Field Trip Recap

On Sunday, we got back from our field trip to visit a Peace Corps Volunteer working in the Middle Atlas. I'm not sure how far away her village is as the crow flies, but it took a loooong time to get to. Two six hour bus rides, and then another 2 hours of assorted transit methods. We also spent a night en route, since Peace Corps forbids travel after dark. So, we left at 8:30 Wednesday morning and arrived at 9:30 Thursday morning. 25 hours. It took even longer coming back. (We left at 7am on Saturday and arrived at 11am on Sunday - 28 hours. Yeesh.)

Buuut...it was a great trip. Here's a post pulled from my journal entries duing the trip. Enjoy! :)

This is a loooong entry, partially to make up for my week-plus absence from blogspot, and partially because I'm back to typing my entries on the laptop, which is cheaper and easier, and therefore lends itself to verbosity. I also make a request in the final paragraph…if you're interested in helping me out but not reading the three pages of stuff I wrote, please scroll down to it! Thanks! :D

We just finished our field trip to P**'s site. I've ridden about a third of the length of the country, twice, in the past several days. Moroccan buses are an education in themselves. CTM and SupraTour are the higher class of bus. They run less frequently, but they actually stick to their schedules. They're about 10% more expensive, but the trips are about 30% shorter, since they almost never stop on the side of the road to pick up hitchhikers or just because they feel like it, so it's entirely worth it. The other bus lines run when they feel like it, which can be handy, as in when we showed up in [Mid-Sized City] on the way north, and even though there was no scheduled departure towards [Smallish City], we found out that a bus was leaving in less than thirty minutes. It can also be disturbing, I'd imagine, when you show up and discover that the bus you were planning to take has been canceled with no notice and no explanation. In addition to the buses, there are the grand taxis, the petit taxis, and the transit. I'll elaborate more on them another time; suffice to say, the grand taxis are painfully misnamed.

My chief observation from the 53 hours in transit: The countryside changes drastically, rapidly, as you move through the mountains. You could be in Zion-National-Park-type territory for hours, then go through a Mediterranean forest and a Badlands panorama with two turns around a mountain. This was a trip of so many fleeting impressions that I wish I'd had a pen handy… There were herds of camels, goats, sheep, cows (not together!)…snow-capped, jagged, alpine-glacier-carved peaks…rolling hills…palm trees…and a little French village near [Smallish City] that I might bring my family to for Christmas. (Inshallah, and climate permitting.)

Yesterday, P** took us for a hike what turned out to be a massive coral reef. The jagged limestone made for terrific traction under our boots – when intact. When eroded, it created soft, shifting lime sand underfoot. The combination made for great hiking/walking (as in, the kind of "hiking" that's pretty much "walking on a path, which may or may not be steep"), fantastic rock scrambling (which I find both more fun and less strenuous than hiking/walking), and a minor shd (slip) for me. Don't worry, I just got a scratch.

It was great to get to check out the local ecosystem, see P**'s town as a whole, AND have fun, all at the same time. It was also great to have couscous with her wealthy friend R**, the heart and soul of the association she works with, plus tea with her host family. It's comforting, too, to realize that someone who still hasn't mastered the local language after a year in-country can nonetheless be a successful volunteer. P** was also a fount of useful information. Some gems: mud homes are easier to heat in winter and keep cool in summer than cement buildings…when plans go sideways—and they WILL—remember the Peace Corps mantra of persistence, patience, and flexibility…roof access = truly awesome stargazing. We saw the Milky Way, the Orion Nebula, and M-13 [ID'd by J**, who out-geeked even me], all with the naked eye! Plus, we could see Orion's whole bow, extra bits of Cassiopeia's throne, the V of Taurus (or some random V, what do I know), and shooting stars.

What wonderful stuff worked out this past week… I thought I'd left my fleece at the [Mid-Sized City] bus station, but Jonathan found it on the bus's overhead rack (where I had *no* memory of stashing it)… I was *sure* I'd left my shower supplies in the cute hotel in [Smallish City], but then it turned up in my luggage… I was a little intimidated at the thought of hiking up to the douar (small community) on top of the mountain near P**'s site, but found myself loving the hike, especially the rock scramble, and let out a fairly thunderous "Humdullah!" (praise be to God, aka hallelujah, aka yippee) at the summit. My memories of that climb – from our collective "The hills *are* alive," to the three (count 'em, THREE) waterfalls, to the angry dog, to the braying mules, to the vision of P**'s town nestled into the countryside, not to mention the dozens of pictures I took – will be with me for a long, long time.

All my worries lately have turned out to be groundless. Concerns about cross-country travel? It's already practically routine. What if I don't get along with the other PCTs? I've made tons of great friends, one of whom has already invited me to travel with her after our term is up. (Inshallah) I keep playing out worrisome scenarios, and all that unfolds is blessing upon blessing. I've been doing well with the gratitude in hindsight – maybe it's time to work on gratitude in advance, aka hope.

[A little later]

Just got back from dinner and the Adventure That Must Not Be Named. :) Suffice to say, the directions we were given were accurate as to which streets to take, but grossly inaccurate as to distance. By a factor of about 3. Quotes of the evening: "The only way to make couscous appetizing right now is to hide a club sandwich in it." And, shortly thereafter, also in reference to couscous, "Why not just give me a spoon and a bag of flour and cut out the middleman?" The discussion of a zombie-macaque battle was also highly entertaining.

While wandering around in search of dinner, I remembered more of the details from the field trip that I'd meant to memorialize, like the dozen-plus egrets we saw (I saw that many simultaneously, so the total number was undoubtedly higher) near the [Smallish City] bus station. They were all white, none had yellow slippers, and in flight – and some flew right by, less than 20 feet away, with gorgeous morning sun shining full on them – I couldn't see their feet at all, just a cluster of grayish tail-feathers. Speaking of birds, we also saw a *massive* bird of prey soaring yesterday – it was at least bald eagle sized, and it certainly looked like a 6' or more wingspan – with a W of black and white (or dark brown and buff) on his underside and a startlingly stumpy head. Almost owl stumpy, if that makes sense.

Also, Jeremy saw 12 monkeys – the animals, not the movie – but by the time he'd pointed them out to me, the bus had driven past them. Apparently, the Middle Atlas are known for them. Sadly, the reason they hang out along the roads is that tourists feed them, like black bears in Yellowstone in the 70s and 80s. There's a desperate need for Environmental Education of the kind that Yellowstone churned out in the 90s…and hey, guess what, that's my job description! So if I'm posted near here, that might be something I work on. :)

So I missed the monkeys, but I'm definitely claiming yesterday's coral reef. It was *huge* – maybe Great Barrier Reef scale, but I'm not sure – and before I figured out what it was, neither P** (who is a fellow geo major! Yeah for the geobabes!) nor J**, a geo minor, had recognized it. Once I'd said it, though, they both concurred. So when this region is developed for ecotourism – which is in the works!! – now they'll know what the underlying geology is! And that makes me happy. :) P** suggested that I write a Roadside Geology of Morocco as my EE project. Tempting, tempting… On the fossilized-coral-reef-turned-mountain, I observed a small round snail that appears to be nearly ubiquitous on the mountain, as well as a less common, spiky gastropod that reminds me of the drill snails in Florida. Here's hoping that one of them hasn't been found on any other mountainsides, and can therefore become a protected endemic species, paving the way for headwater protection (which the whole region needs) and laundry stations (which apparently can only find government funding if there's an endangered species around).

Sometime in the past few days, I became obsessed with headwater protection for this region. It was probably planted in the back of my head when I was in Monteverde, and is just coming into bloom now. For those not familiar with the term, headwater protection is exactly what it sounds like – protecting the highest parts of a mountain so that all the water that runs downwards from it is clean. If you keep the headwaters clean, everyone downstream has a chance at clean water. If you pollute the headwaters – by, for example, washing your clothes with Tide in the canal on the mountaintop – then nobody downstream can have clean water. But the people on top of the mountain deserve to have clean clothes, so what are you going to do? One solution that has been used in Morocco is laundry stations. I haven't yet gotten a clear sense of exactly how they work, just that they provide a way to access running water and wash clothes without using the irrigation canals or streams.

I'd also like to find some research that confirms my gut feeling, which is that Tide is not good for crops or fish. It would be easy enough to set up the experiment myself, but I'm guessing that it'll be easier to get grants if there's a published study. Anyone with highspeed internet on tap (not to be confused with my Cybèr internet, which is a satellite connection shared among 8 machines, aka slowspeed internet) interested in doing a little quick research for me? And while I'm asking for favors, if you can find a brief summary (or not-so-brief, I've got time) of the geology of Morocco, I'd love a PDF of it or link to it. Just shoot me an email or put it in the "Comments" down below.