May 7, 2009

It's so strange to be leaving.

I have around 14 days left in my community, and I have to travel for
at least six of them to work at the Rose Festival, meet with the
Gendarmes, and go to meet with the Delegue in the provincial capitol
one last time.

Today, my fridge went away on a truck… sold. I'm taking a lot of
things to the festival to give away or sell. I've taken down my map of
Morocco, my pillow covers on the wall, moved my oven out from the
kitchen, and, little by little, am organizing and getting rid of
things; an entire household compacted down to one or two suitcases and
a backpack. It feels good to get rid of things, freeing. It's the
exact opposite feeling of what I felt when I cleared out my room at
home before going to Peace Corps: I still had an attachment to those
memories, those things that were attached to unique moments in my life
and childhood. I can't get rid of things fast enough here; I'm ready
to downsize, to become nomadic again and try to travel out of a
backpack. If I could not take anything with me but souvenirs, it'd be
perfect, but I feel like I must take some clothing so as to be able to
be clothed at home.

I don't know if my eagerness to downsize is because I've changed, as a
result of Peace Corps, if it's because I'm practical (better get it
done now so that you aren't scrambling around any more than you have
to at the last minute!), or if it's because a part of me really is
ready to move on and go home to the next great adventure, the next
steps in life.

I've become lulled into the inevitability that somehow, I will end up
burning bridges before I leave in my community: someone will be
jealous of a gift or angry by my lack of a gift, or that I didn't have
time to spend a meal with them before I left, and I'm comfortable
knowing that I will do my best, and any anger with me or jealousy will
be unintentional on my part, so I can leave in peace, despite that.

There is so much to do, my list grows rather than shrinks every day
even though I've been busier in my last week than I have been in my
first year in many ways.

My "replacement," though I hate the term that has permeated the Peace
Corps community lexicon; the term is unfair to both her and me—nobody
will exactly replicate my work and my service, and her role is her
own, not to become me— is here, which is nice and reinforces my
confidence with my community and makes me reflect on my first weeks
and months on a regular basis. We are in similarly lost and
stress-filled positions, integrating or preparing to re-integrate in a
new society when we are used to our roles and positions in a different
place. Her anxieties about being here mirror my anxieties about going
home: finding work, fitting in social situations, learning (or
re-learning appropriate) language, finding my role, adapting to
standing out or being lost in the crowd… I am confident she will do
well here and am impressed with her motivation. Part of me is jealous;
if I had two more years here, what could I do?

But that is the problem, and that is why I could not extend. It's not
about what I can do, it's about what the community can do on their own
or with a volunteer, and if that's my number one motivation for
staying, so I can feel better about my service (which, inevitably, it
would be), it is a selfish goal that is not the goal of Peace Corps or
the role of the volunteer. I appreciate having gone through the
process of debating extending my service. Now, when I'm at home,
trapped in my parents' basement slaving over cover letters and resumes
on wireless internet, I will feel nostalgic for Morocco and Tamazitinu
and my work and community and girls and "family" and Peace Corps
filterless friends who discuss nothing but politics, religion, sex,
work, race, gender, relationships, "the future," and bodily functions
(the only conversations worth having, in my warped mind), but I will
not regret coming home because it was my process and my choice.

I am in a bizarre place with lots to do, but I think I can make my
deadline. I don't have a choice, truth be told. I'm worried about
getting money for my trip (will have to make cash advances on a credit
card, which I'm not a fan of), worried about planning for a week alone
in Kenya, a job, getting into my dream grad school program because I
don't have a second choice in mind yet, deciding whether or not it is
the right program for me, taking care of all of these infernal
goodbyes, getting rid of trash, the politics of gift-giving and
selling… and the list goes on.

I'm not looking forward to this weekend: work (good!), party (eh?),
Delegue meeting, gendarmes, ministry of education, selling things
(hopefully), then coming back with literally just over a week to wrap
everything up.

I have not yet felt the full emotional impact of leaving. Like so many
people, the stress manifests itself in different, silly ways that are
easier to deal with than moving from a unique environment where every
day is a challenge, every day I am learning, where I am doing work
that I believe in, and where I have two communities: my town and
volunteers, who are in some ways two of the most accepting, warm, and
welcoming groups of people I've met. That's not to say that it's been
easy, but it's been amazing and often joy-filled. And this is
something we COS-ing (closing of service) volunteers can share: our
anxiety and nervous manifesting itself in strange and unimportant
ways. We understand each others' quirks and snappiness, lack of
energy, or fixations on frivolous or impractical things.

I look forward to seeing the new "green" "liberal" America under
Obama, where people are opening up about race and the environment,
where liberal is less of a bad word, where human rights are becoming
more important, and where it seems like more people think the way I do
than ever before in my lifetime. I think I'll be shell-shocked at some
things I see—in Ouarzazate the other day, I saw a purse-dog and I
couldn't stop staring, dropped jaw, at the lunacy of it. I'll stare,
I'll say awkward things, I'll judge how much skin people show, and
when people complain about things that have since not become a way of
thinking, I probably will have a hard time accepting it.

April 27, 2009

I hate seeing the date these days. It reminds me of how little time I
have left. I don't know where to start blogging, so I'll start with
this: I decided not to extend and pulled my proposal about a month
ago. I think it was the best decision I could have made, though at
times I really do wish I was staying. That being said, the reasons I'd
stay were really pretty selfish when it comes down to it, and I think
I needed to go through the process of seriously considering it in
order to not regret it while I'm sitting at home and joining the
millions of Americans looking for jobs in this economy.

I hope I won't regret it, at least.

What I certainly don't regret is taking cash-in-lieu of a plane ticket
home and buying tickets to spend a week in Tanzania and Kenya. I feel
really unprepared, especially since after a day of studying, I can
only count, say "I don't understand," and several words that come
straight from Arabic (like Thursday, Friday, cold, hour, and good
night) in Swahili.

But the language geek in me is fascinated by the Arabic influence. For
example (and I'm talking Darija: Moroccan Arabic, not modern
standard):

Arabic Kiswahili
6- stta sita
7- sb3a saba
9- tsa3d tisa
20 ashrin ishrini
30 tletin thelathini
40 rb3in arobaini
50 khamsin hamsini
60 stin sitini
70 sba3in sabini
80 tmenin themanini
90 ts3ain tisini
100 miya mia
1000 alf elfu
Thursday lkhamis alhamsini
Friday ljum3a ljumaa
Cold brrd baridi
Good night Layla saida Lala salama

Etc…

In any case, it's been a very busy month. In short: Spring Camp in the
provincial capital, Training (or not) at the training site, COS (close
of service) medical exams in Rabat, site visit in a nearby site, and
this last week of being in-site and trying not to cry about having to
leave this incredible community.

Spring camp:

I went to the same place as last year for spring camp, hoping to see
some of the same students that had been there before. I was rewarded
with probably a fifth of the camp as repeat campers, and it was great
seeing them and hanging out with them. Unlike last year, I was able to
be there the whole time this year, which was great.

In short, there were nine American PCV counselors, five Moroccan
counselors, and 65 campers who spent a week in a sports and cultural
center for English classes and camp fun. I taught beginning English
with a new volunteer who I really like and got to know well, and led a
journalism club with another new volunteer. It was really less
stressful co-leading than it is teaching alone, and I feel like this
year we were a lot more involved in camp as an American staff than
last year.

There was the same city kid/country kid (also Arab/Berber) divide that
we found last year, but all in all it was a fantastic time with a few
hard moments.

Oh, our second or third day of camp was April Fool's, which was
interesting. Here's an article from the journalism club about it:

April fools
By Safae and Fatime Zahra (Team Freedom of Expression)
The first of April was an exceptional day because it is a holiday
called April Fool's. In our camp, we had many jokes happen. For
exemple we wished Amy happy birthday and it wasn't true. It was so
embarrassing to Amy because she didn't know it. then Moroccan
counselors told us that we're going to visit Ait Ben Haddou and maybe
some campers will participate in Moroccan movie produced by 2m. This
was another joke. We think that April fools is a great day because
there were a lot of funny events.

There were more jokes that the campers weren't aware of, like when one
of the male PCVs came in and stacked our beds 3-high, when we
retaliated by calling him and another PCV up in front of the whole
camp to sing "My Heart Will Go On," and when he then came back by
having a PC staff member call the camp coordinator, telling her that
she owed Peace Corps 9000 dirhams because of a problem with banking
($1050).

I love the article by Safae and Fatime Zahra though, because they are
the type of students that every teacher/counselor would want to have.
They picked the assignment of interviewing all the counselors, and, in
their free time, painstakingly interviewed all nine Americans, asking
them pretty insightful questions. One of them had only studied English
for a year. They wanted to spend lots of time outside club time
working on it, and at the end had become best friends, despite the
fact that one is Arab, one is Berber, one from the countryside and one
from the city.

I thought on the way back from Spring Camp that I'd spend the night in
Marrakech. Little did I know that a twelve-day transportation strike
was dawning. Luckily, there were a few of us who had to go in the next
few days from Marrakech to Azilal, so they sent a Peace Corps car out
for us and we rode in style, after waiting three hours in the
Marrakech bus station. The plan had been to present a workshop on
maternal and child health in Morocco to the trainees. Unfortunately,
after three nights in the hotel, the same hotel that I stayed at for
three months during training two years before, the transportation
strike prohibited everyone from coming to the site, so a friend and I
had come up to training essentially for no reason. That being said, it
was fun getting to know some of the other volunteers better, and
hanging around what was our old stomping ground for three months. I
also went on a wild-goose-chase to try to find some examples of
documentation that are used at clinics for pregnant women which was
rather entertaining, and tried (knowing it was futile, but worth a
shot) to buy an IUD at a pharmacy. Good times, especially singing
Juanes in the hotel room at the top of my lungs with someone else who
understands how much fun it is to belt out French and Spanish music.

I had a choice: get stuck in Azilal (a small cute mountain town, but
without much there) or Rabat, the capitol with western food and lots
of other PCVs, with a free ride. So, a few days early, I left for COS
medicals. This meant a rather entertaining ride up, and a couple days
to do the touristy things that I'd never done up there: a mausoleum,
the Chellah: old ruins with beautiful gardens and a stunning view,
several visits to the American club (my wallet felt that one, but
Mexican salads with bacon and Root Beer floats?!).

It also meant that, for the first time since I've been in-country, I
was able to go to church, on Easter, no less! It was fantastic and I
had shivers as we sang traditional Easter songs and West African
music… the church has a very diverse population. After the service, a
few of us had traditional Easter lunch at the American club: it cost a
fortune to me, but was well worth it: stuffing, cranberry sauce, ham
and turkey, iced tea, salad, fruit salad, mashed potatoes and gravy…
and coffee… for $8.

I was fortunate enough to get all my exams done the first day of
medicals and switched appointments with people who had been stuck
because of the still ongoing strike. Unfortunately, the strike made it
impossible