September 24, 2008

First of all, apologies for taking so long to blog. There's no way I
can catch up, so instead, I will sort of give a more categorical
update according to themes. It's not very fluid or organic, but given
how much ground there is to cover, it's the best I can do.

Here's what I hope to cover from the last two months: work, play,
faith, struggles, and hopes.

Work:

Ever the American, of course, work comes first. In short, there hasn't
been much. I spent most of July preparing for what I thought was going
to be one of the best and biggest things I've done in my site so far,
something that I rested a lot of hopes on: the health component of the
Tamazitinu Cultural Week. For more on that, go to "Struggles." (I like
this categorizing; I can put negative things off).

I have, however, had the girls come over quite a bit while school was
out for the summer, which is fun but exhausting. There was a lot of
play and some work involved, but we did things like made dinner
together, including a proud moment when one of the girls looked at the
lentils and said, "Oh, that's a protein!" There were more showers at
my house too, which quickly depleted my shampoo supply, but kept the
girls happy and clean. And, when, as a health volunteer, your girls
group tells you that their parents don't want them using water to
shower more than once a week in 110 degree weather, and they know that
it's healthier for them to shower, it's hard to say no.

I've been doing a lot of planning for after Ramadan, including a lot
of lesson plans and letters in French begging asking if I can work in
the schools.

This summer has also marked something that I've been needing to do but
putting off for months: officially (to Peace Corps and myself, at
least) canceling the incinerator project. I've known from the
beginning it was something that I was pushing and not something
community-initiated but I kept hoping that it would catch on. It was
down to the wire: I had helped write the joint grant, do the budget,
make structural changes to the plans, and was invested in the project
completely… but that was the problem. I was the only one really
invested in it. The provincial government wasn't willing to commit to
$12 or $24 a year for their part because of budgetary constraints and
prior project success rates, and, more importantly, my community
wasn't really excited about it or invested in it. Would it have worked
out well despite that? Possibly. But it's against the Peace Corps
development work position to do a physical project and write a grant
without community participation and involvement, and it felt like I
was pulling teeth every step of the way.

In other words, it's better that I not impose my priorities and values
on the community. Plain and simple. So the other two people in the
province who are doing the project in their communities sent in the
grant without my community. Maybe, if I get replaced when I leave, my
talking about it will have sparked some interest later on.
The Training of Trainers project is coming along, with roadblocks, but
pretty well, I'd say. We'll see how it goes in November (!) which is
coming up fast.

Another pseudo-work project was that I served as a trainer for a VSN
(Volunteer Support Network) training with two others. That was a lot
of fun and helped me remember how much I do love being in front of
people and teaching or performing. It was great to get to know some of
the new health and environment volunteers, and it was a good review
for me as far as how to be a good active listener and support people
who are going through hard times. I think there's a saying that the
best way to test someone's comprehension of something is to get them
to teach someone else. I'd agree with that wholeheartedly.

Play:

I've had a lot of time to play between updates, since life stands
still almost during the summer here. It's too hot to leave the house
except mornings and evenings in mid-summer, and my counterpart, the
nurse at my sbitar, was gone for a month, essentially emptying out the
sbitar. Nobody goes to the neddi to learn how to sew or do crafts, and
life really starts socially after the call to prayer that here we call
"l3assr:" at 5:30 pm.

If that doesn't create an indolent PCV, then once Ramadan started at
the beginning of the month, life stands even more still, with people
fasting from sunup to sundown (4:30 am until about 6:30 right now).
Working hours are cut drastically, and some people, like my
hostmother, don't even really leave the house. I ate lftor (the
breaking of the fast meal) at her house the other day (day 20 of
Ramadan), and she counted the number of times she left the house on
one hand.

So… what better time than to have a friend come visit from home? And,
really, what a bizarre time as well, with cities shutting down for
30-40 minutes at sunset…

I had a blast cavorting around the country. As with when a different
friend came in June, I made her take the train alone to meet me in
Marrakech to save myself a precious vacation day, and she was a good
sport about it. I really love Kech these days, and little things like
getting in the Palais Bahia for free because the guard asked if I was
a resident after my 30 seconds of broken Arabic and waved me in, or
the fact that the DVD guys let me change out bootlegs that don't work
without question even make it better.

I'm beginning to "get" Kech; learning how to walk everywhere or
finding nishan taxi drivers who are quick to turn on their meters when
asked faster than before, or how to get one of those overattentive
shopkeepers in the souks to leave you alone (just ask them to do you a
favor and the harassment stops. "Do you know where there's a CD
store?" "What song is playing in your shop; I want it?" "Can you tell
me which way to Jamaa Al-fna?" In general, they answer, then are
silent…) The cheap hotel hustlers recognize me and call out in Berber;
I know where the best 10-dirham dinner is now, and which juice guys
and tea stalls will give free refills. My knowledge about argan-nut
harvesting impresses the shopkeeper, and I'm beginning to find good,
cheap English-language books at the used stalls near the bus station.
And even the bus station is a friendlier place, once you get past the
"Essaouira" hustlers.

I'm not saying this to sound arrogant or brag about my knowledge of
the city: I've only spent, maybe, 10 nights there, total, in the last
year and a half, mostly just passing through on my way up to Rabat or
Casa. I'm saying it because my first few impressions were of an
overwhelming, dirty, big, ugly city full of sketchy touristy kitsch
and people out to fleece foreigners, and now I've come to find it
charming and vibrant.

(Though I would say to avoid eating at the chwarma place that is on
the main large pedestrian walkway up to Jamaa Al-Fna on the left. I
don't know what it's called, but it's on your left if you're walking
towards the square, just before you come to the alleyway on the right
that has arrows with "Hotel." It's two stories, with a low-ceilinged
upstairs eating area you can't see well from the street, and the
chwarma and counter you order at is on your left when you walk in.
Sketchy people; mediocre food. Stay away; they're really good at
ripping people off. There is a great, cheaper, friendlier place with
an outdoor seating area on the right, a few shops before Ice Legend.)

Marrakech was fun, especially eating at the seafood stand on the
square, and watching people push out the carts to set up, or wandering
around near the Mellah, or just catching up on 4 years of life from
atop the Café du Glace's roof terrace.

From Kech came the pass of death down to Ouarzazate. The CTM bus was
particularly terrible, for some reason. In Oz, I tried taking my
friend to see the Taourirt Kasbah, an old mud fort near the center of
town, but we very nearly walked into Sir Ben Kingsley's stunt double
as they shot what looked like a funeral procession in a small strip in
front of the Kasbah. The movie is called "Prince of Persia," and
filming the probably 2 second shot of the back of Kingsley's character
riding down near a "village" with mourners wailing and a black
carriage following was more fun than it should have been. We thought
it was Sir Ben himself, and looked rather foolish, but had fun trying
to take pictures as my little security friend pointed out people who
had cameras out and then his friend, nicknamed "The Beef" walked over
threateningly at them and pretended like he was going to tear them
limb to limb.

A tour bus pulled through and stopped right in front of the Kasbah (we
sat on stadium-like steps across the street) and they all had cameras
and were taking pictures, so we cheered them on, clapping and
screaming; other spectators around us first were confused, then joined
in.

I made friends with the little baby security man, who spoke
Tashelheit, but he told me he couldn't run any notes to the other side
of the street. I'd have invited them to Tamazitinu, but, eh… a lost
opportunity. I guess I won't be making tagine for Sir Ben or Jake
Gyllenhaal any time soon. Or their stunt doubles.

After Oz, we tried for my site but got stuck in my souk town, and had
coffee with a silver jewelry shop owner friend in town. We also
explored the old Glaoui Kasbah, something I hadn't done even though
I'm in town almost every week. It made up for not being able to go in
the Oz kasbah, with intriguing graffiti, beautiful crumbling
archways, an abandoned, caved in staircase with a secret passage that
used to go to the center of town, probably 1.5 kilometers away, and
room after room after room. It makes me sad that it's in such a state
of disarray, but a friend of mine told me it's because the Glaoui
regime in the area was a repressive one and the locals want little to
do with the restoration of its former glory.

On to Merzouga, the sand dunes, and a rather exciting adventure out
there in a tobis. We got there and drank tea, chilling in a nice
auberge before heading out on camels to the middle of the dunes. Our
travel mates were our guide and four people from France. It had been
raining, so an eerie sort of grey dust covered parts of the dunes:
remnants of salt from the rain, possibly, and the wetness obliterated
some of the beautiful wind marks that are typically so picturesque.
But, all in all, it was a beautiful time, complete with lightning from
somewhere towards Erfoud or Rissani.

By the time we got to the campsite, we could all tell that a storm was
brewing, and after dancing in the dark to drums in the center of the
tents, we all ended up eating inside the one weather-proof tent with
interesting multi-lingual conversation (Spanish: one of the women from
France was actually from where my friend studied abroad: Guyaquil,
Ecuador, French, English, and Tash.), a fantastic tagine seasoned,
unfortunately, with sand, and we were all in the same tent that night,
wind ripping at the plastic with such force that it would have been
difficult to sleep had I not been so exhausted.

From Merzouga, we were supposed to take a tobis to Rissani or Erfoud;
however, we missed it and ended up getting a ride in a Land Rover from
the French tourists. That ride saved us at least 100 Dh each and a
good 2-3 hours travel time at the least. I went to pick up Zika from
my friend who was watching him, but she wanted to keep him longer, and
I happily agreed and ended up back in my souk town.

It was the second night of Ramadan then, and among numerous
invitations to eat lftor with complete strangers, we walked to the
Mellah, the old Jewish part of town. I knew that my souk town had a
Mellah, but didn't know where it was, since any remnants of the
Judaism there had been lost.

However, it is potentially one of my favorite places in Morocco: a
whole other world. Three or four story mud houses with passageways
over the winding alleyways are crammed together in a maze of something
that felt like what I would have imagined an old Moroccan city to be
like. People still get their water from communal fountains, girls and
women filling old oil containers from spigets, and people, once they
greet me and heard me greet back in Berber, grabbing my hands and
insisting we break fast with them. One of them is a man who works at
the hotel I stay at when I get stuck in town, and I literally had to
go in his house and meet his family, apologizing profusely that we
couldn't break fast with them. On the way to his house, the old man
gave us a tour of the Mellah, showing where the marriage windows were,
or what houses belonged to large, rich families; who had left and gone
to Israel, which Muslim families had stayed.

To think: I had been walking up and down literally a quarter of a
block away from this old part of town for over a year and never knew
it. It's amazing, the things you discover, and how little I know about
my souk town, or some of the other areas around me.

From there we went to Tamazitinu, and wandering around with lHems,
watching the children grab our hands and giggle over my friend's
tongue ring, industrial piercing, and tattoo. I've never seen them so
curious about something before; they kept asking me to have her stick
out her tongue, or asking her to talk, to see if she sounds funny, or
kids lifting up her shirt in the back to see the tattoo. They still
ask me about it. We went to my friend Touda's house (who told me that
my friend's "strange" appearance wasn't bad, she just looked like an
Arab, referring that in the more Arab-populated north of the country,
fashion and modesty is less homogeneous), and my host-family's, and
the Neddi, and the fields. It was a quick visit, but fun nevertheless.

From there, back up to Kech for my 3rd out of 4 trips on the Titchka
pass in the period of two weeks. Again, the bus driver seemed to enjoy
going as fast as he could around every hairpin curve on that
nausea-inducing road. I didn't even get to say hello to my buddies in
Taddart, the typical stop-over for most busses on the pass, though on
the way back, they remembered me and told me that there was still no
soup available. I swear, the Café Barce in Taddart has the best
2-dirham soup I've had yet in country, though I forget if it's Taddart
1 or 2. They're a few kilometers apart, the Taddarts, and some buses
stop in one, some in the other. It's probably the same town but
there's literally nothing in between them but curvy road and mountain.

And from Kech, something new for me: El Jadida (which, incidentally,
means "New"). We had been thinking of doing Essa, or adding something
else to the trip, but my friend and I had already traveled about 1600
k over the last week or so (about 1000 miles) not including the flight
to Morocco, so Jadida made the most sense, as it's close to Casa,
where she was flying from.

I'd wanted to do Jadida for awhile, since a friend of mine went and
loved it, and the old Portuguese city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
so we, with open minds, went, though for the week and a half before,
had been getting mixed reviews from people.

Jadida is an easy 3 hours and change bus ride from Kech, with a really
beautiful but bizarre beach. It's the flattest beach I think I've ever
been to, with a narrow strip of sand at high tide, and a huge,
flatly-packed area at low, dotted with stone outcroppings full of
tidal pools with fish, anemones, and the occasional little crab.

I've never been much of a beach person, but those three days really
did feel like vacation, though trying to find food was difficult with
most places closed during the day for Ramadan.

Our first night, after passing more soccer games on the beach than I
could count, we came upon an army truck with a rocket launcher that
pulled up to the boardwalk. After being afraid to for the first few
minutes, I took a picture, and talked to some of the soldiers. Right
at Tinwuchi (what people in Tamazitinu call the prayer right at
sundown, marking the end of fasting for the day), they lit the rocket
and it shot into the ocean, temporarily deafening me, as we were
literally maybe 15 feet away. In Marrakech, to mark sundown, they turn
on what sound like air raid sirens, though in Tamazitinu, there's only
the prayer itself, supplemented with television sets, tuned to the
call to prayer at the Cabba in Mecca.

The Portuguese city, which I called the pirate town, was eerie at
sunset. We walked there right after the rocket was shot, and everyone
was in their houses eating lftor. Something about the dim, yellow
lights and the shadows with the old church at Place Kan-Issa (Church
Plaza), next to the mosque tower next door, with archways, and the old
cobblestone streets, the sea breeze, and the cannons over the ramparts
really made me feel like I stepped back in time or onto a movie set,
but that it was all mine, because the streets were silent.

And then, after three blissful days in what I found to be the perfect
place for a vacation in Morocco, it was time to take the train up to
Casa. We stayed at Hotel Foucauld, an old place that is cheap for
Casa, with a fantastic old gated elevator surrounded by a winding
staircase. It's obvious that 50 or 60 years ago, it was a very posh
place, but now it's old and run-down. However, we couldn't beat the
price, and it was within walking distance of Casa Port station, and
the man at the desk not only spoke my Tashelheit, but actually came
from a town about two hours away and he knew the volunteer my friend
replaced.

I'd never been to the Hassan II Mosque, so we took a taxi out there
and wandered along the huge outdoor courtyards until just before
tinwuchi. Even Casa dies at sunset during Ramadan: we crossed the main
intersection downtown by the clock tower without a single car driving
by in any direction! Casa with a friend is much better than Casa
alone, and it was bittersweet saying goodbye the next morning at the
train station: she on her way to the airport, me on my way back down
to Kech.

My timing was terrible, so I ended up staying not one, but two nights
with a friend near Ouarzazate before heading up to VSN training. I had
a great time with her, and was glad to get to decompress a bit and
relax, as well as reconnect with some volunteer friends, but my timing
was terrible, and I wished I could have had the time to go home and
rest a bit and do laundry before the training…

Now that I'm back in site, it's hard to think of anything here as play
right now, but with breaking fast at the three families I'm closest
to, three nights in a row has helped me feel more re-integrated. Which
actually brings me into the next category of…

Faith:

Ramadan is a hard time for a lot of volunteers. Last year, I fasted 12
days, but came to the conclusion that it isn't really the best thing
for me to do, since I don't have the convictions of it being a part of
my religion.

I'm not an Islamic scholar, nor am I Muslim, so I fear my explanation
of Ramadan is probably severely lacking: I'm sure there are many
resources online that can give a full description and the history and
spirituality behind it, but my understanding is this: Ramadan is a
month in the Islamic calendar of fasting from sunrise to sunset.
Fasting includes no food, drink, water, smoking, swearing, sexual
activity, or letting anything pass through your lips. The reason for
this, people tell me, is to have people understand what it's like to
be hungry and encourage people to give alms to the poor, as well as
being a testimony of faith. Women do not fast the first 40 days after
giving birth, and menstruating women do not fast, nor do the sick,
though, at least with menstruating women, they are supposed to make up
the days.

Ramadan came early this year; the dates change in our calendar because
it is tied to the lunar calendar; so right now, sun up to sun down is
4 am until about 6:20 pm. Many people get up at 3:30 to eat a meal
called sHor. SHor can be anything from bread and butter or oil for the
poorer families, to tagine (stew) and soda for richer families.

The break fast meal is called lftor. Lftor is different depending on
location and culture, but in Tamazitinu, it generally consists of
dates, water, coffee with milk and sugar, aghrom n taguri (bread
stuffed with lard, cumin, hot pepper, oil, green onions, salt, pepper,
and other spices; ground beef in rich families), some other sort of
bread, such as misamin (an oily, flaky pancake), bagharir (a spongy
pancake, often served with udi- a rancid butter cooked with paprika
and green onions), or svenj (doughnuts), mskota (a type of cake),
hard-boiled egg with salt and cumin, some kind of juice or yogurt
drink, and harrira, a soup.

Last night, my old woman friend Touda told me that there were two
types of harrira: Berber and Arab. In Tamazitinu, we drink the Berber
harrira (aharrir), which is a thick, brownish soup with turnip,
cilantro, chickpeas, lentils, tomato, and beans, which is thickened
with a mixture of flour, ground corn flour, and sometimes bean flour.
The "Arab" harrira, which is more common in restaurants all over and
up north, is a red, thinner soup which doesn't have turnip, has a
tomato base, and sometimes has meat, noodles, and other things in it.
In Berber, the word for "to eat soup" literally translates to "to
drink soup," and people make fun of me if I slip up and say "to eat,"
asking if I'll eat it with a fork. We drink it without a spoon,
swirling around the hot soup to cool it down before sipping from the
edge of the bowl.

Other differences in an "Arab" or, the way I see it, a "City" lftor
and a "country" lftor are things like shebekiya, a honey-soaked
cookie, smmeta (a ground sweet eaten with small spoons that looks like
brown sugar clumps or even ground beef, but that is flour, sugar,
peanut, walnut, sesame seed, oil, and other nuts ground into a coarse
powder), juices, yogurt, and generally more variety than what we have.

I love breaking fast with people, and, though sometimes I feel guilty
if I haven't fasted, usually people are more than happy to invite me
over, though I always bring something to share like juice or yogurts.

After lftor, an hour or two later comes tea, and then an hour or so
after that, dinner. Many people eat three meals at night even if
they're fasting during the day. In between, there are a lot of special
Ramadan television shows, including one that I've seen three or four
episodes of that I cannot stand… I don't understand much of what's
going on in it, but I know that there's a young woman in it whose
father locks her up in a stable, ties her hands above her head and
hangs the rope from a tree all day, dehydrating her, then teasing her
with water and spilling it all over… at one point, she gets her
revenge and stabs him in the eye with a knife… In any case, it's
disturbing, though I think it's supposed to be somewhat slapstick. The
other Ramadan shows are a bit more to my liking.

I wondered if it would be hard not fasting at all this year, but most
people in my town have seemed to accept it with no problem, though a
few times a day, I get told that I have to fast to go to heaven. While
traveling, however, I got it more than I expected up north, even from
people who didn't speak Tashelheit. Among the most common places of
attempted conversion are taxis. I had several taxi drivers, all in
Arabic, tell me that I have to fast and become Muslim and why. It was
strange, because of the fact that I don't even speak Arabic, and could
only piece together bits and pieces of what they were saying.

A few of my friends here have been really nice about it and told me to
tell them all, "It's none of your business!" if they try to force it,
though usually a "It's not my religion; I follow the religion of my
parents," and if they insist, "If you moved to America, would you
become Christian and not fast and take off your headscarf? I feel the
same way about my religion," works well enough.

I do have to say that I love several things about Ramadan though, and
I'm not talking about the delicious but heartburn-inducing food. I
love the fact that so many people fast, and that all over Morocco,
just as all over the world, millions of people break fast together
with a date, or a sip of water or coffee, or a piece of bread. I love
the fact that the Koran television shows: the stations that play the
chanting of the Koran all day, subtitle in English sometimes during
Ramadan, so I can follow along and see what it is that the man in the
house absentmindedly chants along with the television, so I can feel a
little bit more understanding than I would otherwise. I love the fact
that a city of millions can come to almost a standstill, and that a
beach full of life can empty as far as the eye can see, except a
middle-aged couple, sitting on a bench, eating a picnic lftor, looking
out at the sunset over the sea.

Struggles:

I alluded to there being a disappointment back when I was talking
about the Cultural Week. I haven't written about it anywhere, but I
guess it's good to let it out and vent about it.

There are two associations in Tamazitinu. One of them, the water
association, doesn't do anything really except maintain running water
in town and collect payments; my first month in-site, the president of
that association asked me if I was a virgin, and so because of that,
and because it's not really an active association, I don't have that
much of a reason to work with them.

The other association is slightly more active and has accomplished
some incredible projects in the last six or eight years. Since my
first month or two in site, I've been trying to meet with them and
work with them, but it's never happened. Nobody tells me when the
meetings are, no matter who I ask, nobody can tell me who the
president is (I've been told three different people), but the members
say they want to work with me.

In June, I finally, after a year in site, got to sit down and have a
meeting with them, though it was mainly because some of the men who
work for the Commune (local government) helped me maneuver.

I didn't know what the purpose of the meeting was until the day
before; I thought it was maybe just a general meeting and came
prepared with a small presentation, copies of the project framework
(the goals of the Community Health in Rural Morocco Peace Corps
program), excited and ready to finally work with someone and open the
door for further collaboration.

It ends up that the meeting was specifically to work on a project they
had coming up: a Cultural Week. While listening to them talk, I came
up with some suggestions for ways to work womens' health in without
them having to do any work, as well as some ideas that would involve
them heavily if they were interested. I gathered up my strength and
courage and explained that I was open to helping with whatever needed
help, and threw out my ideas.

The idea to work with kids to have events for them one day, which was
the idea that would mean that I'd have to have help from them, was
shot down, but they seemed open to me having a health table out the
whole week. Fantastic. I proposed a list of five topics that were
approved, and set up times for the table to be open for women to drop
by at. Fantastic.

The date was still soft, so I kept checking with the adjunct president
(don't ask), over the next few weeks. I recruited some fellow PCVs to
come help work the table, and got together materials. Almost
immediately, I got bad news.

"We only want your table for 3 days." Fine. The date changed. Fine.
The date changed again… and again… I felt bad for all the PCVs I
recruited, so I prepared to do it alone.

Then, more bad news. "We want you to do just one lesson, one day for
the women, okay?"

At least I was on the official schedule. I worked to come up with the
most interesting and informative presentation I could come up with on
pregnancy care, touching on home births and birth control.

Three days before, I called the adjunct president. He said all was
good. I heard nothing over the weekend from him, so, an hour before
the presentation on Monday, I was at the Neddi, ready to go.

However, the Neddi director knew nothing about it. I went to the
association. "We don't think anyone will come, but we'll set up anyway
for it."

I offered to go recruit people into coming anyway; they said not to.
We set up chairs. Three men from the association came in. "No women
are coming. Just men."

My mind raced. I could do a lesson for men; it might be even better
since they hold a lot of power in family dynamics. It wouldn't be as
well prepared, but it'd be better than nothing. I offered. They turned
me down.

"Why weren't you here earlier? There were lots of men earlier, maybe
50 or 60. Why didn't you do it then?" Nobody had told me that. It
wasn't on the schedule. You better believe I'd have been there if I
had known.

Twenty minutes before the lesson was supposed to happen, I stepped
outside to call a friend to vent my frustrations and focus myself
before the lesson. When I came back, the chairs were in a different
position, and the association men were in the other room. One of the
teachers came out, after they all turned to look at me and talk
quietly to one another.

"Ummm… nobody is going to come, so we're just going to have a meeting
for men. Sorry. Maybe you can do your lesson at the clinic or
something."

My dad called as I was leaving, walking through the fields with all my
things so nobody would see how flushed I was.

Frustration. Anger. Hurt. I know that there's no reason for me to take
it personally, that's how things fly sometimes, but I had worked hard
on this and was excited to finally be able to work with the
association, hoping this would be the event that would open the door
to a successful Peace Corps-style collaboration. But I had been shot
down, and it hurt and I was upset.

I thought about asking for a site change: to move to another town for
the remainder of my service. The schools don't want to work with me
when I tried to take that avenue. There are no associations to work
with. The sbitar is great, but nobody goes to the clinic to learn;
they go because they're sick or they take their young children to get
vaccinations and have a million things on their mind… the last thing
that they want is to be forced into a health lesson. The most
successful lessons are the 2 or 3- on one pregnancy discussions I have
with pregnant women, but that's because it's relevant to them at that
point in time, and the small groups make it easier for me to
facilitate information that is specific to them.

Rather than stay bitter at my town, I hiked to a close douar that I
haven't spent much time with. It literally entailed me walking up to
men and asking "Do you have an association? Can I meet with the
president, please?" and within ten minutes, six men were in a room
with me in someones house, coffee and tea on the table, talking to me
about their wishes and hopes for their douar, which, incidentally,
include several things in my project framework. Great! The reality is
that the association is not very well organized, and my nurse said
that working with them could prove very tricky and problematic, but I
know that after Ramadan, I can possibly see if they might be willing
to collaborate, specifically on a project that would be a dream of
mine if we could complete it.

Which brings me to my last category….

Hopes:

This douar's association has done some amazing things. They've built a
clinic of their own accord, but unfortunately, there's nobody
available to come serve as a nurse there, and since they built it
alone, it's not built to ministry specifications, so it's sitting
there empty. They've also started work on a Neddi—a women's center—but
don't have the money to complete it. This is something I'd love to be
able to work on with them, but since projects of mine have to relate
to health, it'd be finishing the women's center with a twist. I won't
go into it now, because I know better than to get my hopes up, but I'm
crossing my fingers.

When I told some of my buddies at the Commune what happened with the
association in town and how frustrated I was, they told me I was being
silly and not casting a wide enough net. In an amazing gesture, they
told me that if I typed up something in French about potential
collaborations, why I was here, and what my organization was about,
that they would translate it to Arabic for me and help get a meeting
with the associations in douars in the surrounding areas. Amazing.
Unfortunately, these men from the commune are on vacation for Ramadan,
and I, again, know better than to get my hopes too high, but I'm
encouraged at the potential here.

I've also typed up a proposal for weekly school lessons, which, if
approved, will be quite a large commitment. There are 4 primary
schools within 1.5 hours walk of my house; the biggest school has 400
students (16-ish classes), the smallest maybe around 100 (4 classes).
My nurse and I have been talking about this, and I've finally created
the curriculum for it, but my goal is to go to one of the four schools
once a week, visit each of the classes, and do a health lesson. Even
if it's just once a week, it's still a very full day especially when
you include 3 hours of hiking for some of them, and teaching lessons
in a non-native language, especially Berber, is exhausting for me. I'm
a bit nervous about getting approved, but I know if I run into
problems, my nurse will fight for me, and, though it may take a month
to get it, I'm confident I can get the Ministry of Education to give
me a letter of permission, which might help as well. Keep your fingers
crossed for me on this one; if it goes well, maybe we can organize an
educational field day at the end of the school year before I go home.

I'm also trying to push for doing a booth at souk (weekly market) once
a month on HIV/AIDS education, however, that's something that I need
help with. I've drafted a permission letter, but I need to meet with
nearby volunteers to see if they're onboard or not.

There are my hopes for the future; for the next nine months. I can't
believe my Peace Corps gestation is that of a child. It's going to fly
by.

…..

So, there's the blog entry for those of you who were asking for it,
specifically that person who I like to call Mom. Yes, Mom. I updated
this just for you. And, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you are
the only one who goes through the entire thing. If you did,
TbarkAllah.