Un Petit Update

I know that I owe you guys an update about my recent vacation to the glorious (albeit soul-less) city of Agadir, and that will come on Wednesday, incha'Allah. For today, since I'm here in my souq town against my will (I had to come to send in paperwork for an upcoming training session), let me give you a quick life update. The following bullets are in no particular order, so bear with me.

1. It's Ramadan right now, if you didn't read the top of the page, and the Ramadan fast is intense. A month of no food, water, sex, smoking, other miscellaneous naughty vices or bad thoughts from sun-up (that's around 4:30a at this time of year) to sun-down (about 7:15p). When you throw in altitude and the absurd heat of August in Morocco, it's even more of a challenge.

And, just to make things interesting, I've come down with a headcold. You know, because I thought it'd be a fun challenge to take on.

(There's no cold medicine allowed during fasting, friends.)

Other than my nose running constantly and feeling perpetually disgusting, I'm loving Ramadan so far. It's a time of family and community and charity, and those sentiments are palpable wherever you go (except when you're buying produce -- more on that coming up soon).

2. My running water's been regulated to five hours every other day, which is SO EXCITING. It's so nice to be able to budget your water consumption, let me tell you. Before Ramadan started, the water was on haphazardly -- once every four days, during some weeks. I'm thankful to have running water in general, but regular running water is a true luxury, even if it's only a few hours a week.

Also, if you were curious, my water comes from a well with an electric pump (also an amazing luxury), and I treat it with bleach or by boiling it. My mom my water situation interesting, so I thought I'd share with the whole class.

3. My body insists on napping in the afternoons while I'm fasting. While I haven't dreamt much since coming to Morocco, my mid-fast naps have provided some interesting dreams. I've dreamt twice that my brother came back to visit, once with his children (which do not exist right now, to my knowledge) (they were also blonde and spoke only Spanish. Matt, tienes algo que contarme?). I also dreamt that I was picking up a pizza from a restaurant that my family frequents back home, and I spoke Tashlheit with the guy behind the counter. He responded in Tash, no problem. And then, when he turned to another customer and spoke flawless American English, I was shocked that he spoke English so well! In the dream, even though I was in America, I didn't think that English would get me very far. This leads me to believe that I'm going to be spectacularly awkward when I come home.

4. August is a terrible month for produce in my part of the country. Tomatoes, especially, have suffered greatly. A kilo went from 2 dirhams (henceforth referred to as MAD) to 10 MAD in three weeks! I know that MAD probably doesn't mean anything to those of you back home (1 USD = approximately 8 MAD if you must know), but trust me, it's a price change worth griping about. Everyone around here talks to me about the tomatoes. Wa ifla7n, you should know that the Berber ladies and I down here are not happy about this.

5. Speaking of food, my newest Favorite Summer Treat is Berber Iced Coffee. The recipie is technically challenging and requires a great deal of concentration (I'm ranking it at the intermediate-mid level), but I'll include it for those that feel like they're up to the challenge.

Berber Iced Coffee

note: Don't tell my hostmom about this! Berbers, from what I've seen, do not consume tea or coffee cold and have no idea why anyone would ever think to do so.

Ingredients:

Instant coffee, preferrably Nescafé
Milk (ideally from your own cow, but packaged milk will suffice if you're in a pinch)
Sugar (vanilla sugar if you're feeling sassy)
A few drops of vanilla, almond or hazelnut extract (again, if you're in the mood)
One mug
One spoon or similar mixing instrument

Combine Nescafe, milk and sugar and stir well, until a pleasant froth appears. Mix in extract if you're so inclined, and then pop the mug in the freezer until the mixture's at the desired texture. Consume at will.

6. After a short break, I'm back to the what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life-after-this-is-over dilemma. The list has been narrowed down considerably since I last went through this, but this is still a huge decision to make. More on this later.

7. Time is still flying. Literally, I do not know where this summer went. My brother moved back to school yesterday, and tomorrow is September! L3id (or L'Eid, or Eid, however you want to transliterate it), celebrating the end of Ramadan, is right around the corner. Then comes in-service training (IST), like, three hours later, and then before I have time to catch my breath, I'll have COSed, gotten my PhD, married, and my brother will have those blonde Spanish-speaking children!

8. Save the Date: Michigan Football starts 5 September. GO BLUE!

Wherever you go...

...go Blue!

Now's the time of year when I start to really, really crave Michigan football. The flag's been hung, the hoodie's washed and ready to wear, and I've even got a source for football games should the longing for the Maize and Blue start to interfere with my work. The source is two days' travel away, but for a glimpse of the boys and the band, it'd be worth it.

So, friends, while I'm away at the beach this weekend (and breaking the fast with Pizza Hut's lftur meal), I leave you with this clip and the schedule to help get you as excited as I am about the pending season. If you're jones-ing for more, don't forget about mgoblog. Tbarkallah, he's good at what he does.

Moussems and civic holidays and fasting, oh my!

After returning home from training on Monday of last week, life has been a blur of activity.

This week, it turns out, will be no different.

I'll be about 70km down the road working at a health booth for a local festival on Monday and Tuesday, and then for Thursday and Friday's civic holidays, I'll be at the beach for a few days of sun, scarves and getting yelled at for wearing a burquini in the water.

(I don't actually own a hijabi swimsuit, but if I did, I'd wear it proudly in France)

Then, friends, Friday/Saturday starts Ramadan! Posting will be either very limited or much more regular, as I'm limiting myself to once a week at the internet. It's a month of spiritual and self-reflection (and maybe a quick trip up to Rabat), and I plan on doing that from the comfort of my food-free abode. More details of the Moroccan Ramadan experience will come as we get deeper into the month.

Until then... hang on to your hats!

PPST - just another outstanding Peace Corps acronym.

First things first: I will be getting wireless modem for my house (and anywhere else I choose to drag my computer) in three months or less. A COSing volunteer (COS stands for 'close of service') is selling hers when she leaves in November, so if my search for a new laptop doesn't pan out before then, I will still have the internet by the middle of November. I look forward to Skyping you all from the privacy of my apartment.

Alright, back to the actual point of this update: my two-week stint up North, for Post Pre-Service Training. Bad name, but a successful training overall.

We were in a city called Azrou, up in the Fez/Meknes area of the country. It's a full two days of travel for me to get there (an 11-hour bus ride and then an 8-hour train ride, if you were curious), but it was totally worth it. The thing that struck me the most about the region, other than the lack of my Berber dialect being spoken up there, is the unbridled carnal longing I felt for trees.

Yes, I said trees. Green, leafy, shade-providing, oxygen-producing climb-able trees. Growing up in Michigan, I took them for granted. Now that I'm surrounded only by harsh-looking argan trees and Moroccan tumbleweed, I've come to appreciate them even more. Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. I even considered writing a haiku for this post.

Anyhow, our hotel was zween bzef (that's code for really, really nice), with western toilets, private bathrooms in each room and balconies! I love reading on a balcony, I must admit. Any book I read is always better on a balcony for some reason. But, I digress.

The training was two weeks long and focused on working through our project framework: three objectives, broken down into three parts each, describing the long-term goals of the Rural Community Health program here in Morocco. The first objective focuses on education of issues surrounding maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS and basic personal hygiene (washing hands, brushing teeth, etc). The second revolves around the training of Moroccans in leadership positions, whether they be presidents of associations, nurses, teachers or qablas (traditional birth attendants). The third goal is what I'll be focusing on for my main project, which is sanitation, solid and liquid waste managment and water treatment. It's a dirty job, but I wasn't expecting the fabulous life anyway. Having a cell phone still blows me away sometimes, let alone having the option of getting satellite TV and wireless internet in my house.

Our daily schedule was pretty full, with two technical sessions and a language session daily. Along with the technical information, however, was the opportunity to really get to know and connect better with the members of our training group. They're the ones that we do everything with (pre-service training, post pre-service training, in-service training, mid-service medical exams... you get the idea), and the volunteers that we know the best outside of our province. While we lost a member of our stage to a medical evacuation (after struggling for months with a parasite, he was found to have a blood clot in his lung), our time together proved productive and relatively drama-free.

Med evacs, by the way, are different than being medically separated. A medical evacuation means being sent back to the States (or the nearest modern medical facility available, in cases of an extreme emergency) to receive treatment. A volunteer is given forty-five days to recover and return to country to continue service. A medical separation, on the other hand, is exactly what it sounds like.

Joe, if you're reading this, I'm still pissed at you for leaving. Quit being a pansy and get back here!

(Seriously though, we all miss you so much. Take care of yourself.)

After training was over, we parted ways toward our respective homes once again. While we're meeting up again in three months' time for IST (in-service training), it was a bittersweet goodbye.

I especially miss the trees.

On an unrelated note, I'm realizing more and more that there's no exaggeration in other volunteers' stories of time flying by here. Especially when compared to things happening in America, my head spins with how fast time is moving around me. For example, I bought some postcards before training, and wanted to send one to Wolverine Summer Camps, which was my summer home for the three summers previous to my service. I sat down to write it and realized that with their last camp finishing up at the beginning of August, anything I sent wouldn't arrive before they closed up shop. How did I miss an entire Camps season without sending a postcard? That really stopped me in my tracks. Also, thinking of Ramadan starting in two weeks, and the school year / college football season starting up next month really makes me feel like I'm falling behind... in life.

It also makes me ramble... sorry.

But for now, that's that. I'm safely back home and about to head to the souq, or weekly market, to grab groceries and start cooking my own meals again.

Anything to help get my mind off of those trees... /sniffle