I'm still here!

It’s been awhile. I’m sorry faithful reader(s).
At least I’ve been busy.

Trip home in March—Awesome! Spent lots of time with Randy, family, and friends; ate lots of good food; drank a little too much. I also managed to acquire several itchy bumps on my neck and jaw. Oddly enough they quickly went away once I got back to Morocco. What could I be allergic to?? I've never had food allergies before.

Some observations I made during my trip home: My attempts at multitasking resulted in burned pancakes. Sensory overload usually resulted in instant sleepiness—which explains why I fell asleep standing up at a hip-hop show. I also noticed that I actually eat a lot slower than I used to and I stop eating once I'm full. I believe that’s a result of 4 months of home-stay in Morocco. They’ll keep feeding you until you firmly say no more. No more means no more. On a related note, I’m “healthier” by Moroccan standards than I used to be: I’m a wholesome size 10/11 (in wedding dress size), with cellulite on the arms to boot… I’m such a catch for a Moroccan man. Also, going back to Jujutsu was a lot more fun and a lot less scary than I thought. I’ll be more than ready to get back into it when I go back home. And most importantly I realized I love Randy more than ever. I’ll be more than ready to marry him when I finish my service… Just give me at least 3 months to get back to American “healthy.” The lovely consultant at the bridal shop said that the seamstress can take in gowns down to 5 dress sizes!

Rose Fest tents—After some crazy moments, countless meetings, and numerous communication mishaps the project was hugely successful. Thanks to the 10 PCVs that helped out and huge thanks to our partner association ADMD (Association Dades-Mgoun for Development), Ministry of Health Ouarzazate (SIAAP), several high school students, teachers, community partners and nurses who communicated our message of HIV/AIDS and STI awareness and prevention to their fellow Moroccans. Thanks to all our volunteers we had 2560 people come to our tents. That’s 550% more than what we projected. We had 681 women 15 years or older visit the female tent. That’s way better than last year, since last year there was just one tent, and men crowded that tent so women/girls stayed away. Since HIV/AIDS is such a taboo topic by simply providing a tent solely for females and one just for males, hundreds of women/girls were reached. Although our project turned out to be a better success than expected we came away with many lessons to be passed on for next year. The biggest lesson that I learned from planning such a large scale project as a PCV was that communicating in 2nd (3rd in my case) language is freakin’ hard. There’s so much room for misunderstanding and miscommunication we might as well be deaf-blind-mutes. There’s enough miscommunication that happens among same language speakers, just throw in 3 or 4 languages together, everyone at a different language capacity, and try to work with multiple organizations and people of various ages and status to plan a large scale event and see how it goes. Ugh! I’m getting worked up just thinking about it. Anyway, my point is there’s never enough follow-up and clarification that can happen when planning an event like this especially when working in a language other than your first.

Mid Service Medicals—It was my first time in Rabat, the capital of Morocco. Nice place. It seems like a European city with definite Near Eastern flare. It was weird to be in a place where everyone minded their own business. I’ve never been to a market in Morocco where people weren’t constantly calling you over to their shop and pressuring you to buy their stuff. Rabat is expensive though, I ate sushi, Italian food, Indian food, and American food (Outdoor bbq at the American Club). Anyway, I have no parasites, cavities, or illnesses to report. The doc says I’m healthy.


Community based Waste Management project—This is the most frustrating project I’ve got right now. I’m so sick of the association president that I was working with. I’m so done with him. He’s all talk no action and I come to find out that not many people like him around here. Not a good community partner. He’s not the only one. I’m starting to realize that there’s so much political rivalry and drama among the men that I’m surprised anything gets done around here. It seems like no one wants to work together!

I’m rethinking my strategy. I met a guy in my neighborhood that speaks good English, has a good sense of volunteerism, creative, educated, and is secretary and treasurer of a recently founded association for children. I had my first meeting with him two days ago and I’m excited to work with him. If all goes well we’ll plan a trash walk on Saturday, the 5th of June (World Environment Day) at which we'll gather children and youth to examine the problem dump sites. Then we’ll do a follow-up meeting to share observations, discuss causes and effects of sitting solid waste, burning garbage, and brainstorm ways to reduce waste and possible solutions on how to deal with garbage. We’ll incorporate some environmental lessons/activities then plan garbage clean up day sometime in the following month in which the whole community will participate.

Neddie Niswi (Women’s craft program)—This has also been frustrating but for different reasons. The girls elected to office simply have no experience being in a leadership position so it’s been a slow process. We have a teacher lined up to teach women how to weave. We’ve agreed on payment for the teacher and how much the students will pay. We have plans to start crochet/knitting, sewing, and embroidery classes later on, once we’re more established. I’ve been using the women who attend the literacy classes (there are 4 in my immediate neighborhoods) as a venue to gauge interest and to get the message out about the neddie niswi. We’re now aiming to start in July after the wheat harvest. Keep your fingers crossed that this will happen and the neddie will run smoothly.


English classes and Karate—Still going, I’m rethinking the goals and structure of the English class. They’re listening comprehension is pretty good, but they need lots of practice speaking. I also need to finalize arrangements for using the Karate school space near the main road so I can teach the girls more effectively. The space I use at the association is less than ideal with the hard cement floors. The teacher at the karate school is fine with me using the space but I need to talk to the landlord next. Maybe I can somehow get mats so that I can start teaching them Jujutsu too.

Future projects… OMG! I have 11 months left.
SOS villages—The Youth Development Program Manager invited all PCVs to do a short program at these orphan compounds. I’d like to do a health related program at the one in Agadir in July.

Health Club—I’d like to organize a weekly or bi-monthly club for children (7-14) in which we’ll do health related activities. Ideally I’d like to involve the high school students who are part of the health club in their high schools to lead the club for the kids.

Traditional Birth Attendant Training—Christi the first PCV in my site did a TBA training, and a refresher course. After conducting a survey and gathering data at my local clinic, most of the women give birth at home and don’t use a TBA. I think there are several reasons for this, such as access to hospitals, the personality of the women who are trained, the number of women who are trained, and so forth. So I’d like to address these reasons and do a TBA training in which the women trained will actually be used by the women in the community.

The question is will I have enough time to get to all of these projects before I finish my service? We’ll see.