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