1/6/95

I got Ben up, we got our shoes on, and by 7:35 we left the site, on foot. We headed to the South, in search of artifacts. By 7:45, we had found a deposit of old pottery, a piece of flint, and a round grinding stone in perfect condition. Energized, we raced to the tops of the dunes in search of other pockets of artifacts. The sand dunes were orange, and the pottery was easily visible in white stretches of sand between the dunes. The shards of pottery we found were similar to those have found in the states, but the stone tools are like nothing I have ever seen. Ben and I split up so that we weren't fighting over the same artifacts, but we remained close together so well wouldn't get lost. We searched alone for about twenty minutes, and when we met back up we decided to head back, separately. I wanted to check another site I had spotted, so I kept going for a few minutes. When I reached it, I found nothing but pottery. On the next dune, I saw a scattering of white. Thinking it could be artifacts, I ran forward. It turned out to be some sort of skeleton. the ribs jutted form the sand, and the arm and leg bones were visible, along with some vertebrae. The skull, however, had been crushed or had just fallen apart. The skeleton was bout five feet long. I wanted to know exactly what sort of animal it belonged to, so I dug through the sand in the region of the skull with my hands. I found some teeth, and part of the jaw, but it still wasn't enough to describe exactly what I had found. I kept digging, and found the rest of the front of the lower jaw. I was not 100% sure of what I had found until I saw that one of the front teeth in the jaw was identical to mine! I gasped and jumped back. I found a human skeleton! Unfortunately, Ben was out of sight by now, so I left a large rock I had found at the top of a dune to mark the spot. I was running a bit late (we had to leave by 9:00 am) so I left my find. I took a different route back, so I would be sure and hit new sites. I lost track of the other tracks from which I came, but thinking I knew where the car was, I continued forth. It had taken me about twenty minutes to get to the skeleton, so I knew I would be back by 9 if I left by 8:40. Continuing North, by 9 I was in sight of nothing but dunes. I thought perhaps I had gone too far west, so I headed east (toward the sun.) I went as fast as I could up and down the dunes, carrying a human lower jaw (I had to bring evidence of my find) and all the rocks I could fit in my shorts and jacket pockets. I found another rock, limestone perhaps, with three holes of the same size drilled into it at even intervals. It weighed about ten pounds, and after I had climbed my sixth or seventh thirty foot dune with it, I decided it looked much better against a background of reddish sand than it did in y hands. By 9:40, I had given up on finding the others. I was not really in danger of someone else finding My lower jaw because I had stayed in sight of the road to the north. It took a full twenty minutes to get there, and when I did, the road was dirt, not the asphalt we had driven in on. Uh oh. I knew that they were working on the road, so it was the same road we had come in on (I was pretty sure,) but I didn't know where I was in relation to where we had come in to the dunes, or exactly what that road looked like either. I headed west on the road hoping that nobody was too worried about me, and that Ben had made it back. A front had come through, and the sun was now hidden behind the clouds and a sea of dust driven by twenty-plus m.p.h. winds. My eyes were quite thankful that I had intelligently decided to wear my contacts for my desert outing in a sandstorm. I covered my face as well as I could with the hood of my FSU jacket, and walked for thirty minutes (time now 10:30) until I found the asphalt road and our entrance to the desert. There was no sign of anyone and the wind was rapidly covering the tracks of the vehicle and my feet. I left a pipe in the road with a message that I had been there and would return. I followed the vehicle tracks, hoping to remember/find where we had gone. I walked until the vehicle tracks disappeared, and searched for the others. When I discovered that I could walk in a circle around a dune and not realize I had already been there (twice it happened!) I realized I should stay by the main road and let them find me. While walking back, I took down my hood because I was hot and the wind was at my back, I heard someone call out. It was Ben, time now: 11:30am. Lost for only three hours in the Sahara-fun! Ben had been looking for me, and he, at the time, was lost. Neither of us had any idea where we had camped. Alhumdulilahi, Ben had a one-third full bottle of Betty's Bisop, which I drained immediately to quench my thirst. Thank God it was a cool and cloudy day, or someone might have found a Seminole jacket covering the bones of a Peace Corps Volunteer. We headed back to the road, and at noon Betty and Jason and John pulled up in the truck. I explained my story, and they told me that they had reported to the embassy and Peace Corps that I was missing.

We called the embassy to let them know I was all right and then went back to the house. Thought I was sorry to worry everyone, overall, it was a heck of an experience that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't come here. I look forward to returning for more artifacts, but next time I will go with someone, take water, and a compass.

After they picked me up in the truck, we went back to find George, who was also looking for me. We eventually found him, high atop a dune. He had lost track of Ben, and like me, had found that the tracks were getting covered up by the sand, so he said the best thing to do in a sandstorm in the desert is to stop moving, and get up on the highest thing possible. This is how we found him.

I had found a lot of artifacts, and I filled my two jacket pockets, and all of the pockets in my shorts. At one time, I was cradling an arm-full of various rocks I had found. After trudging up a few tall sand dunes, I gradually began to discard what I had. When I was finally picked up by the truck, I had damn near twenty pounds of rocks in my possession.

Ben found two interesting pieces: "Trey, what are these? I thought they were new or something, but I kept them." "These" were two bronze spear or arrow points, in beautiful condition. My rocks didn't look so good anymore. He found one on the ground where we had parked the truck.

1/16/95

Well, I spent the night in my new house last night. It is a nice place on the edge of town with a great view of nothing but trees and grassy fields out of my window. The only problem is that I am next to the mosque. They don't have a speaker, but they were pretty loud this morning. It is really pretty here-there is a lot of greenery. I will send pictures of the stuff here son.

I do feel very isolated here. Everybody speaks a mile a minute in Wolof, and I don't understand a damned thing. I met a bunch of people, but I don't remember any of their names. They changed my name to Shekh or something like that, I am not really sure. I slept well here last night, except for the morning wake-up call by the man in the mosque. It got really chilly here, I was quite cold as I slept under an open window.

There is another guy who stays in a room in my house, but I haven't met him yet. I have a large salon that I will sleep in, and another, smaller room that I don't know what to do with yet. I would like to have the whole place to myself, but I am not sure if it is possible.

There is an outhouse with a shower and latrine, but they are in disarray. I am not quite sure what I will do with it. It has no roof or doors, and the latrine is a fifty gallon drum in the ground. While I decide what to do with the latrine, the village chief said I could use his.

Today I am meeting (possibly) the regional governor, the health director (D.R.A.S.S.-my boss,) the Gendarme chief, and I don't know who else. While I have a Peace Corps vehicle at my disposal I am going to buy as many things as I can. I have already spent about half of my living allowance for the net three and a half months-I hope I make it!

Today I have to fill out my emergency evacuation plan-but if I have to leave quick I'll just swim across the river to Senegal. I have a decent hospital here and I am only two hours away from Nouakchott. I really do feel for all the other volunteers here in this country, because some are several days away from Nouakchott by car, and the planes only come once a week.

Well, now I get to spend the day in Rosso. A letter explaining me was not received by the Prefect who is in charge of this region, and he said that I cannot go to my village until he receives the letter. Perhaps tomorrow I will get the letter and be able to go back to my village.

You can not believe what I am watching on TV right now. It is Senegalese TV and they have a program for villagers where they just showed, using a razor blade, how to castrate a pig. Great! Now I can go castrate all the animals in my village.

1/17/95

I learned last night that the bony fish eaten in my village is not even a river fish. It is shipped in from Nouakchott. I asked Sall Kalidou, a Peace Corps professor whom I am staying with in Rosso why the villager eat it. With the river next to us, it seems that the river fish would be cheaper. He explained that the Yaye-boy (bony fish) costs twenty ouguiyas/kilo, about seven cents a pound. The good river fish costs 300 ouguiyas/kilo, or $1.05 a pound. I wonder why the village doesn't fish-they could eat better and save money. At this time, I am not really sure what it is that the people in my village do to make money. I think they probably farm, and since there are no crops right now they don't have much money. Actually, it always amazes me here when people do have money.

1/18/95

Two days after I was supposed to have been installed in my village, the letter finally arrived for the prefect so I met him, the governor, the head of the police, and the head of the gendarme (National Guard) today. I was sick today with diarrhea. To say the least, it was inconvenient. The Peace Corps dropped me off at my house, and off they went, leaving me here with all of my friends an infinite distance away. I needed and wanted to put up my stuff, but I think I was running a fever, and since I don't have a latrine yet, I had to run off and hide to use the bathroom (if you can call sand under a tree "the bathroom.") It has been a long time since I have felt that lonely. For the first time in a while, I really wondered what I am doing here. Some would say that I will grow stronger from this, that I will be better for making new friends and escaping and/or learning to live with the loneliness. Well, I have been lonely a lot in my life, and the only thing I have learned from it is that I hate it and I want to go through life surrounded by people who know me and love me. I have been very successful with close relationships with much of my family and I have made some great friends. The only thing I am lacking in is a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. Perhaps someday I will find what I am looking for there, and then I'll have somebody to go with me to places like a small village in Africa, and then I won't be so lonely.

I felt better after a small nap, took some Cipro to kill the bugs in my stomach, and started unpacking. After a couple of trips to the tree, I finally made some progress in my room. Tomorrow I will install my solar panel, and clean up outside. Later I will plant a garden. My immediate work is to learn Wolof, repair the latrine, and get to know the people here. And also I think to survive this place.

Though physically it won't be that bad, mentally I am going to take a beating. I wonder how the other volunteers are doing. I wish I could call them. I have a feeling that some will not make it, and I hope they don't make themselves miserable. This job is not for everybody-I wonder if it is for me.

1/19/95

Well, its 6:40 and I've been up since 5:55am. When I wake up before the mat at the mosque starts screaming, I am all right. He started at 6:05 this morning. I did find out that the mosque does have speakers mounted in the windows, and one faces somewhat in my direction. I may seriously look into moving, if someone doesn't send me earplugs. My back is still hurting me from my motorcycle spill last week, and it forced me to get up this morning. (During moto training, Ben and I were cruising along the dunes at the beach in Nouakchott; I was in front. In the sand, and especially up and down dunes, you have to go about 40 miles per hour or you'll get stuck in the sand. Cruising along, I went up a dune, and to my extreme horror, it suddenly ended. I slammed on the brakes, which on the Kawasaki's were "MEAN" in the sand, and I don't mean "MEAN" in a good way. They stopped the bike all right, as the tires dug into the soft sand at the top of the dune. However, I did not stop, my thighs slammed into the handlebars as I rocketed off of the bike, flipped me head first, and I did a pile-drive in my helmet into the sand below. I will always remember the THWACK when my head slapped into the helmet. If I hadn't worn a helmet, I could very well have broken my neck. Ben was following behind me, and said he knew he should slow down when he saw my glowing taillight disappear as the bike followed me over the ledge. For about two months afterward, I had to get up in the morning when the ache in my middle back/chest hurt too much for me to breathe.)

When the sun comes up, I'm going to go make some hot chocolate, and I will get to work on my solar setup, and work on my Wolof.

What a day! Today was my first Friday in my village, also known as the Mauritanian weekend. Therefore, I got up late today about 8:30. I studied some Wolof, and about noon I put on my boots and left for Dieuk, a village about 8k away. I took one of my now famous "short-cuts" and ended up in a dead end at the lake. While I was walking to the shore, I saw in the reeds a Cayman (small alligator.) It was about five feet long, and fled after we stared at each other for about five seconds. I walked back to the road, and when I reached the halfway point a kid picked me up in his car and drove me to Dieuk. While there, I talked to PCV Sam Martin's village family and then got her motorcycle to drive back here. Naturally, I had a flat tire while driving it. I drove it back home, and pulled the wheel off with the "help" of twenty five kids.

1/21/95

Didn't do much today. Went to town (Rosso) to get the tire fixed, found out that the inner tube was ripped apart, and that I have to go to Senegal or Nouakchott to get another one. Hopefully, Sam has one in her village-I'll go tomorrow to look.

Glossary

Email me

New for 6/99:
New PCVs
The Return
Plus other site enhancements

Next Page->

<-Previous Page