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.