Spring!

Spring feels like a season lasting barely long enough to be fully appreciated. When I returned from Europe in late March, I thought that spring had finally arrived despite the still rather chilly weather. After a long, harsh winter I was more than ready for spring. I wanted to walk around with only two layers on rather than 4. My feet yearned to escape from the stuffiness of two pairs of socks and suffocating shoes. It snowed twice in April. I think I will still consider that spring; I mean the snow didn’t stick. It counts right?
The days have been satisfyingly warm these past few weeks. There have also been refreshing thunderstorms in the late afternoons. My sitemate and I went out to a spring with a couple of girls from our town. The spring, which feeds our river, was quite a walk away but I’m glad when I can get out of my house and walk around. (esp after many months of sitting indoors)
Spring has also brought quite a variety of fruits to souk. As of late, I have been enjoying some of the best strawberries ever. This past week I also saw lettuce! I have been cooking lighter meals and am glad to move away from what I cooked in winter.
I am enjoying this season as much as I can because summer is already poking its head out. Just as I can see the signs of spring at souk, I can also see the signs of summer encroaching upon us. The first melons have appeared and this past week I had watermelon for the first time since last summer! Cherries have also made an appearance. Though still rather green and small, plums and peaches also abound. I like summer because of the abundance of fruit (unlike the oranges and bananas of winter) but really I prefer the temperate climate of spring. It doesn’t get extremely hot where I live but it’s true that this is a cool country with a very (very) hot sun.


By the spring in my town.


Part of the spring is enclosed by this barrier. It feeds the irrigation ditch (pictured) and our river.

Those bubbly things are the spring :) Its looks really funny and the water is super safe to drink.

On the walk to the spring along the river that runs through my town.

Baby Season!

There's babies everywhere! I'm not talking about the baby season that happens in nature because its spring but rather about the the babies the women in my town are having. As I have mentioned before, it is customary for people to get married in the summer. Its the warmest time of the year (weddings are usually outdoors) and just when the days are the longest. Last summer I attended a multitude of weddings and will be doing so again this summer, inshallah. Most of the girls that got married last summer were coming by the clinic in october and november because they were pregnant. There were literally about 5 to 7 women coming in every other day about pregnancies. (it was great seeing so many women going in for prenatal checks)
Its been just about nine months since all these prenatal visits...so its baby season!
My sitemate and I have been to 2 baby ceremonies already in the last month and expect to attend more as some of our friends in town come closer to their time of delievery. The baby ceremony is called "siba" and usually consists of a big lunch for all those that know the family. Its similar to the idea of a baby shower but it happens seven days after the birth rather than prior to it. People take gifts (baby clothes or sugar cones...for tea) and generally socialize and play with the baby :) This is also when the baby gets its official name. I think that they wait for this celebration until the week after the baby's birth for religious reasons as well as for health reasons. I'm not well informed about the religious reasons so i'm not going to attempt to broach that topic but I think I can say a bit about the health reasons. It seems logical that we would wait to celebrate the birth of a child once they are actually born. I mean, isn't it kind of bad karma to assume the baby will be born? Maybe thats just an issue here where infant mortality is actually sometimes a problem. Anyways, the sibas have been good and I'm glad the babies I have seen all look quite healthy. Inshallah, the rest will be just as healthy.

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.