Thunderbolt!!

The rainy season is coming to an end. But not without a bang. Literally. Last Saturday night/Sunday morning, just when we thought rainy season was over and cold (or rather cool) season had begun, the largest storm I've seen in Mauritania hit. For six hours during the night, it stormed. Pouring rain, heavy winds, thunder, lightning, etc. In the daylight, we saw that there was a lake around my house. I had to wade through water just to get to the bathroom or kitchen. Also, there are a couple of tiny holes in the roof, which haven't been an issue in past storms, but apparently can only take so much. We had to use a few buckets to keep our house from getting drenched on the inside. The next morning, I'm laying on my matela, longing for the sleep I couldn't get during the night (tin roofs are fun for the first hour of the storm), when my phone rang. Aubrey, my psudo-site-mate who was visiting Aleg, had just received a visitor. Some children had knocked on Janna's door (where Aubrey was staying) and ran off. When she opened the door, a small puppy was sitting there. She couldn't leave the poor thing, so brought it inside. She called me to see if my site mate or I would be interested in becoming the puppy's new family. I told her I'd think about it and call her back. Well, I thought about it, and anyone who knows me knows how much I absolutely adore animals. So I decided to take her. I had to wait 4 days until I returned to Aleg to meet her. Since the night before had been such a huge storm, I started thumbing through my Hassaniya-English "dictionary" (created by the Peace Corps, therefore not always reliable) and started searching storm words. Many Hassaniya words aren't the easiest to say, but then I came to the word for Thunderbolt. Razza. Pronounced Rozz-uh. So now I'm in Aleg and Razza is the most awesome little girl! At first, she slept a lot and was scared/shy/whatever, but is coming out of her shell and showing a bit of her personality. She's incredibly sweet but also independent. She'll be coming back to Magta Lahjar with me today to see her new home! It will be a challenge raising a puppy, but I definitely have time to devote to her and I think it will be good for both of us. She'll have a much happier life as an American raised dog than a Mauritanian raised dog. I won't elaborate on the treatment of animals here. I just look at it as a cultural difference.

So other than Razza, there was another animal incident recently. The night before coming to Aleg, Chelsey and I were sleeping outside, under our mosquito nets. At 3:30 in the morning, I hear what sounds like rain on the mat under our tents, so start to turn over, just as Chelsey screams and I see something scurry away. She jumps up and gets her flashlight out. She thinks its a camel spider or scorpion. It was huge. I thought it was a rat. And there's a cat chasing it. We follow it with the flashlight, which was too weak to see clearly what it was, until it goes into our house. The cat went in after it. A couple of seconds later, the cat comes running out and the thing is chasing it! The thing is runnng around our yard and we still can't figure it out. Then it gets really close to our tents (which we were very thankful to have at this point). Finally it's close enough to see and its...a ferret?? I didn't know ferrets existed in Mauritania, but you can check the picture out on my photo page. It went back in the house, so Chelsey and I chased it out and closed the doors and went back to bed. The next morning, the Peace Corps shuttle came to pick us up, so we were getting ready and the little sucker got into the house again! The PC shuttle driver, a Mauritanian, helped us chase it out of the house, but the ferret kept coming back in. It was an interesting morning to say the least. Chelsey ended up finding out that these guys live in the brousse and when it rains, they come into towns for food and dry land.

That day, we came to Aleg to vote. It was a nice surprise that the Peace Corps really went out of their way to get us ballots so we could vote. We didn't think we'd be able to. The next day, ANOTHER shuttle came with....PACKAGES!!! It was truely Christmas, with our entire region here, and most people getting packages. Also, Josh, my pseudo-site-mate, just came back from the US with goodies for everyone. We had a wonderful day!

As always, I am happy about the Panthers winning. Thanks to my mom for calling and telling me the scores! My cousins daughter, Raeanne, got to cheer at half-time at the game. I'm so excited for her!! I hope everyone is well and will enjoy the latest pictures I've posted of Sandstorms and my new house and puppy! Bye Bye!