Training

I returned about 4 days ago from a training in Marrakech. It was awesome. The first two days of training weren't so great, but it was really nice to see friends I hadn't seen in 6 months. We also had access to an AMAZING swimming pool even if we were far from downtown kech. Staying up till 1am and getting up around 8am was exhausting, but worth it. On the way to Kech I was able to stay the night in Ouarzazate and get some new summer clothes, very light and flowy caftan/jallaba things. Also while in Kech I got to eat amazing sushi! I was so excited. Also had Pizza Hut one night, had to have my american pizza, and ate in the jma fna one night, the downtown kech market area near the mosque.

Before Kech my cat was very good and killed a scorpion for me, :). I woke up to a dead one in my kitchen. Been dealing with way too many bugs lately. Darn beetles seem to be everywhere. Cockroaches are scary over here, very large. Luckily I haven't seen too many. And my roof has been dropping bits of rock lately. Praying it's just the heat and nothing is actually living up there. That's a scary thought. Other than the scary house issues, life is good. Cooled down to about 90F this week, but it'll only warm up again very soon.

Attempting to plan some inter-morocco travel or a short trip to Europe this summer before my trip back to Iowa. Not sure when or where yet. Somewhere I could swim would be great.

Otherwise not too much going on at the moment. Women have been out in the fields so not too much coop wise happening this week. Still working on getting my lap top keyboard fixed. Inchallah soon. Some exciting news, my host sister just got married. Unfortunately due to my need to travel to Kech I was unable to go, :(. But I may get to go to a wedding in Midelt for the cousin of my tutor, that would be fun. We've now hit wedding season, I hear the music weekly these days. My tutor just did very well on her Bac, so she will be leaving this fall to go to school. Sad she'll be leaving, but happy that she did so well.

As the weather warms up, people have begun taking afternoon naps and staying up much later. We had a time change, but I do not believe it is being observed by my village. We now have what I call "old time" and "new time". It makes life interesting, haha. I'll be glad when this time change goes away around August 20th, right before Ramadan starts.

I attempted to make scones the other day. Didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped they would, but I have plenty of time to try again. Well, I should go do my shopping for the weekend.

Hope to have a more exciting update soon.

May

It really has been awhile since I have updated this. Well, part of that is due to the fact I have not yet had a chance to have my malfunctioning keyboard fixed yet. It's difficult to type when you can't use A or S. I'm hoping to have it fixed before I take my trip home, or I might just buy a plug-in keyboard until I can get a replacement internal keyboard.

I haven't been up to too much this month. I hung around in site for the first half of the month visiting people, working on my cross stitch, etc. Been reading a lot. I did make my own blank writing journal. I ran out of pages in the one I had brought and could not find one here in Morocco, so after hearing how another volunteer makes her own I decided to look up book making online and create my own. I really like it, :).

I had a Warden meeting in Rabat on the 22nd. It was so much fun to see friends and meet new people. I was also able to see Alicia Keys perform live in Rabat for the music festival. That was pretty cool, I'd never really been to a live concert before.

Then this week we had our test consolidation where everyone in the region goes to their designated consolidation point sites in the case of an emergency. Generally when there is an unsafe situation for volunteers we all gather at these points and wait for further instructions on whether or not we will be evauating the country. This test exercise ws to get an idea of how well it would work and what we need to do to make it work more efficiently in a real emergency. It was really great to meet people I haven't had a chance to see yet and to hang out with friends. Even got to go swimming!

Been baking a lot of well. Had a friend come over a couple weeks ago and we made awesome chicken quesadillas with some substitutes of course. Didn't have time to make salsa. I made awesome lemon bars the other day as well. I would have to say my oven is my best investment yet.

Been injuring myself as usual as well, haha. First cut my finger on a glass I broke while washing it, then pinched the skin on the back of my hand in a door as I was opening the bolt and then sliced my thumb on the lid of a sardine can while tying my garbage shut. All minor injuries of course, :).

Next week I will be going to Marrakech for my IST (inter service training) for a week. It'll be really great to see people I haven't seen in 6 months as well as to get some more information to help me in site, not to mention there will be a pool, ;). I'm always excited to swim. It's been warming up here, in the upper 90's. But a dry heat.

hmm...some exciting news for everyone in Iowa. I have planned and bought tickets to take a trip home in September, :). Very excited. I'll be home for the first 2 weeks of September.

Hope everyone is well!

Photos of Marrakech

Here are some photos I took while in Marrakech for a day last month. They are of the souk and one of the carriages they have near the souk:

Hmm…since Spring Camp I’ve basically just stayed in my site. I was stuck in Errachidia for about 4 days a couple weeks ago due to the strike, but other than that no traveling. It’s been nice to just stay in site and relax a bit.

A couple weeks ago I held a small skirt creation workshop in my house for 4 of my cooperative women by their request. I showed them how to create a very simple elastic waist skirt. It went over very well. Now more of the women want me to hold another workshop on more complicated patterns soon. Pretty excited to be relaying some of my knowledge, :).

Other than that not too much has been happening. It’s been warming up here in Morocco, especially down south. Been reaching the upper 80’s and it’s only going to get warmer. The bugs are also beginning to come out due to this warmer weather. Lucky for me my cat likes to catch and eat most of them. She’s still a kitten and ornery, but a good addition. I like her company as well.

I’ve also learned how much I really like cooking and baking while here. I use a buta gas stove and oven for my cooking needs. Basically a buta gas stove is a glorified camp stove and a buta gas oven is something we lovingly call a fire box here. I also have to make everything from scratch here as there are no mixes, etc. Frozen dinners can be found in large cities where there is a Marjane, but nowhere down south. My closest Marjane is about 5-7 hours by bus away. I make biscuits, tortillas, brownies, omelettes, and many other items from scratch. And all the fresh fruits and vegetables! I hope to learn to make Moroccan tajines and Pastilla someday as well. Pastilla is the most amazing dish ever. It is a mixture of chicken, almonds, onions, powdered sugar, cinnamon and spices(pepper, ginger, parsley, coriander, tumeric) within a phyllo shell with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top. Seems my life revolves around food here. I could eat with a Moroccan family any day of the week I wish to, but in my village they only eat Duez for lunch and some kinds of flour based soup for dinner. Duez is a type of tajine eaten in villages. It consists of an oil based sauce with paprika, parsley, pepper, and ginger. Then it generally has tomatoes, carrots, and potatoes for the veggies with some kind of meat in the middle. Generally this is chicken, but it could also be mutton, beef or some other animal. Bled soup is basically flour based with some kind of pasta and maybe some oil and pepper. But there are many kinds.

My daily routine is basically to “live” in the morning and then visit members of the cooperative or fellow villagers in the afternoon. So I generally stay in my house until 3pm just so I can avoid eating lunch with people. I just don’t care for village Duez, otherwise I would love to go over to people’s houses for lunch. I feel bad for avoiding lunch, but I really don’t like the village Duez. I do generally eat with someone on Fridays as that is when most Moroccans eat couscous. Twice a week I hitch a taxi into Errachidia for tutoring, souk, internet, post office. What I mean by “live” is, I have to do everything myself. I have to cook my meals, wash my dishes, do laundry by hand, bucket bath, etc. I have a solar shower though which is nice. Laundry is easily a 1-2 hour process. Then the days when I go to Hammam, that’s about a 2 hour process as well. Hammam is the public bathhouse. Very nice place to go to in the winter months here, not so great in the summer. Beginning to lose track of my days of the week here and the date of the month. Time is very different here.

So that is a bit of an update on my life here in Morocco. Overall life is going fairly well. Better now that I don’t have to make so many trips to Rabat. I can’t currently ride my bike because it makes my knee ache, but I’m hoping after taking a 2 month hiatus (possibly 4 as the summer months will be killer) that my knee will be better.

I’m also beginning to realize that my Fiona (my cat) is really a Fiero. Kittens are very difficult to judge when they are so small. A male cat is better anyway because then I don’t have to worry about kittens.

Also, currently my cat spilled water on my keyboard which really sucks because certain important letters no longer work on my keyboard. Only 5 keys and not even all in the same spot, just on the same side of my keyboard, but important keys: fn, A, Q, S, and V. Makes me very sad that my keyboard doesn’t fully function anymore because of something stupid that my cat did and not even sure it can be fixed, :(. Going to check with the computer guy in Errachidia. If all else fails I can always buy an external keyboard to plug into my USB port. Basically I just need a new keypad replaced. They should be able to do that here, but I might have to order one as I would want it to be an American keyboard.

Otherwise things are good. Haven't traveled too much this month, just spring camp at the start and then I went to Erfoud this weekend to visit a fellow volunteer. It was good. We hung out, I got to use internet, watched a good movie and ate some American candy, :).

Currently I am attempting to find a horseback riding trip near by in my affordability range. Otherwise if I can't find one, I might take a trip back to the states in September, not sure yet. Still deciding.

Spring Camp

Wow I have had a very long month, but it has also went very quickly. I had my regional meeting in Ouarzazate. Overall it was a very good meeting. We were able to discuss issues we have all been dealing with and about each other’s experiences.

After the regional meeting I returned to site for about a week before heading off to Spring Camp in Errachidia. I worked with 6 male peace corps volunteers and 1 other female. Then we also had about 6 Moroccan staff and a little over 100 kids. Overall it was a really good and fun week. Us Americans met up Saturday night to plan and discuss what would happen during the week.

Then Sunday we moved our things over to the Center we would be staying in and had a meeting with the Moroccan staff at which point we cemented and clarified the schedule. Afterwards we hung out and relaxed for a bit before finishing up last minute things.

Monday was the day the kids arrived. They started arriving right after lunch and we spent until Supper time interviewing their level of English. Me and the other female volunteer teamed up and we had lots of fun. Afterwards we relaxed a little before supper. After supper we all went to the Dar Chebab to go over rules for the camp. It was a very long night.

And Tuesday was a very early morning. We had breakfast at 8am, but we had the kids meet outside at 7:30am. Then we had English lessons, I taught the very beginners with the assistance of our director. I had a lot of fun teaching them basic greetings and such. We also played “Big Booty”. That was a bit of a challenge to teach, but they caught on eventually and had a lot of fun with it. My darija is still very much a work in progress, so I think my mistakes helped them not feel so bad about making their own. Also the guy helping me out was pretty amazing. After English classes we had sports. Basically the girls played basketball while the boys played soccer. I attempted to play basketball with the girls and ended up twisting my foot. Did a pretty good job of tripping over my own feet, haha. After lunch we held our clubs. I helped teach Arts with another volunteer. Explaining friendship bracelets to 21 kids with varying degrees of English was a very interesting situation. In the end everyone had created some form of a friendship bracelet, :). After clubs the youth listened to information regarding SIDA (AIDS) before having an amazing supper. After supper we had a talent show. Some of the youth were very talented as well as many staff members.

Wednesday we went through the same program except instead of AIDS they youth discussed different issues currently going on around them such as Immigration and Technology. Overall a very good day. My partner and I taught our Arts club how to make paper cranes. It was a very successful venture. For the evening activity we played American games in which the kids had a great time. There was dizzy bat, balloon stomp, musical chairs, tug of war, limbo, and a fifth game I am having trouble remembering.

Thursday was the bog day of the week. We all took small “school buses” to Merzouga. Basically a school buy here is a van about the size of a 15 passenger van but with benches in the back where you have to squeeze in. For the trip down I sat in the front, but on the way back we all squeezed into the back with the kids. We started by waking up at 6am and left by 7am. We had breakfast at a rest stop next to a gorge near my village. Was a beautiful spot. Afterwards we finished driving to Merzouga where we walked to a large sand dune and then made our way up it. It took us about an hour as it is very tall. There is a reason Moroccans call it a “Mountain of Sand” in darija. Then I attempted to roll down it like you would a hill, but was having technical difficulties, haha. So I ended up just semi skiing down the dune. It was great walking barefoot in the dry warm sand. After rolling down the hill I came to the realization that I had sand everywhere. After the dunes we had lunch of a baguette, some cheese spread, a potato and egg in Rissani. Then we visited an old area before heading onto Erfoud where we visited a really neat fossilized rock place. Basically they take fossilized marble and make it into really cool tables, fountains, plates, etc. After the museum we visited Hotel Xaluca (pronounced shalooka). It was an amazing hotel that was much too pricey for my Peace Corps budget. We finally arrived back at the Center later than planned and ate dinner. Well, I skipped dinner as I had gotten so motion sick from the vans on the hour ride back to Errachidia. The plan was to watch an American movie, but there were technical difficulties, so we ended up scratching the movie. I was just thankful for the chance to take a nice long hot shower to get all the sand off of me.

View of the Ziz gorge, about 10-15km from my house.



Sand dunes of Merzouga

Me posing pretty in front of the sand dunes of Merzouga

Poor tied up camel, :(

Friday we went back to the normal schedule and also hosted our last day of clubs. My partner and I let the kids draw and paint pictures of things they had seen while on the Merzouga field trip. English class was good, the first I had taught completely on my own, :). I sat out during sports again as I did not want to reinjure anything, haha. After supper we held a fake Moroccan wedding. And lucky me was the bride. I actually had a lot of fun letting them dress me up, do my make-up, etc. I will never forget walking down the street from the Center to the Dar Chebab with a band following me and playing music and my entourage of girls ululating. I ended up changing my dress once, but I have to say I liked the green one much better than the white one. That was also a very late night. I think we crashed around 1am.

Fellow volunteer, me and my tutor at my "wedding"

Saturday was the last full day of camp. We had our final English class which was basically just a review. Then we held our English Olympiads where we have several different stations where kids have to use English words to gain points such as pronouncing words correctly, playing hangman, charades, etc. After lunch we announced the winners and then let kids prepare for the Spectacle where they could perform different pieced they had learned throughout the week or had compiled themselves. Overall a very good night with many interesting acts. After supper we had a bit of a yogurt/toothpaste fight. I got toothpaste in my ear, that was fun to get out, and the bad ear nonetheless, haha. I chased down my fair share of campers, ;).

Sunday the campers all went home, we had a meeting with Moroccan staff and then went to a volunteer’s house to unwind. Overall the camp was a great success and the food was amazing.

Monday I just relaxed and recouperated a bit. I tried to get wireless internet, but both places told me my site isn’t part of the coverage area yet and a fixed line is not available either, :(. Maroc Telecom made it sound as if they are planning a project to expand coverage, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. A friend of mine is letting me test his Wana wireless in my site as well, so hoping maybe I’ll get lucky.

Tuesday I had my tutoring session at 8:30am, very early. Then I just went back to site, did laundry and visited my host family. Still very exhausted.

Wednesday I visited people in my site and caught up with my counterpart. I am working on helping the coop ship some bracelets to the states per request of the previous pcv.

Thursday I just came into Errachidia to load up on food supplies, meet up with a friend and catch up on emails and such.

Hope everyone back home is doing well!

New Haircut

Before


After

I decided to chop off all my hair because the split ends were getting so bad. I think it turned out well other than the fact it cost me 200dh! I've only ever paid 30dh here in Morocco, so I was very shocked. I should have asked before hand, but I thought it was only going to be about 60dh, boy was I wrong.

Otherwise my trip to Rabat has been ok. The trip itself has been good, but they can't figure out my knee pain. I don't know if I pulled a muscle or what, but wearing a knee wrap doesn't even help the pain, and it's only my right knee. Had some x-rays done that showed nothing. The pain has been getting steadily worse and the more I walk on it the more pain it causes me. I guess I'll just have to learn to live with it. Someone told me it was due to lack of exercise, I guess walking 1-2 miles per day and riding my bike 35km once or twice a week isn't considered exercise.

Well, I should get some things done, I'll keep everyone updated on whether or not my knee ever improves!

It’s been a very busy month for me. I had volunteer support network (VSN) training February 27th through March 3rd. It was a really great opportunity for me and I had a good, albeit exhausting, weekend. Then on the 3rd I had to head straight to Rabat to have my ear looked at again. I stayed with a friend on the way up, then woke up early and took a taxi into Rabat on the 4th. That was a very long day as well as cold and rainy. I checked into my hotel around 10am, went to the Peace Corps Headquarters right after, then had an 11:30am appointment with the ear specialist. As with all doctor offices, I had to wait awhile and didn’t get in to see the doctor until 12:30pm and got out around 1:30pm. Basically he just did the same tests and gave me more medicines with a diagnosis of “elevation”. Basically he said my ear issues are due to an elevation change. I thought it was silly at first, but then I thought about how my ear issues didn’t develop until I arrived in Errachidia. I just hope to regain full hearing in my right ear again someday! Then I went back to Peace Corps Headquarters to get my travel/medical reimbursements. I was mad because all the pharmacies were closed between 2pm and 3pm and the hotel guy to get my hotel receipt was also absent. So unfortunately I was unable to get a full reimbursement. Then I made a trip to Marjane so I could get some dry cat food for my kitten. I finally got a bite to eat at McDonalds around 6pm. By this point I was so hungry and McDonalds tasted wonderful. It's always a nice treat for me, but I do miss Subway. Then I slipped and fell pretty hard on my way back to the hotel, but nothing major. Just bruised my thigh a little. It was amazing to take a nice long hot shower. The longer I am in the site the more I consider getting a hot water heater put in. The next morning went really smoothly. I woke up and had a great breakfast before catching the on time 11:15am train to Meknes. This is where things began to slide. Turns out the road between Azrou and Midelt was snowed in, unfortunately Midelt was my destination. The taxi guy told me to go all the way to Guercif to get to Midelt. Guercif is right by the border of Morocco and Algeria and a very very long detour for me. Lucky for me my friend called and told me to go through Khenifra. It was raining the whole way and I almost got stuck in Khenifra, but lucky for me a taxi managed to get filled and I made my way to Midelt. It was so cold in Midelt! Then the next morning I finished my travels to Errachidia and back to site. I was very happy to pick my kitty up from my friend and to sleep in my own bed for one night.

Then the next morning after shutting my cat in the room on my roof with lots of food and water I made my way to Tinjdad to help a friend out with an International Women’s Day project. I spent two nights there and the women’s day was a success. We had several successful Moroccan women come in to speak about the new Mudawana act as well as AIDS, women’s health, and several fun thought provoking activities. At the end of the day we had a party for all the participants. I just wish I was better able to speak and understand Darija.

I returned to site early Monday morning and the first thing I did was let my cat out of the room. She was crazy. She ran out of the room and hid under my fridge. I moved my fridge and she ran back up to the roof and either went to a neighbor’s roof or jumped off, not sure. I was very upset. She ended up returning later that day which made me very happy. I also visited my host family and my coop friend.

Tuesday was very tiring. It was the holiday where Moroccans celebrate the birth of the prophet Mohamed. I visited 6 Moroccan families and drank so much sugared tea. I had also done some laundry that morning. It was very nice to return to my house at the end of the day and rest. I was so exhausted from all my trainings and travels that I had slept in until 10:30am. Still recovering a bit, haha. And now I get to travel back to Rabat again next Sunday for a Tuesday appointment. Taking care of a personal issue as well as having my knee looked at. My right knee cap has been aching lately and I feel it’s time to finally break down and have it checked out. I feel like I am beginning to get to know Rabat more than my own site. It’s funny how I have a friend who lives an hour outside of Rabat and I have been there more than she has now, and I live about 10 hours away. 5 times in 4 months is quite a bit. Inch a’llah I won’t have to go back again until my warden meeting in May.

This month is very busy for me. After the Rabat trip I have a regional small business development sector meeting in Oarzazate on the 20th and then I will be assisting with a spring language camp the 29th through April 5th. I am hoping to get wireless internet soon which would be amazing!

Yesterday I had a tutoring session in Errachidia with my tutor which was very nice. I had biked to Errachidia and back to my site, it felt very good to get out and exercise a bit. After I returned to my house, about 35km later, I was very sore and sweaty so I took a very nice hot solar shower, :). I just rested the rest of the day as it was a vacation day for me.

Today I taxi'd it in due to my knee being sore from biking. I forgot how hard it can be to get a taxi after a holiday. I waited 2 hours and 15 minutes before a taxi finally stopped for me. I've never had to wait that long. Hence to say I was unable to meet my tutor, :(. It'll be a week before I am able to have a lesson. I did finally make it in and will be meeting a friend for lunch before heading back to site. I want to start assisting one of the women with designing and creating a skirt. Very excited about helping her out with this project, :).

Otherwise, I will be heading to Rabat on Sunday as it is a 2 day journey for me. I hope all goes well!

llay 3awn! (may god help you, a form of saying good bye)