WAS BEING A PCV IN MOROCCO WHAT I EXPECTED? No, not at all. First, my expectations were not realistic as I didn’t do a very good job of familiarizing myself with Morocco and/or the culture prior to my departure from the U. S. in September 2006, so was a bit mentally unprepared for drastic change in culture and lifestyles.
The three Peace Corps goals did not have expected results. The first goal is to provide technical assistance. I thought I’d be living in an area and working 8 hour days 5 days a week and helping them learn business skills they would immediately put to use and I’d see lots of great results. Little did I realize the pace at which people here work, and how the entire culture affects the ability to accomplish the smallest of tasks. So no, I didn’t have the work life or accomplishments I envisioned, but do feel satisfied with what I started with the neddy and the boutique project so generously funded by family and friends and other donors.
The second goal is learning and sharing their culture, and realized some success with this one; my lack of good language skills certainly prevented the immersion I would have liked to have had. Every week, to this day, I continue to learn a new aspect of their culture and how different it is from ours, and how different it is from one family to the next, one village from another. I also see the many similarities as well. I look forward to sharing my newfound knowledge and experiences with not only family and friends at home, but many others, through presentations I hope to be able to give to many service organizations, churches, and whoever will allow me to speak.
The third goal of sharing our culture with them is probably the most disappointing. I guess many people in my village now know that an American woman worked here without any pay in order to help the rural women. She lived differently; first of all, she lived by herself! She exercised most mornings by walking very fast up and down the roads, she approached men (who were not related) as men approach men, shaking hands and exchanging greetings. Once again, the lack of good language skills hindered the communication, but the people really didn’t seem very interested in knowing much about America, and I would attribute that primarily to the view that many foreign countries have had of the U S., and that has not been one of favor. To this day I still see people, primarily children, who don’t know why I am here, and probably think I am French, as most “whites” in Morocco are of that nationality.
My job here was not to save the world or change anybody’s mind. It was to do my little part in trying to transfer some usable, sustainable skills to those in need of them, to learn in order to understand a new culture and to tell others at home about it, and to try to show them by my example that people from America are just like most of them: honest, caring, friendly, and fun…no matter what our religious or political beliefs may be. I am going home believing that I did my job well. I am going home having learned much, much more than I expected, and certainly much more than knowledge I have left behind. I have become rich living in the land of the poor, so consider myself truly been blessed by being able to have this experience.
I hope to blog a few more times in my final days.
THE "MARRAKECH FOUR" ON OUR LAST DAY AS VOLUNTEERS. The four of us all lived withing an hour of Kech in two different directions, and often met for lunch or other activities.
