Back!

Back from another CBT phase... short but sweet! We were only there four days, but what fun!

I'm beginning slowly to be able to form sentences in Tamazight, which is nice, but at the same time I really do feel like I'm learning really slowly. Some of the frustration comes from verb conjugations that change the prefix AND the suffix...so it's hard to hear exactly what the verb is between the prefixes and suffixes. In any case, we're all learning at the same sort of pace more or less, so I'm not really behind, I just am dissapointed in myself for not being able to speak it better after the last few weeks.

That being said, I love, love, LOVE my host family. They are quite liberal for rural Morocco, but I feel right at home there. The sense of community in our CBT site is great as well... the next door neighbor heard that I don't eat any meat but fish, and lo and behold, one night, as we were finishing up dinner, she comes to the door with a plate of fish cooked in a delicious cilantro sauce. Amazing. That's the kind of people I'm living among, and I can only hope that my final site has such giving people. I think it'll ease the transition a lot if there are people like that around.

My little 8-year old sister enjoys teaching me Tifinagh, the writing system of Tamazight. It is a new version of an ancient script that was recently introduced into the school systems, so the only people who know it are mostly kids and teachers. It's not practical at this point, but it's a lot of fun to write.

I'm wondering what questions you have about my experiences here. I'd love to answer them, but there's so much to say and so little time at a cyber that I don't know what's interesting to people. Let me know. :)

That all being said, what else is there to say? I have a lot of homework-ish projects to do... and it always feels like there's something else to work on without being so overwhelming that I feel like it's too much. Right now my biggest projects are drawing a diagram of a bit l ma (hashek) (latrine) and labeling and writing instructions on how to build one in Tamazight, and then the big project on birth control pills. It seemed easy at first because of my previous job in the States, but I have 3-4 minutes to present "Birth Control Pills" in a culturally sensitive way (difficult!) in Tamazight (even harder) with some sort of a poster or pamphlet (and my lack of artistic ability)... then write a paper on the process. Erm... a bit daunting but it'll be empowering when I'm finished.

I often forget that other people outside Morocco who know about me being here are really focused on me being in an Arab country. Let me say a few words about that: I have only felt uncomfortable as an American once and have never really felt uncomfortable about being a Christian. The LCFs and I often discuss the similarities between Islam and Christianity, and though some of the people I spend time with who are not PC staff do try to convert me, it's always done from a place of love and never with pressure attached. The only time I felt uncomfortable as an American was in a djelleba shop when the news was on and it was about Iraq. There is probably anti-Americanism in some senses that I don't see or feel, but in communities where you get to know people, they see you as a person, not as someone who is against Islam or a part of what they see on the news.

I was a bit afraid a few nights ago when someone in my CBT group text messaged me and said the American Embassy had been blown up in Algeria. Of course, it ends up that it didn't happen, but it was kind of an interesting wake-up call, and I fully expected at the time to be sent home. Thank God it wasn't the case, but it seems like all of that is a million miles away. Moroccans tend to be gracious people (a generalization, I know), and I feel close to them.

(And as an aside, nighttime at CBT turns into a text-messaging frenzy catching up with people in other CBT sites. It's a fun little ritual).

And... I suppose that's all for now. I'm about halfway through training, which is strange, because I do NOT feel half-prepared to go to site alone. Oh, well. I wanted a challenge. I have a feeling this is probably going to be the biggest I've ever taken. Bring it on. :)

Peace!