October/ November update

Wow I didn't blog last month...

It has now been 9 months away from home in another country. I am still surviving in Morocco. Much has happened since my last blog post. I have had several meetings with people regarding my project to build bathrooms in the schools, Toubkal, Halloween, and IST in Marrakech, Fez, and L3id Mqqourn.

Bathrooms:
This has turned out to be more difficult than I wanted it to be. I am working with people that are corrupt, want only money and believe that all Americans are rich. I am so tired of everyone telling me that everyone that lives in California are rich. I told them I have been living in California for 25 years; I know many people and none of them are rich. It still blows my mind that schools are being built without restrooms. Some things that seem so obvious and natural to me it is just not the same here in my village. There may have been reasons behind not including restrooms that is not clearly communicated to me. I am a health volunteer and I try to communicate that I am here merely to better the health and lives of the people I work with and they want the money and don’t want to be educated on the importance of bathrooms and hand washing stations. Well this process it in transition I will try to keep everyone updated on the progress. I often tell the people if I knew rich people I would try and do a lot more and try to get donations, but many people I know sometimes need donations.

Toubkal:
As some of you may know I have never hiked a day in my life. I have come to Morocco and I have stepped out of my comfort zone and believed I was a mountaineer. The highest mountain in North Africa in Morocco is called Mountain Toubkal. It is a 7 hour hike to a refuge (similar to a hotel) and a 3.5 hour hike to summit. It took me 9 hours to get to the refuge and I didn’t quite make it to the top of the mountain summit. I definitely don’t have the endurance to climb mountains. I was so tired after the 9 hour hike the first day. I went through hot and cold phases. It was supposed to be cold because snow was on the mountains and we were all striping off layers before we ever made it to the cold part of the mountain. The second day we were to hike to the top. Everyone in the hotel woke up early and left to summit. My group decided to sleep in and leave around 10:30am. Bad idea! That was too late of a start, one reason being that it is fall it gets dark much earlier another reason being we were not prepared and were amateur at hiking to begin with. I made my attempt to the top and got really sick half way up and turned around. The higher I climbed the worse my condition got. The mountain is about 14000ft high I made it to probably 9500ft or so. I am proud of what I accomplish, but I wish I would have had the success to say that I climbed to the top. I will try again Enshallah (if God is willing)!!

IST:
In service training (IST) was really fun. It was a week in Marrakech. It was very informational and I enjoyed reuniting with the health and environment volunteers. It was good that our Moroccan counterparts were there and we had translators and it was great being able to communicate better and understand completely without the language barrier. We had a prom that was themed as the Moroccan markets called souq. People were able to wear anything they purchased from souq. There was a king, a queen, 3 princesses, and 5 princes. I was honored to received one of the princess crowns lol. It was actually a really fun event. I have memories from prom. I enjoyed myself. We also had a talent show and many people showed off their talents and it was entertaining. We also had a football game, chili cook-off, and a birthday party. Marrakech was a really fun place. It is filled with tourist and crowded all the time. It is wonderful to go to tourist parts of Morocco, speak the language and get discounts or regular prices and sometimes free things. There was really amazing restaurants in Marrakech. I had Thai food!

Fez:
This was the farthest place I have traveled yet. Fez is all the way up north and I have the furthest southern site of volunteers. It was a 19hour bus ride home. Besides the travels it was a really nice place. I loved the scenery and the shopping was great! Not much to say about it, but I enjoyed myself. I didn’t do many of the tourist sightseeing things because it rained and I wasn’t really supposed to be there in the first place. Shhhhh don’t tell! Well I guess it has gone and passed hopefully I cannot get in trouble afterwards. It is not that I cannot be there I just didn’t inform Peace Corps that I was there. If any of the staff read the blogs, now you know I detoured to Fez on the way home from Marrakech. There were two birthdays that were celebrated and we had fun!

Aid El Adha/ L3id Mqqourn (The Big/ Great Feast):
This is a big Islamic holiday similar to Thanksgiving or Christmas. It lasts three days. It was an interesting experience. Each family slaughters a sheep and eats every part of it including the head. Some history given to the volunteers: “The Islamic festival of Aid El Adha, the festival of sacrifice, is an ancient religious festival based on the story of Ibrahim and Ishmail. As was tradition at the time, Ibrahim was about to sacrifice his only son to demonstrate his faith and submission to God when a goat / sheep appeared in the thicket and God spoke to Ibrahim telling him to sacrifice the goat instead.” They dressed me up in Moroccan gear and I watched them slaughter several sheep. I walked around telling everybody happy l3id and watched as they all consumed the liver, stomach, intestines, and heart of the sheep grilled on kabobs. I still don’t eat meat so I didn’t partake in any of the meat festivities. I believe even if I did eat meat, after watching the slaughtering and skinning part I would have probably stopped after that. It was the most disgusting thing I have witnessed to date. I really like how all the families come together during this time. They say this is the time where all the members of the families come together to discuss family matters and negotiate marriages. I received so many marriage proposals it was ridiculous. Especially being I was dressed in traditional gear, many believed I converted to Islam and were trying to find me a husband to take back to America. All the men of the family work together to slaughter and skin the sheep. The women work together cleaning the insides, grilling the head and preparing bread. Every house I visited served tea and had deserts out to serve. It was nice.

New culture shock:
In Morocco men are allowed to have up to four wives as long as they treat them all equally and provide for all the households. Something new I found out is that women are allowed to have more than one husband. Because the man late wife passed away he gets to marry the sister of his wife or the bride of his brother. I don’t know the history behind it; it was just interesting to me. I went to the wedding. I know the first husband; he is really a nice guy. Moroccan weddings are fun and long... they last for about 3-4 days of drumming and partying. Glad its over.

Looking forward to Thanksgiving! A lot of volunteers are meeting and we are having a potluck. Pecan pie, pumpkin pie, turkey, mac and cheese, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, biscuits, stuffing, cranberries etc.... EXCITED!!

That was a brief summary of all the things that has occurred since I last updated. I could make a speech saying I will blog more and blah blah blah, but in reality it is not easy and I do it as often as I could. My trip to Thailand is rapidly approaching and the next blog post would definitely be about my adventures in Thailand! Overall I am very happy and taking life one day at a time.