2005-10-13 - 10:47 p.m.

You know you are well integrated when:

1)you pick your nose in public

2)you don’t think twice about littering

3)while washing dishes you pick up a stone or handful of sand to “scrub them clean”!

4)you go to someone’s home as a guest and take a two-hour nap

5)you put children to work when they visit you

6)you blow your nose in your melhava (veil)

7)you walk through people’s compounds (instead of the proper roads) to get to your destination

8)you master the squatting position keeping both feet flat on the ground (instead of staying on your tippy toes)

9)you know and regularly use all the commands for the various animals: donkeys, cows, goats, kids…

10)you forget that there is a whole different world going through a bustling life at this very moment outside of Mauritania… and feel “in awe and incredulous” when you remember that long-lost reality

I have done all of the above… uuummmmmm, wonderful, isn’t it??

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I am uploading new photos as I type!!!

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Questions I have been asked in this past year about "where I am from":

1) Do you have donkey carts?
2) Do you have thunders and lightning?
3) Is your sun the same as ours?
4) Do you have a moon? Is it the same moon?
5) Do women have periods? Are they painful?
6) Is your cousin waiting for you (to marry you)?
7) Do you know George Bush? Is he your cousin?
8) Do you now Anna Grazia? Is she your sister? (a Latin-American soap opera character)
9) Are there cows?
10) Is there a "countryside"?

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I am currently in Aleg on my way to pick up my first visitor from the US. My very good friend Aaron will be landing in Nouakchott this coming Tuesday and staying with me for the next two and a half months Inshallah! I am very excited!

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Lots of new prospects for work projects coming up... will write about them in a future entry Inshallah!

Hugs,

Jordy

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