Hello! Just a quick note.....there seems to be a bit of concern over one of my pictures.....no, i do not have a tattoo on my back, and no the girl in the picture of the carpet shop isnt me! :)

Hello from Ouarzazate !!!!

I just returned from my first CBT phase……6 days in the country, or the “bled” as Moroccans like to say. It is great to be back at the Training Site, with hot water, western toilets available, and showers!!!

My CBT experience was great. 5 PSTs (Meredith, Kathy, Doug, Brian, and myself) went with Doha, our Language and Culture Facilitator (LCF) up into the mountains for a week of intense language and culture immersion. We each stayed with a host family, who will be our family for each CBT phase until May.

My host family is GREAT. There are 2 brothers who work in Casablanca, and 3 sisters in their 20’s. I saw my host dad maybe 4 times, because he spends most of his time off working in the fields.

Each day, we had classes from 830am through 6pm….a mix of language and cross-cultural training. There is so much to say I do not even know where to begin, so I will highlight a few moments from the week

#1 In our clay house, the women of the family hang out in the same room they eat in and they sleep in. Each night after class, I helped my host sister, Hajiba, and host mom prepare dinner, while “chatting” in Tashelheet. Chatting usually consisted of me saying a word I learned, getting corrected, and then saying it wrong again, which caused an outbreak of giggles. For example, one night my host mom was trying to teach me kitchen vocabulary.

Imma: (points to a pot) Tatskoort
Erin: Teetskoort?
Imma: Oho, TATSKOORT
Erin: Waxxa, tatskoort?
Imma: Muzzein! (good, and we go back to peeling potatoes)
Imma: A few minutes later, points to the pot)
Erin: uhhh…..tafunest?
Imma: (needs to put down the knife as she laughs uncontrollably. Tafunest is “cow” in TashlHeet)

All of the women ate dinner together- sans utensils and sitting on the floor…….however, I would only go so far as to share food. When they pulled out the communal glass of water I had to put my foot down. I brought in my Nalgene bottle and just said it was special water for me so I don’t get sick. Hey whatever works.

After dinner and clearing the dishes, one by one, each women grabbed a pillow and blanket and lied down for the night. I got up, stepped into the hall and headed to my room. On the way my sense of smell would be flooded with animal. In the house, the people live on the second floor, and the cows, goats, horse, and 30 sheep live on the first.

#2 My host sister Hajiba is my favorite. She is 24 and teaches at the local pre-school. She is fascinated by the fact that my sister is also 24, and also teaches pre-school. I learned how to say "my sister teaches deaf people" in TashelHeet, and I am pretty proud of that! When I was having trouble communicating with someone in the family, Hajiba and I would use French to break down the communication barriers. Thursday was a Moroccan religious holiday, so the night before, I got henna!! Hajiba did an amazing job, quickly drawing elaborate flowers on my hands, like a pro! The only problem was going to bed....since I had wet henna on both hands I couldnt do anything. Consequently 2 of my host sisters helped me to bed and arranged the covers over me so that I could sleep with my hands in the air. Too funny!

#3 Classes went really well- Doha is supposedly the toughest of the LCFs and my group is grateful for that. We are learning language at an accelerated pace, and doing so much else as well! There is currently a PCV in the village, so we went with her to her Women's Association, and met the women who make cheese to be sold in the big city. We also visited the sbitar (health clinic) and learned that the village has one of the best clinics in the region because it has a doctor.

#4 I am sick of getting sick. Something about getting sick in the same hole you brush your teeth into, you do your business into, and you "shower" into is not so appetizing. I guess it shows how wonderful my experience was....I was sick most of the time and can still honestly say it was one of the best weeks of my life!

TashelHeet and More

Oho! (That’s “no” in TashelHeet.) This past Thursday, after much anticipation, our trainee group received our CBT (community based training) sites; consequently, we know the language we will be learning which limits the areas of Morocco in which we could be serving! I am learning TashelHeet, one of the Berber languages of Morocco. There are three main Berber languages, Tarifit, Tamazight, and TashelHeet. PCVs go to sites where Tamazight and TashelHeet are spoken. There are also a few Volunteers who go to Darija speaking sites. Most TashelHeet sites are either in the Sahara or on the coast, which means 125+ degree during the summer or beautiful Mediterranean weather…….hmmmmm. I wish I had some control over that!!!

Training has been going very well….days are long but we are learning a lot. On some nights, we have “tea talks,” where the volunteers decide on a topic we would like to discuss with our language and training instructors. On Monday we covered “Women’s issues in Morocco,” and last night we covered Islam. It is a great way to chat informally with Moroccan regarding issues about which we Americans know very little.

Our Program Manager came down from Rabat for a couple of seminars this week. He worked for the Moroccan Ministry of Health for 13 years, so he has a very strong health background. He spoke to us about Health and Healthcare in Morocco. There are little over 100 hospitals in the entire country…..a country of 33 million. There is one health clinic for every 7000 people in Morocco, and even those do not necessarily have a doctor. Another big issue is the lack of sanitation. Only 30% of rural families have any form of plumbing or waste disposal. Primary school is mandatory, but only 93% of children are enrolled. There is approximately a 30% drop out rate after each primary, middle and secondary school respectively. I could go on and on, but basically for a country that is developed in many ways, healthcare and education leave much to be desired.

Running is still a lot of fun; we enjoy exploring new parts of Ouarzazate each morning. And I was right, I can now use Darija to greet the various people we pass while running. Today we took a new route for the first time, up a hill near our hotel/training site. It offered an amazing view of the town, the mosques hovering over many homes and shops with flat roofs covered with laundry.

Today I bought my first Moroccan piece of clothing, a pink modern djellaba with white embroidery. I will hopefully get a picture in it to post….but I absolutely adore it! It comes to my knees so it is great to wear with pants on any given day. Tomorrow we leave for our CBT sites and although I am not supposed to divulge exact locations, it has a fabulous view of some snow capped mountains. I cant wait! My host parents have 3 daughters living at home who are in their 20s so I hope to have some quality time with them.

I will be back next weekend and hopefully have some fun stories from my week with the family. We have classes every day except Thursday. In Islam, it is the Prophet Mohammeds birthday so we will be participating in the community's festivities.

Oh and just fyi my 3 dollar Moroccan watch officially does not keep time. Oh well. :)

shwiya b shwiya

So i just had my first purchase using limited Darija, or Moroccan Arabic. It went something like this.

Erin: Salaam waaliykum
Dude at shop: Waaliykum salaam
Erin: bgeet magana (pointing to watch, because i want to buy a cheap one)
Dude at shop: (shows me cheapy watches)
Erin: B ShHal?
Dude at shop: Aashreen Dirham...............djkshdfjkhseoiuhuoihgjkseuihf (off into crazy Darija)
Erin: (uh oh, dont understand...) pardon, je ne comprends pas (alas, i have switched to french once again as my language crutch)

So basically the greetings are getting there, and even though i switched to french in the end, i am pretty proud of my purchase..a watch that works for 3 USD!

So I am here! Day 6 in Morocco, day 2 in Ouarzazate, and things are fabulous!! We spent 4 days in Rabat, under house arrest, waiting to be briefed by the RSO and the US Ambassador on security etc in Morocco. Eventually we got to walk around Rabat, but we only had about 2 free hours in 4 days.

Friday we took a 9 hour bus ride through the Atlas Mountains to Ouarzazate, our seminar training site. We are staying in a hotel, but by hotel i mean hostel-esque for those of you who have stayed in them. Very few of the toilets work consistently, and we had our first turkish toilet experiences. One of the language trainers actually took my roommate and me to show us exactly how it is done...not too bad!!! We will be training in Ouarzazate for a few days before heading to the Community Based Training sites. At that point we will be learning our specific Berber dialects, Tashelheet or Tamazight. For now we are learning "emergency darija" to get around. Technical training also begins this week.

My fellow trainees are a lot of fun and we all have a high level of dedication to the Peace Corps, so it is both motivational and inspirational to be this new world together. Prayer calls are 5 times a day, starting nice and early at 5am, proclaimed over loudspeakers throughout the city. This morning two other trainees and i got up at 630 to run; we ran away from Ouarzazate and into the country. It was beautiful, especially passing by the children walking into town for school, greeting us in French, the women in their elegant djellabas and hijabs, and the men on their little mopeds making me think that walking might be faster.

Tomorrow when we run I figure inshallah (God willing) I will greet the children in Darija, and maybe get through a transaction without any French. shwiya b shwiya is what they are telling us. Little by little.

Morocco Here We Come!

I am sitting in the JFK airport, with 60 other Peace Corps trainees, waiting to board the flight to Casablanca in a couple of hours.  We just finished 2 days of "staging" in Philadelphia, where we spent hours on end discussing various aspects of being a successful Peace Corps Volunteer.  There was not too much new information, but I imagine it makes logical sense to allow the trainees 2 days to recover from the huge leaps of faith they just took, before boarding the plane to Morocco.   I cannot even imagine the 60 of us all saying good-bye to family at the same time at the same place.  We would be a wreck!

The group is fabulous- we have old (50+) trainees, and young (me) trainees, married trainees, basically trainees of all shapes and sizes.  

We are ready to embark on this great and adventure into the unknown!