This is a quick blog
I want to write a really lengthy one on Ram Slaughter Day, but I haven't had the opportunity to do so yet.
I will say this:
- They didn't scream, like I thought they would
- they kicked LONG after their throat was slit. that was rough
- The first one had no idea what was coming, but the second one sure did and tried to escape. Didn't work though. It just prolonged it.
- It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, but maybe that was because I was tired of living in a barn and would rather live in a meat freezer.
- Yes, the streets ran red with blood. Thick blood. And no, they didn't hose it off or anything. It's probably all still there. That's a weird smell. There are a lot of weird smells here.
So the reason I haven't written a really good blog about the whole experience is because I was moving. I moved from my training town and now I'm on the coast near Rabat (the capital) because tomorrow, ::drum roll!:: I will be sworn in Officially as a Peace Corps Volunteer (and not a trainee) by the ambassador. And then Thursday morning, Thanksgiving day, I will be on my way to South Eastern Morocco to start my two years of service. There is almost no grace time in between, other than that it will take me two days to get there. (carting everything I own on public transportation!)
So since I am officially the most isolated volunteer in my training group-- by far-- I have been enjoying socializing with the other 60 or so volunteers with whom I'll be sworn in, since I won't be able to see people that often after Thursday. I'm five or six hours away from the closest volunteer I actually know. And I'm a two hour taxi ride away from the closest volunteer-- period.
So I'll catch up on my blog next week when I'm all alone in my new town.
By then the ram intestines that they have stuffed with other good stuff and made into sausage should be ready so I can write about all of it at once! Yay!!!
Lovin' every minute of it!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
It's Christmas in Morocco/Meat Hygiene
Well, not really Christmas, but it kind of feels like Christmas. On Wednesday is the biggest holiday of the year. It's called "L'Eid Kbir" which literally means "big feast." It reminds me so much of Christmas because everybody's family is in town, people are happy, there are bands playing in the gardens, and there are lights like Christmas lights everywhere, plus it's a little chilly. The big difference is that we're going to slaughter a couple of rams!
Here's the story:
You may or may not be familiar with the old testament story of Abraham and Isaac. But basically, the Kor'an has the same story but with Abraham and Ishmael, his other son. Abraham was told by God to offer his 'only' son as a sacrifice to God, and he was so obedient that he said he would, and he got ready to do it and then God sent a ram instead, and Ishmael wasn't slaughtered. So Muslims have l'Eid Kbir to represent Abraham (or Ibrahim)'s obedience to God and then the mercy that was given. I think I have that right.
The rule is that every household must slaughter a ram on the day that commemorates this.
We have my host family's oldest daughter in town now, with her husband and two kids, ages 8 and 3. So it's two households together, therefore two rams must be slaughtered.
Fast Forward to this morning: I hear some commotion outside my bedroom and so I get up and open my door and they are setting up a "stable" right outside my room! This is not a big house. It's MAYBE 700 square feet. When you walk in the front door there is a little entrance area, maybe 10 ft. by 5 ft. And off of that there are two rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom and that's it. So then I look toward the door and there are two large rams, alive and well, being led into the house and backed it to a corner! Then their "stable" was made by using a table and a couch turned on it's side to block the animals into the corner. They were pretty well mannered through this whole process, and treated fairly well. (the meat is only considered "halal", like Kosher, if the animal is treated well before it's death.)
So my 700 square foot house now has 6 adults (another one will arrive tomorrow), two kids, and two big rams.
The rams will be chilling outside my room until Wednesday, which is the actual day of L'Eid Kbir, when we will lead them, one at a time, onto the roof, and my host sisters husband will slaughter them. For the meat to be halal they cannot be slaughtered in front of another animal, and you have to use a big knife and slice the jugular with one clean, hard stroke after saying "bismillah" which means something along the lines of "God bless this." One stroke is ideal, two is acceptable. So then, apparently, it kicks around a little and all the blood gushes and squirts all over the place, and within a few minutes it stops squirming and is quite dead. Everyone tells me that is humane and it doesn't feel anything; that after the first stroke it just kicks around because of nerves. I definitely do not believe that at all, but I am comforted by the fact that it dies quickly. So then all this animal's blood is washed down the drain pipe and onto the 'street' (alley) below. All the neighbors will be doing this at more or less the same time. I wonder if the rams will scream? The streets turn red with blood, so they say, and I imagine they're right. After the first one, they'll take the other one to the roof and slaughter it. The stomach and liver are eaten first. Over a period of weeks the entire thing will be eaten, including the brains, and the fur will be turned into a rug.
So am I going to like this? Probably not. In fact I'm a little terrified that it will be traumatizing. Not to mention the fact that I may get sick. I've never seen anything get killed before! I gutted my first fish today while cooking lunch (Sundays are such hard work!) and then I gutted about twenty more, and then I cleaned a raw chicken for the first time in my life and felt squeamish doing that! (yes, I cleaned a chicken today!) So what is this ram slaughter going to be like???
Speaking of barn animals, lets talk a little about HYGIENE
We were told that if we plan on writing a blog, we should write it in a very culturally sensitive manner; as if our host families are going to read them. So I intend to do that, but I just have to share the fact that it is NOT hygienic, in my opinion, to keep barn animals in the house. Especially with the lax hand washing policies here.
FOR EXAMPLE! The two rams were butting heads a bit and so Hasna, my host sister, got involved to separate them. She had been in the kitchen slicing some potatoes and beets when the commotion started. So after separating these barn animals and then sweeping up their excrement, she went back into the kitchen and CONTINUED SLICING THE VEGETABLES without so much as rinsing off her hands. AH! I was SO grossed out. I mean, think of what is covering those animals that now is being mixed with the food we're eating for lunch!? How gross is our new "stable" going to be in 48 hours?!
Now you may be thinking "why don't you say something?!" But it's really not as easy as that. There is a fine line between sharing cultural points, and being insulting. Especially since nobody is sick. So what I did was volunteer to help her and washed my hands well with soap right in front of her. I was scrubbing like I was about to go into surgery. Luckily, this particular batch of potatoes and beets were to be boiled, and as our Peace Corps Medical Officer says repeatedly "heat kills all pathogens!" so I was able to relax a little.
Later on, we continued cooking lunch which involved raw fish and chicken and we cross contaminated like crazy; though not anything I was doing. Hasna went from touching raw chicken, to slicing cucumbers that we were going to eat raw. I kept hinting that we needed to wash our hands, and she picked up on my suggestions, but really didn't use soap, and did not change utensils.
This must be how it is done all the time, and yet, I'm not sick and have no parasites... yet. (Though one of the six of us in my training group does have parasites.) Have we just been overly cautious our whole lives? I feel like I've just been lucky so far. But I didn't eat the cucumbers at lunch. I guess all I can do is set a good example and volunteer to help in the kitchen as much as possible-- even if all I want to do is leave the kitchen because there are so many health violations in every direction I look.
Anyway, we'll see how the Eid Kbir goes and I'll give you my reaction to the slaughter when it's gone and done with.
I'm having a bunch of those "this is Peace Corps!" moments this weekend, and I guess that's why I'm here! So I'm happy with that. :) Welcome to Morocco.
Here's the story:
You may or may not be familiar with the old testament story of Abraham and Isaac. But basically, the Kor'an has the same story but with Abraham and Ishmael, his other son. Abraham was told by God to offer his 'only' son as a sacrifice to God, and he was so obedient that he said he would, and he got ready to do it and then God sent a ram instead, and Ishmael wasn't slaughtered. So Muslims have l'Eid Kbir to represent Abraham (or Ibrahim)'s obedience to God and then the mercy that was given. I think I have that right.
The rule is that every household must slaughter a ram on the day that commemorates this.
We have my host family's oldest daughter in town now, with her husband and two kids, ages 8 and 3. So it's two households together, therefore two rams must be slaughtered.
Fast Forward to this morning: I hear some commotion outside my bedroom and so I get up and open my door and they are setting up a "stable" right outside my room! This is not a big house. It's MAYBE 700 square feet. When you walk in the front door there is a little entrance area, maybe 10 ft. by 5 ft. And off of that there are two rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom and that's it. So then I look toward the door and there are two large rams, alive and well, being led into the house and backed it to a corner! Then their "stable" was made by using a table and a couch turned on it's side to block the animals into the corner. They were pretty well mannered through this whole process, and treated fairly well. (the meat is only considered "halal", like Kosher, if the animal is treated well before it's death.)
So my 700 square foot house now has 6 adults (another one will arrive tomorrow), two kids, and two big rams.
The rams will be chilling outside my room until Wednesday, which is the actual day of L'Eid Kbir, when we will lead them, one at a time, onto the roof, and my host sisters husband will slaughter them. For the meat to be halal they cannot be slaughtered in front of another animal, and you have to use a big knife and slice the jugular with one clean, hard stroke after saying "bismillah" which means something along the lines of "God bless this." One stroke is ideal, two is acceptable. So then, apparently, it kicks around a little and all the blood gushes and squirts all over the place, and within a few minutes it stops squirming and is quite dead. Everyone tells me that is humane and it doesn't feel anything; that after the first stroke it just kicks around because of nerves. I definitely do not believe that at all, but I am comforted by the fact that it dies quickly. So then all this animal's blood is washed down the drain pipe and onto the 'street' (alley) below. All the neighbors will be doing this at more or less the same time. I wonder if the rams will scream? The streets turn red with blood, so they say, and I imagine they're right. After the first one, they'll take the other one to the roof and slaughter it. The stomach and liver are eaten first. Over a period of weeks the entire thing will be eaten, including the brains, and the fur will be turned into a rug.
So am I going to like this? Probably not. In fact I'm a little terrified that it will be traumatizing. Not to mention the fact that I may get sick. I've never seen anything get killed before! I gutted my first fish today while cooking lunch (Sundays are such hard work!) and then I gutted about twenty more, and then I cleaned a raw chicken for the first time in my life and felt squeamish doing that! (yes, I cleaned a chicken today!) So what is this ram slaughter going to be like???
Speaking of barn animals, lets talk a little about HYGIENE
We were told that if we plan on writing a blog, we should write it in a very culturally sensitive manner; as if our host families are going to read them. So I intend to do that, but I just have to share the fact that it is NOT hygienic, in my opinion, to keep barn animals in the house. Especially with the lax hand washing policies here.
FOR EXAMPLE! The two rams were butting heads a bit and so Hasna, my host sister, got involved to separate them. She had been in the kitchen slicing some potatoes and beets when the commotion started. So after separating these barn animals and then sweeping up their excrement, she went back into the kitchen and CONTINUED SLICING THE VEGETABLES without so much as rinsing off her hands. AH! I was SO grossed out. I mean, think of what is covering those animals that now is being mixed with the food we're eating for lunch!? How gross is our new "stable" going to be in 48 hours?!
Now you may be thinking "why don't you say something?!" But it's really not as easy as that. There is a fine line between sharing cultural points, and being insulting. Especially since nobody is sick. So what I did was volunteer to help her and washed my hands well with soap right in front of her. I was scrubbing like I was about to go into surgery. Luckily, this particular batch of potatoes and beets were to be boiled, and as our Peace Corps Medical Officer says repeatedly "heat kills all pathogens!" so I was able to relax a little.
Later on, we continued cooking lunch which involved raw fish and chicken and we cross contaminated like crazy; though not anything I was doing. Hasna went from touching raw chicken, to slicing cucumbers that we were going to eat raw. I kept hinting that we needed to wash our hands, and she picked up on my suggestions, but really didn't use soap, and did not change utensils.
This must be how it is done all the time, and yet, I'm not sick and have no parasites... yet. (Though one of the six of us in my training group does have parasites.) Have we just been overly cautious our whole lives? I feel like I've just been lucky so far. But I didn't eat the cucumbers at lunch. I guess all I can do is set a good example and volunteer to help in the kitchen as much as possible-- even if all I want to do is leave the kitchen because there are so many health violations in every direction I look.
Anyway, we'll see how the Eid Kbir goes and I'll give you my reaction to the slaughter when it's gone and done with.
I'm having a bunch of those "this is Peace Corps!" moments this weekend, and I guess that's why I'm here! So I'm happy with that. :) Welcome to Morocco.
Friday, November 12, 2010
The King was here!
I was told by someone that my last blog showed signs I was becoming petulant. Well I assure you I am doing just fine and am in great spirits. I even got up this morning at 6:30 to run with two of my friends despite how freezing and muddy it is. (I can't wait to move to the Sahara! Two weeks!) Living with a family just gets old after a while. I'm sure it's like that with everyone.
The king came to our training city this week! This was a big deal for the town. Apparently, once a year, the king takes a month or two to travel around the country visiting different cities, and this year it was our turn. They were cleaning the city for probably a week prior-- cleaning all the litter up (or sweeping it over a ledge, out of site, in some places.) , painting the curbs, and hanging Moroccan flags on EVERYTHING. They even passed out pictures of his portrait. So this week we got a glimpse of the king! I saw the king! The first day he was here, we had Arabic school so we missed him. All the Moroccan schools here were closed and lots of stores and businesses so that everybody could watch and wave at the king. I was so sad because I thought we weren't going to get to see him. But the next day, yesterday, he was driving around town and I happened to be in the right crowded area at the right time and I saw him! It was mostly just his arm waving out the window of a car, but it was definitely him. So that was pretty cool!
A recourse of the king coming is that there are huge celebrations out on the street. It looks a lot like Christmas over here! They've hung lights on all buildings and the Moroccan flag is red and green so everything around us is red and green, plus everybody is walking around happily with their families. Tonight there was a concert in the garden full of Moroccan bands singing and playing traditional songs.
Because the king is here, security is very high, of course. Earlier today, Xavier, one of my Peace Corps training site mates, was wandering around and a plain-clothed security officer went by. He knew it was an undercover cop because he had a walkie-talkie under his clothes and the volume was up and it went off. Apparently he didn't know his walkie-talkie was live and he tried to muffle it right away. Real smooth. So I had this on my mind when I went to the gardens this evening with my sisters to enjoy the music. I wasn't consciously thinking of looking for secret police, but they were all over the place and nobody else seemed to notice! I'm already hypersensitive because I'm a foreigner, so I look different and I feel different and it is obvious that I AM different. So me being somebody "odd," I can spot other odd people in a crowd. And this includes secret police, apparently. Most people who walk by are with friends, walking with a purpose and looking straight ahead. The first undercover police officer I saw, I knew immediately because he was walking, seemingly with purpose, but very slowly and with shifty eyes. I took one look at his weird baggy turtle neck and jeans and I said to myself with certainty "that is a cop." and so as I followed him with my eyes and he passed me, I saw a black ear piece in his ear with a wire running into his shirt, so it was confirmed. I was watching him closely though and he definitely noticed and seemed bothered by my staring, and so when he passed us he stood about ten feet behind us. I know I should take it seriously because he has a serious job to do, but I was almost laughing because of how much he did not blend in. Our plain-clothed loss-prevention employees at the Gap did a better job blending in as customers than this guy did. So then my host sisters and I start wandering and this fellow starts following us from a distance. But again, it was very obvious he was following us. (Plus, I kept glancing back) So once we reached a certain part of the garden he stopped following us. Then we sat on a bench and within seconds another awkward guy with a low baseball cap (nobody is wearing baseball caps.) starts walking towards us slowly, and with shifty eyes. He passes us and then stops and stays a couple yards back. By this point, I decided that as amateur of an "undercover" operation this seemed to be, I should take them seriously, and I stopped staring. But still, one weirdo can always spot another weirdo in the crowd, I suppose.
All the weirdos came out last night Some strange lady approached me and started grilling me about where I was from. She started friendly enough and told me that she worked for a while picking strawberries in Spain. Then she started telling me I should have my head covered because it's cold...then that leapt to Haram in America. (Haram is like "sinful" according to the Koran) She said things like that America is nothing but Haram and that I like to drink and smoke and wear short sleeves and so does everybody else. None of it was in question form- it was all statement after statement of what many haram things I do. (I do enjoy short sleeves...) Eventually I just tuned out and stopped understanding, mostly on purpose, but my sisters stepped in and did a good job of defending me.
I guess you meet crazies everywhere you go!
All is well. About one week until L'Eid Kbir, the biggest holiday in Morocco (like Christmas for us!) and that should be really fun, and then in two weeks I'll be done with training and officially become sworn in by the ambassador as a Peace Corps Volunteer! Yay! That's on Nov. 24th, and should be awesome.
The king came to our training city this week! This was a big deal for the town. Apparently, once a year, the king takes a month or two to travel around the country visiting different cities, and this year it was our turn. They were cleaning the city for probably a week prior-- cleaning all the litter up (or sweeping it over a ledge, out of site, in some places.) , painting the curbs, and hanging Moroccan flags on EVERYTHING. They even passed out pictures of his portrait. So this week we got a glimpse of the king! I saw the king! The first day he was here, we had Arabic school so we missed him. All the Moroccan schools here were closed and lots of stores and businesses so that everybody could watch and wave at the king. I was so sad because I thought we weren't going to get to see him. But the next day, yesterday, he was driving around town and I happened to be in the right crowded area at the right time and I saw him! It was mostly just his arm waving out the window of a car, but it was definitely him. So that was pretty cool!
A recourse of the king coming is that there are huge celebrations out on the street. It looks a lot like Christmas over here! They've hung lights on all buildings and the Moroccan flag is red and green so everything around us is red and green, plus everybody is walking around happily with their families. Tonight there was a concert in the garden full of Moroccan bands singing and playing traditional songs.
Because the king is here, security is very high, of course. Earlier today, Xavier, one of my Peace Corps training site mates, was wandering around and a plain-clothed security officer went by. He knew it was an undercover cop because he had a walkie-talkie under his clothes and the volume was up and it went off. Apparently he didn't know his walkie-talkie was live and he tried to muffle it right away. Real smooth. So I had this on my mind when I went to the gardens this evening with my sisters to enjoy the music. I wasn't consciously thinking of looking for secret police, but they were all over the place and nobody else seemed to notice! I'm already hypersensitive because I'm a foreigner, so I look different and I feel different and it is obvious that I AM different. So me being somebody "odd," I can spot other odd people in a crowd. And this includes secret police, apparently. Most people who walk by are with friends, walking with a purpose and looking straight ahead. The first undercover police officer I saw, I knew immediately because he was walking, seemingly with purpose, but very slowly and with shifty eyes. I took one look at his weird baggy turtle neck and jeans and I said to myself with certainty "that is a cop." and so as I followed him with my eyes and he passed me, I saw a black ear piece in his ear with a wire running into his shirt, so it was confirmed. I was watching him closely though and he definitely noticed and seemed bothered by my staring, and so when he passed us he stood about ten feet behind us. I know I should take it seriously because he has a serious job to do, but I was almost laughing because of how much he did not blend in. Our plain-clothed loss-prevention employees at the Gap did a better job blending in as customers than this guy did. So then my host sisters and I start wandering and this fellow starts following us from a distance. But again, it was very obvious he was following us. (Plus, I kept glancing back) So once we reached a certain part of the garden he stopped following us. Then we sat on a bench and within seconds another awkward guy with a low baseball cap (nobody is wearing baseball caps.) starts walking towards us slowly, and with shifty eyes. He passes us and then stops and stays a couple yards back. By this point, I decided that as amateur of an "undercover" operation this seemed to be, I should take them seriously, and I stopped staring. But still, one weirdo can always spot another weirdo in the crowd, I suppose.
All the weirdos came out last night Some strange lady approached me and started grilling me about where I was from. She started friendly enough and told me that she worked for a while picking strawberries in Spain. Then she started telling me I should have my head covered because it's cold...then that leapt to Haram in America. (Haram is like "sinful" according to the Koran) She said things like that America is nothing but Haram and that I like to drink and smoke and wear short sleeves and so does everybody else. None of it was in question form- it was all statement after statement of what many haram things I do. (I do enjoy short sleeves...) Eventually I just tuned out and stopped understanding, mostly on purpose, but my sisters stepped in and did a good job of defending me.
I guess you meet crazies everywhere you go!
All is well. About one week until L'Eid Kbir, the biggest holiday in Morocco (like Christmas for us!) and that should be really fun, and then in two weeks I'll be done with training and officially become sworn in by the ambassador as a Peace Corps Volunteer! Yay! That's on Nov. 24th, and should be awesome.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Just another lazy Sunday
This is the second blog that I'm posting in a row, so make sure you scroll down and read my previous entry about traveling!
Just Another Lazy Sunday
Hardly.
So Sunday in a household of women is the hardest day of the week. As a lazy American, I would rather have 7 days of work than the one day of the housework they do here.
Today was pretty typical: They woke me up at 9 to eat breakfast. So my sisters Hasna and Oumayma had already made french toast and coffee. So by 9:20 I had my dirty clothes out of my room and was going to town on my laundry. Hand washing laundry is HARD WORK. A few pieces wouldn't be so hard, but having just gotten back from being gone 8 days at my permanent site and having not done laundry before leaving, I had a ton to catch up on. Usually we use one hand as a scrubber against the other hand, but because I had so much laundry today, they broke out the washboard. I personally felt like the washboard was much harsher on the clothes than just using your hands, but it probably does a better job. The hardest part about hand washing, in my opinion, is wringing out the clothes. It gets so tiring and I try to squeeze every drop out, since it takes so long to dry as it is. So in about 2 and a half hours, I was TIRED but I had finished the laundry and hung it on the clothes line on the roof to dry.
This is a normal routine for Sundays, though usually without the washboard. After that, usually one of my sisters has been working on making lunch since finishing breakfast. (Meals are cooked from scratch daily. It usually takes one sister all day to make all three meals. It's like it's always Thanksgiving. And nobody complains!) When I'm finished with laundry, I usually help get lunch ready. At about 1 we eat a big lunch. Immediately after lunch we finish cleaning the rest of the house, which usually involves changing the covers on the couches and mopping all the floors.
Today, lhamdullah (Thank God), the water is out again and so we can't mop the floors. (The water went out almost the minute I finished all my laundry. Again, lhamdullah! My clothes were FILTHY.) Instead we are cooking a ton. My family decided to invite the other five people from my training group over for Cascarot. Cascarot is supposedly a "snack" between lunch and dinner, but it's usually enough food to count as a whole meal.
So now my two sisters and my mom are busy kneading bread and baking. This will probably last until late afternoon when my friends will hopefully come over and eat Cascarot with us.
So why am I in my room typing this and not out there kneading bread with them? For a couple of reasons. The first is that kneading bread is really difficult and my arms are tired from wringing out my laundry (I have license to be tired though because I'd been traveling for two days). But the second, and most important, reason that I'm not out there working with them is because every Sunday, by the time it is mid-afternoon, I am always ready to pull my hair out because my family is DRIVING ME CRAZY. (Not to mention that I'm FREEZING and all my warm clothes are drying on the roof!)
I really like them a lot and they're great, but there comes a point when one is sick of being made a spectacle. From the second I wake up on Sundays I feel like I'm constantly being scrutinized because I don't do things quite the way they would like me to. Like, when washing my laundry, which I've done every week since I've been here, the three of them just stand behind me watching me! And then often they break in to show me how to do it -- again -- and then watch and make comments like "look at you washing your own clothes! We should take a photo and send it to your mom!" And that was funny the first couple of weeks (and we did take photos) but it's not funny anymore, and I don't appreciate them breathing down my neck. Then I move into the kitchen to help prepare lunch, and I can just do no right in the kitchen. I'm slow at peeling the cucumbers with a knife (which they always point out), I don't know how to peel tomatoes (which they always point out), they show me how to slice cucumbers EVERY SINGLE TIME even when I say I know how, and then they just sit there and watch me do it. There's only so much "constructive" criticism I can take. For the first few weeks it didn't bother me because they were right, I couldn't do anything. But now I can, and it's become like an extended joke that I really don't find funny. So it's now 3 pm and I have told them I have homework and barricaded myself in my room. I do feel a little guilty though because they're preparing Cascarot for MY friends, but I think I'd go crazy if they watched me whisk anything else today. I'm probably especially on edge because I'm so tired from traveling. I wanted to go to sleep early last night but we didn't eat dinner until 11 pm (it'll probably be the same tonight).
LHamdullah, I have school tomorrow.
P.S. After writing this I did go back out to the main room and help bake some msmmin... the whole family watched me -- and a neighbor. The party was a grand success despite my lack of enthusiasm. Cascarot with my five classmates turned into a Hefla (party) of about 14 people. The men left early and it became a dance party once they were gone.
Just Another Lazy Sunday
Hardly.
So Sunday in a household of women is the hardest day of the week. As a lazy American, I would rather have 7 days of work than the one day of the housework they do here.
Today was pretty typical: They woke me up at 9 to eat breakfast. So my sisters Hasna and Oumayma had already made french toast and coffee. So by 9:20 I had my dirty clothes out of my room and was going to town on my laundry. Hand washing laundry is HARD WORK. A few pieces wouldn't be so hard, but having just gotten back from being gone 8 days at my permanent site and having not done laundry before leaving, I had a ton to catch up on. Usually we use one hand as a scrubber against the other hand, but because I had so much laundry today, they broke out the washboard. I personally felt like the washboard was much harsher on the clothes than just using your hands, but it probably does a better job. The hardest part about hand washing, in my opinion, is wringing out the clothes. It gets so tiring and I try to squeeze every drop out, since it takes so long to dry as it is. So in about 2 and a half hours, I was TIRED but I had finished the laundry and hung it on the clothes line on the roof to dry.
This is a normal routine for Sundays, though usually without the washboard. After that, usually one of my sisters has been working on making lunch since finishing breakfast. (Meals are cooked from scratch daily. It usually takes one sister all day to make all three meals. It's like it's always Thanksgiving. And nobody complains!) When I'm finished with laundry, I usually help get lunch ready. At about 1 we eat a big lunch. Immediately after lunch we finish cleaning the rest of the house, which usually involves changing the covers on the couches and mopping all the floors.
Today, lhamdullah (Thank God), the water is out again and so we can't mop the floors. (The water went out almost the minute I finished all my laundry. Again, lhamdullah! My clothes were FILTHY.) Instead we are cooking a ton. My family decided to invite the other five people from my training group over for Cascarot. Cascarot is supposedly a "snack" between lunch and dinner, but it's usually enough food to count as a whole meal.
So now my two sisters and my mom are busy kneading bread and baking. This will probably last until late afternoon when my friends will hopefully come over and eat Cascarot with us.
So why am I in my room typing this and not out there kneading bread with them? For a couple of reasons. The first is that kneading bread is really difficult and my arms are tired from wringing out my laundry (I have license to be tired though because I'd been traveling for two days). But the second, and most important, reason that I'm not out there working with them is because every Sunday, by the time it is mid-afternoon, I am always ready to pull my hair out because my family is DRIVING ME CRAZY. (Not to mention that I'm FREEZING and all my warm clothes are drying on the roof!)
I really like them a lot and they're great, but there comes a point when one is sick of being made a spectacle. From the second I wake up on Sundays I feel like I'm constantly being scrutinized because I don't do things quite the way they would like me to. Like, when washing my laundry, which I've done every week since I've been here, the three of them just stand behind me watching me! And then often they break in to show me how to do it -- again -- and then watch and make comments like "look at you washing your own clothes! We should take a photo and send it to your mom!" And that was funny the first couple of weeks (and we did take photos) but it's not funny anymore, and I don't appreciate them breathing down my neck. Then I move into the kitchen to help prepare lunch, and I can just do no right in the kitchen. I'm slow at peeling the cucumbers with a knife (which they always point out), I don't know how to peel tomatoes (which they always point out), they show me how to slice cucumbers EVERY SINGLE TIME even when I say I know how, and then they just sit there and watch me do it. There's only so much "constructive" criticism I can take. For the first few weeks it didn't bother me because they were right, I couldn't do anything. But now I can, and it's become like an extended joke that I really don't find funny. So it's now 3 pm and I have told them I have homework and barricaded myself in my room. I do feel a little guilty though because they're preparing Cascarot for MY friends, but I think I'd go crazy if they watched me whisk anything else today. I'm probably especially on edge because I'm so tired from traveling. I wanted to go to sleep early last night but we didn't eat dinner until 11 pm (it'll probably be the same tonight).
LHamdullah, I have school tomorrow.
P.S. After writing this I did go back out to the main room and help bake some msmmin... the whole family watched me -- and a neighbor. The party was a grand success despite my lack of enthusiasm. Cascarot with my five classmates turned into a Hefla (party) of about 14 people. The men left early and it became a dance party once they were gone.
traveling to the boonies
Traveling.
So I've already blogged about my new town, but I haven't yet blogged about the travel experience. From Fes, it is two days out and two days back. All together it's about 15 hours away but you have to work around transportation schedules and abide by a world-wide Peace Corps policy that forbids traveling at night. So the way south was pretty easy. My bus ticket from Fes to Errachidia was 80 dirhams ($10) and that takes about 8 hours. As you drive south from Fes, you cross through the Atlas mountains. They are gorgeous and huge and the narrow roads wind around past huge cliffs. It's a site to see though it doesn't feel very safe. Apparently the buses are the safest though because they don't go too fast and rarely go over the edge... I slept most of that way. Once you start heading east though (after spending the night in Errachidia) you begin to see the Sahara Desert you always imagined. It's kilometer after kilometer of orange sand and small orange hills that rise out of nowhere. Then every so often you see date palms and greenery spring up. A true oasis. In these oases you can usually spot a small town, marked by a number of mud structures and winding alleys. After a few hours of driving east though, the oases stop coming and the sand dunes become more prominent. The skies have no clouds and become the purest shade of blue you've ever seen against the almost-fluorescent orange sand. There's some scrub that grows and you can see nomads herding some sheep, but the further east you go, the less sheep you can spot and then you begin to see nomads herding camels. Yes, camels. These are not camels that are being herded for tourists to ride. There are NO tourists out here. (You can imagine the stares I got on that bus. "What on earth is that blonde women doing on this bus to nowhere, unaccompanied?!" ) I don't have any idea what the berbers are doing with the camels but I felt like I was on a movie set. So after five or six hours of seeing nothing but sand and sky and camels you arrive at my city.
The bus rides TO my new city were not anything to write home about. They were standard. But the way back -- terrible. The first leg, back to Errachidia, was fine. But yesterday, when getting from Errachidia to Fes, we ran into obstacle after obstacle. For this portion I was not alone. Errachidia is a big hub for a lot of PCVs who want to get up to Fes. (This city has about 100,000 people) So we got on a 9 am bus that should have been in Fes in about 7 or 8 hours. But we broke down... many times.... It kept stalling and stalling and stalling. I'm sorry I don't know more about cars to explain it. Every time we'd break down, the women would stay on the bus and the men would get out and stretch. Then the driver and the driver's helper would open up the back and tinker with it until it was going again. One particular time we were stopped for more than an hour.
As we got closer and closer to our destination we broke down more and more often. One time, frustratingly, the driver pulled over to stop and pick some apples. Yes, he stopped to pick some apples.
So FINALLY after being in the bus for ten hours we arrived in Fes. We were on the edge of town when the bus broke down. AGAIN. We figured that it was time to abandon this bus and catch a taxi back to the meeting place where we were all supposed to rendezvous. There were 8 of us, and only petit taxis can be hailed. Petit taxis take a max of three passengers, so we needed three. The first two petit taxis whizzed by in seconds to pick up 5 of us. But I was in the group of three that was to be in the last taxi. Well, that last petit taxi we needed never came. We wandered around and tried to hail many taxis that passed that already had clients, with no luck.
Eventually some kids spotted us and they were wondering who these kooky tourists were roaming their neighborhood. We told him our plight and as soon as these kids got involved, things started happening. They were running in the middle of the street trying to flag down anyone. Soon their parents came out with all the commotion we were causing and they got involved. In about 10 minutes the parents had convinced a grand taxi to stop. Grand taxis are usually sedan-sized Mercedes Benz and legally can only be picked up at a taxi stand but this one "did us a favor." We thanked the neighbors profusely and hopped in.
There was already a couple in there and the driver told us he'd drop them off first and then us. They didn't look to pleased to see us, but we chatted them up in their native language, and explained what we were doing in Morocco. I also dropped the line about us working with the Ministry of Youth and Sports (true!) because we were told that could persuade someone not to cheat us....
So to make a long story short, we make it to where we wanted to go and we ask how much and the guy tells us 120 dirhams!! 30 DH would have been sufficient, if not generous. This was outrageous! The three of us responded shocked: "WHAT? THAT'S TOO EXPENSIVE" in Arabic. But his response was that he was coming from the airport and it is a flat rate. (lie). So we said we were not going to pay him 120 DH. Unfortunately though, even after that, we made two mistakes: 1) we should have gotten our luggage out of the trunk before paying him so that we could just walk away and he would have to chase us to get anything and undoubtedly he would accept something more realistic; and 2) we should have had bills smaller than 100 DH. It wasn't like he was going to give us change. So what choice did we have? He did us a "favor" and offered us 100 DH, which was the smallest bill we had. He accepted it of course, but it was still dumb. Fortunately, in our travel budget for our site visit they had worked in 120 DHs per person labeled as "in case you get overcharged for travel." So we were reimbursed. It was still annoying though.
Obviously in retrospect there are things I would have done differently in that cab ride, such as write down his license plate/car number. Taxis have gotten in big trouble for cheating PC volunteers.
By the time we got back to the PC hub we had been traveling for over 12 hours for a ride that should have taken 8. I'm still tired.
So I've already blogged about my new town, but I haven't yet blogged about the travel experience. From Fes, it is two days out and two days back. All together it's about 15 hours away but you have to work around transportation schedules and abide by a world-wide Peace Corps policy that forbids traveling at night. So the way south was pretty easy. My bus ticket from Fes to Errachidia was 80 dirhams ($10) and that takes about 8 hours. As you drive south from Fes, you cross through the Atlas mountains. They are gorgeous and huge and the narrow roads wind around past huge cliffs. It's a site to see though it doesn't feel very safe. Apparently the buses are the safest though because they don't go too fast and rarely go over the edge... I slept most of that way. Once you start heading east though (after spending the night in Errachidia) you begin to see the Sahara Desert you always imagined. It's kilometer after kilometer of orange sand and small orange hills that rise out of nowhere. Then every so often you see date palms and greenery spring up. A true oasis. In these oases you can usually spot a small town, marked by a number of mud structures and winding alleys. After a few hours of driving east though, the oases stop coming and the sand dunes become more prominent. The skies have no clouds and become the purest shade of blue you've ever seen against the almost-fluorescent orange sand. There's some scrub that grows and you can see nomads herding some sheep, but the further east you go, the less sheep you can spot and then you begin to see nomads herding camels. Yes, camels. These are not camels that are being herded for tourists to ride. There are NO tourists out here. (You can imagine the stares I got on that bus. "What on earth is that blonde women doing on this bus to nowhere, unaccompanied?!" ) I don't have any idea what the berbers are doing with the camels but I felt like I was on a movie set. So after five or six hours of seeing nothing but sand and sky and camels you arrive at my city.
The bus rides TO my new city were not anything to write home about. They were standard. But the way back -- terrible. The first leg, back to Errachidia, was fine. But yesterday, when getting from Errachidia to Fes, we ran into obstacle after obstacle. For this portion I was not alone. Errachidia is a big hub for a lot of PCVs who want to get up to Fes. (This city has about 100,000 people) So we got on a 9 am bus that should have been in Fes in about 7 or 8 hours. But we broke down... many times.... It kept stalling and stalling and stalling. I'm sorry I don't know more about cars to explain it. Every time we'd break down, the women would stay on the bus and the men would get out and stretch. Then the driver and the driver's helper would open up the back and tinker with it until it was going again. One particular time we were stopped for more than an hour.
As we got closer and closer to our destination we broke down more and more often. One time, frustratingly, the driver pulled over to stop and pick some apples. Yes, he stopped to pick some apples.
So FINALLY after being in the bus for ten hours we arrived in Fes. We were on the edge of town when the bus broke down. AGAIN. We figured that it was time to abandon this bus and catch a taxi back to the meeting place where we were all supposed to rendezvous. There were 8 of us, and only petit taxis can be hailed. Petit taxis take a max of three passengers, so we needed three. The first two petit taxis whizzed by in seconds to pick up 5 of us. But I was in the group of three that was to be in the last taxi. Well, that last petit taxi we needed never came. We wandered around and tried to hail many taxis that passed that already had clients, with no luck.
Eventually some kids spotted us and they were wondering who these kooky tourists were roaming their neighborhood. We told him our plight and as soon as these kids got involved, things started happening. They were running in the middle of the street trying to flag down anyone. Soon their parents came out with all the commotion we were causing and they got involved. In about 10 minutes the parents had convinced a grand taxi to stop. Grand taxis are usually sedan-sized Mercedes Benz and legally can only be picked up at a taxi stand but this one "did us a favor." We thanked the neighbors profusely and hopped in.
There was already a couple in there and the driver told us he'd drop them off first and then us. They didn't look to pleased to see us, but we chatted them up in their native language, and explained what we were doing in Morocco. I also dropped the line about us working with the Ministry of Youth and Sports (true!) because we were told that could persuade someone not to cheat us....
So to make a long story short, we make it to where we wanted to go and we ask how much and the guy tells us 120 dirhams!! 30 DH would have been sufficient, if not generous. This was outrageous! The three of us responded shocked: "WHAT? THAT'S TOO EXPENSIVE" in Arabic. But his response was that he was coming from the airport and it is a flat rate. (lie). So we said we were not going to pay him 120 DH. Unfortunately though, even after that, we made two mistakes: 1) we should have gotten our luggage out of the trunk before paying him so that we could just walk away and he would have to chase us to get anything and undoubtedly he would accept something more realistic; and 2) we should have had bills smaller than 100 DH. It wasn't like he was going to give us change. So what choice did we have? He did us a "favor" and offered us 100 DH, which was the smallest bill we had. He accepted it of course, but it was still dumb. Fortunately, in our travel budget for our site visit they had worked in 120 DHs per person labeled as "in case you get overcharged for travel." So we were reimbursed. It was still annoying though.
Obviously in retrospect there are things I would have done differently in that cab ride, such as write down his license plate/car number. Taxis have gotten in big trouble for cheating PC volunteers.
By the time we got back to the PC hub we had been traveling for over 12 hours for a ride that should have taken 8. I'm still tired.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
New Site!!
New town versus old town
I am currently experiencing my "site visit" for Peace Corps. For one week, towards the end of training, Peace Corps gives us our permanent assignment and then has us go and get to know our new 'city' a little bit. So I'm here for a week, living with a new host family and figuring out logistics with the volunteer who I'm replacing. Then, I'll return to my training city for another couple weeks of language learning. Then I'll be officially Sworn In as a Peace Corps Volunteer on November 24th, and on the 25th, Thanksgiving Day, I'll begin my trek back to my permanent site for two years. I will live with this same new host family until January 1st, when I will move into an apartment here.
So, where am I? Well, the exact location I'm not allowed to reveal on a blog for safety purposes. But, I can tell you this: 1) I'm in the desert 2) I'm in the south east 3) I'm closer to Algeria than the next closest Moroccan city... by far! I'm so close to Algeria that they I'm going to have to learn different vocabulary so I can speak Algerian Arabic. Basically I am in the middle of NOWHERE. I took a couple of buses to get here from Fes, and as we were driving east from Errachidia, it was kilometer after kilometer of NOTHING. Occasionally we saw a few dyors (houses) out in the middle of nowhere, but I'm talking sandstorm-sanddune-camel middle-of-nowhere. I'm five hours from the next "big" city. (In Morocco, anyway. But we are NOT allowed to go to Algeria....)
So now I can compare:
My training city is an hour and a half north of Fes, which means in the north of Morocco. We are training further north than any volunteers. They can't put volunteers that far north because after my city it's all towns funded by hashish. And that could get messy. Even some of the youth of my training city who have finished school and are now unemployed can go on the weekends to harvest hash and take home a sizeable wad of dirhams. (This is very common, and it provokes me to wonder what the real unemployment number is, since so many who are "unemployed" in the region are employed by the hashish business.) So, in comparison to my permanent site, my training city is fairly snazzy. It's hilly, at the edge of the riff mountains, and relatively unpolluted by litter. My host family has what I thought were very small and simple accomodations-- and they are. But in comparison to my new host family in my Morocco-Algerian (haha!) permanent site, my training host family has some nice stuff.
Training Host Family's House: only two rooms, mine and a main room where all the sleeping and living is done. Floors are tile and covered with nice, thick carpet.
Permanent site's host family house: Larger, three rooms plus an inner courtyard, you could call it. One room is my bedroom, one room is for the TV/Eating/Living, and one room is for sleeping. The "courtyard" is in the center. It's a cement floor with an open ceiling (i.e. no ceiling) and I think this is more typical to the Arab design style. (The Arabs in this city are proud and claim they have no Shilha (berber) in them....) In this center courtyard you could look up and see the clouds pass by, and hang your laundry on the clothes line, all without leaving the house... It could rain, but no worries, there is a big drain in the middle. No plants or anything, but I can't come up with a better word.
While my new digs might sound nicer, in terms of luxury items, they aren't. I thought my old host family was semi-roughing it by not having beds. We all sleep on "ponges" (like sponges) and they are like narrow, backless couches that line the walls of the living room. They don't put sheets on them, and they just lie down when they're tired and cover themselves with a big blanket. My new host family doesn't even have ponges. We all sleep in the floor. They made up my room, which, when I first got here, just has a small table in it. By the afternoon, it had a rug on the floor and then two thin mats, about the thickness of an aerobics mat, a pillow and two blankets. And they whole family sleeps in one room on these thin mats, on the floor. The family, by the way, consists of a mom, who is 34 and recently divorced, and an 11 year old daughter named Oumayma (yes, my first host family also has a daughter named Oumayma), and a six year old daughter named Iness.
I hope this doesn't sound ungrateful. I am incredibly happy and lucky to have not just one, but TWO, wonderful families who are willing to take in a young foreigner who speaks like a three year old. Both families have made me as comfortable as possible and are completely giving of themselves and whatever resources they have. I'm merely making a comparison in a blog to show how every new experience like this that I have I am finding out more and more about how people here live and how much "stuff" (or lack thereof) we really need to be happy. I slept 11 and a half hours on the floor last night in my new Maroc/Algerian homestay after traveling for two days to get here and am happy to sleep here again tonight.
I am also lucky because Melanie, the volunteer that I'm replacing, is still here this week, and she doesn't go back to the U.S. until next week. More on how I'm preparing to pick up where she's left off next time.
I am currently experiencing my "site visit" for Peace Corps. For one week, towards the end of training, Peace Corps gives us our permanent assignment and then has us go and get to know our new 'city' a little bit. So I'm here for a week, living with a new host family and figuring out logistics with the volunteer who I'm replacing. Then, I'll return to my training city for another couple weeks of language learning. Then I'll be officially Sworn In as a Peace Corps Volunteer on November 24th, and on the 25th, Thanksgiving Day, I'll begin my trek back to my permanent site for two years. I will live with this same new host family until January 1st, when I will move into an apartment here.
So, where am I? Well, the exact location I'm not allowed to reveal on a blog for safety purposes. But, I can tell you this: 1) I'm in the desert 2) I'm in the south east 3) I'm closer to Algeria than the next closest Moroccan city... by far! I'm so close to Algeria that they I'm going to have to learn different vocabulary so I can speak Algerian Arabic. Basically I am in the middle of NOWHERE. I took a couple of buses to get here from Fes, and as we were driving east from Errachidia, it was kilometer after kilometer of NOTHING. Occasionally we saw a few dyors (houses) out in the middle of nowhere, but I'm talking sandstorm-sanddune-camel middle-of-nowhere. I'm five hours from the next "big" city. (In Morocco, anyway. But we are NOT allowed to go to Algeria....)
So now I can compare:
My training city is an hour and a half north of Fes, which means in the north of Morocco. We are training further north than any volunteers. They can't put volunteers that far north because after my city it's all towns funded by hashish. And that could get messy. Even some of the youth of my training city who have finished school and are now unemployed can go on the weekends to harvest hash and take home a sizeable wad of dirhams. (This is very common, and it provokes me to wonder what the real unemployment number is, since so many who are "unemployed" in the region are employed by the hashish business.) So, in comparison to my permanent site, my training city is fairly snazzy. It's hilly, at the edge of the riff mountains, and relatively unpolluted by litter. My host family has what I thought were very small and simple accomodations-- and they are. But in comparison to my new host family in my Morocco-Algerian (haha!) permanent site, my training host family has some nice stuff.
Training Host Family's House: only two rooms, mine and a main room where all the sleeping and living is done. Floors are tile and covered with nice, thick carpet.
Permanent site's host family house: Larger, three rooms plus an inner courtyard, you could call it. One room is my bedroom, one room is for the TV/Eating/Living, and one room is for sleeping. The "courtyard" is in the center. It's a cement floor with an open ceiling (i.e. no ceiling) and I think this is more typical to the Arab design style. (The Arabs in this city are proud and claim they have no Shilha (berber) in them....) In this center courtyard you could look up and see the clouds pass by, and hang your laundry on the clothes line, all without leaving the house... It could rain, but no worries, there is a big drain in the middle. No plants or anything, but I can't come up with a better word.
While my new digs might sound nicer, in terms of luxury items, they aren't. I thought my old host family was semi-roughing it by not having beds. We all sleep on "ponges" (like sponges) and they are like narrow, backless couches that line the walls of the living room. They don't put sheets on them, and they just lie down when they're tired and cover themselves with a big blanket. My new host family doesn't even have ponges. We all sleep in the floor. They made up my room, which, when I first got here, just has a small table in it. By the afternoon, it had a rug on the floor and then two thin mats, about the thickness of an aerobics mat, a pillow and two blankets. And they whole family sleeps in one room on these thin mats, on the floor. The family, by the way, consists of a mom, who is 34 and recently divorced, and an 11 year old daughter named Oumayma (yes, my first host family also has a daughter named Oumayma), and a six year old daughter named Iness.
I hope this doesn't sound ungrateful. I am incredibly happy and lucky to have not just one, but TWO, wonderful families who are willing to take in a young foreigner who speaks like a three year old. Both families have made me as comfortable as possible and are completely giving of themselves and whatever resources they have. I'm merely making a comparison in a blog to show how every new experience like this that I have I am finding out more and more about how people here live and how much "stuff" (or lack thereof) we really need to be happy. I slept 11 and a half hours on the floor last night in my new Maroc/Algerian homestay after traveling for two days to get here and am happy to sleep here again tonight.
I am also lucky because Melanie, the volunteer that I'm replacing, is still here this week, and she doesn't go back to the U.S. until next week. More on how I'm preparing to pick up where she's left off next time.
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