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!!

 

  

Back in Site

Back in site, I have directed my attention toward the women’s center once again.  When I arrived back from Egypt, the total collections had reach about $3,000 (so exciting!  It takes some volunteers months to raise that much).  The girls in my site were happy to hear how much had been collected, but understood that $3,000 is a far cry from almost $17,000. 

Last weekend, my parents and sister over doubled the donations to the women’s center by devoting their weekend to speaking about it a church.  At 4 different masses, Steph and my mom (how did Dad get out of it?) spoke to the congregation about this project and its merits for the women of my community.  Stephanie had the added bonus of being able to talk about the community and the girls involved from first-hand experience.  The night before they spoke, I had a horrible dream that not a single person at mass wanted to donate, so I wasn’t expecting much.  But, as you will soon be able to see on the Peace Corps donation website, they raised over $4,000!  In 1 weekend!  So ALF SHUKRA (1,000 thank yous) to my wonderful family and the people of Church of the Holy Spirit, who saw the value of this project to the women of Morocco.  You check out details and pictures of the weekend at church on Stephanie’s blog, callitaclan.blogspot.com

 

That means under $10,000 to go, to make this women’s center a reality, so PLEASE keep spreading the word to friends and co-workers.  If everyone donates a few dollars, this can totally happen soon!

 

While we are waiting for the construction of the women’s center, the girls of my community and I have decided to keep meeting weekly for women’s center related activities.  The girls are still so motivated, they don’t want to sit around and wait for the center to be built.  Each week of the month will be centered around a different activity.  The first week of the month the local midwife comes to talk to the girls about women’s health issues.  The second week, I give the girls French lessons.  The third week, the girl who will eventually be the handicraft teacher at the women’s center gives basic sewing and embroidery lessons in her house, and the fourth week, we do a women’s leadership activity.  So far our meetings have been sporadic (the girls had to work the wheat harvest, and I was in Egypt), but we are looking forward to starting the activities on a regular basis. 

 

In other news, last Friday was the commune elections for local government.  Interestingly, these elections receive a lot more attention from the community than do the national parliamentary elections.  After living in Morocco for a year, I often feel like there is very little that surprises me or makes me stop and think.  These elections did just that.  The entire week before Election Day, people throughout the community were talking about the election and the election only.  Women included!  The night before,  the men hosted an event for the women, explaining to them how to vote (you place an “x” over the picture of the party you want…..the “Wheat Party,” the “Tractor Party,” or the “Berber Dagger Party” in my site’s case), and telling them who the candidates were for each party.  Out of 200 potential voters in my douar, 130 of them came to vote, including a high percentage of women.  Very exciting!!

 

Oh, and as a side note, Happy 29^th Wedding Anniversary Mom and Dad!!!   

Back in Morocco

My return to Morocco on May 28 coincided with the beginning of our week-long “Mid-service Medical Exams.”  After some relatively invasive exams, I came out with a clean bill of health.  No parasites, no cavities.  Hamdullilah!  In fact, the dentist complimented me on my dental hygiene.  Yay!  J  Mid-service meds also gave my stage of volunteers a chance to meet up and hang out, for the first time since November.  We had a lot of fun spending time together, including going bowling at the Rabat Mega Mall, having dinner at the American Club (the only place in Morocco to find Root Beer, Dr Pepper and Guinness), and dancing in a Western African dance club. 

 

While I was off gallivanting throughout Egypt and Morocco, the people of my community were dedicated to the wheat harvest.  The harvest happens once a year and lasts about 2 weeks.  Last year, I was able to help out, and let me tell you, it was the hardest work I’ve ever done.  This year, I was in Egypt for the entirety of the harvest (I swear I didn’t plan it that way!), so I just heard stories when I returned.  Everyone I talked to had the same answer when I asked about the harvest.  “Ishqa bzzaf assugassad” (which means very difficult this year).  Apparently the amount of rain we received throughout winter made for some very hard harvesting conditions.  The condition that concerns me the most is the amount of dangerous bugs and reptiles (are snakes a reptile?) present.  Everyone I talked to saw at least a handful of camel spiders and countless scorpions.  My closest friend in site, Najma, was bit TWICE by camel spiders while I was gone.  Her leg went numb for a while and she could no longer work the harvest (losing her family a lot of money), but she has thankfully fully recovered.  Another girl in souk (who I didn’t know) did not meet the same fate.  Her family had so much to harvest, they were working into the night one day when she was bit by a snake.  Unfortunately it was a weekend, so there was no one at the health clinic.  The family tried to drive her to Tiznit for treatment, but she died before reaching the hospital.  Although my site is relatively advanced in terms of health care compared to other places in Morocco and the world, this incident just renewed my frustration with the lack of accessible emergency care. 

 

Amanda in Morocco and Erin in Egypt

On May 4 I received another visitor from America!  My high school friend Amanda and I hadn’t seen each other since high school (she went to college in Pennsylvania), but facebook brought us together once again.  J  A few months back, she expressed an interest in stopping by Morocco on her way to Egypt (she is Egyptian-American) for the summer, and I expressed an interest in accompanying her to Egypt after Morocco.  So we spent a week together in Morocco, seeing some of the typical sites in my area (Marrakech, Agadir, Tiznit), and also making a trip to Tafroaute, where Brooke (a Youth Development Volunteer) escorted us to the painted rocks of Tafraoute.  

My host family LOVED Amanda, especially since she knows Arabic and is Muslim.  Having her visit just renewed their thought that I too should be Muslim.  I think they’ve given up again….for now at least. 

On May 12, Amanda and I made the trek from Agadir to Casablanca in order to catch our flight to Cairo.  Here is a bit of a picture story of my trip to Egypt.

Old Cairo, where we visited my first night in Egypt.  There are some pretty cool mosques.

Starbucks in Egypt.  I went 6 times!!!

The gardens in our hotel compound.

Our hotel-usually reserved for military families.  We had connections. 

 Delicious Turkish coffee.

Another trip to Starbucks  :)

On our private boat trip on the Nile.

Us with our wonderful hosts.

The boat!

The next day, at a desert resort near Cairo

We got to ride dune buggies!

The Nile

Hanging out at a cafe on the Nile.

The Citadel

Inside the Mohammed Ali mosque in The Citadel

Amanda and her lovely mother at The Citadel

Al Aharamat! (The pyramids)

They were way cool.  And way old.

After trying to figure out how to do this on our own, we had a vendor take the pictures for us.

The Sphynx!

At the Egyptian Museum.  Because we were with military officers, we were escorted to a room not open to the public that has Hatchepsut's mummy.  How cool is that?
Cairo Tower

View of Cairo from the Cairo Tower

And I got to drive!  Some people in Egypt actually have automatic cars.  It had been so long, driving made me SO happy.
We got to have an amazing seafood dinner with some of Amanda's family

Some of Amanda's wonderful family

Amanda and I got all dressed up to see a belly-dancer..I haven't been this dressed up in a LONG time.  Guess there's not too much of an opportunity in Peace Corps!

Dinner at the Belly-dancer show

Bdour, the Raqasa (belly-dancer)

Bdour!

A big market in Cairo, Khan al Khalili, with some friends of Amanda's family

We went to the Red Sea (the town is Ain alSoukhna) and stayed at a beachside resort.

My feet in the Red Sea.  

The next day we went to Alexandria, on the Mediterranean.  Way cool.

At our delicious seafood dinner in Alexandria

MMMMMM crabs.  I impressed everyone with my crab-eating skills.  Thanks to Maryland!

Another trip to Starbucks.  :)

While we were in Alex, we watched the European Soccer Championship.  People got WAY into it.

At the beach in Alex

Amanda eating some delicious Egyptian food

Half-way through my time in Cairo, I received word from my family in America that my sister is engaged!!!!  It was so exciting to talk to Steph and Adam about the engagement, and start talking about the wedding right away.  And can I just say I did a darn good job of keeping the secret since March!  Yes, when Steph and Adam visited, Adam told me the approximate date of his proposal.  And I didn’t even tell anyone!  Whew, that was a hard secret to keep!  So July 10, 2010 look out, Erin is getting a brother-in-law!  

End of the School Year

Well apparently it has been a while since I updated this blog of mine.  It amazes me how time flies here in Morocco.  I have been in country now for over 15 ½ months, with only 11 ½ months until I finish my service.  Yikes!

After the taxi strike in April I returned to my site to finish up the semester at the middle school.  Thanks to a generous donation from the Church of the Holy Spirit Vacation Bible School program, I supplied the physical education department (and by physical education department, I mean the one part-time PE teacher) of the middle school with a dozen new soccer balls.  For kids who don’t often see new supplies and equipment come their way, it was a very exciting event.  Here are pictures of the kids playing with the balls.

My last lessons of the year revolved around trash education.  Although my community is very lucky to have a trash collection system in souk (a man in an open back pick-up comes around every Friday to collect trash from the old oil barrels placed throughout the community), trash awareness leaves much to be desired.  Before I decided to dedicate my last two weeks at the schools to trash, I consulted the commune, who is in charge of trash collection.  In doing so, I met a member of the commune who, 3 years ago, arranged a community-wide trash collection day to inaugurate the trash collection system.  He provided me with large trash bags and a place for the students to dispose of trash collected during my lessons.  The students were slightly horrified that I made them walk around town collecting trash, but had an overall good time, especially while learning how long it takes for different types of trash to decompose (or as I like to explain in tashelhit, how long it takes for the earth to eat the trash). 

 

The end of the school year coincided with the arrival of a new group of health volunteers to Peace Corps Morocco.  My region, Tiznit, is blessed with 3 new health volunteers, and 1 new environment volunteer.  Although it was very sad to say good-bye to some of my close friends who have now completed their service, meeting the new volunteers is so exciting!!  This weekend we are taking them to the beach at Sidi Ifni to enjoy a relaxing break away from their host families. 

 

The 1^st of May and 2^nd of May became two very important days for us girls down in Tiznit, Primero de Mayo, and Kentucky Derby!  I hosted a weekend at my house filled with margaritas, Mexican food, mint juleps and Derby Pie.  We sure know how to have fun out here in the country!