My love affair with the African continent...

What do you do when you are married to a Foreign Service officer? You travel around the world. And if you are with USAID? You travel around Nations of Rising Expectations. Sure we have posts in Rome and Paris, but my husband does not get sent to those places. Except for one time he was sent to Paris for two weeks to evaluate the one and only house owned by USAID in Paris, near the Place Concorde, in a cul-de-sac; otherwise inhabited by Arab Sheiks and Princes all having more money that USAID can count.

We were in Afghanistan when Barnett told me that our next assignment was going to be Mauritania. “Mauri-what?,” I said. To simplify the matter, he showed it to me on a map. Since then, we had a globe, and he would point out our next assignment each time. As an Asian/French teenager, you know about Africa because you studied geography. Even then, it was not the best subject while I was in school. I landed in Senegal in 1978, I looked around, and except for the fact that there are black people all over, I was not sure if I was in Africa or Indochina. The buildings, the Place d’Indépendence, the Kermel market, the streets, the cafés, and the restaurants all looked so familiar; I thought I was back in Vietnam or Laos. The small wonder of the French colonial world, I was home. We stayed a week in Dakar, and then proceeded to our next home, Nouakchott.

Nouakchott, a tiny fishing village until 1958, Nouakchott was mentioned little during pre-colonial and colonial history. It is possible that the Berber Muslim Almoravids were originally from the area. Despite its name, based on a Berber expression meaning "Place of the Winds,” the point was selected as the base for a capital city, for its moderate climate and central location within the country. It did, however, sit on one of the most valuable trade routes to West Africa. As we were landing, I was looking down, and I panicked. It was yellow sand, I could barely see streets, and it appeared that there were no trees. I turned around I said to Barnett, “You know, they could just land about anywhere.” Our first African assignment.

Since then, we have moved from West to East, and back and forth. Between us, we served in Mauritania twice, Somalia, Morocco, Chad, and Senegal; and also had assignments in Mali, Rwanda, Benin, Djibouti, Egypt, Angola, Congo, Liberia, and Madagascar; and finally, also visited Kenya, Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau, Cameroon, Ghana, The Gambia, and South Africa.

All in all we have spent just about 32 years traveling and working in Africa; but my heart will always belong to Mauritania.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 5, 2010 at 12:53 PM

    Je te comprends tellement Laure. La Mauritanie, à l'époque, c'est comme un enfant démuni qui n'a rien d'autre à montrer que son sourire.

    ReplyDelete

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