Celebration

Celebrating my 23rd birthday in Morocco and a few observations…

I’ve never been a big birthday person.  I don’t mind doing something small or nothing at all.  So my 23rd was perfect according to my standards.  My closest friend here in Morocco decided to surprise me and came the four hour trip to my site.  But if that wasn’t nice enough, she went out of her way to go the nearest big city and bought all the fixins for really good cold cut sandwiches and a bottle of wine. The last time I ate white bread slices was probably before I left the states.  

Any who my site mate, friend, and I spent the day hiking to the river and later we made spaghetti with homemade sauce.  Enjoyed a few drinks and spent the night talking on my roof.  The next day was spent recovering, per usual.  All in all it was a great birthday.  

Before we came to our final sites, we were all given a timeline of the usual emotions that volunteers face.  So that 3-6 month period is known to be the hardest.  We’re thrust into the culture without our LCF safety net and CBT site mates to rely on.  We’re in the limbo period.  

The only expectations the Peace Corps have of us now is to work on language, start building meaningful relationships, and look for potential counterparts and just integrate.  Easier said than done, believe me. So this is the time where homesickness starts to hit, feel a little lost and unsure of role in community.  

How does this pertain to me… let’s see… homesickness… check.  Uncertainty of what the heck I’m doing here… check.  Emotions everywhere… check.  This place is a roller coaster.  One day I might have a great conversation and feel somewhat confident about language, the next I might not be able to understand the easiest questions. But then there are times when I feel like skipping down the road and hugging strangers on the road.  I want to say “Can you believe I’m here?! This is so hard and I’m here, doing it!”.  

So folks, now is an up period and it was all set off by my birthday.  What a great birthday.  I’m looking forward to gathering in a month for Post Pre-service Training.  Hopefully get some really helpful technically training.

Observations and thoughts…. 

1. With the Fourth of July coming up, I wish I brought a thing of sparklers. 

2. Usually after you move into a new place, then you start to notice the things needing fixed.  My bathroom sink is leaking like crazy and I have noooo idea how to turn the water off. Where do people turn the water off to their faucets or anything if say… their hallway is flooding.  Hopefully the landlord fixes it soon… 

3. Almost all 500 GB of my external hard drive is being used up by movies, tv series, and music that has been swapped between volunteers.  Who knew the amount of free movies I’d end up with.

4. I encountered my first man who would not shake my hand because of his religious beliefs. 

5. Had a guy ask me where my brother was (my site mate), I corrected him and then later 

that same day he asked me where my son was (meaning my site mate). Hahah I got a real kick outta that.  He was thoroughly confused. 

6. 8 adorable mutt puppies are living in my neighbor’s yard.  It takes every ounce of strength I have to not take at least one in.  Tagulefte has a lot of wild dogs and cats.  The other day I counted 10 just in the souk area on my walk home.  

7. Still not quite sure how Turkish toilets work… so it’s a pit underneath the house, apartment, etc. but what happens when they fill? Hm… I must investigate further, that and HOW DO I TURN THE WATER OFF? Haha 

8. I miss grass. Mowing in the summer and smelling fresh cut grass.  Walking around barefoot.

9. I’ve eaten more watermelon in one month then all my previous 23 years combined. 

10. So babies eat normal food as soon as they can… no puree baby food, just some bread soaked in oil or super mushy potatoes, or anything really. Just got me thinking I really don’t know anything about maternal and child health… Any website articles are welcome. What can hurt a kid that age? How much is too much of something for babies? And popcorn definitely a bad idea right? (I didn’t feed the baby popcorn, I even tried to convince him he had no teeth to chew it… it didn’t work). 

But that will do it for now… hope everyone is enjoying my rollercoaster with me.   

Apartment Found!

I haven’t written a blog in while and so here we go… what’s new?

First and most importantly… I found an apartment! Technically we are supposed to live with our host families for 2 months and it’s been one month, one week, but I am so ready to move out and I have been slowly putting together my apartment. I have a good host family and they give me space and the food is really good most of the time, but I’m so ready to not eat dinner at 11 and not eat bread and oil for breakfast. I’m ready to take my bucket baths indoors instead of outside…. Ha and I’m ready to blare my music while I hand wash all my clothes. Also I’m ready to go to the bathroom in peace, (the lock on our bathroom doesn’t work and it’s right by the front door…). Also the bugs that keep eating me up everynight are not my favorite… All those things aside, I’ve enjoyed staying with my host family and look forward to still eating meals with them and seeing them very often. It’s amazing what we get used to and honestly if it weren’t for the new bug bites everyday, I wouldn’t be in such a rush to move out.

But let me see… my apartment is 2 bedrooms, a salon, big kitchen, and I have roof access! The roof access was the most important to me. I can do laundry up there (I already made my clothes line). I can grow plants. I can sunbathe if the mood strikes me. I can read. I can enjoy the stars and even sleep up there if the weather really does get sweltering. Speaking of the heat… we’re probably about the same as Illinois now. 90’s ish most the time, but wow I forgot how much I am able to sweat. No fancy smanshy air conditioning here. So if I’m sweating and so unwilling to go outside here when it’s the 90’s… I can’t imagine what my fellow pcvs are going through to the south where it can get almost 145 degrees. Seriously… I’d be a puddle in that sort of weather. I’d have to sit in a little baby pool and constantly drinking water, because it’ll all come right out through my pores, as quickly as I drink it, I sweat it out. Gross… I know that’s exactly what everyone wanted to know… haha

So just in case if anyone is wondering what I actually am up to everyday now that I’m out here on my own. I don’t do a whole lot…. But the days fly by. On a good day… I go to the health clinic, study, talk to a few people. Do some laundry? Read? Nap? Lately I’ve been cleaning my apartment a lot. Um… have tea with families and I have a few friends. Sometimes we go on walks. Oh yeah… hang out with the site mate. He’s got me into dominoes and watching the Wire. Good stuff.

So yeah… so far very laid back. Soon I hope to go swimming in the river and um… start on my community analysis in depth. It depends on the day, but yeah sometimes I definitely wonder what I’m doing here. I can say that for the most part I’m really happy and enjoying myself. It’s only been 3 months, but so far this whole thing has been a huge confidence booster. I mean I found an apartment without really being able to speak the language well. There are no classified ads or realtors to go through. You find friends and community members to help you connect with the people who have an extra house or empty downstairs. Anyways I hope to start being more consistent with my writing soon and I’ll do my best to get more pictures up soon. I think my pictures speak louder than my words. Hope all is well in the States.

Culture and such

It’s been a little over one week living in my final site… and what is it like to have no schedule, no structure, and being somewhat my own boss again? It’s been good and soon will be great. I say somewhat my own boss, because while still living with a host family my eating and sleeping schedule is pretty much on their clock. So eating around 10:30 at night is still normal and getting up around 7:30ish is still done frequently. Whenever I have control over what food I eat and when I eat… oh man, that’s when I’ll be over the moon, but for now I’m doing well.


I realize I’ve never just written about Moroccan culture yet… So I wanted to write about my favorite customs and encounters with Moroccan culture.

1. I’m a fan of the handshake greeting and the respect shown to elders. Whenever Moroccans greet someone (and doesn’t have to be the first time they meet), they shake hands and then put their hand to their heart, meaning they take the greeting to heart. Also depending on the relationship ladies will often kiss each other’s hands or cheeks. In my first home stay family, the kids every morning would greet the parents with a kiss on the head as a sign of respect and I got a kiss on the cheek. The different types of greetings are vast and take time. If I greet a person in a group, I greet everyone in the group out of respect. This custom will be coming back with me, especially with family. It’s just a warmer way of saying hello.
2. Moroccans eat incredibly late dinners. I’ve also noticed in CBT at least, we ate a lot. Breakfast, midday tea/snack, lunch, tea, more tea, dinner around 9ish? (and that was early). Also lunch is usually the big meal of the day, so dinner tends to be bread and something or soup. 3. God phrases are in everyday language and used bzeff (a lot). Any plan or talk of the future is followed by Inshallah (If God wills it). Inshallah, I love saying it. I don’t believe in destiny, but I appreciate that many Moroccans do and thus this phrase is used. Also lamdullah (Thanks be to God). Anytime you greet someone, this will be used. Everything good? No worries? Family good? Thank God! Good stuff. Also a favorite… Bismillah (In the name of God) usually said before eating or drinking. Who needs praying before a meal when you can just say Bismillah. The quick and easy way to get that prayer done and it sounds cool too.
4. Moroccan hospitality is pretty awesome.
5. Before coming to Morocco I knew that relationships between men and women can be quite different here. Males and females my age don’t socialize together quite like we would in the States. Friendships between men and women are not common. For Muslims “dating” just isn’t done… well sort of. I have a host cousin with a “boyfriend”, but their interactions are basically done only through texting and phone calls. In my site there is a main road with 2 or 3 cafés pretty close to each other and only men go to cafes. So when I walk down the road, I do feel like I’m in man’s land and like I’m intruding, but I have 2 years to test the barriers and I already feel much comfortable with my place among the men. For the most part they just want to know where my site mate is… (who is a man and joker, so he talks to everyone). So I don’t mind hearing Mani Dawd (Where’s David) every couple minutes. I mean it’s only the first week… it may get old, but oh well, one day at a time.
6. The pace of work is slower…. I knew that, I knew that, I knew that… but I had to really try to keep my calm when we waited at the Ministry of Health for almost 4 hours for one paper (that we didn’t even really need) to get signed by a man who didn’t end up coming back. We were told to come back the next day at eleven and we went at noon, but still waited another hour for the paper. I thought I had patience, but I will really need to work on it here. **Also a note… Moroccan sense of time… party starts at 5? Okay, we’ll be there by 7. Add an hour or two to any start time and that’s when it really starts. Ha A very leisurely pace of work and time here.

So those are just a few interesting aspects of Moroccan culture, but very important ones. All in all, I’m starting to really enjoy my final site. Today we went to my host family’s fields and had a picnic under the trees. Also did a short hike to this abandoned house on top of this hill near the fields, about a mile outside town. The view was amazing and the area very suitable for camping. So one day Inshallah, a group of us will be able to camp out there.I foresee these next two years being an interesting combination of work (at a very slow pace, so if I end up only doing one thing here… don’t judge haha) and pleasure. The country of Morocco is gorgeous and I honestly can’t wait to start traveling around it. But for now, my goals are to find a house, meet someone new for tea every other day, and to really start tackling my Berber language. So hard! Ishqqa.

**Life is too short to waste…

Today I am no longer a PCT

I officially swore in today as Peace Corps Volunteer. I am no longer a trainee! Lhamdullah! (thanks be to god, phrase used always here)

The ceremony was short and sweet. There were a few speakers and then I raised my right hand and repeated the oath. No turning back!

There isn't much to say about swearing in, but that I felt extremely proud when the Peace Corps Morocco director talked and when I took the oath I was beaming. It's been a hard 9 weeks and has gone by so fast. Our CBT group has been through a lot to get here and I'm really going to miss having their daily support. I'm looking forward to starting my service and it's weird to think it's finally here. Hopefully at the end of this I will still be full of pride for what I have accomplished, but for now I will take pride in my day to day accomplishments, no matter how small.

To be honest though.... Man I will miss my Azrou family. They are amazing people and the whole community was great. I already have plans to visit them next year Inshallah, but know I will be getting phone calls from them every once in a while. Hopefully my tamazight will be better and I can really express how great they were during training.

For a parting gift, a lot of the members of our CBT printed out pictures and gave them to our host families. My family was over the moon excited when I gave them a photo album with some of the pictures I had taken. It was the first pictures they had of baby Omar, so I think that alone was a hit. Then we went through all the old photos they had while they put them into the photo album and they insisted I take a picture of the family when the twins were just babies. It was incredibly sweet of them. I also gave the kids my jump rope I brought from the States, because honestly.... I hate jumping rope, I'm not going to do it, sure I need to excersise, but not in that form. Well anyway.... my oldest host sister started crying she was so happy. I know they'll get a lot of great use out of it. I hope that we will stay in touch as best as we can. I really did feel like part of the family.

Now comes the hardest part?

We head off to our final sites tomorrow and will be there for 3 months until we all meet again for Post Pre-service training. Now I will be going from structure, schedules, Americans all the time, amazing host family: to lots of free time, lots of pushing myself to meet people, lots of frustrations with language and continuing my learning, new host family and dealing with the burning desire to move out on my own.

I knew what I signed up for. Peace Corps is a challenging, rewarding experience, but really though these next two months.... I might need some cheerleaders. You can do it Spencey! Okay, so I'm not such a bad cheerleader for myself, but a few hoorahs from home make all the difference.

But who knows.... maybe these two months will be a piece of cake. Either way..... I say.... bring it on! I'm a PCV now. :)

Back from site visit...

It's been an interesting week. Visited my final site from Sunday through Friday morning. Life in my new site is a bit different than CBT. Well a lot different. It's quite a bit bigger, in the mountains hour away from another town any direction. It has 2 schools, a highschool, the local government officials, a sbitar with 1 doctor, 1 nurse and 2 midwives. They have 5 internet cafes. Granted one of them only has one computer, but still there are a lot. There is a teleboutique (basicly a phonebooth) on every corner.

My host family is nice, but a lot different than my CBT family. I knew that I had it so good in CBT, that my new host family would have to be super duper amazing to top them and I wasnt really expecting that to be possible. My family has a lot of older extended family and my dad is a nice guy, just seems intimidating. They're a relatively quiet family and actually speak quite a bit of Arabic. Also the little kids only speak Arabic. So I'm definitely going to have to start learning both and work on my French. Unfortunately no one at our sbitar or in the local government speaks the berber dialect I've been working on. It'll be tough but I'm up for the challenge.

I also see why there are two volunteers there. There is no shortage of project ideas and health education oppurtunites. Also the trash problem in town is a little over the top and the wild animal situation. Lots of baby chicks and chickens running around and cats and dogs.

Anywho it was a challenging week and I know I will have to start pushing myself to find people in the community who are willing to help me talk and soon find a Darija, Berber tutor.

Today in Hub, we all shared stories of our sites and it was good to hear. While I thought my town was rough around the edges, I heard worse and then I've heard great stories of people being super excited to already start working with volunteers. It's nice to know we are all in the same boat.

Leaving CBT for a week

It's about a month and a half now in Morocco... and the theme of these past weeks should be "I don't know where I'm going, why we're going, what to say, but HEY I'm in Morocco and this is awesome."

I've been on trips with my host mom to different family members near my CBT and usually I have no idea where we're going exactly or why, but I'm along for the ride. I've had quite the adventure. One time we crossed two very rickety bridges over this almost raging river to get to a town after trekking through fields for almost a half hour and that was only after we finally got a tranzit ride (we waited 2 hours). There are almost too many stories to count.

Just to make sure everyone at home realizes how great my host family is.... so yesterday we went to a really goregous motel of a guy we played soccer with and the point was to practice language and so forth. Well it actually rained! and so it was pretty darn cold out. So we're sitting in the salon drinking mint tea and eating peanuts waiting for our friend to be done with tourists, when he comes in the room with my jacket and he's like... "Hafida here you go." (My Moroccan name is Hafida) And I was quite confused... I didnt wear a jacket or have one the last time we were there. So it turns out my host mom went to the school to bring me my jacket, because it was raining and cold, then walked all the way to the motel when she was told where we were. They are super sweet. I really feel like a little kid that is part of their family. She brings me my coat when it's cold, she runs to the school when I'm sick, and yeah they're all great. My host family set the bar really high for the new host family I meet on Sunday.

One more fun adventure I had this week... I COOKED FOR MY FAMILY. Haha The plan was to make pizza. I mean who doesn't love pizza and they've never had it. After arriving in the hub site to go to the big supermarket, I soon started to doubt this idea.... I mean my family doesn't have an oven. They just make break over a fire and it's sorta like an oven? I still don't understand how the bread making process works. So finding the big supermarket closed, I decided on plan b, spagetthi. I made the sauce from scratch and as I started to grate the first tomato... wow it was rough. So it took almost 2 hours, but by the end I had an awesome enourmous communal plate of spaghetti. Tomatoes, tomato paste, oil, salt, sauteed onions and green peppers, Italian seasoning mix, and it was topped with steamed zucchini. A tad on the salty side but it went well. Even having communal spaghetti! I'm bringing back communal dishes to Illinois, less dishes to wash.

Anyways.... we just got the big news today. Final site announcements. Where we will be living for 2 years! No big deal.... WOW....

I won't say much now, because we're visiting our sites on Sunday and staying for a little less than a week. I'll write after I have my real first experience. But I will say... I'm basically in the mountains, I have a site mate (another health volunteer in my site) so it's sort of biggerish, I hear it's pretty gorgeous? and my new host family in demographics is similar to my family now.

So the site mate part was a bit of a shocker, because we're the only two health site mates, but it'll be fun and if there are two of us, they must have the work. More to come later....!

Correction!

I have to just mention that I was so wrong when I said we only eat couscous on Fridays. No, we eat it allll the time. It's quite delicious and depending on the day I do eat with my hands. Alright just had to make that correction.