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!
