new apartment

On a different note I moved into my new place at the beginning of January. It is a small, concrete apartment. Most of the rooms are a sky blue except for the hallway, which is covered in tiles.

There is a living room, the only room with real windows, which I hang out in all the time. There are two other rooms, one, which acts as a bedroom, and the second, which is currently a storage room. It may or may not be transformed into a real room at some point. In addition to the other three rooms there is kitchen with very low counters and a shower/squat toilet. I say shower/squat toilet because it is one and the same. I have a learned the hard way to put a water bottle in the hole of the toilet when I shower to avoid dropping bars of soap down the hole.

The house, other than being at an average of 45°F, is awesome. No one can quite understand why a young, unmarried girl would want to live on her own but I am thrilled to have my house. As long as I don’t make a habit of using the house as a hiding place, I think it will work out perfectly. Although I may have to put a sign on the inside of my door that says, “GO OUTSIDE FAUVE.”

Other than that, being able to cook what I want and eat when I want is amazing. You would think having someone cook for you all the time would be nice (and it is) but alas…

Other highlights in the house are the ability to blast music, the heated blanket and down comforter (thanks dad J) tiled walls, roof upon which to do laundry, skylight that leaks when it rains, and the fact that it is a safe place where I don’t have to put on a show at least a few hours a day.

Teaching English

I’ve been teaching an English class once a week. The first couple times were very impromptu but they went okay. It really just made me realize how much more I have to learn.

After that I started doing more formal classes and had about 15 students coming regularly. At this time I also had an hour dedicated to doing art with the kids, an evening dedicated to games and hanging out and a couple evenings dedicated to a journalism club. The moudir however started enforcing the enrollment fee of 25Dirhams. I now have about 7 students that come regularly.

Right now I am at my Post-Pre service training and hoping that when I go back to RoseValley I can just start over. It is time to get a class going for the BAC students in the area. (the BAC is the end of the year exam for high school students that dictates whether they graduate or not. They have two tries to pass the exam at which point they either graduate or are kicked out of school. ) Women in the area have been asking for both an English class and an aerobics class. Inchallah.

I am getting excited about teaching English though because I am starting to understand the concept of content-based training. Through teaching English you teach about different topics that can also create awareness about important things.

For example something as simple as teaching the conditional: would, should, could and asking students to create a sentence using “If I was a boy, I would _______________________” and “If I was a girl, I would___________________,” you can create a discussion about men’s and women’s roles in society.

This works with introducing lessons about gender, environment, health and any number of other issues. Again, Inchallah.

SIDA project/ Rose Festival

My main project right now is a SIDA/VIH (AIDS/HIV) awareness project. I am currently collaborating with about ten other volunteers and a local SIDA organization just outside my town.

The Organization with which we are collaborating does SIDA education in the several towns near mine. Their main focus is on educating prostitutes, boys ages 14-21 and truck drivers on different aspects of SIDA including transmission, ways to protect oneself, and the impacts SIDA can have on ones life.

A recent and primary role of ours, while working with this organization, has been to share ideas and techniques of transferring information in a way that people can be receptive to it. We first sat in on a presentation to high school students about the topic of SIDA. The lecture was a few hours long, it was a PowerPoint and kids were coming and going at their leisure. From our perspective, no one wants or has time to sit for that long. No one wants to be talked AT about a subject that makes him or her uncomfortable, with three people to a desk, in a small classroom of 70ish people.

From here we were able to have meetings with the organization and discuss some of our ideas. For example, come up with a one-hour presentation that can be repeated over and over. This way students have time to stay for the presentation, it keeps their attention longer, and they get all of the information.

Another idea was to include an activity to get the students involved in the education. Of course we as PCVs have a hundred games related to SIDA education up our sleeves. We shared some of these with the organization and did one of the activities together. Even if there is a class of 70 you can bring 10 kids in front of the class and have them do the activity in front of everyone. It helps keep people’s attention and keeps it interesting.

I’d like to think even just sharing little ideas like this makes some sort of difference.

Now…the next part of our project has to do with the Rose Festival that takes place in RoseValley every May. PCVs are known for putting up a SIDA booth to help make people aware of the impact SIDA(and other STIs) can have in their lives . There are also a high number of prostitutes in RoseValley (Though by no means unique to RoseValley) and their work increases tremendously during the Rose Festival. People come from all over the country to visit the Rose Festival and it is not unlikely that many men will take that opportunity to visit prostitutes.

We are working with this same organization to do training with the prostitutes and their Madames and Pimps about two weeks before the festival in an effort to increase their knowledge of diseases and the benefits to protecting oneself. We are hoping that by putting a financial spin on it and an emphasis on the fact that a sick sex worker cannot continue to work and make money that they can benefit from protecting themselves. I would like to think that just talking about the fact that protection is important for their own health and for the sake of their own well being, would be enough but…its not. And currently a person pays more to have sex with a condom than without.

Another facet of the Rose Festival SIDA awareness campaign will be directing our energy towards women. We have always had one booth to talk about SIDA but clearly women and men will not feel comfortable coming to the same tent. Our goal is to get an extra tent or make our own under the pretense that we are doing a women’s wellness campaign. This will allow us to not only speak about SIDA but the mudawana (family code,) STIs, maternal health among a variety of other subjects. It also gives some anonymity to the women that are taking advantage of the booth to educate themselves about SIDA and other STIs..

A third facet of this SIDA project is our goal of securing an ALCS (association de lutte contre la SIDA, The Association to Fight Against AIDS) vehicle to be present at the festival. They bring a bus in which people can get tested for SIDA, similar to the way we have buses that go to different events in which we can donate blood.

So, why SIDA/STIs? Is SIDA really prevalent in Morocco? Are people uneducated about SIDA?

We are focusing on SIDA for several reasons. For one when we are talking about SIDA we hope to include other STIs in our education. People in Morocco know what SIDA is and know that it can result in death but they are uneducated about other STIs and the fact that they can be equally as detrimental to their lives and their families.

Secondly, marriage in Morocco tends to be a contract between two people to make a family. There is no real sexual exploration and women in general don’t get a lot of say in how sexual relations play out. If men want to have a baby they have sex with their wife. If they want anything else they often go to a prostitute.

Thirdly a woman doesn’t have a lot of power in the bedroom when it comes to whether or not their husband uses a condom. Asking them to use a condom implies that the wife thinks the husband is “dirty.” And a wife doesn’t necessarily know if or how many prostitutes her husband may be sleeping with.

In addition sex and sexuality is taboo and there is no formal education on the topic. People learn about it predominately from friends, porn, or visiting prostitutes. If all of your knowledge about sex and sexuality comes from porn and prostitutes it is bound to be a little twisted.

In Morocco(2007) , according to UNICEF, there is a prevalence rate of .1% and approximately 21,000 living with HIV/AIDS. It is expected that the number has increased since then. This is relatively low but when diseases grow exponentially each year the scale can tip rapidly. And in addition the amount of people with STIs are likely significantly higher.

Anyway, As we do this work we are in full collaboration with different members of Moroccan society. Moroccan counterparts give lectures and will be at the booths disseminating information at the Rose Festival. Our role is to find people to distribute information and with whom we can share activities and ideas. We rely on Moroccans to spread the word. People are way more likely to be receptive of this information when it is coming form their peers when it is coming from a strange foreigner. Anyway… all that to say…Inchallah …wait… NO, not god willing, just protection protection protection!

Regional Meeting

Not long after the New Year I had a nice meeting with my region mates. I live in the Ouarzazate region of Morocco and all the volunteers in the area (Health, Environment, Small Business Development, and Youth Development) got together to discuss regional projects and plans. There were around 16 people including several volunteers from other regions joining us to get an idea of how these meetings work.

Regional meetings are entirely volunteer driven and while encouraged by Peace Corps Morocco, the volunteers are responsible for making it happen. Our goals were to share project ideas, best practices and offer help to other volunteers when possible.

It was helpful to me because I not only got ideas about how to get Dar Chebab students active, ideas for SIDA (AIDS) and environmental projects to do at site, but I was also able to meet the different people in my region who are my ultimate support and go to people.

This meeting was also beneficial because it was the beginnings of a large SIDA project as well as planning for the Rose Festival that takes place in RoseValley every year. It is really nice to have a large group of volunteers to work with because the work can be divided and it is possible to reach a wider audience when we work together. I also really like this project because I can be more involved with some of the planning aspects and logistics but the attention is never directly on me (I will tell you more about this project in the next post.)

Hopefully these regional meetings will continue and allow us to keep up the regional collaboration. Each person has their specializations and it is advantageous to all of us to be able to share the resources and knowledge we have.

The New Years in Merzouga

It has been brought to my attention that I am a little behind on this blog thing. I could enumerate all the excuses I have but I think I’ll just get to writing instead.

Lets start with New Years. It is hard to believe that New Years was two months ago already! To celebrate I went with a group of volunteers to the Merzouga Desert.

Merzouga is seven hours from where I live, on the edge of the desert, in the southeastern part of Morocco. We took 4X4s from a nearby town to get there. As they weaved between one another, at high speeds, my stomach was filled with butterflies. It felt like a race and as we would pas each other’s cars we would stick our tongues out or wave. When we stopped we were close enough to the dunes that we could walk into them and enjoy the cool sand but not far enough in to get lost.

We slept in Berber tents very much the way I did at the music festival in Mali a few years back. The tents had three walls with the open sides facing a campfire. They were connected in a rectangle, which created the feeling of our own little commune.

To send out the year 2009 we walked into the desert and watched the sunset. At the very moment the sun was setting, the full moon was rising from the other side. The place that we were staying prepared us a fantastic Couscous dinner and served us mint tea (both staples in this neck of the woods.)

We couldn’t send out 2009 without being slightly Hshuma (something between inappropriate and shameful) So we got out the champagne (or more accurately Jack Daniels,) danced around the fire, got lost in the dunes and passed out in time for at least a couple hours of rest. Despite roomers, no Pagans were involved and there were no sacrifices of virgins, although there may have been attempts. The sand did manage to eat my shoes among other things but who needs shoes anyway!?

The next morning we all got up and did a camel trek into the dunes to watch the sunrise. I just walked along and spoke Darija with the man leading the camels since I got my camel fix in Egypt this summer. My feet were frozen by the time the sun rose, due to the lack of shoes but I couldn’t have asked for a better way to bring in 2010.

After breakfast we got back in the 4X4s that lead us out to the desert and raced back to town, a couple hours away. Needless to say we were all less lively and enthusiastic about the race out of the dunes than we were during the race into the dunes.

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!