Peace Corps Redux IV: Fruit Tree Planting Project

Remembering Last Summer

New York, New York

Overlooking Washington Square Park from the NYU Bobst Library.

Looking upon my apartment building (far left) on Union Square West.

Marie, Rosalie, and Les Sables d'Olonne

Ramadan's Over and Winter Begins

Ramadan has passed without a post, so apologize for that. I promise more in a couple weeks when things begin to slow down as the cold sets in and life relaxes. Above is a photo showcasing the bounty of Ramadan food at a neighbors, moments before fast was broken.

Quote of the Week

"Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle."
-Mahatma Gandhi

Rasheed in Saidia

Rasheed on Saidia beach midsummer while Josh looks on in jealously. Don't hate Josh, don't hate! Yet, I can understand. It's hard not to be green-eyed towards a man like Rasheed.

The End of the Tourist Season

The tourist season in Gafait officially ended last week, although the largest and nicest café will stay open during Ramadan to house entertainment and late night coffee socialites. Store owners began closing their shops, taking away shop materials and food items.

Yaheah, my good friend and barber, moved his shop back to its permanent location in the Taznight area. Out-of-town owners from Jerada, Mrija, and elsewhere returned to their respective communities.

Below is a photo of the Cascades d’Ouzoud near Marrakesh taken by PCV Connie Genger earlier this summer. It looks like fair competition for Gafait with the bridge, rafts and assortment of people.

Parliamentary Elections

In the recent parliamentary elections held last Friday, 37% of eligible Moroccan voters went to the ballots. In all, there are 31 political parties in the country and 27 were accounted for in nearby Jerada.

The secular Istiqlal party of the ruling coalition won 52 of the 325 seats, while the Islamic-leaning Justice and Development Party (PJD) won 47 seats. The PJD was expected to win as many as 80 seats, running on an anti-corruption platform, but fell short of those predictions.

For a short synopsis of the elections, look here.

Peace Corps in Real Time

I talked with my family; brothers, mother, father, sister-in-laws, and nieces for the first time via video last Monday on Labor Day. A time for picnics and golf tournaments in the states, I did not celebrate the holiday here. However, setting your own daily itinerary most days probably offsets that.

I had problems with managing the sound, I could be heard but could not hear, so had to talk by phone for most of our conversation.

Great Lightining and Blue Skies

PCV Andrew Cyr took this photo, one of my favorites. I just love the natural lighting here, particularly in the evenings. And Lindsey used to say that the sky is bluer in Morocco, which I always thought was funny. Then yesterday, justifiable by no obvious climatic or weather related phenomenon to someone who knows nothing about the previous, I walked out of the house, looked up at royal blue sky, and happily ate crow.

Quote of the Week

Nothing can happen to any human being outside the experience which is natural to humans -- an ox too experiences nothing foreign to the nature of oxen, a vine nothing foreign to the nature of vines, a stone nothing outside the property of a stone. So if each thing experiences what is usual and natural for it, why should you complain? Universal nature has brought you nothing you can't endure.
-from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations

(Stone writings at Volubilis)

Wedding Snapshots

A friend Mohammed taking a photo of his cousin and groom Hafil arriving on horse. Prior to attending the wedding, I was debating rather to take both my camera and camcorder, after I was told that maybe no one was going to bring a camcorder. I decided against it, wisely, and as Hafil approached the ceremony at dusk, half a dozen camcorders and many cameras and camera phones came out from an ebullient paparazzi of friends and family members.

Wedding Bells

I attended a wedding of a friend, Hafil, on the West side of town in the old district of Harrash two weeks ago. With the surname Hamzaoui, Hafil has an extended family of maybe 250 in Gafait. I like to joke sometimes and say that everyone in Gafait is Hamzaoui.

The wedding ceremony that I attended along with other men included dancing, eating, fundraising for the newly married (isn't this just a given at all weddings), and general socializing. The women had their night together the previous evening. Friends and family started prepping for the ceremony in mid afternoon, the ceremony began at dusk with a caravan of cars returning from the mausoleum of Sidi Hamza near the Kaid's office. I left at approximately 11 PM and the festivities probably continued till 2 AM.

(Note: there are two mausoleums in Gafait, the other one being named after Ben Abdelrahman. In general, mausoleums in Morocco are small shrines housing the remains of important local Islamic leaders from the past. And in many cases, although I have not validated this statement with these two particular men, these were Islamic missionaries, spreading Islam through N. Africa centuries before and combating or replacing the indigenous Berber's paganism).
The groom arriving by horse at the wedding reception.
Members of the band (includes percussion and a wood instrument resembling a clarinet), the wedding czar (who solicited money for the couple later in the night), and the wedding singer.
Line dancing with canes, drums, and some men that really know how to dance, which is mostly in the shoulders and hips. Sometimes in large groups of 6-10 like that pictured, but more often in smaller groups, men stand in front of the audience and entertain their friends. I always deftly avoid dancing at weddings. I do enough already to embarrass and bring attention to myself.

Rasheed in Volubilis

Rasheed in front of some Roman columns outside of Meknes dating back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries. My Lonely Planet guide states that the site was settled even earlier by Carthaginian traders. At it's peak, the city housed 20,000 people.

Quote of the Week

“One of the most harrowing moments in the whole history of the harrowing of the heart in Northern Ireland came when a minibus full of workers being driven home one January evening in 1976 was held up by armed and masked men and the occupants of the van ordered at gunpoint to line up at the side of the road. Then one of the masked executioners said to them, "Any Catholics among you, step out here". As it happened, this particular group, with one exception, were all Protestants, so the presumption must have been that the masked men were Protestant paramilitaries about to carry out a tit-for-tat sectarian killing of the Catholic as the odd man out, the one who would have been presumed to be in sympathy with the IRA and all its actions. It was a terrible moment for him, caught between dread and witness, but he did make a motion to step forward. Then, the story goes, in that split second of decision, and in the relative cover of the winter evening darkness, he felt the hand of the Protestant worker next to him take his hand and squeeze it in a signal that said no, don't move, we'll not betray you, nobody need know what faith or party you belong to. All in vain, however, for the man stepped out of the line; but instead of finding a gun at his temple, he was thrown backward and away as the gunmen opened fire on those remaining in the line, for these were not Protestant terrorists, but members, presumably, of the Provisional IRA.”
-from the 1995 Nobel Lecture of poet Seamus Heaney, found here.

Heaney ends the next paragraph with the following salient words, which seem timely in the current zeitgeist of fear and moat building.

“The birth of the future we desire is surely in the contraction which that terrified Catholic felt on the roadside when another hand gripped his hand, not in the gunfire that followed, so absolute and so desolate, if also so much a part of the music of what happens.”

Wizard of Oz in Oujda

Several months ago I stayed with my neighbor Meddi and his family in Oujda, where he’s a school teacher for most of the year. On a satellite TVwith more than 200 channels, less than 10 of which are in English, we found the original “Wizard of Oz” being shown with Arabic subtitles. I then took the following photo, showing Oumayma watching this classic.

A month later, I met my parents in London for a few days before traveling back to Morocco, where we spent more than a week traveling around. In London, we saw “Wicked,” an excellent play adapted from the Oz storyline.

Rasheed in Gafait

Upon ending her service and leaving Morocco in June, Sumona gave me some tea and a priceless gift, a Rasheed Wallace bobbing head doll. Mr. Wallace is one of her favorites on her home state team, da Pistons, and after learning this fact last year, it became a talking point from time to time. As one of the NBA’s most emotional players and recipient of the most technical fouls, he provides constant fodder.

I told Sumona I would take a series of candid photos of Rasheed while traveling around Morocco, to be later collected into a coffee table book. Well, here’s photo #1 of Rasheed taking several months ago. Several more photos have been taken since then and will be posted in the coming weeks.

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

(Sumona and Lindsey outside Lindsey's village near Taza.)

My friends keep leaving me. My best friend in Morocco and site mate Graham left many months ago for greener fields in England. Two close friends Sumona and Lindsey finished their service in June and have returned to the states. Jessie, a good friend and cheerleader for our region, left in July.

I miss these friends. Others fill in but can’t replace. I have fewer people to text message with Sumona and Lindsey gone. Little messages like “Grandma told me the best joke about a cow and a donkey giving birth to a hunting dog this morning over tea. tc” can have real meaning in the dead of winter. Or my favorite “What do you do..” always prefaces candid and often humorous lines.

I’ve had many moments that you want to talk with someone about and it’s nice to have someone close in proximity and friendship to talk with them about. So here’s to departed friends. We'll see each other again.

Caterpillars in the Cemetery

Two photos of caterpillars on the march, several meters from their birthplace on several bushes in the Gafait cemetery, representing the life cycle of death and birth and our reliance on each other. I don't know where they were marching to; I took the first photo, then returned several hours later to take the second, but lost them several hours later in the camouflage of nature.