le 24 Octobre 2006
Yesterday was the fête of 'iid al-fidr' and nobody went to the garden. I showed up at 8:30 to water, and I was the only one there, the garden surrounded by shoulder height weeds and date palms, retains coolness longer than the burning plain. I was just glad Ramadan was over (I have many reasons).
Afterward, I took the opportunity of the people-less landscape to explore the gardens around ours - the whole garden area, a big stretch of land to the south and west of the village, has been surrendered to palmeries and weeds, basically. This is the place from which we carve our gardens, elongated, elliptical, or spherically asymmetrical 'bleyds' (places), fenced in with grillage and cultivated by an extended family or two.
I walked and walked in the sun, over the cracked earth and bushy grasses, and peeked into the abandoned gardens. I walked all the way through the strip of weeds and green, and burst into the rocky plain leading to the north city. Then I turned around.
That day, I saw these things:
A big, dead lizard, about 3 feet long and gilla-monster-esque, frozen (and fried in the sun) in the motion of death, being eaten by bugs and all other such ghastly things.
A big, gnarled tree, standing in the middle of a giant clearing, underneath which stood a donkey, quietly trying to be invisible and blinking in the cool shade. After I came closer, I saw that it was a sdrr (jujube tree) its branches all tangled and thorny. Though all the berries were unripe, so I did not pick them.
When I turned around, I saw a white horse, across the way, swishing its tail, though it had not been there before. It was like a storybook.
Then, suddenly, there was a boy coming out of the thorny bushes, and he was shaking a rattle; running. He was herding a raggedy flock of sheep with the noisemaker. He was, in fact, a shepherd boy. He continued to wield the noisemaker (it was an old metal can, like a Folgers, smashed closed, and filled with, I don't know, stones maybe). He disappeared. Almost immediately, he returned and I walked over to him, curious. His name was Mustava and he had bushy, mixed-race eyebrows. He was, I think, 11 years old. Mustava walked with me for a little while, and this is what I saw next:
We came to a little depression in the land, from which sprouted, like the mythical beanstalk, a gigantic Baobob tree. Baobob trees have silvery brownish-gray and smooth-ish bark. Also pointed, ovular leaves of shiny green. They sprout branches irregularly in a whimsical way, sometimes from every direction. This one looked like it was three trees in one. It was enormously, regally large and fat, and its tall canopy reached high, high way up. You probably don't understand what the big deal is, but I can only say that it was lovely and I had been searching for it…
After my garden excursion, I was resting on the path heading toward town, when a group of young men invited me to walk with them to the 'bediya' (it means the 'countryside' or 'the bush', and refers to anything outside the village). Not knowing exactly where that indicated, I finally relented following. (NB Whenever offered something, or invited somewhere – almost never here - I always refuse a few times and ask the question back at them ) – "you want me to come with you? Haag? (true?) Okay, why?" – to make sure I'm clear on the point.
Eventually we came to a little bleyd about 2 kilometers away, in the middle of the savannah-esque Turga scrub-forests, with a few tents and sleeping platforms and makeshift fences (the presence of roaming animals is implied).
Under the tent it was coolish and shady, darkly hung fabric on the top, worn plastic mats and fleece blankets spread over the sand underneath in between the wooden poles, random things and metal chests piled to one side and a light-less corner. I drank the rotten milk shniin (unavoidable) and was told to rest. Okay. I got two pillows shoved under me, though I protested that one was plenty. They said, 'Non, non, non!'. They made me lie down, 'tki, tki!', they said.
There was a succession of people coming and going in between dozings, my original escorts left save one, others came and stayed the rest of the day - There was a pile of bou-bous sprawled out on the blankets which some of the family's grown sons took turns ironing (with an old fashioned device, filled with coals). Another one repaired and blackened sandals (the end of Ramadan is the time when people break out their new – or apparently revamped - threads to represent in style). In between all this, we chatted and made funnies. Africans, when they like you, are adorable in the shy and amused smiles of their affection. The other times…. well, we'll let that be for now.
We ate a little mishwi (grilled meat) but I mostly got the grilled liver because I'm a guest and it's choice (who's choice?). Later we ate more boiled sheep, with sheep sauce and bread (mmm, good). And they laughed at my every move (they were surprised that I knew how to eat) but unlike many of the people in El Qidiya, whose laughter is either outrightly snide, or tinged with a self preserving derision, theirs was honest, and I simply love them.
After a while, I said my goodbyes, promising to return, and wandered back to the village chewing my msewek (a stick 'tooth-brush'), and feeling temporarily better about life in El Qidiya. At least I had a tummy full of sheep, which I suppose is all that anyone can ask for.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Modest joy
le 15 Octobre 2006
Though almost nothing in this country is worth buying for any but the most (specifically Mauritanian) utilitarian reasons, a few things which I've acquired since my arrival have endeared themselves to me.
Thing # 1
My Wajiil. A wajiil is like a cross between a hoe and a pick-axe, and its made by finding the intersection of two tree branches, at about 45 degrees, and attach to one a flat, iron blade, about 6 inches across at its broadest, which cuts the dirt as you bend over, dragging it toward you. It's traditionally made, one of the few handcrafts that you can find in the country which hasn't been supplanted by factory produced, plastic shit, the others being wooden mats, a kind of carved bowl, and a smoking pipe which looks like a 1920's era cigarette holder's stem.
The wajiil, ostensibly, has no artistic value, but I happen to think they're graceful and fine. I've been covetous of one for weeks.
After arriving at site, I had no tools – after we moved out of M'Beidia, we stuck all the shovels and well buckets in storage. Supposedly they are coming from Nouakchott 'within the next few months', a classically ambiguous example of Peace Corps in (in)action, but in the meantime, I, desirous of starting a garden and tangible work, I began to seek out a wajiil.
Everyone laughs whenever I ask them if they can sell me, make me, or kindly tell me who can provide me with a wajiil, and I'm not sure why. In fact, I am sure why, but I hate the reason. It’s more of a black-Moor thing, I think; most white Moors, and the upper classes of many Arab peoples in general view manual labor as the strict purview of the lower classes - which in this case means black. I suppose in that context, I see how (racist) people could see the humor in it. Still, all the laughter and deflections have resulted in me not finding a damn wajiil until recently.
Anyway, I finally uncovered one last week, and I was so happy, I didn't even mind that he charged me 2000 ougiyas for it (about 5 dollars). Plus, the price was written neatly in blue-bic letters, on a little scrubbed off patch on the carved, tree-branch handle. I almost wept. Prices are never displayed here (of course they're not). Neither are they constant, especially if you're white.
My wajiil is strong and noble. I've named him Suliman. I've just now done this.
Thing # 2
My plastic, low-quality sandals.
Okay, let's give them a bit more credit than that. They have white foam bottoms with a diamond pattern on their surface. They have thong straps of shiny, blue plastic. They are the so-called "Region" brand, Made in China. They are size ten.
From America, I, nervously preparing for the desert climate, brought 3 pairs of sandals, and they no longer seem applicable. In fact, one of them has been broken for a long time, and the others, while sturdy enough still, seem like relics from a Byzantine time, overly complicated and obsolete.
I've walked miles and miles (or kilos, rather) in my little blue thongs, and they've only just begun to crack. They've walked bravely over stones and burning sands, they've been pricked by thorns and bent ever which way by my fidgeting toes. They're 250 ougiyas (about 1 dollar) and they're sold ubiquitously over every square inch of this country.
My Chacos weigh a thousand pounds, and trap the thorns which get stuck in your toes and give you strange, geometric tan lines.
Nothing, listen, nothing will protect your feet from getting cracked and rough and tired and brown and callused and eaten away by all of the things which eat away every form of life here.
One would do better to save the packing space for vacuum sealed tuna, and trail-mix, and invest in a pair of ‘Regions’.
More 'things' to come!
Though almost nothing in this country is worth buying for any but the most (specifically Mauritanian) utilitarian reasons, a few things which I've acquired since my arrival have endeared themselves to me.
Thing # 1
My Wajiil. A wajiil is like a cross between a hoe and a pick-axe, and its made by finding the intersection of two tree branches, at about 45 degrees, and attach to one a flat, iron blade, about 6 inches across at its broadest, which cuts the dirt as you bend over, dragging it toward you. It's traditionally made, one of the few handcrafts that you can find in the country which hasn't been supplanted by factory produced, plastic shit, the others being wooden mats, a kind of carved bowl, and a smoking pipe which looks like a 1920's era cigarette holder's stem.
The wajiil, ostensibly, has no artistic value, but I happen to think they're graceful and fine. I've been covetous of one for weeks.
After arriving at site, I had no tools – after we moved out of M'Beidia, we stuck all the shovels and well buckets in storage. Supposedly they are coming from Nouakchott 'within the next few months', a classically ambiguous example of Peace Corps in (in)action, but in the meantime, I, desirous of starting a garden and tangible work, I began to seek out a wajiil.
Everyone laughs whenever I ask them if they can sell me, make me, or kindly tell me who can provide me with a wajiil, and I'm not sure why. In fact, I am sure why, but I hate the reason. It’s more of a black-Moor thing, I think; most white Moors, and the upper classes of many Arab peoples in general view manual labor as the strict purview of the lower classes - which in this case means black. I suppose in that context, I see how (racist) people could see the humor in it. Still, all the laughter and deflections have resulted in me not finding a damn wajiil until recently.
Anyway, I finally uncovered one last week, and I was so happy, I didn't even mind that he charged me 2000 ougiyas for it (about 5 dollars). Plus, the price was written neatly in blue-bic letters, on a little scrubbed off patch on the carved, tree-branch handle. I almost wept. Prices are never displayed here (of course they're not). Neither are they constant, especially if you're white.
My wajiil is strong and noble. I've named him Suliman. I've just now done this.
Thing # 2
My plastic, low-quality sandals.
Okay, let's give them a bit more credit than that. They have white foam bottoms with a diamond pattern on their surface. They have thong straps of shiny, blue plastic. They are the so-called "Region" brand, Made in China. They are size ten.
From America, I, nervously preparing for the desert climate, brought 3 pairs of sandals, and they no longer seem applicable. In fact, one of them has been broken for a long time, and the others, while sturdy enough still, seem like relics from a Byzantine time, overly complicated and obsolete.
I've walked miles and miles (or kilos, rather) in my little blue thongs, and they've only just begun to crack. They've walked bravely over stones and burning sands, they've been pricked by thorns and bent ever which way by my fidgeting toes. They're 250 ougiyas (about 1 dollar) and they're sold ubiquitously over every square inch of this country.
My Chacos weigh a thousand pounds, and trap the thorns which get stuck in your toes and give you strange, geometric tan lines.
Nothing, listen, nothing will protect your feet from getting cracked and rough and tired and brown and callused and eaten away by all of the things which eat away every form of life here.
One would do better to save the packing space for vacuum sealed tuna, and trail-mix, and invest in a pair of ‘Regions’.
More 'things' to come!
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Safari
le 3 Octobre 2006
I've been repairing the fence. The animals come at night and shit everywhere, because the barbed wire fence is severely lacking. I would say impotent. In many places it is broken and lies, fallen on the ground, tied to its post, limp and twisted.
Ours is one of the few houses in the village which doesn't have a stone wall, and I'm beginning to understand why that is so.
So in the absence of more barbed wire (much like everything else, you can not buy this in El Qidiya) I've been patrolling the perimeter, Leatherman in hand, and twisting up any loose and lazy wires that I can. I don't have a shovel, so I re-dig and deepen the post holes with a garden trowel from Home Depot. Still, the stones made short work of that, and chipped the point of the spade into a jagged, toothy edge.
Still, the cows seem to be noticing: now they can no longer cross through at nights, as they lumber by in herds from the pasture, and so they just come up, adjacent to the fence, and peer over the top with weary disdain. They 'moo' discontentedly and stand still for many minutes, just blinking slowly and chewing with a steady motion. (BTW, cows are so weird: I was coming back from the town the other day and there were six of them on the hot dirt, all in a perfect, straight line, end-to-end, perpendicular to me, just standing there doing nothing, with no one around. It was like a traffic stop. Can you stand it?)
In general, the experience that is Animals in Mauritania, is a big, and all-pervasive one. Animals have almost complete free reign, aside from the times when they are being herded or poked or prodded, and so there are large stretches of time each day when the cows and donkeys and sheep and goats wander around everywhere, following their bliss through the shit-strewn streets, and, ultimately, into my (dirt) yard. Actual pastures are non existent here (how could they be?). It is not uncommon at all for someone to be going about their business, making tea under the tent, and for a sheep to come nose through whatever they're doing, until such a person absentmindedly punches them in the gut and they scatter.
This variety of sheep, god knows what kind, is pitifully and painfully grotesque. I'm serious, they are aggressively ugly, with their raggedy, slumped over bodies, and clumpy hair. It's not even wool. The goats, by virtue of their neat little horns and spry figures, paint a somewhat more attractive picture. Both of their voices, though, sound as if the demoniac ghosts of murdered children inhabit them. It is most unpleasant.
And lest I forget them, I'll tell you now that we have camels here, not too many, but more than in the South, where I only ever once saw one in my village. They're more of a nomadic thing. Usually I see them with a dark, howlied Bedouin, riding barefoot, tugging at the animal's reigns, hooked through a ring in one nostril, sheesh. I've seen them also, parked like a growling, collapsible car outside someone's house.
Still, the other day, walking the path from the North to the South village, I saw, in the place where it opens to a wide, dusty plain, 3 camels ambling about, munching on bushes. I walked towards them slowly, my head bowed, and when I was only a few feet away, I sat down on a stone and watched them eat.
It took several minutes for them to become sufficiently spooked by me to leave, but eventually (inevitably) the one with the longest and most curious neck, decided he (or she) had had enough of me, and they blew that joint, taking off on those long awkward legs, in search of better munching grounds. I think they are beautiful, these camels. I think, more than any other animal I've seen, they look like they're from another planet entirely. They're so totally Star Wars.
After camels, (they're the one-humps, by the way), the next most 'Africa' thing we have here is lizards. In the South, we had a funny little variety, the length of a coke-bottle, with bright yellow heads and slender tails, tapering to nothing. We call them push-up lizards, because of the exercise-like movements they constantly perform to pass the time. In the North, we don't have anything nearly so distinct, just a couple little brownish-green varieties that live in my out-house, and are constantly startling me by flitting around everywhere. I've also seen the spiny tail of a much larger kind (whether a different species, or only the grown-up) periodically darting underneath rocks, at several feet away. Yeeks! Whatever, they're not harmful, but I'm no Naturalist, and I bear no fondness for reptiles. Still, I'll take lizards over snakes.
And according to some sources, there are crocodiles in the country, and people in El Qidiya even say that we have 2 (how sweet) that live in the waters of the Marigot over abutting the cliff. I don't know… N'Beika, the oasis city 3 hours away where volunteers Fred and Greg live, has a respectable bog in which I could see crocs living, and in which they've been repeatedly sighted. But the existence of El Qidiyas carnivorous pair has yet to be confirmed by me (it's thrown into further doubt by the fact that people supposedly swim in the croc-water "Oh, they don't do nothing…." and because one of my sources called a picture of a seahorse, a crocodile). Oh boy.
So one of these must be true: there are more than two, there are none, or the crocodiles are a hundred million years old.
…..Still, no swimming for me just yet.
I've been repairing the fence. The animals come at night and shit everywhere, because the barbed wire fence is severely lacking. I would say impotent. In many places it is broken and lies, fallen on the ground, tied to its post, limp and twisted.
Ours is one of the few houses in the village which doesn't have a stone wall, and I'm beginning to understand why that is so.
So in the absence of more barbed wire (much like everything else, you can not buy this in El Qidiya) I've been patrolling the perimeter, Leatherman in hand, and twisting up any loose and lazy wires that I can. I don't have a shovel, so I re-dig and deepen the post holes with a garden trowel from Home Depot. Still, the stones made short work of that, and chipped the point of the spade into a jagged, toothy edge.
Still, the cows seem to be noticing: now they can no longer cross through at nights, as they lumber by in herds from the pasture, and so they just come up, adjacent to the fence, and peer over the top with weary disdain. They 'moo' discontentedly and stand still for many minutes, just blinking slowly and chewing with a steady motion. (BTW, cows are so weird: I was coming back from the town the other day and there were six of them on the hot dirt, all in a perfect, straight line, end-to-end, perpendicular to me, just standing there doing nothing, with no one around. It was like a traffic stop. Can you stand it?)
In general, the experience that is Animals in Mauritania, is a big, and all-pervasive one. Animals have almost complete free reign, aside from the times when they are being herded or poked or prodded, and so there are large stretches of time each day when the cows and donkeys and sheep and goats wander around everywhere, following their bliss through the shit-strewn streets, and, ultimately, into my (dirt) yard. Actual pastures are non existent here (how could they be?). It is not uncommon at all for someone to be going about their business, making tea under the tent, and for a sheep to come nose through whatever they're doing, until such a person absentmindedly punches them in the gut and they scatter.
This variety of sheep, god knows what kind, is pitifully and painfully grotesque. I'm serious, they are aggressively ugly, with their raggedy, slumped over bodies, and clumpy hair. It's not even wool. The goats, by virtue of their neat little horns and spry figures, paint a somewhat more attractive picture. Both of their voices, though, sound as if the demoniac ghosts of murdered children inhabit them. It is most unpleasant.
And lest I forget them, I'll tell you now that we have camels here, not too many, but more than in the South, where I only ever once saw one in my village. They're more of a nomadic thing. Usually I see them with a dark, howlied Bedouin, riding barefoot, tugging at the animal's reigns, hooked through a ring in one nostril, sheesh. I've seen them also, parked like a growling, collapsible car outside someone's house.
Still, the other day, walking the path from the North to the South village, I saw, in the place where it opens to a wide, dusty plain, 3 camels ambling about, munching on bushes. I walked towards them slowly, my head bowed, and when I was only a few feet away, I sat down on a stone and watched them eat.
It took several minutes for them to become sufficiently spooked by me to leave, but eventually (inevitably) the one with the longest and most curious neck, decided he (or she) had had enough of me, and they blew that joint, taking off on those long awkward legs, in search of better munching grounds. I think they are beautiful, these camels. I think, more than any other animal I've seen, they look like they're from another planet entirely. They're so totally Star Wars.
After camels, (they're the one-humps, by the way), the next most 'Africa' thing we have here is lizards. In the South, we had a funny little variety, the length of a coke-bottle, with bright yellow heads and slender tails, tapering to nothing. We call them push-up lizards, because of the exercise-like movements they constantly perform to pass the time. In the North, we don't have anything nearly so distinct, just a couple little brownish-green varieties that live in my out-house, and are constantly startling me by flitting around everywhere. I've also seen the spiny tail of a much larger kind (whether a different species, or only the grown-up) periodically darting underneath rocks, at several feet away. Yeeks! Whatever, they're not harmful, but I'm no Naturalist, and I bear no fondness for reptiles. Still, I'll take lizards over snakes.
And according to some sources, there are crocodiles in the country, and people in El Qidiya even say that we have 2 (how sweet) that live in the waters of the Marigot over abutting the cliff. I don't know… N'Beika, the oasis city 3 hours away where volunteers Fred and Greg live, has a respectable bog in which I could see crocs living, and in which they've been repeatedly sighted. But the existence of El Qidiyas carnivorous pair has yet to be confirmed by me (it's thrown into further doubt by the fact that people supposedly swim in the croc-water "Oh, they don't do nothing…." and because one of my sources called a picture of a seahorse, a crocodile). Oh boy.
So one of these must be true: there are more than two, there are none, or the crocodiles are a hundred million years old.
…..Still, no swimming for me just yet.
...and repeat
le 21 Septembre 2006
At night we only drink milk.
In El Qidiya this is common, and though we have no cow, the old man next door brings us a bowl each night, filled to the brim with warm white. Sometimes there are flies, also, floating dead on its surface or other sundry particles. These we try to avoid.
In El Qidiya, there is a surfeit of stones –they build from them the houses and the walls, they sit in giant abandoned piles, left from broken down buildings, they are rough and brittle and stark – it looks more than a little like Mars.
I've been here for two weeks, and in some ways the days drag, in others, they fly. The day itself is foreshortened by heat. It's like a third of a day. Every morning I go out with an errand; I plan it. I need to plan everything. I need to write everything down. Every interaction, even the good ones, is exhausting; I miss the children.
White moor culture is not the same, M'Beidia was different. The hospitality of Black Africans is more genuine, at least it's easier to apprehend, and translates, despite the cultural obligation to appear gracious, as somewhat earnest. Hospitality here in the highly Arabacized culture of the North feels more obligatory. They seem more suspicious of outsiders, their stares are cold. I suppose in this setting the word 'hospitality' comes to resemble the word 'tolerance'.
….But then there's the milk.
It's true, there are the people who won't rent to me because I'm a foreigner/non-Muslim/who knows?, the long bearded old men who won't greet me, the limp, half-hearted handshakes and the barely contained dislike, and the women who cover their entire faces when I come around (I hate this, but I'm getting used to it. Plus, it's like 'get over yourself, grandma!')
But many people aren't such bitches: they grip my hand and say 'ehlen' or 'marihaba' (expressions of welcome), and from their eyes, which glint with the berber-rimmed blue, I can tell they mean it. There is Ahmed, a mason who laughs at my language (he is stout and laughs loudly, he has a metal molar). I call him 'not nice', but not seriously; he can not pronounce my name. Ditto for everyone. Also, most people smile when I pick on them, and compare so-and-so to a monkey, and ask about the weather, and haggle: (" 500 Ougiyas is not a good price. Why 500? I thought you were my friend…..") Everyone gets a kick out of me pulling some arcane Hassaniya from the lexicon. They say I speak Hassaniya very well. (I do, btw).
Sometimes milk, too, in the morning from Hassan, the goofy 18 year old, barely mustachioed, son of the PTO president, or another. They bring them in bowls, like the plain, brushed metal ones of nesting sizes, which we used to use for cooking. Some of the bowls are enameled with pretty little flowers on them. They are all of poor quality. The milk I drink right away, gulping the foamy white freshness under the stars, in my white, dress-like nightgown (I feel like a baby) I return the bowl. The shniin or zriig (sweetened or unsweetened fermented milk with water) I pour from their bowl into one of mine, so that later I can dump it out inconspicuously. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the stuff, and I'll drink anything down without flinching when I'm a guest at someone's house. There's just only so much curdled (in an old goatskin), sour (chunky), and basically rotten milk I can drink in 110 degree heat.
Anyway, I'm resisting the temptation to be frustrated with the silly and arrogant ignorance and tribal instincts that are common to all the peoples of the world (not just here), and to keep a vigilantly open mind, and constantly remember that no matter how much I think I know, I know nothing. The people here are possibly not less kind than those in the South, but their affections, perhaps, are more reserved and closed-off, they are slower to come. In fact, they are stoic, and might only come to foreigners with time.
But stoicism I can dig, and I've got nothing but time.
At night we only drink milk.
In El Qidiya this is common, and though we have no cow, the old man next door brings us a bowl each night, filled to the brim with warm white. Sometimes there are flies, also, floating dead on its surface or other sundry particles. These we try to avoid.
In El Qidiya, there is a surfeit of stones –they build from them the houses and the walls, they sit in giant abandoned piles, left from broken down buildings, they are rough and brittle and stark – it looks more than a little like Mars.
I've been here for two weeks, and in some ways the days drag, in others, they fly. The day itself is foreshortened by heat. It's like a third of a day. Every morning I go out with an errand; I plan it. I need to plan everything. I need to write everything down. Every interaction, even the good ones, is exhausting; I miss the children.
White moor culture is not the same, M'Beidia was different. The hospitality of Black Africans is more genuine, at least it's easier to apprehend, and translates, despite the cultural obligation to appear gracious, as somewhat earnest. Hospitality here in the highly Arabacized culture of the North feels more obligatory. They seem more suspicious of outsiders, their stares are cold. I suppose in this setting the word 'hospitality' comes to resemble the word 'tolerance'.
….But then there's the milk.
It's true, there are the people who won't rent to me because I'm a foreigner/non-Muslim/who knows?, the long bearded old men who won't greet me, the limp, half-hearted handshakes and the barely contained dislike, and the women who cover their entire faces when I come around (I hate this, but I'm getting used to it. Plus, it's like 'get over yourself, grandma!')
But many people aren't such bitches: they grip my hand and say 'ehlen' or 'marihaba' (expressions of welcome), and from their eyes, which glint with the berber-rimmed blue, I can tell they mean it. There is Ahmed, a mason who laughs at my language (he is stout and laughs loudly, he has a metal molar). I call him 'not nice', but not seriously; he can not pronounce my name. Ditto for everyone. Also, most people smile when I pick on them, and compare so-and-so to a monkey, and ask about the weather, and haggle: (" 500 Ougiyas is not a good price. Why 500? I thought you were my friend…..") Everyone gets a kick out of me pulling some arcane Hassaniya from the lexicon. They say I speak Hassaniya very well. (I do, btw).
Sometimes milk, too, in the morning from Hassan, the goofy 18 year old, barely mustachioed, son of the PTO president, or another. They bring them in bowls, like the plain, brushed metal ones of nesting sizes, which we used to use for cooking. Some of the bowls are enameled with pretty little flowers on them. They are all of poor quality. The milk I drink right away, gulping the foamy white freshness under the stars, in my white, dress-like nightgown (I feel like a baby) I return the bowl. The shniin or zriig (sweetened or unsweetened fermented milk with water) I pour from their bowl into one of mine, so that later I can dump it out inconspicuously. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the stuff, and I'll drink anything down without flinching when I'm a guest at someone's house. There's just only so much curdled (in an old goatskin), sour (chunky), and basically rotten milk I can drink in 110 degree heat.
Anyway, I'm resisting the temptation to be frustrated with the silly and arrogant ignorance and tribal instincts that are common to all the peoples of the world (not just here), and to keep a vigilantly open mind, and constantly remember that no matter how much I think I know, I know nothing. The people here are possibly not less kind than those in the South, but their affections, perhaps, are more reserved and closed-off, they are slower to come. In fact, they are stoic, and might only come to foreigners with time.
But stoicism I can dig, and I've got nothing but time.
Les étoiles
Last night I saw Scorpio. He was amazing and bright, and dead centered in the sky like he had been strung up there on purpose. The stars here are 100% incredible. I know you knew that already. You can see the fuzzy glow of the Milky Way; you can see the waxing moon in crystal clarity, like a sharp shard of light burning up the sky. I saw Virgo, maybe. I saw Polaris, of course, the Big Dipper, Arcturus, and whatever the red heart of Scorpio is.
It seems strange to me though, that I have to wear my glasses to sharpen the view- the light has already travelled unimaginable distances in time and space to reach me. Apparently though, it still needs the help of a 2 for 1 pair of glasses from Sears optical to make the final leap.
It seems strange to me though, that I have to wear my glasses to sharpen the view- the light has already travelled unimaginable distances in time and space to reach me. Apparently though, it still needs the help of a 2 for 1 pair of glasses from Sears optical to make the final leap.
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