f l-mgrib: Month One

Friday was my one-month anniversary in Morocco. My staj arrived in Morocco early on the morning of September 14th, after an overnight flight from JFK. We were met right off the plane by Peace Corps staff, whisked through the diplomatic line at immigration and loaded onto a bus for the four hour bus ride to Fes by 8:00. The first day was long, busy and exhausting, especially since I didn’t sleep on the plane or the bus. We met Peace Corps training staff, had the first of many immunizations and dealt with reams of paperwork that goes along with entering government service. Siad, the assistant training director, took a picture of each of us that afternoon, then printed them out and gave them to us as a memento shortly before we left for CBT. In my photo, I’m tired, unwashed and giving the camera a bitch face, but things have only gone uphill from there.

It’s been a busy month, and one unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The first week was spent in Fes, which only barely felt like living in Morocco. I was surrounded by Americans, the Moroccan staff all spoke excellent English and I rarely left the training center for more than a quick run to a hanut, the small convenience stores that abound on every street corner.

Then, after week, we moved to our CBT sites, which was a jarringly different experience and I was suddenly living by myself with a Moroccan family who spoke little English (at a time when my Darija was pretty much limited to telling people my name, where I was from and my marital status). My stomach was in knots all morning the day we left for CBT, and I had to make a fist to keep my hands from shaking as I entered my home for the next two months. That evening, I was sitting alone on the couch of my new home, nervous, clueless about how to start a conversation and dreading the long evening in front of me. Then Soukayna, my 17-year-old host sister, drug me over to the family computer so she could show me her Facebook page and took me outside, where I met the neighbors and we sat on the steps and listened to Barbie Girl on Soukayna’s phone. During dinner, Simo, my 11-year-old brother, made sure to find an American movie (Twister) subtitled in Arabic to watch, so that I would be included. All evening, my host family went out of their way to made sure I felt included and welcomed. I had anticipated a long and lonely evening, but instead went to bed feeling hopeful and optimistic about the next two months.

For the most part, living with a host family has been a positive experience. As my Darija abilities have developed, I’ve been able to start to actually talk with them, and one of my favorite times of the day is sitting around the dinner at table and trying to chat with my host mom and sisters. My host sisters and I have jokes, and my host brother and I play computer games and soccer together. They always introduce me as their sister, and last night, I told Simo I had three brothers. One was 23, one was 20 and one was 11.

“I’m 11!” he told me.

“I know,” I told him. “You’re my 11 year old brother.”

They’ve also been helpful when I’m studying. Ranya, my 13-year-old host sister, sits with me in the afternoon and helps me review my vocab flashcards and corrects my pronunciation. My host mom in particular is good at correcting me when I talk when her, but not correcting me beyond what I’m suppose to know. We learned present tense last week, and as soon as I started using it in conversation, she started correcting my mistakes, but last week when all I knew was the past tense and would attach deba (now) to any statement I wanted to be in present tense, she let it slide.

Not that living with a host family is always perfect. I miss the privacy and autonomy I had when I was living at home. My host mother decides everything, from when we eat dinner (answer: always later than I want, the latest has been 11:30) to when I can take a shower. While in theory I have my own room (a Peace Corp requirement), my host siblings are constantly in and out, the door I make sure to shut when I leave is always open when I return and after the first week, I realized that when people visit the house, my host mother immediately takes then to see my room.

I spend most of my day at school. I leave the house at 8:00 in the morning, and if I’m lucky, I’m home by 6:00. We study language all morning, and it’s amazing how fast I’m progressing. A month ago, I didn’t know a word of Moroccan, and now I have conversations. I’m comfortable, if not always adept, talking to shopkeepers and the neighbors, and yesterday I had my first program at the local dar chebab entirely in Darija, and it didn’t end in tears or fire or confusion. (Granted, I did write out the directions ahead of time and read from my notebook, but I also answered questions and talked with the kids and understood at least a large percentage of what was said, so I call it a success.) We’ve learned the entire Arabic alphabet, and I can slowly sound out street signs and write out simple notes.

I’m busier than I’ve ever been. In addition to being at school for ten hours a day, I have homework, grammar to study and vocabulary to learn, and when I’m not studying, I’m spending time with my host family, which is it’s own form of studying. There’s a stack of Peace Corp books on procedure and methods that I’m suppose to read before I swear in sitting on my desk, and every few weeks, I have reports on my progress to turn in. I live in a constant state of being behind on blogging and uploading photos and all my grand ideas of visiting other CBT sites during my one day off a week have gone out the window. I’m starting to feel a little frayed around the edges, but everyone I’ve talked to says that the pace slows down once you get to your site, and I can last another month.

Last Monday was National Woman’s Day, and the Peace Corps provided us with You Can Dream: Stories of Moroccan Women Who Do, a documentary about female leadership in Morocco, and one of the women featured lives in my town. Ten years ago, a Peace Corps volunteer had the idea of turning l3qad, the buttons from jellabas, a traditional Moroccan dress, into beads and using them to make jewelry. They applied for a loan and started a local artisans co-op for hand-made crafts. A decade later, the l3qad buttons and the co-op are still around. My host mother runs a shop at the co-op and sells jellabasand other traditional outfits. l3qad jewelry are now sold around Morocco and the women in my neighborhood sit on the front stoop and make beads while they gossip and watch their children play. I’m inherently skeptical of how much of a lasting impact I can make in only two years, but this co-op and the industry has made a real impact in the lives of the women here. Watching the video made me think that I have a chance of also making a real impact on my community, and reminded me of why I applied to the Peace Corps in the first place.



(Top Left: Entrance to a mosque near the Medina Fes-el-Bali (Old Medina); Top Right: Beautiful saqiya, public water fountain, in the Fes medina. Saqiya are all over the medina, and are still in use; Bottom: (from l to r) Fatima(my teacher) and Soukayna (my oldest host-sister)

Moroccan Hamam

I went to the hamam, a public steam bath, for the first time yesterday, and it was wonderful. (Okay, so I almost passed out, but that was due to user error, and I fully expect my next trip to be fine. Turns out, exhaustion and health related dehydration [remember that gastrointestinal distress I mentioned before] plus extreme temperatures isn’t the best combination, though honestly, I could have passed out and it would still have worth it to be this clean.)

Hamams are common in Morocco and all across North Africa. Almost all Moroccan towns have at least one small hamam, and going to the hamam is common. Most Moroccan homes don’t have showers (or even hot water), so lots of Moroccans make due with bucket baths during the week, and go to the hamam once a week for a good scrub. It’s about more than just bathing though. Going to the hamam is a social event, and friends will go and spend a few hours at the baths the way American teenagers might go to the mall or a café to hang out. (Only, you know, everyone is naked. And people think Muslim cultures are repressed.)

I went to the hamam with Kim (a fellow PCT), Soukayna (my host sister) and Fatima (my Arabic teacher*). When we got the hamam, we paid our fee and Kim and I bought ssabun lbldi (special soap made from olive resin) and l-kiis (the abrasive washcloth used for exfoliating), then went to the changing room, where we stripped down to our underwear (and just underwear, not underwear and bra). Right, the whole naked thing. You’re naked at the hamam. Naked around other ladies (hamams are segregated by gender) and the people you came with. You will see other women naked and other people – total strangers and people from the neighborhood – will see you naked. Some women even go sans-underwear. Nudity is such a non-issue at the hamam, and once I was in the steam room, I almost immediately felt comfortable, but I still had to steal myself (gird my loins, if you will) before taking off my bra in the middle of a crowded changing room, and I spent the past two years going to the Korean public baths, which are also sans-clothes and privacy.

So, once we were properly naked (and possible hiding behind our stools, like Kim), we entered the steam rooms. There were three rooms, ranging from super hot and humid to regular type hot and humid, but all of them were hot enough for my hair to immediately go POOF. We went to the hottest room to fill up our buckets (decent sized buckets, probably as tall as my knee) with water, and then retreated to the medium heat room to claim a corner and wash. First, using small cups, we wet ourselves and rubbed the sabun lbldi, which looks like a thick, black goo, all over our bodies. We let it sit for a few minutes, rinsed it off and then, using the kiis, began exfoliating. I like to think I keep myself fairly clean, but I’ve never done a full body exfoliation before and I was amazed by how much dead skin came off. It reminded me of those deep cleaning pore strips every girl used on their noses in middle school: you’re horrified by how dirty you were, but every pore strip filled with gunk (or in this case, l-kiss covered in a white film of dead skin) makes you feel virtuous and proud, because at least you’re no longer that dirty. Scrubbing took a long time, probably close to an hour, which I didn’t think was possible when Fatima told us about the hamam in class. I just kept scrubbing, and the kiss kept coming back with dead skin on it. Turns out, my armpits were full of dead skin. (Sorry, that’s probably TMI.)

After about an hour at the hamam, I started getting dizzy. I’m sick, sleeping poorly, not eating much and thanks to last weeks bout of gastrointestinal distress, I’m just a little dehydrated, none of which is good when combined with long periods in a hot steam room. I stumbled out of the baths and spent twenty or so minutes sitting on a bench in the changing area until the world stopped spinning around me, and then took the rest of my bath in cold water in an attempt to keep my body temperature down. It felt like such waste, since I’ve missed hot water so much, and when I finally had an unlimited supply of it, I couldn’t use it. Next time I go to the hamam, I’ll make sure to drink plenty of water during the day and eat lunch, and I’m sure I’ll be fine. And there will definitely be a next time. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite so clean, and it was the first time I’ve felt completely clean since arriving in Morocco. Plus, my skin was noticeable softer today, even my elbows, which are normally dry and rough. I want to make going to the hamam a regular part my life here.

Tips:

I’m glad I went with Moroccans, because I would have been a bit lost by myself, and the hamam might be the one place where I don’t feel comfortable looking around to see what other people are doing.

Soukayna and Fatima brought stools and a plastic mat so they wouldn’t have to sit on the ground, which was nice.

Bring a spare pair of underwear. Most people bring an entire change of clothes (my host mom was horrified that I came home from the hamam in the same clothes I wore there), but the underwear is the essential part, since the underwear you wear to the hamam will be soaked.

You can pay more to have an employee scrub you. I opted to scrub myself the first time, but at some point I’d like to experience a true hamam experience.

There’s usually a separate area for shaving. Look around and see what other people are doing before you whip out the razor.

I’m serious about the water. I bought a liter and a half bottle of water on the way home, killed it in an hour, and still slept through the night without having to wake up and pee. I was pretty seriously dehydrated.

*An aside about Fatima. She’s 25, making her the youngest person in our language group. She’s feisty and independent and confident and ambitious and everything America’s perception of women in Islamic country isn’t. She can speak six languages, has absolutely beautiful English that is being corrupted by our horrible American slang (we taught her the proper way usage of duh and the word doohickey today) and just got accepted into a graduate program in Fes. She can wear a pair of purple and green paisley parachute pants and make it work. Yesterday Jenn commented on how cute Fatima was and I agreed, saying that Fatima could hold a baby panda and still not be any cuter, that she has reached maximum cuteness. I’m really glad she’s my teacher.

s-salamu 3alaykum mn l-mgrib

s-salamu 3alaykum mn l-mgrib. I’m learning how to write Arabic script as well, but I only know 7 letters so far, which limits my written vocabulary to delicious turkey, grow, girl, door and room, so a proper greeting written in Arabic will have to wait. swiya b swiya.

I’ve been in Morocco for two weeks as of today, but it feels like I’ve been here forever. We spent the first eight days at Hub (a government owned youth center, like the dar chabab will I’ll eventually work) in Fes, where we got to know our staj (the staging group of 40 I came with) and learned some very simple Darija and basic life skills, such as how to poop on a Turkish toilet. (For some reason, the Turkish toilet session was on day three instead of the VERY SECOND WE ARRIVED IN COUNTRY, which lead to some foul smelling bathrooms while we tried to figure out how the hell to flush the things.) (I took photos of the Turkish toilet lesson.) (Of course I did.)

Then, seven days ago, our staj was broken into small CBT groups (I’m in a group of four) and we moved to small villages and towns around Fes, where we live with host families and study Darija, Arabic script and Moroccan culture. I really like my CBT group (three other girls and Dave, the imaginary guy we invented to we could practice the masculine pronouns and conjugation) and I adore Fatima, our teacher. My family has been great about letting me practice my pidgin Darija on them, although I end up getting laughed at a lot. Yesterday night, my host mama was trying to tell me something about eggs (l-bid), but I heard room (l-bit) and couldn’t understand her. Finally, she flapped her arms like a bird, squawked a few times and pretended to lay an egg so I would understand. Everyone, including me, got a good laugh out of that and my host siblings kept imitating her all evening.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well language training has been going. While real world application can be a bit shaky, two weeks ago all I knew was half of hello and now I can say whole paragraphs, especially if the listener is willing to be generous with my pronunciation. There aren’t nearly enough vowels in Arabic for my English conditioned throat and that 3 in s-salamu 3alaykum at the beginning of the post is actually a letter. (It’s properly written like a swoopy backwards three, although I’m told it looks different in script. I refer to it as a backwards 3 and it sounds something akin to an /a/.) Inshaallah, my pronunciation will improve, because half the time when I say something in Darija, I’m met with blank stares.

Two weeks into my service, I already have a reduced standard of hygiene. My family doesn’t bath with American regularity, probably because they perform ablutions before prayer, and I feel like a bother asking them to move everything they store in the shower area every night, so I’ve started washing my hair every few days instead of daily. I’ve also mastered the Turkish toilet, even with a bout of mild gastrointestinal distress, so I’m feeling pretty good. (Feeling good about my Turkish toilet skills, not in general, due to the aforementioned gastrointestinal distress.) (Also gone, any compunction I previous felt about talking about bodily functions. Poop was pretty much the main topic of conversation at Hub.)

I’m super busy with lessons and studying and getting to know my family, but I’m happy. The application was such an arduous process, and when things get uncomfortable or hard or I simply miss home, I remind myself how hard I worked to get here and that things only get better from here.

I am so lucky I'm getting to do this.

Casablanca or Bust

I leave for Morocco in an hour. Literally an hour - I'm sitting at the gate at JFK, waiting for my flight to leave. This time tomorrow, I'll be in Fes.

I'm really calm about all this. I expected that at the last hour, I would be awash with nerves and second guessing myself, but all I really feel is excited. I was worried before I left for staging, the one day long orientation in Philadelphia where we turned in our paperwork and got our government employee passports. For the past two weeks, I've had this free-floating anxiety that latched onto to really random things that didn't matter (including how I should have studied more for my planetary geology class 4+ years ago which, while true, is also irrelevant at this point). I wasn't worried about anything specific. I've done the expat thing and I'm pretty confident that I can handle whatever Morocco throws at me, however naive that is, but I was still worried and nervous and anxious.

And then I got to the airport at Asheville and said my goodbyes (which were awful and heartbreaking and I'm choking up thinking about it) and walked through security and poof, all the butterflies beating in my stomach disappeared. The die was cast, I'm was on my way, and while I'm still apprehensive about things* I'm not nervous anymore. Now I'm just excited. It's time to do this thing.

* We had a whole session about our worries at staging. Camel spiders and sexual harassment were chief amongst our concerns.

Peace Corps Chronicles, Part ! - The Application

I first applied to the Peace Corps during college. I finished most of the application and one of the essays before freaking out and pretending the application never existed. Joining the Peace Corps was a big step; frightening and unknown. I was worried about not speaking the language, living without the amenities I was use to, meeting people and making friends in a place so different from home, and I chicken out and never finished applying.

Two years later, I ended up moving to South Korea, so I guess the jokes on me. The key was, I think, not having time to think about what I was doing. I needed a job, Korea was offering one and from the first interview to boarding the plane only took a few months. By the time I grasped the implications of what I had done, I was on a bus from the airport to my new home, pinching myself to stay awake so I wouldn't fall asleep, miss my stop and spend my first night stranded in a bus lot.

Of course, I absolutely loved Korea. I loved the country, I loved Seoul, I loved teaching and I loved the adventure of living abroad. I was already thinking about a second year by the end of my first month. As much as I loved living in Korea thought, I didn't like how isolated expats were from the country we were living in. I didn't like how contemptuous so many expats were about Korea, how they seemed to hate where they were and the "my way is the only right way" attitude so many foreigners had. I hated how I wasn't expected or even encouraged to learn anything about Korea. My best friend had joined the Peace Corp shortly after I left for Korea and the more I listened to her stories, the more I felt like it would be a good fit for me.

I started the application again while I was home in between year. (In December 2009, which yes, is over a year and a half ago.) It took me about a month to finish the (very long) application, stress out about the essays and wrangle my recommendations (turns out Christmas is not the best time to ask people to fill out crazy long and complex recommendation forms), but I finished by mid-January and, as luck would have it, the Peace Corps regional recruiter for my area was speaking at few schools in WNC the next week and I was able to schedule an in-person interview.


A screen shot from one of my recommendation letters (sent to me after the fact). They, alas, changed the bit about the Cretans before sending it in.
The meeting went well. I woke up that morning crazy sick, but managed to get through the interview before I lost my voice for a few days. My recruiter seemed impressed with motivation and my experience. Everything was going great until she asked when I wanted to leave.

"Oh, next April or May," I told her. I had already accepted a contract in Korea, had boxes and boxes of things stored in a friend's parents' garage and I had done enough research to know that waiting for medical and legal clearance takes a long time (the average Peace Corps application takes about a year) and I wasn't established in the US in a way that would make that sort of a wait feasible. In Korea, I could live on my own, have a job (a real job, not a minimum wage job flipping burgers or making coffee), and be doing something I wanted to do with my life while I waited. Going back to Korea was an easy decision.

"You mean in a few months?" my recruiter asked.

"No, in a year and a few months. You see, I'm moving to Korea for a year next month."

She was stunned; normally people want to leave as soon as possible. "I'm not sure I can actually nominate you for a program that far in advance," she admitted. She thought the Peace Corps would be a great fit, but they weren't equipped to deal with applications with that long of a waiting period. She put my application on hold and told me to get back in touch with her a year before I wanted to leave.

While it wasn't the news I wanted to hear, it also wasn't a rejection, so I headed back to Korea and in May I emailed my recruiter, asking if she could nominate me for a program now. It took about a month, but on June 2nd, I was nominated for a Community Service program in Central/South Asia, leaving in June 2011. Nominations are for a geographic region, not a specific country, but it's usually possible to figure out what country the nomination is for based on what countries in that geographic region with that program leave during the specified month. Obsessive internet research of community service programs leaving in June revealed that I was probably nominated for Mongolia.

A nomination is a recommendation, not a guarantee. It's dependent on getting medical and legal clearance, timing, availability of the program once you have clearance and great deal of luck. After you receive your clearance, your eligible for an invitation to serve. An invitation is more of a guarantee, and is for a specific country with a specific departure date. A nomination is great, but it means there's still a long, uncertain wait ahead of you. None of the Peace Corps Volunteers I know were invited to serve in the country they were nomination for, and since it's August and I'm not in Mongolia, neither was I.

That was all in the future though, and right then, I was so very very excited.