What a weekend

My tobis (bus/transit/van) leaves my site only twice during the day: once at anywhere between 5:30 and 6 am and once at around two. That being said, every time I leave site, I pretty much get up at 4:45 and pray either I or someone in my "family" will hear the bus and I won't miss it. It's not even seven yet and yet I was actually able to find somewhere that has internet that, though not technically open, let me come in and use it before going to the provincial capital. I'm waiting for my next-nearest health volunteer to come into town so we can catch a taxi together. Enshallah.

What a crazy last few days. I'm really, really overwhelmed. The last few days have had so many highs and lows, I don't know where to begin. I, miss gung-ho-Peace-Corps-2007, have had so many fleeting thoughts of "I should go home; I should ET (early termination: quit), I can't do this, I don't know what I'm doing here..." but then have an amazing experience that gives me strength. It's hard. I'm not going to lie and pretend everything is easy and wonderful. It's hard, I'm confused, and I sometimes question myself whether I have any business being in Tamazitinu.

To recap the last few days: I had a little disaster on the way back "home" from last time I was in town on Friday. Did I talk about carte de sejour stuff? It's not settled yet, but when I'm back in town on Wednesday, if there's problems, the head of the gendarmes is going to personally walk me to the place where they should stamp my papers and then I can come get my recipt and be in Morocco legally for the next month. Enshallah. So, not resolved, but I feel better because there is a plan.

On the way back, though... okay. So there is the tobis I was telling you about. To make a long story short, a woman told me to sit a seat next to her, but when we left, a man said it had been his seat. I was overwhelmed, once more felt like the arrogant, ignorant, entitlement-happy American I don't ever want to be, and started crying in an entire bus full of people. Crying is seen as a sign of weakness here, and the man assured me it was okay, but he had been a bit accusatory and I was exhausted. Oh, well. Live and learn. Later, a very nice old man who speaks fluent French who I will talk about later said that the man had been kidding. Who knows. I was vulnerable, and looked like a fool, but I felt better after crying. It's cleansing sometimes.

Saturday, I sat at home a lot of the day and just kind of moped around. I was stressed and didn't know what to do. I killed time by washing clothes and taking a bucket bath, and I tried to study some Tamazight on my own, but became antisocial. One of the veteran volunteers said that the first few weeks or months, the best thing to do is to get out of the house and walk around, so later in the afternoon, I forced myself to and it did a whole world of good for me. I practiced some language, I developed a little group of six giggling girls who followed me around and just laughed, I talked to some women coming back from the field about how I can drive a car but not a heavy wheelbarrow full of wheat, and saw some "friends" I've made who asked where I was going and what I was doing. I only left about an hour, but it was rejuvenating. It's also just peaceful to see the fields. If you've seen pictures, you know how beautiful they are: an oasis of green and palm trees against the stark, rough, dry mountains and yellow rocks.

Yesterday... well. Another day that started off pretty mopey but ended up on a very, VERY high note. My host mother got me out of the house after watching a few hours of Star Academy. Now, a word about Star Academy: take the Real World and American Idol, put it in Arabic and French, imagine not-as-amazing video editing skills, and have it run 24/7. Literally. All day, every day. On the bottom of the screen is a ticker like the news tickers or stocks going across the television, but it's text messages from people all over North Africa and France texting about the show and sending shout-outs to their friends or habibas. It's interesting, to say the least.

A very nice woman came over and I liked her instantly. I think they could tell, because I was sent to eat lunch at her house and really had a good time talking to her and her husband. Her husband is a teacher at the madrasa and gave me some very helpful if negative information. He's from out-of-town, a big city, and he's college-educated, so he can relate to my being new to such a small community. He also speaks fluent French, so communication was easier than most other interactions I have here. Apparantly, there are lots of people who think I am a spy. The thought is ridiculous to me, but I understand why, I guess. I had heard PCVs have problems with this sometimes, but it didn't really sink in that people would think that about me because, as I said, the thought that I'd have the strength and skills to be a spy is just ridiculous. I cry when I take someone's seat on the tobis. There was more that was said about working in Tamazitinu that I think was helpful but at the same time, I need to keep in perspective that he's not happy there. He does have impeccable taste in music though: in a row, I heard Tellement je t'aime, then the kiss kiss song from Tarkan, then bailamos by...enrique iglesias? and then another song that I love. Some of my favorite songs...two doors down from me. Unexpected but brilliant.

Well, the rest of the day was incredibly empowering and uplifting in a few ways. An old man whose family all lives and works in France offered me his house to "rent" but for free, and it's a more beautiful house than I would have even dreamed of in the Peace Corps. Posh Corps to the max. There are a few kinks in the whole situation, so I'm not getting my hopes up (ie: I have to pay for it; there is no way I'm using a house for free... and I don't know where they'll stay when they come back from France on vacation), but holy crap. Amazing.

The house has a western toilet and a turkish toilet, a bathtub, a shower, a water heater, a bidet (!!!), a kitchen, a few beautiful salons/bedrooms, and a terrace. But the best part is the garden. It's huge, with three or four pomegranate trees and other vegetables and an irrigation system and flowers, and it's just breathtaking. There's also what they call a swimming pool, but it's more the size of two or three hot tubs and has no lid or chlorination system, so the idea of using it is not really feasable. But I probably won't be able to afford to rent a place like that in the states for years.

He invited me and the woman next door who I like even though she's an ornery old woman to dinner, and, of course, I accepted. He's definately one of the richer people in town. The house has to be at least 4,000 square feet and so nice I don't want to get bogged down in the details, but wow. Just...wow. Not what I expected in PC. I keep saying that, but it's true.

Well, just as I spilled soup on my lap, the local official who had intimidated me so much over the last few days walked in. Great. Another wonderful impression: look at the American with soup all in her lap.

The conversation started badly. In Tamazight, he said, "Oh, it's the American who doesn't speak Berber or Arabic or French." The old man came to my rescue and said I spoke some French and I piped in with some French. We started talking, and I said if he wanted we could meet and I could answer any questions about why I was there. He invited me to his house sometime, and I said not in the next few days because I'm going to the provincial capital.

He didn't like that. "Why are you going? What's the point of the meeting?" I explained, and he, right then and there, called to confirm that I was going. Okay. Breathe. You're not doing anything wrong.

He said that people thought I was here for espionage, and I told him I'd be as transparant as I could. He asked if I had to write reports because reports are political. I told him that I'd show him any report I wrote if it made him feel better, and that if there was any other information he needed about me or my work or organization, I'd be happy to give it to him. Then, he started quizzing me on Tamazight. What's this? How do you say sun? Moon? Door? Give me? Take? To be? Teacher? Window? Car? People? Woman? Bride? Cow? Teeth? Hand? Arm? Floor? Upstairs? Neigbor?

I probably knew 90% of what he asked (granted, it was all basic vocab) and he started to relax and so did I. I told him again that I really wanted to learn Tam, but had only studied it for two and a half months, and he started to seem impressed. He asked about what my mother did and what my father did and said I needed a Tamazight name. I said I'd think about it. It came up that I knew his name, first and last, as well as that of the local officials in town and he seemed surprised that I remembered. By the end of the night, he finally turned to me and said "You are intelligent. I know you are."

I felt like I had passed a test. Relief flooded over me. I passed. This was a far cry from the "insufficient" that he had told me on Thursday. I think I earned some of his respect. Maybe just a little, but I feel like I earned it.

So it goes. Earlier that morning I had to remind myself that I couldn't go home because I made myself promise to at least make it to in-service training in six months. Twelve hours later, I felt like I had accomplished something because I had been pushed, really I had been. Everything about me had been questioned: my intelligence, my intentions, my family, my culture, and I had held my own. I think I can do it. It's going to be a tough two years, but I think I can do it.

In site!

Wow.

I didn't expect to be able to come to internet so soon, but I'm back in my souk town for the day because I need to apply for my carte de sejour (like a green card). Lots of steps to take for that and it's frustrating, but I'll get to that soon.

First of all, let me just say that yesterday was one of the most stressful but ultimately empowering days I've had in quite a while.

I got to site two days ago on the late transit and pretty much just relaxed at my host-family's house. It was nice and people seemed to be just as welcoming as I had remembered. I did get yelled at by the neighbor woman next door, the matriarch of the family, for not calling to see how everyone was. Oops. She doesn't have a cell phone though, but she said I was a good person even though I didn't call. Good thing she's forgiving.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and decided to go to the commune, which is the headquarters of the local government. I had to let the khalifa (appointed government official) know I was in town. Oh, yes, in case you were wondering, as far as safety goes, the government takes our safety very seriously and gendarmes pretty much know where we are at all times. One way they do this is through the khalifa, so every time I come and go, I let him know where I'm going.

I had some attestations de travail, which are just letters stating that I'm working at Tamazitinu to drop off, and I also just want to establish a good relationship with local government as soon as possible. Well, the khalifa wanted me to bring some photos of me so I planned to come back at noon with them. We made pleasant conversation and I filled out some forms in French and I met the Rais (president of the commune; locally elected) and walked out the door, proud that I had been able to accomplish that on my first day in site. If that had been the only "work," I'd have considered it a productive day. After all, for someone who can be as insecure and fearful as I can be, walking in and just meeting local officials is intimidating. I was proud and confident as I left.

The sbitar is right next door to the commune, and the doctor was walking in as I was walking towards my hostfamily's house. The doctor immediately took me inside and introduced me to my counterpart, the nurse (he wasn't there when I was on site visit). An hour and a half meeting in French and Tamazight ensued and I was totally unprepared for it. My language skills were pretty feeble and I felt like an idiot for not knowing the difference between a vector or a vehicle as far as disease transmission goes. I also felt unprepared because I didn't have a questionaire or anything formal prepared for the nurse. Luckily, I had a copy of the project framework in French, but we didn't go over it. Yet.

All in all, given that I was unprepared, it went as well as could be expected. I learned a lot about what the sbitar does and when it travels to outer douars as well as what he perceives as the biggest health issues in the site. I hope to be able to go on a few drives to the outer douars because they sound really remote and like I may be able to do some good work there. We'll see if that's considered in my site or not.

The nurse then left to go to a meeting that he invited me to (even though it would all be in Arabic) but I had to go home to get the pictures to meet with the Khalifa at noon. He seems like he will be a great counterpart to work with, and I'm looking forward to sitting down with him when I'm actually ready to meet and start observing and discussing things.

I gave the pictures to the Khalifa and he invited me to lunch at the house of the moqaddam. Sure. Why not? It's good to accept these invitations, I think, so I said yes. He dropped me off at the Rais's house (which is huge and nice because he has family working in Europe that sends money home)to kill time before lunch, and I talked in English to his high-school aged sister for a few minutes and ate delicious sticky dates and not-so-delicious but still good buttermilk. Then, they picked me up in a car (!) and drove me to the moqaddam's house. They made me sit up front and the Rais and some others sat in the back. A bit awkward, especially when the rais told me in French that my Tamazight was "insufficient," but worse things have happened. Shwiya b shwiya. They don't know Peace Corps yet. I'll improve.

Things got even more hairy at the moqaddam's house. It ends up all the important men in town were eating lunch there: three moqaddams (the eyes and ears of the khalifa), the rais, the doctor, the nurse, the khalifa...others... and so I was the only woman. And I couldn't really communicate. Someone, I think it was the Rais, turned to me and asked if I wanted to eat with the men or the women. It was an awkward moment. My choice, he said. I said (French), "Whichever is better; I don't know your customs," and the doctor said I should eat with the women in the kitchen. Fine. Easier. Less stressful. After all, the doctor is someone I'll probably be working with. I'll take my cultural cues from him.

I went up to the kitchen and one of the officials came and asked why I wasn't downstairs. I wanted to scream, but I said "I can go..." I think it's just as awkward for them as it was for me. They don't quite know what to do with me either. Current volunteers (wait... I AM a current volunteer... okay, veteran volunteers) tell me that as women PCVs, we are like a third gender: neither entirely male nor entirely female. It's going to be a challenge exploring how to work through this in a practical and culturally sensitive way. The rais asked me why I wasn't downstairs and he asked if I was shy, so I went downstairs. I told him someone said it was better for me to be with the women and he answered "That depends on your mentality." I'm going to hope he meant the general population when he said "your" and not my personal mentality, but we'll see. I'm encouraged he wanted me to eat with them.

Luckily, another woman had come. LHamdullah! She is the president of the netti and I don't know if they got her to come just for my benefit but it made me feel a lot better. I sat and talked to her mostly and the khalifa some through a four-course three-hour long lunch. Intense. It was uncomfortable but I made it through and was absolutely exhausted. I thought I'd drop off paperwork at the commune, not have a long meeting in French with my nurse and then an intimidating lunch with all of the officials in the town. Heh. I guess I can't go into anything with any sort of expectation at all. Every day is an adventure.

So... the rest of the day was less intense, I suppose. I rested at my hostmother/sister's father's house. We went to two other women's houses, one for more couscous and one for tea. The second was another mansion. It's strange. My town has really wealthy people alongside people living in more modest mud homes, depending on how many family members work abroad. In some houses, I wonder why Peace Corps (and myself) are here because it's just so nice, even if it is on a dirt road... but then I hear the woman sitting next to me say she had ten children but six have died. Or I see a room with literally hundreds if not over a thousand flies landing on faces and food in a room right next door to where there are sheep. I see bathrooms and kitchens without soap, and hear women who are 8 months pregnant say that there she will give birth at home without a traditional birth attendant, a midwife, doctor, or nurse. I ask where to put trash and they say "throw it outside" or "in the water." There IS work for me here. It's just going to be rough becoming less of a helpless child who knows nothing and becoming a respected adult with good information.

Right now, I feel like I have no credibility. I think by virtue of being foreign, they are more tolerant of some things, but I see their mentality. I don't know the language, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nurse, I'm not old, I don't have a whole lot of experience, and I don't know their culture. I came into the Peace Corps knowing that the first few months if not my entire service would feel this way to me. What right do I have to come in and instigate change? Do I believe in Peace Corps as a means of development?

I know, it's a lot to take in for the first day. And, yes, ultimately, I think I do believe in Peace Corps. I'm not in danger of leaving because I want to be there. I see things that I can do and ways I can maybe start mobilizing people for change, but at the same time, I need to relax and take the first few months to just learn and observe, and focus on that. And people in Tamazitinu are welcoming me and open to helping me learn. I just wonder how long it will take before I become as able to function as an adult in the community, and how long it will take to build credibility.

So. Now I am in my souk town. Apparantly I can't apply yet for a carte de sejour beause my letters aren't stamped by the right people. When I went to the commune here in this town to get them stamped the way that the gendarmes told me, the commune people said I had to take them to Tamazitinu to get them stamped by the Khalifa there. I just hope I can apply in time: I only have 90 days from the time I entered Morocco to be here legally without a recipt saying I've at least applied for the carte.

But it's still been a productive and empowering day. It's intimidating just walking into the gendarmes headquarters, or a random commune (or association, like I did today. The word for commune, association, mosque, and university are almost identical and my Arabic is minimal, so I walked into an association asking for a government official. Oops. So it goes.). My French is coming back a little at a time (lHamdullah!) and I think my confidence will build. I'm proud of putting myself out there. It's the little victories. Shwiya b shwiya. Imiq s imiq. I'll laugh at myself, hope I learn from my failures, and keep plugging away. After all, I asked at lunch yesterday about tutors and have a possible tutor at my site (I need to find her!), and I even got to do a small one-on-one health lesson about how flies can cause illness with one of the women at one of the houses I went to yesterday. Even though it was just one person, it counts as work and it counts as something.

I have more errands to run here, so I can't stay long. I have to get another attestation from the conscription hospital that oversees my sbitar and the doctor in charge wasn't there this morning. I'm going to enlist the help of a veteran volunteer to see if maybe I can get my letters stamped elsewhere. We'll see. Hopefully, all should turn out well. Enshallah. And I get to travel with other PCVs to the provincial capital in three short days, so it's like easing myself into this. After this weekend, another group of people who understand what life is like right now and are going through similar things... we all have our different but similar struggles.

Wish me luck. It's a challenge. There were a lot of lows yesterday, but there are also lots of highs. Think of me and send positive thoughts because I have to stay optimistic and shwiya b shwiya in order to be able to make it through the first few rocky months. It's what I wanted though. I'm enjoying the challenge. It's hard, but I'm enjoying it, even if it's just the moments of my 1-year old host-sister singing to herself and grabbing my finger and not letting go, or the women telling me if I live in Tamazitinu for two years, I will become a Berber woman. It's good, even if it's hard.

Much love. Ixssayi ad-dugh s sbitar ixatr ad-sawlgh ghif adbib ghif hayat salaam d ad-amzgh attestation yadnin. Ixssayi ad-dugh s gendarmiya d inshallah gendarme ad-iawn ghif tambrinu. Ixssayi ad-swunfugh imiq.

Until next time, most likely next week from the provincial capital. We may splurge and pay to get into a hotel with a swimming pool. Now that's something to look forward to.

agh rbbi str.

5.20.2007

I couldn't have asked for a better last day as a trainee. Yes, that's right. Tomorrow morning, probably by the time I actually post this blog entry, I will officially be a Peace Corps Volunteer, enshallah. However, as our last official SDL day (self-directed learning) before swearing-in and having every day essentially be a SDL day, I couldn't have asked for more.

We left the hotel at around 9:30 after I slept in until almost eight thirty- a first since being in country! For some reason, I find it impossible to sleep in here. Maybe it's the sun in my eyes or something about the air, but it's hard for me to sleep past seven at the latest, usually six or six-thirty. In any case, I woke up, took a quick shower, and fell down an entire flight of stairs.

Now, if you don't know me well in real life, you might not know I'm the biggest klutz in the world. Even my host-sister in CBT during training was worried about me because I'm always stumbling around. A friend of mine here in training yesterday even remarked "I'm surprised you don't have more bruises for as often as you're falling down or tripping." Well, as I mentioned before, there are many hot showers in this hotel. A few of them are on the roof. My favorite shower is up one flight of very narrow, very steep stairs with no handrails that goes to the bathrooms on the roof. If I remember tomorrow, I'll take a picture of said staircase.

Well, after taking a long, relaxing, hot shower and loving every second of it (because, if you didn't know, I probably only got hot showers if at all once a week or so during training. The rest were all bucket baths or hammam visits), I started down this narrow flight of stairs. I knew as soon as I started to slip that I was in trouble, as my hands were full and there was nowhere to grab onto for support. Somehow, once I fell off my feet, I managed to flip onto my stomach, and after hitting each stair quite painfully, found myself on the floor on my stomach. My feet kicked open the door to a room with 4 or 5 other trainees in my stage sleeping, and I started to laugh hysterically. One of the ladies that works in the hotel who I had met yesterday and talked to a little bit came to make sure I was okay, and I woke up every SINGLE person in the two nearest rooms. Yeah. Oops. So, now, I have a lovely huge purple swollen bruise on my hip, two bruised arms, a bruised stomach (which isn't fun), and a bruised…well… part of my body that would be covered by a bikini top. Great times.  Ironically, one of the people who woke up when I fell also fell down the stairs about an hour later. Don't worry about me, I'm fine… it's just hard to play it off when you literally bust down a door to a room of sleeping people. Bruised pride. Ha.

So… a few of us went to eat breakfast and coffee in a café, then we went to get tickets for a CTM bus to a city near our site. Unfortunately, there are no CTM buses we can take, so we're going to have to take either grand taxis or a souk bus. Either way will be an experience… but it was interesting talking to the guy who only spoke French and Darija (and probably Fusha; Classical Arabic) with our limited French and Tam/Tash.

A few of us went shopping in the medina again. I actually made a few purchases from an artisan cooperative that make me happy: a beautiful necklace and earrings (cheap! And fun!) and a carving of the hand of Fatima. The man who sold me the hand of Fatima carved out of cedar wood was a really sweet old man named Moha (short for Mohammad). I love being able to get things that might be a little touristy but know that the money is actually going to the artisans and not the shopkeeper. A SBD volunteer apparently works with them and I had a pseudo-conversation with one of the people who worked there, but I found out in the middle of the conversation that again, he pretty much just spoke Darija. Tamazight is great for where I will be living starting Tuesday (scary to say!) but not so hot for traveling or other parts of the country.

We did lunch at the same pizza place I've now been to three times. We keep going in big groups. Yesterday, I forgot to mention this in my blog, but they played Elvis Crespo's Suavamente again and again and again. I love that song, but it's strange to hear it in a café in the middle of Morocco, especially on repeat.

After lunch, some of us headed back to the hotel briefly to talk to someone about different options as far as how to get to site easily and efficiently. I still don't know for sure what we'll end up doing, but I'm sure we'll get there easily. From there, more medina shopping! Oh, earlier in the day there had been a horrible car crash: a truck crashed into a teleboutique… really scary. All day, there was a crowd in front of the teleboutique just staring at the rubble, and the truck stayed out on the main street, mangled. Sobering.

In any case, though, I finished up shopping with a good friend and one of my roommates from the training site and my favorite LCF. It was a wonderful sort of full-circle way to finish training because she was the one who took the two of us and some other people to get jellabas made our first week of training, and now, my last day as a trainee, we went shopping together again. I'm going to miss her. Sometimes it's hard to get to know people, especially with cultural differences, but she and my host sisters from CBT show that really friendships can happen easily, despite cultural differences. Hopefully I'll be able to see her sometime during my service. Enshallah. But it was fun walking around the medina with them and splurging on homemade potato chips from a street vendor and listening to her give my other friend advice on which shoes to buy.

 I ate with another dear friend from training and the same LCF… then headed upstairs to help with computer issues. We tried, and by "we" I mean a friend of mine here really did the whole thing herself, to make a video of all the pictures of the LCFs to give them copies of as a way to say thanks. We all gave our CBT LCF gifts as a CBT group, but this was something we wanted to do for everyone. The computer kept messing up, and she hadn't used the program before, so I spent a few hours tonight working on it with another trainee. We've burned 6 CDs; have 6 to go. Our program assistant (the one who has led our training these last three months) came by and sat for a few minutes, and I got him to promise me his zween Peace Corps Morocco sweatshirt.

Now, this zween Peace Corps Morocco sweatshirt has a story. Yes, it has a rather interesting story. They aren't available anymore and are absolutely beautiful: grey, with PC Morocco written in English and Arabic. They look warm and fuzzy and all zween and amazing because it's just cool. There's no other word for it. Well, at the beginning of training, we all said we wanted one and it turns out they are no longer available.

 There was nothing to do but to steal it. However, being paranoid as I can be sometimes when it comes to breaking the rules, and seeing as this was the first week of training, I wasn't comfortable to steal it myself… so I formulated a plan that we should steal it, write a ransom note, and hold it hostage until our demands were met. I got a sort of troublemaker (ie someone more fearless than myself) to do the actual theft and disposal of the ransom note… and it became a joke for awhile. We took pictures of it in two or three different places and left them in his office… but someone gave it back on his birthday. An opportunity to have the traveling sweater lost forever. But, I now have a signed statement that says he'll give it to me in a year, and you better believe I'm going to hold him to it. In one year, I will be the owner of a grey, zween Peace Corps Morocco sweater.

So, that was my last day as a PCT. Tomorrow, I swear in and become an official volunteer. I've wanted this since I was fifteen, and tomorrow, it will be a reality. Amazing. Mindboggling. It's not the same Peace Corps as it was in the 1960s, but it'll be a challenge nonetheless and an incredible experience. Wish me luck. It's going to be a long, bumpy road.

...................................................................................................

5.21.07

I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. This is something I've dreamed about since I was fifteen and now it has become a reality. I don't feel any differently than I did yesterday, but I do know that it's a good feeling to not be a trainee anymore and to really be a volunteer, with a pieced-together PC ID card in hand and an attestation de travail in pocket. I will soon be applying for a carte de sejour; the equivalent of a green card, and will become a real official resident of Morocco.

 

Swearing in was nice. We all piled onto a bus and rode maybe an hour or so to the nearest big city, the name of which is easily recognizable by most who have heard of Morocco. I wish we could have spent more time there, as apparently there's good shopping, but seeing as I'm a volunteer, I don't really have much money to be spending anyway, so I guess it might have been a good thing for me to just stop in for a few hours.

 

We went to a five-star hotel on the top of a hill that overlooks the city. It was a beautiful hotel (and apparently PCVs get a sizeable discount, so if anyone wants to fork over some money to stay somewhere really nice and take me with…) and the ceremony was short and sweet and amazing. It's funny to see everyone all dressed up as well, especially staff I've been accustomed to seeing in jeans, t-shirts, sweatpants, a baseball hat, and other very casual clothes. Probably about a third of us health volunteers wore Moroccan clothes. I wore black pants and a maroon shirt I had made here that laces up the front and has long loose sleeves and black lining. It's a sort of a modification of a shirt that one of our LCFs had that I fell in love with.

 

The ambassador usually swears in PCVs but he had a prior commitment, so the second-in-charge at the embassy swore us in. It was a really fun, sort of moving experience when I realized that it was really happening. I really became an official PCV.

 

Now, I don't quite know what to expect. I think it's kind of like skydiving: the first minute of it is exhilarating. You're falling fast, everything is coming at you, fast, even if you don't realize it, the wind is roaring in your ears and it's loud and intense and stressful and your heart is pounding… then all of a sudden, when the parachute opens, everything stops for an instant and it becomes absolutely silent, peaceful, slow, drifting… but you're still processing everything that happened when you first jumped out of the plane.

 

I don't know what to think. I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm anxious and I can't wait, but I'm not ready at all to go to site. We'll see what happens. Wish me luck. I need it!

Hi, all!

We've been here in the Environment training site for the last two days or so. Interesting place. I love this city. It would be my dream souk town: incredibly laid-back (I've seen women wearing clothes that would be considered incredibly shameful where we've been...), urban feeling while surrounded by peaceful monkey-filled mountains, and with a sort of a medina with winding alleyways and beautiful fabric shops, shoe shops, antiques, rugs, cafes, and it's all clean and not-touristy. I think part of the difference in feel is that it's more of a mix of Berber and Arab culture than the more Berber places we've spent the most time in. I love my part of the country, don't get me wrong, and the welcomingness of the people in the Berber areas and the whole shock and amazement and instant street credit you get for speaking even a little Berber gets you is amazing, but the whole sort of atmosphere here is peaceful and beautiful.

We've been having sessions here now on sort of logistical things once we get to site. I was one of the people in our group who did the sector presentation, which was a bit rushed and a presentation I wasn't proud of, but all in all, I'm glad it was over. The sector presentation essentially went into details of what we've been doing for the last two months and what we may be doing for the next two years at site, so we can learn what the Environment kids have been doing and they can see what us Health kids have been working on.

Speaking of the environment group, they have the ZWEENEST hotel here where they've been doing their training. Wireless internet in the lounge (where I am now), big tents with ponjs and cushions on the roof, over TEN hot showers for the group opposed to our sometimes-two sometimes-three sometimes-zero hot showers.... it's a lot bigger and a lot nicer. It's okay though, because I've really been able to appreciate having training somewhere that there is not a bar in town. Sometimes alcohol brings about a different dynamic, and I've loved getting to know people without having to worry about who's going to the bar when. I'm probably one of the only people who feels that way in our group, but our little hotel, as non-zween as it was, will definately have a place in my heart.

Oh, and another exciting discovery: this town here has a fair! A bunch of us played bumper cars last night and it was a great way to get out stress and aggression. Fun times.

We got our LPI scores: I was fairly pleased with mine; Intermediate-Mid. The best Tam speaker tested at Intermediate High; the highest out of any language in either the Environment or the Helath group, but a few of us tested at IntMid which I'm very pleased with. It doesn't mean I feel like I'll really be able to communicate well with people once I get to site, but I guess I'm in reasonably good shape.

So, Monday, we swear in. I will be an official volunteer.  Awesome. It still hasn't sunk in that we're not going back to the training site now, but that on Tuesday, we'll all be leaving for different parts of the country. Exciting. Terrifying, but exciting.

Last CBT

First of all, happy Mother's Day!

I just got back from the last CBT stage today. I have mixed emotions about it, though I think that's also more of an extended feeling towards the end of training. I do not feel ready to go and be alone.

I don't think I'm unique in feeling this way; I think we're all struggling in our own ways with the sort of culture shock we're anticipating. Now, everything is planned for us. Our lives have structure imposed on us to the point of having curfews and a sign in and out sheet at the front of the hotel. Our breaks are planned and we have projects to work on in the meantime, and the LPI (language proficiency exam, since you asked)to study for and internet next door and laundry to wash. There is always someone around, to the point that it's almost impossible to find time and space to be alone. It's great. I love it. I don't mind the structure or even the restrictions because I'm challenged and learning and seeing progress and exploring in a totally safe environment.

Now, in less than two weeks, I'll be an hour or more away from the nearest volunteer with limited transportation and limited time off. I'll be in a place that despite the progress I've made, I won't be able to really communicate with people easily. I will go from having most of my waking moments planned out for me to having a few guidelines but mostly free time and having to find my own routine. Sure, there are tasks to do. I'll have to do laundry, I'll have to do a water survey, I'll want to conduct needs assessments, I want to find a tutor, I'll have to find a place to rent and furnish it, I'll have to go to the sbitar to sort of at least get a feel for it, I'll be able to go to the netti and sit and knit (I found knitting needles!) while they sew, or even sew with them. But I'll also be living with a family I'm not comfortable with in the same way I was at CBT.

But what did I expect? This is what I wanted. I wanted a new site, which means the host family has never hosted a foreigner before.It's a more conservative site than my CBT site and I don't think I really realized how liberal my CBT family was until now. This is what I wanted; this is the path I've chosen. I specifically wanted a new site and I specifically wanted not to have a sitemate and I feel listened to and like in a lot of ways my situation is ideal. But that doesn't stop the fear.

So all this is hanging over me the entire short time I've been at CBT, as well as other people in the group. It was a lot more tense than any other one. I didn't have as much time with my family alone as any other CBT phase and they seemed more tense too, partially because the mentally challenged neighbor boy came over and kicked one of my 30-year old sister's goats and made him sick, or that there are two baby goats that are less than a week old to be taken care of. I don't know. It was still a good time, but the whole time I was there I almost wanted to cry because I just didn't want it to be the end.

The first night, our homestay coordinator came and spent the night. Usually I'd be psyched, but it made me feel a bit more uncomfortable just because it added a new dynamic to the family. I heard some funny stories about animals (though they're not really that funny) and found out that the family cat had killed three of the four rabbits and so they took him to the nearest bigger town and let him go during souk. Interesting.

The next morning, the country director came to visit. It was a really good visit. I don't feel the need to go into too much about it except that it was really sort of good to get a different perspective on things. It didn't assuage all my fears of unintentionally doing something that's against the rules and getting sent home, but it helped quite a bit. Those of you who know me really well know I tend to be a worrier no matter what though. In any case, we also had American junk food. Chips Ahoy have never tasted so good, and I felt a lot better about PC Morocco in general afterwards.

At home that night, we fed the baby goats and mixed up an herb with agho (buttermilk eaten with couscous) and fed it to the sick goat. Interesting. I know nothing about raising animals, but I'm considering once I get my own place, if I can have a courtyard, maybe getting a few chickens for fresh eggs. We'll see how practical that is.

Yesterday was our last day at CBT site and we had a party to celebrate. All our families came, and we ate cookies and drank tea and coffee (have I told you that the coffee here has three spices in it? Pepper, ginger, and cinnamon, I think. Delicious.)... and we presented our health lessons in Tamazight.

That was actually interesting. My presentation was on birth control pills and I made a brochure (oh, and was there ever some drama with getting the Tamazight into Arabic script!) and did a short little introduction to the pill. One of the biggest challenges, besides the language, of course, was not including all the information that I ethically feel obligated to include with birth control education. I had two simple goals: to encourage women who want to get on the pill to go to the sbitar and discuss it with their doctor, and how to take it; 21 days on, 7 days off, at the same time. That was all I could really include on one brochure. Most of the older women are illiterate and so, well, I'll just say it was a challenge.

At first, earlier in the day, we practiced in front of our group and the woman who comes in and cooks lunch for us. She inturrupted my presentation with questions. My LCF helped translate some of them, and I answered those and then ended up sitting next to her after we had all presented, explaining in more detail. It was fun to see it was real- even this woman, who had hosted families before and had cooked for health CBTs for three years didn't know that you had to take the pill every day, opposed to just when having relations.

The presentation went all right. I wasn't particularly pleased but at the same time, it wasn't bad and I think they understood. One woman asked about the difference in effacacy between the pill and the rhythm method. Another woman who didn't get a brochure asked if I had any extra. Even though my language skills are pretty mediocre at best, I think at least one or two people took something away from it. It's a little empowering.

The dance party was exhausting because it was so hot, but really a lot of fun. I have a few little video clips. Fun. The most fun came after the drama about which families were taking leftover cookies home, when we all went to one person's house and ended up staying until 11 pm, sitting on pillows and rugs outside in the courtyard, singing songs, dressing up two of us like a bride and groom, making up songs about us (the two lines about me were something to the extent of 'Katy is a rose' and 'Katy has hair like silk'). Under the stars, it was all beautiful, though I cried a little bit. It's all overwhelming.

So this morning, after breakfast and a tearful goodbye, we all piled into a taxi (after cleaning the LCF house top to bottom) and came back to Azilal. And now, here I am.

As an aside, if you want to know just how beautiful my CBT town is, a very important politician who is a key player on the international field is building a summer house literally about half a mile from my house. It's going to replace the primary school in town and will totally change the sort of atmosphere there. My family's "fields" which are more like just bits of land for the few sheep and goats and aryoule...donkey?... to graze on, are soon going to shoot up in value a lot. When they told me, I said "your fields" and they said, "yes, but they're now our fields since you're in the family." Yeah, I'm going to miss these people.

Why I love training

-Jellaba shopping
-Figuring out which hanut has good cawcaw and snickers bars
-Going on hunts for Coca Lite
-Saying hello to the barber next door every single day
-Doing laundry on the roof and fighting for buckets
-Soccer on the cement slab behind the hotel
-Going crazy when we see a little kid with an ice cream cone and a dozen of us going on a hunt to find the soft-serve man
-Silly crushes
-Yet another power point presentation
-The same food...again...and again... but loving the fresh veggies
-Theme parties
-Slowly being able to communicate with the women who wash and cook in the hotel
-Stealing and holding hostage clothing articles
-Pineapple and figs... don't ask
-Talking about things that are taboo on a constant basis
-Assram (diarrhea) in skits and songs and posters
-Fighting over the two PC computers we're allowed to use
-Movies projected on the wall
-LCFs
-Being with the same 45 people 24/7
-The Hammam
-Cucumbers
-Fighting over fries/fried potatoes whenever they're served
-Signing in and out
-Having a curfew
-Not minding having to sign in and out or having a curfew
-The zween zween zweenmobile
-The drive to CBT site
-Shopping for CBT at the mini veggie marche
-Arguing about how many containers of yogurt seven people can eat in a week
-Sleepovers at the LCF house
-Cooking on butagas stoves
-Breaking for tea... and harsha or mismamen or cookies or helwa
-The entertainment value of certain staff members' training sessions
-The lack of privacy, ever
-The constant need to get toilet paper from the front
-Learning Tamazight and forgetting the raighn
-Being totally coddled
-Taxi strikes
-The gossip chain
-Trying to find the table with the big cups for water or with the chair where your thighs don't scrape against the bottom of the table for dinner
-Doors slamming at all hours of the night
-Playing guitars and Berbr instruments and having sing-alongs a la crazy stereotypical Peace Corps get-together
-Back massages, constantly
-Trying to save a seat in the conference room so you're not stuck behind a pole
-Being on the same block as three internet cafes
-Going to a cafe and not worrying about people thinking you're a prostitute
-Drinking a nesnes or cafe au lait at the cafe with the little baby boy Hassan
-Walking by and having the cafe owner of the cafe with the little baby boy Hassan wave and ask how you are
-Hearing other trainees skype their families
-Learning, constantly
-Being challenged, constantly
-Sharing real conversations with the LCFs and getting to know them
-Text messaging the crap out of your program staff when you are in the taxi ride from hell
-Late night text message conversations at host family at CBT with other trainees
-Sharing bug, mouse, and other beastie stories with other trainees
-Sharing embarassing bit lma stories and having competitions about bitlmas.
-Acting like children when presenters throw out candy for right answers... and turning into rabid dogs when they throw out packages of M&Ms
-Having really, really, really inappropriate conversations
-Swearing
-Venting to each other
-Being with people with similar worldviews or similar goals and ambitions but who are different and diverse enough to make things interesting
-Getting an allowance and going and spending it on candy and clothes
-Feeling at home with homestay families
-The feeling of coming home when returning to the seminar site
-Sharing three showers that are sometimes hot with 50 people
-Feeling like showering every three days is bizzef
-Making poster after poster after poster
-Stressing out about big announcements- what language, what CBT, what site?
-Requesting books from the library and discussing books
-SDL
-PACA
-Feeling guilty for "wasting" SDL days
-Sharing books with other trainees
-Getting free stuff from volunteers who are leaving the country
-Discussing bodily functions constantly
-Feeling like if I could do training in different countries for the rest of my life, it'd be the best sort of pseudo-profession ever

I know I have to leave the nest soon, but it feels like we're one big happy crazy dysfunctional family. I will and have to embrace the isolation that will come after swearing-in, but training has been more than I expected and more than I could ask for. I don't feel ready, but I feel readier than anyone should feel after two months. I have two weeks left, but really, I'm already feeling it... and it's exciting, but really going to be nostalgic.

Site visit

Back in a city once again! Well, in all fairness, I was in Marrekech last night, which is technically a big city but didn't have enough time for updates. Marrekech is crazy. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I just finished site visit- I was finally able to see where I will be going for the next two years, and let me tell you: I am completely and totally overwhelmed.

I don't know where to begin, so I'll start at the beginning.

Sunday, a bunch of us piled in a few taxis and rode through what I thought of calling "the pass of death" but really is more of the pass of intensity to Ouarzazate. I'm hours away from it, but it is sort of the nearest biggest town I'm near. It was an interesting taxi ride, to say the least: rather than take the touristy route, we took a "shortcut" that included hours and hours without cell phone service, and the taxi we were in kept stopping and starting to overheat, so the driver would get out and douse something under the hood with water. After a few hours of these crazy switchbacks at breakneck speeds, we stopped on the side of the road (so I could turn a pile of rocks into a bit lma), and a few minutes later, he randomly stopped and looked out into the mountains and honked his horn, then started driving again. Weird. Some in our taxi were a bit freaked out by his driving at such high speeds, and kept saying "stawil, afuk" (slow down, please)... and about an hour after the last "stawil, afuk" he started giggling to himself and muttered "stawil" under his breath. He probably thought we were crazy. When we were close to Ouarzazate, the road just kind of stopped and we drove for a kilometer or two in a dry river bed... that had some mud... and we got stuck... and got out and pushed the taxi. Yeah. Travel in Morocco is never boring.

So, Sunday night after six or so hours of travel, we had a fun night in Ouarzazate that included a nice dinner out with friends and some shopping, and more of the delicious juice I had on field trip. I met up with the current PCV nearest to my site who is leaving in June. She had helped with my site development so she knew a lot about my site and told me a lot. A current PCT in my stage, Lacey, is taking her site and so she's the nearest to me: an hour by transit once a week, or 20 min from the town that I have daily transport to that takes an hour.

Monday, we headed towards what might end up being my cyber town: a fairly decent sized town about an hour from me. It's kind of on the touristy path, so I get a bit more harassment there than I get at my site or in the seminar site, but the current PCV showed us some of her hangouts: a local hanut, and a cafe that really knows and is frequented by lots of PCVs. I left my backpack at the cafe for about six hours that day and the owner watched it for me. Good people; and it was really comforting to feel a part of that kind of network. In fact, the PC network in Morocco is incredible... especially in regards to police and gendarmes... but more about that later.

I have three transits a day to my site from that town. A transit is essentially a van that holds 15-20 people. Fun, in some ways. In any case, the transit was already full and we had to wait until late in the afternoon to go to my site. Instead, I was able to go to and see Lacey's site first. Interesting place. I like it a lot, and after 2 months of homestay, she's going to be able to move into the most incredible house. It's beautiful and has pomagranate and fig trees. Really nice.

But after a few hours, it was time to go back to catch a transit to my site. Needless to say, I was excited, scared, nervous... there were so many thoughts running through my head it was insane. We turned off the main road onto a dirt road and finished the last half hour or 45 min on a crumbly rough dirt path. Home. Interesting. There were tents that were brightly colored and might have been nomads on the way. The whole transit was curious why two taromits were going to the site and with the help of the other PCV (who spent Mon night at my host family's... thank God!) we explained that I was moving there later this month for two years to be a sort of health educator. They tried to give me an Arabic name but I'm sticking to Katy. I don't want to give that part of me up, I think. There was a crazy old woman who kept talking to me and I found out later that she's my next door neighbor!

When we came up to my town/village (there are around 2000 people in the town center, 5000 people covered by the sbitar), the moon was starting to rise even though it wasn't late and the sun was still up, and the mountains were silouhetted in shadows. There were a few palm trees (date trees), and the town just looked beautiful in the valley. Dry, arid, dusty, rocky mountains, lush green fields. Stark contrasts.

That being said, the town itself was absolutely beautiful. There are a lot of families with some family members working abroad, mainly in Europe, who send money home, so there are some adobe houses and some stunning two or three story cement houses that are large by Moroccan and US standards. The PCV with me said that they might be not at all nice inside and not to judge them by their exterior, but let me tell you, some of the houses are really zween.

I was literally dropped right off at the door to my hostfamily's house and was able to meet them and drink tea. The family is small: a mother who is a few years older than me who got married when she was fourteen, and her two children, both girls, who are one and five. Her husband works as a laborer in Marrekesh and isn't home often. My host "mother" always has friends stopping by, and we live in a small compound with another family. The way it's set up, there is a courtyard with a well and a pomegranate tea and fresh mint and other herbs or vegetables growing in it, a place for the sheep that my family owns (I think there are only one or two), my house,
the neighbors house, and a shared bathroom. The only running water is in the bathroom, so we fill up big containers from that spiget (robini) and use them throughout the day. I got really dehydrated the first day because it was so hot so I've been keeping a full nalgene near me at all times.

The house has a salon that everyone but myself sleeps in which is also used for entertaining guests and eating, a storage room for clothes, a storage room for other things, my bedroom (empty but for a mattress), a kitchen, and a large open area.
The salon has a butagas in it, which I think is typical for the area, and a container for water, so tea is almost always prepared in the salon. There aren't any couches or ponjes in the house, nor do we have a refrigerator, but we do have a butagas stove, an oven, and an outdoor oven near the sheep pen. The town also has a public oven.

Anyway, on Monday night we pretty much just got situated and ate dinner and answered questions, using the PCV as a sort of intepreter. The most amazing man I've met at my site came in: someone I'm sure to be working with closely. He's the president of the water association (an association is an independent organization set up in towns to get projects done), as well as the owner of a hanut right down the street and he speaks shwiya English. It's because of him that the town has running water, and it may be because of this association that there's a Neddi, or women's center as well. In any case, I'm incredibly fortunate to have an active association, which was something that I said I wanted in my site interview.

As an aside, I'm sick of referring to what will become my new home as "my town" or "my site," so I'll start calling it Tamazitinu, which pretty much means my home in Tamazight.

Okay, so back to Monday night. We went to bed pretty early because we were exhausted, and I didn't sleep well. Nervousness, I suppose. Tuesday was a holiday (May 1= labor day in the rest of the world) so we couldn't visit the sbitar or commune, and the PCV left to show Lacey around her site after we walked to some of the neighboring douars and I was on my own. On that walk, I saw the sbitar and that they do not have a method of medical waste disposal that seems to be safe, and I saw some trash fields that made me think that waste management might be an important set of projects for me.

The rest of Tuesday is kind of a blur for me. I met lots of people, lots of women, went to tea at a family member's house in a huge salon with probably 20 women and talked as much as I was able to. We ate dinner, which was couscous (ksksu) with this delicious buttermilk called aghro, and finally we walked in the fields.

The walk in the fields with women members of "my family" was incredible. There are palm trees (dates), and lots of greenery and tiny irrigation channels that just make it feel like I am in an oasis. The moon was out and it was big and bright and full and it just felt right and comfortable strolling through the fields, tasting the different crops, and hearing how the hail (brrurri) they had last Friday killed all the tomatoes. There are a few old mud houses that are old and decrepit near the fields that look like kasbah's and the mosque tower peeks out over the rest of the town. It felt right, it felt beautiful, and I was almost moved to tears over the beauty of it. Even just saying "ayd iHlan" for "the most beautiful" didn't seem to do it justice, and I slept well that night, happy, content.

Wednesday was a bit nervewracking because I had to go meet the members of the Commune (local government officials) and the sbitar staff on my own. With just a month of Tamazight, I didn't know what to expect or what to really say. PC gave us an official stamped letter (stamps are a big deal here) so I figured I'd go try to introduce myself and hand them the letter.

On the way, I passed by two older women. I said hi, because I'm trying to be friendly with everyone, and they got excited and I heard "Oh! Tsnt Tashelheit!" (Oh, you speak Berber!) which I heard a lot... and they were talking and looking at my clothes and lifted up my skirt and saw that I was wearing leggings underneath. "It's hot, and you're still wearing long sleeves and a long skirt. Thank you." It was so simple but it meant a lot to me that they appreciated my efforts to be culturally appropriate. It was hot. I wanted to wear short sleeves, but I didn't. Of course, people keep trying to get me to wear a head scarf, but when I tell them "I don't wear one, my mother doesn't, my sister doesn't, my mother's sister doesn't, my father's sister doesn't, my grandmother doesn't... so I will be like my family" it seems to satisfy them. For now.

Anyway, I stopped by the sbitar first, but there were ten or fifteen women in the waiting room. They were all kind of skeptical about why I was there and kept insisting I was a doctor or a nurse or a dentist... and I was nervous... so after ten or fifteen minutes of waiting for the doctor or nurse to come out, I left to go to the Commune.

That was also slightly intimidating, but I wandered in and introduced myself to a man at a desk at the only door that was open and handed him the letter and he immediately took me to talk to the Khalifa and the two Moqaddams. The Khalifa speaks reasonable English, and so we had a trilingual conversation in Tamazight, French, and English. It was easy and he was friendly and asked my name and a few other questions and said that I was welcome to Tamazitinu and that they were happy I was there. Phew.

I skipped out on the sbitar because I felt one nervous visit was enough for one day and spent the rest of the day with my family and her friends. At one point, she passed me off onto the other woman who lives in the compound (30, divorced, three or four kids, lives in a one room house, and I LOVE her... she talks slowly and clearly for me and is very warm). She wanted me to take pictures of her so I did, and then, we heard the madrasa (primary school) kids coming back from lunch. We peered out the window at them and probably sixty of them swarmed the window staring at me. At the woman's urging, I took some pictures of them, then went down and talked to them. It was funny. I'm the first foreigner to ever live in Tamazitinu. I asked at one point if there had been others, and they said there were two French people who came and visited named Paul and Madeline... but just for a few days, and that had been a few years ago. So, I've made a few babies cry and definately have gotten a lot of stares here.

Well, after meeting some of the madrasa kids, they all lined up to go into the madrasa. From the woman's window, you can see into the gated madrassa and she told me to take pictures of them all lined up inside. I wouldn't have felt comfortable doing it on my own, but with her encouraging me to, I did. This is important to remember when I tell you about Thursday, the day I had a little breakdown.

So, the rest of Wednesday was exhausting. I took a little nap, a bucket bath (you can get REALLY clean with just a kettle full of hot water and a faucet for cold water) and then after again, visiting with people who came by to see my hostmom, we went to her extended family's house for dinner. She has nine siblings, so it seems like everyone in town is related to her.

Dinner was hard. We had couscous again, but something happened that I knew was a possibility, but I didn't realize how hard it would be for me to deal with it. The women, the women who work in the fields and cook and clean and take care of the kids while many of the men don't work; yes, these women and myself ate after the men. They pulled out the communal plate of couscous and I was waiting for them to tell me to eat, the way they always do (Eat more! Eat! Eat more! Eat bread! Drink tea! Eat! Eat!), but the usual encouraging words didn't come. Instead, three men and a four year old boy came up to the table and started to eat, and we just sat there. The women didn't seem to care, but I felt very very bizarre. At least I didn't have the experience some female PCVs have where they are told to eat with the men while the rest of the women wait, but it was still really really difficult to see these women accepting it as a part of life. I almost cried. It made me wonder: what about the Moroccan men on staff here in Morocco? At gatherings, do they eat before the women too? Why do the women accept it? Why does it happen? How has this really truly been the first time in my life when I have been discriminated against in such a tangible way? And how is it that it is just a normal part of life for some people?

I asked one of the women later on if that was normal, and they said it was in a big group because the table is small and there's not enough room for everyone. This was true. But it is still something I am processing, and trying to think of how to handle best. Some volunteers I talked to about it have gotten used to it, and some say it's only happened once or twice in their entire time in Morocco. We'll see.

We walked out to one of the hills that night and sat to watch the sunset. I love the nighttime girls-only walks. The women are of all ages, but it's just a fun little walk, beautiful weather, and good socializing time.

Thursday, I woke up early and excercised (walked on the same hills) with the thirteen-year old in the same compound as me. We left at six am. It was already really hot. Summer should be an interesting challenge.

But later that morning, I finally got to my sbitar and met the doctor: he's new (has only been in Tamazitinu for two weeks) and said I'd be working with the nurse (my official counterpart) who has been in Tamazitinu for a long time and knows about PC, but the nurse is gone for a few weeks. I only stayed five or ten minutes but the doctor was polite and seemed to be looking forward to working with me. Who knows.

I also walked to the Neddi and sat in on a sewing class for a few minutes. They invited me back anytime and it seems like especially the first few months it will be fun to go and sit and sew with the ladies there and talk informally about life in Tamazitinu. It was scary just walking in there as well but most people are really welcoming. In fact, not a single person was ever rude to me or harrassing. Curious, sure, but very welcoming and friendly.

That afternoon, I was getting tired. The kids at home who are adorable were driving me up the wall, my mom tied the little one to my back for about an hour and I became really uncomfortable with that (and will not let it happen again. I think I have to draw the line at that. I don't want to be responsible for her kids) and tired. Some friends she had over were speaking Tam so fast it was impossible to even follow a little bit of the conversation and I was tired and stressed and overwhelmed. After lunch and another nap, we had friends over and my "mom" told me in the middle of their conversation, "Katy, you can't take pictures of people without asking them." I was a bit confused. I don't. I'm really careful of that. I don't ever want to be the ugly tourist with the camera.

"I didn't, did I?" I asked. Well... the night before, I had shown some of the kids the pictures of them in the madrasa, which I had assumed were fine since it was a Moroccan woman who had told me to take them and who encouraged me to take them. Apparantly, the kids told the principal, who was not happy about it. My stomach dropped. I hadn't even met the principal of the one school in the entire site yet, but the first impression he had of me was of me doing something inappropriate. My heart started racing and I was really stressed out. The shock of eating separately, of speaking exclusively Tamazight for the last few days, of the new food, of the kids around all the time, of knowing this was my home for the next two years, of having to go do all these things and introduce myself to strangers and really put myself out there all came together at once with this whole realization that even if I had tried so hard to do things right, I still messed up came to a head and I started crying. Slow, small tears, but I started crying.

"I didn't know! If I would have known, I wouldn't have done it. Someone told me it was okay and told me to take the pictures." I erased them and had them watch me erase them and offered to take my camera to the mudir (principal) and show him they were gone. At that point, I would have probably considered giving him my camera. I felt like an ugly American with no regard for cultural sensitivity even though it was an accident.

My host mom said she'd go talk to the mudir and left. She came back with the association president, which, of course, made me even more embarassed. "Don't cry, Katy. It's okay. It's no problem. Mashi mushkil. If you have any problems, you come to me, okay, but it's no problem, really. Don't cry."

And of course, in some ways that made me want to cry harder, although it was good to know that he has my back and that I really can go to him if I have issues. So, at this point, I'm a bit embarassed about that incident and don't quite know how to handle it when I go back, but in any case at least the positive I got out of it was that they know that I really feel strongly about NOT being the ugly American with a camera and no regard for their ways, and I know that the association president is someone I can go to. Enshallah. I don't know. I might talk to my program staff about it too to see if they have any reccomendations or to see how bad that really was, but I'm also embarassed about it. We'll see.

So. Thursday night, after a dinner of rice, we didn't go for a walk but we talked outside in the dark until late, and the woman from the transit ride who lives next door showed me her house, and we ended up having me dress up like a bride (or was it just like a wedding guest?) and had a small dance party in the salon, while the kids slept in the middle of the floor. I felt warmer towards my host mother than I had before and it ended on a positive note.

Got up really early (5 am) to catch a 6 am (but more like 5:45) transit back to the bigger city. On the way, in the transit, there was a truck with men with black turbans and a black sash across their face and there were sheep tied on their backs on the roof of the truck. The woman next to me pointed to them and said "ait sahara" which sort of means "Saharan tribe." Really cool. There were also the same brightly colored tents with a herd of camels that I think are camel nomads heading towards Azilal province. The woman also called them Ait Sahara.

Getting into the bigger city was interesting. There is a lot more harassment there because it's a sort of stop on a touristy route and they're used to tourist foreigners. Nothing was open except a few hanuts, and the hanut man from before remembered me, as did the man at the cafe we had gone to on the way. Apparantly, they are the two unofficial PC hangouts in town, and it made me feel part of a big PC family to be able to call them my hanut guy and my cafe guy. Even though the cafe wasn't open yet, I told him I was waiting for my friends and he said I could sit up on the roof (out of sight of people wanting to rip off tourists) if I wanted to. So I waited for an hour, finished up some paperwork, used a bathroom with toilet paper, and had sort of a home base in this town that I may go to as much as once a week or every two weeks. Fun.

When the PCV and Lacey got there, we tried to set up a post office box unsuccessfully (so I still don't have an address... my site has no post office) and we met with the gendarmes (country police force). That was another sort of entertaining conversation. The PCV speaks Tam but no Darija. The Gendarme head speaks Darija and Fusha and French, but no English or Tamazight. He pulled in a guy from the waiting room to translate from Tam to Darija and the PCV translated for us, but I'd pipe in with French every once in awhile and the guy from the waiting room spoke better Spanish than English, so the five of us were speaking English, Spanish, French, Darija, and Tamazight. What a mess! But so fun.

Lacey and I finally got a cab to the bigger city three hours away with a French tourist and her Moroccan boyfriend and some other people. They were really impressed with our Tamazight and because it was Friday, the cab driver pulled over in a random town to go to the mosque and Lacey and the tourist and the Moroccan and I had another multilingual conversation about PC and why we were there. Fun. We then took a cab to Marrakesh through the pass of death again (but the touristy road this time, which did NOT include getting stuck in the mud in the river bed, hamdullah) and got to Marrakesh by six.

I don't really have the time to talk about Marrakesh that much, except to say it is the most touristy place I've been other than Disney World, and when you speak Tamazight if they understand Tam, you're golden, but most people treat you like you are rich and crazy and try to sell you everything and do lots of catcalls. I had no patience for this, and yesterday, before we came back to the seminar site, I almost got into a few fights.

For example, a few young teenage girls kept throwing rocks at us. I finally turned around and screamed at them, in Tamazight, "Do you want to go to the Gendarmes? Let's go to the gendarmes! Come on, let's go. HSHUMA!" Now, Hshuma loosely translates to "shame on you" and it's not something to do lightly, but these girls who were probably 13 or 14 definately knew better than to throw rocks at our heads. They ran away. They should have. I was serious. The police in this country look out for us like no other, to the point that it almost makes me uncomfortable.

Case in point: PC has to know where we are at all times, and they in turn, tell the gendarmes where we are so that they know to look out for us. No joke. We're in the middle of the huge square in Marrakesh that has, at least 500 tourists at any given time. It's huge and chock-full of Europeans. We stopped a random gendarme in front of a bank to ask directions, and, yes, it was in Tamazight, and a plainclothes officer in a suit looked at us and said "Peace Corps. You are going to *name of seminar site* tomorrow. Hotel *name of hotel we stay at here*." Yeah. Kind of scary. They recognized us as PCTs and knew where we were going to the point that they knew what hotel we were in.

We also got ripped off taking a taxi back and I got into it with the courtier. He tried to charge us 600 dirhams for what should be a 420 dirham trip. I got it down to 450 but there were major issues and on top of that I almost got pickpocketed as we were getting into the cab. All in all, it was okay though and a rather comfortable trip back, for a taxi ride here.

But despite all that, I had a delicious meal in Marrakesh (including a mozerella cheese and tomato salad and a goat cheese salad and a pizza with capers), and the most delicious ice cream in the world. I also got a shirt I should be able to wear at site with no problem, so it was worth the trip.

I'm overwhelmed. I'm excited, but homestay scares the crap out of me. I feel so at home with my CBT family, and with these 35 Americans in training and the amazing staff we have here who understands what we are going through and jokes with us and who I've become close to. The idea of being so far from people and so isolated scares me a lot. Oh, well. I'll survive. I think that's my goal: to survive the first six months. After that, I feel like things will go much more smoothly. I'm just not allowing myself to give up until I've been at site at least six months. Wish me luck. I fear I might need it.