Sunday, December 12, 2010

A typical day in the bl3d...

I feel like I blog a lot about big activities, festivals or holidays we celebrate here but a big part of this experience has been my day to day life: going to buy vegetables at the market (Souk), figuring out how to buy meat at the butcher (I can now order just chicken breasts—Thanks Terry!) or Kefta (which is like seasoned hamburger meat), having tea with new families or just seeing a familiar face on the road.  So today I decided I would type out a blog about my day, which is much like everyday. 

I got a late start today, since I’ve been trying to fight off a cold and traveling a bit but by the time I had my morning coffee and something to eat it was about 10:30 am and I was off for the day.  My only goal for the day was to go to the hanut in Souk (where I can buy some ‘nicer’ items like toilet paper, Keshir (spam-like meat that Lily loves) and body wash) and to stop by the sbitar to pick a form up from my new doctor.  In America a few small errands like this would take, what…an hour?  Oh no… not in Morocco! I’m going to number my interactions with people for giggles, but keep in mind these are just the people I stopped and spoke to for more than 5 minutes… the typical greetings (hello, how are you, how is your family, etc) are usually with EVERYONE I pass, so I don’t count those.

  1. So, I left my house and my friend Nzha and other lady from my dowar were sitting outside.  I needed to talk to Nzha anyway because we had made plans to go to the Hmam (public bath) but I needed to cancel so it was convenient she was out there.  We went through the typical greetings and then she asked me when I would be leaving for Italy to visit my dad.  The other lady didn’t know I was going so we started talking about my trip and she started freaking out because she thought I was leaving for good and kept saying I couldn’t leave because she would miss me too much.  I didn’t understand why she was getting so upset until Nzha explained I was just going for 10 days and would return.  So yeah, I learned I’d be missed in my dowar... that was a good way to start my errands.  So after about 15 minutes of chatting I headed on my way again…
  2. … and then I ran into a little old Lady and about 4 children in a dowar on the way called Ait Tunes.  This little old lady is always sitting outside near the irrigation ditch so I see her quite often and she’s very nice.  She asked where my dog was and I explained I had left her at home so we started talking about Lily and how she’s always with me and she’s not like the other dogs.  The little kids (and most adults) all know Lilys name, so it’s funny when we walk by and people yell her name.  (She’s like a local celebrity!) They even yell her name when she’s not with me (I think some of them might think MY name is Lily… oops)  So after about 10 minutes of chit chat I continued on….
  3. …Between Ait Tunes and Fouzilal (another dowar) I ran into 4 boys from my dowar.  I have taught them “how are you” so they love saying that when they see me.  We’re still working on “good, thank you” but it’s a slow process!  They (like everyone else) asked about Lily, where I was going, how my family in America is… yada yada.  They were carrying bags of some kind of fruit (don’t remember the name in Tash even) but they look like a mix between apples and pears.  They tried to give me a few but I only took one (not a huge fan, kinda sour) and then headed on my way….
  4. … Next I saw my favorite Hanut owner in Fouzilal.  This is where I can go to buy basic things like flour, eggs, milk and such.  This is the hanut owner that let me start a tab a few weeks ago and leant me money (I have to travel to the city to use an ATM and it’s a pain in the butt sometimes).  He's a hodge (which means hes traveled to Mecca) and a really nice guy.  I sat and talked to him for a little bit ( I see him pretty often since I try and make it to the hanut every other day at least, it makes it easier to carry things home little by little instead of in big batches) and then continued on…
  5. The travel from my house until Fouzilal is all unpaved but after Fouzilal it’s a paved road.  So as I’m walking down this paved road I run into a man I’ve never met before.  I greeted him and he greeted me back very formally (in Arabic) calling me a teacher.  I then responded in tash that I’m not a teacher (I love seeing peoples faces when the tash comes out).  So then we started talking (how long have I been here, where did I learn tash, where am I from, etc) and he asked me why I hadn’t been to his dowar yet (there are a total of 49 in Tidili).  So we started talking about his dowar (Azro) and I promised him I would go visit it sometime after I get back from Italy.  So he gave me his name (So I can ask for him when I go and have lunch with him and his family) and phone number and then made me promise I’d go when I got back from my trip and sent me on my way…
  6. … Not long after I left my new friend from Azro I ran into a few ladies I know.  They were working in the fields and called me over. We talked for a while about my upcoming trip (everyone knows everything I do here, seriously:  Where I am at all times, who I’m with, what kind of vegetables I buy in Souk- you name it, they probably know…) and then I kept on walking along the road into Souk…
  7. It’s now about 12:30 and I’ve arrive to Souk.  As I walk into town I see a few of the taxi drivers I know, they ask if I’m going anywhere, when I tell them no we start talking about Lily (everyone wants to know about her).  After about 10 minutes of talking about Lily they let me continue on me way and... 
  8. I’m finally at the sbitar!!  There are a few women I know there so I start talking to them.  I haven’t seen them since before l3id (which was about a month ago now) so I ask how it was, yada yada.  Then the nurse comes to talk to me and I talk to her for a little bit.  She speaks a little bit of English and is always shocked when I know words in tash, but we get along pretty well.  After about 30 minutes of talking to her the doctor comes in (she knows a little English too, we struggle a little more since she doesn’t know any tash) and we all talk for a little while more.  They invite me to their home (which is the first house I looked at and wanted to live in, but it was too expensive) for lunch on Sunday and we talk a little more.  It’s so funny because they are always so surprised when someone comes into the sbitar and knows me or when I understand something they are talking about in Arabic (some words are interchangeable… not many, but a few are the same in Tash).  They are also really surprised when I explain to them I know people in my dowar and have friends in the bl3d… since most doctors and nurses that move to the bl3d keep to themselves, don’t learn tash (which is hard when they are talking to patients), finish their few years and then go back to the city).  Finally, at about 1 I walked the doctor home and headed to the Hanut (goal #2 of the day)
  9. As I was walking into the main area of souk the butcher called me over.  I went over and talked to him, he’s a really nice guy who owns two stores, one of which I buy my meat from.  He wanted to know why I hadn’t made it to his house for L3id, I explained I was too full and we chit chatted about the holiday for a bit. After about 15 minutes of talking I headed toward the hanut…
  10. …and I finally made it!  There are quite a few hanuts in Souk but there is one that I typically go to (he has the REALLLY fancy stuff like Ramen and even cheese sometimes!!)  After we talked about Lily, my family and my upcoming trip I got all my goodies and headed home.
  11. While still in souk I ran into another Hanut owner and talked to him for about 10 minutes and then ran into a big group of men who had lots of questions about Lily (what does she eat, how do I wash her, etc).  If you can’t tell by now people are VERY interested in Lily and how I care for her… my tash is REALLY good when I have to talk about her, since it happens very often.
  12. On my way home (on the paved road again) I ran into a group of ladies from my dowar doing laundry in the river, they yelled at me to come over but I knew that would mean I’d be there forever so we exchanged greetings/talked for about 10 minutes (while yelling across the fields) and then I went on my way…
  13. I took the shortcut through the fields home and ran into a little girl, Khadija (I think she told me shes 9?), from my dowar.  She's one the smartest little girls I know and I love talking to her (especially when she’s not with a huge group of girls).  I stood and talked to her for about 15 minutes and she invited me to the Hmam with her.  I told her another time and kept heading home…
  14. Lots of greetings along the way and when I finally got to my dowar (Ait Burig) there was a big group of girls outside.  I talked to them for a little bit and then…..

Finally home at 2:30!!!

So, that’s a pretty basic idea but you can see what it takes to just run two simple errands around here.  I usually have to build in about 2 hours to run to the hanut since you never know who you’re going to run into or who is going to INSIST on tea and/or lunch… That’s why its so hard when people ask what kind of WORK I’ve done here...because work IS going to the hanut, or going to pick up a form from the sbitar or forming all the relationships with people I’ve formed through tea or chats in the fields…

Speaking of work- my site made has been working on two grants that he’s not going to be able to see through so I’m taking them over.  It’s super exciting (but I'm also terribly nervous) to actually be doing some real “work” now.  I’ll keep you all posted as my work progresses, imik a mik (little by little).  One of them will be a PCPP (inchallah) which means I’ll need funding from home since it’s too much for Peace Corps to cover…More to come on that soon!! 

Leave some love!!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

So....what am I doing here again?

So I’ve officially been in country for 8 months and what a whirlwind of emotions it’s been… I’ve been happy/sad/depressed/excited/lonely/overwhelmed/motivated and everything in-between, sometimes all in one day or a few hours.  This experience has far surpassed anything I ever could have thought it could give me and I can’t wait to see what the next 18 months have in store for me- some work, hopefully!  But first, I’ve had a request for something that I’ve somehow seemed to overlook in all these blog posts: What exactly is my job here?


This question is a great question, though very hard to explain as I myself am still trying to figure this out.  I ask myself this question at least a few times everyday here and have no concrete answer, so instead I’ll use some PC material we’ve been given to explain a little about our goals here in Morocco, as Rural Health Workers and hopefully interject a little of what I’m doing/plan to do/hope to do here in my community. 



“Project Purpose:  Rural community members will achieve better health status through preventive practices reinforced by positive social and environmental change.”

To accomplish this project purpose PC has met with the Ministry of Health here in Morocco (this is our main point of contact here, and who operated the local sbitars) and created 3 goals that should be our main point of focus when we’re creating educational programs for the schools, organizing trainings or even informally talking to people in our community.  As Volunteers here in Morocco, we’re in such unique, since we live among the people, learning the language and live like them.  Most people in my community look at me as more of a friend/family member than anything else which gives me a great opportunity for informal education, whether it be sitting with the woman preparing couscous (which is called souc souc here--- its couscous backwards!) for a wedding, having tea at my neighbors or attending a new birthing ceremony in a nearby dowar.  The following are the 3 goals that have been created for us:

Goal 1:
Community members (men, women, and children) will actively participate in activities that promote personal health and reinforce appropriate health behaviors. 

So- what does this mean?  Working with men and women to teach them about pre-natal care, which means teaching them the importance of checkups and where they can go to get these checkups.  Also, educating the children in our community about nutrition and proper hygiene- the things we’re taught as children and take for granted: brushing your teeth, washing your hands with soap before eating/after the bathroom, etc.

How can/will I do this?  Inchallah (this is a phrase used very often, it translates to “god willing” and can be used in almost any and all situations).  I do a lot of this informally with my woman, during tea or just in passing when I meet a pregnant woman.  This problem here is the lack of staff at my sbitar, as woman sometimes have to wait for hours to speak to a nurse, and they have a lot of work they do at home (other children, tending the animals, cooking for the family, cleaning) so its tough getting them to go wait for hours when they don’t usually understand the importance of visits anyway.  As for the education for the children, I hope to do some pretty basic lessons in some of the schools and also make it a point to wash my hands and talk about teeth brushing informally to them often.  The biggest challenge here is its behavioral change, which is the most difficult thing to change.  We’re taught from a young age about this, its reinforced by our parents, school system and in books/tv we watch.  This is news to a lot of these children, and if their parents don’t understand the importance/want to spend the extra money on the toothbrush or soap it’s a hard lesson to teach. 


Goal 2:
Targeted professional and non-professional health workers will have enhanced capacity to deliver effective preventive health education throughout rural communities. 

So what does that mean?  This means working with our local community to assist in training health professionals in preventative health education through non-formal education, etc.  It also means working with our Ministry and community to help train woman to become traditional birth attendants (TBAs).  These are woman in the community who know how to properly birth a child through safe general hygiene practices and know the signs of a problem during birthing.  These TBAs also refer the woman to care for pre and post natal checkups. 

How can/will I do this?  This is where I want to focus a lot of my attention because I’ve seen first hand (with my host mother) what a problem this is.  Also, being a female volunteer I’m able to work a lot more with the woman than a male volunteer would ever be able to and I want to take advantage of this position I’m in.  A challenge here is my Ministry (boss, essentially) would rather us try to make the woman go to the biggest clinics (about 30 K) away, which would be great if it was realistic.  There are a lot of obstacles to doing this, such as lack of money, husbands not wanting their wives to do this , lack of transport and not understanding why this is important to name a few.  The last TBA training that was done in my site was over 10 years ago, with a lot of these women now dead.  I was told by my host mother that my 13 year old sister helped birth my host mothers 8th child.  I think my community could greatly benefit from something like this and I hope to organize 3 day training, inviting woman from all my outlying dowars… wish me luck. (Realistically this is more of a 2nd year project, but its something I want to start working on, as projects like this take a large amount of time)


Goal 3:
Communities, local organizations and local institutions will have increased capacity to reinforce healthy lifestyles through environmental and social change.

So what does this mean?  It means working with my community to find organizations that are able to properly assess and address community health needs.  It also means working with local institutions such as clinics, schools, mosques, souks to properly collect and dispose of their solid and liquid wastes so as to prevent health and environmental hazards. 

How can/will I do this?  My main focus here is the disposal of waste.  An obvious problem is how waste s disposed of at my sbitar..  I have recently learned from a previous volunteer that at one point we did have an incinerator so that’s something I need to check on.  There is also a big push from the ministry to focus on this goal, as a lot of health related problems could be prevented/minimized if there wasn’t trash in the river beds, around the dowars.  They way they see things is if we get rid of the trash we get rid of the rats/mice, stray dogs, flies that come with the trash and can therefore prevent a lot of problems these creatures cause.  I agree with this 100%.  The solution to this problem, however, is again behavioral change.  People don’t understand why they can just through all their trash out in a field.  I burn what I can, and carry what can’t be burned into the city, but that’s not realistic for big families, especially ones who never go into the city (like Ouarzazate and Marrakesh that have trash disposal programs).  This is a huge topic of conversation among volunteers; because if we don’t know what to do with our trash how can we teach others what to do with it?  Yes, we can teach them to bury it… but where?  And how do we get them to want to do this? 





Sunday, September 5, 2010

Two month catch up...

I’ve been kinda crappy at keeping up with this blog, I always think about things I want to write about when I’m out and about and of course I never write them down, so they never get blogged about. So what I’ve decided to do is just make some bullet points with highlights of the past few months.
  • I went to my host sister in Tazentoute (my first host families) wedding, which was awesome because I was invited to take part in the ‘family only’ part of the wedding. This consisted of an extra meal of lunch, sitting with her while she sat and got her henna done and then traveling with her to ‘deliver’ her to a hotel in her new town after the 3 day wedding (the woman traditionally move in with the mens family). It was also great going back to Tazentoute for the first time since I’ve move to Tidili, I got to see all the family and friends that treated me so well during my first 2 months in country
  • My language is coming along little by little. Peace Corps tests us every time we meet (right after CBT, again during PPST and then again during IST, etc) so we get to see where we stand in language. I don’t think the test is completely accurate of where we are in language but its nice to have some sort of grading system. The test doesn’t really mean much, you just have to ‘pass’ the first time (which I did) and I got the next level up this time, so that’s reassuring since somedays I feel like my language is really nonexistent…
  • We had our two weeks of training in Ouarzazate at the end of July. This was the first time all 42 of us Health volunteers were together since swearing in 3 months before so it was awesome catching up with everyone. So far we have only lost 2 people from our group (they decided PC wasn’t for them so they ETed-early terminated) so its fun catching up with everyone, hearing about their sites, stories, etc. Peace Corps also put us up in a pretty nice hotel, with a REAL bathroom (toilet, shower, bathtub AND towels), air conditioning and a pool. It was nice to be spoiled for those two weeks (mine was cut short thanks to my health problem, but whatever, I’m better now!)
  • My house finally feels like a home. I have all the necessities to live, I’m just picking up the random things along the way now. Its great having my own house, a place to retreat and regroup but its also very difficult being a female living alone, since that is not something my community is used to. I know they have good intentions but I can very rarely get through more than 2 hours without SOMEONE knocking on my door to bring me bread, check on me, see if I want to come over to eat later, etc. It’s been great for my language because its easy to lock myself in the house but with people coming over I’m constantly having to talk…. 
  • My landlords family has adopted me as one of their own, they are amazing. They were the host family for two other volunteers sometime around 2000 so they are awesome with speaking slow and understanding my charades. My landlord of a hodge (I’m sure I’m not spelling that right), which means he has traveled to Mecca. He has 4 children, 3 boys and 1 girl. One of the sons lives with him (hes a taxi driver here) and I looove his wife, Nzha, shes around my age (forget how old) and has two children. She comes over to my house almost everyday, it’s great because shes super patient with me and laughs at my mispronunciations. I think her and I will be great friends. His daughter, Aiesha, also lives near me and shes awesome. I went over to her house the other day and she sent me home with bread and soup after stuffing me full-incase I got hungry when I was at home later. All in all the family is wonderful, for example: the power went out tonight, at about 7 (right before it gets dark) and before I even had time to freak out half the family was at my door explaining to me the power was out in all of Tidili. They then walked me to their house for lfdur and held me hostage until the power came back. They defiantly take great care of me, and I am so grateful to have such a great family so close by.  
  • Ramadan is almost over. Although I'm not fasting (see previous post) it will be nice to be able to drink water out in public again, it’s really hard when I have to go to souk (Main town and weekly market) and cant bring a water bottle. It will also be nice not to have to constantly argue why I’m not Muslim or fasting- most people wont argue with me and understand why I’m not fasting, but the occasional few will not drop the subject and it gets a bit frustrating. 
  • Last but not least, I went on a 22 hour hike with my site mate, Andy this week. We hiked to Sidi Fadma, which is supposed to be a 15 hour hike but between me being slow and us not knowing the exact path it ended up taking us quite a bit longer. We hiked for 12 hours the first day, slept on a rock by the river that night (more like froze my butt off, but whatever) and then hiked 10 hours the next day. It was a beautiful hike, but I was definatly not physically prepared for such a thing. The idea of a ‘path’ here in Morocco is not like in America, we were literally climbing up mountains and then sliding down them at a few points. And if you don’t know, I'm scared of heights, so there were a couple of panic attacks involved. But, I lived to tell the tale and that’s all that matters, right? On the hike we also met two amazing woman (they were carrying food for the cows on their backs up a mountain-literally!) but I seriously cant think of a day I’ve been here when I haven’t met amazing people- the people here inspire me everyday!
Whew- I think that’s enough for now… if you’ve got a minute write ME a message and let me know how YOU’RE doing back home, messages from home make me very happy!--- polen.angelica@gmail.com I love hearing from all of you! Love of love!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Ramadan Karim

Where do I even begin?! Let’s start with the important stuff—it’s Ramadan! What is Ramadan you ask?


Ramadan is a time of fasting for the Islamic people. Each day during this month, Muslims all over the world abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, as well as participating in anything that is ill-natured or excessive; from dawn until the sun sets. Fasting is intended to educate the Muslim in spirituality, humility and patience. It is a time to cleanse the soul, focus attention on God, and put into practice selflessness. Ramadan is a time for Muslims to fast for the sake of God and to put forward more prayer than is customary. During Ramadan, Muslims request forgiveness for sins in the past, pray for direction and assistance in abstaining from everyday troubles, and endeavor to cleanse themselves through self-control and great acts of faith. Fasting is one of the Five Pillars of the Islam religion, and one of the main types of Islamic worship. Restraint from everyday enjoyment and curbing wicked intentions and cravings are considered as an act of compliance and obedience to God, as well as amends for sins, faults, and mistakes. -http://www.whatisramadan.com

So now that you know the basics what does that mean for me living in a Muslim country? Well, fasting during Ramadan is compulsory for anyone who has reaching the age of pubery, so long as they are healthy, sane and have no disabilities or illnesses. The Qur'an makes exceptions for certain groups, like the elderly, chronically ill, mentally ill, travelers, pregnant woman, menstruating woman and nursing woman however if able, the days missed during fast this year must be made up next year…. So the big question…. Am I fasting? Nope. A lot of Peace Corps volunteers do fast, it’s a GREAT way to integrate into your community but not something I was prepared to do this year after being sick and having a trip to Spain planned during Ramadan… next year, however, is a different story.

So what happens during Ramadan? As you can imagine there are a lot of hungry, thirsty, nicotine deprived people out and about. Most people try to sleep as long as they can during the day, naps are taken by almost everyone during what would be normal lunch time (with extended hours so ‘lunch time’ now happens from about 12-4) and then not much is done again until break fast (lfdur, which literally translates to breakfast) at 7:30pm. At 7:30pm everyone eats dates, sweets, hariera (soup), juice, bread, jam, butter and anything else that the family can afford. Its great to see the whole family eating together around one big table… I’ve celebrated break fast with two families, my neighbors the first night and my landlords family more recently (they have come to my house every night asking me to come over again- which I will do tomorrow, inshallah (god willing). I love being included in the lfdur meal, its also been great since its summer time and everyone has family visiting from Europe or the big cities. Lfdur usually lasts about 30 minutes of stuffing your face and chugging water then regular dinner at about 10:30pm. After dinner everyone sleeps for a few hours until dawn at about 3:30am when the mosques all go off and everyone eats and drinks one last time until lfdur again at 7:30pm…. And that is how the 29-30 days of Ramadan are spent here in the bl3d (rural areas) of Tidili…

Sunday, August 8, 2010

The last few days....

I can breathe- finally.

The last couple days have been scary/long/exhausting/informative and pretty much everything in between. I won’t go into long details, it will just bore you and quite honestly I don’t want to re-live it all. But on Wednesday, at PPST (Post Pre Service Training) in Ouarazate I woke up to my back/side hurting. By lunch it really hurt and between walking from lunch to the room where we were staying I couldn’t breathe because I had a stabbing pain in my chest and was gasping for air. After some fellow PCVs called the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) I was driven to a surgical center for a quick check up to ensure whatever it was wasn’t life threatening. After a few hours of crying and pain they decided it wasn’t it something that would kill me so it was decided I would be driven to Marrakesh that night. We left for Kesh at about 4pm for the terrible, terrible tishka. I mean, it sucks normally, but add in pain in my chest and lack of breathing and well- it sucked. We got to kesh at about 10 and I was met by a Peace Corps Doctor who then told me we would be going to Rabat the next day. Its now Sunday and I’m still in Rabat. They had me connected to a heart monitor yesterday and I’ll get the readings from that and talk to the doctors tomorrow about the next step….

I feel SOOO much better now but this has defiantly made me think a little differently about my service. I mean, I always knew I was out in the middle of no where but this really just confirmed that. This happened to me in Ouarzazate, with Peace Corps staff and PC cars around, it really was the best possible situation. And all I could think when it happened was how far away I was from help if I REALLY needed it. But I guess that’s part of the gig right?

This whole situation made me think too- how LUCKY I am to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. Yes, I live in the bl3id (rural areas) like everyone else, but I’m with the Peace Corps. If something happens in morocco I’ll be drive by the gendarms or army to a safe area and flown out. If I get sick I see the best doctors in the big cities and have tests til someone figures out whats wrong with me. What if something like this happened to someone in my village? What would they do? Go to my sbitar to see my one overworked nurse? Would they have the money to transport themselves the 2-3 hours into Ouarzazate and then have the money to even see the doctor? Realistically, probably not.

I’m feeling better day by day, shaken up, but doing great. Tomorrow I learn the results of the heart monitor they had on me yesterday and then we make a game plan of what to do from there. Which will it be--- back to site or stay in Rabat some more? Only time will tell….

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Moroccan Walk of Shame

Yesterday morning I did the walk of shame home. I walked home from a dowar that I don’t live in, at 830 am, in the clothes I wore the night before, after sleeping next to a total stranger in a strange house after a very long night… let me start from the beginning.

The day started as usual, woke up at about 9 to the birds chirping outside my window, it seems they have built a nest right outside my window in the mud and straw that is my roof. After my morning breakfast (I decided on oatmeal- a luxury I buy in the big city of Oz) and a cup of coffee I sat down to read emails annd catch up with the real world. Time sure flies by when your connecting and reconnecting to the internet and before I knew it, its 11am and I hear a knock on the door. After I throw a sweater on I go to answer the door and there is a young girl standing there. I recognize her from the day before when I saw her on my way to Souk. She had pretty henna so I complimented her on it, she told me she would come to my house to do it for me the next day, and here she is. This is the funny thing about people in Morocco, they use the phrase “ar sabah” (which translates to tomorrow) a lot. Sometimes it means tomorrow and sometimes it just means in the future. In this case it literally meant tomorrow. ,I of course, invite her in after brief “hellos, how are yous” she asks if I still want the henna. I tell her yes, so she instructs her little sister who is with her to go buy it at the hanut (corner store). I then take this opportunity to begin the tea making process since its rude to have a guest in your house and not offer something. Luckily my host family supplied me with all the goods for tea (cups, silver platter to serve it, tea pot and little bowls for oil/nuts). I made the tea Moroccan style (she and her gaggle of girls- 5 to be exact) were very impressed and we drank tea and ate cookies that I bought from souk and cashews (compliments of my fabulous dads are package) together.

After tea the henna process began. They sometimes put paint thinner in the henna to make it last longer and this was no exception. It makes the henna burn a bit, but it does make it darker. So after 2 hours of henna (front/back of both hands and some on my feet, but not enough to mean I’m married) the henna party began on the other girls. Before I knew it its now 2, and time for lunch. I wasn’t really prepared to feed 5 others so I decided on spaghetti since its pretty quick and American (Peace Corps Goal 3: Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served). I served the spaghetti on plates, with forks and taught them all how to use it. As you can imagine, between the henna on our hands and never using a fork it was quite a mess but we laughed and they enjoyed the spaghetti. The girls finally left at about 4 (after insisting on helping clean up the house, they did the dishes and swept the kitchen/courtyard area) and I was left alone once again (I have a new found appreciation for alone time).

The day before while I was in souk I was also instructed to go to Toughout (the dowar I used to live in) at 830 the next day for a wedding- maybe. Here is the thing about my language. I understand whats going on about 80% of the time, but sometimes I’m shwiya (sort of) confused and think I know whats going on when I really don’t. This was one of those times. I was 95% sure I was supposed to go to Toughout, but I'm never really sure which sucks because it could lead to a very confusing conversation trying to explain that I didn’t actually understand the day before. So anyway, I bucket showered, got dressed and headed over to Toughout not really knowing what to expect. I went to my host familys house and my sister wasn’t there, so I went to my friend Aminas house and her mom told me she was already at the wedding (bingo- I was right) so I headed over to Malikas house for her wedding celebrations. I arrived and the party was already started with loud singing, dancing (which is really just a sort of sway while you clap your hands) and lots of sweating. I was quickly wisked back to my friend Aminas house since I was not appropriately dress (my sun dress and long sleeve shirt wasn’t gonna cut it, so I was put into Moroccan wedding attire).

All the people who attended were crammed into a room, with the bride (Malika, a friend of mine) and groom on the far end, his family sitting closest to them and everyone else sitting on the ponjs (couches) lining the walls with people “dancing” in the middle. Malika was sitting with pillows under her hands and feet so she could get hennaed. Let me tell you, this wasn’t like the henna I had got that day, this was REAL henna. It took at least 6 hours, with 2 girls working on her, to get her henna done but wow, was it beautiful (pics soon). We literally danced and took photos (I had a camera and the grooms family had one, so everyone wanted pictures—they love pictures here, its annoying sometimes). Dinner was served at about 11, a whole chicken per table (whoooa!), elf pasta (spaghetti with powdered sugar and cinnamon) and watermelon for dessert. After dinner there was more dancing and I finally decided I was over it at about 2.

After I told my friend I wanted to go home I was told that wasn’t possible since the path to my dowar isn’t safe at night (due to stray dogs and being a female, stray males) so I wouldn’t be able to return home. I was hoping to be able to sleep at my host families house but since I hadn’t seen my host sister in hours (I guess she went home early because she got angry, I don’t really know the whole story here) I asked Amina if I could stay at her house. And that is how I ended up sleeping next to Aminas mom (a stranger), in a strange house, on the concrete floor and doing the walk of shame home at 830 the next morning.

Always something new here in Morocco and loving every minute of it!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Home sweet home...

I’m writing this entry from my brand new plastic table, while sitting on the brand new plastic chair in my courtyard drinking cold water from the fridge and wearing a tank top!! Oh, the simple joys of life!!

I’m officially moved into my house, have been since the 1st but its been quite a process since i literally moved in with only my luggage from home(American home). On July 1st my family helped me load the aserdoon (mule) up with all my luggage and make the short trip over to my new dowar. They helped me unload the luggage and then requested I return home for tea and lunch. After lunch I headed home to my new house and I must say, I thought my reaction would be very different since I had been looking forward to the first day in my new house for weeks now. I sat on my dirty kitchen floor, looking at the chipped paint, stained tiles, and cried…. Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’m fine now, I just had the brief moment of panic (no bed, no fridge, no pots, pans, broom—nothing). After I pulled myself together I made a trip to the hanut, which is just the corner store that sells just about everything. (I also learned I don’t have one of these in my particular dowar). I returned home with some Tide, sponges, brooms and buckets. I spent most of day one cleaning and going through my luggage since I just threw most of it together and didn’t really know where anything was.

While cleaning/unpacking I had a few woman from the dowar stop by to say hello/invite me for tea and also had my first run in with my new arch enemy- the neighborhood children. For those of you that know me at home you know I’m not such a fan of children. I just don’t have the patience and most of the time they just annoy me. Well, imagine my happiness when they created a new game called “knock on the foreigner’s door and run.” After about 3 knock and runs I finally grabbed one of the children and told them I was done playing this game and they needed to stop. I don’t know if that particular kid is the one who did the knocking or not, but guilty by association. (oh yeah, he cried, but I got my point across). After that I had to yell at one more little girl and I haven’t had the problem since. They have a new game called “can we see inside your house game” but I'm working on that one with them now.

The last week or so has consisted of me going into souk (which is just far enough that it sucks to carry everything home, but close enough I just look lazy if I get a ride. Its also hard to get a ride since its an unpaved bumpy road), looking for various thing like a bed, oven (which is just a metal box of fire), fridge, table, pots, pans, etc and paying a transit driver to help me bring it all home. Slowly my house is starting to look like a home and I couldn’t be happier about it. Its just so nice to have a place that I don’t have to worry about what I'm wearing (although I have to be careful because the neighbor kids can stand on their roof and see into my courtyard), eat/drink when and what I want, etc.

My house is the house I blogged about earlier, but imagine my surprise when I came home from Essaouria (more about that later) and my landlord showed me he connected pipes so I now have water in my kitchen AND bathroom! I have 4 rooms, of which I only use 2 and have the others closed up. One is my room (which just had a bed now) and the other is a salon (with nothing yet). I also have a small courtyard where I plan to grow some herbs, flowers and a small kitchen. (Pictures up on facebook). It’s a great little house, taking some getting used to being alone at night (I still freak myself out sometimes) but I really like it. Eventually I want to paint but I’m thinking that’s going to be a Ramadan project. Its so weird to think this is home for the next two years….

Other than the house I’ve been trying to integrate more and more in the community. Although having to buy everything for the house was a bit annoying it was good because it meant I had to spend more time in Souk. Souk is my main dowar and its where all the ‘businesses’ are, its also where our weekly market is help. I have to go through there for transport, etc but I don’t like to spend a lot of time there because honestly, it’s just awkward since females usually avoid the area. Talking to people where to buy things, buying them and trying to get transport back to my house gave me a reason to be there and the opportunity to talk to people I otherwise would have been a bit intimidated to do. Also, since I’d be living in another dowar I forgot how used to seeing me people became. But now? New dowar, back to square one. I still get the ‘bonjour’ from people, since they assume all foreigners are French (its funny because 99% of the people don’t know anything BUT bonjour but they insist on saying it to me). So I'm back to explaining to people I'm American, I live here, I work in health, I'm 23, not married (miskeena=poor thing), I don’t want to be married, I have two sisters..... blah blah blah. Its interesting because I know how to talk about those basic types of things really well, so sometimes they think my tashlheet is better than it is in the beginning and start talking really fast… then we have to back up and I have to explain I’ve only been studying it for 4 months (yeah--- can you believe it!? I’ve been here 4 MONTHS!)

I’ve also had the opportunity to visit both Marrakesh and Essaouria since last post. Both of those alone could be their own posts, but I’m sure I’ll return so I’ll fill you all in on those trips another time. Briefly though, I went to Essaouria for a music festival which was super fun. I got to meet a lot of other volunteers I wouldn’t have otherwise met. It’s crazy to think there are over 250 of us here in Morocco and some of us will never meet!!

Whewwww--- long post, sorry. Thanks if you’ve read the whole thing, I’ll try and get better are posting more often so they are not as long. Bslama! (go with piece, aka- goodbye!)

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Wait... so i'm not supposed to drink this water untreated like i have been for the last month??

Man oh man, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. My apologies for it being such a long break, got lots going on here and I’m trying to get settled into some sort of schedule. I finally have, just in time to move out on my own! This has been a huuuuge reason for my lack of posts and excessive stress. Internet has also been out here in the Mid-Atlas Mountains. I’m not really sure what’s going on since Andy (my site mate) lives only a dowar over and his internet is connecting. Mine, however seems to connect for about 30 minutes everyday and then safi (done). A bit annoying since I was used to being able to get on whenever I wanted before…

The last month has been a lot of looking for a house to live in here in Tidili and its proven to be quite a task. I’m looking for a house with at least one room, a salon (like a living room), kitchen, bathroom (which is really just a room with a Turkish toilet and if I’m lucky a faucet), running water and electricity. So far I have looked at a total of 7 houses, they either have all of the above but cost too much (Peace Corps allots me 600dh (about $73) per month for housing) or don’t have one of the above. I want a house near the main dowar- which is called Souk (yes, also the name for the weekly market, makes it a bit confusing sometimes) since this is where I’ll buy most of my meat, veggies, fruits, etc and also where my sbitar is located. The house that’s looking like its going to be the one (I’m running out of time here- only 12 days til I can move out) is located in a dowar about 2 K away from Souk, but there is not a paved road connecting the two so I have to walk through gardens and bushes to get to Souk. This is going to suck, especially when I’m trying to get all the initial things (like pots, pans, cups, plates, bed, fridge, oven, etc) into the house but it’s really my only option right now. The house has been home to 2 Peace Corps volunteers that were here sometime around 2001, has 4 rooms (HUGE!- I’ll prob only use 2 and lock up the others), a small kitchen, a garden area/courtyard and a small room which a Turkish toilet will soon be added. Other than the distance/location the other downfall to the house is it only had one faucet and its in an area next to the house that’s supposed to house animals (none there now) so I’ll have to carry buckets to wash dishes, cook, bath, brush my teeth, etc. I guess it’s just something I’ll have to get used too. I might be able to connect a long tube from the faucet to the kitchen but we’ll see if that’s more work than its worth. Due to my lack of housing I have also had to cancel my 4th of July party I wanted to have. Realistically I just cant have the house set up in time to have company, since I probably wont even have ponjs (Moroccan couches) for people to sleep on. I’m pretty bummed about that, but next 4th of July I’ll just have to have a BIGGER bash.

Everyday I’m in this country I learn more and more from the people around me. Sometimes I learn things about myself, sometimes about others and sometimes just random crap.

  • I received a package of goodies from my dad a few weeks ago. It ended up being quite the ordeal actually getting the package since the post office in Ourzazate (where our mail goes through) thought they needed to tax the crap out of the boxes and charge me over 1,000dh ($121.00) to pick them up. To give you an idea of how much money that is, I made 1,000Dh the entire month of May! So needless to say, A LOT of money. I went to Ourzazate and with the help of another volunteer whose language is AMAZING got them to drop the total price down to about 700Dh. Everything I do here is an adventure, including our trips to find the proper post office official (who ended up being drunk) to lower the price. The box was worth EVERY CENT as it’s been what’s keeping me from starving between bread, tagine and mushy rice (it was filled with warm clothes for winter and delicious American snacks). Lesson learned? If you want to send me a box (which you probably should) please make sure that you declare it a gift and ensure it is not listed as more then $50.00 value.
  • As stated in a previous post I was trying to get my body adjusted to the water so I wouldn’t have to deal with treating it, however I have since learned the hard way I need to treat it. About 2 weeks ago our water got a little murky, which is because its spring water, so I figured I’d be ok if I just drank a little. Well, about 3 hours later I was in the bitlma (bathroom) throwing up everything I’d eaten in the past few days. Let me tell you, throwing up in a small unsanitary hole is about as fun as having to go to the bathroom there. It was a LOOONG night in the bitlma and a terrible next day. I tried to explain to my family I was sick, but they were so worried about me not eating they kept bringing food and drinks to my room. The brought me cheese and coke (two VERY rare things in my house) and I was so grateful but I just couldn’t eat it. They checked on me every hour that day, they really are amazing people. The next day I was told over and over how I looked yellow, thanks family. Lesson learned? Treat the damn water!
  • In the past few weeks I also learned that my male nurse, Mohammed will be leaving us here in Tidili. I knew he wanted to leave but I was secretly hoping that he wouldn’t be able to since he’s such a great resource, speaking a bit of English and really wanting to run a clean, sanitary clinic (well as clean and sanitary as it can be in the mountains of Africa). However, he learned last week he is indeed leaving. He was gone for a few days while he was learning his new assignment and I was alone at the sbitar with Khadija. Wow, were things different. It’s so difficult to try and explain why you should do certain things (ex. Recapping and disposing of the needles separately- currently I’m trying to get her to throw them into a bottle of bleach until I can learn how to properly dispose of them) with my limited language and her being so used to doing things her way. Lesson learned: I have my work cut out for me, even more than I thought (I didn’t even think that was possible).
Its so hard trying to decide what I want to blog about since every hour here in Morocco is such an experience. I really can’t do it justice with writing and pictures. I am so grateful for this experience I’m having here. There have been so many times I’ve woke up to the roosters outside or the woman singing in the fields and I just can’t believe THIS IS MY LIFE. Sometimes it’s tough, yes. But realistically, I’m living MY DREAM. This is what I’ve wanted my whole life- and I’m doing it. I’m living the dream and I couldn’t be happier.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

How much do you love me?

Angelica Polen
BP9 Inghrom N Ougdal 45253
P. Ourzazate, Morocco

Wish list:
-Conditioner
-Pens/highlighters
-Emergency/Airborne
-Softlips/Burts Bee chapstick
-Nalgene water bottle
-Crystal Light packets (pink lemonade and berry flavors are yummy)
-Hand sanitizer (little bottles to put in my bags when I travel)
-Scotch tape
-Ziploc bags (all sizes)
-Duct tape
-Putty wall stuff and hooks for hanging things in houses
-Baby powder
-Deodorant (clinical strength is better- hey, I live in Africa!)
-Nail Polish (you would be amazed how painting my toes can make a terrible day good again)
-Velveeta cheese (or boxes of Velveeta shells and cheese)
-Ranch (hidden valley, dry packets good too)
-Taco seasoning
-Pictures are ALWAYS fabulous to decorate my house with (photo frames are a PLUS!)
-Music (old or new CDs, anything you think I might like I probably will!)
-Popcorn seasoning (the powdered stuff)
-Candy (M&Ms, Snickers, Reeses)
-Super glue
-Gum
-Other fun things you'd want living in rural Morocco


Tips for sending packages:

  • Please make sure the package is CLEARLY marked as a gift 
  • Make sure the box is listed as UNDER $50.00 IN VALUE. Otherwise I will get charged a crazy amount for taxes when I go to pick up the box 
  • The less packaging the better, as I have to burn/bury my trash. Be creative, I can always use Ziploc bags of all sizes so take things out of boxes and put them in here. If you have a long sleeve or quarter sleeve shirt or ankle length skirt you don’t want wrap gifts in those (or go to arc and pick one out for me), pack things into a nalgene, that sort of thing

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Aubrey Sacco

Recently I was traveling into Ourzazate on the souk bus and I began to think about what an amazing experience I’m having here in Morocco, living among the people, learning the language and being able to participate in a lot of day to day activities I would never be able to experience as a tourist. Not many people get to experience such things as work, family and fear seem to get in the way. I have been very fortunate to have met some AMAZING people along my life, many of whom through Semester at Sea, Peace Corps and other paths in my life. Some of these people I will probably never see again, as our paths may not cross again, but they have all touched my heart somehow.

One always KNOWS when they meet someone in life that is destined for great things. For anyone who knows Aubrey Sacco you know she was one of those people. I only had the pleasure of meeting Aubrey twice in the dorms, as she was a good friend of my suitemate, Kari. She was loud, in your face and crazy, quite honestly she irritated me due to her loudness through the wall. But I remember seeing some of her information on facebook, of her travels and adventures and also hearing about her trips through Kari. Aubrey wasn’t afraid to just GO and do something. She is an inspiration to me and many others in the way she traveled through the world in search of something else.

Aubrey took a bus from Kathmandu to Syabrubesi on April 19th and began a 7-8 day trek in the Himalayas on April 20th. She was following the Lonely Planet Trek Guide and would have returned to Kathmandu April 30th-May1st. Unfortunately, no one has heard from her since she began the trek. She is trekking alone.
The above was take from the Facebook group, please visit and donate if you can to aid in the safe return of Aubrey Sacco and to learn more information about this unfortunate event)

Anyone who has friends or family who has traveled knows this is really a friends/mother/sister/fathers worst nightmare. We also know how difficult the red tape of another country can make it to find someone missing. I'm writing this blog with hopes SOMEONE sees it and knows someone who knows the area, has a friend in the area or plans to travel in the area. Us travelers have to take care of each other, wouldn’t you want the same done for yourself? As a fellow traveler, Aubreys missing really hits close to home. My thoughts are with her, always, until she gets off that plane in DIA to her many friends and family that have been awaiting her return.

“Aubrey has been spreading glitter around the world, touching lives and living her dreams”
Please get home safe Aubrey. Much positive energy from Morocco.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

A lesson in Moroccan culture: Hospitality

Although I know I just posted a blog something happened today that I felt like I needed to share: we had company come over to the house. This was some sort of family; I didn’t quite catch the sons/daughters of someone’s brother. But nonetheless they were family, family from Casablanca (so they were doing pretty good in the social standings). There was a young couple, with a young child (about 2 years old) and an older woman (my grandpas sister, maybe?) The husband also spoke a little bit of English, so they come from a little bit of money. Well I was beckoned out of my room at about 5pm and brought into the parlor upstairs. We have a very nice house upstairs, painted beautifully and really pretty tile but downstairs is another story. If you go into the bottom part of the house its mud walls, a few ponjs (Moroccan couches) and rugs thrown over them. It's not quite as fancy as upstairs. We do everything downstairs, we prepare meals, make bread, cook and everyone but me, grandpa and grandma sleep downstairs. So when I was filtered from my room to the upstairs parlor I knew we must have someone visiting.

After the older woman requested I prepare the tea I knew I was in for a treat. I have had tea very often in this country and I have watched it be prepared many times but I have yet to make it. And what better time then when we have guests from Casa in town? Well you can imagine how entertaining this was for them because it’s quite a process:
  • First you boil water over the butane gas
  • Then, put a small amount of tea (looks like little black seeds) into the tea pot
  • Pour a small amount of hot water in the tea pot and swirl around
  • Dispose of the liquid in one of the many tea cups on the platter
  • Pour more water into the tea pot, swirl and pour out again
  • Fill the tea pot until it is ¾ full, add a ridiculous amount of sugar and place over the flame on the butane
  • Allow the water to begin boiling and then add the mint (n3a n3a) or shiba (don’t know the English name) and remove from flame
  • Allow to sit for a few minutes and then pour into a tea cup. The farther you can get from the cup the better, you want at least a foot between the tea pot and the cup (the more bubbles the better)
  • After you fill the cup pour it back into the tea pot and repeat once or twice more
  • Pour a very small amount into another cup and taste to see if it tastes like sugar water, there is no such thing as too much sugar in this country so you should probably add more
  • Pour everyone an equal amount and distribute saying “bismila” so you hand off the glasses
So- as you can see, quite the process I had to go through with about 6 people watching my every move laughing if I did something right (they like to laugh when you know what you’re doing, makes you rethink everything). After the tea was distributed- they said it tasted good, but I thought it was WAY too sweet and too strong- we had cookies and sat and talked (I listened) until about 8. Things started winding down so I though it was time for them to leave, but I was wrong. Out comes a tagine and bread. Dinner at 8 o’clock you say? UNHEARD OF! We don’t eat until 11 at least, so I was not expecting food. When the tagine was opened I noticed a large amount of meat. Here is Morocco what would typically be one serving of meat in America is what my entire family of 10 spilt. Three bites of meat is what I usually get and I get the most since I am the guest. I noticed not all the meat got eaten (my family that lives in the house with me didn’t touch the meat- I suspect there will be another dinner at 11 and we’re eating that). After I ate just as much as everyone else (yet still got yelled at for never eating) out comes a tray of fruit. We NEVER have fruit for dinner so that was quite a shock. After fruit, things started winding down and the family left.

What I found interesting about this whole festivity is the fact that these people are from Casablanca, they have a little bit of money yet my family offers them the best they have and leaves what’s left for their own children. I have found this a lot in this country, being the guest at everyone’s homes, I am always offered the best and what I don’t eat goes to the rest of the family. This amazes me. Even if a family has little to nothing they will offer me some of the precious meat they do have or break out the almonds for tea while I’m there. The hospitality of the Moroccan people continues to amaze me everyday I’m here… I think everyone can learn a little something from their generosity.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Sbitar visit: safi, Tutor: safi, Language: tssnt waloo

safi= done
tssnt waloo= read on....

Oh Morocco.

Everyone asks how it is here. And the best way to put it is simply this
“Sometimes its great and sometimes it sucks.”
But thats to be expected when moving to a new country, learning a new language and trying adapt to a new culture. My mood will literally change by the minute, I will wake up dreading the day ahead of me, walk downstairs talk to my family and remember what I’m doing here.

Great example: Since we have now gone from having structure and schedules to nothing some days It's really tough to be ‘productive.’ The other day, I was tired and really not wanting to go out and talk to people but I made myself go to the sbitar to say hello to the nurses. On my way to the sbitar I met Rachid, who is now my Tashlheet tutor. This is great because I was really beginning to be worried about not finding a tutor. After scheduling to meet the next day I then had a great conversation with my nurse, Mohammed who is really beginning to open up to me. And then, on my walk home I met two teachers in my dowar. So a day I would have rather just stayed in my room turned out to be super productive. I walked home smiling, feeling great about my language and just really pumped for the next day :) After tea I then walked around with my younger sister, Aiesha. She has one friend in particular who I am rather unfond of….she likes to tell me “tssnt waloo.” If you were in America and talking to someone who was genuinely attempting to learn the language would you ever say (to their face) you don’t know anything? Well, I never would. But apparently it’s ok for some of the woman here to say that. Not all of them, of course. Most of the people here are absolutely thrilled I’m attempting to learn Tashlheet but there are a select few who loooove to tell me “Tssnt waloo” (you know nothing) :( And those two words are how my day went from being fabulous to not so fabulous… welcome to my life.

The next day I went to the sbitar to talk with my nurses and observe people at the sbitar. Mohammed told me to be there at 8 am the next morning… 8 am!? This wouldn’t be such a problem except for the fact we don’t start eating dinner until at least 11 every night so by the time I get to bed it’s about 12 and I’m exhausted. Anyway, I woke up early that morning to chat on skype and then was off to the sbitar bright and early. I knew I was going to be at the sbitar for a while and I knew it was going to be exhausting with language and I was shiwya dreading the whole day. (again, back and forth on the moods). The day ended up being very eventful at my 4 hours at the sbitar I saw a premature child who was one week old and weighed a little more than 1 kilo, a woman who was hit by her husband by afraid to go to the gendarms, some people from the city trying to sell the nurses medical encyclopedias and was asked if I was doctor by every single person that came into the sbitar. Our jobs are very difficult to explain. Can you imagine a foreigner hanging out in our hospitals with the doctors/nurses who doesn’t yet know the language, isn’t a nurse, isn’t a doctor and that says they are here to help with health?! Quite confusing. At about 1 I decided I was exhausted and ready to go home so I started the 2 K walk home (with a hill that still takes my breath in the middle) for lunch.

After lunch it was hid in my room and nap, read, get online time. I had to leave the house again and head back toward souq (main town) because I had told Rachid we would meet at 5:30 so he could tutor me for an hour. In the middle of our tutoring session I heard a lot of noise so I looked up to see what it was. Turns out a bull had escaped from the butcher and was running through the streets but the poor thing still had ropes tied around It's legs so it kept falling. People were throwing things at it and hitting it, I had to go inside the café because I was getting really upset with how they were treating the poor animal. The way all animals are treated here just breaks my heart. It's not uncommon to see the kids throw rocks and kick the cats and dogs in the streets, It's awful.

The goal for this next week: Find a house!!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Snow in May? What is this... Colorado!?

Having internet at site has been one of the best investments I’ve made while here in Morocco. It's so nice being able to connect with everyone at home, chat on skype (when it works), email and post blogs for the outside world to read. So far my schedule for myself has been coming along shwiya (sort of). Some days are a lot tougher than others and I constantly have to remind myself that just talking to new people is indeed work. Everyone in my family of 10 (seriously, I live with 10 people: my grandpa, grandma, mom, dad, 3 sisters and 3 brothers) is currently sick so I’ve been trying to keep to my room when I’m home to avoid having to touch or be around all the germs in the air. The idea of covering your mouth when you cough only seems to be important during meal times and washing your hands with soap only happens AFTER eating so it’s quite easy to get sick here. I'm attempting to lead by example with covering my mouth and explained that I wash my hands because of germs but I’m still a novelty in the house and everything I do seems weird, so they have yet to follow.

We got snow in the mountains last night and I got my first taste of what winters going to be like. I don’t really like winter in America when I can go from my heated car to my heated house so I’m really nervous about how I’m going to get through the winters in the mountains of Africa with one small heater that Peace Corps will reimburse (I’ll probably end up buying at least one more from my money) and mud walls. Other volunteers have told me you literally just wear as many layers of clothes you can put on and do as much work as you can in your home in the winters so that’s my game plan. I also decided I’m going to pick up baking, especially in the winters since the ovens here are just metal boxes with fire, and that will hopefully heat my kitchen where I will hang out like the little brother on A Christmas Story not being able to put my arms down.

I’ve learned I have quite a few people close to me as far as PCVs go so that’s been really exciting. There is my site mate, Andy. He's 28 and from Ohio. A little more on the quite side than I am but he’s collected a TON of information about our site so I’m excited to start working with him on some stuff. And I think he’s finally starting to open up to me too, so that’s exciting (I think I scared him at first). It's also nice that I’m a female so I can do a lot of work he wasn’t able to in the village. Steve is an environment volunteer about 25 K away (off-roading). I met him briefly during one of our first hubs in Ourzazate but he sent me a text welcoming me to the ‘hood’ so I think we’re going to get along just fine. Anna is 20 K away from me, in the town I switch taxis to come to site. I had coffee with her a few days ago and she seems super nice. She's 26 from St Louis and a Small Business Development (SBD) volunteer. Finally there is Linda, she’s about 30 K away, in the town where my post office, caid and gendarms are. She’s my PCV mom, had me over for lunch twice (with cookies) and helped me through the awkward marriage proposals at the gendarms. She’s 60 and absolutely FABULOUS! Overall, I’m SUPER lucky to have such fabulous volunteers within an hour away and cant wait to hang out with all of them soon (I’m hosting a 4th of July bash, inchallah)

With that I’ll leave you the advice not to try and nap/sleep in on Fridays in Morocco because It's absolutely pointless- It's the holy day if you couldn’t tell from the prayers and songs BLARING from the mosque. (which happens to be only a house away from my bedroom windows!)

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

So I'm a real volunteer... now what?

Since last post I said goodbye to my wonderful host family in Tazentoute, officially swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer, got my papers from the Ministry of Health that I’m indeed a health educator in Morocco and returned to Tidili with half of my baggage.

The last two weeks have been crazy because we went from having complete structure in our days to absolutely nothing. We are now responsible for furthering our language, meeting people in the community and integrating ourselves into our communities. To do this I plan on learning 5 new words a day, 2 new verbs a day, 2 new helpful phrases a day, have tea with 4 new families a week, visit 1 new dowar a week (quite unrealistic, but hey, I’ll try) and do 30 minutes of yoga, stretching or something a day to keep myself sane. I created this ‘agenda’ for myself in the first day of complete boredom and I’m following it shwiya (sort of). It's more of a plan B if I feel unproductive for the day.

The last few days have given me a lot of time to think about this experience of living in a new place with new people and a new culture. And one thing I think about a lot is how fortunate we are to be Americans and how blessed I am to be an American FEMALE. I have never seen people work as hard of the woman do in rural Morocco. These woman wake up at about 7 am to work the fields until 10 when they return home to clean (without vacuums and with lots of dirt blowing), prepare lunch at about 2 then nap for a little if they are lucky then go out to work the fields again. The women in Morocco are very strong people and I am constantly amazed at their strength.

The idea of alone time here in Morocco is also very interesting. Being here as a single female the people automatically assume I’m lonely since I have no husband or family beside me and are always trying to sit very close to me, in my room or hold my hand. This was great for the first day when I was scared out of my mind and it reassured me but it’s gotten old-fast. The idea of sitting alone and reading or listening to music is unknown to them. I’ve learned to treasure and appreciate whenever I can sneak away to my room to be alone for a little bit.

Oh yes, and phone boyfriends. Quite an interesting thing- since the idea of dating, touching, kissing, holding hands is hashuma (shamefull) here in Morocco the youth have found another way to have boyfriends/girlfriends. These would be phone boyfriends. Let me explain this to you, males dial random cell phone numbers hoping for a young female voice. If they hear a young female on the other end they speak for a little bit and then become phone lovers. What does this consist of you ask? Well text messages and beeping of course. (Beeping= calling and hanging up before the other person answers.) This can mean a range of things from “where the hell are you” to “I miss you” to “thinking of you” to “call me back”- I have yet to decipher the codes of this beeping but I’ll keep you posted as I learn more

Another glory of Morocco I would like to share with you- public transportation. Since we are paid close to nothing as volunteers we take public transportation to get from place to place. There are several types here in Morocco:
  • Petite taxis: small taxis that travel within cities;
  • Grand taxis: these are old Mercedes cars, usually with a broken speedometer, crushed velvet seats and no window rollers in the back seats. These taxis fit no less than 6 persons, 7 including the driver. The driver and two passengers up front (the seat near the shifter is really uncomfortable as a female when the male driver is shifting into 4th), and 4 in the back. As I said earlier, most of these don’t have the rollers in the back seats so you practically cook in them. And most of the time, females don’t travel, so the taxi is full of men. Little ol me and 6 men…. Quite an adventure;
  • Souk buses: these are buses that travel between towns, if you get a seat on one they are quite nice. If you don’t get a seat, they suck. Animals (like chickens, turkeys) also travel on souk buses so it can turn into quite the zoo sometimes. The windows don’t usually go down in these either because a lot of Moroccans believe they will get sick from the air outside. Combine the closed windows with very hot weather and people who don’t wear deodorant and It's a pleasant ride to say the least. Oh yeah, and the little fact I gave you earlier (females don’t usually travel)- combine THAT with windy roads and no air and you get….well I think you can guess what happens;
  • CTM buses: I have yet to ride these but if I plan on traveling anywhere more than an hour away this will be my form of transport, you are assigned a seat. And that alone is worth the price.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Address

My final site address:

Angelica Polen
BP 9 Inghrom N Ougdal 45253 P
Ourzazate, Morocco

This will be the address I use for the next two years, no worries if something was sent to the other one- it will forward for a few months.
<3>

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Wrong host family...huh?

April 27th/30th
The last week has been crazy. We traveled to Ourzazate to find out our sites, visited them, traveled back to Ourzazate to debrief and then returned to our CBT sites. As I said a little earlier, I’m going to be living in a site named Tidilli. It's a HUGE site, about 50 dowars. A dowar is a small rural village in Morocco. There is a total population of about 17,000 people in the area. Tidili is in the middle atlas mountains in Morocco, so it doesn’t get too hot (compared to the 145 degrees some places get) but we do get snow, as much as a foot from what I’ve heard. The town in pretty high in elevation and they just paved the road to the main dowar (souk- where we have our market once a week) about 2 years ago. Most of the dowars have running water, which to the best of my knowledge is just mountain spring water- I don’t think It's filtered but I’ve been drinking it and have yet to go sick so we’ll see how that goes. And only about 5 dowars currently live without electricity. When I look for a house I will only be looking in the dowars with both running water and electricity, I was willing to live without if my whole site didn’t have such amenities, but I don’t see a point in doing so if It's available to me.

The main point of our site visit was to visit the site, visit the sbitar (which is a hospital in the rural areas of Morocco) which we will be working at (inchallah=god willing), tell the gendarms (the local police) that we have arrived and what our plans were for leaving, check in with our caid (the mayor of Tidili and a few other towns) and set up our post office situation.

What I learned on site visit:

  • The Moroccan people are extremely welcoming and will let a complete stranger eat dinner with them and stay the night. Story behind this? Well, turns out I went to the wrong host families’ house the first night and not only ate dinner with the wrong family but also stayed the night. How did I know I was in the wrong house? Well, the first sign was when the two little girls laid their blankets down on the floor to sleep in the same room. This was bad, but the thing that really made me realize something was wrong was when my host aunt crawled into bed with me. Needless to say, I didn’t really sleep well the first night smashed up against the wall next to a complete stranger.
  • Moroccans eat askeef A LOT. Not only have I eaten it everyday for breakfast but I’ve also had it for first tea and kasqrut (tea between lunch and dinner). Askeef is a warm soupy goo. It is basically just water, salt, milk and wheat cooked in a pot and served in a bowl- don’t love it but don’t hate it either. I have a feeling I’m going to have to learn to like it.
  • Morocco has A LOT of bugs. I was ready to live with them and most of the time it’s alright, but sometimes it really just gets to me. The amount of flies in this country is UNREAL. As I'm sitting inside typing up this post I can count 10 flies sitting on my body at this very moment. And when you’re outside the flies, bees and gnats are just ridiculous. I haven’t been getting too many bites, a few here and there but nothing like some of the other volunteers that are covered. I’ve also been lucky enough to not have to deal with bedbugs which other volunteers have had some issues with.
  • Working in my sbitar is going to be very difficult. Like I said earlier, Tidili is home to 17,000 people. And how many doctors and nurses do they have? Zero doctors and two nurses. ZERO DOCTORS! Currently I have two nurses at my sbitar, Mohammed and Khadija. Khadija has been at the sbitar for almost 10 years and speaks Tashleet and Darija while Mohammed has been at the sbitar for only a few months, speaks English, French and Darija. When meeting with Mohammed he refused to speak to me but spoke to Andy about me since I was a female. That was super frustrating but it’s just something I’m going to have to try and work with. The biggest obstacle with Mohammed is going to be the fact that he could do some really great things at our sbitar but he doesn’t want to be in Tidili so he’s requesting a move and hopes to be gone in a few months. This is really unfortunate because the sbitar will go back to one nurse for 17,000 people.
  • Home births and children dying at home are a HUGE problem in Morocco. Currently woman in Tidili choose to have their children at home since there are no doctors in the area. This is usually done by either a member of the family or a traditional birth attendant who has very little training in the birthing of children. An example of how large a problem of this is my new host mother. She currently has 7 children but has lost 5 children due to home births-5 CHILDREN!!! This number is just outrageous, but I think a project I want to get started is getting some more training for these traditional birth attendants and also more awareness and possible transportation to a new birthing center that has just been built about 30 K away.
  • Elf pasta is real! Spaghetti can be eaten a variety of different ways, including with sugar, yogurt and fruit (think the movie “Elf”). It's not terrible but It's defiantly not something I will be making at my new home. They do have a great recipe for Spaghetti that tastes like fancy ramen noodles that I’m learning from my family in Tazentout though.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Tidili

I'm sitting in my hotel room right now waiting for my site mate Andy so we can head out to Tidili, my new home for the next two years. Andy is a third year volunteer and i learned it was because our site is apparently very tough to get information from the people at, they tend to send you on a wild goose chase to get information on anything, so its taken him a long time to gather all the information he needs for his project. And now that its all gathered he doesnt want to just leave it up to me (which is probably a good idea with my minimal tashleet) so he extended for another year. We (myself, Alexa, Ayanna, Andy and Evan -Ayannas site mate) all went to dinner last night and this is what i've learned about Tidili so far:
  • I will not be able to get the good bread that I like in my site, they dont make it because its too hard to make. i think i'm going to try and get this down with my current host family in Tazentout so i can have it on special occasions at my site (its delicious)
  • We are indeed in the mountains and we get a few inches of snow in the winter. My site doesnt get too much but the road that we have to take to leave does, so we get snowed in at times
  • I have a sbitar at my site (this is where I am supposed to be working) but it only has one nurse and he doesnt want to be there, so I work a lot with other sbitar
  • I have A LOT of primary schools in the area so I will be doing a lot of handwashing, teeth brushing types of activies
  • My town is indeed very large, 17,000 people to be exact. But its also very spread out, so i'm interested to see what that looks like

Thats it for now... I'm headed out for the week, be back in Ourzazate on Friday!

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Amzwaru, Wissen, Wisskrad....

Amzwaru (first): if people dont start commenting on this blog I'm not going to continue it since its quite a pain in the butt to type everything out, get to internet and then have 0 comments (except the one from zeke and my sister, thanks)

Wissen (second): I've posted new pics on my FB http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2344931&id=19214791&l=816aeded48 (its a lot faster on FB so check em out)

Wisskrad (third): I've learned my final site and will be going to Tidili, which is in the ourzazate province. It was rather anti-climatic to learn this at first but after we realized we already knew the dialect and would not have to travel by bus for 13 hours it became a lot more appealing. I also go placed by a friend of mine, Alexa. She is only an hour and a half away so thats super exciting. ALSO- I will have a site mate. I have yet to meet him, but his name is Andy and hes been here in Morocco for his two years but is staying for a third. So thats pretty exciting.

Im off to meet Andy and head to my site tomorrow... Hopefully I will come back to some comments :)


<3 Loves!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Friend Photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lostnav

Here are my friend Aarons pics... he's our professional photographer so he has lots of pics!
<3

Ait Ben Haddou and Klaa

April 6th:
Today we had our interviews for our final sight. They asked us mostly basic questions, like if we want/need electricity and/or water at our sight, what our ideal sight would be and what the worst sight we could imagine would be what we are bringing to our community and lots of other stuff. We finally find out where we are going on the 15th (when I will probably be able to post this, since I only get internet at Hub in Ourzazate anyway).Its super exciting that we are finally going to have information on what we’re doing and where we’re going for the next two years but its also kind of scary because who is going to be around us and where we are going to be is really going to make or break the next two years. I’m trying to think as positive as possible but it’s tough. Alright- that’s all I'm going to write for the night, I don’t feel good at all and I’m just all over the place tonight. Off to bed I go..

April 11th:
I feel like I have to catch you up on a lot! Before I begin I have to let you all know that I’m writing this blog as my toes dry (bright red) and I couldn’t be happier about it. I found nail polish today in Ourzazate and I am SOOO excited that I will have painted toes for tomorrow.
Well to start off, I was really sick the last week, I think I just caught the flu or something caught up with me due to all the hand shaking, cheek kissing and lack of sleep. I’m fine now though, I came straight home from school and went to bed for two days in a row to try and sleep which sucked for my poor host family, but they knew I was sick so it wasn’t too big a deal. We only have a little bit of time left with our families, which is crazy. I cant believe I’ve been in Morocco for 5 weeks now!! Only 26ish months to go, haha. Quick catch up:
Language is definalty coming along. My family is amazing and so patient with me, so its really helpful when learning verbs and different tenses. My brother is also awesome about trying to learn English so we constantly quiz each other on words, numbers and days of the week.
We went to Ait Ben Haddou for our first weekend we had off. We don’t have school on Saturday afternoons or Sundays but we have to stay in our sights and hang out with our host family most weekends. However, for two weekends during or CBT (while I’m in tazentoute) we were able to travel. So for the first visit we went to Ait Ben Haddou which is where a lot of movies are filmed (Gladiator, The Mummy, Prince of Arabia) were filmed. Ait Ben Haddou is only a 20 minute taxi ride from Tazentoute so it didn’t make sense not to go, plus there are volunteers there for CBT so they found us a cheap hotel. The town is gorgeous, their CBT experience is definalty different from ours, they have cyber cafes and restaurants in their town where we have 3 small Hanuts (small shops) and that’s about it in ours. Plus almost everyone spoke some English so it was a lot easier to communicate. Highlights of the trip were my new purse (that I got ripped off on, bad- but oh well, I love it), visiting the casba, seeing other Peace Corps people, showering at the hotel (with semi warm/mostly cold water) and having wireless internet in our hotel.
This weekend we went to Klaa which is the city of roses and they have a huge rose festval around May.. On Saturdays we also have time built into our school day to do something related to culture, which can be our American culture or Morocaan culture. Last week we made a cake, Moroccan way (2 cups of yogurt, 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of oil, 10 eggs, 7 packages of yeast, 2 packages of vanilla yeast and flour) and this weekend we decided we wanted to try and make an American lunch. What did we decide on you ask? Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans of course! (hey, we have limited resources here in Tazentoute!) Lunch turned out AMAZING and we danced around to Lady Gaga, Britney Spreas and Spice Girls while we waited (poor Aaron). After lunch Alexa met us in Tazentoute and we jumped in a taxi on the way to Klaa. Originally we were going to have to change taxis in Ourzazate but our amazing taxi driver got permission from the gendarms to take us all the way so we arrived in Klaa at about 3:30ish. A LOT of other Peace Corps trainees also had the idea to go to Klaa so there ended up being about 20 of us staying in our hotel. The hotel was alright, it didn’t have hot water and the beds were a little lumpy but it was a roof over our heads so it worked out. We walked around Klaa for a few hours, stopped to have some tea and just checked out the city. We found a super marche that sold ICE CREAM so that was a really nice treat. We also ran into 3 current Peace Corps volunteers so it was nice to chat with them for a little bit and get some questions answered. After walking around the city we found a cyber to make some calls home and check email. After our internet fix we found a restaurant were we had dinner. It’s so weird going to any cafĂ© here because woman typically do not sit at restaurant or cafes, they are reserved for men. In my final site this is a luxury I will not be able to have, but in tourist areas its usually more acceptable for tourists to sit at these cafes. I had dinner with 4 other girls, Monica, Tina, Alexa and Caity. Dinner was good; the Barcelona/Real Madrid game was on TV as we ate in the other cafes so there was a lot of yelling and screaming that went on over dinner. After dinner we went back to the hotel and called it a night.
The next day (Sunday) we woke up up at about 9 to hammering and lots of noise and got dressed for a hike/exploration of Hdida. We finally got a taxi to take us (along with a lady and her 2 children, a younger boy and another man) so were pretty cozy- there ended up being Nina in the front seat with the little boy, Monica, Eric, Alexa and the man in the front row of seats and Myself, Caity and the 3 children in the back seat. Some of the taxis here are like Hurst’s and have an extra row of seating. The ride up to Hdida (its in the mountains) was a crazy twisted road so there was a lot of head hitting and falling on top of each other that occurred. After our interesting 30 minute taxi ride we arrived in Hdida to begin our exploration. Caity is learning Darija and she speaks wonderfully so she got the taxi drivers phone number to call him when were done to take us back (very good call since there were no taxis in town). We began our walk through the town and saw a sign for a Casba of roses. This sounded like it might be something fun to check out so we walked in and were greeted by a small family (2 ladies and a younger boy). They seemed confused about why were there and kept saying something about calling Christian. Since we have no idea who that is we kept insisting they didn’t. They offered to show us the view from the roof so we agreed. They also showed us that they were building a hotel in their home, which was beautiful. The view from the roof was nice. After looking out and taking a few pictures Nina (side note: Here name is really Tina but it turned out Tina is slang for a woman’s private parts so we now call her Nina) and I asked where the bathroom was thinking we were going to get the typical Turkish toilet…. But what did we get? We got a SUPER nice western style bathroom, with a toilet, sink AND shower. We were obviously pretty surprised by this so the lady showed us two other rooms after, one of which we learned was Christians bedroom, with a super nice bed and carper and the other with couches and a flat screen tv! It turns out Christian created a natural bath product with the roses from Klaa and he lives with these people. So after our potty break the family invited us to stay for tea and snacks (not un-usual in Morocc) so we had tea and chatted for a bit. This is where it started to get weird, we thought the people were going to join us for tea but instead they dropped things off, and served us. After tea we decided it was probably best for us to leave, btu we wanted to see if we could buy the bath products (since there was some oil by the sink that we used and really liked.) So we asked if we could buy the product andthats where the language and everything just stopped. An older man came out and started talking to Monica, a grandma started talking to me and everyone was just confused. We didn’t know what was going on, but they wanted us to stay for lunch and thenthey wanted us to wait for Christian to come home and well… we just left. After that weird adventure we decided to walk around by the river and saw a group of French tourists with a tourguide so we followed them and they went through some beautiful fields, waterfalls. Rose fields and poppy fields. We walked around for about an hour to another town, got some candy at the Hanut and then walked back. When walking back to town we saw some other volunteers that left earlier to hike. We all got in our cabs back to Klaa. At this point we were a little hungry so Monica and I ventured out to find some sandwiches (delish) in Klaa and then jumped online for 30 minutes before we needed to leave. We caught a taxi back to Ourzazate and I just thought I would share the highlights of our 1 ½ hour taxi ride: I saw a little boy peeing on the side of the street which we ran the same direction he was peeing, a dead dog on the side of the road (legs up in the air), other PCVs walking back to their town, a beautiful river, mountains in the backdrop, hills, desert and a casba that our taxi driver told us is used to film movies. Once we finally arrived to Ourzazate we had coffee while waiting for the rest of our group and then caught another Taxi into Tazentoute. I got back home at about 6:30, talked to my family, showered and then went to bed without dinner since I was exhausted at about 830 and couldn’t bear to wait until 10 for dinner.
Since our arrival back to Tazentoute we’ve had class yesterday and today. We have been having class from 8-12 consisting of Tashleet language and then time in the evenings to work on creating 2 projects for our town. So far we have created a handwashing class for preschool children and began a trash awareness session for the elementary school and woman in the community about what to do with their trash (ie, burn, recycle, bury and feed to animals).

Thursday, April 1, 2010

March 10 Update

Hello dear friends of mine,

So since last post we have gone to meet/stay with our host families in our towns, visited the town of Ait Ben Haddou and have come back to our hub site (Ourzazate) three times…. Sorry! I didn’t bring my computer with me the first trip back to our sites so it was hard to try and update the blog when we got back to hub. I’ll catch you all up for now and try to get better at posting when I’m at hub. So let me tell you all about my FABULOUS family. I live with an older sister, Nejma (she is about 27) and my brother Abdelhay (he is 12). I also live with my wonderful mother and father. My mom used to live with my other 3 sisters and 1 brother in Casablanca but has come back to Tazentoute and now lives with us. I live in the small (approximately) town of Tazentoute which is about 20 K away from Ourzazate (for those of you familiar with Morocco ) I live in a small home with a courtyard, 2 rooms beside mine, 1 bathroom (aka hole in the floor with a faucet), kitchen and backyard with a donkey, 3 goats and chickens. We also have a cat who is the most well fed cat I’ve ever met (even more so than Ernie!! This cat gets fed at the table like crazy). I’ve now been living with my host family for about 3 weeks and its going great. Day one was the most terrifying day I’ve ever experienced. After the 20 minute cab ride into Tazentoute we got picked up by a member of our family (Nejma picked me up) and taken to our homes. Silly me brought my backpack AND my rolly bag… wouldn’t be such a terrible idea if we didn’t have to CARRY the damn thing across the town of Tazentoute through hills and unpaved roads. Needless to say, they probably were wondering what the hell they get themselves into with such a high mantainance volunteer. Upon arrival to my house there were two ladies on the couches, I had no idea who they were ( I have since learned it my neighbor and my aunt). After being introduced in Tashleet (which I didn’t know a word of) I saw and smiled for a bit, since that’s about all I could do at this point. I don’t remember much more because I was TERRIFIED. I got to bed at about 10 after a huge meal of them talking and me smiling. I went to bed so nervous and worried about what I got myself into… there are really no words to describe that feeling.
The next day we began our formal language training. A typical day (Monday-Friday) looks like this:

7:00 AM: use the Bitlma (bathroom), wash my face and brush my teeth with a bucket of water over the toilet hole, go back to my room and change into my clothes for the day, join my sister, mom and sometimes brother for a breakfast of agrom (bread) and Atay (SUPER sweet tea), walk to class.

8:00: Arrive to l-mdrasa (school) and begin language (Tashlheet) classes with 4 other volunteers (Jackie Shay, Monica, Aaron and Martha) taught by our LCF Fatima.
9:45: First tea break, usually have some hard boiled eggs (tiglay), bread(agrom), jam(l-kohfiter), butter(zibidah), Nutella (shklat) and tea (Atay)
12:00: Lunch break, we eat and usually do laundry on the roof during this time too
2:00 Lunch break ends, we have more language, cultural training or site training during this time

3:45: Second tea break, we sometimes have coffee during this time too!
5:00 End teaching sessions, usually have tutoring until about 5:30 or 6
6:00 Go to our host families home (or each others houses) and have 3rd tea, which sometimes includes Tea, Coffee and cakes. Often there is a 4th tea between 3rd tea and lunch and if you’re out in the town there is DEFINATLY a 4th tea and sometimes a 5th (can you see the tea pattern here?? I drink A LOT of tea)
6-9:00: During this time we sometimes go on walks to the river or through the fields, I try to get some studying done here too. If I’m lucky I’ll also get to read and/or hang out to music for a little bit (the idea of personal time is foreign to my family and a lot of rural Morocco). I try to help with dinner at about 8 too.
9:30-10: we usually have dinner during this time and are done anytime between 10 and 10:30. After dinner I sit in my room and journal, read or just lay in bed and listen to my ipod for a bit.
11:30: I’m usually passed out by then to start the whole day over again 
On Saturdays we only have review and language training until noon so that’s nice to have a break. And on Sundays we don’t have language at all, we have self directed learning where we get to hang out with our host families and do what we want (as long as we stay in ours towns).

I don’t want to make this entry too long so I’ll try to post the HIGHLIGHTS of the last few weeks: (side note- as I’m writing this I’m beginning to realize that my English is becoming worse and worse by the day!)