Ruth and the Terrifying Turkey Sandwich

Ah. Home. I've been away from home for around 10 days, and I've gotta say, I missed my house and my site and my people here, which did actually surprise me a little upon my return. It's good to be home. Thankfully Olly was still alive upon my arrival, although in his role as cleaner of my floor, he seemed to have found plenty of dust bunnies while I was gone and attached them all to himself at the same time. He's now clean and hiding.

Last week was a week full of training - all 67 volunteers from our stage were in the same place at the same time (well, different hotels) for recaps on each others sites and projects, and workshops on different subjects to help us in our work here. It was great to catch up with everyone and find out how we're all settling in to our sites. We also had more language tests, which was interesting, and despite my worrying about it, I actually went up a level - yay me! Now why can't I understand what people are saying to me??

So I'm home and exhausted from a long trip back down south - it's about a 12 hour straight shot from where we were to where I am, so I'm glad that's over. But up north, I at least got the chance to do a little hiking, which is the one thing that's sorely missing from the south. It's so flat here, it's just walking. Sad face.

Now it's another three months until the next gathering of us all, although us SBD-ers have an upcoming craft fair in Fes to look forward to. My task over the next few weeks involves encouraging my women to make as much product as possible to take with us. But based on feedback from other volunteers, with some tweaks, the product should sell up a storm.

I'm sure some of you have seen news of the protests going on here, so a quick word about that. There have been things going on in some of the larger cities - Fes, Sefrou, Marrakech, Rabat, Tanger, Al Hociema, etc. - but many of us are placed in small villages, where we really don't feel the effects of the things going on. So, not to worry - I am totally fine. Peace Corps keeps us updated on the goings-on, and lets us know if there are places we should avoid while traveling. So far, nothing has affected our day-to-day, and in'shallah, nothing will. We all have way too much work to get on with and too many things to look forward to to go home!

That's all for now - surprisingly no crazy stories despite the traveling. Oh wait, no, I have one. Kind of. Not all that crazy, just a bit disgusting. While I was waiting for my bus to bring me home I picked up a turkey sandwich to tide me over. Turkey and chicken sandwiches are usually pretty awesome here. But I managed to get through two-thirds of this one before realizing that the meat wasn't cooked all the way through. Mmmm. Raw turkey. Don't ask why it took me so long to realize - I just wasn't looking at what I was eating. And remember, this was just before I was about to get on a bus for the next ELEVEN hours. Imagine my joy. But luckily, it would appear that living in Morocco for the past five-and-a-half months has left me with an iron cast stomach. Who would have thought eating intestines and liver wrapped in fat could have done that, right? But thank goodness, as it could have been extremely messy and unpleasant. For everyone.

And on that note.

xoxo

Ruth, the Missing Internet and the Crazy Chicken

This week has been a little frustrating, to say the least. I have been trying for over a month now to have internet installed in my house. Which has involved me going to the Maroc Telecom store at least three times a week - I'm now on a first name basis with the director of the store - to ask them what's going on. And, at first, this was, oh just wait, someone will come, no problem. Then it was, oh, you don't have an address (which I had told them, and even drawn them a map to my house). Then it was, oh well you need a telephone pole put in by your house since you live in the back of beyond. (Which inevitably led to, and why exactly do you live there?) Then someone was killed in a car crash, so that threw things off for a week. Then it was, someone will be there by Friday. Then by Monday. Then by the next Friday. And finally someone did come. And put a wire that went to my window (outside - and not a new telephone pole, btw) but didn't connect it to anything and left. Then they came while I wasn't home and made a huge mess of my desk by drilling a hole in my window frame for the wire to go through (my landlady let them in). Then I went back to the store, and reminded the director that I haven't paid for anything yet, and I don't have the modem I need. His response, was well, who is going to pay for it then, and why don't you have a modem - like it was my fault that I've been telling them since day one what I want. And that I'm willing to pay! Here, take my money and MAKE IT WORK!! So then I got the modem. Yesterday. WHICH DOESN'T WORK. ARRGGGGGGGGGGGGGH! I've tried everything I can think of and my computer recognizes the modem, but won't connect to the internet with it. Which I suspect is part of the evil Maroc Telecom plan. Oh, yes, and they are closed on Saturdays. Brilliant.

So. It goes without saying that I will be in there first thing on Monday, and they can expect an earful from me. All I want is this to be fixed before I leave for PPST (training) next week, so that I know it's done and dealt with (and download my missing episodes of The Office). Things really are never as easy as they should be. Especially when you're trying to do 70% of this in a foreign language! (The other 30% is in English, since the director does speak English - thank eff.) Phew. So there's my rant for now. Oh wait, no, no - I forgot, there's more - then, my trusty iPod decided that it didn't want to work and needed to be restored, wiping all my music from it. Thank goodness for back ups, but talk about a technology challenged week.

In other news, I'm sitting at home, and when I'm in the house, I usually keep the front door open, to get some fresh air in, and some sun, for Olly to go and sit in. But today, there is a very bold chicken, who has come in to my house three times now - I've caught him behind the door, under the sink, and on the threshold to my bedroom! He's a quiet, sneaky chicken. If he's not careful though, he may end up as dinner. You hear me, chicken!?! I've watched chickens killed before! I'm not afraid of doing it! (Well, a little bit. Okay, a lot.) Oh, and now the chicken is getting in a fight with a cat outside. When will animals in Morocco learn that cross-species fighting will always end badly? Donkey vs. dog, cat vs. chicken, chicken vs. human…

Also, today I did my laundry. Not particularly, newsworthy, although it reminded me of the good old days when I had a washing machine and tumble dryer in my apartment building, and I thought laundry was a still such a pain in the arse - lugging it all all the way downstairs (in the lift) and then back, and having to fold it all when it was nice and dry. Now, I hand wash in buckets, and hang everything in the bathroom where it takes 3 days to dry. This is from the girl who avoids hand washing at all costs. Luckily, my lovely landlady does some of it for me - she always offers when she is doing her wash, and I've resisted since I've moved in because I don't want to rely on her doing it for me for the next two years, but I broke down the other day and she did my jeans for me, since I'm really scared of hand washing them (jeans are really heavy when they're wet!). But, everything else I do - and so my bathroom is now covered in my underwear (can't put it outside - since I don't have a roof, and that would be hshuma. And weird.) So, think about me and all my hand washed, wet clothes the next time you use your tumble dryer. Thanks.

Another story for you, and I think this will do well to cement everyone's perception of the wild, crazy, adventurous life I live in Morocco, at least when I'm at home. Last week my power went out, because my landlady next door is doing lots of work on their house, and there was something about a regulator that was broken. And it was out for 3 days. So, as soon as I would get home from the association around 5.30 or 6, the sun would be going down, and I would have to cook dinner by candlelight and headlamp. It also meant no computer, no phone, no heater, and no toast. So, what does one do without the stash of movies on my hard drive to watch over dinner? Read. A LOT. I finished a 435-page book in those 3 days, and was still in bed by 8.30 or 9. Wild times, right? You gotta just embrace it sometimes.

So, yes, thoughts from the back of beyond - where even here, people struggle to understand why I live where I live. And where people don't even know where I live, even though it's only 2km from where they live.

xoxo.

Ruth and Olly the Turtle

The past couple of days I've learned lots of things. Like:

Being whacked in the face by a spiky tree branch will give you a bruised nose and bleeding scratches across the face.

Elderly Moroccan women are awesome.

I love red peppers, and can easily eat a whole pepper raw as a snack. And they can be found here.

You can get icing sugar in Morocco!

Ski jackets are not necessary in Agadir, despite the fact that they are necessary inside my house.

Making knitted purses in different color combinations is really fun. And the possibilities endless.

Baby turtles pee on your hand when they are scared. And then try and bite you.

I've spent the last couple of days in various parts of my local region - some, I can name, and others I can't. On Saturday, I don't know where I was - some small village much smaller than mine, which I think is just a suburb of Ouled Teima, but it was quite far out, and I could never tell you how to get there. I was taken to see my host aunts' aunt, on their mother's side, who is awesome. My host aunts don't know how old she is (I would guess in her 80's, maybe even 90's?), but she gets around by walking literally doubled over - on her feet, but hands on the floor. I can barely even walk like that. And all she kept saying to me was that I was welcome there anytime I wanted.

Sunday I headed out to Taroudant, which was made a little harder by the road in to Taroudant being closed because of all the rain we've been having, so a thirty minute cab ride became an hour cab ride going the long way round. But some lovely views of the High Atlas mountains in the background. I met up with a couple of region mates, and went to one of their sites, which is a little outside of Taroudant. This volunteer works with an Argon oil association, which was really interesting to see. This was an education for me, which I can now pass on. Argon nuts have two shells - a outer shell that is easier to get off, and is eaten by animals (like tree climbing goats), then there is another shell inside, which is much harder to crack, but is cracked by whacking it with a big stone. Then, there is a little sliver of nut in there, which is they ground to a pulp, and the oil is squeezed out of that. So there's a lot of work, and nuts, that go in to making one bottle of argon oil. But it was really fun to meet all the women doing it.

Yesterday was Agadir with my (basically) site mates, who showed me yummy burgers, the closest thing to Best Buy in Morocco, where to go to shop without having to go to Marjane - and where I found good things like icing sugar, Carr's Water Biscuits and blue cheese. Yes, more blue cheese. Don't judge me.

And something else I've JUST learned in the last 10 minutes - I'm now the owner of a baby turtle called Olly. He is currently scared and hiding behind a table leg in a corner since the neighborhood kids just terrorized him. I went with my next door neighbors to the ruins of their family's old house again, and we found him in the field on the way there, and now he's in my house. He's tiny, so here's hoping I don't step on him in the middle of the night or something equally traumatizing.

xoxo

Ruth and the Boots Made for Walking (And That's Just What They'll Do)

It's Wednesday. It's raining. A lot. My town has been reduced to a big pool of mud. I ventured out this morning, only for the rain to start the minute I walked out the door, of course. And to find that none of my women were going to work out at the association on account of the rain that I was by then soaked by. So, here I am, back at home, with the whole day ahead of me.

After being drenched, I curled back up in bed for a bit this morning to get warm and read. I'm reading a great book at the moment, called In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams, which my sister sent me (thanks, sis!), by Tahir Shah, who is also the author of the Caliph's House, if anyone's read that. It's the travels that the author goes on throughout Morocco looking for, as per Berber tradition, the story within him. And it takes him from Tangers to the Sahara, and all the great places in-between. But the reason I bring this book up is because there are a couple of really great passages in it, and I thought I would share on this rainy day.

"Settling into a new country is like getting used to a pair of shoes. At first they pinch a little, but you like the way they look, so you carry on. The longer you have them, the more comfortable they become. Until one day without realizing it you reach a glorious plateau. Wearing these shoes is like wearing no shoes at all. The more scuffed they get, the more you love them, and the more you can't imagine life without them."

So I'm still in the shoes-are-pinching-me stage, but they are getting more comfortable by the day. I wonder at what point during the next two years will I look back and find that I've broken my shoes in completely, and I am as comfortable here in Morocco as I am walking around in my beloved Austin boots. It's a long and confusing process, that's for sure. But, like all good, broken in shoes, it's well worth the wait.

But enough reflection for one day. Some of us have an entire language to get on and learn. Must look up how to say "my brain is about to explode" in darija.

xoxo

Ruth and the Castles in the Sand

I've just gotten back from a weekend in Essaouira - which is an amazingly gorgeous city, and with which I'm now completely in love with. From start to finish, there were picturesque views all around. I drove (well, the bus driver did) up the coast from Agadir to Essa, which is reminiscent of the Californian coastline - stunning. The city itself consists of the old medina and the new city; we spent most of our time in the old medina, which is all whitewash walls with blue trim, a maze of windy narrow alleyways, and little shops selling the traditional wares of the area - one of which is wood-carved objects, since the Essaouira region is rich with a wood called Thuya, which is in the cypress tree family, and as I learned, is becoming increasingly rare.

We - myself and three other volunteers - spent the weekend wandering the streets of Essaouira, eating 5 dh fish sandwiches, strolling on the beach, lounging in the sun (when it was out) on the breakwaters in the port, and watching the sunset on the ramparts of the medina. And we were staying in an amazing riad, with four floors and a lovely roof, from which we had spectacular views of the city. It was a bit chilly and rainy while we were there, since it's rainy season at the moment, although there's not been a whole lot of rain in either the Essa region or my region. It was super nice to get away for the weekend - not that I don't like being where I am - but for the simple reason that it's nice to be able to speak and joke in English, and be understood, not given blank stares (well, I suppose that depends on the joke). We were able to commiserate about tough situations regarding rubbish disposal, among other things, and cheer each other on, seeing as we're all in the same stage of trying to figure out where we fit in each of our situations. We also decided that we have an amazing group of people here with us, and that we are all gangsters, baby.

Sunday we also ventured to one of the other volunteers' sites - which is about an hour from Essa, out in the countryside, which is very pretty in that region. This volunteer, in my opinion, has a hardcore Peace Corps site - no running water, no internet reception, and about 250 people in the village. Water is brought to him twice a week by a young boy with a donkey, and the walk for drinking water is 30 minutes each way when that is needed. I arrived home incredibly appreciative of my running water. I also learnt of another volunteer with a 12km trek in to her site from the nearest main road. I'm super impressed with those of us who are basically camping for two years in the Moroccan outback. It's a challenge for everyone just in terms of working out daily life without those extra obstacles thrown in the way - so well done them.

We were racking our brains this weekend for who wrote the song that was supposedly written in Essaouira - it was Jimi Hendrix, but I was disappointed to learn that he didn't write "Castles in the Sand" about Essa - since the song was written two years before he visited there. Fun fact.

And my venture out of site did in fact end in cheese. Yummy blue cheese. Mission accomplished.

xoxo

Ruth and the Roman Ruins

I know I've already complained about the bugs once this week, but I have another story, which I think tops the rest. I got up yesterday morning, and as I was getting ready to leave the house, I thought to myself, I'd better make the bed, so that no crickets decide to crawl in there and make their home in my pajamas. Again. And so I flicked back the covers in preparation for step two, pulling them straight again, and there, bold as brass, was the worlds biggest cricket/black bug/flying creature/mutant THING in my bed. That's right, IN THE BED. Under the covers, no less than 2 feet from where I had been lying shortly before. Luckily, I successfully I managed to get a tupperware container over his head, and him out the door. So, that was a really amazing way to start the day. How many people can say they've shared their bed with a mutant cricket? I showed the picture to my tutor today in order to find out what the thing was called in darija, and he had no idea, since he'd never seen one of them before. I'm not sure what that means.

But I did have really great adventure yesterday. There are two girls that live next door to me, the daughters of my landlady, called Soumia and Omia. They are super lovely, as is their brother, Abdelali, and they invited me to come and join them for lunch at their house. Imagine my delight when I was served chicken instead of mystery meat! (Did have to fight down two olives, but I survived to tell the tale.) But, we - the three kids, my landlady, Fatima, and her mother, got to talking - well, in as much as I "talk" or "converse" - after lunch and they were showing me their family photo album, and the two girls started talking about an old house, where there's a lot of sun, on the farm. I was confused by this, and they could see that I was not processing, so they decided that we were going there, leaving immediately. So off we went, and turns out they were talking about the old ruins of the mud house that their mum's family used to live in, which is at the back of one of the fields near my house. It was a gorgeous day, and they were right about there being a lot of sun. They brought along their school books (which I would have done too, had I any idea where we were going) and we sat in the sun and they read, and I took pictures and wandered, we played Marco Polo, found a turtle, watched the boys in the neighboring fields get chased by the farmers, it was great. Such a lovely quiet spot.

What else? Tuesday morning and this morning, I got up at 6am, yes, that's right - not a typo - and went walking with the ladies in my association. It was super cold - remember kids, the desert is not always warm - and pitch black when I left my house, which made for great star viewing as I was crossing the field by my house. The sky really is enormous here. And the call to prayer was still sounding when I left, which was really nice in a surreal kind of way. Usually I only hear it in my half-dazed state of going back to sleep. It was really interesting and quite eerie to see all the men leaving the mosque when it was over, moving through the town in their white jellabas, in the dark. My women go walking (some run) three mornings a week at this time - I'm guessing in the heat of the summer this is going to be the best time to go - before it gets to 120 degrees outside. In the winter it's just cold, but it feels nice to be getting some actual exercise in.

So I don't know if you're getting a sense of how I fill my days here - I've found that I am slowly getting in to a routine of sorts. Riada in the mornings with my women, and then I usually cycle in to town if I need to run an errand or go to tutoring that day, come home for lunch, spend the afternoons with my women at the association, studying and chatting, and have quiet evenings at home, unless I am invited to kaskrut or dinner after work has finished at the association. If I do end up at home for the evening, I get to crack into my top secret stash of "grape juice" and attempt to study.

But now I've come down with yet another cold so it's an early night for me… oh wait, what, I didn't tell you? I'm going for a world record of most colds in two years. I'm on three in four months, so I'm feeling good about my chances. If I stay on my very well thought out schedule I should have another one as a birthday present to myself in mid-March. Go me. Baileys counts as like a rescue remedy type thing, right? Good, glad you're on board.

xoxo

Ruth and the Fixing of the Photos

So, I've just discovered an amazing way to post pictures, captions and all, without them looking like a complete mess and making me want to throw up.

I'll be revisiting old photo posts to clean them up, eventually, but the theory goes, I will now be putting up many more pictures for your viewing pleasure. My gift to you.

xoxo

Ruth and the Magical Photoslide Thinger, Part 1