Post PST-Crisis

November 19, 2007

I’m having a small crisis here.

Before you read this and worry about me, know that not only did I expect this type of a crisis, but I’d be worried about myself if I didn’t feel this way or question what I’m doing here in this way: it’s a common feeling among PCVs, and I feel that working through it will make me a better Volunteer.

I don’t know what I’m doing here. To be more specific, I don’t know what to do at my site, now that we’ve passed the In-Service-Training mark.

Shwiya b shwiya: I knew I had to follow this mantra from before I even came here, but didn’t realize how shwiya b shwiya I actually had to be.

I think I had the expectation that by IST (six-month in-site conference with additional training), I’d have a few grant proposals written and be able to come back to Tamazitinu with a PROJECT, and, within a few months or a year, the PROJECT would be finished and self-sustaining and wonderful and in my own head I’d be a hero. I feel like a lazy Volunteer with nothing on my plate and I often wonder what I have to offer the people here: what can I do that wouldn’t come naturally or that is not already in plans?

At the end of my obnoxiously long Community Diagnosis, I had a list of potential projects. I’ll post them at the end of this blog, just for your reference. The problem is that these projects all come from my own observations and are things that fit in with the goals and objectives of our project framework: a long range plan developed with the Ministry of Health and Peace Corps to focus the work of health volunteers in the next few years. They are not, any of them, anything that community members in Tamazitinu came up with.

So I’m torn. I know I could do things like do a TBA (Traditional Birth Attendant) training, convince the current sbitar staff to use an incinerator, and do lessons that may or not make any impact, but in two or three or five or ten years, what will still be working? The TBAs already in my town are not, for the most part, used because of pride that women have in home births without any help but family members. Nobody is convinced that an incinerator is an ideal solution (and I don’t know how convinced even I am, myself). Lessons tend to be in lecture format and I don’t think I have the ability to do, in Tamazight, interactive, discussion-based lessons. Not yet.

And that’s another issue I’m having, as a part of this crisis: how much is the truth about my site, and how much is me doubting my own abilities? Sure, I tested at a reasonably high level at my IST language test, but that doesn’t mean I can lead discussion groups, does it? I do have a tendency to be insecure about my own self-worth (as do most people; I just admit it to others) and what I have to offer people.

But how much of that is also me worrying about becoming the white, American, educated, independent and “liberated” woman coming in and destroying culture and dictating change? How much of my fears are about my own abilities versus coming in and being culturally imperialistic?

I have no answers. It’s hard because, as I said, and I mean no harm to Volunteers who do this, I know I could do a few PROJECTS from the project ideas and have something that will look good on a resume and be easy to explain to people. I can be like a BUILDING or a BRIDGE or a WELL Volunteer. “Look at MY TBA training!” “Look at MY INCINERATOR!” “Look at MY LATRINES!” “Look at MY MURALS!” At the end of two years, I have tangible evidence of my work (MY work) and can sleep easily for the rest of my life knowing that I can be proud of MY PROJECTS. People at home will be impressed with MY PROJECTS.

But, that’s not my goal. I hate “MY PROJECTS.” That’s not the goal. Community development, sustainability, becoming a co-facilitator, a co-leader, a trainer of trainers, a co-trainer of trainers, doing something grassroots that the people and the community wants and that can continue… that is MY goal: to not have any “MY PROJECTS” but have “their projects” or possibly “our projects.” If I can get through these two years without writing a single grant proposal, I think I’d be all the happier, though it’s one less thing to write on a resume, because, really, after I leave, will people in Tamazitinu be writing Peace Corps grants?

However, to do this more grass-roots work, I don’t know where to start. I don’t know if I have enough time in Tamazitinu even though I still have 18 months here. And I don’t know if I will be able to get over my own ego or my own insecurities to do the things I feel like I need to do in order to do this. Get a group of women together and facilitate a discussion about their community, their needs. I’ve gotten to know a lot of these women and they are wonderful for the most part. But what if I fail? What if I get a group of people together and they don’t want to draw a community map or talk about their hopes or dreams? What if I get nothing out in my shwiya Tamazight? What if it is just the biggest disaster and nothing comes from it and people respect me less because of the big fiasco and I am just the crazy taromit (foreigner) who tried to host a meeting and it fell apart at the seems?

And then there’s the ego part of me. I didn’t come to Peace Corps to have something on my resume (and at times, despite my best efforts, I judge people who have that as their ultimate goal): I’ve wanted this since I was fifteen because of my commitment to the three overall goals, but I am afraid to come home and have people not understand what I did during my two years, when the reality is that most people won’t understand regardless of whether I did build a bridge or well or latrines or murals.

What I need right now is an action plan: maybe the best thing is to do a dry run of a preliminary meeting with girls. Get them to draw community maps, daily schedules, talk about their hopes and dreams, their favorite parts of the community… children are much more forgiving in many cases, and maybe that’d build my confidence enough to do it with older women.

I just feel in some ways like I’ve wasted my first six months in site, and I want to blame something for that: blame training, blame my language, blame myself, blame people in my site or the nature of my site, but what’s the point? Shwiya b shwiya, imiq s imiq. Volubilis wasn’t built in a day. The expectations for end results for a Volunteer in a new site are much lower than I have for myself. Shwiya b shwiya.

***

To go in a different direction, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind and I’ve slept the last two days trying to recover. Okay, the truth is that I’ve slept and watched a season and a half of Lost on DVD I bought from the beach city where we had IST, but I’ll get up and around tomorrow.

IST was a week at, as I mentioned, a beautiful beach city. There was a lot of drama and debate whether we’d have the conference in a smaller city (my provincial capital: somewhere I go about once every two months for one reason or another) or this huge beach city with Marjane, nightclubs, an amazing beach, and high-rise hotels. I didn’t care that much, but when the announcement was made that we would be in the city, I was excited, I won’t lie.

On the way, six of us from my province spent the night in a town about two hours from the beach with a large, ancient wall around a lot of the city. The food was cheap and good, and the market was large enough to get lost in but small enough to feel comfortable in. We met a friend from the area and his counterpart for breakfast, and headed into town early on the first day of the conference so we had enough time to actually enjoy the beach for a few hours.

Now, as we pulled into the city, I went through what I call “bled shell-shock.” It’s not the most politically correct of terms, but I really felt like a country girl coming into a big city. Right on the beach were a Pizza Hut and McDonalds, and we passed by several Wal-Mart-like superstores that are still overwhelming after months in a mud house. My clothes, well-worn from hand-washing, felt scruffy and I realized I didn’t even have anything cute to wear when we went out to karaoke at night.

The beach was perfect: the water was cold but warm enough to be comfortable, and even though it was early November, the temperature during the day was in the mid-70s to 80s, so swimming was definitely something I had to do that day. I felt like I was in another world, but realized that within the period of three weeks, I buried my feet in both the sand of the beach and the dunes of Merzouga.

The food, which was on our own for dinner, opposed to the hotel buffet breakfast and lunch, was also absolutely luxurious. Pizza Hut, McDonalds’ Flurries (that the workers would mix multiple toppings in because we spoke Tamazight), grilled calamari on the boardwalk, tomato and mozzarella salads, tuna melts and (!) a coffee with Baileys (that cost as much as a week’s worth of fruits and vegetables) and even a reasonable version of Indian food (samosas and vegetable curry have never been so delicious) were definitely among my splurges that were well worth every centime. (Yes, you can get alcohol in Morocco though it’s technically illegal. No, I don’t really drink here: I can count the number of “beverages” I’ve had in-country on one hand and three of those were during IST).

A few of us that are able to get together a few times a month because of proximity had discussed our fear of the large group dynamic after these five months of relative isolation. It’s an intense dichotomy: three months of living and training and learning with the same 35 people without ever really getting away from them; then five months at site… then one week of living and working and training and learning together again.

However, that first morning, with 33 of us (two of our group have gone home for varying reasons) sitting in a U-shape in our conference room felt like coming home. Though I don’t necessarily love everyone in the group, I felt such warmth towards each person. It was almost as if nothing had changed, and I even found myself comparing where we were sitting with where we would have been sitting in our PST site; against the window, on the big green ponj, in the sets of four chairs that are stuck together… At breakfast, my Program Manager and Program Assistant both welcomed me with big hugs, and it wasn’t the fierce competition that a lot of us had been anticipating.

We had one night that was the same as some that we had during PST: a bunch of us in a hotel room singing classic Americana songs with two guys on the guitar. Amazing. I forgot how much I missed that from training.

The sessions…well… I have mixed feelings about them. Some of the group dynamic (imagine 25 out of 33 people as type-A always wanting to contribute and say things and respond to people and who are very convicted in what they have to say and you have our group) was intense and at times got ugly, and some of the sessions were more useful than others, but what I’ve realized is how easy it is to criticize. From the sessions, I developed a “to-do/to-consider” list which I think is very helpful, and if that’s what I got out of it, that’s enough. I was also very encouraged by the attitude of some of the administrative staff members: the tone seemed to be 180 degrees different than during training and the emphasis on working together and being open, honest, and flexible restored some of my faith in our staff.

I think that one of the most helpful moments was when I had a discussion with my Program Assistant about my struggles and, though I didn’t go into as much detail as I did earlier in this blog, I think that some of the expectations and suggestions were useful, and one of the things on my “to do” list is “Keep in better touch with PC staff with my struggles and attitudes.” One of my character flaws is a constant seeking out of affirmation, so I’ve tried as much as possible to not seek out approval, and, as a result, really haven’t used Peace Corps as a resource for me often. I think that’s been too extreme and I’m trying to keep in better touch because that’s what they are there for.

Attitude. That’s another hurdle for me that I really became more cognizant of: I still have a bad attitude about my site because it’s richer and more organized than I expected. I’m working on it, but at least I can admit that it’s not my site but my own frame of mind.

It’s hard, actually. Being alone and isolated a lot means that I’m forced to process things alone. At home, I have several very close friends who I love and I feel at home with and I can admit anything to them and they’ll not only help me process, but will love me despite it and not really judge me for it. Though I have close friends here, they’re not as close and I’m not at “home” with them, so it’s been difficult processing things alone.

For example, I was a part of something during IST that was just being caught up in the moment and that I really regret doing now. It’s not a big deal, really, but I don’t feel like there are people here who understand how hard it is for me to get over it, and my processing how to work through it. More than the actual action, I hate that I fell into the reasons I did for participating: going with the flow, trying to get attention, pushing the boundaries… Unclear, I’m sure, but this was a big deal for me during IST: doing something stupid and feeling like even just taking responsibility for it wasn’t enough; realizing that I still have a lot of growing up to do and that sometime if I keep doing stupid things like that, it will get me into trouble. I went home and wrote a letter to myself telling me to wake up and grow up.

On a different note, we also said goodbye to one of everyone’s favorite staff members who is leaving to become Country Director of a non-profit. I think we’re all happy for him to have this opportunity, but I know that for one, I’ll really miss him. Every time I think of him leaving, I think back to the one time during CBT during training where he and the Training Director came to where we went to souk, just to check on all of us and chat for a few minutes to touch base and see how we were doing. It felt, and I think I even blogged about this, like two nice uncles coming to see us. He also came to my site to check my house and helped me negotiate the price and brought medication from a nearby city so that I didn’t have to come into town with strep throat for the antibiotics. Our card and cake we got for him I don’t think conveys enough how most of us feel about his impact even though the actual amount of time we’ve interacted has been comparatively small. Best of luck to him.

All too soon, IST was over and I was on a souk bus (a particularly hot and slow souk bus) back towards home. I ended up having some very good conversations on the way back with people I haven’t really spent that much time with and I feel that they have a really good perspective on my aforementioned struggles.

I was exhausted but at least able to spend some time with a friend who is about to COS (close of service: go home at the end of the two years) who lives in my souk town. I’m actually really going to miss her even though we’ve probably only hung out 5 or 6 times.

I ended up only spending about 18 hours at home before I turned around to go help a friend with her murals. I thought that I’d be able to go directly to her house after IST, but because she had to get her flu shot in the provincial capital, I had two nights between travel back and travel to her place. Since I missed my transit, I spent a night in my souk town, and only one night in my site before traveling 200k backwards and another 100k to her site.

At home, I was hoping to come back quietly and wash clothes and leave in the morning without attracting much attention to myself: I had told most people I would be gone for about two weeks, not that I’d be back. However, one of my neighbors who I don’t know very well saw me and sent her daughter over with a pot of tea and a slab of the stuffed aghrom n taguri that was made with cornbread. Have I mentioned how welcoming and friendly my community is?

So, to my friend’s place. I’ve been there three times now, which is kind of ridiculous: it’s in the middle of nowhere and a good 13 hours travel-time from my site. I got approved for work-related leave to help her do some murals on her sbitar wall and learned a lot about the process. We did two that related to water: one that shows how to treat it, and another that encourages drinking a lot of water. They look really good, but that’s a testament to her artistic ability, not mine. I feel like I could probably do them at my site now, but I don’t know where a good place to do them would be. I may talk to my nurse to see how he feels about on the sbitar walls here.

It’s getting colder in my site now. I bought two blankets off my COSing friend, which is nice, and I’ve been wrapped in one of them all day. I don’t know how I’m going to deal with it when it gets even colder. Apparently, I’ll walk around wearing multiple pair of long underwear and sweaters and shirts and pants and skirts and socks and sleep in a sleeping bag with two or three blankets. I also hear that many Volunteers only shower once every two weeks or so during the winter. I’ve definitely cut down to once or twice a week now, but can’t imagine going two weeks. We’ll see what happens. The good news is that I haven’t seen a scorpion in my house since August and that I think (knock on wood) that the pinchy bugs are now hibernating. The bad news is that the mice are still out in full-force, but at least I don’t have to worry as much about getting pinched or stung in the middle of the night.

Such is life. Good, hard, and a struggle. At least I’m home now.

Language note (I haven’t done one of these in a long time!):

Well, this is more of a story than a note. I was sitting with my counterpart (nurse) a few weeks ago and he was taking an earwax plug out of someone’s ear. We were talking about how to say ear wax in English and French and Tamazight when this exchange happened. You have to understand this: my nurse speaks reasonable English, but nothing too advanced and he doesn’t understand very well.

Him: How do you say ear wax in English?
Me: “Ear wax.”
Him: Eeawass?
Me: No, “Eeer Waaks”
Him: Oh, like “Air bahgz?”
Me: What!? What’s “air bahgz?”
Him: You know. Air bahgz.
Me: What is that?!
Him: Like in a car. When it hits something. They are protection. Air bags.
Me: Air bags?! You know the word for air bags?

He doesn’t know how to say something as simple as “The cup of coffee is on the table” in English but he knows how to say “air bags.”

Okay, I need a better language note. Here’s one; I don’t know if I’ve already shared this or not. I’m copy/pasting it from an email I sent a friend. If you’ve already read it, sorry:

I was having a conversation with a 12 year old from Rabat in shr tmnya… um.. August… and I was talking about having Googled Tamazitinu. I said:

“Kigh lcyber afad ad-saulgh ghif ma d ba d lig kighd, googlgh Tamazitinu… d ur illi waloo.”

“Tgooglt Tamazitinu?”

“Eyeh… bleti… tfhmt ‘googlgh?’”

“Eyeh, fhmgh.”

We laughed.

“Googlgh! Tgooglt! Is tgooglt Tamazitinu?”

Ha. Well. Loose translation:

Me: I went to the cyber to talk to my parents and when I was there, I googled Tamazitinu… and nothing came up.

Him: You googled Tamazitinu?

Me: Yeah… wait… you understand “I googled”?

Him: Yeah, I understand.

We laughed.

Him: I googled! You googled! Did you google Tamazitinu?

So… if “to Google” doesn’t exist in Berber, it does now. It’s funny, the way things are conjugated in Berber though. For example, even for the present tense, we use the past tense. It only changes for present continuous, or future. Strange.

But here are the conjugations. If the verb is. I’ll do “fhm” (to undersand) and “google.” “gh” is pronounced like the French “r.”

I: fhmgh/ googlegh _____gh
You: tfhmt/ tgooglet t_____t
He: ifhm/ igoogle i_____
She: tfhm / tgoogle t_____
We: nfhm/ ngoogle n_____
Y’all (f): tfhmmt /tgooglemt t________mt
Y’all (m) tfhmm/ tgooglem t_______m
They (f): fhmnt/ googlent _________nt
They (m): fhmn/ googlen __________n




As promised, my list of potential projects in my Community Diagnosis (the Goals and numbers refer to the project framework for health volunteers):

Goal 1.1

• The implementation of classes for married women with an emphasis on pre and post-natal care, breastfeeding, nutrition, family planning, hygiene, and disease prevention. Optimally, this would be a joint-program led by the volunteer and either an established, respected TBA or a young, educated woman lay health worker in order to be sure that they are held in an effective way and to increase the chances of sustainability.
• Holding health lessons and learning activities during Equippe-Mobile trips to outer douars on topics such as dental hygiene, disease prevention and general hygiene, nutrition, and family planning; taking extended trips to some of these areas to gain credibility and work closely to promote education in some of the more remote areas.
• Continuing to do informal lessons on some vaccination days at the clinic in Tamazitinu on topics regarding all aspects of public health.

Goal 1.2

• Creating a small “Girl’s Group” to help empower them in self-esteem issues, as well as having basic lessons on nutrition, hygiene, and other health issues.
• Painting a mural in the school’s bathrooms promoting hygienic practices.

Goal 1.3

• Create a mural by the “tarugua” irrigation ditches encouraging people working in the fields not to drink untreated spring water.
• Working with Water Associations in some of the outer douars to assist in adding education to the scope of their projects.
• Working to help construct pour-flush latrines for households in outer douars where this is a major health concern.
• Work towards building a pour-flush latrine outside the clinic in Tamazitinu to address the problem of people being embarrassed to use the one inside when the clinic is full; or at least addressing this in some way through education.

Goal 2.2

• Evaluating the effectiveness of the previous TBA training, learning from its strengths and weaknesses, and providing follow-up trainings on additional topics, such as reviewing what was previously learned, going through what has worked and what hasn’t worked for each individual TBA, and adding elements such as Family Planning, SIDA education, breastfeeding, nutrition, and other related topics.

Goal 3.1

• Helping to recruit and train one or several lay women health workers, hopefully with the help of a local association to help teach lessons and to serve as examples and role models in the community in regards to health practices.

Goal 3.2

• Working with the commune or another organization to raise the funds to hire a janitor for the clinic.
• To come up with a viable, safe system for medical waste disposal at the clinic.
• To work with the Commune to develop a system for solid waste disposal, such as a landfill; combining this with several “trash pick-up” days.


***

November 1, 2007

Wow.

I went into my souk town today, after stopping on the way at a friends’ site and picking up what she says is one of two copies of a book in existence in the country: Dadda ‘Atta and his Forty Grandsons by David Hart.

It’s not too much of a security risk (which, if you’ve been with me since the beginning of the blog, you’ll remember is why I can’t tell names of places) to say that my people are that of Ait Atta; it’s a huge tribe that covers a few provinces. They’ve seemed to have some sort of Ait Atta pride, but I’ve always wanted to know more.

David Hart was an American anthropologist who lived in the region for 4 years in the early 1960s and wrote this book as a history of the people, focusing on the socio-political organization of this “super-tribe.” Ironically, the book is in English, and is most likely the most detailed written account of the people in my area. My tribe, so to speak. And, yes. For these two years, I do consider them my people.

So, after literally spending an hour in my transit to my souk town, 30 minutes in town, 25 minutes backtracking to her site, 20 minutes picking up the book and saying hi to my Dar Teliba kids (the girls in middle school who live in a girl’s boarding house in my friend’s larger site so they can go to school: my site doesn’t have a middle school. Yet.), and then another 25 minutes in a transit back to my souk town, I had the book in my hot little hands. Falling apart, literally held together by scotch tape, notes in the margins, my friend told me several times to “be careful with it because people might want to get their hands on it.”

I ran to a copy store.

“Hi. How are you? Is everything good? Everything fine? How is your family? Everything is great, peaceful, praise be to God… Um, do you photocopy books? Whole books? 250-page books?”

It was, well, an interesting interaction to say the least, but they promised me two copies (one for me, one for my friend) by 1:30 today.

After coffee with another friend, a few hours at the cyber, the post office (when I walked in, the nice man who gives me my packages greeted me by name and said I had two to pick up), I went to pick it up.

Two gleaming piles of photocopied old book. Beautiful.

As soon as I got home, after a side trip to Mashi-Kif-Kif and an invite from my tobis driver (I love his wife!) to spend the night at his house, which I consider a huge triumph and wish I had nothing to do tomorrow morning so I could have taken him up on it, I started in on it. I’m about 80 pages in and find it absolutely positively fascinating. In fact, my friend (who is also reading it right now) and I keep texting each other. “Look! On page 34, there’s a note that says that he had at least one informant in my town!” “Wow, the capital was within hiking distance of one of my douars! We should make a pilgrimage there!” “Did you realize that our CBT host families might have also been a part of Ait Atta even though it’s a good 11 or 12 hour drive up there?”

I’ve learned that my people practiced what Hart calls “transhumance:” in short, they were nomadic for a good portion of the year, but also had fixed houses with fields for farming. Though the people in Tamazitinu were some of the first to settle down “for good,” there are still outer douars that practice this; these are the “nomads” that I describe so much.

I got shivers when studying the chart that described the clans of the subtribe that encompasses Tamazitinu: I know probably 1/3 of the people in my time by the clans that are listed in the book; their last names are the same, and people refer to them or their house collectively as, for example, Ait Bahalu. I don’t know why it was so impactful to see, but I have faces and memories and experiences and future experiences with them, and to see it spelled out as part of tribal society was just really fascinating.

But what really struck me that made me want to write about this is this paragraph, talking about initiating new “presidents” (they are elected!) of the supertribe:

“… The new chief sat down and then his predecessor or the holy man placed either a single blade or a tuft of grass in his turban, to symbolize the hope that his year would be a bountiful one, that the harvest would be good and the sheep would wax fat. The agurram now gave the new chief some milk to drink, and, while he was drinking, pushed up the jug so that the milk spilled all over his face and shirt. This act, which symbolized his frailty in office, the fragility of his power, and the fact that he was no better than anyone else, his peers or his electors, also underscores the Ait ‘Atta (and general Berber) love of horseplay: for the chief was just another notable risen from the tribal ranks. Then the agurram gave him some dates to eat, for the combination of milk and dates given to all important guests is still symbolic of Moroccan hospitality generally…” (p 78).

In some ways, this embodies so much of my experience here; right down to the one family in town that literally always gives me dates and buttermilk every time I go to their house. People, especially in single-gender groups, are very playful, from watching a teacher literally hug and lift up his male friend while waiting for the tobis to leave, to some jokes that border on vulgar even by American standards that I have been subject to in the fields while harvesting tiflflt, or while at my friend’s house (usually these conversations focus around anatomy). And though I wouldn’t say everyone in power doesn’t abuse it, and there are definite gender roles and, one could argue, hierarchy, I see mentally challenged people treated with respect and care, I see the new weird foreign girl invited to tea and to spend the night at houses, every day now, I see people giving away vegetables or fruits from their fields, and hanuts letting people pay with credit without even writing it down.

Okay. I’m dying to get back to my reading. I’ve always liked anthropology, but I’ve never been this interested. I guess it’s because I’ve never really lived in a place that was a part of an anthropological study, at least one that I know of or had access to.

I'm still alive and well. It's been a very busy month... I'll be sure to update on it sometime soon! I've been travelling (to in-service training and then to help a friend with murals at her site) and unable to really write anything substantial. In any case, the last two weeks, I've travelled about... oh... maybe 1800k when it's all said and done, and am absolutely exhausted and, to be honest, looking forward to settle back down at "home."

Congratulations to Megan on the birth of her son Jacob Elijiah!

I'll most likely update more within the week or so.

Ciao!

October 26, 2007

What a week. Today is Friday. It’s 6:45 at night. I am exhausted but plan on staying up to write this blog, which will probably take a few hours, because this whole week has been absolutely amazing.
Of course, it started off the best possible way it could because work issues were really stressing me out: a vacation. It was only two nights, but it was incredible. The first night, I went to one of my friends site and had the best ever tacos I’ve had in the history of my Peace Corps experience. I might even go so far as to say it was the best meal I’ve had in Morocco.

You see, each time a group of us gets together at someone’s site, we end up cooking a big dinner together. In one hotel in a different province, we even cook on the roof there. It’s one of the highlights, really, chatting in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, and doing our best to cook as close to authentic American food as possible. The two standby favorites, at least with the people I spend the most time with, are tacos or fajitas and spaghetti with sauce. The spaghetti is much easier, but tacos take a lot of preparation: shredding cheese, buying plain unsweetened yogurt (tastes just like sour cream. Really. Try it!), cooking the meat or beans with lots of spices, chopping vegetables, making salsa, making guacamole when we can get avocadoes, and making tortilla dough, waiting, rolling them out, and cooking them one at a time.

Some people have their favorites they cook for people. One of my friends makes some killer lentils. Another makes alfredo sauce with Laughing Cow cheese and powdered milk. Really. It’s good. My favorite to make for people when they come to my house is spring rolls with vermicelli noodles and a Thai peanut dipping sauce, though it’s a lot of work do to for myself. I’m still perfecting a potato pancake recipe and am experimenting with different soups for the winter. So far, a potato-cheese (again, with Laughing Cow cheese) roasted red pepper soup is my favorite, but tuna-minestrone is a close second.

We eat better in the Peace Corps here than I ever imagined. The other day, with lunch (lentil soup), I prepared a plate of sides: steamed artichoke, mandarin oranges, fresh dates, and an olive oil garlic rosemary dipping sauce. I’m still eating 2-3 pomegranates a day.

But I digress. My friend’s site was really peaceful and amazing and had the same feel as a few others I’ve seen: rural, mountainous, relaxing and communal. My site doesn’t feel this way, but it’s energizing to visit places that are.

We headed out early that morning to go to somewhere I’ve wanted to go for months: Merzouga; one of the most touristy places in Morocco. It was incredible. I usually hate touristy things and places, but we even hired a guide (one of the most telltale touristy things you can do in this country!) and it was amazing. Highly recommended.

Merzouga is a small town on the edge of Erg Chebbi, a 50-kilometer stretch of rolling sand dunes. It was fun to drive there, as it’s only really about 3 hours from Tamazitinu, and it’s always exciting to see another part of the country or a new place in general. It’s also good to know that it’s an easy one-night trip from my house, so if anyone is planning on visiting, it’s relatively cheap ($60 including everything, once you get to Erfoud), and a really fun thing to do.

We headed out to Erfoud, after thinking maybe we wouldn’t make it on time because taxis weren’t running from Tinejdad. We made it through the tiny desert towns, and, after a quick bite to eat, met up with our guide, Hamid. I usually wouldn’t want a guide, but he comes recommended by several PCVs who have used him, including one who lives in the greater Merzouga area, so we used him, which was fabulous because we didn’t have to worry about the details.

Hamid took us in 4x4 trek into Merzouga, with a quick stop to look at striking fossils in large boulders on the way, and a stop at a baby sand dune; maybe ten feet high. The “road” was really just a series of 4x4 tracks. We came upon Merzouga and went straight to an auberge for tea and peanuts. Of course, everyone was shocked that there were five Americans who spoke Berber in such a touristy place, and their Berber is very similar to that in Tamazitinu. It’s the same tribe: but my town’s people are the tribe “n Ammalou” and the people in Merzouga are “n Tafuyt:” we’re “of the shade” and they’re “of the sun.”

We saddled up on the camels and headed out about two hours before sunset. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as you’d think, riding a camel, but it wasn’t the most comfortable ride either. Our bags hung from the saddles, and the camels were tied all in a row with our fearless leader, Zaid, walking in front with the reins.

As the sun set in the sky, the dunes turned different colors of pink, purple, yellow, orange, and, finally, grey. There were tracks of small animals visible: desert mice, birds, and large beetles. Unfortunately, there were also tracks of four-runners, which kill the environment here (as well as make a dent in the atmosphere of the sand dunes), but all in all, seeing the Algerian mountains in the background and laughing and taking pictures (riding a camel sidesaddle for awhile, even), we had an amazing time.

We got to the encampment just after sunset: a place that a few different tour groups have permanent tents set up for overnights. Our circle of tents had two other groups: a French family, and a mixed group of European tourists. There were low ponjs outside and a few tables, so we sat and first had tea and peanuts, then tagine.

We realized that we’ve been in Morocco too long when we had the tagine. Since the group caters to tourists, we had separate plates, forks, knives, and spoons. The understanding (and what every other group did) was that you divide the tagine onto your plates and eat it with bread. We all looked at each other and dug in with our bread, shoving the plates aside, not touching the forks and even going so far as to say “these plates are in the way.” Four months ago, I was begging to be able to eat a tagine with a fork and not have to eat the mountains of bread to sop it up. Now, we were all doing it the traditional way voluntarily, not even wanting to use utensils. It’s just strange to think of eating tagine any other way. I also chose, consciously, a Turkish squat toilet over the western toilet at the auberge because it was cleaner. Oh, how things change.

After dinner, we went outside and used the sand as a restroom as a group (ha! It reminded me of China when a bunch of us were traveling from Kunming to Xishuanbanna in an overnight sleeper bus and the five American girls all just turned a field into a bathroom in the dark when we stopped because, well, there was no alternative): no bathrooms amongst the sand dunes! Then, we climbed one of the nearby tall dunes.

I thought after Taftshfasht, a dune would be nothing. I was wrong. The sand was so slippery, I slipped down almost as much as I stepped up. It was like being on a stair machine at the gym: step up, then feel yourself sink back down. I ended up using my hands like ice picks to slow the fall, but it took a lot of energy to reach the point where we all finally stopped. I literally just fell in the sand, sprawled out on my back, looking at the stars, the dunes, and the almost full moon. I’m sure we looked quite entertaining, crawling up the dune; panting and sweating in the chilly night breeze. Coming down was fun, but disconcerting. I ended up sliding on my bottom about halfway, using my arms as ski-sticks to propel myself down. In fact, in the morning, I could see the little canal-like dent in the sand that I made when I slid sitting down.

The tents were comfortable, but sandy. I hope that doesn’t turn anyone off of coming. When I say comfortable, take that with a grain of salt: I find a cement floor perfectly comfortable these days as long as there’s at least one folded blanket under my back. Each ponj came with two blankets, a sheet, and a pillow, so if you come, I’d suggest bringing a travel sheet so that you can be sure to have a sheet under and over you at night. It got cold, so those two blankets definitely came in useful. I slept peacefully.

In the morning, the guides all woke us up to see the sunset. I watched from the tents; a bit disappointing, but still, all in all, an amazing trip. Breakfast seemed almost gourmet for us: bread and cheese and olive oil and honey and jam and orange juice and as much coffee as we could drink. Once more, knives were abandoned and six hungry Americans dipped their bread in cheese and oil and begged for more coffee.

The ride back was slightly more uncomfortable, as we were all sore from the day before, but I was in my souk town by noon.

Since it was a Tuesday, the post office was open, and I was absolutely, positively overwhelmed with birthday cards from complete strangers. To anyone in my mother’s Mom’s In Touch or Sunday school class, thank you for thinking of me all the way over here and for sending me a card. I do appreciate all those thoughts and prayers and the birthday wishes here halfway around the world!

A friend came home and spent the night with me since she couldn’t make it back to her site in one day. She left early the next morning, and I spent Wednesday reading Life of Pi (amazing!) and starting Peace Pilgrim. I don’t really know why, but it seems that Ashrams have been mentioned in the last four or five books that I’ve read. Interesting. I left to return a glass Coke bottle to one of my hanuts and ended up with an invite at a friend’s mother’s house and, again, had delicious couscous and watched people skewer lamb heart, intestines, lung, stomach, fat, liver, kidney, and other interesting organs over a barbecue (which was indoors). It’s good practice for learning body parts (Tessa is liver. Doesn’t that sound pretty? Or is it tesla? Isrman is intestines, which sounds like “islman” which is fish. It confused me a lot the first time I heard it.). My friend proceeded to invite me to go “for a walk to a place with water that is nice” on Friday, early in the morning and I accepted.

“Good. Then come over tomorrow (Thursday) and spend the night so we can leave at 5 am.”

Okay. No problem. As long as I’m prepared and don’t feel pressured, I enjoy spending the night at peoples’ houses here. I just never know when an invitation is genuine or seems forced. In this case, I knew it was a real invitation, so I said okay and planned on going over late Thursday afternoon.

I woke up and started reading Peace Pilgrim again. It’s a good book, about a really inspirational woman. There’s nothing particularly profound except things that everyone pretty much knows: the golden rule, love your enemies, follow your calling. There’s just something about her simplicity, her praxis, and the fact that she’s not preachy but really, honestly, lives what she believes in that was inspiring.

I called my nurse and went over to the sbitar. I don’t usually go on Thursdays, but I was hoping that I could meet with him after the last patient left to get some questions answered and go through things I’ve been trying to talk about for the last few months.

On the way, two things happened. The first: the Rais saw me and said he’d give me a ride to the sbitar. Then, he took me to his house and his family fed me fresh dates and some grain similar to couscous. Just as I was wondering when we were actually going to go, my phone rang. It was the Khalifa. I didn’t understand what he wanted, so the Rais said we’d just go to the Commune and see him in person.

It ends up he had just gotten a strange message that there were PCVs who had to be in a training for three months: he didn’t understand that it wasn’t me who needed to go but the new volunteers. However, I got to set up a time to meet with people there next week to get information for my Community Diagnosis. Fantastic.

Then I headed over to the sbitar. I wasn’t encouraged at first: it turns up that the Equippe-Mobile run that was planned for November actually happened while I was in Merzouga. I was livid. I would have never gone on vacation during Equippe-Mobile. Never. I would have cancelled in a heartbeat had I known, but it was a last-minute change.

In addition, the last patient didn’t leave until four, and I felt like it might be a bad time to meet with my nurse and that he might be tired. He insisted it was fine, so I got some answers to questions and he gave me seven pomegranates and a huge box of delicious fresh dates he had been given during the Equippe-Mobile run. I didn’t get all the answers I wanted, and I didn’t have a chance to discuss things, but at least I got a few things answered and gave him some food for thought as far as my position here.

As I was about to leave, I was informed that I had to stay because the doctor had dinner and brought it over “just for you.” So, the two of us sat in the doctor’s office and ate. I haven’t really had much interaction with the doctor. He’s not my counterpart and his programs don’t correlate as closely with our project framework as the nurse, so most of my interactions have been cordial but superficial.

I asked him what he thought would be the most beneficial projects as far as health is concerned in Tamazitinu, and it opened a whole floodgate of discussion. I had asked before, but this time it was more thoughtful discussion. My nurse came in, and the three of us talked for probably two hours about potential ideas, about development work in general and its challenges, giving me suggestions, and really thinking and discussing things. It was phenomenal. I felt like finally I had a chance to sort of explain things as well as what kinds of projects I’ve been thinking of, and not only were they encouraging, but I feel like the three of us reached a new level of understanding, especially relating to the idea of sustainability and empowerment. Rather than think that I am lazy, which is how I have perceived they have seen me at times, now, I think they understand and respect that my goal is not to come in as an American and lecture to people in six-months of Tamazight language on how to wash their hands or cook their food, but to empower people to make changes because they want to and understand why, from a place that comes from within the community, not outside. I’m still almost giddy with relief that we were finally able to have this conversation, and I really find their critiques, support, and suggestions invaluable. I was also able to voice some of my frustrations in a productive way and may even get some results from them. We’ll see what happens. In any case, I’m excited for the possibilities.

And now, in between writing, putting on more clothes because it’s cold, and eating dinner, it’s 9:00 pm. I really want to write about last night and today, but feel it’s best to sleep. I’m exhausted.

October 27, 2007

I slept from about 9:30 last night straight until eight this morning. I really was exhausted.

Back to Thursday night; I went home, packed, and headed over to my friends’ house a ten minute walk away. We had couscous with her family, then crashed in her bed, after using all her beauty products and me texting her husband in Spain in Spanish. It was kind of fun, actually. The text ended up saying something like “Buenas noches, mi reino. Estoy triste porque tu no estas aqui conmigo, pero estas en mi corazon, siempre. Buena suerte.”

Rather than waking up with her alarm at 4:30, we rolled out of bed at 5:30 and gathered everything together. I thought there would be five or six people and that we’d bring maybe bread, popcorn I brought over, and soda. Oh, no. We grabbed some agrtil and bags of stuff and went to three or four other houses, accumulating a total of 18 women ranging in age from 9 months to about 27 years old. There were aheyduss hand drums, and, while it was still dark out, we headed towards the hills.

Up and over some hills; I was getting tired but so was everyone else, so we stopped and rested. The sun came up and the sunrise over the mountains was stunning. Then, we continued and hit paved road (this part was very newly paved: finished last month) and took it up over another large hill, then into a valley. Then, we turned left in what looked like the middle of nowhere and got back onto unpaved territory.

It was a river valley that was dry until we walked maybe twenty minutes and then it exploded in a fabulously green, lush oasis. The dry bed was almost like a huge staircase down, and it started with little puddles of water that finally expanded into a creek surrounded by date trees, fig trees, flowering plants, and frogs.

We set up “camp” for the day and quickly women started unloading. I was shocked. They prepared for three full meals out in the oasis: sardines and bread for breakfast, a very vegetable-heavy couscous for lunch, and tagine with bread for dinner. My friend and a few other younger girls and I went to scavenge for dry wood and palm branches for a fire, and within twenty minutes, we were drinking sugary tea and eating the sardines. Four liter bottles of soda sat under a small waterfall to chill for dinner and it struck me every time I looked at them: it almost looked like it was soda day at the spa, the way they were just leaning leisurely under the trickle of water.

We even had a “kitchen;” an area shaded by wind by a cliff and large boulders. We had two fires going at all times: one for a teapot, the other for the meals. Evidently this is a popular picnic spot, because the two date trees in the “kitchen” were black with soot up to the palm fronds.

The day now, even a day later, is kind of a blur. There was lots of sitting around the fires and talking, lots of women peeling and cutting vegetables and washing dishes in the small waterfall trickle; there was lots of moving around of the agrtil and playing aheyduss drums and singing songs.

Four of us took a walk a little farther back in the valley and found a date tree that was “pregnant” with ripe dates. There was one man who came a little later, and we enlisted him to climb up and shake the dates out. I was munching on these fresh dates all day. It was also fun to watch him shimmy up the palm tree to shake them out and to see everyone rush to get them on the ground as if a piñata had just busted open. I wanted to try to climb the tree (they’re like big palm trees), but the hike would be a little crazy to do with a broken leg or twisted ankle, so I resisted the temptation.

On this walk, we started to hear dogs. “Nomads,” they said. Well, these nomads had a house and fields, so they aren’t that nomadic, but we saw them and, ironically, the woman there didn’t know anyone in the group but recognized me from the sbitar. My friends asked if they had any figs that were ripe, and I don’t really understand the interaction, but we ended up picking 26 ears of ripe corn. I don’t know if we were supposed to or not, and I didn’t pick any, but they all insisted it was fine.

This family is actually well-known in my area, I learned, because of the polygamy. Now, in Tamazitinu center, there is one polygamous family (actually, this friend I keep talking about married one of his sons), but he only has two wives. This man, the man who owns the farms we took the corn from, has either three or four wives. My friends kept arguing over how many it really was, three or four, but we saw at least two of them. I joked that if there was going to be polygamy in my family, I’d have a few husbands, but they didn’t get that it was a joke and said that wasn’t possible and that it was hshuma (shameful). Oops. No more polygamy jokes for me.

I seem to accumulate rocks every time I go for a hike in and about my site: there was one stone that had these amazing stripes that I pocketed.

In any case, we went back and roasted the corn before couscous. Then lunch. Then more singing and dancing. A few of us climbed what looked like a large hill or mountain but ended up being just the ground level; we were in what was almost a canyon down by the “kitchen” and “soda spa.” There were old structures made of stone that, when I asked what they were for, everyone told me that nomads use them. There were also interesting areas that were just covered with quartz crystals. Even the dirt was just fine quartz crystal dust. I really want to know more about the geology of this area, what, with the sand dunes, the mountains and plateaus that look like nothing I have ever seen, the crystals, the fossils over by Merzouga, the plethora of dry river beds… it’s fascinating. Sometimes it feels unreal.

My friend and I took a few pictures upstream a bit and there were these plants with crazy above-ground root systems. I was shocked that she let me take a picture of her without a headscarf (!) and without a skirt on… just essentially knit long underwear. Yes, it’s getting cold these days. Yesterday, I fluctuated from being very hot to very cold, depending on the wind, how much we were walking, and whether I was in the shade or sun.

“Dinner” (the third meal of the day, at least; most people ate again at nine or ten at night) and soda and fruit came next, and at about 4:15, we started heading back. It took over two hours because most of the way we actually had two aheyduss lines, and four or five women walked backwards a considerable portion of the time. Trucks driving on the road usually honked and waved. It only hit me afterwards: I was a part of that group of singing, dancing women with drums parading down the road. My life is really strange. Anyway, we stopped a few times; once as soon as we hit the paved road. One of the girls took off her shoes and prayed right there, kneeling and prostrating in the dirt.

It started raining everywhere around us, and at sunset, we could see the huge grey clouds over the mountains stretching to the ground in torrents of rain. We stopped at the top of a hill at sunset and watched, eating apples and pomegranates passed around in the aheyduss drums.

By the time we headed back, it was getting so chilly that I was wearing a headscarf so that only my eyes showed. A lot of women were wearing theirs that way, and I have to say, it was quite warm. I’m sure I looked ridiculous with that scarf on, a brown velour hoodie on with the hood up over the scarf, my American sneakers, and a long black skirt, but it was warm.

I thought I’d never make it back to my house, but I did while it was only drizzling rain, lhamdullah, and collapsed on one of my ponjs.

It was a beautiful day. It’s been a beautiful, and needed, week.

Off to a nice beach town for IST: in-service training for a week at the beginning of next month. Part of me is really excited to see everyone from my fantastic group, be cooked three meals a day, and stay in a hotel with hot showers! I probably average one hot shower a month these days, and since the weather is getting colder, I’m not bucket bathing every day or every other day the way I was in the summer. Oh, yeah. That’s another thing. In Tamazitinu, people talk as though there are only two seasons: summer and winter. Right now, we’re sort of on the cusp of them. Summer lasts from May to late-October, winter lasts from November to April.

But IST should be fun, and then we can really start working on projects. I have under a week to finish my report, but in all honesty, I think that’s doable. I’ve made progress already on it and have most of the information I need. I have a meeting with someone at the Commune on Monday; hopefully that will help fill in the blanks. If not, I feel like what I have is sufficient; I just know myself that it’s incomplete.

Happy Birthday, fabulous sister of mine. I sent you a card, but the postage wasn’t sufficient, so it came back to me.

Okay. Read “Peace Pilgrim.” She’s as close to a modern-day prophet (prophet, not messiah) as I’ve heard of.

Peace. Time to either wash clothes or work on my community diagnosis. I really have to work on both.


October 28, 2007

Wow. Tomorrow is my sister’s birthday, and the next day is mine. I will most likely spend it just hanging around in site, getting ready for IST. I consider the entirety of last week to be my birthday celebration though; Merzouga and the party at the oasis. I’ve already started telling people I’m 24 though, for some reason. Birthdays aren’t celebrated here, but I may try to go into town and get some work done off the internet for my Community Diagnosis and maybe treat myself to a few Skype phone calls.

I have stayed inside the last two days, which is good. Yesterday, I hammered out a good fifteen pages of my report. I have no idea what I’d do without a laptop. Having to go into town to type this report out would have meant I’d need to go for a few days, which would be expensive and would take me away from my community more than I’ve been gone. Today, I’ve spent the bulk of the day cooking (lentils and vermicelli Thai salad; yum!) and doing laundry. At home, it’d probably be 3-4 loads worth, which, when you’re scrubbing everything individually by hand, takes hours. I only got about halfway done when the clotheline was full, so I have to finish tomorrow morning, but today, I washed two pair of long underwear bottoms, 13 pair of underwear, 8 bras, 7 shirts, 2 skirts, 3 dish towels and 8 pair of socks.

I just noticed a huge frog on the floor. Now he’s hopping around in the mud outside. It’s been raining at least a little every day recently, which is fantastic except it means there is mud all over the place.

For some reason, I have the urge to listen to the Evita soundtrack. I have it on my computer, but it’s a strange thing to want to listen to, but so it goes. It’s amazing how strange life is when you’re isolated as much as I am. Even during the “oasis party,” language barriers meant I had lots of time to think. I’ve been reliving parts of my life that are strange, impactful, hard… you name it, I’ve been thinking about it.


October 29, 2007

Doing laundry means that I left my door open a lot longer than I usually do, and there are now three flies in my salon that are driving me crazy. It’s one thing if I’m at someone elses’ house, but in my own home I do everything in my power to keep flies away and am very vigilant.

But, in any case, I have had another fantastic day. I stayed in doing laundry until about 2:30, then headed over to the Commune to meet with one of the men in charge of some programs I wanted to know about for my Community Diagnosis. The Khalifa and Rais (see entry from mid-to late August for glossary) told me to go for him for population information as well, so, having set up a meeting, I went over there.

I always get nervous when it comes to meeting with officials. I even get nervous going to the sbitar sometimes, even though I’ve been here for five months now. In any case, I stepped through the wooden door (it’s strange: the door is cut out of a big slab of wood and you have to actually climb over the bottom part of the door to get into the commune complex) and knocked on his door. He was there, and he remembered that he agreed to meet with me, to my relief.

He was in the middle of stamping some papers, so I sat around for a few minutes, and then started in with my questions. At first, he seemed aggravated I was there, and, after speaking Arabic to me several times (even though he speaks Tashelheit, French, and a lot of English) and asking, “So the Khalifa and Rais told you to come to me for this?” I asked him if I was bothering him and apologized for taking his time, but that I didn’t have anyone else to go to for this information and he assured me I wasn’t and said it was “his pleasure.”

His attitude softened to me after that, and he even asked for English lessons for some of the advanced speakers in town. I agreed; in any case it’d be good to get to know some of the movers and shakers in Tamazitinu, and it’d give me something to prepare for on a regular basis. If it goes well, I might start for beginners or different levels, though English teaching is not one of my passions here.

After I got all the information I needed, or at least all he could provide, he asked if he could have a copy of the report, which I had been planning on. He also asked what kinds of projects I was thinking about, so I ran a few by him. He seemed impressed with the idea for a waste system, both a landfill and an incinerator for the sbitar. I also got a list of all the women trained at the TBA (Traditional Birth Attendant) training session last year, and I was amazed: of the 14 TBAs, there were 2 Khadijas, 3 Toudas, 4 Fatimas, and 5 Aichas. This is the reason that if someone says, “Hey, Katy, have you seen Fatima today?” I never know who people are talking about.

On the way back, an ex-neighbor (hostfamily’s neighbor) called me into a shop she is now working in and I ended up buying a scarf for the winter that is a deep blue and green flannel plaid design and really wide. I stayed and chatted a bit, then was called into the house of one of the TBAs in town, where I had tea and dates and aghrom n taguri for 45 minutes or so. I don’t know why I don’t go to some of these houses more often.

In any case, when I got home (after being followed by a pack of giggling little girls coming home from school), I stopped by next door to check on the status of my triko and saruel set.

My next door neighbor, the one who I ate lftor with during Ramadan for the first week or so, makes clothes “ifilan:” knit on a loom. When she brought over the electricity bill yesterday, which was 2.5 times higher than last months, she reminded me that she made these clothes and was beginning to take orders for the winter. It’s a bit pricier than I’d like to spend: 140 Dh (just under $20 US), but she needs the money, and it’s handmade from very thin yarn. She only had three colors to choose from, but I commissioned a green and purple striped turtleneck, and purple knit tight pants, worn as long underwear or under skirts.

When I stopped by, I realized that it was a lot worse of color choices than it looked like with the yarn on the spools, but whatever. I’m not at home, and I’ll probably use them as underclothes mostly anyway. It’s not done yet, but I’m impressed with how far she’s come. It’s also exciting having someone you know make clothes from scratch just for you, and the purple will look good under my purple jellaba.

When I got to my house, there was a woman sitting outside. I didn’t recognize her, but she said she was waiting for me and that I had to go to her house for couscous. Okay. No problem; it’s nice not always having to cook.

On the way, she said that the nurse was also going to be there, and that now I’d know where her house was so I could stop by whenever I wanted. I recognized her face, but didn’t realize who it was until later that night: she had invited me to couscous at the sbitar last week but I said I couldn’t go because I didn’t know where her house was. I guess the invitation was genuine.

I did know her sister though; she had gone on the hike the other day. They also had a sister in law who looked no older than 16 or 17 and had a one-month old daughter.

I spent the night with them (the men stayed in another room the whole time) and was amazed at how comfortable I was there. They knew I didn’t eat meat, so while they had brochettes, they were thoughtful enough to roast some corn on the charcoal so I had something to eat. Ironically, I actually did eat some brochettes tonight though because it was quite possibly the most delicious smelling meat I’ve had in Morocco: it was chunks of lamb steak (no organs whatsoever) that had been marinating in oil, salt, cumin, onion chunks, pepper, and cilantro. Wow. Delicious. I felt strange eating it, but they kept offering and I really wanted to taste it, so I did.

Their house was also fantastic, and they offered me a shower in their “douche” (that’s how you say shower in French and Tashelheit… and Darija for that matter. What’s most hilarious is that one of my friends that lives in a bigger town has an apartment over a public shower that has a huge sign in front that says “Super Douche!” You can’t make this stuff up) that has hot water. I would have taken them up on it if I hadn’t finally taken a bucket bath this morning. I don’t know what made tonight so relaxing and chill, except the good food, the encouragement, their thoughtfulness with the corn, and the fact that they sent someone to my house to come get me. It didn’t even bother me that we ate second.

The gender situation is bothering me less and less. I can’t say hi to men in the street, really, without seeming to be “easy,” but I say hi to every woman I see. Even though I was in the same house as my nurse all night, I might have seen him a total of 45 seconds because of the separation when we were eating. I’m seriously considering wearing my jellaba and a scarf every time I go to my souk town because I hate the attention, and it’s even getting to the point that when people do things that are “inappropriate” here, I wonder, instinctively, if she is a prostitute. The feminist in me is screaming, but I’ve come to terms with it here. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it’s happening nevertheless.

Really, I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a more thoughtful, giving, friendly, open place, or met a society that is quite as giving. I’m still constantly amazed.

My fear that I’d be isolated here because of my experience during Ramadan is slowly dissipating. I really like the people here. I get frustrated at times, but all in all, as far as dealing with other women in town, I can hardly think of a place I would imagine would be easier.


October 30, 2007

I am 24 today.

It was a fairly normal day for me here. I slept in (my present to myself) and headed to the sbitar late, only staying about half an hour or so. On the way, I finally found out where one of my friends moved. She’s young, 17, and about two months ago she moved to another neighborhood, but I never knew which house it was.

It ends up that she moved in with a family member… a cousin, maybe? This cousin is also 17 and has a one-year old son and a younger sister. The three of them live in an enormous house alone until next summer, when family who is working in France will come back.

It was really strange to see this huge, two-story cement house with an enormous garden lived in by two girls who aren’t even considered adults in the US, one of their sons, and a younger sister. Granted, one of the girls is married, so it’s not like she’s a child, per se, but it was a strange arrangement and I really liked the laidback atmosphere. I had couscous with alfalfa, which is easier to eat with your hands than any other type of couscous I’ve had here, then pomegranates, and we watched TV for a few hours, flipping back from Ms. Doubtfire subtitled in Arabic to a Mexican telenovela that is dubbed in Arabic, then Legally Blonde, Red White and Blonde, which was cuter than I had ever imagined.

I came home, treating myself to a Coke on the way. At home, I started cooking a warm vegetable soup when someone came to my door. “Come to your neighbor’s house.”

Again: it was shocking. My next-door neighbor who lives in another huge two-story cement house is one older woman, and two young girls who come stay with her so that she’s not alone. The rest of the house (9 other family members) are all living in France until the “eid kbira” celebration, then the month of August. More TV watching, this time it was the Tres Amigos with Steve Martin. The old woman kept asking, “Do people dress like that in America?” about the sombreros and beaded sparkly jackets, or “Oh, there are lots of guns in the US.” The impact of satellite television is huge.

I did get seven text messages and a phone call from my stagemates wishing me a happy birthday, which all made me quite happy.