"My trip into the camps has been guided by something beyond myself, which is not to say it has been easy. My plane was hours late and my luggage got lost again on the flight down here and I didn't arrive into the camps until 5 am on Wednesday. Fortunately, the principal of the English school in Smara was kind enough to drive to the airport (an hour away), wait for me, and drive me back to crash in the school for a couple of hours. Waking up Wednesday was like waking up into another life. I don't know how else to describe it. I tried to live my same life for the first couple of hours, continuing to advance a go-get-em graduate student attitude, letting my mind do all the work. But by mid-day, I knew I could not do it alone (not "it" like the fieldwork, but "it" like the day itself). I had to ask for help. I know that might sound crazy, but it was at that moment that simple. In retrospect and after talking to a new friend, Alice, I am realizing its not crazy but the reality of living in this incredibly difficult place. You cannot lead with your head alone here. I think that will make sense to you after a few days here. I had gone to the guest house and there was not a soul there at first and the place was even more run down. No locks on the doors, etc. I didn't know where I was going to stay.
"So looking for a place to start, on Thursday, I went to FEB 27 (another camp) to meet Alice, a grad student from Cambridge, whose name I had heard from the Glycines center in Algiers. I had no idea what her story was though. It turns out, Alice is an anthropologist working with Marilyn Strathern! She insisted right then and there that I move in with her until I find a host family of my own, arguing that me being around could help us both out in our fieldwork because it is very difficult for women to move around alone here, etc. She has spent just short of 6 months here working on language and has 15 months left thanks to the generous UK educational system. I have spent the last couple of nights with her host family, which has already given me a Hassaniya name (Nisreen, a kind of rose). They live close to the family with which I stayed last time. I will be spending the day over there today, and possibly moving back in later. I have had many (too many) offers for tutors. One had heard about me and actually showed up at the house last night to introduce himself. He has taught Hassaniya for several years in Mauritania and is fluent in both English and French so it would be a good match. I will start lessons on Tuesday.
"In the meantime, I am working at a huge wedding tomorrow and possibly going for a ride into the desert to the so-called liberated Western Sahara, on Monday. Neither of these things would have been conceivable to me as possibilities during my last trip. From that very first day I felt like this was a totally different place than the one I visited a year ago. For better and for worse, I have been treated differently this time--as a temporary resident in Alice's footsteps and not a visitor. That is an incredible honor, but also a lot of responsibility to have already. So, for example, people are feeding me what they eat, some of which makes me gag like camel lard, and sheep intestines. Some folks cannot understand why I don't already speak Hassaniya, which is really hard, but I am definitely feeling motivated to learn it."
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