UPDATE---Finally!!!

So it's been awhile since our last update and things are quite a bit different since June. Ben and I came back to the states in July and are now living in Texas. Ben is a research tech and PhD student at Texas State and I am working as a SLP in a local school system. We are living in San Marcos (between San Antonio and Austin.) We just bought our first house and are working hard to get it just perfect. Our new address is 123 E Sierra Cir, San Marcos, TX 78666.

after

before

Here are before and after pictures of school toilets.

Summer is here. We have lots of fresh fruits to eat and the sun is pounding. Really it’s not too hot yet, pretty pleasant. Although, we can tell summer is here by how dead things get in the middle of the day. School is finishing up now too. Ben and I both finished our English classes for the year. The market is full of watermelons, cantaloupes, honey dew, apricots, plums, grapes and bananas along with the year around oranges. We have been taking lots of walks/hikes the past few weeks around our site to enjoy the weather. So we have lots of new lizard/frog/turtle pictures. We are also keeping two cats for a few months that belonged to a volunteer that recently went home. They’ve been fun, but like to wake up way too early! The bathroom project at the school is wrapping up. We still have to teach the students how to properly use them and paint the walls. Well it’s not actually paint. They use white rocks and crush them, then mix them with water and not sure what else to make a white paste that is brushed onto the walls. We are heading to Rabat next week for medical checkups. We are looking forward to seeing other volunteers in our group and checking out the capitol city. We hear there’s ice skating, bowling and a TJI Fridays! So we should be completely broke by the time we get back but it should be fun.

Well it’s been a while since our last update. April flew by with work and travel. We went to a southern Moroccan town called Tata from April 20-23. Another volunteer lives there and set up a health day at his middle school with four teachers and six PC volunteers. We each taught a ten minute station (mine on water treatment and Ben’s on health and the environment) then the students rotated and we retaught our lessons. We did about 14 groups equaling about 150 students each. Tata was a neat experience for us, it’s about the farthest site south and very different from our site. Mostly sand with a few rocks and very few trees or plants except for the sporadic oasis.

After Tata we returned to our site and got packed for our trip to Madrid. We left on April 28 and met our Moms on the 29th. We explored Madrid, including Retiro Park, Plaza Mayor and Palacio Real. We also spent a fair amount of time eating lots of pork and ice cream. After Madrid we traveled by bus to Granada. Granada was beautiful with a very relaxed atmosphere after hectic Madrid. We spent our time walking around the winding streets and hanging out at street cafes. We also toured the Cathedral there. We tried to see the Alhambra but tickets sold out just as we were approaching the head of the line. A reason to go back, right? After Granada we took a beautifully scenic train ride through southern Spain to the port city of Algeciras. We had a few hang ups with the ferry but finally crossed the Straights of Gibraltar at about midnight. Our first few hours in Morocco were a bit stressful. We had planned to catch a train immediately out of Tangier but because of the ferry mishap ended up having to stay the night in a less than ideal place. By the next morning things were back on track and we hopped on the train to Marrakesh, an all day ride from Tangier. It was tiring and hot but we got to see a lot of Northern Morocco out the train windows. Once in Marrakesh we grabbed a taxi straight to Essaouira where we would spend the next three nights exploring and shopping. We also spent one day at our site where our host family fixed lunch. Overall, this was our Mom’s favorite day in Morocco, because of the slow pace and quietness of rural Morocco. For our last night we returned to Marrakesh and toured the souks, the Marrakesh museum, the Almoravid Koubba and the Ben Youssef Medersa. The next morning we put our Moms back on the plane and headed back to site for a long nights sleep.

This week we are back in site and hopefully beginning our toilet project in the primary school, refurbishing ten toilets. We are hoping to finish this part of the project by early June at which time harvest will be over and we can begin building toilets in homes. Fingers crossed the workers will be at the school tomorrow morning!

For more pictures check out our flicker site

From Thursday through Sunday, our village hosted a festival known as a mussim in honor of a local saint (a mirabout). The first two days were strictly market days where vegetables, meat, trinkets, a few rugs, and especially candy were sold. There was also a homemade Ferris wheel, a monkey or two, and some magicians. Saturday was a day of rest except for a couple of soccer games where our team played against one from a nearby village. Sunday was the biggest day by far. The vendors where in full force, several troubadour bands were present, and several thousand men, women, and children. Most had come to see what is known as fantasia. A group of men in white robes, traditional wear and carrying rifles rode into town on ornate horses. They marched through the center of town with the throng of people closely following and chanting. Behind souk, a young cow was slaughtered in the midst of a huge crowd and the eerie, high pitched wail of women (like that scene in Lawrence of Arabia) who were crowding the rooftops that commanded a good view. No one was hurt. After a few words by a local holy man, the horse riders moved to a different location where they could get their horses into a full run. For about half an hour, the horsemen would ride from one end of the clearing to the other occasionally firing their rifles.

We used the mussim as an opportunity to do some educational activities. The previous week, students from the middle school painting club and environmental club designed environmentally themed mural ideas on large pieces of construction paper. The teachers and a few volunteers then voted on their favorite paintings. The winning two ideas will soon be painted next to the door of the local market area. All of the classes in the middle school had a chance to view all of the drawings, affording an opportunity for the headmaster and myself to do a few short, environmental lessons. During the mussim, all of these designs were displayed on a prominent wall for several hours, offering more opportunity for environmental lessons. In addition, 5 other volunteers came to the festival to help with health education booths. On Thursday, we talked for several hours in front of approximately 500 people about how to treat water for drinking as well as the importance of drinking enough water. Free samples of water helped draw in a crowd. We also tried to get some hula-hoop competitions started amongst the kids, but most were too shy to give it a try. On Sunday, a booth was set up to educate about SIDA (French AIDS). The PC librarian created an audio CD which included educational talks about AIDS as well as songs and rhetorical questions to help education about AIDS prevention. This CD was played on repeat for several hours. Simultaneously, we handed out about 400 informational pamphlets as well as red ribbons. A bean bag toss in the shape of an AIDS ribbon was made, and kids had a lot of fun trying to get the bean bag in for a ribbon. Posters were also displayed throughout the mussim.

This past week was the Prophet’s birthday so we had a five day weekend. We took this chance to head north to the Rif mountains and to the city of Fes. We visited a town called Chefchaouen (described as the most beautiful small town in Morocco) in the mountains known for its blueness (many walls and walkways and doors are blue-washed.) The whole area was beautiful and green, a drastic difference to the south of Morocco. We stayed in a small pension called Hotel Mauritania, which was small and cozy and with good character. We spent our time there wandering the streets and taking lots of blue photos and hiking in the mountains nearby. The area is also known for it’s marijuana which is why no peace corps volunteers are in the Rif. There are quite a few farmers offering agro-tourism of their marijuana farms. There is also a very heavy Spanish influence there (makes sense, very close to Spain.) The textiles and even the music had a definite Spanish twist and Spanish is spoken before French which is used in most of Morocco. After exploring Chefchaouen for two nights we headed by bus to Fes, described as the most complete medieval city in the Arab world. It’s a big modern city with many ancient monuments hidden in its windy streets. Fes is known for its leather tanneries which we were able to visit and its old medersas or Islamic colleges. We spent our time there wandering the streets. We’ve been watching quite a bit of bizarre foods with Andy Zimmern, so we decided to try lots of street food. We had a chance to taste makootas (fried mashed potato cakes), pastilla (fried meat pie filled with chicken or beef or rice or noodles), camel burger, spleen sandwich, variety of fried fish and a variety of fresh baked breads. We didn’t try everything though, there were lots of unidentifiable organs and fish in lard that we chose to pass up.

It seems that spring is here. The weather has been warmer the past week and with plenty of sun. Our house is a good temp now and we don’t have to stay huddled in our sleeping bags to stay warm. Flowers are blooming and beetles are running around everywhere. This weekend we rode our bikes to the nearest volunteer’s house (about 30 km, a lot of which is downhill.) The way down is through lots of thuya forest. We took a bus back up and stowed our bikes under it instead of climbing the 30 km back up. This week we’re waiting to hear any news about our grant proposal and Ben is sending in another proposal for a school garden. We are also getting ready for our town’s big festival in the middle of March. I am planning an AIDS info booth and game and Ben is doing an environment mural contest. There is a big race in Rabat in a few weeks for ages 14-16. We are hoping to send, all expenses paid, a runner from our town who has already won some nearby races. It will be really cool to help give him an opportunity to compete nationally.

On a different note, we saw a funny scene a few weeks ago on a bus from Agadir to Essaouira. This type of bus is called a souk bus. It stops at numerous towns along the way and it is much older and cheaper than the regular buses. During this particular trip, we were driving through heavy rain the entire time. Oddly, it was also raining inside the bus (but only on the right side: we were on the left). The people that had umbrellas had them open but everyone else was using plastic bags or whatever they could find to try and cover themselves. I still don’t understand how the water could come in so many places. One particularly unlucky lady had a stream pour on her every time we would go around a curve. When her husband noticed the stream he would hold a plastic bag over her head, but by that time, it was too late. He would hold it there a few seconds, realize that it was too late, and would then lower it back down just in time for another curve at which point the process would begin again. Ahh the joys of public transportation.

It’s been raining for about a week. We hear that Morocco hasn’t seen rain like this since early 90’s. No one is prepared for so much rain. Roads are washing away and every house is leaking. Including ours… just in one room and it’s a slow leak so just wetness but no puddles. We loose electricity every day for a least a few hours, sometimes the whole day so we’re all around ready for spring and the rain to go. Everyone here is really excited about the rain since it means a good harvest season so we have to at least act pleased that we’re getting drenched. We are dog sitting for another volunteer this week. It’s a young doxen that has entirely too much energy. She wants to play all day long and then at night she sleeps inside my sleeping bag with me. It’s interesting to see everyone’s reactions in town when we go out with a dog on a leash. Most people laugh but then they’re scared that she might bite them (even though she’s tiny) and then some people want to pet her. I actually feel like it’s a good tool to use to teach people about treating animals humanely since throwing rocks at dogs is the usual interaction. We are making progress on the toilet project now. We gave them a deadline and it seems to be working. We plan to submit the paperwork early next week and then the funds should come through in the next 6 weeks. I’ve been baking lots lately since we’ve mostly stuck in the house. My new favorite is cinnamon rolls from scratch. We can clean a pan of those out pretty quick. I also tried a lasagna like dish this week which turned out OK. Ben finally saw a doctor and he has bronchitis. He has some pretty serious medicines and seems to be doing better but his cough isn’t gone yet.

This is a project another volunteer is doing if anyone is interested...

http://sendmedicalsupplies2morocco.blogspot.com/

So it’s been a rough past week. We’ve both been sick, Ben with the flu and a fever and me with a chest cold. I am headed to Tiznit in a few days to give a seminar on Down Syndrome and Language. I’m pretty excited about it and plan on spending a day or two in Tafrout afterwards where the almond trees are hopefully in full blossom. The highlight of the day was definitely the cinnamon rolls. They rose and they were fluffy and cinnamony and wonderful.

January 3, 2009

Christmas in the states was fun but too rushed. It was great to see everyone if only for a little while. Next time, you all will just have to come here. On the way back home and on the way back to Morocco we were able to spend a few days in London. Of course our first order of business was to visit a pub where we had some great burgers and a beer to wash it down. The hostel that we stayed at the first night (St. Christopher’s) was nice but really hot after being used to our 50 degree home in Morocco. On the way back, we stayed a night in the Meninger Hostel. A day pass on the subway allowed us to see several sights including Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey (although we didn’t go in to see Darwin’s grave), Big Ben (a clock), the Globe Theater, and an old church Of special interest we got to have a cask drawn ale at a Fuller’s ale house…mmm. After a nap, we headed back out to celebrate New Year’s near Covent Garden. The place was really crowded for the fireworks display so we ended up settling down at a pub a little farther away although we still had a good view. Then we woke bright and early for an uneventful (thankfully) flight back.

November 30, 2008

Just because we’re in Morocco doesn’t mean that we cant celebrate Thanksgiving in true American style. Three friends: Alex, Amy, and Emmy and a fourth new friend, Tim cam over Thanksgiving afternoon. Right away we began to cook. By the time that dinner was served, we had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, peas, green beans, and gravy. About 4 minutes into dinner, the electricity went out, but with candles ready, we didn’t let it ruin the festivities. For desert we had homemade apple pie and homemade pumpkin pie, both of which were delicious. When we looked out across Ait Daoud we though that it was a bit ironic that only our apartment (the only one in which people were celebrating a holiday) was the only one that didn’t have electricity. Our upstairs neighbors had blown the circuit and the circuit box was in the apartment of another neighbor who was out of town. Luckily, however, at about 9 PM, the electrician was able to crawl through a window and turn the power back on…another thing to be thankful for. So, we watched a movie and called it a night.

The next day, Tim had to depart but the rest of us walked out to the overlook for a crystal clear view of snow capped peaks. We had a long game of Frisbee and then settled back down for another movie. We wanted to play a board game but didn’t have any. So, in true Peace Corps fashion, we downloaded a picture of a monopoly board and created one from scratch on some cardboard. Moroccolopoly comes complete with game pieces, dirhams instead of dollars, and our own unique set of chance and community chest cards. Our holiday also consisted of a long hike out to a large hill to look for fossils. We spent several hours poking about and found hundreds of fragments of ammonites, 5 to 10 species of bivalve, crinoids, and as always, some unidentified fossils. All in all, it was a great Thanksgiving.

So, not to give the impression that Peace Corps is all fun and games, we have been completed a proposal for a tree planting project and are scheduled to meet with a women’s cooperative down the road to discuss acquiring plants for a middle school garden as well as have one of the women come in to teach the students about the importance of plants. Carrie has been making health lessons to teach at the hospital and is working with Emmy to conduct a refresher course and knowledge assessment for traditional birth attendants in the area. Furthermore, I have been teaching English to a few of the motivated men in town and am working on an environmentally themed mural design competition and festival display for the student environmental club. Our bathroom project is still in the works but may be expanded to include several households in a nearby rural village. Several more meetings and info gathering sessions are planned.

As some of you may know, the past month or so has been difficult for me in finding my role and remembering why it was I agreed to come to a strange country for two years. Well today I was reminded so I thought I should share my awesome Peace Corps day. This morning I had granola, coffee and yogurt for breakfast (ok, so far sounds pretty average). I then went to the health clinic where mothers were bringing in newborn babies for vaccinations and chatted with them about the weather, their health, breastfeeding and family planning. I came home and had some lunch then Ben and I along with a local man biked to another village about 7 km away to look into a possible latrine project there. On the way we stopped to hike up a big hill for a great view and to look at a bunch of fossils: we had to take a big amonite chunk back with us. As soon as we got off our backs at the town, I was greeted by a group of about 15 women who each had to greet my personally with kisses and all. The thing about Moroccan kisses is that there’s no real pattern sometimes it’s once on the left and once on the right, sometimes 2 and 1, you never really know. I’m starting to get the feel for when to switch sides but it never fails that I end up kissing someone on the mouth because I didn’t switch fast enough. Luckily, it’s overlooked and I’m probably the only one that feels awkward and man does it make me feel awkward! We were invited into about 6 or 7 houses, each one wanting to feed us and serve us tea. Luckily, after the first house, we could just say we were full already. After promising to return for future meals, we biked the 7 km back to our town (of course not without being chased by a few really scary dogs, that’s what those rabies shots were all about, right?) Don’t know what tomorrow will bring (well except washing clothes by hand in freezing cold water) but right now I’m feeling pretty good.

So what about projects? We have begun planning for a tree planting/ town beautification project. In addition to meeting with the local governing body, we have taken a survey of public places in order to decide how many and what species of tree we will plant. In addition to planting trees, we will also build a few gardens for prettiness sake. In a week, we will have a large meeting with Peace Corps staff and other volunteers to discuss the feasibility of our projects and begin implementation… hopefully. But we have learned that things move slowly out here.

On a different note, Carrie and I spent the weekend with the Association Sportive Speleologique: an explorers club from Agadir. These guys are interested in the natural history and archaeology of Morocco. They produce really nice films on these subjects and also travel all over the country exploring. This weekend, we visited three caves near Paradise Valley, east of Agadir. One of these caves, Imi Ouggoug I, is a little under 1 mile long and was quite interesting. It was very clean and filled with eroded flowstones, making for pretty swirling patterns in the rocks. Another cave, Imi Ouggoug II, had a large population of bats, Miniopterus schreibersi, and as a result of this and the presence of water, there were lots of cave adapted species present, such as terrestrial millipedes, isopods, and some insects that may or may not have been cave restricted species. In the water, we saw diving beetles, planarians, and copepods. After visiting the caves, we camped in an olive and palm grove next to the river in a large valley. The group cooked up huge lamb tajines and we compared jokes. Apparently, American and Moroccan humor is very different. How do you get a camel in a fridgerator in three steps? Open the door, push the camel in, and then close the door. How do you get a giraffe in a fridgerator in 4 steps? Open the door, take out the camel, push the giraffe in, and then close the door. The lion had a huge party for the birth of his son and all of the animals were invited (like in the beginning of the Lion King). Everyone showed up except one. Which one? The giraffe because he was in the fridge. Hmm.

Before returning to our town, we stopped and had lunch at the house of one of the associations leaders, Aziz. He has a little museum on his roof, complete with dinosaur bones, other fossils, man-made artifacts from prehistory, and preserved animals. All of these things, he has found over the years through exploration.

Switzerland

Oct 9- Oct 16, 2008

We just returned from a week vacation in Switzerland with a one night stopover in Milan. We left our house on Oct 8 to catch our flight from Marrakech. The airport was a little hectic but went smoothly enough. The next morning we flew into Milan and took a train to Spiez and then Interlaken, Switzerland. We arrived at night so didn’t now what amazing scenery awaited us the next morning! In the morning, we looked out of our window to see misty, snow capped peaks painted with fall colors. Glacial streams flowed through the town which was full of picturesque wooden architecture. We stayed 3 nights in Interlaken at Balmer’s Herberge, which was a hostel/guest house. Balmer’s is one of the great European hostels with a kitchen where we cooked meals, pingpong table, and lots of Americans. We hiked around the two lakes that are on each side of the town (hence the name-Interlaken) and spent some time relaxing in town. We also took a bus and then a gondola to the Neiderhorn, where we spent the day hiking in beautiful fall colors. The views of the mountains Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau where breathtaking! Occasionally, we would pause in a mountain meadow or watch a paraglider take off to fly around in the valleys. After Interlaken we took a train, then bus, then gondola up to Gimmelwald a very small town in the mountains dotted with quaint wooden houses with well kept gardens. On the way, we passed through a glacial valley named Lauterbrunnen with small towns surrounded by 1000 ft cliffs and waterfalls crashing over the edges around every turn. In Gimmelwald, we stayed at the Mountain hostel for 3 nights enjoying nearby hikes through the mountains. Crashes of glaciers could be heard echoing through the alpine meadows. On the last evening we took the gondola one stop further to Murren where we treated ourselves to cheese fondue and filet of lamb. The next morning it was difficult to get back into the gondola and start our journey back, but our time in Switzerland had come to an end. We arrived by train in Milan around 5 pm where a courtesy car from our next hotel, the Malpensa House, picked us up. We spent our last night at a small pizzeria eating huge wood fired pizzas.

Yesterday we returned from a 5 day trip to the Sahara desert and back. Our adventure was pretty much exactly like every movie that has taken place in the desert, complete with buried treasure, ancient mysteries, mysterious Bedouins, and ambushes by armed nomads on horseback. I’m pretty sure that we even saw those guys from that movie windsurfing across the desert on an old fighter plane being chased by thugs funded by a corrupt Mali government. Our first night was in Ouarzazate, where we had our training. Carrie and I, Alex, Amy, and Jeremy met there, coming at different times and from different directions. Most shops and restaurants were closed because people were still celebrating L3id: the end of Ramadan. Our hotel manager set us up with a desert guide and transport for a good price. Thursday morning, we left for the town of M’Hamid in the Saharan desert, only about 25 miles from the Algerian border. The road to M’Hamid snakes through the Draa River valley which intermittently flows several hundred miles around the back side of the Anti Atlas mountains to the Atlantic coast near Tan-tan. The valley was filled with endless palmeries where world-class dates are produced. In M’Hamid, we quickly loaded up camels and headed out about 6 miles into the sand dunes (an environment called Erg in Arabic). Our guides were nice and the weather was actually quite pleasant with no wind and comfortable temperatures. The dunes were picturesque in every direction although we didn’t have time to trek to the really extensive large dune fields farther west. The dunes covered a squarish area about 50 miles by 25 miles, although the dunes are not continues throughout that area. We reached camp in time to scurry up the nearest tall dune and watch the end of the sunset. Afterwards, we had a dinner of tajine and tea followed by a little music.

The next morning, I woke up a little before dawn to take an hour walk to the highest nearby dune and back. The sand was covered with the tracks of birds, rodents, reptiles, and invertebrates. After breakfast, we headed back to town. Camels are a lot of fun, and we are pretty sure that we are going to get one as a pet. On the taxi ride back to Ouarzazate, we stopped at the town of Tamgrout to see an ancient library that contained 1000 year old texts from the Koran, history, and mathematics. Some were written on sheep skin. Back in Ouarzazate, we had dinner with a Spanish biker named Danny and a nice English speaking Berber from a town called Imi N’Ifri (which translates to Mouth of the Cave).

Saturday, we began the journey back home. Carrie and I decided to take the Tarhatine Pass between the Middle and Anti Atlas mountain ranges, that leads to Agadir. We had to take 7 different taxis to get from our hotel in Oz to our hotel in Agadir. The next morning, we met with our neighbor, Khalil, a teacher at our middle school who agreed to act as translator for a meeting we had with a couple of members of the Agadir Caving Club (Association Sportive Speleologique: A.S.S). The meeting was very interesting and the group also creates really nice nature films about Morocco. We agreed to meet up again in the future to go caving and take other adventures. Afterwards, we headed back to our little hamlet as quick as possible to watch another episode of 24. And that was the most egg sandwiches that I ever ate.

In order to celebrate Carrie’s birthday, we took three days to have some fun. Friday, we met in Essaouira with a few the other volunteers in the region (known as the Essalliance). Carrie had some packages at the post office that we even wrapped in birthday paper so it was practically like a real birthday except that we had to ask permission to go, and the guy at the post office opens your presents in front of you. Afterwards we had birthday meals of chili cheeseburgers and chocolate ice cream. Saturday and Sunday, we spent close to Agadir in a valley called Paradise Valley in a tiny town called Tifrit. The town is really only a few mud houses and three hotels. Our hotel was over-priced, but nice nonetheless. The only bummer was that the pool was empty (and we even had our bathing suits). Breakfast and dinner were included in the price of the hotel. We broke fast was a few guys from the hotel staff, which included soup, dates, cookies, chocolate, and another special desert. Afterwards, we had a nice tajine dinner. We could only eat half, so we asked the staff to save the other half for us for lunch the next day, but although they said OK, the message must have been lost, because it was nowhere to be found the next day. Both Saturday and Sunday were also spent hiking in the valley. Rare for Morocco, a perennial river flows in the valley, and is consequently green with date palms, argan trees, and other plants like red sea squill, Urginea fugax. Much of the valley and surrounding mountains are folded limestone, and the largest cave on the African continent, Wit Tamdoun (about 12 miles) is only about 15 miles away. During our hikes, we saw several caves (and did a little real caving for the first time in Morocco). I hope to find out if they have been surveyed yet. If not, maybe I have a potential mapping project.

At noon on Sunday, the horror of public transport during Ramadan made itself apparent. We waited for about an hour for a taxi to come by our hotel: no problem. The taxi took us to the town of Aourir about an hour away. In Aourir, we waited for another hour, Carrie was harassed for eating in public during Ramadan, and we finally got a transport van to take us to Tamanar, about an hour away from Aourir. In Tamanar, we waited for another hour for the taxi to fill up. It never did, but we left anyway and were taken to Smimu about 45 minutes away. We arrived in Smimu around 6:15 PM, but no taxis would leave before the drivers could break their fast at 6:50. No problem, we waited and ate askif, dates, and eggs (staples during Ramadan that are eaten at the meal which breaks fast, aptly called lfdr or breakfast). Then we waited for the taxi to fill up. 8:00 PM came, then 9:00 PM came. At 9:30 PM there was still only Carrie and I and one other person. It takes 6 people for the taxis to be full, so the taxi driver came up and said sorry, we cant go tonight, we’ll leave in the morning. “Is there a hotel in Smimu?” we asked, frustrated and tired. “No” was the reply. We ended up paying for the three empty seats which still only costed about $10.00 US, but that is a substantial portion of our daily pay, so we were at the end of our ropes. We arrived at our site around 10:15PM after about 4 hours of driving and 6 hours of waiting. All in all, it was still a fun weekend and we plan on revisiting Tifrit after Ramadan.

Apt Pics, we do have a bedroom, but while it's hot we're using the living room. Also a very bleached pic of the kitchen. Not too shabby...

So last night I was laying in bed thinking about work at GWMS and how I missed it. How I missed co-workers, students and even teacher work days where you had time to catch up. Then I realized one of the things I missed the most was the structure of it all, the schedules, the deadlines and due dates. I realized that I’m one of those people, those list making, schedule creating freaks. I also realized that’s part of what so hard being here. Where meetings are scheduled by saying ‘how about November’ rather than ‘Thursday at 10.’ It’s hard for me to turn my organizing, controlling mind off, but I also realize that these are the challenges I wanted from being in a different culture. These are the challenges that give me perspective.

By the way, there was a snake charmer at souk today. If you can count sewing snakes mouths together while they slowly starve as charming…but it was pretty cool to see a viper and a cobra.

Spreading Peace, One brat at a time

Since small villages don’t have middle schools for students to attend, they come to larger towns such as ours for the school year and stay in dorms. With the new school year fast approaching, many new boys are hanging out in town, many boys who have never seen us before. Quite often we hear calls of “Aromi” (meaning literally Christian, but used to refer to all foreigners) from the distance and then “Bonjour!” At this point we have two options, one being ignore the brat, two being take a few minutes to explain who we are and what we’re doing. Usually we opt for explaining that we’re from America and therefore speak English and that we are living in their town for two years. In reward for our few minutes, they usually get a kick out of talking to the weird foreigners but also get a chance to realize, hey these people are living here just like me and they even speak my language a little, granted with a terrible accent! …Maybe these guys aren’t so bad after all! (And we leave thinking, hey that kid wasn’t such a brat, he just had no idea who we were and what to expect of us!) And there you have it, small steps to spreading worldwide peace. It may seem inconsequential, but slowly one turns to five then to ten and then the whole town sees Americans through a different light.

I believe that you should now be able to post comments on the blog!!!

The past weekend was a holiday weekend: youth day/King’s birthday, so a few other volunteers came to visit our site and then we went through Essaouira up the coast to Safi. We spent the day in Essaouira as we usually do, an hour or two at the post office to pick up mail, then hanging out and having a good dinner. We decided to try the fish market (see photo), where all the catches are brought and then cooked to order or taken home as you wish. We had shrimp, two types of snapper and sole grilled and it was really delicious (total for both of us was about 12 US dollars.) After dinner we caught the bus to Safi, a coastal town about 2 hours north of Essaouria. We got in pretty late, found a cheap hotel and feel asleep for the night. Safi is known for it’s pottery and sardines. We didn’t try any sardines but we did go to the pottery souk (see picture) and had a good time looking around. We also got to see the workshops where there were men (and a few women) working to produce the pottery you see in the picture. We saw each stage beginning from raw clay to the pottery wheel to a gigantic kilns to the carvers, the glazers and finally the painters. After our tour we went to the beach which was completely full of families and kids swimming, playing soccer and lounging under umbrellas. We saw very few foreign tourists in Safi, which was a bit surprising because of the beauty of it. Also saw the snake psammophus schokari and the toad Bufo viridis

In TashelHit, Agadir means wall. The city of Agadir doesn’t have a wall, it fell down along with everything else in a huge earthquake in 1960. Although it doesn’t have a wall, Agadir is a great city that we visited last weekend along with about 10 other PCVs. The temperature is beautiful, the beach is fun, and it has all the comforts of a big a city, such as big supermarkets, McDonalds, a skate park, and an English pub (good shepherd’s pie but pitiful beer selection – an unfortunate ailment of the entire country it seems).

Today, Carrie completed our first activity in the community. In order to spread awareness of the importance of hand washing and dental hygiene, she recruited several young girls to help paint pictures on the wall of the local clinic. These pictures are colorful, simple, and have a clear message that literate and illiterate people alike can understand. Nshalla, this is just the beginning.

So what has Ben been doing? Aside from salmonella, things are pretty slow. I spend a lot of time sitting at one of the local hardware stores talking about anything from chameleons (which are NOT poisonous despite what the taxi driver says) to rich American women (lots of people want them, but how to get them to come here?).

Yesterday, a nearby town hosted a moussem (basically a small fair with some commerce and music). Lots of men, women, and children showed up to see some traditional Berber musical performers. I was impressed at the instrumental skill although I couldn’t understand the words. This town has something unique: year round surface water that flows from a series of springs which have been modified into an irrigation system called a qatara. In a qatara, water is diverted via underground canals to several exurgences where the water is used for a swimming hole, a watering hole, a tap to get drinking water, and irrigation canals for olive trees. There was also an abundance of hydrobiid snails (undescribed species perhaps?) in the cool water. This water was especially unusual because it emerged on the top of a big, arid plateau.

I guess our big news is being moved into our apartment. It’s a weird feeling after spending the past 5 months in hotels and with families. Now we’re cooking, cleaning and have freedom to do what we want when we want. The past five months have been good and we love our host family, but there’s a freedom now that I haven’t felt for a while and it feels good. We working on furnishings and finding hiding spots for all of our stuff because we don’t really have much of a ‘storage’ area. Although our apartment now is bigger than DC and we have less stuff so it shouldn’t be an issue. We spent the weekend in another volunteer’s site with 5 other volunteers. We had pizza, lasagna, brownies, cake…it was amazing (oh and we had fun hanging out with friends too!) We slept on the roof last night under the stars. Because of the lower pollution and less light at night the stars are really visable and the milky way is clear.

Unfortunately, the midwives are on vacation today and the women that came, not knowing, weren’t able to get vaccinations for their babies. It also means that I don’t have a lot to do today. Although, I’m contemplating trying to make flour tortillas…oh, the things you take for granted in the US!

There’s a latrine/cistern project in a school about 30 kms away about to get started, so we’ll try to go and help out with that later this week. These are pictures from Essaouira.

Things are going well in our little town. Last week, Aisha, from the environment sector of Peace Corps came for a site visit. We talked to the president of a local association and met with a senior staff member of the Department of Water and Forests in Essaouira. The meeting was successful, and we generated several ideas for projects in the community. When these projects actually get started, we’ll give more details, but laying the groundwork should keep me busy for a while. We also received our Peace Corps bikes. It is nice to be able to get out of town on a bike ride. They are good exercise and a good way to get to the rural towns outside of our main site. We have to wear helmets at all times, which gets us an occasional smirk, but a lot of the kids in town have said that they wanted to get helmets too. Last night, it sprinkled for about half an hour. This is the first time that it has rained since we’ve been in site. Rain during the summer is uncommon, and for the last 10 years, Morocco has been experiencing a prolonged drought.

Last week we visited a town about 10miles away where a group of about 10 French students were building latrines for the local elementary. It was interesting to compare methods and see another organization working on projects similar to ours. They finished up on Saturday and will spend the next few weeks touring the country, starting with Essaouira. In addition to the French volunteers, this weekend, about 10 Peace Corp volunteers met up in Essaouira for a weekend of fun and relaxation. A couple of people from the high atlas mountains, and a couple of people from the Tata region of southern Morocco (where it gets 140 F for weeks at a time) were there, so it was interesting to compare experiences. We also got to see a chameleon, Chamaeleo chamaeleon. This is the first chameleon formally described by Linnaeus in 1758. So far we have seen a chameleon and the tortoise, Testudo graeca, wondering the streets of the historic old medina in Essaouira. Although there is no green space within the town (which is surrounded by walls), it is turning out to be a good place for wildlife. I guess animals like World Heritage Sites. So far, two people from our cohort have gone home – one from the health sector and one from the environment sector. One was for medical reasons, the other for personal reasons. Everyone else seems to be doing well.

We move into our own apartment this week. Many previous volunteers say that home stay is one of the harder parts of PC service in Morocco and we look forward to getting the privacy that we were used to back in the states. As a married couple, moving out of the home stay family’s house is much easier. Moroccans understand that as a married couple, it is time that we live on our own. For single volunteers, however, families often don’t understand why anyone would want to be a lonely mesqina (poor thing) living all alone, so volunteers are sometimes pressured to stay with the host families. This is a culture where family ties and human interaction is a very important and integral part of life, so many people from several generations often live together, and the idea of “alone time” doesn’t hold much appeal.

We got our bikes today which was quite exciting for us and for the rest of the town. It’s peace corps policy for us to wear helmets which got us even more stares but interestingly enough a few boys asked if we had some they could wear. This weekend there are several volunteers coming into Essaouira so we’ll be going in to hang out and it should be a fun time. Next week is the big move in week. It seems that it may be a slow transition. Our host mother said that we are still welcome to have our meals with them which was really sweet especially since we won’t have our stove hooked up yet. I guess that’s about it for now, we’ll try to get some pictures up soon.

Hello again from Morocco. Things are slow but we’re lucky to have such an active community in which we will be able to accomplish some of the Peace Corps goals. Currently, there is a technician who is creating a cost estimate for the school bathroom project. After this estimate is completed, we will have a town meeting to develop an action plan. In the next week or so, we will also, with any luck, have meetings with the headmaster for the local middle schoolto discuss a library enrichment project and a gardening project and with a council member from a nearby town to discuss potential projects including wastewater treatment. All of these projects are still in the planning stage and none are certain yet. In Morocco, as in other countries, many volunteers have worked hard on projects only to have them fall through at the last minute. Inthe mean time, we have had plenty of activities to keep us busy.

Two weekends ago, the annual international gnaoua music festival was held in Essaouira. We met with about 20 other volunteers and thousands of tourists and Moroccans to listen to some good music in a festive atmosphere. There was lots of merrymaking and a nice getaway. Carrie and I slept on our hotel roof. The atmosphere has been no less festive at our site. Over a three day period, we had three parties. The first of these was a circumcision party (we think) while the other two were wedding parties. Men and women stay in different parts of the house for these parties. Women mingle and joke with one another, but also sing and dance. Men are a little more relaxed, and just lounge about sociably, talking about current events (like the stranger in the room). Both men and women eat well. After snacks and tea, a main course of lamb, chickpeas, onions, and tomatoes in a tajin is served. Next is a bowl of couscous with lamb or organs and vegetables. Finally, melon, apples, oranges, and bananas serve as desert. Most people don’t stay long at these parties. We were never at one for more than a few hours. However, the party itself is a long affair with people coming and going throughout the day. It is traditional to give a small gift or some money (about $2.00 US per person) to help cover the cost of the party. Finally, if projects and parties aren’t enough, we were also given several DVDs from a closing volunteer. I’ve always refused to watch TV series like 24, but it’s pretty good. Also, we are starting to make plans to buy some lumber for a top secret construction project at our apartment.Speaking of the apartment, we will be moving in a couple of weeks. We have already begun to buy some goods such as a fridgerater (PC isn’t that hard), carpets, pillows, mattress. We were also given an oven and stove. Homestay is cool and the family that we are staying with is really great, but we are ready to live by ourselves

Souk (market)

In our town we have two weekly souks or markets. One very small vegetable souk and a larger souk on Fridays with pretty much anything we might need. It’s similar to a flea market with stalls set up and rented out. During the week the area is completely closed and dead but on Fridays people from all around come and it’s packed with people and donkeys (haven’t seen anyone come in on camels yet, although in other areas they do.) There are areas for different goods such as shoes, vegetables, rugs, meat and even a row of barbers…Right now the produce area is thriving with van and truck loads pouring in stuffed full of watermelons. Other fruits such as grapes, melons, oranges, apples, bananas and prunes are available too. Vegetables are onions, squash, carrots, potatoes, beets and turnips. We can find plenty of peanuts, rice and spices there as well along with odds and ends such as gloves, thread, candy, toothpaste… In general, men do the shopping, but women can be seen in souk as well.

Well we were beginning to think that it would be a slow summer but suddenly we have 3 projects to get started and keep us busy. There is a very small school (30 students) that the previous volunteer found funds to build toilets and a cistern. We will be here to see the project through and hopefully do some health/environment lessons with kids after it’s complete. Our main school of about 400 kids is also asking for help putting in running water and toilets. It will be a much larger project and will take a while but it looks promising. There’s an association here that is very excited about working with us and the school on the project. Third, the health clinic is in need of a way to dispose of medical waste (mainly used needles.) I am looking in to medical waste incinerators and other options.

No big plans for the weekend. Just resting and maybe watching a movies. Next weekend is the Ganoua music festival in Essaouira which we’re looking forward to. We got to check out our future apartment so we’re getting excited about that. It’s a really nice place (bigger than our apt. in DC). It has running water and electricity a nice large kitchen, a bedroom and sitting room with lots of windows. It also has a roof for washing clothes and watching sunsets.

The Peace Corps mission is to spread peace and friendship throughout the world. Under that mission are three goals. The first goal is to help people of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained men and women. The second goal is to promote a better understanding of the American people to the rest of the world. The third of those goals is to educate Americans about other cultures. In order to better facilitate the third goal we will occasionally be posting a cultural tidbit section to the blog which will give you a glimpse into Moroccan culture.

Cultural Tidbit

Bread=Agroum (Tashleheet)= Khobs (Darija)

Bread is right up there with mint tea as staples of the Moroccan diet. Bread is part of every meal except for couscous and is used as an edible eating utensil. Bread is usually made in round loaves but you can also find baguettes. Different families get bread in different ways. We have seen families that start from scratch by growing wheat and making flour, other families buy flour then make bread in wood burning ovens. In our town there are several public bread ovens where you can take your dough to be baked or by already made bread. Some families in larger towns by bread from local bakeries or stores. We are lucky to have fresh warm bread every day and there are few better smells than fresh bread baking. There are other types of bread that are eaten fairly often as well including harsha (cornbread) and minsmin (fried bread) among others. Bread is generally eaten dipped into olive oil or as a spoon for tagines but can have other condiments as well including honey, amlu (like peanut butter) and several types of butter and jam.

Another interesting fact: donkeys eat PAPER!

Back from a heavenly weekend. We went to a small surfy town called Imsounne. We stayed in a nice little hotel complete with pool table, peacocks and spaghetti. The transportation there and back was a bit of a headache but ended up being worth it. We got there yesterday around lunch time and had a fried calamari/egg sandwich, sounds funky but it was awesome. Then we strolled on the beach, found some really nice sea shells and hung out at the hotel.

http://www.festival-gnaoua.net/

this is the festival we're going to in a few weeks...check it out!

What have we been up to this week???

Today we took a trip in to Essaouirra to pick up a package which we were very excited about. It was like opening a Christmas present only in the post office with the post inspector. We shopped a little- got some boots, a snickers and a BED (which I’m very excited about!) We met with other volunteers for pizza and headed back to our site. Overall, it was a really relaxing day.

Yesterday we traveled to another environment volunteers site (AMY) to see the women’s cooperative there. They have a really nice aromatic garden from which they make soaps. She also taught an English class while we were there and we stayed for lunch. Lunch was another adventure… I thought the chicken seemed a little chewy until I found out that it was actually rabbit. It was tasty, the family raises their own rabbits, goats and chickens for food and also have a camel and a donkey for riding/hauling things.

We went for a walk with some of the neighborhood kids yesterday and found our first highly poisoness scorpion hiding under a rock. We saz anther less dangerous and smaller scorpion today. Ben saw an (as yet) unidentified snake last week and I saw a tortoise. We usually find something new everytime we go out. Ben also found a huge beetle a few days ago which sprayed him with some kind of defensive spray that stained his hands red. Our family thought that was quite funny.

Tomorrow the association in our town is hosting a trash clean up which we’re helping with, work is going slowly but surely.

Pictures here are of Essaouirra (in case you needed another reason to come visit us!), products from the local thuya trees, and Amy and her English class.