9.4.2007

I am drinking ice water right now, from my refrigerator. I finally got one, and, let me tell you, I’m enamored with it. I go open it every few minutes just to look at it or see how cold things are getting. After living without one for three months, it’s amazing being able to have ice water, keep vegetables good, and have leftovers saved.

As soon as I got it, I realized it wasn’t a true necessity; I could have lived for two years without one, but it’ll make it easier for me to be healthy, and have things like yogurt, cheese, milk, and eggs; all very important for a vegetarian. It also helps keep veggies fresher longer, which is needed when you can only buy them by the kilo or half-kilo and they go bad in a day. Sometimes, I feel badly for getting a “tleja” (fridge), the same way I feel badly for having electricity and running water. It’s a pretty common feeling here, at least with a few of us. Not everyone feels this way, but since I joined the Peace Corps, I wasn’t expecting as many luxuries as I have. Sometimes, I feel not “hard-core” enough, or like I’m in the Posh Corps too much, but what can I say? I’m living at the level of my community. That’s the goal. I still did live for three months without a fridge; I still can sleep outside when I want to. I still have to battle mice and killer scorpions. It’s not the Peace Corps of the 1960s, but I need to keep reminding myself that it’s okay to live the way I’m living.

Yes, I am battling mice right now as well. One brushed against me awhile ago as I emptied out my dirty clothes, but I ignored it and pretended it was just my imagination. However, one night last week, I saw it on my stove. It looked me in the eyes. I couldn’t ignore it, so I put out rat poison. Two mornings later, it was dead. Well, not dead yet. When I walked into the kitchen, it was laying, wheezing on the counter. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I swept it into a trash can and threw it on my burning trash in the fire pit. Just as I felt when I killed the crazy scorpion, I almost felt really sorry for it.

When I got back from my unexpectedly long weekend (more on that later), there was another mouse dead under my sink. I don’t know if it’s better to just let them live in peace in my house with me, or to have to poison and dispose of dead mice all the time. We’ll see. I put away the poison, but if I find another mouse, I guess I’ll get it back out.

My house right now is inhabited by a frog as well as my mice and scorpions and crickets and lizards and flies and ants. I tried to sweep him out the door, but he really wanted to stay, so I’m ignoring him right now. He’s pretty big, but harmless. I know frogs eat flies; maybe they eat crickets and scorpions too? For all intents and purposes, having a frog is really no different than mice, but it seems a lot more benign.

But, enough about critters, though I am really tempted to get a cat to keep the bugs and mice in order. I’ve never had a cat though, and don’t know if they’d just make it harder to keep the house clean. We’ll see.

This weekend was fun, but intense. I went to two gorges in Ouarzazate Province; one near Tinghir, and one near Boulmalne. It was a lot of fun to meet up with friends, cook American food, and see another friends’ site. Her site is perfect; it’s pretty much what I wanted in a site and I think I’d be happier there than I am at my site. Small (1,200 people), built on the side of a mountain, houses are mainly mud and stone, and it’s just peaceful. It’s a lot poorer than my site and they don’t have as many families with people working abroad, but the people are friendlier than the people at my site, if that’s possible.

In any case, the gorges were fun, but not as much as they were built up to be. Everyone at my site seems to be absolutely enamored with them. “Is tkit lgorj? Is tkit lgorj?” and when I told them I’d never been, the answer was unequivocally “Why?!” They are fun and beautiful, but not necessarily as big of a draw as I had expected. In any case, if you come visit me during the summer, we’ll probably go because it’s cool, and I’m glad I went.

My mouth is burning from eating spicy olives. Reason number 231 why having a fridge is worthwhile: olives. Yum.

We went to my friend’s site on Saturday, spent the night there, then headed to the gorge on Sunday afternoon. I had seen my tobis driver in the morning in my souk town, and asked him if he’d save me a seat. “Sure.” However, when I got back from the gorges, it ends up the tobis was full and the driver had not saved me a seat. A friend nearby let me stay at her site for the night, which was fun, but I was really frustrated with the tobis. It’s the only way in and out, and if I can’t get a seat saved, even when I ask in person the same day, it means that no matter when I go to my souk town, I have to sit around and wait 2 or 2 and a half hours before the tobis leaves to get a seat.

I was also quite relieved that Peace Corps was nice about it and the person on duty over the weekend even called my Program Manager to get permission for me to stay with my friend instead of my souk town. I hate having to call in things and bother staff on the weekend, or on holidays, or after hours, but I was relieved and pleasantly surprised that they even interrupted my PM on the weekend to make my life easier or more comfortable. Not to mention the fact that I wasn’t given a hard time when my phone accidentally dialed the same staff member after hours twice in one week. Today, when a friend took my phone and pretended to talk to her niece on it, she hit “call,” and it dialed the last called number. I was so embarrassed; I think I’ll write an apology email.

I could say a lot about this weekend, but I’ll just leave it with there’s something energizing about staying up with the girls until midnight, then hiking for four or five hours along a river in a deep gorge with a picnic lunch, eating fresh figs along the way. Some kids called out to us, “do you want apples?” and even when we said, “no thanks,” they thrust eight of them at us. Twice. I know I always talk about food and fruit, but I’m going to be quite frustrated at home unless I live in a city with a really good farmers’ market, or learn to garden myself.

Apparently, my neighborhood has a name I didn’t know about. It’s something like “Taqantntaqadondt.” I think I’ll stick to the more general “ijgel.” It’s safer. Last time I tried to pronounce a neighborhood in Tamazitinu and messed it up, it was “Ait Koko.” I pronounced it “Ait Qoqo.” Doesn’t seem like it’d be a big deal, but “qo” is a very vulgar term for fornication, so I feel like I have to be exceedingly careful.

For some reason, I’ve been in a really bad mood today. I’m not sure why, but it feels like something physical; exhaustion, maybe. My nurse even noticed and I think it made him unhappy, so I left early because he kept trying to cheer me up in the wrong ways. “You aren’t happy today or excited to be here. I can tell, because when you’re happy, you bring your notebook and pen, or a lesson. When you’re not, you just sit there and think.”

It’s true. I think one of my issues is going to the sbitar, and the expectations there. It’s not that I don’t think it’s important to go, but the idea that I’d have a lesson every day I go, even if it’s once a week, seems a bit, well, not really effective right now. My Tam is stick sketchy, and I don’t feel like it’s quality to sit there with a pre-scripted short “lesson” and lecture the women, even if it’s informal and one-on-one. The fact that they don’t know me and it’s just feeding information means it probably won’t stick, and it seems rather condescending. I much prefer being able to do classes and ask questions, do demonstrations or activities and engage people so they understand and don’t just sit there while I lecture them.

However, that kind of lesson takes a lot more prep work and a lot more Tam than I have right now. I have two lessons like that prepared; maybe I can do them if I get the materials together. But it feels a lot more productive to do it differently.

I set up a “meeting” with him tomorrow so hopefully we can discuss some project ideas I have. I’m serious about doing the girls’ group. I think we’ll do it, though it may have to wait to be “official” and going until after Ramadan. They are coming over tomorrow night; I’ll have to buy some stuff for juice and come up with a little lesson so I feel like I can have a “lesson plan:” maybe melon/yogurt shake, grapes and if there are good vegetables, some sort of veggies and dip to eat, and then a basic nutrition lesson and have the girls draw themselves with their favorite healthy foods. I’ve already talked to two parents, who seem perplexed but okay with the idea. Other than that, hopefully I can work with the women’s association in my souk town to work on the pre-natal classes.

Last week, I saw some girls (some of “my” girls, actually) with pompas (syringes) from the sbitar in their hands. I was livid. I really would like to do some sort of medical waste disposal project, because, really, it’s sad. Tonight, at dinner, I brought it up with a very bright 11-year old who acts like she’s 17, and she said, “Oh, no, it’s okay to use the syringes from the sbitar for henna if you boil them and bleach them first.” Where in the world are they getting this idea? It seems like it comes from a somewhat “legitimate” source if even an 11-year old knows they are involved in disease transmission but thinks that you can sterilize them and use them. But nobody seems interested in an incinerator, and the little research I’ve been able to procure doesn’t really seem like there is a better alternative that would work in rural Morocco.

I met some of my neighbors today: it ends up it’s the family of the teachers’ wife who I liked so much my first few weeks in site. Good people; no shock there. Delicious lunch, and it still is strange but fascinating and comforting to me when people ask if you want to take a nap or rest at their house. I’ve never fallen asleep, but I was close today, between couscous at noon, and lunch at 1:45, actually laying down on the ground with a pillow in the tea room. Most of the women were, but it’s strange and really nice that even if you just met them an hour earlier, they still don’t mind you sleeping on their floor in the afternoon.

I met a man named Zakareya today… the Moroccan (Arabic?) version of Zachariah. Love the name.
9.6.2007

Today is sort of a “get things in order” day because I’m going to a 5-day VSN (Volunteer Support Network) member training. It’s a peer-counseling group for current PCVs here, so after the training, my name will be on a list for people to call if they need support. I’m excited about the training a lot, but I’m also feeling like I’ve left my site a lot the last few weeks. I need to stay in more; but at the same time, I’m really excited about tentative plans in a few weeks for a weekend with a gorge hike where you need to swim across the river a couple times. If I wait too much longer, it’ll be too cold and I’ll have to wait until next summer. I never thought I’d have the dilemma of feeling like work-related leave (VSN training) and out-of-site weekends feel like too much time away from site. I also have to go to the provincial capital for a Delegue meeting in the beginning of October, and then there is a holiday weekend in the middle of the month.

Well, in any case, VSN should be good. I washed clothes this morning, and am going to go in the afternoon to take pictures of my neighbors’ family in the fields. The corn is growing high, and the fields are really just amazing right now; green, lush, and peaceful. My next-door-neighbor asked if I had a camera, and then asked if I’d mind taking pictures. The truth is, I don’t. She gives me two ears of corn a day that aren’t ready to boil yet, but are delicious when charred in the open flame of a butagas stove. She’s also had me over for dinner two or three times. I give her a bottle of ice water whenever she needs it now and have given her half of a melon a few times, but I like the idea of another way to give back to her. In fact, I don’t care if half the families in town want me to take their pictures in the field. If it makes them happy, it’ll make me feel like I can do something for people.

I made a frappicino today. It’s nothing too special: leftover coffee from yesterday that I froze, then defrosted in the fridge today so it was really cold, ice, a lot of milk powder, sugar, and spices: ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon. If I close my eyes, it could almost be from a coffee shop. I’ve also realized why I blog so much about food: I usually blog at home when I’m eating, or while my food is cooking. Right now, I have beans with peppers and potatoes on the stove. I think I’ll eat it for lunch wrapped in cabbage leaves.

Yesterday, I had my first successful “Girl’s Group” meeting. There were only six of them, which is a good number, but they came over earlier than I thought, so I hadn’t come up with a real lesson plan. Instead, I fell back on one of the easiest and most effective hand-washing lessons that we did during training.

First, we all just chatted and I gave them juice (melon and strawberry yogurt smoothie), grapes, and bread with olive oil. Then, we talked about when you wash your hands and why. The point was illustrated with a small demonstration.

I sprinkled a bit of pepper on the girls’ hands and had them rub them together. Then, we washed with just water. Even though they couldn’t see the pepper, they could still smell it. Germs (microbat) are the same way; even if you wash with water, they are still there even though you can’t see them. We then all washed with soap, and, voila. No pepper smell, because soap gets rid of it the same way soap gets rid of germs when just water won’t do it.

We all sat around and drew afterwards; I hadn’t come up with a related art project yet. Speaking of which, I want to get the girls to make soap dishes and decorate them someday. If anyone has any ideas of how to make them with cheap materials, let me know. I don’t think we have clay that would work: just dirt, which would get really gross when it got wet (like my house walls).

They stayed about two hours, and then I sent them outside to play when they started getting a little restless and rowdy. All in all, it was a lot of fun, and I think I can do it every week, enshallah.

It’s good to feel like I’ve started to do something, even if it’s just with six little girls. The hardest thing for me right now is feeling like I can’t give back yet, or no matter what I do, it won’t be enough or repay this incredible gift of an experience that I have been given.

The more I talk to some people here, the more naïve I feel. I really, truly thought that by coming, we could work together to make a difference or an impact on the health of my community. To be honest, I don’t know if I can. This might sound really negative, but it’s true. I can try to do my best, but I don’t know what kind of a long-term impact I can have. I had a really long and good conversation about this and what brings people to Peace Corps the other night. There are a lot of people who are here either for adventure, or to add something to their resume. When I came, it wasn’t really for either reason, though I knew both were good side benefits. I wanted to work in development, and do something that was bigger than just staying at home and working in an office somewhere. I wanted to experience a different life, live it, and hopefully learn from it and help people empower themselves. The Peace Corps seemed like a good entry-level, hands-on development organization.

But how much development work do we really do? It almost feels like 80% of what I’m doing here is having the best vacation of my life and living the easy life among this community of hard workers. It’s adventure, it’s cross-cultural, and it’s fun. I don’t think I’m exceptionally lazy here. I’m trying to find projects and do them. It’s just a lot harder than I thought, what, with limited resources and funding and limited language skills. I don’t know what needs of the community I can meet, let alone if they can be sustainable.

Shwiya b shwiya. Imiq s imiq. Patience is something a lot of people here have in droves, but I still have a lot to learn about relaxing and waiting. Shwiya b shwiya: I knew this had to be my motto even before I came. I had no idea how difficult or how relevant this motto would become. I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay the kindness and generosity.

I’m constantly stunned at how much I have been given since coming to Morocco, both from people back home as well as my neighbors here. When I was in town last week, I got a letter from a friend that was 24 pages handwritten. She had worked at a summer camp, and worked on the letter throughout the summer, sending it to me a week ago. What a gift! My parents constantly send me care packages and letters that are almost as detailed about their lives as my blog is (with newspaper clippings!). Both of my parents are going through big changes with jobs and I’m really proud of them. One friend sent me a care package with a great book and recent issues of The Economist, Harpers, and The New Yorker. I have another long handwritten letter from a friend I’ve known less than a year. People are very helpful with long gossipy emails and useful resources, and even just the little comments on my blog from people are very uplifting. I feel much more connected to your world than I ever expected. Thank you, thank you, thank you. La irham lwelidin (God bless your parents).


PS- I let the frog go last night. I kind of liked him a lot, but I could tell he wasn’t happy. He just kept cowering in the corner of my bathroom, so I caught him in the bucket I use to flush my Turkish toilet and threw him outside. Bslama, kind frog.