The folks come to visit and Mount Toubkal!

Immediately after Ramadan I had the pleasure of showing my dad and stepmom around Morocco. It was absolutely wonderful to see them, share with them the experience I’ve had in Morocco, introduce them to my community (and Marj J) and climb the tallest mountain in North Africa with them!

Marj and I picked them up at the airport in Marrakech where we spent the night and part of the next day. We enjoyed snails and a nice tajine dinner, wandered around Jamm Elfna, admired the Ktoubia and of course shopped the souks.

The next day we headed to Imlil where we would start our journey up the tallest mountain in North Africa, Mount Toubkal. They didn’t have a whole lot of time to rest but the kept it together. The hike itself was long and grueling. The first day we hiked about 7 hours. We spent the night in a dirty and crowded hostel, passing up the nicer one, without realizing our mistake. We were just too tired. The next day we continued hiking for about 5 hours to the summit. It was slow and I think everyone questioned their ability to make it to the top at least once…but shwiya b shwiya we scaled that mountain and showed it who was boss. After that we made our way back down to Imlil. I want to say that part of the hike was about 9 hours or so(from peak to Imlil.) We were all very grateful to be back down, sore but not broken and we were maybe less grateful to see another Tajine meal (our 4^th in about 4 days.)

The next morning we headed back to Marrakech and all the way back to Rosevalley. That was another 8.5 hours of traveling most of which was on a bus going down a miserable, twisting, mountain road. We finally made it back to RoseValley around 10pm and a nice gentleman helped us carry (in his cart) all of our baggage back to my house.

Once in RoseValley we rested for a full 24hours. It was definitely needed after the long, nonstop travel we had been doing for the first few days. After recovering, we had a nice lunch with other PCVs in the area and from there I dragged them from one neighbors house to another. We visited four families in just an afternoon. If you know anything about visiting Moroccan families this is quite a feat! People were so welcoming, providing us with tea, cookies, fried bread, coffee, soda and other treats. I was thankful to be able to introduce them to my host family, the people I work with, my host uncle and aunt and the neighbors that took such good care of me throughout Ramadan. It was also nice for all of my neighbors to have faces to go with the American family I’m always talking about.

After a couple days in RoseValley we headed to Ouarzazate from where they would fly out the next morning at 5am. We had a nice evening, enjoying some “grape juice” and sitting out by the pool to enjoy the evening. While sitting there a somewhat obnoxious guide (more than likely a faux guide –fake guide,) began to talk at us, ask where we were from, if we wanted his services, if I’d take his card for future visitors etc. This left a bit of a sour taste in my dad’s mouth but for me I didn’t even think twice. It is such common place for strangers to talk at me, harass me, and enquire about whom I am or the organization I work for. Some days it rubs me the wrong way to the same extent it bothered my father but for the most part you just get used to it and learn how to deal with. It is also a very real part of my experience in Morocco as a female PCV and I think it was good for them to see that side of the experience too, even if it was an abrasive part of it all.

All in all it was a wonderful time and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to show them my life here. I think they would say it was an enriching experience for them as well. Alhamdulilah!

Enjoying snails in Marrakech

Getting ready to take off on our hike up Jebel Toubkal

A view of some of the trail on the way up

Us at the peak! We Made It! Alhamdulilah!

Rose Festival

Rose Festival, May 5, 2010

This is quite outdated but since it was a success I want to share it with you. At the beginning of May the Annual, three day, RoseValley Rose Festival took place. This is often a great venue for Peace Corps Volunteers to do health related/community projects. Moroccan tourists come to town from across the country. Main highlights include a parade, the crowning of Miss Rose, and nightly concerts. For us PCVs in the region it would become the stage for an AIDS awareness/ testing campaign.

We started planning “the Rose Festival Project” in January after a regional meeting. Our goals were to dispel myths related to SIDA (the French acronym for AIDS,) to discuss modes of transmission and methods of prevention. We were lucky to work closely with a Moroccan organization to ensure community interest and participation and in hopes of some sort of sustainability.

Some of the main parts of planning included coming up with talking points, training our Moroccan volunteers and medical professionals on up to date information on SIDA, attaining a tent from which to work, and getting in contact with ALCS an organization that does testing for SIDA as well as awareness campaigns.

We worked for days upon days on this project but it was well worth the work we put in. Several days before the festival we gathered our entire team of Moroccan medical professional and a doctor from one of the surrounding hospitals came in to give a training on SIDA. We prepared in advance “difficult questions/statements,” that our volunteers could expect to receive and it was followed by discussion. Questions /statements included, I’m Muslim, Allah (God) will protect me. SIDA is a foreigner’s disease. My only partner is my husband, can I still get SIDA? Etc… We felt it was important to prepare volunteers for questions they could face. Despite some arguing the training went well.

The first day of the Rose Festival we got up early, marched over to the field that would be hosting tents, and set up our large, wedding tent. It had a divider down the middle so that we could have two sides, a men’s side and a women’s side. This would help us reach more people since we could man the men’s tent with men and the women’s tent with women, providing a more comfortable and culturally appropriate atmosphere. We had two Peace Corps volunteers, two Moroccan youth volunteers and a medical professional on each side of the tent at all times.

The youth volunteers were really what made the whole experience. Without them we could not have reached nearly as many people and the project would not have been a success the way that it was. The students were excited and motivated. Many of them were proactive in calling people into the tents, going through different brochures and answering questions related to SIDA. We spent 3 days form 9am-to between 6-8pm reaching out to people in the community and trying to educate them on SIDA.

All the while, next to our tent ALCS was providing free SIDA testing. Anyone was allowed to go get tested and afterwards they were provided with condoms. We were also handing out condoms, despite some controversy. We felt it was important if people wanted them, we should provide them. There was of course the age old argument, “if you are handing out condoms, you are encouraging people to have sex,” to which we replied with the age old response, “People will have sex whether or not we give them condoms. They may as well be educated and have a way to protect themselves.”

People were far more receptive to the information we were handing out than I expected. We originally expect to reach about 250 people. Ambitious, right!? In the end we reached 2560 people! We talked to 1250 men, 476 boys (15 and under) 681 Women and 153 girls. It’s hard for us to measure how much information people retained and if there was an increase in condom usage but as far how many people we shared information with, we are very proud of the outcome.

My site

We celebrated the completion of our two months of training and became Volunteers on November 12, 2009. I am now settling into my new site, RoseValley.

RoseValley is nestled between the Atlas Mountains and the Anti Atlas in a gorge known to draw tourists in the summer as well as locals who come to the region for the annual rose festival. RoseValley fluctuates between a washed out pink color, a brown or a grey depending on the day and the amount of dust in the air. In the region most buildings are either made of mud, similar to Malian architecture or concrete buildings. It is hot in the summers and cold in the winters but it doesn’t get cold enough for snow, at least in the gorge.

When I told the American fam yesterday it was starting to get cold here at about 61˚F (inside) and probably closer to 65-70˚ outside they laughed. I forget that they have snow and it is probably in the 30s there. The difference however is that they can go inside to warm up. There is no such thing as central heating here and the concrete buildings manage to perform as iceboxes in the winter and ovens in the summer, no joke. If I didn’t already have a fridge I don’t think I would have needed one until may rolled around.

I am living with a host family until December. They have been great thus far. I have a host mom and dad and there is a 12-year-old daughter named Soukaina, an 8-year-old daughter named Wisal and my host mom gave birth to a baby girl yesterday! They keep referring to her as Little Wisal because she looks a lot like Wisal but wont be given a name until 7 days after her birth at the naming ceremony. There is also a big holiday coming up, L’3id Kbir, the same day as Thanksgiving this year. This means there will be lots of festivities and activities going on in the next few days. These will hopefully be great opportunities for me to meet community members and start integrating.