Projects, projects...

Hi everyone,

Again, it’s been a while! If you’ve been reading, you know by now that I don’t have regular internet access, but truthfully, that’s not the only reason I don’t update. I haven’t had the best work progress, projects have fallen apart, and I’ve been discouraged – those are aspects of life here that I prefer not to share with people back home. That said, I’ll try to give an update on what’s been happening here since I last wrote.

The biggest project I’d been working on since last year was a home latrine construction. I had put together an ad hoc group of families in the village without any home latrine, since there are no active associations here to partner with. There were a lot of headaches getting people to cooperate, though. First –someone from the community should have been assisting with every step – funding, grant writing, budgeting, etc. However, since none of the women are literate, I was doing this all myself. More importantly, there needs to be a 25% community contribution, and getting that was like pulling teeth. I suggested that they contribute the labor as a group, and help one another with the construction, which was met with a resounding, “each will work for his own house”. Which, ultimately, made the project un-fundable. In the end, I wrote the grant, assembled the group, and defined all the terms, and ordered them to help one another. I wasn’t thrilled about how it happened, but at least we’d get it done. Unfortunately, by the time we got all this worked out in February, it was too late to apply for a grant. I’d finish my service before the project was completed. We were refused funding.

The worst repercussion of that failure, though, was that now people from the community are blaming me for making promises and not following through. Even though 1) no one proposed the idea until November (and in fact told me in 2008 that it was unnecessary when I brought it up), and 2) argued and bickered for over a month about who had to do what, delaying signing of agreements. I had explained that it was late, and we might not be able to do it at that point, but I guess that message didn’t get across.

On a more positive note, my other project – the midwife training – is fully funded and scheduled to happen two weeks from now. THANK YOU to everyone who donated online to make this possible! For this project, my counterpart (the nurse) was involved from day one. I’m working with another volunteer in the region, so the entire burden of planning is not entirely on my shoulders. And more importantly, it was designed NOT just to bring outside materials or funding into the community, but to develop local resources for the future.

Here’s a rundown. The infant and maternal mortality rate in my village is very high. There are a lot of factors at work here, from nutrition to unsanitary birthing conditions. Most of these could be remedied by good health advice for pregnant women, checkups at the local free clinic, and birthing in hospitals, which is now also free. Women, however, trust tradition – the midwives and home birthing. So it seems that modern and traditional medicines are at odds. With our project, we train midwives on how to advise traditional midwives on checkups, nutrition, clinic birthing, family planning, and STDs. We try to expand their roles from merely being present at a birth, to being a local health resource and a liaison between the community and the clinic. The clinic nurse is not a local – he or she may speak a different dialect and be from another part of the country. Usually, he or she will stay only 2 years then transfer to a better location in a city. So it is crucial to have a group of women with a vested interest in women’s health who are a permanent part of the community.

Reflecting on these failures and successes with my projects has taught me a few things. First and foremost, partnerships with capable and influential community members are the key. Not only should sustainable development happen in cooperation with a community partner, but that partner needs to actually be ABLE to fill that role. I made the mistake of choosing to work with a brand new women’s association. I thought this was a good idea to help them build confidence and learn how to conduct projects. However, I overestimated their abilities. They need more basic training before they can attempt projects, even with help. They need literacy and leadership skills. The people I chose to work with weren’t able to do what I needed them to do; I chose them out of idealism, not capability.

The other important thing I’ve learned is that capacity building projects are far better than infrastructure building projects in terms of development. The latter is definitely more gratifying – to be able to see the fruit of your labor in a physical structure has to feel great, whereas teaching people to teach others is abstract and immeasurable. But there are a host of problems with infrastructure, too. For one, corruption. Once money is involved in a poor town, everyone is trying to get their slice of the pie. For another, it increases dependence on outside sources. It undermines local groups who should be putting resources back into the community. Worse, there seems to be a mentality of “we are poor, therefore we deserve your help”. It actually discourages people from trying to do community development themselves.

So, with those lessons learned and only a few months to go, I’m redirecting all my energy away from projects and am going to focus entirely on teaching. I don’t have a forum to do this in my village – I am still awaiting approval from the Ministry to work in the schools (from last YEAR), and when I’ve tried to do lessons in my home, no one comes. So, I’m moving into a nearby town to hopefully teach women’s exercise classes and tooth brushing to kids at community centers. I’ll also be participating in a week-long English camp at the end of this month, and helping organize a regional health bike for April. Then in May – I’m done!

Enough about work! Most of you probably don’t know, but Morocco has had some terrible weather lately. The winds were so bad one night that a volunteer friend of mine had his windows of his house blown out! Down here in the south, there is still flooding. Bridges connecting isolated communities to the main road have been washed out or are still under water. Fortunately, our bridge is still in tact, but I have no idea how people from those other villages have been getting food or supplies for the last two weeks.

That’s the main news from here – I’ll try to update again later to let you know how the midwife training, classes, bike trek and camp all turn out! Thanks to everyone for your support – with letters, phone calls, words of encouragement, donations to my project, or just caring enough to read this whole long post – love to you all.

Peace
Mel

In Loving Memory

On November 16th the world lost a Peace Corps Volunteer and a wonderful person. So-Youn Kim left us unexpectedly. I'm never very good with words when it comes to these things, but I felt I owe it to her to let the world know how special she was. She was beautiful, articulate and opinionated, so it seems only right to leave you with some words of hers about the experiences we've shared here.

“I believe in the power of the day to day, the simple yet otherwise impossible conversations, the truths that I speak and live that affect the people around me as I learn from the truths around me in turn.”

Rest in peace, friend. You are loved and missed dearly.

Ramadan and Projects

It's Ramadan in the Muslim world, and this has two upshots for me and my work: 1) we are fasting, meaning no water or food from sunrise to sunset, and 2) I have absolutely nothing to do! It recently cooled off a bit, but until last week it was over 110 degrees throughout the day, so it was too dangerous to walk around outside without water. Also, my counterpart, the nurse, left town to be with her family for the holiday - and closed the clinic for the entire month. This leaves me at home with my host family. I've been breaking fast with them every night and spending time with my friend Khadija doing little crafts and baking.

The fast-breaking meal, "lfthur", happens right after sunset, following the call to prayer. In wealthier households, this involves a delicious spread of all kinds of goodies - harira (a moroccan vegetable soup), boiled eggs, shebekia (a sweet pastry), cookies, cake, coffee, juice, etc. My family is considerably poorer, so it's a much simpler affair: a few fresh dates each, a small glass of sweet, milky coffee, a bowl of askeef (a simple flour-based soup), and whole wheat flatbread cooked over a fire. I absolutely love it.

I realized recently that I really do consider my host family to be my family. We walk into each others' houses without knocking. When I eat with them, they expect me to help with the food preparation and cleaning up. We share food we prepare. Sometimes, they drive me absolutely insane, and sometimes, I think I couldn't live without them. I call them "auntie", "sister", "mama". There is a upside and downside to my relationship with them. On the one hand, it has held me back from meeting other people in town. On the other hand, I have a place and people that I call home, and it is what has kept me here with things got difficult.

Work progress, as I mentioned, has halted for the time being, but I have some projects in the works for after Ramadan. These are:
- a health class for women. I've chosen 9 women to attend weekly classes on basic hygiene and first aid, and at the end of the course I'll give certificates and encourage the women to use their knowledge to educate their communities.
- lessons at the school with a local teacher. I'm going to sing songs and do demonstrations with the little ones!
- Traditional Midwife training. 12 local traditional midwives will attend a training session by nurses on safe birthing practices, family planning, AIDS, warning signs during pregnancy and nutrition.
- Community garden. I'm talking to the women's association about planting medicinal herbs. Currently, the remedies used for skin problems and common colds do far more harm than good. I'm hoping to plant aloe vera and chamomile, and whatever else will grow in our desert that has medicinal applications.

If you've been following my posts since early this year, you'll know that my women's association has been in the works for almost 9 months now - and we are FINALLY a legal entity! Honestly, there were times along the way I was sure it was never going to happen. The women have no organizational experience, no one is literate, and none of them have ever seen a functioning association. Not to mention, this is NOT my area of expertise and my health training covered nothing of the sort, so I was just as lost! But after 9 months of long meetings, trial and error, and perseverence - the Women's Association for Hope and Development is a reality. I am so proud of them!

2nd Year...

The latest news is that I am now officially a second year volunteer. My one-month mark just passed and was duly celebrated with mid-service medical exams, where I discovered I've been carrying around an amoebic parasite. It's some form of dysentary, so I've named him Larry. Fortunately it's been asymptomatic so I've felt perfectly fine.

Being a second-year also means that the new group of volunteers has arrived. It's been interesting to meet them, largely because it's so evident how far we've come in a year. Not just in terms of being physically adjusted and having acquired more language, but having a realistic perspective on what it means to be a PCV. Let me expand on that one. Peace Corps Training does NOT prepare you for what you are about to do. You get a little language and cultural training, some ideas of where to start, but largely, you figure this out on your own. You never really know what you're getting yourself into until you're there. That also means you don't know how you will react to challenges. It can be a little frustrating to talk to brand new kids who are so naively confident in what they will be able to accomplish in a year. You don't want to dampen their enthusiasm and confidence, which can go a long way here, but at the same time, you don't want to feed it, knowing they'll only be disappointed.

I have now been here for a year, and in a physical sense, I have nothing at all to show for it. No projects, classes, or physical structures. And I'm not alone in this. Some people get disillusioned with it, or just plain bored, and go home. We all have these ideas when we begin that we will have busy and fulfilling lives, and sometimes, that isn't the case. You spend an entire year trying to get a meeting with the right public official who won't take you seriously because your French is less than perfect. You spend 6 months trying to hire a tutor and then he comes to your lessons high with a prostitute, and then makes a pass at you. You try to meet with every local official you can, and without a translator and with minimal language training, communicate your purpose, and then end up being rejected. You find a potential project and a potential work partner, and they offend the wrong person and it blows up in your face. And then you just keep trying. You end up spending long days alone in your house when you just can't deal with hearing "You don't speak Tashelheet! You don't know anything!" one more time. And yet, you keep trying.

This is why I can't lay any blame on those who have gone home. It's frustrating to feel so useless, to have nothing positive to contribute on a daily basis, when you've sacrificed two years of your life, your money, your comfort, your family and friends in return for something that you think will be richly rewarding but turns out to be trying in every way. This is also why a part of me wants to punch in the face any new volunteer I meet who asks me "what projects have you done so far?" and I have to respond none, I'm still trying to find something. Then they give one another smug looks as if to say "that will never be ME." They'll learn soon enough, I suppose.

Before you start thinking that I'm jaded from being here, let me say that I'm really not. If I was, I'd have thrown in the towel already. In spite of my last year here, I still have hope that I'll be able to find someone to work with and get something done. I've made a few new contacts and had a few good meetings that hopefully will lead to a school health club in my village in the coming school year, a formalized women's association with plans to sell handicraft, and maternal health classes. If I have learned anything though, it's not to count my chickens before they hatch, so I'm going to keep pushing on those and if they don't work, I'll keep looking for something else. Thanks again for all the continuing support from everyone back home... I'll keep you all updated!

A Day in the Life

Whoa - two in one day! Jackpot! :-) I've been meaning to do a post like this for a while now, and since my friend Debra recently came to visit, I now have the necessary photos to show you what an average day in my life is like. These weren't actually all taken on the same day, but you get the idea...

I make breakfast in my small but awesome kitchen...

I go to the city (about two hours by taxi) to get groceries for the week...

I talk to my host aunt about our plans for the Women's Association...

I walk through the alleyways of the crumbling old medina to get to the clinic, school, or wherever else I might be going since women aren't permitted on the main road...

In the evening, I go outside and socialize with the women and play with little Fatima...

And then I unwind with my cat, Salvador.

The end!

Prostitutes... and Geography

Sorry about the delay again, friends. I've found I really only update when 1) Something interesting happens and I happen to be near internet in the next day or so before I forget about it, or 2) I get emails from family haranguing me for updates. Since the former doesn't happen frequently, STAY ON MY CASE!!

My story for the day is about a prostitute I met. In my experience, I've always like the prostitutes I've come across here. In this culture, moral and respectable women tend to be more subdued in public, passive, and subordinate to men - a position I often find frustrating. One "working woman", in a taxi with us, decided the driver was taking FAR too long for his cigarette break (he really was - it was almost midnight and he had stopped on the road for 30 minutes), and she leaned on the horn and refused to stop until he got his butt back in the driver's seat. I wanted to hug her. I can't imagine a conservative woman EVER doing something that bold.

The other woman I met was much closer to home. In the interest of protecting those involved, I will just say that she was entertaining a male acquaintance of mine in the city when I went to visit him for business reasons. It turns out she is from a village near mine, and helped me learn a few words in the local dialect. She was outgoing, confident, and kind of sassy. We exchanged polite invitations to one another's home for tea. (Normally, people say this as a gesture, but have no intention of actually travelling to another town for tea. I didn't, anyway.) Well, she did. While I was sick and confined to bed this past week, she came to my house. I was too ill to get up so I asked my family to let her know that I was in bed and couldn't meet her. The next day, the women of my house sat me down and explained to me as though I was a small child, "Malika, that woman is bad. You should not let her in your home. It is good you were sick, because she does very bad things." I asked for clarification, and after an awkward pause, they explained, "She speaks to many men in public."

I knew they were telling me in a delicate way that she was a prostitute. This was later verified privately - apparently one of my male neighbors "knows her", and she has a few illegitimate children. But the fact that she publicly spoke to men was supposed to be indicitive of all this. It made me very aware of how I personally interact with people. I get a little more leniency being foreign, but if I were to speak to men outside my family within my village, I would probably have the same reputation. I am now worried about the couple of times I have had single men stay over at my home. Mostly these were volunteers, and it was preceeded with long talks to my neighbors, landlord, and family about how in America, men and women interact differently, and it is not shameful, he is like my brother, etc. etc. But seeing their reaction to this woman, I do wonder.

The other thing I noticed is that they didn't draw a distinction between being a sex worker and being a "bad person". I offered a mild defense for the woman, trying to walk the line between being fair and honest and not damaging my reputation in the village. It's a line I walk every day. I said that I did not know her work, that it does not matter to me, and I like her because she was kind to me and helped me learn the language. My family's response was: "Well, it's okay, it's not your fault because you didn't know. But NEVER walk down a road with her alone because she will hurt you and steal your money." Prostitute, thug, thief, bad woman - it was all the same to them.

In hindsight, I AM glad I was so sick that day. I didn't have to publicly rebuke a woman whom I liked personally, and who is working the only way she is able, without education, to support her children. But I also didn't have to risk my reputation and my good standing with my neighbors. Honestly, I am not sure how I would have handled that if I hadn't been able to get out of it.

More importantly to me as a health worker, prostitution is the cause of the spread of STD's throughout Morocco. Because it is an industry that is kept in the dark, few efforts have been made to educate women about the importance of protection. A recent study showed that MOST prostitutes did not know the proper use of a condom. Another volunteer recounted a story in which her local doctor found that a woman had contracted an STD, and the doctor was not going to tell her because it would indicate that her husband had been unfaithful. It's an area where health education is really needed, but as you can see now, would be difficult for me to achieve while maintaining a good reputation to carry me through my other work.

On a complete side note, as I was sitting here typing this, a young woman approached me with an email address wanting to know if I spoke English. Her English was minimal and my Arabic is non-existent, so I never did figure out exactly what she wanted from me. Apparently she has an online boyfriend in Holland and wanted my English skills to write something (she said the words "marriage", "email", "chat", and "write" - your guess is as good as mine). As it turned out, she thought I KNEW this man. I was confused. I explained that I am not a tourist, I am not traveling with him, and I have never been to Holland. She said, "but you are American, and Holland is in America." Hmmmm. When I convinced her that Holland and America were different countries VERY VERY far apart, she got disappointed and left. This was a fairly well educated woman in her 20's - she had at least been through high school since she knew French, Arabic and a little English and had computer skills. Mind-blowing. I don't think geography is taught in schools here at all. Other interesting geographical information I have been told include: People in America speak French because it is next to France, Japan is also next to America and that is why they speak French too, America is in Europe, and Europe is in America. I'd love to do a geography education project with some local kids... if I can ever get the local school headmaster to give me the time of day. But that is another story, and this post is long enough.

Much love!

Eidmukwanzachristmukah

Hi family, friends and assorted blogstalkers! Hard to believe it's been since August that I updated this thing. Part of it is that I've been really busy and haven't had the time for a proper update, and part of it is that I have not been busy with work, which is what I assume you all want to hear about. In fact, I have been busy with anything but.

Seeing as it is Christmas Eve, happy holidays everyone! Truthfully I would have forgotten it if other volunteers hadn't reminded me. My cues are usually that obnoxious music on the radio, scary people on the road and scary people at the mall. This year I have to suffer none of those things. Instead, I celebrated the Eid Kabeer with my host family. It is the biggest holiday in the Muslim world and commemorates Ibrahim's sacrafice of his son Isaac. As you might guess, each family slaughters a sheep. (NB - I had no part in this and refused to watch.) 40 people in my extended family hiked outside the village to a small oasis with our sheep, vegetables, and flour and we spent the entire day baking bread and cooking duez under the palm trees.

Some volunteers will be getting together for Christmas this year, but I'll be home in my site. A year ago I would have thought Christmas alone would be a depressing affair, but I'm looking forward to the quiet and solitude. My friend, a volunteer, came over and we decorated my house for Christmas with some ribbon and origami decorations we made. I'm having guests over tomorrow night. I decided that since my host family shared their holiday with me, I'll share mine. My original plan was to cook up a traditional dinner, but since my host family doesn't really like food they aren't used to, we're just going with couscous instead, with apple pie for dessert.

Thanksgiving, on the other hand, was a huge affair. A group of us gathered at a volunteer's house near Ouarzazate (about 4 hours away from me) and cooked up a storm. We had two turkeys, two chickens, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread, cranberry sauce, lemon meringue pie, pumpkin pie, brownies, banana bread, cookies... all made from scratch by PCVs. Our set up was pretty sweet, too:

In the last few months I've been lucky enough to have five friends come to visit and do some travelling around with them. I've made it up north to the ruins at Volubulis, west to Marrakesh and Essaouira several times, and Rabat and Azrou for work.

In sadder news, my cat Frieda died from drowning in the well. I adoped another kitten in Azrou during training and smuggled it into the hotel, where it proceeded to poop all over the room. Unfortunately that one was very sick and died before I could get to a vet. So now I have adopted another from a volunteer. His name is Salvador. This is him perched on top of my friend Kathy:

Beyond all that, I've been spending my days slowly learning Tashelheet, spending time with my host family, and planning for future projects. The biggest one on the plate is still the Women's Association, for which we have a big meeting coming up Sunday. Wish us luck!

Thanks also to friends and family who are writing and sending packages. Even if it's just an email, it means a lot to me. As I immerse myself fully in my world here, I need to stay connected to family and friends back home. Love to you all.

Slices of Life...

I'd love to update on some great project or meaningful development work I'm doing here, but frankly, it won't happen for a while. This is the norm for volunteers at this stage - we are still trying to learn our local language and get familiar with our communities and needs before we start anything big. It looks like what my village needs and wants the most is a women's association, with a building and a craft/education center, which I am REALLY excited about spearheading! It will be a long and slow process, though, as we organize the women into a cooperative, contract teachers, apply for funding, hire construction workers, etc. So, friends and family back home, be patient with me - I'll keep you updated as things progress!

So instead of a work update, I'll just share a few pieces of my daily life here.

I have moved into my own home now, but it is attached to my host family's house, so my biggest challenge these days is redefining my boundaries with them. I love them, but really value my independence and privacy. I tried to communicate this, but interestingly, there is no word in Tashelheet that means "independence" or "privacy"! The conversation went something like this:

Me: Auntie, thank you for always making me food, but I want to cook for myself.
Auntie: Why? You don't like our bread?
Me: No, the bread is yummy, and I love the family! I just need to be... (tries to find the word "independent")...
Auntie: In the kitchen! Ah, yes, it is good for a woman to be in the kitchen.

Not exactly the message I was going for, but at least I'm cooking on my own now.

Up until recently, I have been really dependent on them for getting anything done - going to the shop, buying eggs from the neighbor, etc. Now that I want to do those things on my own, I've gotten a little resistance and have really had to put my foot down. I feel like a rebellious teenager!

Conversation that occurred when I tried to go to the shop by myself:

Me: I am going to the store to buy flour.
Auntie: No, just use ours! We have flour!
Me: Thank you, but I need to buy some for me.
Auntie: (Reluctantly) Ok... we will go to the store tomorrow.
Me: No, I will go now.
Auntie: Now!! Alone!?
Me: Yes, alone.
Auntie: No!
Me: Why?
Auntie: It is.... difficult.
Me: I am going now.
Auntie: (Angry) FINE! Go. You want to go alone, go. Fine. Ok. GO.

At this point I started wondering if there was something I didn't know about going to the store alone, if I was making a terrible mistake, but it was too late to turn back. I set off across the river bed, and got about halfway when I heard Auntie frantically yelling "MALIKA!" and running after me. Oh no, I was thinking, what now? Is she going to forcibly restrain me? Is she going to guilt-trip me? And panting, out of breath, she said, "Malika. Please ask if the shop has chocolate. Your sister wants to bake cookies." And that was that.

Having a sense of humour keeps you sane around here!

Locusts!

What you are looking at in the picture below, if you look closely for the little black dots, is a plague of locusts. Like, the Bible plague kind. ON MY BED. I haven't been sleeping terribly soundly, needless to say! They come in droves... at first all you here is a pitter patter, like rain in the distance, then suddenly the whole house is swarming with maggots.

In other news, it's pretty damn hot during the day. Below is another photo I took of my thermometer. It stays about this temperature for most of the daylight hours, but I'm not sure if that's because it just can't read any higher...

Even the locals are saying it's way too hot now. Almost every conversation I have consists of, How are you, how is your family, how is your health, no problems? No problems. You are well? I am well, thanks be to Allah. The sun is very hot toay. Yes, very hot. That is because it is Month Eight. Yes. Month Eight is hot. VERY hot. Yes, VERY hot. You think it is hot now. It will become hotter. That will be very hot. Yes, very hot. So you are well? Yes, I am well... etc.

Such is life these days...

What is THIS thing?

I found it in my kitchen. It's about 7 inches long. Do they bite? Is it poisonous? Is it a centipede? Do centipedes even GET that big?

I also found no less than 3 scorpions.

Gotta love Zagora wildlife.

Kitty-Monsters and Rising Temperatures

So I adopted a cute, quiet little kitten from a farm. She had big green eyes and was malnourished and so affectionate, I HAD to take her home. Now she is quite comfortable in my home, has fattened up a bit, and is a little monster! She meows CONSTANTLY. Not just for affection, not just for food, but just to hear herself sing. She doesn't let me sleep. Her favorite games include: Scratch Paws Against Metal Door To Make Horrible Scraping Sound, Bite Mommy's Toes, and Chew Mommy's Hair.

Anyone have any cat-training suggestions for punishment? I've already tried splashing her with water, but she LIKES that.

Kitty issues aside, life goes on in my village. It's coming up on August now, which we call the Hot Month. This makes me a little nervous, because it's already 120 degrees and I sweat when I sleep at night... how much hotter can it get? We will find out...

I've managed to travel a bit lately. First to Marrakesh for a weekend with some friends from the states. I like Marrakesh, but it's a hassle for tourists. Essaouaira was much more laid-back. It's a beautiful little coastal town established by the Spanish with Mediterranean-looking architecture and a thriving artisan culture. Kind of a hippy paradise. It was nice to see some water, too!

Tomorrow I will be moving out of my homestay and into a house of my own. My host family has been really wonderful and I'm looking forward to visiting them often, but I am dying to have my own kitchen again!

Thanks to everyone who has been keeping in touch... it means a lot to get a little "hi, how are you?" in an email when I come in to the city.

Peace,
Mel

A Birth Celebration

It's usually the celebrations and sacred events that I wish I could photograph or video to share with you all back home because I want you to experience the feast of colors and sounds that make Morocco beautiful, but these are also the occasions when it is absolutely inappropriate to take pictures. So I'll try to give you a verbal description of the birth celebration I attended yesterday.

Imagine: outside it is windy. The color of the mud houses is washed out against a dusty sky. You step through the doorway and inside the dirt courtyard are laid out the best rugs in every color and pattern imaginable - flowers, geometric squares, lines, leaves, triangles. Laughing and talking on them are seated over 30 women in their best clothes, looking like a pile of bustling jewels in a secret cave. Fushia, emerald, black, saffron, ruby, lavender jellabahs. Silver belts, gold rings, sequined scarves. Coin earrings peek out from under fringed red and yellow head scarves. Turquise eyeliner pops out around peircing sea-green eyes. White smiles shine. With no men here, the women are freely talking, yelling, teasing one another.

I have already been doused in ginseng scent, and another woman comes around with a cheap cologne and sprays it about half an inch from me 5 times, and proceeds to do the same to every woman there. The smell is heady and sharp. Next comes the incense burning in a small urn. We lift our skirts to allow the ashy exotic smoke to fill our clothing. Next we take a pinch of a yellow powder and rub it on our necks and chest, reminding me faintly of spices and potpourri.

Then the music starts. It is both spontaneous and rehearsed. Five women take out drums and start five rythms, but eventually I can hear more than that. Everyone around claps different rhythms to create a more complex whole. The chanting begins. The songs are already known, but it is a new experience every time - never the same women, never the same number of drums, but somehow everyone knows innately how to play her part, as though the music is part of a deeper group consciousness. One of the younger women in a sky blue jellabah and a wide smile takes a red scarf and ties it around her hips and begins to move to the music. Several other girls join her bellydancing. This would never happen except in the presence of other women, as the tantalizing way the women are able to shake their hips would be "hshuma" to show a man. Their hips move seemingly of their own accord, dictated by the sound of the drums alone.

Several women set to the business of making tea for every person there. I am handed a tiny glass of the incredibly sweet sugar-mint-Chinese green tea concoction. Another hands out handfuls of peanuts, small crackers, and a cookie. Meanwhile, children, who had been away from the watchful eye of their mothers, and are rolling in the dirt in an attempt to dirty their finest clothes, come running back to the promise of a sugar high.

The women around me are thoroughly entertained by my botched attempts at speaking Tashlheet and are now offering me a husband in Tafetchna. One woman says she'll make the tea for my wedding. I explain that I don't want to get married, and when I hear the inevitable "why not?", and I have no adequate answer, I start to pretend I don't understand what they are asking. Eventually they get bored of this game and set about conspiring to untie the belt of another seated woman's jellabah. She catches on to this plan and without turning around yells "I know what you're doing!", eliciting a chorus of cackling from the conspirators.

Then the food comes. Women walk in carrying low tables on which are two large round bread loaves and a bowl of douaz - a traditional dish of meat and vegetables steamed with oil in a pressure cooker until so tender they fall apart. Everyone scoops up the douaz with bread. I content myself with nibbling on plain bread since I don't eat the meat. My host aunt explains this to a round of "the poor thing!" and I have extra bread pushed my way. Every drop of the douaz is devoured, and women and children pick up the tables and carry them off.

As soon as the food is gone, the women get up to leave. No extra attention or gifts to the mother or newborn is expected, but my aunt and I go to see the week-old baby. The mother holds up the baby and asks if I'd like to hold little Mohammed. I take him gingerly and he sleepily opens his big, black eyes, moves his tiny fingers a little, and looks around in a newborn daze, without making a sound. He is healthy and beautiful and the mother is well - no small thing in this village with no doctor, hospital or pre-natal care, and certainly cause for celebration.

Would you like some tea with your sugar?

Life Update...

I am still in homestay, and while I have a great family, I am definitely itching for my own space. Particularly so I can cook for myself. I do enjoy some Moroccan food (I will never tire of couscous, ever!!!) but I am definitely not used to the sheer quantity of oil and sugar that goes into EVERYTHING. Example: this morning I had breakfast at a cafe. I ordered oranges with cinnamon, yogurt, and a coffee. Sounds healthy, right? The coffee came with excess sugar, the yogurt came with honey and sugar, and the oranges came covered with sugar and grenadine. For lunch I had a salad, which consisted of lettuce leaves covered with... you guessed it... sugar. Afterwards the waiter gave us complimentary tea. With lots of sugar. It's been at least an hour since my last sugar intake and I think I may be in withdrawal.

At the moment I am in my capital city. I came in three days ago to take care of some paperwork, but the office I need to go to has been closed since I got here so I'm basically waiting for it to open again tomorrow (inshallah!). Meanwhile I'm enjoying having internet access and fresh fruit and veggies. :-)

As far as site work goes, it has been a slow process starting. I know that the water in my village is untreated, but why this is, no one seems to know. There is running tap water, but no one knows exactly where it comes from. I have been doing local research and have been told endlessly contradicting things: there are two water chateaus, one works; there are three water chateaus, none work; the nurse treats the village water; a man named Hamu treats the water; Hamu does not exist; people do not drink well water; people only drink well water; people treat their own water; no one treats any water. I have no idea as yet what is actually going on, so this is my current project: figure this stuff out!

Thanks to everyone who has sent me cards and letters - the contact with home is always a lovely surprise at the post office.

Ar Min Baad (Until next time)...

Pictures of my home!

My Kittens...
My house from the courtyard, with the fig tree...

My room from the inside. The mosaic on the wall was made by the previous volunteer.

The mountains here are unbelievable.

Why not? Anything is possible!

It's official - I'm a volunteer. Our stage swore in on the 19th and took the oath of service. This all happened at probably the swankiest hotel in the region - a 5 star resort built exclusively to cater to movie stars coming through town to film in Ouarzazate. We spent the afternoon lounging by a beautiful pool surrounded by cushions and palms. It was a weird contrast to what we were about to go into.

I am settling into my site pretty well, visiting people in the village, learning how transportation works, registering with all the correct officials, setting up a PO box (in a language I do not speak), and all sorts of other daily challenges. I'm glad right now it's the hot months and I'm not allowed to leave my site because I have a long road of settling in and integrating ahead of me. My host family has been wonderful, though, cooking me vegetarian food, serving me tea WITHOUT sugar (a rather unusual request around here!), and helping me learn Tamazight.

Right now I am updating from my souq (market) town. It's about two hours from my village and in order to get here I have to leave at 5:30 am. This is my nearest internet cafe, grocery store, pay phone, etc., and I should be here one every week or two weeks.

In other news, we hosted a volunteer talent show at the end of stage, which was a really good time. Someone had suggested that I fire spin, which I declined because 1) I am nervous in front of crowds and 2) did not have my fire poi with me in Morocco. At a friend's insistence, I agreed to do it if he could find me the materials to build fire poi, giving him a ridiculous, impossible list of hardware to source - in Morocco - not knowing any of the local words. I should have known better. Peace Corps Volunteers are notorious for ingenuity and resourcefulness. A few hours later I had some rotating keychains, lengths of chain, paraffin and 4 meters of wick! It turned out pretty well actually until flaming bits of it started flying off, though no one seemed too terribly concerned about this. I am 100 percent certain that if I tried that at a hotel in the US I would have been escorted out!

My Site

I've been given my final site assignment. I will be in the Zagora region of southeast Morocco - not terribly far from the Algerian border. I think it is officially part of the Sahara. It is definitely desert there, at any rate! Most people in my stage were really glad not to be assigned there, but I'm really excited. The desert has a really distinct beauty that I've always been really drawn to.

As for my village... it's fairly isolated. It will take me two hours (on a good day) to get to my nearest town with internet and a grocery store. (Read: updates will be sporadic!) Because it's so isolated, a lot of the community has intermarried, causing a good deal of health problems from generations of people marrying first cousins. I don't know yet whether or not this will be something I can address as a health volunteer, though.

My work in the site is probably going to start with the water supply. I was really sick when I visited there for the first time. I didn't figure out why until I realized that my family was drinking water from an open-air cistern with contaminants openly floating in it. Protecting and treating water sources is definitely priority Numero Uno.

The rest of my work there will be rather unstructured. I officially work in the local clinic, but there is no doctor and only one nurse who works there, and he is rarely in the clinic at all. When I first met him he told me how much he hates my village and doesn't want to be there. Which, I gather, is a sentiment held by most government employees sent to the region.

The challenges don't stop there, but that will be subject matter for later posts. There are some perks. My host family there are really, really nice people. They have hosted a volunteer before, so they know about Americans and our weird ways and are really sensitive to my vegetarianism. I have an oasis just outside my site with really deep water and you can jump off the rocks into it. Nearby is a naturally sparkling spring. (side note: I was not aware that this actually happened - bubbly water from the GROUND?! Who knew??)

So, overall, it is going to be a difficult two years and lots of hard work. But as I keep telling people, I didn't come here to join the Vacation Corps - I knew it would be challenging and I knew what I was getting myself into. I would have been disappointed with anything less.

In other news, I passed my language exam and in only a matter of days will be swearing in to be a Peace Corps volunteer. Wow, three months went by quickly!

Until next time,
Malika

How to milk a difficult cow, and other life lessons

A lot has happened since the last update so I'll try to catch up...

We just got back from our third CBT (Community-Based Training). It has its ups and downs. One the one hand, 8 hours of language classes a day is really draining. Living with a host family is its own stress - I can only bathe once a week, I don't understand anything they say to me, and even when I do understand them its usually really personal questions I don't want to anwser! On the other hand, my village is quite possibly the most beautiful place on earth. The Festival of the Roses is approaching and the roses are in full bloom all over the valley, in the fields and on the cliff overlooking the river. I haven't had a chance to take my camera out to the fields yet, but I will get some photos next time, inshallah.

The photos below are of my village from a rooftop (sorry about the poor quality, better ones to come!), my bedroom at my host family's house, and my CBT group of trainees cooking lunch.

The women in my host family have slowly been letting me help them out with their daily work. I went to the fields and picked roses to sell, collected figs for dinner, learned how to make couscous from scratch, and carried the huge bag of feed from the fields strapped to my back as the Berber women do. I also helped wrestle a cow. Yeah, you heard me. Apparently cows really don't like to be milked the first time! The process is as follows: tie cow's head to ground, hold by horns. Meanwhile, two women tie a rope around one of the cow's hind legs and hold it tight. A fourth woman holds the baby calf and a fifth proceeds to try to milk it. Optional: have 3 other women stand around and yell at the cow for not cooperating! I left before this spectacle was over, but the next night our family had agho with dinner - a sour homemade yogurt from fresh cow's milk - so I guess it was successful!

Television is a central part of every household. Every house in Morocco - even mud huts without running water - has a TV and a satellite dish! Every night I sit with my family and watch Mexican telenovellas dubbed in Arabic (which no one in my house understands). What I found a little odd was that the only thing considered inappropriate on television is embraces between men and women. Graphic violence or drug use? No problem. Husband and wife kissing? Channel change!

Another part of our experience has been dealing with tourists. Tourism provides a lot of income for my village and all of Morocco, but tourists themselves are often really obnoxious. For example, I frequently see Europeans walking around in little more than a bathing suit - in a country where women DO NOT show their arms or legs. One woman and her husband stripped down in the river in our village in front of some local women, and then proceeded to take pictures (without asking) of the women doing their washing. Most of this stuff you wouldn't even do at home in Europe, so why would you do it here?!! I can only attribute that level of insensetivity to a kind of "zoo" mentality, as though the people who live here are mere attractions to be photographed.

Field Trip to Zagora!

We got back yesterday from our field trip where we visit and work with a Peace Corps Volunteer in the field. I and one other girl went to a village in the Zagora province, which is mostly desert. Our host was great, and it's certainly an eye-opening experience, since most of our training takes place in cities. This is our first chance to observe what volunteer life is actually like.

It is also becoming more and more clear why we are needed here. Walking through Rabat or any other big city you see Chanel and D&G boutiques, and you wonder if you are actually in a developing country. But the rural areas... it's like night and day. The clinic for our village has one nurse, no doctor, and the nurse only works 12 hours a week. This clinic serves a region of 11,000 people!! The medical waste is dumped outside the clinic, so the ground is covered in used needles. Much of the village smokes, but people claim not to be able to afford toothbrushes. Clean water has finally come to the middle school, but it isn't enough to make the latrines functional. The potential for improvement is certainly there.

We got to participate in our volunteer's projects, including working with an association of handicapped people. There is much misunderstanding here regarding people with disabilities. Namely, the belief that if you have a physical handicap, it is because you have done something wrong and Allah is punishing you. The association works to dispel those myths and improve living conditions. At the school, we visited the student Health Club, assisted with teaching an English class, and began a mural of a map of the world. Children here, we found, had little understanding of geography - they could pick out the United States on a map, but had no idea where Morocco was located!

And just so friends and family back home can stop worrying, the living conditions of volunteers here is quite comfortable. Our host lived in a one-room adobe hut with concrete floors, and he had an electric light and a water pump outside. We ate well, too - fresh fruits and veggies are very cheap, as are pasta, beans, rice, couscous, bread, eggs, and cheese. So far I haven't had too hard a time being a vegetarian here. It will be easier when I have my own place and can control my diet, though. While we were at our host's site we were invited to lunch with the school officials and the menu was couscous with vegetables... cooked with cow ears and cow brains. Quite a delicacy. I did my best to eat around it, but I still felt a little ill afterwards.

All in all, best part of training yet. Pictures to come!

Isminu Malika

The title of this entry is “my name is Malika”, which is the name given to me by my host family in my CBT site. I think I’ll keep it!

I got back yesterday from my first CBT (Community Based Training) week. I lived with a Berber family in a small village in the Atlas mountains there and studied Tamazight. It is a really difficult language. It’s actually called Tashelheet in my community, which is actually another Berber language, but the lines aren’t very clear. The dialects are fluid, and borrow words from each other as well as Arabic, Spanish and French. Vocabulary varies even between neighboring villages! So the Tamazight I am learning now may not even be exactly the language spoken in my final site. This is probably the most challenging and rewarding aspect of Peace Corps training.

My family was very patient with my feeble attempts at language, fortunately! For the most part I followed around my host-grandmother (MaHlo). She’s a tough lady. We went to the fields to cut clover for the animals and fed and watered her cow, donkey, chickens and goats.

The village itself is beautiful. There is only one paved road that goes through, and one phone. The sky is perfectly clear at night. All the houses are clay and it is situated up in the mountains next to a river with fertile fields lining it. The people of the village grow walnuts, almonds, olives, and roses. The famous festival of the roses is coming up in a couple of months and I’m really excited that we will get to be there for it!

Eventful Week…
The day we arrived, another trainee’s host brother died. So there was a lot of commotion in the village about that. The next day, another sick brother returned from the hospital, so there was a two day feast to celebrate, complete with the slaughtering of two sheep. The it was the Aeid for the prophet Mohammed’s birthday, so family in other cities all came home. This was when I discovered that there are at least 24 people in my host family who come and go from the house! Meanwhile, our LCF (language teacher) was sick, and ended up quitting. So we had an interim teacher from Rabat.

Health Issues
I started to get a feel for the kinds of health issues I’ll be facing as a health volunteer. There are a lot of dental problems in the village because the local free clinic doesn’t have a dentist and the private clinics are very expensive. As for sanitation, hand-washing here is treated very differently; it is more ceremonial than practical. Soap is used only after the last meal of the day, not before eating – unlike in America, where we do the opposite. Cups are communal, which could easily spread sickness through a family.

What particularly interests me is nutrition. There is no shortage of food here, the question is whether people have a balanced diet. The bulk of the diet is bread because it is filling. There is no distinction here between being “well-fed” and “nourished”. Vegetables are varied and easily available, but they are always peeled and overcooked so very little nutritional value is left. Sugar is also a HUGE part of the diet – I was drinking up to 8 cups of sugary tea a day! I was told that tea is good for you because it gives you energy… which is half true. It does give you a pretty intense sugar high! I have to wonder if that quantity of sugar has caused any health problems.

The challenge for a volunteer is to draw the line between not criticizing cultural practices, but also presenting information about preventive medicine, nutrition and sanitation. I certainly have my work cut out for me.

Say Cheese

So this isn't a great photo, but this is me in the Casbah in Rabat at night by the pirate republic of Sale. More pictures to come, but the internet connection here isnt great and it takes a while.

Today we leave for Community Based Training (CBT). I will be staying with a host family and doing language and culture immersion in a small Berber village in the mountains, about 2 hours from Ouarzazate. So I will be incommunicado for the next week or so. I'll be sure to post about it!

Interesting cultural point: the TV show "Sex in the City" is known here, but it is called "Hshuma f-al Medina" - literally, "Shame in the City".