Thursday, July 9, 2009

Baby Party

So I don’t know if I blogged about my new host-niece yet, but my host sister Fadma gave birth to the tiniest sweetest little girl a few weeks ago.  I am so proud of her so far for various reasons.  She gave birth in a clinic (instead of at home), she already took Maria for vaccinations, and she is only breast-feeding her. 

So this past Sunday was the Baby Party!  I’m not exactly sure if the party is for the naming of the baby, or a religious event, or just to celebrate that the baby was born.  Anyway, I got all dressed up like the girls here, and celebrated with my village!  Although I am still not a fan of parties here that last past 4am, this one wasn’t too bad.  The actual celebration was the same (as far as I could tell) as a wedding celebration.  Fadma came onto the roof to say hello to the guests once, but no one ever saw the baby.


At 4am, as I was nodding off and dreaming of my house (only like 100 meters away!), my host mom, Ijjou, asked if I wanted to go home.  I was planning on staying until the end, since it was a party thrown by my host family, but sleep sounded like a great idea.  Right away, Ijjou called down to Omar and Mustafa (2 of my host brothers) asking them to walk me home.  And as I started to leave my host sister, Najma told me the same thing.  Make sure Omar or Mustafa walks you home.  Both host brothers offered to leave the party and walk me home without complaint.  

Really, that simple act of kindness meant a lot to me.  No matter how long I live in my village, I will never truly be a member of my host family.  But they treat me as one anyway.  And living so many thousands of miles from my family really stinks sometimes, so knowing that I have a loving family here makes life a lot easier.  

Congratulations Fadma!

Independence Day/Birthday

This year for Independence Day/my birthday, my friends and I decided to do our best to recreate what an American 4th of July celebration.  So my region-mates and 2 close friends from other regions came down to celebrate.  

Friday night we stayed at Hanneke’s and made raspberry vinaigrette goat cheese salad and pizza rolls (from scratch…even the wrapper).

 

The next morning we headed out to the road to wait for transportation to Mirleft, a beachtown in our region.  We spent the day at the beach...


some of us building sandcastles....

 some of us digging holes in the sand....

 and some of us swimming fully clothed.

  We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the beach; we are truly blessed in this region to be near water.  Once the sun got too hot, we returned to Hanneke’s for our 4th of July barbeque.

We made (well Hanneke did most of the cooking) potato salad, pasta salad, guacamole, burgers on the grill, and wine spritzers.

 

Meredith and I spent quite some time decorating the wonderful cookie cake she made for me.  Pink frosting with pink icing roses!!!!  She did a great job teaching me how to make the roses, but I don’t think I quite have it yet.


We had a great time and I had a fabulous birthday!

 

Phone Saga

So last week Meredith and I realized that our Moroccan ID Cards (carte de sejours) were going to expire.  Being such law-abiding girls, we headed to Anezi (near Meredith’s site) to stop by the gendarmes and apply for new ones.  Usually visiting the gendarmes means a full day of waiting; therefore, when we were in and out in 30 minutes, Meredith and I were extremely impressed.  In fact, I believe we decided it was the single most efficient bureaucratic moment we’ve had in Morocco so far.

So we found a car to take us back to Meredith’s house where we were going to make lunch.  And then I left my phone in the car.  Ooops.  After lunch I went to Meredith’s souk to find transportation to my site, and put the word out that I’d lost my phone.  So Ali at the post office knew, and one of the butahanoots (store owners) knew, and an Anezi taxi driver knew.  All three said they would keep calling my phone to see if someone answered as well as hunt down the driver. 

I went back to my site hopeful that the wonderful people of Meredith’s site would pull through with this phone business.  But everyone I talked to seem to think that my phone was long gone.  So I prepared to buy a new phone and number that weekend.

2 days later, I went to my post office, and Hassan, my postman, told me that although I didn’t have any mail, my phone was waiting for me in Meredith’s site!!!!  Hamdullilah!

So after I left my phone in a random car, and three days passed, I got it back!  It is a true testament to the kind of life I’m living here in Morocco.  I mean, first of all, if that happened in a city, I probably wouldn’t even TRY to find it.  But people here know Meredith and me, and made a conscious effort to find my phone.  I’m just tickled pink by the kindness of people!!!!


As a side-note, my phone broke two days later and I had to get a new one anyway.  I think the phone gods were trying to tell me something. 

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Summer!


Since it is July, I believe I can safely say summer is in full swing here in Morocco.  Today, the temperature is 110 degrees in the shade; I have been moving as little as possible since I woke up this morning.  I’ve had frozen yogurt, iced crystal lite, iced karkaday (Egyptian hibiscus tea), and iced coffee (Raspberry chocolate! Thanks to Aunt Judy).  Needless to say my friends down here in Tiznit and I are handling the situation pretty well.  Two weeks ago we went to Sidi Ifni, a beach town south of Tiznit.  This weekend we will go to Mirleft, another beach town in our region.  Although we still have to dress like nuns on the beach, the breeze is great!

 


Our weekend in Sidi Ifni was wonderful.  We went with 2 of the new health volunteers in our region, who are still living with host families.  So the 5 of us (Meredith, Hanneke, Jess, Marjorie, me) rented an apartment on the beach.  Here is our view.

 


Since we were still in our region, we dressed as we normally would in our sites….just rolled up the pants a little.  J  And went to the beach!

 

 



A few days later, our Peace Corps Program Assistant, Rachid, came to Tiznt to visit the new volunteers.  In the morning, he picked up Meredith and drove her to my house, and while he was off visiting one of the new volunteers, Nicole, Meredith and I proceeded to cook a relatively Chinese lunch for him.

 

Chicken egg rolls (we even made the wrappers), Vegetable stir-fry, and Egg Drop Soup.  We diverged from the theme a bit with Egyptian tea to drink and apple pie for dessert.  Meredith and I had a lot of fun cooking and overall the meal was a success!

 

Oh, and Mer brought her kitten, Toni Almeida (she’s a girl, hence the “i”) over for a play date with Chandler while we cooked.  They didn’t exactly love each other, but Toni had fun in my fridge. 


 

I was going to continue with the beach-on-the-weekends theme this past weekend by going to Agadir, until I was recruited to help my host family on Sunday.  I was told to show up at their house Sunday morning, to help prepare food for a bunch of men.  Well, it turns out “a bunch of men” means 40 men and later, 50 women.  We were cooking tajine and couscous like mad-people!  And making tea until it was coming out of our ears.  It was crazy.  Still not clear on why this all happened, but I believe it is something related to the mosque, since the men were reciting the Quran in between meals.  Anyway, I had fun-ish.  I mean, hanging out with some of my favorite women is always fun, but cooking and cleaning for 90 is not how I will choose to spend every Sunday.  I have renewed respect for those in the catering business!!