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John Osterman
An arid landscape with flat sand dotted with green bushes and small trees in the foreground. In the distance and on the horizon are brown and rust-colored rock plateaus and formations, some extending thousand of feet high. The sky is a pale blue.

Sand in the Couscous

Peace Corps Mauritania, 2001–2003

I was in the Peace Corps from 2001 to 2003 as an English teacher in Mauritania. That’s nearly half my lifetime ago; perhaps it’s time now to write about it.

When I got my invitation to serve, I had no idea where Mauritania was. For anyone suffering the same ignorance now, it’s in West Africa: north of Senegal, south of Western Sahara, north and west of Mali. The culture and people there reflect that geography, a mix of North and sub-Saharan Africa.

The local languages are many: Hassaniya, Pulaar, Wolof, Soninke, and several others. I learned Hassaniya and lived in the eastern part of the country, first in a town called Tintane and then in the regional capital of Aioun. I taught maybe 175 high school students over two years.

The posts below reflect my experience, now, of going through my journals, photos, and letters from that time. There are gaps. I lost my first journal, the one with my initial impressions and struggles adjusting, and my photos are limited—my phone holds more now than I ever took on film in Mauritania. There’s embarrassment. I wrote the most when I was most stressed, so there is a discernible negative bias. And a lot of what I wrote is not fit for public disclosure.

What follows is going to be problematic for lots of reasons. Problematic but vital—even when there is sand in the couscous, you’re still going to eat it. Bon appétit!

The inside and outside view of a four-page paper identification booklet. The upper-right panel reads 'United States of America Peace Corps Volunteer' in English and French. The upper-left panel shows the same in Arabic. The lower panels, the inside of the booklet, have identity information, emergency contacts, and a passport photo.
Me, beardless, at 23.