Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.: July 2010

I apologize but this post is basically as serious case of brain scramble. For those of you who know me well, this is pretty much commonplace in my skull, but I had lots of stuff to write about and didn't want to commit an entire blog post to each thought. Sorry in advance :)

Moroccan Construction

I don't even know where to begin on the constant construction headaches I have had since finding my own place in my village. I have spent a better part of my life around "construction" related things. When we were little, my dad owned his own construction company so my siblings and I spent many hours playing with tiles and picking up trash in exchange for a McDonald's Happy Meal or a Mountain Dew (we were easy to bribe back then. My grandma used to pay us 25 cents to clean her bathroom). My family even built the 2,200 sq ft addition on the back of our house. When I got into college I thought I had escaped the construction work, but instead I spent many a sleepless night building props for Homecoming or Greek Week skits and repairing the house stage for recruitment along with countless other projects that just appeared throughout the years. Needless to say, I like to think I have a pretty good grasp on how construction related things work. Oh how wrong I was, where do I even begin?

When I was first shown my new house in the village, I thought that there was no way on earth that I would ever be able to live there. It was dark and cave-like in the middle of the day, it had concrete floors that had seen better days, no kitchen and was painted a nice shade of teal blue only 3/4 of the way up the wall. After some negotiating with my counterpart (aka telling her what I wanted) she hired some men and they went to work. The floors were tiled with alternating black and white tiles, much like in a diner. Two "windows" were installed into the center of the house that had the open roof. A kitchen was built out of concrete and tiles with a sink included and I paid a pretty penny to have the teal blue covered with a brighter shade of cream. The greatest part of this was that I expected it to be a bigger ordeal. I expected a construction crew,drawings and planning, basically I expected this to take at least a month. Turns out I was wrong. Moroccan construction is just two guys and some pretty basic tools.

There was a lot greater focus put on just doing it, than making it look good :) The windows were installed using a sledge hammer to remove the cinder blocks and a wooden frame was installed. The window now sits crooked in a room that isn't square. When the walls were put up, no one checked to make sure they sat at a 90 degree angle to each other, so now my bed doesn't sit flush with the walls! The tiles were installed and then the house was painted, without covering the tiles. My floors are now covered in little specks of paint that no matter how hard I scrub, I cant get them to go away. By far the best feat of construction in my home is in the floor drainage system. My living room has a pipe about 1/2 inch in diameter that was put into the concrete while it was drying that allows water from the living room to drain into the courtyard area and then eventually to another smaller pipe that is under the door.

I do not mean to seem that I am ungrateful for my new home because in reality it is one of the greatest things that has happened to me since moving to Morocco. It is pretty and bright and I am learning to live with the crooked windows and doors that don't close :) It is just one more taste of the differences between life as I knew it before and my new reality. The best part is that this house was way cheaper to construct, remodel and live in than any house I have seen in America. It also isn't nearly as safe, (i.e. NO building codes) but there is no way my all concrete house is going to burn to the ground and the next F5 tornado isn't headed towards my place anytime soon, so I feel pretty good! I don;t mind my house one bit, I think its flaws give it character even though I know its going to drive my mother nuts when she comes to visit.

A Trip To Sidi Ifni

A few weeks ago I was awoken to the sound of my dear friend Maria knocking on my door. It was like 8 am and she was like "get dressed, we are going to Sidi Ifni". I have posted about Ifni previously but it is a beautiful little beach town that has amazing weather, beautiful views of the ocean and is home to one of my favorite Moroccan women, Fuzia. I got dressed and we grabbed our bread (that we were delivering to the festival) and headed to the bus. About 3 hours later, we finally arrived. Ifni is actually about 25 km directly west of my village but there is no way to get there directly, you have to go through Tiznit, turning a normally 30 minute trip into a 3 hour adventure, but so is life in Morocco. When we got there turns out they were having a big festival. Really big. The festival was really fun, lots of people around, carnival rides, snack foods, lots of vendors and lots of people who speak English! My co-op even invested in some new beautiful purple fabric to jazz up our booth and make it look like a Arabic princess's bedroom. All in all, I ran into a group of college students from Rice University who were interning/ studying abroad with an engineering firm in Ifni, a family from Orlando who's father is Moroccan and from my region and a nice couple from England, all who spoke English, a nice change of pace from the constant Tashlheet. Our day trip turned into a couple of day adventure but I can't complain about my time in Ifni, its just such a wonderful place. Anyone who makes the journey to the Kingdom of Morocco to see my over the next two years will certainly be taking a trip to Sidi Ifni :)

A Note on Packages

Every day here is truly an adventure. A physical, emotional and actual adventure. Some days are great, you just feel like you are on top of the world. Other days you just feel like just one day's break from the language and cultural challenges would make a world of difference. It is times like these when your family and friends at home become imperative to your success. It provides that touch to reality and life back home that can sometimes seem out of focus.

The week before I moved into my house I was having a whole week of just needing a break. I had spent 4 months living in someone else's home. I also forgot to look at a calendar and had psyched myself up to move out and then turns out I was a week early. This week was really trying for me emotionally and then came the much needed relief. I went to the post office to check and see if I had gotten any mail. This in an of itself is an adventure because I have to hike up a huge hill in high heat, brave the souk filled with staring Moroccan men and then pray that the post office has decided to be open today, since their hours of operation are more suggestions than actual times of operation. When I finally got into my box and found the postman I had received two packages! Whoo hoo.

Packages are great to get and I knew this would be just the thing I needed to brighten my day/ week. I then took them back to the Zawid, which is the home of my counterpart and her family, who are wonderful. When I opened them I started crying. I cant explain why my body felt like that was the proper response but I guess the stress had just taken a hold. The boxes were from some very lovely and amazing women at Bath and Body Works whom I used to work with and the other was from a very close family friend, the Gleason's. Both boxes held surprises for everyone. The Gleason women had individually wrapped each item in wrapping paper and tissue paper and the BBW women had padded the box with bubble wrap.

This is where the story gets good. The kids and women of my village had little to no interest to the amazing gifts inside the box but instead found the greatest joy in opening up the wrapping paper and popping the bubble wrap. I am not exaggerating when I say that the women of my co-op and the children spent nearly 2 hours popping every single bubble in the bubble wrap. Every single one. This was exactly the reality check I needed to revive my spirit and purpose of being here. I mean sure, bubble wrap is fun when you are kid, but it certainly doesn't take the crown for greatest gifts ever given, here it does. I never even thought about the fact that the people of my village had never seen bubble wrap or felt the joy of hearing and feeling the pop in your hands. The women and children alike were giddy with laughter. It was wonderful to see the joy on their faces and the arguments they got in over who got to pop what piece.

The moral of this story is a great big 'thank you' to everyone who has written a letter, sent me an email, mailed me a package or Facebooked me in the last 5 months. Words cannot even begin to express the gratitude I feel towards all of you. Your support and encouragement while I go out and chase this crazy dream is what gets me through the tough day and makes the great days even sweeter. Thank you again and again and I look forward to your letters/ emails/ packages/ messages in the coming years!

Souk Day in Morocco

I think that one of the greatest parts of Morocco is "souk day". I make this statement with slight resentment because souk day is certainly an emotionally trying experience but worth every ounce of stress. To back up, souk is just a fancy term for the market. It is basically where everything happens. In smaller villages, like mine, it is used to identify the entire "town" area where there are shops, ect. In larger cities it is the open field where once a week vendors and people come to buy and sell goods. Every town has a souk day, or the one day a week where the big souk is taking place. Mine is Monday. Smaller towns that are not home to the weekly souk make the journey to the nearest "souk town" to pick up just about everything they would ever need. In my region of Morocco, the only people who make the trip to souk are men, thus the emotionally trying experience. It is not easy to be the only "weird" one in the group but even harder when you are not just weird but the only woman in a male-dominated place. Also, people here watch a lot of American TV and movies meaning they think that all "western" women are easy. Thus not helping my cause.

My souk in town, we have souk day on Monday.

At souk you can buy just about anything you want. From fruits and veggies to household items, furniture, appliances and just about anything else. I bought just about everything for my house (except the fridge) from our weekly souk. Imagine a Wal-mart, hardware store, grocery store, Sears all put into tents and set up outside. The greatest part about souk is that for the most part, all things are negotiable. Meaning if you don;t want to pay 5 dh for a kilo of apples, you can ask to pay less and if he doesn't want to sell it to you for that, you just go to the next guy. Souk is quite an experience and one of the most unique and cool things Morocco has to offer. I like the vibe you get when walking around, it feels so alive with spirit. Just thought I would share that with you.

Yes, My Refrigerator

Oh man, my fridge. Where can I even start? As a preface, I have a tendency to get focused on wanting one item in particular and then develop tunnel vision until I get that item. I did that with my IPhone, my IPod, my TV for my apartment in Columbia, my lime green Saturn Ion and countless other smaller items that I have decided I wanted in the past years. I am not sure what it was this time, but my fridge became that item all over again. As many of you know, I enjoy a nice cold soda once in a while, preferably Diet Dr. Pepper but that is not available here, bummer I know. When I moved in with my first host family for training, they did not have a fridge, thus crushing my dreams of cold water and a ice. At the time it wasn't a big deal because we had a fridge at our school (which was a house in the village) and it wasn't really hot outside yet. When I moved to Ait Erkha, it became a necessity to have a fridge because it was so darn hot all the time. My host family did have a fridge, but it was ALWAYS full with random sheep pieces, chickens, veggies and other things leaving barely enough room for my water bottle and certainly no room for ice cubes. About the 2nd week I was living with my host family at post I began dreaming of having my own refrigerator that could be stocked with cold diet coke, cold water and most importantly, ICE.

I had locked into a target item that I wanted and I was determined to get one. The second day we got our move in allowance (sometime around the 1st of June) I began searching for a fridge. I checked my souk, no luck. Then I went to Tiznit, no luck again. I was looking for a "dorm" sized fridge that wasn't going to break the bank, turns out the only ones I could find were huge and expensive. Refrigerators are VERY expensive here, thus the reason my first host family did not have one. I changed my budget like 10 times to try and see if I could find something but NOTHING. I probably went to Tiznit 6 or 7 times looking for a fridge, taking different Moroccans with me to see if maybe they had the connection, still no luck. About the week before I was supposed to move in, I started panicking. After all I had purchased just about everything else I needed for my place but could not find a fridge that was a small size and in my price range. Eventually, I had stressed myself out so much about it that I just gave up. I couldn't handle the disappointing trips to Tiznit to find nothing.

I gave up the week before the 4th of July. For the 4th I made a trip to Marrakech to visit a dear friend Felicie for her birthday and America's birthday. (On a side note, Marrakech is awesome, not like village Morroco at all and that was a nice relief). On the return trip I stopped in Agadir to visit a friend of mine and then headed to the Marjane. A month before I had seen a sign for a 1,500dh fridge that was on special and had heard that they delivered so I decided to head there and see if I could get lucky. This is where things get tricky.

I immediately went to the fridge section and started to talking to the man working in Tashlheet. He told me that they do free delivery if the fridge costs 2,000 dh or more. I was like this is awesome, yes I will take one. He told me to do my shopping and come back in 20 minutes, so I did exactly that. When I got back there was a new, not very nice, man who told me that the guy before lied and they don't do deliver to my village and free delivery is for items 5,000 dh or more. At this point I had 20 minutes of absolute joy, only to be shot down by another man sitting in the same chair, needless to say the joy turned into rage. I assumed that maybe something was lost in translation with the second guy, so I headed around the store looking for a Marjane worker who spoke decent english and who did I find, another mean man who was absolutely no help at all. He just affirmed what the other guy said and then ignored me.

At this point I was angry and started yelling in English about how they needed a uniform policy and how unorganized the store was despite its "western" feel. This did not help my cause. If I were in the States, or any other English speaking place, I would have asked to speak with a manager to complain about the laxadazical policy, but of course I couldn't do that here. I just bought my stuff and headed back to Tiznit, angry and hot. I got in the cab and there were already 5 other men in the cab so I got a door seat. (In Morocco capacity is 6 plus the driver. 4 people sit in the back seat and 2 in the front seat, i know its crazy, you don't have to tell me how un-fun sitting in the backseat of a car with three full sized men is.)

When we got back to Tiznit I had the cab driver drop me off the appliance part of town as a last ditch effort to see if I could get lucky. As I started walking around, the hanout owners were yelling outside their stores that they didn't have one (they knew what I wanted since I had asked so many times) and finally I went to a place I had only been once before and outside was the PERFECT fridge. The man asked for 2,050 dh, I told him 2,000 and bought it on the spot. Basically he knew he was the only guy in town with what I wanted so no amount of negotiation would have helped me. Plus I was too exhausted to fight for 100 dh here or there.

I was so happy I could have cried. I then started walking around a buying other things I wanted that would have required me to take a cab instead of the bus (since they were large or heavy) since I knew I was going to have to buy out the cab either way. I then paid a man in a cart 20 dh to walk my fridge and everything else the 20+ blocks to the taxi stand. When we finally got there I had to haggle with a cab driver for a solid 30 minutes until it was starting to get dark and I had to give him. I ended paying him more than I normally would have wanted to but at this point I was mentally exhausted with this fridge. The cab then drove down this pathway to my front door and delivered my fridge to my front door. It was one of the greatest feelings. My counterpart and friend even stopped by to deliver some milk to put in my fridge since they knew the effort I was putting in to get it! Now I have a fridge and its quite nice. I drink ice cold water and cold Diet Coke every day now, its wonderful. Everything I thought it would be and more. Its quite crazy how the smallest things can make the difference in my mood!

A Random Man Outside My Bus Window

This is random I know, but I have to tell you. This is one of those times I wish I had a phone where I could just mass text all of my friends and family in America because it was far too epic to ignore. A couple of weeks ago my friend Maria and I were headed back from Tiznit on a very full bus.

Let me explain the bus a little. It is a "city" type bus from the 1960's at least. It just barely runs 80% of the time. There is also no bus capacity, meaning just keep squeezing and more people get on, despite how full it is. Sometimes I swear there are 100+ people on these busses, along with all of their stuff (large flour sacks FILLED with all kinds of stuff). The bus takes twice as long but is half the cost of a taxi and most of the time you get your own seat, which you dont get in a taxi. Plus I am money limited and rarely time limited so I don't mind the extra commute. This time I had grabbed a window seat since I knew it was going to be crowded and Maria sat in the aisle seat. About 100+ crammed onto this bus and this very very smelly man was basically sitting on Maria's lap, so I started spraying him with my body splash from BBW, it was really that bad. Oh, one other thing, I think Moroccan people are afraid of wind. If a window is open on the bus, no matter the temperature, the window gets closed. I do not understand this since the busses are not air-conditioned so on this day in particular there were LOTS of smelly people, it was about 100F outside and none of the windows were open.

Just as I was about to just tell Maria to get off and we would catch a cab the rest of the way, we stopped in a town and I saw a man outside my window. His behavior was suspicious to start with and I knew something weird was going to happen but like a car accident, I had to keep watching. This man walked around for a little bit, sort of like he was intoxicated, and was holding his personal area. After walking around for a little bit, he reached down and picked up a piece of trash. The next part is the craziest. He lifts up his jellaba, pulls down his pants, takes out his personal thing and rubs it on the piece of trash, then throws the trash on the ground, puts everything back and walks away like nothing happened. OMG. Mind you, this is a decent sized road he is standing next to and there is a large bus stopped right in front of him. I didn't even know what to say, I was so in shock and had that mental image in my head for the rest of the bus ride. I didn't even have the guts to tell Maria because I was so shocked I couldn't think of the language to express my emotions. The craziest part is that no one on the bus seemed to notice, despite the 20+ people staring out the window. It was insane.

The Rims on the Bus Go Round and Round

Another bus story for you. Needless to say the bus is an experience but I was headed back from Tiznit again one day and the bus was basically empty, just a bunch of men and me. The road that leads from Tiznit to my village is basically flat for the first 30 km while we are in the valley and then 14 km before my site we start up the mountains. The roads are 1.5 lane roads meaning that two cars cannot drive past each other without one veering off the road to let the oncoming car pass. This is also true with the bus. I told you already that these busses are old and not in the greatest working condition. On top of that we are driving up and down a mountain where one side is a drop and the other side is the mountain, with no guard rail. On this day we were about 10 km from my site and then, thud thud thud, we blew a tire. The bus pulls into the ditch next to the road to check it out. Of course all the men on the bus get off to investigate this blown tire, like they were going to be able to save the day, I just stayed on. After about 15 minutes of staring at the tire they all got back on the bus and our driver decided to just drive on the rim. We drive about 2 km on the rim of bus until we reach a little building that houses some electrical and water pumps. The driver then hops the fence to this government facility to do God only knows what. 10 minutes later he comes outside and we keep driving on the rim. Mind you, every person on this bus, including the driver has a cell phone. I sort of expected someone to call the bus people and ask for a back-up bus, but nope we just kept driving. We drove on that busted tire the next 8 km up a mountain. I was certain that we were going to fall down the mountain and die. Thankfully we were going up not down. The best part is that no one on the bus seemed phased. Again, this must be some sort of overall Moroccan feeling of, whatever happens happens. I often think about how people in America would react and certainly someone would be throwing a fit about us driving on the rim up a mountain in America. We also would have most certainly gotten a back up bus to come pick us up, but in Morocco, nope we just kept on driving. I guess somewhere in there is a good metaphor for life, when your tire busts just keep on driving.

Keyless Life

I am currently out of this phase of my life but I am reflecting back fondly. The night before I left St. Louis for Morocco, I gave my entire key chain to my parents. My apartment key from Charleston, my house key, all of the car keys and various collected key chains from the years were on it. From that point on, I was officially key free. Many Americans have not thought about like truly "key free" life, but I can tell you from past experience that it is indeed wonderful! Its a great symbol starting over and life without stress. When I lived in America I was constantly thinking about where my keys were or where my phone was, but eliminate the keys and the need for the constant contact of the phone and you have true freedom. It was a great 4 months to be able to leave my house with nothing at all and feel no guilt for it. My camera was the only thing I brought just so I didnt miss an opportunity to document a great moment. Now I am back to a key life, I have exactly 3 now. One for my front door, one for my box at the post office and one for my bedroom door inside my house. I can no longer say I live a "key free" stress free life, but I am pretty close.

A New Definition of Beauty

Eating my breakfast and watching Oprah, I saw a "teaser" that caught my attention. It stated "overweight with a large behind, do we have the place for you." My first thought was that she had to be talking about Morocco :) Turns out she was actually interviewing a young lady from Mouritania. My region of Morocco, the Souss region, is closely tied to Mouritantia in culture and dress. The berber people of Southern Morocco come from the same Tashlheet heritage as the people of Mouritania.

I thought this was a great way to introduce the concept of beauty in my region. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and in the south of Morocco, it is much different than most American's would expect. Women of my region cover completely with many different cultural and religious dresses. The two most popular styles are the full body scarf and the oversized loose fitting skirt. These obviousley vary with social status, village norms and age. Many of the younger, more "city" women wear jeans and long shirts (long enough to cover their butt) with the head covered, whereas many of the older or rural women wear what I mentioned above. Despite the lack of a great variety of beauty resources, the women work very hard to look "nice". This means they want to look "put together". Granted this concept is much different than most American women would envision. The most interesting of these beauty methods is the full body scarf. It is a little bit difficult to explain so I will include some pictures, but it is essentially a sheet printed in many beautiful colors and patterns in many different fabrics. They wear it like a toga. When out in public it is pulled down and draped perfectly but inside the house hold, it is wrapped up and tied in this crazy fashion. They coordinate shoes, jewelry, shirts and pants to match the scarf. It is pretty cool! I love the scarf (amel-hof).

The concept of beauty is very different here than in the USA. Moroccan women are expected to be fuller figured and Moroccan men are deemed attractive when they are smaller/ skinnier framed. It seems backwards based on America's concept of beauty but again, just another facet of life over here. I happen to greatly apprecaite how they incorportae culture, relgion and tradition into their beauty rituals.

Moroccan Music

It is very difficult to explain how integral music is in Moroccan culture. This was best optimized these last few days during my towns annual festival. It is a large festival that takes place in the town's souk area complete with lots of vendors, vegetable stands and lots of great Moroccan music. Over the three days I got to see some great traditional Moroccan bands playing their own homemade instruments, dancing in their traditional fashion and wearing their traditional clothing. One of the coolest groups I saw was a 15 man group dressed in the traditional long white floor length shirt and yellow pointy shoes who did this great music and dance performance that involved stomping on a metal wash-basin. It was quite awesome. This festival was full of these very unique acts that all exemplified how important music is in culture. On a related note, a Moroccan film and TV star emceed the event and she spoke a little English so we started talking. Turns out she thinks I am pretty and cool and wants to hang out with ME in Agadir. Just another sign of how far from home I actually am. Crazy, huh. Back to music, it is pretty much integral in life here. I find myself getting annoyed at the constant beating of drums and signing in Berber music until I realize how cultural it actually is. Last night, after the festival was all over, we headed back to the Zawid, ate bread, drank tea and talked for a little while. Around 11 I was getting tired and ready to head home when I was dragged outside. About 30 people who volunteered at the festival and women of the co-op had gathered together outside to celebrate the end of the festival with music. They were using glasses and spoons, buckets and jugs as instruments and signing these beautiful songs about life in the village, about God and about love. It was an awesome experience and gave me a brand new appreciation for music's role. I even got to show off my sweet new Moroccan dance moves I have been practicing and was featured in a song. All-in-all it was a great night and was a great way to end a stressful and fun festival week.

A picture of my co-op and the Moroccan flag.

A Big Party, In The Sunshine and Heat

The days directly following my trip to Marrakech over the 4th of July weekend I would get a knock on my door about 6:30 or 7pm at night telling me to come next door to the co-op for a party. I went the first night and danced and joked around, but I didnt really think it felt like a "party". The next 4 days we did exactly the same thing, lots of dancing, lots of music, not a "party" feeling. Turns out we were practicing for a real party that happened on Saturday of that week. The saturday party started at 2pm and went until 8pm and it was outside. Most of the time we were outside in 110+ degree heat. The amazing part was not that i packed water, so I survived, it was that the women were still fully covered in 10 layers of clothing each. Their faces were fully covered due to the presence of men and frankly, I thought I was going to die in my skirt and one shirt. It turned out to be a good day despite the insane heat and I even got an award at the end of day and a sweet arabic book. The moral of the story is that even 10 layers of clothes, the women survived and had a good time doing it.

We Separate the Genders

Last but not least, the men and women at the festival had to be separated by gates and security guards. I asked why men were on one side and women on the other with about a 50ft gap between them and then women told me that the men cannot be trusted to be around that many women. Pretty crazy huh. Just another cultural norm that shocks the outsider but seems perfectly normal to the people of my village. In reality, I enjoy and appreciate the separation because it prevents the unwanted marital proposals and asking for my phone number that I have awkwardly avoid. It also allows me to enjoy the men in souk who try and get my attention. On a related note, my counterparts brother was in town for the festival this past week and he lives in Rabat with him family. He is also pretty good at English and told me last night that men of the town have been asking him for the past week whether or not I would be interested in marrying them and if he would give them my phone number. Pretty funny huh. Since I don't have a father to ask permission, they were asking my counterpart's brother. Of course he did not give out my information and politely told the men that I was not interested in marriage but it is just more proof that most of what happens in town goes right over my head. This silly language barrier is a blessing and curse for sure.

Again, I am sorry for the complete randomness of this post but I hope you enjoyed a little peek into my brain and are now feeling the urge to write me a letter :)