P.S.

I just wanted to let those of you who think the pictures are small know...that you can click on them and they become full screen :)

Site Announcements!

Leaving CBT for Azrou for Site Visits

Site announcements were torture! They made us wait all day until they told us. Cruel. They announced them by pointing out the site location on a giant map of Morocco and then announcing which person was going there.  I went into a little bit of shock at first as I found out I will be 5+ hours from most of the 30 people in my staaj who I have come to go get to know over the past month. I slept on things though, and woke up feeling excited about the challenges ahead, rather than sad. I should make it clear that I will not be completely alone, there are 3 other PCV's in/near my site. They are all males and have been in the site for 1 1/2 years. The downside is that they will close service in six months. So I will have to make the most of their expertise for the six months I have them. Two of the guys are health volunteers and one is an environment volunteer. 


My site info:
It is a rural village situated in the Eastern most portion of the High Atlas Mountains. It is 1900 meters above sea level, mountainous, and has a 'hostile' climate during the winter months. Uh-oh! On average it receives steady to moderate snowfall from November to March, guess I better get ready for cold cold cold!!! Approximately 8-10 thousand residents live in the five dours that make up my regional area and the majority of residents are farmers. The women I will work with are weavers, and it is up to me to develop my work and projects. I am excited for my site visit tomorrow which will last until Friday. It takes two taxis to get there from Azrou and it about 3.5 hours south of Azrou. 


Info about my new host family:
I will live with my second host family for the month of December and this week while I am on my site visit. My host mom's name is Hayat and my dad's name is Sassi. I have been told that they are a young couple (which is the same situation for my CBT host family and I like it). They have a one and a half year old little boy called Yassine. Sassi owns a cyber cafe in my village. 


I am absolutely exhausted! It has been an emotionally trying couple of days, not to mention the past month! 


I am so excited though and cannot wait to leave for my site visit tomorrow morning. I am replacing a girl called Kristen who has 12 days of service left. Tonight, I will brainstorm all the many many questions I need to ask her over the next week in regards to housing, souk, what projects she worked on, what the women of the co-op are like, and the list goes on! I only have her for 4 1/2 days so must make the absolute best use of her while I can! 


I will return to Azrou for a debriefing sometime in the afternoon on Friday and will be here until Saturday afternoon. So hoping to get a few pictures of my new village posted on here then :)


Until next weekend,

Your Moroccan Miriam xxx

Possibly the strangest advertisement ever.
And it is all over the place.
It is for the mobile/cell phone recharge cards which I buy on a weekly basis. I laugh every time I see it. 

Having tea with Jeff, Marisa, and a Moroccan after Souk

Grocery Shopping with Marisa at Souk

Me again...

October 12^th, 2010

If you thought it doesn’t get cold in Morocco-think again! It is freezing here! It has rained on and off for two days now, with extremely high winds, and even a bit of freezing rain. Today was the day with freezing rain and as it would be we had to walk a mile and half to and then back from the next village over for a naming ceremony. We were soaked and freezing when we got there. According to Islam, when a baby is born it isn’t named until the 7^th day. On the 7^th day, the family kills a sheep and declares the child’s name. If the family can afford to they have a celebration in their home on that day. The celebration consists of friends and family gathering at the house for tea, sweets, eating the sheep, music, drums and dancing. It was a great cross-cultural experience, but as our language is not quite up to par yet, there was a slight feeling of awkwardness.

October 13^th, 2010

It was a little warmer today, but not much. We all sat in class huddled in blankets, trying to focus on learning and not on the cold. With all the rain it is extremely muddy everywhere, so running in the mornings is out of the question. Now I know why the packing list included a jump rope! Luckily I brought one and will try it out tomorrow morning in room, while listening to my iPod J Bucket bath to follow, which won’t be as nice as usual as I’ll be sitting in the cold air…my house is substantially warmer than our school house though-as mine is adobe and the school is concrete, so no huddling around in blankets at home too.

On a slightly random note:

I found out today that no one in my CBT group knows what Old Bay Seasoning is… which is just crazy to me, although I bet those of you in England probably don’t know what it is either! It’s a seasoning used for crabs and other dishes. All you really need to know is that it is good!

This weekend some of my friends from other CBT (community based training) sites are coming to visit. There are about 7 people coming, which is pretty cool. I am excited to show them my village. In total, there are 5 CBT groups for Small Business Development here in Morocco. Out of those, my group is the only one in a small Berber village and we are the only ones learning Tamazight. Everyone else is still located in the Middle Atlas Region, but they are in sites with thousands of people and they are all learning Moroccan Arabic. Needles to say, my group is proud of our elite status—we call ourselves the chosen ones. J The others arrive late Saturday afternoon. We are going to Emily’s (the volunteer’s who is actually posted here for her two years of service) house for enchiladas and some well-deserved chill out time. Everyone is staying the night, as we aren’t allowed to travel after dark. On Sunday, we are going to hike the mountain, which I live at the base of and then in the afternoon everyone will head back to their sites via grand taxi’s (there’s nothing grand about them). So I am looking forward to the weekend!

October 24, 2010

Where did the past 11 days go?! Whoops…well the reunion at Emily’s house was good. The food was delicious and it was fun to hear everyone’s stories. The hike was awesome and the pictures are below to prove it.

Here are a few of my latest cross-cultural experiences:

à Hemam

Although there are no showers or even bathtubs in the houses here, there are Hemam’s in every village. A Hemam is a public bathhouse. The Hemam in my village is open everyday from 6am-11am and 7pm-11pm for men, and 12pm-6pm for women. It consists of three rooms (warm-hot-Hot). You take a stool, bucket, and scrub glove/toiletries with you each time you visit the Hemam. The entire place (including the water) is heated via massive wood stoves located under the building. After bucket bathing twice a week for all this time-the Hemam is pure luxury. Moroccan spa time. I’ve been twice in the past two weeks and would go more often, but the opening time during the week clashes with school time and so I can only go on the weekends. It only costs 8dH to get in which is roughly $1. Some of the girls are freaked out by the whole ‘public bath’ concept, but not me, although I guess it was the most boobs I’ve ever seen at once in my life and for the first 15 minutes or so I was overwhelmed and didn’t know where to look! Oh, and you wear underwear or bikini bottoms so it’s not a completely commando scene, although some of the women chose to make it a partial one…And I guess I should mention it’s not as relaxing as one would think as the women take the children with them so there are screaming kids everywhere and it’s already pretty crowded and noisy as it’s not a big place. All in all though, Ei’ji’bi—I like!

à Milking the cows

We went to Sam’s house (fellow PCT in my village) as he lives on a farm to milk a cow after school one day. None of us had ever milked a cow before. It was pretty funky. It’s not as easy as you think either. In fact, I pulled on the ‘teet’ for an awkward three minutes and got nothing. Thanks cow, way to make me look good. It was comic relief though, as we are all pretty burned out with language training all day, every day. In fact I made great use of the whole thing and practiced by asking Sam’s mom (the owner of the farm),  “Mani mus? Rig adzzig mus. LHlib n mus ssklat!” Which translates to, “Where is the cat I want to milk the cat. The milk of the cat is chocolate!” I’m sure they think I am crazy, but everyone was laughing J

à Naming Ceremony

I’ve been to two naming ceremonies now. The first one was the one that we trekked through the mini winter storm to get to. The second took place this weekend and was much more enjoyable! I packed an overnight bag and went to Azrou with my host family after class on Saturday. My host mom’s cousin had a baby last week and all of her extended family was at the cousin’s house in Azrou for the naming ceremony. It was a good test for my language skills as it was just me and my host family and all their family-no English speakers. We arrived around 4pm and ate straight away. Two chickens with sauce and olives to start, a huge slab of lamb with figs for the main, and grapes for dessert. After ‘lunch’ (which I had already had at school before we left for Azrou!) we walked into town and wandered around Azrou for a couple of hours. When we returned to the house, tea was waiting along with assorted cakes and sweets. Immediately after tea was dinner-which was the exact same meal as lunch. I was absolutely stuffed by the end of it all. Pretty sure I ate enough meat in one day to last the whole week through! The baby was adorable, but so tiny! I think I will be attending a lot of naming ceremonies over the next couple years, as someone always seems to be pregnant around here…

October 25, 2010

Five days left until we all head back to the hub in Azrou-and we are all very very excited! This Saturday is when we find out our site assignments (where we will be living for the next two years and what our job assignments are). To date, all we have been told is that four of us will be going somewhere down to the South (the desert!) and one of us will be fairly close to where we are now. I put in a request to be one of the four going down South. I don’t really mind, but I thought since I have gotten to know everyone here over the past month, it would be kind of nice to be fairly close to them over the next two years.

The weather is cold, but mild. The sun is hot. We have class on the roof almost everyday as it’s much nicer up there. Even though it is cold I haven’t worn my new winter jacket yet as the sun is so warm during the day and I rarely leave the house at night. The two main reasons for that is that the local dogs (which are all stray’s as no one has pets here) become fairly aggressive once it is dark. It is necessary to carry rocks in your hands if you are walking at night as a gentle hurl of one, in a barking dogs general direction usually clears them away. The other reason is that Peace Corps prohibits us from traveling once the sun goes down, for safety as the drivers here are insanely crazy and that is only magnified after dark.

I’ve received letters from a handful of you and I can’t tell you how happy they make me J Getting mail is majorly exciting. Even more exciting is knowing that I will be able to receive care packages starting in January…hint hint :P

On a girly note, I went to souk yesterday to help Malika with the school’s weekly grocery shopping. In one section of souk, there are tons of tables of second hand clothes and shoes. I was digging through everything, not really looking for anything in particular, just satisfying my inner need to shop, and there they were fluffy and beautiful staring at me…some crazy person, somewhere in the world, got rid of their almost brand new tan Ugg’s and a greater force sent them to Morocco, to my souk town, Guigo, where they were patiently waiting for me to buy them—for $5. That’s right $5. For all you guys that don’t know, Ugg’s are a winter boot (although many wear them year round) that became a craze in the fashionista world. You either love them or hate them; obviously I’m a lover. They run anywhere from $125+, so this was a very exciting find. I may not have a sit down toilet, or running hot water, or a shower, my hair is nappy and I haven’t worn make up in over a month-but, my feet look damn good in their new haven.

Until Saturday and the big news,

Bslama d Thlla g ixfnmn.

Goodbye and take care of yourselves. xxx

Azrou from the Naming Ceremony house

Jen, Tyler and Me on top of the Mid Atlas Mountains

Me on top of the Mid Atlas Mountains

View from the top...

Walking back into my village

Annie & Me on top of the Mid Atlas Mountains

More from me...

My CBT Site from the top of the mountain

October 4^th, 2010

J Salam! It’s been a while, I know, but as warned internet access is limited to say the very least! Things have been non-stop since I arrived in Morocco and I don’t think they will be slowing down anytime soon. These past three weeks have f-l-o-w-n by! My days are full-honestly, I barely have thirty minutes to myself in the evenings. Almost as soon as I make it up to my room and into bed after dinner (around 10pm), I fall asleep. Luckily I have (knock-on-wood) managed to avoid getting sick (from the new food, water, etc...) so far! Although, over the past four days my face has gone crazy with about 198 bumps/spots all over it...I called the Peace Corps Medical Officer today and she is going to bring me some medicated cream to Azrou (during my overnight hub-visit on Friday). She said not to worry, that it is common among volunteers in Morocco during the first few months to (severely) break out due to the change in new environment, new food, water, stress, and extreme-increase in sugar intake. Let’s hope the cream works, it’s bad enough having something on your face, but when you have to dress modestly and cover all your extremities and your face is the only thing showing---you want it to look it’s best J

So, what’s been going on these past two weeks?? Intense language training, eating, tea drinking, speaking Tamazight (trying to at least!), and more tea drinking are my life here! There have been a handful of entertaining cross-cultural experiences too…

I’ve already been to two weddings in three weeks! They were pretty amazing. Here is my breakdown of a Berber wedding in our village:

8pm-Guests arrive to the Groom’s house and gather around a car, which is packed full of presents.

8-9pm-Guests dance around the car to traditional music played on hand held drums by some of the men.

9-10pm-Bride exits the Groom’s house (veiled and in a traditional white wedding dress) and gets into the car, which takes here to her house, where her family and the Groom are waiting. The wedding party, guests, and drummer’s walk behind the car all the while dancing and drumming. People bring massive sugar cones as gifts and hold them while dancing-sugar is a sign of purity.

10-11.30pm-The women and men are separated into two different rooms (or houses) to eat. There is more drumming and dancing. The women have to wait until gone 11pm to be served and eat, as the men always are served and eat first. While the meal is being served the bride is having Henna done to her hands and feet.

11.30-5am or later…After the meal and the Henna everyone gathers back together outside for more drumming and dancing. The bride and groom take part for a short while and then they are guided to their new bedroom, to consummate their marriage. The guests carry on celebrating with belly dancers and Moroccan music until the early hours of the morning. We only stayed until midnight J

Sunday is our souk (Market) day. As there are no, and I mean no, grocery stores around we have to our shopping for the entire week every Sunday. Our village is so small that it doesn’t have it’s own souk so we have to go three miles down the road to the next “town” which has its’ own souk every Sunday. To get to the souk town, requires taking a taxi…which consists of going to the only paved road in my village and waiting on the side of it until a taxi goes by, which can be anywhere from 5 minutes to over an hour! Once you are in the taxi the driver then stops for virtually everyone along the way and you end up riding in a five seat ancient sedan with no less than 7 other people.

The entire town becomes an active market and it’s a pretty amazing experience all in all. It has all the veggies and fruits you can imagine plus chickens, sheep, clothes/shoes (second hand and new), electronic appliances, and POPCORN! It’s pretty intimidating trying to buy something as although the currency in Morocco is Dirham’s, small villages still use Ryal’s as the denomination. There are 20 Ryal’s to the Dirham so when you are the vendor how much something is you have to quickly convert it in your head to figure out if it’s a good deal or not, and more times than not it’s a bad deal, because as soon as they see me they assume I am a wealthy tourist and increase the price. I have my host Mom, Hafida do all the transactions for me so that she can make sure I get a good price. I am a little nervous as to how that will be for me when I get to my final site, as I will have to do things on my own then. Better get this language thing down pronto!

Last Thursday, Malika organized for us to play a soccer game against some of the local guys. We played in a rocky field, amongst sheep and cows, behind the local school. The guys went pretty easy on us and we tied 3-3. I was the goalie…

I’ve started a running routine in the mornings with Stacey, one of the other trainees. We run Tuesday’s, Thursday’s and Saturday’s from 6.30-7am, before school. Things are so busy-my brain is ‘on’ 24/7 (well, not when I’m snoozing!), with training for ten hours and then the language barrier when I get home in the evenings; I have to be ‘on’ all the time! So running really helps me decompress. And as a bonus, it ensures I get a bucket bath afterwards, which I have come to love and look forward to.

We started our technical skills training this week. In the late afternoon’s, we head to the co-op to integrate with the women who work there. Almost all the women in the village are members of the co-op. They hand-weave beautiful rugs, shawls, pillows, blankets, and bags, on looms. There work really is incredible. Their products are one of the most developed products Peace Corps volunteers in Morocco work with, so it’s a privilege to be here for training.

Last but not least, I had my first visitors this week J Granddad and Karen were on holiday in Fes for a week, so they rented a car for the day and made the adventurous journey from Fes to see me. My host family was really excited to meet them and my host Mom put on an A-mazing meal for us. I showed them around the village and they took tons of pictures…it was so nice to see them-Thank you both for making the trek!

Playing Soccer

Local Taxi for the Field Workers

Berber Wedding Drummers

Bride & Groom

Walking through the dour

My Host Brothers-Omar & Hamza

Studying on the roof

Granddad & Karen's visit

Doing my washing...by hand

My Toilet

Me and some monkey's 

My Grocery Store

Oh yeah!! PoPcOrN!!!

My house and my washing

(The window on the top right is my room)

Donkey in my dour

My host cousin