Housing troubles and the trek to Tazekka

Here we go... haven't posted in a while, so let's get you guys caught up with the situations up here in the Bled. First, let's talk about the housing situation. So, a week and a half ago I thought I was finally making some progress when some peace corps staff came up to do site checks. I enlisted the female PC staff's help, and went with her and my host dad to meet with the man who was supposed to rent to me. When we got there, after trekking about a kilometer off the main road to get there, we were told that he didn't want to rent this house because they use it as a sort of vacation house for their kids from France when they are off for the summer. I'm a bit frustrated, but we go and check out a few more options that turn out to be only a few spare rooms scattered around town. The Peace Corps requirements are a bathroom, a kitchen area, and a bedroom, so none of these fit the bill. I was getting into a pretty desperate situation. As much as I love my host family, and how wonderful they all are, I need my own personal space. Somewhere that I can have my own schedule for eating and the ability to cook for myself, increased privacy, and simply a feeling of home. So we ditch my host dad back at the house and head out for bab boudir, only to stop halfway there when we get a call from the environment director saying that moving to that site won't work because there is not enough work to do there. He goes on to say that he talked to Aziz, director of the water and forestry office, and that he says that the people who wouldn't rent to me before will actually rent to me, they just had a problem with my host dad. Apparently there are two rival associations in town, they don't get along, and I've gotten dragged into this mess. The good news is that it all worked out in the end... I saw the house, it checked out, and I'm even getting to keep a couple of ponjs (moroccan couches) with the house. I even met up with the rival association leader, filled out the paperwork, and ate dinner with my landlord tonight in Taza. Things are smoothed out, my house is a reality, and now I can enjoy my fourth of July weekend with my American friends uninhibited by worrisome thoughts.

Now let me tell you of biking and hiking. A couple of days ago I rode my bike over to a fellow volunteer's site (J) in Admam. We met up with another volunteer (R) from the area and checked out the site for the day. I was able to meet her family briefly and get a few things to eat for the hike the following day. I had tea with the family, but was hesitant to stay for dinner due to the fact that J had been getting sick from the food/water in the site and had somehow contracted giardia from this household about a month ago. I'm not sure if sanitation, the germ theory, or scientific deduction has really made it here. Let me give you an example: One of the girls staying at J's homestay has been sick with a cough that's so bad that she sometimes vomits. Their solutions so far have been to try and give her breastmilk from another woman and to give her cigarettes and make her smoke them in order to kill the bugs inside of her. So, that being said, I didn't stay for dinner and made up an excuse to come back another time. J had recently obtained the house that she was going to live in for the next two years, so R and I slept in her house and J slept at her homestay family's house.

In the morning, R and I got up early and set out to climb Tazekka. As we hiked up the path, the tree species around us changed, from the scrubby green oak that are everywhere at my site, to the old growth atlas cedar that inhabit the upper regions of the mountain. We ate some lunch up at the top, looking out onto the Rif mountains to the north for miles and miles. Returning to Admam, we met up with J breifly, and I allowed my aching feet to rest for a bit. I then proceeded to bike uphill to Bab Bouidir, refilled my scant water resources, and made the long trek back to my site. The hiking total for the day: 26k, biking: another 20-21k. Let's just say I was happy to be back home at the end of it all.

I limped my way (ah blisters!) into the bathroom to take a bucket bath. It was so wonderful to get the two days of sweat off of me, but then I realized how much better it would be with an overhead flow of perfect temperature water. Showers are quite nice... we take them for granted in the states, and some people I know take half hour showers almost every day. That is ridiculous. That is exorbitant in every sense of the word. Besides the massive amounts of water you are using, think about all the energy it took to heat it up to that level. When I take a bucket bath, I see how much water I'm using, I know what kind of an impact that is, and I usually haul the water to the house. Lesson to be learned from all this? I'm not sure, I think it was just a rant. Well I hope you are satisfied now! I'll have more to tell in the near future, inshallah.

Grief: theirs and mine

Some days are harder than others. A man died in town yesterday, old apparently. Therefore, I went with my host dad to the funeral... yes, the whole shebang. We went early and watched the process of the grave being dug. This took forever due to the extreme rockiness of the soil... between pickaxe wielding and dirt shoveling wedges and sledgehammers were definitely involved. I sat in the shade of the shrubby green oaks that adorn the hillside by the mosque, I talked and I listened, and I tried to understand. This is always incredibly mentally taxing for me. Sometimes I feel like the days that I accomplish the most in my language and cultural integration are the days where I am extremely burnt out by the end of the day. That was the case this day. After the funeral the language increased in complexity. While having some lunch with my host family I engaged in a conversation with my host dad about the major problems and differences between American and Morocco... such as gasoline use, trash management, possible solutions to our problems, etc. After the exhausting conversation I sat in my room and did some research on bees and small scale beekeeping. It is actually pretty interesting stuff, and I'm considering bringing it back to the states for use on my dream homestead. My host dad came in and asked me why I do things by myself sometimes. He doesn't understand that I need my alone time, my decompression time, my American time. Neither do my host brothers. Somebody, damn them, decided to give the seven year old one of those cheaply made toy guns that makes all the wonderful car alarm sounds. He's been having a blast... shooting it pretty much constantly at anything that moves... sheep, goats, dogs, his little sister, me... to name a few.

So back to my day... I'm trying to relax in my room, and I always feel a little guilty when one of them comes in and I am watching a TV show or playing a quick game of hearts. So I show my host dad what I worked on this week in tutoring, which was arabic script. He was pleased, and the proceeded to tell me how I should learn, and tried to teach me by doing some script by himself in front of me on top of my notes. Some of it was minorly helpful, but I just wasn't in the mood for learning at the time, and not especially happy about my room being constantly invaded. He said that I was invited to go to the funeral dinner, and that I should come to experience Moroccan culture. I tell him “inshallah” and sit in my room a bit longer listening to some music. He comes in once again and says that it is time to leave. I reply that I am very tired and have to prepare for a visit from peacecorps staff who are coming tomorrow. He hesitantly says “ok” and gives me a look that says it isn't, and I proceed to tell him that if he really wants me to come that I will. He says, “Ok, let's go” and I die a little bit inside. That's the kind of person I am... I do things my own way, but if someone I am at all friendly with needs something, I will go out of my way and go the extra mile for them. Sometimes it seems like being friendly is overrated .

Whenever he and I walk somewhere in town, he always has this habit of talking with me and if he wants to make some sort of point he makes me stop and listen until he is finished and then we resume on our way. This results in a very staggered, slow pace, as we stop a good five or ten times every time we go for a walk. I was completely burned out on Darija at this point, and decided that I was going to stop trying so hard and just start speaking English. He does know some English, but if I'm actually speaking at regular speed and not enunciating completely correctly, he catches very little. “Yes... problem, yes” is what I get in response. I think to myself “That must be what I sound like to him all the time”. We arrive at the house and sit, and wait, and sit, and listen to a Eulogy of sorts that I caught very little of. There was one good part where I think he said “Everyone dies, but not everyone truly lives” But on the other hand I was very tired and may just be putting words in his mouth. Dinner didn't start until 11:30, and we left the house at midnight. Sadly, the dinner wasn't even that good... semi cold food and no fruit (I find that fruit for desert is pretty standard fare). Needless to say, I was exhausted and more than a little ticked off that I got dragged along when I didn't want to go in the first place. I need my own space and my own life back. Preferably a place where the dogs aren't barking up a storm all hours of the night, like right now. Well, that's the tragic story for the day, perhaps it will make you feel better about your own troubles.

From the mountaintop

This week we finished up a workshop where teachers learned how to teach environmental education. I won't take much credit, because it was really the work of the volunteers who were here already. We had some of my staj show up though, ate some really good food, and went on a hike with the teachers. The second morning a few of us hiked up the mountain at 4:30 in the morning to watch the sunrise. I really should watch the sun come up more often... it is a spiritual and glorious event.   Plus, I snapped some pretty great photos.

On a separate note, I have a quote that pretty much embodies the whole moroccan situation.
“They would follow us, if we endured with them, and played the game according to their rules. The pity was, that we often began to do so, and broke down with exasperation and threw them over, blaming them for what was a fault in our own selves. Such strictures like a general's complaint of bad troops, were in reality a confession of our own faulty foresight, often made falsely out of mock modesty to show that, though mistaken, we had at least the wit to know our fault”
-T.E. Lawrence,
Seven Pillars of Wisdom