2005-08-15 - 7:20 p.m.

This is my second uploaded entry for the day. To read about the recent Coup d'Etat click on "Older Entries" on the side bar to the left!

*******
I was gone from Magta Lahjar approximately one month and when coming back my heart rejoiced in seeing how the landscape had changed during the so-called rainy season. While the local people rejoiced in seeing me fattened up: “Mashallah you came back fat!” many exclaimed.

There are seasonal lakes on the outskirts of Magta Lahjar. With a bit of imagination you could almost see green rolling hills in the place of the usual sand dunes, spotted with trees and bushes, covered by a thin blanket of grass and weeds. The towns are emptying out, as families are moving to the "countryside" to vacation: which often translates into sleeping, eating fresh meat, and drinking bowl after bowl of fresh milk... with the widespread intention of fattening up!

Going out “en brousse” yesterday to visit the two villages in which we have feeding centers, I came across PASTURES(!!!) where goats, camels, cows, and donkeys were all freely roaming, while drinking from the shallow seasonal lakes.

But of course… as we got to Ehel Boukhyar and Ehel Borella Maham I was reminded that I was still in Mauritania after all… and that the rainy season had bypassed the land of the forgotten! We measured and weighed the kids after the first month of operational feeding centers. The results were puzzling… or maybe not so, if analyzed a bit more in detail. Let me explain.

In the village that is better off, mainly populated by white moors, equipped with a well and actual “houses”, where there is a “boutique”, where the woman in charge of the center has a basic level of alphabetization and men are in much larger abundance… the kids either improved or stayed the same, with five children actually changing categories for the best. Two little girls I was really shocked by during my first visit were almost unrecognizable… you could actually discern some signs of healthy chubbiness on them!!

In the other village, the one exclusively populated by black moors, with no well but only shallow ponds of stale water, no boutique, no “houses”, where the woman in charge of the program is claimed to be the most educated but yet cannot sign her own name and there is literally only one man present in the village, the majority of the kids stayed the same, four changed categories for the best… and three became worse!!!!!

Limnaye and I were very cross and did not hide our disappointment with the woman in charge of the feeding center, in the hopes of pushing the local community to really get on board with the program and monitor that the kids are not just served the mixture but are also ingesting it! We also talked to them about the importance of teaching the kids basic hygiene measures such as not defecating close to their tents, not eating dirt, washing their hands before eating, etc. I am interested in seeing the results of our next checkup, scheduled to take place in mid-September… Inshallah!

*****

I will be in Aleg today and tomorrow and will be leaving on a Peace Corps car the day after to accompany two trainees to what will be their future site: Maal. We will be visiting Maal for just about five days and then they will return to Kaedi and I to Magta Lahjar Inshallah!

previous - next