June 2, 2008 Comfort Food

I discovered during college that some of my mom’s specialties aren’t common in the wider world, but I also learned how to make them (or how to fake them – there was a dish at a local Asian restaurant that actually made for a pretty good approximation of her trademark meal). I checked before coming to Morocco to be sure that everything I consider a staple in my kitchen – garlic, onions, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, olive oil – is available here. (For the record, the olive oil here is AMAZING. I assume because the olives actually grow here. Before I came to Morocco, I had no idea that they were a major producer of olives; I thought they all came from Greece and points east.) I’d accepted that I’d have to survive two years without pumpkin, since it’s endemic to the New World, but then I found a very similar squash in the souq here. It’s green on the outside, but orange on the inside, and tastes (more or less) exactly like pumpkin. It’s called taghsayit (as are all squashes), and is a common addition to couscous.

But when Ama made me spaghetti, I almost cried. Spaghetti. So simple, and yet such a frequent part of my diet in the States. (Unfortunately, I was the only one who really enjoyed the meal. My host family virtually never uses forks, and you can’t really eat spaghetti without one. They all tried, but with limited success. I suddenly remembered how hard it was to learn to eat spaghetti as a kid.) And then she made me aHreer for the first time. It was like being given a visit home. It tastes (almost) exactly like Macaroni and Cheese. I was completely caught off guard. Cheese isn’t common here, and when they do have it, it’s usually a soft, cream-cheese-like spreadable cheese. And then we had aHreer again. And again. It’s downright *common* in my household, lhumdullah. The texture-providing core changes from meal to meal – sometimes it’s a pasta, sometimes a small sphere like tiny tapioca pearls, and most often rice – but the sauce stays the same. I finally asked my host-half-sister (who doesn’t live with us but who visits a lot) what’s in it. Roz, l-hleeb, aman, tisnt. Safi. I was startled. Just rice, milk, water, and salt? That’s it?? What about the cheese? Wallu fromaj. No cheese. And that’s when I realized why box M&C has such a high percentage of your daily required sodium. Because it’s not cheese that you’re tasting. It’s salt. Salt! Salt is the secret ingredient in my new Moroccan comfort food.

…happy…

June 1, 2008 Travel travails (time, time, time)

This past week, the government announced its decision to introduce Daylight Savings Time to Morocco. It’s arousing lots of discussion… among those people who have heard of it. More on that in a sec. I’m sitting in my favorite hotel in SouqTown, and the maitre d’ just asked me my opinion on the subject. When I was sitting in front of a café in Berberville, people at the next table over were discussing it in raised voices. “Arguing over it” might be a more accurate way to describe the scene. It’s a hot topic.

It’s especially timely today (pun intended) because this is the first day that Morocco is on Daylight Savings Time. Not the first time ever, but the first time in several years, from what I understand. I guess that makes today historic. Woo-hoo!

This big shift has been all over the news – print and TV and probably online, though I haven’t looked – but not every Moroccan watches or reads the news daily. (Neither does every American, I’ll be the first to admit.) Which means that not everyone *knows* about Daylight Savings Time.

And that is a bit of a mushkil. (Problem)

For many Moroccans, especially out in the bled (rural areas), it will make no difference. Especially since the school year is effectively over. (There are tests this coming week, but that’s more or less it.) If you wake up when the roosters do (which I’m still doing, though I’m trying to learn to sleep through their call like I’ve slept through so many alarm clocks before), it makes no difference what the clock says. Let alone what the government clock says.

But if, say, you want to take public transportation somewhere, then it does matter.

I woke up this morning planning to ride the tranzit into SouqTown. There are many transits each day, leaving approximately at 5, 7, 9, 11, 1, and 3. Emphasis on the approximate, but it’s usually within less than half an hour of that. Because the drivers do round-trip runs between Berberville and SouqTown, if there’s a delay one way, it delays the next trip, but in my experience, they’re generally on time.

But I also woke up knowing that this is the first day of DST, and that not everyone has heard that news.

I’d thought about that last night, and meant to go ask the local tranzit experts (usually the shop-owners next to the station), but I wasn’t feeling well yesterday, so I didn’t. When I woke up, I wondered whether the 9am tranzit would be leaving at 9am yesterday’s time (aka 10am today’s time) or today’s time. I also wondered whether Ama would worry if I slipped out at 8:00 (because, since I didn’t reserve a seat yesterday, I’d need to get there at least an hour early to be guaranteed a seat – I *might* get a seat if I showed up half an hour early, but no promises), since she had worried about me being under the weather yesterday.

I decided to sleep in a little longer, then remind Ama I’d be leaving today, then double-check at the station to see whether the drivers were on DST or not. It sounded like a good plan, so I rolled over and fell back asleep.

The plan rolled out smoothly. At 9:30am (DST), I went over to the station. The tranzit was gone. Since they never leave early, I took this as good evidence that the driver knew about the time change. I told the shopowner that I needed a seat on the 11am tranzit, bought some yoghurt for the host fam, and headed back home.

10:45, I was back at the station. No tranzit in sight. I asked my shopbuddy, who just said assul (not yet). So I made myself comfortable at a café and prepared to wait. I did some journaling in Tamazight, as practice for my meeting with H**, tutor extraordinaire, and kept an eye on my watch. 11am came and went. So did 11:30. Every time any car or truck came up the road – which was about every five minutes – I’d think that this was It.

It wasn’t.

Until 11:55, when the tranzit pulled in. I jumped up, trotted over, and asked the driver when he’d be pulling back out. “Half an hour.” “So, at 12:30?” “No, 11:30.” “But it’s already 12.” “No, it’s not.” “Yes, it is. Last night, an hour was added to the time.” “ ? ” Fortunately, my host-uncle the moqaddim (the mayor) was biking by, and he added his voice to mine. Yes, his Tamazight is (obviously) a thousand times better than mine, but he was saying the same things I’d been saying. I heard “zayd” (add) and “tes3t” (hour or time) repeatedly. The driver ignored both of us.

Long story short, we left at 12:30 (according to my watch) and arrived at 4:30 (ditto). I was supposed to meet my tutor, so I texted her to let her know I'd be later than our meeting last week. She said no problem, so when I arrived, I gave her a call to say, "Hey, I'm here!" Turns out she hadn't gone on DST either, so she was surprised to hear from me an hour early (by her watch).

This is going to be an adventure…

5/30/08 Project progress!

Yeah! I accomplished something today! I know that it’s entirely normal not to accomplish anything tangible during the first few months of Peace Corps service; we’re integrating into our communities, building relationships, etc. That’s why I’m actually keeping a log of how many people I’ve had tea with. (It’s already almost 100. OK, yes, it’s because Ama keeps a busy social calendar, not because of any wonderful strides I’ve made with the community. Also, several of those are repeats – the next door neighbor comes over at least once a day – but still, I’m becoming a known quantity.) And I keep telling myself that the time I spend blogging for y’all counts towards working on the third goal of Peace Corps, which is to inform Americans about peoples and cultures of the world.

But I got to do something *tangible* today. I’m so excited.

When I went to meet with the Education Delegue down in the capital city of the province, waaay back on Monday, I brought a letter for his signature. It would have granted me the right to work with the schools in the area (as my Peace Corps staff and K** both want). The delegue himself was absent, but his vice-delegue (deputy delegue? It was in French and Arabic, so I was a little confused) asked me to put with the letter a programme outlining what I want to do. Which is an entirely reasonable request. I explained that I don’t have a fixed plan, and that I’m hoping to work with the teachers to determine what our next steps will be. He told me to write that down as my programme. Since it’s going to be serving an official purpose, I didn’t just want to scribble a note down, so I told him I’d fax him a document in the future – as in, after I’d gotten back to my laptop in Berberville, had a chance to figure out what to say, let alone how to say it in French, and then run it past the various involved parties.

Since then, in reviewing the full text of the Peace Corps / Morocco Environmental Education Plan, I’ve discovered that there is actually a fixed plan. Well, “fixed” is an overstatement. It’s very flexible, but it has been created by my program staff in collaboration with the Water and Forestry Department, and provides an outline for Volunteer interactions with the schools.

So I just spent the afternoon figuring out how to adapt the four-part plan into one list of activities that I’ll undertake…and how to explain it all in French. With abundant help from my new French-English dictionary (which smells like the mustier floors of my grad school library) and the translation tool in MS Word, I was actually able to put together something that might actually work.

Wow, that’s two actuallys in one sentence. OK, so I have a few doubts.

But I’ll bring this document with me to my next (scheduled) meeting with my counterpart K**, and with my language tutor (who is also fluent in French) H**, and if it flies with them I’ll fax it to my program staff. If they approve it, too, I’ll fax it to the delegue’s office and inshallah receive permission to do what I’ve been asked to do. :)

But all that will wait until Monday, when I’m back in SouqTown. For today, I just wrote a page of French that I think makes sense, and that makes me feel happy. Yeah! I accomplished something! :D

Now if I could just work up the nerve to ask Ama some of the questions on the plant survey, I’d have a *lot* to show K** at our meeting…

5/29/2008 Project # 3

Every Peace Corps Volunteer has one or two “primary” projects that last over the course of months or years, but they are (we are!) also expected to do a number of “secondary” projects. Those are smaller, more finite projects that take less time and energy, but are tangibly useful to the people involved. My primary project is creating an environmental education curriculum for the schools in and around the Park. K**’s new project for me, the plant survey, may end up being an additional primary project. We’ll see how that develops. My secondary projects are likely to be things like tree plantings, Earth Day activities, setting up bee-keeping enterprises, etc.

Why do I bring all this up? A secondary project just fell into my lap.

An American NGO is bringing a group of high school students to Morocco this summer. They came last summer, and worked with the volunteers who were in Berberville then to arrange things like home stays and a walk down to the lake. But both of those volunteers have since finished their service and gone on. The Moroccan rep of this NGO just contacted “Fatima”, my site-mate, to see if they can repeat the trip this year. (How he got her contact info is an open question… But the point is, neither of us have done this before.) They plan to spend even more time here this year – probably because my mountain village is one of the coldest sites in the country, and they’re coming in late July when desert regions will be in the 120-140° range, and the major cities will be hovering around 100° - and they’re hoping to do community service projects while they’re here.

Community service projects.

As in, projects.

As in, stuff to help the community.

As in, the kind of things that I’m supposed to be doing for my secondary projects.

And they’re offering free manpower. (Teenpower, actually.)

Lhumdullah!

Of course, now I need to figure out what to do with them… Ideas so far include a tree planting along the walk to the lake; a tree planting at the lake; a world map mural downtown or at the school; a pair of world map murals – one political and one ecological; and I’m still thinking of more. Thank goodness Fatima has been here 6 months longer than I have (which is to say, six months and two weeks!), so she’s actually integrated enough to be able to make our plans come to fruition. :D

By the way, if any of y’all have ways that 16 teenagers could help my village in a couple of days, I’d love to hear them. Hit the comment button below or shoot me an email. :)

5/30/08 Notable Quotables

When you’re less than halfway through a 6-hour bus ride and you find yourself at the end of your book, suddenly any printed text becomes fascinating. That’s how I found myself reading a New Yorker, a magazine I haven’t picked up since I flipped through it as a child and found the cartoons too few and the text too dense. The New Yorker I had on the bus was two years old, and had been in the pile of reading material provided by the Peace Corps librarian, but that didn’t faze me. Besides, I liked The Devil Wears Prada, and don’t mind reading a two-year-old review of it. :) And the two-year-old political commentary was interesting for how prescient a lot of it was.

A little later, as I was nearing the end of that, a friend reading another New Yorker – this one practically current – offered to swap with me. And that’s where I found “The Bell Ringer”, a work of fiction by John Burnside. About two-thirds of the way through, there’s a sentence that has been nagging my thoughts ever since I read it. (Oh, and the 3rd-person narrator is a European woman. If it matters.)

“Harley was always polite with her, in the way that Americans are: doggedly courteous and, at the same time, utterly remote, like the landing party in an old episode of “Star Trek,” curious and well-meaning and occasionally bewildered, but sworn not to interfere in the everyday life of their hosts.”

Why this continues to poke at me… is an exercise left to the reader.

But while I’m quoting, here are some beautiful passages from Dreams of Trespass (which I’ve now finished):

“Happiness, she would explain, was when a person felt good, light, creative, content, loving and loved, and free. An unhappy person felt as if there were barriers crushing her desires and the talents she had inside. A happy woman was one who could exercise all kinds of rights, from the right to move to the right to create, compete, and challenge, and at the same time could feel loved for doing so. Part of happiness was to be loved by a man who enjoyed your strength and was proud of your talents. Happiness was also about the right to privacy, the right to retreat from the company of others and plunge into contemplative solitude. Or to sit by yourself doing nothing for a whole day, and not give excuses or feel guilty about it either. Happiness was to be with loved ones, and yet still feel that you existed as a separate being, that you were not there just to make them happy. Happiness was when there was a balance between what you gave and what you took.” - p. 80

“To live in a combination of two worlds was much more appealing than living in just one. The idea of being able to swing between two cultures, two personalities, two codes, and two languages enchanted everyone! Mother wanted me to be like Princess Aisha (the teenage daughter of our King Mohammed V who made public speeches in both Arabic and French) who wore both long caftans and short French dresses. Indeed, we children found the thought of switching codes and languages to be as spellbinding as the sliding open of magic doors….” - p. 180

And this last bit is mostly for me, because it includes references to books I want to try to dig up. Feel free to skip it if you’re not a footnote reader.

“Among the feminists, or ra-idates – pioneers of women’s rights – three were special favorites of Chama: Aisha Taymour, Zaynab Fawwaz, and Huda Sh3raoui. [Footnote 1: Early feminists are quite famous in the Arab world, where there is a strong tradition of documenting women’s lives, accomplishments, and exploits in the form of “who’s who” compilations. Arab historians’ fascination with exceptional women has produced a distinct literary genre called nissaiyyat, from the word nissa, or women. Salah al-Din al-Mounajid, an admirer of outstanding women, listed some one hundred treatises on women in his “Ma ullifa ‘ani an-nissa” (What Was Written on Women), in the journal Majallat majma al-lugha l-3rabiyya (1941) vol 16, p 216. Unfortunately, the Arab feminists, who are key figures in the modern history of human rights in the Muslim world, are hardly known in the West. One very good profile of major Muslim feminists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and which could be very useful for Western readers if translated, is the first volume of Emily Nasrallah’s Women Pioneers, which exists at the moment in Arabic only (Beirut: Muassassat Nawfal, 1986).] …

“[Zaynab Fawwaz] had also published a “who’s who” of famous women in 1893, in which she had collected more than four hundred and fifty dazzling, eclectic biographies of role models for women, from Cleopatra to Queen Victoria of England… [Footnote 2: Zaynab Fawwaz al-Amili, Al-Durr al-Manthour fi Tabaqat Rabbat al-Khodour (Boulaq, Egypt: Al-Matba’a al-Kubra, 1985.] …

“[Footnote 3: Huda Sh3raoui is well known in the Arab world, and a glimpse of her extraordinary life can be caught in Margot Badran’s translation of a selection of her memoirs entitled Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (London: Virago Press, 1986).” – p127-131

5/29/08 The Berberville Grapevine

After I went to the post office this morning, I stopped by the recently vacated home of Zahra, the departing Volunteer. Her landlord was (is) my host dad, and it’s very likely that I’ll be moving into that house when I finish my homestay. Because of that assumption, she gave me her keys before she left, and also let me leave some things there (notably a huge backpack that I brought with me when I came on site visit, and which I haven’t actually unpacked since it was first packed at the end of February).

After I picked up my packages, I took them to Zahra’s place to open them in the privacy of her home, and so that I could pick up the fleece and Tevas that I’d left there after site visit. (It was cold last night, and I found myself missing my fleece. And Tevas are always handy.) Getting into her house was harder than I’d anticipated. For one thing, her key doesn’t work all that well. Plus, the steel crossbar bolting the door shut isn’t aligned perfectly, so pulling it open involves scraping steel on steel—a noisy and awkward proposition. But I finally succeeded in wrestling her door open, climbed the steep stairs to her 2nd story apartment, and there I was! I ate a little chocolate, read the introduction to Innocents Abroad, and then figured it was time to head back to my wonderful host family. Locking up her apartment was about as challenging as unlocking it had been, and the clanging and scraping attracted some attention. Also, as I walked back, I passed some of my Berberville neighbors who wanted to chat. (I’m not a particularly skilled chatter in Tamazight, but I gave it my best shot, and I think we understood each other.) They asked if I’d been in Zahra’s house, and if she was really gone. I answered both questions. I’d originally hoped that no one would notice I’d been there—not because I was doing anything wrong but because I didn’t know how to explain what I was up to in Tamazight—but I figured that that train had long since left, and that I might as well be forthright about it.

As I was talking, it occurred to me to wonder how long it would take to get back to my host parents – aka the owners of the apartment.

It didn’t take long.

About two hours later, my host dad came up to me and asked if I’d been in Zahra’s house. I said yes, and then he said something long and complicated that I didn’t completely understand. I caught the words “key” and “house” and “your clothes” (could also mean “your baggage” – the same word is used for both), so I just kept smiling and nodding. Yes, she had given me the key to the house. Yes, I had left some of my clothes – in my baggage – there. If he said anything else, I probably agreed to that, too. Towards the end, he asked if Zahra had given me the card for the electricity. (It’s shaped like a credit card, and actually works exactly like the laundry card at my last apartment. You put money on it, then use it to transfer money to the electricity meter in your house. As long as you put money on it at least every six months, and keep your balance above zero, you have power!) I said that she had, and showed it to him.

He held it for a minute, seemed to make a decision about something, and then said that I should probably hang onto it. I guess that until then, it had still been an open question for him as to whether I’d take the apartment. (It hasn’t been for Ama. She’s been giving me the hard sell for a while now.)

Satisfied that all was well, he went off about his business.

This afternoon, Ama came up to me and asked if I’d been over to Zahra’s place. (I guess my host dad hadn’t talked with her about it before leaving.) I said that I had, and gave the explanation that I’d figured out how to say in Tamazight: My jacket was there. I was very cold last night. I went to Zahra’s house in order to bring my jacket back here.* (Simple, declarative sentences are my strong suit.) Mama laughed and said, “It’s not Zahra’s house anymore. It’s your house. Kawtar’s house! Zahra is gone to America. She’s an American girl now. She’s—” and here she pantomimed wearing a tank top, wiggling her hips, and generally being Hshuma. “It’s Kawtar’s house now. You’re a Moroccan girl now. Later, you’ll be an American girl,” and again she showed how Hshuma American girls are. As soon as she’d done her American pantomime, I’d started laughing, and by the time she finished the second round, I was busting a gut. She’s not wrong – American girls do wear short sleeves and dance around (though, for the record, I hate tank tops) – but somehow seeing her caricature it was just the most startling and hilarious thing I can remember seeing.

* If you’re curious: Jakitinu illa. Idgam, krfgh bzzef. Digh s tadart n Zahra afad ad-iwidgh jakitinu.

5/25/08 Friends and Family

Last week, I helped my host sister and cousin make gato, the all-purpose word for cookies, cakes, and other sweets. These were small round cookies. I got there after they’d been mixed up, and just helped roll them, dunk them in egg whites and powdered sugar, and put them on the cookie sheet. I have no idea what’s in them, but they’re delicious; they taste a bit like carrot cake, but with a grainy, almost gritty consistency. My host mother—who has asked me to call her Mama or Ama—was supervising the operation. She asked if I wanted to learn how to make them. I told her that I did – she’s the best cook I’ve met in Morocco, and since I’ve eaten well the whole time I’ve been here, that’s saying something – and she said, “When you go back to America, you can make them.” I smiled, looking forward to baking these Moroccan goodies for my friends. It was easy to envision my group of girlfriends in DC munching on them, or maybe I could bring them next time my college or TFA friends assemble. Then Ama finished her sentence, “—for your family.”

And suddenly I had to stop and think. She had taken it as a given that I’d be living with my family, cooking for my family, and living the family-centric life that is typical in Morocco. (Rural Morocco, at least; I don’t know anything about urban life.) But in the States, I don’t live with my family. Most young Americans don’t, I think. In fact, if I were an almost-thirty-year-old living with my parents, there’d be some measure of stigma associated with that. For the most part, it seems that communities of friends have come to serve most of the functions that the extended family used to serve.

When I’m with my extended family in America – ie at Thanksgiving or Christmas – there is lots of baking and fun, and I could certainly make these gato to share with my parents and sister and aunties and uncles and cousins. But the fact that my first thought had been of my friends, whereas Ama’s only thought was of my family…continues to provoke deep thoughts.

In Morocco, family life reminds me of what I read in Little House books or Jane Austen’s novels. I don’t mean to imply that Morocco is behind the times – most households have satellite TV, after all – but just in the role of the family. Friends are important, sure, but they are pretty much synonymous with “neighbors”, and the family remains supreme. Both of my host families have been much larger than my family in the States, with many siblings, even more aunts and uncles, and countless cousins. Moreover, the extended families don’t only assemble for holidays. I don’t think a single day has gone by here in Berberville without a visit from one of my host-aunties or host-uncles. Also, given the strong ethic of hospitality, it’s assumed that these visiting family members will be fed. Anyone who comes – neighbor, family member, visiting doctor – will be offered kaskrut (tea, bread, and something to dip the bread in – jam, olive oil, honey, butter, or some combination thereof). But it’s rare for non-family members to stay for a meal, whereas it’s common to have one of the grandparents or aunties or uncles or cousins at the table for dinner. When we had couscous last Friday – the traditional Friday meal – three relatives came by. I guess it’s no secret that Ama is the best sukuzina (cook) in the country. :)

Speaking of which, it’s almost time for lunch. Bslama!

5/29/08 Red Letter Days

Today was a GREAT day at the bosta (post office).

Mail only comes into town three times a week – Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and only after the post office is closed for the day. So the days to check mail are Mondays (for Friday’s arrivals), Tuesdays (for Monday’s), and Thursdays (for Wednesday’s). Since I was in SouqTown on Monday – and will be for most Mondays – that means that Tuesdays are especially exciting, because there’s twice the likelihood of getting mail.

So Tuesday, when K** dropped me off at the bosta, I was eager to see what I’d find. I got a card from a friend in the States (thanks!!) and scored two packages of books from the Peace Corps librarian (my new best friend), which included some technical materials on environmental education in the schools as well as some fiction (since I’d told him I’m a fan). I got The Jane Austen Book Club, which I’ve read before but enjoyed, Northanger Abbey, which I’ve never read but wanted to, and Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi, which I’m pretty sure is on my Amazon.com wishlist. I heard about Fatima Mernissi just before getting to Morocco, and wished I’d had time to read her books. She writes about women in Islam, women in Morocco, Islam and Morocco, etc. Pretty fabulous, really. In the 40-ish hours since I got it, I’ve read 211 pages of this 242 page book, and that’s with me limiting myself to only reading when it’s bedtime. (The goal of the first three months of service is to integrate into the community, not to hole up reading good books.) The harem life that Mernissi describes, from her childhood in the 1940s and 1950s, is different from the life I see Berber women living today, but many of core issues – the separation of men and women, the role of the veil, etc – are still vital in today’s Morocco. It’s also fun to see the Darija words that she drops into the text. Some are identical to words I know, and some are different. (She lived in Fez, which is well north of me; the local Berber dialect is different – it’s called Tarifite – and that means that the Darija, aka the Moroccan blend of French, Spanish, Arabic, and Berber, is slightly different as well.)

So that was Tuesday.

Today, Thursday, I went back to the bosta to check my box and to mail some paperwork to Peace Corps HQ in Rabat.

What’s fun about knowing nothing is that every moment is a chance to learn. :)

What I learned this morning: most in-country letters cost 3.25 dirhams to mail, but only if you stay under 20 grams. I had enough documents to hit 26 grams, so I had to pay double postage – 6.5 Ds. I think postage rules are the same in the States; 0.1 ounce up to … some limit … is a regular stamp, but once you push past that, even by an smidgen, it jumps up to two stamps. (Right?)

There was also a long-awaited letter in my box. OK, 9-day-awaited. It was the 60D stamp that I need for my carte de sejour (Green Card-like document). I’m only allowed to be in the country for 3 months without a carte de sejour, and that three months elapses next week. Eep. Of course, getting the carte is a several-month process, but as long as I have the stamped receipt showing that I’ve applied for it, I’m still law-abiding. :) [Update: I went to the gendarmerie, spoke French, English, Tamazight, and my most useful phrase of Darija: “I don’t understand Arabic”, and emerged (six hours later) with the stamped receipt. I’m good to go!]

But I still haven’t gotten to the best part of my trip to the bosta. Sorry for the rambling.

In addition to the 60D stamp in my mailbox, the bubosta (postman) had not one but TWO packages for me from loved ones in the States!! Lhumdullah!! They were sent a week apart, but arrived on the same day. (I’ve started tracking shipping times; so far, the average time for a letter or card to get here is 10 days, and the average time for a package is 21 days.) I got a card, a book, burnable CDs, pens, pencils, and some seriously good Philadelphia-made chocolate. Mmmm. Thank you thank you thank you!! I also got a copy of Innocents Abroad; now I can read my blog’s namesake and decide if the literary allusion was a good idea or not. :)

When I got home with my armful of postal goodies, my host mother was curious. I showed her the packages from my xalti (maternal aunt), my sadiq (a way of saying “my friend” that is gender neutral, since it was in fact from a guy friend and I didn’t want to run into the “boyfriend” issue), and from the hayat salaam (Peace Corps). I added a big lhumdullah and she smiled, saying Kawtar ghors familia ixatr iHla. Lizzy has a good, big family. :D And I do. (Friends are, of course, part of my family.) Lhumdullah!

5/27/08 Surprise, Surprise...

K**, the Moroccan I work most closely with, has a knack for surprising me. Surprise #1 was that he didn’t exist. Fortunately, that one turned out to be a mistake.

I’d gone looking for him during my site visit. I visited the Park headquarters, and that’s where I was told that he didn’t exist. Since he’s the director of the Park, I found that both surprising and a bit unlikely. So I called him. He answered the phone, thus proving his existence, and then gave directions to the Park employee I was talking to. Turns out that he doesn’t work in a park office (Surprise #2), but is another two miles outside of town in a Water & Forestry Department office. So I headed down there, met him, had a great conversation about my project, and all was well.

Three weeks later, I returned to the region, this time for good (inshallah). Even before making it out to my site, I scheduled a meeting with him, since he works in SouqTown, which was my layover en route to Berberville. I was supposed to meet him at 10am, in his office, but (Surprise #3) he showed up in the café where I was having breakfast at 9:15. He had a completely new project for me (Surprise #4), and wanted me to meet with the leader of that project, a professor…who was in fact sitting across the café, waiting for me (Surprise #5).

Two days later, I was wandering through downtown Berberville with Zahra when I heard a honk-honk. I barely registered it, since I wasn’t in the middle of the street and therefore it was unlikely to have anything to do with me. Then there was another double-beep. I glanced over in case it was my host dad in his jeep, but it wasn’t, so I deliberately turned my back on the truck (following the advice of other Peace Corps Volunteers to ignore unwanted attention from Moroccan men). Then Zahra said, “I think that’s your counterpart.” I turned…and it was. (Surprise #6) He was in Berberville, a 4-hour ride away from his home and office in SouqTown, driving around with the professor. He laughed at me for forgetting him so quickly. While we chatted, we set a meeting for the Monday 10 days away.

The next Monday – only 3 days later – I was in SouqTown on other business. I’d planned to leave on Tuesday’s 9am tranzit back to Berberville, so about 8:30 I put my scarf down to reserve a seat, then went to the PCVs’ favorite café for a quick breakfast. When I walked into the café (the same one where Surprises #3 and 4 had taken place), my fellow Environment Volunteer “Brahim” told me, “Oh, hey, K** was just here. He’s driving out to Berberville right now with “Sku”*. Do you want to go with him?” Surprise #7. And, for that matter, #8 – he’d been planning to go to somewhere entirely different and coordinate a tree planting today. I told Brahim that of course I wanted to go, so we went outside to look for him. I didn’t see K** or Sku, but Brahim recognized K**’s truck…which was pulling away. He chased it down – which took three blocks of hard running – and was told that K** would meet me back at the café.

I heard this news after I’d caught up with Brahim—he’s a better runner than I am, but I was doing my best—so we both turned around and retraced our steps, breathing hard. I wondered if I should run back to the tranzit to grab my scarf and tell the driver not to wait for me, but I didn’t want K** to miss me, either. The other PCVs pointed out that the only road to Berberville goes right by the tranzit stand, so it would be easy to take care of it as we drove out. I waited at the café for about 20 minutes before seeing Sku, the third member of our Environmental triumvirate*. K** had dropped him off to find me and tell me to meet him at the end of the street.

Of course, the streets in SouqTown don’t follow a particularly regular grid pattern, so neither Sku nor I really knew what that meant. We waited at the end of the big square in town for a few minutes. By then it was 9am, and I was feeling anxious about retrieving my scarf from the tranzit driver. (I didn’t want him to wait around for me and delay everyone else’s trip.) I told Sku my plan and walked the two blocks to the tranzit station…where I found K** in his truck. Surprise #9. I told him that Sku was waiting at the square, so he went jogging off to find Sku while I retrieved my scarf. 10 minutes later, we were all rolling west. Lhumdullah. The fourth person in the car is also named K**, so I’ll call him GradStudentK – ‘cause he is one. For the first hour or so, Sku and I chatted; this was my first chance to talk to him for more than a couple minutes, and we’re probably going to be working closely over the next year, so I wanted to take advantage of my chance to get to know him. Then K** dropped him off in his village instead of bringing him on with us to Berberville (Surprise #10).

For the next few hours, I had a conversation with the two K**s. They both speak a lot of French and a little English. GradStudentK turns out to be fluent in Tamazight, lhumdullah, so he helped both K** and me work on the language. Yes, high-ranking K** is actually working to learn a Berber dialect. Surprise #11. Every other high-ranking Moroccan I’ve met denies any knowledge of Berber. (For that matter, several Berbers have tried to speak to me in Darija – Moroccan Arabic – because it’s considered the more appropriate language for educated people to use. But I don’t know Darija. I’m not stupid, I’m American.) So as we drove, we attempted to speak to each other in Tamazight, falling back on French or English when needed to ensure comprehension. (Which happened a lot. But hey, imiq simiq.) And then, about an hour into our multilingual conversation, I was pointing out a really beautiful anticline, and I discovered that they’ve both studied geology (Surprise # 12). GradStudentK has actually taught biology and geology classes to middle schoolers. So then I got to learn the French and Arabic terms for geological structures, which was a blast.

When the terms are from Latin, they’re virtually identical in French and English (syncline is syncline, for example, and eclogite is éclogite), but the more basic terms cracked me up. A “layer”, aka a bed or a stratum, is a couche. Which is a bed. Like the kind of bed you sleep in. It has been so long – over a decade – since I first learned these words that I’d forgotten how many of them have non-geological meanings. Like “fold”. Which in French is plie, aka bend. Because y’know, folds are bends. “Crust” is crût, which I learned in French class as the thing that goes on a pie. I’ve gotten so used to thinking about the Earth’s crust as kilometers of rock that it takes hearing the word in another language to make me remember where these terms came from. Yes, the crust is the crispy outer layer. Yes, the mantle – manteau – is the thick blanket inside. Of course earthquakes produce a tremblement (trembling/quaking). Isn’t science fun? Oh, and K** still has some of his textbooks on the geology of Morocco, which he has promised to lend me. L’humdullah!

Eventually, we got to Berberville, where it turned out we weren’t going to tackle the Park information booth that Sku had speculated was the purpose of the trip. K** needed to speak to someone else about a completely unrelated project, so I wasn’t even part of the conversation. He just dropped me off at the bosta (post office) near my host family’s house and said goodbye (Surprise #13).

I’ve known him for less than a month, and only had two official meetings with him, but he has managed to surprise me THIRTEEN different times. They say the first step towards overcoming “culture shock” is being able to predict actions. I’m getting there in the home life of my host family – I know when to sweep the floor now, and when to expect afternoon tea – but I’m still apparently in phase one of “counterpart shock.” :)

* There are a total of 5 Environment PCVs assigned to this national park. K&D, the married couple, live on the north side of it. They’re in a different province, and there’s not much transportation between us, but we’re still planning to work together on projects. Sku, Brahim and I live along the southern edge of the park, on the road between Berberville and SouqTown; they’re both closer to SouqTown than I am. For that matter, everyone I know is closer to SouqTown than I am. Sigh. Anyway, Sku and Brahim and I are all assigned to work with K**, but I hadn’t had a chance to talk with either of them before this weekend.

5/26/08 Quote of the Day: "I’m not stupid, I’m American"

A couple weeks ago, there was a session hosted by members of the Diversity Panel, Peace Corps Volunteers who are members of various minorities. They said a lot of things that gave me food for thought. My favorite was the poignant line, “I’m not stupid, I’m American.” The context was that some of these Americans, because of their skin color, are mistaken for Moroccans. Whoever has assumed that they are Moroccans often therefore concludes that they speak fluent Berber and, if they’re educated, fluent Darija (Moroccan Arabic). When it turns out that they don’t – most PCVs speak only one of the two languages (those of us in the rural areas mostly learn Berber, and those in the cities mostly learn Darija) – yet another conclusion is sometimes drawn, which is that they’re dumb Moroccans. The plaintive, “I’m not stupid, I’m American,” sums up a whole host of frustrations with this set of assumptions.

I’ve found myself using the line – at least mentally – several times since the Diversity Panel. Especially when I’m unable to understand even very simple questions or statements from members of my new community. I know that challenges are inevitable, but I hate feeling stupid all the time. When people speak English around me, I understand everything (or at least assume that I do). When I read in English, I understand what I read. I have an enormous vocabulary, because whenever I find a word I don’t know, I learn it. I *love* language. And now I’m in a position where I understand barely a fraction of what I hear. I can pick out a few words from every paragraph that is spoken. I know my host family and neighbors are sympathetic, and (I hope) don’t think that I’m an idiot for not comprehending the words that flow past me…but I still feel pretty stupid a lot of the time. But I’m not stupid, I’m American. And Americans, for the most part, don’t speak Berber. :)

But I keep running into situations where I have to learn something that every child here knows – and not even necessarily language – little things, like when it’s the right time to sweep the floor, or how big a piece of bread to use for each mouthful of tagine. My five-year-old host sister is more comfortable with the butane gas stove than I am. One of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card, says in Enchantment, “Everyone who travels is a child again.” (Or words to that effect.) In all the times I’ve thought nostalgically about childhood, I haven’t given a lot of thought to the persistent confusion that I now recall. Being a kid was hard – everybody always seemed to know so much more than I did.

Imiq s imiq. Shweeya b shweeya. Little by little. Step by step. Bit by bit. Because I’m really not stupid. And being American doesn’t just mean that I’m linguistically challenged; Americans share lots of the world's wonderful traits, like open-mindedness and eagerness to learn about other cultures…and a lot of dogged determination. :)