Arrival on Site

---

Kelaât Sraghna
I woke up early and left the hotel while the PCTs I was sharing a room with were all still asleep. I had called Khadija, the woman I’m going to be living with for the next two months, the day before and told here I’d try to get to Kelaâ by about ten in the morning.
To get to my new home, I found a petit taxi, which is a small car like a Uno or a Golf that will only take three people and can only run in town. The grand taxis are the ones that go between towns. I took the petit taxi to the bus station and managed to get on the 8:00 bus to Kelaâ, which left only a half hour late. The scenery was nice, I could see the Atlas out the windows as we headed north into increasingly hilly country. I was so happy to be able to at least see mountains, even if they’re not very close. Morocco is very diverse geographically and there are some PCVs in towns that are completely flat in all directions. I may not be in the Atlas, but I’m close enough for comfort. Brian, the PCT from Montana, is south of Marrakech and he is actually up in the mountains and can see Toubkal, the tallest peak in North Africa, from his house.
I passed through several smaller towns, and was surprised when I arrived in Kelaâ since it’s much bigger than I had expected. It’s a provincial capital, so it has a lot of government buildings and more resources than the surrounding towns. I think I am very lucky to have been placed here, Kelaâ is going to make a good home.
Khadija works for one of the regional government branches, so I took a petit taxi directly to her office. Kelaâ is big enough to have taxis, unlike most PCV sites. It is also unusual for women to work outside the house still, though that is changing rapidly. I am very impressed at all the work she had to do in order to get her degrees and qualify for her job. In a country where the unemployment rate is quoted at 15%!t(MISSING)o 18%!a(MISSING)nd many say it is actually as high as 30%!,(MISSING) it is very commendable for her to have such good work. However, she is new at her job, having only moved to Kelaâ last August; she is originally from a city farther north close to Rabat. Her husband is from the town, so all of his family is here and they’re the ones I will count on to help show me around.
Besides her office job, Khadija also does all of the house work, like most Moroccan women. She and Habib, her husband, are very nice and have two adorable children. I think the kids are going to help be with my Darija, since they’re still in elementary school and just learning to write themselves. I’ve looked at their text books, and they’re about at my level with the script and such.
What they learn in school, however, is Classical Arabic, or Fossha. Darija is really only a spoken language, and many Moroccans are perplexed as to why I am studying it. Nobody studies Darija. I try to explain that what I really need is to communicate with the community, not write essays or official documents - not yet anyway. I think that as soon as I get my Darija down enough to communicate more complex ideas than I can now, like discuss cultural norms and real issues, I’ll start working on learning Classical Arabic.
Besides continuing my language learning, I’m also still learning my way around a Moroccan kitchen. When I move out I probably won’t have a traditional kitchen, I’ll have to get some things I’m used to from home so I can cook American food for myself (and Mexican and Indian and French, etc). Khadija makes the best coffee I have ever tasted. She uses a metal perculator like every house I’ve seen here so far. I’ve seen them in Europe also, but not in the US. I don’t understand why these aren’t common in the States, because they’re very practical and make delicious coffee. Anyway, Khadija adds a little cinnamon and ground ginger to her coffee grounds and it is so tasty. She also puts sesame seeds and something called “naafa,” which might be fennel, in her bread which she makes at home almost every day. I eat a lot of her bread, and she’s been showing me how to make it also.
It is a fairly modern family, in that they use toilet paper and have a washing machine and satellite TV (I watched “O Brother Where Art Thou” the other day), but they are still very traditional in many ways, especially in their family style and values. It is a definite contrast to the family I lived with in Sefrou. They are much younger, but not as liberal in many ways.
I think it is going to be good living with them, I will learn a lot, but I am already thinking about moving into my own house. The Moroccan sense of privacy and space is completely different from mine, and it won’t always be easy for me to live with another family, especially for two consecutive months. I will have a lot to do though, and will not be spending much time sitting around the house. I am also lucky to have an internet café very close to the house.

---