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.