December 14, 2011
Tonight was the first time I noticed my little host brother Anwar actually saying my name right. He still said it in his cute little boy voice, but he can officially pronounce “Hind” now. No more “Lahan!” and no more “Hin!” Now just plain old “Hind!”
He made up for this development by saying repeatedly, “Foof, Hind, foof!” Meaning: “Shoof, Hind, shoof!” Translation: “Look, Hind, look!” Talk about cute.
Pictures of the tooth/mouth model my friends Amber and Sean made and gave to me. Materials are half-liter milk boxes, drink bottles, cardboard, string, duct tape, white paint, and butcher paper (folded and colored pink with marker or paint).
Advice from Fauve:
1. Put holes in the bottles (to attach them to the cardboard) BEFORE you paint them.
September 8, 2011
Say to yourself:
Peace Corps is NOT “two years out of my life.”
Peace Corps IS “my life for two years.”
PCVs who stay focused on the idea that their Peace Corps service is just a step between one thing and another, like college and a “real” job, tend to find themselves counting down the days until their COS date. It seems like most of the ones I encounter who cling to this mindset fail to get the most out of this amazing opportunity to experience a different life. Their attitude inhibits their happiness and their chances for fulfillment. While they complain about not getting much for their “sacrifice” of two years out of their lives, their negativity blocks them from everything they could gain.
Like people always say, you get out of anything what you put into it.
I know I’m lucky in my home and my community. But I also know that at least half of my happiness, if not more, is a direct result of my attitude. And I’m tired of listening to other PCVs complain about things that they could fix with a bit of effort.
Think about why you are where you are.
What do you want to get out of the opportunity to be where you are?
Once you have your goals, work for them. You know, a little elbow grease.
Keep in mind that wherever you are, whether America or some tiny place abroad, you will face challenges and you will find opportunities. Hopefully you’re willing to face those challenges, learn from them, and seize the opportunities in front of you. Even work at creating some opportunities while you’re at it. I find that opportunities for work, cultural experiences, or any number of random things spring up just about every time I walk out my front door. Sometimes that’s all it takes, getting out and talking to people with an open mind and a positive attitude.
September 2, 2011
I’ve learned time and again here, as I seem to forget after each time that I learn it, that what seems like I’ll never ever Ever in a million years be able to do, the first time I try it, I can usually end up doing pretty well if I give it time and practice. Maybe a simple lesson that I should have learned a while ago, but better late than never, yak?
My banjo lessons are a perfect example of this. I can’t count how many lessons my teacher has introduced a new bit of music or a new technique that made me think, “I’ll never be able to get my fingers to move like THAT! And that fast? No way, José!” But with time, and the bit of practice that I manage to convince myself to do, I manage to get things down. I’ve come from not being able to strum the strings to save my life to playing decently for a tarumit who never touched a stringed instrument before.
Today this lesson finally seemed to click for me. I just might have learned it for good, I think, I hope. As my teacher taught me the opening lines to the song Agass (Izenzaren Igout Abdel-Hadi), I realized my hand is just a little too short to run from C# up to E without accidently hitting C on the way. That simply won’t do, he pointed out. Rather than think, “How in the world am I going to work this one out?” I told myself that with a little work at home, I’ll land this trick like I’ve landed so many others over my two years and change of studying the Berber banjo. And I know I will. Avoiding the sense of frustration didn’t take any effort, which is quite a development for me.
One more lesson that I’m thankful to have learned on this adventure…
August 24, 2011
Old Ijjou stopped me on my way to my host family’s house today. She told me to sit with her since we hadn’t chatted in a long time, so I found a spot next to her on her doorstep and listened for a while. It’s always enjoyable to listen to her colorful language, or rather, to watch her colorful hand motions as I can’t understand her old fashioned Tashlheit very well. The motions she makes with her hands to emphasize her points are typically quite clear, however.
Today’s lesson was, as usual, about how I need to skr zamaninu, do/make my time by getting married and having kids before it’s too late. But she added a few extra points today to drive home her message. I can’t understand a lot of what she says, but a few points I got no problem.
1. A girl who doesn’t tskr zaman-ns, do her time, get married and have kids, tga zund tafunast, ends up like a cow (here she made a dopey sort of face and made some indescribable noises to imitate a cow-girl).
2. If a girl gets to be as old as her (Ijjou is, the story goes, about 105 years old, and I’d just about believe it), and doesn’t have kids, no one will be around to take care of her. She won’t have work or food or a place to stay.
Around this point in the lesson, Ijjou’s daughter-in-law entered the conversation briefly. The old woman exclaimed to her quite forcefully, “ar-t saqraH, ar-t saqraH” — “I’m teaching her, I’m teaching her!” The daughter-in-law moved on with her work and we continued with our lesson.
3. Finally, the key point she made, was the difference between the “love” of a man and the love of one’s children. She said, “A man will leave you (verb unclear, but that’s the gist). He’s only interested in your knees and your vagina.” Here, she didn’t say knees or vagina, but she patted herself while saying “this and this.” In the local context and language, “knees” would mean work and “vagina” would mean, well, sex. “But your kids,” she said, “they love you for this,” and patted her chest. They won’t abandon you because they love you for your heart and who you are — their mother.
After she shared these bits of wisdom with me, she followed up with a hearty “wakhay babak!” (Basically, “you better watch out, your dad is gonna get you!”, said most often to little kids who aren’t doing as they should.) She repeated several times, even raising her cane from under her feet and wagging it over my head, telling me she’d beat me if I didn’t skr zamaninu.
As for a bit of analysis on her main points… I’m not exactly sure what she meant by Point #1. Maybe that a girl (as an unmarried woman of any age is called her) who doesn’t have kids will be a bit aimless in life?
Point #2 is pretty darn likely to come true here in rural Morocco. Women in the rural areas depend quite a lot on their relatives. That’s not to say there aren’t any opportunities for them without the help of male relatives, and what opportunities there are are increasing slowly but surely. Life can be hard here for anyone, male or female, who doesn’t have others in their life.
I don’t have a lot to say on Point #3. It could be true anywhere, for anyone, I suppose. I thought it was interesting that she included in today’s lesson.
For me, I imagine I’ll see how Point #1 plays out. Thankfully I believe I have more ahead of me than a cow-like existence, even without children or a man. That being said, I’ll still enjoy the next lesson old Ijjou wants to give me.
August 24, 2011
Quite frequently when I was at school in Chapel Hill I would hear the raging rants of “the Pit Preacher” and other evangelical Christians who set up in the center of campus. Their aim seemed to be to shame people into “renouncing their sinful ways” and taking up a sincere belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately their methods weren’t very friendly, and I’d say the vast majority of those passing by could reasonably take offense at the proselytizers’ all-encompassing denunciations.
Besides these outgoing religion-pushers, there is a fairly high percentage of the population throughout my native state of North Carolina who make a point to speak forcefully in favor of the superiority of their religious beliefs over all others. Many people seek to actively enforce their beliefs over the greater population. A great example is taking place right now, as religious conservatives are attempting to push through the North Carolina General Assembly an amendment to the state constitution that would ban same-sex marriages, even though there is already a quite capable state law to that effect.
August 23, 2011
This morning I was headed out of town, walking out my door just at the right time to catch the bus if it wasn’t running early. I didn’t have any plans that were too pressing, but transportation has been so off lately that a missed chance can mean sitting at the road for another hour. As I opened the front door I found my old man neighbor standing outside… and apparently he felt like talking. I couldn’t very well pass up the chance to hang out with him, so I found my bus-timing thrown off. All for the better, though, as I’ve learned here in my village.
My dear old neighbor was in a fine mood this morning. Before I knew it he was off telling me all about his trials and tribulations with the id bu pijou, the men who drive pick-up trucks around to buy prickly pears off of people. This time of year most people in my village and in the surrounding countryside take their donkeys out into the fields and hills to gather prickly pears, what they call taknarit, to sell. For a large crate of the fruits they’ll get maybe 30 dirhams, or about $4.00.
August 19, 2011
Today I found myself chatting with my three main nurses at the central clinic in my market town. My counterpart nurse, who mans the tiny dispensary in my village and with whom I spend the most time, gave me a ride into town after we made the usual Friday visit to the satellite clinic in my village Just Over the Hill. At the central clinic we found both the head nurse, the Nurse Major, and the regular nurse. The Nurse Major is my favorite counterpart of them all–a really nice man who’s just like an uncle.
As we went through the normal pleasantries and hellos, of course the question came up of whether I was fasting or not. I replied that no, I wasn’t, and I’ve only fasted one day so far during this Ramadan. Maybe I’ll do another day soon…
My Nurse Major smiled and said, “A day at the beginning and a day at the end would be nice, plenty!”
My counterpart nurse insisted quite forcely, “There’s freedom in religion, you don’t have to fast.”
And the other nurse, a gruff man who’s grown on me quite a lot since we started to open up to each other, exclaimed, “One day, baraka! Enough!” I get the feeling fasting is a bit hard on him, especially since he normally takes smoking breaks throughout the day at work.
I enjoyed hearing their different bits of advice, each so much like the man’s individual personality.
The conversation made me think, again, about how I’m thankful to live in a place where the vast majority of people respect religious differences and refrain from pressuring others to conform to their own beliefs and customs.
August 7, 2011
The country of Morocco has roughly the same population size and land area as California, minus a couple million people and plus several thousand square kilometers. (Of course, those numbers depend on whether or not one considers the bit of the Sahara Desert towards the south as the “Moroccan Sahara” or the “Western Sahara”. I’m going with “Western”.)
I’ve never been to California, but I imagine it holds all sorts of different kinds of people, especially considering it’s the most populous state in America. One of the interesting things about America is its collection of people, cultures, and ideologies from all over the world. Questions of the exact nature of American identity, values, worldview, culture, language, and a myriad of other characteristics are hard to answer definitively. It’s a challenge to try to present a well-rounded portrayal of Americans to people who have probably never met an American, or more than a few at most, and who likely have formed their images of Americans based off of movies and sensational news. This challenge makes up the 2nd goal of Peace Corps Volunteers, and one might say a third of our efforts here in Morocco should go towards it.
Knowing how many different sorts of people and ideas there are in America, I’m curious about how many there are in Morocco. This is a much smaller country–it’s only the size of one (admittedly large) state out of 50. But I would almost bet that there are more different cultures and values sets here. I think I would lean towards saying this partially because of the percentage of people who live in rural–and I mean rural–places. Many people who live in merely semi-rural villages still never make it to the city or travel much between the villages. Other villages, where one van might make a several-hour trip down from the mountain to visit a market town, are even more isolated. I know there are rural areas in America, but I think a higher percentage of Americans spend more time mingling with others beyond their immediate surroundings. Whether this is a main reason for it or not, I do believe there are as many if not more different cultures here in Morocco as there are in America. That makes the challenge of the 3rd goal of Peace Corps Volunteers, to educate Americans about the other peoples of the world, fairly daunting.
August 6, 2011
I had a fun conversation with my host mom this afternoon while we were sitting waiting for her bread to cook in the oven. After a lull in the chatting, she suddenly announced, “Tshibt! You’re grey!” She had had this revelation one time before, during the Big Holiday last November, but I guess my now-multiplied number of grey hairs stood out even more today.
On and on she went about how more and more hairs on my head are grey and white, calling my whole head grey because of the ten or twenty or so hairs that stand out as no longer being black (brown, really). It’s funny, because she’s almost exactly ten years older than me and she doesn’t have a single grey hair on her head. My host dad, who’s about 50, has a couple times more than I do, but he’s far from grey.
The highlights from the conversation include when she pointed out that upon my arrival to Morocco, I didn’t have any grey hairs at all, but by the time I leave my whole head will be white. Discussing the state of my parents’ hair, she seemed to sympathize with me in having inherited my dad’s hair–I don’t remember a time when he wasn’t completely grey–rather than my mother’s, which only has a few touches of grey these days.
She also told me I should now resort to dying my hair with black henna like the other old ladies.
Safi, shibH–That’s all now, I’m grey and old.
