Duncan Goes To Morocco

New Town

2010-02-02T10:55:00.000-08:00

For the month of February, I'm living in a nearby big town to concentrate on STI education. It's strange to be staying here and not seeing my host family every day. My first few days have been pretty quiet. The weather has been bad and I've been feeling kind of sick. Tomorrow I should be out and about, getting to work.

In addition to the work, I'm taking advantage of the computer and Internet in the house I'm staying in to work on financial aid and scholarship stuff for grad school. Applying takes a LONG time and I'm losing patience for it.

The other big news is that, for some inexplicable reason, I have developed these sores on my chin. They're really a bother. The funny thing is that Moroccans tend to point them out...also, the word for pimples/sores literally means "holes." So I constantly get questions about the holes on my face. I've taken to wearing a scarf.

I'm at a loss for a good blog topic. Any suggestions are appreciated.

A Project That Couldn't Have Gone Much Worse

2010-01-24T02:24:00.000-08:00

Over a year ago I started talking with a local government official (Mohamed) about potential projects in the region. He mentioned that I should look into a running water project in a nearby village (Mountainville). He said that there was a good association to work with and that the project would be relatively simple. I went out with Mohamed to Mountainville to meet Brahim, the president of the association. We talked about the project and it seemed feasible, although very expensive. The kicker was the a local political figure, with access to money (Haddu) was interested in helping financing the project for political reasons.

Later, Mohamed, Brahim, a technician from the commune, and I went out to the spring near Mountainville to do an estimate on the project. The technician's estimate came out very expensive: 320,000 Dh ($40,000). This seemed to be way more than I could possibly pull together (maximum PC grant to volunteers is $3,500). But then myself and Haddu had a conversation and he thought he could put forward $33,500. SO I wrote a grant, begged my parents for money, and scrapped together some other money.

The grant money came in early April. Haddu wanted to get the project started before elections in June, so I I thought the project would be hurried along. Instead, everyone I was working with started. We finally put the money in a special bank account, allowing for it to be accessed after a public bidding between contractors. But they kept delaying. I went to America for vacation, the elections happened, which removed any political motivation for Haddu to work on the project.

However, everyone kept acting like the project was moving forward. I finally figured out that they were lying to me, so I tried to retrieve the money from the account. I found out that I could not withdraw the money without the presence of Haddu or Brahim. I went and talked to them and they told me that, due to some bureaucratic paperwork, they couldn't access the money now. Mohamed confirmed this with me and told me to be patient (this is in June). So I waited.

After a couple months, PC started getting impatient, so I had them call Haddu. After talking with Haddu, PC told me I would have to wait a little while longer. More time passed. Haddu moved to a different city. Everytime I called him, he told me that the problem was almost fixed. I went to the biggest authority in Tounfite and had him call Haddu. They told me the problem was almost taken care of. I was a little worried that the association was trying to steal the money, but it seemed unlikely because it would be very easy to send them to jail if they did.

PC eventually got fed up and told me to threaten Haddu and Brahim with the police. That got them moving. We met in Tounfite on Monday at the Ministry of Interior to sort out paperwork. My understanding was that we would be able to go to the bank that day to get the money, but it turned out some papers still had to be sent to Midelt for processing. 7.5 months after I told them to get the money, and they still hadn't finished the paperwork. They said that on Thursday we would talk again and figure out a time to go to the bank together to pick up the money.

Instead, on Thursday they called to say they had the money and were coming to Tounfite. When we met up, they were very unhappy with me. I had told the Ministry of Interior that PC thought they were thieves. I had called them out to the most important people in Tounfite and they weren't happy about it. I let them know just how unhappy I was with them and that all of their problems were of their own making. We were having this conversation in a cramped pickup truck. I have never in my life experienced such open hatred between myself and another person. We finally got around to counting the money. There was suppossed to be 52,240 DHs, but there was only 50,000. I got a little angrier. They said the money had "tarwwla" (it escaped). I asked what that meant. They said I had to pay them for all the hassle and transportation costs. Even though I thought it was absurd that I would pay for their transportation costs in order to fix a problem that they had caused by their own stupid decisions, I was prepared to give them some money. But I was thinking 200 Dhs, not 2,000. They told me that if I didn't give them their cut, then I wouldn't get any money and I'd have to go to the police.

So we started going through their expenses line by line. Each expense the got bolder about inflating the cost. Nonetheless, I knocked over 1,000 Dhs off the price that they had estimated, which they gave back to me. 51,000 of 52,240 Dhs recovered. I hated being ripped off for 1,200 Dhs, but it gave me some clarity: I was right to call them thieves.

I made some mistakes, most of them typical development mistakes. First, I got myself involved in politics, supporting a politician who I later discovered to be corrupt. Second, I later learned that the town had a well, but that the men were too cheap to pay the electricity for the pump. If I community values water that little, I shouldn't push it. Finally, I was operating in a system that I didn't understand with people that I didn't know very well.

The most disappointing part of the project is that it didn't go through: it would have brought running water to 800 people. Although the men aren't willing to pay for it, it's the women who would have benefited (they're the ones that collect water).

If this were my only project, it would have been a major disappointment. Luckily, I've got other projects that are going well. This project has turned me off of infrastructure projects and made me favor knowledge based/training projects.

All is well...take care.

Foreign Affairs Letter to the Editor

2010-01-21T02:32:00.000-08:00

First, thanks to Colton for last week's post. To answer Patti's question, Atman, according to my host father, means "hunger." It was (and continues to be) a joke with my host family that his name means hunger. However, no other Moroccan was able to corroborate this claim.

Second, I'm getting back into the swing of things after the vacation, which is good. There is lots of work going on. I'm preparing for a move to Boumia for the month of February.

Finally, I got a letter to the editor published in Foreign Affairs. You can read the letter at http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65889/david-a-balton-duncan-gromko/cooling-the-climate

I should have a substantial, original post up in a few days.

2010-01-13T04:11:00.000-08:00

Dizzle Blog Entry

I've spent most of the last month - my Winter Break, in exploration of the diverse landscapes of Morocco. Flying into Fez, I reunited with my roommate from Swarthmore and creator of this blog to form one of the tallest, whitest, and most boring travel groups ever to grace this California-sized Kingdom in the Northwest of Africa. (You may recall our last journey in a California-sized area of land: http://coltdizz.blogspot.com) Were it not for Duncan setting up camp there, I don't think Morocco would have been on my radar, so I am grateful for the mind-opening experience this trip had to offer. As an avid reader of the blog, I wanted to see some of the rawness up close with the guy who so vividly wrote about it and could guide me seamlessly through it with an exceptional knowledge of a language that is expected to largely die out this century. Such a guide could cost thousands, so I was fortunate to get a friend deal for which this lousy blog entry hopefully serves as sufficient compensation.

Outside the Fez airport, I was immediately struck by the litter, dirt, and general haphazard of life outside the "new villes" of the large cities of Morocco (which were more in line with Southern Europe). This is the least developed country I have spent much time in, yet we were still able to drink the tap water everywhere. It would take some time to get used to the Moroccan hygiene, especially the norms associated with eating and expelling. Our first meal was in the medina (old city) in a small "hole in the wall" that looked like it had been converted from a bathroom into a restaurant. We ate some delicious fried fish and bean soup and as always, lots of bread. Bread in Morocco is like rice in Korea, where people believe you haven't really eaten a meal unless you've eaten it. There is only one glass for water on each table and it was on the table when you arrived, so you can be sure it is dirty. Also, people wash their hands after they eat, not before, almost everything is eaten without utensils and soap is rarely used. This place should be a swine flu catastrophe according to the information from the mainstream media. There is also an abundance of wild cats roaming streets, bus stations and other facilities. There are beggars, but not an overwhelming amount, and we have rocks thrown at us by a group of boys after we try to play soccer with them but do not give them any of our chicken pitas. We visited the leather tanning factory in Fez which has been in operation for hundreds of years and still uses the same process of tanning with a pidgeon-shit mixture. Needless to say, it stinks and the whole open air factory is a huge, muddy mess. It is amazing that they are able to turn such a mess into the beautiful bags and purses found hanging in all the shops. Is this really the same leather?

Morocco was also my first immersion into a Muslim culture. This hit me hard at about 5:30 am the first morning with the "call to prayer" from the minaret which was literally next door to our hotel. I am told that this is one of the more elaborate calls to prayer and it goes on for an eternity, maybe twenty minutes. Initially, it was a startling and creepy way to wake up, but I got more used to it. The day's first call to prayer is supposed to occur at the first light (not sunrise), which is stated as the moment at which one can discern a black string from a white one. We joke about the poor guy who drew the short straw and got stuck with that job. The pun is intended. Our other major sight to visit in Fez is the Islamic school which possess some of the greatest Islamic calligraphy found anywhere. This was actually supposed to be for our art historian Michelle, who couldn't make it on the trip, so I tried my hardest to stay interested at this point. It was nice to be able to go into the school though, as non-believers are not able to go into the mosques. We met a crazy guy in there who claimed to know Duncan and said I looked like his son with my brown fleece coat on. I learned the hand signal for crazy - slightly different than the American one. We would have plenty of opportunities to use this signal.

The next day we headed out on the expensive bus up North to Chefchaouen, one of the two major hippie hangouts in Morocco. Its location in the hash-field-covered Rif Mountains does a lot to explain its hippie culture. Chefchaouen literally means "look at the peaks", and where we could, they were amazing. Unfortunately, in the winter it is cloudy and rainy here a lot of the time. We did manage one decent day which allowed us to hike up into the Rif a little and get up on top of a rock. Duncan informs me that the Rif have the highest rate of erosion in the world and it is easy to see that the existence of hash-farming (supplying over 40% of the global market) is a major driver of this. There are no peace corps volunteers placed in this region, also as a result of the hash controversy. The scenery is spectacular with steep, green mountains and giant, crooked rocks. We pass a shantytown on the way down that appears to be built into the side of a cliff on the river gorge. The water here is fresh and delicious, and bottle and shipped all over the country. Where the river enters the top of the town there is a nice communal area with a small dam, bathing area, water diversions to drinking water treatment, sinks for doing laundry and waterfalls. We bought some bread, olives, and a huge chunk of the locally-famous goat cheese and came down to the river for a great lunch break. We got to speak a lot of Spanish in "Chaouen" due to the Spanish influence here and some Spanish girls we met in the hostel. The city is also known for its blue and white painted buildings which felt a bit like walking through a Dr. Seuss book at times. Our hotel was pretty cool as well with decorated tile everywhere, a large central atrium and a roof terrace overlooking the lower areas of the city. Due to the rain, we spent a lot of time inside it with our favorite past time, the Chinese game Go.

The next journey was a long slog to Duncan's village in the High Atlas - Agoudim. Getting there was an introduction to the common folk's transport system of dirty buses and cramped grand taxis. We transferred through about six different towns, met a few peace corps volunteers along the way and stayed at one's house. We got into the village about 30 hours after we left Chefchaouen. One leg of the journey stands out in my mind as particularly memorable and hazardous. We were stuffed into a grand taxi (an old Mercedes sedan) with 5 others on a 90 minute trip through a huge rain storm with the sun going down and lots of cars to pass and tailgate and rivers across the road to hydroplane on and the traditional Berber music blaring through the tape deck - composed of traditional strings and drum beats and electronicized voices creating a trance state. Other factors working against our survival were a lack of a window-defrosting method other than the driver's hand, the driver's changing of cassette tapes at impossible times and he even pulled out the cellphone and made a call in the middle of a particularly dangerous stretch. The whole trip was a back seat driver's nightmare and all we could do was close our eyes or look out the side windows. After this particular leg I had enormous confidence in the Moroccan cabbies. In general, I found the transport system to be cheap, efficient, dirty and uncomfortable. The buses are slow (too many stops) and the taxis are FAST (depending on the driver). We stayed in Midelt that evening before reaching the village and headed to the only nightlife available in most towns - the cafe - to sip some sugary tea and watch Spanish league futbol on TV. That night Duncan warned me that we were entering conservative Morocco and would have to be more conscious of our actions. This worried me a little having thought that we had been pretty conservative in our actions thus far.

We awoke the next morning and traveled to Tounfite, the nearest legitimate settlement to the village. We began with the insanity and pure formality of Berber greetings which consist of about ten exchanges of phrases like "how are you?" "are you well?" "are you at peace?" "how's your family?", etc. and each have a standard reply. They are also very keen on the handshake though it is a flimsy one and you have to kiss your finger or hit your chest after giving it. I believe there is a great earlier post about how most of the conversations Duncan has are pretty much the same. He was told in his village that he is a great politician because he knows exactly what to say in every situation. He certainly struck me as a politician as we walked down the main street of Tounfite and he shook hands with men, women, sons and daughters, introducing me, and always having the cookie-cutter response for everything thrown at him. It often felt as though Moroccans were testing him by firing greetings at him rapidly and he was always quick with the response, sometimes getting it in before they were done speaking. Everywhere we went the people loved Duncan for speaking Tamazight and they often claimed to be giving us "good deals" because of it. It was at the souk (farmer's market) here that I received my Arabic name - Atman, from a clever vegetable peddler. The souk was a huge mudpit with mostly fruits, vegetables and shoes for sale. There was not too much variety for foods, perhaps because of the season, and they did not seem to be particularly Moroccan. For vegetables there were huge potatoes, onions, carrots, turnips, peppers, huge squash. For fruits there were mandarins, bananas, tomatoes, sickly apples. Upon fulfilling Duncan's host-parents shopping list, we jumped on the packed van heading out to the village. On board we were greeted and barraged with questions: "Do you have marriage certificates in the US?", "Can I see an American Dollar?", and "Do you drink alcohol?" The last one they were particularly interested in as it is illegal for Moroccans to consume alcohol and there is widespread belief that it makes you fat.

In Agoudim, the politician made his rounds and we dined with the host parents several times and once with another family. We made a nice hike in the afternoon along a ridge of one the lower hills and pondered the conditions on top of the large peaks where, I was surprised to learn, some herders climb to graze their goats. Despite being up in the high mountains and about an hour's drive from the nearest sizable town, we were in no way out of civilization. Two cell phone towers could be seen from up on our ridge, as well as power lines and satellite dishes on many of the homes. Only the connection to the world wide web was missing here and this actually made its first appearance in the post office on the day we left! The satellite dishes indicate a phenomenon I certainly didn't expect. I was shocked to learn that these rural, poor, isolated Berbers shared the same favorite pastime as most Americans - staring at the TV. We watched a few soccer games on Duncan's TV, and struggled through Arabic and French news and soap operas as guests in other's homes. Furthermore, Duncan informed me, most of these people don't understand Arabic or French, only Berber (for which there is only one or two part-time stations), so they didn't even understand what was going on! Never underestimate the power of TV. Along with the cold and relative isolation, another factor makes this a very difficult place to live: the food. There is an enormous lack of variety in the food these people are eating here. Their ingredients seem tasty enough: wheat, chicken, goat, potatoes, carrots, turnips, fruits, olive oil, jam. But, these are pretty much all the ingredients they make into every dish every day. Bread is the big deal, and is eaten with every meal and eaten alone for breakfast. Lunch is the big meal and it's typically Duez which is a meat and vegetable stew cooked in the famous Tajine ceramic dish. It is pretty good if it is cooked well, but not good enough to eat every day (like In N Out Burger), also the method for eating it is quite dirty as there is a communal pot and you only have bread and your fingers to eat with. You are supposed to use the bread to scoop up vegetables and sauce which works kind of well but invariably fingers and bread flakes are contaminating the whole thing. The worst part comes after the vegetables are finished because it is time for the meat. Someone takes the entire hunk of meat out of the bowl, sets it on the dirty table, and starts dividing it into piles by tearing it off the bones and separating it into piles for everyone. These piles also include mystery parts and organs of the animal and your portion arrives in a greasy, dirty hand set on the dirty table in front of you. While the meat looked good in the dish, now it is easily the worst part of the meal. It's also critical that you finish your meat as it is the "luxury" of the dish. Once when I just couldn't stomach finishing the meat they made Duncan finish it for me. Much gratitude. It's not that I am against communal eating, let's just keep our hands out of it and use utensils like the Koreans or Chinese. It's not that I am against eating with hands, just let me touch my own food and you touch your own food. It's not that the Berbers are bad people, they were extremely welcoming and friendly, they are just doing things the way they were taught and have done for a long time. The Peace Corps encourages new volunteers to cook a meal or two for their host families so I asked several volunteers about their experiences. Host families didn't have a taste for pizza, used their hands to eat spaghetti and hated it, and even Duncan's simple vegetable soup was scoffed at by a friend. I kept thinking that these people would love nachos (they could eat communally and with their hands), but the ingredients might be hard to attain. I feel it is also pertinent to point out the status and location of Duncan's humble abode. Placed directly in the center of town, next to the road and "bus stop", it is also right next to the mosque where the minaret makes the call to prayer five times daily. This location is perfect for the politician but terrible for privacy. It is extremely convenient to visit him (and people do), it is loud from the minaret and anyone can see him come and go, hang out his laundry, etc. The home is a simple two room mud home with an uninspiring kitchen and drafty sleeping room. It is cold in there! Thank Allah for the stove. After leaving Duncan's village everything else seemed pretty luxurious and I was no longer thrown by the primitive things.

The next stopping point was the Sahara where we landed in the town of Merzouga and sought a camel trek to take us out into the desert for the night of Christmas Eve. It was a painful 1-2 hour camel ride out, but beautiful and surreal. I recall thinking the entire time "I can't believe I am in the desert." Following the previous trips' camel droppings and our guide, we made our way out to the camp in the middle of three giant sand dunes. We climbed to the top of one, which was much harder than it looked. We were joined later by a Chinese-Australian couple from Hong Kong on their honeymoon. We had a nice chat and they played the new Britney Spears hit on their new iPhone while we lounged in the tent reminiscent of baby jesus's manger. That night it rained a little (in the desert!) and we walked in the pitch black to find out where the music we heard was coming from. We found the other camp and were greeted to come in and eat chocolate and jam in the drum circle. Unfortunately, the visuals were lacking for our trip as there wasn't much of a sunset or sunrise when we were in the desert, nor were there any stars to see. Awaking early, we reluctantly saddled up again and slogged back to civilization for a shower to get the sand out.

We bussed on to get to the city of Tinghir where we stayed with Duncan's host-mom's family, who are relatively rich for that part of the country. They had a nice three-story house built by her brother with gorgeous Casablancan tile, a three-story atrium/breezeway for summer cooling, and a spectacular roof terrace. We stayed three nights here and were put up in the lavishly decorated entertaining room for the men with mats and eight warm wool blankets each. Her sisters cooked great food (though I was still quite sick of the traditional 2 dishes), and they even made a salad plate for me after I started feeling ill from some food poisoning from the previous city. We had actually planned to only stay for two nights but when we told them this they dead-seriously refused and said that when guests come they have to stay for a MINIMUM of 3 nights. That was alright with us, though, as the digs were comfortable, we saved money, and we had more time to focus on the main attraction of that area - the amazing river gorges from Indiana Jones. The first day we taxied to the Todgha Gorge where we ran into another volunteer with his parents, and we took Duncan's host-cousin hiking. The little guy turned out to be more of a fisherman than a hiker and we didn't make it to the top of the gorge. He also wanted to give our food away to a poor family in the hills whose home we passed on the way. That day happened to be the tenth day of the Muslim year, on which we learned that the Koran says you must give 2.5% of your total assets to the poor. We're not sure if this is the reason for his generosity, though after collecting all our trash into the bag he took it and threw it up towards their home in their extended "yard". The environment was the trash can for most places we went in Morocco due to both attitude and a lack of collection systems. The only garbage truck I can recall seeing was a mule in the Fez medina on the last day. The next day we traveled a little further to see the other gorge. It was just the two of us, so we hiked to the top and hung our feet over the edge at lunchtime. The drive out to this gorge was spectacular and we saw several other places, including the "finger rocks", where we would have liked to spend a lot more time exploring. Unfortunately, we had to start heading towards the coast so we could get there in time for the new year.

On the way to the Atlantic we took two long bus rides stopping in between for a night in Ouarzazate where we accidentally stayed in a hotel/brothel and drank the most glorious fresh juice smoothies ever mixed. We loved them so much we visited the shop three times in under 24 hours. The bus ride from there to the beach city of Agadir was the worst of the trip. The seats were so close that I could not physically sit down and put my legs in front of me. This bus was, of course, the longest trip as well, rounding out about 8 hours and totally packed for the majority of the time and winding through mountain passes at the beginning while stopping frequently for the last two hours. Needless to say, we were relieved like a balking starting pitcher to make it to Agadir for a mildly warm evening with the ten other peace corps volunteers. We met up at our rental house and went down for falafel and humus (which is apparently considered Lebanese food) on the boardwalk. The next few days, the rest of the volunteers seemed to spend a lot of time in the rental house while we got out on the town and walked and walked and walked. We spent some quality time at the dirty beach where I jumped in a short 7 v 7 soccer game. We didn't swim in the water because of its filth and the undercurrent warnings. Upon Duncan entering the water a Moroccan came racing towards me yelling "no, no, don't go in the water!" I told him it's okay, "not swimming, only toilet." He said, "oh, that's fine then," and then proceeded to tell me about how three drunk tourists were swept away by the undertow yesterday. I said "really, just yesterday?" To which he replied "well, some time ago." We walked down to the fish stalls, where we ate some delicious fried calamari, and then climbed the hill where the old city used to stand. It was destroyed in an earthquake sometime last century and instead of rebuilding they covered it with all the bodies inside and rebuilt down the hill! We stopped off for a happy hour beer at the Korean restaurant where business was slow, likely because it's only sign was in Korean. On New Year's Eve we were out with several volunteers, including a girl from Duncan's hometown (there was also one that had worked at the same golf course as I in Port Ludlow, WA), and went down to the boardwalk for the fireworks. I got wet in the ocean soon thereafter so we had to return home early where a dance party had broken out in the living room. It was composed of a bunch of people sitting around on the couch and one girl yelling at people to get them to come dance. Duncan showed a few of his moves and the housekeeper came and knocked on the door to quiet us down every couple minutes. That's a lot of detail.

When we got sick of paying too much for sleeping on a couch with no blankets, we headed north to the other hippie joint Essaouira, where Jimi Hendrix posted up for a brief period of time. This town was such a relief from the sprawling, touristy Agadir. Essouira has a nice compact medina out on a peninsula overlooking a beautiful beach and nice fishing boat harbor. In the morning we watched the fishing boats come into port and unload the catch. At lunch we returned to get mildly ripped off and eat some of it. We stayed in a disgustingly damp, moldy-smelling room in an out of order riad that seemed to be operating illegally. It was the only place that we had to pay up front, but we named our price. Following the guidebook's directions, we rambled through the streets of Essaouira and we rambled hard for two whole days. We had little aim, if some food looked good we bought it cheap, we tried to play videogames with some little kids, we played beach soccer and watched the kiteboarders, we watched futbol in the cafe and sunsets from the ramparts. It would have been nice to stay longer if we had more time, a better room, and something to do other than rambling. Call me a dirty hippie, but the town had a cool vibe like Chefchaouen, except trading the mountains for the beach.

As all tourists do, we had to go to Marrakesh. Here, the enormous town square is a UNESCO site due to the market, people and culture. Mi amigo scoffed at the idea of a UNESCO site without historical or architectural significance, as did I initially. Of course we were impressed by the 15 Euro / kg dates and had to savor a quarter kilo. As the sun went down, however, the square began changing from chaotic masses to an organized market of food and culture. The food stands were built up into groups that focused on a particular dish or two. On the outskirts were the tasty fifty cent orange juice stands. Moving inward we encountered the escargot stands, tajine and couscous restaurants, soups and even the sheep brains. The other half of the square was filled with Berber musicians, storytellers and other strange types of entertainers that braved the cold to share culture and make a buck in donation. I imagine this scene would have been much larger were it not for the bitter wind that forced us in after a short visit. We went, instead, for a Hindi film at the only movie theater I saw during the whole trip. It was a horror/suspense movie with all the choreographed song and dance of Bollywood that neither of us could finish, though we left separately.

After only one night in Marrakesh we packed out of our sardine tin of a hotel room and caught the spacious train back to Fez passing through Casablanca, Rabat and Meknes for an eight hour journey in total. In Fez we came full circle by returning to our first hotel and the converted-bathroom restaurant and by getting owned by the early morning call to prayer. We finally got our gaming in a Playstation 2 parlor where we played Pro Evo Soccer for 1 Euro / hr while some 16 year old kids tried incessantly to sell us hash and the middle-aged owner took off his jacket to pile drive one of his mischievous young customers. The next morning we said our farewells and, after a two-day layover in freezing Madrid, I returned back to the dead of Norwegian winter to start classes and reflect on the warm Moroccan sun and the trip of a lifetime.

Vacation

2010-01-09T03:20:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a three and a half week vacation with Colton travelling around Morocco.

It was a really good trip. We got to see a lot of the big sights in Morocco that I had not yet seen. Colton landed in Fes and we spent one night there. We went to the tannery, where hundreds/thousands of skins are treated. There is a very pungent smell in the tannery because they use pigeon shit and animal piss to cure the skins. We also went to a famous Islamic school in Fes that has beautiful Arabic caligraphy engraved into the stone and wood walls.

After Fes, we headed north to Chefchaouen, a beautiful town in the Rif mountains. It was kind of rainy, but we managed one good hike. The medina (old city) in Chaouen is painted beautiful, dreamy blue white and purple. It's fun to wander around.

Chased away by the rain, we went south. After spending a couple days in my site, we went to Merzouga. Merzouga is the site of the biggest sand dunes in Morocco. We took a camel trek out into the desert and spent a nite in a tent in the dunes. I was skeptical because it is such a touristy thing to do, but it was a lot of fun and the dunes are amazing.

Next we travelled to Tinghir, where my host mother is from. Her family is still there, so Colton and I stayed with them for three nights. They were super welcoming and generous. We used their house as a base to travel to two huge gorges, which are also popular tourist attractions. The Todra Gorge is where the final scenes of Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail was filmed. It's a huge, steep gorge. The Dades Gorges were also spectacular and Colt and I managed a pretty breathtaking hike there.

Tiring of tajine, we moved onto Agadir, a beach town that is over run with tourists. We spent New Years there, sitting on the beach and walking around (we did a lot of walking everywhere we went). After that was Essaouira, also on the beach. It's a UNESCO world heritage site and its not hard to see why. The walls of the medina are an old sea fortress that stand right at the edge of the ocean.

Finally, Marrakech, where we had the most expensive dates I've ever eaten. Delicious.

It was a good trip. I'm back in Tounfite now, stuck here because we got the first snow storm of the year, closing the road to my site. It is warm this morning so I expect to be able to go home in the afternoon. Colton should be posting pics on facebook of the trip soon.

Update

2009-12-13T08:50:00.000-08:00

I'm on vacation! Colton is landing in Fes on Tuesday and I'm taking 3 weeks off to travel around Morocco with him. Very exciting.

The last week in site was slow. My host mom went to pay her condolences to the family of my host uncle (who recently died), leaving my host dad and I to fend for ourselves. I cooked tajine for lunch and scambled eggs for dinner for three straight days.

The big news seems to be in the rest of the world. I read Obama's acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize. While I understand why he wants to maintain international support for the war in Afghanistan, I don't think that's the right venue to do so. The Peace Prize is an optimistic, idealistic prize and giving the "just war" speech, didn't fit.

And in Copenhagen things seem to be going about as expected, which is to say badly. Disappointing. Hopefully some sort of framework will be drawn up that can be a starting point for future negotiations.

Finally, I don't know if it made big news in America, but everyone here is talking about how Switzerland recently voted to ban minarets (of mosques). Absurd.

I'll be taking a break from the blog while I'm travelling. Next post won't be until sometime in the first week of January. Take care.

STI Education

2009-12-06T03:35:00.000-08:00

Post is long. If the beginning is boring, stay patient because it gets more interesting as it progresses.

On Saturday, another volunteer and I did an STI and HIV/AIDS education event in a nearby town (Boumia, population 30000). We were working with an association that we had done events with before.

After setting a date last week, I got to Boumia at 930 on Saturday morning. I happened to run into a couple guys from my town, Mohamed and Rachid (all Moroccan names changed). Mohamed is one of my best friends from my community. They got me to come eat breakfast and drink tea with them at a cafe. While we were talking, they told me they were in Boumia to go see prostitutes. They tried to get me to come. When I refused, Rachid told me he would pay for everything. Hearing my friends talk like that is pretty upsetting; it was especially poignant given that the group of people that we had targeted for the education: sex workers.

After a little while, my PCV friends showed up at the cafe. They talked with my Moroccan friends for a while as we had tea and scrambled eggs (which the Moroccans insisted on paying for).

My PCV friends and I left the cafe to go find our friend, Smail, who we were working with. We found Smail and Brahim (another guy helping with the project) at a different cafe. Brahim left to do some other work and Smail, Falisha and I went to invite girls and women to the event (scheduled for 3 that afternoon).

I've invited sex workers to one previous event and it's an emotionally difficult thing to do. Frankly, the prostitutes are a depressing group. Something about the alleys reeks of sex. The women are smoking (which is something that only prostitutes do in most of Morocco). They are dressed inappropriately. And groups of men and boys prowl the street, laughing and joking loudly with one another. Having Smail with us is crucial. He has a comfortable relationship with many of the women because he wrote his master's thesis on the sex industry in Boumia, which included surveying and interviewing. Inviting the women gave Falisha and I a chance to introduce ourselves - a long term goal we have is to build relationships with the women. One very positive part about the recruiting was that we got feedback about the previous event we had done: the women really liked the distribution of medicine (STI meds). In addition to the emotional difficulty of inviting the sex workers, I also had the shock of running into Mohamed and Rachid back in the "red light district." They were sufficiently embarrassed that they ran away without talking to us (or did I run away from them?). I told Smail that they were my friends. We are helping him learn English and he replied "they search."

After inviting the women, Smail, Falisha and I got into a car, suppossedly to go to another part of town to invite more women. We ended up driving around town without any aim as Smail's friends kept calling him and asking him to pick them up, only to disappear when we arrived at the rendezvous spot. Weird. Then we drove 5km out of town to pick up a clay tajine for Falisha (which apparently you can't get in town despite their ubiquity on dinner tables). The drive out of town was notable for the "tarkarbusht" that we were driving (takarbusht means something like "piece of shit car" in Tamazight). Every time Smail tried to shift into 3rd gear, the car went into 1st gear, sending the engine revving to 5000 rpms and causing the car to jerkily slow down. Smail attemted the shift approximately 16 times on the 30 minute round trip, each with the same result. It got old quickly.

On our return, we picked up Sam, the new PCV in Boumia. Then we went to the Caid's for formal permission from the Ministry of Interior. The Caid was at lunch (1245 pm), but we called someone and got the go ahead. Next, the 4 of us went to Brahim's house for lunch.

Brahim's house felt like a whole other world. Brahim lives in a very nice house with 2 cute kids. We had a good lunch and watched his 5 year old daughter, Samira, dance to a song played on repeat on her brother's cellphone. This girl had huge dimples and probably could not have been any cuter.

After lunch, Smail, Falisha, Sam and I went to the Dar Chebab - the site of the meeting. A Dar Chebab is like a youth center. It just so happens that another member of our association, Driss, has access to the center, allowing us to us the space for our meeting.

The meeting got started a little late (330), but attendance was good. There were 27 women there; we only directly invited 10. I was able to greet a couple of the women by name - always a good step. Smail did an excellent job leading the meeting. Falisha and I gave introductory remarks, but mostly we were silent because the meeting was conducted in Arabic.

The first half of the meeting was devoted to sex/reproductive health. Smail talked about condoms, disease transmission, and prevention and treatment of STIs. The women were mostly quiet during this part of the meeting, but I think the topic was appropriate. Smail talks about the subject in a PG way that allows people to feel comfortable, while still getting the point across.

The second half of the meeting (which consumed the majority of the time) was Smail leading a discussion about alternative options for work for the women. This is really Smail's primary agenda for the meeting. He thinks that if we can find work for the women, we can free them from sexual prostitution. I applaud this hope, but I think that he is overly optimistic. As a powerful man in Boumia, however, he has access to real resources that could be helpful. He proposed having a carpet making workshop, a couscous making project, having the women take care of cows, and starting a patisserie. Hopefully, one of the projects works out. Some of the women were enthused.

The meeting got more informal as women came to the head table to sign up for the projects. As I was sitting there, a 45 year old woman came up to me with her daughter. She didn't speak Tamazight, so she spoke through a translator. She told me that her daughter was 11 years old (she looked about 7). Apparently, the girl had some sort of heart disorder. They had been to Meknes and Khenifra (regional hospitals) and gotten medicine, but the condition hadn't improved. The woman asked me to bring some heart medicine when we brought the other medicine (we had told the women that we were planning another STI testing date, which includes medicine distribution). It was really difficult to tell the woman that I couldn't help her daughter. I probably could have been a little more direct, but I managed to communicate that I did not have means to do anything. I told her "God will help," which sounds insensitive in English, but is appropriate in Arabic. Just about broke my heart.

Unbelievably, that wasn't the most upsetting part about the meeting. As the women started to break up into smaller groups, I tried to find some women to talk to. I wanted to see how much Jamal had touched on some of the sensitive details, which I can't understand very well in Arabic. I went up to a group of women and asked who spoke Tamazight. 5 younger girls said yes, which was suprising because normally the younger ones are the Arabic speakers. The girls were 16-19 years old.

I asked them if they knew how to stop STIs. They said condoms. I asked them what they would do if a man asked them to not use a condom. They said they would tell him to leave. That was very encouraging and better than I hoped for (our worry with this project is that targeting women is ineffective because they have no say over condom use). Next I asked them, out of 10 men, how many used condoms. One girl started speaking at length. She said that not a single man uses condoms - they don't like them and they refuse to use them (immediately deflating the hope the previous, probably false answer had created). She started talking about how hard their lives were. How when they were working they didn't think about what they were doing, but being at this meeting made it impossible to forget. One of the girls, who was wearing heavy lipstick, mascara, and had her nails painted brightly started silently crying. Tears slowly leaked from her eyes and she wiped them away one by one. The girl started talking about how the health clinic in town charges them for condoms (they're suppossed to be free) and the ones at the pharmacy are expensive (2.5 DHs (40 cents) for a condom...considering that the going rate for a prostitute is 10-20 DHs, this a lot). She said they hated their work: the men, the illnesses, the government/police (who collect bribes and hassle them) and the "problems." The girl with make up kept crying. She was probably 18 years old and it was all I could to to stop myself from giving her a hug. At this point, despite the long-shot nature of the projects Smail had proposed, it was hard not to hope that maybe we could give them some other options. Telling them just "use condoms" suddenly seemed heartlessly insufficient. Improving their sexual health would make just a small difference in their difficult lives. Moreover, they didn't even have the power to make a decision about condoms. The girl started praising us and thanking us. I told them God will help - my classic "I don't know how to help you" response. She said that we were the cause to help them chane their lives. I don't know if she meant "you have motivated us to change our lives" or "you will help us change our lives with these projects."

The day was emotionally exhausting. The meeting went about as well as it could have gone in terms of communicating a message to a receptive audience, but it revealed such deep-rooted problems that are beyond our capability to make a real impact on. It showed us just how much work there is to do. It was incredibly informative. There is clearly a need to address the availability of condoms and medicine. Furthermore, it seems that a large effort needs to be made in order to reach the male population, which is much more daunting. It is a much larger, less centralized, less receptive population. Mostly though, the meeting was heartbreaking.

It's hard not to draw negative conclusions about the society that I live in based upon the sex industry in Boumia (and other nearby towns/cities). Rural, Muslim, Berber culture has successfully stigmatized female sexuality to the point where it is impossible for a woman to express sexuality and remain a part of society. Men, seeking sex (hypocritically not taboo for them), take advantage of poor women with no other options. By compartamentalizing and isolating female sexuality to the sex industry, society is able to maintain the myth of female purity. The cost (in addition to the suppression of sexuality in the female population) is the creation of social pariahs: the prostitutes. Women in the sex industry have violated one of the most basic social rules, ostracizing themselves from normal society. Marganalized, they are powerless to prevent abuse by the authority figures, who hassle them and collect bribes from their meager earnings. Earning pittances for social suicide, they are unable to protect even their own health: condom use is up to the discretion of the man. Ugh.

Holidays and Other News

2009-11-30T09:23:00.001-08:00

I have been eating lots the past week.

Last Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving. 8 PCVs gathered in Tounfite to celebrate. We killed 2 turkeys and made a bunch of other food. We invited a Moroccan family that we are close to come and celebrate with us. It was there 2nd Thanksgiving in a row; they like the holiday a lot. I made mashed potatoes: about six pounds of potatoes and nearly a pound of butter. Delicious. The celebration was a lot of fun, but this is the 3rd Thanksgiving in a row that I have been out of America for. Next year I hope to be home.

Saturday was the biggest Moroccan (and Muslim) holiday of the year. The holiday is a celebration of when Ibrahim was told by God to sacrifice his son, Ishmael. Just as Ibrahim was about to make the sacrifice, God told him to sacrifice a sheep instead. It's a story about faith and obedience. Lots of people here are surprised that I know the parable because they don't know that it's a story from the Old Testament.

Everyone in my community slaughters a goat or sheep (or two) for the holiday. Once again, I helped my host family slaughter and skin their goat. There are two especially gross parts. First, after the goat is dead, you cut a little hole in its skin near the foot to start skinning it. You blow a bunch of air into this hold which kind of inflates the goat and makes skinning easier. The second gross part is once the goat has been skinned, getting rid of the innards. In order to flush all of the shit of the goats intestines and stomach, you fill the intestines with water and blow on the opening of the intestine until the water runs out. I did both of these gross things this year. I think it's important to be able to prepare/kill animals if you are going to eat them. Taking part in the slaughter makes me want to go back to being a vegitarian.

My host dad's brother died a week and a half ago. My host "uncle" lived a couple hours away, so I had never met him. My host dad went to stay with that family for a couple days for the funeral. Upon his return, nearly everybody in town has been coming to the house to pay their condolonces. My host mom complains a lot about having to serve them all tea and all the extra work from having guests. But at the same time, she told me that she's counting everyone who doesn't come to the house and she will never talk to them again.

Three more community meetings happened. One with men and two with women. I think they are effective at disseminating information throughout the community. I had a female volunteer come and facilitate the meetings with women. The most encouraging part about the meetings is that the women who attended the midwife training have been very good at explaining the lessons of the training (which was the purpose of the training).

In the next two weeks, I have more community meetings, an educational meeting with sex workers about STIs and I am hopefully going to do a biomass survey of the local forest with another volunteer. The idea is to use current wood usage rates to estimate how many years the forest has left. That work should keep me busy until Colton comes on the 15th and we travel around Morocco together. I'm really looking forward to that vacation.

The only other news is that this year has been exceptionally warm. On Thanksgiving last year, we got a big snowstorm that dropped probably 8 inches. We have yet to have any snow this year. However, the weather has just changed. The last couple days have been quite cold. Winter may finally be here.

TBA report

2009-11-21T04:47:00.000-08:00

Here is the report that I wrote for the workshop I did a couple weeks ago. I'm not allowed to publish the names of the villages, so that's what all the "A" and "A2's" are. It's long and maybe boring (and poorly formatted for blogspot). There is a personal update at the end if that's all you're interested in.

Maternal and Child Health Workshop
October 28th, 29th, and 30th 2009
Duncan Gromko

Outline
Introduction
Participants
Goals and Objectives
Project Timeline
Budget
Workshop Curriculum
Logistics
Highlights
Difficulties
Monitoring and Evaluation
Suggestions for Future Workshops
Conclusions
Thanks
Introduction
This project was very rewarding. The purpose of this report is to help volunteers replicate it in their sites. Although each site poses unique public health problems, maternal and child health is an area that deserves attention in rural Morocco. I welcome questions and criticisms.
Isolated by towering mountains, the communities of XXX face different public health problems due to their geographic location and economic situation. Tounfite is the local hub: a souq town. It has a large health clinic, a maison d'accouchement, and a place for women to stay pre and post delivery. A and T have a small health clinic and are an hour from Tounfite. T2 and L have a clinic and are about two hours from Tounfite. T3 has no clinic and is approximately four to five hours from Tounfite (two hours from the L clinic). There is a health clinic in A2; T4 and B are about seven kilometers from A2. Tounfite is two to three hours away. Communities that are further from Tounfite must be more self-reliant. Generally speaking, the region is underdeveloped due to its lack of natural resources and harsh environmental conditions that make agriculture only marginally productive. The main sources of income for these communities is herding sheep.
Most women give birth in the home, with the help of their mothers or other female relations, resulting in high rates of maternal and infant mortality. The number of pre-natal visits is also low. Furthermore, lack of access to Ministry health care means that common illnesses, such as diarrhea, can be fatal. Therefore, preventive health measures are crucial.
This workshop was the second in two years. Last year’s training, hosted by Mara Hansen, focused primarily on birthing. Given the difficulty of training women to be midwives in three days and other health issues facing the communities, the focus for this year’s training was slightly altered. In addition to pregnancy and birthing, more general health issues such as hygiene, oral rehydration liquid, and family planning were covered. Furthermore, the training focused on enabling the women to be health care advocates in their communities. Thus, the women were asked to simulate teaching exercises in order to build these skills. Finally, without the assistance and support of men in these communities, a comprehensive solution will not be found. Thus, on the final day of the training, community leaders from each village were invited to create a community action plan to be implemented following the training.
Participants/Responsibilities
• Volunteers (Duncan Gromko, Kristen Apa, Taryn Weil, Dan Dutcher, Jed D’Abravanel, Eric O’Bryant, and Falisha Khan) were responsible for recruiting women, planning the workshop curriculum, securing Ministry permission, assisting in lessons, and ensuring that all logistical issues were taken care of.
• Ministry of Health employees (MOH Khenifra representative, two Tounfite sage-femmes, and Agoudim doctor) were responsible for conducting the training. MOH Khenifra representative gave introductory remarks and a quick lesson on hygiene. Tounfite sage-femmes did the majority of the lessons, focusing on birthing and pre/post-natal care. Agoudim doctor did a lesson on basic hygiene, first aid, and oral rehydration. The Ministry also provided a space for the lesson and photocopies of the lesson booklet.
• 25 women from rural communities (A: 5, T2: 3, B: 2, T3: 2, L: 2, T4: 1, A2: 2, T5: 3, Tounfite: 4, A3: 1)
• 7 community leaders were in attendance for the final afternoon session
• Two Tounfite women cooked food for and hosted the women for three days and four nights
Goals and Objectives
Goal
To improve maternal and child health in the villages of XXX by teaching 25 women basic health lessons and creating opportunities for them to become community health advocates.
Training objectives:
• 25 women will demonstrate understanding of the following topics
o The importance of pre/post natal visits to the medical clinic
o Healthy pre/post natal practices in the home
o Identification and referral of high-risk patients to local birthing centers (maison d’accouchement)
o Safe home birthing practices
o Preventing infant diarrhea, oral rehydration
o Hygiene
o Different contraceptive methods (birth control pill, condoms, IUD, the shot)
• Two midwives and one doctor will acquire new instructional methods and increase their ability to promote healthy behaviors among rural populations
• 25 women and 10 community leaders will create community action plans to bring the lessons from the training back to their communities
Long term objectives:
• Number of pre-natal visits to local health clinics (Tounfite, A2, A, and L) will increase
• Number of births in maison d’accouchement in Tounfite will increase
• Number of infant deaths related to diarrheal diseases will decrease
• Contraceptive methods will be used more frequently and with greater efficacy
• Each village will hold community wide meetings, conducted by the women from the training, volunteers, community leaders, and Ministry of Health staff, to disseminate the lessons from the training
Project Timeline
• May – Informally propose project to Ministry of Health
• June and July – Recruit women to attend workshop
• July – Discuss curriculum with doctor and sage-femmes
• September – Formal approval from Ministry of Health
• October 20th-27th Finalize workshop logistics
• October 28th-30th Workshop
• November and December - Community meetings
Budget
Transportation for women - 600 Dhs
Lodging/food for women - 3,000 Dhs
Pay for women - 2,400 Dhs
Photocopies - 400 Dhs (Ministry of Health)
Break food, misc. - 400 Dhs
Using Tounfite maison d'accouchement (In kind)
Time of Tounfite Ministry of Health Staff (In kind)
Printing photos - 60 Dhs
Gifts for trainers - 180 Dhs
Total - 7,040 Dhs
Workshop Curriculum

Day 1
Introductions
Pre-natal care: home
Identifying risky pregnancies
Pre-natal care: sbitar

Day 2
Healthy practices: preparing for birth
Healthy practices: birthing
Family planning
Hygiene
Oral rehydration

Day 3
Post-natal care
Review
Community groups meet to formulate action plan
Community groups present plan to larger group

Logistics
Transportation for the women was fairly straightforward. Mostly, they were responsible for finding their own transport. They were reimbursed at conclusion of training.
Feeding of women was difficult. Having a Moroccan family host and feed the women (women who had no family in Tounfite) was critical. It took a lot of responsibility off of the hands of the volunteer. It was expensive, but well worth the expense. We took care of break food (tea, peanuts, pastries), which was easy for volunteers who were not participating in the training to be responsible for. Having seven volunteers there to take care of various unexpected odds and ends was important.
Highlights
Organizing and participating in this training was very rewarding. The women were very appreciative and enjoyed the training. On the final day, there was a celebration dinner with an ahaydus, where the women sang praises of the volunteers.
The final session of the training, with community leaders attending, was the most important session of the training. Hopefully, it will provide the women (and volunteers) with community partners to help with further education efforts. During the session, each community group made an action plan as to how they would disseminate information to the appropriate people. The group was asked to review the lessons of the training and decide which lessons were most important in their community, based upon their health needs. Inviting men and asking them to take a stake in the health of women in their community was critical to the success of the training. It will make future work much easier. At the conclusion of the training, each community group was asking me when I was going to come to their village to do a smaller version of the workshop with them.
Another highlight from the final meeting was a particularly impassioned speech made by a 23 year-old woman from T4, named Turia. She stood up in front of women and men and demanded that people take better care of their women. She said that men had a responsibility to provide for their women. She said that women ought to stand up for one another (and themselves) when they witness oppression. She emphasized the importance of the community helping itself and not waiting for outside help to come and save it. It was a moving speech that was an excellent way to conclude the training.
Difficulties
The most difficult part of the training was the difficulty of sticking to the schedule. Events beyond anyone's control demanded that lessons be moved around. For example, each of the sage-femmes was called away to Khenifra on one of the training days, leaving the other to teach lessons by herself. Another difficulty arose when, on Thursday morning, a woman came into the maison d'accouchement in labor. With only one sage-femme at the center, we were momentarily left without a trainer. But, in this instance and others, we were flexible and made productive use of the time.
Language was a small problem. On the first day, the sage-femme leading the training was a Tamazight speaker, which made the lessons and communication easy. On the second day, the sage-femme and doctor who led the sessions were Arabic only speakers, necessitating a translator. While the translator did an admirable job, it is difficult to have as fluid of a conversation speaking through a translator.
Shame about the health topics covered was a small problem. Males were excluded from the training room for the sensitive training sessions, reducing that problem. On the last day, when men were invited, some people were uncomfortable. One man opened up the training booklet (which contains some graphic pictures), stood up, and left. He was the only one to leave, however. Although people were uncomfortable for this session, I believe that was unavoidable. The only thing I would change is to be sure that the training booklet remains closed.
Some of the women were not actively participating in the lessons. One woman fell asleep. There are a couple explanations. First, asking these women to concentrate for hours on end is inherently problematic. Most of them haven't been in a school setting for years. Second, recruiting women is difficult. It is not easy to predict (especially as a male) who will actively participate in the training. The more time spent before the training evaluating potential trainees, the better.
Organizing the training was a lot of work. Having the help of six other volunteers was critical.
Another challenge during the training was the use of handout (visual aids) that corresponded with the lessons of the training. The trainers did not consistently utilize the materials and the women had a difficult time following along. A large flip-chart, that corresponded with the handouts, would make it easier for trainees to follow along.
A three day workshop is inherently limiting. It was difficult to fit the entire curriculum into the three days an ensure that all of the women were absorbing all of the information. Narrowing the breadth of the training may be necessary.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring the ability of this training to reach its goals and objectives is both important and difficult. It is important to monitor the success of the training because doing so will inform volunteers’ future work. It is difficult because there are many complicating variables. Furthermore, the success of this training is not entirely captured by measureable numbers. Simply promoting women’s health in such a public manner was a success in itself.
The objectives for the training were mostly met. Most women were actively engaged in the lessons and were able to explain the topics to each other and volunteers when asked. There was a minority of women who did not focus on the lessons for the entirety of the training (one woman fell asleep), but these women were the exception, not the rule. Furthermore, expecting middle age women who have not been in a classroom setting for 30 years (if ever) to focus for three straight days is asking a lot. The women did remarkably well at focusing. The instructors of the training (Ministry of Health staff) deserve credit for making the lessons interesting and engaging. The objective of each community deciding upon a community action plan was also met as discussed above.
It is too early to judge whether the long-term objectives for the training have been met. Pre-natal visits and births in the maison d’accouchment can be measured by comparing Ministry statistics from before and after the training. This will not be a perfect indicator, however, as there could be other factors contributing to an increase in pre-natal visits (ie the Lougagh nurse is new; one can expect that he will get more visits as the community gains trust in him). In addition to comparing Ministry statistics, there is another method of measuring pre-natal visits and births in the health clinic. Each woman was given ten “referral” cards: a small sheet of paper with a picture of a pregnant woman going to the health clinic. Each card has the woman’s name on the back. The women were instructed to give the cards to pregnant women when they recommend a health clinic visit. The pregnant women will then give the card to the health clinic staff, to be later counted by a Peace Corps volunteer. If this system is effective, it will give a clear indication of the training’s reach and effectiveness. Three weeks after the training, early returns from the referral cards are very positive. Ten cards have been turned into the A health clinic (referrals from five different trainees) and two cards have been turned into the L health clinic (one trainee). In addition to providing volunteers with a means of monitoring activity, they also give trainees motivation to make referrals.
It will be difficult to judge whether or not deaths from diarrheal diseases decrease or contraceptive devices are used more effectively. Statistics are not currently kept on this sort of thing. Witnessing behavior change will be the surest way to judge if those lessons were effective.
If the community wide meetings hosted by women from the training, Ministry of Health staff, community leaders, and Peace Corps volunteers are held, that will be a clear indication of the training’s success. These meetings will force the communities to engage about the health issues facing them and how they can be most effectively addressed. If the meetings are well-run, then they will allow other objectives to be met. Three weeks after the training, one community meeting has been held with several others planned for the coming weeks.
Suggestions for Future Workshops
Although the workshop was interactive and engaging, improvements could been made. Any activities that force the women to stand up and physically be involved are positive. If time had permitted, the schedule would have included an entire "teach back" session, where the women are asked to teach other trainees lessons that they had just learned. This would reinforce the lessons in their heads and give them the skills for talking to other women.
Another suggestion for keeping the women engaged is to include stretching breaks with the tea breaks. Anything to get the women to stand up and move around for five minutes.
A final way of addressing the problem of inattentive women is a better recruiting and vetting process. The more time that a recruiter can spend with the women before mentioning the workshop, the better. I mentioned a speech given by Turia at the final session. In addition to that speech, she was critical in bridging the cultural gap between the Ministry of Health staff and the women. Other women were also important contributors to raising the energy level of the training and helping other women understand the difficult concepts. Recruiting is a critical step in making the training a success. Invite active, strong women. Having a variety of ages is also helpful: older women have more experience, but younger women tend to be more active. Invite community leaders who you can imagine working with after the training.
In future trainings, it would be helpful to give the women a "test" at the conclusion of the training to more formally gauge their competencies. Furthermore, having feedback from the trainees at the conclusion of the training would be a good way to improve future workshops.
Conclusions
The workshop was a very rewarding project. Hopefully, it will be a catalyst for creating wide-spread behavior change in a number of communities. It is important to emphasize, however, that the workshop is only a first step. If villages do not follow through on their community action plans, the reach of the workshop will be limited.
For any volunteer that identifies maternal and child health as a community health priority, I recommend considering a project similar to this workshop. It is an effective way of addressing the problem. However, it is critical to tailor the project to the community's assets and deficits. A community that has easy access to a functional maison d'accouchement needs a much different training than one with no access. It is also critical to consider the ability of the Ministry of Health staff to lead the training. In Tounfite, our staff is very capable and did an excellent job with the training. Two of the trainers attended last year's workshop, meaning that they had experience. Furthermore, it is important to have a common language between the MOH staff and the volunteer so there can be fluid communication about the curriculum and problems that arise during the course of the workshop. Another consideration is the size and location of the workshop. This was a large workshop in our souq town. It would be easier to facilitate a smaller workshop in the town of the women. Depending on the situation, it may be easier and more effective to have several small trainings, rather than one large one.
It is also important to consider the strengths of the volunteer. As a man, it was easier for me to persuade community leaders to attend the final session. It was also easier for me to make contacts in outer douars for recruiting. On the other hand, it was more difficult for me to thoroughly vet the women before the training. Also, I was unable to be in the training room for most of the training. An effective training is going to utilize male and female volunteers.
Thanks
This workshop would not have been possible without a long list of people. Rachida, Wafa, and Selua (Ministry of Health staff: Tounfite) did an outstanding job conducting the training; they reached out to the women and made it engaging and interactive. The Ministry of Health in Khenifra, in particular Sidi Aissa gave me permission to use their facilities, workers, and provided training booklets for the women. Sidi Aissa also helped me figure out the paperwork at the Ministry and led an excellent opening session at the workshop. The entire Tounfite health clinic staff was helpful as well, thanks to Lahcen, the Medicin Chef. Mamaksu and Baha worked day and night for 4 straight days to provide the women with food and housing. My programming staff, Mostafa Lamqaddam and Rachid Lamjaimer, provided advice and support. The volunteers who helped on the project: Kristen Apa, Taryn Weil, Dan Dutcher, Jed D’Abravanel, Eric O’Bryant, and Falisha Khan did everything I asked them to do and plenty of things I forgot to ask of them. Mark and Joyce Gromko, Mary Ellen Newport, and Kristin and David LaFever all contributed financially. Kristin and David LaFever and Mara Hansen deserve thanks for showing me how to run a workshop last year.

Update
Had first follow-up community meeting in my village (A) with men. It went quite well. I'm hoping to do similar meetings in 3-4 other villages. And meetings with women as well. I have three scheduled for next week. The main lessons are: pre-natal visits, birth in Tounfite (not in house), hygiene, and birth control.

On Monday I painted two rooms of my host family's house. I liked doing it because it was the first time that I've had a skill that people here valued (I've done lots of painting work before).

On Wednesday the local police (in Tounfite) called me during lunch and told me to come immediately to Tounfite (one hour away). They told me to bring my ID card. I told them that it expired months ago and that I had already applied to them for a new one. They had my old copy. When I got to the office, they asked me for my card. I explained to them again that they had taken my old card. They asked if I had a photocopy of the card, and I told them that it was in their files. They looked through my paperwork and sure enough, there it was. They said I could go home. Very typical.

STRIKE!

2009-11-13T09:25:00.002-08:00

First to respond to the question: I got in touch with The National through an alumnni friend. He found out about my blog and suggested that I write an article.

STRIKE!

I came back to my site after 12 days away to find out that "the children are on strike against the teachers." This demanded more explanation.

The quality of education that kids get in my site (and much of Morocco) is bad compared with American education. There are two classrooms for six grades. In the morning, 1st and 2nd grade share one classroom (and one teacher) and 3rd grade gets the other teacher. 4th gets its own classroom in the afternoon and 5th and 6th grade share the other.

That was last year, when there were 4 teachers. This year there are three. Two of those remaining teachers do not speak Tamazight, only Arabic. The young kids don't speak any Arabic, so they mostly are just learning Arabic in the first two years.

Beyond the cramped learning conditions and language barriers, another issue is the pedagological methods used. Rote memorization combined with capital punishment for mistakes make learning difficult. Last Spring I tutored some 6th grade kids in basic math and they had a very difficult time. They were unable to think creatively and apply rules they had learned to real world situations.

The teachers don't have it easy either. They live several hours from their homes. The female teachers spend all of their time in the classroom or home; they have few friends in town. For someone from a modern city like Azrou or Khenifra, this would be very difficult. So the teachers leave frequently to go home. The director who oversees them is not around very often either.

Which brings us to the strike. Two of the teachers had left town without permission, leaving one teacher in charge of six grades. Impossible to accomplish anything so the kids "went on strike" in response. They were directed by their parents to take this action. This got the attention of the director, who came back to town. He is helping with teaching duties until the other teachers return.

It's a sad situation. In order to continue school past the 6th grade, kids have to go to Tounfite, an hour away. Of the few kids who get their parents' support to go to Tounfite, most fail out. They haven't been prepared. Parents in town complain about how bad he teachers are, but they invest little energy in their kids' education themselves. I wish the teachers were a little more invested in jobs, but I also understand their complaints. It all adds up to another generation of sheep herders.

Update

Winter is just around the corner. Nights around 0 degrees Celsius, but days are still warm - often very sunny. This fall is definitely warmer, and less rainy, than last year.

I've spent this week organizing meetings in 4 different communities. It's time to put the plans made during the workshop into action.

Early returns from the workshop are very encouraging. While I was away in Marrakech, seven pregnant women came to the health clinic for pre natal visits with a referral card from one of my trainees. In one week. Compare that to six visits for the previous month (which was unusually high) for the four clinics in my region combined. After a week there is already measureable success. The referral cards turn out to be an effective motivator in addition to a measuring tool because the trainees know their work is being monitored.

This surge of referrals is certainly due to post-workshop excitement. Hopefully community meetings can institutionalize the behavior change.

Arranging the post-workshop community meetings has been a headache. Here is what I've gone through in my village (one of four). I returned from Marrakech on Saturday evening. On Sunday, the association president asked where/when we were going to do the meeting. I told him I wanted him to make those decisions. He told me we should have it in the school on Thursday; I should go to the school director's house to seek permission. Monday at 10 I went to school; the director was not back from his weekend vacation. Tuesday at 10, I found him. He told me I couldn't have the meeting in school, so I went to the association president. He told me to try the Commune. I went to the Commune; the person in charge was not there. On a whim, I told the Khalipha (local Ministry of Interior figure) my problem. He told me that he would talk to the director and get me permission. Wednesday I went to another town. Thursday I went to the Khalipha's office, but he was gone. So I called him. He said that the director had given me permission, but not at the time I had suggested (now moved to Monday morning). A teacher had told me the classroom would be free then. So I went back to the director and asked what was up. He told me I could use the classroom, but only Sundays or after 5 pm. So I went to the association president and we decided on this Thursday at 5 pm. Then back to school for final permission from the director.

I'm doing well. The work is exciting, if frustrating. I'm getting questions from other volunteers who want to replicate the training, which is cool. On November the 12th, a new training group of volunteers swore in. The next time a new group swears in, that group will contain my replacement. This means that my training group are "seniors" - the "oldest" volunteers in country. I also found out my COS date - the date that our service is over: May 19th. I leave Morocco in just over six months.

Out of the Woods

2009-11-05T05:48:00.000-08:00

I just got an article published in The National, a newspaper in the UAE. Here is that article. You can also view the article at http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091105/REVIEW/711059984/1008.

I live in rural Morocco. Jbel Ayache – one of the tallest mountains in North Africa – and several other gigantic peaks tower over the village I call home. Though the mountains are beautiful, I cannot look at them without noticing how denuded they are. Almost every large tree has been cut down. Little new growth exists. The small trees and bushes that remain cling to jagged rocks.

Because of the altitude, our winters are extremely cold: we rely on wood harvested from the forest to heat our houses. In the past, the forest came up to the edge of the village. Men would cut down massive trees right by the side of the road, then sell them to big logging companies. This was a major source of village income, but those trees aren’t around anymore. Instead of picking up logs by the side of the road, the loggers now purchase harvesting rights for land deeper into the mountains. Every morning we see big lorries rumble by; in the afternoon, they rumble by again loaded high with wood.

My 73-year-old host dad has no sons, so he is responsible for collecting the family’s wood. He wakes up at five or six in the morning, rides his mule for two hours, then cuts down oak and cedar trees with an axe for at least four hours. Usually he gets back at two or three in the afternoon, eats a meal, then immediately falls asleep for the rest of the day. Waking for the evening meal, he complains about his sore joints. I once went with a friend to try my hand at cutting. Oak, I discovered, is a very hard wood, and the tree must be cut into pieces that fit on a mule’s back. Now I pay someone else 50 Moroccan dirhams (Dh24) per mule load to cut my wood for me.

The primary means of income in my village is the herding of sheep and goats. When I hike in the mountains, it is difficult to be alone; I inevitably run into a shepherd and his sheep. These animals – there are hundreds of thousands of them – eat any shoot poking out of the ground, effectively destroying the next generation of trees. But people have lived and herded in these mountains for centuries without placing undue stress on their resources. I asked my host father, who loves to talk about the past, what had changed. “The road changed everything,” he told me. Twenty-five years ago, lorries couldn’t reach the forest. Selling sheep at souq meant crossing a 10,000 foot mountain, which cut into profits. Anyway, there was a much lower demand for meat in urban Moroccan markets, as few people could afford it.

A village 28 kilometres away from mine has already cut down all the trees from the land near their village. The wealthiest residents buy their wood from neighbouring towns. Most people, however, can only burn small, dried-up bushes that barely produce enough heat to cook food, let alone heat a house. I have been to this village in winter. The herders and their flocks are gone in search of warmer weather. Those who remain wear thick wool jellabas to attempt to keep out the cold. During the day, people rarely leave the house, and most conversations focus on how cold it is. Nights are spent huddled together in a common room.

The example of our neighbours is just one of many reminders of the dangers of resource depletion. The scope of the problem – dwindling forests, scarce grazing land, water washing away unanchored topsoil – is obvious to anyone who is remotely involved in community life. Yet next to no action has been taken. Morocco’s department of water and forest has even offered villages like mine a deal: they will plant trees if everyone agrees to stay off the land for five to 10 years, until the trees mature. Furthermore, they will compensate the community to the tune of 250 Moroccan dirhams (Dh120) per hectare per year. But very few communities, including mine, have accepted the offer; even when they have, the promise to stay off the land has typically been broken.

Because enforcement is lax, no individual has any incentive to change his consumption. This applies even to would-be conservationists: unless everyone is on board, one family’s sacrifice won’t protect the resource. If, for example, my friend Driss reduced his flock from 200 to 100 sheep, it would make his family much poorer. And without similar action from other community members, it would make no difference: someone else would probably respond by increasing the size of their flock. It wouldn’t be hard: giving away sheep is a common government practice. Just recently, the King distributed a gift of 5,000 sheep to the residents of our nearest market town. Even if an entire community wanted to sign on to the government deal, they would surely be wary of neighbouring villages taking advantage of their now-unguarded grazing land. This is partially a standard tragedy of the commons, and partially bad blood: before the French colonised this part of Morocco, these tribes often fought each other.

The solution is elusive, and there’s no quick fix. Topsoil takes a long time to build up to the point where it can support trees. All I can see when I climb these mountains is loose rock. This autumn, there have been heavy thunderstorms, and there is no soil to absorb rainfall anymore, so the water rushes downhill. Our rivers run brown with the last dregs of our soil. Last Saturday, some nearby fields were completely washed away, their corn completely destroyed. Several families lost their apple crops. Within the week, the men will be back in the forest, doing the only thing they can to stay warm: cutting down more trees.

Update
Im in Marrakech now, helping with In Service Training (IST) for newer volunteers. They've been in site for 6 months now, so this training is supposed to help them think about how they can use what they've learned about their sites to implement projects. Me and 5 other volunteers from my training stage were invited to talk about our projects and how the lessons we've learned are applicable in others' sites. It's been a good experience; I believe that I've been helpful.

One very positive thing about IST has been seeing the other 5 volunteers from my stage. I'm sometimes negative about Peace Corps and the small impact that volunteers have, but these 5 have all successfully implemented substantial projects in their sites. I'm also hearing about others who aren't here who have done some cool projects. It looks like, when we leave this country, my training group will have a long list of positive projects to point to, which is a good feeling.

One negative thing is that I question the unintended consequences of some of the projects. Specifically, trash and waste management. One volunteer has implemented a project in their site where the community gathers trash in a central location, then burns the trash in an incinerator purchased by a Peace Corps grant written by the volunteer. Burning trash is illegal in America because it releases dioxins (carcinogenic) into the air. When volunteers talk about the health impact of leaving trash laying around, they talk about flies and water contamination, which are products of food and animal waste, not plastic. The project may be creating a public health problem where little/none existed (plastic sitting on the ground does release polycarbons on a slow time scale). I'm not going to get into more detail because I don't want to be overly critical.

Finally, the big news from IST is that we got to hear Hillary Clinton speak. She was in Marrakech for an international forum on Middle Eastern business climate. Us PC volunteers went over to the palace where the forum was, and she found 30 minutes to talk to us and State Department staff. CNN covered the event: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/11/03/morocco.us.peace.corp.senior/index.html?section=cnn_latest.

It was pretty fun. Several people shook her hand (I was stuck in the middle of the row, far from the lucky ones in the aisle). As always, I can't help finding a negative side to any positive story. It sucks that Clinton focused on the oldness of one particular volunteer, rather than the productiveness of all volunteers. I hope I don't sound like a bitter guy saying this and I do think being an 85 year old in PC is pretty cool. But I believe that PC is generally perceived as this quirky organization that doesn't accomplish anything tangible. It would have been nice for Clinton to talk about the work that volunteers do in Morocco, rather than the age of one. Do I sound bitter?

Hope all is well! Going back to my site today and tomorrow.

Maternal and Child Health Workshop

2009-11-02T00:13:00.000-08:00

First, thanks for the comments. I enjoy sharing the experiences that I've had in Morocco and I'm glad that other people enjoy reading about them.

On the 28th, 29th, and 30th of October, I hosted a Maternal and Child Workshop for 25 local women in my souq town. I'm going to write up a long report of it at some point and post that report here, but in the mean time, here is an account of the workshop.

I started thinking about this workshop one year ago, when Mara Hansen, another volunteer, hosted a similar one that I was involved in. In June and July of this year, I started recruiting women for the workshop. This involved riding my bike a lot to different villages, trying to find interested women. Luckily I had built up relationships in these villages in the past year. Early in the summer I also started talking with the doctors and midwives about the curriculum for the training and when we ought to host it. Simultaneously, I was working with the Ministry of Health in my provincial capital to make sure that we had there support.

After some miscommunication and scheduling difficulties with the Ministry, the training was officially scheduled for October 28, 29, 30. So I had to go back to each village to tell the women the details. Then, a week before the stage, I had to start working on logistical details for the women.

Tuesday afternoon (27th), there were some 10 women in Tounfite. We had dinner with them at a family's house who was hosting the women for the week. They were in a good mood. I was feeling very nervous. There were still 15 women missing! I knew that some of them would be staying with family in Tounfite and that others would be coming early tomorrow morning, but, throughout the training, I was often worried about things that I could not control.

Wednesday morning we met at the health clinic. Two Ministry midwives were supposed to be leading the training, but just that morning one had been called away to Khenifra for a Ministry meeting. The one who had been called away (named Wafa) was at last year's training, so she was going to be taking the lead; this was a disappointing development. The other midwife (Rachida), although inexperienced, spoke Tamazight, which is a big help because it means that the training can move more quickly and fluidly without waiting for translations. The other headache of that day was that the Ministry of Health officials (who were giving introductory remarks)coming from Khenifra were 45 minutes late. They also didn't bring the right number of booklets for the women. Besides these two difficulties, I think the first day went really well. At dinner that night, women who had attended last year's training told me that they liked Rachida a lot because she was a Tamazight speaker. The main lessons for that day were pre natale care and birthing.

Thursday was filled with more complications. Today, Wafa was in Tounfite, but Rachida was called away to Khenifra. After 30 minutes of Wafa leading the session, there was a minor emergency. A woman came into the health clinic: she was in labor! Wafa obviously had to go take care of the situation, so me and the other volunteers quickly talked about what we were going to do to fill the time. We didn't know how long Wafa would be gone. We decided to break the women up into small groups and have each volunteer lead a small review session. The session with my small group went really well; the women were engaged and on top of the material. My group happened to have my host mom in it; she was ashamed at times to be talking about birthing stuff in front of me.

The woman in labor ended up needing more attention than the Tounfite health clinic could provide her, so she was driven to Midelt in an ambulance, with Wafa staying behind. (I was relieved that the woman was having complications and needed to be driven away - how awful is that?) Wafa returned to the training room and got things going again. The rest of that morning went well.

Thursday afternoon, the doctor from my village came and did basic hygiene and first aid lessons with the women. She was visibly impatient with their lack of focus, but on the other hand, she did a good job of calling women out and making sure that they understood the lessons. Later in the afternoon, myself and other volunteers led two health lessons. In the first lesson, we did a skit where a man (me) coming back from the bathroom doesn't wash his hands with soap and he gets sick. When we asked the women why he was sick, they were quick to say that he hadn't washed the microbes off of his hands. This was a great confirmation that they had understood the doctor's lesson from earlier that afternoon. (Throughout the training, at meals, the women consistently washed their hands with soap. This doesn't sound like much, but it's a huge deal. And if a woman didn't wash with soap, the others would yell at her.) The other lesson was about making oral rehydration liquid, which is for people with diarrhea. I had been nervous about having volunteers lead lessons, but I think we did a really good job of it. Our lessons were more interactive than the ministry's lessons and I think the women enjoyed seeing us up there.

Friday morning, the women covered post natale care and family planning. I wasn't present in the actual training room, but female volunteers who were there told me that a condom was passed around (a big deal). Family planning is a critical lesson because lots of women don't understand how to take birth control correctly, resulting in unwanted pregnancies. In my opinion, the best way to reduce maternal and infant mortality is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Friday afternoon was the big finale. I had invited men from every village. The men I invited were those who had helped me recruit women from their village. We broke into 4 different groups, clustered by tribal relationships (Ait Moussa, Ait Fadouli, Ait Sliman, and Ait Tounfite). In the small groups, with the help of a volunteer facilitating the discussion, the women were supposed to quickly summarize the five most important lessons of the workshop (importance of seeking pre natale care, importance of birthing in the health clinic, hygiene, oral rehydration liquide, and family planning). Then, the men and women were supposed to discuss amongst themselves what the biggest health problems were in their village and which lesson best applied to that health problem. They were supposed to discuss the idiosyncrasies of their village (eg Ait Sliman is especially far from a health clinic) and what that meant for their ability to implement the lessons from the training. THEN, the group was supposed to decide what was the best course of action. Working first with the Ait Moussa group, our discussion went really well. One of the men took the lead (I'd asked him to do so beforehand) and did a great job of directing the conversation. We decided that we needed to have one meeting with men (mostly about importance of pre natale visits) and one meeting with women (about a range of lessons). The man would be in charge of inviting people. Our doctor will be invited and I will help her and the women communicate the lessons. After finishing with Ait Moussa, I helped Ait Sliman, which was (unsuprisingly) a little more difficult. However, in the end, they came to the same conclusion: that they needed to do community meetings and education with the help of me and their nurse. I was really nervous about this part of the workshop, but it could not have gone better. I believe it was the most important session and that it will be the catalyst to significant behavior change in my communities...we'll see.

After meeting in the small groups (and tea), we reconvened in a big group. A representative from each group had to explain their group's community plan. Tounfite, Ait Moussa, and Ait Sliman did a pretty good job of explaining to the others what they wanted to do. A woman from Tounfite did an excellent job; the work that will happen in Tounfite as a result of this training should be very good. Finally, was Ait Fadouli. No men from their villages had shown up, so it was mostly up to this 23 year old woman from a particuraly isolated village to lead the charge. She is unmarried and has worked in Rabat and Casablanca; clearly an anomaly in her village. She has a very strong personality.

She stood up and made the best speech that I have ever heard in person. The theme of her speech was that people in these villages need to help each other; the government is corrupt and sitting on its hands. Basically, it's up to us to help ourselves. She told the men that it was shameful for them sit not take care of their women; that the women were the heart and soul of the family and that they deserved proper care. She told the women that it was shameful for them to be witness to the oppression of their sisters, friends, and themselves and not stand up for themselves. She told the women that they had to be more assertive and less afraid. I'm so glad that my Tamazight has gotten to a level where I could understand what she said, because it was amazing. Sitting there in the room at the culmination of the training, I was fighting back tears.

It's hard not to feel really good about the training. I felt like I was taking a risk by inviting the men and asking them to engage with womens' problems, but they did. The whole time I was nervous because I had very little control over whether or not people were going to invest in the training. But I think that's a good sign that I'm doing development work: in the end, people have to help themselves.

But this is really just the beginning. I have 6 villages that are now asking me to come smaller, one day versions of this workshop in their community. That, ultimately, was what I wanted from the training, but it's going to be a lot of work. If those meetings happen, I think it will validate the training. Another way we have of measuring the impact of the training is that we gave each woman a "referral" card, which has a picture of a pregnant lady going to the health clinic. Each card has the name of the woman on it. The idea is that the woman will give the card to her pregnant woman to remind her to go to the health clinic, who will then give the card to the doctor at the clinic. That way we will be able to count a) if people are making referrals and b) which women are making those referrals. I'm a little unsure about whether people will buy into the idea of referral cards, but I think it's worth trying. Another way to measure the effectiveness of the training is to compare number of pre natal visits before and after the training, but that's not a great method of measuring

In conclusion, it was a great week. The women were happy all week long and I think they absorbed some valuable information. I want to thank: the volunteers who helped me run the training (Kristen, Eric, Jed, Falisha, Taryn, and Dan), the volunteers who built my capacity to do this (Mara, Dave, and Kristin), the Ministry of Health staff who helped run the training (Selua, Wafa, and Rachida), the Ministry of Health people in Khenifra who gave me the stamp of approval (mostly Sidi Aissa), my PC programming staff (Mostafa and Rachid), the family who housed and fed the women for the training (Mamaksu and Baha) and most importantly, the women and men who came, participated, and engaged.

Update
I'm in Marrakech, leading sessions for IST (in-service training) for volunteers who have been in the country since March. I have a lot of free time here in between sessions and unlimited computer access (with Internet), so I'm going to be working on my grad school apps.

FIST

2009-10-23T03:51:00.000-07:00

Peace Corps mandated that all volunteers get flu vaccinations this year (seasonal flu, not H1N1). I got mine in Azilal, which is about 7 or 8 hours from my site. Although it was a long trip, I was glad to visit Azilal for the first time, which is a beautiful small (20,000) city.

On the way back, I got on a transit (owned by a guy from my site) from Boumia to Tounfite - the 2nd to last leg before arriving in my site. It was late, so this probably was the last transit making the trip. Just as the transit was pulling out, a couple of visibly drunk guys got on the transit. One of the sat down next to me.

The was loud and smoking a cigarette (bad form in a transit). He was carrying a clear plastic bag full of alcohol. I was tired from the long day of traveling really I didnt want to talk to anyone, especially a drunk obnoxious someone. But he wanted to talk to me, and loudly. He kept asking if I remembered him, which I did. At first it was just annoying...he wanted to kiss me a lot (sign of respect here) so he kept grabbing my head and kissing my forehead.

Then he started getting abusive. He was yelling at everyone in the transit. He spit in the direction of the driver. But most of his maliciousness was directed at me. He started saying very rude things to me. (I debated about whether or not to include translations...I decided to print everything. Please excuse the rudeness). Amongst other things, he said to me, "I fuck you," "I fuck your asshole," and "I fuck your mother." The transit was full of young men from my site, people that I have known for almost a year and half now. I looked to them for help, support. They said to me; "fist," which means "be quiet" in Tamazight. They didnt want to confront the guy. I couldnt believe it. Then the guy started telling the volunteer that I was traveling with, "Tell Duncan to shut up or I will hit him in the face." I didnt need the translation from my friend to understand.

At this point, I was still taking it pretty well. I was getting angry, but I was limiting my responses to: "youre drunk, be quiet," "enough talking," "im tired," and the like. I was very frustrated with my friends in the back, who would rather endure this guys abuse than stand up to him.

Then the guy opened up the plastic bag full of wine and started drinking it, inevitably spilling part of its contents on me. I turned to my Moroccan friends sitting behind me, told them that he was drinking alcohol, and asked them to do something about the situation. They told me, "just be quiet, what do you care?" Then the guy got right up in my face, said the shohada (the phrase that you say to convert to Islam: There is no God but Allah and Mohamed is his prophet). He demanded over and over that I say it. I wanted to point out the extreme contradiction of asking me to convert as he was stumbling over drunk, but I didnt. After he tired of this, the guy returned to his previous topic of conversation: my asshole and my mother.

I turned to the guy and said, in English, "All I want to do right now is hit you in your face with my fucking fist." Like I said earlier, "fist" in Tamazight means "be queit" or "shut up." And most people know the word "fuck." So he thought I was telling him to "fucking shut up." He wasnt really affected by my explosion; he kept harassing me and others in the transit.

We finally got to Tounfite and everyone got out. After the drunk guy was gone, my Moroccan friends apoligized to me and said the guy was an idiot. I was glad that they were finally acknowledging that the guy was in the wrong, but frankly I felt that their apologies were empty. I wanted to say, "Where were you guys when the drunk was in my face, yelling at me?" Its not like the guy posed any physical danger to us. He was one man amongst 20. Simply stop the transit, get everyone out, and make the guy ride on top. Or make him walk the rest of the way back. At the very least, stand up for yourself and your friend (a guest in your country).

Ive dealt with drunk idiots in the States before. That part bothered me, but not as much as the lack of support that I got from my "friends." I worry about how interactions such as this (and the one a couple weeks ago where a group of men told me I should have raped an American girl who visited my house) are permanently coloring my feelings about Morocco. Yes, there are lots of people that I have only positive interactions with and I care about quite a bit. But this minority (is it a minority? In two interactions, 20 out of 20 men have been complicit in disgusting behavior) is damaging how I feel about my time here.

Update
OK, so despite this negative post, things are good. The time in Azilal was nice, although short. Its a beautiful town. No trash on the street, trees planted every 20 feet on the sidewalk, surrounded by mountains.

The preparations for the maternal and child health training are going well. I am feeling nervous about how the training will go, but a lot of it is out of my control. This project is the ultimate test of delegating responsibility, which is frightening for me. But Im getting better at not worrying things that I have no power over. The women will start arriving Monday. The training will start Wednesday and last until Friday. Several volunteers from the province are coming to help out, which is nice. I have big dreams and hopes for the training and follow up to the training.

I hope all is well. Take care.

Wedding Season: Year 2

2009-10-18T10:57:00.001-07:00

Last year I wrote a post about weddings in my site. Well its that time of year again, although this years weddings have been quite different.

Last week there were two days (Monday and Tuesday) where, between my community and the one a mile down the road from us, there were 20 weddings. Everyone has their weddings on the same day so that they dont have to feed the whole community (everyone is invited to every wedding). I went to 6 of the weddings, spending most of my time at my cousins wedding (where my camera was broken). Lots of being crammed into a windowless room with 50 other people, sitting on the floor, drinking tea, eating sheep meat, dancing, drumming, and singing. Its really the only time of year where girls and boys get to spend significant amount of time in the same room.

On Thursday, I got up at 6am to catch a transit. I traveled until 7pm, arriving in Rabat. Thursday night I spent with a Swarthmore alum doing a Fulbright in Rabat. We went out to a nice restaurant where they serve good cheese, pork products, and beer. Delicious. The next day I got up and went to the Peace Corps office to work on grad school applications.

The next day, some other volunteers arrived in Rabat and we hung out and got ready for the wedding that night. My program managers daughter was getting married and he generously invited volunteers to the wedding. One word for the wedding: WOW. It was quite similar to an American wedding, sans alcohol. There were real tables with chairs-I cant tell you how much of a difference having chairs makes.

It was so much fun. The food was delicious. From 9pm to 1am we were served coffee and cakes. For dinner there was bastilla (a pastry sort of thing with fish) and roasted chickens. Then after dinner we had more cakes, including a real wedding cake.

As good as the food was, dancing was the highlight of the night. Every hour or so the bride would be carried into the main room on top of a throne, wearing a new dress each time. People would get up from their tables and clap as she was paraded in while the band played music (6 total parades). Once the throne was set down, everyone would start dancing. I danced all night long (until 430am). There was a group of 17 year old girls who were very excited to have an American boy who would dance with them. It felt weird at first, but it was completely appropriate. The girls fathers would come dance with us at times, giving me thumbs ups and showing me how to dance (key to dancing in Rabat: shake your hips and do something silly with your hands).

That was Saturday night. We got back to our hotel around 5am. Sunday morning I caught a 2pm bus to a friends house that is kind of close to my site. I relaxed with him and tried to catch up on my sleep. Back to my site on Monday.

Tuesday and Wednesday were kind of slow. There was another wedding in my site, which I attended (my friends brothers).

Thursday I got the invitations drawn up (in Arabic) for the Maternal and Child Health Workshop, which is happening on the 28th of this month. That afternoon I helped my family harvest corn, which provides a good story:

My host dad is unable to do all the work himself and I am an unreliable worker, so my host dad often pays his nephew (Mimoon) to help him with the work. Basically, we go out to the fields, cut down the corn (stalk and all) with sickles, and Mimoon takes the corn back to the house (a mile away) on a mule. Towards the end of the day, Mimoon was getting frustrated and tired, so he started loading the mule very high with corn so as to reduce the number of trips he had to make. Each time my host Dad told him he had loaded the mule too high. With just a couple loads remaining, Mimoon returned to report that the mule had fallen and that he had left the corn in the road. We loaded the mule again (again my host dad told him it was too much corn). We decided that this would be the last load for the day, so my host dad and I accompanied Mimoon. In order to get through the house, we have to go through a sort of pass, where the path is bad and a fall could be potentially disastrous. This is where the mule had fallen last time, with the corn laying by the side of the road. Well going through the pass, the mule started stumbling, then started walking backwards down the mountain (a 45 degree angle). Loaded high with corn, there was no way that it wouldnt fall. It did a back flip, landing on its back, then another full 360 degree back flip, landing on its back at the bottom of the hill, 30 vertical feet below the pass. I thought for sure it would have broken its neck. It was one of the most hard core things I ever watched. Amazingly, it got up. My host dad broke into some of the meanest curses (directed at Mimoon) Ive ever heard. Meanwhile Mimoon is yelling at my host dad as well for making him work too much. We ended up loading the mule back up with much less corn on its back and returning a couple times to pick up the corn from the previous fall. Everyone was very tired and angry. That night, I went to another wedding.

Friday I woke up and biked to an outer douar, where I had to inform women about the training date. There happened to be a wedding there, which I was obliged to attend before going on with my work. The husbands of the women changed their minds and said that they couldnt go. So we had to recruit two different women, which was greatly complicated by the wedding going on.

Saturday afternoon I walked to another outer douar, to inform women there and attend ANOTHER wedding. Informing the women was easy there, but I was tired and it was difficult to gracefully exit the wedding. This morning (Sunday), I got up at 6am to walk 10km to the main road, where I caught transit to market. And here I am in Tounfite.

Its been a busy couple of weeks and with the workshop fast approaching, the next 2 weeks will be even busier. Im happy to be working, mostly I just hope that the workshop goes well. I think I have everything planned out, but inevitable there will be problems that I cannot foresee.

Gender In Morocco

2009-10-09T04:31:00.000-07:00

I missed last week's posting because I forgot to bring the notebook in which I had hand written it. Without any further delay, here it is:

I keep writing about this topic of gender because I keep learning more about it. And also there's a lot to say.

For the last couple months, I've been helping a local girl with English. She just graduated from high school and is starting college this fall. She's the only girl from my village that I know of who continued her studies past the 6th grade. She just happened to choose English as her concentration; when her father asked me to help her I was happy to do so. I'm glad to be helping her with her English because I get a lot out of it too: we have honest conversations about gender and religion that are illuminating.

Every week she writes a couple essays for me so that I can correct her English and to give us something to talk about. She often writes something about gender.

For Westerners, the symbol of female oppression in the Muslim world is the headscarf. This girl (let's call her Fatima) wrote about when she started wearing the headscarf (which she calls a veil even though it only covers her hair and neck): "The step of the veil was very difficult for me because I wasn't used to covering...As a non-Muslim, the importance of wearing the veil must seem stupid and exaggerated, but I think it is good for every woman." She told me that the hardest part of wearing the headscarf for her was the physical discomfort of wrapping her head. She told me that parents ought to make their little girls wear headscarves from an early age so as to get them used to the feeling.

Ultimately, she made the decision to wear the headscarf because "I know it was a command from God." Dogmatic is a good way to describe her belief (and the belief of many other Moroccans that I have interacted with). Whenever I question a practice of Islam that I find sexist, she says that it is justified because God commanded it.

But that is not to say that she is uncritical of Muslims' behavior. We talk about some of the oppressive practices happening in the community (and in the rest of the Muslim world) and she says that many people distort the word of God - I'm only happy to point out the ways that people do that with Christianity as well. Returning to gender, Fatima has told me that it is silly to pretend that man and woman are equals. She wrote that "menses and pregnancy make women weak." She sees men and women as performing important, but different roles in the community and in the family.

For Fatima, religious rules about relationships between unmarried girls and boys ultimately come down to protecting the "dignity" of girls. She's told me that if a girl's virginity is not intact on her wedding night, there will be lots of trouble for her and her family. I asked her why a man's virginity is not guarded in the same way and she said that that was confusing to her. That it was unfair.

Given that she goes to school in a bigger city, Fatima is exposed to Moroccan girls/women who dress similarly to Western women. She told me that she feels pity for these girls; that they have no self-respect.

This is a crucial point: Fatima believes that sexual and behavioral freedom in the West is a degredation of the women. While Westerners see Muslim women wearing modest clothes and segregating them from men as oppressive, she sees it as the only way to protect their dignity and respect. She thinks that Western men treat their women poorly in a similar way that I think that Moroccans treat their women poorly. Both groups see the the other as oppressors of their women. For Westerners, freedom and choice are important. For Muslims (at least Fatima), modesty is important.

Given the way that some Moroccan men treat women who dress "immodestly," I kind of see her point. Fatima writes, "I don't like the idea of a boy who uses a girl as a tool for gratification of his desires." I have heard many horror stories from female volunteers about harrassment. From my own experience, men in my village talk very disrespectfully about girls. One story stands out (I am not sure if it's good to pass this story on; it's quite upsetting).

About a week ago, a Swarthmore who's doing a Fulbright in Morocco came to stay at my house on her way to the South. After she left, I was in a young-man hangout place and the men brought up the girl. First, they couldn't believe that I didn't sleep with her, despite my insistence. Worse was what they told me I ought to have done. They said I ought to have gotten her drunk so that "she couldn't say 'no'." If that didn't work, I should have gotten a rope and tied her up. There was a group of about 10 young men agreeing with this and chiming in with their own rape strategies. Obviously very upsetting. I said that was wrong, no one agreed with me. (This is one reason that I'm having trouble making real friends here: I don't respect most of the men.)

At least in my community, it is culturally acceptable to think of women as sex objects. Given that, Fatima is right: the only way for a girl to be respectable and to keep men from saying awful things about her is to cover up (although covering up doesn't always work either). Both men and women here have told me that men cannot control their sexual impulses. It is up to women not to stir up these impulses. Talking about women in big cities who dress like Westerners, Fatima told me that any harrassment that they get is their own fault. They invite it.

What to make of all this? Oppression exists in the Muslim world, but after reading the Qu'ran, it is clear that a lot of that oppression is of cultural and not religious origin. However, there are some passages in the Qu'ran that clearly put men in a superior position to women. Fatima sees these passages as a reflection of natural differences between men and women. Ultimately these oppressive measures are necessary to protect the dignity of women. I don't see it that way, but living amongst men in my village allows me to see where she is coming from.

I've been accused by some readers of being too factual and not editorializing enough; so here's what I think: Oppression of women here is awful, but the situation is a lot more complicated that liberating women by allowing them to wear whatever clothes they want. Furthermore, there is a partnership between man and wife in the household and a great deal of respect and love in that partnership.

In some European countries, the issue of the headscarf is a politcally sensitive one. France restricts wearing it in certain public spaces. Certain schools in Belgium have recently banned wearing the headscarf. To me, this is terribly misplaced liberalism. Preventing someone from wearing an article of clothing that they see as central to protecting their dignity?? Crazy. The headscarf is the symbol of female oppression in the West, but women here see it as a way to protect themselves. Treat the disease (male chauvanism), not the symptom. French President Sarkozy called the burka a tool of oppression and sees himself as a savior for liberating women from its shackles. While the burka (a burka is different from the headscarf: it covers the entire face, except for the eyes) is oppressive, forcing a woman to remove it does not address the root of the problem. Worse, it embarrasses Muslim women and makes Western government seem disrespectful in the eyes of the Muslim world, widening the gap between the two civilizations.

Imagine a nation where people do not where shirts. Natives, men and women, walk around topless (some Pacific Island community?). Then suppose that a law was enacted requiring women (targeted at American immigrants to the community) to take of their shirts when they entered public schools. Absolutely ridiculous. I see the amount of clothing that a community finds acceptable as culturally relative and ultimately arbitrary. Why force one culture to adapt your culture's clothing norms?

Update

I'm in Rabat now. I've been invited to the wedding of my boss's daughter, which I'm very excited for. I've spent most of the last week in my community at weddings, staying up late, drinking lots of eating, eating lots of sheep meat, and dancing.

When I first came to my village, I thought that I could never be friends with females. My host mom has always been one of my best friends here. Then I started helping this girl with English and we have become good friends. At the weddings, I met a girl who is from our community, but lives and work in Rabat. She's much more open and less shy. We rode the bus to Rabat together and are friends. Also I've developed friendships with the nurses and teachers in my community. I'm very grateful for these friendships.

My camera recently broke. Almost as upsetting as this fact is the way in which it happened. One of the weddings that I went to was my host cousin's. He asked me if he borrow the camera and take pictures of the wedding. Wanting pictures of a wedding and feeling uncomfortable to be snapping photos myself, I agreed. Well someone bumped into the guy and he dropped the camera. He felt really bad, but didn't offer to pay for its repair and probably doens't have the money to anyways. This is upsetting because lots of Peace Corps volunteers don't lend their things to Moroccans for precisely this reason and warn others against doing the same. I've always been pretty generous with my stuff because I wanted to treat people in my community as I would treat Americans. Now I face the consequences. I'm going to try and get the camera fixed while I am in Rabat.

All is well.

L3id

2009-09-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

At the conclusion of Ramadan is the L3id ftir, or the small holiday. It is a celebration of the end of the month of fasting, observed by Muslims. The day was a particuraly action packed for me, so here is an account of the day:

5:45 am, wake up, go to my host familys.
6:00 Wait around at my host familys while people get ready for the days festivities.
6:30 My host dad, some neighbors, and I walked around to different peoples houses. At every house, tea, cookies, and a milky sort of pasta is served. Its a chance to visit people and eat food after a month of fasting. People were in a good mood and said nice things to me about fasting.
8:00 I went to three more houses after I finished walking around with the group. These were people who had invited me to come over the day before. I went to the fkeihs (religious leader) house, Unasrs house, and my good friend Driss ou abess house. More tea, cookies, and milky pasta.
9:00 I went to the center of town and talked with the men. It was a sunny day and maybe thirty men were standing around, chatting. The call to prayer went off and a lot of the men went to make their L3id prayers (outside).
10:00 I went inside and started doing some fall cleaning. My house was badly in need of it.
Noon I went back to my host familys house for lunch. During Ramadan, I had only been eating break fast food with them, so this was the first time in a month that I had eaten a tajine (traditional moroccan dish). I cant say that I missed it. But It was good to sit with my host family and chat with them while they were in such a good mood.
1:30 Went back to my house to finish cleaning, read a little bit, and take a nap.
4:00 After waking, I left my house and went back to the center of town to hang out with people. I played this game that people here call fili, which is a board game. Its a complicated game and I still lose most of the time, but Im hoping to master the game before I leave. While we were playing, an argument erupted. The commune had set a bunch of sugar and tea (typical government give away) outside for people to take. I guess a bunch of wealthier people in town helped themselves. Buaza got really angry and started yelling at those people. He said that they should leave the giveaways for the poor people. It was starting to get ugly, so I went to Saids house.
5:00 Saids daughter is the most educated female in my site. She is nineteen and starting her first year at university. She majors in English, which she speaks pretty well. Said asked me to come to their house on a regular basis to help her. Im normally oppossed to English tutoring, but this girl is very motivated and I like helping her. We have very honest conversations about gender in Morocco and sort of honest conversations about religion. I learn a lot from her. Pretty soon I will devote an entire post to our conversations. While there, I also spoke with Said about people in Agoudim. He told me that there are people who have hundreds of thousands of dirhms (maybe 30000 dollars) in Agoudim. There are some poor people, but there are also people who are rich from herding huge flocks of sheep. I always have a difficult time guaging the wealth of my village and this was an interesting conversation. Saids wife, Itto, and I also had an intersting conversation about womens attitudes towards birthing in my village. I will probably try to get her to come to the training that Im holding.
7:15 I left Saids house and ran into my friend, Driss ou abess. He started telling me about his difficulties sleeping, which result from stress. It was the first time that a Moroccan had opened up to me about their personal problems. I felt like it was a big step in terms of the level of trust that he had in me. He has been trying to start a little hotel place for tourists, and he was just venting his worries about getting that going and balancing that work with all of his farming responsibilities. It was heart to heart.
8:00 Driss and I started walking to a syba (big dinner to celebrate a birth; most men in village are invited). On the way we ran into a group of young men, walking the opposite direction. They told us that a fight had broken out. Apparently Driss ou Kajoj had approached Moolay ou Atman and struck him. Some other people got in the middle and were hurt as well. All people were saying was "the guy is crazy. the fight was about nothing."
8:35 Driss and I arrived at the syba. Lots of older men were there and everyone was talking about the fight. People were saying some pretty negative stuff about how bad people were in general. There was a metaphor about how life is as a dark as night. The fkeih starts the prayers (typical at a syba). We have some food. People were really nice to me, telling me how good I was at Tamazight and how much a part of the community I was. Assou told me that if there was a foreigner Tamazight test, then I would be the best. After food, the fkeih started talking about the correct way for people to do their prayers, and everyone was getting really into it, asking him questions and arguing with each other.
11:00 Back home, read, write, sleep.

So it was a full day. I felt as though I reached a new level of connectedness with my community and that I learned a lot about the comings and goings. Very rewarding. Other than that day, Im busy preparing for the maternal and child health training thats happening in a week. Im going to the provincial capital tomorrow to get final approval. Dont expect a post this weekend.

Climate Change Articles

2009-09-19T05:36:00.000-07:00

Foreign Affairs recently published 3 articles on climate change: "Copenhangen's Inconvenient Truth," (Levi) "The Other Climate Changers," (Wallack and Ramanathan) and "The Low-Carbon Diet" (Kurtzman. The fact that the 3 articles were prominently featured in a journal such as Foreign Affairs is a good sign that the issue is being taken seriously by the right people. Unfortunately, the articles themselves expose just how much work there is to do. And how dire the situation is.

Levi writes about plans for Copenhagen negotiations in December with the primary purpose of lowering expectations for the summit. "The odds of signing a comprehensive treaty in December are vanishingly small."

Many difficulties will prevent a worthwhile agreement from being signed. Greatest amongst those difficulties is the gap between the developing and developed world. Economic growth is seen as an important way that nation-states project power; any talk of disrupting that growth will be met with opposition. The developing world (naturally) wants to enjoy the same prosperity as the West - it believes it ought to be able to pollute as much as the West did in order to achieve its prosperity. Unfortunately, without significant reduction in emissions from the developing world (primarily China, India, and Brazil) any agreement amongst the West is worthless. Complicating matters is the fact that developing nations "lack the capacity to robustly monitor their entire economies' emissions." There is no point in setting emissions targets at this point, because they cannot be measured or verified. The final difficulty is that it is doubtful that the West has the political will to lead by example on this issue, especially with the current "crisis."

While a comprehensive global agreement sounds nice, it is unrealistic. Instead, "An approach to dealing with climate change based on hundreds, if not thousands, of individual policies and measures may be messy, but the complexity of the problem requires it." This statement is right on, but its consequences are daunting. Climate change demands a bottom-up approach. Thousands of solutions, both governmental and non-governmental will be needed to change the behavior of billions of individuals. There is no magic treaty to sign.

Thus, expectations for Copenhagen are low. I agree with Levi when he says that the best thing that could come out of Copenhagen "is an agreement on measurement, reporting, and verification" for developing countries. That way, future negotiations could ask for verifications of emission cuts. Other than that, "it may take many years before [Copenhagen] results in a meaningful, legally binding agreement."

Wallack and Ramanathan address emissions of black carbon. The result of incomplete combustion, black carbon significantly contributes to climate change. Unlike carbon dioxide, black carbon leaves the atmosphere quickly: "only days to weeks." Thus, if black carbon was eliminated, there would be an immediate impact on the climate. (It will take decades - centuries for carbon dioxide to be reabsorbed).

The problem is that "65% of black carbon emissions are associated with the burning of biomass." This is exactly the issue that im trying to address (anti-deforestation). IT IS NOT EASY.

Wallack and Ramanathan say that "households tend to shift away from [biomass fuels] as soon as other options become available...the challenge is to make other options available." Gas ovens exist in my town, but people cook and bake with wood because it is free. Getting the developing world to make significant change will take a lot more than investing in technology. Once again, bottom-up tactics will be needed to find appropriate, cost-effective solutions for thousands of different communities.

Every article that mentions black carbon calls it "the low hanging fruit." Months ago I responded to a New York Times article that used this same term to talk about black carbon. The analogy implies that these changes will be easy. They won't. To make the analogy correct, the fruit may be hanging low, but there are thousands upon thousands of unique fields that need to be "harvested." An army of workers will be needed to pick those fields.

Finally, Kurtzman's article is the most hopeful. Kurtzman believes that market forces, if correctly shaped by the government, will change emission habits. And he believes that cap-and-trade is the most effective way of setting-up those market forces.

Cap-and-trade is a very elegant solution, which naturally makes me skeptical. Emissions are capped. Polluters that exceed their cap are heavily fined. Corporations that are under their cap can sell their polluting permits to other corporations. Thus, polluters are punished. Clean companies are rewarded. Money flows to companies and technologies that are successfully reducing emissions.

In the US, 85% of cap-and-trade permits are given away. This is essentially giving away money. If, hypothetically, a company shuts down its factories after receiving permits, it can sell those permits for a profit. How can government allocate all these permits? Given the difficulties that Democrats will have in getting the legislation through, you think that they might have to give away some political favors? For example, might Appalachian Democrats in the pocket of Big Coal sell their votes in exchange for permits for their constituents?

Another problem is offsets. If, for example, a polluter gives money to Brazil for reforestation, they can can pollute more without paying a fine. They get credit for reducing emissions in another part of the world while polluting as much as they always did. Most emission proposals want to see the developing world reduce emissions by 80% by 2050. If they can just buy offsets in other countries, emissions won't come down. Furthermore, how will the US government verify that emissions are reduced in the Amazon (to continue the example)? They have a hard enough time keeping track of emissions in America.

But the real problem is that everyone thinks cap-and-trade will be easy. Sure, big industry will agree to cap-and-trade when the goals for reducing emissions are negligible and permits are given away. In order to meet the goal of 80% reduction by 2050 (80% of 2005 levels, not 80% of 1990 levels, like needed) stringent caps will have to be imposed. Why delay those cuts? Because it is currently politically impossible to make real cuts. Why will it be any different 5 years from now? At some point, this legislation will demand sacrifices from people and industry to be effective. I can't see our Congress passing any sort of deal given the mess they are currently making of health care.

So, all this adds up to a grim situation. Since the publishing of these articles, things have only gotten worse. US Copenhagen negotiators were hooping that cap-and-trade legislation would have passed through Congress before December so they could point to concrete steps taken by the US. But Obama and Congress are currently grappling with health care - it seems unlikely that they will find time fore cap-and-trade.

Even if the fanciful cap-and-trade targets were met and the low-hanging fruit was plucked, the climate would still get warmer. It takes hundreds of years for CO2 to be removed from atmosphere. We have started positive feedback loops that may spiral out of control. Thus, adaptation must be considered. Disease patterns will change. Agriculture will be affected, particuraly in the poorest parts of the world. Rising sea levels will displace millions of people. In addition to humanitarian concerns, climate change will destabilize the global political situation. Action plans need to be made now.

Update
My computer is out of commission. Hopefully I will be able to fix it. But until I do so, the quality of my posts might drop. I wrote this one by hand in my house and hurridly typed it at the cyber.

Ramadan is over Sunday or Monday. I had break fast at my doctor's house the other day and it might have been the best food ive eaten in Morocco. There was: pizza, custard pie with apples, apple and pear juice, homemade Moroccan pastry, delicious soup, dates, and tea. Wow. Makes me wish I spent more time with city Moroccans, eating their food.

I went to the health clinic the other day and the door to the exam room was shut. I waited for like 15 minutes before people came out. A woman had half of her head bandaged and it was obvious there had been a lot of blood. She had gotten into a fight with another woman and been struck with the tool that they use to harvest grass and wheat. It looks a lot like a scythe.

Yesterday I was talking with some young men outside. They started telling me that the European economy was better than the American economy - their proof was that the Euro is stronger than the dollar. I didn't know how to say in Tam, "The numerical value of a currency is arbitrary. It says nothing about the purchasing power of that currency or the state of the economy." But I explained that if a Moroccan went to America, he/she would get much more for his/her dirham than someone exchanging yen. But the Japanese economy is much bigger than the Moroccan one. It was the most complicated concept that I have ever explained in Tamazight. Success.

All is well. The maternal and child health workshop that I've been planning for months now has a date: October 7th, 8th, and 9th. I won't be writing a grant to ask for money on the PC website, but if you have interest in donating, your money will be well spent and appreciated.

Volunteer Community

2009-09-11T02:04:00.000-07:00

I have written a lot about Moroccans and Moroccan culture because I figure that’s what is new and interesting to the reader. In doing so, I’ve neglected one huge part of the volunteer experience here: spending time with other Americans.

There are about 200 Peace Corps volunteers in Morocco. There are a couple volunteers who are very isolated from other volunteers (more than 3 hours), but most volunteers live within an hour of another volunteer. That means that we congregate and see each other pretty often.

There are two volunteers that live in Tounfite (one hour away), my souq town. There is a third volunteer who shares Tounfite as his souq town. I see the three of them once a week when I go in for souq (unless they’re traveling). I have to go to Tounfite to use the post office and Internet, so I often see them on days other than souq. In addition to the four of us in Tounfite, there are seven other volunteers within four hours of me. I see some of those seven maybe once or twice a month.

Having Americans nearby me is very important to staying sane. When volunteers get together, we cook American food, vent about the troubles we are having in our site, and relax. It’s impossible to forget that you are in Morocco, but spending time with other volunteers lets you ignore that fact.

Being in Morocco has gotten progressively easier, meaning that my first six months were the hardest time. Back then, the only other Americans in Tounfite were a married couple: David and Kristin. They were very generous with their house and I felt welcome there anytime I wanted to unwind. They would cook me good food and we would talk or watch some American TV show on their computer. They joined Peace Corps a year before me, so they were already established in Tounfite by the time I got there. Thus, they were also helpful in giving me advice on how to manage difficult cultural situations and introducing me to people. I was very lucky to have them close by for the beginning of my service.

Living in the developing world, away from your family and friends for two years can be difficult at times. Sharing those difficulties with a small group of people naturally brings them close together. We are experiencing things that are impossible to completely share and explain with those back in America; we’re the only ones who understand what we’re going through. The isolation of Peace Corps means that a lot of the problems that people have are personal. When you’re alone for so much of the time, you learn more about who you are. It can be very intimate watching your friends struggle with that challenge while you are having your own struggles. At the same time, that makes sharing successes and happy moments all the sweeter.

While Peace Corps programming staff tries to put volunteers who are compatible with one another close by, that’s a difficult task (especially because Peace Corps has volunteers from 4 different sectors with 8 different bosses). Pretty much, you’re just thrown in this intimate environment with random people. It means that you don’t get to choose your friends. If your best friend during training was placed on the other side of the country, you’re probably not going to see them but a couple times during your service; you have to make friends with the people who are geographically close to you. Inevitably, that means that you have to be friends with people whose personalities may not closely match yours. Nonetheless, I think it works out pretty well in most cases. I like all the people that I live close by.

I was at a gathering with five other volunteers a couple weeks ago and it was an interesting experience. Five of us have been in the country for at least a year, so we’ve gotten to know each other. I think we were all, simultaneously, going through a bit of a rough patch, although some more than others. People were acting pretty weird; collective insanity is a better way to put it. Being in another country means that volunteers become de-socialized to behavioral norms. Such an evening, where people were so open (unintentionally open) with their personal problems, would be rare in America. But here, it wasn’t that far out of the norm.

The only downside to the volunteer community is that volunteers spend a lot of time with other volunteers. Being with other Americans is a lot easier and more comfortable, but it’s not why any of us came to Morocco. It’s difficult to find that balance between maintaining your sanity and spending the quality time in your site.

Update

Man I feel like that’s the least interesting post I’ve written in a while. I’ll stick to Moroccan topics from now on.

We have been getting a ton of rain over the past couple days. Rainstorms here are normally short and light. But we had a 24-hour long storm that was quite intense. My mud roof held up quite well and I only had one leak. All the water coming off the nearby mountains means that rivers rage and flood their banks, eroding fields and destroying crops. People ask me if that happens in America and I tell them no: we have soil to absorb the rain – there are only rocks here. It makes sense to people and lets me drive home my environmental message.

Ramadan is still happening, believe it or not. Sunday is the 23rd day in Morocco (out of 29 or 30, depending on the moon). I’m spending a lot of time reading and writing, still. Ramadan is boring. I’ve also been doing some exciting work; another volunteer and I, along with three Moroccan counterparts did HIV/AIDS and STI education with 20 sex workers. The primary language for the education was Arabic, but I was still able to participate in a productive way.

Ramadan

2009-09-05T07:25:00.000-07:00

First, response to the replies. Thanks for your input. Jillian, I don’t think we really disagree at all. Our differences on your first point result from where we live in Morocco. On the second point, I agree with you: misogyny is an appropriate label. I think we witness the same thing. I was just trying to put a new label to the behavior.

I was kind of disappointed that no one responded to what I thought was my most controversial claim: that some volunteers are racist. Is no one going to take issue with that?

Ramadan

Ramadan is the month when Allah (God) revealed the Koran (Muslim holy book) to Mohamed (God’s prophet). The Muslim calendar is lunar, so the month of Ramadan moves forward a little over a week every year.

All observant Muslims fast from sunup to sundown during Ramadan, the holiest month in the year. Fasting means no eating, drinking, smoking, sex, thinking bad thoughts, saying bad words. It seems that people are more diligent about making their prayers (Muslims are supposed to pray five times per day) during Ramadan. At the least, more men make their prayers in the mosque as opposed to the home. Ramadan is a month of prayer, reflection, and religious study. In the cosmic count that determines every person’s eternal fate after death, prayers made during Ramadan count twice as much in the good column. (In comparison, prayers made in Mecca (Islam’s holiest city) during Ramadan count for 100,000 times as much as normal prayers). So there is an incentive to be diligent about your prayers during Ramadan.

Last year, I fasted 30 straight days. I was very careful not to eat or drink. One day I accidentally ate, but it was an honest mistake. I’m being much less diligent this year. The first day of the fast I was traveling all day, got thirsty, and drank. With the month halfway elapsed, I have cheated on two other days. I considered not even fasting at all after a conversation I had with a Moroccan who does not fast. He said, “Why fast? You’re not Muslim. Be respectful, don’t eat in public. But there’s no reason to fast.” He’s definitely right, but I’m (half-heartedly) fasting anyways.

The hardest part of fasting for me isn’t being hungry or thirsty, but just being low energy for most of the day. I’ve been waking up at 9 am, taking a nap every afternoon, and going to bed at 11 or 12. Some days I wake up at 3 am to eat a snack and go back to sleep. There isn’t as much going on outside, so when I am awake I spend most of my time reading and writing. Ramadan is boring and passing slowly.

It’s impossible to write about Ramadan without writing about people’s generosity. I have not cooked a meal in my house for the entire month, and I don’t expect to. I get an invitation to someone’s house for the break fast almost every day. If I don’t get an invitation, my host family has extended a permanent invitation, telling me, “If no one else invites you, come to our house. Don’t eat in your house.” There was one day where I accidentally accepted too many invitations and got in trouble for forgetting to go to someone’s house. I really appreciate the invitations. It’s nice to get to know people in their houses. It would be miserable to fast and not be able to break fast with other people. Break fast is definitely my favorite part of the day and I start counting down the hours until sunset everyday around noon (only 7 hours left!).

Men stand outside in the center of town in the few hours before the sunset prayer. Time passes a little faster talking to other people and forgetting to check your watch every five minutes. The people who don’t pray in the mosque walk to their houses a few minutes before the call to prayer. In my host family’s house, I go in and say hi to my host mom and dad. The call to prayer goes off and they both make their prayers. I stare at the food, impatiently waiting for them to finish their prayers so I can eat. We break our fast by eating a date (as instructed by the Koran). We stuff ourselves with greasy, sugary food and sit back to watch the special Ramadan programming on TV.

The unfortunate part of Ramadan (for me) is that the month puts religion in everyone’s mind. I get at least twice as much harassment during Ramadan about converting. Several times a day, people ask me to convert. Everyone asks me if I’m fasting. When I say that I am, the next question is: “Do you pray?” My skill at deflecting these sort of questions is getting better, but some people can be persistent. As I’ve noted before, it’s normally the least observant people who give me a hard time. Some people tell me that Christianity and Jesus are bad and that Mohamed is the only path. I’m amazed at the lack of empathy that allows people to tell someone else (their friend) that their religion is bad. Everyone wants to know how I pray. I try to emphasize similarities (common God, common values) rather than reverence of different prophets. It’s unbelievable how persistent people are; after more than 15 months of living in my site, the same people are still trying to convert me. Last night, however, I was having the typical discussion and a couple guys were giving me a hard time for not being a Muslim and two others told them to leave me alone. They made arguments about how Christians and Muslims were similar, not different. That was nice.

The strange thing about the constant requests for conversion is that it turns me into a vehement defender of Christianity. I frequently end up arguing things that I do not believe. For example, Muslims think the idea that Jesus is the Son of God is absurd and I happen to agree with them. But I feel that I have to defend this position in order to maintain the myth that I am an observant Christian (a Christian is acceptable, although inferior to a Muslim. An atheist is a deviant who would be ostracized).

Thank God, there are exceptions to the harassment. My host family is the most respectful of anyone that I’ve met. My host dad has said a couple times that I should think about converting, but never insistent and always respectfully. Once my host mom walked in on him telling me that and she said, “Don’t bother him about that. We’re all the same.” End of conversation. The families that I am closest with in town don’t give me a hard time at all. I appreciate that there are some people who don’t make in issue of religion.

One huge difference btw Morocco and America that I always forget about is how pervasive religion is here. People use God phrases ALL THE TIME and they say them in total sincerity. They are constantly thanking god and appealing to him for things. Example: on the taxi from Tounfite to Boumia yesterday, the woman sitting next to me whispered to herself “adi rbbi ster” the entire time continuously. That means “God protect.” I didn’t even think it was weird. Can you imagine someone doing that in America? I can’t.

Books

In my reading time, I’ve been working on two very hard-hitting books. First is A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Examining the history of the oppressed and downtrodden (rather than the political elite) in United States history, it presents a very different view of what our country has been through. According to Zinn, our history is one of violence, racism, sexism, and the powerful keeping the weak in their place. My favorite part of Zinn’s book is his admission, from the outset, that his presentation of history is biased. All histories are biased, he’s just the only one to say it.

The second is The Road to Hell by Michael Maren. Maren was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya and afterward worked for USAID in Kenya and Somalia. He was extremely jaded by his experience with USAID and reading his account it’s no wonder why. Maren’s job at USAID was to monitor the distribution of food aid to Somalis. He started reporting massive problems in the distribution, but then found that none of the higher ups in USAID wanted to know about it. Food aid in Somalia was stolen by elites and sold to buy weapons and buy off political opponents. Free food removed Somalia’s incentive to regain food independence. Food aid programs taught people how to game the foreign aid system, not how to wean themselves off of it. Worst is the way USAID and other aid agencies were aware of the deleterious effects that their actions were having and simply looked the other way; if they canceled their programs, they were out of a job. The real demon in the story appears to be Save the Children. As characterized by Maren, Save is guilty of profiteering, exploitation, willful deception, and complicity in allowing their resources to be used by war criminals to perpetuate Somalia’s problems, rather than address them. Maren managed to obtain internal documents from both Save and the UN that expose the agencies awareness in the disastrous consequences that their programs were having.

Perversely, from Maren’s point of view, the root of the whole disaster of food aid is the agricultural lobby in the United States. Subsidies and protection from foreign imports encourage US farmers to produce far more food that can be consumed in the US every year. If the food were released into the US market, it would eat into farmer’s profits. So US agriculture convinced USAID to buy its surplus and dump it in African markets under the guise of a “Food for Peace” program. They don’t care how much food Africa needs, they just want the government to buy their food to keep prices high. Having cheap/free food come into Africa undercuts local farmers and thus creates dependency on food aid. Furthermore, some 75+% percent of “aid” contracts are mandated to go to US corporations. “Aid” legislation seems to be corporate interests fighting over the distribution of handouts. African politicians are stealing millions from their people, but it’s really nothing compared to the corruption in the US government.

It’s a must read for anyone joining the Peace Corps or hoping to work for any aid agency. Somalia is just one case and probably the one where foreign intervention has had the most negative effect, but the underlying reasons that foreign aid corrupted Somalia apply to any recipient country. It’s important to ask why countries that have received aid for decades are still the poorest countries in the world. Only one country (South Korea) has gone from being an aid recipient to an aid donor. Aid was important to South Korea’s development, but the real reason it has succeeded is good governance and economic policies.

While in Peace Corps I’ve read three other books that are critical of development (Dead Aid, White Man’s Burden, and The Village of Waiting). As a whole, the four books make foreign aid seem like the worst thing that could have happened to the “developing” world. As I see it, the three biggest flaws in aid agencies strategies are: 1) not understanding the situation in the country 2) their top-down approach and 3) agencies’ ulterior motives perverting the implementation of their program. Reading these books makes me think that aid workers ought to be required to take the Hippocratic oath: first, do no harm. I’m struggling with a bigger question: Is it possible to spur development through foreign intervention? Working for the World Bank or another development agency is something that I am considering after finishing school. Is it possible to do good while working for such an agency or are you just a cog in the machine?

I don’t believe that helping the downtrodden is a moral imperative, but I do have compassion for those who are less well off. Is there any way to act on that compassion that isn’t inherently condescending? From The Road to Hell, “The more time I spent in the village the more aware I became of the connection between the desire to enlighten, to do development work, and the desire to rule.”

Another thing

The linguistic diversity nearby me is incredible. I was talking to a man from a village 10 km away. I can understand him well enough to communicate, but not nearly as well as I understand people from my community. People in my town say that people in other towns talk differently. There is a greater difference in language between my town and a town 10 km away than there is between boston and los angelos, separated by 5000 km. The linguistic variety suggests just how isolated these villages were until French colonization.

Besides these heavy issues, all is well here. We got a big rainstorm September 1st, marking the beginning of fall. Day time temperature is very nice. We get a rainstorm every afternoon and then evenings are cool.

Racism as I see it in Morocco

2009-08-30T05:50:00.000-07:00

First, thanks to Jillian for your kind words. It's nice to hear that. I hope you don't change your mind after reading this next post. Let me reiterate the point that I've made in other posts: my experience is mostly from my village; it's not representative of Morocco as a whole.

Racism as I see it in Morocco

Before I get into this topic, a couple qualifiers. First, this is what I’ve witnessed; it doesn’t apply to all Moroccans. It would be pretty hypocritical to say, “All Moroccans are racist in this way.” Given that I live in one of the least educated, least cosmopolitan regions in the country, it’s likely that I witness stronger attitudes. Also, I apologize for any under or misrepresenting that I have done. It’s important to take my position as a white male into account when reading this post; obviously my perspective is different than a person of different race. Finally, this is a touchy issue; there’s no way to write it that reflects well on anyone. Same for America; if you wrote a history of racism in America, it would not be pretty.

There is a lot of racial tension between Arabs and Berbers (although I use the word Berber in this essay, Amazigh is the word that Berbers call themselves. Berber is the name that the Romans used, meaning barbarians). Berbers have been in Morocco for thousands of years, whereas Arabs came to the country starting in the 9th century A.D. There is a history of conflict between the two groups, with Arabs being the dominant side. As I experience it, most people identify their ethnicity (Arab or Berber) by the language that their parents speak, but the truth is much more complicated. Although Arabic is the dominant language in Morocco, some 70-90% of Moroccans have Berber blood in them. But it is rare to meet an Arabic speaker who identifies as ethnically Berber. I have experienced negative attitudes towards Berbers amongst Arabs. When I first started traveling in this country, I was excited to tell other Moroccans who I met that I spoke Berber. Surprisingly, this elicited negative reactions from a lot of people; now I only tell certain people in certain cities that I speak Berber. Several Arabic speakers have told me, “Berber is like Chinese to me.” Others question why I learn the language; they say that Arabic is the only worthwhile language in Morocco. I’ve been told that Berbers are stupid, backwards, and uneducated. One man told me that before Islam came to Morocco and saved the Berbers, they were subhuman. Provinces that are traditionally strong Berber regions (Khenifra, my province and the Rif) were neglected under the previous King, although this trend has reversed somewhat under the current King. Berber-speaking children are taught in Arabic by teachers that do not even speak Berber. On the other hand, there are plenty of Arabic speaking Moroccans that get along just fine with Berbers. Mostly the tension between the two groups is a small issue. I have even met people who have taught themselves Berber because they were interested in the history and culture of the country. And the negative attitudes do not run just one way, either. Just this week, in my site, a couple of young men were telling me how dangerous Arabs are and that I need to be careful when I travel amongst Arabs. In fact people say that quite a lot in my site.

I believe that Jews are the most hated ethnic group in Morocco. Historically, there used to be a large Jewish presence in Morocco. Many cities have a “mellah,” which was the Jewish section. However, more recently negative attitudes have become the norm. Hatred towards Jews is open and not apologized for. In my town, the Berber word for a Jew, Uday, is used as an insult. One time in a large group I told people not to say bad things about Jews, that it is racism. They asked me why I was defending Jews, was I a Jew? I tutor a local girl in English and I was asking her about racism in Morocco. I asked her why Moroccans are racist towards Jews. She said that it wasn’t racism. She said Moroccans don’t like Jews because they are dangerous and sneaky. During Peace Corps training, Jewish volunteers are encouraged by Moroccan staff to keep their ethnic identity a secret because “coming out” could irreparably damage their community’s perception of them. Although Moses is accepted by Muslims as a prophet and the “old” testament is a part of the Islamic canon, there is a passage in the Koran that vilifies Jews and Pagans (I wish I could find exact passage, sorry). I’ve met one person who professed not to hate Jews. We were having a discussion about the political situation in Israel/Palestine and he was being pretty unfair against Israel. He said that, even though he was criticizing Israel, he wasn’t racist; he had “lots of Jewish friends.”

Black people are the target of a less vehement sort of racism. There are a couple of darker men in my site and they are often jokingly, disparagingly teased as being black. One adjective for black is sometimes used to mean “bad.” My host family and I were talking about racism and they asked me if I held racist feelings against blacks. I said no. They asked if I would marry a black person. I said yes. They said that they weren’t racist, but that they would never let one of their family members marry a black person. Lighter skin is seen as being more beautiful. An older Moroccan woman said to me, “I’m ugly. Look at my skin: it’s black!”

Other ethnic groups are also the target of racism. East and South Asians come to mind. There are a couple volunteers of East Asian descent that are teased. Young men in my site will pull their eyes tight if we’re talking about China.

I believe that some Moroccans have racist attitudes towards Moroccans. I know this sounds strange, but a recent experience with another volunteer who (sort of) appears Moroccan solidified my opinion. This racism against Moroccans is felt most strongly by Moroccan women. Another way to state this attitude would be to say that sexist attitudes are common in Morocco and that they are directed most harshly and frequently at Moroccan women. If a woman appears Moroccan, different dress and behavior is expected of her. White female volunteers certainly receive harassment, but with my limited experience I would argue that it is of a different sort. Because of her appearance, the volunteer who (sort of) appears Moroccan was held to the standard expected of Moroccan women, exposing the double standard. Dressed conservatively by American standards, but with her hair uncovered, the volunteer received lots of vulgar sexual harassment from Moroccans – harassment that a white woman would probably not get in the same situation. Swimming in the ocean, the volunteer received vulgar invitations that a white volunteer probably would not receive in the same situation. In her site, the volunteer was assaulted in public, in plain view of several people. When asked, after the fact, why they didn’t come to her assistance, the people said, “Because she looked Moroccan.” The volunteer speaks Arabic well, making it easier to confuse her as Moroccan. She says that she sometimes intentionally makes mistakes so that people will be more likely to perceive her as American. I’ve heard of Moroccan looking male volunteers receiving milder harassment such as bars refusing to serve them alcohol, but primarily this racism affects women. A Moroccan certainly wouldn’t call this racism; they might say that white women are given more freedom because they aren’t Muslim. But if people are making a judgment about an individual because of their (perceived) membership of a racial group, that’s racism. Another example: in my site, the women from out of town (the teachers, nurses, and doctor) dress conservatively. It is expected of them. Female volunteers have come to visit me and they don’t cover their hair and don’t dress as conservatively as the Moroccan women. They have never received any harassment. There is a different standard for them. If this volunteer who (sort of) appears Moroccan came to my site, I would worry that men in my site might harass her.

Finally, it would be terribly unfair to talk about racism in Morocco without discussing racist attitudes held by foreigners towards Moroccans. The histories of French and Spanish colonialism in Morocco are one of condescending paternalism and harsh suppression. Today, tourists treat Moroccan customs as exotic, queer curiosities to wonder and gawk at. I’ve heard some virulent, disdainful comments about Moroccans cleanliness and hygiene. Worse than the tourists, however, are the foreigners who live in Morocco and make terrible generalizations about Moroccans. Peace Corps volunteers, unfortunately, express some racist attitudes. You would think that living with Moroccans would improve volunteers’ ability to make distinctions between individuals within a group, but I think living here has increased racism amongst volunteers. “Moroccans are … stupid, unclean, sexist, dogmatic, lazy, etc.” If one were to substitute the word “Moroccans” for another group such as “blacks” or “Jews,” the statement would become unpalatable for the very person who uttered it. Yet volunteers make these sort of statements without batting an eye. I don’t want to hold myself up on a pedestal on this issue; I’m guilty of making sweeping generalizations as well.

So what to make of this? What I’ve written is kind of depressing. It calls into question the Peace Corps mission of increasing world friendship if Americans living in other countries increases animosity and misunderstanding. For the most part, PC volunteers are liberal do-gooders who had bought into the “world friendship” thing before they came over, making their conversion into bitter people all the more unfortunate. There are volunteers who have had negative experiences who will leave the country with a bad taste in their mouths. It’s sad to see. I argue, however, that good outweighs the bad. Personally, I’ve had some negative experiences, but I hope that readers of my blog recognize that my time here in Morocco has been overwhelmingly positive. I hold some negative opinions of Moroccan culture, but mostly the exchange between cultures has been good. I think that most volunteers would agree.

Update
It’s Ramadan. For those unaware, Ramadan is the month that the Quran was revealed to the prophet Mohamed. It is a holy month in the Islamic calendar (the calendar is lunar, so Ramadan moves forward a little every year). Good Muslims should abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, sex, speaking bad words, having bad thoughts from sunup to sundown for the entire month. Sunup is the time when you can distinguish a black thread from a white one, meaning that is still dark – 4:15 am this morning in Morocco. Sundown is the setting of the sun, not darkness – 7:00 pm last night.

For me, Ramadan is a time of stomach pain and unhealthy eating patterns. I feel uncomfortably hungry for most of the afternoon. When I break fast, I normally gorge my shrunken stomach to the point where I am uncomfortably full for most of the night. Most people in my village eat two or three meals a day during Ramadan: break fast, dinner, and a meal at 3:30 am before the sunrises. I’m always too full to eat dinner and I don’t like waking up at 3 to eat and fall back to sleep on a full stomach, so I pretty much eat one meal a day.

The best part about Ramadan is that I get invited over to lots of people’s houses to break fast. Each house has slightly different food and it’s mostly all delicious. Thursday night I went over to one of my friend’s house for break fast and I ate a lot. I’m quite fond of his wife’s food. My stomach was feeling uncomfortably full. I went to my host family’s afterwards to say hi and my host mom gave me a bunch of grief about not coming to their house to break fast. She said that she had made extra food just for me and it was going to go bad. She asked me to have a piece of buchiya, a flat bread cooked on a skillet. My host mom’s buchiya is my favorite; she prepares it with large amounts of fresh, melted cow butter. So I said yes. After I finished eating, I really thought my stomach might burst. I told them how I was feeling and they taught me a Berber saying: “Cchigh s alln.” It means, “I ate with my eyes [and not my stomach].” It seemed very appropriate.

Things are good. Everything is slow during Ramadan. Work doesn’t happen as quickly, but I’m moving forward on a couple of projects. For our hammam project, it looks like a hammam is going to buy one of the stoves that we were “selling,” so that’s a very positive outcome. I might partner with the volunteer that I worked on the hammam project with to do a household stove conversion project. Mostly though, I lay around my house, reading and writing. I go out and hang out with people for a couple hours every day to pass the time. This year, a friend and I have taken to riding our bicycles to a nearby spring 30 minutes away in the couple hours right before break fast. It’s a good way to pass what is normally the hardest part of the fast.

Yes=Yes/Maybe/No

2009-08-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

I recently came to an important realization: the word “yes” or any affirmation in Morocco (or at least in the parts of Morocco that I’ve worked in) does not actually mean yes – or at least not always. There are times when “yes” means yes, but it often means “perhaps” or even “no.” Before I figured this out, I was often frustrated by miscommunication; I thought yes meant yes. But now that I’ve adapted a more fluid meaning for the word, it’s a lot less stressful. Although coming to this realization has been upsetting at times, I don’t want this post to sound negative. I’m just trying to pass on an interesting cultural difference. A couple examples help better illuminate my point. All the examples are related to work, but stuff like this happens with everyday life as well.

I am often approached by association members (civil society in Morocco) with project ideas. Some people think that I have a lot of money to throw around (although they are slowly being disabused of this notion) and so they want me to give them money for projects. At first I was very excited by these constant proposals – even if I didn’t have money to offer to these projects at least people were thinking about the needs of the community and we could progress from there. Whenever people proposed an infrastructure project (normally bathrooms or running water) to me, my big message to them was to prepare an estimate of all the materials that they would need for the project and how much it would cost – a budget. The water association in my town, for example, has asked me several times to help them replace the pipes; I tell them I need to know how many meters of pipe they need and how much it costs. They tell me, “OK, yeah, I will do that.” I tell them to figure out the project and tell me everything they would need. They started asking me over a year ago – I have yet to see a single estimate. Two explanations. First: they are illiterate and can’t write up a budget. My question, “Well why don’t they work with someone who is literate (there are many people who can read/write in my community) to prepare the estimate together?” Possible response: they are embarrassed to ask someone to help because it means admitting they are illiterate (although everyone knows that already). A second possible explanation is that an outside body installed the pipe system without their help, so the water association has no idea how much pipe they need or how much it costs – they just want me to replace it. So rather than tell me the problem (illiteracy and accompanying shame, ignorance about the situation) and allow me to address it, the water association told me, “Yes, OK, we can do that.”

Working on the hammam project, another volunteer and I have been trying to get the address of a hammam in the province that has upgraded their boiler. A trip to an already converted hammam would be an extremely useful tool for convincing hammam owners to make the conversion as well. For months we have been asking CDER (center for developing renewable energy), which is the organization that designed the improved stoves, for the address. Every time they tell us: “Yes, OK.” We have been asking for an address, phone number, even a name for something like 5 months now. Nothing. If they have the information, it would be painfully easy for them to give it to us. Nothing. What explanation can there be, other than that they don’t keep such records and just never told us that? They have been a generally motivated, helpful project partner, but they have not given us this information. They tell us they have it and they can give it to us. But nothing.

A project that I wrote a big grant for ended up falling through for political reasons, so I have to give back the grant money to Peace Corps. I went to Midelt, where I had deposited the money in a bank account. The bank teller there told me that the money is in a joint bank account and that I cannot access it without the authorization of the association that I was working with (and they cannot access without me). Frustrating. I told the bank that I was going to Rabat (7 hours away) the next day with the intention of giving the money back. I was pretty upset and letting them know it. Was there anything I could do to get the money? Answer, “No, you need the association.” Could a bank in Rabat help with the problem? Answer, “Yes, god willing.” Are you sure I won’t run into the same problem in Rabat? “It will be fine, god willing.” When I went to Rabat (I had other business there) the bank turned me away. I realized that the bank in Midelt was willing to tell me what I wanted to hear in order to get me out of their bank. But if fixing the money problem had been my sole purpose for travel to Rabat, they would have been sending me on a long, expensive journey for nothing.

Continuing this story, I then went to the man with whom I was working with to see how I could get the association’s permission. He told me that he would talk to the president and get their papers in order and that in 15 days I could get the money. I returned 15 days later and he told me to come back in another 15 days: “It’s no problem, really.” 20 days later he told me, (at least 50 days from the original promise) “The problem is almost fixed, really. I consider it practically resolved.” I asked him why he kept telling me that everything would be fixed in 15 days, but it wasn’t true. He said, “That’s just how Morocco is. You shouldn’t let it frustrate you. It’s how things work here.” It was aggrivating that he was excusing his own tardiness for larger cultural reasons, but at the same time I benefited from that message in the long run. I came in demanding that the problem be fixed, but really, he has no power over seeing it resolved. It came out later that what I really needed to do was to go to the Caid (regional Ministry of the Interior official) and ask him to put pressure on the president. But rather than admit his helplessness, the guy would rather promise me things that he couldn’t affect. I went to the Caid today, he called the guy and the Caid told me, “The problem is resolved, you will be able to get your money in a few days.” I feel a little better about it after having talked to the authority that is the Caid, but I have finally learnt enough to expect more problems. Whether or not the Caid actually has power over seeing the problem resolved, I have no idea.

That experience has been very instructive, but two other episodes, where I was on the other side of the dialogue really drove home the “Yes=Yes/Maybe/No” idea.

An association guy asked me if I could help him organize a blood drive. I was skeptical, but told him I would look into it and answer in a week. A week later, I came back and told him I had no resources that could be helpful; I wasn’t interested in doing the project. I was blunt and honest – I didn’t want him to get his hopes up. He said, “Oh, well, keep looking, you’ll find something.” I told him, “To be honest with you, do not to expect anything from me.” He said, “It’s OK, God willing, I’m sure if you look you will come across a way to help me.” I realized that I had given the wrong response: I wasn’t supposed to be so honest. I was supposed to tell him “yes” even though I didn’t mean it.

For the hammam project, another volunteer and I were in Rabat with Peace Corps programming staff and an association from Midelt (where the project is based). At the end of the meeting, PC programming put a lot of pressure on the association member to provide transport for hammam owners to Ifrane (2 hours away) if necessary. He told the association guy that it was critical that they contribute to the project in this way. I knew that the association guy could not provide such accommodations for 20 people, but he told our programming yes. In Peace Corps’ office, asked by a man of superior status, he could not say “no,” even though he could not actually give what was being asked of him.

This is hardly an exhaustive list; I could think of 10 more such examples. What to make of this all? Well, it’s frustrating, first of all. It’s difficult/impossible to make plans for future work if you are dependent on the word of someone that you have no reason to trust. There is little correlation between what is promised and what actually happens. I thought: “maybe there’s some cultural thing that I am missing and a Moroccan knows when a ‘yes’ is a ‘yes’ and when it’s a ‘no.’ But a couple other episodes make me think that this is not the case – our Peace Corps programming staff (Moroccan) was just as fooled by the promises of CDER. I think, in the end, unless you know someone very well, you cannot take their word at face value. You must be skeptical and expect things to work out different than you plan.

Western writers often attribute this uncertainty to the “inchallah” (God willing) factor. Muslims often follow any talk of the future with “inchallah” to demonstrate God’s ultimate control over their destiny – it’s not really up to them. Sometimes “inchallah” is used to politely turn down an invitation. For example, the other morning in Midelt, I was invited to come over to tea in the afternoon. I told the invitee that I was leaving Midelt in 30 minutes; I wouldn’t be able to come over. The guy again invited me over and I said, “Inchallah.” The guy knows I won’t come over.

While the “inchallah” thing partially explains “yes=yes/maybe/no,” it’s incomplete. “Inchallah” is one way that people say “yes” and mean “no,” but it’s not the only way. Furthermore, it doesn’t explain why people can’t just say “no.” For me, the biggest reason is about saving face. In many of the examples I gave above, the person put in the position of making a promise would lose face if they said “no” and admitted that they had no control over the situation. Appearing powerful is important here and people are especially inclined to appear capable/powerful to the American. Take the case of the man telling me that the money problem would be fixed in 15 days: In all actuality, he has no/little control over the problem. But he likes me coming into his office because it makes him look important and he likes talking to me. So he keeps giving me an excuse to return (before I learned that the project had fallen through, he kept telling me it was nearly ready to be started even though he knew it was already failed). When he fails to come through on his promises, he can hide behind Moroccan bureaucracy (a problem that I acerbically criticized in another post). Generally, when people fail to come through on their promises there are no repercussions or consequences – it’s almost expected. In all the cases that I have had my expectations not met, I have no power to hold the person accountable.

Update
I got back on Sunday from my vacation in Chaouen. My last post was about the hike through the mountains, which was the best part of the trip. I spent the rest of the week walking around Chaouen and seeing the sites there. It is a beautiful medina, painted a dreamy, light blue. Being right next to the mountain, the city is flush with springs; there is a public fountain around every bend in the road. The only downside to Chaouen is all the tourists. Since the city is small compared to other tourist destinations and the tourists all tend to concentrate in the medina, they really stand out. I also went to Oued Laou for a day. It’s a small town on the Mediterranean. It was good to lie on the beach for a day and swim.
On the bus ride back to my site, I had one of the most normal interactions I’ve ever had in Morocco. I was sitting next to a 24-year-old woman who lives alone in Meknes. We talked about her work (she is a agricultural technician) and about my impressions of Morocco. Religion never once came up. When the bus stopped for break-fast (it was the first day of Ramadan), there was a mad scramble for food. She bought us both food and we sat down together and ate it. I know this all sounds boring, but to me it was a very pleasant reminder of how modern other parts of Morocco are. I’ve never had a meal with a Moroccan female in public before.
Back in site, Ramadan has started. Last year I was enthusiastic about fasting and people gave me a lot of encouragement. This year, I’m much less enthusiastic and everyone expects that I’ll fast. It’s going to be a lot harder not to eat something in the privacy of my house.
I just finished reading a book called 1491, by Charles C. Mann. I recommend it highly. It’s a synthesis of recent archaeological work that challenges the prevailing wisdom about the Americas before Columbus. It’s thesis is that the Americas were vastly more populated with more advanced civilizations than we learned about in high school. Not everything in it is new, but it was a real eye opener for me. It’s an especially good book for anyone who is feeling that his or her white guilt levels are low.
Besides being hungry and thirsty, everything here is good. As you can tell from the sarcastic tone of my post (written before my vacation) I probably needed some time away from work. I’ll try to post again this Sunday to get back on my weekly schedule.

Vacation

2009-08-18T02:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry for posting late. I am on a trip; I thought I had uploaded my post to my USB, but I hadnt. So I have to write this post from the cyber. Next weeks post will probably be a couple days late as well. This entry is going to be sort of a running diary again; I dont know how else to describe whats happened the last few days.

Vacation

Friday morning I woke up early in my site and caught transit to Tounfite, then Boumia. Another volunteer and I had a meeting with an association guy about a project. It went alright. I took transit to Midelt, had lunch, then caught a bus to Meknes. I was trying to find transit to Chefchouen, but there was none til the next morning. Hotels were very full, so I got a spot on a roof. In Meknes I had some interesting conversations. The one that stands out is with this group of guys sitting on the hotel stoop. We got into the normal religious discussions and I heard the most insensitive things Ive heard yet. The guy had some confused ideas about christianity and he was just railing on the religion. I didnt know how to respond; suppose I really was a Believer, how dare he say such virulent things about my religion? Would I ever dare to challenge Islam like that to a Muslime? No. He started talking about how there are mosques in every country, so the call to prayer is always going off somewhere. He said "I think if the call to prayers stop, the world would stop turning." Which obviously shows an ignorance for history. Most of the time talking with people about religion makes me more tolerant, this conversation made me less so.

The next day I got up at 330 am (actually, I didnt sleep. I stayed up til 330.) I took the 4 oclock bus to Chefchouen, getting in at around 830 or 9. I was amazed by the towns medina. Many of the buildings are painted this dreamy light blue color. It feels very tranquil in the morning. I had breakfast, bought some food, then started my trek.

The town is originally called Chouen, which means "peaks." Chefchouen means "look at the peaks." Either way, the name is appropriate. The peaks are big and awe inspiring. Theyre not actually that high in altitude (the highest nearby peak is 2000 meters, compared to the 3800m peak near my village) but they start from near sea level. They are the greenest peaks in Morocco, by far. They sit right near the Mederiteranean Coast, so they get a ton of precipitation from the Sea. Trees are everywhere, its so green. Springs and streams seem to be around every turn. The mountains are very steep, which means that youre constantly doing switchbacks; changing your perspective of the mountain. The first day was a hard hike. It was hot, I was very tired, and I had to climb like 800 some vertical meters to get to this pass. Great views of the mountain and looking back into the valley. I made it through the pass and descended a little way to where a small house converted to hotel was. In the valley, the climate changed noticeably. On the Chouen side it had been hot and kind of dry. Now it was cool and wet. The trees were different. The hotel was comfortable with good food and a shower.

The next day was an even more amazing hike. The mountains were even steeper and the climate was quite different. A bank of low clouds rolled in off the ocean and kept things wet and cool for most of the day. I had my Lonely Planet Map and two paragraph description of the days hike as my guide, but that turned out to be insufficient. I later realized that the Lonely Planet Map says "not suitable for navigation." Oops. After some scrambling over backcountry I ended up on a path, although not the path that I thought I was on. (My motto for the hike was: Im not looking for the path, just a path that goes in the right direction). I dropped down into a mostly dry river bed and hiked down it, going North, for a while. The going was tough. The rocks were big and it was obvious that in Spring time the bed was full of rushing water. The cliffs on either side of the river bed loomed over me, high and impossibly steep. The river bed started to fill with water and I saw a path heading up the mountain in the direction of the village that I was aiming for, so I took it. I made it high up on one bank of the river, looking down several hundred vertical feet at the river below. My guidebook said that I ought to "descend down to Akchour (the village with hotel I was planning to stay in)" at this point. I ended up on the wrong path, however, and made my way back down to the river bed. At this point in the river bed, it was now a slowly flowing river. I got wet and ended up wading through portions. The cliffs were now directly next to the river. Before, if a part in the river was impassable, I would scramble on the riverbank around the difficult part. This was no longer an option.

I was a little worried, but the guidebook gave me some hope. I was about 1 or 2 miles south of the village. One mile from the village, on the river bed that I was walking, there is a tourist attraction (a river carved bridge that towers over the river). The guidebook says that it is possible to walk from the attraction to the village. So if I could just make it to this bridge, I would be in business. The river was getting more and more difficult; the water was getting deeper. I was carrying a pack with camera, Ipod, and phone, so I couldnt exactly get it wet. After a little while, I came upon three Moroccans swimming in the river. They had stopped at this swimming hole where the water was quite deep and slow, maybe 15 feet. There was no way around the swimming hole. I had no path. The guys saw my dilemma and told me they would help me swim the sack over to the other side. It seemed like a good idea, or at least the best one that was available. Have you ever tried to swim while holding something above your head? Well I hadnt. Its very difficult. My sack had 3 books in it, some clothes, some other stuff, so it wasnt light. But between the 4 of us, we passed, dropped, and swam the bag across the (long) swimming hole. I walked the rest of the way with these guys and hung out with them the rest of the night.
The next day, Monday, I walked back to Chouen. The last day was thankfully relatively easy. There were lots of confusing paths, but the area was more inhabited so I could ask for directions.

What to say? These mountains are amazing. I couldnt stop taking pictures; over 200. The people living back in the mountains have interesting lives. They are extremely isolated. The roads are terrible. I cant imagine what its like in winter. I wouldnt call them welcoming, but they were nice to me. One thing that I havent mentioned thus far is their sources of income: basic farming, herding goats, basic tourist stuff, and growing marijuana (actually kif, which is less potent than marijuana). Marijuana fields cover the land that is flat enough to grow on (most of the land isnt flat enough). I read that 90 percent of farmable land in these mountains is used for marijuana. The Rif mountains are historically the most neglected area in Morocco. Underdeveloped, underfunded, poor. Cultivating marijuana has brought these people some money. The downside of it is that most all the farmers, as far as I could tell, smoke a lot. Kids as well. The kif plant is such a pervasive part of their lives.

Peace Corps does not have any sites for volunteers in the Rif, mostly because of the drugs. The drugs would be a big obstacle for a volunteer, but it is exactly the sort of place that Peace Corps work could be helpful. It would be extremely interesting to learn about the people of the Rif.

Im back from the trek now, in Chouen. The city itself is overflowing with tourists. Ive been speaking with them a lot and Im developing a negative opinion. Theyre ignorant and disrespectful of the culture. Before I came to the hostel, there was this French guy who had been living in Chouen for 2 months at the hostel. He had learned a couple words in Arabic; the other tourists at the hostel look up to him as being wordly and knowledgeable about Morocco. I couldnt believe it; this guys been living in a hotel for 2 months in one of the most touristy cities in the country, smoking hash and drinking all the time. Great. But Im trying to get over my negative feelings for the tourists, its unfair.

So far, this feels like a blessed vacation. The trek was incredible. Every bend in the path brought a new surprise. Reflecting honestly on my choices on the trek, I may have been not planned well enough ahead of time. But every time that I was in a pinch, I had some luck. The two biggest languages here are Arabic and Spanish, so those are fun to practice. My Arabic is coming along nicely, but I would need some prolonged exposure if I was going to get good.

I hope all is well. Im meeting another volunteer here in a couple hours (ive been alone this whole time). Well stay in Chouen for another day, then head up to the Med Coast. Ramadan starts Saturday, so I would like to be back in my site for that. Take care.

My Week

2009-08-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

This entry is a journal of my week. This week was busier and involved more traveling than the average week.

Sunday
Woke up early – 4:50 a.m. old time. Waited a little while for a transit and caught something at 5:15. Got to Tounfite and ate breakfast. My host family had given me some money to buy food and send back to them, so I took care of that. Then I went to Boumia, then Itzer. I went to Laura’s house to meet with her and Logan. Logan and I talked a lot about the presentation that he was going to give about the hammam project. We talked about the project in general, future project ideas and other things. I showed him the report I’d written about the hammam project and we made some changes. We also talked about camping a night out in the mountains. I was trying to figure out my plan for the next day (whether or not I was going to Khenifra for a Ministry of Health meeting) so I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I wasn’t able to get in touch with anyone about Khenifra, so I decided to do it. We left around sunset and walked for maybe an hour and a half to a place that Logan and I had been before. It was a beautiful and cool night. The moon was 3/4 full and we could see really well even after the sun was all the way down. We decided to take a “short-cut” that ended up adding 15 minutes onto our walk. We were walking across some prickly, rocky ground wearing only plastic sandals. I kicked some thorny plants a couple times, but it wasn’t bad. We got to the camp and started a fire. We warmed up some stir-fried rice and put it in a sandwich with some sardines. It was pretty tasty. Logan had brought 2 beers with us and they were cooling in the creek; I went and grabbed them and we cracked ‘em open. It was a really nice night and we sat there talking for hours. Mostly we talked about the hammam project, but we also got into Peace Corps criticism quite a bit. We both feel that Peace Corps has potential to be more potent and effective and we’d like to see it change. Later, we talked about development in general…which invariably led to discussions about our future careers. It’s difficult to pass on that topic of conversation. Probably around midnight we decided to call it a night. The sleeping bag that I had borrowed was a little thin and the night was chilly, so I was a little cold. But not enough to prevent me from sleeping OK.

Monday
We woke up around 730 or 8, ate breakfast and walked back. The return walk was much quicker because we didn’t take the short cut. I tried to get in touch with people at the Ministry of Health and my Peace Corps programming staff to figure out whether or not I had a meeting the following day in Khenifra. I’m still trying to get authorization from the Ministry for a couple projects. Well after some miscommunication and confusion, it turned out I couldn’t go. The Ministry guy that is assigned to Peace Corps volunteers is on a vacation and so I can’t have contact with the Ministry without him. He may be in Khenifra Wednesday or Thursday so I might go to the city then. After I got that figured out, I went to Boumia. From Boumia, Tounfite. I did some errands in Tounfite and then went to David and Kristin LaFever’s old host family for afternoon snack. There is a newborn in the family and she was there. She is a cute little baby. Following that, I went to the cyber cafe. From there a volunteer’s house in Tounfite to go to sleep.

Tuesday
I woke up early again Tuesday to catch transport back to my site. Tuesday happened to be a national holiday and the normal transit that I take in the mornings was not running, so I had to wait several hours. I finally got to site and went to my host family’s house for lunch. I was tired in the afternoon and took a nap. I hung out outside with people in my site in the evening. I had dinner at my host family’s.

Wednesday
I woke up at 5:30 Wednesday to catch transit. The transit was late and I waited til 6:15 before leaving. The ride was slow and the transit was having engine issues. I didn’t get to Boumia (normally a 2 hour ride) until 9. I went to a café to have breakfast and wait for the volunteer (Logan) that I was meeting. We were meeting in order to go to a hammam in Boumia that had expressed interest in converting its stove. When Logan got to the café we sat for a while and talked about strategy. Then we went to the hammam and talked to the owner. We have grant money to offer a couple hammams as enticement to make the conversion soon. We made our offer and told the guy we would be back in a week with the contract and he would have to make a decision then. He was receptive and I think that the hammam will decide to convert their boiler. Then we went to the pharmacy to look for speculums, which I need if the doctors from my site are going to do exams on women here in Boumia. Next, I called my representative at the Ministry of Health in Khenifra. He told me that he could meet with me the next morning. So I waited a little while in Boumia before a bus to Khenifra pulled up. Two hours and half sweaty, sleepy hours later I was in Khenifra. It was 5 o’clock by this point. I have a friend in a town nearby Khenifra, so I took a taxi to her site. A couple other volunteers were there. We made dinner and then went to the carnival that is in town. I rode a Ferris wheel. We went for a walk around town, returned to the volunteer’s house, and went to sleep.

Thursday
I woke up at 6:20 Thursday to catch transit back to Khenifra for my 8 am meeting. I got to the Ministry of Health and met with the Peace Corps contact there. Basically all I wanted from his was authorization for two projects: the training for local women to be “community health leaders” and pelvic exams for sex workers in Boumia. I explained the projects to him and then we waited for about 45 minutes for his supervisor to show up. The delegue (the man who normally gives permission for these sort of projects) was on vacation so we met with the second in command. He told me that the doctors who I wanted to do the exams could not do them because they were too far and the Ministry would have to pay for their transit. I told him that my association could pay for their transit costs and that the exams would be done on a Saturday – when they don’t have work. He said it was impossible, without giving explanation. He said the doctor in Boumia (a man) could do the exams. He also said that the exams couldn’t happen on the date that we had planned and that they would have to be delayed for several weeks (even though the Ministry is providing nothing but permission). As for the community health leader project, he said it was fine and that I ought to draw up a formal proposal to get permission. So the Peace Corps contact and I went back to his office and he drew up two draft proposals (in the required formal language) for me to work on. I supposed to send the proposals to him when I get them finalized and he told me they will be approved. All in all it was very frustrating. I went to a café and waited for a couple hours for the bus back to Boumia. I got into Boumia around 3 and then took a taxi to Tounfite by 4. In Tounfite I did some errands, then went to a café to wait for my transit. But for some unknown reason it had gone back early, so I had missed the last transit to my site. So I got some food and went to a volunteer’s house (who wasn’t there) to watch a movie and go to sleep.

Friday
I woke up at 7 to catch the transit back to my site. I got into my site and went to my house. I did some laundry and hung it out to dry. Then I fell asleep. I woke up and went to my host family’s for lunch. They chastised me for being out of town so much this week. In the afternoon, I read and then went to a house where I tutor a girl in English. I have pretty honest conversations with her about gender relations in Morocco and other interesting issues. In the evening, I hung out outside with men from my village. I had dinner at my host family’s.

Saturday
I slept in (8 o’clock). When I woke up, I watched a movie (The Breakfast Club), did some dishes, and read for a while. I went to my host family’s for lunch. In the afternoon, I walked around town a little and talked to people. I also spent some time in my house, watching the news and reading. I had dinner at my host family’s and wrote this entry.

So that was my week. It involved more running around the province than most other weeks. It was pretty tiring and frustrating at times. The progress on the hammam project was the most positive thing that happened. It’s good to have a couple different projects going on because it means that all my eggs are not in one basket. If one project is struggling or frustrating, I have another to fall back on.

Obama
I read a Time magazine article this week that was pretty critical of Obama and it got me thinking. I’m pretty happy with how he’s handling foreign policy. He’s making progress on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Iraq is going as well as could be expected. He’s convinced the Pakistani government to police its own borders. I don’t really like the cross-border drone attacks, but a recent one just killed a Taliban leader. And just the presence of someone who is not Bush does a lot for our image around the world.

Where he’s really having trouble is with domestic issues. The climate change bill is the biggest failing so far. Cap and trade has failed in Europe so far – emissions targets have not been met. Furthermore, the bill was only able to squeak through Congress because of concessions made to Democrats from big industry states. 85% of the quota credits will be given away (rather than auctioned), which opens to process up to cronyism and corruption. I hope I’m wrong, but I predict that the bill will fail to meet the emissions targets it has set. Worse is that the passage of the bill has pacified enough activists into thinking that the problem is being addressed. If you believe that climate change is a serious problem facing our world, please, be skeptical of a bill that was passed with the approval of the American coal industry.

Health care reform is also turning out to be a stumbling block. During the campaign, the big talk was about universal coverage/mandates. That doesn’t seem like a political possibility at this point. The bigger concern to me is curbing health care costs, which are projected to expand out of control in the coming decades. We have one of the least efficient health care systems in the world. Once again, political calculus in Congress seems to be preventing any genuine reform.

I’m happy with the stimulus and generally his handling of the economy. The stimulus was big and fast, which was the most important thing. But I’m worried that the people in charge of inventing new regulations for the financial industry don’t really know the best way to regulate the industry. I don’t think people understand the industry. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs, which received bailout money, posted a $3 billion profit in the second quarter. But unemployment is at 9.6%.

Domestically, Obama has been restricted by conservative Democrats in Congress. Democrats from Ohio, West Virginia, etc hold the deciding votes. Knowing that he may not be able to pressure these Democrats into voting for truly revolutionary measures, Obama has given Congress all the power to write the important bills. Maybe this is the only way to get the bills through, but bills like the climate change bill are barely worth being passed as they are. Furthermore, giving Congress all the power has meant that representatives get to dole out huge projects to their constituents. Just the kind of waste that Obama campaigned against.

So that’s what I think of Obama. I’m worried that instead of being a remarkable, revolutionary president at a time when great change was needed, he will, more or less, maintain the status quo. Despite his initial popularity, he is still a slave to Congress. He is unwilling/unable to demand that his party toe the line.

5 Legs Passenger Side Front, 3 Driver Side Front

2009-08-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I was in Boumia at around 7 pm. After 3 tiring days of work in Midelt, I was waiting for transport to Tounfite where I would spend the night. There were 9 other people who were also waiting for transport to Tounfite, creating possible competition for seats. A station wagon taxi pulled up looking to go to Tounfite. Everyone pushed their way towards the taxi; I went to the trunk and put my stuff there. A station wagon taxi can fit 10 people plus the driver, so I wasn’t too worried about getting a seat. The back row is smaller – three people squeeze into it. The middle row is bigger, it seats four. The passenger front gets two. These seats were all taken by the time I got my stuff situated in the trunk. Normally, the tenth passenger sits to the left of the driver. However, the driver of this taxi was a little bigger than normal and I wouldn’t really fit there. So I was instructed to sit to his right. I was sitting partially on the seat and partially on some metal/plastic thing in between the front seats. There wasn’t room for both my legs right next to the gas pedal, so my right leg was swung over on top of the left leg of the passenger to my right – 5 legs in the passenger side front. My left leg was near the gas pedal. In between my legs was the stick shift. My left arm went around the driver, out the window. And my right arm went around the back of the passenger seat. I was literally sprawled across the front row, sharing it with three grown men. The other passengers in the car loved it that I knew where the 10th passenger had to sit. The journey started. I quickly realized that shifting in and out of 2nd and 4th gear would be an uncomfortable proposition; the gear shifter came very close to my crotch. The driver’s forearm rested in my groin area when he changed gears. While accelerating he would shift gears – from 2nd to 3rd, for example – and leave his hand on the shifter (and forearm on my groin) in anticipation of another shifting of gears (to 4th). Despite this invasion of personal space, I found I didn’t really care. My left arm quickly fell asleep. I thought about telling people that my arm was falling asleep (in Tam you say: a fox has taken my arm) because people would love it. Halfway through the journey the man to my right moved his arm and started squeezing his fist – obviously his arm had fallen asleep. So I loudly asked if a fox had taken his arm and everyone started cracking up. After 50 minutes of discomfort, we pulled into Tounfite. I got out of the car and was able to limp to my destination.

When I left Midelt it was about 5:30 pm. I got into Boumia at 6:20. I waited for transport until 7. After 50 minutes in transit to Tounfite, it was only 6:50 pm. How did this happen? Rural areas do not observe Daylight Savings Time in Morocco. It was like changing time zones.

Work

This was another busy week for work, mostly with the hammam project. As a reminder, other volunteers and I have been trying to organize a meeting with hammam owners in a nearby town/city to convince them to switch their stoves to a much more efficient design so as to decrease wood consumption. I went to Midelt on Monday and met up with the volunteers. One was quite sick, so he went to the house we were staying in. The other volunteer, a Moroccan association president who has been critical in organizing the project, and I walked around town finishing up with invitations. The next day, Tuesday, we had lots of logistical stuff to take care of. Getting the key to the conference room from someone, which took lots of running around and permission seeking. Getting a projector, which also took lots of running around. Buying food, setting up the conference room, buying supplies (folders, notebooks), calling the hammam owners, and general last-minute setting up. We worked from 10 in the morning to 10 at night. The next day, Wednesday, we were up and off to the center by 7:30. The presentation was due to start at 9 am and we had a couple more loose ends to tie together. The first hammam owner arrived at about 8:50. A Peace Corps programming staff was there (she was the introductory presenter for the meeting) and the hammam owner talked with her for a while. After 9, more owners started trickling in. By 9:30, most of the invitees were there. Moroccan meetings traditionally start late. Our main presenter, a man from the Center of Development of Renewable Resources in Morocco was still not there. At 10 he was still not there – an hour after the meeting was supposed to start. We served tea and waited. At 10:30 he was still not there. I was pretty pissed at this point. We had called him and he was on his way, but we weren’t sure when he was going to get there. I couldn’t believe he would be so irresponsible/impolite to be this late. We have been working with this man for months and he is going to be late on the most important day? One hammam owner left (the one who had arrived early) and we were worrying that others might start to leave. We got a call from the presenter at 10:35 saying he was 20 minutes away, so the Peace Corps introductory speaker started. Just as she was finishing, the guy arrived and started his presentation.

Despite all the frustration and worry for us Americans, the presentation went really well. In the end, I don’t think it mattered to the hammam owners (who were the target audience) that the guy was nearly 2 hours late. It was a good lesson in attitudes about time for us Americans. The hammam owners were mostly interested in the new stoves – they should be: it will save them tons of money in wood costs. There are a couple main objections: 1) can we see a stove in action before we buy one? 2) will it work in colder weather? and 3) I just replaced my boiler; I will wait until I need a new one before I buy one of your stoves. The first objection should soon be remedied, we are trying to find the address of a hammam with a new stove relatively close by. The second objection is a needless worry: the stoves work in places colder than Midelt. The third objection is a poor argument: the improved stove will save the owner tons of money; the recently installed stove is a sunk cost. Despite these objections, at the end of the meeting we had 5 owners who were interested in buying a stove in the near future. Other owners were adapting more of a “wait and see approach.” I expect that if there were a functioning stove in another hammam in Midelt, they would also make the conversion. So, the meeting seems to have been a success. We have some grant money to offer as an enticement to the first owners to make the conversion, so we have to write that grant and submit it. Then we have to decide how to distribute that money. Also we have to write a report on the meeting and project in general. I wrote up a report for Peace Corps that I've copied to the end of the email if you want to read more.

After the meeting wrapped up around 3 pm, we went back to a volunteer’s house to rehash how the meeting went and share a celebratory beer. I had a couple errands to take care of, then I found transit to Boumia…, which is where this whole post started.

Update

When I got back to my site on Thursday morning, I had more work to do, of a different nature. My family is in the midst of their wheat harvest. I’ve learned enough about the work to be helpful and they depend on me to help out a little. My host dad is 73, so he isn’t very productive. My host mom is from out of town and doesn’t always know what’s going on. So the three of us make quite a site out in the fields. The main work of the last two days was gathering the wheat that had been harvested, stuffing it into giant plastic sacks, loading it on our mule, and walking the mule to a central site in town. It took a while. The fields weren’t as far away as last year (which was like 12 km – those fields lie fallow every other year), but they were far enough. Once we had gathered all the wheat, the threshing machine came and I helped throw wheat in the machine, which is an unpleasant job. Now we have 7 big sacks of wheat for bread.

My host Dad and I were unloading the last sack of wheat from the mule and the mule got upset and stepped on my big toe. I was being stupid that day and only wearing sandals. It hurt a little bit and started bleeding. We finished the work and my host Dad took a look at the toe. He looks at me and says something that I don’t really understand. He repeats it: “Give it water of liver.” I understand the words now, but the meaning is escaping me. He says, “Give it your water. Your water.” Ah, he wants me to piss on the wound. Interesting that pee is “liver water.” Instead of peeing on the wound, I washed it and applied antiseptic.

I was pretty helpful this year and my host family appreciated that. It was hard work, but I’d rather be active and helping than sitting in my house. It’s also a good experience to understand what people here go through in order to feed themselves. It makes me thankful for industrial agriculture. Without large-scale agriculture, everyone would have to slave away just to feed themselves. Education and development fall by the wayside when you’re working so hard to meet your basic needs. I’ve long been a critic of the American industrial food production system and it certainly needs to change, but I’m thankful that I don’t have to work long days to produce food as my life’s work.

Two of my host mom’s sisters are staying at my host family’s house. They have been there for about 3 weeks now. They do almost all of the housework while my host mom is out in the fields. They are educated and unused to life in the countryside. It makes me feel sorry for my host mom to know that she came from a wealthy, educated family and ended up here. I was talking with the sisters one day and they mentioned to me that this was their vacation. I said, “You took a vacation, came here, and found a bunch of work to do.” One of them told me, “That’s how it is. A woman can never be a guest. She is always working.”

When I was in Tounfite on Wednesday night, I had dinner with another volunteer’s house family (3 women) and a female volunteer. These women are used to volunteers. Also, I’ve known them for over a year now and they are very comfortable with me. We were talking about the midwife training (the family will host several of the trainees) and the women started telling birthing stories. One of the women partially gave birth while on the (squat) toilet). One of their friends gave birth in her pants. There was a story about a woman who went to cut wood in the mountains, finished cutting the wood, gave birth, then walked the donkey back to town with the baby on her back. One of the woman told me, “American women go to the hospital and relax. We work work work, then when we start labor we push it out really fast and keep working.” Wow.

Things are good. The success of the hammam owner meeting was encouraging. I may have some more exciting work this coming week: STI and HIV/AIDS work. I have some organizing to do to set up the event. I have to go to the provincial capital (Khenifra) to get authorization. Khenifra is a miserably hot city in the summer, so I’m not looking forward to that.

Report

Background

The Eastern High Atlas and Middle Atlas Mountains support hundreds of small villages and thousands of people. The natural resources in the mountains make life possible for the inhabitants. Trees provide energy for heating and cooking in addition to income from selling wood. Furthermore, as herders and farmers, people of these communities rely on high quality soil to grow their crops and feed their sheep.

With the help of community partners, the volunteers in these mountains have identified deforestation as a threat to the way of life of the mountain Berbers. Population in the region has exploded in recent decades. Additionally, standard of living has improved for inhabitants. These two factors mean that more people are consuming more resources, putting a stress on the natural resources. The dual stresses on the forests: shepherding and cutting trees for fuel threaten the future of life in these mountains. Resources are currently being consumed at an unsustainable rate. There are already mountain villages that have run out of trees to cut for firewood and herders are forced to take their herders further to find grass for their sheep and goats. It is potentially an existential threat.

In nearby towns such as Boumia, Itzer, Tounfite, Zeida, and Midelt, hammams (public baths) consume a substantial amount of wood. Heating water for washing requires hundreds of kilograms of wood in each hammam per day. The concentrated use of wood means that the reduction of wood in a few hammams has the potential to make a noticeable impact on the forests. Targeting individual wood use would require the behavior change of hundreds or thousands of individuals to have an impact on the forests. While far from solving the problems of deforestation and overgrazing, introducing improved stoves to hammams could have a measurable impact on the forest.

The Center for the Development of Renewable Resources (CDER) in Morocco has developed a stove for hammams that reduces consumption of wood significantly. CDER has worked with hammam owners and trained boilermakers resulting in several hundred to a thousand hammams converting to the more efficient stove. However, there are no efficient hammam stoves in the immediate region.

Project

The goal of the volunteers is to introduce local hammam owners to the technology of CDER in the hope that owners will want to convert their hammams.

On March 24th, volunteers organized a meeting in Itzer for local hammam owners. The meeting was funded by IDRB, which gave a presentation on renewable resource technology. Following the IDRB speaker, a representative from CDER (Mr. Makouai) gave a presentation on the CDER and technology for the hammam. Following the presentations, CDER representatives accompanied hammam owners and volunteers to four hammams, where diagnostics were done. The CDER representative told hammam owners that their hammams were too small and had too few clientele to make the conversion feasible. The meeting succeeded in spreading information about the improved hammam stoves, but it failed to convert any hammams.

Following this meeting, volunteers sought a nearby town that would have hammams more suitable to conversion; Midelt was the obvious choice. A town of over 30,000, Midelt will soon become the provincial capital. There are over 20 hammams in Midelt and several that have a large clientele base. Volunteers pitched the idea of hammam conversion to the president of the association Jeunes Sans Frontieres, Hicham Ouyouba. Hicham was excited about the project and willing to help.

In late May, on the advice of CDER representatives, volunteers and Hicham collected diagnostic information from 20 Midelt hammams. Although the data was far from perfect, it gave volunteers an insight into which hammams would be ideal for conversion. Working closely with CDER and PC programming staff, volunteers started to plan and organize a meeting for Midelt hammam owners. CDER’s presentation in Itzer was not designed with the intent to convince hammam owners to convert their hammams; volunteers hoped to advise CDER so as to improve their presentation and tailor it to their audience.

After some delay, the meeting with Midelt hammam owners (as well as some from Boumia) took place on July 29th. CDER and PC organized the delivery of a prototype stove to be on display during the meeting. Naima Oumousa, programming assistant for the Environment program, gave an introductory talk that explained the project and especially the environmental reasons that motivated Peace Corps. Volunteers wanted the hammam owners to know that the volunteers were not profiting from the sale of the improved stove. Next, Mr. Makouai from CDER gave a presentation explaining how the stove worked and how the stove would save hammam owners money. Throughout the project, volunteers have stressed to hammam owners that the stove is a good business move in addition to addressing environmental issues. A boilermaker from Marrakech who had constructed some fifty improved stoves accompanied Mr. Makouai. His experience and expertise were key in addressing the issues brought up by hammam owners. A spirited debate followed in which hammam owners seriously considered the implications of converting their hammams. The main remaining obstacle to conversion was that hammam owners wanted to see a functioning improved stove. Other concerns were how the stove would function in Midelt’s cold environment and the fact that some owners had recently bought new stoves for their boilers. Nonetheless, owners were very positive about the idea and several are seriously considering making a conversion. When the Naima told the hammam owners that there was a possibility of funding assistance for the conversion, four owners were willing to sign up to be considered for immediate conversion. Two of these hammams were poor candidates for conversion (as judged by the data gathered by volunteers two months prior), but two were excellent candidates.

The next step is working with these two hammams to ensure that a conversion is made. The volunteers believe that if a hammam is converted in Midelt and other owners are able to see that the stove works and saves money that other owners will make a conversions.

Conclusions

The meeting had two primary goals: First, to push a small number of hammams towards immediate conversion (with the added incentive of financial assistance). Second, to make the rest of the hammam owners aware of the technology and pique their interest enough to make them consider conversion in the coming years. Thus, it seems that the meeting accomplished both of its primary goals. However, more work remains.

There were also several positive secondary outcomes that resulted from the meeting. The capacity of CDER to make a targeted presentation to hammam owners was improved. The association Jeunes Sans Frontieres, in particular Hicham Ouyouba was heavily involved in the project. Their capacity certainly increased as a result of the project. Furthermore, the meeting and the work that went into preparing it increased community awareness of the environmental threats posed by deforestation and irresponsible use of natural resources.

Additionally, the meeting required the cooperation of several different organizations. PC programming provided invaluable advice and guidance, financial support, and gave an important presentation. CDER provided information, critical contacts, technical support, and gave the keynote presentation. IDRB was a primary financial supporter and advisor. Avance, an American association based in Midelt, provided financial support and gave advice. Jeunes Sans Frontieres was a critical partner, providing volunteers with contact to hammam owners, organizing the meeting, and helping with logistical issues. Their support was very important to the success of the meeting. Bringing all these different groups together provided them with potential work partners.

The volunteers would like to thank all of their partners. Peace Corps programming staff deserves special thanks for their help. In particular, the personal attention that Naima Oumousa gave to the project made it possible. Jeunes Sans Frontieres and its president Hicham Ouyouba also deserve a special thanks. He was also the primary community partner for the SIDA awareness run in Midelt. For two large volunteer projects over the course of 6 months, he has been the ideal partner for Peace Corps volunteers. He is intelligent, motivated, well-connected, and willing to provide his full support to a volunteer.

Work

2009-07-27T14:04:00.001-07:00

For the past two months, the majority of the work I’ve done has been organizing a training that will (hopefully) happen in September or October. I’ve got to get much of the work done now, ahead of time, because the grant that I will write for the project will take a while to process. Also, Ramadan is starting on August 22nd and I can’t count on being able to do any work during that month.

Last year three other volunteers and I held a Traditional Birthing Attendant (TBA) workshop. One of the other volunteers took the lead in organizing the training so I was just helping out. But that volunteer is gone, so organizing the training falls on me this year.

The focus of last year’s training was home birthing. But it became apparent as we were planning the training that there is only so much you can teach women during a three-day training. After the training we encountered another problem: just because we had trained these women didn’t mean that everyone in the village then sought them out to help with births.

These two lessons mean that the focus of this year’s training will be slightly different. Maternal and infant health is still the main community health priority so the same basic issues will be heart of the training. In addition to issues directly related to pregnancy and birthing, we will be talking about basic health issues in the home: hygiene, infant diarrhea (which killed two infants about a month ago in my village), and basic first aid. The other important change in the training will be empowering the trainees to spread what they learn during the training to their communities when they return. We will have them role-play scenarios in their communities where they can talk about the lessons of the training. We will also involve other community leaders in the training to assist in this dissemination of information. In terms of preventing maternal and infant mortality during childbirth, it’s easier to affect a change by increasing the number of pre-natal visits to the health clinic than by turning women into certified midwives. The success of the training will be judged by how well the women spread the information in their villages.

I solidified these conclusions in my mind during a meeting with the local doctors who will be running most of the training. We talked about the curriculum and we were in agreement about changing its focus. The new focus of the training means that volunteers will have a greater role in teaching during the training. Last year all the volunteers did was organize things behind the scenes. But this year we will be more involved in the classroom, which means that there will be more preparatory work. The meeting with the doctors was held on Thursday and it involved me running a meeting in French, which is my least favorite foreign language. There is something about the sounds and constructions of French that give my tongue a very difficult time.

Although the meeting in French with the doctors was the most intellectually demanding thing that I’ve done in a while, the other work for this training has been much more physically demanding: recruiting women for the training. The goal is to have two women from each village. Some of the trainees will be returnees from last year’s training and it was easy to recruit them. But the rest are from nearby villages that I am less well connected in. I spent much of my first year here making connections with people in these villages and I am now trying to use these connections.

In a village called L, I am friends with an association president and the moqadem (appointed for life, local Ministry of the Interior figure). I rode my bike 12 kilometers to L one day and told the association president about the project. I asked him to think about what women would be good for the training. I told him I would return in a week and we would go around and talk to the women. I came back in a week and he hadn’t done anything. He called the moqadem to his house and we talked about the project. The moqadem told me that he liked the project, but he had to get permission from the Caid (regional Ministry of Interior figure) before he could do anything: come back the next week. So I came back the following week and the moqadem had two names for me. One was his unmarried, 27 year old daughter (unmarried, kind of young, and well-connected is the ideal candidate). The other was a relative of the association president; she is 59 years old. I don’t like choosing women because they are connected to the people who I know, but I’m dependent on the village leaders that I’m working with to help me find women. Plus, after talking to the women I thought that they would be willing participants in the training.

In a village called T, I am friends with an association president. I walked 10 kilometers to T one day and told the association president about the project. This guy has been asking me for a long time to do a project with him in his village. He gathered another member of his association and they talked about who would be best suited for the project. They called a woman over to the house. She was 90 years old. I told them sorry, but she was too old. So they talked about the kind of woman they were looking for and I think they better understood what I wanted. They called another woman over the house and she was a good candidate. Interested, divorced, 35 years old, talkative. We talked with that woman about who else in the village would be good for the training and so we called another woman to the house, who was accompanied by her husband. We talked for a little while and the husband was unsure about letting his wife leave. I told them to think about it and I would return in a week. When I went back a week later, they told me “no.” I was talking with the association president later and it came out that the husband wanted more money (we pay the trainees a small amount for participating in the training). The association presidents couldn’t think of any more women. They had already found three and T is a very small community, so I told them that the one woman going would be enough.

In a village called T2 (28 km away), I am friends with an association president, who lives in Tounfite (market town). Last year a woman (president’s aunt) came to the training. I asked the president if his aunt would want to go again. He said yes. I told him that there was a spot for another woman and he told me that he could find another good candidate. I trust this guy enough to do the work on his own.

In a village called B, I am friends with a random guy. I rode my bike to the village and told him about the project. I told him to think about it and I would come back in a week. I came back in a week and he hadn’t done anything. He saw a woman working in a nearby field and said, “let’s go talk to her.” Not a good start. We talked to the woman for a while and she was sort of interested. Her young granddaughters were with her and they were trying to persuade her to go. They understood the idea behind the project. The woman told me she had to talk to her husband about it. I told her I would come back in a week. When I came back the next week I found the woman working in the same field. She told me she had not asked her husband. So I went to the woman’s house and talked to the husband about it. Luckily he thought the project was good, but he told me that his wife was the only woman in the household and he could not have her absent for the training. But he like the project so he went with me to the house of the moqadem and we talked about the project some. The moqadem told me he could help me, but that he needed permission from the sheikh or khaliph (Ministry of Interior figures in-between moqadem and caid) first. He told me to have the sheikh or khaliph call him. So I left and found the sheikh a couple days later. The sheikh already new about the project so he was happy to call the moqadem. I went back to B a week later and talked more to the moqadem. He told me that he would have a meeting with the men in the village on Friday morning and I should come Friday afternoon to find out what everyone had decided. When I came back Friday afternoon, nothing had been done, but everyone in the village had heard about the project and had an opinion. The moqadem gathered a few influential men and they made a list of women who they thought would be good. After the meeting, I went with the moqadem to these women’s houses and talked to them about the project. Two were interested, so I signed them up.

There are three other villages that I have recruited from (in addition to the two with women returning from last year). Another memorable recruiting trip involved the diarrhea episode explained in a previous post. That’s the bulk of my work these days. I’m glad to be finished with recruiting because it is exhausting. It’s also frustrating at times when people tell me they will do something and don’t do it. But it’s also quite rewarding because I get positive reactions from the people that I’m working with. People tell me, “Your words are good.” I’ve gotten to know many more people in the course of this work, so that’s nice as well.

One last thing: I like this project a lot because I think it is the most purely “Peace Corps” project that I can think of. I’m working with different community partners (local women, local community leaders, Ministry of Health employees) to address primary health concerns by empowering local women to become community health leaders. I am able to do this project because of the relationships that I have built up and because my language is good enough. And I am able to determine the curriculum for the training because I’ve been here for a year learning about the health concerns of the community.

Update

This past week I’ve been helping my family with their harvest. It’s long, slow, hot work. Barley and wheat are harvested with hand and sickle. I am careful to stretch before and afterwards to prevent my back from getting to tight. Lots of people here have back problems and I’d love to teach people about stretching. The harvest work done here is very marginal. Lots of work done for little reward. A wheat field must be fertilized (which involves transporting mule loads of manure from barn to field), irrigated (using irrigation canals), plowed (two mules and a wooden plow), irrigated again, and then harvested. Once harvested, the work is not finished. Then wheat is threshed; some people use machines and others use a more old-fashioned technique. The wheat is spread out on a flat surface with a pole in the middle. Four mules are attached to the pole and made to walk around in circles on the wheat, breaking off the wheat form the stalk. Then the stamped on wheat is gathered in a pile. On a windy day, people throw the broken up wheat into the air, which slowly separates the useful wheat from the less valuable hay because the wheat is heavier than the hay. Then useless chunks are sifted and separated out by hand. Then, finally, the wheat is taken to a nearby mill and ground. (Then you can make bread, by hand). Like I said, it’s a lot of work for a final product that has low value (although critical to life here). My host family’s product is even more marginal because they have to pay people to help along the way (my host dad is too old to do much of the work). They told me that they spent 650 Dhs (about $90) for last year’s wheat crop. I asked how much it would have cost them just to buy the ground wheat at market: 900 Dhs. So they’re breaking their backs over 250 Dhs ($34). Furthermore, my family has to support a mule in order to make all of this work possible, so that’s an added cost to the price tag of the wheat. Fortunately, my host dad has a pension from previous work that allows them to get by. I wonder if they think about ditching this farm work and living off the pension, but I doubt they would do that. I think that its important for their status in the community to maintain their fields, although it’s countless hours of work to save a couple dollars.

The other news is the my host dad’s sister died. I went to the “wake” and there are a couple of stories from that. People are pretty subdued. Tea and couscous are served, like any other gathering. The fkeih (religious leader) does some readings from the Koran. At one point during the wake, with everyone in the room listening, someone asked me what we say to the family of the deceased in America. I told him we express our condolences and that we say that the deceased is with God. I said that we tell the family that the deceased will not be forgotten. He said, “In Morocco, it’s important to forget the deceased. We say ‘goodbye,’ we forget them, and we don’t talk about them again.” So that was interesting. My host dad was feeling sick during the entire wake and I knew he was looking forward to it ending so he could get home. We had about a 20-minute walk home, so everyone at the host’s house offered for us to sleep there (it was late when the wake finished). He said no and we started walking. As soon as we were out of the village my host dad walked to the side of the road, dropped his drawers, and took a dump. I bring up this story to reinforce what I said in a previous post about the taboo against talking about the bathroom. My 73-year-old host dad held his bowels for several hours in the house of his sister and family rather than ask to use the bathroom. Then took a crap on the side of the road. Unbelievable.

God Phrases

2009-07-19T04:53:00.000-07:00

God phrases are a critical part of speaking Tamazight. I know a good deal, but this is far from an exhaustive list. Most of the phrases are actually Arabic, but some of them have a Tamazight twist to them, as noted.

Humdulillah – Arabic. Thanks to God. Said when exchanging greetings with someone, when finishing a meal, any time something good has happened.
Hmmdrbbi n krats – Tamazight version.

Llayster- (a-lik) – Arabic. God protect (you). A nice thing to say to someone, especially if you are parting company from them. Also said when talking about something bad like disease or an accident. For example, “I went to the mall the other day and I saw a terrible car accident on the way, llay-ster.
Addi rbbister. Or Ad grifk I-ster rbbi. Tamazight version.

Llay-haf-tik – Arabic. God bless you. A nice thing to say to someone, especially if they have done a favor for you.

Llay-awn - Arabic. God help you. Equivalent to saying good bye.
Ak iawn rbbi – Tamazight.

Bismillah – Arabic. In the name of God. Said before starting meals. Also appropriate to say before starting journeys, meetings, etc.

Tbarkallah-a-lik – Arabic. God bless you. Said as a way of congratulating someone for a job well done.

Llaybark-fik – Arabic. God bless you. Response to above.

Inchallah – Arabic. God willing. Said any time you’re talking about future actions.

Annay ktab – Tamazight. Whatever’s written [by God]. It signifies that the author believes things are out of his/her control. For example, “When will you get married, Duncan?” Response: “Annay ktab.”

Addi rbbi lxeir – Tamazight. God will bring the good. Appropriate at almost any time, especially as a conversation filler. For example, “Duncan, what are you thinking about?” Response: “Addi rbbi lxeir.”

Rbbi salaama – Arabic. God brings peace. Said when talking about a dangerous situation.

Amen- Arabic. Belief. An appropriate response to many different God phrases.

Bsaha – Arabic. With health. Said after someone gets a haircut or buys something.

Llay-tik-saha. Arabic. God gives you health. Response to above.

Llay-sha-fee – Arabic. May God heal you. Said when someone is sick.
Ad iafu rbbi – Tamazight. God will help you.

Llay-a-tik-sim – Arabic. God give you poison. A curse.

Llay-sa-hel – Arabic. God make it easy for you. Said to beggars to let them know you won’t be giving them money.

Llay-xalf – Arabic. God replenish. Said to a host when the meal is finished.
Llay-jal-baraka – Tamazight.

Llay-rhm-lwalidin – Arabic. God bless you parents.

Adi rbbi lman – Tamazight. God will bring peace. Talking about the future, especially before a journey.

There are many more. Also people just throw God into random sentences. "God made it rain a bunch today" is a common one.

Update

I just got back from Rabat where two other volunteers and I had a preparatory meeting for our meeting with the hammam owners later this month. I think we are well prepared. We got into Rabat early the day before so after found our hotel we took a bus out to the beach. It was really nice. It also felt like a different world than my community with everyone in bathing suits.

I have been helping this girl from my village study English. She is the only one from my village who has made it to high school and she “specializes” in English, so I’m helping her. The other day she asked me if I would “be her friend, like her brother.” It was really cute.

There have been two weddings in my community recently. When there is a marriage, the wife comes from whatever village she lived in to move in with her husband’s family. One of the brides is from the same city in the South as my host mom. The other night my family invited the two newlywed couples over for dinner. The weird thing about the dinner was that the guests ate dinner separately from my family, although I ate with the guests. The most remarkable part about the dinner was the interaction between the couples. There was actual physical affection between bride and groom. They had their hands on each other’s legs. They laughed and joked with each other. Until this point, I had never seen affection between husband and wife before, so it was really good to see.

Bureaucracy

2009-07-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

Reading about development in books, a common theme to explain some countries lack of progress is poor governance, corruption, and general bureaucratic inertia. Experiencing those things first hand has made them much more real. I’ve already written about corruption and political troubles, so I’ll stick to simple bureaucratic headaches this time. I’m sure that these frustrations exist in other countries, but Morocco is the first country that I have tried to do this kind of work so it’s all that I know.

I was inspired to write this post by a conversation that I had with the doctor at my health clinic the other day. She was complaining about bureaucratic hoops and obstacles and how they hindered her work; I was glad to know that Moroccans weren’t happy with the status quo either. I told her that Ministry obstacles have slowed my work at every step. Every project, anything I have done here has been made more difficult by needless technicalities.

The project that has best exemplified these frustrations is the hammam project. Quick summary: in order to reduce wood consumption demand, another volunteer and I are trying to convince hammam owners to convert their water heating systems to a more efficient stove with the help of a branch of the Ministry of Energy. Before the project could get started, a “national convention” had to be written up that formalized Peace Corps’ relationship with the Ministry. At first I was kind of excited by the whole deal, but it turned into a timewaster that was just a formality. Once that was done, we could move onto formal meetings with the Ministry. After the meetings, communication with the representative at the Ministry has been frustratingly difficult. We’re doing work in our province to prepare for a meeting that the representative will lead. It’s impossible for us to communicate quickly with the Ministry. We have to go through our Peace Corps staff representative, who sends a message to the Ministry, who has to get permission from higher up to release the requested information. It takes a long time, if it happens at all. For example, we requested the address of a hammam that had made the conversion in a nearby city (Ifrane) 3 weeks ago and still have not gotten an answer – I do not expect one. Another frustration came when the Ministry rescheduled the meeting that we had been planning for a month from July 7th to July 29th – after we had told the hammam owners to expect the meeting on the 7th. Finally, the Ministry has asked us to do a survey of rural wood use (repeat: they asked us). We have been trying to figure out their goals for the survey and what information they want us to collect, but it’s impossible to get an answer. If it’s to be done correctly, the survey requires information collected from all times of year; we need to start collecting data before the summer ends if we want to finish the survey before we leave Morocco. I don’t expect them to get the information to us.

Almost two months ago, another volunteer and I wrote up a proposal to the Ministry of Health for them to send doctors to Boumia to do pelvic exams on sex workers there. When the doctors came, they did not do exams, but just interviews, which was nearly useless. Their excuse was that there were too many women – not even a good excuse. I went back to the Ministry to see what could be done. They promised me that if there was a small group of women, they would come back and do the exams – but I had to write up another formal proposal. So I wrote it up and went to seek authorization. I was then informed that the delegue (head health official for the province) was on vacation for the rest of the month (July) and that I could not get permission until he came back. He had already given approval to an identical proposal that was simply not followed through on.

Several months ago, two other volunteers and I wrote up a STI HIV/AIDS curriculum that we wanted to teach in local high schools. We got permission from the Ministry of the Interior and needed permission from the Ministry of Education. I went to the Ministry of Health and asked our representative there what to do. He told me that he would take care of it. We waited at least a month and no response. I went back and asked him what the deal was. The rep told me that he had dropped off the proposal and was waiting for a response. He said it wouldn’t be more than a week. That was in April. No response.

For my water project in a nearby community, I was hassled by the person (call him Mohamed) I was working with to hurry up and get my grant approved. Well Peace Corps sped the grant through and it was approved in April. I went off with Mohamed to get the project started before I went to America in May. We went to the bank in a town 3-4 hours away and got the money out and counted it. When we finished counting the money, Mohamed told me that we could not submit the project for auction that day (the main purpose of our trip, or so I thought) because the place was closed for the day. It came out that he knew the place was closed before we left; his purpose for the trip was to accompany me to the bank and see if I had the money or not. Soon after, I left for America. When I got back from America, Mohamed told me that we could not get the project started because of the proximity of the elections. OK. Once the elections were finished, he told me that we could not get the project started because the association that I was working with had to get some of its paperwork in order: two more weeks. Before those two weeks were up, I went out to the community and was talking to the water association president about another project. I brought up our water project and the president said, “Didn’t Mohamed tell you? The project is cancelled.” A couple days later I went to the Commune and asked Mohamed what the deal with the association’s papers was, two weeks had passed. I didn’t mention what the president of the water association had told me. Mohamed said, “It will be another week before the association gets its paperwork in order.” Then I told him what the president had just told me about the project being finished. He said, “Oh, yes, the project will not happen.” How long has this guy (who had once been hurrying me to get the grant money in) known the project was dead and done, but hadn’t told me? For a reason unbeknownst to me, he hid the fact that the project was not viable behind a wall of bureaucratic excuses. How long was he going to continue to hide it?

I don’t mean to make this sound like a laundry list of complaints. I’m trying to illustrate the obstacles hindering progress that are institutionalized by government Ministries. Every volunteer has his/her own list of similar difficulties. Why do we have so many problems? Some of the “delays” are in fact the Ministry indirectly telling us no. For example, I don’t think the Ministry of Health/Education wants us to do STI HIV/AIDS education in local high schools, but rather than telling us “no,” our proposal is lost in a shuffle of papers. Many of our problems are personal rather than institutional. For example, the project with the Ministry of Energy has been met with especially egregious delays. I believe this has a lot to do with the person that we are working with simply not wanting to do work and hiding behind the cover of his Ministry. I think the project with doctors doing exams on sex workers is hindered by the same lack of interest in doing work. Finally, I think volunteers have problems with Ministries because they don’t know the right way to navigate the system. We’re mostly young kids who have no authority or prestige. Just like Moroccans from the communities that we live in, our interests and ideas can be dismissed.

Institutionalized stasis is pernicious because it provides cover for all of the illegitimate obstacles above. Instead of having to admit that they don’t want to do the exams, the doctors can hide behind the monolith that is the Ministry of Health. They know that I have to make a 6 hour trip out to get formal approval and that they can make up an excuse when I do make the trip. Government employees can collect their salaries, shuffle their papers, and go home at the end of the day without having lifted a finger. Even the most honest, hard-working Ministry official is bound by the constraints placed upon him/her.

As a Peace Corps volunteer, I’m supposed to be doing grassroots development. So why am I bothering with government agencies? Even the most “grassroots” actions require the permission of some Ministry. Visiting schools: Ministry of Education. Organizing women for a traditional birthing attendant training: Ministry of Health and Ministry of the Interior. I tried to gather people outside of their homes to talk about dental hygiene, but I needed permission from the Ministry of the Interior first.

I’m not by nature a very angry person, but this kind of thing is getting to me. I cannot get my work done. The bullshit with the water project (that I started working on maybe 9 months ago) is especially frustrating. I have recently been contemplating responding to these obstacles by raising my voice and demanding better treatment. I don’t know what kind of a response that would get; I could either get what I want or be completely shut out.

Like I said, I don’t mean to complain about my situation, but to point out the obstacles to development here. Morocco is moving forward, but problems such as these slow its progress.

Update

Things are good. The recruiting for the TBA training is nearly complete; I will be meeting soon with local doctors to finalize the curriculum for the training. There has been a wedding each of the past two weeks; those are fun.

I was riding my transit to market last week. It was early morning and the transit was crowded. Halfway to market, the transit stopped to pick up a guy along the side of the road. He had two sheep and instead of putting them on top of the transit as per usual, they got inside with us. I was thinking about going on top of the transit myself: the transit was uncomfortable and now I was worried about these sheep shitting on me. Just as I was pondering this option, one of the sheep lifted its head up and sneezed all over my pants. A large amount of snot was concentrated in the area near my right knee. The owner of the sheep grabbed the other sheep’s tail and used it to wipe the snot from my pants. This was the day after I had crapped my pants.

Several weeks ago, Morocco moved its clocks forward an hour – daylight savings time. From my experience with DST last year, I knew that my life would be easier if I didn’t change my clocks; no one in my community observes the time change. However, when I leave my community and go to a bigger town, the time moves forward an hour. Morocco has urban/rural time zones for the summer until the rest of the country changes its clocks back.

A family that I’m good friends with in my community recently bought a sofa for their living room. They are quite proud of it; most people here just sit/lay on the floor. I went to their house one day and the sofa was the most uncomfortable, hardest thing I’d ever sat on. The floor is much better. The next time I was at their house, the sofa was not to be seen. I asked them what was up and they said, “We like the floor better. We’re not used to the sofa.”

Three conversations on religion. First, I was off in another village, recruiting for the midwife training and getting a typical conversion speech from someone. They weren’t pushing me too hard. They asked if people in my community tried to get me to convert and I told them yes. They said that these people are my friends – they want me to convert because they like me and they don’t want my soul to go to hell. Second, I was helping a local girl with English (the one girl from our village that I know of who will go to University) and we were talking about religion. She asked me what religion I thought was true and I told her I thought they were all equal. She told me: no, the prophet Mohamed was the only real way to God and that other religions were inferior. I was disappointed; I was expecting higher levels of tolerance from her because she was educated. Third, I was talking to a friend about life in general. He said, if everyone takes Mohamed’s road and follows it carefully, life is boring (the word he used literally means bland). He said life is better if people take different roads, enjoy their lives, and share their experiences.

This morning I woke up at 6 am. I was out the door by 645. I was on the top of a 10000 foot mountain by 10 am. How awesome is that? I met some sheepherders from my village near the peak, hung out with them til 1230, had lunch, then hiked down the other side of the mountain in order to get to my market town.

Collection of Random Stories

2009-07-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

First, thanks to Yasfari for your comment. My few trips to some cities (Meknes and Fes are my favorites so far) confirm what you said: the difference between urban and rural folk is great. I couldn't think of a theme for the post, so I just started writing down random things that happened to me the past week.

I was Khenifra early this week for a Ministry of Health meeting. I finished with my meeting and went to the bus station/taxi stand to find transit back to my site. It was about 9:30 or 10 am in the morning. In the bus station there are always lots of guys standing around who work for the bus companies. I asked one of them if there was a bus to Boumia, which is the hub I have to go to get to my site. He said the bus left at noon. So I walked over to the taxi stand. Although taxis are just big Mercedes that would normally only fit 5 people, they take 6 passengers, plus the driver in Morocco. The taxi will not leave until there are 6 paying passengers. So I asked if there was a taxi for Boumia, I was told that yes there was and that I was the third person to ask about it. Not bad, I hoped to be leaving within a half an hour. But waiting and waiting and the number of people kept hovering around three. Sometimes less, sometimes more. And meanwhile it is hot. Khenifra sits in this bowl between some big mountains and it gets heated. Some people would get impatient waiting for the taxi to fill and leave. Around 11:30 the taxi got up to 5 people, but then 2 walked over to the bus station to take the noon bus (about two dollars cheaper). Five minutes to noon, I gave up too and walked to the bus. There was one seat left, which I took. But then this guy came up to me and said that he had saved the seat and everyone around him was in agreement (Stealing a saved seat is a crime worthy of death here). Shit. So I asked the bus driver if I could stand – sometimes buses will let people stand and other times they will get kicked off the bus. I had a moment of panic when I thought about walking back to the taxi stand and waiting for the unfillable taxi to fill. But then the guy actually found me a stool to sit on and he shoved it in the aisle in the back row. I sat on the stool, pressed between two sweaty, hot men (very sweaty myself) and was grateful. Luckily, hot transits normally cause me to fall asleep, which I did while leaning on my neighbor. Two and a half hours later, we roll into Boumia.

A guy playing a guitar/banjo and walking alongside a donkey comes into my town the other day. The donkey is loaded down with lots of sacks. I am standing next to one of my friends and I ask him what this banjo-donkey guy is doing. My friend says that they guy goes around from house to house with his banjo, playing and begging for wheat. There is a pause in the conversation. Then my friend says: “The guy is an idiot. We’re harvesting wheat in two weeks. He won’t get anything now. If he waited two weeks everyone would have wheat to give him.”

A girl that I went to middle school with is in Peace Corps Morocco. It’s been at least ten years since I’ve seen her. Her site in Morocco is on the other side of the country. We happened to be in the same city last week so we met up and hung out for a while. It’s a small crazy world.

There was a wedding this past week that was a little different from other weddings I’ve been to. The family is a little wealthier than most due to some of the sons working in the army. They hired some musicians to come play, which was cool. The boys/men in the family were all drinking in public, which was weird, to say the least. People are sometimes drunk at weddings here, but I’ve never seen someone walking around with a bottle of vodka in their pocket. Finally, a girl (20 years old?) from another village was there who had different ideas about what was socially acceptable. She danced much more provocatively than other girls. She took off her headscarf and swung her head around quickly, with her hair flying all around. It’s the kind of thing that I’ve only seen on TV Berber weddings. Everyone in the village was talking shit about her the next day.

I’ve recently had two more religion conversations that were more interesting and in depth than the normal “convert” conversations. One was with a nurse in a nearby douar. We were speaking in French, which allowed us to have a bit more nuanced of a conversation. He quoted the Karl Marx “Religion is the opiate of the people” line to me as an example of Western hedonism. He is going through a tough time in the village (lonely, lack of support from the Ministry) and he says that prayer and God helps him get through the difficult times. I pointed out to him how similar what he was telling me was to the Karl Marx line, and he agreed. The other conversation was with this guy from out of town who is from a very religious family. This guy takes his prayers very seriously. He is intense. Unfortunately his Tamazight is not great, so he slips into Arabic a lot. He read the Koran for me and explained parts of it to me. Other than these two men’s devotion to God, the common theme of the conversations was that they both were explaining the wonderfulness of Islam to me. The implication (sometimes more explicit than implied) as they are exalting praise on Islam is that I would be foolish not to convert.

Two of my host mom’s sisters are visiting. They will stay at my host family’s house for a couple of weeks. They are both quiet, but smart and educated. It’s clear that they have more money than other people in our village. The story of my host mom is a mystery to me; everyone in her family is well-educated and living fairly comfortable lives in a city. Her youngest sister is fluent in English and starting her doctorate studies this fall. Somehow my host mom got married to a man 34 years her senior in a poor mountain village 300 kilometers away.

The last story requires some explaining before I dive in. The culture of rural Morocco forbids talk of anything related to the toilet. People don’t go to the bathroom at each other’s houses. There is a word “hashek,” that you use whenever you talk about anything dirty as a way of apologizing for the dirty talk. You say hashek if you wash your hands in front of someone, if you talk about a donkey, and especially if you talk about the toilet.

With that explanation as context for the final story, I’ve been feeling kind of sick for the last week. A little diarrhea, but not much. Mostly just uncomfortable stomach cramps and maybe I’m feeling a little tired. My work this week (and for the past month) has been traveling to my outer villages to recruit women for our upcoming traditional birthing attendant (TBA) training. I was scheduled to go out to a very isolated village 18km from mine to recruit on Saturday. Although I was feeling a little sick in the morning, I got on my bike and headed out.

The whole ride I was feeling pretty good. I had a couple of cramps, but nothing bad. I got to the village and to the house of the guy (Mimoon) who was going to help me. He wasn’t there so the family put me in the guest room with the family patriarch. He started giving me the usual quiz on America, inevitably leading to demands for my immediate conversion to Islam. I wasn’t really listening; my stomach had started cramping pretty bad. Mimoon returned to his house and came into talk to me. He told me that he had spoken to a couple women about the training, but that the women wanted to speak to me about it. Good – I wanted to talk to them as well. But Mimoon said that we ought to have lunch first and go talk to the women when we finished. If there is a guest, tea must precede lunch, so we waited for that to be prepared. And my stomach is getting worse and worse. Unlike the cramps that I’d had previously in the week, these feel like they will require a bathroom. Oh no. The tea is made and I sip on it a little bit. I really don’t want to ask about the bathroom; I’m doing a mental risk calculation. If I ask for the bathroom, it’s certainly a little inappropriate and everyone would feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, if I don’t ask, then 90% of the time, no one knows differently. However, 10% of the time I can’t hold it and there is a drastically more embarrassing event. Added to this calculation is the near certainty that this family does not have a bathroom – the village that I’m in is quite poor. A little time passes and it seems more and more likely that I do not have control over my bowels. I decide to embrace my privilege as a Westerner and ask for the bathroom. There isn’t one, of course, but I’m directed to a spot outside. The spot is not very secluded; just on the edge of the village and easily in view of fields and some other houses. (The cultural taboo against speaking about the bathroom and the fact that the lack of toilets turns going to the bathroom into a very public event makes for an interesting combination.) I do my business as quickly as possible and go back inside. We sit around for a little bit, drinking our tea, (no mention of the bathroom is made) and then lunch is brought out. I tell them that I don’t want to eat very much because I’m sick. Unfortunately Morocco has another cultural taboo against guests refusing food. They tell me to eat, eat, eat, eat. I eat as little and as slowly as possible. As they’re telling me to eat more, I’m developing bigger worries. My cramps are pretty bad; should I go back outside? I’m embarrassed to leave in the middle of lunch to go to the bathroom again. Suddenly my choice on the matter is taken away: I crap my pants. Feeling a little diarrhea escape, then realizing that there is nothing I can do to stop myself from emptying my intestines in my pants during lunch is a unique feeling that I have never felt before. There is a sense of resolution to the dilemma about whether or not to go to the bathroom and a resignation to the inevitable humiliation. And a bit of panic. I say, “Excuse me, I’m returning there.” On my way out I grab my backpack and my 1 liter water bottle. Back outside I am feeling at a loss. I take my pants and underwear off and finish my bowel movement. I can see a woman and her child in a field. They probably don’t notice me, but who knows. However, half naked with bigger problems on my hands, I’ve thrown caution to the wind. I’m glad that I’m embarrassing myself in a village that I don’t live in, but at the same time it sucks that this is happening where I don’t know anyone that can help me and is so far from my house (and bathroom). Thankfully Mimoon has always been nice to me. What to do? Can I wash my pants (and myself) with my half-full water bottle? I use most of the water, but it quickly becomes obvious that this will not nearly be enough. The pants are pretty well ruined. Should I put the pants back on and go inside the house to ask for another pair? No, that seems to be a terrible idea. I put the pants back on (sans underwear) and sit the side of the hill to collect my thoughts. I write a text message to a couple of Peace Corps friends telling them what happened and seeing the story in written form lets me laugh at it. I decide to sit on the side of the hill until someone comes looking for me and then ask them to get Mimoon. Well 5 or 10 minutes later (although it feels much longer) a little kid walks behind the house and I tell him to go get his Dad. Mimoon comes walking out. I ask him if he has some pants he can give me. When he comes back with the pants (two pairs, actually. Moroccans I live with almost always wear two pairs of pants regardless of season) I say, “I’m very sorry and thank you.” He says, “It’s no problem. You’re like us. We all have problems with our bodies/health. It’s no problem” A time that could be totally humiliating turns into a recognition of our common humanness. How wonderful. I just wish it didn’t take me crapping my pants for someone to recognize the human need to use the bathroom. He goes back inside. I use the rest of the water and clean myself as best as I can. I put his pants on and my stomach actually feels OK. Hopefully this is my last trip behind the house. Back in the house, Mimoon and Mimoon’s dad are feeling a little uncomfortable, but that doesn’t last long. I no longer feel embarrassed about it and I think that makes it easier for them to relax as well. They have finished eating, but pour me another glass of tea and try to get me to eat some more. Luckily, the whole “crapping my pants” thing makes it easier (although just a little easier) for me to turn down food. I end up with a little piece of bread (which I kind of want to eat) and a glass of tea (which I don’t want to drink). I finish them both. Alright. I turn to Mimoon and ask him if we can go see the women. He asks, “are you better?” I say “a little.” We go outside and walk to a nearby house. A man whom I’ve met before and another anonymous man are finishing their lunch. The first man’s wife is serving them. We get into the conversation and the woman is having a hard time believing that I speak Tamazight, so Mimoon is translating for me. She is youngish, kind of smart, talkative, and interested: an ideal candidate. The husband (who gives permission about whether or not she can go) is flip-flopping. When I tell him that we did a training like this last year, he is sold. I get the woman’s information and we go to the next house. Another good candidate who is interested (and widowed, allowing her to decide for herself). All the while my stomach is feeling pretty good. A few cramps, but nothing to scare me. We get back to Mimoon’s house, I gather my things and say goodbye. I tell Mimoon that I will meet him in Tounfite the next day (market day) to give him the pants back. He says, “llay-ha-nik.” Which normally means “goodbye,” but in this context means, “forget about it.” I don’t know if he’s telling me he never wants to see his soiled pants again or if he just means “don’t worry about it” in a polite way. My mom calls on my bike ride home, allowing me to laugh about the incident some more. I get home, excited for a bucket bath. Of course, my water is out (it happens about once a week). I have just enough water stored up to take a bucket bath and put the offending pants in a tub with soap and water to soak.

Islam and Me in Morocco

2009-06-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

This is a sensitive topic (again) so I’m going to apologize ahead of time for the offensive things I write and the errors that I make. Also, as regular readers of my blog would know, my perspective on Morocco is no way representative of the country; someone living in Fes for two years would have a different perspective on religion in Morocco. What I’ve written here is by no means exhaustive.

99+% of Moroccans are Muslim. I believe that it is illegal to renounce Islam or convert to another religion. So there isn’t much religious freedom here. If a non-Muslim man wants to marry a Moroccan woman, he must convert (since lineage is patriarchal, a non-Muslim woman is not obligated to convert). The closest thing I’ve had to a girlfriend here (which consisted of some conversations and a few late night text messages with a girl from Fes – quite scandalous) ended when the girl asked me if I would convert to Islam.

Islam came to Morocco in the 8th century when Arabs invaded the country. The history books I have say that the Amazigh people (also known as Berbers, the natives) accepted Islam without coercion. Islam’s message of egalitarianism and respect for one’s parents were jived well with Amazigh values. Since that time, Islam has been a huge force in shaping Moroccan history. The best monuments in the country are religious ones. Beautiful mosques, schools, and entire towns were built with religious money. Fes and Meknes stand out in my mind as having the greatest religious monuments.

There are five “pillars” of Islam that a Muslim must follow (there is an order to these, which I am ignorant of). First, witnessing that there is one God and his prophet is Mohamed, Second, prayer: The observant Muslim (and most people that I meet are observant) prays five times a day: sunrise, midday, afternoon, dusk, and after nightfall. There is no freedom in prayer: you say the same thing every time with the same routine of bows and kneels. Third, fasting: one lunar month a year (Ramadan) Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, bad words, sex… from sunup to sundown. Fourth, pilgrimage: every Muslim who is financially able must make a pilgrimage to Mecca (Saudi Arabia). Fifth, alms to the poor.

Enough about Islam that you could read in a book. The thing that makes the biggest impression on me is the way that Islam and God are always on people’s minds. God is ubiquitous. It is difficult/impossible to have a conversation with someone here without mentioning God. There is a “God phrase” for just about every feeling and situation. I plan to do a post at some point listing all the God phrases I know. Here is a quick taste: Bismillah (in the name of God) precedes every meal, journey, meeting, etc. Inchallah (God willing) follows any discussion of future action. Humdulillah (Thanks to God) can follow any expression of a positive feeling or outcome. People in my village like to say “kulshi rbbi” (everything is God) to explain most anything. When I say it people tell me that I’m smart and wise. I used to think that the frequency with which people used God phrases cheapened them into platitudes, but I’ve recently changed my opinion. God really is on people’s minds all the times and these “God phrases” are not platitudes, but expressions of people’s worldview.

Conversion: people in Morocco try to convert me to Islam frequently. It happens less often now in my village (been here for over a year), but it still happens. I react to it differently depending on my mood, the person trying to convert me, and how polite and respectful they are about it. The worst conversion attempt I had was with an employee of the local government who I generally don’t like. He told me to say the “shHada” (the phrase that you say to become a Muslim) in front of a group of people. I went through my typical defenses (my religion and my prophet are God’s too, it’s important to follow the religion of your parents, would you convert to Christianity if you went to America?) but he wasn’t really listening. He just kept saying, “Say it.” I stopped with the polite responses and started saying “no.” This exchange repeated itself maybe 8 times before I walked away.

This sort of conversion attempt is very frustrating. The person isn’t interested in having a conversation about beliefs; they just want me to say the shHada. After the first time that I say “no,” shouldn’t it be obvious that, even if I did say the shHada, that it wouldn’t be sincere? I’ve found that this sort of attempt comes more often from non-observant Muslims. Guys that tell me about how they drink alcohol, see prostitutes, don’t pray, smoke, etc etc tend to be the most likely to demand conversions like this. I’ve started telling them that they should worry about saving their own soul rather than mine (which always gets laughs from bystanders).

The strange part about deflecting conversion attempts is that it makes me pretend to be something that I’m not. To everyone in my community, I am a God-fearing Christian. I would never tell someone my true beliefs here: I would be ostracized. During a recent, more nuanced conversion attempt a couple days ago, I found myself passionately arguing that Jesus is the Son of God. The person I was conversing with kept saying that Muslims don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God (they do believe he is a prophet) because God is not like humans and cannot interact with them like that – only a mortal can have progeny. I totally agreed with what he was saying, but there I was, confusing myself. And I don’t have the language skills to express the idea that the “Son of God” may not be literal, but metaphorical.

One more thing about the conversion attempts: most people in my village have not tried to convert me. It’s really just a minority of annoying people while the rest are more respectful.

I can’t have a “Islam” post without discussing religious festivities in my community. I’ve already done posts on Ramadan, a sadaqa, and L3id Kabeer (the big holiday), so I won’t rehash those. Just Friday afternoon there was another event. We’ve been getting a lot of big rainstorms recently, which means the river overflows its banks and floods fields. So my entire community slaughtered some sheep and goats in order to ask God for better weather. Although I find such requests ridiculous, the nice part of the event was that everyone in the village ate as a result of this ceremony. All the men in the village gathered near the mosque (which happens to be next to my house). Couscous was brought out and we all ate outside. Then we ate the meat of the animals that were slaughtered. Women ate in small groups in their houses. So it was a nice community event. A transit overflowing with people from another village drove through as the event was beginning. They were all invited to eat with us and lots of nice words were exchanged. The expression “sharing couscous” is used in Tamazight to signify your intimacy with someone.

Despite the illegality of renouncing Islam, there are Moroccan non-believers. A few of them have “come out of the closet” to me. It’s always a big deal for them to reveal this big secret to me. They mostly tend to be educated professionals – I imagine there are more of them in cities. There are also some people who are openly atheist. There is an Amazigh (Berber) pride movement that is anti-Islam because of its Arab roots. Arabs are seen as colonizers, thus their religion is rejected as well (this is a very small minority).

People here like to ask about how I pray. I tell them that we pray on our knees and we say things like, “In the name of God, God is great, God knows all, thanks to God for everything, God have mercy, God forgive my faults, forgive my parents, etc.” People really like that – it is similar to their prayers and their beliefs. Muslims must pray facing Mecca (to the East for Moroccans). I used to get a lot of shit for saying that Christians do not have to pray facing any particular direction until I started telling people that God is everywhere and that He hears you no matter what.

I’m getting better at saying that sort of thing. I tell people that the different prophets (Mohamed, Jesus, and Moses are the Big 3) are all God’s. I say that our prayers and your prayers are all for God. That God is in everything. I like saying stuff like that because it is closer to my own beliefs that demanding that Jesus is the Son of God. I also like to say things like that because it minimizes the differences between me and people here – we’re all God’s.

Unfortunately, as close as I get to winning people over with my “everything is God” attitude, it’s not quite enough. The fact of the matter is that there are many factors (speaking Tamazight, living here, having kids here, spending time with people) that determine whether or not someone is Oumoussa (a citizen of our tribe). One of those factors is saying the shHada, being a Muslim. There will always be a divide.

Update

Most of my work lately has been recruiting women for the traditional birthing attendant training that I’ll be coordinating this fall. I like the recruiting process (most of the time) because I meet new people in different villages. The other day I rode my bike out to this very isolated village and met with a man there who had agreed to help me find women. When I got there he was not in his house so one of his small sons accompanied me to his field where he was plowing. I sat and waited for him to finish. It was a beautiful day, we had lunch, and the field was up on the mountain. Right as he was finishing the field it started pouring rain and we took shelter under a tree. I was sitting there with two farmers and their three little kids on the side of a mountain waiting for a rainstorm to end. I felt 100% comfortable. It was definitely a Peace Corps moment. The rainstorm delayed our recruiting, so the guy invited me to stay at his house rather than riding back to my village. If I hadn’t had other work to do the next day I would have stayed.

Another project that I’ve been trying to wrap up for months now is a story of frustration. I was going to do toothbrush/paste education and distribution in a nearby school. Rather than speak to the teachers to organize the event (what I normally do) I decided to involve a guy from the village who had been asking me to work with him for a while. My guiding principle for work here is: involve local people whenever possible. This was in April, right before I went to America. I asked him how many toothbrushes I needed to bring and he told me 70. He told me to come back to his house the next Wednesday and we would go to the school together. I got to his house at the scheduled time, but he wasn’t there. I went back to my house (1.5 km walk). A couple hours later he shows up at my house on his motorcycle and we drive to the school. I do my routine with the kids there, but it turns out we are 30 toothbrushes short (because he told me the wrong number). So we skip half the school. I promise to buy some more brushes and that we’ll finish distribution when I come back from America. I get back from America with my brushes and I set a date with him. I show up on that date and the guy is, again, not there. I leave the brushes at his house and walk back to my house. He does not show up on his motorcycle later that day. I show up at his house a couple other times over the next few weeks, but he is never around. When I finally find him, school is out for summer, so we cannot distribute the brushes there. I ask him what the solution to our problem is. He tells me that he will get all the names of the kids that need brushes and he will organize the event. OK. Well I go to his house on the scheduled day and he is asleep. His daughter wakes him up. He bullshits me for a while. I ask him about the project; he says, “I forgot you.” Then two kids come in. He starts asking them the names of the kids in grades four, five and six (the grades that need the toothbrushes). The kids have a (understandably) difficult time remembering all the kids who are in these grades. The list that they come up with is obviously missing a significant number of names. So the guy looks at me and says, “What do you want to do? It will be difficult to get all the kids together; many are out in the fields or somewhere else.” I tell him to forget about it. I’ll do the whole school again in the fall. If I had just done my normal routine of speaking directly with the teachers, the project would have been finished months ago.

Unfortunately, these sort of delays and frustrations are typical with my work here. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a big project, regardless of the status of the person that I’m working with, that I have worked on here that has not had a problem like this. For our hammam project another volunteer and I are working with an agency within the Ministry of Energy – government officials working out of the capital. They set a date for a big meeting with hammam owners then pushed back the date of the meeting three weeks later after we had told all the owners about it. Strangely, they had been pressuring us to have the meeting at the earlier date (in order to meet a funding deadline) even though we were unsure if we could be prepared in time.

That’s it. All is well. I’m trying very hard not to get sick this summer in order to prove to my host mom that heat does not cause illness.

Patriotism

2009-06-19T04:26:00.000-07:00

“Patriotism: Pride in or devotion to the country somebody was born in or is a citizen of.”

I am a patriot. Living in another country for a year has only made that belief stronger.

Over the years, patriotism has gotten a bad name; it has come to be associated with fanatical devotion to one’s country. Fanatical patriotism demands unquestioning uniformity and smothers dissent. Under the tenets of fanatical patriotism, to question the decisions of one’s government is to undermine their authority. Additionally, fanatical patriotism has taken on many of the characteristics of xenophobia. National identity is valued to the point of distrust of other nations and cultures. Both of these aspects of fanatical patriotism: unquestioned uniformity and xenophobia, are not the qualities of a patriot.

Fanatical patriotism has always been present in American culture. The past century provides many examples. In the name of national security, American citizens of Japanese origin were imprisoned in internment camps during World War II. The end of WW II brought an even more pernicious form of fanatical patriotism: McCarthyism. Suspicion of Communist activity suppressed any form of dissent. Furthermore, capitalist, Western ideals were put on a pedestal and Communist, egalitarian ones were demonized.

Under the Bush Jr. administration, fanatical patriotism has further sullied the name of the American patriot. The contemporary fanatical patriot is epitomized by the bumper sticker that proclaims: “These Colors Don’t Run.” The contemporary fanatical patriot has grown distrustful of other cultures, particularly Islamic ones. This has not been helped by the administration’s slogans, such as“ the War on Terror” and “you’re either with us or against us.” I’ll never forget the story my best friend, a Pakistani, told me several weeks after 9/11. His sister’s tires had been slashed and she had been tormented for wearing her headscarf. Both my friend and his sister have lived their entire lives in America and their success in the country embodies the American Dream. The contemporary fanatical patriot has also discouraged dissent within America. Those against the Iraq/Afghanistan wars were cast as being anti-soldier. Administration policies were not to be questioned; even those that were counter to American values such as wiretapping and terrorism were to be accepted without dissent.

So I am writing now to reclaim the good name of patriotism for patriots across the world. Patriotism is simply love for one’s country. This is not the extreme nationalism popping up throughout Europe. And this is not the unconditional love demanded by the fanatical patriot, but a critical, demanding one. I protested the Bush’s administration choice to go to war in Iraq not just because I feared the loss of innocent Iraqi lives, but also because I did not want to see my country tarnish its name and reputation. My identity and self-image is influenced by many factors: my family, my beliefs, my hometown, my education, etc. Amongst other factors is my identity as an American. I am ashamed when my country does something shameful and proud when it does good in the world. I demand the best from my country in its treatment of its own citizens and its actions in the international community. Even someone who has only shame for America is expressing a kind of patriotism: his/her identity is tied up in America.

How am I still an American Patriot when my formative years were a time of shameful actions on the part of my government? When disgraceful events litter our history?

Before I express my American pride, I want to be clear: the line between patriotism and xenophobia is a thin one. I do not wish to cross it. My patriotism means that I generally prefer American culture to others, but it represents a positive feeling to America rather than a negative one towards other cultures. My patriotism derives from my being habituated to American culture, not from a belief that American culture is objectively better. I am biased and I know it.

I love American food for what it is and for what it steals from other countries. American food means many things to many people, but my favorite is grilled meat in the summer, beer, and fresh fruit.

I love American freedom (I know that sounds corny). But experiencing the lack of freedom in other countries gives me an appreciation for what our government grants us in America. Journalism in America is incredible. This country is founded on dissent and protest. American democracy is not without its fault, but I am thankful for what we have.

I love American culture (mostly). Since World War II, no other country rivals the variety and creativity shown by American musicians. We are fortunate to be blessed with people from all over the world that bring new and different influences. Wow. I love American sports (although I love soccer the best). I love American literature and art. Steinbeck, Hemmingway, Salinger, Irving, Vonnegut, are my favorites, but that is just a start.

I love American individualism. While living in a collectivist society has been good, I prefer the recognition of the individual.

I love American gender relations and the freedom that American women have. It’s not perfect but it’s something.

I am proud that America has elected Barack Hussein Obama as its president. I will be proud of his successes and ashamed of his failures.

I love these things because I am habituated to them; I love them because I grew up with them. I would have different biases if I had grown up somewhere else. I am proud that America represents these things and more.

I do not overlook or attempt to hide America’s shortcomings. They define what it means to be an American as much as the positive things. I believe that by exposing our shortcomings and having an honest discussion about them we can move forward. I see a nation that has progressed and has been a world leader in many important areas. I have hope that this will continue and that further progress will be made.

Update

Not to be a broken record, but: everything is good here in Morocco. Since coming back from America, I have a new level of comfort in my community. It is partly because I have passed so much time here, but also due to witnessing new volunteers struggle in this culture. It reminds me of how far I have come.

Work is good. I’ve been recruiting women in several different villages for the midwife training this fall. With the help of a nearby volunteer I’m able to reach out to a greater number of villages, some of which are very isolated. Recruiting is difficult and takes time, but we’re making progress.

Other work: STI education with sex workers is going slower. When doctors came to do physical exams a couple weeks ago, they were overwhelmed by demand so decided to just conduct verbal interviews, which were not sufficient and nearly worthless. So we are hoping to identify a smaller group of interested women and get the doctors back.

Our hammam project has hit a slight road bump. The Moroccan agency that we’re working with has pushed back the meeting for hammam owners from July 7th to late July.

About a week ago there were nationwide exams for high school students finishing their studies. The exams are very important for a student’s future studies. There is one girl from my village who attends high school in a nearby city (Midelt) who had to take the exam. She was home the week before the exams to study and her dad asked me to help her as she studies English. Helping her was a lot of fun as her English was pretty good and the topics she was studying were interesting. One of the questions was on sustainable development, one on international organizations, and another on globalization. So they were right up my alley. Yesterday I talked to the girl’s father and she got very good scores on her exams; he was grateful. It was satisfying for me because her father had told me that girls weren’t smart, that only his boys would do well in school. I kept telling the dad that his daughter was smart and knew English well. When the father told me how well his daughter did, he told me: you were right, she’s smart! So that was satisfying. She’ll probably continue her studies this fall in a university in Meknes.

This past week I helped my family out some more with farm work. Having harvested a field the previous week, this week we fertilized and irrigated the field in preparation for plowing. Irrigation of fields here is interesting. Using irrigation canals, people here flood their fields. But the unevenness of the land requires them to carefully direct the water to certain parts of the field with strategically placed, temporary canals. Another complication of irrigation is that water is a precious commodity. So a family only has rights to the water canal for a limited amount of time before it is someone else’s turn. These rights and the schedule are legislated by a local group of men. The fact that the community is able to successfully organize a very complicated community situation gives me hope for future collective action. The social structure for distribution of a public good exists.

Elections

2009-06-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

After my post a couple weeks ago that was critical of both Moroccan and American cultures, I resolved to only have positive posts for a while. However, elections in Morocco have just happened. And, like anywhere else in the world, politics brings out the worst in people in my community. Talking about local politics has been interesting and I’ve learned a lot about the community over the past few weeks.

The current elections are nationwide, but they are local elections, not national ones. People are electing representatives for the commune. In rural areas, a commune consists of several villages. My commune, for example, contains eight villages and around 4,500 people. In urban areas, a commune consists of the city and the surrounding area. The commune is responsible for administrative issues and development.

In my commune of eight villages, there are 11 elected leaders. The name for this position is mulsheih. Most villages elect one mulsheih, but the three biggest villages in the commune elect two mulsheihen. The mulsheihen serve five-year terms. After the election, the mulsheihen of the commune meet and, from that group of eleven, elect a president for the commune. The election of the president of the commune is significant as he has much more power than the mulsheihen. As far as I can tell, the president is pretty much all-powerful. He has control over the budget for the commune and over hiring and firing at the local administration building.

Everyone over 18 years old has a vote, man and woman. Unlike America, convicted felons do not lose their right to vote.

Now the post will turn negative. Politics here are completely Machiavellian. Corruption is pervasive. People have little faith in the current candidates. When I ask my host dad about who he will vote for, he says that he will throw his ballot in the fire (not actually true). He says all the candidates are the same – worthless and greedy. People often ask me if I know what politics in Morocco are. I say no. They say: politics is just another word for lies. There are unfortunate norms here about what the role of elected officials is. Here in my community, the ideal of politicians being public servants has not taken hold. The power that comes with the elected positions of mulsheihen and president is to be bought and sold.

People talk openly about candidates selling votes. My friend told me that he sold his vote for 50 dirhams (about 6-7 dollars). However, family connections tend to play a larger role in election decisions. I ask lots of people around town whom they will vote for. Mostly people dodge my question and don’t answer. Those who do answer invariably say they are voting for someone because he is the son of their uncle or their brother or their father in law. I have heard one person make an argument for a candidate based upon his/her qualifications. My host mom told me she was voting for someone because he is literate – but the candidate also happens to be related to her. Many people have told me they will not reelect our current representative because he is corrupt. Although it is too bad that we currently have a corrupt mulsheih, at least people recognize that and unwilling to reelect him.

Considering that candidates do not have platforms for their candidacy, it could be no other way. I have not heard a candidate say anything about what he promises to do if elected. Thus money and connections decide people’s votes.

The greatest power that the president of the commune has is hiring and firing administrators at the one government building in the commune, which happens to be in my village. There are maybe 10-15 employees at this building. There is probably enough work at the building for one or two full-time employees. Since most of the employees do nothing all day long, filling the posts with competent people is not a priority. Instead the power that the president has of hiring and firing is used to a) make money and b) further entrench his power. Jobs at the commune building often go to the highest bidder, with the president collecting the money. The one person who works at the commune who has the power to expose the corruption is afraid to do so for fear of losing his job.

Roughly speaking, my commune is made up of two tribes: Ait Sliman and Ait Moussa. My village and two nearby villages make up Ait Moussa. Ait Sliman, however, has more people and thus has a little more power in the government. Most of the commune employees are from Ait Sliman. This angers people in my village and they say that the president of the commune just gives the jobs away to his family and his connections so they will keep voting for him.

Many of the commune employees are illiterate. Considering that the jobs at the commune mostly involve paperwork, this makes these employees nearly useless. They make tea. During the winter, they cut wood for the stoves in the commune building. Other than that, they sit around outside, talking. I am friends with many of the employees. I asked one of them (who is illiterate) how he got his job. He told me that his father is connected (he is from Ait Sliman). Another illiterate employee told me that he bought his job from the president. I can’t really blame the employees for exploiting their connections to get a job: they tend to be the people in town who can afford to send their kids away to better schools.

Everyone is completely aware of the corruption. It is accepted as a fact of life. Most are complicit. Honestly, it’s a depressing subject to talk about with people. Talking about politics inevitably leads to people slandering their neighbors. I had a conversation with a friend on election day and he told me, “We’re bad. The people in this village are bad. Seventy percent of people here are bad. Thirty percent are good.” These generalizations about how bad people are often turn into generalizations about Moroccans on a national scale. Someone else told me that America should not let Moroccans into America because they would corrupt people there until we were all corrupt.

There is one new development that lets me put a positive spin on a generally negative situation. A new law was just passed in Morocco that creates special posts for women in the commune government. Each commune is obligated to elect two women to the posts of mulsheihen. These women have their own elections for new posts. So instead of 11 mulsheihen in the commune, there will be 13 this year. It’s great that the Moroccan central government is mandating the inclusion of women in politics. I wonder what role the female mulsheihen will have in government once the elections are over; I fear they will be marginalized. The marginalization of women in politics is taken for granted. Obviously, it is a major obstacle to women achieving equal status in the community and household.

Although they are mostly excluded from elected government, women are able to vote. I have limited access to the politics that go on in the household, but what I have seen is interesting. My sense is that husband and wife (and their children of voting age) vote for the same candidate. I believe that political interests are conceived of in terms of a collective family unit, rather than individually. The way this decision is made varies from household to household. In my host family (which is exceptional, given the advanced age of my host dad), I witnessed my host mom explaining how to fill out his ballot to my host dad and making sure that he knows how to vote for the right person.

As someone who is working for the development of this community, witnessing its political process is disheartening. My ideal of a public servant is that he/she should govern with the interest of his/her constituency in mind rather than personal interests. An elected official in my community and I should be working together on projects, but our interests do not often overlap. I see the political sphere as a great opportunity for a community’s advancement, but that is nearly impossible in this environment.

I’ve recently read two books on development theory that were very critical of the west’s efforts to aid the third world, especially Africa. Government corruption and the failure of public institutions are often cited as obstacles to development. Witnessing this election drives that point home for me. Promoting “good governance” as a part of development has been popular for decades now. How an outside force can reverse a culture of corruption, I have no idea. I am interested to see how that works. One of the programs that I’m looking at for graduate school has a specific concentration that focuses on training development workers to promote good governance. I’d love to take some of these classes. It seems ridiculous to me that you could train someone promote good governance. Here in my community I tell people what politics is like in America and hold it up as an ideal. They agree that that is a good way of politicking, but do not change their ways.

Sadly, I do not think this is simply a failure of the elected officials to uphold high standards. Like I said above, people here are complicit in the corruption. The election is seen as an opportunity to further the interests’ of one’s household by voting for a relative or selling one’s vote. If a community collectively decided that its votes could not be bought or dictated by relationships and connections, it could hold its public servants to a higher standard, judged by their performance in office.

….I’m tempted to write a brief description of the corruption in American politics as a comparison. But I don’t think I should be making such comparisons for fear of idealizing the American political situation and condemning the Moroccan one more than I already have. Suffice it to say, my little community in rural Morocco does not have a monopoly on corruption or poor governance. The ability of politics to corrupt otherwise good people is unaffected by cultural differences.

Elections Part II – After the Vote

The votes have been tallied and some people are happy with the result and some people aren’t. Having taken a couple days to reflect on what I wrote earlier, I want to add on to what I said.

Things aren’t as bad as I wrote. Despite the ugliness of the elections, the people in my village really are good people. And although people make their election decisions differently than I would, that doesn’t make them invalid. The election did reveal a vibrant political scene that everyone in the community was involved in.

The other important thing to add on is that I have a very limited view of the political process; I rely mostly on what people tell me. Speech here tends to be absolutist. People used to say that I did not know any Tamazight, even though I could have basic conversations. Now they say that I know everything, although my vocabulary is limited, my listening comprehension could be vastly improved, and I generally speak like a bumbling idiot. When describing a person, he/she is either good or bad. Everything is well or the very sky is falling down upon us. Since I am dependent upon these absolutist judgments for what I pass on to you all, my conclusions about elections are bound to lack the subtly that would accurately describe the circumstances.

Update

On a positive note, there are non-political institutions that do some good here in Morocco. The past week I’ve been recruiting women for a traditional birthing attendant training happening this fall. I rely on local associations to help me identify good candidates for the training and they have been very helpful. The people that I’m working with do not directly benefit from the help that they give me, but are nonetheless very willing to help me out.

In addition to recruiting women for the training, I’ve been helping my host family with their annual barley harvest. It’s hot work. The most enjoyable part of the work is listening to the songs that people sing while they work. They are very soulful and express the difficulties of life in the mountains. I hope to get hold of a microphone and recorder before the wheat harvest so I can capture the sound.

There is one funny story from harvest. Having loaded up our mule with a relatively small load of grass, my host dad and I started walking back to our barn. My host dad was walking very slowly and told me to go ahead. I told him I didn’t know right way to take the mule. He told me to go ahead anyways. When I came to a fork in the road, I tried to go right, but the mule refused to budge. I assumed the mule knew better than I, so I went left. This led me to a precarious road, upsetting the mule and causing him to shake his load free. As I was trying to calm the mule and reload the grass (a difficult task for one normal person, impossible for me), my least favorite person in my community came walking down the road from the other direction. For those of you who have been following my posts from the start, there was a guy who threatened me in my first few weeks in my community and was subsequently sent to prison for six months. Ever since his release from prison, he completely ignores me and will do a 180 degree turn if we are walking towards each other. Well he saw me struggling with the mule and stopped in his tracks. He stood there awkwardly, trying to hide behind a tree for about a minute, watching me fail to get the grass back on my mule’s back. He couldn’t turn around, however, because he had come to fetch a carpet that was laid out to dry only 10 feet from where my load of grass was dropped. I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. He eventually got the courage to pick up his carpet. Once he walked away, a couple kids spotted me struggling to reload my mule and came to help me. They took me back to the fork in the road and pointed me on my way (I had been right. Lesson: never trust a mule’s brain over your own).

Things are well. I had been in site for about 10 days before coming into my market town today. I’m feeling comfortable here. I’m glad to be busy with work and helping my family with their harvest. People are good to me.

Extended Update

2009-06-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

First, in an earlier post entitled “America,” I wrote some things that easily could have been perceived as very critical of American culture. I’d just like to say that I meant the tone of that post to be joking and light – I didn’t mean to express that I don’t like America. I had a great time in America and I love the country.

Next, several people have asked why I wrote my last post, “No To War.” I wrote it for a creative writing group that I am a part of. The prompt for that essay was: Is war ever justified? That was my response. I posted it on my blog because a) I thought people would be interested and b) there aren’t enough people saying publicly what I said.

About a week and a half ago, I spent two days in Midelt working on a project with hammams (public baths) there. As I’ve explained before, our project with hammams is to convince the hammam owners to convert their stoves to a more efficient kind of stove in order to reduce wood consumption. When I was in Midelt, two other volunteers and I went around to all the hammams in the town (21) to collect basic diagnostic data from the owners and briefly explain the project. We got data about wood consumption, their current furnace, and how many clients frequent their hammam. Using this data we hope show the owners how much money they would save (in reduceed wood costs) if they convert to the more efficient stove. I thought the meetings went very well. Luckily we have found a local man who is interested in the project and well connected. He accompanied us to the hammams, which was very helpful. Some of the hammam owners were very interested in the project, others not. But I’m hopeful that after we make our big pitch to the owners (early July) that at least one hammam will convert.

After my time in Midelt, all volunteers in the country had a consolidation drill. Peace Corps wants all the volunteers to be able to get to consolidation points (spread throughout the country) in case of an emergency. So I was called to Meknes. It was a lot of time and money just for a drill, but the drill meant that I got to watch the Champions League Final (which I otherwise would have missed), so it wasn’t all bad. Also I like Meknes and the people there.

Back at site, I only had a few days before leaving again. I tried to hang out with people as much as possible. On Saturday I went to Tounfite for a going away party for David and Kristin LaFever. On Sunday night I accompanied them to Casablanca (where they caught their plane) and I went onto Rabat.

In Rabat, all the health volunteers who swore in with me (over a year ago) had mid-service medicals. We all got physicals, a dental check-up, and tests for tuberculosis and parasites. I got a clean bill of health! My biggest health problem was “a little dandruff.” I weigh 4 more pounds than I did than when I came into country over 15 months ago. Although this is partly due to being healthy in Morocco, it may also because I stuffed my face with delicious food for 2 weeks in America. My favorite part of the health check-ups was definitely the dental clean. No cavities. In a sort of backhanded compliment (or fronthanded insult) the dentist commented on the discoloration of my teeth and said that it was due to all the fluoride in the water in America. Then he said that the fluoride was why I didn’t have any cavities, so it was a good thing. Uh, thanks.

In addition to the health stuff in Rabat, I also had fun seeing all the people from my stage, most of whom I haven’t seen since November. I also really like Rabat and I enjoyed walking around. The best day I had there was Tuesday, when I had no appointments. I bought a half kilo of apricots (which are my favorite fruit at the moment) and a half kilo of cherries. I took the fruit, a book, and my ipod down to the beach and relaxed for several hours.

The other notable thing about Rabat was my interactions with the other volunteers. Volunteers here have wide range of experiences and perspectives on Morocco and their time here. Unfortunately, some volunteers are quite unhappy here and have very negative attitudes. They are quick to anger and they expect the worst from Moroccans. It made me grateful for my happiness here. Also grateful that the volunteers around me are positive people.

Wrapping up, being back in Morocco has been good. I miss America and family and friends there, but at the same time I’m excited for the next year. My comfort level in the country and my ability to navigate social situations is way up, making things easier. I’ve learned some Arabic, which means that I have an easier time interacting with people in cities. This summer is going to be full of rewarding work (inchallah). And the summer is the most beautiful time of the year in my site. It sucks that David, Kristin, and Mara are gone, but I like the new people around me.

I hope all is well back home, take care.

No To War

2009-05-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

I am a pacifist. I am a Quaker. I believe in turning the other cheek. I do not believe in killing other human beings. I do not believe that making war can be justified.

Human life is special and precious. We are unique amongst the animals of this earth. The gift of self-awareness is an incredible one. It allows us to feel empathy; it allows us to imagine the plight of another. How can any human, exercising this gift, wish the destruction of another human being like him/herself? Self-awareness and empathy are what separates us from animals. Failing to exercise these feelings is to lose what it means to be human.

I am aware that this is not the world that I live in. As a student of political science, it is clear to me that self-interest and competition dominate world politics. Cooperation is only exercised if it is beneficial to a country’s self-interest. Under these norms, war is sometimes a necessary means to ensuring one’s survival or bettering one’s self.

These may be the norms accepted by most people in our world, but I reject them. I want to live in a better, more peaceful world. I know I am not the only one who dreams of a world without murder. I know that there are others who dream of peace. We are in the minority and our dream may never be realized. But we will keep dreaming.

The most difficult part of holding this position is knowing that I only have the liberty to express these beliefs and others because others have fought and died. Millions of Americans have risked life and limb to protect our rights. They have squeezed the trigger and ended others’ lives in wars throughout our nation’s short history. I greatly respect their principled sacrifice on the behalf of liberty and freedom. And to express these beliefs of pacifism to a veteran would make me a little shameful, for she has legitimate reason to call me naïve and foolish. It is paradoxical to be grateful for the freedom that I have, yet reject the means by which it was achieved, through war.

There are two sorts of war that make me question my convictions. First is war for liberty. Oppressed and in chains, a slave has no freedom. How can the slave be expected to show empathy for the master who has no empathy for him? I cannot imagine what it would be like to be enslaved, so I can pass no judgment on the decision of a slave to fight for freedom.

The second is war in the name preserving life, however paradoxical that may seem. Genocide is all too common. Should a more powerful, outside force intervene in the name of saving the lives of tens of thousands of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? millions? Are the lives of those who have decided to murder worth less than those that they kill? Perhaps a successful intervention with pure intentions could be justified. All too often, however, “humanitarian” interventions are motivated by politics, perverting the goals of the intervention and jeopardizing its success.

While both of these justifications for war give me pause, fighting for peace can reduce the frequency that we have to make this difficult choice. The war for peace is a preemptive one, with many different manifestations. It’s battlefronts are endless and everywhere. But the fight for peace is just and worth fighting.

Report From America

2009-05-23T09:09:00.000-07:00

I just spent 2+ weeks in America. It is a land of wonder and discovery. Wow.

In America, a man can talk to females of any age and it’s totally appropriate. Most women feel comfortable talking to men! At times, women even approach men they don’t know in order to speak with them. They can wear whatever they want. Many young women take advantage of this freedom and wear clothes that expose their heads, legs, arms, and sometimes breasts! They have no shame. Paradoxically, women are ashamed to breast feed in public. It is a culture that values sex over the health of its children. Inexplicably, women get angry if one whistles or shouts something about their looks to them from across the street. I thought that all women were prostitutes in America until my friend told me otherwise.

In America, alcohol is everywhere. I attended a wedding, and there were bottles of wine on every table. Outside, there were three large “kegs” that had a seemingly limitless quantity of beer. Everyone drank to their heart’s content, including women. The beer was delicious, not like the crappy beer that we have in Morocco. I drank 8 glasses the night of the wedding and no one thought that was strange! Most nights I drank 3 beers and that was OK.

In America, everyone has cars and drives them everywhere. They drive their cars when their destination is only a kilometer away! Maybe that is why they are so fat.

They also might be fat because they eat so much food. In Morocco, I am known as a big eater. However, the first few days I was in America I could not eat such large portions. I believe it is because Americans eat so much meat. Meat is often the main course of a meal, with vegetables and starches as the side dish. Americans eat lots of cow and chicken meat. Thankfully, I quickly accustomed myself to the large quantities of meat and was able to stuff myself regularly. Also, the food in America is much tastier than the food in Morocco. They have many more dishes that they prepare than we do.

Although Americans eat a lot of food, they throw even more away. When people do not eat everything, they throw it in the trash can. They have no animals to feed the food to so it is wasted. Restaurants take the food that their customers do not eat and throw it away. Americans throw lots of useful things away. But for some reason they will not throw trash on the ground. I was chastised when I threw garbage from the window of our moving car.

There are no sheep or goats in America. I saw some cows, but very few. I do not know where the meat that Americans eat comes from. I asked someone where the cow we were eating was slaughtered, and he said he did not know. He said it was bought at the supermarket.

Although there are no sheep or goats, there is lots of grass in America. Lot’s of grass. Every house has a large plot of land (called a lawn) in front of it, with only grass. There is no garden. Sometimes the lawns have a tree in them, although never a fruit-bearing tree. I do not know why the trees are in the lawns. The grass in the lawns is thick and the Americans irrigate and fertilize the lawns to make the grass green and grow fast. Paradoxically, although the Americans spend so much time and money making their grass grow fast, when it grows a little bit, they cut the grass using something like a small tractor. This cut grass is thrown away or simply left to dry on the lawn. There are special fields that Americans use to harvest and dry grass, but mostly it is wasted.

Everything is expensive in America, but Americans do not notice. They do not like to talk about money. They are all rich.

Update

I really enjoyed my time in America. It was great to see you all!

My trip back to Morocco was long. My Dad and I drove 8.5 hours on Friday from Iowa to Ann Arbor Michigan. I went to the Detroit airport the next day at about 2:30 pm for a 4:30 flight. I ended up waiting until maybe 8 pm for the flight to take off. There was some miscommunication with air traffic control and our take-off time got bumped. By the time we landed and taxied in New York, it was 10:30 pm. I had missed my flight to Paris. Because of some weather in New York, there were lots of stranded people in the airport, trying to figure out their travel plans, so I stood in line with them. The airline people put me on the next available flight to Paris at 7 pm the next day (Sunday). The attendant told me she wouldn’t give me a hotel voucher because “we don’t give vouchers for weather related cancellations.” I told her that my problems were not weather related, but due to air traffic control. She said that was also not covered. Bullshit. So I found an empty lounge to try to sleep in. There was a television with CNN playing in my lounge (and every other lounge). I found an airport employee and asked her if she could turn down the volume. She said, “We can’t control the volume of the televisions.” Really? I didn’t sleep too well that night. Unfortunately, I had picked a gate that had an early flight the next morning so I was woken up early. That morning was when my luck changed: I discovered that JFK has free wireless! So I was on my computer for several hours that day (Sunday). I also watched the first half of the Lakers game (boring) and Obama’s speech at the Notre Dame commencement (inspiring). Once on the flight, I inexplicably could not sleep. So I watched Valkarie (Tom Cruise), Yes Man (Jim Carrey), and Australia (Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman). We landed in Paris at 8:30 am (Monday) local time. By amazing coincidence, while I was in New York on the Internet, I got in touch with some old Swarthmore friends who were in Paris so they met me at the airport in between my flights. My flight from Paris to Rabat took off at 12:30 pm and landed at about 1 pm local time (there is a two hour time difference). On my flight I sat next to an older Moroccan couple who have a house in Meknes. They invited me to their house (not even back in Morocco yet and I’m getting invitations). I took a taxi from the airport to the bus station (100 Dhs!) I got on a 3:30 pm bus from Rabat to Midelt. On the bus I sat next to this 50 year old retired teacher who has houses in Meknes and Midelt. He spoke English and Tamazight, so that was awesome. He was a Berber pride guy so he loved that I spoke Tamazight. He gave me his number to call him the next time I was in Midelt (he was on his way to Meknes – did I want to stay with him there?) I slept a little on the bus. We got into Midelt around 9 pm and I headed over to my friend’s house in Midelt where I stayed the night. For some reason, I slept through the alarm that I had set for myself the next morning (Tuesday), so I missed the early bus from Midelt to Boumia. I got to the bus station at 8:30 am and someone told me the next bus would be 9:30 or 10. So I walked to the taxi station with all my bags and the situation there was not promising. Walked back to the bus station. I ended up waiting in Midelt until 11:30 for the bus to leave. I got into Boumia at around 1 and went to this building where a project that another volunteer and I had organized was going on. Stayed in Boumia for the rest of the afternoon, then headed the rest of the way home, which was uneventful.

Despite the long trip, it was definitely worth it to go home. And as much as I enjoyed America, I’m really glad to be back in Morocco. I’m excited for the next year. Work is promising. I have so much more to discover in this country.

The big news here is that new volunteers are here and old ones are leaving. There are several new volunteers in the region. I met my first one Thursday night (he stayed at my house). As excited as I am to meet the newbies, it’s very sad to see my friends leaving. I will miss Mara, David, and Kristin especially.

The other news is the project that I returned to in Boumia on Tuesday. Another volunteer (Mara) and I organized two days of pelvic exams for local women (targeted towards sex workers). It was very well attended. One disappointment is that the doctors did not do physical exams, just asked the women about their symptoms and gave them medicine. We’re still waiting on the statistics from the day, but it seems like (as we expected) the incidence of STIs is very high. The other disappointing part of the day happened after the exams were finished. Mara and I went to wrap things up with the doctors. One of the doctors (who works at the Ministry of Health in the provincial capital and had helped us design the project) had gotten totally drunk during lunch. He was very abrasive with Mara and told her that the project was no good. Despite the drunk doctor’s advice, we have some more work planned.

One more thing. I just finished a book called The White Man’s Burden by William Easterly (who is from Bowling Green, OH!) It’s about the failures of Western aid in the developing world. I recommend it highly. I have another book called Dead Aid on the same topic. Expect a nerdy book review of the two books in a few weeks.

Well that’s it, take care in America!

It’s All Downhill From Here

2009-04-26T05:01:00.000-07:00

First to respond to Patricia. Thank you for you comment. I would love to ask you some questions about your work. Can you email me at duncangromko@gmail.com

It’s All Downhill From Here

Assuming I serve 27 months in Peace Corps Morocco, I have just passed a big milestone. At the end of April, I will have been in country for 14 months (and almost a year in my site), a little over halfway through my service. It’s a good feeling. Plus I’m taking a two week holiday to America to go to my brother’s wedding. So it seems like a good as time as any to take stock and reflect on my time in Morocco.

Mostly, it’s been good. I’ve had my ups and downs. In Peace Corps training, we’re warned that we will have long periods of time where we feel down. For example, one might feel generally down for a couple of months, but then pretty happy for the next few months. I haven’t experienced that; my ups and downs are more day to day than month to month. The single greatest factor in determining how I feel is how my work is going; if I just done a cool project or if there are exciting projects on the horizon I am much happier.

My most difficult period was my first 3+ months in site. I was living with my host family for longer than expected (2 months is normal) because of difficulty finding alternative housing. My host family is wonderful, but living with them for such a long time was not easy. I didn’t like the food that we ate. At that point, the work I was doing was very limited and small in scope. I had a difficult time communicating, which was frustrating (although the challenge of learning the language gave me a goal to work for). But the most challenging part of the first 3 months in site was being sick a lot. I had something like dysentery twice. Having dysentery entailed a week of illness. I tried to stay active during those times and get outside, but it was hard. In between those spells, I was sick fairly regularly. I lost weight. I also was experiencing disturbing dreams. In a half-sleep, I would dream that I was laying down in the very position that I was sleeping, but that I was in someone else’s house, in a group of people. It would dawn on me that I needed to walk home, but the fact that I was wearing my pajamas would panic me. I would slowly realize that I was dreaming and snap out of it, but the thin line between being awake and sleeping was a little frightening. It was difficult to tell if I was dreaming and hallucinating, because I felt awake during the dreams. Someone later suggested to me that these dreams were a result of stress. However, I don’t want to make the first three months seem terrible. They were also a time of constant discovery. It was exciting. Everything was new. I could feel language ability improve on a regular basis. My community’s comfort with me also changed noticeably. And I also had a great support from fellow volunteers when I needed it.

Which brings me to another point of reflection: the volunteer community. I probably ought to devote an entire post to this sometime, so this will just be a brief discussion. Fellow Peace Corps volunteers are my best friends in Morocco. This is simultaneously disappointing and wonderful. Disappointing because my expectation of Peace Corps was that my best friends would be Moroccans in my village. Wonderful because the volunteers closest to me are great people that I am thankful to have met. Sharing a difficult experience like Peace Corps with someone is bound to bring you closer to them. Fortunately for me, the people nearby me would be my friends regardless of the environment. They have made everything so much easier for me.

Reflection on Morocco: it’s an incredible country that I haven’t begun to explore. I recently made a list of all the places that I want to visit before I leave. I was trying to be selective and limit the list to places that I couldn’t leave the country without seeing. But the list is long and I won’t be able to see everything even after two years. There is so much diversity in this country: culturally, geographically, linguistically, socio-economically. Anyone who says he/she knows the “real” Morocco doesn’t know the first thing about the country.

Reflection of my service as PC volunteer: the Peace Corps has three goals. 1 Increase other people’s awareness of Americans. 2 Increase Americans awareness of other cultures. 3 Community-level development work. I think I’ve done a pretty decent job with the first two. My integration into my community, however, isn’t as deep as I would like it to be and it probably never will be. One reason for this is that work is taking me out of my site more and more. People in my community tell me that I leave too much. Another (more disappointing) reason for this is that I don’t spend a lot of time with my community even when I am here. Men in my site spend nearly all their free time in public spaces, talking and passing the time. Simply put: I don’t find their conversations interesting and I don’t like doing nothing all day long. I spend some time in public spaces, but not as much as other men. I’m not good enough friends with them to enjoy their company for long periods of time. On the plus side, I spend a lot of time at my host family’s house and have a good relationship with them.

As for the development aspect of Peace Corps, it’s up and down. On the whole I’m happy with what I’ve done, but as you’ll see, the bulk of the work that I hope to do in Morocco is during the second half of my service. So I have a lot left to do if I want meet my goals.

Basic health education (dental hygiene, hygiene): I’ve done lessons in three different schools. My favorite thing to do is handing out toothbrushes and following up with education. It’s difficult to tell if I’m changing behavior (mostly I think not). It’s hard to get kids to brush their teeth without their parents support. But one positive sign is that people in my community ask me for toothbrushes and toothpaste.

Mother and child health: The midwife training that I did last year was very successful. We trained 20 women to be effective midwifes and community health leaders. Getting them to do education in their communities about what they learned in formal settings has been difficult, but I think there is a significant amount of education happening informally. There is just no way to measure that education. Coordination with the Ministry of Health has been difficult and insufficient, but I’ve started working with a nurse in a nearby community on this project, which is promising. We hope to do another training this fall.

Water treatment and supply: My big water infrastructure project is slowly progressing. Construction should be starting around the time I return from America. On an individual level, getting people to treat their water is more difficult (no success yet). I haven’t devoted as much time to that as I would have liked.

Deforestation, erosion, and other environmental issues: This is the area that I’ve accomplished the least in, but has the most promise. Another volunteer and I hope to have a meeting with hammam (public baths) owners in late June about the prospect of converting their ovens to more efficient ones. There is a lot of work to do before then if the meeting is going to be successful. We are collaborating with an agency within the Moroccan Ministry of Energy. If the hammam project is successful, we going to do an assessment of individual wood use in the area. Hammams account for perhaps a fifth of wood use in the region, while individuals use approximately two thirds. It’s difficult to change many individuals’ behavior, but there is greater potential for reducing wood use.

STI and HIV/AIDS prevention: So far, I’ve had a minor impact on people’s behavior in terms of safe sex. It’s a difficult topic to discuss and it’s harder to change behavior (and impossible to evaluate the success of your work). Another volunteer and I have an ambitious project planned for this summer. We hope to get gynecological exams for local sex workers and then enlist 40 of them in a sort of study. All this is very uncertain, but we hope to provide half of that 40 with free condoms for the summer. At the end of the summer, we’ll provide pelvic exams again and compare the sexual health of those women who used condoms against the control group. It is unlikely that this project will happen, but we’re going to try. It’s difficult to get Ministry support for something like this. Fortunately, the volunteer and I have very good connections in the population that we are targeting, which could make the project possible.

Building capacity of local groups: This is really the core of Peace Corps’ development mission. The idea is that volunteers can empower locals to do development work so that it will be sustainable. I’ve done a little work on this on an individual level, talking to association members about their projects and how to develop them. I’m hoping to have a formal training for all the local associations in order to build their capacity. This training will hopefully happen in the fall.

As you can see, my service is back heavy. I’ve used the first year to identify problems and set up ways to address them. Hopefully I’ll use the second year to implement the projects successfully. As I’m here longer, I get a better idea of the issues that I should address and of how to address them. I’m sure I’ll only get better at this as my service progresses. Two years is not enough time for a volunteer to have maximal impact on his/her community. 10 years would be a more reasonable time frame.

Update

Some local associations, another PC volunteer, and myself hosted an HIV/AIDS testing event in a nearby town. It went OK. The biggest disappointment is Moroccans’ continuing inability to say what needs to be said about transmission of HIV. An association member talked to a group of women for 10 minutes about HIV without once mentioning sex. The more I am exposed to the culture, I believe that this shame over talking about sex is self-imposed. People who come to these events want to learn the truth. I’ve found that if you say the shameful stuff with a straight face and without feeling embarrassed about it yourself, it’s fine. Another disappointment related to the testing is that the people who came to the testing nearly all older, married women. Men are the ones making the decision about whether or not to wear a condom, but don’t seem to be interested in the subject.

A local association member and I went back into the prostitution district of the town to encourage women to come to the training. This man wrote his master’s thesis about the sex industry in the town and so knows the women well. Walking back in the prostitution district was like stepping into another world. It was weird seeing sexuality flaunted like that in such a normally conservative society. Unfortunately few prostitutes came to the testing. One interesting note about the how people referred to the prostitutes. I mentioned before that unmarried females are called girls in Tamazight, regardless of their age. However, people called the prostitutes women, even though they’ve never been married. So apparently marriage isn’t what turns a girl into a woman.

I’ll know more tomorrow, but there are rumors that the transportation strike is going to start back up again. Nervous that I wouldn’t be able to get transit to the airport for my Friday morning departure, I’m going to go to Midelt, where there is some transportation to Rabat that is unaffected by the transportation strikes. I’m thankful to people in my village who alerted me to the possibility of the strike starting again and telling me to get out of here so I don’t miss my flight.

Everything is well. I’ve been thinking about coming home to America a lot recently, which has made the time go by slowly. I can’t imagine how hard the last month of my service will be next year, when I have the prospect of returning to America for good on the horizon. Hope all is well. See you all soon. I wont be posting while Im in America, so there wont be a new post until mid or late May.

Response to NYT Article

2009-04-18T16:29:00.001-07:00

My Dad sent me this article from the NYT. I found it interesting and applicable to my situation here so I thought I’d respond.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/science/earth/16degrees.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

I’ll do a quick summary of the article. Soot from wood-burning stoves is the second-leading cause of climate change behind carbon dioxide emissions. The article claims that CO2 is responsible for 40% of climate change while soot is responsible for 18%. The article goes onto say that, “In fact, reducing black carbon is one of a number of relatively quick and simple climate fixes using existing technologies — often called “low hanging fruit” — that scientists say should be plucked immediately to avert the worst projected consequences of global warming.”

People in my village burn wood for a variety of purposes. In the winter, wood burning stoves heat houses. Throughout the year, they are used as the primary stove in the house. And people have bread ovens that burn wood to heat the oven.

As the article notes, in addition to being a cause of climate change, burning wood for heat in the home is a cause of respiratory illness. The article has a picture of an open fire that a woman is cooking over. Fortunately, stoves in my village are contained fires, which mitigates slightly the impact on the respiratory system. Nonetheless, it’s a problem. Another negative impact of wood burning stoves is deforestation.

So what to do?

Although the conclusion of the article talks about some cultural barriers to converting stoves, it seems to me that the thrust of the argument is: getting people off of wood-burning stoves is a relatively easy way of reducing climate change. It seems that their argument is that the cost of these conversions is low compared with reducing carbon dioxide emissions in more developed parts of the world.

While the actual cost of switching a stove may be low, the article misses a huge point. It dramatically underestimates the amount of human capital necessary to convince people to make conversions. Getting people to switch stoves in my 400-person village would be a huge accomplishment. Although it is a goal for my service, I don’t think that it will happen. The available alternatives all have significant obstacles that prevent them from being viable. Natural gas is too expensive. Solar cookers are too slow and wouldn’t cook food in a way that people are used to. But the biggest obstacle is that people are relatively satisfied with wood stoves and not concerned with preventing climate change.

If, after two years, I can’t make an impact in this arena in a village of 400, what hope do we have of convincing hundreds of millions of people all across the globe? This is NOT “low-hanging fruit.” It’s a cause worth fighting for, but it will not be easy. The climate change argument is not a reasonable one to make with people who are living day to day. In my village, the issue of deforestation is more pressing to people and that’s the argument that I make here. If converting stoves worldwide is a goal, than each individual community may need an argument that is specific for their situation in order to convince them. Furthermore, different cultures will need an individualized stove that suits their needs. As I said above, this will require large amounts of community-level development work in order to tackle appropriately.

Update

All is well. I have gotten the money for my running water project and will be presenting the project to an auction of potential contractors on Monday. Hoping to have that project running smoothly by the time I leave for America. It’s very exciting.

I hope all is well. Looking forward to coming home.

Transportation Strike

2009-04-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

In my last post I talked about the difficulties of traveling during the transportation strike, but neglected to mention anything about why the strike was happening.

The strike started on the 8th of April. It is supposed to affect all public transportation. Anyone who makes their living by driving (even transporting goods) is on strike. In small villages like my community, our local market transit is partially affected. Our transit driver went to and from Tounfite on Saturday and Sunday, but has not gone other days. I’m not sure what governs his decision.

Transportation workers are striking because they are upset with new laws imposed by the government. There are several new laws, but a couple that people talk about a lot. One is that anyone who kills someone else with their car (regardless of fault) will go to jail for upwards of ten years. Most of the other laws concern fines for traffic violations such as speeding (1,000 Dhs) and running a red light (also 1,000 Dhs). The government is making these laws in order to reduce the number of deaths on the road in Morocco, which is currently high.

The effects of the strike are far reaching. In big cities, local taxis are affected, which transport many people to and from work on a daily basis. For people in the countryside, the greater concern is traveling between towns/cities. My host dad has to travel to Tounfite in order to collect his quarterly retirement pension from the post office. He went on Monday morning, but could not find return transport so was stuck in Tounfite for… Other people have to travel to and from places like Midelt for business, but are unable to.

Perhaps the greatest effect that the strike has is on supplies. Like America, Morocco is dependent upon transport to distribute goods throughout the country. According to the television, ships are currently docked in Moroccan ports with goods to unload, but are unable to do so because there are no trucks to deliver the goods. Hitting closer to home is the shortage of vegetables in my market town. Fruits and vegetables are transported from the agricultural centers to the rest of the nation. The quality of vegetables this past market day (Sunday) declined noticeably. And the prices skyrocketed. Onions that are normally 3-5 Dhs/kilo were 10 Dhs/kilo. Given my generous Peace Corps salary (2,000 Dhs/month), this increase in prices is not a hardship and did not affect my purchases in any way. But for people who normally spend more than 50% of their income on food, having the price of food double has a dramatic effect. People in my village won’t eat as many vegetables this week as they normally do. In addition to food, there is a shortage of other important goods such as gas for stoves. People will get by by borrowing from their neighbors or using alternative methods of heating (wood stoves).

So what do Moroccans think of the transportation strike? Well I hardly have a representative sample here, but I have heard both sides of the story. My host mom says that the government is in the right for imposing the new laws; something must be done to decrease the number of deaths on the road. A local teacher and a friend both expressed a different view. They say that the new laws will have no impact on the number of deaths on the road. According to them, right now, if a taxi driver is stopped by the police for a violation (say a 400 Dhs fine for speeding), the police will simply ask for a bribe less than the cost of the fine (say 100 Dhs). Therefore, according to my friend and the teacher, the increase in fines will only allow police to ask for more from their bribes. (Although it seems to me that having to pay a larger bribe to the police might be a greater deterrent). They both say that Morocco is always trying to solve its problems with new rules and laws, but what it really needs is better enforcement of the existing laws. The teacher also argued that the best way to reduce traffic accidents is to improve the quality of the roads, which I have to agree with.

The strike dominates most conversations that I’m apart of and headlines the news every night. People speculate about how long it will last (a strike three years ago lasted seven days) and how much things will cost on the next market day. Although it was a pain in the neck for me when I was trying to travel back from my site, now that I’m here, it’s not a big deal (except for my host dad being stuck in Tounfite). And I enjoy having an interesting topic of conversation readily available. However, for some people here, it is a hardship because of the shortage of supplies.

Update

Coming back to my community after 2 weeks in Fes and Rabat was a bit of a shock. Its so conservative here. But its good to be home. Ive got some work to wrap up before I leave for America, but mostly Im just enjoying being back.

Traveling in Morocco

2009-04-12T04:25:00.000-07:00

Traveling here can be easy, frustrating, cheap, expensive…pretty much everything. There is currently a transportation strike going on (really no transport other than trains and hitch hiking anywhere) so it seemed like a good time to write about the issue.

Local vans. This is my primary means of transportation around my site. These are big vans that seat maybe 12-15 people comfortably. However, they are more often filled to the brim. I’ve seen 30 people in a transit like this, with 10 more riding along on top. My transit is generally reliable. I find the driver the day before and ask him what time he will be leaving the next day. He’s normally within fifteen minutes of his estimate. Sometimes, however, he is wrong by an hour or two. This is particularly frustrating when I wake up at 5 am and it’s the dead of winter. These transits are fairly inexpensive: my transit costs 10 Dhs ($1.20) for an hour ride.

Grand Taxis. Grand taxis are big, old Mercedes that typically fit 6 people plus the driver (four in the back seat, two in the front passenger). This 6 people rule is more of guideline, however, as more can be squeezed in depending upon demand and the driver’s willingness. Taxis run between big towns/small cities. They compete with buses, which normally run between the same cities (although buses go much further distances than taxis). Taxis are faster than buses, but more expensive. A taxi from Boumia to Azrou (about 1.5 –2 hours) costs 40 Dhs ($5).

Buses. These are pretty similar to buses in the states, except a little older and a little dirtier. They run long trips all over the country. They’re kind of slow sometimes because they will pick up anyone standing by the side of the road with their thumb out and drop people off wherever they want. But their cheap and you can get anywhere in the country with them.

Trains. Trains only run between the biggest cities in Morocco (Meknes, Fes, Rabat, Casablanca, Oujda, Marrakech). They are the most comfortable form of transportation. They are also by far the most expensive. I recently took a train from Fes to Rabat (my first train!), which is about a 3 hour ride. It cost me 76 Dhs. A bus for the same route would probably be around 45-50 Dhs. But the train is nice because you meet more interesting people and it’s comfortable.

Hitch hiking. I hadn’t done too much of this before the current transportation strike. Normally it is no big deal as pretty much everyone hitch hikes. Most of the time when you get picked up it’s by a taxi driver, bus, or local van. Taxi drivers will even leave seats open for hitch hikers. You often pay a small amount; about what you’d pay a taxi driver for the same route. However, during the transportation strike, it was a different story altogether. No one was picking up and many people were trying to get rides. A quick summary of my hitch hiking adventure.

Thursday I left a fellow volunteer’s site, hoping to get to my site that evening. I got to the nearest big town (Gigo) to catch the 9:30 bus. The ticket guy said: “There’s nothing, try tomorrow.” I asked around and people told me about the strike. Apparently there was nothing. So went out to the main road in town and found a transit that was going to Timhadite. I felt I might have a better chance in Timhadite because it’s on a bigger road. However, after three hours with my thumb out, I gave up and went back to the volunteer’s house for the night.

The next morning (Friday) I went back to Timhadite and waited for about 30 minutes – hour before I got picked up. A big tourist bus was empty and driving people illegally. They drove me to Zeida. In Zeida I stood by the side of the road for about 3 hours with absolutely no luck (trying to go to Boumia). At around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, I gave up and walked to the other road out of town to catch a ride to Midelt (where a volunteer lives). This is a larger road and it wasn’t as hard getting a ride. I got picked up in 45 minutes by some Casablancans on their way to Merzouga (the desert) for a trance music festival. They invited me to come with them and I was tempted, but declined. I got to my friend’s house in Midelt and stayed the night there

Saturday morning I got up early to try my luck again. Unfortunately, I had to back track to Zeida in order to get to Boumia. I stood by the side of the road for about an hour with no luck. Then some boys (maybe 16 or 17 years old) walked by and told me they were walking to Boumia and to come with them. It’s about a 44 km walk so I told them no. They kept trying to persuade me. They said that if we walked about 5 km out of town we would have a better chance of getting a ride. That was enough to convince me. We walked for about 10 km and finally got a ride to Zeida. In Zeida, we got some food, and walked out of town in the direction of Boumia. There is a large lake there so we took our food to its shores and rested for a bit. Then we started walking again, getting picked up about 5 km into our walk.

In Boumia (about 2:30 pm) we went to one of the boy’s house and had lunch. That was nice. They wanted me to stay the night, but I wanted to get to Tounfite for the night. So back to the road. Tounfite is about 37 km from Boumia, so it was unwalkable that late in the day. There weren’t many vehicles going by, so I had little hope. A friend drove by, but his car was full and he couldn’t take me. Finally someone with one spot left stopped and agreed to take me. So here I am in Tounfite. I was exhausted from my travels, but I slept really well last night (today is Sunday) and I’m glad to be home.

Update

My two weeks of work, related travel went really well. I met some interesting people and learned a lot about Morocco. I’m on an incredible streak of having very positive interactions with people that I have just met.

My work also took a very promising step forward when I went to Rabat for a meeting. Another volunteer and I met with CDER, which is a renewable energy agency that is associated with the Ministry of Energy of Morocco. We have been coordinating with them on our conversion of hammam stoves. Although our most recent effort in hammam conversion didn’t go well, CDER is still behind the project; they gave us some good ideas for what to do next. They want to draw up a convention between CDER and Peace Corps that will solidify our responsibilities with one another and hopefully make the work more accessible to other Peace Corps volunteers. They also want us to do a study of personal wood consumption in our region. If the project goes well, then this will be a ton of work for the rest of my service. It’s very exciting.

One last thing: during the transportation strike I had a nice realization: I really wanted to get back to my community.

Fes

2009-04-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

I am nearing the end of one of my best weeks in Morocco. I’m in Fes for an annual Peace Corps youth camp. All over the country, volunteers from a different sector (they work with boarding schools in bigger towns) put on an English camp for Moroccan youth (14-17 years old). Volunteers from other sectors come to the camp to help out.

I was assigned to the Fes camp. I’ve never been to Fes before, even though it’s not too far from me and it’s one of the most famous cities in Morocco. After this week here, I will definitely be coming back to the city.

Before I get into gushing about how wonderful Fes is, let me first say that I am very happy to be in my tiny mountain village. I love the people there and I and if I had to choose a place to live for two years (in Morocco) this would be the place. I wouldn’t want to live in Fes and do this kind of work all the time.

That said, Fes is great. The people here wonderful. It’s a huge culture shock to be in this city; everything is so different. People are educated, open, and cosmopolitan. It feels like a different country. The language is different (Arabic, not Berber), people dress different, and people are wealthy. It has more in common with America than it does with my village.

Working with the kids at this camp is the most rewarding part. They are smart, engaged, and open. In addition to teaching English, I’m responsible for leading an HIV/AIDS and STI “club.” We meet for a couple hours a day to talk about these issues. In my village, it’s very difficult to talk about such sensitive issues, but here the kids are eager to talk about it. I am learning from them as much as I am teaching. I put a lot of time into preparing for the lessons. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to keep up with them. They have questions for me after class! So far the defining moment of the class was when a boy was explaining to the class that he would wait to marriage to have sex for religious reasons. When he finished speaking, a girl said, “That’s not possible! Every guy has sex before marriage – and so do most girls!” That may not be shocking to American readers, but coming from my village, it was astounding. Another amazing moment was the condom demonstration that I led. After I showed people how to do it, a girl came up and demonstrated for the rest of the class.

The girls at this camp are in love with me. And they are not afraid to show it. They flirt openly. One asked me, “So which of the girls at this camp do you think is the most beautiful?” When they talk to me, they touch my arms. It’s just how 14-17 year old American girls would act around a 23-year-old guy. It made me uncomfortable at first because it was so different from what I’m used to.

Most of the kids in the camp have girlfriends/boyfriends. They have little teenage relationship dramas and text one another constantly. (They all have cell phones with video cameras and the like). The kids dress hiply; much hipper than I remember my classmates dressing in high school.

Apart from the kids, there are other amazing parts about Fes. It is a beautiful city. We went for a tour of the medina (old city), and I was blown away. We visited beautiful religious schools with amazing courtyards. In these tile courtyards, the walls are lined with intricate woodcarvings. These ancient religious wonders are enough to make an atheist want to convert to Islam.

The people are great too. On Tuesday night I made plans to meet up with fellow volunteers at a hotel. They had transportation problems and were several hours late. The hotel was full (they already had a room), so I couldn’t get into the hotel until they arrived. I loitered outside the hotel and as the night got later and later, I started to feel uncomfortable. There were several sketchy looking characters smoking hash nearby. It’s the sort of situation that Peace Corps recommends that we avoid. But I ended up talking with the guys and I was amazed by how welcoming and nice they were. It made me feel guilty for my earlier wariness.

I’d been told that Fes is a proud Arab city and that people look down on Berber speakers, so with these guys I didn’t mention (at first) that I spoke Berber. But eventually it came out. To my surprise, it turned out that a couple of them spoke it. It wasn’t their first language, but they studied it and learned it, basically out of respect for the Berber people. They were thrilled that I spoke it. The guys who didn’t know Berber told me, “I’m jealous of you. You speak the language and I don’t. It is wonderful that you have learned it.” Coming in expecting hostility, I was (once again) blown away.

With these hash smoking, Berber speaking guys, I took a step towards understanding the religious views of people in the country. I’ve always been skeptical of the constant God phrases and just the omnipresence of God in people’s speech. I thought that having references to God so often cheapened the meaning of the words. And I assumed (wrongly again) that drug users wouldn’t be the firmest believers in God. But these guys were humble and just as firm in their belief as anyone else I met. We had a good conversation about it. They have a deep appreciation for the life that they have. Thanking God and doing everything in the name of God is just their way of expressing that appreciation.

The trip has strengthened by resolve to continue studying Arabic. I’ve met random people in cafes and on the streets who were welcoming and warm. I thought that with all the tourists coming through Fes that people might not be so welcoming. But I had good conversations with people that were limited by my language ability and not their willingness to speak with me.

Basically, in a week I’ve learned about this whole other world in Morocco that I am missing. The diversity in this country is unbelievable. Having not traveled very much, I’ve been ignorant to all the different pockets and niches where entirely different cultures and beliefs exist. The difficulty with traveling is that all the time that I spend out of my site hurts my ability to get work done. Nonetheless, I’ve just found out that I have to make the time for some traveling. It would be a shame if I lived in Morocco for two years and missed out on some of the wonderful things that it has to offer.

Riddles

2009-03-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

My previous post discussed Berber tales. In my quest to find more stories, I stumbled into another cultural niche that I was unaware of: riddles. The following are riddles that people have told me.

A big truck, filled with watermelons, is driving down the road. Little by little, it comes upon a stretch in the road where there is lots of ice and snow. The driver is afraid to pass for fear that the truck will crash, ruining the watermelons. What does he do? (There are no watermelons during winter).

It is the evening before the day of l-Eid, so everyone is on the lookout for the new moon setting in the Western horizon (the new moon will signify that the next day is l-Eid). A man says that he saw the new moon while praying. How do we know he is lying? (The moon sets in the West. Muslims all over the world face Medina while they pray, which is to the East for Moroccans).

A man is walking down the road and he sees a dog in the middle of the road laying an egg. He is afraid to pass. What does he do? (Dogs don’t lay eggs).

There is an island that is close to the mainland. On the mainland sits a man. On the island there is a banana tree full of bananas. On the top of the tree there is a monkey. The man on the mainland wants to eat bananas. What does he do? (The man throws rocks at the monkey. The monkey will retaliate by throwing monkeys back).

A man is driving a truck very fast. Some cloth covering the bed of the truck suddenly comes forward on top of the windshield, blocking his view. What does he do? (The cloth couldn’t come forward if he was driving fast).

There is a wife and husband. The wife tells her husband to go bake bread. He does it. Why? (He is afraid that she will hit him with a stick).

A man is picking grapes from a grapevine above his head. Melting snow on the grapes is getting in his eyes, making it hard for him to work. What does he do? (There isn’t snow during grape harvest time).

There is a wife and husband. The husband is a midget and the wife is very tall. The husband is thirsty, so he asks his wife to pick him up and put him on top of the sink. Once on the sink, he drinks until he quenches his thirst. Then he picks up a pan and hits his wife with it, killing her. He cries. Why is he upset? (Because he can’t get down from the sink).

A man is driving down the road in a truck. The road winds along next to a large mountain. The man looks towards the mountain and sees a large rockslide falling down the mountainside, coming towards his truck. What does he do? (You only look forward while you are driving, so he couldn’t have seen the rockslide).

When you put water in the freezer, it turns solid, into ice. This is true for all liquids. What is the one thing that turns from liquid into solid when you put it in the oven? (An egg).

There is something that eats and eats and eats. It will eat anything. The more it eats, the bigger it gets. It cannot be satiated. However, if it drinks water, it will die. What is it? (Fire).

There is a river that a man wants to cross. However, he can’t because something will be ashamed. What will be ashamed? (His shoes, because they will get wet).

What is the one thing that can cross a river without getting wet? (A shadow).

Three people traveling come upon a river that they must cross. When they cross, one person sees the river and gets wet. One person sees the river, but does not get wet. And one does not see the river and does not get wet. How is this possible? (The first person is a pregnant woman who crosses the river. The second is the child the woman is carrying on her back. And the third is her unborn child).

What can send words without talking? (A letter).

A man is traveling with a fox, a sheep, and some grass. They come upon a river that they must cross. There is a boat, but it will only fit the man and one of his objects at a time. If the man leaves the fox with the sheep, it will eat the sheep. If the man leaves the sheep with the grass, it will eat the grass. What does he do? (He accompanies the sheep across the river. Leaves it there and returns. Next he takes the fox across, when he returns, he brings the sheep back. Then he takes the grass over, leaving it with the fox. He returns for the sheep).

There are three men and three women who want to cross a river. The boat can only fit two people at once. A woman cannot be in the presence of another man unless her husband is present (because the man will take advantage of her – this tidbit is unspoken, but assumed to be common knowledge). What is the solution? (Too complicated to explain. You need rocks or some objects to represent the men and women in order to figure out the puzzle).

A man is crossing the ocean with all of his things, animals, clothes, etc. The boat is filled to capacity; if the weight increases just the slightest bit, it will sink. His chicken lays an egg. Does the boat sink? Why or why not? (It doesn’t sink because the egg was already in the chicken, so the weight of the load doesn’t increase).

As you see, there is a wide variety of riddles. Some of them are legitimately difficult. Some are really easy. Some make no sense. I’ve been told others, but couldn’t remember them. Learning these riddles and telling them to other people once I’ve learned them is so much fun. People love them and the stories. I’m going to work on songs next, but those are harder. The song post might not be until summer, when wedding season is (and everyone sings songs).

Update

I’m in the midst of my busiest time as a Peace Corps volunteer. I’ve had an activity every day for the past week and a half. And this coming week I’m going to Fes to help with an English camp. Every year the Youth Development volunteers put on week-long camps for junior high kids all over the country. Other volunteers come for the week to help with English and teach some lessons on their own. I’m going to be doing a HIV/AIDS club. It’s an English intensive class, so we only speak English, which will be nice.

I’m happy to have the work. Doing work with the Traditional Birth Attendants, HIV/AIDS education in schools, and a workshop for hammam (public bath) owners to convince them to convert to more efficient stoves. The only bummer is that a lot of the work takes me out of my site, so I haven’t been here as much as I like to be.

Berber Tall Tales

2009-03-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

I’ve recently learned a number of Berber folk stories that I think you might enjoy. Please excuse the lewdness of some of the later stories. Also, let me say that it is impossible to capture that manner that these stories are told in spoken English, let alone written.

A hedgehog and a wolf go out to plow their field. The wolf is bigger so he makes the hedgehog work. He plows, he plows, he plows. It’s hot and the hedgehog is tired. Somehow (I believe they arranged it ahead of time) the hedgehog gets his brother (who is also a hedgehog) to drop rocks down upon the field from a nearby cliff (the wolf cannot see the brother hedgehog). The hedgehog plowing the field tells the wolf to go over to cliff and see if he can hold the cliff side up and prevent it from falling down. The wolf goes over and supports the cliff with his back, but the rocks keep falling down. So the wolf tells the hedgehog plowing the field to hold the cliff up while he plows the field. When the hedgehog puts his back to the cliff (which is in the shade, mind you), his brother stops dropping the rocks. The hedgehog stays at the side of the cliff while the wolf plows the field.

In another hedgehog story, a hedgehog is playing a hand drum by the side of a well. He plays, he plays, he plays. After a little bit, he falls in the well. But he keeps playing the drum at the bottom of the well and many animals gather at the mouth of the well. The hedgehog tells them all to come in the well so they can play the drum together and have a party. So all the animals jump in the well. After a little while, the animals are hungry and can’t leave the well. They start eating each other. After a few days, all that is left is the hedgehog and a lion. They’re tired and about to go to sleep. The hedgehog tells the lion, “When I was a little boy, my father used to throw me straight up into the air to help me fall asleep. Could you do that?” So the lion throws the hedgehog up in the air. “A little higher” says the hedgehog. The lion throws the hedgehog up again. “Just a little higher?” The third time, the lion throws the hedgehog high enough in the air that he can grab the lip of the well and climb out. The lion dies of hunger.

A hedgehog and a wolf are walking along a path, the hedgehog in front. The hedgehog sees a trap in the path, so he pauses. He tells the wolf, “Uncle wolf, you are bigger. Why don’t you take the lead in case we meet something dangerous?” The wolf says no at first, but then agrees. He walks a little ways and gets caught in the trap. The hedgehog walks on. (After these hedgehog stories, someone invariably says, “hedgehogs are smart, aren’t they?” I don’t argue.)

There is no story behind this, but there is a mythical creature called a “taharir.” It is female and extremely ugly. It has four teeth: two on top and two on bottom. It’s top teeth reach down to its chin and the bottom ones above its eyes. It has the legs of a cow. It eats the flesh of men if they venture into the forest, but is afraid of light. Hilariously, the name of this animal is very similar to a soup that is served commonly during Ramadan. The ignorant foreigner is thus the source of hilarity until someone fills him in on the fact that he isn’t asking for soup.

Blackbirds make their cawing sound because they are trying to throw up money that they have swallowed.

A poor man wants to slaughter something for the coming holiday. An important guest is coming, so he has to have some meat to give him. However, he has no money, so he slaughters a mouse. The mouse is cooked and placed on top of couscous (the normal spot for meat) and served for dinner. When the guest sees the mouse on top of his couscous, he says “Sub” (which is what you say to animals to make them run away). The mouse wakes up and runs away, into the host’s herd of sheep (why he didn’t slaughter one of his sheep I don’t know). The sheep are scared of the mouse, so they scatter and run away, lost forever. The noises you hear at night are the sound of this man vainly calling for his sheep.

A very poor man has no food to eat. He goes to the field every day and eats grass like an animal. However, the King is coming to the community the next day. The Caid (local government official) is worried that the King will see the man and not like the situation. So the Caid goes to the poor man and gives him 1,000 Dhs ($130, a lot of money for a community like ours) and tells him not to eat the grass in the field. The next day the King comes and sees the community and approves. The following day the poor man returns to the field and eats grass.

Now start the sex stories. If you’d like to skip them, consider yourself forewarned. They aren’t explicit.

A male bird and a male frog are lonely. The bird suggests to the frog that they have sex. The frog is skeptical at first, but then gives in. The bird wants to go first, but the frog convinces the frog to let him go first. When they finish, the bird says, “Now it’s my turn.” But the frog jumps in the river and gets away.

A family of three approaches a rich man about buying his cow. The man says, “I have enough money, so there is no amount of money you can give me. Instead, I would like to have sex with you (speaking to the husband/father of the family).” So he has sex with him. Then he says, “If you want me to give you my cow, you will let me have sex with your wife.” So he has sex with the wife/mother. Then he says, “Finally, I will have sex with your son.” So he has sex with the son. Then he tells the family that they cannot have the cow.

A man and his friend stand at the entrance of a prostitution hotel 15 stories high. Each story of the building has a girl in it and a light illuminating the room. The man tells his friend that he will visit every story of the building and when he is finished with each girl, he will turn the light off to let his friend know that he has finished. Little by little, after all the lights have been turned off, the friend sees the man on the roof of the hotel, masturbating. He shouts at him, “What are you doing?” The man says, “I am trying to turn off the moon.”

That’s it. I will continue to ask about these stories because I think they’re interesting. People love telling me these stories and love it even more if I can tell one that I know. The stories probably say something about the culture, but I will let you readers do your own analyses. There are also tons of songs that have interesting lyrics. And people have been telling me riddles too. I will try to collect them and post them.

Update

My updates are starting to get repetitive. Everything is well. Work is going well, but slowly. The weather is nice. Despite my trip home looming on the near horizon, time is passing quickly. One new thing is that I’ve started studying Arabic seriously – a teacher at the local school is teaching me. Another new thing is that I’m spending less and less time in my community. My work is drawing me away from my site. I’m glad to have the work and be busier, but I don’t like being away from my community so much.

Another volunteer and I recently took a trip to one of my outer douars (28km) to visit with a woman who attended our traditional birth attendant (TBA) training. One striking thing about the trip was that the truck ride from our souq town (Tounfite) to the town (about 50 km) took five hours. The road is terrible. So these people are completely isolated. The other notable thing about the trip was our work with the TBA. We helped her lead an informational session with local women so she could pass on the knowledge that she learned at the training. It went OK, but there are lots of cultural things that we struggled with. Unfortunately, people don’t think they can learn anything form an illiterate woman like the TBA. And there isn’t any precedent for public education in this form, so people didn’t know what to make of it. The workshop emphasized the long-term view that one needs to take in order to see success for this project.

Culture of Dependency

2009-03-15T04:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve always been in favor of the redistribution of wealth, but so my experiences in Peace Corps are changing that attitude some.

Before I came here, the argument that aid and government charity was pernicious because it created a culture of dependency seemed like a lame excuse. I just didn’t get why it was a problem. Saying that people needed to ‘pick themselves up by their bootstraps’ seemed unrealistic and insensitive. But seeing aid in action puts a different spin on the issue.

As a Westerner in a developing country, I’m constantly asked to give things away. People assume that Peace Corps and I have lots of money and that I want to give it to them. From time to time I hear a reasonable proposal for a project, but mostly people suggest things that involve lots of money for something that they can take care of themselves.

Three examples: First, there are many old, military towers in town from the days of French colonization that are starting to fall down. Someone suggested to me that my association pay to have them restored. Although this sort of project is not priority, I asked the guy more about what he was thinking; what the village would need to do the project. Since the buildings are made of mud and straw and dirt, I asked what materials they would need. None. So what is the money for? The guy thought that my association would pay people in my village the cost of labor to repair the buildings. This is a project that the community could easily do themselves, but they want someone to pay them to do it. Second, people have suggested that I figure out a way to lower the cost of running water in our town. People in my town currently pay about 5 Dhs per month (less than a dollar) for water, which is affordable. If they really can’t afford it, there are several springs in close proximity where they can gather water. The cost of this project, to gather water from a far spring and pipe it to our water tower, would cost some where in the neighborhood of 30,000,000 Dhs. In order to recoup the cost of the project in money saved from the water bill, it would take some 8,000 years. So it’s not a great use of funds. Finally, having nearly completed a project involving money with a local community leader, he said to me, “Give some more money.” I said, “For what?” He said, “I don’t know.”

I’ve done toothbrush and toothpaste distribution in my community and other nearby communities and I always feel a little bad about it. The cost of the toothbrush and toothpaste is really small and if people felt that dental hygiene was a priority, they could afford it. Why should I be paying for healthiness of someone else’s teeth when they can afford it? Since I mostly give toothbrushes to kids, who actually can’t afford it, I justify the practice to myself. I hope that having toothbrushes (accompanied by dental hygiene education) helps them see the benefit of dental hygiene and encourages long-term behavior change.

Food aid is irregularly given to my community by a Moroccan governmental organization. A truck pulls up in the center of town and everyone lines up to get their share. The sad part to me is that people take a) what they can afford themselves and even b) what they don’t even like. My host family took a bunch of macaroni noodles on two separate occasions. Both times they realized they didn’t like them and gave them to me. People ask me why I don’t line up with the rest of the community to get my share of food aid. I say that I have no need for it, but this is not a convincing argument for them.

Having people constantly ask others and me for foreigners makes me wonder what this begging does to their dignity. How does your self image change when you are constantly asking others for handouts?

Beyond the question of dignity, this culture of dependency prevents people from making positive changes in their community that they have do have control over. The repair of old buildings in my community is one example. Another, more important problem is the environmental one that I have discussed in past posts. Protecting the land is something that the community is entirely capable of: they have been able to survive here for hundreds of years without stressing the land. It is the increase in wealth and population that has put stress on the land. The community has abandoned previous conservation methods in favor of getting the most out of the land in the short-term. Even with the Moroccan government offering to pay the community to reforest the land, it is not enough. The solutions that I’ve heard to the land problem all involve outside organizations giving massive amounts of money. They want someone else to fix their problems, even though they are capable of fixing those problems themselves.

It’s a tough question that doesn’t have an easy answer. Peace Corps’ solution is to build the capacity of the people and the institutions here to help themselves. To empower people and give them confidence. I guess that is really the only reasonable solution. I really like projects like the traditional birth attendant training that we did because they build capacity and help people be self-sufficient. I have doubts about projects like toothbrush distribution because they reinforce the expectation of handouts. There is no community contribution. The only positive is that, hopefully, the kids learn to brush their teeth.

This is a big question that I won’t be able to answer on this blog or anywhere else. Considering that I think about working for organizations like USAID as a job, it has important implications for my career.

Update

Every week spring becomes more apparent. The fields are green now and the trees are starting to bud. Thank God.

Having the date of my vacation to the United States (May 1) draw closer is making it hard not to count the days. I’m looking forward to it greatly.

My work is going pretty well, despite the above musings. I’ve gotten to a nice point in my service where my comfort level in my community has increased significantly. Before, I always looked forward to the days that I would leave my community and go to Tounfite, where there is Internet and Americans to talk to. I still look forward to that, but I no longer take any excuse to make the trip. I’m happy enough here and have developed enough of a routine that I can pass the time. Although I still have lots of free time, it has decreased and I wish I had more (earlier in my service I had far too much time). I’ve started staying up later because I can’t get everything that I want to done. I hear about excuses to take a big trip with other volunteers and realize that I would prefer to stay here. This weekend, a number of volunteers will be gathering for a St. Patrick’s Day party some 6 hours from here. It’s nice to realize that I would rather stay here in my community than make that trip.

The Hammam

2009-03-06T07:14:00.001-08:00

For those of you who don’t know, a hammam is a public bath. Many houses don’t have their own baths, so the hammam is an important part of Moroccan life.

The hammam in Tounfite (my market town) is open in the mornings for men and afternoons for women. There are some hammams that are big enough that they are open all day for both sexes, but not ours. There is no public hammam in my village – some families have small private hammams.

The first room in the hammam is the changing room. There are benches, cubbies, and hooks to hang your clothes. Men strip down to their underwear, grab a few buckets, and enter the warmer rooms of the hammam. Most hammams have three washing rooms, of varying warmth. The innermost room is the warmest as it normally has the hot water taps and is closest to the fire.

I always go directly to the innermost room and fill up my buckets with hot water. An important ritual is splashing hot water on the space of the floor that you will sit on before you sit down to wash. After I have my water and have cleaned the floor, I take a seat and relax.

The hammam in Tounfite is, relative to other hammams, not very warm. It’s not anywhere near as warm as a sauna in the United States. Nonetheless, it’s very comfortable and relaxing. I normally just sit and relax for a while before I begin washing. I have fallen asleep in a hammam before.

The traditional way of washing is to apply a special soap and let it sit for 10 minutes. Then you take a very rough mitt and scrub your whole body. The idea is to scrub and scrape your body hard enough to remove all the dead skin. I’ve seen people scrape layers of skin off. It’s kind of disgusting. For the hard to reach areas, people often get someone else to scrub them. Skin is often red after the scrubbing. Then you lather up with some normal soap and rinse off. Men often shave in the hammam as well.

Another interesting aspect of the hammam is the communal stretching that takes place. Given the warm atmosphere, the hammam is a nice place to do stretching. I often stretch as well. But the communal stretching in the hammams takes it to a whole other level. Body parts intertwine to create enough leverage to really stretch. There is often loud grunting coming from the stretchee as his body is contorted into positions I never thought possible. It’s difficult to describe the positions attained by the people stretching each other, but imagine joints bent at angles previously unattained and the body parts of one man indistinguishable from those of his stretching partner. If stretching were an Olympic event, this is what it would look like.

Although I haven’t experienced this aspect of the hammam, for women the hammam is a very social place. Men exchange some greetings, but there isn’t a lot of talking (hard to hear one another over the grunting coming from your stretching neighbors). From what I hear, however, women spend a lot of their time in the hammam talking. In Moroccan society, there are fewer (or no) public spaces where women can socialize, so I imagine that the hammam is a good excuse for women to get out of the house and meet with other women for a few hours. The hammam actually charges women more (6 dirhams compared with 5 for men) because they spend longer there. I’ve heard of women who come to the hammam at 1 o’clock and don’t leave until 5.

All told, the hammam is an essential Moroccan experience. It’s warm and clean – what more could you ask for?

Update

My 73 year old host dad has many illnesses, but one that troubles him the most is arthritis (at least I think it’s arthritis – he describes it by saying that his hands are closed). A traditional healer recently came to town and so my host dad went to see him. I’m pretty sure my host dad has never seen a certified doctor about his problems.

The treatment for my host dad’s illnesses (and many other illnesses) is a light burning. The healer took a hot piece of metal and burnt my host dad on three different places on his right arm. Back at the house, he had to stay inside for seven days to ensure the effectiveness of the treatment. During those seven days, he could only eat bread, tea, and eggs. Guests were not supposed to come over and generally my host dad was instructed to relax.

The seventh day was Friday the 27th. On Sunday the 1st, my host dad went to the mountain with our mule to collect branches. He was still feeling tired, but the animals needed food to eat. My host mom and I were hanging out at the house in the afternoon/evening, waiting for him to come back so we could eat dinner. He has to wait until late in the afternoon to return because the activity is illegal. But he was much later than normal in returning. It was dark outside. So my host mom and I went looking for him along the road. My host mom was really freaking out, worrying that he had died up in the mountains or there was some other catastrophe. I was a little worried as well. We ended up finding him 5 kilometers from home slowly leading the mule back. Apparently the mule had gotten away from him and he had a tough time tracking it down. He was exhausted. My host mom walked the mule the rest of the way home and I walked back with my host dad. The entire time he kept saying, “I’m tired, I’m tired.” We were walking really slowly. We got back to the house OK, but it was a worrying experience.

Other than that, all is well. The weather has gotten a little cold again, but nothing bad. My work is going well. The most exciting project is currently trying to do some HIV/AIDS education in a nearby city/town. I’ve also recently decided that I need to learn Arabic in order to improve my effectiveness. Tamazight is not the favored language once I leave my little mountain community and I’m often constrained by not speaking Arabic. Plus, I am illiterate in the operative language of the country. Fortunately, I already know a good deal of Arabic from studying in school and the overlap between Tamazight and Arabic, but I hope to get a tutor and get serious about learning the language.

Community Assesment

2009-02-28T07:21:00.000-08:00

Community Assesment

The following is an assesment written by a local community leader. He wrote this in response to my community health assesment, which has been posted in these pages. Sorry about the quality of the writing. The man wrote the assesment in Arabic and I had it translated. I didnt know if the mistakes were made by the writer or the translator, so I didnt want to change them.

The Communes of both Agoudim and Anemzi are situated not only in the south-west side of Khenifra’s region, but also in the east of both Tounfite and Titawin’s Commune and in the west of Beni Milal and Errachidia in the south. Its location in this place has made life very hard because of the weather, which is very cold throughout the year.
Most of the places here, in Agoudim and Anemzi, are in between mountains, surrounded by very huge forests. The later consists of many kinds of tress such as oak trees, cedar, and other kinds. According to statistics from 1999, its area exceeds more than 18,243 HA. The forest here plays an important role since it captures and provides raw materials for many man-made activities, and it helps in creating job opportunities for many people, without forgetting the huge income that is brought to the Commune. If we are to read its role from the ecological point of view, we find that it keeps the weather normal, it stops erosion, and it facilitates the penetration of rain to the underground. It also provides the inhabitants with firewood.
The importance of the forest is not limited to only human activities, but it extends to cover animals such as camels, pigs, wild and domestic rabbits, doves, and eagles.
The region is known by its hard weather that causes it many problems, especially in both spring and autumn. Snows, storms, and floods turn the life of the inhabitants upside down because it destroys their harvest, roads, and isolates them from other regions for many days if not months. As for people here, they’re ignorant; they don’t know how to read or write and they speak Tamazight. They make poetry and songs with it and many singers and poets are famous despite the isolation and marginalization of their culture.
As for the historical monuments of this land, people celebrated an annual feast of a battle that took a name of a place called Tazizawt in which many of the jihadist members of this city died to defend their homeland and to spread freedom.
This place has many roads for Moroccan and non-Moroccan tourists from all over the world. The Limsef road is between Agoudim and Errachidia. The Boulalou road exists in AlMasker and it is used mostly by sheppards to climb down and bring water.
Back to the activities of the people here: they depend on farming as a main source of income in which they still use very traditional methods that automatically influence their annual harvest. Also they used to plant wheat and barley in waterless and sterile fields while potatoes and crops in fertile fields.
Concerning sheep, they are very influenced by the place or by the weather. Shepherds used to bring them to the top of mountains to cut them branches of trees because the prices are very expensive and in the winter they used to rent lands in warm areas in the desert.
Shepherds are not satisfied, but they have nothing to do. They don’t know a rest, they don’t fear warm or cold. They always look for herds. Fathers and sons strive hard, but the annual income is determined by the rain and the market demands.
The rural woman is a hero in all the activities thanks to her participation not only in the household affairs, but also outside of the home. She aides her husband in performing many activities such as farming, milking, bringing firewood (even on her back), preparing fod, embroidering, weaving, taking care of the children, and making clothes. All these remain without value since they don’t have a market for marketing their products.
The rural girl is educated and taken care of by her mother until marriage. She is not allowed to pursue her studies because of conventional and traditional reasons. Her role in the family is similar to her mom’s since she participates in all the activities inside or outside the home.
If you like to give a definition to poverty here you will be puzzled since it is not only limited to the low-income of a person, but includes many sore and bad facts of society such as: societal integration, illiteracy, employment of children, unemployment, malnutrition, and specific illnesses. All this is back to many things the government must strive hard to fight since the development of rural areas is neither words on paper, nor is it false promises, but following words with actions.
We cannot talk about problems of this are without mentioning the problem of education, which is embodied in the over-crowded classrooms, in addition to the usual absence of teachers, with false certificates under the pretext of illness to justify his absence.
As for health care, it is horrible to write of some of the causes among many. If the previous kings Hassan II and Mohammed V were still with Mohammed VI measuring the capital of a nation with the citizens health, we are sorry to say that things are not taken into consideration by the government since we still find problems such as the absence of nurses and ambulances, along with the shortage of medicine.
Most people question why the inauguration of roads and administration buildings didn’t help to solve problems and put an end to the segregation the people live in. It is simply because the government members don’t take into consideration the criteria of weather and the total absence of control and the main example of this is the center of diverse specialities in Agoudim. Also the Commune doesn’t hold matters as it should do since it was given the responsibility of rural development.
More than that, the Commune doesn’t respect the deals signed with health care programs, education, and environment and instead they are concerned only with furnishing administration buildings with very rich cars, chairs, and computers and desks, which really and truly hint an answer at many unanswerable questions, but people still look for answers in the street.
Your report depends on the confessions of employees of this area and members of local authority and the confessions aspire to cover up and put a veil on facts of deteriorated conditions of the citizens.
The daily life and the sufferings of people say the reverse. And here lies your job: to compare what is fact and what is not. Hoping you take note about your standpoint.
In brief, what was presented to you as civilian society was not enough.

Update

My water project looks like it is going to happen, which is exciting. Also, tomorrow another volunteer and I are meeting with someone in a prostitution town to talk about doing STI education. Exciting. Hope all is well

HIV/AIDS in Morocco

2009-02-22T04:52:00.000-08:00

First to respond to a question from a reader. Yes, the grant for my water project is SPA.

The last World Health Organization report (that I’ve heard about) estimated that there are something like 20,000 cases of HIV/AIDS in Morocco. In a country of 30 million, that’s only 0.06%. It’s, fortunately, a very low percentage. However, I believe that it is a great public health risk to the country as a whole. There are a number of factors that make the country vulnerable to the disease becoming wide spread.

First is ignorance about the disease. Speaking generally, people don’t know what it is. If people have heard of it they know no specifics and what they know might very well be wrong. They don’t know how it is transmitted. People say that the disease is transmitted by sharing toothbrushes, going to the hammam (public bath), and by being breathed on. I’ve never heard someone say that sex is a mode of transmission for the disease.

Second is that cultural boundaries that discourage honest discussion of the topic. This is a very religious society where appearing pure is very important to fitting into one’s community. So this makes it difficult to bring up such important issues as condom use.

Third (seemingly contradicting the previous issue) is the prevalence of prostitution in the country. This is particularly the case for my province, Khenifra, which is known for its prostitution. I’ve heard that the province has three of the four biggest prostitutions towns in the country. One of these centers is very close to me and I know that men from my village visit prostitutes there. They’ve told me. Compounding this problem is the fact that many of the sex workers in these prostitution centers come from out of town. I believe these places could easily become spreading points for the disease.

In sum, it’s a topic that people are ashamed to talk about and no one knows anything about. And prostitution means that large numbers of men are sleeping with a small number of women. I know that sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis are common even in a small community like mine, so it’s easy to imagine how this could happen with HIV/AIDS.

A volunteer in my market town works with a women’s association. The women of the association were interested in learning more about “SIDA” (the French acronym for the disease). The volunteer asked for my help, so I talked to the doctor in the local health clinic and she agreed to do education with the women. This seemed like a good way to spread important information through the community because the doctor would know how to talk about the issue in a culturally sensitive way. I was not at the workshop, but the report I heard on the doctor’s talk was that it did not even broach the topic of sexual intercourse as a mode of transmission for HIV/AIDS. Apparently, she told the women that they could get the disease from sharing mascara or toothbrushes.

It’s disappointing to find out that you cannot count on a doctor to transmit accurate information about HIV/AIDS. I remember reading about Ministry of Health officials in South Africa spreading misinformation about the disease, but being this close to the ignorance (and being associated with the training) is much more astounding. If doctors can’t/won’t/don’t take the lead in the fight against HIV/AIDS, who will? And what is the reason this doctor ignored the meat of the issue? Is she uninformed (which suggests a Ministry-wide training problem)? Is she embarrassed (culture-wide problem)? Maybe it’s just this one doctor who has the problem; I hope so.

So what to do? Well another volunteer is currently in the middle of a ‘Training of Trainers’ workshop. The idea is to empower local leaders to educate their communities on the dangers of HIV/AIDS. I think it’s a great way to tackle the problem; I’m curious to see how the trainers do.

A different volunteer and I will (hopefully) ourselves be doing HIV/AIDS education in local schools. We have gotten permission from the local government and are now waiting on permission from the Ministry of Education. Some of the people who attended the ‘Training of Trainers’ workshop may be working alongside us, which would be great. The idea is to educate kids so that they can at least protect themselves. I would really like to do education with people in the sex industry at some point, but that would be very difficult to do.

Update
I want to say that although my posts are consistently negative and critical, that doesn’t mean that I dislike the country, the culture, or the people. The things that I write about in my posts are exceptions. The norm is positive interactions with people. I’m sure that no matter what country I was in, I would be finding problems and critiquing them.

An addendum to my previous post about deforestation. I forgot to mention that, during the winter, people cut down the branches of live oak trees to bring back to their barns to feed their sheep and other animals. This is another big killer of trees. The other day my host dad went out to cut down branches and he was late coming back. I asked my host mom why he was late and she said that he waits to come back until the sun comes down because otherwise an official from the Ministry of Forest and Water will fine him. So there is some government effort to police the resources, but it’s ineffective and insufficient.

I’ve been talking to more people about the problems of deforestation and erosion. People say it’s a huge problem. Someone today said, “The trees have gone, the soil has gone, the community will soon be gone.” So I think there is a consensus on the issue. However, getting collective action on the issue is incredibly difficult.

Other than that, things are going well. Winter may be coming to an end, which would be nice. I’ve just started a water source project. I go around and map places where people collect drinking water, take a photo, get information, and take a sample of the water with me. The Ministry of Health will send the sample to a nearby facility to be tested. When the result comes back I’ll go and talk to the people and try to convince them to treat their water (bleach is free). In addition to hopefully having a benefit on public health, I like the project because it forces me to meet people I otherwise wouldn’t. Most of the people who have decentralized water sources live outside of towns, so I haven’t me them yet.

Environmental Degradation in My Community

2009-02-13T07:05:00.000-08:00

I’ve been in my community for nearly nine months now, learning about the comings and goings. My focus as directed by Peace Corps is to learn about health problems and to educate the community about solutions. So far my health education here has gone all right. I’ve done some small projects and some larger ones, with varying success. I’m going to continue with that, however I’ve recently decided that the greatest threat to my community is not health related, but environmental.

Probably a better way to put it is that my community is a threat to the environment. I wrote a post about this topic several months ago, but I think I understand the situation a little better now.

The problem as identified by the community is the deterioration of soil quality. It’s easy to see what’s happening when you look at a river or stream: the water runs brown here. Topsoil is flowing off the earth, leaving rocks behind. Poorer soil quality has a number of deleterious effects on people’s lives here. As sheepherding is the primary source of income here, people need grass for the sheep to eat. Since the soil is in such bad shape, less grass grows. Agriculture is also key to people’s lives here and poorer soil means that output from the land decreases. Poorer soil also means that trees are less likely to sprout, making it harder for people to collect wood. Finally, less water is absorbed by the earth, meaning that reservoir fed springs go dry quicker.

I recently visited one of my outer douars. It is 28km from my village along a terrible road. On a truck it took us nearly five hours to get from this village to souq, which gives you a sense of how isolated these people are. They hardly have any trees to cut down for wood. They have exhausted their supply. People buy wood from a nearby village (which is more expensive than they can afford) or they burn little bushes and sticks. 10 years ago this village had wood and now they have none. I worry that the entire region could become like this if the resources are not better managed. No wood for burning, no grass for sheep, no soil for farming. The region would become uninhabitable.

What’s the cause of all this? One major issue is woodcutting. Trees and their roots hold the soil together, so when they’re cut down, the soil can be washed away by rain or snow melt. Everyone in my community has a wood stove in their house (or two or three). The stoves are running nearly all day during the winter, keeping the house warm. The stoves are used in the summer as well for cooking. So that has a big impact on trees. Individuals aren’t the only ones at fault, however. The Commune (local government) sells licenses to woodcutting companies who come back into our mountains with big trucks and chainsaws. Everyday I see truckloads of wood leaving the community.

Another cause is overgrazing. It’s hard to get a straight answer on the question, but I believe that the number of sheep has grown in recent years as people’s standard of living has improved. More sheep puts a greater strain on the existing resources, depleting them quicker. Trees are less likely to make it from seedling to adult.

So what’s the solution? Earlier I wrote that changing stoves in people’s houses to more efficient models was the best solution, but I’m not so sure now. The savings on wood would be marginal and convincing people to make the switch would be difficult or impossible. Furthermore, that wouldn’t really get to the root of the problem.

Another solution is reforestation. The Ministry of Forests and Water will give trees away to communities for free. They have millions of dollars budgeted for reforestation. If the sheepherders of a community join together and agree to not herd their sheep on the area that has been reforested, the Ministry will compensate the herders. This doesn’t solve the issue of rapid deforestation on the part of companies and individuals, but it is a start. Any successful reforestation would require the community to think about resource management, which would be greatly beneficial.

One problem with this solution is that the money will probably not be distributed fairly or equitably throughout the community. People with power will probably be better compensated than those without.

Another problem is the lack of alternative income generating sources in the region. There really aren’t many options for work. So if people give up herding, how are they going to feed their family? It’s a legitimate issue.

But for me, the biggest obstacle is how ingrained sheepherding is in the culture here. Herding has been here for hundreds of years. Flocks of sheep have been explained to me as bank accounts. When a family has extra money, they buy some sheep and add to their flock. When a family is short on money, they sell sheep. This mentality suggests that even if an alternative income-generating source were found, it would not displace sheepherding. In fact, it’s conceivable that with more money coming in, people would simply deposit their extra money in their bank accounts (by buying more sheep).

This issue is fascinating because it’s similar to the issue facing the planet and its inhabitants at the moment. The population is facing a long-term threat (but size and time of the treat are vague) due to excesses. Any worthwhile solution will require collective sacrifice. Compounding the issue, the benefits and sacrifices of fixing the problem are disproportionately distributed throughout the population. And just like the planet, my Commune faces a lack of central government to take control of the problem and strategic rivalries that further complicate it.

So what to do? Not sure. The threat is an existential one and I think people understand that. I haven’t sat down with anyone and tried to figure out a solution, but I’m going to start that process soon. The health issues are nice and bring marginal improvements to people’s lives, but this is the real issue for the community. Also, since this is a problem identified by the community (rather than by me), it’s a better issue to focus on.

Update

This past week has been warmer. It gives me (false) hope that winter is coming to an end. Not just my community, but the entire country has been getting tons of precipitation recently. Crops in the north of the country have been ruined. My house had some serious leaks for a while. My community collected money from everyone to buy a sheep. We’re going to slaughter the sheep and ask God for less rain.

My work has been picking up, which is nice. Probably from now until next winter should be my most productive period as a volunteer. I might even be busy at times.

Capacity-Building and Water Infrastructure Project in L

2009-02-08T03:58:00.000-08:00

My mom said she was interested in hearing about my water project, so here is the grant that i had to write for Peace Corps. i think it explains the project pretty well.

A. Brief Summary
• The water association of L is currently responsible for drinking water in the community. However, it lacks both the infrastructure and capacity in order to ensure the quality of the water. Therefore, there are two aspects of the project. First is the training and capacity building of members of the water association. Second is the actual infrastructure project. In L, there are currently water fountains connected to a chateau. However, the chateau is empty because there is no nearby viable source to fill it. The project, therefore, is to use water from spring some 5 km away to fill the chateau. A spring capture needs to be built, along with pipes connecting the spring and the chateau. Since the spring is far away, the majority of the cost of the project will go towards the construction of the pipes.
• In doing my initial assessment of the community, this project was one of the first things that came up. Every step of the way, someone from the community member has been instrumental in furthering the project. Now that the project appears to be imminent, the community has promised both financial and labor support. There is already a water association established that will ensure the upkeep of the infrastructure once the project is completed.

B. STATEMENT OF NEED
• The region is primarily an agricultural community. Wheat is the primary crop, although barley, corn, potatoes and some vegetables are also grown. Donkeys and mules are critical to agricultural production. Most families own cows, chickens, and turkeys for milk, eggs, and meat. However, nearly all agricultural production is sustenance farming – little produce is sold outside of the community. Herding sheep and goats is the primary source of income for the community. Flocks range in size from 5 to hundreds of animals. Men often spend several weeks at a time in the mountains, tending their flocks. Tourism and artisan work bring in a modest amount of money to select community members. A few community members work at the Commune. Other work by community members is mostly done outside of the community: construction work in bigger cities, conscription in the military, etc. Students that continue their education in the college in Tounfite often fail out because they are poorly prepared.
L is a small community in the A Commune. It is extremely isolated, particularly in the winter. The road is poorly constructed and often damaged or closed completely by inclement weather. L is a farming community that grows primarily wheat, potatoes, and turnips for their own consumption. Many families also have herds of sheep and other farm animals to supplement their diets and income. There are approximately 100 families in L and about 800 people (50-60% women). There are approximately 200 youth in the community.
The water association of L was created to manage water resources in the community. In an agricultural community, water rights for fields have been their primary responsibility. This involves a lot of conflict resolution and managing of the community. Additionally, they have been responsible for the upkeep and improvement of several drinking sources around town. The water association is made up of seven men. The president, Sidi Khaja, has the most responsibility and power in the group. He is also the mulsheikh of the village, so he is a prominent member of the community. This activity is the biggest one that the association has taken on, but they have so far received good training, and will continue to receive training to improve their capacity. The A Commune is also taking responsibility for the project. A governmental group, they are well established and have done similar projects before, most notably a spring capture project in the nearby community of Ait Bouarbi. The Secretary-General of the Commune has the most responsibility in terms of organizing projects. The President of the Commune makes final decisions in terms of finance and support. A Commune Technician provides the technical support for infrastructure projects. Given that the Commune has already completed a similar project before, I believe they have the capacity to manage this project in conjunction with the water association. Furthermore, assisting in this project and increasing their capacity increases the likelihood of similar projects being done in other communities within the Commune.
• The need as identified by the PCV and the community is the inability of the water association to supply its community with clean, running water. Currently, most people collect their water from nearby wells and streams. The nurse at the local health clinic believes that water sanitation is a public health risk, leading to diarrhea. Additionally, the collection of water is task that demands a lot of time from women and young children.

C. GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
• The goal of this project is to build the capacity of both the A Commune and the water association in L. Specifically, it is to improve their ability to provide their communities with clean, running water. L is a very isolated community; anything that can be done to improve its self-sufficiency will be helpful.
• Measuring the capacity of the water association will be difficult to do, however there are some indicators that will be helpful in assessing the success of the project. One intermediate objective is to reduce the incidence of water borne illnesses. If the association is doing its job of treating the water, the local health clinic will see a reduction in such diseases. The nurse will be responsible for tracking and monitoring this trend. Another intermediate objective will be to reduce the time spent by women and children collecting water. If the system is maintained, public fountains will allow women and children to access water much more easily. It will be impossible to accurately measure the amount of time spent gathering water, but the frequency of people at other sources of water should be a good indicator of the success of the new system.
• The most direct beneficiaries of the project will be the president and other members of the water association. Hopefully, they will gain the skills and knowledge necessary to ensure the provision of clean water to their community. Furthermore, they will have received extensive training in the planning and implementation of a large project. The Secretary-General of the Commune has also benefited from the project. He has assisted in searching for finance of the project and generally in the overall management of the project. Indirect beneficiaries include the entire community, which will benefit from improved water. Women and children will benefit greatly, as they are the primary gatherers of water.
• In terms of capacity, the project will build upon the water association’s current skills in dealing with water issues in the community. They already work with drinking water; this project will just increase and centralize the scope of their responsibility. In terms of infrastructure, the project is utilizing existing infrastructure (water tower, pipes, public fountains) to complete the objective of providing clean water to the community. These infrastructure assets currently sit unused as there is no water in the water tower.

D. PROJECT DESIGN & ACTION PLAN
• Action Plan
1. Identify need, June and July 2008. PCV, local moqadem, association members, local nurse.
2. Discuss project and funding with Commune officials August 2008-present. PCV, President of Commune, President of water association, Secretary-General of Commune.
3. Analyze the content of the water, August 2008. Secretary-General of Commune, President of water association.
4. Prepare estimate for project, October 2008. PCV, Secretary-General of Commune, Commune Technician.
5. Visit nearby project for exchange of ideas, October 2008. PCV, President of water association.
6. Discuss labor needs of project, November 2008-present. PCV, members of water association, community members.
7. Seek funding sources, November 2008-present, PCV, Secretary-General of Commune, President of Commune, President of water association.
8. Further exchange of ideas between community members and nearby community, now at site of project, February 2009. PCV, members of water association.
9. Acquiring materials March/April 2009. This will be done in Tounfite and Boumia, two nearby towns. Commune will help with transport. PCV, community members, Commune Technician.
10. Construction of infrastructure March/April 2009-May 2009. PCV, Commune Technician, Secretary-General of the Commune, members of water association, community members.
11. Capacity building workshop for upkeep of infrastructure, May 2009. The Commune Technician will be largely responsible for informing community members on how to maintain the infrastructure. Training will take place in the house of the President of the water association. He will provide food. PCV, Commune Technician, members of water association.
12. Capacity building workshop for treatment of water, May 2009. The training will be held in the President of the water association’s house. PCV and nurse will explain the importance of water treatment the means of measuring the necessary quantity of bleach. Secretary-General of Commune and President of water association will make plan for transporting bleach from Commune seat (A) to site (L). PCV, local nurse, Secretary-General of the Commune, members of water association.
13. Review of project, June 2009. PCV, President of Commune, Secretary-General of Commune, President of water association.
• Oversight of the project will be the responsibility of the PCV, the President of the water association and the Secretary-General of the Commune, particularly in regards to arranging trainings and ensuring the timeliness of the project. The President of the water association and the Commune Technician will take a great deal of responsibility for the actual construction of the infrastructure.
• The greatest potential recurring cost of the project is upkeep of the infrastructure. The materials we are using are sturdy, but inevitably something will go wrong, requiring community investment. Having spoken with community members, I am confident that they will take responsibility for upkeep. Furthermore, community members are investing a great deal in the construction of the project; therefore I believe they will see to its maintenance. A second recurring cost of the project is the supply of bleach to treat the water. Ensuring a regular supply of bleach will require some effort from a community member. In the long-term, the upkeep and success of this project is bound to the willingness of the water association to care for it. I have seen the lengths that these men have gone to already to plan for the project so I am hopeful that their enthusiasm will continue.
• Weather is the biggest potential obstacle for this project. The mountainous Commune of A is prone to big storms. Given the distance from the site to the spring (5km), inclement weather could make construction difficult. The road to and from the site is sometimes temporarily cut, which could delay the project. Other smaller obstacles include variables that are difficult to control. The fluctuating exchange rate makes it difficult to estimate how many dollars I need to raise in order to have the necessary amount of dirhams. Although labor for the project has been promised, it’s always possible that the demanding work of a farmer will draw the laborers attention away from the project. However, the project has been scheduled to coincide with a time of little work in the fields. Finally, in such a complex project relying upon so many different inputs, there are many unknowns that can impede the progress of the project.

E. COST BREAKDOWN/BUDGET
• The community will be contributing labor, finance, and expertise. The cost of labor for the project has been estimated at $1,000. The local water association will be organizing the construction of the infrastructure and providing labor. The A Commune will be contributing approximately 260,000 Dhs (of 312,000). And a technician from the Commune will be providing technical expertise.
• There is no question that the project is expensive, however the payoff is tremendous. I have taken the estimate for the project to several different material suppliers, and I have yet to find lower prices than the ones quoted for me by the Commune.
• American NGOs will be contributing approximately $3,030.
• Please note that SPA money will not be physically used to purchase one portion of the project. The money will be pooled and all the materials will be bought together. I can provide receipts for each individual item in addition to the items nominally paid by SPA. The majority of the cost of the project is in the piping that will transport the water from the source to the water tower. SPA will be funding a portion of that piping. A meter of piping is estimated at 40 Dhs. SPA money ($3,500 * 8Dhs/dollar = 28,000 Dhs) will buy 700 units of piping. The piping is expensive polyethylene. I feel that this investment is justified and necessary to ensure the long term survival of the infrastructure.
• Total cost of the project is 312,240 Dhs ($39,030). The $3,500 from SPA will be approximately 9% of the cost. The Commune will be providing approximately 260,000 Dhs ($32,500) or 83%. American NGOs will be responsible for the final $3,030, or approximately 8%.

F. MONITORING AND EVALUATION
• In terms of training of community members, the PCV, the local nurse, and the Secretary-General will be responsible for monitoring the activity. They will ensure that trainings are held as scheduled. In terms of infrastructure, the PCV, Secretary-General, and President of the water association will be responsible for overseeing the activity. Members of the Commune will accompany the PCV to construction site to ensure timely completion of project. The timeline provided in the action plan above will be the indicators used to determine the progress of the activity. Since the objectives of the activity, as listed above, will not be measurable until the full completion of the project, I feel they are better tracked in the evaluation plan.
• As noted in the goals and objectives above, the primary indicators of success will be reduction water borne illnesses and reduction of time spent gathering water. The local nurse currently tracks the incidence of water borne illnesses, so it will be easy for him to compare the current statistics to those following the completion of the project. Together with the PCV, this will be done on a monthly basis to ensure that the project has continuing success. Measuring time spent collecting water will be more difficult to do. The PCV and the President of the water association will conduct surveys with different households in the month following the project in order to measure the community’s satisfaction with the project. Finally, in a separate evaluation, the PCV, the Secretary-General of the Commune, and the President of the water association will conduct a formal evaluation upon the completion of the project. The activity’s progress will be compared the plans made prior to the project (as listed in action plan above) to evaluate the objectives set and whether or not they were met. Particularly important to this meeting will be measuring the President of the water association’s understanding of the upkeep of the infrastructure and treatment of the water.
• The most important continuing activity is the preservation of the infrastructure and the treatment of water. In terms of water treatment, this is going to require a member of the water association to regularly obtain bleach and deliver it to the water tower. In the long-term, this is the responsibility of the water association. Hopefully, trainings will impress upon the association the importance of these activities and provide them with the necessary tools to ensure their success. Doing this project could also lead to similar projects being done in nearby communities. I believe that by building the capacity of the Commune as this project progresses, the likelihood of the Commune doing other projects have grown.

Fitting In

2009-02-03T03:48:00.001-08:00

Throughout Peace Corps training, cultural integration is greatly stressed. We were warned over and over again about the differences between Moroccan and American culture and how we might greatly offend people here if we weren’t careful. This being a Muslim country, religious beliefs and their effect on behavior were emphasized. Fitting in is very important for a volunteer because the success of our job is based upon having the trust of our community. Largely agreeing with what Peace Corps had told us, I have worked very hard to fit in here in my community. This has meant a number of changes for me and the way that I act.

The biggest change for me is the way that I talk about religion. During PC training, I asked a Moroccan member of the Peace Corps staff what he thought about nonbelievers and how our communities might react to a nonbeliever. This was during a session on religion in Morocco, in front of thirty other volunteers. He told me that anyone who doesn’t believe in God is going to hell. End of story. It was at that point I decided I needed to be careful about how I talked about my own beliefs. So, despite not believing in God in any traditional sense of the word, I tell people in my community that I do. They are often trying to get me to convert, but I tell them how important my Christian religion is to me and how it would be a betrayal of my parents if I were to convert. Early on in my service, I briefly considered converting. My thought was: if I’m lying about my beliefs in order to be accepted, why not lie an even more acceptable lie? But somehow that felt more dishonest that pretending to be a Christian. When people talk to me about Mohamed (Muslims believe that Mohamed is God’s last prophet; he is the central figure in Islam) I agree with them that he is a prophet and that he is good. I say he is God’s last prophet. If I were to hold true to my lie of being a good Christian, I should probably reject Mohamed as a prophet. But saying that I agree that Mohamed is a prophet like Jesus is actually closer to my real beliefs than my pretend Christian ones, so I say it.

Another big change concerns interactions with the opposite sex. It’s way different here. I talk to women more than most men here, but still not very much. It’s difficult for me to tell how much of the gender divide is a result of social prohibition and how much is just a gender divide like we have in the States. If I want to have a conversation with a female, is that inappropriate? Or just abnormal? Being overly careful about gender relations has had the unfortunate consequence of me being rude to Moroccan women from outside of the community (I think). Educated women from bigger cities are more comfortable talking with men, but I never know just how comfortable they are. And I don’t know how my interactions with a big city girl should be different depending upon where we are. For example, in my market town the other day I ran into a teacher who is from Khenifra (provincial capital), but teaches in a very isolated douar in my commune. She was very friendly, but I felt weird talking her in a such a public space where people from my community would see. I think I might have been a little curt with her as a result. The other question that I struggle with is how to respond to questions about my relations with females in the States. Can I tell people that I have had girlfriends? And how should I change my answer based upon whether I’m talking to some teenage boys versus my host mom?

Besides that, there are lots of small things. I never play my music too loud because I’m afraid of people hearing it outside of my house. I spend more time than I’d like to in the local (smoky) hangout place because that’s what everyone else does. I am very careful what I say about Palestine and Israel. (One exception is dress: I dress much nicer than people here. I nearly always wear a collared shirt. The one distinctly Moroccan piece of clothing that I have – a jellaba – is a very nice one. Strangely enough, people are always telling me that I dress like them.) Generally speaking, I’m hesitant to upset the status quo. It’s like when I was eleven years old and I changed schools.

And like changing schools, the longer that I am here, the more comfortable I feel acting differently. I feel that my community has pretty well accepted me by now, so I don’t have to be so careful. I’m getting better at (although still struggling) discerning the difference between what’s socially inappropriate and just socially weird. For instance, I’ve started to have short, but frequent conversations with older women in pubic spaces as we pass each other in the street. Other men my age don’t do this, but there’s nothing wrong with me doing it. It’s just strange.

Despite becoming more comfortable, I still have a long way to go. There are some things that I will never be honest about. There are aspects of my behavior that I’m still careful about. I am holding myself back. And I think it’s unfortunate that I do this. By not completely being myself, I’m not having as honest of an exchange as I could. Not offending and fitting in is important, but I’m also missing an opportunity to be a positive example with some aspects of Moroccan culture, such as gender relations, that I don’t like. Additionally, as an outsider, there are some aspects of social life where I have much more freedom than a Moroccan. People think I’m weird and they excuse behavior from me that would be inappropriate coming from a Moroccan. The most obvious example is the work that I’ve done with the Traditional Birth Attendants. You’d never see a Moroccan man doing that, but nonetheless it’s been well received by my community, even males. The trouble in this cultural balancing act is figuring out the line between inappropriate/rude and just plain different. I have an ever-present uncertainty about the acceptability of my actions. I want to greet all females here in a friendly and open way, but I fear I’d be embarrassing the younger ones if I did. And I worry about angering the spouses of the married ones.

This slow, painful discovery of unwritten social rules has naturally made me think more about the expectations in the States and how they are so ingrained in natives’ behavior. How much of discovering these ‘rules’ as a child is explicitly stated by the parents and how much is inferred? I also wonder if after 20 years in my community I would ever feel completely comfortable with social expectations. Is there some sort of developmental period as a child where one absorbs these rules?

As much as I want to let loose, I’m going to continue to be careful. I’ll probably continue to make incremental steps towards a more normal Duncan as I become more familiar with life here. There are some volunteers who are bolder than I and there are others who are much more conservative; each behavioral pattern has its virtues. As you open up you may have a richer experience, but at the same time you risk ostracizing yourself. It’s a tradeoff. I’m really curious to see how I react to coming home in a few months for Zach’s wedding. Will I quickly revert back to the “old me?” Will I be able to talk to girls without feeling uncomfortable?

Update

It’s still cold. We got over a foot of snow the other day and the road was closed for two or three days. I’ve been a little sick recently with some congestion, but hopefully getting better. My host mom is still out of town, so I’m spending lots of time with my host dad. It’s been good to get to know him in this way and I like him better for it. The end of February will make a year in country – it’s hard not to think about that and count the time that I have left. I hope all is well at home.

Pics

2009-01-30T11:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry I dont have a normal post this week, but apparently I forgot to save the post I wrote to my USB. I should have something up on Tuesday. Instead, I have photos my mom took on her trip here.

http://picasaweb.google.com/maryellen.newport/MoroccoTrip0809?authkey=trdO6w08ev8&feat=email#

In response to readers post about the difference between rural and urban Morocco, I couldnt agree more. It is like being in a different country, going from Rabat to my site. I love the big cities and I hope to spend more time in them in the upcoming months.