Olives, Almonds, Donkeys... Gorgeous!

Here is the first sunset I saw clearly... sweetness. I love my camera and the sunset.

Hopefully this makes up for the lack of posts!

So you thought I disappeared yeah? Well I did kind of, but for completely good reason. I have entered into the Community Based Training (CBT for short) phase of my training here in Morocco. This 8 week phase consists of me living with a host family in a town somewhere in Morocco. During this time there are 5 other PCVT’s (peace corps volunteer trainees) that are in the town with me, and we meet almost everyday to do a number of things.

The most important thing we focus on is language. I am somewhere in the region of Morocco where Tamizight Berber dialect is spoken. Generally this is in the mountainous area in the central portion of the country. The region of language goes from central to east and northeast. As I mentioned before, there is another Berber dialect some are learning that is also in the central region and goes west and southwest. But… back to the point. Language is the thing we focus on, and we have a language teacher, and go over the language for 4 hours a day. Also we live with a host family, so we practice and hear the language daily.

If you ever want to know what it feels like to be 3 again, this is it. Learning language is crazy, I will tell you that. Especially a language that is only spoken, not written, and you have to use a special phonetic sounds and English letters to get words written. So the language I am learning has many sounds, some like French and Spanish and others like German. This helps me, as I have had German and French previously. But still, the sounds are sounds you do not use everyday and words that sound like all consonants are in fact words. So you have to completely change your mind set about language for a bit while beginning.

So for me, it is day 6 as I write this, and I cannot believe how much language I have been exposed to. I live with a host family, and have two upper teenage brothers and a 20-ish year old sister. They are, along with my host father and mother, great to me, and are a home away from home.

Let me tell you about my town. I cannot disclose location for security’s sake, so I will just call my town “O-Ville”. The “O” stands for olives, because that is what is here. My towns of about 200… mostly the same tribe/family, are nestled in a super-rural mountain top. There is only the gravel road that goes near the town, and it is a 2 km walk to the nearest paved road. And you might say, oh yeah that sounds good and all the houses are close. BUT, that is not the case, and the town is spread out over a good 2-3km, a small waterfall, and fields of olives, almonds, wheat etc. Please do not take the word field to literally mean rows. The setting is completely natural looking, and just houses here and there among the trees, that is until you get to the hill slope, where just olive trees exist.

One of the coolest things I have seen here is the irrigation. The French, former colonialists, set up concrete above ground irrigation tracks complete with drains and plugs. These go along the hillside, and with the use of gravity provide the water for all the trees. It’s just incredible. Oh yeah, the water comes from natural springs in the hillside. I was afraid to drink it at first when I was shown, but decided why not. It was wise to, and the water is just awesome.

As I said, O-Ville is all about the olives. Not the kind you eat, but the kind you make into oil. There are four olive-presses for the town. Each olive press is old school, with a huge stone wheel in a ring of sorts where the olives are placed. There is a wood piece out of the center to outside the ring, where a donkey goes round and round. Impressive. The oil is incredible once it is completely fixed up. I am sure that once I learn enough language I will be able to see a lot of the process.

Another thing we are here for is to learn about the culture of Morocco. Its awesome to be able to be here doing that. I have learned so many things, from manners, to Turkish toilets to bucket showers, to just the way that Moroccan people live. I have both running water and electricity, however sometimes the water running is broken. Have no fear, because we take the donkey down to the springs to get fresh water.

I have never had much exposure to farm life, but essentially I live on a farm. We have a calico cat/cats that go in and out at times, a donkey for getting things, a goat, a handful of sheep, some chickens, and of course the crops… olives. There is wheat grown here as well, but it is for the animals.

I am in fact isolated, but still have had the odd occurrence of being on a donkey and getting a phone call, and picking it up. I am sure this is unsafe, just as talking on a cell phone while driving is, but meh, it’s alright.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous, and we are fully in spring, which means virtually zero rain, and almost always sun. It is also a mountain, and I step out of my house on the hillside and have a view many people would pay gobs for.

My absolute favorite thing is that the community here is so tight knit, everyone knows each other, they are all friendly, and so hospitable, a Moroccan specialty regardless. They are so in touch with nature, they know every plant, tree and flower, and animal, and know all the trails that dash the hillsides (there are so so many of them!) Essentially, O-ville has nature running through their blood. It inspires me to be in touch, and here it is so easy to do that. Back home is not as conducive.

As far as the culture here, it is rural, and very conservative. As per the norm, all women wear scarfs, and there really is no gender role bending here. Women do the traditional women things, and Men do theirs. It has taken a little getting used to not watching how to cook (yet) or doing my laundry (yet), or just being served in general. Those times will come, but for now, it definitely is a change. I will say that I have my own personal opinions, but I think it is wrong for me to state them here, and I would never want to try to change the culture of this community that I live in right now.

BUT… don’t take that to mean that I don’t try to help out around the place. We have farm animals consisting of sheep, one goat, and chickens, and a donkey. So I try to help feed the animals, and I have been able to go get water from the springs via donkey. I am pleased to ride the donkey, and never really having been exposed to farm life, it’s a nice thing. I also help try to herd the sheep/goat, but I cant do that yet, as I don’t totally know what I am doing. Also something odd happened the other day. I was riding the donkey to get water, and my cell phone rings. So I pick it up, and continue my ride. I just found it odd that it was a super clash of old vs. new. I tried to be careful as I was talking/riding, as to not hurt myself/donkey.

We are the first group of PCV’s in this village, so we have a lot going here. We are sharing our American culture for the first time here, and whatever impressions we make will last. All seems to be well so far, and there have been no outrageous stories to tell.

So that is my overview of training, and it continues here for a 7 weeks roughly, until swearing in happens April 29^th. I will forever be grateful to the people here in the village, of O-Ville, and hope to give back to them as well (Many of the upper teenage boys are learning English, so this is a good way to help them, and us as well!)

I will probably talk more about my personal change soon, but it is still early on. I must say I do miss personal time the most. There is not a lot of it, as the concept here in Morocco is not really existent. They say the closest word to solitude in Arabic is loneliness. Basically that means that it is expected to always be social. I miss my music as well, and I have in fact listened to music twice in one week, for about an hour each time.

Oh yeah, I got the flu as well, and got better. But is was no fun at all, and it was an all encompassing flu, starting gastro-intestinal style, and ending in body shivers and fevers and aches. It may have been food poisoning from a dish I ate in the city, but maybe just a virus. Some others got it as well, a day or two after we ate at a restaurant in the Hub city (we go there twice a week for shots and trainings)

I also ate lung of some sort. It was good. Simple as that. First different food down, many more to go.

I have had a few songs in my head recently. I have no idea why, because I haven’t listened to them, until today.

So here they are:

The Arcade Fire- Rebellions (Lies)

Coldplay – Panic

LCD Soundsystem – Someone Great

Much Love to you guys, I miss you, and if you have questions please don’t be shy about them. If they are too personal or I feel like I can’t answer them on here, then I will e-mail you.

Kiss,

Eric

I Dig this place!!!

They say that Morocco is “The cold land with the hot sun.” Today was a prime example of that. I saw the sun and clear skies for the first time since being here in Morocco. It was amazing how when you are in the sun’s rays, you stay very warm, and it is a great source to warm up from the cold. When out of the sun, and especially in the cement buildings (most of the buildings are cement), it can be quite chilly, and you need to dress in layers.

Training here in the foothills of the High Atlas mountains, it has created a number of good photography to test out the new camera. You will be seeing pictures eventually, but not right now. I was able to get great shots of the sunset, mountains, and city where we are training. It was quite stunning.

As far as training goes, it is nice to be getting questions answered and learning things all at the same time. Everyday lessons are about language, culture, and what our specific plans are here in Morocco. We are still somewhat in a bubble here at the training center, as we are all in one place, speaking English, and not really having the time to go out and see the city and interact with the people. At the same time, most of us do not know the language enough to really interact. But learning about culture firsthand is much better than from a book.

Language is interesting. That little sentence means so much. I have never thought of myself as a language person, but I feel like the language is coming to me. Maybe this has to do with knowing some German and French, and teaching ESL and American culture back home. We haven’t learned much of the language yet, just numbers and greeting and a little bit of shopping vocab. But I feel good because we are all in this here together, trying to learn the language, some better than others. For those of you curious, the main languages of Morocco are Darija (Moroccan Arabic), and French. So right now we are learning survival Darija. There are also two dialects of the Berber languages, which we call Tam and Tash (they have much longer names than this).The survival Darija will only be for the next two days, as we are going to our community based training site (CBT). This training will consist of five volunteers in the same sector as me going and living in a village outside the “Hub” city. We all live in separate host families, and meet daily as a group along with a language and culture training person to learn well… language and culture. Being in the environmental sector, we have groups in all three languages (Darija, Tash, Tam), and so there is a chance that I might be learning any of them. BUT… the language that I learn at the CBT will be the language that my final site placement will be. So tomorrow I find out which language group I will be placed into, and this somewhat narrows down possibilities for the final site placement. I am very excited to dive more into the language, because I know that it is my ticket to a good 2+ years here in Morocco. I am also surprisingly confident in myself for learning a new language. (I always always did poorly in language classes). But immersion is the best technique, and living with a host family who does not know my language (and likewise) is the best way. Naturally this will produce what are to be awkward, humorous, and crazy moments. I am sure I will have a few interesting stories to tell.

Some of you may want to know about my “sitash,” or training group. We are 61 strong, 34 from the Health sector, and 27 from my sector, Environmental. The average age is probably 25ish. We come from all over, the northwest (7 from Wash/Oregon), south (3 from NC), and most everywhere else. There are folks that are fresh out of college, a few with the some work experience, one returning peace corps volunteer (3rd time in PC!!), and two lovely older ladies, one in her 70’s and the other (get this!!) in her 80’s. To me this is somewhat inspiring, and I can only hope this is possible when I get to be that age. When I see them learning language, asking questions, and doing their best, I just get a good feeling inside in the inspired sort of way. We also have two married couples, both in their late 20’s. Its pretty rad, and being isolated with all of these people, you get to know each other and of course bond with everyone.

We had interviews for final site placements, and there is the possibility that I could be placed in either the mountains or a valley, or in the south or middle. Really it is kind of up in the air. The only preference I made was that I was somewhere where the winter wasn’t super harsh. I can deal with days of snow for about a week. But those who know me understand that I love the warmth and can stand the heat, but cold just shuts my body down and makes my feet and hands cold!! But, all at the same time, I am open to whatever, and I actually said I didn’t mind being somewhere without running water or electricity. When I think about it, the thought of isolation in that since kind of makes me feel like I would be more in tune with the community where I live, and also be able to focus on the language and actual reason why I am here!

So training site here ends on Monday, and after that I am sure the e-mail and blog postings will be spotty. Sunday is kind of an off day, and some fellow PCT’s (Peace Corps Trainees) with go to a nice garden, casbah (I will rock it), and waterfalls. It will be a nice break, and I am sure after we will go to the market and walk around the city we are staying. I will try to stay in good touch with you all, but I once again will be really busy.

I leave you with the following. 73% of Peace Corps Volunteers in Morocco who serve at least one year get diarrhea. This is both humorous and not.

I also leave you with this quote by Lao Tzu, which I think describes my thoughts perfectly about getting things accomplished here in Morocco and what is important:

“Give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and he can eat for a lifetime.”

Much Love,
Eric

Bienvenue au Maroc

Hello from Maroc!

I made it here quite alright, other than exhausted. I have been in training, been busy, and so, this post will be short.

I have eaten awesome food, seen some sweet things, and most of all, started on my adventure into the peace corps. I have so so much to say. We are currently training in a nice place, a mid-major type city, and its great getting my first bit of culture. So much has happened in terms of sight placement etc... but I really will get into this more later.

We are semi still in our bubble with training being inside all day, and when we walk around in the eve during free time, you can't help but get that feeling of "oh yeah, we are in Morocco".

I think so far the most exciting thing is the taste of spring. It has rained the most in 30 years here, and therefore we have immense green everywhere, it was such a contrast from the winter brown and nastiness I left only a few days ago.

About the Flora: Cacti, bushes, orange and lemon trees, olive trees as big as oaks and maples back home, and so many weeds (wildflowers!!!). It is so lush, but i do know that spring is early for a reason... uber hot summers and cacti mean semi-arid landscape.

About the Fauna: No real wild animal encounters yet. There are livestock: Sheep, Goats, Cattle, Chickens, Roosters, Donkeys, Mules, Horses. All of which are very important in the life of many Moroccans. I loved the bus ride for being able to see the country and some cities as well!

I am also glad that I am not overwhelmed by anything, and actually feel fairly safe (although always on alert) and ready for action. Learning some Darija (moroccan arabic) has been good, it will be a challenge, but we are altogether 60 people learning, so we kind of inspire each other... or at least they all inspire me.

I am off now, but have so much more later, I hope that anyone reading this is doing well, and i miss all of you dearly!

insha'ullah (peace be with you!)
Ciao! and Much Love!
Eric