2005-03-13 - 11:10 a.m.

Excerpt from a journal entry dated January 14th, 2005 – A mixture between a cultural anthropology analysis and a VENTING Session! ?

Being a “white” development worker in Mauritania is not like being a “white” development worker in other African countries. Mauritania is the screaming bridge between Arabic descent countries and Black African counterparts, the still rather untouched place where daily cultural contradictions seem to take place; where, as a “white” development worker keen on “integrating” and adapting my approach to the local culture, I seem to have to change my “nature” multiple times a day depending on whether I am interacting with a “Black African” or someone from Arabic descent. A difference made even more sly by the distinction between White and Black Moors, officially “brothers and sisters” but in reality not quite so.

Their approach to “me” changes drastically depending on what cultural branch and ethnic identity they belong to. Often deceiving people, it is hard to distinguish honest intentions from opportunistic interactions; I find myself “lost” and feeling “lonely” more often than not. We don’t quite share the same ideals and values. A difference I find strange and confusing, given that both our backgrounds are very deeply entrenched in “religious and spiritual” dogmas.

How can gossiping and lying be so widespread and condoned in their daily reality, while so condemned in mine? How can deceiving an ill-informed “outsider” or “guest” to gain economic advantage off of them be an amusing activity amongst them, while it is definitely not included in my “best practices”. On the other hand, they seem to have an utmost rigorous process of welcoming a guest. Is it all a façade? Is it dictated by their religion? Or maybe derived by their desert-laden ancestry? It is a practice that they would hardly be repaid by, should they find themselves as “guests” in my country, society, and religious community.

It is amazing to see the difference in gender relations and behavior between the two main ethnic groups. How can they possibly differ so much and still be considered all the same Nationality? Speak such different languages and often not have a common means of communicating amongst themselves because of one group’s keen resistance to learning the colonizers’ language. How can one group’s dance and music be so vivid, energetic, feverish and colorful, opposed to the other’s often mellow, sometimes monotone, fluid rhythm and movements?

You feel it on your skin, it’s screaming right at you… their view of each other, their opinion about who is “the best, the real” - “Muslim “, “Mauritanian”, “Sauvage from the brousse”, “Toubab wannabe”, “Freed”, “Slave”, “Brother”, “Sister”, “Friend”. They’re definitely not inhibited and scared to share their racist and “classist” views with you, hoping to gain your support, hoping to buy you onto “their” team.

What do you do in that situation? Do you just sit there, patient, smiling, condescending but not expressing your opposing view? Or do you engage in a “no-end” charade about why and how you deeply disagree with them (often risking a miscommunication disaster caused by the enormous language barrier standing tall between us!)?

It’s still amazing to me, after six months here in this country, to notice and be surprised by their “bounce back” capability. Their ability to “save face” and “forget” disagreements and ruptures, dramas and mishappenings. In the vast majority of cases they don’t hold grudges and have the amazing capability to divide “work issues” from relationships, which is even more amazing in a society where so much work and business is based on relationships.

I guess it is their natural survival instinct that perpetuates the survival of relationship marketing and the burial of unnecessary grudges – so much unlike our less collectivist society and economy where customers, as “important” as they are advertised to be, are indeed very easily substituted and therefore dispensable. Just like friends and relatives… unfortunately. Not here, not in this society, where the concept of community is still to this day holding very strong, even if just within their own ethnic circles.

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