Ahhhh so many languages!!

Yes, I know....I haven't been exactly keeping up with my blog on a regular basis. I am going to do my best to try and post more smaller entries, just to sort of keep the flow of things going here.... But i figured on this entry I would give you some insight into the culture of language here, because it is immensely different.

Okay, so first some background on the languages. In Mauritania, there are 5 major spoken languages: Hassaniya, Wolof, Pulaar, Sonike', and French. Mauritania used to be a French colony, so a lot of people have some sort of French background. Hassaniya is sort of a slang version of Arabic. The other three languages are more traditional African languages.... Also, except for French, none of the languages are actually written languages. So that adds a whole new twist to learning.

I am currently learning Wolof with the Peace Corps. I am actually the only person from my 78 person training class who is actually learning this language. So it sort of makes me a lone ranger here. I feel kind of privileged actually. However, not really having any other volunteers to study with is kind of tough. My teacher Amadou Mbooj is really an amazing guy though. He is an excellent teacher and has a great sense of humor, but he doesn't speak any English. So he teaches me in French, which in turn is drastically helping my French lol. Also, my family is really wonderful about helping me with both Wolof and French.

As for the Mauritanians themselves, it seems like everyone here speaks at least 2 languages. Its just something that is ingrained in them. Which is such a major difference from the US. Just to sort of give you an example; a couple of nights ago, myself, Justin, Meredith, and Lily were coming home from a little get together everyone had at the ice cream joint in town (yeah can you believe it!! lol). and we stumbled across my host brother Sharif and some of his friends hanging out. There were about 6 of them in total. So we sat down for a while and just started BSing. So here is how it went.... We all spoke English to one another, then we would speak French to the my brother and his friends. Also, I was practicing my Wolof with them. 2 of his friends were Sonike and were trying to teach us some of that language. Finally, there was a Moor guy there who was sitting next to me speaking Hassaniya. So literally we were throwing around like 5 languages during a single conversation, which actually seems to be the case in Mauritania quite often, even between the actual Mauritanians themselves. Language is just a completely relative concept here lol....

Random Act of Kindness: So my host family has a freezer here, so my mom makes and sells ice bags for people in the city. She fills up little plastic bags with water and freezes them. She usually fills up like 30 and carries them to the freezer. I know they're heavy, so now whenever I see her I make it a point to stick around to help her carry the water around our house. She is always very grateful for the help. :-)