As of November 20th, 2008, around noon, I am a full-on Peace Corps volunteer. Obviously, this honor comes with certain rights and responsibilities, crap-tons of street cred, and a lot of changes. Although I’ve been in Morocco for almost 3 months now, I’ve only been working at my site for almost 3 days.
Which brings us to the main point of this writing: where is my site? Well, unfortunately, I can’t tell you that. You see, there are certain security precautions that we have to take here in the Peace Corps so that the rest of you (we tend to refer to you as “normies”) can benefit from the peace that we are creating. Now, I don’t want to frighten any of you with delicate sensibilities, it’s not really dangerous; but I would be amiss if I didn’t imply that there’s a hint of peril.
So, how does this affect you? Well, ladies will probably swoon a little bit at the magnitude of my awesomeness, and those who are pregnant, nursing, or have heart conditions should probably not read this without qualified supervision. And anyone who wants to write or visit will have to write me an email to find out where it is that you or your packages should be sent.
But seriously, I can tell you some about my site in general terms that should keep the hypothetical terrorists and Illuminati in enough dark about my whereabouts to last me the next 2 years. First of all, for the purposes of further confusion, let’s call my site Freedonia, in homage to probably the most influential of treatises on international relations of the 20th Century. Second, allow me to confirm suspicions that Freedonia is, in fact, located in Morocco.
Freedonia is a small town in the Middle Atlas of less than 10,000 people, which, if that number is as meaningless to you as it is to me, means that you could easily walk from one side of town to the other in less than 2 hours, but you could never hope to meet all the people in it. It was developed mostly by the French as an escape from the incredible summer heat of the major cities, and so there is a very obvious blending/imperialism of cultures and architectural styles that some people see as “un-Moroccan,” but is usually very welcome to most tourists and expatriates.
The weather is quite cold, which can be difficult to unbearable in the winter, though the envy of Morocco in the summer, when it is – allegedly – paradisiacal. But the icing on the meteorological cake is the air and water. Almost all the big cities of Morocco are in the coastal plain, and, as a result, are smog-tastic, but the fresh mountain air of Freedonia keeps all that in the cities where it belongs. And the water in pretty much every town, city, and village, if it’s potable at all, tastes like a cocktail of chlorine, salt, and desert, and evokes a sensation similar to when eating blowfish sushi – even though you’re assured it’s perfectly safe, there’s still a chance it could kill you. Or worse. Not so in Freedonia. The tap water runs from the same natural mineral springs that feed the bottling companies that bottle the water the rest of Morocco drinks in lieu of playing Russian roulette with their gastro-intestinal systems.
The people are, on the whole, quite friendly and welcoming. There are certain stereotypical forms of harassment that foreigners face here in Morocco: political, religious, sexual, and “daily.” Political harassment is usually related to being associated with President Bush or the Iraq War, but President-Elect Obama has done an incredible job already of minimizing that. Religious harassment usually manifests in two ways, arguments for converting to Islam or discrimination against atheists, adherents of polytheistic religions, and Jews. Sexual harassment can range from chauvinistic bothering to groping to serious sexual assault. Finally, “daily” harassment that foreigners experience usually takes the form of xenophobia or rock-throwing (we’ll probably have a discussion later about rock-throwing, as well as harassment in general, I’m sure). As for xenophobia, all black people are Senegalese and looked down upon, all Asians are Chinese and looked at strangely from a somewhat downward perspective, and all white people are French and looked at with a mixture of envy, resentment, suspicion, and supplication.
Thus far I have experienced none of these – hamdullah – here in Freedonia. Of course, I’ve only been here for a 1-week site visit and 3 days of actual installation, but news spreads around pretty quickly in a small town about the arrival of a new American. I credit this fortune, however, to several places. First of all, the Peace Corps, in my estimation, did an excellent job of preparing us for entry with language and cultural training (mostly through the home stay program and the guidance of phenomenal language and cultural facilitators). Second, my family here is incredibly warm and helpful, and I have to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Baba Mustapha, Mama Mahjouba, my brothers Mohammad, Smail, and Isam, my sister Nora (at school is Fes), and my sister Itou’, who lives in France with her husband and I’ve never met or spoken to before. But finally, I credit the town of Freedonia itself for being very open to cross-cultural communication.
In short, when Peace Corps volunteers talk about the best countries to be placed in, Morocco is always at the top of the list, and when PCVs in Morocco talk about the best sites in the country, the ones who’ve been here for a bit always list Freedonia as number 1.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
On Development, Part I
Now that all of us new volunteers are getting our sites and starting to think about our development plans in a less abstract fashion, I think that it’s an appropriate time to talk about the effects of continuity and development. By “continuity” I mean the effects that a previous developer can have on the experience of his or her successor, as well as just the impact that all cultural ambassadors have on the image of their compatriots and the response they receive from the host country.
To illustrate this point, I’m going to tell you a story about my adventure hiking a mountain today. Today was actually the first day off that we’ve had here in Morocco. Every other day we’ve either had classes of some kind, self-directed language study, or been with our host families practicing our integration. However, today we’re in our seminar site (no host families), we had our massive language test yesterday, and it’s the staff’s day off, so some a handful of us decided to take a hike in the mountains. (As a quick side note, this part of Morocco, the Middle Atlas, is not at all like any of your preconceptions would lead you to believe. In fact, it’s cold and mountainous, and a lot like Western North Carolina.)
Fast-forwarding through most of the hike, we wandered around through some of the mountains going from peak to peak and pausing every so often to enjoy the view of the city. And when I say mountains, they are mountains, but the city is in the mountains as well, so the relative heights that we had to ascend were negligible. Anyway, we passed a bunch of Moroccans from time to time – Berber ladies doing laundry in the river, farmers coming and going between the city and the bled (countryside), families gathering branches for firewood, children playing jump rope up on the mountainside – and we would greet them casually and continue on our way. Usually they would start speaking to us in French (most Moroccans conceptualize all foreigners as being French because of their abundance here), and we usually surprised and impressed them by responding in Darija (Moroccan Arabic).
Anyway, after spending about an hour-and-a-half enjoying the bucolic splendor of central Morocco, and realizing that all of our conversations were turning to types of food we missed back in the states and the best of what we’ve had here so far, we decided it was time to head downtown to the café that sells hamburgers (which, ironically, are not worth writing home about). And so we left, but it turned to out to be earlier than I had expected, as I still had a loaf of bread (not as big as you think, they make them pretty “fun size” here) and a chocolate bar, so I scarfed the bread and began working on the chocolate as we walked. Before long we began passing some of the people we had seen on our way up, including a handful of boys who had been gathering firewood or something (most likely just horsing around), they saw the chocolate bar in my hand and immediately made a bee-line for us.
Now, an important element of development is sustainability (I believe we discussed this in a previous issue), which includes the way that you give to the host country. There really is no consensus on this particular point, but I and many of my colleagues would argue that just giving money or things to the host country runs contrary to the purpose of development, as it really only seems to develop a culture of asking foreigners to give things (or money), which means that development requires the presence of foreigners, their things, and their money, rather than requiring only the motivational energy (at best, ideally) of people like Peace Corps volunteers and the continued effort of the host community. This becomes even more important when you think about how if one developer just gives things and/or money, then they may condition their host community to expect the same from future developers – or foreigners in general – and can cause real problems for a successor trying to convince his or her host country to develop sustainably.
Needless to say, my convictions on this matter led me to say, “no, sorry” in response to the demands on my chocolate. The little ones were not so easily dissuaded in their pursuit of Maruja (this brand), and called in some reinforcements and began swarming us yelling, “Maruja! Maruja! Âtini [give me] Maruja!” We spoke with them a little more forcibly as we continued walking, but there was no changing their minds, so we mostly just kept walking – attempting to ignore them and continue our conversation about fencing (the sport, not the lawn decoration). And that would have been easy if it weren’t for the fact that one of them was definitely carrying a pretty nasty-looking meat cleaver (intended on the top of this mountain for a purpose that escaped me), and while he didn’t seem to be menacing us with it, it was definitely present in our negotiations. But we were clearly not interested in what they were selling us, and responded to them with, “Do you understand Darija?” “Hshuma âlikum [shame on you]!” And big lumberjack Tim asking them if there was going to be a problem.
We kept walking along the trail, but, unfortunately, this trail was pretty much only switchbacks, and the little chocolate monsters were just coming down the sides of the mountain calling at us from the trees and occasionally tossing rocks (fairly common in the aggregate amongst Moroccan boys), and doing a pretty good impression of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park – though keeping their distance for the most part. It’s hard to say how it would have ended if we’d had to really throw down because we soon saw a couple older men walking up the path towards us who seem to have dissuaded our pursuers.
Hopefully that was an entertaining story for you – there’s action, adventure, suspense, chocolate – and a little bit of reference to development, but I started this blog talking about continuity between developers, and I’m fairly sure that I haven’t talked about that yet. Here’s how it all ties together:
When we got back downtown and were headed on our way to the aforementioned hamburger café, we ran into a few more trainees sitting in a different café enjoying some lunch, and having just had this adventure, we quickly set about telling them what happened. But they stopped us pretty much immediately and said, “Wait, which mountain are you talking about? The big one with the building on top of it?” We said yes and they began to talk about how they had hiked the same earlier in the morning.
“We went up the side, and headed towards the peak,” they said. “After getting up there and having all the fun we needed, we started coming back down again and ran into these boys barring the path with a branch and demanding money. 100 dirhams. We said we weren’t going to give them anything except for the fact that one of them had a pretty nasty-looking meat cleaver seemingly intended specifically for menacing way-farers. They kind of chased us back up the hill and we had to climb down the rocks on the far side to escape. We had a little chocolate with us though, which we gave to them to get them away from us. It was horrible.”
And so there you have it. We had no idea why they were so fixated on the chocolate (we just figured who doesn’t like Maruja?), and they had no idea what – if any – impact their choices would make on the interactions between these host country nationals and future developers. And I certainly don’t intend to imply that what the others did was wrong; they were being more or less robbed at cleaver-point and made the right choice to preserve themselves (which leads to further discussion on the interplay between the needs of the developer and the developee, but we’ll have to save that for later). The point I’m trying to make with this story is that you never really know what’s going to happen in the future as a result of what you do or say now. We find ourselves often generalizing Moroccan behavior from a relatively small amount of interaction, and I hope it’s not too ridiculous of an assumption to imply that Moroccans do the same.
Take our site replacements, for example. The previous volunteer in my site is French-American and spoke in French for a good many of his meetings with counterparts, and I have a bit of difficulty convincing the same people to speak to me in Darija as they assume that all Americans speak French (an assumption that isn’t helped by the fact that I actually do speak French). That’s a very minor situation. Some of my friends, ladies, are replacing other lady volunteers that married or are marrying Moroccans, and have to spend all day explaining to their communities that they are there to do youth development, not to find husbands. Again, you can’t really say that it’s wrong for volunteers to fall in love and get married, but it goes to further illustrate the point that everything that we do works to establish precedents that we or our successors will have to deal with.
Something to think about.
To illustrate this point, I’m going to tell you a story about my adventure hiking a mountain today. Today was actually the first day off that we’ve had here in Morocco. Every other day we’ve either had classes of some kind, self-directed language study, or been with our host families practicing our integration. However, today we’re in our seminar site (no host families), we had our massive language test yesterday, and it’s the staff’s day off, so some a handful of us decided to take a hike in the mountains. (As a quick side note, this part of Morocco, the Middle Atlas, is not at all like any of your preconceptions would lead you to believe. In fact, it’s cold and mountainous, and a lot like Western North Carolina.)
Fast-forwarding through most of the hike, we wandered around through some of the mountains going from peak to peak and pausing every so often to enjoy the view of the city. And when I say mountains, they are mountains, but the city is in the mountains as well, so the relative heights that we had to ascend were negligible. Anyway, we passed a bunch of Moroccans from time to time – Berber ladies doing laundry in the river, farmers coming and going between the city and the bled (countryside), families gathering branches for firewood, children playing jump rope up on the mountainside – and we would greet them casually and continue on our way. Usually they would start speaking to us in French (most Moroccans conceptualize all foreigners as being French because of their abundance here), and we usually surprised and impressed them by responding in Darija (Moroccan Arabic).
Anyway, after spending about an hour-and-a-half enjoying the bucolic splendor of central Morocco, and realizing that all of our conversations were turning to types of food we missed back in the states and the best of what we’ve had here so far, we decided it was time to head downtown to the café that sells hamburgers (which, ironically, are not worth writing home about). And so we left, but it turned to out to be earlier than I had expected, as I still had a loaf of bread (not as big as you think, they make them pretty “fun size” here) and a chocolate bar, so I scarfed the bread and began working on the chocolate as we walked. Before long we began passing some of the people we had seen on our way up, including a handful of boys who had been gathering firewood or something (most likely just horsing around), they saw the chocolate bar in my hand and immediately made a bee-line for us.
Now, an important element of development is sustainability (I believe we discussed this in a previous issue), which includes the way that you give to the host country. There really is no consensus on this particular point, but I and many of my colleagues would argue that just giving money or things to the host country runs contrary to the purpose of development, as it really only seems to develop a culture of asking foreigners to give things (or money), which means that development requires the presence of foreigners, their things, and their money, rather than requiring only the motivational energy (at best, ideally) of people like Peace Corps volunteers and the continued effort of the host community. This becomes even more important when you think about how if one developer just gives things and/or money, then they may condition their host community to expect the same from future developers – or foreigners in general – and can cause real problems for a successor trying to convince his or her host country to develop sustainably.
Needless to say, my convictions on this matter led me to say, “no, sorry” in response to the demands on my chocolate. The little ones were not so easily dissuaded in their pursuit of Maruja (this brand), and called in some reinforcements and began swarming us yelling, “Maruja! Maruja! Âtini [give me] Maruja!” We spoke with them a little more forcibly as we continued walking, but there was no changing their minds, so we mostly just kept walking – attempting to ignore them and continue our conversation about fencing (the sport, not the lawn decoration). And that would have been easy if it weren’t for the fact that one of them was definitely carrying a pretty nasty-looking meat cleaver (intended on the top of this mountain for a purpose that escaped me), and while he didn’t seem to be menacing us with it, it was definitely present in our negotiations. But we were clearly not interested in what they were selling us, and responded to them with, “Do you understand Darija?” “Hshuma âlikum [shame on you]!” And big lumberjack Tim asking them if there was going to be a problem.
We kept walking along the trail, but, unfortunately, this trail was pretty much only switchbacks, and the little chocolate monsters were just coming down the sides of the mountain calling at us from the trees and occasionally tossing rocks (fairly common in the aggregate amongst Moroccan boys), and doing a pretty good impression of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park – though keeping their distance for the most part. It’s hard to say how it would have ended if we’d had to really throw down because we soon saw a couple older men walking up the path towards us who seem to have dissuaded our pursuers.
Hopefully that was an entertaining story for you – there’s action, adventure, suspense, chocolate – and a little bit of reference to development, but I started this blog talking about continuity between developers, and I’m fairly sure that I haven’t talked about that yet. Here’s how it all ties together:
When we got back downtown and were headed on our way to the aforementioned hamburger café, we ran into a few more trainees sitting in a different café enjoying some lunch, and having just had this adventure, we quickly set about telling them what happened. But they stopped us pretty much immediately and said, “Wait, which mountain are you talking about? The big one with the building on top of it?” We said yes and they began to talk about how they had hiked the same earlier in the morning.
“We went up the side, and headed towards the peak,” they said. “After getting up there and having all the fun we needed, we started coming back down again and ran into these boys barring the path with a branch and demanding money. 100 dirhams. We said we weren’t going to give them anything except for the fact that one of them had a pretty nasty-looking meat cleaver seemingly intended specifically for menacing way-farers. They kind of chased us back up the hill and we had to climb down the rocks on the far side to escape. We had a little chocolate with us though, which we gave to them to get them away from us. It was horrible.”
And so there you have it. We had no idea why they were so fixated on the chocolate (we just figured who doesn’t like Maruja?), and they had no idea what – if any – impact their choices would make on the interactions between these host country nationals and future developers. And I certainly don’t intend to imply that what the others did was wrong; they were being more or less robbed at cleaver-point and made the right choice to preserve themselves (which leads to further discussion on the interplay between the needs of the developer and the developee, but we’ll have to save that for later). The point I’m trying to make with this story is that you never really know what’s going to happen in the future as a result of what you do or say now. We find ourselves often generalizing Moroccan behavior from a relatively small amount of interaction, and I hope it’s not too ridiculous of an assumption to imply that Moroccans do the same.
Take our site replacements, for example. The previous volunteer in my site is French-American and spoke in French for a good many of his meetings with counterparts, and I have a bit of difficulty convincing the same people to speak to me in Darija as they assume that all Americans speak French (an assumption that isn’t helped by the fact that I actually do speak French). That’s a very minor situation. Some of my friends, ladies, are replacing other lady volunteers that married or are marrying Moroccans, and have to spend all day explaining to their communities that they are there to do youth development, not to find husbands. Again, you can’t really say that it’s wrong for volunteers to fall in love and get married, but it goes to further illustrate the point that everything that we do works to establish precedents that we or our successors will have to deal with.
Something to think about.
Friday, November 14, 2008
An Apology
Sorry about the infrequency with which I've been writing, but, as you might imagine, things are quite busy now. We have been taking classes in just about everything you can imagine, meeting our new sites (which I'll talk about later), and being generally awesome, which, as you know, can consume quite a lot of your time.
But, if you'd like a quick update, tomorrow is the big language test that determines if we can stay here and do our work or if we have to stay here and do our work after signing a piece of paper that says we'll also keep working on our language. If we don't have to sign the paper, we still have to keep working on our language ability.
Also, next Thursday is our Swearing In, which means that we become official volunteers and get to start accruing vacation time. I'll probably write about that some time in the future as well. And I'll start uploading photos once I've gotten into my own place (February 1st, inshaallah), so jusy keep hanging on a little longer, ok?
But, if you'd like a quick update, tomorrow is the big language test that determines if we can stay here and do our work or if we have to stay here and do our work after signing a piece of paper that says we'll also keep working on our language. If we don't have to sign the paper, we still have to keep working on our language ability.
Also, next Thursday is our Swearing In, which means that we become official volunteers and get to start accruing vacation time. I'll probably write about that some time in the future as well. And I'll start uploading photos once I've gotten into my own place (February 1st, inshaallah), so jusy keep hanging on a little longer, ok?
The Hammam and Man Love
Let me tell you about the hammam. The “Hammam Story” is the most told by anyone – Peace Corps volunteer or otherwise – who comes to Morocco, but it is an unavoidable duty. So, what is the hammam? In short, the hammam is the public bath, and it is at once both exactly like what you think it is and completely different.
Now, not all hammams look the same – some have many rooms, some have few; some are big, some small; some have many faucets and some have only one – but the one I went to has four rooms, each for a specific purpose. And before I go any further in the story, let me clarify what I meant by the “disrobing” I mentioned previously. You do NOT get naked in the men’s hammam (I’ve heard conflicting stories about what happens in the women’s), but you do strip down to your undies or bathing suit (I opted for the former). So, the first room is called the “cold room” and it’s actually the last room you go to. The two following rooms are each significantly progressively warmer and the final room is the hottest.
The hot room is where you get your water in your buckets (still important), but also where you sit and warm up. The whole philosophy of the hammam hinges around the fact that people don’t really bathe as frequently as they do in the States, for example, and so they have different requirements for getting clean. The room is so hot that you can hardly move and no cleaning is done here. Instead, you only sit and sweat until you’re almost completely dehydrated – maybe 20 minutes – allowing the sweat to loosen the grime and filth that has collected over the last 3-4 days (if you’re Moroccan) or 6-8 days (if you’re a Peace Corps volunteer).
Now you’re ready to start cleaning yourself. For this you have to go to a medium temperature room, take a seat on the floor (after disinfecting it with a little hot water from your buckets), and get out your soap and, most importantly, your kees. The kees was originally designed by Cardinal Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition as a means of extracting conversions from non-believers (see Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I for more information). Today, Moroccans have adapted its use for deep-penetrating exfoliation and extracting conversions from non-believers. Although the kees is cloth, it is actually more closely related to the common cheese grater, and it goes a long way towards explaining the psychology of the average masochist. You see, when you don’t wash yourself that frequently, you build up layers of dead skin on top of your living skin, and you really don’t want that. Actually, after the first time I eventually took a shower in Morocco (sans kees and not in a hammam) and started to dry myself off, I began to panic when rolls of skin began coming off with my towel. These were the unexfoliated follicles, and had I used the kees, I wouldn’t have had this problem.
So, while you gouge yourself with the kees or, as in my case, emasculate yourself by using a loofa (or “American kees,” as my pathetic attempt at preserving my dignity put it), you may make a few interesting anthropological discoveries. The first is the buckets. Morocco is a very communal society. People share everything with the notable exception of hammam buckets (or “plastic gold,” as they are referred to by most lay people). The taking of another’s hammam bucket is justifiable cause for the offended to kill the offender and enslave his women, and I have heard even more harrowing tales of what goes on in the ladies’ hammam. (I should remark here, however, that these are actually second-hand stories and that in my experience the other dudes in the hammam were actually incredibly helpful in filling my buckets for me and lending me a small bucket with which to scoop the water onto me.) The same rules also apply to taking another’s designated (by being disinfected) space on the floor, and I did actually witness a brief total war between two guys on this subject.
The second, and most notable of anthropological points, actually brings us to the second half of our discussion: man love. Obviously, you’ve got as many almost naked dudes as a bad gladiator movie, but there is so much more that might offend the delicate sensibilities of your typical Westerner. For example, let’s say that you’re busy flaying yourself with your kees and you realize that you can’t quite reach all the places on your back (and you certainly don’t want to leave any skin there). What do you do? No problem; just lay down and have your sweaty, scantily-clad pal hop on your back and get busy with the kees (there’s usually a professional wandering around the hammam somewhere, though, of course, his services will set you back a few dirhams). This is totally normal, and it is not at all the only instance of man love you’re going to experience in Morocco.
When you go out of the hammam, almost everywhere you look you can see guys walking down the street holding hands and/or walking arm-in-arm. Was there a spontaneous rift in the space-time continuum and you’ve accidently stumbled into San Francisco? Is this a music video for the Village People? No, this is everyday Morocco, and it’s generally discomforting to most Americans.
But putting aside the immature yet brilliant gay jokes, I’d like to talk seriously about some very interesting culture. As I hope you are all aware by now, Morocco is a proud Islamic country, an identity that comes with certain requirements, one of which is that public interactions between men and women are not smiled upon (and private interaction is virtually non-existent - as far as people are willing to talk about - except for between husbands and wives). This leaves people with little outlet for interpersonal contact, and so, naturally, they turn to intragender relations. I think that the amazing thing, though, is seeing the power of culture in action. Western culture says that men holding hands is wrong (though we certainly need to work on that), and so it is very hard for Westerner men to hold hands with each other. Try it. Find a friend of yours – a guy, assuming you are one, too – and just hold his hand. See how long you can do it before you start to feel really uncomfortable. I’ve done it and I don’t even agree with these constructions, but I can’t hold a dude’s hand for more than about a minute before I just get weirded out. But Morocco says that it’s totally normal, and so Moroccans can scrub each other down almost completely naked and they don’t think twice. On the other hand, don’t ask a Moroccan guy for advice on how to pick up chicks because his culture has given him so little opportunity for interacting with women that he’s about as useless as
The point is that it's all just a matter of what your culture tells you is ok, and it's important to realize that there really is nothing wrong with guys expressing their affection for each other, regardless of how they choose to do it.
And so, you have these two cultures clashing in every volunteer who comes here: trying to intregrate into the culture but having these blocks from our old culture that get in the way more often than not. But if we can spend a few hours taking a bucket bath in our underpants with 25 other guys and have a great time, then there shouldn't be any problem overcoming our other difficulties.
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