June 29, 2009
Just a quick note. On my walk back home last night from my host father’s café, I heard a familiar song being played on a cell phone by a group of young guys on the street. The song was “In Da Club” by 50 Cent. Now, I am not a fan of this song because of how over-played it was when it first came out. It was played on the radio all the time when I went to Sweden in the summer of 2002, and it was annoying then. Seven years later, it has still not lost that ability to bug the bejezus out of me. Fortunately I do not have the Tamazight language skills to ridicule the song choice, so I avoided an incident. Why can’t people from other countries choose to listen to better American songs. It would be so refreshing to hear kids playing more classic American songs, like something by the Beach Boys, Johnny Cash, or Elvis. My dream would be to hear John Denver or Barry Manilow. Anything but “In Da Club”/ Well, I just recovered from my first bout of stomach sickness in Morocco. 4 months without any problems is pretty good I’d say. I’ve been lucky, but I jinxed myself by saying that my stomach is made of steel one day before it all started. The two days of eating just bread and drinking copious amounts of water really did help.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Mullets and Flying Sheep (sorta)
June 24, 2009
I have not written in a while, sorry about that. Things have been going well, but I just have not gotten around to writing. Nothing much is new. I have, however, seen a few things lately that have made me laugh and therefore want to share with others. As the title of this entry says, I have seen my first Moroccan mullet. It happened on a market day, and when I first saw it, I didn’t believe it. I did a double take, really. The kid’s mullet is pretty spectacular. The hair in the front is poofy but respectable. The back, however, is pretty curly and shoulder length. If the front of his hair is all business, then the back is like a giant New Year’s Eve party. I have since seen 3 or 4 more mullets. I guess since I’ve seen one and now know that the hairstyle exists in this country, I see it everywhere. If these guys are just getting haircuts they see in movies, then bad 80’s B-movies from India and the US are to blame. I have seen Rambo, Running Man, and the first 3 Superman movies in the past week, so……….
The other part of the title sort of explains something I witnessed this past weekend. I went traveling to the nearest medium size city, which is about 2 hours and 2 taxi rides away. On the first ride, the van I was in was following a little pickup truck full of sheep. One brave male sheep apparently had enough of that nonsense of being transported around in a pickup, so he had the brilliant idea of jumping out of the back of the moving vehicle. The back of this truck had a 3 or 4 foot metal cage with no top attached to the bed. The sheep did not jump high enough. His back leg caught the top of the cage which caused him to faceplant into the side of the truck and land on his back on the road. Everyone in the van I was riding in gasped and then just started saying, “oh, he’s dead, enough, he’s dead.” My van driver alerted the driver of the pickup of the escapee. A guy got out and approached the motionless sheep. When he got about 5 feet from it, the sheep popped up and took off into a field. The sheppard guy was having a lot of trouble trying to catch that probably shocked and concussed sheep. We sped off before I could see the end of the chase, so I like to think that that little escape artist evaded capture and ran to freedom in the mountains. Male sheep are pretty expensive, so I can guess who ended up the victor, and it’s not the wooly one with horns. If only he had jumped a couple inches higher, his chances would have been a lot better.
I get to start renting my own house in about 10 days, so afterwards I will definitely post some new pictures. The house will only have one window to the outside, so it’s going to be pretty dark, kind of like my own little fortress of solitude, but with a porch and roof access. Until next time.
I have not written in a while, sorry about that. Things have been going well, but I just have not gotten around to writing. Nothing much is new. I have, however, seen a few things lately that have made me laugh and therefore want to share with others. As the title of this entry says, I have seen my first Moroccan mullet. It happened on a market day, and when I first saw it, I didn’t believe it. I did a double take, really. The kid’s mullet is pretty spectacular. The hair in the front is poofy but respectable. The back, however, is pretty curly and shoulder length. If the front of his hair is all business, then the back is like a giant New Year’s Eve party. I have since seen 3 or 4 more mullets. I guess since I’ve seen one and now know that the hairstyle exists in this country, I see it everywhere. If these guys are just getting haircuts they see in movies, then bad 80’s B-movies from India and the US are to blame. I have seen Rambo, Running Man, and the first 3 Superman movies in the past week, so……….
The other part of the title sort of explains something I witnessed this past weekend. I went traveling to the nearest medium size city, which is about 2 hours and 2 taxi rides away. On the first ride, the van I was in was following a little pickup truck full of sheep. One brave male sheep apparently had enough of that nonsense of being transported around in a pickup, so he had the brilliant idea of jumping out of the back of the moving vehicle. The back of this truck had a 3 or 4 foot metal cage with no top attached to the bed. The sheep did not jump high enough. His back leg caught the top of the cage which caused him to faceplant into the side of the truck and land on his back on the road. Everyone in the van I was riding in gasped and then just started saying, “oh, he’s dead, enough, he’s dead.” My van driver alerted the driver of the pickup of the escapee. A guy got out and approached the motionless sheep. When he got about 5 feet from it, the sheep popped up and took off into a field. The sheppard guy was having a lot of trouble trying to catch that probably shocked and concussed sheep. We sped off before I could see the end of the chase, so I like to think that that little escape artist evaded capture and ran to freedom in the mountains. Male sheep are pretty expensive, so I can guess who ended up the victor, and it’s not the wooly one with horns. If only he had jumped a couple inches higher, his chances would have been a lot better.
I get to start renting my own house in about 10 days, so afterwards I will definitely post some new pictures. The house will only have one window to the outside, so it’s going to be pretty dark, kind of like my own little fortress of solitude, but with a porch and roof access. Until next time.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Lots of travel, by foot, taxi, and DONKEY!!!!
May 29, 2009
It’s been a pretty interesting few weeks. Well, this last week in particular was pretty full of traveling. I’m loving traveling in Morocco, because every experience is different in some new/strange way. I went to a town an hour and a half to the east on Monday to try to find a tiny stamp for my carte sejour, which is the document that foreigners in Morocco must have if they stay in country longer than 3 months straight without leaving. This particular town had the stamp that I needed, but to buy it I would have to buy a stamp that cost 3 times as much. So I then had to travel 45 minutes south from there to a bigger city that I’m becoming more and more familiar with. This city is not in the mountains, and therefore is oppressively hot. This is me talking about the weather in the spring. I’m so very glad that my town is high up in the mountains. My Alaskan pigmentation and constitution can’t handle extreme heat. Anyway, I only stayed in the town for about an hour and then got back in a taxi to head back home. All toll, 5 hours in 4 very hot taxis for a tiny, expensive stamp. That adventure was very tiring, and I vowed to stay in my town for at least a week before traveling again. Well, needless to say, that didn’t happen. On Wednesday Peace Corps practiced the Part of their evacuation plan for the country and told me to head to my consolidation point, which is about 25 km south of the hot city. I was supposed to get a text message on my phone telling me to consolidate at 7:30 in the morning. I, unfortunately, did not receive any notification until around noon. I hurriedly got my bag ready to go and went to inform my host father and the local police where I’d be going. Around 1:30 I finally got on the road, and then realized that I had lost about 10% of my monthly living allowance. Damn my shallow pockets, it must have fallen out when I was getting my phone out of my pocket. That made the first hour and a half taxi ride no fun. 3 total taxi rides and about 3 and a half hours later I made it to the hotel where we’re supposed to meet if we have to evacuate the country. I was the last one of my group to arrive, and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to get back to my town before dark. Peace Corps had reserved one room at the very nice 4 star hotel, and I kind of lucked out that I wouldn’t be able to get back home, because I got to stay at said nice hotel. It was a very relaxing evening I’d say. I took full advantage of the wireless connection and was able to talk to a lot of family via skype. I got to swim in a pretty sweet swimming pool, and took not one, but two showers! The next day I made my way back to my town, and made a pit stop in the hot city to find some big sheets of paper for my artist-tutor. I saw an old man carrying a big bladder of water get struck by a car. He stepped out into the road from between two parked cars and the car nailed him. There was water everywhere, and the man looked like he was definitely in shock. I think the water bladder actually did a good job of protecting him from the impact. While struggling to ask people where a certain bookstore was (people in the city speak Moroccan Arabic, not Tamazight), a nice Moroccan guy with a cockney English accent helped me locate the store, which ended up being closed. We had coffee across the street and chatted while we waited for the store to open. It never did, but I really enjoyed talking to my new friend. Every other statement out of his mouth seemed to end with a “F’in Hewll”. He apparently lived and worked in London for 9 years, which explains the accent. I had no problems getting back the rest of the way.
Today some people in town cut down this huge tree in the middle of town that was dropping a lot of cotton-like pollen all over the place. I think this particular tree has been the cause of my allergies. I was kind of sad to see the thing cut down, but also happy that I’ll be able to breathe easily again. After asking about the tree (I wanted to know if it did the same thing every year), I learned that it was planted a long time ago by the French military people who lived and worked in the town.
At dinner my host mother and I watched a camel auction in a middle eastern country (I think it was Saudi Arabia, but neither my host mother and I could understand what the people were saying to confirm where it was held). I have no idea still what makes a good camel. Pardon me for being specist here, but all camels look the same to me. This might be because I might have watched the same two camels being paraded around, but it looked like 4 sales were made, so I’m thinking it was two pairs. Watching this auction reinforced something I’ve noticed about watching tv here. I am enjoying not being able to understand what is said, because it gives me the chance to try to guess what is going on by body language. I tend to think things are funny that shouldn’t be when we watch crappy B Bollywood movies. I also get to make up my own storylines, it’s kind of like watching Mystery Science Theater 3000, but only without anyone around to understand my tasteless jokes. That’s all for now.
May 31, 2009
Today was another day of travel, sort of. I hiked with one of my tutors to the town where he is a teacher (about 4 km away). I had been invited by a friend of his to watch his sheep being sheered. He paid a group of professional sheep sheerers to give all of his sheep haircuts for the summer. It was a pretty big event, everyone in the area came to watch. I guess I was sort of a side attraction, and I was able to impress them a little bit with my Tam. I watched a couple hours of the sheering and then was invited inside for lunch. What a feast. Skewers of sheep meat followed by tajine with the most meat I’ve seen stuffed inside a tajine. Pretty delicious, but there was a lot of oil involved, so I feared for my stomach’s safety. I turned down their offer to stay the night and headed back in the afternoon with my tutor. We ended up catching a ride into town with a group of people on mule-back (is that even a correct way to say that, they say horse-back, so why not mule-back?) Well, I got the honor of riding the one donkey up the mountain and down the road back to my town. I tell ya, what a way to travel. It wasn’t time efficient, I probably could have walked faster than my poor little donkey (I named him Eeor). It was the first time I’ve ever ridden for a far distance on an animal. I figured my legs would thank me for not having to hike the whole way back, but I found out that my rear end does not have sufficient padding to comfortably ride 4 km. I guess I can blame my ass for being sore right now (you decide which ass I’m talking about). It was a bumpy ride. Now I am tired, and the people I’ve told about my ride back to town think it is hilarious. If I had a little more money, I think I’d buy a donkey and ride it around town. Pretty fun, and I think my body would get used to it. I’ve loaded some pictures of the day.
It’s been a pretty interesting few weeks. Well, this last week in particular was pretty full of traveling. I’m loving traveling in Morocco, because every experience is different in some new/strange way. I went to a town an hour and a half to the east on Monday to try to find a tiny stamp for my carte sejour, which is the document that foreigners in Morocco must have if they stay in country longer than 3 months straight without leaving. This particular town had the stamp that I needed, but to buy it I would have to buy a stamp that cost 3 times as much. So I then had to travel 45 minutes south from there to a bigger city that I’m becoming more and more familiar with. This city is not in the mountains, and therefore is oppressively hot. This is me talking about the weather in the spring. I’m so very glad that my town is high up in the mountains. My Alaskan pigmentation and constitution can’t handle extreme heat. Anyway, I only stayed in the town for about an hour and then got back in a taxi to head back home. All toll, 5 hours in 4 very hot taxis for a tiny, expensive stamp. That adventure was very tiring, and I vowed to stay in my town for at least a week before traveling again. Well, needless to say, that didn’t happen. On Wednesday Peace Corps practiced the Part of their evacuation plan for the country and told me to head to my consolidation point, which is about 25 km south of the hot city. I was supposed to get a text message on my phone telling me to consolidate at 7:30 in the morning. I, unfortunately, did not receive any notification until around noon. I hurriedly got my bag ready to go and went to inform my host father and the local police where I’d be going. Around 1:30 I finally got on the road, and then realized that I had lost about 10% of my monthly living allowance. Damn my shallow pockets, it must have fallen out when I was getting my phone out of my pocket. That made the first hour and a half taxi ride no fun. 3 total taxi rides and about 3 and a half hours later I made it to the hotel where we’re supposed to meet if we have to evacuate the country. I was the last one of my group to arrive, and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to get back to my town before dark. Peace Corps had reserved one room at the very nice 4 star hotel, and I kind of lucked out that I wouldn’t be able to get back home, because I got to stay at said nice hotel. It was a very relaxing evening I’d say. I took full advantage of the wireless connection and was able to talk to a lot of family via skype. I got to swim in a pretty sweet swimming pool, and took not one, but two showers! The next day I made my way back to my town, and made a pit stop in the hot city to find some big sheets of paper for my artist-tutor. I saw an old man carrying a big bladder of water get struck by a car. He stepped out into the road from between two parked cars and the car nailed him. There was water everywhere, and the man looked like he was definitely in shock. I think the water bladder actually did a good job of protecting him from the impact. While struggling to ask people where a certain bookstore was (people in the city speak Moroccan Arabic, not Tamazight), a nice Moroccan guy with a cockney English accent helped me locate the store, which ended up being closed. We had coffee across the street and chatted while we waited for the store to open. It never did, but I really enjoyed talking to my new friend. Every other statement out of his mouth seemed to end with a “F’in Hewll”. He apparently lived and worked in London for 9 years, which explains the accent. I had no problems getting back the rest of the way.
Today some people in town cut down this huge tree in the middle of town that was dropping a lot of cotton-like pollen all over the place. I think this particular tree has been the cause of my allergies. I was kind of sad to see the thing cut down, but also happy that I’ll be able to breathe easily again. After asking about the tree (I wanted to know if it did the same thing every year), I learned that it was planted a long time ago by the French military people who lived and worked in the town.
At dinner my host mother and I watched a camel auction in a middle eastern country (I think it was Saudi Arabia, but neither my host mother and I could understand what the people were saying to confirm where it was held). I have no idea still what makes a good camel. Pardon me for being specist here, but all camels look the same to me. This might be because I might have watched the same two camels being paraded around, but it looked like 4 sales were made, so I’m thinking it was two pairs. Watching this auction reinforced something I’ve noticed about watching tv here. I am enjoying not being able to understand what is said, because it gives me the chance to try to guess what is going on by body language. I tend to think things are funny that shouldn’t be when we watch crappy B Bollywood movies. I also get to make up my own storylines, it’s kind of like watching Mystery Science Theater 3000, but only without anyone around to understand my tasteless jokes. That’s all for now.
May 31, 2009
Today was another day of travel, sort of. I hiked with one of my tutors to the town where he is a teacher (about 4 km away). I had been invited by a friend of his to watch his sheep being sheered. He paid a group of professional sheep sheerers to give all of his sheep haircuts for the summer. It was a pretty big event, everyone in the area came to watch. I guess I was sort of a side attraction, and I was able to impress them a little bit with my Tam. I watched a couple hours of the sheering and then was invited inside for lunch. What a feast. Skewers of sheep meat followed by tajine with the most meat I’ve seen stuffed inside a tajine. Pretty delicious, but there was a lot of oil involved, so I feared for my stomach’s safety. I turned down their offer to stay the night and headed back in the afternoon with my tutor. We ended up catching a ride into town with a group of people on mule-back (is that even a correct way to say that, they say horse-back, so why not mule-back?) Well, I got the honor of riding the one donkey up the mountain and down the road back to my town. I tell ya, what a way to travel. It wasn’t time efficient, I probably could have walked faster than my poor little donkey (I named him Eeor). It was the first time I’ve ever ridden for a far distance on an animal. I figured my legs would thank me for not having to hike the whole way back, but I found out that my rear end does not have sufficient padding to comfortably ride 4 km. I guess I can blame my ass for being sore right now (you decide which ass I’m talking about). It was a bumpy ride. Now I am tired, and the people I’ve told about my ride back to town think it is hilarious. If I had a little more money, I think I’d buy a donkey and ride it around town. Pretty fun, and I think my body would get used to it. I’ve loaded some pictures of the day.
Friday, May 22, 2009
May 21, 2009
Today was one of those days where I had no idea what was going to happen, in retrospect. I took up my counterpart’s (with the Department of Water and Forests) offer to ride along with some of the foresters to see what sort of work they do. I thought I’d ride around with them for the morning, and then go back to town, so I planned on doing a bunch of things in the afternoon. Well, the day started off bright and early at 7am, and I rode with 4 other guys in their truck to meet up with about 4 other guys from other W&F offices in the area. It was tricky from the get-go, because most of the guys spoke darija (Moroccan Arabic) and French, and a few words of English. I thought to myself “great, my limited Tamazight knowledge is sure going to help me out today.” I found out later in the day that most of the guys also spoke Tamazight, so it was just fine. The task for the day was to locate points on a map with GPS units. These points were supposed to be forested areas, problem was, they were incorrect, so we ended up in a couple fields. They measured the distance to an actual forested area, and then they marked and described 20 trees close to the GPS points. I actually comprehended the task when they explained it, which amazed me. Every year after this a W&F specialist will visit the spots to see if the trees are still there and in good condition. After doing two such plots, I was feeling kind of hungry and figured we’d head back to town and that would be that. Boy was I wrong, and I’m glad I was wrong. We stopped in a small village and picked up another W&F guy and had lunch at his neighbor’s (or family member’s, I’m not quite sure) house. What a feast. We had tajine AND cous cous, followed up with a plate of bananas (you can guess how I reacted to that) and delicious honeydew melons. The guys quizzed me on the basics of Tamazight (what is: table, tea, tajine, house. Yeah, I got it).
After lunch we headed in the opposite direction of my town for about 30km to what I guessed was our last plot point. I guessed right on that one, finally. The area we were in was absolutely gorgeous. I’m happy I felt that way, because we spent the next 4 hours hiking up and around a mountain range, trying to locate that damn point. That was some of the steepest hiking I’ve ever done, and several times I thought I was going to slip and tumble to my disfigurement or death. Some of the "trails" were about half as wide as the width of my foot. It was so much fun. I was pretty tired afterward, but I think the day went swimmingly well, and I came away with some nice new acquaintances/friends. It was nice to come back to town and be able to kinda/sorta communicate with my friends in Tamazight. Well, I’ve got pictures up from my first three weeks in town, including today’s hiking.
Today was one of those days where I had no idea what was going to happen, in retrospect. I took up my counterpart’s (with the Department of Water and Forests) offer to ride along with some of the foresters to see what sort of work they do. I thought I’d ride around with them for the morning, and then go back to town, so I planned on doing a bunch of things in the afternoon. Well, the day started off bright and early at 7am, and I rode with 4 other guys in their truck to meet up with about 4 other guys from other W&F offices in the area. It was tricky from the get-go, because most of the guys spoke darija (Moroccan Arabic) and French, and a few words of English. I thought to myself “great, my limited Tamazight knowledge is sure going to help me out today.” I found out later in the day that most of the guys also spoke Tamazight, so it was just fine. The task for the day was to locate points on a map with GPS units. These points were supposed to be forested areas, problem was, they were incorrect, so we ended up in a couple fields. They measured the distance to an actual forested area, and then they marked and described 20 trees close to the GPS points. I actually comprehended the task when they explained it, which amazed me. Every year after this a W&F specialist will visit the spots to see if the trees are still there and in good condition. After doing two such plots, I was feeling kind of hungry and figured we’d head back to town and that would be that. Boy was I wrong, and I’m glad I was wrong. We stopped in a small village and picked up another W&F guy and had lunch at his neighbor’s (or family member’s, I’m not quite sure) house. What a feast. We had tajine AND cous cous, followed up with a plate of bananas (you can guess how I reacted to that) and delicious honeydew melons. The guys quizzed me on the basics of Tamazight (what is: table, tea, tajine, house. Yeah, I got it).
After lunch we headed in the opposite direction of my town for about 30km to what I guessed was our last plot point. I guessed right on that one, finally. The area we were in was absolutely gorgeous. I’m happy I felt that way, because we spent the next 4 hours hiking up and around a mountain range, trying to locate that damn point. That was some of the steepest hiking I’ve ever done, and several times I thought I was going to slip and tumble to my disfigurement or death. Some of the "trails" were about half as wide as the width of my foot. It was so much fun. I was pretty tired afterward, but I think the day went swimmingly well, and I came away with some nice new acquaintances/friends. It was nice to come back to town and be able to kinda/sorta communicate with my friends in Tamazight. Well, I’ve got pictures up from my first three weeks in town, including today’s hiking.
Friday, May 15, 2009
relaxation not at it's finest
May 15, 2009
I had quite the experience today. First, let me explain what the hammam is. My town has 3 that I know of. It is the communal bathhouse. You go in, strip to your underwear, grab your soap, shampoo, a sock-like loofa thingy that can range from a smooth fabric to fabric that is almost like a brillo pad (this is used to scrub off dead skin), and a bucket or two that are provided at the entrance. You then go into the first of three rooms. This room is slightly warmer than the changing room temperature. You proceed through a second, warmer room, and finally enter the hottest of the rooms. This room is almost unbearably hot at first, but you must stay to fill your buckets water. There is a hot water tap (read: scalding hot), and a cold water tap. I prefer to go with 2 parts hot, one part cold. This is about all I can handle. Ok, second of all, let me explain that I have never had a full body massage, and that I have not been washed by another person since I was a very small child. I never thought that my first full body massage would be from a 250 pound guy who’s only wearing underwear. Now, when people go to the hammam their neighbors help them stretch and help scrub their back. It’s very normal for Morocco, but I just wasn’t prepared for it. A nice older guy (aforementioned 250 pound man in underwear) approached me in the second, warmer room and asked me a question. I said yes to whatever he asked, and he started to mime out what is customary in the hammam. I thought he was just being generous and helping the out-of-place foreigner. My language skills are apparently not as good as I thought. He then took my sock-like loofa thingy and started to scrub my back. No problem there, I have seen other people doing it, so I figured I could try to fit in. It ended up being a painful massage/scrub down. I swear you could make a little figurine of me out of all the dead skin that was scrubbed off my body (mind you, a very grey, ghastly looking figurine). 20 minutes later, I did feel relaxed, but decided that was probably the last time I’m going to have that done. It’s just not for me. Let me be clear, this is very normal and cathartic for people here. I’m not judging, but I’ll stick with a good old fashioned self-washing from now on. I’ve hit my two week anniversary of coming to my site. I felt like I’ve been in Morocco for a long time, but it’s only been 2 and a half months. Should have new pictures of my town and the surrounding areas soon. I’m going on a hike up the nearest mountain tomorrow with a nice store owner in town. He will identify all the surrounding areas for me, which should help me decide which area I want to explore first on what I hope will be one of many future hikes.
I had quite the experience today. First, let me explain what the hammam is. My town has 3 that I know of. It is the communal bathhouse. You go in, strip to your underwear, grab your soap, shampoo, a sock-like loofa thingy that can range from a smooth fabric to fabric that is almost like a brillo pad (this is used to scrub off dead skin), and a bucket or two that are provided at the entrance. You then go into the first of three rooms. This room is slightly warmer than the changing room temperature. You proceed through a second, warmer room, and finally enter the hottest of the rooms. This room is almost unbearably hot at first, but you must stay to fill your buckets water. There is a hot water tap (read: scalding hot), and a cold water tap. I prefer to go with 2 parts hot, one part cold. This is about all I can handle. Ok, second of all, let me explain that I have never had a full body massage, and that I have not been washed by another person since I was a very small child. I never thought that my first full body massage would be from a 250 pound guy who’s only wearing underwear. Now, when people go to the hammam their neighbors help them stretch and help scrub their back. It’s very normal for Morocco, but I just wasn’t prepared for it. A nice older guy (aforementioned 250 pound man in underwear) approached me in the second, warmer room and asked me a question. I said yes to whatever he asked, and he started to mime out what is customary in the hammam. I thought he was just being generous and helping the out-of-place foreigner. My language skills are apparently not as good as I thought. He then took my sock-like loofa thingy and started to scrub my back. No problem there, I have seen other people doing it, so I figured I could try to fit in. It ended up being a painful massage/scrub down. I swear you could make a little figurine of me out of all the dead skin that was scrubbed off my body (mind you, a very grey, ghastly looking figurine). 20 minutes later, I did feel relaxed, but decided that was probably the last time I’m going to have that done. It’s just not for me. Let me be clear, this is very normal and cathartic for people here. I’m not judging, but I’ll stick with a good old fashioned self-washing from now on. I’ve hit my two week anniversary of coming to my site. I felt like I’ve been in Morocco for a long time, but it’s only been 2 and a half months. Should have new pictures of my town and the surrounding areas soon. I’m going on a hike up the nearest mountain tomorrow with a nice store owner in town. He will identify all the surrounding areas for me, which should help me decide which area I want to explore first on what I hope will be one of many future hikes.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
finally, I have time to post again
May 11, 2009
Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve last posted, but for good reasons. I was pretty busy. Let’s see if I can remember what I have been doing the last month or so. I found out where I’ll be living about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and I received a new site (no other American had been placed there before), so I received about 5 pages of information on the town, compared to the 15-20 pages other trainees received who are going to replace other volunteers. About 10 of us in the environment sector received new sites. It was kind of daunting, not knowing what to expect for the next two years. A week after getting the news on site placement, I took an oral test on my language skills. I think I’ve determined that I am a pretty horrible test taker. I am especially bad at oral exams. I thought I knew a lot, but found out I got the minimum needed. I’m fine with that, because it showed me what I needed to work on, namely everything. I’ve got the greeting down, sort of, but I only was comfortable using about 5 verbs. That day I was filled in on what my project would be. What a relief that was, because apparently there are a lot of possible projects in my new town. The following week we had a party for our host families, which was fun, and my wonderful family got me what my fellow trainee dubbed a “muscle djalaba”. It’s really awesome, it’s a djalaba with no hood and no sleeves. Basically I will wear it when I want to flash the pythons: or at weddings and special events. Kif Kif (same, same in Tamazight). Leaving the training town and my host family was hard, because in a short period of time I really grew to love them a lot. We spent 4 days in a bigger town at a hotel before swearing in as volunteers. The swearing in was fun, and I got to show off my muscle djalaba and my tagia, which is the berber skull cap (another present from my wonderful host family), and of course, my pointy yellow elf shoe-slipper thingies.
The day we all headed off to our new sites was again, pretty sad. I was one of three new volunteers that were within 2 or 3 hours of our new sites, so I got to see everyone off. I thought I new the quickest way to get to my site: catch a ride from Peace Corps to the nearest grand taxi stand, ride 45 minutes north, catch another cab east an hour and a half, safi (enough), mashi mushily (no problem). It didn’t work out quite like that. I caught a ride to the taxi stand, but found out it was only for taxis going south, so a nice teenage boy helped me carry one of my bags about 4 kilometers to the other taxi stand. Oh yeah, I had everything I will need for the next two years with me at that time. I don’t think I would have made it if it weren’t for that kid, or I could have caught a city taxi and told the driver where I wanted to go (North!!!!! Allah(move fast)). In retrospect, the latter would have been the better idea, but I guess the kid wanted some exercise, or to torture me, I have no idea. I waited for a bus north, which is what the kid told me was the best option, in the sweltering afternoon heat, before I decided to look for a taxi. Once I found a taxi, I had no problems. Once I got to my new town, I was instantly surprised about the size of it. It’s a pretty decent sized town, and puts my training town to shame. I called my new host family, who I will be staying with for 2 months, at least (more on that later), and told them I was at the taxi stand near the mosque. I then waited for about an hour before calling again. It was a Thursday, and I realized that I had made a little mistake when calling them the first time. The word for Friday is very similar to the word for Mosque, so when I mispronounced the word, they thought I was saying that I was near the Friday. The word for Friday and Mosque is also really close to the words for university and association. It’s probably a good thing I said Friday instead of the others, because they probably would have thought I was crazy. After sorting out the problem, my host father came down to greet me.
My host family is pretty great. My host father owns and operates a café in the center of town, so I hang out there every day and people come in to talk with me and help me learn the language. My host aunt lives right behind the café, so I go there often for lunch or a nap. These first few months I am going to try to learn as much Tam as I can. I found two tutors that are teachers of Tamazight at the local primary schools. They are pretty awesome guys. One speaks English fluently, and the other knows enough to help explain things to me. My host father is pretty well known around town, so he introduced me to many of the people that will be a huge part of my life the next two years. There is a group of 5 guys that escorts me everywhere and that show me around town. Everyone is very helpful and welcoming. There are also an alarmingly large number of people that speak English. Someone at the local government office was nice enough to translate for me when I went to talk to my counterpart at the local Water and Forest Department. About 3 or 4 days in I met a Spanish PhD student who has lived here for about a year now, and will be staying for another year and a half possibly. He speaks 5 languages, English being one of his better languages, so we have had many long conversations. It helps that he’s studying wildlife, which was my undergrad degree.
So now that I have been here for a week and a half, I’m really looking forward to the next two years. I’ve visited with 4 volunteers that are within 2 hours of me, and I finally got to eat a meal without bread!!!!!! Oh yeah, I’ve learned the Tamazight alphabet, which is about 33 letters long. It has only taken me about 4 days to do it. There are several letters that are the same as English. I, Q, X, N (which is backwards, and is actually an L sound), and L (which is actually an N sound), are in the alphabet. It makes complete sense, since Tamazight is a very, very old language, and it spread north to Europe. There are 29 consonants and 4 vowels.
I will have to break the news to my host family that I will need to move out on my own at the end of June. I don’t think they want me to leave, but I need some privacy. It’s pretty exhausting to be constantly bombarded with new words and phrases. I’m eager to learn, though, and think I am doing a decent job of improving every day. I want to learn how to cook, which I feel I can only do if I’m forced to cook for myself or starve. I also feel bad that I am taking up one of the two main rooms as my bedroom, which forces the 7 year old daughter to stay at my host father’s sister’s house. I’m probably going to have to have someone translate for me that I love it at their house, but to get the full Moroccan experience I will need to live on my own. I need to learn how to deal with the lack of running water, washing my own clothes by hand, cleaning my own house, and how to cook with butane gas. I think they may be disappointed at first, but they should get over it. Other volunteers have told me their host families got over it when they moved out, eventually. I will still probably see them every day.
You all can look forward to more regular posts from now on. There are 5 cyber cafes in my town, and I’ve already found the one I’ll use for the next two years. I’m going to try to figure out how to post more pictures on Picasaweb, so I promise to post some more pictures soon.
Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve last posted, but for good reasons. I was pretty busy. Let’s see if I can remember what I have been doing the last month or so. I found out where I’ll be living about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and I received a new site (no other American had been placed there before), so I received about 5 pages of information on the town, compared to the 15-20 pages other trainees received who are going to replace other volunteers. About 10 of us in the environment sector received new sites. It was kind of daunting, not knowing what to expect for the next two years. A week after getting the news on site placement, I took an oral test on my language skills. I think I’ve determined that I am a pretty horrible test taker. I am especially bad at oral exams. I thought I knew a lot, but found out I got the minimum needed. I’m fine with that, because it showed me what I needed to work on, namely everything. I’ve got the greeting down, sort of, but I only was comfortable using about 5 verbs. That day I was filled in on what my project would be. What a relief that was, because apparently there are a lot of possible projects in my new town. The following week we had a party for our host families, which was fun, and my wonderful family got me what my fellow trainee dubbed a “muscle djalaba”. It’s really awesome, it’s a djalaba with no hood and no sleeves. Basically I will wear it when I want to flash the pythons: or at weddings and special events. Kif Kif (same, same in Tamazight). Leaving the training town and my host family was hard, because in a short period of time I really grew to love them a lot. We spent 4 days in a bigger town at a hotel before swearing in as volunteers. The swearing in was fun, and I got to show off my muscle djalaba and my tagia, which is the berber skull cap (another present from my wonderful host family), and of course, my pointy yellow elf shoe-slipper thingies.
The day we all headed off to our new sites was again, pretty sad. I was one of three new volunteers that were within 2 or 3 hours of our new sites, so I got to see everyone off. I thought I new the quickest way to get to my site: catch a ride from Peace Corps to the nearest grand taxi stand, ride 45 minutes north, catch another cab east an hour and a half, safi (enough), mashi mushily (no problem). It didn’t work out quite like that. I caught a ride to the taxi stand, but found out it was only for taxis going south, so a nice teenage boy helped me carry one of my bags about 4 kilometers to the other taxi stand. Oh yeah, I had everything I will need for the next two years with me at that time. I don’t think I would have made it if it weren’t for that kid, or I could have caught a city taxi and told the driver where I wanted to go (North!!!!! Allah(move fast)). In retrospect, the latter would have been the better idea, but I guess the kid wanted some exercise, or to torture me, I have no idea. I waited for a bus north, which is what the kid told me was the best option, in the sweltering afternoon heat, before I decided to look for a taxi. Once I found a taxi, I had no problems. Once I got to my new town, I was instantly surprised about the size of it. It’s a pretty decent sized town, and puts my training town to shame. I called my new host family, who I will be staying with for 2 months, at least (more on that later), and told them I was at the taxi stand near the mosque. I then waited for about an hour before calling again. It was a Thursday, and I realized that I had made a little mistake when calling them the first time. The word for Friday is very similar to the word for Mosque, so when I mispronounced the word, they thought I was saying that I was near the Friday. The word for Friday and Mosque is also really close to the words for university and association. It’s probably a good thing I said Friday instead of the others, because they probably would have thought I was crazy. After sorting out the problem, my host father came down to greet me.
My host family is pretty great. My host father owns and operates a café in the center of town, so I hang out there every day and people come in to talk with me and help me learn the language. My host aunt lives right behind the café, so I go there often for lunch or a nap. These first few months I am going to try to learn as much Tam as I can. I found two tutors that are teachers of Tamazight at the local primary schools. They are pretty awesome guys. One speaks English fluently, and the other knows enough to help explain things to me. My host father is pretty well known around town, so he introduced me to many of the people that will be a huge part of my life the next two years. There is a group of 5 guys that escorts me everywhere and that show me around town. Everyone is very helpful and welcoming. There are also an alarmingly large number of people that speak English. Someone at the local government office was nice enough to translate for me when I went to talk to my counterpart at the local Water and Forest Department. About 3 or 4 days in I met a Spanish PhD student who has lived here for about a year now, and will be staying for another year and a half possibly. He speaks 5 languages, English being one of his better languages, so we have had many long conversations. It helps that he’s studying wildlife, which was my undergrad degree.
So now that I have been here for a week and a half, I’m really looking forward to the next two years. I’ve visited with 4 volunteers that are within 2 hours of me, and I finally got to eat a meal without bread!!!!!! Oh yeah, I’ve learned the Tamazight alphabet, which is about 33 letters long. It has only taken me about 4 days to do it. There are several letters that are the same as English. I, Q, X, N (which is backwards, and is actually an L sound), and L (which is actually an N sound), are in the alphabet. It makes complete sense, since Tamazight is a very, very old language, and it spread north to Europe. There are 29 consonants and 4 vowels.
I will have to break the news to my host family that I will need to move out on my own at the end of June. I don’t think they want me to leave, but I need some privacy. It’s pretty exhausting to be constantly bombarded with new words and phrases. I’m eager to learn, though, and think I am doing a decent job of improving every day. I want to learn how to cook, which I feel I can only do if I’m forced to cook for myself or starve. I also feel bad that I am taking up one of the two main rooms as my bedroom, which forces the 7 year old daughter to stay at my host father’s sister’s house. I’m probably going to have to have someone translate for me that I love it at their house, but to get the full Moroccan experience I will need to live on my own. I need to learn how to deal with the lack of running water, washing my own clothes by hand, cleaning my own house, and how to cook with butane gas. I think they may be disappointed at first, but they should get over it. Other volunteers have told me their host families got over it when they moved out, eventually. I will still probably see them every day.
You all can look forward to more regular posts from now on. There are 5 cyber cafes in my town, and I’ve already found the one I’ll use for the next two years. I’m going to try to figure out how to post more pictures on Picasaweb, so I promise to post some more pictures soon.
Friday, April 17, 2009
I saw WILD MONKEYS
April 9, 2009
My training is finally winding down. I got a chance to go on a pretty decent hike (2 hours out, 2 hours back, 12 km total) to a pretty sweet place. I went with 3 other trainees and my host sister-in-law’s brother. We thought we had gone the wrong direction to get to a protected area that we had heard was close by, so one girl suggested stopping for a rest about a two minute walk from what we eventually found was a really great vista. I would have been so disappointed if I found out that we had barely missed seeing it. I guess ignorance is bliss, so I never would have known what I had missed. The next day I went with 4 other trainees to a big waterfall in our province. It required an hour and a half in a “grand taxi”. Those things are sweet if you are traveling with a bunch of people you’re close to. I’m imagining it’s kind of hell if you’re riding with “strangers”. I’ll find out shortly what that’s like. Anyway, the waterfall was amazing, and I can now cross off one of the things on my list of things to see before I die: WILD MONKEYS!!!!!!! We had heard that there are monkeys at this waterfall, and the whole walk down, which was a giant tourist trap, by the way, we only saw some tree’s rustling. On the way back up from the falls: yep, you guessed it, we saw 3 monkeys. The first one was a momma and her baby, who clung tightly to his/her mom’s belly as she picked through scraps that tourists were giving her. The other monkey was doing the same thing farther up the path. I guess these weren’t really “wild monkeys” but rather park-like monkeys. The ride back was tiring, and I found out that cyber café’s are sometimes open on Sundays, sometimes not. I did, however, get a chance to call home from a pay phone in my town. Pretty good weekend I’d say.
April 11, 2009
Tonight I went to the local Dar Tlib, which is a dorm for children from the surrounding areas that go to school in my town but live too far to realistically travel to and from home every day. There is a national system of these, and it is run pretty efficiently. The two local Peace Corps volunteers and a group of area volunteers were going to do a tooth brushing lesson, but a nationwide transportation strike put a hold on that. It has apparently been going on for a week now. My town was supposed to have a horse festival this Monday and Tuesday, but that has been pushed back a week. The Saturday market was also really affected. Not many people showed up to sell their goods, so it was pretty slim pickings for our weekly food. The prices have also gone way up, so we didn’t buy a lot of what was actually there. Pretty crazy. Anyway, back to my original story. All of the trainees, or teacher, and the two volunteers showed up for a possible talk by the Kaid, who’s a local official appointed by the King. He didn’t show up, so the director of the Dar Tlib provided entertainment for the night. The session started with a reading from the Quran, a religious chant from a group of three girls, and a song by 5 girls and one boy. Then we played a series of games. We started off with a version of musical chairs which was really fun. The director taught the group a song to sing. He would sing a verse, and everyone would repeat. He gave a broom to one person who would go around the room (the seats were all around the walls of the room) tapping people who would then have to get up and conga-line around the room. When the person with the broom dropped the broom, everyone would have to try to find a seat. The last person standing would have to then lead. It was a lot of fun. I’m guessing half of the 143 kids (ages 8 or 9 to 16) attended. The director then had our language teacher do an ice breaker song that we learned when we first came to Morocco. It was kind of a complicated thing, so it didn’t go over extremely well, but it served it’s purpose. The next game was my favorite. The director picked 4 people (including 2 trainees) to leave the room while he explained the rules to the rest. He had a whistle, which he put in the bottom of the back of his jacket. He would then bring one person in at a time and tell them to find the person with the whistle. He would stand with his back to a group of kids and tell the chosen person that someone in the room had a whistle. As he was talking, a child would blow the whistle dangling from his jacket. The acoustics of the room made it hard to tell where the noise was coming from. He would then point at someone across the room and say that they had the whistle. He’d then tell the chosen person to pat down the supposed perpetrator. It would happen 4 or 5 times before the chosen victim would figure it out. Lots of fun. The Americans then did a round of “Row Row Row Your Boat”. It was a mini-semi-disaster. It was too hard to teach the kids an English song, so we just did the round with our group of 8. The night ended with a group of boys leading a huge dance circle. The 5 boys had telunts, which are a round drum, kind of like a tambourine without the bells. Moroccans all have great rhythm. About half of the people got in a circle and started a slow dance around the room. Everyone else clapped. It was fun, but kind of tiring. The pace is really pretty slow, but the drumming is nice. Apparently this is the common dance at weddings all summer. The dancing starts around 8 and sometimes goes until 12. The men and women usually do it separately. This summer is going to be a lot of fun. Our teacher’s sister is getting married in May, and there’s an open invitation for all of us trainees. I can’t wait. A lot of volunteers go to a lot of weddings during the summers. I’m trying to suss out the appropriateness of some American dance moves so I can expose the locals to my horrible dancing.
April 12, 2009
So I guess this makes two pretty amazing weekends in a row. I went back out to the protected area near my town. This time I went with a pretty big group. Four Americans went out with 4 Moroccan guys (all under 20 years old). Our “guide” for this trip was a classmate of my host sister-in-law’s brother. He lives at the top of the protected area and his grandfather has a farm near the river at the base of the valley. The day was perfect for hiking, and I now realize why they call this country the cold land with the hot sun. It was pretty cool in the morning but once exposed to that sun for about 10 minutes I was pretty warm. I found out that I have been saying a pretty common phrase wrong the last 5 weeks. I’ve been saying “Mushi Mushkil“, which means “no problem”. The only problem with that is that I should be saying “Mashi Mushkil”. What I’ve been saying really is “cats (plural) problem”. Huge difference. Luckily a lot of people in my town kind of slur their speech a little, so everyone sounds like they are saying “cats problem”. Our guide took us down to his grandfather’s farm, which is near two really cool old 3 story buildings. We got to the river, where we learned we’d be crossing it 4 times to get to a point where we could head up the mountain to our new friend’s house for lunch. I was not prepared for fording the river. I was wearing my logger boots and long underwear, so I had to take off the boots and string them over my shoulder and hike up my pants and long johns past my knees. That apparently wasn’t far enough, cause my pants were soaked. I may have feet that look like long thin hobbit feet, but that’s as far as that comparison goes. I had to be helped across because I’m not used to walking on rocks without shoes. The hike up was pretty burly, and by the time I made it to the top, I was ready for tajine and some swunfu (rest). Our host gave us some mint tea with bread and fresh honey. I will probably only eat fresh honey from now on, no more stuff out of the bear shaped bottle. Our tajine was chalk full of olives and raisins, and therefore was very delicious. The 6 kilometer hike back to our town was very enjoyable, and I realized that berber people travel faster than anyone I’ve ever met. While talking to one of the local volunteers he confirmed that realization when he said that he calls it berber speed. I got a chance to talk to family tonight (thanks for answering Sarah, and sorry I missed you Adam), which always makes me very happy. I get a little motivational boost every time I talk to someone from home. That said, I’ll probably be calling some people this coming weekend (that means you mom and dad and Adam/Sarah).
April 16, 2009
The transportation strike is over. They came to an agreement last night, so it was a really pleasant sight to see all the grand taxis at our local taxi stand. That means the horse festival is on for this Sunday thru Tuesday. The town was pretty much out of chicken meat, which meant I had a couple small dinners, which suits my small stomach just fine. My teacher loves chicken, so he was pretty happy that we could have some for lunch. My training group gave our environmental educational lesson at the primary school and at the Dar Tlib. We had to change things around quickly several times. We found out we’d be presenting at the school on Monday, and presented on Tuesday. Our teacher was brilliant by coming up with a non-verbal skit to do before our lesson (two fellow trainees and I were seeds that turned into trees, two others planted and cared for us, and the last one cut us with an axe before being chased off by the caretakers). He also taught the kids a song about a little bird and a tree. We presented the lesson in front of a class of first year students (6 year olds), but they didn’t quite understand the skit, so the principal had them leave and brought in a class of 6th year students (11 and 12 year olds), who were much more responsive. We taught a lesson on how to plant little herb seeds in used yogurt, milk, and butter containers. They seemed to really enjoy the hands on demonstration (what kid doesn’t like to play in dirt, I know I STILL do). They also loved the song that our teacher taught them. After our presentation we worked on improving the lesson before giving it last night at the Dar Tlib. The second time around was great. We gave the lesson in front of a larger audience, so we brought up four volunteers to demonstrate the planting with the help of their peers in the audience. The association (community group) we worked with helped out a lot and played a quiz game with the kids after we finished our part. Today we got the feedback from the association and Dar Tlib people, which was very positive. I will be learning where I will be living and working the next two years tomorrow afternoon. I’m so excited and anxious to know.
Here are some things I’ve learned the last month and a half: I really can eat a lot of bread and drink tons of tea, two year olds are hilarious everywhere in the world, being able to laugh at yourself is key in life, sugar rice/pasta (a dish with rice or pasta, powdered sugar, and cinnamon, and sometimes raisins) sounds and looks awesome at first, but halfway through you realize eating it was a mistake, I really love hiking, not knowing the language everyone around you speaks is fine as long as you can utilize humor, and I can get by without a lot of “stuff”. Oh yeah, I still hate bananas, and monkeys are awesome, even though they tend to love the thing I hate most in life (refer back to the start of the sentence if I lost you on that one). Yeah, I can easily say I hate bananas more than anything else in life so far. Enough about that. This might be the last time I get to post before getting sworn in as a volunteer, so enjoy.
My training is finally winding down. I got a chance to go on a pretty decent hike (2 hours out, 2 hours back, 12 km total) to a pretty sweet place. I went with 3 other trainees and my host sister-in-law’s brother. We thought we had gone the wrong direction to get to a protected area that we had heard was close by, so one girl suggested stopping for a rest about a two minute walk from what we eventually found was a really great vista. I would have been so disappointed if I found out that we had barely missed seeing it. I guess ignorance is bliss, so I never would have known what I had missed. The next day I went with 4 other trainees to a big waterfall in our province. It required an hour and a half in a “grand taxi”. Those things are sweet if you are traveling with a bunch of people you’re close to. I’m imagining it’s kind of hell if you’re riding with “strangers”. I’ll find out shortly what that’s like. Anyway, the waterfall was amazing, and I can now cross off one of the things on my list of things to see before I die: WILD MONKEYS!!!!!!! We had heard that there are monkeys at this waterfall, and the whole walk down, which was a giant tourist trap, by the way, we only saw some tree’s rustling. On the way back up from the falls: yep, you guessed it, we saw 3 monkeys. The first one was a momma and her baby, who clung tightly to his/her mom’s belly as she picked through scraps that tourists were giving her. The other monkey was doing the same thing farther up the path. I guess these weren’t really “wild monkeys” but rather park-like monkeys. The ride back was tiring, and I found out that cyber café’s are sometimes open on Sundays, sometimes not. I did, however, get a chance to call home from a pay phone in my town. Pretty good weekend I’d say.
April 11, 2009
Tonight I went to the local Dar Tlib, which is a dorm for children from the surrounding areas that go to school in my town but live too far to realistically travel to and from home every day. There is a national system of these, and it is run pretty efficiently. The two local Peace Corps volunteers and a group of area volunteers were going to do a tooth brushing lesson, but a nationwide transportation strike put a hold on that. It has apparently been going on for a week now. My town was supposed to have a horse festival this Monday and Tuesday, but that has been pushed back a week. The Saturday market was also really affected. Not many people showed up to sell their goods, so it was pretty slim pickings for our weekly food. The prices have also gone way up, so we didn’t buy a lot of what was actually there. Pretty crazy. Anyway, back to my original story. All of the trainees, or teacher, and the two volunteers showed up for a possible talk by the Kaid, who’s a local official appointed by the King. He didn’t show up, so the director of the Dar Tlib provided entertainment for the night. The session started with a reading from the Quran, a religious chant from a group of three girls, and a song by 5 girls and one boy. Then we played a series of games. We started off with a version of musical chairs which was really fun. The director taught the group a song to sing. He would sing a verse, and everyone would repeat. He gave a broom to one person who would go around the room (the seats were all around the walls of the room) tapping people who would then have to get up and conga-line around the room. When the person with the broom dropped the broom, everyone would have to try to find a seat. The last person standing would have to then lead. It was a lot of fun. I’m guessing half of the 143 kids (ages 8 or 9 to 16) attended. The director then had our language teacher do an ice breaker song that we learned when we first came to Morocco. It was kind of a complicated thing, so it didn’t go over extremely well, but it served it’s purpose. The next game was my favorite. The director picked 4 people (including 2 trainees) to leave the room while he explained the rules to the rest. He had a whistle, which he put in the bottom of the back of his jacket. He would then bring one person in at a time and tell them to find the person with the whistle. He would stand with his back to a group of kids and tell the chosen person that someone in the room had a whistle. As he was talking, a child would blow the whistle dangling from his jacket. The acoustics of the room made it hard to tell where the noise was coming from. He would then point at someone across the room and say that they had the whistle. He’d then tell the chosen person to pat down the supposed perpetrator. It would happen 4 or 5 times before the chosen victim would figure it out. Lots of fun. The Americans then did a round of “Row Row Row Your Boat”. It was a mini-semi-disaster. It was too hard to teach the kids an English song, so we just did the round with our group of 8. The night ended with a group of boys leading a huge dance circle. The 5 boys had telunts, which are a round drum, kind of like a tambourine without the bells. Moroccans all have great rhythm. About half of the people got in a circle and started a slow dance around the room. Everyone else clapped. It was fun, but kind of tiring. The pace is really pretty slow, but the drumming is nice. Apparently this is the common dance at weddings all summer. The dancing starts around 8 and sometimes goes until 12. The men and women usually do it separately. This summer is going to be a lot of fun. Our teacher’s sister is getting married in May, and there’s an open invitation for all of us trainees. I can’t wait. A lot of volunteers go to a lot of weddings during the summers. I’m trying to suss out the appropriateness of some American dance moves so I can expose the locals to my horrible dancing.
April 12, 2009
So I guess this makes two pretty amazing weekends in a row. I went back out to the protected area near my town. This time I went with a pretty big group. Four Americans went out with 4 Moroccan guys (all under 20 years old). Our “guide” for this trip was a classmate of my host sister-in-law’s brother. He lives at the top of the protected area and his grandfather has a farm near the river at the base of the valley. The day was perfect for hiking, and I now realize why they call this country the cold land with the hot sun. It was pretty cool in the morning but once exposed to that sun for about 10 minutes I was pretty warm. I found out that I have been saying a pretty common phrase wrong the last 5 weeks. I’ve been saying “Mushi Mushkil“, which means “no problem”. The only problem with that is that I should be saying “Mashi Mushkil”. What I’ve been saying really is “cats (plural) problem”. Huge difference. Luckily a lot of people in my town kind of slur their speech a little, so everyone sounds like they are saying “cats problem”. Our guide took us down to his grandfather’s farm, which is near two really cool old 3 story buildings. We got to the river, where we learned we’d be crossing it 4 times to get to a point where we could head up the mountain to our new friend’s house for lunch. I was not prepared for fording the river. I was wearing my logger boots and long underwear, so I had to take off the boots and string them over my shoulder and hike up my pants and long johns past my knees. That apparently wasn’t far enough, cause my pants were soaked. I may have feet that look like long thin hobbit feet, but that’s as far as that comparison goes. I had to be helped across because I’m not used to walking on rocks without shoes. The hike up was pretty burly, and by the time I made it to the top, I was ready for tajine and some swunfu (rest). Our host gave us some mint tea with bread and fresh honey. I will probably only eat fresh honey from now on, no more stuff out of the bear shaped bottle. Our tajine was chalk full of olives and raisins, and therefore was very delicious. The 6 kilometer hike back to our town was very enjoyable, and I realized that berber people travel faster than anyone I’ve ever met. While talking to one of the local volunteers he confirmed that realization when he said that he calls it berber speed. I got a chance to talk to family tonight (thanks for answering Sarah, and sorry I missed you Adam), which always makes me very happy. I get a little motivational boost every time I talk to someone from home. That said, I’ll probably be calling some people this coming weekend (that means you mom and dad and Adam/Sarah).
April 16, 2009
The transportation strike is over. They came to an agreement last night, so it was a really pleasant sight to see all the grand taxis at our local taxi stand. That means the horse festival is on for this Sunday thru Tuesday. The town was pretty much out of chicken meat, which meant I had a couple small dinners, which suits my small stomach just fine. My teacher loves chicken, so he was pretty happy that we could have some for lunch. My training group gave our environmental educational lesson at the primary school and at the Dar Tlib. We had to change things around quickly several times. We found out we’d be presenting at the school on Monday, and presented on Tuesday. Our teacher was brilliant by coming up with a non-verbal skit to do before our lesson (two fellow trainees and I were seeds that turned into trees, two others planted and cared for us, and the last one cut us with an axe before being chased off by the caretakers). He also taught the kids a song about a little bird and a tree. We presented the lesson in front of a class of first year students (6 year olds), but they didn’t quite understand the skit, so the principal had them leave and brought in a class of 6th year students (11 and 12 year olds), who were much more responsive. We taught a lesson on how to plant little herb seeds in used yogurt, milk, and butter containers. They seemed to really enjoy the hands on demonstration (what kid doesn’t like to play in dirt, I know I STILL do). They also loved the song that our teacher taught them. After our presentation we worked on improving the lesson before giving it last night at the Dar Tlib. The second time around was great. We gave the lesson in front of a larger audience, so we brought up four volunteers to demonstrate the planting with the help of their peers in the audience. The association (community group) we worked with helped out a lot and played a quiz game with the kids after we finished our part. Today we got the feedback from the association and Dar Tlib people, which was very positive. I will be learning where I will be living and working the next two years tomorrow afternoon. I’m so excited and anxious to know.
Here are some things I’ve learned the last month and a half: I really can eat a lot of bread and drink tons of tea, two year olds are hilarious everywhere in the world, being able to laugh at yourself is key in life, sugar rice/pasta (a dish with rice or pasta, powdered sugar, and cinnamon, and sometimes raisins) sounds and looks awesome at first, but halfway through you realize eating it was a mistake, I really love hiking, not knowing the language everyone around you speaks is fine as long as you can utilize humor, and I can get by without a lot of “stuff”. Oh yeah, I still hate bananas, and monkeys are awesome, even though they tend to love the thing I hate most in life (refer back to the start of the sentence if I lost you on that one). Yeah, I can easily say I hate bananas more than anything else in life so far. Enough about that. This might be the last time I get to post before getting sworn in as a volunteer, so enjoy.
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