- Physical contact is an important part of any interaction. During most conversations, I find I need to shake hands, touch a shoulder, high five, or perform some other similar act repeatedly to let the speaker know I've heard, understood, and appreciated what he said.
- I find Pulaar speakers will not make an effort to include you in a Pulaar conversation unless you force yourself in by asking questions.[1]
- I love the Pulaar click, especially at a high click/min rate.[2]
- The women in my host family almost never initiate a conversation with me.
- Much conversation is spent not talking, just laying around or watching TV. Conversations go in bursts and people will stay long after a conversation is over.
- It doesn't matter if someone is sleeping, they can be woken up at anytime, for any reason. This is even the case if you're sick, especially if you're a women and there's work to be done.[3]
- Punctuality is non existent and appointments are often forgotten.
- Bismillah! Everyone is welcome at anytime.
- Even if you saw someone yesterday, they want to know where you've been and why it's been so long since you came over.
- Men hold hands when walking together.[4]
- Speaking French is okay, but everyone really wants you to learn their mother tongue.[5]
- If you have credit on your phone, someone's going to ask to use it.
- Everyone wants you to come over for lunch. If you go, plan to be there for at least 3 hours.[6]
- I never see anyone reading anything. When I visited the Boghe library, there was a fine layer of dust over all the books.
- Even two months in, I'm still not sure I'm performing the salutations correctly, but people seem to accept my efforts as sufficient.[7]
- Writing in my journal, I get lots of stares but no one ever asks what I'm doing.
[1]I live with a Pulaar family. There are four major ethnic groups in Mauritania: White Moor, Black Moor, Pulaar, and Soninke. There's a lot of pride within each ethnic group about their roots. Pulaar pride, Moor pride, Soninke pride—for the most part they all get along but there has been racial tension and violence in the past.
[2]Most people here "click" to say “yes” or show agreement. It's a sound that comes from far back in the throat and I can't do it for the life of me.
[3]I think most Peace Corps Volunteers would agree that this is one of the most difficult things to adjust to.
[4]There's something so sweet about seeing two grown men walking around holding hands. For all intents and purposes, homosexuality does not exist in Mauritania and I think many people would be shocked by the concept. Obviously, there are homosexuals here, but they have to keep their sexual preference very, very hidden. So, the hand holding and general touchiness betweens men is totally nonsexual. Still, the one time my host father wrapped his arm around mine, I couldn't help but feel awkward.
[5]The official language is Hassiniya, a dialect of Arabic. I've heard it compared to Old English versus Modern Standard English. The business language is French. Pulaars speak Pulaar, Soninkes speak Soninke, and some people speak Wolof, a Senegalese language.
[6]Part of this is that people eat really late. You may be invited to lunch at noon, but food won't be served until two or three. The other thing is the tea ceremony—three shot glasses of mint tea, each with more sugar than the last, served searingly hot, with half the glass filled with foam. It can take over an hour to make and drink all three glasses and once it starts, you cannot leave until it's done. Here's a picture of my driver to Nouakchott stopping for an hour to make tea.
[7]The Mauritanian greetings is a series of questions concerning ones health, family, friends, life, heat, business, appetite, thirst, etc. The questions are repeated over and over. I once visited a host grandmother of my host father and listened to them repeat the same Pulaar salutation "Bada?" - "Modom." for fifteen minutes and, no, this is not an exaggeration.
