I gave myself three goals on returning to America. I swore that my first meal – the first food I ate period – would be a junkyard dog (with curly fries and a root beer) from Spike's. That probably sounds pretty easily accomplished, but you're forgetting that I landed in New York, and Spike's is strictly a Rhode Island franchise, and that's about four hours of hungry driving from one end to the other, but three Ramadans of training paid off, and at exactly ten o'clock at night, I had my hotdog.

My second goal was a promise that before the following weekend (when I went to Birmingham to see Salma) I'd take at least one shower every day. That one didn't work out quite as well, though I did get most of them. Obviously, it didn't bother me – it's the cleanest I've been in over two years – and nobody said anything about any smells, so I'm going to go out and say that the joke's on all of you for being stooges of the Shower-Industrial Complex.

My last plan is to have all my doctoral applications finished by Thanksgiving, which isn't looking too good at the moment, but, you know, inshallah.

In the meantime I'm working on remember how to be an American without forgetting that I'm a Moroccan. I'd expected that I'd have the most trouble with touching my heart after shaking someone's hand (what people do in Morocco), but it turns out that American's don't really shake hands that much. Of course, the few times that I did shake someone's hand I did also touch my heart, but I'm pretty sure that that one's just going to go away on its own by virtue of the fact that I'm not shaking hands with everyone I meet every time I meet them. What's been dying a lot harder has been Bismillah-ing everything. Here's your change, bismillah. Time to eat, bismillah. Start the car, bismillah.

I don't usually say that one out loud, but I make up for that with inshallah. In Morocco, everything is inshallah, which makes talking about the future a lot easier than it is out here. Here, someone says something about what's going to happen or what they're planning to do and everyone just lets it go at that, and I don't know what to do about it because where I come from, if you don't inshallah, how's anyone supposed to know if you're on board or not? “Let's meet again at six.” “Inshallah.” Now you know that I know the plan. If I don't say anything, though, then anything could happen at six, so I've been inshallah-ing as much as possible.

There's a handful of other Darijia words I've been throwing around, too. “Yumkin” (maybe), “wakha” (okay), “ajjie” (come here), and “enshof” (let me see) being some of the most frequent. It's not that I forget that I'm speaking English, or that I expect people to necessarily understand them, or that I just want to be that much more pretentiously obnoxious, it's just that these are the words that we (volunteers) tended to use with each other – and not just with our communities – which we obviously did, too. The English equivalents just don't exist for me anymore, which means that my family and friends get to enjoy that much more of Duncan-is-more-culturally-diverse-than-we-are.

Which, as it turns out, is probably going to be the Peace Corps legacy for me. I'm not going to be one of those RPCVs who goes around wearing jellabas (though I have already toured Birmingham, Alabama, in my finest stamping-out G Star). I'm not going to be calling myself Amin or listening to sha'abia music in my car, but I'm also not going to be able to blend back in with the normals. You're going to be able to tell that I was a Morocco volunteer. Inshallah.

My name is Duncan Palfrey de la Feld, and I was a Peace Corps youth development volunteer in Morocco. I served in the small village at the northern edge of the Middle Atlas Mountains called Immouzer Kandar, not Freedonia as I called it here (a simple anti-terrorism ploy that undoubtedly saved the lives of thousands). On November 20th, 2008, I swore into Peace Corps service in Fes at the Merinides Palace Hotel to the accompaniment of all the pomp and circumstance you'd expect from one of the most exclusive hotels in northern Morocco and the setting for Paul Bowles's The Spider's House, only without any reference whatsoever to either Paul Bowles or The Spider's House. I arrived in site on the 21st, and served until yesterday, November 12th, 2010, at around three o'clock in the afternoon (Greenwich Mean Time), when I stamped out of the Peace Corps amidst the fanfare one normally associates with an intermission during a PBS Masterpiece Theatre marathon.

And though I may no longer be receiving US government subsidized healthcare, I'll always be a volunteer – even if it's an RPCV (the “R” stands for “returned,” in case you didn't get that). When I enrolled I signed away the rest of my life to the Peace Corps's Third Goal: to educate all of you about the people and culture of Morocco. So that means that even if I'm no longer living overseas, you can still look forward to reading about culture, dialogue, and whatever other nonsense I think you need to know about, with the sole disclaimer that as I return to American society and achieve gainful employment, it may hopefully be happening with increasingly less frequency.

I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far, but either way I'd like to thank you for sticking with me as long as you have, and I hope that my journey has taught you something about the world outside of America's borders. It's certainly schooled me.

I've been in Morocco for two years now. I've seen a lot of places, met a lot of people, and done a lot of things, and I've written about the better parts of it for your entertainment. What I've never talked about, though, is the coming. I didn't wake up here from a coma; I knew in advance and chose this destiny. I spent a lot of time before leaving telling myself not to have any preconceptions, but it turns out that I'm more like Ray Stantz than I'd realized, and try as I might, once in a while an idea or two would pop in there. Sometimes I pictured the Stay Puff'd Marshmallow Man. Other times I didn't. These are a few of those others:

1- We've talked about cats a lot, but I like cats, so we can always talk about them a little more. I've had a lot of cats in my life, and always felt like I had a pretty good relationship with them. At the very least, if you'd asked me what a cat is like, I would have felt confident in answering you. Not as much anymore. The cats here are different (the cats here, for all intents and purposes, are squirrels), and perhaps that's a convenient microcosm for the world of cultural anthropology. Neither the living environment nor the history of cat-human interactions is not the same between America and Morocco, and thus their societies have evolved in different directions and formed what we could very anthropomorphically call cultures (or, if this was a children's cartoon, “cat-tures”). Obviously, this is a gross oversimplification, but that's essentially how it works: culture is the by-product of the collected history of a certain group's stimuli and responses, which, over time, becomes an entity in itself. On the other hand, I could just be spending too much time with cats. One thing I know for certain, though, is that Amal knows more about sustainable development than I do, and she's always there to remind me. I like to pick up cats and pet them, but she doesn't, and she's happy to bite me if I forget. And that's important because development needs to be based on the needs of the local community, and not the desires of the developer. She's a sharp cat.

2- The stereotypical image of a Peace Corps volunteer is probably along the lines of dirty, long-haired hippie. A bleeding heart who's too concerned with saving the world to worry about how long it's been since he washed his 100% all-natural pants or had a decent shave. I would have taken exception to all this, but the reality is that you all might be closer to the truth than you think. My hair has certainly never been as long as it has while serving (in no small part due to the fact that I still haven't been able to convince any barber that it's full of cowlicks and physically cannot be styled in any way that Moroccan dudes like), nor have I ever had as high of a bearded to clean-shaven ratio in my life. More importantly, what would you answer if I asked how many days in a row have you worn the clothes you're in now? Probably not many, and that's what I would have said two and a half years ago, but now I take a shower every four or five days (at the best), and that's even including when I'm in Rabat for trainings and staying at fancy hotels. I've been riding this one pair of pants for about a week now, and I'm planning on taking them all the way through until I peace out of Freedonia. I'm not proud; I just don't really notice it anymore. As for hippie, well, we sure didn't sing Kumbaya on the plane ride over, but I'd also never put patches in my jeans before living in Morocco, so you be the judge.

3- It might not seem like it to people reading this, but I've usually got a lot I want to say. Unfortunately, for these past two years in Morocco, I've been largely on my own. It's one of the hardest parts of the Peace Corps to explain – and deal with – that you can be living with people but be by yourself. A big part of it is language, though culture plays a large part (sometimes you just want to talk about things that you're interested in, and small town Morocco and small city America just aren't always the same in those areas), and there's also the fact that every night I'm back at my house by myself. All volunteers deal with this loneliness in different ways. Some drink, some leave, some make new friends. Me? I just talk to myself. This is something I've been doing for a long time, actually. Whenever I want to think of a word in a different language or using a different pronunciation, I have to say it out loud, which is weird, so I don't. But I have to move my mouth in the shape of the words, which, in the end, is just about as weird. And so there I am, walking around Freedonia by myself, and moving my mouth around like I'm having a very serious conversation about whatever it is that I'm thinking about in my head. From time to time I'll catch myself doing this, which is very distressing, so I concentrate on keeping my mouth closed and before I know it I realize I've been having a silent conversation with myself about how ridiculous I must look to everyone walking past me in the street. This cycle plagued me for a good chunk of my service until I final hit on the perfect solution: chewing gum. Unfortunately, ever since I had braces in high school, I haven't (emotionally) been able to chew gum, but I figure you don't really need to actually be chewing anything if all you're trying to do is seem like you have a good reason to be moving your mouth, so I jut pretend like I'm the poster child for Big League Chew whenever I'm out of the house. At first I had to think about it, but steadily it became more and more natural until I'll frequently be out in the street chewing away without any knowledge of what's going on in my mouth. And that's started to become problematic, too, because now my jaw's working pretty much all day without any respect for my traditional control of its movements, and it hurts. I should probably just go back to talking to myself.

4- During my Peace Corps application interview, they told me to be ready to have free time, so I came over ready to catch up on my hobbies. I planned on learning to play the guitar (or some local variety thereof) and finishing the zombie-themed role-playing game a friend and I had started ages ago. While in country I decided to construct a mosaic from broken pieces of tile and to design brilliantly hilarious shirts for the other members of my training group. I didn't do any of those things, and I can't really say that I filled that time with other more productive ventures. I did some writing, I learned to cook some local dishes, and I pursued a lot of nonsense for my fellow volunteers, but my number one pastime turned out to be watching illegally pirated films. I don't think I've ever been so up-to-date with American pop culture than when I wasn't even living in America. No matter the movie, or whether it's even been released yet, you can find a dude walking around the cafes selling a copy. And it's not just the blockbusters but also the classics (and completely nonexistent titles like Titanic II). I found copies of A Fish Called Wanda and Coming to America at the local pirated movie shack, which is a great place to go shopping on a Friday night, as long as the guy will play a scene or two so you know it's got an English soundtrack. The Peace Corps is a great place for television shows, too. Although your internet tv doesn't work in Morocco, your torrent downloaders do, and any time volunteers get together it's like the floor of the NYSE, swapping season two of Lost for the most recent episode of Community and an Uwe Boll film to be named later.

5- My name is Duncan, which I'm hoping is coming as a great surprise to any of my more faithful readers. My full name is Duncan Palfrey de la Feld; you might not have known that. In either case, you know that in Morocco – aside from when I go to English language summer camp (and sometimes even then) – they call me Amin. I'm cool with this, too. Amin means a couple of things, but generally comes out as “trustworthy,” which is great defense when people don't believe the many things that I like to make up (“What's my name? That's right, you can trust me.”). There have been times, however, when I haven't been happy to be Amin, which is usually when, after introducing myself as Amin and a foreigner, someone asks me what my “real name” is. Obviously, I tell them Duncan (this is one of the few areas when I generally don't make things up), and it's usually settled at that or with a few attempts to pronounce it. But every once in a while I'll get someone who tells me that Amin is a great improvement. This makes Hulk mad. First of all, Duncan is an awesome name. It means “dark warrior” (to be fair, “dark-skinned warrior” – “swarthy warrior”), not pansy “trustworthy.” Boy scouts are trustworthy; dark warriors kick ass and take names. I'm happy to be Amin, especially if the best you can make of my real name is “Junkel,” but just so long as we all agree that Duncan is the most empirically bitching name available.

6- I love to travel – I've been to twenty-four countries so far (some legally and some not) – and now I'm starting to worry that I'll never be able to travel again. Not because I won't have any money or time, but because I don't know if, after having been a volunteer, I'll have the ability to be a tourist. The most incredible part of living in Morocco has been living in Morocco. I see all these tourists (some of whom are friends of mine) and I think to myself, “They have no idea what this country is about.” It's not really their fault (unless you hold not joining the Peace Corps against them), and they probably don't think of their chance to be in Morocco as anything short of a lifetime opportunity, but from where I'm standing, a lot of them are just wasting their money. But by knowing this, I can now never take a trip to a new and interesting culture and not feel that I too am wasting my time, but at the same time I don't think I'll be able to be a Peace Corps volunteer everywhere. I don't know, I don't know if I'll have enough time.

7- During my interviews I was told that volunteers are given a stipend roughly equal to the salary of a local person doing the same work. That is entirely untrue. My closest parallel is a teacher, and being a teacher is a great profession in Morocco. From my experience, you can live in a big house, have a car, and raise a family on a teacher's salary, which I certainly could not do with my living allowance. The idea of the living allowance, though, is for us to live generally at the same level as the people in our communities, so it's better that we don't get very much (never mind the fact that almost no one would believe that my income is anything less than infinite, but that's a story for another day). If you want the luxuries usually enjoyed by expatriates – cooks, maids, microwaves, western-style toilets – you'll have to pay out of whatever funds you had before you got here, or whatever you can guilt your parents into sending you. Otherwise, it's a holiday in Cambodia for you, which really isn't all that bad. Yes, there is poverty in Morocco, though not everywhere, and yes, there are people who live each day thinking about how they're going to eat tomorrow, and those aren't all beggars, but in general you can get what you need without having to struggle to find a way to pay for it (with the exclusion of medical care, though that too is a story for another day). Nevertheless, a lot of volunteers still ride their monthly allowances down to the end. A lot of that goes towards cheese, and alcohol, and recharging their phones, and it's taught me a very important lesson: I'm a wicked cheapskate. You can't get cheese in Freedonia, and I won't spend the exorbitant prices either for the cheese or the taxi rides to Fes and the grocery store. I've never been a drinker, but that too is partly because I was too cheap in college to get interested, and I can't remember the last time I made a phone call that wasn't absolutely necessary and couldn't be said in just a text message, and that I couldn't walk across town to say in person. I've learned to pinch centimes in ways that would make a mul souk tip his hat, and not because I have to, either – I have mountains of dough in my Moroccan bank, enough to buy my ticket home entirely in cash – but because it's just my nature, and it's made me a better person. Not a better person than I was before, but a better person than you. I go so far as to save the laundry water to use for flushing the toilet, and that's environmental awareness you can take to the bank.

8- I've talked a bit about fashion in Morocco, and don't think I'm bragging if I say I've become a bit of a Peace Corps folk hero for my ability to wear incredible Moroccan G-Star clothing – it's just the truth. And like countless volunteers before me, as my bags get packed they're becoming more and more full of Moroccan clothes. However, there's a lot more Freshness than traditional with me than you usually find with the typical volunteer. And they ask me what I'm doing; I'm never going to wear that stuff in America. And they don't get it that G-Star isn't ironic for me anymore. I take a walk in the Rabat medina souk and honestly think how awesome it would be to walk around declaring “Lost for Life” on my chest, and I would, too, if only I wasn't such a cheapskate.

9- I've faced a lot of obstacles in the Peace Corps, but the biggest is probably the realization that I don't think I really like youth. It's not a moral opposition, but more of an irrational fear that originated from the fight or flight choices I made back in high school. Let's face it: youth are terrifying. Of all the potentially dangerous areas in Freedonia, the only place I ever actively avoided was the one short stretch of road and small souk right in front of Mohammad the Sixth High. I would regularly – and happily – walk long out of the way if it meant I wouldn't be seen by the kids always hanging around outside of the gates, which in my town means literally scaling cliffs rather than face a sixteen-year-old. Regardless of all this, however, I've come to love youth development and the kids that I've worked with for two years. This has had no effect at all on my policy of hiding from them as much as possible, but it's nonetheless a genuine respect for them. Despite my emotional handicaps, however, we've managed to do some great activities, like the supercool Rocket Bottles Project I just did with Andrew and Zack of making and launching soda bottle rockets filled with water and air, and it's because of this that I feel I deserve my status as Golden Child of second year youth development. I mean, youth development volunteer that's afraid of youth? The heartwarming screenplay practically writes itself.

10- I'm not an overly athletic person (that's really the domain of my younger brother), though I'm passable enough that I can feel shocked to be picked last, and can even sometimes be a sort of mutant superman to my nerdy, nonathletic friends. Coming here – especially as a youth development volunteer – I not only expected but genuinely looked forward to all the soccer games I was going to play. First of all, I could probably compensate for my American ability by being bigger than the kids, and, more importantly, there was no way I wasn't going to develop the necessary technique playing soccer everyday to not be able to come back and school my little brother. Even if I didn't have these lofty goals, there was no way I wasn't going to be playing, and so you can imagine my surprise as I recount to you that in my 27 months in Morocco, I have played exactly four games of soccer. One was a bit of after-tagine playing around out at the lake (I scored a goal), one was the if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em attempt to get some kids to play frisbee when they clearly weren't going to sit still and learn English (I scored a bunch of goals, but half the players were under ten years old), and one was a pick-up game in the town's central park after the US victory over Algeria in the World Cup (I scored another goal, but all anyone is going to remember is that I was still wearing the patriotic face paint I'd put on at the cafe). The last game was my one attempt at a pre-breakfast Ramadan game, which was a lot more like a two-hour fight, and it's arguable that I played in it. It was more like I huddled in a corner of the field and prayed for the call to prayer so desperately that I almost converted. I sure got to watch a lot of soccer, though (and I'm immensely proud to say that I never called it “football”), but I never got in to the Moroccan league, probably because no one seems to be really all that interested. There are only two teams that are of really great note, Raja and Wydad, and they're both from Casablanca, so who cares about them? Every once in a while we get some new graffiti for the Fes team (that's what Fatal Tigers means, if you recall from long ago; they wear yellow and black stripes on their jerseys and apparently have a somewhat indifferent outlook concerning their destinies), but there are only two teams anyone in Freedonia wants to hear about: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. For my part, I couldn't care less about Spanish soccer, but I did finally find a Moroccan team I could believe in. Honoring the glorious history of Morocco's ocean renegades, the Salé team (Association Sportive de Salé)has the simultaneously most awesome and most unfortunate name in all of soccer: ASS Pirates. I bought a jersey.

11- It could be that I spend all my time with youth, or it could be that the vast majority of my colleagues have just graduated from college, but whatever the reason, something about being a youth development volunteer has caused me to revert to the maturity level of a thirteen year old. Granted, it's a really witty thirteen year old – kind of the thirteen year old we all wish we could have been when we were thirteen years old – but to give you an example, the first thing my training group asked our language teacher how to say I Darija is “that's what she said” (“dak shi li galt,” for those of you interested). Then again, it's pretty entrenched in Peace Corps Morocco identity that each sector has a unique personality. Environmental education volunteers are your stereotypical mountain people that don't shave for months and actively seek to live in the remotest possible sites, small business volunteers are sophisticated and goal oriented and like to get together for cocktail parties and brunch, health volunteers may not actually exist – at least I've seen no conclusive evidence to that effect – and youth development is known for having training sessions on how to play games. During our Mid-Service Medicals and Miscellaneous Methodology Meeting, the small business volunteers were having a session on international marketing strategies while we were staging a flash mob to the Black Eyed Peas' “I Gotta [sic]* Feeling.” So it's probably not entirely our fault that we spend our free time laughing about farts and telling dirty jokes, and, in case you're wondering, one of the best resources for dirty jokes is Darija itself. Every year we get summer cam scholarships, which every kid and association in town wants a part of, so we get non-stop requests for “folders” for a month or two at the end of the school year. And how do you say folder in Arabic? “Milf.” And, of course, hanging up the announcements about camp scholarships requires going out and purchasing peneez (thumbtacks). It's not limited to youth development volunteers or dar shebab activities, though; anyone can join in on the fun. Just do like I do every morning and tell the world “I woke up.” “Foqt min na'ass.” I guarantee it'll brighten your day.

*As a matter of principle, allow me to state categorically that I am a full supporter of informal speech, as well as using said in writing, with the exception of using numbers in the place of words (“Got 2 go” is going to be the downfall of modern civilization). That being said, “gotta,” as in, “I Gotta Feeling,” is an unstressed truncation of “got to,” as opposed to “got a” (meaning “in possession of”), which would be written as “got a.” Thus, the song's title is best paraphrased as “I Have to Feeling.” Damn kids, with their music.

12- I've always thought of myself as somewhat of a gentleman, and, if popular superlative awards are any indicator, I've probably always been right. And part of my well-documented gentility is the lack of bad words in my vocabulary. It's not that I've been overly opposed to foul language, it's just that I've always liked to think of myself as smarter than you, and that I can think of a much more scathing and demoralizing comment than a simple curse. Over the course of my service, however, a change has occurred, and I now find myself putting Popeye to shame. I'm convinced that it's largely the result of my linguistic impotence – that no matter how good I've gotten with Darijia I could never really get into a passionate fight – and thus I compensate with foul language. The only problem is that despite spending every day with the youth of Morocco, I don't actually know any bad words in Arabic, and so I'm forced to do what every meat head jock I've ever made fun of did: swear. And I imagine it's from there that it's gotten into my regular English, though I can't make any guarantees. Whatever the cause, it's gotten to the point where I'll drop an F Bomb as soon as look at you, and I'm starting to worry that I might not be able to do that when I get back home.

13- The first thing my mother said when she came to visit last summer was “you need to take a bath.” It's gotten me thinking about what she's going to say when I land at JFK in mid-November, and what she's going to say when we're eating Thanksgiving dinner a week later. It's not a question of Moroccan manners vs American manners, it's going to boil down to living by myself vs being a member of a society. If I want to eat dinner straight out of the pot, there's no one who's going to know, and if I don't want to wash my clothes for a few months, there's no one who's going to say anything. Every now and then I catch myself closing the bathroom door and wonder what I'm doing – it must be some sort of vestigial reaction. Very soon, though, and I'll be back in America and mooching off my family, which means I'll have to remember all of the polite society that was drilled into me as a kid, but I don't wager it'll be an easy transition. I should probably just stick to pizza and Chinese food until I get my fork legs back. Then again, I imagine that when Tom Hanks got back from his castaway island, he fired away a good burp or two himself.

14- Unlike some, I didn't join the Peace Corps looking for love, nor did I ever have need to change that goal during the course of my service. In fact, from what I've been told (and I know it's true for the youth development program), I'm the only volunteer that arrived in September 2008 in a relationship that will be leaving in November still involved with the same person (that's just a little shout out to the girl with long black wavy hair). Still, they set us up to expect to be bombarded by proposals (because the Peace Corps volunteer mantle is a visible aura of charisma, and it's the easiest way to send your children to America), but even if they didn't, who's not going to want what I've got after they've seen me in my G-Star G-Pants? In reality, there were a few girls who flirted pretty hard (though the chick from the dentist's office might honestly have been really excited about my teeth), but not a single proposal. Nor did any fathers come up and take a stab at me. It could be that, not having converted to Islam, I'm still off-limits (Muslim girls aren't supposed to marry non-Muslim men; they say it's because you can be sure that a true Muslim – being a God-fearing man – will necessarily protect and respect any woman, whether Muslim or not, but the real truth is that's it's just a matter of eliminating the potential for inheritance problems), but I honestly don't think that was the reason. They could easily just ask, “Why don't you convert and marry my daughter?” No, I think the real truth is that the dar shebab gave Salma and I a wedding when she came, and say what you will about Morocco, there's apparently a “no home wrecking” rule in place. And it was just after Salma left that I noticed the pack of girls who hang out on the main street weren't whistling at me or calling me over to talk anymore, which is too bad because I secretly loved that they did that. For gender development reasons, not because my ego is that fragile that it needs to be stroked by lusty teenagers. I hung up the “will you marry me, Duncan” poster the lady volunteers made for our summer camp boy band performance to take care of that. I turns out that's the only proposal I got. Then again, the other day I showed up to the dar shebab early, and the director's wife was hanging around outside with some of her friends, and, as I stood there awkwardly waiting for someone to unlock the front door, they got to talking about me. “Who's that?” “That's the American who teaches here.” “American? You should have him marry one of your daughters.” “He speaks Arabic” was all she said in reply, but maybe that's the key. Folks here might have been planning my married life ever since I set foot in country, I just wasn't listening.

15- I read a few books before coming to Morocco, all of which were written in the traditional, Orientalist style, and all of which loved to talk about Morocco's love of magic. Anywhere you look you'll find references to how Morocco is the only Islamic country that still believes in djinn, the spirit-like beings made of fire (as opposed to humans, who were made of clay). Although it's the route of the word, djinn are not genies; they're more of a parallel species living on an alternate plane of the same universe who generally ignore people, though sometimes they can be malevolent – especially when people invade their territory, such as uninhabited homes. They're servants of God, however, just like people, so they can be commanded by those with great knowledge of the Qur'an, and compelled to lead the faithful to hidden caches of ancient Berber treasure hidden in the mountains. Truth be told, though, I've heard absolutely nothing about magic from anyone in the country who wasn't a foreigner. In all my experience, no one puts food into their wells to keep them happy, no one uses the hands of the dead in their couscous for magical purposes, and no one is consulting village witches about their medical problems. Of course, there are people who do all of this I'm sure, but from what I've seen, it's a lot like voodoo in New Orleans, which is to say that everyone knows about it, and perhaps plays lip service just for good measure, but it's not something that happens with anywhere near the kind of frequency to call legitimate practice – certainly not on the scale of what's written about on the outside. Then again, maybe people just don't talk about it with me. Our G Star guy in Sefrou once wanted to give us his business card, so he did, and we immediately commented on how the picture on the card wasn't him, it was soccer megastar Ronaldo. He didn't seem to think that was all that strange, but, after about five minutes of ragging on him, he produced a second card, this one featuring himself standing in the entrance-way of his shop. That's a great card we said, but he was unconvinced. He explained that he didn't like to give out this card just in case it fell into the wrong hands – the “wrong hands” in this case being girls who might want to take his card to a magician and use it to put spells on him to do who knows what, so maybe there's more magic than I thought.

16- It's getting to be a pretty old story: Morocco is a lot colder than everyone thinks. Yes, there is desert, and yes, the temperature in the desert will regularly break 120 degrees (Fahrenheit) in the summer, and yes, being assigned to a site in one of these places is the most horrible fate imaginable, but the surprise is still always the cold. And, if you're fortunate enough to be placed in a cold site, you will learn the meaning of ultimate suffering. You know about bone-itis (though maybe not that I was already getting flares of it before Halloween), but let me leave you with one final story of just how cold it is. Like all Peace Corps volunteers, I've got my share of psychological disorders, and one those is the inability to take off my pants while still wearing a shirt. Call me crazy, but I think it looks weird when dudes are both beshirted and pantsless; the proportions are just all wrong. Conveniently, I don't often have to remove only my pants, but when I'm getting dressed for bed (or undressed for work), I have to take off my shirt first, then my pants, then put on the new pants, and lastly the new shirt. That's just the way I do things, and I'm sure anyone can see the obvious benefits. Life in Freedonia has been a different matter. It's so cold that it is literally impossible to be naked – even in the house. I can't take a shower (whether hot water is involved or not), and I can't take off both my pants and shirts (obviously, by this point I'm wearing more than one) at the same time. How cold is it? It's so cold that it cures my neuroses (Yakov Smirnoff said that), and when it's cold enough that you're making clinical breakthroughs, it's time to go home.

In the course of our journey through my service in Morocco, we've talked about a lot of things. We've traveled from one corner of the country to the other, explored the culture of Morocco and the life of a Peace Corps volunteer, and come to understand the meaning of development. Our time, however, has been finite, and I've been busy, or lazy, and I haven't been able to write about everything I needed to. Fortunately, it turns out that there are only nine things that I neglected in all of Morocco. Here they are:

1. There's a book that was spreading around when I first joined called Three Cups of Tea. I never read it, but from what I understand it's about integrating into an Islamic society somewhere in Central Asia (Pakistan, maybe?) and drinking tea. I imagine that the appeal to Morocco volunteers is based on our own being required to drink copious amounts of tea, many times under duress. You, too, probably think that you can only drink two glasses of scaldingly hot tea hypersaturated with sugar at any given sitting, but, let me assure you, when your large Moroccan host mother is standing over you with a look composed of 63% dissapointment, 34% concern for your nutritional safety, and 3% sassy antagonism and refilling your cup in complete disregard to what you're saying, not saying, or say every time the issue comes up, you're going to drink it. Fortunately, there are a handful of varieties to choose from, though, unfortunately, tea is never served individually. Unless you're the world's biggest loser (and not the kind of big loser that's going to get us in trouble with the registered trademark police), you drink your tea from loose leaf form, in a large pot filled with one part boiling water and one part sugar, and everyone else drinks the same. Every family has special tea glasses used strictly for tea (and Coke, on special occasions), and the flavor (of the tea, not the Coke) depends on what time of year it is. The most popular is mint, though few realize that this is a summer (or warm weather) drink only. In the winter, we drink sheeba (wormwood-laced tea), and sit around pretending we're French Romantic-Era homeless people. And pretty much any other green, leafy herb can – and is – made into a special tea, too, though no other is as common. Louiza (lemon verbena) is my personal favorite. There's also z'aater (oregano) to calm your stomach and salmia (sage) to calm your blood. Trendy stalls in the big city souks will market their own blends, which are usually made from just about anything mixed with everything else (usually really good). And if you're really lucky, you might find yourself with a steamy glass of flio (spearmint), which tastes exactly like what you'd expect if you drank a steamy glass of Double Mint Gum, which is to say, awful. On Eid Seghir (end of Ramadan) this year I made a running tally on my arm of how many glasses I drank during my four hours of visiting family and neighbors. I got up to somewhere between hyperglycemic shock and early onset diabetes (twelve glasses). I shortlisted Three Thousand Cups of Tea as one of the possible titles for my Peace Corps memoirs until a friend and I did the math and realized we've had far more than that in our 26months. Then we stopped talking about that and started researching insulin supply companies in Morocco.

2. Islam recognizes Friday as the Sabbath, though in Morocco, that doesn't translate quite like what we do with Sundays in America. Sure, there's a big congregation at the midday prayer, and a lot of people who normally don't do any of their prayers might at least do this one, but in most ways it's just another ordinary day. Kids go to school; government offices are open. It's not even considered the weekend. Some people might close up shop early or in the afternoon, and one person once told me that no one is allowed to work on Friday, but it's basically a day like any other. Except for one thing: lunch. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, and Friday lunch is the biggest lunch of the week. The whole family is gathered together (before the kids run back off to school at two and parents go back to work), which calls for something special, and that means couscous. Tagines may be the national dish, lamb and prunes may be the way to impress your guests, and chicken with onions, raisins, and euphoria-inducing amounts of LSD may be what's served at your wedding, but only couscous is good enough for Friday. The couscous making starts around ten in the morning (unless I plan on coming over to learn, in which case it always seems to start earlier), and lasts until around one, or until everyone who's coming home is back home. It's served in a massive bowl-plate called a ksa, and everyone gathers around and digs in the second it touches the table. And it's important to note that couscous is the only dish that is officially sanctioned to be eaten with a utensil (a giant spoon, to be precise, that's about the equivalent of a tablespoon and a half), although the truly hardcore will use their hands. Not bread in their hands, mind you, but go straight for it with their fingers. If you want to blow the socks of your Moroccan friends, the next time you go over for couscous, make a big display of refusing to eat with a spoon (it helps if you take the one offered you and throw it across the room), and plunge your hand (right hand) into the bowl. This works especially well when the couscous is supersaturated with marqa', the liquified butter cream sauce that fell from Heaven, and doesn't work at all when it isn't. Scoop it around for a moment and pull it back out with about a golf ball’s weight of couscous. Sauté this in your hand once or twice and then launch it into your mouth. It really only takes once to prove that you're the baddest couscous eater at the table, though you're welcome to go the whole meal to formally cement your superiority. When you're finished, you can demurely tap your hand clean on the side of the ksa, or you can full-on lick it down. An important safety tip, however: the latter option is not as sexually enticing as it might sound. When you're finished, you can wash it all down with a tall glass of lebin. Lebin is pretty much the same thing as buttermilk, though it translates more closely as “Satan's nightcap,” and drinking this with your couscous isn't so much hardcore as it is an exercise in gastrointestinal hubris. I'd recommend just a simple glass of water, though I wouldn't wait until the end of the meal before quenching my thirst. Don't forget, Morocco has space for individual tea (or soda) glasses, but there's only one cup of water on the table, and it's going to be hard to drink once everyone else's semolina grain backwash is floating in it, no matter how thirsty you are.

3. As in any other society, there are some things you can do in Morocco, and others you can't. For example, you can go to the bathroom, but you can't let anyone hear you (we've talked about this before). And, in those cases when you do something that you shouldn't, you're going to hear people telling you “hashuma.” “Hashuma” basically means “shame.” It also sounds a lot like “shame,” which is convenient for remembering. You can “hashumaed” for just about anything, too, in no small part due to how much fun it is to say. It can mean: “Act right!” as in, “Hashuma, don't eat with your left hand!” “You know better than that!” as in, “Don't grab a girl's butt when she's walking through the souk, hashuma!” “Watch your mouth!” as in “Hashuma, you said 'donkey,' 'toilet,' 'trash,' or one of a long list of other words without asking for pardon.” “This is the end of society as we know it,” as in “You were attacked by hoodlums? Hashuma.” (This one should be followed by “gaa',” which translates most closely as “to an absolute degree, either negative or positive, with great emphasis,” and is my absolute favorite word to say, gaa'.) It can be your response to seeing someone stumbling drunkenly down the street, or a weak attempt to save face when you've been bested in a verbal battle of wits. And you actually don't need to say it at all, as, like all Moroccan communication, it can be conveyed in a simple hand gesture form. It's a lot like our “I'm sad” gesture except instead of tracing a tear away from your eye, you pull the skin down from your eyeball to emphasize that someone is watching. Unfortunately, this can get you (or me) in trouble if you try to tell someone you're sad without saying it. Morocco doesn't have that gesture, and isn't going to get it. Trust me.

4. You might be surprised to know that the vast majority of people don't own cars, though you might also be surprised to know that far fewer have camels that they can use to get around with. No, a good 85% of Morocco lies in between, having only their wits (and the occasional bicycle) to get them to work in the morning. So what do they do? Well, most just walk. This is as true of city folks who walk a matter of blocks as it is of country folks who walk a matter of miles to get to school, usually uphill. But when money is available and time is not, people got with what they know: taxis. Within cities, these are called “little taxis,” which are usually a cute little Fiat and always a pain in the ass. Depending on the city, there's either a set rate to ride or a counter, though in either case you can count on having to argue over the price and probably being ripped off. Between cities you need a “big taxi,” though, and that's where the fun is. Big taxis are all old Mercedeses (Mercedi?) that were run to death in Germany before being sent to scrap, reassembled for Morocco as part of a development outreach, and currently held together by the collective faith of everyone riding on that particular day. And perhaps that's why these [debatably] five-seater vehicles are crammed with seven people: because no one knows just how many more rides are left in it. The front seat includes the driver, a passenger in two thirds of the passenger's seat, and another passenger in what's left plus straddling the stick shift, and the back is crammed with four people and whatever luggage can't fit in the trunk. Again, though, this is a Mercedes, so if you've got four small-to-medium-sized passengers, there's plenty of room to ride comfortably. Unfortunately, though women are more successful, both sexes aspire to huskier sizes, which can make for some tight riding conditions. Usually, one has to lean forward the whole ride, and that's usually the American (who's less comfortable with a lack of personal space). Of course, if you don't like taxis, and trust me, they can be next to unbearable in the summer, you could always take a bus. There are a few national bus lines that cater largely to tourists, but most are local lines or run specific routes, and it's not unheard of for someone to just run their own bus. Similar to big taxis, buses have set passenger limits, though unlike big taxis, this number is equal to the number of seats available in the bus. However, compliance with these set limits is much harder to verify, so what usually happens is that passengers are crammed into the bus until it is physically impossible to add any more, and everyone not sitting in a seat is commanded to hide whenever the bus enters town or passes a well-known traffic stop. Amazingly, though, it's only on the fancy national lines that you ever have any problems with seating. Despite there being as many or more seats than people riding, there's always some neurotic Westerner up in arms about having the seat number that's on their ticket, and you can count on your PCV getting in a fight about how if everyone would just sit down in an open space, we could already be halfway there by now.

5. Morocco's currency is the dirham, which during the course of my service, has fluctuated between eight and nine to the dollar. Of course, being more permanent residents, we don't usually worry too much about the exchange rate. Five dirham is a cup of coffee, one and a half is a wheel of bread, and it goes on from there. And you'll probably be surprised to hear that despite never having to exchange money, we're still constantly worry about conversions. Not between dollars and dirham, but between dirham and rials. I've heard a lot of stories about where rial come from. Some say they are the “old currency;” others that they're “Islamic” (the Saudi Arabian currency is also called the rial). The truth, however, is that they're entirely fictional – a figment of the collective imagination that's taken root in Morocco. A single rial is one twentieth of a dirham, or the equivalent of a Moroccan nickle. Of course, Morocco doesn't have nickles (or five-centime pieces) in its collection of legal tender. (Point of technicality: actualy, there is a five-centime piece, though its use is about as common as that of the two dollar bill in America, which is to say, nonexistent. I found one once, however, so I can prove they do exist, though I can't find it anymore – I certainly didn't spend it on anything – so perhaps it was just a souk-induced hallucination.) No, rials are a way of counting, not a currency. Basically, you take whatever amount of money you're concerned with, and multiply it by twenty (or the number of nickles involved in the transaction), so bread is actually thirty, and a cup of coffee will run you one hundred. At first we thought that people would try to give us prices in rials to take advantage of our gullibility, but in the end we've found it much more likely to meet someone who honestly does not comprehend prices in dirham. My host mother is one, and in the course of selling her my furniture, I had to convert all the prices. Fortunately, two years of practice has made me an expert at the 20s table. Up in the north they call rials “douro,” but they count in centimes instead,which they call “franks.” That means a carton of La Vache Qui Rit cheese will cost you one thousand up in the Rif Mountains or two hundred in Freedonia, but you only have to take ten dirham out of your wallet. But in all this, the thing that doesn't make any sense is what Morocco does with really large quantities of money, specifically for ten and hundred thousands of dirhams. You'd think that 10,000 would be called 200,000, but everyone – not just the north – goes for the pennies on this one and calls it 1,000,000. I recently heard that my dar shebab was going to be getting 16,000,000 this year for improvements, and almost fell out of my chair. 16,000,000 dirham (roughly 2,000,000 dollars) is enough to build a center four or five times the size of what we have now. Forget about cosmetic improvements, let's tear it down and start again from scratch. Of course, it turns out that we aren't getting 16,000,000 dirham, we're getting 16,000,000 franks, which is 160,000 dirham (about 20,000 dollars). That's still a lot of money, but not quite the same, though I suppose I only have myself to blame for getting so excited. My friend didn't say “dirham,” “franks,” or “rial,” he just said “16,000,000.” It makes me wonder though what would happen if we were getting that much in dirham. Would they have to say 1,600,000,000 to avoid confusion? The world may never know.

6. What would you consider a busy day? You get up before the sun so you can get to work or school on time, bust your rump finishing whatever project you need to get done in a few hours less than it's going to take to finish, blitz through all the errands necessary for living, and go spend the quality time with your parents or girlfriend just so that they don't walk out on you, despite being exhausted to the point where you almost wish they would if only just to simplify your life. At the end of it all, you fall asleep still wearing your clothes, which, conveniently turn out to be the pajamas you were wearing the night before and didn't have time to change out of this morning. That probably strikes you as pretty busy. To me, and the majority of Peace Corps volunteers that I know, that's more along the lines of a ludicrous impossibility. A busy day around here (and I should note that I'm speaking for volunteers here) is one when you have to pay your electric bill, buy groceries, and teach an hour and a half of class. Do all that, and you deserve a break. But that's not to say that there's nothing to do as a volunteer, nor I am necessarily calling us all pathologically lazy (though there are a few). The truth is that pretty much everything you have to do is exponentially harder to do hear than it is for all of you back in cushy America. And why is that? In the end, it boils down to culture, or, perhaps, a lack thereof. You have the luxury of buying stamps at the post office in English, and according to culturally enforced rituals that you've been acclimating to all your lives. We, however, have the relatively simple challenge of translating our words into Darijia or some variety of Tamazight and the great challenge of translating our modes of thinking and cultural touchstones into Moroccan before we can even begin to ask the clerk for a book of stamps. Even going over to your parents' house for lunch is exhausting, and that's before they start asking why you never call and what happened with that sweet girl who seemed so nice and why can't you just settle down and start making grandchildren? And that's why I exclude Moroccans from my definition of a busy day, because they, like you, are working in the system to which they were raised. Going to the souk isn't going to be use the day's energy, though I wouldn't be surprised if a Freedonian needed to take a nap after only a one hour expedition to Wal-Mart. So bear that in mind the next time you're feeling wiped from a “long day.” Over here, we're fighting against a lifetime of being indoctrinated into a different way of thinking of just about everything. All you need is a Red Bull.

7. Morocco is know for many things, but television programming is not one of them. Every so often you'll read an article with some Moroccan railing against the two-dimensionality of Moroccan television characters or how they reinforce out-dated gender and cultural stereotypes, or with some American bemoaning how completely asinine – à la “Full House” – they all are. It shouldn't come to you as a surprise, then, that the star of the Moroccan television screen is not Moroccan at all. Turkey stands tall with their hyperdramatic and well-mustachioed soap operas dubbed and transmitted via Syria, who throw in a few struggle-for-independence era dramas while they're at it. South Korea has a historical epic every once in a while, and India usually packs enough tension into a single half hour each day to induce seizures, but none of these can topple the megalith that is the Mexican telenovela. They aren't as frequent as the Middle Eastern shows, but somehow they've learned to capture the Moroccan attention in a way that probably hasn't been done since the first Arabs started showing up talking about Islam. The first reason is probably that these are dubbed into Darijia rather than Standard Arabic (for some reason, the Indian ones are, too), but I would wager that the short skirts and massive cleavage that you don't get from more conservative societies plays their part, too. Whatever the reason, the Mexican soap opera slot has achieved a level of sacredness bordering on a sixth call to prayer. Take “Margarita,” for instance, which isn't even the show's real name but just the name of the main character. This summer the souk featured t-shirts with her face and key chains with everyone else. And now it's “Diablo” – set in New York – that holds Morocco hostage every evening at around seven and preventing any sort of regular dar shebab English schedule from being put in place. And it's convinced us volunteers that if the Peace Corps is a cultural exchange program, then it's wasting its money. Forget about volunteers, our effectiveness could be increased twenty-fold if we just dubbed a cheap plot line into Darijia with lots of hair gel and leather jackets. And cleavage.

8. My grandfather is a man of routine, and he used to go to the same sandwich shop and order the same sandwich so often that they named it after him. The “Coddy special,” it's called (his name is Frederick, but prefers to go by “Coddy,” for his middle name, Codman), and you could go into whatever sandwich restaurant this was in New Orleans and order it off the menu, though it may not be there anymore, as the logical conclusion that it contains codfish (which I can attest it does not) can only have led to confusion. Peace Corps volunteers are similar (to my grandfather, not codfish) in that they too strive to be regulars everywhere they go, and for similar reasons. My grandfather couldn't hear, and was too curmudgeonly to want to talk if he could, and Peace Corps volunteers hate to explain why they're in Morocco. Obviously, a Darijia-speaking foreigner is an oddity around here, and encountering one inevitably leads one to wonder why, where are you from, what are you doing in Morocco, are you married, are you Muslim, do you like Morocco more than America, do you support Bush or Obama, did you know Michael Jackson converted to Islam right before he died, and all I really wanted was to grab a candy bar before going to class and not recite my life story and make empty promises to join your religion just so you'd stop talking to me. Of course, these are all great questions, and I'm happy to answer them, but I've answered them before, and Michael Jackson did not, in fact, convert, he merely produced a cd for Bahrain because they agreed to host him after he was kicked out of America for being an unproven child molester, which he never even delivered on, and I've been here for two years and haven't you all figured out what I'm here for already? And that's why we take every opportunity to be regulars wherever possible. We go to the same corner hanoot, the same cyber, the same cafe, the same barber, the same popcorn guy in the souk, the same phone recharge vendor. Essentially, once you've “broken someone in,” you stick with them, and not the least reason for which is how much effort it takes to get to the point where you no longer have to read an autobiography just to buy a half liter of milk, and that's a beautiful thing. And, for the record, I too have a sandwich named after me. In a little town outside of Sefrou there's a guy named Sandwich Mohammad, and if you go to buy a Sandwich Mohammad sandwich (which I highly recommend as they are the best sandwiches in Morocco), you can ask him for “sandwich Amin,” and he'll know what you're talking about, and you'll know that I know what I'm talking about, too, because sandwich Amin is the best Sandwich Mohammad sandwich.

9. I love teaching English to dar shebab students primarily because of the unmitigated joy it brings to their faces, secondarily because it's really easy for me to do, and tertiarily because it's desperately needed in Morocco. Students are given about four years of English and then expected to pass an exam that's a close second to the TOEFL as a certificate of fluency, which is obviously incredibly hard, but that's not even the real problem. The texts they are forced to use are not only written in British English – it's bad enough imagining that they're going to learn to speak like Hugh Grant – but they're written in incorrect British English. Ask a Moroccan English student their name, and I guarantee you'll hear this, word-for-word: “My name is [Mohammad] and my family name is [ben Mohammad]. I am from Morocco, exactly in [Fes].” It's a travesty that they do this to students who we can assume want nothing less than to sound absolutely ridiculous when they speak English. I mean, it makes sense why this would happen, especially since the Arabic word for “name” is “smiya,” which is uniquely distinct from their word for “last name,” “kinnaea,” but has really no one with any background in English ever read the textbook? The cake-taker, though, is the Moroccan English way of asking how you are. In Darijia, you would usually ask with “la bas?” and answer with “la bas.” Of course, there are other exchanges you could use (such as “bekhair?” and “bekhair”), but they too tend to be the same word just inflected differently. It's not too surprising then that people are going to imagine that English behaves the same way, and thus the birth of “Are you fine?” Myself and almost fifty years of Peace Corps volunteers before me have fought to slay this demon, and I am here to say that we have failed. Rather than admit defeat, however, I propose that we adopt this formally into English, so that we can say that the English spoken by our dar shebab students in fully correct. So do your parts, people, and whenever you see someone, ask them “Fine? Are you fine?” They'll appreciate knowing you care, and I'll appreciate having a little bit of Morocco with me back in America.

I have a policy that, no matter what else I have going on, the day isn't complete until I blow at least one Moroccan's mind. Of all the goals of the Peace Corps, that's probably the easiest, but if I'm ever having a hard time with it, here are a few I can always count on:

1. It's lonely being in the Peace Corps. You probably suspected as much, but allow me to assure you that it's far more so than you think, and different volunteers deal with it in different ways. Some drink, some give up and go home, some focus their energy into their work. I got a cat. That's not news to you, either, but it definitely came as a shock to Morocco. Which isn't to say that there aren't animals in and around the homes of Moroccans, because there are. There was a cat that lived at my first home stay, a whole pride of them in the garden of my second home stay, and lots of dogs kept by people I know. The difference, though, is the relationship negotiated between the human and animal. Here, a house animal is generally just that, an animal. It isn't a pet. Very few are given names (the first cat's name was Kitten), and most are treated with a combination of tolerance and appeasement. The cats that live with my new family are fed mostly so that they won't bother people with their mewling. Dogs are a lot more common than cats, and they tend to get names, too (90% are either Rocky or Rex), but I've never seen one that wasn't tied to a tree, and that's because these dogs are around for purpose, not companionship. Most people are afraid of dogs (some of cats, too), but that's because the majority of dogs are feral and would bite you if given the chance. That I not only let an animal into my house, but treat it like a member of my family is a constant amusement for my neighbors and family. Little Mehdi who lives next door lives to chase the cat into some unattainable location, and some of my cousins' favorite pastime is to come over and look for her, and then run out of the house when she's found. They love to talk about how she has a name, and that it's a “people's name.” A few people (usually who know girls named Amal) have gotten upset that my cat has the same name, but not many. I thought about it beforehand, though, and made sure that Amal is neither a name of God or the Prophet, so it's not that. It's just the thought of an animal being called the same as you (or being called the same an as animal), that's shocking.

2. The Peace Corps gives us bikes for getting around in our sites (and beyond, provided we have permission, of course), but they come with a few conditions. Obviously, we have to take care of them, and, unless we can trick an incoming volunteer into taking ours from us, we'll have to pay for any damages when we're finished. We're also, for insurance purposes, not allowed to let any non-PCVs use them, which ultimately means that we're forced to be seen as selfish jerks in our significantly-more-communal-than-America communities. That's not going to blow anyone's mind, though. It'll just give them a bad impression of the States. No, the amazement comes from the other condition: that we must, on pain of expulsion from the Peace Corps, at all times wear a bicycle helmet. Now, it's a good idea to wear one no matter what, and I hope that you're doing so back there at home (even if you're not going to lose your job if you don't), but I think you can appreciate how you might feel if you were the only one in town wearing bicycle headgear. Try as we might, there's just no way to put on a helmet that doesn't make you look like a dork, and that's in a society that accepts them as normal. Out here, I can only imagine it's like walking down Main Street, Anytown, in a spacesuit. Back during our staging (before we got on the plane to Morocco) they showed us a propaganda film starring the nerdiest volunteer ever and his plan to turn being a laughingstock into a bicycle safety awareness campaign. The video actually looked like it had been filmed in Morocco, which makes sense because thousands of American films are done here and because the kids he was talking with were obviously actors. In all my life as a Peace Corps volunteer, I've never met a group of drairi who'd rather learn about bicycle helmets than make fun of a foreigner, or who would receive any benefit from such knowledge. Whether we like it or not, bicycle helmets just aren't available in our communities, and this is one sector in which we can't just make a cheap substitute out of cardboard and empty soda bottles at the dar shebab. A few kids have asked me for mine, and I could tell that at least one of them honestly intended to use it. I'd love to leave it behind when I go, too, if only I wasn't going to be fined out of my readjustment allowance for not returning all my equipment.

3. Our pre-staging materials came with a long list of suggested items to bring with us. As a good Boy Scout, I took it reasonably seriously. I didn't bring a Coleman camp shower. I did bring the duct tape, but I disbelieve in its omniusefulness. I've found myself looking for things to do just to get rid of it. I also brought the sticky tack, but the only thing keeping anything on my walls is superglue. And they recommended bringing some bandanas, so I threw in a few of those, too. Aside from an award-winning pirate costume I put together for Halloween every once in a while, I've never been a bandana-wearing kind of guy, but I figure there can't be a better place to start than in the Peace Corps. It turns out that I don't wear them very much in Morocco, either, aside from under my bicycle helmet, when I'm getting dressed up for the World Cup, and if my hair is just so incredibly funky that it would be a crime to inflict it upon people (I take my hats off when I go inside, thank you very much). And it's times like these when I'm usually – hopefully – on my way to the showers, which just happen to be attached to the downstairs of my host grandfather's house, and only a few doors away from basically everyone else in my family, including the house where I stayed, and I'll obviously see my family as well. Let me tell you, they didn't know what to think the first time they saw me put on a bandana. And why not? Because only women wear bandanas, which is funny because to me a bandana is like a turban as much as it is a headscarf, though I'll grant that there is a certain kind of bandanascarf that women wear, too. One of my little cousins even asked if I was a girl, which his mother very happily relayed to me (he didn't know how to speak Arabic yet), though also added that that was why he wasn't shy of me. I'm sure that's what prompted the Peace Corps to recommend packing them: instant youth integration.

4. One of the first things that we do when we arrive in country is begin learning Darija. Almost every other foreigner, however, does not, and thus (as we've discussed), your average Peace Corps volunteer is quite an anomaly in his or her daily conversation. And it's common enough that when you (or I, this is about me, after all) speak Darija, the host country interlocutor is so blown away that they may very well not hear a single word of what you say, or even reply that they're very sorry but don't understand English. Take for example, the case of the Roman ruins of Volubilis. I'm one of the closer volunteers to the ancient city, and so when one of my close friends from the South (of whom, I can assure you, there are many) come to visit, we'll often takea trip over. You may not know this, but I have an uncanny ability to read the guide book and then five minutes later present exactly what it said as the result of decades of my own personal research, and thus I've earned the title of Volubilis's Greatest Tour Guide. And on one occasion as such I was entertaining a group of PCVs with the Curious Case of the Acrobat's House. You see, there is a particular mosaic in the center of town of a naked man sitting facing backwards on a quadruped equine animal of some sort holding up something in his hand. As you can probably imagine, though, the tour guiding business wouldn't last very long peddling this sort of historical accuracy, and thus we have the invention of Theories. Allow me to take a moment and point out that no one – all of us to a man having been nowhere near Volubilis circa 217 AD – can make any great claim to Truth. Nevertheless, our guide book explains that this man is an athlete, engaging in the challenging and dangerous sport of desultor (jumping on and off of a horse in full gallop), and presenting his trophy to a crowd of adoring spectators (not pictured). As I was explaining all of this to my compatriots, a woman enjoying her afternoon in Volubilis decided that the day would be perfect if only she could tell some foreigner that he's wrong and, more importantly, doesn't know how to read the multilingual placard describing the mosaic of a jester riding his donkey backwards for the amusement of all. Well, sweetheart, let me tell you something: there's one thing you don't do, and that's contradict Duncan in front of the youth development volunteers. Forgive me my snobbery, but if your English was really that good, you'd have heard me say just that only moments ago as one of two available theories, but give me a second and I'll go over the whole lecture once more for you, your family, and everyone else who's gathered to enjoy the show. In Darija. Yes, that's right,I do have the linguistic ability to not only read this placard, but also explain the concept of historical debate. I don't know about you, but I'm more inclined to believe that if someone's going to immortalize their naked self in the floor, it would be for being a death-defying stuntman (I certainly plan on it), but far be it from me to judge the sick sense of humor of 3rd Century Roman colonials. I pause a moment for you to collect your shell-shocked minds, carpet-bombed with Original Duncan's Finest Logic. But it's not applause that I hear. It's some guy who's mind has been blown: “You can speak Arabic? That's adorable!” If he'd been any closer, he would have pinched my cheek. It's probably best that he couldn't. I'd prefer to spare students of international conflict from learning about the Volubilis Incident until after I leave Morocco.

5. You know what, though, sometimes I take advantage of your ignorance. I tell you how great I am, but don't leave you any options for independent verification, and you're left just taking my word for it. Don't get me wrong, I am awesome, but in the interests of Truth, let me tell you how sometimes I come off a little greater than I really am. For instance, I don't actually know how to speak Tamazight. A retiring volunteer once taught me, though, the secret to speaking Berber languages, which is to not be able to speak them at all. The trick is, whenever someone asks you if you do, just say, “of course, etch agharome [eat bread],” and then go back to speaking Darija. Two or three other words might help put icing on the cake, but nine times out of ten you've already floored your audience. Why? Well, though more than half of Morocco is Amazigh, I'd wager less than half can speak Tamazight (despite minimal preservational effort on the part of the government, it's a dying tradition), and it's a good sight fewer Americans who even bother to try. (A nationalistic aside: far more Americans learn Tamazight than Moroccan Arabs, and those are gross numbers, not percentages.) Nearly two years later, and – I'll admit it – there are those who are starting to doubt my linguistic ability, but I've still got some convinced, and those are the people I eat with. This is because I speak a very unique brand of indigenous language called Lunch Time Tashleuheit. I learned from my host family, who only speak Arabic when they're talking to me, and mostly only talk to me when I'm over to mooch lunch. I score advanced level proficiency on Anything Related to What We're Having for Dinner (with a minor in Elementary Kitchen Smalltalk and Gossip), but aside from a collection of Tashleuheit words that I made up, I failed my courses in Everything Else. It doesn't really matter, though, because no matter what I do in my remaining month and a half, Freedonia will forever remember me as either 100% Berber Duncan or That Foreigner Who Really Loved to Talk about Bread.

6. Whenever I meet someone new, be it at a friend's house, in a taxi, at the corner store, or anywhere else, we tend to have to review the course of my entire service. That doesn't mean that I have to do a community map with them and establish their assets and vulnerabilities, but we start with speaking to me in French, asking if I like it here, and then on to Intro to Morocco 101. Naturally, the chronically proud Moroccan people want to educate their foreign guest about every aspect of their country – which is wonderful – it's just that after two years here, I've got a pretty good handle on Morocco myself. For example, did you know that Morocco was the first country to recognize America's independence? That there are three different families of Amazigh language? Yes, I did know that. I can also tell you about the subgroups of Tamazight and that our two countries first got together to hunt the Salé Rovers and Barbary pirates. This usually makes my Moroccans very happy to hear – though sometimes we get into arguments about the origins of Amazigh New Year (Yenayer) – but almost always catches them off guard. But I'm a teacher, too, and I know the feeling. It's not easy to go to class with a prepared lesson and then find out that your students are actually about seven chapters farther along. And it makes me wonder what kind of an ass I've been talking to foreigners in America. “Hey, Kyong Bo, did you know that Americans love to play baseball in the summer?” Really? No kidding.

7. We take it for granted that a single, 27-year-old guy either lives by himself or is a major loser. Not so in Morocco, but we've talked about that before. It's shocking for its mass potential for inappropriate behavior, but it's mind-blowing for its mere possibility. How could a guy possibly function by himself without the assistance of women? He would have to cook, and clean, and wash his clothes, and these are clearly impossible (undoubtedly the basis for the belief that I do not, in fact, ever wash my clothes, and that I subsist on a complex diet of black magic and photosynthesis – a true challenge in rainy, cold, Freedonia). I spend a lot of time with my family, and, though I love them dearly, a lot of this time I'm bored out of my mind. This is because I'm expected to watch the United Arab Emirates' greatest gift to mediocre cinematography, MBC2. But you can only watch Underworld: Evolution so many times before you need to crush your skull with a meat tenderizer, and so I'm often left desperately looking for something better to do. When I'm smart, I'll bring a book with me. Sometimes, though, I'm not, and so I'm left with no choice but to make conversation with my family, who are usually in the kitchen cooking something or elsewhere in town being hoodlums, and so I go chat with my mom while she makes lunch. And it's times like this when I pick up one or two items hanging around in the sink, and blow my mother's and sisters' minds. “Amin!? Are you washing the dishes?” Sometimes, in moments of frustration, I tend to reply that American guys are just manifestly superior to Moroccans for our comprehension of the Four Fold Mysteries of (1) apply soap to sponge, (2) agitate sponge briskly over dishes, (3) extinguish sudsiness with fresh water, and (4) leave in a warm, airy place to dry. Once, in the course of teaching my women's association girls' English class about food, I brought in the ingredients for pumpkin bread and made it with them. I had never before seen such astoundedry. And it's because of this (and that I only have at best three more classes with them, and that I got bored and took out the pumpkin bread before it was entirely finished – I'm not really a baker), that any further studying is going to be dedicated to a combination of culinary cultural exchange and ruining any chances these girls have of domestic tranquility with their future entitlement-happy husbands.

8. Most of my mind-blowing makes me look awesome (or at the very least, unique), but sometimes it makes me come across as a square. For example, in Freedonia, we have a liquor store, which happens to be right below my apartment, where Freedonians exercise their right to be weak in their flesh. I, however, don't drink, and I don't mean that in the sense of how I live in a society where drinking is the Mark of Shame and just don't want to tell anyone – because I certainly do that with other things. No, I legitimately don't drink. I also don't care if people want to (provided they don't then endanger themselves or others, but this isn't that story). So you can imagine how my friends feel when they really want to go out and get drunk and Amin, the only one in town who's got a really rock-solid justification for drinking, turns out to be a teetotaler. I say that tea is enough for me, which almost never gets a laugh out of my audience, and always hurts me in my soul. (Incidentally, if I hear someone tell me about how tea is “Moroccan whiskey” just one more time, I'll probably murder everyone and their families.) Even more alarming is my complete inability to chase after girls. Morocco, as a Muslim country, wavers between a nominal and concerted effort to separate the genders, particularly the unmarried ones. I, however, get a special Navigate the Gender Divide Free card included in my Outsider Package. I still have to fight to get into a kitchen, of course, but it does allow girls – particularly my students – to talk to me in the street, which in turn allows everyone else in my community to convince themselves that I'm the Mac Daddiest of all time. The other day at the post office I was talking with my friend the security guard when a girl from the dar shebab waved and said hi. As she was sitting a bit off on the entryway steps, I called back a quick “how are you” and looked back to continue the conversation I was already having. My pal, though, quickly pulled me around the corner and wanted to know if this was my girlfriend, what my secret was, and how was I so successful with the ladies. In his defense, it's just about impossible to get a girl to play anything other than hard-to-get, but the truth is I'm really not in to the whole Lolita thing. I just teach English.

9. I don't actually like to wear hats. At our recent Close of Service Conference (CoSCon) I made the same confession to the guys who came into the Peace Corps with me, and I'm fairly convinced that none of them believed me. That's because I've a baseball cap of some sort basically non-stop since September 6th, 2008 – which was similarly true of me in middle school – though it'd been almost exactly ten years since my first significant girlfriend made it plainly clear that she wasn't into hats (on me). And, like the people of Stockholm, I came to agree with her and soon realized that I too hate hats on me. I experimented in college with fedoras (my head is too skinny to pull it off properly), but ultimately spent a decade perfecting a way of not combing my hair and fooling people into thinking that I did. On the way to Morocco, however, I got this idea that I should go join the Peace Corps and be the token American, and that means a baseball cap. Now, I come from a land where you either wear a Yankees hat, a Red Sox hat, or nothing at all. The first was out of the question; it's all the evil of the Galactic Empire without the awesomeness of a lightsaber. The second, too, is problematic in that though they're the sworn enemies of injustice, I just can't feel like a unique individual wearing the same hat as everyone else. In the end, I went for the old Houston Astros logo because I have nothing against them and they're innocuous enough that enough people might think that I made up the hat's image myself. I put the hat on my head and went to Morocco, and soon learned that everyone here already wears one. But I didn't despair because I have one last resort of uniqueness: I wear mine backwards. This actually derives from my original dislike of hats – I don't want something (particularly a brim) blocking my view of what's going on. Ironically, though, it's precisely that that's gotten me the cross-cultural attention I craved. Crooked hats in Morocco are the badge of an awakening hip hop culture, which makes my hat by far the most street cred-securing article of clothing I've ever worn. Occasionally the youth will comment on my headgear and hit me up for my rhymes, so I bust a few until it's abundantly clear to everyone involved that I know nothing about hip hop music, but the true human interest story is my little cousin, Aziz, who now puts his on backwards. We're working on pounds and other greetings, but, as he doesn't yet really know how to speak Arabic, it's still a work in progress. I asked him to give me five, so he asked his dad for some money.

There are three books in every Moroccan Peace Corps volunteer's house: the most sacred of Peace Corps texts, Where There Is No Doctor; a journal, which only half actually use and only half of those use regularly; and The Rough Guide to Morocco. The Rough Guide is by far the most frequently read book in a PCV's life, but there's never been a volunteer who constantly used it and didn't also constantly complain about it. Of course, there's never been anything that volunteers do that they don't also complain about, but, in this case, they may have a point (beyond the simple nitpicking of grammar and spelling that any schmo with too much time and education can do). The Rough Guide is invaluable, and it is not my intention to pillory the book, but there are a few edits that really need to be made, and who better to make them than me? Here they are:

I would say that the most important aspect of traveling to a foreign culture is language. It's hard to find all the beautiful sights or interact with the interesting people if you can't communicate, and Morocco's language schizophrenia only complicates matters. Most visitors plan on speaking French, and they tend to stay in the parts of Morocco where in some ways it's easier to speak French than Arabic. That's fortunate for them, because if they came armed only with the Rough Guide's Moroccan Arabic glossary, they'd be in for a few surprises.

Granted, the word “Arabic” itself is about as useful in today's world as the word “computer.” Is it a desktop or laptop? Mac? PC? Other? Is it for work or home or both? We understand the idea, but we also need a good deal more explanation. “Arabic” is obviously the language spoken by Arabs, but is it the U'rdania spoken in Jordanian-dubbed Turkish soap operas or the Misria of inane Egyptian comedies? Is it the Modern Standard Arabic of news reports or the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an? And in Morocco, we've got not only the Modern Standard of the classroom, but also the Darija of the streets.

The Rough Guide tackles this issue straight on from sentence one: “Moroccan Arabic, the country's official language, is substantially different from classical Arabic, or from the modern Arabic spoken in Egypt and the Gulf States.” This is not only incorrect, it's the exact opposite of the truth. Moroccan Arabic (known as Darija, meaning “dialect”) is not the official language of Morocco. In fact, the same modern Arabic (called Fos-ha, meaning “pure”) spoken in the east is used here as the official language (which there, too, is generally not the same language as what you'll hear spoken in the streets), though you aren't going to find it spoken anywhere other than in interviews or street signs. They go on to say that most Moroccans can understand the eastern dialects through media exposure and that they'll adapt their speech if you speak to them with one. The former is absolutely true; the latter is rather doubtful. My only experience observing someone speaking to Moroccans in Jordanian Arabic was met with laughter and the exact opposite of paying her any heed.

Ultimately, however, though this is false information, it's largely forgivable. No one's trip to Morocco is going to be ruined because they thought they could get by with Modern Standard. The real problem is in the pages that follow, wherein they proceed to spread misinformation with it's English-Arabic-French glossary. Now, this was not so malevolently constructed as Monty Python's infamous English-Hungarian Phrasebook, but, with a lack of clear premeditation comes the more critical question of how. How could the editors, who clearly have spent some time in Morocco and (presumably) would have had to use some of these phrases in order to learn them in the first place, have allowed this to happen? Despite their lengthy – albeit misleading – explanations as to the difference between Moroccan Arabic and the Arabics of the east, the glossary is filled with Fos-ha.

I'm not going to go into too great of detail as to the specifics of the inconsistencies between Fos-ha and Darija. Firstly, that would be boring, and second, my good friend and stagemate Mike Turner has already done it. I would, however, like to point out just a few examples. There are major differences between the dialects, and they begin at the beginning: with subject pronouns. I, you (masculine, feminine, and plural), he, and she are all the same. (Being a gendered language, there is no “it” as you or I would conceptualize it.) Both Fos-ha and the Rough Guide will go on offer nehnoo for “we” and hoom for “they.” Unfortunately, Darija prefers hooma (pretty close) for the latter and hna for the former.

My favorite, though, is given for “go away:” imshee. This was one of the words I knew before coming, as it's yelled with great frequency by Salah, Indiana Jones's Egyptian pal, particularly on the many occasions upon which he steals camels from both Nazis and their stooges. How I wished I could yell imshee with the same gusto, but it is not to be, as Moroccans say seer instead. The root of imshee is used for every other conjugation of the word expect for imperative. It's too bad that's the only form the user of this glossary is offered.

And there are more, but they don't need to delved into now (if you have time, and know about these languages, check out the list of numbers). There are also other translations that I can't be sure if they come from Fos-ha or somewhere else. These include, but are not limited to, the following [in the form of “English,” Moroccan Arabic, and (Rough Guide Moroccan Arabic)]: “there,” tma (hinak); “hospital,” sbitar (el mostashfa); “jam,” confitur (marmelad); and “yoghurt,” dannon (rayeb). To be honest, after reading through this glossary, I was convinced that the editorial staff just decided to copy/paste terms from some other Arabic phrasebook of theirs.

That was until I re-read their numbers. When I first came to Morocco, I was a little worried about how I'd only taken two semesters of Arabic in college, and particularly how I hadn't really paid that much attention in either of them. I learned to relax, however, once I learned to count to two. Modern Standard gives us wahhed for one and ithnain for two. Darija is hip to wahhed, but prefers djooj for two. This actually comes from the Arabic word for “couple” (zouwj is “marriage”), and – amazingly – this is accurately documented by the Rough Guide. Moroccan Arabic, however, returns to its Standard roots for nearly every other instance of two (twelve, twenty-two, etc) except for those in which in English we would say “...and two” (such as “one hundred and two”). This means that twelve is tinash (not “entnashar,” which as given by the Rough Guide is Fosh-ha ), and twenty-two is tnain o 'ashreen (Fos-ha would call for ithnain wa 'ashroon, which is pretty close). Our Rough Guide, however, recommends “jooj wa ashreen,” which you would think is really funny, too, if you realized that saying as much is – literally – like walking into your favorite deli and asking for “two and twenty bagels.”

But the Rough Guide is so much more than glossaries. In fact, only eleven pages are given to the entire language section, including one that simply says “Language,” a second that lists the contents of the remaining nine pages, and a final page index other (and presumably better) language resources. No, the meat of the Rough Guide is concerned with what to do and see in Morocco, and, though I haven't seen enough of the country to offer comment on much of the book, I've been to a good deal, and I want to talk about one of the country's most incredible natural sights: the Caves of Hercules.

The caves are located outside of Tangier, and get their name – supposedly – from the legendary founding of the city by Sophax, the son of Hercules, who named it after his mom, Tingis. The Rough Guide is skeptical of this story, and offers a countertheory that tingis is an Amazigh word meaning “marsh,” of which there are many. Believe what you will, the Rough Guide offers some very interesting perspective on the connection between Herculean mythology and Morocco (Lixus is allegedly the site of the Garden of the Hesperides, the home of the Golden Apples and object of one of Hercules's labors). It also makes it abundantly obvious – in a nearly full-page photograph – the caves' main attraction: “their strange sea window, shaped like a map of Africa.” It even includes Madagascar.

The greatest mistake I've made in my service was to completely dismiss the caves the first time I went to Tangier, and, when I finally returned, I nearly made the second greatest mistake of my service: to take a taxi directly there. Fortunately, however, either our driver didn't quite understand us, or he simply knew better, and he deposited us on a beach some four kilometers from the caves. The walk is absolutely breathtaking, and of the caliber of experiences that can literally leave you indifferent – and contentedly so – to any other disappointment. That worked out in our favor, as, upon descending the depths of the caves, we discovered that the sea window is not, in fact, shaped like a map of Africa.

That's perhaps a bit misleading. There is a strong resemblance; however, there is also a very key difference: it's shaped like a backwards map of Africa. I suppose that if you were of the sort with such a powerful imagination that upon seeing this shape your already distorted sense of reality would simply tell you that this is what Africa looks like, you wouldn't have any problems with this. Alternatively, you could simply stand in the ocean after tossing the sun into the caves, thus allowing it to create an accurately Africa-shaped silhouette. Either of these solutions is preferable to the thought that the Rough Guide would peddle such blatant – and so easily debunkable – falsehoods. I mean, you'd expect that they'd simply advise you to enjoy the “strange sea window, shaped like an inverted map of Africa,” or “a map of South America.” It's enough to make you wonder if perhaps Tangier really is the namesake of a mythological queen.

Perhaps the problem stems from there being just so much to do and see in Morocco. The Rough Guide tries to help, though, by offering 35 Things Not to Miss. To date, I've seen 29 of them and in general, I'd say it's a pretty solid list. There are a few, of course, that I don't think were really all that worth it. Windsurfing in Essaouira (number 5), though fun (like windsurfing pretty much anywhere), is really nothing to write home about, and the Bab Oudaia in Rabat (31) is probably one of the least interesting features of that city. Certainly the Shellah – or even the mausoleums of Mohammad V and Hassan II – are both far more attractive and historically significant. There are others that I haven't seen that I'd really love to, and in the case of the Glaoui Kasbah (1) and Tin Mal Mosque (18) I've certainly tried. I'm a little more skeptical of a few others like the big blue painted rocks (6) in the Tafraoute dessert and the skiing at Oukaimeden (10), but in the end, I'll probably just never see those.

All in all, though – like I said – it's a pretty good list, except, perhaps, for one: number 23, Berber transport. It's probably quite racist – definitely Orientalist – but even more, I'm not really sure what to do with this one. I mean, do I have to get in a truck with Berbers? Or see one? Or merely be aware that they're out there? And once in, how important is it that I make sure my co-passengers are Berber? I've seen the transport trucks before (riding in an open air vehicle is “illegal” for Peace Corps volunteers, so clearly I've never done that), and I know that some of the people I've seen in them were Arab. Does that not count? Also, it doesn't specifically say that it has to be a truck. My family is Amazigh, and I once rode in my uncle's car. I think that counts.

To be fair, though, it isn't always the Rough Guide's fault for spreading misinformation,and for this, now turn to Freedonia herself. It's always been a point of pride for me that Freedonia gets a good page and a half – not the most for a volunteer, but more than any of my immediate friends. For obvious reasons, though, I don't really need to read it very often, and so it wasn't until much later that I read this sentence: “A small Monday souk is held just off the central square within the ruined kasbah, location for music and dance events during a Fête des Pommes festival in August.” Freedonia really is famous for her apples, but in my two years, I'd never seen an apple festival, nor heard anyone speaking about it.

Until recently. There are several topics of conversation that are disproportionately popular in Morocco (whether Morocco or America is best is a big one), and one of those topics in Freedonia is how impossibly corrupt our last mayor was. I learned about this right from the beginning, when I was introduced to the town mascot, a cheetah named “Tiger.” You may not know this, but neither cheetahs nor tigers have much of a history in Morocco, and, as I quickly learned, they don't have much history in Freedonia, either.

The national animal of Morocco is the lion (Atlas lion, to be specific, of which there are no more in Morocco), and – allegedly – we used to have a giant stone lion statue to display our patriotism right in the center of town. The mayor, however, in an obvious appeal to popular sentiment, declared that we could do better, and had the statue removed to make way for the future: a scrawny little fiberglass cheetah, affectionately referred to around here as “the cat,” which only ever gets a new coat of paint when an unnamed concerned citizen goes out and does it himself. That may not sound all that corrupt until you hear what he did with the lion. Certainly, there aren't a lot of ways to dispose of a massive stone statue – and I'm sure he was motivated exclusively by civic pride – and he had no choice but to send the old lion down to live out its days guarding his ranch in the valley.

To be honest, I hadn't heard a story like that since they took Carmen Sandiego off the air, but it turns out that our mayor did more than just steal the town mascot. There's a little pond right near the cat where nowadays kids like to go swimming in the algae, but in the past folks would come and try to catch the fresh mountain fish. The mayor sold them all, and I'd always wondered why so many of our hotels and cafes and restaurants were named “something something trout.”

And as if it wasn't enough to steal the town monument or sell all the fish in the sea, he apparently sold off the festival to another town. Despite the fact that Freedonia is well enough known for its fruit that my programming staff have during visits here spent as much time buying apples as they have in talking to me about my work, the Apple Festival now lives in Midelt, for which it does receive credit in the Rough Guide.

Which brings me to my last issue: the general “roughness” of the guide. I'd always imagined that we were talking along the lines of rough-and-ready, “rude or unpolished in nature, method, or manner but effective in action or use” – what Indiana Jones would turn to if Short Round was on vacation. The more I read it, though, the less I'm convinced it's intended for really that much of an adventurous spirit. Taken in aggregate, it's the tourist track that outbid the road less traveled. The little towns get billed as places with nothing to see, fancy dining trumps street fare, and the Majorelle Gardens got listed as number 3 in the 35 Things Not to Miss. It turns out that it's a lot more Ginger than Mary Ann.

Not that there's necessarily that much economy to be made from marketing to Peace Corps volunteers – who are too cheap to buy anything, anyway – and the people who want to be like them, but if it isn't that kind of rough, just what kind of guide is it?

How many times do you think I can start my writing by telling you how Morocco is a “crossroads between cultures?” You'd be surprised; why don't you go back and count? And it's true, too. Then again, in this era of globalization, pretty much everywhere is a crossroads between cultures, but in Morocco, it's especially true. And, as in every other part of the world, it's a struggle between modernity and traditionalism, and it's literally tearing the country apart. It's the core of every major issue: if I should stay in school or drop out, if I should give my daughters the same freedoms as my sons, and if I should wear pants today.

Moroccan fashion falls squarely into these two categories, and it's usually a good measure for drawing all sorts of other snap judgments. Is this person old or young? Cosmopolitan or country-fried? Angst-ridden or comfortable in their personal awkwardness? Let's now take a little look at Moroccan fashion so that you, too, can tell the difference between modern and traditional as well as I can.

Traditional Moroccan clothing is epitomized in the jellaba. We've already talked about the jellaba's greatest contribution to human history – inspiring the Jedi robe – but there's more to it than that. In case you've been living under a rock these last two years, you know that a jellaba is a robe-like piece of clothing with a signature-style hood. It has two slits on the sides, which aren't pockets but allow for accessing any pockets you might be wearing underneath. Other than that, everything is variable. Fabric can be as simple as thick, monochromatic winter wool or as fantastic as pink and black velvet tiger stripes. Most have some embroidering along the cuffs and down the front made from a special kind of button (which can also be a popular jewelry item in itself), and a few luxury models come with a tassel that, in its spare time, doubles as a decoration for fancy curtain rods.

Jellabas a great for pretty much anything. Moroccan women – those who are more conservative, especially if they're married – won't be seen in the streets without one. My host mom and sister, even if they're just going down the street to the corner store, will either toss on a jellaba or tell one of my brothers to go. It's perfect for a quick run outside, though. It takes a moment to put one on, and it's guaranteed to look better than whatever you have on underneath. If college students ever found out about it, we'd have to call it the Jedi Academy.

And in the winter, a jellaba is big enough that you can always toss it on top of whatever you've already got on. That's particularly useful here in Freedonia, especially now that I've recently learned that I live only about 25 kilometers away from the lowest ever recorded temperature in Africa. Around here, folks like to toss on a second jellaba.

But as cool as a jellaba is, it's not really formal attire. I mean, I've certainly worn one as such, but, to be fair, it's really only business casual at best. When it's time to get dressed up, dudes who know go with jabbadors. A jabbador is pretty much just like what it sounds: an ornate, usually linen, long-sleeved shirt and embroidered pants of the same material. For really special occasions you can toss on a cloak-like outer layer, and some people wear varieties of hats and turbans, though I've been told that's not necessary. The only required accessory is the bilgha (which are worn with jellabas, too).

To be honest, though, formal Moroccan wear is very much like formal American wear, which is to say that the guys tend to get the minimalist end of the stick. Sure, you can tell a fancy jabbador from a bargain basement model, but, at the party, no one's going to notice. Why not? Because, just like at your homecoming semi-formal, the subtle class of your vintage suspenders don't stand a chance in a room full of day-glo taffeta, that's why. I'm talking about kaftans, Morocco's nuclear response to the prom dress.

There's no such thing as a subtle kaftan; they all range from “moderate” to “chiffon explosion” (which usually aren't even kaftans, they're takshetas, also called kaftans plus an extra aura-like layer of elaborate gauze). That's not a really great surprise, though, since they aren't worn except for weddings and other big events. And it's not only the bride who wears one, and hers isn't even necessarily the nicest there. The difference, though, is that she doesn't have to wear only one, and will spend the whole night disappearing into the darkness only to reemerge in a colorful new gown – like a butterfly, with many changes of clothes.

There are other traditional styles of clothing in Morocco, too, generally unique to specific regions. For example, as you go south and deeper into the desert (and Africa) you'll find women wearing the very iconic lizar. “Lizar” means “sheet,” and that's pretty much what it is, a sheet that you wrap yourself in, which serves to both keep you cooler by creating a pocket of air around you, and to completely obscure any shapeliness you may or may not have. And in the northern Rif mountains – if you're lucky – you can find the most incredible hat in the world. It's uncertain whether the Rif hat was first modeled off a lampshade (or vice versa), but this tall, colorful headgear not only protects you from the harsh sun, but it's also an important safety measure, allowing mountain travelers to be seen from great distances. And there's a popular trend in wearing traditional clothes from the Middle East. These include the abaiya, a white gown worn (here) by particularly religious men, and the black robes made popular by Syrian and Saudi soap opera actresses and decorated with the pirated logos of Coco Chanel in metallic silver thread.

None of these, however, are worn by the Shebab, the hip youth of Morocco. To really be down with the youth development, you have to know about the G Star. Before we go any further let me make it absolutely clear just what I mean by “G Star.” In this context it means not only the brand ,but also the lifestyle, which means that you could be – and often are – wearing Diesel, Armani, Versace, or Takeshy Kurosawa (whoever that is) brand clothing, and it would still be “G Star,” provided, of course, that it's raw enough to uphold the G Honor. Furthermore, it's possible to be wearing actual G Star line clothing that isn't actually G Enough. This is particularly true in America, where, I'm told, G Star has become a mainstream brand.

So what is it that makes G Star “G Star,” and everything else just clothes? How do you describe the beauty of a rose, or the awesomeness of rocket blasting into space? Usually, you don't; you take a picture and let that do the talking for you. Fortunately, I've largely done that here, too, and, though it will be impossible for you to appreciate G Star without having a visceral and deeply religious experience with it of your own, but that shouldn't stop us from discussing its glories while you explore.

When you see G Star, the first thing that hits you – literally – is color. G Star is not afraid to declare that hot pink is the new pink, and that pink is the new everything else. Quality G Star should not only keep you hip on a warm summer night, it also should keep you safe when you have to walk home at the end. If it isn't lime green or imperial purple or neon pink (or all of the above), it isn't worth wearing.

But it's so much more than just a creative re-imagining of the color wheel. When we lived in America, we had this idea that pants were just that, pants. But the truth is, pants are a tapestry. You can hide your shame with denim, or you can hide your shame with denim, extraneous buttons and rivets, zippers that don't open onto anything, and the Wrath of Bedazzler. They shouldn't be worn, but painted on, and if you still need a belt, make sure it's big, shiny, and has something on it that spins. The same goes for your shirts. Don't just make a shirt, give it a border of unnecessary thread. Put a picture on it, make it awesome, and then make it velvet. And whatever you need to say, it's always better when you say it with rhinestones.

The defining quality, however, as in all movements, is in the message, and G Star is a message from the future. Like the Qur'an, it includes verses that were never meant to be understood by man. Other times, quite the opposite. Consider the following passage from “Freshness:”

The stare or quahty of being tresh. 2.New or clean, 3. Of produce, not from storage 4. Refreshing or cool. 5. Without salt (ospecially of water). 6. Rude, cheeky, cr inappropriate. 7. Very clean, and trendy looking graments, clothes, shoes, accessoires. 8. (Militsry) Rested and ready to engage with the enemy immediately

Whether it be subversive like “For Armani Those about to Rock,” which has a secret message of “dont evver obey” hidden under sequins, or poetic to the tune of “Real Eyes / Real Lies / Real Lize,” there is no G Star that does not evoke a greater understanding of reality. “Cool Wheel Deals Ice Iceberg.” Think about it.

Unfortunately, however, it is in the pursuit of this message that so many would-be G Acolytes fall. The point, though, is not something hipsters would wear ironically to some coffee shop where they talk about their feelings. G Star is something rockstars wear to meet their commander in chief. That should be the guiding rule. “Born to Dance” is not G Star; it's a bumper sticker – unless it's got one hell of an accessorization.

And when in doubt, just remember what G Star told you: “On the waist, fashion sits lowest.”

Have you ever sat and thought to yourself, "I love reading Duncan's work so much, I just wish there was a way I could do more." Who hasn't, right?

Well, we have good news for you. It turns out that Duncan has convinced himself that he should go off and study for a PhD in Cultural Anthropology so that one day he can sit in a classroom in some university somewhere and continue spreading his message of nonsense and cross-cultural communication to generations to come. It turns out that to get there, he's going to have to spend a little time filling in applications that ask for things like writing samples and whatall.

And he's going to need your help. If you're really motivated, and can type at least eighty words per minute (send references and writing samples, please), you could do this for him. If you're only moderately interested, or don't have the necessary skills to contribute in more constructive ways, there's still work to be done. Fortunately, he's already written massive amounts of world-changing literature, and all you need to do is pick the one that's affected you the most.

So, what are you waiting for? Get up and reread every post here, and when you're done, vote for your favorite in the handy poll aplet available on the main page. If you feel like recommending something not on the list, I'd really rather that you keep it to yourself, but if you insist, I guess you can post a comment, or use your imaginations.

Thank you.

- The Management

Every year we get what's called a "site visit" from our programming staff. To be honest, it's pretty much exactly like what it sounds, in that the bosses come out to where we live to find out how we've been doing. The first year it's largely focused on our goals in site and how well we've integrated, and the second year it's much more concerned with whether or not we've been able to.

My site visit this year was very much like any other. I introduced the program manager to the people I've been working with, talked about the Peace Corps Small Project Assistance grant I was working on with the high school, told him about the English Olympiad the other volunteers and I in the region wanted to hold between our dar shebabs, and let him doublecheck that I was still using my carbon monoxide detector in the house. All ordinary. There was just one thing though that snagged: I answered his question of whether or not I thought I should be replaced with a "no."

Closing a site is always a tricky subject. A lot of sites get closed for bad reasons - there's no one willing to work with the volunteer, volunteers are getting sick, or volunteers are being harassed or worse - so it's no wonder that a recommendation for closure would be met with hesitation, but there's also one really good reason to close: sustainability. My boss didn't seem like he really agreed with me (though I did later get to see the preliminary list of sites for the coming stage, and my town wasn't included), but here, in our last "On Development" segment, I'd like to make the case for closing the file on Freedonia, and for why the world still needs the Peace Corps.

I feel like you should be pretty hip to "sustainability" by now, especially if you've been following along from home, but just in case you've been sleeping all this time, we'll go over the standard parable once more. Let's say that one day not too long from now you meet a guy who's got nothing to eat, and, being the good person that you are, you want to help him out. So, you give him a fish, which we'll assume for the moment you happen to have readily available. Well, it's pretty safe to say this guy's going to eat it, and you'll have fed him for the day (provided it's a big one, a swordfish, maybe?). Good for you. Of course, once he's gotten over his Omega-3 coma, he's bound to get hungry again. Perhaps you've got another, or someone else will come along with some trout, but fish don't grow on trees and eventually he's not going to get anything to eat. How do you feel now, Mr or Ms Philanthropy? Not so well, I'd imagine.

But don't give up yet! Where'd you get that fish? You didn't buy it, of course; no one buys fish anymore. You caught it, obviously, using your spear-fishing skills (or perhaps your bare hands?), so what's to stop you from getting another? A lot of things, most likely. You've probably got a job, a family, books to read, an upcoming Star Trek movie marathon. There's a lot on your plate, and you just don't have the time to go off and get this guy fish. I mean, what's his deal, anyway? Why doesn't he just learn how to do it himself? Bam! [Light bulb!] You could teach him - or, better yet - get him a self-help manual! That way he'll be able to go out on his own time and get the fish he needs, leaving you free to take care of your Civil War reenacting commitments. It's almost like you've fed this dude for his entire life, provided he's happy eating fish forever.

Congratulations, my friend, you've successfully completed sustainable development. Why? Because you're no longer a part of the picture. We didn't join the Peace Corps for the glory; we're doing it for the chicks. And you should be especially proud of yourself because you've done so much more than just take care of this guy's daily nutritional needs. By teaching him, you've also transferred - whether explicitly or by example - the knowledge of how to teach, and turned this ordinary fisherman into the epicenter of fishing education for the whole neighborhood. And, if you're a true rockstar, you've instilled in him the same go-getter attitude that got you where you are today, which will empower him to lead his community through the ensuing fish depletion crisis without any further intervention.

That's how I entered my town almost two years ago. Now I'm about to leave, and, like every other volunteer, I've got to ask myself just what kind of development I've been up to. Freedonia's had two volunteers preceding me as well as God-knows-how-many before them. More importantly, however, it has a handful of strong, active associations – and even more that are moderately involved. Over my two years I've found plenty of ways to keep myself busy. I've done English classes, played sports, and done other activities most days with the kids, and I've put on big shows like the Amateur Film Festival, the English Olympiad, and the Association Training Day. I worked on a grant with the high school to build an electronic library and participated in a few regional and national activities like AIDS education trainings and the Race An-Nasr. And there was always some kind of Peace Corps improvement activity going on; some committee for something or another.

It sounds like a lot – and it was – but I also had plenty of free time. That's important, of course, for all those all parts of being a Peace Corps volunteer like learning about culture, traveling around the country and experiencing its variety, and writing America about it all. And it's useful to make sure that your clothes get washed and do your shopping, but I certainly could have been doing a lot more with myself. I didn't, though. This isn't meant to be an apology; I didn't do more on purpose. We're supposed to put together art clubs, theatre troupes, and hip-hop dance teams so that the kids have something to do other than running around in the streets sniffing glue and being undeveloped, but we're also supposed to give those activities over to our local counterparts. In fact, we're not supposed to start them at all if we don't already have someone we're working with who'll be in charge once we've transferred all the skills we know that they need. My predecessors did a great job in that area, and Freedonia is full of activity experts. I worked at a theatre summer camp for four years and know enough about it to at least fake my way through running a small town club, but there are also at least four guys I can think of from my dar shebab who're just as skilled as I am. It's not just unnecessary for me to put together a club, it's wrong. I'm here to sure up the areas that need assistance; not get in the way.

Think about it. Sure, I could run a really banging theatre club, and I'd even go so far as to say it might even be better than what some of the other guys could put together, but what would I achieve in doing so? I'd steal all the fire from anyone else who might want to work in theatre, and, two years later, peace out. Then, if the town was lucky, they'd pick back up where they'd been before I stepped in, or, if they weren't lucky, anyone who might have been a theatre coach is now disillusioned or has moved on to something else. Either way, the result is either a zero or negative change. It was good for me, but not for my community. It's for the same reason that I'm not an English teacher: this country already has thousands of qualified English speakers without jobs for Peace Corps volunteers to come in and take away even more of them.

That's really the hardest part of life out here: to actively choose to stay home and watch television (or read a book or learn a dialect of Tashleheit), to stay out off in the wings. Not only is it boring, but it can make us doubt our value. Where we come from we measure success through achievement, and so it's easy to look at other volunteers who're running great clubs and bringing hundreds of kids into their dar shebabs and think that we're wasting our time and your money. That's not to say that there aren't some seriously lazy-ass volunteers who're on a two-year vacation, or that every Super Volunteer is crippling the development potential of their site. Every community is different and needs to be treated differently. It's our job to find what's missing and work to fill it. In the case of Freedonia, this was mostly in the areas of association management and fund-raising. In other places it can as basic as attributing community value to youth and the idea of activities directed at their betterment. Either way, the strategy is the same: use your expertise, leave the knowledge, and get out.

And that's where I am. I've done my part and shared my experience with the community, and, like it or not, it's time for me to go home. Could Freedonia benefit from another volunteer? I'm sure they'd think of things to do, and the Peace Corps is as much cultural exchange as it is development assistance, but I think both Morocco and the Peace Corps would be better served if they sent the new volunteers elsewhere. Freedonia's still growing, but it's got what it needs to take care of itself, and it's time for the foreigners to get out the way.

There is no Moroccan city of which Peace Corps volunteers have a stronger opinion. Whether they love it or hate it, no one is indifferent. It’s also – despite a brief infatuation with Casablanca – the most famous of the kingdom’s cities, so much so that nearly every language other than Arabic uses a derivation of Marrakesh as their word for “Morocco.”

And why not? Marrakesh was the seat of power for several dynasties in a time before the creation of the nation-state. To say “The King of Marrakesh” was to say the king of basically everything over here, so it might as well come to mean “Morocco.” Aside from when talking with your Persian friends, however, whose vocabulary makes no distinction whatsoever between Marrakesh and Morocco, this is entirely academic. Let’s move to the much more exciting topic of The Peace Corps’s bipolar relationship with Marrakesh, shall we?

I’ve been told that Marrakesh – of all Moroccan cities – has the lowest rate of return visits, and, without performing any quantitative research of any kind, I’m entirely prepared to support that statement. The Red City (named such for the ubiquitous red brickwork, not its political leanings) is a pushy place. The market vendors, fake Tuaregs, desert expeditionists, back-alley drug dealers, taxi drivers, beggars, and wannabe hustlers are merciless, sometimes beyond the capacity to be dived into or shrugged off. Even before I’d ever arrived, I’d heard more horror stories of the hassles of Marrakesh than anywhere else, and it take more than about three minutes for them to be validated.

Having just arrived from Essaouira, we stepped off the bus and needed a taxi to get to the central square – the Djema’ al Fna’ – and I was struck by one of the best ideas I’ve had in the whole two years of my living in Morocco thus far: I should ask a local how much to expect for the taxi fare. After about five minutes of incredibly belabored explanations with the bus counter girl, we finally arrived at it costing somewhere around fifteen dirham to get downtown. Once outside, we were mobbed by would-be chauffeurs, each offering his services. We countered by asking how much? They responded with the reasonable sums of anywhere from sixty to a hundred. We suggested they might enjoy sodomizing themselves. They inquired as to what alternatives we had. We swore to walk, regardless of how long or how far. They laughed.

That’s the problem with Marrakesh. Unlike Fes, which is equally as pushy, the pushers don’t have to acquiesce in the end to your well-stuck to guns. All they have to do is wait a few more minutes an even bigger chump will go walking by with “sucker me” written on his back. I refused to play their game, and they couldn’t have cared less. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t realize just how wrathful a scorned PCV can be. I showed them.

In our case, the “next guy” came along about twenty seconds later – a family of French tourists on their way out of Morocco shortly and back in Marrakesh to see one last sight. I saw them walk up to the same taxi driver that had scoffed at our hard ball only moments earlier, ask the price to the center of town, and reply, “Sixty? Sounds good.” Not on my watch, bucko. In the best French I could muster I called over that he was being had, which he seemed none too pleased about. I offered to get him an honest cabbie who’d actually turn on his meter (a lot less common than you’d expect). I flagged down three or four, sent the majority packing, but finally landed a guy who said he’d take them wherever they wanted to go. We waved goodbye and hoped – for the sake of the Peace Corps – that this guy wasn’t going to turn on one of his expensive presets and take this hapless couple to the Bahia Palace by way of the cleaners. Of course, we still didn’t have a cab of our own, but the fuming indignation of the would-be highway robber was reward enough. I recompensed him with a smile and a quick wink; I’m sure he felt better.

It’s anecdotal, of course, but that pretty much sums up Marrakesh. It’s a concrete jungle. Sink or swim, kill or be killed, fish or cut bait. You have to constantly be on your guard, but, worse still, you’d do best not to expect even a moment’s respite. That’s the image the city’s trying to sell: a whirlwind of exotic flavors, a thousand Arabian nights compacted into one, and the tourists eat that up with a spoon. We, though, the poor Peace Corps volunteers, get tossed in with the rest. In my lifetime, I’ve learned three surefire ways to start a fight: call a Scotsman “English,” call a Persian “Arab,” and call a PCV “tourist.” There is nothing more painful to us than to be reduced to the level of the rest of you – and we’ve got good reason for that. You didn’t have to fight through three months of training, two months of homestay, and the remainder of two years of trying to explain what you’re even doing here in Morocco, so you’ll forgive us for getting on our high horses about Marrakesh.

But Marrakesh does have one redeeming quality: it actually has a lot of cool things to do. The center of it all is also the center of town, Djema’ al Fna’. This is the archetype of central squares, the Cadillac of grand places. By day it’s filled with water sellers, orange juice and date stands, snake charmers and monkey trainers, guys selling traditional medicines, and ladies selling henna. By night they’re still there, plus a small shanty town of quick restaurants, storytellers and their throngs, and this one carnival game that involves a bottle of soda and a fishing pole that I don’t think I’ll ever understand. A lot of detractors like to point out the campiness of it all, and it is touristy – those snake charmers wouldn’t be there if it didn’t fit with someone’s Orientalist vision of Alladin, and ladies certainly wouldn’t be pushing henna like heroin if it wasn’t for the crowds of Europeans who want to feel like they’ve “gone native” – but there’s another side, too. All those stories are in Darija, and even with my two years of language, I have yet to understand anything they’ve been talking about. I’m also pretty sure that those aren’t tourists crowding around the “traditional” dentists, either, to have their teeth pulled out sans insurance, sans board certification, and sans Novocain.

Of course, the northern side of the square is the entrance to the souks, which is not the sort of place that is for locals and tourists alike. This one is an endless labyrinth of carpets, t shirts, and souvenir tagines, and is kryptonite for PCVs for the simple fact that no matter how good our language is, we can’t pretend to be locals – no local would be here who wasn’t just passing through to somewhere else (which is to say, Marrakeshis; there are plenty of Moroccan tourists to be found). If you’re willing to get over yourself for just long enough, though, it can actually be a lot of fun, and haggling with the shopkeepers – even if you don’t actually want to buy anything – is a great way to pass the time and practice for your next language proficiency indicator exam. It was here that I found out for the first time that I’ve got a country boy accent, like someone who, living amongst Imazighen who speak Tamazight first and Darija second, has picked up a Tamazight-accented Arabic with rustic overtones. On that particular occasion it resulted in more discrimination than discount, but I’ve learned to work it since then.

On the other side of the square is the majority of the history, beginning with the iconic minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque that towers over the Djema’ al Fna’. It and the Kasbah Mosque are pretty much the only way that I know of navigating my way around the old city of Marrakesh. And I usually come down this way on the first full of day in the city; there’s a lot to see, mostly palaces, and all pretty much exclusively the domain of tourist herds. I started with the Sa’adian Tombs, which makes sense, considering as how they’re the first thing you’re going to come to (if you come the way I did). It’s not a really big place, but it’s jam-packed with color, intricacy, and the tombs of princes and sultans of the Sa’adian Dynasty (and others). Along with a small garden, it’s a good place to be dead.

It’s around this time that I’ll pass through the Tin-Worker’s Square and go to a real palace, the Badi. It’s actually not a real palace – not anymore, anyway – but it’s big, it’s ancient, and it’s rarely crowded with tourists. The Badi Palace is, as guidebooks describe, more evocative than anything else, mostly because it’s empty. Not only does it command great open spaces and courts, but all but the tiniest stitches of tilework was stripped out of the palace by the Sultan Moulay Smail for his building of Meknes. You can still see the shape of everything, though. Including the pools and sunken gardens, the rooms for courtiers and visiting diplomats, and the dungeonous storage areas. Interestingly, the Sa’adian Tombs were one of the few beauties left unransacked by Smail because he was afraid he’d be cursed if he ripped out the tiles there, though he did seal off all but the tiniest of entrances.

Around this time you’ll probably be getting hungry, so you should stop in the Tin-Worker’s Square again for a reasonably cheap meal. It’ll be even cheaper if you, like me, make friends with some of the merchants there while your visiting friends are shopping who will tell you what to tell the restaurants to give you for a price. Afterwards, finish out the morning in the south district with a stop at the Bahia Palace. It’s a good deal smaller than the Badi, though it’s really more of a mansion than a palace, anyway. It’s by far the most beautiful of all of them, though, so size doesn’t really matter. Full of unmolested tiling, fantastically carved wood, and lush – almost jungle-like – courtyard gardens. It’s a photographer’s paradise as long as the throngs of tourists will get out of your way long enough to take the shot.

There are plenty of other touristy things to do in Marrakesh, but that’s where I usually stop. I will make special note of the Majorelle Gardens. I don’t actually think that they’re overly exceptional; they are gorgeous, of course, but too crowded to be the oasis of peace you’d want them to be. For the most part, other than being the place where I let myself buy my souvenirs and tourguiding folks around the historical sights, I take advantage of Marrakesh as the major city where I can do so many of the things I can’t back in Freedonia. For example, there’s a fantastic vegetarian restaurant near Djema’ al Fna’ and a coffee-shop style café (the only one I’ve seen in Morocco) in the Gueliz neighborhood that reminds me of the sort of places I can find around College Hill in Providence, and that you could find in whatever the bougie area of your home city is called. Both are absurdly overpriced, but you don’t go there for the discount. You go there because it’s like home and you can get away from the madhouse scene of Marrakesh.

I’m probably one of the rare volunteers who likes Marrakesh, then again, I don’t really go there very often. I’ll grant you that it’s exhausting, and I don’t think I could stay more than about three days without getting pretty sick of it, but it’s also taught me more about living in Morocco as a PCV than about anywhere else, too. The number one lesson: don’t act like you don’t know what you’re doing. If you want to be treated like a tourist, by all means, act like one. But if you want people to treat you like the local you deserve to be treated like, don’t ask how much the fare is when you get in the taxi and don’t ask if he’ll turn on the meter. Just get in, tell him where you want to go, and give him ten dirham when you get there. A local wouldn’t ask how much, either.

It’s that time of year again: spring. And while young men’s fancies are lightly turning to thoughts of love, volunteers are getting heavily busy with Spring Camp, the Jewel in the Crown of Peace Corps Morocco. Sure, Peace Corps does a lot of things in Morocco and we do a lot of camps outside of just the springtime, but Spring Camp is the centerpiece of inter-sectoral cooperation and without a doubt the one week of the year when more volunteers are working than any other. Basically, the Ministry selects a scattering of resort cities and other metropoli, accepts several thousand youth to attend (1,700 this year, at 22 camp sites), and then invites the Peace Corps to find as many volunteers as possible to make them work. Currently, there are slightly more than two hundred volunteers stationed in Morocco, which, given the reasonable policy goal of having one volunteer for every ten campers, means that pretty much everyone is needed. Unfortunately, some volunteers have other work related their sector-specific project objectives to do (all youth development volunteers are required to go to camp for the same reason). Others flat out don’t want to; or, more likely, only want to if they can get in to one of the “cool” camps. Morocco, like any other modern nation-state, has easily more than 22 interesting and attractive cities; the problem is that, again, like any other modern nation-state, they aren’t all evenly dispersed across the country. In fact, most of them are on the coast, which is exactly where all the volunteers want to work at camp. What follows is called the Scramble, and it is now that a certain, select group of youth development volunteers known as the “Coordinators” earn their fame. The coordinator is in many ways the Cadillac of volunteers; he’s expensive, unnecessarily large, and in charge of making sure that everything works at camp or else assigning the blame when it doesn’t. Being a coordinator is about the best job you can have. (Trust me; I’ve done it twice now.) Aside from making sure that you have enough volunteers to run your camp – which either pretty much happens by itself or isn’t meant to happen at all – and fielding some pre-camp emails and phone calls, you basically do the same thing that everyone else does, only with the added benefit of a paid three-day vacation in Rabat for the Coordinator’s Planning Ball and reaping significantly unproportional amounts of credit for the camp. It really all depends on those unsung heroes: the volunteers. Good volunteers can make a success of a bad camp. A great coordinator, by himself, can’t. Both of my camps have fallen into the former category. My first was in Khemisset, a mostly uninteresting town near Meknes. While there is little of note about the city itself (aside from its legendary carpet souk and socially progressive gay horses), the camp is easily one of the best in the country. It’s been being run for about five years by excellent staff, and there is now almost no need for a volunteer coordinator whatsoever, which makes it even better. That was last year, however, and rather than continue living in the past, we’re going to talk about this year’s camp: Laarache. Laarache is the sort of camp that volunteers dream about. The city is located on the coast just a short ways south of Tangier and Asilah, but well enough off of the main track to still be quaint. The town itself can easily be crossed in about a half hour but nonetheless manages to contain a town center, old medina, port, and – most importantly – beaches. Actually, a good amount of the ocean front is more of the rocky bluff variety, but, as it was still early spring when we had camp, the water was too cold to really want to be in it, anyway. And it is precisely there, perched high above the ocean, that the camp center is located. Laarache, being a small city and only in its second year of camphood, doesn’t have much of a camp apparatus. Both the center and the number of campers are small, which, in my humble opinion, is about the best you can do. Not only is it so much easier to keep a small number of campers pacified and entertained for seven straight days, a small center means there are that many fewer places where they might have run off to make out, do drugs, or stage political revolutions. Only fifty campers were invited, and there was never more than about 48 at any given time. We might not have had a big camp, but we did have a big staff. Aside from the camp director, we had the mudir of the local dar shebab, two animators-in-training, the center overseer and director and their staff of attendants, a rotating series of Spanish-inspired musicians, and the local athletic coaches, all of whom ranged from moderately to extremely insane. Most notable were the mudir, center director, and three boys who served as general maintenance and other assistance, who were collectively and individually so far off their rockers that being at camp was akin to living in a Marx Brothers film. And, Laarache being a sea-side resort, we had a full contingent of volunteers. We didn’t use our American names (to protect our identities and because half of them are bad words when said in Arabic), but my deepest gratitude goes to Yousef, Lahcen, Ayoub, and Fayza. And now is about the time that you’re going to ask what it is that we do in camp. Good question, though a better one might be what don’t we do. We don’t operate heavy machinery. Nor do we bale hay or reenact landmark Supreme Court cases. Pretty much everything else is open game. It’s technically an English immersion camp, so we try to speak as much of that as possible – to varying degrees of success – especially in class. We (the volunteers) are also primarily responsible for the early afternoon club time when we try to inculcate the youth of Morocco with American developmental propaganda, most notably with teambuilding games, artistic entrepreneurship, and creative problem solving. There’s also sports time and workshops (another name for Moroccan staff-run clubs) that we either go to and participate in or sit back and enjoy, and every evening we have some kind of thematic soiree. On movie night we watched about two thirds of WALL-E, which got shut down for refusing to be significantly more action-packed and about one third its length shorter, but we also had a flash mob turn into a full-on raving dance party and then a proxy war between religious conservative and secularist values. You never really know what you’re going to get once dinner ends. Throughout all that, we are programmed to auto-entertainment, be it teaching the kids how to toss a football, participating in completely incomprehensible card games, shocking the world with our ability to speak Darija, or teaching new songs. “Day-O” was a bigger success than I’d expected, and they actually sang “We Are the Campers” on the walk to the sports center, but the pièce de résistance was, without a doubt, “Rise and Shine,” the Peace Corps morning tradition with “camp” substituted for anything religious. Complete with hand gestures and claps, no one other than our Fayza is capable of singing it and maintaining any stitch of dignity, which is probably why it was so successful. (As a side note, some kids at last year’s summer camp asked me to sing our national anthem for them, which I did. I don’t want to brag, but I can sign “The Star-Spangled Banner” pretty well, so you can imagine how I felt when my rendition was met not by adulation but rather quizzical disappointment. Because we always sang “Rise and Shine” after the requisite Moroccan national anthem, they were convinced that was what we do at the beginning of every baseball game. I didn’t know how to let them down gently, so I said that “…We’re at camp another morning” was Francis Scott Key’s second choice.) I mean, that’s the point of camp. Sure, they learn some English, but ten hours of class isn’t going to make talk show hosts out of them. Don’t get me wrong, we have some incredible linguistic talent at the camp; in fact, one of my favorite things about going is being able to interact with higher level students when basically all of my dar shebab kids are low to high beginners. If I have to teach the present progressive again I’ll probably brain myself to death with a tagine pot, so you can imagine my relief to be able to conduct a class entirely in English and wax theoretical about the various conditionals. But camp, for all its focus on English, is ultimately about the exchange, not only between the volunteers and the campers, but also between the campers and each other. They’re not all from Laarache. And, though Laarache and Ksar Kebir (where most of the rest came from) are pretty close and similar, there’s also the fact that at camp they’re free to be away from their families and some of the more conservative elements of their society. It’s not always easy in Morocco for boys and girls to interact in normal, healthy ways, but no one’s watching them at camp (demonstrated most clearly by the Headscarf Holocaust; every single one had come off by the second day of camp, though some came and went with the weather). We didn’t have an official name or theme for our camp (some camps do that), but if we had, perhaps we could have called it Camp Discovery. Of course, as soon as we did, no one would have been able to take it seriously ever again, but that was pretty much what we were there for. We taught English in ways that they’d never been taught before (aside from the ones who’d been at camp last year) with songs, games, and a giant Jeopardy competition at the end. We made them re-evaluate the way they think by dropping eggs from the third floor and fording dangerous pools of hot lava, and forced them to express themselves in ways they don’t often get to in their normal schools. We took them out to the ancient ruins of Lixus and showed them that they could learn about the environment while hunting each other through the brambled underbrush, and proved that all it takes is the desire to rock (certainly neither skill nor technology) and any five people can drop Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” like an atomic bomb on the 48 most stunned Moroccan youth in history. In the end, spring camp’s success – like everything else that we do here – can only be judged by the next generation’s statistical increase in Moroccan babies named Duncan, and, frankly, we just don’t have the time to wait and find out. We’ll never know for certain, through either the public congratulations or the shivers of doubt in the dark solitude of night. All I know is that if Saturday morning departure crying is any indicator, then I’d say we’re looking good.

1- Everything we do is informed by our culture. It’s not just the big issues like religion and work ethic, it goes all the way down to color preferences, how we sit, and the way we carry things. In the States, we tend to put heavy burdens on our backs and shoulders. I’m not saying it’s a corporate conspiracy of Big Schoolbag, but it’s a given with us that that’s where we’re going to hold what we can’t fit in our hands. We’ve all seen the pictures of other cultures where they carry their parcels on their heads. In Morocco, the default way to walk around with heavy items is to go tandem. I’m used to strapping it all around my shoulders, so it’s one of the hardest culture shocks for me to deal with when someone grabs one side of a massive bag and expects me to lug the other. And it makes me look even more incompetent in the eyes of my community that – never mind that I talk like a 5-year-old, that’s excusable – I don’t even know how to carry a bag of vegetables back from the souk. 2- Buying things is a very stressful process. Not only because you have to haggle for just about everything (and still likely be well on your way to the cleaners), but also because of change. Money comes in the form of completely insignificant cents, half dirham coins, one dirham coins, two dirham coins, five dirham coins, ten dirham coins, twenty dirham notes, fifty dirham notes, hundred dirham notes, and two hundred dirham notes. Anything worth fifty or less probably isn’t going to get you into any trouble (though sometimes a fifty can be even too much for the vegetable souk), but your hundreds and two hundreds are hard to break. Most hanoots (general stores) and boutiques just have a drawer where they put their money, and most souks and taxi stands are manned by a guy with a pocket full of change. They like exact change. Unfortunately, ATMs and banks like to give out one or two hundred dirham notes, so you find yourself very frequently having to excuse yourself for handing the guy a big note. He usually either begrudgingly tosses you your change or happily has it ready and makes you feel ridiculous for even imagining it would be a problem, but on the occasion that he doesn’t, he gives you a run for your money. Literally. He takes your (generally) two hundred and just walks away, leaving you there wondering if you just got had. Some five minutes later he’s back with change and everything turns out fine (he just had to go make change), but I can tell you it’s one of the most stressful parts of buying things, especially the first time. 3- One thing that always confuses (and entertains) me is the variety of street commerce. A good chunk of our produce comes seasonally (as you’ll soon see), and a fair number of those are really cheap. Particularly cactus pears, so it’s easy for venders to get their hands on them and put them on the market, and so a lot do. You’ll find yourself walking down the street in summer, and everyone’s mother has a cartload of prickly pears for sale. You can easily find them just meters from each other, especially if you’re at a taxi or bus stand. And it’s not just cactus fruit; it’s orange juice, popcorn and sunflower seeds, beach coffee, and convenience stores. The favorite economic model is “That’s working for him, so I’ll do it, too.” Some people are disparaging of the why-don’t-you-diversify sort, but what they fail to realize is that everyone wants cactus pears. It works. 4- It’s tricky sometimes speaking Arabic in Morocco, mostly because you aren’t really speaking “Arabic,” you’re speaking Darija (as we’ve discussed plenty), but they’re kind of mixed up, so you don’t always know if what you’re hearing standard or dialect. We volunteers are taught a pure form of Darija, but most people here are so used to switching the languages around (they’re all Arabic, after all), that they can catch us off guard with some of their Fos-ha Arabic words. One of those words is “maybe.” In Darija we say “yumkin,” which everyone understands, but your occasionally careless host country national might toss around a few standard versions: “robama.” I think you can see why this catches our attention. He we are having an ordinary conversation, when the other guy all of a sudden wants to start talking about our President. Again. It was bad enough taking the heat for Bush when he was still in office (why don’t you try explaining how despite Obama being voted in, W was still in the Oval Office for a three more months), but now you’re bringing up our new guy just about every other sentence. A friend of mine was running for local office in last year’s elections and I happened to be over at his house for dinner one night when he decided to make a campaign speech to the neighborhood. When he was finished, I was convinced that his entire platform hinged on the President of the United States of America. He must have invoked Obama about sixty times, and I was starting to worry that I might have to deliver something. Of course, it wasn’t until some time later that I learned about robama. Turns out that he was more of a politician than I’d realized. 5- The word for “head” in Darija is “ras.” You could say “kei darni rassi” (“my head hurts”) or “’andek ras kebir” (“you have a big head”), for example, if you wanted to use that word. But ras doesn’t only mean “head,” you can also use it for “self,” and around here, you will plenty. You’ve got your “talla fe rassek” (“take care of yourself”) and “kan tekelm ma’ rassi” (“I’m talking to myself”), just to mention a couple. Unfortunately for our language comprehension (but fortunately for our sense of absurdity in everyday life), we learn about “head” before “self,” and so we’re ingrained with completely new expressions. Now, when I’m sitting alone at home, I’m talking with my head, so it’s not crazy. And one of our most successful jokes is to follow up “take care of yourself” with the hilarious “with shampoo.” (Let it sink in.) Yeah, brilliant. 6- Family is confusing. It’s hard enough in America or with English, but out here families aren’t only huge, they’re all around. You need to know who’s who, so there’s a different expression for each relationship. There are four different words for each of our “aunt” and “uncle:” “my father’s brother/sister” (‘ami/‘amti), “my mother’s brother/sister” (khali/khalti), “my father’s brother’s/sister’s wife/husband” (mrat ‘ami/rajel ‘amti), and my mother’s brother’s/sister’s wife/husband” (mrat khali/rajel khalti). Not to mention the eight different ways to say what we call “cousin:” the son or daughter of my father’s or mother’s brother or sister. Eventually, people get used to it, and one way that helps is that the older will call the younger by the younger’s relationship to the older. For example, I have some friends whose brother just had a baby, which would make them her uncles (they’re guys). Instead of calling her “the daughter of their brother,” however, they call her “‘amti” – “aunt who is blood-related by my father.” I know another guy who calls his daughter “baba” (“my dad”), so you don’t even really need to switch the gender if you don’t want to. Not everyone does this (other times you just call all men “my father’s brother” and all women “my mother’s sister”), but this way, in my opinion, keeps things from getting impersonal. I’m thinking about calling my new little nephew “uncle” when I get back to the States. The problem I can see is that if I was married, she’d have to call him “wife of my father’s brother.” It’d probably be best for her to just say “Gavin.” 7- There are grocery stores in Morocco (they’re something of holy ground for volunteers), but they’re usually far removed from our sites (hence the pilgrimages). We buy pretty much everything direct from the source, which isn’t only cheaper, it’s more fun; every time I go to the souk I laugh at how all the yuppies back home would be paying thousands of dollars for this kind of organic, locally grown, free-range food that I’m getting for mere rials. The thing about the souk, though, is that you don’t get as much choice in what’s available, it pretty much all depends on the season. We’ve got watermelon season, strawberry season, cherry season, date season, and just about everything else season when the produce is so fresh it’s ridiculous. Of course, the downside is that you pretty much can’t get the seasonal fruits and vegetables when they aren’t in season, which can be hard, but also makes them even more delicious when they’re finally here. It’s like the beginning of baseball season. The only downside is right now (late winter) when the oranges and clementines are gone, and nothing else is in to take their place. That kind of sucks. 8- One of my favorite things about living in Morocco is going over to people’s houses. That probably seems fairly obvious, Morocco being so well known for its hospitality, and it’s usually pretty good, but that’s not the part that always makes me smile. My favorite part is knocking on the door. In Morocco, when you want to know who’s there, you ask, “shkoon (who)?” And wait for their reply. You aren’t waiting for their name, though, because the answer is always “qreeb,” meaning “nearby.” The idea is that the person visiting is a neighbor, and thus by extension friendly, and their response gives the host a chance to recognize their voice. No one ever seems to have any difficulty recognizing my voice, but it never works for me. I just have to trust that they really are my neighbor. These days, since I live on the other side of town from my host family, I like to respond with “b’aid (far).” No one else thinks it’s as funny. 9- Another of my favorite things to do is to talk about what other people said. It wasn’t always this way; actually, it was one of the most conceptually frustrating parts to start with. I’d ask someone “What did the king just say?” and they’d always say “Gal lik …” “Gal lik?” “He told you (me)?” I don’t think he was talking to me, though it’d be nice, I suppose to get a personal message from the king. This went on for a good half year, with untold zany misadventures, until I figured out that you can’t say “He said”; you have to say “He told you” even if what he said has nothing to do with you and he doesn’t even know who you are. I love it, almost as much as I love to tell people I have something to tell them. To say that literally, you’d have to say “’Andi shihaja li bghit ngoolek,” but no one would listen because they’d be too busy perfecting a what-you-talking-’bout-Willis face. You can’t say “I have something I want to say to you,” you say “Aji ngoolek.” “Come here I’ll tell you.” I’m trying to get my community to say “Aji nsoulek.” “Come here I’ll ask you.” We’re still working on it.

Sometimes, it’s important to remember that Morocco is mostly desert. When I look around at the green and the rain in my town, it’s easy to think that I live in Oregon (or what I imagine Oregon to look like), and even easier to wish that I didn’t, which is why I took myself on a little vacation through the more overtly desert parts of Morocco. The “Sahara” (put the emphasis on the “sa” and rush through the remaining “hara” to get a little closer to the Arabic pronunciation) is not quite as uniform as most souvenir postcards would lead us to believe. My experience has led me to three different types, rocky desert, sandy desert, and technically-but-not-fulfillingly desert, something along the lines of your xeric shrubland or shrub-steppe, which are beautiful in their own right, but not the subject of today’s story. Concerning the rocks and sand, there are two famous routes (within the Peace Corps travel zone) that can meet all of your desert-seeking needs: from Erachidia to Merzouga and from Ourzazate to M’hamid. There is no real describing the feeling of crossing over the mountains and into the “desert.” The Ouarzazate route follows the Dra’a River through a series of stunning valleys. Red and purple mountains tower above the road, which hangs over a never-ending chain of deep green oases, a stark contrast between barren rock and jungle-like lushness. Ancient kasbahs of red clay are scattered throughout – many long-abandoned and some still inhabited – and everything in between is filled with as many date palms as physically possible. I never made it all the way to the sandy desert at the end, but I got close enough to stage some sand dune photographs in Zagora. I stayed in Tinzouline for the most part, and got to finally become Indiana Jones. My group and I set out first thing in the morning heading directly west into the desert with only our determination and an unpaved road to guide us. We’d been told that there were some ancient 3000-year-old rock carvings to be found beyond the stony wasteland about seven kilometers away. There are, and we found them. It took about four hours of walking (there and back) and about ten bottles of water, but we reached the cliffs scattered with animal drawings, Tiffinagh etchings, and horse-mounted warriors. Neither we nor the guide book could tell you exactly why they were there, but we weren’t too overly concerned. The highlight was crossing the burning desert and discovering this place that had no guides, no gift shops – not even a fence to keep people off the artifacts – even if we did have to call a friend to tell us exactly where it was. The sand came much later. The road from Erachidia to Merzouga doesn’t have the same canyon-like feel of the Dra’a Valley and there are long stretches that are nothing more than broad expanses of yellow. It’s worth the journey, though, to make it all the way to Merzouga. Unlike Tinzouline, Merzouga is one of the centerpieces of every Morocco tour. The surrounding towns are packed with fake guides (and real ones) looking to take you out into the dunes and help themselves to your dirhams. Fortunately, we have a volunteer friend who lives in the general area, so we gave him a call and he set us up with a guide that he knows and, more importantly, knows the Peace Corps. He met us in Rissani, tossed us into his 4x4, and it wasn’t until we were well out off the road that he told us the plan: we were going to one of the desert’s edge hotels, hoping a camel train out into the dunes, watching the sunset and eating dinner in traditional nomad tents, sleeping, waking up ridiculously early, and trekking back in with the sunrise. That’s just what we did. Don’t get me wrong, it’s about as touristy as you can get, but it also just one of those things you have to do. Later, when we were back north, a sandwich master asked us if we ate out in the desert. “Of course we did,” we said, “but it was awful.” The tagine was about as bland as imaginable, the tea was burnt and weak, and – the greatest insult to our culinary sense of decency – they served it all with plates and silverware. Our friend couldn’t believe it. The Saharawi are known for their cooking, and they’re pretty much the gold standard of Moroccan tea. Then again, the tourists don’t know that they’re getting slop, and the guides aren’t eating that/ One of the benefits of being a volunteer and speaking the language is that we get to chill with the locals. The tea we drank was excellent. It also didn’t matter (to me at least) what our food tasted like by the time we’d reached camp. We traveled with an Italian couple, their two young sons, and two other Spanish girls, which had the added benefit of making us leave later than we’d hoped. By the time we were up on the camels, the sun had pretty much already set, which was beautiful, but also allowed us to complete the hour-and-a-half journey by the light of the full moon. Every so often someone who offer some observation or comment, but it was otherwise complete silent. There was none of the heat and oppression of the desert sun like in Tinzouline; it was a sort of communion with nature interrupted only by the rhythmic plodding of the camels. I have never felt so much in awe of the world. Even the next morning’s sunrise, which was absolutely gorgeous, could not possibly match the profundity of the desert at night. Before you run off and join the caravanserai, though, let me tell you about the downside: camels. Camels are the foulest of nature’s monsters and living proof of a Vengeful God; the tragic reminder that survival of the fittest can as often as not be a pyrrhic victory. They make sounds that only a Hollywood sound effects mixer could love and emit a stench to which it would be impossible to acclimate even during the 52-day journey to Timbuktu. There’s a reason the guides walk in the front, and I don’t think it’s strictly so that they know where they’re going. It’s said that camels were once the most beautiful of single-celled proto-organisms until they were cursed for a trillion years by Natural Selection for their vanity. If you offered me the choice between riding a camel and participating in a ritual castration, I’d have to get back to you about it. Ultimately, though, you don’t really have a choice. No matter that you won’t be able to walk for a few days, nor that you won’t want to for a few more after that, as a friend of mine said, it’s just one of those things you have to do in your life to make yourself a badass. I’ve been thinking about it now for a while, and I’m going to say that despite how much I loved being in the desert, I think I prefer living where I do. It’s not that I need the trees and cold so desperately or that I’m so particularly worried about the scorpions (the only ones I’ve seen in Morocco have been less than five kilometers away from my house). It’s more that I’ve never before experienced that harsh majesty of nature in such an overwhelming way – the sun and the moon; the red, purple, blue, and green – and I would hate to think that I could take such grandeur for granted. Of course, it was raining when I got home, so I might be tempted to risk it.

Dear Readers, Thank you for reading, and commenting; I appreciate your thoughts. That being said, let me tear them apart, and I’ll do so in a post rather than a comment because Blogger insists that my response violates the character limit, despite my strongest protestations. Please do not see this as an attempt to exercise a greater degree of power over you. Rather understand that I feel very strongly about this topic and want to continue to discuss the issue without limiting my reply, and I hope that you will continue to post your ideas and responses, particularly when they conflict with mine. Actually, I whole-heartedly agree that (a) the religions are significantly enough different from each other that despite a shared origin, they have plenty to disagree about; (b) Peace Corps volunteers use language in far more complicated ways than the average "normal;" and (c) many uses of the word "Allah" are done with the intention of showing solidarity with the Islamic community. What I want to address, however, is what I think is a misunderstanding of my purpose in using so many different languages - "linguistic elitism." I'm not entirely sure what that even means, but I certainly never claimed that people shouldn't use their native languages to speak with others of different linguistic traditions. Girls from a [nedi neswi] ("women's association" for non-volunteers) can - and should - greet foreign guests as "Hello my sister" or "bonjour ma soeur" or whatever. I'm raising the issue that they should not say "Hello ma soeur." I don't really care, however, if people want to mix their language around in innocuous settings, such as concerning the word "sister," "house," or "director." I'm talking about significant political issues, such as God and religion. My use of the Arabic alphabet is not to say that people need to read Arabic to speak it, but rather to show that the Arabic word that transliterates as [allah] is appropriately used in the context of speaking Arabic, not English. I whole-heartedly encourage all volunteers to say [allah] as a part of the many Darija "God phrases" when greeting their Moroccan friends. I certainly do, and I am neither Christian, Muslim, nor Jewish, either (in fact, I'm not even atheistic - I don't particularly care one way or another if there is or is not a supreme being). I'm speaking about the political baggage of the words "God" and "Allah" as they are manifested in English. Christians and Muslims have vastly different beliefs of the desires of God, but so too do Catholics and Protestants. Even Episcopalians, Catholicism's closest Protestant relatives, scoff at Transubstantiation, Original Sin, and the Pope. We don't say "Catholic God Concept bless your heart." Judaism and Islam are greatly similar in many of their practices, such as dress and eating regulations (Christians have essentially none of these, excepting Fridays and Lent for some) to name a few. The point I'm making is that we don't tell our Jewish friends "Allah will be pleased" they didn't eat that bacon cheeseburger even though Islamic theology similarly forbids pork. We also don't use "Yahweh" when we speak with them, nor do the majority of English-speaking Jews. I'm trying to point out the irregularity of accepting Judaism as "same" within in the Christian-majority English community while continuing to label Islam as "other." They're either both on the inside or both on the outside. Nor do I intend to imply that volunteers should necessarily know about the interrelationship of the Abrahamic faiths. I'm chastising my colleagues for encouraging the perception that the Islamic "God" is separate from that of Judeo-Christianity. A volunteer claiming that they use "Allah" rather than "God" as an English word because they appreciate the subtleties of the language makes me think of a parallel. Supposing we had been Teaching for America in some inner city school instead? We'd do what we could to integrate into our student community, including adopting their "language," and so when I speak with my fellow volunteers, I would tell them about the amusing anecdote provided in class by of my niggas. Well, maybe I wouldn't. It’s not that I don't wish we lived in a world where everyone understood that I was using the colloquial definition of "friend or compatriot;" it's just that we don't. Until then I’m arguing it's best to include Muslims within our monotheistic community rather than exclude them, and that acknowledging our shared tradition with the same word for the same meaning is greater than hoping for others to appreciate my culturally-sensitive nuance. Finally, a Darijian transliteration of "hope to see you after you cross the big pond" would be: "entemna enshofek fesh doozti addaya kebira. inshallah."

With your indulgence, I’m going to rant for a little bit. Before I do, however, we need to have a short chat about the differences between translation, transliteration, and inter-linguistic borrowing. Translation is a way of explaining an idea expressed in a word or words of one language with a word or words of another language, transliteration is the expression of a word written in one alphabet as it would sound when written with a different alphabet, and inter-linguistic borrowing is taking the word or words for a foreign or new idea from the language in which it or they were created and using them (transliterated, if necessary) in the context of a different language. I tell you this because my tirade intends to cross several languages and at times to harangue particularly on the evils of transliteration. Unfortunately, however, not all of my audience is as multi-alphabetical as I am, and for their benefit, I will occasionally be forced to do that which I am about to condemn, and so I want to make it very clear from the beginning that this is done strictly for the ease of you, the reader. That being said let us now establish a few necessary conventions. All translations will be done with quotations (though not all quotations will indicate translations – use your common sense), and all transliterations will be done in brackets, and they will have none of the other protocols of the English language, such as capitalization. The transliterated alphabet will be one of my own creation and constructed in such a way as I feel will be the most beneficial to normal people who speak English and don’t care about the International Phonetic Alphabet. Let us continue. Islamic theology tells us that there are 99 names for God – though I’ve been told there may be more (99 being particularly pleasing from an aesthetic point of view) – but, for the moment, I’m only concerned with one: God. In Arabic, this would be written as الله [allah]. It is the combination of two “words” (one is really more of a prefix): ال [al], the definite article (“the”), and الاه [illeh], meaning “deity.” Islam was established largely as a reaction against the polytheistic religion of the Arabs, particularly as practiced in Mecca, and thus “the deity” is as much a word as it is a declaration of monotheistic belief. This is because the Arabic alphabet (unlike that of the Romans) has no rules for capitalization. In English, we can identify a proper noun by its beginning with a capital letter. Take, for example, the city of New York. We know it’s a unique entity by virtue of its capitalization. If we wrote “new york,” we’d be left wondering (a) why is has no article (whether it’s a new one or the new one) and (b) what the hell a york even is. There are times when we use the articles and capital letters, which have their own rules. How about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Obviously, this is a very special place, thus necessitating the capital letters, but we still need our definite article because we don’t want to be confused with other gardens, particularly other hanging gardens located elsewhere or other non-hanging gardens found in Babylon. Arabic speakers don’t have the same luxury. Instead, through a combined use of their definite article and contextual clues, they’ll know if they’re talking about the city of New York, or the most recent of yorks to enter the discussion. And now that we have a clear understanding of what’s going on with the word الله, we can move on to the much more important matter at hand: there is no word “Allah.” I appreciate that this might be a little confusing of an assertion, so I’ll break it down. This: الله is a word; this: “Allah” is not. Why? The first is probably the most important – certainly the most frequently used – word in the Arabic language. The reason the second is not a word is because this would be an English (or other Roman alphabet-using language) word, and those languages already have a word for this. In English, that word is “God.” But what does “God” mean? It’s a question for the ages, and I will answer it right now. “God,” by virtue of its being capitalized, is a proper noun, and – more importantly – because it is not preceded by an article, is therefore representative of a singular entity. We could talk about “a god” (such as: “in summer I resemble a bronzed god”), or “the God” (such as: “Ra is the Sun God of Egyptian mythology). The indefinite article (“a”) requires that the following word begin with a lower-cased letter, whereas the “g” of “the Sun God” is capitalized because there is only one Ra, but he resides amongst a company of deities. But we’re talking about “God” in its unarticled form, which must necessarily mean the chief deity of a monotheistic religion. Which religion? Technically speaking, an adherent of any monotheistic religion, whether it be Christianity, Judaism, Islam, the Church of the Fonz, or any of a host of other real and imaginary religions should – when speaking English – use the word “God” to label his or her Supreme Being, unless, of course, they feel that such has a more feminine character, in which case they should use “Goddess.” Fortunately, however, languages are organic inventions rather than discoveries, and thus we can determine the meaning of “God” by noting that the development of the English language has been closely linked with the development of the Christian religion. Therefore, “God” should be understood as “the deity of the Abrahamic monotheistic religion.” We make a point of saying “Abrahamic” because, despite English’s close historical ties with Christianity (or, perhaps I should say the close historical relationship between Christianity and the people who have spoken and developed the English language), we acknowledge that there are other faiths that claim the same origins. Judaism is an excellent example. We can see that “God” as a word (being an English word) was created to meet the needs of Christians in expressing the Over-Being of their religion, but as Christianity descends from the faith of the Jews (according to Christian dogma), the word has come to identify the Creator of the Universe as identified by Abraham, the wellspring from which proceed both these religions. Which brings us back to the problem of “Allah.” We’ve already given it the translation of “the deity,” but as “the deity” could suggest many possible meanings, a more functional translation would be “the single omnipotent deity that created and controls the universe.” Islam is, after all, a monotheistic religion. Most people take الله, transliterate it as [allah], and then install it in the English language through inter-linguistic borrowing as “Allah,” but that’s the problem because it doesn’t only mean “the Supreme Being of monotheistic religion.” Arabic is just as linked to the culture of its speakers as English is, and thus their deity concept is linked to the major religion of the Arabs: Islam. Islam is a monotheistic religion, and, according to its doctrine, began when Abraham was instructed to proclaim his faith in one true god. Therefore, when an Arabic-speaking Muslim says the word “الله,” what he means is “the deity of the Abrahamic monotheistic religion,” and, as we’ve seen, English already has a word for this: “God.” I hope you’ve enjoyed this lively little journey through academic linguistics as much as I have, because now we need to get serious. I would like to propose that saying “Allah” in the context of English is not only linguistically incorrect, it is a socially-condoned hate crime. Here’s the thing: why should you use one word as opposed to another? Sometimes, this would be to avoid repetition in a piece of writing. We all know how boring it is when people write boring writing. Other times, it’s because we need to illustrate a difference. Even such words as “huge” and “gargantuan,” though they’re grouped as synonyms, aren’t quite the same. That’s often because of either differences in how frequently we use a word, or because we associate one or another with a certain idea or event. So which is it? Well, as for lexicological variation, that’s pretty much already taken care of. We have “God,” “the Almighty,” “the Creator,” “Lord,” “the Eternal,” and a host of other superlatives for labeling the Supreme Being. Conveniently, so too does Arabic. These are the 99 other names. And, anyway, we tend to restrict our use of thesauri to common words. Names and other proper nouns don’t get changed quite as much. The majority of people would probably say that “Allah” is an English word as a result of inter-linguistic borrowing. Now, inter-linguistic borrowing is a wonderful thing, particularly as it allows us to simplify our expression of what would otherwise be very complicated ideas. No one wants to say “traditional Moroccan earthenware cooking pots” when they have the option of using “tagines,” or “various assortments of raw fish and rice dishes native to Japanese cuisine” when they could simply say “sushi.” But inter-linguistic borrowing doesn’t work when the language already has the ability to express that idea. We can’t take “fromage” from the French because we already have “cheese,” and we can’t transliterate and incorporate من [man] from Farsi because we already say “I.” Let’s belabor the point with another example. One of the great benefits of being an American is our close proximity to Mexico, and, by extension, burritos. “Burrito” is an English word as a result of inter-linguistic borrowing. Why? Well, what is a burrito? It’s a delicious center of meats, vegetables, sauces, or whatever else you might desire enveloped within a bread product that not only contains everything else, but also facilitates the burrito’s being eaten with the hands. English has a word that generally encompasses the same idea: a “sandwich.” Is a burrito a sandwich? I don’t think so, and I don’t think you think so, either. If they were the same, then, of course, we wouldn’t bother with “burrito” (never mind how much fun it is to roll your Rs), but they aren’t, and so, as with “huge” and “gargantuan,” we kindly thanked our Mexican friends and snatched their word. On the other hand, “bandera” is not an English word. Why not? We have flags. We have flags for our countries, states, businesses, sports teams, holidays, and just about everything else. Well, that’s the problem. We already have them. To say “bandera” would imply a minimum of some difference – some slightly new construction that isn’t quite captured by “flag” – but there just isn’t any. The same applies to “Allah” and “God.” If they have the exact same meaning, then we can’t use different words, but we do anyway. Why? This is an age of great closeness between peoples who in the past had little interaction between each other, and, now that globalization has thrust us upon each other, we see great differences between ourselves and these “new” societies. The practice of Islam is quite different from the Judeo-Christianity that our culture is familiar with, therefore we naturally assume that the Islamic God concept is equally different. To say “Allah” is to say “the god of the Muslims” or “their god, not ours.” Despite the fact that when Muslims pray they do in fact invoke a name that is phonetically completely unlike that of either Christians or Jews, to say that they worship a separate deity is simply incorrect. The problem with difference, is that it makes us treat each other differently, and it’s only when we see one another as similar that we put down the shields of fear and dislike. “Allah” encourages division and separateness between peoples who should – now more than ever – be doing everything they can to highlight their commonalities, and there is none more important than a shared belief in the same supreme power. And that’s the offense, so now we must ask ourselves, who are the offenders? As alluded to, there are a great many closed-minded fools making a mess of our world, but, perhaps even more tragically, there are far too many well-intentioned people essentially doing the same thing. Let’s start to correct this evil with a grossly over-simplified example. First, allow me to prove that “God” is not, in fact, the universal name of God. We need only look just south of the Rio Grande (or, in many cases, north of it), to hear the pious invoking the benediction of “Dios.” Is this some new religion, coincidentally practiced only in places that speak Spanish? Is it a breakaway sect in Spain that, due to its Castilian lisp, demands that they direct their praise towards “Dioth?” What of the French and their insistence on worshipping Dieu? Have they not received the Word? Granted, you might be a particularly bigoted Protestant, so let’s take a quick look at some of the predominately Protestant societies. When the Germans and Danes go to church, they pray to Gott or Gud (respectively). They’re probably just pronouncing it wrong. Obviously, no. Nor is this the case on the Islamic side. A faithful Persian will speak of خدا ([khoda]), just as an Arab would of الله. Which begs an even more important question: what of the Arab Christians? Just as we’d expect to hear “Dios” at the local church’s services en Español, it’s only natural to assume that the 40% of Lebanon’s population who ascribe to Christianity (and the majority of the Lebanese Diaspora) would also use their native language in their own services. “الله اكبر” ([allahu akbar]; “God is the greatest”). Not even the thumpingest denizen of the Bible Belt could argue the point on dogmatic grounds. So why do we so frequently insist on shifting languages when we talk of different religions? And who are “we,” anyway? Well, my first culprits are my fellow Peace Corps volunteers. It’s most likely a product of how we use God so much more when we’re speaking Darija than we ever dreamed of in the course of our English-speaking lives, but that’s no excuse for breeding ignorance. “Everything is fine with me today, الحمد الله” [alhamdullah] (“thank God”); “Please help me, الله يرحم الوليدين” [allah i-erhem l-wellideen] (“God bless your parents”); “I’ll see you in class tomorrow, ان شاء الله” [inshallah] (“God willing”). We invoke God on an almost constant basis, and, since our English is no longer free from the clutches of Moroccan Arabic, this continues in our discussions with each other. Now, let’s not think that I’ve got anything against inter-linguistic borrowing. The God concept coming from the highly fatalistic Arab/Islamic society, doesn’t have the same connotations as the Western/Christian perception of a relatively laissez-faire monotheism (ie. God set the world turning and then sat back to enjoy the show), and so when we say “God willing,” it’s likely to imply “I hope the preceding occurs, though it will likely require an act of divine intervention.” “ان شاء الله,” by contrast, suggests that all events occur as written by God, therefore whether I see you tomorrow or not is a decision made by far higher powers than my own. Depending on the implication I want to give, I can say either “God willing” or “ان شاء الله.” “الله willing” and “God ان شاء,” however, are unacceptable translations. When you borrow inter-linguistically, you borrow the whole phrase. It’s not just Peace Corps volunteers, however, nor is it only Americans or Christians who are to blame. Sami Yusuf, “Islam’s biggest rock star” according to Time, is another. In his mega-hit “Hasbi Rabbi” Sami travels around the world to profess his faith and highlight the peacefulness of Islam. He hits Britain, Turkey, India, and Egypt in his four verses, each of which is sung in the local language. Thus the song begins in English, and his first words are:O Allah the Almighty

Protect me and guide me

To your love and mercy

Ya Allah don't deprive me

From beholding your beauty

O my Lord accept this pleaHe gets his translating right at the end, and in the fourth line he switches languages for a quick shot of Arabic (“ya” is the Arabic expression for “I’m talking to you” or “O”), but that doesn’t really matter as he starts it off wrong right from the start (and proceeds to make the same mistake again throughout the rest of the song). Of course, Sami’s intention is to express the profundity of his faith, and his music and lifework is an example for all of the harmony possible between members of different religions, but he nonetheless encourages the perpetuation of division between the faiths. He, like Peace Corps volunteers, should know better.Which is ultimately the crux of the matter. It's not just an issue of being politically correct; it's a question of being correct or incorrect. It's a matter of choosing our words in a way that encourages understanding, in a way that declares to the world in a unified voice that Christians, Jews, and Muslims have a shared heritage - whether they like it or not. I'm not here to question the existence of God or the relative merits of different religions. Those are questions for better or worse (respectively) minds than my own. I'm simply here to say that we need to stop telling our Spanish friends to "vaya con God," to stop yelling "Dieu im Himmel" when something startles us in Berlin, and to help our Persian friends when they tell us "خدا be with you" when they say goodbye. "خدا حافظ" [khoda hafez] is the appropriate expression.It’s time to learn how to speak your language, people.

People say you can never go home. This has, for some time, been somewhat worrisome of a thought for me. You see, despite how happy I may be with my decision to join the Peace Corps, I’ve always planned on my time here ending at the appointed 27-month mark (give-or-take a month of gallivanting about the continent), and then continuing along the natural course of my life. And so it was no small amount of sleep lost considering that this might be it. It appears, however, that these declarations are blatant lies, as I proved once and for all on December 24th, 2009, at some un-Godly hour of the night when I walked out the front door of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia.

I never intended to come back to the States when I first joined with the Peace Corps. It seemed to me like a waste of both money and vacation time, and I liked to joke to my friends here that I had no need to go back and see my family – they should come here and see Morocco. Certain events transpired, though, that brought me home. First, no one wanted to come to Morocco, thus negating my very witty first policy. I looked next to taking a trip with Salma to Europe (the Mexico of Morocco), but, international time zones and the rotation of the earth being what they are, several days of very scant vacation time would have been lost in transit. The same proved true of Central and South America (the Mexico of Mexico), and costs were simply far too high to justify the irrational desire to not be in America.

By that time my brother was getting really close to having a baby and requested gently but firmly that I not add another stress to the house, and I didn’t really want to have to deal with the constant repetitions of “so, what I’ve been doing in Morocco.” (A note on telling my friends what I’ve been doing in Morocco: I’m sorry I didn’t call and chat; I honestly just didn’t want to talk about work. If I may follow my apology with a subtle accusation, however, my preferred way of telling you what I’ve been doing would be to show you. You know what I mean.)

But Salma saved Christmas at the last minute, saying that she needed to go to Birmingham and wouldn’t mind spending her vacation in Georgia. My other brother, Gordon (henceforth referred to as “Gordo” to avoid any confusion with the many other Gordons of the US Peace Corps), trucked down as well, and it turned out that my old pal Bob (see August 26th, 2009, “You Can’t Spell ‘Tunisia’ without the Word ‘Tun’”) was in Savannah. And so I spent a relaxing five days in Atlanta, punctuated by a three day cruise through Birmingham and Savannah, and a final fufurah in Atlanta before going back where I came from.

Most of the details of which are largely uninteresting, and that’s not what I came here to talk about. I came to tell you about how a lot of volunteers have warned me about going back to America. “Don’t do it,” they said. “You don’t want to tempt yourself with all those things you missed before you finish with your service.” They worry about the freedom of driving, Mexican food, easy access to a wide variety of breakfast cereals, central air, and family Christmas parties, and, to be honest, they have reason to. These are some of our greatest advances our society has made in the last century, and there’s nothing like a 16-month stint away from home to prove it. But, in the end, they were wrong. Not about the great civilizational wonders of America – believe me, I ate as many asiago cheese bagels as a person physically can in twelve days – but about its uniqueness. My latest discovery, and what I’d like to share with you now, is this: Morocco = America.

One thing that drives me crazy about living in Morocco (probably not specific to Morocco, just a product of being someplace other than America) is when people – Moroccans – tell me how great everything is in the States. Sure we’ve got it going on (though not without our own problems), but it’s the way they say this that gets my goat. It’s always in the context of “America is great and things don’t work in Morocco. This self-abuse drives me crazy, especially as it’s patently false.

It all began on the flight out. At the airport in Casablanca, I was given a final taste of the chaotic fire drill that is “queuing.” The airline wanted to call passengers according to their seat rows, the passengers wanted to cram into the gate like 13-year-old girls five minutes late to a Hannah Montana concert. Somehow, the airline managed to enforce their order, which only really resulted in people whose turn it wasn’t standing there in the gate preventing the admittance of those passengers whose turn it was. A lot of frustration was voiced and a lot of knowing glances were exchanged. “Welcome to Morocco; we hope you enjoyed your stay.” I just read a book and waited for the end of the line to come around eventually.

Big deal, right? You should have seen Paris, specifically, the insanity that occurred at gate 25E at around 6 PM on December 24th. I kid you not, not only did no one pay attention to what rows were being called (so much so that the flight crew eventually abandoned all hope of boarding passengers in any semblance of order), but I swear that I saw several people cut the ticket check completely and just walk on to the plane. Another dude held up the entire process by trying to bribe the Delta sales representative to upgrade his ticket, and it took significantly longer for us to get on board than it did in Casablanca. Of course, we could blame the French, but judging from people’s accents, I’d say that the vast majority were Americans. Who else would want to go to Atlanta?

I can answer that question in part: three other people from Morocco. In a coincidence of coincidences, this couple that I happened to notice waiting to check-in in Casablanca happened to be riding on my plane, and happened to ask if I would switch seats with one so they could sit together. Of course, I replied yes, but, being the charmer that I am, I did in Arabic. They were shocked, so we got to talking, and talking led to occasional advice on in-flight entertainment, and occasional advice on in-flight entertainment built the foundation for explanation of the customs form, which eventually brought on guiding them and their friend through immigration and being asked to step forward as a translator, all of which inevitably allowed me to feel as though I’d made the slightest of down payments on all the hospitality the Moroccan people have shown me. It also meant that I took about two hours coming out of the airport.

And now that I’d arrived, I couldn’t help but start making comparisons between my life and my other life. Gordo showed up in town the next day, and since I was driving (my car, the Space Capsule, was waiting for me in Atlanta), my brother necessarily wanted nothing to do with choice of radio. Usually, this is a problem, as neither of us is really crazy about Georgia’s taste in music, but not this time. He just powered up his phone, jacked it into the car stereo, logged onto Pandora, and we could listen to as much of the wuss rock garbage he loves as we wanted. There have been so many times when I’ve wanted to tell you about how hilarious it is to see guys walking around in Morocco with their cell phones turned into mp3 players playing the latest sha’abia hits. It’s just one of those things that catches you off guard and makes you smile (or, conversely, drives you nuts in a bus or train car or cyber café or restaurant); it’s the Moroccan ghetto blaster of the new millennium, and Gordo was doing the same thing.

Pretty soon into my stay it became apparent that my usual Peace Corps shabbiness wasn’t going to fly with the family, and I went to get my hair cut. Of course, I had spent the whole day putting it off, so it was just about evening by the time we pulled up at the barbershop. I opened the door; the guy looked up, and said they were closed. Gordo asked when they were open the next day (until six, like always), and I checked what time it was. It was 5:30. Granted, there was only one guy working and he probably didn’t want to take on two heads a half hour before closing, but I wasn’t really thinking about that. I was thinking about how many times have I gone to the post office or police station or school or ministry office, been told that whoever I wanted to meet wasn’t there or some other reason why I’d have to come back another time, and had a Moroccan counterpart of mine start bemoaning the Kingdom’s “lack of work ethic.” And every time I try – unsuccessfully, for the most part – to argue “dude, this laziness is everywhere. Everyone’s trying to cut corners.” I only wish Ali had been there to see it.

To be honest, though, it wasn’t until Salma came down to Georgia that I knew I was still in Morocco. She’s on her way to residency in Birmingham, so she wanted to get to know the city. Unfortunately, we only had a day in Alabama, so in making the most of our time, we made a stop at the Birmingham Tourist and Information Center. It’s a good thing Salma’s already been to Morocco, or else she’d have been freaking out. It was business as usual for me. The guy was really cool and we ended up talking with him for probably an hour. Sure, having endless conversations with complete strangers is pretty Moroccan, but that’s not where he showed his real Green and Red. It was when we were leaving and I had a few lapel pins I wanted to buy as gifts for friends back here. He gave me this look as if to say “do you seriously think I’m going ring up less than four dollars worth of Birmingham-themed souvenirs?” He then proceeded to say pretty much the same and I argued the point, but like every time that happens here, I didn’t end up winning. “Thank you,” was all I could say.

That wasn’t good enough. We looked like nice folks, he said, so he reached under the counter and pulled out what Salma and I still aren’t convinced wasn’t his lunch, and gave us each a roll of Life Savers. It couldn’t have been two weeks earlier that I had gone to visit my closest volunteer neighbor, and, seeing as how it was December, we decided to cook spaghetti. But you need oregano for that, which – as we’ve discussed – isn’t as readily available in Morocco as you’d hope, so we had to do a little hunting. Fortunately, there was a guy who has a store near his house that is undoubtedly a fence for stolen goods, and, mixed in among the stereo systems, woven reed handicrafts, and dates was a selection of uncommon spices. He had oregano, but it was at his house. He could get some, though, and when we asked when we could come back and get some, he replied by leaving the two of us in his shop for about twenty minutes and going home. This was incredibly nice of him, but then he insisted that our money was no good, which was not only incredibly nice but also incredibly unnecessary. We weren’t going to win the argument, but at least we could stay and chat and say things like “if we’re ever in the market for children’s car seats or microwave ovens, we’ll be back to see you.” He wanted to show us all the other irregular spices he had in stock, including various cure-alls from the desert and tea blends. By the time we were able to leave, we not only had more than enough oregano for a year’s worth of running an Italian restaurant, but also a bag of dates and an assortment of healing teas, hand-mixed by our new friend. Obviously, this guy had been to Birmingham before.

I’m not sure if I’d ever been there before, though, but Birmingham has long been famous in my family for one reason and one reason only: the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule barbeque is the gold standard for my family. My grandfather, when he was still living in New Orleans, would drive the four or five hours out of the way to the Birmingham airport every time he flew just to have lunch at the Golden Rule. Obviously, Salma and I went, and this is why I’m unconvinced I’ve ever eaten there before because I don’t expect to forget it any time soon. And it was while we were eating that I realized unnecessarily far I’d traveled to be in the same place. They didn’t even bring silverware to the table. Or if they did, we certainly didn’t use it. And then I remembered how the night before at my dad’s house he’d thrown a big seafood party for all of us being there with lobsters, crab legs, shrimp, and everything else you eat with your hands. The only difference between what we were doing and what goes on in Morocco – as Salma put it – was that I was a lot better at keeping my hands clean than everyone else. Right before I left, all my Moroccan friends were making fun of me because I’d have to remember how to eat with a knife and fork again in America. And of course, it being the South, all I ever had to drink was sweet tea.

Clearly, my sixteen months in Morocco was the exact preparation I needed for two weeks with my family, but I did fail in one area. Just like on my way out here the first time, I thought to myself, “Georgia? Alabama? Well, I definitely don’t need to pack my warm clothes.” You’d think that after all the cold and bone-itis (see December 31st, 2008, “Bone-itis”) of Morocco I’d know better than going anywhere without long underwear, but old habits die hard. I was freezing the whole time, and to make matters worse, I never ended up getting to take a decent shower at any of the places we stayed because the hot water was always gone by the time I got in. I might as well have been taking a bucket shower.

And so why do I bother writing all this if America and Morocco really are bhal bhal (the same)? I’ll tell you why. I know that a lot of volunteers are starting to get nervous about going back home. They’re scared about reverse culture shock and forgetting their language (Arabic and English) and forgetting the names of their extended family members stateside, and I want to say, “Don’t be.” Sure, they have big supermarkets and early morning infomercials and unnecessarily complicated table manners, but don’t forget about your Peace Corps training. Besides, if the southeastern United States is any indication of the rest of the country, you don’t need to worry about going home. You’re already there.

There are a lot of things that I do everyday – that I also did everyday back in the States – that really aren’t the same. I haven’t talked about them, though, because they’re ordinary to me now, and we don’t very often think to talk about the things we take for granted. I’ve had some guests come visit lately, and it’s made me realize just how different some of these things were to my American self when I too first got here. Here’s a sample: 1 – Traditionally, when I wanted to buy something, I would go to a store that I knew carried the product (possibly after having done some research into where such a place might be), locate the item in question, examine its quality, perform a sort of economic calculation of its price and the price of not purchasing it, and then act on that decision. You probably do something similar, and, to be fair, a lot of that’s also the same here in Morocco – but not all of it. At no point in all this is the step “spend 5-50 minutes bantering with the merchant about how although it’s beautiful (whatever it is), it’s just entirely impossible for me to buy it at that price, unless, God protect him, he can lower the price, most likely by two thirds or more.” Fortunately, however, you can usually find more of the same product in the generally immediate area. Some people criticize the Moroccan marketplace for its tendency to lump all the rugs together, or the jelabas, or the hardware stores, but it makes shopping so much easier. Since you’re likely to have to see three or four merchants of the same product to find one who’ll give you a reasonable price, it certainly helps if you don’t have to walk across town in the process. 2 – I’d say that most Americans consider doing their laundry to be a “chore.” You have to collect the dirty clothes, sort them by color and fabric and washing process, take them to the washing machine, put them in the machine with the appropriate detergents, softeners, starches, and scents, turn on the machine, come back a half-hour later and put them into the dryer, add the necessary anti-static cling products or wooden paddles to beat the clothing into submission, wait another hour or so until it’s dry, and then fold. It’s a complicated process with very little credit, and, if you’re unlucky enough, you might have to pay a machine for the privilege of doing all of the above. Washing clothes is a lot easier out here. All you need to do is grab a couple giant tubs capable of holding 5-10 gallons of liquid, fill them water, laundry detergent, and as much clothing as possible, and then (if you’re me) spend the next hour-and-a-half manhandling them aggressively and using Buddhist meditations to convince yourself that the stains are going to come out. You have one basin for soapy water and another for rinsing, and you don’t have to worry about the dryer at all since there aren’t any – you just put everything up to air dry. There are times, however, when I feel a little nostalgic for all the nonsense involved in American washing, particularly when I’m lugging a 70-pound tub of water from the bathroom to the living room or when I’m flaying my hands with granulated Tide detergent or the two straight months of winter when the sun doesn’t come out preventing me from drying clothes and thus being completely unable to wash at all. It’s times like that when I feel like I could find the mental and physical strength to turn some dials and carry a laundry hamper to the basement and back again. 3 – Social commentators in America like to tell us about how much time we spend waiting in lines, and there are those guys who’ll just start standing in a line on the street simply to get other more sheep-like people to fall in line behind them without even knowing what the wait’s for. They probably have a point; Morocco would have a much harder time getting it. The streets of Morocco are lined with storefronts, and the economy is such that they attract pretty good traffic, but, unlike most storefronts back home, it’s the minority that you actually walk into in Morocco. You’re standard convenience store is set up so that you walk right to the counter that opens on the street, tell the guy what you want, and then he gets it for you. It’s very efficient, and absolutely second nature once you get used to it, except for one thing: there are no cash register lanes to get into when you’re ready to go – there’s usually no cash register at all. It’s just a counter, which doesn’t really have a “paying” or a “just browsing” end, and the owner is running around getting things for people, so there’s no way of really creating a “line.” This, I believe, is the origins of the informal “no lines policy” in Morocco. It doesn’t matter who got there first, or who’s already talking to the salesman, or who’s trying to do something complicated or who’s just got a really simple transaction. Everyone just goes up to the guy, tells him what they want, and let him figure out how to please all his customers. There are a few exceptions, of course, like the bank and the post office. If it’s really busy, people have to “line up” by putting their business on the counter, usually in the form of their national identity card. It’s hard enough for us newcomers to be defensive shoppers at a regular corner store; it’s terrifying to plop your passport down on the counter and be left only to pray it’s still there when you it’s your turn after being crowded away by another hundred people doing the same. The irony, though, is that despite how frustrating it is to come from a society where you’re bred to patiently wait your turn and find yourself blocking off the old lady from getting her bread and eggs before you, you can’t really side with the people who joke about “Moroccan lines.” In reality, and once you figure out how to work in the system, the majority of time everyone’s being served. The guy will be getting money from one person while finding cigarettes for another and planning the quickest way to the milk cooler to fill your order. All at the same time. 4 – If you dig deep enough, almost everyone has some sort of special talent. Some people can juggle or do bird calls, while others can actually solve a Rubik’s Cube without the use of magic markers. My skill is finding money on the ground. It’s pretty much an innate ability; my grandfather was the same way. I’ve done a few parties and small charity events, and get the occasional emergency call about lost keys, and I can tell you that I have never in my life been in a place with so little lost change as Morocco. In fact, in my sixteen months in this country I have found exactly two coins on the ground. One was a 5 centime coin, the only one I have ever seen, and the lowest denomination possible in the Kingdom. And I can only count that on a technicality, as it has no practical monetary value at all. There is no price tag in all of Morocco that has a value in the hundredth’s place after its decimal. I’ve talked about this change problem of mine with other volunteers, and I’ve heard surprisingly similar accounts from across the country. No one has any plausible explanation, though there are theories. Some claim that the atomic density of the Atlas limestone creates a reverse magnetic field which resists metallic change, others that Moroccans are generally more conscientious about their coins. The debate will certainly not be resolved anytime soon. 5 – There is no topic more discussed, nor event more feared by newly arrived trainees, than using the bathroom in Morocco. Morocco is a meeting ground of cultures, and in no area is this more readily apparent than her toilets. It’s certainly possible to find the Western sitting toilets that we’re so used to, but this is certainly not the norm. Much more likely (practically guaranteed outside of tourist restaurants and hotels) are the Turkish style, the “Turk” or “Turkish Delight” in colloquial language. The Turkish toilet is an incredibly efficient machine. It’s merely a ceramic plate with two raised platforms to interface with the user’s feet and a sloped basin leading to the simplest plumbing imaginable: a hole. There are no complicating levers or seat hinges, nor inscrutable floating devices in the back tank. Flushing is as easy as pouring a bucket with water down the hole and letting the pipes dispose of the evidence, and since it’s shameful for people to hear what you’re doing in there, you can fill the bucket to cover the sound while you’re working. It’s the Spartan ideal of toilet technology, though it does clash with our American bathroom hedonism. Whereas we have whole department stores devoted solely to the beautification of the bath and specialists trained to maximize the toilet-tub-sink aesthetic, the Moroccan restroom is more closely related to a political prison. We can agree on its importance in society, but that doesn’t mean we want to go there or talk about it, and we clean it only whenever we think someone from the outside might come by for a surprise inspection. But that doesn’t happen very often, most likely because no one wants to deal with the embarrassment of asking someone else to use their bathroom. In fact, a friend says the kids in her town don’t drink water specifically so that they won’t have to ask for the facilities while visiting a friend’s house. And this could have something to do with the fact that my Turk is a lot more work than your Western. There’s no where to sit, so you’ve got to squat the whole time, which is great for your calves, but not so good for instilling a sense of relaxing tranquility. And you certainly can’t read the newspaper. 6 – Did you ever find yourself needing to just run over to a friend’s house for a quick second to take care of some business or another? Pop by to say hello while you’re on the way somewhere else? I feel like that all the time; unfortunately, that’s pretty much impossible for me here. I would say that Morocco has a pretty communal culture – particularly in comparison with what I’ve grown accustomed to in America – and visiting friends and relatives is a fairly important part of the social contract. Especially during holidays. Ironically, though, that’s when it becomes the biggest problem. Let’s say that you’re an American Peace Corps volunteer living in a small Moroccan town on Eid Seghir (the “small holiday” – or Eid al-Fitr in standard Arabic – the end of Ramadan). On Eid Seghir there are two things you do: eat and visit. But you’re connected all across your town, and have people everywhere who’ve helped you in innumerable ways throughout the year without asking for anything in return. You pretty much have to visit them all, so you do, which isn’t a problem since they’re your friends and you like them. It’s just that you’re running on a really tight schedule because you’ve got about thirty key places, not to mention all the other stops you’ll be making that you forgot to write into your agenda, which leaves room for about a 10-15 minute visit with everyone. Long enough to come in, shake hands with everyone, offer some congratulatory remarks, eat a few cookies with a glass of tea, and be on your way. Three houses in, with ten glasses of tea and hundreds of cookies down, and two hours later, you’ll remember that this is impossible. You can’t pop in and out; you need to drink tea, make small talk, eat whatever they give you, and then repeat until you’re basically begging for permission to leave. And this isn’t just during holidays, this is all the time. If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take every back road I can think of just to avoid major stops where I know I’ll get trapped by self-appointed surrogate mothers. Sometimes bicycling helps, but you pretty much just have to lay back and accept that you’re going to be late, or that you’re only going to doing half the things on your to-do list for the day. Then again, you could do worse than never-ending free lunches. 7 – Mopping, in its most basic form, is pretty much the same no matter where you go. You use some kind of long-handled device that has an attachment at one end for moving water about on the floor so as to remove grime and other filth. In America we have several kinds of mop. Most notable are the sponge mop with a built in water-wringing device and the yarn strand model that can also serve as a costume wig in community theatre and off-Broadway musicals. Every floor I’ve seen in Morocco has been either tile or concrete, and, as there are no vacuums that I know of, the mop has a pretty solid monopoly on the floor-cleaning products market. There are two very important things to know about Moroccan mops. First, they have a couple names. We call them karrata up here, which is a very cool word, though others say jafaffa, which, as best as I can figure, translates literally as “droughter.” Even more excellent, however, is that no matter what you call it, it’s pretty much a giant squeegee. That’s awesome. 8 – We’ve got a few different kinds of handshake in America. There’s the standard, the two-hand shake, and the handshake with a hand on the arm, not to mention the thousands of informal pounds and high fives. And when you meet someone in the States, unless you’re a politician or meeting for the first time, chances are you’re not actually going to “shake hands.” You could just as easily get by with a wave, head nod, or nothing at all. Morocco, on the other hand, has pretty much only one handshake, the standard (though there are other types of greeting, used particularly for elders and other respected individuals, such as a hand or forehead kiss). It’s not really all that interesting that Moroccans shake hands. What is interesting is the frequency and ceremony involved. When you first meet someone, obviously you should shake their hand, but what’s unusual for us is that out here, you’ll continue to shake their hand pretty much every time you run into them again in the future. What’s more, if you shake one person’s hand in a group of people, you have to shake everyone’s. This can be a real endeavor if, for example, you walk into a wedding or other massive social gathering, and there have been plenty of times when students have walked into class late and I’ve made the mistake of shaking their hand, which means that they then have to go down the lines shaking every other student’s hand in the process (some do that anyway because they think it’s funny). But that’s not the end of the ritualization. Moroccan culture, descending from Islamic tradition, exalts the right and frowns upon the left. Not only do we shake with our right hand, but we shake hands with the group from right to left. A group of Americans will usually shake with whoever’s the most convenient at any particular moment until everyone’s shaken with everyone else. This means that everyone once in a while, you might find yourself with your hand just sticking out there waiting for the guy coming, especially if, like us, you’re new to the whole circle of shaking. But that’s better than not shaking; you can definitely get called out for failure to shake. The only time you don’t is if the “shakee” in question is a conservative woman, in which case it’s best to wait for her to offer a hand and to just smile and be polite until – if – she does. 9 – America is a milk country. The “Does a Body Good” and “Got Milk” ads have been some of the most successful campaigns of all time, and “milk and cookies” and “cereal and milk” are two of the most essential staples of our diet. Morocco is not. It goes into coffee a lot, as well as the occasional glass of hot chocolate, and gets mixed into fruit juices in the summer, but I’ve never seen anyone sit down with just a glass of milk. That’s not really that big a deal for me since I too don’t really ever sit down with just a glass of milk, whether I’m in Morocco or America. What does matter, however, is that my milk, like any other red-blooded American, is cold (unless it’s hot chocolate). You won’t find that here. Any glass of milk you ask for is going to be heated as though you were about to add the chocolate in to it, and a request for a cold glass is likely to get you a funny look and the assumption that you’ve clearly mistaken in your language. And a glass of warm milk.

Eddie Levert, lead singer for the O’Jays, once said: “Money money money money, money.” To this day, no one is quite certain exactly what it was he was talking about, so we’ll assume that he was trying to describe the life of a Peace Corps volunteer. I swore into service in late November last year, and in the past year of being a volunteer (and the three months of training before that) I’ve had one prior expectation blown more than any other: that I’m really needed. The Peace Corps volunteer’s role (among other things) is to bring knowledge and innovation to the community – to incubate the American “can-do” attitude in parts of the world where chronic under-development have entrenched a mentality of fatalism and inertia. It’s the reason why the Peace Corps enlists volunteers right out of college; they may not have too much experience yet, but they’ve got the passion to transform the lives of others. I’m a youth developer here, and I’d been an English teacher and led youth programs back in the States, so I felt pretty confident coming into the Peace Corps that I could shake things up in my community. It took about two weeks to be absolutely convinced that my community shakes plenty on its own. There are several youth associations working in the Dar Shebab and out, language programs and a fair number of English speakers qualified to give classes, and youth who take their own initiative to hold programs on issues relevant to their lives. What they actually don’t have are resources – computers for technical training, cameras for film projects, soccer goals with nets in them, paints and pencils and sheets of paper – in short, what they don’t have is money. This is a problem, not only for the youth groups trying to develop themselves, but also for me as a Peace Corps volunteer. You see, most development organizations aren’t really doing development at all, they’re charities. They show up in a community and ask the people what they need, and then they give it to them (or at least they give the money to go get it). The Peace Corps is different. We [ideally] ask the people what they have and what they want to do and what they need in order to do it, and then we spend two years trying to help them find it. The difference is that the first style of “development” leaves the recipient without the knowledge of how to go get more things, or how to get replacement things if the things they’ve just been given break, other than to ask some other “development” group. The second style makes the recipient invest his or her own time, sweat, and money in getting things, and makes sure they know how to do it themselves for the next time. The first way’s a lot easier, though, and that’s what happens most of the time. And so it’s a real struggle, not the least reason for which is that your community doesn’t always appreciate the difference between development and “development.” Counterparts are constantly coming to you asking for money or equipment, and so you try to explain this idea of sustainability with as little condescension as possible, all the while fully aware that they aren’t likely to be able to put up their own money to get these things even if you do show them how. But you have to choose one path or another. Here are some of the ways I’ve dealt with this in my work in Freedonia, which will hopefully illustrate the complexity of the situation. None is a perfect solution. You could just say no. As of yet, I haven’t completely done this as I’m still trying to push each request off into one of the other paths, but there’s undoubtedly going to be a handful that don’t get addressed by the time I’m finished. You could just give it. So far, I’m happy in knowing that I haven’t just given anything that was asked for, though I have been proactive in seeing holes and filling them without having them brought to me. For example, there’s no art going on at the Dar Shebab, and the Peace Corps office ships out left over reams of paper and other items from time to time, so I’ve collected a handful and just gifted them over to a guy who I think will be able to take them and build something from them. I also got some paints and other art supplies from another volunteer, so I included those as well. And I’ve made a pretty thorough collection of baseball equipment – gloves, bats, and balls for baseball, softball, and whiffleball – and, though it’s still all in my house, I’ve made it available for the kids (and it will be going to them when I leave). I consider that one to be “Goal 2” (increasing awareness of American culture on the part of the peoples served), however, rather than “capacity building,” so that’s a bit of a different story. You could put together a grant. The Peace Corps has two different models for this, though I haven’t actually done either one. Yet. They require the community to pay for 25% of the project themselves to ensure both that there is local ownership and that it truly meets a community-identified need. I’m about to have a seminar with all the various youth-serving organizations in town to teach them about how grants work – those that come from the Peace Corps as well as from other organizations. This is often the crucible for the organization. There is so much of a culture of expectancy built from bad development that many aren’t interested in going through the hoops of all this process. Part of that’s our fault. The volunteer is usually the one who knows how to do this, and, as a result, is the one who usually does it. A lot of people we work with expect or look to us to fill in all the blanks. I’ll have to write later about the success or failure of my little workshop. You could connect them with another source. I suppose that this is very much like putting together a grant, but if you can put your group in contact with another organization that provides funds or resources, then they can pursue their goals independently. Obviously, the Peace Corps isn’t opposed to communities securing funding for their projects, they just want to make sure that these funds are brought in by the community and don’t lead to a dependency on the Peace Corps. I just finished one of these. A counterpart of mine is the organizer of an annual film festival, and earlier this summer I convinced him to add an amateur youth film competition as a part of it. He loved the idea, but had just one very legitimate concern: the festival budget just didn’t have the funds to bring film teams from all Morocco to Freedonia and provide them with food, lodging, prizes, workshops, and all the other accoutrements of a film competition. Fortunately, I had earlier that year met some representatives of the US Embassy responsible for youth programming and outreach who had told me to let them know if I ever had any projects going on that they could be a part of (the Embassy loves working with volunteers because we’re plugged into the local communities and can give them a hand finding effective outlets for development funds). I wrote them an email, we wrote them a grant proposal, and they just left town after having sponsored the entire youth amateur competition. We had eleven youth film-makers from nine different communities (two of which had worked with other Peace Corps volunteers to make their films), an American film expert who held a workshop on film-making, a panel of professional directors, actors, and critics to judge the entries and give feedback on their work, and live screenings of all the films. It was a raging success, and you probably think that I’m just going to keep bragging about how great a Peace Corps volunteer I am, but there’s a dark side even this which might turn out to be my biggest achievement in all my service. To start with, both the Embassy and my counterpart expected me to play a much larger part securing and administering the grant than Peace Corps ideology prefers, and it might be the case that it falls apart next year. I hope it doesn’t, but I can’t put my hands in it next year in good conscience. I’ve provided the model, and it will be their turn to copy it. I’ve also been inundated with requests from other counterparts for me to set them up with Embassy funds for their activities. Some are great ideas and I hope that we can realize them, though for the most part I have to send them to my other counterpart to make their contacts. Others are going to be disappointed, and there’s going to be resentment over perceived favoritism. Hopefully I can direct them into one or more different paths to get the resources they need, but I won’t be able to help everyone. I definitely built a bridge between the cinema club and the Embassy (though it remains to be seen how well it’s used), but in doing so I probably used up a lot of the support beams necessary in some of my other bridges. That’s not entirely a bad thing, though it will make my work harder. Then again, I’m the third consecutive volunteer in town, and that means that I have to take down the scaffolding crutches that my predecessors set up to start Freedonia’s self-development. It’s not going to make me any friends, but I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to transform communities and make friends. I still get to incubate the “can-do” spirit, only I have to do it by pushing people in the water. I can point out the life preservers and shallow water, but they have to swim there on their own. That’s development.

We’ve talked about some of the things that shock us, but intercultural dialogue is a two-way street, and there are plenty of things that we Americans do that amaze and offend our hosts. It’s easy for us to see the offense or shock in the things I described earlier that Moroccans do because they run contradictory to our culture. Here I’ve tried to present what shock Moroccans in as offensive a way as possible to try and simulate the way many Moroccans would feel them. I won’t be completely successful in that, but suffice it to say that they take every one of these as seriously as we do what shocks us.

1 - In America, a man’s reproductive fitness is judged more minutely than his fitness to be a NASA pilot, and the first criteria is does he still live with his parents. We tend to get out of the house as soon as possible, and our parents tend to echo the sentiment. We often end up living with roommates until we find ourselves judged “fitting,” but Peace Corps volunteers are forbidden from living with each other – if that’s even an option (I, for one, don’t have a site mate). Not so for Moroccans, who live at home until they’re married – unless forced by circumstances to move away – and then only for work, and they’ll do whatever they can to find family in the new location to live with. Sometimes, if they’re men, they’ll stay after marriage. If they’re women, they could very likely move to his parents’ home. Because why would you want to live away from your family? The only reasonable answer is that you want to do things that you can’t do in your family, namely be drunk all the time and have constant extra-marital sex. I had to go through very lengthy explanations of why I felt the need to leave my host parents’ home, most of them centering on how I do in fact love them, despite how things may look. One land lady, upon hearing that I would potentially be living in her rental apartment alone, refused to show it to me. My friends had to explain that I didn’t want it “for that,” I just didn’t have any family.

2 - You might not think to notice it, probably because it’s just so obvious to us, but one of our most sacred traditions is paying our own way (and you yours). Sure we mooch off our parents and significant others, but when a group of friends get together they’d better all bring their wallets with them, or make plans to pay it back later. This is absolute lunacy in Morocco. When guys get together in the café, one of them buys. When dudes accompany each other to the hammam, the first one pays for the rest. They’ve got all sorts of games and jokes about figuring out who’s supposed to pay, aside from “pay for what you drank.” The idea is that the others will pick up the tab next time, and everything will generally all even out. This theory breaks down when you’re with an American, who almost never have to pay because, despite living for two years in Morocco, is still the guest. Our money’s good for just about anything here, but not this. Lately, I’ve taken to fighting back. I once had to have another American friend pull a complicated wrestling move on our Moroccan associate just to have the time to get to the waiter and give him the money first. It didn’t matter that he’d treated the two previous times, he was furious. I still paid, though.

3 - There are a handful of new Americans doing their training here in Freedonia, and before they came, their host families-to-be had pretty much only one question: do they eat meat? These days, it’s not too hard to find a friend who’s a vegetarian; I’ve met only two Moroccans who don’t like to eat meat. It’s just not done around here. Perhaps it’s because a lot of the reasons why we choose vegetarianism aren’t present here. We’ve talked about the general lack of animal camaraderie, so it’s not likely to be caused by having fish who are friends. Maybe more significantly, there really aren’t industrial farms (sheep, goats, and chickens just roam freely through the town), nor is there any considerable use of growth hormones or genetic manipulation – it’s just too expensive. And there’s little dietary health consciousness. In fact, most people ascribe to the belief that the fatter you are, the healthier you are (those are the same word in Darija). With no moral, social, or nutritional pressure, it’s not surprising that Moroccans tend towards carnivorism, or that they’re so shocked to meet someone who isn’t. Moroccan dietary philosophy is that meat is good for you, and, being the most expensive part of the dish, it’s also a special treat. Consequently, vegetarian volunteers often find themselves embroiled in a guerilla war with their host mothers, who do whatever they can to ninja meat into their American.

4 - The Western handshake descends from the tradition of the Norse, who, being largely right-handed, shook with their right hands to represent that they bore no weapons, and, thus, no hostility. The Boy Scouts of America have turned this on its head and shake hands with their left to represent that they trust each other. Moroccans shake with their right because left hands are unclean. It’s a product both of Islamic custom – the Prophet’s message discussed a very broad definition of morality, including public health – and the economic fact that toilet paper costs money that most people would rather spend elsewhere that lead Moroccans to use their hands to wipe. Of course, you wouldn’t want to eat with that hand, especially in a society where your hands and food come in contact unmediated by utensils, so they’ve decided to designate one hand for public life and the other for the bathroom. This becomes a problem when foreigners come and touch their food with their left hands, which is just gross, or touch other people with their left hands, which is gross and offensive. The foreigners who know not to use their left spend all their time worrying about using it at the table or in polite society, terrified that they’ll forget and offend someone. Trust me, though, once you’ve used your left hand to clean yourself just once, you’re going to remember.

5 - People in the states go to great lengths to decorate their bathrooms. We have whole stores, magazines, and expositions dedicated to just this. We concern ourselves with the lighting, color coordination, ready availability of entertainment, and general homeliness of our bathrooms. Heaven forbid we find ourselves in the bathroom with nothing to do but what nature intended. Americans count the bathroom along with the other areas of the house, Moroccans tend to treat their bathrooms the same way people treat their insane aunt locked in the attic: everyone knows where it is, but pretend that it doesn’t exist. This is most difficult, however, when someone’s in there, especially since there’s no insulation to prevent sound from travelling from one part of the house to another. The sound of someone using the bathroom is one of the most shamefully embarrassing noises in Morocco, so they’ve set up a system of turning on a water faucet into a small bucket to cover it all up (we don’t need to debate the point that this sound is very similar to the majority of sounds it’s there to mask). We run into other problems too, though, in that entering the bathroom is like entering a pocket in the fabric of the universe, and we should seem to temporarily fade out of this plane of existence. Thus, it is very offensive to speak to someone while in the bathroom, even to respond to someone calling for us, nor should we even consider whistling or humming to ourselves. There’s no singing in the shower in Morocco.

6 - Morocco is a very strongly Muslim country, and, as in many other societies that have a single religion so blatantly dominant, there is little separation between the public and personal aspects of faith. The majority of Moroccans has a similar concept of their religion and come to take many of its tenets and prohibitions for granted. In the case of Islam, all aspects of life are divided into five categories: required, recommended, open to the individual, discouraged, and forbidden, or haram in Arabic. Moroccans know what they’re not allowed to do, but, more importantly, they know that Christians (meaning “foreigners,” as the two are represented by the same word in Darija) do them. And it’s not uncommon for to a local to conspiratorially inform you that Westerners are known to drink alcohol and eat pork. You’ll find yourself in a café when someone will announce to you that Americans drink whiskey (whiskey and vodka, like “Hotel California” and “My Heart Will Go On” with English-language music, have a monopoly on the Moroccan knowledge of spirits), or a student will sidle up to you and discretely ask you if it’s true that Americans do, in fact, eat pork. Some volunteers fear their community’s censure and deny these things, others try to explain that America is home to all faith systems and that there are some Americans who are forbidden from engaging in these activities. I, and probably a minority of others, tell them that these things are true. Almost all find ways to acquire alcohol in Morocco and could answer the question through example. A few try to get permits to hunt the many wild boar and have a pig roast.

7 - With so much Islam everywhere, it’s easy to imagine how it can be difficult for non-Muslims in Morocco. The majority of volunteers are Christian, but even more than that many claim to be. This is because Moroccans are used to foreigners being Christian, Christianity is within the Abrahamic family of religions, and it’s a lot easier than claiming any of the alternatives. Judaism is similarly approved by the Qur’an, but current political situations have resulted in pretty whole-scale ignorance concerning Judaism, a void that has been filled with a general enmity. There are enough Moroccans, however, who will gladly claim the Jewish people as part of their theological family. The biggest problems come from people who dispute the central premise of Islam: there is no god but God. One of the most powerful forces behind the create of Islam was a reaction against traditional polytheism, and thus visitors who believe in non-Abrahamic religions (Hindus, Buddhists, Wicca, etc) cause a bit of stir. Similarly, and more common, is the conflict caused by being an atheist or agnostic in Morocco. It’s bad enough that Christians and Jews don’t recognize Muhammad as being God’s messenger, but to believe that God isn’t God at all can be grounds for some serious debate to say the least. And if there is one truism here, it’s that there’s no halfway compromise. To argue for a general spiritualism is the same as saying that Islam is wrong, and very few are going to accept this from you.

8 - Everyone sneezes, but what sets Americans and Moroccans apart is our much higher tendency to blow our noses. Blowing your nose in Morocco not only requires tissues (a hedonistic luxury), but is also extremely offensive to polite society. It’s the sort of thing that you have to excuse yourself to go do, like using the bathroom. This is a constant source of tension between us, particularly when we first arrive and are bombarded by all the Moroccan illnesses. To make matters worse, that’s the time when volunteers are living with host families. The absolute pinnacle, however, of nose-blown rudeness, is when it is done while eating because now both your hands are befouled and you’re going to reach back into the collective plate. It’s enough to make everyone else lose their appetite.

9 - Moroccan girls and boys don’t really interact with each other as chums, and so it’s a little shocking when Moroccan boys and girls do. For example, boys and girls shared the same floor at my university, which isn’t unheard of in this day and age, but in Morocco would mean only that we engaged in constant debauchery. Boys are supposed to stay with boys, and girls with girls. Not just in the dormitories, but everywhere. Consequently, you see dudes hanging with each other on the street, and packs of girls walking by together. Rarely do you see boys and girls teasing or hanging on each other; in fact, this only really happens when foreigners are in the room, in places such as youth development summer camp. What’s really surprising for me, though, is that the guys I’ve been able to talk to about this don’t really want to be around girls, at least not in that sort of way. A guy I know wasn’t going to his classes after Ramadan ended last year because he said that none of the other guys were back yet, it was just him and a bunch of ladies. Normally, I would tell him to take advantage of the situation, and I did, but he replied that he can’t feel normal when girls are around. He understands guys and they can just be themselves. Girls are a confusing mystery. Unfortunately, it’ll probably stay that way.

Morocco is a land quite unlike the United States, and therefore is should go without saying that there are many instances when the American visitor will be shocked with what he or she observes, whether they be major cultural assumptions or minor idiosyncrasies. This list is an attempt to document some of those instances for the purposes of cultural understanding. I should say that none of these are rules, nor do they happen all the time. They do, however, occur with enough frequency as to be significant. I have striven to be an advocate for the people of Morocco, and I will continue to do so, and. At the same time, however, it would be wrong to assume that all aspects of my host culture are wonderful. I find a lot of the following to be offensive and I’m not going to pretend that they aren’t. Consider this – like everything else I have written here – as merely a record of my observations on some of the more delicate issues.

1 - Moroccan culture puts great emphasis on the separation of sexes and their private areas. As is well documented, Islamic tradition frowns on the interaction between unrelated men and women, and even in places such as hammams where there is strict gender segregation, people still wear their last line of clothing. This is why it comes as such a shock to see so many people (nearly universally men) relieving themselves in public. Granted, this is just as shameful of an act here as it is in the States, but that doesn’t stop it from happening all the time. You’ll see men walk around a corner, behind a rock, or next to a tree and just let loose. That’s the way guys do it in America, but the biggest difference is that men here really don’t block off the visual path to what they’re doing. In fact, it’s so common that there are many street corners and external walls that have “urination forbidden” spray painted across them.

2 - Perhaps the majority of visitors will pass through completely oblivious to this, but it’s one of the most uncomfortable of situations for a volunteer or anyone else who submerges themselves in Moroccan culture. There is absolutely no hesitation when it comes to hitting children. It’s supposedly disallowed, but the guardians and teachers at school all carry a special hard rubber tube for keeping students in line, and families keep a special reserve of shoes, belts, and backhands for their children. Hitting in general is a lot more common here. A friend will often grab another – with much more aggression and zeal than we’re usually comfortable with – slapping and mock (or not) throttling each other. This carries over to children. A common game (similar to Peek-a-Boo in its mundaneness) is Slap-the-Young-Child-Upside-the-Head. It’s never done with any great force, but often enough that you can’t feel good about it. The real downside, though, to all this corporal punishment (aside from the child abuse) is that when not enforced, children often run amok. A good half of my Dar Shebab classes and school visits are spent in telling the students to pay attention. A Moroccan teacher would just put the beating stick on the table, and it wouldn’t be an idle threat.

3 - A PETA activist might have a conflicting time in Morocco. Unlike animals in the massive industrial farms of America, Moroccan livestock is pretty universally free-range. Herds of sheep and goats roam through town and the surrounding countryside, chickens run freely through streets and parks. There really aren’t enough resources to permanently keep any significant head of anything in one place. This doesn’t necessarily mean, though, that Moroccans have any great respect or love for animals. Dogs and cats also roam the town with impunity, but they are in no way welcome guests. A favorite game of children is throwing rocks at them as they scurry from trash pile to trash pile looking for food – as almost none are house pets, and even fewer are fed by the houses where they live. The children who live in my apartment community are fascinated by my cat, and run after her whenever she comes out of the house. Sometimes they’ll run inside to get her. And I don’t think they want to hurt her, but they tend to swat at her in the same way that people might dare each other to touch a snake. Some people want to like animals, and some even do take care of the ones that live in and around their houses. There are a few references to the prophet Mohammad’s fondness for cats, though dogs are generally considered dirty and it’s said that they scare off angels that would otherwise enter your house. In reality, they just don’t have much exposure to animal friends – even the idea is laughable to most people that I talk to about my kitten – and so they don’t have any idea what to do with them. I don’t know what to do with babies, but then again, I don’t throw rocks at them, either.

4 - We eat a lot in Morocco, and often. And when we eat, we eat fast. I mean, lunch is over in about fifteen minutes and that’s the biggest meal of the day. You can imagine, then, that we’re sucking down quite a lot air in this race to the bottom of the plate, and you’d be right. That’s my hypothesis for why Moroccans burp so much. And perhaps because they burp so much they don’t seem to think too very much about it. Some people will say “hamdullah” (“thank God”) afterwards. More often than not, you’ll just hear a massive explosion of stomach gas and then everyone continues whatever they were doing without much notice, kind of as though someone had just coughed. I was once close to teaching some young kids about burping the alphabet when one of them let loose a pretty big one, but something – good sense, probably – held me back.

5 - George Costanza once remarked: “I guarantee you Moses was a picker. You wander through the desert for 40 years with that dry air. You tell me you're not going to have an occasion to clean house a little?” He was talking, of course, about picking one’s nose, and he couldn’t have been more right about either the effects of desert dust storms, or the sociological tendencies of the people who suffer them. There is dust absolutely everywhere in Morocco – even in places like Freedonia that are about as un-desert as possible – and everywhere you look, you’ll find someone digging for nose gold. Snot rocketing, too. It’s startling for us, being so prudish about nasal penetration, but there’s no shame associated here. It’s about as ordinary as wiping your eyes.

6 -The biggest reverse culture shock I’ve suffered so far has been from care packages and the packaging. Everything is vacuum packed and double-sealed for freshness. It’s so unnecessary, and it’s one of the major contributors to America’s garbage problem. We’re working on it, though, through education and public trash disposal. Packaging really isn’t an issue here, but littering is epidemic. Opening a candy bar? Just drop the wrapper where it is. Finished your Coke? Toss the can in the bushes. No one’s even going to think about it, let alone say anything to you. The most common foliage in Morocco is black plastic bags. I once had a kid who tossed the little piece of saran wrap that came with his peanut brittle no the ground. I told him to pick it up. He looked at me with such incredulity you’d have thought I told him to eat it. I repeated myself and he actually ran away. I had to just about beat this child into putting his trash in a trashcan, all the while, Moroccans were watching me and helping, but more out of a sense of compassion. You could tell that they didn’t care, either. Unless it’s for complaining. Freedonians love to talk about how ugly their home is because of trash, but I’ve never seen anyone do anything about it. I pity the environment volunteers.

7 - Most people don’t have showering facilities in their homes, and most people don’t take showers anyway, they go to the hammam. It costs money, though, and there is a very strong dislike for spending money in the poor regions of this country. Consequently, it’s not rare to find someone who only goes to the hammam once a week, usually in conjunction with ablutions of their Friday prayers. The rest of the time, they just make do. This, combined with the fact that people have both relatively much smaller wardrobes and a much more labor-intensive process for cleaning their clothes, means that there is a general funkiness in the Moroccan air. You can’t get away from it, especially in the summer, especially in taxis. Added to this is the most unfortunate byproduct of Ramadan: “fasting breath.” Most Moroccans don’t brush their teeth any time of the year, but it’s so much worse when they don’t eat breakfast and have something to cover it up.

8 - Moroccan men and women don’t have much opportunity to interact with each other – an obvious byproduct of gender segregation – and yet they still suffer from the same biological need to procreate as the rest of us. Consequently, you’ve got a country full of horny guys who don’t know how to talk to women. This problem is compounded by (a) horniness can be resolved legally and morally only through marriage (read: neither frequently nor expediently), (b) prostitutes are more socially acceptable than self-love, and (c) it is generally accepted that men are incapable of controlling their sexual impulses. This last point is accepted not only by women but by the men themselves, and thus they often feel no shame in voicing responses to their baser instincts. Take, for example, an attractive woman walking down the street. (“An attractive woman” could be “a woman with a pleasing physique,” “a woman with an unpleasing physique but wearing pleasingly revealing clothing,” or “a woman.”) The frequent response will be for the man to express his approval of her physique, choice of dress, or chromosomal fortune with the intention of this leading to her having sex with him. He will most often hiss, but sometimes whistle, call out to her, gape, or even give her a little pinch. The general philosophy is that if any of these succeed in getting her attention – “turning her around” in the local parlance – and he’s well on his way to enjoying all the pleasures he can imagine (a reason for him to be severely surprised and disappointed if she walks away). This is especially true of Western women, who are generally perceived as dynamos of sexuality. If she doesn’t turn around and provide instant gratification, she must be having a bad day. Try again tomorrow.

9 - Moroccans are famous for their hospitality, and in no way is this more shockinly clear than in their giving of invitations. It's not uncommon for you to be riding in a taxi or talking with some vendor in the souk and for him to invite you back to his place. Where we come from, there's usually only one reason for this, and no matter what people tell you, it's usually not coffee. In Morocco, this is just a normal part of the equation. This is partly because we're visitors in their country, partly because they're interested in learning more about us, partly because they may want to show off their new friend or ask for help in getting a visa, but mostly because their social code requires it. It doesn't matter if they're rich or poor, or if they've known you a while or you've just met. If I accepted every invitation, I'd probably never cook again for my entire service. And this grates on a lot of volunteers, who usually want a little peace and quiet after a long day of servin. For the most part, people you've just met don't expect you to call them up (they'd take you in if you did, though), and people you already knew are understanding if you don't take them up on it. But if you don't come around from time to time, you're going to have some 'splaining to do.

It’s now been a full year of living in Morocco, which means that we’re right back where we started: Ramadan. I landed in Morocco on September 9th, 2008, and, coincidentally, my brother got married on September 6th of that same year (happy anniversary, by the way). It’s gotten me thinking about my relationship with the Peace Corps. I should have expected it, but it’s been a rollercoaster romance. We’ve had passionate chemistry and lovers’ spats. The honeymoon is probably over, but I think that’s good – I came here to engender understanding and develop opportunities of Moroccan youth, not for a vacation.

Last year, I wrote about the history and customs of Ramadan, but it was as much from my academic experience as it was from my observations. A year later, I can see much more of the daily life, and understand even more of it. That is how I would like to mark my anniversary, by reevaluating some initial impressions and looking for some kind of cultural growth.

I landed on around the fifth day of Ramadan last year, so I missed out on all the preparations and general run-up, as well as the opening ceremonies. Getting ready for Ramadan involves pretty once one thing: going home. Freedonia had been absolutely packed with tourists – almost all of them Moroccan – and they’re all gone. In their place are all the college-aged sons and daughters and the family members who went away for work. It’s not true that everything stops during Ramadan, but it is true that business hours are cut and many people take their annual vacation.

As for “grand openings,” like so many other Moroccan holidays, there aren’t any. This is partly because no one knows exactly when it will start. Ramadan begins with the first sliver of crescent moon (the fast starts as soon as the sun rises), which modern astronomy could easily identify years in advance if it wanted, but modern Islamic society has retained the ancient astronomical tradition of relying on the visual sighting of the crescent by the scientific community. This often means that different Islamic countries will have Ramadan beginning on different days – usually the eastern Muslim world starts a day or two before.

This means that everyone has a generally good idea when it will happen, but they never know exactly what day it’s going to be, but they can’t be sure, so they have to have everything ready a few days in advance. “Everything” means tomatoes; “tomatoes” mean harira; “harira” means Ramadan. People don’t celebrate the start of Ramadan with parades or fireworks or gatherings. They go to the mosques, get together with their families, and – most importantly – they eat breakfast. Breakfast is at sunset (around 6:45 - 7:00 this year) and every evening is like an all-you-can-eat buffet at the International House of Pancakes.

Different families and different regions have different traditions concerning their breakfast spread, but there are a few staples that are omnipresent in Morocco. Islamic tradition calls for breaking the fast with dates and milk, and we stick to that, but with the addition of figs, which are in season now, and we also drink tea, which is a Moroccan civic duty. And you’ve got an array of breakfast breads. The most common is millwi, a type of fried, flaky pancake. (“Millwi” is the Amazigh word; Arabs tend to call it mismin – or sometimes millwi.) If your family really feels like going a little crazy you might have a millwi variant such as rrghaif, the “Moroccan pizza,” which is made with onions and peppers in the batter, or khubs shahamah, “fat bread,” which is fried with little pieces of fat that dissolve into greasy deliciousness. You’ll likely also find, either as replacement or in concert, a plate stacked with bagharreer. These incredible little pancakes are spongy on scale with Ethiopian injeera bread and are usually served cold, supersaturated with butter and honey.

Ramadan is about thirty days long, so you’ll have a few variations from day to day, but there will always be harira. Harira is a tomato-based soup with a selection of pieces of meat, small noodles, barley, small bits of fat, and chick peas, and always highly seasoned, most notably with cilantro. Everyone is required to have several bowls of it, usually as the final course of their breakfast. There’s also going to be a couple wheels of bread or lengths of baguette to go with it.

All the while there’ll be a plate or two of shebakiya, the spiral dough pastry that tastes like fried honey, a handful of hard-boiled eggs, eggs that have been submerged in boiling water, and a few saucers piled with a dry peanut and sugar paste called zumeta (the Arabs call it sslou). Unlike everything else on the table, these only come out during Ramadan, though it’s hard to eat more than a teaspoon or two of zumeta at any one sitting, so this one lasts for a little while after the fast.

And no breakfast is complete without the entertainment: the world famous Ramadan television programming. Ramadan is the season when the best actors from across Morocco get together to present a tour de force of nonsensical comedies, melodramatic soap operas, and inane hidden camera shorts. These shows all air every night on the two major Moroccan stations, 2M and Al Maghribia, and only during Ramadan. We didn’t appreciate the full extent of this last year, and took our favorites for granted until they were taken away from us. This year (like all the rest of the country) we couldn’t contain our impatience waiting for the season debuts. Unfortunately, it’s pretty unanimously agreed that this year’s offering is a record low, and I’ve even been told that Al Jazeera ran a segment on the poor quality of Morocco’s Ramadan programming. Perhaps it has something to do with the much higher than usual incidence of random English words in the dialogue.

But they watch them anyway, and I hope that marketers have appreciated just how big this is. I mean, every night for 30 days is as big as the Superbowl. Literally everyone is at home, eating breakfast, and doing what every Moroccan loves to do: watching tv. I didn’t quite realize the extent of this last year, but sometimes I’m late for breakfast, and I’ll find myself walking through town five minutes before the a’adan (call to prayer) and I won’t see anyone. Once, I was travelling and happened to arrive in Fes right at sunset. I had to walk across town (there weren’t any taxis) and it was incredible, I rolled my suitcase through the center of the busiest intersection in the city, and walked right down the middle of some of Fes’s biggest avenues. There was no one to get out of the way for.

During our initial entry to Morocco last year, we weren’t allowed out of the hotels and training centers at this time for security reasons, and it makes sense. It may only be around 6:30 in the evening, but the streets are populated like its 3:30 in the morning. Police have to have breakfast, too, you know, and, fortunately, so do criminals. You still have to be careful, though.

The worst time, however, is from about 4:30 onwards, what is generally referred to by volunteers as “Unhappy Hour.” This is when all the people who usually like to smoke or drink coffee and haven’t been able to for about twelve hours just can’t take it anymore. Have you ever had a friend who tried to give up smoking and you had to tiptoe around him or her because of the nicotine withdrawal emotional swings? Well, imagine that your friend is actually several thousand people, and that’s what it’s like in your town right before breakfast. Particularly in places where people have to drive or pay for things, but I once went over to a friend’s house to watch the Moroccan national team play against Togo, and we got together with the rest of his extended family and neighbors to have a little soccer game of our own afterwards. I have never seen so much fighting, arguing, and general bile in all my time in this country. An hour later, though, and we were eating baghareer and joking like we’d just gone on a picnic.

It’s like that every day.

As you undoubtedly know, a tun (or tunne, as you sometimes see) is a large cask for holding liquids, especially wine, ale, or beer. You might not think that there’s really much of a relationship between the two, but that’s where you’d be wrong. Back in college I interned for a semester in the Office of Science and Technology Cooperation of the US Department of State. In my first few days I had the honor of setting up my good friend and mentor, Bob, with some much needed translations before he left for meetings in the Grand Maghrib. He then said something to me that was probably the supercoolest and most vexing thing I’ve ever heard: “If I’d know about you two weeks ago, you’d be on that plane with me.”

He brought me back a bottle of Tunisian wine – which is still sitting back home in the States – and thus began my lifelong ambition to go to Tunisia, the home of Carthage and Tataouine. Five years later, my lifelong ambition was achieved. The following is taken from my adventure journal, edited for time, content, and to fit your screen.

11 August 2009

8:46 PM. Today I arrived in Tunisia, the twenty-third country I’ve been in – though it almost didn’t happen. I got to Casablanca on Sunday, expecting to meet mom and Paulo that night to leave Monday (yesterday) morning. They never came. The reason for this is that they’d changed my flight reservation for Tuesday so as to take advantage properly of my vacation and weekend time. We didn’t. They went off to Jedida by themselves, I hung around in a hotel in Casablanca. They showed up last night and we left this morning.

I still did my best to stuff it up. On putting our bags in the taxi I realized that I didn’t have my carte de sejour. Even so, I managed to get through every checkpoint at the airport but the last one without being noticed. He asked me if I live in Morocco and where my carte was. I told him that I do and that I forgot it. He gave me a look that said, “Seriously, give me your carte.” I gave him a look that said, “This is about as pathetic as I can be, I really don’t have it.” The lesson here is that when you go to leave the country, make sure that you bring the documents showing that you are, in fact, a legal resident there. After a little more talking and being pathetic, he asked me what my number is. I didn’t know. He tapped his keyboard a bit and then asked me a few questions to verify that the records he was reading were mine, I answered them, and he let me go. The lesson there is that it’s possible to go through customs without your carte. They’ve got your information. It’s probably best to bring it anyway, unless you particularly fancy feeling like a maroon.

Our take off was delayed, and we had to wait forever to get our luggage, so I suggested that we just go straight to Kairouan and skip Carthage. A lot of people would probably disagree with this, as Carthage is probably the most historically significant piece of Tunisia. That’s true, but, first, I’ve never really cared that much about Roman history when compared to some of the other great histories of the world. The coolest thing about Carthage was its total destruction and Rome’s message to the world that if you mess with the empire, you’ll be lost to the world for all time. It’s strange then to go and see it, and disappointing even to learn the part left out of most history texts: shortly thereafter the Romans rebuilt and populated Carthage. I prefer to think of Carthage as salted earth and a poor strategic use of elephants.

The country of Tunisia, however, is quite pleasant. We’ve seen mostly rocky scrubland, similar to that on the plains outside of Azrou and Khenifra, but greener. In fact, as mom likes to say, it looks a lot like “Morocco with a fresh coat of paint.” And from what we could see of Tunis from the highway it was a big, clean, shiny city. The little villages were similar to the ones just outside Fes, but they seemed brighter. There was trash but not quite as noticeable. The environment changes more quickly, however, and I expect it will be even more dramatic tomorrow.

The city of Kairouan reminds me a lot of Sefrou with a Chefchaouen paint job. It’s got an old medina and a ville nouvelle, but neither is really all that interesting. Cute, though. The shops all sell things only a little different from stuff you get in the Kingdom: leather, pottery, metal, soccer jerseys. We wandered around looking for a restaurant that doesn’t exist and being taken to another that wouldn’t serve us (until later, they said), but we got to walk and stretch our legs. The atmosphere is a lot like a coastal town – Jedida, or maybe Essaouira – without much noise or traffic. We had a handful of people offer to be our guides, which I eventually convinced to go away.

Which is the last thing: language. So far, it’s been a little rough, and I think I’m really indebted to the handful of Fos-ha words I’ve picked up. I got along ok with the hotel clerk, and managed to make our self-appointed guides leave, all in Arabic (I should say, Darija). But their accents are hard to understand, and one or more may have spoken the Moroccan dialect. Mom’s right, though: it will be a serious test of my ability to put all I’ve learned to use outside of Morocco, and to see if I have something that might be of use in the future. A lot of the time, though, I’m letting Paulo use his French so that he feels more in control of what’s going on. We’ll see how that changes as we get down south and in the desert.

12 August 2009

10:25 PM. Today I went from kind-of-desert to definitely-desert – though I’d expected to hit pinnacle-of-desert at the end. Tozeur, however, is only assuredly-desert. Perhaps tomorrow, but I get ahead of myself.

We began this morning with an awful breakfast (Tunisian quince jam is no mishmash, though maybe it’s just the high-class hotel), and went to the Grand Mosque of Kairouan. It’s allegedly the fourth holiest Islamic city (after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem). That remains to be seen, but the mosque was incredible. It has spiral-ridged domes that I’ve never seen before in Morocco, though are everywhere here. As we travel, we’ve also noticed that some mosques have the three-ball crowning on their minarets, whereas others have a star and crescent. Some have both.

I also made some linguistic observations. There is no گ in Tunisian Arabic, though there is a lot of the “g” sound. They use this letter: ڨ, and don’t make “v” sounds (they just do ف like in Fos-ha). I’ve learned a few new words, like نزل for “hotel.”

And I’ve begun learning about Tunisian food. At lunch in Gafsa we ate rice, lubiya (not as good as Middle Atlas), a dish of spiced beef called kamounia (with cumin, obviously), and an eggplant salad with oil and spices called shlada meshwiya. For dinner I ate camel (not great) and tried some Tunisian tagine. It’s like a big omelette, not as good as the Moroccan kind. I did get to try the harrissa, whis is fantastic, and taste Tunisian olives, which are smaller than Moroccans and harder, but with an incredibly rich taste.

That was all in Tozeur, where we got to drive through the palm oasis and go out to watch the sun set over the shotte. Perhaps we just couldn’t see enough of the shotte to appreciate it, or the experience was altered by the artificiality of the fabulous Belvedere Rocks. We’ll get our fill of the Shotte El Jerid tomorrow as we drive over it for more than an hour.

I also bought my souvenir, which is certainly more than I should have paid, but precisely what I wanted: a turban just like the one Indiana Jones wears in Raiders of the Lost Ark (some of which was filmed here, I hear). Now I can feel like I’ve been to a desert country.

Final thoughts: Tunisia is incredibly flat, aside from the measly ridges rising out of the kind-of-desert. The rear wiper (not present) is broken on the car causing the mechanism to turn constantly and not be able to shut off. The noise that the motor makes every ten seconds or so will drive me insane before this trip is finished.

13 August 2009

9:46 PM. Today was the longest day of our Tunisian voyage so far (though tomorrow may prove to be longer), travelling from Tunisia’s almost western-most frontier to its almost eastern-most.

We left Tozeur after another pitiable breakfast, striking out from the palms and into the desert. Almost immediately we entered the Shotte El-Jerid. Here there was no vegetation – only sand and a burned out tour bus. And salt. The El-Jerid is a salt pan (or some similar geological term), as evinced by the salt creek bubbling alongside the causeway. Salt crystals form wherever the water collects, often forming a crust over the water like a layer of ice in the winter. And the water, for whatever reason, is red – ranging from a soft pink to a deep purple Kool-Aid color. And it was also here that Luke Skywalker brooded over Tataouine’s two moons, so we took plenty of angsty teenager photos.

We continued past the shotte, passing unattended grazing camels and sand/salt sculptures made to look like them until we reached the town of Douz. Douz is home to Tunisia’s largest desert date palmery and borders on quintessential Sahara desert. Mom and I took a little ride with Ali, our guide, and Ali Baba and Mohammad, our camels (mine and hers, respectively), most likely so named as soon as I asked what their names were. It was delightfully touristy, having men on horses and camels ride up and offer photograph opportunities, and men on mopeds offering coke, but they didn’t make us dress up like caravan herders like some Italians near us. And I rode a camel in the dune sea of the Sahara Desert, even if it was only a half hour in the “coastal waters.” It was pretty cool.

From Douz we started heading into the mountains and to the highlighted part of today’s trip: Matmata, Luke Skywalker’s home. The ground got at once more desert-like and more vegetated – with little oases spotting the hills and the occasional grass. We passed some troglodyte houses and finally arrived in Matmata. After completely blowing through town, we were accosted by Mustafa, a self-appointing guide who took us first to his house (to see a Berber house, I guess), and then to the Sidi Driss Hotel, where Luke lived with his aunt and uncle. It was great to walk around and see all the doors and windows I recognized. We stayed for lunch, but it never came. They had nothing in the shops about Star Wars.

So we ate elsewhere, and were treated respectfully (rather than like livestock rolling off a tour bus) and ate a lovely meal al fresco. We sampled brik, a kind of poached egg, parsley, and potatoes in an eggroll-fried crust, and Tunisia’s couscous, a bit courser than the Moroccan kind and with a spicy tomato base. Very good, though I’m partial to what I get back home. We left Star Wars country and headed on, glad to have seen it and completely ready to go.

Aside from mom being flagged over randomly by police and then sent on immediately upon being recognized as foreign, we had no incident on reaching the island of Djerba – supposedly the Land of the Lotus Eaters. (I don’t care much about Rome, but the Odyssey is my bag.) The ferry is a short fifteen minutes, and the island has a very Newport or Block Island feel. We pulled up just after sunset and walked to the port, photographed the fake pirate boats, and ate dinner. With dinner we tried ojja, another egg dish, this one of seafood with poached eggs in a tomato sauce, and had some crepes. It was delicious. We also discovered the most poorly translated menu of all time. I got one to take home.

Finally, I popped into a souvenir shop to get something for Salma and got into a fantastic conversation with Mohammad, the clerk. We talked about tea services, rosewater sprinklers, horses and elephants, and almost everything else. It was great because he definitely spoke Tunisian Arabic, but we understood each other really well.

And a final note of linguistic discovery: it may be that “g” and “k” sounds are nearly the same. The towns of Gabes and Kebili were written on street signs as ڨابس and ڨبلي , both with the Tunisian ڨ . The town of Kettana, however, starts with a ك . And ث may be pronounced like an “s.” An ice cream company, ثلجة , was written in French as “Selja.”

Somehow, while trying to operate the windshield wiper fluid, mom unintentionally shut down my nemesis: the rear wiper, which by this time in its eternal struggle with an imaginary wiper against imaginary rain had taken on the tone of a very angry machine.

14 August 2009

10:26 PM. Tonight is my last night in Tunisia – for this trip, at least. I turned out to be right yesterday when I wrote that today would be the longest drive. We went a good 400 kilometers (I think) from Houmt Souk to Nabeul, a little town part of the Hammamet touristopolis, almost all of it pretty uneventful. We rode the ferry back across from Djerba and I was almost tempted into buying a GStar hat, we drove by endless miles of olive groves and tried to photograph the little roadside gas stands, and mom got pulled over again at a random inspection stop.

Our highlight for the day was El Jem, a tiny town with the largest Roman arena in Africa (and in terms of its preservation, more glorious than the Coliseum in Rome). Approaching the town, the ruins tower over everything else, much like a modern stadium would. In fact, it was a lot like any other arena I’ve been in, aside from being 2000 years old and the site of violent ritual death. It was also absolutely amazing. You could walk up into the stands and down into the gladiator holding dungeons.

And I finally found some of those guardians of the bey to get as presents for the Assekours and Seghirs – and one for myself. I didn’t bargain any, but I got a free desert rose (I think for speaking Arabic and being Moroccan).

Finally, we drove the rest of the afternoon and into the evening to Hammamet. It turns out that this is the vacation capital of Tunisia, and was more packed with tourists – both foreign and domestic – than I’ve ever seen here in Tunisia or elsewhere. We also didn’t have a reservation anywhere, but they found a place in the sacred tour book. We spent the next hour trying to find it, learning, at this time, that it was in Nabeul, or “North Hammamet.” Eighteen kilometers later and there were more tourists, and no sign of the Hotel Alya. In the end, we settled for a different place, from a different tour book, which required driving back across Nabeul to find. We found it and had a lovely dinner on the beach. No new foods, though.

On the road, I noticed a sign for the town of Zrig, written as زريق . I don’t know if it was just missing a dot over the final ق , but if it wasn’t, it’s strange to see that letter transliterated as a “g.” I know that Kairouan is spelled القيروان .

And the biggest shock has been here in the Greater Hammamet Area: humidity. It feels like noontime in Atlanta in the middle of the night, an exaggeration only because I haven’t felt that ever while living in Morocco. I don’t know if I’m going to miss East Coast summers or not.

15 August 2009

12:14 PM. I’ve just taken my seat now on the Tunisair jet ready to take me back to Morocco. Today has been spent almost entirely in the airport, but it’s given me a chance to reflect on this experience.

I also had a most amazing encounter sitting at a little café and meeting another American – a Peace Corps volunteer just CoSed from Mauritania – sitting next to me and having the same sandwich. He’s on his way to Casablanca to see a bit of the country before returning to the States and whatever fortunes await an RPCV. We might even meet in Fes.

And now I’m here thinking about all I’ve done and seen in Tunisia. Mom made a good point last night when she said that it seemed like we’ve been doing a lot of driving, and we did that, but we also saw a lot of the country. And though we probably spent as much time each day in the car as we did out, that’s where we got to experience the desert, the mountains, the palmeries and olive groves, the little towns and homemade gas stations.

We pretty much did or saw only one thing in each city or town where we stopped, and there are plenty of places left where we never went, but I enjoyed what I saw and did. The people were friendly, and it was fun to actually be a Moroccan. I got by with Darija, which bodes well for a PC Moroccan’s chances after service when it comes to being a useful “Arabic” speaker. Almost everyone I talked to thought I’m either full-on Moroccan or that at least one of my parents has to be (usually my father if they saw me with mom).

And so the question remains: am I glad to have come? My answer is yes. Not only is it a new place to add to my list, but I’m content with the way I saw all that I did. I ate as many different Tunisian foods as possible, I spoke the closest form of the local language as I could, and I never bought anything without first learning about it. The man taught me how to wear the desert turban, my friend went to great lengths about rosewater sprinklers (and everything else in his shop), and I forwent bargaining over guardians of the bey in exchange for learning about their history. I even demanded to know the harvest year before buying a box of dates.

Would I come back? Tunisia won’t be at the top of my travel lists, but that’s because there are so many other places I still want to see. If the opportunity presents itself, I’ll certainly take it. I haven’t seen the deep desert or Cap Bon, Carthage or Tunis, and I’d like to spend more time in some of the places I did see, especially Kairouan and Djerba. All that, however, will have to wait until the next time, inshallah.

We need to start this with a brief talk about that word. “Berber” comes from the Greek word barbori, meaning “someone who does not speak Greek.” A lot of people will tell you that it comes from the word “barbarian,” though, if you think about this, that would be a little egotistical of us to think that it was English that define this ethnic group, especially as they’ve been on the world scene since long before anyone was speaking English. No, the truth is that our “barbarian” comes from the same root. This is a lot like the evolution debate. Humans aren’t descendent from monkeys – no one wants to think that – we both come from the same place. By the same token, Berbers aren’t barbarians.

Still, that hasn’t stopped a lot of people from believing that “Berber” is a derogatory term, a situation that isn’t helped by the way it’s been used in the past. Rather than represent the complex and storied culture of the indigenous peoples of Northwestern Africa, it has come to suggest all the worst of Orientalist prejudice. As a response, activists and progressives have proffered the word Amazigh, the Berber word for “Berber.” The reasoning is simple: Berbers are backwards, uneducated peasants, Amazigh are proud mountain people. Although we can disprove the origins of the word “Berber,” we can’t ignore the fact that it’s been used for the purposes of subjugating the collective consciousness of this people, and, despite the fact that the Amazigh word for “foreigner” literally means “Roman,” we can support their re-identification by using “Amazigh.”

It’s beside the point, anyway, since we’re talking about language here, and there’s really no such thing as the Amazigh language. It’s more like the scores of Amazigh languages, which is the biggest problem we have. There are some universal words, like “bread,” “water,” and “foreigner,” but where you have one ethnic identity, you actually have at least five distinct languages. In the north, most Amazigh speak Terrifite (taken from the Rif Mountains). You’ve got Tassousite in the Souss Region of the Anti-Atlas, Tashleheit in the High Atlas, and Tamazight in the Middle Atlas. Finally, there’s even a separate term for the language spoken by the Amazigh in the Sahara: Tasaharouite.

Even then you’re misleading yourself if you think that with only five languages, someone might be able to master all this. The history of the Amazigh is one of mountain isolation, and, as a result, you can go thirty kilometers down the road and you’ll find Shleu (another Amazigh word meaning “Amazigh”) saying something completely different. Some people claim that if you speak one Amazigh language natively, you can understand the gist of any, but I doubt that. I’ve seen my host brothers (who speak Tamazight) watching a tv show in Tassousite, and they have about as much clue what’s going on as I do.

Imagine then, that you’re an American Peace Corps volunteer trying to figure all this out. Youth development volunteers like myself all learn Darija, but a little more than half of the small business development, and the significant majority of health and environment volunteers I know learn to speak Amazigh. This is because we have spring and summer camps with kids from all over the country, and they tend to live in much smaller communities (and stay there). It can be a real problem, though, when they do travel. Our spring camps include volunteers from all sectors, and we were fortunate enough to have two environment volunteers who spoke Tashleheit. Unfortunately, not a single kid in camp could understand it. Granted, it was an English immersion camp, but let’s not kid ourselves, they were left to the mercy of the other volunteers whenever they wanted to say just about anything.

The worst, though, is training. You can’t go five miles without finding a new Amazigh dialect, so imagine what happens when you train in a town on one side of the country, and then find yourself serving on the other side of the mountains. Most everything you just learned has to be unlearned and then replaced with something new. This goes for grammar as well as vocabulary, since, being a proletarian household language, there aren’t really any “rules” – only generally accepted forms and structures. Anything goes, really, as long as everyone else knows what you’re trying to say. I know a guy near me who trained in the Azilal Province, and he couldn’t say anything to his host family when he showed up here, and, already three months into his Peace Corps service, he had to deal with his town asking him why he couldn’t speak.

But if it’s crippling on mobility, it makes up for it in spades when it comes to integration. If you ever wanted to ruin someone else’s service, all you have to do is show up in their site and speak the local dialect. Until that volunteer leaves, and probably longer, they’ll never hear the end of people in their site talking about that other volunteer, who came and visited for just a few hours, and how great he or she is for speaking Shleuha, more likely than not with the added “better than you.”

I don’t speak Tamazight, but I’ve learned, and Dr Peter Venkman would undoubtedly agree with me, that when someone asks you if you speak Shleuha, you say, “Yes.” At first (and we’re talking within my first days in site), I would make the very reasonable response that I’d just gotten to Morocco, that youth development volunteers need to speak Darija, that I hope to learn the one and then the other but don’t want to mix them together by learning both at the same time. “No,” they would reply. “You need to learn Amazigh.” Now, when someone asks me, I just say, “Sure, etch agharom” (“eat bread”). If they press me, “Su ahman” (“drink water”). It doesn’t matter if they just asked me if I think the weather is hot, if I want to go home to see my parents in America, if I’m on the way to the hammam, and they don’t seem to really care, either. I’ll say everything else in Darija, including “I don’t know what you’re talking about” in response to anything said in Tamazight, and I’ve never once had a person tell me that I don’t know enough. In fact, they tell their friends that I have supernatural abilities. Even if I try to say that, in reality, I only know about twenty words, they have no desire to believe in anything other than my absolute fluency.

Which, unfortunately, isn’t likely to ever actually occur. Despite the aesthetic and intellectual attraction of the Amazigh languages, they really can’t be called “essential.” Granted, there are some people here you’ll meet who don’t speak a word of Arabic, but, on the whole, that’s a very small minority. The truth is, that, being so community specific and informal, someone who speaks a dialect will invariably have to speak another language during their service. And, to top it all, the Tamazight spoken here in Freedonia is so full of Arabic that I can pretty much understand the general idea of anything that my family is talking about, as they only speak when they’re talking to me. And the few times that I’ve gone and learned something in Amazigh, I’ve come back to my host family and repeated it for them, only to be told that that’s not our Tamazight.

I’m glad I know what I do, especially when I can impress my friends here with a few words, but I don’t think I’m going to be an Amazigh scholar when all is said and done. And I don’t think my community expects me to, either. They probably won’t ever stop talking to me about how great Jawad (Josh) was for knowing how to speak Shleuha, but I think that all they really want to see is some validation of their culture. They speak Darija the majority of the time, too.

I was talking to a friend the other day about what we would title the Peace Corps chapter of our memoirs. I said mine would be “This Would All Work Perfectly If You Just Did Exactly What I Told You,” hers was “I Don’t Know, I Don’t Speak French.”

When I left to come here, I, like many others, was believed that the French language was the preferred means of communication in Morocco. In a way, that’s true. Tourist satisfaction is Morocco’s number one export, and, as French is the lingua franca of the tourism industry, which is the almost exclusively the only reason an American or other Westerner would find himself speaking to Moroccans, the vast majority of visitors can spend their entire stay in this country with nothing but Larousse’s Pocket French Dictionary to help them.

I must admit, I was pretty excited about this when I got here. I started learning French in fourth grade, continued through my senior year of high school when they had to make a new French 6 level to accommodate me, used a semester in college to test out of all my graduation language requirements, spent two weeks in high school in France and three months in college in Belgium. I have more trophies at my parents’ house for French competitions than I do for sports. I became a Francophile before I knew what the word meant. I even made my only password in French.

I hate French.

And I’m not the only one. French is probably the most difficult part of the schizophrenic relationship that volunteers have with language. The first reason is that although some of us know how to speak French, and so too do the merchants, guides, waiters, hotel clerks, and hustlers, the same is not always true off of the tourist track, and few volunteers work in towns big enough to attract many foreigners. Obviously, there are plenty of people here who do speak French – it’s taught to all students from around the same time I started to learn it – and that’s part of the problem. I went to great lengths to learn French, and I’m hardly fluent in it. What about the people who don’t feel that there’s any real benefit to knowing an imperialistic language when the can just as easily speak something else with their family, friends, and corner store clerks?

I learned this the hard way. My first day in my host family they brought over a neighbor who spoke French and we were able to talk to each other through her. That should have been my first clue, but my host sister later tried to talk with me in French (they all knew I could speak it). She asked me, “Am I tired?” or “Do I want to eat?” I don’t know, are you? Do you? It took me several days of confusion to understand that she only knew how to conjugate in the first person singular, and until I left to convey to her that it was so much more understandable to speak with her in Arabic. That way, at least, someone was speaking their first language.

But that’s a problem that goes away quickly. Before long, your Darija outstrips your French (or, at least, that of your host sister), and you don’t have to worry about it. In fact, almost everyone that you interact with on a daily basis will soon learn that everything works a lot easier when they speak to you in their local language. That doesn’t help with people you’ve never met before, and certainly not when you’re travelling.

And that’s exactly the reason that French is so conflicting for us. I find myself telling everyone, “I’m not French, please speak to me in Arabic.” But why? I’m not Arabic, either, and I know how to speak French. In fact, I can probably speak French better than I can speak Arabic (if you ignore the fact that my instinct currently is to respond in Darija, and I have to think about French before speaking), and I can certainly read it better. The obvious answer would be that I’m trying to learn Arabic, but that doesn’t account for the belligerence with which both I and my fellow volunteers respond to French.

I’ve yelled plenty at café barkers and taxi drivers that I’m not French, are they French? Why are they speaking to me in French if French isn’t there language? I’ve experienced an unnaturally high percentage of bad words associated with being spoken to in French. I really can’t explain it, but there’s little that causes more rage in the volunteer, except perhaps when, after responding in Darija to everything said in French, the other will say, “Tu parles bien l’arabe” (“You speak Arabic well,” in French). That’s when you drift off a little and see yourself breaking his head open with the bottle of Fanta sitting conveniently on the table.

This makes a lot more sense for volunteers who don’t actually know how to speak French, and legitimately have to convince the other to change languages. For others like myself, it’s probably just a product of daily hassle. For Moroccans, it’s probably the opposite. Foreigners who come here almost never speak Arabic, let alone Darija – they all just use their high school French (or, more likely, are French themselves). Tourism is huge here, but expatriatism isn’t. There’s little to no need to learn Arabic if you’re only coming for a short vacation, and experience has taught your average Moroccan guide that speaking French to the Western-looking people is a lot more successful. It’s more likely to be a matter of the other trying to make things easier for you, which happens to find itself in the 1:1000000 situation where it has the exact opposite effect.

But eventually – usually – you can get the other to start speaking Arabic. And this brings up the question of what he or she really thinks about these two languages. It’s a widely accepted belief that when bargaining with Arabic, you can get much better prices than if you speak French. That’s probably because they think you’re local and more likely know a good price from a bad one rather than being a sign of post-colonial consciousness, but the language is bigger than just the market. French is the language of sophistication, and you can often see Moroccans speaking to each other in French, or throwing French words and expressions into their otherwise Arabic sentences. Basically, what they’re saying is “I’ve got an education, and, presumably, lots of money and success. Do you?” There may be elements of this as well when they speak to us in French.

It's a hard idea to explain because it really doesn't make any sense. All I can say with certainty is that if anyone ever made something - a hat, maybe - that effectively conveyed to someone seeing it that you spoke Arabic and not French, you'd set yourself up for like just selling it to the 205 Peace Corps Morocco volunteers. In my case, I face an extra challenge in that I was placed in this site because I do speak French. My predecessor was French (though American as well, obviously), and he spoke French very frequently. They wanted someone who could deal with that precedent. I got here and decided I didn't want to speak French at all. First, it doesn't always work, and I can safely say that only about a quarter of the people I interact with here really speak French well enough. Second, I don't want to seem any more imperialistic than I already do. To me, speaking Darija is a great way to validate the people of Freedonia, and I'm happy to learn a new language while I'm doing it.

Officially, Morocco is an Arab country. Despite what many people believe, Arabic is the only official language of the country. The news, whether broadcast or in print, is in Arabic. Official proclamations are done in Arabic. Speeches are given in Arabic. Road signs and nutritional labels are written in Arabic. That’s probably not very strange to you. If you changed “Arabic” to “English,” and “Morocco” to “the United States,” you’d feel such a strong sense of “duh” that it might actually hurt. I wouldn’t recommend trying. The problem with Morocco is that pretty much no one speaks Arabic.

I should probably clarify. When I say “Arabic,” I’m referring to Modern Standard Arabic, often called “Fos-ha.” And despite the fact that many people do actually know how to speak it (it’s the language of school, as well as the language of almost all major Arabic television programs), it’s not the language of Morocco. Moroccans speak their own version, Darija Maghribia, the “Moroccan Dialect.” Everywhere you go, you hear Darija. This can be really hard for volunteers (and other Americans) who speak Standard Arabic (henceforth, Arabic). It can be hard for Arabs who come to visit the Kingdom. Darija is the language of the street, of the souks, of the young, and of the old. It’s not slang or street language or the result of poor education. Darija is the language spoken by Morocco.

But that’s also part of the problem, it’s the spoken language. Whenever anything gets written down, it’s back to Arabic. Not only does this mess with the grammar, the two languages don’t always even use the same word. Back in training we had a homework assignment to learn the names of a bunch of things in a picture. One of them was a snake. Now, I knew that “snake” is “hensh” in Darija, but there are two H-sounding letters in the Arabic alphabet, so I asked a boy how to write it. He started writing, and when he’d finished I read a word that I’d never seen before: “theu’baan.” I didn’t understand. I asked him, “This is a hensh, right?” “Yes,” he said. “But you wrote “theu’baan,” I insisted. “Yes,” he said.

It turns out that the Fos-ha word for “snake” is “theu’baan,” and, as we’ve mentioned, Darija is never written. It’s just the way it is. To this boy, it would have been as strange to him to write “hensh” as it was to me that he would write “theu’baan.” He sees the one and thinks the other. Never mind the fact that none of the three TH-sounding letters in the Arabic alphabet are used in Darija.

But it doesn’t always work out so well. I was working with some kids to make a peer tutoring program for their junior high and we needed an informational brochure to give the teachers. I don’t speak – let alone write – in Arabic, so I helped them come up with the words in Darija and let them do the translating. We were able to figure out what we wanted to say in about ten minutes, but it took another thirty or more to switch it over to Fos-ha. In fact, they may have had to take it home with them. It amazed me that these boys, who are very eloquent in their own language, would have so much trouble trying to write.

And why is this? Well, first, Arabic is an old language, and old languages often have very complicated grammar. That’s not a rule, per say, but it’s definitely true in this case. Just think of Latin, with all its genders and declensions and what have you. The course of human progress has gotten rid of most of that nonsense, and Darija is a much more modern language. It’s also been affected pretty seriously by interactions with Berber languages and French. Most Moroccans, when they can’t think of the word they want to say in one of these languages, just use the same word from another. A lot of these have caught on enough that a water faucet, for example, is a robinet. No one knows how to say that in Arabic.

A lot of Moroccans like to compare this to the relationship between British and American English, but the analogy falls short. There are significant differences between the way we speak English that go beyond the standard deviation of a mere regional dialect. I may have grown up hearing people talk about the “colah of youah apahtment,” but whether you’re from Providence, Dallas, or Vancouver, you’ll write it as the “color of your apartment.” I don’t have a “favourite colour,” and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a “flat.” These colors don’t run. That’s something we just don’t understand about each other here. We have our own English and use it for everything, they’ve got their language for speaking and another for writing. I’ve never been able to get a good answer as to why they do that, nor have I been able to satisfactorily express why we do things our way.

So, how does all this affect your volunteer? The worst is all those volunteers who wanted Morocco because they’d studied Arabic in college being crushed by the realization that they’re going to have to start from the beginning like all the rest of us. I met a couple poor suckers who were doing two-month trainings at a university in Fes to learn Arabic, learning Arabic in class but then being spoken to in Darija whenever they leave.

Then there’s all those times when you get Fos-ha instead of Darija. Whenever I tell someone I speak Arabic (which is usually a term for either Darija or Fos-ha), they start talking to me with all the complicated grammar and melodramatic inflection of Modern Standard. And, we get a lot of Syrians here in Freedonia. They come for the summer and, apparently, to dig wells. I’ve started to take it as a compliment when people speak to me in Fos-ha because they think I’m from Syria. It’s clear that my Darija isn’t my first language, but it sounds like I have at least some business speaking an Arabic-inspired dialect.

Just the other day I was having lunch with another volunteer who’d come to visit me in my site. He’d ordered a salad with his kebabs; I don’t like the mayonnaise they put on salads here, so I just got the kebabs. While we were waiting for our kebabs, he was eating the salad and we were talking. Two guys sitting next to us were talking, too. One of them leaned over and told me to eat my friend’s salad. He said, “Kool ta’am,” which means “eat the couscous.” I was a little confused because he was eating a salad, not couscous. I was also a little confused because this guy was offering me some of someone else’s lunch. I looked back and said the only thing I could think to say, “Hadshi mashi ta’am” (“This isn’t couscous”). He gave me the strangest look I’ve ever seen, and said, “But you’re Syrian, aren’t you?” I told him that no, I’m actually an American, we chatted for a few moments about where I live, and then we politely ignored each other for the rest of our lunches.

But it’s a very good example. “Ta’am” is a common Moroccan word for couscous, but the actual Darija word for it is “kus-ksu,” “Ta’am” is the Berber word for it, but it comes from Arabic originally, where it simply means “food.” (That’s got to be an anthropologist’s dream.) This guy was just telling me to eat the food, but how was I to know? We say “makla.”

We really don’t get too much Arabic, though. Not spoken to us, anyway. The hard part is the writing. People say that not too long ago there used to be a newspaper in Darija. They printed it for the foreign population who’ve learned how to speak the local dialect but don’t know anything about Fos-ha. Granted, it was in the Arabic alphabet, but the spelling, grammar, and vocabulary were that of Darija. All you had to know where the sounds of the letters. It would be great if that was still around.

As it stands, I’m functionally illiterate here, which has taught me the most important lesson of all this: illiteracy really sucks. You take for granted just how much information reading gives us access to. It’s not just the heavy, sacred tomes of The Iliad, The Wealth of Nations, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that you’re missing out on. You wouldn’t know what’s on television tonight or how much it costs to park your car. You wouldn’t be able to say you read Playboy for the articles and your wife would give you a bunch of doodles instead of a grocery list. You wouldn’t know if the aerosol can your toddler’s been sucking on is poisonous or what to do if it is. You’d have gained nothing of my wisdom since I’m not there to read this for you.

It is the ultimately humbling experience, and it makes you feel just how vulnerable you can be when you have to ask or figure everything out with only your best guesses to aid you. The only comfort is knowing that 47.7% of everyone else around you is in the same boat. On second thought, that's not very comforting at all. I guess that's why we're here in the Peace Corps.

Probably the most important aspect of life in the Peace Corps is language, especially in Morocco. Anyone you meet will gladly tell you that Morocco is a country full of languages. There’s Arabic, Moroccan Arabic (Darija), French, Spanish, English, and five major indigenous language families (Berber). Not to mention the thousands of local dialects. Morocco is home to three distinct alphabets, and even among those there are variations. Volunteers study at least one of these – often two or three – and will encounter all of them whether they want to or not.

This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now – to try and make some sense for both you and me of all this. Dealing with language is a daily struggle, in so many more ways than simply not knowing the word you’re trying to think of or someone is yelling at you. It’s not just forgetting everything you’ve learned when it starts to get around 11 o’clock at night or after you’ve been spending a little more time than usual with other volunteers and English speakers. It’s also just the shock of being in a place where people get around not all knowing the same language. It’s trying to understand the frame of mind that grows from being surrounded by so many different ways of speaking. It’s an incredible sight, and one that seems more and more foreign the more you think about it.

And now, please indulge me as I take you through a brief tour of your PCV and language.

As Ramadan draws closer, more and more conversations have taken a turn towards religion. For PCVs in Morocco, this almost exclusively means answering the Most Frequently Asked Question: Are you Muslim?

As far as I’m concerned, Islam is a beautiful religion, and, as my grandfather once put it, though referencing Catholicism at the time, those who believe have a blessing. There is, however, a rather distinct gulf between the American-Western and Moroccan-Islamic conceptions of belief. Islam is the state religion of Morocco, and roughly 98.7% of the kingdom’s citizens are Muslim. The percentage of Muslim Peace Corps Morocco volunteers is significantly lower, and, thus, many who respond truthfully to the above question are then queried with the Second Most Frequently Asked Question: Why not?

Proselytizing is forbidden within Morocco, but, despite the fact that the Qur’an states: “There is no compulsion in religion” (a very well-established prohibition on proselytizing), Islam is excepted from this law. This is probably due to a different proclamation to the effect that anyone who brings another into the fold of Islam is going to Heaven. There’s a fine line between violating someone’s freedom of conscience and a little friendly concern for another’s eternal soul.

Whatever the reason, discussing your religious views can be a daily struggle. Every volunteer handles it differently, and every instance is unique. Sometimes it’s interesting to get into a conversation about theological relativism. Some of the most fascinating chats I’ve had have been on the tenets of the Islamic faith. A lot of the time it’s doing your best to politely – or not – change the subject from a zealot’s conversion pitch.

Aside from the Most Frequently Asked Questions we get a lot of: “What do you think of Islam?” “Is Islam a beautiful religion?” “Don’t you want to go to Heaven?” Some people ask you to say the Shahada (testament of faith), one of the Five Pillars of Islam and the necessary assertion for submitting to Islam. Others will try to trick you into saying it. They’ll say, “Repeat after me: ‘la ilaha ilallah’ (there is no god but God), ‘wa ana Muhammad urasul allah’ (and Mohammad is His messenger).” Most volunteers don’t, and are often met by a grin that seems to say, “Touché, but I almost got you.”

Once, in a taxi, an older woman asked me about religion. She was curious because I had been speaking Darija. Morocco gets plenty of visitors, but almost none of them speak Arabic unless they’ve come to learn about Islam, become a Muslim, or marry a Moroccan girl (which requires conversion). I tried to employ Peace Corps’s go-to training: “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” It’s never worked. She asked me a simple question: “Is there God?” In the land of the pious, that’s an easy question. She followed it up with a much trickier one: “Is there Muhammad.” “Yes” could imply that he was as the Qur’an and Hadith state, or that he was simply a real man who did important things. “No,” would almost certainly be a denial of Islam. They cheered like I’d just been born again.

The absolute most incredible happened this past week. Freedonia gets a lot of summer tourist traffic, and a volunteer friend and I were waiting for a third in a little tagine bazaar. We decided to peruse the wares, and stopped to admire some dishes that we’d normally want to call “casseroles.”

“What do you cook in this?” we asked. “Fish,” replied the merchant. “Or lasagna,” I added, chuckling more so that he’d know it was a joke than because it was particularly funny. He didn’t laugh. Instead, he responded with “Are you Muslim?”

And there we were. Now, my companion had told me how he’d recently tried to explain the complexities of his faith to a taxi driver – “I see the good of many religions but don’t follow any one path” – and this had been met by the driver’s nearly not taking him all the way to his final destination. Perhaps he was looking for a validation of his beliefs, so he tried to explain this to our friend the casserole merchant. Once again, this line of argument proved unsuccessful, as our new friend countered with “Islam is the best.”

I’m not one to get involved in theological relativism, but I’m Western enough to think it’s impolite to push your religion on someone and I’m getting awfully tired of talking about my religion so much with people I’ve never met before. I found myself facing a choice that every volunteer finds on an almost daily basis: to roll your eyes and say “sure, whatever” or to accept the linguistic and cross-cultural struggle to stand for what you really believe in. I chose the latter.

And so I pointed out to the man that the Qur’an states that followers of all Abrahamic faiths are on the same path. Granted, it often refers to the Christians as “those who have lost their way” and the Jews as “those who have incurred God’s wrath,” but they and the Saidians (who don’t exist anymore) are all destined to walk in the same Paradise as the Muslims. I didn’t add this point – I didn’t have the chance to. He repeated his earlier position that “Islam is best,” we tried to diplomatically and using Qur’anic truth remove ourselves from the conversation. He once more averred (and loudly this time) that “Islam is best,” and, to make his point all the more clear, he took the casserole dish he had been holding in his hands all this time, and brought it down forcefully on his head, smashing it into pieces.

There was clearly no more need to argue, and my friend and I walked away. It was an experience both daily and unique. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to explain my religious views, or the number of uncomfortable theological conversations I’ve had thrust upon me. I’d never seen that before, though, nor have I ever found myself in a religious debate where the other demanded that I agree with him. That’s rare, and I don’t want to give the impression that Moroccans, though pious verging on zeal, are close-minded.

I did learn one thing, though. Those casseroles he had, apparently they break pretty easily. It’s too bad, I’d been thinking about buying one.

I’ve been living with Amal, my cat, for about six months now, and I’ve made some pretty surprising observations. Amal is certainly not the first cat I’ve ever had, but she’s not like any other. I’d have to say that she’s a sweet kitten, but it’s just as often that I want throw her across the room. It’s not that she bites and scratches – sometimes from playing, sometimes just from pure evil – or that she wants to eat my bread, eggs, or dairy products, it’s her determination she exhibits when going after these things. You take her off the counter and she’s right back. You throw her across the room and she’s back biting your ankles before you can turn around. You pull her away from the cheese, and she’ll fight for it like a wounded badger. I’m not really used to this in a house cat.

But then again, maybe she isn’t really a house cat. I mean, the cats we keep at home are the product of generations upon generations of domestication. How far back in their ancestry do you think you have to go before you find one that lived out there fending for itself – either in the wild or the rat race of human civilization? Every cat I’ve ever had has come from either the pound or someone who forgot to heed Bob Barker’s sage advice, and there are plenty of others getting thoroughbred pets. There are cats out here that live with families, and some get fed, but it’s generally just table scraps. Some are allowed inside, but there are scant few that get inoculations or fixed.

So what’s this got to do with my cat? Well, Amal was born to a cat that lives in a carpet shop. I don’t know how many generations back this goes, but I’m fairly confident in saying that Minoosh, her mother, has at best a symbiotic relationship with the shopkeeper; she’s not domestic. Amal spent her first two months romping through the carpets and other tourist souvenirs, eating whatever she found and running away from the people she saw.

That’s why she has to be rated as a good cat. She’s the tamed savage, the disarmed warrior. She may be a demonspawn that has scarred my arms and feet, that regularly draws blood without any warning at all, but she’ll come over and snuggle you without any instigation, as well. Granted, you’ll eventually be digging her teeth out of your flesh, but that’s her nature. That’s to be expected. She’ll also nudge you awake in the morning to cuddle and be petted. It’s contrary to her instinct, and therefore virtuous.

She’s not going to win any blue ribbons, but she’s not going to roll over and play dead, either, and I guess that’s worth a few scratches.

Alice Cooper once said, “School’s out for summer; school’s out forever; school’s been blown to pieces.” Of the above, at least 33% is true right now of Morocco, and when there’s no school, there’s camp.

For Peace Corps volunteers, particularly in youth development, this means El Jedida. El Jedida, once a Portuguese coastal fortress, is now a quaint sea town known for its beaches, its fish, its colonial medina and cistern, and the El Jedida English Immersion Summer Camp. For the past five years or so, every youth development volunteer has spent from two to eight weeks with the children of Morocco, teaching them English, taking them to the beach, encouraging them to rise and shine in the morning, guiding them through science and theatre clubs, and staging mock Halloweens.

The summer can be pretty slow for YD with Dar Shebabs closed and organizations (and youth) on vacation. It can also be a pretty miserable place to live with temperatures above the 100s for months on end (not the case in Freedonia, but we’ve already established that the weather here is significantly cooler than you’d expect from Morocco). El Jedida is not only a welcome breeze and a cool ocean, it’s also a place where you can relax your cultural integration and spend time with a dozen other Americans who’ve been similarly starved of the English language. You can finally speak an intelligible sentence (given a few days of recuperation), tell a joke that people will get without having it be explained to them, and comment on one another’s mothers without really offending someone.

And let’s not forget the children. We’ve talked about how each volunteer gets to send a group of scholarshipped youth to the camp. The other half of the camp is kids who paid their way, mostly from Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakesh, and the other major cities. It’s amazing to see the difference between these (often) Westernized city folk and the (generally) country youth that come from Peace Corps sites, but incredible when you see them generally getting along with each other. Sure, the cityites tend to couple off into forbidden romances (which, thank The Maker, are not the responsibility of PCVs to deal with) and the (typically) more conservative free riders don’t, but at the end of the week party they all dance to both tecktonik and sha’abia, and they all want to come back next year.

As you might guess, I love camp. I love seeing my fellow volunteers, getting to see new places, and getting to interact with new kids. I did an earlier camp in spring in Khemisset, and I’m helping with another camp now in Freedonia. Summer camp probably rates in the middle in terms of the experience. It’s hot in El Jedida, and the water seems to have made everyone sick, but I found myself with a great group of kids. Khemisset was probably the best only because my English class was a high intermediate level (something I haven’t taught since I left my last job back in Franklin, Massachusetts), and the kids were there because they wanted to learn (something I also hadn’t really had since Franklin). In Jedida they were the lowest beginners, which meant some really enthusiastic learners and a fair portion that were at camp for everything else. We got along fine, but it was nothing new.

We also had the pleasure of meeting the Minister of Youth and Sports herself, Ms Nawal El Moutawakel. That was pretty cool, and I got to shake her hand and explain why the game Clue is useful English-language training, but it was also a bit of a frustration. The camp director told us just after lunch that the minister would be coming, so we prepared a “model camp.” This is when the kids are divided into groups to demonstrate a full day’s worth of activities simultaneously so that Moroccan bureaucrats can feel secure in their positions within the ministry. We had an advanced-level class, a sports group, theatre and science clubs, some guitar lessons, and a few library patrons. That’s where I was, teaching a couple kids how to play Clue and trying to keep my references to Tim Curry and Madeline Khan to a minimum. We finished our first game and they had a general hang of what was going on, so we did one more just to solidify their understanding. That one finished, too, and the kids started looking around for something else, but the minister was not there yet, so we were commanded to give it another go.

Four hours after opening our package from the Parker Brothers, Ms El Moutawakel pulled up, toured our library, shook my hand, told the children that, if they were lucky, they might learn enough English to visit me in New Jersey, continued her inspections, posed for a photo, and left. Obviously, she’s a quite important woman, and certainly busy. As far as I know, this was the first time she’d ever visited the joint venture between the Peace Corps and Ministry of Youth and Sports. Still, you have to feel bad for the kids who sat through a one-hour English class for four hours, or the basketball players forced to continue their lay-ups in the summer heat. That’s what happens, I guess, when low-level minions find themselves under the boss’s hammer. The worst, though, are the two poor boys who were on the computers. No child was ever allowed to use them during camp – but the minister was certainly not going to learn that – so they assigned two to sit in front and make like they were learning something with the help of advanced technology. You know that these two strutted like prize turkeys in front of everyone else. Then they found out it was Thanksgiving; they had to sit and copy documents into a Word file over and over and over again. One practically got expelled when he was seen playing a game of Solitaire. That’s one way to encourage kids to pick up a book.

And that wasn’t all the visiting we got. A news team from Moroccan television’s Channel 4 spent the better part of the week with us, recording almost everything that we did that took place in the tent closest to the pool table where the crew liked to spend every available moment loosing their change. They were pretty cool, though, and even stayed around for Halloween. By the time we’d turned off the haunted house, the cute little reporter’s face was painted up like Tim Burton’s worst nightmare, and the cameramen were locked in an apple-bobbing blood feud. And she came back the next evening to get everyone’s digits for future news reporting (though I have a strong feeling that she won’t be making it out into the countryside hamlets we surprised on her when she asked), and ended up dancing the night away with the kids at their last night hootenanny.

Camp started out on a pretty rough note. I had the pleasure of enduring a five-hour train ride in 90+ degree stagnation and a good 100% humidity, learning that El Jedida is not a good place to have a cool glass of water, and remembering that every time I sat down for a meal in the cafeteria. But the city is pretty funky, I got to be named Duncan for twelve days in a row, Halloween is my favorite holiday (we succeeded in getting a handful of kids in tears from the shear terror of our haunted staff room), I hadn’t seen some of the other volunteers since before swearing-in, and, like an amateur summer production of 12 Angry Men, the weather was pleasant and cool as I rode the train back home. I’m happy to be back here in Freedonia, but I miss Jedida already.

Only eleven-and-a-half months to go before we do it again.

Two volunteers serving in Cameroon passed through my site on their vacation. They told me stories about their lives in the Peace Corps and I told them about mine. It wasn’t too long ago, so pretty much most of it is still sticking with me, but I particularly remember a story about their crooked police. It seems that out there, if you want any kind of service, you have to grease the wheels. So much so that volunteers are discouraged from dealing with them at all.

Our gendarmes (sheriffs, basically) aren’t the straightest, either, but the government has scared them into taking care of us volunteers with threats of being sent to the Western Sahara if we have any problems. That doesn’t mean, though, that we don’t have to deal with the ugly face of corruption, it just comes in different forms. Here’s my story.

Youth development volunteers in Morocco spend the summer (part of it, at least) working at an English-immersion summer camp. Undoubtedly, we’ll talk more about that later, but suffice it to say that the camp is expensive enough that most of your average Moroccan kids can’t afford to go. That’s where the US government comes in. Each YD volunteer is granted scholarships to send four kids from their site to camp, all expenses paid.

It’s a big deal out here in Freedonia, especially since the same deal went down with the previous volunteer for at least the last two years, and everyone gets excited. Kids I’ve told about the scholarships, kids who’ve received them in the past, and kids I’ve never even met before will find their way up to me asking for a spot. And it’s not just the kids who’re asking, either. I get my fair share of parents, organization leaders, and other interested parties knocking on my door, too.

The way the scholarships work is that they’re a gift from the people of America to the children of Morocco, transmitted by means of the discretion and experience of the Peace Corps volunteer. They are supposed to be given to youth who both show an interest in learning the English language and would otherwise not be able to experience something like this camp.

Some community members have other designs. For example, the director of my Dar Shebab, like many of his colleagues, expected to be able to give these spots to his own designees, notably his two daughters. He announced this plan unilaterally to his wife while I happened to be around. He wasn’t talking to me, I just understand sufficient Arabic.

A friend of mine from another group who works in the Dar Shebab came and asked me for a spot for one of his kids. I told him that they were intended for kids who showed an interest in learning English, such as the ones who came to our classes since I came here. He argued that the spots should be distributed democratically throughout the Dar Shebab. I told him that that’s not the point of them, and that there weren’t any left anyway. The director of that group came and asked for one of the scholarships. I repeated that there weren’t any left. He countered that he’s my friend, so I should be able to find something.

My host mom asked me why I hadn’t come over for couscous on Friday and I told her it was because I had had to ride to the outskirts of town delivering applications to two of my selected students. She asked me why I hadn’t given one of the spaces to my cousin. I wondered why I would even consider giving a folder to someone who never even darkened the door of the Dar Shebab. She asked me why I forgot about my family and told her that I had to start looking at students from my English class.

It’s all so surreal. On the one hand, we’re talking about a Peace Corps-run summer camp; these aren’t construction permits or seats in Parliament. On the other hand, however, it gets right to the heart of a culture of corruption and nepotism. The director of the ministerial youth center, the leaders of a youth development organization, and the people who’ve been taught more about the goals and responsibilities of Peace Corps volunteers than anyone else are the first to ask for a kickback.

Is it their fault? That’s hard to say. It’s a system in which employment and other opportunities are limited, and the best way to get your name on the list is to know the guy writing it. At the same time, however, I don’t think it would be imperialistic of me to say that Morocco – or anywhere else – would benefit much more from a system of meritocracy.

And what I am to do in the middle of it all? My Peace Corps superiors have offered to distract such attention by suggesting that I pass the decision along to them and allow them to be ignored and forgotten or rejected. That’s not my plan, though. I’m happy to take the hard-line position, to scorch my bridges (this probably isn’t serious enough to actually qualify as “burning”), to take on their disappointment and reject them myself. I mean, it’s a lot easier for me to say “I’ll see what I can do” and then simply not, but I think it would be a disservice to my community to give such tacit support to this very mild example of one of the greatest ailments of the developing world.

And, to be sure, it’s stressful, but it’s far more empowering to see myself taking a stand for justice and fairness. Besides, I can always watch my illegally downloaded copy of The Untouchables to recapture that Elliot Ness tenacity. If there’s anyone who’s as squeaky clean as Kevin Costner, it’s a Peace Corps volunteer.

Morocco just recently sprang forward an hour, which, aside from ruining my sleep the following morning, has been one of the most amazing cultural experiences of my service.

I’ve heard competing explanations as to why the kingdom felt this necessary. The one I like the best has to do with making our time more parallel with that of France for the ease of summer tourists. It’s also one of the best ways – if done correctly – for a society to conserve energy. Regardless, the sun now rises a little later in the morning and sets at almost nine in the evening, and I’m a lot more willing to run with the girls from the women’s association in the morning and to toss the frisbee with my English students at the Dar Shebab in the evening.

In all other ways, however, this time change has been the most stressful event I’ve dealt with since I got over my bone-itis. You see, the government, television channels, business professionals, organizations, Peace Corps volunteers, and other civically-minded individuals have added an hour to their watches; everyone else hasn’t. As a result, we have the conundrum of “New Time” and “Old Time.”

“New Time” is a reference to the current official time (as of this month), whereas “Old Time” quite naturally refers to what the time would have been if the clocks had not been changed. This commonly arises in conversation in the following manner: “Let’s meet at 6:30 to talk about how to solve all of the community’s problems.” “Great. New Time or Old Time?”

There are two problems, however, with the concept of new and old times, aside from its inherent ridiculousness. First, to be able to conceptualize “Old Time,” you have to be aware of the existence of “new time.” This creates a situation similar to that of the proactive employee who sets the clock in his car ahead 15 minutes so as to always be on time, but, because he knows that he really has an additional quarter of an hour (and thus really works from 9:15 – 5:15 and is early if he gets to work at 9:00), defeats himself and still arrives late. It would only make sense if he didn’t know about the time change, consequently not knowing about “New Time,” and, as a result, he’ll always show up an hour late.

Which brings us to the second problem. In practice, it doesn’t really matter if you say “New Time” or “Old Time;” it’s just as likely that they won’t show up all. This could be that New Time is more conducive to playing outside and enjoying yourself, as is the current weather, but my experience is that a meeting set in New Time is going to result in a non-event at either the time appointed or an hour later.

And this is the way I imagine it's going to be for the next two months, until the beginning of Ramadan when the clock is changed back (no one wants to wait until a 9 o'clock sunset to eat). Maybe then we'll have "New Old Time" and "Old New Time." That'll make it easy to get things done.

Rabat, the capital of Morocco, is a complicated city. It is here that you will find the king’s main palace (off-limits to tourists and citizens, alike), the administrative heart of the Moroccan government, the foreign diplomatic and ex-patriot community, and, most importantly, the Peace Corps Morocco headquarters.

Some sources give Rabat a bad name for being “un-Moroccan.” This is probably because its present form was built mostly by the French and it has a very European style, and is partly why so many volunteers like to come here for a break from their sites (that, and the free internet in the volunteer’s lounge). It’s also a lot more relaxed in terms of tourist hassling, most likely the result of so many foreigners being here for business, not to take in the sights. And it’s significantly more expensive than other Moroccan cities, enough so that the Peace Corps allows a higher expense reimbursement for this city only.

But Rabat has a significant history behind it, as well, and has played its role in the development of Morocco long before the French. Artifacts from prehistoric settlements can be found in Rabat’s Archaeological Museum (which is mildly interesting, but not really worth the entrance fee unless you really don’t have anything else to do), and one of Rabat’s most spectacular monuments, the Shellah, was established before the arrival of the Romans, and is where we’ll begin talking about the city.

The Shellah (in French, Chellah, but we’ve talked about “ch” before) is a little outside the walls of the city, but only about a twenty minute walk from the Hotel Velleda, Peace Corps Morocco’s unofficial sponsor. Any given day you can find at least two volunteers staying there. When you get to the Shellah, you’ll see massive gates that are significantly bigger than anything within them, which open onto a lush tropical garden. A path leads you downhill until you come upon the citadel itself. There is a small section of Roman ruins that are mostly just stones in the general outline of foundations, but the highlight is the mosque-monastery ruin at the center. Most of it has been filled in with the tombs of past royal families. What makes the Shellah really unique, though, as a ruin, is a small pool off to the side. The water is inhabited by eels that are considered sacred and petitioned to with hard-boiled eggs by women having difficulty giving birth, and the water is littered with coins. There’s also a sort of stray cat colony living in the site and an old cat lady taking care of them.

Number two on your list should definitely be the Oudaia. This small enclosure was the original fortified Kasbah (a ribat, from which the city gets its name) of the Almohad dynasty for their conquest of Spain, and a semi-autonomous pirate colony. The streets look like a middling recreation of Chefchaouen’s blue and white, but you’re not likely to notice when distracted by the beautiful ocean view, spectacular ceremonial gate, and immaculate Andalusian garden.

There are a fair number of hustlers hanging about, but they’ll always be my favorites in Morocco. I first came to the Oudaia on a trip to Rabat to assist in a women’s 8k race (I had won a scholarship to send two kids from Freedonia), and we took them on a tour of the city the day before the race. Obviously, when you have some 50 kids between the ages of 14 and 16 wandering through the capital city, you have to make them all wear the same thing, which happened to be a gray t-shirt and shorts sponsored by the American embassy, with the American and Moroccan flags on it. And so, the hustlers saw a bunch of kids all wearing American flags, kids who, due to their more rural origins, had the demeanor of your typical tourist rube, and started speaking to them in English. Of course, none of the kids understood English, which made them retreat even more. Another volunteer and I had to step in and explain in Arabic that we were the Americans and these kids, to whom they were speaking in English, were Moroccan and neither speak English nor need any of their services. One of my top five moments as a volunteer.

Your last big sight is the biggest in Rabat: the Hassan Tower and Mausoleum. The tower is actually the never-completed minaret of what would have been one of the largest mosques in the world, and the columns around the plaza held up its roof until an earthquake brought it down in the 18th Century. And it is here, across from the tower, that Mohammad V, the first king of the modern independent Morocco, lies enshrined in his tomb along side his sons Hassan II and Prince Abdellah. There are fancily decorated guards all around the place who seem as much there to maintain order as they are to pose for photographs, predominately with Moroccans.

Most volunteers, however, will enjoy these once or twice and then spend the rest of their trips to Rabat focused on the nightlife. There are plenty of bars and nightclubs – and certainly a lot more than you’re likely to find in your site – but bars and nightclubs in Morocco can be some of the shadiest places in the world. Pretty much all the guys are drug dealers for some Eastern European mafia (or wish they were), and just about all the ladies there are on the job. It’s not the same nightlife experience that you’re used to from back home, which is the only real reason to go to the club in Morocco. That’s why you go to either of the two American places: the Marine House or the American Club.

I’ve never been to the Marine House (which, in case you were wondering, is where the marines who guard the embassy live), but I have read their invitations to Super Bowl parties. Maybe next year. The American Club sounds like the sort of place that would have dark rooms, high winged-back chairs, cigar smoke, and lots of port. In truth, it’s a lot like Rick’s Café in Casablanca; it has a cute garden patio, good lighting, overpriced drinks, and little to spark a poetic imagination. My only real experience with the American Club has been trying to find it in the middle of the night, walking halfway across Rabat, getting really bad directions, and finding myself in some pretty shady neighborhoods (the American Club is in a really nice area, that’s just a demonstration of how lost I was). Fortunately, all incoming volunteers are automatically added to the list, and when I got there my friends were still about five minutes away from leaving.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that of all the major cities I've been to in Morocco, Rabat is the number one of all them that I would want to live in if I were ever to come back here in the future. It's got a relaxed atmosphere but things to do, ancient ruins and grocery stores, mint tea and real hamburgers, and the marines play flag football on Super Bowl Sunday.

The other day I pumped up my new football. I’ve got big plans of teaching and playing a lot American sports this summer, so I had a bunch of frisbees, baseball equipment, and a football sent out to me. A few minutes later, I realized that I had just been sitting there holding the football, feeling the grip and 7-9 PSI of air pressure. It just made me feel American having it in my hands.

Then I heard the tea kettle overflowing on the stove and remembered that I’m Moroccan.

It was early Sunday morning when our heroes woke up to leave Freedonia; it was getting close to ten o’clock when they actually left. This was due to going over to the host family house one last time – ostensibly to give them the key so as to take care of Amal – but also to have a delicious breakfast of Mama Mahjouba’s beignets. We were soon on the road, however, and just a little after noon found ourselves in Moulay Idriss, the small village just a few miles away from the ancient Roman ruins of Volubilis.

Volubilis can be a tricky place to get to. First, because the Moroccan name for the site is Welili and it’s hard enough for your accent to be understood when you’re saying the right word, and, second, because only tourists really ever go, and the taxi drivers are fully prepared to charge you out the nose to get there. If you go straight from Meknes, you’ll probably pay around 300 dirham, but if you go to Moulay Idriss – only a 10 dirham ride – you can catch a shared taxi for 30 dirham. That’s what we did. And we had lunch, Salma’s first prune and mutton tagine, essentially the filet mignon of Morocco.

My host brother Mohammad, when we told them that morning that we were on our way to Volubilis, replied that “it’s just a bunch of rocks.” This is true, but what I couldn’t convey to him at that time is that they’re ancient rocks, some of which are carved into delicate Corinthian columns or aligned in beautiful mosaics, and supercool. We spent a while talking about what it is that leads people to go wander among the ruins of the past, and, to be honest, we never really came up with a good answer. Most of what we were looking at were just ordinary people’s olive presses. But the truth is that it’s fascinating, and perhaps our answer is that we just want to know, and to feel a connection with something we understand but still can’t quite imagine. Maybe it’s just to see the rocks.

Whatever it is, we had stayed too long, and still had to get ourselves to the quaint village of Chefchaouen before dark. The problem was that to go anywhere other than Meknes from Moulay Idriss requires hiring a private cab, and, as a result, paying like a tourist. By absolute chance, however, a taxi was filling to go to Sidi Kacem, a city very comparable to Newark, but best known for having a train station on the route to Tangier, the city we were planning to visit after Chefchaouen. We decided to go a little crazy and switch up the tour schedule and go there first. A 45-minute taxi ride later, and we were sitting in the station waiting for the last train out, which, after breaking down for several hours, disembarked us in Tangier at around 12:30.

Now, we had never made reservations anywhere else and hadn’t had any difficulties, but, it being the middle of the night, we decided to play it safe and go to one of the higher-end hotels nearish to the station. We got in the taxi and told the guy to take us to Solazur. He said, “Sure.” We got there, and he asked, “This is Solazur. You want to get out here?” We nodded a sort of “duh, that’s what we said,” paid, got out, walked across the street, watched the taxi drive away, and noticed large signs on all of the doors saying Closed for Reconstruction. And so, there we were, standing on the main tourist strip of a city known for its hustlers, shadiness, and beaches (and hash), holding onto large tourist suitcases and genuinely looking lost, and without a place to stay in the middle of the night. (I’m pretty sure that’s the name of a country and western song, actually.) Then we saw the big red sign up the street of the Ramada hotel.

Ramada is a nice hotel in the States, but it’s a five-star luxury resort in Morocco. It was like a beacon of hope; an outlandishly expensive, completely beyond our means beacon of hope. We decided to go. Not at first, of course, but I rationalized that at the least we could explain our situation and ask for help in finding a new place. We did that. Salma reasoned that, since we were there anyway, we might as well ask how much a room would be. We did that, too. The guy told us that he had a lower-quality room for a little more than half the usual price (I’m not going to tell you how much it was). We pretended like we were considering it although we were really only waiting for the other to say okay. Let me tell you, there is a real difference between five stars and a bargain traveler’s hostel.

The rest of Tangier was mostly just a relaxing weekend after the stress of Freedonia. We got to stroll through the old medina, which is nice, and walk along the beach, which was still rather cold. The highlight for us was a little Scottish church in the center of town. Despite the fact that cars and people were going by outside, you couldn’t hear any of it in the church garden. It was like being in another world. We also made excellent friends with the guys at Hamborger Stop right down the street from the hotel, and ate there for pretty much every meal of our abbreviated stay.

And now it was time to go back to Chefchaouen. We took the CTM bus and pulled up a little after noon and again were met by someone representing a hotel. A British tourist going the other way told us to trust them, though, so we did, and it turned out to be the main hotel for volunteers (none were there when we were, though). The price was having to go to the guy’s “artisana” (shop) and listen to his brother chat with us and act like he respected how we told him that we didn’t want to buy anything. He was a nice guy; we just weren’t interested.

Eventually we got out and took a romp around the old town. Chefchaouen is most famous for being the “chillest place in Morocco” and a number one favorite of volunteers. I’d say it’s adorable, though there really isn’t a whole lot to do there if you only have a day (with more time you could take some allegedly fantastic hikes in the mountains just outside). One great thing about it, though, is that you can’t get lost in the medina. No matter where you turn, all directions lead back to the center. And these alleyways are what make Chefchaouen so distinctive because they’re all done in a peaceful blue and white wash. It was here, walking along through the heart of Chefchaouen, that Salma and I had our most memorable experience. A handful of kids were selling some kind of food on the side of the road, and, it being in the Geneva Convention to always purchase what little kids are selling on the side of the road, we got one. It seemed like a type of sweet bread from the looks of it, with a slight quiche-ish quality, but it wasn’t. Oh, no. I have no idea what it’s called – Salma likes to say “gelatinous salt” – but it will haunt me for the rest of my life. I’ll never buy anything from little kids again.

So we left for Rabat. Salma almost got herself on the wrong bus a stopover halfway there, but we got to the capital city without any problems. Rabat is unlike any other major city in Morocco in that it was developed pretty much exclusively by the French, and it really feels like being in a European city. It was also incredibly hot, so we headed down to the ocean and one of the coolest places in the city, the Oudaia.

Granted, the Oudaia is known for its adorable streets of blue and white wash, and we just came from Chefchaouen, but it’s so beautiful looking out over the ocean. Plus, we got to fight with some of the henna ladies who are incredibly pushy about decorating you. (They say it’s a “cadeau,” but it’s a “cadeau” you then get pressured into paying for.) We also took a long walk through the medina, and I suddenly became a tourist and bought everything I saw. I’m not sure what came over me, but it was a lot of fun. I rationalized most of it as being clothes for summer camp in Jedida (on the beach, we’ll talk about that later), but I think I was really just getting jealous of the souvenirs we were buying for Salma and other people. I’m probably not going to use a mirror shaped like a traditional Moroccan door in Jedida.

Our second day we spent most of the morning at the Peace Corps office taking care of a little business and introducing Salma to my “family.” As usual, my friends seemed to like her more than they like me, and so we left and went back to the medina. This time, Salma bought everything that she saw.

We reserved Friday for seeing the main highlights of Rabat, starting with the ancient settlement of the Shellah. I have to confess that I am a bit of a romantic, and I love nothing more than the Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider adventure of walking into an overgrown ruin, climbing through it, exploring the unexplored corners, pretending that there might be unexplored corners at a major tourist stop, and feeling supercool. It was also my first time going there, which was not the case with our next stop, the Hassan Tower. The walk was a lot longer to get there than I had thought, so we were fairly tired and ready to sit and/or eat something, but it’s still incredible to see the partly built tower of what would have been one of the biggest mosques in the world.

That night we thought about seeing a concert of the just opening Mawazine festival (which went on to make quite some news later the next week), but time didn’t allow. We did stop at our two favorite spots, the medina – this time we got to see a police raid against venders sticking their wares in the street – and the Oudaia Park. The next morning we walked around a little bit, and then caught the train to our final city: Casablanca.

Clever people and guidebooks like to point out the fact that the movie, Casablanca, perhaps the most well-known aspect of Morocco among Americans, was filmed entirely on a soundstage. There are only two things similar between the city and the movie (aside from the name): they both have a restaurant called Rick’s, and there’s nothing for people to do there but sit around and wait. Which is mostly what we did. Our only real reason for being there was for Salma to catch her plane two days later in the morning and we didn’t want to have to worry about travelling the day before. Now, don’t get me wrong, we had fun in Casablanca, it’s just that if you have a choice between watching the movie and visiting the city, the movie is better.

So we saw what we could, but Casablanca is very much like Houston; it’s really big and there are a lot of people who live there, but as hard as it tries, there’s really nothing interesting to see. But we saw all there was. We went to the Mohammad V Park and saw the cathedral that resembles a beautiful example of Communist Industrial Architecture, and we walked through the old medina (about the size of a small grocery store) to get to the Hassan II Mosque, the second largest Islamic building in the world and the only mosque in Morocco that allows admittance to non-Muslims. Unfortunately, non-believers have to pay 120 dirham each for the tour, so we decided to skip that. We even went to Rick’s Café to take some photos, but here even the faithful have to cough up a good 150 dirham for dinner.

We found a movie theatre near the hotel and watched Angels and Demons in French, and had an amazing cross-cultural experience. We bought our tickets for a show scheduled to start about 20 minutes later, and the ticket-taker opened the door for us and showed us to a seat. It was a little odd, since she was using a flashlight and there seemed to be a film showing on the screen, but we thought that maybe the lights were out on purpose to show previews. A lot of previews. That was until we noticed that it was a “preview” also starring Tom Hanks, and he seemed to be reprising what we expected to be more or less exactly his role in Angels and Demons. No, it was the end of the previous showing, so we got out to wait for the beginning of ours. This was the shock. All the people working at the cinema were accommodating, but not a single one of them – or the 20-30 other patrons who came while we were waiting – thought it was normal to wait for the start of the movie. You start watching when you get there, and you stop watching when you get tired of watching. It doesn’t really matter where you start in the story since a good 60% of the people watching are really only there to make out with whoever came with them.

And then it was three o’clock in the morning, May 18th, and we were getting up to get Salma to the airport. She flew out at 8, I had already caught the fast train back to Fes, and by early afternoon I was standing in my house in Freedonia, a little stunned, but feeling fantastic about everything I had just seen and done.

Last time, we were talking about the difficulties of integrating into the community and finding a groove with development work. To date, this is still a constant effort, and I’m starting to get the feeling that it may be that way for the remaining year and a half I have left of service. Speaking of which, I have now been in site for a touch over six months, and in Morocco for just about nine, which is the longest I have ever been out of the States in my life. Granted, that was true about five months ago, but who’s counting?

And so, what is life like for a volunteer nine months on? Well, it’s slow, but it’s a lot more grooved than it used to be. I still mainly only teach classes, but it’s not exclusive anymore. And this is mostly due to something called PACA.

PACA, or Participatory Analysis for Community Action, is the Peace Corps’ series of surveys designed to help new volunteers assess their sites’ strengths, weaknesses, and potential for development, while simultaneously assisting in their integration. In theory, anyway. Really, it’s mostly just a handful of questions that most community members don’t really understand the point of, leading most to simply ask you, the volunteer, to give them computers. It does get people thinking about their town, though, which is crucial to any sort of sustainable development. The trick is, you have to get them to look at their homes and see not only the problems but also the solutions, and not only the solutions but also the practical solutions that are within their power. In my experience, it’s not majority response, but it only takes a handful. I don’t know what I’d do if I had everyone coming to me with project ideas; I’m busy enough as it is.

Which leads us to what’s going on here. Ever since my PACA work at the Dar Shebab, I’ve gotten little to nothing from the guys there. Unfortunately, I’ve learned in the past few months that although there are many associations working out of the center, there are just about zero of them that like to work with anyone else. This has led us to a lot of slowdown in terms of activities here. Ever since my PACA at the Nedi Neswi (the women’s association – I haven’t mentioned them much, but I also teach English there) I’ve started three clubs with the girls, so I’ll with that as I work my down the list of work.

My first day at the Nedi I tried to explain to the mudira (feminine form of “mudir,” the director) what a Peace Corps volunteer does, and she, like so many others, understood this to mean that I could get them computers. Consequently, after doing my PACA work with the girls in my English class, we settled on three clubs: Health Club, Sports Club, and Informatique Club. Each has a president, vice-president, and secretary. So far, the Health Club has held a meeting on women’s health (with Salma), the Sports Club has starting running once a week in the morning, and the Informatique Club has decided that it wants to hold computer literacy courses. The main problem is that they are looking for me to run them, while I’m trying to force them to do it, but that’s not really a surprise with Peace Corps work.

Another volunteer said quite precisely: “You get the feeling that you want development more than they do.” I had a great idea, inspired by the fact that so many people come up to me asking for me to tutor them privately and for a fee. Volunteers are not allowed to work for money, nor do they have nearly the time to devote to one person at a time like that. I proposed a peer tutoring program. Peer tutors don’t really seem to happen around here, and I still don’t know how to say that in Darija, but I was convinced it would work. So, I more or less told one of my English students that he was going to be in charge of the tutoring program at the junior high school, and started meeting with the principal and some teachers to get permission and tutor volunteers. We ended up holding about four trainings for tutors to which no one came before we revised the idea, my student brought in three of his friends to be trained to tutor math, and they went back to school as tutors. I hear that they even did a few sessions. This taught me some pretty valuable lessons, like starting a lot smaller than you want to get to, and that you need to get the idea from the local. Now we’re looking into how to continue it next year, and how to expand the Dar Shebab classes into much more than just English, an idea that came from someone outside of the tutoring project.

We also have the kind that originates with locals but doesn’t get carried through. A handful of elementary school principals told me that they wanted me to come do something English-related at their schools because most of the kids couldn’t come to the Dar Shebab so late at night. So we planned a “cultural presentation” and I actually got one of the principals to put me on the schedule. The plan was to do a little bit of English, a little bit of American culture, and maybe even sing something. What happened was that I showed up for our first meeting and the principal had forgotten. The second time, he wasn’t even there. Nor was he there the third time, either, but a group of kids told me that I was supposed to teach them. They proceeded to spend the next 25 minutes acting horribly until I couldn’t take any more and left. The fourth time, we actually had class (I didn’t see any sign of the principal, though, again), although I had to eject a good four or five students. The fifth time, I resolved to speak to the principal about how poorly his kids were behaving and how I was not going to just be a free English teacher for him; he needed to either do a better job of selecting the students, or send someone else to our sessions to keep them under control. Before I could say anything, however, he told me that with the upcoming exams, it would be best to postpone everything until next year. What happened here was a good idea that came from the community but the community didn’t invest anything in it, and it failed. We’ll hopefully do better next time.

Finally, we have projects that are initiated by the people we work with who are invested in them, and yet they still don’t quite work out. A local association – an association of associations, actually – wanted to build a playground at their facility. They had worked with the previous volunteer to do a Peace Corps funded projects to build an information resource center, and now wanted to expand on that with something to draw families and life-long users. There are actually no playgrounds of any kind in Freedonia, and children tend to have the option only of playing in the street or not playing at all. Unfortunately, however, the king has decided to develop our town into a city (note: this is actually fantastic, although in this particular instance it’s causing a problem for me). You see, the center used by my association friends is connected to a long-abandoned public pool, but the current plan would include repairing and reopening it, and, thus, we can no longer build a playground there. We’re considering moving the plan elsewhere.

I have, however, started working on some summer sports programs, and have in the last week gotten my Dar Shebab students pretty keen on ultimate frisbee, and have a tentative plan to play baseball this coming week. We also want to try some more academic projects of the popsicle stick bridge / egg drop contest variety. And, of course, there's summer camp that will be a big part of the summer, but that's a story for another time. Suffice it to say, development is still a constantly frustrating struggle, but, with time, it starts to make itself a little clearer.

As you’ll recall, when we last left off Salma and I were in a taxi headed home. We arrived in Freedonia around sunset, and went straight to my host family’s house. Firstly, we had to get the key to the Fortress of Solitude (my host brothers take care of Amal while I’m away), but mostly it was because both Salma and my family had heard quite a good deal about the other, and they were all itching to see how accurate my depictions were. Fortunately, my name of Amin is well-earned (it means “trustworthy”), something you readers at home should keep in mind. And, since the television was on the fritz again, we had a great meal and a great time chatting. Thus began Salma’s whirlwind tour of my hometown.

Freedonia is usually known for its relaxed atmosphere and unbearably cold weather (it doesn’t matter where I go; whenever I say I’m from Freedonia, people shiver like someone just walked over their grave). Our time here, however, was affected slightly by the fact that I was technically working, the only three days of work in three weeks. Consequently, we rushed from meeting to meeting to take care of development at the same time as house to house for the people to meet Salma. We started the week with a fantastic health discussion at the women’s association (Salma is a doctor, after all), and then spent the rest of our time having a succession of lunches and dinners with a fraction of the various families who take care of me, and then going off to teach classes at the Dar Shebab. In fact, of the five or so well-known sights in town, we saw pretty much none of them. Salma did get to meet most of my friends, though, and my host family, and the places where I create peace. Not to mention making friends with Amal and enjoying the luxury of the Fortress of Solitude.

It was really helpful for me having her around, since, as I’ve just mentioned, I was pretty busy. But I got to exploit Salma’s charisma and command of the English language for my own selfish purposes (that’s also one of the goals of the Peace Corps, they just don’t talk about it as much). And, fortunately, I had planned ahead and asked her to bring me presents for some of the families that we went to visit, which worked out nicely considering how, once again, gifts were heaped upon her little shoulders.

And I got catch a small glimpse of what life might have been like if I had been a lady volunteer. It’s a just part of the culture, but men don’t really spend as much time with families; they mostly spend time with other men. Salma, on the other hand, is not a man, and so when we went to visit the family of some of my friends from the Dar Shebab, for example, and the mom was going to go next door to bake some bread, Salma was able to just ask and go with and got to learn how to make bread. I, of courses, had to come with her for the sake of language. If it had just been me, they very likely would never have asked if I wanted to see the bread making, and even more likely would have told me to just sit and relax if I had asked. But it wasn’t all work in Freedonia. Well, no, it pretty much was, but we got away from all that for two days and went to Fes.

I love Fes, and I think that was infectious because Salma seemed to feel pretty similarly. This may have been partly inspired by the fact that it being only one night, we figured we could splurge a bit and go to a riad in the old medina. A riad is an old house organized around a central courtyard that has been converted into a fancy guest house. Ours, Dar Iman (the house of Iman, a girl’s name and shared by the adorable little girl who lives there), belongs to a family that I met on an earlier trip to Fes, and is gorgeous. And just about two minutes down the street from the most beautiful building I have ever seen, the Madrassa Bou Inania. The Madrassa is really just a courtyard, but every inch of the walls are carved and decorated and tiled. It is absolutely incredible and I could easily spend hours just sitting there if it weren’t for the fact that some parts are still used as a mosque and they make tourists leave before the calls to prayer.

We toured a few more of the sights in town, but the most incredible thing to see is really just the city, so we spent most of the rest of our time just walking along the alleyways of the medina. And Salma got her souvenir, a fez from Fes, which gave her no small pleasure in talking about. We had a great time buying it, too, because the fez-man thought it was fantastic that I could speak Darija and that the Moroccan-looking girl couldn’t but wanted a fez. It turns out that he lied to us a little, though. We asked him which way to wear the hat, and he told us that the tassels go in front. This is not true, as we learned basically the next time that we turned on the tv and saw someone wearing one with the tassels in the back, as well as every other time we saw a fez, and from everyone else that we asked. I’m still not sure why he said that.

Back in Freedonia, we still had a day and a half before taking off for our final week of touring in the north, so I made sure to take Salma to at least one sight in town: the Saturday souk. Granted, Salma had been to souks in just about every city we’d been to, but these were either for tourists or big-city folks. There’s nothing like the country town souk. We hunted our way through the mayhem for all the vegetables necessary for making a vegetarian tagine (my staple dinner, roughly 4 times a week), which we cooked for dinner that night. We also took a little time to ourselves to walk around the town and enjoy the bucolic peacefulness. There were still nine more days of fast-paced action ahead of us.

To be continued…

My friends, I’m sorry that it’s been so long since the last time I’ve written to you, but the truth is that I’ve been doing things that are much more exciting than writing to you. Fortunately, however, I’m not doing any exciting at the immediate moment, so I’ll try to catch you all up.

I just spent the past three weeks touring Morocco with Salma. We went to almost all of the major cities in the northwestern part of the country – Essaouira, Marrakesh, Fes, Tangier, Chefchaouen, Rabat, and Casablanca – as well as a handful of the smaller ones, too. To tell you about everything we did and saw would take days and miles of writing, and none of us want that. Instead, I’ll save a lot of that for our continuing Moroccan Gazetteer series, and focus on important highlights of our trip and my first time bringing an outsider to Morocco.

I met Salma first thing in the morning at the Casablanca airport (not entirely true, I really met her back in high school), and, long before our collective sense of reality caught up with us, we shot off directly for Essaouira. The Casablanca bus station did serve as a great introduction. We had hardly stepped out of the taxi when we were whisked off by two mildly shady characters into a bus that we could only hope was destined for Essaouira. It’s a part of life in Morocco that you just have to accept or go crazy from trying to fight, but these bus guys get paid for the number of people they get into them, so there’s little use in trying to explain to them that you really don’t need their help to find where you’re going. Besides, it turned out to be the right bus.

And there’s something you should know about busses in Morocco, too. There are some that are like the Grayhounds and Peter Pans of America; that is, they have regular schedules, pick up and drop off at pre-determined sites, and sometimes even have assigned seats. The main carriers of these are Supratours, which operates from the train stations and continues along the directions of the trains on a schedule determined by arrivals, and CTM, which goes everywhere and in Arabic is spelled: “Seteyem.” Then there are the others that we tend to call “souq busses.” I’m not entirely sure why, since they don’t usually depart or arrive at the souq (bazaar, for those of you who’ve forgotten), but it might be because they are about as structured and ruly as the souq, which is to say pretty much not at all. They leave whenever the driver feels like it, and pick up people on the road whenever people flag down the bus and the driver feels like it. They don’t necessarily take that much more time to get to their destination than the more established lines do, but they can get pretty crazy. Such as ours, which, just outside of Essaouira, decided to pick up just about all of the folks finishing up at the souq and cram them into the aisle. Maybe that’s why they’re souq busses.

Essaouira is a beautiful town, just about as “chill” as everyone said it would be, and the perfect place to ease into a tour of Morocco. We stayed in a cute hotel right next to the water and could hear the tide through the window. We didn’t really do all that much in the town aside from stroll around and it was fantastic. We walked the seaside battlements, the medina, and the beach, and Salma had her first tagine (with fish) and first Moroccan mint tea. I got to have my first spinach in nine months by eating the sandwich her mom made for her. Salma bought a small wooden box (iconic of Essaouiran crafts), establishing a tradition of getting one souvenir of each city we went to, and, two nights after we arrived, we were back on the bus and headed to Marrakesh. This time, though, we took a Supratours.

Marrakesh is legendary among volunteers as being the number one place to avoid. This is because it is the domain of tourists, and since we are clearly foreign (it doesn’t matter what you look like, when you show up with a hiking backpack – whether you’re speaking their language or not – you’re a tourist), we’re usually treated like the rest of you. Nothing offends the sensibilities of a Peace Corps volunteer like being treated like a regular foreigner. It’s one thing to go to a city like Fes and be told that the price is a million dirham for something because I can respond in Darija and tell them that I know the real price, and my language is proof, and I’ll usually get it. Or the next guy will treat me like a Moroccan. Not so Marrakesh. These guys know that no matter what I tell them, all they have to do is wait about five minutes and an ignorant actual tourist will show up and pay. If I threaten to just walk instead of ride the cab, they reply, “happy trails.”

But I really didn’t find Marrakesh to be the Mos Eisley it’s reputed to be, and actually enjoyed myself. We did have to deal with our fair share of obnoxious taxi drivers, but I got to give one of them enough comeuppance to square us. Moments after we walked out on an offer to take us the 10-15 dirham route to the main square for 60 dirham, we heard a French couple agree to it. I wasn’t about to let that stand and told them not to pay, hailed a succession of taxis for them, and sent them off with a driver who had a counter. The look in first guy’s eyes made all the rest of it worthwhile.

I’m fairly sure, though, that Salma and I looked Moroccan enough to avoid the worst part of the tourist harassment. When we strolled through the markets the calls to buy things was pretty minimal, which was fortunate considering how much time we spent there. Marrakesh has a handful of sights – most of which we caught – but its main goal is to supply the tourist population with an overwhelming opportunity to buy any souvenirs they can imagine. We picked up a few ourselves, including a painting for Salma, but mostly just enjoyed strolling the alleys of little boutiques. That, and introducing Salma to as many other key Moroccan foods as possible, including mismin (greasy pancakes), harsha (similar to cornbread), kifta (spicy ground meat), Poms (apple soda), kook (macaroon cookies), Hawai (fruit soda), and mediocre couscous. Plus this one dish called tanjia that’s meat slow roasted in the ovens that power the local hammam that I’d never had either. And we also took advantage of a botched attempt to find the nearby palmery to go to the local people’s souq, where I purchased the absolute ultimate Moroccan souvenir. And every night we meandered through the chaos of the Jma’a al Fna’.

And it turned out that the hotel where we were staying was a regional Peace Corps office. Just as we were walking out, we ran into two other volunteers who’d been staying there, three of the brand new environment volunteers who’d just sworn-in about two days earlier, and two other Americans who were travelling around. We took the newbies to the taxis and got them on their way, and then discovered that all the rest of us were planning on going to the Cascades of Ouzoud, so we all did.

The guide book describes Ouzoud as "not too far removed from the Muslim idea of Paradise depicted on gaudy prints throughout the nation," and it’s so true. There are pictures of waterfalls everywhere. Ouzoud is also one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life. When we showed up, like every other place we went, we hadn’t made any reservations ahead of time. Luckily, though, we made friends with the taxi driver (he even gave us his business card – a first for me) and he introduced us to a friend of his who worked at a campsite at the falls. This sounded great, and the price was even better. Then we found out it was at the bottom and we got to lug our backpacks all the way to the bottom, take a raft across the water, and take another short hike to get to the camp. The tents were traditional Berber tents, which are fixed in place and have an open front, but the view was phenomenal. We spent the rest of the day just relaxing at the camp café, watching the monkeys (there are monkeys in Morocco), yelling at the other tourists for feeding the monkeys, climbing all the way back up to the top, and enjoying the beauty of Ouzoud. And it was Friday, so the campsite cooked us proper couscous in a big communal plate (not the personal size you get at a restaurant that’s entirely inappropriate for couscous). While we were eating these two extremely frazzled British girls showed up and stayed with us. That’s the Peace Corps. We take care of everyone.

The British girls and the two American “normies” decided to catch a taxi back to Marrakesh, and the rest of us headed to a town nearby (sorry, folks, there’re volunteers there still). Salma and I were on our way to Truck Stop Number 9 (you’ll recall the place where I did my training) to meet Mama Naima, but we stopped for the night in this other place and hung around with the other volunteers so that Salma could get more of a feel for volunteer life and I could get some of what happens whenever volunteers all get together: Mexican food. We had a great time, and the next morning we got to ride through the beautiful High Atlas Mountains.

We arrived at Mama Naima’s late. As we were walking down the alley to the house, my little sister Selloua came running out to meet us, possibly because she hadn’t seen me in a while, likely because she wanted to see who was the Moroccan-looking girl in a jelaba walking with me, and almost certainly because they’d all been waiting to eat lunch with us. Salma got to have the best tagine of her life, followed by the best stuffed baked chicken, and it wasn’t ten minutes after we finished eating that they had a lady over at the house decorating her with henna. We spent the rest of the evening sitting around chatting about old times. The two volunteers each came by and hung around for a little while, and we managed to not go outside all day. When we woke up, Mama Naima had me make breakfast for everyone (I’ve never met another Moroccan woman who’s so down with gender equality), and we took a brief walk around the town’s sights. Of which there aren’t really any, but we did pop over to Selloua’s school because she begged for a visit. The rest of our time was spent trading gifts with each other. Salma and Mama Naima briefly got into an arms race of surprising each other with presents, which really only ended with the taxi driving away to take us to Freedonia.

To be continued…

Life as a Peace Corps volunteer can be very lonely. Some volunteers have site mates – volunteers from other sectors living in the same town – but these can be hit or miss, and some volunteers don’t have them. There may be a few people who speak English, but they often don’t understand everything you try to say, and frequently don’t understand the cultural contexts that make it so comforting to speak with someone of the same linguistic identity. You may be in a relationship, but that’s not easy, either. If you left someone back home, you probably talk as much as you can, but you’d probably also trade all that talking for a single hug. If you didn’t leave someone behind (or, unfortunately, sometimes even if you did), you could meet someone here, but that comes with as many or more problems of its own. In a gender segregated society, it’s not always the easiest to just go out on a date. It’s illegal for Muslims, and it’s frowned upon for foreigners. Most tourists do it anyway, but most tourists aren’t trying to integrate into conservative rural or semi-urban communities. Having a PCV boyfriend or girlfriend happens plenty, but requires all sorts of subterfuge. Having a Moroccan boyfriend is similar. Having a Moroccan girlfriend is all but impossible unless you convert to Islam and marry her. Before you start dating.

In the face of so many obstacles to companionship, most volunteers turn to the next best thing: kittens. Pessimistic Moroccans tend to complain about the absence of natural resources here in the kingdom that forces them to become a nation of servants pandering to the swarms of tourists looking for orientalist romance. There’s some truth to this. Tourism is by far Morocco’s number one export. They’ve got a few more, most notably sardines and phosphates. If the international markets ever move in the direction of cats, they’ll be ready for that one, too. The reason is simple: Morocco suffers from an acute lack of Bob Barker. The animals just run free and do what they want, which mostly consists of scavenging in the garbage and gettin’ busy. It would probably be a geneticist’s dream to come and observe the various recombinations of color patterns in he kittens. Most of the time, though, it just makes you feel a little sad to see all the kitties scrounging in the street.

And so, I’ve decided to address both of the these problems by getting a pet cat. It’s one less kitten in the street, and something to talk to at home without feeling like a crazy person. And she definitely keeps me busy. She’s still very small, but she’s full of energy. Probably because she sleeps all day while I’m gone waiting for me to get home and play – whether I want to or not. Her favorite games so far seem to be run-around-like-a-crazy, ambush-Duncan-from-around-the-corner, and jump-on-the-computer. It’s adorable, most of the time.

It wasn’t always like that. The first day that she lived with me was probably the hardest of my entire service. She came from a carpet salesman I met in our seminar site, about 45 minutes away from Freedonia, so she obviously did not enjoy the trip through the mountains to get home. When she got here, though, she ran into my bedroom, ran under the bed, and stayed there. All day. She didn’t eat, she didn’t drink, she didn’t mew, she didn’t move other than to shake uncontrollably. It broke my heart, and I was pretty much convinced that I had committed a horrible crime against nature and began contemplating how to violate out-of-site policy so I could bring her back to her home before the following weekend, by which point I was fairly certain she would be dead from starvation. At some point, however, after I had pulled her out from under the bed to try and show her some affection and trick her into liking me, she accidentally stepped in the water dish I had laid out for her and unconsciously drank about 7 laps worth until she splashed it in her face and scared herself back under the bed. I was so happy I almost cried; at least her instincts would prevent her from killing herself. It took until the next day when I bought her some chicken liver for her to start adapting to the new digs.

A week later, I named her Amal. It’s a Moroccan tradition to name new-born children a week after their birth in a massive ceremony (I haven’t witnessed one of these yet, so I hope to write more about it later) after sacrificing a ram. I obviously didn’t do that, but I did make some very successful jokes with my host family about slaughtering a mouse. I didn’t actually do that, either. So, why Amal? Amal, if you couldn’t figure out from the heading, means “hope.” It’s also a standard girl’s name, so that met criteria number Amal, if you couldn’t figure out from the heading, means “hope.” It’s also a standard girl’s name, so that met criteria number 1: be a Moroccan name. Furthermore, “hope,” as all of you undoubtedly know, is Rhode Island’s motto, which meets criteria number 2: be related to my home in some way. Finally, however, Amal was born on January 20th, 2009, also known for having been President Obama’s inauguration day, meeting criteria number 3: be related to President Obama.

And so a little description. Amal is a gray tiger, with a bright white stomach and white feet, and has greenish-blue eyes. She’s currently very small, though that will probably not be the case forever. Her favorite hobbies include sleeping, running across the computer keyboard while I’m typing, eating, and freaking out like a madcreature when she sees, smells, or thinks about cheese. I’ve got a watergun for keeping her in line about most things, but when cheese is involved, not amount of soaking will quell her berserker rage. She also likes to play with string.

So, now I have my new best friend to keep me company here in Morocco and to give me countless new opportunities to make my neighbors look at me like I’m from Mars and ask themselves what the Hell goes on in the world outside of Freedonia where people actively choose to keep cats in their houses.

I just need to get the poor little lady fixed before the vengeful spirit of Bob Barker falls on me with all its wrath.

I'd been talking about it, especially since I'm here in Morocco and significantly less connected to the people I know than I used to be, despite the fact that I have Skype and satellite internet in my house. I've also been talking about how I think Facebook is ridiculous.

But, I did it. You know why? I got an email from mom that had pictures of her trip to Memphis (Tennessee, not Egypt), but it was a Facebook link. Two things happened. First, I wasn't able to see the pictures because I wasn't a member. Second, I thought, "Whoa, my mom's hipper than me."

So I made an account to fix both those problems. It's hard for me to feel hip giving in and joining Facebook, though; and I still haven't been able to see the pictures of Memphis yet, either.

Damn Facebook.

1 – In college I studied international relations, and even without that, I’ve always pretty much been a raging nerd. With the two combined, however, you have an international relations dork of the highest degree, and, as a result, I can describe for you the flag of pretty much any nation (I will admit that I can get a little tripped up around the Gold Coast of Africa from time to time). Morocco’s is a red field with a green star traced in the center. In the US, we have a pretty well accepted understanding of how the American flag looks, which became all the more apparent to me when I started to notice a trend in Moroccan flags being upside-down. At least, I had always assumed that the star would be such that only one point would be facing up, while the two opposite would be facing downwards. I asked about this, and got a lot of responses along the lines of: “It’s got the star on it, right? So who cares?” I asked a few government officials, and they all confirmed my suspicions that there is, in fact, a correct way to hang the flag, and that the majority of people either just don’t know or don’t care.

2 – I never realized before just how sissy our culture is when it comes to our hands. In Morocco, people do everything with their hands; they eat with them, clean with them, cook with them, and many other things that we just wouldn’t do. Or, if we did, we would rinse them off immediately afterwards. Take cooking, for example. Let’s say that you’re going to chop up some vegetables or slice some meat to add to whatever you’re making. As soon as you put it all in the pot, you rinse. It’s just weird feeling to have slimy-feeling hands. Over here, in contrast, you’ll find old ladies making couscous, which takes hours of being steamed and sifted by hand, consequently coating their hands in couscous. But the amazing thing, at least from my perspective, is that they don’t care. Eventually, they’ll wipe it off or rinse it away, but until that time, they’re more than happy to ignore it.

3 – In Morocco, the functional equivalent of XYZ (eXamine Your Zipper) is “close the garage.” It is not, however, used in the same way. If you saw someone in the states with their fly down, you’d probably be pretty surprised, and might even say something (at the very least, you’d giggle). I can’t tell you how frequently I see unexamined zippers, or how much of a disconnect it is that the majority of people that I see – whether said zipper belongs to them or not – are fairly unaffected by this. I attribute this to two things, neither of which is scientifically founded. First, pants get worn, passed down, sold, bought, worn, passed down again, and so on until they’re nothing more than a pile of threads. It wouldn’t be too hard to believe, then, that the zippers loose their potency along the way. Second, and more likely, is the fact that, unlike in the States, people don’t restrict themselves to just a single pair of pants. To illustrate, I’ll tell a brief story about my little cousin, who happened to be over at the host family’s house when I was as well, and had just taken a shower. His mom began to dress him, and I swear that he equipped with about five shirts, three pairs of pants, and then another shirt or two on top of it all. In that case, what difference does it make if his outermost flag is at half mast?

4 – The Moroccans I’ve met haven’t really been what you might call “animal lovers,” but they do have an incredible relationship with animals not present in America. When we want to tell an animal to go away, we usually say “shoo” or “scat” or some similar sound until the offensive creature leaves. We don’t discriminate according to species when we choose the word to say. Moroccans do. Here’s a sample. Imagine that any one of the following animals is in your garden and eating the geraniums, what do you say? Cats: “supp!” Dogs: “quss!” Chickens: “kush!” Sheep: “shiu!” (And you throw rocks, too.) Donkeys: “rra!” Horses: “rri!” Cows: “hui!” And how did I learn this? I happened to be walking with some guys one night when a feral dog came up and started barking, to which I replied “supp!” The guys I was with were so dumbfounded that I said the cat “scram” rather than the dog one that they immediately forgot about the fact that it very likely may have been rabid and wanted to eat us, and spent the rest of the time on our walk teaching me how to tell any animal to go away so that it understands me.

5 – I love to cook, and when I cook, I love to spice it up. Moroccans are also fond of their spices, particularly cumin and salt, but they also enjoy the flavors of paprika, ginger, fake saffron, black pepper, bouillon cubes, and the occasional dashings of hot pepper. I’m into all of these as well (though I can live without fake saffron and bouillon), but, being from Rhode Island – littlest Italy – I have a few other requirements. You can’t cook without basil, oregano, thyme, sage, or rosemary, to name a few. Thankfully, all of these can be found here in abundance. They aren’t, however, used for cooking. And you can be assured of raising your fair share of quizzical eyebrows when you suggest it. But it goes both ways. They like to use sage for brewing tea, and oregano and basil can be found just about anywhere because they’re a common incense. Rosemary, though, is just for bushes.

6 – I’m not a very large person; in fact, you could probably say that I’m kind of scrawny. This is a problem not only for Greco-Roman wrestling, but also for self-description in Morocco. It just so happens that the word for skinny, daif, means both skinny and sickly. To describe someone as thin basically means that they’re anemic. Similarly, seh, it’s opposite, means both fat and healthy. There’s no way to say “svelte,” much less is it possible to convince Moroccans – particularly Moroccan host mothers – that this is something to be desired.

7 – Morocco is truly God’s own country. I recently spent a week in Rabat assisting a training of Language and Culture Facilitators (LCFs, the people who train us during our trainings). It was fantastic. We stayed in a beautiful hotel and ate delicious food every night. On one of these nights, the waiters brought us some kind of fish with a cream sauce and mushrooms. Now, if any of you really know me, you know that mushrooms are my natural enemy. It made me think, though, about how I’d been in Morocco for about five months by that time, and that this was the first time I could remember eating – or seeing – mushrooms. Morocco just doesn’t seem to do mushrooms, either. My suspicions were confirmed when I asked the other people I was sitting with, all of whom were Moroccan, if these were mushrooms. They didn’t know. They honestly couldn’t identify a mushroom without conferring and verifying with each other. At that moment, I knew I would be happy here.

8 – Now that I’m living in my own place and trying to carry on a life of volunteerism and development, I’ve found that I have many books and few places to put them. To combat this problem, I decided that what I needed was a bookcase. Unfortunately, furniture is kind of expensive, and the Peace Corps is kind of cheap, so I didn’t really have the fund available to just go out and get a bookcase. Fortunately, however, I’ve been to college and lived in my fair share of college student apartments, so I know how to get around this. All I need is a pair of boards and about four cinderblocks, and I’m golden. So I asked around for where to get boards and blocks, explaining that I intended to use these to make a bookcase. My family thought this was pretty silly of me, but I drew them a picture to explain everything, and they responded that the words for these things are blanche and tabliat, respectively. We went out to the hardware store and got some boards, and asked if the guy had any tabliat, to which he responded with a confused no. We kept looking for tabliat, going to just about every hardware or construction material stores we could think of. My host brother occasionally asked me again to explain how it was that I was going to make a bookcase out of all this, and I always responded by showing him the picture of the boards on top of the blocks. Days went by. There are cinderblocks all over the town, and I started to consider just stealing some. Finally, I was talking with a friend who speaks English and I told him about my situation, hoping that he might be able to shed some light on this situation. He did. Tabliat are not cinderblocks; they’re a type of white smock that girls are supposed to wear to school. Tobiat are cinderblocks. So incredulous were my family that I could make a bookshelf out of boards and cinderblocks that it made slightly more sense that I would want schoolgirl smocks. No wonder the guys at the hardware stores were so confused.

9 - I don't know how things are in the women's hammams and douches, but in the men's douches I've been to, there are always little stickers all over the walls with advertisements for various brands of European underpants. Most of them are briefs, with the occasional boxer brief, and most are from Italy or France. Anyway, it's something I've always been wondering about, because it basically amounts to a lot of photos of dude's well-shorn crotches there in the shower. Firstly, I don't know what purpose they might serve, as there doesn't seem to be anything you can do about purchasing the underpants if you happen to want them. It's more like a public service announcement about the various advances in underpant technology. Second, where do they come from? I mean, who has that many photos of underpants just hanging around and nothing better to do with them than to decorate the local hammam?

You may have noticed recently that there was a big picture in my last post, which may have given you cause to recall that I'd never posted any other pictures. This is because I have installed myself sufficiently in the Fortress of Solitude and now have a regular enough schedule to take the time and upload pictures. But wait, there's more. I've even gone back and added photos (and made a few cosmetic changes) to all the old posts.

So why not go back and read them all again?

Peace Corps volunteers like to talk about how they go through “ups and downs” in the course of their service. This happens for two reasons. First, Peace Corps volunteers don’t really have all that much else to talk about sometimes, and second, it’s a pretty spot-on description of our lives. I personally haven’t felt to much of a rollercoaster as of yet, which is probably why I haven’t talked about my “ups” and/or “downs.”

That changed on March 7th. It was a Saturday over here (though, with the time differences, who knows what day it was where you are), and beautiful. The weather went through a last push of miserableness the week prior, but has become spring as of Saturday. (I know; how would I know what spring is like in Freedonia when I’ve only been here for three months? Just trust me on this one. You can tell.)

Anyway, I started the day by having to go over to the elementary school around the block to give a little presentation on English and American culture. We decided that since the kids there are a little young to be going to the Dar Shebab at night, it would be good to come over and do something at the school proper. We also figured that we’d do it on the Friday earlier, but things happened to prevent this. Which turned out to be the best decision we could have made. I got to the school, the sun was shining, the kids were running around, and the principal seemed to have no recollection of why I had been expected to come. Instead, he surmised that I wanted to introduce myself to all the students, and so he brought me to all the classrooms and I got to give a one-minute speech about what on Earth I’m doing in Freedonia, a speech I’ve gotten pretty good at by this point in my service.

The story gets ever better from there. After leaving the school, I decided to go to the souk. The souk is the open-air market for which Morocco is so popular, and with the beautiful weather, it was in full swing. his had been one of my problems over the past month of trying to furnish my house: there never being any vendors in the souk on account of the rain and cold. Not the case this particular day.

And, if you’ve never been to the souk before, I can assure you that you’re missing out. Even if you have no intention of buying anything, it’s just a great place to walk around. The best part of it is the vegetable souk, where there are easily a thousand people crammed into a space that should have been intended for half that many, pushing their way though rows of farmers fresh from the fields. It’s like a baseball stadium, except that the vendors don’t have chili dogs, and the peanut guys are singing about their plastic bags, not their peanuts. I love it.

I also love pasta, and I’ve been a little bit of a hard time going without it, but I found one guy in the souk who sells loose pasta by the kilo. So I bought some, and when I did, he said what everyone says when I buy something: “You’re not from here, are you?” Actually, I started getting a lot of people asking me if I’m from Syria, which is due to the fact that a lot of Syrians come here to dig wells in the summer, though I like to tell myself it’s because I sound like someone who knows what he’s doing when he speaks Arabic – he’s just not used to the Moroccan dialect. Anyway, we got to talking about why I’m there (which I was significantly better at after my introductions that morning), and he started telling me how he wanted to buy me a chicken dinner when I convert to Islam, and a handful of other guys hanging around the stand got excited about teaching me how to read the Qur’an. One, a professor, even offered to teach me to read Arabic for free. Now, some volunteers really hate when Moroccans talk to them about converting (which is something that can happen on a daily basis, if not more frequently), but I really don’t mind. I haven’t run into anyone who wants to convert me because he has any particular problems with me not being a Muslim; in their eyes it’s just the next step in my becoming more awesome. And, this being such a beautiful, fun day already, I had a great time of chatting with these guys and talking about the kind of chicken I wanted.

The rest of the day turned out great. Nothing really special happened at any point, but that’s not really the difference between a great day and not. It was just a great day, and felt the way that being in the Peace Corps is supposed to feel.

The following day was pretty similar. We spent more-or-less all day cleaning the natural spring in town, which was nothing like I thought it would be. I tend to associate cleaning a pond-like canal with removing trash (the natural spring is basically a hole in the ground where water comes out, so the town has built a canal to send the water all over Freedonia). In this instance, however, it was more about removing all the plants growing there, so we all jumped in the water and pulled out the weeds. And, I have to admit, it looked a lot nicer for our efforts.

And we had a great time. Sure, we slashed open our feet on hopefully-not broken bottles and exposed ourselves to countless tropical diseases, and sure, we were wading around in water infested with what looked exactly like the disgusting CETI eel larvae that Khan put in Chekov’s ear in Star Trek II, but we also got to play the part of countryside rubes to the city-folk tourists who flock to the spring by the busload. And, since all they knew about the spring was that it’s known for its delicious-tasting water (as evidenced by the multitude of empty bottles they brought up with them – some even asked for a few bottles we dredged out of the canal), they thought that the weeds we were pulling out were some kind of special spring plant and kept asking about them and how much we were selling them for. It was priceless, and probably the most fun I’ve had “working” in the Peace Corps. I’m still feeling it in my legs and back, though.

Finally, my dissertation on feeling great wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention my little cousin, Khadija, known affectionately as “Khadooj.” Khadooj is about two years old, speaks no Darija, and has been terrified of me until about two weeks ago when she suddenly got used to me and is now my best friend. That's her up there at the beginning. I’m completely in love with her. Khadooj is completely in love with stealing my hat. We've got two-way street kind of thing going on. And I’ve come to the realization that if I ever become the father of any daughters, I’m going to shortly thereafter become a huge sucker. Possibly a sucka MC, if I’m lucky.

A few weeks ago, I took a trip with some of the guys from Freedonia to Picturesque Lake Village, a small, picturesque village not far away that is renowned for its lake. Anyway, we spent the afternoon hanging around, walking in the mountains, enjoying the lake (which is now overflowing with water that has been gone for more than a decade), playing soccer, and cooking tagine. I’m fairly sure that I’ve mentioned tagine at least once in the course of chronicling my adventures, but I don’t think I’ve quite yet done justice to Morocco’s National Dish.

To start, tagine is not actually a specific dish in the way that we could say that haggis is the official food of Scotland; it’s more like how sushi is for Japan – a style of cooking that can take many forms. Tagine, however, is nothing at all like sushi. First of all, it’s cooked. Second of all, it’s cooked in a reasonably large, two-part ceramic dish made of a plate-bowl on the bottom, and a funky cone top. Finally, tagine is best known for its slow-cooked, simmery goodness, whereas sushi is best known for reduced-price happy hour specials and nagging anxiety about mercury poisoning.

And, unlike sushi, you probably are mostly unfamiliar with tagine. Unless, of course, like me, you went through a brief infatuation with Trader Joe’s Moroccan Tagine Simmer Sauce that ended in heartbreak when Trader Joe decided to cut the Moroccan tagine from his line of simmer sauces. Well, I have good news that should be able to jump you to at least Step 6 or 7 in your Emotional Reconstitution Plan: Trader Joe has clearly never been to Morocco, or ever eaten anything remotely resembling a tagine. And the real one is much better.

So let me tell you how to make the real thing. To begin with, you’re going to need a fire. (For the interested or completely helpless, Jack London discusses many of the dos and don’ts of how to do this.) There are those who might tell you to just cook the tagine on the stove. These are very bad people. The best is to cook it outside over a real fire. Other options include building your fire inside, in your living room, for example, or getting a small brazier and charcoal (widely available in Morocco, possibly less so in the states). One important note will be that you’ll want to make sure that your fire area is ringed with rocks to both keep the fire from spreading and burning down your favorite picnic area or neighborhood. It’s also important for holding the tagine dish over the fire, so make sure that you have at least three or four larger and reasonably stable rocks evenly spaced around the fire. One even more important note is to be sure to check for scorpions before moving any rocks. This is especially serious if you’re making your fire in the living room since, well, you really don’t want scorpions in there. Trust me.

Here’s what you need to make a fire:

WoodLighterPaper (for starting the fire, obviously)RocksScorpion Awareness

Now that you have the fire ready, you’re going to want to start gathering your ingredients. Come to think of it, you’ll probably want to start gathering your ingredients some time – possibly even a day or two – before you build any fires. However you decide to go about it, here’s what you’ll want to make the chicken and vegetable tagine, the most quantitatively delicious of all tagines:

3 – 4 Onions¼ Chicken4 – 5 Potatoes (medium-sized)2 Green Bell Peppers1 Zucchini2 – 3 Carrots1 Hot Pepper3-Dirham MélangeSaltKnorr (chicken-flavored)3 TomatoesSaffron2 – 5 tbsp Vegetable OilWater

Here’s what you’ll need to cook it:

TagineKnifeSpoonPot Holders of Some Kind

Now, once you’re ready, it’s time to construct your tagine. To begin, you’ll need your base: onions. Cut the onion into rings and put them on the bottom (only one layer). These are generally going to be welded to the bottom of the tagine by the time everything is done, but you’ll be able to eat some of it – which still tastes good – and they will give their flavor to everything else. Now that that’s done, put the chicken on top and in the center of the tagine, and then cover it with a layer of onion rings. Cut the potatoes into slices, and place them on top of all the onion and chicken, and then toss on any remaining onion rings. Potatoes in Morocco tend to be much smaller than potatoes in America, hence why there are so many more called for in this recipe than you might expect to use. If you’re using big potatoes (ie, American-sized), you’ll probably only want two or three.

Ok, now that you have your bottom filled out, it’s time for the artistry. First, take your bell peppers, cut them into long strips, and make a star out of them from the rim of the tagine and converging in the center. Do the same for the zucchini and intersperse these slices between the peppers. Cut the carrots in a similar fashion as the peppers and zucchini, but make a ring of the slices around the rim of the tagine. Top it all off with your hot pepper, which should be uncut and in the convergence point of the other peppers and zucchini.

Finally, after all of this, you need to add the flavor. This is the point when Emeril Lagasse would say “bam!” Moroccan chefs do too. The key to flavoring your tagine is the 3-dirham mélange, which is what you have after you go to your favorite corner store and ask the clerk for three dirhams’ worth of ground ginger, black pepper, paprika, and cumin all mixed together. You want to take about a golf ball’s size of this and smother everything with it. Also salt (to taste). Moroccans use a lot of salt, but you can do what you want. Then you need to add some Knorr. Knorr is a brand name of bouillon cubes, so get one, unwrap it, and sprinkle the contents on top. Since we’re making a chicken tagine, I recommend a chicken-flavored Knorr, but, again, you’re really on your own about this.

At this point, you may have noticed that you still have some tomatoes lying around, and may be questioning yourself as to whether you’ve correctly followed the preceding directions or have created some kind of hideous bastardization of Moroccan cuisine. Well, fear no more, you’ll now cut the tomatoes into rings, pop them on the top of everything, and breathe a sigh of relief. It’s important that you keep the tomatoes above everything else because you don’t want the water to get all up in their business; that would be bad. It’s also important to note that now that you’ve added something to the tagine, you need to give everything another round of your 3-dirham mélange. And sprinkle on some saffron, but before you do, make sure that you have the right kind of saffron. Moroccans use what we call “Spanish saffron,” which is essentially yellow food coloring (though in its natural form it’s a beautiful, florescent orange color), and not authentic saffron, which costs thousands of dollars and is kept in a locked case in the spice aisle. If you did happen to buy this latter kind, however, I would recommend saving it for another use.

Once you’ve the right saffron in place, it’s time to wet everything with vegetable oil. This recipe calls for 2 – 5 tbsp, which is noteworthy for two reasons. First, everyone here just pours it on, so I’m not entirely sure how much is really used. Second, they pour on vegetable oil until they’re satisfied with what they’ve done, so just pour until the inscrutable exhortations of your soul compel you to stop. As a last step, pour in about a cup of water. It is extremely important that you pour the water in around the edges so as not to get it on the tomatoes. Why, you ask? I haven’t the faintest idea. It’s just really important.

Now you’re finished. Except for the cooking – you haven’t done that yet – and you’ll probably want to before eating raw chicken. To cook your tagine, you’ll want to put on the lid and put it all on top of the fire, which should be fairly self-explanatory, but remember to use the big rocks to hold it up and out of the fire. The tagine is going to cook for about an hour, though any chef who knows his or her way around fire pit for cooking tagine will tell you that you cook it until it tastes good. This should be especially useful for any first-time chefs that have never tasted a tagine before. Also, while the tagine cooks, you’ll ask yourself any number of the following questions:

Is the fire hot enough? - You’d better hope so. Why not add a little wood every once in a while to make sure? Be careful not to add too much at any one time, though; you want heat, not flames. Flames burn things, particularly everything in the bottom of your tagine.

Is the water evaporating out and not accumulating in the tagine? - That’s a very specific question, but a good one. If you notice a significant amount of liquid moisture in your tagine, you’ve done something wrong. Get rid of this by propping open the tagine a little with your spoon. If you notice a significant absence of liquid moisture in your tagine, you’ve done something else wrong. Resolve this problem by adding in a little more water.

Can I have some tea? - Sure you can. Just don’t expect me to make it for you. What do you think this is, a short-order restaurant? Just put it all (see below) in the teapot and put that straight into the fire. Try not to use your hands to take it out, though, if at all possible.

Here’s what you’ll need to make some tea:

1 TeapotX Teacups, where X = the number of people who plan on drinking the teaTeaSugarMore Water

After you’ve had enough tea and waited until your tagine tastes good, you’ll most likely be ready to eat. Good, that means the tagine is done, so eat it.

Here’s what you’ll need to eat the tagine:

Bread, Unsliced

Just take the bread, pull off a piece of it, and use that to scoop out and eat whatever you can. Undoubtedly, you’re going to get tired of not being able to scoop anything out and dropping everything that you do scoop out on your pants. When this happens, remember that you don’t have a fork (see lack thereof above). Deal with it. Or, use your hands. Who’s going to know the difference? The scorpions? You already got rid of them.

My 26th birthday was February 11th, which was last Wednesday unless you happen to be reading this more than a week after that time, in which case, you’ll have to figure out for yourself how long ago that was.

This was also the first time I’ve ever celebrated my birthday outside of the US or without members of my cultural family (ie, Americans). Consequently, this is a perfect opportunity for me to hit you with a little cross-cultural truth about how Moroccans do birthdays.

But I’ll start with how things went down from home. First, I got a few letters and packages from home, and I believe that there may be a few more on the way, that were filled with wonderful items. There are three things that I hope for when opening a box from home. The first is food, of which my older brother and his wife did an excellent job of coming through on. I now have my own bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce, as well as an assortment of hot chocolate mixes and boxes of macaroni and cheese, and I had some Pepperidge Farm cookies and gummy bears for at least a short while after opening the box. The second thing is warm clothing, though the weather is starting to get much nicer here in Freedonia, and I think I almost don’t have bone-itis anymore. I didn’t get any of these things. The last thing I hope for is random nonsense, most perfectly exemplified by the pirate-launching catapult my mother sent, which is impossible to describe, so let’s just say that it’s not at all like what you’re imagining, unless you’ve seen them before. You just can’t get that around here. She also sent a travel book for Tunisia because we’re going to go there in the summer.

The absolute best, however, was a photograph with a poem written on the back from Salma, which had been sitting on my table waiting to be opened for a few days, and was the first thing I did for my birthday.

The second thing I did was to answer the phone and receive the most unexpected of all my birthday “presents:” a phone call from the main Peace Corps office in Rabat. It was short and sweet, but because it was so out of the blue, it really made me feel special on my birthday, so kudos to the person who started that tradition.

As for the Moroccan side, two of the guys I work with gave me presents, both cute and meaningful Moroccan souvenir decorations. One is a little teapot, the second most iconic object for all Morocco (after a loaf of bread, of course), and the other is one of those things that you use to blow air into a fire – I don’t know what they’re called – that has Arabic calligraphy and Moroccan designs stamped into the metal. I also went over to my homestay family’s house and ate lunch, though I might have done that anyway, and we celebrated my birthday like real Moroccans, which is to say, we didn’t do anything about it at all.

Yes, I’m afraid to tell you that birthdays just aren’t really a thing over here. In fact, I know a handful of people who don’t even really know when their birthday is. For example, it was my host brother’s birthday on January 29th, and on February 2nd I asked him what he had done for it. His response? “Oh, my birthday was yesterday, wasn’t it?” No, it wasn’t, and it goes to show you that birthdays pass fairly often without any notice. Sometimes people will make a little cake, or at least get some pastry from the store. I think my host mom had been thinking of doing this for me, but then (according to what she told me later), she went to visit some woman and forgot all about it.

For the most part, if someone knows it’s your birthday, they’re liable to say happy birthday to you, and then just carry on as they had been before. In fact, people generally talk about their age as being relative to the year that it is and what age they will be after their birthday this year, not according to whether that day has passed yet or not like we do. For example, we do a summer camp as youth development volunteers, and we can send students to the camp who are between the ages of 14 and 16, but this means we need to ask them what year they were born in, not simply how old they are. This can be very tricky to deal with and confusing, but it’s starting to get me away from my point about what I did for my birthday.

The answer? Mostly nothing. In may ways, it was just another day. But, thanks to the support of people back home, as well as other volunteers here who sent me text messages all day, I still felt celebrated. And I used the occasion as a justification to take a shower, which felt great.

There’s a man out there by the name of Max Brooks who just so happens to be one of the world’s leading scholars on zombies. He also happens to be the son of Mel Brooks, which increases his academic credentials tenfold in the sphere of things that probably aren’t real.

As it happens, Brooks (Max, not Mel) is also an author of books, two of which are of particular interest here. The first, The Zombie Survival Guide, is an unimpeachable source of information for anyone even remotely concerned about the dangers posed to him or her by hordes of the undead (and not, as its name might suggest, a guide for survival or fine living as a zombie). The second, World War Z, is a hypothetical (or prophetic?) account of humanity’s struggle against a zombie holocaust, as well as a clarion call for the global community that is so horribly unprepared to deal with zombies.

And in the course of presenting this thesis, Brooks argues that one reason why we are so inadequately situated to combat the undead is due to the lack of useful skills so many of us have. There are plenty of lawyers, customer service specialists, and taxidermists, but how many of us know how to wire a generator, install functional plumbing, or do so many of the other things that would be required of us in the process of fortifying and rebuilding our nation. The answer is that we would find ourselves in a complete reversal of social strata, in which the blue collar class, who are relatively less equipped to send out for and pay the necessary specialist (aside from the fact that said specialist is often enough blue collar himself), would become the instructors and coordinators of labor, while the white collar class, now completely useless, would do the manual work.

The evidence for such an argument is readily available in the states, but it is equally present here in Morocco. I have been amazed to see people taking handymanship to whole new levels. My host father, who is a landscaper, can frequently be found repairing the radio in the living room. My host brother, who has a degree in hair dressing, will often enough have to go up on the roof and repair the motor for the satellite dish. And everyone I’ve met knows how to mix concrete and construct walls. This is as much because of a similar lack of disposable income for calling upon specialists as it is due to a general lack of said specialists (most likely due to a lack of anyone hiring them). At least someone’s ready to deal with the zombies.

There’s also a movie called Waterworld, which just happens to be the best testimonial to the theoretical difficulty of living in a world devoid of dry land that also stars Kevin Costner. According to the film, one of the side effects of such a life would be an exponential increase in the value of otherwise very mundane objects, such as paper and interesting dialogue. A similar phenomenon seems to take place in the Peace Corps. Now that I’m living on my own here in Morocco, I could kill someone for their Tupperware and a handful of ziplock bags, and I’ve read the entirety of my predecessor’s alumni magazine, merely for lack of other English-language text, despite the fact that I had never before heard the name of Beloit College, nor do I now care about it in the slightest bit. And I’ve basically turned into your senile grandmother that saves every little bit of string or paperclip she finds, and sometimes get as excited about the ribbon on the outside of a package as I am for what’s in it.

But the scariest thing of all is to think that my life has not taken on any semblance to Waterworld. Unless it was gills behind my ears. That would be really cool.

One of the most vindicating moments of my service has been sitting here in my host family’s house, watching one of my little cousins – who can’t be more than 2 and a half – eating. Well, trying to, anyway. As you know, we use bread instead of utensils, and it has been my experience to eat far more bread than whatever it is that I’m trying to eat with it. Sometimes, I’m pretty much just eating bread and sauce while everyone else is enjoying delicious vegetables and meats, and that’s when nothing is more rewarding than to watch a two-year-old chasing a hunk of potato around a giant plate with a piece of bread, desperately trying to pick it up. Eventually, he had to get it with his hands.

I grabbed a piece, too. It tasted like sweet, sweet, cross-cultural justice.

The first two months of volunteer service are probably the most challenging. The language is still new; the culture is still somewhat mysterious. You don’t know the people you need to work with and the people you need to stay away from, you don’t know the shortcuts through town or where everything is, and you don’t get the things that you need or want without asking someone for help. You haven’t developed your emotional support network or found your groove yet. You still don’t even really know what it is that you’re doing here. It’s hard, but it’s also the Peace Corps.

But to deal with all this, they don’t expect us to rely solely on our superhuman moxy. They know that we need a local refuge and advocate, and so they put us in host families. The irony is, however, that although the family is beyond saintly in the way they take care of you, the level of cultural submersion that comes from living within the folds of a Moroccan family can – and almost always is – one more stressor for the volunteer. There are a great many differences between the way the stereotypical American and the stereotypical Moroccan like to organize their lives (as I sincerely hope you’ve figured out by now from everything else I’ve written). American life generally prides independence and the individual, whereas Morocco revolves around the family and communion. All too often, this means that your American Peace Corps volunteer is stripped of his or her escapism that we rely on so much back home. Hospitality in Morocco means spending as much time as possible with the guest, so it’s not always easy to go out for a walk, run, or bike ride when the family wants you to be with them, nor can you just read, write, paint, or find much “alone time” when all the family is there in the room with you. Over here, when someone wants to be by themselves, that usually means that there’s a problem, so you have to double the amount of attention you give them until they feel right again.

Two months don’t last forever, though, and eventually every volunteer reaches the point when they have to move out on their own. Actually, you don’t have to move out if you want to stay with the family, and nearly every host family hopes this will happen, but nearly every volunteer finds themselves facing the Peace Corps Housing Paradox: I love my family, but I can’t wait to live by myself. (There are some unfortunate exceptions who aren’t burdened by that first part or a difficult decision, but this isn’t their story.)

And that’s where I am. In fact, tonight is going to be my last night sleeping in the host family home, though that could easily have been a week ago by the time you start reading this on the internet. Like everyone else I know, I found myself a new place and spent many long nights explaining to host mama Mahjouba that American culture just works that way, and this in no way means I won’t be coming over to visit all the time, staying warm at night, or eating well. I have no doubt that she thoroughly disbelieves the latter two, but I’ve managed to convince her well enough on the first that she’s not going to call the headquarters in Rabat and file a formal complaint. Anyway, she approved of my choice of house.

So let me tell you about it. For those of you still uncertain where I’m going with my choice of title, I’ve decided to name the new house The Fortress of Solitude. Now, I admit that this name does lend itself to a certain measure of teenage angst, but I assure that there is no better description readily available in the English language. Also, it’s supercool.

The house is more of an apartment, really, located in a neighborhood called the “Rosemary Condos,” a fitting name since all of the shrubbery in this tiny enclave about the size of two football fields is wild rosemary bushes. My particular part of all this is found on top of a big market, which has a massive two-story indoor courtyard (filled with rosemary) and all of the various things I’ll need in the stores located around the bottom. The apartment itself is not very big, but I’ve recently learned that despite what I’ve always heard, smaller is actually better. Big houses apparently require divine intervention to keep warm, and nothing is of greater importance to me after this past winter (which is far from over).

The front room is the kitchen, convenient for grabbing a quick bite and running out the door – something I haven’t done in a long time. Also useful because the stove, oven, and water heater (located in the kitchen) run off of butane gas, so you need to keep a window open while using them or else you’ll die. The kitchen is fortunately located next to a window. Next to the kitchen is the bathroom (excuse me – you aren’t supposed to say “bathroom” without excusing yourself, either). The bathroom is particularly important because it contains a shower, not something to take for granted around here, which is allegedly attached to the hot water heater. This means that I’ll be able to start taking showers more than just 1.5 times a week. Not that I necessarily will.

Moving along you come to a room that I like to refer to as a pregnant hallway. I’m pretty sure this is the technical term, but I’m not at all certain what to do with it. For now, it’s just a place to put things that I also don’t really know what to do with yet. At the end of the hall is the salon, very useful for sitting and holding discussions about the prospects of a popular uprising among the French peasants. It also has a beautiful window across the entire back wall looking West across the mountains that I hope will be as fantastic at sunset as I like to imagine it will be.

The coolest part, though, is the bedroom. Going back to the kitchen, you see a flight of tiled stairs spiraling upwards, which, if you follow, will lead you to the command center of the entire apartment. A cozy little room with a vaulted ceiling and built-in cabinets (hooray for not having to waste my living allowance on that). And the best part is that everything will be beautiful when it’s filled with furniture the way that I’m picturing it now. For the moment, though, I have only a small table and an empty canister of butane, but it’s the big kind, so that’s something. Actually, I’m fairly certain that this house is going to require a good amount of work to get it up to the level where I want it, but it’s the principle. Despite the fact that I’m still here in my host family’s place because the bed salesman won’t bring the bed to town on account of it’s raining, I still have a place where I’m in charge of everything.

It’s going to be cold, though, probably until June, I’m told.

In case you weren’t aware, we are in the Islamic lunar month of Ramadan. And in case you were aware but didn’t really know what that means, allow me to explain.

Ramadan is a Muslim holiday that begins on the first crescent moon of the month (as do all Islamic lunar months), and ends on the following crescent. Although it lasts for a full month, it is, in fact, a commemoration of a one-night event: the ascension of the Prophet Muhammad to Heaven from the rock in Jerusalem to receive the revelation of the Qur’an from the Archangel Gabriel.

Consequently, the month of Ramadan is one of purification and reconnecting with the spiritual. Muslims are forbidden from eating, drinking, smoking, and having sex during the daylight hours, though many also believe that they cannot gossip, fight, use bad words, have lascivious thoughts, or do anything else selfish or sinful.

In practice, this manifests as people spending the daytime as quickly as possible, using as little energy as possible, and then, when the muezzin (the man who calls the faithful to prayer) signals the sunset prayer, everybody prays, eats breakfast,” and then parties all night long. In a little more than a week we’ll have the Eid el-Fitr – the final night of Ramadan – which will be epic.

For Peace Corps Volunteers in a Muslim country, this means that it’s very difficult to have lunch. I’ve actually been observing the fast, as has one other, but the others are often frustrated by their inability to buy an afternoon snack, as well as restrictions on eating or drinking in public. There is nothing forbidden about non-Muslims not observing the fast (though Muslims seen eating during the sun hours could theoretically be imprisoned), but considering how we are here to work on integration and mutual understanding, it’s pretty much out of the question.

And the most important lesson to learn from Ramadan, in my view, is that not everyone observes it. You have the high schoolers who instead of smoking in the bathroom are popping a quick chocolate bar, and every night at the sunset prayer you can see the cafes that are still full of people (though they only now start eating or drinking). You also have the ones who observe all of the restrictions throughout the month, and then pop open a bottle of alcohol the day after Eid. In short, they are just like the hordes of Jews and Christians that observe (or don’t) their high holidays and then spend the rest of year doing what they want.

And speaking from experience, the fast is not as difficult as you might think, though it is by no means easy. The hardest part is waking up early at about 4 am to have “dinner” and being tired all day. That and the fact that no one else in my group (aside from the Moroccans) is fasting. That will change this Sunday, though, when we all go to homestays and stop living together in a group. Good luck to them.

First, a little housekeeping. My computer is a bit on the fritz, so I probably won't be posting as frequently in the immediate future as we all would have hoped.

Second, welcome to Morocco. I know it's a bit overwhelming, but that's the way it is for me, too. In all honesty, it's most likely because we have spent the plurality of our time learning the policies and logistics of what will be our new lives here in Peace Corps Morocco. It is all coming at us very fast (though with repeated assurances that it will be all coming at us again later), and jet lag - though only 4 hours - is probably still taking it's toll.

I will give a few first impressions, however, which are likely to be contradicted later on (hopefully, if I begin a political career in the future, my opponents won't find out about my flip-flopping). First, Morocco is full of beautiful cities and stark countryside and many other combinations of mutually excluding descriptions. People have been caring and indifferent and deceptive. Food has been exquisite, unmemorable, and quite unappealing.

I think this is the best possible situation one could expect. Having just left the States listening to exaltations of all Morocco ("the people are beautiful," "the country is beautiful," etc) and condemnations ("the men are sleazy," "the country is dangerous," etc), I'm happy to say that they are all wrong.

The people of Morocco are people, the city of Rabat is a city, and I'm very excited to be here.

More later.

Hi. I'm Duncan, and this is my journal. There's a good chance you knew that already, or else you wouldn't be here, but in case that you just woke up from a decades-long coma and found yourself staring at this page in terrified bafflement, you don't have to be scared anymore. Anyway, I just like to cover my bases.

And let me introduce my journal, though, to be fair, it's really more of a "blog" than a "journal." If that confuses you, allow me to explain. A "blog" (from the Latin bloggus, meaning "a blog") is a place to write the divers thoughts, feelings, and experiences accompanying a particular adventure. You see, I'm in the Peace Corps (from the Latin corpus peaceaopolis - there's a little Greek in there, too), stationed in Morocco (from the Latin Morocco).

And thus, it is herein that I will record my divers thoughts, feelings, and experiences accompanying my adventure in Morocco such that you, dear readers, may benefit from them. You will laugh, you will cry, you will laugh at each other for crying, you will blink your eyes in earth-shattering wonder at the sheer poetic brilliance of my aimless, meandering mind. All without having to leave the comfort of your plush computer desk chairs.

And now let's kick this old school.