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

My house in the middle of my street

I have accomplished a lot today (unpacked most of my stuff, took a shower, wrote some letters and emails) and therefore feel in the mood for a celebratory posting.  So here are a few of the good things that have happened to me in the last few weeks:

            -moved into my new house

            -got water in said house

            -house was cleaned (and not by me, thankfully)

            -went to the beach

-was greeted in Darija (not French) by a shop keeper I walk by a lot in Essaouira…he also had a big smile on his face when he did it and it totally made my day

-after the greeting, another man asked me if I was from Rabat…why no sir, but thank you for mistaking me for a Moroccan

            -have fed myself for like 4 days on sandwiches and cereal

-will be getting the rest of the furniture for my house in the next week from a volunteer near me who is going back to the States

-the weather here is wonderful…not as hot as the rest of the country, so I can feel bad for all my friends while being quite comfortable …yes, feel free to hate me because of it

Crazy story of the day:

So I decided to get a little exercise today and went on a bike ride.  I got to a place which I thought would be a good place to turn around.  Then, I saw this goat on the side of this hill…but the hill had a sheer drop off of like 25 ft. and the goat was stuck on the side of the drop off standing on some roots and a rock.  Looking at this goat, I thought there was a very real possibility that this goat was going to fall so I put my bike down and started to climb up the other side of the hill with the intention (I guess) of like picking this goat up and putting him back on the flat top of the hill.  However, as I was walking over, the goat totally did fall (and now I have to diverge a little to explain how animal roaming works in my site-the animals have their 2 front feet tied close together often or just one of their feet is tied and then the other end is attached to a tree or rock or something else to keep them from going far).  This goat fit into the second category, so when he fell he was just hanging on this side of this hill from his one foot screaming.  I ran over and I think I was maybe going to try to like hold the goat so he wouldn’t be hanging by his foot but then he freaked me out and I thought he might bite me so I sort of freaked out and started yelling just like the goat.  Then this pickup drove by so I flagged them down and the guy backed up and I pointed at the goat.  He got out with a knife (yes, I think kitchen knives are common accessories in cars in Morocco…and for good reason apparently) and walked over to the goat and cut the rope that was attached to the goat’s foot.  The goat landed and then got up and walked back up the hill.  The guy just kind of laughed at me and got back in his truck and drove away.  Yes, clearly, just cut the goat down…that was literally probably the last thing I would have thought of and this guy knew totally what to do.  Perhaps I will take my knife on future bike rides for such occasions… 

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!!

oops

ok everyone I promise that I really did have a blog post written and ready to go but I saved it in a format that this computer at the cyber cafedoesnt read so you will have to wait a few more days and I will need to make it more awesome to be worth your while. that is all. I am well and miss everyone a whole bunch!