Photography

            A conversation with my dad sparked the idea for this post. He said it would be really nice if I could add some photography to my blog, especially for posts like the last one. You may have noticed that I don’t really post many pictures of Moroccans or my site, but I can promise you, there is a very specific reason for that. I realize that most of you will never have the chance to see Morocco, especially the small or rural towns. So perhaps I have some sort of duty to show you all what it’s like here (since I do have that privilege to experience being in this place) through my photographs. But I can’t.

            In some ways, I really wish I could. I would love for all of you to get to see how freakin’ cute my host kids are. Or how completely full of men souq is. Or even my girls at the middle school “playing” basketball (a better description might be handball, but with a hoop). But I can’t. First of all, there are a number of Moroccans do not like having their picture taken at all. They feel that it disrespectful to depict people in photographs or paintings. This is rooted in Islam, so some people really do take it very seriously. And some people totally don’t. Most people in my site love when I take out my camera and will pose (albeit usually not smiling at all) and then want to see the picture afterwards. So I really do take lots of pictures of people, but most of them (especially my host dad) request that I not post them on the internet. And I really do feel that I should respect their wishes on this. I will print the pictures and give them to the people in the photographs, an event which is usually followed by us sitting down and looking at every photo they possess. And no matter how many times I've seen the pictures, I still smile and say how nice everyone looks.

            Ok, so people don’t always like getting their picture taken or having it posted online. Couldn't I just do it anyway? Or take their pictures when they are not looking? When I started my Peace Corps service, I decided that I was absolutely not going to take pictures of Moroccans candidly or without their permission. There are many photographers who do not have a problem with this and I have seen many tourists taking pictures of people as though they are part of the scenery. And that’s exactly my problem with it. It would be pretty weird if someone just started taking pictures in the States of people out and about, in a park or at a farmer’s market. Sure, it happens, but it’s not really even the same thing. Because here, they tourists come in with their money and their private drivers and act like they own the place. That the Moroccans are just there for them to get their shot of “the locals” or of “poor villagers.” I can’t do that to people here (or anywhere frankly) because I know and recognize them as individuals. I know their families. And they are so much more to me than a postcard shot. So, I am sorry that I can’t share more of the photographs that I do have. The ones with laughing kids or un-smiling adults. But they just don’t want me to. However, feel free to visit us here anytime, we’ll provide you something much better than any “great” photograph ever could.

            Before I leave here, I have decided that I will take more pictures. Especially of the people I see often, like the shop owners or the girl at the post office. And when I get back to the States, I’d love to share these with you so that you too can see what life is like here and the people that have made my experience such a wonderful one. They deserve that much and I think you’ll enjoy them too.

            

Space

            A friend came over the other night to cook dinner and catch up on Downton Abbey.  While we talked, the subject of space (as in the space around us, not the one above us) came up.  As women in a foreign country, space is an element of life that has a great deal of importance for us-we deal with it in everything from how much “personal bubble” space we get in a taxi with six other people to what spaces we are and are not allowed to occupy.

            It has become clear over my time here that space is very much a cultural creation.  I think many people in the States come to expect a certain amount of personal space.  That space ranges from the literal space around us to the space we can demand from others in the form of privacy or alone time to the space to make our own decisions and choices about things we want to do and who we want to be.  For many people, I am also certain that they feel that they do not have as much space as they wish and that expectations, demands and merely the existence of others affect their space in various ways.  So the short and long of it is that even within my own culture, the ideas and expectations that surround space can be problematic.  In many ways however, it is easier to navigate these than it is to navigate the expectations that surround space within a culture very different from my own.

            In the US, at least in my experience, public space is just that: public.  It is for everyone and as such, people’s behaviors within that space are meant to follow certain mores and norms.  In Morocco, this is not necessarily the case and is certainly not the case in the small town in which I reside.  In this place, public space is male space.  Any space outside of the home is the space that belongs to and is governed by men and by their behaviors and expectations.  Here I must credit my friend because she suggested that one of the reasons we (as female volunteers and as women) experience so much harassment is that men react every time we encroach upon their space, otherwise known as leaving the house (unaccompanied by a male to help us navigate this space). They notice this non-compliance with cultural norms and they acknowledge it. The reactions range from everything from a prolonged stare to a verbal assault.  While I hesitate to reduce harassment to such a simple level (I think it also relates to a certain powerlessness that men feel as a result of economic and societal factors), it does help to explain some of the possible motivation behind what we experience.

            I want to make it clear at this point that I do not experience a great deal of harassment in my site.  The men here tend to be courteous to me and the only time I generally experience problems with harassment are during the weekly market when there are many men from out of town.  But the fact remains that I do reside and work in a place in which the outside world is for the men.  Women’s work is regulated primarily to the home or to what we would describe as traditionally “female” trades such as teaching and nursing.  In my community, there are no women that work for the local association.  There are no women in leadership positions.  There isn’t even a space for women to gather outside of their own homes.  If one were to walk through town in the middle of the day, one might imagine the place to be inhabited only by men and school-aged children.  And then that weird foreign lady on the bike.

            The effects of the male/public space are not limited to me being the only woman amongst 500 men at the local souq.  It influences my work, my free time and how people think of me.  Before I talk about work, I do want to point out that I think these different ideas of space affect us as female volunteers because we are female but also because we are foreigners.  I, of course, am not a male volunteer so I cannot write about space from their perspective, though I believe that different ideas of space still affect them, just in different ways.  As a female volunteer, I can speak about my experience as such.  Since arriving in my site, I have felt that a male volunteer would have been more successful in terms of work.  This is not a community where women play much of, if any role in the public sphere.  I have often felt that the men with whom I have tried to work were amused by me but didn’t necessarily take me seriously.  That of course may be related to the fact that I am younger than them, but I also felt that it was because I was a woman.  Because I cannot not take part in the social lives of these men, our relationship remains purely worked based.  While I feel that that is appropriate, I don’t think I was able to build trust and a strong relationship with these men as a result.  They tolerate my encroachment upon their space, but they do not enjoy it.  In Peace Corps trainings we were often told that we got to play the role of the third gender.  I think this is true in many respects.  Although they do not necessarily enjoy working with me, the men here still do it.  I am allowed to exist in their space which I am not sure would be necessarily true for a Moroccan woman.  My status as a foreigner gives me some leeway to break out of assigned gender roles and spaces.  And Hamduallah for that.  But I have still struggled to work with these men and to have them see me as an equal player in that work.

            Over the last year and a half, I feel that I have learned to navigate these different expectations of space and place. I’m pretty sure that a lot of people in my community still think I’m a crazy French lady with short hair who rides her bike all over.  But I’m ok with that.  I get work done.  I meet people. I have friends and people are really nice to me.  And I think it’s good for people to realize that ideas of space and place are not universal.  Privacy and enjoying alone time are very much Western concepts.   It’s been good for me to realize these things and I hope I have helped at least a few people here realized that their own concepts and ideas about things do not exist everywhere.  I hope at some point more women in this community can begin to feel that the public space, or at least parts of the public space, belongs to them too.  Maybe they’ll build a women’s association or a cooperative so that women’s space gets to be expand past the four walls of their concrete homes.  Inshallah.  And now I’m going to go enjoy my giant personal bubble that is my house.  And I’m going to do it alone.  And it’s going to be great.      

           

Space

            A friend came over the other night to cook dinner and catch up on Downton Abbey.  While we talked, the subject of space (as in the space around us, not the one above us) came up.  As women in a foreign country, space is an element of life that has a great deal of importance for us-we deal with it in everything from how much “personal bubble” space we get in a taxi with six other people to what spaces we are and are not allowed to occupy.

            It has become clear over my time here that space is very much a cultural creation.  I think many people in the States come to expect a certain amount of personal space.  That space ranges from the literal space around us to the space we can demand from others in the form of privacy or alone time to the space to make our own decisions and choices about things we want to do and who we want to be.  For many people, I am also certain that they feel that they do not have as much space as they wish and that expectations, demands and merely the existence of others affect their space in various ways.  So the short and long of it is that even within my own culture, the ideas and expectations that surround space can be problematic.  In many ways however, it is easier to navigate these than it is to navigate the expectations that surround space within a culture very different from my own.

            In the US, at least in my experience, public space is just that: public.  It is for everyone and as such, people’s behaviors within that space are meant to follow certain mores and norms.  In Morocco, this is not necessarily the case and is certainly not the case in the small town in which I reside.  In this place, public space is male space.  Any space outside of the home is the space that belongs to and is governed by men and by their behaviors and expectations.  Here I must credit my friend because she suggested that one of the reasons we (as female volunteers and as women) experience so much harassment is that men react every time we encroach upon their space, otherwise known as leaving the house (unaccompanied by a male to help us navigate this space). They notice this non-compliance with cultural norms and they acknowledge it. The reactions range from everything from a prolonged stare to a verbal assault.  While I hesitate to reduce harassment to such a simple level (I think it also relates to a certain powerlessness that men feel as a result of economic and societal factors), it does help to explain some of the possible motivation behind what we experience.

            I want to make it clear at this point that I do not experience a great deal of harassment in my site.  The men here tend to be courteous to me and the only time I generally experience problems with harassment are during the weekly market when there are many men from out of town.  But the fact remains that I do reside and work in a place in which the outside world is for the men.  Women’s work is regulated primarily to the home or to what we would describe as traditionally “female” trades such as teaching and nursing.  In my community, there are no women that work for the local association.  There are no women in leadership positions.  There isn’t even a space for women to gather outside of their own homes.  If one were to walk through town in the middle of the day, one might imagine the place to be inhabited only by men and school-aged children.  And then that weird foreign lady on the bike.

            The effects of the male/public space are not limited to me being the only woman amongst 500 men at the local souq.  It influences my work, my free time and how people think of me.  Before I talk about work, I do want to point out that I think these different ideas of space affect us as female volunteers because we are female but also because we are foreigners.  I, of course, am not a male volunteer so I cannot write about space from their perspective, though I believe that different ideas of space still affect them, just in different ways.  As a female volunteer, I can speak about my experience as such.  Since arriving in my site, I have felt that a male volunteer would have been more successful in terms of work.  This is not a community where women play much of, if any role in the public sphere.  I have often felt that the men with whom I have tried to work were amused by me but didn’t necessarily take me seriously.  That of course may be related to the fact that I am younger than them, but I also felt that it was because I was a woman.  Because I cannot not take part in the social lives of these men, our relationship remains purely worked based.  While I feel that that is appropriate, I don’t think I was able to build trust and a strong relationship with these men as a result.  They tolerate my encroachment upon their space, but they do not enjoy it.  In Peace Corps trainings we were often told that we got to play the role of the third gender.  I think this is true in many respects.  Although they do not necessarily enjoy working with me, the men here still do it.  I am allowed to exist in their space which I am not sure would be necessarily true for a Moroccan woman.  My status as a foreigner gives me some leeway to break out of assigned gender roles and spaces.  And Hamduallah for that.  But I have still struggled to work with these men and to have them see me as an equal player in that work.

            Over the last year and a half, I feel that I have learned to navigate these different expectations of space and place. I’m pretty sure that a lot of people in my community still think I’m a crazy French lady with short hair who rides her bike all over.  But I’m ok with that.  I get work done.  I meet people. I have friends and people are really nice to me.  And I think it’s good for people to realize that ideas of space and place are not universal.  Privacy and enjoying alone time are very much Western concepts.   It’s been good for me to realize these things and I hope I have helped at least a few people here realized that their own concepts and ideas about things do not exist everywhere.  I hope at some point more women in this community can begin to feel that the public space, or at least parts of the public space, belongs to them too.  Maybe they’ll build a women’s association or a cooperative so that women’s space gets to be expand past the four walls of their concrete homes.  Inshallah.  And now I’m going to go enjoy my giant personal bubble that is my house.  And I’m going to do it alone.  And it’s going to be great.      

           

Because I Ate One Too Many Starbursts Tonight...

I’ve been bad about blogging lately. What’s new. Sorry everyone, I’ve been enjoying lots of time in my site, getting to know new people, etc. I have also finished 3 ½ seasons of West Wing and the book War and Peace.  So obviously, getting things done.  Anyway, today I am feeling inspired to make a short list of things that have made me feel successful and/or like an awesome person/real PCV. Or something.

1)     Finished a grant application. My first one. And it was pretty hard and definitely tedious but it’s done. Hamdullah. Now I will just chill and wait for it to get accepted, inshallah.

2)      Perfected a spice cake recipe.

3)      Fasted. Mostly.

4)      Killed 5 cockroaches in one night. With my bare hands. Ok, that’s actually a lie. I did kill a bunch, but it’s because of this chalk that you draw with on the floor. It’s from China and probably full of a super large amount of chemicals that are not legal in the US but it’s really effective.

5)      Started learning the Arabic alphabet.

6)      Watched shooting stars with my host kids.

7)      Got chased by a dog while riding my bike at night. I almost lost. Then my bike seat broke off, for the win.

8)      Made a chocolate cake that everyone liked (harder than one might imagine…baked goods just don’t go over quite the same here as they do back home).

9)      Told a joke that everyone thought was funny.  It was related to having a “food baby” after breaking fast.

10)   Reinstalled Microsoft Office on my computer. Open Office just doesn’t cut it. Also, OneNote is the bomb.

11)   Cut my own hair.

12)   Managed to acquire a drum, headband, earrings, cup and saucer and Berber doll house. I wanted none of these things, but it’s basically impossible to say no…

13)   Paid my first water bill. Hard to say if it was for one month or maybe three, but I was impressed with the existence of a receipt.

14)   Decided to learn how to do henna. Prompted by my ugly henna-spotted toenails, a design which one of my friends decided to test on me...needs fixing now…

15)   Rediscovered my love of fresh figs. If you’ve never had a fresh fig (and you probably haven’t), do it. Fig Newtons (my only previous experience with figs) are like the lame older sibling that still lives in your parents’ basement compared to fresh stuff. Downside: ff (fresh figs) do not travel back from the city well and fig mush isn’t really so tasty…

Operation Smile, Take 1

I saw him and his mother when they were on the way to the clinic to get his vacinations. I have to confess that I got excited when I saw his face peeking out from the blanket tying him to his mother's back: he had about a half-inch gap running vertically from the bottom of his nose to where the bottom of his top lip should start. I got excited because I had heard about an Operation Smile (you know, the ones with the TV commercials about saving kids' lives) mission just a couple of hours from my site.  I knew that if I could convince this family to make the journey that we could make a huge difference in this child's life.

The day after I saw them in the clinic, I asked one of the nurses if she knew anything about Operation Smile, an organization that provided free surgeries to people with cleft palates and hare lips.  She hadn't heard of it and didn't seem all that interested-she hadn't even taken note of the name or duwar (village) of the little boy or his mother.  I headed to Rabat later that week and was quite excited to find a flier
in Arabic for the Operation Smile mission.  I brought this information into the clinic when I got back and immediately, the other nurse said "we have one of these!"  I was so excited-"I know," I said, "do you know his name or where his family lives?  I want to take them for the operation.  He told me he would call the mother and have her come back into the clinic so I could talk with her.

I got the call on the morning of our training for the Gnaoua festival and left 12 people in my house to bike quickly to the clinic in order to meet the little boy's (Omar) mother, Fatima.  I sat with her for a few minutes and explained that we could take Omar and that they would do a free operation for him.  I showed her the fliers (on which there was a before/after picture) and she asked me if Omar would look like that afterwards.  I was so happy to be able to tell her that he would.  Before then, she hadn't even realized that there was anything to be done for him.  I told her I wanted to come to their village to sit and talk with them more and get them on the phone with someone from Peace Corps who could explain much more clearly to them what would be happening.  She gave me her husband's phone number and we parted ways, with me promising to call them and arrange a visit the next week.

I didn't end up making the trip to their village but did meet with Rachid, Omar's father, explained everything to him and put him on the phone with someone from Peace Corps just to make sure everything was abundantly clear.  We decided on a meeting place and time for the following Monday, the first day of the OS mission.  I showed up lugging my backpack and Rachid and Fatima were dressed in their djlabas (an outfit people wear for both traveling and special occasions) carrying a plastic bag of diapers and milk; Omar was tied on Fatima's back, in the common Moroccan fashion.  We traveled first by truck, then car.  I figured out that there was going to be a problem pretty early on.  I was emasculating Rachid and making him seem weak by paying directly for our food and transportation.  In Morocco, men take a great deal of pride in being able to provide for their families, and though we had agreed that I would be paying for things, me doing it directly was embarrassing for him.  It took me quite a few hours to work out a strategy, but I finally figured out that I could
just give the money subtely to Fatima and she could give it to him.

We got to the hospital at about 11:30 and walked around and asked 4 or 5 people before we finally found the place for Operation Smile.  Once we finally found it, I realized that we should have left about
2 hours before we did...there were hundreds of people waiting, with everything from cleft palates to burn scars.  I finally got us a number (196) and we settled down to wait.  When we got our number, they were calling 80...so we had some time to kill.  They would call about 5 numbers at a time, bring
people into the gate and then close it.  I had no idea what we would meet when we got inside, whether or not they would be able to help Omar or if they would send us right home.  We chatted up the people around us; one of the babies had a repaired hare lip and I could tell that Fatima was excited about the 
prospect for her own son.

We took a break from waiting at 2 to grab lunch.  Now comes the part where I tell an embarrassing story about myself.  By the time we got back from lunch, it had been about 7 hours since I had used the restroom...and things were becoming urgent.  I quietly asked one of the women next to me if she
knew where I might find a bathroom; she asked another woman who pointed behind the tent they had set up for the people waiting.  I assumed there must be some kind of toilet or outhouse back there, but all I saw were some trees.  I asked another woman who grabbed me by the hand and took me behind the tent to the trees.  She asked a man if he would leave and then pulled me behind there where I saw
lots of evidence of all who had been there before me.  I balked...there was no way I was going to pee in the bushes outside of a hospital...talk about hygienic.  I told her I couldn't do it, she said "no, no it's fine, my daughter came here earlier."  I said that really, no I couldn't and started to walk away. She laughed at me and followed.  I began to walk around trying to find some place. I asked a guard who pointed me into one of the buildings.  It did have a bathroom, but it was locked.  I realized as this was going on, that I was being rather ridiculous.  I refused to pee in the bushes even though all these worried parents and family members seemed to be able to suck it up and do it just fine.  I realized that I was using my position as a foreigner to get things that others couldn't get. However, what kind of public hospital doesn't have a freaking bathroom for people to use?!  Finally, an old man dragged me to the gate and told the guard to let me in to use the bathroom.  I did, it was fine, and I even got to catch a glimpse of what was to come...there were tons of people and stations to go to, starting with medical records.  It was busy, but there seemed to be an order to the chaos.

Our number got called at about 5pm.  I went through the gate with Fatima and Omar while Rachid waited outside.  I realized later that each patient was only allowed 1 family member, but I again shamelessly exploited my position as a foreigner to be able to stay with Fatima and Omar, and boy am I glad I did.  We got through station 4 before someone finally said that we wouldn't be getting an operation.  It was too difficult and there was too much construction that would need to be done.  We were told to wait with a few other patients until someone could come talk to us and tell us what our options were.  We waited for over an hour; Fatima was being to get antsy.  She didn't understand why we were waiting or what the problem was.  She had heard the doctors talking about us having to make a trip to Marrakech or Casablanca, so I could tell that she was worried.  Finally, at 7:15, the vice president and co-founder of Operation Smile Morocco took a few minutes to tell us what was up. Omar's condition was too complicated to be dealt with during the mission.  She told us we would need to come up to Casa in order to have the operation done at the large hospital there.  We would need to come on the first Monday of the month; but they were all going to be on vacation in August so we would need to come in September.  She asked me if I would be able to sponsor their travel; she said she could pay for it out of her own pocket if she had to, but I insisted that I could pay.  My dad donated some money so that I wouldn't have to use my  Peace Corps allowance to do so.  

So that was that.  I sent off Omar, Fatima and Rachid at the bus station.  They said that they wanted to go back home that night, instead of staying over.  I shoved a few bills in Fatima's bag, she "hashuma-ed" me (said shame on you), they God-blessed-my parents (one of my favorite phrases here) and we went our separate ways.  I'll be meeting back up with them on the first Sunday of September in order to make it up to Casa in time for Omar's 12:30 appointment on Monday.  This time, I take lots of pictures and you can see Omar's beautiful new smile for yourselves.

Home....and Home Again

There are not many of us that can call more than one place “home,” yet I feel that I am able to count myself one of the lucky ones in this respect. Last week, I made a trip home-yet it was to a place I have never called home: the eastern US. I have to confess that as I exited the Royal Air Maroc flight at JFK, it didn't really feel much like home. Although I could understand pretty much everything that was being said, I have become used to a sort of polite greeting custom in Morocco that just doesn't exist in the States. I looked rather questioningly at the passport checker-surely he would ask me what I was doing in the States, why I left to live in Morocco, which one I liked better, if I lived with my family and what my marital status was-but no, he barely looked at me and waved me through. I clung to the Moroccans around me, preferring to ask them to borrow a cell phone, knowing it would be given with a smile, rather than ask any of the Americans crowding around the baggage claim...I figured I'd probably just get a weird look and lame excuse. That was probably an overly harsh judgment of the Americans, but I just didn't really know what to expect from them...I just felt more comfortable with and knew what to expect from the Moroccans (who did, by the way, ask me all of those questions I was expecting from the passport guy).

After sitting on a bus for three hours in NYC (at 5 on a Saturday afternoon?) traffic and asking many strangers how to find the way to Penn Station (really, who thought it was a good idea to put a train station under a stadium...talk about confusing any person not from New York), I found myself at the ticket line. I thought maybe I would just go talk to someone to buy a ticket, but realized there were electronic ticket machines right in front of me. I put my card in, bought the ticket for the next train to Philly and, amazingly enough, out came a ticket with my name and everything...I didn't even have to type it in. I was very impressed. The train itself was even better. There was WiFi and an outlet for every seat....I even updated my Facebook from the train. It was at that moment that I really began to enjoy myself. Although it had been more than a year since I had stepped foot on American soil, I could still navigate my way pretty well and nothing had changed so drastically that I didn't recognize it. It was pretty easy to just fall back into things, to remember how things were and to expect things to be a certain way. I was home!

My first stop was Philadelphia for a Mother's Day/graduation celebration with my mother, aunts, grandmother, cousins, uncles and friends. There's nothing to make a place feel more like home than a gathering of family. So it wasn't really home, but they certainly had good food. Whoever thought of serving a plate of many bite-sized desserts to each person deserves a prize. After the party, I had a few days of hanging out. It was great-I got to lounge and flip threw TV channels. Somehow, even after being gone for a year, I still have seen every Law and Order that they rerun on TNT. I rediscovered the existence of bagels (perhaps forgotten after my own disastrous attempt at making them in my Moroccan oven) and hummus, of going out at night and looking at old family pictures.

My mom and I headed to Boston next for my sister's graduation, to be joined later by much of the rest of the family. Boston has not always been my favorite city, but I certainly got a lot out of it this time, including Thai, Indian and Mexican food (didn't quite measure up to SoCal Mexican, but that would be pretty hard to do). I managed to physically get on every “T” car that my sister did and enjoyed my fair share of tastings at Harpoon Brewery. Best of all, I got to hang out with my sister and her roommates at their super-zwin apartment (thanks ladies!). We got to have some girls' nights out with many (rather embarrassing) videos and pictures. My dad and I got to check out Bukowski's Tavern and my mom and sister were champions with helping me get all my shopping done (I need just a few...ok, more than a few things to keep me going in my last year in Morocco). So as much as staying in a hotel on an extended vacation can feel like home, Boston did.

Before my trip back to the States, I had told my sister that I wanted to visit a Moroccan restaurant. In my mind, I would walk into this restaurant, start speaking Darija and the owners would clap and smile and give me tea and misimin (a delicious fried bread kind of like a tortilla). My first encounter with a Moroccan outside of the airport in the States was, to say the least, a little disappointing. I was getting my hair cut and my hair dresser informed me the the hair dresser next to us was Moroccan. After my haircut, I greeted him in Darija and told him my story. He answered in English, and while he was nice and told me that I was doing good work, it wasn't really what I was expecting and hoping for. As I walked into the hotel later, I heard one of the doorman speaking Arabic. I only caught a little bit, but I actually thought it was Arabic from a different country because it sounded kind of strange. However, later on, I greeted the man in Arabic and he stared at me. “How did you know I was Moroccan,” he asked me in Arabic. I laughed since I hadn't actually known but continued the conversation. He was amazed...well, maybe baffled is a better word. He stopped me and asked in English if I was Moroccan (he added that I looked like I was....score). I told him I wasn't but that I was living and working there. As we talked, he brought over another doorman who was also Moroccan and was from and area near my site. They were both so happy to be able to speak to me, some random American woman, in Arabic. And I was happy to bring a little bit of home to these men who were so far from their own.

Sadly, my trip came to an end, as all good things do. I flew from Boston back to JFK. Although my bag was 11 lbs. overweight, the woman at the JetBlue counter told me to keep up the good work and that she wouldn't charge me for it (this Peace Corps thing is starting to pay off). I learned that you can check into international flights 4 hours before the flight leaves. I was there with 6 hours before the flight so killed some time catching up on my shows and drinking my last corn-syrup coke for a year. Once the counter opened, I checked in. Not surprisingly, the Royal Air Maroc people didn't say a thing about my overweight bag...many of their customers are from countries where rules and regulations don't matter in the same way that they do in the States so I guess they figure they'll pick their battles (aka the 100 lbs bag, not the 60 lbs. Bag). I enjoyed my last hours in America eating pizza and drinking blue moon while watching CNN. The boarding of the plane ended up being chaos. I thought since we were still Stateside that there would be lines and orderly boarding. Not so. 

 Even this passenger:   (yes she was on my flight and I was super excited)

had to wait in the crowd around the gate. After a long and loud (somehow, it is possible for babies to cry for 5 hours non-stop) flight, we finally landed. I chose the passport line with 7 people that took longer than the line with 15 (welcome back me). I did finally manage to make it through, retrieve my bag and get on the train. I was on a bus back to my site by 9am (pretty much the only benefit to a flight landed at 6:30 am) and arrived home by mid-afternoon. I hadn't had much sleep or much food and my house was covered in dust. But it felt wonderful to be home.

Updates, News and Other Fun Things

            I’ve decided to make this post more of a general update type of thing…lots of things have changed in site since I last wrote and I have good news to share!

And then there was….water!

            I finally finally finally have running water in my house!  Now when I turn on my tap, water flows out…all of the time!  It’s great.  For those of you who don’t know, since July when I moved into my house, there has been the promise of running water coming to my community “very soon,” or even “this month.”  Don’t worry, I wasn’t completely naive when I came here, I figured even though they were saying soon, they really meant a few months.  Deadlines came and went and still no water.  I hadn’t invested in a water pump (a device that would bring water from the cistern in my kitchen up through my faucets) because it was expensive and everyone recommended that I just hold out for when the government would be providing it.  So I went about my life sans pump-I created a routine and got a whole system going to get the water I would need every day.  I stored it in buckets and containers for later use.  I got a ton of exercise pulling up bucket after bucket of water, sometimes three or four times a day.  I figured out the best way to drop a bucket down a short well in order to get the most water.  I learned to appreciate how much water it took to do certain things like shower or flush the toilet since I was so involved in making that water available for my own use.  To be fair, people in my community have been dealing with this situation much longer than I have (especially those without pumps), so I don’t have much room to complain.  Plus, I didn’t even have to leave the house to get my water like some other PCVs.  So all in all, I had it pretty good.  But, that doesn’t mean I’m not super stoked that I can abandon my old system and take a big leap into the world of luxury.  At this point I should also give a ton of credit to my kind neighbor men who installed my plumping pipes, dug holes, got things through walls and many other things to ensure that I could use the new system…and all for free. God bless their parents, as we say in Morocco.

old water system                                         

                                                     new one!

Lots of work too, Hamduallah

            The first few months for most PCVs are pretty slow in site, especially those of us who got here right as summer began and most of our neighbors left for vacation in other parts of the country.  I had no complaints with this slow start, and frankly I needed a little break after the intensity of training, learning the language and living with two different host families.  I did lots of home improvements, cooking experiments and caught up on my reading.  As the months passed, I tried my best to do a community assessment: speak with many different members of the community and use my own observations to determine what kind of projects I could begin to work on with various other people in my site.  I went to the clinic (sbitar) everyday at first, then a few times per week as other things came up.  I started to work with my local commune government to get a trash clean-up project in the works.  I planned for many projects and present ideas to people, but nothing was really sticking.  I finally got permission last month to begin working in the schools and teamed up with the English teacher at the middle school to work with the students learning English.  Even with these things though, I felt like I wasn’t doing as much work as I was able or had time to do.  I asked my supervisor from Peace Corps to come to my site and have a meeting with some of the local leaders to see if we could determine some more projects for me or places where people might want my help.  Although the meeting lasted less than two hours, things changed drastically for me.  I discovered that my community had been able to get funding for the trash project without me, which was great.  I also found out that many people in town still didn’t know why I was there and thought I was trying to convert the children to Christianity.  After my supervisor assured everyone that this was not the case, the director of the Dar Taliba (the dormitory at the middle school where the girls can live during the week since many of them live quite a few kilometers from school) asked me to start doing classes for the girls there.  I am now teaching typing/word processing, English and I have an exercise class every week with the girls.  They are a great group and are really enthusiastic about doing my classes.  Last week’s exercise class which involved two hula hoops and dancing to Shakira is one of my highlights of my time here. 

Party Time

            An important feature of Islam in Morocco is a structure called a “mossem” which houses the remains of a person who lived an especially good life or did many good deeds, rather like a saint in Christianity.  Every year in the part of Morocco where I live, there is a festival that makes its way around all the mossems in the area and ends with a big celebration in Essaouira.  My town has two mossems, one small and one big.  We had the festival celebration at the small mossem last week.  In Arabic, the word Hfla means everything from party to assembly so when everyone kept talking about the “party” at the mossem, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  It was pretty much a bigger version of our weekly souq (market) with more clothes and trinkets as well as food to be eaten while walking around.  This week is the Hfla at the big mossem and apparently this one is a really big deal-people come from all over to attend.  And the party is already starting.  Normally, my town is dead on Sundays and most stores aren’t even open but today when I went into town, it looked like a busy souq day…and today is the smallest day…come Tuesday, things are gonna get pretty crazy around here, Moroccan style of course.

                                                                                   the mossem      

                                                                      candy!

And his name is...(well now you have to read to find out!)

            As per usual, it’s been quite awhile since my last post.  Lots of exciting things have happened since I’ve last written.  Pea season (my town is apparently known far and wide for their excellent peas) is in full swing, I went on vacation to Portugal (see facebook for pictures), warm weather has returned (Hamduallah!) and last but certainly not least, my host my gave birth to a little boy!

            I left on vacation knowing my host mom might very well have the baby while I was gone, though I came back to find her still pregnant (very, very pregnant).  Coming back to town was wonderful after being gone for a couple of weeks-everyone greeted me, asked how my trip was and said how much they had missed me.  It was even better knowing I could experience all the things that would come with the birth of the new baby.

            Of course, when I stopped by to say hi to the family, I completely misunderstood and thought my host mom was still at the hospital when in fact she had come home the night before with the baby (I proceeded to go to the hammam and said I was come later for tea, refusing an invitation for lunch and probably offending everyone a ton…good thing they like me a lot, I can usually get away with almost anything). 

            I finally did come and talked with my host sisters before going up to see my host mom and the baby.  Everyone was in a great mood and excited about the baby (all the girls had wanted it to be a boy); after inquiring about the sex, I asked for the name, a question whose answer was a bit of a blank stare followed by “we don’t know yet.”  Don’t know yet…I thought to myself…and then a faint memory of going to a baby-naming party last March came to me.  I hadn’t really thought about it much at the time but the baby at that party, although new, had been born about a week before.  Another faint memory of a culture lesson during training came to me…people here wait a week or so to announce the new baby’s name to everyone and of course, a slaughter and big feast is involved. The ram I had seen running around the yard suddenly made a lot more sense. 

            Thankfully I didn’t make the same mistake of asking my host mom for the name.  I did get the privilege of seeing the baby the day after his birth (something reserved for family as far as I could tell).  Although I won’t include any pictures of him in this post, you can take my word for it that he is just precious!  Dark eyes and a head full of dark hair.

            I went and saw mom and baby a few more times during the week and got the info for the baby-naming party (to be held on Sunday).  About half way through the week the younger kids started calling the baby Ali…I thought this was just a nickname but was actually his real name…another privilege of hanging out with the family a lot, you get to know the name before lots of other people.

            I knew the party was on Sunday, but I wasn’t really sure what time to show up.  I called my host dad this morning to check.  He told me he was just about to slaughter the ram and that I should come over but that the lunch started at 12.  I declined the invite to see the slaughter (see my post from L’Eid) but headed over at noon with my gift, pictures of the new baby and some money for the parents.  To my surprise, little Ali was hairless…all his beautiful dark hair had been shaved off!  I was going to ask why and then I figured the explanation would be very complicated and I probably wouldn’t understand so I just decided to go with it.  It was hard enough to try to gather who Ali was (a  prophet from the Kor’an, though I have no idea what he did, etc).

There was most definitely a lot of sitting around at this party.  A lot of women showed up about 1 and we drank some tea and ate cookies.  Women and children kept filtering in for the next few hours.  I think there were between 75 and 100 women and children by the end.  Small groups would come in and look at the new baby, talk with his mom and bit, drink some tea and then filter back out to sit in the salon, or formal sitting room.  Three cups of tea and about ten cookies later, lunch was finally served.  It didn’t come out until about 4:30…I wasn’t really sure if this was normal and/or expected or if most people thought they’d be eating at 2.  Regardless, no one seemed too worried about it as we started with a chicken duwaz (meat cooked in tagine with sauce and olives but no other vegetables).  This was followed by mutton with prunes and almonds.  I ate it all like a champ and no one even scolded me to eat more (a very common occurrence at Moroccan meals, no matter how much food you’ve eaten and regardless if you are mid-chew).

During the whole affair the women in my host family (namely my host aunt and oldest host sisters) were busy cooking, cleaning, serving tea and washing dishes.  None of them ate with the guests and I’m not sure my host aunt even got any food!  As I was talking with them, I realized this was not the only part of the party.  There was going to be a men’s party in the evening with just as many people and as much food.  So they would have to do it all over again…and the party would probably last for many hours and late into the night.  A joyous day but also a very busy one.  Little Ali has come into the world and was happily received and welcomed by one of the best and most loving family that I have ever met.  I’m very excited to get to see him grow up for the next 15 months…he’s got a good start already!

Marrakech Express

            Ok, so I might have failed slightly in doing a better job of updating this blog.  But don’t worry, I have many excuses, the main one being that for the last month or so I have been busy entertaining family and friends who were visiting (Hamduallah!).  It has been a crazy, busy, exhausting and wonderfully fun last few weeks.

However, before I dive into stories and tales of our adventures, I think I should do a little recap of what I have been up to since my last post.  I did manage to survive L’Eid and I also avoided having to eat any parts of the sheep that I couldn’t stomach (like brain or eyeball).  I probably didn’t eat the amount of meat that would satisfy any of my Moroccan hosts, but I did my best.  Besides the whole meat thing, I enjoyed the social and family/party aspects of the holiday.  Will I stick around for L’Eid next year?  Maybe not, but hey, at least I can say I experienced one…

After L’Eid, I took a (rather) long journey down to the southern part of Morocco known as Tata.  The word “known” is probably a slight exaggeration since many people in Morocco don’t even know where Tata is or that it’s a city at all (it’s pretty remote and excruciatingly hot during the summer so I guess people don’t necessarily have a lot of reasons to visit).  I loved Tata.  True, I chose to visit in late November because I’m not sure I would survive the summer temperatures that jump into the 130s (it is part of the Saharan desert after all), but the weather was wonderful when I went and the people were very friendly and nice.  The landscape was stark but very beautiful.  The Peace Corp Volunteers down in that part of the country are a special group and were so welcoming to all of us that made the trip down.  One of the volunteers hosted over 20 people for what turned out to be one of the best Thanksgiving dinners I have ever had.  We had a 40lbs turkey, homemade tofurkey (which was super delicious), salads, green beans, stuffing and more pies and desserts than I have ever seen on one table.  The food was great and the company even better. 

Having my family visit was a bit of a whirlwind.  My dad was able to realize his dream of taking a picture with the snake charmers in the medina in Marrakech.  Unfortunately, I don’t think Marrakech is the same place it once was, the place which people in my parent’s generation heard about in songs like the Crosby Stills and Nash’s “Marrakech Express” and read in books like A Year in Marrakech byPeter Mayne. I think Marrakech used to be the place to be for people in their twenties.  Now, Marrakech is very crowded and many people in the old medina seem jaded and/or aggressive towards tourists; there are a ton of cars and the pollution can be very intense; there are tourists everywhere.  All the visitors that I have had that have come through Marrakech were glad to leave and many ended up with a very bad impression.  It’s too bad since there are so many nice parts of Morocco (and probably Marrakech too…I haven’t spent enough time exploring to find the gems outside of the crowded medina).  So I guess needless to say, I think my dad was slightly disappointed with Marrakech but definitely enjoyed Essaouira and meeting my host family (especially getting his hand kissed by my small host brother which is a standard greeting to an elder…he said something along the lines of having waited his whole life for that kind of treatment).  My mom and sister enjoyed the sights of Casablanca, including the 3^rd biggest mosque in the world, Hassan II, which is sits along the beautiful coastline.  We all enjoyed the delicious food of Essaouira, including a very nice Christmas dinner at a restaurant with great views of the ocean.  They also enjoyed time with my host family and made out like bandits with lots of olive and argan oil prepared by my host family.  It really was excellent to have the people I love see where I live and what my town, work and host family are like.  I think it was also important for people in my community to see my parents visiting and enjoying all Morocco has to offer.

So, I think that’s enough blogging for now.  I’ll try my best to update more, but hey, life just might get in the way.  If any of you reading this have questions or want to know anything more specific about my village, work or way of life here, don’t hesitate to ask! 

Much love and peace in the new year.   

FEAR AND LOATHING IN MOROCCO: Or, why I’m slightly terrified of “Big Eid”

Ok, y'all may be surprised that I am posting again so quickly after my last post, but I had some complaints that I wasn't posting often enough  and found out that some of my readers (*cough, Dad, cough*) have started reading blogs of other PCVs to keep up to date on what's going on here...and we can't have that!  So, with no further ado, I present you a new post:

            Rumor has it that the “Big Eid” celebration will begin on November 7, less than a week from now.  For those of you who don’t know (and I’m gonna just make the jump and decide that most of you), this is the second Eid festival that comes after Ramadan.  And let me tell you, the first one was freaking awesome.  Definitely my new favorite holiday (at least in Morocco).  First of all, you get to eat again during the day because Ramadan is over, and that’s always a good thing.  Secondly, everyone gets all dressed up really nicely.  Thirdly, lots of extended family comes (so basically it’s a lot like Christmas in the States…lots of food and family).  But best of all, you get to eat cake and cookies for breakfast.  Ok, so I really loved that day. 

            And now the time has come for the big one…yes, I really mean that-this holiday is a huge deal, everyone has been talking about it for weeks.  Each family, if they can afford it, buys a sheep.  On the morning of Eid, we will all watch TV and wait for the King to slaughter his sheep (before TV people listened to the radio for this news and before that, I think they just estimated or something…it’s supposed to be around 10 AM).  Once he does this, mass sheep slaughtering will begin across the country.  A person can only slaughter if they have been trained how to do so correctly (this includes making sure the sheep dies right away); if there is no man in the family who knows how to do it, the family will ask a neighbor or hire a local butcher to come and do it.  So far so good.

            Now comes the scary part.  I have been a vegetarian since I was sixteen years old.  In Morocco, I eat meat from time to time (always when I’m with Moroccans and always in order to avoid offending anyone terribly); my host family kind of gets it…but also kind of not.  I always figure that, hey, if I don’t eat this, more for you guys.  But I’m pretty sure that’s not how Moroccans analyze things (at least in terms of food and meals…they just assume something is wrong with the food, etc if I don’t eat it).  So I usually just suck it up and have a little.  However, my one exception to this is stuff inside animals (heart, liver, etc); I just can’t do it, it literally makes me feel sick even thinking about it…something about the lingering taste of blood maybe.  Anyway, enough grossing my readers out.  I’m really not bothered by the general killing of sheep at Eid; I’ve seen these sheep and they are happy and carefree (there are two in my backyard who just eat grass all day) and are killed in a quick and humane way and then all (and I mean all) the meat is eaten.  That’s all fine and dandy (especially after reading a lot about factory farming in the US recently), I just kind of really don’t want to eat what will be a big part of the meal on the first day of the festival…and then continue to eat meat for every meal for the next two days afterwards.

            Eid is a three day event; the first day is the slaughtering and then eating of innards (thankfully there is a big cous-cous or tagine meal later in the day with lots of veggies).  Day two is tongue and brain.  Day three is the rest of it, though afterwards people will preserve the meat by salting it or freezing it.  I’m pretty sure everyone is eating sheep for months after this.  I guess if I can make it through day one, the next two shouldn’t be too hard.  Sure, I could just say I don’t want to eat it, but this holiday and sheep thing is a big deal.  A friend described it in the following way: it’s as if Thanksgiving were the biggest holiday in America and all that was served for the meal was turkey…and then everyone just talked about turkey and how awesome and wonderful it is for the rest of the year.  So I could say no…but I won’t.  I think it’s worth repressing my gag reflex to keep everyone happy.  I’ll post again after the event to let everyone I know that I survived (and hey, maybe I’ll really love the food, who knows), but until then, I await the holiday with some fear and loathing…

Outstandingly Out-of-sight Olive Oil Opinion

            Fall has reached my site and it’s absolutely beautiful; the leaves don’t change color here but the weather is as fall-like as any I’ve experienced (not that I have much need for relief from summer since the heat here isn’t too bad).  Students are back in school now, everyone is back from summer vacations and the nights are getting cool.  However, there is a major difference between fall here and any fall I’ve ever seen: olive season. 

            There are a ton of olive trees in this area, a wonderful aspect of the place since they make everything look green for miles around.  Now, it is clear they are here for more than just aesthetic appeal.  Olive oil is a big export for Morocco and much of the production occurs in the south of the country, where I am so lucky to reside.  And this olive oil thing is no small potatoes.  Almost everyone in the area seems to be somehow involved in its production, whether it be picking, transporting or pressing the olives.  As I write this, there is a man in my backyard up in an olive tree hitting the branches with a stick to get them to fall off and down onto the tarps he has laid under the trees.  He will later take these olives to one of the many scales that have appeared recently to have his olives weighed and purchased.  Pickup trucks weighed down with thousands of olives make their way from out in the bled to town everyday to sell their loads.  There is a flurry of activity in town that was so non-existent during the summer months, and it’s all thanks to olives. 

            Ok, so olives are picked, trucked and sold.  Now what?  Well, to me, this is the most exciting part: the olive press.  Olive presses are these large machines with huge round stone wheels that squish all the olives up into this sort of olive mush and then another machine presses that mush to extract the oil.  Lucky for me, my host father owns one of these presses to I’ve gotten to see firsthand how it functions.  My host dad’s machine has a modern touch: it runs by electricity instead of by the power of horses and camels (and yes, there are still plenty of these old-school machines around).  My host family doesn’t have many olive trees of their own so when my host dad needs olives, he just flags down one of those pickups and buys a load.  He and his brothers (this olive oil thing is definitely a family affair) have connections in Agadir, Casablanca and in other parts of the country where they sell the oil that they press.  Olive oil season last 2-3 months and my host dad informs me that they usually produce about 600 liters during that time (pretty amazing considering how many olives it takes to get a little oil).  Always the entrepreneur, my host father and his brothers also allow others from the neighborhood to come use the machine to press oil (though I’m sure the use comes with a small fee).  It is a lot of work, but the end product is worth it.  I may be biased of course but it is definitely the best olive oil I’ve ever had…so if anyone is in the market for some delicious, freshly pressed oil, my house is always open to visitors!

 Olive Oil Machine at work...the big stones spin vertically while the machine pushes them around the basin

 Olive mush coming out of the machine

 It's then pressed down and the oil is stored here

 Host uncle with the machine

Some neighbors pouring the oil into a bottle.  The basket-looking things on the right are filled with the oil mush

then put between the poles in the background and are pushed down

The (sort of) glorious time of Ramadan

Ramadan is a time many with which many of you may be unfamiliar.  It is the time during which Muslims believe that the Koran was revealed and in celebration, millions of Muslims around the world do not allow food or drink of any kind pass their lips during the daylight hours for a month's time.  However, life goes on (almost) normally-people go to work and do their daily tasks.  Not everyone fasts though; children who have not reached puberty, people who need medicine to make it through the day (such as diabetics), pregnant women and those traveling are exempt.  The timing of this month changes one month every year (based on the lunar calendar), and obviously it is easier in the winter months because the days are shorter and going without water is not as difficult as it is in the heat of the summer.  This year, Ramadan falls during the month of August, one of the harder months during which to fast, especially in the heat of the Moroccan summer.  Thankfully (and awesome for me), Morocco has been having a relatively mild summer and the part in which I live especially so.

I decided to try the whole "fasting" thing for my first Ramadan in Morocco.  I wanted to see what it was like and wanted to work on my community integration, something which I do feel has been improved with my fasting.  Truthfully, the first week of Ramadan was hard.  However, instead of being really thirsty, which is what I was expecting, I was mostly just really tired.  But that's pretty much in the past (or maybe I'm just used to it now).  I have my Ramadan schedule down now and it definitely includes a long nap in the middle of the day.  I wake up in the morning and go to the sbitar (clinic) until about 11 or so-after that there are very few people that want to walk in from the surrounding villages in the heat of the day without drinking any water.  Then, I go home and go about my days tasks, which usually include painting some part of a window or door and listening to Harry Potter audio books.  At 7 pm or so I head out to break fast...

I'm sure Ramadan varies from country to country and even from family to family.  During this month I have been able to enjoy breaking fast (lftur, pronounced looftur, which incidentally also means "breakfast" in Darija...perhaps an Arabic influence on the English idea).  Each family does it a little differently and eats different foods for this meal.  In the town in general though, this meal is a substantial meal, whereas in other communities it is just a big tea time with a much larger meal later in the evening.  Here though, each family usually serves dates, figs, milk and milk-based fruit smoothies, harira (the general name for soup....during Ramadan this soup is very hearty and the tomato-based version contains chick peas, pasta, lentils, beans, eggs and various spices and the milk-based version has a whole grain in it, similar to oatmeal) tea, bread, some kind of fish, and my favorite, shbekia (a delicious, deep-fried sugary pastry-type food drenched in honey (see attached picture).  Some families also have various  People do not drink nearly as much water as I would expect, and in fact, many families do not drink any water at all during lftur.  The meal usually lasts an hour or so and the men in the family will go to the mosque for evening prayer between 9 and 9:30 (there is no section of the mosque for women in my town, though I know women go to mosque as well during this time in many bigger cities).  As far as I can tell, people then go to bed at a normal time (between 10 and 12) and then the women wake up at 2:30 in order to prepare sHur, or the early morning breakfast, which is eaten at about 3:30am so that everyone can eat before the early call to prayer which happens about 4:30.  Even though I am not participating in the prayer aspect of Ramadan, I have still been getting up and cooking breakfast at 3...it's necessary to eat this meal if I want to get through the day without being too hungry.

So Ramadan is almost over (and I will get to go back to getting a full night's sleep, yay!).  This Saturday is called the Night of Power and many people will stay awake all night praying because they believe this is the night that is especially holy and that God is more likely to hear their prayers on this night.  Many read the Koran aloud during this night.  I do not plan on staying awake all night this Saturday, but it will be interesting to see the preparations for people to do so.   And next week (either Wednesday or Thursday) is what is known as "small 3id," or the end of Ramadan.  It involves a big morning meal with a lot of cakes and other sweet things and everyone gets very dressed up-basically just a celebration of the month of fasting and its end.  I am planning to make a cake (yes, I have practiced this and didn't fail miserably) and enjoy 3id with my host family.

                                                                             harira

                                                 lftur meal

                                                          bag of sbekia...yes I bought a bag for myself