Trying to Light a Fire

Suddenly, I’ve been busy. So busy that I miss those days when the neddi is locked up for no good reason (uh, well, that’s often still the case), and all I have to do with myself is go for a run, read a little, and perhaps drop in on a friend for tea.

Two weeks ago, I was back up in Rabat for a Gender and Development (GAD) Committee meeting. Sometime several months ago, it was decided that of course the Harvard lawyer would be an appropriate chairperson (if only they knew!), so suddenly, these little trips up north are less about hours of DVD shopping and fancy (relatively speaking) meals out. Now, I have to work. It is nice feeling genuinely responsible for something – and at a policy level too – again. Our whole mission is to focus on better integration of women’s and men’s needs in development work, and to promote volunteer awareness and projects to that end. The problem is, in a country like Morocco, GAD is such a core element of all of the work that we do that it often goes unrecognized and unreported, and therefore remains underappreciated among our support staff (with a few exceptions, of course).

Just look at what I do. It is all about women’s empowerment and capacity building; about teaching female artisans and their counterpart (and primarily male) association to work together without creating dependency. And yet this, my primary Peace Corps project in Small Business Development, turns every feminist ideal I have on its head. How do I effectively “empower” these groups when, over the course of the past year, my own confidence in their ability to effectively organize themselves has been shattered repeatedly? I know this is really a problem of a rural mindset, which happens to play out on the gender front, but… Here I see women who won’t even show each other respect, show up for a meeting unless a male association member has intervened. Or they turn to me – who can barely even speak the language – to tell them what to do in the most basic decision-making situations (“Should we take a bus or a grand taxi to Errachidia? You’re coming with us, right?”).

We finally held our General Assembly meeting this week to officially begin the cooperative. And even after a year of discussion, the women began arguing about capital, product focus, and officers as though they were hearing it all for the first time! They still don’t know exactly who the cooperative members are (a final list being a requirement at this point!)! With my government supervisor present, I was mortified. He has no way of telling if I’d even tried to organize these women beforehand (I have).

At least Mina, the cooperative president, may eventually rise to the occasion. Last weekend, I accompanied her and Aicha, the neddi’s treasurer, to a GAD conference organized in Errachidia. Unfortunately, even though Peace Corps had been told this was a training conference for rural leaders, the host organization, in fact, had a far more elitist agenda, trying to turn away people at the door who didn’t speak French (when much of rural Morocco actually doesn’t), saying that they required a minimum educational level not only for language, but also for concept comprehension. HUH?!? A colleague and I fought hard to have all participants included, and ultimately, it was the guest speakers – truly practicing what they preached – who stepped in and helped out, offering to present all of their programs in Arabic (mainly Darija, although some materials were already printed in Classical Arabic), and during breakout sessions, being awesome facilitators by going out of their way to include even the least educated in the group.

Fortunately, I had hired my friend (and former teacher) Malika to come translate for me (plus, I knew that Malika would very much enjoy the event for its content). Malika ended up being a great help also for both of the women from Assoul. Aicha, even though she didn’t complete high school, is quite smart: literate, multi-lingual, and perfectly capable of following even some of the more abstract topics being discussed at the conference, as she has attended similar events in the past. She is, however, quite reserved, and I worry that her treatment by the host organization may have been a blow to her confidence (I was hoping she’d return to Assoul and teach about some of this stuff). Mina, on the other hand, is completely illiterate, and not even particularly functional in Darija, much less French or Classical Arabic. Nevertheless, when these Rabat academics specifically sought her opinion during workshop sessions, and fellow association leaders offered to switch small group discussion to Tamazight for a bit (which all but one participant in our workshop group spoke anyhow!) in order to make her more comfortable, I could see her start to blossom a little. Maybe she really is ready to lead this cooperative, I thought, as she began speaking up more during our meetings back in Assoul this week. (Too bad it was often to complain about money and product focus…!)

In any event, this week I am finding myself simultaneously encouraged by the behavior of some and disappointed by others. The conference, as envisioned by the host association, was fabulous. For a bunch of Harvard students. Good thing the rural leaders were ready to look out for each other…

Rabha (Imilchil’s cooperative president, whom I seem to run into nearly everywhere I go), me, Aicha, and Mina, at the fanciest hotel in Errachidia.


* * *

A final note, thanking my former sitemate Zach for leaving me the cheesiest jigsaw puzzle ever. Of course, I couldn’t resist doing it anyhow (and it was harder than I expected!). Only problem was that I had a Curious George Goes to the Hospital moment. See if you can spot it:

Houria

I first met Houria a little over a year ago. She had completed her university degree and was enrolled in an advanced English program in Meknes. Her family lives in Assoul, and she was home for the Eid holiday. She had sought me out because she was writing (in English) a monograph on the teaching of Tamazight in Moroccan schools, and wanted feedback from me both as an English speaker and a Tamazight learner. She taught me quite a bit about the evolution of her language and its role as a cultural marker. On a personal level, Houria was often distressed to see the erosion of her language even in her home, as more and more Arabic and French words replace what my tutor often refers to as the “old language.”

Thoughtful and driven to expose herself to more of the world than most of Assoul's women genuinely aspire to see, Houria became a quick friend. We visited whenever she was in Assoul, and would often speak or send messages when she was studying or at work in Meknes. She often struggled with the limited options facing educated women of her generation – jobs are unavailable, but for many, a more “traditional” marriage back at home becomes untenable as well. She told me about the places in the world that she wanted to visit one day, and we discussed how she could continue to build upon her chosen field of research – the preservation of Tamazight culture through its language.

Last week, she was back in Assoul to celebrate her father's return from the Hajj. I happily spent time with her family and one-on-one. As a perpetual “outsider” in Assoul, I very much valued her sincere kindness and curiosity about how my culture compared to hers. She was supposed to return to Meknes last weekend, and we were already discussing plans for our next opportunity to meet up.

Sadly, last Wednesday afternoon as I was running errands in town, people began to stop me, breaking the bad news about someone they knew to be my friend. Houria had died of a heart attack. She was only 22. I am sad not only to have lost a friend, but also to know that perhaps one of Assoul’s most promising young women will not have the opportunity to make the mark she so dearly wished to make in the larger world…

Anna Nicole Smith

So, I just finished reading The Sex Lives of Cannibals, by J. Maarten Troost - a hilarious read, and one that gives a pretty good sense of the sorts of adjustment issues, deprivations, and daily absurdities one might face when transplanted into the developing world for a couple of years.

One thing Troost talks about is his starvation for any and all information from the civilized world. I definitely feel that too, although (not being stuck on a desert island) I haven't done too badly on most fronts. Peace Corps volunteers maintain a pretty good network for book and DVD circulation, and I do make it to the internet once a week, more or less. And, like Troost, I do a constant dance with my shortwave radio, seeking out a little BBC, or, barring that, anything in English (although I am occasionally disappointed to realize I have, in fact, stumbled onto Vatican Radio - not exactly the semi-objective news source I am normally seeking out).

One interesting side effect of living abroad for some volunteers is an enhanced obsession with celebrity gossip. I know people who circulate mass text messages with updates from People.com (I'm out of that loop now that I don't have cell phone service in my village). Still, I too am somewhat susceptible. A couple of months ago, an American visitor to my house left a copy of US Weekly. I confess, I read it.

... And then I took it to my friend Najat, who is probably the closest thing I have to a "girlfriend" (in that giggly teenage sense, although Najat is at least my age) in Assoul. Having spent plenty of time with her browsing through various French fashion and celebrity magazines (and sometimes Arabic ones) from the 1970s and 80s, I knew Najat would not likely be offended by photos of women in skimpy dresses or underwear, candid (i.e. kissing) photos of celebrity couples, or a shirtless David Beckham in a "Got Milk" ad (yum - have I mentioned just how non-existent my social life is in Morocco?!). Indeed, it was Najat who informed me that Beckham was going to the US (she's also a big radio listener), so she definitely stays somewhat posted on pop culture, although she's one of the few Moroccans I've met who doesn't seem to know who Celine Dion is (but I digress...).

Due to the dearth, and cost, of popular publications in Assoul, once people get their hands on a magazine, they keep pulling it out and re-reading it (or just looking at the pictures, if it happens to be in the wrong language). This is why I am constantly having to tell women that shoulder pads are not, in fact, fashionable. So even though I'd given Najat the US Weekly a while ago, one day this week as I was visiting, out it came again.

Najat opened it up to a spread about Anna Nicole Smith and the disputed paternity of her new baby - new husband (and her lawyer), or ex-boyfriend? As I again explained the contents of the article, Najat was fascinated, asking about how they could perform blood tests, etc. "This woman is hashuma," I explained, hoping to impress her with my respect for local values (hashuma roughly refers to any number of social/religious taboos - in many cases pertaining to sex, alcohol, or - as I've heard a few times - single women who do not live with their parents...). "No she's not," Najat said. This baffled me as, obviously, Anna Nicole has been sleeping around.

Now, Najat's French is not very good, but neither is she too inclined to try to follow my heavily accented Tamazight, so the details of our conversations occasionally get lost in the garble that we speak together. Nevertheless, I pressed on, "She married a very old, very rich man just for his money." "That's okay," Najat answered, "Maybe he just couldn't find anyone else to marry." At this point, Najat's younger sister Miriam jumped to defend my point. Miriam, who rarely leaves the house and speaks only Tamazight and Arabic, seems to have a startling knowledge of English obscenities (words and gestures) thanks to American movies on TV (back in the days when Assoul's generator sometimes worked). "She could get SIDA [AIDS]," Miriam said. Way to go Miriam. As a reward for her insight, I asked her if she had yet learned the word "slut."

Still, Najat maintained her point: "Well, she's not hashuma because she's not a Muslim." Miriam and I both explained that some things are also frowned upon (if not to the same degree - although I kept that nuance to myself) in America or other Christian cultures. I added, "And she posed naked in magazines." Najat started showing me pictures in a French magazine of Spanish soap opera stills (folks in bathing suits making eyes at each other). "Not like that," I said, "a SEX magazine." "Oh," said Najat. This led to a digression about her finding a rather, um, informative, book possessed by one of her relatives when she was a teenager, which she subsequently passed around to all of her friends before it disappeared. "But," she added, "you realize that I only know about these things. I don't do them." [I believe this]. "See, I don't even wear make-up when men are around."

Then, we got to talking about the responsibilities of unwed mothers in the US, and the controversy over the veil in Europe. But we never reached an agreement about Anna Nicole.

Blogger Sucks!

I don't know what's going on lately, but during the very few occasions I have had to travel to civilization during the last few weeks, I have had a terrible time logging into Blogger. So here's what you've missed:

A Sevillano Christmas

In spite of the fact that much of my vacation involved consuming all sorts of food and beverage products that are unavailable to me in Morocco, I did manage to squeeze in a little more sightseeing over Christmas, including the layering of Moorish influence and inspiration in the Alcázar of Seville…

…and Seville’s cathedral, the largest gothic cathedral in the world. There, I saw a sarcophagus containing the remains of Christopher Columbus, whose tomb, interestingly enough, I also saw in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, when I traveled there about seven years ago. A true traveler, that man!



This photo was taken from about halfway up La Giralda, a 35-story minaret co-opted by the cathedral’s builders.

I also got a little taste of the modern while strolling through a temporary art exhibition in Seville’s Plaza Nueva, where gigantic and slightly bizarre sculptures by artist Igor Mitoraj dominated the square.

Once back in Morocco, I battled Eid Al-Kbir travel angst – not unlike our own holiday mayhem at airports etc., but far worse when coupled with all the usual transportation craziness one faces around here. Still - even after all of the niceties of civilization - I was happy to be back in my own bed for a few nights before the carnage began...

Eid Al-Kbir, Part Deux

Like a good Berber woman, I woke up the morning of Eid, and paid my social calls. In doing so, I actually avoided witnessing any slaughter (last year I saw it twice, so I'm good). I did my part, eating sheep guts again, although this year I could confidently refuse stomach, and fat wrapped in intestines. I also passed on the head again.

Just a reminder what a beautiful site I have:

...And One More Random Transit Ride

So it appears that a number of women in my village are going to get a gig picking strawberries in Spain for a few months. Sounds a little sketchy to me, but... In any event, a load of them traveled to Rich last week to get the scoop on this opportunity, and I was on the transit with them coming and going. I listened to a woman wretch behind me the whole way back. Nevertheless, as we were passing a village on the way home, a man on the street waved down our transit and offered to share a platter of couscous (which he was eating on the side of the road). I passed. The carsick females, however, seemed to have no problem with it. While I found this interesting, I realized (having been in this country for a while now), I realized I didn't think it was particularly strange. A friend of mine who lives in that village explained later that this is an occasional form of charity people offer, ostensibly for women working in the fields (never mind that this is not harvest time).

A Few Days in Granada

So, Granada is wonderful. I have spent quite a bit of my time enjoying (cheap!) drinks and tapas, window shopping, and exploring local sights like the Alhambra and the cathedral.

One of the interesting things at the cathedral was the amount of northern European art. And I was thrilled to hear a couple there talking with their 10-ish year old son about problems with anatomical dimensions and general anachronisms in paintings of that period. That´s the kind of parent I might like to be one day!

Santa Pimp

Yay – Spain!

Uneventful travel (for once). Even if it took three days.

Nice man on ferry gave me coffee for free when I didn’t have small change in Euros.

Beautiful scenery on train ride to Granada.

Pork.

Chocolate-dipped churros (fritters).

Christmas decorations.

Wow, I really don´t know any Spanish. And for some unknown reason, I keep trying to speak to people in Arabic!

CITY!

Holiday Spirit

After being worked over by the PC docs (and an unbelievably awesome dentist) in Rabat last week, I returned south via Errachidia (a necessary detour, as it is one of the few places I get any real work done).

The night I returned to Assoul, it began snowing. And snowing. And snowing. The first day was great, as I’d been trying to work myself into a bit of a holiday mood. But then I began to worry. See, I’d planned at first to ride out the holiday in Assoul. The Muslim holiday of Eid al-Kbir hits around New Years this year, and some related Peace Corps travel restrictions had made it pretty much impossible to return to the States for a proper Christmas without using up all of my vacation days and then some (score one for volunteer morale). But then my common sense got the better of me. Last year, I managed Christmas in Morocco (my first ever away from home, at the age of 30!) because I was still so caught up in the newness of everything. Now, I just needed a vacation anyway! So I’d made very last minute plans to go visit my old sitemate, Zach, who now lives in southern Spain. Problem is, what if I got snowed into my site, and missed my own vacation? (This has already happened on a smaller scale, but here we are talking about a serious vacation!). Three days later, the snow was still falling! Now, I’ve seen this in NYC (where most of it quickly disappears and the rest of it just turns black) and Boston, but there they have infrastructure! And now even my host father was telling me that in his whole life he’d never seen anything like this in Assoul. Oh no, barely December…

Here’s our local landmark, the mountain Baddou. I took this photo from my roof a couple of days into the blizzard. Once it was finally clear enough to differentiate between earth and sky.

I’d diligently written Christmas cards, but since no vehicles were coming or going for several days, the post office was closed (sorry folks – you’ll have to celebrate all over again a couple of weeks after the fact, the same way we Americans have to do it over here as our mail trickles in, although there’s nothing like holidays and birthdays dragging on for months!).

But when the post office finally did open, I got what may have been the best care package ever (and, in general, my mom sends some pretty awesome care packages!). Back before I’d made plans to travel over the holiday, I’d asked for a little cheap, lightweight Christmas décor to help brighten my holiday a little. I’d expected paper crap, but couldn’t believe what I got… THANK YOU!!!

[Yes, those pathetic looking “curtains,” are, in fact, chopped up, mosquito netting (the tinted window panes are not, however, my doing). I hope PC doesn’t expect me to return it intact, as – as cheap as I am capable of being – they do actually serve a functional as well as aesthetic (hah!) purpose.]

Oh, and the fact that you’re reading this means that I did manage to make my escape from Assoul… And when I first got my hands on that essence of civilization – the Internet – do you know what I did? I happily watched holiday commercials on ABC.com (which, BTW, is a horrible, horrible entity for not allowing people overseas to view episodes of “Lost” online even though they have no qualms about constantly foisting all their non-holiday advertisers upon us when all I want to do is read a couple of sentences about what happened on “General Hospital” the previous week).

Anniversary Reward

I have officially lived in Assoul for a year now. In celebration, I am on my way up to Rabat because it is time for our "Mid-Service Medicals." I.e. I get to defecate in a cup. (Luckily, none of my occasional intestinal distress has been severe enough to merit this before now).

Favorite mystery meat of the week: sheep face. (Because it was only a piece of face, I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking at -- only that I didn't think I wanted to eat it -- until my hostess popped an eyeball out). I politely declined.

Friend or Fowl

Seasonal changes… I’ve already begun sleeping quite regularly in a hat and gloves – not sure that bodes well for the winter to come, although I do concede that my cement house with high ceilings tends to aggravate the situation. Fall here is definitely not what it is at home – as we instead experience a rather sudden shift in temperature (not unlike the loss of Spring that I always lamented when I lived in New York and Boston). Still, I have my occasional reminders of what it ought to feel like. As I passed through Immouzer a few weeks ago to help out with a training, I felt fortunate to be in one of the few places in Morocco (that I’ve seen at least) where I could actually experience a little genuine fall foliage. It was raining rather hard when I arrived, but enjoying the smell of the wet leaves more than made up for the fact that I was slipping all over them! I had actually visited this cute town about the same time last year, but somehow I forgot… and after a year here, I am much more aware of the absence of these little tastes of home in my day-to-day environment.

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Even though I’ve missed my share of family holidays even while living in the States, somehow it’s a little harder here knowing that it is a prologue to an entire holiday season that I simply won’t be experiencing. I try to explain this to some of my Moroccan acquaintances, but Thanksgiving can be a little confusing given that it carries no religious significance. Still, in terms of explaining its cultural and family importance (along with Christmas), I try to draw parallels to Lعid al-Ftir and Lعid al-Kbir. Unfortunately, due to my limited language skills, my explanations are often limited to something like, “We celebrate sharing and blessings, and we eat a big dinner.”

That said, of course most volunteers know how to make the most of things and celebrate however they can. This year, a few folks headed to Assoul the weekend before for a quasi-pot luck meal. My sitemate’s turkey, Pickles, was supposed to be the star attraction. Unfortunately, Pickles didn’t turn out to be such a big eater (or perhaps she was just incredibly clever, although we all know that she is simply delaying the inevitable), so the butcher wouldn’t kill her. We had chicken instead. Now I will be stuck taking care of a turkey throughout the rest of the holiday season while my sitemate is away doing normal person things.

Speaking of chicken, in addition to the occasional cow in the transit, our drivers fairly regularly carry crates full of chickens back from Rich on their roofs. It is actually perversely amusing if you go to one of the areas in Rich where the transits park – you occasionally hear a series of squawks only to realize that each one represents some poor bird being tossed by a guy standing on the ground up to a guy on the roof of one of these vans (I guess it would be too slow – or simply lacking in entertainment value – simply to hand them up). Last week, however, I had cause to wonder if those few airborne moments perhaps give some of the birds ideas. As I was riding back to Assoul, several of us noticed something fall past the window and began yelling at the driver to stop. Sure enough, there was a chicken lying in the road a couple of hundred meters behind us. Apparently, the poor thing had seen its chance at freedom and tried to take it. “Immut" (“It’s dead”), an old man behind me said. Someone ran to grab it, and miraculously, it began flapping its wings and squawking – a real fighter! So back on the roof it went, probably only to have become someone’s lunch (possibly even mine) the next day. How depressing! Somehow, I think the story would have been far more heroic and inspiring had – barring a successful escape attempt – the thing simply died in the road.

Oh, as you may have noticed from my lovely portrait with Pickles, I have finally given up on the idea that simply pulling my hair back for two years would somehow be more practical. In fact, it was getting rather gross. Many thanks to my friend Anne for her help with the chop job (out of sheer frustration, I nearly engaged in a far more brutal one several weeks ago, but instead settled on simply taking a few inches until someone else could do it properly). Surprisingly, very few Moroccans have said anything to me, besides, “You cut your hair.” Thanks for the update. I have to say that, in addition to improved washing and winter hat-wearing conditions, I’ve been happy to feel a little more like myself again. It’s sort of like how I miss my regular wardrobe. It’s not especially diverse, but I never realized how much I felt like my own “sense of style” – and I do use that term loosely in my case! – helps define me. Here, with only one or two exceptions, my wardrobe consists entirely of clothes that I intend to throw/give away (even the stuff I brought from home), so you can imagine that there’s not all that much that I really love wearing here!

Another important aspect of “being oneself” here stems from friendships – more than I expected. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. Of course none of my friendships with Moroccans are exactly “normal,” if such a thing even exists. I have my host father, whose fantastic English and relatively open mind (although I do still push a few boundaries), renders him someone I can talk to about nearly anything. Mina – our cooperative president – is perhaps the most genuinely nice and caring friend I have made here, although our language and educational differences make it difficult to get into any complex conversations. Still, when I tried to tell Mina that I was feeling a little homesick about the holidays, she began tearing up as she assured me that my next year here will pass even more quickly than the first one. I so often feel so judged and on display here that it is nice to be reminded that some people do really look at me just like any other human being. And then there is Najat – who speaks sloppy French and refuses to understand my Tamazight, and yet offers my most relaxed Moroccan friendship. We look at fashion magazines (frighteningly outdated ones, I’m afraid), and talk about movies and men. The other day, she read my fortune, and we played cards all afternoon along with her sisters (I love how admittedly hashuma this house full of women is!), with the loser of each round being forced to sing, dance, or perform various acrobatic feats. When I left, she was going to feed the animals and offered to eat some of their feed if her sister and I each paid her 5 dirhams (a little less than 50 cents). Even though Najat is older than I am, I love that we can play like little girls, and that I am not being judged for not being a proper Moroccan woman (well, not being married, officially here I am still a “girl,” although I am trying to convince people to think about women a little differently on this front!).


One last lesson of the past week: If you drop $12 Sony earbuds into a bucket full of dirty dishwater, they'll still work after they dry. So even though their computer batteries suck, at least the company has redeemed itself in my eyes.

Broken Record and Bulimic Romans

... Not "record-breaking" (but perhaps that...), but that I sound like a broken record. I had big plans two weekends ago (once Ramadan finally ended) finally to visit the Saharan sand dunes of Merzouga (and undertake my first camel ride) -- one of my last major "must-sees" in this country (although with, in sh'allah, a year left, there's plenty more that I hope to do or revisit). Anyway, yet another rainstorm blew into Assoul for a few days. Our dry land couldn't handle it, and the end result yet again was widespread flooding, roads and bridges washing out in all directions out of town, and my getting stuck in Assoul for several days (which beats getting randomly stuck out on the road somewhere, which has happened to me more than once in the past) without any form of communication (remember, even the teleboutiques don't work when the sun isn't shining!). So my desert plans were literally all washed up.

Still, I couldn't feel too sorry for myself, merely missing out on a little vacation time, as I explored the damage around town. This time, there was basically a wide river of rather rough waters flowing past town in place of what had been everyone's fields. People (women mainly, of course) immediately came out to begin surveying their losses and cleaning up after the water began to subside in the following day or two, which I certainly admired. My life is not so hard.


This past weekend was a three-day weekend culminating in a holiday on Monday in celebration of the Green March, so I finally was able to get up to the city of Meknes long enough to visit the nearby Roman ruins of Volubilis. Some of the mosaiacs were surprisingly well-preserved, although I still struggle to imagine what life must have been like in these ancient buildings when they were fully intact, painted, etc. I have visited other Roman ruins in England and, of course, Rome, but somehow an interesting fact had heretofore managed to escape me (and I can't imagine having learned and subsequently forgotten this, but...!). Our guide, Rachid, led us into the ruins of one affluent home, showing us the latrine (which was set up like a bench so folks could continue socializing while they did their business) and a "vomitorium." "The Romans," he explained, "were bulimic." Apparently, the rich ones had nothing better to do but to eat and to have sex all day (the latter evidenced by a brothel with a large, carved-in-stone male organ marking the entryway). I supposed they had to find some way to reconcile the former activity with the latter and maintain their physiques. The fact that they ate lying down couldn't have helped either.

This week, I am repeating my Gender and Development training for some new Youth Development volunteer trainees before I head back to Assoul. Back at home, my life has been full of political intrigue regarding our new cooperative-in-progress, basically causing it not to progress very much. There is still no electricity, so I am reading a lot again since my two computer batteries can barely get me through one movie (thanks Sony). That said, if anyone can hook me up with the last four episodes of Season One of "24," I'll... well, we can negotiate your reward depending upon your personal requirements! In the meantime, the fuel supplier for the town generator has cut us off, because, in theory, they'll be losing Assoul's business anyhow once the real electricity gets hooked up (never mind that those crews have all gone back up to Imilchil -- our two villages take turns protesting in order to get work done, but apparently there are simply not enough labor resources to work both places at once!). My sitemate has a new creature gracing his garden -- a turkey named "Pickles." We'll be eating Pickles for Thanksgiving with the help of a few of our colleagues, although I have gracefully bowed out of any of the slaughter and cleaning activities, and have offered up my garlic baked mac & cheese instead (so what if I've never had that for Thanksgiving before!).

Holiday spirit

One of the things that I like about Ramadan is that -- to balance out the craziness and testy attitudes that begin to emerge late in the afternoon (not to mention some dangerously fast driving that left my heart in my throat yesterday) -- there is also a festive and generous spirit much like what we experience during our own holiday season. Case in point: the hotel that is my home away from home in Rich has been offering a charity lfdur every evening, alowing those in need to come and break their fast for free. Sometimes the volunteers staying in the hotel will join them, and sometimes we go elsewhere, but yesterday, it really gave me a good feeling when I stumbled into the hotel right at sundown, after an afternoon of traveling, and had a couple of guys who work there (who hadn't yet broken their own fasts) insist that I sit down in a comfortable spot and have some soup, coffee and dates...

Déja Vu

I just arrived in Azrou, one of my two homes during my first few months in Morocco last year. This time, I get to be one of those "older and wiser" (HAH!) volunteers who comes in to help train the newbies (whom I have already heard to be far more brilliant and experienced than we were). Actually, I am just around to do a little Gender and Development training - ideas about how volunteers can account for and respond to various gender roles in carrying out their primary assignments, as well as other project ideas for promoting broader thinking about gender roles in our communities.

I should be happy for the excuse to travel, as life in Assoul has been a bit slow lately, but frankly, I've enjoyed being a homebody, and traveling kind of sucks during Ramadan. Lots of places open late, transportation - particularly in rural areas - can be way too unpredictable, and it's kind of hard to find a respectfully discreet place to eat if you want to maintain a little respect and consideration for those who are fasting.

Meanwhile, back in Assoul, I have finally finished the second season of "Lost." Very disappointed about having to wait indefinitely to catch up with season three as that gets aired (I did look at a couple of spoilers for the premiere, before realizing that is a really awful thing to do to myself, not to mention a little pathetic!). So, instead, the plan now is to get started on "24." Seven episodes in two nights, and counting...

"How are you watching all of this television?" you may be asking. "Do you finally have electricity?" NO. But after the commune made the very unwise decision to discontinue fueling up the town generator, the teachers went on strike. Yay teachers!

Other excitement:

(1) Another scorpion in the house, but this one was small.

(2) I finally learned how to make zmetta - crubbly nutty sugary oily goodness that is one of the Ramadan staples for breaking the fast around here.


I'm having a good time running lately. The nedi is closed more often than not anymore, so I actually get a lot of community face time this way (and occasionally get a little business done). And now that folks have gotten used to it, I find all of my encounters on the road (and I do say hi to everyone) far less stressful than I once did. People get excited that they know what I am doing now, say hello, ask about my exercising and occasionally where I am going, but rarely try to force me to stop anymore. There are a few older ladies around town whom I like to tease, telling them that they ought to accompany me, and once or twice on the road I've had some Berber woman shuffle along, carrying her MASSIVE load from the fields, for a few steps behind me before she laughs and gives up. But yesterday I had my biggest laugh. I had about 10-15 minutes left, and two women who I don't know, but who I suppose I had waved to while passing them going the other direction, dropped their loads and came bolting out of the fields. In their dresses and the blue plastic shoes that are rather ubiquitous among the women of Assoul, they actually ran with me, one of them (Miriam) making it all the way back into town! It may not fit into Peace Corps' formal definition of development, but clearly I am making some sort of impression around here!

Again?!

So, today is the first day of Ramadan here in Morocco, and I have to confess that I have elected not to fast this year. Last year I fasted, and even though I did get a lot out of it (indeed, there was a lot more of me at the end, thanks to many many rich, sugary meals to break the fast each evening), I am opting for staying healthy this year (I've also gotten into a fairly satisfying exercise routine that I don't care to disrupt by starving myself)... My dilemma is that I hate lying, and this is one of those situations where, although people would certainly understand that as a Westerner and a non-Muslim I am not obligated to fast, my conversations on the topic will remain shorter and far less annoying if I simply tell people that I am fasting.

Other news of the week: I discovered that the small ceramic piece to which one ties the carbon cloth "bulb" for my buta (gas) lamp can randomly explode. That was fun.

Floods, wildlife, and a little shopping

Well, after a trip up to Rabat for a meeting a couple of weeks ago, I figured it was time to stay put… for a little while at least (although I am dreading that trapped feeling that I expect will be coming soon enough this winter!).

And indeed, there has been quite a bit of activity in Assoul. Every year, two weeks before Ramadan (which is a little earlier each year, due to the differences between the Islamic and Gregorian calendars), Assoul holds a festival, or moussem. Here, that amounts to a large souk, covering the market square and main street through town for several days. While nothing like some of the better known moussems in the region, Assoul’s nevertheless draws people from significant distances, many of whom have family connections here in Assoul or in nearby villages.

For me, the effect was something akin to having to walk through a big shopping mall to go anywhere, only the novelty of an American woman walking around was fresh for all of our out-of-town guests, so I experienced a lot more hassle than usual. I did, however, buy a few more blankets, as I also had a houseguest for a couple of days, and realized that unless I want to spend another winter in my sleeping bag, the 2.5 blankets I already had will not be enough as it begins to cool off outside.

In any event, after being disappointed with my artisans’ efforts in Saidia, and having our opportunity to travel to the Imichil Festival last month fall through, I was also eager to see a few of my women in action closer to home, where they might be more comfortable with the sales environment (a couple had excitedly shown me pictures from last year’s moussem). Unfortunately, this was not to be. I inquired on behalf of our nascent cooperative and was told that only our nedi, which is directly affiliated with the community association, would be given a sales space. However, when we brought in some women from the nedi to discuss the opportunity, they said they had nothing to sell. Having recently reviewed their inventory, I have to admit that it was rather weak, but if ever there was a market to get rid of some of these more simple, less traditional products (mainly knit and crochet goods, macramé, and embroidery, mostly of mediocre quality), this was it!

I did, however, remain busy working with a representative of Errachidia’s Artisana from Assoul, who had decided to kill two birds with one stone while visiting his family for the moussem. We had a number of meetings to complete a technical study on the formation of the cooperative – assessing formal interest and availability of capital by going door-to-door with a couple of the women, as well as working with the local association to develop specific organizational goals (beyond the obvious making and selling of products, we were focusing on social and economic development issues). This all sounds very productive, but in fact it left me feeling as disheartened as ever. I still feel like only a few of the women who want to be involved are truly motivated to work, while the rest are getting caught up in the same petty politics and social drama that made such a mess of the nedi. I can feel the feminist in me being crushed sometimes, as I myself am simply at a loss for what can be done to “empower” people with this mindset… It’s mainly Mina, the president, who keeps me going right now, which makes me sad, because some people are ganging up on her because she’s illiterate (never mind she’s the best worker!). The other day she told me that no matter what anybody else said (because a lot of folks don’t understand what I am doing), she knew that I was working hard, and God knew. I can easily say the same about her.


On the personal front, I had a pretty I interesting conversation with my host father the other night. On the whole, I find him to be fairly open-minded, but about once every 2-3 months I worry that I’ve spoken a little too freely. This time it started with me lamenting the lack of electricity (I’ve all but given up actually expecting the real electricity to happen anytime soon), saying that I am looking forward to being able to work on my computer without rationing my time because I am thinking about more graduate school when I finish Peace Corps, and it would be nice to have more frequent access to some of the academic documents I have saved, as well as to work some more on my writing. “So what is your program when you finish?” he asked, in spite of my previous comment, “Are you going to get married and have children or what?” Now, he and I have discussed my views on marriage in the abstract (one of the other times I worried I might have gone too far), but this time he pushed: “I want you to get married and have children when you go home.” The twists and turns of this conversation only got more interesting – to the point that it hit a few personal details I’m not about to get into here! (some of you who know me better are welcome to continue this discussion by e-mail, as several highly amusing, and at times sad, points came up) – but we ended up having a fairly candid talk about expectations of gender roles (he believes that, ultimately, women are the ones who control the men in a marriage), the role of religion in our lives (upon which, thankfully, we are in agreement in spite of our different upbringings), and the gay marriage debate in the US (my fault for taking it there – pretty sure I made his head spin, although I made it clear that my opinions on the topic were not necessarily mainstream)… No matter how much I try to temper my opinions, I suspect this was one of those times he left me in a complete daze. I am, after all, a woman, even if he is more willing to also view me as a human being than some of the men in this country would be.


Summer is also, without a doubt, over. One big cold front blew through Assoul while I was still sweating up in Rabat, and then another at the end of the moussem. For several days straight, we had massive storms come through every afternoon, with significant hail and flooding (one afternoon I looked out to see a river running directly by my front door). As dry as it is here, the ground simply cannot take the water when it comes that fast. Several mud houses simply collapsed (but no one was hurt), and one of the men in town told me that it was Assoul’s 9-11. I chose to let that comment go, as I know that was simply his way of trying to relate some sympathy. Now we have returned to clear, warm days and cold nights, although for the time being, I find it quite cozy compared to what I can expect in a couple of months.


My last bit of excitement is that, with the cooling of the air, some of the local wildlife is beginning to seek shelter. And with that migration, I had my first scorpion, and what a monster it was!! One of my colleagues – who has since returned to the US – used to take me scorpion hunting out in the desert, but I never saw him catch anything this size (at least 4-5 inches)! I had thought that I might be off the hook, living on the second floor of my building, but somehow this one found its way in. It was my sitemate who spotted it after we had tried to see how much of “Kill Bill” Vols.1-2 we could squeeze into three hours of generator power. Thankfully, he didn’t discover it the painful way, although given its location, he came pretty close. So he caught it in a pot of popcorn. Of course, when I dropped by his house the following day, there was the scorpion in its new home on the kitchen floor, satisfied with the cricket it just ate for lunch, although not too keen on finishing up the popcorn crumbs. Thankfully, my sitemate’s ambitions to keep his new pet (his adopted dog, named “Earless” for visibly evident reasons, ran away last month), dissipated, and he liberated the poor creature the day before the flooding began (I wonder if it made it…).

The Real World?

For the last few days of my vacation, I returned to the Mediterranean coast – first to Martil and Cabo Negro, two beachside towns near Tetuan, and then spent one night in Tetuan itself. The beaches there were far different from that in Saidia, with calmer, cooler waters, probably due to coastlines facing more towards the east than the north. They also felt a lot more low key and family-oriented. To borrow from friends I met along the way during my trip: Saidia is more like Myrtle Beach, SC, while Cabo Negro is almost like the tropics. (I actually stayed in Martil, but took one day to walk up the beach to the more upscale Cabo Negro).

Tetuan began my transition back to the “real world,” but then, not really. Like everywhere I visited in the region, Spanish was the first language spoken to tourists (although my French served me as well as it does in any other touristy area, even if the Tamazight got me nowhere given the radically different dialect spoken by the Rifi Berbers. Even so, people often praised me for the few words of Arabic I do know!). I enjoyed one last seafood meal there (the cilantro-stuffed, fried sardines that are considered a treat elsewhere in the country just don’t do it for me!), although the highlighted seafood meal had been a fairly decent paella that I shared with my pal Jonathan in Martil. The paella had no mussels or sausage (of course!), but lots of tasty shrimp (how will I miss all the shrimp I have eaten this month – and it wasn’t even all that much!!) and reasonably accurate spices… (I had feared that we might be served something like the pathetic yellow rice my mother and I had suffered when we made the mistake of ordering paella in Brussels several years ago!). I also took in the Spanish influences in Tetuan’s architecture (for more on that history, I would recommend C.R. Pennell’s Morocco Since 1830: A History, which I am reading now).

Tetuan:

However, one of the things I’ll miss most about traveling up north was how genuinely nice all the people were (not wanting to talk trash about my own region, I’ll avoid too many specific comparisons for now). Perhaps, in part, they are used to a different kind of tourist from those who go caravanning through the more common touristy areas elsewhere in the country, but in all the places I visited, I was taken aback by the pleasant, friendly tone of everyone, even vendors and shopkeepers. Even in the medinas.

Let’s contrast this to Fez, where I made a stop on the way home (volunteers aren’t allowed to travel at night, so this obligatory stop was more or less a toss-up between Fez and Meknès – Fez barely winning out of sheer stubborn determination to try to figure that city out). This was my third (equally short) visit to Fez, although as I noted earlier, the first one, when I was sworn in, hardly counted (at the time, I had a stunning view of the Merenid Tombs, without the slightest clue what I was looking at). Like my second time there, I spent most of my energy trying not to kick or punch anyone (and I mean Moroccans, not other tourists). For one thing, it is just REALLY crowded (and those of you who know me well know about my crowd issues – I can get quite irritable, sometimes dizzy, and occasionally just plain nutty). And especially in the medina, restaurant hosts will literally jump in your way (I finally just started telling them that I eat Moroccan food every day and to get out of my way), little boys follow you, pointing at signs in the hopes that they’ll be tipped for being your “guide” (even just looking for a hotel, when I finally started telling them to leave me alone, that I could read the signs too… but to no avail), and storekeepers yell at you with increasing hostility once it becomes clear that you have no intention of stopping in their shops, which usually look an awful lot like the ones on either side of them.

Nevertheless, I did feel somewhat more successful than on my last trip, surrendering myself to the not-half-bad, color-coded sign system that can be used as a guide through the medina, based upon your specific interests: gardens, historical buildings, viewing traditional crafts, etc. (I say not-half-bad because, like the road signs that were often my nemesis in Boston, sometimes one is conveniently absent right at a confusing intersection where you need it the most!). So this time, I tried to stay on the “blue” (monuments) trail, with a few accidental diversions to the “pink” (crafts) trail, and found that I noticed a lot more than I did last time around – numerous mosques (which non-Muslims are not allowed to enter, although I got a few nice peeks from the outside), medersas, fountains, and stunningly-carved doors (although in one such case I was disappointed to look up and see that the door now marked the entrance to the ubiquitous Banque Populaire). And the morning that I left for the final leg of my trip home, I stopped by a must-see Fez sight – the tanneries. The walk there, first thing in the morning, was quite pleasant, as the medina was still basically empty, and I was becoming comfortable enough navigating the signage (pink) that I had a little less fear of becoming hopelessly lost and subsequently missing my bus. To view the dyeing process, you have to enter one of the shops, so we located a cooperative with a pleasant proprietor, who took us out to the store’s back terrace to observe the huge vats of dye while he explained the differences between different animal skins, dyes, etc. I had been warned that the smell would be terrible, and having set my expectations accordingly, found that it wasn’t so bad. Thankfully, I barely had enough cash on me to get back home, and I had left my credit card at the hotel, as there were some pretty amazing products at the cooperative, and they ship overseas… (times like these I do wish I were a real tourist, and not a volunteer who is overcome with guilt on the rare occasion that I do splurge on some souvenir!). Oh, and I almost saw a donkey fight on the way back through the medina – never have I seen such an evil look in one of those creature’s eyes!

Fez tanneries:

So, I have now returned from my small (and not especially arduous) vacation with a renewed sense of both wanderlust and homesickness. I have many more freedoms when I travel (dress, beverages, communication with family and friends, and simply being able to go out at night!), and, as I anticipated before I left the US last year (nearly a year ago!?), living abroad can become its own sort of rut, offering plenty of challenges but – after a certain period of time – little of the sense of exploration of traveling to new places. Living in a Berber mountain village for this long, many of the initial novelties have become mundane facts of life, if not outright aggravations! Now, although I am happy with the “comforts” (still no electricity) and solitude of being back in my own home, I find myself wanting to do more, see more – cultivating ideas for future trips both within and outside of Morocco. So (not that I have any intentions of visiting Afghanistan in the near future!), when I got home, I pulled out one of the many books inherited from my former sitemate, Eric Newby’s A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush. In spite of my general enjoyment of travel writing, I had put off reading this one because I saw it had been written by a Brit in the 1950’s, and couldn’t imagine it to be anything but dull. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised – it was hilarious! As someone who never feels more than partially competent in my own travels, I found it perversely encouraging to read such a self-deprecating yet uplifting account of an incredibly ambitious journey. If only, and perhaps in another life…

Treat of the week: Swiss Miss and powdered milk (with water, of course!)

More Chefchaouen Flavor

This morning I took a small hike up past a nearby spring to the ruins of a mosque (built by the Spanish, but by my understanding never used by the locals) overlooking town. I can't get over all of the green out here!

Every night, the call to prayer is mesmerizing -- the numerous mosques around town blending together in a way that is surprisingly musical compared to what I hear back in Assoul (where the new loudspeaker has made it quite a bit more difficult to sleep through early morning prayers).

I can't stop feeling like I am in a European mountain town.

And I am making myself ill off of goat cheese, which I did not realize was a local speciality until I arrived here.

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!