NO ONE IS CRYING (ok I am crying…)

My first time leaving the city limits since arriving in Almaty. Where to go? Should I explore central Asia (the whole reason I requested this post)? See relatives in London? Check back in with the USA? Take advantage of an invitation to visit a colleague in Moscow?

I hemmed and hawed but ultimately decided that the massive digital and language divides separating me from some of my best loved Moroccans meant I needed to touch base there or risk losing touch completely.

As a bonus, I could invite my friend Heidi, who suggested visiting me for Christmas back when I lived there and received a delicate response along the lines off, “F that–I need to drink some decent wine.” And we had a very satisfying trip to Italy. But I didn’t want to permanently deprive her of Morocco.

Only a couple of problems with my Morocco idea: I don’t have much vacation built up and Kazakhstan is not close to Morocco. Hence an itinerary no one should emulate.

I started by flying into Fes to see my host family from my time in training. Or flying Almaty-Istanbul-Marseilles-Fes, with an eight hour layover in Marseilles. Fortunately, I got advice on how easy it is to head into Marseilles from the airport. So my layover, on a simply glorious sunny day, was quite pleasant

 

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When I rolled into Fes around midnight I had many thoughts about being back Morocco. Why are driving lanes so fluid but gender roles so rigid? Did we almost run those children over? Wait, why are those children playing by the side of the road at midnight? What is that smell?

But it was the next morning at breakfast, when a staff member asked “Nesti muzyn?” (did I sleep well, a common polite morning question in Morocco) that I really knew I was back.

And the staff loved my bad Arabic more than I remember anyone ever loving it when I lived in Morocco. The delighted reaction to my report of a problem with the bathroom light was certainly unexpected.

Leaving Heidi to explore the nooks and crannies of the medina, I headed to the suburbs. Having lost my host family’s contact info, I just showed up and hoped they’d be home. They were and I was fed generously on delicious food and family gossip.

And that was about all for Fes. The next day we rented a car and drove from Fes to Zagora. DO NOT DO THIS.

It’s a beautiful drive but too long for one day, especially when the car rental place doesn’t open when it says it opens. And yet when Expedia asked about my experience, did I give a bad review? How could I when the man who eventually helped us was so friendly and (again!) so delighted with my bad Arabic? We had a lovely conversation about his mother who is Berber and then he gave us his personal phone # to call in case of any problems. 

Originally my plans involved heading straight from Fes to my village, letting Heidi do something more touristy and fun. But when she hatched a plan to check out the remote sand dunes of Erg Chigaga, which I’d never been to and aren’t even that far from my village…dammit! Suddenly I was interested in sand dunes too!

Could I sacrifice a night in the dunes for a night in N’Kob? Compromise idea! I talked the current volunteer in my site and my host sister into joining us. Which meant a little more time with them and also, camels. Win-win!

 

But all this fun was prelude to the highlight: returning to N’Kob after all this time. It was emotional.

Seeing everyone was bittersweet. The current volunteer is awesome and fully appreciates the amazing host family we share. I couldn’t be happier that she is with them. But it was sad because I am no longer with them and I’ve missed so much in my time away. If only I could live in multiple places at once.

I warned Heidi we’d eat and eat and eat AND that she would experience Berber dress up time and sure enough…

But it’s not cultural appropriation if your host sister makes you do it!

 

Heidi gets wrapped in a malhafa, popular in Zagora and Sidi Ifni among other southern towns

Couscous!!!!

The one-shoulder lace piece I’m wearing is very specific to N’Kob, worn even as an accessory for everyday dress

On our final night, walking to my host family’s for dinner, I heard my name called and was beckoned into a sewing shop that didn’t used to be there. It was several women I sort of recognized plus Tuda, one of the women who went on an epic bike journey with me. We chatted about how red I got on that bike ride (exertion and sunburn) and how far we went and how no, I’m still not married, and how my mom died as did Tuda’s and now we are both orphans. I finally left the shop with many blessings and kisses and walked into the street where I again heard my name–there was one of my neighbor boys who was tiny when I left and is now a preteen. Suddenly I wished I had planned a much longer visit. Why didn’t I give myself days and days to catch up with everyone?

 

Looking out over town

street scenes

The view from our Kasbah Hotel

N’Kob translates as cave. This is the N’kob n’kob

But all too soon it was time to leave N’Kob and head over the Atlas Mountains to our final stop.

Trek Tichka, over the Atlas Mountains

Oh, Marrakech. I know it’s the #1 destination in Morocco. I know many people love it. I…feel mixed. Can it ever compare to the beauty of the Drâa Valley in the south? As if. But once I got over the fact that every taxi driver was totally going to overcharge us and the vendors would be relentless, I mostly relaxed. I drank my favorite tea (no, not mint–a spicy ginger and cardamom blend that I’ve never found outside of Jemaa el Fna) and bought some cool prints at La Maison de la Photographie. I didn’t feel like I needed to spend a lot more time there, but I wasn’t as desperate to leave as I have been on past visits.

 

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Verdict? When I left Morocco in 2015, I was so ready to go. This time around, I was so not. Especially not N’Kob. Future goals: longer visit, shorter time between visits.

Morocco and Moroccans, twachkum bzaf! (I miss you so much!)

 

 

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The final days. Not necessarily the final blog post though. See below*.

Day 802: As my Facebook feed is taken over by news of the first group of COSers I find myself unaccountably surprised at how quickly people are back in the States. “That’s it? You’re already back?” It seems somehow that since the process for getting here took so long, returning should be a slow process too. Nope.

Day 803: My last (please please please) babysitting call from my “handler.” He is my on-site supervisor and spent the first 18 months of my service totally giving not one rat’s ass where I was and what I was doing. But since last October he’s been on me like white on rice. Calling me at least once a week (more often if he forgets he just called me), asking where I am. If I don’t answer his call for whatever reason (my phone is in another room and I don’t hear it, reception is bad inside my house and I don’t want to crawl out from under the covers and go outside to take a call, I am just being petulant that a grown ass woman like myself has to account for herself like a teenager with a strict curfew), I get called maybe 11 more times. Recently he (or the local gendarme–I’m still unclear) even called Peace Corps and I got in trouble for not being exactly where everyone thought I was. Many local authorities are ratcheting up their PCV surveillance after last fall’s flooding and then, earlier this year, an incident where a Moroccan young man sent a threatening Islamic-State related Facebook message to a few PCVs. The message was terrible and the man is in jail now and our security truly wasn’t ever really at risk but the Moroccan authorities take this stuff very very seriously, especially with what my gendarme euphemistically refers to as “the world situation.” Even though I know it’s all for my own safety, I am ready to be a grown up again and leave my whereabouts unaccounted for.

Day 805: Two year anniversary of arriving in my final site. Also, tonight my amazing counterparts, Zhour and Saida, wrap up the Life Skills training program we’ve been doing at the boarding school. Hamdullah!

From the closing activity right before certificates/diplomas were awarded

Day 809: N’Kob’s new volunteer has arrived. I have eaten my last couscous with the family. The reality of leaving has hit me physically as I find myself exhausted but unable to sleep and also vaguely nauseous. Probably the stomach meat in the couscous did not help. The kids on my street and I enjoy a final “hefla” (party) involving two piñatas that I made and then stuffed full of all my leftover candy, stickers, small toys and other things that people have sent or brought to me. No one is fatally injured in the final grab for candy so I count that as a win. Moving all the stuff out of my house and into the new volunteer’s place is arduous and made more chaotic by all the people (mostly kids) who want to ‘help.” There is definitely legitimate help like sweeping. Then there is help like going through my refrigerator, bookshelf, garbage piles looking for treasures.

Day 810: And I’m off. My last trip over the Tichka pass on this bad boy.

Days 811/812/813: Rabat. It has often served as a respite from “real” life in Morocco. Now my days of needing respite from Morocco are over, but I still love this city. The other PCVs who are COSing this week and I exchange stories of our last few days in site, our travel plans, and how many of the required medical tests we have completed. Shots are given, bodily fluids/substances are collected, dental X-rays are taken, lab tests are run, surveys are taken in which I answer questions like “Did a rebel, terrorist, or insurgent group hold you against your will and make demands of a political nature?” (No). My nervous stomach is gone and I just go with flow through the occasionally chaotic COS process.  On day 813 I stamp out. This is a PC-Morocco specific ritual in which we sign our name in a book and get a stamp.

Day 814: 1:40 am train (night travel is against PCV rules but I am no longer a PCV!) to Tanger. Next stop, London Heathrow!

*I’m not quite ready to stop blogging and besides, I have a few Luddite friends who aren’t on Facebook but are kind enough to want to keep up with me. So as much as possible, I’ll post a few pictures and updates on my COS travels and maybe even some post-Morocco reflections as I slowly make my way back to USA! USA!

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Continuing the countdown to 814–the total number of days I will have lived in Morocco.

Day 792: Posted on the Peace Corps Morocco Facebook page:

Customs will no longer allow tajines in carry on bags. One fell on someone’s head. Pack them in your checked baggage.

 

 

Day 794: The good news is that my favorite boy students (previously banned for speaking to a girl) is back. But I am very concerned for several of the other boys in my class. When I tell them to stop side talking, they use their hands (or, in one boy’s case, the corner of his Jedi slanket) to cover the lower half of their faces while continuing the side talk. Oh teenage boys. Isn’t this a phase of psychological development that you were supposed to go through as babies? When you realize that the person playing peek-a-boo with you can still see you (never mind hear you) even if you cover your face? What other stages of development are you all missing? If I bring in a mirror and test you for mirror self-recognition will I have a whole classroom of boys pecking at their reflections like chickens?

I will miss Morocco’s Star Wars winter wear

 

Day 796: Packing. I isolate a precious few pairs of undersauncies that are in decent enough condition (barely) to accompany me on my European jaunt. The rest will be burned or disposed of in Marrakech, as I have done before. Public (and anonymous) trash bins are common there, although the trash is still gone through by those looking for discarded treasures.

Conversation with fellow PCV:

“You know that means some rando in Kech will probably masturbate with your nasty old underwear.”

“Yeah, but that’s better than my 6 year old neighbor girl showing up at my house wearing them as a headband!”

“Fair point.”

Day 797: Collage making with the neighborhood kids, who love paging through the American magazines many have sent to me. I try to pull out anything offensive before the kids get a chance to be scandalized but I’ve learned to recognize the excited titters of a “hshuma” (shameful) discovery when I’ve missed something (a woman in a bathing costume, a man kissing a woman on the cheek). Today I exposed the children to this piece of gender-bending agit-prop from the radical feminist publication known for its consistent challenges of cisnormative gender expectations, Good Housekeeping.

Aahhhh! It’s a woman who looks like a man! (because of the short hair, apparently)

Day 800/801: While some from our group have been granted early COS and are already back in the States, now is when the first official COS group from my staj leaves. Facebook posts of people signing the COS book appear; sooner than seems possible, posts pop up of people’s return to the USA. This is really happening!

 

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What I Wish Americans Knew About Morocco

President Kennedy’s establishment of the Peace Corps is recognized as March 1, 1961. On each anniversary Peace Corps encourages us to produce a video or blog on a particular theme. The theme for 2014 was “What I Wish Americans Knew About [my host country]” and I totally meant to do a blog post. Better late than never?

Whatevs. Here’s a list of things I’d love for people to know before I land back in the U.S. Then we can have better conversations!

1. Morocco is in Africa, not in the middle east. Doesn’t seem like you’d need to say it but you do. Even some Moroccans will refer to “Africans” as someone else; “Africa” as some place else. Morocco is in North Africa, on the west coast. It’s Arabic name (Mahgrib) means “west.” Although often times the region of MENA (Middle East North Africa) is used to indicate the cultural connections between the regions.

2. Morocco is not “an Arab country.” This one would surprise some Moroccans too.

The Amazigh (as they call themselves, it means “free man”) or Berber (as the Romans called them, it means “barbarians”) were here before the Arabs and while some sources will smoosh the two together and say that Morocco is 99% “Arab-Berber” the people in my region very strongly do not identify as Arab at all. One letter of the Amazigh alphabet, ⵣ, is also used as a symbol for their culture and you’ll see it written officially and unofficially throughout Amazigh communities.

3. Morocco is geographically diverse. Yes, I live in the kasbah-dotted landscape of the south, where camels really do roam and houses are made of mud and a couple hours or so by car (longer by camel) will bring you to towering sand dunes. But Morocco also has mountains and sea coasts (Mediterranean and Atlantic) and lush forests aplenty. There are even monkeys in those mountains!

4. Morocco lays claim to having been the first to grant recognition to the brand new United States of America. Although I happen to know that the Republic of Ragusa, now known as the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, claims it was the first. What is not in dispute is that the USA’s first piece of foreign real estate–before embassies and military bases–is the American Legation building.

5. Morocco is semi-secular. I have met Moroccans who brag about the secularism of their country and western tourists who proclaim Morocco very liberal. It’s not untrue but it’s hardly the full story. Headscarves are not mandated but the cultural pressure is high to wear them in many places; alcohol is not illegal, just expensive and often difficult to find (ditto for pork). However, 99% of the people who live here are Muslim, mosques are government funded, it is illegal to proselytize for other religions, restaurants open during daylight hours are forbidden from serving Muslims during Ramadan and similar laws govern supermarkets that sell booze–it’s a no-go for Muslims during Ramadan, although my American passport was enough to get me in to the hshuma room at Carrefour Supermarket, even though it’s not like religion is listed on my passport.

6. Moroccans are often quite a bit more overtly religious than Americans. Things only the nerdiest/most enthusiastic Christian youth group members would do in the States (listen to Christian rock, wear t-shirts proclaiming their love of Jesus) are way more accepted here. At a training I attended, answering the question “if you could meet one person from any point in history, who would it be?”, 75% of the Moroccans in the room answered “Muhammad.”

7. Moroccans are very family-focused. It’s not unusual for multiple generations to live in one house.

8. Moroccans speak a lot of languages. Not all Moroccans and not always well, but I’ve met so many who speak Moroccan Arabic, some other Arabic (usually FusHa), French, a Berber dialect, and maybe English and a little Spanish.

9. Moroccans don’t generally get to read in their native tongue. Arabic as written is Modern Standard Arabic or classical Arabic. While Shilha (Berber) does have an alphabet that is now being used more frequently, it is still more common as a spoken language and many of the older women who speak it are illiterate. I can’t help but think this impacts things like reading for pleasure, ease of education, cultural identity…so many things! I feel like they need their own Dante to elevate the vernacular to a higher standard (plus, based on my experience/conversations, a poem about hellfire would be very popular in Islam) but I’ve heard from others that elevating the vernacular is somehow a corrupt French (read: western) idea. They want to keep focusing on a ‘purer’ Arabic because it’s the language of the wider Islamic community. One of my least favorite things about Islam is the fetishization of all things Arab even though outside of MENA, Muslim-majority countries like Pakistan and Indonesia are full of Muslims who can barely understand a word of Arabic. There are some similarities to the way Latin was viewed a few centuries ago in the west, although there’s no Tyndale Bible-esque freak out over translations of the Qur’an. In fact, Qur’an translations are widely encouraged and available, although a smug feeling of superiority might be detected by those who read it in Arabic vs. a translation.

10. I feel welcome in Morocco. It is true that tact (yep–I have it!) and language barriers mean that not everyone knows me as well as my friends in the U.S. but Moroccans I know personally, especially my host families, have been accepting of me, kind to me, and welcoming to any guest I’ve brought to them. For every moment of harassment or mendacity, I’ve experienced 100 more of kindness and love.

So there are just some things people should know about Morocco. If you are interested in the 2015 theme, it’s “Host Country Hero.”  A bunch of PCVs here in Morocco put together this video about a cool PC staff member.

The Last of the Last Times

Last summer, my sister asked me why on Earth I gave my nephew a piggy back ride when he’s getting far too big for that. “Because I can,” I told her. “But I think it might be the last time that I can.” He’s growing up and I’m growing old and he’ll be practically taller than me when I see him this June.

I obsess over the last times, often left unremembered and uncelebrated because we don’t know it’s the last time until the time is long past.

I don’t know when my obsession with the last times started. Maybe with Nancy Drew. I remember when I was quite young and my mom had helped me through my first chapter books by reading them aloud to me. But eventually Nancy’s fast-paced and exciting adventures were too pressing to wait for my mom. I began reading them on my own.

At some point I remember realizing I’d taken an irreversible step; I had crossed over into a land where my parents no longer read aloud to me. And I was left without knowing when—or what chapter of what Nancy Drew tale—was the last time my mom read aloud to me.

I am pleased with myself when I recognize a last time as it happens. Right before moving away from Minneapolis I had a moment when I thought “this will be the last time I am out with this particular group of people.” Conversely, I can get upset when I don’t. A few years later, after my boyfriend and I broke up, some of my most sorrowful pangs were when I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ridden on the back of his motorcycle.

Maybe my obsession over the last times is not the healthiest thing in the world. So I don’t know if it’s a bad thing or a good thing that I am in a position to recognize almost all of the last times here in Morocco.

Next week I will have my last GAD Committee meeting. On the way there I will have my last night in Marrakech. I will meet my last visitor from home (my sister Colleen) and together we will visit Fes and my host family from CBT for the last time.

On my way back to site maybe I will stop in Ouarzazate at the coffee shop/hotel where all the PCVs hang out and maybe it will be the last time that Mohammed nods at me and brings me a nus-nus (half espresso/half milk) without my having to ask. But what if I don’t stop in Ouarzazate and what if I already had experience enjoying nus-nus in that coffee shop, scanning the room for other PCVs who might have stopped by?!?!?!

All I can do is try not to be too melancholy about these last times. But I’ve got a long month ahead of me. All I can do try to keep the melancholy to a minimum. At least for every last couscous at my host family’s house there’s also a last time someone sitting next to me on the bus throws up.

I Don’t Have To (Can’t?) Do That Anymore

It’s well past time to start thinking about adjustments I will have to make when, enshah’allah, I return to life in the United States. Some things will be “good riddance” and some I will kind of miss. I leave it to the reader to decide which is which. Just a few of the things I can’t/don’t have to do when I return:

1. Speak to Americans in a weird mix of English interspersed with random Arabic words. “Americans” will no longer be synonymous with “other Peace Corps Morocco Volunteers.”

2. Arrange my garbage with the assumption that neighbors will be going through everything. Recently one of my neighbor girls proudly came to show me a paper she had with pictures of dinosaurs on it. I recognized it immediately as a piece of my own trash. It was from these, sent to me in a care package. Empty birth control blister packs, ragged underwear, or anything else I don’t want brought back to me by a neighbor child must be thrown away in a neighboring town or, at the very least, treated like one treats unused prescription opiates in the states. No, I don’t mean sold to friends at a fair price. I mean mixed with cat shit and/or compost before being placed in the trash.

3. Use gmail in html “for slower connections” (my AOL dialup-esque Maroc telecom modem)

4. Go weeks without undersauncies. For the bottom half, let’s just say that it turns out elastic will only last so long. For the top half, it’s fine in the spring and fall but in the winter I wear so many layers that no one can tell I even have breasts, much less whether they are achieving the appropriate level of gravity defiance. In the summer, the heat is so severe that any extra bit of clothing is hateful.

5. Get super excited when a bathroom in a hotel or restaurant has toilet paper; help myself to “just a little bit extra for later.”

6. Mix Black Cherry Kool-Aid and vodka and call it a cocktail. 

7. Let rice, noodles, bread crumbs, etc. fall onto the kitchen floor and just leave them there because “eh–the mice/birds/ants will take care of that.” I also let liquids just dribble on the floor because you know, it’s not really a floor–just concrete–and it’s just as much outside as inside.

8. Pee into a bucket and employ other ingenious grey water recycling schemes to water my garden in the summertime when water only goes on once every other day.

9. Scrape dirt off my foot (or arm or thigh) with a knife because I haven’t had running water in four days.

10. Spend so much time thinking about all the things that I do that strike my neighbors as a wee bit whore-ish. I feel like NOTHING doesn’t make me slutty. Make-up? Slutty. Clavicle showing? Slutty. Bare legs under my ankle length skirt? Slutty. Nail polish? Slutty. Unless, for complicated reasons, I have my period in which case I am maybe allowed to wear it but of course I never do have my period because of how I freebase the slut pills all day every day. Putting on chapstick in public? Slutty. Obviously women in Morocco, especially in cities, defy these conventions every day. And women in America certainly get slut-shamed all the time. But not usually for chapstick. CHAPSTICK.

GLOW Camp

Cat herding 70+ teenagers for a week is not my idea of fun. But my last camp in Peace Corps was totally worth it.

GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) camps are specifically designed around empowering girls. Here in Morocco, where boys dominate so many of the after school activities, including mixed gender camps, an all girls camp gives girls a chance to be front and center. Unfortunately we don’t do camps in my site, for a host of reasons I won’t list here lest I need to password protect the post.

Another issue is that even when there is a camp sponsored by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, they usually charge something for it and my students often can’t afford the fee plus the travel costs.

Fortunately my nearest PCV neighbor, Melanie, decided to hold a sleep-away GLOW camp and to invite girls from neighboring towns. The camp was funded through a Peace Corps grant so there was no cost to the girls. Still, I wasn’t sure any of my local girls would be able to come. I mostly work with girls from the boarding school so I don’t know their parents, who live in far flung communities even more rural than my own. Would they trust an unknown American with their teenage daughters? Sort of. Of the nearly 20 permission slips I handed out, three came back signed. I actually considered this a considerable victory.

Even then, on the day we were to leave, as the girls were calling their parents to tell them we were headed out, we had a tense moment when one father had second thoughts and didn’t want his daughter to go. Her friend Miryam grabbed the phone and although I don’t know exactly what was said, I heard “Only girls!” repeated several times and therefore had a good idea where this father’s concerns lay. Hamdullilah, after her forceful advocacy, I heard Miryam say “god bless your parents,”  (a common Moroccan “thank you”) and I knew it was all good. We were on our way.

We joined, not the 40 or so campers we were expecting, but a group of nearly 80! Some 60 slept in the Dar Talib (boarding school) each night and then another 20 local girls would join activities held at the youth center during the day.

Melanie recruited a host of awesome Moroccan women to help with the camp. Thanks to their skills as well as efforts of several PCVs we kept the girls busy from about 7:30 am to 11:00 pm every night.

Activities ranged from workshops on serious topics like self-confidence and sexual harassment to fun activities like art and games, a fashion show displaying local dress customs, and a field trip to hang out in the desert.

Gorgeous Berber headscarf

For anyone who has ever sent or brought me anything to use with kids here, the camp served as a kind of greatest hits showcase for your gifts: due to the number of girls sleeping over we ran out of blankets but I was able to just use my sleeping bag (my going away gift from a bunch of people); we played Set (Sara and Todd) and Pick Up Sticks (Lia) many nights; art activities included making friendship bracelets (Laurie and Vance; Gina and Derek) and coloring some lovely pictures (Gretchen, Shanna, I don’t know who else–I have so many great coloring books I’ve lost track of who has sent them all!); finally, when it was all over I went home and mixed myself a stiff drink (Shanna and mom).

The week ended with a SPECTAK. It’s not a Moroccan camp if it doesn’t end with a talent show featuring singing, poetry, skits and some kind of dance piece that usually demonstrates the danger of drugs or expresses solidarity with Palestine and often involves creative use of a Moroccan flag. Then we dance. To this song…

and this song…

And many others. This goes on for anywhere from two to four hours. The origins of the SPECTAK are unclear but my best guess is that it originated from a Soviet Gulag, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base or North Korea’s Ministry of State Security. Because the goal is clearly to break you.

Yet I felt almost sad that it was my last one. In fact I was pre-nostaligic for all that I will no longer do once I leave here: hanging out with the kitchen staff (a tactic I developed quite selfishly when I realized cozying up to camp kitchen staff guarantees extra food and coffee made to order, but it turns out I have yet to meet Moroccan kitchen staff I don’t genuinely like); watching how excited the kids get when C’est La Vie starts playing; laughing with other PCVs at how often cookies are considered a healthy breakfast here in Morocco; getting my picture taken five bazillion times immediately following camp certificate presentation (I’m pretty sure I could decoupage the interior of Versailles with all the certificates I have collected in Morocco)…

My students and me, with our camp certificates. (photo made internet safe for Moroccan girls courtesy of the Kitty Booth ap)

To top it all off, spring happened while I was at camp. In one week I went from wearing every layer I could find to contemplating going without tights under my floor length skirt. It could still get cold again but I think I might be able to say I have made it through my final Moroccan winter.

Crazy times.

At Home in the Home Stretch

With all my vacationing and COS conferencing and abortioning, I haven’t blogged much about Morocco or Moroccans as of late. Rest assured, both survived my absence.

Returning to site earlier this month was bittersweet. My last day in site had been fantastic–kids playing, songs sung (I sang God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman while the kids danced Berber style with lots of hip and shoulder shaking), English taught and me just generally feeling very much a part of this community. “Zween el yoom,” said one of the girls. Meaning basically that it was a really good day.

Returning with a firm departure date was sad. Part of the sadness is thinking about all I will miss. After my Christmas break I stayed the night with a student I know at the University in Marrakech. She took me to the Menara gardens, a popular recreation spot for Moroccans I’d never visited. The next day, in Rabat, my friend Courtney and I visited the newly opened museum of modern art and were pleasantly surprised at how interesting it was. (The New York Times already knew.)

Menara Gardens

Modern Art Museum

Reminders that even after two years there is always something new: I haven’t seen it all, even in the cities I visit all the time. Not everything on my Icelandic Pony list has been checked off and not everything will be. When I leave Morocco I will leave many things undone and people’s lives will go on without me.

Things don’t even stay static in sleepy N’Kob. While I was gone Zhour and Saida finally started IYF life skills program at the boarding school…we got approval just as I was leaving for vacation but fortunately they confident enough to start without me. On my last night in town I left them with a bunch of markers and flip chart paper and wished them good luck.

When I returned from the miracle that was Italy and the emotion that was my COS conference and the white knuckles that are the Tichka Pass in winter, I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to take two or three days to lay in a coma in my house. Only good manners and curiosity about IYF got me out of my bed and over to my host family’s house the morning after my return. I was rewarded for my efforts when my host mom very pointedly asked me when I had returned. “Yesterday,” I replied truthfully. The look of self-satisfied approval (“I raised her right”) on her face convinced me it was worth it to do my duty by visiting them ASAP.

Zhour filled me in on the news. They were six sessions into IYF and Saida was engaged! Of course I had no idea this was coming because it’s not like girls here have steady boyfriends that turn into fiances. It’s just “Bam! engaged!”

Zhour said we’d need to check to make sure the fiance was okay with her continuing to lead the program. No comment on that necessity but fortunately he was cool with it we continue apace.

More changes–a new director of the youth center who actually goes there. This is very different from the former director, who just gave me a key so I could come and go as I please. Frankly, I no longer pleased as the youth at the youth center are nonexistent. I preferred to focus on kids in my street and at the boarding school. He wants to do some English classes at the center after winter break but I think that I will leave that to my replacement who arrives in early April. It’s a bit late in the game for me to start taking on new activities and trying to build new relationships while I am trying to wind down my existing projects and activities.

So now I have a departure day from Morocco. Airplane tickets are purchased. With my final camp, my final GAD Committee meeting and my final lessons at the boarding school all on the calendar, I have a pretty clear idea (as clear as it can be in Morocco) of how I will spend the rest of my time here.

The rest of my life..tbd.

Close of Service Conference

Upon last year’s return from Christmas vacation, plunged into Marrakech crowds and street harassment, staring at another 14 months of Morocco,  I couldn’t help but wonder why the hell I had come back.

Hamdullah, this year was just a little bit easier!

Don’t get me wrong–it’s still hard to return from a pork and indoor heat fueled vacation to face the necessity of excessive sweater layering and the consumption of questionable meats (pressure-cooked chicken if you are lucky, a weird mixture of organ meats stuffed into an intestine with bullion cubes and dried in the sun if you are unlucky. I was unlucky on my first day back).

But this year was definitely easier because I headed straight from Marrakech to Rabat for our Close of Service Conference.

The COS conference is the final gathering for the full “staj” (as our groups are called because…reasons). Of our original 95 volunteers, 77 of us are left and I think we all attended the conference even though not everyone is pictured here.

From here, some people COS early (up to 30 days in advance with approval from the Country Director), some extend a few months to finish a project/tie up loose ends, some extend a whole year (12 people from our group!) and then the rest of us leave in one of four groups, split up into batches that allow medical time to give us all our dental cleanings and TB tests.

I went through all kinds of agony trying to decide which COS date I wanted: I’d told people in my town I was leaving in April so I didn’t want the end of March option and  psychologically I didn’t want the last date but I wasn’t sure I could take the earliest April option because I wanted to make sure I got time to meet my replacement…blah blah blah back and forth and I finally picked APRIL 10th. Only after all the agony did I find out it was for naught as PC is planning to send the new volunteer down for a visit in mid-March!

Other than going over logistics–how to return your bike, when you need to arrive in Rabat, choosing if Peace Corps will buy your ticket home or if you will take $ and do your own thing–the conference involved a lot of feeling sharing and discussion of what it will be like to return to the U.S. I’ve been told I should prepare short, medium and long answers for questions like “How was it?” and “What was the hardest thing?” because some of you, my audience, will want the long version and others…maybe not so much.

Some people from our staj (nicknamed the Staj of Love because…reasons) also organized us all into preparing a thank you event for staff.

Cleverly designed t-shirt that camouflages the words Staj of Love as Arabic, meaning I will actually wear said t-shirt.

Memories were shared, flowers presented, art projects created, tea and cookies served–all to honor the staff members who help us through this process. Peace Corps staff said they’d never seen anything like it so we really were the Staj of Love. Awww…

After three days of logistics and feelings, we went our separate ways. Reflecting on the group, I was grateful for all the people I’ve grown close to but also sad that there are some I never really got to know. We’re a big group, split into two sub-groups early on and from there if people weren’t placed in my region or I didn’t get a chance to work with them on a project, I didn’t get to know them. That’s sad, but the cool thing is that I feel like I could still call on any of these people. For all I know, some of the people I know the least now will pop up in my future. I hope they all feel the same about me–if I land in Minneapolis, Seattle, China, Colombia or somewhere else, my door is always open to the Staj of Love even if I roll my eyes every time I say “Staj of Love.”

Staj of Love (+ regional manager Mina) Region Six aka “the Golden Triangle” of Zagora, Ouarzazate and Tinghir provinces.