first week in the camps!

Nine days in, and getting used to the Saharawi life. Time flies and it feels like we’ve been here forever. Yet so much is still to be learnt. A new lifestyle, new traditions, new habits and new languages: Hassaneyya, Arabic and Spanish. The heat is overwhelming at times. The nights are tranquilizing. We sleep under the most magnificent starry sky we have ever seen. Everything about the climate is exotic and something our bodies clearly were not made for.

For about another week the three of us will stay together in the family we currently live with. We finally figured out their whole family tree yesterday: the grandparents just passed away, the parent generation consist of five siblings (one of whom is our “mother”) and we have seven sisters and brothers of ages 14 to 32 years. Our cousins live next door (meaning they sleep there, but are otherwise in our faces, on our laps, in our arms and sometimes almost on our plates!) and their ages range from 4 to 16 years. Family life takes a lot of energy, but we have never been so warmly welcomed. Our brothers walk to meet us after Arabic class when it gets dark. The little ones want us to lift them up and toss them around constantly. Everyone wants our attention. And everyone wants to help in any way they can. We couldn’t be more grateful.

We started teaching last Saturday - that’s the first day of the week here. After three tests (written, oral and listening) we were able to place our students into three classes. Marta teaches the beginners, Hanne the middle level and Anne Kristine the advanced class. Teaching is challenging, especially when students come and go (e.g. today someone had to leave because she was going to go to Mauritania with her family for 10 days), but we’re expecting more stability soon, insh allah..

Our Arabic and Hassaneyya lessons started on Saturday as well, and we feel like we’re making slow but steady progress.

More soon (i.e. next time we find internet)!

Sending big hugs to you all by the warm wind from the Sahara desert from marta, anne kristine and hanne