Le fête

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.

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!

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.

...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.

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.

Les hors doêuvres

1 Septembre 2006

More potent potables:

People always ask me what time it is, though absolutely no on has a
watch or a clock, nor does anything in this village happen at a
specific time. (Why do you care what time it is?) My kids are always
trying to read the time from my watch, but they literally couldn't be
more wrong if they had rolled their guesses on dice.

When children are sleeping and you want them to move, you pick them up
by one arm and one leg, and plop them down in another place. They
never wake up.

All the boutiques sell the same ten things: Sugar, tea, rice,
cigarettes, camel biscuits (like animal crackers), oil, candy,
peanuts, sandals and batteries.

People here listen to awful music. Crappy tape mixes of rave-style
club grooves, dated American ballads or terrible Senagalese drivel.

Almost no one knows how old they are, and the ones that say they do
are either estimating or just lying. Very few people were born in
hospitals, and there is no other record of their birth. Even taking
into account the age distorting effects of malnutrition, their guesses
about this are also laughably wrong.

Our courtyard is made of dirt, (it's literally the ground)
and yet they sweep it off every day with a little broom. They sweep
the dirt off of the dirt.

You knew this already, but women, and sometimes men, carry incredibly
huge things on their heads, and they never fall off. I have a picture
I'd like to post sometime, and the caption will be, "Excuse me,
there's a tree on your head."

I can't use anything in public without being asked for it. I have
currently been asked for such things as: a band-aid, some duct tape, a
bandanna, my sunglasses, paper, some Kool-Aide, a pen and a Q tip.

You can burp (modestly) in public, afterward saying simply, "Sahe" (health).

Many of the young boys get their heads shaved periodically, and I'm
not sure why. I think it has something to do with a weird head
ailment, either from bugs or malnutrition, and related to this - my
nephews usually have gross, scabbed over sores on their heads. It's
fucked.

Another sign of malnutrition is reddish tinged hair, which at least 2
out of 4 children in my village have.

No one likes dogs, and the people who keep them only do so for
protection and such, and they never go near them. This might be
because all the dogs are either recently descended from jackals, or are
actually jackals.

Speaking of such, the place occupied by wolves in all of our
fairy-tales, is occupied by hyenas in all of theirs. Hyenas haven't
lived in this area for decades, and that's lucky, because those things
are assholes.

It's not cultural, but I hate goats. Simple as that.

You can get children here to do any sort of manual chore for you, and
they love it. Now, I will never go to the boutique myself, if there is
a child around. I don't even have to know them. They're like robots.

Have I talked about the greetings yet? Suffice it to say that the
greetings are ubiquitous, long, manifold and repetitive. It's the
equivalent of a giant "How are you?"
in which the answer is always "Not bad (lebess), thank-god"

The hours between 12 and 4 pm are dead time. It's too hot to do
anything, and no one does.

Humor translates. Sarcasm is widely understood, and people are
delighted when I tell little jokes poking fun at one's physical and/or
mental characteristics, and/or comparing someone to one or more forms
of comical animal life. I am hilarious here.

You can pick your nose in public. And we do.

Les cadeaux

I haven’t posted recently because I've been in the middle of nowhere, in my village, trudging through the first few weeks of my actual service, in my actual site, and for the few days I've been in the regional city with internet, it doesn’t work. I'm leaving today, and it just started up again. Bastard.

Things are complicated and very different but fine. There aren't as many children here. I haven't been eaten. I'm supernaturally healthy, although I once again weigh about three pounds. I don't have time to type much of an entry, but maybe in two or three weeks when I return.

Requests:

Yellow legal pads of paper for writing. Not just one.

Staff paper (in a spiral bound notebook, preferably.) Tony, do you remember the kind I like?

Flash cards. Just the white index ones, with lines on one side, the other blank. Not the huge ones.

Sharpie markers. Both regular size, and the thin kind. Don't they make those?

Pencils (mechanical ones, unless you want to send a sharpener).

Pens Pens Pens. They have extremely short lives here- Pilot g2s, or other ones similar to that.

GOOD ziploc bags. Which is to say, actual Ziploc bags.

The individual servings of drink mixes. Lemonades (pink and otherwise) slay me.

Deodorant. (Old spice solids, are real troopers.)

Disposable razors.

LETTERS. What is wrong with you people? If you can't find time in your busy schedule to drop me a paper note, then send an email (coltonmackenzie@gmail.com)! If you haven't sent any yet, then shame on you. If I haven't gotten them because of the mail system, then - I love you, send more!

Mix tapes/CD's. I'm dying here with only two.

Spices for cooking. Save space by zip-loc bagging them, but cinnamon, basil, hot pepper flakes, cumin, Mrs. Dash-esque things, (they save time, though I feel they are below me), also seasoning mix packets like those for fajitas, chiles, lemon pepper chicken, and the like, which you see in big multicolored displays in the grocery aisles. You know the ones.

Again, these are only ideas intended for people who want to send things. I'm not begging, except about the letters.


Good will.

Baby Steps

Baby Steps, A New Post that was written but never posted, has been added under July 5th in the archives. Click on the title to read it, becuase it's a gem!

TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms)

Hello everyone! I hope you're all enjoying reading my posts, or that you at least feel like you're somewhat informed about what's happening in my life right now.

Also, because Peace Corps is a government agency, and as such, the language of its operation is riddled with acronyms and proprietary lingo, here's a little guide for any and all of you who have been confused by their use.

Bureaucracy--

PC: Obviously, Peace Corps.

CD: Country Director. The American head of Peace Corps in a specific country. Everyone's boss basically. Ours happens to be Obie Shaw, and he's just swell.

APCD: Assistant Program Country Director, (or something) Basically these are the heads of the particular programs of Peace Corps in a country, and ours are all Mauritanians. Mine happens to be Aw, and he's quite wonderful too.

Peace Corps Programs-

SED/ICT: Small Enterprise Development/Internet Something Technology

ED: Education

Health: Health

Agfo/EE: Agroforestry (that's what I am) and Environmental Education. EE works in the schools, and just for kicks, we call them Agfo-lite.

Regional Capitals-

Tijikja, Kaedi, Aleg, Atar, Nouadibou, Bogue, Rosso, Kiffa and others which no one cares about. These are the "big cities" in each of the regions of the country (aka territories), where there is usually a Peace Corps "office" (a room with a computer) and markets where you can buy the same crap you can in any other part of the country.

Languages--

Hassaniya (a dialect of Arabic), Pulaar, Soninke and Wolof. And French.

Language Facilitators: Our language teachers, who live in the village with us, and in whose house we have class each day.

Miscellaneous--

Sat Phones: Satellite phones, given to volunteers in places which don't have Reso. Don't ask me how they work.

Reso: from the French (and English) word Resolution, which is how they describe cell phone service. It's the bars on your phone.

Taxi Brousse: How everyone in the country gets from place to place. Its a car, into which they cram as many people as possible.

ET: Early Termination. When someone who is ill, disillusioned, or of a weak and inferior character quits Peace Corps before their service is over.

MedSep: Medical Separation. When you are terminated because you are really fucking sick. Or you broke your head.

AdminSep: Administrative Separation. When you are terminated because you did something very wrong.

HCN: Host Country Nationals, otherwise known as the people of Mauritania. But I find this phrase so robotic, I promise never to use it.

The Lycee: The Lycee is the place which is our home base during 'stage' (the training period which we've just completed). It's actually a school during the rest of the year, (hence the name, Lycee is (one of) the French words for school) for the students from the surrounding villages who are able to go. It's analogous to high-school.

Host villages/Families: the villages/families in whose beneficence we have lived the past few weeks, when not at center/lycee, and with whom we eat, speak language, and spend hours languishing in the heat.

PCMO: Peace Corps Medical Officer. The person who is paid to take care of us when we become sick, and who lives in this hell-hole of a country with us.

Well there's a lot more, but that's a start.

A Sermon and The Gift Of Green

30 Aout 2006

Our trees have all flown the coop.

Two nights ago, we gave them to the women of the garden cooperative,
and in fact anyone else who wanted one, to plant and take care of
themselves after we have left M'Beidia this coming Monday. The day
before, we had given demonstrations about different tree - related
topics. Mine was about live fencing (why and how). Sarah did a
demonstration about how to transplant the tree seedlings from the
cozy, cylindrical bags of black plastic in which we planted them as
seeds, into the cold, hard actual earth.

Anyway, the next day we set up station in the garden, or rather sat on
the ground by our tree nursery, garage-sale style, as the women
eventually, and inevitably, swung by.

It was strictly first come, first serve, as we had neither the time,
language ability, or foresight to find cozy homes for the trees before
then. This would have been the best chance for their survival -
because what inevitably happens when free things are being given away
here is the same thing that happens when free things are being given
away all over the world - people want them, regardless of whether or
not they really want them. And if they don't care enough
about the tree to keep it alive, it will die. This is the desert.

That's the thing about development work that people (including myself
before I came here) don't understand. If you come into a community,
plop down money, tools and supplies, maybe build a well or two, those
things will probably be broken, squandered, pilfered or just gone
inside of two years. Not because of any societal or other flaws, but
because of the flaws which everyone is prey to, and which are part of
the integral tapestry of humans everywhere.

I keep thinking that the only difference (really) between American
society and this one, is that Americans are richer. It sounds
simplistic, but if people from an über-society, like say, Sweden (or
Saturn) came to America and started telling us how we could make our
society better, how we could have 100% literacy, and sustainable
energy and a living minimum wage, some people would probably be all
gung-ho and work with them, but many would naturally be despondent,
and be all like "I've got a barbecue, central air, and B average kids.
I'm good."

The same thing here: people seem happy for the most part, they've got
plenty of soccer and rice, and all that tea... Change is hard, change
works against the laws of (physical and) social inertia. But free
things aren't change. (I'm almost done preaching). Free things are
this fantastic invention wherein one gets something for nothing. Which
brings me back to the trees.....

We actually heard this conversation:

First woman - (who had just taken a tree) "Hey, do you want a Moringa?"

Second woman - "Yeah!... What's a Moringa?"



Anyway, Moringa and Tedum (Baobob) turned out to be the sexiest of the
seedlings, with their lusty green leaves, and when they were gone (I
barely got to save one Baobob for the Imam) the women cannibalized the
rest - a few lonely Tamarind Indicus and Jujubes. These people go
crazy over free stuff.

All in all, it was both not as good and not as bad as it could have
been. And if nothing else, we got to repay a few people for their many
kindnesses over these weeks, and their patience, and their overall
goodness, with TREES. What better gift is there?

Plus, earlier that day, as I scrubbed my clothes near the garden well,
2 boys came over wanting a few seedlings.

"Do your mothers want trees?" I asked.

"Yes"

"Do you know how to plant them?"

"Yes."

But I'm not stupid - people here answer 'yes' no matter the question,
so we sat there for ten minutes in the mid-day sun as I struggled
through the instructions in Hassaniya, and they bobbed their heads
like little dolls. As I sent them on their way, I had second thoughts
about giving trees to children, but then I realized that they are just
as likely, if not more, to listen to me than the adults are.

And that's that.