!! Walleye, sliced fried potatoes, and Labatt's blue. Sounds like a fun homecoming to me!