Safe return from my new site!

My New 'Home Town'
My new host family live in the house that is closest to you in the center of the picture.

October 31^st, 2010

So here I am sitting in the hotel lobby here in Azrou, waiting to leave for my site visit. It’s Halloween, and although it’s not celebrated here in Morocco, this is possibly the scariest Halloween ever J Just kidding; I’m not really scared…more like incredibly anxious and nervous. This will be the first time I have traveled in Morocco by myself. I have to take two taxis from Azrou to get to my site. For both taxi rides, it will be five other Moroccans, and the driver, plus me. The plan is, I go to the taxi stand here in Azrou, listen for a driver who is shouting Boumia, which is the first town I need to get to. When I find him, I pay him and get in the taxi and sit and wait for five other people who are also going to Boumia to turn up. This means I could either be the fifth person and we go straight away, or I am the first person and I sit in the taxi and wait, which I have been told could take up to a couple of hours. So, I have my Tamazight notes, a book and my iPod handy…could be a long trip! Once I get to Boumia, I then have to do the same thing for a taxi going to my actual site! I am sooo nervous. I am sure it will be fine though…it’s just the whole language thing. As you know, I have been learning Tamazight, a Berber dialect. Which is fine when I am in Berber villages, but when I am traveling and in larger towns/cities, the language spoken is Moroccan Arabic-which I don’t know!! Big Deep Breath…

November 1^st, 2010

The journey was fine. Turns out there was another PCT going to Itzer which is on the way to Boumia so I got to ride for an hour and a half with someone I knew. We did have to wait at the taxi stand in Azrou for about an hour and a half while we waited for the taxi to fill up, but that was expected. It was high winds and rain the whole way to my site so not such good sightseeing along the way. When I changed over in Boumia, I ended up taking a bus the rest of the way. I was one of 50 people on the bus, and all eyes were on me the whole way. It really is like living in a fishbowl. I don’t think I’ve ever been stared at so my in my life. When I got to my site, Kristen the volunteer I am replacing was waiting for me at the taxi stand. We went straight to the mother of my host mothers’ house for lunch. My new host family are all lovely and lively people and again I feel lucky to have landed with them! Although, no one will be quite able to replace Hafida and Mimoun in my CBT site. I spent the first afternoon with Kristen walking around town and getting a feel for things. In the evening we went to my new host family’s house and the two other volunteers in my new site joined us for a welcome dinner. I should also note that Yassin, the 1 ½ year old son of my new host family, turned out to me Yassmine, the 1 ½ year old daughter! She is super cute.

Today, I woke up and had breakfast with my new family and after Kristen came to pick me up. We spent the day walking around town, while she introduced me to everyone. Everyone includes all the local shop owners she frequents, the staff at the new birthing center, the post office man, the local authorities (gendarmes) and a variety of townspeople along the way. Everyone was very warm and welcoming, but sad to see Kristen leaving. She is pretty much fluent in Tamazight, which is nerve wrecking, as I still can’t picture that day for me!

My site is fantastic, but absolutely freezing! It is nestled in the High Atlas Mountains, so the views are absolutely fantastic. I don’t know exactly why, but the feel I get is that of an old mining town at the foot of the Colorado Rockies. There is one paved road in town and that is the main strip, where all the tahanuts (corner shops, selling basics), cyber cafes, cafes (which are only for men, but as a ‘foreigner’ I am allowed to visit if in the company of one of my male site mates), butcher’s, and various other (very) small shops are located. Behind, the shops on either side of the road are where all the houses are located. The population is around 8-10 thousand people, so the site is a lot bigger than I am used to (the population of my CBT site is 300 in my immediate village and 2000 including all of the surrounding villages). I am happy for a bigger site. It’s still very much a Berber village by heart though. The women all wear pajamas as clothes and always have a full size bed sheet wrapped around them! On that note, Mom, Carl and Sam; I have seen on three different women, Carl or Sam’s bed sheets from Virginia/possibly Oklahoma too. It is a tiled geometric design, navy blue and white; with some of the tiles divided in half by two different primary colored triangles…do you remember them?? I laugh every time I see them-it’s a popular set here! While there are cars and old buses running through town, the main form of moving goods from one end of town to the other is via donkeys, which adds to the Wild West feel of the town. I love it.

November 2^nd, 2010

This morning I had breakfast with my host family. Breakfast is bread with olive oil and coffee, although the coffee is about a quarter teaspoon of instant coffee mixed with hot milk. This is fine with me as the only reason I told them I drink coffee in the mornings is because I knew it would be served this way and as there is virtually zero calcium in Moroccan’s diets, this gives me at least some each day. That’s one thing I miss a lot…cheese. The only cheese that exists here is laughing cow ‘cheese triangles,’ which is like fake cream cheese. It has calcium so I eat it whenever it’s on offer, but it is not cheese! I have made cheese once at Emily’s house and it turned out okay, it was like ricotta cheese. I will experiment more once I move into my own place.

After breakfast, I walked around town with Kristen again, meeting more of the locals. I also met my counterpart (whom I will work alongside), Rebha who is the president of the Co-op and is an incredibly sweet lady. At 12pm we went to the Hemam. The Hemam is much bigger and nicer than the Hemam in my CBT site. It has the same hours for women 12-6pm, and I will be frequenting it at least twice a week once I move here, especially with this cold weather! We had lunch at Mamaksu’s (my host grandmother’s) after the Hemam. Then after lunch, we went to one of the women of the Co-op’s house for tea. Eight of the twelve women of my new Co-op were there. The four that didn’t come had a good excuse though-they went to see the King. The King just so happened to be visiting one of the outer villages. Whenever the King visits anywhere in Morocco, the people of Morocco photocopy their ID cards and write letters stating their wishes and give them to the King or his guards when he passes through. It is said, that if the King takes the letters from the people, then they are guaranteed to receive at least one of their wishes. Back to tea, it was really nice to meet the women of the Co-op they all seemed extremely sweet and excited to meet me too.

A bit about my new Co-op:

When Kristen arrived here two years ago there were many (something like 100+) associations of weavers in town. However, most of the associations were inactive. Kristen managed to find twelve women who really want to work. Just last month, the paperwork finally went through and I know have a brand new Co-op to work with for the next two years. Time to start brainstorming…

The women weave small-medium size carpets. Kristen says the product has come along way in terms of quality. Oh, most importantly, the women weave all natural products. That is the carpets are 100% wool and the dyes they use are all natural. Here is a quick overview of the process; the wool is sheared from the sheep, washed in the river, hand spun into tight, thin fibers, dyed, and then weaved into a beautiful carpet. The women are experimenting with many different plants to develop new colors. I have attached a few photos of their work. The only place the women sell their product is at 4-5 craft fairs around Morocco each year. The next craft fair is December 2^nd-5^th in Casablanca and I am in the process of writing a request to my program director to accompany the women to the craft fair. I will only have been in site for about 10 days before I leave to go to it, so it will be a huge learning experience that I may not quite be prepared for!

In terms of my work over the next few years, I choose what projects I want to do with the women. The most important aspect of my work though is that I make it sustainable. This way once I am gone the women are still capable of making things work without my assistance. I believe the next two years is going to prove to be incredibly challenging. Only the president of the Co-op is literate. Although, it was so cute when I asked during my first tea with the women, how many could read or write, about five said they could write. Turns out this meant they can write their names J They were incredibly responsive however, and told Kristen to tell me that whatever I want to teach them, they will learn it. Let’s just hope I can teach them something! I am nervous, as I know nothing about weaving, but hopeful that I can teach them some basic business skills, which will help them out in the long run. The Peace Corps has a saying that goes something like this, “big impact now/be a hero-you do it for them and it is non-sustainable…big impact later-you guide them, they do it, and it is sustainable.” We have also been warned that everything takes about ten times as long to get done as one may think, even the most simple of tasks. I guess the key thing to remember is patience!

November 3^rd, 2010

Today was a day to swunfu (relax). Hayat, my new host Mom, left before I woke up to go to a nearby village where the King was making an appearance, so that she could try to give her letter to him. Mamaksu was at the house with Yassmine when I woke, so we had breakfast together and then headed to Mamaksu’s house. I worked on flashcards for my language and also got to watch Opera, which was pretty entertaining. Kristen and Dan came over for lunch and after lunch I went to Kristen’s and discussed life in my new site J Dinner was at Mamaksu’s as Hayat was extremely tired from traveling to see the King. Turns out after hours and hours of standing, he showed up, walked the red carpet and left again. Hayat was extremely disappointed that she only got to see him from a distance and that her letter wasn’t taken. The police were so strict that as she waited she wasn’t allowed to even put her hands into her bag to get some bread, if she had of they would have come over and harassed her for hiding her hands! She went the whole day without any food or drink, or King.

November 4th, 2010

I spent the morning with my host family at Mamaksu’s. Dan and Kristen came around for lunch and afterwards I ran errands with Kristen. We had coffee in the café in the afternoon. In the evening we made pizza, which was delicious. Kristen’s family sent pepperoni in her last care package, so the pizza was pepperoni and mushroom (the tahanut sells tinned mushrooms). It is fun making everything from scratch and I can’t wait to have my own place and start cooking for myself!

After dinner, we went to the Herria, which kind of like a YMCA? There are 36 boys who live there and they are all from secluded outer villages around my site (most don’t have running water or electricity). Their parents send them to live in the Herria so that they can attend school. Girls are allowed to be sent to live there as well, but there aren’t any as most of the families are very conservative and would never let their daughters have that kind of independence, which is sad to me. The reason I went to the Herria, was to observe Dan teach an English lesson to the boys. His lesson for the evening was on ‘Thanksgiving’ so in Tamazight, he explained how the pilgrims traveled from England to America, met the Native American Indians and they shared a feast together. A basic Thanksgiving word search puzzle was distributed to the boys and that was the basis for teaching English words to the boys. I thoroughly enjoyed observing the activities and can’t wait to help facilitate lessons in the future. After the learning part of the session, we had some fun and played ‘pin the tail on the turkey’…no it wasn’t a real turkey J Kristen, Dan and I drew and colored a turkey before we went to the Herria. The boys had a blast playing that! In fact, they had a blast learning about Thanksgiving and I too enjoyed sharing American culture and language with them. They were all very respectful and eager to learn, which was great. When we left, they clapped and applauded until we were well out the door, and it was so satisfying to know that they appreciated us.

I can’t wait to officially start my service.

Tomorrow morning, I head back to Azrou, for debriefing and more training sessions. The president of my new Co-op, Rebha, is also traveling to Azrou, which takes all my nerves about traveling away! Hopefully, I will be able to have something of conversation with her on the way!

Next week it’s back to language lessons all day, but I know it will go by quickly. The following week, Monday is our final language lesson. On Tuesday and Wednesday we have our Language Proficiency Interviews, where we must score a Novice High in order to pass…fingers crossed for me!!! Thursday and Friday are the Islamic holiday of Leid Kabir (more to come on that later, but think of me, as there will be a live sheep in the house for a day, and then a dead one hanging in the house as we slowly eat the whole thing over the weekend, agh!!). Saturday is CBT wrap-up and then on Sunday we head to Rabat for our Swearing In Ceremony, where we all take an oath to the US government and become official Peace Corps Volunteers—YEAH!!!!! Then off to our final sited for good—another YEAH!!!

And for a third and final YEAH!!!! I got my permanent mailing address this week!!! Okay, one more, YEAH!!! That means you can send me all the packages your BIG hearts desire J Lol. I have started a ‘Miss and Wish List’ on the side of my blog…don’t be shy!! Think of me when you turn your heat on with the flick of a switch, or are eating all the roast dinners your hearts desire. :P Did I lay it on thick enough?? Oh and Kristen, Dan, and Eric knock on wood have never had any problems with postal theft so don’t worry, whatever you send, will get to me. Of course you all know how extremely grateful I am/will be for whatever you send!! J J J

November 5th, 2010

I made it back to Azrou safe and sound and relatively uneventfully! Both taxi rides with Rebha, were extremely enjoyable. During the first taxi ride, from my site to Boumia, I stared out the window across the vast plains that lead to the never-ending mountains and tried my best to hold my tears of excitement and wonder in. I realized just how vast Morocco is. I also realized how isolated my little town actually is!   Once we left town, it was literally an hour before we came across another town. Just fields, plains, mountains, random sheep and donkey's. Gorgeous. 

On the second taxi ride, Rebha practiced her English and I practiced my Tamazight, until we couldn't take reading in the car anymore! It was a helpful language session though. Plus, we got to know each other better and as we will be working directly together for the next two years, that can't hurt! 

Hope you enjoy the new pictures!

Love always, 

Miriyam xXx