2004-12-21 - 9:50 a.m.

Journal entry excerpt dated Dec. 15th, 2004:

I've never written a "XMas letter" before but thought I would give it a try this year,joining a tradition embraced by thousands of people worldwide.

I've been living in Mauritania for a little short of six months now and have gone from the "rainy season" with high humidity and ungodly temperatures of 104 plus degrees to really cold nights when toes are frozen and I am kept awake throughout the night because not able to find a tight enough feto position to keep me warm. I'm on the edges of the Sahara desert - that explains the really cold nights contrasted by really warm piercing days!

I went from stumbling my way through broken French to becoming nearly fluent in it and forced by my mostly-Hassiniya-speaking town to become somewhat fluent in the local Arabic dialect... it's amazing how full-immersion in another country, language and culture can do to a person in only six months!

I squat to go to the bathroom and use my left hand and water instead of toilet paper, I am now comfortable in the crossed-legged position when eating on the floor around a large communal plate with anywhere from one to six other people. Extending my right hand to mix up the rice and suace, balling it up with still-wobbling technique and shoving it in my mouth, licking my hand off clean at the end of the meal not to waste a single grain of rice or cous cous before washing my hands in the portable basin which is passed from person to person before and after each meal.

I drink and wash with what I would have normally called "dirty water" before coming here, but what is here an unavoidable reality: after all, how could we possibly keep the desert sand and dust out of our water, buckets, houses, clothes, hair, eyes, nose, teeth, food, sweat? It's everywhere, now permanently staining all of my clothes... the wonderful clay color of the Mauritanian landscape!

I sit wherever: dirt, dust, rugs, pebbles, rocks, bricks, tin shacks, donkey carts, sand dunes, cramped car seats...

It's hard to explain in a brief letter what it is really like to live here. I don't think I would be able to really explain what I am feeling, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking and dreaming. Also because everything seems so relative and always changing, each day magically unveiling some kind of new revelation.

Today on my donkey ride into town I was for some strange reason attracted to noticing the various types of "tables" or "market stands" that the women are using to lay their goods on... it was fascinating and again surreal. It feels like I am in a totally different world where "things" assume such an extremely different value from that which I am used to.

I sometimes feel discomfort when thinking of the value system proudly held in "my" societal system back "home". It often feels so frivolous and unimportant. No wonder people "back home" have identity crises, depression, and are endlessly searching for a meaning, a purpose... The answer to that search here "in this world" is simple and straightforward: to adore and worship God.

In order to be able to do this, one must eat, stay healthy, work and earn a living, become educated, marry, have a family and worship all aspects of life that were given by the mercy of Allahu Akbar. That simple!

No wonder people seem so serene, in peace, jouyful, stable. All bounty is to be shared because it comes from God and God willing He will continue to provide: so why worry, fight or jeopardize relationships and lives for money of all things? People will always find food, water, shelter, and a "welcoming family".

I remember in my first days in Mauritania I was so boggled and confused, I just couldn't grasp how these people, so far removed from the rest of the world, could possibly live fulfilling lives without ever asking themselves what "their" purpose in life was... living a fluid cycle day in and day out, following the sun and the moon to tell the beat of their hours, days, nights and seasons.

What could they possibly "dream" to become? To be? To have? Little did I understand back then that there really are completely different ways of thinking and living in this world... little did I know back then!

I am extremely grateful to be on this planet called Islamic Republic of Mauritania in this time of my life, learning and growing by leaps and bounds.

I wish to all who might end up reading this, a Very Merry Holiday Season and a New Year filled with new beginnings, refreshing moments, magic revelations and simple pleasures.

Love to all!

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