Peace Corps Mauritania trainees depart the Atlanta airport (June 20, 2008)
"Welcome to the Peace Corps!" (arrival at the training center in Rosso, Mauritania)
The girls' dorm at the training center... 50-ish girls in one room, no big deal
First order of business: chop off my hair. WAY too hot!
Please remove your shoes before entering the building
This is a toilet! Pour out some water from the little pitcher to "wipe"
My room for the pre-service training, in the tiny village of PK7
Another view of my room, with my beloved free-standing mosquito net tent
Water system in the village. There is one pump that brings water from the bigger city. Each morning all the women line up with their yellow drums to carry back whatever they need for the day.
We were surprised to find UN refugee tents in our village. There is a big repatriation project for southern Mauritanians returning from Senegal.
Camels! The one really cool animal we got to see on a regular basis!
Most of our time during training was spent in language class, which in my case was for learning Pulaar. Here is our trusty teacher Baila, with our chalkboard out in the sand.
Pulaar language class: Julie Ann, Matt, Teresa, Ryan, and teacher Baila
We had to learn to eat with our hands out of a communal bowl
Almost all the livestock are horribly malnourished
Scorpion I killed on the floor of my room! Yikes!
Some of the kids from the training site in PK7 (Maimouna, Oumar, Djeinaba, Laila, Mariyata, Kadiata). My name here was Houley Sow.
My Pulaar teacher Baila and I had a similar sense of style
Camels really never got old.
Oumar kicks back
Maimouna has her hair braided by her aunt Houley
Me with Amadou Sow, whom we called "Amadou Shevchenko" because he usually wore a soccer jersey for a player of the same name
Teresa and I bond with some baby goats... never hard to find
Me with my buddy Djeinaba Diallo. She was 15 and married, but her husband didn't live in the village. There was no one else her age, so she was excited to become friends with me.
PK7 kids
My "Model School" students taking their final English exam, which I wrote with other Peace Corps Volunteers
Matt, Teresa, Ryan, and me on our last day living in PK7
The women prepared an amazing feast to send us off!
This traditional mutton and potato dish is called "banafe" and is only for special occasions. Appropriately, I snooze after filling my belly.
My host mom Houley Sow gives me henna ("puudi") by flashlight on my last night
It turned out pretty nice!
My future region-mates on the day we swore in as official Peace Corps Volunteers (August 28, 2008)
Teresa and me on swear-in day with the U.S. Ambassador to Mauritania, Mark Boulware
After the swear-in ceremony, Brandon shaved my head.
Out with the old (hair), in with the new.
Brandon with his finished products: my bald head and Megan's mohawk
Freshly shorn, I head to the swear-in celebration party with Teresa and all the other Peace Corps Volunteers
Summer went to UT-Austin so we expressed Longhorn pride together
And we're off! The view of scenic Mauritania as we drove the many long hours to our new, permanent sites.
A typical car load you might see
Typical condition of the vehicles we rode in on a regular basis (this shot would be the interior side paneling, in case it's hard to tell)
Is it a surprise they often have car trouble?
Another popular mode of transportation. If you could see inside, the floors of these vehicles are frequently lined wall-to-wall with rice sacks, and then passengers squeeze in on top in every possible crevice.
The Boghé house! This was my regional capital where I would travel usually every other weekend to pick up my mail, go to the bank, and go online.
This outdoor porch served as our kitchen: a two-burner gas stove and a small table top
It's quite a feat then that we churned out such incredible meals!
My arrival to my permanent site, Dar El Barka in the southern Brakna region
The "street" in Dar El Barka
A typical house in my village
UN World Food Program-distributed rice sacks being used as window shades = creative recycling
World Vision project in my village (the sign is in French and Pulaar)
My new room
Room from the opposite angle
My personal pantry (necessary to keep food in sealed buckets to keep out ants and mice)
Beef jerky!
Easy Cheese!
All the shoes I owned... and usually I only wore the middle pair
My new adopted host family, who welcomed me immediately.
My host family's house (I lived separately)
Me hanging with the fam. I was given a new name in this village: Raky Mamadou Wane
Aicha, Djeinaba, and little Fatimata Samba
Raky and Fatimata Samba, sisters
Goggo
Aissata Thiam
Fatimata Samba's energy frequently outlasted mine
Molel, one of my closest host sisters (in front of the family house)
One of the classrooms I taught in
Teresa and I dressed up as Sarah Palin and John McCain for Halloween with the other Peace Corps Volunteers
The whole gang in costume at the Boghé house Halloween party
Me overwhelmed in a fabric store... there's SO much to choose from, and then you have to bargain like crazy
One of my favorite fabrics, which I had made into a skirt. I call this my "Wawa" fabric... props if you understand why
Ryan attempts to cook us chicken over an open grill for our Thanksgiving celebration
Me and Teresa hamming it up for Thanksgiving
I quickly learned that homemade French fries were relatively easy to prepare and OH so tasty. It was a little treat to myself, to break up the monotony of rice with fish
Ta-da!
A sunset behind my house in Dar El Barka
My beautiful new outfit on Tabaski (Eid al-Adha), the biggest Muslim holiday of the year
That's a lot of fabric!
My cute little cardboard tree I set up in my room to remember the Christmas season
Is this pathetic? Our hearts were in it!
First visit to the Peace Corps headquarters (my head is uncovered only because I'm in the slightly-more-liberal national capital)
Teresa, me, and Yates with the Christmas tree in the Peace Corps office in Nouakchott (capital of Mauritania)
An amusing photo op in the Peace Corps HQ. We have Bush, the lame duck American president. And we have Sidi ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the former president of Mauritania ousted in a coup (which the U.S. hadn't recognized).
View of Nouakchott with the elaborate Saudi Mosque in the foreground
Teresa, Yates, and me in our hotel room on Christmas Eve
Ryan, Matt, me, and Teresa (the old PK7 gang) at our country director's house in Nouakchott on Christmas Eve
Christmas Day: post-mass celebration at the ex-pat Catholic church in Nouakchott
Return to PK7 to visit our old families and all the kids
My first host mom Houley Sow
One of my favorite "teacher" outfits. It has the entire alphabet printed on the front!
These pirogue boats are used by fisherman and for transportation across rivers
...or you could try to float on a rice sack.
One of our famous Boghé house meals. Today the cuisine is Mexican. Step 1: roll out flour tortillas by hand
This little girl is my "tokara," meaning we had the same name (Raky)
She's carrying my stuffed animal on her back like mothers carry their children
Peace Corps Mauritania wins the title at the West Africa Invitational Softball Tournament (WAIST) in Dakar, Senegal
This is how I reported my students' grades: calculating each one by hand and writing out every single name and number
My 25th birthday
My friends prepared me a fabulous birthday meal of lasagna! (You have no idea what an achievement this was!)
Me and the girls (Yates, Teresa, Amanda) with my birthday cake
Some down-time in the kiddie pool (a rare treat) with the Boghé house dog Bailey
Some more "puudi" (henna), done by my host sisters
We never missed an opportunity to celebrate an American holiday with the other PCVs ;)
My final English Club with students from the Dar El Barka middle school
The new room I moved into in May 2009, next to my old house. I hung the curtain in the corner to have some hidden storage space
I also added a sweet shelf! Just some long planks of wood stacked on cement blocks, but it changed my life. My clothes are behind the curtain (protected from the dust!)
"Bathroom" in my room
"Kitchen" in my room
The last day I saw my host family. Here I'm playing with little Raky (my "tokara") and Papa
Me with Abdoul Fatimata
The newest addition to the family: Kadia Moussa Barry, born July 3, 2009 (here she is three weeks old)
Last photo of my family
Final group photo of the faithful Peace Corps Mauritania volunteers saying goodbye in Dakar, Senegal, before going our separate ways
