it continues. its bad. one storm dropped over 70mm of rain in one hour in a nearby city. that's well over 20 inches of rain for you non-metric folk. people have died (not in my town, but nearby). our mud houses are in danger of falling down. mine seems to be weathering the weather really well, considering its previously decrepid state. only minor leaking, and not in a way that makes me worry. a village up the river valley that is located directly below a cliff is in danger of a landslide.
as far as i can tell i am safe (or as safe as i can be) but we could use prayers. we could also use a forest. we could also use a long break in the rain.
Monday, October 27, 2008
frustrations and hopes
24 October 2008
Thoughts on a Macalester magazine… today, I looked out my front door and saw some ominous looking clouds, moving our way fast. I got dressed in a hurry, because I wanted to make it to the post office: maybe the package from home had arrived! The rain clouds were moving in quickly, but I got to the post office and back just as the first drops of rain began to fall. With a package!! In it my mother had thoughtfully supplied newspapers and magazines to read. One with the headline: “DOW falls 778.something points on the delay of the relief package.” Other similarly dire headlines accompany… the other newpapers were from tamurtinu (my land/place/earth/floor), Mount Horeb, which instead sport headlines about building referendums and such. And then there was the Macalester College magazine, most of which is devoted to pages and pages recognizing the many, many folks who donated money to the school in recent times. Bravo-alik! (means what it sounds like: bravo or good job) The rest of the magazine was stories about faculty, alumni and current students. Touting their successes and how Macalester helped them get there. Some people went on to work for Morgan Stanley, or become a professor at another esteemed college. And then there are the current students. So full of promise, excited about life and passionate about what they are studying! That is why I loved Macalester, that attitude. A mentor of mine once said she loved working with Mac students because “You are going to change the world!” Takes some living up to! Not that I ever minded a challenge, though. J There is truth in what she said. Some examples: one of my fellow alumni is Kofi Annan. One of my good friends from Mac is going to be a doctor, another already has her Masters degree and is out there traveling the world and chasing down job experience so that she can use said Masters degree, others are scientists, teachers in hard places, after school volunteers in the city… suffice it to say, looking around me and seeing the company I’m keeping, it encourages a little introspection.
Am I doing good where I’m at? Is this what I wanted it to be, am I satisfied that I am using my time well? In other words, am I “living up to it?” Well, I don’t know if I can answer that last question with certainty—time will tell—but I am satisfied that this, living in Morocco, and trying to be a little catalyst in a little town in the most overlooked region in northern Morocco, is well worth my time, my effort. So many of the women I talk to don’t know how to read or write, and not because there aren’t schools. Most were kept home by their parents. Parents who sent their boys (or, at least, most of their boys) to school, where they could learn and do some good, while keeping their girls at home. Where they are safe (from what? Boys, maybe), where they are needed (yes), where they belong (…), and where they will live their lives (most likely true). And now, their husbands tell them, “no, no I cannot spare you for an hour or two to go and learn to read and write. You must make my tea and my dinner and take care of the children and the animals and clean the house and the clothes and keep us all alive and healthy!” And maybe they tell themselves the same thing, and put their desire to learn aside in the pursuit of raising good, healthy children. Which is honorable. What is more honorable is that they are not often bitter about this… it is also sad!
I hope to help people here, all people, to see the value in education! In the basics, so that knowledge of healthcare and nutrition and changes in laws (like marriage laws) spreads and works its good work. And even more, so that people understand what is going on in the world beyond what the TV tells them. And even more, so that the people of this village understand the multiplicity of value that a forest holds. Not just firewood, not just fruit and nuts, not just shade, not just beauty. No! Erosion control, flood mitigation, the slowing of desertification—in other words, safety and livelihood security! (Would that I knew all of THOSE words in Tashelheit…) In a village that has claimed the only semi-flat ground in the middle of a treeless, steep slope, anything that keeps the flashfloods at bay and the soil on the ground should be highly valued. Education! How important! Not memorization, but knowledge integrated and made one’s own. And applied. I guess that’s what I’m trying to do here. Apply what I learned at “dear, old Macalester.” Wish us luck, say a prayer; we shall se what we can do with these rocky slopes!
Thoughts on a Macalester magazine… today, I looked out my front door and saw some ominous looking clouds, moving our way fast. I got dressed in a hurry, because I wanted to make it to the post office: maybe the package from home had arrived! The rain clouds were moving in quickly, but I got to the post office and back just as the first drops of rain began to fall. With a package!! In it my mother had thoughtfully supplied newspapers and magazines to read. One with the headline: “DOW falls 778.something points on the delay of the relief package.” Other similarly dire headlines accompany… the other newpapers were from tamurtinu (my land/place/earth/floor), Mount Horeb, which instead sport headlines about building referendums and such. And then there was the Macalester College magazine, most of which is devoted to pages and pages recognizing the many, many folks who donated money to the school in recent times. Bravo-alik! (means what it sounds like: bravo or good job) The rest of the magazine was stories about faculty, alumni and current students. Touting their successes and how Macalester helped them get there. Some people went on to work for Morgan Stanley, or become a professor at another esteemed college. And then there are the current students. So full of promise, excited about life and passionate about what they are studying! That is why I loved Macalester, that attitude. A mentor of mine once said she loved working with Mac students because “You are going to change the world!” Takes some living up to! Not that I ever minded a challenge, though. J There is truth in what she said. Some examples: one of my fellow alumni is Kofi Annan. One of my good friends from Mac is going to be a doctor, another already has her Masters degree and is out there traveling the world and chasing down job experience so that she can use said Masters degree, others are scientists, teachers in hard places, after school volunteers in the city… suffice it to say, looking around me and seeing the company I’m keeping, it encourages a little introspection.
Am I doing good where I’m at? Is this what I wanted it to be, am I satisfied that I am using my time well? In other words, am I “living up to it?” Well, I don’t know if I can answer that last question with certainty—time will tell—but I am satisfied that this, living in Morocco, and trying to be a little catalyst in a little town in the most overlooked region in northern Morocco, is well worth my time, my effort. So many of the women I talk to don’t know how to read or write, and not because there aren’t schools. Most were kept home by their parents. Parents who sent their boys (or, at least, most of their boys) to school, where they could learn and do some good, while keeping their girls at home. Where they are safe (from what? Boys, maybe), where they are needed (yes), where they belong (…), and where they will live their lives (most likely true). And now, their husbands tell them, “no, no I cannot spare you for an hour or two to go and learn to read and write. You must make my tea and my dinner and take care of the children and the animals and clean the house and the clothes and keep us all alive and healthy!” And maybe they tell themselves the same thing, and put their desire to learn aside in the pursuit of raising good, healthy children. Which is honorable. What is more honorable is that they are not often bitter about this… it is also sad!
I hope to help people here, all people, to see the value in education! In the basics, so that knowledge of healthcare and nutrition and changes in laws (like marriage laws) spreads and works its good work. And even more, so that people understand what is going on in the world beyond what the TV tells them. And even more, so that the people of this village understand the multiplicity of value that a forest holds. Not just firewood, not just fruit and nuts, not just shade, not just beauty. No! Erosion control, flood mitigation, the slowing of desertification—in other words, safety and livelihood security! (Would that I knew all of THOSE words in Tashelheit…) In a village that has claimed the only semi-flat ground in the middle of a treeless, steep slope, anything that keeps the flashfloods at bay and the soil on the ground should be highly valued. Education! How important! Not memorization, but knowledge integrated and made one’s own. And applied. I guess that’s what I’m trying to do here. Apply what I learned at “dear, old Macalester.” Wish us luck, say a prayer; we shall se what we can do with these rocky slopes!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Flooding
20 October 2008
I have lost count of how many times the river that cuts the floor of this valley has flooded in the past month and a half. I think the novelty wore off two or three weeks ago. Flash floods are still exciting, though. Not least because at least some of them result from rain here (as opposed to further up in the mountains), which means I find out just how waterproof my house really is.
Last night it started raining late, maybe 12 midnight or 1 am, and kept it up most of the night. By morning, when I stepped out my door to run down the stairs through the light rain to the bathroom, I could hear the river roaring already. So, having planned an early morning walk anyway, I decided to make the object of that walk viewing the river. I saw a youngish man and his younger and very pregnant wife on their roof looking around and shaking their heads. I greeted them and asked them how they were doing: “Labas Shwi.” Or “we’re doing just OK.” Was his answer. Rain had soaked through his roof and was now dripping off of the beams. Most roofs have decent sized pipes or other water exits on them for just this reason. A mud roof will eventually saturate with water if you don’t get that water off quickly. I asked about the flooding river, and he invited me up on his roof. I declined and asked directions to see the flood (I know the way, but I wanted him to feel good about something after I declined the invitation).
I walked down a back path, it cuts just below the post office and along several fields by a house where I know the family. Their teenage son, Ahmed appeared as I passed. We chatted as we walked… this sounds very simple and not very interesting, but he is one of the most animated people I know (he can give Katherine, and my Emiline a good run for their money!). Thus, it was quite entertaining! he asked me if their was water escaping into my house, great concern all over his face. No, I said and he nodded a satisfied grin. Your house? No, he said, still smiling but his face said: preposterous! At the transit stop we parted ways.
I found a high vantage point next to the president of the women’s association. Half the village turns out to watch the river destroy the fields each time it floods badly. This was the highest I had yet seen the river. The entire 200 ft wide riverbed is covered with pale brown, milky water that bludgeons everything in its path. This morning, some trees were over half submerged, and throwing up a spray on either side like a water-skier as they struggled to remain upright in the torrent of water. I asked the people near me where their fields were. Some said, up high, with a satisfied and relieved nod. Others pointed and said, ‘see that huge milky brown mess? That’s mine.’ ‘What’s growing there?’ ‘Turnips.’ ‘Will they be OK?’ ‘Yeah, they’re not corn.’ Corn doesn’t stand a chance in a flood, it ends up flattened and stripped of its ears.
I stood and watched for a good while, noting the beauty of the view even in the presence of a natural disaster. The colors of the earth are darkened by rain: there is red, purple, maroon, teal, yellow, orange, brown, and grey depending upon where you look. Contrasted by the rich greens and yellows of the patchwork terraces of the farm fields, and the swirling grey of the clouds it is beautiful. Speaking of those clouds, they way they were tumbling over the mountain hinted there just might be more rain on the way. I also noted the transits stopped in Ait Bartal… so the other river is flooding, too. This has to be at least the 6th or 7th time the road out of town has been buried by literally tons of rock, sand and mud. Hopefully, the bulldozer will come today and clear it off… otherwise I’ll be hauling my bike over that mess to get to souk tomorrow.
At this point, I have a couple questions: 1) will it ever stop raining? 2) is it like this EVERY autumn? I suppose the answer to first question is, of course, yes. And the second I have asked of folks. No, they say, last year we had very little rain in the autumn.
Somehow I never expected to be writing about constant flash-flooding in my blog from a village that is placed right on the very edge of the Sahara desert…
I have lost count of how many times the river that cuts the floor of this valley has flooded in the past month and a half. I think the novelty wore off two or three weeks ago. Flash floods are still exciting, though. Not least because at least some of them result from rain here (as opposed to further up in the mountains), which means I find out just how waterproof my house really is.
Last night it started raining late, maybe 12 midnight or 1 am, and kept it up most of the night. By morning, when I stepped out my door to run down the stairs through the light rain to the bathroom, I could hear the river roaring already. So, having planned an early morning walk anyway, I decided to make the object of that walk viewing the river. I saw a youngish man and his younger and very pregnant wife on their roof looking around and shaking their heads. I greeted them and asked them how they were doing: “Labas Shwi.” Or “we’re doing just OK.” Was his answer. Rain had soaked through his roof and was now dripping off of the beams. Most roofs have decent sized pipes or other water exits on them for just this reason. A mud roof will eventually saturate with water if you don’t get that water off quickly. I asked about the flooding river, and he invited me up on his roof. I declined and asked directions to see the flood (I know the way, but I wanted him to feel good about something after I declined the invitation).
I walked down a back path, it cuts just below the post office and along several fields by a house where I know the family. Their teenage son, Ahmed appeared as I passed. We chatted as we walked… this sounds very simple and not very interesting, but he is one of the most animated people I know (he can give Katherine, and my Emiline a good run for their money!). Thus, it was quite entertaining! he asked me if their was water escaping into my house, great concern all over his face. No, I said and he nodded a satisfied grin. Your house? No, he said, still smiling but his face said: preposterous! At the transit stop we parted ways.
I found a high vantage point next to the president of the women’s association. Half the village turns out to watch the river destroy the fields each time it floods badly. This was the highest I had yet seen the river. The entire 200 ft wide riverbed is covered with pale brown, milky water that bludgeons everything in its path. This morning, some trees were over half submerged, and throwing up a spray on either side like a water-skier as they struggled to remain upright in the torrent of water. I asked the people near me where their fields were. Some said, up high, with a satisfied and relieved nod. Others pointed and said, ‘see that huge milky brown mess? That’s mine.’ ‘What’s growing there?’ ‘Turnips.’ ‘Will they be OK?’ ‘Yeah, they’re not corn.’ Corn doesn’t stand a chance in a flood, it ends up flattened and stripped of its ears.
I stood and watched for a good while, noting the beauty of the view even in the presence of a natural disaster. The colors of the earth are darkened by rain: there is red, purple, maroon, teal, yellow, orange, brown, and grey depending upon where you look. Contrasted by the rich greens and yellows of the patchwork terraces of the farm fields, and the swirling grey of the clouds it is beautiful. Speaking of those clouds, they way they were tumbling over the mountain hinted there just might be more rain on the way. I also noted the transits stopped in Ait Bartal… so the other river is flooding, too. This has to be at least the 6th or 7th time the road out of town has been buried by literally tons of rock, sand and mud. Hopefully, the bulldozer will come today and clear it off… otherwise I’ll be hauling my bike over that mess to get to souk tomorrow.
At this point, I have a couple questions: 1) will it ever stop raining? 2) is it like this EVERY autumn? I suppose the answer to first question is, of course, yes. And the second I have asked of folks. No, they say, last year we had very little rain in the autumn.
Somehow I never expected to be writing about constant flash-flooding in my blog from a village that is placed right on the very edge of the Sahara desert…
typcial day
5 October 2008
Typical Day in Site:
This morning I woke up in my new room. Yesterday I did a lot of cleaning, building and moving to get my stuff out of the sitting room and into the room where I have always intended to sleep. Thus, I woke rather disoriented at 6:38am: I still haven’t got things set up the way I really want. I read a book for an hour, and then got up to feed the kittens and make breakfast—crushed barley with whatever I feel like putting in it. Then I got dressed (stay off the cold, cold floor!!) and contemplated what to do with the day. My plan for the day was to call my program manager to ask him for more information, and then go find the raisa (female president) of the women’s association and tell her about the neddi project, and go to the far dwar (tiny village) that I haven’t explored yet, and then return and work around my house.
The information I wanted from my PM (program manager) is about the National Initiative for Human Development, a program that is tied to the U.N. According to the Water and Forest Department representative with whom I work, it has chosen Ouled Ali to be eligible for funds to be used for human development. I don’t know much about the INDH, but am hoping to use that money to build a “neddi”, a sort of women’s center. It would be great thing for the women here: a neutral place outside of their homes where they could do communal artisan work to be sold in Missour, tourist joints, or even Ouled Ali if we can get tourists to come. They could hold literacy classes there, or even have a library. It is worth noting that these are my dreams for them—the only hopes I have heard expressed thus far are generally restricted to the husband-favored money making ones. Either way, it would be a great thing for them. Thus my desire to get more information.
So I beeped my PM and settled down to wait for him to call me back. That’s standard operating procedure here, because the Peace Corps specifically foots the phone bill at the Office, while we volunteers have to budget our money ourselves. It’s a bit of generosity that is greatly appreciated, and completely taken for granted at the same time. In the meantime, I read A Prayer for Owen Meany, which is so far quite good. He called me back, and promised to send me the information later today, along with other previously promised and forgotten information. So then I got up and prepared to leave the house, cleaning up after my still-sick kittens (Poo! Scat! Shit everywhere!! Bring out the Wet-Ones!!!…), and packing a back pack, I started walking over to Ait Ahendor, where the Raisa lives (I live in Ait Abou, which is on the other side of Ait Ali from Ait Ahendor, which are all duwars within the village of Ouled/Ait Ali). At the central transit stop/cluster of stores I met a women I know (she’s my host mothers sister, and her name might be Aicha… I wish I had Grandma’s memory for names… it would make life easier!) and we talked and walked until we came to a field where a family was harvesting their corn by hand with little hand scythes. The women went on, but I stayed to help load the corn onto donkeys and into bags so the women could carry the corn and cornstalks back to the house. While helping I was invited to tea, so I accompanied them back to their house and had tea with bread and oil and homemade butter and l-helwa (buttery finder cookies). Tasty! I ended up getting roped into staying for lunch, too, which was fine. I made friends with one of the next generation of mothers in the village. Her name is Aziza. There, now I can’t forget!! Extra good because her uncle is the president of the Medicinal Herbs and Honey Cooperative that exists here, and I need to get to know them better! They’re rather successful, and the money supplies this family with a nicer-than-usual home… ie. more rooms, actual decorations on the walls, a completely equipped kitchen, concrete walls and floors and ceilings in most rooms, and stairs to the roof instead of a ladder.
After this I left and found my Raisa, who was back from her own morning or corn-harvesting, and very tired. But I explained to her the some newly discovered hoops the association and I are going to have to jump through to get that INDH money for the neddi project!! We’ll see… if this goes really slowly, I’ll start talking to people about honey production and see if we can’t improve that, it’s been pretty “piss-poor” the past two years (to borrow an euphemism from a family member). And then walked out of town across the deep gorge that floods every once and a while and is home to a small river that dips in and out of the ground like a butterflier swimming in a pool. I then climbed up on the path that I know leads to that other duwar I haven’t been to, and spotted a raptor, probably a falcon! I whipped out my binoculars and planted myself on a rock to watch and see if I couldn’t glean enough to ID it. I got lucky, not only did I get enough info to ID it (a male Kestrel), but I got to see it hunting! A successful kill and then I watched it munching on what seemed to be a mouse. I then walked over to the other duwar, but found no one outside, so I decided to explore the path a bit further… it turns into a rather thrilling path along a steep mountainside that extends quite a way, who knows, it might go all the way to Tirnest (where a fellow volunteer lives). I then walked back, and met two women from that duwar, but decided to return to my house instead. I then made myself some tea and at a bunch of dried figs, and read a bit of the Christian Science Monitor (a fascinating newspaper, generally liberalish in the social justice area, but surprisingly conservative politically because of moral issues like pro-life/pro-choice… or so I believe… feel free to correct me!). And then more of Owen Meany… I am still super susceptible to a good book. :)
The plan from here on out is to take a shower (brr!!! There’s no door on my bathroom, so a bucket shower is unfortunately drafty!! Maybe I’ll just wash my hair instead…), and take some phone minutes over to my host family, and prepare some questions for my tutor and then have a lesson, come home and eat the chili that I made last night. Which was a decisive victory!! Not only did my host sister and mother like it, my much pickier younger host brother liked it too!!!! It seems I just need to pick and choose what food to introduce to Moroccans… things that are too unfamiliar don’t go over so well. Lesson learned.
Typical Day in Site:
This morning I woke up in my new room. Yesterday I did a lot of cleaning, building and moving to get my stuff out of the sitting room and into the room where I have always intended to sleep. Thus, I woke rather disoriented at 6:38am: I still haven’t got things set up the way I really want. I read a book for an hour, and then got up to feed the kittens and make breakfast—crushed barley with whatever I feel like putting in it. Then I got dressed (stay off the cold, cold floor!!) and contemplated what to do with the day. My plan for the day was to call my program manager to ask him for more information, and then go find the raisa (female president) of the women’s association and tell her about the neddi project, and go to the far dwar (tiny village) that I haven’t explored yet, and then return and work around my house.
The information I wanted from my PM (program manager) is about the National Initiative for Human Development, a program that is tied to the U.N. According to the Water and Forest Department representative with whom I work, it has chosen Ouled Ali to be eligible for funds to be used for human development. I don’t know much about the INDH, but am hoping to use that money to build a “neddi”, a sort of women’s center. It would be great thing for the women here: a neutral place outside of their homes where they could do communal artisan work to be sold in Missour, tourist joints, or even Ouled Ali if we can get tourists to come. They could hold literacy classes there, or even have a library. It is worth noting that these are my dreams for them—the only hopes I have heard expressed thus far are generally restricted to the husband-favored money making ones. Either way, it would be a great thing for them. Thus my desire to get more information.
So I beeped my PM and settled down to wait for him to call me back. That’s standard operating procedure here, because the Peace Corps specifically foots the phone bill at the Office, while we volunteers have to budget our money ourselves. It’s a bit of generosity that is greatly appreciated, and completely taken for granted at the same time. In the meantime, I read A Prayer for Owen Meany, which is so far quite good. He called me back, and promised to send me the information later today, along with other previously promised and forgotten information. So then I got up and prepared to leave the house, cleaning up after my still-sick kittens (Poo! Scat! Shit everywhere!! Bring out the Wet-Ones!!!…), and packing a back pack, I started walking over to Ait Ahendor, where the Raisa lives (I live in Ait Abou, which is on the other side of Ait Ali from Ait Ahendor, which are all duwars within the village of Ouled/Ait Ali). At the central transit stop/cluster of stores I met a women I know (she’s my host mothers sister, and her name might be Aicha… I wish I had Grandma’s memory for names… it would make life easier!) and we talked and walked until we came to a field where a family was harvesting their corn by hand with little hand scythes. The women went on, but I stayed to help load the corn onto donkeys and into bags so the women could carry the corn and cornstalks back to the house. While helping I was invited to tea, so I accompanied them back to their house and had tea with bread and oil and homemade butter and l-helwa (buttery finder cookies). Tasty! I ended up getting roped into staying for lunch, too, which was fine. I made friends with one of the next generation of mothers in the village. Her name is Aziza. There, now I can’t forget!! Extra good because her uncle is the president of the Medicinal Herbs and Honey Cooperative that exists here, and I need to get to know them better! They’re rather successful, and the money supplies this family with a nicer-than-usual home… ie. more rooms, actual decorations on the walls, a completely equipped kitchen, concrete walls and floors and ceilings in most rooms, and stairs to the roof instead of a ladder.
After this I left and found my Raisa, who was back from her own morning or corn-harvesting, and very tired. But I explained to her the some newly discovered hoops the association and I are going to have to jump through to get that INDH money for the neddi project!! We’ll see… if this goes really slowly, I’ll start talking to people about honey production and see if we can’t improve that, it’s been pretty “piss-poor” the past two years (to borrow an euphemism from a family member). And then walked out of town across the deep gorge that floods every once and a while and is home to a small river that dips in and out of the ground like a butterflier swimming in a pool. I then climbed up on the path that I know leads to that other duwar I haven’t been to, and spotted a raptor, probably a falcon! I whipped out my binoculars and planted myself on a rock to watch and see if I couldn’t glean enough to ID it. I got lucky, not only did I get enough info to ID it (a male Kestrel), but I got to see it hunting! A successful kill and then I watched it munching on what seemed to be a mouse. I then walked over to the other duwar, but found no one outside, so I decided to explore the path a bit further… it turns into a rather thrilling path along a steep mountainside that extends quite a way, who knows, it might go all the way to Tirnest (where a fellow volunteer lives). I then walked back, and met two women from that duwar, but decided to return to my house instead. I then made myself some tea and at a bunch of dried figs, and read a bit of the Christian Science Monitor (a fascinating newspaper, generally liberalish in the social justice area, but surprisingly conservative politically because of moral issues like pro-life/pro-choice… or so I believe… feel free to correct me!). And then more of Owen Meany… I am still super susceptible to a good book. :)
The plan from here on out is to take a shower (brr!!! There’s no door on my bathroom, so a bucket shower is unfortunately drafty!! Maybe I’ll just wash my hair instead…), and take some phone minutes over to my host family, and prepare some questions for my tutor and then have a lesson, come home and eat the chili that I made last night. Which was a decisive victory!! Not only did my host sister and mother like it, my much pickier younger host brother liked it too!!!! It seems I just need to pick and choose what food to introduce to Moroccans… things that are too unfamiliar don’t go over so well. Lesson learned.
10 October 2008
Living Healthfully
I don’t mean not smoking, drinking in moderation, or sleeping enough, though those are all legitimate subjects for such a title. No, I mean figuring out how to live in a new place: cook for yourself, adjust to the local microbes, local customs and lack of familiar stress relief. It’s a challenge. One that I was definitely looking forward to before I came here. I remember thinking how cool it would be to successfully turn whatever food is available to you into nutritious meals… buy/harvest it, get it back to your place of food preparation, get the bad parts out of it (rocks, bugs, rotten spot, peels, whatever), use unfamiliar cooking tools and turn out something both delicious and healthful. I can boast that I can do that now, and it is awesome, as expected. Boy, it took me a while to get there though! At first it was training, and then living with a host family (excellent experience though it is, it does not afford much opportunity to cook…) keeping me from figuring it out. And then there’s the whole adjusting to the local scene: microbes specifically… the microbes thing is pretty darn tricky if you are in a situation where you can’t cook for yourself. Then you must trust to whoever is cooking for you to take the necessary precautions to shelter your poor, weak GI tract. And while the cooking standard of said host family was good, it wasn’t quite good enough to keep me in health. I spent the vast majority of those 3 and-a-bit months with my host family sick. What with that and Ramadan, I had definitely lost weight—enough that my tutor noticed when he returned after his 2 month summer vacation. What did I have to lose you ask? Not much… Those who know me well know that I am one of those people who worry about losing weight more that gaining. It’s the result of a fast metabolism and an athletic history—it’s just difficult to keep enough weight on to feel good. Which is why it is so amazingly awesome to have been in good health for an entire month (!!!) and cooking good food and eating it and enjoying it and Hamdullah (Thanks be to God) gaining back that weight!
The other thing is learning how to deal with stress in a new situation. All, well not all, but most of the stress relief techniques used in the United States have either been modified by necessity or are simply not available here. Example: my faith—it’s hard to be a practicing follower of Christ when there is no community of fellow followers within 200 km. I have still only been to a church service once since I’ve been here, and had two Bible studies with other people of vaguely similar religious persuasion. That’s 3 in 7 months. Inchallah (God willing) I will be going to church in Azrou with an older volunteer one of the last weekends of October, but that’s not a trivial distance either: it takes 5 hours of blessed travels conditions to get me there, and if travel goes slowly en route, it might take all day. Aside—I’m not trying to complain here, I’m just trying to paint an accurate picture. Or music: I have lots of music to listen to (THANK GOD… no, seriously) but I, for some reason that I frankly fail to understand, did not bring my guitar with me. I don’t know what exactly inspired me to do that, especially after how much I missed having a guitar with me when I was in Tanzania, but I decided it wasn’t worth it (what were you THINKING, Jeannie???). I did, however, buy a fiddle. So, I’m learning how to play the fiddle, which is plenty fun, but… how many of you musicians can understand: having a new instrument to fiddle with (whoops, that’s a pun!!) is just not the same as noodling around on an instrument you know, you own, you can bend to your mood.
The point being, there have been some adjustments. I have adopted new stress relief activities—yoga anyone?—and learned about the depths of other ones.
I don’t mean not smoking, drinking in moderation, or sleeping enough, though those are all legitimate subjects for such a title. No, I mean figuring out how to live in a new place: cook for yourself, adjust to the local microbes, local customs and lack of familiar stress relief. It’s a challenge. One that I was definitely looking forward to before I came here. I remember thinking how cool it would be to successfully turn whatever food is available to you into nutritious meals… buy/harvest it, get it back to your place of food preparation, get the bad parts out of it (rocks, bugs, rotten spot, peels, whatever), use unfamiliar cooking tools and turn out something both delicious and healthful. I can boast that I can do that now, and it is awesome, as expected. Boy, it took me a while to get there though! At first it was training, and then living with a host family (excellent experience though it is, it does not afford much opportunity to cook…) keeping me from figuring it out. And then there’s the whole adjusting to the local scene: microbes specifically… the microbes thing is pretty darn tricky if you are in a situation where you can’t cook for yourself. Then you must trust to whoever is cooking for you to take the necessary precautions to shelter your poor, weak GI tract. And while the cooking standard of said host family was good, it wasn’t quite good enough to keep me in health. I spent the vast majority of those 3 and-a-bit months with my host family sick. What with that and Ramadan, I had definitely lost weight—enough that my tutor noticed when he returned after his 2 month summer vacation. What did I have to lose you ask? Not much… Those who know me well know that I am one of those people who worry about losing weight more that gaining. It’s the result of a fast metabolism and an athletic history—it’s just difficult to keep enough weight on to feel good. Which is why it is so amazingly awesome to have been in good health for an entire month (!!!) and cooking good food and eating it and enjoying it and Hamdullah (Thanks be to God) gaining back that weight!
The other thing is learning how to deal with stress in a new situation. All, well not all, but most of the stress relief techniques used in the United States have either been modified by necessity or are simply not available here. Example: my faith—it’s hard to be a practicing follower of Christ when there is no community of fellow followers within 200 km. I have still only been to a church service once since I’ve been here, and had two Bible studies with other people of vaguely similar religious persuasion. That’s 3 in 7 months. Inchallah (God willing) I will be going to church in Azrou with an older volunteer one of the last weekends of October, but that’s not a trivial distance either: it takes 5 hours of blessed travels conditions to get me there, and if travel goes slowly en route, it might take all day. Aside—I’m not trying to complain here, I’m just trying to paint an accurate picture. Or music: I have lots of music to listen to (THANK GOD… no, seriously) but I, for some reason that I frankly fail to understand, did not bring my guitar with me. I don’t know what exactly inspired me to do that, especially after how much I missed having a guitar with me when I was in Tanzania, but I decided it wasn’t worth it (what were you THINKING, Jeannie???). I did, however, buy a fiddle. So, I’m learning how to play the fiddle, which is plenty fun, but… how many of you musicians can understand: having a new instrument to fiddle with (whoops, that’s a pun!!) is just not the same as noodling around on an instrument you know, you own, you can bend to your mood.
The point being, there have been some adjustments. I have adopted new stress relief activities—yoga anyone?—and learned about the depths of other ones.
re-modeling
7 October 2008
About remodeling a house in Morocco. Lessons learned (could probably be applied in any country, actually): 1—assume that you will not be moving in on the day you are originally told you will be moving in.2—be prepared to be amazed at the number of ways rocks can be used in building3—being involved in the building process will help to ensure that you get better quality, and that little things don’t get forgotten.
I wish I had taken before pictures so you could all see the transformation (as yet not-quite finished)! The house had not been lived in for 8 years. It had been neglected, used as a good place to slaughter goats, and to store random bits of stuff. There were broken pots in the back room along with old shoes and an inch of dust, and the roof needed structural help in a couple of places. The roof was also leaking very badly, I remember looking at the floor when I first got there and noting the drip marks in the dirt floor… not a good sign. Why, you ask did I decide to live there when I had another perfectly good option? Well, there was the fact that my host family really wanted me to live in this house (for a variety of reasons; money, proximity…), and then there is the balcony. ( Like my mother, I looked at the view from the balcony and was more or less sold on it. It’s a pretty typical house for Ouled Ali: mud walls, and floors. Kind of like an adobe house in the southwest, actually. The roof is made of logs and sticks with mud, plastic and more mud over top of it all. The windows don’t have glass in them but do have iron grating in them and wooden shutters. The house is built onto my neighbors house. Most houses are sort of paired up with at least one neighbors house. The result is a kind of warren of curvy, narrow, steep walkways between chunks of houses. For example, my host families house shares roof and walls with both their neighbors and the mosque. This meant that at prayer time I had to be careful about going from my room to the kitchen, because the east facing windows looked right into the courtyard area of the house. Not so good to be distracting the men while they are praying. Anyway, the point is, houses are built together like combs in a beehive here.
4 months, major structural work, plastic on the roof, concrete added to the floors and half the walls, after the installation of stairs (instead of a steep and rickety ladder), and the installation of a bathroom, and a sink and counter, running water, electricity, two windows, a clothesline, a new metal door, a layer of whitewash and the rebuilding of the door frames later… I am living in a comfortable house. No furniture… cooking appliances for sure, though! I am lucky to have electricity, so I can have a refrigerator.
I painted a goodly portion of that whitewash myself. I don’t know what the whitewash is made of here, but it is super, super corrosive. I have scars on my arms from where some of the whitewash caked and dried and gave me chemical burns. Needless to say, after that I decided to buy some heavy duty rubber gloves so that I could whitewash with my skin intact. Whitewashing has been followed by scrubbing. LOTS and LOTS of scrubbing, to get the drips off of the wall and the floor. I still have some scrubbing to do. The thing is that I’m trying to keep things moving along as far as getting projects going and integrating into the entire community. This keeps me out of the house and away from scrubbing and washing and furniture building that needs to happen. Oh yeah; I’m stealing my friend Dan’s good idea and building myself some furniture. I bought 50 stalks of bamboo and a roll of wire to build myself some risers and shelves for storage. It should be an adventure, I’ve never worked with bamboo before, nor have I ever built furniture! Good thing I have wire-cutters with me. Thanks Dad!
Most creative use of building materials: my host father installed a new lock on my kitchen door using the old top of a sardine can as a backing for the lock… talk about reusing possible trash materials!!! It looks good, too, with its brassy finish. Kudos to him!
About remodeling a house in Morocco. Lessons learned (could probably be applied in any country, actually): 1—assume that you will not be moving in on the day you are originally told you will be moving in.2—be prepared to be amazed at the number of ways rocks can be used in building3—being involved in the building process will help to ensure that you get better quality, and that little things don’t get forgotten.
I wish I had taken before pictures so you could all see the transformation (as yet not-quite finished)! The house had not been lived in for 8 years. It had been neglected, used as a good place to slaughter goats, and to store random bits of stuff. There were broken pots in the back room along with old shoes and an inch of dust, and the roof needed structural help in a couple of places. The roof was also leaking very badly, I remember looking at the floor when I first got there and noting the drip marks in the dirt floor… not a good sign. Why, you ask did I decide to live there when I had another perfectly good option? Well, there was the fact that my host family really wanted me to live in this house (for a variety of reasons; money, proximity…), and then there is the balcony. ( Like my mother, I looked at the view from the balcony and was more or less sold on it. It’s a pretty typical house for Ouled Ali: mud walls, and floors. Kind of like an adobe house in the southwest, actually. The roof is made of logs and sticks with mud, plastic and more mud over top of it all. The windows don’t have glass in them but do have iron grating in them and wooden shutters. The house is built onto my neighbors house. Most houses are sort of paired up with at least one neighbors house. The result is a kind of warren of curvy, narrow, steep walkways between chunks of houses. For example, my host families house shares roof and walls with both their neighbors and the mosque. This meant that at prayer time I had to be careful about going from my room to the kitchen, because the east facing windows looked right into the courtyard area of the house. Not so good to be distracting the men while they are praying. Anyway, the point is, houses are built together like combs in a beehive here.
4 months, major structural work, plastic on the roof, concrete added to the floors and half the walls, after the installation of stairs (instead of a steep and rickety ladder), and the installation of a bathroom, and a sink and counter, running water, electricity, two windows, a clothesline, a new metal door, a layer of whitewash and the rebuilding of the door frames later… I am living in a comfortable house. No furniture… cooking appliances for sure, though! I am lucky to have electricity, so I can have a refrigerator.
I painted a goodly portion of that whitewash myself. I don’t know what the whitewash is made of here, but it is super, super corrosive. I have scars on my arms from where some of the whitewash caked and dried and gave me chemical burns. Needless to say, after that I decided to buy some heavy duty rubber gloves so that I could whitewash with my skin intact. Whitewashing has been followed by scrubbing. LOTS and LOTS of scrubbing, to get the drips off of the wall and the floor. I still have some scrubbing to do. The thing is that I’m trying to keep things moving along as far as getting projects going and integrating into the entire community. This keeps me out of the house and away from scrubbing and washing and furniture building that needs to happen. Oh yeah; I’m stealing my friend Dan’s good idea and building myself some furniture. I bought 50 stalks of bamboo and a roll of wire to build myself some risers and shelves for storage. It should be an adventure, I’ve never worked with bamboo before, nor have I ever built furniture! Good thing I have wire-cutters with me. Thanks Dad!
Most creative use of building materials: my host father installed a new lock on my kitchen door using the old top of a sardine can as a backing for the lock… talk about reusing possible trash materials!!! It looks good, too, with its brassy finish. Kudos to him!
Hiking in early october
15 October 2008
Lots of it! I have been hiking all over the Middle Atlas these past few months. They’ve been pretty intense hikes, all done with two second-year volunteers, Sarah and Nate, or with the rais (president) of the herders association I am working with. They’re all fun people. Sarah and Nate are ambitious in their hiking plans, and they like to move quickly! I’ve learned to walk quickly carrying quite a bit, and to find my own trail. When hiking with the rais, we move still more quickly, aided by a mule carrying our bags. My favorite hike so far was one with Sarah and Nate. They planned an ambitious 7-day hike that included summiting Bou Nacer (highest peak in the Middle Atlas, I believe) and then traversing close to 100 km. I decided to cut the hike short and leave at the midway point, because of 1—my kittens, and 2—my need to be in site.
We started with Justin, my closest PCV neighbor, at his site. He walked with us up the mountainside and then returned that same afternoon. We camped in a dry riverbed and prayed for good weather the next day. As it turned out, those three days were the only good weather days for a couple of weeks. A good thing, it was freezing cold on top of Bou Nacer even in the full morning sunlight! The view from the top was great, I could see all the way to High Atlas in one direction and Tezzka in the other. It was an abnormally clear day, gorgeous! We then faced the descent: some 1000m of unmarked, steep scree slope riddled with gullies cut by recent storms and surprise cliffs, some over 100 ft in height. And my boots decided to start to fall apart. Duct tape to the rescue! We made it down after a stop for lunch, and found a herder’s trail to the village we were hoping to stay the night near. It’s always an adventure trying to find water sources, usually you have to ask directions, and this was no different: we asked an old Berber herder, who was most helpful! The good thing is that Sarah and I speak Tamazight and Nate speaks Arabic, so between us we can communicate with everyone in the Middle Atlas. Except for French or German or Dutch tourists, I suppose… anyway, we found the water source at sunset. What a spring! Freezing cold, clear, fast running and high in volume! So constant that grass, grass! is growing all around it. The next morning we set out to find a TaHanut (little store) to resupply in Ait Maqabl, the nearby town. They do not get foreigners very often: we had 30 kids and 12 young men following us by the time we got to the TaHanut! Too funny, it reminded me of Tanzania. They were very helpful, showed us the way and picked up a water bottle that fell out of my pack. I met an incredibly striking Berber women, too. Most women wear semi-Berber-style headwraps or the traditional hijab of Islam, but she was wearing her hair in the super traditional Berber style: Two long braids with fabric woven in and crowned with brightly colored fabric. It’s regal and beautiful. I had never seen it before; more evidence of how isolated that town is! As we left town to find the riverbed we planned to walk down we got a lovely surprise! The riverbed was revealed as a huge, wide canyon! Gorgeous, and very difficult to get in a picture. It took us almost an hour to get from the canyon rim to the canyon floor (not a straight descent, but still!). We then walked down the river, passing the most truly Berber villages, meeting more women in traditional dress and having grapes pressed upon us by a nearly deaf older gentleman. Who watched us eat lunch, kept us company (even though he was fasting for Ramadan!) and then sent us on our way with an invitation to return for fast-break that evening, and went to pray. Sitting there cross-legged, for all the world like a Buddhist meditating, but chanting Allah Ahkbar… We got another surprise later: the canyon narrowed to huge red cliffs on either side of us, the river twisting and turning over the rocky bed. And, still, anywhere open was a tiny Berber dwar. We also found an offshoot, so beautiful… the cliffs were even higher here, some trick of geology left harder rock there, but the back of the offshoot (box canyon??) was a huge, dry waterfall. You could see where the water had carved channels in the nearly vertical rockface and where it lept off of overhangs to fall down and then run over a slope of rock shaped like a wide, curved staircase. We stood there in awe, looking over ferns and moss and beauty… brought Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven” to mind. On our way out we raided a few fig trees of late figs: DELICIOUS!!! I LOVE figs. Especially perfectly dried ones. We hiked out another long day, and made it to Berkine, my drop-off point. Sarah and Nate continued on through rainy weather and unknown territory all the way to Taza. Check it out on a map, that is no small distance!
I have come to love the land here, in its own way, on these hikes. The mountains are endlessly majestic, full of character and sadness. The rock is all that’s left in places, the dirt all eroded off for lack of trees. On one mountain you will find a thriving cedar forest, on another, a cedar graveyard. And one can witness cedar logs being smuggled out… they bring good money for people strapped for cash with few good ways to make more money. So hard to see… these majestic forests disappearing. The healthy cedar forests here rival the Northwest rainforests for majesty. I wish people would come to enjoy them, and pay the Berbers for the privilege!
Lots of it! I have been hiking all over the Middle Atlas these past few months. They’ve been pretty intense hikes, all done with two second-year volunteers, Sarah and Nate, or with the rais (president) of the herders association I am working with. They’re all fun people. Sarah and Nate are ambitious in their hiking plans, and they like to move quickly! I’ve learned to walk quickly carrying quite a bit, and to find my own trail. When hiking with the rais, we move still more quickly, aided by a mule carrying our bags. My favorite hike so far was one with Sarah and Nate. They planned an ambitious 7-day hike that included summiting Bou Nacer (highest peak in the Middle Atlas, I believe) and then traversing close to 100 km. I decided to cut the hike short and leave at the midway point, because of 1—my kittens, and 2—my need to be in site.
We started with Justin, my closest PCV neighbor, at his site. He walked with us up the mountainside and then returned that same afternoon. We camped in a dry riverbed and prayed for good weather the next day. As it turned out, those three days were the only good weather days for a couple of weeks. A good thing, it was freezing cold on top of Bou Nacer even in the full morning sunlight! The view from the top was great, I could see all the way to High Atlas in one direction and Tezzka in the other. It was an abnormally clear day, gorgeous! We then faced the descent: some 1000m of unmarked, steep scree slope riddled with gullies cut by recent storms and surprise cliffs, some over 100 ft in height. And my boots decided to start to fall apart. Duct tape to the rescue! We made it down after a stop for lunch, and found a herder’s trail to the village we were hoping to stay the night near. It’s always an adventure trying to find water sources, usually you have to ask directions, and this was no different: we asked an old Berber herder, who was most helpful! The good thing is that Sarah and I speak Tamazight and Nate speaks Arabic, so between us we can communicate with everyone in the Middle Atlas. Except for French or German or Dutch tourists, I suppose… anyway, we found the water source at sunset. What a spring! Freezing cold, clear, fast running and high in volume! So constant that grass, grass! is growing all around it. The next morning we set out to find a TaHanut (little store) to resupply in Ait Maqabl, the nearby town. They do not get foreigners very often: we had 30 kids and 12 young men following us by the time we got to the TaHanut! Too funny, it reminded me of Tanzania. They were very helpful, showed us the way and picked up a water bottle that fell out of my pack. I met an incredibly striking Berber women, too. Most women wear semi-Berber-style headwraps or the traditional hijab of Islam, but she was wearing her hair in the super traditional Berber style: Two long braids with fabric woven in and crowned with brightly colored fabric. It’s regal and beautiful. I had never seen it before; more evidence of how isolated that town is! As we left town to find the riverbed we planned to walk down we got a lovely surprise! The riverbed was revealed as a huge, wide canyon! Gorgeous, and very difficult to get in a picture. It took us almost an hour to get from the canyon rim to the canyon floor (not a straight descent, but still!). We then walked down the river, passing the most truly Berber villages, meeting more women in traditional dress and having grapes pressed upon us by a nearly deaf older gentleman. Who watched us eat lunch, kept us company (even though he was fasting for Ramadan!) and then sent us on our way with an invitation to return for fast-break that evening, and went to pray. Sitting there cross-legged, for all the world like a Buddhist meditating, but chanting Allah Ahkbar… We got another surprise later: the canyon narrowed to huge red cliffs on either side of us, the river twisting and turning over the rocky bed. And, still, anywhere open was a tiny Berber dwar. We also found an offshoot, so beautiful… the cliffs were even higher here, some trick of geology left harder rock there, but the back of the offshoot (box canyon??) was a huge, dry waterfall. You could see where the water had carved channels in the nearly vertical rockface and where it lept off of overhangs to fall down and then run over a slope of rock shaped like a wide, curved staircase. We stood there in awe, looking over ferns and moss and beauty… brought Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven” to mind. On our way out we raided a few fig trees of late figs: DELICIOUS!!! I LOVE figs. Especially perfectly dried ones. We hiked out another long day, and made it to Berkine, my drop-off point. Sarah and Nate continued on through rainy weather and unknown territory all the way to Taza. Check it out on a map, that is no small distance!
I have come to love the land here, in its own way, on these hikes. The mountains are endlessly majestic, full of character and sadness. The rock is all that’s left in places, the dirt all eroded off for lack of trees. On one mountain you will find a thriving cedar forest, on another, a cedar graveyard. And one can witness cedar logs being smuggled out… they bring good money for people strapped for cash with few good ways to make more money. So hard to see… these majestic forests disappearing. The healthy cedar forests here rival the Northwest rainforests for majesty. I wish people would come to enjoy them, and pay the Berbers for the privilege!
Kittens-October 1
I have two kittens. They were both gathered from the streets, and they are both sick. I have taken them to the vet, but the doctor wasn’t there and I decided not to stay another day to wait for him. The vet in question is in Fez, and to be legal according to Peace Corps policy, I needed to get back to site post haste. The vet tech saw me, but… well, the jury is still out: we’ll see how they respond. They’ve been half-dewormed (the second half to be administered in about 8 days) and I have medicine, but they are still sick, and it is a PAIN!!! I follow them around with newspaper and wet wipes trying (nearly in vain) to keep my house and blankets free of kitty poo. I’m sure it would be a pretty funny video if you put it on fast forward, actually. On the other hand, they are adorable. Two tiny, skinny kittens who think I’m their mother. One of them has even tried to nurse from my skirt… unsuccessfully… none of my clothing produces milk, as it turns out… ( They like to sleep and cuddle together and tear around like mad things when they’re feelin’ good. They also like to perch on my shoulders, curl in my lap, sneak under the covers, and climb straight up my legs. My fellow inhabitants of Ouled Ali are always asking if I do, in fact like living alone, and I tell them: I don’t live alone, I have two cats! Never fails to get them to laugh… But these boys do keep me company, and definitely keep me busy! Mothering these two little guys is a job! They get cold really easily (and I don’t have central heating… or any heating for that matter), are always hungry but fairly picky about what they’ll eat, have fleas that I’m trying to erradicate and poo accidentally every few hours. I’m glad to have them, though. They are company, no matter what anyone says. And they keep me warmer at night and serve as an excellent alarm clock between 5 am and 7 am. Why pay for a clock when you can raise it?
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