Typical....

I've never considered myself the super "peace corps"y type, (re: low maintenance hippie) but I think I might be...at least more so than I thought.

Evidence:

1. I just sharpened my eyeliner with a knife

2. Felt bugs in my bed last night. (didn't turn on the light to see what they were because I didn't want to know.) Solution? I wore long sleeve/pant pajamas.

3.Calculated my daily water usage based on "buckets" per day. (running water has worsened as the summer has progressed.)
- can successfully wash dishes and laundry with no running water... I mean, it's running at some point. It's all about timing and water storage.

4. And just between you and me, I haven't bought TP since May. (except for traveling).

I don't think cutting my own hair should count. Lots of people do that in the first world. Though I do know one guy who gave himself a pretty nice trim with his pocket knife.

Also, that fact that I'm still wearing eyeliner once in a while is proof that I'm not way over the hippie-edge. Although, I will admit I'm wearing it because I was told by my good friend, Radia, "THella fik!" or "Take care of yourself!"

The girls here really glam it out when they go out on the town. Now that it's Ramadan, evenings are popping. From about 10pm - 1am the streets are FULL. People are out wandering around to look at other people primarily and secondarily to buy a new outfit to wear on "L'Eid Sghrir" (meaning "small feast day." Actually called L'Eid Lftar, which means "Breakfast Feast Day").

Tonight, I'm going to go wander around the streets with my friend, Soumaya. So I'm trying to look my best, I guess. I was recently asked why the girls that are sent to my town as Peace Corps volunteers "don't dress as well as the Americans we see on T.V." I really didn't have a good answer because what I wanted to say was, "Well if you notice, the American girls on TV are perhaps showing a little calf/knee action and don't have their rear-end covered by long, baggy shirts." Instead I told her that I couldn't speak for the other volunteers that preceded me but that I wasn't very fashion conscious because it didn't really matter. We were not on the same page with that and she really didn't understand.

Oh well. I'm trying to meet their American expectations, while still dressing conservatively and avoiding using "kohl" (the THICK traditional eyeliner used by people all across Mid-East/North Africa for thousands of years) Here's a photo I found on the internet of a pretty standard bride in a Moroccan wedding. Check out that makeup!

Ramadan Packages!

Today is August 23rd. I have been fasting during daylight hours for 21 days now! And thank goodness Ramadan is almost over! Through this experience I have solidified that I am a morning person and that just does not suit Ramadan. In any case, one of the best things about this time is that people are even more welcoming than usual and I have daily invitations to break fast, or "lftor" with a family in my community. That is the main reason why I am fasting anyway. Sure, I could just eat and drink in my house, but then what fun would it be to break fast if I'd been eating all day? Plus, I wanted to experience it and be able to say I did it the whole month.

I doubt I will fully fast next year. From food? Probably. But not from water. It is well over 100 degrees here and there's over 15 hours of daylight. Next year Ramadan will begin in the middle of July. I have changed my schedule so I'm literally up all night, and rarely asleep before 6am (a full 1.5hrs after the call to prayer that begins the fast.) And I am generally not out of bed until 3pm.

Ok, ok, so maybe waking up at 3pm is kind of cheating but technically I am playing by the rules. I know for a fact that the teenage boys are not waking up before that either because they're outside my window playing soccer until they have to go home to eat SHHor at around 3am. The women/girls I've talked with who are not married/mothers also don't get up before 2 or so either.

Today! I roused myself at NOON! (which was difficult because there was a solitary fly in my room attempting to go up my nose until 8 IN THE MORNING)But I got up because I knew there would be a package waiting for me at the post office.

Surprise! There were TWO packages! One from the Peace Corps librarian and one from my mother. The PC librarian is my favorite staff member by far. Every so often, out of the blue, I'll get a package with some lesson plans, random magazines, and books that he thinks might interest me. It's such a sweet surprise. Recently he sent me the book "'Tis" by Frank McCourt; a sequel to "Angela's Ashes." I was talking about "Angela's Ashes" with my friend who said that it was one of his favorite books and I absolutely could not read the sequel without reading the first. I shot off an email to the librarian and today I found "Angela's Ashes" in my mail box!

Now for my mother's WONDERFUL package: It was so beautiful, I had to photograph it.(click to enlarge)

List of its precious contents:
- Socks and underwear! (So important! Hand washing really does a number on clothes.)
- SMU alumni magazine!
- Chewy Granola bars!
- Crystal light packets!
- A few issues of the local paper! (including comics, of course)
- EIGHT spools of dark colored thread! (as requested! Thank you mom and Charity!)
- High school graduation announcement of my God sister, Krista!
- My brother's new business card for his new job!
- Letter from a little girl we sponsor in Colombia!

And last but not least....

- A beautiful little note from my mother!

Thank you!!

Angela's Ashes is on the right side of the photo next to the envelop in which it arrived. I love that it just says "Seibel, Abby/ Dar Chebab" and it finds its way to my box.

I love everything here, but if I had to pick a favorite it would be Granola bars. So delicious and simple and not available here...plus they don't melt!

I want to do a post on the breakfast cuisine of Ramadan but I need to remember to take my camera along to my next lftor!

SUMMER CAMP!

I recently got back from a Summer Camp in El Jadida, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. This summer camp is sponsored by the Ministry of Youth and Sports and is an English Immersion Camp. This camp is generally for the more privileged kids in Morocco; it is very expensive and not far from Casablanca and Rabat. It is for high school kids ages 13-17.

Because it is supposed to be an English immersion camp, the ministry called on Peace Corps to provide access to native English speakers. In exchange for us volunteering as counselors, the ministry graciously provides each volunteer three scholarship spots to bring kids from our own towns/villages. This is a two-fold benefit: 1. two out of three of my scholarship kids, have never traveled outside our town, and none of them have gotten to go to a cool camp like this. I imagine this is true for almost all the kids brought by PCVolunteers. 2. The kids from the "big city" learn about their fellow countrymen who may come from towns and villages the Rabat/Casa kids have never heard of and live lives so different that it's difficult to imagine they're from they same country.

After the photos are a few stories of things I witnessed that made me laugh and warmed my heart.

These are the three kids I brought: Zakaria, Mehdi, and Hicham. (Don't worry, they're happy- it's just not customary to smile in photos)

I lead a Journalism club with 11 of the most advanced English speakers in the camp. At the end of the 10 day camp they had produced a newsletter and distributed a copy to every child at camp.

The U.S. Ambassador to Morocco and his wife, came and visited our camp one morning.

Brahim, the "gentle giant" referenced in the story below.

Miriam at the Supermarket: Erika and I are the only Youth Development PCVs in our province, so together we had six kids. Because our province is just about as far away as you can get from El Jadida, our six rode an overnight bus and were some of the first kids to arrive the first morning of camp. Erika and I decided that we had time to kill so we took them to the LaBel Vie supermarket to get some snacks. Not only was it probably their first time in a grocery story, but LaBel Vie is a really fancy store. Miriam, one of Erika's, took one look at the escalator we were about to get on and a look of “WHAT THE HECK IS THIS THING?!” flashed in her eyes. She didn't say a word, likely just to save face, but as soon as she stepped onto the escalator, she stumbled a little and then held on with two hands, nervously giggling the whole way down. The way back up we took the elevator. She didn't know where we were going when we stepped into this strange little room and pushed some buttons. She didn't seem to like when it moved because she didn't know what was happening but no word other than shock could describe the look on her face when the elevator doors opened and she was standing in front of a scene completely different from where we'd left. I felt like we were showing her the future.

Brahim and the Ocean: Brahim, dubbed as the “gentle giant” by the PCVolunteers who were at camp that session, is a participant that PCV Yusuf brought to camp with him. A luxury of the camp being in El Jadida is that the kids get to go to the beach everyday. Brahim, like most of the kids who were brought by PCVs, had never been to the ocean. The majority of them were scared of the water and almost none knew how to swim. Brahim, in particular, was adamant that the ocean water was unhealthy and would give you skin diseases. He refused to get in. At least on day one. Day two came along and somehow he had silently made the decision to “get in.” He stood there with his feet in the water and would go no further. Day three: Brahim jumped in the water, splashing and swimming in the waves with the rest of the kids! Every day after that you would never have been able to tell that Brahim had once been convinced that the ocean would make him, and everyone else, sick.

If I told you all the wonderful stories of minds being opened and friendships formed during camp, this blog would never end. Each volunteer could tell you stories of their own kids' transformations and joys from camp. I'll leave you with a picture of me and my friend Mohammed VI. I am looking forward to camp again next year and hopefully by then I'll be able to find some girls whose fathers will let them attend with me.

traveling and PC.

This past weekend was Independence day! I was able to get away for the weekend and visit a beautiful city outside Errachidia where a fellow volunteer lives. I spent the weekend there and we celebrated our nation's founding wearing Red, White, and Blue and reminiscing on what our lives were like back in the states. On my way back home, my dad called me and expressed concern that I seem to be gone a lot. I thought about it and I realized that there is quite a bit of traveling associated with Peace Corps; whether for trainings, national events, or other happenings. He (semi-jokingly) wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting tax payer dollars. I assured him I was not. I LOVE being in my city and am happy to stay here. Traveling in Morocco, especially from where I live, is Hard Work! So I thought it would be a good blog entry to document, photographically, the different places I have traveled since April.

(Click the photos to enlarge them!)

April: We had Spring Camp- an English Language Immersion camp hosted by the Ministry of Youth and Sports. I co-coordinated this camp with a number of Moroccan staff and had the unending help of 4 other PCVs to put on a fun camp in the city of Oujda for high school kids between 13 and 17 years old. It was a sleep-away camp that lasted the entire week of their spring break. There were tears at the end.(not the most flattering photo but I wasn't in too many of them.)

Early May: I went to a city called Goulmima (300km from where I live) to do Project Design and Management for a hip hop group who work with a volunteer. This particular group is talented and really wanted to finish producing their CD. I am all for supporting the arts so I agreed to come and help them focus their energy on actually getting it DONE as opposed to just talking about it. While the other PCV who works with them is 100% capable, I think it helped them take it seriously when they found out that "outside resources" were being brought in. It also did some good in the realm of gender development- the leader of the hip hop group asked where the Goulmima Volunteer's "business man" was, when I was right there. They did, indeed, get their CD finished! Visit their facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/S7rawa-boys/144435102263982 . All their songs are in Moroccan Arabic with a little English worked in and very wholesome- about respecting your mother, quitting smoking, etc.

Late May: I went to Tanger to work with the Moroccan Special Olympics. These are Olympic Games for the mentally handicapped- particularly, Moroccans under 30. 23 other volunteers and I were selected to act as "coaches" in the games. (Personally, I timed the track and field events!) Apparently, this is a rough place to have a disabled person in your family because there is a social stigma associated with it along the lines of how disability is a "punishment from God." (not my words.) This was the first year that Peace Corps participated on an official level with the Special Olympics and both parties loved it so much we'll most likely participate with bigger numbers next year!

June: In-Service Training. For a week and a half in June I traveled to our In-Service Training (IST) that all PC volunteers participate in after six months of service-meaning after about 8.5 months in country, including training time. It was held in the beach town of Mehdia. Most of what I got out of training was the opportunity to brain storm and share ideas about projects and activities and hear what other PCVolunteers are up to. This photo was taken on the beach outside our training facility. Despite that training can be boring- when 67 PCVs get together there is always fun to be had- this was our highly organized beach dodgeball game. We played with brackets. My team lost, but then the losers played a losers bracket and we won!! (yay?) I'm in the white tank top in the photo- a little taste of clothing freedom- just about the only place in Morocco I could get away with it! (btw, YES, two days after training ended was the Shakira concert in Rabat, just a taxi ride away from Mehdia. So I did stay a little extra to attend. I was already on the other side of the country for goodness' sake!)

Last weekend: I went to a village called Beni Tajjit (it's on google maps!). THIS was an all business weekend- exhausting! (no other PCVs participated) The president of a women's weaving association invited me to help her do a workshop in Beni Tajjit. This workshop was to teach the (mostly illiterate) Berber women the Berber alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_languages ) Now, don't get me wrong- this was not so much a literacy workshop as a business workshop. These women weave traditional carpets and sell their carpets to tourists. They traditionally weave the berber letter "zaid" into them. This workshop was to teach them weaving techniques to incorporate these letters into their designs. The president of the weaving association has generally worked with the Small Business Development volunteer but the previous two volunteers sent to her Early Terminated. (it can be tough out here...) So we've formed our relationship and I went along with her to help as another hand, photographer, and personal assistant. It was very rewarding culturally and I have lots to say about it that will probably be another entry. I got VERY very sick and threw up on a moving bus. Attractive. (I'm in the second group photo, next to the woman with bright yellow hijab.)

So that's all for now in terms of my traveling adventures. Yes, my weekends here and there, when I'm with other PCVolunteers, are VERY fun and entertaining and we do a great job of turning business trips into working vacations. (Take them where you can get them, right?) I can't even describe how wonderful it is to get together after a month or so of little English and being in the countryside. To make my point- no, Dad, I'm not constantly running around frolicking away my time and hopefully these visual representations helped convince you!! :)

(rode my bike 13km outside my city, turned around, and snapped this photo. Crazy how fast it disappears into the desert!)

By the way

This is an addendum to the blog just posted below:

I added new photos to my daily life album on facebook.

Copy/paste the link below to view them!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.729125095489.2240060.18806879&l=990f60e4a6

(you don't have to be a facebook member to view them.)

oh yes, I'm in Morocco.

Tuesday was a day of 3 of those “oh yes, I am in Morocco” moments.

1. While I was at Naima's house (president of a women's weaving cooperative), a neighbor brought over some fresh “Leben” (fermented milk- in this case goat's milk) that had been made just the day before by Naima's neighbor's family who are nomadic herders and live in tents in the desert outside my town. As fermented milk goes, you can't get much fresher (or unpasteurized) than that! I'll say that this particular Leben tasted a lot like feta cheese...most definitely an acquired taste.

2. Again, while at Naima's she went up on the roof to adjust the satellite dish that the goshdarned chickens always screw with. She came downstairs with a gooey egg and said “well say congratulations to me because I saw this one pop right out of her! Here put it in your pocket and take it home!” So that night for dinner I had possibly the freshest egg I've ever eaten in my life. It didn't look fertilized, not that I would know, but there is a rooster up there. The yolk was almost orange, as opposed to yellow, and it was delicious. Who says I need a fridge when the food barely even makes it to room temperature after “production”!?

3. (this one is longer) The last two small business volunteers who were in my site terminated their service early (known as 'ET'ing, or as I like to call it 'quitting.') I don't know why they quit but one particular co-operative of artisans sought me out to help them since they no longer had a volunteer. Naima, the president of the weaving cooperative had been trying to communicate shipping a spinning wheel from my city, to Ourzazate, a city about 700km away, where another volunteer is working with another weaving co-op. Why so difficult? I can't really answer that. It shouldn't have been but it was. Part of the problem is that to co-op in Ourzazate who wanted Naima's spinning machine wanted her to escort it out there to show them how to use it properly. You may recall from a previous entry that it is Hshuma for a woman to travel alone and Naima just wouldn't do it and the cooperative in Ourzazate didn't have the money to send Naima and someone else.

That lead to some difficulties but after weeks and weeks of negotiations (my role in this was as translator because the Peace Corps volunteer outside Ourzazate doesn't speak Arabic- I believe she speaks Tashelheit, a berber language, which Naima does not speak, but I could be wrong about that. And it helps to have someone on hand) We finally decided that the best thing to do would be to ship the spinning wheel by a bus, under the seats, where the luggage goes. So to work all this out of course I had to go over to Naima's for lunch. I arrived about 12:30, early for lunch considering daylight savings time. I helped her knead some dough for bread, then we ate lunch and then we had tea and chitchatted. Finally....at about 3pm I was putting on my shoes and Casually mentioned that we might possibly ship the machine that night, on the overnight bus from my city that goes all the way to Agadir but would arrive in Ourzazate at around 6am. And she said “oh sure, Inchallah. Come back over around 6:30 or 7pm and we'll see.” So that was it- a 2.5hr lunch date for a three second conversation. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVED having lunch with them and appreciate them very much but it is funny to me how absolutely necessary it was to spend that time talking about nothing in order to get business done.

In the end, we did get the sewing machine sent that night. Naima is a young newly wed who's husband lives in the next town over and said it would be a problem if she went to the bus station with me so her young nephew and I carried a Sleeping Beauty-esque spinning wheel across town and got it shipped off!

Developments!

It's been a month since I last posted and a TON has gone on both in my town in Morocco and within Peace Corps.

The day after my last post there was civil unrest here in my very own town here in eastern Morocco. Did it make the news? No, but it was definitely news-worthy. There is no reporting agency out here. I don't want to put a lot of info about it on here, but if you'd like an account, I wrote a long document on it for Peace Corps Safety and Security department, and I can forward it to you.

Let me just put it this way: following the unrest, Oujda, the nearest big city and kind of an eastern "hub" sent in dozens, if not hundreds, of police here- and they were lodged at my Dar Chebab (youth center)

So this was a month ago and the police are still occupying my Dar Chebab. This has really messed with my routine because that's the building I work out of. To occupy my time I decided to visit the Dar Taliba-- a girls' residence hall-- for children of nomads who are here to go to middle or high school, or girls who are studying computers or accounting at the "tquin" (vocational school). I went a few times and they were quite welcoming but were honest in saying that they were done with school and didn't want to get started with any activities until the Fall.

Conveniently, after that I went to Tangier and worked with the Moroccan Special Olympics. I was hoping the police would be gone by the time I came back...but no, they weren't. Then I just had a week in Bouarfa before leaving for "IST" or In-Service Training that every volunteer does throughout every Peace Corps country after six months in country.

I just got back from IST and my regional meeting yesterday to find the police STILL occupying my Dar Chebab, citing some more unrest last week while I was gone. These are new police too- it appears they've had a personnel change- all from Oujda though.

So I had quite an overwhelming feeling of guilt because I was traveling so much and many of my students are about to sit the baccalaureate exam next week. Now that I know the Dar Chebab has essentially been closed for a month though, I do not feel as guilty.

Today I was brought by three of my Dar Chebab kids to the local Dar Taqafa (House of Culture- like a theater center) which has just opened to give kids a place to study for exams, since they're not in school. It's set up a bit like a school cafeteria, with large tables and chairs and I was able to help kids with a sample bac exam that I had photocopied.

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Basically, what I'm figuring out is that summer is kind of a dead time. It's VERY hot and people don't seem to want to do much. I plan on staying here as much as a can for the summer, including Ramadan which begins August 1st. I will be gone two weeks in July or August for the Ministry of Youth and Sport's summer camp in El Jadida. It's a very expensive summer camp for wealthy Rabat kids and the ministry allows each Youth Development volunteer to bring 3 kids to camp from our towns on scholarship.

Because summer is not a real "action" time, I plan on using it as a time of planning so when Fall kicks off and productivity shoots up, I can move straight into activities and projects. These are some of my ideas, many of which were inspired/borrowed through brainstorming and collaboration with other volunteers at IST.

- Job Skills workshop
- Misc. activities with girls at Dar Taliba (including yoga or aerobics, inchallah)
- Women's Wellness weekend- possibly coupled with a "Spa day" of sorts- with treatments made of natural ingredients. The women here work their hands and feet to the bone daily and never seem to get a break- they would really enjoy and deserve some pampering...plus a health lesson!
- Pen pal-ling my students from the Dar Chebab with an American classroom for a letters exchange
- Newsletter publication for Dar Chebab and its happenings
- Study skills weekly workshops- the concepts of flash cards and mnemonic devices are totally foreign here.

I also need to look at the UN's millenium development goals and see how they fit into my possibilities here- plus continue brainstorming ideas.

One thing I realize is REALLY lacking in the education system here (that I never realized was so valuable before) is CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS! The ability to think outside a given structure and formula is KEY to Development. How can one possibly think outside one's situation and then go on to achieve those goals/dreams if one lacks critical thinking abilities?

I vow to work this into as many activities and projects as I can from now on.

I look forward to seeing how many of these materialize. Feel free to hold me accountable and ask me about them or give me any suggestions you may have.