Meeting with the Water Association II

Tonight, we stayed late at school to meet with the Water Association. (That’s what everyone calls them. We learned tonight that their official name is “The [River Village] Association for Drinkable Water.”) Last week, in [Mountain City], we talked with three Volunteers who have been working for the past year. They had lots of useful information for us – as all the PCVs we’ve met do – but they focused their energies on talking about NGOs, both the big international ones we’ll be hitting up for cash and the teeny associations we’ll be working with in our villages. They warned us that many associations are viewed as dishonest by their villages, and that we should be wary. Our Water Association, though, is universally regarded as du nishan*, an idiom like English’s “straight arrow,” so we had no worries on that front.

We’d been working on details of our tree-planting plan since our meeting with Mohammed I**, aka el presidente, the association’s president. We were therefore more than a little disconcerted when the idea was shot down within the first five minutes of the meeting. It more or less went, “We’re not sure where people could plant trees. All the arable land is in use already. Do you have any other ideas?”

Our little CBT group had settled on tree planting after exhausting all the other ideas we could think of – notably growing plants from seeds, holding a festival at the school, doing a community-wide trash pickup (which we’ll do on Earth Day instead), and a few others I can’t think of right now – so we were (or at least I was) thrown by the idea that we needed to come up with another plan on the spot.

We took a second to regroup, and then D**, the group member who has natural leadership oozing out of every pore, said, “Why don’t we take a few minutes to talk about other options we could pursue, but if we can’t come up with a better one, we can come back to this.” We PCTs talked amongst ourselves, as did the members of the association: Mohammed I, Mohammed II, Mohammed III, Mohammed IV, and S**. (I’m not making this up. OK, I made up the numbering scheme, but it’s literally true that four of the five members of the water association are named Mohammed.) Mohammed III seemed to be pushing hard for something. H** told us that it was bee-keeping. That sounded good for a second – the Ministry of Agriculture will send an expert to hold a workshop and provide equipment if any community has 10 interested parties – but then H** said that the Ministry official in question will be out of town when we’d need him. So there went that idea.

After a few minutes, the Mohammeds concluded that they couldn’t come up with anything better than tree planting, so the plan that we’d spent several hours putting together was suddenly back on the table. Whew. We spent an hour or so working out the details, over tea and kaw-kaws (peanuts), and called it a night. It looks like all systems are go for a very successful project that will yield tangible, sustainable good for this village that has been so good to us. Humdullah!

*Nishan means straight, and “du nishan” is used literally when giving directions – it means “walk straight ahead”. Nishan is also used to refer to time, as in “10 nishan”, aka 10:00 on the dot, or to people, as in “Wow, your teacher is totally nishan – you can’t get away with anything in his class!”

**Yes, I’m making an exception to the proper noun rule, because, as this story makes clear, every third Moroccan you meet is named Mohammed. At least.

4/16/08 Kif-kif, aka Moroccan-Style Who's On First

Who’s on First, Moroccan-Style

Setting: Common Room.
Houda and Saadia are running a session on Food in Morocco.

Houda: …Lemons. Lemons are called l-Hamd, from the word for “sour”, “Hamd”.
Saadia writes “l-Hamd” on the whiteboard.
PCTs copy “l-Hamd” into their notebooks.
Houda: L-Hamd.
PCTs, in unison: L-Hamd.
Houda: They are also called citron, from the French.
Saadia writes “citron” on the whiteboard.
PCTs copy “citron” into their notebooks.
Houda: Citron.
PCTs, in unison: Citron.
Houda: They mean the same.
Saadia: The same. Citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif.
PCTs: Citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif.
PCT 1: Kif-kif?
Saadia: Kif-kif is the same.
PCT 1: Kif-kif is the same?
Houda: Yes.
Saadia writes “kif-kif” on the whiteboard.
PCTs copy “kif-kif” into their notebooks.
PCT 2, to PCT 1: What was “kif-kif”?
PCT 1: It means lemon. The same as citron and l-Hamd.
PCT 2, to Houda: It means lemon?
Houda: No.
PCT 1, to Saadia: Citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif? The same?
Saadia: Yes.
PCT 1, to PCT 2: Yeah, it means lemon. She must have misunderstood you.
PCT 2, to Saadia: Kif-kif means the same? Like citron and l-Hamd?
Saadia: Yes.
PCT 1: So kif-kif means lemon.
Saadia: No.
PCT 1: Citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif?
Saadia: Yes.
PCT 2: Wait, what? What is kif-kif?
Saadia: The same. Citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif.
PCT 1: So it means lemon?
Saadia: No.
PCT 1: Citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif?
Saadia: Yes.
PCT 2: So it means the same?
Saadia: Yes.
PCT 1: So kif-kif is lemon?
Saadia: What?
PCT 1: Kif-kif. The same. Citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif.
Saadia: Yes, kif-kif.
PCT 2: So kif-kif means lemon?
Saadia: No. Citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif. The same.
PCT 1: Citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif.
Saadia: Yes.
PCT 2: So kif-kif is the same.
Saadia: Yes.
PCT 1: So kif-kif means lemon.
Saadia: No.
PCT 2: Citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif.
Saadia: Yes.
PCT 1: They are the same.
Saadia: Yes.
PCT 2: So they all mean lemon.
Saadia: No.
PCT 1 & 2 look at each other, whimper.
PCT 1: So what is kif-kif?
Saadia: It means the same.
PCT 2: The same as citron and l-Hamd?
Saadia: Yes, the same, like citron and l-Hamd.
PCT 1: So kif-kif­ means lemon.
Saadia: No, citron, l-Hamd, kif-kif. The same.
PCT 1&2: Kif-kif?
Saadia: Kif-kif.
Houda: Kif-kif.

Scenes from CBT

I’m getting complaints about how infrequently I blog. Sorry, s-sadiqinu (my friends), internet access is limited, but I’ll try to be better. I’ve broken up the new material into a series of entries, so you can enjoy them in little bite-sized niblets. I added a bunch over the course of the day, during the different breaks. I’ve also dated them (and written them) as if I’d written them when they happened, instead of giving them all today’s date. My journal has been very helpful in that. :)

So far I've only gotten through the first half of CBT Week 1. These things take longer to type up than I'd thought. The new dates are March 16 - March 19, so just look for titles you don’t recognize in the bookmark thingy on the left. I’m also hoping to put a “wish list” up on the right, soon, but I’m still working on the technical aspects of that. Without further ado… Enjoy!

Meeting I with the Water Association

Today, our final day of CBT 2, we met with the president of the association and the host brother to A**, one of my CBT-mates (who refers to him as el presidente). A** had told us that the Water Association was satisfied with their success in bringing drinkable tap water to our village – a fascinating story in itself – and that they were ready to expand their horizons. This sounded good to us, so we met with el presidente to see what they had in mind. (And because we wanted to meet with our village's only association just on general principles.) El presidente told us that the Association had a few ideas for the benefit of our village. Their favorite was buying a mill, to grind wheat into flour. There is a small mill in town already, but it doesn’t meet the needs of the village, and they’re tired of going to the next town over to get their wheat ground up. Unfortunately for us, building a wheat mill is an enormous endeavor that’s *well* beyond the scope of the week and a half we have left in the village. The other idea they liked reminded me of the Heifer Foundation, an awesome organization. They had petitioned the Ministry of Agriculture to give the poor families of our village either very valuable goats, which they could breed and sell, or else olive trees, which they could harvest as a cash crop. The goat idea sounded interesting, until H** told us that a single goat would be about 75% of our budget. Oops.

Tree planting, though, is a tried and true Peace Corps Environmental activity, and one which we’d already been thinking about. When el presidente said that it was something that his organization was interested in, we perked right up.

Exciting things are afoot at the Circle K..

(Mis) communication

Late dinner tonight. I think they’re getting progressively later.

So I tried to explain the big news to my family last night. I have no idea why they think I was on the phone for 45 minutes. They would have accepted an answer like “BaHallunu!” (My grandpa from America!), and in retrospect, that’s probably what I should have said. As it was, I didn’t have the vocabulary for magazine or story or submit or edit, let alone editor or publisher, so my story basically went like this:

Last year, I wrote a tiny writing. I sent it to [insert me puffing out my chest and trying to look important. Mma suggests wizier, which means “government minister”, and I went with it]. He read it, and said yes, he will book. I waited and waited and waited. I called wizier. He said, “Wait.” I waited and waited and waited. Month and month and month. Then, I came to Morocco. Tonight, wizier called. He will book! It will book! My writing will book!

Yeah, I wouldn’t have understood it either, and I know what publishing is. I’m not at all sure these folks have ever seen a magazine or a book that’s not a textbook or the Qur’an. So…who knows. I got most of the relevant vocab today from H**, but it’s in Darija (Moroccan Arabic), not Tamazight, so there’s less-than-even odds that my family would even know any of the words. I was going to give it a shot tonight anyway, but the moment seems to have passed. What’s important is that frHn ashku frHgh. They were happy because I was happy. :) That, plus the baby being able to stand on his own, made for a iHla bzzef (awesome) evening.

By comparison, today was pretty chill. School was fine, though there was a mountain of new vocabulary: clothes, mostly, plus the fruits and veggies I forgot to study last night, in all the excitement.

Soooo full. Waving off food is no longer working. Safi (That’s it!), which worked so vigorously the first time I tried it that I was afraid I’d offended them, now won’t even prevent another cup of tea being poured. But before I whine, I need to remember how grateful I was for my hot bath Tuesday morning. Hot water -> clean -> happy. Aman ighran -> nqqagh -> frHgh. What I’m grateful for now is the kids’ willingness to help me with my homework, whether I’m asking them for vocab or they’re fighting for the right to color my flash cards.

Quote of the day: “…moments of uncomplicated faith…”

Home from Souq Day (aka BIG NEWS!!!)

We came back to our little village, gorged on chocolate, and had “independent study time”. I mostly-accidentally slipped into another PCT’s tutoring session, meaning that I got to spend an extra hour with our awesome LCF that included her speaking mostly in Tamazight. Slowly and clearly. It was fabulous. :D At 7, Mma showed up with Little Sis to say Where Have You Been. H** explained, and it was all good. I think. Then, while walking home, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, so I was tempted to let it go to voicemail…but then I remembered on the third ring that (1) incoming calls are free, and (2) I don’t have voicemail set up in Morocco. Lo and behold…it was the editor of my story!! Forty-five minutes later, I find out that my little story is being expanded to be the feature story! They’re rewriting it to make it THREE TIMES AS LONG!! :D :D :D

It was hard to have the conversation with the editor while walking uphill from school towards our house, but I figured it would be even harder to talk to him over the sounds of the TV (which is always on) and seven people’s conversation, so I paused outside the little house. I set down my notebook and sat outside to talk. As the conversation was winding down, it began to sprinkle rain, and Little Sis – who had been hovering around, entertaining herself, the whole time I was on the phone – began pointing out that we really ought to get inside. I got up to get my notebook and go in…and realized that I was sitting outside someone else’s house. Whoops. The houses are mostly identical, except for the color of the door, and between the gathering twilight and my being distracted with the phone call, I just hadn’t noticed. Eep! Good thing I had Little Sis there to prevent me from knocking on a stranger’s door. :)

Oh – one final good thing from today: the baby is standing on his own! Yeah!

Souq Day!

So much to write about. Bzzaf bzzaf. Going to souq – the scale of the Khan-al-Khalili in Cairo, but 90% produce. Running into the other CBT groups. :D Meeting a fledgling association that tried to bring a hospital to their village, and succeeded in getting an ambulance and first aid training. Not bad at all, especially for a first project! :)

Making phone contact with S**, the SBD PCV. Next week, we’ll meet him, tour the cooperative he works with, eat lunch, and give him the saffron project idea. :) Then hitting the Cybèr for an hour or so, and getting to talk to my sister! And getting an email from the editor of my story! And from Nana and Mom and my auntie!

My awesome friends rocked the internet research, so now I have lots of info on the geologic history of Morocco on my thumb drive, and maybe some books to request from the library guy at Peace Corps headquarters. (More information is always welcome, by the way!) :D

Free Day in a Mountain Village

So that’s what a free day in my village looks like. Didn’t crack a book all day (except for some snatched minutes with Prodigal Summer, one of my favorite Barbara Kingsolver novels), but got lots of language practice. I got a ton of practice with the numbers 1-12, thanks to teaching the kids Go Fish. (We call it Isleman, meaning The Fish, and we’re playing with a Skip-Bo deck, so the numbers from 1 to 12 are visible.) It’s a hit, even though it took me half an hour to remember that “Is tgit?” isn’t “Do you have?” – it’s “Were you?” or “Did you?”. Yeesh. I’m impressed that the kids figured out how to play it, with me asking them, “Are you a 5?” when I meant to ask “Do you have a five?” Oh, well. We worked it out. The kids got into it, so vigorously that they started fighting over it. I had to threaten to walk out on the game to get them to stop fighting. (“Adur tnaghm!” Stop fighting!)

I also got to meet the mythic BaHallu (grandfather) and his krat tafunast (three cows). Which turned out to be two calves and two cows, so why they’ve told me for weeks that he has 3 cows is a mystery. I also got pieces of the family tree, none of which I’ve gotten to line up. But I did get to hold Little Bro’s hand most of the half-hour walk there, so that made it a good day. :) We walked back through the igran – the fields – a lot of which turned out to be BaHallu’s. Or maybe Mma was exaggerating. Who knows. As we walked, Little Bro and Middle Bro kept picking flowers for me, mostly pink irises and the legendary roses. They were my second and third bouquets of the day. My first was from Little Sis, who took me for a walk in the fields this morning.

Walking with Little Bro really was adorable. He led me along the twisty bits of the path like a dancing partner, with just enough pressure to say, “This is the way.” And Little Sis’s wildflower bouquet was a joy. If I get married, I want a posy of pink rose buds and dandelions. Who’d have guessed how beautiful they look together?

Oh, and the picking of roses – for girls, by girls, for moms – is common enough to make me wonder if these bushes are ever destined for the local rose industry. Because shouldn’t there be pressure from … someone … not to pick the profit-producing cash crop?

Current fear: I’ll never develop a disciplined course of language study.
Current hope: To be placed in a site with as much natural beauty as this stony-green Eden. Seeing the valley of igran (fields) nestled between the Grand-Canyon-like desert massifs…it’s downright implausible, and it’s arrestingly beautiful every time I walk up on it. It’s real, and I live here. Da-zddghgh da. Or something close to that. :)
Unexpected positive: While walking past the ruins between the villages, I was moping to myself that I’d never have the language facility to be able to ask how old they were. Then I realized that I already do, more or less. I realized later today that I asked it wrong, but I successfully asked Mma, “When did this house build?”, and she understood me and answered! Of course, since her answer was, “How should I know, I wasn’t born then,” it didn’t net me any information gain, but I was still delighted that I was able both to ask a question and understand the answer.

CBT Week 2!

4/4/8 (…and then will come the Eight…)

Back in our village, whose name I know how to write in Arabic script. :) It’s great to be back here. It’s the little things – like the fact that the tooth the baby broke when I was here two weeks ago is now a fully fledged tighmas like its neighbors. It’s being able to write a paragraph about my day and Little Sis’s, only having to check my notes a couple times (usually for the spelling of one of the meals: l-fdor (breakfast), imkli (lunch), imnsi (dinner)). OK, so I only understood 10% of what she said. And she’s 10, so her vocabulary’s not complex. But I did understand that 10%, and was able to piece together a second-grade-worthy essay out of it.

I do think I wrote essays like this for my second grade teacher, but it’s still a smidge disheartening to realize that a three-year-old has a better vocabulary than I do. Sigh. Imiq simiq. Keep celebrating the victories, and trust that the struggles will diminish with time. And the family does love helping me with vocabulary. It’s not always completeful – today they kept flicking the lights on and off for ssigh and sxsi, when what I really wanted was their present participle.

Grateful for:
* the fifteen cheek-kisses from Sis-in-Law and the three from Little Sis and the hand kisses from Mma, Middle Bro, and Little Bro.
* being taken into the confidence of two PCT friends – even though their struggle is with each other!
* the still-shifting friendships of the group, which mean that no one is locked into or out of any set; who sits at which table any given meal is still nearly random. (In some ways this feels like junior high, so every time it’s proven not to be, it’s a good thing!)
* my story getting published soon!

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.