First Impressions

Sunday, 23 November 2008

I don’t have daily internet access in my new site, but I do have internet access one or two times per week depending on how often I need to go to my souk town.

As I had previously written, my village is small, but not as small as others within my training group, and health and environment volunteers have smaller, more remote sites than me. I am lucky to be so close to a major city. Once I have my Peace Corps issued bike, I’ll be able to bike into town once a week. The number of people living in my village is yet to be determined. I live within a family of 12 (one is away for the military) while there are several houses with 5 or less. My guess is there are under 600 people living on my village which makes up a set of three with village lines distinguishable only by where each Mosque begins. The nedi I will be assisting is located in the village next to me and there is a teleboutique in the village next to that one. There are between 2-3 hanuts in my village, one of which is owned by one of my new brothers. Moroccan families tend to be quite large compared to American families. The haja of my family has around 5-7 children (still unsure), one of the wives of a son has about 7 siblings, etc. I now currently have family of some sort located all throughout Morocco between my current family and my CBT family which is really cool.

Thursday we had our official swearing in ceremony in Fes. We got on a bus around 8:30am and drove the nearly 2 hours to Fes where we listened to speeches given by the ambassador of Morocco, some delegates, our country director and two members from our training group. At 11:30am I was officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer with the US Government. It’s weird to think of myself as now currently working for the US Government. We had our swearing in ceremony in a beautiful hotel in Fes and had an interesting buffet dinner with members from our CBT sites. I was very happy that my older host sister was able to come, J. We had 4 other women from our host families there as well as our cook and friend. It was so nice to see everyone again. Then after fighting through the buffet line Moroccan style (no such think as a line here), we chatted, took photos, said good-byes and then left to return to Azrou where I finished packing, ran a few last minute errands and prepared to leave. It was very sad leaving everyone and everything that had become familiar to me in Azrou. I still miss my first host family very much, they had become my second family here in Morocco and we had been matched very well.

Friday morning I caught the 8am bus to Errachidia with a few other SBD volunteers and several YD (youth development) volunteers. We then ate lunch before heading to our final sites, a few were staying the night in Errachidia. I arrived in my village around 2pm and had lots of fun carting my luggage through the mud. Apparently it had been raining for two days and there are no paved roads in my village, haha. Lucky for me as I was struggling along, a brother-in-law of the family saw me and offered assistance for which I was thankful. I then spent the rest of the day unpacking, etc.

Saturday I woke up around 10am and attempted to speak with the muldar (landlord) of the departing volunteer’s home to discuss renting it in her place and seeing if I could put a hold on it for the two months I am staying with my host family. Alas, he was not home. I then went to Errachidia with the help of another brother-in-law to get my large suitcase from the CTM station. Yay for host family members. He showed me the day souk of Errachidia, very large. And I hear the Sunday weekly souk is even larger. Crazy! Got my other bag successfully, then taxied it back to my host family’s house before heading over to visit with his and his family. I then attempted to speak with the muldar again with no luck and had dinner with the brother-in-law and his family. They are very sweet.

Today I slept in till noon after a semi-late evening. I was awoken twice by family members. They didn’t understand that I just like to sleep. Spent 5 minutes explaining that I was not sick, just tired. After waking up I went to check out the last volunteer’s house. Wow, very messy/dirty. I can see why she has had scorpions in her house. I spent about an hour cleaning parts of it which will need to be better cleaned using tide. They use tide for everything here. But before I do too much work, I want to have it cleared with Peace Corps. It needs a few repairs, nothing major. Then after doing some cleaning I came back to the house and learned how to weave a shag carpet. Pretty simple. I can already think of a few things to advise later on about improving the quality of the carpet. It’s nice living with two members of the cooperative. After some attempted weaving, tried speaking to the muldar again, again, not there. So ended up having tea with a really nice family of whom I am still uncertain of any names, etc. Everyone knows me, so rarely does anyone actually introduce themselves.

So that is my current update. Quite a bit has been happening these last few days. Tomorrow I am to experience the hmmam in town with one of my host sisters before making a day trip to Errachidia. Goal is to visit the gendarmes tomorrow to start my carte de sejour (residence permit) process, check out the post office, and visit the souk. Tomorrow is my first official day of work, but due to the nature of my community, I feel I had already begun doing that a bit. My host sisters and several others in the village have been working on the rug and I have watched my host sisters doing some crochet work, etc. I’ll start asking questions and such once I get a better handle on the language. First things first.

I am learning that it is almost at times a whole new language down south. Accents are different and some vocabulary is even different. I am slowly learning bit by bit, day by day. Some days are better than others of course. I spend much time saying “Shnu” and “Eawd” and “Mafhmtsh”. Which are: “what”, “again” and “I don’t understand.” I am trying and they are being very patient and trying as well. Very few speak any English or French, so I believe I will learn the language very quickly if I am ever to communicate anything, haha.

I am beginning to like village life. Everyone knows me and soon I will know everyone, it is very peaceful and calm and no tourists. I’m rarely greeted with bonjour or hola here in the village which is very nice.


24 November 2008

Today I woke up at 9am, then after being told the gendarmes close in the afternoon, I left at 10am. It took awhile to get a taxi, I then arrived in Errachidia around 11am and started at the police station who directed me to the gendarmes who had very little idea of what they were doing. After two hours of confusion we went back to the police station who told the gendarmes I didn't need further documentation. They thought I needed extra paperwork. Then the gendarme went with me to get notarized copies of everything which took nearly 2 more hours. All in all I have all my neccessary paperwork now and will return tomorrow to drop it all off. It is quite the process here and even more interesting when they don't even know where your village is located. But all in all they were all very nice and helpful.

I was unable to check my mail as I forgot my keys and too tired for the souk. So I grabbed some coke, pringles and awesome cream filled cookies and a banana for lunch. Now that I have updated this I will return to my village and massive family for more darija learning! Maybe some hammam, today took much longer than planned.