So I have been worried about Thanksgiving for a while now, like since before even leaving for Morocco. Thanksgiving was always one of my favorite holidays and my favorite "family times". My mother cooking delicious food and pies, a freezing cold golf game early in the morning and college football after nap time were staples of my childhood. This was going to be the first year I missed it.

I also have vibrant memories of my Aunt Carol crying profusely whenever we did our "what we are thankful for" section and my cousin Tim was deployed. I envisioned my mother doing exactly the same.

The good news is that my fears were completely unfounded. I celebrated Thanksgiving with my new adopted family in Essaouira and it was a blast. We ate delicious food, had amazing conversation and spent an entire day in the dark with no running water :) We even witnessed a star gazing night better than I have ever seen. Six shooting starts in total. Amazing.

So thanks Essa crew for letting me join the fun! The food was great and the company was even better.

Now the Claire's arrival preparations begin! 3 weeks and counting.





The cab ride into Nina's site. It was a little tight.


Our delicious Thanksgiving Dinner.


The beautiful rainbow outside Nina's house.

My new desk.

My LSAT books, coffee mug, my new rug, my map of Missouri, my computer, my Tashlheet dictionary, my Moleskin and my desk. All key things in my life :)

What a Week.

This week has been arguably my busiest, both culturally and work-related, since moving to Ait Erkha. I didn't expect it, but alas, it came. I have been waiting for it.

Monday: Woke up early, checked in at the post office, bought my weekly groceries (since Monday is Souk day in my town) and then was supposed to pick up my new desk. As it turns out, the co-op was selling bread, so I sold with them. What was supposed to be only 2-3 hours turned out to be an all day thing, with us not leaving souk until dusk (around 6 pm). Needless to say, I didn't get to pick up my desk but I was exhausted from the day so I didn't mind.

Tuesday: Maria (my closest friend in the village and also the VP of the co-op) and I woke up at 6:15 am and grabbed the bread the women had been cooking since 3 am. We headed to Tighreirt (tear-reart) in the back of a stripped construction work van. I didn't think it was possible, but all in all there were 25 people in this van. Yes 25, thats not an exaggeration, I counted. Maria and I both kissed the ground when we finally got into town (a 45 minute ride away).

Maria and I posted up right in the middle of a walkway into souk and sold our bread. This time it only took us about 4 hours to sell 100+ pieces but it was not without its emotional costs. First of all, this souk was 100% men, except for the beggars. This made Maria and I stick out more than normal. More than one man approached Maria and asked how much it was to "rent" me. They thought I was a prostitute. Awesome. The ones who weren't trying to pay me for sex were helping me do math like two times three is six. Ten minus six is four. At first I thought this was just their way of helping a "poor foreign girl out" but then I started to get really frustrated, especially when they were doing the math incorrectly. One man wanted 10 dh change back from a twenty dirham bill when he bought 12 dh worth of stuff. It was funny that these men felt the need to help me do simple adding and subtraction when that would never happen in America. Finally around lunchtime we sold out of bread and headed to a fellow volunteer's house, Tiffany, for lunch. Tiffany made us some delicious lentils, eggs with cheese and even Crystal Light. It was cool to see Tiffany and show Maria another volunteer's place, plus Tiffany is way better at Tashlheet than I am so I enjoyed listen to her and Maria talk. At 1 pm we caught the bus where more crazy men started at Maria and I, only to have the money collector on the bus pick a fight with Maria. It was quite amusing because Maria kicked his butt. Needless to say, we only paid 4 dh for a 5 dh bus ride.

When we got back into town we convinced Maria's brother Mbark from Rabat to pick up my desk in town with his car. Success, my desk was finally delivered to my house. The truth is that the desk I very specifically designed is actually much taller than I wanted, but it will have to do for now, at least until I can get a local guy with a saw to come make it shorter. That may be a while.


The most adorable little girls ever.



Wednesday: See previous post. Mabroke Eid.


The sheep.

Thursday: Wedding day. At 7am I get a knock on my door. It was my friend Aiesha and she was inviting me to come to a wedding at her families compound. I have been hesitant about attending other weddings in town mostly because they are long, loud, crowded and involve lots of staring and question asking in Tashlheet or Arabic I don't understand. It usually ends up with me sitting by myself against the wall while the children stare at me and ask questions. This time thought it was Aiesha's family and Aiesha is like my second mother, I couldn't miss out. Around 1 pm Aiesha send her daughter, Hannan to come get me and off we went. Of course it started out exactly like I expected with lots of staring, lots of questions and lots of women. The good news this time was that my Tashlheet is getting better so I was better able to understand and answer the multitude of questions. Even thought I tried hard, the children found me and instantly became attached. After about an hour of them being a little too close for comfort I faked a trip to the bathroom and found my co-op women, decorating the wedding room. I got to help hang wedding rugs, place plastic flowers and keep children away. About 3 hours in, I asked Aiesha if I could go home and change clothes since everyone else at the wedding was "dressed up" for village standards and I was just in jeans and a jacket. After about 5 minutes of meeting, the co-op ladies decided it was time for me to wear a Tukshita (a traditional Moroccan wedding attending attire). My reluctance was overturned immediately and then we headed to dress me like a Moroccan Barbie doll.

The theme of this entire day was the different cultural concepts of beauty. In America the bride wears a beautiful (and expensive) white wedding dress that normally shows some skin and took months if not years to pick out. The bride at this wedding was wearing a white Tukshita, similar to the one I wore, with plain white Moroccan style shoes. Her head was covered with a white scarf and she wore eyeliner. This is probably the same white outfit that all of the girls in her family wear. The groom was in slacks, a white dress shirt and a white Jellaba. All of the women in attendance were wearing their version of their "sunday best". This is a little difficult to explain because these type of clothes just aren't sold or worn in the states but all outfit comprises of a multitude of layers, keep that in mind. On top is a dressy type floor length, long sleeved dress of sorts. Its usually made of some shiny material and decorated with sequence. On top of that is a pleated, elastic wasted skirt made of some synthetic material in a bold floral print. It is preferable if the dress underneath and the skirt over it clash in just about every way possible. Since its getting colder outside, the women are wearing crazy patterned socks in either stripes, checkers, floral or camo print. Their heads are covered with a tight fitting scarf and the whole ensemble is covered with a large white scarf that is draped over their heads but nearly hangs down to the floor. The whole outfit is put together with a thick black line of eye liner, only for the married women. The unmarried girls wearing something similar but its generally better fitting, better matching and looks more "put together".

I was pranced over to Aiesha's house and dressed in a maroon and gold Tukshita. The fabric was beautiful but I felt like a fool. My head was covered in a huge white scarf and my eyes were covered with a thick black line of eyeliner. When I say I felt like a fool, I felt like a big fool. The Tukshita is essentially the shape of a brown paper sack with a string tie at the waist. I do not have the most petit of frames and am usually very cognsant of the type of clothing I wear and the way it makes my "shape" appear, just about everything I wore was the opposite of attractive on me. This is the way I felt, anyway. Aiesha took me to a full length mirror and I burst out into laughter, I couldn't believe I was going to be wearing this in public. Despite what was going on in my brain, Aiesha loved it an pranced me back to the party. The women almost died of excitement. This is not an exaggeration. They couldn't stop telling me how beautiful I was, how I looked so much like a "woman" (ie a married woman) and how they could get me married in no time wearing this outfit. The pinnacle was when the one man in town that speaks basic conversational English saw me and said "Wow! You look so beautiful." I almost burst into laughter. Inside I felt about as ugly as I could possibly feel. I felt so out of place and awkward in my own skin and this man was telling me in English how beautiful I was, it was almost more than I could handle.

The rest of the day I got lots of compliments and lots of questions about whether or not I was married (typical for a normal day, but I was dressed in "married women" clothing). The one giant benefit is that I covered my head and face with that giant white scarf and the men had a harder time distinguishing me from the rest of the women, so they left me alone.

The wedding was a good time and I enjoyed hanging out with the ladies and seeing a couple show affection towards each other (completely shameful in any other context). I never saw them kiss, but I did see hand holding and thats a big step, believe me. I was lucky enough to have my picture taken with the bride and groom but the groom harassed me the entire time I was sitting there about why I wasn't a muslim. Annoying. Before I left he wished me good luck with my soul. Super annoying.


The wedding was packed.

My participation in the festivities ended when about 80 people crammed into a small room and started dancing and singing Berber music. It was fun for the first hour, but after a while sitting on the floor of a room with 80 other people in a Tukshita just wasn't going well for my mental sanity. I left when the men/ boys started throwing money at the women who were dancing. Sort of like a village version of a strip club I suppose, but just a little too off for me.

Directly after the wedding I headed to Maria's house and the entire family got quite a kick out of seeing me dressed in my Berber best. Oh man.


Dressed in my "Berber Best" with the bride and groom.


Friday: I had been promising my host family for quite some time that I would come over and have lunch with them. This is always an ordeal so I had sort of been blowing it off but Friday morning my sister showed up and told me I was coming to lunch at 1. So I did. As it turns out, I was right, it was quite an ordeal. I got there are 1 pm exactly with the beginnings of a headache. Friday is like the Sunday of Christianity or the Saturday of Judaism in Islam. After Mosque all of the men came back to my host family's house for lunch (since women don't attend mosque in my town). As it turns out I helped cook, serve and clean up cous cous lunch for 45 men. The women (ie my host mother, my host sisters and I) finally ate about 3:45 pm. At this point I had the worst headache I have ever had in my life, so I headed home. It was cool to see my family, chat it up with most of the extended family and eat my sister's AMAZING cous cous.

Saturday: After a morning of intense LSAT studying I was ready for a break so headed to Maria's house to see all of the kids. Since lots of family are in town for Eid, so are the kids. When I got there, my counterpart informed me that we were having lunch at fellow co-op ladies house. I was reluctant but came back at 2pm to head out. As it turns out we didn't leave until about 3pm. When we got there the most amazing spread of breads and dips were out. We followed that with a delicious tajine, cous cous and finally some cookies and tea. It was really a great lunch and the reason I even mention it is because it was the first time I felt really comfortable in a situation like this. I had enough language to converse, enough culture to understand the order and process of things and felt like I was really contributing to the conversation instead of just being a bystander. I felt like I really belonged.

Eid El-Kebir (or Eid Immaquor).

Yep, its official, I survived my first Eid. Volunteers have been warning us about this big holiday (literally translated, Eid Kebir means big celebration) ever since we got to country last March. They warned us of the sheep death and the kebabs made of sheep parts most American's wouldn't touch. Well, day one (of three) is over and I am happy to say I made it through.

The fun started last night at 8pm when the women of my co-op started their all night bread making party. After refusing numerous invites to join the party I hit the sack and got up at 4am to help them out. One by one the families (mostly children) filtered into the rickety old bread making shack and got their "nice" bread for the days festivities (2dh a piece, or 25 cents). At about 9am I headed into my house, grabbed some breakfast and took a little nap. By 10am the neighbor's kids were beating down my door, it was time to kill the sheep.

I celebrated this day with my counterpart and her family. She lives with her two sisters, her three kids and her husband so together, they killed one sheep. Her brother, Mbark, and his family were also in town from Rabat, so they killed another sheep. All of the kids were dressed up in their holiday best and the dad's were outside preparing the sheep to be cooked while the women were cleaning up, tending to the crazy little children and preparing the necessary vegitables and spices for cooking the sheep.

The whole day reminded me a great deal of most holiday gatherings my family had growing up. Kids dressed in their Sunday best eating dirt and rocks, women chatting away about life and the kids, the dad's outside avoiding the women, sports playing on the TV and the inevitable fight between the kids that always involves screaming and crying. It is ironic how a celebration so different from my own celebrations growing up could be so similar. Its like there is a book somewhere that taught everyone how to throw a party. Crazy.

After the sheep were killed one by one, so that one sheep didn't hear or see the other sheep dying, the kids and I migrated into the cooking area to begin preparing the kebabs. The kebabs were made of liver, intestines, fat, lungs, heart and other various parts of the sheep that didn't include any of the parts I would have liked to eat. The meat was seasoned, skewered and grilled while the children kept the cats away. Frankly, I feared being woozy about the killing and the dismantling of a recently living and breathing sheep, but it wasn't bad. I am sure it is much more sanitary and humaine than most of the killing of the meat I ate at home (except my Dad's deer meat). I sort of enjoyed watching a family appreciate the sheep that much, even saying a little prayer before killing it. You could tell that nothing was going to waste or being taken for granted, like that sheep's life wasn't take in vain.

The family that I celebrated with is very aware of my hesitation towards meat other than chicken and didn't press too hard after my first kebab, but I did have to have just one. It took a few tries to swallow the fat and the heart, but after I wrapped each piece in some bread and tried to chew as little as possible, it wasnt too bad. I firmly believe that if I would have not seen the death and taking apart of the sheep, I would have though they were pretty good. The rest of the party-goers ate them like hot cakes and at the end there was nothing left.

After 2 rounds of tea (around 2pm) the kids, moms and I gathered together for a quick afternoon nap time. Nap time is pretty common in my village and is not frowned upon at all, frankly its encouraged. After about an hour of rest we got back up and started the cooking all over again. This time it was intestines, fat and stomach. These things were all pressure cooked to a nice gooey consistency. Frankly, the pot did smell good, but my stomach was still having difficulties from the heart I ate earlier so I passed but everyone else chowed down.

All in all it was a great day filled with a great sense of family and community. Widowed women stopped by with their children to eat and chat and wedding preperations were already in the works for a wedding a few weeks from now. The kids got dirty and played in the rocks, much to their mother's dislike and the men watched Brazil play Argentenia in soccer all while the women hurried around the kitchen like little elves either cleaning up from the previous meal or preparing for the next. Seeing this family made me nostaligic for my own holiday celebrations that I will be missing out on. The good news is that this family lovingly welcomed me into their home and treated me as one of their own, giving me a sense of purpose for now, and for that I am eternally greatful!

Wish me luck!

After much debate and deliberation, I have decided to take the LSAT on Feb 12th, 2011 in London!

My desk will be delivered Monday so I can start my intense studying.

Laundry.

As I write this post, I am coming down off a moment of insanity where, for a brief time, I was actually yelling at my laundry.

Since moving to Morocco, I have embraced many cultural norms and realities of life in a developing place. I have mastered the absence of running water, covered my arms and legs on 120+ degree days and eaten parts of animals I really didn't want to eat. For some reason, I cannot seem to master my laundry.

When I first moved into my own place, I enjoyed taking the couple of hours to wash all of my clothes and hang them to dry. Now that I have been doing it for 8+ months, the fun has been drained. Now that its cooler outside and the cold basin water doesn't feel so refreshing anymore, I have begun to resent having to wash my clothing at all.

The hatred sort of came to a head yesterday when I woke up extra early to get started on my wash so it would be dry by nightfall. I am one of the few volunteers without roof access or an outdoor courtyard to hang up my wet laundry. The first few months I was hanging a rope from one of the unfinished rebar pieces sticking out of the building next to mine and securing it to a rock wall attached to the bread ovens. This worked, sort of. At least once a month, the piece of string would fall off the rock and send my newly washed clothes onto the dirty ground below, forcing me to re-rinse everything I had just taken 2 hours to wash.

At first, this was annoying, then it became downright frustrating. Two weeks ago, before our IST training in Marrakech, I did some laundry, hung it out to dry and then poof, the string snapped in half and sent all of my clothes back onto the dirt. I didn't even bother rinsing them off, I just strung my string in a new place and hung them back up. Of course, the falling caused a delay in the drying time, so they werent dry before it got dark. About an hour after sunset, my counterpart collected all of my still wet clothing and knocked on my door, telling me people were going to steal my clothes if I left them out all night. Awesome. (Also, who would want to steal faded, holey, somewhat dirty clothes).

This time I strung up my string in the same place and just as I got the last thing hung, my host mother came by and said she needed to use the bread ovens. The issue being that my string was tied to the door of the ovens. Crap. Since I basically refuse to hang my clothes to dry on the rock wall, mostly because they end up dirtier than when they started, I was in a conundrum.

I went inside grabbed my bin and threw all my wet clothes in the bin, frustrated and aggravated that washing my clothes is never a simple process. After huffing and puffing around for a while and yes, even yelling at my clothing, my counterpart secured a new holder rod into the rocks and went and got me a new string to dry my clothes on.

After she finished making me a new clothing line, I hung up my clothes and sure enough, they didn't fall, at least this time.

Now that my laundry line has been secured and I have started washing my clothes in warm water hopefully things will start looking up on the laundry front. The truth is that I can't wait to go back to America and wash and dry my clothes with little to no effort of my own. Oh the modern luxuries.

Despite the laundry being a pain, all is going well here in Morocco and now that "winter" has set in and our days are still in the low 80's, I cannot complain. I am sure I will not enjoy living in the land of the fire come June, its not too bad in November.

Oh yeah and Claire comes in 38 days and counting! Woo hoo.

A Beach Day in November

Life was rough this summer. 120 degree days were not uncommon and I threw myself a little soup party as soon as it hit the mid 80's. The heat was tough, tougher than I expected.

The one benefit to the insane heat of the summer is the nice and warm-ish weather we get in November. It is the first of November and we spent a whole day on the beach in Essaouira. Awesome.

As for Jancy, I am sorry you were in America during the "nice" weather of Taza and now the terrible winter will start. Hopefully you will warm up soon. Get your wood stove project piloted in your home :) Love you. Feel free to visit the desert south. (www.extractthehumor.blogspot.com)


The boys of Essa.


Us girls stayed clothed.


Camels walking along the beach.


My Chaco's, aka my saving grace(s).

In Service Training.

Yep, we're 8 months in country so we have a week of training in Marrakech. This training is full of information and shenanigans. Enjoy the photos.


Socorra and her souk prom outfit, complete with her Camps sweatshirt and her A's hat.


Jancy and I eating Thai/ Japanese food in Kech. Amazing.


Soco and I went to church, then McDonalds, then onto the bar. It was a good night.


Steven and I before Souk Prom.


Prom court.


My family (aka my parents).

A Field Trip.

As a part of our In Service Training we are at this week in Marrakech, the environment stage broke up into groups and visited some places of interest in and around Kech. My group visit a women's association in a village just outside the medina that focuses on social development issues with an income generating part. It was great to talk with them, get some ideas and eat some delicious homemade snacks!

Happy Halloween to me.

This Halloween was not filled with pumpkins and fright but thanks to a great care package from Miss Natalie Rada, my Halloween included some Halloween themed Mac and Cheese.

It made my holiday :) Thanks Natalie.


Halloween shaped Mac and Cheese. Yummy.


Thanks for the box!