Language, Language, Language

My language training is going well, although I get exhausted very quickly trying to speak in Berber so much. I had a practice session with my language teacher today and she said I was probably at an intermediate low level, which is above what I need to be at this point!!! Yea!! I’m happy all my studying is paying off. Hopefully I won’t bomb the test in next week and I’ll continue to improve quickly. Being immersed in a culture certainly helps you pick up language quickly.

I think my biggest hurdle with the language is the lack of written literature. Berber is a spoken language only, so there are no books, dictionaries, manuals, etc. I hadn’t realized how helpful those were when I was learning German. I’m trying to create some of my own, but it’s difficult. The language structure is entirely different than any other language I’ve studied. For example, you rarely ever use personal pronouns, and possession is shown by adding a specific ending to a word or verb. For example, to say my house, I say “tigmi” and add the ending “inu”. Her house is Tigminm.

And of course, I find the prepositions very confusing. In Berber, you hang something in the wall (not on the wall). I hope I get them figured out eventually, because right now its all very confusing. I think once I get to my site, and can spend as much time as I need studying, I’ll get them figured out fairly quickly. Maybe I’ll try developing an exercise like my high school German teacher had as do. We’d have to take an object and put it in a box, on a box, next to the winder, etc. and say the phrase in German. It helped a lot in memorizing the correct way to put everything.

My host family has been great about helping me learn the language. Every time I get out homework, at least two of them will come and sit by me to help me with whatever I’m trying to do. They try to teach me the appropriate responses in every situation and yell at the little kids when they giggle at my poor pronunciation (of course, I’m totally clueless about most of my faux-pas, but its nice that they are looking out for me. )

I think I’ll start studying French as well, since Berber is only spoken in certain parts of Morocco. French is the official language used by the government and would probably be very helpful as I travel.

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink!

We have water again!! The water pump in our village broke about a week and a half ago, which meant that our village, which normally only gets water a few hours each week, didn’t have any for over 10 days! Ugh, it got pretty gross. Our host families drew water from the well, but its untreated and unsafe to drink without first boiling it for three minutes. Plus, you have to strain it when you collect it to get out all the bigger critters.

At our language teacher’s house, which is where we have class everyday, we ran out of water entirely after about 4 days. We ended up paying a village kid about 20 dhs to go to the well for us. While that’s only a few American dollars, it’s a lot around here and seriously put a cramp in our food budget. Our LCF called Peace Corps, and they ended up sending someone down with a van to get water from the well for us. Luckily, the water came back on a few days later. We were all getting a little gross. Although my host family stocked enough water in the bathroom for me to take a bucket bath every three days, Linda and Alicia went over a week without showering. They were feeling pretty icky

So now we have water again. I was able to do my laundry (thank goodness) and don’t have to feel bad about using up too much water in the bathroom. Hopefully, my final site will have water 24/7. I can live without electricity, but it’s a major pain to not have enough water.

Here are my host mom, Hafida, and youngest host brother, Zouhir, getting water from the well.

Berber Weaving Traditions

This is our cook, Xalti Mama (Aunt Mama) one of the local weavers.

Part of training in the Peace Corps is doing a mini project with local artisans during your training period. We’re working with a group of local weavers. Our cook, Xalti Mama, has been tremendous help in getting everything set up. She talks to the women, and organizes when they come over to meet with us. We’ve met with them several times now, and I learn all sorts of fascinating things about Moroccan culture and superstitions every time we meet.

For example, last week we saw the women start a new carpet that once of them had been commissioned to make. While some towns have organized co-ops of weavers, our town does not. The women normally work independently of one another, although they all get together to help start a new carpet. Of the group of about 10 women we have been meeting with, only three weave carpets for selling. The rest just weave for fun.

Anyway, the traditions surrounding starting a new carpet were amazing to see. Two spikes are drive into the ground several yards apart. Yarn is then passed around the spikes over and over again until the carpet is the correct length and width. Before the yarn is passed, salt is sprinkled on the ground around the spikes. This is to bring good luck for weaving the carpet. We were cautioned against walking through the spikes, or stepping over the yarn at any point in the process. If an unmarried girl does so, it will keep her from getting married. The women sometimes have their young daughters walk over the yarn when they are very young in hopes that this will protect them from any sort of hanky-panky before they are married. When they reach a marriageable age, they must take a shower on the yarn, which brings back their luck and makes they available for marriage.

If a women reaches a certain age and hasn’t married, the weavers will have her shower on the yarn. This then brings back her good luck and she will be able to get married. Fascinating, huh?

Miskin Hakim!

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I haven’t been able to get into a town with internet for the past few weeks. The village I live in doesn’t have an internet café and Peace Corps doesn’t allow us to leave our training sites very often. The theory is that if you leave too often, you don’t integrate well into the community. I think it’s a good theory, but its hard to be out of touch with the world so much.

The Peace Corps has had to send the program coordinator assistant down to my training site at least a few times each with for different issues that have cropped up. My town normally only has water a few days a week for a few hours each day. They alternate between the different villages because water is scarce in this region. Unfortunately, the water pump broke about a week ago. This means the houses are all without water. My host family goes to the well a few times each day to get water and stores it in different buckets around the house. Unfortunately, the well water isn’t treated, so its not very safe. Hopefully, they’ll get the pump working soon because the lack of water is a pain.

Besides the lack of water, the other exciting thing that happened was my 13 year-old host brother fell off the roof and broke his arm. My host dad had already gone back to Casablanca, where he works for the majority of the year, so it was up to my 19 year old host-sister Hasna to take him to the doctor. My host mom, Hafida, doesn’t leave the house very often. It’s a fairly common practice in this village, like in other conservative villages in Morocco. Women stay at home once they are married while men do all the shopping, etc. It’s fascinating to see the different ways Morocco and America differ.

Anyway, Hakim fell off the roof and broke his arm, so Hasna took him to the doctor in Azilal. They gave him a cast, but no pain medication (not even Tylenol.) I felt so bad for him, but he’s a very tough kid and seemed to cope well with the pain. My host dad came back from Casablanca a few days later to help get everything settled with Hakim. They took him back to the doctor a few days later and were told they would have to take him to a specialist (which costs more money.) The speciliast didn’t have an opening for a few days, so Brahim took Hakim to the traditional healer. The healer removed his cast and rebroke his arm. Hasna said it took two men to hold Hakim down and that he was screaming. He really is a tough kid though, because after a few weeks he is moving his fingers and his arm around. He said he’ll be able to take the cast off in a few days.

Things here are going well. There are four of us trainees here in a small town in the Azilal region of Morocco. I'm learning to speak Tashelheet, a Berber dialect. My host family is great. My host father, Brahim, is a factory worker in Casablanca and will be leaving to go back to there now that the end of Ramadan is over. My host mom, Hafida, is a wonderful hostess and is always going out of her way to make sure I'm comfortable. The whole vegetarian thing is not really understood here, but my host family has been great about making sure I always have plenty to eat.

I have four host siblings. Hasna is 19 and a real sweetheart. She speaks Berber and French and is great at pantomiming things so that I understand. My other host sister Hanan is also really sweet. She is 18 and always wants to hold my hand or link arms. The two boys, Hakim 13 and Zouhir 10 really like the card game "Set" that I brought. Despite my lack of language, we usually are able to understand each other.

Besides the family, we have many pets. A pidgeon lives in the kitchen, on top of the cabinet. There are two donkeys, several sheep, chickens, turkeys, a few cats and a puppy named Booby. I have my own bedroom with a fairly big bed. The bathroom is outside and I'm getting used to using it and the Turkish toilet.

Our language training is going fairly well. I can form some basic sentences and the language teacher said my accent is okay, other than the "r" sound, which is similar to the German one. I'll work on it and will hopefully get it down. I have set a goal to get to at least the intermediate level in communication by the end of training in November.

I hope all is well at home. Please email or write when you get time.

Hi from Morocco!

I made it safely to Morocco! Our flight was great. We flew Air Maroc, so it was a good intro to Moroccan culture. Luckily, the flight was only half full, so I got two seats to myself and was able to catch some sleep. We arrived in Casablanca about 7:45 am local time, cleared customs, then got on a bus and drove 2 1/2 hours to a small seaside town outside of the capital, Rabat. We're less than a block from the ocean, which is very nice. A few of us took a walk on the beach today and it was very pretty. Supposedly, this area of Morocco is known for its surfing, although we were told that we wouldn't have time for any of that.

We're staying at a hotel that reminds me a lot of youth hostels in Europe. I'm in four person room, with common bathrooms and showers in the hall. Everything is very beautiful. They ceilings are very intricate carvings and there is a very pretty blue mosaic fountain the center of our hotel. Our meals are served in a dining room, sort of family style. They place a large platter of food in the middle of the table and everyone serves themselves from it. I think its probably a nice transition to what I've heard is traditional Moroccan meals, where everyone shares the plate in the middle of the table. I'll know next week, when I start living with a host family.

Its currently Ramadan in Morocco, so the meals are spread out a little bit to accommodate those that fast during the day. Dinner tonight will be at 8pm. In fact, the normal Moroccan business day is from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm, then a few hours break, then work until 8:00 pm. That will be a big adjustment for me, since I'm used to working 7:00 am to 3:30 pm. Adjusting will be a challenge, although sleeping later will be nice.

The Moroccan trainers that I met today were very nice and I think will be a great asset as I try to learn the language and culture. The two I spoke with had never been outside Morocco, but they spoke English very well. They said they learned a lot by working with the Peace Corps volunteers. They practice their English while we practice our Arabic/French/Berber dialects. I will definitely rely on their judgement on what to wear and if its appropriate to cover my hair. Most of the women seem to do so, but I want to check with the trainers before I start doing so. There may be something that I don't understand.

Our first full day of training is tomorrow. We start at 9:00 am, when we meet with the Peace Corps doctors to update them on any changes to our medical file. Then we start on the culture and Peace Corps policies. There is a lot to learn. These next three months are going to be very intense.

I'll try to post pictures later this week. Now, I'm off to my room to start on all the paperwork we got today.

I'm Leaving On a Jet Plane

Tomorrow is my last day in St. Louis. Leaving is definitely bitter sweet. Its hard to say good-bye to all my family and friends, but I'm very excited about starting this new journey. I've been trying to fit everything that I need into the two bags I'm bringing and pack up everything I'm not. My sister has been great about letting me leave my extra stuff in her garage and my furniture in her extra bedroom. I was told to try to pack as though I was going on a two year camping trip. Since my living conditions could be anything from a place without electricity or running-water to a place with central heating and several bathrooms, I think that was good advice.

Last weekend, my wonderful family threw me a great going-away party. It was so much fun! I had friends from work, college, and even elementary school come. Added together with my enormous family, it was a big party. It was a wonderful way to say good-bye to everyone. My relatives even got together and got me an Amazon Kindle, so I could bring a lot of books with me. It was a great present and I'm sure it will be invaluable when I'm there. Plus the wonderful cards, gift certificates, and photo albums were great too! My mom even spent hours putting together an incredible scrapbook with pictures from the party mixed in with scenes from my childhood. It was a great gift and will be a wonderful talking point when I get to Morocco.

I have been packing and repacking my things for several weeks now (which my sister Emily has teased me about to no-end....what can I say, I can't help planning ahead. I'm a nerd about stuff like that.) It is incredibly hard to pack for two years! I asked everyone I could for advice, and read all sorts of books and blogs on Morocco. I'm sure I'll be surprised by what it is actually like there, and that I'll have packed things I don't need and forgotten things I would use. As my friend Courtney, who is in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan, told me "Don't worry, Anna. No matter how prepared you are, there are always surprises." I'm trying to keep that in mind and try not to sweat the small stuff so much.

I've also set things up to be pen pals with all three fourth grade classrooms at my mom's elementary school. I went and talked to the kids last week and told them a little bit about the Peace Corps and what I'd be doing in Morocco. They had some funny questions and some very insightful ones. One classroom even asked me about ten questions about what socks I'd wear and how Moroccan socks are different than American socks. I told them I'd have to let them know once I got there.

This will be such an adventure! Morocco, here I come!!!!