Slavery in Mauritania

Recently CNN did a piece called "Slavery's Last Stronghold" on the prevalence of Slaves in Mauritania. (Read it Here)

The Introduction is as follows: "Mauritania’s endless sea of sand dunes hides an open secret: An estimated 10% to 20% of the population lives in slavery. But as one woman’s journey shows, the first step toward freedom is realizing you're enslaved." Written by John D. Sutter.

Mauritania borders the Western Sahara, which Morocco claims as its own, and which the United States recognizes as an independent territory being occupied by Morocco. Peace Corps was active in Mauritania until about August 2009 when the volunteers were evacuated. Volunteers are generally only evacuated when the volunteer's safety is at risk, usually due to politics. In this case, apparently the group Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb was making its presence known in the region. Niger and Nigeria were also evacuated around the same time. (Morocco was evacuated in 2003 because of strong anti-American sentiment after we invaded Iraq) Technically, it has "suspended" the Peace Corps program in Mauritania, and not completely stopped it. This means that Peace Corps will, supposedly, return when conditions are safer.

One PC/Morocco volunteer I know, who has already completed his service, was part of the group of volunteers who was evacuated from Mauritania. After a little over a year in Mauritania, I suppose he decided he wasn't finished yet, and re-upped for another two years in Morocco.

I wanted more information on this slavery in Mauritania that I had never even heard about. So I asked this RPCV (returned PC volunteer) what his thoughts were on the article. His response was this:

The documentary certainly misrepresented a lot. Nothing they said was factually incorrect but they highlighted a few abuses, ignored a lot of context and made it seem a lot worse than it is. Many white moor families had a black moor family that "belonged to them." They would cook and do chores etc and while, I'm sure there were many cases of abuses, the system functioned because of lack of economic alternatives, not cruelty. No industries economically benefited from slavery. That was all mentioned but certainly not emphasized in the documentary probably because the reporters spent a total of 8 days in Mauritania. PC Mauritania was hard because it was a poor country without a lot of luxuries but in some ways it was easier than Morocco. People were welcoming and had fewer preconceived notions based on tourism. Harassment was lower and communities were closer. Mauritania has a host of serious problems, corrupt government, desertification, lack of water/enough wells, poor education system etc. Slavery will go away when those problems are fixed not when CNN airs a poorly made documentary.

So there you have another side to it. The photos of Mauritania were so beautiful and I imagine it is a lot what southern Morocco/Western Sahara territory looks like. I know the dress is the same because I have seen it even going as far West as Ourzazate. During our Peace Corps service we are absolutely forbidden to visit the Western Sahara Territory because it is supposedly dangerous, although I think it has more to do with that the U.S. doesn't recognize it as belonging to Morocco. I hope I get a chance to make it at least to Tan Tan, (basically the edge of Morocco, the edge of where we are allowed to go) before I leave and see this vast no-man's land.

(the "A" marks Tan Tan and the dotted line marks the border between "Morocco" and Western Sahara. Where I'd REALLY like to go is Dakhla, which is the coastal city in the middle of Western Sahara. It's supposed to be beautiful and have some of the best surfing in the world, not that I surf.)

And now, for your viewing pleasure, is a video of my friend and colleague, Socorra, doing a duet with a Moroccan woman playing the Oud for a celebration of International Woman's Day. Never thought I'd see a Cross Cultural Duet of Pat Benatar's "Love is a battlefield"

Focus on Football

I didn't grow up with sports, but I did grow up with ballet (and a strict teacher!). I credit ballet with having taught me discipline, structure, and work ethic; skills I apply to my everyday life. I theorize that kids who grow up playing organized sports acquire these same skills as well as learning to work together towards a common goal and honing individual strengths at the same time.

One of the volunteers here, Xavier Rathlev, has a partnership with an American high schooler working on his Eagle Scout project. Through this boy scout, Xavier had a bunch of football equipment sent to Morocco, enough to make a couple formidable flag football teams. Trials with bringing the football to the Dar Chebab worked overwhelmingly well and he has since been swarmed by children on a daily basis demanding the football that they know is hidden in his backpack. He formed a team pretty quickly, but weekly practices seemed to wane with no prospect of any kind of game against another team. So that's when our friend Ross Wood stepped in and used some of the equipment the boyscout sent to form his own team in Erfoud, his site, about 1.5hrs away from Goulmima, Xavier's site. This was a great motivator.

The First Ever American Flag Football game in Morocco was thus scheduled for March 11th, 2012.

Where do I fit into all this? Xavier and Ross have undoubtedly been my biggest collaborators/partners-in-crime/support system during my Peace Corps service. Once a match was scheduled I was appointed as "head of the boosters" of the Goulmima team. Mostly that meant that my job was to create a buzz about the upcoming game amongst Moroccans in the Goulmima region and amongst Peace Corps volunteers- especially ones who might want to start a team of their own. My cold calling skills from my fundraising days certainly came in handy. The day of the game, we had a full 10% of Peace Corps Volunteers in the country attend! While we didn't have thousands of local spectators attend the game, fliers were passed out at the high school and at souk. The turnout was not too shabby. The photo below shows just a small portion of the audience, which was mainly made up of guys anywhere from 10 to 40.

(Photo by fellow volunteer Katy Howell-Burke)

The day went off without a hitch despite the huge upset of Erfoud winning the game. It was especially moving to see the the players lining up on the sidelines before the match and think that even four months ago the notion of football, or these kids playing on any sports team, didn't exist. I was very proud to be there and to recognize and appreciate all the hard work that went into making the event happen; especially from Xavier, Ross, this Eagle Scout who donated the supplies, Xavier's brothers who dragged two large-enough-to-carry-a-dead-body-in duffel bags to Europe full of football supplies for Xavier to pick up there. (And the minimal impediments of the Moroccan government officials, of course.)

Other Peace Corps Volunteers have begun the preparation to start teams in at least three other cities in Morocco.

While I have liked football since my first home game at SMU, my freshman year, I have learned more about football in the last year and a half of conversations with Xavier than in my entire life prior to Peace Corps. Despite remedial tutoring, and against my better judgments, I was entrusted with the responsibility of being one of the "line judges." I was very nervous and did mess up one play towards the beginning, but I did alright for the rest of the game. In the following video, I can be spotted sprinting around for flashes of a second in a gray sweatshirt.



The song in the background of the video is from the band The S7rawa Boys, whom I have blogged about before here, and whom MTV has also blogged about! The lead rapper, SiMo Klay, is also Goulmima's quarterback and a hard working high school student who has picked up fluent English in his spare time.

We have also gotten press from the International Federation of American Football! They wrote an article about the game, which you can find HERE.

IN BOUARFA NEWS! My environmental science fair competition is THIS WEEKEND! I'm a little nervous about pulling it off since through the majority of the planning my Dar Chebab was closed and I now have no site mate to help me with logistics. (Who is going to entertain the guests while I make tea for the judges!?!) So wish me luck! The winners of this local competition get to go to a final competition in Oujda next month, hosted by another volunteer.

Site Mate/Laarobiya

The bad news: Hubbell has left me. Yes, my dearly beloved site mate that I had hoped would come and work with the Moroccan male youth, a population I have all but given up on, has left. He has moved to greener pastures- namely Ourzazate- a city with supermarkets, cheese, wine, an international airport, and (perhaps most importantly) other volunteers. So I am now back to being the only volunteer for 250km. So lame. He is a black belt in Kung Fu and the Ministry of Youth and Sports just opened a new sports center and they wanted someone with some real sports skills to come and teach there. So he got a site change. They figured this was easiest since he'd just moved here and hadn't gotten too attached yet.

The Good news: While Hubbell was still here, we got to check something off my Moroccan Bucket list! A visit to Laarobiya!! (pronounced Lah-roh-BI-ya- with the Lah, being how your Brooklyn, Jewish grandmother might yell to someone named "Larry" down the hall- nasally) Laarobiya means "countryside" so they say. How I would explain it would be the desert where the nomads live.

In the photos you may recognize these characters from my Eid Kbir photos, the Kaddouri family. Mrs. Kaddouri's sister married a nomad and adopted their lifestyle, so that was who we were supposed to go visit. When we got there though, Mrs. Kaddouri's sister and her husband had gone into Bouarfa for the day to go shopping. We were instead hosted by Mrs. Kaddouri's brother-in-law's other wife.

This is the typical tent of the nomad of the Beni Guil tribe. The Beni Guils are the Arab pastoralists in this region. They also live in western Algeria. They herd goats and sheep mostly. They don't move too frequently. The tent is made of woven wool. I would estimate it to be 30ftx15ft.

Don't think that they are living in tents because they are poor- oh no- many of these nomads have houses in Bouarfa and Oujda, and almost all have land rovers, trucks, and donkey drawn carriages. Some even have enough money that they feel comfortable keeping it in a bank. (Most people here do not have bank accounts.) I noted to my dad how interesting it was how these nomads will drive into Bouarfa and go to the bank and unload stacks and stacks of cash. "My, how lucrative is the shepherding business!" To which he suggested that they might be dealing in other industries, along the closed Moroccan/Algerian border, than just herding. Whatever is the case, these people have no desire to live a settled life in a house. They are nomads. This is their life. And they are happy to be living this way.

This shows the inside of the tent. Youssef is stooping, but down the center at its tallest point, it is tall enough for me to stand up, though maybe not someone who clears 6ft. Above this fire is a hole in the tent to let the smoke out. Their fuel is tumbleweed. What a staged photo this is though! I told the madam of the tent that I wanted to take a photo of her preparing tea for us, as we'd just arrived, but she said "no way can you photograph me!" so the boys immediately cozied up by the fire and posed.

Ok, Ok, so I accidentally photographed her just a bit. Here is Mr. Kaddouri "tending" the fire and Mrs. Kaddouri sitting in the foreground. In he background you can see our hostess. She's got a pink hijab on, covered by a black hijab on top of that.

After having some tea, some fresh goat's milk, fresh butter on fresh bread, and some Moroccan dates. We "kids" were sent outside to wander around the desert and climb a mountain while the ladies started cooking lunch. The men, after that, were not allowed in the tent at all. We ate lunch separately and the men even ate outside in some other structure.

Riding a donkey up semi-rocky terrain is a lot like riding a bumpy theme park ride; you can't stop laughing because you feel like you're going to fall off and you're being jostled around, but at the same time you're only about four feet off the ground so you can't allow yourself to be too terrified. This is my favorite of our donkey photos. Alae, who is four, was being really selfish with the donkey and didn't want to share, thus throwing a temper tantrum. Sanae was trying to secure him saying it was going to be alright. Hubbell is just laughing and wielding the go-faster-donkey! stick, Loubna, Alae's mother, is looking on, laughing. And Mostapha, another Kaddouri sibling, is probably yelling at Hubbell to use his go-faster-donkey! stick to make the donkey go faster and make Alae scream even more.

Alae and I look very calm here but there was still a lot of yelping and laughing on my part. Alae adjusted pretty quickly to the donkey and rode it all the way up the mountain. Youssef was an expert at that other donkey and the third was not in the mood for passengers at all, so we all took turns riding the other two.

This is a photo of me and Hicham, who was the son of the "other wife". He was the one guiding us up the mountain, which you can see behind us. I would say it was about 60F. A little chilly but sunny.

Just look at that view. It was incredible how far we were able to see. That is a dry river running through the middle.

It is days like this one that make me remember how lucky I am to be where I am. I have days where we might say "Bouarfa won today!" meaning I end the day feeling defeated. This is mostly due to the male youth in this country. (I've rehearsed a new response to "why don't you marry a Moroccan boy?" "Because 99% make lewd comments to me from the second I step out my door!") But there are days, like this one, where I can say that I won. Where I finish the day just over the moon to be exactly where I am. These are days where I've had particularly moving hours at the Dar Chebab, where I've really connected to the kids there. This also happens on days where I get entrenched in the culture: cultural festivities like weddings or baby-naming-parties**, or even seeing how people live out their daily lives. This nomad day is a good example.

I am to the point where I can't imagine never having come here. I can't imagine not knowing what I didn't know a year and a half ago. Today I went and ate lunch at a friend's house and after we women ate couscous on the floor of their house and then gazed at turkish soap operas, I thought to myself "How odd this would have been to me just two years ago... and now it seems totally normal." All in all, I'll take the bad with the good any day, to be able to experience everything that I have here- and will continue to experience over my next 8 months in Morocco.

**A baby-naming-party as I call it is called a "sabou3" (the 3 being a really really nasally A). In our American culture, the parents generally pick a name for the baby before its born and then have a "baby shower" to help prepare. In a culture where until very recently many, many babies died shortly after birth, or many mothers miscarried, a baby was not planned for until after it was already born. This is still followed today. I before-birth baby shower would be the ultimate jinxing of the pregnancy. So a baby has no name for its first week. The baby also has no clothes or anything else for the first week either- until the baby-naming-party where the baby gets its names and gifts. The infant mortality rate is still VERY high in Rural Morocco and most children are still born at home. I met one mother who has given birth to 8 live children and only 2 have lived past the 1-year mark. She's currently pregnant. Prenatal health is still virtually non-existent here and pregnant women will even fast during Ramadan up until the time of the baby's birth. This wikipedia page has infant mortality at "only" about 30 for every 1000 live births. But keep in mind that this figure also includes the modern cities.
(Note: the Beni Guil, for some reason, do a "tleta yam" or baby naming party on the third day, not the seventh. Not sure why. Maybe their survival rates are traditionally higher?)