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.”
Friday, October 24, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
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...
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...
Friday, September 19, 2008
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...
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...
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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.
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...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
