This is Rose! My new puppy/Moroccan street mut.
She was found under a dumpster in Sara’s site, and braved the 40 minute cab ride back to Errachidia.
So far as I can tell, her hobbies are not sleeping between 11 pm and 8 am, biting, going to the bathroom in the house, and playing with her toy lion.
At the end of June, 50 girls Moroccan girls from around my region will come to Errachidia to take part in a three day workshop promoting women’s leadership and empowerment in Morocco. Because of a lack of transport for schools, and because this part of the country is so widespread, many of these girls will have stopped their schooling before high school. This workshop is an opportunity for them to learn about the empowerment and leadership of many successful Moroccan women, and how they can take hold of their futures and achieve seemingly unlikely goals. This project was organized by health volunteer Amanda Deen and will be facilitated by 7 other female Peace Corps Volunteers. Any amount helps, all you have to do is click the link above! I will be updating my blog regularly about various volunteer projects and links to donate to their causes. but remember you can always find the project websites here: http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate
Larissa, a fellow PCV, and many other volunteers will be running a booth at this year’s Gnaoua Music Festival in Essaouira (home of my spring camp!). The booth will be focused on sexual health initiatives, STI/HIV/AIDs awareness, women’s domestic abuse issues, and youth empowerment for spreading the word and getting informed. This is a VERY rare occasion that a presentation about topics such as these can take place so publicly in such a conservative country, so please help and donate, every dollar counts! The volunteers will also be on site to direct people to free STI/HIV/AIDs tests and distributing free “family planning” options. This is an incredible opportunity for both volunteers and the citizens of Morocco… help make it happen!
((Just click on “Help PC Morocco & Women’s Rights!” above to donate))
Dance Club presentation at the spring camp spectac!
(catch some memorable free dance and miming by Said around 1:20…)
birthday camel trek, merzouga, morocco, march 2012
Spring Camp!
The last month has been a whirlwind of events starting with parents visit to helping with new PCV training and finishing the last two weeks off at spring camp.
Every year, the Ministry (of Magic) puts on spring camps across Morocco which are graciously staffed by PCVs in all sectors (Youth Development, Health/Environment, Small Business Development…) and these camps, titled “English Immersion Camps” are supposed to be for students looking to improve English skills and have a week away from home to have a “camp” experience. Considering the Summer Camp is only in one city in Morocco, the Ministry has decided to spread spring camps out throughout Morocco to reach a larger number of youth, thus improving impact and outreach.
One of the best parts about Spring Camp is that we, as PCVs get to choose where to go. We can stay in our home cities or the closest town to us, OR we can (as I did) travel to an amazing town somewhere in Morocco we’ve never visited and work with PCVs we otherwise might not have a chance to meet.
So I packed up my swimsuit, t-shirts, sandals, and sunscreen and headed off to Essaouira. It was a long trip, and when I finally got to the Dar Taliba (or ‘student house’ where we would be staying, right off the school grounds) I was initially in shock. I had just spent an extra two hours and about 30 Dirhams more than I should have finding our digs, and when I walked in the room, it was filled with rickety metal bunks, stuffed with stained and bug ridden mattresses. We would be housing 45 girls in the first week, and there were only four bathrooms and no showers (there were some spickets sticking out of the wall at about waist height, but no buckets or hot water in sight). The Essaouira paradise I had imagined was quickly starting to vanish, but of the many lessons I’ve learned in Peace Corps… when you’re down, there’s nowhere to go but up.
The campers arrived and they (and their parents) had similar reservations about the living conditions. The director of the camp assured them that this was how all camp experiences were and the girls would be just fine.
And we were! We were all fine. It may have gotten a little stinky, and the bathroom situation may have gotten a little unpleasant, but we survived, even if we may have attained bed bugs in the proccess…
The campers our first week were better than we could have expected. We had a wide range of English speakers, and were constantly greeted with “Hello”s instead of “Salam”s. It was clear they knew they were at English camp and they were ready for whatever we had to throw at them.
We had English classes in the morning (I taught Advanced, and got to bring back some successful classic lessons, such as Langston Hughes and Idioms) followed by beach time. The kids would split off and either play soccer, basketball, or “games” which included things like relays and tag-like activities. We tried capture the flag at one point, but the kids didn’t quite catch on, they mostly just took all the flags and then tried to rip tem out of each others hands not really noticing what team they were on.
In the afternoon we would have library or quiet game time (cards, banana-grams, etc…) and then would have some sort of big outdoor activity, followed by clubs.
I initially wanted to teach theater, but it seemed that was something the Moroccan staff was really intense and invested in doing, so I instead helped out with dance club. Yusuf (our PCV coordinator) and Larissa led the kids in dances choreographed to lady gaga, beyonce, and shakira… I will post videos if possible!
At night, there would be a big indoor activity, Monday was a talent show, Tuesday - movie night (‘Up’ the first week, ‘Wall-e’ the second), Wednesday - game night, and Thursday - the spectac. What is a “spectac”? It’s basically a talent show with decorations and cake afterward.
As precedented, kids cried as the week came to a close. We showed a slide show with pictures to sad songs, and the kids hugged us and started chanting if we made them leave they would burn down the school. We received gifts and sad goodbyes, proud of a good first week and ready for an equally good second one.
On our off days, we rented cheap rooms at a cute little riad in the medina of Essaouria and ate ice cream, falafel, drank copious amounts of good coffee and layed on the beach until we were burned. It was incredible to be able to spend our day off in such a nice place.
When we arrived for week two, ready to make some minor changes, but overall hoping for the same week as the first, we were hit with a big surprise.
About half our campers, being dropped off by a transport bus, were small boys (between the age of 7 and 12) who didn’t speak any English and were from the local orphanage. The trooped off the bus with their matching crocs (what??), and proceeded to have some bad attitudes and feisty things to yell at us in the first day.
After a few emergency meetings about how we were going to deal with this, we decided to set every small orphan camper up with “big brother”… an older camper who would be responsible for their “little”, help them at meal times, have a secret handshake with them, and hopefully pose as a role model for good behavior. And it worked! Amazingly, it worked. The attitudes flipped completely within the first 24 hours, and little boys were soon paying attention, helping out other campers and staff, and participating. They even had a theater skit, dance skit, and song to sing at the talent show and spectac.
Whenever I work with small children like that in Morocco, it astounds me how easy it is to communicate with them non-verbally. Making faces, playing hand games, music, even things like tickling can communicate mounds more than sitting and having a conversation. One little boy, Mohcief, and I didn’t share more than probably 10 verbal words during camp, but he soon became one of my closest campers.
We also had an extremely social orphan, Said, who was always ready to show his break dancing skills and show off his capris and combat boots.
Overall it was an exaughsting week. The kids did end up respecting us, but among themselves were always getting in tantrums and fights. Unless every part of our bodies were constantly monitoring what was happening, the second we would look away one of them would have another one in a choke hold. Nights were short and days were long, but saying goodbye to them was one of the harder things I’ve had to do during service. With the first week of kids, you knew they were going off to their nicer homes, were they would take a hot shower and eat cous cous with their parents and siblings. With the orphan boys, we knew they were going somewhere probably comprable to where they had been staying and eating meals with each other just as they had with us. And although they have loving workers at their orphanage, this opportunity of camp for them was rare, if not once in a lifetime, and as they trooped on the bus, tears streaming down their faces, it was hard not to get emotional as well.
camp!
spring camp, essaouira, april 2012
So because there is so much to write/post about, I’m going to break my next few blog posts into a series of shorter ones. I have so much to talk about the new trainees arriving/meeting them and working with them on harassment training, the two-week spring camp extravaganza that has been one of the most memorable times in country thus far, and some thoughts on Morocco/American interaction, culture cultivation, and political clean-ups.
So while at spring camp, there was extremely limited internet, so when we got the chance to check email and news, it was incredibly upsetting to see that more pictures and materials have come out revealing the American solider’s treatment of Muslim soliders and civilians. The article cited that within the last 6 months, we have witnessed soliders using dead bodies as grounds for a bathroom, an open fire on dozens of innocent civilians, and now photos of soliders using severed arms and legs as props in inappropriate photo shoots while serving.
As I read aloud the NY Times article to my 5 fellow PCVs, there were simultaneous out crys of rage and palms hitting faces. Obviously, this is how any well-to-do citizen should react… we should all be aghast at this behavior. But this hits a different note of disgust for me and my co-workers, and before I go there, let me explain:
My first reactions, as I’m sure many other people had, was to be angry at the soliders, but now I realize that is wrong. If anything I feel sorry for them, for the traumatic and complete mind-altering situations they have been placed in by our top goverment and military officials, for their inadequate training and brainwashing into “kill the one who’s different” instead of “kill the one who’s wrong”. This lies in the hands of their supervisors and, more generally, in the views and teachings of the US Army as a whole. It’s disgusting, and if anything, I hope these videos and pictures bring to light an immense change that must occur.
And now for why my reactions are so strong, and possibly harsh… Imagine being placed in the middle of a Muslim country, literally 12 hours away from any sort of Westernized society. Families welcome you into their homes, cook you cous cous and make you drink ridiculous amounts of tea. They entrust you with their children and you slowly but surely build bonds and relationships and can begin to breach subjects such as politics and social issues. You teach your students about the importance of the news, about keeping up with world issues, and they bring in articles and pictures about science, art, politics, social economics, and technology. Then, one day, a Muslim student brings in an article about how American soliders were defecating on dead Muslims.
In that moment, it seemed that everything I had worked for to help my community understand not all Americans are the “bang bang, shoot ‘em up” bad guys they see on Fox Movies, all of that vanished, and I stumbled through an incredibly awkward and clumsy lesson. My students could see I was uncomfortable, they knew I was separate from this mentality, but one of my students was visibly upset. He had been silent for most of the class, so when I asked his opinion he says “the worst part is, if a Muslim solider, not even just from Afghanistan, did that to an American solider, they would be jailed and most likely killed”. I agreed with him, and he asked why. He said the act of what happened wasn’t even what made him so upset, these men were clearly messed up and needed extensive help, but that the accountability is gone. And then he said he felt bad, because the accountability was falling on me.
And I realized, he’s right. There’s been a lot of speculation lately about the “20 somethings of America trying to do pick-me-up projects in Africa” and these articles and view points have been extremely negative and in my opinion, offensive. Especially with the offshoot of the KONY 2012 epidemic, groups are using this to target organizations like the Peace Corps and certain NGOs. And what I then realized was that the people writing these articles and distributing them on their facebooks are the 20 somethings of America that are watching these events go by on their fast speed internet computers, sitting on their couches and proclaiming themselves ‘judges’. And when the NY Times prints an article about soliders playing Barbie with dead Afghanistan citizens severed limbs… the social media world goes silent.
I’d like to believe it’s easier to pick on the 20 somethings working under an organization named ‘Peace’ Corps than the 20 somethings with machine guns. But if these social word vomit ‘activists’ had to face the actual reality of what our soliders are doing to our foreign policy, I wonder what they would say.
More recently when I get ripped off, or hear profanities screamed at me as I walk down the street, I have less of a reason to react or yell back. With the technology era comes a great deal of knowledge and education. People in the middle of the Saharan Desert are reading and watching things they weren’t 10 or even 5 years ago. Our actions matter.
My next posts will be more light hearted, more about successes and happier moments, but this is something I felt the need to say.
I don’t have long for a long note, but I’m currently working and English immersion camp in this amazing town in Western Morocco and while the internet is limited, this incredible experience is indescribable! I’m working with PCVs from all over the country, meeting an abundance of passionate and amazingly smart Moroccan youths, having a ridiculous amount of dance parties with girls from the bled, and consecutively peeling crying campers off me as week one of camp ends and I prepare for a new one (with a new trove of campers) to begin. I will have pictures from camel trekking, my parents visit, epic train rides, and beach/camp time coming up in the next few weeks. Thanks to all for the letters and packages recently!
xxMaggie
I have so many things to update on, but first and foremost, Mom and Dad visited! They came for a quick week which involved good food, a little taste of America at Morocco Mall (or a few tastes… Pinkberry, Starbucks, Pizza Hut…) and a remodeling of my newly swanked out apartment. I now have a sink that works, I am able to shut the two windows that I wasn’t able to shut before, and I have a bed that is now more comfortable than the floor (which is something I couldn’t have said a week ago).
What did they think? You’ll have to ask them, but I think the overall impression was a mixture of shock and excitement (as was for me when I first arrived in country). My dad could communicate a lot better with hardware store owners than I could (“Construction is a universal language” as he said) and my host mom and real mom had a pretty instant bond over what it’s like to care of me. If anything it reminded me that while our cultures and languages can be different, the idea of being able to “speak human” is an important an present trait in many of the people in my life.
It was also strange to be with people who were still in the American Dollar mindset, and didn’t see the harm in paying the equivalent to a bottle of water or soda in dirhams… which I did too when first in country. I would often cringe at how expensive things were in the bigger cities, but had to remember, if we were in NYC, we would be paying exactly the same amount. And to their astonishment, how I would get fussy over paying the equivalent of $12 for a hand made garment, which in America is a price un-heard of because it’s so low.
It made me wonder if my re-acclimation in two years to America will involved an intense culture shock of pricing?
Overall, though, it was a really fun trip! They came to my English class, and witnessed/participated in a lively discussion about the differences between the American and Moroccan government systems and Moroccan social and political issues. I will post pictures as soon as they send them to me!
In other news, I’m now packing up (again..) to head to the Fes region to help with new PCV training for a few days and hopefully visiting my old host family. After that week, I will straightaway travel to the beautiful beach town of Essaouira to help with a 100 Moroccan youth English immersion camp. I’m excited, yet terrified, it has been a long time since I was in a traditional camp setting, and the prospect of two weeks of English, theater, music, art, dance, and games is awesome yet tiring even at the thought. I’m sure I’ll have a plethora of stories and pictures to share with you when it’s all completed.
Things at the dar chebab have been going well, and an actual break-dancing teacher has come in to start teaching the class (which has now expanded to about 40 kids!!) and I’m acting as more of a supervisor role (lHamdullah). I’m still plugging away at implementing the arts program at the hospital, which should take off when I get back from camp if all the forms and proposals are accepted! I’ve also made an exciting new contact with the Association for Development in Errachidia and the Pre-School Teachers Association and have some INCREDIBLE projects in the works. Without getting into too much detail now (because I still know so little) I will be teaching an English class to the board members of the development association (so they can better communicate with American and European NGO’s and groups that could possibly give them more funding), I will be doing a sort of “growing theater” program with the Errachidian orphans, and I will be teaching at the newly built preschool (starting in the next school year) for under privileged children and families. My site mate and I will also be putting together a teacher training program for teaching life skills through artistic skills (first stage shout out yeah!), and be doing our workshops at all 30 Errachidian preschools, and a cumulative conference with the only the teachers as the commencement to the program.
While I like teaching at the dar chebab, and I LOVE my students, it’s nice to reach out to other socio-economic groups in the region, and I’m excited to work with younger children!
On a sad note, my turtle Olive has passed away. She lived a good life in her nest of palm leaves and will be remembered for her love of strawberries and green peppers. RIP Olive.
Spring has sprung in Morocco and America (or so I’ve heard) and the warm weather seems to be bringing a lot of great perspective projects and activities!
ALSO: The birthday fun continued due to the African postal system, and my parents arrivale… so a big thank you to Mary Alice, Eliot, the Boyers, Lauren Parks, and the Perrys for more birthday surprises!
