Happy New Year! I must say that this period of reflection that befalls us each and every year is taken for granted and diluted by unfulfilled promises of more time for ourselves and family, a pursuit of long lost projects and of course, smaller waistlines. I challenge each and every one of us out there, who mistakenly believes that this is the only time of year to make a meaningful pact, to keep to their guns (2nd amendment?) and not let the true wealth of an accomplished goal fall from their sights. What will happen to us, our nation, our little island of stagnancy, in the year of 2012 (and for our Islamic population out there, 1432/33)? All I can tell you is what I know (as an unrefined and unrelenting oracle more or less):

Syria is going to get worse before it gets better. The fact that the current Islamic oversight group, Arab League, is not allowed onto some of their most controversial sites and all of their military bases raising red flags to most all of the concerned Islamic world. The western world does not care obviously.

The United States and most of Europe is falling deeper into the pockets of our Chinese benefactors and it will be most extraordinary of circumstances should we ever climb back out. The US will have to learn the hard way what it is like to not be on top and her constituents will blindly believe otherwise (until they travel abroad and realize the best currency is the Indian rupee and you can’t buy a damn with a dollar).

Basic food staples will continue to rise in cost on almost a direct correlation with healthcare. As we continue to pollute and genetically modify our most basic of foodstuffs, we continue to do hurt ourselves. With 7 billion people in the world (more like 7.2) we shall start on the most bizarre of downward spirals revealing our most incriminating human nature. Shall only the strong survive or will it be just the ones who can pay for it?

Now that I’ve gotten some of the ugly out of the way, I do have good news. My significant other, Omar, has an interview with the US Consulate in Morocco. With every finger and toe crossed, hail marys muttered and prayer energy sent out to the most beguiling of gods and goddesses, I hope Omar succeeds with flying colors and is able to come join me here in the good ol’ US of A. We hope to start our life together here and are able to infect as many around us as possible with our light-hearted humor and good will.

I will start classes at UNCC come January. I need a few prerequisite courses completed in order to apply and be accepted into an ABSN program. After speaking to an old college professor of mine, I do realize that I may not be accepted just because the completion of the courses is so close to the beginning of the program. I am not afraid of being unaccepted, I just hate wasting time. I am ready to start back to school. I am ready to join the healthcare professional world. I am ready. I just need to wait.

I do hope that everyone out there has the best evening and kisses any and all who need a nice smack to start the new year. Make your promises and tell them to others. Be accountable and for goodness sake, pay attention. The world is crumbling around us, get out there with your Elmers and at least try to hold some of it together!

The chapter to this part of the book is slowly drawing in to a close. My insides are a tangled web of emotions and physical draining: my heart beats uncontrollably, my stomach sits deep and empty, my head feels disconnected. I am excited yet sad. I feel relief but cowardly. Anxiety is an understatement. Yet my breathing is calm and controlled. My hands steady as I hold the pen. My eyes are the most obvious sign. The tears collect under my chin, leaving a wet chinstrap. As the winds rushes in the window of the mutatu, I can feel my eyelashes drying together, the skin once wet now feels tight. As I watch these things pass by, I wonder if I will ever get to relive it again as it is right now. Of course not, and I just want to crawl inside my remorse and self-pity and cry harder.

I am so uncomfortable at the thought of returning permanently. Even as I say permanently, I wanted to write semi-permanently or for the next several years or even in its defined sense, temporarily (as being the opposite of permanent).

These faces, these eyes that stare back at me, I look at hoping, wishing, that that common thread of humanity, family, needs, presence, are felt. That you and I are not so different. We both love our mothers. We both want long, happy, fulfilling lives. You and I are one in this world and despite the vast chasm of differences; you can still feel that bridge of humanity spanning the gap. I started walking across a long time ago. I pray that you are headed in my direction.

I have spent 3 months in Uganda. I am still just an amateur on the African scene and inexperienced speculator. I have little to compare Uganda. I acknowledge that my views and observations are just that, my own, and therefore of little importance to much else. I have chosen to share and hopefully not persuade or cause bias for each opinion, each story, has the opposite side and another, perhaps, more refreshing perspective.

Despite the release on life and freedom given to Ugandans once Museveni came to power (unfortunately compared to Obote and Amin), they continue to take their fortunate change of events for granted. There is a lack of pride and structure within the system and within themselves. The streets are dirty and have putrid, stagnant water in their clogged drains and run-off ditches. Their babies, naked, play less than a meter away, in the dirt and trash. Uganda was recently awarded one of the most fertile countries in the world, it also has a number of NGOs working here, and I have to ask,

“What the hell is going on?”

Where and why is the system failing these people?

Why are women continuing to have so many children? Why are there so many orphanages and street children? Where is their government intervention?

Uganda’s leaders have been filling their pockets long enough. What does it take for people to demand their most basic human rights? The quality of education here is substandard to say the least until you get into Kampala. The quality of health here is almost unmentionable. And perhaps, because of my experience in health education and prevention, I have a harsher perspective. These men and women, young girls and young men need health education immediately. The structure here has failed them. I have been told that men measure their wealth against society by how many children they produce. And trust me, I have heard the numbers. One man can have multiple wives, and within that family, I have met people with 10, 16, even 25 brothers and sisters. I met one guy yesterday with 14 brothers and sisters alone, from one mother.

Total fertility rate:

6.69 children born/woman (2011 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:

total population: 53.24 years

Median age:

total: 15.1 years

male: 15 years

female: 15.1 years (2011 est.)

(updated statistics from the CIA World Factbook)

Uganda is only beaten by Niger. It has the second highest fertility rate in the world. No cause for celebrating. This is an uproar. We need a response from the Ministry of Health, from the government immediately. What measures are we taking to protect our youth? Our women and men? Projected growth of Uganda by the year 2050 is to have around 95 million people. The current population is almost 35 million.

In this negative light, all I can think of to say at this point is,

Good Luck NGOs.

To feed into obsession and maintain my mental sanity, I have been playing rugby with a few of the local boys here, both with the Busoga University team and Nile Rugby Club in Jinja. On Mondays, I stay close and practice down the road at the university. The boys are hard-working and determined. Without a formal coach, a few of the more experienced members run various drills before we conclude with an hour long game of touch. A number of the boys are fast and try out various plays involving one-handed passes, switches and grubbers. Some of the boys play in tennis shoes or no shoes at all.

This past Monday, I got there right on time, 5:00, a feat for anyone who knows “Africa time”. A few of the other boys were already getting warmed up and stretching, a few were still doing laps around the field. I was already kitted up and ready to go, having only brought a few notes to get home, my cell phone, and a water bottle. The field is relatively flat and expansive, with only a few minor bare patches located in what would only be described as the try areas. I started jogging around the field, noticing a few sore areas from last practice. There were a few cows that were grazing off to the sides that I had to avoid, their owners languidly sleeping in the grass beside them. After we stretched and worked on a few kicks, we then ran a few hand drills; simple passing drills, pick and go’s, mauling and the like. I happened to notice that not all of our passes were the best nor was every one caught. The boys shouted words of encouragement and reprimand in Swahili (most of the team is Kenyan). I found myself being drawn into a coaching position once again, stopping drills and explaining our focus, there is so much potential and talent on this team that just needs to be directed and encouraged. I miss coaching a lot.

As we got ready to divide our teams, partnering up into X’s and Y’s, I heard the first far off rumble of an approaching storm. The air was saturated already with humidity, it now buzzed with a new static tingle which we all ignored. I couldn’t help but notice that Romeo, Tosh, Terminator and Manu were all on the same team and I was on the other, the majority of the forwards and a completely new guy. I guess the whole X and Y partnering is a little rigged…

The first rain drops fell with a fat splendor, splashing into my hair and eyes. My only regret being that I still haven’t purchased pleather cleats from the market yet, knowing I was five minutes away from slipping into the anthills-turned-mud castles. The rain fell steadily at first, Romeo jogging beside me, “See? I didn’t have to bring a water bottle,” he told me, opening his mouth to the sky. He shook his thin dreads and ran off to join the action. The rain fell harder and harder, the size of the rain drops just as big as the beginning. I was soaked. The sun was setting then and disappearing into the clouds. I looked around, our plateau giving a 360 degree view of the surrounding fields and countryside. The smell of the rain, the dirt and the verdant life filled my body. My side was losing badly. Good runs by Terminator, fast passes from Tosh to Romeo who broke through our defense and quick restarts by Manu easily exploited our team. It looked like we needed to step our game and start motivating each other. The rain made our already slippery ball almost uncatchable, high steps and fake moves ended up being wet muddy disasters and I found myself bent over, trying to catch my breath from laughing so much.

How many times can you say you played rugby in the pouring rain in Uganda?

This country is not my own. I feel very disconnected from it.

It rained yesterday afternoon, well, it poured and I got caught in it. I was on my way back to the house to find my phone. The rain pelted me and seemed to change it’s direction every minute or so. At first the air around me was warm and soft. The rain felt good on my bare arms. My shirt and skirt were getting soaked and my feet were beginning to slide in my sandals. But it felt so good. When I turned on the road to our house, the rain came in sideways and the air suddenly got colder, I hurried my pace knowing in a few seconds I would be inside and out of the capricious weather. It continued to rain for more than an hour. The streets had become mudways and their potholes red soup. I was unsuccessful finding my phone. It was a brand new one. My previous pal had been stolen at the Agricultural Fair in Jinja (as had Lyndsay’s and Claire’s). I think we were targeted, just a guess. I had immediately replaced it. This is unfortunately a lifeline to my boyfriend and my parents. When I tried to call my phone from Lyndsay’s, I had a sinking dread that it would be turned off. It was. And then it hit me. The sequence of events came flooding back and my stomach flew into my throat and my heart dropped to the floor. When I was walking through the market, less than 30m from the restaurant, a man bumped into me. I had on my backpack and he just sort of ran into me, like he didn’t see me or something. We made eye contact and he turned and walked quickly away. He stole my phone.

I’ve said this once and I will say it again, karma is a silent and sometimes painfully swift avenger. I hope that whatever bad luck befalls him, whatever truly unfortunate event finds him, I wish that he correlates the theft and his misfortune. As I said on my facebook, the man is going to fall into his pit latrine today, and I hope he has my phone in his back pocket. The last kicker is that I had just bought a significant amount of credit and registered it on my phone to be used that day, to call Omar and his family to pay my condolences for an Uncle who had recently passed away. That has to count for double karma, right?

This morning I made my way to the restaurant through the market. I went the same route, determined not to be caught off-guard if my assailant decided to strike again, or better yet, I could find and identify him and then explain to the mob of angry citizens that all of a sudden appear to my aid, that this man stole my phone and I saw him push an old lady down (or something equally terrible!). The walkways were covered in mud and drowned out pieces of trash and plastic. I picked my way slowly to avoid the slickest of areas and worst puddles of wet refuse. The road before the market is in a bad state of erosion, at times the shoulder comes close to a foot or so difference in height. Motorcycles (motos in Morocco or Bota-botas in Uganda) are taking people back and forth, bicycles slowly make their way past and an occasional car or truck dominate the better part of the blacktop. Women walk barefoot past, carefully balancing a load of food or goods on their heads. Kids with torn clothing and dirt smeared on their arms and faces continue on to their destinations, home or school or to possibly sell empty plastic bottles by the gas station. Men are outside working, fixing, repairing goods like trucks and cars, banging out dents in old oil drums, welding together window grates and doors. Small tiny food stands are preparing for their day, their smoke and smells reaching my empty, fasting nose and belly, their broken umbrellas doing little but to protect them from the near constant drizzle of the morning. I walk past men repairing old bikes and painting them a beautiful shade of blue. I keep my head high but avoid eye contact, something I learned in Morocco. I do not wish to have a conversation or to buy anything or to show any interest in anything except to be aware of my surroundings and pick my way through, avoiding the path of the other half coming towards me. I pass by a huge assortment but rarely any diversity in shoes. Shoes as far as the eye can see. Some are on display on small thigh-high tables, others are kept in large, plastic rusacks. These shoes are also individually wrapped in shiny, loud plastic. Most all of these shoes are plastic foam sandals. Colors are the only variation besides size, dark blue, baby pink, yellow-green, red, and black. These sandals do not need to fit you if you take any obvious hint from the people passing by, nor are there any gender colors like pink for girls and blue for boys. A large man could easily and acceptably be seen walking past wearing a baby pink shoe two sizes too small for him, his giant toes reaching out the front like ant feelers. We would instantly reel back in disgust, easily putting together that this man had no disregard for his daughter’s feet and their journey to school today! And then following behind the giant man, is a younger version of himself, we guess she is female because of her skirt, but her head is shaved and her features ambiguous. She is wearing large blue sandals, her toes squished to the front, the back heel wide open, slashing mud onto the backs of her legs. Eh.

Next I pass through store after store, my eyes becoming blurry with déjà vu. Each store looks exactly the same save the proprietor. Each store has 7-8 russacks out front, carrying various beans, flour and rice. The inside halted by a wide counter with a scale perched on top, behind are shelves lined with various but somewhat unrelated goods like Vaseline and hair brushes. I finally burst from that scene to a muddy tarmac somewhat organized with taxis (mututus in Uganda) being unloaded and loaded with people, goods, and your occasional upside down chicken. Chickens travel well upside down. I was told that they get disoriented and calm. I would too if I had never seen the world upside down, possibly the last way I would see the world until my quick death. How interesting…. Anyways, once I finagle my way around gentlemen trying to convince me to go to villages I have never heard of, I am on the home stretch. Much like during a marathon, I imagine, because I have never actually ran one, that the very end you become somewhat delirious in your pursuit of the finish line. Bright and beautiful colors flashing by your strides getting longer and your breathing labored. I don’t exactly breathe laboriously but I’ve caught myself one or two times making little happy humming noises. This last hallway of stores are mostly owned by Indians. They sell beautiful, shiny, patterned bolts of cloth. They have a number of models on display lining the entrance to the storefront, a matching solid sash of cloth wrapped around her middle, giving the models a more feminine shape. They are faceless, not much more than a T shaped stand, but I can imagine myself in each outfit and fabric, dancing in the mud through the market, my arms open wide as I serenade each shopkeeper with my lyrics about love lost and life lived... Not.

Finally, after crossing another street I am under the Suki Hotel building. Stores selling more cloth, a barren pharmacy, and a supermarket are located on the ground floor, and rooms and apartments are available on the second and third floors. And what? A delicious and delightful restaurant and bar that serves an array of Ugandan and Indian favorites paired with local beers?! Trivia played on Thursday nights! Sunday and Monday nights movies start at 8pm with free popcorn?! With a really cool American that has lived outside of America for 2 ½ years (who’s counting?!) that is observing Ramadan and possibly facing some serious issues of culture shock (from Morocco AND America). Hello! What a cool person! What a cool place! I wish I could be there every day from like 9 until 8pm, that sounds so awesome.

This past Sunday at Musana, we had a fun birthday party for our manager, Haril, with everyone surprising him first, then by celebrating; eating cake and having sodas and singing a big Happy Birthday! Lyndsay did a great job baking three Funfetti box cakes back to back and icing them each. They turned out quiet lovely! And no one got hurt… well yet.

Brenda Down for the Count

Brenda Splenda is another volunteer at Musana. She is awesome. She hails from the almight Colorado and from a large family of girls where she was the baby. Her five older sisters taught her the ropes and put gum in her hair to excuse a new haircut from time to time. She seemed to have turned out pretty darn well. She recently decided to change her flight from October to December. Quite commendable. So she, Gala and I are going to be together for the winter (or wet season?)! I feel really lucky that she is here.

Andrea, Brenda and I decided that it would be best to have all the girls together for activities and recapping the previous week but then splitting up for small group discussion.

Girls’ Group:

Introduction:

What did we discuss last week? What were some of the lessons learned? How was your week here at Musana? Did you have to trust someone this week or did someone have to trust you? How did you feel?

Activities:

(These activites I pulled from numerous resources but mostly from my manual Team Building and Leadership Activites that I created during my Peace Corps service.)

Peek-A-Who?!

Chair Swap (with our old Happy Birthday plates as markers) Brenda is somehow bullied by a tangle of brown arms and legs and falls somewhat gracefully to the ground in her brown dress. She also lost her paper plate and was demoralized into the middle.

Claps About It

Small Discussion Groups and Journal Time

I had wanted to tie in our discussion topics with the previous weeks subject on trust. I am not as aware of the situations and problems that the girls deal with on a weekly basis seeing that my current position requires my presence at the restaurant for the better part of daylight hours (and some evenings). I was caught off-guard and my lack of preparation beforehand is not to be lauded. We split the girls into three groups; I took the youngest, four 12-year olds, Brenda took six of the 13 year olds and Andrea took the oldest and most mature of the girls, a mix of one 13 year-old, three 14 year olds and one 15 year old. They all had the same situations and problems to discuss:

1. Situation: Sarah is friends with Betty and Mariam. Mariam is having problems with Betty and comes to Sarah to talk about them. Sarah feels bad and uncomfortable when Mariam talks to her about Betty.

Why does Sarah feel this way?

What should Sarah tell or advise to Mariam?

What should Sarah do?

Have you ever been put in a similar situation? What did you do? How did it make you feel?

2. Think of one person you trust. Can you tell them anything and everything? How do they make you feel? Why are they trustworthy friends? Do they just listen to you or do they advise you too?

3. Have you or anyone you know ever had a secret? Did you keep it? Did you tell anyone? Was it hard to keep that secret? When should you tell someone’s secret and to whom?

After we had discussed each situation and problem, we gave out a journal and pen to each of the girls. We asked that the girls write in the journals anything they wanted: tell about when you came to Musana, what happened this past week, what do you want to do in the next ten years, how do you feel today, etc., These journals are the girls’ only. We will never breach that trust. The journals will stay in Andrea’s office and she let the girls know that if they ever need or want to write in them, they are free to.

I was pleasantly surprised when I went to check on the groups and found that Andrea’s older group was still much in discussion after ore than a half hour. My younger group was finishing up their journal entries already. I will have to tweak our activites and discussion so that each group is given plenty of time to talk about these subjects and the other groups are not bored. I will compile a list of easy activities for us to do once we are finished journaling. My only hesitation is that I want to avoid their haste in completion of their journals to go on to a crafts project or something likewise.

Yesterday, we had a great day at Musana Children’s Home. Inspired throughout my life by my lovely sister Becca, and my mom especially, to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, I collected numerous water bottles my fellow housemates had used and discarded to be used as Plant Catchers. I had cut these large 1.5 and 500mL bottles in half, originally using the bottoms for another project: My Big Healthy Example Teeth. The bottoms of the bottles look exactly like molars once painted. I used another 20 or so to hold bottle caps we had collected from the Sol Café. I divided these caps up into their respective makes, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Mirinda and Fanta, Nile Gold and Club beers. These I will use later to delve into some more artistic expression. So I had a lot of top-half empty water bottles… oh what to do!

Plant Catchers:

Overturned and with careful placement of a good sized rock (something my mom used to do with her planters) to prevent the flow of soil and nutrients out when watered, we could make and hang these new lovely planters!

First, we had cut the bottles and made two holes opposite at the top where the string would be strung to be hung. Then, we had all the kids go and fetch appropriate sized rocks. This was all too easy, with numerous rocks of all shapes and sizes right outside the pavilion. The unexpected cacophony that resulted next was a bit difficult to drown out once they had these new music-making devices in hand. Luckily, we got them calmed down and distributed string and beads to be tied at the ends around the neck of the bottle and would hang off and dance in the breeze. We also distributed foam stickers that the kids carefully placed around the outside of the bottles. With the addition of their names, some soil, and a number of wildflower seeds (bought and brought from the US : / ? ) we had over 80 amazing plant catchers! Despite a few spills and thrills, the bottles these were hung outside the pavilion in clusters of 8-9. They look great and the kids loved doing them. Afterwards, they were pointing out to volunteers which bottle was theirs with nothing but pride and a sense of accomplishment. Easy enough if you ask me.

Girls’ Group

While the Plant Catchers environmental craft project was going, Andrea and I had our first girls’ group meeting. I had originally proposed this idea to Andrea and Sally when I first got here (a month ago in two days!). I really wanted to take and combine my previous work experiences and make a girls’ group to talk about healthy lifestyles and choices, personal growth, and developing a skillset to become healthy, productive and hopefully, independent women. Like I can’t praise them enough, my work throughout the years at the YMCA has really pulled through at the most random times. Now, I am using my work as a Y Teen Coordinator, teambuilding and managing to do activities and games with the girls. When we had started the Plant Catchers project, in order to get the kids calm and quiet, I used one of the easy crowd controllers, “If you can hear my voice, tap your head… If you can hear my voice, touch your nose…” without having to raise my voice once. Having taken a 3 day HIV/AIDS workshop with Peace Corps and using their LifeSkills Manual here, we are going to slowly move this group into talking and discussing some more serious issues they will be faced with as they grow into adulthood.

I have been volunteering my time at the Sol Café Restaurant, one of Musana’s sustainability projects. All profits from the restaurant go directly back to the orphanage and help cover basic needs like food, utilities, books, clothes, etc., The Sol Café does pretty well and I was brought in to help get it organized and help with bringing in new audiences on slower days. It has been a challenge because business is not my forte and I am new to the culture and attitudes of Uganda. For the first two weeks, I have been observing and learning. I help balance the books and clean and occasionally serve. It wasn’t until this past week that I wrote up my list of recommendations. I hope these will help the Café become one of the best running businesses in town.

My true passion is health care, as many of you already know. I did my first health lesson with the Musana kids Sunday afternoon about hand washing. When I have an audience, it is my sole responsibility to keep them entertained and learning. We talked about what germs were, where we can find germs, and when to wash our hands. I know this is only the beginning for sustainable health at Musana, and it helps that they employee a nurse full-time. It was a lot of fun and all of the kids washed their hands at the very end. It was great to see them scrubbing in-between their fingers and under their nails.

We each have $500 towards a project of our choice at Musana. Already I have mine dog-earred; a second well with an electric pump to have running water to sinks outside of the bathrooms. The bathrooms at Musana need some work. Right now, there is a single building with 12 individual stalls that open to the outside. They sit on top of a cement slab. Each stall has a rectangular hole cut out opening to a deep black abyss, your typical pit latrine, a good bathroom in these areas except when they have no faucets/running water to keep them flushed and clean. The kids (and myself from time to time) aim for these holes and oftentimes miss. The feces and urine sit outside the hole, attracting winged friends and creating a most unpleasant smell (as you can imagine). It doesn’t help that one of the endemic diseases in our area is diahearria, possibly because of this cycle of uncleanliness and poor sanitation from the pit latrines.

If you would like to help contribute to my project (or any others!), you can donate online at Musana.org (make a note for it to go towards sanitation projects). They currently have one pump well where they fill up large yellow jugs and truck them around to various areas like the kitchen (doesn’t even have running water!), the showers (a good 30m walk away) or the bathrooms (which I’ve never seen done). The kids wash their own clothes by hand on Sundays outside with the older kids helping the younger ones. It is quite adorable. The staff at Musana have truly done a lot since starting. These kids go to school for free every day, any supplies/clothes/shoes they need they are given, they have three meals a day, clean water, matrons who look after them, beds and sheets and mosquito nets, a social worker, a nurse, and a lot of people who lose sleep at night thinking about their health, well-being, safety and education. We just need good bathrooms, that’s all, and considering that some households don’t even have latrines and go outside, we are already a huge step ahead.

I know I haven’t submitted in quite some time. To summarize, I ended my service a week late, on top of my month long extension. I was just too busy that week tying up loose ends and doing a few final health lessons that I felt that the next week would be much easier to navigate my trip to Rabat to COS. I got permission from our country director, and then we forgot to tell everyone else I wasn’t coming in. Fail.

Omar, Gala and I traversed the country for the next month post service and enjoyed our vacation/leisure time. We visited Omar’s sister and family in Khenifra, then headed on to Ourzazate, Essouaria and Imlil/Toubkal outside of Marrakech. I was in a new transition state and did not know how to feel emotionally. I was sad to be leaving Peace Corps for sure, my service was pivotal in directing my future endeavors. Not to gloss or glamorize, but PC has and will forever change my life in my perspective of other cultures, languages, and ways of living.

We left for Uganda from the London-Heathrow airport on June 28th and arrived the morning of the 29th. We exited the plane in Entebbe via a metal staircase platform into a beautiful and humid setting. When waiting for our luggage to come, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of large plastic containers. It seemed that they outnumbered regular luggage. I watched one man I picked for a southern Baptist missionary load 5 onto a cart and head out into the sunshine. Uganda was having an early Christmas.

We were picked up by Robert and Selima, two of Musana’s employees. Robert is a driver for Musana and takes kids to the doctors, employees to functions and people to and from the airport in Entebbe, a short drive past the capital of Kampala. Selima is the Ugandan volunteer coordinator, kind of like Sally’s counterpart. She lives in the volunteer house with us. Both have easy smiles and thick accents. At least I was on repeat, “What? Excuse me? What?!” in the beginning. I still have a hard time deciphering African English and do a poor impression of it (unlike my Moroccan English accent! It’s not too bad!). I had changed my way of listening completely in Morocco. It was a part of my survival. It is fascinating what body language and small clues you start noticing when you aren’t completely sure what is going on. You also pick up on normal every day greetings and questions, what question follows what answer.

We stopped on the way in a small roadside town and were immediately flocked by people selling all sorts of goods to us through the windows. Beat that McDonald’s! They were literally RUNNING to meet cars pulled over. They sold us roasted salty chicken on a stick (which we sucked clean), whole baked bananas (hard exterior, warm soft interior), soda, samosas, chapatti (fried bread similar to Morocco’s lmslmen), and bottled water. We had shit food on the plane so these unexpected tasty treats were a great welcome!

Some of my first observations were that both men and women were out and working. Whether it was selling us food, working in the fields, behind cell phone counters or hanging clothes up for sale, it seemed as if the workforce was on equal footing. The verdant rolling hills sometimes broke away into sugar cane or tea leaves fields. Water seemed to be everywhere. Whether it was stagnant run off in ditches, small streams, irrigation in the fields or whole rivers we crossed over. There seems to be persistent, stolid clouds. The sun comes through occasionally but it never seems to be as oppressive as it was in Morocco despite our proximity to the Equator. People over the age of 15 seem indifferent to us. The younger kids point at us, yelling out and sometimes running full distances to come greet us, “Muzungu! Muzungu!” (White person! White person!) and come and give us only what can be described in our culture as “dap” or a knuckle bump called a “bunga,”. Sometimes they walk with us, holding our hands. Most the time it seems as if they had only gotten half-dressed that morning, their little cheeks a fun goodbye when we part ways. They also seem to have done some morning exfoliating, their faces and exposed skin caked in the red dirt. I tell you what though, despite the dirt and nudity, they are about as cute as you can get.

My work here has changed dramatically these past two years. With the number of good work contacts, language improvement, new or reoccurring opportunities and different venues, I've been able to do lots of different projects and programs. Within these past few months, I've been talking to women about their health, covering topics like breast cancer, STIs, common complaints concerning headaches and backaches, menstrual cycles, and hygiene.

I am almost embarrassed to have doubted and questioned not only my ability but the value of talking to women. A few bad experiences at the beginning of my service set me back in developing and pursuing work with women's groups. I had unfortunately tried my hand in women's health classes at a bad venue, at a bad time, and with a bad accent.

Now, with my confidence at an all-time high, I might think twice about doing a condom demonstration, but depending on how my audience is responding to my pictures and content of conversation, I'll don one on. We all know now how to check the expiration date, how to open it properly, what it looks like and how it is supposed to be used. I am trying to empower women by telling them that their health comes first. They are to give themselves time every day to exercise, stretch, massage sore muscles, and bathe. They are in charge of not only their health but the health of the household especially their children. They establish the rules. If one of the rules is that in order to watch TV after lunch you have to brush your teeth, all the better to start these habits early.

Recently, I worked at a small festival in Agdez, just south of Ouarzazate. Part of the activities put together by an association there included a trash pick up, mural paintings, 10K race, eyesight screenings and fittings, and a team of doctors to give free consultations and address women's health. Guess who called in absent?

My previous work with this association involved me speaking to groups of women out in smaller douars (villages) about previously-stated health topics. These talks were successful in dispelling myths, providing easy solutions for common problems and bringing awareness about the importance of women's health. The association appreciated my work and somehow construed my meager but important position as an educator to that of a doctor.

"Can you check women for breast cancer?" asked the association's president on Saturday, the day the doctors called in absent. "Yes, yes. This is important. They will come to you and you can do this,"

"I am not a doctor! I talk to women about breast cancer, how to check. We can talk about women's health."

"Ok, ok," He responded, absently nodding his head. Did he understand what I just said?!

One of the many reoccurring themes I feel most PCVs find in a country where English is not the first, second, or third language learned: problems communicating. This is perhaps why the first two ladies who came into the small office in the back of the Dar Chabab (think Boys' and Girls' Club but gov't run,) started pulling up their long house dresses as soon as we closed the door.

"Whoa, whoa! Blati schwiya. Shuf, Ur gigh tadbibt" (Wait a little-hold on- Look, I am not a doctor.) I'm sure word spread quickly about doctors being available for free consultations but the follow-up that they canceled did not. Guess who's caught in the middle? I was neither dressed nor had the place set up like a make-shift doctor's office or examination room. I was a foreigner, sitting on one side of a desk, patiently waiting their arrival, and they were desperate, I soon found out.

I was placed in a difficult and heart-breaking situation.

We talked about how to conduct self-exams for breast cancer. We talked about birth control. We addressed rashes and headaches. We talked about menopause. Despite my protests and obvious discomfort, some women insisted that I check out a lump in their breast, in their armpit, or one women's abdomen that was swollen like a bowling ball, bisected by a huge vertical scar and caused her bouts of pain and sleepless nights.

My conscience screamed at me, "What are you doing?! You are not a doctor. You don't know anything!"

My reasoning responded, "I told them I wasn't. What am I supposed to do? I didn't tell them to lift up their shirts. These women are scared. These women are desperate."

"You are reinforcing this impersonation by checking when they insist. Because you are talking about these things, you are in a position of authority of knowledge..."

"If I feel something or not, my advice has been the same: Go to the clinic and get checked by the doctors,"

They've been fighting back and forth since I got here in Morocco. You should be in my head when they go at it over a stray puppy. I almost got a bloody nose.

I was dizzy with emotions but had no time to sort through them. I was elated to be able to talk to so many women and address their specific questions. I could give these small groups, sometimes just one, two, or at most three women, the attention they possibly have never been given, concerning their health. I also felt helpless. These women deserved gynecological screenings, professional breast exams and mammograms, their questions addressed by professionals, (and yet, even the I cringe, hearing the advice and treatment given to women who have found lumps, medicine prescribed or given without discretion or direction, the apathetic mindset and mannerism they take with their patients). Like I said, it was this raging internal conflict and I tried my best to do no harm. I tried to dispel as much correct information that these women would remember as possible. The high school girls who were assisting in the activities and with my health presentations would address some of these questions on their own, able to reassure or give women the correct advice directly. It worked out well. They were able to reinforce the information, repeating my directions or translating into Arabic (another setback of mine,).

After I had seen the last group of women, I walked out to join the rest of the volunteers. Intercepted quickly, I was soon surrounded by young high school girls. They adored me. They asked me lots of questions about my experience in Peace Corps, my life in America, some about health. It was my own personal press conference and fan club. My ego grew as I soon realized that none of the other volunteers were being swallowed whole. Surrounded by these sweet girls who found me unbelievable and admirable, my slight ethical heart attack I had experienced earlier subsided.

What is my role here? What is my job? What are my limitations and what is within my abilities?

Donating a few days to help out a friend's festival in his site and I get an ego-boost that will last a couple of weeks. I guess I am surprised that more people aren't hooked on volunteering, mentoring, or donating. It seems as though, the longer you're in it, the stronger the karma, the bigger its rewards. I just need more time. more resources. and a scrutable financial advisor tied to big pockets. I am foolhardily reassured that things will work out and with time, I'll be able to provide more and give these self-sacrificing women the attention they need. "Give time for time," is an old Berber saying.

If only I could find the patience.

I can’t say that I am that spontaneous, but when Omar and I woke up this morning I was bound and determined to get some work done I’ve been putting off for various lame reasons. “We’re going to Tamtatucht today!” I told him with a sweet morning’s breath kiss. He barely acknowledged this information by slowly opening one eye, searched my face for an inkling of seriousness, found it, and promptly fell back asleep.

The dark olive green taxi sputtered up the French built road through one of Morocco’s most encompassing and awing destinations, Todgha Gorge. I was crammed into the backseat with 3 others, the driver not exactly spared himself from awkward discomfort, since in the front seat sat 2 with one undoubtedly pinching the stick shift with his butt cheek. Can’t be gay in Morocco but downshift groping sure is allowed.

From the speakers, what ones left that did work, came an interesting cacophony: Berber music that sounds as if recorded on some apparatus devised during Billy Holliday’s era. The static and white noise overpowers the pauses. Most of the Berber music uses an array of hand drums, a type of guitar that is plucked and not strummed, and a troupe of men and women that emit a call and response type of vocals with women reaching sharp yells supposedly inspired from the way they communicate across fields, valleys and mountains. To even the most open-minded music appreciator, these long repetitive songs can destroy the most lucid daydream and some with hearing aids have been known to turn them all the way off, preferring the silence.

The driver pushed something to make the tape deck wheeze and emit a multitude of low vibrations and what I can only liken to the noise of a loose or tired fan belt, a high-pitched scream, as we reversed or fast-forwarded to the next impressive stream of repeated rhythms and yelling. The road we were on followed the river, at this point there was no more water and only a dry river bed. The villages had long since disappeared as well as the fields. The road was getting farther into disrepair, the driver choosing to brave the gravelled washout rather than the potholed discourse parallel to it. The road had accepted its fate as a lost cause a long time ago. To think, to even humour the idea that a man-made road would survive in these conditions is ludicrous. At times, the river floods, swelling the banks and the road, and then it cracks into dry heat, the rocks melting, thirsty for rain. The road is used by a multitude of motorists: large construction trucks called cameos, dump trucks, huge, overflowing tourist buses, human-sardined transit vans, little foreign rental cars and overpriced ATV and dirt bike rentals that come roaring through, disrupting the awesome voice of the gorge walls, it’s echoes now becoming as ear-splitting as poorly recorded Berber music.

Being the last into the vehicle, I had the privilege to squeeze my short legs and full behind onto the tiniest the piece of cushion allotted in mankind. I had a flashback to a previous time. I had jokingly wiggled into a baby’s seat on a swing set on a public playground where my sequoia thighs then got stuck and I had to be pried loose by hysterically laughing friends. Unlike then, I knew I would be stuck in a different fashion and for a longer time. My knees jamming the back of the driver’s seat, I could feel the steel bars and loose padding. Thank my lucky stars our driver was unusual in his small and light stature. It wasn’t until after we had left the gorge area and were driving along, careening through the long curves that I noticed the inevitable: swampass. Yes, we all fall victim from time to time, the most victimized being those in unventilated transportation on plastic vinyl seats wearing some God-awful fabric we thought was trendy. I had on a favourite pair of hiking pants that strangely zipped off under the knee, an aspect I hadn’t utilized in this conservative culture. And after 2 years of hiding my legs, they are translucent and white enough to cause a bad case of drop jaw and possibly be mistaken by some ex-Boy Scout tourist as a distress sign for help. How embarrassing a rescue! Like a kid who wears a hat to hide the head lice, I keep ‘em covered, for your sake and mine.

We continued on, despite my obvious discomfort. We seemed to be following a small red van, which is an absurd thought, seeing that there is only one road. The vehicle was filled with people and their market goods, bags of flour stacked precariously on top. It slipped around each corner with ease. I briefly daydreamed of the door flying open and my body flying into the boulders below, a common daydream of mine once inside public transportation. How these locks stay secure is beyond me, especially with constant pressure from my hips and those of others day in and day out.

We finally came into Tamtatucht. The valley spread out before us. It is a beautiful area and I was happy to have arrived at our destination with no casualties except a once-fresh pair of panties. We grabbed our stuff and trudged up the stairs to the Auberge Ali, a center of science and learning, now owned by AbdelKarim Kharuj, a good friend of Omar’s. The sun just peaking overhead and its blue skies contrasted the red hues of the mountains stretching out before us. A nice breeze cooled my flanks and I checked my B.O. It looks like the day was going to be a good one.

Recently I returned to my site to attend the funeral of my old landlord. He was approximately late 50s or early 60s. Habitual smoker. We were neighbours and I saw him everyday. He was like a father to me; telling me what to do and not to do, warning me of walking alone at night, helping me with my butagaz, praising my language and reassuring me that I was adjusting and becoming Moroccan. His close relationship with my host mom also strengthened ties between us. He would often visit her while I was there. We were a close-knit family.

I received a text message first from my former tutor and my landlord’s son that he was in the hospital. We were about to leave for Rabat for our COS conference and Omar and I vowed to visit him if (God forbid) my landlord was still there when I got back. We never got the chance.

He passed away on the way home from the hospital in Ouarzazate. He had been there for 6 days and was released (whatever that means here: additional testing needed, expensive costs for the room and care, fatalistic view towards life and God, etc.) I used to wake up to his persistent coughing every morning. It was horrible. It made my chest hurt. I used to tell him that I hear him coughing and that he needed to stop smoking. He knew. He was addicted.

Unfortunately, the time I spent in my site I was looking forward to and planning my next departure. I was lonely and bored. I had found a number of work contacts and other associations down in my souk town, approximately 45 km away. My village is small, isolated, and was difficult for me to adjust to. First off, I am a foreigner and do not own fields (to attend to daily & harvest), I am a woman (and was not exactly welcome at the association,) and there is no internet connection that far into the mountains. I was cut off and needed work. I visited a number of times with friends and family (hence I gained a solid 20 lbs) where we drank sweet mint tea, ate homemade bread and olive oil, and gossiped. Few, if any of the people in town spoke English, my tutor was in my souk town, and the association was satisfied without me involved. My language was stagnant and I was teetering on an isolation-induced depression. I had a hard time sprinkled with a few bright patches that first year.

I found my saving grace at the Café Atlas in Boumalne on March 24, 2010. Saying my usual hellos to a group of acquaintances, a young man named Omar working at the cafe noticed me. His hazel eyes lit up when he heard me speaking Tashelheit. He asked me if we could speak English together. Wouldn’t I like to come sit and have some coffee? Unfortunately for him, a number of like-minded individuals had presented similar offers to me in the past and had ruined this genuine invitation for me. I had heard it all before! An exchange of languages: English for Berber and then inevitably an invitation back to his place or mine, or hey! Let’s just get married! I was wary of him but was curious. His English was good and when he looked at me, he looked through me. I was caught.

We arranged to meet the following Friday when I would be in town next (already planning ahead!). I blew him off. Due to some external forces (namely a mischievous girl from my village who lied to the family and hitchhiked a ride down to Boumalne with me and then preceded to turn herself into a sad puppy and followed me about my day while I ran errands to the bank, post office, and marche,) I left town early and missed our scheduled time to meet. I felt bad but really had my hands tied with Ms. Crazy Hormones Let’s Strut Up and Down Boumalne So I Can Have Every Creepo Goggling Me. I knew where to find him and made up my mind to come back as soon as I was back in town. I even made a list of English words we could discuss. This new personality left a lasting impression.

The next time we met, we hit it off. He was fascinated with me and me with him. We quickly became great friends and I was introduced to his family (all of them). The relationship we had enabled me to get to know and understand Amazigh culture and life. He was my guide and teacher. I came out of my sadness into a happier, healthier life and was me again.

Back in my site, I felt as if I hadn’t ever left. Things had not changed (I am beginning to notice this recurrent theme: I leave and come into my own, a metamorphosis if you will, and find those left behind are the same, neither good nor bad just an observance..). Just this time, everyone was in mourning. When I entered into the living room and was passing to each woman, saying my condolences it wasn’t until I had her hand in mine that I noticed whose it was. She had disappeared into a cloud of white blankets, shawls, and head wraps. She was smaller than I remembered. This was my landlord’s wife. I immediately broke down and started crying. This poor, little woman with a truckload of kids, poor hearing and bad respiratory problems was now widowed. Sitting beside her was Aisha, my landlord’s sister. Memories came flooding back to me then. I remembered all the times I had come by the house. My landlord was either there or just around the corner. The tears came swiftly and I am neither graceful nor clean when I cry. My big eyes swell up, my nose starts running and I try to stifle big sobs that escape through from time to time. I sat down next to the women where they consoled me. They told me that God wanted Lahou and it was his time to go. They said again and again that I was family and I was a daughter to Lahou. Every time a new family member came into the room my eyes started welling up, the memories came flooding back again and this new heart of mine, full of empathy, gushes forth inside my chest (just try watching the news with me sometime…)

I stayed through the evening and visited with a number of families. It was a nice visit despite the circumstances and I got to play with my girls (Sarah, Mariam, and Milu) at my host family’s house. I miss them a lot. I had some time to reflect and contemplate about my life and the lives around me. People say that this life is short and whether or not you believe in an afterlife, you should never take for granted the friends, family, health, weather, sunsets, stars, laughs, cries, and the list goes on. I guess I am trying to bring things full circle. My landlord's death caused this period of reflection and moment of gratitude. I thought back to my own family and how much they have loved and supported me. I thought back to Omar, my sunshine. I have found someone who despite our difference in cultures, languages, religion, etc., we have found something true, genuine and special within each other. Every day there is something new.

All my good energy and light,

H

[Eminem infamously insults and degrades women in his songs.]

What is happening out there, this great vast world of ours? I feel, despite where I am that I am so secluded, so protected from life, real life, that I lose touch with humanity. Thank Mother Earth they show real news here. The burned bodies, covered in gravel, their legs twisted unnaturally. Is this just my naivety? My initial shocked reaction? Are people here inured to it? Much like our youth to violent video games? I wonder. I still believe a human body, covered in blood, tugs at our heartstrings. It’s someone’s brother or father, sister or mother.

Omar said something the other day I found pleasantly surprising. He said that the world was changing and someday soon, women will hold all of the positions of power. (I certainly hope so.) Does that make me a feminist? Why do I hold such negative connotations with that word? Yet more and more I find the same common thread in our problems… the greed, blatant abandonment of responsibility, corruption… but look at who is holding these powerful positions? Especially in some of our most exploited countries. Men. All men. Violence. War. Especially the violence. I feel as though women are almost incapable of that animalistic, brutal violence (especially towards an unknown enemy! Be it police, who are just doing their jobs, or another country’s citizens…) the exception being of course a women’s maternal instinct to protect her children and by Mother Earth’s sake, I would fight tooth and nail to protect my loved ones. Alas, here is our difference: Women would fight to protect the family. Men seek out violence.

What can I do to help shape the youth of tomorrow to consciously decide not to destroy but seek voice, change, in a peaceful manner? Where is the Ghandi, the Martin Luther King, Jr of today?

Kaytea, one of my closest friends here, told me about a famous speaker who travels across the country speaking to various groups about violence towards women. I can’t remember his name but Kaytea says that he is a devout feminist and calls attention to our media and how it depicts violence towards women. Kaytea also told me that 7 out of 10 Hollywood movies show a woman being attacked/murdered/ raped and in very few cases do the women actually fight back.

I have a number of thoughts running through my head:

Various cultures perception of women as being seducers, sorcerers, powerful controls of the body and mind (especially of men) and therefore it “justifies” the degradation, behavior and 2nd class citizen status of women.

Peace Corps' inability to properly train men and women alike in boundary-setting and self-defense is tragic and upsetting. Too many volunteers have these invasive, harassing experiences (just watch ABC’s recent exposing programs about PC) abroad. We, as Americans, (thinking of myself and a few others,) are afraid to speak out when being violated or offended. We’re too nice. There is a clear difference between being friendly and not knowing how to say stop. What is that deep seated, ingrained guilt that each one of us carries? Our guilt for being gluttonous consumers protected within our borders, ignorant of the real world, the rest of the world. Embarrassed and ashamed of our wars in foreign countries?

I’m disturbed that women haven’t banded together to give voice to these outright repulsive behaviors. When a hip hop figure gets an award, press release, media attention, could a reporter, fellow rapper, strong voice not shame him for calling women “bitches and ho’s” promoting violence towards women and degrading women because they lack the creativity and passion in their work to fill up more space on their shitty albums?

The last time women stood together was for us to demand our right to vote. 1920. Susan B Anthony?

Who are our female role models of today?

I want to yell on the top of the world, my voice raining down on every chauvinist, his ears bleeding. He vows to respect all women, begging me to stop.

This blog may sound a little zealous and erratic. My newfound voice. I don’t hate men. I love (some) men. I am just angered that in the year 2011, women are still degraded. Women are still disrespected and it’s not upsetting more people.

Recently, in the news of the world, there have been mass protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa regions. People have been flooding the streets, men and women alike, chanting, “We Want Change!” lighting vehicles on fire, throwing rocks at various government buildings and officials. Their angry faces and voices represent years upon years of bitter suffering and resentment. Ousting the President of Tunisia was a reinforcement for the rest of watching world, as news of his corruption and greed broke. For years, Tunisia was touted as a representative for the rest of the Arab and North African areas, putting education at the top of the list, making enrollment in school mandatory until the age of 16. Now all the encomium is tainted, marred by images of Ben Ali’s wife filling her pockets with their constituents money and assets. I retch in the false assumption that the government was a role model to others. With Egypt and Yemen not too far behind, I wonder about the rest of these nations who have been placated with a false sense of democracy. A president who stays in office for over 30 years is not a president, he is a dictator. No wonder these people are enraged, and finally, they have the gumption to demand change.

Another headline that caught my eye, was the stoning of a young couple in Afghanistan. They had been convicted of committing adultery. They were fleeing to Pakistan when they received a message from their village: Come back, no harm will come to you. They returned, believing in the promise. Saving the horrific details, they were both stoned, most of the village had come out to watch or participate. She was still alive when the last stone was thrown, and a Taliban soldier fired three shots into her head.

Unfortunately, I come to draw references from these tragic stories: the ugliness of violence. Watching images of protesters throwing rocks at police, destroying buildings, engulfed by their rage that it no longer matters who is hurt, as long as the satisfactory clamor follows after their rock hits. I am as appalled as I am confused. I never have known such deep seated anger, such wrath to want to hurt and destroy. I look at the couple in Afghanistan, their crime a common story, but their punishment so unusual and barbaric. What makes us commit such violent acts?

Part I:

Wind rushing by,

is my door closed

all the way

Emergency Action Plan:

Grab Handle Above

with left hand; steadying self

with right hand on the door.

Note: Don’t grab guy sitting

next to me. He looks like

he’d come right with.

Does this taxi have

blankets in the window of

the backseat? Does this driver

spend the night out or local trips only?

Taxi Drivers need toothbrushes too!

Part II:

The wind is getting louder

Roaring in my ears

The smells are getting stronger

Hope my other senses stay in check.

Do authors enjoy reading as much as they enjoy writing?

Unbelievable.

Sheep can eat this

tough and sparse grasses

And turn it into fat

Yet they travel/graze

for distances.

Unbelievable.

Cows.

People.

What do we lack in our bodies

to process these simple calories?

I forgot.

Don’t monkeys and gorillas

eat these grasses too?

Aren’t they like our 3rd cousin

By Gen Etics?

Dinner options.

Free rides are way more fun than

rides you pay for.

What have I got to hide and

who are you to judge?

The clouds taunt the motionless mountains

in a whimsical game of winded dances.

I felt it today. Taking off the black headscarf, the white piece that women wear under that covers their hairline, my long black shirt that covers my ass. I was taking off an identity and slipping into a new one. I looked at the sloughed clothes on the floor. Who am I? What am I becoming? I hastily threw on a sports bra and underarmor shirt, planning to burn off some cultural steam on a power walk in the desert behind the house.

Identities.

Who have I become? I used to joke with my sisters in high school that depending on the day and my mood I would pick which Spice Girl I wanted to dress like: Sporty or Posh? Now, my Spice Girl garb includes headscarves and full traditional dresses. Foreign-Girl-Wanna-Be-Native-Culturally-Sensitive Spice? Don’t think she made the cut.

I look at myself in the mirror downstairs as I wash my hands after eating lunch with the family. I look like I was wearing a nun’s habit from the shoulders up. I’m sure some of you are just dying laughing, imagining me, even pretending to be associated with the Church and a life of abstinence!

I can’t help but stare though. Is this just going to be another facet to my personality treasure chest? God save us all if my rugby girls were to run in here during a meal. Much less if the lyrics of our social was translated. But that is a part of me too. The grass in my socks, a big bruise on my thigh. When do the others parts get their turn?

I understand that it is all a balance.

I understand that at this point in my life it is necessary to be this other person. Not another person. That’s not fair. It’s still me under it all. I still dance in the kitchen and make sarcastic side comments and faces at the neighborhood children. BUT it can be kind of scary sometimes.

I fell in love with rugby after my first real hit. It was my first game. I had never played rugby before in my life. After missing soccer tryouts for the club team my freshman year this beautiful but massive female had called out to me at the rec center in college, “Hey! You wanna play rugby? Anyone can play.” I had three practices before that game.

I had gotten the ball from our scrum-half and had made it maybe three steps before I had gotten hit. It felt like I ran into a truck. Or a train. In reality, I had been pulverized (and maybe a little embarrassed) by a mean looking chick with a black mouthguard who might have had some sexual frustrations growing up in life. I could tell by the crowd’s reaction that I had gotten knocked pretty solid. She was a hungry beast. And I was dinner. After picking myself out of her teeth and recovering my 5 senses that had been beaten through my digestive track, I realized something: I am alive. And I feel good.

That started my love affair.

Once you realize that you can take a hit and give one right back, the game becomes mesmerizing. The rules are a little complicated at first, but with some time, they start to set in. I am here to give you the basics so that you understand what is going on when you watch that fake accent, beefcake pussy, Matt Damon, in Invictus, or more importantly, when you catch a game on ESPN or hopefully, when you go out for your first practice.

There are 15 people on the field for either side. These 15 people are divided up into 2 main groups called the Forwards and the Backs. The Forwards are numbered 1-8. These people typically tend to be your bigger, more solid players. In recreational or club teams you can identify these players because they typically are a little more overweight or slower but once you reach a professional level, these kids are all huge. Numbers 1 and 3 are props, number 2 is the hooker. These three make your “front row” during scrums (to be explained soon). Numbers 4 and 5 are locks and make up your “second row”, #s 6 and 7 are flankers and number 8 is your “8-man.”

These 8 refrigerators bind together to create a scrum, used during games to restart the ball when an offense has been committed by either team. Typically this act is what people remember and refer to when they ask me about rugby and if we actually “butt heads.” This is an intricate system to make a compact unit that binds together and moves together when the restart is called. The front rows’ heads go into the armpit space that is created by the other team when they bind in the same manner. (Ask for an actual demonstration by any rugby player, at any bar, and they will be more than glad to show you, hell, even buy you a beer for being interested.) The ball is rolled down the center of the front rows and the two hookers fight for possession of the ball by kicking it backwards through the legs of their own teammates. They control it until it finally reaches the 8-man.

At this point the scrum-half, easily identified by their smaller stature, quick hands, and the number 9 on their jersey, picks up the ball and distributes it to the Backs.

The backs consist of numbers 9-15. These charmers are typically light on their feet, have good hands, and create interlacing patterns, streaming up the field. Number 10 is the flyhalf and usually calls plays for the rest of the group. Next at #11 is inside center, followed by outside center at #12, numbers 13 and 14 are wings and work on opposite sides of the field. Last but certainly not least, is the fullback.

Games are usually 90 minutes long, 45 minute halves with a ten minute half-time. Games are played on the “pitch,” or field, and the rugby ball is kicked through the uprights, (these look like skinny football posts). Points are scored by placing the ball on the ground in what could be described as the end zone or in-goal area. This is known as a “try” and worth 5 points. After a try is scored, the team is allowed a kick through the uprights, 30 m out directly from the point the ball was touched down. This is worth two points and can be extremely difficult if the ball was touched in either far side. At any point, either team can kick for 3 points through the uprights.

Rules of the game: the ball must be passed backwards or laterally, never forward. Therefore, if the ball is accidentally hit forward (i.e. imagine a fumble or just bad pass) the play stops and a “knock-on,” is called by the referee. Following this, there is a scrum. If the ball happens to go out of bounds, out of “touch,” then a line-out is called. During a line out, the hooker is responsible for throwing the ball down the center of two lines, consisting of teammates of either players. Each line has groups of players, groups usually consist of three people, the front and back persons lifting the middle player into the air. They try to catch the thrown ball and get it back to their team. Once a player is tackled to the ground, they must release the ball. If the player holds onto the ball, the play is stopped and that team is penalized. The penalty results in possession and field gain by the other team. The offending team must give 15m space to the opposing team. Once a player is tackled and releases the ball (hopefully to their teammates) a ruck is formed. This happens quickly and frequently in games. The two players that were the tackled and tackler are out of the play and try to reenter soon after. Teammates following in pursuit push each other, trying to gain ownership of the ball. They are not allowed to pick up the ball (hands in!-rule) until they have completely cleared space over the ball (“so a bird could shit on it,”). Teams must push straight on. They cannot simply dodge people and run around a ruck to pick up a ball.

Rugby is a fast game played with skill and quick decisions. I admire the game because there are almost no time-outs. Players must adapt and change their strategies constantly on the field. For example, during a scrum, if our loose-head prop is being beaten every time and is our weak point, a simple solution might be to switch the props or suggest getting his/her head under the other player and driving through the other player’s chest. Let her feel it! If the other team has a kicking game (they like to kick a lot to gain field), then we might suggest our fullback play deeper and more defensively.

There are sometimes as many as three captains on the field: Forward, Back, and Team. The forward captain makes changes and keeps up the morale of the scrummies, while the back captain may suggest different plays and keep up with the performance of the backs. Usually the team captain is addressed solely by the referee if there are any offenses by the team (“Captain, make sure your girls keep their hands out of the rucks!”) and therefore, they are responsible for the team as a whole. Like with most sports, women’s rugby is somewhat slower but played with more finesse and fluidity. Men’s rugby is faster, harder, and transitions are almost constant.

Rugby gets better with time. You will always have a rugby family, anywhere in the world. The best thing about rugby is the camaraderie between teammates, the beer that flows after games, and the fact that some player might have wanted to kill you earlier that day, they are now buying you a shot at the bar. Everything is left on the field. You play hard and then celebrate (win or lose) with your opposition, singing a few songs and sharing a few beers. All of my college roommates were rugby players. I went on to coach high school girls’ and play club after college and continue to love the game from either side of the pitch.

I do not mean to refer to myself so much when I explain that it takes a special person to play rugby. But I have found these things to be true about almost all rugby players, simply think of James Carcilli, who played in college also. These people need to be pretty physical, have some wits about them, and honestly, be a little crazy.

Google the “Haka”, performed by the sexy New Zealand AllBlacks, or if you want to see one of the greatest players, check out Jonah Lomu. He is delicious and incredible. USARugby is a great website to check out if you want to find a team in your area (stateside). If you have any questions or want to play sometime, just shoot me an email kirlinh@colorado.edu. Cheers!

Recently, my parents came to visit me here in Morocco. This story would be best if you had met my parents. Just imagine your typical set of parents. Sweet, good natured and proud of their Peace Corps daughter. They still fight in the car over the directions, occasionally order the same meal despite a huge menu, and my dad tells well, dad jokes. My mom just rolls her eyes and I laugh.

I tried best to prepare them for all that could be expected: indigestion, conservative garb, alarm clock style calls to prayer, traffic, and vendor harassment. They are fairly well traveled having vacationed in Peru, Costa Rica, and Germany, among others. This was still a first for them, coming to Africa. I tried my best to plan a smooth trip. I knew that they would be bothered that they would not be able understand any of the languages here (gold star America!).

I tried my best, starting early, to teach them some basic Tashelheit. Words and greetings that they would hear repeatedly like “Salaam walakum, labas, thenna,” and “nchallah,” among a few others. They accents reminded me of mine in the beginning. They did pretty well remembering and tried out the greetings every morning during breakfast.

When we visited my boyfriend’s family, their first real “home stay” in Morocco, my parents were desperate for additional vocabulary. “How do I say, ‘Good Morning!’ or ‘Delicious!’?” They asked. So, easily after that, during any meal, my parents would praise my boyfriend’s mom, telling her that the food was “IHla bzzf!” (very good,) or “Yetfut!” (delicious.)

We had a great time in Morocco. I couldn’t have asked for better weather, suitable hotels, or just for things to work out as nicely as they did. Randomly, I believe the recent change in seasons might have out my boyfriend and I on a bit of a sneezing frenzy. It seemed that every morning one of us was reaching for some Tempo. On our way from Errachidia to Azrou, Omar, my boyfriend, had a sneezing fit and tried to stifle the last one, creating a bit of a nose fart. I started to make fun of him. My dad, charming in on the fun, tried to bless him. Insteading of saying, “RHumkullah!” as we had just learned the day before, he got confused and said, “Yetfut!”

“Dad, that means delicious,” I said, my lips breaking into the biggest preemptive outburst of laughter. “Oh my god!” and we all died laughing in the car. My mom, driving, tears streaming down her face because she was laughing so hard. We imagined scenarios where my dad would respond to a random sneeze in a cafe or on the street, “Yetfut!”

The man has the best intentions and tried really hard to remember phrases. I think maybe his German “Gezundheit” might have somehow messed him up. Oh well. Next time that guy in the taxi sneezes all over the seat in front of you, bless him with a “Yetfut!” and offer a tissue.

I love language. High five.

I wrote this during the first day of fasting during this Ramadan. Ramadan is great in that it gives us a time for reflection. I was having a conversation with a friend that day and found we were not connecting on the same level, this was disturbing and it got me to thinking. Some differences are apparant like culture, language, religion, customs and traditions, others, I find are hidden and only visible after a more in-depth conversation. What makes us view things differently? What makes me see one situation as clear and your perception as convoluted? What matters to me and what are your priorities? We were taught differently, how does that affect our decision-making abilitis?

What do I care about? I guess one of the most pertinent thoughts that came to me was abstract thinking. Now whether this is something learned or inherent, I couldn’t tell you. I find that the ability to view situations from outside perspectives, from a different angle, from another culture another background. To truly be able to displace yourself into another’s state, this can not be accomplished fully, but the act of trying is considerable enough.

I find that I am not only in the minority but in the strangest place of trying to balance my own beliefs and cultures with respecting those of the people here. When is it appropriate to stop a conversation because it is one-sided with the other person not interested nor showing the same respect you have given him in listening to your perspective? How much leeway is given due to the differences in our common courtesy and manners regarding social behaviors versus their difference in experience, where they may not be exposed to as many people from different backgrounds, cultures, etc., I like to think of small town America and its inhabitants as being very similar. We see these people on TV. Their warped viewpoints make us shake our head in pity and sympathy. It is like they don’t know any better, so how can you be upset?

That has been much of my mode of continuing on here with my head held high and a positive countenance and outlook on the rest of my service. How can I be so upset when people do not know any better. What a shallow and haughty statement you might say! Am I looking down my nose at these people, feeling sorry for them and their lack of a better education and social graces? No. But you have to understand how frustrating it can be when sitting in a room full of women who talk on top of each other. My frustration here, once again, is who asks the hard questions? Who asks about fighting for their rights? Who wants to rally together and start demanding some respect for themselves and their sisters? Perhaps I am calling for a revolution, certainly a sexual one, certainly one for women’s rights, certainly one for the equality of women.

It’s not every night that I wake myself up dreaming of large grizzly bears who want to eat me alive. It was a fear instilled in me as a small girl, exploring the great outdoors and national parks every summer with my family that developed this sleeptime phobia. We were warned repeatedly through large posted signs, “DO NOT FEED THE BEARS,” pamphlets describing maulings, talks from rangers about the lone piece of bubble gum left inside a tent…

I have an admiration for these impressive animals, having seen them in the wild only from a great distance. For some reason though, in my dreams, they are on a mission to destroy our camp and eat my sisters as hor d’ouevres and myself as the main course. My dog has made cameo appearances, fighting off these beasts as well as myself, waking up with a ring of sweat on my shirt, convinced I would find a handful of thick brown fur. Why do these animals haunt me? Is it there large massive bodies, sharp claws and ravenous appetites? I really don’t know.

I grew up reading about freak alligator attacks in local lakes. Remember the summer three jogging women were killed, alligators preying upon Nikes and tube socks? I remember water skiing with friends, thinking about all the alligators we were speeding past. My mom’s friend was bit by a copperhead snake in our driveway. I worked for the Boulder YMCA Afterschool Program and had to keep the kids inside one week because a mountain lion was sighted in the neighborhood earlier (did somebody say kiddie snack?). I’ve reached my hand under the outdoor porch steps for missing tennis balls and Frisbees only to find a nest of black widows (4 total). Rabid raccoons, the angry chow next door, Burmese pythons too big to be kept as pets released into backyards, yet none of these friendly creatures visit me in my dreams like the grizzly.

I’ve thought about how here, in Morocco, there is a disturbing lack of wildlife. I saw a poster at a PCV’s house that listed all the animals that have disappeared from the great forests and deserts here. Lions once roamed these mountains, but were rounded up and killed in the Moroccan version of the Coliseum and gladiator games. The last one was killed in 1920. Wildebeasts, antelopes, wolves, and other great animals once roamed these hillsides. Now all we get to feast our eyes upon are sheep, goats and the occasional wild donkey.

Native Americans believe that the Grizzly bear has powers and is a medicine man from their people long ago. He is to be respected and revered. I for one, do both. What is it in our subconscious that causes these dreams to be so disturbingly real?

And this week’s PCV Project of the Week:

Nomad Health Education

Volunteer participants: 4 PCVs: Hanna Kirlin, Cory VanSteenwyk, Melissa VanSteenwyk, and Emory Nelkie. 8 First Year Medical Students from Loyola Medical School in Chicago, one pharmacist from Kelaat M’gouna, a nurse from Kelaat M’gouna, and two representatives of a Spanish travel agency, Mugámara, who’ve led the expedition for the last 2 years.

Beneficiaries: The nomadic people of the Oulilimt region and surrounding areas.

Where: Oulilimt, which is a small town/region located about 8 hours (by foot) over the Atlas Mountains from Ait Bougamez. This isolated area is where nomads often pass the summers to graze their flocks.

When: June 14-21, 2010

Goals and Objectives:

Medical Student’s Goals: To observe/collect data on demographics and prevalent medical problems nomadic people face, and to understand and eventually help prevent some of these illness; to hand out “hygiene kits” (toothbrush & paste, disinfectant soap, floss and lotion) and provide proper education on why each item of the kit is important and how to use them properly; to hold “focus groups” for women (young and old) to gain understanding on their current birthing practices and how best to improve these practices, thus decreasing infant mortality rates; to give women, of childbearing age, birthing kits (razor, clean towel, sanitary drop pad, floss, gloves, alcohol swabs, soap, and education handouts with pictures) and to administer education and discussions on proper usage of the kits (all with the help of the nurse).

Mugámara Travel Agency: Their goal was to provide the nomadic people of the Oulilimt area with an opportunity to receive medical assistance (by bringing in the pharmacist and nurse), as well as setting up an educational center for the nomadic children to attend during the summer months. They also planed and arranged all the logistics for the event. An additional goal of the agency is to learn and study the lives of these nomadic people to better understand the people they are helping (and possibly make a financial profit while doing so).

Peace Corps Volunteers Goals: To assist in any way possible in the previously stated goals with a main objective being to help increase the other foreigners’ cultural understanding and sensitivity of Morocco and Berber people, conduct translations, assist with education, and do what we do best as health/environmental volunteers by making the trip a success for the medical students and travel agency!!

• The plan was to set up two tents in two different locations about one and a half hours apart from each other (Oulilimt and Talmount). The tents would be utilized in the goals of both the medical students and travel agency doing assessments, health education and medical screenings. After this, the tents were to become temporary schools for the nomadic children to study for the remainder of the summer. The opportunity of going to school gives the youth a chance to improve their futures since the majority of nomads (men, women and children) haven’t had any formal education and many are literate and don’t speak Arabic. Secondary tents were also to be assembled to serve as housing for the teacher in each of the two sites. Two teachers, from lower in the valley, volunteer their time during the summer months teaching the students and are responsible for these tents. In addition the plan was to construct a basic pit toilet bathroom for the children and teacher’s use during these summer months.

• With the presence of a pharmacist, nurse and medical students, the tents in Oulilimt (where we camped) were to be transformed into a small clinic for two days. The idea was to have the nomads come and visit the pharmacist so they could be evaluated (and treated if possible) for their medical issues and the medical students and PCVs were to assess the area and needs of the nomads, perform health education and give out basic supplies. This is important because the majority of nomadic people that we planned to reach are at least a 2 hour walk plus an additional 6 hour transit ride from the nearest reliable medical clinic in Kelaat M’gouna. Needless to say many do not receive medical treatment as often as they should if at all. The plan for treatment was to include the cleaning wounds, diagnosing illness and the distribution of pharmaceutical medications, and verbal instructions to encourage prevention and treatment of common illnesses and ailments. Once the health work is completed in Oulilimt the plan was to travel to Talmount, a nearby village where another tribe of nomads currently spend their summers and set up an additional school (as well as collect more demographic/medical data, without the presence of the pharmacist and clinic).

What Happened:

Day 1:

• PCVs met in Ait Merrow (Emory’s site) in the afternoon. We prepared for hike, made sure all supplies were ready, and started off about 3 hours on the trail.

• We spent the night next to the river.

Day 2:

• PCVs continued on the path/river another 8 hours until sunset

• Camp was set up near river (near Irgizga and Tamzirt).

Day 3:

• Morning- found several small Hanuts with basic supplies for the next few days.

• We hiked about a total of 5 hours.

• Set up camp (near Ighrim Izdar and Ozirimt).

Day 4:

• After hiking a few hours we spotted the Medical team/Group leader/Nurse on the trail. We accompanied them a few more hours until arriving at our final destination, Oulilimt.

• The night of we collaborated (discussed goals) a bit with the others and planned out the activities of the following days.

Day 5:

• Sent a small group (1 PCV, 2 Med students and 1 Moroccan guide) to the nearest nomad homes in the surrounding regions to inform them about the Medical staff’s presence and purpose, and encouraged them to come to Oulilimt during the next 2 days

• The rest of the group cleared a large area of rocks, set up two tents (one tent for clinic/school, and the other for house of teacher) and prepared for the arrival of the nomads the following day.

• The pharmacist arrived

Day 6:

• At the clinic, visits and treatment lasted from about 11-4pm, PCVs and medical students assisted. Treatment included distribution of pharmaceutical medication (provided by the pharmacist), cleaning and disinfection of wounds, and advice about home remedies or referral to the nearest clinic if needed.

• Children were weighed using a make shift scale constructed out of tent poles and rocks. Results were used to determine if children were at normal maturing rates based on their ages.

• “Focus groups” to learn about birthing practices; led by the female nurse, female PCVs and female medical students; birthing kits where explained and given to those who were of age and expecting more pregnancies.

• Environmental lessons which included drawings and discussions were conducted by PCVs and medical students with the kids after visiting the clinic.

• Small Health Lessons were conducted by PVCs and medical students before giving each family their “hygiene kits”, these lessons included tooth brushing, hand washing, and skin care lessons.

• Medical students and Spanish travel agent constructed the bathroom for children and teacher.

• Meeting at the end of the day to discuss what went well and what needed to be changed for the next day.

Day 7:

• Same activities as the previous day, with a few changes to improve organization

o Instead of having the people wander around after they had seen the pharmacist we set up specific stations they had to visit, one at a time. They had to carry a sheet of paper that kept their demographical data organized and whether or not they received birthing kits or attended the birthing education/demonstration. They carried the sheet with them to each station where it was updated with different categories of information. At the last station, they were only given their “hygiene kit” with education if they had gone to each of the prior stations. This allowed us to know whom we had given the kits to and whom we hadn’t, and to make sure families weren’t receiving duplicate supplies. The demographical data included basic questions to allow the medical students to better understand what life is like for a typical nomad and what problems they face. The sheet also recorded who was seen and what treatment, if any, they were given.

• All hygiene kits were given away, with a few birthing kits remaining.

• Meeting at the end of the day: collaboration with PCVs and medical students to discuss successes and data collected over the last two days.

• Cancellation/postponement of building the second school/tent in the next town due to some changes in teacher’s schedule. It will be set up by the locals in July.

Day 8: Goodbyes and hiking out to Ait Bougamez.

Results:

• Total number of people (men, women and children) who visited the clinic (“doctor” visits, environmental education for kids, women’s focus groups, small health lessons) = 97

• Number of birthing kits given away = 23

• Number of women educated on the proper method of birthing (as well as a demonstration of how to use the birthing kits) = 30

• Number of children (under 16) educated on good Environmental behaviors = 20

• Number people educated on proper tooth care, hand washing, skincare (most received toothbrush/paste, floss and lotion) = 97 (everyone!!)

Things that went well:

• The supplies that the medical students brought, such as the “hygiene kits”, “birthing kits”, and school supplies (paper, scissors, markers and crayons) for the kids were really nice and the nomads definitely benefited from these items.

• The turnout of nomads this year was greater than the previous year with more women and children in attendance—even though they were a little skeptical because last year the doctor from Spain did not give out medication, only advice (this year medication was available).

• The med students were great to work with and although only one had prior experience in Morocco they brought a lot of good ideas to the table for this event and events to come and were very motivated to help anyway they could.

• We were able to involve several Moroccans (mainly the cooks, pharmacist and nurse) in leading and translating the health education (capacity building).

• The medical student’s language ability: 3 spoke Spanish fluently, two spoke French fluently, and one spoke Arabic at an intermediate level. All of these languages were spoken while on the trip and having more people with language ability helped make the trip successful because it increased the level communication with more people.

Things to improve on/vision for the future:

• Many of the challenges we faced stemmed from a lack of communication prior to the trip’s commencement. Although the goals of the travel agency, medical students and PCVs were similar they were not lined up as well as they should have been for the trip to be a success for all involved. Each came into the event wanting to accomplish their particular agenda. From our perspective, the travel agency saw the medical students as a way to achieve its goals and ensure funding for future projects and the medical students saw the travel agency as an entity they employed to run the trip, and thus, those organizing it should be more flexible to their desires on how the trip should run. This caused problems that permeated into all areas of our work, from scheduling the nomadic events to meals and how much people should pay to eat. In the future it would be best to have better communication prior to the event, so that everyone is on the same page, with a clear understanding and acceptance of each other’s goals.

• A lot of medicine was given out by the pharmacist, much of it was needed, but it’s possible that by doing this, we are encouraging the nomadic people to depend on outside help to come to them, rather than them taking the initiative of taking care of themselves (making trips to Moroccan clinics when necessary, where they can receive the same if not better help and medications).

• Another idea for the future is to bring in the group of medical students, pharmacist/doctor/nurse and PCVs to the same location when the school is already in session (after the tents and equipment have been set up by the travel agency). This way we would partner with the teacher and incorporate the health lessons into the curriculum giving the students a stronger foundation for the health education that would be given at the clinic. Also, we’d spend our time more effectively because it wouldn’t be spent setting up the tents and we could focus our time on checkups/health education. And, it’s always good to have a HCN, like the teacher, to help with the education and be a community liaison. We believe this would be more sustainable, the education would be more effective, attendance would be higher, and we could monitor and evaluate our work better.

• By dividing up (medical students/PCVs and travel agency), all parts involved can accomplish their specific goals without the other interfering.

• We were under the assumption that the pharmacist was actually a doctor, which is how we introduced him to the nomads. He did a great job, but in the future it would be nice to have a real doctor come and run the clinic.

• Because this was the first time this group of medical students came to help with the clinic, they didn’t know what to expect and therefore, organization lacked the first day of the event. Records were kept, but poorly organized and it was very difficult to know how many people came, were educated, or received hygiene kits. There was no organization in giving out the hygiene kits the first day; if we hadn’t recognized some of the people and their families, then multiple family members would have received kits while other families would have gotten nothing. And, the kits were randomly given out, without asking how many people were in each family so it’s possible not everyone in the family received toothbrushes.

• This was not a PCV planned event, we came to help and evaluate the event to see if this would be a good endeavor for Peace Corps in the future. Based on our prior experience planning health education and working with Moroccans, many of the organizational problems faced could have been avoided if we had planned the event.

Now I am wondering if this night sounds as weird as I can explain it to be. Just picture this setting first: Moroccan mud house, living room, sitting on rugs, sharing couscous in one big bowl, drinking fresh buttermilk, a clock chimes the hour but the music is broken and it’s an eerie twine (that bothers no one else but me!) and talking across the small table.

One of those more interesting days. I went to eat dinner with one family I have affectionately nicknamed them, “fun” family because it is always a good time there. Tonight they had another guest, a teacher who had learned English back in the 80s from a Peace Corps volunteer. We dominated the conversation over dinner in his broken but not bad English. We discussed his family, job, and he told me about his experience learning English from the volunteer. Somehow the conversation slowly turned from his wife and kids to his youth when he was in college bachelor days. He talked about his affairs he has had with co-workers. I felt an awkwardness and tried to turn this current slightly awkward conversation into a health lesson. I told him that I hope he had used protection because of the diseases than you can get from risky behavior, (in simple and less forward English). He told me that he was careful when seeking out women, if they had been around, he would not sleep with them. He was currently on a new schedule where he has stayed faithful to his wife for the past year. Incredible. Then he warned me of men and how they would want to sleep with me because I am, “very beautiful!” At this point I feel that the family picked up on enough key English words that they felt this was a weird or a very interesting conversation. After dinner we drank some more tea and then he excused himself to smoke, at this point the two girls tell me we need to go. We slip out another door and walk quickly, bursting out in giggles because they asked me what he was telling me and scolding him, “Hshumya!,” (Shame on him!, Reference previous blog, 10/5/2009) I felt that I couldn’t be completely honest as not to ruin this man’s reputation. I turned it into a new health conversation on my work with HIV/AIDS and STIs in Morocco and how this man and I talked about it. I think they were afraid that this man would ask me for my phone number and wanted to avoid this, especially in front of the parents.

What a fucking weird night.

Now I am wondering if this night sounds as weird as I can explain it to be. Just picture this setting first: Moroccan mud house, living room, sitting on rugs, sharing couscous in one big bowl, drinking fresh buttermilk, a clock chimes the hour but the music is broken and it’s an eerie twine (that bothers no one else but me!) and talking across the small table.

One of those more interesting days. I went to eat dinner with one family I have affectionately nicknamed them, “fun” family because it is always a good time there. Tonight they had another guest, a teacher who had learned English back in the 80s from a Peace Corps volunteer. We dominated the conversation over dinner in his broken but not bad English. We discussed his family, job, and he told me about his experience learning English from the volunteer. Somehow the conversation slowly turned from his wife and kids to his youth when he was in college bachelor days. He talked about his affairs he has had with co-workers. I felt an awkwardness and tried to turn this current slightly awkward conversation into a health lesson. I told him that I hope he had used protection because of the diseases than you can get from risky behavior, (in simple and less forward English). He told me that he was careful when seeking out women, if they had been around, he would not sleep with them. He was currently on a new schedule where he has stayed faithful to his wife for the past year. Incredible. Then he warned me of men and how they would want to sleep with me because I am, “very beautiful!” At this point I feel that the family picked up on enough key English words that they felt this was a weird or a very interesting conversation. After dinner we drank some more tea and then he excused himself to smoke, at this point the two girls tell me we need to go. We slip out another door and walk quickly, bursting out in giggles because they asked me what he was telling me and scolding him, “Hshumya!,” (Shame on him!, Reference previous blog, 10/5/2009) I felt that I couldn’t be completely honest as not to ruin this man’s reputation. I turned it into a new health conversation on my work with HIV/AIDS and STIs in Morocco and how this man and I talked about it. I think they were afraid that this man would ask me for my phone number and wanted to avoid this, especially in front of the parents.

What a fucking weird night.

I have been stuck the past 18 days in my site due to the fact that my site is located in a gorge, the river flooding, landslides, falling rocks and the faulty engineering of roads. Luckily we still had running water and the electricity was on most of the time. I let Peace Corps know that I was in a bit of a situation if there was an emergency but otherwise everything was fine. We ran out of a few fun items like yeast, butter, milk, and the produce selection was minimal at best, but there was no panic, no problems (unlike an inch of snow in the South). I missed helping out with a friend’s health program in her site and a few meetings which was unfortunate. I got a little stir crazy since I couldn’t even get across the bridge leading into my site (it was a part of the river,) and out for a decent walk. I just hope that this is a wake-up call for the people in my village that fixing the bridge and roads in the gorge is a priority. Who knows. I read an article recently Think Again: The Peace Corps, by Robert L. Strauss about Peace Corps and its purpose. It can be found at www.foreignpolicy.com. I encourage you to read it because I find myself in this situation now: What role does the Peace Corps serve? Am I simply a diplomat for the United States? Or am I a developmental association? Do I help these people find money to help rebuild this bridge, something I have been asked to do much more recently since the weather disaster, or am I here to be a health educator and integrate into this society? It’s such a blur, and it keeps me up at night. Am I doing the best I can here? Should I be doing more? What else do I need to be doing here now? I look for direction and just find more questions. Where Peace Corps is a set of guidelines and map without a key, I find myself conflicted more and more and anxious as I approach these last 12 months. I think a trip into town tomorrow and reconnecting back with the outside world should do me a world of good. At least, I hope so.

If you have met myself, or any member of my family, you may notice that we are very similar in certain aspects of our lives. We tend to be an active group, preferring vacations in the outdoors than being pampered in a hotel on the beach. We tend to be a studious or academic group, whether it be my sisters pursuing their masters degrees or my parents commitment to literature, periodicals and the pursuit of knowledge. We also have the DG gene. It is a recent scientific finding, charted by the same laboratory that decoded DNA, attached to the twelfth chromosome, it is generally benign. The DG gene is found in a small percentage of the population, but like the argument of nature v nurture, it is not directly linked to behavior. The Do-Gooder Gene can be an affliction like so many other ailments. My family has the Do-Gooder Gene. Too many nights you will find my parents out at some charity function, or my sister and her boyfriend volunteering with the Gastonia Jaycees. I committed 27 months to helping the people of Morocco with Peace Corps. Recently, I met a boy who was at a true predicament. He is gay and in Morocco, a Muslim country that persecutes their gays worse than the States did in the 50s. Unbeknownst to me, my DG gene was activated after I heard his story and I was “blinded by philanthropic desire.”

I first met Mustafa* in my souk town shortly after I had gotten settled in my site. He was a guide. I was told by other volunteers in the area that PCVs generally do not associate with guides because they deal primarily with tourists and we try hard to separate ourselves and be seen as residents of Morocco. I didn’t find any reason to be mean to these guys though some of the other PCVs who would blatantly ignore their salutations. They were generally nice guys and some spoke English. Whenever I was in my souk town I was pleasant and would say hello to them. Of course they always invited me for tea (if they weren’t working,) and finally I said, “Why not?” This started my relationship with the boys. There was one guy who I was especially fond of, Mustafa. He was very sweet and kind and I had an inkling that he was quite possibly gay. Finally, one day while walking around my souk town he told me that he was homosexual and that started a long questioning of what it is like to be gay in a Muslim country. It is very difficult and scary. Lots of men are gay or bisexual here but they hide it. Most get married. It’s one thing to play “handsy-pantsy” once in a while (travel at night on a public bus) but to be an openly gay man and want to have a real relationship makes things very, very complicated. Almost all of Mustafa’s boyfriends have been foreign. He has been sexually assaulted, disowned by his brother and verbally abused. Even his closest friends, who know he is homosexual, will occasionally make mean remarks regarding his sexuality. It is not an easy place to be gay to say the least. If he was ever to be caught, or someone had enough of a vendetta against him, the Gendarmes (local police force) would jail him or kill him. I have never seen anyone be so nervous when passing someone in uniform. It made my heart reach out to this boy.

One day Mustafa asked me to marry me. He said it in jest but in Morocco the indirect and direct are constantly overlapping. Finally he sat me down and asked if I would help him. Would I marry him in order for him to get out of the country? He had already tried to secure a visa to France and he was denied. There was no reason. They took his papers and money and told him to return in two hours to the office in Marrakech. Then they simply told him no, that he was not allowed to get a visa. He said that he had been thinking about it. If we were to get married soon, the majority of our time would be spent in Morocco since I am going to be here til 2011. Then we would travel to the United States and get a divorce after two years. I am not positive on the logistics but if he had secured a job and residence in the US then he would be able to stay despite our separation. It sounded like it could work. My heart really felt bad for this guy, and I wanted to help him. He is resourceful, almost fluent in English, fluent in French, Arabic and Berber. I figured that he would be able to make it in the US, with some help. I said yes, and we started planning.

First we needed to get information about marriage in Morocco. He asked a few different sources who had either married a foreigner or someone close to them had. We needed to go to Casablanca and eventually Rabat. I had to talk to my boss, big D-Lil in order to make sure my marriage wouldn’t interfere with my work here in Morocco, PC policy. First though, I wanted to talk to my parents when I saw them in Italy. I needed their input and advice. Being the careful and calculating people they are, my parents were supportive but wanted to protect my interests. They promised me that they would look into the matter and talk to some people who dealed with the logistics of international marriage. I really appreciated their support, I didn’t expect anything less.

After returning back to Morocco, Mustafa met me in Marrakech, our favorite city. It is full of tourists and attractions. The US Consulate wasn’t going to be open until Monday so we had a bit of time to kill. It was at this time that things started to change.

Perhaps because I was weary of traveling, perhaps because I had a recent visit with my parents where I had talked up my fiancé and all his attributes, perhaps because I had gotten a breath of Western air and realized I still wanted to the most I could in Morocco with my remaining time, perhaps… But I started looking at my current situation with a more realistic perspective. My fiancé is young. My fiancé is a bit immature and gets caught up in the moment which means sometimes when things should take a priority they take the backseat. For example, we should have left for Casablanca on Sunday, but because Mustafa wanted to visit with his friends more in Marrakech, we left Monday morning, losing a full day. I missed a meeting that Tuesday that I could have possibly attended. It seems as though in this culture we share everything until we run out, i.e. money. So when Mustafa received close to 2500 dirhams from his brother, who recently relinquished his stance against him because of his newfound heterosexual marriage, his expectation was that it would be spent on travel and fines related to the marriage process. Instead in my absence, Mustafa and friends spent 4 days in Essouria and had a grand time. Irresponsible. Now if you were about to embark on a life-changing voyage, you would do some heavy planning. Culturally-related? Personality? I do not know.

After going to the US Consulate and receiving more paperwork and no answers, I met up with Mustafa at a café close by. I explained to him that I could not follow through with my end of the agreement. I explained to him the heavy fines and possible jail time associated with falsifying a marriage. I did not have the heart to explain to him the other half, the bigger half, the half looming over my shoulder and whispering in my ear. You are too young and irresponsible. I do not feel comfortable taking this leap with you. I feel like you do not understand the responsibilities and consequences involved in this venture. But I kept my mouth shut and blamed the legal consequences. I didn’t need to hurt his feelings and possibly lose a good friend. It wasn’t worth it. Or is it? The truth will set you free, right? Well, for right now, we are going to leave it at that. If the subject comes up again, it might be a good intro for some heart to heart talk. Until then, I will keep my thought to myself, and remain that strange American girl who lives alone in a little Berber village up in the mountains who tells people to wash their hands with soap…

At this point I have almost completed my first year. The honeymoon grace period has come and gone. There is no more culture shock. I still get disgusted but it is no longer surprising. The man on the bus who looked like he could have come been albino, spoke Berber, and had the worst teeth I have seen in a week did not surprise me, his teeth made me gag, but you get used to it. He was begging for money. It is hard not to get down on yourself and your mission. Having your neighbor go and get a tooth pulled because no one practices dental hygiene is a little upsetting when they know how to take care of their teeth. They ask me why I have all my teeth, how nice they are. I say that you need to brush them twice a day. Like this. Use some baking soda and salt. Too much sweet tea is bad, as are sweets. I need to go back into town and buy some baking soda and some toothbrushes. I know we shouldn’t give things away, but I think if I make the salt/baking soda mixture together with them and then we all brush our teeth, it would be the best way to get the idea in their heads. Feel free to start collecting toothbrushes and giving them to my sister, Becca, when she comes to visit me in May. Seeing cavities in baby teeth makes you want to scold a woman. Seeing blistered, sunburnt little kid skin makes you want to scold a woman. Hope all is well at home. Take care of your teeth.

It’s the continuous battle: stay hydrated and risk it when traveling or stay parched and be worry free. I chose poorly. I don’t even remember drinking that much that morning. I was getting on a bus around 11 am to go to Marrakech where I was flying out of the next day. The bus ride from Boumalen Dades to Marrakech is around 8 hours. I remember we had coffee, maybe a full 5 ounces of liquid, that’s it. Either way, after 2 hours inside the bus I felt like I was riding a roller coaster at Carowinds and pushed my safety harness one too many clicks down across my bladder. Luckily these buses do not come equipped with seatbelts, that thing would have been off ages ago. The biggest problem was what I was thinking. I had to keep my mind off my bladder, the ache that constantly reminded me that relief was just a second away (along with wet pants,). I thought we were going to make a quick stop in the province’s capital, Ourzazate, at which time I would hustle into the train station, pay my dirham and use one of the bathrooms there. Oh no, we breezed right by, didn’t even pull down the main strip to the station. I started counting. I started counting to 20 and holding my breath. That was at least taking my mind off my problem. I thought, great, it’s always important to be ready for anything, who knows if I might have to hold my breath for a long period of time underwater as James Bond and I struggle to escape from the sinking vehicle. I got up to 45 seconds and found myself bored but the dull ache had subdued during my 007 training. Oh great, now I am thinking about it again and it cataclysms into a full pee hurt. I was then reminded of pregnant women. Don’t pregnant women constantly deal with this sensation? This sensation of constantly having to use the bathroom? Well fuck being pregnant! I decided right then and there that I will simply insist my partner have a surgery to be capable of carrying a baby: the uterus, umbilical cord, the works. There is no way I am going to walk around for 9 months feeling like this! Jesus. Those poor women. My poor mom. Maybe they wore depends. Maybe they never traveled on a bus full of Moroccans who don’t give a shit that I have to use the bathroom really, really badly. Oh great we are pulling over. Nowhere special, the side of the road. OH! OH! So the 8 year old little boy can go piss. Just great. I look away and try not to think of the events unfolding right in front of my eyes. No way. Now I feel an injustice. I feel prejudice against women. I have to use the bathroom, but for me, out of respect, I would not get out and try to seek some pee shelter off the side of the road. Looks like I am going to have to hold it. The bus starts moving again and I look to see a nice dark puddle in the dirt. Little shit. I start thinking about James Bond (definitely not Pierce Brosnan, the new one), pregnant women, and diapers. The trio don’t work well together but it takes my mind off my aching bladder and the pain subdues, again. Great, I’m going to end up with a bladder infection. Just in time for my vacation to Italy….

He rinsed out the small intestine and put his lips to the tear. With the carcass hanging beside him, he took a deep breath and blew into the organ, I watched the fecal matter and water spin through the digestive tubes like a gumball in a gumball machine, around and around and around. It emptied onto the ground beside a swollen colon and the gall bladder which was a fluorescent dark green. I was in anatomical heaven. A bit perturbed regarding the homemade colonoscopy, I made a quick promise not to eat any intestines today or tomorrow, (that couldn’t be helped, and low and behold! I have raging diarrhea! And I can picture what my intestines are doing, thanks to my informal lesson earlier) I thought there was going to be more of a ceremony before the slaughter, but they simply stated, “Allah akbar,” and slit the throat of the sheep. First off, I imagined more blood and secondly, I know it is one of the more humane ways to die but it is difficult to imagine the nerve synapses fire from the brain and spinal cord and watch as the sheep tries to get up or kick at its slaughterers. And then I think about the meat packing industry in the States and all of those feelings disappear immediately seeing that the sheep lived a full, long and healthy life. Which is another reason why I ate the meat later on, and by meat I mean we ate everything: stomach, liver, kidneys, and shish kebobs with intestine pieces wrapped around meat. We are programmed as evolutionary beings to enjoy and crave salty, sweet and fat and those shish kebobs nailed it. They were delicious and the preparation would have made the FDA shit themselves. I won’t go into details but my head was screaming E. COLI and ripping in two between the typical American Lysol commercial friendly germs will attack all counter surfaces and the other half, which watches 2 years play outside unattended, bathed infrequently, and wash our hands with water (only!) before meals and they are fine. To contradict both points, my family was never germ-freaks and we never once bought Lysol and had numerous conversations about the super germs and their proliferation and mutation brought about by my peers and neighbors because of this commercial and industry pushed fear of the common cold. At the same time, when you ask a family how many children are there replies are usually follow this pattern: There are 4 boys, 3 girls, and 2 died, or something like this. Most families have suffered the loss of a child or two. I do not ask why these children died, not because I do not care, but because I am afraid of the frustration that I would experience if I heard, “It was God’s will,” I experienced this before regarding the death of a teenage boy in the village the first month I came here and had to take a few deep breaths before my reply.

Today is Leid Kabir, a huge Muslim holiday where a sacrificial sheep is killed just as Abraham did a long time ago. This holiday has some similiarities to American holidays: everyone gets new clothes (they are not wrapped in gaudy wasteful paper), everyone eats a lot (you killed a whole ram, that’s a lot of meat), and you visit each other saying the appropriate greetings for this holiday (“Mbruk Leid!” which means pretty much ‘Happy Holiday!’) and women usually get glammed up (for us that means the charcoal eyeliner and henna on our hands). There are no greeting cards sent out in the masses, there is no overzealous spending (as much as I can see in my village, things might be different in a town of 10,000), there are no decorations. Everyone cleans their house and themselves the day beforehand. I recently bought a hot water heater and the whole host family came over to bathe, you should have seen the little one fight to not get a bath! Reminded me of Maddie back in the day…

We are all going to have different experiences. I forget about that sometimes and am reminded when I come into contact with other PCVs. I recently spent the better part of the week with Titrit in her site. Her village is much larger than mine, and I got easily confused trying to find her house. Since Thursday, October 15th, was Global Handwashing Day, I had text her earlier in the month asking her if we could do a program together in her site and then spend the weekend together. We had talked about a trip to Merzouga and this was supposed to be a great time of year to trek there.

Titrit had set up programs with a few different schools in her site, the association and possibly the Dar Tilibab (youth hostel just for high school girls). The first program we had at her association with preschool age children. There were about twenty and they were adorable. Titrit had worked with her tutor to put together a bit of a talk and explanation for our presence and then followed up with a handwashing scenario with everyone involved. I wanted her to take the reigns, since she had been practicing the language and I wanted people to recognize and give credit to her. I was just there to help things along, explain when needed, take pictures and help. We hadn’t even started when we got the first tears. One little boy, looking at us, burst into full-blown tears. And like a domino effect, one by one starting crying. There were about five kids crying at this one table. We hadn’t even said anything. The tutor, who had come along, explained to us that the kids thought we were going to give them shots. That our bag of “microbats” (microbs/germs) actually vials of glitter, were actually needles. Poor things. After settling them down, Titrit got into her truest form, the thespian, (she went to school originally for acting) and put a small amount of Vaseline and glitter on her hands. She then went around and shook hands with each of the kids, distributing the glitter amongst all of their cute little hands. They loved it! Everyone loves glitter and watching Titrit was a lot of fun. She is incredibly animated and funny. We all washed our hands with soap and got rid of the “germs”. We did this another 10 times for other classrooms and around 60 high-school age girls at the Dar Tilibab that day and the following morning. By the time we had talked to the 5th classroom or so, Titrit had it down to an art!

We left that afternoon for the next largest town, Tingrir, to get transportation to Errachidia. Titrit had made a friend about a month ago and he had invited us to stay with his family and then the three of us would travel to Merzouga. We were on the souq bus headed to Errachidia when Titrit gets a text message saying that her friend, Ali, was on his way in his dad’s car to pick us up. We got off the bus just in time and waited about an hour for Ali to get there. He was with his older brother and his wife. They were all Arab and only knew a few words in our Berber language. Luckily, most of the family spoke some English. Like in most, if not all Moroccan families, we were greeted like long lost friends and exteneded the warmest of welcomes. The family consisted of a short, portly mom, a tall limber dad, 4 sons and 3 daughters. Two of the children were married and had their own houses, 3 were still in school, one was a doctor and Ali worked as a guide for tourists. There house was finished and tiled, there was lots of furniture and decorated, very different from typical Berber houses that I encounter in the bled. The three of us took off to go to the hammam, once again, I implore you, when you come to visit me, you have to go to the hammam. It was clean and hot and empty. Titrit and I had it to ourselves, unfortunately, it was late and we were a bit rushed.

Titrit always the best unusual and awkward encounters at the hammam. One of the ladies who worked there came in, asked us if we wanted our backs scrubbed, (sometimes there is a fee involved). We replied that we were fine and could take care of things. The woman then bent down and squatted in front of Titrit, I think she might have asked her another question or two but she sat there on her haunches for a good 5 minutes, not saying anything and just watching Titrit. Titrit asked me if I knew what was going on, of course, I didn’t and just was giggling to myself. This has happened each time we have gone to the hammam together. She has a few choice piercings that usually get attention, but this time there was no mention about them, just staring. Haha! Love it.

Next morning we got up and got started, we had to stop by one of the sister’s house to say hello to her and family. She had married a berber man from the Azilal province and so we could communicate some with him. Let me take a second now to talk about race relations here in the good country of Morocco. There is a hierarchy here that was a shock to me when I first came. Reading a book now called, Lords of the Atlas, The Rise and Fall of the House of Glaoua 1893-1956 by Gavin Maxwell has provided much needed insight and history into Moroccan customs, ways of life and things that my language has prevented me from asking. I understood that Berbers do not care for Arabs (generalization). I understood that the Arabs came into Morocco around the seventh century and brought Islam with them. The Arabs were powerful and imposed their religion on the people here. Different tribes conquered different areas of Morocco. These tribes enacted taxes and tariffs from the people living on the land. Berbers were strictly monogamous, women held positions of power, their clothing was different, exposing their arms and legs, they would elaborately braid their hair and put henna or a mix of spices in it. They wore jewelry their tribe made and had beautification tattoos on their chins, foreheads and wrists. They had their own system of laws and policies. When the Arabs or French came in to conquer these people, they fought fiercely and with guerrilla-like tactics, sneaking into their camps at night and stealing weapons from them. It wasn’t until later, that the Caids or khalifas had amassed huge armies to show their strength and might that some of the tribes adhered to their demands. Some of these demands were gifts of crops, money, and daughters. These girls were either added to the caid’s harems or given as gifts to other men in their family or intimate circle. It was later, after these men with their money, huge Kasbahs, harems consisting of 30 or so women that Berbers started resemble them and want the same things. Then they started to take on multiple wives. I see Berbers now who follow and adhere closer to Muslim law than most Arabs. Berber women are more conservative than their Arab counterparts. A hundred years ago this was not true. I suggest you read the book and others like it to truly understand Morocco’s complicated past.

After visiting for a little, Ali’s sister and husband decided that they wanted to come along with us. Why not? They had the weekend free and they would take the toddler with them. So now we had a full car. Ali, his sister, her husband and child, Titrit and myself all crammed into a car that resembles a Geo but made by Renault. We take off from Errachidia headed for Merzouga, slightly south and east, a solid 2 ½ hour drive. We stopped in a small town for lunch. This area of Morocco is infamous for a speciality dish that resembles our “fat bread” but has much more meat. Fat bread is a common dish here that has the shape of a pizza but in the middle is spices and pieces of fat from usually sheep or goat, it is mighty tasty! This bread was similar except it was full of pieces of meat, whether it was sheep or goat, I couldn’t discern it and Ali’s sister told me there were 44 different spices in it. I couldn’t taste distinctly any of them. It was a fine meal but for poor Titrit, who does not eat red meat, she reluctantly picked through it. There has been a bit of a communication problem between her, Ali and the family. They praised me for eating the meat from cous cous the night before and just couldn’t understand that Titrit does not eat red meat. She doesn’t like it. She hasn’t ate red meat for the past 14 years and doesn’t plan to start anytime either. When we were deciding on what to eat for lunch, Ali had asked if we wanted a tajine, but was concerned because Titrit wouldn’t eat the meat. She explained to him that she would eat the vegetables and sauce that comes with it. Somehow we still ended up with meat bread pizza. Ah, such is life of different cultures and communications.

We were joined by more of Ali’s family for lunch: his brother, the brother’s wife and another sister. So now there was a total of 8 of us and 1 half person. We arranged transportation to Merzouga and the rest of the family, including the new additions, clammered into the Geo. We met at a hotel on the outskirts of the desert there. It was beautifully decorated. We barely had enough time to use the bathroom and get reacquainted with the family when Ali was beckoning us over to the camels. They were sitting down, their legs tucked underneath them. They are huge beasts. They have huge eyes and long eyelashes. Their fur is neither soft like a well-groomed horse nor coarse like a goat’s. More like a mixture. Their hooves were probably my favorite and to come across their footprints later on in mud, they resemble dinosaur tracks. I was waiting for a camel to spit at me or try to bite me, having remembered their notorious unpleasant disposition towards their riders. Our camels did neither, but instead seemed to be suffering from a bout of indigestion and kept burbing up their lunch and making tremendous gurgling sounds from the depths of their stomachs. I couldn’t wait to get started!

Because we had wanted to go and spend the night out in the desert, we had to get started ASAP because it was getting to be about dusk and we had 9 k to go to get to the oasis. In all honesty, I didn’t need anything in my bag except a few things like my toothbrush and maybe my camera. We were a caravan of silliness. The three of us, perched atop our camels, leashed together from ass to mouth, with our guide, Omar, leading in the front, on foot. We sat on top of saddles that could have made even the fattest of women wince in pain, they were uncomfortable to say the least. We traveled up and down the sand dunes, sliding forward and back, the camel lurching as it finds its step in the shifting sand. I was surprised at how green the area was. In the lower areas there were some shrubbery and grasses. It ruined my expectation of sandy desolation and I was a bit disappointed. We shared the area with dirtbikes and ATVs, which disturbed our camels when they buzzed too close. The flies covered our beasts and ourselves, hopping along for a free ride. The stars came out quickly in the black night, we had chosen a weekend with no moon. I could only imagine what the desert looked like lit up in the middle of the night.

We finally got to our oasis. There were a few flashlights wandering about and we could hear a multiude of different languages. We got off our camels and trudged through the poop-riddled sand to our tents. They were of basic design and the various guides kept them all the same, a few blankets and thin mats. We lit a candle and opened a bottle of wine. Ali and Omar, our guide, spoke to each other in Darija, while Titrit and I complained back and forth about our camels. She had the good mind to put in her Ipod and experience the desert that way, while I had quietly daydreamed. We ate another delicious meal of meat pizza bread (poor Titrit!) and finished off another bottle of wine. Soon enough, we retired to bed. I decided to sleep outside, my usual preference, under the stars.

I awakened in the middle of the night to someone rubbing my back. It was an odd sensation and I groggily awoke, expecting Titrit to be kneeling next to me. It was not. It was our guide, Omar, telling me that it was getting cold and to get inside the tent. I sat up and he started collecting my bed things, the mattress and blanket. I followed him not into Ali and Titrit’s tent but into his small tent. He set up my things and I laid down. At this point I was confused and more awake. Omar then tried to hug me. “What are you doing?!” my immediate response was. He said that it was ok and I rolled over, wanting to relinquish myself back into my heavy sleep and vivid dreams. Then I felt something on the back of my head, did he just try to kiss me? Ew, gross. “Omar, you have a wife and a baby, stop,” I mumbled to him. I did not feel threatened or in danger, just annoyed. He replied that it was not a problem, great, so this is a usual habit of his on these treks. Out of nowhere I hear a voice, “Hanna! Hanna! Where are youuuuu?” It was Ali, coming to rescue me, my hero! “I’m here Omar, hold on,” and I scrambled out of Omar’s tent. “What are you doing Hanna? I am responsible for you,” He went and grabbed my blanket and we walked back up into our tent, I laid down and told Ali how thankful I was for him right then. “I am responsible for you,” was all he replied.

Sidenote: All PCVs I dare say, have seen this in their respective towns, souk towns or bigger cities. Foreign women with Moroccan men, either they be guides or not, with the men lavishing their affections and holding hands and sometimes, in line to get papers for marriage. Often times these women are miskin (berber for unfortunate or poor thing), these women are frumpy with dyed hair and lipliner. The men are half their age and beautiful. A settlement is reached, she finds some love and attention and he gets access to her money and possibly citizenship abroad. It works out. So for Omar to come onto me, like some of his patrons might have had to him, is not unusual. Possibly he read my inquiries into his life at the edge of the desert as interest, but trust me, I had no interest besides understanding his culture and way of life. I pay homage to all the foreign women out there who have paved the way for me and other female PCVs as being seen as desperate and lonely. Thanks a lot.

The next day I told Ali and Titrit about my nightscapades and they were a bit appalled and felt bad. I thought it was funny and once again thanked Ali for interrupting. I forsee the future of that night warding off Omar’s advances until finally getting up to leave for the other tent. Ali just cut out that uncomfortable time inbetween. Ali had asked Omar on the way home what had happened and Omar gave Ali a completely different story. Omar said that I had gotten up in the middle of the night complaining that it was cold and if I could please come and sleep in his tent. HA! Oh how our memory confuses us…

We woke up early to watch the sun rise on the border of Algeria and Morocco. It was not spectatcular but had its fair share of purples and reds. I climbed back on my camel like a novice cyclist mounts her bike on the second day of a 100k journey. I wish I had some painkillers, maybe some of the green stuff, maybe a bottle of gin. Anything to keep my mind off Carl. (For those of you who don’t know, Carl is my nickname for my upstairs, ref. story “Upstairs”). We headed out early and arrived back in Merzouga around 9am or so. After showering and breakfast, we hailed a taxi back into Errachidia. It was Sunday and Titrit had made arrangements for us to stay with her friend, Lahu, a shop owner in Tinghrir, that evening seeing as it was too late for us to get a transit back to her site.

Once again the lines of communication seem to be lost in different languages and cultures. Once we got back into Errachidia we let Ali know that Titrit and I wanted to go costume shopping for Halloween. We wanted to go to the souq area and house around. He wanted us to first meet up with a friend to grab some coffee. He made a phone call, and about 5 minutes later his friend shows up in a car, and as we are getting in I say to Titrit, “Hey, do you think that’s a prostitute?” pointing out a woman walking towards us wearing a tight, shiny jellaba with heavy makeup and high heels. Then she got into the front seat. I got a better look. She had on bright red lipstick and a thin line of an excuse for eyebrows. She had on lots of face makeup and a bright smile. Titrit and I sat back in stunned silence as we pulled away from the curb. We then made another stop for Ali to pick up some of the stuff that Morocco is known for, hash. We had no idea until he returned into the car with a small brown brick of the stuff in his hand. Awesome. We are riding around Errachidia with a prostitute in the front seat and had just stopped to make a drug deal. We were not in a professional setting where we would talk to the woman in front about the dangers of STIs and the importance of condoms, nor were we going to talk to Ali about his hash use. We were just uncomfortably there along for the ride. As we headed out along a main road the car suddenly cut off. The electronics of the car just died down and the car was slowing down. We were headed out to a gas station/coffee shop/tourist trap in the middle of nowhere. I told Titrit I hoped the car died. She looked it me in complete confusion and shock. I told her, “Just think how funny this is going to be later on, hitching a ride in the middle of nowhere, two PCVs who speak Berber with a prostitute and your hashed up friends, it’s going to be SO funny,” She did not find the humor. I secretly wish the car would die. What the hell would we do? Just then the car started up and we resumed speed. Maybe next time.

At the gas station/coffee shop/tourist trap (this is where Ali goes sometimes to find work, he is a guide,) Titrit was clearly upset with the situation and went off by herself. I talk to the prostitute and answered her questions, which are the same ones everyone else asks us. She told us she was a prostitute (duh!) and I should have dived right then and there into a health lesson but wanted to go talk to Titrit about our predicament. Luckily we sorted things out quickly and was back on the road. Titrit then explained again to Ali that we wanted to go to souk and shop around. He said that was fine, but first we needed to stop at home. We did not want another family visit, we were ready to go and do our own thing. Before we knew it we had pulled up at his house. So much for our desires.

Part 1:

“Shuyma!” ranted my landlord to me, my friends huddled close by, desperate to get back to the Ahadeus (traditional song and dance done during special occasions, in this case, a wedding). “Yen aryaz d yet tarbat?! Tigiminm, ghas shmmin!” (One man and one girl?! It is your house, just you) he sputtered, I could smell the cigarette he just smoked, his beady eyes narrowed in on mine. I just realized he was like a guard dog, prowling around the area outside of the main celebration, keeping things on lockdown and discouraging private talks between members of the opposite sex. How did I get myself into this situation? I felt like I was 14 again, getting into an argument with my parents that plagued my rebellious teenage years. Doing like anyone would in my place, I pleaded that I didn’t know and that I was terribly sorry. This seemed to calm him down some and we disappeared back to the festivities amidst a fist of giggles, we walked as a single unit, only our legs were free from each other. This was my first experience a part of them, them being girls my age, friends my age, this town, this culture. Yes, doing what I do best, getting into trouble, and yet, it was completely worth it.

It all started the day before. I had heard rumors that week of a wedding in the area. I found out there was another one in the duwwr (neighborhood/village) beside us from another friend of mine who I ran into in Boulmalen Dades, my souq town. Some of the PCVs and I had talked about the oppression of homosexuality in this culture, and this friend of mine, poor soul, gave off some strong lesbian vibes. She flirts with every time I see her. Now to a simple reader, one glance at these thoughts and you may offhandedly dismiss them into my oversensitivity taking into account the affectionate nature of Moroccans. I think she is a grade A box lover.

I was supposed to go on an overnight hiking trip with some other PCVs in the area, but I knew that I couldn’t get out of this wedding. Anyone who knows me knows that weddings make me nauseous and I hate them. Read what you want to into this, I just know that I am not a fan. Moroccan weddings are different. Men and women are usually kept separate, the women staying in the bride’s family’s house and likewise for the men. I cancelled my plans with my friends and the trip fell through. It was my weekend. I could do what I wanted and would attend the wedding that afternoon. I started off on a brisk morning jog/walk. I am so out of shape at this point and I hate it. At the same time, I am not going to worry about it, seeing that I love exercising and playing rugby and know whatever I do next I will make sure to incorporate both of these into my life. Halfway to Ait Hammou Said I ran into a cute little woman I see occasionally, she stopped me and asked me if I was going to see the nurse and could I perhaps get some medicine for her?? I had been debating about turning around and getting back so I could start on my To Do list but with this new request, my destiny was sealed.

Every time I go somewhere I run into people who are just curious. Where are you from? What are you doing here? Why are you living here? Don’t you miss your family? You don’t speak French or Arabic? (Are you crazy? Is usually the next question, but they are too polite to ask.) I like children, they don’t hold anything back and with my previous work, I can easily say kids have universal needs and wants. Getting them to smile is usually pretty easy and I have instantly made a new ally. I ran into some kids on my way and we walked together into town, I was invited to tea at all their houses but I had a mission and I needed to get on my way. Luckily, Amina, the nurse, was at her house, in her pajamas and had some medicine I could give the poor woman. Amina said that the woman could also come back for a shot if she got worse. Amina only speaks French and Arabic. She speaks a tiny bit of English and lots of English and French medical terms and the same so I understand some of the illnesses she says she sees on a regular basis (rheumatism, influenza, scorpion stings were big this summer…). Our relationship is cordial and superficial. I wish dearly we could communicate but I don’t see her trying to learn Tashlheit and I might get around to some French but right now I could care less.

I give the woman her things and she thinks I am just an angel. I hurry back to my house, it is still early enough in the day that I can get started on the transitioning of my garden. Despite the fact that I still have thriving tomato plants, it is time to plant carrots and radishes for the fall/winter season. I start tearing up these plants, saving the big green tomatoes in a pile. By the time I am done I am sweaty, covered in dirt and exhausted. There are tons of big fat earthworms. I debate about depositing them into my makeshift compost pile or just leaving them. Right then I hear my phone ring inside. It has been a rough month for my phone. Shortly after my birthday I dropped him into the bitlma hole. He was in my pocket and after standing up, he slipped out. Like a penny well at malls or museums where you can watch your penny spin round and round until it becomes a copper circle blur and spat out into a dark abyss, my phone traveled in slow motion, spinning not into an abyss, but into a pile of shit. Despite the fact that he was immediately recovered and cleaned, he only holds a battery lifespan of four hours and the face no longer has a backlight. Eh. I don’t recognize the number and answer it. It is some Berber woman, telling me to go over to the wedding at . I am barely able to answer her before she hangs up the phone (phone calls are expensive in Morocco). I start boiling water for my bucket bath and desperately search through my clothes, looking for something to wear. Sarah Moorman had left me a pretty dress for special occasions. I knew that this would be one of the times to wear it. I quickly bucket bath. I stopped shaving almost two months ago and wasn’t about to take extra time out now to clean up. Putting on make-up that I hadn’t touched in almost 8 months made me think about how different I was now. I still like to primp, but for me now that means putting on some mascara as I am walking out the door. The only women who wear a lot of makeup are whores in town, and frankly I don’t need to be associated with them, (well maybe not until 12 months into my newfound virginity…). I made up my eyes and put on some lipgloss, I looked good.

After rounding up some girls so I wouldn’t have to travel alone to the wedding, we went there. Usually you go around and shake hands with everyone there (we actually kiss hands and if it’s someone who loves you, you get kisses on the head or cheeks) but this time I followed Najam3a’s lead and just found a place to sit down. There was probably 60 or so women there already and they were singing. The bride was sitting on top of some ponjs, much like a queen looking down on her descendents. She was wearing the traditional headdress for this region. She could barely move. There were multiple pieces of cloth that was wrapped, draped, and covering her. She looked beautiful. In true Moroccan fashion there was a sheet hung up behind her, decorated with handstitched flowers, a huge heart dead-center and the names “Said and Fatima” inside of it. There were Christmas lights draped across it that flashed in pink, green and yellow. The corners of the sheet had fake flowers pinned in them. Your attention was shamelessly drawn to her. She was flanked on both sides by what looked like her bridesmaids. They all wore similar colored headdresses but without the pizzazz and you could see their faces. I never got to see her face, not once. Even when we had couscous they just pulled the material out front and put the dish under it, so she could eat and not reveal herself.

The room was packed. There were girls and women of every age. I don’t think there was one time that night that some baby was not crying. There was a cycle to the craziness. First you sit and chitchat to your neighbor and sometimes across the room. Then comes in platters of tea, peanuts and sugar wafers served by the gentlemen of the house. It is a frantic situation but despite the chaos and confusion they kept their cool and even had a few smiles and jokes for us. After a few rounds of these, then the women start up singing. We sing in rounds, with people answering back. There are usually some hand drums and my favorite, the two metal glasses and tin plate that sounds awesome. A few of the traditional wedding calls from the elder women now and then kept things interesting. This sound is a mixture of a Mexican “Ariba-ay-ay-aiii,” and that awful Native American sound we make sometimes as politically inept human beings, hitting our hand over our mouth.

Part 2:

I realize I am being used after about 10 minutes of dancing. One of the girls I had come here with insisted that I dance with her. I am at once on stage. All eyes are on me because I am the foreigner, I am the strange girl from somewhere far away France? Canada? Netherlands? But dressed up like a Moroccan girl. I can’t dance like they can either. It would put all of MTV back up dancers to shame. They shake their hips in rapid succession. It is an art learned at a very young age. (It is incredibly provocative and I wonder just then, why the hell do these men go and see prostitutes? These girls are incredibly sexy and they know it!) I just do my terrible white girl thing that still gets a few thumbs up from enthusiastic spectators. I notice that we dance close to the huge doorway. I try to slink back into the throngs of the girls, closer to a few of the others I am friends with and therefore would be able to dance next to also. She keeps pulling me back out there. The doorway is not much of a doorway, more of an opening to the rest of the second floor, and this is where the gentlemen of the house and some male cousins and privileged friends are loitering. There is an invisible fence and these men cannot go past it unless they are carrying trays of snacks. They stand there and watch us dance, I can feel their eyes on me, on us, and I hate it. Of course I am having a great time. If you act like you are enjoying yourself, laughing at yourself and making faces to those around you, people love you. I just hated that we were the ones closest to the doorway, yes there was space, but I saw what she was doing.

Thankfully she was breaking a sweat too so we went outside to get some fresh air. There were already a lot of people out in front of the house too. The party continued on well into the night, with a repeat of songs, dancing, food, and greetings. Finally, around 11pm, when there was just too many women in the room, it was decided to take it outside. This was what all these young women had been praying for! A chance to lock eyes with the guys outside. We were going to Ahadeus this time, in traditional fashion for this area. One row of men lining up shoulder to shoulder, facing a row of women, calling to each other back and forth and dancing in a circle, sometimes coming closer and sometimes backing away in almost a courtship type of ritual. I had seen this done a few times and really enjoyed watching it. Different regions do different things, sometimes there are no women at all. Sometimes they get on their knees and make a splashing motion with their hands. On one side of the street were all of the guys not only from this area but from other duwwrs too. They were sitting close to one another, whispering, arms over shoulders, heads close together. On the other side of the street were all of the girls and women from inside. Everyone was dressed in their best. Of course in Morocco, that meant that the girls were wearing their traditional dresses outfitted with sequins and beautifully intricate designs and the guys were wearing G-Star knock off jackets and jeans. It was a staring contest. I was intimidated to say the least. We were sitting down in front, of course. I kept looking up trying to find the guy she was talking about, her boyfriend. I found out the day before she actually has a few boyfriends in different areas. I think this is a loose term, like we would say we are “talking to” some guy. No real commitment, just getting to know someone and flirt occasionally. I was sitting inbetween a few girls and was really feeling a part of the community. I looked like the girls dressed up, had a headscarf and had delicately tied on a pink sequin belt my sister Becca had gotten me as a birthday present a few years ago. All except for my green eyes, you might have mistaken me for a Moroccan.

My friend kept asking me if I was cold, if I wanted to go back to my house and grab a jacket. I knew she just wanted an excuse to get up and strut down this catwalk of potential flirts. I refused until the third time and we went to get me a jacket. Outside of my house we ran into a few other girls. One of them was telling the other, “Just ask her! Just ask Hanna,” and so I inquired to what they wanted. One of them has a boyfriend and would it be okay if they stepped inside my garden area and talked. My garden has a bamboo fence around it, which offers a little bit of privacy but not a whole lot. I told them it wasn’t a problem. The other girl asked if she could use my bathroom. She went to use the bathroom and I went to grab a jacket, all of a sudden the third girl comes running in. She said that Laho was outside and had yelled at them for coming in here. I was confused at the situation. What was the problem? They had been outside, and the door to my house had been left ajar and so was the door to the patio. I was briefly annoyed at the stark differences in Moroccan and American freedoms. These poor girls, who work hard all day, hardly have much of an education past middle school (if even that), and otherwise have no contact with guys in their community have now been yelled at for talking to a guy. There are ways around it, they get phone numbers and occasionally cross paths. Unlike in a high school or university setting, where they can talk freely and openly, without the hawk eyes of a conservative community bearing down on them. What is my role in this? How do I respond? I don’t want to damage my reputation in the community. I don’t want to jeopardize my position but at the same time I feel for these girls. Can you imagine how frustrated you could get with that situation? It seems like the typical scenario: Forbidden fruit always tastes the best. Which is why, with situations like these especially during weddings, I feel like everyone should be able to mingle freely. Be able to talk one another, and yes, under the supervision of the elders, but this would have been a perfect time to. I had a conversation recently with an intelligent man on his way back to Agadir to attend his second year at the University there. We discussed lots of things on our taxi ride to Boumalen Dades. We talked about politics, religion, the history of the Berbers, romance and music. He was saying how even our discussion in that taxi ride was unprecedented, especially one past the typical introduction and inquiring about health and family. He said I could break down barriers. He said that I could give these women here a lot of power and independence. I am not here to start a huge cultural mutiny and get stoned out of my village but I understand his position. Where women used to have arranged marriages and they either worked or you suffered in silence, now the aspect of marrying for love has become the new ideal.

This country is changing. It is losing some of its culture to cell phones, satellite TV and becoming more Westernized. Luckily, some practices are alive and healthy. It would be interesting to see if this country succeeds, unlike so many other countries, in combining a mixture of old and new, of faith and traditions and customs with technological advances. I hope they do succeed. Already the traditional practice of story-telling is dying off, replaced by soap operas. This culture is rich and it would break my heart to watch it all disappear and change away to nothing.

These past two days have been great. I had lfidor (breaking of the fast) with my landlord’s family (conveniently next door). It was quiet, compared to when I go over to my host family. We ate in silence. Even when people asked for more coffee, tea, or juice it was through hand gestures. For some reason I was slightly uncomfortable with the silence. It was a large gathering, of 9 or so people and still there was little conversation. I wondered if it was because of me, or whether it was usually a quiet meal. The wife of my landlord is hard of hearing, and that may have contributed to the lack of conversation. Either way, I haven’t been to a meal where I haven’t contributed something. It makes me feel better. Usually I will bring something small like olives, a salad, homemade juice, cake or cookies. I am still appalled at the economic differences in households. One family that has adopted me that I really enjoy going to, brings out lavish meals to break fast. Bread, homemade donuts, figs, olives, coffee, lmism (fried flat bread), honey and jelly as starters, followed of course by aharrar (thick soup). I usual depart, with a more than full stomach. The next meal is usually couscous or rice. Most family’s last meal, ate before dawn, is tajine.

Last night my host mom and sister accompanied me to the association president’s house. I had put off this meeting for some time, expecting to run into him before now. Our paths had crossed a few times before, but in informal settings. Of course, I was told by his father that Sarah had learned tashelheit fast and that I knew nothing. I really have yet to develop a response to this. It has been said to me only a handful of times, but the sting is always still there. I know that Sarah had a firm grasp of the language when she left, and I think people forget that she was in the same learning stage as I was when she first came. Other PCVs responses are to remind them of this, especially if they had replaced a volunteer, others ask the offender if they knew English and then the person would be put in a somewhat similar situation. I just nod, smile, and say that yes, Sarah knew Tash very well and she is very smart.

Toky, the president, knows a fair amount of English and it is easier for the both of us for him to speak to me in English. He also prefers it, he wants to practice and regrets not being able to use it more. There have been lots of developments and I learned a lot from out encounter. First off, he has secured a bus for the area. This bus will take students from the surrounding dours into Tizguine where there is a new lycee (middle school, grades 7 and 8). The building itself is not new, and is a home with two rooms that will serve as classrooms and a small kitchen. The bus will pick them up in the mornings and drop them off after school is done. This opens up a potential Environment/Health Club where I could co-facilitate with a teacher and start doing some great activities. The exciting aspect is that these students will be from this area, and can take back these new ideas and lessons and possibly implement them in their own homes and neighborhoods! I am really excited. These kids are closer in age to the ones I had worked with previously before I left for Morocco at the YMCA back in North Carolina. This age is especially fun because they are old enough to develop their own opinions and actively participate. I still plan on doing some health and environmental lessons at the primary school here, especially dealing with hygiene and dental health.

We discussed my project idea too. I want to start a trash disposal system. Originally I had stolen the idea from another volunteer (who probably borrowed it too). They placed large empty oil drums in convenient areas in her site where once half-full, they burn the trash. I have sinced emailed her asking the logistics of her development. For this area, this would be ideal seeing that there is no place to dump or bury the trash (valley drains into river). Whether it was miscommunication or not, Toky wants to employ a community member to collect the trash and dispose and bury it outside the area. We discussed the difficulties of this idea but he seemed enthusiastic about it. Unfortunately, we both seem to be big idea people. Things can get awfully utopic quickly. He and I have both pledged into looking into our respective areas, for me, I will look into sources of funding and he will exhausts his connections. I am excited either way. Trash will be picked up once a week. I proposed we charge each household 5 Dhs a month for this service to cover costs. I need to survey some of my neighbors and host family to see how they feel about this.

Side Note: I’m going to brag about my parents for a few lines. Had it not been for my parents’ determination to raise their kids with a sense of service and community I would not be here today. There are times that I truly feel their influence. Proposing a 5 Dh tax to each of the households would have been a solution that I feel like my dad would have proposed, and I wish he could have seen me working with Toky today. I think he would have been proud of the way we analyzed different aspects of the community. I miss hearing about local politics back home. One of my dad’s main missions is making communities better through services that make their life easier and healthier. Hopefully here, it will instill them a sense of pride and responsibility to keep their community clean and beautiful. Something that both of my parents have pledged their life to doing.

We also discussed some of the maladies persistent in this area. One problem being an eye disease where cysts form on the eyelids and cause blindness and the other a kind of eczema of the skin of the face. (This is what I interpreted). Both need medicine and possibly eye surgery. Toky said that there were 45 cases of the eye disease here in Tizguine. I am hoping to talk to the doctor in Boumalen tomorrow to find out the names of these diseases and look more closely into their origins and if they are preventable.

Oh and my hair has finally adapted, or maybe I have adapted to it? Conditioners are hard to find and expensive, so she just gets a shampoo every couple of days and air dry. Funny, I’ve been fighting for years with torture devices to get a certain look when the all-natural is actually quite acceptable. Thanks to my mom’s curl and thick hair (sorry dad I’ve got nothing for you--wink wink, nudge nudge). And as far as the rest of the hair goes, I have been taking quick cold showers and ignoring the razor. The extra coat will be good for winter I’m sure…

Today is the halfway point of Ramadan. The past few days I have really enjoyed my site. I wonder when I am going to stop calling it my site and start calling it my home. I think that may be one of the setbacks from both a PCV’s viewpoint and those of the community. It’s almost as if two years is not enough. It feels temporary. I am looking up at my homemade calendar. As of right now, it shows as far as October 2010. June 2010 is our halfway point, when we have our midservice training and medical exams. I am moved in completely and besides a few other comforts I would like to add, I am settled in. I have started putting together my powerpoint presentation that we are presenting to the Ministry of Health in a month. I started looking through some of the piles of information that I have acquired. Lots of it has come from Sarah Moorman, my infamous role model and predecessor, and from Peace Corps vast collection. Some of these facts I came across, collected from USAID:

Adult Literacy Rate

52.3

%

2004

World Bank/WDI Database-2007

Adult Literacy Rate, Female

38

%

2002

World Bank/WDI-2006

Adult Literacy Rate, Male

63

%

2002

World Bank/WDI-2006

Healthy Life Expectancy: Female

60.9

2002

WHO World Health Report-2004

Healthy Life Expectancy: Male

59.5

2002

WHO World Health Report-2004

Some of these numbers have since improved, but not by much. The core of our project framework is prevention through education and improved water and sanitation, our target audience being women and children.

My core project will be a trash disposal system in my community, and hopefully, will be duplicated in the surrounding dours. If the one here is successful, we will assess and analyze the pros and cons and apply them throughout the area.

The gorge area’s predicament regarding trash disposal is that there is no safe place to dispose of it. Most of the communities are situated within the valley of the mountain ranges. Without knowledge of the hazards regarding waste disposal, people throw their trash into the river, into dried up streambeds and on the ground. The beauty of these communities is that relatively, they produce little trash. Lack of money and access to materials means that most of the trash that is not recycled by household means that the majority left is plastic bags, metal tins, plastic bottles and wrappers left by various goods. Food wastes are fed to livestock, paper goods are usually burnt in ovens that cook bread and plastic bottles and glass containers are used again and again for milk products, juice, and water until they are finally discarded.

One PCV pointed out that there was the same amount of trash and problem as there is in the States. I concur. He even went as far to say that it was not a huge problem and that other ailments should be looked into first. This bothered me. It was this very thinking that got many first world countries into the situations they are in today. A gross commercialized society with overflowing landfills. I want to counter this problem head on now, before it becomes a major problem. It’s not until we see the direct result of hazardous waste leaching into the soil and water before we do something about it? This may already be a problem and we are unaware of it. Already we have been exposed to the problems of EACs through plastic bottles and the hazardous effect they have on pregnant women and their children. It may not be seen now, but in 20 years when women are having spontaneous abortions and children are born with birth defects, when plants and animals are starting to show more and more mutations or we eradicate species entirely. Already I am alarmed by the lack of fish in the river here. There are numerous amphibious species, but I rarely see fish despite the fact that the river is here constantly, despite the summer dry season.

Restraints in this region are time, money, resources, and geographical location. If we were to bury the trash, we would have to find an appropriate area, not affected by the water table where we could safely dispose of the trash and cover it with soil. The rains come down from the mountains, into the valleys and replenish the fields and river. Anything in its path is washed down. Finding an area that is convenient to the community is another obstacle. When it is easier to throw the trash in a nearby alley as opposed to walking to the edge of the community is a huge obstacle. Toying with the idea of a trash pick up and depositing to the closest landfill was shot down by my Peace Corps program managers. The closest landfill is in Boumalen Dades. Trash would have to be collected and then taken by either truck or transit vans to the outskirts of Boumalen to be dumped and that costs enough in and of itself. The next solution would be to burn trash. Of course, the majority of the trash is harmful when burned, if it will burn. I am going to look into possible scrap metal options. The idea would be to have oil drums strategically placed in areas in my community where citizens could deposit their trash. There would need to be a dramatic behavior change also. People would need to start using the receptacles as opposed to their old ways of dropping off trash off the cliff beside the river, or the empty riverbed that comes down from the mountains. This project would be a huge undertaking but by employing the right people, with the right mindset, it just might happen.

I just wanted to share this with you: Tonight we had dinner, tanjine of course. Before we started eating, she pulls out a pitcher of this white liquid, it looks like whole milk. I ask for just a little, this is an unheard of amount in Tamazight because no matter what, they will pour a whole glassful for you. So “bismillah” and we start eating dinner and I take a swig of white liquid. It’s buttermilk. I have a hard time hiding faces in the first place, but buttermilk has a distinct flavor. My mom gave me a funny look and I tell her it tastes great and take another sip. But within that second sip, I had a flashback to my Aunt Polly. I thought that it was such a crazy coincidence that at that exact moment I made a connection from my current situation to memories of her. The fact that these people have opened up their home to me, invited me in, treated me with the greatest amount of hospitality I have ever been shown. Later, after the meal, the host grandmother explains to me that she sees my host mom and me as sisters, “kif-kif,” and that I am always welcome in their home. Shortly afterwards, my host mom starts tearing up talking about next week when I leave. Over a glass of buttermilk, I am brought back to memories of my Aunt Polly and her relationship with my family, especially with my mom. When my parents moved to Gastonia, NC, my mom was befriended by this sweet old lady named Pauline Taylor. My mom went to the same grocery store all the time and this dear old woman used to bag my mom’s groceries. They quickly got to be friends. My mom was brand new to the area, pregnant with me, and this lady showed her unlimited amounts of hospitality and goodwill and became a familiar face in a new and unfamiliar place. I remember going over to Aunt Polly’s house and drinking milk and eating just-made blueberry pineapple muffins. They were incredible. We used to play with her figurines in the living room and entertain ourselves while my mom and Aunt Polly would sit in the kitchen and talk. I remember raking her yard in the fall and playing hide and go seek in the back yard. Later on, Aunt Polly had to move into a rest home. My mom would go and visit her at least once a week. My mom valued their friendship a lot. And I know Aunt Polly loved mom. Even our vehicle choices later on, mom would consider if our Aunt Polly would be able to get in and out of the door easily. Aunt Polly was incredibly active and healthy as she got older and older. The other residents at the rest home would always ask who my mom was and frequently confused her as her daughter or relative. She was always introduced as her special friend. Mom made it her priority to make sure that Aunt Polly was comfortable. She would go shopping for her for Christmas and her birthday. My mom knew her likes and dislikes. She would hem the pants of the outfit so it would fit just right. My mom was the best daughter that woman ever had. When Aunt Polly died a few years ago it felt like a grandmother had passed away. Her health had been declining some and she was 92 years old. No matter how I tried to prepare myself, it still hurt when my mom called to tell me that she was gone. I believe out of all of Aunt Polly’s family and friends, my mom was the closest to her. I feel like my mom was the most devastated when this woman was no longer apart of her life. The relationship my mom had with this sweet, sweet old lady was significant and unique. Their relationship was one-of-a-kind. I was in school at the time and was unable to make it to the funeral. And over this glass of buttermilk, in rural Morocco, where I am learning this old, dying language, I was reminded of this sweet, sweet old lady who had befriended my mom over 24 years ago. I stifled some tears that came, because trying to explain this to my host family would be rocket science. I looked around at the women sitting next to me, headscarves and brown eyes and weathered faces and felt a gratitude I can’t explain. I don’t believe in fate, or destiny, but I do like to find comfort in the coincidences, comfort in the full circle. Hospitality, friendship, family relationships and the generosity of humankind is unmistakable and despite our culture and language difficulties, we laugh about the same things. And for the first time since I have been away, I find myself shedding a few tears writing this. That’s comforting too. Love you mom.

It started at 4:30am in the morning. My taxidriver wanted to leave 30 minutes earlier than usual. Why? I don’t know, but that taxi was full halfway down the mountain so I guess the man doesn’t need a reason. It started when she first got into the taxi. “Sbah lexir,” and “Saalam walakum,” What was that smell? Oh man, it had all of these delicious flavors of smokey, spicey goodness… is that.. beef jerkey? I felt like I had just ziplocked my head into a Jack Daniel’s Peppered Beef Jerkey bag. I wanted to take her home as human potpourri. That would be inappropriate but goddamn she was making me hungry. My next thought that if we got stranded on a section of road and had to eat someone I would point out her first, she would taste the best, probably a little rubbery. She looked well into her 60s. The taxi was soon full of smells, an interesting mixture of beef jerkey, sleep, body odor and farm animal. The window in front of me was barely cracked, I think it was just because it no longer rolled up all the way. I welcomed that small bit of fresh air, my eyes were starting to tear up. I was glad I was feeling better. My dumbass had self-medicated two nights before because the power had gone out in the midst of a small hurricane. I wanted to go to bed early, without the TV on, I figured we would turn in early and I desperately needed a full nights rest. I hadn’t been sleeping well and knew that my day into town was usually a long one and I needed to make the best of it. Tylenol PM is powerful. I took the recommended two pills and felt nothing for the first 5 hours. I wasn’t sleepy at all! It was well past 10 o’clock and I was turning over restlessly, plagued by random thought and worries that my mother graciously passed down to me. I finally drifted off to sleep. Around 7:30 I could hear the family waking up, the usually screaming, the sounds of tea being put on, the slurps and slops of bread being kneaded. I had a pounding headache and desperately needed to pee. I got up and explained to the eldest daughter that I wasn’t feeling well and that I did not want breakfast. Luckily there was a poo trail to the bitlama in case I couldn’t find my way there. Thank God. This was the second time that someone had pooed outside the outhouse. I couldn’t understand it. There were no points for being close. Either you sink it like a champ or you go home. Well, no one has explained the rules around here! I didn’t want to bother with the poo just yet and thought that if I ignored it it would go away… The rest of the morning I was in and out of my room. My head was pounding and I felt exhausted. My back was beginning to tense up because of the amount of time I was sleeping on my stomach. I explained to my family that my head was killing me, and they suggested I take a shower later on. What a great idea! A family at my last site was convinced that too much sleep, drinking water and keeping your head uncovered was the source of all sicknesses. Bath time is sacred. I relish. Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you that I love to primp. I don’t know when it started. I was somehow convinced that everytime I showered I needed to wash my hair, shave, thorough cleaning of all body parts (toes, ears, etc.), and then the usual lotioning up and accessories (tweezing, nail clippings, etc.). I don’t skip a beat and I take my time. I enjoy this time. The past two weeks grandma and I have been at odds over this shower time. It has just started happening that she wants to shower right at the same time as I do. The last time I cut things really short and did just the basics because she was waiting. This last time I had scissors in hand, about to make the cut and restore my hair to some kind of decency and I hear, “Hanan! Rig ad-ssird, (mumble mumble Tash tash words, etc.)” and I’m like fuuuuuuooookkkk. Guess the shearing will happening after I move into my own place. Oh well, something to look forward to. At this point we are careening down the mountainside and the clouds are fantastic. I can’t wait to start my own schedule, waking up early and going on a run before the rest of this sleepy town has awakened and enjoying a cup of coffee out on my patio as people head off to the fields or to visit neighbors.

The beginning of Ramadan. Many people in my community have asked if I was going to fast. I told them that I wanted to and I would try it out. The Gendarmes English-speaker told me to do it for the first 4-5 days and then resume my usual routine, he said it is the difference between a tourist and a traveler. A tourist sees the sights and only scratches the surface of the culture, while a traveler will devout his journey to understanding the culture, language and beliefs. People who are observing Ramadan may not eat, drink, smoke, or have sex. Those exempted are children up until age 11, very old people, travelers, those who are sick and women who are menstruating. I have been given lots of reactions about Ramadan. Some are excited because of the festivities that partake in the evenings until the wee hours of dawn. Some are anxious because they are either heavy smokers or have to work a lot in the fields during this time. Others have mixed reactions because it isn’t too hard to go without food, but abstaining from water is most difficult. Ramadan began today. My host sisters came over last night to let me know that officially it was starting the following morning. There had been debate up until yesterday as to when it was starting. The dates ranged from the 20th to the 22nd, and based upon the moon patterns, the imam would call it. From around 4:30am until 7pm or so in the evening people were fasting. I am one of them. To be honest, it hasn’t been hard. My tummy grumbled once or twice but that was it. I had a sip of water this morning to wash down my multi-vitamin, so I guess already I have cheated. I did not want to venture out much today because of the heat. After the purchase of my refridgerator I keep a decent supply of water bottles inside, there are few things in this world as refreshing as ice cold water on a hot Moroccan day. I do have to admit though, that one of my ways to deal with stress and unwind is to cook. I just read Ruth Reichel’s book, “Give Me Apples,” about her trials and tribulations of love, cooking, and life. Intermittent are delicious recipes that I want to copy down before I return it to the Peace Corps library. I practically went broke in college because my love to entertain people. We will see how I cope with this month. It has been hard to get motivated to exercise. I have written down a new schedule but it has been difficult to follow. Wake up early, work out, shower, breakfast, etc. Except then I get home late from dinner with friends, sleep in and postpone exercising until the afternoon, which I slack off from. I think I might ask home to send me some DVDs on yoga or tai chi or something. Looking at my roof from my back and doing crunches isn’t the most inspirational. But I do have to say that I took apart my sink, unclogged it and pieced it back together. That was a productive afternoon. The longest slime snake came out from the pipe. I gagged, I admit it. There are few things that gross me out and that just caught me off guard. It was black, shiny, gooey and had clumps of hair and black bits in it. Found some more cigarette butts in there too. WTF you may ask. The plumber was so lazy that he just dropped his butts down into the sink? I say plumber but my suspicions are on the landlord. A controversial figure in my life because as nice and helpful as he is to me, there are times I feel like he is taking advantage of the situation. For example, splitting the utilities bill, 50/50. I explained to him that there was just me in my house, where he has something like 11 people there (it is all a part of his property, we have just sectioned off my two rooms, kitchen and bathroom). And a large water bill, “because of your garden,” which I will consent would have increased the bill, but I doubt it was as much as he said it was. We agreed that he should install my own meter on the house, of course it isn’t done yet. I shall remind him of it the next time I see him, seeing that it is nearing the end of the month… I painted a watercolor today of hands holding up the world. Pretty goddamn original huh? I know, but I liked the different skin tones, the background and the green and blue blob in the middle of it all. It was going to go on my fridge buy I don’t own any magnets which seems ironic, seeing that my mom went through the ones on ours and threw out the ones she didn’t like because there was so many. Alas, there are no tacky magnetic advertisements here. You also don’t prank call people here either, it is too expensive. There are a collection of dead flies on top of my mat. I wish to sweep them away but my broom has been borrowed once again. I’m not really too interested in sweeping, but as I sit here and listen to my stomach gurgle once again, I am looking for ways to occupy myself indoors ( I just took a shower and am letting my hair air dry, can’t go outside with wet hair!). Currently I am reading Passionate Nomad, The Life of Freya Stark, by Jane Fletcher Geniesse, and I wish to share this quote with you: “Perseverance is often praised, but it is not so often realized that another quality must accompany it to make it of any value—and that is elasticity; perseverance in only one direction very often fails: but if one is ready to take whatever road is offered, and to change the chosen way, if circumstances change, and yet to keep the end in view—the success is infinitely more probable.” I have about two more hours until we break the fast! Fun fun fun.

We finished up our training session in Azrou with much adieu. That Friday night we had a lavish banquet with some of the best tasting food I have had yet in Morocco including bastiya (a flaky sweet pastry filled with chicken, almonds, and walnuts), mushrooms, salads, fresh fruit and a cake. There was some curvy Moroccan dancers and small band to entertain us. Of course, by the end of the night we were all dancing and trying to follow the haduce (song/dance,). Our assistant program manager was the most fun to watch. It is easy to imagine him as a toddler; he has a boyish face making it hard to distinguish his age. He was one of the first up to dance, and then yelling at all of us to accompany him. His threatened me with the bus to Rabat (I was grabbing a free ride with him there the next morning), so I quickly hopped up to shake it. It was really lots of fun. After the dinner, we had sing-along time. Our stag is riddled with talent; you wouldn’t have guessed us to be Peace Corps at first but perhaps the first group of “Moroccan Idol.” We have belly dancers, singers, musicians, and lots of really fun people. We sat around in a circle outside, listening to “Chain of Fools,” “I’ve Got Sunshine,” and lots of others. After Blake sang (one of my CBT buds) my posse got up to head out to the bar, one of the few places where we could drink legally (acceding to Peace Corps rules). We met up with some of the Environment kids and had a good time amidst the somewhat drunk and sketchy Moroccans. Sketchy? You might ask? Perhaps, because in this culture, few Moroccans drink due to their religious beliefs. Some of the ones that do drink in the privacy of their homes or friends’ homes. These Moroccan men were out and about at a bar. I did not feel unsafe or threatened, but was relieved to be in a rather large group. Drunk American, drunk Moroccan… both have significant behavioral changes. We split up after awhile; I stayed behind with the majority of the Enviros and a few of the Healthies. Times I feel split between the two due to my background and passions. I think I would have fit in right along with the Enviros as much as the Healthies. I think my largest project at my site will be to organize a trash disposal system, appealing to both sectors. Some, if not most of the Enviros, are placed beside or inside Morocco’s parks and preserves. Some deal with Ecotourism, others with creating a system of trails and maps to limit the degradation of flora and fauna, others with erosion control, and some with irrigation systems. How awful! Forced to hike all day and map out trails! Now, grant it, Enviros are the most isolated. Some have to leave their sites in the wee hours of the morning to hike to the closest big road, to hitch a ride into town, which could be miles and miles away. I have heard some of the most heartbreaking stories from friends of both sectors about bad host families, inappropriate host fathers, having to choose sides because half the town is one tribe and the other half is another. Both sectors have sites without water, without electricity (Melissa and Zach cook dinner by candlelight). Our group leaves the bar to go ride bumper cars. Azrou, at the present time, has one of those traveling carnivals you often see in the parking lots of Kmart and the like. The carnivals that are hastily put up and taken down. That employ kids barely out of high school and ones that look like ex-cons. Carnivals that take little planes up in the air with screaming children and you say a prayer that those bolts don’t come loose and it truly takes flight. Same exact thing. Our group decided that this carnival had been one of the ones where someone had died, the company was sued and the carnival sold. Morocco picked it up in the 70s and now we were paying 5 Dhs/car to slam into each other. Awesome. Bumper cars are fun. Bumper cars are even more fun when you are tipsy and listening to rap music from the States (Eminem anyone?). It was hilarious. After we rode and slammed into each other for at least 4 songs worth, we moved on to bigger things. Despite the fact that the carnival was pretty much closed, our group (mostly just because of the girls) convinced the young Moroccan men to turn on the flying planes. I do not do circles. Anyone who knows me well enough, knows that I like roller coasters, will ride in the front car but when it comes to circles I look like the Sandlot kids after a big chew at the balloon ride. I tried to stay behind (emphasis on tried). Poor whiny Zach, no one to ride with! He was whining like a little bitch how he had been the sympathy case with the bumper cars and switched off partners, and now he was alone again. Damn my black heart, iced over with disdain towards males in general but I like Zach. He is a cool guy and after losing a battle to some kind of intestinal parasite and a huge dislike of Moroccan food, his pants and shirts were loose and baggy. A whiny bitch with big clothes, who knew I had a weak spot? I kept my eyes closed half the time and my hand over my mouth. I promised the car behind me I would try my best to projectile vomit, but that was up to my insides. Maybe it was the cool air, maybe the calming effect of the booze, but I kept it all down. Lhumdullah. (I wish now that I had vomited, cause that would have been HILARIOUS to everyone, except those in my wake… hence why I love Seth Rogen’s movies-Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, etc., and Jackass). We departed. The Healthies had our hotel on one side of town and the Enviros, the other. I went back to my hotel and the dance party was hopping. We love to dance, and thanks to Nicole’s burnt copy or ‘Rize’, we were now into ‘crumping,’ a violent form of dance popular in LA. You should Google it in order to understand. In fact, I believe some of the PCVs even suffered a little from trying to do it… Either way, from bumper cars to dancing, we were living up our last night, aka “wylin’ out” in Gastonia terms. Skipping ahead to the ride home from Rabat. Preface: Rabat was a culture shock; Azrou was a good stepping stone from the bled to the full-blown city. Women showed skin, had their hair uncovered, colored, and cut. It was a large city with banks, restaurants and stores with shit (worthless things like glass sculptures and porcelain dolls, things you can only buy with a surplus of income). Rabat is on the ocean and we made sure to visit and enjoy ourselves. People were swimming and surfing, I saw bathing suits, couples holding hands and kissing… craziness, especially coming from the bled. I made travel arrangements to Ourzazate by CTM, a bus company that costs more for its direct routes, nicer seats and air conditioning. The other option was to take the souq bus. These buses stop for anyone and anything. They are known to break down, do not have air conditioning and are a wee bit more shady, but cost less. The difference was close to 50 Dhs, but Peace Corps is reimbursing me for my travel, and they prefer that PCVs take CTM when available. Starting at 6:30pm, I was to take the bus to Casablanca, transfer to another bus to Marrakesh and proceed to Ourzazate. Little did I know that I would not arrive to Ourzazate until 6:30 the next morning, but that actually worked out for the best. I almost missed my first bus. We had stayed at a cheap hotel in Rabat (everything costs more there) that Peace Corps had arranged for us. The beds were not made, and we ended up putting on the sheets ourselves. We ended up having to ask for towels also and there were no outlets in the room. My phone was almost dead when we arrived at the CTM station and I plugged it into the outlet there, making a friend in the process. In his broken English and substituted French we talked about our jobs and why I was in Morocco. They called out that a bus was leaving at 6:00. I thought it was another one, no, it was mine. He was trying to get my email address as I was running out to flag it down. The bus driver scolded me, but in a jovial way and I received a few looks from the passengers. Falisha had come with me to the bus station, her bus was leaving a lot later and she joked about how I almost missed my bus because of my boyfriend. Luck, what little I have, was on my side. The larger cities have few people who speak Berber, which makes finding places and traveling difficult. When you do find someone who speaks your language you make an instant friend and ally. Switching buses in Casablanca was no problem and the man who took my bags made sure I was on the right bus. I slept fitfully to Marrakesh; we stopped there around 1am to pick up a few more passengers. From there, the only way to Ourzazate is Titchka Pass, a windy two lane road through the prettiest mountains I have seen yet in Morocco. I remember them the first time going to site. We were told to abstain from lunch that first time, because lots of people get sick. The scenery is incredible and I regret that is was in the pitch black night, with only our headlights for light. The CTM bus took up most of the highway, especially on blind curves, good fortune that few people were traveling in the wee hours of the morning because it could have proven disastrous. We stopped in a small town that thrived on travelers passing through. All the businesses were open, their lights on, beckoning people to stop and grab gifts and a bite to eat. Despite it being 3am, there were multiple grills open, the meat hanging from large hooks. You would simply ask for a certain amount of meat, they would slice it right in front of you and grill it on the spot. The smell coming from these grills was incredible, and in between customers the owners were fanning the smoke out, enticing empty stomachs. I got out using the bathroom and buying water, not hungry but I wish I had been. I acted like a seasoned passenger, like I knew what I was doing. I was definitely the only “arurmi” there (tourist/non-Moroccan). I made sure to get on the bus with plenty of time to spare. When we had loaded and the driver was ready to go, he sounded his horn a few times and we pulled out. “Wait! Wait!” shouted one of the passengers, “The man next to me is not here,” the bus driver looked angry and we stalled for a bit. No one knew where he was. He blew the horn a few times more, including a few obscenities. We had gone no more than 10 yards down the road when a man came running up beside the bus, banging on the door. The driver hesitated, and it looked like he wasn’t going to stop. I wondered if I had not gotten on in time, if this could have been me. He finally opened the door and started yelling at the man. The man got on and into his seat, calmly thanking the bus driver. The bus driver was livid. He was a jovial fellow and had made a few jokes throughout his drive, making the passengers closest to the front laugh. I didn’t know what he was saying but he seemed like a character enough. “Thfu!” is a universal remark made by all towards whatever is displeasing (my youngest host sister often receives this from my host mom). Except this time, the ‘thfu’ was so forceful he actually spit on the windshield. I watched his spit slide all the way down, leaving a snail trail of disgust. His reaction was unstartling and I became very wary of the power all bus and taxi drivers alike. If they wanted to leave you, they could. We arrived in Ourzazate with no other incidents and I lazily climbed out and collected my things. I didn’t know what to do. It was 6:30 in the morning, much too early to do much. I grabbed a taxi to a hotel where most PCVs stay when in town. Checking into a room to catch some sleep, I debated about what to do; spend the day and night here and head into my site the next day, or push through and head back that day. One of my province-mates was also staying in the hotel. Had I been smarter, I would have just made him let me sleep in his room (most rooms were doubles), but instead, due to my indecisiveness, I checked into one of my own. I woke up in a sweat around 10am, the heat had already set in and at that point I decided it would be best to just continue on. For some reason I thought I wouldn’t have to pay the whole amount for 4 hours worth of time spent. Wrong. I tried to haggle with the receptionist; his argument was that this was a hotel. I understood, but at the same time I hadn’t used any of the amenities, and really there was only an unmade bed. Alas, I paid for the room and met up with Emory and we grabbed a taxi to Boumalen. I was exhausted and just wanted to go home. I finally made it home around 2 that afternoon. My garden had flourished the time I had been away thanks to my host family watering it. It was a welcoming site. There were at least four huge zucchini squash, a dozen unripe tomatoes, and the beginnings of ears of corn. My jungle was spilling out over the sides, the leaves craving sunlight. The interior was as I had left it, two weeks’ worth of dust and dead bugs inside. My broom was nowhere to be found. It had been borrowed of course. For some unknown reason, my broom is coveted by my neighbors and host family alike. The broom has a wooden handle, with an attached brush, that’s all. For some reason, no one has coughed up the 12 Dhs to buy one like it and resort to the handheld ones made from a dried out bush. These are cheap but inefficient, having to stoop over the whole time and retraced sweeps to get all the dust. All I wanted to do was clean up a little, unpack, and take a nap. The little things… I brushed away the dead spiders and crickets and crawled into my bed (it being a folded blanket and sheets on the ground), exhausted from travel and the last two weeks events. Finally, I was home.

These past two weeks, the newest Health and Environment Sector-Morocco has been congregating in Azrou, a small city in the Atlas Mountains. Divided up into our respective congregations, the health stag stayed in one hotel and the environment, another, all the way across town. No hotels in the area could accommodate both groups, culminating approximately 59 volunteers plus 5-6 Peace Corps staff. It was unfortunate to say the least. The health group has gotten closer and we have become better friends with each other, as has the environment group, but mixed together, not so much. Groups before us have had lots of time during training to get to know each other well and develop lasting relationships. Despite our high success at acquiring the language and adapting quickly to the culture, we are suffering in our support networking. Alas, I do not think that Peace Corps will change their protocol too much from this latest revision. There have been a few suggestions, like housing all of us together for the first two weeks to develop the foundation of the language and have a few vital culture sessions. Afterwards, we would divide up and spend a month or so with a host family for our CBT training. Then we could at least talk to our family just a little bit, with basic introductions. My CBT host family thought I was from Germany for the first two days, “Alemania? Alemania??” I remember distinctly. (Which makes me question Peace Corps thoroughness of explaining to host families who and what our roles are…) Luckily, this past weekend, a few of us got together to hang out and spend our time off in a beautiful area 45 minutes outside of Azrou. Nestled in the mountains, with the backdrop of two gorgeous waterfalls, we stayed in a Bed & Breakfast type of hotel. One of the chicks from Enviro was celebrating her birthday and asked the concierge at her hotel for some suggestions as to where to go site-seeing and spend the night with a group of friends. Group of 17. Word gets around quickly and it was an open invitation. This hotel was actually a house with two open rooms that they had cleared out and lined with ponjs. We shared the bathroom with the family. A number of us slept outside the room, in an open courtyard area for a reduced rate. The village was incredible. The waterfalls were fed by a river and the river and all its man-made diversions flowed throughout the village. We went on a hike to go find the local swimming hole. Titrit and I stayed behind to wait on our two slow-poke friends, AP and Sarah. Well, inevitably we get separated. I felt inclined to go right when our friends had actually went left. Things work out despite and we went on an unbelievable hike. We climbed up to one of the waterfalls and got as close as possible, getting soaking wet. Four Half-clothed girls, arms outstretched, in the middle of Morocco, out in a tiny village, we embraced mother nature and all her beauty. It was overwhelming and satisfying. We hiked on, trying to find the source and hopefully, our friends. We found blackberries, climbed through some small streams(creek stompin’), and reached the top of the mountain. We found a cow and an empty field. Our friends were nowhere in sight. We started back down, hoping that once we got back into town, we could use our Darija speaker to get directions to the swimming hole. Of course, all we had to do was follow the kids in swimming trunks with towels slung over their shoulders. On our way we intercepted the rest of our group, looking a bit tired and worked over. We had been out for close to 2 ½ hours on our hike, and they said they had just gotten rid of their fo-guide (pseudo) and were ready to head back home. We decided to check out the area for ourselves. Going down an eroding switchback we made it to the swimming hole, a small dammed up section of the river. We decided to trek up a bit, looking for a more private spot where we could hang out, get wet and discreetly break out our bottles of gin and vodka. Once again, the euphoria consumed my thoughts, my emotions, my being. I was just at a state of bliss. It’s hard to describe. It happens around once every other day. My surroundings and recent experiences invade my thoughts and I just become incredibly thankful for my circumstances. I am in a beautiful and interesting country. I question, I accept, I understand. Much of what I want to do here depends on my motivations and abilities to develop relationships. A lot of that comes with time, with language learning, with understanding the best way to assess my community and develop a sustainable project. That night we ate tajine and started into our sangria that we had made (fresh peaches, grapes, oranges, and our recent addition of blackberries). The family had prepared a cake for Sarah’s birthday. It was delicious. Everyone was having a great time, we were dancing and singing, playing cards and having in-depth conversations. Around midnight or so, groups had split up into a dance party, a star-gazing party, and a swim party. Eventually all groups made it down to the river to do what we know how to do best, skinny-dipping. Now, some dissenters may think this is one of the most illogical ideas to do, but to us, it was ingenious. There was a wedding going on in the middle of the village, people were out and about, people were drinking (both Moroccans and Americans) No one noticed us walk down to the river, on the outskirts of town. It was dark and there was a half-moon, enough light to kind of see where the path stopped and the river started. There was no discussing it, it was all or nothing and we went all out. I was with a group of 5 other people. The river was ice cold and felt amazing. The stayed in long enough to go numb and quickly got out and back into our clothes. No harm, no foul. My night ended quickly once we got back to the house, I curled up into the blanket I had borrowed from our hotel and fell asleep. The next morning we slowly woke up. Some of us were hurting, some of us were ok. We rehashed the nights events over watermelon I had bought. Sweet and juicy, it hit the spot and needs to be advertised as the perfect morning-after food. We eventually got taxis and made it back into Azrou. Recovery included a long nap in our big bed, the three of us; Titrit, AP and I. We are solid. I am the youngest at 24, Titrit is 26 and AP is 28 years old. We are all CBT site-mates. Titrit is from Denver but has spent a lot of time living in Sante Fe. She is a self-defense instructor, yoga guru and has a great laugh. She is a strong woman who quietly analyzes people and situations. She recently cut her hair to about half-inch and looks awesome. She is one of the few people who can pull off that look, not just pull it off but look awesome. AP was in Ameri-Corps previous to Peace Corps, teaching middle and high school students sexual health. She specialized in peer educators and is passionate about STI and HIV education. Her background is Gyanese and she is beautiful. She is also very strong and has strong opinions, never shying away from voicing them. A dancer in a previous life, she is graceful and loves attention. The three of us have a great balance, a lot of reason, and like to soundboard observations, ideas, and basic PCV gossip. Don’t tell us anything that you wouldn’t want the three of us knowing. We are each other’s support network and a family. I live closest to Titrit near Tingrir, AP lives the farthest away near Midelt. Luckily, we are on the same side of the country and neither one of us are in the far south or along the coast. Hopefully, we will be spending Thanksgiving together at Titrit’s house (aka Brokedown Palace as she likes to call it) at her site. AP is working on putting together intramural province games and I think Titrit and I will head up the Ourzazate Province Team. We probably won’t dominate, but I think overall we stand a chance against some of the other teams. Games start after Ramadan, rugby has been suggested but I vetoed it. I think we should stick to safe games like ultimate Frisbee, softball, kickball and the like. I recently have been in touch with some of my former teammates and it looks like Ireland for next spring break. I’m going to get in rugby shape for that trip. Trust me, I’m there.

I still have small bits of dough stuck to the backs of my hands from my previous morning’s work. I successfully made bread today for the first time, all on my own. The other two times had been interrupted and resulted in some rather flat and unsatisfactory loaves. Having just finished a small Moroccan snack of sardines and bread, I decided I wanted to relinquish some thoughts, since I haven’t for a while… Introductions can be boring, but necessary. I am just about as settled as I plan to be in my house. I abandoned shopping on a mattress, seeing that they were all too expensive or were as hard as cement (we say that in Tash "zund cema"). So, I have decided I would much rather go for the real thing and sleep on the floor. The ponj I inherited was given with a warning and after three rather uncomfortable, sleepless nights now, I think the ponj has seen its last days in my bedroom. The only thing left I had on my shopping list was a refrigerator, and I have been across the board on that one. Yesterday, we headed into Kelaa to go see if our neighboring souk town had a better selection. It does not. I saw some really nice, brand new ones, priced at 1700 and 1800 Ds, approximately half of our settling in allowance. Most volunteers buy slightly used ones for about 1000 to 1200 Ds, some are inherited, and some volunteers sell to other volunteers for about half the price they bought it for. I went in search of a used appliances store and found some rather interesting places. He looked like a sketchy businessman to begin with. Stealing short puffs on his cigarette and assessing me with his dark twitchy eyes, he thought he saw a quick buck for a stupid tourist. He only had large refrigerators and I needed a small one. Anything bigger would take up half of my kitchen, use up too much electricity, and frankly, not fit. He told me to come back in about an hour and he would have a small refrigerator then, a really really good one. I went shopping. I was in the market for some pants. I can’t wear shorts in my site, so 99% of the time I am in jeans or workout pants and it can get quite hot here in Morocco. Skirts would be a viable option except you still have to wear pants underneath them, if you go to have tea at someone’s house, you are more than likely to be sitting on the floor and the risk is too great not to have only some kind of safety… It was a fun morning. I was speaking a fair amount of the language and being able to describe to the store owners what exactly I was shopping for. They appreciated that I was speaking their language. I made jokes about the colors and was picky, if the pants were orange or yellow I said that it hurt my eyes and was like the sun, white pants I would have to wash everyday and I don’t have enough money to buy that much Tide, pink was like the flowers and I made a gross face. The last store I stopped at didn’t look like much from the outside. They have countertops that stretch across the store’s entrance so you can’t look through the items yourself. It is not for browsing. Most items come prepackaged in plastic, protection against the elements I assume, but it makes it quite difficult to see what the items look like. Long sleeves or short sleeves, the cut and the design. I described the pants I was looking for to the little man. He pulls out a pair, exactly what I wanted. They look terribly silly until you are wearing them. MC Hammer has come back in style, but as nice, loose linen available in all colors. I settled on a pair of chocolate brown and olive green ones. He was telling me I could find the same ones in Ourzazate for 20 Ds more, he gave me a good price for them and then I got a scarf for free. That’s how it works. J I tried to avoid the sketchy businessman on my way back. I don’t know the roads of Kelaa at all, and taking the wrong turn is not a good idea, so I ended up on the main road. His store was off a side street and I hurried past, trying to avoid any and all eye contact with everyone to no avail. He runs up and catches me. He has the small, really good fridge and I should look at it now! Waxxight. It is smaller, definitely used. I like to describe it as one you would see in someone’s garage, holding beer, and only beer, because thinking about putting food in there would a stupid idea. It was gross. It needed a good cleaning. I asked how much he wanted for it. I thought he would start off around 700 Ds and we might work it down to 550 or 600 Ds. Guess! Guess how much he wanted for it… 1500 Ds! Hahahaha I laughed in his face. Pure laughter, Are you joking? Do you really think I am that stupid?! Oh man, he explained to me that it was a good model, even used the only English word he knew, “Guarantee” that it worked. There was no point in pricing it. He started out too high, and I definitely didn’t want to buy anything from this man. The post office now charges for packages. I received my first one on Wednesday, and was very excited. Anjie had one waiting for her too. I was stoked. My first package since I have been in country! Full of things that I had asked for from my family! Anjie had said that she came to the post office earlier and they were now taxing packages. They told her she had to pay 500 Ds in order to pick it up. Surely thins must be a mistake? We were only aware of taxes on electronics. She had a package full of miscellaneous items, none of them electronics. My package was twice the size of hers and yet hers weighed probably two times mine. They were expecting us to pay 250 Ds for mine and 500 Ds for hers. Outrageous. Inconceivable! (Princess Bride) But really, we, as volunteers, cannot afford to pay those taxes on our packages. Receiving a stipend of approximately 2000 Ds a month, that would severely cut into a budget for something else. We need to work out some other system. My solution is for Peace Corps and the post office to work out some kind of system. We are volunteers here in this country, working for free. These packages are a small piece of sanity. These packages let us know that our families love us and support us. Our tutor, who is a big help for most things, and doesn’t understand others, asked if the things inside Anjie’s package were worth 500 Ds (approximately $55) Yes and No. First off, most of the things inside you cannot buy in Morocco, if you can, they are incredibly expensive. Her parents sent her citronella candles because of the disastrous number of invisible mosquitoes; they sent her journal, peanut butter and some other small items. Worth 500 Ds? Probably not, but to send it back to America would be such a waste at the same time. Anjie is going to Ourzazate next week to dispute this with the post office there. I hope she is successful. We both have other packages on the way. As of right now I am going to ask my parents to hold off until we work something out here. Grrrr. On my way to pick up a mirror and I am stopped by guides who ask me to tea. Guides are an interesting lot. I have heard them describe themselves as thieves. Which in some cases, they are. They are easy to point out, dressed in bright scarves and loud shirts. Where they might look Moroccan or African at first glance, it is a stark contrast to what the normal everyday wear typically is. They are usually young guys 18-25 years old who know enough language, fluent in French, some English and others to persuade tourists to employ their services. They take tourists up through the gorge, down to the Sahara and to see the sights and sounds of Morocco. They have certain hotels and restaurants they take tourists to. It is all a system and they do pretty well for themselves. They usually get some action on the side, part of the job. One of the guides I meet is pretty notorious. He is a good 6ft tall, if not taller. His friend was just as tall but spoke less English. Nordine has a huge personality. He carries himself well, full of self-confidence. He always wears a lime green scarf and wraps it around his dreaded hair. I am the relatively new volunteer. They want to know who I replaced and where I live. As a rule, we usually stay away from the guides. Different reasons. They are associated with tourists, and we try to distance ourselves as much from being perceived as tourists. Guides are a tad bit slimy and our reputation is usually all that we have to go on. Guides also like volunteers, we know their language and have made an effort to understand and respect their customs. There is an ongoing joke that you can always spot PCVs, we are covered and modest and usually bitchy. We don’t respond to Bonjours or offers to look at goods inside stores or to tea with strangers. We don’t mean to be ugly, but I am sure it looks like that sometimes. Nordine insists that I have tea with them, “You always say ‘one day, enchallah,’ have one glass of tea with us and talk and then you may go,” Ok. Fine. And I was curious. I walked into a small apartment with a large freezer in the middle of the room, the same ones you find in gas stations that have ice cream in them. They offer me cold water out of it. Out of nowhere I hear a yapping and a daschund comes up and starts sniffing my feet. I recognize this dog! He belongs to another guide…I then go in and sit in the living room. A French lady looks up from the ponj. She is in her late 50s and has milky blue eye shadow painted on her eyelids. Her lips are outlined in a dark brown color and the contrast is startling. She has straw blond hair and it is cut short across the back of her head. She is lumpy and starts speaking to me in French. Lounging next to her is the dog’s owner, another guide, but as of right now I can only think that he must be unemployed and busy entertaining this lady. This happens every now and then and I find it fascinating. He was probably half her age and good-looking. He looks up at me and I notice his eyes. Damn, he is stoned out of his mind. I then notice the huge blunt in his hand. I can’t smell anything though because the fan is situated at their feet. They are watching some French movie on a PSP. He is blazed out of his mind. At this point, I am given a glass of tea and sip it slowly. I talk to Nordine and his friend. One day, I can have him and his friends at my house for tea? Ummm yeah, sure… I go and get my mirror (full size, 1m x35cm) and head back out towards the main part of town. A transit (large van that can fit up to like 30 people) that I take from time to time passes by me slowly. I am still about a half-block away from the main street. I curse myself for walking back so slowly, knowing that the next transit probably won’t leave for another hour at least. I notice the brake lights. The money boy recognized me and they stopped! (Money boys are anywhere from 12-20 years old and collect money from the passengers, load transits, open doors and assist the driver) I start walking faster, aware of the very fragile purchase under my arms. They hoist it up and put it up on the roof. The roof is crammed with various other goods, huge sacks of flour, crates of vegetables, luggage, etc. I told him to “pay attention cause it was glass” (don’t think that matters). I get in with a “bismillah” and slide in next to another woman. The transit isn’t even that crowded, to me that means that they had waited long enough and were ready to pull out. Awesome! That means it was going to take even longer for the next one to fill up. I lean back and relax, mulling over the day’s events. Oh shitfuckdamnit. I left my package with my tutor. Fuuuccckkkk. I haven’t even opened it up yet.

I had one of the craziest weekends to date. Jack and I had been planning on meeting up for about three weeks. We enjoy each other’s company and find a fair amount of common ground between the two of us. Whether it is our North Carolinian upbringing or love of the outdoors, we find it easy to talk to one another. We decided to meet in Errachidia, the capital of the province. It was an easy inbetween spot from each of our sites, and he had made arrangements to stay with a PCV who lived close. That may be the last time that I allow Jack to make the arrangements. I have been told lots of things about Peace Corps Morocco. I have been told that it is the second largest Peace Corps country, with close to 200 PCVs, following Ukraine. (true) I have been told that people who have some medical issues, ones that wouldn’t limit their work but need additional medical attention are stationed in Morocco due to its easier access to healthcare. (possibly true) I have also been told that Peace Corps Volunteers lifespan is usually ten years less than the average American due to their service (stress, exposure to various forms of diseases, etc.). (I have no idea) I was also told that we would meet one or two volunteers who had slipped through the cracks and we would ask ourselves, “Why the hell is this person doing Peace Corps?!” I should not be one to pass judgment, but speaking frankly, I have never met anyone quite like this person. We will name them Guy. I will not go into specifics on Guy’s life but I can tell you that never have I had to be so patient with someone. A person who speaks, tells you almost nothing, and listening is just a breather until his turn to speak. I know everything about Guy’s family, lovers, medical history, first car, pets, etc. Lots of this information was personal. Things I didn’t want nor need to know. Jack and I spent two nights at Guy’s house. His site was hot, hotter than I had been used to. I was still sleeping with one blanket or a sheet up in the mountains. I could get away with jeans and a long sleeved shirt most days and be comfortable. When I sleep, for whatever reason, my body temperature increases, I’ve been nicknamed “a small furnace”. So sleeping downstairs, the hottest area of the house, and I was dying. The second night we tried to sleep up on the roof, but we were mosquito food and ended up moving back down to the heat to escape their incessant biting. Guy had barely stopped talking enough to eat and now I was sleep deprived. I was exhausted, mentally and physically. Jack and I had spent little time catching up with one another and using each other as a soundboard. I was more stressed out at the end of the weekend that when we had started. Luckily Jack and I had our moments (my reference to the number 1 as written by Moroccans looks like a “pitched tent” and this reference turned out terribly during the card game, Rummy, when I made this random observation and I ended up in full laughing tears and excused myself to the next room to gain composure, Guy did not understand why I was laughing—just clueless to the world around him) and I was ready to head home on Sunday. Jack asked if I wanted to accompany him to Imilchil where he would be cooking for another PCV, Liz and her family to thank them for bringing his laptop to him. Liz’s family had come to visit her and things worked out beautifully for Jack to get a computer. I accepted his offer. There was a transit that went through a pass in the mountains that I could take back and eventually get to my site the following day. Sunday morning we packed up and left for Errachidia, sharing a cab with Guy who was going to visit another PCV. Well, we should have been so lucky that his next stop was the same as ours! Another cab ride to the next town. At this point, I had learned more about this person’s life and it was unfortunate, because I could recognize that he needed some friends. I don’t know how to put this. Some people can envelop themselves in a cloud of self and it blinds their view of life, what is going around them, and stifles their ability of not only maintaining relationships but also being able to share other’s perspectives. I think it is important to try to understand your circumstances. Look at yourself from an outsider’s perspective. Lots of us do this for superficial reasons, wanting to convey ourselves in a certain fashion to impress or dissuade others from our insecurities. I don’t know. A shocking blast of truth and a hard smack in the face might do Guy some good. Everyone needs a humbling experience. I have to deflate my ego now and then, and I heard that it’s good for your health. Guy is so delicate that I am afraid that the humbling experience would push him to his brink. Maybe I am just a poor listener. Maybe I had just met this kid and I couldn’t handle it. I need training or something, I needed different circumstances and access to drugs and alcohol. I was told that we were stupid and crazy for staying at Guy’s house, especially for two days. Jack did little investigating into our arrangements, but at the same time I can’t blame him either. It’s Peace Corps. We all are in this together, so why would you need to second referece?! For the cracks. The goddamn cracks, because of what has the ability to slip through them… To wrap up my trip, the transit was not going to Tingrir the next day but the next. Liz’s family had a terrible first impression of me. I barely spoke and contributed nothing to their interesting conversation. Luckily, Jack’s charm made up for it. He is a charmer. Wink wink. I think he might have charmed not only the parents but one too many that night but I will bother him about that later. I left the next day, on the early morning transit. I had been warned that over half of the trip was on unpaved, dirt roads that winded through the pass. It was either risk this trek or go back through ErRich and Errachidia, which would cost me twice as much and probably as much time. I wanted to risk it. We were about 30 minutes down the road when we came to our first obstacle. The road had turned into one huge mud puddle. There was (I just moved my yogurt to block it from a fly’s line of sight, who is the crazy one now…) a small detour around and the driver chose to take this way. I supported that decision. For whatever reason, he decided to hug the side closest to the road turned river. This side was loose dirt. One second we are amiably moseying along, the next I am looking towards my driver at a new 30o angle. Here was the perfect opportunity to learn some new and true berber curse words! He just looks at me. I thought about cursing enough for the both of us. Something colorful. I decide to take his lead. We file out of the transit to assess the damage. We had sunk into the drink up to the front axle. More than a foot away from our tracks was the hard-packed road others before us had used. Like I said, I have no idea why he decided to hug that side but we were going to pay for it dearly. Watching close to 15 men decide the best approach to our decision makes for great entertainment but I was in no mood. They started digging out the dirt from the other side’s tires to try to level the vehicle. We watched as two other cameos (large trucks) and finally Jack’s transit bypass us and trudge through the mud puddle from hell. Trucks had stopped, men riding bikes to the fields had stopped. We hadn’t budged in over an hour. Finally, a small two-wheel drive Isuzu with a cow and old man in the back decided that with maybe a little towing power, we might alleviate our situation. The truck had almost gotten stuck going through the mud puddle to come back around to help us. I am not religious and even then I debated about saying a quick prayer. (Of course, times of need…) So an Isuzu truck, cow in back, piece of rope, and 15 Moroccan men standing watch, we all breathed huge sighs of relief when that rope pulled taunt and wheels inched forward. We continued on our trip and I held my breath each time we went through huge puddles and areas we sunk deep into rutted, red mud. There were areas that were twice as bad and we went through them without a hitch. The end of the road was amazing. The small towns and mountains huddle together diving into a beautiful gorge, full of palm trees and incredible rock formations. A tourist trap for good reason. I saw old French men with little on accept climbing harnesses. My trip was complete. Finally made it to Tingrir, and the next day home. The following day I peed through my butthole. I have no idea. I didn’t even know I was sick. It was just you know, closure from such a crazy trip. I blame my mom. (Dad understands…).

Yesterday on my walk around the area, I had the most interesting time: invited to tea three times, passed a small group of men smoking hash, walked by a group of girls who were delighted to meet me and one who wanted anything, anything from me-- to my t-shirt, even the elastic in my hair--, introduced myself to a few people, yelled at by some boys in a dump truck, invited to tea the following day by a neighbor, invited to the fields, etc. All in all, it was an uplifting walk outside and I felt great afterwards. I was asked recently whether the people in my community were happy I am here. I don’t know, honestly. Peace Corps is not a NGO. We do not have a large supply of money readily available. The saying goes something like this, “Give a man a fish and he feeds for a day, teach a man to fish and he feeds for a lifetime,” Which sums up 1/3 of Peace Corps mission. We are here to build sustainable projects and hope to pass on some of our knowledge so that others will benefit for future generations. The other 2/3s is cultural exchange. I know that Morocco has done plenty to help share their culture with me. It is in my face everyday, and people here love to explain it to me: “Drink tea, Eat bread, Wash your clothes in the river, Bake, Make tajine, couscous, and be with your family,” This is a relatively new site, Sarah started it only two years ago. Health education tends to be a bit more difficult because old habits die hard. Even the most basic things that we take for granted are hard to accomplish. We all share the same mug of water during dinner. We all eat from the same communal dish. Families sleep in the same room. Families wash their hands with soap after meals (if at all). Toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap are all an additional cost. We eat a lot of bread, rice, and couscous, which tend to be some of the most filling and cheapest meals. Families do not have a lot of money for hygiene products. Despite these small setbacks, they are only setbacks. They are not permanent. The family received toothbrushes from Sarah. They are usually only used when bathing, which is infrequent. Other things though, like improving diet and proper prenatal care could be some of the easier things to improve. Many suffer from malnutrition and a lack of protein in the diet. Meat is the most expensive. Protein and amino acids are essential to the overall repairment of the body. I hope to get started soon in these topics. I feel as though that this site would also benefit from Small Business Development and Environmental volunteers. There are enough young women in this area that would support a proper working Neddi and need some direction, and new ideas to get one started. Overgrazing and the diminishing amount of trees is a huge problem. Supposedly, the community is supposed to get two or three large, gas ovens in the near future. These are supposed to be used instead of the small private ones where people burn wood to bake bread. The hillsides are stripped of trees and it is causing an increasingly alarming amount of erosion. Landslides here are common, especially when it rains. Alas, the community needs to come together to make a conscious effort to decide to use these ovens when the time comes, and do away with the older method. This can be incredibly hard as we all know. Having to change our ways from what we grew up doing, what we are accustomed to, will be very difficult. Yet it is desperately needed. Last winter, a small café beside the road was completely abolished by a landslide. Luckily the owner, who usually sleeps in a room off the back, had been staying with family that night. The devastation is shocking. I ran into the president of the school recently at the family’s house and he asked that we get started on some projects coming September. Sarah had worked on some grant proposals to secure funds for a room onto the women’s Neddi. A Neddi is a women’s association where they typically come together to work on traditional crafts like weaving and looming. I assume some of the projects he is talking about include the room onto the women’s Neddi and possibly finding a place for the Association to rent. Whether these are one and the same, I do not know. Luckily he speaks a little bit of English. These do not sound like health related projects but I am here to help with what the town needs. Incorporation of health projects would be easy if there was an additional room onto the Neddi. We could hold health classes (not only health but maybe yoga and physical education and prenatal classes). We could host other PVCs or members in the community to give lectures and talks relating to small business, environment, children’s sports clubs, theatre, etc. Lots of work is being done right now in the height of the growing season. Women go to and from the fields all day and temperatures soar in the early afternoon. September would be a good time to start work. Also, with the upcoming elections [12/06/2009] in this small community, one thing at a time. Most people do not understand Peace Corps purpose, if they have ever heard of Peace Corps at all. Those that do understand are probably some of the friendliest, most hospitable and understanding people I have met thus far. They say, “I know you are not a tourist. I know that you work for free to help our people, and I want to thank you.” It’s times like those that you truly feel welcome, understood, and accepted. I am envious of some aspects of Moroccan culture. Houses are built side by side. My neighbor comes over every day just to hang out, sometimes to eat dinner, sometimes to drink tea, mostly just to chat. I see most of the family on a daily basis. They live right down the road and I often accompany one of the sisters to get fresh buttermilk from the cow. Everyone here walks everywhere and if you need a ride into town, (Boumalen is an hour and a half away) you make arrangements with Abdraheem, the taxi driver, right across the way (he usually leaves at 5am). The neighborhood kids come over and if its meal time, it’s never a problem. I would love to have my parents and my sisters close to me by the time I am ready to settle down. I can only imagine. It is an instant support network. Despite possible skirmishes and arguments, there isn’t enough to be said to have family surrounding you. When I heard that my sister was moving back next door to my parents’ house I was a little jealous. My parents are amazing people and so much fun to be around. It seems like my family has this predisposition to branch out and test ourselves by going to school several states away. Yet here, I have never appreciated my family more and missed them so much. Appreciated how much they mean to me. How few and far between opportunities like these come, and because of my upbringing and strong influences from my parents and sisters, I can be in Africa and trying to make a difference. I am missing out on their lives but I know they understand. It only saddens me that I can’t share this experience with them now. Hopefully, they will come and visit me. I am told from other PCVs that no one really understands (or can imagine) until they come to visit. It is hard to describe the outdoor bathroom, the sheep in the pen, the hot afternoons and chilly evenings, how bright the moon is at night. That’s all for now. We started on my garden three days ago. I woke up and decided that I was going to do that morning, it would give me something to do that would be productive and fulfilling. I started out clearing the trash from the area. The outside of the house is not aesthetically pleasing in the least bit. There are piles of debris, trash, rocks, and it’s ugly. I feel like if I am going to be living here for the next two years I want to have a garden out front. Nothing ridiculous, just some vegetables and herbs. It started with clearing out the trash and one of my host sisters came with me to help. Then the next door neighbor (landlord’s daughter) came over and started helping. She was great. We cleared out the area of rocks and then lined the space (approximately 10ft x 5ft) with large rocks. She grabbed two huge bags of manure from their sheep?cow? and we unloaded it. The garden was sufficient and looked so much better than before. We watered the area down and made plans to get “kasbor” (parsley/cilantro) in the afternoon. I got a shit-ton of kasbor seeds for 5 Ds. I didn’t need that much but I accepted my bag of seeds and went back to the house. The landlord (my neighbor) told me that we would be putting up a privacy wall and cementing the roof soon “nchallah” (God willing). The roof leaked in one of the rooms, debilating it’s use for the past two years. Whenever it rained Sarah would put buckets underneath, she said it was a pretty major leak. I insisted that they fix the roof before I moved in. Her bedroom and living room were one and the same. She used the leaky room to hang her wash out. I also wanted another window put in. Unfortunately the house is more like an apartment and just an extension of the landlord’s house. So where I wanted to put a window in the kitchen, one of the walls was the back of their bathroom, the other looks into their living room. I settled on a window above the door. It should provide a lot more airflow and light. He also fixed the light in the hallway, which should improve some of the darkness. I don’t know if I want to paint yet. Paint is expensive and I would have to buy all the materials also. It might be worth painting the living room though. Depends on how my funds are looking. I think I could borrow paintbrushes and the like though. I just have to ask around. Next day, after the garden was planned out, I came back over to start planting. There were some young guys stringing together a bamboo-type plant to make my privacy wall and the others were working right outside the house. The garden was gone. They had leveled out the area and had moved the garden beside the road. They were cementing the area right alongside the front door, like a small patio. Laho, the landlord, explained that this area I could sit and do my laundry. They were lining the garden with cement blocks. It was bigger and looked better than the first one! I wasn’t upset at all. The garden just gave me something to do the day before and now, whether because I should initiative or not, they were putting in a much nicer garden. Today I went over to help in my garden. We started just pulling out the big rocks. It was hard work, I was sweating (go figure) and the kamikaze gnats were flying straight into my eyes, up my nose, and into my mouth. The lucky ones got spit out. The really lucky ones got digested. I started rooting out some of the smaller rocks. I figured I had the time and I wanted to do this right. Whether it was my initiative or not, they too, started pulling out the smaller rocks. It took up the majority of the morning. I didn’t want a break, it felt good to have my back hurt, sweat in my eyes and dirt under my fingernails. After we pulled out the majority of the rocks, we unloaded two wheelbarrows worth of manure and mixed that in with the earth and made 5 spaces for different vegetables to be planted. Since we had the kasbor already we went ahead and planted those and watered the area. This afternoon I hope to find some tomatoes plants, maybe carrots and others. At this point I will take whatever I can get. This garden is going to be my sanctuary, my medicine. Growing up my mom always had a garden and we always had plants in the house. Thank goodness she passed down that love to me. I love the smell of earth and getting dirty. Already I am thinking about how I can plant a grapevine along the doorway so it can grow up and around. I also thought about how I can get some hanging plants outside the house. Unfortunately I don’t think I am going to be able to have plants inside, too dark, but I will make the outside like a Moroccan jungle (first of its kind). Tomorrow I am headed into my souk town, and there’s a man there that sells plants. I’ll get some from him, they are relatively inexpensive. I also have to get a hose and some other things from the hardware store in order to hang those plants… Productive. Then, on Thursday I plan on going to the sbitar and talking to the nurse there, figuring out some kind of schedule. Things are good…

Oh Henna Going to the hammam (bathhouse) is the one of the best things to do in Morocco. It is absolutely amazing. There are usually four rooms. The first one is where you change and keep all of your stuff you aren’t directly using in the bathhouse. The next room you walk into is the coolest, the second is warmer and the last one is usually quite hot. It’s like a sauna with running water. You pick out a spot and grab a couple of buckets and go at it. The combination of the steam, hot water and sweating sheds off the first couple layers of skin with a good scrub. Trust me, after a week of not showering, you want to scrub as much off as possible. Lots of other ladies and little kids are around, everyone’s naked. It’s custom to keep on your bottoms but some choose not to. To each their own. One day, my CBT group decided to go. All of us, together for our first hammam experience. Sounded like a party. Naked party! We grab our stuff and decide to do like the Moroccans and grab some henna and their special soap. It looks like brown goop and you mix it together with the henna and its supposed to be great for your skin and your hair. Our LCF told us that the henna soap was awesome for your hair. It really made it shine. We all added it to our hair. It was a henna party. It smelled earthy and organic. We left it in there for probably twenty minutes or so before we washed it out. We scrubbed and scrubbed until our skin was red. It wasn’t until the next day when my host mom made a comment about my hair that I looked in the small, hand-size mirror I had brought with me. My hair was red. Like a dark, burgundy red. Like I was 40 and trying to hide grays, or high school teenager who read a lot of sci-fi. My CBT friends said that they liked it, or at least that it wasn’t “that bad”. None of the other girls had any significant difference if any at all. Their hair was darker than mine. I learn quickly. Luckily it washed out in about a month. And by washed out, I mean after about 5-6 times of actually washing my hair. You know, hygiene, its fun. Side note: There is something that is eating me up like I am their last meal. I don’t want to count how many bites I have but they are everywhere, places that are kept covered for the majority of my time (legs, arms, etc.) Big bites. Invisible mosquitoes. Or bedbugs. I really hope they aren’t bedbugs. I keep on trying to figure it out. Until then, I will be someone’s dinner.

Stopped Up Toilet --James TD Bond This story is retold by me in James’ words. James lived in a house full of girls. He had five host sisters, ranging in age from 5 to 18 years old. They had one bathroom in the house. James had his own room and everyone else slept in the living room. This is very common. Most PCVs temporarily displace parents or the kids from the room they usually sleep in. For the amount of money host families are paid, this is usually a minor infraction. Most of us in our CBT site had been experiencing lots of indigestion and health problems. James and I topped the list with my ghiarrdia and his constipation and subsequently diaherria. “So one morning I woke up with these major stomach cramps, like I HAD to use the bathroom and I needed to do it before the rest of the family woke up and starting going. So I slip in there and start going. I cleaned out my body. There was A LOT of poop. I start pouring water down the bit and it’s not draining. It’s just sitting there and filling up. I can hear the family starting to wake up. I panic cause they know it had to have been me. So I reach down there and start breaking up the poop. With my hand. And it’s not going down. It’s still not going down! So I wash off my hand with the soap in there and go out and find the dad. I tell him I have a problem and lead him back to the bathroom. He fills up an empty Coke bottle and starts going at it. Like a plunger. There is poo water going everywhere, and he is sloshing it around—all over his shoes, all over the sides of the walls, it’s crazy. And then, all of a sudden, the water starts going down. By this time the rest of the family is awake. I of course, wash my hands again and leave the soap on my one hand and stand outside for a good ten minutes, with my hand in the sun, drying the soap up.” (not verbatim but close enough)

Upstairs Vagina Also during CBT, I had a way of explaining what I was trying to say by using lots of actions, elaborate gestures and facial expressions. Trying to explain to my host mom and the roommate one night that I wanted to go upstairs and go to sleep I found out some naughty words. I was acting out the difference of upstairs and downstairs. Had a wall been there I would have fooled them completely and they would have looked for the invisible set of stairs. Seeing at there was not, I was just stomping around, lowering myself bit by bit and then doing the opposite, saying “Upstairs-upstairs-upstairs, Downstairs-downstairs-downstairs,” back and forth, much to their delight. My host mom was ROFL, she was laughing so hard she was practically crying. Both the roommate and my mom were watching me, just laughing. I had no idea, so I asked her what was going on?! What was wrong? And she explained to me that “Upsheesh,” sounding very similar to “upstairs” means vagina in Tam. So I had been stomping around her kitchen, yelling out “Vagina-vagina-vagina” to her and her roommate. They loved it, and it was my first of many bad words.

Salaam! During CBT in Ouiouazaight in the Azilal Province, Joseph and I were walking home from school together one evening. It had been a long day and we wanted to stop and grab something to drink at one of the local hanuts. Joseph and I lived farther away from the other kids in our CBT, past the souq area and slaughterhouse. This area was frequented by huffers, potheads, and the local crazies. On our way home we always kept an eye out for the local crazies because they would instantly target us and try to come over and talk to us or demand money. He saw us enter the hanut and followed us in. We had dubbed him “Zabadaga” because when he would approach us he would salute us and then yell out, “Zabadaga!” and thrust his hand out for a D (dirham). Zabadaga went straight up to me and started asking for money. There were maybe another five people in this small closet sized area, overflowing with goods. Joseph and I both had on bookbags too, which adds a new dimension to movement. I had been consistent with refusing to give beggars money. I was going to live there for two months, give beggars some money one time and then they come to expect it. This time was an exception. The man was in my face and I could smell the fig wine on his breath, see his rotting teeth, the yellows of his eyes. I just wanted him out of my face. I reached in my pocket and produced a coin, placing it into his dirty outstretched hand. His reaction was the catalyst to the chaos. He immediately started kissing my hand and then pulled my head down to kiss me on my forehead. Mass confusion. Other men at the hanut instantly started to pull the man away from me. It wasn’t sexual in any way, just elaborate and fast and I didn’t really know what was going on. Well this freaked out Joseph. He just wanted to get out. In his effort to leave he turned quickly, running into the man behind him and swinging his bookbag into the wall of stuff. Knocked off balance he falls back into the wall yelling, “Salaaaaamm!” arms outstretched, trying to hold back the falling goodies. It was hilarious. He tells me later ,that he had panicked and couldn’t think of any other word in Tam except for Salaam and that was what came out of his mouth. Salaam means peace, so appropriate I guess, but just watching Joseph’s face was amazing. Joseph has also told a group of people “LLaysHel” as he was leaving, which is a phrase used for beggars meaning “may God be easy on you” instead of the usual “slama” (bye).

Moroccans invented the fourth meal, not Taco Bell. They often eat anywhere between 9:30-12 at night. Most meals take a long time to cook. Couscous, tajine, the pressure cooker and even rice sometimes will take a good two hours to be ready. By 9pm, most if not all the family will be asleep, exhausted from the day’s activities and yet they still insist on eating ridiculously late. I’ve noticed that by 8 or 8:30pm the girls in my family are cranky and tired. That’s when we have most of the tears and arguments. You can see the tiredness in their faces. Simplest solution would be to have dinner earlier, but this either is too much of a tradition, too much of a routine, I don’t know. I understand that around dusk is when most people are out and about, sitting outside and socializing. So dinner won’t be prepared until after this, around 8 or so. It’s unfortunate because half the time the girls refuse to be woken up to eat dinner (who would blame them) but they are awfully small for their age. We eat lots of carbohydrates. Yesterday we had bread, bread, tea, couscous with some vegetables, bread, tea, and rice with milk. Change comes slowly and Moroccan has definitely showed that to me. I consider myself to be a pretty laid back and patient person, and I have even been tested. Hopefully with some more time, I can help instill a better sense of a well balanced diet. People here are not overweight or obese, but there is something to be said to have a nutritious meal. 1. Moroccans have a “Last Comic Standing” type of show out of Rabat, and it looks exactly like the one we have. They also have dance shows with dance groups competing against each other, as well as the table of judges that act and speculate like the ones we have in the US. 2. There is a huge discrepancy between the city and the country. The people look, act and of course speak different languages. What is painful to watch is to see how some of the people from the city acts towards their countryside neighbors. They look down at them, claim and celebrate their culture as their own but do not respect them. 3. There was a ton of trash in Ouaouizaght because it was much more of an affluent town and people had money to spend on candy and snacks and would throw the trash on the ground afterwards. The people of Tizguine have little money and there is little trash here, thus the area is much cleaner and prettier. Ouiouazaght even had a trash service. 4. Little girls are the same across the board. They play house and giggle. They can be mean to each other and exclude each other, they can be catty and deceptive. 5. Big girls are the same across the board. They size each other up. Gossip about each other and at the same time can find a great sense of comfort from each other. 6. I have watched more original episodes of Looney Toons than ever before. Voice dub-overs are hilarious. Somehow Smurfs have also made an impression in Morocco. Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles, Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony are also popular, it’s like I’ve gone back in time to the early 90s. 7. I don’t know when people bathe but my family is getting ripe… yet, I feel like an asshole when I ask for hot water for my one bucket bath a week. 8. We wash our hands before most big meals, with warm water. After the meal we use the soap. I don’t understand it either. Yet, for the most part, people seem to be healthy. At the same time, access to regular healthcare is unheard of. The father of my current host family passed away three years ago from cancer. It was too late by the time he went to the hospital in Marrakesh. I also see lots of lazy eyes, crossed eyes, clubbed feet, bad teeth, etc. 9. The dentist is someone in town with a pair of pliers. No medicine, no local anesthetics. Most people are out of work for a week or more. Most people are terrified to go to the “dentist,” I know I would be too. Lots of times the tooth gets to be so bad that it is the last resort. My first host mom had all of her teeth removed. It is an expensive process. They had the money for it. She now wears dentures and I am pretty sure she has somehow managed to start rotting them out too. You should have tried her tea. It was syrup. The outside of the glass would stick to your hand after she was done pouring. It was a little disgusting to say the least. She watched me brush my teeth everyday, I told her about it. Then she showed me her gums and I shut up. That was scary too. 10. So grandma put something into the water jug that we all drink out of. In the summer, they wrap an old, sewn-together sweater that they keep damp, around the outside of the jug. It keeps the water cool. She shows me a vial of red liquid and I smell it. It has the odor of barbque sauce, no joke. A little sweet, a little spicy. I thought it was going into the couscous. Once she opened it and poured some into the jug, a rich almost metallic odor wafted up to me. I have no idea what the stuff is but it makes the water taste terrible. They call the jug their “berber refrigerator” and insist that I drink from it. I thought I was doing good drinking buttermilk, I think I will abstain from the special water. 11. I haven’t used toilet paper in the past three months.

On my way into Ait Idir this morning at 5am to help with a health lesson with a fellow volunteer, I sleepily took into account of my surroundings and made a few mental notes: Most taxis are in the same shape… 5 minutes away from breaking down. The grande taxis are usually a sedan (Mercedes) or station wagon with additional seats in the back. A taxi isn’t full until there are three people sitting upfront (including the driver) and four people squeezed in the backseat. The station wagons can squeeze an additional three people in the very back seat. Kids don’t really count as people and they usually sit on the laps on the adults. Taxi drivers remove the handle to roll the windows down, sometimes they have the handle upfront and you can ask for it to roll the window down. This is rare. Seatbelts get in the way so they are often removed. There is a misconception that the air makes people sick and so they keep the windows up, despite the soaring temperatures. Often the speedometer is broken, and you can guesstimate the speed (usually ridiculously fast). The dashboards are colorfully decorated with rugs and fringe and stickers. Usually prayer beads or a cd inscripted with passages from the Koran hangs from the rearview mirror. Before we left this morning, the taxi driver kicked each of the tires to check their inflation, I thought this was quite humorous but kept my mouth closed. Taxis typically try to start on a downhill because the rarely start on the first time. It’s not uncommon to see a few men push a taxi to get it started… I ate a mystery meat last night in the couscous. It was from the head of the cow, I found out later from the kids in my host family. . After my host mom had left to give the leftovers to our neighbor, I asked the kids what the meat was, and they burst out laughing. Mohammad was saying, “Ur-thili! Ur-thili!” meaning “It’s bad! It’s bad!” It was tough meat and had small white spikes on one side, so I thought it was the taste buds from the tongue. These spikes were hard to chew and so I swallowed the pieces whole and they kinda hurt. It was by far the most interesting meat I have had so far—the list keeps expanding, kidneys, heart, intestines, cartilage from cow ears… Still alive :)

I apologize for the delay. Unfortunately, I have had little opportunity to use my computer or access internet. Internet access can be difficult and slow. I haven’t wanted to pull out the computer for many good reasons during my homestay, not only does it scream “touch me!” to little hands, it also is a huge luxury (no matter what country you are in) and there are some things better left alone. From the beginning, we landed in Casablanca and boarded two large travel buses from the airport, all 61 of us. Our stage has the oldest volunteer yet to serve Peace Corps, she is 84 years old and a great-grandmother. She is by far the sweetest lady in the world and incredibly nimble and quick for her age. We also have another volunteer who is in his early 60s who has served two previous terms for Peace Corps and was successful in both of them. He is a great resource and easy to talk to as well as always prepared (you never know what is going to happen). The majority of us are in our mid-20s, having graduated college and entered the workforce but wanted something more. We also have two couples serving, and it seems like an awesome thing to do with the person you plan on spending your life with, something that will forever be yours to reminisce. Our stage had two groups, Health and Environmental. The next group will come in September, they will be Small Business Development and Youth Development. The SBD and YD groups typically get placed in larger towns where the population would benefit more-so. Health and Environmental are placed in more rural areas, in small communities out in the country. At this point in time, the majority of PCVs serving in Morocco have running water and electricity. There are a few still that have to go to a local well and treat their water or have no electricity, but they are few and far between. My community is in the Gorges Dades, which tends to be a vacation hotspot for adventurous French tourists. It is a beautiful area that resembles parts of Utah and Arizona with its huge desert-like mountains but contracted with the river that cuts through the gorge. On either sides of the river are fields that are harvested, and sitting above them are the small communities. The road follows the river. Occasionally when it rains, there are landslides and the river floods the fields. This can be incredibly devastating to the communities that can be blocked by the hazardous conditions. I originally stayed in Ouaouzight, a town in the Azilal province of approximately 14,000 people. We arrived in site, all 7 of us and our Language Coordinating Facilitator, Fatoum. Blake, James, Joseph, Falisha, Kaytea, Melissa and I were distributed out to our new host families! I was picked up by a woman smaller than me. Berber women tend to have a certain look: high cheek bones, dark, round eyes, and a caramel brown complexion. Depending on the region of the country (GENERALIZATION), the population gets darker or lighter in skin color. The people of Ouaouizight/Azilal seem to be fairer in complexion than the Ourzazate region (which is to the south). Of course, this makes sense seeing that the French and Spanish influenced the area closer to the coast while populations of middle Africa traveled through the Sahara to get to Morocco. There is some discrimination here regarding race. Darker persons are more discriminated than lighter skinned ones (influence of colonization?). The Berber people were the original inhabitants of Morocco, some were Nomadic and went from mountain to mountain grazing their livestock and some set up small communities. Some of the people in my community still have relatives that live in the caves above our site, it is fascinating. As Peace Corps Volunteers, we too, are faced with discrimination. Typically if you are a young, white female you get “cat-calls” from guys everywhere you go it seems like. Mistaken as French tourists, we get a good number of sleazy “bonjour gazelle!” and the harassment varies depending on the situation. Of course, even the slightest things we take for granted are taken as reasons to talk to us. Women here cover their heads with headscarves and rarely let their hair show, some of the younger population will have it pulled back and wear a headband. Wearing your hair down and loose invites unwanted attention. Tight clothing is unacceptable, the looser the better, nothing low cut or in the least bit provocative. Wearing make-up is also mistaken as a desire for attention. Where I feel like we like to look a certain way, look presentable, or our usual selves, this is too much. I no longer wear make-up and am having to readdress my wardrobe. Its annoying but necessary. PCVs are all shapes and sizes and from all different backgrounds. One night in Ourzazate after stopping by the Super Marche to grab a few things for the long ride to site the following morning, we ran into some friendly HCNs (Host Country Nationals), who started asking us where we were from and the like. After being introduced to Nini, a beautiful Asian girl, he starts yelling, “Jackie Chan! Jackie Chan!” and doing ridiculous karate-chop-like moves. He looked ridiculous and did not realize how incredibly offensive he was. Then he saw Naomi, a tall beautiful mixed girl and called her a “basket woman,” and continued making fun of the two. Luckily, together, they burst out laughing and started walking away, affectionately calling each other “Basket Woman” and “Jackie Chan”. My dear friend Falisha, from Ghana, and of Indian descent, has been harassed in a variety of ways, from being called “Hindu” to having people assume she is Muslim, her host mom even told her that she “could see the Prophet Mohammad’s face” in her face. I feel like their discrimination is more painful than ours sometimes, but I guess it all depends on the situation, how you are feeling, what’s been pressing on your mind, stress level, etc.

I am in Morocco! It is beautiful and green and colorful. They pay close attention to details and designs. They use tile everywhere as opposed to our wallpaper or traditional flooring. And the tiles have very creative and original work on them. It is a lot for you to take in. I have to cut this short because we are about to start our next session, but I promise, more to come later, hopefully tonight!!

I have only 38 days left in Gastonia, and I am getting super excited and scared. I don't know when to stop the daily pace of my life and start prepping for the departure. What am I supposed to do? It's too early to do the final laundry. It's too early to pack, seeing that I wear most of the essentials and that packing job is going to be atrocious. Start kissing people more? Start letting my loved ones know how much they mean to me? I know what I SHOULD be doing and that's getting on top of those arabic lessons...

more to come later--