PPST & Ait Hamza

Me & The Gang in Ait Hamza

Phew. It's been a busy month! Last weekend, I traveled to Tahla, which is located between Fes and Taza. Another volunteer hosted a Chinese New Year dinner, which was delicious (she had lots of specialty ingredients from the States shipped-so it was extra yum). I saw Fes from the taxi and look forward to going back there soon and exploring. It was a 5 hour journey via bus and taxi, and as with every time I've traveled in this country, the views were amazing.

On Sunday, we all headed to Azrou for a week of PPST which stands for Post-Pre-Service-Training- the Peace Corps, just like most major entities, loves acronyms. PPST was a mentally exhausting week! The first day and a half was dedicated to volunteer presentations on our sites and the work we have been doing since we arrived in site. The rest of the time was dedicated to technical training in topics such as: Project Design & Management, Product Development and Color Theroy, Marketing & Promotion, Grant Writing, and Web Site Building. We also had a guest speakers from the Ministry of Artisana, Akhawayn University in Ifrane and a female president of a successful cooperative.

I found that a lot of the technical training was repetitive from the classes I took to get my BA, but I guess a quick review wasn't too painful :) The guest speakers were the highlight for me as they provided direct insight into how things work here, which was very informative. It was nice for all of us to be together for the week and gain knowledge form each other too.

Yesterday, I went back to my CBT site, Ait Hamza. Let me just say, it was a fantastic afternoon/evening/morning with Hafida and Family. It was also proof that my language has come a long way as I can count on one hand the number of things I didn't understand versus before, when I lived with them and we could just barely get our points across using sign language and broken Tamazight. It was so so so rewarding to go there and be able to have 12 hours of conversation and understand each other. Absolutely Fantastic.

Omar, Hamza, and Rizlan were ecstatic to see me, which made me smile non-stop. They are great kids. I took the boys each a dinosaur set and Rizlan got a pink animal rattle type thing...my goal was to get the boys something indestructible, as the last time I gave them each a toy car, the cars were in a million pieces within five minutes. The dinosaurs were a little more heavy duty since they are solid plastic pieces, but they still managed to make the dinosaurs fight each other and lose legs before I left...For the few toys kids have here the quality is awful and never lasts.

During my brief, but brilliant 20 hour visit, I was fed 7 times-even Hafida told me I should fast the next day :)

Highlight of the Evening:
Hafida sister's family joined us for dinner in the evening, along with a neighbor so there were 11 of us were crowded around the table. Dinner was delicious as Hafida's cooking always is. The meal consisted of a communal plate of chicken topped with caramelized onions and raisins (one of my favorite dishes here, but usually prepared with lamb) along with roasted pepper and tomato salad and a strawberry and orange salad. Yum. While eating we discussed the differences between Ait Hamza and my current site. Hafida asked me if I had been to any Tamgra's (weddings) or CeeBah's (naming ceremony's) to which I replied no, only in Ait Hamza. Hafida then told me that they would be having a CeeBah at their house in the future. I shreaked out an MBruk (congratulations) to Hafida and Mimoun and gave Hafida a bear hug. ----Keep in mind that when Jeff (who also came and visited his host family) saw Hafida he immediately asked me if she was pregnant.----After letting go of our hug, Hafida looks at me and says, "Harass'dat'sagh" which means only kidding. It was really funny. I didn't know what to say, and just kept repeating ibasil, which translates to naughty. Haha.

I left early this morning and went straight to my weekly Sunday souq upon arrival back in site, to stock up on veggies and fruits for the week. Surprisingly, I had the most verbal harassment, I've experienced in-site, today. Lot's of 'Oh my Gawwwd's' and other noises from males. They must have all watched a movie and learned that while I was gone :) I'm pretty good at blocking it out and not listening to that kind of stuff, I realize that they live in an oppressed society and many times don't know any better (or even what they are saying).

So now it's a busy week of working on stuff for the Co-op and working on my language (via tea with various members of the town). As many of you know, Gerald will arrive next Sunday and stay for a week, which I am very much looking forward to!

Here are some pictures from the weekend...

Azrou

Marisa and Jeff walking to the taxi stand in Azrou

Mosque in Azrou

Roof tops in Azrou

Omar & Rizlan in Ait Hamza

Hafida, Omar, Rizlan and Rykia in Ait Hamza

Women Stringing a New Loom@the Co-op in AitHamza

Jeff weaving in Sam's host family's house

In recent news...

February 16^th, 2011

I went down south to Tinghir this past week for VSN training. VSN is the Volunteer Support Network, which I believe every Peace Corps country has. I left on Thursday and it took me seven hours on the bus, which went by pretty quickly as the views were breathtaking. Around a town called Rich, the scenery changes from snow-capped mountains to red-desert with lush green oasis’s and sandy villages scattered about. Then you go into the red High Atlas Mountains/desert and through a large gorge with a green river and palm trees running along the road. The south is so very different from the north of Morocco and it’s pretty amazing watching the change take place from the bus, surrounded by Moroccans.

On Thursday evening, we had a meet and greet dinner of lentil soup and garlic bread. There were ten of us in total and I had already met four of the volunteers, on previous occasions. We went shopping the next day and bought our food in for the weekend and we all rotated turns cooking for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

VSN is a peer-to-peer counseling group and so the training was to help develop the skills to be a counselor. Active listening was the main subject, which is much more difficult and technical than one might think. We also talked about feelings...a lot. 

Each night we slept ten to the room, all in a row across the floor, in our sleeping bags. The first night I only got a couple hours of sleep as my sleeping bag wasn’t quite warm enough and there were a couple of snorer’s in the room. On the second night, we went out to dinner in Tinghir. I had a kefta mincemeat sandwich, which consisted of; mayo, mincemeat, pasta salad, potatoes, french fries, and red onion. I spent the entire second night in the bitlima, throwing-up, out of both ends. It was awful. And I was trying my hardest not to wake the other nine-up in a hollow Moroccan house. Until that night, I don’t think I have ever had food-poisoning, and I never want it ever again. By the third day of training, which was 8.30-6 each day, I was a mess. Absolutely knackered. I had a good nights sleep that night though, and was 110% by the next day. The training itself was very good and I really felt as though I got a lot out of the weekend.

Sadly, there was no time to do any sightseeing around Tinghir, which was disappointing as the Todra Gorges are close and I was hoping to see them. Ah well, plenty of time left to explore. The bus ride home on Monday was insanely hot, which was a crazy change for me as I am so used to the freezing cold. It’s warm down south and there is no air-conditioning on souk busses and on this particular bus there were no windows to open. We were also on the back of the bus above the engine and I was in long underwear in preparation for arrival back in site. I’m pretty sure I partially cooked myself. 

I had internet installed in my house on February 1^st, and much to my dismay, it still isn’t working. I’m trying desperately to get the people at Maroc Telecom to help me sort it out but, the problem is they are in the city and speak Moroccan Arabic or French. I kind of speak Tamazight and so there is a massive communication barrier, especially as the conversations take place over the phone. I paid for another volunteer to travel here today to try and sort it, but the end result was that the problem is on Maroc Telecom side of things. So tomorrow is dedicated to not hanging up the phone until it’s sorted.

I leave on Saturday morning to go to Post Pre-Service (PPST) training for 7 days and then I will go straight from training back to my original site, in Ait Hamza to visit with my old host family for the weekend. I am excited to see them and hopefully we will be able to communicate much better than we could when I lived there. 

While PST was mainly cultural and language training, PPST is technical training. We are going to have sessions on building websites, project design and management, marketing and promotion, product development, and grant writing. I am looking forward to learning lots in all of those areas. We also have to give individual presentations about our sites, I am planning to put together a power point for that this Friday.

Big smiles to everyone reading this-I am happy, healthy, and keeping busy and I hope you are too!

Love,

Maryeem xXx

Going down South...

Me & A Massive Cream Puff

View from our roof in Tinghir

Amazigh (Berber) Women waiting for the bus

Need I tell you what this is?

Desert outside of Rich

Just for you Mom!

February 5th, 2011

As you know from my mention in previous posts, the women in the bled (countryside), wear bed sheets and blankets wrapped around them, instead of jackets. A while ago, I mentioned that loads of women in my site wear the same design bed sheet, which my little brothers had on their beds while we were growing up. I see this sheet umpteen times a day, and it never fails to crack me up.

So, I finally managed to sneak a picture of the bed sheets that Carl & Sam used to have. 

Now do you remember it Mom????!!!!

:) 

Love,

Maryeem xXx