Ruth and the Very Dead Chicken

So Thursday we went to the souk, which was immense - the pictures below don't even begin to describe the noise, the smell, the crowd, the colors, the intensity of it all. And in a couple of weeks we're going to be expected to be able to go to the souk, pick the best vegetables, and bargain for them - in darija. Ouf. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

We had to go to our hub site Friday morning for the second of three rabies shots - a very interesting ride on the way there. Our teacher arranged for a grand-taxi to take - grand-taxis are white Mercedes, in which 6-7 people CRAM to go from point A to point B. So, we had 4 in the back, 2 in the passenger seat and the driver . We're all much more comfortable with each other now. We set off driving the 30km to hub, and about 12km away, the grand-taxi ran out of gas - in the middle of nowhere, 6 of us in one car, not going anywhere. So what do you do when this happens? Start pushing. That's right - we all pushed the car up this massive hill. Oh and we're at about 6000 ft where we are, so it was super hard work! Luckily for us, we were at a point where the rest of the road was downhill in to the hub site - so we coasted the remaining 12km in the car, with no gas! And impressively we were still on time for hub. Upon relaying this story to our host families, the general consensus was - oh well, that's Morocco! Oh, and our teacher, who had gotten in a separate grand-taxi to get to hub, passed us on the way, and apparently our taxi driver told him that we had stopped to take pictures and that we were fine - so he waved as he passed us by! Seems there are definitely going to be situations when you have to laugh otherwise you'll cry!

We have class on Saturday morning, just until noon - which is for language review, so basically one-on-one time with the teacher to assess where we are with the week's learning. I was told that my pronunciation is perfect! I'm a proud student right now. Until next week when I have to learn something new, and I forget everything I know.

In a moment, we're going to go and get a chicken - yes, a LIVE chicken, and kill it for lunch. More on that after the fact. Talk about fresh.

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Chicken is dead and in the pot. Pretty interesting - but there was no way I was going near that. It did run around for a while afterwards - that was awkward. There's some lovely pictures of our teacher holding a chicken head. Then five stray cats swarmed our front garden (where we killed it) looking for the chicken head to play with. They found it quick smart. I don't think I've every had chicken so fresh - about 90 minutes from alive to on the plate. No middle men here! And suprisingly it did not turn me in to a vegetarian!

R./N.

Ruth and the Mzyan Bzzf Makla u Zwin Hamaam.

I got home from lmdrasa today (school) with my fellow PCT and my host mother promptly linked arms with me and led me off. To where, I had no idea. But we were told, if anyone you know (not strangers) asks you to go somewhere with them, just go. So we went, and ended up at a house down the street where we were fed food, food and food. A lot! (Makla, makla u makla. Bzzf!) It seems that there is a snack time here - just after 6pm, just after sundown, and from what I can gather it lasts about 2 hours!

Today we ate:

yummy pancake-like things

another kind of pancake thing with holes (sweet)

hrira (soup)

biscuits

hard boiled eggs

some kind of meat - not entirely sure

two whole chickens cooked with olives

lxubz (bread)

and of course atay u qahwa. tea and coffee.

I'm going to be so fat by the end of CBT. No joke. The amount of bread and oil I've eaten is just insane.

(3 hours later) I know I said the other day that I had my first bucket bath, but today I had my first REAL bucket bath. My host mother's bathroom became the hamaam for my fellow PCT and I, and my host mother's daughter, who is also my fellow PCT's host mother (it's all in the family here). We went into the bathroom, stripped down to undies and proceeded to scrub ourselves raw - the amount of dead skin that we removed was quite amazing. I have never felt so clean. And when we thought maybe we were finished, we would have our backs scrubbed, and find a whole new layer of skin to get rid of. It was so great, like going to the spa in your own home - I'm going to sleep amazingly well!

Tomorrow is souk (market) which we are all looking forward to - it's the big day in town. Preparations were already underway today - tents and wares were being hauled off the backs of trucks on the main road to get ready. It looks enormous, and it seems like everyone in town is going. Apparently the auctioning of the animals starts around 7am, but I think we are going around 10 or 11 to see what's going on. More on that after the fact!

R./N.

Ruth and the Very Difficult Language Lessons

Darija is difficult. That's all there is to it. There are sounds in Darija that don't exist in English, so I can't make them. We covered greetings today, and then went in to the town and each introduced ourselves to 4 people, who, no doubt, all thought we were barking mad. (And they have a point.) I'm writing pages and pages of vocabulary notes, and my plan is to rewrite each days notes in the evening to help it stick.

I watched a Moroccan soap opera with my family this evening, of which I understood nothing, but it seems to be THE program to watch around here. I've excused myself for an hour before dinner so that I can write this. About twice the size of my old apartment, no joke. Two walls are stacked to the ceiling with bed frames, mattresses, blankets, and pillows, and way in the opposite corner is a full mattress on the floor for me. There's a small table and a chair, and a couple of rugs, and that's it - but it's great. I'm not going to be cold with all these blankets around me! Apparently the snow can start in October - not December as I was previously told. Um, boots. And down vest. And wool socks. Just saying.

We had an introduction to Islam this afternoon, which was very interesting, and useful of course. I've been hearing the call to prayer (muzen) during the day, and while we were in Mehdya I heard the early morning call (ssubH) - but I didn't hear it this morning. I had the privilege of hearing the stray dogs fighting in the middle of the night instead.

(3 hours later) Back from dinner and my first bucket bath - I love it! I have no problem with this - it feels just like I'm at Kabuki in Japantown. I showed my host mum pictures of my parents, and she said, while gesturing to her face: "Nti, maman, kifkif! Papa, lla!" - which means - "You, mother, same same! Father - no!" I look like my mum, but not so much my dad. She's right of course.

And now that I'm all warm and cozy from my bucket bath, to bed I go. Just killed a fly on my computer screen, so I'm all set.

R./N.

Ruth and the Advent of Nura

Nura is my Moroccan name - and that's Nura with a rolling R to you. Ruth is too hard to pronounce, so Nura I will be for the next two years!

We left Mehdya this morning and were bussed ~4 hours to our hub site, which is further inland - about an hour south of Fes. While driving the scenery all changed - we're now up a lot higher, and closer to the mountains - which also means colder! It's not cold at the moment, but definitely cooler, especially at night. And apparently we're also in thunderstorm country - massive storm this evening, which led to power being out for a good chunk of the evening.

I met my host family, who seem great, although I can't communicate with them a whole lot. My host-dad is the šeyx of the town (pronounced shechk) which is an elected position in Moroccan hierarchy. It means that he reports to the official above him all the goings-ons of the town - so he knows everything. My host-mum is a housewife, and her son and his wife also live in the house, although I only my host-brother very briefly tonight. Lucky for me there is a western toilet in the house - although I did use a Turkish toilet today during a gas station break. That was fun. I'm not going in to the details, but let's just say I'm very happy with having a western toilet for the next two months. And sorry, but I'm sticking with toilet paper until I feel braver.

We had lunch at the hub site, which is where we will go be every couple of weeks or so, for training with the program leaders, and follow up shots (more Rabies this Friday - woohoo!) and then left all the other SBD volunteers to go to our CBT sites in our individual groups. So, six of us (seven including our LCF) crammed in to two taxi, with a bunch of luggage and made the 30 minute drive to our town. And we saw monkeys on the way up here! There are tons of animals around everywhere - donkeys, kittens, dogs, sheep, chickens, roosters…

I don't have easy internet access in my CBT site just a small cyber cafe, which I will be able to get to once/twice a week. But, then you'll get several blog entries all at once.

R./N.

Ruth and the Intense Information about Turkish Toilets

Well, images are not uploading to blogger at the moment, but I will add them as soon as I can.

So, four days in to Morocco, and I've managed to catch me a cold, which is *tons* of fun while in a beach town, and obviously the best impression to make on all the people I'm meeting. Suitcases got repacked tonight, and ready to be moved to our Community Based Training (CBT) hub, which is in a town of about 60,000 people, in the Middle Atlas region (which makes me think I'm going to Middle Earth). My CBT is a town of about 4,000 people, and apparently gets really cold, and a lot of snow. So, it's a good job I brought mostly winter clothes with me. And to think my mum wasn't going to let me bring my boots. Knowing my luck I'll get placed in the middle of the desert for my finally placement though. We meet our first host families tomorrow, which is nerve wracking, but as I keep reminding myself, time marches on, so there's really nothing that can stop this ball from rolling! I'm excited to be somewhere for a good chunk of time though. And language starts on Monday - 4-6 hours a day of Darija (Moroccan Arabic) - eep!

We met with current PCV's yesterday afternoon, and got the best advice ever: don't trust your farts. I've definitely resigned myself to the fact that there will be... let's say 'uncomfortable' times in the next 2 years. And Turkish toilets will not help this in the least. As my roommate would say, own it.

Moroccan phones were purchased today, which immediately led to our entire group regressing to high school were we all had to get phones numbers, decide avatars for each other and be annoying in the halls by playing all the ringtones one by one. But we can text each other in the coming weeks and months with updates on extreme bowel movements. Face it... it's going to happen...

R.

Ruth and the Scary Lightning-filled Ocean

Well, here we are! Morocco! It feels like it's been such a long time coming, that I can hardly believe I'm here at all. The flight was long, unsleepful, and I was left more than just a bit smelly upon arrival. We were met by the country director, who has an amazing memory when it comes to where we're all from and our backgrounds. We were driven straight to our hotel for the next 4 days, until Sunday when we will move to host families. My bags have already exploded all over the room - so much for trying to be organized. Yesterday was just a little bit of meeting time and then a group of us went down to the beach to have a wander. And found these:

Oh yeah. The beach today, a bit more ominous looking, but amazing, and I even jumped in it. Which was gorgeous:

And this appear to be how my name is written in arabic, although my name tag was missing an 'n' in my last name, so I'm not sure if this is correct. But it still looks good!

More to come!

R.

Ruth and the Jewel of the Night

Had an amazing evening tonight - dinner with friends and family at home as a farewell dinner. My parents were amazing hosts and both family friends and my friends from San Francisco had a lovely afternoon and evening swimming, eating, drinking, chatting and laughing. I had such a great time, and my favorite nights are always my favorite people around one table, having a good time.

I have an amazing support group which I am so thankful for - everyone I've spoken to in the last two weeks has congratulated me, told me what an amazing experience I will have, wished me well, told me how proud of me they are, how inspired they are, how brave I am, and how this will be nothing like anything else I've experienced - the experience of a lifetime. Which I know it will be. Feel like I must be slightly insane though, but hopefully in a good way.

I definitely feel that this is the right decision for me, otherwise I know I would be more worried about it. And I am worried about it, but I think that's in a not-really-thought-about-the-next-6-months-because-I-know-I-will-survive kind of way, not an oh-shoot-what-have-I-done-I don't-think-this-is-going-to-work kind of way. Not sure that I really have choice either way at this point, which is totally fine. I'm forging ahead, come what may!

Next post will be post-packing-experience... if I live to tell the tale...

R.