7.21.07

Counting down the days until the end of homestay, and there’s just over a week left. I can’t wait to have my own place. A lot has happened since I’ve last updated.

First of all, I have a house! It’s the little mud one, and I think half of town thinks I’m nuts, but I think it’s perfect. Our very own Safety and Security Coordinator came down to inspect it, which made me happy, and he says it’s fine and stable and secure. He also bargained the price for me and got them to build an indoor bathroom. This still just means a hole in the ground, but it means when it’s cold out, I won’t have to walk in the cold to the hole in the ground, but I just have to walk through my kitchen. Hamdullah. I’m paying the maximum Peace Corps will let me pay, which is really about twice as much as the place is worth, but they okayed it and I wasn’t the one bargaining. It also comes with a few pieces of furniture and later today, I’m going over to talk to them about buying the others. I won’t let them rip me off though.

Other big news: I got my settling-in allowance, which is a huge chunk of money. I’m still trying to plan it all out and budget it well, which is difficult when I have to bargain for most things, but I made my first purchase today: three banyos. These are essentially, for lack of a better word, plastic tubs. I bought one small one that I can bleach my fruits and veggies in, a big one for washing clothes, and a big one with holes (think of a giant colander) to dry/rinse clothes in. I may buy some more today; we’ll see, but I’m planning a trip into town Monday (most likely when this’ll be updated) to go on a spending spree. I keep thinking of things to add to the list though, so it’s really a challenge to budget well. I’m hoping I can buy a lot of furniture off the landlord.

Big news number three: I feel like I have a real friend in the woman next door. Either that, or she’s lonely and thinks I’m safe because I don’t speak Tam enough to tell her secrets. She told me yesterday, on one of our “Hey, Katy, let’s go for a walk for two hours” times that she has a pseudo-boyfriend in a different town, then sang for him at the top of the small mountain. I told her about a few different men in our stage who are good guys and she sang for them to come to me. It was pretty fun. We walked to the hanut on the border of a neighboring douar and she talked to the men there for awhile and they gave us free soda in little teacups. By teacup, of course, I mean Moroccan teacups, which essentially are small clear double-shot glasses. They’d never be used for anything other than tea, coffee, or soda though. But I like this woman a lot. There’s something nice just about walking hand-in-hand with a friend around the road, up the hills. I love that it’s appropriate to walk like that here, just the way it was the norm in China.

And, last, but certainly not least, big news number four: the road is (pretty much) finished! This means that the trip time to my souk town is essentially cut in half. It also means (so people tell me, though I haven’t seen it) taxis and other tobises (erm…transit vans) will start coming to site so I won’t rely on the one lonely 15-passenger-van-that-usually-becomes-a-25-35-passenger-van that only leaves twice a day. Again, I haven’t seen it happen yet, but this means when you lovely people come to see me, and I know you will, we may be able to buy out a taxi instead of sitting in complete strangers’ laps. Of course, if you want the real experience…

Big news number five was big news a few days ago but not that big of a deal anymore. I had strep throat. I’ve been sick pretty much continuously for the last two months (if you count a second-degree sunburn, diarrhea numerous times, a nasty cold, more diarrhea, and now strep throat as illnesses), but now that I’m less than two weeks away from cooking for myself, I feel like I will be a lot healthier. It was rather frustrating though. I got sick on Tuesday, could tell it was strep, and watched my fever shoot up a degree Celsius in an hour. Not a good sign. I called the Dr. on duty, and she said to wait until tomorrow to see if it took care of itself; if not I could get medication.

Okay. That meant the earliest I could get medication would be Thursday, because I’d have to go into town to a pharmacy, but okay. Tuesday night was probably one of my worst since I’ve been in site. All I wanted to do was to sleep in the late afternoon/early evening. The room was too hot, and outside proved to be too loud. I tried sleeping in my room.

Every hour or half hour, someone would wander in the house looking for me or my hostmom. They’d yell for me or for her. They’d knock on my door, and if I answered, want to have a long conversation and try to get me to eat something. I couldn’t swallow because my tonsils hurt so much. They wouldn’t listen and told me I got sick because I ate too much frozen Monaish. This would get me angry and I’d try to relax, but I get sick all the time because of the hygiene practices in the community and the change of environment: NOT because I eat the one thing that gets me protein or because I walk around with wet hair.

I tried to sleep outside, thinking people would at least know I was sleeping and would leave me alone. From the one year old trying to play peek-a-boo with me, to the five-year old begging me to make her “jumkin” from the powdered drink mixes I got in a care package, to my hostmom trying to get me to eat, to the neighbor trying to get me to eat, to the neighbor kids playing two feet from my head to people asking “What’s wrong? Don’t sleep. It’s not time to sleep yet,” it was, needless to say, frustrating. What I wouldn’t have given for a nice air conditioned room, medication, a bed with sheets and a blanket, and peace. Situations like this will be much easier out of homestay. But I digress. I was sick, I was hot, I was tired, I was ready for bed and I had no medication. It was a rough night. I finally did snap at a neighbor (the same one who told me to take pictures of the school during site visit, if you remember that story) and said, when she woke me up for the third time at about 11 at night to try to get me to eat “No. I can’t eat. I need to sleep. Enough. That’s enough. Thank you for food, but enough. I need to sleep now. I am sick. Enough. Enough.”

And then, at midnight, my hostmom who had been at a wedding (“Are you sure you don’t want to come?”) woke me up with a plate of couscous. I knew she had brought it all the way from the wedding for me, so I felt like I had to eat it. I choked down a few bites, felt a bit better, and finally was able to go to sleep.
However, two of the interruptions during my sick time were from some association members. I really couldn’t concentrate on language, so this is what I got out of it, “Tomorrow, at the neddi... doctors…souk town… women…pregnant women…television…you come…tomorrow…neddi.” I didn’t understand what it was but I understood I should go. “What time?” “Ten.” “Okay.”

The next morning, Wednesday, I woke up at nine and prepared to go explain to the doctors that with strep throat, I shouldn’t be around pregnant women. I headed over, thinking I’d be home within the hour and able to get the sleep that I so desperately needed.

My nurse was there, working on his vacation day. It was great to see him. I could hardly talk. The head of our conscription hospital was there, as well as some of the men from equippe-mobile runs. It ends up, the association worked to bring them there to give sonograms to pregnant women, and to sonogram other parts of the body as needed. How amazing is that? They see a need, a health need, no less, and work to do something about it. It’s wonderful, but it makes me feel utterly useless at the same time. I don’t need my ego stroked or do any big, wonderful projects to make myself feel justified, but I feel like there are so many communities that do nothing with health that I’d be of better use there. Nevertheless…

I explain that I just came to say hi and bye because my “timsgines” are sick but they looked and said I wasn’t contagious and that I should just get a shot. Hm… three doctors want to give me a shot of penicillin. I was all for it, but that’s not PC policy, so I called the Dr. who said no way, I have to take pills. Okay. My nurse hopped on his motorcycle, went to the clinic (this took place at the womens’ center), and brought back pills. I called PC again. Not the right pills. After all this, despite the head of the district’s hospital being the one trying to diagnose and treat me, I still had to wait until tomorrow for medication. Oh well.

They convinced me to stay awhile. I did. Then, after chatting with the equippe-mobile men, who are great and know Peace Corps because they worked with a previous volunteer in another site, I went to say goodbye to my nurse.

He was standing in front of a room of 35 women, talking animatedly. “Come here.” I went over there. He said he had introduced me and exactly why I was there, and told the women to listen to me about health things. He then lectured on different health elements: not putting freshly baked bread on the dirt ground after baking, not washing teacups with just water or sharing them, washing the handtowels used after meals, why flies are bad and carry disease, and other things that I had mentioned to him that I had observed a few weeks earlier. I was amazed he remembered.

I was in shock, especially about the bread. Here he was, talking to the same women I had seen bake bread and put it in the dirt about it and they were listening. He listened to me, they listened to him. “Katy, do you want to talk about anything?”

I got up and talked (around my bulging tonsils) about washing hands. It was basic; maybe two minutes, and my nurse talked some more about it afterwards, but it felt good to do at least something during this wonderful event. A few more times, I suggested things for him to talk about and he went on; family planning, dental hygiene, and more. He controlled the group going even to the point of separating some chatty women, or calling them out by name if they turned to their neighbor and whispered. Great stuff. But happening in my community already, without my being there; this is the best way things can be! But what is the point of me being in Tamazitinu? I’m trying to be patient, and I know there are issues, but the people are so empowered and motivated, I have no idea what my role is or what it can be. Time will tell, enshallah.

At least the next day, I got my Zithromax. I asked the Dr. if the SSC could bring it to me when he comes to check my house, which is easier anyway because I don’t need to fill out a reimbursement form. Within a few hours of taking the first one, I could feel my tonsils start to calm down and now I’m almost at 100%. Hamdullah. Surprisingly, my hostmom told me I had to take medicine fast or else it could make my heart sick. I had just read about that a few days before and was impressed that she knew it.

Along with housing forms and medication, I got my Newsweek from the Safety and Security Coordinator when he came, and a copy of Peace Works, the quarterly PC Morocco newsletter. I thought it would be two or three pages and was impressed to find the quality of the material (most of it) and the length. Great information and updates from different departments and committees, and, best of all, hilarious stories with inside jokes that would only make sense to us… if I can have a few daqiqa of your luqt. It feels so good to remember there are other people doing the exact same thing, and to know that other people get a kick out of the way you say “dinosaur” in Tamazight (“dinosaur”), or the satisfaction you can get on a bad day from whipping out a huge “Hshuma!” complete with pulling down on your eyelid. I found it hilarious when a RPCV who writes a column in a US newspaper called Tinejdad a “village” (to me, it’s a huge town, a small city. Definitely not a village, Andy Allen of the Arab Washingtonian), or how many points a vomiting person on a souk bus is worth in the PC Morocco version of “I spy” is. Yes, Peace Works is much more enjoyable than I had imagined it would be.

Take, for example, the description one PCV gave of when he was trying to translate acupuncture into Berber. “take shot that has no medicine inside and put it into the top of head but not too far in. Before you do this you must make flame on shot without medicine in order that there are no bacteria, but it is cold before putting into head.” Yep. On a good day, that’s how I sound. When I talked about dental hygiene the conversation went sort of like this:

“Do you know what this is? Yes, it’s a tooth brush. Brush teeth twice a day, one time morning, one time night, good health teeth. You understand? And take string… right word? String? (sometimes instead, I’d say “stairs” and have to correct myself. Slk, not sllum) String between teeth like this. You see? Good for gums (the word for gums is meat). First time string maybe there is blood but not problem, gums not used to string. Later, no blood. You understand?” (and, again, once I said “money” instead of “blood.” “Idamen” vs “idrimen.” Oops.). Tam is difficult sometimes, though my nurse berates me if I say that in front of him. “Katy, if you say it’s difficult, you will never learn it.” Point taken.

I learned something else about Tamazight while reading the Moroccan Arabic phrasebook from Lonely Planet one day while having stomach issues (oh, the simple pleasures. I also imagine I will put a small bookshelf in my bathroom of my house): Tam uses a lot of Darija verbs but conjugates them the way they’re conjugated in Tamazight. For example, in Darija, “I don’t understand” is “Mafmtsh” but in Tamazight it’s “ur fhmgh.” Examples are: to understand (fhm), to learn (3lm), to get used to (wlf), and to read (kra) (though that may be “to write” in Darija and “to read” in Tam).

After my last out-of-site weekend that involved me getting sick but also spending quality time in two swimming pools (yes, swimming pools in the Peace Corps. Who’d have imagined? It’s not the PC of the 1960s, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse), I came back and have noticed my Tam is getting better. The lady who is not my landlord, but is her sister and lives next door to me told the SSC when he came down, “We won’t have any problems because she speaks really good Tashelheit* and we communicate well.” It’s true: I have no problem understanding her most of the time. And I realized it: despite not really studying on my own, having a tutor, or thinking that I’m learning anything, I am getting better. Of course there are some people (a friend’s fiancée, a woman who very well might be the richest woman in town) who I don’t understand at all. But shwiya b shwiya; imiq s imiq, or, in our accent “imiH s imiH.”

Oh! I finally worked up the courage to get out the PC bike and give it a try. I love it. It only takes about five minutes to get from my house to my host family’s house on the bike and people still wave and say hi. I was also able to get there without being too tired. I’ll be able to work up to taking long rides, hopefully. I’m so out of shape, but finally even feel myself getting smaller.






*Yes. It’s confusing. The language I speak is Tamazight, but at my site, everyone calls it Tashelheit. If you ask “What language do you speak?” they’ll answer “Tashelheit.” If you ask “Tashelheit or Tamazight?” they’ll answer “Tamazight.” If you ask “Tashelheit or Tassusight?” they’ll answer “Tashelheit.” In training, we called Tamazight the language spoken in the Atlas mountain region, and we called the language spoken in part of Ouarzazate, Tata, Zagora, Taroudante, Agadir, and Essaouaria “Tashelheit.” In my part of the country, they call Tamazight “Tashelheit” and Tashelheit “Tassusight.”

For all you public-health types, any resources on the following would be amazing:

Waste disposal/landfills
Lay health worker groups
Medical waste disposal
Any sort of basic health lessons

Thanks.

I feel very up and down about my experience. There are some days when I wonder what in the world I’m doing here, and wonder if there will even be any real projects I can feel like justified my time, the US tax dollars, and all the training, airfare, living allowance, medical coverage, and readjustment allowance. It’s not an ego thing, it’s not wanting to waste this opportunity. I want to be able to do something that justifies all that and that will be sustainable. I’m reading “Helping Health Workers Learn” online right now because the best thing I can come up with so far is creating a lay health worker program for women here. It’d be a sort of a discussion learning group about hygiene, sanitation, disease transmission, waste disposal, prenatal care and child health, and any other needs. However, this hasn’t really been done before in PC Morocco, so those of you public health types out there, if you have any resources, I’m eager to know about them.

I think I’ve picked out my house. I only had four choices, but out of the four, only two are really workable, and neither is ideal.

One of the two, the one I don’t think I want, is in town. A few houses away from a tahanut, nearby a mosque, so I’d be able to hear the call to prayer every day, and with delightful neighbors, the location is ideal. It’s a block away from the fields, so I have an excuse to go every day. However, other than location, the house doesn’t feel right to me. It’s cement, which looks nice and keeps out bugs, but is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. There is no garden, just a cement “courtyard” that is white. White inner walls stretch two stories up even though it’s just a one-story house, so there isn’t much breeze or sky visible. It feels sterile and claustrophobic. There is a salon, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom; then sort of a unfinished storage area. Plenty of space, but only three windows. Every room is separated by the courtyard. The bathroom is a Turkish toilet, with the possibility if I bought a hot water heater, for a hot water tap.

It’s livable, but it just doesn’t feel right. It feels urban and claustrophobic when one of my favorite parts of Tamazitinu is the sky, the mountains, the fields, and the breeze. There is no green space, no homey, comfortable feel.

The other house is the one that I’m falling in like with. It’s a little mud house with a beautiful garden. There are four rooms and a kitchen (though one room would probably be storage for the landlord and I wouldn’t use it); one of the rooms is small and perfect for a little library/office/workroom, the other makes a nice small salon, and the other is a bedroom that comes with a little separate wardrobe. The kitchen has a window and is a good size. Thought the house is mud, the inner walls are covered in cement, and there’s water and electricity.

The garden is perfect. Mud, with an outdoor faucet, there’s a little bamboo “tunnel” with grape plants making it shady (and a nice place to hang a mosquito net when I sleep outside), there’s a pomegranate tree and a fig tree and a rosemary plant and mint growing for tea. There’s also two sheep: we’ll see what happens. I don’t mind them. There’s privacy and a nice view of the small mountains surrounding town.

The two drawbacks are location and the bathroom. The bathroom is essentially an outhouse with running water: a Turkish toilet with an outdoor faucet in a shack. I can live with it, but it’s outside in the yard. I think I can make do. The other thing is the location; while I love privacy and quiet when I’m trying to sleep, there aren’t a lot of neighbors and I’m wondering if that’ll be a hindrance for community integration. In any case, I want that house. Peace Corps has to check it, but I think I really want to live there. It just feels right.

In other news, other than things that are annoying but (enshallah) will disappear once I get my own place to live, things have been going better the last week. On Monday, I met with my nurse and one of the association presidents. For various reasons, I wasn’t comfortable meeting with the association president on my own, if for no other reason, communication barriers. I didn’t even have to ask my nurse to come with; when I told him I had questions for the president, he offered to come and to help set up the meeting. Though fragmented and not absolutely ideal, I got the answers to my questions and we sat around and drank two liters of soda afterwards. It helps that the association president is also the owner of the biggest hanut in town.

Which brings me to this: I have the greatest counterpart (nurse) ever. He left on Wednesday for a month’s vacation and I’m already missing him. He’s been in Tamazitinu for seven years and everyone loves him and tells me how wonderful he is. Since day one, he’s been helpful, he’s pushed me to do things I didn’t think I was ready to do, he’s explained painstakingly in Tam, French, and sometimes English different situations, and even writes out lesson plans for health talks in Tamazight for me. My nurse is the pinnacle of positivity—almost too much! But he lifts my spirits, and helped me try to find a house. He set up the association meeting and translated and facilitated, and when I thanked him for all this, his response was “No need to thank me. We’re here for the same reason: to serve the people. Anything I can do to help you do that is my job too.”

When I told him thanks again and that he’s helped me in this crazy time of transition, he said that he thinks of me as a sister: not a friend, but a sister. Wow. Sometimes it feels like a lot of the men in this country are hard to get close to because I don’t want them to get the wrong idea. But he’s a family man: he has a beautiful family, and now I know that we can be “close” without it being strange. It felt so warm, and like such a compliment to hear him say that. Really, I didn’t know how to respond.

The food situation isn’t really getting any better, but I’ve found something that’s going to make getting protein a lot easier at least for the next two weeks: Monaish. Oh, I’m getting hungry just thinking of it. Monaish is a plastic bag filled with a liquid fruity yogurt. It sounds terrible, but it’s really delicious. Not only that, but one of the taHanuts nearby sells it frozen which is even more incredible. Since the weather is constantly over 100 degrees and I don’t have access to ice, there’s nothing more heavenly than biting into a brick of frozen strawberry yogurt. Cold, wet, sweet protein. It’s relatively cheap too: only 12 cents for the frozen Monaish (half a package) and 25 cents for the bagged kind. I can totally see myself stocking up and having the liquid for breakfast in the winter and the frozen stuff in summer for a nice snack.

Sitting on the ground all the time is really taking a toll on my legs and back. I never thought about taking for granted living in a culture that believes in chairs and couches all the time, but it’s something I’ve come to appreciate about home. A lot.

Last night, I saw the camel nomads again and got all excited. It’s amazing how silly something like a…what do you call a group of camels? A pack? A herd? A gaggle? Well, they make me giddy. I finally at least talked to a nomad, though I didn’t know at the time. It was a few minutes ago: I was walking home alone from a wedding lunch (my hostmom was staying out and I was exhausted) and I saw a woman leading a donkey that had a little boy on it. They didn’t look familiar, but I don’t pretend to know everyone in town. Something seemed different: their clothes, maybe, or the face structure. In any case, I said “Salamaleikum” the way I always do to women on the street and she responded.

“Wa aleikum assalam. Is ….(uncomprehensible)… mani illa afran?” Hi. Do you know where the public oven is? She smiled. There was an aura of friendliness, and her speaking seemed different, for some reason.

I gestured to it.

“Is illa digs miden?” Or something like that. I understood it to mean “Are there people working there?”

I told her I didn’t know and walked away. Then it hit me. Why would anyone ask ME where the oven was? I’m the crazy American. Granted, since I was coming back from a wedding, I was wearing a headscarf (for the fourth time in site, only), was wearing my hostmother’s kaftan, and had on tarzoulte (a type of eyeliner). I guess if you didn’t know Tamazitinu, maybe I did look Moroccan. Who knows. But the men sitting around who watched this conversation were amazed that I understood her and I was amazed that I had a short conversation with a nomad without even realizing it. I wanted to turn around and talk to her more and ask about what they do about health problems or what they ate or how they got their water or if they treated it or what they did with women when they were pregnant, but I was too shy to turn around in front of all the men.

In some ways, I’m a bit embarrassed to be so enamored with nomads. They’re just people, same as the people in my town. I feel somewhat like a crazy tourist, seeing people as “exotic” or “Othering” them, but, really, I’m curious about that lifestyle. Do they have houses elsewhere? How many months out of a year do they travel? How many are in their party? What do they do with the animals? What is the travel route? But enough about nomads.

Yesterday, I was invited to dinner somewhere. I never know what to do with these invites, especially when my hostmom isn’t invited. I accepted because they insisted, and ended up at a probably 60-70 person dinner that lasted until midnight.

I’ve been to these before, and actually went to something similar today with a wedding luncheon, but it’s interesting how these “formal” dinners actually occur.

First, and, okay, this comes only from a month and a half experience, so it may not be a universal thing in Morocco or amongst Berbers or even in my town, but it’s what I’ve seen. Usually the men and women are separated, either in two separate rooms, or, in the case of last night, on two different sides of the roof. Usually, it happens in a big open space covered in agotil (portable plastic mat carpeting) that has blankets or carpets laying on top of it. People sit against the wall and talk for hours. There are people that are “working” the party; usually I think it’s family members but I think sometimes it’s neighbors and friends too.

These “workers” start off with tea and peanuts (or almonds), and wafer cookies called basta. They walk around several times, offering it to everyone. This lasts at least an hour, and they make at least four or five rounds, taking dirty teacups, offering more cookies. If it’s a really nice party, they then go to brochettes: skewers of meat. The same people (though more often than not, it’s women who offer the cookies and tea and men who offer the brochettes) walk around and everyone takes two pieces at a time off the skewers and eats them. These smell delicious. I don’t eat them, because I don’t want to look like a hypocrite (I’m a vegetarian here), but they smell really good. I thought about breaking with my vegetarianism for good once, but at that moment, the brochette held a piece of what I think was either tendon or stomach lining. I took that as an omen.

This usually lasts at least one or two hours. Then, someone makes the round with a basin and a kettle full of water (sometimes with soap) and a towel so everyone can wash their hands. Generally, people wash their hands with just water before the meal, water and soap after. I’m trying to work on that, little by little, but don’t want to be too pushy. Right now, I’m modeling it myself more than anything else.

Then comes the first “meal” course- usually couscous, eaten with spoons. Eight to ten people crowd around a table probably two feet off the ground and eat from the same communal dish. After that, there’s usually a meat course: sometimes chicken, sometimes goat, sometimes lamb, eaten with bread and hands. This is how most meals at my house are eaten: big rounds of bread are torn into smaller portions, then everyone breaks off small pieces and uses it to eat the meal out of the large dish. It takes a certain amount of getting used to, and is killer if you’re on Atkins. In fact, it’d be pretty difficult to live in a family in my town on Atkins. People are gracious and would go out of their way to help and come up with a solution, but, really, it’s quite an anomaly to not eat a lot of bread.

After these courses come big platters of seasonal fruit: right now, watermelon and a melon called lemnun seem to be the most common, though grapes and pomegranates are coming soon. I can’t wait, and then, finally, the basin again. Sometime during the meat courses, small teacups full of soda are passed out. I’ve never seen anyone ask what kind of soda people want, you pretty much just get what’s handed to you. Most common seem to be a fruit punch called Hawaii, an apple soda called Poms, and orange Fanta, though I’ve had Coke and sparkling water.

By this time, several hours have passed, sitting on blankets on plastic on the ground. I’m usually utterly exhausted, legs asleep, and ready to go home and rest. But people are gracious. When they see I’m restless and I apologetically explain that I’m not accustomed, they toss me a pillow. They tell me to lay down. They’re a lot of fun, these “parties” but I always feel bad for the people working them: they work so hard.

It was like when my hostmom’s husband’s family came into town. My hostmom went all out. She has never served coffee before (and when I mentioned liking it, she told me if I bought the stuff for it, she’d make it. Not to be rude, but right now Peace Corps is giving her a lot more money than they’re giving me for these two months. I can’t afford to buy food when she’s getting paid to feed me. This sounds terrible, but it’s my reality: the last month I’ve had to change $100 from home and I absolutely can NOT get in the habit of doing that! I didn’t join Peace Corps to get rich, but I didn’t join to burn through my savings either), but she went out, made coffee, made couscous, bought soda, made a kind of cake that, again, she had told me she’d make me if I bought the ingredients, made tea, and was constantly going back and forth as well as two neighbors. I offered to help but was shooed out of the kitchen. They were here probably an hour and a half, and that whole time, she probably spent fifteen or twenty minutes with them. Difficult. What’s the point of having people over if you can’t enjoy their company?

So I don’t know how much I’ll be having people over. I know I can’t do all that on my own and be able to be a good hostess by Moroccan, or at least Tamazitinu standards. I know most PCVs only have their host family over to their house and, as a rule, nobody else, but there are people that I feel closer to than my hostmom and who I’d probably rather have come over.

I actually like sleeping outside, even when I get woken up by having a one-year old with a stinky diaper smack me in the face at three am. There’s something peaceful about it, and I’ve gotten over the bugs, I think. The little sleeping bag liner I got from REI before coming has been a lifesaver though in my plight against bugs outside. Psychosomatically, I can convince myself that no insects can penetrate it, and so I’m able to sleep, and sometimes, I lay the one-year old on my chest and tell her to grab the stars. We reach and try to grab them together. I love the word star: itri. Ee-trree. Stars: Itran. Ee-trr-ah-n. Beautiful.

PS- one of my favorite things about Tamazight is when what turns into a sentence in English is encapsulated in one small word.

Take, "mqar." It loosely translates as "despite this" or "it doesn't matter, despite what you just said" And it's used, as many words in Tam are used, as a one-word statement.

For example:

"Katy, come dance the aheyduss in front of everyone."

"But I don't know how."

"Mqar! Mqar!"

There are a lot of one-word "phrases." Another example: alaqas. This essentially means "leave it/her/him alone!" This is used mainly with kids. What would be "Hey! Don't torment your sister like that! Put her down!" turns into "alaqas! alaqas!"

I also like "ghuri." It's translated but it's similar to "chez" in French. My place. My area. You can stay "qim ghuri" which means "stay with me," you can say, "come to my house, "adud ghuri," you can say "I like someone a lot" by saying "tehla/ihla ghuri" (literally: good with me/good my place)... it's nice. Feels very intimate.

I wrote a long sort of blog the other day on my laptop but have decided against posting it here because it's very negative. I'm hot and tired and ready to be out of homestay and in my own house. I think things will settle down for me once I have my own place and am eating the foods I know I need to eat (ie- protein, fresh produce). I don't think I've had protein at all for the last three or four days until I ate cheese and yogurt today in town. I get in maybe two servings of fruit or veggies a day if I'm lucky. All of this is taking a toll, as is the lack of privacy.

I saw three houses yesterday. They're all mediocre and have problems, but it looks like they're my only options. Unless something crazy happens, I'll either go for a small house in the middle of town with no garden and little privacy, or a bigger place out-of-town a bit with a beautiful garden but few neighbors and a shady bathroom. We'll see. The house that had been built up so much is pretty much unusable. I sent an email off to PC today to discuss and hopefully they'll call me.

If the scale is correct in our clinic, which is debatable, I've lost a considerable amount of weight since being here. I'm hoping it's true. I don't feel smaller, but I guess I look a little smaller, and clothes aren't really fitting as well. Hamdullah.

I got some more books from the PCV who works in town, and we made veggie wraps and I ate about a ton of fruit. Delicious. I met with a potential tutor as well, which makes me happy. Unfortunately, he's going to France for two months.

Not too much to report, honestly. I love my next-door neighbors. I saw a baby who was 15 hours old and was anointed with a watery spice in my hair, a spicy stick to chew on that turns your tongue brown, perfume, rose water, pachouli, something similar to pachouli, avocado lotion, a powdery spice that smells sweet, and smoke from inscense. Despite that, I actually smelled pretty good.

I had an interesting conversation with a guy from Ait el Kharij (he lives in France 11 months of the year) about the history of the tribe of my town. Apparantly, the people only really came into Islam in the 1960s, and earlier in the 1900s tried to get independence from Morocco! Interesting. My hostmom's cousin who lives in Agadir but will probably come for a month this summer apparantly speaks fluent English and has done extensive research, so hopefully I'll be able to learn more details.

Safi. Barasha. UHlugh. Ad-dugh ad-righ aljazeera dghi. Adig rbbi str.

First of all, a shout-out for those of you who leave comments. I read every single one and they mean the world to me. I'm better at responding directly to emails, but know that I love feeling connected to all of you.

Feeling connected is important, because I really don't feel connected to much of anything anymore. Thinking of life at home is like a distant memory. I've only been in-country about four months, not even, but for some reason, it feels like a lot longer. Even training feels like something from long ago.

I think a lot of that has to do with linguistic isolation. I really don't speak Tamazight well. I'm doing okay when you look at the people in my group who came over with me, but I still have a hard time communicating rudimentary ideas often, or understanding what other people say to me. Many hours of my day are spent in silence or not understanding what's going on around me. I have so long to think and read and think and read and sit and rest and think that I sometimes feel like I'm just bumbling about, floating away. I'm not a part of life in Tamazitinu, but I'm not really that connected to things that are going on at home either. Sometimes I read comments on peoples' facebook pages or myspace pages and marvel that things are the way they are back in the States. Not everyone is sweating through the nights or worrying about housing, or wondering what an impact Ait el Harj is going to make on life during the summer. No, people are in school, people are working normal or abnormal hours, are living in apartments, can drive a car to wherever they want, whenever they want, they don't need to report their whereabouts to anyone. The head of the police (gendarmes) in the area doesn't know your name as soon as you walk in the door.

It's strange. People know me. I stepped off the bus in the Provincial Capital last weekend-- and this is four and a half hours away from Tamazitinu -- and two men, about my age called my name. I don't remember ever having seen them, but they knew me from my town. It's interesting, but frustrating, because I was wearing clothes that are fine for a big city but not so okay for my town. Yes, that does mean if you come visit, you have to dress appropriately when you're in my town. Sorry.

That all being said, I'm doing well, I suppose. I don't know if you can call it well or not, but I'm not dying or thinking of coming home. My biggest stressor and worry is housing and that is going to be a concern until it's resolved. The short of it is that I should know within the next week where I will live to start the process and paperwork, and I really have no idea what's available and the options are unclear. If I type out the whole situation, it'll get me worked up, and I guess nobody probably wants to hear the details anyway, so I'll leave it at that.

So, I'll talk a little bit about Ait el Harj. I've talked about immigration at Tamazitinu before. It's crazy. People are coming back from their jobs in Spain or France or other places in Europe for the summer. I have never, ever realized the sort of complexities of immigration. When you see the differences between the houses of people who work in town or domestically versus people with family members abroad, it's stunning. (Incidentally, the two houses that may or may not be available for rent fall into each of these categories). They come, with their Western European fashion, their cars, their Europop, and celebrate weddings, bring suitcases of new, beautiful clothes from Europe and hand them out to family members and friends alike, and just vacation at home.

The most interesting moment was seeing a ten year old girl who has lived her entire life in Montpellier. She's a French citizen, speaks flawless French (and Tam and Arabic), and yet, is perfectly at home in Tamazitinu. Her little sister is afraid of the flies.

I had lots of friends who were first generation Americans growing up, and never really thought much about what it'd be like for them to go back to India or Mexico or China or Taiwan; but now I'm seeing it, firsthand, from a sort of odd position myself.

I have to admit, it's fun speaking French and Spanish to people, but I'm a bit intimidated by them as well. Will they be angry or insulted that a volunteer is there to "help" their hometown? Will they be allies because they know where I'm coming from but are more trusted in the community than I am? Will they just ignore me? So far people seem to be friendly and helpful, but I can't help but wonder.

I'm also failing miserably at navigating the "losing face" principle. I tend to think people are honest in the same way we tend to be in the US: honest and direct. If something won't work out, we won't say that it will. There's no shame in saying no, in not inviting people over, for not making a promise you can't keep.

In Morocco, and this is just a cultural pattern, of course, not a rule of thumb, people wil sometimes say things to not lose face or to smooth over problems.

If you read my Site Visit entry from May, you might remember the problem with the mudir, or the principal of the school. Well, I thought that was over. I still haven't talked to him, because nobody's introduced us, but a few people said it's not a problem and I took it at face value.

Until last week. After going to a party for an Ait el Harj person who's come back, and adorning myself once more with saffron and perfume, I went with my hostmom to the madrasa for a continuation of the party. My spirits were high: I love parties here and was anxious to see what would happen at this venue.

Halfway into the schoolyard, my mom stopped short. "Oh. The mudir (principal) is here. Problem. Go back home."

What?!

Crushed, I walked back home and tried not to cry. I thought it wasn't a problem. My hostmom repeatedly told me "mashi mushkil" both during site visit and since I've been back. The Association President told me it wasn't a problem. I had a fabulous dinner with five of the teachers who seemed to like and respect me, and now, two months later, I hear there's still a problem?

I asked my hostmom a few hours later, "I don't understand. What is the problem? Why couldn't I go? I thought there was no problem with the mudir."

She looked me in the eyes and said "Oho. Mashi mushkil." There is no problem.

It's because of cultural patterns like these that make me really worried about finding a house.

I also can't help but wonder what other people in town are saying about me. I haven't really gotten any anti-Americanism from people here, not my entire time here. But last Thursday, as I was walking home from the sbitar, I was called over by a group of kids. Kids can be very useful friends or very brutal enemies (I've heard countless tales of PCVs being pelted with rocks on a daily basis by more antagonistic children), so I decided to go over.

The encounter started nicely... then the questions kept coming. "Do you like Tamazitinu? Do you like America? Which is better?"

I gave my classic answer: there are things better in America, there are things better in Tamazitinu. Then it started.

"No. America is bad. Mirikan ixxa."

"Why?"

"Iraq!"
"The war!"
"Iraq is BAD!"
"The war is BAD!"

Hmm. These kids were all under ten. This sentiment and these ideas had to be coming from somewhere, most likely parents; the same parents who are inviting me to tea and being very friendly. Interesting thought to ponder. I'm not ready to draw any conclusions yet, but it's certainly an interesting thought. That being said, most Moroccans I've talked to definately can separate the actions of the US Governement from the heart and intentions of the American people.

In general, though, the people in my town are great, despite the housing trouble. When I cried about it (yes, I do cry at site occasionally), my next-door neighbor who I really consider to be more of a hostmom than my real one, saw me and when I explained why, she told me to stop because crying was bad...and then proceeded to cry herself because I was crying.

This sounds like a negative blog, and probably seems like I'm having a miserable and stressful time. I'm not. I'm stressed, but I also am relaxed. Out of necessity, with most things, I've developed a sort of an enshallah attitude: If God wills it. Will my tobis to site be full and I'll be stuck in my souk town? Hopefully not, enshallah. Will I never be able to work with the school because of a stupid action I took, trusting a town women's urging for me to take pictures during site visit? Hopefully not, but if so, so be it. There's plenty of work for me to do outside the school. I just hope that one action doesn't make it impossible for any PCVs to ever work at that school. Who knows. Maybe the mudir will be transfered, or maybe I'll meet him one day and smooth things over. Enshallah.

But I know I need out of my hostfamily's house ASAP, if for no other reason, to keep from eating meals of pure carbohydrates for breakfast and a very late dinner. It's rough on this former Weight-Watcher to eat nothing but bread and jam for breakfast, overcooked vegetables with bread (or if I'm really lucky a salad, eggs, or beans) for lunch, sugary tea all day, and a pure-carbohydrate meal for a late dinner, usually at 9 or 10 at night. There are so many fresh fruits and vegetables, all organic, mostly grown in the fields a five minute walk from my house, available, but people don't eat a lot of them. I will eat well on my own.

The bread is growing on me though. At Tamazitinu, they really grow the wheat, pick it, grind it, knead the bread, and bake it on a family by family basis. It's not amazing, but warm, with a bit of olive oil or argon oil, sometimes it hits the spot.

Speaking of food, I guess I'm losing weight too. Even the head gendarme told me today it was good and that I should continue losing weight. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate your insight. He also said not to eat at night. Wish me luck with that one.

Good things: Right now my favorite word to teach people in English is "alfalfa." It's close to the Tam word (lufsa), and it cracks me up that the first word that some people at my site learn in English is alfalfa. And then I talk about how I eat baby alfalfa on bread with cheese and tomato and mustard and cucumbers and they think it's the funniest thing. Alfalfa is grown here as food for sheep, and during the winter, one couscous dish. Of course, I do teach other words, but it keeps me giggling when I walk through the fields with some of my young friends especially and they point to a quadrant and say "Alfalfa."

I also sing to my little 5 year old host sister sometimes: I sing "Maria" from West Side Story but I subsitute her name for it. It's hilarious hearing her try to sing it back. I love the kids here. There are three kids 2 or under who know my name and I LOVE IT. Hearing them say "Katy" (or Kayyyyeeeeee, as is the case with my 1 year old sister) just cracks me up and warms my heart.

One of the next-door neighbor women and I are getting to be friends, I think. She'll call me out to the aloo (alleyway) at night to chat with her family, and we went on a walk to one of the neighboring big hill/small mountains alone one day. There's also a wonderful old woman who I like a lot.

She went into my souk town also today on my tobis, and invited me to coffee as soon as we got off. As nothing is open at 7 am, I gladly agreed, so five Berber women in their traditional wraps and I walked into a cafe and we drank coffee and shared bread and eggs. Afterwards, we walked around women's souk until my PCV friend in town called and I met with her and drank more coffee at "our cafe." I loved the looks I got from people when I was walking, hand-in-hand with the woman who is old enough to be my mother, speaking Tamazight. I certainly didn't get any catcalls, for the first time ever.

There are a few houses that I feel like I could just pop in for tea, uninvited when I have my own place, and that makes me happy. I also have the most fancy new beautiful bike that I plan on riding when it gets cool at night and my sunburned legs aren't as painful.

I'm now listening to All Things Considered online. I miss NPR.

And wow... I've spent 4 hours online today. That's a LOT.

It's amazing to have two weekends off a month. Once more; I was only at my 'vacation' destination a mere 24 hours, with 5 hours time there, a meager 4 hours on the way back, but seeing other PCVs, swimming at a swimming pool, wearing a bathing suit, drinking avocado juice and fresh squeezed orange juice... it IS like a mini vacation, even if it's just for a day.

That being said, I have a horrible sunburn. Good thing the hotel had aloe plants I sort of co-opted for my personal use.

Too tired to write properly, once more. Just wanted to say the weekend was amazing.