Participation

As Peace Corps volunteers our job is to integrate into these communities that we are placed in. This means we basically befriend everyone and participate in community events. As you know, Morocco, were I am placed is a Muslim country. This means religion seeps into everything, and religious holidays are the biggest events. Right now we are beginning Ramadan. This is 29 to 30 days of fasting according to the lunar cycle. Fasting, prayer, and charity are all big parts of this holiday. It is so cool to be placed in a location that is so different from anything else I have experienced. I am exited to learn all about the culture and religion and hope to participate in anyway I can. When it comes to religion it becomes a little tricky. Yes people try to convert me all the time and it can be a good way to learn more, but let's just say I am a long way from converting to any form of religion. I would however love to participate in any of the events they have. I have learned how to put on a hijab which is great for when my hair is wet and probably even better for when winter gets here. I have learned how to pray from my super cool host mom. Picked up a bunch of god phrases that are used in typical conversation, and I just know that there is going to be so many more events. Now though is Ramadan. Ramadan is intense everyone's daily schedule changes. People stop eating and drinking water and pray many more times a day. We are of course not expected to participate in anything we don't want to and when it comes to religious events this can get even more of a touchy subject. Volunteers are so exited to participate in anyway they can and this is the same when it comes to fasting. Ramadan is such an important holiday and the question that is asked the most not only by host country national but also by other volunteers is are you going to participate in Ramadan? For he longest time my answer was "I am going to try." Now that Ramadan is here my answer is "no". For me at this point in time for both my emotional and physical health fasting is not the best idea. My local hanut guy laughs at me as I guiltily go by eggs from him, and my fellow PCV's boo and ask me why. "It's 120 degrees outside and you think I should go all day with out drinking water?" Ok so that's no all there is to it but still. It's hot and I love water! Anyway I feel guilty that I am not participating in this one, but for me it's just not reasonable. I spent summers living with my mom and we finally figured out that when we both started acting a little snippy that it was dinner time and lots of arguments were settled by one of us saying "go eat something and then we will finish this argument". Anyway I am still expected to do my community integration and teach English and sports. Learning to live in another country is still taking its tole and everyone around me is still questioning if I will make it. I even have a small group of people that are rutting against me. That's beside the point. The Point. I want to participate. I want to learn. I even one day want to be able to day that I have participate and live through Ramadan, but I also want to do it right. I want my two years here to be a success. I want my two years of Peace Corps. It's tough to see my rock star friends fast and be able to walk out of the house and just mold into Morocco like they are part of the crowd. One day, enshaallah, I will have that too. As for right now fasting is not in the picture. I don't cook during the day, I don't eat or drink in public, and I admire those that are fasting. My goal for Ramadan is to finish the Quran, but there will be a water bottle at my side. Maybe next year with more understanding and a healthier happier outlook I will fast with my neighbors. For now I am going to read this book, thank whatever higher power gave me this glass of water, and listen to the beautiful call to prayer.

Religious holidays.

Today I woke up wondering if I would be allowed to have a cup of coffee or if I would go to hell for it. This is of course like most of my blogs and most of my first thoughts in the morning before my first cup of coffee a gross exaggeration. Ramadan in most of the world started today. Morocco of course wanted one more day of couscous before, so it won't start till tomorrow. Just kidding. I have only had one sip of coffee it will take a minute to kick in. Morocco goes back to old time for Ramadan so it's actually 6 in the morning not 7, and with just one sip of coffee in my I figure what is a better time than now to chat about the one topic we are not suppose to talk about! No not money, not politics, but don't worry we will get there soon, but this morning on the eve of one of the biggest holidays I figure we should talk religion. I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THIS TOPIC. YOU GIANT SQUIDS OF ANGER ON THE INTERWEBS DON'T READ INTO THIS IN ANY WAY PLEASE.! These are just my little lonely thoughts that will hopefully turn into something. When it comes to religion I am pretty uneducated. This seams like a silly statement seeing as I went to a Catholic school, was baptized Presbyterian, grew up praying in some form or another before eating or going to bed, and Christmas was always quite the event in my family. I have gone to church, youth group, and synagogue with my friends. I make the cross anytime a plane takes off and say bismila when I get in a car. Some form of a higher power however he/she/it maybe understood has been something I cross my fingers for, yet with all of this religion has always eluded me. Religion has always been something I was not really willing to go near. To me it was just something for people to argued over. In my life time I watched people as they refused to listen, talk to, or be near each other because they believed in different things. Then I watched as people began killing each other over it. I can't quite understand why this is so important. Yes, this sounds naive, I know but still this is one of those topic I just can't quite grasp the concept of and I found that if I just did my best to avoid the topic things would be fine. The college I attended was religious in some way. It had a chapel and had a world religions course that people loved. It was one of those classes that everyone took and everyone loved, except of course for me. I found myself lucky enough to be brought into the honors program which allowed me to replace all of my liberal arts classes with honors ones. This I found to be a gift from whatever higher power was looking out for me because it helped me avoid that topic as much as I possibly could. My really great friend in college was also my sorority sisters. It took us quite some time to actually become friends because well you just can't believe some of the things that this girl says. Once we finally became friends/sisters and found a place were we understood each other. We started spending more and more time together one weekend we took a trip together, and she had what we called a zenon moment. Like the girls from outer space in that Disney movie. The words that came out of this girls mouth was just so outrageous I could not believe it. Luckily it prompted me to ask the question I had truly been wondering this whole time. "how in the world are you still alive?" She stopped and looked at me and having realized what just happened, she had no clue. On the train ride back she was finally able to give me an answer. "the only logical reason that I am still alive is that Jesus loves me... A lot." We both giggled. As my college carrier was coming to a close, I began freaking out as most graduating seniors do. I looked to my friends for help and there were only two people around me that really seamed to just be willing to go with the flow. The only two were my friends S & J. These two people could not be any more different from each other, but the one thing that they do seam to have in common are higher powers J is Muslim and S is Christian, I asked both of them and they said that their peace of mind comes from their higher power and religious beliefs. I want that peace of mind and if religion is going to be the place to find it than it is time for me to start studying. After college I found myself with some time on my hands so I went out and got a copy of the Qur'an and the Bible and started reading. The Peace Corps finally became a thing and my free time went way. I was lucky enough to meet someone, E, who had recently been through his spiritual awakening, and has been a fountain of information for me. In the end this is a really long and boring way to tell you I still have no clue when it comes to religion and I don't know if it will ever be for me. E helped me realize that if nothing else I am a 2 gallon bucket and 3 gallons of crazy and some book probably won't help fix that ( you so know I am reading 7 habits of highly effective people after this...j.k). Anyway my plan is to finish the Qur'an and Bible if nothing else because they are lovely and poetic. I am currently in a wonderful position of living in a religiously run country and am going to be given the chance to hopefully partake in lots of religious events and plan to take advantage of them. Tomorrow the rest of the country will begin fasting. I plan to ask lots of questions whenever I get the chance. I still don't get it. I don't know if I ever will. I am jealous of the peace of mind my friends have found and maybe Ramadan will help me with that. I guess the one thing now is that I am openminded to it. Good, bad, indifferent. Anyway here goes nothing, quite literally nothing! No food or water! it is 120 degrees out here! Once the cannon sounds letting us all know we can eat I will raise my bowl of harara (Moroccan soup) to an open and hopefully enshaallah peaceful mind.

Rooftops

Here in Morocco I have gained a new found love for rooftops. Here rooftops have become this magical portal to another place. Ok so obviously I am getting carried away a little with my new found love but the thing is here as a volunteer or even just as an American or someone who is starting to work in a new environment there is a continuos pressure to be perfect. Not only is Morocco just a really judgmental place to begin with, i am once more the new kid, and this time the strange looking one to. Every move I make is judged even when i think no one is looking. I have been told this is called the fish bowl effect.Anyway Peace Corps puts you in training with all of these wonderful people, you become fast friends and then Peace Corps does what they told you they would do all along, but splits you up and sends you to different corners of the country. Luckily Peace Corps gives us a phone that lets us all chat with each other and we are lucky enough to be doing this in the age of technology where communication is simple and sometimes instant. Now every once and a while we are lucky enough to get time off or there be some big event that throes us all together in one place along with this tend to be some hotel with a rooftop, these have become wonderful places where we can all get together relax, have a drink, eat way to many potato chips, play spades, and have educated conversations with vocabulary higher than a fifth grade level. Now many of us are in our own home and these tend to have rooftop access or a small court yard as in my case. This is a little outside places that are hidden away from the curious eyes of those in our community, they give us a chance to be outside and do and speak as we please. A friend of mine came out to spend a week and this gave us a great place to sit, read our books, and drink coffee in our pj's (which would not be acceptable to do in a public place. Girls in cafes and pj's are not publicly acceptable here). The heat here has also been rising over 100 degrees and many of my friends have ended up spending the nights on their roofs because it is just to hot to be indoors. Anyway I am grateful for these wonderful little escapes.

Update & Sorry.
My computer has died. I only get a chance to hit the web every once in a while and it will be quite some time before I can get you guys picture. Sorry. Hopefully more to come as often as I can.

Punching People in the Face on Tuesdays.

I guess since the only people that read this are family andfriends I should probably preface this whole thing with saying that everythingis fine and I am alright, but this story is just too good not to share. Acouple of weeks ago on a Tuesday I was walking home from the café when theeguys that were walking on the other side of the street started walking towards me.This in Morocco is not out of the ordinary they normally just walk up to me andsay something crude and I just continue walking and try not to let it get tome. This time it was different one of the guys began lifting his fist andbefore I knew it, it was headed in the direction of my face, so like any normalperson I duct. His fist just braced the side of my face ( no bruises or nothingso no worries). As I tried to move my face away from his fist I tripped andfell to the ground the other guys that were with him began to laugh and theyall walked away. I got myself off and brushed myself off, and looked up to find4 old men just sitting and watching and did nothing. I readied myself andcontinued the rest of the half a mile walk to my home. As I got closer to thetrain tracks I was not able to hold it in any long and began to cry. One of thelocal Drunks who regularly hangs out by the train tracks ran over or welldrunkenly hobbled over and asked if I was ok. I told him I was fine and hewondered off. I made my way into the house and crawled into bed until it wastime for me to catch the train to El Jadida the next day for my regionalmeeting.

                I wishthat I could say that I was surprised by this, but that is just the way my townhere in Morocco is. People that look different, women, or foreigners, just gettreated like this. All I could think of after this happened were of the peoplethat just stood around and watched and could have not though twice that thismay not have been such a nice thing for these guys to do or care to help me inany way. As I grew more and more angry about what had happened I kept thinkingabout that scene in the West Wing after a plane with a friends of Bartlett’sgets blown up. Bartlett is offered a proportional response and can’t believethat is all there is go do. Bartlett tells Leo that when Rome was a super powerall one had to do was say the words “I am a Roman” & they could cross anyland unharmed. Bartlett now being the leader of the current super power wantedthe same protection for his people. There would be such fear in the concept ofharming one of his people that people would never think of it. Leo his righthand man reminded him that that is NOT how a super power acts. As I was gettingpunched in the face, in a country that had invited me and asked me for help. Icould not stop to think where was my protection?

                Anywayafter spending a week with new friends, a lot of support from wonderful people,and a few good moments with Moroccan people I was able to just get over it. My mind stopped thinking of the West Wing video and started thinking of the SNL one.

                The next Tuesday my site mate andI were on one of our community walks when this boy started walking up to her inan aggressive manner. She just stood and watched as this boy came at her. Igrab her shirt pulled her into the street and shoved the guy away. His friendsall got up to flow up and she and I made our way cross the street to our localOstrich owner. J was amazed at how fast everything had happened. As we made ourway back home (our wonderful safe haven), J ask “Is someone going to getpunched in the face every Tuesday?” I guess it looked like I punched the boy inthe face but I swear I only shoved him in self-defense. None the less so farTuesdays have always had a twitch of violence. May it be getting hit by abasketball, getting punched in the face or shoving someone else. Tuesdays arejust a crazy day to just try and handle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILvkEHQPHHg

…. Don’t get me started on Friday’s holy days my -------.

Finding a Nun in Morocco

          I was lucky enough that my CBT (Cultural Based Training) was close enough to HUB (where everyone in our region met up for lectures) that my friends and I could walk. It was a lovely one hour away by foot that always brought us to wonderful conversation. Now the traffic in Morocco is quite scary, I don’t think it is as bad as the traffic in Peru, but it is bad enough that Peace Corps does not allow us to operate vehicles or ride on motorcycles. So far I have found myself late for a couple of different things due to the fact that I have to wait 10 minutes in order to find a safe time to cross the street.

          On one of our walks to HUB as we were waiting for a safe moment to cross the street my friend Ted brought up the fact that when he was in Italy all he ever needed to do when he needed to cross the street was find a Nun and go with her. This was basically the same thing when I live in France and when I went back to visit with my friend Stacey. Nicole also had some fun stories from when she lived in Cambodia. Obviously at some point we made it across the street. Now here in Morocco there are no Nuns to help us cross so most of time it is just a live game of Frogger.

          Luckily most of time we are viewed as ‘miskina’ (poor thing). When the first person ever called me ‘miskina’ all I wanted to do was correct them. I am the luckiest person in the world why would anyone think of me as ‘miskina’. Whenever we are spotted here in Morocco looking lost, confused, or have just been standing too long to cross the street someone just comes up and grabs your hand and helps you out.   

          On our epic adventure to get the bags the Peace Corps shipped, before Jasmine and I got into the Grand Taxi one of the women had already decided that we had no clue what we were doing and accompanied us the whole way. Many a times when my Derija is just not up to snubs someone comes up and helps me translate from English or French and then help me learn how to pronounce it correctly. Today an old lady just walked right up took my hand and crossed the street with me, because she saw me look both ways and she thought I was scared.

          It still bugs me when people call me ‘muskina,’ but living here and having random strangers help me with the silliest thing like crossing the street I feel less ‘muskina’ than ever. So far people here have been really helpful. Yes, you do have to be careful most of the time, but every once and a while your faith in humanity is restored as someone helps you with what would normally be a simple task, but here is made 10 time more difficult. 

Why can’t you be more like...

            I have the most amazing family. I will be the first one to point out why each and every one of them is perfect. I am the youngest in the family (ok Jack has now got me bet). Anyway being the youngest comes with many wonderful advantages such as hand-me-downs, always having someone around to count on for life advice, but the best of all is that there is an abundance of people to look up to.

            I went through these phases were “I wanted to be just like _________ “ and would pick up habits from each them, such as wanting to play tennis like Nicky & Louisa, be as lovely or kick ass spy like Marisha, put ketchup on my rice like Ian, and even develop a love for pistachios like my father. OK so these are all really silly and not really helpful in the end. None the less my end goal was to turn into as wonderful as a human being as the people I am related.  

            Now being the youngest is not all sunshine and rainbows (ok ya it is, but hear me out). You get compared to a lot. Angus came to take a horseback riding lesson with me, and after not having ridden for years, and my instructor made  a point throughout the lesson “why can’t you do it more like that”.

Other commonly heard phrases include: 

“You know Elise never behaved like this”.

“Ian graduated with three degree in only three years.”

“Marisha had accomplished _____, _____, and _____ by the time she was your age.”

“Matt has friends why don’t you?”

*** I hold no grudges I love hearing these things this is not meant to sound like a complaint.

            The point of this little blog post is that one of the things Peace Corps suggest is that you bring pictures from back home to show your new friends and host family. Have made a file on my computer of photos to show from back home and of my wonderful and perfect family. Each photo has a story all prepared. Who is in it, where they are, one special thing that I think makes them wonderful, and what we are doing in that photo. One of the photos is from quite some time ago when a group of us cousins got together.

The typical conversation goes like this:

“You and your brother look so much alike.”

“How are you related to Elise?”

“Boy is he handsome that cousin of yours.”

“What a lovely family.”

The question that prompted this whole thing goes as followed:

A:“How are you related to her?” Point to Marisha.

J: I explain.

A: “How old is she here?”

J: I make a guess.

A: “How old are you now?”

J:“23”.

A:“Ohh”

J:“Why?”

A: “I guess I though the pretty would be something you would eventually catch up to, ohh well. Kascrot?”

           

Thousands of miles away, and people that will probably never actually meet my family in real life still make statement as to why my cousins are better than me. I will always have a lot to live up to. Yes this story is extremely superficial, and maybe one day I will catch up to the pretty of Marisha, Louisa, Jessica, and Elise. For now my plan is to catch up to the smarts, kind, and wonderful, that is this great group of people I am related to.

Long story short: I miss my family!