Fallout…

Well my dear blog readers it has happened again. I have wasted a perfectly good day or two trying to travel around the king's schedule. The last two weeks have been (and continue to be) something of a perfect storm of fallout for me, by which I mean that I continue to struggle with and work around the secondary and tertiary effects of events completely outside of my control. Let's take things in order. First of all, I'm not sure if everyone (or anyone) back home is aware, but a Volunteer serving in Morocco died recently. This, as you can imagine has sent shockwaves through the volunteer community and particularly the second year small business development and youth development groups. Second, shortly after her death we ran into l'eid kbir (pronounced laid ka-beer), which meant travel restrictions, social obligations, etc… Last but not least, the king came to my province which, while exciting, meant that all of the transportation the usually runs on a schedule abandoned their schedule, ran when they felt like running and left those of us not in the know hanging out to dry.

    This month I have been to Rabat twice. This is extraordinary and extraordinarily expensive. The first time I went to Rabat it was for the memorial service for my Peace Corps sister who, at only 23 years of age, was taken long before her time. It was a beautiful service and I would do absolutely nothing different if I had it to do over again. After all, if volunteers don't come together to support each other in time of need who will? However that basically cost me a week in site. This is a price that is difficult for me to pay right now because I am working on projects that require me to be in site right now.

    After that came L'eid Kbir. L'eid, as we call it, literally translates to the big feast. It is, as you might expect the biggest feast of the Muslim year and such an event that people travel from every part of Morocco to every other part in a rush to be with friends and family. As a result of the extraordinary travel conditions that are part and parcel of this holiday the Peace Corps heavily restricts travel during this time for Volunteers. Basically I yo-yoed from being stuck out of site to being stuck in site. What's more, the familial and social obligations inherent in this holiday mandated that I spend several days straight eating three meals a day with my landlord's family and my host family. It's not that I mind this at all, but this time I had no say in the matter.

The other interesting thing about l'eid is the menu, it's a sheep. Not just sheep meat, a whole sheep, all of it. I mean ALL OF IT. Right down to the eyeballs (which I was forced to tactfully refuse twice). I ate pretty much everything else though, liver, kidneys, intestines, stomach, lungs, heart, the fatty stuff under the skin, and of course brains. It was interesting and I found myself liking a lot of things that I thought that I wouldn't (brains with scrambled eggs isn't that bad). However, once again, the fallout was several days of touch and go intestinal distress.

    Immediately after l'eid the king came to town. I know what you're thinking, Presidential candidates criss-cross the states four or five times during the course of a presidential campaign not to mention the kind of travel they do when serving as President. It should be easy and fairly commonplace for the King of Morocco to hit every province once a year given how small this country really is. You would be wrong. The king makes his rounds on something like a decade rotation for the whole country. He hits each province about once every ten years. However, the south hasn't seen him in longer than that. I have been told that this is because there was an attempt on the last king's life perpetrated by a group of conspirators from somewhere in the southern provinces. As a result the south hasn't been graced by his majesty's presence in quite some time. This made his visit a big event.

When the King rolled into town everything stopped. Everything. His entourage requisitioned government buildings to put up his security detail. The local governmental institutions went nuts. Most importantly, for me anyway, the transportation infrastructure went completely haywire. They moved the bus and taxi stands across town. The Transit vans that I usually ride to and from site changed both times and locations. Some transport simply stopped running, and the population in whatever town the king was in tripled because of his security needs and curious out-of-towners.

The last thing that one need understand about the king visiting is that rumors fly thicker than flies in a pig sty. If it is rumored that the king will be going to some town in the next few days then every single transit, taxi, bus, and pick-up truck going to or from said location will be completely crammed full of people trying to see him. It doesn't matter if he shows up or not, they will still go in droves. It doesn't seem to matter that most of the time these rumors are simply that, rumors. People will still stop everything and go.

It was during this madness that I was called back to Peace Corps central to attend a meeting of the Volunteer Advisory Council. I'm just a back-up rep. for my class, but my lead rep. had a conflict so I was called into play. At this point people from the north who had come south to see family/king were beginning to trickle back north, and everything going north was completely full. For the first time ever I saw a taxi stand run short on taxis. Buses wouldn't even stop at cities between the stand they were leaving from and their final destination because they were crammed to the gills right off the bat. It was completely maddening.

I am more than happy that I am able to represent my fellow volunteers, and grateful that the king would finally roll through the southern provinces. However, combined with l'eid travel insanity and the extraordinary travel demands of this month already layered on me, by the end I was simply begging for mercy and praying for transport. The fallout has been extraordinary this past couple of months and I'll be happy when I can finally dig myself out from underneath all of this and start teaching English in my site. Hold on guys, I'm coming home I promise!

Loss and Hardship…

    A lot of what Peace Corps volunteers talk about is possibility and promise. We tend to be unabashedly positive people. However, recently Peace Corps Morocco was forced to acknowledge the negative possibilities that we walk along side throughout the course of our service. A volunteer from one of the southern provinces died unexpectedly on the afternoon of November 17^th in a hospital in Marrakech. We can't know the details of her passing due to the strictures of the confidentiality agreement we all sign at the beginning of our service. Despite this the volunteers close to her have put the pieces together and have determined a few illuminating things.

    First, we know that she was sick for about a month before being forced to seek medical help. On the morning of the 17^th her illness escalated rapidly, resulting in extreme nausea and a blinding headache. She was then taken to a hospital nearby where they determined that they could do nothing to help her. Afterwards they transferred her to the larger hospital in Marrakech where she died late in the afternoon with a Peace Corps medical officer by her side.

    She was twenty three years old. She was a member of my Peace Corps family, and though I only met her once I feel her loss keenly. We volunteers, especially those of us far from Rabat and the well served Northern provinces; often feel that we are our first and best support network. We are a family. To lose one of our own unexpectedly in this way can be devastating even to those who aren't close.

    Last Saturday, as of the writing of this post, less than a week after her death; her friends, her Peace Corps family, gathered in Rabat to pay homage to her life with us and the loss we all feel. I went, personally, because many of my friends were very close with her and I felt it was important to support them. The memorial service took place in the Peace Corps compound on a beautiful sunny morning. I remember being able to smell the sea that morning as a fresh breeze came in off the Atlantic. As if the earth itself was trying to fill the void we all felt as her body winged toward the other side of the sea.

    Her friends stood in front of us to share the ways that their sister had affected their lives. Her program staff stood up to say a few words about the work she had done and the lives she had touched. The Peace Corps librarian stood up to tell us about his relationship to her, she was a particularly widely read PCV, and during his speech something happened that sticks in my mind. He said, choking through tears, that he was sorry she had to die in his country.

    Now, almost five days later I can't let go of that moment in my mind. She had to die here. Why did he phrase it like that? Africa, the continent that probably birthed humankind has probably drunk more blood than any other place on earth. That is part of why we are here, because so much of that blood has been shed by innocents and bystanders in seemingly unending conflict. Some places are so soaked in human blood that the locals claim it has turned the soil red. Why? To what end have all of these lights been extinguished before their time? Is it really necessary? These are, of course, questions that we are largely unable to answer.

    In this instance I can answer this question, at least partially. My sister, my friend, sold her life dearly. She opened up beautiful possibilities in the lives of both her fellow volunteers and the children she worked with in her site. She was teaching some of the kids in her youth house German. No other volunteer has done, or probably will do, that. She forced the shyest volunteer I know to share her life story in a way that made her want to do it. She brought art and life to people for whom pessimism, cynicism, and perhaps even despair were standard operating procedure. She pushed and pushed and pushed her friends and colleagues to focus on what could be and not what is. She was relentless. I met her once and instantly liked her. Was all this worth her life? Who can say, the knee-jerk reaction is always no to that question. It's inappropriate to react otherwise, especially to the loss of someone who is so young; someone whose life had only just begun.

    However, the cold reality of the situation is this; it's something that all Peace Corps Volunteers have to live with. We are living in a place, no matter what country we get posted to, that could take our life. We have come specifically because there aren't the services and support infrastructure that exist in the states. The odds of something like this happening are fairly low, but it does happen. I've heard that the life expectancy of a PCV is ten years lower than the national average in the US. I don't know if that's statistically accurate or not, but the principle holds for every single PCV I've met. We are people who value the quality of our lives over the number of years we live it. We push ourselves outside of what is comfortable and familiar, some of us do so recklessly. Maybe this is difficult for our loved ones to confront when stated so plainly, but it is an enduring fact. We are here giving it our best despite circumstance every day. We are here living our ideals. We are here for you, for each other, and for the dream that JFK stated so plainly when he sold his bold plan to congress. Look up the speech, it's beautiful. We are here, and here we will stay, each taking his or her turn, until we are no longer needed. We are here until that happy day when the dream of peace and equality for all is realized.

    This is why my sister, my friend, had to die. This is the price of that dream sometimes. So if you share that dream I urge you to pay homage to the loss of a young and bright life by putting your money where your mouth is. Go out and volunteer somewhere. Go give comfort to those who suffer. They are everywhere. If you truly regret her death then help us end the need. Help us make the world a better place for everyone who lives now and even those who do not yet draw breath. It's easy. It's necessary. You can do it now. Don't wait till tomorrow, or until after your hair appointment or until your rent check clears. Don't wait till someone in your life is suffering to see that the need is everywhere. Go. Help. Do it now. Thank you.

Madame Secretary?

    Two days ago I shook hands with our current Secretary of State a certain Hillary Rodham Clinton. Maybe you've heard for her. You may have even voted for her in the primaries. She visited Morocco during the time that my class was in In Service Training. This was no more than a fortuitous coincidence and I would not flatter myself by saying that she was in any way here on our account, but she still made time for us in her schedule which is nothing to be sneezed at. Mrs. Clinton is in many ways a personal heroine to me and many of my friends.

    Beyond our personal admiration for her she has positively affected all of our services regardless of our personal political beliefs. Allow me to elaborate. Our previous administration also had a female secretary of state, but unfortunately she was serving under a president who ended his tenure so universally maligned (if not outright hated) in Morocco that her position actually hurt people's opinion of her. This time around things are a little different. Our current president's very recent African heritage makes it very easy for people here to identify with him. Occasionally they seem to even take a little too much ownership of his success in my opinion, but I'm not here to judge or pick nits so I will gladly let that slide.

    Hillary's sister is also married to a Moroccan man and her in-laws still live here. When you combine the fact that she is part of an administration headed by a half African man who is actively reaching out to the Muslim world with her role in spearheading that effort and her personal connections to this country you find yourself hard pressed to find a way to make her more beloved here. As a woman in power she has conducted herself in a way that is both assertive and dignified. She is about as good as it gets when it comes to positive female role-models.

    With that in mind you begin to understand what an asset she is to a volunteer trying to open young girls' eyes to the possibilities that await them in a moderate, and actively reforming, muslim country. I have thanked God for her every time my host-sisters have re-opened a book after talking about her. She is the living embodiment of hope for young women who's intelligence and ambitions far outstrip the lives that their mothers live. Without Hillary what would we say to girls who are on the verge of dropping out of school, to girls who see few options other than marrying early and living with their husband's family, or to girls whose villages judge them, not by their brains, but by their bread.

    I would be shocked right out of my socks if Hillary Clinton ever read a single word of my humble blog, but on the off chance that this ever happens I just want to say thank you Hillary for inspiring our girls to shoot for the moon and for being generous enough with your time to shake my hand and ask me how I'm doing. You are truly a blessing to Peace Corps volunteers in this country and many others. Keep up the good work and see if you can't put a dent in the Israel issue while you're at it. Peace out y'all and keep reading. I'll be posting more and more often in the upcoming weeks.

And Now For Something Completely Different…

    My sitemate left our site for the last time today. We moved the majority of her stuff into the scary room in the middle of my house and she left our site to go to America. Home. I feel all kinds of things right now, but mostly I feel like I'm just gonna miss my sitemate. Time to get back in the saddle.

    A little bit about my sitemate first, my sitemate was a unique individual in my life. She grew up in Ohio and a huge fan of the buckeyes. She was a cheerleader for most, if not all, of high school and then left it all for the west coast. She went to a small school in southern California for her undergrad and spent a lot of her time on and around the beaches of orange county.

    One her first major travel experiences, definitely the one that got her interested in travel, was a semester with the Semester at Sea program. Through this program she hopped from port to port around the world for the course of an entire semester while taking courses for college credit. My sitemate saw the world for the first time. At this point she was hooked on travel. I'm not sure whether or not she applied to the Peace Corps during her last year of college or shortly thereafter, but apply she did and was eventually accepted to the program in Morocco as a health volunteer.

    As with most prospective volunteers, she had a little down time between the end of college and the beginning of Peace Corps. She elected to spend this time travelling Central America. Her original plan was to backpack all the way back up to America, but she was offered a job by a young man who runs a hostel in Panama while she was passing through. She and her backpacking buddy elected to stay on as hired help and my sitemate's employer eventually became much more. So it was that she left for the Peace Corps with an amazing experience working in Panama and a wonderful boyfriend.

    All this describes how my sitemate came to be in the Peace Corps, but it doesn't describe her as a person. My sitemate is a bubbly personality; one of those people who never seems to run out of energy. She is relentlessly positive and social which made her a shoe-in for most the most integrated volunteer in our class. In our village she was constantly making the social rounds in a way that I couldn't even if I had been as enthusiastic. Her position as an American woman gave her access to both the private world occupied by women and the public world occupied by men. Her work at the sbitar (health clinic) made her a trusted person in our community.

    With me it was a little different. She was my confidant, friend, and fellow spectator on the Amazigh world. We shared walks out under the stars and discussed our philosophies on life, love, politics and everything else. She is thoughtful, intelligent, and open-minded. We laughed at our foibles and the many aspects of Moroccan life which seem ridiculous and bizarre to American sensibilities. My sitemate was steady and always willing to talk if I needed to. There at the end she was even getting to be a pretty good cook. She is driven, curious, and dogged in her pursuit of new skills and interests.

    This was, and still is, my sitey. Dearest sitey you will be sorely missed. I wish you all the success in the world and feel safe in saying that you will find success in anything you attempt. There aren't enough of your kind in this world and my site is all the poorer for not having you in it. Be good and tell yo' man that I'm insanely jealous of the fact that you will be a part of his life and not mine. It's just not fair. Marhaba any time you want to come back. The fellas down at the commune won't stop talking about how much they miss you and our favorite landlord has almost come to tears a few times talking about it. You are wonderful, unique, and a blessing to those who know and love you. This tribute doesn't come close to doing you justice and I know it, but I also know that you are generous enough to forgive me this and the fact that I didn't say all this to you in person. Bye babe.

You are not your effing Khakis!

    As someone who has collected a string of odd and different jobs, it has always been my stance that a person is not just the job that they perform. Experience has born this out for me over the course of my short and eventful life. Take my friend, we'll call her Molly, Molly is in her late fifties and is enjoying her third career as a gardener working for a large landscaping company near Asheville. She lives with her partner in Asheville, enjoys going to opera, loves the local art scene, and generally milks life in Asheville for all it's worth. However, the fact remains that in the reductive mindset of our times Molly is "just" a gardener.

    In my current life as a PCV I run across this dilemma in another sense. Many of the Moroccans I work with do not socialize with me outside of our interactions in the work setting. My interactions with PCVs tend to fall to the other extreme. I interact socially with PCVs much more than I do actual work with them, and when we do work it is often used as an excuse to create a social event.

    This dichotomy leads to a rather unfair double standard around the value many PCVs, including myself, place on relationships between Moroccans and PCVs and PCVs and PCVs. For example, if my counterpart is a nice guy who sucks at his job I will most likely think poorly of him because I don't interact with him in the social milieu in which he shines. The same holds true for basically any Moroccan in my life with the exception of my host family and friends in my site. It certainly is the tendency almost universally in my working life.

    On the other hand the standard by which I judge PCVs is much more lenient when it comes to their professional performance. These people are usually my friends first, and therefore if someone's personality rubs me the wrong way then it doesn't matter how good they are at their job I won't like them. On the other hand there are volunteers who probably aren't as effective as they could be and might even be outright hostile to Moroccans occasionally, but because I mesh with their personalities I find myself defending them when I shouldn't.

    The fact is that good people are good people, but doing what you say you're going to do is part of that. If you take a job and don't try to at least be competent at that job it indicates a failing on your part. Some personality defects affect other people more than others, but when you go back on your word you always hurt someone. Unfortunately I struggle with seeing the whole picture around both Moroccans and PCVs, and PCVs tend to get the better end of that deal. We aren't our jobs, but they are part of us.

    That is of course with the possible exception of myself. I'm afraid that I will forever be "Peace Corps Jack" to a small group of Fullbright scholars in Rabat. Thanks for putting me up guys, I appreciate the hospitality. Be good and DO WORK!

What’s the difference really?

    Last night I hosted a young lady who has been in Morocco for the past year working on a fullbright scholarship. She only has a little bit of time left and is reflecting on a lot of things that I will have to think about soon. What was the most valuable part of her project? Was her time here well spent? What is she going to do when she gets back to the US?

    I have heard a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers musing on these subjects as they approach their Close of Service dates. It makes me wonder whether we are not more similar to each other than it seems at first blush. On the one hand Fullbrighters are here to do research, and not necessarily provide technical assistance as such. However, they are put in situations that often demand that they lend a helping hand.

    We are told that we are supposed to be ambassadors for the United States from the first day we are in country to the second we leave. Fullbrighters are just told to do good research. Yet we are often placed in sites wherein American Culture is so out of the normative experience that it is difficult to find a common nomenclature, much less actually convey our value system effectively. Fullbrighters on the other hand mostly live in large cities whose populace is much more exposed to western media through advertising, magazines, and television. They actually have a good starting point for a common understanding, and based on our conversation last night they often are able to articulate our culture very effectively. Then again, a lot of what they study, we live. A lot of the people they interview we eat dinner with on a regular basis. They research and we experience.

    The fact of the matter is that Fullbrighters often talk a lot of trash about Peace Corps kids and vice versa. We, the Peace Corps, dominate this country's experience of Americans, even more so than tourists in many cases. There are over 200 of us and the Fullbright program only has 15 kids in country. They have a much harder time explaining what they do, because most people assume that they must be Peace Corps Volunteers or something just like it. It's easy to see how they could resent us. Then again, they get paid four times the amount that we do. They get to live in large modern cities with most of the amenities of home and a much smaller culture gap. It's easy to see how we could resent that too.

    Be that as it may, after hosting a Fullbrighter for dinner, after hanging out and watching the office, and after reminiscing about home I have to say that we have much more in common than not. I miss the same things that she does. We shared many of the same experiences, and struggled with many of the same things. We both feel a call to help those without the opportunities that we grew up with in America and we both feel changed in a fundamental way by our experiences here. We both love living abroad and we love being with the people to whom we have become very close. We are strangers in a strange land that is getting more familiar every day. We are united in so many things that the differences seem to pale in comparison. This post goes out to Steph. Thanks for the Apple pie, the laughs and the perspective. I have talked smack about Fullbrighters for the last time, and I wish you all the luck in America, life and love. See you soon Nsha'allah. ;-p

Long time no post…

Well, oh faithful readers, it's been a little while since my last post. A lot has happened, I have lost my bank card, got stranded for a while in someone else's site. I am organizing a workshop for a bunch of associations. I joined a fantasy football league. I identified an exciting lo-tech super green solution for a problem my community has with heating. I secured a commitment from the department of water and forests to help my community start an experimental fuel wood grove. A lot has happened.

    On the other hand, a lot has stayed the same. I am still hanging out in the same site with the same people, and having the same conversations. It's something that I hear from a lot of other volunteers aside from myself. "Why do we always have the same conversations?" The people in my site seem to like me, but the fact is that there is only so much we have in common. People here remind me of people in small town America in certain respects. They're content, settled, and largely unconcerned with life outside of this town. This is not to say that they don't have problems sometimes, that they don't go anywhere ever, or that they are apathetic. However, there is a certain investment in place that just doesn't register with most PCVs.

    What I mean by all this is that there are certain people who are willing to leave everything they know and love behind to do something they think will be incredible. There are certain people who will not do that, and very often think the former type is a little bit nuts. Oddly enough, joining the Peace Corps is one way that the former personality type is almost guaranteed to run into the latter. As a matter of fact, most health and environment volunteers are dropped right smack into the middle of tiny villages full of them.

    We, the adventurous "leave it all behind" type love to talk about the places we have been, the places we want to go, and adventures we want to have. Basically we're unapologetic dreamers and we talk like it. The people that we live with discuss things like who is talking/feuding with whom, the price their crops will fetch, the weather, and the price of transport. These are all valuable conversations to have if one lives in a small farming town to be sure, but after a while it becomes a little repetitive. You add to that a sizeable cultural and linguistic divide and things can get a little weird.

    That said, there are definitely moments that bring us all together. I experienced this for the first time yesterday. My fellow environment volunteers and I have spent the last three weeks organizing a workshop for local associations to educate them about some of the principals behind successful projects. We discussed things like group dynamics, community involvement, and monitoring/evaluation techniques. It was really rewarding to be able to involve our local associations in a dialogue not only with ourselves, but with each other. Just when I thought we had nothing in common I find that we are all looking to do the same thing, and that we can find common ground.

    Now, finally, I have a direct concrete answer for why I'm here. I'm here because it's possible for people who don't completely understand each other to work together. I'm here because we can do good, and we can find understanding. I'm here because I believe, as do all volunteers, that we have more in common than not. It's nice to finally have all this affirmed by completing a successful project; no matter how small.

This is why we can’t have nice things…

    I recently arrived back at site from a two week technical training in a city about four hours travel away from me. It was the first time my entire group had been able to spend more than a few days together in the same location. It was time for the grand social experiment to begin. The question we endeavored to answer is, what happens to young Americans when you separate them from everything that is familiar to them for three months and then bring them all back together in a place where they have access to the two staples of life in America, pizza and beer?

    The answer it turns out is rather surprising. The two sectors were housed separately in hotels across town from each other. The health group is almost all women and the environment group is almost all men. We were occupied for about 8 hours each day and then released into town until our curfew at 10:30pm. Given that dinner was at 8pm and there was a bar and a pizza parlor about halfway between the two hotels you can imagine that a lot of volunteers chose to abandon their respective hotels as soon and often as possible to do what we like to call "cross-sector exchange."

    For the most part we behaved ourselves, we used our free time to relax and talk shop. We exchanged horror stories about our sites and the various ridiculous experiences we have shared. We even talked about possible cross-sectoral projects that we could do if our sites happened to be close enough to each other to accommodate that sort of thing. However, almost all of this perfectly respectable socializing was done in the context of a steady consumption of beer and/or pizza.

    I suspect that the one thing I will never become accustomed to about this country is the reactionary way people respond to prohibitions. In our case, being denied time to socialize and drink during the last three months led to a glut of both when we were finally granted the opportunity. In some cases, to an excess, I won't mention any names (I never do) but there were a couple of people who used the opportunity to get completely hammered and/or start some drama. There were some heated words, a couple of people ended up crying, and some seriously awkward moments for folks in our stage.

    The worst thing that ended up happening happened towards the end of the week. Some of the folks in our group elected to break policy by drinking in the hotel that housed the event. Not only is this grounds for getting booted out of the Peace Corps if you get busted, it's highly disrespectful to our Muslim hosts, for whom drinking is completely forbidden. However, this is not to say that all Moroccans abstain, some do drink, but it's within a highly stigmatized social context. They look at drinking like we might look at using marijuana. At any rate, some of us drank in the hotel, and while they weren't caught, they left evidence of their debauchery to be found by hotel staff. Thusly did the hotel management and our program staff find out and suddenly everyone was in trouble.

    On the one hand I feel a little bit insulted that anyone would be so callous and stupid as to break the rules that flagrantly, but if I'm going to be completely honest, I must admit that I understand the impulse. We are adults, and are perfectly capable of handling ourselves as such. We are Americans who are living in a completely foreign and sometimes supremely frustrating culture. It would be nice to have a space that we can use to at least create the illusion of the familiar and comfortable. For some people this means being able to relax and drink with a few people in private. I don't condone what they did, but we are in a difficult situation working for people who sometimes seem ungrateful, and even hostile, despite the sacrifices we have made to come here. The folks who broke policy were dealing with this situation in the way that seemed most comfortable and familiar to them. I can understand that. Unfortunately for us, we can't afford that particular luxury. We are ambassadors for the US 24 hours a day. We are expected to be culturally sensitive ALL THE TIME, and that's why they pay us the big bucks.

Put on Your Traveling Shoes…

    Travel in the US is something that most people see as a minor inconvenience and occasionally a serious undertaking, but things are a little bit different here in Morocco. This weekend I will be travelling to a training session in a site north of mine so it seems appropriate to talk a little bit about travel. There are several different modes of travel available to PCVs in Morocco. There are trains, which are very limited in usefulness as they only run between a few of the largest cities. CTM buses are next up, these are government run tour buses that run at prescribed times along prescribed routes, they only stop at designated stops and are really nice. A step down from this are the souq buses, these run at prescribed times as well but are not as reliable because they'll stop for anyone with a thumb out as long as they have room for another passenger. After that you have the transit, which plays a large role in my life, these are converted Mercedes vans of various vintages and occasionally run according to a schedule but mostly just go when they are full. After that are the ever present taxis, these fit six, are occasionally terrifying (depending on the drive), and leave when they are full not a minute earlier. Some people hitch, but this is against Peace Corps policy and occasionally gets people in trouble when they ride with strangers. Most people who do hitch do so from site only and with people they recognize.

    The first thing to know about Moroccan travel is that things are rarely, if ever, on time. However they will occasionally be early and will not wait for you. Waiting, therefore, is a big part of getting around here. If I had a dollar for every hour I waited on transportation I could probably fly home for a bar-b-que sandwich right now. The other thing to remember is that things usually run in one direction in the morning and the other direction at night. It is important to keep this in mind when planning routes and travel times. Take, for example, the transit run from Imilchil to Beni Milal. This run leaves in the morning from Imilchil and will get you to Aghbala in under three hours. You switch transits there and it's just about two more hours to Beni. Seems easy right, it is, but only on the way to Beni from Imilchil. The return trip doesn't work quite that way, because the transit back to Imilchil leaves from Beni in the afternoon and gets to Aghbala in the early evening. The catch is that the transit that takes you the rest of the way leaves from Aghbala to Imilchil in the morning. Thusly you have to either spend the night in Aghbala and budget two days for the trip or take another route. As you can probably tell things get convoluted quickly.

    Another interesting wrinkle is that not all forms of transportation are available in all places. My site, for example has only transits. Thus, if you want to get out you have to plan on being ready at certain times. This is not negotiable, the transit will not wait, and it may not show up when you expect. Flexibility is key here. In some sites there is no set transportation schedule and "resident" transport. In these places you have to stand next to the road and wait for something to pass that has room in it. Very few people in these sites have cars; so hitching, if you are willing to risk it, usually isn't a reliable answer either.

The final, and worst, situation is the walk in site. In these sites there isn't even a road to stand next to. You have to hike out to the road to get to the point of waiting for something to pass. I met a young lady the other day that lives in a town eight kilometers from the nearest road. If her luck isn't running, and nothing passes, she walks sixteen K roundtrip for nothing and loses a day. There, but for the grace of god, go I.

On the other end of the spectrum are the sites in large cities. These sites almost always have active and available transportation. All of them have taxies that run throughout the city and to many other places. They usually have CTM stations, souq bus stations, transit stations, and a few have trains. You can literally get wherever you want to go at almost any hour of the day. Hopefully the city where I will be going for my training will have this kind of transportation. A decent Mexican restaurant wouldn't hurt either, but you can't have everything ;-P. Till next time ya'll, take it from me transportation is a luxury not a right. Enjoy yours while you have it, and think of those of us who don't occasionally. Peace.

What DO you do anyway?

    Recently I've fielded several questions about what I do in Morocco and what my responsibilities actually are. The answer to this question is a little bit more complicated than you might think at first blush, and I will try to explain this as clearly as possible. Peace Corps has three main goals; which are to provide technical assistance, to foster an understanding of American culture abroad, and foster an understanding of the cultures we operate in back home in the States. So, in reality I have three jobs in one.

    The first part of my job, technical assistance, covers one of the three projects I am working on right now. I have a grant proposal in the works to secure funding for the purchase of materials for the construction of five hundred meters of new irrigation canal in my main duwar (village). The idea is that by providing the start-up capital; the Peace Corps is providing an opportunity for many members of my community to learn and implement new skills so that next time they won't need us at all.

    The other two projects that I am working on are developing presentations for cultural events put on by Moroccans. These two events have different focuses, but satisfy the same Peace Corps requirement. That would be number two, communicating American culture abroad. The larger of the two festivals is a yearly event that gives volunteers in my province the opportunity to talk about stewardship, conservation, and adventure as we give the national park we live next a little bit of good publicity. The second festival is happening for the first time this year in my souq town. We had the first planning meeting for it a few days prior to this post, and it looks like our role will be to educate the public about pollution sources, recycling, and water conservation. These may not seem terribly "cultural" on the surface, but they convey to our audience something important about the United States. It says that our culture values forethought, thriftiness, innovation, and hard work. This message is not obvious on the surface but it is part of what I plan to speak about at these events.

    I am satisfying the last requirement of Peace Corps through several mediums. The first and most obvious means to that end is sitting right in front of your face. Through this blog I try, as often as I can, to send little snap shots of my life here back home to you. The other means of communication that I use is a program called Worldwise Schools. Through this program I will be sending letters and pictures back home to a class of elementary school students in the United States. I will try to give them an age appropriate version of what I try give you each week on this blog; a little taste of Morocco.

    The rest of my time is spent taking care of the mundane tasks that life requires of all of us, checking the mail, buying groceries, doing the laundry, and taking a little time for myself when I can. These things eat up a lot more of my time than I am used to, but that's part of the experience. Laundry, for example, takes an aggregate total of an hour, at most, in the states. I include putting it in the wash switching it over to the dryer and folding it. In Morocco it takes at least half a day, usually longer. I wash by hand which involves soaking, scrubbing and rinsing each piece of clothing. I then hang my laundry out to dry, this takes several hours on a sunny day, on a cold or cloudy day it could take much longer. Then I fold and put away my clothes. If I start at 8 am then I am usually done by two if I break for lunch. After that I can get on with cleaning my house, walking around my village to speak to the people I need to speak with, buying dinner groceries, and/or playing with kids. The same principal holds true for every task I considered easy or mundane in the states.

    So, while it may seem like I spend all my time travelling, drinking tea, taking showers, and hanging out in my souq town, I do these things as a means to an end. I travel an hour to check the mail, and three hours to my weekly market. So I spend a lot of time on a transit van having strange and interesting conversations and experiences. I drink tea before and after every business meeting or significant social interaction, to not do so would be rude, and frankly it's a social ritual I enjoy. I take actual showers once a week at most, the rest of the time I heat water on my stove in a kettle, stand in a large bucket and use soap and a big green cup to rinse, lather, and repeat. I hang out in my souq town waiting for my tutoring appointments, using the internet (see goal #3), haggling with vegetable and meat merchants, buying odds and ends, waiting for the transit back to site, and socializing with my fellow volunteers. The fact is that I do a lot of things, and spend a lot of time, that doesn't seem productive. I spend most of my time doing things that are not goal #1, and that's how it has to be, but life in the Peace Corps is a lot more complicated than just technical assistance. Life in the Peace Corps is like no other job one can possibly have. It stands alone, and that's why I'm doing it in the first place.

    I posted this because I was confused when I applied, and when I first entered training and again when I arrived in site. I had it completely wrong back home. The Peace Corps was nothing like I first imagined, and it's important to me that the people who read this blog have as clear a picture as possible about what the Peace Corps actually is. I want this to be a dialogue. I welcome your questions and feedback. I want everyone who reads this silly little blog to be as much a part of this as I am. So please, if there is something here that is confusing, doesn't make sense, or provokes any reaction at all, post a response. Find your local returned Peace Corps volunteer and ask them, they're out there I promise. We, all volunteers that I've met anyway, love to talk about our experiences. We have great stories, and we want our friends, families, and communities to understand this part of our lives. Thanks for reading, and thanks for writing. The best is yet to come…

While we’re dreaming…

    It seems like everyone on the mountain is getting care packages these days. While I don't feel any immediate and pressing desire for things that are completely unavailable in country, there are some things, looking forward, that would be very very useful to have. It is in the spirit of un-abashedly jumping on the proverbial band-wagon that I publish this, The Official Wish-List:

1. The largest tub of Peanut Butter available, I mean we're talking multiple-gallon-pump-handle-included here.
   
2. Same thing but with hot sauce. The hot sauce here sucks, it's bitter and hurts my intestines. I think there may be formaldehyde in it, but you know me, I'll probably eat it anyway. Unless I have something else, and Dave's Insanity Sauce would do nicely ;-)
   
3. Boxers… Mine are wearing thin and the stuff available at weekly souq is somewhat more than "gently" used if you get my drift. I would say that I'm a medium these days and continuing to shrink.
   
4. Warm socks, in two months, when this hypothetical package arrives, it'll be fairly cold up here on the roof of North Africa.
   
5. A good 8" chef's knife, the knives available here look like the ginsu infomercial guy would cut them in half to prove how sharp his knives are. This is to say that they are largely useless for any real cooking task; cutting things, for example.
   
6. A high capacity USB with a hardware read-write lock on it. Your best bet would be to ask the guys at Best Buy what that means if it doesn't make sense to you.
   
7. Annie's Mac n cheese various flavors
   
8. Toothbrushes maybe three or four would keep me going for a while
   
9. A French Press coffee maker
   
10. A thermos
    
11. Butterfingers, I don't care what size, I just miss them
    
12. Any type of pork product you think would survive two months in the mail, pepperoni in log form; that sort of thing.
    
13. Dried spices, mainly basil, five spice powder, and gumbo file. A few cans of thai curry paste would be nice too red or green I don't care either way, but my sitemate likes to make green curry.
    
14. Books, good books, any books, picture books. Anything to stave off the boredom that includes words on paper in English.
    

Alright blog readers that's all I can think of for now. Keep in mind that this is a wish list not a need list. I can and will survive just fine without any of this stuff. That said a few people have asked me for my address so they can send stuff and what I would like. I would like to say in advance that I appreciate anything sent and will do my level best to reply in kind with postcards letters and whatnot. Some notes on mailing things to Morocco…DO NOT INSURE ANYTHING!!! They will make me pay a bribe for the amount of the insurance in US dollars, which I don't have access to. If something is in brand new packaging take it out and mark it used. Don't label stuff fragile, just pack it with the assumption that it will not be handled gently. Please don't send me anything that says alcohol, pork, Christian/Christ/Christianity, or has naked/racy pictures on the outside. I have to look the people I will pick this package up from in the eye for the next two years. Basically give no clue on the outside of the package that the contents are any more valuable or interesting than pencil shavings. Thanks again for anything you feel moved to throw into the mail. If you need my address you can feel free to contact me via Facebook or e-mail. I will not post that information on this oh-so-public forum for safety/security reasons. Peace out ya'll and thanks for reading.

What it is….

    Ok, so I have just finished my second Khaled Hosseini novel about a semi-fictionalized war torn Afghanistan, and I think it's about time I waxed poetical on ya. I would first like to say that I am writing this on very little sleep so, be warned, this might very well not make any sense. That said I would like to reflect on the concepts of peace and freedom very briefly from the semi-unique vantage point of an American living in a tiny tiny Berber village on the roof of North Africa.

The first thing everyone reading this should know is that the word the people I live with use to refer to themselves is "Amazigh" which translates roughly as "the man who is free." In the plural, the Amazigh are the free people, and they come by this honestly. They have protected their freedom through force of arms, guile, and diplomatic shenanigans for well over seven thousand years in the high atlas mountains not to mention the rest of North Africa (apparently "Nile" is an Amazigh word). The only foreigners ever to make it to the high pass just past my site, which could rightly be called the beating heart of the Amazigh world, have been tourists. Let me repeat this for posterity, according to almost everyone I have spoken with so far THESE PEOPLE HAVE NEVER BEEN CONQUERED.

In other words, while America has all the pretty words and the slick lyrics about freedom, the Amazigh have ALL the street cred. When it comes to freedom, the people that I live with have an interesting take on things. Seemingly, to them, freedom means that you are free to do whatever it is you want within the strictures of Amazigh social structures. This mostly means that there are three societies. The first is the family, and young children get away with murder here. However, they all know what the consequences are if they get caught, but on the other hand there is no oversight. The tension here is that as long as you stick with people who either have no power or influence over you, other children, or people who will forgive you everything will be fine. The only rule, in a more cynical interpretation is, don't do anything in front of people who will tell on you unless the consequences don't matter to you. The funny thing is watching a dirty, snot nosed, barely clothed six year old run this calculus in their head before they pee in the street or throw a rock at a cat.

The second society is men's society. You enter this society at approximately puberty and are cemented as a member when you marry, but only if you are male. From what I've heard, this is actually the most restrictive of the three societies. This is because women occasionally float through this society as do the gendarmes and religious authorities. However, on the whole, on your average day in the tea shop men will usually talk politics, gossip, cars, music, and/or sex/women. They feel free to say things that have no basis in the rational world and everyone's opinion is weighed, some hold more weight than others, but if you are actually a member of men's society your voice can and will be heard. In the workplace I have seen the full gamut of behavior, from frantic activity that would put an ER nurse to shame to absolutely, no kidding for real, nothing. This suggests to me that one's productivity is largely a matter of personal choice and a testament to the personal freedoms that the Amazigh enjoy. This is, of course, highly dependent on the good graces of your co-workers and family, but the Amazigh push the extremes farther than anything that I have seen in the US.

Women's society, the third, is the one that I have the least direct experience of and the most respect for. This world is a bubble whose existence is hemmed in by, defined by, and occasionally in open defiance of men. It is a world of long days full of hard work, and worst case isolation. However, I personally would not want to live the life of a man who isolates his wife. Hell hath no fury and all that certainly applies. On the flipside women sit in front of their houses for hours talking, they visit each other as often as they can, and they practically run the fields here sometimes. There is certainly ample time to talk about things with each other that would curl your average man's toes and send him running to the mosque. Women's society is all about creating a safe space and utilizing that outlet to do whatever you want without regard to what may or may not be proper. This is, however, hearsay I cannot verify this paragraph directly and will not name names when it comes to who my sources are. Feel free to call this unmitigated BS if that is your preference, but this is what I have heard.

The dialectic tension between freedom and restriction here is very different from anything that I have seen in the states. Yet, despite the aspects of this social structure that chafe and feel smothering to my American sensibilities I am forced to admit that I have never seen people more likely to do absolutely anything at any given moment. This is the essence of freedom right? The ability to look up in the middle of whatever you are doing and decide to do something different whether that be sleeping at work, climbing from the inside of a van going 60 Kph to the roof without waiting for it to stop, to claiming out loud and in public that Allah has blessed you with a premonition that Barack Obama will become a formula one driver or soccer player, or even opening your home to someone you've known for moments for as long as they wish to stay free of charge. I have seen Amazigh people do all of these things without hesitation, and answer, if challenged, that they are "free to do as they wish, and who are you to say otherwise thank you very much; now get out of the way." If that ain't freedom I don't know what is…rock on free people! Till next time ya'll.

Happiness is a warm shower…

    Hygiene is my favorite Peace Corps paradox. We, as volunteers, are supposed to be shining paragons of American virtue. This, of course, includes being clean and presentable the vast majority of the time in our sites and when travelling. The problem is that attitudes toward personal hygiene are reflected in infrastructure. This means that, in a culture like ours, we include amenities in newly constructed houses like showers, hot running water, integrated indoor plumbing, and deep sinks that facilitate our daily hygiene habits. However, in a culture like Morocco's, the hygiene infrastructure included in newly constructed domiciles is much more limited as a reflection of slightly different attitudes towards personal hygiene.

    This is not to say that Moroccans are dirty. They most certainly are not! However, Moroccans, unlike most Americans, actively evaluate whether or not they are dirty and decide based on this whether or not to bathe on any given day. Americans, on the other hand, bathe according to a preset routine whether we need it or not. In my experience of rural Morocco there are certain hygiene activities which occur on a daily basis. These are the washing of the face and hands, for some this includes washing ones hair as well. These particular activities require very little in the way of constructed infrastructure, a bucket full of water will do nicely. It doesn't even really need to be heated, unless it's below freezing in your house.

    This puts PCVs in an interesting bind. Do we wake up each morning and take the hour or more required to execute a proper bucket shower? Do we forgo this extensive and intensive process and hope no one notices? What about the health ramifications? Boils are not unknown among the volunteers in Morocco. How long is it acceptable to go without a shower; one day, two days, or even a week? The Peace Corps Medical Officers say every two days is necessary, but what if your site only has running water for a few hours a day. You might not even do dishes every two days if that is the case.

    In this I am fairly fortunate. I have "running" water in my house all day every day, although the pressure sometimes leaves something to be desired. My bit l'ama (literally "water room"; read bathroom) is large enough to comfortably bathe standing upright in a bucket of heated water, and I have a kettle up to the task of heating enough water to bathe. As a result I bathe regularly. I know other PCVs who are not as fortunate, some have to hunch down to fit into their bit l'amas, some don't have running water in their houses consistently or even at all, and some still live with their host families. There are at least as many answers to the hygiene question as there are volunteers, and hygiene practices are often season and site specific. If you live in a cold site and don't sweat much or expose very much skin to dirt, then bathing doesn't seem as important. If your site is hot and the only relief you get is a cold water shower then you might take one or more showers every day.

    The take home message is this: do not judge a scruffy volunteer too harshly or quickly. This person may be dealing with circumstances you are unaware of and probably will never have to share. They may be cleaner than they appear under their untidy mane of shaggy hair and stained pants. They might just be getting back from a long trip on hot, dirty, and uncomfortable transportation. You might just look down one day and realize that you are not so clean yourself, so smile and shake hands with the scruffy among us. Jesus might not have lumped the crusty in with the peacemakers and the meek in that famous sermon, but you can be sure that in this particular situation he would have praised their courage and determination, if not their odor.

What A Job…

    The Peace Corps now asks us how far we will go. They used to tell us that this is the hardest job we will ever love. I'm not a hundred percent sold on either of those statements. This job takes you, not as far as you choose to go, but as far as the Peace Corps decides to take you. What if I get to my site and think, I want more… this isn't as far as I can go. There are a couple of volunteers who I think this might be true for. One of them lives in a large city in a nice apartment, he has a steadier gig than I do, far more like a straight job than anything that I have going, but he also lives in a little slice of America. I have to ask myself if he thinks that he could've gone farther, gone without the flat-screen and the six satellite networks he has access to. I have to admit that I wouldn't turn down any of the amenities that he has, but if I were in his situation I would have to say that yes, I can go farther.

I wouldn't say that this is the hardest job that I've ever loved either. I loved tree-climbing which was physically and mentally much harder in certain ways. However, I will say that the Peace Corps is as hard as you make it. I, like any volunteer, could choose to do more. I could plan out my every waking moment and dedicate myself to studying, integrating, doing projects, and communicating Moroccan culture back home more than I currently am. Maybe Peace Corps needs a new motto.

    I think that "choose your challenge" fits pretty well. There aren't a whole lot of things that we actually have control over in the Peace Corps, but our level of challenge is one of them. For every volunteer there is a certain baseline, some of us struggle with language more than others do, some of us take issue with certain aspects of Moroccan culture, some of us have a hard time just being in site, but for all of us there is a baseline which constitutes to degree to which the Peace Corps is a challenge for us every day. For some of us, that is enough; there is no need to go looking for challenges. Given the circumstances, survival presents enough of a struggle. For others there is more wiggle room, these folks have the good fortune of being able to pursue ambitious projects and make lots of Moroccan friends. They get to choose their challenge.

    I personally feel that it's too early in my service to nominate myself for one category or the other despite the fact that I have a big project in the works and several others in the pipeline. I'm not where I need to be in terms of language yet, and I'm integrating more slowly than my sitemate is. On the other hand our sectors are different and they require a different relationship with our community. The truth of the matter is that everyone's service is unique, and you never know what will have a lasting impact and what won't. Every day is different as well, some days it's all that you can do to get out of bed and keep breathing. Some days you end up leading an impromptu sing-a-long about the virtues of recycling in your town square. The one thing that is always true is that you, and only you, choose what kind of day today will be.

So get up, strap on your boots and make your choice. What kind of day will today be? Tomorrow, you can only live with what you've done, and yesterday you couldn't have possibly seen what was going to happen today. Today is different. Today is the day you get to choose your challenge. Today is the day that you get to say yes when life asks if you are up to the task at hand. Today is the day that you get to say I need to take care of me. Today is the day you get to say I have the opportunity and means to make something happen, to make someone smile, to make a cake, or to make a dent in my bed. What is important is that you recognize that tomorrow doesn't exist yet and yesterday is gone forever, but today is yours and yours alone and it's your decision. So what's it gonna be ya'll? Make the call, because it's all on you.

Souq Townage…

    Ok ya'll, this is the first time that I've written a post from somewhere other than the living room of my new house. That said, if I come off as snippy or weird it's because my souq town is hot, noisy, and smelly. That's the first thing that hits me when I get to my souq town each week. I exit my nice breezy transit van and I am nearly floored every time by the overwhelming sensory experience that is souq town. We have about 13 volunteers stationed around this particular souq town, and we see each other on a weekly basis, give or take.

    Souq day is the day that the weekly market rolls into town. The vendors serve as many towns as they can/want to on a weekly cycle. Therefore there is usually a souq of some sort going on in a village on the mountain every day of the week. My souq town, however, is large enough that I have access, not only to a sizeable souq, but also to cyber cafés, restaurants, a hotel with a western shower, established stores selling everything from veggies, to underwear, to motor oil, to beds, to electronics, and "authentic" Rolexs, tutors, and occasionally one Dirham soft serve. The latter being the holy grail of any souq town trip. Souq is also the only place you are likely to see many of your fellow volunteers at once. We all have the same souq town and souq is the same day for all of us, and ostensibly we are all here for the same reason. Souq is much much more than that though…

The sun here is intense, where it is merely a little aggressive up on the mountain where I live. If the smell of goat dung, earth, and the river is like someone singing softly in the background of the larger song of my little town, then the smell of trash, grease, and humanity in my souq town is like the sweaty muscle-bound lead singer of a metal band growling death and destruction into a mike ratcheted all the way up on the sound board. The flies here are an aggressive sort that seem to stay six inches behind the top of your head and are impossible to disperse or dissuade. The people are really friendly though, and I am slowly building a community of folks who know and like me. For example…

The guy I got my speakers from offered me a complimentary cup of coke today when I bought a USB drive. This is after he had to hoof it to his store room (a ten minute roundtrip) to get one with eight gigs on it because I wanted it and he didn't have it with him. My favorite chicken restaurant is run by two brothers who both know me by name and give me free tea whether I want it or not. The lady at my cyber not only makes eye contact but smiles shyly at me when I come in now. This only took two months to accomplish, Moroccan woman DO NOT interact with men they don't know in public. The guys at my favorite café like to test my, now feeble, Spanish and will sit and play rummy with me when the shop is slow. I could mention a few more but you get the idea…

I don't know what the ideally integrated volunteer is, or if I should be picking places to shop and frequent based on the advice of other volunteers. There is something to be said for a united front after all. However, I do know that I'm creating a group, strike that community, of people who know me and treat me as an individual. It very well may be, that to almost everyone in my souq town I am nothing more than a walking dollar sign with a pasty complexion and strangely colored eyes, but to a very few I am Jamal who speaks a little Tamazight and likes to make silly jokes. That fact, and not much else, makes going to my souq town every week a pleasure that I look forward to. The heat, the smell, the flies, the trash, the greasy food; all these things melt away when I think about going to see my friends. That's what going to souq is all about for me.

Morning in the New House…

    Today I woke up for the second time in my new house. It's an interesting sensation to be able to wake up alone, make coffee without being asked or offered breakfast, and generally pursue my morning at my leisure without regards to anyone else. It's the first time I've been able to do that in almost exactly two years. Talk about a breath of fresh air.

    Now don't get me wrong this is not the best living situation I've ever had. I'd give that honor to a certain house on the campus of Warren-Wilson College. However, right now I have high ceilings in a spacious apartment whose walls are covered in art that I inherited but enjoy. I have no dearth of fresh fruit and vegetables available to me and time to cook good and tasty meals. Aside from the fact that I live in a place where many of the amenities I once enjoyed are the stuff of fantasies for almost everyone in my village this is the best of all worlds. My ally and site-mate lives downstairs from me, and my landlord live catty corner across the road. We, my site-mate and I, have an almost ideal living arrangement.

    So here I sit, with coffee in hand, listening to American music for the first time in months, free to stay in my PJs all day if I really feel the need. Life doesn't get much better than that. That said I plan on going to my commune, cleaning and setting up my house, cooking lunch and dinner, feeding the cat, and preparing for the fourth of July at the lake. Not to mention practicing language for at least an hour. I must admit that typing up my notes for my impending bicycle presentation, and working on my irrigation project need to feature prominently in there somewhere as well. It's not like I have any shortage of things to do, but it's nice to fantasize that I could take a day for myself if I wanted. After all, in a place like this it's those pleasant fantasies that keep us going sometimes…

When business isn’t business…

    Working in Morocco is a strange and unfamiliar proposition. It is characterized mainly by doing things that I wouldn't normally characterize as work. Drinking tea is a fantastic example of this phenomenon. I am almost embarrassed at times to admit how much of my work day is spent drinking tea and shooting the breeze. It's not something that registers from my working life in America. I'm fairly certain that if the Moroccan work force were held to the same time management standards as the American work force is, this ritual alone would render the vast majority of them unemployed.

    This is, of course, a completely unfair characterization for several reasons. First off is that here nothing gets done if there's no tea. Tea is not just tea in Morocco; it is a social barometer and vehicle for countless shades of social nuance. For example, if the tea served to you in a Moroccan home is cold something is wrong. It could be something as serious as the prelude to you being declared persona non grata, or it could simply mean that you were later than you told them you were going to be and now they are expressing their displeasure. It could be that there is a family emergency and the best that could be done under the circumstances is cold tea. Whatever the case may be cold tea is the first indicator that you need to step carefully.

    In a workplace situation finding hot tea waiting for you at a business meeting, such as the ones I've had in the local commune, is a promising sign. It can say a lot of things, but the basic underlying message is that "we have made your visit a top priority in our office; you are being taken seriously and will be listened to." It makes the greetings and handshakes typical of an American business meeting seem crude and obtuse in comparison.

Moving Day reflections….

If there's one thing that I have learned about Morocco it is to expect the unexpected. This holds especially true reflect on the last few days leading up to today. This morning I officially moved into my new house, and have left my second and final home stay behind. I must say that in the days leading up to this momentous occasion I anticipated feeling relieved, liberated and satisfied. What I didn't, and couldn't, anticipate is feeling sad about leaving my host family. They have become my family, and while having my own space after four months in country feels like taking the first breath after being underwater for too long I will miss them. If I'm going to be totally and brutally honest it's not just them in particular…

The truth of the matter is that I haven't lived by myself since the spring of 2007. That was a rough time in my life, but that aside I really enjoyed the experience. Since then I have become used to the noises and little things that indicate a hundred times a day that you are not alone. In my most recent housing arrangement it was the sound of children playing in the hall, the smell of cooking, conversations in Tamazight. Before that it was pots of pea soup left on the stove by my grandparents to simmer for the afternoon, and my Mom's habit of talking semi-unintelligibly as she walked away through the echoing rooms of that giant ranch style monstrosity. Having none of those subtle sensory cues in my new home is going to be strange to say the least, especially considering how much larger it is than my other solo living apartment.

Now, for the first time in a long time it's up to me to carve out a home in a place that is far from my friends, family, and all that has been familiar to me for so many years. It might appear to the casual observer that I am being melancholic or "emo" about this situation, but I'm just trying to state the facts. I think that it's exciting. So far I have been an ambassador for the United States by socializing and working on my project. Which has been rewarding, but I'm ready to do more. Now I get to demonstrate those aspects of the American psyche I find most compelling (determination, resourcefulness, and thrift) by creating a welcoming space that represents me in a place that is both beautiful and unfamiliar on a shoestring budget with "locally available materials."

I'm looking forward to welcoming my new Moroccan friends over for tea. I hope that my house becomes a home that is familiar, not just to me, to many of my friends Moroccan and American. I look forward to sitting on my patio and greeting the people who live on my street as they pass by. I look forward to hosting my fellow PCVs for educational events, group projects and planning sessions. I look forward to experiencing the full cycle of this place in a space that is entirely mine…

Travel shenanagins part 1 (the icy north)

So, I think that North America is trying to send me a message...That is to say that I'm about to leave for a mild climate/desert country, and what do I get on my travel day? Sub-freezing temps and damn near a blizard in DC. Thanks a lot continent!
Zack and I ventured out to the trainstation this morning at a bracing 6am and got (after a half hour wait) onto the wrong bus. After a 30 minute bus ride to a place we could've walked to in fifteen minutes we got on the right bus and made our way to the metro. The whole time people are looking at me like I'm nuts because I'm riding mass transit in DC with two large packs on. By the time we actually made it to Union station I had missed the deadline to check my bags, and got to lug them around some more....YAY! It was smooth, if really really cold, sailing after that, and I made it to the hotel with no further incidents. That's all for now, I'll try to post later...Much love much respect. Once again, your man in the sand.

Jack

PS: Philly steaks in Philly really are better....mmmmm mmmm beef!

Hanging out in da city

Well, oh blog readers, I am now in sunny beautiful Washington DC. Except that it's gray and cloudy and I hate cities. Oh well, I'm kicking it with my two favorite dudes ever, Thomas Mayfield and Zack Bly (who says hello to all you Cup-A-Joe and Chelsea folk by the way), which is pretty awesome. As of right now we are planning some ridiculous movie watching and simple craft activities for this afternoon. In case you are interested there are some awesome how to videos on the Youtube under the search title weekend projects with Bre Pettis. Today's activity seems to be making bike messenger bags out of fused plastic bags, recycling is cool.
Last night the four of us, Zack, Thomas, Liz (Thomas' long time GF), and I went to dinner at a local Mexican Restaurant. We were having such a good time cracking jokes and being ridiculous that the waitress actually hung out at our table for a good portion of our meal to share in the giggling and frivolity. By the end of our meal she was flirting with Zack and telling us about her life. It just goes to show that if you are having a good time then people will join you, unfortunately they won't knock items off of your bill. Oh well, you can't win them all I suppose.
Well, that's it so far, I hope that things are well in the piedmont. I miss you all and wish you the best. Be Good Ya'll, or at least don't get caught. Remember to have a little fun!

Your man in the sand,
Jack

Hi mom

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