Settling in

Home sweet home. I’m now at my permanent site in eastern Morocco. After my first week, everything is going well, although I’ve had my share of cultural adjustments to make; many bug bites from unknown assailants (bed bugs, chiggers, mosquitos, etc), language difficulties as well as learning a different moroccan arabic dialect, and incorporating myself into a large family (10).

The cultural adjustments I’m making right now are curable with time and patience, which I’m trying to take in large doses. When put in the proper perspective though, the situation I am faced with is a wonderful experience. The community, people, and cultural of my moroccan site are fascinating to say the least, and community members have been very respective to my arrival as well as very helpful. My main contact outside of my host family is and will be with men from a successful community association. They are very active and perhaps don’t need my assistance, but I will work on programs and grant writing with them. Other projects that I hope to be informing you about more over the next two years include; english classes, swim lessons or a camp, soccer field or basketball goal, bird and plant surveys, and a couple websites. Currently, the association is acquiring grant money to build a toilet facility near a frequent swimming hole and to refurbish two old buildings as tourist motels.

Other things...well there’s a list and should come out over the next couple weeks, but its just two much for one post. A few include: 1) Moroccans love American music, but the pride they have for their own song and dance overrides everything. 2) Satellite TV’s are in abundance, but are watched less. Once you get the whole package (around $300), you get free service, compliments of the govt. 3) The bamboo cafes are going up at my site. Around 10-15 are put up in the Summer and taken down after the tourist season. I have yet to figure out whose running these. I believe local farmers and craftsmen. I look forward to sitting by the river drinking cafe and stumbling with my arabic in a couple weeks. 4) My 3 year old host brother Yosshine is the cutest, only to be in competition with 30 kids that attend the pre-school I visited the other day. 5) Next to the preschool is the womens center, where I sat in on a beginning arabic class packed with women the other afternoon. Although most of these women are middle aged, they have a real desire to learn. And they more than I do. 6) As I told my mother earlier this week on the phone, moroccan roosters crow all day long. They’re not as well behaved as roosters in the states. 7) Someone please send me a kayak. The river at my site has risen significantly because of heavy rains, producing nice rapids. Minus the kayak, I’ll probably use an inner tube. 8) My family wants me to cook a traditional american meal next week. I’m thinking hamburgers with boy scout potatoes or tacos.

This weekend we’re going to the Mediterranean beach Saieda, about 3 hours away. Graham and I will meet up with Josh and were planning to swim, bbq, and maybe go spear fishing.

P.S. Here’s the name of my post, waxxa in Arabic. This is actually the correct phonetic spelling, not wakha. I got wakha from a arabic book before I came over. Their both pronounced the same.. wA-Ha.
واخا

Here's Yosshine racing around with handlebars a couple days ago.