Thursday, March 19, 2009

Upon Arrival


Hey All,

So I don't even know where to start.... I love Peace Corps/Morocco!! K, now I will try to explain. I have been in country for 17 days now and “home” and the life I had before I got on the plan seems/feels like I left it so long ago. I think this id due mostly to the fact that nothing feels the same here. Morocco is beautiful. The terrain is more varied and breathtaking than I could have possibly imagined. There's beaches (which I have yet to see), snow capped mountains, desert, green rolling hills- and it changes so suddenly. One second your driving through green rolling hills with rivers and lakes and literally go around a bend in the road, and the geography turns to rocky arid red earth, scarcely spotted with different varieties of trees. Its spring here and the trees are blooming, which just makes the whole sight/experience that much more awesome. I can't wait to begin traveling around following CBT (Community Based Training). Right now I'm in my second of eight weeks of CBT training. The name of the village I and the other 5 members of my CBT group are stationed in, is, Ait Mhamed. During CBT training which is basically language acquisition and culture training; we are not allowed to travel or spend the night outside Azilal. Azilal is our “hub sight”. Meaning the nearest actual city, its roughly 40 minutes away. Azilal is beautiful as well. Even more beautiful then Ait Mhamed. Our CBT group and out LCF (Learning C Facilitator) travel to Azilal once to twice a week to meet with the other CBT groups of Environment volunteers, get shots, and what are basically survival presentations. Like what to do if you get stung by a scorpion, ringworm, get a snake or dog bite (rabies is a problem here and there are packs of feral dogs that roam around the village), etc...

My host family is amazing. I totally lucked out! They have nothing (no seriously, nothing) and I mean this in the most respectful way possible. Besides, I adore Njma (my host mom) and would never speak badly of her. But laugh all the time and are exceedingly kind and patient with me. Njma, her daughter, niece and mother live in two bedroom house. I am now living in one of the two bedrooms which I feel real guilty about, but what can I do. The grandma is pretty sick and stays/sleeps in a little room/storage area above the house most of the time. So I don't see much of her and she is not really into chatting with me in my horrendous Tamazight; which I completely understand. Njma, Zinup, and Ilham are some of the most inspiring people I have ever meet. They are simply- good people. The first night I got to Ait M'hamed I got really sick for some reason and started vomiting. They were so good to me. They took me to the bathroom and stood two feet away looking extremely concerned while I pucked into a Turkish Toilet (not a pleasant experience) and then brought me back to my room, brought me water, extra blankets and pillows and proceeded to check on me periodically throughout the night. Pretty much what anyone would want if they were throwing-up, night one in someone else's house, in a foreign county where the language spoken simply sounded like gibberish. I didn't even know where to go to throw-up. But I communicated the issue pretty clearly through nonverbal communication; it came fairly naturally. Lol... Njma only has a index finger and thumb on her right hand which, from what I can tell she simply excepted years ago. Neither her nor any of the other woman in the village seem to notice. She is not slowed down by this in the least- shes a weaver by profession. Her daughter Ilham, is deaf and mute. Njma and Zinap communicate through a sign language system that from what I can tell, they have developed themselves said it works great for them. They seem to have less frequent miscommunication then my mom and me and we can both speak. They crack jokes to one another all the time. I miss/can't figure out the content of a lot of them, but it is comforting to me, to see the moments joy and laughter they display everyday. They have a much reason as anyone to feel bitter or jipped. However it doesn't seem like it would even occur to them; why, would one waste time with that when you can take pleasure in life and those around you. They laugh at me quite a bit. My lack of wife/women skills, my Tamazight, the way I end up acting everything out after 10 minutes of failed attempts to communicate in Tamazight. Zinap usually figures it out right away, which makes since.
There is not a man in the house which has been a huge relief since a lot of the training I received during stagging before coming to Ait Mhamed dealt with handling and minimizing harassment from men, which can range from men in the village to possibly your host father. Plus this allows us to be more open with each other. For example I showed them pictures of me and my family and some where from the Oregon coast and Allie, Elliott and I were naturally in bathing suits. This would have been a major taboo had there been a man in the room. The women “shouldn't be looking at pictures of men without shirts and pants on and it would be inappropriate for a man to look a picture of a woman in a bathing suit with other women around”, basically I would have just made everyone uncomfortable. Plus we get to laugh and have girl jokes. Or the other night they played me some Tamazight music and showed me how to dance, they were really, really good. This was so fun! This too however would not have been permissible had there been a man around. Women don't dance around men, really, from what I gather. It would be considered somewhat promiscuousness or a sign of promiscuity.

With this said, please don't take these has hard and fast cultural standards. These are simply generalizations for the sake of explanation. What is considered taboo varies from region to region and village/cities within the different regions of the country. Also from what I understand, things are staring to be much less conservative in the bigger cities. Your not going to see a woman wearing a tank-top by any means, but perhaps a man and women holding hands or a women in heals. I obviously do not have contextualize understanding of the culture and the point, which is primarily based on values associated Islam.
The language is really hard but I feel I'm doing ok, or at least keeping up with my group.
I will add more later when I get I chance but am out of time for now.

Take care and best wishes!

Love,

Emily