25.08.06 - 12:59

OK, you can all stop sending harassing e mail. Here's an update.

Again, I just feel like I only have negative things to say and, as the adage goes, if you don't have anything nice to say...

Instead, I'll give you a list. So hold onto your hats, because here comes...

THINGS THAT I WON'T MISS

1. My next door neighbors. Older white Moor men with a sense of entitlement who drive home every night at 11pm and lay on their horns because their servants, black boys in tattered clothes, aren't moving fast enough to open the garage door for them.

2. The corruption. Everywhere. LITERALLY. Including international NGOs. There is no organization untouched.

3. The maniacal insistence of many Mauritanians that there is no corruption in their particular workplace. The guy at the office for running water started protesting to me how there was absolutely no corruption at his office. This was odd, because I never mentioned corruption, or intimated that there might be any. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.

4. Laziness. Sometimes I think Mauritania deserves to be a third-world country. They do almost nothing to help themselves, unless given huge gifts and sums of money.

5. The fact that people tend not to take responsibility for their actions. And then the consequences of those actions absolutely flabbergast them.

6. Not being able to walk a block without being sexually harassed.

7. Having men slap and caress my butt "by accident" and then hearing them laugh about it.

8. Obnoxious kids, especially the ones that throw things.

9. Disorganization.

10. Having to tell people things 10 times, yet still knowing they'll forget or do it wrong.

11. Hearing how rich I am. "You're so rich; give me something!" No.

12. Talking about why I'm not a Muslim.

13. Paying water and electric bills. I supposedly owe $200 for my water. In fact, I should owe $3. But God forbid the water company admits their mistake.

14. Self-important little bureaucrats. Yeah, they exist everywhere, but they're especially bad here. I may not be the manager of a company office, but I CAN do simple sums in my head, read, write, and understand logic.

I suppose that is what's known in the blog world as a "rant." I've been doing a lot of that lately. I just want to leave.

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