Mauritania trip done

Day 9
Tues 26th
Start: Nouadhibou
Mid: Somewhere in western Mauritania
End: Nouakchott

The current road from Nouadhibout to Nouakchott used to not be there. It used to be a 12-hour ride alongside the beach, starting at low tide and racing to get there before high-tide. The road we were on was partially paved, sandy at best, and no road at worst. It took eight hours.

On the way out of town of Nouadhibout we saw signs warning everyone that do not deviate too far off the road or path, as there are landmines. Pictures showed a kid, an explosions (labeled “Boum!”) and then a kid with one leg and crutches. We were 5km away from the disputed Western Sahara territory, although the city was safe enough to have three volunteers.

Our previous contact in Nouakchott was in another town but we met another volunteer he said we could stay with him for the night. We went to the market to buy fabric, before heading out to eat and back to his place.

When we entered he was as surprised as we were. “that’s odd, when I went to work this morning this place was completely furnished.” The room was bare. He was sub-renting his room from the renter who lived there and she had moved out, that day, without notice or telling anyone.

He was kind enough to find us another place while he ran around trying to figure out what happened. He now has to find a new place to stay, since his renter moved out.

The entire weeklong trip: Travel, getting ripped off, accommodations, food, camel rides, oasis overnight, and bribes was less than $150 a person.

The next morning Nate and Erika left for Guinea. From now on I’m solo...

Nouadhibou

Day 8
Mon 25th
Start: Somewhere in northern Mauritania
Mid: Nouadhibou [20 54 N 17 02 W]
End: Nouadhibou

Early in the morning we awoke to the early sun being partially blackened by the ore going into the air. All of our bags were the grey color and we got up to just enjoy the morning. As we approached Nouadhibou the Mauritanians two cars over with were throwing something overboard. We watched as they threw a bumper, empty transmission, and other car parts. Throughout the course of about ten minutes they had practically thrown over a whole car. The odd thing was that every piece had to be brought on top at the beginning of the ride.

13 hours and 10 minutes after getting on top, we got off. My face looked like a raccoon, despite being completely covered by the turban, and there were black iron pellets stuck in my front teeth which made everybody laugh when I smiled. A taxi brought us directly the our hotel, while we tried to call the three volunteers we had contacts for in Nouadhibou. None of them worked. Hotel is was then.

After showers, checking e-mail at an internet café, and eating lunch, we went to the market to chec out the city some. On one silver shop the owner showed the addresses of three Gambian volunteers that had passed by just a week before. In the middle of Mauritania at a random shop we met someone that not only interacted with Allison, Mary and Michelle but had their contacts in their own handwriting. It was neat to see that connection.

Before it got too hot we started on our laundry. I threw away the pair of jeans I wore on the train while Nate paid the hotel staff to clean his. We did all the other shirts by hand. It took three washings before the iron coming off our clothes was an acceptable minimum. Two hours later our laundry was hanging to be dried.

While Nate took a nap, Erika Ulf and I went to find some fish for dinner. We bought a ½ kilo of tuna and ½ kilo of some other fish for a total of $3.

We now knew what other volunteers had said about he train: “I’m glad I did it, but would never do it again.”

Before going to bed we said goodbye to Ulf, as he would be spending a few more days n Nouadhibou before heading to Morocco. The next day would be our last together, heading back to the capital.

Also, we settled all money accounts. They paid me back for their share of the trip in either CFA (good in six countries) or Euros or USD. I then bought their remaining UM from them since I was staying a few more days longer in Mauritania.

On top of the Train!

Day 7
Sun July 24th
Start: Somewhere in the desert
Mid: Choum [21 11 N 13 03 W]
End: Somewhere in northern Mauritania

This being an almost impossible day of travel, time wise, we got up and left the oasis at 6:30 in the morning. Two hours later we were back in Chinguetti, after riding the camels back and watching our guide and Mahommed walk the ways again. Not knowing whether we could make it to the train in Choum by nightfall or not, we were trying an almost impossible task of getting three different modes of transport in one day, all separated by hours of riding.

At the car park we met another traveler, Ulf, a 22-year old German who after finishing High School just traveled to Australia, then to Africa and was now heading home through Morroco. He had spent five months traveling through Africa with three of them in Ghana. His German was fluent, which made Erika happy since she also knows German, and his English and French were understandable. We had another guide!

We rode on top of the pickup again, on top of all the luggages, for the ride to Atar. At Atar Nate was almost kidnapped by a Wollof woman who was so happy to meet someone who spoke Wollof that she grabbed him and rushed him to her shop, all the while jumping up and down and speaking a thousand words a minute.

A few minutes after arriving into Atar we got real lucky and had transport to Choum, where the iron ore train would meet up with us. For what we thought was less than the ticket cost, we had rented out the back of a pickup to ourselves (with no luggage to sit on top) and he would leave now to Choum. The driver and two passengers were up front while we were all in the back, the four of us.

This was the hottest part of the trip to date.

For three hours we were in the back of the pickup in the hottest part of the day going across the desert; the landscape changing from lunar to martian to Arizona badlands. At some points the ‘road’ didn’t exist and we were going over small rocks and boulders. Once they had to ask for directions. We all had our turbans on, but even the sun was getting to us. My arms were sunburnt with the hair on them bleached white. Others were as well. We drank all our water in the first two hours and didn’t have any more until they stopped for a break and shared theirs which I had been sitting on and didn’t know. They let us fill up all our canteens and bottles.

We were all dehydrated, hot, sun burnt, and tired – all from three hours in the back of the car.

Choum reminded us of the old wild-west ghost towns. Very few buildings and train tracks alongside the town. We had been very lucky so far with transport and now were going to make the train tonight. We had some dinner (dried rice with no flavor, shared by all) and bought supplies to last the night on the train.

At six-thirty the iron ore train arrived and we had five minutes to climb aboard. Enough time to take pictures and get comfortable. The train is supposedly the longest in the world at 2.3 kilometers in length. The four of us shared an entire car to ourselves. You could pay to ride, in the passenger car, but it is usually crowded and you have to fight to get a seat. Or, ride on top for free!



The iron ore was like a big sandbox, just much dirtier. It wasn’t big sections of rock, but fine grains. The Mauritanians a few cars over gave us a huge tarp to use as cover (cover the iron dust, not ourselves - basically to use as a mat), which we gladly appreciated.



I safety-pinned my turban to completely cover my face as the train accelerated to about 20 mph. The wind was blowing the ore into our face, bags, clothes, shoes and in every open area. For dinner, we used Ulf’s small gas burner he had brought and made some tea while eating the driest sandwich to date: stale bread with sardines and onions with no sauces for taste.



The train stopped only briefly at hours 4,6,7,10.5 before arriving at Nouadhibou after 13 hours travel.

Around 10pm the train stopped, at hour four, and kids in the village were selling everything from bread, snacks, camel milk (which we bought), and coke to the “passengers” on top of the ore. Flashlights were used to see the items and the money.

I was quite amazed at the physics of the trains as well. I took a small clumped up section of the iron ore and watched it fall off the train to explode upon impact. In the 1600s there was an argument that the Earth can’t be moving since if you dropped something, and if the Earth was moving, that the item would fly off and not land at your feet. Since that doesn’t happen Earth isn’t moving. Wrong argument. Galileo was the first to see the reason why. If you drop something, that item is still going the same speed of that the Earth was going before it dropped and it seems to be dropping in a straight line.

I tested it on top of the train. With one eye closed I peered over the train and dropped a small pellet. I had it lined up originally with a vertical pole going up the car. Other than air friction it followed that metal pole all the way down before hitting the ground and exploding as we passed the explosion. It had hit the ground going 20 mph horizontally (speed of the train) and 24 mph vertically (gravity). It exploded since it hit the ground going over 30 mph at almost a 45 degree angle. It was quite an explosion too! Watching the dust go in every direction! I ended up getting bigger and bigger clumps just to watch the explosion. The few pennies I had wasted the iron company was nothing compared to the tons of iron that was flying off every second from the 2 kilometer long train going 20mph.

I then took my compass out and walked around the car watching the compass go haywire with all the iron ore around. Fascinating!

These are the types of experiments that freshmen physics students should do! Go on top of a train at 20 mph and see for yourself Galileo’s postulate and his reasoning. Although I knew it would work, the only “experiment” I had seen for that effect was just computer simulations in class. It makes it all the difference when you actually see it firsthand (Especially on top of a speeding train in West Africa at night!)

Einstein, himself, had constructed his Special Relativity theory by doing thought experiments of riding on trains and what happens to different viewpoints.

As we passed another train I counted the cars. 147 give or take a few. I could swear I counted more cars on a trains before in the US as a kid waiting for them to pass. But, according to the Guinness World Records these are the longest trains.

During late in the night I had to go the bathroom. What to do? If you urinate off one side of the train it’ll come right back at you at 20 mph. No thank you. Off the sides and you splatter the people in the next car. Nope. Did the next best thing: went in the corner of the car and kicked some ore on top of it.

We all went to sleep around ten after the longest day of travel we had, stress wise and being exhausted. All of our water that we had filled up, including Ulf’s 5-liter jug was gone – either used to make pasta on the train or drunk. We slept until morning.

Camels

Day 6
Sat July 23rd
Start: Chinguetti
Mid: Chinguetti
End: Somewhere in the desert

Early in the morning, after we had moved everything back down from the roof, Jeff showed up and we started chatting of what to do. It was getting later in the morning, so if we were going to do something we better get going else we’d be walking in the heat of the day.

One thing I was interested in seeing was the old libraries. We met up with one of the owners, which was actually an extended family member of Sidi and agreed on a time of noon to see his family’s library collection. There are only 12 family libraries in Chinguetti, with only four of them open to the public for viewing.

Jeff took us to the newer part of town where we could check out the market. It only consisted of one block on one side of the block with about five stalls. This was not like a market in The Gambia or Dakar. Nate and I wanted to buy a turban so Jeff took us to a store to barter. We each bought three meters of black fabric for 200 UM / meter. A grand total of $3 for each turban. The store owner helped us wrap it around our heads and to get it on tight. There are many ways to wrap a turban. Some wrap it such that your mouth is not showing, others just wrap it on their head so their entire face is showing.

We continued walking around the village, checking out the old infrastructure and architecture. Most buildings, in the old part of town had collapsed, but a few were still standing and some people are still living there. The image of rooftops covering in sand and mud was destroyed in a way by seeing satellite dishes on some. Hey, even Mauritanians love their MTV! After lunch we went back to the library and had to wait for the owner to show up as promised.

He opened up his library and we were told to come in. The entrance just let to an open air room where another door laid. He opened that one up with a key that looked more like a meat-pounder than a key. It had metal prongs sticking up, and you had to insert the key just right into the slot for those prongs to grab the lock. The format of the key, which is centuries old (if not older) is the precursor to computer cards and player-piano rolls of music. He demonstrated that the key is not a toothbrush for a joke.



The first room of his library at first was a disappointment. I saw modern textbooks of English, high school mathematics, and recent journals. This was not what I was expecting, but he sat down and explained that since no public library system exists, the family libraries – in part – become public libraries. These books are for anyone to borrow or to read. The private collection, which we would see , has his older books which no one can “check-out”

Crossing the open air room again and backtracking he lead us to his private collection. There he showed us books as old as 1300’s, all of them in protective sleeves and binders. He showed old writing utensils, and how they could write evenly across the page by using string as a guide, a precursor to today’s lined paper.

One old paper he showed us fascinated me and I instantly recognized it. It showed four interlocking circles and represented the path of the planets around the earth (still in geocentric theory, and the path of the earth can be seen as an outlier of the other circles) It was written in Arabic.



We exited the library and went back to Sidi’s house to wait for the camels, which should arrive around four. Nate and Erika went with Jeff to get supplies for the night while I watched the bags. After a little while I thought I could hear Chewbacca from Star Wars outside. I went outside to see three camels tied to a tree and our guide preparing to get ready. His seven-year old son would come as well, to serve as a guide. When the rest of the gang showed up Jeff argued that a seven year old could not possibly be a guide and we should not pay for a second guide. The father agreed but Mohammed would come along as well.

Although the camel’s legs are like any other four legged animal, the sit down in an odd motion of going back and forth. You must step on their feet and then their back to get on, and then hang on as they rock back and forth to get back up. Sort of like riding in a rodeo.

We would be going to farthest oasis, about 15 kilometers away. Sidi said he would come along as well, which was a pleasant surprise since his English would help tremendously with understanding the guide. On the first hill, which we were still walking alongside the camels and not on yet, the last camel was stubborn and wouldn’t go down. His nose ring was attached to the second camel and the pull caused the nose ring to come off completely by ripping through his skin. Blood was splattering everywhere and the camel ran away. Our guide chased after him and caught up to him, with putting a new knot along his mouth. We asked Sidi if this was common, and he responded in the affirmative and showed us the noses of the other camels, with gaping holes in their noses where previous nose rings had been ripped off.



The oasis was 10 miles away and took two and half hours to get there by camel. Mohammed, the seven year old, walked the entire way barefooted with occasionally wearing his flip-flops. We were impressed by a seven-year-old walking 10 miles without complaining and made sure to have Sidi translate our impression to him, which he took with a smile.

I had the camel with no padding on the seat. I thought I wouldn’t have any kids afterwards. Going uphill you had to lean forward and downhill lean backwards. We wore our turbans to protect us from the afternoon heat and the occasional sand blowing.



At the small oasis, which was nothing like Terjit (we found out the water was pumped in as opposed to being a natural oasis) we met his wife and other “bush people” who lived there. At the camp sight we laid everything out and got ready for dinner. Our guide and his son started making Atai (green tea) for us, while his wife took little trinkets out for sale. Sidi was in back mixing flour, salt, and water to make bread. As he was kneading it the wife took over and went at least three times as fast and finished making the dough in less than a minute. She then lit a fire with coals and moved the fire over, so that only the sand was hot. She placed the dough on top of the sand, covered it with more sand, and then placed the coals of the fire on top – and then went back to selling her trinkets.

Less than an hour later we had the densest loaf of bread I’ve ever had in my life. We shared our soup we made with Sidi and Mahommed while his father made pasta for themselves as well.

We slept under the stars with the camels by our sides.

Chinguetti

Day 5
Fri July 22nd
Start: Terjit
Mid: Atar [20 25 N 13 03 W]
End: Chinguetti [20 20 N 12 22 W]

Today was the 11th anniversary of President Jammeh’s presidency in The Gambia. I can now picture it in The Gambia, signs saying “Celebrating 11 years of Progress and Prosperity”

We told the kids what time we wanted to leave in the morning, but they weren’t around and we were still locked in. Nate climbed the fence and met an old man on the other side which had a set of keys. Figuring the man and kids were in the same family we showed him the money and he eagerly took it. Whether the kids knew we paid or not we would never know. Maybe they might have taken a cut for themselves and given the rest to the family if we didn’t give it to the old man.

For a half hour we walked down the path to the intersection of the main road to Atar before being picked up by a pickup truck. The roads at parts we could tell were impassable the day before, and some were barely passable now with the pickup. Even before he got picked up we walked across two small streams that weren’t there a day ago.

The driver said he would drive us all to Atar for only 1000UM a person ($3.50), we agreed. At Atar we thought we were being scammed into an expensive ride until we met a Mauritanian teacher who worked in Chinguetti (where we were heading that day) who spoke just enough English to tell us the names of volunteers living in Chinguetti. Usually you don’t know it, but you give their names first and someone will say “Oh, yes, I know Jack!” and scam you somehow. This teacher named both contacts we had without any prompting from us, and his receipt had the same cost we did. We thought he would be a good guide and show us where one of them lived but he left for another ride.

Before he had left we talk to him for a little bit concerning what we did in The Gambia. He taught at the Elementary School in Chinguetti. Nate had trouble again with the bee part, so out came a book I borrowed from one of the staff members. “Picture wordbook in English, French, German, and Arabic”. For over a thousand items this small book shows a hand-drawn picture of the item and then on the four corners of the box for the pictures has what that item is in the four languages. It doesn’t help much for German, but the French and Arabic is great for an Arab country. We found “bee” and showed him the picture, with the French being “une abeille” and the Arabic being something that can not be produced here on an English keyboard.

I borrowed the book primarily for those types of reasons, to get points across or to illustrate something I need. However, there’s one drawback in the book. It’s not meant for travelers. It doesn’t have bread or water, but if I ever want to meet the Mauritanian Astronaut I know can write down Astronaut in Arabic. I can’t mail a letter home, but I can use a microscope on the space shuttle. Believe it or not, the first African Astronaut was actually self-funded: Mark Shuttleworth of South Africa.

Erika and I went to get some lunch while Nate watched our bags. As were buying little fried bread I saw through a window to a shack kids playing Super Mario Brothers on a Nintendo! Things you would never expect to see you see! Just because their houses look like run-down shacks, the roads are dirt, the children have used clothing does not mean that they don’t have money. You’ll be surprised what you find in those shacks made of corrugated tin.

When we got back to the car garage Nate was on top of the luggage which was on top of the back part of the truck. We were going to ride on top of everything while holding on. Erika and I climbed on top the six or seven feet and took our place, along with six other Mauritanian men, along with all our luggage and bags of rice. A few blocks down the road we picked up Francisca, a Malian volunteer also vacationing in Mauritania. She was half French and half American, so she helped a lot when it came to communicating to people in French along the way.

For the three hour ride Francisca, Erika, Nate and I talked about Mali, Mauritania and The Gambia. She asked if it was all right to take pictures of the other passengers for us which they agreed. The most eager to have his picture taken would be a dentists’ dream in the U.S. Crooked, yellow teeth – of those which we present. Huge gaps separating other teeth and even a few hanging on by roots. After the picture Nate asked if I got him smiling.

The view from Atar to Chinguetti changes dramatically, from desert to plateaus to climbing up huge hills and having to go around them. And here we are riding on top of the truck going around curves going up the hill. There’s a few good pictures among them. After the cliffs the road leveled out and we continued along our way. A half-hour later we passed what looked like an airport runway, but it was just dirt. I was, at this time, sitting on top of the driver’s cabin facing the other way and was able to see the sign saying it was an airport.

We arrived in Chinguetti exactly at two o’clock in time to see everyone coming out for the two o’clock prayers required by Islam. Chinguetti is split into two sections, the old region dating from 1600AD is across a dried river bed from the section of town we were arriving in which was founded in the 1960s. The original Chinguetti, dating from 700AD, has long been covered by the sand a few kilometers away. No one has seen it in centuries. Despite the fact that the original city is hidden, the old city is now considered the seventh holiest city of Islam. Mecca is number one, followed by Medina. The others are Jerusalem and Cairo. The reason for Jerusalem, which you might think is a Christian holy site, is that Islam also believes in Jesus – as a prophet and not the messiah. Judaism believe Abraham was the last prophet, Christianity believes Jesus was, and Islam believes Mohammed was. Just like the Bible is the Torah plus the New Testament, the Koran is the Bible plus some additional parts about Mohammed. The books in the Koran are in a different order than in the bible; actually the order of the Koran is by longest chapter to shortest chapter irregardless of chronological order. Since the Koran is memorized (literally, there's schools specializing in the memorization of the Koran) they found it easier to put it into poetic verses, which meant get the hard chapters first. Other than an opening brief paragraph (which counts as a chapter) proclaiming Allah the one true god, the first chapter is labelled "Cow", "Family" is number two, followed by "Women". The shortest book (and hence the last at 114)? "Mankind"

Chinguetti used to be on the main route for follows to make their pilgrimage to Mecca. This stop over made is a holy site throughout the ages. Although being a holy city for Muslims, it is quite the tourist spot. The airport we saw earlier coming into town serves for the European tourists who come in. Each person off the plane gets a turban, just like tourists in Hawaii get a lei. The original town had up to 12 mosques, and was the home to over 20,000 people. Now, only 4,000 live here.



After dropping supplies off he drove around trying to find the volunteer’s house. We tried everything from “Peace Corps” to “Corps de la Pais” to “White Person” to “American” No Avail. Finally he came upon a house which he says he lived here, but he’s not living there now. That didn’t help. A Mauritanian boy, named Sidi (pronounced C-D), came up and in almost perfect English asked if we were looking for Jeff. Jackpot!

He wasn’t in, but Sidi took us to a small restaurant where we could get some food and water. As were waiting Jeff showed up. He knew we were in town by going to his house and seeing three different sets of Chaco’s treks in the sand. He followed them until he found us at the restaurant. Although we had the right house, he was in fact, not living there at the time. We walked into Sidi’s house instead. More correctly, Sidi’s Hotel. It was Jeff’s old house, that Sidi (at 19) bought from the renter, fixing it up, and is renting it out to tourists. The night we stayed there he was making the sign. There was one big room, enough for maybe a crowded six mattresses, but there was three.

Nate and I walked up to the ceiling of his hotel, using the dried mud bricks that made up the stairs. In the distance, right outside the city, the dunes lifted up to the sky to over 20 meters in height. You could see people on top either sitting or just standing, pondering or meditating.

Francisco was feeling worse off, probably due to heat exhaustion; so we tried to find ice for her. None was found in the old part of town, although some could on the newer part. Wet towels were given to her to help, and more water to drink. She was determined to do a camel ride in the morning.

We chose to do ours the next evening and sleep over in the desert.

We slept on the roof with the desert wind blowing over us keeping us cool.

Trying to get out of the Oasis

Day 4
Thurs July 21st
Start: Terjit
Mid: Terjit
End: Terjit

Time to explore the region! Both Nate and Erika are geographers from school and Erika is also a geologists. We climbed passed the rocks to the oasis and higher into the outer region to look down. Erika told about what she could tell from the rock patterns of the formation of this region while Nate gave a geography lesson of desert geography. The dunes we could see in the distance with Erika explaining their shapes and how they form. I have an interesting picture of Nate holding his GPS unit to figure out the coordinates of Terjit, while Erika is holding my compass with a hand glass to identify rock crystals. Following the scientific route I began to throw rocks.

“What are you doing?”
“Throwing rocks.”
“Why?”
“Gravity!”



Although it was joke, there is a deep implication of inertial mass (the mass you feel when you push something) to gravitational mass (the mass you feel when the object falls). To this day no one can prove they are the same! Even Einstein had to assume it to get his General Relativity theory. I began dropping rocks down the cracks of the boulders and watching the interactions: it falls, it bumps into a bigger rocks that inertial mass, then it falls again, gravitational mass. They should be equal, but can it be proved? I think so.

For a few hours we hiked up the boulders getting higher and higher. At the top the oasis could be covered up by your hand. Looking around you feel you were in Arizona or some other rocky place. Except for the occasional camel you saw in the distance.

A French family was also hiking the cliffs and their guide pointed out a snake. We each took a picture of it and just watched it for a while. It never moved. The French family did, they moved on, but the snake did not. Was it dead? Don’t know. We didn’t want to take pictures of a dead snake that’s nothing impressive. With a very good distance away I threw small pebbles around it. Nothing. On the last pebble it snapped up and struck the small pebble coming at it, a good fifteen feet from us. It’s alive. We left and headed back down.

We had a problem to figure out, of when to leave and how. We wanted to make it to Atar, which was about an hours drive north. The only cars going there were coming from Nouakchott and it would take all day to reach the intersection. If we reached the intersection by around 3pm that would give us enough time to catch a driver going to Atar. We had a few volunteers living in Atar which we had contact information for from the Mauritanian Peace Corps office, so finding a place to sleep wouldn’t be problem.

With a few hours of doing laundry by hand, and waiting for them to dry, we decided to leave the oasis today and try to reach Atar by nightfall. Patrick assisted in the money transaction to paying for the night’s stay and walked with us to the village right outside the oasis (which actually is Terjit, but most people know the oasis as Terjit).

In the village, as Patrick is trying to buy cigerattes, Nate’s talking to the truck drivers, the village children and women are distracting Erika and I by putting Henna tattoos on her hand, to go through our bags. They didn’t get very far as Nate rushed over and grabbed them. Only the top of one bag was partially opened.

In the distance we saw a storm approaching and was wondering what to do. We could either take cover and lose possible transportation out of town, or wait alongside the road for transportation but get soaking wet. Erika convinced us to go inside. The wind started blowing harder and the sand blew in our face like tiny needles. I had to look down, while having one hand covering an ear and because of the wind had to walk at an angle else I go with the wind. The sand-storm was blowing in people’s houses and our entire bags were covered with dirt and so were faces.

It started raining as we were heading back to the village from the road. We took cover behind some guy’s house which had corrugated roof and every drop could be heard. The roof was held open by pieces of wood. In the corner we had our lunch: Sardine sandwiches and Twizzlers. A few minutes later we heard commotion and followed the Mauritanian village men outside. Nate and I watched as a water flowing down from the plateaus was reaching the village. A small river was being formed right in front of us. We took pictures before going back to the shelter.

Fifteen minutes more commotion. Another river had formed on the other side of the village and the two were now combining to forma small flash flood. All the men were running around with shovels to the meeting point. I raced up a small hill to take a few pictures. On top of the hill were women watching the men and when they saw my camera they did the opposite of what they usually do if men were around. They showed their faces, smiled, and asked for the pictures taken. I took a few of flood and then a few more of the women next to their straw-and-mud huts. In one hut every single woman came out and stood in a line to have their picture taking in the rain.



My camera broke. It wouldn’t shut, the lens was exposed to the elements and I had to hold it tight so no rain or sand could get in. When I got back to the shelter even Nate and Erika couldn’t close the lens, they couldn’t rotate the dial to close it. Eventually, after hours of playing with it I got the dial to rotate using my leatherman as leverage. Going back and forth I was able to get the gears working again and the sand out. But for a day or so every time I wanted to take a picture I needed to pull out the swiss army knife and use the ice pick to rotate the dial to turn it on. The camera is fine now.

When the rains stopped we went back to a small hotel which a fifteen year old boy was running, well, more correctly, had the keys to. We figured out a price by writing in the fresh wet sand which the kid eagerly agreed. We wanted dinner for three and mattresses to sleep on for one night. Agreed. In the middle of the compound there was a big storage room which we felt was the best place to sleep. The rooms were too stuffy and outside it would rain. They brought big mats down for us to lay on, and even mattresses that were wet. The pillows were only half-wet. With only having a sardine-sandwich that day we ate all but three bites of the food bowl they put in front of us. These food bowls are big enough for a whole family and us three ate it all. The kids finished it up and locked us in.

We couldn’t get out. The compound was locked from the outside, although we could walk around. We suspect it was more a security concern for them, but we wanted some drinking water from the shop around the corner.

The sleeping arrangement was settled: A burrito. Our bags would be the meat and we would be the toppings. The mat was long enough to wrap around all of us, so we all three laid down with all of our bags to my right and I grabbed the other end of the mat and passed it down. Peace Corps Burrito.
We were cold, wet, but full from food. We went to bed at eight o’clock.

Arrived in an Oasis

Day 3
Wed July 20th
Start: Nouakchott [18 07 N 16 02 W]
Mid: Akjoujt [19 41 N 14 24 W]
End: Terjit [20 12 N 13 06 W]

To thank Marc for his hospitality we went out in the morning and got two soft drinks for him and left him a note while we headed out for the garage park to get a car to Atar. At the park we met a former volunteer from Mauritania named Bridget Fox. She had served from 90-92 and worked in Peace Corps DC for a few years. She was friends with President Taya’s sister-in-law during her service and was coming back to visit them. As it turned out one of her fellow volunteers while she served is now the PCMO, the medical officer in charge of all volunteers and staff in country.







Along the road, in Akjoujt we stopped for lunch. It consisted of taking our shoes off, entering a room with mats on the floor and being served one bowl of rice for the four of us with tea afterwards. The stall next door had coke and soft drinks with a few fruit. We asked how much the apples on display was with the owner writing down “K=700”. One kilogram of apples for 700 UM, or about $2.50 a kilogram. I don’t know how much apples are the US, but it was a good deal for being in the desert.



Although we paid the full route to Atar we were stopping at Ain Attaya to go a different direction to Terjit, the desert oasis. At the intersection the guards were telling us we had to go to Atar and get a private vehicle to Terjit. Just from the intersection alone to Terjit was 10 miles. Bridget helped with the French while we agreed to just walk the 10 miles. The guard told us some French guy left about 15 minutes ago to do the same thing. Maybe we would reach up to him. Five minutes into the walking the trail, with plateaus on each side and desert shrubs ahead, we were picked up for a free ride. We sat in the back of the pickup

A few minutes into the ride we passed the French guy, named Patrick, who had a free ticket to Africa and decided to go along. He spoke French and some English and helped us a lot when it came to prices while we were in Terjit. You really don’t expect to see an oasis in the middle of the desert, but turn a corner and there’s palm trees full of dates, a small stream, children running the water, a small pool, women in full clothes talking in a circle, while the men played cards enjoying themselves. Tents were set up, with no walls, and just a ceiling. The creek was near a cliff going up and following the contour. For upper-middle class Mauritanian’s this was their vacation spot. I watched the men play cards some, and was surprised to see one with a hearing aid – as even glasses are rare in The Gambia.



After dark the Mauritanian tourists leave, since you have to pay for visits, day visits, and night time sleep overs. They would drive down the road and sleep elsewhere and come back the next day. The charges were per person. 1500UM, about $5/day and $5/night to stay at the oasis per person. Food was an additional $5/person. We ate what Patrick couldn’t eat from his dinner.

It was a long day and after a few hours of swimming and relaxing we brought our the mattresses and played cards for a few hours while the creek was at our feet, the moon above us, the date trees surrounding us and the cliff to our backs. We fell asleep in the cool open air of a Saharan oasis.

In Mauritania

Day 2
Tuesday July 19th
Start: St. Louis, Senegal [16 01N 16 37 W]
Mid: Rosso [Senegal / Mauritania border] [16 30 N 15 49 W]
End: Nouakchott, Mauritania [18 07 N 16 02 W]

We got bright and early at six and headed out. We knew from reaching the border we would get ripped of from the exchange and so we wanted just enough to exchange to get us to Nouakchott where, hopefully, a volunteer could help us get a good deal on the black market. I have American dollars and with a quick calculation $50 would be more than enough for us three to get from the border to 127 miles to the capital. Up until this point Erika had been keeping track of who spent what amount and for what, so later we could pay each other back. For instance, I had zero CFA on me for Senegal. Both of them had to pay for me for the days travel through the country. However, they had plenty of CFA and no Mauritanian Ouguiya (pronounced you-gee-ah). I would pay the $50 to get to Nouakchott, exchange enough US for everyone for the week and they would pay me back at the end of the trip in CFA which was valid for the next two countries I planned on going anyway.

We took a taxi to the garage park, about ten minutes away, where we got a car going to Rosso – the border town between Senegal and Mauritania. Getting into the car we headed back the exact same way we went and actually passed our hotel. The ride up to Rosso was an hour and a half. In that time, as I was looking at the meters and gauges at the drivers side and I realized only one worked. The gas gauge. He had no idea how fast he was going, how many miles the car had, how hot the engine was, how many revolutions the tires were making. Nothing. Only the occasional: We need more fuel. All others were secondary. If cars are passing you, your going too slow; if your passing other cars your going too fast. I was trying to determine if there was a car somewhere in Africa that had more miles on it that the record in the Guinness World Records. Your piece of junk car in the US would easily last another ten years or so here, with all the MacGyver mechanics they do to keep it running.

Every 5km there was a stone marker on the road which I could use to estimate how fast we were going. About 50 mph, or about four times faster then any car in The Gambia. During the ride Nate started talking to the guy sitting in front, asking what certain plants were we saw on the side of the road. They ended up being sugar cane fields. The guy and his wife worked in Rosso, on the Mauritanian side, and were heading there now. They helped us out at the border a great deal and we tipped them at the end.

The cars we were in are called ‘set-place’ for seven-seats. In the US, you would have the driver, the passenger, three in the back, and two in the way back. In this car we had the driver, two passengers up front, four in the back and three in way back. We count the driver as one, they don’t; plus we fit one more in there. Erika, Nate, and I always had the way back since it worked well there was three of us. Of the seats in front, one had to flip over for us to get in and out – and such we were the last to get out and first to get in at every stop.

When we reached Rosso, on the Senegal side, vendors stormed the car. We were told not to talk to anyone even if they ask for your passport. Amidst the commotion someone was, expectedly, asking for our passports. We blew him off and continued walking. He yelled louder. We continued walking. Then the vendors got involved – apparently this guy was the real deal. Oops. He led us to the police station as the border patrol man in the office checked our visas. To the right was a jail with five people in it just sitting around, two using their cell phones to text the outside world. The guard stamped two passports before he realized the stamp had the wrong date on it. Officially, according to my passport I had left Senegal on the 18th and 19th, with entering Mauritania on the 19th.

Guys in the streets were selling everything from hand lotion, belts, zippers, pants, vegetables, toothpaste, mirrors, and even one guy hint he could get me a visa. (Already had a legitimate one). We waited for the ferry to appear, to cross the River Senegal. As we waited, three familiar faces appeared from the other side: Micah, Dave and Tina. All three are Gambian volunteers who were just returning from their Mauritanian trip and we caught them at the border. Micah had bought a fold-up wooden chair and was now carrying it back to The Gambia. With only a few minutes to spare we had just enough time to say hello and catch up. As Micah was leaving he yelled back “Make you sure you get 300”, meaning 300 Ouguiya [abbreviated UM] for the dollar. The official exchange rate was 254.

On the ferry it was standing room only, with trucks pulling up a foot in front of you, and luggages and other bags behind you it was quite crowded. They bottled necked us getting out while a police officer collected every passport on the boat. Luckily we had been told beforehand not to worry about that procedure since it was the common practice and that we would get our passports back if we just go with the flow and not make a scene as some volunteers did a year before.

On Mauritanian soil a policeman pointed to where everyone must cleanse their hands clean before going another foot into his country. Officially, and by law, if you are born in Mauritania you are Muslim. Even the United States recognizes that Mauritania has a 100% Muslim population. Despite the legality, it is well over 90% and even close to 99%. Although being in West Africa it is considered an Arab country. The entire country is mostly barren, with some flat plains of the Sahara stretching to the horizon. It isn’t until you get to the northern region do you see some hills and plateaus. Over 75% of their land is desert, 99.5% of their land is non-arable, with half a percent for arable land. It didn’t always used to be like this, though. Before the Sahara started spreading about 10,000 years ago Mauritania was covered with large lakes and had enough vegetation to support elephants, rhinos, and hippos. The only large animal we saw in the week was camels.

All the men were wearing turbans on their heads while the women were covering from head to toe with only a single piece of cloth wrapped around their bodies. Despite only being one piece of fabric, they are fully clothed – but most of clothing underneath anyway, as do the men. You are fortunate to take a picture of the men and very lucky to get a picture of the women, as their husband or brother must approve.

As I was about to cleanse my hands I accidentally bumped the tank the lid fell in the tank. This caused no concern other then when I looked into the tank and saw the water was dirtier than the river. After we all “cleaned” our hands we waited for our passport. Surprise, surprise one was “missing”. Nate, being the best Wollof speaker among us, went to talk to the policemen. He played ignorant for a little bit, before other people in the crowd told him he had ‘sweeten his business’, which he already knew.

We paid the bribe and were allowed through. I cashed in my $50 with the best rate I could get at the time, 260UM/$1 – a bit low, but still above official. We used that money to pay for our fare to Nouakchott.



Heading north, from Banjul, The Gambia to Nouakchott, Mauritania you could see the ground change; from sub-Sahara savannas to desert with a dry mid-lattitude steppe climate between. This is the area between the tropics and the desert, with a combination of tallgrass praire (with more rain) or a arid desert with less. It also helped I was traveling with two geographers. North of St. Louis is started getting less and less vegetation, and almost north of the Mauritanian border it was practically a desert scenario.

While driving through that desert on the way to Nouakchott we stopped in the middle of nowhere, but there was one small store. Believe it or not, but in the middle of nowhere you can get coke by the dozen. They had them stacked up along the wall, going around the store; a refrigerator kept some cool, they had cookies for sale, and other snacks. Just because it’s Africa doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a Mountain Dew or a Coke. It’s interesting that Mauritania has Mountain Dew but The Gambia doesn’t, while we have our own beer factory and alcohol is prohibited in Mauritania. In Mauritania, the Mauritanians can neither buy nor sell alcohol; but non-Mauritanians can do either, albeit expensively.

Our first view of camels was when the driver had to hold down the horn for the camels to get out of the way as they were crossing the road. At one police stop the policeman was trying to tell us something. Maybe it was going to be a question? We thought he was trying to ask what the capital was before D.C. We told him Philadelphia, then New York. That wasn’t what he was looking for. He then went on to try and talk about Presidents and Europe, then people who lived there before Americans. All of this was in Wollof or French with very broken English. Finally, after ten minutes of talking we realized all this wasn’t connected at all, he was showing his trivia of US he knew and no question was involved. What he was trying to say about Europe was that none of the original people of America were Presidents, only descendants of Europe. We agreed, although it was after we left that I remembered that we did have a Native American Vice President, though. I couldn’t think of it at the time but it was Charles Curtis who served under Herbert Hoover from 1929-1933.

We arrived in the capital at 4:30. Not knowing when the Peace Corps office was going to be closed at five we raced to the office only to find volunteers casually standing at the balcony waving us in. It’s open 24/7, just like in The Gambia. Their office in Mauritania is like a palace! It’s a block long and goes back almost a block. I had to take two pictures of it at different angles, it was so big. They have three different computer labs depending on what stage of service you are in, they have their own kitchen, shower area, walkways, and balconies. Right across the street is the Embassy for Mali, which was a good sign for me, since that was my next stop.

The contact we had for Mauritania was busy in another city helping out with a new training group and so another volunteer housed us for a night. Marc Valentine. Before we met up with him another volunteer, Jae, took us out for dinner and showed us the market where we could exchange money illegally. This has the advantage of getting a better rate but the disadvantage of being scammed. We also asked him "How do you know what cars are taxis?", "If they have less than two headlights" was his reply.

We were going to exchange $450 to last us the week for three people. The exchanged money would be split among us and anyone could pay for anything that the group did for since it all came out of the same pot. All personal expenses were recorded as well. This kept money problems to a minimum since we mostly did everything as a group.

The Mauritanian volunteer, Jae, set up with a black market dealer at a rate of 306 for every $100 and 300 for $50 (they don’t like fifties). We agreed and he left for fifteen minutes to get it organized. After a while he signaled us to follow him as we went inside an alley where small stores were and more privacy. Each stack of ten bills were together with the tenth bill wrapped around the other nine. I took each one out and counted that they were all there, as a number, while Nate counted what I had counted to make sure all was there as an amount. A discrepancy. We stopped everything and went further in where for the next ten minutes we counted every bill one by one, orientating them in the same way with numbers showing. They were going to cheat us out of 7600 UM ($28.50). Later that night we figured out how: The back of the 1000UM note is strikingly similar to the back of the 2000UM note. In the stack of ten 2000UM notes they simply put a 1000UM note instead for a few of them making sure the back is facing us. That’s why they needed the 15 minutes, to make sure it all looked good. We almost fell for it as well.

Back at our hosts house, Marc, his living room was about the size of my house, and his bedroom was air conditioned, and he had continuous power and water. In his bedroom was three mattresses on the floor already, not necessarily for us, but he always has guests coming and going from other countries who just need a night stop. In his two year service his house had been broken into three times: The first time he was out of the house and his guests left the house for a few minutes without locking the door and the guy just walked in and stole his stereo and money. The second time someone crow bared his way through the front door, stole his new stereo and more money. The third, and most recent time was someone took a saw and cut through the metal grating in the windows then kicked the window out and crawled in. The sawing along probably took more than an hour.

Marc went out for the night while we just crashed on the mattresses for a good nights sleep.

First Day!

Day 1
Monday July 18th
Start: Banjul, The Gambia [13 27 N 16 35 W]
Mid: Kaolack, Senegal [14 10 N 16 15 W]
End: St. Louis, Senegal [16 01 N 16 37W]

The last time I would leave my house for the past year was at 5:30 in the morning. While waiting on the highway for taxis, we had to split up. I managed to get a front seat of one car while leaving Nate and Erika behind for other transport. At Banjul, for the first time, I got a car to the ferry terminal instead of walking. While I pulled in with my second car to the terminal there’s Nate and Erika pulling in with their private transport they got two minutes after I left which drove them directly to the terminal.



At the customs post at The Gambia / Senegal border we were waved into the back area where they checked each of our passports. From here on out, my passport, we realized, would take the longest. I almost filled up the pages with visas and exit/entrance stamps that I had to go to the Embassy the week before for more pages. This was after I had already gone to the Mauritanian embassy. Every custom guard now had to go through blank page after blank page in order to find my Mauritanian visa, although the entrance stamp to the country was in the middle of the book (where the new pages were added).

In Kaolock I laid my last four dalasi I had on me on a rock for anyone to find. With those 15 cents gone, I now had no Gambian money left.

From Kaolock we headed to St. Louis, in North-Western Senegal. St. Louis, which is in Senegal, used to be the capital of Mauritania when it was under French rule. However, when Mauritania became fully independent in 1960 St. Louis went to Senegal and so a new capital had to be formed. Not wanting two capitals side by side, they headed north and founded Nouakchott, their new country capital. If you look at a detailed map of Mauritania and Senegal you can see that Mauritania actually bends down to reach St. Louis, but doesn’t actually reach it.

The actual layout of St. Louis makes it interesting. From the mainland there’s a river that go north-south. Going further west, passed the river, there’s an island, then the other side of the river, and then a peninsula of Senegal sticking out. Passed that is the ocean. So, St. Louis is split into three sections: The peninsula, the island, and the mainland.

Heading in St. Louis you can see the French influence in the buildings, the curved streets, not to mention the language. Every year St. Louis hosts a Jazz Festival that attracts thousands and thousands of tourists from all over the world. There are enough hotels in St. Louis to handle all of them, and we were looking for one in particular.

The man who drove us from Kaolack said he knew where the hotel was and would drive all three of there for 1500CFA (~$2.75) total. We agreed and he drove from place to place asking for directions to where it was. We backtracked, went up side streets, backtracked more, zig-zagged back and forth though a main street before we found it. The taxi couldn’t go down the side street since it was full of mud, but along the edges was clear. I walked that way to see if it was a hotel and found some guy who spoke English who was from The Gambia. He tried helping us out. Nate got involved since it was easier to communicate in Wollof with him.

What I thought to be an employee was just some visitor who was helping out for something in return. We asked him politely to go back to the hotel and eat his dinner, which he kept on insisting he stopped eating to help us.

“My friend, we did not ask you to help us. You left your dinner to help us. Go back to the hotel and enjoy your dinner”
As he whipped his glasses off he yelled “Fxxx you! Fxxx you!” and he stormed off. I yelled back “Thank you” again for a sincere acknowledgement of his help. He responded with another “Fxxx you!” before turning the street to our original hotel.

We agreed to go to another hotel.

We hadn’t paid the taxi driver yet and Erika asked Nate “15?”, which he replied “Yes.”. I then watched her pay the driver 15000CFA ($27.50) and thought nothing of it. Only when we were walking to another hotel, around the corner did Erika realize it should have been 1500CFA and not 15000CFA. We agreed to split the costs since we all were in fault to some degree. Erika asked Nate “15?” thinking 15,000. Nate said “Yes” thinking 1,500. I watched her pay 15,000 thinking it was for the full taxi fare from Kaolack and not just to go a few blocks down the road.

The driver honked for us to get out of the street and we watched him leave to have a good time with his friends with our money without us realizing we overpaid him 40 times more than what it was worth. (we were overcharged a factor of four found out later, and 10 times for the mistake). So, if you’re ever traveling from Kaolack to St. Louis and see taxi number 6092 make sure to yell at him for us. Split three ways we each lost ten bucks. One good thing about having this happen on the first day was that we now agreed to tell each of us exactly what was paid for and what wasn’t, and without any shortcuts of language (15 for 15 hundred or 15 thousand) to use for money between us – unless absolutely understood.

We left the hotel to find something to eat for dinner. While walking down a secondary road we came across an internet café where for 50 cents all three of us could check out e-mails for an hour total, with a French keyboard. This made typing an interesting account and my first email home was just in lines

In St. Louis
NW Senegal
French keyboard
No type good
More later

In The Gambia we are used to finding ladies sitting on the street selling everything from vegetables, fruit, bean sandwiches, rice with sauce and other street food. For a fraction of a cost of eating out you can be twice as full. In fact, that’s what we mostly survive on when traveling. There was none to be found in St. Louis, no bean-sandwich ladies; no rice servings, and only the occasional vegetable lady. Nate used his Wollof skills to ask a few vegetable ladies where something cheap would be to eat. They recommended this one restaurant that we couldn’t find so we went inside this one-room restaurant. The had maybe twenty seats total, all plastic, with one fan in the corner. Plus, a TV. This was a surprise to us as very few small shops in The Gambia have TV’s. For one, the power – or the lack thereof. We ate our meals and watched TV for a bit before heading back to the hotel to shower and sleep.

Yes, the shower. Surprised to even have a shower (The Gambia, most of the cheap hotels we have barely have running water, so bucket baths are the way to go). It had a shower head that you could hold and move around. Well, when I was taking my shower the tube connecting the shower head to the water pipe broke loose. It wouldn’t have been a problem if there was actual knobs to turn off the water. I scream as water was now racing to the wall at full speed, splattering in every direction, and changing paths to now sprinkle the entire bathroom. There was no knobs, only screws where the knobs used to be. With wet fingers I tried to turn them off and managed slowly to turn it millimeter by millimeter while getting showered upon in every random direction. Turned the water off, plugged the hose back in and continued. Ten seconds later the hose came off a second time! I now am using one hand to block the firehose of water coming to the wall while the other trying to turn off the water again.

Neither Nate nor Erika had any problem, although for the floor being a little wet form my episode. The sink was in the same fashion, with no knobs and only screws. I was the only one who had enough torque to turn they completely off and each time they used the sink they called me over to make the final twist on the screw.

While I was showering, Nate was talking to the ladies downstairs in Wollof. He explained that Erika and I were both teachers, while he taught agriculture in The Gambia. The ladies understood just enough Wollof to understand the basics, but when Nate tried explaining that he worked with bees they were lost. He finally made them understand with: “I work with tiny animals that go pop pop on your arm. I reach inside their coffin and pull out gold.”

We all shared the only bed in the room for the night, luckily it was double.

Description of Service

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER SERVICE

1. INTRODUCTION
Michael Sheppard began Peace Corps training on July 9th, 2003, in Washington D.C. and completed the 10-week training program in The Gambia, West Africa. The training program included 52 hours of technical training, 64 hours of directed activities, 8 hours of language clinic during seminar, 142 hours of language class in the village, 20 hours of culture, 34 hours of personal health, 8 hours of safety, and 6 hours of administration. During his training, Mr. Sheppard successfully completed a two-month intensive language program in the language of Wollof. At the completion of training, Mr. Sheppard was chosen to begin a 22-month tenure. He was sworn-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer on September 12, 2003.

Mr. Sheppard was assigned to Kanifing in the Kombo Region. Kanifing is located about 18 km south of the capital city of Banjul, in the Kombo Municipal Division. Kanifing is home to 27 Primary Schools, 13 Junior Secondary Schools, and six Senior Secondary Schools along with The University of The Gambia and Gambia College. The district has approximately 325,000 people. The predominant language in Kanifing is the official national language of English, but there are also many Wollof and Mandinka speakers throughout the region. The monthly per capita income of The Gambia is 775 Dalasis [D] with the current exchange rate being D30.00 to $1.00.

During Mr. Sheppard’s service in The Gambia he served as an education volunteer. He was posted to the University of The Gambia in which his primary responsibilities included teaching mathematics and science. In addition to these responsibilities, Mr. Sheppard worked at the Central Statistics Department in the capital Banjul as a guest statistician. During his two-year tenure at the University Mr. Sheppard worked hard to promote a healthy attitude toward education by acting as a role model for teachers and students. He consistently encouraged preparation, punctuality, positive reinforcement, and alternative discipline. Throughout his two years of service Mr. Sheppard was an active member in Peace Corps Administration. Mr. Sheppard showed essential signs of cross-cultural adaptation and demonstrated a grasp of the skills needed to successfully transfer this knowledge to other applications of life: personally and professionally.

2. PRIMARY PROJECTS
During Mr. Sheppard’s two-year service in the Kombo district, his primary responsibility was a Lecturer at the University of The Gambia. Additionally, his specialties in mathematics and statistics help procure a placement at the Central Statistics Department as a guest Statistician.

Lecturer, University of The Gambia
§ Taught one semester of Basic Mathematics: concentrating on Number systems, functions and relations, exponents and logarithms, elementary theory of equations, inequalities, and systems of equations.
§ Taught one semester of Ordinary Differential Equations: concentrating on separable and exact equations, linear equations and variation of parameters, higher order linear equations, Laplace transforms, systems of first-order linear equations, introduction to partial differential equations and Fourier series.
§ Taught two sections of Basic Statistics, concentrating on data analysis, probability models, random variables, estimation, tests of hypotheses, confidence intervals, and simple linear regression.
§ Taught one semester of freshmen level physics, concentrating on the following areas of electronics: resistive circuits, loop and nodal analysis, and network theorems.
§ Along with another volunteer, co-taught an accelerated math program for conditional acceptance into The University of The Gambia. Classes met twice a week for three hours and taught four years of senior secondary mathematics in nine months. It was catered to girls' education, but male students were accepted.

Guest Statistician, Central Statistics Department
While Mr. Sheppard worked at the University he also worked part-time for six months at the Central Statistics Department (CSD). The CSD is involved in the collection, compilation, analysis, abstraction, and publication of statistical information and related matters about The Gambia and its residents.


3. SECONDARY PROJECTS
In addition to the efforts Mr. Sheppard was making towards his primary projects, he continued to use his free time to work on auxiliary goals that would benefit the communities in which he lived.

§ Participated in a five-day expedition throughout The Gambia with a Fulbright Scholar assisting in his research on Internet and Computer usage throughout The Gambia. Including conducting interviews with Gambian students, testing their computer and internet skills, and interpreting the results.
§ Served as scientific consultant for an educational CD developed by the Center for Educational Technology. The disc and program will be distributed nationwide to enhance the science education of Gambian students using local materials.
§ Facilitated a five-day workshop for the “Science Teachers Association of The Gambia” labeled “Information, Communication, and Technology in Science Education," on how to use computers more effectively in the classroom to teach science. Within this workshop Mr. Sheppard taught a one-day workshop on “Introduction to Microsoft Excel” to the teachers.
§ Attended a workshop sponsored by the Department of State for Education on possible launching and annual conduct of “Science and Technology Week.” The week has been developed to promote the achievement of both Science and Technology in The Gambia and promote interest in science and technology as well.
§ Collaborated directly with the American Embassy in Senegal with the international effort to house forty volunteers for three days for the annual West African Invitational Softball Tournament.
§ Supervised the selling of hand-made notebooks to volunteers. The “Recycled Paper Project” made the notebooks and all profits went towards buying education supplies to Gambian schoolchildren.
§ Mr. Sheppard did a one-year letter writing campaign indirectly promoting Peace Corps / The Gambia to United States Congressman, State Governors, and Supreme Court Justices. A total of over 800 letters were sent, with a good many responding.
§ Consulted in the statistical analysis to detect behavioral differences, both individual and collective, between orphan and wildlife monkeys in Abuko Nature Reserve.
§ Tutored students in subjects of Mathematics, Physics, and Statistics.

4. PEACE CORPS
Taking full advantage of experiences as a volunteer, Mr. Sheppard extended his responsibilities to working within the Peace Corps Administration to assist current volunteers throughout the country.

Leadership Roles
§ Served a complete term as Kombo’s representative for the Volunteer Advisory Committee [VAC]. The elected members of VAC meet quarterly with the Country Director to discuss volunteers’ issues and concerns. VAC members, along with the Peace Corps Volunteer Leader [PCVL], make up a volunteer congress.
§ Assisted in the revamping and rewriting of the rules between PCVL and VAC. The newly defined roles were approved by Peace Corps Administration and VAC, and were distributed to all the volunteers. This helped Peace Corps Administration further define and strengthen the role of PCVL within Peace Corps.
§ Nominated for the position of Peace Corps Volunteer Leader.

Mail Collection and Delivery
Even before being sworn in as a volunteer Mr. Sheppard took over sole responsibility for the collection and delivery of all incoming mail to the staff, 100 volunteers, and trainees. Mr. Sheppard was able to serve his entire Peace Corps service as the main volunteer for mail collection and delivery. This entailed upwards of three-times-a-week runs to Banjul to collect mail and parcels. The Peace Corps organization receives 15% of all parcels coming into The Gambia.

§ Every month assisted two volunteers in the organization of Peace Corps's monthly mail-run, which entailed visiting over 80 sites throughout the country in five days to deliver mail and collecting outgoing letters and parcels.
§ Restructured the package cataloging system for Peace Corps volunteers. The new system entailed every parcel being fully accounted for and numbered, with monthly bills going out to volunteers for reimbursement for the collection fees from the Post Office.
§ Kept an on-going roster of volunteers’ names, villages, Gambian names, and contact information to assist in the monthly mail run and to streamline communications between volunteers.
§ In March 2005, by permission of the Director of Posts for The Gambia [equivalent to the United States Postmaster General], Mr. Sheppard was able to work in The Gambia’s main Post Office in the capital Banjul for two full days, totaling 13 hours. This enabled Mr. Sheppard to witness first hand The Gambia’s mail delivery and collection, along with the distribution of parcels for upcountry sites and The U.S. Peace Corps.
§ Assisted in the collection of over 4,000 pounds of donated schoolbooks for distribution to Primary, Senior Secondary and University students throughout the country.


Hostel
Until all responsibilities were shifted to PC Administration, Mr. Sheppard served as Chairman of the Hostel Committee for nine months. Responsibilities included payment of three staff members every month, fee collection of volunteers, bill distribution for lack of payments, monthly purchase of communal supplies.


Gambia Student Scholarship Committee
The Gambia’s Student Scholarship Committee is an assembly of volunteers that focuses specifically on locating, raising, and distributing funds to selected students in The Gambia. As someone passionate about the pursuit of education, Mr. Sheppard took full advantage of the opportunity to collaborate with the Gambia Student Scholarship Committee to assist needy students in finding funds to afford basic education.

§ Served a full term as co-chairman of The Gambian Student Scholarship Fund. The co-chairman is responsible for handling any scholarship business; writing/distributing checks, making follow-ups with schools, contacting recipients/schools, depositing checks, and withdrawing money. Co-chairman is also responsible for recording all data into the scholarship database for complete and up-to-date spreadsheets.
§ Delivered checks to schools and conducted follow-ups to monitor processing and distribution.
§ Assisted in the selection process of more than 250 applicants.
§ Facilitated in the complete restructuring of The Gambian Student Scholarship Fund’s procedures.
§ Distributed thousands of dollars in scholarships to students spread across the country.


Newsletters and Bulletins
§ Six months into his service Mr. Sheppard was selected to become the new co-editor of the Education Newsletter. Mr. Sheppard successfully served one year term as editor and supervised the distribution of the newsletter every month to 34 Education volunteers. Information included guides to teaching in The Gambia, habits of effective teachings, alternative discipline, and upcoming events.
§ With another volunteer completely remade and updated a booklet for volunteers newly sworn in to the country. Information contained in the booklet consisted of maps of regional cities, restaurant guides, and volunteer support contact information.
§ Re-designed the official bulletin board for Peace Corps / The Gambia showing guests and visitors where volunteers are located, their responsibilities, and what functions Peace Corps does in The Gambia cross-sectorally.

Training
§ Assisted in the training of new volunteers by bringing four trainees on an all-day excursion to Banjul using only public transportation.
§ Assisted in the interviews for the new Education trainees for site placement.

Administration
§ Selected to be on the committee for hiring a new General Services Officer [GSO] for Peace Corps / The Gambia. The committee chose a candidate after meeting with each candidate individually.
§ Attended a two-hour workshop at the American Embassy in The Gambia with Peace Corps employees on how to prevent Bio-Terrorism and procedures to follow if an event occurs.

5. PERSONAL
Besides working with his primary and secondary projects, and volunteering in his free time with Peace Corps Administration, Mr. Sheppard has benefited personally from his two-year service.

§ Participated in a two-week hike through three countries.
§ Wrote over 300 pages concerning his experience which was distributed to an audience of over 100 people, indirectly promoting Peace Corps generally and Peace Corps / The Gambia specifically.
§ Explored the country of The Gambia by frequently going upcountry, even taking vacation days to do so. Explored the terrain by participating in multiple twelve hour walking treks throughout the country to volunteers’ sites.
§ Participated in the World Wise School program, writing to thirty fifth grade students in the U.S about the experiences in The Gambia.
§ Attained novice level in the language of Wollof.


6. CONCLUSION
Pursuant to Section 5(f) of the Peace Corps Act, 22 USC 2504(f), as amended, any former Volunteer employed by the United States Government following his/her Peace Corps Volunteer Service is entitled to have any period of satisfactory Peace Corps service credited for purposes of retirement, seniority, reduction in force, leave, and other privileges based on length of Government service. That service shall not be credited toward completion of the probationary or trial period of any service requirement for career appointment. This is to certify in accordance with Executive Order 11103 of April 10, 1963, that Michael R. Sheppard served successfully as a Peace Corps Volunteer. His service ended on July 13, 2005. He is therefore eligible to be appointed as a career-conditional employee in the competitive civil service on a non-competitive basis. This benefit under the Executive Order extends for a period of one year after termination of Volunteer service, except that the employing agency may extend the period for up to three years for a former Volunteer who enters military service, pursues studies at a recognized institution of higher learning, or engages in other activities that, in the view of the appointing agency, warrant extension of the period.