Friday, August 26, 2011

Water Deprivation

This past month has been full of a lot of water deprivation. Not only has Ramadan been in full effect, but other situations have arisen this past month concerning my water supply. The chateau that supplies my house with two spickets of running water typically goes dry mid-day because the supply is too low for the town in the summer due to a lack of rain, but that typically clears up by evening. In another instance, however, I had a pipe burst near my house and I was without running water for a much more significant amount of time and had to resort to carting buckets of water from a nearby well. You don’t realize till you have no water how much you use it and need it. Cooking and drinking water wasn’t so much the problem as was needing water to wash dishes, clothes, hands, body and flush the toilet. And I don’t think I ever fully appreciated how heavy water is until I had to carry it up a hill multiple times.

But onto a different realm of water deprivation—
Ramadan.
Dun Dun Dun.
I’m not going to get into full-fledged details about what Ramadan entails, but the basic gist is that everyone fasts from approximately 430am until 730pm. You cannot eat or drink anything during this time period, nor are smokers allowed to indulge in their cigarettes, music to be played other than those songs with religious affiliation and couples are not permitted to have sexual encounters. I’ve also found that the people, as a whole, are much more dedicated to their mosque attendance and overall praying rituals in their homes. The result of all these factors is a very tired, unmotivated and (sometimes) cranky community. There you go ladies and gents—Ramadan 101.
I decided to take on the beast of Ramadan and attempt fasting, and let me tell you—I don’t blame the community at all for not wanting to work. You are exhausted. (And another reason I found it good to fast is that when you are anywhere but in your house, it is very frowned upon to eat or drink in the presence of anyone who is fasting, so you are basically forced to do it anyways. My friend and I cheated one day while we were out and had to chug some water in an alley way. So scandalous.  And another random fact—Islamic law rules this country. That means that a Moroccan can be arrested if caught eating or drinking during fast hours.) By the end of that first day I was so dazed and infatuated with the thought of water that I just chugged half of my Nalgene when the call of prayer sounded at 730p and ended up with the worst stomach cramp I will probably ever experience in my lifetime (and it didn’t end for at least an hour). My host family poked and prodded at me while I lay curled in a ball on their floor after they told me not to drink my water right away and instead to sip tea and eat bread. Trust me I learned my lesson.
After breaking fast, people tend to go to sleep a little earlier (10 or 11pm. Whereas they usually go to sleep at midnight, in general) and then they awake at 230-3am to make a “dinner-type” meal (i.e. tajine, douez) and then they eat that before the call of prayer at 430am to being fasting again for the day.  After saHor (3am meal) everyone tends to go back to sleep until about 9 and sometimes 10am. The funny and cruel joke of Ramadan is that you don’t lose weight. If anything, you gain it. I’ve found this to be because your metabolism shuts down because you go so long without any food or water, then you stuff yourself with carbs in the evening, sleep a couple hours, stuff yourself with some more carbs at 4am. (This country loves their carbs.) Sleep more with a full stomach. Then you do it all over again.
Everyone and every family acts a little differently though. I have broken fast (the meal is called “lifdur”) with many a family in site. This really is a great time to integrate and build relationships because everyone is so inviting for you to share lifdur with them. At one point I felt like I needed to carry around a sign-up sheet for my community. I am truly starting to build some great connections and I’m finding my “niche” here. My house/apartment is starting to really become a “home” and the familiarity with my community is definitely on a roll.
Speaking of my house—to make a very, VERY long story short—I did not end up staying in the first house I was originally speaking of (look at previous post). My landlord did keep his work and installed a bathroom with running water and electricity. So move-in day came and a good amount of my neighbors helped me transport all of my things down a rocky dirt road from my host family’s to my new and improved mud mansion. (Yep, mud MANSION. It was pretty big. Too big in fact.) Ok, so now it begins—I’m livin on my own, get to finally have some “me” time, eat what I want when I want,  wake up and go to bed when I want, stay in and go out when I please-- Yay.
Wrong.
When I started living in the house, I happened to notice how many bugs had infested the place. Cockroaches, beetles the size of your big toe, centipedes at least 6-inches long, mosquitoes, other bugs I can’t even give a name to, rats, bats….okay, okay, I can handle this. Duh, this is Peace Corps. Well, after only a couple nights in the house I woke up one morning (I had moved around to different rooms of the house to sleep) with hundreds of bites covering my arms, legs, back, sides and even some on my face.
What the hell (to say the least).
After this horrifying realization and the fact that bites kept accumulating, I talked with medical staff, sent them photos and then came to the best conclusion that it was a combination of fleas and bedbugs. I was told I had to clean my entire house (remember me mentioning that it was a “mansion?”) including floors and ceilings. After many a discussion with many a people and after many more bites, it was concluded that this house was in too poor of a condition to ever be rid of the bugs (aka: too old and falling apart). After feeling immense guilt for leaving my landlord with an empty house that he had spent a month’s hard labor on along with many material costs, I moved back with my host family and then was able to find a MUCH better house (technically it is an apartment) at a neighboring community (my previous old house was the only available option in my first community). Needless to say, things have improved tenfold since July. The hassle of moving multiple times, having to wash EVERYTHING I owned and simply the fact that there were bites all of my body made the month of July a challenging one. Even after everything was taken care of I still had a mental fear that I wasn’t rid of the bedbugs. I am still getting bit a lot by mosquitoes and quite possibly other little bugs occasionally, but it is nothing like before. I have conquered that scary chapter of Peace Corps. I also know of other PCVs having traveled and stayed at hotels infested with these demons they call bed bugs, so to say the least, I’m a little paranoid.
Ok on a different note
I've been working on creating surveys and questionnaires to take to my local clinic, commune (“men's association” that facilitates and monitors community affairs) and just around to different neighborhoods and friends to ask them about what changes they would like to see in their community or what they would like to learn more about--health/environment-wise (and I’m trying to do all of this an informally as possible because no one likes to have a piece of paper shoved in their face by a strange foreigner. Especially if they’re illiterate.)
First and foremost though, I am simply trying to get the community to see me as an actual “health worker” and explain more as to why I am living with them here in rural Morocco and what I’m trying to accomplish. The funny thing is that a lot of times, people don’t even acquire as to why I am here. They simply have seen me or heard of me and want me to come spend time with them. Because of the language barrier, it is easy to just tell them, “I work at the sbitar and teach about health.” (The sbitar is their definition of a “hospital” but it is more like a clinic with a nurse or doctor.) However, this really doesn’t justify why I am here. I’ve learned to go in depth about how I am here, in large part, for cultural exchange between Morocco and the United States. Through that exchange and relationship building I’m hoping it will help the people open up to me and shed some light on what they want to see improved in their community. This is all part of the Peace Corps “outline” of how to effectively integrate and execute successful projects. (I mean, Volunteers can choose to work however they want, but Peace Corps gives us general guidelines to help us construct effective project framework. And this organization has been going on for a solid 50 years now, so I like to think they know what they’re talking about.) They always stress how it's important to find out what the community WANTS as opposed to what you think they need.
For example, I really wanted to conduct a series of teaching lessons about garbage and the dangers of littering outside in the environment and have a big trash pickup day (there’s quite a bit of garbage in certain areas of my community) eventually followed by grants funding the installation of garbage bins and burn barrels for the commune and community to control themselves. Phew. BUT none of this is going to work if the community doesn’t want it or care about it. So, first I am just doing a lot of research and community analysis and integration. Maybe one day my whole trash idea will take flight, but who knows, the community may actually really want a series of maternal child health lessons with Ob/Gyn. Doc visits with free paps. I don’t know. To be continued…

On top of this work in my site, I have traveled around to other areas in the country, working at a summer camp teaching health awareness lessons and leadership building skills (on top of usual “camp” activities), went backpacking in the mountains from Tamtatoucht to M’smrir and taught nomads about general hygiene and gave them some basic health products like toothbrushes, toothpaste, bars of soap, and shampoo, and then mid-September I am traveling up north near Imichil to work at a festival  to teach about the risks and factors of high blood pressures as well as getting to use my EMT skills (so glad I got certified before coming here!) and performing blood pressure screenings of the interested festival-goers. Peace Corps also requires random training sessions and regional meetings during our service which have been helpful overall. I had a post-pre-service training (PPST. Gotta love all of the Peace Corps Acronymns. Definitely a Government-run organization) up in the northern region of Morocco in a town called Azrou. This was with my entire health and environment staj. It was great to see everyone. We also will have other trainings together randomly during the rest of our service called IST (In-service training). On top of these, there are regional meetings that are with the volunteers in our same geographical region of the country. These are with volunteers who are all at different stages of their service and from different sectors, such as, small-business development volunteers and youth development volunteers included with the health and environment. 

Well that is just a brief description of what I've been up to. Honestly though, despite this long entry, I do have a decent amount of free time on my hands. Ramadan has been a huge factor to that, but also because of the work pace here and the nature of my work as of right now, is very slow.  I spent two whole days in my house a couple weekends ago, and I’ve got to admit, those were quite possibly some of the weirdest days I've ever had. I don’t think before coming here I was ever secluded to my own being for more than a few hours, let alone two whole days. Being all alone in your head is a very powerful force.
One more thing, to end on a happy note—I got a new nurse at my sbitar! It felt pretty great to hear him tell me that I'm popular amongst my community. It's pretty easy to have a lot of doubts and questions as to what people really think of me. That has to do a lot with language, for starters, and also because I still think that a lot of people are unsure as to why I'm here and that I’m just some random, weird American girl who lives by herself. That's another thing--because that there are so many cultural differences it’s difficult to interpret what some people think of me.  (For example, a 23 year old Moroccan woman from my community would never move to another continent alone and live by herself. It's just a completely foreign concept to them.) But anyways, that's why it felt unbelievably great to get some confirmation from my new nurse that I'm well-liked by the community. I definitely know of certain families and friends that love me to death, but as a whole, it was nice to have some reassurance.

Kudos to you who made it through this whole post!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Heatin Up

Hello!
Oh what to write…so much has happened within the last few months that there really isn’t any way I can touch base with it all. I officially swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer on May 25th and the following day all of the volunteers in my Health/Environment group (they call it a “staj”) departed for their final sites.
My final site is called Ait Hammou Ousaid. Quite a mouthful. Sometimes people just say Ait Hammou Said, so I actually can’t guarantee the name, but you get the idea. And you’re not gonna find it on a map, just in case you folks are wondering. If you want to know the approximate whereabouts, I’m near Boumalne Dades.  
I am currently living with a new host family at this site till the first of July, then, I get my own house! Woo! I had quite an experience trying to find this place actually, and when I finally did discover it’s existence, it had no running water, electricity or a bathroom. Literally. No bathroom. When I first talked to my landlord about the house, around June 4th, and realized all of the necessary fixin’s, I automatically flip to “American” mode and pondered upon the immense amount of time and effort that goes into constructions and renovations and deemed there would be absolutely no chance that all of these remedies would be completed by July 1st. In addition, there are other random necessities that need fixed. For example, I need a new front door. It’s one of those metal, half-hinged type deals that doesn’t fit in the frame properly.
Well, nchallah (If God wills it) , I will have my house ready by July 1st (if not I have to go through a complicated and confusing arrangement/payment agreement with my current host family. No thanks.) By the way, this country is alllllll about “nchallah.” I love it when I use it. And I hate it when other people use it. For example, someone wants me to have tea at their house. At this time, not only have I completely lost interest for Moroccan tea (aka: SUGAR) but I’ve typically have already had my fill of it after one glass with another family, soooo, what do I do? I say, “mnb3d, nchallah.” J hehehe. Basically, “Later, if God wills it.” Perfect line. Leaves an ambiguous amount of room for later, and everything always seems acceptable if you put “nchallah” with it.
Ok, now here is an example of when I DON’T like it: I need to get a taxi. It has been raining all day. The problem with this is that the road from my site into “town” (Boumalne Dades, about 1hr 15min away) where I need to always travel first in order to get anywhere else in the country passes through this gargantuan, spectacular gorge, called the Gorges Dades. Now, at one point, the road and the river practically run right alongside each other, and on each side is about 15 stories of rock wall. So what do you think happens when it rains? ….yes, you are exactly right. It floods. No way around it-unless you hike through the mountains on foot (Which the volunteer I (sort of) replaced said she did once after being stuck at site for a month.) Ok, back to “nchallah.” I need to go to Boumalne Dades, I tell my Host Dad I am going to get a taxi, and he tells me the road is flooded because of the rain. When I first arrived at site I initially didn’t foresee this problem, but now I’m definitely picking up that it will be a mushkil bzzaf (big problem) in the future. Basically, my host Dad ends up telling me that I will be able to get a taxi later, nchallah.
What?? No. Not nchallah. I need to meet people. I have work. Obligations. Commitments.
Crap.
Then I realize there’s nothing I can do about it.
So, nchallah.
Ok, I will leave you with a few “Things I’ve Learned:”
1.       My sowing kit is quite possibly one of my new best friends. Any cloth item I’ve bought in Morocco has ripped after it’s first use. (Mom, you can go ahead and say “I told you so.”)
2.       Morocco definitely doesn’t believe in HIPAA
3.       I never thought I’d experience WWIII in my room with a centipede over 6 inches long.
4.       Flies are mental terrorists.
5.       I miss wearing shorts in 100F temperatures.
6.       Giardia STINKS. Literally. Look it up. You get it from eating feces. At this current time my body is at war with itself.
One more thing, I have a permanent ADDRESS. I’m not sure if I should really post it here, so if you’re interested, send me an email (gravanten@hotmail.com) or just ask some of my fam/friends. They’ve got the 411. Letters/packages brighten an PCV’s day.  J

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Imik Simik

So the title of this post means "Little by Little" in Tamazight Berber. The mixture of languages in Morocco is pretty immense. There is Classic Arabic, Darijia (Moroccan Arabic), and Berber. Then in Berber there are two dialects: Tamazight and Tashelheit. I am learning Tamazight.

The first week was a blur. It involved a great deal of debriefings, ice-breakers, shots and transporting luggage. We flew into Casablanca, and from there took a 3 hour bus ride to Marrakech where we stayed till Friday afternoon, and then took a 4 hour bus ride to Ouarzazate where we stayed till Monday morning.

From theeerrre...we split off to our host families. Dun dun dun.

The group that flew abroad consisted of 60 volunteers. One has already left. When stayed in a big group till Monday, were we separated into Health Volunteers and Environment Volunteers. We're about split down the middle. From that split we are now in groups of 5-6. These are our CBT (Community Based Training) groups. Each CBT group has an LCF. (Language and Cross-Cultural Facilitator. Yes I know, too many acronyms.)

Now, my CBT group was assigned to the Province of Azelag. From there we each separated to our own Host Families to live with and we met together with our CBT groups during the day from 8am-5:30pm approximately. We always seem to have something to do in the evenings anyways, so we are pretty much busy all the time. I am exhausted!

The first day with the Host Family involved a lot of smiling and head bobbing. I barely knew any Tamazight and they didn't know a lick of English. Quite an experience hahaha! Just picture a bobble-head doll with a silly grin. And when we first arrived in Azlag we were greeted by the head family members from each of our host families. We went into a courtyard and sat for mint tea and immediately an older Moroccan woman went around the circle to each of us, pointed, asked our name (Misminm/Misminik?) and then immediately gave us a Moroccan name. Nicole now ='s Najat (Nah-jet). I actually really love my name. (And it's a good thing too because I hear it all the time. Najat! Najat! Najat!)

The next three days involved some serious language training, lots of faux pais, market visits and turkish toilet experiences. Oh and after only 3 days we were invited to an Islam wedding, including full traditional dress, makeup and dance. The experience would actually be way too long to post, so definitely remember to ask me about it in the future. (If I get an opportunity later I may post more in detail, but I will post some pics below). It was a fantastic time!



This is my friend Katelyn and I at the JFK airport with all of our luggage: 2 check bags, (following specific dimensions and weight limits) and one check bag. We had to manage all of our luggage alone, so we found this means necessary for transportation. :)

This was our main building where we stayed in Marrakech. The hotel was very nice sans the giant cockroaches.

Presentation room

This was on our drive to Ouarzazate (where-zah-zat) from Marrakech. This drive was absolutely amazing. It was full of almost every scenery imaginable. The atlas mountain are in the background. We basically drove right through them via crazy curves and high altitudes.

This picture is a little blurry but I wanted to show the cactus fences that Moroccans typically use when necessary. Environmentally friendly!

They're getting closer!

We took two buses. I was in the second bus. And if you look in front of the first one you can see a motorcycle. We got to feel all important for a couple hours because we had police escorts in front and in back of us. (The funny thing is, come May 26th we're going to be all on our own in a rural community!)

Blind curves everywhere!







All of these pictures actually don't do the scenery justice. There were other absolutely amazing landscapes that I didn't get a chance to get a photo of with lots of greenery and "red" plateaus and mountains. Morocco is quite possibly one of the most diverse places on earth.

I have a lot of other photos I have been trying to download for the last hour and a half and it just isn't going to happen. Slow WiFi + a ton of internet starved PC volunteers=a very slow connection. I only have internet for the 1-2 days I'm in Ouarzazate and the rest of the time I am at my host family for periods of 7-10 days without internet. So tomorrow afternoon we are going back to Azlag for 10 days and I'm trying to get in as much internet time as possible. (Just like everyone else.) Also, we have sessions all day with short breaks so it's actually taken me 3 different "sessions" to get this post in. I hope you like it!

Since I've been in Morocco, I've been waking up EVERY morning at 4:30am from the call of prayer. And then it goes off again at 5am. You can probably imagine my thoughts on this if ya know what I mean. (!!!) In Azlag my house is right near the Mosque and the sound is comparable to someone holding a megaphone right up to my ear. Oh how I can't wait for the day when it doesn't wake me!

There is a lot more that I could definitely type about, but I will leave you with a quick faux pais that took place my first night at my Host Family's....

Our LCF had told us how to say "Where can I brush my teeth?" So when the time came, I pulled out my handy-dandy little notebook and tried to sound out the words (which by the way is a lot harder than you would think because we English-speaking folks haven't used those certain throat muscles to speak before, and making certain sounds doesn't always work. And even interpreting script into an English phonetic doesn't work half the time because we don't have letters for the certain sounds that are found in Berber Tamazight.) So when I finally got my point across, or I thought I did, they took me around their house to where their donkey/cow/sheep were. The rooms for the animals are actually in/attached to the house, so we technically weren't "outside." So nearby was a spicket and a sink-type-trough. After many charades, I got the idea that I could use that water and brush my teeth, so I started brushing. While everyone stared at me, (not exaggerating, stood and stared.) I did my thing, and then had to spit. Now the area below the spicket wasn't really a sink because there was dirty water in it, and I didn't want to spit on the ground because we were still "inside" and the door was already locked to the outside. So after many more charades and pointing at my mouth, I thought they meant for me to spit in the water trough thing. Wrong.

Host Family (of approx. 8 members): "Gasp!"

Silence.

Staring.

Staring at my spit floating in the water trough.

Oh crap.

I didn't know whether I should try and splash/scoop it out or not, and then the next few seconds were just a blurr of sounds and arm waving. Note to self: Do not do that again.

Hope you enjoyed to lengthy post! Took me awhile! Love and miss you all! If possible I'll try and post some more pictures tomorrow. (And I apologize for all of the grammer/spelling mistakes that are probably in this post.)



Ok I actually just got a lot of my pictures to load suddenly, so here are more!





Good thing I'm not driving!

This is a picture of the main square in Ouarzazate. It fills up with people every night. Kids will play soccer and bike all over while parents will socialize and little kids will run and play tag and such with eachother. It i great to see everyone outside playing. There are also often times when motorcycles with drive through here, which are ridiculously unsafe but no one does anything. 

This is my friend Donna demonstrating how to use the turkish toilet after living in Iran for 5 years. Hopefully she never knows I put this on my blog ;)

A group of LCF's put on a skit during one of the first few days in Ouarzazate to demonstrate what NOT to do at your host family's house. It was quite humorous. My LCF is the man third from the right. His name is Saaid. Really great instructor!


My one host sister put henna on my hands for the wedding. Something actually happened to it and it's a lot lighter than usual. Still amazing though!


My bedroom! My bed is actually just a lot of blankets on a cement-like floor, so I've been tring to sleep on my stomach a lot but keep waking up on my left hip (Ow). Need to stop doing that!


At the nearby Suk (Market). We bought food for our cook at the LCF house to make our lunches.


Every time we travel via automobile it somehow always gets jammed like this. Even traveling from Azlag to Ouarzazat and vice versa (1.5 hr drive)


View from the roof of the LCF house in Azlag

Love this photo! Notice the colorful laundry inbetween the houses.

This is Safah. Safah basically loves doing karate moves outside the LCF house and was of course more than happy to pose for a picture when I asked one day.

(picture removed)
This is one of my host sisters, Fatima. I am so happy to have a girl around the same age as myself. She is really a great person with such an outgoing personality. And she is very beautiful!  I don't even think this picture does her justice to either looks or her personality.  

Ok that's it! Safi!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

One Week!

Bonjour mes amis et famille!

I hope that you all are happy and healthy as you feast your eyes upon my 27 month journal in Morocco! Based on the title of this entry, I'm sure you have come to the correct conclusion that I leave in one week. I am both excited and sad about this fact. The "good-byes" and "farewells" are tough, not going to try and sugar-coat it. I love love love my family and friends so much and I hope to stay in touch with many of them while I'm abroad.

For those of you that don't know, my absolutely lovely and wonderful friend Kait organized with family and friends to have them write me letters that I can read while I'm away. She dated them throughout my time abroad so that I have one to read every so often. There are also a lot of random cards for me to open whenever I need a little piece of home. Probably the best gift I've ever recieved. And of course she made me a little personalized box. Thank you so much to everyone involved!




On another note, I'm not looking forward to packing. How do you pack for 2+ years? I think I'll just answer than question as I go along. There are also a lot of loose ends I need to tie up here and there.

So to leave you, I'm going to pawn an idea I discovered on my friend's blog while he was abroad that I thought was pretty clever and amusing...hope he doesn't mind!

"What I've learned so far:"
1) Friends should not let you borrow their Michael Jackson Wii game as a nice gesture for you to play before you leave because it's rather addictive and distracting when trying to get things accomplished...and way too much fun.