So, on my way to Rabat for a yearly medical exam, I have stopped at my friend Liz's site near Casablanca to help her with a project. We have also had some time to make some freakishly delicious food. I know I talk a lot about food but I think it's because it's something I really miss a lot since I'm not at home for the holidays. Needless to say we've been making orange chicken, teriyaki beef, and most importantly today apple turnovers. Not only did we make applesauce to go into the turnovers but we were listening to Christmas music while making them. 

Liz enjoying orange chicken (which we called for sake of the dish, but it's actually orange turkey)

Watching Liz cook the turnovers on the stove. You never know what cool things you can do with a stove until you don't have an oven. 

Liz wanted to give a box of applesauce and turnovers to her shop keeper who lives nearby.

Well now that we gave the turnovers to the nice hanut lady, she invited Liz and I to her house. Hooray! She happened to have a bunch of family who lived upstairs and they had a baby. They let me hold the baby and I got to coo at it! I was stoked, haha. And then of course we watched the baby naming ceremony they had on dvd. Basically an Usbu3 (baby naming ceremony) is a party where everyone comes to the house and greets the newly-named baby. So, why are we watching a baby-naming party? Generally at parties or weddings there will be someone taping everyone and the bride and groom or baby and mother. Therefore, you can show every friend and relative who wasn't at the party what they missed! 

And thus ends another good day here in Morocco. :D

Girls Empowerment Camp

Since September, I've been working with my counterpart, El Jallali Abdelaaziz on designing and funding a Girls Empowerment Camp. I walked into the Dar Chebab (Youth Center) one day in September and we sat down and I asked him if he thought it was a good idea to make a camp whose goals were to encourage education, employment, and self-reliance among Moroccan teenage girls. The camp will be held at the end of January during the winter break holiday at the local girls' boarding school. The 50 attending girls are from my town and the surrounding rural villages, ages 15-17. Jallali and I have asked a female doctor, lawyer, and  leader of a carpet cooperative, all from my area, to speak to the girls. I have also asked 10 other Peace Corps Volunteers to come to the camp to help implement activities such as discussions on women's right's career development, women's health, and of course, dancing. The camp is also designed to empower more adult women in my community. I have asked for 10 women from the community to pair with a volunteer so that they may better instruct the girls through each activity.

Honestly, Jallali has been meeting me almost every day to help plan this camp and I'm pretty sure it could not have happened without him. He's helped me get this camp off the ground by turning in paperwork to the president of the community, arranging the camp space in the girls' boarding school, and talking to the ministry  of youth and sports about the camp. He's also been curious about writing his own grants, which in my opinion is fantastic. I am really looking forward to helping him make connections with various international and Moroccan organizations that will help him continue to do development projects. In my opinion, this is Peace Corps' goal number 1 in action (goal number 1 being: volunteers bringing technical assistance to interested countries).  

However, El Jallali and I are now looking for grantors, which happily, can be you dear reader! Feeling the Christmas spirit? Interested in International Women's rights? Why not donate to this camp and see the direct benefit to a camper's life? I invite you to donate to this project by clicking here: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=378-175

And of course, picture time: 

Here are the wall paintings that Rachel and I did during 3id K'bir (and talked about in a previous post). 'Bismillah' means, 'In the name of God.' You also say it when you eat and this is why we painted it in the kitchen. 

Here's the hand of Fatima we painted in Rachel's salon!

And here's me being ridiculous with Rachel's monster refrigerator. It's literally a monster. 

Do you see how ridiculously good our Thanksgiving was? It was SO good. Myself and a bunch of other volunteers celebrated Thanksgiving at Rachel's (another volunteer who lives close to me). We even had bacon-wrapped turkey! Egads!

And, of course, during 3id k'bir (the big holiday) I got bored and made pickles. :D They were delicious!!

So now you've seen some holiday fun with us. Please support our holiday fun by donating to my grant! You'll have my thanks forever, and if you tell me you donated, I can send you something neat in the mail! 

:D :D :D

The day the sheep came early.

Today I shall not post any pictures but I would like to forewarn you that this post will run a bit to the gross side. Prepare yourselves. Or don't read it because it's 3id Kbir-Al-Adha time in Morocco, which means, Moroccan Christmas time, a.k.a., 'let's kill the sheep!'

This holiday season I have decided to spend some quality time in my friend Rachel's town. She has dubbed her town 'Christmas Village,' in an order to provide a little anonymity. Anyways, Rachel asked me to accompany her during this 3id (Arabic for Holiday) because like me, she was a vegetarian in America. Neither she nor I relish the thought of seeing sheep being slaughtered ritually. But let's recap what this holiday is about. 

Recall the story of the prophet Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac found in Genesis 22. I'll quickly paraphrase the story: God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son but at the last moment, He intervened and stopped Abraham's hand. Abraham then noticed a ram caught in the bushes nearby and slaughtered it in sacrifice to God.

 Muslim's commemorate this miracle in two ways. The holiday not only signifies the end of the Hajj (or the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca made by Muslims) but it also is celebrated by ritually sacrificing a sheep. If you'd like to know more, click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/religion/islam/eid_haj.shtml

So Aly, you might be thinking, 'I was reading your title of this post and it occurred to me that wouldn't it be odd that a sheep would come early since it's not the Holiday yet?" (The holiday is November 7th this year). Why yes, dear reader! You are correct! I was not expecting to see a dead sheep yesterday, but see it I did. Here's the story: Rachel and I wanted to get some neat looking Berber Henna (think interesting geometrical lines traced in dark brown color on the hands and feet). Rachel had previously arranged with a family to find a woman to give us henna. At noon yesterday we went to the house, expecting to find the henna artist waiting for us. Instead we found a sheep carcass freshly killed, waiting for us in the entryway of the house. Rachel and I were both a bit surprised because we thought the holiday wasn't until Monday. In any event, we entered the house and waited patiently for a few hours before it became apparent  that henna wasn't coming but lunch was. Rachel and I have both done 3id kbir before and have explained to both our communities our feelings about meat (i.e. we don't eat it). So the family, wanting to please us, gathered some eggs and boiled them and asked if they could give us chicken. We agreed (I mean...you have to eat some meat here....it would be too offensive not to). They then served us a plate, which they called 'chicken,' but in reality was actually goat meat with boiled eggs around it. 

Retelling this story just makes me want to put my face in my hands. Anyways, we left back to our house and spent the evening drawing a mural on Rachel's wall. I'll post pictures of it soon. 

Happy 3id everybody! 3id Mubarak!

Henna and applesauce

Yesterday, in attempt to do work, I ended up going to my friend's house. Turns out she wasn't there so I took a nap on her couch for an hour. Eventually she did come back and offered to do henna on me and paint my nails. Spa day? Yes, very. 

This is my friend posing in her beautiful jelaba.

 This is my friend's sister who now lives in a big city so I don't get to see her too often. But it was nice that she was there so I could hang out for a while.

Um, this is us pretending to feed each other cookies.....but everytime I go over to my friend's house, she always feeds me these elaborate cascrutes (snacks). Score.

Here's a picture of the henna the following day. 

Yay for getting henna'ed!

Also, today I made applesauce and put in cinnamon and nutmeg. It's making my kitchen smell like Christmas. Haha. Love it. 

Pictures from me to you

Hey,

I wanted to show some neat pictures I've had in my camera. This first one is a particularly great sunset from my roof. You can just see the mountain in the background. :)

 I was standing on my roof and was pleased that my camera took a photo how great the clouds looked over the moon.

 Here's an evening shot of my town from my rooftop.

 From my roof to inside. It's so cozy in my house!

 I bought vegetable crates and washed them for what seemed like hours o.0 Anyways, I finally put them in my room and they're really helping clear up space.

 As I said in my last post, this weekend I did some serious shopping. Africa key chains!

 I'm such a sucker for earrings.

 I don't think this ring is particularly Berber, I just think that the designs were cool. Apparently it's silver...but only my geologist buddies could tell me for sure.

And this has been picture time with Aly. 

1 airplane down, 2 to go.

Hey All!

As per usual I've been busy. Busy finishing up Ramadan insomnia (You get so used to being awake at night that being awake during the day is weird), finishing doing nothing (people are coming back to town?), and finishing meetings held in the big city. For the last week, I've attended a volunteer training session, did some serious shopping, then went to another meeting for all the volunteers in the region. It's been busy and I think it will continue to be busy because so many people have returned, school has started, and the feeling of efficacy is in the air. 

First of all, I'd like everyone to rejoice in my purchase of a drip coffee maker. Many of you know that I have a serious coffee drinking problem, but am unwilling to change it. Therefore, in order to celebrate being in Morocco for ONE ENTIRE YEAR, (minus the two weeks I went home) I enabled my favorite vice. Point for me. 

Other cool things to update about: I'm really getting back on the saddle fast; I'm in the works of setting up a girl empowerment camp to take place in January. Inchallah, it'll be fantastic! I'm sincerely blessed by amazing  counterparts who want to work with me. 

Second, I may be doing an trash education project (or as I like to say, 'trashcation'), but more to come on that next month. 

For now, I'll leave you with a post I wrote in the Rome airport while freaking out about how to get to my next terminal and get a boarding pass. Proceed with caution as it was 7am and I still had two more planes to go before reaching home.  

August 2^nd, Rome Airport-on my way home to see the ‘rents.

Here are some important lessons from today’s not-yet-finished adventures.

First lesson: The ONCF train is so awesome for going straight to the airport and not giving me extra hassle when I’m already stressed out.

Second lesson: I found out through empirical means that the Casablanca airport is open and quite busy during the night.

Read: I arrived there at 9:30ish and left at 2:25 in the a.m.

Third lesson: try and get all yo boarding passes.

I think I’m going to give the Casablanca airport one thumb down for not giving me boarding passes all the way through. I mean, I’m only giving them one thumb down because they tried but were unsuccessful for some reason for not getting me my passes. However, half a thumb up for sending my luggage directly to Seattle. Good move there Casablanca.

Fourth lesson: Drink wine when it’s free.

The airline Alitalia is probably the coolest airline I’ve ever been on. Ten thumbs up for giving me free white wine.

Fifth lesson: Don’t panic and bring a towel.

Due to lesson three's occurrence, me getting off a plane to be ferried around by random buses going random places did not make me feel secure. Also, the fact that I knew I had to go talk to some desk at some terminal in which I did not have that information in order to get a boarding pass, did not make me feel good. In fact, it made my heart race. And then I tried speaking Arabic to everyone because doesn’t everyone in Rome speak Arabic? Needless to say, I’m having a really hard time not speaking in other languages while I’m in this airport. I definitely had a moment where I had to go, “Pull it together, Williams!”

Also, washing your face without a towel is uncomfortable.

Sixth Lesson: Cappucinos in the Rome Airport are delicious.

I’m pretty sure that doesn’t require explanation.

So, in conclusion, I think the best way to make me have an anxiety attack is to put me alone in the airport in Rome, when I know that I have to somehow check in and don’t have flight numbers or airline carriers etc. Check.

However! Rome isn’t as bad as I’m making it seem! I mean, if you’ve got the logic powers of a 10 year old, you too can triangulate destinations plus times in order to arrive at the correct gate, sans panic attack. C’est bon, no?

Hope you enjoyed that.
I wanted to put a picture of the Charles de Gaul airport in here....but I realized I already posted that...haha new picture? Ok! Here's a picture of me and my buddy Simo at a birthday party. Yay!

The rough life.

I finally got to experience a really big holiday here in T-town. I passed the end of Ramadan here, called Eid al-Fatir. Finally, on August 30th, everybody got to eat during the day! Hamdullilah! Interestingly enough, my good friend Rachel wanted to visit me for a while and came two days before Eid. Unfortunately for poor Rachel, due to the holiday, transportation shut down and she couldn't get out of town. However, she did get to Eid with me and made the holiday extra special.

During a big holiday like Eid, it's important to go out in the morning and visit all your family and friends and eat tea and cookies at everybody's house. Rachel and I ate at so many peoples' houses that we had to come back to my house and nap through the major sugar crash we had earned through our cookies. 

Here's a picture of Rachel enjoying the company of my baby host sister. 

During the Eid, Rachel and I got snagged into eating couscous at a friend's house. 

I am trying to intimate by my face how ridiculously huge this plate of couscous is. 

What a glorious day it has been! I've been gradually recuperating from traveling and being gone from T-town for two months and I'm really starting to feel myself again.  

Today began productive. I washed my clothes in the bathtub, dumped about 5 buckets of water down my three flights of stairs to clean them, and then squeegeed after. But then, I took a turn and watched about 2 hours of tv. Hah, summer and free time makes me lazy. I'm sort of just kicking around until work starts back up! Lo and behold, I think a little bit of work came my way this next week with people realizing I'm back in town and I'd love to teach English. 

However, I can only do so much alone and so I eventually came out of my house to go visit some friends. When I knocked at her door, my friend wasn't there but I did see that her neighbor's door was open. I walked over to their house and knocked on their door to find out if they knew if my friend was home. They said that they didn't know but then they invited me to come inside, which eventually turned into, "Come see the fields!" How could I not love seeing the fields in the late summer afternoon? Everything smelled rich and earthy and the fields were green. My hosts were kind enough to gather up figs, grapes, and mint to give to me. You should smell the mint! It smells like sweet candy you could just eat then and there. 

We came back to the house after we had wandered around the fields for a while. There my new friends made me mint tea and cookies. After a bit, the girl I had been looking for came into the house  and found me happily nestled in pillows, drinking tea. So everybody chattered for a while until my friend took me to her house for more tea and cookies. 

It's a rough life. 

Stormy afternoons in the dog days of Ramadan.

Okay, I will admit that returning to America was probably bad for morale. You go home, you see all your friends and family, and then return to isolation. I'm probably making that sound too harsh, considering how lucky I am to be surrounded by so many nice neighbors and friends but I can't help but sincerely notice that I am alone. There's also the fact that I haven't been alone for two months. But maybe it's good to be alone; how else do you notice the condition you're in but when you're alone?

And maybe here's another signal that told me that I needed to do some self critique. I went to souk (outdoor vegetable and fruit market) today, bought my vegetables, then came back and slept for another two hours. It's not superbly hot outside. I've been noticing I've been sort of skipping my usual coping mechanisms of exercise and guitar playing. So it occurred to me that I need to talk to other volunteers in country. For the last couple of days, I've been holed up in my house, trying to ease back into the swing of things.  However, it's Ramadan and I don't think I've explained what that is or how that affects T-town. 

Ramadan is an Islamic religious holiday where Muslims abstain from both food and water during the day and then eat at sunset. To know more about the holiday, I shall point you here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/practices/ramadan_1.shtml

Therefore, during Ramadan, this means that T-town is affected economically and socially. Shops are open in the morning and close in the afternoon, only to reopen after lftor (the breakfast meal, held after call to prayer for sunset). Many people sleep during the day and then stroll around town after the breakfast meal. Many children run around the streets in the evening, playing games and socializing. It's a unique part of the year and I'm glad that I get to be in T-town for this experience. 

But why name this post stormy afternoons? It's quite literally storming here, even if it is the edge of the Sahara desert and 99 degrees Fahrenheit, it's raining away. The weather is making me nostalgic for my moody cafe days. Who knew that it rains during the summer here? 

I'm really looking forward to the Autumn months. It'll be nice to get back to work and let the order of a schedule pull me forward. And, thanks to the marvel of cell phones and internet, I'm not that isolated that I can't just call a friend. :) 

And just for kicks and giggles, here's a picture of me, other volunteers, and campers from summer camp!

Home, and back again.

Okay, yes, I have been gone for a month and a half out of T-town, but I have not been just sitting down contemplating life! Let's cover where I've been first. Starting July 3rd, I packed a big suitcase, and went straight up to the capital Rabat, where I worked in an orphanage. Eleven days after that I went to another city named El Jadida, where I became a camp counselor for Summer Camp. And then lastly, I did another 5 days at an orphanage in the same city. So that takes care of all of July, which I had patiently worked through in order to get to August, where I took vacation to go to AMERICA. Oh man, I teared up just walking through JFK. I'm confident people thought I was nuts. I bought my first Starbucks in eleven months and told the barista, "This is the best coffee you have ever made." 

Sweet-sweet America, I can't say enough good things about you and how much I missed you. Your entitled-mid life crises, your barely legal mothers, your mountains of unattainable paperwork, your processes, your legal system and encumbered way of life, etc. The amount of infrastructure that America has is staggering. I mean, it seems as though EVERY road is paved! There are trees and flowers and greenery everywhere. The weather in the Seattle area was a nice cool 68 degrees Fahrenheit the entire time I was home. I was totally unused to it anymore. I got to wear jeans for the first time in two months! Holy cow! This was unbelievable. What a change from the upper 80s of the coast I had been enjoying, and the intense 108 degrees I was getting in T-town. 

Visiting America was an enormous blur. Basically, I went home, ate as much ridiculously good food as I could, shopped, and hung out with friends and family. I even saw a movie in a theater! Egads! Not to say that Morocco doesn't have movie theaters, it's just that they usually have Bollywood, Arabic, or French films. Occasionally there will be English speaking films, but they're usually from a few months back. So, it's a toss-up. But anyways, two weeks in America felt like an ice-cold shock to the system. I think I acted normally but inside I kept thinking that there is American life and there's Moroccan life, and they are two separate worlds. Or rather, one place has my American family and friends and the other has my Moroccan family and friends. I don't even know what to think. On the way back from America, I had a layover in Paris. So I had about 5 hours to kill and I was relaxing in the airport lounge, drinking coffee. While I was trying to put back together my broken heart after leaving America, I heard a mysterious airport voice calling passengers, and there indeed, was a certain 'Williams' called. But I thought that couldn't have been me, my plane wasn't leaving for two hours still. However, I went upstairs after a fair amount of time just looking around and minding my own business. So I looked at my gate and saw that boarding had just closed. So after I about started crying, jumping, and falling on the floor all at the same time, I had to go talk to the airline and switch my tickets, and blah blah blah. Happily though, there was a flight only two hours after my original flight was supposed to take off. I did indeed make it to Morocco only to fall into the arms of my beautiful friend Jolie who let me sleep at her house for the next four days. That's all I'll write for now. More soon. :) 

So, I thought that Charles de Gaul airport had fantastic architecture. 

Here's a picture of Jolie's dog, "Mushkil" (a.k.a. Problem) being adorable as per usual.

And let's end, of course, with some food porn. We made excellent pretzels!

Water is Life

Hey there,

So I know I've taken about a month and a half's worth of hiatus but before I start giving you the lowdown, but before that I'm going to give you some culture time!

As many of you know, T-town is a full on Berber (technically, the dialect Tashlhyt (Tash-l-heet)) town. I sort of forget, now that I'm hanging out with some friends in the North of Morocco that Berber culture is not as prevalent here. I realized that it was time to share with you and everybody else the daily blend of culture I experience. I can't even begin to give you the details on Arab and Berber culture, but click here to get an idea of Berber history and culture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_people

Now that that's covered, I want to show you that the rabbit hole goes deeper. Some friends of mine recently introduced me to a band called Tinariwen. This band is Tuareg (meaning, that they come from the interior of the Sahara desert). Also, to learn more about Tuareg people, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuareg_people
I love this band's sound, and it is somewhat similar to the music that's played all the time in T-town. Therefore, I want to share this documentary I watched with you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOu4fdlPiWI
And in case that that link doesn't work, youtube: Tinariwen, Aman Iman

Also, just for your information, 'Aman Iman' means 'water is life' in their Tashlhyt dialect. Curiously, I found out that you can buy Tinariwen's cd at Target (wow, the world is small/ recording companies leave no stone un-turned). And haha, yes, that is a shameless plug. Enjoy! BssHa! (To your health!)

Also, special thanks to Rachel Rubinski for this photo! :)

A peaceful day.

I'm so thankful to be home! After my long trek home from IST (In-Service Training), all I really want to do is get back to my modicum of normalcy in T-town. I finally broke down and got out the fan I inherited from the last volunteer and I had it blowing the whole night and I slept so well. Thank God. Two nights ago while I was attending a meeting, I slept in a room where it was so hot I kept getting up to splash water on myself.

Today I feel so thankful to be home because I'm just taking a day to be quiet. I sometimes feel that I spend entire days talking, which is wonderful because I am blessed by so many interested people. However, I also feel that it's healthy to have inside health days in my house. I woke at 8am and decided I needed to clean my whole house and do laundry. The only thing I haven't been able to clean yet is my room (so typical) but I think I'll get around to that later. Right now, I'm just enjoying sitting on my balcony, watching my laundry dry in the warm wind (it's near 100 degrees Fahrenheit here) and reading a book. Later, I think a friend will invite me to go for a walk this evening.

I love my life here. Right now I feel so peaceful and that things are good. Haha, I hope this feeling lasts longer than a day. I have noticed though that my crazy emotions that were so uncontrollable at the beginning have sort of evened out. I'm able to rationalize my thoughts and feelings and I've been realizing that I have a lot more patience with myself than I used to.


And now for your viewing pleasure, it's me wearing genie pants in Marrakech! Also, in the background you can see a guy taking a siesta in the cart.

Meetings, meetings, Meetings, Beach, beach, Beach

Wow, I'm at IST (or In-Service Training), which means I've been in country for 9 months or been a volunteer for 6 months. I can't believe that 9 months ago I was in America, drinking iced coffees, wearing tank tops, and eating bacon whenever I pleased.

I'm so so very happy that instead of Marrakech, where IST was supposed to be held, we were moved to MeHdia. Mehdia is a tiny little beach town which is faaaaantastic. I sit in meetings all day and then go to the beach to go body surfing. Oh life, how I adore you right now. Actually, I pretty much always adore life because I'm in Peace Corps which means I'm accomplishing a bunch of life goals. Now I just need to figure out what my next life goals are. (haha, oh life goals. Well this is why I'm in Peace Corps....I know it's only 6 months into service, but it's never to early to start negotiating and navigating the other side...)

Anywho, I had quite the enjoyable time getting here to Mehdia. So I spent the night in Marrakech two nights ago with a bunch of lovely volunteers and then had the pleasure of their company on the train  the next day. Everything was fine on the train. It wasn't even hot! Hamdullah! THEN, tragedy struck and rocks were hit and some cylinder broke on the train. And then we waited for an hour outside of Casa. Then, once in Casa, we waited for another hour. Then once outside of Casa, we waited for ANOTHER hour. WHY?? If we had been on the train for truly 8 hours in any normal time, we could have made it to Fes instead of just Kenitra....*sigh* Ah well, hadi l' hy'att (That's life) or rather, this is the Moroccan life of mashi mushkil (no problem). It's almost dinner time so I gotta run. Ciao! Bslama! 

New job title: Baladeer

So have I told you I bought a guitar? Oh yes, and it has served to make me extremely happy. Since I don't have any guitar books really, I'm using youtube as my teacher and so far it's worked well. In fact, it's worked so well I've started taking the guitar to Dar Chebab and been teaching what little guitar I know. I realized that my students don't know how to read tablature so I figured this might be a nice intro to anyone who wants to learn about the western system of music. 

Yesterday while I was playing my guitar with a bunch of other students, one student wrote down some lyrics and started singing them. So I asked if he would like me to write chords to the song and make up a melody. He said sure and two minutes later we had our own song. Hooray budding songwriters!

Anyhow, that's the latest and greatest but I'd also like to tell you what I've been up to. So I went to the Rose Fest and helped out in a SIDA (the French version of AIDS) tent at the festival. A group of volunteers and I all attempted to talk to many Moroccan festival goers about SIDA. I felt pretty satisfied about it. In fact, it inspired me to have my own AIDS day event in my town. I was able to convince the local doctor to come to the Nadi Naswi (Women's center) and give a speech about STI's, SIDA, and other areas of women's health. 

It's nice to to be busy but I sense things are definitely slowing down. It's beginning to get warm here and school is coming to an end so we'll see what the summer holds in store for us!

Here's a particularly beautiful sunset that I decided to photograph from my balcony. 

This is my friend Marcus and I at the Rose fest.

When Marcus and I went to lunch, this little lady came out of nowhere and decided my olives were tasty. :)

 Of course, roses at the Rose fest.

I worked the morning shift at the Rose fest. You can just barely make out the snow on the mountains in the distance! Barely. Haha.

This is the AIDS tent where we worked for the few days at the Rose Fest.

I was lucky enough to stay at another volunteer's house who just happens to be friends with a French pastry chef. You have NO IDEA how delicious these were.

And then on an unrelated note, there was a party in my town that I was invited to! 3 hour dance-a-thon? Yes please!

That's all for now. Catch you on the flip side. 

Vascillating

Well today was funky. I began today by really thinking about what impact I was having here in T-town and I was sort of beating myself up because I felt stymied by natural ebbs and flows of population to my classes. I was talking to one of my students on the way home and I thought to myself, this person feels like the only person who cares that I’m here. I mean, I generally think I’m a happy person but these thoughts were rough. What impact am I making here? Does anyone care that I’m here? Why do I care so much about trying to please these people when I’m not sure they want me here? Isn’t this my life dream? Shouldn’t I be trying to give my all? Why is apathy becoming a more normal part of life?

Then out of nowhere, a group of teachers were sitting outside my house at a café when I came home from Dar Chebab. They called me over and started talking to me. As it turns out, they would really like to have me teach some English classes for them. Wow! I feel really elated by this.  I also thought it would be nice if I posted something aside from farm animals and me traipsing around the country. I work, I swear!

Now for a picture of me kissing a Triceratops. 

Let's go ahead and update this thing!

Hey everyone! Yes, I know it's been a month since I've updated. Hashuma aliya! (shame on me!) But now it's time to give you the low down on what's been happening! 

First of all, I went away from T-town up north to a nice place in the middle of nowhere to participate in Spring camp! A rich and old tradition for all Youth Development PCVs. I had a brilliant time, only teaching English in the mornings and then doing activities in the evenings with the kids. We even had a talent show where my friend and fellow PCV Phil and I decided to sing our hearts out to Moulin Rouge's "Elephant Love Song melody." I'm pretty sure the kids had no idea what hit them. There was also some amazing dancing that the kids demonstrated and even one student who performed stand up comedy. Awesome. I was really sad to leave them and there was definitely a lot of crying at the end of all the festivities. 

So there was a whirlwind of traveling after my Spring camp. I decided to visit my friend and PCV in Errachidia, then the next day went down into Zagora province, only to make friends with a Columbian girl on the bus who didn't have a place to stay for the night. Unfortunately the place I was staying didn't have an extra bed, but happily we found a really sweet place for her to stay with a beautiful garden. We even ate with her the next day and it turns out she also does volunteer work in Columbia. What a happy coincidence. 

Last Saturday, I headed out to buy a guitar from my friends who are leaving the country. I realized that I was close to another PCV of mine. As it turns out, it's a nice 4.5 mile hike out to her douar (village) (that is to say, 4.5 miles in and out to a place where she can get to the nearest city to buy anything). On the other hand, now I can't put the guitar down and I carry it with me everywhere. I've been singing old Beatles tunes ever since spring camp and having a guitar to accompany myself just seems so right. I think the students really appreciate it too because they don't get music or much in the way of creativity in their schools. 

Eventually I came home and got myself back in the flow of things which has included going to the ministry to get them to open my Dar Chebab. Hamdullilah now it's open! YES! I even have a very nicely painted purple classroom. I'm just happy to be back in a space that the youth and I know is ours to be loud and proud in. 

Easter was also rather pleasant here, I'm happy to say. I went and hung out with a bunch of friends in the city and we all made a bunch of delicious food and had ourselves an all around good time. Sunday morning I went to a Christian gathering and we had ourselves a really fantastic service. Singing hymns made me very nostalgic but I'm glad I went and enjoyed some community time with other ex patriots in the city. 

So! At spring camp there were no bathing facilities, so my friend Liz (another PCV) and I jumped into the sinks in the courtyard and washed our hair and our feet. 

My students have been taking me out into the fields to get a better feel of the town and the surrounding agriculture. Part of me feels like a hick and the other part of me is inexplicably happy. 

This sign said Welcom Tamazirt (Tamazirt= Berber culture) when I first saw it. The English teacher in me made me and my students go add an 'E' at the end. 

Meanderings in my stream of consciousness.

Hey all,

Well, I have an hour before I have to be anywhere so why not put a blog up? So today my counterpart (Peace Corps nomenclature for a person with whom I work) told me to come to the Dar Chebab and pick out a color for my classroom. He said I could choose between the colors pink and purple so I was sort of excited to see if maybe I could sort of work around the color choices and see if yellow or orange was available. In any event, when I got there this morning, I saw that my classroom had been painted purple by the workmen. I was sort of peeved but, hey, at least my room has paint right?

I've also really expanded my work schedule lately. I've started to put in hours helping to catalogue a library, help teach English at a girls boarding school, start teaching a yoga/exercise class, and continue the schedule I was already keeping. Needless to say, by the end of the day I'm bushed and I have to sort of drag myself out of whatever chair I've fallen into to go make food. I'm really happy that I have work and I love working in T-town. I now have the challenge of figuring out how I can spend a little less time working and more time maintaining relationships with community members. I also have to figure out when I get 'me' time, haha. I somehow was under the impression that in Peace Corps I would have a lot of down time. So far, I haven't found that yet, and it probably was a misconception.

After lunch, I now find myself sort of hiding in my house for an hour and listening to music, trying to gear up for the rest of the day. I know I have the energy stored somewhere in me, I just have to dig deep for it! At the end of the day, I try to think about what I did and reflect on all my actions. Sometimes I feel like I'm having no tangible effect on this community and then I remember I'm an English teacher and that any work I do will manifest itself differently for each student. Whatever snow I'm shoveling as my manual labor is all intellectual snow. (ok, I know that's vague but I was thinking about a quote from Haruki Murakami's Dance, Dance, Dance, where the main character writes boring articles for magazines and newspapers and compares himself to a snow shoveler.)

It's interesting to see how far I've come now that I'm past the 3rd month of actual service. I can't believe that just last September I didn't know a lick of Arabic and now I am pretty functional. I do feel a bit like I've been lazy in terms of language learning. I remember being so utterly terrified of not knowing any Arabic and getting ready to get shuttled off to a completely Arabic and French speaking country, but now that I'm here, I feel like I've reached some sort of language learning plateau and I really need to get back up and keep making the effort I know I can make. On the other hand, I have to remember not to be so hard on myself and not kill myself trying to become a workaholic (which is something I'm prone to do).

Now for something totally different!

Yay it's me and my students!!!!! This is us right now in a place called the Nedi Neswi. My older boys (and one girl) are using this place right now since my Dar Chebab is under construction. (as a side note, I did get all of their permission to post these photos.)

In any event, next weekend, I'm off to go way up north to Fes for spring camp! YES! I'm pretty stoked about getting to see a new part of the country and I'm going to try and see if I can swing by a place called Volubilis on the way home. (Volubilis is an ancient Roman ruin.) It'll be really weird to be out of T-town for two weeks. Lately I've been trying to stay in T-town because I feel like I travel all the time and I wanted to make more of a concentrated effort to stay. It's actually worked out pretty well for me because the students like to take me on walks on the weekends. Last weekend we sat by a river in town and just hung out for a while. This is way better than tv.

And it's been six months in country now....

Hey there!

So here's an update of what's been happening. I and a friend of mine put on a breast cancer event in my town, which went over fairly well. I definitely had some communication issues but that's sort of to be expected. I've only been speaking Arabic for 6 months now. There is no way I could have done the event without the help of my students. They were the real masterminds and made it all happened. I just happened to be coordinating and I'm so thankful they were willing to work with me.

As a side note, I have a bunch of photos of my students and my current workplace for those of you who want them and Inchallah, I'll be putting those up soon!

My boss came this last week. He asked me to start trying to do more in the community and I'm happy to use my networking skills to my advantage! I felt happy that he came down to visit me in my little T-Town (this is my new name for my site, since I'd rather not reveal it's location in such a public space).

Alright, so my mom thought I should post this story, and it probably is sort of precious. The other day I was demonstrating yoga moves at my nedi neswi. I, of course, wasn't thinking and was wearing jeans. So I was switching legs while in a lunge and then hark! A sound was heard! Nope, not flatulence (I sort of wish it was in this case) but my pants ripped. It's a good thing I don't have any dignity left. So I quietly excused myself (God bless those women for not mocking me to death) and tied my jacket around my waist and walked home. Good bye jeans! Glad I bought you at a Moroccan thrift store. 

Speaking of yoga, I attempted to have my first yoga class in T-town. Sadly no one came except the girl I asked to help me in translating. Ah well, I'm going to try again this week and we'll see how it goes. I'm not too terribly worried about it. 

The really fantastic thing about today was that I found this awesome girl about my age who wants to tutor me in Arabic and Tashlhyt! Hamdullilah! I'm stoked that I have a new friend. :)

Aaaand just for you, here are some pictures of my birthday last month courtesy of one Hannah Beswick! Thanks Hannah!

Basically all of us ate this cake until it was in the shape of Africa. Waka Waka Africa!