I have lived in Morocco one entire month and I can’t hardly believe how quickly it has passed. Everyone said that it would pass quickly and there were many days I didn’t believe it could be true, but it really is going by quickly. I am working hard at learning the language and being somewhat unsuccessful. We have our mid-term examination this week and frankly, I have no idea if I am going to pass. Some things I just understand, science and math, they just make sense. Language is an entirely different story. You can ask anyone I knew growing up, I was just never successful at grammar and language, which is making learning Tashlheet quite difficult.
There are 6 of us environmental volunteers learning Tashlheet and as expected, some are catching on faster than others. We do anywhere from 4 to 6 hours of language a day and then go back to our host families and speak Tashlheet until we go to sleep. The other Americans are a welcome relief from the intense and constant Tashlheet we hear at home, and the English provides a nice transition period before I am an alone in my village with no English speakers around. I am getting better as the weeks go on but we will be at our site for our visit in about 2 weeks and I hope my language drastically improves before then, or else it will be a lot of short sentences and simple commands at my site ☺
One of the main things that Peace Corps stresses during training is learning to integrate yourself into the community. If my final community is anything like my training community, I will have no issues at all. They have been so welcoming and warm that I can only assume all of Morocco is this wonderful. I want to paint a picture of my community for you, just so you can begin to empathize with what life is like here.
My community is located about 30km away from the “big” city of Ouarzazet, which is only about 70,000 people. The only way to get here is to take a taxi from the big city to a smaller, hub city, then catch another cab to our town. It is located between two Kasbah’s which provide some tourism for the region but little income for the people of my village. There is one school, servicing grades one through six. After 6th grade, students must travel to another city to attend the intermediate and high schools. There is one mosque and supposedly 7 tahanouts (shops) but I have only ever seen 5 open. These little shops carry necessary supplies, like propane (Buta) gas, noodles, flour, yogurt, milk and some other smaller items like candy and soda, my personal favorites. The town was developed between a main paved road and the river. The houses are all located next to the road and the fields are located next to the river. Over hundreds of years of living at this site, the people have realized the risks and benefits of their environment and adjusted accordingly. Unlike many developments in the states, the people of the village have moved their houses away from the river and further upland to prevent flooding and to reserve the most fertile land for farming. This way when the river snakes and floods, their houses are not flooded out.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, the village has a water dilemma and I have gotten some more information on it. Right now we are on day 15 without water to the village. Basically some poorer quality pipes were installed to pump the water from a main hub town and they have failed. In an effort to prevent more breakage, they have stopped providing water to the village. There are two main problems with this, number one, they still have to pay a usage fee for water, despite the fact that they have none. Number two, they have to work way way harder to get water. When I first got here, I was not as worried about the water because most if not all, of the water that comes through the pipe is treated and safe to drink. Now that we are on day 15 without running water, we do not have that luxury of safe water anymore. There are two options for the people of the village to get water, a well or the irrigation ditch. Neither are better than the other and both are pretty risky, as far as bacteria growth ect. Despite these challenges, the people of my village seem not too bothered by the excess work involved or the risk, they just go about their daily lives like they always have. This is starting to seem like nothing to them, this lack of running water. It makes me laugh whenever I think about it because I can remember maybe one or two times in my entire life when either the water went out or the electricity was our for a hour or two at most, and the people of St. Louis entering panic mode, even suing the electric company for these problems! The people of my village don’t flinch at a power outage or a water absence, they just keep on living!
In regards to the water, I have started to become a lot more careful of what I am putting into my body since the water we are drinking either came from an irrigation ditch that is fertilized with animal manure and from a well that is located below where most of the septic type systems were put in, thus I worry about leaching. I have been boiling my water and purchasing most of my drinking water from the tahanout. This is problematic because it produces lots of plastic waste which is not recycled and cannot be composed, so we are not really sure what to do with the bottles yet. The water situation at our school is an entirely different issue but what I can tell you from personal experience is that water is extremely heavy. I remember that from carrying cases of Whitney’s water up to our room in the sorority house but man, it is quite a work out carrying 10+ liters of water a couple of blocks from the well or irrigation ditch to our home.
The nice part of the water shortage is that I have become more aware of my water usage and the amount of work needed to get the water to use. Since water is heavy, and I get tired easily, carrying 10+ liters of water back just so you can take a shower seems silly. Instead you can use a liter or two to rinse off and it will do the trick. This may sound gross to nearly all of you in America, and I completely understand. I was once a shower every day kind of gal, but frankly if you had to carry those 40 gallons of water you use to shower everyday up a hill to your house, you would think twice about if you really needed that shower or it could hold off.
The same is true for washing clothes. Claire has figured this out quite well in America, but I think its mostly laziness instead of and eco conscious mind, but either way. You really do not need to wash your clothes every day, every other day or even every couple of times you wear them. Clothing can actually last quite a few uses without getting so smelly the people around you start to express concern. Underwear is another issue entirely and should be worn once and wash but thankfully they are easy and require little water to wash. Since I have been here I have only washed my clothes twice and it is actually working out okay. Washing your clothes by hand with a washboard is a water/ labor/ soap intensive process and doesn’t need to be done more than once every week or two. Also, hang drying your clothing accomplishes the same thing a dryer does but with significantly less (aka none) electricity.
So here’s my request to my American family and friends, for two whole weeks, drink the water from the tap. Get yourself a plastic or reusable (if you need one, we have lots at my home on Kerth) bottle and drink tap water. It tastes great, doesn’t waste plastic which requires lots of oil, water and electricity to make and as much to recycle, and it is SAFE. ABSOLUTELY SAFE. The water in America is treated and ready for your use, so try it out. You will save money, plastic and just may find that helping the earth can help your budget too!
Throughout our training we have done a great deal of community integration and information work trying to figure out as much about our community as humanly possible. We have learned about associations, needs of the community, sources of income and more importantly, why people act the way they do based on their situation. We have learned a lot of the communities relationship with the natural world that surrounds and sustains them as well as the social and economic programs in place to help make the community better. One random fact we learned is that a main source of income for the community is actually money sent from relatives who work in bigger cities and have better jobs, since there is not a great deal of opportunity for work in our village.
The one source of income in the community besides just general labor is farming. The fields are stunningly green and actually relatively productive for the rocky and dry soil that they have to work with. They grow lots of olives, almonds and alfalfa. One interesting fact is that the almonds and olives as well as the oil are not sold at the souk (weekly market) like I would expect, but instead used for personal use or sold/ bartered for by people within the community. The almonds and olives we eat are delicious because they come from the fields right next to us and are tended to by local villagers. While I think they would benefit greatly from a cooperative that could sell these products at local markets, they seem to be doing okay just trading amongst themselves.
The whole point of explaining my community to you was for you to understand that the people of my village have lots of time on their hands and like to use it being social, like most human beings. This has made them extremely hospitable to me and everyone one else who is in the town. No one is ever too busy to stop and say hello or to ask how your doing. One group of unmarried women a little younger than me have taken to me quite quickly. I am sure I provide them some sort of daily entertainment with my lack of Tashlheet or French, my inability to carry excessive loads of grain from the fields and my inability to cook bread from scratch, but whatever the reason, they have become my friends. Friends being a relative term since about 91% of the time I have no idea what they are asking me or what they are talking about, but they are nice to me, serve me tea, look at my pictures, practice my language and show me around the village. I get lots of “do you have this in America” questions and most of them are humorous. Some of my favorites include, “does America have cows” or “does America have water than runs all the time”. They are asking because they are curious and know little about my homeland, a place very foreign to them, and I am always happy to answer. Explaining that America is not just a land of money and wealth, but that people farm and work and cook and do a lot of the same things that Moroccans do. One of the three goals of the Peace Corps is to teach Moroccans about America, which I am trying to do every day. My new friends even helped my milk a cow, which I haven’t done since a class I had in college.
One of the greatest experiences I have had with this group involve me coming home from school, tired and sort of cranky, to a group of women who want me to hang out with them. Somewhat resistant, I convince myself that I need to have as many experiences as possible, so I head out with them. They take me to a new home I have never been too and I am not exaggerating with this number, there were 13 women and 26 children in this compound. They had gathered all interested parties and children to come check out this “American” who was living in their village learning Tashlheet. I got poked and prodded by the children and asked lots of questions by the women, most of which I didn’t understand and couldn’t answer. I appreciated the fact that so many people wanted to come and learn about me and my story, despite the somewhat crazy feeling of being put on the spot with limited language skills with so many people. Another important point, that some of you will find humorous is that Moroccan women and Moroccan men hold hands with the same gender as a sign of friendship. As most of you know, I pretty much hate holding hands. I am not sure why but I have always preferred to have my space and holding hands violates that, so you can imagine the look on my face and feeling uncomfortable as two of my new friends grabbed each of my hands and we walked around the village. Numerous times I tired to break the hold, but it wasn’t going to happen. I guess this is one part of Moroccan culture I haven’t quite embraced yet.
Most of my time in the village is spent either in the school, walking around outside or with my host family. The days are packed and after dark is filled with host family bonding. I know I have mentioned this before but my host family is great, really great. I have been blessed with a loving, energetic, young, patient family who has welcomed me with open arms. As payment for their kindness, I have been trying to share a little bit of me and my ways with them. I have taught them to leave the skins on their veggies, since the skin contains lots of nutrients, not to overcook their veggies so they can maintain these same vitamins and minerals. I have showed them how to wash their hands before dinner and after using the restroom and how to brush their teeth in the morning and evening time. I am not sure if they will retain any of these habits, but little by little I am teaching them what I can, and they are in return, teaching me way more. Just the other day my host mother and aunt dressed me up like a Berber bride and let me take pictures looking like a Moroccan rock star. This was quite an awesome experience in female bonding. I appreciate that my mother treats me more like a friend than a child and that has worked out in my favor. There are always lots of little ones running around and having fun, something that has helped me integrate better and something I cant wait for my family to have back in the states.
One last final story I wanted to share with you in this long blog post (I apologize) is my trip up the mountain. My village is located in-between two smaller, older mountains but on clear days you can see the taller, snowcapped Atlas mountains. For weeks, my group has been talking about climbing up the mountain to get a better view, I have had absolutely zero intention of joining them. Mountain climbing/ walking just doesn’t really seem up my alley mostly because it is hard, sweaty and I seems like a lot of work. I figured I would just get the pictures from them when they came down, but I am so glad I succumbed to peer pressure and made the climb, it was absolutely breathtaking. Much like that silly mountain in Thailand I climbed, it was hard and definitely required some resting periods but was so worth it when I got up there. I have to send a shout out to my much more outdoorsy group (for example, two of them biked over 6,000km from California to Florida this fall) for helping me out and not leaving me behind! Once we climbed the initial mountain, we got a great great view but it just wasn’t good enough for everyone but me, so we climbed another smaller incline to reach the tallest point around, it was awesome. We got an amazing view of my village, the river, the mountains and the area surrounding. Moroccan desert is truly a beautiful place. I will post some pics so you can see what I got to see. All in all it was an invigorating climb and I am super glad I did it. I think there are more hikes in my future!
Thanks for making it through this extremely long post but I want you guys to feel like you are here and a part of this and I want you to learn a little bit about Morocco in the process. I miss you all greatly, every day. Keep the letters/ emails coming! I should get my final placement on April 15th, then I will know where I will be for the next two years, I will keep you posted. Love you all!
