From our sister Mia Dombrecht, MSOLA in Mauritania
A Call to the Heart of Mauritania
I love looking at the map of Mauritania, an Islamic Republic, this vast country that welcomes us between the desert and the ocean. On this map, the small religious communities present in Nouakchott and in the interior of the country seem so tiny…
I often ask myself: How can we reach these distant Muslim families, who sometimes do not even know that other religions exist, and help them taste the joy of the Kingdom of God already present among us?
Teichott, a Village Between Sea and Desert
Teichott is a small traditional fishing village, nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mauritanian desert. It is one of nine Imraguen villages located along the coast between Nouakchott and Nouadhibou.
This area is part of the Banc d’Arguin National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognized as one of the richest marine ecosystems in the world.
We discovered this village for the first time in 2011, together with the community of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (MSOLA) present at that time. There, the men fish using sailboats to avoid polluting the protected environment. The women process the fish—making oil from the heads of the yellow mullet and drying the eggs to produce a kind of local “caviar.” They also sew the sails and the tents.
Each village hosts a post of IMROP (Mauritanian Institute for Oceanographic and Fisheries Research), which monitors marine life and sustainable fishing. Yet this ecological balance remains fragile. Climate change is causing sea levels to rise: during the high tides of August and September, seawater pushes into the desert, forming lakes among the dunes. And while Mauritania seeks to protect this natural heritage, it also signs agreements with foreign companies for industrial fishing…
Education at the Heart of the Mission
About 300 km from Nouakchott, Teichott is home to around sixty families. The village school has two teachers—one for Arabic and one for French—teaching about sixty children across all six primary grades.
The level of French is low: even the sixth-year pupils do not yet master the entire alphabet. Few pass the entrance exam to secondary school, and boys aged ten to twelve already dream of joining their fathers and brothers at sea.
This is the third time I have returned to Teichott to teach French. With the youngest children, I use games, songs, pictures, and dialogues. Those in the third and fourth grades love practicing letters on their slates. The teenagers discovered the joy of theatre. Together, we created plays about tolerance, living together, and care for creation—such as a dialogue between a dolphin and a yellow mullet, complaining that large foreign ships are emptying the sea and people are throwing garbage into the ocean.
Living the Gospel in a Muslim Village
During my stay, I meditated on the Gospel according to Saint Mark. The passage of the Syrophoenician woman (Mk 7:24–30) deeply touched me: she becomes a channel of grace in pagan territory.
I, too, felt a bit like her—the only Christian woman in a Muslim village, a small channel through which the presence of the Gospel might flow.
Through French classes, family visits, and participation in village life, I simply wanted to be a sign of love and friendship. Like Jesus, who often spoke in parables, I cannot proclaim the Gospel directly, but I chose to sing with the children three short refrains about a New World:
In the New World, we don’t argue, we share, we forgive, we study hard, we respect others.”
These songs acted as modern-day parables, carrying messages of peace, sharing, and respect.
Teaching Care for Creation
With the youngest students, we also collected garbage around the village. The children who were the most restless in class became the most enthusiastic in this task—one that even their parents were sometimes reluctant to do. This simple act became a concrete gesture of caring for God’s creation, a small step toward building together that New World.
A New World to Build Together
On the last day of classes, we invited the parents and village elders to attend the children’s presentations—dialogues, plays, and songs prepared throughout the month. They were amazed by the children’s memory, pronunciation, and creativity. Many expressed hope that their children might one day continue their studies in one of Mauritania’s cities.
That day, I felt that a small seed of hope had been planted, at the heart of this village between sea and desert.
Together, we can build a new world.
