Back in October we had a week long Maternal Health and Childcare Training at the Dar Olmama (birthing center) here in Toon Town. A few months prior to the training, Moses, myself, my lil brother Carl (who was visiting from the USA at the time) and a few other volunteers hiked into the mountains to the outer duars (villages) which surround Toon Town. While there, we recruited two women from each duar to attend the upcoming training.
Two weeks ago, the time came for us to revisit those outer duars to assist the newly trained women as they conducted teach backs to the other women of their duars.
We visited a total of five duars over three days. The first day, we hiked an hour and a half to Ardouz which is the closest of the duars. Rabha, my counterpart, accompanied us everyday and was a tremendous help as many of the women were extremely shy and so Rabha helped them conduct the teach back. Upon arrival, we met with the Muqqadem (male leader of the duar) and he put the word out for the women to gather together so that we could facilitate the teach back.
After a successful teach back, we were invited to lunch. Moses and Patrick, the two health volunteers I was helping, were already eating (they weren't allowed to be present during the women's teach backs since the topic was women's reproductive health) and so Rabha and I went to a different house for lunch.
Lunch was a tagine of potatoes, peppers, and chicken and as always was pretty tasty. After lunch and a few glasses of sweet green tea we made our way back home.
The next day, we took an old Land Rover two hours into the mountains to Ait Clymin, which is made up of a handful of duars. Ait Clymin is out there. To get there, you have to cross a river and take a non existent road. If you didn't know the duar was there, you would definitely never find it. Lucky girl that I am, I must have picked up a stomach monster or two at lunch the day before, who kindly waited until the next day when we were in this remote duar, to make his presence known. Awful. Non of the houses in this duar have toilets. Imagine having acute stomach pain (and I'm talking about the kind that doubles you over), the need for a toilet (and knowing that there isn't one), and all eyes on you, the taroami (foreigner).
When trouble wouldn't wait, Rabha led the way to the 'toilet'...the remains of an ancient mud house. Four walls six inches high, and that's it. Just enough to cover my bum, while the women washing their laundry at the nearby river, watched me assume position into full squat and with Rabha on standby around the corner. Talk about having an audience.
I managed to make it through the rest of the day and when we arrived back to my house, I crawled into bed and slept. When I woke up the next morning, I was one-hundred percent better, L'Hamdullah (thanks be to God).
It should be noted that throughout the entire day, while dealing with monsters in my stomach, Rabha was ever so kindly informing me on how I have the asamid (cold) in my stomach and that if I drink tea I will be tjjit (recovered). I tried my best to explain that, "no, there is no cold in my stomach, there is a microbe" (which is what they call germs and parasites), but Rabha insisted it was asamid in my stomach. It wasn't until the next day that she finally accepted that it was not asamid in my stomach, but only after insisting that if it was indeed a microbe, I wouldn't be tjjit unless I had drank some medicine...and that is when I explained that there are microbes that only have life for 24-48 hours and then they die on their own. End of topic.
The next morning we set off at 8am in a transit van for the final day of teach backs in Tamaloot and Anemzi. Tamaloot is the most rural duar I've been to in Morocco. While it is on the main road in the mountains, it is extremely primitive. For some unknown reason, all the children in this duar have haircuts which leave them with a tuff of hair in the front-center of their head and two tuffs on either side of the back/top of their head. It reminded me of the hair on the miniature troll dolls I used to have when I was little...poor kids.
The women in Tamaloot were welcoming at first, but as soon as they found out that we were only there to talk to them and that we didn't have any medicine to hand out, chaos took over. A handful stayed and listened to what we had to say, but the majority were shouting at us about the lack of clothes, shoes, food, medicine and bathing facilities (there is no hemam (public bath house)). It was upsetting knowing that we couldn't help them as we aren't here to handout those things, but it was even more upsetting that they wouldn't even listen to what we had to say, which was a lot of useful/beneficial information. Hopefully, the few women who did stick around gained something from the teach back and perhaps they will be able to share that information with the other ladies in the future. Enshalla (God willing).
Two weeks ago, the time came for us to revisit those outer duars to assist the newly trained women as they conducted teach backs to the other women of their duars.
We visited a total of five duars over three days. The first day, we hiked an hour and a half to Ardouz which is the closest of the duars. Rabha, my counterpart, accompanied us everyday and was a tremendous help as many of the women were extremely shy and so Rabha helped them conduct the teach back. Upon arrival, we met with the Muqqadem (male leader of the duar) and he put the word out for the women to gather together so that we could facilitate the teach back.
After a successful teach back, we were invited to lunch. Moses and Patrick, the two health volunteers I was helping, were already eating (they weren't allowed to be present during the women's teach backs since the topic was women's reproductive health) and so Rabha and I went to a different house for lunch.
Lunch was a tagine of potatoes, peppers, and chicken and as always was pretty tasty. After lunch and a few glasses of sweet green tea we made our way back home.
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| Our Fly Ride |
When trouble wouldn't wait, Rabha led the way to the 'toilet'...the remains of an ancient mud house. Four walls six inches high, and that's it. Just enough to cover my bum, while the women washing their laundry at the nearby river, watched me assume position into full squat and with Rabha on standby around the corner. Talk about having an audience.
I managed to make it through the rest of the day and when we arrived back to my house, I crawled into bed and slept. When I woke up the next morning, I was one-hundred percent better, L'Hamdullah (thanks be to God).
It should be noted that throughout the entire day, while dealing with monsters in my stomach, Rabha was ever so kindly informing me on how I have the asamid (cold) in my stomach and that if I drink tea I will be tjjit (recovered). I tried my best to explain that, "no, there is no cold in my stomach, there is a microbe" (which is what they call germs and parasites), but Rabha insisted it was asamid in my stomach. It wasn't until the next day that she finally accepted that it was not asamid in my stomach, but only after insisting that if it was indeed a microbe, I wouldn't be tjjit unless I had drank some medicine...and that is when I explained that there are microbes that only have life for 24-48 hours and then they die on their own. End of topic.
The next morning we set off at 8am in a transit van for the final day of teach backs in Tamaloot and Anemzi. Tamaloot is the most rural duar I've been to in Morocco. While it is on the main road in the mountains, it is extremely primitive. For some unknown reason, all the children in this duar have haircuts which leave them with a tuff of hair in the front-center of their head and two tuffs on either side of the back/top of their head. It reminded me of the hair on the miniature troll dolls I used to have when I was little...poor kids.
The women in Tamaloot were welcoming at first, but as soon as they found out that we were only there to talk to them and that we didn't have any medicine to hand out, chaos took over. A handful stayed and listened to what we had to say, but the majority were shouting at us about the lack of clothes, shoes, food, medicine and bathing facilities (there is no hemam (public bath house)). It was upsetting knowing that we couldn't help them as we aren't here to handout those things, but it was even more upsetting that they wouldn't even listen to what we had to say, which was a lot of useful/beneficial information. Hopefully, the few women who did stick around gained something from the teach back and perhaps they will be able to share that information with the other ladies in the future. Enshalla (God willing).
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Everyone will immediately identify with your most embarrassing predicament - and even www.thebrowncorporation.com wouldn't have helped you much! Just hope it doesn't happen too often. Love from Granddad xxxxxxxxx
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