Joyous Song of Expats Living in Morocco

I was happy to attend Mass today here in Rabat. It was almost all in French. A moment after I stepped into the church, I was glad I was there, just being in a silent church.

I arrived very early, perhaps an hour before Mass was scheduled to begin. A little after I had arrived, people started gathering in the front pews and started singing. I really enjoyed listening to them sing.

During the service, they sang a couple of songs in a language I didn't understand when I heard it and also when I tried to read it on the bulletin for today's Mass. After Mass had ended, I approached one of the young black women who had been animatedly and happily singing in this other language. I asked her in which language these songs were written and sung. She told me that they were in one of the languages of South Africa. It turns out that there is a South African expatriate community in Rabat.

So, I enjoyed visiting a church today, and enjoyed attending Mass today. I also enjoyed listening to joyous, buoyant South African song today, for which I was most grateful.

Taking The Wheel

I love trains and trams. So, while I've been in Rabat this week, I've been happy to be getting to ride the new tram which just started transporting passengers three months ago, so I'm told.

However, what I loved more was how at one stop, the man driving the tram stood up, stepped aside, and the woman who had been standing beside him sat down and started driving the tram. Many Moroccans are accepting that women may rightfully occupy a variety of positions in the paid workforce. On the other hand, many Moroccans believe that girls and women should restrict themselves to domestic tasks in the home rather than be employed in paid positions. Consequently, being concerned about women's human rights, I enjoyed seeing this particular woman sit down and start driving the train.

However, even more than either of these things, even more I loved how my middle-aged, well-educated Moroccan friend, who's a woman, exclaimed, "A woman is going to drive the train?! Great!" While I like seeing people make bold choices which show they are empowered, motivated and determined to shape their own futures in constructive and beneficial ways, what I like even more is seeing people who do so while encouraging, emboldening, and hopefully inspiring others.

A Breeze Is Not A Breeze Is Not A Breeze

At the beginning of this week, I was walking with a couple of other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) in a town near Marrakech. It was quite hot. After a short walk, we reached a bus stop, where we escaped the heat as we waited under the shade of a tree for a Marrakech city bus to take us back into Marrakech.

After not too long, perhaps 15 minutes, the bus pulled up and we boarded the bus. As the bus got moving, a breeze started to blow through the windows of the bus. It wasn't a refreshing breeze, however, because the air blowing on us was hot.

The next day, I was in El Jadida, a city on the coast. It was not hot there. In fact, that night, when I was asleep, a breeze was blowing, through the windows of the room in which I was sleeping, which was so chilly that I was uncomfortably cold.

Two places. Same country. Same time of year. Not the same breeze.

Summer Camp 2011

For ten days spread between the end of last month and the beginning of this month, I was at Summer Camp here in Morocco. Moroccan kids end their academic year in June, and they're off from school until September, so during the summer, Moroccan kids go to camps to learn English and do extracurricular activities, sometimes in their own towns, and sometimes far from where they live. At this particular Summer Camp where I was, the vast majority of the kids did not live in the area in which the camp was held. The kids who attended this summer camp, who were in their early and intermediate teenage years, traveled from various parts of Morocco to attend this particular Summer Camp.

At this specific Summer Camp location, we were both north of my town, and we were on the coast, so it wasn't hot at our Summer Camp location. I was glad that I was rarely sweating during Summer Camp, given how hot it has been in my town. In addition to it not being as hot as it has been in my town, I was also happy whenever we got a cool ocean breeze there at camp.

At this specific Summer Camp, we were working in a city. Taxis ran on and near the street on which the camp was located, and grocery stores were within a block.

The Moroccan Ministry of Youth and Sport runs Summer Camp, just like it runs Spring Camp. PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) help to conduct activities at Summer Camp, just like at Spring Camp. PCVs serving in various regions of Morocco worked at this particular Summer Camp.

On the day our Summer Camp started, I was one of the PCVs conducting LPIs (language proficiency interviews) in English of the campers who were arriving at camp that day. I began to interview some campers who, I quickly learned, did not know any English. I asked them basic questions like "How are you?" and "Where are you from?" but some of them could not answer them. I also held up some of my fingers a few times and asked them what numbers they were, but they didn't know. However, I also interviewed students at many other levels of English speaking proficiency, including one exceptional student who was probably just one stage or two shy of being fluent in English.

Once we had the results of the LPIs, the two PCVs (one first-year PCV and a second-year PCV) who were coordinating our activities as PCVs at the camp, divided up the students into six levels of English classes according to their ability to speak English. Some of us PCVs then taught English for the next six days of camp. I was assigned with another PCV to teach the second lowest level English class. However, we taught much of our class time teaching the present continuous tense. So, we taught the students in our class how to form and say sentences like "I am studying English."

After having a modest breakfast of coffee, milk, bread and jam with the campers, and then teaching the students English for an hour and a half in the morning, on some of the earlier days of camp, some of the other PCVs and the Moroccan staff took the campers to the beach in the late morning and returned in the early afternoon. The camp was so close to the beach that they walked to the beach.

On each day of the camp, we PCVs ate lunch with the campers at the facility where the camp was being held. At lunch, we usually ate salad, some meat which was usually chicken or beef, and, of course, bread. There's always bread at a Moroccan meal.

In the afternoons, we PCVs we also ran clubs for the campers. Other PCVs ran a theatre club, a music and dance club, a sports club, and a country club, where campers learned about foreign countries.

Another PCV, Kristen, and I ran a creative writing club, where we taught campers basic writing activities like writing letters, brief biographical descriptions of people, and poetry. One day during the creative writing club, I discussed humor with the campers in the club and what makes jokes funny in the USA. I was impressed at the jokes which the students wrote.

In addition to teaching English and running clubs, as PCVs, we were also trying to monitor and direct the campers' behavior by assigning them to five different teams named after foreign countries. Campers lost and won points for their teams based on what they did. Campers lost points for their team if they threw trash on the ground, swore, talked to each other in class, and otherwise disruptively behaved. Campers won points for their teams if they picked up garbage, correctly answered questions in class, read a book and summarized it for us, and otherwise constructively behaved. Campers had one such opportunity to earn points in the afternoon, during library time, when they sat and read books in the library and then summarized them for us, sometimes orally, and sometimes in writing; sometimes in Arabic, and sometimes in English. At the end of the camp, the team with the most points won prize bags containing short books and food.

Later in the day after club time, we PCVs also ate dinner with the campers. At camp, dinner usually consisted first of harira, Darija for "soup," followed by some kind of meat and bread. For dessert after dinner, sometimes we ate fruit, and sometimes we ate yogurt.

After dinner, each night, the campers performed in talent shows. Typically the kids danced and sang in the talent shows.

After each evening's talent show, we turned in for the night. As PCVs, we slept at the same facility as the campers. However, we slept in a different building from the campers.

One afternoon, some of us PCVs and the Moroccan staff took the kids to a nearby town and walked through the medina, or the old part of the town, with its narrow, winding streets. Given that some of the students at camp were poor and thus had probably not traveled much, I was glad that we showed them a little more of the region in which camp was held, since some of them had likely never previously been to that region of Morocco.

On the second to the last full day of camp, those of us PCVs who had conducted LPIs (language proficiency interviews) at the beginning of camp again interviewed campers to re-assess their proficiency in understanding and speaking English. I was pleased to see that a significant percentage of campers had improved in understanding and speaking English. Almost all of the ones I interviewed on the first day of camp who didn't understand any English had clearly become able to understand and speak basic phrases. Although I wasn't one of the teachers who had instructed them, I nevertheless found it hugely fulfilling and satisfying to be interviewing those students, and witnessing their progress in learning English.

On the last full day of the camp, we PCVs held an English Olympiad in which the campers participated. Each pair of PCVs who taught English class together over the previous six days ran a station at which we quizzed campers on what we taught during our particular English class. However, each camper only attended the same English class over the previous six days, so some campers were much more likely to be able to answer particular questions during the English Olympiad than other campers who had not attended the English classes in which particular material had been taught.

During the second half of this Summer Camp, we operated under an altered schedule because Ramadan started halfway through our camp. Many campers and Moroccan staff were fasting, so that they were not eating or drinking between sunrise and sunset. As a result, we started our days at camp during Ramadan at 12:30pm. Breakfast and lunch were not served. At around 7:30pm, when those fasting broke fast, all of us ate together in the dining room at the facility where we were all staying. This meal, "ftur," in Darija, consisted of harira, dates, "helwa shbakiya," Darija for a specific Moroccan sweet served during Ramadan, hard-boiled eggs, orange juice, coffee, milk, bread and jam. Around midnight, we ate a meal just before turning in for the night which closely resembled what we had been eating for lunch before Ramadan started. When the kitchen staff served us this midnight meal, they also gave us bags containing yogurt, bread, cheese, and sometimes cookies, all of which was for those fasting to eat just before dawn.

I feel that I should state here that I am not fasting during Ramadan because I don't want people to think I'm Muslim. I don't want people to think I'm considering becoming a Muslim. And I don't want to implicitly encourage others to be Muslim; if I were to fast during Ramadan, at least some, if not all, people would think that I'm Muslim, and that I want others to be Muslim. I do not want any of these things to happen, because I do not agree with basic statements in Islam. Islam states that Jesus did not die on the cross. Since I disagree strongly with this statement in Islam, I don't want people to think I'm Muslim, I don't want people to think I'm considering becoming Muslim, and I don't want to implicitly encourage others to become Muslim. For these reasons, I am not fasting during Ramadan.

How To Get Repeat Customers

Arriving in Marrakech today, I was exhausted. When I exited the bus station, I saw some vendors selling fresh-squeezed orange juice. Thinking about how exhausted I was, and how I didn't think I'd want to venture out later for fresh squeezed orange juice like I usually do in Marrakech, I thought that perhaps I should just enjoy some orange juice right away, there adjacent to the bus station. So I asked one of the vendors if his orange juice had sugar. He said it didn't. Later I realized that if an orange juice vendor in Marrakech pours the orange juice immediately out of a pitcher for you, it probably is adulterated, since many fresh squeezed orange juice vendors in Marrakech add water and sugar to the orange juice they sell. (Keep in mind that Moroccans add sugar to many of their drinks).

Dissatisfied with the orange juice I drank at that stand adjacent to the bus station, later in the day I went to a stand I had patronized weeks ago, where the young vendor actually had squeezed the oranges for me while I waited. Today when I approached his stand, I gestured to the pitcher, and asked him in Arabic if there was sugar in it. He replied that yes, there was a little sugar in it. I asked him for some orange juice without sugar in it. He proceeded to squeeze the oranges for me while I waited. And that's why I'm going to keep going back and giving him business.

Capital Improvements and Construction of Churches

I live on a short unpaved street; thus, it's a dirt road. When I walk out of the front door of my two-unit apartment building and turn left and walk a few hundred feet, I reach the second most prominent street in my town; it has many shops, including hanoots (Darija, or Moroccan Arabic, for "grocery stores") on it.

Last month, when I left my town to go to IST (In-Service Training), the town was preparing to pave that road. When I got back from IST, they had finished paving the road.

Although I've seen the workers using a steamroller when they are finishing a paving job here in town, the road isn't completely smooth once they're done paving. There are some loose bits of gravel on the road, which eventually make their way to the edges of the road. Even then, the rest of the road isn't completely smooth, because the bits of gravel which are molded to the road aren't completely flattened into the road. The more prominent road in my town, the main road, is paved a little more smoothly, since it's part of the road system which you see on a map of Morocco.

Earlier in the year, the town had ripped up certain roads and was making improvements to the sewer system. Once they had made the improvements to the sewer system, they then paved those roads.

In sharing these developments in my town, I'm led to point out some things about countries in which the Peace Corps places PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers). Since some of you at times have sounded surprised about the level of development and infrastructure in Morocco, keep in mind that the Peace Corps sends PCVs to developing countries which are at different stages of development. Consequently, some countries in which PCVs work are more developed than some of you might expect.

Also, remember Morocco's history, which has in large part been influenced by its geographical location. Being at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, Morocco has long occupied a strategic spot. As a result, many peoples over time have tried to occupy and colonize Morocco. The Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans invaded Morocco. The Phoenicians established the port cities of Tangier and Essaouira, as well as Tetouan. Roman ruins remain at Volubilis in northern Morocco. Arabs also migrated to Morocco, bringing Islam with them in the 7th century. And of course, much later, the French colonized Morocco, resulting in the Treaty of Fes in 1912, which made Morocco a French protectorate until Morocco gained independence in 1956. Over time, 100,000 French nationals settled in Morocco. In the 20th century, the French built their "villes nouvelles," or new districts, in many Moroccan cities, in which the French lived. The French also made significant changes to the infrastructure of Morocco, installing electricity, paving roads, laying railways, and establishing Casablanca as a major port. So when thinking about the level of development in Morocco, remember the historical context in which this development is occurring.

Also, when noting that there are churches in Morocco, remember the historical context in which these churches arose, and who built them. European colonists set up churches in Morocco for their own use. These churches remain in many cities in Morocco, among them Tangier, Tetouan, Fes, Rabat, Casablanca, Agadir, Essaouira, Marrakech, and Ouarzazate. However, they are overwhelmingly attended by tourists and other non-Moroccans living in Morocco.

Garbage

In my town there are garbage men who come to pick up trash, usually every week, and usually more than once a week. However, they don't always come on the same day of the week.

In light of how people here rummage through the trash cans and bags of trash which people leave outside their homes, often spilling trash onto the street, I don't leave my trash out in front of my apartment overnight. I don't care whether people know what's in my trash; indeed, there is nothing remarkable or embarrassing about my trash. Rather, I want to do what I can to avoid trash being scattered on the street. I've seen someone on my street sifting through trash, causing it to spill onto the street, even just within the fairly narrow window of time in which the garbage men here in my town usually arrive, between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.

So, I don't even leave it outside in the morning. Instead I wait to hear the garbage truck approaching, usually honking its horn to help announce its presence, then I get up and take the trash outside. However, sometimes they collect all of the garbage on my street before I can make it outside in time to catch them. So it can be a tricky matter, just trying to get rid of garbage!

This morning the garbage men came. They had already left my street by the time I got outside. However, this morning my garbage bag had a lot of food scraps in it, including onion skin, a few bad olives, and residue of pasta sauce, and I didn't want to keep it in my apartment as it would have continued causing odors which likely would have attracted various bugs. So I went off in search of the garbage men. First I walked to the end of my street, and immediately found the garbage men on the street perpendicular to mine, and handed my bag of refuse to them.

I'm certainly thankful that my town has garbage pickup. Not all PCVs in Morocco live in towns where their garbage is picked up. I'm also thankful that my town has garbage pickup given how many Moroccans often deal with trash.

Many Moroccans just drop articles of trash as they are walking outside. For this reason, I am glad that in addition to the pickup of household trash by the men with the garbage truck, there are also municipal employees who walk around the city with wheelbarrows collecting trash.

However, it has also occurred to me that perhaps people drop trash outside since they expect these municipal employees to pick it up. One day I thought that perhaps because the city provides that service, that that is why I once saw a girl discard a juice carton by placing it on top of a small pile of trash by the side of the road. That is, perhaps she left it there because she knew that someone was going to come along and take it away while picking up trash with a wheelbarrow.  

First Visit Back to the USA

So, in the last couple of weeks I made my first visit back to the USA since I started to live in Morocco in September last year. It was a lot of fun!

To take things in order: the morning I left my town, I showed up to the office of one of the bus companies here in my town and found out that the early bus out of my town was going to be full. I always go to the bus company office the day before I catch a bus to buy my ticket for the bus I'm going to catch the next day. But the day before I left my town to head to the USA, the bus company office was closed both times that I went to it that day. So that morning that I was leaving my town, after finding out that the bus was going to be full, I headed to the grand taxi stand in my town. Given that there are multiple ways of leaving my town, I wasn't concerned about making it to the airport in Marrakech for my flight the next day. Nevertheless, as I was waiting for a taxi to fill up, I appreciated how I saw a truck drive by with a large sticker on its windshield that said, "Don't Worry."

In fact, once I got out of a taxi at a stop about an hour from my town, I managed to get on the bus I had been told was full when I had still been in my town. Apparently the bus was only full until that stop where I got on the bus. I was thankful to be on a bus and not crammed into a grand taxi during most of the ride to Marrakech.

Later that day, I arrived in Marrakech, which provided the context of the blog entry immediately preceding this current one. I was glad to be on my trip!

Early the next morning, I checked out of my hotel and began walking toward the nearest petit taxi stand there in Marrakech. Before I got to the taxi stand, a middle-aged guy approached me and asked me if I wanted a taxi. I replied in Arabic, "Yeah, but it's going to be expensive." He replied in French, "No, seventy." I had heard from another PCV that a taxi driver in Marrakech had told him it cost 100 dirhams to get to the airport. Further, after dusk and before dawn, taxi drivers in Morocco charge one-and-a-half times the regular fare for any particular taxi ride. So, when this driver told me it would only cost 70 dirhams, I figured I was being charged less than the usual price, and took him up on his offer. On the way to the airport, I was thinking all of this, especially in light of how some taxi drivers in Marrakech clearly had tried to overcharge me on previous visits to that city. So after I paid him, when I was getting out of the taxi, I told him in French that he was an honest man, and told him in Arabic, "God be with you."

I was very glad that my flight from Marrakech to Casablanca, and my flight from Casablanca to Brussels, Belgium both went without incident. I happily ate some delicious food in Brussels, stayed overnight there, and the next day continued my journey to the USA. Finally, after one grand taxi, one bus, two petit taxis, one train, four trams, one metro, five planes, and one car ride, I arrived at my parents' home in the USA, 72 hours after I left my apartment in the Sahara.

I was very happy to spend time with my folks, and also with my sister, who was also visiting them at the same time. In addition to enjoying their company, I also was very happy to eat food I can't eat, or at the very least, can't easily come by, in Morocco. My mom made some delicious lasagna. I loved having bacon for breakfast (remember that Morocco, being a Muslim country, does not have a lot of pork, bacon and ham in it, except in cities, and more likely in the larger ones, and even then, it's not ubiquitous).

Another stark difference of which I was very conscious: though I hadn't forgotten, nevertheless, on my visit back to the USA, I was very conscious of how women are not covered up like women are in my town here in the Sahara. As I visited restaurants and shops, and walked around on sidewalks in the USA, I was repeatedly struck by how women in the USA often wear clothing which shows all of their arms up to the tops of their shoulders, their legs well above their knees, and, from time to time, exposes their midriffs. I was taking this all in in contrast to the women in my town here in the Sahara, who are covered sometimes literally from head to toe (that is, everything except their faces and their hands). If they're not that covered up, then they are only exposing below their ankles, even now, during the hottest part of the year, here in the Sahara. If a woman is exposing herself any more than that in my town, it is rare (unless she is visiting this town from a larger city and/or is a tourist).

I suppose that I was struck on my recent visit back to the USA by how relatively uncovered women in the USA are, even though in my everyday life in Morocco, I have been very conscious of how covered rural Moroccan women are, because throughout my life, I've been used to women dressing as they like. In other words, I was raised under certain customs, and those are still the ones to which I am most easily accustomed. Which brings me to a larger observation I had during my trip back to the USA. As I was processing my thoughts about what it was like being back in the USA, often out loud, in conversations with my parents and sister, finally my mom paraphrased my many observations, and said, "So, being here feels normal." And I said yes, that it just felt normal being back in the USA. I wasn't experiencing reverse culture shock, since I must say that I don't feel Moroccan. While I've adjusted to life in Morocco, I still feel like a citizen of the USA living in Morocco. So while it wasn't a gigantic relief to be spending time in the USA, it just felt good because it felt natural.

That is to say, I haven't adopted the customs of Morocco as my own. While I feel like I've adjusted to living in Morocco, I don't think of it as my own culture. When I got back to the USA, having been constantly faced with rural Moroccan women so covered up, it was a major change to see women so relatively uncovered, as I have for most of my life. I felt like I was returning to a culture which felt more natural for me, and for that reason, among others, I was enjoying my visit.

After a good visit with my folks and my sister at my folks' place, I flew to New York, where I again met up with my sister. When we had our first lunch there, I had such a good pastrami on rye sandwich. The pastrami melted in my mouth! At that meal, I also had some of the best cheesecake I had ever had.

I continued onward and then spent time with more of my extended family. The next day, a relative threw a barbeque where I got to spend time with a good number of my relatives. It was great to see them. They had a lot of questions for me about my life in Morocco and in my town, and about my work. At that barbeque, I loved eating a variety of things I don't get to eat here in Morocco, among them pulled pork.

The following day, I attended the wedding of a friend of mine to his sweetheart. I see their wedding as reflecting another difference between culture in the USA and Moroccan culture. My friend is Jewish, and his wife is Christian. By contrast, over 98 percent of Moroccans are Muslim. And on top of that, many of the relatively small number of Moroccans who are not Muslim are not that recognizable.

At the wedding, as throughout my visit back to the USA, people were asking me a lot of questions about Morocco and my life here. So of course I was talking a lot about life here.

On the rest of my trip, I was happy that I had the chance to see other friends. Among them, I met up with a mentor of mine, who had also been a teacher of mine years ago, and who had been a PCV himself before me. While we had previously spoken about our Peace Corps experiences, we spoke more over brunch about being PCVs. He told me that when he was a PCV, he left his town twice in one year, since it was so isolated, and since there were so few transportation options. While I have many times thanked God for the many blessings which have been bestowed on me, including during my time as a PCV, I became even more grateful for my current living situation once he told me how isolated his village was. I was also thankful and appreciative of his guidance and support.

It was great to get to see my friends while I was back. I feel recharged after spending time with them and receiving their encouragement. And, I was happy that, during the last couple of days of my visit in the USA, I shared great food with them, including more bacon, ice cream, and cupcakes, among other tasty morsels.

Once I split off from my friends and started heading for the airport, though, I was looking forward to getting back here. As I was on the way to JFK, I was thinking that since I wasn't going to get to see any more of my family or friends, and since I wasn't going to visit anywhere else in the USA or do anything else there, I just wanted to get back to Morocco. To get the long trip back done.

After I landed on the last of my three flights back from the USA, and was about to exit the airport in Marrakech, I decided to utilize the information desk at the airport. As I approached the desk, I saw a few Moroccan girls huddled together in conversation. I asked them in Arabic where I could catch the bus. They directed me to where I would find it, expressing surprise and smiling as they commented that I was speaking Arabic.

Having gotten the tip from a second-year PCV to take the bus from the Marrakech airport into the city of Marrakech, rather than being charged more for a taxi, I was happy to only pay 20 dirhams to take the bus to my hotel. And, it didn't even take significantly longer than a taxi would have taken.

The next day, I woke up late, exhausted from so many days of traveling over the previous two weeks. I caught a morning bus back down here to my town. Traveling through the High Atlas mountains, I was again surprised and pleased that in the summer month of July, with no snow visible on the mountains, I saw waterfalls flowing down some of the mountains.

I arrived back in my town late that afternoon, exhausted, but happy to have spent time in the USA with my family and friends, including at the wedding of one of my best friends.

Life Is Good

About a year ago, when I found out that I was going to be a Youth Development PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) in Morocco, I read a blog entry by a Youth Development PCV in Morocco. In it, she was consciously being grateful of the wonderful experiences she was blessed to be having. She wrote something very much like, "I'm on a roof in the middle of Marrakech. Life is good."

Early last night, when I was in Marrakech, I was on the roof of my hotel, enjoying seeing familiar places from a different perspective, admiring the beautiful, extensive and intricate tilework on the roof, and just being glad that the hotel in which I was staying had a roof for guests. Looking out across the city, I thought, "I'm on a roof, in the middle of Marrakech. Life is good."