Back at site

Work at my site is picking up. Next month, en shalla, I’ll start teaching English at the women’s center in the evening. I’m looking forward to this and getting my lesson plans ready. Alphabet, numbers, then reflexive and transitive verbs. Also, I’ve been interviewing people, specifically farmers about their land management practices; what is public/private, how is water allocated, what’s the crop calendar, are chemicals used (no), etc. This is done in effort to establish the communities needs and strengths. Learning the language and culture makes this an incremental process.

The project that is my white whale, by which I mean I’ll be chasing it down for probably the next two years in hope’s of completing it before I leave is wastewater management. The main association that I’ll be working with this on has a large grant from the Ministry of the Environment and they want me to help them find a way to take their wastewater, clean it biologically (not chemically), and release it into the river. Peace Corps Morocco has done projects like this elsewhere, so the information and examples are available and I have an idea what the end product is, its just getting there. Like the language and cultural, this is incremental process.

My research in my natural reserve, SIBE Lalla Shafia, and on my ecological resource book is on standby. I need transportation (4x4- kat kat) into the SIBE from the forest department and flora/fauna books from them and PC to properly identify species in my site. I have photos with the names of most species thanks to the help of my uncle, the herb doctor, but need to double check. Often I feel like what I could accomplish in a day back home takes a week here.

Since I got back on Monday, there’s been no water at my outside tap or at one of the communal one’s 200 yards away. Therefore, I’ve had to schlep my water jugs 2 km to the closest spring at my site. It’s not a great inconvenience, it just means I use less water and bathe in the river. For some of my neighbors at a higher elevation that don’t have running water because of a lack of water pressure, this is the norm. Children or donkeys carry water jugs to communal taps, the springs, or the river. I’d be more concerned about this water issue if I wasn’t surrounded by it.

August is almost over, but the wedding celebrations that epitomize the month are still widespread. Last week, I went to a wedding that started at 10 PM. Dinner was at 11 PM and I left by midnight, but the wedding continued until 6 AM. Last night, I attended the first evening of an 8 day wedding. The father of the groom is the zoeat of my community, which means that he is the tribal leader of the area and a descendant of the prophet Mohammed. His position was once political, economic, and social, but now only remains the previous. My relationship with him should be unique, he’s unofficially the most important man in the community. A full explanation deserves its own post later. Of note, he has invited the whole commune (6 towns) to the weddings- about 5,000 people. Last night, I sat amongst 500 plus men in 5 tents listening to music and watching them dance. The women were inside a nearby house. I don’t know there number. Gender separation is interesting. For example, at the swimming pool on Sundays, 200 men will be wading in a 25 meter pool, while the women will be in an enclosed room where there is a 5 meter pool.

So, Moroccan weddings are marathon events. Lots of dancing, music is played very loud, and participants often sit in the berber squat for hours. In the cities, they drive around, blaring their horns with passengers hanging out the windows. And this joyriding can continue all night, making sleep difficult.

“Many things end with acceptance not understanding.”