GUH!

Why is it so hard to get myself to write these days? Must be because there’s always someone around to have fun with, as opposed to life au village where it’s sometimes difficult to get through the days.

Time is flying. Site announcements were earlier this week and all the trainees are now out on site visit. All of the other coordinators and most of the staff accompanied them, and I’m now here at the training center with 3 other Mauritanian staff. I had to stick around to enroll students for our upcoming Model School (a student teaching-like practicum, only we have to recruit the students since school isn’t in session), but not a single student has come to enroll all week. Earlier in the week, I had to hire a taximan and a guy to drive around town with a tiny megaphone announcing Model School - a strange task, but I thrive on absurdity.

I’m having a surprisingly good time here by myself. I’ve been spending my days reading, lying in the hammock, watching movies on my friend’s laptop. I’m trying to catch up on some of the pop culture I’ve missed. I had a long, leisurely picnic lunch under the trees with the 3 Mauritanian staff members yesterday. We gossiped about trainee couples, past coordinator groups, and how sometimes wackos slip through the Peace Corps application process. It was a whole lot of French and I have developed a facial tic that happens when I speak French for too long - I have no idea what it looks like, but I know it feels pretty freaky. My lower jaw twitches and my tongue shoots to the top of my mouth, making me go “GUH!” As in, “Bon, les stagiaires GUH! de cette annee…” So I can never live in France now, I guess.

The rains normally start in early July here in southern Mauritania and they are now a month late. We’ve had maybe two good rains and people are starting to get anxious. I remember looking out on the baked brown, heat-shimmering landscape back in June and thinking, “God, wouldn’t it be awful if the rains just never came?” …and they just haven’t come. And it’s pretty awful. But we had a good, soaking rain the day before yesterday and the clouds are puffing up again today, so maybe…