The new site

Spent the last week or so travelling, at least that's what it has felt like.  Last week we took off from Oaurzazat provence and made our way to our final sites for a visit.  For some, it was only a day's travel, but for others like me, it was as though we were travelling the entire length and breadth of the country.  From Oaurzazat, I traveled west to Marrakech (or kesh as the PCVs around here call it) by bus.  The mountain pass was windy and nausea inspiring for some.  They passed out plastic bags in case of such an incident, but I didn't see anyone become ill.  I remember that a few of the volunteers were quite nauseous when we traveled into Oaurzazat earlier in the month.  Made it to Kesh with no problems and transferred up to Rabat, where we would be staying the night.  The hotel usually frequented by volunteers was full, so we made our way down to another down the street.  It was a bit dirty, and my pillow was basically a sack filled with foam chunks, but there was a working bathroom with shower capabilities.  Hey, you get what you pay for when you only spend 70 Dh (about $9).  From Rabat, we traveled by train through Fes and on to Taza.  There we met up with a couple of volunteers, S and R (I don't think we are supposed to use actual names), one from SBD (small business development) and one from the Environment sector.

They showed us around town, from old Taza on top of the hill, to the newer, more modern and vibrant lower city of Taza.  We met up   and we were able to crash in town at S's house.  He had a great pad... fully tiled out, warm water, some carpets from the local co-operative he works with, and even a cat.  We were fairly exhausted from the journey, and went to bed pretty early.  The next day we were able to meet up with our counterpart, who is a government employee working for the dept. of forestry and water.  He was very welcoming and is even fairly fluent in English, which will be helpful initially when we want to talk about more complex development issues.  It's also dangerous, because it is an easy crutch to fall on if I don't want to work on my Arabic.  Language is actually coming along pretty well.  I know enough now to be able to communicate basic needs and wants, and even a few more complex concepts.

 After meeting our counterpart, my host dad came and met up with me.  He is a very kind man, the president of the local environmental association, and is very patient with my deficient language skills.  Surprisingly, he actually looks a lot like what  my father from the US looked like about 10-15 years ago.  It's kind of comforting in a way, but it also makes me realize just how much I miss my dad back home.  I'm not going to get too much into it here, but I was just realizing how great my dad was, always supportive and loving, and thinking about how much I'm going to appreciate spending some time with him when I get back to the states.

Anyway, back to Morocco.  After a few hours we caught the taxi that would take us up to our village, and after a winding trip up, we finally arrived.  My host family's house is a two story mud covered house that looks over a gorgeous view of the surrounding mountains.  The house is actually fairly large compared to a lot of those in town, and has a roof you can walk out onto and enjoy the surroundings.  They have a small herd of goats, a cow and calf, a donkey, and a mule.  We went for a walk to look out over the village. As I climbed over the first hill, I was at a loss for words.  The landscape was amazingly beautiful, and I realized how much I truly love being in the mountains. This town is very spread out, almost as if someone had taken a giant pepper shaker and dusted the landscape with houses.  We went to the Mo-qadim's house for dinner and I met with all the important men of the village.  It seems that some of them speak mostly the berber dialect, so I may have to learn some of that in time as well.  The dinner started with some mint tea and some pop-corn of all things.  Then it progressed to bread and a tagine dish of veggies and chicken.  The final course was a cous-cous dish covered in warm milk.  Kulshi bnin. Everything was delicious!  We walked home by the light of my flashlight that is built handily into my phone.  The next morning we had some hard boiled eggs and coffee.  There was time to sit outside and just appreciate the nature around me. I'll be the first to admit I'm usually someone who it is hard to get to sit still, but sitting there in the quiet embrace of the mountains, I was at peace.

After spending a couple days with my host family, travel back was fairly uneventful, although we met up with a couple more cool peace corps volunteers at the Peace Corps office in Rabat.  Arrived back in the Oaurzazat area yesterday, and everything is settling in.  I have a week or so more of language training, but the site is in sight, and I'm excited to get started.  Hope everyone is enjoying their spring back in the states.  Miss you all!
 

Easter Dab Hunt

Happy Easter... at least that's the day it was when I was writing this.  Due to my current lack of internet connection, it is hard to keep up to date and current.  What did you guys do for Easter?  Maybe an Easter egg hunt, Church service if you are religious, the usual.  Well, they don't celebrate Easter in Morocco, what with it being a Christian holiday celebrating the divinity of Christ, and the fact that they are almost all Muslims.  So for our Easter we went on a Dab hunt.  The Dab is basically a large lizard similar to a bearded dragon (although some of you herpetologists out there may disagree).  I would estimate them at about 1 ft in length, with a fat-ish spiked tail.  They vary in coloration from a rather drab green to fairly vivid reddish orange.  Another trainee at my site has a family who loves to hunt these guys.  Today our CBT group and I went out with a couple of our family members, equipped with sticks, a bag, and the equivalent of a pickaxe as well as another tool which was a mix between a hoe and a shovel.  We ventured out into the desert looking for their holes, and when we came upon one Abduraheem would poke one of the sticks inside to see the direction in which to dig.  Some of these holes we dug wound up being 2-3 ft deep, 1 ft wide, and up to 4 feet long.  Once he got near the end of the tunnel and the Dab, he would call one of us in to drag it out and capture it.   

 The best part was yet to come... after searching and digging for the next couple hours we had 8 of these dabs... all that would fit in the sack.  We then proceeded to go down to the creek that ran through the middle of the desert.  This creek created an Oasis of sorts.  Rushes grew everywhere the soil was a bit damp, tadpoles swam for cover as we passed by, and their parents could be heard in the distance, singing their songs.  Steven's host brother crouched down by the water and took a few dabs out of the sack.  He stretched one out in front of him, and  with a knife that was undoubtedly a bit too dull, he slit the first lizard's neck.  Although I was fine with the prospect of killing and eating the lizard, there is something about watching the life literally seep from another living creature that makes me sad inside.  To think about all the energy and time that went into getting it to this point, only to have it die for a snack...  I do love meat though, so I won't be dwelling on it too long, but it's something to think about nonetheless.  So to continue with the story, Steven's host brother killed 3 of the dabs and gutted them.  He made a small fire using sagebrush and basically put them right in the fire, perhaps slightly elevated by some sticks. They were cooked scale side down to reduce the charring, but never the less this resulted in a bit of an ashy-burnt taste.  Below that exterior was an interesting flavor between chicken and lobster, but I'm not completely sure.  The tail was probably the best cut, but to be honest there was surprisingly little meat on the thing.  But hey, for lizard, it wasn't half bad.