Back in Azrou for some more pre-service training. Since I’ve last typed, I said goodbye to my first host family, learned where my permanent site is, met my new host family who I will be living with for 2 months, took a language test, and will be sworn in as an official Peace Corps volunteer this coming Thursday.
My final site assignment (where I will be working and living for 2 years) is down south, near Ourazazate. It’s in the area where Hollywood comes and films movies (Alexander, Babel, etc.) so it is absolutely gorgeous. The town is only 500 people, no internet, no teleboutique, and my father uses a donkey and a cart to get to the souk. I’m also 5k away from the paved road. I either walk or bike to get to and from my site.
My new host family consists of a mother, father, and three little girls (2, 5, 10 years old). My father is a potter and my mother is a weaver. My father’s sister (a weaver) is the counterpart that I will work with and all male members of his family are the village potters. So, the artisans I will be working with are either the potters or the weavers.
As for now, life is boring.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Looong Post
9/14/08
Finally a day of rest. It’s hard to believe I’ve only been in Morocco for about a week; it feels like a lifetime.
This morning about half of the group went hiking up the mountains that surround Azrou. I didn’t join, think about how out of shape I am and how grueling simply climbing the hill to the medina is. I stayed behind on the rooftop and finished off some homework and studied some darija. Once I gain more stamina I’ll attempt the lofty peaks of…whatever that mountain is called.
After lunch, a trainee and I took a walk up to the medina, she for a cell phone card and I for a headset to use with scype. Got to use my mad Arabic bargaining skills to talk the sell down 10D. These skills have not been used since the days of Egypt and crazy taxi drivers.
While walking home, I picked up two new boyfriends in the form of a 10- and 12-year-old boys. Sorry G, your affections cannot compare to these two new love interests. They tagged after me for a couple of blocks, calling to me in Arabic and French. Peace Corps warned us of the harassment we’d be facing, but I don’t think they meant these kids.
(14/10/08) Explaination
Part of Peace Corps training is living with a host family and actually applying what we’ve been taught on a trial basis; thus, we’re shipped off in groups of six with a language and culture teacher to work in some town with a local association for a five-week period. This is all to prepare us for living in a Moroccan town and working on our own with our Moroccan counterparts and associations.
The town five others and I are training in is a really small village close to Azrou. It’s a cute little village in a small valley surrounded by fields, some cypress trees, and low mountains. There are about 1200 people living here, no green grocers, and three hanuts (small dry-foods shops). Veggies and fruits are bought in Azrou or in the Tuesday souk held near Azrou. Depending on where you live, in most places running water only works at certain times during the day. The main livelihoods come from farming cereals and herding sheep and some cows. There’s a primary and middle school, but older kids, if they continue their education, must either live in a dorm in Azrou or trek to the town every day to attend the high school. We’re supposed to be working here with a local weavers’ association (4 women), but our group has had problems trying to meet with them and get thing done.
My host family consists of the mother (26), father, his mother (70), and the two little girls (5 and 10). My grandmother is a hilarious old Berber woman who says anything she can since she’s old and can get away with it. The girls are cute and half the time I have to beat them off with a stick to get anything done. The oldest tries teaching me darija. My host father often sits down with me and teaches me the language or else comes up with some game that involves learning new words. My mother is the best one out of my training group (I’m convinced and so are some of the other trainees). She’s an amazing cook, insists that I come home for lunch if she knows that we won’t have a cook that day, insists on feeding me breakfast everyday even though that is not part of my living arrangement, grabs my laundry and does it while I’m at school, plans all these cultural outings and experience for me (henna, dancing, and a new outfit for the end of Ramadan), and is the actual incarnate of Christ himself. They’s good people.
The house I now live in is a good-sized place for this town’s standards: I have my own room, which was the master bedroom, there’s indoor plumbing (i.e. a working Turkish toilet and running sinks), a large living room, a kitchen, an upstairs, and a storage room. We have running water all day. My family owns the teliboutique/chicken butchers next door, some chickens, and two cows that I know of. They may have more livestock, but I haven’t seen it.
The typical day here is get up around 7:45, eat breakfast with the mother and 2 girls, get to my teacher’s house and study or shoot the breeze until class starts at 8:30, learn language until 12:30, and eat an amazing meal prepared by our talented cook. During our first stay here, we’d continue language after lunch until 5 unless we had a meeting with our weavers; nowadays, we are on our own after lunch to study the language or prepare the technical aspect of our project for the weavers until 6. When 6 rolls around, it’s Kaskrut (tea time) and I go home and eat bread, olives, zmeta (a delicious ground-up nut mixture), and drink tea. The evenings are either spent with the family or in my room studying. Dinner is a late affair and we usually eat at 9:45 to 10ish. I usually retire after dinner and either read myself o sleep or listen to my ipod.
12/10/08
Currently I am hiding out in my room for some ‘me time’. My host mother is at the hamam, so I’m here with only the grandmother and the father, neither of whom I feel like talking to right now because I am so bushed and my mental translator is currently in the ‘off’ position.
Moroccan mint tea is famous the world round and synonymous with Moroccan hospitality. If you’ve never had true Moroccan tea, allow me to describe it: one trainee said that it was like drinking liquefied Wriggley’s Spearmint gum. It is very very sweet and very very miny. Most volunteers ask for a pot without sugar and the Moroccans always as, “Are you diabetic?” Tea without a lot of sugar is no tea at all to them.
Today, I went hiking with hiking guy (a trainee), another trainee, and our cultural facilitator, …I want to say bad idea, but I survived and had fun, so maybe not-so-good idea is a better label. We hiked up one of the mountains here, which was great and I got to see my entire small village from above, but the guys wanted to go down a different way than the way we’d come up. It was a steep descent in some places, and it turns out I have a major fear of falling (yet I’m not scared of heights, go figure), and steep descents scare me.
But I survived.
I got one hell of a workout, and I gained a lot of confidence when it comes to hiking. I’m not going to take on K2 anytime soon, but I’ll feel better descending a steep mountainside from now on. Or I could just take a donkey next time.
If there is a hill here, there is a donkey on it.
13/10/08
Our group had an interesting discussion today on what is appropriate and inappropriate. One trainee brought up the fact that she did not appreciate some of the language and coarseness she was hearing in the classroom. It was definitely a fascinating conversation since what she and another trainee described as inappropriate was what we of the younger generation don’t even bat an eye at. We are a foul-mouthed bunch….
Other than that, I got hold of a Nintendo and Super Nintendo emulator with all the games made for both of them. I will try to limit my playtime so that I can maybe get some work done.
Maybe.
14/10/08
We journeyed to the big souk today in order to purchase much-needed veggies. The souk is always an adventure: hundreds of people show up with all their sheep, cows, goats, donkeys, fruit, veggies, spices, appliances, clothing, house wares, etc. and go into a buying/selling frenzy. There’s garbage, animal shit, food, and people everywhere you step. It’s quite fun.
Afterwards, when we managed to get home, us women went to the hamam (public bath), soaked in the hot room (getting rid of the souk dust), and came back to a delicious tajine of chicken, caramelized onions, and Moroccan raisins prepared by our lovely cook. Life can be so hard sometimes.
The only problem we’re facing is difficulties within the group dynamic. The generation gap is really hindering us right now, as is the underlying resentment some harbor at being called crude and inappropriate. Also, we’re such a diverse group in terms of personalities. Some are take charge, get it done types, while others are laid back let’s drink some tea and talk for a bit types. I’m the latter and the former types are rubbing my nerves raw. I’m sure the feeling is mutual though. I feel jibbed sometimes since other Peace Corps training sites seem to have teams that get along so well and have so much fun.
Only three weeks to go until I find out my final site.
19/10/08
It does not feel like five days since I last typed up an entry; you lose track of time really fast when your days are so scheduled from sunup to sunset. G was a little bit upset that I’d forgotten to call or even text him on the 17th. I do feel bad about that, but I really have forgotten the time.
Time runs differently in Morocco. It’s always, “Inshallah, it’ll happen when god wills it.” Once I get out of the structure regiment of class everyday, I’ll have to keep myself from falling into this mindset and be strict about getting things done. I tend to fall into laziness if I don’t have a set schedule, and it’ll be interesting to come up with my own and try to stick to it. The current PC volunteer who’s been working here says that a good day is when she can get one work-related thing (usually a meeting) done; an amazing day is when she can get two things done.
Once again, the group dynamics are in the toilet. One of the older trainees is having a difficult time learning the language and is very frustrated with her family and the group. Some days she’s all right, but most others she’s been really upset and had to pull our LCF (language & culture facilitator, our teacher) aside and try to talk to him about her problems and how he can help her with learning the language. They’ve both ended up upset by these talks, to the point where the LCF has left the room to cool off a bit because of some sort of cultural misunderstanding. Apologies were said all around, and now both parties seem a bit happier. However, other little things and remarks have reared their heads. One trainee thought up an idea and another one wanted to take the idea and run with it. This upset the first trainee and the poor LCF had to hear all about this problem from both sides. A different trainee did not want to do a certain homework assignment for fear of upsetting her host family and the LCF had to hear about that as well. Then there’s all the bickering and apathy that happens when we try to work as a group.
After all of these small squabbles and problems, the LCF breaks down and says to us that he has never worked with a group that had so many problems before. Mind you, he’s been doing this job for more than a few years. You know it has to be bad when an indirect Moroccan raised in a society where saving face is of utmost importance decides to actually speak up and say something to the group.
11 days until I find out my final site.
I’ve learned a new term: Moroccan Tupperware. When you go to any event where food is served most of the women pull out plastic bags and take some of the food home for their families or for whoever couldn’t make it. There’s never any leftovers for everyone takes stuff home. This is a really funny when you provide lots of cookies at a gathering, given that no matter how often you restock the cookie tray it always comes back empty. PC volunteers have seen women upend whole trays and dump them into their plastic bags. When my group went with tea and cookies to the weavers’ association the other day, we experienced the phenomenon of Moroccan Tupperware. Nothing goes to waste here.
This coming Wednesday, I’m scheduled to go and meet with the weavers we’re working with and have them answer a questionnaire I’ve developed about their yarn and it’s quality. They work with a crap quality yarn and are having problems producing and selling carpets because of it. If I had a year or more to work with them I could probably help this association, but this is only training and we’re not expected to accomplish much of anything. It feels like we go in, take up their time with questions, give them hope that we can help them, and leave. It sucks.
Peace Corps has allotted our group a budget of 1000 Ds to use on our projects. The other trainees have figured on leaving the weavers with a scrapbook of pictures or a brochure outlining possibilities of what they could do, but so far, I’ve come up with nothing to leave them in so short a time. I might just throw my share of the 1000 Ds in with one of the people who have an idea and need it. I need to think this one over some more.
The bathroom in my house has a light switch that is too high for the littlest girl to reach. The other night she comes running into the salon holding her crotch and doing the international “I need to pee” dance. Rather than saying I need to potty or another childish equivalent, she dances around the salon desperately crying, “Bgit lbula! Bgit lbula! (I need the light, I need the light!)”
20/10/08
This evening’s Kaskrut was fried bread and honey…and delicious! My teeth are going to rot and fall out with all of the sugary things I’ve been consuming lately, and I’m surprised more pimples haven’t popped up.
Nothing much has been happening lately; life has settled back into the normal routine.
21/10/08
This evening’s Kaskrut consisted of the usual: bread, butter, tea, zmeta, and one interesting addition: boiled sheep head. I tried to eat some, but I just couldn’t do it. It was too greasy and I couldn’t get over the texture. It was squishy and fatty.
Like jello.
During my first home stay, they fed me spitted sheep eyes. It’s not as gross as it sounds because they’d been grilled to the point you couldn’t really tell what they were and they weren’t oozy at all. They tasted like a really well aged rib eye and had the texture of a chewy beef tendon. I highly recommend them not only for taste, but also just to say that you’ve eaten sheep eyeballs.
Maybe they’ll feed me sheep testicles next. I can only hope.
The group is still in… basically a perpetual state of ruin. There were almost fisticuffs when the schedule we’d set up for interviewing the weavers fell though. We were supposed to break up and go in small groups to interview them starting this Monday and ending this Wednesday. The group that was scheduled for Tuesday had to fight with my group, interviewing Wednesday, when they found out that the weavers would be at the souk in Azrou on Tuesday rather than in the town. So now both groups have to go on Wednesday. Oh the drama.
9 days until my final site.
We’ve been together too long. I feel bad for our LCF.
22/10/08
Eight days until I find out my final site. It’s almost like Christmas.
Last night a few of us went up to the current PC volunteer’s house and ate popcorn, baked cookies, and watched The Office. Good times had by all I think.
Currently it is colder than crap outside so I am sitting my happy butt right next to the small wood-burning stove in the kitchen watching my host grandma weave a massive carpet on her rickety handmade loom. She’s humming Berber songs to herself as the rain’s falling on a plastic tarp on the roof. It’s all rather calm and peaceful right now. I should bed down in here and just go to sleep.
Today one volunteer and I had to interview the weavers and ask them questions concerning our project. Since there is only one language translator for the two of us, while the other volunteer used him to translate, I went over to the weavers on the loom and just started asking them the questions I had already written out. They were fairly easy questions with really easy answers, i.e. who buys your yarn, where do they buy it from, etc, so the whole process was rather simple. They understood most of what I asked and I understood most of what they answered. I’m proud of myself.
Afterwards, they invited us to stay for tea and snacks. In Morocco, there’s this bread they served that taste just like our cornbread back in the states, so I was excited to see that with the tea. Almost right after we left, we trekked over to our cook’s house, for she’d invited us for Kaskrut. Tea again, cornbread, milawi (a fried bread), and fat bread, a bread stuffed with spices and a bit of fat of some kind. It taste like a really good pizza minus the cheese.
My host mother is currently cooking couscous as I sit here. Kaskrut was an hour ago, and dinner will be in 30 minutes. I don’t think that I can do it. Too much food.
It sucks, the last time I had couscous I got sick the next morning (not from the couscous); however, every time I have it now reminds me of getting sick and I can’t eat much of it. This is a major problem since couscous is served at least once a week and is the national dish of Morocco.
My mother’ll insist I eat dinner and I CAN’T DO IT!!!!
23/10/08
7 days until I find out my site.
Today one of the head honchos showed up to ask us a few questions about where we would like to be placed. For my final site I’ve requested a town like this one, relatively small in population but close enough to a bigger city so that I can have Internet access once or twice a week and shopping nearby. I prefer cold over hot and really don’t care what kind of artisans I’ll work with, but I’d favor working with women over men. I also said I’d like a site where a PC volunteer has already lived.
Last night, my grandmother taught me how to weave on her loom. Well, she taught me one way of weaving. While we were behind the loom, the two girls were having “school,” basically the oldest tormenting the smallest. The oldest would ask the youngest to write out a word then she’d yell at her about her horrible handwriting. There’s a lot of ruler smacking, screaming, and gesticulating from the oldest that accompany every word written. The littlest girl was sitting there absolutely frustrated and helpless. It was really funny.
It’s gotten cold and has been pouring randomly for the past few days. After a long drought Morocco is now suffering from massive floods in some parts of the country. Today we watched it hail marble sized chunks for about 15 minutes and the electricity has gone out and come back on sporadically these last two days. The word for ‘winter’ and for ‘rain’ is the same in Darija.
This afternoon was rather cozy in the LCF’s house. Usually his house is a cold cement cave that never sees sunlight but today with all of the bad weather, electricity out, and candles lit, it was nice, especially when our LCF whipped out his lute and taught us a song. We all clapped along and learned an old Moroccan love song in the candlelight.
25/10/08
The power has been cutting in and out randomly for the last two or more days. We’ve been without power most of the day today and all of the day yesterday in the LCF’s house. That would mean it’s been freezing cold because we didn’t have power to run the electric heater, but the heater is a piece of crap that doesn’t heat even with power, so it’s been cold as heck with or without the electricity. This morning I basked in what little sun there was before it got overcast and started to shower again.
Last night, some of us visited the current PC volunteer’s favorite family and they cooked her favorite dish for us. I wasn’t particularly fond of the dish. Its main ingredient was some sort of really smelly, bitter seed that makes your pee stink worse than asparagus and that you stink like for days after eating it. Despite the meal I love the family. They’re energetic and really fun to be around. The mother made us all learn how to make milawi (a thin, fried bread), the tiny father threatened to take on our 250 lbs trainee, and the girls love to sing and dance.
Right now I’m snuggled up to the ferno (the small wood-burning stove) and trying to get this typed up despite the many interruptions by small children who want to type on the computer. God kids can still annoy the crap outta me.
26/10/08
Today’s been really fun. I was supposed to go to another Peace Corps training site to attend a wool-dying demonstration, but it was raining hard this morning and cold, so I never dragged my butt out of bed. Instead, I slept in until about 10, got up, was fed milawi and honey (food of the GODS) and managed to get most of my Peace Corps report done. Later, we visited the house of my host grandmother’s very sick brother and ate lunch there.
This man has been on and off of his deathbed for the past few weeks. Two nights ago the entire family gathered at his house convinced that that was his final night. When I visited him today, he was sitting up, talking and eating. Turns out that the family had been using a doctor in Azrou until yesterday, when they found an American doctor in a larger city. He came in and took the sick man off of all of the meds the other doctor had prescribed and viola! He’s cured.
On another note, the first word of Tamazight (a Berber dialect) that anyone will ever learn here is “ICH!!! ICH!!!!” which means “ Keep eating! Keep eating!” Moroccan custom dictates that in order to be a good host, you must stuff your guest until their stomach bursts. When my grandmother first told me to ICH! I looked at her jokingly and started scratching my arm saying “Itchy, itchy!” Turns out that English itchy also means itchy in Tamazight. Strange that two totally different languages share the same random work.
The itchy/ichy joke expanded further when I found out that the Darija word for corner (qunt) sounds very much like ‘cunt’ in English. I told my grandmother that cunt is a naughty word in English, so she automatically combined ‘ichy’ ‘qunt’ and started miming scratching at her crotch yelling “ichy qunt!”
Then my host mother had to know what a man’s penis was called in English. I told her dick, which set off another round of vulgarities. Dik, in darija, means rooster, so they combined corner and rooster to say:
Dik f lqunt. (A rooster is in the corner)
which sounds really close in English to “dick in cunt.” All night all of the women and little girls ran around saying, “Dik f lqunt! Dik f lqunt!” until the father got home. Then, when the youngest accidentally said it in front of him and started giggling, she got shushed up really quick.
Now everything is located, for my benefit, in the qunt. If I ask where something is inadvertently the answer will be: it’s in the qunt.
Finally a day of rest. It’s hard to believe I’ve only been in Morocco for about a week; it feels like a lifetime.
This morning about half of the group went hiking up the mountains that surround Azrou. I didn’t join, think about how out of shape I am and how grueling simply climbing the hill to the medina is. I stayed behind on the rooftop and finished off some homework and studied some darija. Once I gain more stamina I’ll attempt the lofty peaks of…whatever that mountain is called.
After lunch, a trainee and I took a walk up to the medina, she for a cell phone card and I for a headset to use with scype. Got to use my mad Arabic bargaining skills to talk the sell down 10D. These skills have not been used since the days of Egypt and crazy taxi drivers.
While walking home, I picked up two new boyfriends in the form of a 10- and 12-year-old boys. Sorry G, your affections cannot compare to these two new love interests. They tagged after me for a couple of blocks, calling to me in Arabic and French. Peace Corps warned us of the harassment we’d be facing, but I don’t think they meant these kids.
(14/10/08) Explaination
Part of Peace Corps training is living with a host family and actually applying what we’ve been taught on a trial basis; thus, we’re shipped off in groups of six with a language and culture teacher to work in some town with a local association for a five-week period. This is all to prepare us for living in a Moroccan town and working on our own with our Moroccan counterparts and associations.
The town five others and I are training in is a really small village close to Azrou. It’s a cute little village in a small valley surrounded by fields, some cypress trees, and low mountains. There are about 1200 people living here, no green grocers, and three hanuts (small dry-foods shops). Veggies and fruits are bought in Azrou or in the Tuesday souk held near Azrou. Depending on where you live, in most places running water only works at certain times during the day. The main livelihoods come from farming cereals and herding sheep and some cows. There’s a primary and middle school, but older kids, if they continue their education, must either live in a dorm in Azrou or trek to the town every day to attend the high school. We’re supposed to be working here with a local weavers’ association (4 women), but our group has had problems trying to meet with them and get thing done.
My host family consists of the mother (26), father, his mother (70), and the two little girls (5 and 10). My grandmother is a hilarious old Berber woman who says anything she can since she’s old and can get away with it. The girls are cute and half the time I have to beat them off with a stick to get anything done. The oldest tries teaching me darija. My host father often sits down with me and teaches me the language or else comes up with some game that involves learning new words. My mother is the best one out of my training group (I’m convinced and so are some of the other trainees). She’s an amazing cook, insists that I come home for lunch if she knows that we won’t have a cook that day, insists on feeding me breakfast everyday even though that is not part of my living arrangement, grabs my laundry and does it while I’m at school, plans all these cultural outings and experience for me (henna, dancing, and a new outfit for the end of Ramadan), and is the actual incarnate of Christ himself. They’s good people.
The house I now live in is a good-sized place for this town’s standards: I have my own room, which was the master bedroom, there’s indoor plumbing (i.e. a working Turkish toilet and running sinks), a large living room, a kitchen, an upstairs, and a storage room. We have running water all day. My family owns the teliboutique/chicken butchers next door, some chickens, and two cows that I know of. They may have more livestock, but I haven’t seen it.
The typical day here is get up around 7:45, eat breakfast with the mother and 2 girls, get to my teacher’s house and study or shoot the breeze until class starts at 8:30, learn language until 12:30, and eat an amazing meal prepared by our talented cook. During our first stay here, we’d continue language after lunch until 5 unless we had a meeting with our weavers; nowadays, we are on our own after lunch to study the language or prepare the technical aspect of our project for the weavers until 6. When 6 rolls around, it’s Kaskrut (tea time) and I go home and eat bread, olives, zmeta (a delicious ground-up nut mixture), and drink tea. The evenings are either spent with the family or in my room studying. Dinner is a late affair and we usually eat at 9:45 to 10ish. I usually retire after dinner and either read myself o sleep or listen to my ipod.
12/10/08
Currently I am hiding out in my room for some ‘me time’. My host mother is at the hamam, so I’m here with only the grandmother and the father, neither of whom I feel like talking to right now because I am so bushed and my mental translator is currently in the ‘off’ position.
Moroccan mint tea is famous the world round and synonymous with Moroccan hospitality. If you’ve never had true Moroccan tea, allow me to describe it: one trainee said that it was like drinking liquefied Wriggley’s Spearmint gum. It is very very sweet and very very miny. Most volunteers ask for a pot without sugar and the Moroccans always as, “Are you diabetic?” Tea without a lot of sugar is no tea at all to them.
Today, I went hiking with hiking guy (a trainee), another trainee, and our cultural facilitator, …I want to say bad idea, but I survived and had fun, so maybe not-so-good idea is a better label. We hiked up one of the mountains here, which was great and I got to see my entire small village from above, but the guys wanted to go down a different way than the way we’d come up. It was a steep descent in some places, and it turns out I have a major fear of falling (yet I’m not scared of heights, go figure), and steep descents scare me.
But I survived.
I got one hell of a workout, and I gained a lot of confidence when it comes to hiking. I’m not going to take on K2 anytime soon, but I’ll feel better descending a steep mountainside from now on. Or I could just take a donkey next time.
If there is a hill here, there is a donkey on it.
13/10/08
Our group had an interesting discussion today on what is appropriate and inappropriate. One trainee brought up the fact that she did not appreciate some of the language and coarseness she was hearing in the classroom. It was definitely a fascinating conversation since what she and another trainee described as inappropriate was what we of the younger generation don’t even bat an eye at. We are a foul-mouthed bunch….
Other than that, I got hold of a Nintendo and Super Nintendo emulator with all the games made for both of them. I will try to limit my playtime so that I can maybe get some work done.
Maybe.
14/10/08
We journeyed to the big souk today in order to purchase much-needed veggies. The souk is always an adventure: hundreds of people show up with all their sheep, cows, goats, donkeys, fruit, veggies, spices, appliances, clothing, house wares, etc. and go into a buying/selling frenzy. There’s garbage, animal shit, food, and people everywhere you step. It’s quite fun.
Afterwards, when we managed to get home, us women went to the hamam (public bath), soaked in the hot room (getting rid of the souk dust), and came back to a delicious tajine of chicken, caramelized onions, and Moroccan raisins prepared by our lovely cook. Life can be so hard sometimes.
The only problem we’re facing is difficulties within the group dynamic. The generation gap is really hindering us right now, as is the underlying resentment some harbor at being called crude and inappropriate. Also, we’re such a diverse group in terms of personalities. Some are take charge, get it done types, while others are laid back let’s drink some tea and talk for a bit types. I’m the latter and the former types are rubbing my nerves raw. I’m sure the feeling is mutual though. I feel jibbed sometimes since other Peace Corps training sites seem to have teams that get along so well and have so much fun.
Only three weeks to go until I find out my final site.
19/10/08
It does not feel like five days since I last typed up an entry; you lose track of time really fast when your days are so scheduled from sunup to sunset. G was a little bit upset that I’d forgotten to call or even text him on the 17th. I do feel bad about that, but I really have forgotten the time.
Time runs differently in Morocco. It’s always, “Inshallah, it’ll happen when god wills it.” Once I get out of the structure regiment of class everyday, I’ll have to keep myself from falling into this mindset and be strict about getting things done. I tend to fall into laziness if I don’t have a set schedule, and it’ll be interesting to come up with my own and try to stick to it. The current PC volunteer who’s been working here says that a good day is when she can get one work-related thing (usually a meeting) done; an amazing day is when she can get two things done.
Once again, the group dynamics are in the toilet. One of the older trainees is having a difficult time learning the language and is very frustrated with her family and the group. Some days she’s all right, but most others she’s been really upset and had to pull our LCF (language & culture facilitator, our teacher) aside and try to talk to him about her problems and how he can help her with learning the language. They’ve both ended up upset by these talks, to the point where the LCF has left the room to cool off a bit because of some sort of cultural misunderstanding. Apologies were said all around, and now both parties seem a bit happier. However, other little things and remarks have reared their heads. One trainee thought up an idea and another one wanted to take the idea and run with it. This upset the first trainee and the poor LCF had to hear all about this problem from both sides. A different trainee did not want to do a certain homework assignment for fear of upsetting her host family and the LCF had to hear about that as well. Then there’s all the bickering and apathy that happens when we try to work as a group.
After all of these small squabbles and problems, the LCF breaks down and says to us that he has never worked with a group that had so many problems before. Mind you, he’s been doing this job for more than a few years. You know it has to be bad when an indirect Moroccan raised in a society where saving face is of utmost importance decides to actually speak up and say something to the group.
11 days until I find out my final site.
I’ve learned a new term: Moroccan Tupperware. When you go to any event where food is served most of the women pull out plastic bags and take some of the food home for their families or for whoever couldn’t make it. There’s never any leftovers for everyone takes stuff home. This is a really funny when you provide lots of cookies at a gathering, given that no matter how often you restock the cookie tray it always comes back empty. PC volunteers have seen women upend whole trays and dump them into their plastic bags. When my group went with tea and cookies to the weavers’ association the other day, we experienced the phenomenon of Moroccan Tupperware. Nothing goes to waste here.
This coming Wednesday, I’m scheduled to go and meet with the weavers we’re working with and have them answer a questionnaire I’ve developed about their yarn and it’s quality. They work with a crap quality yarn and are having problems producing and selling carpets because of it. If I had a year or more to work with them I could probably help this association, but this is only training and we’re not expected to accomplish much of anything. It feels like we go in, take up their time with questions, give them hope that we can help them, and leave. It sucks.
Peace Corps has allotted our group a budget of 1000 Ds to use on our projects. The other trainees have figured on leaving the weavers with a scrapbook of pictures or a brochure outlining possibilities of what they could do, but so far, I’ve come up with nothing to leave them in so short a time. I might just throw my share of the 1000 Ds in with one of the people who have an idea and need it. I need to think this one over some more.
The bathroom in my house has a light switch that is too high for the littlest girl to reach. The other night she comes running into the salon holding her crotch and doing the international “I need to pee” dance. Rather than saying I need to potty or another childish equivalent, she dances around the salon desperately crying, “Bgit lbula! Bgit lbula! (I need the light, I need the light!)”
20/10/08
This evening’s Kaskrut was fried bread and honey…and delicious! My teeth are going to rot and fall out with all of the sugary things I’ve been consuming lately, and I’m surprised more pimples haven’t popped up.
Nothing much has been happening lately; life has settled back into the normal routine.
21/10/08
This evening’s Kaskrut consisted of the usual: bread, butter, tea, zmeta, and one interesting addition: boiled sheep head. I tried to eat some, but I just couldn’t do it. It was too greasy and I couldn’t get over the texture. It was squishy and fatty.
Like jello.
During my first home stay, they fed me spitted sheep eyes. It’s not as gross as it sounds because they’d been grilled to the point you couldn’t really tell what they were and they weren’t oozy at all. They tasted like a really well aged rib eye and had the texture of a chewy beef tendon. I highly recommend them not only for taste, but also just to say that you’ve eaten sheep eyeballs.
Maybe they’ll feed me sheep testicles next. I can only hope.
The group is still in… basically a perpetual state of ruin. There were almost fisticuffs when the schedule we’d set up for interviewing the weavers fell though. We were supposed to break up and go in small groups to interview them starting this Monday and ending this Wednesday. The group that was scheduled for Tuesday had to fight with my group, interviewing Wednesday, when they found out that the weavers would be at the souk in Azrou on Tuesday rather than in the town. So now both groups have to go on Wednesday. Oh the drama.
9 days until my final site.
We’ve been together too long. I feel bad for our LCF.
22/10/08
Eight days until I find out my final site. It’s almost like Christmas.
Last night a few of us went up to the current PC volunteer’s house and ate popcorn, baked cookies, and watched The Office. Good times had by all I think.
Currently it is colder than crap outside so I am sitting my happy butt right next to the small wood-burning stove in the kitchen watching my host grandma weave a massive carpet on her rickety handmade loom. She’s humming Berber songs to herself as the rain’s falling on a plastic tarp on the roof. It’s all rather calm and peaceful right now. I should bed down in here and just go to sleep.
Today one volunteer and I had to interview the weavers and ask them questions concerning our project. Since there is only one language translator for the two of us, while the other volunteer used him to translate, I went over to the weavers on the loom and just started asking them the questions I had already written out. They were fairly easy questions with really easy answers, i.e. who buys your yarn, where do they buy it from, etc, so the whole process was rather simple. They understood most of what I asked and I understood most of what they answered. I’m proud of myself.
Afterwards, they invited us to stay for tea and snacks. In Morocco, there’s this bread they served that taste just like our cornbread back in the states, so I was excited to see that with the tea. Almost right after we left, we trekked over to our cook’s house, for she’d invited us for Kaskrut. Tea again, cornbread, milawi (a fried bread), and fat bread, a bread stuffed with spices and a bit of fat of some kind. It taste like a really good pizza minus the cheese.
My host mother is currently cooking couscous as I sit here. Kaskrut was an hour ago, and dinner will be in 30 minutes. I don’t think that I can do it. Too much food.
It sucks, the last time I had couscous I got sick the next morning (not from the couscous); however, every time I have it now reminds me of getting sick and I can’t eat much of it. This is a major problem since couscous is served at least once a week and is the national dish of Morocco.
My mother’ll insist I eat dinner and I CAN’T DO IT!!!!
23/10/08
7 days until I find out my site.
Today one of the head honchos showed up to ask us a few questions about where we would like to be placed. For my final site I’ve requested a town like this one, relatively small in population but close enough to a bigger city so that I can have Internet access once or twice a week and shopping nearby. I prefer cold over hot and really don’t care what kind of artisans I’ll work with, but I’d favor working with women over men. I also said I’d like a site where a PC volunteer has already lived.
Last night, my grandmother taught me how to weave on her loom. Well, she taught me one way of weaving. While we were behind the loom, the two girls were having “school,” basically the oldest tormenting the smallest. The oldest would ask the youngest to write out a word then she’d yell at her about her horrible handwriting. There’s a lot of ruler smacking, screaming, and gesticulating from the oldest that accompany every word written. The littlest girl was sitting there absolutely frustrated and helpless. It was really funny.
It’s gotten cold and has been pouring randomly for the past few days. After a long drought Morocco is now suffering from massive floods in some parts of the country. Today we watched it hail marble sized chunks for about 15 minutes and the electricity has gone out and come back on sporadically these last two days. The word for ‘winter’ and for ‘rain’ is the same in Darija.
This afternoon was rather cozy in the LCF’s house. Usually his house is a cold cement cave that never sees sunlight but today with all of the bad weather, electricity out, and candles lit, it was nice, especially when our LCF whipped out his lute and taught us a song. We all clapped along and learned an old Moroccan love song in the candlelight.
25/10/08
The power has been cutting in and out randomly for the last two or more days. We’ve been without power most of the day today and all of the day yesterday in the LCF’s house. That would mean it’s been freezing cold because we didn’t have power to run the electric heater, but the heater is a piece of crap that doesn’t heat even with power, so it’s been cold as heck with or without the electricity. This morning I basked in what little sun there was before it got overcast and started to shower again.
Last night, some of us visited the current PC volunteer’s favorite family and they cooked her favorite dish for us. I wasn’t particularly fond of the dish. Its main ingredient was some sort of really smelly, bitter seed that makes your pee stink worse than asparagus and that you stink like for days after eating it. Despite the meal I love the family. They’re energetic and really fun to be around. The mother made us all learn how to make milawi (a thin, fried bread), the tiny father threatened to take on our 250 lbs trainee, and the girls love to sing and dance.
Right now I’m snuggled up to the ferno (the small wood-burning stove) and trying to get this typed up despite the many interruptions by small children who want to type on the computer. God kids can still annoy the crap outta me.
26/10/08
Today’s been really fun. I was supposed to go to another Peace Corps training site to attend a wool-dying demonstration, but it was raining hard this morning and cold, so I never dragged my butt out of bed. Instead, I slept in until about 10, got up, was fed milawi and honey (food of the GODS) and managed to get most of my Peace Corps report done. Later, we visited the house of my host grandmother’s very sick brother and ate lunch there.
This man has been on and off of his deathbed for the past few weeks. Two nights ago the entire family gathered at his house convinced that that was his final night. When I visited him today, he was sitting up, talking and eating. Turns out that the family had been using a doctor in Azrou until yesterday, when they found an American doctor in a larger city. He came in and took the sick man off of all of the meds the other doctor had prescribed and viola! He’s cured.
On another note, the first word of Tamazight (a Berber dialect) that anyone will ever learn here is “ICH!!! ICH!!!!” which means “ Keep eating! Keep eating!” Moroccan custom dictates that in order to be a good host, you must stuff your guest until their stomach bursts. When my grandmother first told me to ICH! I looked at her jokingly and started scratching my arm saying “Itchy, itchy!” Turns out that English itchy also means itchy in Tamazight. Strange that two totally different languages share the same random work.
The itchy/ichy joke expanded further when I found out that the Darija word for corner (qunt) sounds very much like ‘cunt’ in English. I told my grandmother that cunt is a naughty word in English, so she automatically combined ‘ichy’ ‘qunt’ and started miming scratching at her crotch yelling “ichy qunt!”
Then my host mother had to know what a man’s penis was called in English. I told her dick, which set off another round of vulgarities. Dik, in darija, means rooster, so they combined corner and rooster to say:
Dik f lqunt. (A rooster is in the corner)
which sounds really close in English to “dick in cunt.” All night all of the women and little girls ran around saying, “Dik f lqunt! Dik f lqunt!” until the father got home. Then, when the youngest accidentally said it in front of him and started giggling, she got shushed up really quick.
Now everything is located, for my benefit, in the qunt. If I ask where something is inadvertently the answer will be: it’s in the qunt.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
SOUP!
I am in hog heaven. Someone asked me once if I’d rather have ice cream or soup for life; I answered soup.
And I have found my people.
Soup and stew are what they eat here with every meal after breakfast. Lentil soup, bean stew, chicken broth soup, cilantro, cayenne, onions piled in, thick and rich, soak up the last of it with the homemade bread. And the fruits and veggies are all locally grown and bought fresh daily in the local souk (market). And they gorge on cassava melon for dessert, which is sweeter than any melon I’ve ever had store-bought in the states.
I’m going to gain 100 lbs at least. But Lynn pointed out that all we ladies had to do was wear a jallaba and it’ll hide all of the weight.
One volunteer during lunch was too full to finish off what was on her plate. Another jokingly said, “You better clean your plate. You know there are starving children in Afri...” awkward pause when he realizes where we are sitting, “…here!” So much for mother’s reliable idiom.
And I have found my people.
Soup and stew are what they eat here with every meal after breakfast. Lentil soup, bean stew, chicken broth soup, cilantro, cayenne, onions piled in, thick and rich, soak up the last of it with the homemade bread. And the fruits and veggies are all locally grown and bought fresh daily in the local souk (market). And they gorge on cassava melon for dessert, which is sweeter than any melon I’ve ever had store-bought in the states.
I’m going to gain 100 lbs at least. But Lynn pointed out that all we ladies had to do was wear a jallaba and it’ll hide all of the weight.
One volunteer during lunch was too full to finish off what was on her plate. Another jokingly said, “You better clean your plate. You know there are starving children in Afri...” awkward pause when he realizes where we are sitting, “…here!” So much for mother’s reliable idiom.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Shots
The call to pray which ends the fast at the end of the day starts with a giant explosion. Literally, some one lights a huge firecracker and boom! fast’s over. I hate to admit it but almost every time, some of us Peace Corps kids out on the terrace hunch down a bit and look around in terror. It does sound like a bomb going off if you’re not expecting it.
Found out or schedules for the rest of training though I don’t have it with me so this will be a gestimation:
Tomorrow, we leave for our main training site, Azrou, and live there in hotels for about a week. Then, we break up into groups of about 6 people and go to community based training and live with a host family for 2 weeks. Then back to Azrou for debriefing for 5 days (I also find out my final site location at this time) then back to the host family for another week. Back to Azrou, debriefing, then going to my actual final site to introduce myself and meet my new host family, back to Azrou to be sworn in as an official Peace Corps volunteer. After this, I’m off to my final site and my new host family for good. All during this training process, we’ll have a language and cultural facilitator who’ll come with us, teaching us the entire time. At times, I’ll be doing at least 4 ours of intense language training a day, not to mention all the hands on technical training. I’m looking forward to all of it, but a little bit daunted by the days ahead.
So, if you don’t hear from me that often, don’t be surprised.
Found out or schedules for the rest of training though I don’t have it with me so this will be a gestimation:
Tomorrow, we leave for our main training site, Azrou, and live there in hotels for about a week. Then, we break up into groups of about 6 people and go to community based training and live with a host family for 2 weeks. Then back to Azrou for debriefing for 5 days (I also find out my final site location at this time) then back to the host family for another week. Back to Azrou, debriefing, then going to my actual final site to introduce myself and meet my new host family, back to Azrou to be sworn in as an official Peace Corps volunteer. After this, I’m off to my final site and my new host family for good. All during this training process, we’ll have a language and cultural facilitator who’ll come with us, teaching us the entire time. At times, I’ll be doing at least 4 ours of intense language training a day, not to mention all the hands on technical training. I’m looking forward to all of it, but a little bit daunted by the days ahead.
So, if you don’t hear from me that often, don’t be surprised.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
I’m sitting on the terrace of the hotel in the middle of Rabat listening to the call to prayer, waiting for the sun to set in order to eat. The weather’s a perfect 75ish and there’s a slight breeze on which I catch the scent of food cooking in the downstairs kitchen. If I crane my neck a bit, I can catch the tiniest bit of view of the ocean butting up to the city. Life’s so hard sometimes.
The trip to the airport yesterday was rather hectic. Getting 58 people onto a bus with each carrying about 4 pieces of luggage, then offloading all of that into the airport was quite a task. The flight was fine, slept some, and so was the bus ride from Casablanca to Rabat.
Morocco, or rather, what I’ve seen of it between here and Casablanca, is brown. The land, the sheep, the dogs, the cows are all the same shade of the earth, with splashes of color popping up in the form of houses (usually white) and litter (mostly plastic of some sort).
We were welcomed at the Peace Corps main office in Rabat and driven to the hotel and fed. I don’t remember much else since I was dead tired.
Today consisted of shots (hep A and rabies), safety and health advice (concentration: diarrhea), and a visit from the US ambassador to Morocco. John Wayne tried to get the hotel staff to join him in a round of ‘if you’re happy and you know it’ but failed miserably without Arabic.
Looks like it’ll rain soon, so I’d best be moeysin’ in right about now.
Oh, note on the cold weather: some of the trainees are on the terrace with me. I’m in a t-shirt and jeans and doing fine, but most of the others find it too cold and are wearing jackets. I hope this bodes well for my bodily being when it does start to really cool off.
The trip to the airport yesterday was rather hectic. Getting 58 people onto a bus with each carrying about 4 pieces of luggage, then offloading all of that into the airport was quite a task. The flight was fine, slept some, and so was the bus ride from Casablanca to Rabat.
Morocco, or rather, what I’ve seen of it between here and Casablanca, is brown. The land, the sheep, the dogs, the cows are all the same shade of the earth, with splashes of color popping up in the form of houses (usually white) and litter (mostly plastic of some sort).
We were welcomed at the Peace Corps main office in Rabat and driven to the hotel and fed. I don’t remember much else since I was dead tired.
Today consisted of shots (hep A and rabies), safety and health advice (concentration: diarrhea), and a visit from the US ambassador to Morocco. John Wayne tried to get the hotel staff to join him in a round of ‘if you’re happy and you know it’ but failed miserably without Arabic.
Looks like it’ll rain soon, so I’d best be moeysin’ in right about now.
Oh, note on the cold weather: some of the trainees are on the terrace with me. I’m in a t-shirt and jeans and doing fine, but most of the others find it too cold and are wearing jackets. I hope this bodes well for my bodily being when it does start to really cool off.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
End of an Era
I officially leave the US tomorrow.
Today ran pretty much the same as yesterday, only longer and without a plane ride. Orientation in the morning, lunch break with a group of Peace Corps-ees at an organic restaurant called The White Dog, more orientation and logistics for tomorrow’s departure, and dinner near Independence Hall with two of my favorite Corps-ees.
Many of the others are going out on the town tonight for one last American style hootenanny, but I’m currently enjoying the peace and solitude of the hotel suite. I figure this is probably the last time in a loooong time that I’m actually going to be alone. Collectivist culture may be the death of me yet.
Tomorrow at this time I’ll be in Morocco! We fly into Casablanca, bus to Rabat and chill in a hotel there for a few days before moving on to our training site in Azrou, where I’ll be placed with a host family for the duration of my pre-service training (11 weeks). After that, I’ll be sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer and sent to my permanent site, where I’ll live with another host family for 2 months and start working in that community. The long time spent with the two host families is supposed to help integrate me into my town and is also a basic crash course in Moroccan language and culture (none of the host families speak English). This is the aspect of Peace Corps that I’m the most excited about.
That's all for now. I hope Lyndsay has gotten her Peace Corps situation worked out, and my boyfriend is the most amazing man in the universe (I’m under contractual obligation to post that).
Oh yeah, post your address in the comments box or email it to me and I'll send you stuff when I have the time. I'll sen out my address when I get one.
Today ran pretty much the same as yesterday, only longer and without a plane ride. Orientation in the morning, lunch break with a group of Peace Corps-ees at an organic restaurant called The White Dog, more orientation and logistics for tomorrow’s departure, and dinner near Independence Hall with two of my favorite Corps-ees.
Many of the others are going out on the town tonight for one last American style hootenanny, but I’m currently enjoying the peace and solitude of the hotel suite. I figure this is probably the last time in a loooong time that I’m actually going to be alone. Collectivist culture may be the death of me yet.
Tomorrow at this time I’ll be in Morocco! We fly into Casablanca, bus to Rabat and chill in a hotel there for a few days before moving on to our training site in Azrou, where I’ll be placed with a host family for the duration of my pre-service training (11 weeks). After that, I’ll be sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer and sent to my permanent site, where I’ll live with another host family for 2 months and start working in that community. The long time spent with the two host families is supposed to help integrate me into my town and is also a basic crash course in Moroccan language and culture (none of the host families speak English). This is the aspect of Peace Corps that I’m the most excited about.
That's all for now. I hope Lyndsay has gotten her Peace Corps situation worked out, and my boyfriend is the most amazing man in the universe (I’m under contractual obligation to post that).
Oh yeah, post your address in the comments box or email it to me and I'll send you stuff when I have the time. I'll sen out my address when I get one.
Initial Impressions
(9/6/08) Everyone kept joking that today was a bit like freshman orientation, but I can honestly say that I have never been more comfortable in a complete group of strangers.
Saying goodbye to the parents and the boyfriend was unbelievably difficult this morning, so much so that I ended up hiding in the bathroom for a few minutes before making it to my plane. On past travel abroad adventures, I knew that I’d be coming home in a few months so the separation never hit me as hard as it had today. I was okay after take off and ready to get to Philly and meet everyone.
Turns out there are 58 trainees divided between business and youth development. Today consisted mostly of paperwork and general orientation (what are the goals of peace corps, why it was founded, what are your fears and expectations, etc) with tomorrow continuing on in the same vein, only more country-specific. Everyone seems of a similar mindset: kind of excited yet apprehensive about what we will be doing, even though no one really knows what their assignment will be in morocco until we pass through training. And no one seems to mind just playing everything by ear. They are just as anxious about the same stuff tat I am, which is rather comforting.
Post-orientation, about 10 of us ended up at an Irish pub for dinner and we finished the evening by toasting a painting of JFK above the bar with shots of captain (he began peace corps in 1961…jfk, not captain morgan). Some of the guys stayed to make up for the lack of liquor to be had in morocco, but I’m so bushed they’d have to carry me out after another shot. Glad I don’t have to wake up at 4 am tomorrow. Some of the guys may not make it into bed until then…
Saying goodbye to the parents and the boyfriend was unbelievably difficult this morning, so much so that I ended up hiding in the bathroom for a few minutes before making it to my plane. On past travel abroad adventures, I knew that I’d be coming home in a few months so the separation never hit me as hard as it had today. I was okay after take off and ready to get to Philly and meet everyone.
Turns out there are 58 trainees divided between business and youth development. Today consisted mostly of paperwork and general orientation (what are the goals of peace corps, why it was founded, what are your fears and expectations, etc) with tomorrow continuing on in the same vein, only more country-specific. Everyone seems of a similar mindset: kind of excited yet apprehensive about what we will be doing, even though no one really knows what their assignment will be in morocco until we pass through training. And no one seems to mind just playing everything by ear. They are just as anxious about the same stuff tat I am, which is rather comforting.
Post-orientation, about 10 of us ended up at an Irish pub for dinner and we finished the evening by toasting a painting of JFK above the bar with shots of captain (he began peace corps in 1961…jfk, not captain morgan). Some of the guys stayed to make up for the lack of liquor to be had in morocco, but I’m so bushed they’d have to carry me out after another shot. Glad I don’t have to wake up at 4 am tomorrow. Some of the guys may not make it into bed until then…
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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