Ok I’ve never been tagged before, but Meredith (or Poop-ith as her French friends call her; see her entry for May 23 as I can’t make this link to it) has tagged me to do something called a meme. (She’s an expat American living in France, and I enjoy reading her blog…especially as it makes me homesick for France! They’re picking cherries! They’re wandering through historic cobblestone piéton areas that are so common no one even notices them but the tourists! They’re dealing with those curiously ubiquitous rude old French women at the local markets! Sigh…) She wants to know what I have in my fridge! Honestly, it’s not that exciting, as I’m still American, even though I live in Africa. I’m supposed to list 5 things in my fridge, closet, car and purse.
Hmm..my fridge. Probably the two most unusual things are bissop—a local drink made by soaking some sort of dried flowers in water and adding sugar and whatever flavorings you fancy (it’s actually really good)—and my home-made mango chutney.
We also have several small cartons of milk. Here there are 3 kinds of milk: fresh, long-life, and powdered. Powdered milk is right out! You know why; it’s just yucky. Long-life milk is milk that is boiled to approximately 1000 degrees and then sealed in a box; it will keep indefinitely on your shelf. It too is yucky. Fresh milk is always whole. It is pasteurized but not homogenized, so it has to be shaken to avoid lumps of cream. It comes in pint-size (1/2 liter) cartons, so you have to buy millions OR not drink that much milk. We have opted for the latter, so our kids are no doubt calcium-deprived (although they make up for it in cheese and yogurt). Hey, maybe that’s why they’re short? I knew it wasn’t the coffee!
2 more things? Um, eggs and butter. Told you I was boring!
As for my closet, it is similarly unexciting. Clothes, hangers, junk on the floor that needs to be cleaned up. About the most interesting thing are our Mauritanian clothes. We don’t wear these very often, but we do own several outfits; most of them gifts or bought for special occasions.
Mauritanian men wear long flowing robes called dra:ahs in Arabic or boubous in French. They are wide—when Donn puts one on, it is wider than his outstretched arms. Then he folds it onto his shoulders. Boubous are open down the sides till nearly the bottom, so underneath men wear shirts (usually button-ups) and pants. Their long hems drag through the dust.
The traditional pants, called sirwaals, are truly amazing. They are about ¾ length, and like the robe, always blue or white. Again, the waistband is wider than I can reach, even when I stretch out my arms as far as they go. I’ve always wanted to put them on and take a picture, call it “before.” The thing is, Mauritanian men are SKINNY! They have tiny little waists, unlike their women. So these pants form folds that hang between the legs, creating a unique look.
To keep these pants from falling round your ankles, you need a belt. This is called the likshah, and, again, is not something you would have come up with on your own. You tie it round your waist, and since it’s leather it creates a big knot which, thanks to the voluminous robe, doesn’t bulge too much. The ends hang down to your feet. These create a handy little “whip” and can be used for camels or recalcitrant children, as need arises.
Why use so much material? They say a Mauritanian always has his tent with him!
In our closet, there are also several howlis, or turbans—long lengths of cloth that can be wrapped around the head and face. Donn likes to dress up in the whole outfit, wrap a black turban round his face, top it off with sunglasses, and visit an American airport! It’s fun for the whole family.
I have several muluffas. These are essentially one long strip of brightly-coloured material that you wrap round yourself, covering up from head to toe. They are often made of thin material. Right now the fashion is to wear coordinating colours of long-sleeved t-shirts underneath them, and of course skirts, or dresses.
Muluffas are beautiful. They come in rainbow-colours, hand-dyed, with splotches of various colours. The White Maure women have coordinating high-heels and tiny little handbags. They sparkle with costume jewelry and their make-up is carefully done. They mince down the street, confident in the knowledge that all eyes are on them.
I have a muluffa in orange and purple, and another in blue and green. Wearing them successfully has much in common with doing a giant scarf trick. I have never been good at wearing scarves. During the evening, Mauritanian women are constantly reaching out to adjust my muluffa, or even sometimes taking me somewhere in private to start all over. It makes me feel like I’m 5 again.
My car and purse have only normal, boring things in them—sand (everything in Mauritania, including the bread, has sand in it), shells, kid junk, etc.
But why ask about such normal things? How about a meme that asks 5 Places I Will Visit this Summer that You Have Heard Of? (Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, Old Navy, Powells, Starbucks) Or 5 Places I Will Not Go This Summer if I Can Help It? (Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Disneyland—oh wait I’m going to Disneyland—well, the It’s A Small World ride at Disneyland…) Or 5 Habits of Your Children that Make You Wonder Whose Children They Really Are? I am inspired by this by the fact that Ilsa just spontaneously made me a handkerchief from a bit of old sheet edged with pink lacy stuff. It’s lovely, of course, and I’m terribly touched, but where on earth did I get a daughter who likes to SEW?
I think this would be a great meme. I tag everybody that I know (borrowing a page from thesis students) to do that! I’ll look forward to reading about it on your blog. Be sure and tell me you are doing this. I will do it too.
7 comments
June 3, 2006 at 1:14 am
Laurie
My sis lived in the Philippines for 7 years and the only milk they could get was the long-life kind. You are right, “Yuck.” My whole family is short, and we go through a gallon a day. So now that leaves off both milk and coffee…could it be that we were ordained to be short?
June 3, 2006 at 11:01 am
planetnomad
I suppose it’s possible…
June 3, 2006 at 3:32 pm
LIB
Meredith is on the May 26 post, BTW, if anyone is looking for her. (Sorry to be picky-uny, Beth.)
June 3, 2006 at 6:00 pm
meredith
I just knew you’d have interesting answers!! As I write this, I am wearing a long African dress brought to me from a friend in Morocco. It’s bright blue with intricate gold embroidery. I have given up lounging around my house in old gray sweats for the comfort of dresses like these.
My kids get their calcium mostly from yoghurt and cheese, not the yucky long shelf life milk.
I’ll do your meme, maybe tomorrow 🙂
Cheers
June 3, 2006 at 7:37 pm
planetnomad
The Moroccan dresses are different from muluffas; very comfortable, I agree. For a while here, the style amongst young black men was to wear the long Moroccan robes (which are quite straight) with a pointy hood. The whole thing was very odd, as from the back they would look like Klu Klux Klan. You still see it occasionally.
Libby, it was Meredith’s May 23rd post where she explained why her French friends call her Poop-ith. It’s so funny! I tried to link to not just her blog in general, but to that specific post, but I couldn’t quite manage it.
June 4, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Kit
Fascinating blog – I came via Found in France- I’m enjoying this new blogging experience. Looking forward to visiting you again. I’ll try to think of some answers to your meme!
July 14, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Betsy
So I was stumbling around the internet at work this morning( feeling foolish for complaining on the way to work at the lack of AC in my car, remembering Mauritanian heat and NO AC anywhere) So as I sat at my desk researching some new Aveda prodcut with the word desert in it Google gave me this page and I must admit that I only skimmed it, Than I saw the word Mulafa and thought it was weird in that God-weird way that something about Mauritania had popped up! ( God’s been speaking alot about Mauritania lately and honestly I’ve been trying to push it out…long story) anyway I re-read the article and I discovered that I think I have fallen into of all things a Beth Jones web blog! How fabulous! Must say that it brought back alot of good memories of Mauritania and reminded me to keep you in my prayers, hope all is well, all my love to the gang ( including our Maur. friends) Marhaba! Betsy MacRae