The most significant development is that I’m changing sites. The Ministry of Health, upon inspection of my site, decided that they wanted me in an area where I would be a bit more centralized and thus have access to more people with which to work. Although I can’t name the new place I can say that it isn’t far from where I am now and I will be working with one of the same macro tribal groups so the language is only slightly different. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks meeting with nurses, associations, and individuals from the area looking for work and housing. Today I have a meeting with the Ministry of Health to determine whether or not I will be permitted to use the nurses’ housing that was constructing with the Centre de Santé. In terms of housing I’ll probably be taking a bit of a step back in that I won’t have either electricity or running water although the electricity situation might be remedied.
The main issue in the area is access to potable water. There are several springs scattered throughout the hills with very good water, but they are inaccessible to most people most notably the town itself. They have recently built a chateau (water tower) to distribute running water, but it is not yet functional due to some conflict with the Commune I don’t quite understand.
One potential plus of this new site is that I might be getting a site mate who will be working with the Water and Forestry on ecotourism projects. That could go either way but it will be interesting having another American in my site. I’m going to hope for the best and will get someone who isn’t going to make me any crazier than I already am insha’allah. I’m hoping to be moved within the month, but you never know. It’s quite intimidating thinking about almost starting over in a new area, familiarizing myself with a new local politics, making new friends, learning a new dialect, and just generally forging myself a new home, but I think I’m up to the task. I fortunately have a spectacular support system of good volunteers around me.
Here are some pictures of the new site…
Other than that things have been going well this month. The weather has finally started to turn and spring is in the air. I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll go through one more cold spell before it stays warm and starts moving towards full on deadly heat but for now I’m typing on my roof with shorts on soaking up the sun. Work has been slow this month in terms of statistics the Ministry of Health would be interested in, but relationships building has been flourishing both with fellow PCVs and Moroccans. I’ve been to a couple of engagement parties and unfortunately don’t have pictures. Both times a friend would come to my house and say we’re going to go eat dinner, we’d hike for a really long time and when we arrived lo and behold there were about 70 people all celebrating an engagement. I need to just start carrying my camera everywhere I go.
