The joys of eating/shopping. Am trying to buy things for my new house, and it is a real hassle!! Big things are a problem, like rugs, shelves, etc. because how do you transport? And then the merchants really try to stick it to you (me) because I am an American. So I don't find that shopping experince enjoyable. But then, eating is another story. In the middle of shopping today, I stopped for lunch and had a delicious tuna sandwich (on a french roll), french fries and diet pepsi for $1. So guess it all evens out...But getting basic, necessary things, with any variety or quality, is not a simple thing. How we take the availability and quality for granted in U. S. !!

To my friends at Mayflower Church in Billings: Shukran, Shukran bzzef! (Thank you, Thank you a lot!) for your cards and notes, and especially to Marilyn for the other news goodies you send. It means to much to me to be remembered, and to have your thoughts and prayers.

The weather outside is frightful, but...I know it soon will be delightful! Let it snow, let it snow! Actually, in my little town, we got a big day of rain, but many areas got a lot of snow...all much needed as the country has been in a drought. Price of seed potatoes very high, as well as other planting items. Sounds like I'm still in Montana! So how cold is it, you ask?! I could see my breath in my house this morning. And since I hadn't washed my hair for nearly a week, I heated water on the stove and had a bucket bath that made me move pretty quickly, I'll tell you! Went to Marrakesh just for the day, got a computer/printer from a volunteer who is leaving soon, so will be able to use it to help with work projects, and if and when we get internet in my town, I can take it to the cyber and enjoy the English Microsoft as all the computers at the cybers are in French. You can switch most to an English keyboard, but not the instructions. Am spending the night with another volunteer who has DSL in her apartment. A former attorney from Chicago. Sure are a variety of people serving in the P. C.!

I am getting into the swing of things by now teaching computer and English classes. I teach two people at a time on the computer, both young girls and the women. They are very interested in learning the computer, and do not know how to type or keyboard so we really are starting from scratch. I have six hours of classes a week, and demand for more, but I am sure that after awhile some of them will not be interested any more and others can jump in. The boarding school next door (for the rural high school students who stay there during the week) really want classes as well, but it's tough to teach computer when there is only one to work from! And we are having fun doing a bit of English. Most know French, so I am learning a few French basic words/expressions as well. I think this summer, when my Arabic teacher (an English teacher at the high school) goes home for a couple of months, I will engage someone to teach me basic French, as it is spoken by many, esp. those involved in the tourist industry, and most certainly government.

I've also had interest expressed in aerobic classes at the neddie, which came about accidentally. My town has very little amenities; one day we were discussing what they wished they had, and one said "sport", referring to an exercise place esp. aerobic classes, so I blurted out I had taught aerobics several years ago, and they jumped all over that. So I may try to work up a couple of simple routines and we can pull the curtains shut and give it a go. Should be quite a fun experience for both them and me. All the women, and most of the girls, are scarved, and the majority of them all wear jellabas over their clothes when out in public. I'll get a picture of some of them and post on my blog later one.

And, am getting ready now to actually start on my work project. Little by little...

Am most ready for the cold nights to be gone, and for my language skills/retention to improve. My tutor is certainly learning how different it is teaching language to a mature learner, compared to high school kids. Memory isn't worth...a darn!

On a lighter note, I have found sugar free gum, and some herbal tea...not much, but between what I've received from friends and can buy at the weekly souk or in the big store in Marrakesh, am set for awhile! My tutor is going to show me how to make whole wheat bread next month. Oh, yes, the pressure cooker is used all the time in the kitchen; guess it's the Moroccan microwave.

That's it for this time!

OH HAPPY DAY! I got loads of mail at the Post Office today! Christmas cards, pictures, herbal teas, magazines, peanut butter, (Rita, will you marry me?!?!) So for those of you whose postmaster tell you it will take 7-10 days...I just now got some things that were mailed December 12. And, again, if you send packages, please show zero value. A dear friend sent a box of used eyeglasses from the Lions Club, which cost $40 to ship. He showed $100 value, so I had to pay $35 to get the package out of the post office. Which is ok...it's worth it to me to be able to help some poor people be able to see better, but that's the reason to show no value. Today I also received my "settling in allowance" from Peace Corps to help pay for household furniture, etc. so that was timely!

This is a picture of how prickly pear cacti are used to divide property. I took this photo while going on my morning walk. This is a picture of the front door and living room window of my new apartment. I will move furniture in this weekend and still need to buy a few things, primarily rugs, as all floors are concrete, of course. Most buildings are pink/coral colored. Not sure why, but wonder if it has to do with so much soil around here being red? One of you retired readers, maybe you could research that and let us know?!

Oh, lonesome me...

I must say that there are times I ache with loneliness...for my kids and grandkids and other family, and for my friends. I do so appreciate the emails, and snail mail I get! They are like treasures, believe me. I can live with infrequent showers and bad beds and cold nights, but sometimes it's hard to live without people you know and love around you. So, this has been a good lesson in the value of personal relationships!

I'm not constantly overwhelmed with loneliness, but right now it comes to me as I get away from my homestay family (as THAT situation can get oppressive sometimes) and spend a bit of time with other volunteers, and I really realize how much I cherish folks back home. What I mean about homestay being oppressive is that expectations are different, as is language, culture, etc etc and it sometimes gets too much to be with day in and day out.

So readers, thanks for being there, supporting and caring for me! It means a a great deal to me.
Bless you.

Odds and ends. There are 163 PC volunteers in Morocco, and 50 of those are in small business development, which is my group.

There are essentially no newspapers except in the major cities. And, very few people read, period. Have not seen any children being read to. Part of the problem is that Classical Arabic is not the language of the country, Darija, or Moroccan Arabic is, except in some areas where another "Berber" dialect is spoken. French is taught in school, but until then, it rather eliminates childhood books, it would appear. So nearly all the news most people get is on TV. I didn't even know Saddam was put to death until several days afterward, and really don't have a clue as to what is going on nationally. Except I can tell you that the Iraq war and Bush are strongly opposed by the Moroccan people, generally speaking. When I get to the cyber, I spend most of my time answering emails and bloggin, so don't have much time to go on line to read news. Hopefully they'll get internet in my town this year so that might change.

I got a house! Am pleased with the apartment, which is actually is...although rather small and doesn't have the windows I'd like, it is clean and will serve me well. I'll post pictures after I get moved in and have it furnished a bit. Most all buildings are concrete, 6" thick, so don't think fire insurance is a big seller here! The older mud and straw houses are actually better for the extreme weather conditions here, I am told, but well maintained ones are hard to find.

I'm in Marrakesh again this weekend and had a good dinner at an Italian restaurant with three other volunteers, and before dinner, played some gin rummy with one of them, who soundly thrashed me. He has incredible luck...must be that, and not my poor card playing ability?!
This city is fun, a big tourist trap, but lots of neat things to see...I guess! Haven't done the tourist thing yet...mainly visit with other volunteers, and do some shopping, and get out to eat something other than bread!

A bit on my surroundings. I have walked three times to my cyber town and each time marvel at the beauty and what goes on in the countryside/villages. Last time I watched a gravel operation in progress at the river bed. Pick axes, shovel, large hand-held (likely hand-made) screen. An old yellow dump truck nearby. Not exactly like we see in U. S.!

There are many kinds of trees and other plant life. Palm trees, lots of bamboo, olive trees galore, some evergreens (there is a forest nearby that is protected...I think there were many trees on the hills/mountains but they've all been cut down for firewood) lots of bramble bush. The bramble bush, or whatever the real name is, is used for property division lines. Sometimes just all hooked together and serve as a wall, other times there is one layer on top of a rock wall that is about 3-4 feet high. No car parts for fences here as I viewed up north in my first homestay location. And, there are a ton of prickly pear cactus. That too, is used sometimes for field divisions. Wheat was planted in Devember, for a June harvest, before the 120 degree (F) heat hits...

I've talked about the abundance of white flat bread that is eaten. One reason is that they grow wheat, and grind it in every small town (sometimes the families do it themselves) so it is very cheap, and another reason is that the bread is used as the eating utensil. No forks are used at meals, but spoons are used by most when couscous is served...which is primarily on Fridays. The tajine is a dish, both a ceramic object as well as the food in it is called tajine...that usually contains root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, parsnips..and then maybe a thigh or leg of chicken, which is on top, in the middle, and eaten last. So meat is not eaten in abundance, and that meal is about the only time you see vegetables. So with the recent Leid holiday and the slaughtering of sheep...all the families eat for days on end is bread and sheep...as they view that meat as quite a deal. Last night I had dinner with my tutor and she made sheep kebobs, cooked over a grill, and served that with her own homemade wheat bread which was excellent! Her hometown is between Rabat and Casa, so she is more of a city type, but she says the olive oil in our little town is the best in Morocco. She is going to teach me how to make the wheat bread so I look forward to that. There is virtually no lettuce at all, and no broccoli. Other than those two main things I'm accustomed to eating a lot, most vegetables are available, although they cook them to death! Not much variety in the menu...

Here's my Moroccan grandsons. They are the children of the couple that I am staying with for two months in my new town. (I guess I need to rotate the pictures, but will do that some other day when I have more time.) The older boy is Yunnes and he is four. A little tyke, but hell on wheels. He spends a good deal of time at his grandma's nearby, who is also my counterpart. The baby Yussef is 3 months old and very cute and quite responsive to his American "grandma"...but must say that instead of making me feel better by having this little guys around, it makes be more lonesome for my own grandkids! Sure does open my eyes to wanting to spend more time with them when I finish my P. C. duties!

Here's my new workplace. I am working with an NGO (non-governmental entity...kind of like our Not-for-Profits) that is an association for women only two years old and partially supported by the King's foundation. It's purpose is to support women in their crafts and to train young women the crafts as well. Primarily embroidery type of work is done here. One woman does ceramics...Moroccan style...which is fairly glitzy with little flowers and not the type Americans would typically be interested in buying. I got excited about the weaving, bought a purse and ordered a bunch more for gifts and thought placemats would be a winner for selling product...then found out that a woman who doesn't even belong to the neddie (what the place is called, and what I will be referring to in future blogs) is the only one who weaves.

I pretty much have been going there and just hanging out, watching and observing. But this next week I will have a meeting and we will start doing a community map, with them showing what places they frequent, what they like, what they wish they town had, etc etc. Since it's a very small town, that process shouldn't take long. We'll also do a seasonal calendar so I can learn more about what drives the economy and what people do when. All this information is to help know who will be available to work on a future project, how it will affect others, etc. Then will do a needs assessment with the members of the neddie (there are about 70 of them) as well as community people, using a matrix, to determine the priorities on what they really want. After that is done and we see what is the priority, we'll do a good old SWOT analysis on it to see if it stands up to being feasible. For non-business readers, SWOT is a business strategic planning mechanism used by most US corps, very effectively, if done right and followed through.

THEN, I'll help them start on the selected project. That should happen about the first of July. So the first six months or so is really getting settled into the community, learning the language, finding out who does what when and where, what THEY want and need, and what changes they will support, before any work is done. The important thing is that they decide to work on something that is feasible and can be sustained after I leave.

Hope that makes sense to those of you who have been wondering what it is I'm actually doing here! In the meantime, I drink lots of tea and nod and smile and bite my tongue about what I think of the gender dynamics of my little town...I have a "counterpart" which is a woman who is president of the neddie, and also happens to be the mother of the man of my household that I am staying in. Oddly enough, his wife is pretty much confined to the house, per her husbands wishes...

Mbrouk Leid! That means Happy Layeed (kind of the pronunciation) Here is a picture of a woman's kitchen where I spent New Year's Day out in the country, near where my host daughter's grandmother lives. This is a big holiday time when families kill a sheep and then that is all they eat for those two days...along with their flat bread, of course! There is more meat for later, but the first two days are devoted to internal organs, the head and the feet.

The next picture is of the three sheep that were killed next door to my house. They were for the mom and dad, and two brothers, so one sheep for each family.

It was fun to watch them all get together with their families, much like we do for Christmas. There is no school for about10 days, and we have restricted travel due to so many vehicles on the road.