Culture, even when you dont expect it.

I just had one of those life changing “cultural experiences” everyone keeps talking about. We stayed a little late from school, around 6 or so, and I walked home afterward. I was met by Hamid who told me the parents weren’t home, which was unusual but I didn’t think anything of it. I grabbed my computer and the table and headed for the living room to get in some music listening and studying Tash at the same time.

About 15 minues later, Fatima came to the house, told me to grab my stuff and follow her, we were going to meet her family. Great, I thought, some other cultural interaction. We went to this great house with outside painted doors I had seen everyday when I walk to and from school. The house inside was amazing. A huge open room and at first I thought it was some sort of a women’s club, but nope it was a house. I believe her mothers house but I am still sketchy on the details.

Needless to say there was still no furnature but a TV in one corner and a little hangout area in another. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, a reason we don’t always know. Tonight just proved that further. After I got a prime spot next to grandma, who was about 120 years old, and tried out my chit chat tash skills, I openied my book and started studying.

The reason I know this night was meant to happen was because it brought me all things I had been wanted to do. Meet more people in the town and family. See new houses. Help cook. Get uninterrupted time to just study my book, practice my langague skills and see the stars.

At first I thought they were preparing dinner but Im pretty sure there was a man only party happening in the next room and the women had the back room to themselves. We sat there for nearly 5 hours…. A lot you might say but honestly, the walk back gave me the best view of the stars I have ever seen! It was amazing how clear and bright and HOW MANY there were. Wow. So all in all I would have liked to have eaten around 9 instead of 11 but oh well and yeah I missed some sleep but I also got to see life behind the scense of a Moroccan party.

Also, my host mom rocks. Everyone was heckling me about eating and she told them that I don’t eat that much at dinner and then handed me an orange, because she knws I like oranges for dessert. Shes great, really. I couldn’t have asked for a kinder women to be my teacher. One of these days I will be able to speak to her, but as she reminds me, little by little I will get it!

Imick s mick (little by little).

Washing your clothing, harder than it sounds.

Each day in Morocco seems to get better. There are just so many new things to learn and be apart of, that I cant possibly take it all in.

Today was a half day of language since it is Saturday and we just did some language, ate lunch and then practiced on the new bike that was provided by Peace Corps. After that I came home and we washed my clothes. By we, I mean Fatima while Isma and I watched. It is SUCH labor intensive process but I honestly don’t know if my clothes have ever been so clean! I am not strong or skilled enough to do my own wash just yet, but maybe soon I can figure it out and Fatima will let me try.

I also met up with Martin and went to the café where we saw an amazing view of Alsfalo and the neighborhering areas. Sammy and Dave met us there so we got a little bit of gossip off our chests and I feel a lot better. I really do like hanging out with my family and the older brother finally came home today. He goes to high school in a neighboring village and he is quite awesome. He also speaks a little French so its slightly helpful to me. Right now I am watching, This is It, Michael Jackson’s movie that Sammy gave to me today. All in all, I am loving living such an interesting life. I know it will get old eventually but I cant wait to share some life skills with everyone back home ☺

Every day is an adventure.

We are a couple of weeks into my Moroccan adventure and I can honestly say that it is getting better. There are multiple times a day I have to force myself to realize what I am actually getting to do. While I know that this phase will not last forever, it has been great so far. Today I watched my mother, Fatima, do some of the most extradinorarily simple things. She was able to conquer difficult tasks with such ease. I never knew hand washing dishes could be such a breeze, or cooking a meal, from scratch would seem so simple. I am constantly impressed by the Moroccan women I meet, and their ability to do so many things at once with such ease. In America, loading the dishwasher seems like such a task, much less washing them all by hand with only two buckets.

Today was also my second bucket bath since I have been here. Frankly, I don’t mind it one bit. If I could convince my family to let me use up so much water and buta gas to heat it up, I would take one every day. Its actually a really simple task. Boil water, add cold water to make it the right temperature. Take your bucket with water, smaller bucket and supplies to the bathroom/ bitlama. (Basically the bathroom is a room with the turkist toilet as a drain). You then get your hair wet, soap up, rinse, and repeat for your body. It uses WAY WAY less water than in that States. Today I took a pretty good shower/ bath for about 2 gallons of water. I cannot even imagine what my brother’s 20 minute showers at home use. After your done you just leave the bitlama and get dressed, feeling fresh and clean.

I have decided that I am an every day shower kind of gal, but since that isn’t a reality, I think I am going to be an every other day shower kind of gal. Washing your body is easy and requires little hot water to freshen up between showers, but my silly hair is another thing. After about 2 and a half days it turns into a giant greesy mess, which my hairdresser tells me is good for my hair, but not so good for my classmates or self image. Therefore I resort to being an every other day shower gal.

Other than that, Morocco is a great place. The langugage is difficult but the scenery and people are beautiful. Everyone has time to greet you and meet you. No one is ever too busy for a chat or an introduction. The families get to spend a lot of time together, granted, it is in front of the TV, but time together none the less. You are never too busy for a tea and bread break and dinner is made COMPLETELY from scratch. While I am sure I will get bored of these things once I am living on my own and don’t have children to entertain me or homework to do, it is quite awesome having this time for now. I am finally getting a good amount of sleep and that is a great feeling.

One thing I haven’t talked a lto about is the food. Moroccan food is different in some ways and the same in other ways, to American food. For one, they are both full of oil, which is bad for my friend Jessie’s face but the same as the States at least. We eat cous cous, rice and we always have bread. Tea, very sweet, is always a staple and it is served at every single meal which works out great for me, since I love sugar. Its not looking like im going to be loosing a lot of weight here, I am just trying to make sure I don’t die a carbohydrate induced death. We eat a lot of bread, cous cous, rice and sugar, mostly since they are cheap and easy to store without a refridgerator.

Our cook at our langugage and cross culture facilitators house makes good salads, so I do my best to stock up on fresh veggies and fruits while I am there. One thing I really like is the fruit for desert concept. I never realized that an orange or banana could actually curb my sweet tooth just as well as chocolate, I am going to have to bring this back to the states. Also, I am super glad I have weined myself off soda. I am down to a soda every couple of days, unlike the 44 ouncers I was having once a day at home. They are a lot harder to get a hold of and they aren’t cold, so it wasn’t really a hard habit to kick actually. Hopefully I can keep it up, we will see ☺

Life is good here, really good and I am hoping to find out more about my final placemetn soon, as soon as I do I will let you know.

Bslama.


My site mates at the weekly souk.


My host sisters and I.

Living with my host family.

I really cannot even begin to explain how drastically my life has changed in the last 8 days. I am overwhelmed just thinking about it.

The real adventure began when we were assigned to our community based training site. Our site is about 35km from our hub site and since there are six of us, we get our own cab and we get straight there in about 25 minutes, which is nice since we don’t have to try and transfer luggage or anything else for that matter.

Once we got to our CBT site, we met with the host fathers of all of our families. My CBT group consists of one awesome married couple, Sammy and Dave, one returned Benin Peace Corps Volunteer, Felicie, one Texan, Isabel, one landscape architect entrepreneur Martin and myself. We are quite an awesome bunch.

I am not sure what I was expecting after the meet and greet, but the events that followed changed my world forever. We were then “set-free” to go with our host fathers back to their homes. Mind you, it was about 4pm in the afternoon and dinner isn’t usually until about 9pm. This means I experienced the single most awkward 5 hours of my entire life. What do you do in a small mud house in the middle of a village in the middle of no where Morocco with a family that doesn’t speak any language you understand, why of course, you watch Satellite TV! I am honestly not sure I wouldn’t have picked up and caught the next flight out of Casablanca, had it not been for the very small satellite TV in the corner of the Maali’s living room.
When I first go back to the house, I was in the midst of a mild panic attack asking myself questions like, why am I doing this?

Am I actually crazy for wanting to do this? Will I survive the night? Will I have the strength to get up the next morning? Turns out I did. First off, my host father introduced me to my brothers and sisters, Ahmaaderin, Hamid, Iman, and Inan and my host mother, Fatima. He then showed me my room. One of only 4 rooms in the compound, my room was covered with nice rugs and even had a locking door ☺ There wasn’t a bed, so I was little confused, but after a little help from Fatima, I made my quasi bed out of blankets and with the help of my sleeping bag, it has worked out quite nice so far! We then went into the living room, which has a small TV stand and TV in it. No couches or tables, its quite simple, filled with blankets and love! The next room is the kitchen with a cook top but no stove or refrigerator, so my dreams of cold water went out the window. The 4th room is a multi-purpose bedroom/ storage room/ ect for the family. All in all, the house is quite small but nice for the resources they have.

The bathroom is located inside the compound, but outside of the actual rooms of the house. It is really just a glorified outhouse, complete with an outlet and a Turkish toilet. Not the nicest bathroom I have ever been in, but it definitely gets the job done.
When the tour of the house was finally complete, the family gathered in the living room to sit down with their favorite past time, watching the TV. Most if not all, of the families in my village have a TV, it really seems to be their only way of entertainment, and the TV is always on! After Mohammed insisting I take the remote, I found one of two English-speaking channels, CNN! Yes, my Moroccan family watched the first gay couple in DC gets married in village in Africa. Thankfully, they could not understand what was happening, one perk of being the only one to speak English!

We then had Tea before dinner, and then dinner came. The food here is really starch and bread based but it’s quite nice actually, so far anyway. After dinner, its pretty much bedtime, which is great for me. It gives me a sold 30 minutes to decompress and come to the realization of everything I had done that day. Night one was not nearly this calm, but it turned out great. Sometimes you find strength in the strangest of places, like some pictures I happened to have in my notebook, a good country song, or the realization that you cannot give up only 5 days after trying something. Whatever it was, I spent the night and woke up the next morning with a new outlook and renewed appreciation. My host mom cooked me a chicken noodle soup of sorts for breakfast and then my host dad walked me back to school at Said’s house.

Said is our Language and Cross Cultural Facilitator who’s sole purpose is to teach us all about Moroccan language and culture. We spend our mornings learning language and afternoons exploring and meeting local big wigs in our community. We also have our own cook who cooks our delicious snacks and lunch for us everyday. She is a local girl from the community whom we pay to help us out, it’s really nice to have her!

We have already started to get a taste of Moroccan culture and all that entails, mostly Moroccan time. People just don’t seem to be in a hurry and while that can seem frustrating at first, it’s actually quite relaxing. We have had numerous scheduled meetings that just didn’t happen and the men of the town seem to be always crouching behind walls, I assume to get out of the intense dust storms we have, but I honestly cant tell you why.

The school system in Morocco is in desperate need of some reform. My town only has 4 rooms for school and only 3 teachers, so the classes are taught 2 levels at a time with only one teacher. The rooms themselves were pretty nice but lacking some of the necessary learning tools, we in the states used to learn (i.e. computers, flash cards, games, posters, ect). The teachers were great but the kindergarden/1st grade teacher only has an elementary school education. The children in my village can only go to school until the 6th grade, at which time they have to find a way to get to another city to pay to go to school. Most of the farmers cannot afford that extra expense, so they simply quit school with a 6th grade education. I give a great deal of the credit to the teachers who are spending countless paid and unpaid hours to help educate the children and the women of the community. They are amazing individuals working hard every day to make change :)

Our group also got a chance to look around at the Women’s Center and it provided some insight on what our future projects could look like. Essentially, a French company donated the money to build the building and some supplies, ect but didn’t find any sustainable way to make it happen after their money was gone. The building has no electricity since no one will pay for it. They also have a storage room full of computers, sewing machines, books and bookshelves but they lack to resources and teachers to learn to use these things. No one in the town can operate a computer, so no one can teach everyone else how too. Same thing goes for the sewing machine. This experience was just a reality check about how we need to make sure our projects are sustainable and will benefit the community after we are gone.

In general, I wake up everyday with a great appreciation for my surroundings. While my family doesn’t have a lot, they are full of love and laughter. I am learning to live on less and realize that it doesn’t take a lot to sustain me. For the time being the focus is language and studying, hopefully soon this hard work will pay off and I can start a project or two. I just still cannot believe I have been given this opportunity and frankly I don’t mind taking the good with the bad, its just all a part of the experience!

I miss you all and love you greatly.


My adorable host family.


The dust storms that blow over the Salty "aka Chocolate" river near our village.


My living room with the TV.


The awesome roofing of all of the homes in my village.


My Host Mother, brother and two sisters. There is another brother and dad not pictured.


An outside view of one of the school complexes (ie 2 rooms) of the 4 rooms total for the school.


One of our many language and culture classes at Said's house.


A view outside the hotel bab sharah


Shopping at a local hanoot to get some veggies for our trip!

SEND ME LETTERS, oh and heres some more pics.

My Cali friend Jessie modeling the stylish PC attire and the proper use of a headlamp for many situations!



We finally got Moroccan cell phones. The communication here is expensive (see below) but its nice to know in the case of an emergency I can get ahold of people!



I knew you wouldnt believe me if I told you, so here you go Mom, I am wearing the skirt and will probably be wearing it a lot :)

Also, FYI just wanted to say that shopping with Moroccan men is equally as difficult as shopping with American men :)

That is all, it will be an early morning tomorrow!!!

Bslama.