This is my host family at my CBT site

The Value of Community Mapping

As volunteers we are expected to work with a community in helping to identify assets within and difficulties surrounding said community. To accomplish this we have started to collect a repertoire of different tools, especially useful in creating discussion. One of the first tools we experimented with, as a CBT group, was community mapping.  

One of our first days at the D.C. we divided the students in into one group of boys and one group of girls. Each group was supposed draw a map of their community and identify which places they spent the most time at.  This week we got the maps out to compare them with one another. The girl’s map had the high school, the dar chebab, the hammam, the mosque, the hair salon, the market, the s-suq and a coffee shop. The boy’s map had many of these things but also included the soccer field, a swimming pool, a night club and as you can imagine didn’t include the hair salon.

We asked the students to look at the main differences and first asked the girls if they played soccer. They did play soccer, but only at school. We asked them if they swim. They said they do swim but they only swim in other towns. They would not swim in there community.  Why would the girls be allowed to swim outside their community but not within their community, however the boys could?  As the discussion unfolded this is what we found:

The community that we live in is rather small and everyone knows everyone. The girls said they felt more comfortable going to a club or the swimming pool elsewhere. They said that if they go here (in what will from now on be known as CBTville) everyone knows their business and they are harassed about it. They said they felt more respected by people that didn’t know them than the ones that do.

This also opened up discussion about another topic. One, 17 year old, girl pointed out that in CBTville the number one problem is prostitution. She has 5 friends that she could think of, off the top of her head that prostitute themselves. You can make $2.00 every time you have sex with someone. The prostitutes in CBTville have created a bad reputation for all women in the community. The girl pointed out that if you go out at all it is assumed that you are a prostitute so it is better to go to a city ten or 20 minutes away (to go dancing, swimming or whatever it may be) where you can avoid the situation entirely.  It was a very interesting discussion.

The gravity of the topic however did not bring anyone down, in fact it also created a forum to discuss solutions. Some ideas were to create a training center for men to give them skills, keep them in work and off the street where they can get in trouble. And more importantly create a girls center where the girls could learn different crafts such as weaving, so that they could support themselves.

It is fascinating how just by asking these kids to draw maps and then by asking the right questions a whole debate can be started. We didn’t tell them that prostitution was a problem or how they should attempt to fix it. They told us. And essentially it is our role to give them a safe space to have those discussions. 

The Dar Chebab

A Dar Chebab is a youth center run by a Mudir (the director.) Mudirs contribute to their Dar Chebab’s to varying degrees. Some Mudirs feel their responsibility is solely to unlock the Dar Chebab at the hour of opening and to lock it up in the evening.  Others feel more inclined to organize activities. Associations in the area take on the responsibility of organizing most activities. If there are no associations collaborating with a D.C. to set up activities, then there aren’t any.  

The Moudira (female Moudir) at our Dar Chebab has been very friendly and forthcoming with information, although it seems inflated with positive characteristics and bled of any negative characteristics that might exist.  That said she has been very cooperative in letting us take charge of the activities we wanted to do in the D.C. in spite of the knowledge that we would only be there for a couple months.

Our main activity so far has been to establish a Friend’s club. Our goal was to create a safe space for both girls and boys to hang out, work on homework, play games, practice English and make friends. For us it was an opportunity to learn Darija, explore the culture of Moroccan youth and to get some experience teaching and interacting in such an environment. 

There have been several diligent students that actively participate and others that just come to play and check out the new Americans.  An average of 20 people come a day, a nice number easily distributed between the 6 of us trainees.  We start with an energizer, some kind of game to “energize” people and get them excited to learn. Recently it has been tossing a ball around and introducing ourselves, or saying our favorite subjects in school. After that we usually break into smaller groups of 5 to 10 and talk about culture or work on homework. At the end of this week we hope to facilitate a discussion about Maps we had the youth draw the first day we were at the D.C. That explanation will follow. 

Henna

Tonight I had henna done for the first time.  Usually women have their hands decorated in Henna before holidays or weddings. There was no particular occasion for my henna but the family was very insistent and it was quite fun to partake in.  Henna starts out as a green powder and is mixed with water and perhaps some other ingredients and mixed until it makes a pasty consistency not quite as thick as toothpaste. They put the henna in a syringe and then paint lace like designs on the backs and fronts of hands and sometimes feet. After the design is painted on you have to sit for about 2 hours for it to dry and really soak into the skin. After two hours you can scrape off the dried henna and underneath is a beautiful pattern. It starts out bright orange but quickly fades to a light brown. Henna is really pretty but it lasts up to 2 months. I think most people really like it for about 2 weeks and then tolerate it for the next 6 weeks.  When I had it done I sat on the couch with my arms above my head for a couple hours. I was trying to take a nap but every time I was about to doze off my host sister would yell at me and say that if I fell asleep my hands would fall down and hit the couch or my clothing staining them and destroying the artwork that was my hands.  It actually turned out really well and my family wants to add more for swearing in, in November, when I become a legit PCV. I have a feeling however that this henna will still be there.

More culture: grain & chicken

This afternoon was another cultural experience that was enjoyable or at the very least interesting. I sat around a table with a friend, and several women from my extended host family. We had a huge red sheet spread over our laps with a table in the middle of us. On women would pour a pile of grain onto the table and we would knock the good pieces into our laps and onto the sheet. We would take out all of the mouse poop, little sticks and other miscellaneous materials that were mixed in with the grain, that we probably wouldn’t want to eat later.  Later the women will take all of the grain that we sorted to a mill where they will grind it and then use it to make bread at the house.

When we were done with sorting the grain my friend Courtney and I met up with another girl from our CBT group so that we could go to the mini souk (market) to get vegetables, fruit and meat for the next week. It was all pretty standard until we got to the chicken market. We usually just buy a dead chicken from a store but this time we got to pick out our very own live chicken! We went into a big garage that had chickens just hanging out. We picked the one we wanted and the butcher slit the chicken’s throat right in front of us. He threw the chicken in a big bucket for a minute so that it didn’t have any room to run around like a chicken with its head cut off, LITERALLY.  He proceeded then to throw the body against a machine that appeared to beet whatever living daylights were left in the poor guy. Or more specifically, the machine was responsible for de-feathering the chicken. From there the body was dipped into hot water to get the left over feathers off, plopped in front of us where its internal organs were ripped out and then it was tossed in a clear plastic bag and handed to us ready to cook. It all sounds slightly violent but this entire process maybe took 5 minutes and it costs half as much to buy a fresh chicken like this than it does to go to a shop and buy one that has been dead for who knows how long.  

Coping Strategies

 

This morning I found a new coping strategy.  Believe it or not this whole experience has been slightly stressful. There is not a lot of alone time and I get overwhelmed being around people 24/7. When the Peace Corps asked me during the interview what my coping strategies were for dealing with stress I said writing in my journal or reading. Unfortunately there isn’t time to write and all the books I brought seem to be downers, which are hardly stress relievers.  The good news! Is that I found a new strategy.  I go to the roof and was my clothing by hand. We have a little washing machine but doing it by hand seems just as efficient if not more so. Lately it has been really hot and the water we wash clothing with is nice and cold. I just sit on the roof, bask in the sun, and scrub my clothing as deliberately but slowly as possible while enjoying music on my ipod. It is about the one hour a week I can sit down and take the time to think and process, which I can’t, do while trying to speak darija or hanging out with the kids at Dar Chebab (youth center.) Maybe I can also use that time to come up with another coping strategy for when in starts snowing and I can’t just hang out on the roof anymore.

Hammam Take 2

I finally went back to the Hammam again. This time I went with my host mom and there were significantly less people in the Hammam. The room that we were in was covered in white tile with an arching roof. There was a grey tile floor (probably so that you couldn’t see all the dead skin.) There were two water pipes / spouts that lined the room. One pipe carried scalding hot water and the other cold water.

My host mom and I both paid (under $5) to have someone scrub us with the infamous, black, sandpaper mitt. The woman that took on the job was probably in her late 60s , wore a maroon bandana and a yin yang ring on her ring finger.  She started out scrubbing the dead skin off of one arm and my back, which wasn’t too bad.  Then she made me lay back with my head on her thigh while she scrubbed my chest, under my arms and on my sides (OOUCH!)  She proceeded to reach across my body and scrub my other arm and sides which was not without the slapping of the face by breasts and stomach roles.  If this wasn’t traumatizing enough she made me role over on my stomach and scrubbed my butt cheeks. 

There were some positive outcomes from all of this. First of all, I don’t think I had showered for a week or so and the combination of sweating the grossness out, getting all of the dry, dead skin off and then actually washing my hair and body was surprisingly refreshing. It was also a chance to just sit and enjoy the quiet without having to really talk to anyone, a nice break. While I sat there I stared at the floor and thought, Ah man, I could be at home right now, in a coffee shop, reading or just hanging out…OR I could be in Morocco, getting scrubbed down in a slightly awkward bathhouse by an odd little old lady who has probably scrubbed down 1000s of women and thinks nothing of it.  Besides in all actuality I can probably find a café and some friends to sit with, if I really need to.