For two years now I have lived in Dioullom, a small Pulaar village in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, where my status as a PCV enables me to participate in almost every aspect of community life. The experiences I share with the villagers run the gamut from digging sweet potatoes alongside seventy-year-old women, to drinking tea with the somber, male village elders; from holding lively meetings with the women's co-op, to learning the art of rolling couscous with my sisters. My active participation in life's daily activities also means I must conform to the specific cultural standards of behavior demonstrated by my conservative Muslim neighbors. In Dioullom, as in other parts of the RIM, this requires upholding what, for me, is an extreme level of modesty and prudence. Despite the desert heat, and like the other well-dressed and heavily-draped village women, I routinely wear ankle-length skirts and shirts with sleeves, or layers of loose clothes that do not reveal curve of hip or split of legs, and cover every form below the waist—all to shield ourselves from men's roaming eyes. I refrain from appearing too familiar in my behavior with male friends, careful to avoid lingering handshakes or an arm over the shoulder. I never entertain men at my house after dark and sit only with women during meals and formal gatherings. By now this conduct is a normal part of my life, and for the most part, I am comfortable, though somewhat weary, with the limits I must respect here.
Thankfully though, there are a few rare occasions when I am relieved to discover that the rules can be temporarily broken, and the usual conservative dictates are discarded. One of these treasured events is the yearly ritual of rice planting, signaled by the daily exodus of eager workers from the village out to the fields. During September in the Fouta, the river region, one finds farmers molding piles of mud into dykes and systematically flooding each section of their fields, getting ready to accommodate the hordes of youth who will descend on the paddies at planting time. I leap at the opportunity to participate in this venture, knowing it offers the chance to taste a little freedom and savor a rare glimpse of the sensual side of my African friends.
On a warm early-September day, the planting routine begins with a group of my young friends and me collecting our raggedy rice-planting clothes and water jugs or buckets, and gathering with others for the long walk to the fields. The air tingles with excitement and, as we set out, immediately I sense a refreshing openness in the mood of my friends. I walk across the windy scrub-land with Ami, Aysata, Kumbice, and Hapsa -- all energetic young women, sassy and perky, strutting proudly in bodies that have yet to bear the strains of childbirth. We walk in colorful pagnes that blow open seductively with each step. Hapsa's long naked brown legs seem to go on forever until they come together just beyond the overlap of the fabric. I watch their tight round buttocks as they walk, steady and proud, keeping an even pace so that the drinking water in the buckets on their heads doesn't spill a drop. Their laughter and chiding makes me smile with appreciation, for this, simplest of pleasures.
The sun has climbed higher in the sky by the time we reach the fields, and we hurriedly navigate the maze of mud-packed dykes to my uncle Abdul's plot. As we approach, balancing one behind another on the dyke, we are greeted warmly by Abdul and his brothers -- muscular, weather-worn black men in tight shirts and short pants that reveal the rippling shapeliness of their labor-trained bodies. My friends and I then turn to greet the young women of the family, up to their bare knees in muddy water, holding clumps of rice and leaning on shovels. I see my friend Acca -- she's tall and gorgeous, one of those African Beauties with full lips and well-formed features, one who could no doubt model for Vogue. I'm delighted to see her confidently working in a skimpy tank top and skin-tight red velvet shorts exposing her knees. Sloshing around in the water beside her the other girls work similarly scantily clad. A clamor of whoops and hollers of excitement from our other friends fills the air as we quickly change into our planting clothes and slip barefoot into the cool water. My feet slide deep into the gooey mud, but I love the feel of its wet, soft squishiness against my skin, a rare sensation in our prickly-hot desert home.
As the planting gets underway, we all form a line at one end of the field, each holding a dripping clump of rice sprouts from the pepiniere. Then the singing and chanting begins, slowly at first, as we tear off the grass-like strands and plunge them into the mud in sync with the rhythm of the voices. We try to outdo one other, going faster and faster as the chanting accelerates, getting faster and louder with every verse. We bump into each other, splashing mud on our faces as we stagger in the brown water, groping for more handfuls of rice, trying not to step on each others' feet while sliding in the mud. Whooping and splashing and gales of laughter overwhelm the chant until we re-form the line, and the singing begins again.
After several rounds of singing and silliness we take a break mid-field to pick off the beetles that have taken refuge in the dry folds of our clothes. I feel them crawling under my shirt and burrowing in the layers of my pagne, which I've hiked up in rolls around my waist. My friend Aliou casually picks the bugs from my bare back as I hold up my top, while my girlfriends freely tear off their shirts to shake out the beetles and let the breeze cool their bare skin. Out here in the rice paddies, the rules of modesty do not apply; whether we are girls or boys, men or women, becomes an insignificant detail in this revelry of physical freedom. With bare limbs shiny and wet in the hot sun, we wipe mud from one other's faces, pick the beetles from our necks, gripping each other for support in the slippery mud. Here the confinements of village life give way to the giddiness and camaraderie naturally felt in the physical closeness and intensity of our work.
Shouts of Onjarama! Onjarama! reverberate around the field from uncle Abdul and his brothers as we near the end of the plot. Finished at last, we stretch our cramped backs and lug our mud-caked legs onto the dykes, clutching the nearest arm or leg to provide a brace against the tugging suction of the slurpy muck. Then, grabbing our clean dry clothes, we teeter with muddy feet along the slippery dykes and down to the river's edge to clean up.
I am hot and sticky with sweat and have streaks of mud on my legs and arms. What a relief it is to strip off my shirt and splash into the river's cool flowing water! Thrilled to be naked with only my thin pagne floating up around my waist, tangling with my belly beads, I giddily splash and dunk my laughing adolescent friends out in the deeper water. I think how refreshing it is to look around at my young girlfriends unaware of their exposed developing bodies, and the boys, seeming not to notice them, continue dunking each other, laughing while everyone takes turns lathering themselves and one another with soap. Such a rare experience this is, reveling in the sensations of wet and clean bare bodies in the water, naked clean skin in the open air, and skin hugging skin in the hot wind. This time is so precious and innocent I don't want it to end! But the sun climbs higher as the day lengthens, and our stomachs are growling with hunger after the day's physical exertion of work and play.
One by one, exuberant, but exhausted, and being careful not to get our clean feet muddy again, we scramble out of the murky water and onto the slippery bank to find our dry clothes. Now that the day's work is complete and our excuse for carefree recklessness gone, my friends and I suddenly become conscious of our own and one another's bared bodies as we mingle together by the river. Jolted into an awareness of the rules of modesty once more, the teenage boys and girls giggle with embarrassment in the rush to grab their clothes, and the boys move further off into the scrubby bushes to get dressed. The littlest kids, too young yet to feel shame in their nakedness, openly stare at the older girls who, with eyes cast downward, awkwardly slip into their clothes while hiding under the pagnes draped over their bent backs. Standing at the river's edge with the sun baking away the moisture from my skin, I take a deep breath and step into my ankle-length skirt and short-sleeved top, feeling as though I am cloaking myself in modesty once again, resettling into the restrictive patterns of village life. With Ami and Hapsa, now properly attired in layers of fabric that reduce their bodies' beautiful curves to the efforts of my imagination, I clamber up the scrub-covered bank to the dirt track at the edge of the fields. The other kids begin to wander off in little segregated groups in the direction of the village, all carrying their bundles of dirty clothes and chatting happily with each other.
With a sigh, my friends and I set off on the long, blistering hot walk back to Dioullom in the afternoon sun. When we arrive, I know we will once again sit at a distance from our male friends and carefully keep our legs well covered as we eat lunch in gender-segregation before drinking our afternoon tea. The delightful sensuality of our jubilant foray into the fields and river will be a secret memory each of us will keep silently until we return.
He sought her in the stars, each night wishing to pull her down to his heart, in brilliant radiant caress, and fall asleep with love's oblivion. But each morning he awoke with the stronger knowing that all he will ever wish, and once had, will forever pass with night's sad dream. Longing, he realizes, is life's only lasting sweetness, made sweeter by its power to elude eternity. And all that he will ever strive to hold, he knows, will be forgotten in memory of his desire to let go. The expansive soul loves, with each moment, the intolerable illusion of infinite things, undaunted by the sorrow that temporal loss brings. Thus knowing, he sought her in the stars. -ANONYMOUS