So, for all of those out there reading this blog who are family members of my fellow volunteers here… this one’s for you. I’m going to give you all a little dictionary for words and phrases that might be trickling in to the conversations you are having. These are all either Arabic or Tamazight/Tashelheit words that we use ALL THE TIME! Here is how this is going to work… I’m going to put a word in italics and then give you the definition. After the definition, in parentheses, I’m going to tell what we probably mean when we’re using it or what the context is. The spelling on all of these is arbitrary transliteration so don’t judge me.
Insha’allah- “God willing” (this is probably used in every sentence and is the most used phrase. We use this whenever we say something about the present or future. For example, “I’m going to town today, insha’allah” or “I think I’ll eat nachos today, insha’allah.” Occasionally you’ll hear someone use it for the past tense which still doesn’t make sense to me, eg “I went to Mrirt yesterday, insha’allah.” If you have any insight on that one let me know. Now when talking to someone you have to pay attention to the inflection because it quite possibly could mean, “you are absolutely smoking something if you think that’s ever happening.”
Hmdullah- “thanks be to God” (this is probably our second most used phrase and pretty self-explanatory)
Shwiya- a little bit, marginal (if used as a noun, we’re probably saying it’s not that great)
Bzzef- A lot (On this word people can make some really funny inflections)
Zwina, iHla, izil, iغ uda, ifulki… - good, cool, awesome, amazing, fantastic, etc. (all of these are various regional Berber dialects, except the first is Arabic. There are more, but these are the main ones that I’ve run into)
Imkin- maybe
Souq- this is the weekly market that almost all of us go to in order to get vegetables and random other stuff. (It’s quite the event and depending on your mood could be really stressful or invigorating. It’s also a great place to get crazy used clothes)
Miskin- poor thing (so this is the nickname practically all of us go by. So whenever we answer questions about whether or not we are married, or how long we’re here for, or if we have to cook for ourselves, etc, the invariable response is “oh you poor thing.” We also use this to describe pathetic looking vegetables, animals, or really anything… eg. “Those are miskin looking carrots.”)
So these are some of the words that have become almost second nature to most of us and it pops in and out of our English conversations. There are quite a bit more, but this will get you started. I just thought I’d give you a reference so you can understand your loved ones. Enjoy!
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Family Visit
Ok, so this has been a long absence and I’m sad to say that so much has happened between the last time I posted and now, that I don’t know if most of it is going to be told. The good news in all of this is that I have a computer now which means that I’ll be able to write when I feel like it instead of hoping that my desire to write and my presence at an internet café coincided.
So here is the general timeline. My granddad and my Uncle Sam came for a visit which was spectacular. Interestingly enough all three of our first names are Samuel, a fact that was repeated quite often in our travels. We hit Fes the first two nights and crammed the three of us into one room which was alright. I must say though that it was quite the orchestra of snorers. Good thing I’m a hard sleeper. :) The hotel used to be the English consulate way back when and Churchill used to smoke his cigars in the bar. The only site in Fes that we really saw was the old Qur’anic school built in the 11th century if my memory serves. The rest of the time we spent wandering through the maze of souqs.
From there we moved on towards Marrakesh. On the way we stopped for lunch in my souq town, Khenifra, and ate with my region mate Mara. I then got to show them my house. We didn’t stay there long though because we had to head on. We stopped that night in Beni Mellal where we once again crowded into one room.
Beni Mellal isn’t all that impressive; it was just a stopping point on our way down. The next day instead of heading directly south we took the road up the mountain towards Azilal. It’s a gorgeous mountain road that took us winding through the entrance to the High Atlas Mountains. I think Uncle Sam particularly enjoyed driving the switchbacks although I was in the back trying not to lose my lunch. We stopped at the Cascades Ouzoud to eat lunch and were fortunate enough not only to see the magnificent waterfall, but we also got to see some Barbary Apes jumping around in the trees.
When we got to Marrakesh things got a little crazy for a bit. The traffic was bad and we couldn’t find parking near the center of town. After a hard fought battle we finally did and there was a guy there (one of thousands) who offered to show us to a place to stay. Although the place we ended up at was not the one he showed us, he did point us in the right direction.
The Riad we did end up staying at was called Riad Zakaria and was an oasis in the middle of the chaos that is Marrakesh. I really didn’t know what to do with myself on this entire trip. I was taking a hot shower and eating three meals every day, it was quite the change of pace from my regular life here. The guy who owns the place, Zakaria, was quite the find. The man helped us out and hooked us up with anything we could have possibly wanted.
We wandered around in the Jemaa el Fna with all of the snake handlers, wandered through a lot of artisan shops, ate amazing food, visited the royal gardens, and basically just had a good time in Marrakesh. The owner of our riad was also kind enough to throw Papa a little birthday feast. Once again, the food was spectacular and there was a lot of it.
We spent three nights in Marrakesh and then headed off for the coast to Essouaira. Now is Essouaira we met a bunch of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers who were on their way to our In Service Training in Agadir the next day.
For the record, Essouaira is now my favorite city in Morocco. Not only is it a beautiful little coastal town with a laid back, artsy feel, but we also had some pretty spectacular seafood there as well. There’s also a well entrenched little ex-pat community that vacationed there and never left. I don’t blame them. It was here that we parted ways and they headed back north while I continued south with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers to Agadir for our training.
So here is the general timeline. My granddad and my Uncle Sam came for a visit which was spectacular. Interestingly enough all three of our first names are Samuel, a fact that was repeated quite often in our travels. We hit Fes the first two nights and crammed the three of us into one room which was alright. I must say though that it was quite the orchestra of snorers. Good thing I’m a hard sleeper. :) The hotel used to be the English consulate way back when and Churchill used to smoke his cigars in the bar. The only site in Fes that we really saw was the old Qur’anic school built in the 11th century if my memory serves. The rest of the time we spent wandering through the maze of souqs.
From there we moved on towards Marrakesh. On the way we stopped for lunch in my souq town, Khenifra, and ate with my region mate Mara. I then got to show them my house. We didn’t stay there long though because we had to head on. We stopped that night in Beni Mellal where we once again crowded into one room.
Beni Mellal isn’t all that impressive; it was just a stopping point on our way down. The next day instead of heading directly south we took the road up the mountain towards Azilal. It’s a gorgeous mountain road that took us winding through the entrance to the High Atlas Mountains. I think Uncle Sam particularly enjoyed driving the switchbacks although I was in the back trying not to lose my lunch. We stopped at the Cascades Ouzoud to eat lunch and were fortunate enough not only to see the magnificent waterfall, but we also got to see some Barbary Apes jumping around in the trees.
When we got to Marrakesh things got a little crazy for a bit. The traffic was bad and we couldn’t find parking near the center of town. After a hard fought battle we finally did and there was a guy there (one of thousands) who offered to show us to a place to stay. Although the place we ended up at was not the one he showed us, he did point us in the right direction.
The Riad we did end up staying at was called Riad Zakaria and was an oasis in the middle of the chaos that is Marrakesh. I really didn’t know what to do with myself on this entire trip. I was taking a hot shower and eating three meals every day, it was quite the change of pace from my regular life here. The guy who owns the place, Zakaria, was quite the find. The man helped us out and hooked us up with anything we could have possibly wanted.
We wandered around in the Jemaa el Fna with all of the snake handlers, wandered through a lot of artisan shops, ate amazing food, visited the royal gardens, and basically just had a good time in Marrakesh. The owner of our riad was also kind enough to throw Papa a little birthday feast. Once again, the food was spectacular and there was a lot of it.
We spent three nights in Marrakesh and then headed off for the coast to Essouaira. Now is Essouaira we met a bunch of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers who were on their way to our In Service Training in Agadir the next day.
For the record, Essouaira is now my favorite city in Morocco. Not only is it a beautiful little coastal town with a laid back, artsy feel, but we also had some pretty spectacular seafood there as well. There’s also a well entrenched little ex-pat community that vacationed there and never left. I don’t blame them. It was here that we parted ways and they headed back north while I continued south with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers to Agadir for our training.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Thoughts of Departed Friends
Ok, so that sounded dramatic. She just went back to the States, but we miss her none the less...
So here's to Kaylene.
So here's to Kaylene.
Mara and I
Well here are some pictures of us working. Not actually teaching people becuase let's be honest, I think it's kind of tacky to take a digital camera in a room full of people who can barely afford food and snap pictures for my own benefit.
So these are poses of us working hard preparing our lesson. We actually did work hard, but by the time we got the camera out we were done working, so this is us acting. Mara's a better actor than I. :)
So these are poses of us working hard preparing our lesson. We actually did work hard, but by the time we got the camera out we were done working, so this is us acting. Mara's a better actor than I. :)
My Friend Alex
I went to go visit my roommate from our training... My brother from a different mother. His site is considerably different from mine as you will soon see.
So he always makes this face for pictures. He's not crazy... well maybe a little, but only as crazy as the rest of us here.
The rainy season has started, and we got caught in a strom on a hike. This is the rain coming down from the mountains.
So his site is actually in the mountains... barren, imposing, threatening mountains. I loved every second of it.
So he always makes this face for pictures. He's not crazy... well maybe a little, but only as crazy as the rest of us here.
The rainy season has started, and we got caught in a strom on a hike. This is the rain coming down from the mountains.
So his site is actually in the mountains... barren, imposing, threatening mountains. I loved every second of it.
Site Pictures
Ok, these are long awaited pictures of my site. These are shots from the roof of my house.
This is the mosque where I get my water. Someone blew the speakers on the minaret so the call to prayer is a little distorted, but it's become a fixture in my life.
This is the view from the opposite direction. The houses you see on the hills are populated by shepherds. There isn't any water up there so they all have to come down and get water from the same place I do.
This is the line of "hanuts" (shops)... and by plural, I really mean a chicken butcher and a general store.
This is the mosque where I get my water. Someone blew the speakers on the minaret so the call to prayer is a little distorted, but it's become a fixture in my life.
This is the view from the opposite direction. The houses you see on the hills are populated by shepherds. There isn't any water up there so they all have to come down and get water from the same place I do.
This is the line of "hanuts" (shops)... and by plural, I really mean a chicken butcher and a general store.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
An Amazing Day
So I am kicking myself that I forgot my connecting chord for my camera because I have some good pictures for you. I'll get back online soon, because I need to type out a site report for our In Service Training (IST) coming up next month.
So let me outline the events of the past couple of days. I took an out-of-site weekend to go visit the site of my roommate from training, Alex. He works in an extremely isolated site in the Errachidia province up in the High Atlas. There was a rugged beauty there that had me absolutely breathless. Part of that might have had to do with the higher consistency of smokers, but I'm going to go with the landscape as the cause. It just sounds better. We were in this relatively lush valley, but surrounded on all sides by vast tracks of sun-scorched plains and rocky mountain peaks. I've got pictures, don't worry, you'll just have to be patient. We spent the weekend doing the things we did in training... talking history and politics, playing chess, making fun of each other, and watching Sopranos. Now this is his favorite show, but I had never seen it. I'm shiwa (a little bit) hooked now. I don't have a computer, so I only get to watch movies when I visit other people, and it was a nice change of pace.
The visit was also an interesting insight into my own existence here. My site is extremely different from his, and I couldn't help but ponder how things would have changed if those would have been the circumstances of my experience. I'm not dwelling on that too much, simply because I love my life at the moment. I also stocked up on books. My friend Alex is quite the connoisseur of literature... a good friend to have.
From Alex's site, I proceeded on to Mara's site for another health lesson, and here is where the amazing day begins. So I'm skipping a lot of the trip, but I won't bore you with details...
So we had to get up at five in the morning for various reasons. Two hours later we would be saying that we just had the most productive morning of our lives. If the same set of events had happened in the States and we had described it in that manner, you would probably laugh. All we did was shower and eat breakfast. What you don't understand is that those few actions involve gathering water from the well, heating up the water (normally I don't do that, but it is REALLY cold in Mara's site right now), taking turns bucket bathing, and then cooking breakfast. First of all it was a miracle that we were both clean at the same time, that never happens.
So our clean, well-fed bodies were off to make the 15 km trek to the Health Center where we would be teaching people how to make Oral Re hydration Drink. We spent the morning teaching, which was good. Both of our language skills are beginning to be honed to the point where people understand what we're saying half the time. We got people to demonstrate successfully what we taught, so we know we were getting our message across.
We left the Health Center around noon and on the way out were offered a tea invitation which we accepted. We had tea and talked with some more people and then headed back to Mara's house. We then ate some amazing vegetarian chili we had prepared the night before and took a much needed nap. The nap lasted a bit longer than we expected, but we were up at 3 and went running for the next hour.
What then transpired, I still think was a dream. WE GOT ANOTHER SHOWER!! If you don't recognize the sound you're hearing, it's angels singing. Taking two showers in a day... well it's just unheard of. I usually take one a week.
We then proceeded to make some banana bread to bring to her host family's house where we were having dinner. We stayed there and ate where they made fun of the fact that the last time I was there, I fell asleep waiting for the meal and was snoring... apparently really loud. Now I think they are exaggerating a bit, but none the less it was not one of my finer moments in life.
In order to understand what happened next I need to give you some background. Mara's site is full of apple orchards and over the last week and a half, people have been coming from all over the country to pick the apples. Now Mara has been trying ever since the gathering season began to figure out how to get apples out of someone, but to no avail.
So as we were leaving her host family's house, the brother runs outside with a big cardboard box and fills it up with apples for me to take back to my house. So now I am in the possession of about 60 or 70 Dh worth of apples. Amazing. This would have been a full and amazing day, but it was not yet over.
We got back to her house planning on maybe baking some cookies, doing back rubs, and then turning in for another early morning, but the night before I had asked the family that lives in the same compound as Mara some questions about the Qur'an and they had told me that their brother who is studying to be an Imam was going to be back the next day. So we returned to find that the brother was not only waiting to talk to us (2 1/2 hours) but that he had bought what I assume was about $50 worth of books... an Arabic/English Qur'an with commentary and another book explaining Muslim theology. Mara and I were and still are taken aback by just how amazing the gift was.
After that was over, we headed back to her house, drank some coffee, ate the banana bread, read some poetry and then turned in.
Welcome to a picture of an amazing life.
So let me outline the events of the past couple of days. I took an out-of-site weekend to go visit the site of my roommate from training, Alex. He works in an extremely isolated site in the Errachidia province up in the High Atlas. There was a rugged beauty there that had me absolutely breathless. Part of that might have had to do with the higher consistency of smokers, but I'm going to go with the landscape as the cause. It just sounds better. We were in this relatively lush valley, but surrounded on all sides by vast tracks of sun-scorched plains and rocky mountain peaks. I've got pictures, don't worry, you'll just have to be patient. We spent the weekend doing the things we did in training... talking history and politics, playing chess, making fun of each other, and watching Sopranos. Now this is his favorite show, but I had never seen it. I'm shiwa (a little bit) hooked now. I don't have a computer, so I only get to watch movies when I visit other people, and it was a nice change of pace.
The visit was also an interesting insight into my own existence here. My site is extremely different from his, and I couldn't help but ponder how things would have changed if those would have been the circumstances of my experience. I'm not dwelling on that too much, simply because I love my life at the moment. I also stocked up on books. My friend Alex is quite the connoisseur of literature... a good friend to have.
From Alex's site, I proceeded on to Mara's site for another health lesson, and here is where the amazing day begins. So I'm skipping a lot of the trip, but I won't bore you with details...
So we had to get up at five in the morning for various reasons. Two hours later we would be saying that we just had the most productive morning of our lives. If the same set of events had happened in the States and we had described it in that manner, you would probably laugh. All we did was shower and eat breakfast. What you don't understand is that those few actions involve gathering water from the well, heating up the water (normally I don't do that, but it is REALLY cold in Mara's site right now), taking turns bucket bathing, and then cooking breakfast. First of all it was a miracle that we were both clean at the same time, that never happens.
So our clean, well-fed bodies were off to make the 15 km trek to the Health Center where we would be teaching people how to make Oral Re hydration Drink. We spent the morning teaching, which was good. Both of our language skills are beginning to be honed to the point where people understand what we're saying half the time. We got people to demonstrate successfully what we taught, so we know we were getting our message across.
We left the Health Center around noon and on the way out were offered a tea invitation which we accepted. We had tea and talked with some more people and then headed back to Mara's house. We then ate some amazing vegetarian chili we had prepared the night before and took a much needed nap. The nap lasted a bit longer than we expected, but we were up at 3 and went running for the next hour.
What then transpired, I still think was a dream. WE GOT ANOTHER SHOWER!! If you don't recognize the sound you're hearing, it's angels singing. Taking two showers in a day... well it's just unheard of. I usually take one a week.
We then proceeded to make some banana bread to bring to her host family's house where we were having dinner. We stayed there and ate where they made fun of the fact that the last time I was there, I fell asleep waiting for the meal and was snoring... apparently really loud. Now I think they are exaggerating a bit, but none the less it was not one of my finer moments in life.
In order to understand what happened next I need to give you some background. Mara's site is full of apple orchards and over the last week and a half, people have been coming from all over the country to pick the apples. Now Mara has been trying ever since the gathering season began to figure out how to get apples out of someone, but to no avail.
So as we were leaving her host family's house, the brother runs outside with a big cardboard box and fills it up with apples for me to take back to my house. So now I am in the possession of about 60 or 70 Dh worth of apples. Amazing. This would have been a full and amazing day, but it was not yet over.
We got back to her house planning on maybe baking some cookies, doing back rubs, and then turning in for another early morning, but the night before I had asked the family that lives in the same compound as Mara some questions about the Qur'an and they had told me that their brother who is studying to be an Imam was going to be back the next day. So we returned to find that the brother was not only waiting to talk to us (2 1/2 hours) but that he had bought what I assume was about $50 worth of books... an Arabic/English Qur'an with commentary and another book explaining Muslim theology. Mara and I were and still are taken aback by just how amazing the gift was.
After that was over, we headed back to her house, drank some coffee, ate the banana bread, read some poetry and then turned in.
Welcome to a picture of an amazing life.
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