I think spring has really finally sprung in this part of Morocco. Sunshine once again, hurray! Had a great weekend. The Director of Peace Corps Morocco, the safety and security director, and the training director came to my house for a focus group meeting. Other volunteers attending were 53, 54, and 63 year-old women. One of the main issues was...hard for my readers to believe, I'm sure...learning the Moroccan Arabic language! We talked a lot about how much of the training programs seem to be designed more for the recent college graduate (that is, younger ones!) Those of us who have never had foreign language have a harder time than those who have had some language in their background. Also, we have difficulty hearing and making new sounds from our vocal chords, etc. than younger learners, so likely need a different approach to learning from the teachers. We talked about other things as well, and had a very productive 3 1/2 hours session. Two of the women stayed w/me Friday night, one stayed Saturday night as well, so we had a chance to really visit and share experiences, thoughts, and all that stuff! Very necessary as don't often get a chance for that kind of interaction.

It helped me re-dedicate energy and focus on daily drills/homework. During the winter, it seemed all I could do was to try to stay warm, and reward myself for living in these conditions by reading lots of good novels. I really didn't spend the time I needed to on language, so now it's time to kick b...

Did you know the new Director of the Peace Corps in D. C. spent two years in MT immediately prior to his appointment? He was with a Montana-owned investment firm in Gt. Falls. I believe he was raised in S. Dak and worked in MN when young. Both he and his wife were in the P. C. in India(in the 60's?). He's about my age. One of his goals is to recruit more older volunteers, so if you or anyone you know is interested, go to their website, learn more, check it out!

There has been interest by some of my readers in knowing a bit more about the spring camp...I think I covered it all before, but here's some more info. Here is a picture of the six volunteers (all in the back row). The one on the far left who looks Moroccan has mid-east heritage and is from Texas. His name is Kareem; he can hardly wait to come and visit me in the Big Sky Country with his girlfriend. Both of them were in my community-based training group when we first arrived in Morocco.

We all taught English class every morning for three hours. The two male environment volunteers team taught both English and their afternoon club activities and the rest of us worked alone, generally having 13-18 students. We had a different group for English every morning...all different levels. So I used basically the same type of class, but altered it to the very beginning student to the more advanced. I did mention previously that no one got out of my class, however, without learning the "Hokey Pokey." I hope someone who works at Payne Financial Group is reading this! It was a resounding hit there and I used it for my first exercise class last week at my neddy...

Then in the afternoon business club, I had nearly all advanced students, and we talked about knowing your customers and your competition, that you need a plan, and having a passion also helps succeed. We also discussed quality vs quantity. I took them to visit with the director of the art center next door one day, and then the man who owned the cyber across the street another day. Fortunately, both business owners totally validated everything we had already discussed in class. I really bonded with this group, and do believe they got a much better idea of what's involved in running a business. We review items on a P&L statement, which really opened their eyes to expenses. It was just a really terrific experience. It so helped that they could understand English pretty well. I need to impart the same information to my women in my neddy, but it will take some more months of language skills to get to that point with them.

Campers are campers the world around. They come together, many strangers and leery of each other, sticking to their own little comfortable groups. By the end of the week they are bawling their eyes out to have to leave their newly made friends. Very cool. Best experience I've had thus far, without a doubt!

Another BIG rain yesterday. So good for the wheat. Speaking of which, I am proud to report I finally have become a Moroccan bread maker. Down on my knees on the concrete floor, kneading dough in the Moroccan manner. The flour is straight from the farm, to the miller, and then to me. The bread is very good, especially dipped in the wonderful olive oil made right in my little town.

I had a great visit with my Chicago daughter Marci and her boys this morning via Skype. No pictures today but a pretty clear audio. And got a letter from my friend Martha in the mail. Those communications, along with emails, sure help stave off the lonely periods. Only three months until I'm back to the U. S. for a visit! Lots to do before then.

Had a meeting with some of my board members at which my tutor interpreted, and I think we (the board and I) have a clearer understanding of needs and expectations. Since the main purpose of the neddy is to train women/girls in crafts, the first issue was to make sure they wanted to also sell product, which they do. Then they needed to understand that the machine embroidery and ceramics they make are not the types of things tourists will buy. So the focus on training needs to be on place mats, purses, etc.; things that are authentically hand-made, and fairly lightweight. Getting that on the table and discussed was a first step. They are also interested in working with the women who weave in their homes, to see if they would like to products that might sell in a "boutique." When the neddy is closed this summer, I will walk around and visit these women. In the mornings, that is. From what I understand, during the months of July and August, the town pretty much shuts down. Nearly all the school teachers go back to their primary residences, and all others just try to endure the heat and hot winds. I plan to come back with a DVD player so I can do something besides read books during weather that inhibits activity!

Another grey day in my part of the world! Moisture is great, but sure do miss sunshine! Never could live in Seattle, for sure! Had a wonderful weekend with Judy in Chemia and we went to Safi, which is on the coast. Within two weeks, went from the Algerian border to the Atlantic Ocean. Lots of travel by bus and taxi! Now to travel north to the Mediterranean. Hope to do that sometime this summer.

Am just now getting to the point of determining what my project will be with my women's association. Lack of adequate language skills has made progress in that area very slow, so am enlisting the aid of my tutor to do some interpreting for me and get the ball rolling. My goal is to have a project identified by the first of June. Thing is, I have a vision of what could be done, but not sure if they want to change their lives to have a store where they sell handmade crafts! I think perhaps many of the women and girls really just want to have a husband and a family...so need to determine who wants to do what and when, in order to know whether or not to invest time/energy getting something going. In the meantime, I do enjoy teaching basic computer skills, and a little English.

This slow paced life has really been fairly agreeable to this type A personality, believe it or not. But I do wish the language wasn't so awfully difficult. Spanish would now seem like a breeze, comparatively speaking!

These are pictures of the trip from Marrakech to Ouarzazate.
As you can see, gorgeous and many switchbacks, for miles. Through snow capped mountains, and then over to the desert side. The buses do not have bathrooms, and sometimes the stops along the way are infrequent, so intake of fluids in great quantity is not wise!


The red hanut (name for small stores) displays the often-seen Coca Cola sign, usually both in English and in Arabic. The writing on the hill is seen fairly often, and states, "God, Nation, King" (thank you to the Moroccan reader who corrected my original blog which said it was a verse from the Koran.)


This photo is outside my classroom at the recent spring camp in Figuig where I helped, with Hannah giving some instruction to the campers. Here is a picture of the two camp coordinators. The woman on the left is my friend Judy from WY, who was in charge, and the young blond, Hannah, is a volunteer who lives out in that area, and whose language skills are incredible. Wonderful volunteers and friends.
Here I am in the back of the bus, listening to their singing, and clapping along.
The photo of many of us cleaning, snapping green beans for our "American" supper night during the camp.


The campers have their own version of "jacks" where they just use one smaller rock to pick up other rocks. It isn't easy...I tried!...
And last, a universal method to keep birds out of crops...

Back from camp and getting rested up. Wow, what a great week, followed by another extremely long time on the busses. They do not stop very long at any one town, and since there is no bathroom on the bus, a 9-11 hour ride without intake of much beverage is a bit difficult. The seats are often much like those in an airplane. Pretty tight, but it is so interesting to view the landscapes along the way, and observe people. The trip from Marrakech to Ouarzazate is beautiful...part of it is somewhat like Copper Canyon in Mexico. Lots of very winding roads in and out, up and down mountains, except the highway is wider than the road was in Mexico. Coca Cola has done quite a job here on branding. Everywhere you look, their signs appear. Not so with Pepsi, although the product is sold here. Cell phones are in abundance everywhere. TV satellite dishes appear on the oldest of houses...even on those where they women go to the river to wash their clothes.

Oh, you book lovers. Here is another great one. "Animal Dreams" by Barbara Kingsolver. And especially for my friend Linda C., pages 239-241. It's an explanation of why we need to take care of the earth, and done so well by the native American speaker.

Look at my previous blog for some camp pictures. Will post landscape pictures from the bus here at a later date.

I am having a great time near the Algerian border at a spring break camp, called an English immersion camp, for kids from primarily two towns. They are not all kids...the ages range from 14-30, actually, but all are here to improve their English skills, have a good time, and learn other things from Peace Corps volunteers and Moroccan teachers. I traveled a week ago for about 14 hours on bus to get to the first town, where Judy and I stayed with another volunteer, then the next morning we travelled 5 hours by bus to the next town, where we met the other 4 volunteers that are part of our team. We all stayed at a volunteer's house that night, then waited around most of the next day to get a bus to our final destination, Figuig. Since it was spring break, busses were overflowing, and there is limited public transportation out here. But we finally made it, not too much worse for the wear! There are two volunteers from small business development, two from youth development (who are in charge of helping run the camp) and two from the environment sector. We all live in different places. The entire youth sector is doing camps this week, I think 12 in all, and many other volunteers from other sectors are assisting.

The seventy-five campers arrived on Saturday, and after a reception, we told them about the "clubs" that were available, which we hold every afternoon for 1 1/2 hours. There is journalism, theater, environment, healthy, and mine...business. Surprisingly, my class was the one that many wanted to go to, but each class size was limited so we would have even distribution. We also gave a brief English skills test to each to determine which group they fit in for English class. The groups of about 15 students go to a different English teacher each day. My lessons are a little bit planned, but mostly off the cuff. We have students that know very few English words, to those who speak and understand fairly well. Even though we tried to group them in levels, there are always a few in the class who are better or less skilled than the majority, so it presents and interesting challenge. I have been teaching the words: right, left, hand, foot, head, body, put, turn, around, shake...and then we go outside in a circle and I teach them the "Hokey Pokey". It has been a big hit. It feels good to do teaching/presenting again after about an eight-month lapse!

In my business club, most of the 15 are advanced English students, so that has helped make it easier to actually accomplish something. We talked about products and services, and the class voted on a business they would like to start up, then discussed customer base, etc and they chose the city. We then talked about income and expense, how to differentiate our products from others, etc. One day we went next door and interviewed the director of the artisan's association, using prepared questions. The last day we will interview the owner of this cyber, who happens to be an English teacher, and I will also show them how computers are used in business, with a briefing on Word and Excel.
It's been very exciting, and also very exhausting! We start each morning with "sport" (what they call exercise) at 7 a.m. for 30 minutes. We shoot baskets, do yoga. A couple of mornings I took my Ipod with cheap speakers I bought here, put on some old disco music, and did aerobics. Amazingly enough, they really got into it...including the boys.

This is being held in a youth center. We six volunteers are staying in an old house that has not been occupied for some time. Has a bathroom with an American toilet that has to be flushed by using a bucket of water, a sink (with only cold water, of course) and bathtub which has cold water, in which we put a bucket, add boiling water to the cold, and take the usual bucket baths, same as most of us do at our own homes. We do have pretty comfortable hospital beds to sleep on, and a butagas burner to hear water. They feed us all our meals, and we sure are getting overloaded on white bread again. Last night the volunteers cooked and American meal, which was quite an experience. We did a couple of turkeys, many chickens, mashed potatoes, green beans, and apple crisp. Cooking for 100 in a ultra-basic kitchen was enough to make you crazy, but we did it! Today we went out into the desert all day for an "excursion" and tromped around. Most all the kids and Moroccan staff are just fantastic! They all help serve the meals and clean up and are just very thoughtful and kind. It has been a tremendous experience in so many different ways.
This photo is taken from the top of a tower of an ancient mosque here. We actually just skirted the mosque interior in order to climb the stairwell. Non-Muslims are not allowed in mosques in Morocco, except a beautiful one in Casa which is not used for prayer. Figuig is an oasis, and here is what they call a palmerie. These are date trees. Pretty, huh?!