I will post a more detailed entry once I return to America. I don't have much internet time available to me right now. I am currently in Paris after having taken an interesting route through West Africa. I finished my peace corps service on May 19th and then headed to Senegal and The Gambia. On monday I will return to Los Angeles and don't really know what to think about that yet. Anyways, I must leave now but photos and details regarding travels will follow soon.

pottery in fes

emmy and i made these shirts while at spring camp in boulmane. here we're demonstrating a three-legged race :)

volubilis. outside of meknes.

I meant to put more photos up but it just takes too long....

also, happy earth day!

After a few weeks of warm and sunny weather, the cold weather has made a comeback. Aywa. I had a lot to think about recently and have been staying away from the internet. oops. Tomorrow I will meet the girl who will take my place in my town. I'm really excited to meet her but all of a sudden I'm having to face the reality that I'm leaving soon. I have been avoiding these thoughts and now I can't do that anymore, so I'm losing lots of sleep. Aywa. I really don't want to think that I may be permanently leaving the place that I have called home for the past two years. I love my town and the people that have made it a home for me. There is too much that I will miss and I really don't want to think about it because I just want to enjoy my remaining month...

Hi! I know that I have been horrible about updating this recently but I have been keeping myself busy. I spent this past week teaching English at a spring camp about 30km from my town. i was one of eight volunteers at this camp. Our responsibility was to formally teach two hours of English each day and then plan other activities for the children throughout the day.

My friend Emmy and I taught the intermediate class at our camp. We learned that we don't really know a lot of English grammar but we figured out enough to have some good lessons. Haha. The kids were great and so patient with us even if they didn't always understand what we were asking of them. After the English classes we hung out with the kids outside and did other activities such as three legged races and making cool shirts. (I'll post photos)

The camp was super tiring but I'm really glad that I was able to particiapte in it.

I was out travelling quite a bit last week so I have some more photos :) My friend (casey) and I went to Tetouan before heading to Rabat for a series meetings. Tetouan was actually a really nice city. The vibe of the city was unlike that of any other Moroccan city I have previously visited. The people were really nice, the food was great and there was just something that made it very likable. Though it was a bit rainy, we really enjoyed out time in Tetouan.

Afterwards, we had a conference in Rabat. During our time in Rabat some inclement weather descended upon the entire country. It became incredibly windy and rainy. This bad weather has yet to let up so I wasn't surprised to find my house a mess when I returned to my town. I returned Saturday to find everything completely soaked and a roof leaking in almost every place imaginable. My landlord has gone to survey the damage but can't repair it until the sun dries the roof out. The river was overflowing the day before yesterday so everyone in town was going out to have a look. I went along with a friend of mine. On a brighter note, I do have another photo of the rug being made for me :)

One of my favorite old ladies decided that she is going to make me a rug so that I can have something made by her in America. Now that my departure day is slowly approaching, she has started to create this rug for me :) Following are photos of the first step, that of setting up the warp. I'll try to continue posting photos of her progress.

There has been a lot of rain recently in the area of Morocco in which I live. There is something you should know about houses here. The roofs usually need repairing every year before winter. The rains cause the mud on top to slowly wash away and shoveling snow off roofs usually means some mud is scraped off.

I don't have a tv or any regular access to the Moroccan weather forecast but I know when we're expecting a storm of some sort because everyone in town is up on their roofs adding plastic and mud. Even so, many roofs still manage to leak. You see, our roofs aren't slanted...they're perfectly flat. So this winter, being mild compared to last year's, I think my landlord may have overlooked the repairing of my roof. Oops. After the first couple of days of rain I had a leak or two in my house. It really wasn't a big deal. But then the snow came and it melted and then came over a week of nonstop rain. Always raining...aywa. So my one or two leaks turned into 10 leaks in each room. I had to move all my belongings from my bedroom/living room beacuse I woke up to the sound of water dripping onto my blankets. I couldn't find a large enough dry spot in which to put my poor ponj(aka bed). My computer was also covered in water that morning. I couldn't stand anywhere in my kitchen without getting dripped on. So I moved into my dry room. Hamdullah for the dry room. A lot of families have the same problem. Oftentimes they re-mud one room very well so that they have atleast one dry room in the house.

Anyways, my house is now dry and being repaired but I thought I would just share some of the problems that people in my town ofter encounter in the wintertime...

I just wanted to say happy new year (sana saida) to everyone :)

I had a wonderful new year's celebration in the merzouga desert and have had a great start to 2010. Yesterday, we had free eye examinations in my town. Over 350 people got eye exams and free glasses(those who needed them). The best part is that it was all organized by the development association in my town. Inshallah, this year continues to be a good one.

I wanted to write about my dental hygiene lessons a long time ago but somehow I kept finding excuses not to. I wrote about dental hygiene in my town last year when I did a couple toothbrushing lessons. This year I went to a school in a different part of town. Family and friends from home were generous enough to donate toothbrushes and toothpaste so I was able to give every kid one of each. I hope that by having the materials, they will be a bit more proactive about brushing their teeth.

I started every lesson by discussing cavities and how they are caused. I asked the kids to explain to me what cavities are and how they would go about getting rid of them. Generally, most of the kids knew how to appropriately answer these questions. The problem was that many didn’t know how to properly brush their teeth and that very few of them ever actually brush their teeth. After the lesson in the classroom the teacher and I would bring all the kids outside for a group toothbrushing.  My sitemate, Briana, or I would take turns doing the demonstration while the kids followed along. The teachers often helped by reinforcing the message. We handed out toothbrushes and oftentimes had to show the kids the proper way to hold a toothbrush. We then gave them toothpaste and instructed them about the ideal amount they want to be putting on their toothbrush. After that, we began the demonstration. All the classes were rather successful and the kids really had a good time laughing at us goofy foreigners. 

Below are some photos from the lessons:

As the days get colder it becomes more difficult to get out of (my very warm) bed every morning. I’m pushing myself to get up early and enjoy my town as it slowly wakes up and as the sun slowly comes over the mountain. I do this because the realization that I have six months left in Morocco has been on my mind a lot recently. I have been aware of my time left here, but only superficially. Now it has really dawned upon me that I will be leaving soon. It feels strange to write that but I have to constantly remind myself that it is true. I’m leaving soon. Aywa. I suddenly feel rushed to visit everyone dear to me. I feel the need to visit every corner of this wonderful country; however, I also feel the need to spend every waking moment in my community. How do I reconcile these two polar desires? Not only am I struggling with these thoughts but now I am also being forced to make plans for my return. Job searching is now something that I have to add to my weekly cyber list. I don’t want to think about responsibilities in America while trying to savor my last months in Morocco. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic but six months go terribly fast. I don’t know where the last 18 months have gone… My sitemate, Briana, recently finished her service here and has since returned to America. I was with her when she began to feel the crunch of her impending departure. I was the as the weeks left became days and then hours. I hated to see her go but that’s how our service works. Her preparations for departure made me think about when I would have to do the same. Thoughts about my departure crossed my mind but for some reason they still appeared distant. Now that my closing of service date is set and now that I have reached the six months remaining mark, I can’t help but feel a bit rushed. (I empathize with you Bri :/ ) I still have a lot of health education to do and a new sitemate to show around so for the time being that’s what I will concentrate on.

Part of my town just as the sun came over the mountain. :)

As I mentioned earlier, women’s concerns about their body image have only recently become apparent to me. Previously, I’ve heard women make fun of each other about their weight but they never seemed to care much about how they looked. It wasn’t until recently, though, that I have talked to women seriously about their weight. Some women have asked me what they should do in order to lose weight because they think they are too fat. I don’t know if this assessment comes from concerns for their health or for ideas of what it means to be attractive. Its usually married women past child bearing age that ask me about this but just the last week a young girl also mentioned her desire to lose weight. Rather than drink the sugary mint tea, she just drank hot water with crushed mint. She told me all about her “regime” (diet). She was only allowing herself two meals per day and had stopped eating all fruit. Obviously, I discouraged her from continuing with this plan and suggested that she just exercise a bit. I don’t know what other crazy diets may be in practice around town. :/

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the many young women who are terrible skinny and want nothing but to gain weight. A few young women have asked me for pills that will help them gain weight. Does such a thing even exist? While some young women are severely skinny, the majority are just slightly underweight or normal weight by our standards. I believe that by local standards, the fuller and voluptuous woman is still the most attractive so hence young unmarried women desire to gain a bit of weight.

I never would have thought that body image would be a big issue here, especially considering how girls are raised. People here bathe in public bathing house (hammam) in which they are exposed to every body type. Women and girls are not squeamish about nakedness and so the message often seems to be that everyone is comfortable in their bodies. So is this concern with body image due to recent international media exposure or a desire for improved health? I’m still trying to figure this out…

This past week and a half has been quite eventful. I don’t mean eventful in terms of work, but rather because of everything happening around me. You may remember that last year I wrote about “L3id Amkor.” Well, its that time of the year again and once more I want to share a bit about my experience with it. L3id(which means “holiday”) was on Saturday but my celebration of it really started on Friday night. I went over to a neighbor’s house to hang out and get henna done. First, I helped them make cookies. Everyone spends the day before l3id making cookies and other sweets to have handy on l3id when they are visited by their family and friends. After the baking party, my friend Namia mixed the henna and began to decorate my hands. J While waiting for the henna to dry I hung around the house and helped the family assemble their new washing machine. One part of l3id is that people get new things. So, for example, children are often given new clothes for the holiday. When going around to visit people everyone wears their new clothes. The youngest boy of this family was so excited by his new outfit that he ran over to me and showed me his new socks and shoes J Anyways, this family got themselves a washing machine for l3id. Very few families in my town can afford such a luxury so this was quite a big deal. The whole family gathered around to help set it up and everyone hovered around as they washed their first load of laundry. The younger children never strayed from the machine. I have yet to use a washing machine in Morocco so this was also my first time seeing how they work here. This particular one is small and doesn’t rinse clothes. So, the women still rinsed the clothes in buckets and then put them in the second compartment to spin dry them a bit. Despite still having to do some of the work themselves, they were extremely grateful for their new purchase. The older women in the family were ecstatic and kept talking about how much less work they were going to have to do each week. It was really great to see the effect something like that has on people.

I as mentioned last year, much of this holiday has to do with charity and being with family. On Saturday morning I went out to where my host family lives and partook in the sheep slaughtering festivities. We all went outside to watch it happen and then I hung around while they skinned it and took it apart. My host brother even quizzed me on the various organs. Haha. I spent the day with various people from that part of the village and then once it was getting dark I went out to watch the Boujuloud. I don’t know much about this tradition except what I have witnessed thus far. Young men take the skins from the sheep slaughtered that day and fashion them into outfits. Some young men also wear other costumes. For example, there were a couple dressed as women, one dressed as a monkey and others are religious figures. The whole troupe, along with some drummers, go from house to house asking for charity. My friend told me that people give them sugar, meat or money. They stop and sing at every house and occasionally stop and perform a theatrical piece of sorts. On one of their stops they pretended a boujuloud was sick and needed medical help. Its was actually a humurous piece and all the people watching really enjoyed it. I couldn’t understand a lot of it because my tamazigh isn’t that good and much of it was puns of the sort that only native speakers understand. My friends tried to explain some of it to me…Anyways, Sunday morning I had breakfast at my friend’s house and returned to the center of town to continue with my visits to my favorite families. I drank lots of tea, ate lots of bread and refused many meat skewers :)

The boujuloud. This is in the town 6km from where I live.

My host dad is holding the sheep's intestines. Later they cleaned them and cooked them over the fornu.

The sheep after slaughter, skinning and removal of organs. And yes, its hanging from a light pole...

Recently, I taught a nutrition lesson at the local weaving co-operative. I wrote out the lesson so that it addressed nutrition issues specific to women and young girls. A young girl from my town helped me correct my lesson and then also helped me present it. I told the women that Briana and I would bring snacks if they provided tea. They did as was agreed and I brought over a bunch of fruit and Briana brought a cake. After they got over the fact that we were eating fruit as a snack (more on that later), I commenced to talk to them about women's health and nutrition. It was actually really frustrating because some women would start to talk amongst themselves or one would pull me aside and ask a question pertaining to her personal health. Teaching a large group of energetic women is quite a challenge. Haha. Teaching them is nothing like teaching children. The young Moroccan girl helping me had to keep grabbing their attention just so we could get through the main points of the lesson. Though they may not have listened to every point I made, they did all seem to take an interest in the topic. I told them about various vitamins and minerals, what foods to find them in and why those particular vitamins and minerals are important for women.

After the lesson, various women came up to me with questions about their health. One woman is concerned that she never seems to gain weight and yet other women wanted to know what they should do to lose weight. I had never given much thought to the issues that women here have with body image but now I have really begun to notice their concerns with their bodies. I will expand on this later. I'm just glad that the women in my town are taking an interest in their health because now I may be better able to advise them on proper nutrition. :)

The 15th of this month was global handwashing day so I dragged Briana to one of the schools in our town so that we could do some handwashing lessons. I haven't previously taught at this particular school so it was nice to teach some kids that I don't know very well. This particular school is located about a 20 minute walk through the fields. The school is actually close to where I did my homestay.

Anyways, I talked to the kids about microbes and general sanitation. Then Bri and I demonstrated proper handwashing methods. Then we had a few kids come up to the front of the class to show us how they wash their hands. The funny thing is that they all knew proper handwashing already! So I felt a little silly but really the point is to reinforce proper handwashing. Just beacause they know how to wash their hands, doesn't mean that they do it correctly everytimle they should. I mean, almost every house that I go to still only uses water (and NO soap) to wash their hands before a meal. I'm just trying to get people to use soap when washing their hands... Just using soap could eliminate a lot of diseases people around here get, like diarrhea. I'll continue with the lessons at the two other schools and next week I'll be teaching a lesson about proper nutrition at this same school. Wish me luck :)

I haven't been doing much recently besides hanging out in my town. I will start my health lessons next week inshallah so things should be getting pretty busy soon. I actually wanted to update this today because I have been learning a few things about Moroccan migrant work in Spain. I spent the better part of this morning calling various agricultural offices in Spain to try to help some women from my town. There is actually quite a substantial number of women from my town that go to Spain every year to work on the berry harvests in early spring. There were a couple women who hadn't been invited to go back this year so they asked me to call and find out why. They don't speak spanish and my tamazight insn't that great but in any case i was playing translater. haha. It was quite interesting really. The people in Spain kept wanting to know who I was so I had to explain my role as a peace corps volunteer and then I had to ask them about the migrant work that these women do. I will try to learn more aout it from these women so that I can write a more well informed entry next time. I will leave it at that for now :)

For lack of a better image, I have posted this. haha. Here, I am hanging out at my host family's house on the day after Ramadan ended. They make all those cool rugs that I am sitting on :)

Once again i have waited far too long to update this. I think I recently wrote about Ramadan. Well, I fasted the entire month except for five days. :) I explained most of what happens in my town in my Ramadan post of last year. We broke fast at the second to last call to prayer, basically at sunset. Then most people went to bed at their normal time and woke up at 3:30am. There was a drummer who came by to wake everyone up. Most people had real dinners at this hour while I, on the other had, tended to have a snack like a smoothie or yogurt and fruit. I just couldn't do the full dinner at this hour.

I broke fast at someone's house almost every night of Ramadan. The photo below is actually from one of the houses that I went to. The break fast meal was usually bread heavy and very sweet. Everyone breaks fast with a date and then digs in :) At this particular fdr(breakfast) there was also hard boiled egss, shebekiya(honey covered sweet), a few kinds of moroccan bread, "berber pizza," cake and many other yummy things. The meal is always accompanied by sweet mint tea or coffee. After the bready meal, everyone gets a bowl of soup. The soup is called Harira and is usually tomato based and has chickpeas, pasta and sometimes veggies. The soup was usually my favorite part. Though, everyone has the same basic meal it was really interesting to see how each house had slight differences. I really enjoyed Ramadan despite the difficulty of fasting. Ramadan ended on the 20th of september so now we're back to normal eating schedules, hamdullah.

I promised that I would write about my recent vacation to Ras Lma and look I'm keeping my promise. :) My sitemate, Briana, and I are actually just two days apart in age. Crazy huh? So we decided to celebrate our birthdays together by going to a quiet beach on the Mediterranean. We went a week after our birthday and had quite an adventure getting there. We were waiting to take a train from Fes to Nador and instead of getting on the next train we were at the train station for hours because a previous train on that route had derailed. We couldn't leave until they cleared the mess up. Once we did leave we thought all was well but only discoverd a few hours later that we had to change trains (trainge) because the derailed train was still on the tracks. We walked past the derailed train and hopped on a new overcrowded and hot train. After hours of heat, tiredness, hunger and everything else we finally made it to Nador. Once there we took a grand taxi to Ras Lma. None of us had been before and were rather pleasantly surprised by our accomadations and the town in general. Ras Lma is actually a little berber town nestled between the mountains and the sea. The town doesn't have hotels so we rented an apartment. The only people vacationing there were Moroccans. Really I think I only saw two other foreigners. The water was warm and it felt great to just relax and take in the scenery about me. I also learned a bit about the differences between the berber dialect spoken there as compared to the one that I have been learning :)

Cliffs below the lighthouse. Its beautiful here and these cliffs are perfect for a nice (and sorta scary) jump into the sea. I actually jumped, as you can see below. I did it after a couple of failed attempts haha. And no, I still don't know how to swim, but my friend was below in the water ready to grab me once I went under. It was actually a lot of fun :)

A young girl whom I am quite fond of was recently married. Her wedding was fun and went over quite successfully. Though I'm glad that the ceremony went well, I can't help but feel sad that it ever happened. I don't like that she got married because I think shes only 16(or so). She's too young to be entering into a lifelong contract that she probably didn't have any say in to begin with. (her older sister, now 22 years old, was married last summer and is now back at home because her husband beats her)

In 2004, Morocco enacted a family code called the Mudouana. This family code raises the legal age of marriage from 14 to 18. It also allows women half their husband's wealth in case of death or divorce and it makes sexual harassement an offense punishable by law. (polygamy is still allowed under the family code)

The Mudouana sounds great but the truth is that it's quite difficult to enforce, especially in little towns such as the one I live in. It is also easier to get one's way in a culture where bribing (and political fraud) are endemic. Many 14 year olds do and will continue to marry. There is still hope for those stuck in sour marriages, though. A divorce must be obtained through the courts and the husband must provide for his ex-wife. Divorce is still rare but at least now the woman won't have prostitution as her only resort. If a woman in a bad marriage(ex: her husband beats her) had no family to care for her she either put up with the marriage or had to work. Women in cities were likely to be literate and thus not have to resort to prostitution as their livelihood.

The Mudouana strives to protect women's rights and to liberalize them (a bit) from their previous confines. Women have been making great strides in Moroccan society in the last few years. I only hope that this trend will continue.

To read the Mudouana go here: http://hrea.org/moudawana.html

I know that I have been terrible about writing on this thing. I was rather busy recently and frankly, the internet has been less then good as of late. I apologize (really i shouldn't be making excuses) but will briefly tell you about what's been happening.

First of all, Ramadan has commenced once again. Saturday was the first day of this month of fasting. I saw two shooting stars on saturday night and have taken that to be a good omen for this month :) I am still fasting (now four days in) and hope to continue to do so for the entire month. I am going all out and abstaining from water as well as from food.

Ok. So before Ramadan my friends and I took a wonderful vacation and went to a small mediterranean beach town called Ras Lma. I will post some photos up soon. It was a great vaccation. Before that, a bunch of peace corps volunteers (myself included) helped out at a SIDA booth in Boulmane. We educated people about the disease and enjoyed the Boulmane berber festival :)

All has been well and I promise to write again soon (internet permitting).

I met a girl on a train once, and like everyone else that I meet she was very surprised that I wasn't Moroccan. But you have the face of a Moroccan... I know, everyone tells me that. Anyways, she began asking about what I am doing here. I told her about my work with peace corps and where I live. She then asked me if I was lonely here. Yes, I live alone. She wasn't asking if I was lonely but rather if I had family here or if I lived alone. People often tell me that in Arabic there is no word for privacy; the closest equivalent is lonely. Haha. I guess most of us peace corps volunteers are "lonely."

Just to keep your minds at peace, no I am not lonely. In fact, I feel quite at home here. There is never a lack of lunch or kaskrew (snack) invitations. For the lack of anything better to say, I am going to tell you about what I have been doing in the past couple of months.

I hope you all don't think that I am constantly working. One of the hardest things for volunteers is usually dealing with the lack of work and the overabundance of free time. Anyhow, right now the bulk of my work consists of health lessons at the elementary school. I wrote about this previously, but I thought I would mention the latest lesson that I taught. My sitemate always helps so she helped as I told the kids about the bad effects of tobacco or smoking in general. Surprisingly (or maybe not) most men here smoke. Cigarettes are sold individually anywhere you go in this country, so its rather easy to just buy a single or two if one is low on cash and can't afford the pack. This makes it easier for many more people to smoke. I showed the kids pictures of cancerous lungs and of the way smokers age. I hope that had some sot of impact on them. The school year is actually just ending so this summer I will just be improving my lessons for the next school year. I also want to start doing exercise with women. Some women in the weaving co-operative have asked me to show them some exercises. I want to accompany these exercises with talks about health topics that affect them, such as: high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, etc.

Apart from work I have just been hanging out in town and learning bzzaf(a lot)! I have been cooking and baking a lot :) Also, recently I witnessed local elections here. A woman whom I highly respect ran for a position in the commune and she won! There was a lot of celebrating at her place and I was really glad to be around to witness all of it. I have also been to a wedding or two in the past few months. Those are always a lot of fun though tiring at times. Also, recently all the volunteers in my stage had to go to Rabat for medical exams. It was great seeing people who I never get to see because we live so far from each other. After medicals, i took a side trip as I made my way home. I went to Asilah (beach town near tangier) and to Chefchaouen. Both are beautiful towns that I hope to see again before I leave Morocco. I can't think of what else I have been up to but I'm sure theres more. I'll put some photos up too. :)

A wedding in my town. We're watching from the balcony of a neighboring house. The row of men are the haydus performers.

Look I can bake! Haha. My family thought I wouldn't survive here because I didn't know how to cook when I first left the states, but look I'm doing just fine.

My sitemate and I teaching children about the bad effects of tobacco. My sitemate is holding up giant cigarettes that we made for the lesson.

A Rifi woman selling vegetables outside the entrance to the Chefchaouen meedina. This is from my recent trip to Chefchaouen, a beautiful town nestled in the Rif mountains of northern Morocco.

This is Asilah, a beauiful beachtown about an hour south of Tangier.

The other day I was talking to the mudir (director) of the elementary school in my town about my health lessons but my mind kept drifting to the young uneducated girls in my town. My mudir wants to make sure that my lessons make a lasting impact on the children here. He wants for kids in the future to know that an American taught health lessons in Tamazight at the madrasa (school). He was offering suggestions for how I could improve the lessons; even suggesting that I somehow acquire a microsope to have the children look at microbes. He also wants me to bring American elementary school kids to my town that a cultural dialogue can exist between moroccan bled (countryside) children ans american children. I don't disagree that this is a good idea but really how would I ever accomplish this? Also, how will the children communicate with each other seeing as they have no common language? Before I left our meeting he mentioned that on the 30th of june they're having a little celebration for the 6th graders who will have finished school. I left the school feeling both satisfied and saddened all at once. I felt satisfied because I know that the mudir fully supports what I'm doing at the school; which is incredible considering how little support most volunteers get. I felt sad because I know that now that they've finished 6th grade, only a fraction of those kids will continue on to secondary school and most of those continuing wil be boys.

We don't have a secondary school in my town, only a few elementary schools. The secondary school is in the next town (6km) so many parents are weary about letting young girls continue with their education. I mean, really, they're more useful at home making bread rught? Not! Its sad to see so many girls stop school after the 6th grade, but its even sadder to see young girls never go to school. Its understandable why most of the older women of my town are illiterate; there weren't as many schools when they were growing up and the town was much more conservative. Now younger girls teach most of these older women to read and write. But there are still many young girls who are illiterate. Just in the alley in which I live, there are two girls less that 10 years old who are running errands all day long. Occasionally I see them play with other kids their age but usually they are going to buy something at the store or fetching water. I constantly here "zineb, zineb!" because they want her to go do something else for them. Also, my host sister in homestay was illiterate. She didn't even know how to tell time so she was constantly asking me to tell time. I think what happens is that the youngest daughter is made to stay home and care for the parents. In my host family, my host mom works all day at the weaving cooperative so my sister does the cooking, cleaning, field work and whatever else needs doing. This youngest daughter thing is a trend that I have started to notice in my town. :( There is however one woman who has started to teach some young girls how to read and write but its only a few lessons a week for an hour or two, basically when she and the girls aren't busy with other work. I really hope that we can do something in town so that more young girls will enjoy the benefit of literacy.

Spring feels like a season lasting barely long enough to be fully appreciated. When I returned from Europe in late March, I thought that spring had finally arrived despite the still rather chilly weather. After a long, harsh winter I was more than ready for spring. I wanted to walk around with only two layers on rather than 4. My feet yearned to escape from the stuffiness of two pairs of socks and suffocating shoes. It snowed twice in April. I think I will still consider that spring; I mean the snow didn’t stick. It counts right?

The days have been satisfyingly warm these past few weeks. There have also been refreshing thunderstorms in the late afternoons. My sitemate and I went out to a spring with a couple of girls from our town. The spring, which feeds our river, was quite a walk away but I’m glad when I can get out of my house and walk around. (esp after many months of sitting indoors)

Spring has also brought quite a variety of fruits to souk. As of late, I have been enjoying some of the best strawberries ever. This past week I also saw lettuce! I have been cooking lighter meals and am glad to move away from what I cooked in winter.

I am enjoying this season as much as I can because summer is already poking its head out. Just as I can see the signs of spring at souk, I can also see the signs of summer encroaching upon us. The first melons have appeared and this past week I had watermelon for the first time since last summer! Cherries have also made an appearance. Though still rather green and small, plums and peaches also abound. I like summer because of the abundance of fruit (unlike the oranges and bananas of winter) but really I prefer the temperate climate of spring. It doesn’t get extremely hot where I live but it’s true that this is a cool country with a very (very) hot sun.

By the spring in my town.

Part of the spring is enclosed by this barrier. It feeds the irrigation ditch (pictured) and our river.

Those bubbly things are the spring :) Its looks really funny and the water is super safe to drink.

On the walk to the spring along the river that runs through my town.

There's babies everywhere! I'm not talking about the baby season that happens in nature because its spring but rather about the the babies the women in my town are having. As I have mentioned before, it is customary for people to get married in the summer. Its the warmest time of the year (weddings are usually outdoors) and just when the days are the longest. Last summer I attended a multitude of weddings and will be doing so again this summer, inshallah. Most of the girls that got married last summer were coming by the clinic in october and november because they were pregnant. There were literally about 5 to 7 women coming in every other day about pregnancies. (it was great seeing so many women going in for prenatal checks)

Its been just about nine months since all these prenatal visits...so its baby season!

My sitemate and I have been to 2 baby ceremonies already in the last month and expect to attend more as some of our friends in town come closer to their time of delievery. The baby ceremony is called "siba" and usually consists of a big lunch for all those that know the family. Its similar to the idea of a baby shower but it happens seven days after the birth rather than prior to it. People take gifts (baby clothes or sugar cones...for tea) and generally socialize and play with the baby :) This is also when the baby gets its official name. I think that they wait for this celebration until the week after the baby's birth for religious reasons as well as for health reasons. I'm not well informed about the religious reasons so i'm not going to attempt to broach that topic but I think I can say a bit about the health reasons. It seems logical that we would wait to celebrate the birth of a child once they are actually born. I mean, isn't it kind of bad karma to assume the baby will be born? Maybe thats just an issue here where infant mortality is actually sometimes a problem. Anyways, the sibas have been good and I'm glad the babies I have seen all look quite healthy. Inshallah, the rest will be just as healthy.

This past week transport in Morocco has been at a stanstill. In some parts there hasn't been public transport for over a week. In a country where most people rely on public transport to get around, this has proven to be quite distressing. I have only a vague idea about why all the bus and taxi drivers went on strike. There are a series of transport regulations that they don't agree with and since these regulations were being discussed in parliament, they decided to go on strike. I (hamdullah) was in my town when all of this began and have remained there since. I didn't need to leave my town except for sunday to go to the weekly souk. Normally my sitemate and I walk the 6km to souk and then take a taxi back to our town. We're usually carrying veggies for the week so we find it easier to take public transport back rather than walking. This sunday, however, we had to walk back because of this strike. The walk wasn't bad and to be honest I could use the exercise but it was just odd to see so many other people walking alongside us.

There were many poeple who were travelling when the strike went into effect and thus found themselves out of their homes. This hasn't been the first time either. Last month I was trying to get home after Leid Lmoulud and had a lot of trouble due to a traffic strike. The buses were running but full to capacity (ie even the aisles were full) but the taxis were completely non-existent. I finally made it home after getting rides in some rather unconventional ways/vehicles. News reports say that the strike has ended in the meantime but the issue of the traffic regulations has yet to be resolved so there may still be public transport stoppages. Inshallah this gets resolved soon.

This is the taxi stand in Azrou. Usually it looks like this. Taxis, people, commotion, etc. An unconventional form of transport. I didn't have to ride a donkey to get back to town but I just didn't have photos of other vehicles :)

I went to Marrakech. It only took me a year to visit this famous city. This is the Koutubia mosque. Sorry the photo is blurry but its the best I could do at night.

One of the best things I discovered upon arriving in Morocco. Avocado, almond and date juice. Yum! This one is from a favorite juice place in ouarzazate.

Caves that my friends and I climbed up to. We were told that this is where nomads stay when they come to this town.

woman crossing the river in a small town outside of ouarzazate. they carry all that brush to cook with or to feed the animals.

getting henna done for leid lmoulud by my host mom. tomato hands!

I have been in Morocco for a year now and in my current community for 9 months now. I feel like I just got here...

I am currently sitting at a cyber cafe in ouarzazate, the town in which I spent my first three months in morocco. It feels surreal to be back here after not having travelled south in almost a year. The people, architecture, smells, landscape, language and many other things are all so different from where I have been living these past nine months. I was just in Marrakech but I felt as if I was in another country. I think I saw more tourists than moroccans there. The city felt as if it has been modeled after what tourists are looking for when they think of morocco. I liked marrakech but it just didnt feel like the morocco that i have lived in and grown to love. I will be going to germany in a couple of weeks for vacation and i think that being in kech actually helped somewhat prepare me mentally for what i will encounter there.

I am heading to the small town in which I had language training. I havent seen my host family there in a year and cant wait to see them. My mind is all over the place right now. My senses are overwhelmed by the extreme changes that I am facing by just having traveled 10 hours south. I cant even bgin to describe what it feels like to be in a city i knew well but now feel like i dont know at all...

Before I go into the information implied by the title I want to say that I was having a pretty lousy day this Saturday. All was well until my phone was stolen at Itzer souk. It wouldn't have been so annoying except that I was expecting an important phone call later that day. Oh well.

Anyways, on the bus ride from Itzer to my town, I witnessed something quite amusing but all at once rather humbling. The bus driver and his helper had ten rounds of bread which they cut into quarters. They then proceeded to throw out a quarter to every dog we passed on the beautiful snowy road. At first I thought it was kind of funny, but when I saw the bus driver kiss the bread before he threw it out I began to think about the situation a bit more seriously. I assume the bread was day old bread that no one was going to buy. I think they were throwing it out to the dogs because its harem to let bread (or food) go to waste. Its interesting the lengths they went to so that even those rounds of bread found a way to be ingested.

This made me think about how wasteful we are in America. It also made me think about the waste or trash problem that exists in Morocco. There aren't trash collection services here like in the states, except in large cities. In the bled (countryside) where peace corps volunteers usually live, trash is just dumped outside in alleys or other unsightly places. It looks bad and is quite horrible at times to see alleys, streets or dry riverbeds littered with remnants of snack wrappers, plastic bags and/or vegetable scaps. Many volunteers actually believe trash is one of the biggest problems in this country. While it is an important issue, I don't think it is the most pertinent. Recycling centers don't exist here but I believe the people here are rather resourceful and try to recycle as much as they can. In my community, people save all burnable materials to start fires with in the winter. People even save plastic bottles to refill constantly or at times to make decorative trees for their homes. (But people don't buy bottled water here nearly as often as do people in America) Also food here rarely comes packaged so a lot of waste is avoided in that respect. All this has just made me think about how we can try to be more resourceful in America, especially considering that we have the infrastructure for it. :)

I have finally started teaching at the local madrasa (school). Last week I taught the 4th, 5th and 6th graders about microbes. We played a game called glitter hands which went over sort of well. It got the message across which was the important part. The kids were actually rather receptive and one group actually clapped when I finished. :) I still wonder how much they understood though. I did my lesson in the local language, Tamazight. This coming week I will be doing a lesson on the importance of toothbrushing because most people here don't brush their teeth regularly and actually have a lot of dental problems.

Also yesterday I attended a SIDA(AIDS) lesson organized by a high school student from a nearby town. It was great to see a young man so motivated and interested in health. He took the initiative to talk to the principal and have him gather older high school students for the meeting. He also provided SIDA pamphlets and even brought an educational video to show to the students. He gave the lesson in Arabic but then had another volunteer and I do a mini lesson in English. The students here learn some English in school so we taught them AIDS related terms in English. The lesson went very well and I think the students really appreciated it. They were asking to have their photos taken with my friend and I after the lesson. We were told that it was because they think of as important people and so wanted to be pictured with us. Haha. I don't really know how "important" we are but it was great just to interact with them and to see so many young students so interested in their well being.

Ok so I know many of you guys now know that I don't bathe daily here. (gasp!) ewww I know, but when hot water does not come out of taps, its snowing outside and central heating is nonexistent, it really is quite painful to bucket bathe. Its a great thing then that Morocco has an awesome alternative. This alternative is called the hammam. Its one of the things that I love most about this country and actually makes me feel a hundred times cleaner then a bath or shower in the states. Im going to try to explain how it works. Its rather difficult so bear with me.

First of all you have to have a couple hours of free time to really take advantage of it well. Most hammams are similar, so you walk into a large changing room where everyone undresses except for their underwear (of course girls and boys have separate hammams!). There is usually an attendant behind a counter who watches our possessions (which are stored in cubby holes) and whom we pay (roughly about a dollar). We then take our 2 large buckets and all our bathing stuff (soap, etc) into the hot rooms. There are usually 3 rooms than get increasingly hotter the further you travel in. My experience has been that the only hot water taps are in the hottest room, so I always go there first. I fill my buckets with half scalding hot water and then go to the cold water taps in the other rooms to add cold water to them. Everyone chooses a spot to sit in according to hot they can handle the hammam. Most people stay in the super hot room for about 30 minutes and then move to the medium one for the remainder of their session. These rooms are like saunas. They are steamy and hot and most make one sweat instantly.

Once I've got my water I set it in front of my mat and begin applying a goopy brown soap called "sabon beldi." After a few minutes I rinse that off and start scrubbing with my hammam scrubby(ill put up a photo later). Because of the steam and hot water the pores are nice and open and the skin is nice and soft. After a while the scrubing shows some results. My skin literally starts coming off! I know it sounds gross but really its just exfoliating and super healthy for the skin. I usually have someone scrub my back too. Its awesome. Anyways I do this for about and hour and a half, so my skin gets quite red and it sometimes looks like I have rug burns haha. But its totally worth it.

After getting good and clean I go back out to the changing room, dry off and put some nice clean clothes on. The hammam is really the best part of winter haha. Sometimes I can hardly breathe from how hot it gets in there!

This is souk. Its weekly market where I buy all my veggies and other household needs. For exanple, if I need a bucket or an oven, I can get it there. We also buy all our veggies by the kilo :)

This is what my table looks like after souk! Vegetables bzzaf! Theres actually a lot here...more than a weeks worth, but I make some awesome meals with this. The great thing is that all of this is grown locally. There are lots of potatoes, wheat and onions grown in my town and everything else is grown nearby.

When I have plenty of free time (which is often) I'll go all out and make my own pasta :) It was delicious.

:)

Ramadan is finally over. I can eat lunch again!

The last day of Ramadan is called the 'laeid' and was actually quite interesting. We didnt know when the last day was until late the night before because he had to wait until they could spot the new moon. Once the official news arrived that Ramadan had ended we had a big dinner and got henna done :)

The next morning felt like halloween, as my sitemate described it. Everyone puts on new clothes and goes around town to relatives and friends homes. They stay and have some sweets and a cup of tea and then move on to another home. My sitemate and I baked sweets early in the morning and then started our rounds. We passed out date 'cookies' and banana bread since we werent staying at home to invite people in for tea. We went from house to house eating cookies and drinking very sweet tea. Despite how full I got and the amount of sugar that I consumed, it was fun nonetheless.

Maybe next year ill stay home and invite my neighbors over :)

There has been much happening lately but I was just able to get to the internet. Since its being really slow I'll save my hail survival story for later and just tell you more about Ramadan. On a sidenote, fall is finally here as evidenced by the great amounts of rainfall we've been having and the slight chill in the air. Izyl.

So about Ramadan...

Things I like:

the large amounts of dates that we consume (the fast is broken everyday by eating a date)

shebekia...i have no idea how its spelled but its a fried pastry covered in honey...yum

tharirt: really good soup with chickpeas, lentils, and cilantro

having breakfast at 630pm

Things I don't like too much:

the hunger i feel at noon time

being woken up at 3am for 'dinner'

that i cant pace myself and always eat too much at break fast (lfdur)

I don't have much time now but I just wanted to give a basic idea of our breakfast. At the second to last call to prayer we break fast by eating a date and then eat many sugary and bready things accompanied by hot coffee or tea (very sweet, of course). We also have hard boiled eggs with salt and cumin. Once finished with the all that we have the tharirt (or 'harira' in darija). After that we get rolled home haha but seriously I eat a lot. This is pretty standard in most homes with slight variations here and there, depending on the income or size of the family.

We're halfway through. Almost there :)

Today is the first official day of Ramadan. What better way to find out than a glaring wake up call at 2:30am??? I had just managed to fall asleep when suddenly I was woken by drumming outside by house. Now this isn't the type of town that has belligerent youth coming home at 2am banging on drums...so I automatically surmised that this was on official annoucement of the beginning of Ramadan. It was a sole drummer just walking by all the houses, making sure he was heard by everyone.

I was informed by my host family yesterday that today we would begin our month of fasting. For almost a month now members of my community have been asking whether I will fast ( or 'zum' in Tamazight) for Ramadan. I tell everyone the same thing: "iyeah inchallah" or yes if god wills it. This is my way of saying that I will try it but make no promises to fast the entire month. I ate a lot last night like my host mother advised me to but I didn't eat the meal before sunrrise this morning...so I am a bit hungry already and its 1:30pm. I can't eat or drink (or put on chapstick) until sundown today...so about 8pm.

Its day one and its harder than it seems.

Inchallah this gets easier...

:)

this is my new home :) its really cute and has an awesome blue door haha. its the only angle at which i could take the photo because i live in a pretty narrow alley. once the guys finish painting the house i will be the only person in my alley with a white house... its mud so that means it will be warmer in the winter and its super cooler now that its hot out.

this is my zween (cool) stove and buta gas that makes that stove function. i set it up all by myself so inchallah i dont blow up some day soon. i checked for leaks and it was fine so i think ill be fine.

look i can actually feed myself! :)

just in case you didnt know this, i could never cook a decent meal in the states and now that i have my own home out here i can miracumously cook good food. amazing. i also noticed that i have been missing spicy food without really knowing it. every meal that i have cooked thus far, except for breakfast, has been super spicy. i love it. moroccans dont like spicy food...what a pity.

Like ice cream, there is a season for weddings. Though I have only been to two weddings this summer, and hopefully no more, there have been a countless amount occuring.

Peace corps staff tried to prepare us for these bled weddings by organizing a mock wedding for us during training. So I should have expected what came my way on that first wedding that i attended right? Oho! I knew that these affairs ran pretty late, but i didnt realize I would be eating dinner at midnight and going to bed at 4am while the party was still going on in full swing. I expected more variety in food, but alas they serve the same thing at every special occasion. We were fed the same thing that is given at a funneral or sadaqa: a couple rounds of really sugary tea, a course of sheep meat in all its juices with a sprinkling of olives, and fianlly a giant dish of couscous topped with chickpeas and a chunk of sheep meat. As many of you know I am still a vegetarian, and luckily I have managed to skip the sheep meat without too much argument.

Ok, so after we have eaten until we can't anymore, we go outside and mingle...with only those of the same sex, of course. This is also some that our mock wedding didnt prepare me for; the separation of the sexes. Men eat their meal in one room while women eat theirs in another. The same applies with dancing; girls and women dance together while men keep to their side and dance ensemble there. The only room where i saw the mixing of sexes was in the room where the bride was kept for the majority of the celebration. They built her a quasi throne and people would go in and see her, but she didnt come out until after dinner to do the ritual wedding day practices. While she changed, before making her appearance, the crowd enjoyed the hired ahaydus group.

The bride is carried out piggy back style and is completely veiled. We never see her face during the ritual practices. After this is done, she is carried back inside in the same manner. At this point the other band (with many loud speakers) begins to play the traditional berber music (which many of us have grown quite tired of) and the crowd goes wild. So thats a bled wedding, well in my region anyways.

i had to walk behind these sheep this morning on my way to town. many of the men in my village are sheep herders so i often run into sheep.

oh wonderful berber decor. at least the people are resourceful. these trees are made from used waterbottles. we recycle. :)

saw this in azrou on one of the medina walls. i think someone was thinking about dali.

my host nices pretending to weave on the loom in the weaving co-operative in town.

arent they cute?

sunset as seen when walking through the fields back to my current home.

I just rode in a taxi with 8 other people. You may be wondering how this is possible... Is it a giant taxi? or is it a super magical taxi resembling mary poppins bag? The latter is closer to the truth. how do you get 9 people into a 6 person car??? this is how: you super squish 5 people in the back seat (i couldnt feel my legs i swear) and of course theyre not youre normal size people; some of them have to be those hefty country women. then you put 2 guys in the passenger seat and finally you have the driver in his seat with another man sitting to his left. yep. thats how you get 9 people into a taxi.

later i can tell you about 27 people in a large minivan or transit as we call them here.

bismillah literally means "in the name of god" and we say this a lot.

before eating or drinking anything, bismillah. before entering a house or building for the first time, bismillah. before starting a trip (usually as the vehicle starts up), bismillah. before holding a newborn baby, bismillah. etc.

we use god phrases a lot in this country. they are an integral part of everyday speech.

this is azrou. the rug shop on the left side belongs to a really nice man that invites all us peace corps volunteers over for very good tea.

this is what my site looked like a few weeks ago before they harvested all the wheat.

i went to sefrou with my host mom to help her out at the craft fair and this is the giant djellaba at the craft fair entrance. on the last day of the cherry parade they sat me on a parade float which carried this djellaba and i found myself in the whole parade. haha.

Mmt is the word for death in the tamazight language. A couple of weeks ago I learned what happens when a community member dies. I was getting dressed for breakfast one morning when all of a sudden I heard a lot of women wailing. I went outside to see what was going on, only to be told that my nieighbor (also my host uncle) had just passed away. At that point I had no idea what the mourning procedures would be like so I just followed around my host sister. I had no idea what to say to people when they came up to me and told me that their relative had died. All I could say was "i'm sorry" and stare blankly.

My host mom spent the next three days at the dead man's house preparing meals for all the mourners frequenting his home and my host dad was somehow mourning the death of his brother. I didnt see them much for those three days, for people didnt really want me going to the dead mans house because there were too many people crying. I had dinner there on the last or third day of mourning. They slaughtered sheep to feed the guests and also had couscous.

It wasnt until I met with my language tutor that I got some clarification about what had happened on those three days. According to him it is customary to mourn for three days. They also bury the dead within hours of their death; as was the case with this man who died at 7am and was buried by 10am. Interestingly enough the women are not allowed to go to the cemetery for the burial because "they cry too much." Also the widow wears all white. And even now, three weeks later, I still see her walking around in all white clothing.

Theres many details which I am sure I have forgotten about, but I was really just terribly confused when this was happening.

I'm going to cover a lot of things here, so sorry if you end up super confused.

I'm finally swearing in as an official Peace Corps volunteer tomorrow! and then i'm off to my final site, which I have been informed is very cold right now. There has been new snowfall as of last night in the mountains sorrounding Ouarzazate so I can just imagine how much worse it it at my site since its much colder there.

Oh yeah, the title to this post refers to the ratty shoes that I have been wearing and the new ones that I just bought today :) I happen to be throwing out old shoes (fun steps!) just at the time that I'm starting in new stage here in Morocco...corny, I know, but so fitting. The new shoes are also super new because they are sandals and I frankly cannot remeber ever having bought sandals before....so see, new stage. haha

ok I won't bore you with this stuff any more, so I'll explain the photos below:

I realize that I never wrote about the mock wedding that we had in Ouarzazate, so I'll tell you about it now...a month later :) We had to borrow clothes from our homestay families so that we could attend this mock wedding. The purpose was to prepare us for the weddings that we may be attending in the future. We drank mint tea with pounds of sugar in it, had plenty of dates and candy, and then proceeded to dance the night away. (by the way this my languge group...we lived in the same village for training)

This is my language group at our training homestay village. We noticed that a storm was slowly approaching our village from the other side of the mountains so we climbed up to the roof and waited until we were finally pelted with the largest rain drops ever. We just went there last week for the last time ever.

I thought that this image would be interesting because it's something that seems very commonplace to me, but maybe back in the states this is very new. On the days that I didn't have class during my homestay, my host mom would always show me how to make the bread that we eat everyday. This is an image of the wood fired stove and oven. They only use this stove to make couscous and the oven is only used for making the bread. They have regular gas stoves and ovens for the rest of the food. This bread is awesome...made out of wheat that they grow and harvest in their fields :)

I got henna again! We threw a large party to thank our host families during training since training has finally ended. I'll definitely miss my host family, but now its time to move on to my permanent village. do you like the design they made?

This is the beautiful village that I am leaving :(

but i'll be sure to go back at some point...maybe for the august harvest of all things yummy :)

internet went weird on meheres the rest:

this is a view of my village from more in the center of it...i will be living way out there by the mountain

road sign on the way to my site...this is part of the cedar forests kind of near memy new friend :) we saw this camel on our way up north...itsn't that look he's giving me amazing???i swear he's not in pain. he's posing again :)

Just got back from visiting my permanent site :)

Its basically farmland surrounded by mountains. Temp wise its nice and cool but ill be freezing in the winter.

I'm near some cedar forests and also some ski resorts...so plenty of snow will be coming my way this winter.

Oh! I saw barbary apes in the cedar forest!!! My new host family is samll and really nice. My host dad salutes me everytime he sees me and my host mom is one of the head women at the local weaving cooperative. she makes beautiful rugs. you guys should come visit :)

i have some new photos from this past week:

i live in one of the houses at the foot of the mountainthese are the fields i walk through to get to the main part of the village...thats behind me

Last night we had a very dramatic unveiling of our permanent sites in the style of jeopardy. We literally had to guess where we were all being placed...so nerve wrecking, but exciting all at once. I can't disclose my exact site, but I can tell you that its in the Boulemane province and that I'm going to be at a site in the middle atlas mountains. I'm leaving to my site tomorrow morning with a few other volunteers that have been placed within a few hours from my site. I'll be there for a week. We are the few that have been placed this far north. :)

I'll let you guys know more about it once I have been there.

here are some photos:

this is my berber smear :)

movie studios in ouarzazate, this is a façade for a movie that i havent seen

maybe you guys know what its from?

this is part of the village where i have been staying recently

its in the valley of the roses

another example of me going nativethis is at the weaving association in my homestay village

True to peace corps spirit, I went an entire week without showering. I spent the last week with my homestay family in the village in the valley of the roses. I have to admit, I wasnt looking forward to a whole week of "i don't understand" and 8 hour days of language instruction, however, it went much better than I had anticipated. On the first night there my host brothers (ages 8 and 11) gave me a tattoo of an eagle. One leg wouldnt stick and since I didnt shower the entire week that I spent there, I arrived back in Ouarzazate with a one legged eagle still on my arm.

I have finally started feeling like I have integrating into the community. Walking down the (only) road in the village is a constant barrage of greetings. Here is an example of the usual greeting:

- salam aalaykum

-waalaykum ssalam

-la bas?

-la bas, hamdullah; la bas?

-la bas; hamdullah; bilxir?

-kushi bilxir; hamdullah

-hamdullah

and this is the shoerter of greetings. sometimes they ask about our health and then about our family.

its really kind of tiring to do this with every person that you encounter, but it feels great to be able to finally understand it all and to be able to respond correctly :)

oh yeah, another way that I feel a bit more integrated is my berber smear. Thats right a berber smear haha

My host mom wanted to do henna on me so i agreed to, but this henna is unlike anything I had seen before. she just smeared the henna "doughy" stuff on my hands and wrapped them up so i had stumps for hands for a whole night. i have redish browish stains on the underside of my hands and my fingernails. though it looks dirty and really odd, i appreciated it because it was her way of making me more a part of their culture.

also my next door neighbor gave me a jellaba and head scarf!!

ill try to take pictures of both my berber smear and the jellaba to post on here soon.

I will be spending this coming week in my host village and one of my taks is to think about isolation. We will be getting interviewed for our final site placement so they have asked us to think about what isolation means to us. I've been thinking about it a bit, but I'm still having some trouble coming up with a definition in this context.

For example, two other trainees and myself spent three days with a current volunteer out in the desert; and thats pretty isolated. The volunteer is pretty far from many other volunteers and from any bigger cities. Public transportation by his site was scarce and we had to go out and wait for a bus at least a half hour before its estimated arrival time. The site was also rather barren and extremely HOT (90-100 degress in march!) Other than these minor details his site was great. His community really liked him and he had many gfriends there. Becuase of this, I can't make up my mind as to whether i want to be near to other volunteers or whether i would rather have only my community as my social network. All I know is that I don't want to be placed in the desert.

Before I get to the details about the special celebration in my host village, I want to tell you guys a little about the new things that I am becoming accustomed to.

We have mint tea everyday...with TONS of sugar. At my homestay I had it everyday with my family right before dinner at 9:30pm.

I have also been getting used to the greetings here. there are a serious of questions and handshakes and hand kissing. Usually its just a handshake and then you touch your hand to your chest as a way of saying that the person is now close to your heart.

There are a lot of ritual like activities when it comes to greetings. for example, we're supposed to start greeting from the right and then move around to the others. The tea drinking also has its share of rituals. They always pour out one cup and then pour it back in and then finally pour out all cups.

We always sit on the ground when we eat and people almost always eat with their hands...usually just the right hand.

Hashak(excuse me) for mentioning this but i've also been getting used to the turkish toilet!!! I'm sure you guys all know that its essentially a hole in the ground. They also have these public bath houses which i have yet to go to.

A lot of these things I experienced for the first time once at my homestay and out of the "luxury" of our current lodgings. I was also able to attend a celebration called Sadaqa. They had this celebration because a guy had been sick in the hospital for about a month, and was now better so he had returned home. It was a two day celebration where the women of the village were invited to a feast on the first day and the men on the day after. I went with my host mom and my host sister. There were about 60-70 women sitting in a courtyard just completely relaxed and socializing with everyone around them. Some women brought out tea various times so we were all able to have tea and cookies a couple times. then a younger girl came around and sprayed us all with perfume. while this was happening, some other older women brought out a metal container with hot coals and took it around to the married women. the married women then stood over it, not on it, so the the smoke would go up into their skirts. once this was over they brought out little tables and large trays of couscous. after this meal i went back home with the women from my host family. this experience has thus far been the most surreal that i have had.

hopefully ill have many more

right now im in the desert in the south of the country

a few of us were just on a few hours long taxi ride to come to our fieldtrip here

i think the heat of the place might be worth it if anything just for the amazing scenery on the ride out here

there were some curvy roads through the mountains and desert that felt like being in a kiarostami film

there were also some amazing palm groves in the middle of nowhere

well time to go explore the area

bslama

hi everyone!

i wish i could have written during the week but i was about 14 km from the nearest internet connection. I spent this past week in a small village situated in a beautiful valley. I dont even know where to begin telling you about it... I lived with a moroccan family and had a great experience. I ate the best couscous ever! it takes a couple hours to prepare on a wood fired stove, and my host mom even let me help with it.

ive been learning the tamazight languaga also. its one of the three berber languages. i also got a new name :) my new name in that village is nadya :) the people were really cordial and generous and really understanding considering that we went there with close to no knowledge of their language. this is the language that i will be using for the next two years.

being in that village with my host family was one of the best learning experiences thus far. I was able to observe the way in which the families interacted and just generally how life is in a small rural village. we went on a few nature walks through the fields and ate almonds right off the trees. there were also many rose bushes lining all the fields...and soon theyll be blooming :)

theres a lot more that i will write about...but i will do it a bit later once i can collect my thoughts better and reflect on the past weeks events.

oh, if anyone wants me to write about anything specific such as food or dress or whatever, let me know