The Dog-Days are Over

The information for our spring camp board.


Our new co-op building which should be finished in June.


Morocco can be beautiful, when it rains.

I was in the beginning stages of panic-mode. I started asking the really big questions that are really better not to answer (i.e. What am I doing here? How will my life be better because of this experience. Am I even helping people?). Right about the time I was entering mental-breakdown stage something happened.

I opened my Peace Corps folder, that was tucked away in a box, far out of view.

This folder is packed with all kinds of useful and even some useless information given to us at various stages of Peace Corps life. I never open it. I repeat, I never open this folder. After a year in, there is nothing in there I feel the need to reference back to, until now.

In that folder is a piece of paper titled "Life-Cycles of a Peace Corps Volunteer". Some volunteers in a sub-saharan African country put it together about 10 years ago but magically, it seems to hold true.

This paper told me everything I needed to know.

I am in the 11- 15 month stage where according to the paper, things are just not going well. It says volunteers can feel impatience with self, program or system, doubt about the program, role and self and lethargy. This paper hit the nail on the head.

I didn't start feeling this way until about a month ago, right about the time my flight landed in Marrakech after my brief stint in America. Apparently volunteers feel this starting in January, I must have been too busy LSAT studying and enjoying London to notice but alas, the time has come.

This is not to say all volunteers feel this way, at this particular time, but I find comfort in knowing that enough people felt this way for someone to write it down and distribute it, which is good enough for me.

Don't get me wrong, I love Morocco. I love my village. I love the women I work with. I even love the cous cous fridays and my quaint rock house. What I don't love is the feeling of having been here a long time and not really having "accomplished" anything. Accomplish is a vague word in the Peace Corps that we throw around like it maintains it's American meeting. It is a tricky word and one that does not help out questioning volunteers.

My self- doubts about my accomplishments accumulated into a tangible and real problem last week. After much debate and back-and-forth phone calls between Peace Corps, myself and my village, it was decided that my village would not be getting a second volunteer. This turned into my local counterpart calling my Programming Manager in Rabat to "complain" about my lack of "doing".

Needless to say, this was a low point.

After the phone call from my programming manager I cried for a while, ate some cookies and then kicked my butt into action. I wrote a list of tangible and very possible goals for the coming year. I set up a meeting with my counterpart. Things were starting to look up, until I had the meeting.

I brought a translator and things were sort of down hill from there. Apparently my counterpart and I are on different pages. She wants me to do the sort of development work that involves a large cash influx (i.e. the purchase of a car), I need to do the sort of development work that doesn't require that. We did get some good ideas worked out and I at least got a chance to explain where I was coming from. We set up a plan, sort of and now we go from here.

After the meeting we ate cous cous, drank tea and all was well. I suppose grudges don't last long, at least past tea time.

For now, things are looking up. I have had a lot of great interactions this past week with members of my community, come up with some good ideas on my own and even have 2 events planned even before my trip to America. My language is finally getting "good". I am at the point where I don't cringe meeting new people or being asked questions. I am feeling good. Our new cooperative building will be opening up in June, then the women's center will start coming together and the projects should increase. Inshalla.

In other news, spring camp was a blast. I spent 5 days with 9 other American "counselors" and probably 20 Moroccan "staff" helping 170 students learn English. The goal of the camp was English immersion, which was nice because it gave us an excuse to speak English without feeling guilty. We taught English lessons, hosted clubs, organized a scavenger hunt, had English Olympics and even danced like a real Moroccan on traditions night. It was unlike any camp I had ever been a part of, but certainly a good time.

I was shocked and amazed by how different the kiddos were, compared to my conservative village. The boys and girls talked freely, sat next to each other at meals and girls even wore tee-shirts and shorts. This was a whole new Moroccan world I had never seen before.

Volunteers who live in smaller and more remote communities have a much different experience than those volunteers who live in larger towns. In these smaller communities, the kiddos have to follow the rules and traditions of the culture and religion much more closely than the "big city" kids.

I enjoyed watching their interactions and getting to know them. It was like a breath of fresh air. We did have some hiccups with 170 kids, mostly minor fights, but that was to be expected. After all, two grown men on my bus yesterday got in a fight over nothing and one was kicked off a moving bus with blood all over his face. It's hard to expect the kids to be much different.

For the final event, the Spectak, Hannah and I taught our beginner English kids "Baby" by Justin Beiber. Some of them even learned the rap (although I was there in to help). They had a great time and it was cool to see a room full of Moroccan kids and counselors singing along to a Justin Beiber song. It was testament to how much influence American pop culture has, seemingly everywhere.

Also, my kids loved Ke$ha, the singer, although the word "kesha" in Tashlheet means "blanket" so they kept asking why an American singer would call herself "blanket". I found this very amusing.

Camp was great and I am sincerely looking forward to next year. It was by far one of the most fun things I have done since moving to Morocco.

This week we welcomed 3 new Health volunteers to our region. A fellow volunteer, Marge, and I headed up to Agadir to meet them. After a brief argument with the ATM machine near the taxi stand, the machine ate my card and gave me a "come back later and get the card" receipt. This was annoying for two reasons. First, the bank was closed so I couldn't get my card back. Second, I don't live in Agadir. So after making the trip back to Tiznit with the new volunteers, I got up at 6:30 am to travel 2 hours into Agadir and retrieve my card. I did get it back, thankfully and made it back to Tiznit in plenty of time to take the new volunteer Alisa, to my friend Sami and Dave's site.

This week I also got a COSing (finishing service and going to America) volunteer's bedroom set! I have been waiting a long time to get my bed off the floor and the time has finally come. Nicole (the volunteer leaving) had offered me her stuff if I could arrange transport from my site to Tafroute to come pick it up, about 100km. It only took me 2 tries and I found someone who would do it for my price. For about 50 dollars, I found a man with a truck to drive to Tafroute, pick up my things and drive back to my village, twice. He forgot some key pieces the first time, despite his constant blaming of myself and Nicole.

Now my house is finally finished. I have nothing else on my wish list. I have a nice mattress, a handmade bed frame, a new dresser, a large mirror and my fan to complete my bedroom. I even hung my "Berber" pride flag that I bought at souk with Sami and Dave. I feel whole.

I wasn't sure what to do with the mattress I already had, but I knew who I wanted to have it. One of my favorite families in the village is a widowed mother and her three kids. The kids all have to sleep on the floor. I initially didn't want money for it but since I am currently facing difficulties convincing my village that I was not a cash cow, I had to charge something. I decided on 150dh, which was fair for her income level and also gives me some money to take a little vacation to Agadir with.

Despite my several days of panic-mode, things are going good, great actually. I am happy with my co-op, excited about finishing my house and anticipating the upcoming projects and my trip back to America.

I know that the transition back from America is going to be rough, by maybe my expecting it will make things a little easier.

Thanks for hanging in their with me and for all of your support, blog-o-sphere. It means more than you know.



Myself, the new mother and the new baby at the baby naming party.


Our all-male Berber music group in my town.


These kids won the scavenger hunt, so other kids pelted them with water balloons.


Hannah and I at Spring Camp.