Tis The Season

Yet again, time has seemingly eaten itself alive. The past few weeks have vanished before my eyes, yet a lot has happened. I have gotten a new site mate, gone to Rabat for mid-service medical evaluations, and celebrated another Leid Kbir, Morocco's version of Christmas. I have also been fastidiously working on personal projects, such as house breaking my puppy, training for the marathon, studying for the GRE, and preparing my family's visitation, which is now only two weeks away.

Ziz's transformation from a stray desert dog into a domesticated house pet has not been an easy one. Despite me having some experience in aiding to the training of puppies in the past, I have never done it solo, and certainly never done it in a place without common pet resources and a large enclosed yard for playing. The initial feeling of affection and adoration I felt upon laying eyes on Ziz appeared to have cancel out all my understandings of logic, and the reality of just how much time and effort raising her would entail. In the past few weeks, I have, by self-bestowed obligation, been on a chronic mission of picking up puppy pee and excrement, fighting to keep my computer wires and valuables intact, and doing my best to train while getting all of my other obligations done simultaneously. If anything positive comes out of this, it will most likely be my ability to multi-task better than an octopus on speed(and maybe, just maybe, a well trained companion).

Last Sunday my new site mate and I decided to take Ziz on her first walk, which was hilarious. We wanted to check out the large hill/small mountain that overlooks the town, and to get there required a trek through souk(giant weekly market), as Sunday is souk day. I managed to rig up a make-shift leash out of a an exercise band left by a former volunteer, and with a combination of carrying her and her walking on her own, we managed to make it through the crowded market and up the mountain. The confusion and humor that the site of 2 white guys with a puppy tied to an elastic band elicited was colossal and priceless.

Tuesday marked the beginning of my second Leid, which proved to be much easier on my stomach this time around. I even brought Ziz along with me to my host family's house to help celebrate by putting her in a backpack and riding my bike over, yet was told take return her after about 10 minutes since no one there likes dogs. While riding her to and from the house I ran into a few of my students, who now think I am even weirder than before since I carry dogs around with me in backpacks. Oh well.

A fun aspect of Leid the second time around was seeing host family members whom I had not seen since a year ago, when I had absolute minimal communication skills in Darija. This year I was able to carry on conversations, and even jump in on a few that were already taking place. For those who had not heard me speak since last year, their reactions resembled that of someone who might hear a dog jump in with commentary when engaged in a conversation about the weather; surprised and a bit confused. Everyone seems to be excited about meeting my real family. Along with my obvious ardency about seeing my family after so long and getting to spend the holidays with them, I am looking forward to showing people here that I do in fact come from a family of actual human beings just like them, and didn't materialize out of thin air to develop the youth of Morocco. Hopefully this can help them relate more to me...and I do plan on running my family through culturally appropriate boot camp on the car ride down.


I must now go and finalize preparations for a discussion on human rights at the Dar Chebab tonight. It will be followed by a theatre competition of short skits about human rights. It's going to be a busy next few days with actual time concerning tasks that need be accomplished soon. Until next time...

Theatre and Puppy

The past few weeks have been busy ones. Work has picked up, and an increasingly large amount of students have been showing up to my classes. I have also been getting an increased number of requests to teach English, guitar, and theater in various locations. In addition, I have been busy with personal projects, such as training for the semi- marathon in Marrakesh, which I plan on running in late January.

Theater in my site has proved to be much more of a challenge than I had anticipated. The largest obstacle is in the demographics of my students. Thus far the vast majority of them have been girls, all between the ages of 15-20, and all very conservative (not the most receptive group of participants for the performing arts). Thus, on top of the language barrier (in most classes I have had to do all the translating of complex game/scene instructions myself) I have the barrier of getting them to break outside of the conservative, non-creative box that many of them seem to be trapped in.

I start each class with a few warm-up exercises, such as "the ball of energy". This particular exercise(compliments of Peace Corps skills transfer) involves creating an imaginary "ball of energy", and passing it around in a circle from person to person. When played correctly, each person in the circle does something unique with the fake energy, and passes it along to someone else. As easy as it may sound to pretend to have a fake energy filled ball, it is an very, very difficult task when presented to the conservative Muslim women in my community. As a result I begin this activity, as I do many of them, with stressing the importance of acting fishkil(weird) or hummak(crazy) in order to be good at acting. To illustrate my point, I act over the top when doing these activities (ie- running around the room like a maniac with the fake ball of energy, or pretending to eat it and have it shake around in my head before spitting it out and passing it along). This example setting, when repeated, seems to gradually work with getting them to be more and more creative and silly (although some of them or undoubtedly freaked out by such behavior).

Now that I have had 4 class sessions full of theater games focusing on different acting skills(improvisation, acting of emotions, and trust games) I feel that we are ready to start planning some plays. Our next big project is to create several skits about human rights (human rights day is coming up) and have a competition for members of the community to come watch. Planning of this will begin this Saturday, so only time can tell how it will turn out.

On a completely different, non-work related note, I got a puppy! I understand that this could have been very bad decision, yet after finding her there was just no way I could have not taken her in. I found her curled up under a rock by herself while biking with a friend this past weekend in the Ziz Valley. She looks clean and healthy, and could very well be the cutest thing that has ever come out of Morocco. After spending a good 20 minutes struggling with my cognitive dissonance, I made the decision to take her, put her in my backpack, and ride away. After consulting with a friend for a name, I've decided on Ziz(zeez), from where I found her. I have had her for 3 days now, and am still torn as to whether or not this was a good idea. I suppose only time will tell, although I am already feeling better about having a friend living with me here.

I must now go and practice for the marathon that awaits. I have the entire desert in my backyard as training grounds, and am happy about finally having the time and space to train for such a thing, and put in my personal best. Until next time...

Proud to be an American...and a Virginian

It finally happened. After eight painful years of waiting, and the past two years watching the campaign obsessively, real change has taken place. No more "George Bush!" when someone hears I am an American. No more pretending to be Canadian. No more exhausting explanations of how just because there is a "democracy" in America it doesn't mean that all Americans are in support of the current administrations decisions(at least not as many of them).

After staying up until 5am Moroccan time this morning to watch his acceptance speech, the reality of change has struck me, as it has struck America. Well done Obama, Mr. President. Well done American people. Well done Virgina. And well done humanity.

A Wedding To Remember

Yesterday I experienced what I believe is a perfect depiction of the ever present integration process in the Peace Corps.

It was the first day of my host sister Kadija’s wedding, which, like most Moroccan weddings, is a multi-day event (4 days in this case) of the same thing every day. The celebration began in the early morning with a cow slaughter, which I conveniently slept through. I arrived at around 11am, going straight to the men’s house (in Islamic weddings the men and women are always split up), which consisted of a room full of elder Berber men chanting verses from the Koran. Not seeing any members of my host family present aside my 95 year old host grandfather,(who’s dialogue with me usually consists of nothing more than him pointing at questionable hunks of meat and grunting, indicating that I should eat it) I decided to explore elsewhere in search of a recognizable face.

Fortunately I ran into my host brother who was busy running around preparing the first cow feast of the day, and offered to help cut up cow liver as to give myself something to do. I spent a good hour sitting outside of the house of men, cutting away as men in jelabas walked in, shook hands of familiar faces, and each looked at me as if I were a tap dancing dog(a white guy cutting up a cow liver for a wedding probably looks even more atypical). The anonymity of my presence was cured once I saw my host father, who immediately came up to me and said “fin kayn l howli?” or “where is the sheep”? Ah yes, his favorite joke, constantly insisting that I bring a sheep to the house to slaughter. Parents...

This lunch, of course, was carried on in nothing but an expected fashion for a Moroccan wedding. The real integration began at nightfall. As I pulled up to the back entrance to the man house, a subtle feeling of confusion took over as I heard no noise coming from the house which I was told would be packed with people. I did however hear loud music and dancing protruding from the other house belonging to my host family (they are wealthy), which is separated by a spacious garden and a tool shed which must be walked through to get there. Naturally, I followed the music through the dark to the other house. As I approached, the music got louder and louder, along with the voices of women. Slightly intimidated, I crept up to the back door and stuck my head in to see what was happening.

The room was PACKED with woman; all dressed in flashy Berber garments, and all chatting and laughing, very much in party mode. Before I had a chance to turn around and make an escape, my 90 year old host grandmother noticed me standing diffidently at the entrance, and ran up to me like a bat out of hell. Not only was it a shock to see her run, but the mere fact that she acknowledged me was astounding, in that prior to this interaction the most her and I had exchanged were mere greetings, in that she only speaks Tamazight and we thus share no common language. Without hesitation, she grabbed my arm and dragged my inside, immediately grabbing the attention of all the women (roughly 50 of them), who proceeded stare me down as if I were the first white man they had ever seen (which for many of them I surly was).

Incarcerated by the death grip of grandma, I had no choice but to follow her into the next room, which had even MORE women in it, sitting in a large circle around two others, who were dancing in a way I had never before seen, strutting back and forth and shaking their asses in unison. Before they even had time to take note of my presence (yet still in plenty of time for me to take note of how much I didn’t belong there) I was thrust into the center of the circle with my grandmother, who at this point was yelling “shta!”, or “dance!”(Maybe the one word she knows in Arabic). I had no choice but to give in and dance, letting her lead me. Fortunately, the basic Berber dance is very simple, and requires just moving from side to side and lifting both palms, face up, to your chest and back down to your knees repetitively. The women started to howl and cheer much louder than they already were before I entered, giving me the feeling of a developing country male stripper. After what seemed like hours of this(yet was probably about 30 seconds), I saw one of my younger host sisters and made my escape, running up to her and asking where the men were and if she could please take me to them. It turned out that they were, in fact, still in the same house that they had been in before, only much quieter than the women. Before this night I had heard about the superiority of women’s section to the men’s during wedding celebrations, and seeing the two side by side gave this fact the utmost lucidity.

Upon entering the house of men, I made my way around the hoards to a back room where I was told to sit next to a giant man with a beard by my host cousin. According to him this man was basketball coach whom I was told I would speak with regarding doing some work with the local men’s team. I sat down amidst the 30 or so men in the room, and immediately heard the word “Merikani” whispered around throughout, accompanied by some glances and many blatant stares. This was nothing that was uncommon for me, so I did what I normally do, which was introduce myself and begin talking in Arabic to ease the awkwardness. Once some basic conversation had begun and food was served, things seemed to be going smoothly until the post meal prayer, during which I asked the bearded giant next to be about the basketball team, not realizing that the entire house had become silent and there want someone in the next room reading a verse of the Koran. It was as if to say “Hey, in case anyone here didn't realized it, I’m not a Muslim!”

While such occurrences are by no means an oddity in life here, I feel that the documentation of them of them is a necessity, in hope that one day I can look back on all of this and say “Wow...I really had some balls when I lived in Morocco.”

Back to the Grind

Ramadan has now ended, which means that life has begun to pick up once again. Two weeks ago I began advertising for my new classes at the Dar Chebab. As I mentioned earlier, the majority of my previous students have now left for college, which meant new students were needed. This consisted of making fliers (in Arabic and English), along with going to 5 highschool English classes and giving what was essentially a sales pitch for my class(also in Arabic and English).

The outcome on the first day was good- about 35 kids showed up for the meeting in which I assigned classes according to levels, and voted on what kind of club we should begin with. I am now trying a different approach with my English classes(as desert time gives much room for experimentation) and will be having 4 different classes, each for a different English level, and each meeting once a week. The turnout for each of these classes has been surprisingly good, with my biggest class(2nd year English students) consisting of about 20 kids, and my smallest(advanced) consisting of about 6.

As of right now, there do not seem to be students interested in continuing the Tinejdad Times, although I plan on bringing it up again once we get things rolling a bit more. Instead they expressed a huge in interest either a music or theater club. While I would love to teach the guitar(the only musical instrument I have any knowledge of, let alone have here)I only have one. Seeing as how there is nothing for most kids to do on Saturday, the day in which I plan on holding the club, sessions are bound to have at least 15 kids or more...a bit too many to be handling my moderately expensive instrument form the states. So theater club it is.

In addition, like last year we will have girls basketball practice every Saturday, with hope that we can eventually get a team that is dedicated and motivated enough to travel to other towns and play opposing teams. While this doesn't seem like it would be that difficult of a task, convincing the parents of young Muslim girls to travel somewhere with a strange man has proven to be a challenge. I plan on working my Darija PR magic and am prepared to sit through as many tea times as necessary to get some girls mobile. Then the only thing left to do is learn how to be a good coach...

On a happy note of good company, I have been hosting 2 couch surfers from Denmark for the past few days. They epitomize a young, carefree traveling hippie couple, and it has been a pleasure showing them around and adding to my knowledge of Denmark(which has expanded exponentially in the past 48 hours). I will also be hosting 3 fellow pcv's from Gambia in a few days. Needless to say, it's good to be able to exercise my social abilities around people that I am able to be in my American element around.

That is all for today, however I plan on updating again shortly(within a week, inchallah), so you just hang on tight. Until next time...

Ramadan: A month of adjustment

I am now nearly 3 weeks into the month of Ramadan. Despite the feeling of it being more like 3 months into this special month long holiday, the minutes continue to slowly tick by, and 10 days still remain.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the holiday...it's just that life here, which is usually much slower than anything one would experience in the states, has become significantly even slower. My dar chebab, while technically open, is basically closed for me to work in, in that all the girls(who comprise most of my student body) are busy during normal class hours with cooking and cleaning, and thus cannot attend my classes. My mudir (director of the dar chebab) advised me that it would be best to just wait until after Ramadan for classes. When I dumbly asked the rhetorical question of "well what will I do instead?" he simply replied "aji hna u shrb atay maaya" (come here and drink tea with me). Sometimes I think that without tea people here would be thrust into a catatonic state of existence. Good thing for tea.

So my days of this month are spent giving myself a variety of productive(so I like to call them) tasks to accomplish during the day, and eating the lftour meal in various places at night. I am not fasting, although I have made several attempts in order to optimize my integration. These attempts usually consist of not eating much more than a yogurt packet during the day, yet drinking water consistently. When people ask me if I am fasting (which is asked so much it sometimes takes the place of "hello") I simply reply "shwya", or "sort of", and they seem to be content that I am at least putting forth an effort.

The lftour meals however, while a bit monotonous, are indeed delicious. They also provide a free way to eat most nights, in that many families are eager to invite me over for it. An example of this was last night, when waiting to buy the 13Dh(about $1.50) meal for myself at a local restaurant, I was approached by a guy I had never met before, who asked where I was eating that night. When I told him I was planning on buying food, he insisted that I come with him instead, for which I willingly obliged. The food was great, and now I have yet another friend in Tinjdad. While walking back to my house afterward, I kept thinking about the circumstances in which a stranger would approach me and insist that I come over for dinner in the states. My conclusion was an attempt of murder or seduction; that’s it. Indeed, for every frustrating aspect a culture may have, there seems to be one of awesomeness.

Oh yes, and I have now officially been in Morocco for over a year. Only a year and 2½ months to go!

Until next time...

A Change of Summer Pace

So many of you may have been wondering “where is Chris?” “has he given up on his blog for good?” “does he ever get tired of quoting what we may have been saying?” The answer to the first question is that I have spent the past 5 weeks up North...4 of which were spent in summer camp, and one of which was spent traveling to and from.

Summer camp is something that seems difficult to give justice to in a single blog entry, in that there is so much to cover. Like so much in the PC, it was a hodgepodge of fun, exhausting, and monotonous, yet with fun composing the majority. The following is my best attempt to accurately document the worthwhile happenings of the 4 weeks I spent there.

Each summer the Peace Corps YD program teams up with the ministry of youth and sports to conduct 4 2 week long camps in El Jadida. I was assigned to camps 3 and 4, along with about 15 other PCV’s for each session. The camp staff consists of PCV’s, Moroccan staff (Otours), and for several of the camps, Japanese volunteers from Jika, the Japanese version of the PC. For camp 3 we had a staff comprised of Americans, Moroccans, and Japanese, including a Moroccan student who is fluent in English who helped us with translation when needed.

Each PCV was permitted to give a scholarship to 5 students in his or her community, which included a free camp session, all expenses paid. Thus there were campers from all over Morocco, about half of which were from rural communities and probably couldn’t have attended if it weren’t for the scholarship, and half of which came from wealthy families in large cities like Rabat. It was certainly interesting to see the differences between these two groups of kids, and how much more aware of the world the city kids seemed to be. The were about 80 kids for the first camp, and about 70 for the second.

Each pcv was assigned either an English class or a club to teach; I taught English(intermediate low) the first session, and taught theatre club for the second. English classes were only an hour long, and clubs only an hour and a half, which left lots of time for other activities. A typical day would go something like this:

8- wake up

8:30- breakfast

9:30- morning announcements – this is where(after the national anthem was sang) we would talk about the days schedule (which was usually identical to the schedule of the previous day), and sing songs that might be fun for a kid just learning English, yet are terrible, terrible things to get stuck in your head as an adult. A favorite one among the campers was “Everywhere we goooo” (campers reapeat) “people want to knoooow” (repeat) “who we aaaare” (repeat) “soooo we tell themv(repeat) “we are the campers!” (repeat) “The El Jadida campers!” (repeat). This was sang everywhere we went...by the time we were done with camp 4 I don’t believe there was one person in El Jadida who didn’t know who we were.



9:45- English class

11:30- beach- yes, that’s right. There was a scheduled beach time everyday. This however, was not always as relaxed as your typical beach day; a lot of it involved making sure kids didn’t drown, but was fun nonetheless.

1:00- showers

1:30- lunch- meals were pretty much the same thing for every meal, and reminded me of what Moroccan prison food probably is. However, all was free and very edible.

2:00- library- pretty much just playing games with kids, and reading to/with those that wanted it.

4:00- clubs- We had what seem to be standard camp clubs- theatre, art, music, journalism/creative writing, and for camp 3 Judo and Japanese culture club(with the help of the Jika volunteers). All of them seemed pretty successful. For my theatre club I divided thins up into 4 sections: emotions, trust, improv, and forum theatre. The first 3 consisted of a lot of games to help teach these aspects of acting(all of which were pretty easy and usually hilarious). Forum theatre consisted of breaking the kids into groups and having each act out a problem, with the audience being able to interject when it saw necessary in order to fix it. The best part of this club was successfully putting together a sketch that made fun of staff members for the final “spectacle”. Not only was it hilarious, but we managed to put it together in under an hour

5:30- snack time

6:00- sports

8:30-dinner

9:30- evening activity- These varied every night. I’m not going to list all of them, but my favorites were
-American games night (aka make the kids do very, very funny competitive things night- beer pong with water was included)
-talent show night (there was one for the kids and one for staff, in which we attempted a country style rendition of “Bingo” with me playing the guitar-very confusing for the Moroccans.
-Halloween! By far greatest thing we got to do in camp. We spent this night introducing the campers to what many of us consider our most beloved, and yet ironically our most demonic holiday, Halloween. We all dressed up before dinner in order to set an example for costume ideas- the first camp I was a nerd (which, I suppose is not the much different than how I usually dress...most Moroccans assumed was a teacher), and the second camp a gangster. What made this night amazing was the haunted house we made. Working with 8 people, a tent, and not much more than blankets, chairs and tables, we managed to put together a “house” that scared the piss out of the kids, and made me discover my new found joy for scaring children.

During camp 4 the Moroccan staff organized the campers into teams with country names, for each of which was assigned a pcv leader. The country theme seemed to be obscurity, in that the countries were Qatar(my team), Chad, Togo, Lesotho, Mongolia, Djibouti, and Chili. Throughout the entire camp these teams competed against each other for points in an olympic fashion, and earned additional ones through good behavior. It worked amazingly, minus the stereotyping that seeped out of acting as people from countries that the Moroccan staff, who was in charge of it, knew nothing about. The “opening olympic ceremony” consisted of all the campers dressing up as members of their country- all 4 African countries as kids dressed up as tribal warriors, complete with face paint, clothing made from leaves and bamboo spears. What was lacking in accuracy and respect was certainly made up for in hilarity.

Overall camp was definitely a blast, and as I mentioned after spring camp, is a solid reminder of how lucky I am to be in the YD program.

On my way back me and some friends went to the Ozoud cascades, which has got to be the prettiest place I have been to in Morocco thus far (a very bold statement). The place consists of a giant waterfall, engulfed by vines and other vegetation. There are places to eat and stay surrounding it, yet are built in a way that does not take away from its elusive appeal. We stayed in a quaint hotel made of bamboo directly across from the falls, and awoke to APES, which we at first viewed from afar, and soon realized were everywhere, including right on top of our bamboo roof. We spent the day hiking a trail that led to various pools, many of which had smaller waterfalls and cliffs that we could jump from. It was the kind of place that makes you stop and think “am I really in the Peace Corps right now?”

So that’s it for the moment. I am now back in Tinjdad, and working on my plan of action for the next few months. On a work note, I have finished(fiiianlly) the first issue of The Tinjdad Times, which I will post on here shortly. Until next time...

Unexpected visitation and more

A few weeks ago I received an email that I don't think anyone could have effectively prepared me for. It was from my 8th grade social studies teacher Joel(first names for teachers at BFCDS) , who I had not seen or heard from since the day I graduated 8th grade. It just so happened that he was coming to Morocco for a few weeks before he left for Mail, on his journey to Timbuktu. He asked if I'd be available to meet up, and given that I now cherish American interaction and that the summer has been primarily slow and sticky, I certainly was.


Although it was the epitome of a random visitation, it ended up being a great experience to hang out with a teacher from the past and get to know him as an adult. He spent 2 years teaching math in Tanzania when he was about my age so we had a lot to talk about. We spent the 4 days he was here exploring surrounding areas and relaxing and Tinejdad's greatest cafe, Cafe Ferkla, since there is not much more to comfortably do when it is 120 degrees outside. I am now very good friends with the owner of this cafe, and spend a great deal of time there as it is a perfect location to relax, read, play chess, teach English, learn Arabic, and justbe outside of my oven-like house when there is nothing else to do. Joel was also kind enough to be a guest speaker at my class for a day-my students loved meeting the teacher of their teacher(although I do believe he made my teaching skills look questionable next to his).

One place that we visited, which was a first for me as well, is a nearby dewar(small village) named Asrir. This is home to the old Jewish community of Tinejdad, which has been Jew-free since the late 1940's, when all of them were evacuated to Israel. The old Jewish "ghetto" is still present and inhabited by Berbers and some Arabs. The old Synagogue is still standing as well, along with a "cemetary" that holds the bodies of the Jews who once lived there (although our friend who was touring us called it a cemetary there are no actual graves present). It was interesting to see the remains of a different religion in such a strong Islamic society.

Another recent discovery that I have made is a hotel pool in Errachidia(about an hour away) with a bar. Who would have thought that I could go swimming and drink a beer in the middle of the desert? One extra method to maintain one's sanity in the summer...

The most exciting thing to happen in Tinejdad since I have been here just took place this past weekend. The Tinejdad Culture Festival came through for 3 days, and thus actually provided something to do in Tinejdad. The festival included tents of co-operatives selling their products, which included carpets, baskets, paintings and more(the types of co-operatives that small business development PCV's works with), along with a huge live music performance each night. The music was that of different regions of Morocco, and consisted mainly of Ganawa (although there was also rap, Moroccan jazz, a break dance and martial arts show). The most amazing aspect of it all was the sheer amount of people that were in the Tinejdad centre for the performance- well more than 1,000 people each night, AND many of them were women. It was the first time I had ever seen more than 3 or 4 women out past 9pm, and mingling with men nonetheless. It was definitly the most home-like I have felt Tinejdad to be since I have being here.

In exactly one week I will be arriving in El Jadida for the start of summer camp, which for me will last for the entire month of August (I am working 2 two week long sessions). I will be teaching intermediate English in the first camp, and working a theatre club in the second. I am truly looking forward to working another camp, in that spring camp was probably the most fun I have had with work since being in Morocco, and being on the beach for a month seems incredibly necessary right about now.

I am also very close to being finished with the first issue(and hopefully not the last) of the Tinejdad Times. I have decided to create it using InDesign, as it allows me to do more of what I want to do, and will attach the PDF once I complete it.

Until next time...

The Joys of a Moroccan Summer

So I am now into the depths of my first Tinejdad summer, and am learning why often times people in desert summer photos look pissed off. The best way I can think to describe it is that the sun has made everyone and everything under it, well, its bitch. Days are now averaging 105 degrees, which starts at 6 am and continues until nightfall, at which it only drops about 15 degrees. This leads to high levels of discomfort, and thus makes people not want to do...well anything besides avoid the sun.

The desert sun is very unlike any other I have ever come close to experiencing. It is as if a giant laser beam from space were to come down everyday, frying everything in its path. You can tell when a beam of it is touching you, in that it feels like that part of your body is about to catch on fire. It also does not help to live in a house made of cinder blocks. This has a temperature trapping effect with weather, and in effect turns my house into a refrigerator in the winter, and an oven in the summer. A day of the dealdy rays soaking into my walls leaves me to bake like a roatisserrie chicken.

There are however, tactics that one can take in sure dire conditions. I have bought 2 fans, both of which stay on me constantly, along with a nearby bottle of frozen water, which I am forever filling up and replacing in my freezer. As for sleeping, soaking a sheet in water, and wrapping it around my naked body before lying inches away from the fans, and in front of an open window helps. Another option is to sleep on my roof, which is extremlely refreshing, yet has the drawlback of the sun from hell raising its flesh eating head at 6am, at which point I must quickly run back dowstairs in an effort to keep all of my skin.


My work schedule, while still technically existent, has dwindled down to one class with about 6 students, all of whom I can expect to always be at least 30 to 45 mins late. I suppose I can't blame them, in that the heat has seemed to make everything move in slow motion, and their movement clearly ties into that. As a result I have pushed the starting time for class up a half hour, in hope that the half hour of alotted movement time will be enough to get a full hour and a half out of class. I have also kept in mind that it is their summer vacation, and can't hold it against them if going to my English class isn't at the top of their priorities.

As for the journalism club, which basically consists of the 6 remaining students, it looks like we will get at least get one issue of the Tinejdad Times out before the summer is over. This will hopefully be enough to set an example for my new students that I will get in the fall, and be enough to continue its publication. I will be losing most of my current students in the fall to the Universities they will be attending, which, while a little sad, is a great thing. I can say that everyone of my students who graduated from highschool this year will be going to college. While this is a very small sample group of students from Tinjdad, it is still a much better percentage than my highschool.

The work with the world mural still painfully drags on as well. The hardest part with its completion is undoubtably the fact that it is on the other side of town, and thus requires either a 5 mintue taxi ride or a 15-20 minute bike ride to get to. As simple as this seems, it is much harder when you have to rally up the same students who can barley make it to my class, which is no more than a 5 minute walk away for most. Last week was the second time that I had successfully gotten most of my students there to work on it. Since everyone, including myself, was in such a hurry to get it completed since doing so would mean not having to come back, the drawling of the uncompleted countries was hurried, as was the painting of them that followed. As a result of the hurriedness, and my inability to supervize everyone at once, all of Eastern Europe and half of Asia was painted the color of the ocean. Oh the joys of learning!

Well, I'm off to unstick myself from the couch and shower some sweat off. Until next time...

Care Packages

Ok, so due to popular demand(although mainly that of my mom), here is a list of things that are unavailable to me here in Tinejdad, if not all of Morocco, and would thus be excellent things to send to me in a care package if any of you out there ever have the inclination to do so (list limited to thins that could actually be sent through the mail):

-Easy Cheese
-Mac N Cheese
-beef jerky/Slim Jims
-instant Ranch/Italian dressing packets
-gravy mix packets
-friend chicken batter(the guy I replaced had some left over when I moved in and it is oh so good)
-skittles/fruit snacks
-Any books/magazines in English (preferably non-fiction, but I'll read anything)
-TV shows on dvd(Lost, seasons 3 or 4, The Office, 24, Weeds, The Daily Show, just to name a few)
-Ice tea mix
-flavored oatmeal
-Gatorade mix(if it exists- I think it does)
-Act mouth wash
-one of those hand held fan/squirt bottle things(could seriously help prevent me from melting in the summer-its already reached an average of about 105 every day)
-instant soup/noddles
-powdered milk
-dried fruit

Thats all I can think of for now, although im sure the list will continue to expand with time.

p.s.- My mailing address can be found in my blog profile

Where has the time gone?

So I just looked at a calender, and its apparently June 12th! An entire month has passed me by, and in the best of ways when one has reached the point of needing a break.

The paid vaca (aka eye infection)- This break I speak of was unexpected, and came with the price of bearing with what was probably the worst pain I have ever experienced in my face. It began very randomly; with waking up one Saturday morning and immediately realizing that I could barley open my right eye, and that to do so was horribly painful. Assuming that it was just another temporary irritation (those of which are ever so common here in the desert), I proceeded to spend the day walking around outside, which now, in retrospect, was a very stupid decision. Tinejdad is probably one of the worst places anyone could be outside with an infected eye, what with the blazing sun and sand storms. After a full day of the pain increasingly getting worse, and my eye feeling increasingly reminiscent of a tackle box, I was told by PC medical staff to make the God forsaken 12 hour souk bus trip to Rabat to see the doctor there.

After somehow managing to make my way to the bus with a makeshift eye patch made out of a bandanna, I found a seat and the journey from hell began. Although it was only my right eye that was infected, it was painful to have just the left open, so my trek was spent with both eyes closed, occasionally having to feel around like a blind, out of place pirate in order to exit and get some air. Once arriving in Rabat and successfully avoiding being hit by a car while blindly making it to headquarters, I was driven straight to an eye doctor who took one look at my eye and said something along the lines of "there is a chance you will not go blind." My immediate thought: "a glass eye wouldn't be so bad would it? I mean, i'd always have a killer Halloween costume, be able to provide endless entertainment for children, would have the ability to look really scary if need be, and it would cut the price of contacts in half, right?"

Needless to say, it was thus determined that I be medically evacuated (med-evaced) and sent to the PC medical headquarters, which just so happens to be located in Washington, DC, about 4 metro stations from my house. Just as quickly as my condition got bad, it got better, as did my overall situation(karma perhaps?). The med-evac thus became a paid vacation, in which I was able to spend time with family and friends, and do as many things American as I could possibly fit into the time I was there. My eye was said to be fully healed about 2 weeks after I arrived there, although the doctor said I did "dodge a bullet", and was lucky to return to Morocco with nothing more than a small scar in my eye. Lhumdullah(praise be to God). To top it all off, I was bumped up to first class on the flight back, which was a luxury that words can not do justice, and a realization as to why rich people love money so much.

IST- To further add to my wave of good karma, I was able to return back to Morocco just in time for in service training(IST), in which everyone from my PC group, or "stage"(about 58 of us) got to spend a week on the beach in Agadir. Agadir is a large beach city in the south, with a very cool 60's beach town vibe. In 1960 it was the site of what was the worst earthquake in Moroccan history, killing 15,000 people. The city was re-built about 3 k south from where it was originally, and with a very un-Moroccan 1960's beach town architectural style. Hence, it felt a lot more like I was somewhere in Southern California than in Morocco...definitely a good way to gradually re-integrate. There were long days of training involved, yet most of it was practical stuff that was good to know, and much of it was taught by pcv's in the classic PC skills sharing way. Beach time certainly made it all well worth while. Afterwards, some fellow pcv's and I went to Tagazout, which is a small surf town about 35 k north of Agadir...it was apparently well known by beach dwellers world wide in the 1960's and was where many American hippies came to hang out, including The Doors. We got a perfect condo for a night right on the beach, for the equivalent for about 6$ a person...the experience could not have been topped. One of my favorite thins in this town are the shirts they have for sale with the image of a man in a jellaba(traditional Moroccan clothing) holding a surf board. This is definitely a good portrayal of the town...Islam meets surfing.

So I am now back in Tinejdad, getting back into the swing of things after being out of town longer than I had ever anticipated, and loving it. After some time in America and a week on the beach, I am recharged and ready for some volunteering action. Some time away was good to put things in perspective and realize just how incredible and unique an experience this whole peace corps thing is. Furthermore, walking around town yesterday and seeing how excited people are to see me back reassures me that I am in a good place right now, for me and for those around me. It is now summer, which means school is out, things are slowing down, and getting very hot and uncomfortable. Despite this change of pace laced with overshadowing gloominess, I am ready now more than I have been thus far to seize my time here and go full force with all development help I can provide, and to become even more integrated in my home away from home.

That is all for today, however, updates on projects are soon to come. Until then...

Ramblings

I wake up in the morning to the unremitting noise of the 3rd world doorbell box attached to the wall above the stairs. Before my eyes open for the day, it hits me: I’m still here…and I’m about to spend yet another day in this desert town I now call home. A donkey brays outside of my window, as if to fill in as a Moroccan substitute for the rooster. I prefer the rooster. After 5 minutes of doing the best I can to go back to dreams of the comfort of a former life, I give up and open my eyes to look at the clock on my cell phone.

6:30 AM

It’s a Saturday morning; about 3 hours after the time that I would have passed out after a fun night out in the 1st world. I would have had at least 6 more hours left of sleep and would not have already begun to ponder about how I would deal with the day’s inevitable frustrations, which, since I was now awake at 6:30 in the morning with the inability to go back to sleep, had already begun.

I let out a groan, close my eyes back shut tightly, and roll onto my side, trying to remember if I had any milk left for cereal. Another minute goes by until I decide that I don’t, and curse myself for finishing it the night before. This means that I’ll have to go to the hanut down the street and deal with the Saturday morning hanut(box-like convenient store) guy, who is my least favorite of hanut guys. Once the reality of the day is starting to set in, several flies land on my face and confirm its presence. It’s looking like a long one.

I throw on some clothes and stumble down the stairs, passing underneath the doolbell from hell and begin my door opening process by slamming my body against and turning the lock. Despite the freshness of the day, the sun hits my face like an open-palmed smack , as if it were to say “Wake up man! Your in Morocco!”



And so it goes...









The last three weeks here have been relativley uneventful, but good. I have started up my first club; a journalism club in which we will come out with a monthly newspaper called The Tinejdad Times. It will start out as an online publication, until I can get funding for it (InshaAllah) in order to make hard copies. It will be in both Arabic and English, and will have sections on the enviornment, education, sports, current events, and local culture. The first issue is scheduled to come out on May 18th, and I will obviously post a link for it on here once it's ready.



I am now the busiest I have been as far as objective work goes since I have been here. Objective meaning work other than time spent drinking tea and hanging out with locals, which can still be called work here. I am teaching English in 4 different locations (not including a friend who I tutor a few times a week), working on two projects, and am still facilitating girls basketball. The locations for English class include the 2 Dar Chebabs(youth centers), the Neddy Neswi(woman center), and The Dar Taliba(girls center). My English teaching methods have altered slightly since upon working a busy schedule, classes have varied enourmsly in size and the English level of students. I can have a Dar Taliba class one week with 40 young, hyperactive, giggly girls who don't know a word of English, and the following week have only 3 girls show up for the same class, who have studied the language for 2 years in highschool. Hence, my new method consists of not over preparing for a specific lesson, yet having a few options to choose from, all of which are easy to improvise off of in class. The girls do not seem to care that I am a man and that I wear shorts to class (something that many men do not do in my town, despite the blaring desert sun). These classes also require more animation on my part since I teach them almostly exclusivley in Arabic and often times need to act out words I do not know. Me acting ridiculous does seem to be an effective temperory cure for their apparant ADD, since despite their energy, I always seem to hold their attention.

The world mural project is comming along slowley but surley. A few weeks ago I managed to get about 15 students to help out with the outline at once. They all seemed very into it, and appeared to be enjoying learning about all the countries that exist in the world- many of which they had never heard of before. The only problem was that I had a little too much confidence in their ability to follow the grid correctly, and countries ended up in interesting places(ie-The Czech Republic and Morocco are neighbors). Oh well, all part of the learning process (somthing I must tell myself about everything here).

In my free time I have been riding my bike a lot. A few weeks ago me and some pcv neighbors went exploring in the mountains behind my house and found several old, tiny Berber villages. Along our way we stopped to examine the crystalized rocks and fossilized trillabites, and were approached by a man who was eager to show us his fossil collection and try to sell us some of his goods. Instead of buying anything anything, we went with him to his village for tea (you can never drink enough tea in Morocco). In his village we were able to check out a pond with giant carp, which was an amazing site in the middle of the desert, and were also showed the primary fossil dig site, which appeared to be the only source of income for the small community of about 100 people. He even let us dig with his equipment and search for ourselves. It was amazing to see how many prehistoric shells and crustations could be found in a place so deprived of water.

Another good note is that I have finally found someone nearby to jam out on my guitar with. He is a young yet very experienced painter and guitarist, and oddly enough we have almost the exact same taste in music. I shall keep you posted on the release our first album.

Until next time.

Travelin and Campin

Well, it has seemed to have happened again. In the past few weeks so much has happened without me updating my blog that now it must all come out at once, in a montage of happenings. But oh well, I suppose its better than no blog at all.

The first thing that requires commentary would be my trip to Marrakesh and Essaoura. I made the trip in order to utilize the 4 day weekend that was provided by the prophet’s birthday, as well as venture to the large part of Morocco that I had not yet visited.

Making the ride there and back without vomiting once has got be one of my biggest accomplishments yet. It is about a 10 hour bus ride to Kesh from Tinejdad, with the last 6 hours of the ride consisting of amazingly steep, narrow roads that prevent you from thinking about anything besides not dying. Making it to Marrakesh, however, is well worth the journey. The city is enormous, and, like many cities in Morocco, contains areas with distinctly new and old foundations. I spent most of my limited time there in Jimelfna (sp?), which is the main center with plenty to see and do, such as eat and get a picture of you and a monkey (which I would not recommend-buying a monkey would probably not cost much more than the price that is charged for taking a picture of one).

From Kesh I went onward to Essaoura which is a beautiful beach town with a strong European feel to it. It was rewarding to make it to the camal covered beach after a stint in the camal covered desert. Although tourists can often be a nuisance, the abundance of them in both of these places was actually comforting- after living off the beaten path, its nice to get back once and a while.

Now for the biggest highlight of my service thus far: SPRING CAMP:

Shortly following my return from the 4 day weekend excursion, I went on yet another excursion, this time work related, to Meknes for spring camp. The spring camps that Peace Corps works with serve as language emersion camps, with pcv’s working there as camp counselors and English teachers. Meknes is a large, modern city located near Rabat. It is known for being the one time centre of the Moroccan sultanate, and for holding Morocco’s largest University. When I was offered the chance to spend a week there for camp, I of course jumped at the opportunity.

There were 8 pcv’s working the camp, along with 8 Moroccan staff members, and about 70 campers(the number was supposed to be higher, but dropped at the last minute). Each pcv was assigned an English class and a club to teach. I ended up teaching intermediate English and a theatre club, the latter of which was a brand new experience for me.

The class ended up mainly consisting of theatre activities that basically served to make the kids feel comfortable acting ridiculous. I’m not sure that comfort ever came into play, but I most certainly accomplished the ridiculous aspect(which was hilarious and nearly enough to make me pursue teaching theatre to kids as a profession). In one of the club classes we wrote a play which ended up being an “environmental comedy”, after we couldn’t decide on whether to do a play about the environment or a comedy.

The play was performed at the “spectacle”, which was a large performance done at the end of camp, carried out by paid dancers and Moroccan rappers(really bad). The performance lasted until about 12:30 am, upon which, finally, my theatre club was allowed to perform our masterpiece to a room of about 300 rowdy Moroccan youth. We had to use microphones with horrible feedback in order to be heard, which did nothing to aid in the understanding of the faulty English that the play was performed in. The environmental theme may not have understood, but it most certainly hilarious(at least for me and the other Americans present).

We were also lucky enough to go on a field trip to Voubilis(known as Oualili to Moroccan locals), which is site of the largest and best reserved Roman ruins in Morocco, declared a Unesco world heritage site about 10 years ago. It was originally established by Carthaginian traders in the 3rd century BC, and taken over by the Romans in 40 AD. Needless to say, it was an amazing place to visit, although the tour was made unlike others I have taken, with 70 rowdy kids singing Moroccan songs and banging on drums the entire time.

Camp was a great experience, and made me appreciate being a youth development volunteer even more. I had more laughs there with(and at) kids than I have had thus far in Morocco, and really do feel like I helped present a positive image of America in doing so. Until next time…

So this past weekend was one that was definitely blog worthy. On Saturday I went to a nearby pcv's site to assist with a cleanup project she was conducting with the help of a grant. Upon the very moment I arrived, I knew that what we were doing there was truley making an impact. Just walking through the town gave me a feeling as if I had just releievd all of Morocco from poverty. It was clearly the most attention the small town had gotten for well, maybe ever.

To elaborate on the project, it consisted of cleaning up a duwar (small village made of mud) by the name of Akboub, which aside from being half torn down and garbage ridden, is a beautiful place with a lot of potential. The money from the grant was spent to purchase trash cans, make signs for tourist passer bys, a tractor to take the garbage away, and payment for the official figures in the town for their help. Everyone in the town seemed to know about the project and permeated a sense of excitement that you might expect to see on the face of a child entering Disneyland. There was even an announcement for the event made on the Mosque speakers, just like the call to prayer. As a result of the advertising, what seemed to be half of the town showed up for the cause. There were more kids there than anyone seemed to know what to do with. They appeared to come right out of the mud work, with more appearing every time I turned around.

The first day me and the other volunteers who were assisting mainly stood around and looked important (which was apparently an important role to play), walking around and complimenting the workers on a job well done. The following day, however, was spent getting our hands dirty and clearing out the trash and unwanted rubble piece by piece. Despite their shared hyperactivity, the kids were all interested in helping, and would do work when given a specific task, such as “put all the garbage in this area in this pile right here.” Getting rid of the garbage was creative process. While logically it seemed like we should have simply moved the garbage from the piles we made of it to the tractor, the authoritative figures seemed to share the viewpoint that as long as garbage couldn’t be seen then it was taken care of. This meant that it was perfectly acceptable to burry piles of garbage that was in hard to reach places, and burn it in others. I suppose that once the project is finished, it will at least look clean, and what people don’t know won’t hurt them. It certainly did expedite the process. Perhaps if I was an environmental volunteer I’d have more to say on this, but from my youth development perspective, as long as there were a bunch of kids working together to get something productive done I was happy. It is in situations such as these where it seems that a volunteer must rely on the PC defense mechanism of adjusting ones expectations. It works like a charm once you get it down.

In other news, I have recently started to get back in shape with the discovery of a “gym”, which is actually less than a block away from my apartment. The facility consists of about 5 very old weight lifting machines, a small selection of free weights, a punching bag, and by far the most impressive feature; a wooden floor(the only wooden floor I have seen in my 6 months of living here). My neighbor, who is incredibly athletic, told me about it when he discovered me filling up empty water bottles with rocks and sand outside of my apartment in order to use them as weights. For the past week I have been running everyday with him and his friends and hitting the weight afterwards. Not only am I getting healthy again, but I am getting good opportunities to practice my language, as none of my new workout buddies speak any English.

That’s it for now. Until next time…

quick note

After reading the commentary of Andrew and Tim's blogs (both of which have much more effort put into than mine) about their time here, I felt obligated to post the links for both of them. I encourage everyone to check them out.

Donkey Rides and Mental Health

The past few weeks have been good. I have been moderately productive with my work efforts, and have managed to get out of site a decent amount. I have to begin 2 weekends back, when a nearby PC companion and I headed down south to visit the site of another friend for what I was told was a "party". After the 5 hour commute via souk bus, and picking up another volunteer along the way, we finally pulled into the small town, which was still 2 and 1/2 kilometers from our final destination. For those of you who are not familiar with the souk bus, it is a lot like the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride at Disney World, but stops being fun much sooner, and lasts A LOT longer. It is also my primary mode of transportation in the south, as there is no train near me, and it is cheaper than a taxi.

Once we started to make our way there via foot, as we were passing by a donkey cart, one of my counterparts had a genius idea. Without saying more than "I've got a great idea!", he ran over to the man driving the donkey cart, began talking to him in his local Berber dialect, and proceeded to ask him if we could catch a ride in his cart to our "work meeting". Judging by the mans reaction, this was the first time 3 white guys had approached him speaking Arabic and Berber asking for such a thing. Fortunately, he was able to squeeze us into his busy donkey man schedule and take us there. We made ourselves comfortable in the rickety wooden and metal cart and continued to chat with the man, jokingly asking him to take us all the way to Tata, a town about 8 hours away by souk bus, and that we would pay for his food. About 30 minutes and a 100 confused looks from locals later, we pulled into our destination, which was in front of a Berber carpet co-op...one of the 5 small mud houses that comprised the village, where we met up with 2 additional volunteers, thus completing the party attendees. Despite the small size of the gathering for which we spent half a day of traveling, it turned out to be a fun evening, and im sure gave the locals plenty to talk about.

The following weekend I attended VSN(Volunteer Support Network) training. The VSN is a network comprised of volunteers, that exists to help counsel other volunteers who are in need of it. The Peace Corps can be incredibly stressful and frustrating at times, and there are endless amounts of problems that can arise during ones service. So many that VSN was created to help relieve the PC medical counseling staff of some work...plus sometimes it helps just to speak with another American volunteer that you can relate to. The training lasted for 4 days, and was surprisingly therapeutic. We spent the majority of the training practicing counseling through role plays, in which we traded off being the counselor and the counselee. After an initial run through, I found that it was much easier to play the role of the person being counseled if I used some of my own problems, as opposed to made up ones. It felt good to talk to someone about things such as difficulty adjusting to my new hobbit-like lifestyle and being myself in a different language and culture. It was also good to see some friends from PST that I hadn’t seen in a while, and eat tasty food that was provided from our pcv host, who like many volunteers is an amazing cook. I left feeling refreshed, Zen like, and ready to pass on the feeling to anyone in need. The following day I went to the dentist in Ouarzazate to replace a filling that had fallen out a few weeks prior. I was relieved to find out that the PC dentist is good, and that I was able to describe that I had lost a filling in Arabic.

So this is everything that I can think of that is worth mentioning for this week. There are several things coming up that I will wait on to provide commentary. Until next time.

So the last few weeks and been relatively uneventful, but in compliance with my attempted blogging loyalty I shall enter reguardless. One event was that I had my 25th birthday, which was my first 3rd world bday celebration. I met up with 2 fellow pvc’s and went on a bike ride through the nearby desert. The most eventful part of this day would have to be me getting hit by a motorcycle, and not getting a scratch on me.

It was amazing. I was riding in between the two other volunteers, going around a corner, when a motorcycle came flying towards me and hit me dead on, dragging my bike about 100 feet. Somehow, a millisecond before impact, I managed to jump off my bike, land on my feet and watch as my bike was dragged. The chain on the bike was knocked off, but was fixed relatively easily, and that was it. I wish there had been a Berber village person nearby with a video camera, as it was probably one of the most athletic things I’ve ever done.

As for productivity, I am currently working on getting several projects off the ground, the first of which will be a mural of the world painted in the Dar Chebab. My SBD counterpart has an art background, and wants to use her expertise in facilitating this. The second is more of an event, which would be a career day, in which we would have people from different professions in the community come in a talk about what they do. My only concern about this is that we will only have access to a limited amount of careers. It would be great to expose my students to professions that don’t necessarily exist in the dirty south, like law or journalism. The project that I am most looking forward to is the making of a documentary video, with my students as actors, about growing up in Tinjdad. I will make sure to post it up on U-Tube once it is complete, InShaallah.

The most exciting aspect of the last 2 weeks is the fixing of my toilet. Finally! LHumdullah!(praise be to God). After about 3 weeks of waiting, using the Turkish toilet which is oddly located right in front of the front door to my apartment, and bathing by bucket on my roof, a plumber finally came and fixed the problem. He used on interesting technique to get rid of the clog by filling up all the drains in the bathroom with cement, and forcing water down with a hose which was sticking down one of them, also buried in cement. Not sure if they teach that one in plumber school in the states. It also served as good language practice in that I learned the Arabic words for cement (seamen…took me offguard when he initially asked me for some), screwdriver, hammer, and shit. That’s all for now. Peace.

Visit From PC Bulgaria

So the past few days have been a lot of fun. It all started with a random email entitled “RPCV’s
in Morocco”. It was from two returned Peace Corps volunteers, Tim and Andrew, who have recently finished their service in Bulgaria. In this email they explained that they were conducting a post PC project, which involved traveling across the world and conducting work similar to that which is conducted by the Peace Corps. Furthermore, they explained that their partner in Morocco had fallen through and that they were in search of a way to make use of their time while here. I told them to come on through, and that they were more than welcome to present in the Dar Chebab. That they did, and I was pleased to find out that they are both in fact very cool and very serious about their project. While they were here I introduced them to my community, explored with them like a tourist, exchanged similarities and differences from PC Morocco to PC Bulgaria(which forced me to convince myself that I'm better off here, living an alchohol free, celebate lifestyle), and conducted one hell of a discussion with my students on stereotypes. This was also a great opportunity for me to gain some confidence in my Moroccan Arabic, as being around people who don’t speak a word of it made me feel much more skilled than I actually am (teaching English has the same effect of my English confidence at times).

About 25 people showed up for this discussion, and on time (first time that has ever happened). I arranged for there to be translators, as I assumed many audience members would not be able to understand English or Bulgarian. We began the discussion with a simple statement of “all women are good cooks”, and asked the audience weather they agreed or disagreed with this statement. The majority of participants caught on quickly, which allowed us to promptly illicit heavier stereotypes from them, such as “all American’s are rich and selfish”, and “all Muslim’s are terrorists”. It worked out amazingly well, and was relieving in a sense, considering that these were things that I have always wanted to talk about but needed the proper setting to do so. I do feel lucky that I was assigned a site where there are many educated and seemingly open minded youth who are eager to participate in such discussions.

Having Tim and Andrew here for a few days also allowed me to explore activities that I would probably not have pursued if it were not for their presence, such as Tae Kwon Do lessons on my roof (Andrew is a 3rd degree Black Belt) or a trip to the Hammam which is right around the corner from my house. As for the Hamman, it is essentially a Moroccan bath house which has three bathing rooms, each of which has a different temperature. There is also water offered in three different temperatures (cold, warm, and burning lava hot). The hottest of these rooms, which one might nickname “the chamber of fire water”, is where the majority of the skin scrubbing and soaping takes place. There are Moroccans there are available to lend a helping hand with the peeling of “dead” skin. I figured that might be something to save for when I’m a bit more integrated.

For more information on Tim and Andrew and their project, you can visit their website at www.supercross08.com . I am actually now on their partner page for my courageous contribution to their work.

So it looks like I broke my blog promise. It has been about 3 weeks since my last entry, and by no means have I been updating it more frequently as I said I would. Sorry, to all my fans out there. Maybe I’ll just stop making promises.

Life has been a little slow recently, but good. Over the past few weeks I have been able attack my soon to be apartment full force with cleaning supplies, and have bought some furniture so its about time to move out of the host families place. Despite my cleaning efforts however, yesterday my Turkish toilet went insane and sewage began to come up through the drain in my shower, leaving my bathroom resembling a broken outdoor latrine. On a good note, I was able to practice my Darija with a local plumber. I hadn’t had much plumbing vocabulary practice prior to this event.

I have been able to get out on several bike rides and hikes, which have been therapeutic. The day before Christmas I hiked the Todra Gorge with a fellow PCV, and last weekend I went on a bike ride through the Dades gorge. Both of these places are close to me and beautiful. Hiking through the Mid-Atlas mountains reminds me a lot of hiking through the Rocky’s in CO, yet in CO there are no nomads, donkeys, and randoms sheep herds that you might run into while hiking. It’s interesting to hike 10 miles into what seems like the middle of nowhere and find a wardrobes’ worth of clothing laid out and drying on a rock, along with a make-shift lean-to with a donkey tied to it. To me the most fascinating thing about the nomads is that they seem to move themselves, along with everything they own everyday. There are days when I barley leave my apartment.

Today there will actually be the celebration of another Moroccan holiday called Ashura. The 10th of January is officially Islamic New Year. Magic, good, and evil is practiced on the Ashura day and on the preceding night which is said to favor witches. People gather and wear masks and costumes and speak in disguised voices the night before, which is apparently today (even though today is the 18th). On Ashura eve, “the bonfire night” fires are built throughout the town and people sing and dance around them. In addition, there are water rites attributed to this holiday, and it is said that you can freely soak someone with water on the morning of it. So from the sounds of it, it seems like a Moroccan Halloween without candy, but water, and in the coldest time of year. Today there will be a festival for this near my site, so I will have to go and see for myself, and perhaps wear my raincoat.

As for teaching, it continues to go well. I recently got a camcorder (thanks parents!), so my next big perceived activity will be making a documentary video with my students about life in Tinejdad. They are all very excited about this idea, as am I. Part of me has always secretly wanted to make documentary videos, and I can’t think of a better place to start than right here.

That’s it for today. Hopefully the next few weeks will be more eventful so I will have more interesting things to write about. Until then…