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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