Let the surveying commence

Appreciative acknowledgment to one Sam Riesland for getting that survey running. Because so many of you are interested, I'll let you know what the problem was. Sam had to write a Java servlet to database all the responses from the survey, and he is doing me a favor by hosting this on his webspace. However, not only is his webspace provider running an outdated version of Resin (the Java compiler), but it's running an old version of Java. As Sam codes only in the newest and the sleekest, we had a number of "permission" errors.

Now you know, and knowledge is power!

I have no idea what any of that means.

Never too soon for an update

No more than 5 minutes after posting that last entry, I was greeted at the office door by a wall of car horns and people banging on their doors, hoods, and any other resonant surface within arm's length. It would appear that the former mayor from before the coup has successfully regained his status as man on top.

But I could be wrong. I've seen weirder shit happen around here.

Vote for me and I will make you happy that you don't have a woman and you will not cry

The first round of elections are over, allowing me a month or so reprieve from bullhorn-strapped cars driving around town at all hours of the night blasting one of the following, in decreasing order of frequency:

• No Woman, No Cry
• That relatively new Shakira song
• Something Mauritanian (I can't distinguish one song from the next)

Conceivably, these roving noise machines could be used to spread the message/platform for one of the plethora of candidates. Mostly, according to translation by a few Mauritanian friends, they promised that voting for "so and so" will make your life nicer and happier. Coupled with Bob Marley's classic song of, um, not crying about not having a woman(?) or Shakira's latest muy caliente tune (I've heard this so many times I'm just going to assume it's the national anthem), I personally can't fathom why you'd even consider other candidates.

Sarcasm aside, things did seem to go off pretty smoothly in NDB. One of my friends up here is a reporter for a national paper, and he was covering the election for our fair city. Unfortunately, I was/am forbidden to have anything to do with politics around here, and was discouraged from even showing my face anywhere near the voting locations. Respecting the rules, I bravely lent him my camera so he could snap a few for the "Nouakchott Info."

The Wali (governor) of Dakhlet Nouadhibou casting his vote.

The obligatory interview.

Men queuing outside of a voting station.

Women queuing outside of a voting station. Cultural note: men and women never stand in line together. Their genitals might accidentally touch.

EU election supervisor.

Should you be interested in poorly researched facts, here's what I know. There are somewhere in the realm of thirty parties running candidates for the series of three elections in Mauritania. This election covered the mayor and a few legislative posts. The parties are largely divided along racial lines. Some represent people who were in power before the 2005 coup, some are Islamist, and 95% have thrown the word "Democratic" into their name. Considering I hang out with mostly black Mauritanians, most of the political arguments to which I was privy concerned whether or not they should vote for a black candidate or the person who had been mayor of NDB before the coup. It is reported that he A) didn't put up with people who didn't take their job seriously - this includes corruption, and B) was responsible for most of the city's modernization that has occurred to date.

Candidates are given roughly two weeks to campaign, immediately followed by elections. Specifically, campaigns commenced on the 3rd of November, and ended with yesterday's elections. Campaigning consisted of the aforementioned car-noise-bombing and the ubiquitous erection of enormous tents. The tents also produced an impressive volume of Bob Marley, but other than that, I really never saw anything happening in them. Ads ran in newspapers, and unfortunately I have almost no access to television, so I didn't have a chance to see how it was used.

I personally know one of the legislative candidates who was running for the DIN - Democrates Independants de Nouadhibou - party. When I pressed her on the pertinent issues to which a voter should be attuned, however, she had no answers. At that time (three days into the campaign) they had yet to identify a platform. I also know one of the main campaign organizers for the DIN, who, asked about his party's platform, gave the following explanation (to translate and paraphrase):

"There are the people who held power before the coup. They are running in an attempt to reclaim that power. There are also people at the other extreme who are running solely because the first group should not have power. Our party [the DIN] is moderate. We are interested in the well-being of the people of Nouadhibou, and not simply in power or defeating the other parties."

Reading the look on my face (the one that said, "you really didn't answer my question at all"), he smiled and admitted that the mayoral candidate is an old friend, and that his heart's not really in the election so much as it's in helping out a friend. I don't condemn that, but I'd like to underline that this is a major campaign organizer in one of the most popular parties.

Anyway, I wasn't nearly as involved in observation and information gathering as I intend to be for the next set of elections (somewhere around January-February). The campaigns came and went rather quickly. Filter me out and extrapolate what you will about new found democracy. I think things went pretty well, but it became strikingly clear that just handing choice to people doesn't mean that they're going to make an informed decision.

They're loud

BBC News Day in Pictures

Remember that time you slept on Wyoming Avenue?

If I had a 40 (Steel Reserve, High Gravity - of course), I'd pour one out for Rummy. Then I'd hose off the driveway and try to imagine a world in which he had never existed.

A slightly belated congratulations to one Tim Persico and, as long as I'm tossing them around, his political man behind the curtain, Patrick Murphy, for making PA's 8th district a nicer shade of blue. Tim, I feel much more comfortable with the American political machine now that you're a cog.

That will be all.

Your patience please

More to come. You can click on that survey all you want; it doesn't work yet. But seriously, go for it to your heart's content. It's still better than doing the work you're inevitably being paid to do at the moment.

6 letter word that begins with “F” and ends in “iller”

/Part1/Listen/Superlatives>

Beautiful Celebration of the Perverse:

Neutral Milk Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers Part One
Xiu Xiu – Clowne Towne
Sufjan Stevens – John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

If I Drive I Get Kicked out of the Country:

Vitalic – My Friend Dario
Mylo – Muscle Cars (Reform Reprise)

The Party Must Commence:

Black Leotard Front – Casual Friday
Royksopp – Poor Leno
Gwen Stefani – What Are You Waiting For?

Intensity in 10 Cities (in increasing order of said intensity):

Jason Forrest – Spectacle to Refute All Judgments
Vitalic – La Rock 01
Death From Above 1979 – Little Girl
M83 – Unrecorded
Death From Above 1979 – Go Home, Get Down
Primal Scream – Kill All Hippies

Misc. Good Listening:

The Books – Lemon of Pink Part 1
Serge Gainsbourg – Melody
DJ Crystl – Mind Games
Fennesz – Transit (featuring David Sylvian)

Proper acknowledgment flows in a fraternal direction for introduction to much of this music.

Music I Still Require:

DJ Shadow – The Private Press
FC Kahuna – Hayling
Depeche Mode – John the Revelator (The Beav, I know Ariel has this. Email it.)
Telefon Tel Aviv – What Is It Without the Hand that Wields It?

/Part2/Look/PhotosNDB>

S&E live in the tallest building in Nouadhibou. One day I took some photos from the roof. Here are a few.







This is the “Carrefour Cansado,” perhaps the busiest intersection in NDB. This is the place to find cabs to go to either of the two other main neighborhoods of the city – Cansado and Numerwoatt. Notice the lack of any signage or persons controlling traffic in any manner. I cross this street an average of four to six times daily, and each time consider the fact that I could be run over.



One of the various shantytowns consisting of people wishing to get the hell out of Africa. I intend to get a closer look and some better photos eventually, but I am waiting for a Mauritanian friend to escort me. Something about being the white guy wandering aimlessly with a camera worth more than a year’s wages keeps me from going it alone.

Points of note

1. Every other day, usually from my apartment, I hear the violent screeching of tires as someone realizes that leaving your life at the will of Allah and driving like a complete fucking prick might actually mean you could die. About half of these screeches are followed by the disturbingly satisfying crunch of multiple cars reducing their volume by about half, while simultaneously (and something tells me this isn’t coincidence) doubling their density. Mass stays about the same, minus, perhaps, the guy who flew through the windshield.

I apologize for my dismal take on a tragic situation. The crunch is disturbingly satisfying only because it seems like the logical conclusion of the deadly melody. Kind of like hearing most of a song that cuts out right before the climax. I’m sure the day I actually witness one of these bangers face-to-twisted metal, I’ll be singing a wildly different tune. I wish no death upon anyone, but when I’m the guy in the back seat, or the poor bastard walking along the side of that fateful road, I generally appreciate it when a driver respects my silly American self-determination. As it is, the general trend in NDB driving technique is to disregard absolutely everything that is not directly in front of you, and even then, to assume that you have the right of way. I’ve been led to believe that this is not a localized situation.

2. Class sizes have grown substantially, as predicted. A month into school, class rosters still have yet to be generated, making attendance to my classes an arbitrary matter. I’m also beginning to notice an interesting crack in the foundation of the educational system, and by extension, society.

Each class, that is, grade, is divided into three sections – A, C, and D. The “A” group consists of students of language and literature, and classes are weighted appropriately in determining final grades. Those in the “C” group are mathematics students, with a different emphasis in their coursework. Finally, students in the “D” group study sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, etc. All students generally have the same classes, but they spend different amounts of time in each, and grades are weighted to reflect their section. At what point do students choose which path they will take on their way to a bright and shiny future? Never.

At some point along the line, the top third of students are simply put into the “C” group, the second third into the “D” group, and the bottom feeders into the “A” group. This is according to overall GPA, regardless of individual strengths. Thus my C classes are intelligent and motivated. My A class protests that the same assignments that I give my other classes are “impossible” (c’est impossible!), and instead of asking questions or even just trying, spend large amounts of time bitching and moaning in French and Pulaar that no one ever taught them how to write a sentence in English (this is 5th year English, folks). Unlike my C classes, which is a veritable rainbow of skin tones ranging from coffee to ebony, almost every single person in the A class is black. Two days ago I kicked my first student out of class.

Yep, A class.

Interestingly, if you ask me with whom the brightest future for Mauritania rests, I would place it in the hands of black Mauritania. My experiences are relatively few, but in the short time that I’ve been here, I have noticed that the black citizens are almost universally more progressive. This may, of course, be partially determined by the rung they occupy in society. However, in Kaedi, my best students were black, and this is a generally accepted rule outside of the city. Even in NDB, it is the black girls who show up to the Girls’ Mentoring Center after school to continue their studies.

I don’t know how it will all work out, and I suspect that I still lack a bit of information and perspective. But I can’t help but think that there are some major kinks to work out of that educational system.

3. I appreciate the continuing suggestions of names for my gecko, but I remain uninspired. Respondents are not limited to one suggestion. Think outside the box.

4. Took a little trip to Western Sahara, from NDB to the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve been told it’s roughly two miles, but an hour haul through absolute nothingness has the tendency to seem a bit longer. Lunar and beautiful. Number one thought: I hope I don’t step on a landmine. Number two thought: if someone decided to kill me out here, it’d be a long time until anyone else found out. It wasn’t like a pleasant stateside stroll through a deserted field or forest; I couldn’t shake the idea that I was completely vulnerable. But I did take some pictures.















5. I know I’ve been promising a lot lately, and I have been pretty absent, but I really am working on a few posts of substance. They’re coming, I insist. Don’t give up on me yet.