Thoughts of a world traveler: Village Life

I made it back safely from my weeklong site visit. I left the bus station in Azrou at 8am on November 1st and arrived in Errachidia around 1pm where I had lunch and met the volunteer I will be replacing. Then we took the 15 minute taxi ride to my small village, still not sure on size, but under 1,000. There are 3 villages kind of running into one another. I then met my host family of 11 people. There is the mother, then two of her single daughters aged 22 and 30, then 2 married couples (one husband does not live at home as he is in the military) and then 6 children between the two coupples. There are two newborns (2-3 months old), then there are four children aged 4,5,10, and 11. It's pretty crazy between villagers and other relation visiting, but good. The house if huge. There is a date tree in the middle of the house which is an open space, then there are about 6 rooms surrounding the central space. They have a well in the house as well as tap water and electricity. They are building an amazing house across the street where they also store their animals. They have a cow, calf, some chickens, a turkey and a sheep or two. So I get fresh milk and eggs everyday, :). The new house is also gorgeous, all tiled on the inside.

The rest of the week was spent meeting women, visiting the nedi where the women work, etc. The women share the school that was built. They meet when school isn't in session and share half of the space. Otherwise they work in their homes the rest of the time and do a little bit of everything. They make knitted sweater pants outfits, crochet doilies among other items, embroider sheets, make beaded jewelry and a little rug weaving with natural wool and dyes. I'm excited to learn more about their projects. They also grow olives and have begun making books with paper made in a neighboring nedi that I think could have real potential.

Overall country life in the desert was a complete shock, but it's good. There are some awesome volunteers near me and it's a great area for bike riding. I don't have internet in the village, but I might be able to work something out, inch a'llah. My internet/souk town is Errachidia which is only about 15 km away. The plan is once I have a bike to bike it once a day for the workout. My village has a few hanuts with the basic needs, but no veggies or fruits or anything like that.

I went on a very nice hike on Monday with one of my host sisters and the volunteer I will be replacing to the nearby forest where the village does their farming. I will have delicious fresh olive oil soon enough, :). My new addiction is pomegranate and they have a few trees there.

Overall it is beautiful with oasis all around me, great biking terrain and warm! I won't like the summer I'm sure, haha. It's been in the 70's all week for me, but evenings are very cold, been sleeping with three blankets every night.

I do have two funny language barrier stories to share. The first one is when I was unable to shut the current volunteer's door to her house. I wasn't quite strong enough and couldn't get it bolted. So I went back to my host family's house and tried to tell them I needed help shutting the door. She kept asking me about a key and I kept trying to tell her it wasn't the key that was an issue, but actually physically shutting the door. After some miming the message was finally relayed. Then this morning when I was to leave for Azrou, they were trying to tell me they had spoke to the guy who had a grand taxi in the village who was to take me, but I didn't understand and wondered why they wouldn't just let me walk to the road and wait, but it all worked out, :).

I ended up catching the 8am bus back to Azrou alone as the other volunteers were having hotel check out issues. Passed with no problem, I did almost miss my stop though as I didn't recognize that part of Azrou. But all is kulshi bixir, :).

Now I am in Azrou until next Thursday at which point I will be swearing in as an official Peace Corps volunteer, inch a'llah. The ceremony will be in Fez, then the next day I travel back to my village for the next two years! So far the people have all been very nice and my conversational skills are improving drastically as everyone only speaks Darija. There is a really cool nomadic family living next door to my future home, inch a'llah. The 8 year old neighbor girl decided to name me Halima which means dreams in arabic, :). Many already recognize me, so I haven't been overcharged for anything yet and have connections in Errachidia already with a family who is currently hosting a volunteer.

Also: Obama won! I was able to watch the elections, so that was really cool, :).

Hope you enjoy the photos!