International Women’s Day!

Last Sunday was quite possibly the greatest developmental work experience I have undertaken since being in the Peace Corps. Sunday, March 8th was International Women’s Day, and I decided to seize the opportunity for a project given such a day celebrating such an objectively important cause.

I spent about a month and a half preparing for the event, which entailed rounding up many women’s organizations in my community, along with several speakers for certain topics, through fliers and word of mouth. It quickly became apparent that completing this task would not have been possible in my first year here, in that my language and credibility were key components in selling the idea to so many people and working out the logistics. I did receive some help from my new site mate during this stage, which I can imagine only added to the anomaly of not only one, but two white guys riding all over town on bikes in an effort to promote women’s rights. Yet at this point, I have come to the understanding that diverging from the norm is an essential component in the accomplishment of my work here, so I’ll go ahead and interpret that to mean that we were doing our jobs well.

The event turned out to be a huge success, and was the type of project that makes one proud to do development work, in that it engendered a real sense of accomplishment. Three PCV’s from neighboring towns came to help with the event, along with my (former) Arabic tutor, the mudira(director) of the Dar Taliba (girls center), and a midwife from the local hospital.



We started the day out with a warm up activity relating to team work(and waking kids up), followed by a hero’s activity in which discussed female hero’s in Morocco and Islam, and gave the girls an opportunity to talk about what it means to be a hero, and elicited examples of personal hero’s from them. I think that this was probably one of the most important activities we did, in that it seems that what many of the girls here need is simply an example of what can be done when hard work and determination connects with idealism. The hero’s activity was followed by a tea break (an essential element for any Moroccan event), which was then followed by a discussion of the muduwana act, which is a set of laws that outline the rights of women and families (i.e. a women has the right to choose who she wants to marry). Although this discussion was hard for me to follow in that it involved very fast and technical Arabic, I also viewed it as an extremely important one. After spending some time in rural Morocco it becomes very apparent that there is a huge difference between what one is allowed to legally and what one is allowed to do socially. I believe that reminders of what the law entails are important in order for people (women especially) to be unfettered in the accomplishment of their goals.

After lunch we held a brief opinion activity in which statements pertaining to women’s independence and equality were read (ie “I would rather go to get married then go to university”), and participants would walk to a designated area indicating weather or not they agreed, disagreed, or remained neutral on the statement. Of these, by far the most interesting one was “I believe that boys are treated better than girls”, in which all the boys participating agreed, and all the females, aside from the women professionals who were helping with the event disagreed. This indicated that the boys are very aware of their advantages, while the girls either possess a different definition of what it means to be equal, or are in denial of society’s preferential treatment of males. Definitely something that would be interesting to look into further...

This was followed by a SIDA (AIDS) and general health activity, during which the midwife from the hospital spoke to the girls, and the male staff managed to wing a SIDA presentation for the group of 30 or so boys that meandered in after lunch. Fortunately, along with the boys that randomly showed up, so did a male English teacher who I had previously run into and mentioned the event to, and who eagerly offered his help in translating the points on the spreading of the HIV, and the use of contraceptives. The only part of this presentation that made me nervous was when I gave him a condom in order to talk about how to use it, and he began his demonstration by sticking his entire fist inside of it and using it as a sock puppet. Very funny, yet slightly horrifying.


After another health presentation in which a female PCV discussed the spreading of bacteria and the importance of washing your hands with soap, we kicked the boy out and had the same girl lead a brief presentation on stretches for women. Of course, all males had to leave the room for this, so I can only assume that it went well. Afterwards we held a poster competition for the girls. This served as an opportunity for them to illustrate what women’s rights means to them, along with what they got out of the day’s events. The result was incredibly rewarding, and demonstrated artistic talent and creativity form the girls. My favorite poster was that of a huge lit candle, which, according to the group that drew it, represented women as the “fire of life”, and that without them there would be no light on earth...something undeniably true.


Towards the end of this activity, we were forced to switch buildings in that there was no electricity in the building we had been using all day and we were quickly losing the sunlight seeping in from the windows, which was our only source of light throughout the day. The absence of electricity also made it impossible to use the projector that I had put so much effort into hauling over from the Dar Chebab(youth house), but I suppose that overcoming minor obstacles is all in a days work.

We concluded the days events with a presentation of all the posters, which was accompanied by cookies, soda (essential for any Moroccan party- similar to booze in America), and music. Dancing even took place after the guys left the room (dancing in front of men is of course incredibly forbidden here). All in all it was a great day, and helped to restore the confidence in me that effective development work is indeed achievable.

Following this event, I moved right onto my next project, which is the coordination of spring camp. This entails me planning out all the logistics of this week long English immersion camp, along with delegating tasks to the 7 PCV’s who will be helping with it. I just returned from a coordinators meeting about it, in which I met with the director of the center where we will be holding the camp, and everything appears to be falling into place. Updates on this, along with my other near future endeavors are soon to come. Stay tuned, and until next time...

Thoughts on my birthday

Yes, today marks the beginning of my 26th year of existence. I am spending the occasion sitting by myself in my desert home (which I have finally returned to today after another traveling stint), nuzzled up with my propane gas heater, and moving very slowly because of the soreness that is still present after recently running the Marrakesh semi-marathon. The ol birthday wishes of "happy birthday old man!" sent to me from friends and family today seem to be slightly less humorous when that is precisely what I feel like.

Birthdays have never held that much importance for me, and I suppose that apathy is intensified when in a place where age is of such little importance. I am in fact so apathetic that I don't have anything more to say on the matter. So much for deep thinking...perhaps I'll have more to say next year when the feeling of moving forward is made more apparent through moving back to the motherland.

A more logical update on the past 6 weeks is coming up shortly, I promise.

Where to begin...

As so accurately stated by my father upon his recent visitation, there is so much that makes up my life here that cannot be conveyed through words. The past 6 weeks equate the epitome of this statement. In the past month and a half I have traveled around Morocco more than I initially thought to be possible in such a short period of time, and have been the busiest that I have ever been since arriving here. So much has happened, and continues to be happening at such a fast rate that I feel that simply looking back and attempting to document what has gone by will by no means do it justice. However, I must try.

I suppose an appropriate place to start would be with the visit from my family. I met them in late December in Casablanca with an ominous introduction that would set the pace for challenges in our travels. After waiting around for about 2 hours after their scheduled arrival time, I found my mother sitting by herself looking like a child separated from her parents in an unknown city. After approaching her and saying our hellos, she informed me that my father and sister were running around frantically trying to figure out what had happened to my sisters suitcase which had not shown up with the rest of the luggage. A few minutes later I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a very confused tourist frenetically walking in my direction...who of course turned out to be my father, with my sister trailing him not far behind. "Boy, am I glad to see you!" my dad exclaimed upon seeing me. "We lost Lauren's bag, and can't communicate with anyone, and have been running around for hours trying to find someone to help us without any success, and, well, this place is just hard to get around in!" And so the trip began...



We rented a car as our mode of transportation, which was an incredible luxury after a year and four months of relying on cramped, noisy, and unpredictable buses as my primary mode of transportation. The beauty of this country is objectively better when viewed through the eyes of someone who is not stuck in the fetal position. From Casablanca we went to Rabat, then Chefchaouen(the farthest north I have yet to go in this country)then to Fez, and then 8 hours south down to my neck of the woods.

While I thoroughly enjoyed exploring with my family (despite the constant parental-like protection that is required for someone who isn't familiar with the language/culture), the best part of the vacation was undoubtedly their time spent in my town. Introducing them to my friends and surrogate families of my community was like filling in the final gap of understanding that was needed for my existence here to make sense. It seemed to help illustrate the concept the I am in fact a normal person, from a family of other people who are similar to me, and I did not simply materialize out of the desert on a mission to help develop the locals (it turns out this is much easier convey when there are people to point to, rather than attempting to explain it using shaky Arabic).

The attempt of my family to integrate was undoubtedly hilarious...it was also interesting(and very humbling) to see what I must have looked like when I first arrived here. One example of this was when I casually mentioned to my female neighbor that my sister was about to go to the hammam (public shower house) for her first time. After telling her, she gave me a look of disbelief and said "but who will scrub her?" I replied, saying something along the lines of "well, I guess she's just going to scrub herself", and she looked at me indignantly as if I were an abusive parent. Twenty minutes later my sister was in the hamman with my neighbor, butt naked and being scrubbed like she had never been scrubbed before. Ah yes, diplomacy in its purest form.



Another struggle I encountered during the family's visitation was the illusion to my parents that I am 100% fluent in Arabic. This resulted in them giving me ridiculously abstruse sentences to translate, such as when my mom posed "could you please ask your host father about the water irrigation system to his farm? When was it installed and exactly how does it operate?" Or when my dad asked me to ask a wood maker if the wood in a certain object was inlaid. Granted, I was eventually able to convey the meaning of these sentences, although certainly not without sounding like an idiot(ie "Is there wood in the wood?)"

After our stint in my region, we pushed on to Marrakesh to celebrate the new year, and then onward to Essaouria, followed by Casablanca for the family to catch their return flight home. As worn out as I was after the previous two weeks of unceasing travel, translation, and general supervising, I was forced to push onward with it, in that a lady friend from back home arrived to meet me at the airport just a few hours after the family's departure.

Following another eight days of tour guiding (slightly less stress filled the second time around), I found myself physically and mentally exhausted beyond reasonable standards. Yet despite my fatigue, I knew that I had no choice but force myself to be resilient and become energized, for the half marathon that I had spent the previous 6 preparing for was only a week away.


The marathon in Marrakesh was a demanding, yet phenomenal experience. It was by far the largest race I have ever been a part of, with thousands of participants from all around the globe competing in the half and full length marathons. My self-given goal of doing extremely well in this race was abated when I ran the mile in about 6 minutes in a race against locals in my community and still received last place a few months prior(turns out Africans are pretty fast). Regardless of the daunting competition, I was able to do my personal best without any huge limitations. With thousands of viewers, lines of kids to slap the hands of as I ran by, and live music groups dispersed randomly along the way, simply participating was a feast for the senses and a fun challenge for the body.



The last thing I must add to this entry is something that disheartens me to have to write, but I must. I had to give Ziz away. As cute as she is, she was also very destructive, and very, very time consuming. With a month and a half of traveling, I was forced to keep her on the roof for much of the time, which was not fair to her or the neighbors whom she pissed off relentlessly. Raising a puppy is a lot like raising a child...in order to do it effectively, one must have the time, patience, and living space sufficient for the demands it calls forth. Unfortunately I have none of those, and her cuteness alone was not enough to supersede reality (well, at least not once I got a better taste for what the reality of having her entailed).

With the exception of a few non-exigent details of randomness, that pretty much brings me up to date. I am now on to yet another self assigned task of en betterment; studying for the GRE's. I am scheduled to take the test in less than two weeks, so am thus fully engaged in study overdrive. Along with wanting to do well on the test to increase my options for graduate programs, part of me wants to do well simply because there would be no excuse for doing poorly when living by myself in the desert, free of the distractions that one usually encounters.

For those of you who haven't given up on following this despite the hiatus, I appreciate your patience. Until next time...

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...