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.