Sahbti or Sahbi- Just Friends

“My Friend (that is a girl)” or “My Friend (that is a boy-more like a boyfriend)”

When I first got to Morocco I was writing a couple post cards to some friends. I told my family I was writing to a “Sahbi,” a guy friend. “Sahbi?!! Or Sahbti?” my little sister asked me. I said Sahbi because I was writing to a guy friend and that seemed the most logical response. She put her hand over her mouth with a big smile. That was followed by HSHUMA J. Hshuma means shame, shameful, or shame on you.

In Morocco girls DO NOT have guy friends. It is that simple. To say you have a friend that is a boy immediately implies that you are A) in a relationship (which is HSHUMA BZZAF- very very shameful) or B) that you are just having sex (which as you can imagine equally as HSHUMA.) As for men if they refer to you as Sahbti it will be interpreted that you are their prostitute not just their friend that is a girl.

All of that said, every friend I have is now a “girl friend” and not “boy friend,” no matter what his or her gender actually is. This makes it kind of difficult when learning the language. I am trying to correctly use “he” and “she” when telling a story and conjugate the following verb correctly. However I am picturing the guy friend I am talking about, referring to him as a she (because I obviously don’t have boyfriends and am not a prostitute,) and trying to conjugate what he is doing with the feminine form of the verb.

It is kind of like when you take one of those tests where different colors are written out in a color that they aren’t. Blue. Red. Red. Green. Green. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. You have to say the color the word is colored and not the color the word spells. It gets kind of tricky. So my sentences come out completely jumbled and I forget whether I am actually taking about a guy or a girl and my family just strains their ears to figure out who or what the heck I am talking about.

This whole not being “allowed” to have guy friends makes things other than just talking about the non-existent guy friend hard. It makes it difficult to socialize without getting a reputation. It makes it difficult to explain something that happened to a guy friend because people’s minds automatically go to the idea that you must be sleeping together and not what actually happened to that person. Any story you tell or person of the opposite sex you talk about is completely devalued.

I am learning to work around this but for example a friend of mine lost someone very close to him. He cannot share that with any Moroccans because they would never understand that he could have a girl that was a friend and how much pain it has caused him to lose her. They would ask if she was his prostitute, which would cause even more pain than not being able to share with them that he lost someone important to him, in the first place.

As you can see this is quite a phenomenon and one of the things that will be a struggle to work around for the next couple of years. And this is just talking friendships let alone anything else.

Workin' out

The most recent news is that I have been going to the gym with my host dad and two host sisters. Who would have guessed? The gym is pretty much all weight lifting devices and posters of body builders in Speedos hung up all around the room.

My host dad is friends with the owner, Nordine. Nordine is a 5ft body builder, with a large personality. When we show up he moves all of the weight machines to the edge of the room and he usually runs us through some stretches and then goes into some kind of aerobics workout. This is good for me because I am trying to get a routine together to start doing aerobics with the women in my town.

Nordine gets mad at me when I can’t touch my toes, I don’t want to do summersaults, or I refuse to do the old fashioned sit-ups. The fact that I have a lot farther to reach and a lot further to fall doesn’t seem to cross his mind. While we listen to the song “Blue” by Eiffel 65 play over and over and over I have to explain to Nordine why I wont do these acrobatic moves while he argues with me that I just can’t. How do you explain to a very confident, gym owner that some of the exercises he is trying to get you to do are A) out dated and B) bad for you. He certainly doesn’t want to hear it from a woman (who obviously doesn’t know what she is talking about) and in broken Arabic, nonetheless.

However I think we made some progress because the next time we met we made the transition from sit-ups to crunches and from the one song on repeat to a compilation of at least 5 songs. And I can honestly say I don’t know the last time I worked out as hard as we do at Nordine’s gym. Now all I have to do is transition from this work out session to leading my own. I knew those years of jazzercise in high school would come in handy someday!

L'3id Al Adha

And then there was l’3id al Adha, L’Eid Kbir, Tabaski…whichever name suits your fancy…

L’Eid Al Adha is the festival of sacrifice. For my family it meant the sacrifice of three sheep, one for the family, one for grandma and one for baby Aya. L’Eid Kbir follows the end of the Hajj, where Muslims around the world trek to Mecca.  The sacrifice of the sheep represents Abraham’s willingness to submit to God and sacrifice his eldest son. The sacrifice of sheep on Eid Al Adha represents the ram given to Abraham by an angel to sacrifice in place of his son.

This is a time to share food with family, friends and the poor. It is also a time to reflect on the sacredness of life as we take the life of an animal, over which God has given us power.  Lastly it is a time to make sacrifices and remember that we all have to make sacrifices to stay on the correct path in life.

We got up early and all of the men went to the mosque to pray. The women got breakfast ready and we all ate together when the men returned. After that the men cleaned the roof where the sacrifice was to take place. We did not kill the sheep in front of one another.  Two men held the sheep down while the third slit the sheep’s throat in just the right spot. A spurt of blood would shoot out, all of the men would jump back, and the sheep would flop about. The men would then pour water over the throat, which seemed to put a stop to any movement. Next they would blow the sheep up through a slit on the leg between the bone and skin. The sheep’s legs were broken, slipped through a rope hanging from the ceiling and then the skin was peeled off. It is actually pretty incredible how they can just pull the whole pelt off, kind of like a tight sweater you have to squirm to get off. But it comes off all in one piece. They then blew out the intestines as little pelets of poop went round in round. It sounded something like a balloon with beans in it being shaken about. The women had the responsibility of cleaning out the insides and preparing them for dinner. I was slightly amused, however morbid, to see lungs, liver, and the esophagus hanging out to dry on the laundry line with some of yesterday’s laundry.

I was relieved to eat Chicken for lunch that day but ever since we have had grilled meat for just about every meal. We had grilled liver, heart, lung , shish kebabs. The lungs had the best flavor but the worst texture, slightly spongy. I liked the heart best and the liver least. We also had sheep skull for dinner one night. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there were anything on the skulls other then fatty, mushy, slimy flesh and teeth. Last night we had sheep brains fried up with eggs. They were spongy but with a ratio of 2:1 bread to braineggs I couldn’t taste them much. In between all of these meals have been some very satisfying kebabs of grilled meat. They always taste a little gamey but hey its grilled meat, I’m not complaining.

As the Eid celebration has started to come to an end the meals of sheep parts have not. 

Aya

This has been an eventful week! It started off with the birth of a new member of the family, Aya. It ended with the slaughtering of three Sheep in celebration of the Eid Al Adha, and the arrival of family members galore.

To start I went to visit my host mom in the hospital where she stayed for 3 days after she gave birth. It is only about a three-minute walk across a huge dirt field to get there from my house. On the way I thought to myself, I wonder if I should turn my cell phone off…You know hospital rules and all. I decided to wait and see what the set up was.

We walked in as though we owned the place, carrying hot tea, otherwise known as sugar water with a dash of tea, soup, fruit juice and a tajine. I imagined the uncomfortable sterile feeling of hospitals, rubber gloves, scrubs, and the ceaseless beeps of machines monitoring ones heart rate.  In front of me was a bed with a woman looking uncomfortable and slightly disturbed to see these new guests. On the bed next to her appeared to be another woman buried beneath a pile of blankets. There was a third bed with a gray, foam/plastic mattress covered in stains. Lastly against the wall lay my host mom under the blanket we brought from home, tired, but happy to have company. Sitting next to her was the new healthy baby girl.

I sat on the plastic stained bed while my host grandma, Hadja, force-fed my host mom tajine and juice. The families have to provide any food, blankets, clothing etc…for the patient in the hospital.  Hadja went to the hospital several times throughout the day to bring food and keep Amina company. I was just grateful she finally had the baby. I was starting to worry.

As I sat on the bed I laughed at the fact that I had even wondered if I should turn my phone off. From where did I think they would get fancy heart monitoring machines?  A calico cat strutted in, eyed up the bed with one of the sleeping women, before he decided to just sit under the bed. A white cat followed him in and circled the room; I thought maybe he was the doctor. It all made sense though, when a visiting little boy came in and threw food under the bed to the cat. No wonder they think they own the place.  

Three days later my host mom came home. They have since put Henna on one of the baby’s hands and black eyeliner under her eyes. I haven’t quite figured it out. They have been very careful about not letting anyone get too close to her yet and Amina is very careful about sanitizing her breasts before feeding Aya and washing her hands regularly. I don’t know what damage Henna or eyeliner would do but it seems like a silly contradiction to smother these eyes, that are barely opened as it is, in black goop, but to make sure no one but her mother goes near her.  It is funny, some days I feel like Morocco really isn’t that different …Then I watch my grandmother wrap her grandson in a white cloth, followed by an ace bandage, spinning him around and around until you can’t see anything but his little head. He literally looks like a mummy. He is then placed on his back, on his mom’s back, and tied on with a long colorful cloth…and I remember, no, I’m really not in Kansas anymore. 

Thanksgiving

A couple nights ago I was able to go to a Thanksgiving dinner with about 10 other Volunteers. We decided to do an early Thanksgiving because of travel restrictions and the big Moroccan holiday that both happen to surround Thanksgiving Day this year.

 Several people really took charge with the planning and we were able to get a turkey and cook it at the local bakery/hammam because it was too big to cook in the oven at the house. It was really nice to take the time to celebrate with these other PCVs. Most of them have been here between 8 months to 1.5 years and had lots of insight into PC service in Morocco. I learned from every conversation I had. Topics involved some kind of project planning, cultural or social analyses or how to convey what we are learning and experiencing here to people that can’t be here to share the experience with us.  It was all very positive.

We started dinner with the things we were thankful for and ended it with a game of charades.  If/Since I couldn’t celebrate at home with family this was the next best thing. 

I am thankful for all of your support and the many opportunities I have been given throughout my life. I am thankful for my wonderful friends and family and the new friends and family I am developing here. I couldn't do it without you. 

RoseValley Dar Chebab

My Dar Chebab is a concrete building with 5 rooms. One room is a little bigger and has been used as an exercise room or a room for theater activities in the past(until the roof started caving in). There is a room to teach English, a little English Library, the Moudir’s office, and a storage room.  It also sounds like a new Dar Chebab is in the works but it is unclear yet as to when it will actually be built.

 I am hoping to set up my schedule next week. I’d like to teach a few English classes a week, an art class, and to hang out in the English Library a few hours a week to give the kids a place to read, study, or play. This is kind of my projected plan while I get to know my community and I start to talk to them about what they are interested in, for the future.

I then want to set aside a couple hours a week to do a leadership club and workshops on different health issues or social issues but that will come later. Right now my main goals are learning the language and integrating. I think once I get into a groove at the Dar Chebab time will start to fly. 

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.