Things I have learned so far in Morocco (Part 1)

1) Just because there is an official government time change, it does not ensure that people will follow it (and in fact, you and your CBT mates may be the only people that choose to do so….don’t worry, it switches back to “old time” in July I hear…)

2)   If you sleep outside, you can see the stars really well but a windstorm may come up and just because you are close to the ground does not mean you will avoid having things land on you in the night

3)   You probably cannot convince your Moroccan family to eat raw tomatoes with the peel still on just by putting them in your awesome “American food” macaroni and cheese dish

4)   There are a wide variety of good Moroccan candy/chocolate desserts for a great price (note: just because there is a commercial for a cake with a really cuddly bear that hugs you when you eat sad cake, this will not happen in real life and that cake is actually really bad…hence them having to use the cuddly hug bear to convince you to buy it)

5)    Weddings last for days (literally)…but no one will be offended if you leave “early” one of the nights (aka at midnight) to go home and sleep.  Also, Moroccans have sweet dance moves.

6)   Discussing, interpreting and elaborating on the lives and goings-on of your host family may become your replacement for entertaining television in your CBT group

7)    Having a cold Coke after spending a long morning shopping at Souq (market) may just be the best part of your week (and is in fact comparable to enjoying another cold, carbonated beverage after a long day in the States…well, almost comparable…)

8)  1.5 liter water bottles make a great substitute for washing machines (no really! but you can only fit small items through the hole at the top)

9)   You may look forward to walking the 7km to souq every week because it’s the only exercise you’ve had since the last 7km walk to souq…

10) CBT mates, LCFs and Moroccan host families are some of the nicest, most supportive, best people you’ll ever encounter!

some random comments about the end of CBT

Alright everyone, headed into the final stretch of CBT here.  It’s been a crazy, sometimes wonderful, sometimes difficult journey.  Once I head back to CBT site on Thursday, I will have 7 days left with my host family.  It is a very bittersweet time. I swear in (aka become an official Peace Corps Volunteer) on May 25 (inshallah) and will head to my final site on May 26. I’m excited for these new things and to finally get to move to where I will live for the next two years, but of course, I will be very sad to leave this wonderful family that  have become rather attached to.  We have all gotten our routine down-I play cards with my brothers and sister every night, we all eat breakfast together in the morning and dinner together at night.  I help my sister in the kitchen either with cooking or cleaning up after the meals.  My brothers and I have secret handshakes and I’ve taught them lots of American games.  They put up with my rough language skills and are nothing but patient and caring.  And on top of that, I have learned to embrace the wonderful support of my fellow CBT mates and I know that I will miss them greatly when we all head our separate ways (and yes, I totally started singing the Journey song after I wrote that, thank you Cal Band).

I know that I have not been able to keep in touch with you all as much as I would like to.  Feel free to write me letters anytime (just email me and ask for the address!) and I will try to update this regularly when I’m in my final site.  However, if I fall behind or something of the sort and you want to catch up, please write an email (and yes, I think all of your lives and what you do everyday is interesting, even if you don’t)!  And, as always, let me know if you’re rollin’ through Morocco anytime in the future and you will have a couch or bed or floor/whatever I can offer at your beck and call!

Yes, zucc is a bad word in darija

And I use it all the time by accident. oops.



Well, everyone, i have officially found out my site for the next two years. in the interest of my personal security/to keeep the creepers from knowing too much about me, I won't say the town exactly, but I am in Essauoria province.  () It's definitely in a beach town. I'm very excited (as many of you know, i do love my beaches). my town is about 15,000 people and seems pretty well equiped. there is a souq (market) daily and even a women's only souq two days per week. there seems to be a lot of other ammenities. it is a very touristy place (from what i have heard) so that will definitely provide an interesting experience. i leave monday to do a week-long site visit during which i will stay with a second host family. there are 6 children under the age of 13 (should be exciting, to say the least). another volunteer and i will be escorted tomorrow to our sites and then will spend the week finding out information about the town, clinic, etc. 


funny story of the week:
so, even though it's been about 80 degrees at site, i've been wearing long sleeves and long pants (hard to get used to at first, but it's been getting easier...i have just come to the realization that i will sweat a lot and not shower much at all and it will be just fine). but that is not the funny part of the story. so we are all sweating through our one layers and the people in our town/host families are wearing 2-3 layers on both top and bottom. ashley's sister consistently has three shirts on. sydney's brothers always wear two pairs of pants on top of one another. the other night, my brothers came home from visitng some other family. they were wearing some new clothes...and i was teasing them a little about wearing a bunch of shirts. then my host mom started in and we figured out that my little 6 year old brother was wearing 5 shirts. yes, 5. even his grandma was cracking up and teasing him for having so many on. it's nice to be able to laugh with my family and have a good time. we have started to play card games before dinner at night. the favorite is "tajin," a game where the cards are in a big circle (a lot like a tajin) and you make pairs. i've been teaching the boys the names of the cards in english, sharing culture, woo! all in all, things are good here, i'm ready for the next part of the adventure.


i tried to add pictures, no dice. maybe next time!

CBT pictures, yes!

team Blue Ice 2 (well some of them at least) outside our hostel

one of my costume changes from the photo shoot my family made me do; yes, it's velvet, love it

me and my host sister Miriam, photo shoot

lunch tajine...mmm....

casbah and surrounding landscape...picture doesn't capture it so well, but it was beautiful!

More pictures from CBT

my host brother Jamal

my host brothers/grandchildren of my host parents and their baller Moroccan hipster bike

Zacharia and Mohammed 

Get Your PACA On

            Well, here I am at the Hub in Ouarzazate again.  We just spent ten days with our host families- I think it’s good that I can say it definitely didn’t feel like it was that long.  Granted, we did take a mini vacation this past weekend, but in some ways, that was more tiring than being with my host family.

            Since I last posted, we (as a CBT group) practiced using our PACA tools (participatory analysis and community assessment) that are basically one of the main ways that Peace Corps has us assess our community.  It was a pretty cool exercise-we had two groups, one of girls age 16-24 and one of guys, same age.  We learned a lot about our community (in terms of how each groups sees the community and what is important to them there, what they do every day and how the seasons change what they do.  We also learned about what each group would like to have in the community.

            Language learning has been very intensive, but pretty good.  We just learned the past tense.  I understand more of what my family says, but still feel pretty clueless.  It may very well be that we got a lot of information in the past few days and I have yet to fully absorb it.

            Our mini-vaca was nice.  All seven of us went to a duwar (town) to the north of our CBT and stayed at a hostel overnight.  It was really beautiful and had an old casba overlooking an oasis that we were able to walk around.  The hardest part of the trip was trying to get A) a taxi that wouldn’t mind breaking the law and take all seven of us in one car and B) the correct price for the trip.  We did make it there and back, though not without adventure.  On the last leg of the trip the one guy in our group took a taxi with some other Moroccans going to our destination while the six girls took another.  Of course, we got the driver that almost hit our friend’s taxi and then proceeded to yell at their driver.  As we sped away, the driver started to blast Lady Gaga and the cab turned into a dance party.  We listened to crappy American ghetto fab/club songs for the whole trip, while simultaneously almost rear-ending and then passing every car we came upon (including our friend’s taxi which had left a good ten minutes before we did…we ended up at the destination and waited for him for another ten mins), and all of this a crazy fast speed (of course)  A great adventure…sort of…

            All the health volunteers will be at the hub here for a few days, then we head back to our CBTs and will be cooking some sort of American food for our families on Saturday.  I have decided to go with pancakes, scrambled eggs and hashbrowns.  I’ll write more about the success (or lack thereof) of that experiment next time.  More pictures of my host family and CBT site to come (Inshallah)!