a week in the bled

we got back from the vacation on saturday. it was quite an experience. last sunday we left via taxi with several other people and went through marakesh and spent the night in ourzazarte. we spent time with a few of the current volunteers and with some of the enviornment trainees (who we split up from after leaving rabat). it was great to see some of my friends again. the next day we left with peter (our volunteer/host for the week). we took a taxi/bus back to his site after checking in with the gendarmes (police) and letting them know we were here. eli (the other trainee that i took my field trip with) and i stayed at peter's house the first night. it was a long drive in a van with 18 or so other people in it (way more than really should fit) through a long and winding road. you really have to put a lot of confidence in the driver for a ride like that, any second you can fall over the edge of a mountain. but, we figured that the driver wanted to keep his van and stay alive as much as we did. the first night at peter's site was really windy. he lived in a douar (village) about a 15 minute walk from the main douar. it was a beautiful site high in the atlas mountains. there was a ton of water and greenary everywhere. one of the main sources of income in this area is agriculture, so a lot of time is spent with irigation and controlling the water (aka flooding everything in sight). we got to peter's house (which is an old grainery that he transformed into a livable area). there was a courtyard with stairs going up to an opened kitchen (not quite outdoors, but pretty much) and one bedroom/all purpose room. i really liked it, it had a very peace corps vibe to it. we spent 3 hours in the windy kitchen making dinner. peace corps volunteers tend to be amazing cooks because they can spend hours making meals, because, frankly, there isn't usually much else to do. we had some sort of seasoned beef, cheese cauliflower soup, and seasoned rice. it was amazing. most of the food we ate with peter came from the peace corps recipe book, which i'm told is a fantastic collection of good recipies. over the next few days we spent time traveling to a view different douars and seeing what they were like and shadowing him as he worked on finishing up some projects. we taught at a school in the area and taught them about brushing their teeth and washing their hands, the younger kids got to color some healthbased sheets. we visited the sbitar (the local clinic) and met with the doctor and watched vacinations being given. it was really interesting, because when i am in site i will be spending a lot of time in the sbitar. unfortunatly, this was a day the doctor was on strike (which is a legal strike that happens once a month or so) so they were only giving vacinations and treating emergancies. we stopped by the netti (which is a place that the women in the area get together and usually make rugs, but it tends to be place for female volunteers to get to know the women and connect with them. we also saw some of the work that peter had done at his site including bringing running water to his village. they had already had a resevior and a well and just needed a pump and pipes to finish the project. he was able to get funding and put running water and bathrooms into 50 houses in his area. it was great to see a volunteer who really had made a difference in his site and i found it very inspirational. voulunteers always aim to leave a tangible project behind that makes a lasting difference, but aren't always able to, so to see someone who was so successful was great. the second and third nights eli and i spent in seperate host families. basically we were thrown into a very uncomfortable situation of having two hours of tashelheit language training and barely knowing any words and sitting with a family that only knows tashelheit, and trying to figure out what to do. pretty much it involved me pointing to this, asking what it's name was, writing it down, and smiling... then silience. there were 6 children, a mother, a father, a grand father, and a grandmother (at least from what i could figure out) in the family. the father told peter that my name was too difficult (even though all of the sounds in my name are also in tashlehet, but whatever), so they renamed me hena.. they were very nice to me, and kept telling me to eat (one of the few phrases i recognized)... it's no wonder peace corps volunteers gain weight. even with all the walking. a basic day of eating in morocco involves no less then bread five times (with breakfast, with each of two snacks, with lunch, and with dinner) and tea no less then three times (with well over 5 teaspones in a small little cup)... i love sugar, but i have never had moroccan tea this sweet. it's funny to watch.. they dump sugar in the pot of tea, taste it, pour it back, dump a ton more in... then serve it. i really think i'm going to focus a lot of my time on dental hygiene. at the host family, i slept on the floor in the main room (where they eat and watch tv and sleep) with the older girls and the grandmother of the house. it's surprisngly comfortorble... although moroccan pillows are very hard. we spent the last day on a walking up the river and seeing the mountains. it's a breathtaking area. i am really trying to get a site in the mountains. while it's horribly cold in the winter (since most people don't have heat) and you never really get warm for three months a year... it's way better than the 110 degree summers in the desert. i know i can handle cold way better than heat. and i love the mountains and the hiking possiblities. additionally, the stars are amazing out in the bled (the country side, that's what all the rural areas are refered to, i think it's an arabic word, but i'm not sure...) you can see thousands. i really wish i had brought an astronomy book or a star map, i will have to see if i can find some constellations and star names on the internet. on the way home eli and i met up with several other trainees in marakesh for the night. i got to spend time in the marakesh medina (market). i only bought a hat for 12 dirham (about $1.10) which is awesome and made by the berbers. mostly i was checking the place out for future purchuses once i know the language and can properly barter... hopefully, a bongo drum, somegreat lamps, and a few wonderful pieces of jewelery... interestingly, berber languages are much more respected in the area then is english, french, or arabic, so once i can speak berber, i'll be able to get the best prices possible. marakesh was an intense place, it's nice to have a place where not everyone stares at you because your no longer the only white person, but you trade that off for everyone trying to rip you off and harass you for your buisness. regardless, i will spending ample time in marakesh these next couple of years. now we're back in azilal... i've spent all this past sunday learning nouns in the lanuage... it was kind of scary to realize how much i have to learn in the next two months, so i'm studying as much as possible (this is totally not like me)...

reflections on the field trip: it was wonderful to get a feel for what the actual site could be like. it was so beautiful and definetly rural. the people were fantastic and really inviting. i'm actually getting used to the squatting floor toliets, but it's still a relief to see a western sitdown toilet once and a while. most volunteers have a ton of free time, i think it will be nice to have time to read, reflect, look at the stars, cook, and just take time to do what i've wanted to. but i do anticipate some lonliness. fortunatly, there's always the bbc. the trip helped to confirm that the peace corps was the right desicion for me, and it was nice to see a volunteer who has successfully made it through his two years.

cbt: now starts community based training (cbt). every other week starting this coming thursday, we will live with a host family at night and have classes during the day. the classes are a mix between language training, technical training, and cross cultural training. my family has 8 people in it grandparents, two parents, their sister, two children, and some sheep, chickens, and a cat. while here, we will eat breakfast and dinner with the family and eat lunch with the other trainees between classes. i will have my own room (which in a family of 8 is hard to believe). i'm looking forward to the the stays with the family, but i'm disappointed that i don't get more language training before (and my more, we don't have any language classes before we leave for cbt). i have been spending as much of my own time as possible learning, and we have some opporuntity for tutoring at night (which i will be taking full advantage of). the most difficult thing for me about tashelheit is that one, there are completely different words for every singular and every plural (for instance flower is ajdig and flower is ijdigin) and they don't follow a consistant pattern, so pretty much i will have to learn double the nouns. the second problem is there are five or six words for one thing (like rug) and i don't know which people will use. oh well, let's hope i get through. anyway, i will try to update again after the community based training. thanks for all the support, well wishes, and prayers from back home. they really mean the world.

market, new language, and field trip

so much has happen since the last time that i've posted.

thursday was suk (market) day. pretty much the entire area closes down and everyone goes to the market. you can find almost anything there... watches, jeans, scarfs, popcorn, spices, etc. there were hundreds of people there, a little overwhelming, but very interesting. we were taught how to barter and purchuse items in arabic. fortunatly, we still had the help of our LCF (language culture facilitaor)if we forgot how to say certian words. i really need to learn my numbers, it's holding me back a lot. i looked at scarfs, but i didn't find any that i really loved. instead i bought a pair of sweatpants, because i forgot to bring all of mine.

yesterday we also found out what language we are going to be learning. (this is the one that we will be speaking at our site... learning arabic was more of an assigned side project). i will be learning tasheheit (a berber language mostly spoken in central to southern morocco). tasheheit is not a written language on it's own, they use arabic script (which is why we were learning arabic script). we started learning basic words and pharses today. i think it's a bit harder than arabic, but tasheheit uses a lot of arabic words for many things.

tomorrow is our first field trip. i will be traveling to sour, morocco (pronounced sore). i will be at a site with one other trainee and we are assigned to stay with a volunteer. we will stay with the volunteer for two nights and our first host family for two nights. hopefully it will give us a good perspective on how life as a volunteer would be, it's also meant to get us excited about learning the language (once we discover that it's impossible to function in the community without knowledge of the langage). anyway, there's much more for me to do today. by the way, i'm loving handwashing my laundry. i hate doing laundry in the states, but there's something calming about handwashing.

signing off from the land of the cold sun (again without access to spell check... sorry).

peace corps training photos

sunrise from the plane over morocco


rabat at night



rabat during the day


azilal - training site


azilal - training site



this was a difficult process, don't expect to see too many pictures, but i'll do what i can. anyway, enjoy.

red sand and blue skies

i have been in azilal for four days now. the first day was my birthday. the trainers gave me a wonderful birthday cake to share and sang me happy birthday in both english and arabic (they started to in spanish, but by then it was getting kind of ridiculous..) azilal is a beautiful area, 4000 ft elevation in the middle of the atlas mountains. you can see snow covered mountains contrasted by the bright red sand on the ground. there have been completly blue skies every day and wonderfully clear skies at night.

yesterday we had eight hours of arabic script. that was tough, even worse that i don't remember it. i have been walking (sometimes jogging if we get ambitious) every morning at 6:30am, it makes the day much better.

last night we started a game of soccer with the moroccan kids in the area. it was great to be able to share one game that we all knew. we struggled with picking teams (some people in our group are fluent in french, which has helped), but once we started playing it was a lot of fun. i learned the arabic words for "hurry up" and "go go go" as well as the french words for "where's my defense?!" (everyone likes to play offense and no one will stay on the defense side).

i can't believe we have only been in morocco a week, it seems like it's been a month. as americans, we still get laughed at while walking down the street, but i think i've been used to that.

next week is our first field trip, we get to visit current peace corps volunteers at their sites. i think it will be a great learning experiance and a chance to get a feel for what my life will be like when i actually get to my assigned site.

anyway, i will post pictures as soon as i can (i think i have to download a program to do it, so patience patience). i really appreciate all the emails of support from the states that i've recieved, it's meant a lot to me during the transition.

p.s. my computers in french, and i can't find the spell check. my apologies.

so much has happened

five days since i've left... man, a lot has changed. i'm sitting in a cyber cafe in rabat, morocco (very close to the ocean) - it's only about 6 dh (about 56 cents) for an hour of usage. we started out in philly, pa for the first few days of training (called staging). this was basically just a basic introduction to the peace corps and the people that i would be working with during training. then we got on a bus and drove to jfk airport and took air maroc (partnered with delta) for the 7 hour flight to casablanca, another bus ride to rabat, and we've been in the hotel since. it's beautiful here. what an amazing and rich culture. after only 4 days, i am in love with this country. pretty much everyone in the city speaks a least moroccan arabic and french, many also speak english. i managed to order myself a croissant and cheese in french yesterday, amazingly, of the 100 words of french i know, cheese, croissant (obviously) and please, are all in my vocab. we walked around the city last night and checked out the scene. there are several mosques around the city (in morocco, only muslims may enter mosques), but we do hear the prayers five times a day over the loud speaker (one of which is going off now). i can see the ocean from the hotel, and the sunsets are beautiful. it's around 50-60 degrees most of the day, pretty mild, but still nice. i've warn a skirt more days in a row then i ever remember. there's been a lot to take in with all of the training, but i'm finding it all very interesting. tomorrow, our health group leaves rabat and travels to azilal, morocco (in south central morocco). we'll say goodbye to american toilets and the environmental volunteers, and be on our way to 11 weeks on intensive training. thank you all for your support, and i will update as often as i can.