Hey hey, once again it's been a while since my last blog update... looks like I'm not the greatest at blogging. My idea of keeping a journal during Peace Corps has also failed (after the first week or so of being here). Furthermore, I seem to forget to bring my camera to a lot of important events/trips that have happened since I got here (however I asked for a new camera for x-mas with the rational that a newer camera that takes better pictures will encourage me to take more). Oops! I guess it'll be up to my gift of gab to fill people in on the exciting events that happened during my 27 months here. Hopefully, I don't get dementia or something so that 50 years from now even my grand kids/nursing home companions will be able to hear about my adventures in full detail.
So... to fill you in on whats been going on since my last post:
I only ended up fasting for 5 days during Ramadan... I know, epic failure, but it was hot and at least I tried. In Morocco, they start younger kids off fasting by doing only a couple of days at first and then increasing the amount each year. So I've accepted the fact that I did Ramadan like a 14 year old girl, maybe next year I'll up my number of days, or maybe I'll vacation to the South of France so I can gorge on brie and skip the "holiday" all together.
In September several exciting events took place.
1) I helped out with my practically-site-mate Maureen's journalism workshop. She wrote a grant and had the US Embassy and USAID contribute to a workshop to teach local kids about journalism. It was a huge success and a nice productive way to start of the new work year.
2) I worked at the Peace Corps health tent (blood pressure taking and educating) at the Imilchil Wedding Festival in the High Atlas Mountains. Historically the event was a large souk (market) where the local Berber tribes would bring their young to look for spouses. Today the tradition of the bride/groom hunt is somewhat outdated, and the event is mainly a tourist attraction. Which is weird because there were barely any tourists there. I did not find a husband at this event, but I wasn't looking for one, so it's not a huge loss. The area that the festival was in was stunning (unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I'll have to go back) and it was the first place I have been where most people I interacted with didn't speak Arabic (Darija) because they only spoke Berber because of how remote and up in the mountains it is. This was prob one of my favorite experiences thus far during my service.
3) To celebrate our one year in country anniversary and my dear friend Rachel's 26th birthday, a group of us went to Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. OH MY GOD! What an amazing experience, obviously made better by the fact that I had been living in Africa for a year. The trip was filled with good beer, amazing Bavarian food, and cute European boys who, refreshingly, were interested in casual conversation, appose to asking if I was married and then immediately asking for my phone number (the Moroccan method) and who also didn't believe that I lived in Africa and was serving in the Peace Corps. We also took a trip to see Neuschwanstein castle, Salzburg, Austria and barely made our flight back (after driving 120 mph on the Autobhan!). However, I don't think any of us would have been too upset about staying in Germany for a few extra days if we had missed our flight.
Over the last month:
I've been dealing with post-Europe vacation blues and my, for lack of a better term, mid service "crisis". This has involved a general sense of homesickness, reflection on the first year of service (it went by so fast! but what did I really do? wait I only did that much work...? what??), thinking about the second year of service (oh my god another year of this? wait but now my language is better and I know my community and have a better idea of feasible work options... crunch time! better get moving!).
So, over the last month I've been trying to get my schedule for this year figured out and start sewing the seeds for any projects I want to try and accomplish during my last year. However, one of my best friends from high school is visiting me in about two weeks and I'm going to America (!!!) for Christmas/New Years, so my excitement for that has made it hard to focus on the present.
My schedule of activities for the fall/year looks something like this:
Tuesday: Girls Club at the Neddi Neswi (Woman's center) which involves self-confidence building/educational games, art lessons/activities, health lessons, discussions etc.
Wednesday: An exercise/yoga class at the other Neddi Neswi in my site in the morning, and activity night at the Dar Taliba (girls boarding house) which involves games, arts and crafts, English lessons, films etc.
Thursday: free day! (for now)
Friday: Helping out with blood pressure taking and baby weighing at the maternal clinic, English class at the Neddi, and book club at the Dar Taliba at night.
Saturday: English club at the local high school.
I'm also working on getting some small and one large project started, such as continuing the mural project at the Neddi, doing a breast cancer awareness project in site, and writing a grant for a English Resource Center/Library at the local high school.
So I've been really busy trying to get all of this stuff worked out, lesson planning, making several trips to ministries to get work permission slips, etc.
In my spare time I've been watching way too much TV on my computer (Band of Brothers, Boardwalk Empire, Lost etc.), trying to watch a long list of must see movies that I have on my external hard drive (Escape from New York, all of the Godfathers, Buch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Vertigo etc.) and tackling the big pile of books that I have borrowed from the Peace Corps Library (The Dharma Bums, Anna Karenina, Reading Lolita in Tehran, People's History of the United Sates, Tribe and Society in Rural Morocco etc.)
In preparation for my life after Peace Corps, I've been looking at grad schools and making a solid effort to start studying for the GREs.
Also, when I have enough money, I've been working on perfecting my cooking skills. I made bread and apple pie this week.
While I sit around and dream of things in America, like Chipotle, I've found that cooking and reading are my best coping skills for dealing with tough days in Morocco.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Ramadan: Trials of Hunger and Thirst
So as promised to myself I decided to fast for Ramadan this year. The holiday started 3 days ago, at midnight on Monday. The fast involves not eating during daylight hours, so all eating must take place before sunrise (4:30 AM) and then no eating or drinking until sunset (7:30 PM) 15 hours total.
The first day was the hardest, and the days have very gradually been getting better. I decided to spend my first day with my host family. I pretty much just laid around my host aunt's apartment all day and tried to read to keep my mind off of how thirsty I was. Once the time hit 4 o'clock I felt like I was dying, all I could think of was water. This is one of the reasons that I decided to spend the day with Moroccans, so I'd be less tempted to cave in and just drink water. My host mom and cousin kept on telling me that the first day is always really hard. By the last hour and a half people had generally stopped talking and were just sitting around waiting for the call to prayer at 7:30 that signals its time to break fast. Sometime during the last hour my host mom went outside and came back saying that people outside were crabby because of how tired and thirsty you get by the end of the day. When we finally broke fast, since I am not accustomed to fasting, I quickly stuffed my face with food and water and within two minutes I had the worst stomach splitting cramps from eating to fast. Everyone told me to slow down and that you have to ease you way into eating again. So I kept slowly eating and drinking for the next hour until I couldn't eat anymore.
Breaking fast in Morocco traditionally involves dates (the first thing you put in your mouth), water, harira (soup which can be "red harira" tomato based with lentils, chickpeas, barley, cilantro, and egg or "white harira" which is a milk based broth with barley and spices, usually cumin), and shabakia which is a type of oily, honey soaked cookie that has sesame seeds on it. Other things that I've had for the leftour (breakfast) meal have been hard boiled eggs, bughrir and millwie (both a type of pancake thing), leben (a kind of yogurt/buttermilk), fresh fruit juice (one night I had cucumber and orange, and tonight i had carrot, orange and banana), fruit like watermelon, grapes or fresh figs, and sugary popcorn. The meal is usually finished with coffee and tea.
This meal is prepared by all the women on the household for several hours before the call to prayer. Each day that I've broken fast I've hung out with the women in the kitchen while they are finishing up the food prep, and even after hours of not eating and being around so much food that you cant eat yet, the hunger hasn't been a problem, the thirst has been the hardest part.
After "leftor", the breaking fast meal, typically Moroccans stay up and eat a heavy dinner meal, like a tajine, and then either take a nap or stay up until 4am to have the last meal, another breakfast, before the sun comes up. I've been skipping invites to dinner because I'm so full from breaking fast and I've been cooking my own breakfasts of eggs and a sort of fruit and yogurt parfait. And of course chugging as much water as I can fit in my system before I go to sleep.
So far I've broken fast with three different families in my community, my host family, my friend Esma's family and the family of two girls that I am bringing to summer camp with me. Each experience has been somewhat different in terms of the food that we break fast with (minus the mandatory dates, harira and cookies). But all have been the same in nature, I arrive an hour or two before its time to break fast, (the second two days of fasting I've pretty much just laid around my apartment watching movies trying to ward of feelings of hunger and thirst until around 5:30 when I go to the house where I will be having leftor). I hang out while the food is prepared, then help bring the food to the eating area, and then we all sit around staring at a table of food waiting until we hear Allahu Akbar from the mosque, say Bismila and dig in.
Each day fasting is somewhat easier. The hunger and thirst pains aren't as intense and the after break fast food comatose isn't as painful. However, I and all Moroccans agree that Ramadan is "werera" extremely difficult. Tomorrow I leave to go work at a summer camp in El Jadida. I plan to continue fasting but we shall see how it goes.
The first day was the hardest, and the days have very gradually been getting better. I decided to spend my first day with my host family. I pretty much just laid around my host aunt's apartment all day and tried to read to keep my mind off of how thirsty I was. Once the time hit 4 o'clock I felt like I was dying, all I could think of was water. This is one of the reasons that I decided to spend the day with Moroccans, so I'd be less tempted to cave in and just drink water. My host mom and cousin kept on telling me that the first day is always really hard. By the last hour and a half people had generally stopped talking and were just sitting around waiting for the call to prayer at 7:30 that signals its time to break fast. Sometime during the last hour my host mom went outside and came back saying that people outside were crabby because of how tired and thirsty you get by the end of the day. When we finally broke fast, since I am not accustomed to fasting, I quickly stuffed my face with food and water and within two minutes I had the worst stomach splitting cramps from eating to fast. Everyone told me to slow down and that you have to ease you way into eating again. So I kept slowly eating and drinking for the next hour until I couldn't eat anymore.
Breaking fast in Morocco traditionally involves dates (the first thing you put in your mouth), water, harira (soup which can be "red harira" tomato based with lentils, chickpeas, barley, cilantro, and egg or "white harira" which is a milk based broth with barley and spices, usually cumin), and shabakia which is a type of oily, honey soaked cookie that has sesame seeds on it. Other things that I've had for the leftour (breakfast) meal have been hard boiled eggs, bughrir and millwie (both a type of pancake thing), leben (a kind of yogurt/buttermilk), fresh fruit juice (one night I had cucumber and orange, and tonight i had carrot, orange and banana), fruit like watermelon, grapes or fresh figs, and sugary popcorn. The meal is usually finished with coffee and tea.
This meal is prepared by all the women on the household for several hours before the call to prayer. Each day that I've broken fast I've hung out with the women in the kitchen while they are finishing up the food prep, and even after hours of not eating and being around so much food that you cant eat yet, the hunger hasn't been a problem, the thirst has been the hardest part.
After "leftor", the breaking fast meal, typically Moroccans stay up and eat a heavy dinner meal, like a tajine, and then either take a nap or stay up until 4am to have the last meal, another breakfast, before the sun comes up. I've been skipping invites to dinner because I'm so full from breaking fast and I've been cooking my own breakfasts of eggs and a sort of fruit and yogurt parfait. And of course chugging as much water as I can fit in my system before I go to sleep.
So far I've broken fast with three different families in my community, my host family, my friend Esma's family and the family of two girls that I am bringing to summer camp with me. Each experience has been somewhat different in terms of the food that we break fast with (minus the mandatory dates, harira and cookies). But all have been the same in nature, I arrive an hour or two before its time to break fast, (the second two days of fasting I've pretty much just laid around my apartment watching movies trying to ward of feelings of hunger and thirst until around 5:30 when I go to the house where I will be having leftor). I hang out while the food is prepared, then help bring the food to the eating area, and then we all sit around staring at a table of food waiting until we hear Allahu Akbar from the mosque, say Bismila and dig in.
Each day fasting is somewhat easier. The hunger and thirst pains aren't as intense and the after break fast food comatose isn't as painful. However, I and all Moroccans agree that Ramadan is "werera" extremely difficult. Tomorrow I leave to go work at a summer camp in El Jadida. I plan to continue fasting but we shall see how it goes.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Summer in the Sahara
So it's summer in the Sahara and it's HOT!!! It's a pretty consistent 100 degrees F in my site every day, some days it pushes 105.
All of my places of work have closed for the summer, and a lot of the people in my site have left to go spend the "vacation" with their families, or traveling to other cooler and usually ocean side cities. People here often asked me if I was going home for the summer, home to America that is, and when I said no they usually responded with why are you staying here its so hot! Daily conversations with locals consist of hello, how are you? and then a back and forth on how hot the day was.
During the day it's nearly a death sentence to go outside during the hours of 12-7 because the sun is so hot. A five minute walk will result in your body dripping sweat and a feeling of such substantial thirst that you feel like you haven't drank and water in days. Plus most things are shut down between those hours so there is really is no point in going out anyways. So recently I've been spending a lot of time napping, cleaning my apt, watching tv shows on my computer and other general things to try and pass the days.
I've also been traveling out of site a lot to not only get out of the heat but also to feel useful helping out with projects that other PCVs in different sectors are doing. In the last month I've traveled to the city of amazing city of Essaouira twice. The beautiful city is located on the Atlantic coast, is about 30 degrees cooler than the rest of Morocco, harassment is low and it has rare treats like Thai and Italian food and restaurants that serve real coffee (imported from Europe).
That's about all that's been going on for the last 2 months. Ramadan starts in about a week and I plan to fast, I am both excited to experience the holiday and scared shitless about how difficult fasting will be. No water all day.... during summer in the desert... AHHHH! Apparently you are just suppose to sleep all day... exciting! Other older PCVs who fasted last year said that the first 3 days are the hardest and then your body adjusts. However, this year the first day of Ramadan is suppose to be the longest day of Ramadan in 26 years. I'll report back to let you all know how it goes. Wish me luck!
All of my places of work have closed for the summer, and a lot of the people in my site have left to go spend the "vacation" with their families, or traveling to other cooler and usually ocean side cities. People here often asked me if I was going home for the summer, home to America that is, and when I said no they usually responded with why are you staying here its so hot! Daily conversations with locals consist of hello, how are you? and then a back and forth on how hot the day was.
During the day it's nearly a death sentence to go outside during the hours of 12-7 because the sun is so hot. A five minute walk will result in your body dripping sweat and a feeling of such substantial thirst that you feel like you haven't drank and water in days. Plus most things are shut down between those hours so there is really is no point in going out anyways. So recently I've been spending a lot of time napping, cleaning my apt, watching tv shows on my computer and other general things to try and pass the days.
I've also been traveling out of site a lot to not only get out of the heat but also to feel useful helping out with projects that other PCVs in different sectors are doing. In the last month I've traveled to the city of amazing city of Essaouira twice. The beautiful city is located on the Atlantic coast, is about 30 degrees cooler than the rest of Morocco, harassment is low and it has rare treats like Thai and Italian food and restaurants that serve real coffee (imported from Europe).
That's about all that's been going on for the last 2 months. Ramadan starts in about a week and I plan to fast, I am both excited to experience the holiday and scared shitless about how difficult fasting will be. No water all day.... during summer in the desert... AHHHH! Apparently you are just suppose to sleep all day... exciting! Other older PCVs who fasted last year said that the first 3 days are the hardest and then your body adjusts. However, this year the first day of Ramadan is suppose to be the longest day of Ramadan in 26 years. I'll report back to let you all know how it goes. Wish me luck!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The insh'allah and mashi insh'allah of working in Morocco
Today marked the success of my first completely organically created project during my Peace Corps service. Here's the very long process of how it happened.
So, about 2 months ago before my parents came, I suggested to the Moudira of my Neddi Neswi that we do a "decor" (decoration) project which would involve painting murals on the walls of the classrooms. She said "inshallah" after the construction work (that had been going on for weeks) had been completed in the Neddi.
I came back, two weeks later, and probed the idea again she said, okay, yes, insh'allah after the work was done and then showed me paint and brushes that I could use in her office. Supplies! A step in the right direction.
Then I successfully convinced the girls that we should have a "girls club", first session of which was a nutrition class that was held about two weeks ago. Then last week after I came back from my IST (In Service Training) with Peace Corps, I mentioned to the girls that maybe we could do the painting for the next session of girls club. They were mildly responsive and I insisted that if they didn't want to do it we could do something else, but then they said that they did really want to do it. So I said okay on Thursday (of last week) we'll start and in the mean time they should find a few girls that can draw well to do the outline for us.
I came on Thursday and asked if we were going to do the painting and one of the sewing teachers said the girls really want to but Bouchera (the girl that draws well) wasn't there. They said insh'allah she'll come tomorrow or maybe Monday. With only a week left of the Neddi being open until summer vacation (during which the Neddi is closed until mid-way through September), I felt kind of hopeless and thought that it probably just wasn't going to happen (especially since Bouchera isn't a regular attendee of the Neddi).
So on Friday I come about an hour later than normal to the Neddi just to check and see if anything had happened... and as soon as I walked in to the classroom all the girls asked me why I was late and pointed to the wall to show me two giant outlines of flower designs that had been drawn there. (I was almost at tears at this point, actual initiative being taken by the teacher and the girls when I hadn't been there it was great).
So today I went and got them the paint from the Moudira and helped them prep the colors by showing them how to mix paint and held a short lesson on how to mix the primary colors to make other colors such as green, purple and orange. Then about 10 different girls participated in painting the mural at various stages and the sewing teacher helped them with painting techniques.
While this was happening they started talking about how they want to do a larger one on the adjacent wall and in the other class rooms. THEN the preschool teachers came in and asked if I would help them in the fall to do paintings in their class rooms.
So, about 2 months ago before my parents came, I suggested to the Moudira of my Neddi Neswi that we do a "decor" (decoration) project which would involve painting murals on the walls of the classrooms. She said "inshallah" after the construction work (that had been going on for weeks) had been completed in the Neddi.
I came back, two weeks later, and probed the idea again she said, okay, yes, insh'allah after the work was done and then showed me paint and brushes that I could use in her office. Supplies! A step in the right direction.
Then I successfully convinced the girls that we should have a "girls club", first session of which was a nutrition class that was held about two weeks ago. Then last week after I came back from my IST (In Service Training) with Peace Corps, I mentioned to the girls that maybe we could do the painting for the next session of girls club. They were mildly responsive and I insisted that if they didn't want to do it we could do something else, but then they said that they did really want to do it. So I said okay on Thursday (of last week) we'll start and in the mean time they should find a few girls that can draw well to do the outline for us.
I came on Thursday and asked if we were going to do the painting and one of the sewing teachers said the girls really want to but Bouchera (the girl that draws well) wasn't there. They said insh'allah she'll come tomorrow or maybe Monday. With only a week left of the Neddi being open until summer vacation (during which the Neddi is closed until mid-way through September), I felt kind of hopeless and thought that it probably just wasn't going to happen (especially since Bouchera isn't a regular attendee of the Neddi).
So on Friday I come about an hour later than normal to the Neddi just to check and see if anything had happened... and as soon as I walked in to the classroom all the girls asked me why I was late and pointed to the wall to show me two giant outlines of flower designs that had been drawn there. (I was almost at tears at this point, actual initiative being taken by the teacher and the girls when I hadn't been there it was great).
So today I went and got them the paint from the Moudira and helped them prep the colors by showing them how to mix paint and held a short lesson on how to mix the primary colors to make other colors such as green, purple and orange. Then about 10 different girls participated in painting the mural at various stages and the sewing teacher helped them with painting techniques.
While this was happening they started talking about how they want to do a larger one on the adjacent wall and in the other class rooms. THEN the preschool teachers came in and asked if I would help them in the fall to do paintings in their class rooms.
Friday, June 17, 2011
The last... errr 6 months?
So... I took a temporary leave from the blogging activity. However, recently I decided to get back into it after realizing a blog would give me material for the book that I plan to write about my Peace Corps experience if all else fails later in life. So, now I'm back, and am insh'allah here to stay.
Life in Peace Corps Morocco has been well... very Peace Corps-y and very Moroccan. The terms that are often used to coin our experiences here are "if it was easy it wouldn't be Peace Corps" and "if it made sense it wouldn't be Morocco." Those two sentences pretty much sum up my life for the past 6 months.
While still going through the "adjustment phase" (I think the chart that PC gave us when we first got to country says that ends at about the one year mark?). I've spent about half of my time here super motivated, trying to integrate and trying to get work done in site and the other half adventuring across Morocco and relishing in time spent with other PCVs who seem to be the only people who can properly empathize about our shared experience.
Work wise... things have been interesting. So, my Dar Chabab closed, which was suppose to be my focal point of work as a Youth Development volunteer. The question of whether or not there was enough work for me here and if I needed to change sites was on the table. This was a bit frightening since I had spent the last 4 months in site getting comfortable, integrating, and adjusting (harassment had been going down and names and faces were becoming familiar). The thought of having to do that again was daunting. However, the Dar Chabab closing was pretty much a blessing in disguise because it forced me to put more effort into finding work elsewhere. I ended up finding work at my Neddi Neswi (woman's center) and Dar Taliba (kind of like a boarding school for girls from more rural sites). Even though I am still doing a bit of English teaching/tutoring at both of these locations I am also doing work that I find a lot more enjoyable like a girls club at the Neddi in which I've done nutrition lessons, art projects and will be doing a "spa" day. However, it's about to be summer in the Sahara, which means EXTREMELY hot and everything shuts down here, so I'll be out of work until September, which is okay because I plan on traveling.
I've also been able to explore a lot of Morocco in the past few months, including visiting other PCV sites, doing work related things in other major cities across the country and just being a tourist and enjoying leisurely travel to many of Morocco's popular tourist destinations. Also, my parents came to visit so I was able to show them a bit of my life here.
It's only June and already 100 degrees in site, so if I don't write again for a while just assume that I've melted.
Life in Peace Corps Morocco has been well... very Peace Corps-y and very Moroccan. The terms that are often used to coin our experiences here are "if it was easy it wouldn't be Peace Corps" and "if it made sense it wouldn't be Morocco." Those two sentences pretty much sum up my life for the past 6 months.
While still going through the "adjustment phase" (I think the chart that PC gave us when we first got to country says that ends at about the one year mark?). I've spent about half of my time here super motivated, trying to integrate and trying to get work done in site and the other half adventuring across Morocco and relishing in time spent with other PCVs who seem to be the only people who can properly empathize about our shared experience.
Work wise... things have been interesting. So, my Dar Chabab closed, which was suppose to be my focal point of work as a Youth Development volunteer. The question of whether or not there was enough work for me here and if I needed to change sites was on the table. This was a bit frightening since I had spent the last 4 months in site getting comfortable, integrating, and adjusting (harassment had been going down and names and faces were becoming familiar). The thought of having to do that again was daunting. However, the Dar Chabab closing was pretty much a blessing in disguise because it forced me to put more effort into finding work elsewhere. I ended up finding work at my Neddi Neswi (woman's center) and Dar Taliba (kind of like a boarding school for girls from more rural sites). Even though I am still doing a bit of English teaching/tutoring at both of these locations I am also doing work that I find a lot more enjoyable like a girls club at the Neddi in which I've done nutrition lessons, art projects and will be doing a "spa" day. However, it's about to be summer in the Sahara, which means EXTREMELY hot and everything shuts down here, so I'll be out of work until September, which is okay because I plan on traveling.
I've also been able to explore a lot of Morocco in the past few months, including visiting other PCV sites, doing work related things in other major cities across the country and just being a tourist and enjoying leisurely travel to many of Morocco's popular tourist destinations. Also, my parents came to visit so I was able to show them a bit of my life here.
It's only June and already 100 degrees in site, so if I don't write again for a while just assume that I've melted.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Adjustment
So basically I have been running around Morocco for the last two months trying to get my life here in order. This most recent phase is what the Peace Corps calls "adjustment," which has been officially dubbed by volunteers everywhere as the most difficult phase of service, and I wholeheartedly agree. It has been and will continue to be really difficult.
My own particular situation has a number of difficulties. Even though there are actually other Europeans who actually live in my town, I still stand out like a sore thumb. People aren't used to seeing me yet, and where ever I go people stare at me. Often I leave my house and check one, two or three times that I am actually wearing pants, or a shirt, because I feel like I must have something horribly wrong with my appearance by the way people are looking at me. My biggest problem so far has probably been harassment. My site, and especially neighboring Ouarzazate gets a fair amount of tourists who pass through on their way to go down south for camel treks, so everyday I encounter at least one person who I have to convince that I am in fact "mashi touriste" (not a tourist) and yes, "kan arf l'arabia" (I know Arabic). When go back to my site I still often get asked what hotel I am going to, or when I am trying to get to friend's sites to go visit for the weekend I have to deal with the taxi drivers who jest at me by saying that the village I am going to is "mashi bahel Marrakech" (not the same as Marrakech) because they wonder why the hell I'd be going there. Also, since my site isn't small I've been getting a lot of attention from men, that isn't really culturally appropriate in Morocco, and is pretty much absent from smaller sites. I can't walk down my main street without a number of men ranging from age 14-50 trying to talk to me in English, French, Spanish and Italian. I've also gotten a few invitations from drunken men to go "see their apartments" which is basically an invitation for sex and is one hundred percent "shuma" (shameful) in Moroccan culture. However, since my site is big, and not everyone knows about the actions of others all the time, like in small sites, men in my community can get away with it. What's particularly frustrating is when this happens in the middle of times when I am trying to form relationships with members of my community like store owners and vegetable vendors and I end up just getting angry and embarrassed about the situation.
The other most frustrating thing has probably been the language. I’ve been dealing with a number of problems with my apartment that have been next to impossible for me to express in or understand the response to in Arabic. So normal things like officially registering my electricity meter in my name with the city electricity office or getting my leaky pipes fixed are a several hour-long activity in which a lot is lost in communication and I usually leave more than slightly confused about what exactly is going on or what I am suppose to be doing. For example, the night before I needed to leave for Rabat (where I am currently) I discovered that the pipe going into my water heater was leaking and since I was going away for the better half of this week I knew I needed to get it fixed before I left. But alas, I had no idea how to say leek, and I knew that all I really needed was a wrench to tighten a bolt where the water was leaking but I didn’t know how to say that either. I tried looking both up in the giant Georgetown dictionary that Peace Corps gave us, but neither words were in it. So I sat around for about an hour trying to figure out a way to tell someone about my problem, it was also at night so I knew that the chances of me finding someone to fix things was pretty slim. So I ended up going to my local tool shop with a picture of a wrench that I drew and told the guy that there was a “muskil” (problem) with my water heater and then used hand gestures to communicate that there was water dripping. He ended up coming back to my apartment and fixing it for me without a problem, so it ended well. But things like these seem to happen on a daily basis; you think you’ve finally got some things figured out but then something comes up out of no where and you’re like wtf how am I ever going to be able to communicate this and you walk into the situation knowing that you will most definitely embarrass yourself and you probably wont understand a lot of what’s going on. Welcome to the next two years of my life.
Language is often complicated by the fact that in addition to Arabic most rural or small town Moroccans speak one of the many Berber dialects, a regional variant on Tamazight or Tashleheit. So people are always like “nte kat arf l’arabia… u wesh kat arf Shilha?” (you know Arabic but do you know Shilha/Berber) and unfortunately have to respond with no I do not, and say I’ll learn later, after I master Arabic. This is even further complicated by the fact that a lot of my new PCV friends (Heath and Small Business Development volunteers in my area) do speak Shilha, so often Moroccans ask me why don’t you speak it, your friend does? Its also hard because were living in the same country but speak different languages, so we’ll be at a post office or restaurant and I will be speaking Darija and they will be speaking Shilha and whoever were speaking to will respond in a mix of both and we (the PCV’s) don’t understand what each other are saying.
On the positive note, work is going well, and unlike some of my other fellow volunteers I actually have work to do right away. There is a strong demand for English tutoring/teaching in my site and I have the solid structure of the Dar Chabab to work in so it’s really easy to start working on that right away. Volunteers in my sector are lucky because we do have work right away to keep us busy when most of the other sectors, especially those who get put in Berber communities where people cant speak Arabic let alone English, usually have to wait 6 months to a year before they can start working. So, I’ve been doing a lot of English tutoring with the Baccalaureate high school students, I’ve been helping out at the maternal clinic in my site, and I’ve been easing my way into the women’s association and a literacy group that meets at my Dar Chabab. I really don’t want to spend my whole time here teaching English but until my language is better it’s the easiest thing to start doing right away.
Another good thing is that no matter who I talk to, from my Peace Corps best friends to other people in my stage, even the guy who did best on our initial language exams, everyone is having a difficult time. You ask people how things are going and the first words that come up are difficult, challenging and frustrating. All of our experiences have been really different but they all involve their own problems. In comparison to my situation I have friends who are girls in small sites and don’t get any harassment at all but they also don’t have work because the moudir of their Dar Chabab is missing. In contrast to my somewhat lack of community in my big site, other’s have too much community in their sites and everyone constantly knows what they are doing and the volunteers are having to work on their diplomacy by rotating houses at which they eat dinner at so they don’t offend anyone in the community by leaving them out. I can leave site for a weekend or week and maybe my host family or work counterparts will know but not the entire community. Others have to deal with defining their role as volunteer money wise. I have a few friends who are constantly telling me about problems they are dealing with that involve members of their community, their host families or their work counterparts constantly asking them for money, or asking Peace Corps for more money. Again and again we have to tell people that we are volunteers and that our jobs are not to just give people in our sites money or pay for supplies or projects. Others, including myself are also dealing with the challenge of replacing a volunteer, trying to communicate that the work we want to do may be different from the past volunteer, or in some of my friends cases that we are here to do work and help facilitate projects not to just sit around for two years, which unfortunately it seems like a lot of volunteers ended up doing.
This has also been the period for community assessment, which is a time of observation and analysis about our community and the needs and wants of the people we will be living and working with. I am suppose to have a long and detailed report of everything from my site’s history, to gender issues, to the major health problems, education statistic etc. I haven’t really started my report and have only been doing basic observation of my community. I plan on diving into this assignment when I get back and finding specific community members that I can talk to about these topics when I get back. This is also going to require long tutoring session in which I can get all of my questions translated into Arabic. Much like final papers I had to write in college, I am kind of avoiding getting started and also dreading the task but alas it will help me figure out a lot more about my community and help me build the much needed “relationships” that I need to successfully do work in my community.
Peace Corps says, and I admit this is extremely corny; that it is the toughest job you’ll ever love. I don’t know if I love it yet but it’s definitely the toughest job I’ve ever had. However, even though it’s only been a short 4 months out of the long 27 month stint that I am suppose to be doing this for, I am definitely in no way ready to end this experience. The main reason why this question is even on the table for contemplation right now is that for the last week or so Morocco has been hosting about 100 PCV’s that were just evacuated from Niger because of the recent kidnappings. Some had been there for a year, some for six months and some had only been in their final sites for a week or so. A lot of them are going home, for good, some are going to try and reenroll for a later date and some are opting for immediate transfers, a lot are going to Cameroon or Rwanda (I’m super jealous, every day I still whish I had gotten placed in Sub Saharan Africa). So based on the situation of these other volunteers some friends and I have asked ourselves, if there was some conflict in Morocco and we all got evacuated tomorrow what would we do? Despite all of the challenges of Peace Corps I am definitely not ready to go back yet, I have yet to accomplish a lot of the personal goals I set out to achieve by leaving, plus I’ve already invested too much time and effort in the whole challenge that is being a Peace Corps volunteer.
All of this contemplation on challenges was further analyzed over the past day or so that I’ve been in Rabat. During my time here I paid a visit to the Peace Corps Morocco headquarters and got to talk to not only my Moroccan staff but also a lot of the American staff, a lot of who served as Peace Corps volunteers (Zaire (DRC) and Togo) and have worked in various Peace Corps countries (Botswana, Malawi etc). Even though they may have served 20 or 30 years ago, they expressed that they had had the same feelings of frustration and the same challenges, and also were able to offer a perspective of the different challenges that arise from different regions and cultures across Africa. The adjustment phase is incredibly universal and I don’t think its easy for everyone, but even though it feels like I arrived yesterday and still know nothing about what I have gotten myself into, I’ve been here for 4 months already, and by March I’ll have been here half a year, so In’shallah it’ll just keep getting easier as time progresses.
Btw my mini vacation to Rabat via Marrakech has been great. I’m going through somewhat of a culture shock within Morocco. So many girls are unveiled here, there is highlighted hair, makeup, skinny jeans and heals. Also, a fair amount of public display of affection, adds for iphones and a lot of people speak English. This is not the Morocco I’m use to, its crazy how much the cities contrast to the smaller towns, and especially the countryside. When other PCV’s come to my site they call it “being in civilization”, but even my site feels like a completely different world compared to the big cities. All of a sudden I feel self-conscious about the fact that I haven’t showered in a few days and I’m wearing countryside appropriate clothes and not the latest fashions from Europe. But its not just me who is suddenly out of place, the older Moroccan women who are veiled and wearing jallabs on the train or walking around Rabat with their modern looking children look just as out of place, its like they are holding on to their traditions from the countryside that don’t really have any place in the modern cosmopolitans like Rabat. Its nuts, because being that I am a PCV working in the “bled” (countryside) its exactly that old time traditional that I’ve been trying to adapt to. Its like you spend so much effort trying to fit in at your site and then as soon as you go into a city you stand out again, but not for being a foreigner, but for looking somewhat like a country bumpkin
Everyday I feel like I am “wllf” (accustomed) to something and then all of a sudden there’s something entirely new to wllf to that I never could have imagined even existed.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
And so my life begins
So I’ve been in Morocco for three months now. Some things have become familiar, some Darija has become second nature and my cultural integration is progressing. However, everyday there are new unfamiliarity’s and new challenges. Nothing has quite yet become routine and I have learned that I can’t expect anything out of one particular day. My days are filled with highs and lows successes and challenges. Within five minutes I can go from feeling confident and assured about what I am doing here to feeling completely defeated and lost and wondering how I am gong to survive the next two years (23 months). Everything continues to be a whirlwind as I get accustomed to my new site and I am exhausted all the time.
Since I have arrived I have been immensely busy, hence the reason I haven’t posted in a while. In the last three weeks I’ve had to do a ton of stuff such as:
1) Get my Carte de Sejour (legal residency in Morocco) which over the course of a couple days required, 30 photocopies, 12 pictures, 30Dhs worth of notarization and an hour-long visit with the Chief of Police while he filled out my form. After receiving my receipt I became an official legal resident of the Kingdom of Morocco and cant be deported for staying past the 3-month visa that I was issued upon entering the country.
2) Visiting my local officials. When I first got here, I was avoiding doing this until on about my third or fourth day a man showed up at my host family’s house demanding a photocopy of my passport and my Carte de Sejour saying that he was from the government office. So I decided I needed to get on that asap. The next day I visited my Belidia (gov office) to go introduce myself to the government people. It took me about 10 minutes to communicate that I was not there to get something notarized and instead that I was the new Peace Corps volunteer working at the Dar Chabab. After this was finally understood I was told that they at the office were happy to meet me but that I was in the wrong place and needed to go to the Quaied’s (kind of like the city Mayor) office, which was 2 km outside of town. Luckily, they told me to return the next morning so that someone could drive me there and introduce me to the Quaied. The next day everything was taken care of, I successfully introduced myself to everyone considered important and they had the copies of all the various documentation forms that they needed. Thank god there have already been Peace Corps volunteers in my site otherwise I would have had to explain to them what I was doing there and what the Peace Corps was. Also, my knowledge of the French language helped a lot with this whole process.
3) Find Work. The three major places that I have decided to split my work between for now are the Dar Chabab, Netti Newsi and a women’s health clinic that’s in my site. I hope to expand later to maybe include some environment or agricultural activities. Beginning work at the Dar Chabab and the Netti has basically involved me going to these places and introducing myself in broken Darija to the Moudirs of the establishments and them telling me what they do and asking me when I would like to start teaching English. So far I have only been tutoring a fairly decent sized group of seniors in high school and helping them prepare for their Baccalaureate test. This has proved to be extremely challenging since my formal knowledge of English grammar is pretty nonexistent and thus it is hard to explain things like the passive vice and future progressive. This group has been meeting twice a week since my first week in site and with every meeting there are more and more students who show up from different levels of English asking when my other classes will start. Next week is my Moudir is going to formally introduce me as the new volunteer and I plan on making an official schedule which includes beginning, intermediate, and advanced English as well as Bac. I really don’t want to just be teaching English for the next two years but it’s in high demand, so I plan to start with that first, then do other stuff like health and environment sessions and maybe an art club. As far as the Netti, I’ve basically been too intimidated to go back to since I first went because my Darija isn’t very good yet, and most of the women there speak Shilha (Berber) anyway. But thanks to my grandma I now have knitting needles and yarn so I have something to bond when the women about and I plan to go back soon. And lastly the woman’s clinic… the former PCV here told me about the clinic, and one morning I asked my mom to help me go find it, after about a 30 minute walk and asking a dozen people we finally found it. The clinic has been around for about 50 years, is run by mostly women from the UK and serves the local women of Tejda village, which is part of my site. The clinic does pre-natal care on Wednesdays and post-natal care on Fridays. I have decided to go on Fridays and help out wit baby weighing. Last Friday was my first day and in addition to weighing about 20 adorable newborns, I also learned how to treat a severe burn and that hanush, a darja word I already knew meant snakes, also means worms (the kind you can get in your stomach…)
4) Find an apartment… Finding an apartment in my site has been the most wild goose chase my short life has ever been on. Even though I am replacing a volunteer, I still need to find an apartment because she was paying 300Dh more a month then was given for rent by the Peace Corps. Thus, I need to find something cheaper. The hunt has basically included me walking around with various members of my community like my host mom, my new friends a British woman and her Moroccan husband who own a hotel in my site, a random girl who I started talking to one day in the library who is now probably my best friend in site and has basically made it her duty to help me find an apt, and going up to random people and shop owners and asking them if they know of any apartments for rent. Then being directed to go to another place, find another person, ask them about the apartment, find the key to the apartment, find the owner and get a tour of the apartment, many of these steps have included coming back at a different time or on a different day. I have looked at about 10 apts, or semi apartments so far which include two hotel rooms that were trying to be passed off as apartments which were priced at 3,000Dh a month (I was given 700 for rent), a mud house, and a woman’s first floor living room and bathroom which she tried to convince me was an apartment. Most of the apartments have been too expensive and the ones that meet my price range have been run down and dirty and thus would require a lot of time and money to fix up to a point where I would feel comfortable living in. HOWEVER, I have fond one jem, a beautiful modern second floor apt, that is decked out with tiled walls, a kitchen with built-in cabinet space and counters, molded ceilings, a private roof, separate toilet and shower, salon and bed room. The building is also very conveniently located near the Dar Chabab, library, market, hammam and taxi stand. I want it! The girl who was two volunteers before me use to live in the building so the landlord likes/trusts Americans and knows the Peace Corps, thus the rent has not be subjected to price gouging, even though it’s the nicest place that I’ve looked as so far. Trouble is that he landlord lives in Marrakech and it took me about a week to track down someone who had his phone number and could call to inquire about the place. The key for the apartment was supposed to arrive last Monday but didn’t and now is supposed to be coming next Monday, insh’allah it does and I can stake my claim on the apartment.
5) Throughout all of this I have been becoming familiarized with my site, which encompasses about three major douars (village/town/neighborhood) and is a couple miles long from one end to another. My numerous missions to find things, people and places has given my quite the tour of my site and little by little people are familiarizing themselves with my presence in site while I am familiarizing myself with everything.
6) Last step has been staying sane, dealing with culture shock and coping with missing my Peace Corps friends. The move to final site has by far been the biggest culture shock I’ve been trough. I finally had to start doing things on my own and was left schedule free with a few memories and phone numbers from site visit that were suppose to help inform me about what was what. The first week was really hard, I didn’t want to leave my host families house because I felt like I had lost my ability to speak Darija and I didn’t know where anything was or know anyone. But each week things continue to become tremendously easier. Each day I feel like there are small and sometime large gains. When I go outside I see people I recognize, the taxi drivers have stopped asking me which hotel I am going to, I remember where things are and have favorite places. I am taking care of things that I need to be done; I am getting thrown into work, hopefully will have an apartment and am making friends. The calls to (and from) other PCV’s expressing anxiety and desperation are growing fewer and far between.
All in all I am being rapidly acclimated whether I like it or not and am falling in love with my new home.
Since I have arrived I have been immensely busy, hence the reason I haven’t posted in a while. In the last three weeks I’ve had to do a ton of stuff such as:
1) Get my Carte de Sejour (legal residency in Morocco) which over the course of a couple days required, 30 photocopies, 12 pictures, 30Dhs worth of notarization and an hour-long visit with the Chief of Police while he filled out my form. After receiving my receipt I became an official legal resident of the Kingdom of Morocco and cant be deported for staying past the 3-month visa that I was issued upon entering the country.
2) Visiting my local officials. When I first got here, I was avoiding doing this until on about my third or fourth day a man showed up at my host family’s house demanding a photocopy of my passport and my Carte de Sejour saying that he was from the government office. So I decided I needed to get on that asap. The next day I visited my Belidia (gov office) to go introduce myself to the government people. It took me about 10 minutes to communicate that I was not there to get something notarized and instead that I was the new Peace Corps volunteer working at the Dar Chabab. After this was finally understood I was told that they at the office were happy to meet me but that I was in the wrong place and needed to go to the Quaied’s (kind of like the city Mayor) office, which was 2 km outside of town. Luckily, they told me to return the next morning so that someone could drive me there and introduce me to the Quaied. The next day everything was taken care of, I successfully introduced myself to everyone considered important and they had the copies of all the various documentation forms that they needed. Thank god there have already been Peace Corps volunteers in my site otherwise I would have had to explain to them what I was doing there and what the Peace Corps was. Also, my knowledge of the French language helped a lot with this whole process.
3) Find Work. The three major places that I have decided to split my work between for now are the Dar Chabab, Netti Newsi and a women’s health clinic that’s in my site. I hope to expand later to maybe include some environment or agricultural activities. Beginning work at the Dar Chabab and the Netti has basically involved me going to these places and introducing myself in broken Darija to the Moudirs of the establishments and them telling me what they do and asking me when I would like to start teaching English. So far I have only been tutoring a fairly decent sized group of seniors in high school and helping them prepare for their Baccalaureate test. This has proved to be extremely challenging since my formal knowledge of English grammar is pretty nonexistent and thus it is hard to explain things like the passive vice and future progressive. This group has been meeting twice a week since my first week in site and with every meeting there are more and more students who show up from different levels of English asking when my other classes will start. Next week is my Moudir is going to formally introduce me as the new volunteer and I plan on making an official schedule which includes beginning, intermediate, and advanced English as well as Bac. I really don’t want to just be teaching English for the next two years but it’s in high demand, so I plan to start with that first, then do other stuff like health and environment sessions and maybe an art club. As far as the Netti, I’ve basically been too intimidated to go back to since I first went because my Darija isn’t very good yet, and most of the women there speak Shilha (Berber) anyway. But thanks to my grandma I now have knitting needles and yarn so I have something to bond when the women about and I plan to go back soon. And lastly the woman’s clinic… the former PCV here told me about the clinic, and one morning I asked my mom to help me go find it, after about a 30 minute walk and asking a dozen people we finally found it. The clinic has been around for about 50 years, is run by mostly women from the UK and serves the local women of Tejda village, which is part of my site. The clinic does pre-natal care on Wednesdays and post-natal care on Fridays. I have decided to go on Fridays and help out wit baby weighing. Last Friday was my first day and in addition to weighing about 20 adorable newborns, I also learned how to treat a severe burn and that hanush, a darja word I already knew meant snakes, also means worms (the kind you can get in your stomach…)
4) Find an apartment… Finding an apartment in my site has been the most wild goose chase my short life has ever been on. Even though I am replacing a volunteer, I still need to find an apartment because she was paying 300Dh more a month then was given for rent by the Peace Corps. Thus, I need to find something cheaper. The hunt has basically included me walking around with various members of my community like my host mom, my new friends a British woman and her Moroccan husband who own a hotel in my site, a random girl who I started talking to one day in the library who is now probably my best friend in site and has basically made it her duty to help me find an apt, and going up to random people and shop owners and asking them if they know of any apartments for rent. Then being directed to go to another place, find another person, ask them about the apartment, find the key to the apartment, find the owner and get a tour of the apartment, many of these steps have included coming back at a different time or on a different day. I have looked at about 10 apts, or semi apartments so far which include two hotel rooms that were trying to be passed off as apartments which were priced at 3,000Dh a month (I was given 700 for rent), a mud house, and a woman’s first floor living room and bathroom which she tried to convince me was an apartment. Most of the apartments have been too expensive and the ones that meet my price range have been run down and dirty and thus would require a lot of time and money to fix up to a point where I would feel comfortable living in. HOWEVER, I have fond one jem, a beautiful modern second floor apt, that is decked out with tiled walls, a kitchen with built-in cabinet space and counters, molded ceilings, a private roof, separate toilet and shower, salon and bed room. The building is also very conveniently located near the Dar Chabab, library, market, hammam and taxi stand. I want it! The girl who was two volunteers before me use to live in the building so the landlord likes/trusts Americans and knows the Peace Corps, thus the rent has not be subjected to price gouging, even though it’s the nicest place that I’ve looked as so far. Trouble is that he landlord lives in Marrakech and it took me about a week to track down someone who had his phone number and could call to inquire about the place. The key for the apartment was supposed to arrive last Monday but didn’t and now is supposed to be coming next Monday, insh’allah it does and I can stake my claim on the apartment.
5) Throughout all of this I have been becoming familiarized with my site, which encompasses about three major douars (village/town/neighborhood) and is a couple miles long from one end to another. My numerous missions to find things, people and places has given my quite the tour of my site and little by little people are familiarizing themselves with my presence in site while I am familiarizing myself with everything.
6) Last step has been staying sane, dealing with culture shock and coping with missing my Peace Corps friends. The move to final site has by far been the biggest culture shock I’ve been trough. I finally had to start doing things on my own and was left schedule free with a few memories and phone numbers from site visit that were suppose to help inform me about what was what. The first week was really hard, I didn’t want to leave my host families house because I felt like I had lost my ability to speak Darija and I didn’t know where anything was or know anyone. But each week things continue to become tremendously easier. Each day I feel like there are small and sometime large gains. When I go outside I see people I recognize, the taxi drivers have stopped asking me which hotel I am going to, I remember where things are and have favorite places. I am taking care of things that I need to be done; I am getting thrown into work, hopefully will have an apartment and am making friends. The calls to (and from) other PCV’s expressing anxiety and desperation are growing fewer and far between.
All in all I am being rapidly acclimated whether I like it or not and am falling in love with my new home.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Officially a Peace Corps Volunteer
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Weekends
Sorry it’s been so long since last post! I have been super exhausted these last couple of weeks, tons of work, tons of school, too much food and not enough sleep! Despite the exhaustion all has been good and I’m enjoying myself here.
In the past week or so I’ve had some exciting Moroccan experiences and have made some new friends. Two weekends ago my family took me to a nearby town called Moulay Yacoub, it’s about 17km west of Fes. It’s a really small town in the mountains that was built on top on natural sulfur hot springs. So the town has about 5 hammams (public bath houses) and is a tourist site as a result. The town it’s self is beautiful, and has more of the quaint old world feel that I expected Morocco to have than anything I’ve seen so far. The streets are lined with vendors selling all sorts of bathing accessories that one might need for the hammam including, “kisses” hand loofas that feel more like steel wool on your skin when in use, pumice stones for feet, large bags of henna for skin and hair, rassoul (dried clay that has been mixed with lavender, cloves, orange water, rose and cloves) that you add to warm water to made a paste with which you use to cover yourself with mud and makes your skin and hair really soft, and a variety of other bathing products and amenities. All of these can be bought in single dose amounts for the equivalent of only a few US dollars.
The hammam that I went to with my host family and neighbors was the hammam that locals use. It cost about 8 Dirham (1 US$) per person and consisted of one large communal bathing pool that everyone gather around a bathed in. There was a tap on the side of the pool that everyone got water from (collected in large plastic buckets) and then brought back to her bathing spot. There were seemingly 100 other women there when we first got there, we went on a Sunday, which is a popular, bathing day so there were a ton of people. In these hammams everyone is wearing nothing but their underwear and you bathe with the people that you go with, family or friends. I ended up being there for about three hours and washed my hair and body about four times. You generally leave the hammam with an ultra clean feeling and most women wont bath for anywhere from three days to a week after wards. So far I can only last a day or two without showering but I’m working my way up to Moroccan standards. The sulfur in the piping hot bath water was really awesome, it made both my skin and hair extremely soft, hopefully my permanent site will also be built on sulfur water hot springs! In’shallah! The hammam experience is definitely becoming an essential part of my life here in Morocco.
This last weekend I went to my first Moroccan wedding! I went with my family and another PCT, Rachel, and her host family. I was given a gold and blue kaftan to wear with gold gini pants to wear underneath, which ended up being really hot and uncomfortable. At the wedding there were about 100 people and it took place in about three different houses. For the first 5 hours Rachel and I sat around with our host families waiting to eat, which we didn't do until midnight. By the time we ate everyone had gotten really hungry and crabby, not to mention tired. This was probably the first time that I was hungry since I got here. After we ate we all went to another house and there was a big dance party, which was really fun. Rachel and I were forced to dance by ourselves in front of almost everyone which was really embarrassing, but later we danced more when everyone else was dancing. We also got to see the bride and groom, who didn't appear until the very end of the wedding, about 2 am. We ended up being awake until about 4 am, which is the latest I have stayed up here, thank god we didn't have school the next morning. All in all the dancing was fun but Rachel and I have concluded that most weddings here are just about sitting around and are kind of boring.
My diet has become almost 100% consistent of only sugar oil and olives.
Also we fine out site placements this weekend!!!! Wish me luck for a good site.
Until next time.
In the past week or so I’ve had some exciting Moroccan experiences and have made some new friends. Two weekends ago my family took me to a nearby town called Moulay Yacoub, it’s about 17km west of Fes. It’s a really small town in the mountains that was built on top on natural sulfur hot springs. So the town has about 5 hammams (public bath houses) and is a tourist site as a result. The town it’s self is beautiful, and has more of the quaint old world feel that I expected Morocco to have than anything I’ve seen so far. The streets are lined with vendors selling all sorts of bathing accessories that one might need for the hammam including, “kisses” hand loofas that feel more like steel wool on your skin when in use, pumice stones for feet, large bags of henna for skin and hair, rassoul (dried clay that has been mixed with lavender, cloves, orange water, rose and cloves) that you add to warm water to made a paste with which you use to cover yourself with mud and makes your skin and hair really soft, and a variety of other bathing products and amenities. All of these can be bought in single dose amounts for the equivalent of only a few US dollars.
The hammam that I went to with my host family and neighbors was the hammam that locals use. It cost about 8 Dirham (1 US$) per person and consisted of one large communal bathing pool that everyone gather around a bathed in. There was a tap on the side of the pool that everyone got water from (collected in large plastic buckets) and then brought back to her bathing spot. There were seemingly 100 other women there when we first got there, we went on a Sunday, which is a popular, bathing day so there were a ton of people. In these hammams everyone is wearing nothing but their underwear and you bathe with the people that you go with, family or friends. I ended up being there for about three hours and washed my hair and body about four times. You generally leave the hammam with an ultra clean feeling and most women wont bath for anywhere from three days to a week after wards. So far I can only last a day or two without showering but I’m working my way up to Moroccan standards. The sulfur in the piping hot bath water was really awesome, it made both my skin and hair extremely soft, hopefully my permanent site will also be built on sulfur water hot springs! In’shallah! The hammam experience is definitely becoming an essential part of my life here in Morocco.
This last weekend I went to my first Moroccan wedding! I went with my family and another PCT, Rachel, and her host family. I was given a gold and blue kaftan to wear with gold gini pants to wear underneath, which ended up being really hot and uncomfortable. At the wedding there were about 100 people and it took place in about three different houses. For the first 5 hours Rachel and I sat around with our host families waiting to eat, which we didn't do until midnight. By the time we ate everyone had gotten really hungry and crabby, not to mention tired. This was probably the first time that I was hungry since I got here. After we ate we all went to another house and there was a big dance party, which was really fun. Rachel and I were forced to dance by ourselves in front of almost everyone which was really embarrassing, but later we danced more when everyone else was dancing. We also got to see the bride and groom, who didn't appear until the very end of the wedding, about 2 am. We ended up being awake until about 4 am, which is the latest I have stayed up here, thank god we didn't have school the next morning. All in all the dancing was fun but Rachel and I have concluded that most weddings here are just about sitting around and are kind of boring.
My diet has become almost 100% consistent of only sugar oil and olives.
Also we fine out site placements this weekend!!!! Wish me luck for a good site.
Until next time.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
One Month
Sorry I haven’t written much I’ve been super busy in the last couple weeks. More excitingly I’ve been in country for one whole month!
All of last week we were doing a community assessment report of our CBT site, which we had to present to our “community” i.e. mainly our host families last Thursday and then to the other PCT’s (Peace Corps Trainees) last weekend in Fes.
Four the community assessment we conducted formal and informal interviews with the community to learn more about certain youth development related topics such as: community participation, education, health and youth. We also did community mapping with some 14-15 year old kids from our site, boys and girls were divided and asked to draw a map of their town and circle the things that were most important to them, common things that were circled were the mosque, their schools and the Dar Chebab, also the girls circled the teleboutiqe and the boys circled this hot spring swimming spot that’s a little outside of the town. We also made a daily calendar and a seasonal calendar that visually depicted the daily and annual activities of our community. The daily calendar was pretty simple, men went to work, kids went to school and women stayed home to cook and clean. The seasonal calendar was a bit more interesting and depicted the wheat and olive growth an harvest cycles, the school calendar, the Dar Chebab calendar, national and religious holidays and some other actives that the community mentioned, like eating hot food in the winter when its cold and looking at the pretty flowers that bloom in the spring. I actually drew the seasonal calendar, and the staging program director liked it so much that he said he was going to make a copy and have it framed for display in the Peace Corps main office in Rabat. Pretty exciting!
Our actual assessment went really well. We found out a number of interesting facts about our community such as, the number one health problem is diabetes (not surprising due to the high sugar diet of Moroccans) and that there are only primary schools in our town and if kids want to go to secondary or higher education they have to go to one in the next town over or possibly commute to Fes to go to school.
Our presentation to the community went really well, we had a turn out of about 45 people, mostly our host families and kids from the Dar Chabab. All of our interviewees showed up which was great since they were able to see that the information they gave us was being used for a positive purpose. We also had a few town officials there as well. Every topic presented was followed by a lively debate amongst the adult community members, signifying that there is not only awareness in the community about their issues but also a strong interest in taking action. Even though most of our presentation wasn’t very comprehensive for our younger audience I think it was very important that they were able to hear about the issues, maybe some of them for the first time, and know that their parents, the community officials and the Peace Corps trainees want to do something about them.
In Fes all of the different CBT groups presented their findings to everyone else and there were a lot of similarities and also a lot of differences. Most of the similarities were that the project was really difficult to conduct because our Darija skills aren't great yet and that we all felt a little uncomfortable telling out host communities our observations about the problems and such since we haven't been in them for very long and wont be staying in them as permanent PCV's and thus don't have a lot of time to implement projects to help ameliorate some of the issues. The biggest difference between the different experiences of the CBT groups were the differences in the Dar Chebabs, one group hasn't even been to their yet and thus has been very limited in their activities, another group had a Dar Chebab that is attended only by mid 20 to 30 something year olds thus they had to completely redefine their idea of what youth is.
Now and for the next couple weeks we will have a current PCV staying with us in our site giving us training about various jobs that we will have to do once we are at our permanent sites. This week we are learning about teaching English in Morocco, then we will be learning about creating/designing community projects and activities which we will later implement in November after our site visit.
We find out our sites in about two weeks and I cant wait. I am requesting a site that is a small town (around 5,000 people), that's warm, with a good hammam, is more green than brown and has a woman's association.
More updates on my family will come soon.
Bslama
All of last week we were doing a community assessment report of our CBT site, which we had to present to our “community” i.e. mainly our host families last Thursday and then to the other PCT’s (Peace Corps Trainees) last weekend in Fes.
Four the community assessment we conducted formal and informal interviews with the community to learn more about certain youth development related topics such as: community participation, education, health and youth. We also did community mapping with some 14-15 year old kids from our site, boys and girls were divided and asked to draw a map of their town and circle the things that were most important to them, common things that were circled were the mosque, their schools and the Dar Chebab, also the girls circled the teleboutiqe and the boys circled this hot spring swimming spot that’s a little outside of the town. We also made a daily calendar and a seasonal calendar that visually depicted the daily and annual activities of our community. The daily calendar was pretty simple, men went to work, kids went to school and women stayed home to cook and clean. The seasonal calendar was a bit more interesting and depicted the wheat and olive growth an harvest cycles, the school calendar, the Dar Chebab calendar, national and religious holidays and some other actives that the community mentioned, like eating hot food in the winter when its cold and looking at the pretty flowers that bloom in the spring. I actually drew the seasonal calendar, and the staging program director liked it so much that he said he was going to make a copy and have it framed for display in the Peace Corps main office in Rabat. Pretty exciting!
Our actual assessment went really well. We found out a number of interesting facts about our community such as, the number one health problem is diabetes (not surprising due to the high sugar diet of Moroccans) and that there are only primary schools in our town and if kids want to go to secondary or higher education they have to go to one in the next town over or possibly commute to Fes to go to school.
Our presentation to the community went really well, we had a turn out of about 45 people, mostly our host families and kids from the Dar Chabab. All of our interviewees showed up which was great since they were able to see that the information they gave us was being used for a positive purpose. We also had a few town officials there as well. Every topic presented was followed by a lively debate amongst the adult community members, signifying that there is not only awareness in the community about their issues but also a strong interest in taking action. Even though most of our presentation wasn’t very comprehensive for our younger audience I think it was very important that they were able to hear about the issues, maybe some of them for the first time, and know that their parents, the community officials and the Peace Corps trainees want to do something about them.
In Fes all of the different CBT groups presented their findings to everyone else and there were a lot of similarities and also a lot of differences. Most of the similarities were that the project was really difficult to conduct because our Darija skills aren't great yet and that we all felt a little uncomfortable telling out host communities our observations about the problems and such since we haven't been in them for very long and wont be staying in them as permanent PCV's and thus don't have a lot of time to implement projects to help ameliorate some of the issues. The biggest difference between the different experiences of the CBT groups were the differences in the Dar Chebabs, one group hasn't even been to their yet and thus has been very limited in their activities, another group had a Dar Chebab that is attended only by mid 20 to 30 something year olds thus they had to completely redefine their idea of what youth is.
Now and for the next couple weeks we will have a current PCV staying with us in our site giving us training about various jobs that we will have to do once we are at our permanent sites. This week we are learning about teaching English in Morocco, then we will be learning about creating/designing community projects and activities which we will later implement in November after our site visit.
We find out our sites in about two weeks and I cant wait. I am requesting a site that is a small town (around 5,000 people), that's warm, with a good hammam, is more green than brown and has a woman's association.
More updates on my family will come soon.
Bslama
Friday, October 1, 2010
Darija Words of the Day/Week/Month/Next Two Years of My Life!
Sooo I thought it be fun to give some insight in to the key vocab that I have been surviving on in Morocco.
First to give some background let me start by saying that Darija is the spoken language of Morocco, technically it is a dialect of Arabic however, it is nothing like the “Arabic” that Americans are learning in college or from Rosetta Stone, which is Modern Standard Arabic and is taken from the language of the Koran. It is also nothing like the Arabic that is spoken in the other Arab countries of the world, each of which have their own different dialect of Arabic. Darija is what Moroccans speak, but not what they learn to write in, the learn to write in Modern Standard, because they is no official written version of Darija, thus when trying to learn it you’ll quickly discover that your text book, language teacher and Lonely Planet vocab book all have a different way of spelling the words that you are trying to learn.
Despite this complexity a few words have quickly become my key words that make up 90% of every conversation I am able to have. Not surprisingly they are those words that you normally learn when you are first learning to speak, thus when mixed with the fact that we basically don’t know how to do anything the Moroccan way (i.e. use the Turkish toilet, use money correctly or hail a cab and ensure it’ll get us to the right place) the PCVs and I have officially embraced the fact that we are all currently at preschool level. We have also dubbed our Madrasa (school), that we spend about 9 hrs a day at learning Darija and about Morocco, as “Little America.”
So for all you back home, here are my first words:
Shweeya: literally means little, can be used in key phases like shweeya afak – slow down please, shweeya b shweeya – little by little (I am learning darija), I am a little tired etc.
Zueena/zueen: literally means pretty, can be used to describe anything as being pretty, really good, or that you like a lot such as a women’s kaftan, saying a kid is cute, the food is good. Negative is mazueensh as in I don’t like something.
Muzyn: literally means good, as in I am good, it is good, my day was good, good job, I am okay with this etc.
Bzzzzaf: literally means a lot, can be used to describe anything that is a lot, i.e. you can say something is zueena bzzzaf or that you are muzyn bzzzaf
Fin: where
Shnu: what
Elas: why
Foquash: when
Shnu hadda: what is that?
Brit: I want
Bit: room, example Bit L Ma is literally the water room, or in Moroccan it’s the toilet room.
Shuma: is shame, or what we say when someone does a faux pas, like eating with your left hand.
Etani: give me, for example etani flus means give me money
Zuk: is a “bad” word and means ass, we all learned not to say this when we got excited about our vegetable vendor having zucchinis and screaming out the word.
Shukran: thank you, a word that currently is making up at least 50% of my vocab.
Also fun fact, last night I churned butter from milk from our cows with my host family.
First to give some background let me start by saying that Darija is the spoken language of Morocco, technically it is a dialect of Arabic however, it is nothing like the “Arabic” that Americans are learning in college or from Rosetta Stone, which is Modern Standard Arabic and is taken from the language of the Koran. It is also nothing like the Arabic that is spoken in the other Arab countries of the world, each of which have their own different dialect of Arabic. Darija is what Moroccans speak, but not what they learn to write in, the learn to write in Modern Standard, because they is no official written version of Darija, thus when trying to learn it you’ll quickly discover that your text book, language teacher and Lonely Planet vocab book all have a different way of spelling the words that you are trying to learn.
Despite this complexity a few words have quickly become my key words that make up 90% of every conversation I am able to have. Not surprisingly they are those words that you normally learn when you are first learning to speak, thus when mixed with the fact that we basically don’t know how to do anything the Moroccan way (i.e. use the Turkish toilet, use money correctly or hail a cab and ensure it’ll get us to the right place) the PCVs and I have officially embraced the fact that we are all currently at preschool level. We have also dubbed our Madrasa (school), that we spend about 9 hrs a day at learning Darija and about Morocco, as “Little America.”
So for all you back home, here are my first words:
Shweeya: literally means little, can be used in key phases like shweeya afak – slow down please, shweeya b shweeya – little by little (I am learning darija), I am a little tired etc.
Zueena/zueen: literally means pretty, can be used to describe anything as being pretty, really good, or that you like a lot such as a women’s kaftan, saying a kid is cute, the food is good. Negative is mazueensh as in I don’t like something.
Muzyn: literally means good, as in I am good, it is good, my day was good, good job, I am okay with this etc.
Bzzzzaf: literally means a lot, can be used to describe anything that is a lot, i.e. you can say something is zueena bzzzaf or that you are muzyn bzzzaf
Fin: where
Shnu: what
Elas: why
Foquash: when
Shnu hadda: what is that?
Brit: I want
Bit: room, example Bit L Ma is literally the water room, or in Moroccan it’s the toilet room.
Shuma: is shame, or what we say when someone does a faux pas, like eating with your left hand.
Etani: give me, for example etani flus means give me money
Zuk: is a “bad” word and means ass, we all learned not to say this when we got excited about our vegetable vendor having zucchinis and screaming out the word.
Shukran: thank you, a word that currently is making up at least 50% of my vocab.
Also fun fact, last night I churned butter from milk from our cows with my host family.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
CBT and Famila Moroccan
Now for some news on the host family! For my CBT (Culture Based Training) I’m living in a tiny town outside of Fes, which is comparable to those tiny towns in places like North Dakota where it literally takes 3 minutes to drive the length of the main street and if you were to blink you would miss the entire town. We’ve been told that there are approximately 200-300 people living in the town! Our main street is basically part of the rural highway with a cluster of buildings on either side, there are three salon de teas (for men only), a butcher, a veterinary, a pharmacy, a tiny town hall, a dar chabab (youth center, similar to the one where ill be working at my permanent site), one cyber café with a really slow internet connection, two mosques and three hanoots (little stores comparable to “boutiques” in other African countries, they are normally connected to the owner’s house and sell everything from 10 cent candy to kilos of beans and olives to shampoo and batteries, basically the hanoots have everything you could ever want or need). The rest of the town is spread out behind the main street throughout the surrounding countryside. My house is about a 20 min walk from the main town center and includes walking past cornfields and olive groves and at least one if not two flocks of grazing sheep. There are also some foothill mountains and small views of nearby Fes in the background of the countryside. At night, in addition to a sea of stars, you can see the lights of both Fes and Meknes.
As for my host family, I am living with a lively all women feminist household. I have two xaltis (aunts) Amina and Idrissia and a ten-year-old girl Ghita (pronounced Rita), who is neither of their daughter but is their great niece who they have been raising since infancy. The actual house is beautiful, by Moroccan standards it’s really big for how many people are living in it (four including me), and is fairly modern. We have a washing machine, an espresso machine; satellite tv and a shower room (lots of Moroccans don’t have showers and instead use public baths called Hemmams). On the not so modern side, the shower consists of bucket baths of heated water, and my toilet facilities are of the Turkish type, but mashi muski (it’s not a big deal) I am quickly becoming very comfortable with both.
My xaltis are employed by a small hanoot that we have in front of our house, which services the rest of the people that are living out in the countryside. We also have six chickens and three cows which produce eggs and milk for the family’s consumption. In addition, our yard has olive, fig, pomegranate and orange trees and some fairly large rosemary and basil plants. Behind the house is probably about an acre of land that is filled with olives trees, all of which belong to my xaltis. I have already eaten my weight in olives, which we have at almost every meal, I drink fresh milk on an almost daily basis, and I’ve eaten fresh figs, and have had a variety of amazing food that is cooked by my xalti Amina.
So far my host family has been very patient with my language deficiency, luckily they speak French so, for now, it is our primary mode of communication until my Darija is up to par. Also, since it is only women I feel that it is a lot more relaxed then families with male members, since the mixing of genders is a lot more strict in Morocco, so far it seems that my house is a lot more at ease than some of the other PCV host families, and I don’t have to worry as much about making faux pas that wouldn’t be acceptable to do around men. My family has also given me a really good incite on the lives of two middle aged women in Morocco who had both never married but are both very educated (some of the other host moms or older women from the community that I’ve met are illiterate) and are running a successful hanoot business and seemingly living very comfortable and happy lives.
On Saturday night, after I got back from a Peace Corps meeting in Fes, Amina, Grita and another aunt (one who doesn’t live with us) had a henna party and my hands were covered in over two hours of detailed henna work. Unfortunately I’ve also gotten sick over the last couple of days and my host aunt’s have blamed this occurrence on the changing of seasons but more primarily on the fact that I go out in the morning with wet hair (from showering). So last night Idrissia told me that I would get better if I took a really hot hemmam in our shower room and that we’d do it after I got home from school today. Sure enough immediately when I got home from school she was filling up buckets and beginning to heat the water for a hot bathing session. I was informed that I would be bathing with her and my little cousin Ghita, so after the early evening tea and snack we all entered the bathroom and Ghita and I undressed to our underwear (just bottoms). Then Idrissia proceeded to brush and wash my hair for me and then rub me down with a home made olive salve type stuff and then scrub me with a course hand rag to the point where I think my entire top layer of skin was rubbed off. This experience is similar to what women do in the public Hemmans only you normally pay a stranger to scrub you down and not your host aunt, but another PCV went with her family and said her host sister did the scrubbing, so it’s all relative. I honestly cant remember the last time that someone bathed me or that I took a communal bath, but it was really nice to have someone exfoliate your entire body for you and wash your hair when your super congested and fatigued. After the shower I came out and almost got attacked with a hair dryer and a mound of blankets because my other aunt Amina said that I needed to stay away from the cold to keep from staying sick. Soon after I was fed the Moroccan version of chicken noodle soup, i.e. lentil noodle soup, which was amazingly delicious.
So far embracing Moroccan culture has been great, shweeya b shweeya (little by little) I’m getting integrated.
As for my host family, I am living with a lively all women feminist household. I have two xaltis (aunts) Amina and Idrissia and a ten-year-old girl Ghita (pronounced Rita), who is neither of their daughter but is their great niece who they have been raising since infancy. The actual house is beautiful, by Moroccan standards it’s really big for how many people are living in it (four including me), and is fairly modern. We have a washing machine, an espresso machine; satellite tv and a shower room (lots of Moroccans don’t have showers and instead use public baths called Hemmams). On the not so modern side, the shower consists of bucket baths of heated water, and my toilet facilities are of the Turkish type, but mashi muski (it’s not a big deal) I am quickly becoming very comfortable with both.
My xaltis are employed by a small hanoot that we have in front of our house, which services the rest of the people that are living out in the countryside. We also have six chickens and three cows which produce eggs and milk for the family’s consumption. In addition, our yard has olive, fig, pomegranate and orange trees and some fairly large rosemary and basil plants. Behind the house is probably about an acre of land that is filled with olives trees, all of which belong to my xaltis. I have already eaten my weight in olives, which we have at almost every meal, I drink fresh milk on an almost daily basis, and I’ve eaten fresh figs, and have had a variety of amazing food that is cooked by my xalti Amina.
So far my host family has been very patient with my language deficiency, luckily they speak French so, for now, it is our primary mode of communication until my Darija is up to par. Also, since it is only women I feel that it is a lot more relaxed then families with male members, since the mixing of genders is a lot more strict in Morocco, so far it seems that my house is a lot more at ease than some of the other PCV host families, and I don’t have to worry as much about making faux pas that wouldn’t be acceptable to do around men. My family has also given me a really good incite on the lives of two middle aged women in Morocco who had both never married but are both very educated (some of the other host moms or older women from the community that I’ve met are illiterate) and are running a successful hanoot business and seemingly living very comfortable and happy lives.
On Saturday night, after I got back from a Peace Corps meeting in Fes, Amina, Grita and another aunt (one who doesn’t live with us) had a henna party and my hands were covered in over two hours of detailed henna work. Unfortunately I’ve also gotten sick over the last couple of days and my host aunt’s have blamed this occurrence on the changing of seasons but more primarily on the fact that I go out in the morning with wet hair (from showering). So last night Idrissia told me that I would get better if I took a really hot hemmam in our shower room and that we’d do it after I got home from school today. Sure enough immediately when I got home from school she was filling up buckets and beginning to heat the water for a hot bathing session. I was informed that I would be bathing with her and my little cousin Ghita, so after the early evening tea and snack we all entered the bathroom and Ghita and I undressed to our underwear (just bottoms). Then Idrissia proceeded to brush and wash my hair for me and then rub me down with a home made olive salve type stuff and then scrub me with a course hand rag to the point where I think my entire top layer of skin was rubbed off. This experience is similar to what women do in the public Hemmans only you normally pay a stranger to scrub you down and not your host aunt, but another PCV went with her family and said her host sister did the scrubbing, so it’s all relative. I honestly cant remember the last time that someone bathed me or that I took a communal bath, but it was really nice to have someone exfoliate your entire body for you and wash your hair when your super congested and fatigued. After the shower I came out and almost got attacked with a hair dryer and a mound of blankets because my other aunt Amina said that I needed to stay away from the cold to keep from staying sick. Soon after I was fed the Moroccan version of chicken noodle soup, i.e. lentil noodle soup, which was amazingly delicious.
So far embracing Moroccan culture has been great, shweeya b shweeya (little by little) I’m getting integrated.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Shuma-tastic
Sorry I haven’t written in a while, I haven’t had very good internet access and have been to busy to deal with it.
So last time I wrote something I was still doing my initial PC training in Medhia, I am now with my host family in a small town outside of Fes. A lot has happened over the last week and I’m sure you want to know all the details. During the two days of training we had some other volunteers, from the youth development, health, environment and small business development, come visit use to share their experiences and brief us on what to expect with our host families stays during the next three months of CBT (Culture based training). The three main topics where 1) dealing with Turkish toilets, living in a culture that doesn’t use toilet paper (i.e. you use your left hand) and how to deal with the gastrointestinal problems that you definitely will have, 2) dealing with the language barrier and how to communicate with a family that you’ll be living with for three months when you don’t speak the same language 3) the main cultural barriers and how to deal with the many faux pas that you (again) definitely will make, such as forgetting that in Morocco you don’t use your left hand for most things, like eating or handing things to people, or even covering your mouth when yawning, this is because from now on the left hand will be the bathroom hand and if it’s used for anything else it will be shuma (shame).
After the briefing the volunteers stuck around for a while and would eat meals with use and hang out and such in order to have more informal conversations with all of use new volunteers and to answer any questions we may have. The one thing that was said to me by a certain environmental volunteer that I will never ever forget, was that he told our entire dinner table that during our 2 years and three months in Morocco we will join the “I have shat in my pants club” and that we need to remember “don’t trust your farts”. HAHAHA! There is nothing like that to get you excited for 2 years of hands on intensive development! Later, in another briefing session that we all had before we left for our respective CBT sites/host communities, when we were all talking about our biggest concerns and worries (i.e. not knowing how to use the Turkish toilet or how were going to live with a family that we couldn’t really communicate with or how we were just going to walk into a community with the title of peace corps volunteer and have the patience to deal with/wait for everyone to get over the stereotypes of Americans and accept us) one girl said to all 90 something of use new volunteers that if ever anything is hard or we begin to doubt to just “suck it up and love it”. I couldn’t agree more and feel that all of us immediately accepted this as our PC mantra… just suck it up and love it!!!!
Next post will be all about the new fam. Hopefully I can get back to the internet sometime soon.
So last time I wrote something I was still doing my initial PC training in Medhia, I am now with my host family in a small town outside of Fes. A lot has happened over the last week and I’m sure you want to know all the details. During the two days of training we had some other volunteers, from the youth development, health, environment and small business development, come visit use to share their experiences and brief us on what to expect with our host families stays during the next three months of CBT (Culture based training). The three main topics where 1) dealing with Turkish toilets, living in a culture that doesn’t use toilet paper (i.e. you use your left hand) and how to deal with the gastrointestinal problems that you definitely will have, 2) dealing with the language barrier and how to communicate with a family that you’ll be living with for three months when you don’t speak the same language 3) the main cultural barriers and how to deal with the many faux pas that you (again) definitely will make, such as forgetting that in Morocco you don’t use your left hand for most things, like eating or handing things to people, or even covering your mouth when yawning, this is because from now on the left hand will be the bathroom hand and if it’s used for anything else it will be shuma (shame).
After the briefing the volunteers stuck around for a while and would eat meals with use and hang out and such in order to have more informal conversations with all of use new volunteers and to answer any questions we may have. The one thing that was said to me by a certain environmental volunteer that I will never ever forget, was that he told our entire dinner table that during our 2 years and three months in Morocco we will join the “I have shat in my pants club” and that we need to remember “don’t trust your farts”. HAHAHA! There is nothing like that to get you excited for 2 years of hands on intensive development! Later, in another briefing session that we all had before we left for our respective CBT sites/host communities, when we were all talking about our biggest concerns and worries (i.e. not knowing how to use the Turkish toilet or how were going to live with a family that we couldn’t really communicate with or how we were just going to walk into a community with the title of peace corps volunteer and have the patience to deal with/wait for everyone to get over the stereotypes of Americans and accept us) one girl said to all 90 something of use new volunteers that if ever anything is hard or we begin to doubt to just “suck it up and love it”. I couldn’t agree more and feel that all of us immediately accepted this as our PC mantra… just suck it up and love it!!!!
Next post will be all about the new fam. Hopefully I can get back to the internet sometime soon.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
In Morocco!
So I'm finally in Morocco!
Just in case any of you were wondering, I totally could have packed up to 50 lbs in both suitcases (a lot of people did)! But oh well, guess I'll just have to have to stuff that I left at home shipped over.
So far we've just had a lot of training, policies, securities, health and safety, got a typhoid shot this am, tm we start the rabies vaccine and i think one other shot. Also the first Arabic lesson was this morning, was really fun, I don't think it'll be impossible to learn the language.
Everyone here is really awesome, there are about 5 married couples, a bit of retirees, and the rest are in their mid to late 20's, everyone is interested in international relations, travel, helping the developing world etc, it's really nice to be back with my own kind.
Our hotel is AMAZING! It's in a beach town named Mehdia, about an hour north of Rabat. The hotel is actually a Red Cross building and is right on the beach, a bunch of us went swimming yesterday and today. There was a guy at the beach that had four camels that you could take pictures with. It’s also super hot and humid so its great to swim!
Food’s has been really good, last night there was this amazing soup made of lentils, garbanzo beans and egg. SUPER GOOD, there’s also fresh baguettes at each meal and really sweet mint tea for breakfast and the 4 am coffee break. We’ve also had lots of dates and olives with our food YUM! No couscous until Friday, but I can t wait!
All of the staff is super nice, the country director for the Peace Corps Morocco is here helping to train us, there is also a full medical staff, security staff, staff for the youth development and small business development programs, and some other staff members. Also, the ambassador and his wife came today to greet us and they might also be at our swearing in.
We have two more days here, and then it’s off to Fes and our respective host families, where we’ll be until the end of February.
I’m so glad I’m here and cant wait to meet my family and fully immerse myself in Moroccan culture!
Saturday, September 11, 2010
SUCCESS!
So last night I was instructed by my father to just "forget about it" and that he'd help me take care of everything today or tomorrow. Then we went to a bar and both had a drink in an effort to ease my stress. While we were there I also looked up the weight limit for Delta airline, which I'll be taking to Philly on Monday to start my PC training. Their limit is 50lbs! YES! But Peace Corps has limited at 40lbs... we figured it was probably the limit for Royal Air Maroc, which I'll be taking from NYC to Casablanca on Tuesday. I tired to look it up with my phone but couldn't find their limit.
I woke up this morning panicked because I knew/thought I'd never get this packing thing accomplished. Plus take care of the minor yet annoying things I still had to do like calling my credit card companies and filling out a few more forms.
In an effort to help me calm down my mom went with me on the last few errands that I had to run to get stuff for my trip, like my favorite hair tonic from Aveda that makes my hair really shiny... I know this sounds extremely impractical for the Peace Corps BUT after trying to figure out my head of curly hair since I was in grade school and finally having is mastered I am just not ready to "let go" yet. Thus hair products are coming with me while I attempt to "go native" in Morocco.
Then when I got home I decided to suck it up and just throw everything left that I knew I wanted/NEEDED to bring with me into my two large black Samsonite suitcases (if any of you watch Mad Men you'll appreciate my usage of this luggage brand!) and put them on the scale. The larger is 44lbs and the smaller is 40lbs.... I weighed them and then my dad did. He told me that I should just leave them because it probably wouldn't matter. So, I only needed one more fact to seal the deal, what was Royal Air Maroc's weight limit? I just found it on their website andddddd it's 50 lbs!!!!!!!!!!! So I figure as long as I wont have to pay extra for it being over 40lbs for my two flights I'm golden and I just wont tell the PC that one is slightly over weight.
SUCCESS!
Who would have ever imagined that packing would be so stressful.... especially for me since I've traveled so much in my life time. I finally feel semi relaxed for the first time in a week.
So from now until I leave here's the agenda:
1) Try and remember if there's anything left for me to do/pack and do it before I go.
2) Go out to eat with my mom and dad for Mexican food, a cuisine that I know will be hard to find in Morocco.
3) Hang out with my bff's from highschool and have some sort of going away celebration. Champagne anyone?
4)....... not really sure I'm sure I'll think or something
5) enjoy my last moments in America and start preping for my 7am flight to Philly where I'll get to meet all the other people that have decided to volunteer their lives for two years in the Peace Corps Morocco.
I woke up this morning panicked because I knew/thought I'd never get this packing thing accomplished. Plus take care of the minor yet annoying things I still had to do like calling my credit card companies and filling out a few more forms.
In an effort to help me calm down my mom went with me on the last few errands that I had to run to get stuff for my trip, like my favorite hair tonic from Aveda that makes my hair really shiny... I know this sounds extremely impractical for the Peace Corps BUT after trying to figure out my head of curly hair since I was in grade school and finally having is mastered I am just not ready to "let go" yet. Thus hair products are coming with me while I attempt to "go native" in Morocco.
Then when I got home I decided to suck it up and just throw everything left that I knew I wanted/NEEDED to bring with me into my two large black Samsonite suitcases (if any of you watch Mad Men you'll appreciate my usage of this luggage brand!) and put them on the scale. The larger is 44lbs and the smaller is 40lbs.... I weighed them and then my dad did. He told me that I should just leave them because it probably wouldn't matter. So, I only needed one more fact to seal the deal, what was Royal Air Maroc's weight limit? I just found it on their website andddddd it's 50 lbs!!!!!!!!!!! So I figure as long as I wont have to pay extra for it being over 40lbs for my two flights I'm golden and I just wont tell the PC that one is slightly over weight.
SUCCESS!
Who would have ever imagined that packing would be so stressful.... especially for me since I've traveled so much in my life time. I finally feel semi relaxed for the first time in a week.
So from now until I leave here's the agenda:
1) Try and remember if there's anything left for me to do/pack and do it before I go.
2) Go out to eat with my mom and dad for Mexican food, a cuisine that I know will be hard to find in Morocco.
3) Hang out with my bff's from highschool and have some sort of going away celebration. Champagne anyone?
4)....... not really sure I'm sure I'll think or something
5) enjoy my last moments in America and start preping for my 7am flight to Philly where I'll get to meet all the other people that have decided to volunteer their lives for two years in the Peace Corps Morocco.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Getting Ready
Here goes my first blog post... EVER! Exciting? Yes, no, kind of? I guess we'll see how it goes.
I leave in about three days. I've spent the last week rushing around the twin cities area to several stores, some more than once, to get all of the recommended supplies for my trip. It's been exhausting! I probably shouldn't have waited to do everything until the last week! What's worse is now I have to pack! Yikes! I have so much stuff, bags and bags of stuff for "roughing it" like a sleep pad, camp shower, hiking boots, journals and books for documenting my trip, tons of products like my favorite shampoos and face washes where i know the same brands wont be available in Morocco, and then there's my clothes. Since I am about to leave for 2 years I, naturally, want to bring everything I own, but there's a luggage limit, 2 bags at 40 lbs each, not including the sleeping bag and back pack I'll be carrying on. The fact that Morocco's a mostly Muslim country has helped cut down on the clothing selection, goodbye short shorts and cute sundresses that I covet during periods of warm weather, I will miss you dearly. After living in NYC for the past two summers, and going to a "hip" college where style was sort of a big deal, it's been really hard to remind myself that I am not packing to look good, but for Peace Corps service. I've had to take out a few of my favorite items after accepting that they just aren't practical. I'm already over the weight limit with one suitcase and have yet to finish packing the other... it'll probably be overweight too, then I'll have to cut down even more :( boo! In an effort to comfort me on the pains of packing my mother is repeatedly telling me how glad I'll be once I get there because it'll be easier to carry around. In addition, my dad, who went to Morocco in the 1970s keeps telling me how modern it'll be and I really don't have to worry because I'll be able to get everything while I'm there. I know this is true, but it's hard to accept that I am leaving so much behind and that its just going to sit around for 2 years for me to come back to it.
After all this talk of packing some of you may wonder about why exactly I am doing the Peace Corps if I care this much about what clothes and shoes I am bringing with me, or some of you may be thinking that I may not be cut out for this. Honestly, my mind just isn't there yet. I've never been to Morocco, I only know a handful of people who have served in the Peace Corps, I'm trying not to have expectations and I just don't think I'll be able to transition until I walk out of my air plane and am finally on Moroccan soil. I'm mean I don't think anyone can easily prepare to move to North Africa, or any other foreign country, while they are sitting in the comforts of their home. Since leaving NY two weeks ago, I've had to say goodbye to my family's beach house in NJ that I've been going to since I was a newborn, I visited both sides of my family, had to say goodbye to my boyfriend, have been trying to hang out with my best friends from high school, whom since I left for college I only get to see once or twice a year, spending time with my parents, plus shopping and packing and constantly reminding myself and counting down the days until I leave. I also had planned to finish the final edits on my senior thesis so I could archive it before I leave.... another thing that I have to accept probably isn't realistic. This past week has been a true testimony to the fact that things are generally a lot easier to accomplish and deal with if you don't wait until the last minute. But, I personally am often motivated to do things that I know will be harder to do, like packing or homework, when I get stressed about them and stressed I am, VERY stressed.
But I guess it's not all stress, I'm excited to get out of cold Minnesota that is begging to take it's rapid leap towards winter, I'm excited to take a break from the stressful life that I've been living for the past year or so, I'm excited to serve in the Peace Corps and cant wait to eat couscous, learn Arabic and see what my new home is all about. At this point I really cant imagine what it'll be like, but I guess that's a good thing.... no expectations, I just want this limbo to end, and for packing to be over and for the 7am flight that I am taking on Monday to be over and to finally just get there. Granted I only found out that I was going to Morocco about a month and a half ago I've know that I would probably be serving in the Peace Corps since last December and the anticipation has been building ever since.
Wish me luck for these next few days!
I leave in about three days. I've spent the last week rushing around the twin cities area to several stores, some more than once, to get all of the recommended supplies for my trip. It's been exhausting! I probably shouldn't have waited to do everything until the last week! What's worse is now I have to pack! Yikes! I have so much stuff, bags and bags of stuff for "roughing it" like a sleep pad, camp shower, hiking boots, journals and books for documenting my trip, tons of products like my favorite shampoos and face washes where i know the same brands wont be available in Morocco, and then there's my clothes. Since I am about to leave for 2 years I, naturally, want to bring everything I own, but there's a luggage limit, 2 bags at 40 lbs each, not including the sleeping bag and back pack I'll be carrying on. The fact that Morocco's a mostly Muslim country has helped cut down on the clothing selection, goodbye short shorts and cute sundresses that I covet during periods of warm weather, I will miss you dearly. After living in NYC for the past two summers, and going to a "hip" college where style was sort of a big deal, it's been really hard to remind myself that I am not packing to look good, but for Peace Corps service. I've had to take out a few of my favorite items after accepting that they just aren't practical. I'm already over the weight limit with one suitcase and have yet to finish packing the other... it'll probably be overweight too, then I'll have to cut down even more :( boo! In an effort to comfort me on the pains of packing my mother is repeatedly telling me how glad I'll be once I get there because it'll be easier to carry around. In addition, my dad, who went to Morocco in the 1970s keeps telling me how modern it'll be and I really don't have to worry because I'll be able to get everything while I'm there. I know this is true, but it's hard to accept that I am leaving so much behind and that its just going to sit around for 2 years for me to come back to it.
After all this talk of packing some of you may wonder about why exactly I am doing the Peace Corps if I care this much about what clothes and shoes I am bringing with me, or some of you may be thinking that I may not be cut out for this. Honestly, my mind just isn't there yet. I've never been to Morocco, I only know a handful of people who have served in the Peace Corps, I'm trying not to have expectations and I just don't think I'll be able to transition until I walk out of my air plane and am finally on Moroccan soil. I'm mean I don't think anyone can easily prepare to move to North Africa, or any other foreign country, while they are sitting in the comforts of their home. Since leaving NY two weeks ago, I've had to say goodbye to my family's beach house in NJ that I've been going to since I was a newborn, I visited both sides of my family, had to say goodbye to my boyfriend, have been trying to hang out with my best friends from high school, whom since I left for college I only get to see once or twice a year, spending time with my parents, plus shopping and packing and constantly reminding myself and counting down the days until I leave. I also had planned to finish the final edits on my senior thesis so I could archive it before I leave.... another thing that I have to accept probably isn't realistic. This past week has been a true testimony to the fact that things are generally a lot easier to accomplish and deal with if you don't wait until the last minute. But, I personally am often motivated to do things that I know will be harder to do, like packing or homework, when I get stressed about them and stressed I am, VERY stressed.
But I guess it's not all stress, I'm excited to get out of cold Minnesota that is begging to take it's rapid leap towards winter, I'm excited to take a break from the stressful life that I've been living for the past year or so, I'm excited to serve in the Peace Corps and cant wait to eat couscous, learn Arabic and see what my new home is all about. At this point I really cant imagine what it'll be like, but I guess that's a good thing.... no expectations, I just want this limbo to end, and for packing to be over and for the 7am flight that I am taking on Monday to be over and to finally just get there. Granted I only found out that I was going to Morocco about a month and a half ago I've know that I would probably be serving in the Peace Corps since last December and the anticipation has been building ever since.
Wish me luck for these next few days!
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