Currently listening to Jimmy Eat World cover of the Wham! classic "Last Christmas"
I've been blogging a lot lately. taking advantage of the strong internet signal, plus a lot of stuff keeps happening and it's hard to keep up.
For starters, Merry Christmas everyone! It's not even lunch time here and I have to tell you my Christmas is going very well so far. Much better than what I was anticipating.
Usually I hate the fact that the first thing that I see/do in the morning tends to dictate my mood for the rest of the day, but today this worked in my favor. I woke up to
a) sunshine
b) two nice messages from my sister and my boyfriend
not a bad way to start off my first Christmas so very far away from home.
The day progressed nicely. We had coffee this morning! I haven't had any for two days so I was really excited. Plus, the two more annoying kids in my family were still asleep all through breakfast, so we actually had a pretty relaxing morning.
At Dar Chebab this morning I gave the kids little white circles to cut out snowflakes. They don't know it yet but the snowflakes are going to be ornaments on the recycled plastic bottle tree my counterpart and I have been putting together all week. We had time left so I taught them musical chairs and tried to do it with my iPod and a speaker. Fail. Couldn't hear anything. It was still fun though until the game got a little too heated and two kids got in a fight. Who can blame them? Musical chairs is a rough game.
Of course, there is one Christmas miracle I have yet to talk about, and it's quite possibly the most awesome thing that's happened to me in Morocco thus far. Last night my friend came to my door and asked me to come with him real quick. He led me around the corner, where I found a friend of mine dressed as SANTA CLAUS and bearing gifts! It was so so so so nice and I cried a little. I can't believe they found a Santa costume, and the gifts were so undeserved! Needless to say, I'm in a good mood.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Tut tut! Looks like rain!
Typed up 23 December
Current zippy Christmas song: Ella Fitzgerald’s take on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
I think the Darija word for “wet” is perfect. Fzg. It’s an accidental onomatopoeia. Fzg fzg fzg as my boots sludge through the mud. And there’s always mud. I think the name of the town I live in may translate to “I-turn-into-a-sinking-pool-of-mud-come-winter.”
What’s funny is how I look around and realize I am far from the only person having issues with the mud and fzg. You’d think that a person who has lived in this town his whole life would have some strategies or something for going on about his daily business, rain or shine. So not the case. I am quickly learning that Moroccans in my town are basically Gremlins that you can feed after midnight. Don’t get them wet.
When it rains here, everything comes to a stop. People stand around under awnings, no one shows up to work, stores don’t open, kids stay home from school. It’s the rainy day behavior I so desperately wanted in the States, and yet here I find it excruciating.
And I know what my problem is, too. When there’s something obstructing my path, like rain or being sick, I deal with it by working around it, or completely ignoring it if possible. I pretend I’m not coughing uncontrollably or plan around rain by giving myself more time to get places, wearing my hair up, etc. However, this isn’t really the way Moroccans deal with similar issues and that’s where I run into trouble. In Morocco, if it’s raining, you let the rain win. If you have a cold, the cold wins. Stay home. Wait it out. There’s nothing you can do about it.
Maybe after two years I’ll be able to sit back and accept that there are things I just can’t do anything about.
Current zippy Christmas song: Ella Fitzgerald’s take on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
I think the Darija word for “wet” is perfect. Fzg. It’s an accidental onomatopoeia. Fzg fzg fzg as my boots sludge through the mud. And there’s always mud. I think the name of the town I live in may translate to “I-turn-into-a-sinking-pool-of-mud-come-winter.”
What’s funny is how I look around and realize I am far from the only person having issues with the mud and fzg. You’d think that a person who has lived in this town his whole life would have some strategies or something for going on about his daily business, rain or shine. So not the case. I am quickly learning that Moroccans in my town are basically Gremlins that you can feed after midnight. Don’t get them wet.
When it rains here, everything comes to a stop. People stand around under awnings, no one shows up to work, stores don’t open, kids stay home from school. It’s the rainy day behavior I so desperately wanted in the States, and yet here I find it excruciating.
And I know what my problem is, too. When there’s something obstructing my path, like rain or being sick, I deal with it by working around it, or completely ignoring it if possible. I pretend I’m not coughing uncontrollably or plan around rain by giving myself more time to get places, wearing my hair up, etc. However, this isn’t really the way Moroccans deal with similar issues and that’s where I run into trouble. In Morocco, if it’s raining, you let the rain win. If you have a cold, the cold wins. Stay home. Wait it out. There’s nothing you can do about it.
Maybe after two years I’ll be able to sit back and accept that there are things I just can’t do anything about.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
I once described the innards of my brain as the island of misfit toys
currently listening to ALL CHRISTMAS ALL THE TIME (more specifically, Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby)
I was thinking about the time I likened my brain to the Island of Misfit Toys in the Rudolph cartoon today when I was in the middle of a dar chebab meeting about the activities I've got up my sleeve for Christmas and started jotting down things to blog about. I'm not even sure if that last sentence makes sense because I started thinking about peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the middle of it.
Anyway this is going to be yet another rambling, disjointed entry. Hold onto your hats!
First of all, a bit I wanted to blog about before but couldn't figure out a way to write it in a way that didn't make me sound like Carrie Bradshaw. Don't get me wrong, Sex and the City is classic and a great way to pass lonely nights in Morocco. That said, I can't stand Carrie's writing style and I think she does as much for women in terms of gaining respect as the Spice Girls.
Off the soapbox and on topic: I find that in Morocco I tend to wish I was a man. And it's not penis envy. It's ability-to-obtain-coffee envy. In my current homestay situation I depend on my host mom for coffee, who depends on the shopkeeper that she has an open tab with. If he decides to sleep in, she can't buy milk in the morning and I am SOL. This makes for rough mornings that spill over into rough afternoons if I miss nap time. If I were a man, this would be no big deal. I could just skip the family breakfast and head to any old cafe and kick it. No problem. I might even have two cups, who knows. I'm crazy unpredictable, and who can understand a man anyway?
Sigh. Unfortunately for me, I feel comfortable in ONE cafe, and it's on the complete other side of town. A good 25 minute walk. Who's got that kind of time in the morning? Not me, that's who. Especially when I'm uncaffeinated. It's a vicious cycle.
Next!
Last weekend two dear friends and I reunited for the first time since swearing-in (bold-faced lie--I saw one of them a week after moving to site and then again a few weeks after that)and went to a little place called Marjane. The Marjane is a Super Target-esque store that would be totally ordinary and maybe even sub-par in the states, but in Morocco it almost made me hyperventilate upon entry.
Imagine spending three and a halfish months in small town Morocco, doing jumping jacks to stay warm at night, bathing every three days or so and considering it a good week if your bowel movements were more or less regular. Now imagine stumbling into a huge superstore with air conditioning, American music on the speakers, and BOOZE prominently displayed. My fellow Volunteers and I just stood in the entry for a solid minute, sort of giggling and trying to lower our heart rates. We then proceeded--slowly--up and down every aisle, inspecting every product and trying to think rationally about what we should buy. After an hour or two of blissful shopping to tunage like "Ghetto Superstar," we emerged triumphant with peanut butter, cheese, pepperonis (don't judge), Oreos, Snickers bars and various other tidbits. I was even given a printed receipt! Ridiculous.
Yukon ho!
Today I received my very first package from America in the mail. It was from my dearest daddy and it was magnificent. I can safely assure you that there is at least one Dwight Schrute bobblehead doll in Morocco as of this morning.
There is also at least one beloved lavender unicorn hoodie sweatshirt. And now, a spontaneous haiku:
mythical creature
you've one horn and you've one heart:
mine. How I've missed you!
And because I don't want to end this blog on a completely absurd note:
There's this part in Jesus Christ Superstar (and I assume this happens at some point in the Bible, too) where Jesus is surrounded by beggars yelling at him:
See my eyes, I can hardly see/ See me stand I can hardly walk/ I believe you can make me whole/ See my tongue I can hardly talk
And then they keep getting closer and encroaching on his personal space until he finally just flips his shit and screams "Heal yourselves!"
I don't mean to compare myself to Jesus in anyway, but I totally had a similar moment this morning. This kid kept grabbing my arm and another one was telling me something while another was whining that someone hit her and a third was asking me how to say everything in a 3 mile radius in English until a fourth grabbed my other arm and I sort of involuntarily jerked my arm away and said "What?!" irritably and a little loud. Of course I immediately felt like a complete bitch and spent the remainder of the morning playing Uno and trying to make as many silly faces as possible. That heals all wounds right?
I was thinking about the time I likened my brain to the Island of Misfit Toys in the Rudolph cartoon today when I was in the middle of a dar chebab meeting about the activities I've got up my sleeve for Christmas and started jotting down things to blog about. I'm not even sure if that last sentence makes sense because I started thinking about peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the middle of it.
Anyway this is going to be yet another rambling, disjointed entry. Hold onto your hats!
First of all, a bit I wanted to blog about before but couldn't figure out a way to write it in a way that didn't make me sound like Carrie Bradshaw. Don't get me wrong, Sex and the City is classic and a great way to pass lonely nights in Morocco. That said, I can't stand Carrie's writing style and I think she does as much for women in terms of gaining respect as the Spice Girls.
Off the soapbox and on topic: I find that in Morocco I tend to wish I was a man. And it's not penis envy. It's ability-to-obtain-coffee envy. In my current homestay situation I depend on my host mom for coffee, who depends on the shopkeeper that she has an open tab with. If he decides to sleep in, she can't buy milk in the morning and I am SOL. This makes for rough mornings that spill over into rough afternoons if I miss nap time. If I were a man, this would be no big deal. I could just skip the family breakfast and head to any old cafe and kick it. No problem. I might even have two cups, who knows. I'm crazy unpredictable, and who can understand a man anyway?
Sigh. Unfortunately for me, I feel comfortable in ONE cafe, and it's on the complete other side of town. A good 25 minute walk. Who's got that kind of time in the morning? Not me, that's who. Especially when I'm uncaffeinated. It's a vicious cycle.
Next!
Last weekend two dear friends and I reunited for the first time since swearing-in (bold-faced lie--I saw one of them a week after moving to site and then again a few weeks after that)and went to a little place called Marjane. The Marjane is a Super Target-esque store that would be totally ordinary and maybe even sub-par in the states, but in Morocco it almost made me hyperventilate upon entry.
Imagine spending three and a halfish months in small town Morocco, doing jumping jacks to stay warm at night, bathing every three days or so and considering it a good week if your bowel movements were more or less regular. Now imagine stumbling into a huge superstore with air conditioning, American music on the speakers, and BOOZE prominently displayed. My fellow Volunteers and I just stood in the entry for a solid minute, sort of giggling and trying to lower our heart rates. We then proceeded--slowly--up and down every aisle, inspecting every product and trying to think rationally about what we should buy. After an hour or two of blissful shopping to tunage like "Ghetto Superstar," we emerged triumphant with peanut butter, cheese, pepperonis (don't judge), Oreos, Snickers bars and various other tidbits. I was even given a printed receipt! Ridiculous.
Yukon ho!
Today I received my very first package from America in the mail. It was from my dearest daddy and it was magnificent. I can safely assure you that there is at least one Dwight Schrute bobblehead doll in Morocco as of this morning.
There is also at least one beloved lavender unicorn hoodie sweatshirt. And now, a spontaneous haiku:
mythical creature
you've one horn and you've one heart:
mine. How I've missed you!
And because I don't want to end this blog on a completely absurd note:
There's this part in Jesus Christ Superstar (and I assume this happens at some point in the Bible, too) where Jesus is surrounded by beggars yelling at him:
See my eyes, I can hardly see/ See me stand I can hardly walk/ I believe you can make me whole/ See my tongue I can hardly talk
And then they keep getting closer and encroaching on his personal space until he finally just flips his shit and screams "Heal yourselves!"
I don't mean to compare myself to Jesus in anyway, but I totally had a similar moment this morning. This kid kept grabbing my arm and another one was telling me something while another was whining that someone hit her and a third was asking me how to say everything in a 3 mile radius in English until a fourth grabbed my other arm and I sort of involuntarily jerked my arm away and said "What?!" irritably and a little loud. Of course I immediately felt like a complete bitch and spent the remainder of the morning playing Uno and trying to make as many silly faces as possible. That heals all wounds right?
Friday, December 18, 2009
inappropriate
currently listening to: “Camping Next to Water” by Badly Drawn Boy
current state: safe in my room, CLEAN, full of bread and cookies
‘Awkward’ doesn’t even begin to describe this afternoon. From 4 to 5 on Tuesdays I have informal tutoring sessions. Too many people have stopped me on the street asking for English classes, and they are all of different levels, so I think this might be the best way to deal with the situation for now. Anyway this man came today that I had talked to last week—he studied English in school and loved it, but he learned British English and wants to learn to speak like Americans. I told him to come by this week around 4 or 5 with a list of British terms and we’d go over them.
The man did indeed stop by, but instead of bringing his list of British terms he brought the lyrics of an Eminem song. Yeah. I spent an hour with a middle-aged man explaining American slang like “woody” and how “climbing up and down that pole” is a phrase that describes the movements of a woman performing a strip tease. Awesome.
current state: safe in my room, CLEAN, full of bread and cookies
‘Awkward’ doesn’t even begin to describe this afternoon. From 4 to 5 on Tuesdays I have informal tutoring sessions. Too many people have stopped me on the street asking for English classes, and they are all of different levels, so I think this might be the best way to deal with the situation for now. Anyway this man came today that I had talked to last week—he studied English in school and loved it, but he learned British English and wants to learn to speak like Americans. I told him to come by this week around 4 or 5 with a list of British terms and we’d go over them.
The man did indeed stop by, but instead of bringing his list of British terms he brought the lyrics of an Eminem song. Yeah. I spent an hour with a middle-aged man explaining American slang like “woody” and how “climbing up and down that pole” is a phrase that describes the movements of a woman performing a strip tease. Awesome.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Deep Thoughts, Why Rain is Sometimes Awesome and a Swashbuckling Adventure
Typed December 14
I sit through a lot of events where I don’t really understand what’s going on. Apparently you can’t learn a language in three months, no matter how hard you try. Anyway, as if my mind didn’t already wander enough, it wanders even more when everyone around me is speaking very quickly and passionately in Darija. Some things I was thinking about:
I don’t totally agree with Jim regarding his lyrical choices in “People are Strange,” even though it’s one of my very favorite songs. Yes, people are strange when you’re a stranger and yes, faces look ugly when you’re alone. I don’t really know about women seeming wicked when you’re unwanted, but I’m totally with him on the bit about streets being uneven when you’re down. My ability to trip and the amount of crabbiness I’m experiencing at a given moment are directly related.
Jim and I schism at “when you’re strange, no one remembers your name, when you’re strange.” I totally disagree. Everyone in this freaking town knows my name. This morning I was stopped by three people who called out my name, only one of whom I recognized. Everyone knows my name and everyone knows my business. Yesterday I went out of town and the police called twice, once to verify my itinerary and a second time to see if I came home. If you do a ‘man on the street’ style interview and ask where the American is, I bet you a million dollars he’ll know.
Anyway.
The other thing I was thinking about was a tip my dad gave me once when I was trying to get into running (fail). He’s kind of a big deal—ran the Houston marathon in ’96. Ain’t no thang. He told me that runners, over time, learn to rest while jogging. They will run at a steady pace, then when they need a break they don’t stop or even slow to a walk, but jog. I could never really figure out how to do that in running, but I realized that in life I have been doing that for as long as I can remember. And by as long as I can remember I mean since probably high school. I always seem to have a to-do list (in my more neurotic days I had two or three to-do lists varying in levels of urgency) and if I’m not ticking things off of it I feel like I’m not a whole person. Idle time makes me nervous. For instance, today is my day off, and I spent most of it working on uploading photos from an event yesterday—until my internet mutinied—then lesson planning for the week. I run Tuesday through Saturday (dar chebab, meetings, getting things together for my house) and jog Sunday and Monday (lesson plans, studying Darija, organizing paperwork). I’m not comfortable enough here yet to REST rest—read, nap, journal—on a regular basis, which sucks because I read blogs of people in my stage and see that they are chilling out, visiting friends, catching up on their reading. Why can’t I ever come to a complete stop? You’d think after 23 years I would run out of places to jog. Or that I would have more interesting stories to tell by now.
So those are my deep thoughts for the day. Moving on to why rain is sometimes really awesome.
Rain is sometimes really awesome when it’s Monday morning and you don’t work on Mondays and can thus stay warm in your jammies.
Rain is sometimes really awesome when you have a host mom that makes hrsha (Moroccan corn bread) and coffee on mornings when it’s cold and rainy.
Rain is sometimes really awesome when you work at a dar chebab that’s far away from the neighborhood that stampedes of children come from. Muddy streets cut attendance considerably and make the activities much more manageable.
Rain is sometimes really awesome when you have snuggly blankets and work that you can do from your bed.
However, sometimes rain is not really awesome. Times when rain is not really awesome are:
When you live in a house with a big skylight, and the method of keeping rain out is covering the skylight with an old piece of metal with some holes in it.
When your bedroom window doesn’t close all the way.
When you are walking somewhere and get stopped by a creepy man who helped Peace Corps find your homestay family and now thinks he’s going to be given your hand in marriage as a thank you gift.
When your boots don’t have good traction in mud and every step may be your last.
Finally, a swift recounting of a swashbuckling adventure. I should mention no swordplay was involved, but at times I felt like it would be cool if everyone was speaking Pirate instead of Darija, which that’s why I use the term “swashbuckling.”
At dawn, I crammed into a rickety white van with my two counterparts and thirteen kids from dar chebab in order to go to a seminar on youth leadership and give a presentation about their group activities. The van safely seated maybe 8-10 people. No big deal, we had some minors sitting on plastic stools in the back, next to the back door that didn’t close all the way. Nothing to worry about, especially since no one’s parents signed any sort of waiver allowing their children to take this method of transportation. Yes, I was the picture of calm.
A cultural lesson: Moroccan youth, especially boys, like to bang drums and sing songs on road trips, even when it’s very early in the morning, their chaperone has not had any coffee yet, and the van has a tendency to break down frequently on windy mountain paths that make you think Gollum will pop out at any moment.
Hamdullah, we arrived safely (and on time!) at the seminar. We breakfasted on glorious coffee and baguettes then got started with some icebreaker games. One that I had never played before involved everyone taking off a shoe and putting it in the center of a circle. Then one by one each person had to pick a shoe and describe the person who wears it. It was really fun, and I’m glad my shoe got picked pretty early because I wanted it back (it was freezing).
The kids did a really great job presenting their activities. They had a slide show of photos set to music and even dimmed the lights for effect. Each one rehearsed his or her part and no one goofed off. I was very proud, even though I can’t claim credit for any of it, having only been in site a month.
Finished off the event with tea, cookies and a music circle. I got to show off my moves (read: was coerced into showing off my moves) and it occurred to me that dancing isn’t necessarily shameful in Morocco as long as the dancer feels humiliated and self-conscious the whole time. That’s probably why people don’t drink here.
The ride back home was much like the ride away from it, except this time one of my counterparts started singing “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely” by the Backstreet Boys and everyone was totally shocked I didn’t know any of the words.
I think that’s enough for now…if I find myself thinking deeply again I’ll let you know.
I sit through a lot of events where I don’t really understand what’s going on. Apparently you can’t learn a language in three months, no matter how hard you try. Anyway, as if my mind didn’t already wander enough, it wanders even more when everyone around me is speaking very quickly and passionately in Darija. Some things I was thinking about:
I don’t totally agree with Jim regarding his lyrical choices in “People are Strange,” even though it’s one of my very favorite songs. Yes, people are strange when you’re a stranger and yes, faces look ugly when you’re alone. I don’t really know about women seeming wicked when you’re unwanted, but I’m totally with him on the bit about streets being uneven when you’re down. My ability to trip and the amount of crabbiness I’m experiencing at a given moment are directly related.
Jim and I schism at “when you’re strange, no one remembers your name, when you’re strange.” I totally disagree. Everyone in this freaking town knows my name. This morning I was stopped by three people who called out my name, only one of whom I recognized. Everyone knows my name and everyone knows my business. Yesterday I went out of town and the police called twice, once to verify my itinerary and a second time to see if I came home. If you do a ‘man on the street’ style interview and ask where the American is, I bet you a million dollars he’ll know.
Anyway.
The other thing I was thinking about was a tip my dad gave me once when I was trying to get into running (fail). He’s kind of a big deal—ran the Houston marathon in ’96. Ain’t no thang. He told me that runners, over time, learn to rest while jogging. They will run at a steady pace, then when they need a break they don’t stop or even slow to a walk, but jog. I could never really figure out how to do that in running, but I realized that in life I have been doing that for as long as I can remember. And by as long as I can remember I mean since probably high school. I always seem to have a to-do list (in my more neurotic days I had two or three to-do lists varying in levels of urgency) and if I’m not ticking things off of it I feel like I’m not a whole person. Idle time makes me nervous. For instance, today is my day off, and I spent most of it working on uploading photos from an event yesterday—until my internet mutinied—then lesson planning for the week. I run Tuesday through Saturday (dar chebab, meetings, getting things together for my house) and jog Sunday and Monday (lesson plans, studying Darija, organizing paperwork). I’m not comfortable enough here yet to REST rest—read, nap, journal—on a regular basis, which sucks because I read blogs of people in my stage and see that they are chilling out, visiting friends, catching up on their reading. Why can’t I ever come to a complete stop? You’d think after 23 years I would run out of places to jog. Or that I would have more interesting stories to tell by now.
So those are my deep thoughts for the day. Moving on to why rain is sometimes really awesome.
Rain is sometimes really awesome when it’s Monday morning and you don’t work on Mondays and can thus stay warm in your jammies.
Rain is sometimes really awesome when you have a host mom that makes hrsha (Moroccan corn bread) and coffee on mornings when it’s cold and rainy.
Rain is sometimes really awesome when you work at a dar chebab that’s far away from the neighborhood that stampedes of children come from. Muddy streets cut attendance considerably and make the activities much more manageable.
Rain is sometimes really awesome when you have snuggly blankets and work that you can do from your bed.
However, sometimes rain is not really awesome. Times when rain is not really awesome are:
When you live in a house with a big skylight, and the method of keeping rain out is covering the skylight with an old piece of metal with some holes in it.
When your bedroom window doesn’t close all the way.
When you are walking somewhere and get stopped by a creepy man who helped Peace Corps find your homestay family and now thinks he’s going to be given your hand in marriage as a thank you gift.
When your boots don’t have good traction in mud and every step may be your last.
Finally, a swift recounting of a swashbuckling adventure. I should mention no swordplay was involved, but at times I felt like it would be cool if everyone was speaking Pirate instead of Darija, which that’s why I use the term “swashbuckling.”
At dawn, I crammed into a rickety white van with my two counterparts and thirteen kids from dar chebab in order to go to a seminar on youth leadership and give a presentation about their group activities. The van safely seated maybe 8-10 people. No big deal, we had some minors sitting on plastic stools in the back, next to the back door that didn’t close all the way. Nothing to worry about, especially since no one’s parents signed any sort of waiver allowing their children to take this method of transportation. Yes, I was the picture of calm.
A cultural lesson: Moroccan youth, especially boys, like to bang drums and sing songs on road trips, even when it’s very early in the morning, their chaperone has not had any coffee yet, and the van has a tendency to break down frequently on windy mountain paths that make you think Gollum will pop out at any moment.
Hamdullah, we arrived safely (and on time!) at the seminar. We breakfasted on glorious coffee and baguettes then got started with some icebreaker games. One that I had never played before involved everyone taking off a shoe and putting it in the center of a circle. Then one by one each person had to pick a shoe and describe the person who wears it. It was really fun, and I’m glad my shoe got picked pretty early because I wanted it back (it was freezing).
The kids did a really great job presenting their activities. They had a slide show of photos set to music and even dimmed the lights for effect. Each one rehearsed his or her part and no one goofed off. I was very proud, even though I can’t claim credit for any of it, having only been in site a month.
Finished off the event with tea, cookies and a music circle. I got to show off my moves (read: was coerced into showing off my moves) and it occurred to me that dancing isn’t necessarily shameful in Morocco as long as the dancer feels humiliated and self-conscious the whole time. That’s probably why people don’t drink here.
The ride back home was much like the ride away from it, except this time one of my counterparts started singing “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely” by the Backstreet Boys and everyone was totally shocked I didn’t know any of the words.
I think that’s enough for now…if I find myself thinking deeply again I’ll let you know.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
oh my
current sap-fest of a song" "dreaming with a broken heart" by JM (hi candice)
Today started the way most Hunter S. Thompson pieces do. No introductory sentence, no set-up, just bam.
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like 'I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...' And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'” (the opening paragraph of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
It occurred to me today that my Dar Chebab is what Hunter would call bat country.
There was a teacher's union strike today, which meant the kids in my town had nothing better to do than go to Dar Chebab and harass me. In other words, I walked through the big green gate, turned the corner, and was greeted by 50 or 60 screaming kids, all wanting something different. "basketball!" "english!" "ping pong!" "water!" "hi alli hi alli hi alli! labas 3lik? hamdullah! kif dayra? labas? nti labas? mzyan?"
Honestly it's really great to have such enthusiastic kids. It really is. I swear.
With the help of my boss's son I was able to get them all separated into groups to play basketball or study English. The ping pong table broke last week (see earlier posts) so that was out. I only had to scream at them once, and I didn't have to kick anyone out of the building (just out of my classroom), so I'd say the morning ended up being successful.
Moving on, because I actually sat down with a specific topic in mind.
Whenever you move somewhere new, you inevitably notice commonalities in your new neighbors. I'm pretty sure "commonalities" is a word. At least, I've heard a smug anthropologist or two say it. When I moved to DC I noticed how no one can be bothered to say full words. Instead they use acronyms: it's not Au Bon Pain, it's ABP. It's not the Department of Justice, it's the DoJ.
In Morocco I've noticed how reluctant everyone is to make a promise, or any sort of statement of solid fact. Any talk of the future usually concludes with an "insha'allah" (if God wills it). For example:
"Okay so I'll see you at four for the meeting?"
"Insha'allah."
Nothing is certain, anything can happen, we don't have control. I thought this concept was pretty interesting since I tend to be hard-headed and convince myself I can make things happen when I want them to happen. (Morocco has already started making me a little humble in that sense.)
So I realized how far this idea that nothing is certain goes this past Tuesday. In the afternoons I open up my classroom for some informal tutoring, and whoever wants to come and read or go over grammar or whatever is welcome. A couple times this week, an older guy came by to work on verb tenses. I wasn't sure where to start with him, so I started at the beginning with simple present tense. We were practicing things like "I eat lunch everyday" and "she watches television at night." Easy peas. TOO easy peas. So I stepped it up a notch and started asking him questions that he could answer using the simple present. We talked about daily routines and habitual actions, then I started explaining the concept of general truths, because those are good, simple statements to practice.
But oh my god did this guy not get the concept of general truths.
I said to him, "a general truth is something that is always true. For example, 'the sun is hot.'"
"No, not always. You can't know that the sun will be hot."
Well, sir, I'm pretty sure the sun is always a gigantic ball of super-hot gases. You can count on that. But whatever, we'll let it slide. So I says to him I says:
"Okay. How about, 'Moroccans eat couscous on Friday."
"But it's impossible to know if every Moroccan is eating couscous on the same day."
At this point I started having 'Nam style flashbacks of my days in sociocultural anthropology lectures when you couldn't get a sentence out without someone raising their hand to point out that your statement could be misconstrued as stereotypical, and decided it would be best to move on to the simple past tense.
Something completely different: today marks the start of my fourth month in country. Three months down, twenty-four to go! (Insha'allah)
Today started the way most Hunter S. Thompson pieces do. No introductory sentence, no set-up, just bam.
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like 'I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...' And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'” (the opening paragraph of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
It occurred to me today that my Dar Chebab is what Hunter would call bat country.
There was a teacher's union strike today, which meant the kids in my town had nothing better to do than go to Dar Chebab and harass me. In other words, I walked through the big green gate, turned the corner, and was greeted by 50 or 60 screaming kids, all wanting something different. "basketball!" "english!" "ping pong!" "water!" "hi alli hi alli hi alli! labas 3lik? hamdullah! kif dayra? labas? nti labas? mzyan?"
Honestly it's really great to have such enthusiastic kids. It really is. I swear.
With the help of my boss's son I was able to get them all separated into groups to play basketball or study English. The ping pong table broke last week (see earlier posts) so that was out. I only had to scream at them once, and I didn't have to kick anyone out of the building (just out of my classroom), so I'd say the morning ended up being successful.
Moving on, because I actually sat down with a specific topic in mind.
Whenever you move somewhere new, you inevitably notice commonalities in your new neighbors. I'm pretty sure "commonalities" is a word. At least, I've heard a smug anthropologist or two say it. When I moved to DC I noticed how no one can be bothered to say full words. Instead they use acronyms: it's not Au Bon Pain, it's ABP. It's not the Department of Justice, it's the DoJ.
In Morocco I've noticed how reluctant everyone is to make a promise, or any sort of statement of solid fact. Any talk of the future usually concludes with an "insha'allah" (if God wills it). For example:
"Okay so I'll see you at four for the meeting?"
"Insha'allah."
Nothing is certain, anything can happen, we don't have control. I thought this concept was pretty interesting since I tend to be hard-headed and convince myself I can make things happen when I want them to happen. (Morocco has already started making me a little humble in that sense.)
So I realized how far this idea that nothing is certain goes this past Tuesday. In the afternoons I open up my classroom for some informal tutoring, and whoever wants to come and read or go over grammar or whatever is welcome. A couple times this week, an older guy came by to work on verb tenses. I wasn't sure where to start with him, so I started at the beginning with simple present tense. We were practicing things like "I eat lunch everyday" and "she watches television at night." Easy peas. TOO easy peas. So I stepped it up a notch and started asking him questions that he could answer using the simple present. We talked about daily routines and habitual actions, then I started explaining the concept of general truths, because those are good, simple statements to practice.
But oh my god did this guy not get the concept of general truths.
I said to him, "a general truth is something that is always true. For example, 'the sun is hot.'"
"No, not always. You can't know that the sun will be hot."
Well, sir, I'm pretty sure the sun is always a gigantic ball of super-hot gases. You can count on that. But whatever, we'll let it slide. So I says to him I says:
"Okay. How about, 'Moroccans eat couscous on Friday."
"But it's impossible to know if every Moroccan is eating couscous on the same day."
At this point I started having 'Nam style flashbacks of my days in sociocultural anthropology lectures when you couldn't get a sentence out without someone raising their hand to point out that your statement could be misconstrued as stereotypical, and decided it would be best to move on to the simple past tense.
Something completely different: today marks the start of my fourth month in country. Three months down, twenty-four to go! (Insha'allah)
Monday, December 7, 2009
On little boys and throwing rocks, on time and food and wearing socks
current jamz: "gethsemane" from Jesus Christ Superstar, seriously. I'm making you proud, momma.
Funny story, I once almost killed my sister and I because we were too focused on singing the entire score to JCS at the top of our voices, and not so much focused on how I was speeding like a maniac through rush hour traffic.
Anyway, on to the blogging.
First time a kid threw a rock at me at close range: COUNT IT. I was walking my host siblings back to school after lunch and this toddler was chillin out max and relaxin all cool with a rock the size of his FACE in his hands. It was the weirdest experience, his facial expression didn't change at all and yet I saw the rock and knew exactly what was going to happen. Luckily the kid throws like a girl and it just sort of fell at my feet. Kind of anticlimactic...I guess I could have said something like "he hit me smack in the jugular so I junk-punched him and now we are best friends."
Moving on.
Perhaps it's fitting that most houses I've visited for tea have two or three clocks that don't work on display. Morocco runs on a completely different schedule, a concept I was briefed on but didn't quite grasp how it might affect my life until really experiencing it. Sometimes lunch is on the table at 12:30, sometimes my host mom isn't even back from the community oven with the fresh-baked bread (amazing) until 2:30 or closer to 3. What's funny is I am already starting to have trouble getting places on time, and as many of you know I'm usually chronically prompt. Yesterday, for instance, I KNEW my friend was coming over at 4 pm to go walk around/hang out in the village-sort of the center of town-and yet when my host mom asked me at 2:45 if I wanted to make American cookies, I said "sure, why not?" Poor time-management+misreading a recipe+being afraid of my mom's oven= I was over an hour late meeting my friend. But the cookies were delicious.
And speaking of food, wow do I eat a lot here. I need to just suck it up and deal and be happy I'm not in a PC country where there's a lack of food, but my goodness am I expected to eat a lot. My host mom looks physically pained if I refuse a fourth piece of bread or respectfully decline a third cup of tea (even when I explain that I had tea with the family of a kid from the dar chebab less than an hour ago). Even when I do try to eat more, I still do something wrong. If I go for another piece of bread, I'm scolded for not putting butter on it. As soon as I finish the portion set out for me, someone semi-yells at me to take more. This evening, I was given bread, butter and tea, and was trying to eat all of it when my host mom gave me an apple, too. I didn't immediately eat it, so she ordered me to eat the apple. When I put down my glass of tea to take the apple, she told me I need to drink tea. When I picked the glass back up she said I should take more bread. How do you say "Go go gadget arms" in Arabic?
Funny story, I once almost killed my sister and I because we were too focused on singing the entire score to JCS at the top of our voices, and not so much focused on how I was speeding like a maniac through rush hour traffic.
Anyway, on to the blogging.
First time a kid threw a rock at me at close range: COUNT IT. I was walking my host siblings back to school after lunch and this toddler was chillin out max and relaxin all cool with a rock the size of his FACE in his hands. It was the weirdest experience, his facial expression didn't change at all and yet I saw the rock and knew exactly what was going to happen. Luckily the kid throws like a girl and it just sort of fell at my feet. Kind of anticlimactic...I guess I could have said something like "he hit me smack in the jugular so I junk-punched him and now we are best friends."
Moving on.
Perhaps it's fitting that most houses I've visited for tea have two or three clocks that don't work on display. Morocco runs on a completely different schedule, a concept I was briefed on but didn't quite grasp how it might affect my life until really experiencing it. Sometimes lunch is on the table at 12:30, sometimes my host mom isn't even back from the community oven with the fresh-baked bread (amazing) until 2:30 or closer to 3. What's funny is I am already starting to have trouble getting places on time, and as many of you know I'm usually chronically prompt. Yesterday, for instance, I KNEW my friend was coming over at 4 pm to go walk around/hang out in the village-sort of the center of town-and yet when my host mom asked me at 2:45 if I wanted to make American cookies, I said "sure, why not?" Poor time-management+misreading a recipe+being afraid of my mom's oven= I was over an hour late meeting my friend. But the cookies were delicious.
And speaking of food, wow do I eat a lot here. I need to just suck it up and deal and be happy I'm not in a PC country where there's a lack of food, but my goodness am I expected to eat a lot. My host mom looks physically pained if I refuse a fourth piece of bread or respectfully decline a third cup of tea (even when I explain that I had tea with the family of a kid from the dar chebab less than an hour ago). Even when I do try to eat more, I still do something wrong. If I go for another piece of bread, I'm scolded for not putting butter on it. As soon as I finish the portion set out for me, someone semi-yells at me to take more. This evening, I was given bread, butter and tea, and was trying to eat all of it when my host mom gave me an apple, too. I didn't immediately eat it, so she ordered me to eat the apple. When I put down my glass of tea to take the apple, she told me I need to drink tea. When I picked the glass back up she said I should take more bread. How do you say "Go go gadget arms" in Arabic?
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
at least i'm not a goat
Currently Listening to “Little Queen” by Heart
Currently Reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (if you currently live in
My goodness, it’s been a week. So much stuff went wrong that I ended up freaking out a little bit. Had a good wig-out/crying session on Wednesday and now I feel like I have some perspective. Maybe. Ha. Anyway I’m going to outline some of the shiz that went down so that at least someone can laugh at my current situation.
Earlier this week, something went wrong with the bathroom at my host family’s house and they had to have a man come and dig out a new sewage pipe thing for the Turk toilet. We were without a potty for like three days…instead there was just a dirty hole with a pile of dirt next to it. Still usable. No biggie, right? I am in the Peace Corps, after all.
I took the situation in stride, until Tuesday night when I got violently ill after being force-fed couscous (it wasn’t even Friday!). I was up every couple hours either booting all over the place or shitting into the little mudpit. Awesome. My host mom was really sweet, she came and sat with me on my bed for a little bit and got me water and stuff. I finally was able to get to sleep around 5 am, just in time to be woken up by the early morning call to prayer (we live across the street from a mosque).
Naturally, I was dehydrated and exhausted in the morning. I had made plans to go to souk, but I texted my friend to tell her I needed to sleep. Not that this happened—my host mom tried to make me eat breakfast (wtf?) and then the kids were being crazy loud and I couldn’t rest at all. Then my host mom left to go food shopping and I was alone with all my host siblings, ranging in age from 2-11. To sum up the experience, my toddler host brother took a shit on the concrete outside our house and all I was able to do in reaction was watch in horror. It’s actually really funny now but at the time I literally wanted to die.
I should mention that my host mom was totally shocked when I didn’t eat a big portion of couscous on Friday for lunch, as if the Couscous Incident from Tuesday never happened. She kept saying I didn’t like her couscous, and I couldn’t get the point across that I like couscous, but after almost dying three days ago I don’t want to eat a ton of it.
Thursday I went to the hemmam. It’s old news these days, but this time was a little different. Usually when I’ve been to the hemmam I don’t reallllllly need a bath, but in this case I hadn’t showered in 5 or 6 days (bathroom broken, remember?). Other factors that made this experience different:
-my 5-year-old host brother tagged along and has now seen my boobies
-I didn’t wear my contacts, so when I took my glasses off (it’s too steamy to wear them) I had no idea where I was.
-a strange woman I’d never met before scrubbed me from head to toe, then bathed me and shampooed my hair. Usually someone I go with will scrub my back or something but after that they let me clean myself, because, you know, I’m an adult.
Also! My cell phone in
Speaking of breaking things, some of the boys at Dar Chebab broke the ping pong table on my watch. Go me. I went into one of the rooms to grab a ball and came out just in time to watch the table come crashing down. Now the parents of
Let’s see, what else? Oh, right. So today was L3id Kbir, which one of my host relatives was explaining to me celebrates when Abraham almost sacrificed his son. Naturally, families here sacrifice goats in commemoration. It was…an experience. My host uncles slit the goat’s neck right in our front yard! Not as much blood as you’d think. Afterward they stuck a bicycle pump in its leg and filled the goat with air. You read that correctly. I think it makes it easier to skin? I don’t know. All in all it was a super-interesting process to watch. My family started cooking right then and there and we ate liver, heart, intestine and something else I didn’t know the word for. Apparently I’ll be eating parts of the head later…I’ll keep you posted.
tcob.
Typed at 10:12 pm on November 23
Currently listening to Ben Folds, Way to
Many things were accomplished today. In a related story, today was the first day I didn’t feel like a complete retard from dawn to dusk. My province-mate and I planned to meet up in our province capitol in order to meet our delegue for the Ministry of Youth and Sports here in
- telling Peace Corps 24 hours ahead of time that I would be leaving site today
- leaving my house at 6:45 am
- going to the gendarmes (fancy-pants police that follow PCVs around) to tell them I would be out of town all day
- taking an hour-long car ride with 6 strangers
- wandering around to various tobacco stores looking for a place that sold 100 Dh stamps (hopefully I bought the right kind)
- teaching the delegue how to pronounce my name, then just telling her to call me Amal
- taking another hour-long car ride to the Peace Corps office, but with 5 strangers this time (good ol’ province-mate was with me this time)
- trying to remember where in the city Peace Corps is located
- taking a 90ish minute car ride with six strangers, plus two backpacks, a large suitcase and a mosquito net
- lugging said backpacks, large suitcase and mosquito net into a petit taxi when I got back to site and trying to explain to the driver where I live in a town with no street names (I literally just told him what section of town I live in then said to go to the top of the hill and I live by the mosque.)
All that and I managed to be home before the sun set, just in time for my host brothers to roll around on my bed then start touching everything that I brought back from Rabat and asking me what everything was. Ay caramba.
I must say, I’m pretty pleased with myself right now. So far in site, the people of my town have been helpful to the extent that I can’t do anything alone (I just recently was able to leave the house without my host mom making sure I had an escort). It’s difficult to adjust to that when you are used to handling most things by yourself. Today was different though! I did everything I needed to do, and I didn’t need a Moroccan to translate for me. Today was exactly what I’ve been needing—a sign that I’ll be able to handle the next two years. I felt so in control that I came home and started making excel spreadsheets and planning lessons. BAM.
“3awd 3afak? Mafhhmts walu.”
That means “Can you repeat, please? I didn’t understand anything.” Basically it’s the story of my life these days.
Let’s see here, it’s been awhile. I spent a week at the beach/Rabat finishing up training. The hotel we got to stay in in
The morning after the swearing-in ceremony (by the way, I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer now) I made my way to site—a seemingly simple grand taxi ride. Of course, we got a flat tire about halfway there and I got to chillax on the side of the road with five randos while the driver exchanged the flat tire for a somewhat less-flat spare. Nevertheless I made it to site in one piece!
I have a new host family now: mom, dad, gramma, three little brothers and one little sister. Everyone is so, so, so, so overwhelmingly nice I barely know how to react. Gramma won’t let me sit anywhere unless I have a sheepskin rug under my feet, and the other night we were walking somewhere and she randomly picked a flower and gave it to me. I wish I could understand anything she said.
It’s not just my host family that’s been incredible so far, either. Everyone keeps trying to claim me as their kid—people either refer to me as “bnti” or “mskina” which mean “my daughter” and “poor kid” respectively. I take a little offense to being called mskina all the time, but I also can’t help but admit that it’s basically true.
I think I’ve found a bizarro me in my host dad. Last Saturday I needed to get ID photos taken for my carte de sejour—basically my Moroccan ID—but none of the stores were open yet because everyone was still eating lunch or napping (oh, Morocco) so we went and sat at his favorite café for a bit. We just sat and drank coffee and I didn’t think it could get any better, but then he pulled out a—wait for it—CROSSWORD PUZZLE. Of course it was in Arabic, but just seeing a crossword puzzle was like a little taste of my old routine.
So I guess I could talk about some potentially interesting information. I haven’t really started WORKING working yet, but I’ve gone to Dar Chebab pretty much everyday to hang out with the kids. The site I was assigned to already has a very active Dar Chebab, so it’s difficult to figure out where I fit in and what I can do to help them out, especially since my language skills are so weak. I can’t believe I actually scored HIGHER on my Peace Corps language exam than what I needed in order to go to site without any problems. Luckily, the guy that’s been helping me out a lot around town says my accent is very good, so I guess when the vocabulary and grammar comes along I will be in good shape. Swiyya b swiyya.
Thus far this post has been very upbeat, but I want to note that community integration is freaking difficult. I thought training was difficult, but now I’m going to go ahead and say that this past week (my first week in site) has been one of the most difficult times of my life. As scary as training was at times, I had five Americans and a patient Moroccan on hand for support 24/7. I don’t mean to imply that the people in my site haven’t been amazing, but at the end of the day I only have myself to rely on. Swiyya stress.
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