Traffic at a Standstill

This past week transport in Morocco has been at a stanstill. In some parts there hasn't been public transport for over a week. In a country where most people rely on public transport to get around, this has proven to be quite distressing. I have only a vague idea about why all the bus and taxi drivers went on strike. There are a series of transport regulations that they don't agree with and since these regulations were being discussed in parliament, they decided to go on strike. I (hamdullah) was in my town when all of this began and have remained there since. I didn't need to leave my town except for sunday to go to the weekly souk. Normally my sitemate and I walk the 6km to souk and then take a taxi back to our town. We're usually carrying veggies for the week so we find it easier to take public transport back rather than walking. This sunday, however, we had to walk back because of this strike. The walk wasn't bad and to be honest I could use the exercise but it was just odd to see so many other people walking alongside us.

There were many poeple who were travelling when the strike went into effect and thus found themselves out of their homes. This hasn't been the first time either. Last month I was trying to get home after Leid Lmoulud and had a lot of trouble due to a traffic strike. The buses were running but full to capacity (ie even the aisles were full) but the taxis were completely non-existent. I finally made it home after getting rides in some rather unconventional ways/vehicles. News reports say that the strike has ended in the meantime but the issue of the traffic regulations has yet to be resolved so there may still be public transport stoppages. Inshallah this gets resolved soon.

This is the taxi stand in Azrou. Usually it looks like this. Taxis, people, commotion, etc.

An unconventional form of transport. I didn't have to ride a donkey to get back to town but I just didn't have photos of other vehicles :)

Photos from the south

I went to Marrakech. It only took me a year to visit this famous city. This is the Koutubia mosque. Sorry the photo is blurry but its the best I could do at night.


One of the best things I discovered upon arriving in Morocco. Avocado, almond and date juice. Yum! This one is from a favorite juice place in ouarzazate.


Caves that my friends and I climbed up to. We were told that this is where nomads stay when they come to this town.

woman crossing the river in a small town outside of ouarzazate. they carry all that brush to cook with or to feed the animals.

getting henna done for leid lmoulud by my host mom. tomato hands!

A Year In...

I have been in Morocco for a year now and in my current community for 9 months now. I feel like I just got here...
I am currently sitting at a cyber cafe in ouarzazate, the town in which I spent my first three months in morocco. It feels surreal to be back here after not having travelled south in almost a year. The people, architecture, smells, landscape, language and many other things are all so different from where I have been living these past nine months. I was just in Marrakech but I felt as if I was in another country. I think I saw more tourists than moroccans there. The city felt as if it has been modeled after what tourists are looking for when they think of morocco. I liked marrakech but it just didnt feel like the morocco that i have lived in and grown to love. I will be going to germany in a couple of weeks for vacation and i think that being in kech actually helped somewhat prepare me mentally for what i will encounter there.
I am heading to the small town in which I had language training. I havent seen my host family there in a year and cant wait to see them. My mind is all over the place right now. My senses are overwhelmed by the extreme changes that I am facing by just having traveled 10 hours south. I cant even bgin to describe what it feels like to be in a city i knew well but now feel like i dont know at all...

A note about 'waste'

Before I go into the information implied by the title I want to say that I was having a pretty lousy day this Saturday. All was well until my phone was stolen at Itzer souk. It wouldn't have been so annoying except that I was expecting an important phone call later that day. Oh well.
Anyways, on the bus ride from Itzer to my town, I witnessed something quite amusing but all at once rather humbling. The bus driver and his helper had ten rounds of bread which they cut into quarters. They then proceeded to throw out a quarter to every dog we passed on the beautiful snowy road. At first I thought it was kind of funny, but when I saw the bus driver kiss the bread before he threw it out I began to think about the situation a bit more seriously. I assume the bread was day old bread that no one was going to buy. I think they were throwing it out to the dogs because its harem to let bread (or food) go to waste. Its interesting the lengths they went to so that even those rounds of bread found a way to be ingested.
This made me think about how wasteful we are in America. It also made me think about the waste or trash problem that exists in Morocco. There aren't trash collection services here like in the states, except in large cities. In the bled (countryside) where peace corps volunteers usually live, trash is just dumped outside in alleys or other unsightly places. It looks bad and is quite horrible at times to see alleys, streets or dry riverbeds littered with remnants of snack wrappers, plastic bags and/or vegetable scaps. Many volunteers actually believe trash is one of the biggest problems in this country. While it is an important issue, I don't think it is the most pertinent. Recycling centers don't exist here but I believe the people here are rather resourceful and try to recycle as much as they can. In my community, people save all burnable materials to start fires with in the winter. People even save plastic bottles to refill constantly or at times to make decorative trees for their homes. (But people don't buy bottled water here nearly as often as do people in America) Also food here rarely comes packaged so a lot of waste is avoided in that respect. All this has just made me think about how we can try to be more resourceful in America, especially considering that we have the infrastructure for it. :)

Teaching...

I have finally started teaching at the local madrasa (school). Last week I taught the 4th, 5th and 6th graders about microbes. We played a game called glitter hands which went over sort of well. It got the message across which was the important part. The kids were actually rather receptive and one group actually clapped when I finished. :) I still wonder how much they understood though. I did my lesson in the local language, Tamazight. This coming week I will be doing a lesson on the importance of toothbrushing because most people here don't brush their teeth regularly and actually have a lot of dental problems.
Also yesterday I attended a SIDA(AIDS) lesson organized by a high school student from a nearby town. It was great to see a young man so motivated and interested in health. He took the initiative to talk to the principal and have him gather older high school students for the meeting. He also provided SIDA pamphlets and even brought an educational video to show to the students. He gave the lesson in Arabic but then had another volunteer and I do a mini lesson in English. The students here learn some English in school so we taught them AIDS related terms in English. The lesson went very well and I think the students really appreciated it. They were asking to have their photos taken with my friend and I after the lesson. We were told that it was because they think of as important people and so wanted to be pictured with us. Haha. I don't really know how "important" we are but it was great just to interact with them and to see so many young students so interested in their well being.

The Hammam

Ok so I know many of you guys now know that I don't bathe daily here. (gasp!) ewww I know, but when hot water does not come out of taps, its snowing outside and central heating is nonexistent, it really is quite painful to bucket bathe. Its a great thing then that Morocco has an awesome alternative. This alternative is called the hammam. Its one of the things that I love most about this country and actually makes me feel a hundred times cleaner then a bath or shower in the states. Im going to try to explain how it works. Its rather difficult so bear with me.
First of all you have to have a couple hours of free time to really take advantage of it well. Most hammams are similar, so you walk into a large changing room where everyone undresses except for their underwear (of course girls and boys have separate hammams!). There is usually an attendant behind a counter who watches our possessions (which are stored in cubby holes) and whom we pay (roughly about a dollar). We then take our 2 large buckets and all our bathing stuff (soap, etc) into the hot rooms. There are usually 3 rooms than get increasingly hotter the further you travel in. My experience has been that the only hot water taps are in the hottest room, so I always go there first. I fill my buckets with half scalding hot water and then go to the cold water taps in the other rooms to add cold water to them. Everyone chooses a spot to sit in according to hot they can handle the hammam. Most people stay in the super hot room for about 30 minutes and then move to the medium one for the remainder of their session. These rooms are like saunas. They are steamy and hot and most make one sweat instantly.
Once I've got my water I set it in front of my mat and begin applying a goopy brown soap called "sabon beldi." After a few minutes I rinse that off and start scrubbing with my hammam scrubby(ill put up a photo later). Because of the steam and hot water the pores are nice and open and the skin is nice and soft. After a while the scrubing shows some results. My skin literally starts coming off! I know it sounds gross but really its just exfoliating and super healthy for the skin. I usually have someone scrub my back too. Its awesome. Anyways I do this for about and hour and a half, so my skin gets quite red and it sometimes looks like I have rug burns haha. But its totally worth it.
After getting good and clean I go back out to the changing room, dry off and put some nice clean clothes on. The hammam is really the best part of winter haha. Sometimes I can hardly breathe from how hot it gets in there!

Fooooood

This is souk. Its weekly market where I buy all my veggies and other household needs. For exanple, if I need a bucket or an oven, I can get it there. We also buy all our veggies by the kilo :)



This is what my table looks like after souk! Vegetables bzzaf! Theres actually a lot here...more than a weeks worth, but I make some awesome meals with this. The great thing is that all of this is grown locally. There are lots of potatoes, wheat and onions grown in my town and everything else is grown nearby.


When I have plenty of free time (which is often) I'll go all out and make my own pasta :) It was delicious.

:)