Emeek smeek (Little by little...)

6/8

It’s been a busy week and little by little I'm becoming more and more integrated. I went to the Sbitar waiting room on Monday and Tuesday to hang out with the women waiting to get vaccinations. I met some of women in town and got some practice with my tash so that was good. I also tried to get a hold of the moudir (principle) of the lycée (high school) because I need to get started (since it takes awhile) on getting approval so I can get into the schools and teach health lessons in the fall. They had the bac (the baccalauréat is French equivalent of the SATs only much more intense) last week though so I had to put that off for another week. On Wednesday I was in Tiznit for some furniture shopping. Thursday I was in Tiznit again for some more cyber time and tutoring….

I also lost my computer charger there which was funny because I wasn’t really worried…who would want to steal my computer charger especially since it’s American and they can’t use it anyways right?!.. However when I told my host family they were determined that we were going to locate it. I did have the number for the cyber cafe so I gave it to Jamila and the plan was for her to call and see if they had it. The plan would have worked if the number was actually the number for the cyber. It ended up being the home number for one of three of the guys who worked there. Two of guys who help run the cyber are younger more modern looking guys, and then there’s the guys who owns it. He looks a little older and is definitely a fundamentalist (he never looks at or talks to any of the PCVs when we go in). The home number ended up being Emr’s, the fundamentalist. Luckily his mom picked up though (hahahahah…) and told us to keep calling back. I told Jamila not to worry about it because I could get another volunteer that lives in Tiznit to go by and check for it in the morning. Seven, yes seven, phone calls she located the charger. Moral of the story: Don’t lose things! Hey, at least they helped me find it though and that matters.

Anywayysssss.....so that was Thursday evening, Friday I went over to my friend Neijma’s for cascrut (tea time) which was fun because I also got to help her crack Argan nuts. Argan trees are only found in my region in Morocco. A lot of the women collect the nuts and make Argan oil which is hard work but it brings in decent money because it’s so expensive. I actually got to taste some of the oil and it is unlike anything else I’ve tasted. It’s really good but also really different from anything we have in the US. When from I came home from Neijma’s we had family visiting so I spent the rest of the day hang out with them and helping in the kitchen. Saturday and Sunday, Marj and I went to visit Nicole near Tafrout. Tafrout is up the mountains and absolutely beautiful. We met her host family and had cascrut with them which was nice then we got a tour of her town and relaxed some so that was nice. Sunday morning we caught a taxi back home in time to catch the finals of the French Open and get ready for next week.

Alright…that’s it for now but also check out Marj’s blog (easternedge.wordpress.com) because she’s given me my own section on it called “Thoughts by Jess” which I think you’ll enjoy! :) Take care and I’ll post soon!

On the run!

So after several sedentary months I finally started running again this week! It’s been a battle since my family doesn’t understand why a woman would want to do anything physical like that and because they insist I always take my 14y/o host niece with me who hates running. I finally convinced her though and let me tell you!...the scenery is beautiful! I’m in the foothills of the Anti-Atlas and its pretty deserty so there’s lots of cacti and palm trees but there’s also lots of geraniums and other beautiful flowering plants. The area where I run is also neat because there are lots of little adobe structures all around. It’s beautiful but I do have to be very careful since the heat can be brutal and I can’t run near where the men congregate. It’s funny when we do pass people though the different responses we get. We’ve gotten everything from scornful disbelief to people joining in with us which is pretty funny when they’re wearing their jalabas and sandals. Whatever works I guess…as long as you’re getting the exercise right?! ? :)

Finally at my Site!

5/6/09

So I have sworn in and arrived at my final site where I’ll be for the next two years. We had a nice swearing in ceremony during which the Ambassador spoke and we took our oath of service. After that we had a reception and packed our bags to leave for our sites. It took a day to get to Agadir, which included a stop in Marrakesh for lunch and a taxi transfer, and then the following morning we went to Tiznit. I was soo nervous about meeting another host family but again they are so wonderful and welcoming. The town is beautiful and has pretty much all the amenities I need besides a cyber cafe and maybe a weekly soq market. I can’t complain though because some people have to travel hours for a cyber and I only have about a 20 minute taxi ride to my nearest town with everything I can’t find at my site. The people at my site are also really great. Everyone is friendly and wants to be helpful which is neat. Thanks to Jess, the volunteer I’m replacing everyone knows why I’m here and respects my mission. This is good since there’s a lot of work to be done here. This week I have been shadowing Jess and getting all the info I can before she leaves at the end of May…she’s been a wonderful resource and great about introducing me to everyone around town. So far what I have learned is that Trash, an ambulance for the nearest clinic, and training for the traditional birth attendants should be top priorities. Once things settle and I have integrated more I’ll start trying to tackle these things a long with other projects which I’m sure will pop up.

Alright that’s all for now but I’ll post soon! : )

5/10

I just came back from my first out of site project! Me and five other girls went and helped out at a SIDA (AIDS in French) day event at another PCV’s (Meredith’s) site that lives in the region. There were 100 kids and they only seven of us but it worked out. They made SIDA bracelets, learned a song bringing awareness to the topic, watched a video on it, and then we had a question and answer session which was interesting. It was a big success and then afterwards we had a girl’s night at Meredith’s complete with pudding cake and American Idol. Before, I went to Meredith’s though I also had a great experience with an English class nearby which helped prepare me for the kids at Meredith’s site. Me and the other Jess went to my soon to be tutor’s English class to do a Q&A session and then teach a health lesson. The kids are high school aged and amazing for only having a year of English. They asked some intense questions too like what do you think about Gaza, What do you think about terrorism, and how is America going to fix the world economy. Luckily their teacher stepped in and let the class know we are not politicians whenever we did get questions like that so that was helpful. Alright…These are the main updates but I’ll continue to keep you updated!

5/18

It’s been quite a week or so. To start I’ve been busy mostly with meeting with people in my community, brain storming project ideas, and getting my carte de sejour (which is basically a work visa). The peace corps thankfully gives a tutoring allowance so I also started tutoring in Tashlaheit this week also.

It’s also been a hard week because I found out Lucy, my dog back home, passed away at 17, and it’s also Jess’s last week here before she goes back. Our overlap is almost over so I’m trying to get all the information I can from her before I’m completely on my own. Luckily though she was here to be supportive when I found out Lucy was going to be put down. Also my family from CBT called and texted me when they found out through Marj so it was nice to have that support also. What made it even more difficult though was that most Moroccans don’t understand the concept of having pets. Because of this my host family could not understand why I was so upset. My host dad offered to go to Taradant though (the next Province over to the East) to find a puppy for me since there are a lot of strays there. A sweet offer and it made me feel a little better that he kind of understood but I said no.

So those are the biggest bits of news for now but I hope everyone is doing well back home and I’ll post again soon.

Jess

5/29

The other Jess left on Monday morning so I have officially almost finished my first week alone at my site. Before Jess left we had a going away lunch for her last Friday with other volunteers and then with my host family last Sunday. We also walked to her village earlier last week where she started out her service and met some really neat people she needed to say goodbye to. It took about a week but she finally said all her goodbyes and headed to 72 hour checkout in Rabat before heading to the States. Now that I’m on my own I have been trying to set a schedule for myself so I’m integrating and getting to know the community. After meeting with my counterpart this week at the clinic and with my tutor I think I have one. On Mondays and Tuesdays the Clinic is full since they’re vaccination days so I’ll try to spend part of both days each week in the waiting room meeting people and practicing language skills. I also am going to start taking daily walks hopefully more than once a day as another way to meet people and hopefully get invited to tea. I’m going to spend Wednesdays investigating new associations. Thursdays are dedicated to going to Tiznit for Tutoring, soq (farmers market that is usually only one day a week), and for time at the cyber cafe plus if I have any other errands. Fridays are going to be a day to brainstorm ideas, investigate more associations and to catch up on reading. Until I move into my apartment the weekends are going to be dedicated to getting appliances and furniture for my apartment, writing, and planning for the next week. Of course this is the ideal schedule but won’t always happen. This week is a good example of this. On Wednesday I had to go to Agadir since I found out around 9am we had an emergency consolidation exercise. So I dropped my plans for the day to get to and from Agadir for the drill. At least I got a good burger on the beach while I was there which is rare over here so I guess it was worth it! :)

I’ll end here for now but just a little side note because I’ve gotten some questions about how to comment on posts, if you want to comment click on the little pencil icon at the end of each post. It should prompt you and be pretty simple from there.

Thanks again everyone for following so far and I’ll post again soon!

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!

First Day...

The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the US Government or the Peace Corps.

Salaam alaykum!
So after several delayed flights on Monday and missing orientation followed by massive sleep deprivation I have finally arrived in Morocco! It is only my second day in the country but I’m already in love with it. The people, the food, and the scenery are all amazing! All the staff and the fellow PC trainees have made this a very enjoyable beginning to my service here also. When we finally arrived yesterday we had we had a long bus ride from the airport to our hotel where when we arrived we had lunch. Our lunch included our first taste of real couscous. After lunch we had a medical orientation, which I was pretty excited about since we got our mosquito nets! Following orientation we had a walking tour of the city and we ended the evening with dinner and some group wifi time in the hotel lobby mostly due to the fear of not having convenient internet after we leave for our training cites Monday.
Needless to say though, it’s been a exhausting 4 or 5 days and we had full day of orientation today so I’ll end here but for now I arrived safely and I promise to keep you posted on more of my adventures from the Maghreb soon!