Al Hoceima and Chefchaouen

Last Saturday, I finally got out of Saidia. As nice as it was to spend two weeks at the beach, I was ready for a change… So I hopped into a taxi to Nador, where I met my friend Nam, and we traveled on to the city of Al Hoceima, which was a fairly clean, seaside town (although with only one small beach in the middle of town, and several others on the outskirts). This area was devastated by an earthquake a couple of years ago, although it was the surrounding villages that suffered the most destruction.

Me in Al Hoceima:

Leaving Al Hoceima Sunday, we met up with a couple of other volunteers who were also heading to Chefchaouen. Together, we suffered the worst bus ride EVER. Now, the road between Ouarzazete and Marrakesh is notorious, but this was a whole other level – basically 6 hours of non-stop puking and wretching thanks to bouncy, winding roads (but not such sharp turns that the driver couldn’t take them at full speed anyhow). Thank God I’ll be taking a different road to get out of here!

As promised, Chefchaouen is BEAUTIFUL – a mountainside town full of Spanish flavor, with a bluewashed medina and generally chill atmosphere in spite of the number of tourists here this time of year. The night we arrived was also a part of a long, holiday weekend, so we couldn’t find a place to stay and ended up sleeping on the roof of one hotel in the medina. Many of the tourists come as much for the kif – a crop so dominant here that we have seen fields and fields of it driving into town and hiking to villages on the outskirts – as for the culture. The Berber dialect spoken here is so completely different from Tamazight that I’ve gotten no language practice, and even though, throughout Morocco, I tend for some reason to hear a little more Spanish than most volunteers (do I look it?), it is still unusual to hear so many Moroccans trying to speak Spanish to us instead of French. Strolls through the medina are quite pleasant, with not as many aggressive sales tactics (or simple attempts at extortion) as one might experience in Fez or Marrakech. So in spite of just having spent two weeks at a craft fair, I have still enjoyed browsing through the numerous craft stalls, and even having a few more in-depth conversations with a couple of local artisans. We also visited the local kasbah, which contains a pleasant garden, small ethnographic museum, contemporary art gallery, and prison cells left over from the Spanish occupation. I felt so wonderfully lost in this small space – more able to simply kick back and enjoy exploring than I usually do here when passing through places while traveling for work.

Chefchaouen medina:

I have, however, gotten one sad piece of news this week. My sitemate called me yesterday to tell me that my host family’s new baby passed away last week after battling significant respiratory problems. I am feeling pretty bad about not being home right now while they are going through this, but at the same time am not sure how much more I could actually do for them other than keeping them in my thoughts. I hope you’ll all do the same.

Moroccan Whiskey

So Saidia is one of those beaches where guys walk up and down selling various snacks: candy, soda, ice cream, sandwiches, nuts, and even hot coffee or mint tea (heat is no deterrent to consuming hot beverages here). As I was lying in a state of semi-consciousness the other morning, I heard one of the tea guys yelling out "Whiskey marocain!".

Anyway, beach is nice, but crowds and tackiness are beginning to overwhelm me a little, and I am hoping to get out of here early tomorrow. In spite of dismal sales, Fatima has decided to stay a few more days until the end of the fair. I've bought one or two souvenirs from other artisans here, but on the PC living allowance, and with another year to go shopping, there is no need to rush.

Saidia Week One

So, the Saidia craft fair has been officially up and running for about 6 days, although the tents actually went up late, as can often be the case with events here, so we’ve really only had 4 full nights of work. The festival itself is running from 5pm-midnight, so daytime has been freed up for me to go swimming and sunburn all the parts of my body that haven’t seen the light of day for nearly a year! Beaches are crowded, and the water and currents have been suprisingly rough (but fun) for this to be the Mediterranean. When you head towards the eastern end of the beach, you can see the Algerian border post -- not allowed to cross!

Since Fatima and I didn’t come with a lot of products, we opted to share a tent with Halim, an artisan from the town of Boujaad, which worked out nicely for us in that it created a good aesthetic balance in our tent set-up without adding a lot of product-specific competition. We’re still struggling with sales, but after feeling a little down on things the first day, Fatima began to make the most of it, meeting other artisans, getting product ideas, and even consulting with Halim, who has a really sophisticated sense of aesthetics, color, etc.

Here I am with Fatima in our tent. The things on the walls are some of Assoul's traditional products, while the boxes and purses are from Boujaad.

Saidia itself is a bit bizarre – lots of Moroccan ex-pats home for vacation, but many actually dressed for the beach, which is startling given what one gets used to seeing elsewhere in the country. The town swells to crowds of tens of thousands this time of the year, although the rest of the year the population is quite small. Some of the artisans let their hair down and play on the beach, while others, including Fatima, have found their first trip to the beach to be a letdown, given all of the hashuma attire they see on the beach, with men and women right next to each other! When we got off the bus, Fatima immediately told me how shocked she was to see so many men running around with their shirts off…

The festival lasts through mid-month, but I’ll only be here through the end of this week (and the first week flew by, thanks to long days on the beach and long nights manning the tents followed by occasional additional “socializing”). I do hope we eventually manage to sell a thing or two…

Nobody works in the summer...

...except for Peace Corps volunteers.

It has been quite a week, and I've been stumbling all over town in spite of all sorts of digestive distress (and subsequent lack of nourishment), fever, etc., just trying to find a few pockets of motivation among the women of Assoul. Why? Because tomorrow marks the first day of their first really big craft fair, in Saidia -- a town on the Mediterranean coast next to the Algerian border. Two months ago, everyone seemed really excited about the prospect of possibly selling a thing or two, someone getting to go on a pretty big trip... But last week, only the new president and vice-president of the cooperative seemed motivated. How disappointing! Most days, the nedi was locked up tight, and the vice president, Fatima, and I went around knocking on doors (many of which weren't being answered) just to see if anybody had any products to sell ("any" meaning not dirty and not ugly). Mina, the president, had been working hard weaving, even trying out some new product ideas that we had discussed. Everyone else was either "occupied" (sleeping, due to the afternoon heat), or "waiting for the cooperative to start" (I keep explaining that we are in the process of starting it, so they need to work now!). Somehow, we miraculously ended up with one large souk bag full of stuff very late in the day Saturday. (All this was echoed in my attempts to complete other work as well this week -- no one was answering phones at any office I called! My understanding is that I can expect this through the end of August).

Sunday morning, Fatima and I left for Meknes, where we stayed with her uncle's family. I still didn't have much of an appetite, and was opting for starvation over possible intestinal distress during two rather long bus rides (been there, done that), but I nevertheless sampled a couple of the blander baked goods that the women of the house were preparing in bulk, as they were catering a wedding -- delicious! Today, we had one more long haul for Saidia. And, en route, I spoke with our regional delegate from the Ministry of Artisana, who told me that the women of Assoul have now been formally invited to hold their General Assembly meeting to begin their cooperative. Does this mean their next craft fair (at the end of August) will cause less stress? One can only hope, but...

In the meantime, I am excited to be here with Fatima. Regardless of what she sells, she is super-smart, and I think she will get a lot out of this experience (in addition to selling, she's going to be able to attend a number of training sessions). So I will be working ("working"?) here at the beach for a couple of weeks before I take a proper vacation. More on Saidia as our stay here progresses... By the way, it turns out it is hot and muggy here.



My other excitement this week was that my host family has a new baby boy! I paid a few visits, but unfortunately, I had to leave before the big naming ceremony. Although given the last such party I attended was in the winter, and remembering how hard I sweated then, I'm not sure it is such a bad thing to miss one in the dead of summer.

Besides, I had a vicarious party the night before I left Assoul -- someone had loudspeakers going at a wedding in town until 4am (when my alarm was set to catch the morning transit -- ARGH!). Even though it was on the edge of town, they might as well have been blasting straight into my window! No sleeping in the summer either, it would seem.

Goat Feet and Keeping Cool

For only the second time since I have been in this country, I had to tell someone not even to bother asking me to eat something (the other time was a sheep head during Lﻉid). One common dish served here (in rural areas, at least) is plain couscous in buttermilk. People here drink buttermilk straight and like it. It makes me gag. But even that I have choked down before, most recently at Mina’s house where, no matter how many times I tried to explain that it was the buttermilk that I didn’t like (I’ve learned that, while I should be polite, I actually do better to set boundaries early when it comes to foods I don’t care to consume in large quantities), she and her sister kept offering me more buttermilk, thinking it was the couscous I didn’t like. So, last Friday, I was there hanging out at lunchtime, and Mina began frying a couple of eggs while her sister Aicha went to get the main dish. “You can eat eggs,” Mina explained, “if you would rather have that than couscous.” “I love couscous.” I told her, “It’s the buttermilk I don’t care for.” “We’re not having buttermilk,” she replied, and I was thrilled! Sure enough, as Mina and I were snacking on eggs and bread, Aicha walked in with a platter of delicious looking couscous, with zizaw (cabbage-like greens that are often used in soup here – no clue if such a thing even exists in English, but they are pretty bitter raw). We all dug in.

Normally, with both couscous and tajines, the meat is in the center of the platter, often buried under vegetables (if there are any). Apart from my host family, who all have a healthy respect for my minimalist meat-eating habits, I often worry about what I may or may not have to politely pick over when I eat at someone else’s house. The meat is the prime part of the meal, and it is rude for me to refuse it, especially when someone else picks it apart and places your serving directly in front of you (it’s a little easier for me during meals where everyone just tears at the same pieces in the center of the dish). Well, as the zizaw started disappearing, what began to appear were two goat legs. The lower leg, to be specific, so I couldn’t make out where there was any actual meat – just skin and hooves. There was also some unidentifiable long, slimy thing. I didn’t understand Mina’s explanation of what it was, as she was pointing at her head, but it definitely was not brains. It hardly mattered – I was already not enjoying my couscous and zizaw any more, as I was looking at the goat feet with a combination of nausea and fear. When Aicha finally went to divvy up the meat, I immediately said I couldn’t eat meat today (I have, in fact, done a pretty good job of convincing people that I really do feel sick if I eat too much in this heat). I took advantage of the presence of the remaining eggs, and said I would be happy to finish those. Thankfully, they didn’t fight me (a lot of people here would)! Still, lunch wasn’t over, and I had to keep eating, and looking at those things, and then listening to them crunching, crunching…



So, the heat is getting pretty bad around here! Even so, I know not to complain too much. Last week, in Errachidia, I was dying because it was so much worse than Assoul, but I was staying with a friend from even farther south in the desert who was rejoicing that he was somewhere cool enough to potentially sleep through the night (demonic cats notwithstanding).

Another friend living near Marrakesh recently posted to our volunteer web group a list of tips for staying cool without air-con. It left me thinking about what exactly it is that I do, in my world where an electric fan is not even an option (and believe me, that will be one of my first purchases if and when they finally do hook up the electricity in Assoul… I see the poles going up, really!).

The answer is, simply, water. Wet rags, wet towels, wet bandanas, wet newspapers. Buckets of water. Anything wet. Although this in itself can be a challenge in our world of massive drought and water flow regulated to an hour a day (and that can sometimes be a rather pathetic hour when it does come). Not to mention that, no matter how much insect repellant I wear, I suspect that all this standing water in my kitchen and bathroom has something to do with the fact that I walk around itching to the point of near insanity.

I sit around my house with wet bandanas tied around my pressure points. (Unfortunately, although tank top and shorts are my indoor clothing of choice, I have to keep long sleeves and pants handy to change into quickly whenever someone knocks at my door. My friend Najat has already teased me after seeing me – from someone else’s house – up on my roof improperly covered!).

Likewise, we have something called a “bled fridge” (bled is the term we use for rural areas). I am too lazy to do that, but it involves a clay jar wrapped in a wet towel, sitting in another bucket full of water. Not the same as a real refrigerator (a decent one at least), but it works. My m.o. is to eat my produce as quickly as possible (I never prepare my own meat anyhow), with no leftover prepared food. Any beverages I want to keep at a tepid (as opposed to warm) temperature I wrap in the wet towels or newspapers, and try to keep them near a draft (although the wind situation here remains rather all-or-nothing). I use a lot of powdered milk, but when I can’t resist the real thing (i.e. when I am treating myself to real coffee as, alas, the Nescafé mystique has now worn off, and I see it more as a necessary evil), I buy the specially treated milk that is available at our local hanut, and again consume it as quickly as possible. Anyway, this works all right for me. A real fridge would be nice, of course, but that’s a pretty big purchase, and it looks like now I’d only have it for one summer here… maybe not worth it.

Also, there is very little exercise, apart from uber-lazy yoga, so I am getting mushy yet again, in spite of what an appetite killer the heat is.

One upshot is that I do engage in some sort of bathing on a daily basis. And these days, even my awesome solar shower gets too hot, so I often just squat in my banyo (like a “low-rise,” wide plastic bucket, where I normally do laundry) and dump cool-ish water on my head or wherever else I need it). I may feel sweaty and gross all day, but let’s compare that to the winter situation when being naked is so unbearable that the bottom layers of clothing don’t even get changed more than once every few days, and being naked and WET is such a horrible thought that a weekly hammam visit is all many of us can bear. (The alternative is potentially killing myself by turning on every gas device I own and shut myself in a room with them while I bucket bath). So I know that I really am living a more hygienic lifestyle, courtesy of the heat.

So STILL, it beats winter, when I walk around wearing all the clothes I own and cursing out loud about the wind and the cold. If anything, this just forces you to relax a little. And no one else is doing much of anything either in the heat of the day, so I could actually aim for all-out laziness if I chose to do so, and probably face little criticism. (The reality is that I stay in and read a lot, so some people think I am inside sleeping… I don’t care…).


In other news, the women of our soon-to-be-cooperative have finally selected their initial officers! It may sound like a small thing, but it is a huge hurdle for them (and for me, as it is hard to make things happen when there is no clear chain of command). Next week, in sh’allah, one of them will travel with me to attend their first big craft fair. And, hamdullah, it’ll be up on the Mediterranean coast, away from this oven!!!

Sweltering Summer Camps

Well, as much as I like chilling out (please don’t take that term literally – it is July!) in my own house (where I have mastered the art of opening and closing different windows at different times of day so as to maximize ventilation while minimizing extra heat from the sun), and tearing through my numerous self-improvement, social science, and just plain fun reading during the heat of the day (thanks again Em for Love in the Time of Cholera – I LOVE it!!!), I still keep going to hotter places, where projects tend to come and go a little bit faster than my attempted work in Assoul often does.

Of course I make my daily appearances at the nedi when I am in Assoul, reminding them of the next steps they need to be taking in preparation for the official formation of their cooperative (even though they’re in bureaucratic limbo at the moment, that’s no reason to put the organizational discussions on hold!), and lately, trying to get them focused and prepared for going to their first big craft fair in a couple of weeks (let’s hope that all comes together!). But I still have various GAD (Gender and Development) projects going on – some little and some bigger. One evening this past week week, as I was preparing for an early morning departure for some meetings in Errachidia, my neighbor Fatima, who has one of the stronger business minds among members of the new cooperative, dropped by for one of the one-on-one troubleshooting chats she likes to have with me. I explained, yet again, that among other things, I had a GAD-related meeting to attend with other community leaders in the region – perhaps a little too apologetically noting that this work requires some extra travel and that women and development (I don’t know how to say “gender” in Tamazight) issues are really important to me too. Rather astutely, Fatima echoed a thought that I have often had as well, saying “Well, you need to develop the women at the nedi.” Indeed. Some are more prepared than others for the responsibilities of running a small business, and more and more, I see my “Small Business Development” work as being more of an extension of my GAD work – not only teaching basic business skills, but also pushing them to take initiative, risk new opportunities, and build confidence and leadership skills. In the end, I’ll be happy if even just a few of the women with whom I am working come out a little stronger, because right now I am not sure they will see too many financial rewards from our efforts until after my Peace Corps service is over.

As far as other GAD projects go, last week, I stayed in the town of Rich with several colleagues. There, we partnered with a local association to host a GGLOW Camp, with a variety of educational and recreational activities ranging from nature walks, hygiene and nutrition sessions, English lessons, discussion of gender roles and issues, and world music, dance and yoga! I still hate that I don’t have enough confidence in my Tamazight to be very effective in large-group discussions in that language (but it just didn’t seem right to use French when only half the students understood that), but I was fine helping out with small-group work. Of course at my nedi I have mastered the art of yelling out made-up yoga pose names in Berber, so that worked out all right, and for African dance and group sing-alongs I just used what God gave me. Oh, do I miss doing all those fun artsy things sometimes! Other sessions were led by volunteers with better substantive/educational expertise in those areas anyway, although I was a little disappointed that all the gender discussions were held in Arabic. Some of those girls really got into it, and I would have loved to have understood more! (The upshot of that is that we passed along resources to local association members to allow them to facilitate the gender sessions, fulfilling Peace Corps’ “capacity-building” goals by encouraging the association to hold similar programs on their own in the future!).


As I noted last time, Rich isn’t my favorite town in Morocco, but since I am there so often, it is nice to have had the opportunity to forge some new relationships there, both with members of our partner association – who were remarkably enthusiastic and open, often getting up on stage and dancing and singing along with the children – and with some of the young girls who enjoyed talking to some of us one-on-one, some inviting us into their homes… I really fell in love with one girl in particular, named Nadia, who had a genuine sense of joy about here, discernible in a huge smile that never left her face. Nadia has a clubbed foot, but seems to refuse to let it drag her down either literally or figuratively. Even though we were exhausted from all the invitations we’d received by the end of the week, Nadia had put in her request for our company very early in the week, and it was a pleasure to spend the final evening of the GGLOW camp eating couscous at her house, meeting her family and talking with them about their efforts to improve Nadia’s situation. My thoughts will stay with her, and sooner or later, I have a date to go back to her house for henna.

Also, as I had a whole week in civilization, I got to watch both of the semifinal matches for the World Cup. Even if no African teams were left, as one of my friends reminded me, France was basically an honorary African team. But then again, another friend was happy to see Italy’s success due to their, um, aesthetic appeal (she was actually hoping for an Italy-Portugal final on those grounds). So I felt a little like a real person, watching the sports! Of course there are a couple of cafes in Assoul with solar panels where I could have gone to watch other games if I had really felt passionate about that, but like most cafes in Morocco, those tend to be male turf. As an American woman, I could probably get away with it, but that’s just one of those judgment calls where I prefer not to stir things up too much. I get enough extra attention already.

Right now, I am on my way back from hot hot Errachidia, where I sweated all night while my friend’s crazy cat kept trying to chew off my toes! It was my first opportunity in a couple of months to talk with my government supervisor face-to-face. He is incredibly helpful and encouraging with our efforts to form the cooperative in Assoul, and he seems genuinely interested in making sure that the volunteers under his supervision (he works with all the Small Business Development volunteers in this region) get a lot out of being here. Even though he knew I was primarily in town to help facilitate an evaluation session for a previous GAD conference (a first step towards planning our next one, to be held this fall, in sh’allah), he made sure that my colleague and I knew about a cultural festival going on in Errachidia this weekend. So that evening, after the sun went down, I went with another volunteer and Houssein, a Moroccan friend from the town of Tinjdad who is super laid-back and speaks great English, to Errachidia’s main square. There we checked out some local crafts and live “Moroccan” music ranging from Ganoua (which I love for its strong West African influences) to perhaps the worst rapper I’ve ever heard and some guy dancing and lip-syncing to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” (that’s about the time we left). Then we went to Houssein’s house to grill brochettes on the roof. Turns out, Houssein is actually in the process of building the house, so here I am in a real city with real infrastructure (i.e. electricity), and it feels just like Assoul, with buta lamps and flashlights. But it was pleasant – more like camping when you’re out in the open air (and it’s not your own, somewhat furnished house that you are tripping around in the dark).

One thing is for sure – I must buy a fan if and when our electricity ever gets hooked up!

Fez, Home, and Things I don't Want Crawling On Me

“To do good is noble. To teach others to do good is nobler still, and less trouble."
- Mark Twain


I’m exhausted. Never been happier for a week back in my own house, in spite of the near absence of electricity (still not connected!) and water. If anything, I was even glad for the lack of communications infrastructure, having been massively overexposed to the institution that is Peace Corps Morocco over the previous two weeks.

Anyway, I don’t get my full respite just yet, as I am now back in Rich for a week working on a GGLOW (“Girls and Guys Leading Our World”) camp with some local students. Rich isn’t my favorite town in Morocco, but it is my home-away-from-home once a week, and the communications lifeline for a number of us volunteers who live out in the bled (rural villages) in this region, so a few of us thought we’d try to give a little back. More on that another time…


As I mentioned last time, I didn’t exactly make it straight home from Agadir. So on my way home from Rabat two weekends ago, I made an overnight stop in Fez, mainly to hang out with a friend, but also because I hadn’t yet had the obligatory experience of getting completely lost in its medina. Turns out we did a great job of that, winding our way past numerous shops and interesting architecture until suddenly we were stuck in a maze of almost empty streets! These photos are both not too far from the entryway, before it really gets confusing (I refrained from taking photos as we got buried deeper and deeper, so as not to entice further the groups of little boys who seemed more than willing to extort money in exchange for “guiding” us).

Just from sitting in a café and observing the passers-by, I’d have to say that, in terms of the people, Fez has proven perhaps the most extreme Moroccan city (in my observation) in its mélange of contemporary with conservative – girls in skimpy tank tops followed by women covered in black with only their eyes showing…


So, in spite of my accidental grand tour of Morocco (ok, that’s an exaggeration, as there are still plenty of places left to visit), I’d say that my biggest smile of the month of June occurred last week, as I was finally on my way home, when a cow got into my transit. Good thing I was sitting near a window… It did, in fact, smell like a cow, which is all the more noticeable inside of a hot Mercedes van driving along the winding road that leads to Assoul.

(Aahhh… my beautiful ride home)

I have definitely gotten used to the ubiquitous livestock, although I do blame them (and their excrement) for the swarms of flies that attack me at my nedi and in some of my friends’ houses. My own house isn’t too bad, as I finally chopped up my mosquito net and used it for the more practical and less claustrophobic purpose of covering all the screen-less windows in my house. However, the place is hardly sealed up, and I did have to capture and liberate some sort of 5-inch long insect the other day. I didn’t think it was going to bite me, but in it’s apparent desperation to escape (it kept flinging itself against the white portions of my walls), it was making a ridiculous (and rather aggravating) amount of noise. Besides, I didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night to find the thing on my face. I also have to keep replacing the fragile, carbon cloths that are the light source for my buta lamp. They keep disintegrating, thanks to the smaller, kamikaze flies and moths that don’t know better than to try flying directly into a burning ball of gas. But still no scorpions (yet).

As for other supposedly domesticated animals, I still think the donkeys are cute, although much as I used to experience with goats on city streets in Ghana, I still can’t help but laugh out loud at the unbelievably hilarious yet creepy (and earsplitting!) noises they are capable of making. Especially on the morning of souk day (Wednesday), when there is an entire chorus of them not far from my bedroom window. The feral cats that have the run of people’s houses here have done nothing to win me over to their species, while the packs of wild dogs that run around at night are certainly no ambassadors for theirs. I hold them at least partially responsible for my inability ever to get a full night’s sleep anymore, as they usually wake me up (seemingly in the process of killing something) well before the roosters do!


So it is getting pretty hot here. I’ve again given up my running regime. The sun – which had been my only reliable source of heat in the winter – is just way too much to take these days! So on those lucky days when I don’t have to travel, I stay inside my house and read as much as I can. (The problem with being social is that, as a guest in someone’s house, you get served copious amounts of sugary, hot tea, which is especially unpleasant this time of year!). Still, it beats winter. Besides, we still have the occasional wind/dust storm to keep things bearable, even if that means my furniture and floors will never be free of their layer dirt!

Agadir: The Beach Resort I Barely Saw

Last week, all of the volunteers who arrived in Morocco last September converged upon the beach resort of Agadir for IST (that would be In-Service Training for all you normal folks who don’t speak in acronyms all the time like we do). For me, it was a first real opportunity to travel west, and on the way there I stayed in both the film capital of Morocco (Ouarzazate), and, finally (both going and coming), I saw Marrakech.

I did, however, get an unusual perspective on these cities, as I was traveling with Mina, a teacher at Assoul’s nedi and member of our cooperative-to-be. Although somewhat better-traveled than most of the women with whom I work, this was a new experience for Mina as well, culminating in utter confusion as to what was going on after we got into the elevator of our swanky Agadir hotel for the first time. Anyway, while I suspect she struggled to understand everything that was going on – some of the big picture Moroccan government policy discussions, for example, as well as the fact that all of our sessions were translated into Arabic, which is her second (and only) language after Tamazight – I was really excited that she had this opportunity to come and learn about the work of other artisans and volunteers, which I hope she will share with the women in Assoul. I also convinced her to participate briefly in my project presentation to the volunteers, “counterparts,” and government officials in attendance by showing some of the women’s products. Not many counterparts or artisans did this, and I thought it was a great confidence-building exercise for her. (Even finding women with the confidence to travel at all remains a challenge in my site).

Here is me presenting my fabulously rushed PowerPoint presentation about Assoul:



I’d even taken my computer to the nedi a few days before I left for Agadir (where Bzi told me it was the first computer the women had seen – a reminder to me to be careful of advertising my wealthy western possessions and lifestyle too carelessly), in order to get feedback from some of the women on what I planned to say about their work. Sometimes I struggle with them, but I really want them both to feel involved and to understand that I have been paying attention and trying to begin responding to some of their needs.

Anyway, training sessions kept us busy all day, and I would hardly label it one of my more relaxing weeks in Morocco, although by the end of the week most of us had managed to use our lunch breaks a little more creatively in order to enjoy a little poolside time at least. And of course I managed one or two seaside strolls. On the whole, however, the strip was quite touristy and developed (hello McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, although I do admit to dining at the latter one time, although only because a friend and I got lost looking for a Mexican restaurant we’d heard about). Granted, a welcome change of pace from Assoul, but still perhaps not somewhere I would have gone on my own.

Here’s a view from my hotel room:



I also had to take another oral language test. Whatever. Berber I am not. I didn’t even ask what my score was, but was happy that I at least understood all the questions the tester asked me (unlike what happens when I talk to people in Assoul!).

On my way back I stopped through Marrakech again with some friends (and this time no Berber ladies – finding the city a little easier to handle in that respect). Sadly, far too tired to take advantage of the city’s nightlife, although I went with some other volunteers to price yarn at a carpet store in the souk, and there was substantial strolling through the famous Jemaa el Fna (known for its array of snake charmers, storytellers, musicians, spiced tea, etc.). Also, for reasons I won’t get into here, I felt in need of a little shopping therapy – something in which I almost never indulge in Morocco unless DVDs are involved – and bought these awesome slippers:



Had to talk the guy down from 600 dirhams to 150. But I still hate bargaining (apart from just being poor, the bargaining is a big reason I don’t shop much here – I’d rather pay more and be non-confrontational). And God knows when I’ll ever wear these (certainly not through the donkey dung in Assoul!), but they sure are pretty!

Then, having been called last-minute for a meeting in Rabat later in the week, I stopped in Khenifra to break up my trip up north. The last part of that bus ride was a nightmare – not nearly as bad as some of the mountain passes I’ve been on elsewhere in this country, but nauseating all the same. And everywhere that I’ve traveled in Morocco, the puking is common enough that most folks know to carry or ask for a “mika” (plastic bag – usually black for this purpose) when they’re riding in a bus, taxi, or transit and feel the upchuck coming. Taxis are somewhat better (and you can ask them to stop at least, but even then I’ve still had a woman draped across my lap with her face in a mika), but pretty much every bus or transit trip, you’re aware of all sorts of activity of this sort, which Moroccans, for the most part, tend to handle fairly nonchalantly. Truly, these may be my people after all. I’ve even hopped off my transit in Rich early morning to find a girl hunched over and gagging, only to promptly look up, smile, and say hi to me as though she was perfectly fine again. However, sometimes, the system fails. I did end one transit ride with vomit on my backpack, thanks to the woman beside me. And during this trip to Khenifra, at a point when I was already beginning to feel a bit ill myself, I suddenly heard an unusually loud retching sound coming from directly behind me. Turns out the woman in fact had a mika, but somehow missed it and puked all over the floor. Then, one of her traveling companions got to cleaning the floor the way Moroccans always do, by pouring water all over it. So there was a nice little river of vomit down the aisle. And then, as a flourish, the puking woman took a swig of water and spit it out in the middle of this mess. It is a wonder that I made it the rest of the way to Khenifra without tossing my cookies as well! (Did I mention this all happened on one a nicer, air-conditioned national bus line, and not one of the crusty, crappy “souk buses” that I normally have to take to get between cities?)

Anyway, in Khenifra, a friend introduced me to a women’s association doing really amazing work, with a battered women’s shelter, AIDS education programs, etc. I have to say that that’s the kind of thing that makes me a little sad that I’m not working in a city, or at least a larger town. Where I am, it is a lot harder to stay connected to resources like that.

Trials in the Desert

I went up on my roof the other night and realized, sadly, that once Assoul gets real electricity, my current view of the night sky and all the stars I don’t usually see at home probably won’t be so crisp and clear anymore. It’s a tradeoff though, and I am ready for a few more conveniences around here… (Frankly, I am used to the electricity situation, and only consider that a minor frustration, but for personal and work reasons, I am becoming increasingly agitated about the lack of power for the large but currently useless mobile phone power just outside of our village, rendering my cell phone entirely worthless when I’m at home!!!).


With regard to my “desert trials,” I first have to say that I totally jinxed myself with my last posting, whining about being stuck with friends for a couple of hours one morning on a washed out road. The very day I posted that, on my way home I dealt with an exponentially worse version of the same thing – one much bigger river, one flash flood, and a longer and far less comfortable wait with no English speaking friends anywhere nearby! I came very close to having to spend the night in a transit on a road in the middle of nowhere (which did end up happening to a couple of Berber women I got to chatting with during the long wait), but thankfully made a last minute escape and got home, only a little muddier, more tired, and generally worse for the wear than when I usually get home from my travels! I’ll spare you any further details here, but if you want the full adventure.

Anyway, I was returning from a trip that has actually proven to be one of the more interesting projects I’ve been involved with here so far. A couple of months ago, I got an e-mail from my colleague Moshay, who is a youth development volunteer posted in a small (but not nearly as small as Assoul!), deathly hot desert town a few hours south of me. Even though I generally don’t feel inspired to do excessive amounts of work with children, in this instance, Moshay rightfully anticipated that I was happy for any excuse to officially tap into my interests in comparative law and women’s empowerment. So during the last month, I made two trips down to Moshay’s town to help him put together a mock trial event, which the students would perform in both Arabic and English. I have to say that Moshay did most of the serious legwork, including arranging for some of the girls in his class to meet with a local judge!

During my previous visit, the class warmed up by asking me questions in English (and making me sing for them!) Then, I spoke to some of the students about their assigned roles as lawyers and witnesses – teaching them new vocabulary and giving them tips about how to be clever in their presentation of evidence. And of course I was thrilled when a few of the girls came up to me after class to ask how they could become lawyers too!

The first trial, in English, was a criminal case, where two men working in a bank had been accused of stealing money. In the second, Arabic trial, we tried to introduce concepts of the Moudawana – Morocco’s recently revised family laws – with the story of a young wife filing for divorce from a husband who had failed to support her financially. The students were allowed a lot of creativity to flesh out their stories, produce evidence, and ultimately decide the fates of the parties, and I thought they did an excellent job! In both cases, the panel of judges (because Morocco is a civil law system, rather than holding jury trials, the judges play a larger role in investigation and deciding the case) decided for the defendant, letting the accused thieves off the hook (the boys playing the defendants brought a lot of emotion to this moment!), and ordering the estranged couple to make further attempts at reconciliation (which is still encouraged here, in spite of the recent changes that at last allow the wife even to file for divorce!). After the event, the students played soccer in the rain, drank tea, and asked us to take lots of photos…

For me, this was a wonderful opportunity to feel productive in my Gender and Development work, as well as a nice justification for studying up on some local laws and the Moroccan legal system (which, in truth, I’d already begun to do just for my own intellectual enrichment…)! I certainly never lose sight of the fact that, as much as I hope to contribute while I am here, that has its limits, so I had better learn as much as I can as well!

Stranded!?

These days, one would think the apocalypse is hitting Assoul. Yes, the crazy spring winds and dust storms have finally slowed down a bit. There’s still a layer of dust covering most things inside of my house, but now I have nothing but my own laziness to blame for that. But, were it not for such extreme changes in temperature and humidity on any given day, I’d swear I was experiencing a North Carolina summer here! For the last two weeks, in the morning, I am dying from the hot, dry sun. But then, if I don’t go ahead and use my solar shower, hang my laundry out to dry, and make any phone calls I need to make at the local téléboutique (which is conveniently useless as soon as there is a cloud in the sky), I am SOL. Heavy clouds roll in over the mountains, becoming trapped in the valley, and crazy thunderstorms and winter-like temperatures ensue. One night last week, this went on from midnight to 6am, which got to be a little creepy after a while in my big, empty, echo-y house. I know this sounds like an incredibly boring thing to mention here on the blog, but it doesn’t take much to make news in drought-ridden Assoul. And, sadly, a "little" precipitation in Assoul usually does mean that all hell has broken loose elsewhere. The last few weeks have seen significant flooding, property loss, and even some deaths just over the mountains, in Saharan towns.

Besides, even though the roads in and out of Assoul are gradually being paved over, things still become treacherous after a little rain. This is what happened when some friends and I tried to escape from the bled last weekend.





We spent an hour waiting this one out in the wee hours of the morning, before a couple of frustrated transit drivers finally decided to brave it…

… and as soon as I let friends in civilization know that we were finally on our way, we came upon this one.


If it weren’t for an incredibly foolish (and lucky) overloaded station wagon that finally decided to brave this one a couple of hours later, we might still be waiting there!

By the way, that blue transit on the left belongs to Hakim, brother to my host mother, and super nice guy. All the transits out in our area have been having a harder time these days. As soon as the roads from Rich to Assoul and Imilchil were paved, the grand taxis tried to take over. Grand taxis are Mercedes sedans that travel between cities in Morocco carrying six passengers at a time (but I’ve seen more for short trips - even with the driver sitting in someone’s lap!). You can sit at a taxi stand for hours waiting for that sixth person - these guys aren’t about to leave with fewer than that unless other passengers have paid for the empty seat (and the taxi pimps seem particularly eager to try to convince a certain American woman you know and love to do this…). That said, I often prefer taxis to buses, but never over my friendly neighborhood transit drivers! And the end result is that, while the transit schedules were not always convenient, they were at least predictable, but now it is now always certain if/when/how one might be able to get in and out of town. Let’s hope that all gets settled soon!



By the way, isn’t this the cutest thing ever?

For once, it was everyone else in my friend’s house who were dressing up like brides. Even the babies!

Reemergence

Ah -- as promised, I've gotten lazy with the blog, but these days it's not for want of activity. Although it doesn't help that the state of Assoul's electrical generator is such that I now rejoice on those rare nights when the lights do come on. In theory, I use those evenings for "other work on my computer," although in reality that often translates to watching DVDs. But the electric lines are slowly making their way to us... maybe even in a month or two! (And then you can all call me on my cell phone too!!)

I must say, I was also feeling a bit uninspired after I returned from a few weeks away in March. The women in my nedi, many of whom I find individually inspiring, can be a little more difficult to motivate and pacify as a group. In spite of pockets of ambition and talent, the whole organization seems to get bogged down in petty disputes, many of which are old news and ought to be let go! But slowly, they're moving forward, and after a meeting with a government official a couple of weeks ago, they're working on the legal paperwork to form a cooperative. This is a really big deal -- offering real business opportunities for women both inside and outside the nedi who are willing to make the necessary investments. Moving forward then, the biggest issue is going to be cultivating some leadership. I have to remember all of the social influences working against this goal, where women who are truly capable nevertheless remain somewhat shy to take formal responsibility (even those who work very hard behind the scenes), and sometimes are even most afraid of each other!

I have to mention one woman, however, who is truly impressing me these days. And this is out of several suprisingly sophisticated and well-educated women I've encountered in spite of Assoul being such an isolated village. Bzi, who is quietly motivated and appears to be above the daily nedi strife, will sit and talk to me about her interests and questions. For a woman who never completed school, she has an amazing level of intellectual curiosity. She tells me she has French language copies of Marx and Shakespeare at home. I look through my notebook and see places where she has diagrammed theories she remembers from her geometry and physics classes. In a group where one woman I spoke with didn't even realize that there was a large ocean between Morocco and the United States, Bzi is telling me that she wants to learn Spanish, and knows about Macchu Piccu when I mentioned my one and only trip to South America. In a way, I am embarassed, because when I arrived in Assoul, I feared that the only intellectual interactions I might be able to have would be with some of the men (in truth, I have to be careful where I step on that front, as they realize I like talking international politics, and of course as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I should only go so far with that sort of thing. So mainly I try just to listen...)

Anyway, I've been working harder to stay on top of my reading list (including my "spinach" -- i.e. stuff that is good for me, if not always entertaining). One thing that no doubt pulled me out of my motivational funk last month is Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains. This book had been recommended to me multiple times by various (reliable) sources, and now I must do the same, particularly for those of you interested in the developing world, human rights, public health, or simply reading about amazing people.

As I wait for this cooperative situation to pull together (well, I am involved in that too, but here I am a "facilitator"), and just to keep from feeling completely useless, I've gotten involved in some other activities here and there. Mainly there. Meaning I'm spending less time in Assoul for the next month or two. But more on that another day... I've definitely learned to accept the local attitude that things will happen if they happen.

Here's a pic of some of the beautiful landscapes in a nearby village where I might do some work. I cannot overemphasize how little justice my camera does to my surroundings.

And here is me being forced to dress up (yet again) like a Berber bride by some folks in said village. This game may never stop. The women in my nedi had been threatening to do it too, and they got me last week -- one day being disappointed that I didn't have my camera with me, and the next day (after seeing this photo) deciding that the wardrobe they'd offered was inadequate. So I think I am getting this again when I return home at the end of this week!

I inherited a pressure cooker and a shortwave radio from a colleague who returned to the US a couple of months ago. The former I hadn't intended to purchase, in spite of it being a handy way to cook beans, because I didn't want to add any more potential explosives to my housewares. Now I live in fear, but I've been enjoying lentils (my fave!) on a more regular basis. The shortwave I'd also declined to purchase after standing around souk for half an hour one morning trying, without success, to locate BBC or anything else in English. Fortunately, I seem to have slightly better luck with the inherited one. It may have lots of static and require constant adjustments, but at least I'm not getting all of my news between one week and two months late now! (Case in point, my friend Jackie just handed me an October issue of The Economist, which had apparently made a little trip to Iran before finding its way back to her small village!).

I also now own my first djellaba -- an impulse buy, I'm afraid. Even though I'd been thinking of getting some nice, traditional garments as souvenirs before I return to the US, there is no need for such a thing right now! The nicest outerwear I ever see on the women of Assoul is a taharuwit (I've no doubt butchered that attempt at transcription!) -- a thin, black, embroidered cape that is common in the south. Anyway, my purchase followed a meeting in the city of Khenifra (adding one more amazingly beautiful yet completely different landscape to my list of gorgeous Moroccan drives!), where I was pleased to catch up with a number of friends whom I hadn't seen in months. [You know, I think some of us have these fantasies about "going native" (sorry to be a little politically incorrect) as Peace Corps Volunteers, but as it turns out, I have to say that I am grateful that I see fellow volunteers a lot.] While in Khenifra, I visited a tailor shop where one of my colleagues does some work. Well, I was just browsing (and coveting some really fancy, expensive stuff), when I must have blacked out or something, because next thing I knew they were putting a djellaba on me. When it didn't turn out to be a boxy monstrosity or a ridiculous price, I just couldn't say no. Of course, now, lazy person that I am, it's just sitting in a plastic bag getting wrinkled. But I could wear it, if the need ever arises... A couple of my friends and I also were invited to a nice meal at the tailor's nice house afterwards. Until midnight. So I was awake all night digesting kefta (meatballs), but, thankfully, had a buddy present who likewise seemed to be experiencing some insomnia. I suppose the Moroccan dining schedule is somewhat more tolerable if you have the right company to share it with! [For lack of any other Khenifra photos -- I never do well snapping pix from the bus -- here's me playing dress-up again in my new djellaba.]

Two weekends ago, I made my first real trip to Meknes (meaning I saw something besides the taxi stand) with a couple of friends. Unfortunately, with just one night to explore (and of course squeeze in a trip to Marjane -- Morocco's answer to Walmart, and I still hate it, as much as I suppose I occasionally need it), I'm already ready for another trip back. But I did make it to a couple of classic sites, including the Bab El-Mansour and a beautiful mederssa hidden inside of the medina.

I realize I must start playing tourist a little more before two years have passed and I haven't "seen anything." And then there is that little matter of escaping from the "bled," as we call it. Ahhh, cities... Where you can eat pizza and pistachio ice cream, hang out with your guy friends without everyone thinking that you're a slut, and where you can simply tell off some stranger who's pissed you off in the street without worrying that it will come back to haunt you in your village of 2,000! (Assoul is beautiful, but I think my experiment in long-term rural living will end when my Peace Corps service does!)

This is not a joke. It is an actual photo of actual toothpaste (or so it says) bought by my friend Anne here in Morocco. Maybe the Peace Corps Small Business Development Program should branch out and do some marketing advice for bigger companies.

We could also talk to the hanuts (shops) that sell eggs with dried, crusty bird droppings and occasional feathers still stuck to the shell. But then, you take what they give you... guess it doesn't hurt business.

A New Level of Jealousy!

Not being a "language person," I realize that it is as much my fault as anyone else’s that I have yet to hold anything remotely resembling a substantive conversation in Tamazight! Absolutely, I can understand and answer questions like, "Where did you go?" "What time is it?" or "What did you eat?" And of course I am quite adept at saying "I’m sorry, I don’t understand"!

Occasionally, well, sometimes more than occasionally, I find myself frustrated by an apparent lack of tact or nuance in the language as well. For example, it is difficult to express degrees of ability, need, or emotion. There is either "a lot," "a little," or "none." And while there is "better" and "worse" (although I have been advised to be careful on with the latter, because if you linger a little to long over one consonant, it sounds more like an offensive bodily function!), it is sometimes difficult to express "more," or "less" in exactly the way we’d mean it in English. With all this, not only do I often feel incapable of expressing myself as specifically as I might in English (even if I did speak better Tamazight), but I often find myself feeling unnecessarily offended by what appear to be rather blunt statements made to me ("You don't know anything!")!

That said, Tamazight also has a range of bizarrely specific words - verbs in particular. There is actually a verb (a single word) for the act of scraping meat off of bones with your teeth. But most interesting to me, during a recent tutoring session, was learning the word that roughly describes our concept of jealousy or envy. For us, those ideas - the latter in particular - suggest a notion of "I want what you have." The Tamazight word, "lshrah," however, carries a far nastier connotation (not that we don’t sometimes think of it this way in English as well). If you feel lshrah towards someone, it means, simply, "I don’t want you to have what you have."

Normally, I am fascinated by the idea of what the specifics of a language say about its culture, but I am learning that, when you’re living in the middle of it, sometimes it is best to take what lessons you want from such things, but try not to dwell on it!

My Refuge

So, after a sad goodbye to my host family, who kept asking me to stay “just one more night,” or “just until spring” (apparently my host sisters told my host mother that my house is freezing, although of course it’s no colder than theirs!!!). I have finally moved into my own place. It’s on the other side of town, not that that’s very far, and of course I visit or at least see one of them nearly every day! Frankly, I love the host fam, and certainly could have managed living there if I had my own mattress (those ponges look comfortable, but they actually kill you slowly after sleeping on them for two months!). Nevertheless, it is nice finally to have my own space, where I can eat what and when I want, use the toilet without everyone knowing, bathe without feeling guilty for asking my already hard-working host mother to heat up a kettle of water, and just generally be myself without having to worry about being watched so closely!

My place is HUGE too – for those of you who saw any of my apartments in NYC or Cambridge, you’ll understand why I find this one to be a tad overwhelming. The salon alone is far larger than any of my NYC places, and rivals the overall square footage of my Cambridge apartment. Actually, what we would call the foyer in the US (basically unused space here) is bigger than any of my NYC apartments. My intention had been to buy as little furniture as possible, and although I insist on remaining minimalist (not like I am taking this stuff home in two years!), I have had to adjust a little bit. So about a week ago, my sitemate accompanied me to Rich and helped me do a little shopping for the basics: a real mattress (YUM!), three ponges, a stove, two plastic chairs (to go with a normal-sized table I hope to have made for my kitchen), two plastic woven carpets called agrtyls (common here and easy to clean – I did find something not too tacky), and various smaller items to supplement a few kitchen and cleaning basics I’ve been able to find in Assoul. I did also find a low-rider table (most common here) for my salon at the souk in Assoul. I still need to flesh out my kitchen supplies, but have what I need to eat for now. Forks are especially hard to find – my friend Najat loaned me one. All my clothes and personal items are in a pile in the corner of my salon at the moment, so I still need to find a way to organize my stuff (big place, but no storage area!). I also have to cover my ponges with something, as they are currently giving me a headache (see photo!).

Here’s my kitchen. That big green bottle by the sink is there because I only have water between 5-6pm, so I have to come home then in order to fill up buckets, bottles, etc. Annoying, but I’ll get used to it! Note too the giant buta gas bottle under the counter. Now you can see why I am scared!! I also have two smaller butas – one that I use for light when there is no electricity, and one that is attached to a little camp heater. Nothing like having multiple gas flames going in your house at any given moment!

Of course I still have a Turkish toilet (and no proper shower, although maybe I'll rig something up), but more on that later...

But my favorite part (besides the mattress) is the big private roof! I can bask in the sun, dry clothes, and generally enjoy the view of the nearby mountains, or Assoul’s main (only) street, depending on my mood. I know that some of my friends on the other side of the mountains to the south, in the desert proper, have to sleep on their roofs during the summer, but I am hoping it won’t get quite that hot here at night. (Hard to imagine now – it’s still quite cold!)


This week I also attended a local celebration of tizlafin. The lunar new year was January 31 (I believe the year 1427 on the Islamic calendar, but don’t quote me on that). Apparently here, on the ninth night following the new year, there is a big celebration for all the BOYS born during the year. As per usual, the women cook all day, giant plates of couscous with eggs (and meat, of course), and at 5pm, men of the house carry these plates on their heads to a central area where they all eat (very quickly) together while a few of the local women and children watch. Of course the women make this into a small festivity of their own, and in the houses where couscous is being prepared, other female neighbors and family members drop in throughout the afternoon to eat couscous, drink tea, and visit. I went over to the house of my host mother’s family early in the day, where I ate a tajine of olives and French fries (yes), then couscous (and meat), and then made myself busy peeling the largest pile of boiled eggs I’ve ever seen, just so I could miss at least a few rounds of eating. Of course I often get angry at the second class status of women here, but then I realize that they have their own little interesting world, and it’s kind of cool, as an outsider, having access to that as well… Now all I have to do is convince them that we American women are not crazy simply because we don't spend hours every morning pounding out bread to bake! (Of course I will admit that, relatively speaking, we are spoiled for not having to do that every day!)

Back in the big city...

So, as some of you already know, before swearing in last fall, my training class nominated me to serve on the PC Morocco Gender and Development Committee (stay tuned -- funding solicitations coming soon!). Apart from the interesting work, one of the additional "benefits" of said position is that I get to travel to Rabat, Morocco's capital, a few extra times a year for meetings. What a shock to my system, to be back in such a modern, cosmopolitan environment! Suddenly, I felt so much more like myself again! Simply going out dancing or to a restaurant, feeling a little less worried about how to respond appropriately to the unwanted attention I inevitably receive as a female foreigner, and just being able to communicate effectively with most everyone I had to interact with! I think I really must be a city girl at heart...

There is also a little slice of wanna-be America in Morocco's cities called Marjane. Rabat has two of them. I'd heard of it from other volunteers and fellow trainees who'd already had occasion to visit, and rave about all the things you can buy there (especially peanut butter). Basically, this is the same as Walmart, and while it did have an amazing supply of just about everything from food and alcohol to clothes, electronics, and sporting goods (I did, in fact, succeed in my quest to purchase a yoga mat, as mine are currently inconveniently located in North Carolina), I enjoyed Marjane just about as much as I do Walmart. And I didn't see the peanut butter. Truth be told, while I can't get exactly the things I am used to having back home, I can find most of what I need (or a reasonable substitute) in smaller towns closer to where I live. But to be fair, I did avoid the housewares, as I would rather actually get settled in my new home to see what unique items I'll need, rather than go nuts and then have to carry a bunch of stuff back home 10 hours by public transport! Yeah -- and like Walmart, Marjane definitely makes more sense if you have a car! Nevertheless, I am sure to return the next time I am in a city with one, but it sure did feel like a geography warp, and not an especially pleasant one at that!

My other exciting news from Rabat is that, after going over two months and only sitting down on a toilet one time, I actually went over 4 days with nothing but sit-downs! Which actually aren't too fun in the winter, as I was reminded! (Rabat is much warmer than my region, but it's hardly summertime, and the weather was a little unpleasant my first couple of days there).

I am on my way home now, where, in sh'allah, I will pick up the keys to my new house/apartment tomorrow morning! More soon...

Lﻉid LKbir

(If you're a vegetarian or otherwise squeamish, you might want to limit yourself to the last two paragraphs of this posting.)

Lﻉid Lkbir – the “big feast” (not to be confused with Lﻉid Lftr, the feast at the end of Ramadan) – this is the holiday I’ve been dreading since before I even arrived here in Morocco. But then, I really cannot complain when I consider the fortunes of others… For the last month or so, every time I’ve crossed from the front door to the front gate of my host family’s house, their large, black sheep, whose girth had been increasing exponentially, would glare at me and begin bleating at full volume. A few weeks ago, I think it finally began to suspect its fate, although it didn’t seem bright enough to do anything about it. After gaining its freedom from its pen, it just walked up to the kitchen window and peered in. After being barricaded back into its tiny prison with a wheelbarrow, it again escaped, and as I opened the door to head out for the afternoon, there it was, trying to push past me into the house. By the week before the holiday, this became a daily occurrence – as soon as someone opened the door in the morning, there was the sheep, as though it would somehow conquer its fate if it could only get into the house while it was still alive!

As for the people, they look forward to the holiday with relish! Ever since I arrived in Morocco, people had been asking me what I would be doing for Lﻉid. This question, among children and adults alike, is consistently accompanied by huge grins and throat slitting gestures. I receive looks of pity when I explain that I do not celebrate Lﻉid back in America.

Over New Years, it was confirmed that this year, according to the Islamic calendar, Lﻉid would take place on Wednesday, January 11, although vacation and other festivities begin a few days beforehand. Monday, my host family and Moroccan friends began making gateaux (this drives me crazy – it’s the French word for “cakes,” but in Morocco it means homemade cookies). On the day of Lﻉid, no one can kill his (because the women do not do the slaughtering) sheep or goat until the king has slaughtered his. For some reason, my family decided to work around this rule by buying a small goat to kill and eat on Tuesday. A little concerned about vomiting (nothing like a little death to aggravate my usual pre-breakfast nausea), and sad to see that this cute (and screaming) little black and white thing was going to have a very bad day, I nevertheless opted to go watch the deed be done, as it’s a level of familiarity that most of us Americans no longer have with our food.

I will say that, while not particularly pleasant, Tuesday ultimately did not turn out to be the carnage that I had feared. With the help of the local butcher, who grabbed the animal and held it down, my host father quickly and cleanly slit its throat. Admittedly as humane as could be expected, and not taking an excessive amount of time, I still had a hard time watching the goat go through the process of dying. Afterwards the butcher began the rather interesting process of skinning it. This takes talent – my host father told me he’d tried once and made a mess of it, taking off too much meat. Here, the butcher cut through one of the animal’s hind legs and began to blow into it, the effect of which is to separate the skin from the carcass. He then skinned it carefully and cleanly about halfway before tying it up by its hind legs near the front gate, where he finished the job. After skinning it, he gutted it, slitting open its belly and pulling out the insides. At this point, I was only thinking of two things: (1) My high school anatomy class where I dissected a cat with an intestinal disorder that rendered it so foul smelling that no one else would work near me and my lab partner, and (2) that I was going to have to eat intestines. This triggered the most disgust in me, because I had to watch the butcher clean them out via a prolonged process of squeezing, rinsing, and blowing. Of course I’d rather they be empty before I eat them, but then I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be any more inhumane to give the animals a mild laxative the day before they kill them. It certainly would be cleaner. (It didn’t help that one of my family’s scary cats went to town on some of the leftovers on the ground later on, and I saw it later behind the house – thinking it was coughing up a hairball only to realize it was in fact puking… blech!). Anyway, the butcher finished and was given the skin and the head as reward for his efforts. What was left was a rather clean looking piece of meat (not as gross as some of the stuff I see outside butcher shops in the cities of Rich or Errachidia).

Having experienced all this Tuesday, I still decided to repeat it on Wednesday, the actual holiday. This time, instead of killing the sheep in the front yard, they took it out into the road in front of the house. We’ve already had one light snow since then, but I think it is going to be a while before I no longer have to dodge pools of dried blood in front of many of our village’s houses. I found this experience much less educational – the sheep took longer to die, and I finally had to walk away to see if my host sisters could offer some distraction. Indeed, Imane decided it was time that she begin showing me her photographic skills (thankfully, with digital cameras, I don’t have to keep copies of her many “abstract” shots). It caught the attention of one of our neighbors, who of course then wanted me to come in and take pictures of her guests in her salon, and during that time, I missed out on what would have been my second lesson in preparing an animal to eat. I think I am ok with that. Besides, when I returned to the house (they did bring it back inside the gate to clean it), the remains of its intestinal cleaning were far more evident than those of the goat the day before. As of this posting, I am still having to dodge that when I come in the gate or hang out laundry.

During Lﻉid in particular, no part of the animal is wasted, and the animal is eaten in a certain order, according to local and family traditions. I’ve also been told (by biased parties of course) that Berbers eat even more of it than other Moroccans. It takes days to finish everything. Now, I’m no vegetarian, but I (and my digestive system) tend to be satisfied with no more than the bare minimum of meat, even with the most harmless of cuts. That can be a problem in this country, where such an outlook is unheard of! I’ll try most things once, but until now, the oddest thing I’ve eaten here has been sheep balls (ok – one ball), which, by the way, are called “tiglay” – the same as the word for “eggs,” which is why you never ask only to buy two eggs at the local hanut (store) or souk. I’d seen intestines and the penis (on the plate, I mean), but so far, I’d avoided those, along with eyeballs and brains – all considered delicacies. I’ve tried bone marrow at a fancy restaurant back in the US, but have yet to adopt the local habit of sucking it straight out of the bones at the dinner table.

Anyway, the week of Lﻉid, as expected, offered an overwhelming amount of meat. I paced myself – probably to the point of offending people, even though I still ate far more than could possibly be healthy. Every meal – all meat and bread. On skewers, in tajines, you name it. I stuck with the organ meat – not sure if I got the heart in there (I was late for lunch the first day), but definitely the lungs, spleen, liver (wrapped in fat – which I’ve had here before), stomach, and intestines. The latter were a bit chewy for my taste, and even though they were heavily salted and cooked with massive hunks of fat, as was most of the organ meat, these were still not rendered completely unrecognizable. And I have to say that it’s the salt and fat that gives my digestive system the most grief… Two things I couldn’t do – first, the head. The hair is basically burned off, and the head cooked and served on a platter, where the meat is simply picked off by diners. The evening this was served in my house, I was, mercifully, still so full from my lunchtime meat (which tended to come in several rounds at every house where I ate) that I had no problem looking at that unappetizing platter and saying “no thanks.” Two days in a row, at two different houses, my lunchtime tajine landed brains in front of me (it didn’t help that the first day, my host brother ran waving the brain at me before it was cooked and asked me what it was called in English). Now, I do intend to try this at some point during my stay in Morocco, but between feeling generally overwhelmed this week and visions of Hannibal, this time I could barely stand to look at it while I was eating.

Lﻉid has offered its other intrigues as well. I learned that traditional henna in Assoul does not consist of intricate designs, but rather you wad up henna in your hands, wrap them up, and (attempt to) sleep. No doubt that my friends and family would take one look at my hands right now and ask what happened, as the tips of my fingers and my entire palms are varying shades of blackish orange. During all the henna and gateaux-making, I’ve enjoyed some colorful conversations with the women in my host family. I find my host cousin Najat – who is often at our house helping to care for the ailing grandmother – particularly entertaining, as she and my (much younger) host siblings, talk relentlessly about the rich, French-Arab man she plans to marry. This time, however, talk turned to me and my prospects. It seems I am now fated to marry a Berber prince who lives in a cave (sorry guys – you know you can’t compete with that!). No doubt inspired by that conversation, on the morning of Lﻉid, my somewhat quiet host mother came running into my room after breakfast carrying a beautiful, deep orange caftan and traditional Berber headdress (like what a Berber bride would wear), saying that I needed to put them on and take a picture to send home! Given that I was still sporting a winter hat and several layers of sweaters and fleece underneath, the only remotely flattering (and not at all like the traditionally solemn Moroccan bride) photo also includes one of my host sisters, who joined us for the fun. Judge for yourself… should I throw away my American wardrobe?

Lastly, the holiday week ended on a rather strange note – a murder mystery in my tiny town. Obviously not a common occurrence around here, but the talk of the town on Saturday was the dead man found outside the Mosque. My host father told me about it at lunch (I had wondered why there were so many people still out on the street when I came back from my run after noon). Because all the women in town had gone to the hammam just before Lﻉid, I couldn’t resist going and taking advantage of its being completely empty that afternoon, and by the time I had emerged, the “local” gendarmes had arrived (they’re 100km away – making my regular visits to take care of my working papers a HUGE pain), and people were lining the main street just watching while nothing happened. It seems, however, not to have been much of a mystery after all -- the main suspect was caught within a day...

Berber Yoga

The days here have been relatively pleasant, provided the sun is shining, but once the daylight is gone, especially when the afternoons have grown windy (which is most afternoons), the air becomes miserably cold. There is little reprieve indoors, unless you are willing and able to practically sit on top of a woodstove or gas heater all night. I don’t yet have the latter, and can only take so much from the former – particularly on nights when I want a little break from family time! So, I’ve had little trouble finding the motivation to do a lot more toning, stretching, and yoga exercises in my room just to stay warm.

My host families both in Ait Hamza and now here in Assoul, of course, have found this highly entertaining (see my posting from back in October for the scoop for my host parents’ acrobatics back in Ait Hamza!). My host siblings now often join me (at least for the things they like) in various yoga poses, or simply fooling around with my exercise bands. My host cousin Najat, who is actually much closer to my age, has on occasion come into my room hurling herself into somersaults or extremely precarious headstands in the middle of the floor. The kids love to get me to do various arm balances (which I’m not all that good at) and headstands on command. That command often comes dangerously soon after a meal or snack for some reason, so sooner or later I fear that’s going to end disastrously!

One of my colleagues – a health volunteer in a neighboring village about 10k down the main road – comes to my village sometimes for tutoring and meetings. On occasion, she’d give exercise classes to one of the groups of women at our local nedi. Unfortunately, she can’t always make it on a regular basis, and as I have already gotten a reputation in town for doing lots of rriyada (exercise), that group asked if I would also teach them yoga once a week (of course, I then also offered the other group of women, who alternate on other days of the week). My colleague had warned me that this wasn’t the most coordinated group of women, and I’d even participated in one of her lessons, so I was definitely prepared to take it slowly. Indeed, one can only go so fast when the only relevant vocabulary that comes to mind quickly tends to be “right,” “left,” “hand,” “leg,” and “look.” Thankfully, there are a few women who have the same limited French skills that I do and who are able to rescue me in moments of greater frustration. In both groups of women, our first class went slowly, with lots of stretching, basic exercises, and simple yoga poses. The group of women who’d already had a few classes with my colleague is a slightly younger group – eager to try things, but also somewhat giggly and ready to play, which I don’t mind, since I think part of the benefit of this is that they get a chance to relax and have fun a bit (that’s certainly one of the reasons I do it!). By our second session, a few of the boisterous ones had no trouble asking me to give them more challenging (and fun!) activities. For example, after trying to correct them two classes straight by showing them the wrong way to do push-ups (sticking my butt up in the air, or smacking down the rear ends of any offending women, brings nothing but laughter), they asked to go one at a time so they could correct each other – it was great (more butt-slapping and laughter)! Later, one woman began hopping around in a squat position, making me and my old woman knees cringe, although I joined her and the rest of the group bopping around the tiny, crowded space where we all try to cram in and minimize hitting or kicking each other. Then, after the same woman began flinging herself up against the wall in a headstand, we went ahead and began to work on how to do them a little more safely! One at a time, I showed them the correct arm position, lined them up by the wall, and helped them get up. Surprisingly, all of them gave it a try, and a few did an amazing job (including one who did one out in the middle of the floor while I was helping someone else!).

Never mind I am supposed to be helping them organize their group and market their products… As an out-of-town visitor to the nedi (who speaks fairly good English) observed, it seems to boost their morale, so for me I suppose it’s just one small thing at a time!

Happy Head of the Year

... In the middle of a tutoring session a few weeks ago (where I still struggle to learn the difference between the questions "Where are you going to," and "Where are you coming from?" -- those prepositions being among the many radical differences between the language of Assoul and the one I learned during training!), my host father asked me, "What do you understand when I say 'iġf nu-assgwas'?" In one of my more mentally functional moments, I told him I thought he was saying "head of the year." "Right," he said, "iġf nu-assgwas ujdid." New Years. As if I need any strange idiomatic expressions! I get confused enough that sometimes reality messes with my brain even beyond my internal capacity for language dysfunction -- last week, relying on a dash of French and gestures to bolster my comprehension of her Tamazight, I am fairly certain that a woman asked me what medicine I used for my hair in America, because hers is falling out...!

Anyway, Happy New Years to everyone! I'll spare you the indiscretion of my detailed list of resolutions, but you can guess, no doubt, that they include further enhancement of my communication skills (one of my new Moroccan friends actually thinks I am speaking English when I try to use my Tamazight with her), and once and for all purging the excess oil, fat, and sugar that has been surging through my body ever since Ramadan "fasting." My New Years Eve was an uneventful one with the family (my only ride out of town this morning left at 5:30am -- not much space for partying even if social norms would have allowed!). It was our first night with electricity in nearly two weeks, but they promptly shut off all the lights in the house so there would be enough power for the VCD (kind of like DVD, but different format, and unfortunately won't run on my computer without software upgrades) player. We first tried to watch some old Jackie Chan film in French, and then attempted Bollywood with Arabic subtitles after the first failed within minutes -- same result. Disappointed host siblings all around.

I have also discovered that "Père Noël" visits Morocco too (the big cities even have a little Christmas decor, although thankfully I've been spared that path to despairing homesickness!) ...just a week late. After numerous failed arguments (once I finally realized what exactly I was arguing about!), I was able to confirm officially that no one was going to believe that Père Noël visited me and my American friends and family on December 25, and not New Year's Eve. That said, my apologies (excuses?) for the lack of hard copy Christmas greetings to everyone at home -- my local sunflower seed/greeting card seller didn't have the goods to hook me up, surprisingly enough! But I did have a pleasant Christmas -- feasting twice over at a fellow volunteer's house elsewhere in the region (although given my cooking skills, I mainly stayed on decoration duty, even though the heavy lifting on that was also performed by one of my more artsy colleagues -- here's a picture of the tree pre-trim). My friend even surprised all of his guests with presents and (paper) stockings stuffed with candy, which of course I have already consumed so as to be prepared for the above-mentioned oil-fat-sugar resolution by the head of the year.

I did hear my sunflower seed guy blasting Céline Dion yesterday for the first time in several weeks. With one of the loitering gentlemen out front caterwauling "I'm your ladee... and you are my man..." So often I go down the street deflecting mundane but intrusive questions about where I am going, what am I doing, why did I only spend an hour at the hamman (nothing I do is private for long, although I've used that to turn into a one-woman physical fitness crusade for the village women -- even teaching yoga at the nedi now!), so it took all of my willpower to avoid bursting out laughing in the middle of the street! That was even better than the guy sitting next to me today at the cyber café singing "Barbie Girl" (also not a first). But my favorite pastime lately is tracking the number of little boys I've seen carrying backpacks that say "Rich Bitch." Wow, is my entertainment quotient low these days!

On a final note, one of my friends in the US recently asked me to explain the phrase "In sh'allah," which I know I've used a few times in this blog, so here's the answer I gave her: "In sh'allah" (or any number of spelling variations) means "God willing," and is apparently used by most Moroccans (generally speaking, a fatalistic culture) when referencing any future event, i.e. "I'll return from Morocco in two years, in sh'allah." It's like you don't want to challenge God by assuming anything you plan is actually going to happen. It is also a way people avoid making plans they don't want to make, i.e. someone says they want to go to the US with me, and I might answer "In sh'allah" if it's a situation where a more direct "Ha ha -- no way!" might not be appropriate. Figuring out exactly which meaning is in use (although the former is a safe bet) can be tricky when scheduling meetings, accepting dinner/tea invitations (likewise usually genuine, although -- as we often do in our own culture -- sometimes never followed up with specifics unless you go to someone's house on the spot!).

Anyway, until next time, in sh'allah.

Miles From Home… And Addicted to Nescafé!

During the few weeks I have been in Assoul, I have managed to keep my days full, although not overscheduled as they were during training. Most mornings I wake up and have breakfast with my host family, pounding several small glasses of fresh heated cow’s milk with half a spoonful of Nescafé. To me, this treat is as decadent as anything I could enjoy at some swanky café at home – who’d have known?!? And I already realize how lucky I am that, as a woman, I also have access to this family sphere. The previous volunteer who lived here, a male, tells me that he’s barely interacted with the women in this house, and that he has never even entered the primary family room (that would be the room containing my new best friend, the woodstove, beside which I rarely miss an evening these days!).

After breakfast, I sit in the sun (my face is going to be leather by the time I leave Morocco!) behind the house, enjoying the spectacular view of the mountains surrounding the valley in which Assoul rests, as well as of the community’s fields, which have been plagued by drought during recent years. Sometimes, I’ll catch up on a little reading – either personal or professional, as I had so little free time for either during training – and of course I try to study the language for however long I can stand it! During that time, my presence alone seems sufficient to entertain the children in the house. Although they’re becoming less shy with me now, the girls in particular – Sana and Imane – seem able simply to stand around staring at me (occasionally giggling, of course) for long periods of time, whether I am reading, brushing my teeth, or most interesting of all, tearing through my luggage for the umpteenth time trying to find my stuff! Sometimes I just smile and giggle back. But they are also gradually becoming my teachers as well – speaking to me more slowly and clearly than many adults do, and sometimes pulling out their textbooks and telling me the words for various objects in the illustrations.

Throughout this time, I’ll also hear the family’s several cats (even by my family’s count, the number is not entirely certain) in the background. These are particularly vicious animals when they feel like it. One day I heard one thumping up the back stairs only to realize it was carrying a dead kitten (no doubt for a snack, as were two pigeons whose feathers I saw on the floor a couple of days ago, although in the case of the latter I was simply relieved that, after Imane and Sana had stood smiling as they held the struggling birds outside of the door to my room, at least I was not the one eating them for dinner. That would not have been an anomaly in this country, where some pigeon dishes are even considered delicacies, but I was not ready for it after having seen my potential dinner squawk and struggle to escape!). One of the cats also makes a noise that will often have me convinced there is a growling dog somewhere in the house. And then I have to be prepared at any time when I’ve left the door to my room open for two of the animals to come tumbling in, tearing at each other as though it will be a fight to the death. They already realize that I’m not too keen on physical abuse, so any efforts I make to get rid of them are usually in vain.

So when all that household excitement gets to be a bit much for me, I may go for a walk, run some errands, or visit the office of the community association to whom I report (when I can find the president around). I have recently been reading Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle, Moritz Thomsen’s reflections on his experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador during the 1960s. Of course it is a different continent, and no doubt significant aspects of the generic “Peace Corps experience” (if such a thing ever existed) have changed since then, but one thing that he describes of his early days I can relate to quite well: sitting through meetings and social conversations in this language that I barely understand, and simply having my brain shut down. No matter who I am or what I have done in life, for all practical purposes, here, I am a moron! Nevertheless, I am lucky that enough people are patient with me and that, thankfully, this is a culture where greetings alone can go on for more than ten minutes it seems! Even though I’ve never been one for extraneous conversation, and I still struggle to accept the social value of such redundancy (intellectually and culturally, I get it, but it goes against every fiber of my personality!), at least I can hold my own for a few minutes of “Labas? Labas. Kulshi bixir? Labas... L’Hamdullah.” (And maybe a “Sinnag ras shwiya Tamazight!” for the benefit of those people who commend rather than criticize me for what little Tamazight I do know!).

During the afternoons I spend a few hours at the community nedi, the women’s educational and craft center that I have been charged with assisting. At this point, I am simply trying to get to know the women a little better, and increase my capacity for communicating with them. There are sixty-four members total, who alternate attendance days because the building in which they work is so small, and an additional waiting list of forty more. That’s a lot of names to learn when I can’t even remember the language (besides the fact that name recall is not one of my stronger skills even in English)! But they help me out a little, teaching me new words, often related to the various forms of tissage in which they work (mainly knitting and embroidery, although there is also some weaving and crochet), while I review some of my PC-issued manuals or, when my brain can’t take that anymore, work on my own cross-stitch project (no doubt at this point some women think I am only here to do that though!). But there are many possible organizational projects for this group, and I can’t wait until I am better able to get a start on all that!

I have tutoring sessions a few evenings a week with my host father, who is an excellent teacher with a healthy respect for my obsession for understanding grammatical structures. But every day when the sun sets, and the cold air immediately sets in, my host mother Fatima (a woman only two years my senior whose temperament reminds me a lot of my friend Val back in NC) treats me to another pot of warm milk with a jar of Nescafé sitting beside it, and to me, everything seems right with the world, whether the electricity Is going to come on that night or not!