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...