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| My CBT Group |
November 15th, 2010Training is almost over! My language test is one week from today. Malika told us that we will all score novice high and not to worry, so that is reassuring. I am anxious to get to my final site, but it is bittersweet as I really love my family here.
Tomorrow, I am going to Emily’s house (the volunteer that lives here) to make my leaving present for my family. I am going to make a picture board with some photo’s I printed in Guiguo yesterday. It will also have the certificate that the Peace Corps gives to the host families on it. I will put a picture of it on here when I finish it.
Tonight, I am cooking dinner for my family. I am going to attempt to make Shepherd’s Pie. I stress attempt, as I have never cooked with propane tanks before! I bought fresh minced lamb and all the vegetables yesterday. Fingers crossed! I’m just hoping I don’t make everyone sick…the neighbors heard I was cooking and invited themselves over…
Leid Kebir is on Wednesday, which is the Islamic equivalent of Christmas. So, no school Wednesday or Thursday and lots of sheep eating! I’ll report more of that to you after it happens.
November 16, 2010
Some thoughts on how life in Morocco differs from my life in England/USA…
Call to Prayer-No matter where you are in Morocco, village, town or city, you hear the call to prayer from the mosque five times a day. It’s called out over a loudspeaker from every mosque five times a day, according to the position of the sun. It starts around 4.30am.
Butagas (Propane)-Cooking is done on what is basically camping stoves, burners attached to propane tanks, which you have to carry or roll to the closest hanut (little corner shop) to refill every month or so. This is true for almost all Moroccans. Electric stoves are extremely expensive as is the electricity required to use them.
Hotwater/Heat-In rural Morocco (where I am) people do not have hot water heaters or heating in the homes. They are also too expensive. Instead, hot water is boiled when needed either on the propane stove or on top of the furno (wood stove), which is installed during the winter. My furno is being welded as we speak and should be ready for pick up once I get to my final site. There is normally only one furno per house, which means only one room gets heated during winter. That being said, mine will go in my bedroom, which will be a bedroom/living room for practical purposes.
Hemam-Most houses in Morocco do not have shower/bath facilities in them. Bucket baths via boiled water are the norm along with weekly trips to the Hemam. Bathing and scrubbing with 50 other women watching and doing the same is an experience to say the least.
Donkeys & Mules-Rather than renting a man in a van, or using a pick-up truck, donkeys and mules with two-wheeled carts attached are the norm for getting things from point A to point B, this includes humans. Needless to say, I see and hear donkeys all day, every day. I like it.
Souk-In rural Morocco, actually everywhere but the major cities, there are no grocery stores, clothing stores, etc...everything you need to buy is bought a weekly outdoor market. Come rain, shine, sleet, or snow. Also, if you want to buy meat; for chicken, you pick out the best looking chicken, buy it and the buiffalosen (literally keeper of the chickens) kills it and defeathers it for you. Beef or lamb, you say how many kilos you want and the butcher carves that much in weight off of the cow or sheep which is hanging in front of you and puts it in a plastic carrier bag for you. Safi (done).
9 People to a Taxi-That’s the most I’ve seen so far. And unless someone pays for two seats, the minimum for a taxi to move is 7 people. I’m not talking about a mini-van, I mean a compact car. This week at souk, with Leid Kebir on Wednesday and everyone purchasing their sheep to slaughter, the taxis also had sheep riding on peoples’ laps. So picture 7-9 people squished in a taxi and then a sheep across them all. Pretty Awesome.
4 Wives-That’s the legal limit a man in Morocco can have at one time. Although in order to do so he must prove that he can treat them all equally. Also, this doesn’t mean that the five of the all share one big happy bed. All the women have their own bedrooms. My host Mom, Hafida made sure that I was clear on this.
5-10 glasses of tea a day-Tea in Morocco is bigger than tea in England. That doesn’t mean it tastes better though J It’s actually Chinese green tea and there is most certainly more sugar than tea in the ratio. Everywhere you go you are offered tea. It is okay to say no, but people can be pretty insistent. So even when you have successfully declined 10 glasses (that’s right, it is drank out of glasses-not mugs), you still end up drinking 5-10 glasses regardless. I have cut out virtually all other sugar (other than fruit) from my diet to try and compensate for the copious intake of sugar via tea drinking.
Communal Dinner Plate-Imagine Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner on the table with all the casserole dishes in the middle of the table. Now take away all the individual plates and cutlery form that table and put bread in front of you instead. That’s how it’s done here. You scoop everything out of the main dish with your bread one bite at a time. Hey, it saves tons of work on washing up!
To put that last item into perspective:
Last night I made Shepherds Pie for my family. All in all it was a success as it tasted delish and no one went hungry. It did however, take two and a half hours of preparation as we only have two burners. I now fully appreciate how much work the women have to deal with here. When it came time to eat the Shepherds Pie, I figured we would put the casserole dish on the table and everyone would use a spoon and eat from the section of the dish in front of them. Not so much. They stared at the dish for a few minutes, spoons in hand and then finally after awkward silence, Hafida turned to me, motioned as though she was turning the dish upside down and said, “mashi muskill (not a problem)?” I did my best to keep from laughing, and nodded approval. In a second, a huge plate and bread appeared. The Shepherds Pie was swiftly turned upside down onto the plate, bread was distributed and in we dove. Unless they are all really good actors, everyone liked it. Until that point I didn’t think it was possible to eat Shepherds Pie with only bread. It is. But, I have renamed the dish: Shepherds Mess.
November 19, 2010
Well, I survived the past two days. Go me. On Tuesday evening Hafida, henna’d my hands. They look pretty awesome. Henna is done before all special occasions. On Wednesday morning, I woke up around 7.30am and had breakfast with my family. Breakfast was cookies, cake and bread with jam. Yum. After breakfast, I was called outside, where a Lahceen and Mimoun were waiting with a sheep. I took some pictures and they disappeared around the corner. By the time I made it around the corner, the sheep was on its side, Lahceen had a knife in hand and the picture below says the rest. I filmed the rest of the happenings with the sheep. In short, its neck was slit, then it was skinned, then all of its organs were removed and then it was hung in the informal living room. The actual process didn’t bother me at all. However the following got to me a little; consider every family in the town did this and so everywhere you walk you have to hop over rivers of blood, even now, two days later. The whole town has been painted red. Ew. The knife, which Lahceen used to skin the sheep, kept resting between his teeth when he needed to use both hands for something. Ew. The buckets in which various bits of the sheep were placed were the same buckets I’ve been using for my bucket bath. Ew. The head of the sheep was roasting all day on an open fire both in and out of the house. The smell of singed sheep wool smothered the village as everyone did the same. Ew.
Lunch on Wednesday: Liver, Kidney, Heart, Lungs, Intestines stuffed with fat. Bread.
Dinner on Wednesday: The sheep head. Brains, skull and all. Bread.
We had lunch at my place. I tried everything. Surprisingly, the heart was the best part. There was so much marinade (garlic, parsley and cilantro) that it just tasted like that. After lunch we traveled to Hafida’s mom’s. She lives about a 20-minute taxi ride down the road. But, when the taxi dropped us off at the beginning of a dirt road, we had to walk for about an hour to actually get to her house. Before we left, Hafida started laughing and said, “Meryam, taddart n imma, waloo toilet!” Which translates to “the house of my mother-no toilet.” The fields surrounding the house, which is extremely isolated, are the toilet. No running water in the house either. The views from the house were amazing though. Pictures just don’t do it justice. I managed to swallow all my dinner (the sheep head) and remain composed. I can’t say I liked it though! But, I told the family it was delicious J We spent the night at Hafida’s mom’s and returned home yesterday.
Breakfast on Thursday: Liver wrapped in Fat. Bread.
Lunch on Thursday: Heart, Lung and Kidney Kebabs. Bread.
Dinner on Thursday: Meat Kebabs and Ribs. Bread.
Let’s just say today, at school, I will eat nothing but fruit and veg.
During Eid Kabir, the local teenage boys dress up as bujlud (they wear the sheepskin) and run around the town frightening children and putting on skits. Everyone comes out of their homes to watch and follow them around town.
Another happening before Eid Kabir, was corn harvesting. For my family this consisted of many long days in the fields picking the corn. Then it was placed in sacks on our roof to dry. After a week or so, Hafida moved everything (and I mean everything) out of what was the kitchen and into the store room. The corn was then dumped on the kitchen floor and for two days and two long nights (until 2am) men with shovels banged on the corn until al the kernels fell off the cobs. They then hand separated the corn from the cobs and shoveled it into bags. It will be grinded to make corn flour. This was an incredible process to watch. With the combination of this and the slaughtering during Eid Kabir, I realized just how far removed from my food I am.
Today is the last full day of school. Tomorrow we have a half-day and then I will go the Hemam to get all sparkly clean. Sunday we get up early and head to Azrou in a taxi. In Azrou we switch to a big bus/coach and the 28 of us head back to Rabat for our language tests and swearing in ceremony. We will reunite with the 30 youth development volunteers for all of this.. After swearing in, we will all go our separate ways to our final sites to begin the next two years. We’ve been promised a Thanksgiving Dinner after the ceremony, yummmmm.
November 21, 2010
It was an extremely tearful morning. It was so hard to say goodbye to my family. I can’t begin to explain my feelings towards them, their hospitality and their generosity. You have to understand that they have next to nothing in possessions, yet bigger hearts than anyone I have ever met. When I came downstairs this morning, Hafida had packed a suitcase for me. It was full of (their own) glasses, blankets, plates, etc..I couldn't help but cry. She knows I will be moving into my own house in a month and wanted to make sure I would have the basics. I explained that the Peace Corps will give us money to buy what we need for our house and graciously refused their offerings. They have next to nothing, yet still wanted to give me half of what they do have. Hafida and I cried together, but for different reasons.
She then sat me down and told me; never to answer the door or let a male into my house, to make friends with the Amazight (Berber's) in Tounfite-not the Arabs as the Berber's will invite me for meals and show me hospitality whereas the Arabs won't (I was tickled at that), not to travel during when there is rain or snow, and to call Mimoun when I get my firewood and he will come and chop it for me. :) (They live 3 hours away.) They are the definition of beautiful people.
I’m off to study for my language test tomorrow morning…wish me luck!!
Maryeem xXx
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| Separating the Corn |
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| Almost finished-corn kernals |
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| Sunset out the school window |
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| Cozy Winter Living Room |
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Lahceen (My host grandfather)...after doing the obvious
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| Baaaaa in the informal living room |
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Aicha (My host grandmother) preparing dinner
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Hafida's Loom
(In the informal living room) |
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Hafida's Finished Product
(This took one month)
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