Nutrition Lessons in "The Big Cities"

March 7, 2008

I’ve had the most amazing three days ever, and I’ve been productive as well!
Wednesday, I headed over to my smaller "big town" near my site. It’s just as close as my souk town but isn’t quite as big and I don’t have regular transportation, so in my nine months in site, I’ve never really spent time there.

I chose a Wednesday because it’s that town’s souk day, so I do have transportation straight there, opposed to backtracking and making a 40k trip into an 80 k trip. The Small Business Development volunteer there asked me to come do a nutrition lesson, so I spent the morning getting to know her and walking around that town. It’s more peaceful than my souk town, and I might make it over there more often now.

The co-op she works with was welcoming and I think they understood most of the lesson. It went well, and they asked some good questions. It’s an interesting association: a co-op where women come and sell their wares to tourists and other people in town.

We went straight from there to a new English class she was teaching, then headed to her house to cook a tagine and cinnamon rolls with a Youth Development volunteer in that town. I had a really good time and have more in common with her than I thought. I was also inspired to buy a tagine pot to try to make tagine. I did buy a small incense burner and am going to try to learn how to burn the "incense rocks" that are common in these areas.

We both are intrigued by all the spices available in Morocco, so on my way to the bus station to get to my souk town yesterday, we went to her favorite spice and traditional medicine man. I don’t think I’ve described these stores before: they are quite curious to me. Dead chameleons, different muds, incense made out of compressed herbs into light stone-like material, beauty products, beads, animal antlers and gazelle or leopard skins, and jars, barrels, or sacks of herbs and spices adorn these usually dark and small stores. An old man sits behind a desk. This was no exception, and white-bearded, spectacled man spoke a curious mélange of Tashelheit, French, and Arabic in an incomprehensible but passionate stream of knowledge about traditional medicine.

According to what we could decipher, he told us traditional medicine was related to blood types and each blood type referred to one of the four elements. He told me I was water, a very desirable element because water-elements desire peace and hate conflict, sometimes sacrificing to prevent problems, they are intuitive, and hate lies and dishonesty.

He went on, but mainly in Arabic, so we left, somewhat reluctantly, but I’m tempted to find someone to translate and find out some of the theory behind it so that I can understand some things people in my community might be doing in secret.

Late morning, I took a bus over to my souk town, passing the road to my site. After a quiet lunch at my normal café, I headed over to my SBD volunteer friend’s association: the handicapped association.

It’s an amazing place. Volunteers and people who have mental or physical handicaps come in and have a social network and familial atmosphere, free healthy lunches, and classes to develop artisan skills. There are classes in pottery, candle-making, soldering, traditional dagger-making, beadwork, embroidery and cross-stitch, and many other crafts. I was immediately welcomed by a room full of women that my friend spends time in every day.

At first, it seemed a little disorganized and I got the impression that the director wasn’t particularly excited for me to talk about nutrition to the women. I thought about backing out, but after hanging out and getting a small tour, we gathered the women in a classroom and I started.

It went very well. People were laughing, they were able to come up with healthy menus, and they helped each other to understand. I didn’t know at first how many people were able, or what the scope of that was, but leaders in the group helped transfer the information, and I was really happy with how it went.

Afterwards, I spent some more time in a room with 8 or 9 women and girls, aged 8 to mid-fifties. I felt like I wanted to pack my bags and move in with them; they were so welcoming, kind, joking around, and it just felt like I was welcomed into a family. There was none of the stress of language or behaving properly. People were just open, themselves, and love abounded. It sounds trite or cheesy, but really, it was an uplifting place.

A few of the girls taught me some Tashelheit sign language, something that I’m sure is only regionally used and I don’t think is recognized as an official language anywhere. One girl was probably about ten and deaf and taught me the colors using plastic toys as a guide. Two other deaf women and I communicated with a combination of lip reading, motions, and a lot of laughter. One woman in particular, a 21-year old, really enveloped me in welcoming love and insisted I come back sometime.

Another thing that was really shocking was the fact that the volunteer, who is male, was able to be physically affectionate without it causing problems or being shameful. He’d swing the ten-year olds over his head, or hug women, calling them "sister." It was as if all the taboos and things that you "have to do" outside the walls in my rough-ish souk town disappeared in the association and it was a family.

I bought two candles, forgoing the daggers for now. I might have one made for me before I leave with my own design or my name in the Tifinagh Alphabet. The director came out and started talking to me, then pulled out a piece of paper he had just written down.

It was the menu for the free lunches that the association provides for all their volunteers and members, written out. "Is this good? Can we make this better?" he asked me.

I was shocked, and though I’m not a nutritionist, I could tell that the meals were very good: salads most days, fruit every day, milk often, vegetables every day, carbohydrates, and every day but one had a very good source of protein. The only suggestion I had was to add eggs to the protein-free day, and he said that they’d do it and thanked me for my help.

Since I had tagine the night before and was thinking of buying a tagine pot, I asked about them, since they weren’t enameled the way I’m accustomed to. I had fallen in love with the association and wanted to support them more than a random tagine-seller in town. He described in detail the difference between enameled and non-enameled tagines and described what I’d have to do in order to cook with them well. When I asked the price of a small one, he waved his hand. "It’s a gift from the association," he said, and proceeded to wrap a tagine made by one of the women I had just befriended, went into the solder room and quickly attached two pieces of iron to make a safe cooking surface between bare flames and the tagine pot, and wrapped up a clay burner (so you can make one tank of butagaz into a burner for pots, pans, kettles, and tagines. I tried to pay, but he was insistent that I take them to the point that it would be rude to decline. Overwhelmed, I left with my friend to his host family’s house, mind and heart reeling.

It was the first time in Morocco that being different meant that I was the same as everyone else.
It didn’t matter that my language was bad: many of the people were deaf and have trouble communicating most of the time anyway. It didn’t matter that I was American or a woman or not wearing a headscarf. Everyone is there because they are different, so my difference made me the same as everyone else there: an outsider in normal Moroccan society. We were all there, just people… whether we were able or disabled, whether we speak or not, whether we can function independently or not, and the few hours I was there might have been some of the most love-filled and genuine in my life.


March 8, 2008

I think I’m supposed to move.

My friend, Khalti (nickname; it means aunt) is one of my favorite older women in town. Her sister is my absolute favorite but she’s a close second and catching up fast.

I went to her house today for tea and she invited me over for lunch the next day. She also gave me an incense burner, which I tried to refuse but couldn’t. I’m bringing over yogurt fruit and a scarf I brought from the US for her tomorrow.

She brought up, not for the first time, that a house has recently become "rentable;" a house that I’ve been to a few times and actually has a crazy memory associated with it: a dinner with five teachers and the Rais my first week in site. One teacher was renting it until the beginning of fall until he left and now it’s vacant and beckoning.

It’s cement, which is less romantic than an adobe mud house, but more practical, though hotter. It has a few rooms and is in better shape than my house now, but the reason I’m tempted more than any other is location, location, location!

It’s next door to Khalti’s sister: my favorite old woman, and my friend who makes the trek to my house now every once in awhile… one of my closest friends here. It’s two doors down from my homestay family. The tobis pulls right up to the front door, and it cuts a good 15 minutes off the time it takes me to walk to the sbitar. My other next-door neighbors (it’s split because the road widens so I have 3 next-door neighbors) are a family who I love but don’t know very well who has goats and pigeons and a daughter who, whenever she sees me, tries to drag me over for tea, and a single woman who is very nice, though questionably trustworthy.

I also have a teleboutique in the front yard that is soon getting a fax machine, the super-hanut, the neddi is right across the street so I’d be more likely to hop over if I’m bored, and the school.
In other words, the location is perfect. Friends, work venues, proximity to stores… it’s all there.

I want to move.

The problem is that I’ll have to not only get Peace Corps approval (which I’m hoping will be easy since it’ll cut my rent down by almost half), but will also need to buy a bed and at least one or two tables or storage things. The house is completely empty. I own two ponjs, one agrtil (plastic carpet), one plastic table, and some cookware, but I’d probably have to dip into my own money to get a bed, tables, and some more spoons/plates/knives. Khalti told me that I might be able to borrow a desk or table from the school or neddi. That’d save some money… and I can sleep on a ponj for awhile, but sooner or later, I’d need a bed.

We’ll see what happens. I just wish I could call Peace Corps now to see if they’ll let me move!
I’m cooking my second tagine in two days. It’s a fun, easy way to cook a meal. I think I might be addicted.

… and my tagine pot cracked, spilling oil and spices everywhere! Oh, well. It was still delicious, if a mess.