Great Pictures and Info on The Hajj & Eid Kabir

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/11/hajj_2010.html

Final Days of CBT

My CBT Group

November 15^th, 2010

Training 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

Separating the Corn

Almost finished-corn kernals

Sunset out the school window

Cozy Winter Living Room

Lahceen (My host grandfather)...after doing the obvious

Baaaaa in the informal living room

Aicha (My host grandmother) preparing dinner

Hafida's Loom
(In the informal living room)

Hafida's Finished Product
(This took one month)

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

P.S.

I just wanted to let those of you who think the pictures are small know...that you can click on them and they become full screen :)

Site Announcements!

Leaving CBT for Azrou for Site Visits

Site announcements were torture! They made us wait all day until they told us. Cruel. They announced them by pointing out the site location on a giant map of Morocco and then announcing which person was going there.  I went into a little bit of shock at first as I found out I will be 5+ hours from most of the 30 people in my staaj who I have come to go get to know over the past month. I slept on things though, and woke up feeling excited about the challenges ahead, rather than sad. I should make it clear that I will not be completely alone, there are 3 other PCV's in/near my site. They are all males and have been in the site for 1 1/2 years. The downside is that they will close service in six months. So I will have to make the most of their expertise for the six months I have them. Two of the guys are health volunteers and one is an environment volunteer. 


My site info:
It is a rural village situated in the Eastern most portion of the High Atlas Mountains. It is 1900 meters above sea level, mountainous, and has a 'hostile' climate during the winter months. Uh-oh! On average it receives steady to moderate snowfall from November to March, guess I better get ready for cold cold cold!!! Approximately 8-10 thousand residents live in the five dours that make up my regional area and the majority of residents are farmers. The women I will work with are weavers, and it is up to me to develop my work and projects. I am excited for my site visit tomorrow which will last until Friday. It takes two taxis to get there from Azrou and it about 3.5 hours south of Azrou. 


Info about my new host family:
I will live with my second host family for the month of December and this week while I am on my site visit. My host mom's name is Hayat and my dad's name is Sassi. I have been told that they are a young couple (which is the same situation for my CBT host family and I like it). They have a one and a half year old little boy called Yassine. Sassi owns a cyber cafe in my village. 


I am absolutely exhausted! It has been an emotionally trying couple of days, not to mention the past month! 


I am so excited though and cannot wait to leave for my site visit tomorrow morning. I am replacing a girl called Kristen who has 12 days of service left. Tonight, I will brainstorm all the many many questions I need to ask her over the next week in regards to housing, souk, what projects she worked on, what the women of the co-op are like, and the list goes on! I only have her for 4 1/2 days so must make the absolute best use of her while I can! 


I will return to Azrou for a debriefing sometime in the afternoon on Friday and will be here until Saturday afternoon. So hoping to get a few pictures of my new village posted on here then :)


Until next weekend,

Your Moroccan Miriam xxx

Possibly the strangest advertisement ever.
And it is all over the place.
It is for the mobile/cell phone recharge cards which I buy on a weekly basis. I laugh every time I see it. 

Having tea with Jeff, Marisa, and a Moroccan after Souk

Grocery Shopping with Marisa at Souk

Me again...

October 12^th, 2010

If you thought it doesn’t get cold in Morocco-think again! It is freezing here! It has rained on and off for two days now, with extremely high winds, and even a bit of freezing rain. Today was the day with freezing rain and as it would be we had to walk a mile and half to and then back from the next village over for a naming ceremony. We were soaked and freezing when we got there. According to Islam, when a baby is born it isn’t named until the 7^th day. On the 7^th day, the family kills a sheep and declares the child’s name. If the family can afford to they have a celebration in their home on that day. The celebration consists of friends and family gathering at the house for tea, sweets, eating the sheep, music, drums and dancing. It was a great cross-cultural experience, but as our language is not quite up to par yet, there was a slight feeling of awkwardness.

October 13^th, 2010

It was a little warmer today, but not much. We all sat in class huddled in blankets, trying to focus on learning and not on the cold. With all the rain it is extremely muddy everywhere, so running in the mornings is out of the question. Now I know why the packing list included a jump rope! Luckily I brought one and will try it out tomorrow morning in room, while listening to my iPod J Bucket bath to follow, which won’t be as nice as usual as I’ll be sitting in the cold air…my house is substantially warmer than our school house though-as mine is adobe and the school is concrete, so no huddling around in blankets at home too.

On a slightly random note:

I found out today that no one in my CBT group knows what Old Bay Seasoning is… which is just crazy to me, although I bet those of you in England probably don’t know what it is either! It’s a seasoning used for crabs and other dishes. All you really need to know is that it is good!

This weekend some of my friends from other CBT (community based training) sites are coming to visit. There are about 7 people coming, which is pretty cool. I am excited to show them my village. In total, there are 5 CBT groups for Small Business Development here in Morocco. Out of those, my group is the only one in a small Berber village and we are the only ones learning Tamazight. Everyone else is still located in the Middle Atlas Region, but they are in sites with thousands of people and they are all learning Moroccan Arabic. Needles to say, my group is proud of our elite status—we call ourselves the chosen ones. J The others arrive late Saturday afternoon. We are going to Emily’s (the volunteer’s who is actually posted here for her two years of service) house for enchiladas and some well-deserved chill out time. Everyone is staying the night, as we aren’t allowed to travel after dark. On Sunday, we are going to hike the mountain, which I live at the base of and then in the afternoon everyone will head back to their sites via grand taxi’s (there’s nothing grand about them). So I am looking forward to the weekend!

October 24, 2010

Where did the past 11 days go?! Whoops…well the reunion at Emily’s house was good. The food was delicious and it was fun to hear everyone’s stories. The hike was awesome and the pictures are below to prove it.

Here are a few of my latest cross-cultural experiences:

à Hemam

Although there are no showers or even bathtubs in the houses here, there are Hemam’s in every village. A Hemam is a public bathhouse. The Hemam in my village is open everyday from 6am-11am and 7pm-11pm for men, and 12pm-6pm for women. It consists of three rooms (warm-hot-Hot). You take a stool, bucket, and scrub glove/toiletries with you each time you visit the Hemam. The entire place (including the water) is heated via massive wood stoves located under the building. After bucket bathing twice a week for all this time-the Hemam is pure luxury. Moroccan spa time. I’ve been twice in the past two weeks and would go more often, but the opening time during the week clashes with school time and so I can only go on the weekends. It only costs 8dH to get in which is roughly $1. Some of the girls are freaked out by the whole ‘public bath’ concept, but not me, although I guess it was the most boobs I’ve ever seen at once in my life and for the first 15 minutes or so I was overwhelmed and didn’t know where to look! Oh, and you wear underwear or bikini bottoms so it’s not a completely commando scene, although some of the women chose to make it a partial one…And I guess I should mention it’s not as relaxing as one would think as the women take the children with them so there are screaming kids everywhere and it’s already pretty crowded and noisy as it’s not a big place. All in all though, Ei’ji’bi—I like!

à Milking the cows

We went to Sam’s house (fellow PCT in my village) as he lives on a farm to milk a cow after school one day. None of us had ever milked a cow before. It was pretty funky. It’s not as easy as you think either. In fact, I pulled on the ‘teet’ for an awkward three minutes and got nothing. Thanks cow, way to make me look good. It was comic relief though, as we are all pretty burned out with language training all day, every day. In fact I made great use of the whole thing and practiced by asking Sam’s mom (the owner of the farm),  “Mani mus? Rig adzzig mus. LHlib n mus ssklat!” Which translates to, “Where is the cat I want to milk the cat. The milk of the cat is chocolate!” I’m sure they think I am crazy, but everyone was laughing J

à Naming Ceremony

I’ve been to two naming ceremonies now. The first one was the one that we trekked through the mini winter storm to get to. The second took place this weekend and was much more enjoyable! I packed an overnight bag and went to Azrou with my host family after class on Saturday. My host mom’s cousin had a baby last week and all of her extended family was at the cousin’s house in Azrou for the naming ceremony. It was a good test for my language skills as it was just me and my host family and all their family-no English speakers. We arrived around 4pm and ate straight away. Two chickens with sauce and olives to start, a huge slab of lamb with figs for the main, and grapes for dessert. After ‘lunch’ (which I had already had at school before we left for Azrou!) we walked into town and wandered around Azrou for a couple of hours. When we returned to the house, tea was waiting along with assorted cakes and sweets. Immediately after tea was dinner-which was the exact same meal as lunch. I was absolutely stuffed by the end of it all. Pretty sure I ate enough meat in one day to last the whole week through! The baby was adorable, but so tiny! I think I will be attending a lot of naming ceremonies over the next couple years, as someone always seems to be pregnant around here…

October 25, 2010

Five days left until we all head back to the hub in Azrou-and we are all very very excited! This Saturday is when we find out our site assignments (where we will be living for the next two years and what our job assignments are). To date, all we have been told is that four of us will be going somewhere down to the South (the desert!) and one of us will be fairly close to where we are now. I put in a request to be one of the four going down South. I don’t really mind, but I thought since I have gotten to know everyone here over the past month, it would be kind of nice to be fairly close to them over the next two years.

The weather is cold, but mild. The sun is hot. We have class on the roof almost everyday as it’s much nicer up there. Even though it is cold I haven’t worn my new winter jacket yet as the sun is so warm during the day and I rarely leave the house at night. The two main reasons for that is that the local dogs (which are all stray’s as no one has pets here) become fairly aggressive once it is dark. It is necessary to carry rocks in your hands if you are walking at night as a gentle hurl of one, in a barking dogs general direction usually clears them away. The other reason is that Peace Corps prohibits us from traveling once the sun goes down, for safety as the drivers here are insanely crazy and that is only magnified after dark.

I’ve received letters from a handful of you and I can’t tell you how happy they make me J Getting mail is majorly exciting. Even more exciting is knowing that I will be able to receive care packages starting in January…hint hint :P

On a girly note, I went to souk yesterday to help Malika with the school’s weekly grocery shopping. In one section of souk, there are tons of tables of second hand clothes and shoes. I was digging through everything, not really looking for anything in particular, just satisfying my inner need to shop, and there they were fluffy and beautiful staring at me…some crazy person, somewhere in the world, got rid of their almost brand new tan Ugg’s and a greater force sent them to Morocco, to my souk town, Guigo, where they were patiently waiting for me to buy them—for $5. That’s right $5. For all you guys that don’t know, Ugg’s are a winter boot (although many wear them year round) that became a craze in the fashionista world. You either love them or hate them; obviously I’m a lover. They run anywhere from $125+, so this was a very exciting find. I may not have a sit down toilet, or running hot water, or a shower, my hair is nappy and I haven’t worn make up in over a month-but, my feet look damn good in their new haven.

Until Saturday and the big news,

Bslama d Thlla g ixfnmn.

Goodbye and take care of yourselves. xxx

Azrou from the Naming Ceremony house

Jen, Tyler and Me on top of the Mid Atlas Mountains

Me on top of the Mid Atlas Mountains

View from the top...

Walking back into my village

Annie & Me on top of the Mid Atlas Mountains

More from me...

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