Hello! Goodbye!
This is my last post in Mauritania, and though I have many more things to say, though I have inumerable things I want to communicate to you, my dear loved ones, and to record for a largely indifferent posterity.....I am, as usual, late. I'm rushing out the door.
The other night I was walking down a dark street, and the moon was full, and clear (mostly because I've started wearing my glasses again) and the stars were sharp and severe, and ....I felt so many things, and one of them was sadness at leaving, a bit of sadness at ending this two year exercise in the horrible, the wonderful, the alien, the hot, the frustrating, the life-changing, the (insert abstract noun here).......
I've been weepy, believe it or not. Yesterday I was packing and my eyes were significantly wet for at least ten minutes. That's a lot for emotionless robot over here. I was listening to Beyonce while doing it, and still got weepy, so ya' know it's the real deal.
Anyway- I don't have time, I don't have time- I am incomplete and under-prepared and frantic and fragile and damaged, but I don't have time anymore.
Goodbye my hot, dirty, desert love. Goodbye.
---Look for me on the horizon....or, you know....at my house or something. I'm on my way.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Go
Today I went to the French Alliance to sign up for classes.
It's located in an unassuming compound, on a side street, a few turns after (or before) the big supermarket and I only ever discovered it by chance, after getting lost once. I am perpetually getting lost, even when I know where I'm going. Or rather I thought I knew. I swear I could get lost in an empty orange juice bottle.
For a while now, I've been meaning to go, ever since I learned that they offer French classes, but I've also been meaning to do a lot of other things, like fix my bathroom faucet and, become a nice person, and of course those dreams are still on layaway. Still, today someone must have spiked my re hydrated milk-drink, since I arbitrarily decided to buck the trend and get on the ball. I scurried over there at 9 am, with a sum of not less than 10,000 ougiyas burning a hole in my distressed pocket, and sealed the deal. They probably do other things there, in addition to teach unsuspecting victims their accursed verb conjugations, but about these I have no knowledge and even less interest. Though frankly, when it comes to whether or not any of those goings-on could possibly warrant their use of the rather over-grand word "alliance", I remain doubtful.
I had fully expected them to tell me that I was too late (foo') and that the registration period had closed, though as it happens they were more than eager to relieve me of my wad of cash because classes did not start until a week later. So one down....
They were all very nice in an assertive way, which is always a pleasant surprise, because the mood which tends to greet you, whenever you enter an establishment here for the first time, is less "How can I help you?" than it is, "What the hell do you want?". It can take some getting used to.
The tall Pulaar man at the desk had me fill out a form including my name, my generously-called "job" and the paragraph or two which passes as my address. Clearly, they have had trouble getting a hold of people in the past, because he looked at the phone number I had written and said, "Does this phone number work?" and I said, "Yup", and then he said, "Is this your real phone number. I mean, if we call it will we get you?" and then I said "Yup", again and pulled my phone out of my pocket to illustrate. "See?" I asked, brandishing it, "it's a real phone. It's always on me."
This is true and in fact, after blowing through two other phones on this continent, one of which I lost to stupidity, and the other to theft (and stupidity), this sucker is quite literally tied to me, with a little piece of elastic band which is hooked around my belt loop. The same goes for my house key, and/or anything else which I am reluctant to part with.
Then he sent me along into the next room, a French-door'd office in which I could see a little woman in a flowered muleffa, sitting at her desk.
The woman was so tiny, and so in-the-process-of-being-swallowed-up by her bright pink mummy sheet, that it wasn't until I was in the room and halfway to her desk, spouting off greetings in Hassaniya, that I noticed she wasn't Mauritanian at all, but some old French granny is sheep's clothing. God. She looked at me blankly, and I sort of sputtered out, and took a seat. I felt a little dumb, but then A) I constantly feel that way, and B) I was like, eh....she's the one wearing the muleffa.
It's located in an unassuming compound, on a side street, a few turns after (or before) the big supermarket and I only ever discovered it by chance, after getting lost once. I am perpetually getting lost, even when I know where I'm going. Or rather I thought I knew. I swear I could get lost in an empty orange juice bottle.
For a while now, I've been meaning to go, ever since I learned that they offer French classes, but I've also been meaning to do a lot of other things, like fix my bathroom faucet and, become a nice person, and of course those dreams are still on layaway. Still, today someone must have spiked my re hydrated milk-drink, since I arbitrarily decided to buck the trend and get on the ball. I scurried over there at 9 am, with a sum of not less than 10,000 ougiyas burning a hole in my distressed pocket, and sealed the deal. They probably do other things there, in addition to teach unsuspecting victims their accursed verb conjugations, but about these I have no knowledge and even less interest. Though frankly, when it comes to whether or not any of those goings-on could possibly warrant their use of the rather over-grand word "alliance", I remain doubtful.
I had fully expected them to tell me that I was too late (foo') and that the registration period had closed, though as it happens they were more than eager to relieve me of my wad of cash because classes did not start until a week later. So one down....
They were all very nice in an assertive way, which is always a pleasant surprise, because the mood which tends to greet you, whenever you enter an establishment here for the first time, is less "How can I help you?" than it is, "What the hell do you want?". It can take some getting used to.
The tall Pulaar man at the desk had me fill out a form including my name, my generously-called "job" and the paragraph or two which passes as my address. Clearly, they have had trouble getting a hold of people in the past, because he looked at the phone number I had written and said, "Does this phone number work?" and I said, "Yup", and then he said, "Is this your real phone number. I mean, if we call it will we get you?" and then I said "Yup", again and pulled my phone out of my pocket to illustrate. "See?" I asked, brandishing it, "it's a real phone. It's always on me."
This is true and in fact, after blowing through two other phones on this continent, one of which I lost to stupidity, and the other to theft (and stupidity), this sucker is quite literally tied to me, with a little piece of elastic band which is hooked around my belt loop. The same goes for my house key, and/or anything else which I am reluctant to part with.
Then he sent me along into the next room, a French-door'd office in which I could see a little woman in a flowered muleffa, sitting at her desk.
The woman was so tiny, and so in-the-process-of-being-swallowed-up by her bright pink mummy sheet, that it wasn't until I was in the room and halfway to her desk, spouting off greetings in Hassaniya, that I noticed she wasn't Mauritanian at all, but some old French granny is sheep's clothing. God. She looked at me blankly, and I sort of sputtered out, and took a seat. I felt a little dumb, but then A) I constantly feel that way, and B) I was like, eh....she's the one wearing the muleffa.
*****
Later that afternoon I came back at four, as told, and waited in the hot lobby with five or six other stuffy looking men in white bou-bous. The guy at the desk gave me a number, literally, a big "5" printed in shades of ink-jet grey on a slip of white paper, which I thought was cute, but a little over the top, and one by one we ascended the stairs for a short little nonsense interview with the teacher person.
Afterward we were herded into a tiny mock school room, to puzzle out responses to a little test which looked as though it had been photo copied from a 6th grade textbook, and which made demands like: "write a paragraph about a cultural event you have recently organized" (just one? well....how could I possibly choose?) Then we listened, attentive as choirboys, to a scratchy red-plastic audio cassette, squeaking away on a flimsy boombox, which rumbled incomprehensibly about things like "Madame Duvall's" availability for baby-sitting", the schedules of hauty restaurants (are they open on weekends? can you make reservations by phone?! ) and whether or not Los Palmas had experienced a drop in visitors in recent years...
Well, obviously these are pressing concerns, both relevant and relatable to all Mauritanians, but as for myself I must say I was more interested in the white, pointy-toed dress loafers with tassels, as long as clown shoes, that the jean-jacketed young Moor next to me was wearing. These things were about as cool as a winter breeze, and I'm telling you, I considered theft. In the end though, I left the poor young thing alone with his awesome skiffs and busied myself with writing a fake RSVP for a night of "Mexican Food and Culture!" to "Gerard" who, my test paper informed me, was a good friend.
*****
Our instructor was an older Pulaar man, maybe 50, who was ten minutes late the first day. His name was Mr. Kane, it probably still is, and he wore a ratty old bou-bou, a garment which tends to look ridiculous on everyone, by virtue of it being completely unnecessary, but which looks even sillier on black Africans, because they have perfectly fine, and indeed, beautiful clothes already. They've got no business wearing these tacky Moorish flops, but go figure.
Mr. Kane had a little pot-belly and wicked coke-bottle glasses, like for real, which made his eyes bug out intensely. He had a big space in his two front teeth, and a face which looked simultaneously young and old. I realized after a moment, that this was because he looked like a child from my village, Cheikhani, or rather he looked like Cheikhani would look in 40 years. Sort of disconcerting. Especially given that one day I chased the same terrified child around the garden, and grabbed him by the collar, for calling me nasrani, and now here was his time-displaced doppelganger, prognosticating about indirect objects.
to be continued.....
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