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Published: December 12th 2005
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Wow! It's been a long time since I wrote anything substantial here. Before I go into details about what I've been doing, there's just a little more business that I have to take care of.
First, the Peace Corps is extremely wary of sensitive material, and particularly since Morocco is a conservative Muslim country with many proud and beautiful traditions concerning religious and family values, the PC doesn't want to risk any offense to our host country national counterparts and/or their communities. As a result, any deragotory or culturally insensative remarks, pictures, etc. that can be connected to any volunteer are considered to be a danger to the success of our mission of promoting world peace and friendship. Please, please, PLEASE do not do anything that would connect me with any material of this nature because #1 It could potentially damage international relations and #2 I could be sent home early as a result. This would not make me happy. Although I have control over which of your comments get posted here online, I obviously do not have control over what you send me in the regular mail. The authorities open all the mail that comes through here and if they see anything that is questionable my service could be terminated. Please take this into consideration when you think about sending me something. Thank you.
The second thing I want to talk about is how you CAN post appropriate material here. You have two options. #1 You can send me a MESSAGE. This will be a private note that gets forwarded to my e-mail address and it will refer to a specific post or picture that you like. Of course you can also just send me a regular e-mail if you want. It's up to you. #2 You can send a COMMENT. This is a note that I can post here on the blog for others to read. Please don't be offended if your comments don't get posted. I have to screen them for appropriate content and not everything that seems appropriate in America is okay over here. I greatly encourage you all to post here! It would be great to see what people find interesting about my experience.
Okay, sorry that was so long but it really was important. Now onto more fun stuff!
Ramadan started since the last time I wrote. It's one of the most fascinating cultural experiences I've had so far. Although I am not fasting (since I am still in training and have a lot of work to do everyday) I am still subject to the vastly different daily schedule that Moroccans (and Muslims worldwide I believe) follow during this month. For those who don't know about Ramadan, Islam says that it is the month during which the prophet Mohammed received the Koran from the angel Gabriel so as a sign of reverence and sacrifice all practising Muslims (which in Morocco means nearly everyone) fast and abstain from sexual relations, smoking, and a few other things from sun-up to sun-down for an entire month. Ramadan is one of the twelve months of the Islamic year, which is slightly shorter than the Gregorian calender, as it is based on the lunar cycle and it begins and ends with the new moon. During the day most Moroccans sleep and work later than usual. There is no midday meal like in the rest of the year. Rather, they eat l_ftur (literally breakfast) at sundown, another large meal anywhere between 10pm and midnight, and one more meal at 4am before dawn. They stay up for much of the night watching all the special Ramadan, movies, TV shows, and musical performances that come on during this time and they spend a lot of time with family. Schools and businesses have later schedules which impacts our work at the Dar Chebab, since our students can't get there until 7:30 or 8:00 at night, but since Mohamed (our LCF) is fasting too we don't start until 10am each day. Next year, when I'm settled in my site and not so busy I think I'm going to try fasting. For now, however, I'm just enjoying the experience of watching from the perspective of an up-close outsider.
I'm back in Immouzzer Kandar for about a week doing more training with my whole Youth Development trainee group. It's been kind of a mini-vacaton since we're staying in a really nice hostel and we get lots of English time 😊 . My Darija is really starting to improve, which is good since I have my first language test tomorrow! There's a bunch more PCV's here too to help with our training, and they're awesome! They've been showing us how to start clubs and community organizations so that we can expand beyond just being English teachers. I've been working with one of them to find good ways to start and run a music club (since that has been such a hit over here) and another has introduced me to the GGLOW program (Guys and Girls Leading Our World). GGLOW is a leadership and teamwork training program similar to the outdoor education work I was doing prior to joining Peace Corps. It has been developed by volunteers over the past few years so it's pretty far along. It's nice to find some familiar styles and methods of teaching over here and apparently it's been very successful amoung the Moroccan students who attend the spring and summer English language camps that I'll be working at later in my service. Beyond expanding our training the PCV's have been a ton of fun to hang out with and become friends with. They held a Volunteers and Trainees only session for us last night so we could sit and ask them any questions we wanted which provided a ton of useful information on how to survive and succeed in Morocco.
We just realized that we've already reached the halfway point in our training. Crazy! On Friday I go back to Sidi Hrazem for another 17 days and then I get my Final Site Assignment! I'm hoping to get something near the mountains, possibly in a Berber village (the indigenous people of Morocoo), in the vicinity of Marrakesh. I've been reading and hearing a lot about them and they seem to have a fascinating culture (and really cool music 😉 ), so we'll see what happens. I'm sure I'll be fine wherever I end up, but that's what I've requested.
All of my friendships here are continuing to grow which means it's going to be hard to say goodbye to everyone in December. The advice that I've gotten from other PCV's however, is that the thing that will really get us through our service is making some close Moroccan friends in our own communities. This makes sense since, of course, we'll be living and working with them for the next two years, but nevertheless our trainee group is really tight so it's not going to easy to leave. Fortunately this means that I'll have good friends all over the country so I should always have a place to stay! Sadly, two of our trainee group have left to go home. Privacy laws and personal respect forbid me from disclosing more but I just want to say, Arturo and Kelly, we miss you!
Well this entry is getting pretty long (sorry there's only one new picture) so I think I'll end it here. You won't hear from me again till sometime in November so I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween and let's go Houston! (Always loved Bagwell, still hate Everett, close to forgiving Clemens, Cards blew their chance last year. My host father thinks we can get the World Series on his satellite dish! Sweet!)
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Lord Raybeck
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Nothing to Lose ...
Rich - Do give the fasting expereience a try. It is easier than you might think (unless you've foolishly taken up smoking), and it is something that those about you will deeply appreciate and respect. All Moslem countries undergo perturbations during Ramadan, but the schedule operating in Morocco differs markedly from that in Malaysia and other places. if nothing else, the food for the evening meal is better than usual. Glkad things are going so well for you. That deep and abiding love for anthropology becomes ever more manifest. Be well, Doug