So I'm officially a volunteer with the Peace Corps of the Government of the United States of America! Last Wednesday, we (the new Youth Development and Small Business Development) were all sworn into the Peace Corps in Rabat, Morocco's capital. The Minister of Youth and Sports and the Minister of Small Business Development (both positions appointed by the king) spoke at the ceremony. The US Ambassador was also at the ceremony and gave a speech, along with director of Peace Corps Morocco David Lillie. They all spoke about the challenging journey that we were all about the embark on and the importance and nobility of our mission to the people of Morocco and the partnership between Moroccans and Americans. The speeches made a lot of us tear up, and were also really inspiring in reminding us all of why exactly were were there and what the real purpose of our service was.
After the ceremony there was a reception with really good fresh juice, macaroon cookies and some special guests. During the reception I got a chance to talk to some employees of USAID who had attended the ceremony and I also got to talk to the Ambassador, who I found out, attended the same high school as I did in Saint Paul Minnesota. It must be a sign... I also got to talk to a girl who is currently working at the Embassy and she invited me to hang out with her if I am ever in Rabat, since she had just finished her own Peace Corps service and "really" understands the need for a hot shower and beer.
After swearing in, everyone set out to have some drinks and celebrate our new positions in life. Everyone seemed to be really excited yet also extremely nervous about heading off on their own and beginning the next chapter of Peace Corps service (myself included). The next day we all set out, slightly hung over, on our separate ways to journey to our final sites. A large group of about 20 of us all took the train down to Marrakech together. Going back to Kech' was really nice, I got to explore the city a bit with some friends of mine who were also headed down south. Also, between Rabat and Marrakech it was great to be out of the bled (county) and in urban metropolises with Western amenities and a fast internet connection.
After 'Kech, all of us going down to the South once again had to endure the Tishka Pass. This time it worked out great due to the heavy dose of dramamine that I took right before the bus took off. In between my drug-induced slumber I caught some of the breath taking views of the High Atlas Mountains and little Berber villages that are scattered through them. Also, since the last time I saw the Mountains 3 weeks ago during my sight visit, there has been a lot of snow and the Mountain tops (which you can see from the streets of my new home) are now almost entirely white.
I am now safely in my site and am dealing with the steps of community integration which, after only a day, are proving to be stressful and exhausting since I my Darija is pretty basic still and I am not accustomed to the Moroccan legal system. I am having a really hard time understand the new accents, and southern dialect of Darija, and my new host sister keeps on correcting my pronunciation and incorrect sentences.
Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have accomplished a few things and will have some good stories to blog about, insh'allah.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Tears of Ras L-Ma
Today was my last day in my CBT site and I think I said more goodbyes here than I did when I left the United States. Since it is such a small town everyone knew us and everyone was sad to see us go. The day was filled with the statements, tella f rask (take care of yourself), ana gaddi ntwasHtk bzzzf (I will miss you a lot), and ana gaddi nrj3 u nsufk karim insh’allah (I will return and see you again soon).
Life here had become very routine, I had become a member of my host family, I became a regular guest of my friend Rachel’s host family, we all had become great friends with our school cook Bahia, we went to the same two hanoots multiple times a day, and we saw the same kids every day who had grown accustomed to asking us if we were going to the Dar Chabab every time we left our school building. So today we had to say goodbye to all of those people. All of the people who had so warmly welcomed us into their community, who dealt with our inability to speak their language and who, everyday, did anything and everything possible to make our lives here more comfortable.
The first goodbyes were yesterday when I went to Rachel’s house, like I did everyday for the last two months to meet her on our way to school, and like every morning I went inside to say hello to her family. After Rachel finished up breakfast and was ready to go her host mom informed us that it was goodbye. Her and her two children, two of my favorite children in all of Morocco, were leaving to go to a baptism party and wouldn’t be back until after we had left on Sunday. Then the tears started flowing, it took us a good 10 minutes to say goodbye to them, constantly reassuring the two kids that we were coming back soon, insh’allah. By the time we finally left the front door everyone was sobbing and Fatim-Zahara, Rachel’s 12-year-old sister, was choking on her sobs and couldn’t even look at us. Both Rachel and I were crying too at this point.
This morning when I went to go get Rachel it was only her and her grandma, but Jadda (grandma in Darija) was crying when I got there, she has been sad for the last month that we are leaving. We again reassured her that we would come back.
Then midway through today, our hanoot lady realized that we were all packing up the schoolhouse because we were leaving. She asked me why we were leaving and why we couldn’t stay in Ras L-Ma? As I had explained to many other people in our town, it wasn’t our choice to leave, but we had to because we had been assigned to work in other Dar Chababs in other cities. She then invited us all over to her house before we left, and I regretfully had to inform her that we were all leaving really early in the morning and that there wasn’t enough time, but that we all would come back and we’ll come over the next time, insh’allah. She gave me a long hug and when she let go I looked at her and she had started to cry. I went back to school and told my group mates to go say goodbye to her and a few minutes after I walked back over to her hanoot and her eyes had become red from sobbing.
This afternoon we had a goodbye party with all of our host families and we had to say more goodbyes. At the end of the party we all stood up and gave a speech about how thankful we are for everything and then gave our host parents with certificates of appreciation from the Peace Corps. We each gave them individually to our host families and one by one every host mother, and even Rachel’s host dad started crying.
On the way home from the party I had to say goodbye to our amazing school cook Bahia. This woman had done so much for us, when I said goodbye the simple phrase shukran bzzzf (thank you so much) wasn’t nearly enough. Not only had she cooked us some of the most amazing food I’ve had in Morocco every single day, but she also went on countless excursions with us even though it was her time off. She went to souk with us every day on her one day of the week off, she took me and Rachel to the hammam after knowing us for only two weeks, she came to all of our parties with our crazy host families, she even came to Rachel’s birthday party on our fourth day in our CBT site. She had endured weeks of our struggles with Darija, she continually answered our ridiculous questions about whether or not things were hshuma (shame full) for us to do, she helped explain to Katy why her host sister had freaked out when Katy had asked to wash her pants (she had accidentally asked to wash her vagina!). Bahia had become a loved member of our Little America and one of all of our most favorite people we had met in Morocco.
Tonight is my last night with my host family and even though I am excited to move to my final site, it will be extremely hard to say goodbye to them. Tonight my host aunt Idrissia said I was like her own daughter, and that’s exactly how I feel about them, they part of my big extended Moroccan family and I will miss them dearly.
After our site visits Rachel was telling me about a girl who was in the region that we are moving to who ET’d (early terminated) after one year. Et’ing from your Peace Corps Service is basically stating that you couldn’t hack it, for whatever reason. Rachel was telling me about how the PCV that she is replacing had explained to her how bad and unfair it was for this girl to ET after her first year because it’s in your first year that Morocco is giving to you, and it’s not really until your second year of service that you can really give to Morocco. Now that I am leaving my CBT site this statement is really resonating with me, the people here have given us so much. It is the people here, especially in our host families who have had to deal with our crash coarse of adapting to another culture. Only two months ago I was sitting outside with my host aunt Fatiha while she helped me practice counting from one to ten in Darija. Amina graciously catered to my vegetarianism at every meal even though meat is such a staple part of diets here. Idrissia laboriously scrubbed me down during my weekly hammam. Ghita repeated and rephrased things ten times until I understood them. I was taken care of when I was sick, I was dealt with when I was having a bad day, I was given presents for holidays and I was adopted as a member of the family. I will never be able to thank these people enough and they will always have a large place in my heart as some of my first and most important memories of Morocco.
B’slama Ras L-Ma, twasHtk bzzzzf bzzzzzzf bzzzzff!
Life here had become very routine, I had become a member of my host family, I became a regular guest of my friend Rachel’s host family, we all had become great friends with our school cook Bahia, we went to the same two hanoots multiple times a day, and we saw the same kids every day who had grown accustomed to asking us if we were going to the Dar Chabab every time we left our school building. So today we had to say goodbye to all of those people. All of the people who had so warmly welcomed us into their community, who dealt with our inability to speak their language and who, everyday, did anything and everything possible to make our lives here more comfortable.
The first goodbyes were yesterday when I went to Rachel’s house, like I did everyday for the last two months to meet her on our way to school, and like every morning I went inside to say hello to her family. After Rachel finished up breakfast and was ready to go her host mom informed us that it was goodbye. Her and her two children, two of my favorite children in all of Morocco, were leaving to go to a baptism party and wouldn’t be back until after we had left on Sunday. Then the tears started flowing, it took us a good 10 minutes to say goodbye to them, constantly reassuring the two kids that we were coming back soon, insh’allah. By the time we finally left the front door everyone was sobbing and Fatim-Zahara, Rachel’s 12-year-old sister, was choking on her sobs and couldn’t even look at us. Both Rachel and I were crying too at this point.
This morning when I went to go get Rachel it was only her and her grandma, but Jadda (grandma in Darija) was crying when I got there, she has been sad for the last month that we are leaving. We again reassured her that we would come back.
Then midway through today, our hanoot lady realized that we were all packing up the schoolhouse because we were leaving. She asked me why we were leaving and why we couldn’t stay in Ras L-Ma? As I had explained to many other people in our town, it wasn’t our choice to leave, but we had to because we had been assigned to work in other Dar Chababs in other cities. She then invited us all over to her house before we left, and I regretfully had to inform her that we were all leaving really early in the morning and that there wasn’t enough time, but that we all would come back and we’ll come over the next time, insh’allah. She gave me a long hug and when she let go I looked at her and she had started to cry. I went back to school and told my group mates to go say goodbye to her and a few minutes after I walked back over to her hanoot and her eyes had become red from sobbing.
This afternoon we had a goodbye party with all of our host families and we had to say more goodbyes. At the end of the party we all stood up and gave a speech about how thankful we are for everything and then gave our host parents with certificates of appreciation from the Peace Corps. We each gave them individually to our host families and one by one every host mother, and even Rachel’s host dad started crying.
On the way home from the party I had to say goodbye to our amazing school cook Bahia. This woman had done so much for us, when I said goodbye the simple phrase shukran bzzzf (thank you so much) wasn’t nearly enough. Not only had she cooked us some of the most amazing food I’ve had in Morocco every single day, but she also went on countless excursions with us even though it was her time off. She went to souk with us every day on her one day of the week off, she took me and Rachel to the hammam after knowing us for only two weeks, she came to all of our parties with our crazy host families, she even came to Rachel’s birthday party on our fourth day in our CBT site. She had endured weeks of our struggles with Darija, she continually answered our ridiculous questions about whether or not things were hshuma (shame full) for us to do, she helped explain to Katy why her host sister had freaked out when Katy had asked to wash her pants (she had accidentally asked to wash her vagina!). Bahia had become a loved member of our Little America and one of all of our most favorite people we had met in Morocco.
Tonight is my last night with my host family and even though I am excited to move to my final site, it will be extremely hard to say goodbye to them. Tonight my host aunt Idrissia said I was like her own daughter, and that’s exactly how I feel about them, they part of my big extended Moroccan family and I will miss them dearly.
After our site visits Rachel was telling me about a girl who was in the region that we are moving to who ET’d (early terminated) after one year. Et’ing from your Peace Corps Service is basically stating that you couldn’t hack it, for whatever reason. Rachel was telling me about how the PCV that she is replacing had explained to her how bad and unfair it was for this girl to ET after her first year because it’s in your first year that Morocco is giving to you, and it’s not really until your second year of service that you can really give to Morocco. Now that I am leaving my CBT site this statement is really resonating with me, the people here have given us so much. It is the people here, especially in our host families who have had to deal with our crash coarse of adapting to another culture. Only two months ago I was sitting outside with my host aunt Fatiha while she helped me practice counting from one to ten in Darija. Amina graciously catered to my vegetarianism at every meal even though meat is such a staple part of diets here. Idrissia laboriously scrubbed me down during my weekly hammam. Ghita repeated and rephrased things ten times until I understood them. I was taken care of when I was sick, I was dealt with when I was having a bad day, I was given presents for holidays and I was adopted as a member of the family. I will never be able to thank these people enough and they will always have a large place in my heart as some of my first and most important memories of Morocco.
B’slama Ras L-Ma, twasHtk bzzzzf bzzzzzzf bzzzzff!
Thursday, November 11, 2010
NEW ADDRESS!
My new and permanent address is:
Molly Schneider
c/o Candace Spradley
B.P. 587
Ouarzazate 45000
Maroc
c/o is just until January first then it'll just be directly to me (I'm sharing a mail box until then).
SEND ME STUFF! Please.
Molly Schneider
c/o Candace Spradley
B.P. 587
Ouarzazate 45000
Maroc
c/o is just until January first then it'll just be directly to me (I'm sharing a mail box until then).
SEND ME STUFF! Please.
Site Visit
After two months in country I finally found out my permanent site last week. For the next two years Ill be living in a small town, about 10,000 people, called Tabount, which is right outside the city of Ouarzazate (60,000 people) located in southern Morocco between the base of the High Atlas Mountains and the Sahara desert.
Last Saturday we set out to visit our sights. A large group of PC people who were headed south left early Saturday morning to catch a train to Marrakech. Since it takes two days to get from Fes to our sites in the south, PC put us all up in a hotel in Marrakech for the night. The train ride was about 7 hours and super exhausting/boring. Plus we were all stressed with anticipation/nervousness about what our final sights would be like. But once we arrived in Marrakech things got a bit better. We all stayed in a great hotel called Sindi Sud, which is by the main square in Marrakech, Jamm3 al Finaa. This is the square where they have the dancers, monkey and snake charmers. My CBT site mate, Rachel and I got to have pictures taken with the snakes around our necks, which was exciting but also super expensive (especially on a Peace Corps budget).
The next morning half of us, all going to the Ouarzazate or Zagora province in Southern Morocco, left at about 7 am to catch a bus to go to Ouarzazate. Little did we know at the time that this trek would take us through the Tishka Pass of the High Atlas Mountains, the windiest and highest altitude road in Morocco. About 6 people ended up vomiting on our trip due to the severe amount of motion sickness. I spent a good hour and a half with my eyes closed and breathing heavily through my nose in order to keep myself from throwing up. In hindsight the ride was beautiful, full or vast expanses of green snow caped mountains and tiny Berber villages. On the way back most of us took copious amounts of anti-nausea medicine and Dramamine and thoroughly enjoyed the ride back to ‘Kech. I look forward to being able to journey into the mountains to visit some of the health and environment PCVs that are living and working in some of the tiny Berber villages.
My actual site is not technically Ouarzazate, but the city is only 2k away, so basically is part of my site. Oz is a big city with hotels and cafés (that women can go to) alcohol and pork (both not normally found in conservative Muslim society in Morocco). Ouarzazate is also know as the “Hollywood of Africa” and has been the location for many popular movies such as Star Wars, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kundun, Lawrence of Arabia and Sex and the City 2. Apparently it’s pretty easy to get a roll as an extra in a movie that is being filmed there which could be fun.
My actually site is Tabount , which is separated from Oz by a small river and a natural palm forest. In the backdrop of the area are the High Atlas Mountains, which make for a beautiful panoramic background to my new home. There are also some old Casabas in the foothills surrounding the city that you can also see in the background. Apparently the entire region is littered with hundreds of old casabas from the colonial area and I am really excited to started traveling around the area and going to see them along with the several oasis and camel treks available within a few hours from me. Although Tabount is small it has everything that I really could want, there is a souk, a grocery store and a hammam. There is also a Dar Chebab, which they are rebuilding in a different location (the new one will have a swimming pool), a netti neswi (woman's association) and a library. There is a lot of work opportunity for me. The town itself is a vast diversity of new modern style apartments in the center to small mud houses with no running water on the outskirts of town. There are palm trees scattered throughout and it’s quite beautiful. Also, I will no longer experience the horrid winters of Minnesota/Massachusetts since it only drops to about 45 degrees F (at the coldest) in the area. However, in the summer it can reach up to 120 degrees. Yikes!. Most people in my area either travel during to the summer to cooler places, like Europe or home, or they request to work in a different part of the country, like other PC sites in the north which remain a more comfortable temperature in the summer.
Luckily I am replacing a currency PCV, a girl named Candace from the DC area. She’s been here for 2 years and is actually going home in about a week. She was great and met me at the bus station when I arrived in town and continued to show me around/help me/translate for me and made sure that everything I was suppose to get done got done and answered and questions that I had. I am also inheriting most of the stuff that she had in her apartment here, like a stove, fridge, oven, bed, water heater etc. We are allotted about 5,000 Dh for “settling in,” i.e. purchasing all the stuff that we may need for our new site, and I was about to purchase all of Candace’s stuff for less then the amount everything would have cost new. So I am basically set on apartment amenities for when I go back to my site. My wardrobe also tripled in size and I got a 3G Internet hook up! I also have about 1,000 Dh left over for decorating my apartment with cliché yet pretty Moroccan looking knickknacks that are manufactured for tourists.
As for friends, my site is close to my PC BFFL Rachel, who I’ve been with since we were roomed together in Philly. Our sites are only about 3 hours away from each other. I am also really close to two awesome girls from my stage Olivia and Aly, so I’ll have a good network in my site and we’re already planning activities and trips for when we are moved in permanently.
We go back to our sites, not this weekend but the next, on Thanksgiving day, after we swear in in Rabat. Only a week and a half left with my host family in my training site, but before we all leave here we get to celebrate on of the biggest holidays in Morocco, L’3id Kabir. That’s next week, I am super excited, we get two days off from school, henna is done and it’s two days of sitting around and eating, kind of like America’s Thanksgiving.
Oh and in cause any of you were wondering, I got to weight myself finally and I’ve gained about 9 lbs since I got here, which I guess is pretty normal for girls when they are in training, because you are force fed cookies the entire time. If I gain anymore eight my jeans may not fit anymore so hopefully I’ll get a parasite soon and loose it all. Just kidding, but I need to figure out something of a more balanced lifestyle here.
That’s about it for now. Until next time.
Last Saturday we set out to visit our sights. A large group of PC people who were headed south left early Saturday morning to catch a train to Marrakech. Since it takes two days to get from Fes to our sites in the south, PC put us all up in a hotel in Marrakech for the night. The train ride was about 7 hours and super exhausting/boring. Plus we were all stressed with anticipation/nervousness about what our final sights would be like. But once we arrived in Marrakech things got a bit better. We all stayed in a great hotel called Sindi Sud, which is by the main square in Marrakech, Jamm3 al Finaa. This is the square where they have the dancers, monkey and snake charmers. My CBT site mate, Rachel and I got to have pictures taken with the snakes around our necks, which was exciting but also super expensive (especially on a Peace Corps budget).
The next morning half of us, all going to the Ouarzazate or Zagora province in Southern Morocco, left at about 7 am to catch a bus to go to Ouarzazate. Little did we know at the time that this trek would take us through the Tishka Pass of the High Atlas Mountains, the windiest and highest altitude road in Morocco. About 6 people ended up vomiting on our trip due to the severe amount of motion sickness. I spent a good hour and a half with my eyes closed and breathing heavily through my nose in order to keep myself from throwing up. In hindsight the ride was beautiful, full or vast expanses of green snow caped mountains and tiny Berber villages. On the way back most of us took copious amounts of anti-nausea medicine and Dramamine and thoroughly enjoyed the ride back to ‘Kech. I look forward to being able to journey into the mountains to visit some of the health and environment PCVs that are living and working in some of the tiny Berber villages.
My actual site is not technically Ouarzazate, but the city is only 2k away, so basically is part of my site. Oz is a big city with hotels and cafés (that women can go to) alcohol and pork (both not normally found in conservative Muslim society in Morocco). Ouarzazate is also know as the “Hollywood of Africa” and has been the location for many popular movies such as Star Wars, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kundun, Lawrence of Arabia and Sex and the City 2. Apparently it’s pretty easy to get a roll as an extra in a movie that is being filmed there which could be fun.
My actually site is Tabount , which is separated from Oz by a small river and a natural palm forest. In the backdrop of the area are the High Atlas Mountains, which make for a beautiful panoramic background to my new home. There are also some old Casabas in the foothills surrounding the city that you can also see in the background. Apparently the entire region is littered with hundreds of old casabas from the colonial area and I am really excited to started traveling around the area and going to see them along with the several oasis and camel treks available within a few hours from me. Although Tabount is small it has everything that I really could want, there is a souk, a grocery store and a hammam. There is also a Dar Chebab, which they are rebuilding in a different location (the new one will have a swimming pool), a netti neswi (woman's association) and a library. There is a lot of work opportunity for me. The town itself is a vast diversity of new modern style apartments in the center to small mud houses with no running water on the outskirts of town. There are palm trees scattered throughout and it’s quite beautiful. Also, I will no longer experience the horrid winters of Minnesota/Massachusetts since it only drops to about 45 degrees F (at the coldest) in the area. However, in the summer it can reach up to 120 degrees. Yikes!. Most people in my area either travel during to the summer to cooler places, like Europe or home, or they request to work in a different part of the country, like other PC sites in the north which remain a more comfortable temperature in the summer.
Luckily I am replacing a currency PCV, a girl named Candace from the DC area. She’s been here for 2 years and is actually going home in about a week. She was great and met me at the bus station when I arrived in town and continued to show me around/help me/translate for me and made sure that everything I was suppose to get done got done and answered and questions that I had. I am also inheriting most of the stuff that she had in her apartment here, like a stove, fridge, oven, bed, water heater etc. We are allotted about 5,000 Dh for “settling in,” i.e. purchasing all the stuff that we may need for our new site, and I was about to purchase all of Candace’s stuff for less then the amount everything would have cost new. So I am basically set on apartment amenities for when I go back to my site. My wardrobe also tripled in size and I got a 3G Internet hook up! I also have about 1,000 Dh left over for decorating my apartment with cliché yet pretty Moroccan looking knickknacks that are manufactured for tourists.
As for friends, my site is close to my PC BFFL Rachel, who I’ve been with since we were roomed together in Philly. Our sites are only about 3 hours away from each other. I am also really close to two awesome girls from my stage Olivia and Aly, so I’ll have a good network in my site and we’re already planning activities and trips for when we are moved in permanently.
We go back to our sites, not this weekend but the next, on Thanksgiving day, after we swear in in Rabat. Only a week and a half left with my host family in my training site, but before we all leave here we get to celebrate on of the biggest holidays in Morocco, L’3id Kabir. That’s next week, I am super excited, we get two days off from school, henna is done and it’s two days of sitting around and eating, kind of like America’s Thanksgiving.
Oh and in cause any of you were wondering, I got to weight myself finally and I’ve gained about 9 lbs since I got here, which I guess is pretty normal for girls when they are in training, because you are force fed cookies the entire time. If I gain anymore eight my jeans may not fit anymore so hopefully I’ll get a parasite soon and loose it all. Just kidding, but I need to figure out something of a more balanced lifestyle here.
That’s about it for now. Until next time.
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