2/14/09 Solar Seduction

For Valentine's Day, it seems appropriate to describe my most recent seduction. It was Thursday. I walked the 2k roundtrip to the lycee twice - once at noon, then again at two - and was utterly seduced by the beauty of the day. I scrapped my original plans in favor of a long walk to the lake. As I walked the 5k (uphill, but it's pretty gentle), I found myself in that simultaneously warm-and-cold sensation that always reminds me of skiing. The air is cold, but the sun is warm, and the exertion heats me up from within... It's early February in the mountains - there are still multi-foot snowdrifts along shadowed hillsides - but the sun's whispering, cajoling, teasing, baking rays won me over. I wasn't wearing a coat, because the sun shone so brightly, but I was wearing a thick fleecy sweatshirt...which I unzipped...and finally removed.

By the time I got back to town, friends I passed on the street were all asking, "Aren't you cold??" but I'd cheerfully answer, "No. There's sun. And the sun is good." (This alliterates nicely in Tam: Tlla tafuyt. THla tafuyt."

Score:
Sun: 1 Winter: 0
Total kilometers walked: 14 (about 9 miles)
Total number of tea invites: 2
Total number of meal invites: 2

It's a good day. :)

2/13/09 The Sectors: Small Business Development

As part of my ongoing, every-other-day series on Peace Corps, I'm going to discuss each of the four sectors in which PCVs serve, here in Morocco: Youth Development, Small Business Development, Health, and Environment. They are four of the five most-populous sectors in all of Peace Corps, so this should be useful information for Peace Corps applicants, regardless of which country or region they're hoping for. Today, I'll focus on Small Business Development, aka SBD.

Small Business Development Volunteers are partnered with artisanal or agricultural cooperatives and associations-working-towards-becoming-cooperatives. These coops may focus on crafts like weaving, carving, or metalsmithing, or they may focus on niche crops, like argan oil, honey, medicinal herbs, or saffron. SBD Volunteers help these fledgling enterprises with product development, marketing, finding craft fairs to display their wares, etc. Some SBD Volunteers have backgrounds in craftwork or art, while others have business or economic degrees.

SBD is a new sector in Morocco, so it's still finding its footing, and in fact is in the process of rewriting its goals right now. SBD Volunteers are sometimes placed with YD Volunteers in amenity-laden cities, where they can help established coops move towards business status or microloans, but they're also placed in rural villages like mine, to help nascent businesses get off the ground.

2/12/09 Gaggle of guys

I walked to the middle school around noon today. I've been trying to meet with a science teacher to discuss next month's tree planting, but we keep missing each other. Today, I hoped to catch the students and teachers walking towards town for the lunch break, but I ended up misjudging the time, so instead fell in with a few students who had already walked to town and were now walking back.

One started chatting with me in surprisingly good English. I asked him where he had learned, and he pointed to the high school. I answered his queries in Tam, so that the other students could understand. As we walked - it's about half a mile to the school - more and more students began tagging along. At one point I looked back and realized that I was leading a gaggle of 15-20 boys, ranging in age from about 10 to 17. As we got up to the school, though, they dropped back, and not a single one entered the campus gates with me. Apparently, they're not allowed on campus during lunch. I braved the fortress alone, therefore, only to discover that the teacher I was looking for wouldn't be on campus till 2. (Teachers in Berberville only work half-days, but which half flips back and forth in a Byzantine pattern.) So I'll try again this afternoon, then head out to the lake with Flat Stanley, to help out a different group of students, in a different school, in a different country! :)

2/11/09 The Sectors: Youth Development

As part of my ongoing, every-other-day series on Peace Corps, I'm going to discuss each of the four sectors in which PCVs serve, here in Morocco: Youth Development, Small Business Development, Health, and Environment. They are four of the five most-populous sectors in all of Peace Corps, so this should be useful information for Peace Corps applicants, regardless of which country or region they're hoping for. Today, I'll focus on Youth Development, aka YD.

Youth Development Volunteers spend most of their time with young people, not surprisingly. They work at youth centers, summer camps, schools, and anywhere else the youth congregate. Here in Morocco, most YD Volunteers go to a Dar Chebab (youth center, literally a "House of Young People") to teach daily English classes. As I mentioned a few days ago, Moroccans who get to work with these native speakers end up speaking much more fluidly, not to say fluently, than students who encounter English only through Victorian novels. That then opens opportunities to live and work abroad, or with tourists or the government here in Morocco. YD Volunteers also run week-long English Language Immersion camps for advanced students, during Spring Break and throughout the summer.

Perks of YD:

Because they go to the Dar Chebab nearly every day, YD volunteers have the closest approximation of a 9-5 job that you'll find in Peace Corps. If that kind of structure is important to you, Youth Development may be a good fit. Also, YD volunteers are always placed in the bigger towns and smaller cities. (Rural villages don't have enough youth to support a Dar Chebab, and the biggest cities are forbidden for security reasons.) This means you'll have constant access to electricity, water, stores, cafes, restaurants... Nearly every YD volunteer I know has internet in their home and satellite cable TV. Many have hot water heaters, too. If you prefer this slightly-more-comfortable lifestyle, this might be the sector for you. The final "perk" of this sector, some would argue, is that all YD Volunteers in Morocco learn Darija, the Moroccan dialect of Arabic. For anyone planning to work in the Middle East after Peace Corps, fluency in Darija is a big step towards fluency in the Standard Arabic spoken from the Levant to Egypt. Morocco PCVs who don't learn Darija learn a Berber dialect, which is spoken only in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.

If you have any further questions, please let me know via email or by posting something in the comments.

2/9/2009 Leaving Peace Corps Service

I've spent a few days talking about getting into Peace Corps. Today I'm going to address the flipside: ending your Peace Corps Service. Turns out it can end in one of four ways...

1. COS - Close of Service

Let's start with the happiest one: COS-ing. (Yes, in our endless love of acronyms, we've actually turned these into verbs, to wit, To COS, with the letters pronounced in full: to see-oh-ess.) In order to COS, you must have served successfully in your host country for two full years since swearing-in. The COS process starts about four months before your scheduled departure, with COS Conference. You gather with all of your stage-mates, who you haven't seen en masse since Mid-Service Medicals, at your country headquarters. You hear from your Program Staff and your Country Director about wrapping up your projects, saying farewell to your community, planning for post-Peace Corps life, and generally finding ways to leave with success and closure. This conference lasts about a week, and then you return to your home village. For your final three months of service, you're not allowed to take any vacation days; it's time to hunker down and tie all your work off with a bow. Once you've said your farewells to your host family and neighbors, you head back to headquarters for a final goodbye week (and the requisite final goodbye medical exams). And then your service is closed; you've COS'd. Peace Corps buys you a plane ticket home (which most PCVs choose to cash in, preferring to find a dirt-cheap multi-leg flight and use the balance of funds to travel for a bit). COS-ing is the fate that most of us hope for.

2. ET - Early Termination

Some PCVs don't choose to stay the full two years. Countless factors contribute to this. Perhaps their bodies never adapted to the food/parasites/bugs, and the constant sickness wore them out. Perhaps someone back home needed them more than they'd anticipated. Perhaps something awful happened and they wanted to run away. Perhaps there was no productive work in their site and they thought they'd be more useful to the world back in the US. There are as many reasons to ET as there are Volunteers - more, actually, since it usually takes more than one reason to get you to go. But for whatever combination of causes, you decide to terminate your service early, and go home. Folks outside the Peace Corps vernacular tend to refer to this one as "quitting" or "giving up", but I challenge that characterization. Most of us knew what we were getting into when we joined Peace Corps, and prepared ourselves for the challenge...but the unexpected can catch up to anyone. It's less common than you might think - out of the 26 Environment PCTs who showed up on March 1st last year, only 1 of us has ET'd. (Knock on wood.)

3. MedSep - Medical Separation

Peace Corps also reserves the right to send you home. If your body succumbs to something that the local health care providers can't accommodate, they'll ship you back to the US in a "MedEvac", aka Medical Evacuation. But that's a temporary state of affairs. If you're once again hale and hearty within 45 days, you can return to country and return to service. But you only get 45 days. If it takes more than six weeks to make you all better, you lose the chance to return, and you're medically separated from service - MedSep'd. Over your vehement protests, in some cases. I've had several friends ripped out of their service, against their wishes, because their bodies had failed them. Liver failure, kidney failure, even long-dormant genetic problems that had lain dormant until the stress of the Peace Corps lifestyle caused them to flare to life. Of the 26 in my cohort, one was MedSep'd quite early on. Of the 59 Trainees that went through stage together - 26 Environment Sector and 33 Health Sector - we've lost almost half a dozen to MedSeps. The most recently MedEvac'd was my friend Casey, but I'm still hoping that he'll make it back within the 45-day window. He tells his story here. Also, if you refuse treatment by the Peace Corps Medical Officers, they can send you home. They enforce this with especial vigor in malaria countries; if you don't take your malaria prophylaxis (preventative medicine) every single day, and they find out, they'll MedSep you. When I first heard about this happening, about a year before I joined Peace Corps, my reaction was, "Peace Corps can fire you??" And they can, but getting MedSep'd isn't considered getting fired. That's reserved for...

4. AdSep - Administrative Separation

...getting AdSep'd. This is Peace Corps' big gun. Before you swear in, you'll get to hear your Country Director rattle off a laundry list of offenses that you can be AdSep'd for. It includes things like Riding your bike without a helmet, Failing to accomplish anything, Driving a car (or plane or motorcycle), Taking illegal drugs, Impregnating a local woman, and Conduct unbecoming a PCV. Some of these have discretion built in, on the part of the Country Director; others are a zero-tolerance policy. Some shenanigans will actually get you MedSep'd instead of AdSep'd; alcohol abuse, for example, is considered a medical problem. Pregnancy, if carried to term, falls under the medical umbrella. But MedSep'd or AdSep'd, you're still going home. The only difference lies in how it looks to future employers.

In writing this, I have conflated separation from service with going back to the US. In point of fact, as far as I understand it, Peace Corps can't force you to leave the country. They can't deport you if you haven't committed a crime. They can strongly encourage you to go, and in some cases I've heard, it sounded pretty forcible, but there does exist an option known as "Field Separation". If you accept a Field Separation, you're no longer a PCV - no longer associated with Peace Corps at all - so you get no living allowance, no stipend, no right to attend future Peace Corps gatherings, etc, but you are still allowed to remain in-country. Volunteers who have married Host Country Nationals and then chosen to ET will often accept a Field Separation.

So these are the ways your service will end. We all start off hoping for a successful COS, but sometimes things intervene. Peace Corps understands that, and therefore created all these different mechanisms. (...not with a bang, but a whimper...)

As always, if you have follow-up questions, feel free to email me or post them as a comment below.

2/10/09 "Win Layla!"

One of my young cousins has the not-uncommon name of "Layla", from the Arabic word for night, "layl". This adorable toddler has ringlet curls, deep dimples, and a small spoken vocabulary. She loves saying her own name, though, especially in the context of saying, "Mine!"

Actually, she says, "Layla's", which in Tamazight is win Layla. This is a transcultural phenomenon; I can't even count the number of babies, in various countries, I've heard pronouncing ownership. I'm sure that child psychologists have a name for the phase.

It has become a favorite game of all of the adults in her life to point to various things - clothes, body parts, etc - and ask variations on the theme of, "Whose is this? Is this mine? Is it Layla's?" The munchkin always responds, loudly and indignantly, that it's "Win Layla!"

Layla's family lives next door, so I regularly hear her little baby voice, which for some evolutionary reason carries like no adult voice can, calling through the window. I often hear indistinct shrieks and nonsense syllables, but at least once every day I get to hear a tiny but fearsome, "Win Layla!"

2/8/09 SouqTown English Club

Some day, inshallah, SouqTown will get a Youth Development Volunteer and will have regularly scheduled English classes. In the meantime, two English-fluent guys have started an informal English Club. It meets Sunday mornings, and all dozen PCVs in the region have a standing invitation.

Last week, four Volunteers came. This week, it was just me. (Nearly every Volunteer in the region is traveling, mostly for work-related reasons.)

The class is divided between four men, all college-aged or older, and about a dozen girls, all in high school. Not surprisingly, the college students and graduates are much more fluent in English than the high schoolers. Unfortunately, this creates a dynamic where the men speak constantly and the girls hardly speak. Once the club is more established they're hoping to split into ability groupings, but for now, there's just the one group.

They're all friendly and eager, and when we exited at 12:30 I was mobbed with lunch requests. :)

2/7/09 The Three Goals of Peace Corps

2/7/09 The Three Goals of Peace Corps

Though it's not talked about much, in this post-idealistic age, the actual mission of Peace Corps is to "promote world peace and friendship". Hard to believe, isn't it: the United States government actually pays me to promote world peace and friendship. Lhumdullah! I must admit, the very existence of Peace Corps makes me proud of my government. :)

More often discussed are the "Three Goals" of Peace Corps.

Goal 1: Provide technical training.
Officially: Help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

Back in the day, this meant that Americans did jobs that needed to be done, from teaching English classes to digging wells. These days, that has come to mean "capacity building", or teaching Host Country Nationals (HCNs), aka Moroccans and Ukrainians and Togo-ans and other citizens of the countries where we serve, the skills they need to do those jobs. We hold workshops for teachers, teach grant-writing so our HCN partners can fund their projects, and demonstrate new practices for farmers...just to name three examples.

Goal 2: Share American culture.
Officially: Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

This is where I get points for chatting with people. Heck, I get points for living here. Everything I do, say, don't do, don't say...it's all interpreted as What Americans Are Like. This is reinforced and expanded when I explicitly talk to people about American culture, whether it's describing Christmas, or inviting them to a Thanksgiving feast, or sharing my excitement over the election. There are huge misunderstandings of America and Americans, and I'm working bit by bit to identify and remove them. Some are complimentary, like my host mother saying (after describing a mean ex-husband), "There are no bad men in America." Would that it were true, Ama... Others are uncomplimentary, like when a neighbor from my CBT village said, "I saw a documentary that said all Americans are fat." Since there were five of us living in his village at the time, I was able to point out that such a thing couldn't be true, and that in fact, we're not the only five skinny Americans. And still others are neutral but inaccurate, like my host-auntie saying, "No Americans get circumcised. Only Moroccans do that." She was inclined to doubt my assurances that circumcision is common in America - after all, as an unmarried girl without brothers, how could I speak with any authority? - but I reassured her that I've changed enough little-boy diapers to be sure. (I knew all those years of babysitting would pay off eventually!)

Goal 3: Share world culture with Americans.
Officially: Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

And now we come to the purpose of my blog. All the entries not specifically dealing with prospective applicants, anyway. :) The third goal of Peace Corps is to bring the world a little bit closer together, by letting all Americans - not just those of us who get to live abroad for years at a time - learn more about our fellow Earthlings. Every time I share about Moroccan culture, whether it's in this blog, in an email, in a letter to the school I correspond with through the World Wise Schools program, or even in a phone call, I'm supporting Goal 3. Dear readers, every time you check my blog, or read an old post that you missed, or tell a friend something I shared with you, you're supporting Goal 3, too. So if you're still reading this, thank you! :D

2/6/09 Facets of Flakes

Snow is a many-splendored thing.

Some Berberville denizens huddle around stoves and work limited hours, opening late and closing early.

Others celebrate an act of beauty that dusts the world in feathery white beauty.

Some, such as teachers and students who traveled home for the semester-end break, see an opportunity to turn a one-week holiday into a two-week vacation.

Those whose livelihoods depend on free travel, notably the taxi and tranzit drivers, worry about lost income and escalated "workplace safety" issues.

Me, I'm just grateful I didn't have any laundry on the line. :)

2/5/09 What Comes Next: Your First Nine Months in Peace Corps

Every other day throughout February, I'll be posting information specifically targeted to potential Peace Corps Volunteers. My last PCInfo post (see labels below) was devoted to the timeline for applying to Peace Corps. Today, I'll discuss What Comes Next: Your First Nine Months.

So you've applied, interviewed, been nominated, been invited, and accepted your invitation.

Congratulations! So what happens now?

Pre-Service Training - 3 days: Welcome to Peace Corps, Trainee!

You're In The Peace Corps Now...but you're not in your country yet. In fact, you're not even a Volunteer yet. You won't become a Volunteer until you've sworn in, at the end of your training. For now, you're a Peace Corps Trainee. You'll spend two to three days in an American city, learning some basics about the Peace Corps, making sure that all of your paperwork was filled out correctly (and they collect it at the orientation session, so be sure it's done before you get there!), and meeting your fellow Peace Corps Trainees. These folks will be your support network for the next 27 months, so start getting to know them as soon as possible. I have more details about these days here, written back when I was going through it.

Pre-Service Training (PST): Welcome to Your New Country, Trainee!

This varies a bit by country, but the principles are the same. You're now a Peace Corps Trainee - PCT - and you'll spend something between 8 and 12 weeks being introduced to your new home. In Morocco, we spend the first few days in a major city near the coast, so the Peace Corps staff has easy access to us for medical things and overview sessions (and so anybody who gets cold feet can be quickly flown home), then move onto our Training City.

Once in your Training City, you'll begin learning your target language and some of the major ideas you'll bring to your work. What is the role of a Peace Corps Volunteer? What is the role of a PCV in development? What projects can you expect to work on? How will you engage in cultural exchange? Etc, etc, etc. Expect eight-hour days broken up into 2 hour sessions. If you've ever attended any kind of workshop or Management Training, you have some idea what to expect. Flip-chart paper, big markers, big ideas, group discussions... That's while you're in your Training City, ie a minority of PST/stage. (Given how many acronyms there are, everyone in Morocco refers to PST as "stage", with a French pronunciation - stahzh. I don't know how widespread it is, but I like it. The corollary is that your fellow PCTs are also known as your stage-mates.)

So if you're only in your Training City for a minority of the time, where are you for most of stage? Community-Based Training, aka CBT. You'll live in a village where they speak the language you're trying to learn. You'll live with a host family, with whom you'll spend evenings and weekends, and you'll spend your days studying language and culture. When I went through stage, we alternated between a week or two in CBT and a few days in our Training City...but the stage scheduled to start in March will be only be in the City for a week or two, and will spend the entire rest of stage in their CBT village. Here is the information about stage that Peace Corps sent me a week or two before I left the US.

Pre-Service Training + 5-8 weeks: Site Visit

A week or three before the end of stage, you'll take a visit to the site you've been assigned to. This is your chance to learn the route, experience unaccompanied travel in your country, meet your host family, and see your village. Most of us had a great site visit, but a few folks had a really wretched time, due to food poisoning or other complications. Two actually refused to serve in their village, because of the severity of their medical problems and the fact that there was no phone service (landline or cell phone) with which they could summon help. Peace Corps staff listened to their concerns, had some long conversations with them, and ultimately assigned them elsewhere.

Swearing-In: Par-tay!

Congratulations! You've successfully completed PST/stage. You've mastered a new language (more or less), you've learned what you're expected to do for the next two years, and you're being sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. This is a Life Moment, so don't be afraid to savor it. You'll hear speeches from your Ambassador or his/her designate, from your Country Director, and from the PCT with the highest score on the Language Proficiency test. Your host family will have been invited, so they'll get to see you with all your fellow Peace Corps folks. After the ceremony, you and your family get to feast at a banquet. When the banquet ends and the families go home, the newly-fledged Volunteers get to celebrate however they see fit. My swearing-in was held at a fancy hotel with a gorgeous pool (and I do mean *fancy* hotel - it's where Brad & Angelina stay when they're in Morocco!), so we all busted out the bathing suits and had a pool party. The details will vary, but trust me that this will be a celebratory moment for you - plus your last chance to socialize with your stage-mates, except for those few who are placed near you.

Swearing-In + 1 day: Leave Stage

It's time to say farewell to your training city, the Peace Corps staff, and your stage-mates. You'll probably travel with other Volunteers - there aren't *that* many transportation options in developing nations - so you'll get to postpone your goodbyes with a few for another couple of hours or even a day, but after that, it's time for homestay.

Swearing-In + 1 or 2 days: Homestay

Welcome to your new home! You've just arrived in your site. Your host family, who you met a couple weeks ago during your "site visit", helps you bring your belongings from the bus/tranzit/taxi station to their house, where you'll be living for the next two months. Here is your opportunity to enmesh yourself in the life of your village. Use it as best you can. Visit your neighbors. Help your family with their chores/work. (Girls, yes, you can go to the fields; guys, yes, you can help in the kitchen. You may need to insist, but they will eventually let you.) Befriend your siblings and their friends. And here's a tip: keep studying your language diligently. It's easy to slack off without the structure of stage, but trust me, the faster you're comfortable in your new tongue, the faster you'll be comfortable.

Swearing-In + 2 months: Leave homestay

It's time to say goodbye to the family that has hosted you, fed you, cared for you, and made you one of their own. Or, if you're in the unfortunate minority, you get your Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free-Card. Most of us enjoy our host families - I really love mine - but a few poor souls feel like they've been under house arrest. But however you feel about it, it's time for you to move into your own house/apartment and start taking care of yourself...unless you're in the tiny minority - no more than one or two per stage - who choose to stay with their host families for their entire two years of service.

Swearing-In + 5 to 6 months: In-Service Training (IST)

Spend a week in a Moroccan city with your entire stage. This is a blast for several reasons, not least of which is that you probably haven't seen more than a handful of your stage-mates since Swearing-In. But now you're all back together, in a city which undoubtedly has more going on than wherever you live, since Peace Corps doesn't place PCVs in major cities (for security reason). You'll present information on your site, discuss challenges and potential solutions, learn about applying for various kinds of funding, and hang out. You'll also get various vaccine boosters and your first in-person access to English-speaking doctors since stage.

After IST, you'll meet back up with your stage-mates at Mid-Service Medicals, at the one-year mark, and then again at your Close-of-Service conference, three months before you leave country. The rest of the time, your only exposure to other Volunteers comes through people posted to your region and any traveling you do. Does this sound lonely? It shouldn't. It just means that most of your friendships and interactions will be with Host Country Nationals, aka the people born and raised in your new country. This is a good thing; after all, two-thirds of the Peace Corps goals focus on cultural exchange. More on that next time, on February 7th...