Training

End of Week 1

It’s officially been over week now since I arrived and I’m writing this the night before I leave for my CBT (community based training) site. I will be staying with a host family for seven weeks before leaving for my final site where I’ll spend the rest of my two years. For now, I’ll reflect on the past week. It’s been a great week full of getting to know people and orientation. We’ve had great food, explored the city, and even had the US Ambassador to Morocco come speak. All of this is great, but I won’t lie, I have my moments of homesickness. For example when I Skype my parents and my mom is on the porch and my dad is cooking hamburgers out back or when I just wish I could hop in the car and get what I need without having to hassle with finding where to go or speaking a second language. All of this is part of adapting though, so might as well get use to this feeling of being somewhat lost all the time at least until I get more settled. I have been more adventures and resourceful than I thought I was before I came though so this is a step in the right direction! Alright… this is all for now but they’ll be more on my host family and CBT soon!
Bsalama!

Week 2

So I have arrived at my training site and it is absolutely beautiful and the people are unbelievably welcoming. My host family has two boys Aziz(6) and Mohammed(12). My host mom, Rqia is a house wife and my host dad Munsif is a farmer. So far I have had more tea and bread than I’ve had in the past 23 years combined, I’ve been taught proper Moroccan dance during improv dance parties with Arabic pop at the neighbors, and I have learned going to anyone’s house means at least staying a half hour for Lqhwa(coffee) or atay(tea). They are this welcoming and I haven’t even really learned to communicate in Tashlahit yet so I can’t wait until I can and we can enjoy one another’s company without playing charades. Tashlahit is also the Berber dialect that is spoken mostly in the dessert and on the coast so my final site after training will probably be in one of the two. It’ll be exciting to finally find out and get settled in my site so I can start arranging things like a language tutor and housing after I spend another two months with a new host family. I’m enjoying my time in training but I’m also anxious to begin as a volunteer instead of a trainee!

Alright I should end here but I’ll right more soon. I apologize for taking so long. I only have time for Cyber cafes usually once a week so please bare with!

Week 3

Alright soo…I realized I have been pretty vague so let me give you some details on where I am and what I’m doing. Peace Corps policy doesn’t allow me disclose where I am exactly on a blog so I’ll describe it for you instead…I’m in a larger village in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. It’s absolutely beautiful! When I say Atlas think Alps because they’re that big! On my way into the center of the village for training I go through a valley which usually includes sheep grazing on the hills above it along with scattered palm trees and wild flowers (mostly poppies). Morocco is very green right now so there are long almost neon grasses and cactus everywhere along with scattered olive and almond trees. I live literally in a row with the four other trainees at my training site. We’re all neighbors and our families are all related which makes it nice because it allows us meet up at one our houses easily with the kids and usually we end up playing games. I’m also the farthest out so every morning I start the pick up route with Mohammed and we pick up all the others on the way to training. Our training group is really great and a lot of fun which helps because eight or so hours of training can get really long each day. We all have Moroccan names that we use in training and at home…I’m Fadma, Nicole from Michigan is Hss’na, Marj, a fellow NCer, is Hend, and the married couple, Sean and Amber, from New Mexico, are Emr and Kadija. We also have a Language and Culture Coordinator, Ali, who facilities training, and our mascot who lives above our training site is Hussain (5 or 6). We call ourselves Tarabout (team) Hussain in honor of him. We have taught him important things from the US such as the exploding handshake and red rover which keeps us entertained during break. Usually during training we have language in the morning and early afternoon and then cultural training in the later part of the afternoon. We also occasionally have visits to the local clinic and hopefully the schools also in the near future. Once a week we go to a bigger nearby town a few kilometers away where we have additional training which is more technical with other trainees from other training sites. Earlier this week we visited the local sbetar (hospital) which has a in and out doctor and full-time nurse for an average of 40 patients per day. We also found out the fulltime nurse is also the Imam for the closest Mosque to our training site (there are three or so mosques in town) and the one who chants the prayer over the intercom 5 times a day. Not necessarily jobs that you think would go hand in hand but he seems to balance them well.

Alright, I'm typying in word so I can post hopefully next time I'm at cyber and it's getting late so I'll end here. So, bslama for now but I'll try to post again soon!

Week 4

So there’s a lot to tell! To begin I’ll fill you in on some of the weekend activities that have taken place over the past couple weekends since I’ve filled you in on the weekday routine. Saturday we stayed after our morning training session to have a discussion with two of the nurses and two of the teachers from our area on Moroccan culture. We learned Moroccans don’t really date, arranged marriages aren’t uncommon (but are becoming more so), and Moroccans marry young for the most part compared to Americans. The discussion turned out to be a nice exchange. The nurse from our sbetar had to do afternoon prayer though so the meeting was a little abbreviated but still informative. On Sunday we went to the largest big city in the province that we’re aloud to go to during training. It was nice because we saw a bunch of our fellow trainees and a volunteer from the region. We shopped around in the morning and then had lunch with Brian the PCV. After prodding Brian with our newbie questions we left around mid afternoon. Besides asking Brian questions the other highlight was bargaining in the market for the first time successfully which was exciting and I guessed proved some progress somewhat in language even though I feel it’s been slow coming at times.
The weekend before we (the 4 others in my training group and I) went to Ozoud which is like the Victoria Falls or Niagara Falls of Morocco. It was absolutely breathtaking. That was on Sunday. Saturday after training we just hung out at the cyber café. This brings me to something important I want to mention, from now on I’ll be trying to post consistently on Saturday afternoons so I’ll be on Facebook chat and Skype around 11 Eastern Time so look for me then!
Besides the weekend trips the other big event has been family staying with us. They came while I was in the larger city I mentioned this past Saturday. My sister Hss’na and her daughters (Dunia (1) and Selma (5) are staying I think until this weekend. I found out I actually have 6 grown sisters plus Mohammed and then Aziz is my host parents’ grandson. It’s been fun having a baby around and Hss’na is very sweet. She gave me some Moroccan PJs and even did some henna on me last night! It’s quite the process…she had to mix the henna paste, apply the design, and I had to dry the Henna over coals for a half hour. It was good bonding time and it turned out well.

Well I think this is all I have for now but I’m sure there will be more to post soon..take care and check back soon!

Week 5

Another week has flown by and I am officially over half way done with training! The final site interviews definitely made me aware of this earlier this week. I'll find out on the 17th where exactly I’ll be but it'll probably be in the dessert or on the coast. Besides site interviews I went to my first wedding! Last Sunday night my family wanted to see pictures so I showed them some from home. We got to some of my cousin's wedding last summer and they started talking about how they we're going to a wedding. I knew there was one the next day but it would be during training. When I asked them if this is what they we're talking about they told me yes BUT we are all going to the start of the wedding tonight and I had a half hour to get ready. It was short notice but turned out to be really fun. The men and women were separated and for awhile we waited for the bride and groom to arrive. When they did come there was a lot of loud chanting and deep throated shrills from the women. Once the bride and groom were situated we ate a really delicious dinner of lamb and fig taggen. After dinner there was a lot of dancing then finally it was time to head home to get some sleep before starting another week of training. The rest of the week was filled with more language and technical training so by Friday we were all pretty exhausted. Luckily we had Saturday morning off to cook for our families (I made pizza) and then after that we were free to leave our training site for an overnight stay somewhere. The five of us decided to go spend the night in a hotel near a beautiful lake and then hike there the next day. It was absolutely beautiful and the hike was definitely a great workout since we basically were going up a mountain that was next to lake. It was well worth it but by the time we hiked back to town and ate lunch we were pretty worn out. It was a nice break though and much needed.
These are the highlights so far but more to come! I promise to try and post more frequently. Internet has been difficult during training so I really appreciate your patience! Also if you want to check out some pictures go to www.eatsernedge .wordpress.com.

Baslama for now!

Week 6-8

Okay so auto-recovery decided to erase three weeks worth of blogging so I’ll try to catch you up but if you’re interested in more details check out www.easternedge.wordpress.com since Marge has been much more diligent about blogging during training.
So I left off talking about our trip to the lake at Ban El Ouidane around the half way point during training. After that Hss’na, Dunia, and Selma stayed another week or so due to a taxi strike which made her extend her trip for another week and I also got my final site placement. I’ll be in Tiznit which is a province in the south along the coast. My site is a relatively large village which seems to have all the basic amenities I’ll need and my host family includes my parents and two host sisters (14 and 24). There’s also a current volunteer I’m replacing who is leaving in three weeks and she’s leaving me with some unfinished projects to work on so I’m excited about that too.
After we received site placements we were aloud to travel out of our training site again for an overnight excursion within our training province of Azilal. Our group didn’t take advantage of the overnight but we did go to Demnate which is a larger city by us to explore their well known large soqq market and to do some shopping for our host families. The week following that was intense because we needed to study for a language proficiency exam. We had to score a certain level on the exam in order to swear in as volunteers. We took the exam on a Thursday then my host’s mom’s mom died the following day. The mourning rituals which followed included my family staying at my host grandma’s house and my family not cooking anything for three days. So this meant sleepovers at other trainees’ houses and meals at my grandma’s house brought by other women cooking for my family. Fortunately all of the trainee’s at my training site and their families were helpful in taking me in and taking some burden off my mom during a difficult time. The Saturday after she died we had a farewell get together for our community which turned out really well and with a good turn out. There was a lot of food, dancing, and singing. After the get together Saturday and some packing Sunday we left our training site and host families for good for more training activities and our swearing in as official volunteers in a bigger nearby city. After swear in we leave for our sites so I’ll be going to the Tiznit province on Thursday (April 30) to start as an official peace corps volunteer!
Alright, well hopefully I’ve done a good job recapping the last three weeks and (enshallah) I’ll be posting soon from Tizit!