Sumi + Lily
PS, my notes got more and more garbled as the conversation proceeded, sorry, haha
Convo with Ginger
- Schools Kaedi
o GMC contacts
§ Sam - gee volunteer girls ministry
: leaving this year, done mid-July to Aug; primarily works with high school girls; working with typing programs for about 6 years, girls at the GMC may have been at the center for 2-3 years > could be potential mentors to work with our students
§ Bryan - english language volunteer who works with Ministry of Education, works particularly with English teachers
- They have a kitchen, stove, flush toilet
- Three rooms - One room for the three of us (for storage)
- 40,000 uum a month ~$160 a month, electricity water and rent included (we pay half)
o Total 20,000 uum a month and $200 total for the summer
o They have mats and mosquito nets
o We should bring combo locks, 2
- They're from Ohio, married for 8 years, live two doors away from Matt, live across from elementary school
- Market is about 20 min walk from the house
- On April 11th, Kaedi will have a conference with teachers from each school (14 primary, three private, 2 middle, and 1 high) and each director from school
o Lesson on style of teaching promoted by Peace Corps (Mauritania relies on memorizing)
o How to integrate health lessons
o How to integrate environmental lessons
o Kids chosen based on merit, show most interest
§ Christi (wife of Bryan) environ volunteer, works with primary schools, supports teachers with lesson plans, helps to integrate environ lessons into lessons and does after school programs
§ Matt - ICT volunteer, our contact, wrote summary about Kaedi
- List as our ground contact
- First year volunteer, will be here another year
§ Sustainability:
- Volunteers have been in Kaedi for 42 years, major city, they will be there
- Volunteers are being trained this summer and will be in place in September and will continue after Matt is gone
- As long as Peace Corps is in Mauritania, they'll be in Kaedi
§ Will be mentoring elementary school girls and boys
§ Mauritania has been male dominated but everyone should be able to use computers
§ During the summer, local teachers will probably be elsewhere in the country (where their family is), mix of girl mentors and teachers
§ Want to have Mauritanians involved as possible
§ Kaedi has more volunteers
§ Girls will be traveling / vacationing over the summer
§ Volunteers will pick 100 kids for us
o Our mission: why should OLPC go to Kaedi?
§ The computers that exist are shared resources and are not accessible to everyone
§ Every GMC is equipped with 4 computers shared for 20 girls, get an hour a week, pretty old, pretty slow, get viruses, hard to repair, no internet access
§ In the community, available computers are in cyber cafes (3-4 in Kaedi), which you have to pay for and no one does if you don't know how to use a computer
§ GMCs are restricted to girls who are invited through strength in scholarly pursuit, when you get up in age, the ratio becomes 10-15 girls to 40 boys
§ Girls in GMCs have very little support
§ Between ages of 12-14 girls get married, are trained how to run a household
§ Idea of sending girls to universities is far
§ Girls have to take very large test at end of high school that determines whether or not they can go to university
§ Schooling is strongly based on memorization, GMCs help girls get another skill set (ie computers)
§ In Peace Cops Africa, only Mauritania and Barkinau-Faso have GE volunteers (
§ In Muslim countries, girls need separate space
§ After 10 weeks, kids and mentors who are trained may not be there in Sept.
o Internet
§ Mauritel
- We pay for wireless modem
- We have to have school permission and get the wiring put down
§ Gigecem
- USB GSM, connects via cell phone, doesn't help XOs connect
- Noushket is $100 for set up and $70 for monthly access
- Internet access will be really slowed down if all 100 are on, we may have to rotate through sets of 5 kids on the internet
o Kaedi
§ Third largest city, ~20,000 people
§ Three languages: Hassaniya (dialect of Arabic), Halpulaar, Soninke -girls from mentoring center should be representative of each, volunteers also, girls at GMC have been taught 2-3 times a week with Peace Corps volunteers
§ Living location:
- We can stay with volunteers
- Married couple (subsidize the rent): people typically sleep outside; when need to have our own security and our own locks
o Live close to high school where GMC is and then we'd be close
- Sam lives in house that is used for volunteers but this is the hub for all volunteers, no space for ourselves
§ Bring as little clothing as possible: borrow from volunteers until we have clothes made for us
- Long skirts, t-shirts but NOTHING shorter
§ Wearing their clothes show respect for their culture
§ Safety:
- Peace Corps has been in Mauritania for 42 years
o One hitchhiking girl who ... but she was alone at night
o Kaedi is a training center so they're used to white people being around
- Biggest issue is theft: reporting a theft will usually lead to recovery of the item
wil_ryan@yahoo.com