And Here We Are...

            Since I’m feeling in a ‘list’ kind of mood these days, I will include one about my new awesome site.  Just for a little preface, I have been here a little more than a week.  Things have been good so far, it’s beautiful here and I’m getting to know a lot about the community and have been meetings lots of people.  My family is good and it’s still a little difficult getting used to having at least 6 kids in the house (but usually more), but I think we’re adjusting pretty well to each other.  In about 3 weeks I will move into a place of my own, which I have still yet to find, but inshallah, it won’t be so hard…so anyway, enough chatter, here’s my list:

1.       My site is between 4 and 7 km of the ocean (and I’m leading towards 7 but I’ll let y’all know as soon as I can make it out there)

2.      We have a clinic, it’s open when it’s supposed to be and people come to it…yay!

3.      There are a ton of little stores (called ‘Hanuts’) which sell a large variety of cookies, candy and yogurts…aka I’m set for life

4.      My site is actually a sort of business center and there is a market (souq) every day of the week except Sunday.  On Thursday, there is a souq for women only (I haven’t gone to that one yet, but maybe this week)

5.      There are apparently both scorpions and all sizes and colors of snakes here (however, only the scorpions have been confirmed, though not by me personally…my sisters might have been embellishing on the snake thing to scare me…or so I hope)

6.      I will eventually have internet at my site…there aren’t any internet cafes but it is possible to get mobile internet here

7.      The weather reminds me a lot of Berkeley…hot during the day and cool at night…but there are a lot more donkeys and camels here than I ever saw during my college days

8.      (this is about Morocco in general) fleecy animal prints, brightly colored crushed velvet and pajama sets are always in style, and yes this is for everyday wear….so if anyone has any extras lying around, I know a few ladies/my whole town who’d love to have them ;)

9.      They are definitely still rolling with the old/new time division here…but what I know is that the schools and clinic are on new time and my family on old time…even though half the family has to go to places operating on new time…ok, done with talking about this silliness, but it’s just so absurd I had to mention it one last time

10.  Justin Bieber is just as popular with middle school girls in Morocco as in the States…some girls came into the clinic for shots the other day and the first thing they asked me was if I had seen his movie…unfortunately I had to disappoint them

11.  My site is awesome, you are all welcome to come visit any time!!

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!

new site, yeah!

Hi all. So I had my site visit these last few days, met my family and counterpart and all that jazz. Things went pretty well, did a lot of napping and sitting around but that's ok.  My family is nice though requested that I not post pictures on the internet of them, so you'll just have to guess what they look like or something. However, I was able to take some pictures of my site as well as the beautiful sunset in Essaouira.  I also have a real address now and if I forget to include you in the email and you want it, let me know!


sunset at essaouira

view from my bedroom

another beach view near my site

my site on a rainy morning

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)!

pictures from CBT

 outside of our teacher's house

my room

 part of our CBT group-me, Ashley, Jonathan, Grace and our teacher Mohammed

part of my host family-dad, mom and the two grandkids that sometimes come to visit

1st CBT post

            I am struggling with how to begin this post.  “I moved in with my host family.”  “I am finally at my CBT site.”  “I have started language classes.”  All of these statements are true, but I don’t feel as if they very accurate describe what I have experienced in the past 3 days with my host family and at our CBT site.

             I suppose that I can begin with a description of my family (and yes, this did take me the full three days to fully figure out).  I have a host mom and dad and they have 5 children, one of whom lives with them (youngest son Jamal) and one of whom lives really close and is actually the host dad of another volunteer.  There is Jamal’s wife Mireem.  There are also two boys Mohammed (age 12) and Zacharia (age 5-7, not sure at this point)-these boys are the grandchildren of my host parents and my understanding is that their parents died and that’s why they live there.  Often another grandchild or two will come and stay for dinner and then sleep over.  As far as I know, my host dad (Brahim) is a potter (but I haven’t really been able to ask him much about this).  My host mom (Fatima) is a housewife, though Mireem seems to do a lot of work around the house (and most of the cooking as far as I can tell).   Mireem is 21 and I think she and Jamal just recently got married.  She is from Casablanca originally, though her mom and brother come over a lot so they may live close now.  Jamal has some sort of job that he leaves to on his motorbike but I’m not sure what it is. 

            Mireem is very nice to me and lets me help in the kitchen (but I’m pretty sure she thinks I am very silly…it takes me as long to peel one potato as it does for her to peel four or five).  I think she really wants a friend and someone to talk to so I have a lot of hope that we will be able to develop a close relationship.  She even did henna on my hands the other night (I think she sometimes does this for money in the bigger town nearby, she is very talented).  The older boy, Mohammed, helps me the most with language.  He is very patient and lets me write things down.  The rest of the family has caught on though and they are getting really good about pointing things out and testing me on different words.  The language is still very difficult but it is amazing how much we have learned in only 2 days of school.  I can now greet people correctly, say what I am doing in Morocco and have learned lot of food and other household words from my family.  I am also helping Mireem, Jamal and Mohammed with their English.

            The adjustment to the Moroccan way of life has gone well for me so far.  I think I have the hang of the Turkish toilet (or so I hope), haven’t stepped on any carpets (zerbia) with my shoes on, haven’t spilled the tea yet and have so far committed only a few faux-pas, though I’m sure I will commit many more.  School is going really well.  We have a wonderful language teacher and I think that our group has a great dynamic.  I am hoping we are able to go out in the community a little more this next week, meet more people and see some more things.  I also hope that I am able to have more meaningful conversations with my host family.  My language will improve I know, shwiya b shwiya (little by little, as we say in Darija).  I have taken some pictures of my host family and community but the internet may be too slow to load them today.  Check back in ten days and hopefully I will be able to get them up (Inshallah)!

And...I'm in Morocco!

            On Wednesday we left the luxury of our hotel compound in Marakech where we had been since we arrived in country Monday for a windy trip through the Atlas Mountains.  We had a police escort for the entire 4 hour trip on twisty, skinny roads.  The terrain reminded me a lot of Southern California-scrub brush, mountains, and even snow, as well as palm and fruit trees.  The two buses pulled up to Ouarzazate and through the main square to our hotel.  Up until then, it had been a whirlwind of information, people and things to remember.  Since we arrived in Ouarzazate it has been some of the same, but has calmed down a lot.

            Since Wednesday we have been doing a lot of training and have begun to learn a little bit more about our specific roles as either Health Education or Environment volunteers (which has made everyone less restless and more directed).  And today, we finally learned our CBT (community based training) sites and the groups we will be with, as well as the language we will be learning for the next two months.  Drum Roll please…Arabic (Darija)!  I’m very excited.  I did some work before I left for Morocco on learning some simple phrases along with the Modern Standard alphabet.  I have a large(ish) CBT group of 7 which I think is nice-a good chance to get to know a lot of people and if I ever get tired of someone there will be others to talk to. 

            Tomorrow morning we all leave each other and head off to the CBTs.  It will be sad to leave everyone (we all have become close over the last week and I really feel that I have bonded with almost everyone here) and I know I will miss being able to eat meals and speak with lots of different people.  We have a truly wonderful group of people from many different backgrounds and I have really enjoyed getting to know them.  But tomorrow is the big day.  I will meet my host family and learn a little bit about my community and begin our language lessons with Mohammed, our language and culture facilitator.  On Thursday we all return to our hub in Ouarzazate with all the other health volunteers to do more training (and get a second rabies shot, woo) and I will likely have more to post then (or will try to since I won’t have access to internet at the CBT)….lots more impressions and things to talk about then!  I will also do my best to put some pictures up either on here or the Facebook.