Things happen and it feels like nothing’s happened.

It’s something all the experts say you just have to get used to about life in the Peace Corps. Your progress drains right through the spaces between your fingers. But things have happened.

The week before last our CBT had our first round of activities with kids in the Dar Chebab. First up was a Valentine’s Day party where I provided live accompaniment for musical chairs (naturally with love songs, including The “I Love You” Song from Barney, “Fools Rush In”, “My Heart Will Go On”, and “I Will Always Love You”) and some scary teenagers stole Britt’s Valentine and then yelled at her when she took it back. Fun!

The next day we did a community mapping exercise that turned into a semi-improvised English lesson on body parts –with more singing, this time “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”- and an introduction to Duck-Duck-Goose.

The kids came back a third day and this time we didn’t pretend to anything except play games. Sharks and Minnows, relay races and kura.[1] Dima kura.[2]

Lessons learned from our first experiences working with youth:

-Bringing a guitar was my best packing decision, easily.

-Sometimes youth development will mean keeping eight year olds from busting their heads on the concrete during tag.

-Our Darija will only truly be functional once we can understand what it is that young children scream at us over and over and over again.

-And reaffirmed was the universal truth that Girls Rule and Boys Drool.

We also had our most useful training yet from a current Peace Corps Volunteer who came to talk to us about Participatory Analysis for Community Action[3], community integration, lesson planning, and project design and management. Our lives here are sometimes consumed with theory and so we drank thirstily from his cup of advice based on sweet, sweet tangible experience.  It was also nice to have him there as we worked with youth for the first time. Where my takeaway was CHAOS! he found some things to be generous and encouraging about.

This last week was marked by some grueling hours in the Darija classroom and wind and rain that would make a deckhand weep. We’re right around halfway through with our CBT. Next week will bring more teaching at the Dar Chebab, site placement interviews and a free day to travel outside our CBT. My mouth is already watering, and I can feel us rounding the corner.

Our Language and Cultural Facilitator Ahmad, on the glorious day we badgered him into having class on the roof.

Our CBT group.

Not much to do in our town except gaze longingly at Fes.

Don't get me wrong, that's pretty fun.

Pictures of laundry hanging on the line are obligatory on all Peace Corps blogs.

More from our beautiful, boring Burg.

CHILDREN!

Youth Development. Adorable youth development.

Mail! From America!

Britt and Carly drew everything in our CBT site. It was my favorite day of class ever.

This is our class that same day. Repeat: this is us on our FAVORITE DAY OF CLASS EVER.

We appear here just as we do in real life in Morocco: exhausted, a little grainy and washed-out, but happy.

---

[1] Soccer.

[2] Always soccer.

[3] Buzzwords!

In February, I ate a liar for the first time.

That was my sentence in Darija class earlier this week.  Turns out, "liar" and "liver" are almost the same word.  Laughs ensued.

Also, it turns out, I'm not crazy about turkey liver.

 I also told my host mother that Pete was "bathing our bedroom."  Surprisingly, the incorrect word choice didn't seem to shock her as much as the fact that my husband, a man, was cleaning.

These stories are a sampling of our life right now.  We make a lot of mistakes, we try really hard, and we are constantly learning: language, culture, and how to take a bucket bath in the most efficient way.  We feel so lucky to live with such a loving, hospitable host family during these crazy first few weeks in Morocco.  The are incredibly patient with us.  And they feed us.  SO. WELL.

Here are some pics of our small-town life.  We mostly just go to school, eat a lot, and study.  Last weekend, Pete played soccer with some of the guys (check out the view!):

Here is mlwi, a super delicious bread we eat sometimes for kas-krut (snack, around 5-6pm).  It is DELICIOUS, sort of like a pancake but not really at all.  As you can probably tell from our excited faces--- this is me with a fellow Peace Corps trainee who lives above us--- we love this stuff.  We usually eat until we are sick, and then try to make room in our stomach for dinner around 8 or 9 pm.

Pete was allowed into the kitchen to take this photo, but otherwise he isn't permitted in here.  If he tries to help clear the table or offers to assist with dishes, he is quickly sent out with a laugh.  I, on the other hand, am getting very good at washing dishes and touching things I would normally use a rubber glove to touch.

This weekend, we had a chance to go to Fes for one night.  We had a lot of fun exploring the medina.  We took a cooking class at our little riad (like a bed and breakfast, sort of) and met people from all over the world. We also bumped into almost every other Peace Corps volunteer from our cohort as everyone escaped to Fes for the free weekend.  It was fun to see so many familiar faces!  Come visit us, and we can all get lost in the medina together.

Our internet at home is very spotty, and we also don't have much free time (when we aren't in school, our lovely host cousins come over and help us study.  Or we are eating).  So, we apologize if we are slow to respond to emails or update the blog.  But, please know that we are so grateful for all of your support and words of encouragement.  We couldn't do it without you.

Our new sleepy life

Greetings from CBT –Community Based Training- and our home for the next nine weeks, a small town about twenty minutes outside of Fes. CBT means we’ve pared down from our class of 97 trainees to a group of five, plus a language and cultural facilitator to really get down to the learning of Darija and the figuring out how to exist within Moroccan culture for the next two years.

How’s it going so far? Shwiya b shwiya. A word about our town: it’s a green, quiet place, with not much going on beyond pastoral beauty. Literally pastoral, as you’ll see from the pictures below. We’d be posting more except there’s just one crummy cyber café in town that doesn’t work. We’re hopeful to find some alternatives soon.  

We live with a really lovely host family in our town, a married couple with no children, but who live on a kind of family compound with brothers and sisters and their families, so there are cousins and Aunts and Uncles and lifelong friends popping in and out of our world. Our house is like the eye of the hurricane, but there are always interesting folks to talk to -a few who speak pretty good English- and sweet folks to at least try to talk to.

We spend about six hours a day in language and culture class, and most of the rest of the time we are eating. Four meals: lftor (breakfast), lrgdda (lunch), kaskrut (tea!), and l’aisha (dinner). Our host mother is a fantastic cook. We’ll have more to say about her amazing cooking later. More to say on everything later, but we have to dash.

In one of the houses on the compound, there was a party this weekend for an engaged couple. We got separated so that Britt could get Henna-d and I could get stuffed full of delicious food with the men. Later, I got some Henna on my left palm, I gather as a newly-married couple will. This picture, our faces: typical. Confused, out of our element constantly, but mostly very happy to be so.

movin' on up

Tomorrow we will leave the hotel in Rabat and head to a small town outside of Fez to begin ten weeks of language and culture training. We have been living in sort of a vertical world this past week, walking up and down the 8 floors of our hotel for meals and workshops. Now, we're moving horizontally, up a bit towards the mountains, and into a host family's home. We are so excited to meet out host family, to get settled for a while, and to keep learning Darija. But, we are also pretty nervous.

We don't know what our internet access will be like once we head out, so know this: we miss you. We love you. We are safe and sound, happy and well-fed. We promise to share photos as soon as we can.

Computer NOT Destroyed, Lahmdulillah!

Yesterday, our first day off in Rabat, we finally had the chance to stretch our legs and just as importantly, get to a cafe with some decent wi-fi. Upon arriving, I open exactly one email, then accidentally dump hot, sticky mint tea (the toxically sugary, incredibly addictive national drink) on my keyboard. And the computer goes black, then white and has a major computer seizure. Then zip. Dead. Bad end to a great day.

But then Britt googled some instructions and I showed incredible restraint -if I do say so myself- by letting it dry out for a full 24 hours before trying to power it back on and...success! There is a very common expression in Darija, "Lahmdulillah!" Praise God! It will be our most useful phrase during these 27 months, I'm sure.

Some pics from our day around Rabat.

Peace be upon you!

The Moroccan Arabic words for hello translates, literally, into "Peace be upon you." It's nice, isn't it? The language we are trying to learn, Darija, is not really a written language (Moroccans speak Darija but read and write in standard Arabic), so that makes things challenging. We've been spending our days in language workshops, safety & security workshops, health & safety workshops, and more. And more vaccinations!

We have very sporadic, practically non-existent, Internet access, so this will be brief. We are safe, busy, happy, and healthy. In a few more days, we will move to a small city outside of Fez. There, we will live with a host family and take many more Darija classes. We will leave this group of 100 volunteers and move to this city with just three others.

Today we have our first free day. All of our trainings have been in the hotel, and we haven't seen much of Rabat, so we were excited for the chance to explore the city. We visited the ocean (spectacular waves), the Kasbah des Oudaias (spectacular views), and Chellah (spectacular ruins). We took a nap, found an Internet cafe, and have worked up an appetite for dinner. We've also had the opportunity to practice our Darija a bit. Luckily, locals seem charmed when we try to speak Darija with them and are patient and helpful. We are grateful. We have a long way to go.




Love,

Britt & Pete

Goodnight Rabat

After many hours of traveling, we've made it to Rabat! We are here with about 100 fellow volunteers. The Peace Corps is treating us well and feeding us well. Training has begun already. We'll be busy the next few days learning policies and getting vaccinated (we got four vaccines today, including one for rabies, and I made myself stop thinking about the needles and start thinking about Dunder Mifflin's fun run walk to raise awareness for rabies instead. Sigh. I miss television already). We're also meeting new folks, adjusting to the cool weather, and getting ready for language classes.

Here is the view from our room at night:





We miss you. Goodnight.