I have a policy that, no matter what else I have going on, the day isn't complete until I blow at least one Moroccan's mind. Of all the goals of the Peace Corps, that's probably the easiest, but if I'm ever having a hard time with it, here are a few I can always count on:
1. It's lonely being in the Peace Corps. You probably suspected as much, but allow me to assure you that it's far more so than you think, and different volunteers deal with it in different ways. Some drink, some give up and go home, some focus their energy into their work. I got a cat. That's not news to you, either, but it definitely came as a shock to Morocco. Which isn't to say that there aren't animals in and around the homes of Moroccans, because there are. There was a cat that lived at my first home stay, a whole pride of them in the garden of my second home stay, and lots of dogs kept by people I know. The difference, though, is the relationship negotiated between the human and animal. Here, a house animal is generally just that, an animal. It isn't a pet. Very few are given names (the first cat's name was Kitten), and most are treated with a combination of tolerance and appeasement. The cats that live with my new family are fed mostly so that they won't bother people with their mewling. Dogs are a lot more common than cats, and they tend to get names, too (90% are either Rocky or Rex), but I've never seen one that wasn't tied to a tree, and that's because these dogs are around for purpose, not companionship. Most people are afraid of dogs (some of cats, too), but that's because the majority of dogs are feral and would bite you if given the chance. That I not only let an animal into my house, but treat it like a member of my family is a constant amusement for my neighbors and family. Little Mehdi who lives next door lives to chase the cat into some unattainable location, and some of my cousins' favorite pastime is to come over and look for her, and then run out of the house when she's found. They love to talk about how she has a name, and that it's a “people's name.” A few people (usually who know girls named Amal) have gotten upset that my cat has the same name, but not many. I thought about it beforehand, though, and made sure that Amal is neither a name of God or the Prophet, so it's not that. It's just the thought of an animal being called the same as you (or being called the same an as animal), that's shocking.
2. The Peace Corps gives us bikes for getting around in our sites (and beyond, provided we have permission, of course), but they come with a few conditions. Obviously, we have to take care of them, and, unless we can trick an incoming volunteer into taking ours from us, we'll have to pay for any damages when we're finished. We're also, for insurance purposes, not allowed to let any non-PCVs use them, which ultimately means that we're forced to be seen as selfish jerks in our significantly-more-communal-than-America communities. That's not going to blow anyone's mind, though. It'll just give them a bad impression of the States. No, the amazement comes from the other condition: that we must, on pain of expulsion from the Peace Corps, at all times wear a bicycle helmet. Now, it's a good idea to wear one no matter what, and I hope that you're doing so back there at home (even if you're not going to lose your job if you don't), but I think you can appreciate how you might feel if you were the only one in town wearing bicycle headgear. Try as we might, there's just no way to put on a helmet that doesn't make you look like a dork, and that's in a society that accepts them as normal. Out here, I can only imagine it's like walking down Main Street, Anytown, in a spacesuit. Back during our staging (before we got on the plane to Morocco) they showed us a propaganda film starring the nerdiest volunteer ever and his plan to turn being a laughingstock into a bicycle safety awareness campaign. The video actually looked like it had been filmed in Morocco, which makes sense because thousands of American films are done here and because the kids he was talking with were obviously actors. In all my life as a Peace Corps volunteer, I've never met a group of drairi who'd rather learn about bicycle helmets than make fun of a foreigner, or who would receive any benefit from such knowledge. Whether we like it or not, bicycle helmets just aren't available in our communities, and this is one sector in which we can't just make a cheap substitute out of cardboard and empty soda bottles at the dar shebab. A few kids have asked me for mine, and I could tell that at least one of them honestly intended to use it. I'd love to leave it behind when I go, too, if only I wasn't going to be fined out of my readjustment allowance for not returning all my equipment.
3. Our pre-staging materials came with a long list of suggested items to bring with us. As a good Boy Scout, I took it reasonably seriously. I didn't bring a Coleman camp shower. I did bring the duct tape, but I disbelieve in its omniusefulness. I've found myself looking for things to do just to get rid of it. I also brought the sticky tack, but the only thing keeping anything on my walls is superglue. And they recommended bringing some bandanas, so I threw in a few of those, too. Aside from an award-winning pirate costume I put together for Halloween every once in a while, I've never been a bandana-wearing kind of guy, but I figure there can't be a better place to start than in the Peace Corps. It turns out that I don't wear them very much in Morocco, either, aside from under my bicycle helmet, when I'm getting dressed up for the World Cup, and if my hair is just so incredibly funky that it would be a crime to inflict it upon people (I take my hats off when I go inside, thank you very much). And it's times like these when I'm usually – hopefully – on my way to the showers, which just happen to be attached to the downstairs of my host grandfather's house, and only a few doors away from basically everyone else in my family, including the house where I stayed, and I'll obviously see my family as well. Let me tell you, they didn't know what to think the first time they saw me put on a bandana. And why not? Because only women wear bandanas, which is funny because to me a bandana is like a turban as much as it is a headscarf, though I'll grant that there is a certain kind of bandanascarf that women wear, too. One of my little cousins even asked if I was a girl, which his mother very happily relayed to me (he didn't know how to speak Arabic yet), though also added that that was why he wasn't shy of me. I'm sure that's what prompted the Peace Corps to recommend packing them: instant youth integration.
4. One of the first things that we do when we arrive in country is begin learning Darija. Almost every other foreigner, however, does not, and thus (as we've discussed), your average Peace Corps volunteer is quite an anomaly in his or her daily conversation. And it's common enough that when you (or I, this is about me, after all) speak Darija, the host country interlocutor is so blown away that they may very well not hear a single word of what you say, or even reply that they're very sorry but don't understand English. Take for example, the case of the Roman ruins of Volubilis. I'm one of the closer volunteers to the ancient city, and so when one of my close friends from the South (of whom, I can assure you, there are many) come to visit, we'll often takea trip over. You may not know this, but I have an uncanny ability to read the guide book and then five minutes later present exactly what it said as the result of decades of my own personal research, and thus I've earned the title of Volubilis's Greatest Tour Guide. And on one occasion as such I was entertaining a group of PCVs with the Curious Case of the Acrobat's House. You see, there is a particular mosaic in the center of town of a naked man sitting facing backwards on a quadruped equine animal of some sort holding up something in his hand. As you can probably imagine, though, the tour guiding business wouldn't last very long peddling this sort of historical accuracy, and thus we have the invention of Theories. Allow me to take a moment and point out that no one – all of us to a man having been nowhere near Volubilis circa 217 AD – can make any great claim to Truth. Nevertheless, our guide book explains that this man is an athlete, engaging in the challenging and dangerous sport of desultor (jumping on and off of a horse in full gallop), and presenting his trophy to a crowd of adoring spectators (not pictured). As I was explaining all of this to my compatriots, a woman enjoying her afternoon in Volubilis decided that the day would be perfect if only she could tell some foreigner that he's wrong and, more importantly, doesn't know how to read the multilingual placard describing the mosaic of a jester riding his donkey backwards for the amusement of all. Well, sweetheart, let me tell you something: there's one thing you don't do, and that's contradict Duncan in front of the youth development volunteers. Forgive me my snobbery, but if your English was really that good, you'd have heard me say just that only moments ago as one of two available theories, but give me a second and I'll go over the whole lecture once more for you, your family, and everyone else who's gathered to enjoy the show. In Darija. Yes, that's right,I do have the linguistic ability to not only read this placard, but also explain the concept of historical debate. I don't know about you, but I'm more inclined to believe that if someone's going to immortalize their naked self in the floor, it would be for being a death-defying stuntman (I certainly plan on it), but far be it from me to judge the sick sense of humor of 3rd Century Roman colonials. I pause a moment for you to collect your shell-shocked minds, carpet-bombed with Original Duncan's Finest Logic. But it's not applause that I hear. It's some guy who's mind has been blown: “You can speak Arabic? That's adorable!” If he'd been any closer, he would have pinched my cheek. It's probably best that he couldn't. I'd prefer to spare students of international conflict from learning about the Volubilis Incident until after I leave Morocco.
5. You know what, though, sometimes I take advantage of your ignorance. I tell you how great I am, but don't leave you any options for independent verification, and you're left just taking my word for it. Don't get me wrong, I am awesome, but in the interests of Truth, let me tell you how sometimes I come off a little greater than I really am. For instance, I don't actually know how to speak Tamazight. A retiring volunteer once taught me, though, the secret to speaking Berber languages, which is to not be able to speak them at all. The trick is, whenever someone asks you if you do, just say, “of course, etch agharome [eat bread],” and then go back to speaking Darija. Two or three other words might help put icing on the cake, but nine times out of ten you've already floored your audience. Why? Well, though more than half of Morocco is Amazigh, I'd wager less than half can speak Tamazight (despite minimal preservational effort on the part of the government, it's a dying tradition), and it's a good sight fewer Americans who even bother to try. (A nationalistic aside: far more Americans learn Tamazight than Moroccan Arabs, and those are gross numbers, not percentages.) Nearly two years later, and – I'll admit it – there are those who are starting to doubt my linguistic ability, but I've still got some convinced, and those are the people I eat with. This is because I speak a very unique brand of indigenous language called Lunch Time Tashleuheit. I learned from my host family, who only speak Arabic when they're talking to me, and mostly only talk to me when I'm over to mooch lunch. I score advanced level proficiency on Anything Related to What We're Having for Dinner (with a minor in Elementary Kitchen Smalltalk and Gossip), but aside from a collection of Tashleuheit words that I made up, I failed my courses in Everything Else. It doesn't really matter, though, because no matter what I do in my remaining month and a half, Freedonia will forever remember me as either 100% Berber Duncan or That Foreigner Who Really Loved to Talk about Bread.
6. Whenever I meet someone new, be it at a friend's house, in a taxi, at the corner store, or anywhere else, we tend to have to review the course of my entire service. That doesn't mean that I have to do a community map with them and establish their assets and vulnerabilities, but we start with speaking to me in French, asking if I like it here, and then on to Intro to Morocco 101. Naturally, the chronically proud Moroccan people want to educate their foreign guest about every aspect of their country – which is wonderful – it's just that after two years here, I've got a pretty good handle on Morocco myself. For example, did you know that Morocco was the first country to recognize America's independence? That there are three different families of Amazigh language? Yes, I did know that. I can also tell you about the subgroups of Tamazight and that our two countries first got together to hunt the Salé Rovers and Barbary pirates. This usually makes my Moroccans very happy to hear – though sometimes we get into arguments about the origins of Amazigh New Year (Yenayer) – but almost always catches them off guard. But I'm a teacher, too, and I know the feeling. It's not easy to go to class with a prepared lesson and then find out that your students are actually about seven chapters farther along. And it makes me wonder what kind of an ass I've been talking to foreigners in America. “Hey, Kyong Bo, did you know that Americans love to play baseball in the summer?” Really? No kidding.
7. We take it for granted that a single, 27-year-old guy either lives by himself or is a major loser. Not so in Morocco, but we've talked about that before. It's shocking for its mass potential for inappropriate behavior, but it's mind-blowing for its mere possibility. How could a guy possibly function by himself without the assistance of women? He would have to cook, and clean, and wash his clothes, and these are clearly impossible (undoubtedly the basis for the belief that I do not, in fact, ever wash my clothes, and that I subsist on a complex diet of black magic and photosynthesis – a true challenge in rainy, cold, Freedonia). I spend a lot of time with my family, and, though I love them dearly, a lot of this time I'm bored out of my mind. This is because I'm expected to watch the United Arab Emirates' greatest gift to mediocre cinematography, MBC2. But you can only watch Underworld: Evolution so many times before you need to crush your skull with a meat tenderizer, and so I'm often left desperately looking for something better to do. When I'm smart, I'll bring a book with me. Sometimes, though, I'm not, and so I'm left with no choice but to make conversation with my family, who are usually in the kitchen cooking something or elsewhere in town being hoodlums, and so I go chat with my mom while she makes lunch. And it's times like this when I pick up one or two items hanging around in the sink, and blow my mother's and sisters' minds. “Amin!? Are you washing the dishes?” Sometimes, in moments of frustration, I tend to reply that American guys are just manifestly superior to Moroccans for our comprehension of the Four Fold Mysteries of (1) apply soap to sponge, (2) agitate sponge briskly over dishes, (3) extinguish sudsiness with fresh water, and (4) leave in a warm, airy place to dry. Once, in the course of teaching my women's association girls' English class about food, I brought in the ingredients for pumpkin bread and made it with them. I had never before seen such astoundedry. And it's because of this (and that I only have at best three more classes with them, and that I got bored and took out the pumpkin bread before it was entirely finished – I'm not really a baker), that any further studying is going to be dedicated to a combination of culinary cultural exchange and ruining any chances these girls have of domestic tranquility with their future entitlement-happy husbands.
8. Most of my mind-blowing makes me look awesome (or at the very least, unique), but sometimes it makes me come across as a square. For example, in Freedonia, we have a liquor store, which happens to be right below my apartment, where Freedonians exercise their right to be weak in their flesh. I, however, don't drink, and I don't mean that in the sense of how I live in a society where drinking is the Mark of Shame and just don't want to tell anyone – because I certainly do that with other things. No, I legitimately don't drink. I also don't care if people want to (provided they don't then endanger themselves or others, but this isn't that story). So you can imagine how my friends feel when they really want to go out and get drunk and Amin, the only one in town who's got a really rock-solid justification for drinking, turns out to be a teetotaler. I say that tea is enough for me, which almost never gets a laugh out of my audience, and always hurts me in my soul. (Incidentally, if I hear someone tell me about how tea is “Moroccan whiskey” just one more time, I'll probably murder everyone and their families.) Even more alarming is my complete inability to chase after girls. Morocco, as a Muslim country, wavers between a nominal and concerted effort to separate the genders, particularly the unmarried ones. I, however, get a special Navigate the Gender Divide Free card included in my Outsider Package. I still have to fight to get into a kitchen, of course, but it does allow girls – particularly my students – to talk to me in the street, which in turn allows everyone else in my community to convince themselves that I'm the Mac Daddiest of all time. The other day at the post office I was talking with my friend the security guard when a girl from the dar shebab waved and said hi. As she was sitting a bit off on the entryway steps, I called back a quick “how are you” and looked back to continue the conversation I was already having. My pal, though, quickly pulled me around the corner and wanted to know if this was my girlfriend, what my secret was, and how was I so successful with the ladies. In his defense, it's just about impossible to get a girl to play anything other than hard-to-get, but the truth is I'm really not in to the whole Lolita thing. I just teach English.
9. I don't actually like to wear hats. At our recent Close of Service Conference (CoSCon) I made the same confession to the guys who came into the Peace Corps with me, and I'm fairly convinced that none of them believed me. That's because I've a baseball cap of some sort basically non-stop since September 6th, 2008 – which was similarly true of me in middle school – though it'd been almost exactly ten years since my first significant girlfriend made it plainly clear that she wasn't into hats (on me). And, like the people of Stockholm, I came to agree with her and soon realized that I too hate hats on me. I experimented in college with fedoras (my head is too skinny to pull it off properly), but ultimately spent a decade perfecting a way of not combing my hair and fooling people into thinking that I did. On the way to Morocco, however, I got this idea that I should go join the Peace Corps and be the token American, and that means a baseball cap. Now, I come from a land where you either wear a Yankees hat, a Red Sox hat, or nothing at all. The first was out of the question; it's all the evil of the Galactic Empire without the awesomeness of a lightsaber. The second, too, is problematic in that though they're the sworn enemies of injustice, I just can't feel like a unique individual wearing the same hat as everyone else. In the end, I went for the old Houston Astros logo because I have nothing against them and they're innocuous enough that enough people might think that I made up the hat's image myself. I put the hat on my head and went to Morocco, and soon learned that everyone here already wears one. But I didn't despair because I have one last resort of uniqueness: I wear mine backwards. This actually derives from my original dislike of hats – I don't want something (particularly a brim) blocking my view of what's going on. Ironically, though, it's precisely that that's gotten me the cross-cultural attention I craved. Crooked hats in Morocco are the badge of an awakening hip hop culture, which makes my hat by far the most street cred-securing article of clothing I've ever worn. Occasionally the youth will comment on my headgear and hit me up for my rhymes, so I bust a few until it's abundantly clear to everyone involved that I know nothing about hip hop music, but the true human interest story is my little cousin, Aziz, who now puts his on backwards. We're working on pounds and other greetings, but, as he doesn't yet really know how to speak Arabic, it's still a work in progress. I asked him to give me five, so he asked his dad for some money.
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Attention. This post is the balls. That is all.
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