House building

Here's how a house is built in most places in rural Morocco. Although some use concrete, which is expensive just like it is in the states, the traditional way is to build the dirt house. At the risk of overgeneralizing and misinforming my audience, I'll describe the process as the following.

1. You stake your claim to land in the community by birthright. If you were born in the community, you can build whereever you want as long as its approved by a town council. If your an outsider, you have to pay for the land. In the photo, you'll notice these piles of rocks. These are people staking their claim to land. The piles of rocks (which cost about 100 dHm to get delivered) represent future houses or territorial boundaries. When asked, I was told that they're 15 new houses being built within the next year. That's in a village of 40 households.

2. In our village, where there's a house, there's a ditch beside it where the dirt was taken from and used to build the walls (often 12 inches thick) of the house and their perimeter.

3. A crew of 4-5 guys build a house. One gathers the soil, 2 more walk a relay where the soil is shoveled in a bucket, placed on top of their head and then taken to a guy who stands on top of the wall (shown in its beginning stage in the photo). The job of the last guy is to stomp the soil down with an instrument that resembles a lightweight, wide surfaced mallet.

4. Houses are often 10-12 ft high, with their exterior walls being 6-8 ft. Concrete is often used as their floorbase in the interior and elsewhere as needed. The ceilings are wood covered with dirt or something else I haven't figured out yet. Under the wood and dirt of most ceilings is bamboo (which grows very fast), which looks very nice.

5. In all, these dirt houses are cheap, well made, and are environmentally appropriate. For the last month, I've been amazed at how rural Moroccans make the most of their available resources.


(Im pictured in the photo with Mohammad, the owner of the house where we have daily language classes. The wooden gate he's standing in will be filled and packed a little at a time, then moved. After the bottom level is completed, it will be raised and the bottom will be overlaid. This outerwall should be just around 7-8 ft high.

A Hard Day's Work

Here's a potter in our community collecting dirt that will become pots, cookstoves, etc. First, he collects from this area outside the community, a place where his father and grandfather also collected from. Then, he or his father (who is around 70) have to break the dirt into fine pieces and remove any rock. He has said this is the hardest part of his job; the preperation of the materials. Third, he has to add water and then makes it into his desired product. After talking with him and witnessing him work, I validate that he works very hard, with little in return. As the only breadwinner in a family of 11, he takes his pots to souk (weekly market) and makes litte.

When asked what would help him the most, his response is that if his van could be fixed (which broke down 10 yrs ago), he could take his products to a souk in Ouarzate, 40 km away where he could collect 5x the price. It's a sad situtation, although after visiting their family you realize that they're in economic poverty, but wealthy because of their high spirits and close family. Knowing this potter for the last 2 months, I would also say he's one of the most positive people I've ever met.

Harvesting Wheat

The beginning of the Spring crop harvest has begun in Morocco. For the most part, I've been told that families cut their wheat or other crop, and then men with threshing machines come around to the villages (similar to America at the beginning of the 20th century) and thresh the wheat. Otherwise, I've heard in some areas, they use 5-6 donkeys lined together around a pole and march them around in a circle over the wheat. On the previous, my facts could be incorrect and I look forward to seeing this in the future.

4th Week in Community Training

L to R: Abdulahad, Sfia, Fatiha, Lmkki, Me, and Brahim

This last week was my fourth week of community training. It was a good week with several events happening. I had a language eval which I did well on, had a party with the family where they invited around 30 relatives, got some henna on my hand (which I found out later is a female thing), and generally had a good time. I’ve posted some photos.

The big news of the week was my site announcement, where I found out where I’ll be living for the next two years. It’s a town of 5000 in the Jerada province, which is about 30 km from the Algerian border in northeast Morocco. I’m excited; this a nice site and I’ve heard great things about it. This includes the fact that it has a large river running by it, has a strong association, has electric and water, and is 3 hours from a very nice beach on the Mediterranean. 20 km from me is Graham, who I’ve been rooming with at our hotel we use as a base in Ouarazate and who is also in my language group during community training. We get along well; he’s a smart guy, is from Baltimore, and has a background in economics. Another guy I get along with is Josh, who will be our next closest volunteer, is about 100 km away. All three of us will probably be working on some projects together and will also be learning some Algerian Arabic in addition to Moroccan Arabic. Also, our sites are about 3 hrs away from the Mediterranean, and a great beach community called Saidi. From there, its another few hours to the port city of Melilla, where ferry’s can take you to Europe.

I leave tomorrow for my first site visit. From Oz, it will take three days to get their, we’ll stay for three days, and then will take three to come back. Will probably stay the night in Rabat and also in Fez or Oujada, neither of which I’ve seen. I look forward to getting out of the Ouarzate region, where I’ve been for 2 months and seeing the rest of Morocco. I’ll tell you all about when I return.
Like I said earlier, I feel good about my language progress. I think I’m about 30% fluency right now, which can get me around Morocco for the most part. After a year, I hope to be around 80% in Darija, and then switch to classical Arabic and/or French. Peace Corps pays for my use of a tutor, which is real nice.

Well this is a good point to stop, and I’ve had some stories that I haven’t included in my last couple posts, but I’ll try to play catch up starting next weekend. Ill have some free time to sit around this week and write something poetic.

Pulling Weeds

Hui Says

Moroccan Party Style

How Boys Play - Rock Throwing

While we were milling around after lunch, I started throwing rocks with some small boys (age 5-7). We drop kicked rocks and skipped rocks on top of other rocks. Then I put my nalgene water bottle on a small rock peak similar to the one in the photo for target practice. Five minutes later, 25 village children are throwing rocks at the bottle, continuing for 30 mins until Melanie, the volunteer living their began to get worried that they might hit one another.

From my experience so far, Moroccan children, specifically Berbers, are tough and agile. With many villages having only a few soccer balls and lots of rocks, throwing rocks at one another is common. Most of them can throw as far as someone twice their age too. There are only boys in this photo because after they were asked to stop throwing rocks by a local man, the girls were the only ones to really listen.

How Girls Play - Elbow Tag

I went to a Berber village on Sun with some other volunteers. We planted approximately 700 olive trees as part of a training exercise. The trees were provided by PC, while the community of 400 was responsible for our food and entertainment. When we arrived at 9 AM, we had tea with something I can only describe as mushy rice with butter. After, we planted trees till 1:30, then ate tajin for lunch, had an hour break, then were provided entertainment which included village men playing drums and singing. Two hours after lunch, we had our second meal, coucous. I've decided that Moroccans like to feed me like my grandmothers- till your stuffed and then they'll offer you more. I'll post a photo later of the drumming which included hand drums (like tambourines) and a big bass made from animal skins. These men had great voices, but were probably outdone by the women who performed later but which we did not witness because some of them were not married.

Check out "my photos" link. I posted a photo of a berber man who we thought looks and has the same mannerisms as Sean Connery. When we talked with him, we heard a little of the scottish draw too- "I thought Christmas came only once a year."

Junabir Tree

I thought this was an argan, a tree species that is disappearing in Morocco because of its wide use. These trees are also somewhat reminiscent of joshua trees, the desert species found in California. It's a junabir though; they grow in the mts regions while the argan is found on the coasts. For me, it's an Ansel Adams photo.

Field Trip to Berber Village

I spent the last week in a small mountain village in the Ouarazate province on a field trip. Two of us stayed with a couple volunteers in a dirt floor house with no electricity and water. What the village lacked in amenities it made up in landscape. Surrounded by mountains colored with red clay, locals were farming mostly wheat in the widest valley areas while fruit trees like fig, apple, and apricot outlined the community and extended into the mts cracks. I was told that the wheat should be ready to harvest in late May, early June.

The site also had an abundance of amasythe (sp), the purple quartz popular in jewelry. We were told that groups of tourists in 5-6 SUVs arrive once a week at the site, have drink and food at a locals house/cafe, then are driven across the village and dumped off in close proximity to the rock reserve. On one of last days I observed this; their arrival, their rock collection, and then their departure. The community is not currently compensated for the harvesting of this natural resource, but that is one project that the community PCV is working on.

Also of interest in the village is the fear of cameras. I tried only once to take a picture; a woman was throwing rocks at a dog outside her house, noticed I had a camera pointed in her direction, then sprinted to safety behind a wall. I felt bad and have learned (or already knew) that I should have prefaced my action by asking for her permission. I don’t know if this general cultural norm in Morocco, a dislike of having your picture taken, has a greater cultural significance or if it’s as as simple as a privacy matter. In any case, I probably will take few people photos until I am able to establish trust in a community.

Overall, I’ve found that the people in small communities like the one I visited are some of the nicest people around. They are not outgoing, but are polite, helpful, and friendly.

Next Tues or Wed is the lunar holiday Aid Mawlid an Nabbaoui. This is an Islamic holiday, of which I believe there are two more Aid’s (Aid al Fitr, Aid al Adha) throughout the year. We will celebrate part of this holiday with our host families on Tues when we go back to site.

Tea and Tajin

This week at community training was easier than the last. I’m making some language progress (swih b swih - little by little) and I am more comfortable in my site and amongst my family. I’m eating a lot of tajin, which is like a potluck that is fired over a small wood burning stove or budagas tank (propane) for about an hour. Tajin is like America’s steak and potatoes served in a glazed pyramid shaped pot; it’s the staple of the country. Right now, my consecutive number of tajin meals (not counting breakfast) stands at 5. This occurred two weeks ago when we first arrived at site. We got it at the hotel before leaving, once more while in transit, and three more times at my site.

The 2nd staple of a Moroccans diet might be couscous, which unlike the tajin, I don’t care for because its bland. It’s served in the same pot as tajin, and combines small pieces of rice, veggies, and meat. With both meals, the meat and potatoes are at the bottom because they take longer to cook. From what I know, the veggies are added later. For drink, I don’t know how they stave off dehydration. There is no drink served with meals, except mint tea with breakfast (which is normally just bread) and buttermilk with couscous. So far, I’ve refused nothing at the table, although the buttermilk requires an iron stomach. Also dinner in Morocco can be anywhere between 9-11 PM. In my host family, we eat at 10, then I go to bed at 10:30. Often, I can just feel dinner converting into fat while I lie in bed.

If tajin is the staple meal of Morocco, mint tea is their water. Since I got here, I’ve been drinking tea for breakfast, morning break (10 AM), afternoon break (4 PM), in the evening (7 PM), and sometimes as a nightcap. Tea drinking is also the social icebreaker; we’ve already gotten numerous invites, which the culture makes hard to refuse. In the cities, moroccans with a little English will call tea “berber whiskey.” The first night with my host family, I called it this, they just picked up on “whiskey,” and my host brother Brahim let me know that alcohol was a shuma (something that is socially condemned, although not illegal) in Morocco and in Islam. Also on tea, if a normal kettle of chinese tea with local mint is around 32 oz, Moroccans like to put in about 10 oz or more than 1 cup of sugar. It’s like juiced up Kool-Aid or I’ve been told southern tea.

This last Thursday we went to the souk (weekly market) in Tourbadour, a community of a couple thousand. The souk is seperated into a vegetable/fruits section and then pottery, clothes, rugs, cheap tech gadgets, etc are intermixed. There is also the open meat market and a livestock area, where sheep can be bought for 200 dhm or a donkey for around 2000 dhm I think. The dhm/dollar exchange is 1/8.9.

P.S. There are definetly two things you can get from Morocco: cavities and patience. I tried posting a photo with this post, but gave up after 30 mins. I have posted some photos to my flickr account under "My Photos." These seem to upload quicker.