29 December 2005 - 14:08
Congressman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.)
is in Mauritania for a visit,and he invited several Peace Corps
voluteers over to the US Ambassador's house for a chat yesterday
evening. While our conversation was mostly just political
bantering, he did say a couple things that I thought were interesting.
He drew a parallel between the living conditions in Mauritania and
those of his home district, which is the 2nd-poorest congressional
district in the US. He said that there are still people in his district
who don't have running water and are struggling to get by, living
hand-to-mouth. While his comparison wasn't quite accurate (the
worst living conditions in the US are comparable to the living
situations of most Mauritanians), it did strike me as interesting -
that in these times, when the US is sending millions of dollars and
thousands of aid workers overseas, we still can't seem to solve the
poverty problem (amongst others) at home.
Speaking of which, I was watching the news this morning (one of my
favorite things about being in Nouakchott now is being able to watch
the news...I feel so disconnected from the rest of the world most of
the time), and I saw a story about how FEMA has trailers for all the
people in New Orleans who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina, but all
of these people who are living in hotel rooms and tents can't move into
the trailers because FEMA can't find anywhere to put them because rich
neighborhoods don't want the trailers anywhere near their manicured
lawns and dual-SUV garages. Sad stuff, man.
Anyways, Mr. Thompson also said, "In this day and age, when we have so
many people working against us, we can build all the bombs and weapons
that money can buy, but the best weapon that we have is our ability to
speak to our enemy." Then he thanked us for being Peace Corps
volunteers.
Thank you, Bennie.
