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

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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!)

 

 

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.

Wedding Festival

Last month I traveled with my counterpart to the Imilchil Wedding Festival. Historically it is a time when goat herders and other mountain dwellers start preparing for winter months and, needing to stock up for the season, they host a big souk that doubles as a matchmaking event. Stock up on wives! Once upon a time the matches were made and the deals were sealed right then and there but these days the weddings are generally arranged well in advance.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to see a lot of the festival because it rained nearly the whole time. Nonetheless, attending was definitely worthwhile. Why?

1. I worked! It’s been awhile. Summer camps ended late August but school won’t start till after Eid Kabir.  And we helped a lot of people! We had blood pressure and eyeglasses checks. The eyeglasses are really cool: this British company donates their adjustable eyeglasses to us and we do basic eye exams. If vision is very bad or if they have other issues (astigmatism, cataracts) the glasses won’t solve their problems but if they just have basic far or near sightedness, these glasses make a big difference. We did well over 100 eye tests and over 50 villagers walked away with glasses.

Zhour helps test a man for reading glasses

My favorites were the tailor who got a pair of reading glasses, making his work easier, and a 15 year old girl who had trouble seeing the board at school and got a pair of distance vision glasses.

2. I got to bring my counterpart/host sister. Because my own town isn’t necessarily the most happening place, a lot of what I try to do in N’Kob is to hook the women there up with resources, people, and networking opportunities outside of their community. Many don’t have the chance to travel, meet other people, and get ideas from other Moroccans for activities they could do in their towns. The PCVs organizing the event needed Shilha speakers (Arabic is rare in these rural villages) so naturally I suggested Zhour, who has language and also has a great way with people. As I suspected, she rocked it–helping old women take their first ever eye test, giving advice about reducing salt intake for men with high blood pressure. While we didn’t get to sight-see quite as much as we would have liked because of the rain, we both enjoyed seeing a different part of Morocco and meeting all the other counterparts and PCVs.

High Atlas mountains over Imilchil

The souk at the rainy wedding festival

The closest we got to an actual wedding was this mural

High Atlas mountains over Imilchil

 

3. Even more important than helping other people is helping myself. That’s what Ayn Rand told me anyway. And by attending the wedding festival I helped myself right out of my site during the last of the heat. It was still hitting the 90s every day when we left for the cold mountains and I was still sleeping outside instead of inside (where I firmly believe human beings belong) and dressing in the tattered remains of my summer linen (which gives new meaning to the word threadbare). But after I returned from the festival + a couple days of regional meetings in Ouarzazate (my last regional meeting?!) the world of unbearable summer had ended. Although autumn is odd here. The sun is still strong so in the day I am hot and sometimes even turn on the fan. In the evening I am reaching for the fleece blanket. I’ll have a few short weeks of this before I go smartwool 24/7 for winter.

4. As an American I have been brought up to consume and I am pleased with my purchase of this pretty little rug. I was looking at another, bigger and more expensive one, when I spotted and kind of fell in love with a smaller one. Berber rugs are my favorite of Moroccan crafts/potential souvenirs and I can’t guarantee I won’t buy another but for now I am satisfied.

Rugs on display at souk

My purchase

We almost got stuck in Imilchil as the rain flooded some roads, requiring us to go just a little bit out of our way to get home.

Above: the route we were supposed to take
Below: the route we took

 

The silver lining of our four hour detour was the gorgeous mountain scenery. Plus seeing ducks swimming around in what were, pre-rain, fields. I’ve hit the 75% mark in my Peace Corps service and I’ve got to drink in as much scenery from this gorgeous country while I still have time! Time is ticking!

 

V: the Visitors (part 1)

no, my friends are not reptilian aliens with 1980s hairdos.

“Sara and Todd are coming! So exciting!” That was me a couple of months ago when they made their reservations.

Then, when an itinerary took shape that included coming to my site–seven hours from Marrakech via the Tichka pass–I was like, “That’s friendship for you folks.”

But then…

I started looking around–at my house, at Morocco–and wondering  wondering “what will they think?”

These are seasoned travelers who are more than capable of dealing with Morocco the tourist destination. But they wanted to see Morocco the Peace Corps country too. Terrifying! I mean great! But kinda terrifying?

The thoughts raced through my head: Will they be horrified by how I live? Will they be bored stiff? Will hanging out in a small village without much to do except drink tea and be stared at by Moroccans be fun for them? Will my water and electricity stay on the whole time? Will they even care about running water since I have neither hot water nor a shower nor a western toilet?

But it was their choice so I put concerns aside and got back to my original excitement.

I left them on their own to explore Marrakech since my tour guide skills would probably be limited to where one can get the best bacon burger and the cheapest beer. Instead, we met up in Ouarzazate and headed to Ait Benhaddou, one of this region’s most famous kasbahs and an easy day trip from my town.

Ait Benhaddou is stunning–and I’ve seen a lot of kasbahs! Of course, it’s been used as a movie set several times so Hollywood has “helped” it by adding and reconstructing here and there. But somehow it makes it even cooler.

It’s windy up top!

If Hollywood feels like it’s worth using Ait Benhaddou instead of constructing a sound stage fake out of papier-mâché, it must really be something special!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

When we headed back to Oz it was real Morocco time. We got in a grand taxi and, just like real Moroccans, we didn’t buy the whole taxi–just our individual seats. That’s how it works here–you and 5 or 6 more people going the same direction cram into a sedan. You can buy all the seats if you have a lot of money (by Moroccan standards) and in retrospect we should have: by the time we set off, I calculated that we had barely enough daylight to get back to N’Kob.

Sara, who had done so well on the Tichka pass with the bus, was not happy with the smaller mountain pass between Oz and Agdz. I don’t blame her. Instead of a bus in good repair, driven by a well-rested and focused driver, we were in a rundown and seatbelt-less taxi with a driver who loved using his phone while taking turns at high speeds. I was nervous myself but I knew that Sara, unused as she is to Morocco and never a fan of dangerous drives, must be dying. The driver also kept stopping—way more than usual for a taxi–so by the time the very last of the sunlight faded we were still at least 45 minutes away from home. I figured if we survived the trip I would be lucky if my friends didn’t get on the next plane home. Had I exposed them to too much “real” Morocco?

We made it to my town safe and sound—of body, if not of mind. At which point I showed them to their room where they were greeted by a mouse. Sigh…more real Morocco.

But it was just so great to see them that worry soon faded. I have known Sara since early in my Seattle days and she was one of the first people I told about my invitation to come to Morocco. In fact, I’ve known Sara so long that our friendship pre-dates my decade of pink hair. She reminded me that way back in the day when we were both blonde, we were often mistaken for sisters and wondered if it would happen again now that I am kind of blonde. Well, wonder no more. Despite not looking ANYTHING alike, every Moroccan I introduced her to asked if this was my sister and her husband.

It’s Sara and Todd–or is it Tiffany and Todd? We look so much alike it’s hard to tell. Or not.

And oh boy did I introduce them to a fair number of Moroccans. Mul-hanuts. neighbor ladies, the head gendrarme, miscellaneous members of my host family, ladies from the cookie hanut, the guy from the post office. Everyone got introduced and everyone asked if Sara and I were sisters.

After our first full day in N’Kob, Todd and my sitemate Michelle took charge of cooking up the results of our souk shopping into a delicious tagine on my one burner buda-gaz tank. Good job guys!

The next day we stopped by my host family’s house for tea and were invited to dinner. Even though it wasn’t even Friday, my host sister asked if we wanted couscous. Um…duh? Of course we want couscous!

While I have heard other PCVs tell of dud host families and of visitors from the U.S. who are freaked out by host families and annoyed that a visit to a PC site doesn’t involve much eating out and drinking wine, I am fortunate in having luck on both fronts: a generous family and friends who are open to new and sometimes bewildering experiences. It helped that Sara, taking on a word or two of Arabic a day, replied to a question about if she would have kids with “Yimpkin” (maybe) and then “Enshah’allah.” Host mom? Charmed.

I had told Sara and Todd “We don’t ever touch the meat until it’s given out at the end of the meal,” but I needn’t have worried they’d reach for it at all. When the platter of couscous arrived I took one look and thought “I think I know that meat.”

Yep. Here was the stomach “sausage” made from our Eid Kabir sacrifice. Good thing the couscous was delicious. Sara passed on trying the stomach (I got her portion. YOU ARE WELCOME SARA), but Todd was up for it.

We ended the night with my host sister dressing Sara up like a Berber bride. OK, I guess Sara made up for not eating the stomach by agreeing to play Berber Barbie.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Then it was back home for a last night’s sleep in my mud house before heading back into tourist land, which I’ll write more about later.

My days with American friends here in my town made me feel really lucky. Sara and Todd seemed to enjoy their time and said several times that they would encourage anyone who is planning to visit me to go in for the full experience of coming to my site and seeing what it’s really all about. (Although if you are thinking of visiting Morocco and don’t want to visit my site, that’s OK too! I promise!) I realize a lot of my nervousness about how much they would like it was a fear around having a kind of mirror held up against my life here in Peace Corps–my lowered standards around cleanliness and vermin control and communication ability and what counts as “work”–and not liking what I saw in the reflection. I know there are Americans out there who would be disgusted with how I am currently living. Fortunately, I don’t think I am friends with any of those!

Northern Exposure

It’s old news that I spent most of this summer hop scotching around Morocco going from camp to camp.  But travel in Morocco being what it is (especially around Ramadan), I have hit a day or night or two in some other locations as well that I haven’t blogged about. Here are some miscellaneous updates on my time north of Marrakech.

Casablanca

I had only a few hours in Casablanca. Like most visitors from overseas, I flew into the Casablanca airport when I first arrived in country. Other than that, I had never visited Morocco’s biggest city. Increasingly known as Dar-al-Baida (That means “white house” in Arabic. Figure it out), Casa is also known as a town with nothing of interest except the Hassan II Mosque. While that might not be entirely true (there’s some interesting Art Deco architecture in the city center), it’s not a place one needs to hang out much.

We were there just long enough for a visit to the outside of the mosque and a meal at Rick’s Café. The mosque is the only one in Morocco that non-Muslims are allowed to enter, but it’s via guided tour only and as our timing was off, we only got to take a walk around the outside. That’s plenty impressive though. I think it’s currently listed as the 7^th largest mosque in the world with the tallest minaret.

It was a few hours shy of sundown but they were already getting ready for evening prayers, rolling out mats and setting up speakers. I imagine it’s quite a scene when call to prayer happens. Sadly, I wasn’t around long enough to find out.

For a bite to eat we headed to Rick’s Café. No, it is not really from the movie Casablanca. That was filmed on a Hollywood sound stage. Yes, it is “inspired by” the movie and could be considered a ruse to lure uneducated tourists.

I expected the worst. Instead, I found Rick’s to be relatively low key, classy and surprisingly free of tourist kitsch. For a PCV, it was full of the comforts of home like air conditioning, wifi, and the sound of cocktail shakers actually being used. The menu had a mix of Moroccan and European food and was very reasonably priced. I had gazpacho and pasta with sundried tomatoes and basil. Delicious and delicious.

Fes

At the very tail end of Ramadan I was back in Fes for the first time since CBT. Of course I took the opportunity to drop in on my host family. They were disappointed that I was only in town long enough for one lftur together but as usual, they did it up right and we had a feast: juices and harira and fried carbs galore.

They all commented on how tan I am: I look “like Abdellah.” Um, Abdellah is my host dad who looks, according to my CBT-mates, like a cross between Snoop-Dogg and a young Michael Jackson. While I definitely acquired a serious tan over the summer, I don’t think I am anywhere near pell-pell to original-recipe Michael Jackson.

The night I was with them there was much excitement in the air as we were awaiting an announcement about the impending end of Ramadan. Would it be that very night or one more? The television announced the news: one more day. The disappointment was clear although the family quickly rallied and assured us that Ramadan was zween. Uh-huh. Than why are you so sad it’s going to last for one more day? (in fairness, I would probably feel the same way about Christmas. I love it! But I also love the day after Christmas when everything is calmer).

The end of Ramadan meant a change of train schedules and bus schedules and taxi schedules…everything suddenly stopped for a day and then resumed. Oh, and we’re back to old time/new time again because Daylight Savings starts back up after Ramadan. All this meant I had to stay an extra day before heading up north.

Since I was staying in the zweenest PCV apartment I have ever seen I can’t complain. It gave me time to say “thank you for letting me stay with you” by treating my hostess and myself to a dinner of phad thai at the newly opened mall in Fes, complete with escalators (watching people unused to escalators use them for the first time is pretty entertaining) and an Asian food restaurant. Did the phad thai taste like phad thai? Not really. Did it taste like something other than Moroccan food? Yes it did! However the culinary highlight of my stay in Fes was when we made eggs and Amoy (my hostess) asked if I wanted hot sauce. When she pulled out Yucateco, I thought I might cry.

The Rif Mountains

I took the train from Fes all the way up to Nador in the Rif Mountains. Morocco is full of mountains, but these are the only ones not somehow part of the Atlas (the High, Mid or the Anti-Atlas).

Much of this area was colonized by the Spanish at one point so I found myself getting “Hola-ed” much more than “Bonjoured.” And while Arabic is spoken widely, there is also a Rifian version of Berber language called Tarifit. I heard from some students that there are tensions between the Arab and Berber people here. From my short time observing, it seemed to me like maybe there was more mixing of Arab and Berber populations in the north than there is in the deep south, where pretty much everyone is Berber so any tensions are more theoretical than personal.

Tangier is probably the best known city in the Rif area, but I arrived in the more eastern city of Nador. There wasn’t much to see but I did come across this random church. I couldn’t find out anything about it so I have no idea why it exists. Perhaps a leftover of Spanish colonization?

Other leftovers of Spanish colonization include the plazas de soberanía (places of sovereignty). This includes the previously mentioned Chafarinas Islands as well as the two Spanish cities of Ceuta (Sebta in Arabic) and Melilla. From the Nador train station you can grab a taxi and be in “Spain” (Melilla) within a half hour. Crazy.

Additional fun facts about the Rif area include that it gets more rainfall than the rest of Morocco and also grows a LOT of marijuana. The main businesses I heard about were pot farming and smuggling over the Morocco-Algerian boarder. While both of these things are technically illegal, in a country with a high unemployment rate, neither is likely to go away any time soon.

I was mostly working while in this area and when camp was over I had to hurry down south to my final camp so I didn’t get to explore much of this area but it was good to get a peek at it. I will be back, Enshah’allah.

Things I am going to do when I get my own house (Inshah’allah)

1. Unpack all of my stuff that’s been partially packed and repacked about 7 times since January 13^th
2. Hang my mosquito net and immediately have at least one place of sanctuary from the flies.
3. Get screens put on my windows. I know they exist because I have seen them and I know they help. It’s not f@*king rocket science how to reduce flies in the house!
4. Come and go as I please without having to struggle to explain to anyone where I am going and why.
5. Get decent internet (if possible. That is to be determined).
   

   What my family gives me when I say I just want “a little” lunch

6. Walk around in hshuma clothes that show my arms.
7. Eat food that I have cooked myself.
8. Eat only as much food as I want.
9. Seriously reduce my intake of bell peppers (hopefully to zero).
10. Generally eat and drink whatever and whenever I please and NOT eat and drink when/what I don’t please (see bell peppers, above).
11. Drink coffee without sugar.
12. Drink grown up beverages.
13. Try to make my own grown up beverages.
14. Sleep on a bed with sheets (If I can find them. This might need to wait till June when I go to Marrakech and am near a Marjane. Even then, I think they only have poly-cotton blend but poly-cotton blends are the kind of sacrifices one makes when entering the Peace Corps).
15. Not worry about what shoes I am or am not wearing in different rooms of the house.
16. Give my toothbrush a permanent spot to live.
17. Leave my birth control pills out in the open.
18. Play my music loudly.
19. Not get woken up or bothered by anyone 5 years or younger (no offense to the super cute 4 and 5 year olds I’ve lived with but I am ill-used to temper tantrums not of my own throwing).
20. Watch all the bad movies I now have on my computer thanks to other PCVs. I’ve got some good movies too but I betcha I’ll be watching the Hunger Games and a bootlegged Breaking Dawn Part II well before The King’s Speech

None of this is to say that my host families have not been awesome and have not given me a lot of personal space by Moroccan standards. But I am an American girl (question: if you were an American Girl Doll, what doll would you be?) and I am used to living by myself and having American-style personal space. Plus, I just don’t want to have to wear so many clothes indoors as it heads into the upper 90s/lower 100s.

An update on house hunting: The way it’s done is by asking around—asking your host family, asking the mul-hanut, asking any random person you meet. This is the Moroccan Craig’s List. I have seen one house and while I liked what I saw, two rooms were locked and the guy didn’t have the key so I am supposed to come back later. (Why show a house when you can’t show all the rooms? I have learned not to question these things.)

In the meantime, I have an appointment to see another house today and my host family told me that they are planning to divide their existing house into two houses and they would rent out half to me. I am not opposed to the idea, but I don’t know what the timeline is for dividing this house. I’m pretty anxious to get started on the above list ASAP.

Home Sweet Home?

So I’m finally at my final site. Sort of. Now I just need to settle in, make friends, find a place to live, integrate into the community and figure out what the hell I am doing with myself for the next two years. Easy!

Thankfully I have a sitemate, Michelle, which really helped alleviate any immediate stress—how to get here, meeting my host family, visiting the Gendarme to announce my presence in town. Nonetheless, as I sat in my new room, alone for the first time since arriving, surrounded by flies that I can only describe as both lackadaisical yet aggressively persistent, I had the feeling of “what have I done?”

How can I possibly muster the energy to build a relationship with a brand new host family? Will I have to learn a whole new set of characters on a whole new set of Turkish-dubbed-into-Darija soap operas? And WTF with all these flies? And how am I going to deal with the heat? And what am I even going to do in this town? And how am I going to communicate when I barely speak Darija and they clearly want me to speak Tamazight? And where are the Kasbahs I was promised? I don’t see any!

On the plus side, remember when I was so cold in Fes I thought I would never be warm again? I do. And now those days are over, at least for the next seven months or so. And this is the last time I will need to build a relationship with a new host family. And I don’t have to eschew cotton underwear here because it won’t take 5 days to dry after washing. It might not even take 5 minutes.

Plus, I keep reminding myself that it’s not prison here and I can leave any time. Some PCVs don’t like to think like that. Giving themselves the option of ETing (early termination, not phoning home with a 4-year old Drew Barrymore) is like jinxing it. But I prefer to be more realistic. Lots of people ET and I could be one of them for a variety of reasons, some of them very good. But I think “the flies are bad and it’s hot out” is not a good reason.

Especially since the heat and the flies settled down a bit that first night. In fact I have been downright chilly a couple of times after the sun has gone down.

So for now I follow Michelle around to get a sense of the work that she does and do my best to bond with my host family. While I don’t yet feel as close to them as my awesome Merja family, they are lovely people. The daughter, Zahore, is only a few years younger than me and she works at/is part owner of a bakery in town. As I understand it, there are eight women who work there and are also basically owners. Two or three of them are married and the others, like Zahore, are not. So I’ve already spent several hours at the bakery, using a sack of flour as a chair, chatting with the ladies there in broken Darija as they try to teach me a few Tamazight words.

I’ll save my “north vs. south” impressions for another time but language is just one of the major adjustments to make now that I’ve left Fes.

The pace of life is generally slower down south and while it’s okay to take my time integrating into the community and adjusting to life in N’Kob, there are also a few things I needed to do in the American way—ASAP.

My Sweet Ride

First up—getting my luggage which was waiting for me in Zagora, two hours away, and would be shipped back to Rabat if I didn’t pick it up in two days. My host mom was nice enough assist me in catching a “transit.” This is a sort of mini-bus/taxi that holds maybe 15 people officially but really fills up with as many people as possible. Between picking people up and dropping them off my driver was also juggling two cell phones, texting and taking calls, and apparently sometimes taking a request from someone down the road to pick up a carton of milk or a bag of bread and drop it off. I think to be nice they let the white girl sit up front but I was secretly thinking “I am the first through the windshield if we crash!”

Another ASAP thing is applying for my worker’s permit—the carte de sejour. I’ve got about 10 days left of the 90 days that US passport holders are allowed. Applying for a carte de sejour is a process and is going to require several visits to the gendarme’s office here in town. The gendarme uniforms are very fetching and that’s all I ever want to say about the gendarmes now and forever. Except that somehow I was expected to know all of the major U.S. presidential candidates from 1988-2012.

Reunited and it feels so good!

Fortunately I did.

Anyway, it’s cooler out now. The flies are less obnoxious. I’ve spent some time getting to know a few people. I’m reunited with my all of my baggage for the first time in two months. And I walked around the town and saw some of the promised Kasbahs. So for now, things are ok.

On another note, several people have asked if I have an address where they can send care packages. I can honestly say that right at this moment there’s not anything that I’m missing desperately so please don’t feel like you need to send me a care package. But because so many people have asked, I’ve put up a care package wish list page that I’ll try to keep updated. But again—it’s not because I expect/need anything, it’s just because I’ve been asked.

N’Kob Palmerie

Kasbah/Ksour in N’Kob

Mud houses of N’Kob

Women doing laundry in the canal

CBT is over!

It’s official. I have left my host family and am safely ensconced back at Hotel Oscar in Rabat. Our final night in our CBT site was everything we’ve come to expect from Morocco–best laid plans were thwarted (but everything turned out ok anyway), tears were shed, Moroccans were crazy generous to us.

Anna and me in the brand new jellabahs provided by our families

We saved one of the most stressful activities for last: performing a barely rehearsed skit in Darija in front of all the people at the Dar Chebab! Barely rehearsed because while we thought we set aside time to rehearse, it’s hard to tell the lovely young woman who shows up wanting to do henna for you “thanks but no thanks.” Or to tell the Qaid (sort of like a mayor) that you can’t meet with him because you really need to nail down delivery of your “donkey wearing a suit” joke.

No need to worry. The joke still went over well. I think it is going to take me far in Morocco to have that gem in my back pocket.

After the party (where girls from the dar chebab gave me gifts including a bracelet, a pen and a handful of dates) we went home to spend our final night with our family. Thanks to Hyatt and her camcorder, we also got to relive our skit in all its horror. Because our family hadn’t been generous enough in giving us hospitality plus some seriously awesome jellabas, they also provided us with little snack packs to take on the bus ride to Rabat and my host dad purchased a big bag of olives and hot peppers for me! We were joking that there would be no food where I was going except for almonds and dates. At least I thought it was a joke but given the amount of food they sent me away with…

Peace Corps staff packing up the Fes Hub to return to Rabat

In the morning we didn’t quite manage the no tears rule we had set but eventually we said goodbye to everyone and headed to Rabat. The next morning I had the Language Proficiency Interview, the last major hurdle before I swear in and trade PCT (trainee) status for PCV (volunteer) status.

Winding Up CBT

We are headed into the final stretch of CBT. Site placement interviews are finished, our 3^rd and final Hub gathering is finished, and all we have next is to find out where we are placed (Monday) and then, a few days later, we leave our host families and head back to Rabat for our Language Proficiency Interview and our swearing in (March 27^th).

There are a ton of things I will not miss about CBT, including the level of babysitting we sometimes received (from Peace Corps, our LCF, our host families, etc.) and the complete lack of free time. And the confusion about how to wash my underwear without being hshuma (shameful).

But the training structure—in country, in a host family—gave me a pretty incredible opportunity to see and experience a part of Morocco that someone like me wouldn’t normally get to experience. It makes me kind of sad that I haven’t had the same in-depth look at every country I’ve visited. But of course that would be a tad time-consuming. As I wrap up the training period, here are some of the things that I got to do these past few weeks that I’m grateful for:

Story of an African Farm

Just kidding. That was in South Africa.

A few weekends ago we were told that we were going on a picnic to some waterfall or hot spring or maybe even cold spring. Water was definitely involved. The expedition was being organized by another CBT member’s host father. It wasn’t until I was actually in the grand taxi, wedged against the door and contemplating the odds that it would stay shut or that I would wind up as Moroccan road kill, that I was informed that there had been a change of plans and we were instead on our way to visit said host dad’s daughter, who lived out in the country on a farm.

I was a trifle annoyed because this is par for the course in CBT—you think one thing is happening and then never mind! But it wound up being a really interesting outing. The farm was so unlike the industrial farms we have in the U.S. First of all, the house was buildings surrounding an open courtyard. From what I saw of the place, the lines between indoor and outdoor were pretty blurry.

Also, there was more than one crop rather than acres and acres of corn or wheat or dairy cows. I saw fields of beans, onions and some other vegetables, a couple of olive trees, a few cows and a few chickens. All in all, it seemed like enough to feed the family that lived there plus a fair amount to sell as surplus.

The highlight of the day had to be the magnificent dish called either ftet or refiza, depending on who you ask. It is like the tagine version of chicken pot pie. Seriously one of the best things I’ve had since coming to Morocco. I don’t know what all is in it (besides magic) but there’s definitely chicken and veggies and milawi, the layered tortilla stuff that I wrote about in my food post. I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of it but no one could wait for the cameras to come out before we dug into that amazingness.

Fes

I know I’ve only scratched the surface of Fes but I’ve gotten to see more of Fes (and the surrounding area) than any of the rest of Morocco—both as a tourist and a semi-resident. My first visit to the Medina gave me plenty of opportunity to practice saying “I don’t want” in Darija. Meaning, I don’t want to take you up on your offer to show me around because you are just going to want more money than I have to give and you will want me to buy stuff at your friends’ stores that I don’t want to buy. These men (always men) buzz around tourists like gnats and the bigger your group of white folks, the more obvious you are as a target. But on the next visit I realized that being with a group of Moroccans was better than a mosquito net. Hardly anyone bothered us when we were with our host family and if they did start to say something, they’d quickly give up when they saw who we were with.

It’s not that I saw a ton more of the medina than I did when my only guide was the Lonely Planet, but it was a different experience. It also involved me drinking several different kinds of mildly spoiled dairy. Something that didn’t make it into the food and beverage post—while Moroccans love to sweeten everything, they also have a fondness for dairy products that many of us in the U.S. would consider a tad “off.”  At my host father’s insistence, I ate three different types of slightly spoiled dairy—one was a little more solid than cottage cheese, a little less solid than Feta. Another was somewhere between sour cream and half and half, both in consistency and sourness. The last was sweetened and kind of like sour yogurt.

Checking out the medina with our families was also fun because they are very proud of their city and clearly liked having the chance to show it off. One of our other cohort members said her host sister had never been to the medina even though we’re only 15 minutes away!

On another visit to Fes, I skipped the medina altogether and climbed up the surrounding hills to see the Merenid Tombs. Perhaps because the tombs are in such a ruined state, there are very few tourists and wannabe guides. So we enjoyed gorgeous views of the medina below with no one trying to offer me impromptu tours. Randomly, the hillside seems to be a popular place for people to dry goatskins. I’m not really sure what that’s about but dozens were spread out in the sunshine. If you are visiting Fes, this would be a great place for a picnic lunch.

Dar Chebab’s Got Talent and other activities

There is a regular PCV assigned to our CBT site and she has a regular schedule of activities going on there—many of which we’ve totally gate crashed as part of our training. One of the activities she organized was a talent show at our Dar Chebab (youth center). The talent ranged from kids dancing and lip-syncing to a bollywood number, to performing their own comedy skits, raps and poems. I admit my American psyche, which places high value on separation of church and state, was mildly uncomfortable that the proceedings began with chants of “Allah Akbar.” But somehow when it’s immediately followed with a Shakira lip sync dance routine, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. By the way, Moroccans claim Shakira as Arab because of her father’s Lebanese descent. The Colombian thing barely registers.

Getting to know the kids at the Dar Chebab has also been a real treat, although it’s sometimes terrifying to realize that if all goes as planned, I will soon be in charge of interacting with a lot of kids, with no support from my LCF or CBT mates. We’ve done some activities where we’ve asked a lot of them, considering we’re strangers who have come out of nowhere and are totally practicing on them. We’ve done kickball (it is really hard to explain the rules of kickball to a group of kids who don’t know the first thing about baseball, especially when you don’t speak their language), the PACA activities I mentioned in another post, English language classes, some games and discussions on leadership, and a lot of chants of “I said a boom chicka boom.” The kids have been very welcoming and willing to go with our rather awkward flow. They thank us no matter how good of a job we do (or don’t do) and one of the girls made me this zween bizef necklace. I will be sad to leave them all.

Food and Beverage

For someone who loves eating and drinking as much as I do, I guess I’ve been pretty slack about describing what we eat. I kind of don’t feel as if I’ve even begun to scratch the surface of Moroccan food so what do I have to say? But here’s what I know so far.

First off, in Rabat all of our meals were provided at the hotel so I only ate out once. I was trying to make the transition from spending like I was on vacation to spending like a Peace Corps volunteer so I kept eating the (free) meals. Things I saw in Rabat include roasted goat heads, escargot, and street tagines. But all I tasted was a (delicious) sandwich in the medina. There’s lots of great street food in the big cities and even here in Merja there’s a guy who has a sandwich cart where you can also apparently get a boiled potato that you stick in hot pepper salt before depositing it in your cake hole.

In past PC groups you were just given $ for lunch and told to do your own thing but recently they decided it would be better to send you home to your families for lunch. So I really haven’t had the opportunity to check out many of the street food options. Note to Peace Corps–you should give us a few days to get lunch on our own so I can check out boiled potato man.

Food at the hotel was ok—some standout dishes but generally what you would expect when you’re trying to feed 95+ people each day. There was amazing fresh squeezed orange juice and some yummy French pastries and baguettes. Plus, it got us used to some of the regular foods we might expect to see over the next two years (or however long we last). Olives and olive oil were omnipresent. There are enough olives even to satisfy my uncle Dave’s appetite. I heard person after person say “I don’t really care for olives” and no matter how many people said it, I never could get over it. Olives are served at EVERY meal here. At my host family’s house we recently had some extra delicious ones from “the mountains” that were lightly brined with garlic or this delicious herb that tasted (to me) like Christmas. I also see tons of them at the souk, along with all kinds of other fresh and dried fruits; I can’t wait to do some of my own shopping and cooking.

With our host families we have gotten a better sense of how people eat every day in their homes. Generally there are four meals per day—breakfast, lunch, cascaroute (tea) and dinner. Left to their own devices, I think my family wouldn’t eat breakfast until 10. But on school days (for me and the kids) we’ll have an earlier breakfast, consisting of some combination of bread (French baguettes and Moroccoan bread), jam, honey, olives, olive oil, maybe cheese, maybe a fried egg and definitely tea or hot milk and Nescafe. I think my host mother’s sister told me (nicely) that the way I drink it—without sugar—is disgusting.

Msemen, also called Milwi, is Morocco’s ubiquitous breakfast crepe

Moroccan Breakfast

While French bread is everywhere, the most common bread is called “hobbs” (sort of—it’s hard to transliterate). In my family it’s generally homemade but it’s also available at the bigger market (souk) and at every hanut. Hanuts are these tiny stores that sell a bunch of everyday items. Think of a 7-11 that’s the size of a walk-in closet.

Hobbs is a semi-flat bread and it’s quite delicious when fresh from the oven and dipped in olive oil. But it’s also used instead of utensils at lunch and dinner as we use it to scoop up bits of tagine.

Tea in Morocco, for those who don’t already know, is a mix of tea and mint and SO MUCH SUGAR. I seriously don’t know how they do it. Apparently they do it with a growing diabetes problem and some serious dental concerns so PCVs are encouraged to work “healthy eating” lessons into their work whenever possible. The idea that Americans could have something to teach another culture about healthy eating is a bit mind boggling but there it is. Still, we’ve also been told that sugar has a lot of cultural significance—it’s a traditional wedding present for instance—so suggestions to tone it down need to be made carefully.

Tea is a big deal and if you want to impress you need to pour it from way up high as demonstrated by my LCF.

Interestingly, tea and coffee is served in individual glasses but when it comes to water—at the dinner table or at the coffee shop—one or two glasses are expected to be shared by the whole table. Tea does not seem to be served during meals, although sometimes I’ve had juice or a yogurt-like drink served at lunch. Also served in individual glasses. I don’t know what it is about water.

Lunch is the biggest meal of the day and usually includes some kind of tagine as the main dish, served with bread (of course) and some side dishes like a cucumber salad and/or a legume dip/spread and some kind of tagine as the main dish. Like America’s great culinary delight, the casserole/hot dish, the tagine is both the name of the dish and the dish in which it’s cooked.

Tagines are central to Moroccan food. Ever seen a highway sign that tells you there’s food at the next exit with an illustration of a knife and fork? In Morocco the signs use an illustration of a tagine. Said tagine can have just about anything in it—mine have included various combinations of chicken, lamb (they often have meat but not always and recently I realized I was eating some animal’s stomach; my guess is sheep stomach but who knows), onions, artichokes, beans, potatoes and some kind of vegetable that looks like overgrown celery and is known by a Darija name that I can barely remember but I can recognize it in conversation because it rhymes with the name of an STI (pro-tip passed on by someone in my cohort). It’s set on the table as a communal dish and everyone eats from there, not from an individual plate.

Try to eat only with your right hand (left hands are traditionally used for unsavory bathroom goings-on but I don’t know how strictly this rule is followed these days) and when the common tagine dish is placed in the center of the table, only eat from your “triangle”—the area right in front of you. No reaching across and grabbing that tasty morsel in front of your neighbor.

The meat is usually in the middle and surrounded/topped by any veggies and sauce. You need to NOT go straight for the meat and should actually wait until your host or hostess pushes some into your triangle. Our host mothers and fathers have a tendency to not-so-secretly push some choice morsels into your triangle.

Traditionalists will be sad to learn that the pressure cooker has been embraced by Moroccan cooks as a way to get the taste of a tagine without having to wait hours and deal with hot coals. Now the tagine is mostly a serving dish.

At 6:00ish we have cascroute. That might include some combination of bread, peanuts, popcorn, a couple of fried eggs shared among several people, a kind of bread that looks like a cross between a crumpet and Ethiopian injara bread. Delicious with honey.

There are also some yummy cookies that my host mom serves called, I think, reba. Kind of like macaroons.

On special occasions like my first night here or the night we had my cohort members visit might warrant cake. Two other bread-like substances that show up for cascroute and sometimes breakfast are millwi, a kind of layered tortilla, and herja, which looks like a big circle of corn bread. It’s apparently made with regular flour and is delicious with honey. I have requested a lesson in making it so I may have more information later on how it is made.

Harzha bread made with semolina flour is one of my favorite breakfast items. Delicious with honey and butter.

Another special treat, unassociated with any particular meal, is snails. You can find them from snail vendors in many cities (I know Rabat and Fes for sure) and my family occasionally buys them. They are ladled out, along with vaguely salty snail broth, and you are given a stick pin with which to dig them out of their shells and eat them. While I don’t hate them, I prefer the French way of serving snails, where the snails really just serve as a delivery system for butter and garlic.

Dinner is served late—10:00 or 11:00 and is usually lower-key than lunch. We might have soup or pasta or another tagine but with fewer side dishes or just leftovers from lunch. One time, I am not kidding, it was chopped up spaghetti noodles in warm, sugared milk. But usually it’s a little more substantial. For the record, I am exhausted by 10:00 and would just as soon skip the final meal of the night, especially if it’s leftover stomach tagine or sugared milk and spaghetti.

An awesome tradition is Friday couscous. Since many people have a half day off after Friday prayers, people throughout Morocco prepare couscous for Friday lunch and eat as a big family. So on Fridays my family usually eats with their extended family (including my site mate, Anna) and serves a giant platter of couscous. Dinner is almost always leftover couscous. It’s pretty delicious.

Chebakia is a common sweet in Fes and it is common throughout Morocco at Ramadan

Desert is fruit. It’s funny that the one thing that doesn’t include copious amounts of processed sugar is their dessert. But sometimes, not as part of dessert but just as part of dinner, I am served these special sugar (or honey) soaked, sesame covered treats from Fes known as schpekia. They are often used as part of “fast-breaking” during Ramadan.

If you happen to be visiting your neighbors and they start to eat, you will by no means be allowed to leave until you have eaten as well. It is unthinkable that you would leave to go eat at your own place—how could you even imagine it?

If you stop in and visit someone, it is unthinkable that they would not offer you something to eat. They usually set out a mini-tea time that might just be some fruit or might be fruit and nuts and tea and lord knows what else. I recently had walnuts, which I ate only to be polite because I don’t care for them, only to discover that walnuts here are much sweeter than any I have had in the US and I found them quite delicious.

If anyone has a separate dining room, I have yet to see it. Meals are eaten in a common room that is living room and dining room. There are divans along the walls and low tables that usually have rollers on them that make them easy to move. Everyone who can sits on the divan and dining chairs are only brought if there are more people to fit around the table. The tables are covered in plastic and are the repository for any eating refuse—peanut shells, olive pits, chicken bones, banana peels and anything else gets left directly on the table; the plastic is wiped off after everyone is finished eating and the table has been cleared.

It takes some getting used to for sure. Perhaps the most surprising sight for me was when we were at the wedding. The food at the wedding is almost always a giant dish of 3-4 whole chickens (per table of 10 or so people) followed by an equally giant dish of lamb. No side dishes and no booze (although we were offered Fanta and Coke). So there are all these gorgeous women in elaborate makeup and wearing their finest clothes, going at whole chickens with their hands and some bread—no utensils—and then dumping the bones on the table. While I knew to generally expect that, actually seeing it was a culture shock moment for sure.

Even in very urban areas people often keep chickens on their rooftops

All in all, food is super fresh. The market in town goes week long and once a week it’s even bigger. I know we’ve eaten eggs from our rooftop chickens on more than one occasion and for all I know we’ve actually eaten a chicken too.

Yikes—I guess I had plenty to say about food after all. One last note about coffee—I have not been surviving solely on Nescafe. Morocco has coffee shops everywhere and they serve strong espresso or French press coffee with milk and, of course, a lot of sugar. The only problem is that these aren’t Starbucks, where you can get your order to go, but they also aren’t places where women often hang out. It’s okay when we’re in the company of men and maybe okay if we’re more than one woman, but Moroccan coffee shops are not the place for me to relax with a cup of coffee and read a book. As soon as I am in my own place I can track down some coffee beans and use the French press that was gifted to me before I left. Until then, it’s Nescafe and chaperoned visits to the cahua (the word for coffee and café).