These past few weeks have seen the
largest mood and psyche changes to date in my Peace Corps service. After the
instillation of the computers at the Dar Chebab as described in my last blog
post, the Ministry I work for decided to close my youth center for repairs.
Though completely necessary, these repairs come at probably the most
inopportune time. Not only did the computers just get installed, but the summer
season had just ended and I was anticipating beginning classes. Some things
just don’t compute for me such as, why couldn’t the work be done over the
summer when there was nothing going on and the center was closed? This
unfortunate event put me down a little bit and threw me my first real curveball
in my Peace Corps service. Up until then my service had been mostly smooth with
but cultural differences and feelings of language inadequacies my only gripes.
The closure of the center was unforeseen and now after being able to process
the experience, I have come out the other side stronger for it.
I have
cultivated a small class in the neighboring town where I head over every Friday
and Saturday and chill out with some kids there and do activities. One activity
we did a couple weeks back was a PACA or participatory analysis activity.
First, we split up into groups of 5-6 and also divided into male and female
groups. The goal of the activity was for the students to draw a map of their
town. I asked them to label different places and also to point out any bad
spots of town that they don’t go to. The use of separating the groups in to
male and female is that, especially in this country, you receive very different
examples of what the town means to them. For the boys, it was a map where the
soccer fields and coffee shops were focal and for the girls, the souk and small
stores were prevalent. Additionally, the scope of the maps were very different
with kids who either live outside the center of town of have family outside of
town having a larger impression of the village than kids who live right in the
center and don’t frequent the mountains much.
I really
enjoy this activity for a couple of reasons. One, I get to learn about the town
from the perspective of the kids and two, the kids really take to the activity
for it combines art and the places they live which always invokes pride. Seeing
some of the reactions to some of the questions, which come with the activity,
makes all of the frustration of things not going your way with the Dar Chebab
worth it.
After the
weekend of work in Timoulilt it was time for Warden Training in Rabat. A Peace
Corps Warden is someone who works with the safety and security office as their
point of contact with volunteers in different regions. In total there are 4
“super regions” with smaller consolidation points in central locations for
volunteers to consolidate to in the event of an emergency such as civil unrest,
political unrest or natural disaster. The job of the warden is to be responsible
for the well being of volunteers in the event of a consolidation as well as
assist Safety and Security with regional matters. During the training, we
learned about how to check a house and make sure it fits in the PC guidelines, learned
about the current status of security in Morocco and came up with ways for
Wardens to become more involved as advisors for SS in the field.
Thanksgiving!
In the states, I
would usually go to my grandparents house in Manhattan and have turkey with the
family. Although I am from Pittsburgh, I don’t think I have been back for
thanksgiving for many years. This coupled with the fact that my grandparents
had moved buildings made Thanksgiving easier in terms of feeling homesick. I
was slightly homesick on the day but that was all washed away by the
festivities at the Peace Corps office. For the past couple of years the new
country director has put aside funds for having a Thanksgiving lunch for all
volunteers at the office. This year 10 turkeys were cooked as well as mounds of
mashed potatoes and stuffing. Volunteers brought salads and deserts as well as
drinks. I contributed a cooked sheep’s head. It was a bit of a joke but a lot
of the Moroccan staff at PC were into it and even the Ambassador had some. It was
pretty funny to see his body-guards reactions but I was happy he was into it.
After the lunch/dinner some friends and I went out to a local ex-pat haunt
where I skyped with my family. The night continued with us going to a nightclub
and over 25 PCV’s showed up. It was a great way to round out the day.
The next day was rough but I had time to kill in Rabat and
hung around before picking my parents up at the airport! More to follow in Part
2…
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