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…