I'm gonna let it shine

Though I’ve made some posts in the last few months, it’s been awhile since I’ve given some updates about my work and projects. I’ve been really busy since February with various things, including several large events and a bunch of smaller, continuous projects in-between. It’d be too daunting for me to list everything I’ve been up to for the past few months (and probably really tedious for you to read), so I’ve selected a few of the things I’m most proud of and summarized them here. I snagged a few of the summaries from my volunteer report that I submit to Peace Corps, so forgive the detached, report-style writing that’s present here and there!


Training in Fes for the new trainees

I had the awesome opportunity to participate in the training process for the new volunteers of the stage that arrived in country in January. For 6 days, I worked with a training group of 5 trainees on PACA (Participatory Analysis for Community Action), English teaching, spring/summer camps, and leading clubs/activities. In each of these areas, I presented training material, offered advice through positive experience sharing, fielded questions, and facilitated discussion and idea-sharing among the trainees. I was also responsible for guiding the trainees through hands-on practice with each of the new skills they learned, in the form of having them each lead activities and classes at their training site Dar Chebab. You might be thinking, “wow, that is a heck of a lot of stuff to cover in 6 days,” and you’d be right – it was a TON of stuff to cover in such a short amount of time, and we were super busy. Everything went extraordinarily well, though, and we covered everything we needed to. In fact, during their PACA community mapping practice, the conversation centered on the issue of women’s access to cafes and other public spaces, and by the end of the activity, boys were openly calling for greater equality for girls. Talk about success, right?!

I was super excited about doing this from the beginning, mostly because of my love for PACA (you can read about it here and here), but also because I’ve always wanted to help Peace Corps Morocco operations on a broader scale. Plus, I was lucky enough to be able to work with my former CBT site, which meant tons of visiting time with my host family! For reasons I can’t fully put my finger on, this experience was one of the most fulfilling things I’d done in my service up until that point. Facilitating discussions and skills practice, returning to my “roots” of Morocco in my CBT site, having a part in shaping the future of Peace Corps Morocco, and benefiting from the unique, refreshing perspective afforded by spending time with new trainees – it was well-worth the long trek back up north.


Goal Setting Workshops

In partnership with my counterpart, I led 2 goal setting workshops with the members of 2 local women's associations. The workshops had an association-wide focus, meaning that the participants identified and discussed goals that they wanted to achieve as an association as a whole, rather than as individuals. We designed the workshops as a way to not only help the associations with planning their future activities, but also as a way to give the women practice with the process of setting attainable goals and developing realistic plans to achieve those goals.

The workshops were a huge success, with 40 women attending the first and over 150 women attending the second one. Many of the women expressed their enjoyment of the workshop, and requested that we come back to do something similar in the future.

Here’s an outline of how the workshops went:
1) We began with a general discussion of what goals are, reasons for their importance, and methods for achieving them
2) We read the association's official mission statement and goals, and together wrote the goals on flip-chart paper in simplified language, in order to help everyone understand what the broad goals of the association are.
3) Through large group discussion, participants chose one broad association goal that they felt was especially important. This became the broad goal that we would focus on for the duration of the workshop.
4) In small groups, participants brainstormed possible projects or activities within the area of the large goal chosen by the group. They were told to focus only on projects or activities that could be achieved within a 1 year timeframe, and to choose their best idea to share with the group.
5) Each group shared their idea with the larger group, and each group's idea was written on flip-chart paper.  Through large group discussion, participants then chose one idea from the list to focus on for the purposes of the workshop, with the knowledge that each idea was valid and potentially attainable.
6) We then had a general discussion of long-term goal setting, using the metaphor of a set of stairs to illustrate the concept of working "step by step" to achieve a larger goal. Participants were shown a drawing of stairs on flip-chart paper, with "1 year" written at the top, "6 months" written in the middle, "Now" written at the bottom, etc. The project idea they chose was written at the top, next to "1 year," and it was explained that in order to achieve their goal in 1 year, they would need to plan for all of the steps they would need to take in 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, etc.
7) In their small groups, the participants were asked to think of steps necessary to achieve their goal, starting with "now," and working their way up the stairs. Each group was given 7 pieces of paper and asked to write each step on a sheet of paper.
8) Each group shared the steps they thought of with the large group, and placed them on the stairs according to when on the timeline that step should take place. The large group gave their input on each step and where it should go on the timeline. The finished product was a complete timeline for achieving their project idea.

At the end of the activity, the association had, on flip chart paper:
- Their broad mission and official association goals, written in simple language for all to understand
- A list of project/activity ideas for one of their broad goals
- A 1 year timeline plan for achieving one of their activity ideas.
- A blank sheet with stairs drawn on it, for planning additional activities and replicating the goal setting activity with themselves in the future

International Women’s Day Event

I partnered with Tafoukt Souss, a local women's development association in Agadir, to hold an interactive discussion for International Women’s Day. We decided to show the film “You Can Dream: Stories of Moroccan Women Who Do,” and use the themes in the film as a starting point for discussion.

Three girls from the association came to my site and led an interactive 2 hour-long event with over 70 women. We screened the “You Can Dream” video, and paused it between each woman’s story to facilitate discussions about the themes in the film and how those themes relate to the lives of the women present. The discussion was very participatory, rather than lecture-style, and women in attendance frequently shared their thoughts and experiences with issues presented in the film The vast majority of the women participated and seemed genuinely interested in the topic. Several women stayed afterward to talk more with the women from the association, and several more requested that we host more discussions like this in the future.

Field Trips with the Dar Chebab kids

My mudir, some older students of the Dar Chebab, and I coordinated a field trip to a nearby mountain and natural spring for the youth of our Dar Chebab. We left early in the morning, traveled to a town near the spring, and hiked with our things to a suitable spot near the spring. Throughout the day we set up camp, played games, went on hikes, and had lunch and kaskroot at our campsite. The older boys took care of all of the logistics regarding food: botagaz, ingredients, supplies, dishes, cooking, etc. While we were there, I led 2 hikes to the nearby spring and hills, taught the kids Ultimate Frisbee, played cards, and led informal discussions about nature and pollution.

Piling in to our mode of transportation of choice!

Near the natural spring

My Dar Chebab also led a girls-only field trip to Agadir. Approximately 20 girls joined us for a trip to the beach, lunch in Agadir's famous souk l-hdd, and a walking tour of the city of Agadir. The field trip was girls-only because of girls' expressed discomfort with boys harassing them or bothering them, particularly when in their bathing suits at the beach. My Mudir and I wanted to give the girls an opportunity to enjoy themselves free from the added pressures of discomforts resulting from the presence of boys.


Diabetes Screening and Awareness Event

This event was part of a two-week long annual program organized by the Ministry of Health in Taroudant. The program consisted of diabetes screenings and educational discussions in several towns throughout Taroudant province. The diabetes testing and educational discussions were conducted by 4 Belgian nursing students, 1 Belgian doctor, 1 Algerian assistant, and various Moroccan staff from the Ministry of Health. The Belgian nursing students were in Morocco as part of a volunteer program jointly facilitated by their university and Morocco's Ministry of Health. I contacted the Taroudant Ministry of Health early on in the program's planning process, in order to coordinate the inclusion of my site, Sebt el-Guerdane, into the program for the first time.

The event in Sebt el-Guerdane consisted of free diabetes screenings and a diabetes educational discussion, both aimed specifically at women of the community. Over a 5-hour period, 147 women were tested for diabetes using a two-test approach: one test before breakfast, one test after breakfast. If they tested positive for diabetes, they were given brief counseling about their test results, as well as an official reference to the local clinic to receive further medication and treatment options. Over 120 women also attended our diabetes educational discussion, which focused on the basics of diabetes, symptoms, prevention, treatment, nutrition, and healthy lifestyles.

Several of the women who attended the event had never before been tested for diabetes, and were receiving testing and medical information about he disease for the first time. While many women who attended were from Sebt el-Guerdane central, many came several kilometers from small villages outside the town in order to benefit from this free service.

In addition to the diabetes screening and educational discussion for women the first day, the team and I also led a 1.5 hour educational discussion with the girls at the local Dar Taliba the following evening. The discussion focused on diabetes awareness, nutrition, and healthy lifestyles.


Taroudant Spring Camp

Every April, Peace Corps Morocco partners with the Ministry of Youth and Sports to put on dozens of camps across the country during students’ two-week spring break. Most of these camps are English-intensive, and are staffed by PCVs and Moroccan counselors alike. I had the pleasure of coordinating the Taroudant camp this year, the biggest spring camp in the country, from what I’ve learned! It was enormously successful, and I had such a great time. We had 160 kids at the camp - that's 10 more than we were expecting and 40 more than the previous year - and still managed to not only keep everything under control, but to have a really successful week of camp. There were 6 PCVs working the camp, in addition to 10 absolutely wonderful Moroccan counselors. All of the PCVs were flexible and hard-working, handling class sizes of 20-30 youth and club sizes of 45+. Those are huge class sizes for camp groups, and I was continually impressed by how well they handled it. In addition, the Moroccan counselors were true professionals; they were always present, helpful, respectful, and truly creative in the activities they led with the youth. Throughout the camp, we had English classes in a wide variety of levels, club/workshop activities (environment, team-building, art, and gender&development), sports time, and a variety of Moroccan-led activities. What’s more, among the 10 counselors were 3 professional musicians, who led a great music club in the evenings that was a big hit with the youth. The camp also included an outing into the Taroudant medina and a large, scavenger-hunt game on the camp grounds.

All of the PCVs, counselors, and staff

Taroudant's famous medina walls

The PCVs

Some of the kids on the last day

Before working this camp, I would have been daunted by the thought of organizing, teaching, and engaging 160 youth in one camp, and it was truly amazing to see how well everything came together. The mudir, counselors, and PCVs worked together every day to make this one of the most successful camps I've been to in Morocco, and I am proud to have been a part of it!


Upcoming: Souss Girls' Soccer Camp

The biggest project on my plate now is the Souss Girls’ Soccer camp that I, along with my PCV partner, John, and our community partners, are organizing for the first week of July. This is an ambitious, unique project – the kind of thing that has the ability to define our services and stay in our memories for a lifetime – and I’m so excited to tell you about it! We got the idea from the various PCV-organized girls’ soccer teams that have been starting in the region, despite multiple obstacles and some cultural stigma attached to girls’ sports here. We wanted o give the girls an opportunity to practice their soccer skills, meet other girls with similar interests, and give them the opportunity to meet some older role models who have found success in the sport despite cultural norms. The plan is to bring 4 soccer teams, from 4 different towns, together for one large, week-long, all-girls soccer camp. We’ve got a local association partnering with us, and the women from the awesome Taroudant women’s professional soccer team are coming to act as coaches for the girls. We’ve got a good foundation going, but this is still a HUGE project – building a week-long summer camp from the ground up in Morocco is challenging enough as it is, let alone the fact that we are really pushing some boundaries by offering such a sports-based opportunity to girls. We have about a month and a half left to pull this off, and its going to be a busy ride until then, especially because there will be a lot of Peace Corps related travel happening between now and then. Plus, we are still waiting to hear back about our grant funding – so cross your fingers for us! More updates on this to come!

Dear Future Peace Corps Volunteer...

Before starting service, every Peace Corps Volunteer receives an invitation packet from their assigned country, which includes an official invitation to serve, paperwork, and a "welcome book" from the invitee's assigned country. The welcome book contains lots of information about the country in general, the culture, the work assignment, a packing list, etc. At the end of the welcome book, there are letters from current volunteers, intended to give invitees the authentic "voice of the volunteer." I was asked to write one of these letters for the next edition of the Morocco welcome book, and thought I'd share it here. I realize that it's too long, but what can I say? Its a little more than difficult summing up all that could be said about my time here so far and all that I've learned. So, here you have it:

Dear future Peace Corps Volunteer,

It has been said that Morocco is a study in contrasts: the modern with the traditional, the desert heat with the mountain chill, and the recent successes with the lingering challenges. Life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco follows the same pattern; indeed, my first year of service has been simultaneously the most difficult and the most rewarding year of my life.

I am inspired daily by the hospitality and generosity of the Moroccan people, when friends, neighbors, and even complete strangers from my town invite me in for a delicious meal, no questions asked, solely out of a desire to welcome a newcomer and share their company. I am amazed by the youth I’ve come to know at various summer camps across the country, whose enthusiasm, language skills, and humble kindness are beyond their years. I am inspired by Fatima, the women’s literacy teacher in my town, who has devoted her life to ensuring that just a few more women will learn the value of reading, writing, and expressing themselves, despite the obstacles. I am moved by the spirit of the women who have come to my events, learning and discussing openly with one-another about women’s rights, family law, and gender dynamics in Morocco. I’m inspired by the numerous women’s associations I’ve worked with throughout my service, who work tirelessly against cultural tides to improve women’s health, education, literacy, and independence. I’m amazed at the strength and dedication of the girls in my soccer club, who come to practice week after week, despite cultural norms and vocal boys who would rather they stay off the field. Most importantly, I’m touched by the willingness of my Moroccan friends, neighbors, and counterparts to work with me as I navigate a foreign culture, master a new language, and adjust to all the nuanced challenges of working in an unfamiliar context.

The most challenging aspect of life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco is learning to adjust your expectations – expectations of your service, your work, your site, and yourself. Peace Corps advises you to come with no expectations, but we all know that that isn’t possible; the important thing will be knowing that your expectations may not be met, and in fact will likely change dozens of times throughout your service. I had a certain set of expectations of myself and my service when I came to Morocco, and almost every aspect of that has been turned upside down from the moment I arrived – by the difficulties of my site, by my primary assignment, by my working conditions, by cultural issues, and a whole host of other factors. And adjusting all of your expectations – especially when in the midst of adjusting to life in a new culture and learning a new language – is hard. It was much harder than I’d expected, and I admit that there were days when I didn’t know how I was going to manage. After a year of service, though, I’ve learned the importance of learning to go with the flow, to expect the unexpected, and to adjust when things don’t go as planned. Most importantly, I know that although my service isn’t at all what I expected, it is still meaningful, challenging, fulfilling, and beautiful in its own right.

In addition to all Morocco will teach you about cultures, languages, and yourself, your time as a Peace Corps Volunteer will undoubtedly give you a new perspective on time, patience, and what success can look like. In America, success means things like launching a large initiative, hosting hundreds of people at event, raising thousands of dollars for a cause, etc. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, though, success can mean having a conversation with a few girls, in which they share the struggles they face and you encourage them to find their voice and reach for their goals, despite the odds. Success can mean suddenly realizing that after months of living with, eating with, shopping with, and learning with Moroccan friends, you’ve become completely immersed in the culture. Success can mean sharing a joke with a woman in a crowded taxi whom you’ve never met, in a language you’ve just learned, about something you both can relate to across cultures. Indeed, perhaps the most meaningful successes as a Peace Corps Volunteer are those that involve bridging the gaps, forging lifelong bonds, and changing perceptions one smile at a time.

Kirsten Zeiter

Youth Development Volunteer, 2012-2014

1 Year In

March 19th marked 1 year since I officially began my Peace Corps journey. 1 year since, exhausted, nervous, teary-eyed, and weighed down with too many bags, I walked through the Detroit Metro airport to catch a plane to Philadelphia. 1 year since we gathered for a 1-day introduction called “Staging” in Philadelphia, and the whirlwind of forms and procedures and papers and vague answers made me dizzy with stress. And 1 year since I met for the first time some of the people that would come to be my anchors, my sounding boards, my dearest new friends.

March 21st marked 1 year since we first set foot in Morocco as Peace Corps Trainees. 1 year since we all waited at the airport in Philly for hours, trying to get to know one another and relax, but mostly trying to calm down and enjoy our last bits of greasy American snack foods or ice cream or beers for awhile. 1 year since, 10 minutes before our plane was boarding, a group of us gathered in the airport bar and toasted to our hopes for the next 2 years with Sam Adams mugs. 1 year since we landed in Casablanca and were greeted by Peace Corps staff on our way to retrieve our too many bags. 1 year since I sat next to Kitty, Ted, and Eugene on the shuttle to Rabat, gazing at our new surroundings and showing each other pictures of our loved ones back home. And 1 year since, slightly rested after a nap but still jet-lagged beyond reason, we gathered for our first of many training sessions in Hotel Oscar, eagerly collecting whatever information we could from the staff we’d just met.

In many ways, those first days in country feel close – I can still remember how I felt, who I talked to, and what we ate – and it’s truly difficult to believe that an entire year has passed since then. In other ways, though, I look back and recognize just how far I’ve come: how much I’ve learned, how much I’ve grown, how close I’ve become with new friends, how much I’ve experienced, the roller-coaster of emotions that I’ve learned to cope with, the cultural understanding I’ve developed, the changes I’ve made, new life I’ve created for myself from scratch here in Morocco.

In 1 years’ time, I’ve left my home and loved ones behind; learned a new language; adjusted to new foods, and learned how to cook many of those foods; learned all about a new, unfamiliar culture; learned how to [attempt to] succeed at a new job; moved to a new city in a new country; learned to call that city and country home; re-learned how to do everything, from buying vegetables to going to the post office; taken 12+ hour bus/train/taxi trips all around the country; made new friends, both American and Moroccan; built a program at my Dar Chebab, hosted numerous events with Moroccan partners, worked at 3 youth summer camps; worked at a girls’ leadership camp; spent a year’s worth of major American holidays away from home; welcomed family and loved ones to Morocco for a visit; trekked into the Sahara by camel and gazed at the stars from atop a sand dune; swam in the Atlantic; learned to live alone, and enjoy it at least a little bit; hitch-hiked with a random Moroccan lady I’d just met; bargained for goods in the market with skill; learned to adjust my expectations according to a new lifestyle; and above all, learned more than I ever could have hoped about myself, my country, my culture, and the customs and culture of the Moroccan people.

Life around the 1 year mark is infamous amongst PCVs: its known as the time when most people experience a severe low on the emotional roller coaster, due to fatigue or jadedness or a general recognition that, though you’ve come a long way, you still have a heck of a long way to go. I feel very lucky to be able to say, however, that I’m currently riding a nice high wave on my roller coaster, and have been for the past few months. Since the GLOW camp last January, which I wrote about most recently, I’ve been busy with lots of meaningful, successful work, and I’ve been feeling the best about my service that I have since arriving in country. In addition to all the great work I’ve had, this year’s new group of PCVs finally arrived to their final sites last week, and we all had a blast welcoming them to the region. There are 2 new PCVs in Taroudant, a large city only about 20 minutes from me, and it’s been really rewarding prepping the site for them and helping them get acclimated into their new home. Moreover, interacting with new PCVs provides an interesting perspective on my own service: how far I’ve come, things I wish I’d known, the things I love about Morocco, and how I want to spend the remainder of my time here. In short, a lot of factors have come together to make life at the year mark not only positive for me, but a time of meaningful reflection and perspective that is much welcomed.

There’s a lot to say about my first year of Peace Corps service, and it’d be impossible to accurately sum up all that I’ve felt and experienced in that time. Instead, I thought I’d give you my thoughts on a few important areas of life here that might give you a picture of where I’m at: lessons learned, community integration, language, and looking forward.


1 Year In: Lessons Learned

First and foremost, I have learned that Peace Corps is about adjusting to the fact that your expectations for your service may not be met, or may change drastically from month to month. I had a certain set of expectations of myself and my service when I came to Morocco, and almost every aspect of that has been turned upside down from the moment I arrived – by the difficulties of my site, by my primary assignment, by my working conditions, by cultural issues, and a whole host of other factors. Adjusting all of your expectations – especially when in the midst of adjusting to life in a new culture and learning a new language – is HARD. It was much harder than I’d expected, and I admit that it really threw me for a loop during the first few months of my service. Looking back on that time now, I realize just how far I’ve come in this regard; how well I’ve learned to go with the flow, to expect the unexpected, and to adjust when things don’t go as planned. Most importantly, I’ve learned that although my service isn’t what I expected, it is still meaningful, challenging, fulfilling, and beautiful in its own right.

On a similar note, learned that every single person’s Peace Corps experience is different, and that shaping my own expectations around the experience of someone else is foolhardy. Each PCV's conditions vary so widely – site location, culture, language, students, Mudir, counterparts, weather, resources available, needs of the community, I could go on and on. – that each person must navigate their own path according to their own unique set of circumstances at their site. This part can be especially hard to remember, especially with the availability of the internet and Facebook here in Morocco; when I’m having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad month, it can be hard when reading about the successes of fellow PCVs to not get down on myself and wonder what it is I’m doing wrong. The truth is, though, that everyone has their own challenges and their own successes – and blaming myself or being too hard on myself for the unique challenges of my situation at that moment is not only unwarranted, its also counterproductive. In America, there may be a lot of ways to get something accomplished, and a lot of back-up plans/resources when things don’t work out as planned with a project. Here, though, that may not be the case; some roadblocks in the developing world, especially for a foreigner who just showed up a matter of months ago, might be too immense to overcome within a span of 2 short years. Learning to be at peace with the progress I’m making, no matter how small, and training myself to not be so hard on myself has been one of the most valuable lessons of my service thus far.

Though I’ve adjusted by leaps and bounds since arriving in country, I am continually in the process of learning the hard lesson of patience, and of accepting that things in the developing world don’t necessarily happen at the same pace or with the same precision as they do in the United States. From simple tasks like going to the post office or shopping for basic supplies, to larger things like getting a project of the ground or arranging a meeting with a local association, there is a definite element of uncertainty: something could be closed unexpectedly, somebody could be out due to a family function, the meeting could get cancelled due to miscommunication or the weather. To put it bluntly: things here happen SLOWLY, much more slowly than any of us realized, and all things, especially important projects, TAKE TIME, and lots of it. At the very beginning of my service, I would often blame myself for these shortcomings: “All I wanted to do today was attend that meeting, go to the post office, and get the supplies for the event tonight, and only one of them got accomplished – I am a failure at this!” A year of this however, has taught me that this sort of self-blame is unwarranted and a waste of mental energy; no matter how much I plan, there are bound to be obstacles and changes to those plans, and that is O.K.

I have also learned the necessity of working with local Moroccan counterparts in order to execute projects and achieve goals. In the beginning of my service, I regarded a counterpart as an important factor to success as a PCV; I now regard a counterpart as not just important, but as an essential part to success in any project. Every single success I've had during my service has been in partnership with a local counterpart, be it my Mudir, an association, or another interested community member acting as a counterpart for a particular project. Counterparts are necessary for a number of reasons, including logistics, cultural relevance, language, resources, and most importantly, sustainability. It may be true that a project can be completed without a local counterpart, but it will take a lot longer to accomplish, take a lot more work, and be generally more difficult for the PCV than if it had been done with a counterpart. Most importantly, if that project does succeed without a counterpart, it will most likely fail to have any real element of sustainability, since no local community members were involved or invested in the project. I have learned that our projects are important not merely for their completion, but for the skills transferred to community members along the way while collaborating, such as project planning, grant writing, etc.


1 Year In: Community Integration

A year of living in a foreign country has taught me that community integration is a process made up of severe ups and downs. On the one hand, I have experienced days when I feel completely integrated into my community, and that everywhere I turn I seem to run into somebody I know. For example, I run into women from my aerobics class on an almost daily basis, and I've come to be known by women in my community as the "one who does sports for women." The Taxi men know me, and can usually tell based on the day of the week and what I have with me whether I’m going to Taroudant or Agadir. When I do my shopping, I have a “vegetable guy,” a “bread guy,” an “egg guy” and “supermarket guys,” all of whom know me and greet me with smiles when I visit their shops. They’ve come to know what I’m probably going to buy and what I need, and they help me out with things I don’t know. There is, however, a flipside: for as many days as I feel completely integrated, there are an equal or perhaps greater number where I feel completely alone in my community. I have spent entire days walking around town, shopping, or sitting in the park, hoping to have a pleasant interaction, only to be met with harassment from young boys, anxious stares from women I haven’t met, or old men muttering the word for “foreigner” under their breath as I pass.

Perhaps the most difficult part of community integration has been the fact that I can never fully by myself in my community, even with those whom I know really well. My community is very conservative, and there are a lot of cultural factors that need to be taken into consideration with almost every aspect of my life. In order to not be considered hshuma (shameful), I have to lie or otherwise bend the truth about aspects of my life such as my romantic relationship, my male friends, my favorite foods and drinks, my clothing preferences in America, my political opinions, and my general life back home in the U.S. Though I can share a lot of myself with my Moroccan friends and have made many genuine friendships, a large part of me always feels removed at some level, because of all of the things I need to hide about myself. Some days, I think that maybe I’m being too cautious, that maybe I can be a lot more honest with people about who I am culturally. But then I hear the women in my community relentless gossiping about one-another, never letting a single thing about each others’ small town lives go unnoticed – and I decide once again to err on the side of caution.


1 Year In: Language

I’m happy to say that my language skills have continued to progress since training. I felt relatively confident when I first got to site, but I’ve learned a ton since then, and I know that my communication skills are light years ahead of where they were last summer. This is partially thanks to ongoing tutoring – I meet with an Arabic tutor, who is also a great counterpart of mine, once a week – but mostly it’s due to continued interactions and discussions with people over time. With every conversation I learn a bit more, and after every week I can cite a least a few new words, phrases, or grammar structures I’ve learned. Though it makes some things more difficult, the fact that my Dar Chebab Mudir and most of the people I’ve worked with only speak Arabic has definitely helped my language skills progress considerably.

My host mom, with whom I’ve spent countless afternoons talking and hanging out, has helped a lot as well; we’ve had many complex conversations, such as things like women’s health, the environment, war in Syria, American cuisine and culture, gender norms in Morocco, abortion, raising kids…I could go on and on! She’s always open to a good conversation, and she’s great with being patient and explaining new words to me so that I’ll understand.

I still have moments where I feel like I’m not understanding anything – mostly when I’m talking with someone who doesn’t speak clearly or keeps using Standard Arabic instead of Darija – but all in all I’m very proud of how much Arabic I’ve learned and how well I can communicate. Perhaps the most important thing is that I still, after all this time, find it fun and fascinating to be learning a new language, right down to all of its nuances, idioms, and slang.


1 Year In: Looking Forward

With a little over a year left in country, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I’d like to accomplish and how I’d like to spend my remaining time here as a PCV. In the short-term, I’m looking forward to coordinating Taroudant Spring English Language Camp next week – the biggest spring camp in the country! The next few months will also be busy with planning for the region-wide girls’ soccer camp that myself and another PCV are trying to put together for the end of June; we’ll be meeting with potential venues, applying for a grant, finding coaches, putting together a program, etc. After the camp is completed (incha’allah!), it will be summer, and Ramadan, and a trip to Europe for taking the GRE/vacationing that I’m planning with some fellow PCVs. For the rest of the school year that follows, I’d like to continue the high presence of girls at my Dar Chebab, and bring in some more new faces. The girls’ soccer team will incha’allah be going stronger than ever, and we’re planning to hold matches between teams from various girls’ teams in the region. I’m also hoping to hold a GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) camp, potentially during the winter break, for girls in my site and surrounding areas. Sometime in late winter or early spring, I’d like to hold a TOT (training of trainers) for Moroccan women interested in learning how to lead an exercise class. This project was inspired by my desire to hand over leadership of my women’s exercise class over to the women in my site before I leave, in order to make it sustainable after I go. This will in theory be open to women from across the country, particularly women identified by PCVs as good candidates to take over the many women’s exercise classes being led by PCVs around the country. After that, it will be close to my COS (close of service) date – ah! All of that is a full year away at this point, and though that’s a long time in many ways, it’s beginning to feel shorter and shorter the more I think about it. At the beginning of my service, 2 years seemed like a vast expanse, stretching out before me into the horizon, where anything was possible and most everything was unknown. Now, I can look at the calendar and, albeit very loosely, map out what the next year of my service might look like. It’s an eerie thing, really.

But, you know what? It’s still Peace Corps, and it’s still Morocco, so things are anything but set in stone; I never know what the next day, let alone the next year, might throw at me. So here’s to 1 year in Morocco, to all the ups and downs, the challenges and the successes, the insanity and the beauty, the loneliness and the friendships, the blazing heat and bitter cold, the hopes and the let-downs. Here's to what’s been both the most incredible and the hardest year of my life. And here's to a little over 1 more year to go.

A Summer Dawn, Mid-Winter

The slam of a metal door, and I begin the walk through my scrubbed Moroccan town. Just outside my house, I pass a group of boys is boys huddled around a game of marbles in the dust, before continuing on past the clucking and clatter of the nearby chicken butcher. Further down my street, I greet 3 smiling women I know, dressed in colorful, flowing izars and carrying parcels on their heads.

The weather today is that of the summer days of my childhood; those warm, sparkling days with sun streaming through the sky, a breeze blowing through your hair, birds singing an invitation into the days’ bright open sky. Days when eyes flutter open to the mid-morning light, covers are thrown back, bare feet pad down the hallway, and young hearts swell with the day’s promise of adventure to come.

Adventure – it’s a sensation I’ve come to know on a daily basis in my life here. On the main road, groups of men sit at favored cafés, drinking Moroccan sweet mint tea and watching the world pass by. Schoolchildren ride in from nearby villages on their bikes, and shopkeepers fruitlessly sweep endless dust from their entranceways. I cross the road, and a van packed with people honks its horn as it passes, offering a ride to those wishing to go into the next town. The sun beats down, my skirt rustles in the warm wind, and I bring a hand over my eyes, conscious of the growing heat the new month has brought.

A warm breeze on my cheek, and I’m carried back again to American summer; to days of wide green lawns, sprinklers clicking away, lawn-mowers humming, dogs barking; to the clacking wheels of rollerblades, long bike rides, hopscotch along the sidewalk, the cold splash of a neighbor’s pool; to popsicles, slurpies, cool turkey sandwiches, and family dinners on the patio in the waning evening light.

“Miya u steen, miya u steen!” The prices of apples, bananas, and an array of vegetables reach my ears as I make my way through the maze of souq, Piles of green herbs, rows of carts bearing fruit, and mounds of onions with skins as red as beets spread out in front of me, and the scents of a thousand spices assail my senses from the bright stall on my right. Finally I find them: strawberries, the first of the year, arriving with the newfound warmth of the season.

Ripe-red berries, fresh as my memories of farmer’s market strolls in Michigan, trailing behind my mother and spinning in the sun’s glow; of twilight ice cream trips, sleeping bags, and popcorn popping; of bonfires cracking through the darkness, marshmallows melting, and songs humming from the radio; of running barefoot on the wide lawn, wet, fresh-cut grass sticking between your toes, while stars twinkle back an echo of the day’s warmth.

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Though my writing might suggest otherwise, I’m not coming from a place of homesickness right now. On the contrary, I’ve been feeling more inspired, hopeful, and happy with my service than I have in quite a long time. So this morning, as I contemplated my newfound energy, I made a conscious effort to feel what was around me, to truly soak up the sky I’m under, the weather wrapping my skin. And what I felt, much to my surprise, was the embrace of a warm summer day in Michigan – the summer days of my childhood, running free through a vast suburb that seemed filled with endless possibilities. Maybe it was something in the weather – the temperature, the way the breeze fluttered through my hair the way it did all those years ago, the warmth of the sun – but maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with my newfound sense of purpose; this sense that suddenly, everything fits together – my past with my present with my future – at least as much as it ever can.

You’ve probably noticed the infrequency with which I’ve written over the last few months, and I won’t lie to you: a large part of that is because I’d been having a rather rough go of things. That is, of course, with the exception of the marvelous, absolutely wonderful and loving visits from family and loved ones I had – and I am truly lucky to have people in my life that love me so much that they’d travel halfway around the world just to visit with me for awhile. Needless to say I will cherish the memories we made for my entire service and into my life beyond.

In the spaces between, however, I found myself stuck in a major rut. I wasn’t feeling fulfilled by my work, and I event felt that I was horribly matched for my assignment. English teaching is only a small part of my purpose here, but the daily task of teaching something I didn’t feel qualified to teach wore me threadbare, and I began to dread even going to my Dar Chebab for classes. In my other projects, I didn’t feel that my skills were transferring well, and I became burnt out and even disinterested in much of what I had been excited about. What’s more, the street harassment began to bother me with renewed ferocity, and I found it difficult to even go for a walk in my town without becoming frustrated and angry. I began questioning what kind of an impact I could possibly be making – even in the cross-cultural aspects of my work – especially if such a large portion of the youth in town still deemed it necessary to shout at me in French or vulgar English. The work we do here is difficult in more ways than I can count, and without my usual passion and positive energy, even the simplest of tasks began to seem daunting, even impossible.

It is often said that every Peace Corps Volunteer goes through a similar phase, but I was beginning to wonder if what I was experiencing was in fact part of the normal up-and-down cycle of a PCV life, or if it was something more prolonged, more difficult to overcome. It had gone on for several months, after all, and my disheartened feelings extended from work to social interactions to all aspects of my Peace Corps life. I repeatedly asked myself when I was going to wake up and feel excited again – when the fire in my heart that keeps me alive and enthusiastic would be rekindled. I needed something to kick me back into gear, but what?

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The answer to my troubles took the form of a project I’d been invited to help out with in Tazenakht, a small town in the desert to the east of my site. I’d been looking forward to it since the summer, but I hadn’t expected the transformation it would catalyze within me in just a few short days.

The project was a camp called Girls Leading Our World (GLOW). Facilitated by Peace Corps Volunteers all around the world, GLOW camps bring together groups of girls with a focus on both providing education on important life skills and empowering girls to incorporate and share those tools within their communities. These camps are often the first time many of the girls have left their town to participate in something like a camp, and it’s a great opportunity for them to express themselves and discover new friendships.

Our GLOW camp was organized by one of the volunteers in Tazenakht, in conjunction with her Moroccan counterpart organization and other PCVs. The camp took place in the local Dar Taliba (girls’ boarding house), and for 4 days campers and counselors alike ate, slept, and did activities within our shared space. There were 9 of us American Peace Corps Volunteers there to lead workshops, do activities with the girls, and help with general logistics. There were also 12 Moroccan volunteers from local associations, as well as 15+ helping hands to assist with taking care of the girls, leading activities, meals, sound/tech, etc.

42 girls arrived at the camp early Friday morning, and from that point on the Dar Taliba was alive with energy and smiles. The workshops – led primarily by PCVs with the exception of a few led by Moroccan volunteers – covered a wide array of topics, from the extremely serious to the fun and artistic. In between workshops, there were songs, chants, dances, camp games, and a field trip to a local lake, as well as time for rest and meals somewhere along the way.

A list of workshops included in the camp:

Gender roles

Self-esteem

Goal setting

Women’s rights in Moroccan law

Women’s health

Beauty

Cinema

Self-defense

Arabic Calligraphy

 Rape 

Sexual harassment

Henna

Belly dancing

In addition to helping out with general camp activities, my role was to lead the Goal Setting workshop. I’d learned a lot about goal setting activities from my past work with various organizations in the US, and I was excited for the opportunity to discuss such an important skill with girls in Morocco. Though it was a lot of prep work, my workshop (entirely in Arabic, mind you – this camp was NOT about teaching English in any way) went really well! I talked to girls about their dreams of becoming doctors, teachers, lawyers, musicians, and much more. By the end of the workshop, each camper had created a drawing of her “dream self,” a list of goals for her life within 5 years and for her adult self, and a 5-year timeline detailing her plan for achieving her most desired goal. I’ll admit that I was nervous before the workshop. I worried that the girls might not understand what I was asking, or that they would have a hard time with the exercise due to the relative lack of this kind of activity in their education up until that point. The girls, bright and bursting with goals and dreams, proved all my worries to be unfounded, and I was inspired beyond words by their enthusiasm.

I could go on and on with stories of all the myriad ways the girls of the camp amazed me, made me laugh, and brightened my spirits during those 4 days, but instead I’ll say only this: Never underestimate the power of a group of feisty, educated, empowered, generous, artistic, and hilarious 13-18 year old girls gathered together in one place; and always remember the power of two cultures coming together for a common purpose and a shared passion for the girls of our future.

The last night of the camp consisted of a closing ceremony and never-ending dance party, as is essential in any Moroccan camp. From 4pm until almost midnight, campers, counselors, and helping hands gathered to celebrate our shared talents, inspirations, and the wonderful experience of the past 4 days. The girls put on a talent show absolutely bursting with creativity, we enjoyed cake and soda, and everyone danced away under the moonlight to the beats of drums played by the girls themselves. As I looked around me that night, I realized that I had finally found it – what I had been searching for all those long months before: A sense of community, of belonging to something bigger than myself; a feeling of purpose, of being able to contribute some meaningful drops into the big bucket we’re all swimming in together; a sense of being able to share my skills across cultures, and to connect on levels beyond language with people who grew up halfway across the world from me.

Perhaps most importantly, I’d found an understanding that all of this was made possible by the simple idea of one Peace Corps Volunteer; that all of this was put together by a PCV and her counterparts, working together toward a shared goal. While in my downtrodden rut, I had begun to falsely regard many of my project ideas as faraway, out of reach, forever to remain in their idea state. But all of my feelings of burnout, all of my cynicism and resignation melted away that night, as I stood looking out over the groups of girls having the time of their lives. I felt as though I had suddenly woken up out of a bad dream, with more than an entire year left of my service just waiting to be filled with meaningful work and cross-cultural connections. I resolved, right then and there, to hold onto that feeling, to hold onto it tightly and never let it go, even in the most frustrating of circumstances – for it was the light on the horizon I’d been waiting for, the lifeline I’d been grasping for all of those months, and I’d be damned if I was going to ever let it out of my sight for a minute.

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And so, here I am, inspired to write for the first time in almost 4 months. Things aren’t perfect, but I’m thrilled to say that I’m back on the horse and galloping full-speed into what the next few months hold for my town and my service. As though welcoming the new leaf I’ve turned over, a group of 8 new girls from a nearby Douar came to the Dar Chebab this week and seem intent on sticking around. I led an art project where we made collages about what we want for the future, and taught the girls Ultimate Frisbee as an example of good sportsmanship and strategy. I have a Diabetes screening and awareness project planned with the Ministry of Health next month, and have arranged to have the professional women’s soccer team from Taroudant come to my site and give a workshop for my girls’ team. What’s more, my counterpart and I have finally gotten the wheels turning on our idea for a girls’ soccer camp this summer, and I’m optimistic about our prospects for making this a successful project for a large number of girls. There are a number of other project and partnership ideas bouncing around in my head, and I’m so happy to once again feel that anything is possible with a little conversation and creativity.

It’s as though a dawn has suddenly broken in my mind, and the fire inside of my heart has been rekindled. All of this requires a grain of salt, as nothing in Morocco is necessarily easy. Nevertheless, as I approach the year mark of my service next month, I’m looking forward to what the next 16 months will hold – the bad and the good, the hilarious and the curious, the successful and the frustrating, the familiar and the adventurous.

Eid al-Adha - sheep, generosity, and meditations on meat

Last week, I had the pleasure of experiencing Eid al-Adha (referred to in Morocco as Eid al-Kbir), one of Islam’s most important holidays worldwide. The holiday honors a story familiar to Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike: the story of Abraham (in Arabic, Ibrahim), and his willingness to sacrifice his son by God’s command. As the story goes, Abraham is spared the fate of sacrificing his own son at the last minute, having demonstrated his faith and submission, and sacrifices a ram instead of his son. Islam places great significance on this story, a fact illustrated by the importance placed on the celebration of Eid al-Kbir. In addition to prayer, Muslims with the means to do so celebrate the holiday with the sacrifice of an animal, symbolizing Abraham’s sacrifice; in Morocco, that animal is almost always a ram. Each family gets their own ram, and every single meal for days following the sacrifice is filled with ram meat, not a piece going to waste.

I’d heard about Eid al-Kbir before, many times. Since arriving to country, I’d heard from PCVs and Moroccan nationals alike about the holiday, and though the stories took different spins, they all had one thing in common: Eid al-Kbir was something to look forward to, not to be missed. For PCVs, the holiday seemed to be revered as a sort of cross-cultural marathon, something every volunteer had to go through and would surely be awed by. In the same conversation, a second-year volunteer said two seemingly contradictory things about it: “Oh, there were so many sheep organs, I can’t even begin to tell you. We were all so sick afterwards,” and, “Oh, you can’t do Eid al-Kbir alone. You’ve got to spend it with a family, absolutely.” For Moroccans, the holiday was talked about the way American’s might talk about Christmas: excited, even months in advance, that it was approaching, and excited for us Americans to experience the best Moroccan holiday there was. The happy tone of the conversations was usually spoiled for me, though, when they would whip out their computer, and, without warning, start showing me pictures of the sheep they’d slaughtered the year before, in all its gruesome detail. Eid al-Kbir’s importance was driven home for me the most when my host mom, having heard me mention that I don’t eat very much meat, immediately thought of the holiday, saying, ‘Oh, but what are you going to do on for l-Eid?!”

Considering all of this, I found myself simultaneously dreading and looking forward to what would surely be one of the most meaningful cultural exchanges I would have in country. As the day drew nearer, it became apparent to me that Eid al-Kbir in Morocco is a lot like Christmas in America, at least in terms of its importance, the thousands of people traveling to visit their families, the way everything was set to shut down for the holiday, the week and a half-long school break, etc. Peace Corps even imposed a travel ban on us during the week of l-Eid, telling us that the roads were especially dangerous in the days surrounding the holiday due to all of the people traveling to be with their families. As the week of l-Eid approached, I started receiving a steady stream of invitations from people I knew, all generously inviting me to spend the holiday in their homes, with their families. I ended up agreeing to spending the bulk of the first day with a family that lives near me, and to visit the numerous other families throughout the week.

The day before the holiday, I went over to see the family with whom I was going to spend l-Eid, to inquire about what time would be best for me to come over the following day. Not surprisingly, I was invited inside, and soon found myself chatting and making cookies with Habiba, the mother of the household, and her daughters. I sat with them for hours, helping to dip the fresh cookies in chocolate, jelly, and other toppings. The presence of family, the anticipation of an upcoming holiday, making cookies – it truly did remind me of the holiday season in America, and my heart was warmed. They soon asked me about American cookies, and when I went home that night, I whipped up some classic chocolate chip cookies to bring over for them to try.

I’m not going to lie: through all of the holiday cheer and warm generosity of the family, part of me was truly terrified at the prospect of what I was about to witness. I had never seen an animal killed before, especially not one the size of a ram, right in front of me. Nor had I ever eaten many organs, with the exception of German liverwurst, a spread that I was unaware was even liver for the first 7 years or so that I ate it. What if I passed out in their home? Gagged while eating lungs during their special meal? Vomited all over their carpet, on their holiday equivalent to Christmas? They had generously invited me into their home on the biggest holiday of the year, and here I was unsure if I was going to even be able to hold it together. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew that I was going to go over there and try to put my best face on, no matter what. I was just going to have to suck it up and pretend I was on fear factor, or something to that effect.

And so it was that at 8am the next morning, with chocolate chip cookies in hand and nervous lump in my throat, I walked down the street to Habiba’s house, to take part in my first Eid al-Kbir. We had an elaborate (meat free) breakfast to start out, complete with fresh-baked bread, honey, olive oil, misimin (my favorite!), bugrir (sport of like crepes) and cookies.

Shortly afterward, the main event was about to start. The family started migrating out to the courtyard, and I went out with them, sticking close Radia, Habiba’s niece and one of my favorite Dar Chebab girls. I could have opted out of watching the sacrifice, had I really wanted to; nobody was going to force me, though they clearly wanted me experience it with them. I had long-since decided that I wanted to watch it, though, both for the obvious cultural experience reasons, and for more complex reasons related to my thoughts on American culture and meat consumption.

The contrast between Moroccans’ experience with the meat they eat and the typical American experience is stark. For chicken, most Moroccans stop by their local chicken shop, usually a small, white storefront with the clucking sound of many chickens coming loudly from behind the counter. The chicken they buy will be fresh, killed, feathered, and cleaned earlier that day by the man seen behind the counter. For red meat in Morocco, one only needs to stop by the local butcher, which you can’t miss – there will be several whole bodies of fresh meat right there, hanging on hooks outside the store. Sure, there are some brands of factory-processed meat in Moroccan supermarkets, but you won’t see it sold outside big cities frequented by foreigners. For the vast majority of most Moroccans, the connection between the food on their table and the animal that had to die to make it possible is clear, unbroken; they likely saw whatever animal it was as part of one of the many herds that wander through town, or at the very least, as a whole animal, being cleaned and chopped up by the butcher down the street. And, every year on Eid al-Kabir, each Moroccan family buys their own sheep, watches it wander about their courtyard or roof, and later sees it go through the entire process, from sheep to meat to table, each of the steps in between visible for all to see.

Most Americans, on the other hand, have no idea where the meat on their plate might have come from. Was it from the farm down the road, just outside the city? Or one of the large farms driven by on the highway, while driving across the state to visit friends? Or, if bought in a typical supermarket with typical packaging, it could have come from anywhere – California, Ohio, Nebraska. Generally, we don’t know and frankly do not care. What’s more, the processed, neatly packaged and ready-to-cook pieces of meat so many of us buy are devoid of anything that might even remind us that those tasty morsels even came from an animal in the first place – no bones, fat, or skin, for us. Just the pieces that I want to eat please, the tastiest, easiest pieces to eat. As children, we likely wouldn’t even be able to tell that those chicken tenders or burger patties were made from animals, if we weren’t told so. I’m focusing on the extreme examples here, I know, and there are plenty of people who still get their meat from a local butcher or raise their own animals. Kudos to them, truly. But I’m speaking on the level of norms here, of trends and the behavior of the vast majority; and on that level, our connection between our meat and its source is terribly, glaringly broken.

The differences in the two cultures’ approaches to meat is evident at every meal, from preparation to portion sizes (the amount in a typical tagine to be shared by a family here, underneath all of the vegetables, is about the size of a single portion at an American restaurant) to eating habits. Moroccans eat every piece of the meat they prepare – the flesh, the fat, everything, right down to sucking the marrow out of the bones at the end of the meal. By contrast, I often find myself struggling here with a piece of meat given to me, not sure what is what or how to navigate around the parts I don’t want to eat. I simply have no idea what to do with meat that isn’t pre-cut, separated from all of the parts we would find undesirable in America. To Moroccans, I must look like I’ve never dealt with real meat before. I’m even frequently shown up by my 6 year-old host brother, who has no qualms whatsoever about picking through the pieces and eating meat off the bone. Though my experience is admittedly a little bit skewed because of my 2 years of vegetarianism before joining Peace Corps, I’ve heard from other volunteers that they encounter the same problem.

And so I opted to watch, decided to be a part of the entire thing, the slaughtering and cleaning and all, if only to take one small step to right what I found so wrong about the way my culture interacts with the meat. I realized, sometime during my first 7 months in Morocco, that there was something deeply strange about my aversion to the butcher shop, my fear of the animal bodies hanging there, my difficulty with pieces of meat on the bone in the tagine. I wanted to face that fear, up close and personal, and that’s exactly what I did, gripping poor Radia’s arm tightly the entire time. Radia and the other kids, for their part, bounced around the courtyard, casually eating suckers or taking pictures with their phones. This was all normal to them, underneath the holiday excitement – like kids watching their parents put up the Christmas tree or deck the halls with garland in America.

After a little over an hour, we all came inside, and I sat with Habiba while she cut up the fresh sheep organs, right there on the table in front of us. As she sliced, I pondered two things: how surprisingly huge the organs were, for one, and for two, how I was going to have to get up the nerve to eat them. She cut up the heart, liver, lungs, and I think the spleen, into little pieces, marinated them briefly in cilantro, parsley, onions, and other spices, skewered them onto kabobs, and barbecued them, on a small little open-flame grill, right there in the living room. When it came time to taste the organs, they handed me a kabob excitedly, eager to see the American discover the deliciousness of fresh Eid al-Kbir meat. Habiba’s oldest son, Jawad, who speaks English and sometimes helps me with translating things for the Dar Chebab, and to whom I had expressed some of my reservations about the organ meat, looked over at me inquisitively, anxious to see what I thought. And, to my surprise, the organ meat didn’t taste that much different from normal meat, aside from an added gamey (perhaps bloody?) taste, especially in the heart. As in every Moroccan meal, we ate with bread as utensils, and I was admittedly never so glad to have bread to wrap my food in as that day.

After we had all finished eating (I ate two whole kabobs! Success!), Habiba wrapped up 5 or 6 kabobs in bread, and sent one of her sons to deliver them to a family in the neighborhood who could not afford a sheep of their own. Charity to those in need is a part of every Moroccan holiday, and this was no exception. Throughout the day, I saw Habiba packaging up cookies and chunks of meat, all to be given to various children or families in the neighborhood.

I stayed with the family for the rest of the day, chatting with visitors that stopped by their house and going over to other families’ houses in the neighborhood to visit them. After a light kaskrot (snack time) of tea, cookies, and misimn, a bunch of cousins around my age came over, and we chatted about life while they had a hair-straightening party. It reminded me of holidays with my mom’s side of my family, all of us younger girls hanging out in the basement, listening to the Backstreet Boys and gabbing about crushes at school.

I left at around 8pm, after a full 12 hours with a wonderful family. They insisted on sending me home with an entire plate of Moroccan cookies (they loved the chocolate chip cookies, by the way!) AND a leg of lamb, which I have no idea how to prepare. Because, you know, welcoming me into your home on the most important holiday of the year, feeding me 3 meals, and everything else wasn’t enough – no, they had to send me home with food, too! Of course! Again, I have to say that the generosity of Moroccan families will never cease to amaze me.

The next morning, I woke at 8:30 to a phone call from Habiba. She was inviting me back over to their house, to have breakfast with them and watch the Boujloud in the afternoon. Though exhausted, I of course went over, happy to spend more time with their family and not wanting to miss out on any experience the holiday had to offer. Though I probably should have seen it coming, I was surprised to find that breakfast was more ram meat, on skewers again, though not any sort of organs this time. I suppose when you slaughter a ram, no matter how many visitors you welcome into your home, that is A LOT of meat to go through.

Later that afternoon, I had the pleasure of seeing the Boujloud, a tradition specific to the region of Morocco where I live, in action in front of Habiba’s house. It goes like this: Young men wear the dried skin of the ram they killed the day before like a sort of costume, and run around town to the beat of drums, scaring any passerby they might encounter. If you want the Boujloud to stop chasing you, you need to give them a few dirhams, which they donate to the local mosque. It’s a tradition not too far off from Halloween and trick-or-treating, when you think about it. The Boujloud in our neighborhood consisted of about 5 or 6 young men in actual sheep skins, and 15 or so more dressed in other costumes – monsters, bears, a Scream mask – and they really did look like a group getting ready to go out on Halloween night. Groups of children approached the street with a mix of delight and fear; they wanted to see the Boujloud, knew that it was their neighbors and friends behind the masks, and yet they were scared out of their minds of being chased by them. I saw what was the official start of the Boujloud, and it went on for days after l-Eid. If at anytime during the week of l-Eid, you’re walking down the street and hear the beat of drums nearby, you know the Boujloud are close, asking for donations in their special way. I admit that a few days later, as I was going for a walk by myself on the other side of the neighborhood, I heard the drums from around the corner and took off in the other direction, irrationally frightened by the thought of coming across them. It was only a few days before Halloween, and I smiled at the fact that I was getting to see kids in costumes and even be scared by them, all in a country that doesn’t celebrate Halloween.

I spent the next few days stopping over for lunch and dinner at different families’ houses, visiting and eating sheep meat at almost every meal. Though my mind and heart were sad to see the holiday go at the end of the week, my stomach was glad for the reprieve. Thankfully, we had some heavy rain for days after l-Eid ended, the Dar Chebab was thus closed due to flooding in the roads, and I admittedly spent a few days in my bed, recovering from the marathon of strange ram meat. Still, it was a small price to pay for rich cultural experiences, the warmth of a family, and community integration in its best form.

Keep your eye on the summit.

The last 2 weeks have been a whirlwind of traveling – first to Rome with an old friend, then to Marrakech for Peace Corps In-Service Training, and then into the High Atlas mountains for a hike up 13,000+ feet – all back-to-back, one after the other. It’s been an exciting 2 weeks to say the very least, and I’m happy to say that I’m actually glad to be home (a.k.a. my site – one sure sign of adjusting is calling this place home, right?) after all of the adventuring.

ROME

My extended time traveling started with a short but sweet trip to Rome. I met up with a good friend of mine, Mike, who was going on a longer trip through Italy with a final stop in Rome. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect – the 3 days and 4 nights in Rome were right before our Peace Corps In-Service Training in Marrakech, and my flights went in and out of the Marrakech airport! We stayed at a hostel near the train station, known for its fun atmosphere due to its popular bar on the lower level. 3 days is not a lot of time to see one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but I have to say that we did a pretty darn good job fitting everything in while having a ton of fun along the way.

As far as sightseeing went, it’s like I said – we fit a lot into just 3 days! The first day was the Colosseum, Forum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, etc, and we were lucky enough to have a knowledgeable and hilariously flamboyant guide for part of the day. We spent almost the entire second day at the Vatican; everything was beautiful, and the drizzly weather in the morning somehow matched perfectly. On the third day, we visited the Borghese museum and then wandered around the city seeing the various neighborhoods, plazas, and sights that we hadn’t gotten to yet. Words would fail to capture how breathtaking everything was – the history, architecture, and artistry involved in nearly every sight never failed to capture my imagination and inspire an awe that would leave me standing, staring, appreciating.

Colosseum 

The Forum

Inside St. Peter's

View of the river and the Vatican from atop an old castle nearby 

From the courtyard in Vatican City

For all the time we spent running around sightseeing by day, we somehow kept up the energy to check out some of Rome’s awesome nightlife. Our hostel contained a popular bar known for international travelers and cheap drinks, and we checked out some of the plazas that are filled with people at night in an open-air pub atmosphere. We met tons of awesome Italians and other world travelers, had some laughs, and enjoyed Rome at night in all its beauty. And all the while, I couldn’t help but notice the stark contrast with life in Morocco – not only was drinking acceptable in Rome, but it was perfectly fine to be seen walking around town with open drinks, enjoying the sights over a beer or glass of wine. It was wonderful to have that kind of freedom again – to go out with friends, have some drinks, and not have to hide it or feel guilty or culturally insensitive. Don’t get me wrong – it doesn’t bother me to go without drinking in Morocco; but still, it was a nice little getaway.

And of course, any reflection on my trip to Rome would be incomplete without mention of all the delightful food and drink we enjoyed every single chance we got. Pastas, pizzas, risottos, breads, gelato, beer, wine, more gelato…the list goes on and on. Of all the places we ate, I have to say that my favorite was this tiny restaurant we found, tucked away in a bend in a narrow, winding road just off of the main streets. We sat outside under a canopy of vines, talked to people sitting near us, and enjoyed the best mushroom risotto and vegetable pasta I think we’d ever had. Coming in at a close second was a pizza restaurant in the old Jewish neighborhood, recommended by a PCV friend of mine who’s been to Rome a few times. On our last night there, we sat at that pizza restaurant for over 4 hours, sipping wine and ordering all sorts of various plates of food as a last hurrah of Italian food indulgence. So much deliciousness!

  

Looking back on it, the trip to Rome was one of the best short trips I’ve been on in a long time. Rome has made my list of top favorite places I’ve ever been, and I definitely want to return someday. And spending time with someone I know so well from back in America was a great experience, and I think helped with reminding me, through all of the confusion that life in Morocco can bring, of who I am, of why I came to Morocco in the first place, and of all the people who support me back home.

IN-SERVICE TRAINING

I was nervous about coming back to Morocco and experiencing culture shock all over again, even though I was in Europe for such a short time. Luckily, after landing in the Marrakech airport, I hopped in a taxi and headed straight to our week-long Peace Corps In-Service Training (IST), located at a beautiful hotel complex on the outskirts of Marrakech. IST is a training strategically timed for about 3 months or so after being in site, in order to assess how community integration has been going, discuss challenges and future goals, and plan steps for moving forward into the bulk of our service.

First and foremost, IST was exciting and memorable because of the rare opportunity to spend time with other PCVs – in fact, it was the last time our entire group of 100+ will be together until close-of-service conference, sometime in early 2014. In Peace Corps, seeing other Americans is rare enough that its always something of a magical time, and a week surrounded by your friends is like a slice of heaven. We took advantage of the opportunity as much as possible, and the atmosphere was honestly more akin to that of a vacation or reunion party than that of a business conference. We ate together, swam in the pool every chance we got, and hung out in big groups in each-others bungalows (yes, the complex had cute little bungalows, rather than rooms.), until late hours of the night, nearly every night. I spent quality time with the people I care most about, and made new friendships with PCVs I hadn’t really gotten to know before that point. It was almost like a dream, hanging out with over 100 other Americans in such a beautiful location, and more than once I almost forgot where we were!

In addition to all of this, many of the training sessions themselves were incredibly useful and inspiring. There were presentations by PCVs farther along in their service, many of them getting ready to leave after a successful 2 years. These PCVs shared their wonderful projects with us – classes, clubs, conferences, manuals, organizations – and gave us the honest, nitty-gritty details of their victories and challenges along the way to their projects’ completion. It was at once a breath of fresh air (finally, some concrete, real-life advice and training on how to navigate the abyss of our future work) and a shock into reality (oh crap, I’m 6 months into service, and if I want to do something like this, there really isn’t a lot of time to waste). I think its safe to say that the presentations inspired all of us in one way or another, and served to light a fire under a lot of our butts to get working as soon as we got back to site.

JBEL TOUBKAL

In the days following IST, I went with a group of my closest friends to climb Jbel Toubkal – the highest peak in North Africa at more than 13,600 feet. We started our journey by staying a night in the picturesque town of Imlil, the mountain village where the road ends and going further is only possible by foot or donkey.

The next morning, we set out on the first leg of our hike, but down by one – Ted was sick with an all-too-common-for-a-PCV stomach virus and wasn’t able to join us any further. The first day was about a 5 hour hike, all uphill at a moderate angle, to the refuge at the base of the mountain. We set out late because of worries caused by a harsh morning rain, but the weather cleared up for most of the hike. The scenery of the High Atlas mountains, shrouded at their peaks with wispy clouds and cool mist, was absolutely stunning. At the end of our journey, about an hour from the refuge, the rain really picked up; the trail began to resemble a river, the fog obscured much of the route ahead, and we became colder and wetter every minute. The sight of the refuge through the mist after cresting the last hill was an enormous relief – the small, squat stone buildings were the picture of paradise and warmth, as far as we were concerned. Once inside, we discovered that ALL of the things in our bags were wet – most importantly, our clothes for the next day. Still, the inside of the refuge was a great comfort. It had the appearance and feel of a ski lodge, and I was filled with a warm nostalgia for Michigan winters and family ski trips. After a much-welcomed hot meal, we sat by the fire with our wet garments, slowly drying them by the heat of the flames and talking with fellow trekkers about the ascent to come.

The second day was the ascent to the summit – 5 hours, straight up. I don’t know how to describe the challenge of that climb, other than to say it was the hardest physical thing I’ve ever done in my life. We were incredibly lucky to have beautiful weather that day, with sunny skies and no rain whatsoever. There weren’t really any easy portions of the hike, but the first half of the journey felt manageable; it was still warm, the sun shone from over the eastern side of the mountains, and we had a lot of energy left to use. About halfway up the mountain, though, a few of us, myself included, began to really feel the effects of the altitude change. I was nauseous and slightly dizzy, and started taking lots of short breaks in order to let my body acclimate to the changes in oxygen levels. It had also grown bitterly cold as we climbed, and I found myself wishing for a winter hat and gloves as we trudged through snow-covered rocks. At that point, the ascent to the peak itself was mostly visible, and I kept looking upward to the hikers ahead of us, appearing as tiny dots on the towering slope up above. That final portion of the hike was as much a psychological exercise for me as a physical one: the strength to keep going, the ability to persevere even when the going literally felt impossible, and keeping my mind focused on the end goal – they all came from somewhere deep within me that day, and I truly believe that in those moments, moving slowly up the mountainside, I found an inner strength I didn’t know I had.

First step in the hike up to the summit: crossing this

View of the refuge from the path up to the summit

Almost there...

The view, even before reaching the peak, far exceeded my high expectations. At the summit, the entire world seemed to stretch out before us. We stood, awestruck, higher than everything around us: the clouds, the mountain range, and the vast expanse of desert that lay miles beyond, where the horizon curved at what looked like the edge of the Earth. A thin blanket of white fluffy clouds danced around the mountain peaks below, and I watched as one at eye-level came towards us slowly, tumbling and changing shape with a life all its own.

Heading down

We stayed at the summit as long as possible, though the cold, whipping winds drove us back down the path after a short time. The hike back down was infinitely easier than the ascent had been, and the altitude sickness evaporated quickly as we made our way back down. Though we had planned to hike all the way back to Imlil that night, we had gotten a bit of a late start and opted to stay another night at the refuge in order to not be rushed making it back by nightfall. We all went to bed almost immediately after dinner, exhausted and happy after the day’s accomplishments.

The next day, we took our time hiking the rest of the way down through the mountains back to Imlil. I had hung back from the group a bit, and after getting a bit mixed up by the paths, found myself walking through a breathtaking mountain village surrounded by apple orchards and walnut trees. I was within sight of Imlil, so I wasn’t worried. I spent nearly an hour wandering through the village, asking for directions here and there, and finally walking through a huge forest of walnut trees, where men and women were knocking branches down in what appeared to be a huge nut harvest. I eventually made it back to Imlil, stayed the night with a fellow PCV near Marrakech, and headed home the next day, filled with reflections and beautiful memories.

Though I may be down the mountain and safely back on flat land, I still feel the lessons learned on the climb close to me. It’s as though if I close my eyes, I could still be up over 13,000 feet, trudging along through all of the challenges, urging myself to continue to the top. Even in the few days since our journey, when things have gotten tough for whatever reason, I’ve found myself thinking about the climb, telling myself, “I thought I couldn’t make it then, but I did – and if I can make it up that mountain, I can make it through this, too. Just keep your eye on the summit.”

Returning to site was simultaneously relieving and a terrifying: relieving, because after more than 2 weeks of traveling, there’s nothing like a hot cup of tea, clean PJs, and cozy bed all your own; and terrifying, because of the realization that this is it, the real start of service in site. No more Ramadan, no more summer camps in other towns, no more closed Dar Chebab. Time to hit the ground running, nose to the grindstone, and all of that. And for all of the countless moments that I waited for this moment, for how much I couldn’t wait to finally get down to business, I found myself nearly panicky with anxiety when I arrived in site. A year and a half of waiting in the U.S., 2 months of training, and 4 months of waiting through a mostly stagnant summer – all of that time, all of the anticipation, and all of my expectations of myself seemed to weigh down on me, and I found myself thinking, “Where the hell do I even start? What am I supposed to be doing, really? What is the best course of action?” And the answer, I’ve found is this: There is no concrete starting point. There is no right path. On the way up to the Toubkal refuge, when the river drowned the path and the fog obscured the route ahead, the only thing to do was to keep hiking forward – up the next set of boulders, over the next river crossing. Beyond that, nothing was certain; not the curves in the path, nor the hills to be crested, nor the sights to behold. Through the rain and the mist, only our faith remained; faith in the refuge that lay up ahead, faith in the attainability of our goal, and faith in the beauty to be witnessed at the summit. And that, more than anything, describes what’s necessary for my journey ahead.