Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The holidays and more!...

Sorry about the delay and I'll put up some much more recent post soon!

12/13

So! I’ve experienced another interesting cultural event in the past few weeks! It’s called L3id Inqurrum and it is the biggest Muslim holiday of the year. It is a lot like Yom Kippur except for the fact that they do still slaughter a sheep. The way it works here in Morocco, families watch TV and when the king slaughters his sheep in one swoop that is the signal for everyone to do the same. Right after the sheep is cleaned, organ kabobs are made and a stew of braided intestines with stomach is started for later. For me I was spared the sight of my family’s sheep being slaughtered but I still saw reruns of the king slaughtering his on the news which was enough to make me a little more than grossed out. It overall was a fun day though filled with my family’s extended family and delicious lamb cous-cous later on once the traditional organs dishes were already eaten.

Since l3id was on Thanksgiving we had travel restrictions so the girls and I in my province decided to celebrate it the weekend after l3id. We had a lot of fun mostly eating, listening to Christmas music, and playing games. We cooked almost all the traditional dishes except for cranberry sauce since cranberries aren’t a cooking option here in the desert but none the less it was an amazing meal which was a nice bit of Americana during a difficult time filled with homesickness for a lot of us.

Since Thanksgiving I have been mostly working on a trash project and planning lessons to present to the principles of the schools in my town so I can start teaching. This past weekend was my birthday though so the girls from my province got together again at my place this time and we had a little Christmas/Birthday get together which included Thai food, four cakes (one less dessert than Thanksgiving, as you can tell we take our baking here in Tiznit pretty seriously.), and movies. It was my first birthday away from home but the girls did a great job making it a very special and memorable one. Now it’s back to work again though until Thursday and then I’ll be heading to Tata where another volunteer is going to host Christmas for the volunteers in Southern Morocco.

Take care and I’ll write again soon! Happy Holidays!

11/30

Alright! I apologize it’s been so long since my last post but I’m back! There’s been a lot too that’s happened so let me bring you up to speed. My first trip to Rabat was a success! Besides the SIDA Committee meeting going well, there were about 20 other volunteers in Rabat to take their GREs which was fun, and then the new Ambassador to Morocco, Salomon Kaplan, and his wife Silvia made their first official visit to the Peace Corps Office…pretty exciting, and they seem to be a very nice couple. I came back from Rabat and then I had to leave for IST (In-service Training) in Marrakesh. The first night we were there we had another meeting with the Ambassador and his wife since they happened to be in Marrakesh as well. This time I actually got to shake his and Silvia’s hand and to have a have a few words with them. They were supper sweet and very supportive of us…they’re older so almost grandparent like. The main reason he happened to be in town though was obviously not because of us, but since the Secretary of State happened to be in Marrakesh as well for a conference. There were rumors about us getting to see her so we started training out a little on the anxious and unfocused side but the first day we managed to get through some training sessions and free time to work on our site presentations. Most of us never gave our presentations though since Tuesday morning we got a last minute invite to come hear Secretary Clinton speak instead. They chartered buses for us and off we went! When we got to the conference center we waited outside the building before secret service escorted us threw. The waiting would be a theme for the rest of the day and the parade through the building was pretty entertaining. Here come all these little scruffy Peace Corps volunteers marching through a sea of very nicely dressed business people and politicians. Needless to say we got a lot of stares, but on the other hand all of the American Embassy staff was extremely nice! They were very welcoming and had an almost proud glow to them since many of them started out as Peace Corps Volunteers themselves before they began working for the State Department. The guy who briefed us before the Secretary came actually told us he was extremely proud to have Peace Corps present since he himself was a returned PCV which was pretty neat. We waited for awhile and then finally the Secretary came and spoke to us and Embassy staff. She basically did thank yous to various embassy staff for helping with her visit, talked some about what’s going on with the US’s relationship with Morocco, and then she finally gave us a shot out (specifically, Muriel, the oldest serving volunteer right now who is 85 and amazing). It was a little on the short side and anti-climatic considering all the waiting we did but exciting and a great experience. One of the most impressive things I noticed about the Secretary was her hair. It was HUGE with perfectly blended highlights, and it didn’t move! But besides her hair she was an speaker and holds herself very well… luckily though, and somewhat to our embarrassment, we think she was out of ear shot when after she left one of the other volunteers yelled “Way to go Hill-dog!” ahhh…lol

After all the excitement and being detained in the basement of the conference center for a little bit we headed back to the hotel where we were having our training and got back to our sessions. The rest of training was definitely productive and a nice opportunity to catch up with others from our original training group of 60. After training it was back to Tiznit but not for long since I went to help a friend who is a nearby volunteer with an art project at her school and then I was off again to facilitate a training in Essaouria on sustainable SIDA(HIV/AIDS) education. It was nice to go back to Essa and I really enjoyed that training but now that I’m back in my site again, It’s GOOD to be back! No more traveling for awhile and I’m looking forward to spending a solid chunk of time just focusing on things in my community.

Okayyy..I’ll end here for now hope everyone had a very happy and delicious Thanksgiving, and as always, take care!

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