Picnics, Problems, and Parades

          Since my last post I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in very quick succession, less of an emotional rollercoaster than an emotional piston.  At times things are great, and I feel like I’m right where I belong, doing valuable work and serving both my country and Morocco.  Other times I feel like I’m completely out of place, useless, and a waste of both tax payer dollars and Moroccan hospitality.  Some days it really hits me that I’m a more or less untrained, first time teacher trying to teach a difficult language to a group of kids who speak another difficult language that I don’t speak well.  I have students from seven to twenty seven at the same level (mercifully not in the same class) and what teaches one will not work for the other.  Class can sometimes leave me absolutely exhausted and anxious that the students learned nothing.  I also have two fierce competitors for my students’ attention: sif u kora (summer and football).  The blazing heat of the summer midday makes it impossible to focus.  I’ve given up trying to be productive during it and I know my students have too.  Unfortunately this would be optimal review time.  With the heat almost hitting 100 Fahrenheit inside most days the students can’t study, and I can’t expect them too.  This means classes move slowly, as I have to constantly reiterate past lessons before we can move forward.  As for kora, the Euro Cup is on and it’s a huge deal to most Moroccans.  My new advanced class was supposed to meet for the first time on Wednesday, but had to be postponed because Spain was playing and only two kids showed up.  That class is entirely made up of motivated kids, but soccer is an insurmountable obstacle here.  I will be leaving site in early July to help another volunteer with the summer camp at her site (mine is too small for camp).  I’m hoping that this will both help me feel more useful and give me a chance to develop some more lesson plans and activities that will excite and energize my students.

            This is not to say that I’m utterly unhappy with how classes are going.  My beginner class with older girls and young women at the artisanal cooperative is going fantastically.  I’m really excited for when the advanced class actually starts as the students I’ve placed in it know enough that I can teach a discussion based class in English.  It’s just a matter of getting off the ground, which has proved very hard in the summer.  I’m trying to look at it more as an extension of my training period, a time when I get to try new lessons, develop syllabi, work on my Darija, and meet potential counterparts, but I still wish I could feel more useful.

            My Darija is improving, but at a much slower pace than I would like.  I’ve reached a point where I can get through most simple interactions just fine, but while I make a point to bring in new grammar and words it’s hard to study outside of real world conversation.  Part of the reason I cut my students some slack not studying is because of how hard I find it to study here.  During midday lunch break I just can’t focus in the heat.  I sit down to study and within minutes my mind wanders.  I can’t even really read in English then; the same thing happens.  The evenings are cool, but they have to be reserved for having a social life, which literally is part of my job here.  Also, after four hours of teaching I’m usually just to beat to focus on studying.  After some time in the café or hanging out with some students in the public park I don’t get home until around ten thirty or eleven most days and then I have to cook (my local hanut (general store) owner suggests that I get a wife so I won’t have to cook for myself and therefore will be less exhausted).  This leaves me with the morning before my first class at eleven to study, but also to write lesson plans.  I’m looking forward to the fall, when it should be cool enough to use the midday productively again.  Right now I have the unique sensation of not having enough time while at the same time I’m conscious that I’m wasting a big chunk of my day.  It’s very strange.

            O.k. I’m sorry I belied my title and opened with problems rather than picnics, but that word order sounded so much better.  Also, now the rough part of the post is done.  I’m also sorry I used the word “belied,” but I’m reading Nicholas Nickleby and obviously I have no outlet for its Victorian terms with my students, so I have to use them here.  Egads.  I’m actually going to keep the picnic at bay and talk about the parade first, since it happened first.  One morning after class I want on an expedition through the heat to the far side of town to purchase a refrigerator.  I got there too late; it was midday naptime and the door was shut fast.  However, the locked door did not disappoint me since I could hear the strange tones of a traditional Moroccan horn.  I went to investigate.  I saw a large procession proceeding down the town’s main street.  It was almost entirely composed of colorfully attired women except for various drummers and the horn player, though there were a few other men in straw hats sprinkled around.  At the head of the parade there was a cow with a floral garland, obviously dinner’s main course later.  Behind it were various wagons containing wedding gifts, everything ranging from gorgeous kaftans to blankets, to sacrificial sheep, to a few bottles of bleach.  Behind the carts came the women and the musicians.  They shuffled forward, sang, and sometimes stopped as the rhythm picked up so they could dance around the street, car horns screaming as they raced past.  I asked a bystander what was happening. He said it was a wedding parade.  I hope every wedding in town sparks one of these.

            Last Sunday a group of thirteen students (three girls and ten boys) who just graduated high school (making them around 19-20 here) took me with them on a trip to the sources of Oum El Rabia.  Oum El Rabia is the longest non-seasonal river in Morocco.  Although it doesn’t pass through my town it passes through the nearby city of Khenifra, and from there it is possible to quickly reach the springs and waterfalls that start it.  I met the kids at five AM Sunday morning and we stuffed ourselves into a van they had rented to get there.  Renting a car or van in Morocco is not quite like renting a car or van in the States since in States you can reasonably assume that everything will work in your rental vehicle.  Shortly after we started out the latch of the van’s sliding door broke, so we had to hold it shut.  Sometimes one or two of the more adventurous kids would open it and hang outside.  They were very touched that I cared enough about their safety to tell them to get the hell back inside and close the door.  Not touched enough to do it, but touched.  The van also broke down a couple of times going uphill, so we’d all have to get out, watch the boys pretend like they knew what they were doing, see them get lucky and hit the right thing, then keep going until it broke again.  The van had an amazing propensity to break down at beautiful vistas, so it wasn’t all that bad.

            Once we finally got to the sources I got to see how a beach trip works in the mountains.  When we got there we almost had the place to ourselves, but soon it was full of families and other groups trying to get away from the heat.  The springs are icy cold, and although it is literally freezing the air was so hot that all the men and boys and some of the young girls went swimming.  Even the most modest older women, covered from their ankles to the tops of their heads, got their feet wet.  Every group rents a small open hut for themselves, equipped with rugs, a table, and a separate kitchen area.  It was interesting to see in our group that Moroccan gender roles immediately asserted themselves and the girls went straight to the kitchen to start preparing a tagine lunch.  The boys lounged around, except for the one who went for a walk with me around the waterfalls, which were fantastic.  When we got back some of the boys were ready for a swim so we jumped into a small lake and all immediately scrambled to get out of the cold.  The water is so cold that drink venders don’t use freezers there, they just stick their wares into small cisterns filled from the spring. 

When the girls finally did join us in the hut we had a moment of cultural exchange.  One of them noticed I was leaning against a bare wall and gave me her pillow to lean on.  I gave it right back to her and told her “ladies first.”  She stuffed the pillow behind my back while the group told me that in Morocco it was “men first,” especially since I am the American guest.  Tired of the little bits and pieces of daily chauvinism here I put the pillow back behind her and said I wouldn’t take one until all the girls had one.  The boys sitting next to girls quickly sacrificed their cushions, and another one tossed one to me.  The girls were appreciative, and most of the guys laughed at the quirky American.  On the one hand I’m sad that this has been one of my bigger gender role related victories, on the other I’m happy to have any.

            Otherwise, the day was very relaxed.  We sat in the hut, talked in a Darija English patios, ate delicious tagine, took a couple of walks, and every few hours built up the courage for another dunk.  Additionally, tons of other groups brought musical instruments, so it was never too far to find a little live concert.  At one point a group of singers and drummers even started a dance.  A circle of people shuffled and clapped or moved their hands rhythmically, while inside the circle one or two people would energetically run around more or less to the beat.  The kids pulled me into the outer circle, but were unable (despite their best attempts) to make me make a fool of myself in the middle.  I told them I would if one of them would with me, but there were no takers.  The shirtless piratical looking gentleman was just too much competition (and fun to watch) to join in.  After more than twelve hours there we went wended our way back with just the one breakdown.

            Alright, I think that will be all for now.  I probably won’t have another post until after the camp is over, but expect frequent updates after that as it will be Ramadan and there won’t be too much happening to stop me from writing during the day.  The site I’ll be working at is up north near the famously beautiful city of Chefchaouen, so hopefully the next post will be full of pictures of its fabled blue medina!  Check out the post scripts for a request and a Joha story.

P.S. My tutor is looking for a recommendation for websites where he can meet and talk to people all over the world online.  He and a friend host couch surfers whenever they come to town (rarely) and have hung out with the last three PCVs to live in town, but he really wants to meet a wider group of different people from all over the world.  While this request led to a great conversation (in Darija!) about diversity in New York (why I’ve never had to look for this kind of site), my former international roommates, and diversity in Morocco it did not help him learn any place to go.  Any recommendations would be appreciated!

P.P.S. My tutor knows I love Joha stories and sent me this one the other day.  It might be my favorite one now.

Joha once owned a donkey who was without a doubt the finest donkey in the country. Do you think that there is little difference between one donkey and another?  Just listen to the things that Joha’s animal could do.  He could carry a load on his back that was higher and wider than himself.  He would even allow Joha to sit on top of the load without letting him fall.  His strong legs carried Joha safely over the narrowest paths where no one else dared to travel.  He knew when danger was near, and made certain noises to let his master know.  He was very kind to children and he always let them pull his tail and ears. He also knew when someone meant to hurt him, and then he would kick to save himself and his load.

Very often Joha and his donkey took long rides together after their work was finished. They trusted each other and were close friends.  Joha believed that his donkey must have good food in order to do such good work.  So he always took him to the best green fields where the grass was tall and sweet.  The animal grew stronger and stronger.  He loved his food so much that if he did not have it he became very angry.

Now all the neighbors knew that Joha had the best and hardest working donkey.  So if they had an important thing to do, they always asked Joha to let them use his brave donkey.  “Joha,” said one, “you are the finest neighbour in our village.  I’m always proud to tell my friends that I live next to Joha.  You know, I have some wood to take from my house to the other side of town today.  Will you allow me to use your fine donkey?”

“Certainly,” replied Joha, “but do take good care of him.  And remember, you must feed him well.”

“Of course,” laughed the man, as he started to take the donkey away.  But late that night the poor donkey came home tired and hungry.

A week later another neighbor knocked at Joha’s door.  “You may not know this, Joha,” he said, “but my father and yours were great friends.  And once when you were very young my father helped your father in a certain business matter.  I remember him saying that he would always be grateful for my father’s kindness.  Now listen, Joha, my donkey is ill today, but I have an important visit to make in town.  May I ride on your donkey?”

            “Of course,” smiled Joha.  “Give him plenty of good food and he will do anything for you.”  But when the neighbor brought the donkey back, Joha noticed that the animal was angry, and he knew that the man had not fed him at all.

Joha decided to stop lending his donkey to his neighbors.  But Joha was a friendly man and he really could not say no when people asked for help.  One morning Joha saw his neighbor walking up the path to his house.  “Oh dear,” he thought, “he’s going to ask for my donkey, and I need him myself today.”

            “Good morning, Joha,” said the neighbor.  “I came to get your help.”

“I hope I can help you,” came the reply.  “What is your problem?”

            “You see, I have a heavy load of beans to take to market today, but last night my donkey died and I have no way to get to town.”

            “Good neighbor, I wish I could help you, but my donkey is not here,” said Joha.  Just then the donkey brayed in a loud voice, as if he knew that danger was near.

“Joha” said the neighbor, “how can you tell such a lie?  I just heard your donkey bray.”

            “My good man,” said Joha, “do you mean to tell me that you dare to believe my donkey and not me?”

Café Culture

         As per usual, the hardest part of a post is starting it.  My last couple of weeks has been very interesting and informative, but there isn’t much of a coherent story to them.  Rather, they were a series of observations and conversations about Morocco with a few notable events thrown in along the way.  Since my last post there has been a major change in my English teaching work.  The bacc test was last week (three days of test, English was the first day).  Since then I’ve seen some bacc students I worked with around town, but I haven’t had a bacc class since they want a break.  There is some interest in starting a conversation class at their level, but the grammar heavy review session I was running is done.  I’m not upset about that; while it was a good first run at teaching a class and I learned a lot, the format of that class needs some tweaking.  I probably will not reuse those lesson plans, or at the very most I will raid them for some exercises.  My favorite part of the class, the song discussion, will become more prominent.  I want to make the class entirely student centered.  It’s not a teaching style the kids are used to, but I think they’ll become better students and thinkers for it.

            Although I’ve lost one class, I’ve picked up another.  Two weeks ago I started a beginners English class that meets twice a week, and I will actually be starting a second session at the artisanal cooperative this week.  In some ways beginners are easier than advanced students, in other they are much harder.  Since all they know is what I’ve taught them they don’t have the vocabulary to make listening to a song effective, and of course they can’t discuss in English, but I still play English music in the break so they can get used to the sounds of the language.  We focus a lot on dialogues.  It is useful for helping their pronunciation, but it encourages rote learning.  I’m trying to combat this by teaching different possible responses to questions and encouraging them to use variations when I talk with them outside of class.  It’s somewhat successful.  After the dialogue I have a mini grammar or vocab lesson about some topic from the dialogue.  After I start them on vocab I try to have them supply me with words in Arabic (sometimes leading to charades as I try to figure out what they mean) so there is at least some student produced content.  I was happy after our last class, the third.  At the end of the class I had them write some three-word sentences with “to be,” and almost all of them could.  For kids coming from a language where “to be” isn’t used in the present tense much it was pretty impressive for so early on.  I’m looking forward to starting the second session.

            Other than class work I’ve been focusing on community integration.  A couple of days after my last post I found and moved into a house (pictures forthcoming) and have been trying to get to know my way around the people and places of my new neighborhood.  The day after I decided on this apartment I took a walk around the area.  One of the hanut (general store) owners called me over and gave me a snack from his shop, just to be friendly.  A few days later, once I’d moved in, I went back to his shop to pick up some supplies for the house.  He wasn’t there, but his little daughter was holding down the fort.  She found the American misspeaking Darija so funny that she called him out of their house next door so he could see the strange thing.  He remembered me and had me in for eggs.  Needless to say, this quickly became my go-to hanut, though I still use some others.

            That story illustrates an important point, the importance of offering food (and tea) in the social life here.  After class a couple of times some students have invited me to their house for kaskrot, couscous, or le aesha (dinner).  I make a point of accepting any invitation nearly anyone makes to me.  It has turned out very well so far.  The first students to invite me over are a brother and sister from my bacc class.  The food was delicious, largely cooked by the sister.  From the times I’ve been there, once for kaskrot and then lunch the next day, the best couscous I’ve ever had, it seems that there is house is the hang-out spot for a bunch of students, though that may have been because the American teacher was there.  Since my language is so much better than it was in Fes I really relished the opportunity to talk with all the students about their lives and interests.  One girl wants to be an engineer, unless she can somehow become an actress.  Another doesn’t care what she becomes, providing it gets her to America.  Two of the boys want to be teachers, one of physics, the other of French. 

I have some music recommendations from the students.  If you liked the North African pop I recommended in one of my Fes posts check out Nabilaman’s song “Marraliya Omarralik.”  If you are more interested in hearing some traditional Amizigh music (and you should be), look at Mohammed Rouicha.  Rouicha just died recently, so his most famous song, “I nas i nas” has been all over the Moroccan radio.  It’s a great song.  Make sure you find his version rather than his son’s memorial cover.  Both are good, but his is better.  Another Amizigh musician to listen to is Housa.  There is another style of music here too, called gnawa.  In the 17^th and18^th centuries Morocco was a major hub in the slave trade, so there are plenty of people here from sub-Saharan Africa.  Gnawa was their traditional music; a fusion of sub-Saharan music with Amizigh and Arab music.  Therefore it shares some roots with American blues, jazz, and rock.  It became especially important in the sufi (mystical) strain of Islam.  Modern gnawa musicians play music similar to, but not quite the same as, American jazz, blues, and rock.  I recommend Rais Tijani, some of whose music borders on funk, and Hamid Bushnak, whose song “Bombara” is frustratingly catchy.

At these students’ house I had my first chance to play a loutar.  The loutar is the Amizigh cousin of the oud.  It is Rouicha’s instrument.  It is rougher than the oud, but I think it has an even more striking sound.  Unfortunately, my student isn’t a loutar player; she plays the violin (in the Amizigh style, closer to Scots-Irish fiddle than the classical violin) and is looking to pick up the instrument, just like I am.  She is also having trouble finding a teacher.  Despite that it was still fun to play around with.  It has four strings, with a few different traditional tunings.  I don’t know the exact notes this one was tuned to, though the intervals between strings were disorienting and different: an augmented fourth between the lowest two, a perfect fourth between the next two, and a perfect fifth between the top two.  It is a fretless instrument, so you have to focus a lot on where exactly your fingers go.  After a few minutes of testing I was able to find that same scale I learned in Fes on the guitar with quartertones.  It sounds even more dramatic on the loutar.  The neck of the loutar is rounded, fingering more than a double stop is almost impossible.  Since Amizigh music focuses more on melody than chords this isn’t an issue.  It is also very hard to bend the string.  Again, this is not a sound used often in this style.  On a chance fingering I was able to figure out the introduction to Porcupine Tree’s “Fear of a Blank Planet” on the loutar, which impressed the kids to no end even though they did not recognize the song.

While these kids and their family reminded me a lot of my host family from Fes, a liberal, modernizing family, others have been very different.  One of the students whose family I ate with is the son of one of his father’s two wives.  I met his mother, but only briefly, as with a lot of more conservative families she did not eat her delicious dinner with us but had her own portion in the other room.  I’ve heard this is fairly common among rural families, but although I’d seen segregation of the sexes at parties before this was the first time I’d seen it in a small gathering.  I may have only seen her it all because I’m American, and therefore allowed to break some rules.

These invitations to meals come frequently (I could probably survive the next two years without a kitchen if I timed it right), but they are nothing compared with the invitations to tea.  Most days while I walk around in the morning I’ll be invited to join two or three different groups of people drinking tea.  Since my goal is to meet and get to know people I always accept.  First I’m asked the obligatory information gathering questions: who are you?  Where are you from?  Do you speak French?  Why are you here?  Are you sure you don’t speak French?  Are you a Muslim?  Will you repeat this after me?  Where did you learn that you say that to convert?  Where do you go after you die?  You positive about that French?  Do you have any siblings?  How long have you been here?  How long will you stay?  Are you married?  Do you have a girlfriend in America?  In Morocco?  Well, do you want to marry a Moroccan?  I have a cousin… Inshahallah.  You must speak some French!  The questions pretty much always come in this order, or fairly close to it.  I now consider myself essentially fluent at answering them.  After them topics can range all over.  I’ve talked about everything from the different pronunciations of Darija in Fes and in my region, to the nature of Tamizigh as a language (more on that later), to diversity in America, to NAFTA (I don’t know why, but NAFTA fascinates all the kids), to why Fusa (Modern Standard Arabic) has so many words for the same thing (all the words incorporated from conquered languages), to Obama’s reelection chances, to what people do for fun around here, to the differences and similarities between Islam and Christianity (I’ve figured out an explanation of how the Trinity works in Darija!), to why I like my town.  Often times these topics will follow one right after the other, in no logical order.  Between each they will be sure to ask if I speak French, if I like my town/Morocco, and how I’m doing.  I make a goal of learning at least five new words a day from these walks, though often I get more (and other times less because I still have too many to memorize from the day before).  Usually the words are in Darija, but I’ve started to pick up a word or two of Tamizigh and throw them into my speech, which is how people here speak Darija.  Occasionally they think it’s better if I learn the French word instead.

Actually, the French thing has gone down pretty dramatically of late, as has being addressed in French.  At the same time, more and more people are addressing me by name.  I’m starting to get known around town, they know I don’t speak French but can sputter out passable Darija.  Sometimes this backfires; younger kids especially don’t seem to understand that knowing a few words of Darija does not translate to fluent and able to understand their every fast spoken word.  I’ve met a lot of people whose names I’ve forgotten, and I’m sure there are people I’ve never met who know about the American named Youniss.  I feel kind of like a rock star.

Luckily, my time in the cafés has not been entirely limited to speaking in a language that I am nowhere near mastering.  I have two close Moroccan friends in town who are both fluent in English (I also have an older site mate, but he works in Small Business Development and is working all the time to finish up his projects before he leaves in a few months so I don’t really see him to often.  He’s a great resource when I need to speak some English or have a translator and is a very friendly guy).  They like to practice their English with me, and after a long day of communicating in Darija and trying to teach my own language as a foreign language I am more than happy to oblige.  Since their English is spectacular and they are both young, highly intellectual Moroccans our conversations range all over.  One of the two is Amizigh, and he tells me all about the language and culture and lets me double-check what I think people have told me during the day.  He told me that a long time ago, well before the Roman colonization, some Amizigh (which, in their language, means free people) lived for some time in Iberia before moving back to North Africa, and even though their language is Semitic they have some cultural and genetic connection to the Celts who lived there.  That’s why, on occasion, you see redheaded Amizigh (there are a few in town, it can be disorienting).  He also hears a similarity between the rhythms of Amizigh and Celtic music.  I think I hear what he’s talking about, though there are many more differences than similarities, though one the violin is the melody instrument it is very clear.  There are three main Amizigh languages in Morocco, each of which are divided into several sub-dialects (our valley speaks a slightly different version of Shillha than the next one).  He says the common convention for naming the languages in English is wrong.  Terrefit is spoken in the north, but his language is not called Tamizigh and the language in the south is not Tesshelhit.  He doesn’t like it when I call his language Tamizigh, which he says is the name for all Amizigh languages.  He speaks Shillha, Tesshelhit.  In the south they actually speak Susa, Tesselsous.  He says that the mistake in the naming convention comes from an old misunderstanding, people confusing a tribe name for a language name.

We talk a lot about language and culture, American, Amizigh, Arab, and Moroccan (the fusion of the latter two), and of course that means we talk a lot about Islam.  They are both Muslims, but one of the two’s worldview is much more shaped by Islam then the other.  It’s fascinating to see them talk, one is religious, but fundamentally a secularist whose views are shaped by his culture, the other is a liberal Muslim.  It means they agree on a lot of things but come to their conclusions in different ways.  They both believe that it is important to be educated about the outside world and be exposed to different viewpoints.  The secularist thinks this is important because it is the best way to learn and develop and find out what you really think and also because it helps define your culture for yourself.  The more religiously defined one says that acceptance of people is in the Koran.  You need to meet other people so that you can be exposed to other views, some of which agree with the Koran, and some of which don’t.  This helps define what the Koran is and isn’t, and also shows you alternate paths, which, if you are a true Muslim, you can now see are wrong.  This is how he explains inconsistencies in the Koran towards accepting various groups.  Their path is wrong for a Muslim, hence the more negative quotations, but Muslims must accept and incorporate them into the culture, and maybe then they will see the error of their ways.  Inshahallah.  I’ve never heard this explanation before, but I think it is an interesting one.

They are a good pair to talk to when discussing projects to work on with the youth (they have both said they are interested in helping out once some of the projects I’m planning get off the ground, probably in the Fall when school is back in session).  Like me they think that a big problem in the Moroccan education system is the focus on rote learning and the lack of reading.  They think that this leads to a dearth of critical thinking and an excess of TV (Ok, they didn’t use the word dearth, but if they did I’d be out of the job).  One of them thinks that the biggest problem with TV in Morocco is that a lot of times it shows an inaccurate reflection of other people’s culture (especially American, Turkish, and Indian, whose cultures are the most seen on television here).  This misconception becomes so deeply seated people don’t believe that’s not how things are in the other culture.  This leads to misguided imitations (sometimes people try to justify very taboo actions because it’s “how people in America/Turkey/India act”), and complete misunderstanding.  Even when someone comes from that other culture and explains how they have misunderstood they don’t accept it (I’ve seen some of this.  Seriously, we don’t all love Wrestlemania and yes, we do know it’s fake).  After he explained this I pointed out that it was like a modern version of the Allegory of the Cave.  He’d never heard of it, or of Plato for that matter, but he was excited to hear that a really smart old Greek man agreed with him thousands of years before he was even born.  They don’t study Plato, but students know all about NAFTA.  I’m still trying to work out how this education system works.

Don’t worry, not all (or even most) of our conversations are quite so heavy and pretentious.  A lot of times we do literally talk about the weather (it is getting hot here, I understand why nothing gets done during the mid-day lunch/naptime).  Other times we talk about Internet dating.  As an American I must be an expert.  What was that you were saying about cultural misconceptions?

Sorry about the rambling post, here are some pretty pictures of my house to make up for it!

P.S. I have an address now, if anyone feels like the might want to send me some snail mail just let me know and I’ll give it to you.

The Tale of Youniss

            As I’ve been in site for more than a week now it seems like high time that I start to tell you all a bit about it.  After learning about our site placements, Rabat was a bit of a blur; we were only there for a few days and all much too excited about our new placements to think about anything else.  We did get a chance to go to some of the shows in the big musical festival that was going on that week.  I was challenged to (and dramatically lost) a dance-off with a random Moroccan kid.  A Cuban salsa group was playing.  It was as surreal as it sounds.  That Wednesday we swore in and became genuine Peace Corps Volunteers.  It was really cool; since this is the 50^th anniversary of the program in Morocco several alumni volunteers came to swearing in, including a couple from that first Peace Corps stage.  Fifty years ago the program was very different, they trained for longer, but not in a homestay and in French rather than Arabic.  While there were English teachers a lot of their program focused on other things; I talked with a guy who’d been a surveyor.  Different times.

            The next morning we all set out on separate trails to reach our sites.  Actually, the trails didn’t all start out separate; my first bus (a CTM, the equivalent of Coach buses in the states) was more than half full of volunteers.  After arriving in the major city of Meknes I was on my own for the rest of the day.  My second bus was still a long distance bus, but meant for slightly more local travel than a CTM (even though I was going further on it).  It was cramped and crowded, but in typical Moroccan fashion I was soon fast friends with the guy sitting next to me.  He spoke English fairly well and we talked in Darij-lish about the area and his visa application to go to the States (he’d just been denied that morning, but he had ideas for giving it another try).  Once I arrived in the nearest big town that bus let me off and it was a quick grand taxi ride through the mountains to reach my site.

            As I mentioned in my last post, my site is a small town nestled in the middle Atlas.  The surrounding countryside is absolutely gorgeous.  The town itself is built on the slope of a hill.  Fields of grain spread out in all directions from the town for a couple of miles until the mountains rise up.  On some of the mountains you can make out other communities, some larger and some smaller than mine.  There is supposed to be some fantastic hiking, though I haven’t had much of a chance to try yet (except one very short one a few evenings ago with one of my Moroccan friends).  I have been both very busy and very sick since I arrived.  Now that I’m feeling better and have a routine I’ll hopefully get a chance to start exploring the area around town more.

            The town is primarily (though not exclusively) Amizigh.  My first night this made me very nervous.  I went out to a café with my host uncle (the primary form of recreation for men here is to go out to cafés) and some of his friends.  Although they all can speak Darija they prefer speaking in Tamizigh (one of the three Amizigh dialects spoken in Morocco).  They would politely answer the questions I asked in my stumbling Darija, and then switch right back.  I was scared that my first two months here had been a complete waste since I didn’t have my community’s preferred language.  Luckily later that night my host mother explained to me that while most of the old men in town like to speak Tamizigh the women and children usually speak Darija, although it is a Darija inflected with Tamizigh.  I find I have a much harder time understanding people here than I did in Fes (and they seem to have a harder time understanding me), but I’m sure that as I get more used to speaking here and get a local tutor I’ll be able to communicate better.  Inshahallah.

            As I said above, men’s primary form of recreation is to go out to cafés.  For recreation most women stay in the house (you never see any in the cafés except maybe one waitress per café) or occasionally go to the cooperatif (artisanal center), though a new women’s center just opened up.  At home and at the centers, so far as I’ve seen, they spent most of their time honing their skills at traditional arts and crafts.  My host mother is the secretary for the cooperatif, so I’ve spent some time there watching them do crafts and host classes.  They make some really amazing rugs and decorations.  Just like everywhere else in Morocco young boys spend a lot of time playing soccer in every conceivable corner of the street.  Young girls seem to entertain themselves a lot just by walking around the central square in small groups.  Some of them also go to the cooperatif and learn the traditional crafts.

            Older children have been focusing more on their school examinations.  Most of them are about to be done for the year, but the oldest, the bacc students, still have a week to go before their major test hits.  I’ve jumped right into work with these students and host a two-hour review session/class everyday (except Sundays and Mondays) for them, plus some additional review time.  I’m still working out the kinks, but the classes have gotten better and better each day.  I open each class by playing a song in English and then try to lead a short discussion on it.  The first day I went a little too hard, the kids were not ready for “Sound of Silence,” but by the third class I was able to get them to start talking about “The Times They are A’Changin’.”  It wasn’t much of a discussion, but one ventured a guess about the meaning of the song, which is a big first step.  The next day two of them started to talk about “Nowhere Man,” which is bigger (one of them called the song amazing; he’d never heard it).  Discussion is not a big part of the primary and secondary education here, in any subject.  Students are not used to having their opinion asked.  Hopefully as the class goes on they will become more and more willing to share.  I’ve also started to have them end each class with a little writing.  So far only one has volunteered to read what he wrote aloud (it was pretty well done), but a few of the others let me read theirs.  Hopefully more will start to feel less embarrassed and share.

            My days here are very consistent.   Every morning I wake up around eight or so and immediately start working on my lesson plan for that day’s class and have some breakfast (read, bread).  Around 10:00 or so I go out and walk around town, trying to meet some new people and explore.  Most days someone will invite me to join a table at a café and drink tea.  This ends up being hard work since my language skills get a work out.  From around 12:30 to 4:00 the town shuts down for lunch and a nap.  This is very consistent across rural Morocco.  It’s already starting to make sense.  It gets too hot to do work.  Except for a few shop owners and the most persistent men in the café, no one is out.  In my first week I was very sick, so I used this time to recover, but now I hope to make it into a language studying time.  At 3:30 I go to the Dar Chebab to set up my room (I don’t have easy access to a printer so I have to write song lyrics on the board), and class goes from 4:00 to 6:00.  My first few days I sat around the Dar Chebab afterwards, waiting to see if any kids wanted extra practice.  They never did (they do have other subjects), so now I go out to a nearby park to “read.”  I’m almost always interrupted, and so I get a chance to talk with a bunch of kids.  Around 8:00 or so I meet up with a couple of my Moroccan friends, mainly guys who’ve studied some English at university.  We go to a café and drink tea with luwiza (another herb used like mint and shiva to flavor the tea, I’m not quite sure what it is in English) and talk about Morocco and America.  They like the chance to practice English and I like the break from Darija.  Later I go back home and have a very late dinner, around 11:30.

            Despite the regularity I do have a few standout stories.  One day sitting in a café I heard my first nookta (joke) told outside of a controlled class context that I understood.  It went like this:

There was a madhouse.  One day the chief doctor drew a picture of a door on the wall.  All the men but one scrambled to the fake door and fought to be the first one to get it open and get out.  The doctor was very excited; was this one cured?  He ran over to talk to the man and asked why he wasn’t with the others trying to get out.  The man smiled and said he had the key in his pocket.

Another time I was out to lunch at a family friend’s house (we had every part of a goat, including its stomach).  I talked to a man there who told me that he worked with a company that makes the covers for airplane engines.  In Darija he told me they use carbon materials because they are light and strong.  I said I understood, and then we somehow found ourselves in a discussion about the bonding patterns of carbon (thank goodness for the first half of a chemistry major).  Luckily, a lot of science words are shared between the languages, from Greek via French.  Otherwise it would have taken a lot of pantomiming to explain we both knew what a tetrahedron was.

Yesterday, I went to watch my host uncle at a shotgun shooting competition.  He did quite well.  Although the contest itself wasn’t that interesting it was good that I went, because I got to see a Moroccan social gathering.  More than a competition, this was a chance for the men to get together and see friends from all over the region (we were quite far from the site, almost an hour and a half’s drive).  I was left out of the conversation since I know nothing about shooting, and in any case I find I have a hard time speaking in Darija when there are more than three people in a conversation since it gets so fast.  It was still interesting to watch the men be men.  The awards ceremony was also interesting.  While first prize (I think it was first, there seemed to be very little rhyme or reason to who got what when) was a flat screen T.V., most of the other things were prizes less for the men than for their wives.  My uncle won a nice platter and set of glassware.  I’ve never been to a shooting contest in the States, but I imagine the prizes are less kitchen focused.  I like this way a lot; the men get to have their fun shooting and socializing, but their wives get a present, even though they were left out of the event.

Lastly, of course, there is the story of Youniss.  It’s actually not much of a story just most of the volunteers who’ve been here in the past have had a Moroccan name, so my host mother gave me one too.  I am now Youniss, which is the Arabic equivalent of Jonah.  They consider him a very major prophet here before Mohammed and a lot of people share the name.  Since the way they pronounce Ted here (teed) means detergent, and Rizzo means cell phone coverage, I’ll take Youniss!