tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86153706850982948492024-03-13T06:48:20.861-05:00Shwiya b shwiya"Shwiya b shwyia" is Darija (Moroccan Arabic) for “little by little.” It’s how things get done in Morocco … and it's how I'm progressing as a Peace Corps volunteer here, working in youth development.Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-6237642816489466512011-01-01T21:47:00.000-06:002011-01-01T21:46:26.065-06:00New year, new horizons.<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My Peace Corps service is already beginning to feel so far away. Sometimes too far away. I've been home about 6 weeks now ~ depending on your definition of home. The city where I've spent most of my adult life and where I do feel most at home, even though my current address is the computer room of my brother's family's home. I'd like to stick around, but job possibilities are slim. Slim everywhere, of course. Something will, eventually, take me somewhere new. Good thing I learned those patience and flexibility skills PC is always touting. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I spoke again yesterday, Skype to cell phone, with my host family in the village half a world awa</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">y. Are you forgetting your Arabic?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> was my host mum's first question. Not yet, which is kind of surprising. For her part, my host sister is still doggedly determined to learn English and bestowed a variety of new phrases upon me. (My favorite, when I admitted that, no, I haven't found a new job yet: <i>Oh, I am sorry. I am so, so, so, so sorry.</i>) </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This is likely to be the end of this blog. New adventures await me elsewhere, and new adventures await my friends in the village ~ not to mention the new Peace Corps volunteer there. (You can follow her journey here: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://stealacamel.blogspot.com/">http://stealacamel.blogspot.com</a>.)</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">* My Gender and Development Committee colleague Cortney coordinated a fantastic, 35-minute film featuring Moroccan women who've made successful change in their lives and communities. It really is so good, and I hope you'll take the time to watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zw4ouzugfU">Part 1</a> and<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DfFkS-3LKg"> Part 2</a> on YouTube. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 15px;">* <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_18911_5-ridiculous-things-you-probably-believe-about-islam.html">This piece is beyond snarky</a> ~ and debunks a lot of ridiculous stereotypes about Islam and Muslims. Often hilariously. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 15px;">If you come away from this blog with any thoughts, questions, ideas or something to say about it all, I hope you will post a comment. I don't have any idea what comes next; I only know that the past two-plus years, while often difficult in so many ways, were also immensely fulfilling and have left me full of love, gratitude, inspiration and, most of all, hope ~ for the developing world, the western world, and the bridge in between. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 15px;"><i>Salaam</i>. </span></span></div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-60471469771021040082011-01-01T21:03:00.001-06:002011-01-01T21:49:31.014-06:00What exactly happened there, anyway?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A few weeks ago I posted a link to <a href="http://journalstar.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/article_dc88795a-1b37-5586-902f-4f37f7a13f19.html" style="color: #968a0a;">a story in the local newspaper</a> that quoted a snippet of something I'd written about my Peace Corps experience. I decided to offer up the entirity of what I'd originally written. Here it is: </span><br />
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</span></div><div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Having just completed my Peace Corps service this month, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately asking myself what I’ve done in Morocco over the past two years. Have I mastered the localized Arabic dialect? Not hardly. Have my students become fluent in English? No, though a few are on their way. Have I brought in new infrastructure or funding? Definitely not ~ anything I do here must be sustainable, built and supported by the local community rather than imposed on them by an outsider.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And yet my time here, in a dusty southern desert where I am often the first American my fellow villagers have met, feels full of accomplishment. The most important aspect of Peace Corps service, to me, isn’t the development work, but the relationships built. Friendships between individuals become relationships between nations become understandings across cultures.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Morocco is a Muslim country. Contrary to the image of Muslims you may see in the American media, I have not met a single terrorist. The people in my community have gone out of their way to welcome me and care for me. They are eager to hear about my life back in America, and are often surprised to learn that it’s not much like what they see on TV (via the American movies widely available thanks to satellite dishes). We’re not all wealthy jet-setters, in skintight microminis and towering teased hair. We have to work for a living, and sometimes our jobs are pretty boring and don’t pay enough. We value time spent with our families. Why, my friends here occasionally exclaim, we’re </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">bhal bhal</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> ~ we’re the same!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This has been my main mission, the second and third of Peace Corps’ three goals: To promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served, and to promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Through my blog, I hope I have shared with my family and friends back home how we are all much more alike than we are different. My friends here work to give their children a better future. Families love to share big meals, to laugh loudly together, to coo over babies and sing along to popular music. They sometimes argue, and usually feel badly about it later. They watch too much television. They visit their place of worship. They fear change and welcome it, in often convoluted combinations. Any of this sound familiar?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Not one of my Moroccan neighbors has yelled at me in the street for being from another country, for having a strange accent or a different color skin or for not wearing clothes exactly like theirs. My difference is more often a cause for celebration, an excuse for a party, an invitation into strangers’ homes where I am fed more couscous and mint tea than I can comfortably keep down. They are eager to hear my stories of another world, and surprised to hear just how much we have in common. My hope is that I might now encourage my American friends to be as hospitable to the “strangers” in our midst as my adopted country has been to me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Rebecca Roberts</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Peace Corps Morocco 2008-2010</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://shwiya-b-shwiya.blogspot.com/" style="color: #968a0a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">http://shwiya-b-shwiya.blogspot.com</span></a></div></div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-559836890968248792010-11-28T10:29:00.000-06:002010-11-28T10:29:25.930-06:00Home front.I'm home now ~ whatever that means. For now, it means living in the computer room of my brother's house, still feeling dislocated, out of place, out of shape, aimless. Looking for a job, which isn't easy without a car or a phone ... or, right now, a computer (apparently it wasn't thirsty for the bowl of cereal milk I rather unceremoniously dumped on it my second day back). Feeling somewhat homebodyish, shy about getting back into my old routine. Haven't yet seen people I really am eager to see<br />
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Still ... I've made it through much harder situations than this. I guess that's one thing I've learned ~ three, rather. Patience. Flexibility. Perseverance. I feel blessed to be surrounded by so much family, so much love ... so much English! (On the long plane ride home, I was pondering things I had to accomplish back in Nebraska, and was still practicing how to frame the questions and how to understand the answers ... when I remembered, <i>Oh, yeah! They speak-a my language</i>!)<br />
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The local newspaper has a feature story today on the Peace Corps' 50th anniversary. While I'm a bit disappointed that my main message didn't make it into the piece (that by living in a Muslim country I learned, and am now trying to share, how much more we are all alike than different ... i.e., how far apart we should keep the words "Muslim" and "terrorist"), it's good to be quoted and good to see Peace Corps get so much local press. Here's the link:<br />
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<a href="http://journalstar.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/article_dc88795a-1b37-5586-902f-4f37f7a13f19.html">50 years later, Peace Corps continues breaking down barriers one person at a time</a>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-55344884113496433222010-11-14T15:30:00.002-06:002010-11-14T15:39:33.143-06:00Allegory.<i><br />
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<i>Whenever his own tribe won a victory in a battle with another tribe, Si Abdallah el Hassoun inwardly rejoiced. At the same time he considered this pleasure a base emotion, one unworthy of him. Thus, to fortify his sanctity he bade farewell to his students and went to live in Sla, which is by the sea.</i><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>It was not long before the divinity students of his schoool sent several of their number to Si Abdallah, imploring him to return to them. Without replying, the saint led them to the rocks at the edge of the sea. <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>How turbulent the water is! He exclaimed. The students agreed. Then Si Abdallah filled a jar with the water and set it on a rock. yet the water in here is still, he said, pointing at the jar. Why? <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>A student answered: Because it has been taken out of the place where it was. <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Now you see why I must stay here, Si Abdallah said. <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">~ from “Points in Time,” Paul Bowles </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-52222133140909036782010-11-14T15:20:00.001-06:002010-11-14T15:40:50.224-06:00Last days ... my Peace Corps family.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBFgLCgrEI/AAAAAAAABAk/rNUrQUcNMGs/s1600/148358_675459401855_7411314_37885982_504865_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBFgLCgrEI/AAAAAAAABAk/rNUrQUcNMGs/s320/148358_675459401855_7411314_37885982_504865_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Our swearing-out ceremony. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBOyTaeokI/AAAAAAAABA4/8W4Xn-i9yW0/s1600/IMG_9376.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBOyTaeokI/AAAAAAAABA4/8W4Xn-i9yW0/s320/IMG_9376.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></b></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Planting a tree in memory of So-Youn, </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>the colleague we lost last year. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBFjSR48SI/AAAAAAAABAo/CWcJD-TW2BM/s1600/148877_675458987685_7411314_37885946_767777_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBFjSR48SI/AAAAAAAABAo/CWcJD-TW2BM/s320/148877_675458987685_7411314_37885946_767777_n.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></b></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Meeting Rep. Keith Ellison </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBSFgoHW2I/AAAAAAAABBA/srCnMxj2YDY/s1600/IMG_9497.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBSFgoHW2I/AAAAAAAABBA/srCnMxj2YDY/s320/IMG_9497.JPG" width="320" /></b></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b> Our assistant program manager, the inspiring, </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>optimistic and indefatigable Amina Fahim. </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBQ8Cd6j1I/AAAAAAAABA8/OlfoMLhr5ZI/s1600/IMG_9382.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBQ8Cd6j1I/AAAAAAAABA8/OlfoMLhr5ZI/s320/IMG_9382.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></b></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Candace jumps for joy</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBKnCU3axI/AAAAAAAABAw/ZyL6BkXFUic/s1600/IMG_9340.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBKnCU3axI/AAAAAAAABAw/ZyL6BkXFUic/s320/IMG_9340.JPG" width="320" /></b></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Faye and Marissa, positive energy forces </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBM4CieakI/AAAAAAAABA0/6goaeMIx0IQ/s1600/IMG_9348.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBM4CieakI/AAAAAAAABA0/6goaeMIx0IQ/s320/IMG_9348.JPG" width="320" /></b></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Eric, Toubkal hiker and youth developer extraordinaire</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBGcT80MCI/AAAAAAAABAs/QPIomgWvw8E/s1600/DSCF4636.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBGcT80MCI/AAAAAAAABAs/QPIomgWvw8E/s320/DSCF4636.jpg" width="320" /></b></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>My nearest neighbors: Vish, and Joy in spirit </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBFXABq3UI/AAAAAAAABAg/2ZiAXg3wP6s/s1600/73465_675459850955_7411314_37886020_6929039_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBFXABq3UI/AAAAAAAABAg/2ZiAXg3wP6s/s320/73465_675459850955_7411314_37886020_6929039_n.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></b></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Stamping out: <i>Safi</i>, <i>baraka</i>, Peace (Corps) out. </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TOBGcT80MCI/AAAAAAAABAs/QPIomgWvw8E/s1600/DSCF4636.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-20085085339332717702010-11-08T17:02:00.034-06:002010-11-10T10:42:43.834-06:00Last days ... friends and family.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">You can click each image once or twice for a larger view.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNht-OXCXAI/AAAAAAAAA_o/xQqp-U0vkdw/s1600/my+family.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNht-OXCXAI/AAAAAAAAA_o/xQqp-U0vkdw/s320/my+family.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Host grandmother, "mother," sister, and me. </strong></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNh0i7pBH2I/AAAAAAAAA_0/Q1W3pFSeO1w/s1600/Malika+Fatna.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNh0i7pBH2I/AAAAAAAAA_0/Q1W3pFSeO1w/s320/Malika+Fatna.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Malika and Fatna, the two young women <br />
from the nedi nesswi who took charge<br />
of our local health workshops and<br />
became such good friends to me. </strong></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNh2dPneljI/AAAAAAAAA_8/aXxx2wUfGQw/s1600/Fatima+Youssef.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNh2dPneljI/AAAAAAAAA_8/aXxx2wUfGQw/s320/Fatima+Youssef.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Fatima, who crocheted me a hijab, <br />
and her adorable son, Youssef. </strong></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span id="goog_1107824874"></span><span id="goog_1107824875"></span></strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNh80neYZjI/AAAAAAAABAE/LQBhhxJmqhk/s1600/dar+chebab.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNh80neYZjI/AAAAAAAABAE/LQBhhxJmqhk/s320/dar+chebab.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Last day at the dar chebab. </strong></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNh_imjruUI/AAAAAAAABAI/mDgt675IMyQ/s1600/henna+drying.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNh_imjruUI/AAAAAAAABAI/mDgt675IMyQ/s320/henna+drying.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Last henna ~ the amazing freehand work<br />
of my host sister Kabira. The left hand <br />
is "moderne," the right hand is<br />
traditional Tashelheit designs. </strong></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNj_Sd3RDPI/AAAAAAAABAc/lLnDqowsjDQ/s1600/henna+lizar.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNj_Sd3RDPI/AAAAAAAABAc/lLnDqowsjDQ/s320/henna+lizar.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>With my completed henna, wrapped <br />
up in the new lizar I gave my host mom. </strong></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNj6it-n4XI/AAAAAAAABAU/IJqsKPRNnN8/s1600/almonds.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNj6it-n4XI/AAAAAAAABAU/IJqsKPRNnN8/s320/almonds.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Granny shelling almonds from the farm. </strong></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNj8RTtDxXI/AAAAAAAABAY/8R5m-pxBzS8/s1600/last+couscous.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNj8RTtDxXI/AAAAAAAABAY/8R5m-pxBzS8/s320/last+couscous.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Last couscous, and the most delicious<br />
one yet (in the end, it turned out to be<br />
my second-to-last couscous).</strong></span> </div></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><strong></strong></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><strong></strong>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-23646396490563882272010-11-08T16:25:00.001-06:002010-11-08T16:38:13.377-06:00Last days ... my village.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNhjNTOwgfI/AAAAAAAAA_U/bNZtpdCfU6U/s1600/sebt+sign.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNhjNTOwgfI/AAAAAAAAA_U/bNZtpdCfU6U/s320/sebt+sign.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>The sign on the edge of town (notice, in the </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>background, </strong></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>the badly painted concrete "orange," <br />
one of two pillars </strong></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>flanking the road into the village)</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
<strong></strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNhnbAhwguI/AAAAAAAAA_g/ms9XTRhKb3I/s1600/town+square.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNhnbAhwguI/AAAAAAAAA_g/ms9XTRhKb3I/s320/town+square.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>My village's main square (actually more like a triangle)</strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong> </strong></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNhtQCM6yrI/AAAAAAAAA_k/R524651twlI/s1600/main+street.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNhtQCM6yrI/AAAAAAAAA_k/R524651twlI/s320/main+street.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Main Street in the Souss</strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
<strong></strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNhwIuHlYfI/AAAAAAAAA_s/aE3UpMl63iI/s1600/nut+guy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNhwIuHlYfI/AAAAAAAAA_s/aE3UpMl63iI/s320/nut+guy.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>One of my two "nut guys" in Taroudant, <br />
where I buy cashews, walnuts, pumpkin seeds <br />
and the amazing local almonds </strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
<strong></strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNhzRZEVYTI/AAAAAAAAA_w/toFi8Qd9NxY/s1600/jewelry+guys.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNhzRZEVYTI/AAAAAAAAA_w/toFi8Qd9NxY/s320/jewelry+guys.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Buying last-minute gifts from my jewelry guys in Taroudant </strong></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
<strong></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNh2pyIf-4I/AAAAAAAABAA/cx1pWcSAcKg/s1600/donkey+cart.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TNh2pyIf-4I/AAAAAAAABAA/cx1pWcSAcKg/s320/donkey+cart.JPG" width="320" /></strong></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>My mul karusa (donkey cart guy) regally <br />
hauling my boxes and luggage to the <br />
post office to be shipped home</strong></span> </div></div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-22684090117422376022010-11-08T14:38:00.001-06:002010-11-08T14:43:43.149-06:00And then I found 5 dirhams.<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I don't know if these'll be as hilarious to non-PCVs (Peace Corps volunteers) as they are to me, but the following stories, told anonymously at our Close of Service conference last month, cracked me up. Thanks to Colin for typing them up for posterity. (PS, unfortunately, none of these stories is mine; in a few cases I've added some info in brackets for non-PCVs.) </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* * * </span></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I thought I made a nice new friend in my town, then one day she disappeared. When I asked people where she went, I quickly found out she went to jail. Jokes around the PCV community in my area started about how I was going to spring my jail bird friend.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This one time ... </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I went to an American's Berber wedding where on the final day of festivities everyone was gathered for the traditional <em>haydus</em>. There were many tourists so many of the women were not dancing, so us Americans decided to go up and do our own "bridal" dance. So here we are Berber-ish dancing around our American bride while tourists are taking photos of our "traditional" dance.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I taught my bus guy the pound-and-explode, and now that's how he greets me.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My bra broke in front of 20 male teenagers.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This summer in Fes I got in and told the "driver" where to go before I realized he was not a taxi, just a little red car parked in the middle of the [little red] taxis.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This one time a group of PCVs traveled to Fes. Four PCVs sat in the back seat of the taxi and two scantily clad women sat in the front two seats. During the ride, the PCVs discussed the likelihood that the women were prostitutes. Upon arrival in Timahdite, the taxi promptly stopped at the liquor store where the women bought beers. A small discussion between the taxi driver and the women ensued and suddenly the taxi turned off on a side road. Noticing the detour, the PCVs wondered where they were going (but didn't put up a fight). Eventually the taxi stopped in Mischlifen, where the prostitutes and driver mounted horses and rode away from the cab. It was the craziest taxi ride ever!</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Once I forgot the flashcards of fruits and vegetables for my neddi neswi food unit at a <em>hanut</em> [shop], and when I went back to get them the hanut men had studied them and asked me to correct their pronunciation. Hooray!</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It was a normal day. I was headed to my aerobics. When I arrived I realized I forgot my workout pants but luckily one of the women brought two pairs of pants (I think she actually just took off a layer). I then quickly put them on so we could begin class. The problem was, they were two sizes too big and I had to run around holding them up. The women began to laugh and run around slapping my butt every time we passed. They then began to critique my body and how "I was <em>miskin</em> because the pants didn't fit me." To this day, every class, they try and slap me from behind as I run by.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">There's a cafe I usually go to. I went after <em>lftour</em> [break-fast] one night during Ramadan and sat with the high school teachers who hang out there. We got into an argument about fasting. I said it's difficult and not good for your health; they said it's great. Aziz, the French teacher, ended the argument by finding the middle ground. "Fasting is good because God and the prophet say it's good," he said. "And it's bad because it means no f**king during the day."</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I often printed photos from online products to inspire product development. One day, Amina pulled me aside and asked for me to show her something at the cyber. I didn't fully understand, but was excited someone seemed to be taking initiative on the product development front. Getting to the cyber, I discovered she wanted to MSN with a boy from Tangier, and that's how I spent 30 uncomfortable minutes video chatting and chaperoning a date.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">First night in homestay in site I got a really greasy milky rice meal. I told my host mom I was allergic to milk, but she told me it was God's will to see if I get sick. Not wanting to start off on the wrong foot I ate the meal. About 30 minutes later, I went to bed. Next day: SICK, SICK, SICK. The whole family could hear me, and my host mom came up to me and said "that's the last time you eat a hot meal and drink cold water."</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I once pooped in my pants ... 20 minutes from my destination ... while riding in a souk bus.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I'll never forget asking my CBT [community-based training] mom to let me take a bath that night after ripening for two weeks. Little did I know how difficult that simple task would be and the work I was asking of my host mom. Several nails, date pits, and a tarp later she had prepared my at-home hammam ... in my room ... nowhere near a drain. I never before considered that I would have to call Malika to translate to me exactly what I was supposed to do ~ and that my host mom would in fact use my bath water to mop the house after the whole family confined themselves to the TV room to give me the privacy the slits in my bedroom door did not afford me. And that was my first authentic bathing experience.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">[from a male PCV:] It was <a href="http://www.masjidtucson.org/publications/books/sp/1996/feb/page4.html">Ramadan 27, the Night of Power</a>, and I was still in training. My host family wanted to send me to get my picture taken with the 12-year-old girls, but they decided not to tell me. "We're going to rent you a jellaba so you can look nice on Eid [the holiday that ends Ramadan]. Come on. We wandered around town, doing everything we could find that involved neither jellabas nor photos. We got Eid cookie ingredients. We flashed the cable box. I followed. My mom went into a shop. My sister did, too. I followed. Twenty middle-aged women looked at me. Shock! Horror! I smiled. "I'm an American," I thought. "Don't be afraid of me. I bring you peace and friendship." My sister turned on a four rial coin. "Come on, Amin." We walked out. "This is the women's hairdresser. Never go there again." Then I found five dirhams.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Talk with camp girl's mom.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"I'll take care of her, promise."</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Came out: "I'll mount her."</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">During my final site homestay, I tried to always do my own laundry, but sometimes I traveled during laundry day. My host sister (the woman of the house, who is younger than I am) offered to wash my clothes on those days. One time she returned my clean, folded clothes, but she withheld a few items in a separate pile. Later that day she brought the small stack of sports bras and underwear. She'd never seen a sports bra, and, as a well-endowed woman, was quite excited. I offered her one because I'd packed a few others, and she was very appreciative. It wasn"t until our next trip to the hammam that I realized she'd accepted the whole small stack of laundry as a gift, including my perfect hammam undies: black and boy-cut. I couldn't bring myself to tell her we don't give away used underwear in America ~ and I didn't want them back!</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I'm at the Casa bus station eating a sandwich. The guy next to me asks,</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"Where you from?"</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"The US."</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"You Muslim?"</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"No."</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Then the guy asks the shopkeeper,</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"Is he circumcised?"</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The shopkeeper said he didn't know.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So the guy asks me,</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"Are you circumcised?"</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I respond, </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"What? I don't understand."</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"Circumcised? ARE YOU CIRCUMCISED?"</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"I don't understand what you're asking."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This one time, in Morocco, I took a camel trek in Merzouga with my mother, father, brother, and fiance. We rode out into the dunes to watch the sunset. As the camels knelt down for us to disembark, my tiny 5'2" mother flipped off the giant descending camel, catching her bra strap on the camel handle, landing on her feet, like a 60-year old Midwestern Mary Lou Retton. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Once, we saw a fire burning under a camio [pickup] truck parked on the side of the road. Not a random, untended fire, but an intentional one ~ plastic, rubber, goat heads, etc. There were at least three ~ yes, three ~ young Moroccan men studying the fire burning under the truck intently. We decided to stop and walk the opposite direction!!!</span></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I was walking through the palmerie with some of my friends in site. We were surprised to see a group of tourists coming along another path. "Ahh! Do you know what you should do?" Saida asked me. "You need to go up to them and ask for a <em>stylo</em> [pen]! Come on! Do it!" I was laughing so hard that the moment was lost; the tourists walked around a corner, and I never got to try out my French. [young Moroccan children traditionally beg tourists for pens.] </span></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">During my first week at my youth center I greeted my director and asked him how his women were doing instead of how his family was doing. [the two words sound very similar in Arabic]</span></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I had just finished memorizing fruits and vegetables, and my host sister had just warned me about mispronouncing words, causing the meaning to change. Later that evening, I went to the hanut to purchase raisins and asked for <em>zbub</em>. [Darija for penis] Awkward turtle.</span></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Before l'Eid Kbir [the main holiday] my host dad took me out to the sheep souk to learn the ropes of how to purchase the best sheep available within budget. As with most activities amongst men in public, it's an opportunity to socialize and catch up on their respective families. My host father approached some sheep and did the customary checking of the teeth, fondling, and picking up the sheep by its hind legs to check the weight, and then lastly the crotch grab. I did everything my host dad did up until the crotch grab. I found the crotch grab weird, but I was more surprised that immediately after my host dad performed the crotch grab, his friend Abdelhaqq came up and they shook hands as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.</span></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I bought a bunch of baby chicks to raise, and put them with my host family's chicks so they could all grow up together. But as they grew up, the whole village noticed and laughed about my chickens growing up American like their "mother":</span></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* They hang out in a group by themselves and don't hang out with the other chicks</span></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* They don't like stale Moroccan bread and only eat expensive chicken food</span></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* When summer came and it got hot, they pulled out all their feathers and ran around "naked" all summer</span></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">During PST [pre-service training], the Small Business Development sector would often challenge the Youth Development sector in games of skill. Even though YD would participate half-heartedly, they always won.</span></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">While walking out to the dry riverbed in site to go jogging, a man was 200 yards or so away pulling up his jellaba going to the restroom as most men do out in this part of town. As I start placing my earphones in, I hear, "Ca va gazelle? Baby," followed by cat calls and hissing ~ yes, the guy was hitting on me while taking a dump.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">One day in late winter, I was walking to work and saw something that looked like snow on the road. As I crouched to examine it, I realized it was soap suds. When I looked down the street I saw the source ~ they were cleaning a well and there was a mound of suds covering the two-lane road that was as tall as my waist. There were kids playing in it of course (as I would have if I were 10). One of the kids was shouting to the other "climb Abdelkader, climb!" Luckily I have it on video.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">There is a traditional medicine-maker in my site. One day he pulled me into his shop; I was greeted by a two-foot-long dried lizard guarding the door and rows of herb-filled glass bottles on shelves lining the walls. He told me that he would perform <em>tukkl</em> on me, and proceeded to pull out a string and measure my arm. After comparing the combined length of my fingers with that of my arms, he told me I had <em>microbat</em> [microbes] in my stomach. I didn't see the connection, but was impressed nonetheless that he had diagnosed my recent GI problems. Next he wrapped the string around my head and proclaimed "you never get headaches," which is also true. Since he was on a roll of correct diagnoses, I permitted him a third test. This time he made me lie down on the <em>ponj</em> [mattress] and felt my chest for a little longer than I was comfortable with. Then he grunted "good." I still don't really understand.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We were at CBT for the last day. The next day we would go back to Azrou for seminar sessions and find out our site assignments. My host mom decided to wash a few items of dirty clothing that were in my room, including my towel. I was worried that they would not have time to dry overnight, but she assured me that it would be fine. The next morning, I went up to the roof and discovered that my towel, sweaters, etc. were frozen solid! I had to snap the ice and fold them into a plastic bag for the ride back to Azrou ~ and that was one of my last memories of CBT.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">First year after spring camp at Tim's house when I tried to prove I was strong or tough as the boys. Bad idea; I woke up with bruises.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Whilst stranded at a flooded bridge on the road to Imilchil, I got into a conversation with an Irish transvestite living in Morocco who owned a dog named Obama. After turning down an invitation for tea in his Winnebago, I watched as he declared he'd wait no longer and attempted to cross. As his Winnebago stalled halfway across the bridge and in the throes of the river, I smirked. Best tea refusal ever.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Going to the sources with artisan women to wash wool in the river, and they end up in a full-on water fight ~ buckets of water on their heads. Wrote about it in my blog. Went back to explain photos that women were fully clothed in their jellabas ~ that just seemed normal to me, but photos probably needed explaining. </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My host family witnessing my apparent transition to womanhood as I unwittingly applied chapstick in front of all of them at the dinner table. (I am male)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I once woke up in the middle of the night and found that a stray cat had curled up with me in bed.</span> </div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-28996145128815358002010-11-04T17:59:00.027-05:002010-11-04T18:10:01.092-05:00Books I've read in Morocco.<b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>September 2008:</strong> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">1. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books: Azar Nafisi (Nonfiction=N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">2. Franny & Zooey, JD Salinger (Fiction=F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">3. Culture Shock: Morocco (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">4. Working With Youth: Approaches for Volunteers (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">5. PACA: Using Participatory Analysis for Community Action (N)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>October-November 2008:</strong> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">6. Loving Frank, Nancy Horan (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">7. The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">8. Rules of the Volunteer in Development: Toolkits for Building Capacity (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">9. Stupid White Men, Michael Moore (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">10. A Language Older Than Words, Derrick Jensen (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">11. The Te of Piglet, Benjamin Hoff (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">12. The Rough Guide to Morocco (N)</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">December 2008: </span></b></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">13. Peace Corps Morocco Youth Development Teaching and Community Development Book (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">14. Peace Corps Volunteer Ongoing Language Learning Manual (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">15. Resources for the Dar Chebab, Peace Corps Morocco 1997, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Karen E. Martin (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">16. Resources for the Dar Chebab, Peace Corps Morocco 1998, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Karen E. Martin (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">17. Peace Corps Life Skills Manual (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">18. Women and Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny, Suze Orman (N) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>January 2009:</strong> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">19. Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, Daniel Quinn (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">20. If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">21. The Delicate Prey, Paul Bowles (F)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>February 2009:</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">22. Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Paul Sheffield (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">23. The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">24. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Anne Fadiman (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">25. Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Geraldine Brooks (N)(second reading) </span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">March 2009:</span></strong></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">26. The Koran </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">27. The Comfort of Strangers, Ian McEwan (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">28. Best American Essays 2007 (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">29. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">30. Kiwis Might Fly: A New Zealand Adventure, Polly Evans (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">31. Various GGLOW camp manuals, Peace Corps Morocco (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">32. Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman’s Journey Toward </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Independence, Leila Abouzeid (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">33. The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles (F)</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">April 2009:</span></strong></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">34. A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">35. Sweetness in the Belly, Camilla Gibb (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">36. Lake Wobegon Days, Garrison Keillor (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">37. Patience and Power: Women’s Lives in a Moroccan Village, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Susan S. Davis (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">38. Running With Scissors, Augustyn Burroughs (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">39. Uncivilized Beasts and Shameless Hellions: Travels with an NPR </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Correspondent, John F. Burnett (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">40. “Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker” (N/Poetry)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">41. “Quick Fix Vegetarian: Healthy Home-Cooked Meals in 30 Minutes </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">or Less,” Robin Robertson (N/Cooking)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>May 2009:</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">42. “In the Mind’s Eye: Essays Across the Animate World,” Elizabeth Dodd (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">43. “Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We See the Rest of the World,” Edward Said (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">44. The Best American Non-Required Reading 2008 (N/F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">45. “Double Fault,” Lionel Shriver (F)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>June 2009:</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">46. “All You Need is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s,” </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">47. “The Kid (What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Get Pregnant): An Adoption Story,” Dan Savage (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">48. “Meditation: A Beginner’s Guide,” Charlotte Parnell (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">49. “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” Stieg Larsson (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">50. In the Land of No Right Angles, Daphne Seal (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">51. Ornament and Silence: Essays on Women’s Lives, Kennedy Fraser (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">52. Best New Games: 77 games and 7 trust activities for all ages </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and abilities, Dale N. Le Fevre (N)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>July 2009: </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">53. Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America, Natalie Goldberg (N) (reread) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">54. Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey, Alison Wearing (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">55: Rick Steves’ Spain 2006 (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">56: In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">the Cult of Speed, Carl Honore (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">57. A House in Fez: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Suzanna Clarke (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">58: The River Queen: A Memoir, Mary Morris (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">59: The Best American Travel Writing 2008, Anthony Bourdain, editor (N)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>August 2009: </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">60. Road Work, Mark Bowden (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">61. Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Mary Pipher (N) (read while on vacation in Spain)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">62. Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer’s Craft, Natalie </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Goldberg (N) (third read?) (on vacation in Spain)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">63. Unaccustomed Earth: Stories, Jhumpa Lahiri (on vacation in Spain) F </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>September 2009: </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">64. Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway (2nd read? in Spain) (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">65. The Best American Short Stories 1999, Amy Tan, editor (read in Spain) (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">66. On the Rocks: The KGB Bar Fiction Anthology, Rebecca Donner, editor (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">67. A Street in Marrakech, Elizabeth Warnock Fernea (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">68. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">69. The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Spirituality, His Holiness the Dalai Lama (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">70. Salvation Blues: One Hundred Poems 1985-2005, Rodney Jones (Poetry) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>October 2009: </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">71. Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town, Paul Theroux (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">72. African Visas: A novella and stories, Maria Thomas (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">73. Best New American Voices 2007: Fresh Fiction from the Top </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Writing Programs, Sue Miller, ed. (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">74. Icy Sparks: A Novel, Gwyn Hyman Rubio (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">75. Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, Natalie Goldberg (N) (reread) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">76. Sun After Dark: Flights into the Foreign, Pico Iyer (N) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>November 2009: </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">77. Cannery Row, John Steinbeck (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">78. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (Memoir) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">79. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky (F)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>December 2009: </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">80. Selected Stories, Andre Dubus (F) (read on vacation in U.S.)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">81. Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival, Jen Marlowe et al. (N) (read on vacation in U.S.)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>January 2010:</strong> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">82. Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Communication of the Dying, Maggie Callahan and Patricia Kelley (N) (read on vacation in U.S.) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">83. Best American Essays 2009, Mary Oliver, editor (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">84. Best American Short Stories 2006, Ann Patchett, editor (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">85. Everything That Rises Must Converge, Flannery O’Connor (F) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">86. A Whistling Woman, A.S. Byatt (F) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>February 2010:</strong> </span><br />
87. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Families: Stories From Rwanda, Philip Gourevitch (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">88. Waiting, Ha Jin (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">89. The Conservationist, Nadine Gordimer (F) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">90. The Best American Travel Writing 2009, Simon Winchester, editor (N) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Mach 2010:</strong> </span><br />
91. We Share Walls: Language, Land, and Gender in Berber Morocco, Katherine E. Hoffman (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><em>* Way too much time reading online in lieu of books</em> </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>April 2010:</strong> </span><br />
92. The Best American Short Stories 2009, Alice Sebold, editor (F) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><em>* Way too much time reading online in lieu of books </em></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>May 2010:</strong> </span><br />
93. Eleven Minutes, Paulo Coelho (F) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (F) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">95. Best American Travel Writing 2006, Tim Cahill, editor (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">96. Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Marvine Howe (N) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>June 2010:</strong> </span><br />
97. A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">98. This Blinding Absence of Light, Tahar Ben Jelloun (F) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">99. The Spiritual Gifts of Travel: Best of Travelers’ Tales, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">edited by James O’Reilly and Sean O’Really (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">100. Walden <i>and</i> Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau (N) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>July-August 2010:</strong> </span><br />
101. The Spider’s House, Paul Bowles (F) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">102. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Who Would Cure the World, Tracy Kidder (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">103. Up and Down the Road and Other Stories, Jilali el Koudia (F) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>September 2010:</strong> </span><br />
104. Twilight Sleep, Edith Wharton (F)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">105. A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Writer </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (N)</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">106: Eat Pray Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Italy, India and Indonesia, Elizabeth Gilbert (N) (reread) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>October 2010:</strong> </span><br />
107. Lonely Planet Paris (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">108. Berlitz French phrase book and dictionary (N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">109. Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence (F) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><strong>November 2010:</strong> </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">110. Autobiography of a Yogi, <span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Paramhansa Yogananda</span> </span>(N) </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">111. ??? </span><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>My Top 10: </strong></span></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A Language Older Than Words, Derreck Jensen </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We Share Walls: Language, Land, and Gender in Berber Morocco, Katherine E. Hoffman</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Spider’s House, Paul Bowles </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cannery Row, John Steinbeck </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Everything That Rises Must Converge, Flannery O’Connor </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Franny & Zooey, JD Salinger </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed, Carl Honore </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span></div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-54614937400089613462010-11-01T04:59:00.000-05:002010-11-01T04:59:54.176-05:00Surprise connections.<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I've always been proud to come from the same state as the great <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Sorensen">Ted Sorensen</a>, who honed his inspirational speechwriting abilities at the doorstep of our state Capitol, with the statue of our city's namesake featuring his Gettysburg Address. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Among the many homages to Sorensen upon his death yesterday, I found an interesting connection in this one: </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/babbles/2010/10/31/jfks-wordsmith/">JFK’s Wordsmith…Ted Sorensen</a>. Not only did Sorensen have a mighty hand in crafting Kennedy's legendary speeches inaugurating Peace Corps, but it turns out Sorensen's own daughter was a Peace Corps volunteer right here in Morocco. This country has come so far, in many ways, from the world she described in letters to her father only 15 or so years ago ... and yet much of what she describes is so warmly familiar to my life, here, now. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Just on my way out the door now to spend the day with the new volunteer for my village, who is here for a site visit for the next few days before she completes her training. Oh, these final days are moving way too quickly ...</span>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-14747725972730000092010-10-28T18:00:00.003-05:002010-10-28T18:21:25.829-05:00The big finish. (Almost.)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMn3WH09IVI/AAAAAAAAA_I/sbSyVTXoM_I/s1600/kechtrees.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" nx="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMn3WH09IVI/AAAAAAAAA_I/sbSyVTXoM_I/s320/kechtrees.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Two weeks from tomorrow, I'll be signing my name to become a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. Here's what comes to mind as the clock winds down ... </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>What I'll miss: </strong></span><br />
<div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My people ~ my host family, my dedicated students, the meek and brassy (by turns) girls at the nedi nesswi, the many, many women who have reached beyond language, culture gaps and suspicion to bring me into their circles of laughter and comfort</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The call to prayer, especially that first one, just before daybreak, in the sweet mellow voice of my neighborhood muezzin </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Walking to the hanut around the corner in my jammies if I've run out of bread or milk</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Walking everywhere ~ and, if it's too far to walk, using only public transportation </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Never being in a hurry </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cries of <em>Boki Boki Boki Boki Boki!!!</em> from the little kids in my neighborhood each time I enter their view </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Eating truly local and making virtually everything from scratch </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The late-morning smell of fresh sunshine and terra-cotta charcoal braziers </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Wide-open sunsets, and stars visible in the night sky, even in town </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">No snow! (not down here in the Souss Valley, anyway) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The overpoweringly sweet smell of a bunch of mint peeking out of a souq bag </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The funky bright red/yellow/blue pattern of my sleeping pad, which I usually leave uncovered by sheets because I love the happy pattern (also because I'm lazy) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The repetitive, metallic, high-pitched whine of Berber pop music on the taxi radio </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The thrill of a lukewarm Especial tallboy, snuck home from MarJan in the hidden depths of my backpack </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnzxqYtqAf8">Tektonic</a> </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The traditional break-fast meal during Ramadan: Harira (a tomato-based soup with chickpeas and spices), dates, hard-boiled eggs sprinkled with cumin, and chebekiya (a sticky-sweet pastry drizzled with honey and sesame seeds) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Leaving my private courtyard door wide open, all night, to welcome in the crisp evening air </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The extra fervor and linger of that last bump of cheek against cheek that shows just how pleased my friend is to see me </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><b></b><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>What I won't:</strong></span> </div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Bargaining the price for everything from a piece of furniture to a kilo of tomatoes </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Standing out / Constantly feeling as if I'm on stage </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Dripping with sweat most of the time </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Ca va, gazelle, labas 3lik, HellowHowAreYouFiiiiiine</span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">? (and worse) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Having to work out, in advance, anything new I want to say </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cockroaches and other home invaders </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/71994606@N00/4370597835/in/set-72157623344052333/">Inzegan</a> </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Being assumed to have money, because I am American </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Being squeezed six to a taxi, plus the driver, plus any produce or packages or, sometimes, livestock </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Being asked whether I pray; whether I fast; whether I drink or otherwise act <i>hchuma</i>; whether I eat couscous; why I speak Arabic; why I don't speak better Arabic; ... </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The rigors and limits of traveling only by taxi or bus É the waits, the breakdowns, the sweltering heat, the crowds rushing to push each other out of the way </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The constant, high-pitched screeching of the family arguments upstairs </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Meeting a woman in the street, having what I think is a heartfelt, understanding and mutually appreciative conversation about the work I do here, how wonderful Morocco is, and how much we are all alike ~ and then still being asked for dirhams, or clothes </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laughing_Cow">Vache Qui Rit</a> </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The trials and errors of communication and culture when I am not fluent in the local language </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>What I hope I'll leave behind </strong></span><br />
<div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The notion that a woman can lead an independent, productive life on her own terms </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A few more kids who'll pass the English portion of their baccalaureate exams and go on to university </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">All the extra layers of clothing, especially in the dead of summer </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My occasional bouts with agoraphobia </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>What I hope to bring back with me: </strong></span><br />
<div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">New friendships </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cumin on hard-boiled eggs </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Touching my hand to my heart after shaking hands </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The breakage of the Diet Coke addiction </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Fresh vegetable juices (cucumber, beet, carrot) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Making simple, edible meals with only fresh, local ingredients</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Outdoor shoes come off in the house </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Making do with what I have, what I can afford, what's available </span></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A greater respect for the greater world (particularly the Muslim world) among my acquaintances </span></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">More strength, patience and perseverance </span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>What I fear about going home: </strong></span><br />
<div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Being able to find a job that can sustain both my soul and my renewed Western lifestyle</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Driving (after 2 ½ years ~ and in the snow, no less!)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Too many choices </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Too high expectations </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>What I look forward to back home: </strong></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Spending extra time with the niece and nephews (and their parents and grandparents, of course!) </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Rekindling old friendships </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Hanging out at my neighborhood coffeehouse (or even, gasp, bar!) without being taken for a prostitute </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://anovelideabookstore.com/">Bookstores</a> and libraries </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Iced soy toddy lattes, sipped on the go or (gasp!) in a public coffeehouse </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A garden! </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A gym! </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A washing machine! </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Set prices </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Screen doors </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Feta cheese </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Fresh mozzarella cheese </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Basically, any kind of cheese </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Bagels </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Sushi </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Maggie's, YiaYia's, Oso, Grateful Bread, Open Harvest, new local discoveries </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Beer ~ anytime, anywhere, in multiple varieties </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My people ~ parents who support me unequivocally even when they don't understand me, a brother, sister-in-law and amazing niece and nephews who keep me laughing and feeling warm, girlfriends like sisters, everyone who gets me and makes me laugh and makes me think </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* * * </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Finally, my most fervent hope is that those of you at home, reading this blog, who might otherwise experience Muslims only through the prism of mainstream media, have come away with a more balanced perspective. Muslims are conservative and modern, righteous and carefree, black and white and all shades in between. They laugh and cry and love their families and sometimes get angry and usually feel badly afterward. They want to learn and grow, and they also want to share and give. They eat and sleep and shop and watch TV and read the news. They go to school, to work, to visit their families. They have a vast range of clothing, and of ideas. They disagree about their politics ~ and about their religion. They are just like ... the rest of us. They have been my caretakers, friends and family here. I have learned to second-guess my assumptions, to appreciate our commonalities, to recognize when I'm being played by those whom my fear would serve well. </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I hope I have shared all of this adequately with you. </span></div><div align="left"></div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-74745754718868503122010-10-23T15:59:00.001-05:002010-10-23T16:19:14.151-05:00Shameless self-promotion.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dydqokiHtoWA0yAbZmC0xX5VoSp7TeN2IwxQpGIMOlROrKy6RSTOK5ugeaRKontTgRYQG8_s_vFdaL72rgdgA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This afternoon at the dar chebab I asked three of my favorite "little" girls ~ Hind, Imane and Houda ~ to say something on film for me to bring home so I can remember them. (Click the photo above to watch the video.) How cute are they?!? Basically, they're saying that I'm like their sister, their teacher, their mother, and that when I go home I am to say hello to my friends, my mother and father and brother from them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We had a good afternoon. My three little girls and I oohed and aahed over some new Arabic books we've received from the U.S. embassy, then they drew me some pictures while a couple of high-school girls dropped in to review their formal English lessons from the past week; then my little friends, inspired by the "big" girls, asked for an English lesson of their own. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMNKpNZFkqI/AAAAAAAAA_E/NnFFvWfqVdA/s1600/IMG_9092.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" nx="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMNKpNZFkqI/AAAAAAAAA_E/NnFFvWfqVdA/s320/IMG_9092.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Then I chatted awhile with my new friend Malika, who's won the green card lottery and is moving to Seattle in a couple of weeks. I'm so worried about her ~ her English is not at all good enough to survive on her own in the States, and while she says she has friends there, she's a bit vague and I suspect they are merely loose connections. I had to show her where Seattle is on a map, and she was visibly shocked by how far it is from New York. I hope she will find at least a few Americans who are as patient and kind with her as the bulk of Moroccans have been with me here; but, especially considering the current xenophobic anti-Muslim fervor over there ... well, I fear what's in store for her is not the paradise she imagines. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: large;">News feed</span></strong> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Speaking of the anti-Muslim fervor, here's a great new site created in honor of Juan Williams: </span><a href="http://muslimswearingthings.tumblr.com/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Muslims Wearing Things</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> (wow! they're just like us ~ imagine that!) </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/10/20/feature-02"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Morocco Pushes for Law Against Gender Abuse, Child Labor</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/10/19/feature-03"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Observatory created to improve image of Moroccan women in media</span></a>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-57159908618811588682010-10-22T07:16:00.000-05:002010-10-22T07:16:17.107-05:00More on moudawana.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMF0OFd5JQI/AAAAAAAAA-0/zeVVys9l7zw/s1600/Moudawana+Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nx="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMF0OFd5JQI/AAAAAAAAA-0/zeVVys9l7zw/s320/Moudawana+Poster.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A poster describing <em>moudawana</em> reforms in Arabic, Tashelheit and French </span></strong></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Yesterday we organized what likely was my last event here in the village, welcoming Tafoukt Souss, a women's rights association in the nearby city of Agadir, for an afternoon discussion of Morocco's relatively new <em>moudawana</em> laws. You might remember me mentioning <em>moudawana</em> a few times before. It's an issue close to my heart here, a long campaign that has produced laws giving Moroccan women far more rights in marriage, family, property and divorce. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The average woman here knows about the reforms, but often doesn't know what they specifically govern. A few brief highlights: </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* Both women and men must be 18 to marry legally. (There are exceptions, but the girl and her parents are supposed to agree.) </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* A woman can conduct her own marriage contract, without approval of a male relative. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* The legal requirement that a woman must obey her husband has been eliminated. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* The division of marital property is to be determined by a written contract between the wife and husband. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* Polygamy is allowed only if both the first wife and a judge authorize it. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* Divorce can be made official only in front of a judge (a husband can no longer simply say, "I divorce you," and leave a woman without a home or money) </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* A mother with custody of her children has a right to housing in the event of divorce. </span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMF58MxpicI/AAAAAAAAA-4/cjBZ0ImgND8/s1600/IMG_9067.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" nx="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMF58MxpicI/AAAAAAAAA-4/cjBZ0ImgND8/s320/IMG_9067.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Zahara and Khadija fielding questions.</span></strong></div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Khadija and Zahara, our two new friends from Tafoukt Souss (it means "sun of the south" in Tashelheit, the local indigenous, pre-Arabic language), are simply my newest heroes here. Forget your assumptions about Moroccan or Muslim women being submissive or second-class. This duo is sassily passionate about educating all women about their rights and responsibilities as full citizens and marriage partners. They were relaxed, confident and funny ~ and they brought out all of these qualities in my small crowd of sometimes shy women and girls, who quickly opened up and had an intimate conversation about their changing roles in their changing world. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMF-Lx9KhBI/AAAAAAAAA-8/FQ-HzdzfUFA/s1600/IMG_9056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" nx="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMF-Lx9KhBI/AAAAAAAAA-8/FQ-HzdzfUFA/s320/IMG_9056.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">After the event, Khadija, Zahara and I went home with Saadia, one of my favorite women in the village, who is holding together her household just fine without the deadbeat who left her after she gave birth to their third daughter (no sons). She wants to get a divorce but can't get the necessary papers. Thanks to this convergence of the right connections and the right information at the right time, she now has access to a legal support network. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Saadia, by the way, is a wedding consultant. She does the bride's hairdoes, rents out the expensive gowns that must be changed at least half a dozen times at a typical wedding, and also rents the hardware ~ the gaudily ornate thrones the bride and groom sit on, stoically, for upwards of seven or eight hours, late into the night. She insisted I pose with the goods, and when I asked, "Where's the groom?" everyone laughed and cried out, "You tell us!" </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMF_jaHFS3I/AAAAAAAAA_A/lUPOvMVF0bo/s1600/Marriage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nx="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TMF_jaHFS3I/AAAAAAAAA_A/lUPOvMVF0bo/s320/Marriage.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">No, things are not yet pefect for women here, the road to equality is a long one (just as it has been and continues to be in America). But progress is being made, and I'm encouraged by the strength, perseverance and outright confidence of those on the front lines, new heroes like Khadija and Zahara ... and all of the local women who take the time and initiative to educate themselves and have the courage to think of themselves and their roles in new ways.</span><br />
</div></div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-54617471832559934002010-10-14T11:12:00.003-05:002010-10-14T11:44:39.762-05:00New friend.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TLcpm3qXGAI/AAAAAAAAA-w/iG1Vn_4GUtk/s1600/IMG_9046.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TLcpm3qXGAI/AAAAAAAAA-w/iG1Vn_4GUtk/s320/IMG_9046.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Now that I have a functioning camera again, I've been trying to add some video to my photo library documenting the past two years. Unfortunately, none of it seems to want to upload to Blogger. Maybe when I get home and the connection is faster? We'll see. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">In the meantime, you can meet my new little visitor. Never seen one so tiny. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: large;"><strong>In other news ....</strong></span> </span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: large;">* </span></strong><a href="http://worldpulse.com/pulsewire/programs/world-pulse-voices-of-our-future"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Voices of Our Future</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> is an inspirational initiative to encourage women around the globe to become citizen journalists. I've been acting as a "Listener" (evaluator/encourager) during the monthlong application process, in which more than 500 women from 86 countries are writing weekly assignments about how they can change their communities for the better. At month's end, 30 of those women will go on to a more intensive Correspondents program, and I've already signed up to be an "Editorial Midwife," offering mentoring and editing assistance to one participant. Many of the applicants' stories are quite powerful ~ </span><a href="http://worldpulse.com/pulsewire/groups/21780/members"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">check them out here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">. </span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: large;">* </span></strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/opinion/10kristof.html?ref=nicholasdkristof"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Nicholas Kristof's Sunday column</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> gives you a chance to test what you think you know about Islam ~ and the Bible. Give it a go; it'll take 5 minutes, and I guarantee you'll learn a thing or two. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">* </span></strong><a href="http://www.itgetsbetterproject.com/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">http://www.itgetsbetterproject.com/</span></a><span style="font-family: Times;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">has some very moving stories, told in support of GLBT teens who are struggling mightily to survive middle and high school. It *does* get better, promise! My only complaint is, why must we expect these kids to just wait out their teen years in promise of a better future. They should have the same chance to enjoy high school as anyone ~ free of bullying and taunting. I'm pretty sure I participated in some level of teasing gay kids (or presumed gay kids) when I was that age. I'm deeply ashamed now. And I don't remember a single adult ever telling us it was stupid or wrong.</span> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">* </span></strong>Another story on <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130550616">the origins of Peace Corps</a>, 50 years ago ...</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138;">Currently reading:</span></strong> </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lonely-Planet-Paris-3rd/dp/1864501251"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Lonely Planet Paris</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138;">Currently listening to:</span></strong> Backlog of </span><a href="http://www.xpn.org/xpn-programs/world-cafe"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">World Cafe</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> podcasts </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138;">Currently quoting:</span></strong> “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” ~ G.B. Shaw</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-54809319594600517672010-10-11T17:08:00.001-05:002010-10-11T17:13:11.462-05:00... And we're back. For now.<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TLN5W6Z7-II/AAAAAAAAA-g/U9dwRsJ1MCA/s1600/69175_667969122435_7411314_37713318_4219491_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TLN5W6Z7-II/AAAAAAAAA-g/U9dwRsJ1MCA/s320/69175_667969122435_7411314_37713318_4219491_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Peace Corps headquarters in Rabat: Tell the truth, what I'd really love to do after COS is to be the official PC Morocco gardener, and just wander the lushly planted grounds, barefoot in the rare cushiony grass (photos by John Wayne Lui)</span></span></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TLN5w9mJ38I/AAAAAAAAA-k/6hlDHiS3PBY/s1600/67970_667972021625_7411314_37713389_1369687_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TLN5w9mJ38I/AAAAAAAAA-k/6hlDHiS3PBY/s320/67970_667972021625_7411314_37713389_1369687_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Pizza and brownies at the country director's home </span></span></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TLN6nRVV8AI/AAAAAAAAA-o/K12HGstyarU/s1600/71511_667970554565_7411314_37713354_5207058_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TLN6nRVV8AI/AAAAAAAAA-o/K12HGstyarU/s320/71511_667970554565_7411314_37713354_5207058_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Good company and 10 dirham falafel sandwiches</span></strong> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Sorry for the absence, but I've been ... absent. Just returned from more than a week in Rabat, the capital and home of Peace Corps HQ, for our Close-of-Service conference, followed by our final medical checkups, followed by Gender and Development Committee meetings. I'm meeting-ed out. </span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">COS Conference, good and bad: Sessions were beyond lame. But we ate a lot of good meals. Was so wonderful to catch up and spend time with the amazing group of volunteers I came in with. Yet sad to hear so many stories of difficulties, professional and personal. I truly love so many of these people. We were thrown together and bonded in this world that soon will not be our world anymore. I probably will never see most of them again, and while they'll always be in my heart, it's hard to imagine a world where they won't be in my daily life. </span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Medicals: I still don't have tuberculosis. No word yet on parasites, as my shy constitution refuses to function on command, and I had to bring back the home version of the 3-day "tests." Which led to my favorite Peace Corps text message yet: "I have the stool sample kit for you at the med unit." At least it wasn't on speakerphone. </span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">GAD Committee: I will miss this aspect of my service, collecting and sharing ideas and resources for other volunteers to better serve and educate both genders. We have an amazing film coming out soon, thanks to Cortney's hard work, profiling several women across Morocco who have become community leaders through nontraditional paths. It will be a great way to encourage girls to complete their educations and follow their dreams. I can't wait to show it to you all. </span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Oh, I also did a bit of shamelessly self-centered shopping ...</span> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TLOHq7EPeuI/AAAAAAAAA-s/uJSb5vKugXA/s1600/IMG_9033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TLOHq7EPeuI/AAAAAAAAA-s/uJSb5vKugXA/s320/IMG_9033.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138;">Peace Corps in the news:</span></strong> </span><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-peacecorps-20101009,0,1879850.story"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-peacecorps-20101009,0,1879850.story</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> (bet you didn't know Michelle Obama's uncle was one of the first PCVs) </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138;">Currently celebrating:</span></strong> </span><a href="http://www.hrc.org/ncod/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">http://www.hrc.org/ncod/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138;">Currently hoping to move beyond celebrating:</span></strong> </span><a href="http://reconsidercolumbusday.org/Home.html"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">http://reconsidercolumbusday.org/Home.html</span></a></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138;">Currently quoting:</span></strong> "Sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do, and pray that the people you love will catch up with you." ~ Mary Gauthier, "Drag Queens in Limousines"</span><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></div></div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-90387282581989050072010-09-25T15:53:00.000-05:002010-09-25T15:53:09.997-05:00This says it all ... and then some.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJ5fgX1q3VI/AAAAAAAAA-Y/IguaUPCIdxA/s1600/61693_678127804390_10900142_38339344_6667909_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJ5fgX1q3VI/AAAAAAAAA-Y/IguaUPCIdxA/s640/61693_678127804390_10900142_38339344_6667909_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Nicked this from my </span><a href="http://fayexcassell.blogspot.com/2010/09/yeah-some-days-you-just-gotta-deal.html"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">friend and neighboring PCV Faye</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">, who nicked it from </span><a href="http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/09/02/women-and-street-harassment/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">. This is *so* our daily lives here. There are many, many good points that make up for it, but this is the hard part. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: large;"><strong>Do you know where your apostrophe<strike>'</strike>s are?</strong></span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Happy </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130103176"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">National Punctuation Day</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">! To celebrate, I suggest you go </span><a href="http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/badpunctpictures19.html"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> or </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/grammargirl/pool/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> to have a hearty laugh at others' expense.</span>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-36894546019404086212010-09-23T17:58:00.000-05:002010-09-23T17:58:07.368-05:00Spinning of wheels.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJvJXoBwUTI/AAAAAAAAA9M/LqxsKjbelT4/s1600/productivity.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJvJXoBwUTI/AAAAAAAAA9M/LqxsKjbelT4/s320/productivity.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Actually, I've been getting quite a bit done lately, but it all feels like swimming uphill (like a salmon, and not <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/food/safety/2010-09-22-SalmonQA22_ST_N.htm">the GMO version</a>). For every resume I send off or contact I network, it seems my list grows longer and longer (and with few-to-no results as of yet). For every report I check off, two new assignments pop up. </span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Even so, with my days here ever more quickly running out, I am trying to spend more time with the people I'm going to miss. That's the fun part, though bittersweet at the same time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* Kabira and her nonstop Big Ideas, most recently her drive to find some land so her family can build their own home, with a shop on the ground floor. I have no idea how she might manage that financially, but I don't know how she manages most of what she pulls off. I hope she makes it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* Her mother Rakya, a source of nonstop love and affection, genuinely expecting nothing in return, a rarity anywhere in the world, the one I know I will miss more than any other, the one I know I will cry buckets of snot over when I have to get in that taxi for the last time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* Malika and Fotna, two of my favorite students from the nedi neswi last year. They both earned their diplomes and won't be returning. To break up the monotony of days in their remote duoars, Malika says she's considering launching a nedi in her own home, teaching her crochet skills to other young women in the same stuck-at-home situation. She made me another gut-busting <a href="http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/maindishes/r/Rfisa.htm"><em>rafisa</em></a>, then we walked to the next duoar to see Fotna, who insisted on frying up some fresh <a href="http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/pancakes/r/Msemen_recipe.htm"><em>msamen</em></a>. Then we went for a blissfully long walk, down to a dry, cactus-filled riverbed. When Malika complained of blisters from her fancy shoes, Fotna insisted on swapping her flipflops. That's friendship. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">* Fatima, another of my favorite students, an upbeat joy to be around, and my hand-picked host "mother" for the volunteer who will come to replace me in November. This week she casually dropped a huge new nugget of information in my lap: She is her husband's second wife. Not as in he was divorced or widowed ~ more as in Wife No. 1 lives in the apartment downstairs. I didn't think any of my women friends were in polygynous relationships. Fatima's so matter-of-fact about it: No, she doesn't like it, no the two women don't get along, but that's the state of affairs, she's happy in her marriage, she adores their young son, and whaddayagonnado? All with a shrug of the shoulders, a beaming smile, and an urging upon me of more cookies and milk. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">One thing I am not doing is spending much time at the dar chebab, which is still in disarray from use by an association this summer. It will be cleaned out this weekend, my mudhir tells me. Inchallah. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: large;"><strong>Speaking of time running out ...</strong></span> </span><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Even though it's corporate-created, <a href="http://www.girleffect.org/">The Girl Effect</a> organization and its first video launched a great deal of awareness about how educating and empowering girls benefits not only them but their surrounding communities and societies. Now there's a new video, "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e8xgF0JtVg">The Clock is Ticking</a>," connecting the dots between girls' education, their health and a way out of the poverty cycle. Simple but inspiring viewing. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: large;"><strong>Not your Peace Corps volunteer's Marrakech.</strong></span> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJvQ1_LffYI/AAAAAAAAA9U/VTDv4P1x0Zw/s1600/magicmedina_001p.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJvQ1_LffYI/AAAAAAAAA9U/VTDv4P1x0Zw/s320/magicmedina_001p.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;">photo from Conde Nast traveler</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I first heard <a href="http://www.wpr.org/hereonearth/archive_100921k.cfm">this podcast about it</a>, then read "<a href="http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/503054">The Magic of the Medina</a>" in the latest issue of Conde Nast Traveler. For a limited view of the tourist's Marrakech, I suppose it's pretty spot on. And the photos are very pretty. But this is so far from typical Morocco. The podcast especially felt more and more superficial and stereotypical the farther in you listen. But, here it is, if you want to read and decide for yourself. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>The Rabat Express ... doesn't have quite the same ring.</strong></span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJvX0qwPGLI/AAAAAAAAA9s/_f-CJD-1Wkc/s1600/tram.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" px="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJvX0qwPGLI/AAAAAAAAA9s/_f-CJD-1Wkc/s320/tram.bmp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">photo from The View From Fes</span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">According to a popular Morocco expat blog, <a href="http://riadzany.blogspot.com/2010/09/postcard-from-rabat.html">Rabat's extensive tramway project</a> is "due for completion later this year." Any chance that'll happen before Nov. 12? My last chance to take a high-tech spin around the capital city. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">(I have experienced the <em>zwin</em> new Rabat train station, however, and am tossing in a couple of photos just to flesh out the visuals of this page now that I am camera-less.) </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJvWb9T_JzI/AAAAAAAAA9c/xkmyR-tVAbQ/s1600/train1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJvWb9T_JzI/AAAAAAAAA9c/xkmyR-tVAbQ/s320/train1.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-54288576302759078392010-09-18T02:14:00.003-05:002010-09-18T08:17:06.693-05:00Do I get royalties for a shameless EPL tie-in?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJRj5Lp3QjI/AAAAAAAAA9E/fGo61oM7qfY/s1600/0670034711_01__SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJRj5Lp3QjI/AAAAAAAAA9E/fGo61oM7qfY/s320/0670034711_01__SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I read “Eat Pray Love” soon after it came out, just as it was beginning to become <em>The Book</em>, and I identified perhaps a bit overmuch with the author’s dramatically romantic around-the-world quest to find herself (and bag a Wealthy Older Foreign Devastatingly Handsome Love Interest, to boot). As the book started to gain popular momentum, I was soon ridiculously flattered by the friends (more than a few) who read it, too, and exclaimed to me, “B____! This is your <em>life</em>! <em>You</em> could have written this!” </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">(Because I, too, was recently divorced and found myself both free and flailing to follow the path of my own choosing. I, too, had fallen crazily in love at earlymiddleage and then had to step gingerly out of the shards when it broke all around me. I, too, have … ummm … traveled. Even internationally! Even to <em>India</em>! Uncanny, ain’t it?) </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It really did hit me in the solar plexus, though ~ her descriptions of diving into love with all (too much?) of your being, the shock of discovering that not only wasn’t it enough but that you’ve lost yourself in the bargain, the wonderful terrifying opportunity to rebuild the life you want to lead only to find the myriad choices too dizzying to comprehend … and then, slowly, discovering that if you wait, and breathe, a right path rises up to meet you. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Even so, the more popular it became, the less I cared to admit how deeply “EPL” affected me. I have a book snob’s distaste for books that become “too” popular, at least those written during my lifetime. I have never read a single "Harry Potter" book, not a one of the "Twilight" series. (The snobbery extends to movies, too ~ I still haven’t seen “Top Gun” or “Pretty Woman.”) So the more popular Gilbert became, the more embarrassed I was to have loved her book so much. By touching so many people, it makes my personal relationship with it ... well, less personal.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Then the merchandising came out. That’s right ~ <em>merchandising</em>. You can now buy “EPL” pillow covers or candles or prayer beads. <a href="http://azstarnet.com/entertainment/movies/article_6ecd0834-006e-51c5-ad6b-112ba9799207.html">I am not making this up</a>. Somehow, that killed any authenticity for me. No writer with a Deep Lifechanging Message works out a marketing deal with Bed Bath and Beyond. There are no Philip Roth table runners, no Toni Morrison patio dining sets. Dostoevsky did not ink a deal for a Crime and Punishment Getaway Weekend (complete with lodgings in a Russian hovel!). </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Now, of course, there’s the movie. With Julia Roberts. <em>Julia Roberts</em>!?! Julia Roberts is <em>not</em> the protagonist of “EPL”. Julia Roberts is not a quirky, vintage-clothes-wearing, bookish but hip, smart but foible-filled litchick who has to hoist herself, hand over hand, out of the depths of society’s expectations and shattering heartbreak, and into a self-determined, hard-won life of independence and really good food and international escapades. Most important, Julia Roberts <em>looks nothing like me</em>. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And Javier Bardem … well, OK, Javier Bardem I can take. Javier Bardem I can quite easily <strike>fantasize</strike> imagine myself with. (Sadly, there is not, as yet, as far as my extensive research has uncovered, any merchandising of an Official EPL Wealthy Older Foreign Devastatingly Handsome Love Interest Who Looks an Awful Lot Like Javier Bardem. Now, that’s some marketing I could get behind.) </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Anyway. Not going to the movie. (I am, however, rereading the book, which fell into my possession even as I was thinking of writing all this, and that’s a coincidence you just don’t ignore, embarrassed as you might be to be going along with the popular crowd.) </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* * *</span></div><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">EPL came back into my mind last week after I read “Twilight Sleep,” an Edith Wharton novel that arrived in my mailbox courtesy of the Peace Corps library. Written late in her career and life, “Twilight Sleep” is no “House of Mirth” (one of my Top 10 books ever read ~ go check out that one or nearly any other Wharton novel; “Summer” is another personal favorite). Written and set in the Jazz Age, a couple of decades past the New York turn-of-the-century aristocracy that was Wharton’s treasure trove, Wharton’s characters and writing both come to feel as superficial as their fast-paced exterior lives. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Most superficial of all is Mrs. Manford, the upper-crusty dowager bent on Doing Good Works while Finding Enlightenment and, most of all, Eliminating Frown Lines. From one guru to another she flits with the waves of public sentiment. One week the Mahatma holds the keys to world and inner peace. Next week he’s out and she’s a devoted follower of the Inspiration Healer. Etc. In between her spiritual quest and all of her benefits and society gatherings and personal betterment, and it’s clear Mrs. Manford is trying her very best to run away from independent thought ~ to keep from being still long enough to truly know herself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">(If only the Marketing Tie-In had existed in Wharton’s Day. The New York Tour of Self-Help Guides! The Nora Manford Flapper Party Dress! Free facelift with every major donation to a third-world country!) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">All this fictional searching made me wonder about my own tendency to follow one idea or hobby or desire, and then another, and another, until I get so caught up in doing that I don’t have time to reflect. I could focus on my yoga practice ~ really dig into it instead of halfheartedly starting or giving up again. Or I could finally start “really” writing. Or really teach myself how to cook. Learn how to make jewelry. All things that could provide opportunity for self-realization … or simply diversion from the same. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Peace Corps itself can be that escape, if you let it. Why did I choose to do this in the first place? Was it selfless, or an escape? (Or a trap door?) A quest, or a bravado-filled personal one-upmanship? Have I been seeking, or hiding? Questions that are all bubbling up again as the end of this volume nears and I prepare to return home. (And is “return” the right word? And if it is, is it the right path, or is it a step backward?) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">With so many choices available, and so much work to do to realize any one of those choices, the result is an endless game of freeze tag with myself. The path of least resistance is to do none of it ~ to, instead, lie here on the sofa in an overwhelmed stupor, eating cookies and rereading books I’ve already read. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In preparing to go home, I see so many opportunities to reintegrate into my community through volunteer work. The literacy council. The food bank. Mentor an international student at the university. Be a Big Sister. My previous gigs at Community CROPS, Planned Parenthood. All causes I want to support, and things I’d actually enjoy doing. But doing it all leaves little time to do justice to any one (not to mention time for gainful employment). And doing it all may be just yet another way of running away from myself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Maybe I need to start thinking of my own marketing tie-ins. Ride the Emotional Rollercoaster! The Hairshirt of Self-Doubt ~ it’s the fashion accessory of the season! All-Expenses-Paid Trip to Angstville with every purchase! </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #e69138;">Random thought of the day:</span></strong> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Is it bad that I’ve taken to eating my meals (stirfry, rice/veggies, etc) straight out of the pot it’s cooked in … and bringing a spatula to table with me so I can catch every last dreg? </span>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-56120874729231954482010-09-16T16:40:00.002-05:002010-09-16T18:44:52.319-05:00You may ask yourself, How did I get here?<em>(apologies to David Byrne)</em> <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJJ_5YCr8nI/AAAAAAAAA8s/_1V8kMo9mZ0/s1600/IMG_9004_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJKOB7EDaWI/AAAAAAAAA80/OTd3WaaybEI/s1600/IMG_9004_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TJKOB7EDaWI/AAAAAAAAA80/OTd3WaaybEI/s320/IMG_9004_2.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A belated <em>3id mabrouk</em> ~ happy holiday! I celebrated the end of Ramadan with my host family and then <em>duru</em>ing around to visit some families in the village. Enjoy the photo documentation while you can ~ my camera stopped functioning shortly after this was taken, and I'm not sure I'll be able to get it repaired or afford a new one during my last two months here. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That's right ~ less than two months, actually. Still hard to believe. Time moves through some kind of wormhole here. That first year was at least five, and this second one can't have lasted more than a few months ... </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Now that Ramadan is over and school started today, I hope to get in a little time at the dar chebab and nedi neswi before my time here is up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Meanwhile, I'm working on brushing up my resume. Those of you back home, PLEASE pass my name around (I can send you my resume if you want to pass that around, too) and keep an eye out for anything related to communications or public service. Now that this whole repatriation thing is becoming an actuality, I'm kind of freaking out about what I might be returning to. I've never left a job without having the next one lined up. I won't lie ~ it's kind of scary. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: large;"><strong>FYI for your COS</strong></span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">To that end, for my Peace Corps colleagues working on all the paperwork associated with completing service, here are a couple of good sites for writing your own letter of recommendation: </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.writeexpress.com/recommendation-letters.html"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">http://www.writeexpress.com/recommendation-letters.html</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Letter-of-Recommendation"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Letter-of-Recommendation</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">(Thanks, Meleeska, for passing these on!) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: large;"><strong>Improper usage doesn't pique my interest, it just makes my irritation peak.</strong></span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Bad grammar that has annoyed me lately, in several places, and that may similarly come in handy for those PCVs writing such COS documents as their DOS or VRF or even WTF: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It's Gandhi. Not Ghandi. Not Gahndi. <em>Gandhi</em>. A wise man would give a wise man proper attribution. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Something <em>piques</em> your interest. The word is not "peak." I can understand the assumption here ~ it suggests an increase, which could be translated physically. But it's wrong. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Similarly, something <em>whets</em> your appetite. Again, I can understand the misunderstanding. But just because the smell of bacon makes you drool, don't assume it means it "wets" your appetite. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And for Pete's sake, if you're old enough to be online, you're old enough to know the difference between "your" and "you're." Though even those born in days of yore have trouble with this. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Ditto for "there" and "their" and "they're." If you're not 110 percent positive, look it up before you type it up. Heck, look it up anyway ~ you might be surprised. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Contact me for private lessons if you need an unforgettable way to remember when to use "lie" vs. "lay." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: large;"><strong>News roundup.</strong></span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In the context of the current anti-Muslim fervor in America, I think </span><a href="http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/09/inside-american-islam"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Tuesday's podcast of On Point</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> ought to be required listening for all Americans. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Also to that end, I think </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/opinion/12kristof.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Nicholas Kristof makes a good point here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">. If you don't know any Muslims, you might try meeting a few before letting the media make your assumptions for you. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">If I ever had to go back to Tangier, I'd do my best to </span><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/travel/12Lost.html?hpw"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">get lost</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">, too. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Here's </span><a href="http://multiculturalmuslimah.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/moroccan-madame-says-her-girls-‘hajj’ed-up’-before-ban-satire/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">a pointedly funny sendup by a Moroccan writer</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> about the Saudis' ban on Moroccan women. If you haven't heard, </span><a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/09/01/mena-saudia-arabia-bans-moroccan-women-from-traveling-to-mecca/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Saudi Arabia has banned Moroccan women</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> "of a young age" from traveling to Mecca ~ thus banning them from one of the five pillars of Islam. The stereotype in the Arab world that Moroccan women are prostitutes was news to me. If they visited my village, or any village I've visited here, they'd see how utterly ridiculous that is. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Then contrast that story with that of the </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/19/local/la-me-0819-disney-hijab-20100819"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Moroccan-American woman who has to sue Disneyland</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> in order to wear her headscarf to work. Their "solution" essentially sends her to the back room ~ which is a lot like sending her to the back of the bus, imho. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I could say so much more about how men mis-shape the notions of what women are, what they must wear, who they must be ... but, luckily for us both, it's nearly 10 p.m. and that's my new daily deadline for turning off the Internet and doing something ~ anything ~ else. Goodnight.</span>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-19696844718889417102010-09-07T16:29:00.004-05:002010-09-07T16:36:24.761-05:00Bounty from l-bosta.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIaaPbTzURI/AAAAAAAAA8U/01GBzZUg9WI/s1600/books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIaaPbTzURI/AAAAAAAAA8U/01GBzZUg9WI/s320/books.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>Thanks to Darien books for these much-needed donations! </strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I walked to <em>lbosta</em> (the post office) this morning and walked home with 24 pounds of cool stuff ~ some for my <em>dar chebab</em>, some for me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">First, a long-anticipated donation from <a href="http://dba.darien.org/">Darien Book Aid</a>, a small but mighty American nonprofit that distributes donated books from the States to Peace Corps and other volunteers around the world. I received about 15 pounds of books in English, collected to meet my specific requests for my students' needs. We have a lot of beginner story books, a great picture dictionary, some basic YA novels, a couple of craft guides and even an encyclopedia on CD-ROM (if only we can get the computer room up and running!). </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">I'm really impressed by how this organization matched books to our profile. Several of the stories are about shepherds, goatherds or desert life. All of the characters are modestly dressed. Just what we'd asked for! </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">I hope you'll consider <a href="http://dba.darien.org/">Darien Books</a> when you make your next charitable donation. They do great work and put a lot of thought and effort into what they do. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIafUfvMAnI/AAAAAAAAA8c/9WLCG5L4o24/s1600/shelves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIafUfvMAnI/AAAAAAAAA8c/9WLCG5L4o24/s320/shelves.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Can't wait to add today's swag to our bookshelves!</strong></span> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Still, as you can see, we have a long way to go before we can call this room a library. And if you've read my previous posts <a href="http://shwiya-b-shwiya.blogspot.com/2010/01/embraced-and-bracelets.html">here</a> and <a href="http://shwiya-b-shwiya.blogspot.com/2010/05/more-from-donations-box.html">here</a>, you know what I think of our current collection. I'd love to give my kids more beginner English picture books, simple dictionaries, simple poetry, very basic YA biographies ~ essentially, lighweight, thin volumes, easy shippable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">This is where you, dear reader, potentially come in. With only two months left in my service, it's a little late for me to be suggesting this, but I'm gonna give it a shot anyway. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><strong>If any of my dear family and friends would like to do something to support the amazing kids of my village in their collective quest to learn English, pass their exams and conquer the world, here's an idea: Consider sending us a small box of gently used books!</strong></span> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">They could be tomes your own kids have grown beyond, or a few inexpensive selections from <a href="http://anovelideabookstore.com/">The World's Greatest Used Bookstore</a> (or some other awesome locally owned shop if you don't live near TWGUB). </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Shipping internationally can be a bit pricey (<a href="http://www.usps.com/prices/priority-mail-international-prices.htm">here are various USPS rates</a>), but a few friends working together could share the pain and spread the love. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Some ideas and caveats, should this idea interest you: </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><ul><li><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Any simple English picture books would be most welcome, from toddler board books to beginner YA novels (but the simpler the better, for even my older students). </span></div></li>
<li><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"></span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">My kids love science, nature and geography. I think they'd like poetry, too. </span></div></li>
<li><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">It'd be cool to have stories that display America's wonderful diversity (including our Muslim sisters and brothers). </span></div></li>
<li><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Small picture dictionaries would be great (and Arabic-to-English dictionaries would be a<em>MAZi</em>ng!).</span></div></li>
<li><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">I would only ask that nothing be sent that shows people in immodest dress or proselytizes any religion.</span></div></li>
</ul></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">If this idea appeals to you, let me know ASAP! It takes about 2 or 3 weeks for a Priority Mail package to reach me ... and my time here is running out. If you don't already have my contact information, drop me a line and I'll get it to you. </span><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Please know that whether or not you're able to make a donation, the fact that you've read and commented on this blog over the past two years, showing your support for my work here and the amazing kids I get to hang with, has meant so much to me. <em>LLah yrhem l-waladin!</em> ~ God bless your parents, as we say here.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: large;"><strong>But wait! That's not all!</strong></span> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">As if the fabulous box o'books weren't enough, I also got what is likely my last care package. (So strange to be already marking the "last" this, "one more" that ...) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Peanut butter! Saline solution! Black beans! And, best of all, more of the adorable kitchen towels my mom makes for me to share with my women friends here in the village. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIaqvEs_8tI/AAAAAAAAA8k/D2qHKWpbW4Y/s1600/towels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIaqvEs_8tI/AAAAAAAAA8k/D2qHKWpbW4Y/s320/towels.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong></strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>My mom's amazing handiwork</strong></span> </div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">The ladies always ooh and aah over her work. I sometimes think Mom would make a great Peace Corps volunteer ~ small business development, helping women artisans with color coordination, patterns and marketability. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Icing on today's cake: Not one, not two, but three young boys offered to help me carry my slightly unwieldly boxes home from the post office today. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #b45f06;">What I'm reading today:</span></strong> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This makes me so very, very sad: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/us/06muslims.html?_r=2&src=me&ref=general">American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?</a> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">This one makes me think, too little, too late: <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/09/06/florida.quran.burning/index.html#fbid=gUl8029toYO&wom=false">Planned Quran-burning could endanger troops, Petraeus warns</a> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><a href="http://technipol.tumblr.com/post/1009421058/therodentqueen-stfuislamophobes-this-is-one">And this one makes me hope someone out there might get it</a>. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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<div></div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-82206573505192029502010-09-06T17:35:00.001-05:002010-09-06T17:54:11.316-05:00Happy campers.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVbFCLm2oI/AAAAAAAAA78/n5JwN7QLBsI/s1600/camp+me+boys+beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVbFCLm2oI/AAAAAAAAA78/n5JwN7QLBsI/s320/camp+me+boys+beach.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;">With my boys ~ Brahim (left) and Abdsamad ~ on the beach in El Jadida.</span></strong> </span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Summer camp in El Jadida. Seems so long ago now, though it was only just before Ramadan. Is it OK to simultaneously celebrate the facts that (a) it was, as per usual, much more fun and rewarding than I'd anticipated, while (2) I never, ever have to do it again? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><em>(Note: <a href="http://shwiya-b-shwiya.blogspot.com/2009/08/camp-was-beach.html">Go here</a> for a full description of the experience that is U.S. Peace Corps English Immersion Summer Camp in Morocco.)</em> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">This year, I won the coveted role of "librarian," generally considered the easiest gig at camp. Widely considered to involve little to no work ~ no lesson plans to prepare for English teachers, nor craft projects or other plans for club leaders. Just sit back and check out the occasional book. Right? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Actually, for those two or so hours every day, I felt like I was more than earning my paycheck* for a change. In addition to the expansive library of English books provided by the U.S. Embassy, this year we also had a shelf full of books in Arabic ~ much more accessible to the average camper. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVbbc6NAOI/AAAAAAAAA8E/J3vdM93m2OQ/s1600/camp+library+girls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVbbc6NAOI/AAAAAAAAA8E/J3vdM93m2OQ/s320/camp+library+girls.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Browsing the stacks.</span></strong> </div><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">For 10 days, I collected collateral (ranging from a dirham to a frayed friendship bracelet to top-of-the-line cell phones and one girlie magazine, the latter subsequently confiscated) in exchange for books and board games. And what started as a friendly competition ~ for each book read and summarized to yours truly, a camper could earn points for his or her team ~ quickly became yet another lesson for the teacher. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The kids ate those books up! I had crowds of teenagers fighting to be the next to sit with me and describe the trials and tribulations of Tommy the Turtle. Moroccan kids rarely have access to books for pleasure reading, and while at first it was all about the points, over the course of camp I developed a steady corps of regulars who were obviously in it for the sheer fun of reading ~ and of sharing what they'd read. Best of all, some of my most dedicated readers were the official camp "troublemakers" ~ the ones you wanna smack upside the head and instead karate-chop the air beside them, grumbling, "Why, I oughta ...." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Not during library time. During library time they were quiet angels ~ except when jockeying for position to be the next to read to me (one young lady, doing impressions of various volunteers one afternoon, characterized me by swinging her hands in giant circles and screaming "Line up! Line up! You have to stand in line!"). And if I asked one of them to help me straighten the shelves or put something away, you'd think I'd given him a gold medal. It was fun, all in all. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVbs1DSQgI/AAAAAAAAA8M/mFCnUrPo4Q8/s1600/camp+readers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVbs1DSQgI/AAAAAAAAA8M/mFCnUrPo4Q8/s320/camp+readers.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Immersed in reading.</span></strong></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In other successes, the two scholarship boys I brought from my dar chebab shone as brightly as I'd hoped they would. By the third day of camp, each had already won Star of the Day honors. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Brahim, especially, was taken under the collective Peace Corps wing, with Seth and Christa turning him into a mad Frisbee champion and Marissa coaching him to Rubik's cube solution success. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Abdsamad, meanwhile, got a taste of life as a typical American teen. He was mopey for a few days in the middle there, and I couldn't coax him out of it. Marissa, in trying to commisserate, asked him one afternoon: "What's the matter ~ girl problems?" To which Abdsamad threw up his hands and essentially said: "I don't have a girl ~ that's the problem!" </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Here are a couple of videos of my boys: </span><br />
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And, if that's still not enough for you, Moroccan television station 2M (that's <em>deuxieme</em>, 'round these parts) visited camp one day and spent some time in the library: <a href="http://www.2m.ma/Infos/node_3807/2010/node_12817/12h45-30/%28date%29/20100730">Click here</a> and fast-forward to about 11:50. <br />
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Oh, camp. As usual, the best group of volunteers I could've worked with, and not too much work at that, and that part of my Peace Corps service is over now. <br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>* We won't note here that I'm not actually earning a paycheck, so much.</em></span> </span><br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-size: large;"><strong>More camp photos.</strong></span> </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVaXjISzqI/AAAAAAAAA70/WOIe2HVecn8/s1600/camp+cistern.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVaXjISzqI/AAAAAAAAA70/WOIe2HVecn8/s320/camp+cistern.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-small;"><strong>The cistern in El Jadida ~ gift of the Portugese, made famous in Orson Welles' "Othello."</strong></span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVaOFPcarI/AAAAAAAAA7s/_Vlzu3_53wA/s1600/camp+jeremy+girls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVaOFPcarI/AAAAAAAAA7s/_Vlzu3_53wA/s320/camp+jeremy+girls.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>Jeremy and campers getting crafty.</strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVZ91laDgI/AAAAAAAAA7c/oRkMa040nH8/s1600/camp+Marissa+gun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVZ91laDgI/AAAAAAAAA7c/oRkMa040nH8/s320/camp+Marissa+gun.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>Marissa launches a sneak Super Soaker attack on kids returning from the beach. </strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVaHt_N7PI/AAAAAAAAA7k/KF8wXlG-mI8/s1600/camp+anthony+snails.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVaHt_N7PI/AAAAAAAAA7k/KF8wXlG-mI8/s320/camp+anthony+snails.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>Anthony and friend examing escargot. </strong></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVZ15sc0cI/AAAAAAAAA7U/09dJ19qSRvA/s1600/camp+spectac+group.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVZ15sc0cI/AAAAAAAAA7U/09dJ19qSRvA/s320/camp+spectac+group.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>Last-night photo shoot.</strong></span> </div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-74332101386295108202010-09-06T14:41:00.020-05:002010-09-06T17:29:31.062-05:00How I've spent the month of Ramadan.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVDstZ-BwI/AAAAAAAAA7M/a9iRejpHsA4/s1600/Sit+in+My+House.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TIVDstZ-BwI/AAAAAAAAA7M/a9iRejpHsA4/s320/Sit+in+My+House.bmp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><em>*art by <a href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/">Hyperbole and a Half</a> ~ via the amazing Rachel</em></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Hiding inside my house (both to escape the outrageous heat and to disguise the fact that I'm not fasting) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Reading the entire innerwebs (this task up to approx. 79% complete, but I still have a few days left) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Killing an average of 5 large insects in my house per day. Grasshoppers, cockroaches, crickets, moths, giant ants ~ oh, my. (This does not count mosquitos and the occasional what-I-really-really-hope-are-not-bedbugs.) No scorpions, for which I am grateful. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Sitting in the back room of Kabira's hanut, practicing my dough-rolling skills for future employment as a non-OSHA-compliant baker </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Completing the <em>Moudawana</em> (Moroccan family law) education manual that has sat at 90% completion for the past 13 months. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Contemplating a long list of other writing/reporting tasks: updated resume, quarterly reports, Description of Service, site journal for new volunteer, </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Not following any of the above through to completion </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Not journaling </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Not "writing" writing </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Editing the projects of anyone else who asks (rather than working on my own) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Not perfecting crow pose </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Not exercising, per se </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Throwing out my back (aGAIN), likely a side effect of not exercising </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Stalking you on the Internet </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Watching various personal dramas from afar </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Trying to remember what it's like to have personal drama </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Mentally paring down my possessions (again) as a result of panicking over what to ship back home, and how, and how to pay for it </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Savoring the muezzin's morning and evening calls to prayer, knowing how much I will miss these lovely daily interludes </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Wondering what comes next ... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><strong><span style="color: #783f04;">Puns I have enjoyed this week:</span></strong> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"<a href="http://jezebel.com/5601522/how-elizabeth-gilbert-ruined-bali">Eat Pay Leave</a>" ~ Tshirt currently popular in Bali in response to the "Eat Pray Love" juggernaut </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/garden/02oval.html">The Audacity of Taupe</a>" ~ NYT headline on the Oval Office's beige makeover </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #783f04;">Blogs I am enjoying today:</span></strong> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/is-islamophobia-the-new-hysteria/">Nicholas Kristof's reminder</a> that the current Islamophobia is only the latest in a long American tradition of fear-mongering when it comes to new communities. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/">Hyperbole and a Half</a>: Thanks, Miz K! And now I see that this delightfully nerdy blog is also where Miz R "borrowed" the artwork I "borrowed" from her to launch this post, and isn't that a tidy little full circle?</span>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-90927018216543122112010-09-03T12:59:00.003-05:002010-09-03T13:19:08.808-05:00My day.<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I hate when a woman in a vividly patterned lizar greets me, and so I greet her effusively, assuming I've met her before and just don't recognize her behind all her wrappings, and so I'm all touchy and chummy with her so she doesn't catch on that I don't even recognize her ... and then come to the realization that I don't know her at all, she's never seen me before, she just wants a dirham. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I love being greeted by a trio of my rowdy dar chebab boys, walking around on <em>nhar jma3</em> (Friday, mosque day) in their crisp white or beige summer gandoras. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I hate having to break up a fight among other boys in my neighborhood when I can't begin to comprehend what they're fighting about. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I love when two of those same boys are willing to go find me an electrician and drag him to my house, on a moment's notice, then make a run to the hardware store for him, and wait politely for the man behind the counter to finish his Friday prayers before bringing back the parts ~ and my 3 dirhams' change. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I hate, and also love, when the electrician, a young man who's never met me before and has a pregnant wife at home, won't allow me to pay him for his work or time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">I love when my host mom, after an impassioned discussion of the Saudi men vs. Moroccan women issue (see yesterday's post), tells me I need to go home and study to be a women's rights lawyer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-size: large;"><strong>Good reads.</strong></span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/30/muslim.women.media/#fbid=gUl8029toYO&wom=false">I get tired of this, too</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><a href="http://www.rtwblog.com/2010/09/the-wrong-town-in-morocco/">Vagabonder Rolf Potts visits the "wrong" town in Morocco.</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/09/its_time_to_play_bush_obama_or.html?f=most-commented-intel-7d5">It's Time to Play 'Bush, Obama, or Imam?'</a></span>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-57884461457034850882010-09-02T08:18:00.028-05:002010-09-24T03:09:43.010-05:00Signs, signs, everywhere are signs.<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TH--pkBypZI/AAAAAAAAA7E/6bnE2zJwJEM/s1600/McD1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512334090179880338" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TH--pkBypZI/AAAAAAAAA7E/6bnE2zJwJEM/s400/McD1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Ramadan continues. One recent day in Agadir, two friends and I (both PCVs, one Muslim) came across this sign at the McDonald's on the beach. "To our customers: During the days of Ramadan, only children and adult non-Muslims may be served here." </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">As with much involving Ramadan, I'm not sure how I feel about this. I do think it's important to be as respectful as possible during this holiday. Fasting from sunup to sundown takes its toll, and there's no reason to flaunt food in the face of those who are abstaining. In addition, as I previously mentioned, Moroccans are presumed by birth to be Muslim, and so are legally as well as religiously prohibited from eating and drinking in public during Ramadan. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">On the other hand, what business is it of McDonald's ~ or of anyone else, for that matter? There are many circumstances that allow a Muslim to break the fast during Ramadan (travel, illness, menstruation, pregnancy, for example). What about parents who want to bring their children, too young to fast, in for a treat? And, if they're not fasting, why is it up to McDonald's, or anyone else, to police them? </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Meanwhile, I feel as if I'm cowering inside my house, emerging only near sunset to visit others' homes for <em>lftr</em> (the yummy meal that traditionally breaks the fast) or to forage for food on my own. Part of it's the heat, which has been unbearable, in the 110-plus range with no relief from insulation or shade trees or air conditioning. But it's also to avoid the inevitable "<em>Wech sayema</em>?" Are you fasting? </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><em>I'm trying</em>, I say. Which is a lie. A white lie, I hope, intended only to not cause offense. The question, or any following admonitions, generally isn't intended to be rude. It comes out of basic curiosity, and a genuine wish that I experience the same benefits of this month that they consider the most holy and cleansing. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Think about it. Not fasting is as strange and foreign in this culture as the idea of fasting, or of Islam in general, is to most of my Midwestern friends and family back home. Part of my work here is to exchange culture ~ to show Moroccans what Americans are like (and to show y'all what Moroccans are like, that Muslim does NOT equal terrorist, for example). So for my friends here to see that I am not Muslim but I respect their religion, that I may not fast but I'm still a good person ... that seems to me to be important. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">So I say I'm trying ~ but that I'm not Muslim, and this is something I haven't adjusted to, especially in this heat. People usually accept this answer. I hear reports from some other volunteers that they get hassled, so I feel grateful that people here seem to understand that it's OK for me to be different. (But oh, how tiring it can be to constantly be <em>so</em> different!) </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Many Peace Corps volunteers actually do fast. I have mixed feelings about that, too ~ for non-Muslims, that is. If it's out of respect for their fellow villagers, I can respect that, though I think there is nothing wrong with eating and drinking in the privacy of one's home if one isn't a believer. If they're doing it as a personal test of their own strength and willpower, more power to them, though I worry about the health ramifications of not drinking water all day in this brutal summer heat. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">But for some I think this, as with so many things we do here, is simple (and misplaced) competition. <em>Look</em>, it seems to say, <em>I'm fully integrated into my community.</em> Which of course means <em>I'm a better Peace Corps volunteer than you</em>. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Or maybe I'm being overly sensitive. Back to keeping my eyes on my own paper. </span></div><br />
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<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><strong><span style="color: #993300; font-size: 130%;">A hole in the ground.</span></strong> </span></div><div></div><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TH--pMDbRiI/AAAAAAAAA68/ashaUDy4HmM/s1600/squat.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512334083744286242" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TH--pMDbRiI/AAAAAAAAA68/ashaUDy4HmM/s400/squat.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a> <br />
<div><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"></span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Yup, this is my toilet! (It's really a lot cleaner than it looks ... just highly discolored from plumber's putty or some such thing.) </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">All during training, my first few months in Morocco, I did everything I could do avoid using a squat, or Turkish, toilet. I'd wait half an hour for the one Western stall to be free. When a squat was unavoidable, it took me forever to roll up my pants or gather my skirt, get my feet into the proper position, and hope for the best. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Of course, as soon as one is sent to their little rural village, one is no longer able to avoid the inevitable, and thus the squat became a part of my daily life. I'm so used to it now that it'll never faze me again. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Now, Slate has </span><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2264657/"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">an article touting one of the main benefits of the squat</span></a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">. You might be surprised how much, um, <em>easier</em> certain tasks are on the squat. Let's just say there's no need for a reading rack in the Moroccan bathroom. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Not to mention the hygiene factor. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">There are negatives, however. I learned early on, for example, that Turks are not vomit-friendly. Just a tip from me to you. </span><br />
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</div><div><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="color: #993300;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><strong><span style="color: #993300;">Call me! Text me! Email me!</span></strong> </span></span></span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Here's another way Peace Corps volunteers compete: <em>I use less technology than you!</em> Early-generation volunteers especially like to tout how they were airdropped into an African field, told "So long, see you in two years," and had to fend for themselves without benefit of running water or electricity, much less wifi. (And they had to walk uphill 10 miles to and from school every day ~ just substitue "sandstorm" for "blizzard.) </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Things have changed. </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129449455"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">NPR ran a recent story </span></a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">on how technology is changing life in the Peace Corps ~ a welcome change not only for volunteers, but for the communities they serve. (The article also features our former assistant country director, Gordie Mengel, newly relocated to Rwanda and king of the original Peace Corps badasses.)</span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Personally, I feel blessed to have Internet access ~ in my own home, no less. Call it Posh Corps if you will, but I'm not sure I could've survived the early months without the ability to Skype with my family back home. I couldn't plan my English lessons without the Internet (it's not as if Peace Corps gave us a curriculum or teacher training, believe me). I'm able to connect easily with other volunteers to plan larger projects. All of our required Peace Corps reports must be done online. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">It's easily used as a crutch, true ~ a way to hide out and forget, however temporarily, that you're living in a developing country. But it also has multiple benefits ~ and not just for the volunteer. Last night my "sister" Kabira asked me to help her write an email to a friend. Then we looked at online photos from a previous volunteer's wedding. Then we had a miniature geography lesson, expanding her notion of the world around us. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Cell phones especially have helped poor people around the globe ~ not just to keep in touch with family, but to receive news and perform business. Internet cafes are a boon to entrepreneurs and rural users alike. Families can Skype relatives working overseas to support their families back home. The flood of news that otherwise wouldn't get to remote areas is amazing. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Technology is part of our world ~ not just the Western world. It has its drawbacks, but to deny it to people in "developing" countries seems the height of condescension. And why shouldn't volunteers take advantage of it, not only for themselves but for their work? </span></div><br />
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<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><strong><span style="color: #993300; font-size: 130%;">In other news ....</span></strong> </span></div><br />
<div><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/29/saudi-arabia-ban-moroccan-women-stereotype"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Moroccan women controversy: </span></a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The idea that the Middle East considers their Moroccan Muslim sisters as loose at best, prostitutes at worst is completely unbelieveable to me, living here in this village where women generally cover themselves head to toe whenever they venture outside the home. Looks like ridiculous negative stereotyping isn't limited to the USA, after all. </span></div><br />
<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">On the other hand ... coming from The Onion, </span><a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou,17990/"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">this article </span></a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">is obviously just a joke and not at all true or typical of Americans. Right? Right??? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><strong><span style="color: #993300;">Currently listening to:</span></strong> The entire Black Keys backlist (thanks, <a href="http://frommoroccowithlove.wordpress.com/">Nicole</a>!) </span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><strong><span style="color: #993300;">Currently laughing at:</span></strong> <a href="http://www.yousuckatcraigslist.com/">You Suck at Craigslist </a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><strong><span style="color: #993300;">Currently learning from:</span></strong> <a href="http://zenhabits.net/brief-guide/">A brief guide to life </a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><strong><span style="color: #993300;">Currently quoting:</span></strong> "Don't focus on the one guy who hates you. You don't go to the park and set your picnic down next to the only pile of dog shit." ~ from "<a href="http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays">Shit My Dad Says</a>"</span> </div></div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615370685098294849.post-39757741719549014702010-08-19T12:33:00.013-05:002010-08-19T16:53:17.635-05:00Ramadan karim.<div align="left"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TG2hhI5U16I/AAAAAAAAA6k/Kv4Gyzb8Mi4/s1600/IMG_8960.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">(* Generous Ramadan) </span></a><br /></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span></div><br /><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507235510039664546" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TG2hhI5U16I/AAAAAAAAA6k/Kv4Gyzb8Mi4/s400/IMG_8960.jpg" border="0" /> <strong><span style="font-size:85%;">Kabira and her new toy.</span></strong> </span></div><br /><br /><p align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">We are about a week into Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims fast from sunrise to sundown. It is a time of extra prayer and charity, a time Kabira described to me as a test of one's dedication to the faith. </span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Kabira and the rest of my Moroccan family have been so good to me these past two years. Latest example: They insist I eat <em>lftr</em> ~ the meal breaking the fast ~ with them every evening. I know they can ill afford another mouth to feed, and there's an uproar any time I try to contribute anything more than a few dates. They've never asked me for a single thing, other than I spend time with them. </span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The other day, Kabira was salivating over the idea of having a pasta machine to lighten the load of making <em>chebekia</em> for the hanut. Chebekia, a sticky-sweet pastry drizzled with honey and sesame seeds, is a traditional part of the Moroccan <em>lftr</em>. Kabira has been making giant piles of it to sell at her shop ~ but the work of rolling and cutting the dough requires several people, and she's been hiring neighborhood girls to help her ~ thus eating away any potential profit. </span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Today, I took her shopping, and we came home with the machine. It felt so good to give something back to this family that has given me so much that I almost feel guilty ~ surely I did this more for myself than for Kabira. </span><br /></p><p align="center"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TG2meq_ojOI/AAAAAAAAA6s/Z4pxWe23h7g/s1600/chebekia.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507240965211458786" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x9ClR8CbvB0/TG2meq_ojOI/AAAAAAAAA6s/Z4pxWe23h7g/s400/chebekia.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><strong>Chebekia.</strong></span><br /></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;color:#993300;"><strong>More on Ramadan.</strong></span> </p><div align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Based on the lunar calendar, Ramadan arrives 11 days earlier every year. My sympathies are with those who must refrain from even water during these sweltering weeks of deep summer. We've been unusually blessed recently with cooling rains, but the forecast shows it'll be <em>skunna hal </em>~ popping back up into the 110-degree (F) range ~ again starting tomorrow. </span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /></span></div><br /><p align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Moroccans are Muslim by birth and are not only morally but also legally required to fast. PRI's The World had </span><a href="http://www.theworld.org/?s=morocco"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">an interesting piece on Moroccans </span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">who are lobbying against laws prohibiting them from consuming food in public during Ramadan, whether they consider themselves believers or not. </span><br /></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Additionally, </span><a href="http://www.wpr.org/hereonearth/archive_ii.cfm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">the "Inside Islam" series</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, produced by Here On Earth: Radio Without Borders, has a wealth of downloadable podcasts offering a better understanding of Ramadan and of Islam in general. </span><br /></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#993300;"><strong>Counting down.</strong></span> </span></p><div align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">No, I haven't forgotten I have a blog. I was working at an English immersion camp up north for a couple of weeks. After that, I was busy being lazy. I'll try to do better. </span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">But with fewer than three months now before my time here comes to an end, I suddenly find myself awash in paperwork. My description of service document describing the work I've done here. A journal to describe my life and work here for the next volunteer. A long-delayed toolkit of moudawana resources for the Gender and Development Committee to share with all volunteers. My quarterly report, due several weeks ago, actually. Oops. </span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">And then there's the future ~ time to start putting out feelers, working contacts, trying to figure out what might come next, and where, and with whom. Ideas? Advice? Deep coffers? </span></div>Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504904543053532299noreply@blogger.com4