l'aventure africaine

Goodbye...sort of.

2007-03-24T09:17:00.001-07:00

Oh, decisions are tough.

We have been doing some thinking about our blog, and its purpose and audience, and have decided to move our little old selves to a private blog.

There is no mystery or scandal in our decision. We have had no exchanges with the powers that be about our blog at all…

The third goal of Peace Corps is "helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans," and we have enjoyed using our blog as a format for sharing about our experiences here.

However, I forget the specifics of the story, there was once a PCV having a difficult day, as a person is bound to have in life, PCV or not, and, understandably wanted to turn to someone for support, and wrote home…. Unfortunately, on a postcard, that, during its journey out of the country, was seen by someone who took offense to the message. The incident nearly jeopardized the whole Peace Corps program in the country.

We did some pondering and soul-searching (yes, being a bit dramatic here) :) and thought about who we were writing for and why, and realized our most important goal is to keep in touch with family and friends, and share our lives here with them.

We have been doing that publicly, and it has been a lot of fun. Peace Corps is, understandably, though responding to the greater risks to the programs that the expansion of things like blogs and myspace and facebook accounts present, and requiring greater oversight by staff of what goes on in cyberspace. I mean, there has always been risks from frustrated letters falling into the wrong hands, or rogue postcards, but anyone can find and read what we post on the web!

It is not that we have negative things we need to say. Michael and I are grateful to this country for its hospitality, and all we’ve learned here. We are also grateful to Peace Corps for allowing us to be here. So many programs similar in purpose require the participant to pay for the privilege to serve. Not only do we not do that, we are supplied with medical care and safety support, as well as numerous other supports. We are finding though that being careful to write in a way that cannot offend anyone is compromising our original purpose, to share our lives with friends and family. It’s not that what we have posted here is not true or genuine… just….reserved.

So, we've created a blog that is “invite only.” I know, so exclusive. :) It will add an extra step to those of you who’d like to continue reading…you’ll have to set up a name and password, and sign into our blog to read it, so I hope we are worth the trouble. To find us, we’ll have to send you an e-mail, so, if you would like to continue, mail me ( supergirlmpls at yahoo dot com). Don’t be shy, okay? We don’t want to lose those who stop by just now and then…

Thanks for reading, and understanding our decision about this move. Farewell from Blogger!

Tanzania

2007-03-17T06:34:00.000-07:00

Oh, before I forget, the way our students said “See you happy” was n-shuf-k ferhan… I’m trying to be better about answering questions!!

The promised elephant picture -- check out the two little ones!

So, a little bit about our trip!

Mike and his new friend...

Because of the way the flight connections worked out, Michael and I “had to” spend a night in Amsterdam on our way to Tanzania. We had millions of things we wanted to do in the city, and only one afternoon, but we made the most of it! We really wanted to visit the Van Gogh Museum, but even more than that wanted to go to the Anne Frank House. We did, and I don’t even want to try and say something about how powerful it is, because I am afraid of making it sound trite. We wandered the city, took pictures of the beautiful canals (too many that I’m sure we’ll regret later…but you just can’t help yourself, you know?), and ate amazing sushi.

The next day we met my family at the airport (yay! after 2 weeks shy of a year since we’d seen them!) and flew off to the Kilimanjaro airport to meet our guide, Emmanuel, and crash for the next couple of nights in Arusha. In Arusha we were waiting for the rest of our party, as well as doing some jetlag recovery, and just chilling and catching up!

We took off the following morning for Tarangire National Park, which is a gorgeous park full of elephants and baobob trees. We were closer than I ever thought we could be to some of the animals, just because we’d spot them off the road, and they’d keep going on their path and pass next to our vehicles. We saw oodles of elephants, as well as some giraffe, ostrich, impala, dik dik, and all sorts of birds and lizards and turtles… oh! and our first lions!

We ventured next to a “permanent tented camp” (meaning, very nice tent, like with ceramic toilets and hot showers…nicer than our house here) :) on the shore of Lake Eyasi. The lake is beautiful, but we were here for some culture. We woke up early one morning and went on a hunting expedition with a tribe in the area that retains its more ancient customs, and observed some jewelry-making later that afternoon.

A baby zebra in the crater.

Our next stop was Ngorongoro Crater, which is the largets unbroken crater on earth. It is what is left of a volcano that is believed to have been larger than Mount Kilimanjaro. The crater is FULL of wildebeest and zebra, and is one of the few places you can see black rhino. We also saw our first hippos and hyenas. The wildebeests have a season for having young, so that numerically some of them will survive the hyena and lion attacks, and grow up to be adults, and while we were there there were tons and tons of little wildebeest guys. We had a very “circle of life” moment our second day in the crater when we were driving along and came upon a hyena chasing a little wildebeest. He put up a good chase, but he never had a chance… poor little guy.

Me doing some Maasai dancing...just jumping up and down...way fun :)

Our final stop was the famous Serengeti, stopping at Olduvai Gorge, and a Maasai village on the way. The two million wildebeests who live on the plains migrate in a large ovaly shape, and driving through the middle of that many animals is just CRAZY! We saw a cheetah as well driving into the park, and saw our first and only leopard, after LOTS of looking, the next day. In the park, we stayed in a mobile tent camp that was also very nice, but the crazy thing is you are staying in the park which means all night you can hear baboons... and my brother and our guide heard lion noises… creepy…

The highlight of the Serengeti came on our last day when we woke early for a hot air balloon ride over the park. What from the road looks uniform, from above you can see is a complex system of paths through the grasses. It was fun to see the animals from a different perspective than “animal crossing or standing near the road.” We saw birds doing a mating dance, and a hippo out for a morning stroll, and an elephant who was really not a fan of the balloon – and our first hot air balloon ride was cool just for the experience – even if it hadn’t been set in such an amazing location!

After the balloon ride we high-tailed it back to the airport (and saw Kilimanjaro from the jeep window – our first time, because on our way in it was dark…) and started the trip home!

It was a wonderful two weeks – seeing and doing amazing things – and just to be with family would have been enough!

New hobbies...

2007-03-10T02:04:00.000-08:00

Personal growth is important, right? Peace Corps is an amazing place to learn more about yourself. What sort of assumptions you have about how the world works, personal strengths and weaknesses... time to re-evaluate who you are and where you are headed... exercise more and learn new hobbies...

We knit, play soccer, learn about photography.... and we have to admit, one of our favorite new hobbies is making faces.

Yeah, we don't have a TV. :)

Some of our favorite evidence...

Here's Jack trying to get in on some face-making action...

Okay, he's got a little work to do... but look how big he's getting!

So, this last picture is Mike being scared of an approaching thunderstorm. He's not usually scared of thunder :) but we are driving around the SERENGETI!!! Where we could get stuck in a lot of mud...and be trapped...out with some lions...

That's right, we just got back from an amazing trip to Tanzania with my (jana) family where we were "on safari" looking for all sorts of crazy cool animals, and learning about local culture and such.

Life has been a little hectic since returning. I headed immediately north to be a trainer for a Volunteer Support Network training weekend (you may or may not remember when I was a trainee last September...). The training was for the most recent Small Business Development and Youth Development volunteers, who arrived in country about six months ago. Our group (a very cool bunch of SBD volunteers...) is now ready to listen to and support their fellow volunteers -- hopefully making for easier transitions, good overall morale, even fewer people who feel like this experience is not for them and choose to go home, and just some genuinely happy volunteers!

Mike came home and jumped straight into teaching English, and getting ready for our first weekly health club for the youth in one of our neighboring douars. It took place last Wednesday, and went really well. Mike did a short lesson with a group of pre-schoolers, and a group of 4-6 graders, and then did some coloring and drawing.

So, all to say, we didn't get a blog post written yet about our trip, but soon!

Also, this past Wednesday marked one year since we arrived in Morocco. Crazy.

Our one year anniversary also means it is time for some new Health and Environment volunteers, who arrived in country last week sometime --

WELCOME you guys!!!

Alright, see you happy, and get ready for some crazy elephant pictures...

See you...

2007-02-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

happy!

I think we've mentioned before that we do an English class once a week at our small local government office place. It's sort of a review, because most of the people that come have studied English for a little bit in school....it may have been several years ago...but it isn't all brand new, you know? Anyway, they are a fun group, and we have fun comparing languages... what to say when someone is traveling or has a new baby in the family... the stuff that comes up in daily life.

My favorite came up a couple of weeks ago. Our student said the Dharija equivalent, and then said, "What do you say in English? See you.... happy?"

We said it's a nice thought, but, yeah, we don't say that.

Mike and I debated what this really means.. I will see you later and I hope you are happy when we meet! I will see you, and we will be happy! I will walk along with you and see you to happiness! YOU WILL BE HAPPY.

I think it's awesome, no matter what. See you happy :) Mike's not totally sold, but I'm working on it. And calling on you all. Let's say it. It's so cheerful and well, happy. How could you not leave with a smile when someone says that as you leave?

So, see you happy....

:)

2007-01-25T03:44:00.000-08:00

Busy!!!

Strange things have been happening lately, here in our world. That’s right, the four letter word we despise in America and every volunteer I know craves. To be BUSY! Not all of it is hard-hitting, bringing health to Morocco type stuff, but in reality that is only 1/3 of our job here. So, we may not get "credit" per se from our counterpart, or the community, for that matter, but, in my head at least, I think of every interaction as work. The minute we step out of our doors we are no longer allowed to be mike and Jana, Americans, or even mike and Jana, Americans in another country. We become, like transformers if you like, mike and Jana, PC volunteers from America, trying to bring or exude all things acceptable from America, all the while interacting in a language we sometimes understand. Well, as much of "America" as two white kids from the Midwest can, of course. Two things here. First, we do slip up and little droplets of the first two eek out despite our best efforts. And second, and more importantly, this isn’t to say we don’t enjoy going out. Most of the time we really like it and while we may come back with a smile on our face, we usually come back feeling somewhat exhausted.
So what did this busy week entail for us.

-Visiting a friend who just had a baby. They live in Tata, not in our village.
-Working on a grant for medical waste incinerators at another volunteer’s site an hour down the road.

-Setting up a time for doing a school lesson about teeth care with teacher.
-Preparing said lesson, including but not limited too, writing lesson and finishing large paper mache mouth.
-Tutoring for about 3 hours
-Planning English lessons for two different classes
-Going to previously mentioned classes, 2 out of 3 which didn’t actually happen because there was not prior approval from the director.
-Tracking down contact for English class to find out class shouldn’t happen on said day because soccer always happens.
-Prepping simpler lesson about good foods versus bad foods for our teeth, for preschool kids that we presented on Monday which included a massive drawing spree as well as stuffing ourselves with the candy whose wrappers we used to illustrate bad foods in our little game.
-Spending 4 hours at the internet café trying to free our computer from the grips of nasty viruses that were causing all sorts of evils. Seems to have worked for the time being.
-Attending an event by an association in a neighboring community with whom we have become friendly.
-Meeting with the president of said community’s association to discuss grant options that we have to help them build an actual association building.
-Going to town and buying our necessary items.
-Finishing touches on our health lesson we did at the clinic on Wednesday, the busy vaccination day.
-Laundry
Add to this the fact that we cook our meals and none of them come from a box which not only means more prep time but using more dishes and utensils and thus more dishes in the end. In many ways its great, we eat way more fruit and vegetables but sometimes you just want to open a bag of veggies and some frozen chicken breasts or a mac N’ cheese and have one dish, or maybe even order a pizza (not an option for this part of the Maroc as far as I know.)

Another small story for your pleasure. As I'm sure you know, we have a real cute cat named Jack, and we, as any proud parents would do, have tried to teach him how to be a good citizen of this world, which for jack means: not jumping on the table or you will get sprayed with water, not attacking my hands with your claws or fangs or... that's right, you will get sprayed, and the list goes on like this. Well, after teaching our preschool class and having tea with one of the mothers afterwards, we were walking home, and see to our horror, some intruder cat on our roof with our beloved jack on the ledge. It all happened so quickly, so I can't confirm, but Jana claims the evil intruder pushed jack off our roof. We saw him hang for a brief second, like Cliffhanger, (a movie I've actually never seen) only to fall maybe 15 feet or so, safely, of course, because cats are like that. Anyways, so over the next 24 hours, in my head I was go through all the scenarios for some sort of training regimen for jack, much like rocky balboa would, so that next time some cat enters unwelcomed, he can at least defend himself and hopefully not fall off the roof. I was thinking of maybe bringing in some other cats in for more of a controlled fight where we could step in, and ring the bell if it just got out of hand. Realize that the fiercest thing jack fights are the big ants, flies, and our toes... until he gets sprayed, of course.

Another Sad Goodbye

2007-01-17T09:20:00.000-08:00

Michael’s Gramma passed away this past week. Our thoughts and prayers are with his Grampa, Mom, Dad, and siblings. We wish we were there, to say goodbye together, and to be there for you. Know that we love you!!

Mike promised some L’Eid pictures, so they are coming, but they are going to be down the page a little so this can be a warning space. The pictures are going to be a little…a lot…bloody, so please be careful about who’s around you, and if blood is not your thing – don’t scroll down!

In the space until the pictures, I’ll tell you that we have secured a post office box so for the remaining 17 months we are here, we have a real, permanent address! Here it is:

Michael and Jana Huffman

B.P. 61

84000, Province of Tata

Morocco

Any mail you send or have sent to the previous address(es) will still come to us, so no worries.

Alright, time for some pictures…
So, first is the slaughter. I didn't post any pictures because, well, it is just too bloody. If you guys want them, just let me know... I just didn't want to show too much. This is the beginning of the skinning process. The start at the back legs, and you can see that someone is holding the broken leg... a little handle.
This is the skinning process a little further down the line. We like this one because he is using his whole body -- our host family thought it was hilarious and made sure we got a picture.

Here are the heads of our sacrifices. The little kids thought they were great. This is all a scary adventure for us, but they do this every year and it is a HUGE holiday -- they love it!!

Like Mike said, the first day you eat the organs, grilled in stomach fat. Here is the guys getting it prepared to grill.

Holiday Happenings

2007-01-06T07:27:00.000-08:00

The days leading up to this have included various renditions of the “Do you have your hawli (aka sheep) yet?” usually accompanied by a smirk. I, of course, say “no” and then am forced to give some excuse. In a lot of ways, we complain about routine conversations which are still about all we can accomplish with any sort of ease, but the flip side is that at least we can talk about something that we understand. I use that word understand quite loosely meaning we understand the words, not necessarily the why, how, or even always the what, but after several times with the same conversation we are usually able to work out the kinks and thus converse. My excuses usually include something about my lack of killing fortitude, or the fact that we will spend it with our adopted family, both of which are entirely valid.

8:54 standing in a section of the currently unused cemetery, most men of the village have started praying but, as with any event, there are a few stragglers. There is really no set time for anything so to say they are late wouldn’t really be accurate. Children are standing behind those praying, and a few enterprising ones have decided to bring a box filled with candy to sell to the others. As the tradition goes, children have new clothes and shoes, all looking very fancy. The men are all wearing long robes that I described earlier, most have jellabas, generally thicker with a hood, now that it is cold. I finally understand why at seemingly random places all over the country we have seen what seem like a miniature stairway facing east. This is where the religious leader of the community, the faqii, stands while delivering his speech during these gathering outside.

10:55 I’ve since returned, and having eaten our breakfast of oatmeal, Jana and I are out the door to our families house to celebrate and observe the killing of the sacrificial animals. There is certainly a sense of excitement in the air, but I can’t discern if it’s because we all know we will have wonderful meaty tagines and couscous for days to come or if it is something else. Nearly all family members who work or go to school in other parts of the country or in France or Italy return during this time so there are a lot of new faces about town and I think this may be adding to the enthusiasm. Islamic law stipulates that each married man is required to slaughter one animal per wife, either a sheep or a goat. Sheep, I gather, are more expensive, but I don’t get a sense that there is overt bragging or shame based on the animal sacrificed. Within our extended family there are three animals, 2 goats and a sheep.

11:00 We arrive and of course have to drink some tea first off. We are served tea that has been cooked on the small grill that is also used for cooking the first meat. This same grill heats the incense that women fluff their skirts over at special occasions to make them smell all purty, in addition to the cologne. Oh, almost forgot, we too were welcomed with some Masculin 2. (Men take note: The ladies light up when Masculin 2 is broken out, and I know Christmas is come and gone, but it is high time the world start smelling a little more manly)

11:40 Our host uncle who is about our same age and has two adorable little girls gets impatient with waiting for all the proper tools and maybe some of the expertise so we go around back and see him in a nice light yellow shirt holding on to this dear sheep. I made the mistake of asking him if he did it or someone else and he said “Of course, its easy.” I’ll just say, maybe we should have sharpened the knife a little more because it didn’t look hard, but it certainly didn’t look easy either. Nonetheless, after pouring some water over the neck to see if it was still alive, we proceeded to skin it, with the same dull knife. Thankfully, his brother and our host father came with the sharp knives or we might still have been there.

12:15 The insides of the first goat are opened and inside, besides all the usual things, and I do unfortunately mean all, there is a baby goat roughly the size of my hand. It is unceremoniously tossed in the hole located quite conveniently next to their house; thanks to the wall building efforts to enclose the cemetery.

1:46 All told I’ve seen two goats and a sheep get it today, and I’m feeling pretty good. Very generously, they offered to let me do some of the killin’. I declined. Now its time to hunker down, and eat up that delicious liver along with some of the other unknown vitals, wrapped in a thin layer of white stomach fat, kind of like wrapping paper for your meat. Grilled over that small charcoal grill, called a mijmer, and served with some fresh bread, it actually tastes quite pleasant.

3:30 Watch video replay of the Saddam hanging on our family’s satellite TV. Thankfully nothing has been said to us about it except a question about whether we knew it had happened by granny. We assured her that while we don’t have television, we did have a radio that tells us some things.

4:30 Make our way home in order to rest up for the evenings festivities which require a return trip for dinner, but on the way out we see Zahara, our host mom with her goat’s head on a stick, turning it about in a fire, trying to get all the hair off of it. “Could that be dinner?”

7:30 Head back over for dinner and find that Said, who had gone into town to slaughter his brothers animal while he was away with the military has returned so we talk with him a bit. Rest in the sitting room for a while, and then the men retreat to the brother’s part of the house.

9:30 Dinner of olive and goat tagine is served. Said was out and so he missed the meal.

10:30 Decide that its time to go despite the fact its New Years Eve, if we are going to go the Circumcision Party the next day, we best get some sleep.

The day overall was pretty enjoyable. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I’m glad I got to see it in person. While family returns for this holiday time there wasn’t really a sense that family all had to be together for the slaughtering, our two host brothers were MIA during that part, or even for the dinner that seemed like it was pretty special. I don’t know if that is just our family, or what but it was the most unexpected part of the day. With regards to the Circumcision party, every year the association brings in a doctor to do circumcisions for kids about 3 years or so. This year there were 5 in our village and 2 in the neighboring village. We went because we were told that the “entire community” is there. We arrived, but quickly found we had been mislead, and so, after just a few “short” hours we retreated. Jana was served lunch at one of the children’s mother’s house, whose house we have visited a couple times before. But because I had left before our lunch was served, in typical fashion, she was sent home with her serving of meat and an extra serving for me.

While not exactly Christmas and New Years, it was certainly festive here for a couple days, and while we are full blown members, we are definitely feeling more and more comfortable with our lives here. Hopefully some pictures will follow but Jana didn’t come in to town and I have no clue what I’m doing with this stuff so getting pictures just seems a little too technical for me, sorry.

Tomorrow is...

2006-12-30T03:42:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Eid ul-Adha, or Eid L'Kbir in Morocco. We'll have more to say after we've experienced it, but click on the link and check out the Traditions and Practices section of that entry to see what we'll be up to -- and Mabrouk to you if you are celebrating!

So, the snow!

A couple of weeks ago it was time for our In-Service Training (IST).

IST is a lot of things. It happens after our first six months or so in site. The first six months they want you to focus on getting to know your community and language, and not on “doing stuff” without having done that important relationship-building first. To that end, we are not allowed to apply for grants for projects until IST, both because that shouldn’t be our focus, and also to avoid coming to town and bringing thousands of dollars with us and, first thing, building latrines and buying books and such and giving the impression that we are here as little Santa Clauses. So, IST is where we learn about the ins and outs of grants available through PC, and also talk with each other and our supervisors about what we’ve been doing, and what we would like to do with the remaining year and a half of our service. It’s exciting because we’ve been training and learning and practicing for so long (not that that won’t keep happening!) but after these 9 or 10 months in country we are here! These 18 months are what we’ve got to do big things and put to use what we’ve learned! Woo hoo!

Our Country Director, and the moustaches grown in his honor.

IST is also two other important things. It is a mini-celebration of completing the first six months of our service. They are supposed to be the hardest, and so the best is yet to come (of course(!) there are ups and downs throughout)! Peace Corps rewarded us with some sweet accommodations and just a great week of big city living in Agadir….I know it is a cliché thing for a PCV to say, but I too will NEVER cease to appreciate the joy of a real shower supplied by a hot water heater… a little bit of heaven :) Lastly, IST is a chance to see people we haven’t seen in six months (since training) and won’t see again for about another six months…and for some of our group – until our Close of Service conference three months before we leave… It is wonderful to see everyone, and to remember what hanging out with a bunch of people who all “get” you is like… it was a crazy, exhausting week!

The King drove past our hotel. Mike went out and snapped a pic...that's him sticking out of the sunroof!

Right :) back to the snow… we woke up the morning we were leaving while it was still dark and in our courtyard saw the UFO flashes of lightning…a storm coming. We added our Columbia jackets as the rain began to fall as we loaded up the taxi to go into town and catch the bus. By the time we got to town it was POURING and as the bus pulled out of Tata, it was crazy to see puddles and streams and full riverbeds in our desert!

Now, to get to Agadir we pass through some mountains…and they aren’t, like, high elevation kind of mountains…but we were driving, and looked out the window and all of the sudden the rain looked a lot like snow. Just seeing snow fall was CRAZY, but, well, you saw the picture, it got crazier. Snow started collecting on the ground and it looked like a whole different landscape to see our brown, rocky, palm tree-studded desert covered in white.

We had a little traffic jam where a bus and some cars lost traction going around a corner and people were getting off of our bus in their sandals(!) to assess the situation and help shovel out a little… which goes to show just how strange this was… we thought maybe it was something we didn’t expect and hadn’t seen before, but the rest of the bus was taking pictures with their cell phones and the bus driver’s assistant was calling EVERYONE he knew and yelling excitedly about the snow… by the time we got to the halfway-point of our trip the snow was about a foot deep and we got held up for a little under 3 hours because the local authorities didn’t think the bus driving around on snow-covered mountain roads was safe… We didn’t get any pictures at that point (Why, I am not sure…) but although it was a lot chilly, and we were ready to get moving, it made us Minnesota kids feel all warm and fuzzy….turned the cell phone to its Christmas rings…. :)

We hope you had a WONDERFUL Christmas, or a meaningful time whichever holiday is yours, and here is to a Happy 2007!!!

I'm dreaming of a ....

2006-12-21T02:33:00.000-08:00

We are a little short on time today, but something to ponder...

The picture was taken through a bus window, so the quality is sketchy... but those are palm trees...and that is SNOW!!!!!!

The whole story to come.... :)

Milestones...

2006-12-06T08:08:00.000-08:00

Mike here.

6 months and counting…

To be honest I sit here and don’t know what this entry is going to entail but we are about to go to our In Service Training and it is something of a milestone for us anyways because it means we can actually start applying for funding from Peace Corps for larger scale projects that we may decide to do. An added benefit of IST is that we get to see all the volunteers that we went through our training with but haven’t seen for 6 months because of our remoteness (meaning we are not by a beach, a large town, or anywhere closely resembling a tourist attraction unless you count the blue buildings Tata is “known” for, according to one website. (This of course is like saying our bed is “known” for the pink blanket we have on it, which means, because you are reading this, it can now be said that someone knows about our pink blanket- get it?))

So this was going to be just another mind-numbing entry telling you Mike and Jana in Morocco this, and Mike and Jana in Morocco that but instead I decided, since we have been in country a whole nine months and out on our own for six months why not make it list time so, here goes…

Some ways you know you’ve integrated (In some cases maybe just a little TOO well)

- “It wasn’t a bad taste, except that I know peanuts aren’t supposed to taste like VOMIT.” Said by my lovely wife just 2 days ago.

- Dreams of bacon frying in the pan have changed to dreams of me eating an entire camel rump roast

- Showers have now become optional. Bucket baths, even with warm water is just too cold!

- Everything we drink tastes better when we drink it out of teeny tea glasses.

- As of last night’s tutor session, we have learned approximately 12 variations for expressing gratitude.

- We’re actually asking tourist to “Donnez moi une stylo” and gawking at their enormous campers and tremendously taught, slightly exposed bellies in ill fitting muscle shirts. And shoulders are downright scandalous!

Okay, that's all the hilarity I've got for now. More soon...

A Late Thanksgiving Wish!

2006-11-29T10:13:00.000-08:00

We are a little late, but we want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you had a meaningful holiday wherever you are, and whatever you ate! If it was turkey, okay, we are a little jealous... but, even without turkey, we have oh-so-much to be thankful for, and a lot of our gratitude is for the dear family and friends who read this from time to time, and we want you to know we love and miss you!

Time for some pictures! We remembered to get our camera out for a Thanksgiving fiesta this past weekend...

Aaron and April swung by our place on their way into town, and participated in our kitchen beautification project/guestbook. :) Our kitchen walls are plain cement and are begging to be drawn on! You should come visit and draw too! No, I mean it. Come visit! :)

The feast took place at the home of one of our fellow Tata volunteers and a darn cool gal (um, she's in a pic in a minute) but one aspect of her beautifully decorated home is this very comfy hammock, demonstrated here by my handsome husband.

There is our hostess with the mostest! Vanina and Aaron and I... I'm sure we were doing something important... or they were anyway... peeling something...

The two Tata Michaels carving the chickens... :) So much food... so good...

We took a tour of Vanina's village, which is filled with cool passageways and tunnely areas, but unfortunately none of the pictures turned out but this one!

And finally, Van and I putting up her Christmas decorations. We are very proud of our little tree. :) Thanks Vanina for letting me help! Without a non-stop Christmas radio station, day after Thanksgiving sales, and well, really cold weather, it sometimes just doesn't feel like the end of November, but it is surprising how hanging tinsel and putting up ornaments makes you feel all festive...even in the desert. :)

I'm not sure if Sudan is in the news there as much as it is on the BBC around here, but if it isn't, it really should be! I found an interesting link today that rates your state's politicians actions in relationship to Sudan. See how your people are doing... http://www.darfurscores.org/
If you are interested in learning more about the genocide occurring in Sudan, check out these links and please, please take action!!

Two blog-style sites with updated information and news about Sudan:

Sudan: The Passion of the Present

Coalition for Darfur

For good measure BBC on Sudan

"Sleepless in Sudan" is the blog of an aid worker who, although now posted elsewhere, was blogging her experiences straight from Darfur. It is worth reading through all of her blog, but this post is all about what we can do to help.

I know if you've read our blog for a while, a lot of this info is not new, but hopefully this is new for someone, or maybe today it finds you at a time where you have a free minute to investigate. Not to go all drama girl on the blog, but this is our chance to ask those in power to do something (!) rather than look back and remember the tragedy and wonder what we could have done... okay, rant concluded. Thanks for listening. :)

Uncle Mike and Aunt Jana

2006-11-15T07:38:00.000-08:00

So, those are our new titles. :) Sadly, I am not able to post a picture right now, but check out Nugget News for info on and pictures of our new little nephew. :) That's fun to say!

The basics? Graham Lee Huffman, was born at 12:36 am on November 11, 2006 to Mike's brother Craig and his wife Anissa. He is 7 lbs. 13 oz., and 21 inches.

Everyone is happy and healthy and labor was quick!

Welcome to the world little Graham -- we love you like crazy already and can't wait to meet you!

questions answered

2006-11-08T08:03:00.000-08:00

I guess it’s my turn to add a little something about where we live.

First things first, I’ll try to answer question. Anytime we talk about appearances we tread on dangerous ground and because of this we must say that we can only report what we see and have observed in our limited time here. As in all countries there is intermarriage. In Morocco, marriage between Arabs and Berbers is relatively common and therefore the lines between these two cultures is growing closer. This obviously includes appearance. Nonetheless, the village we live in is considered an Arabic one and the neighboring one only 1 km away that speaks Berber is considered by many here to contain the “darker” skinned people. While, I will admit that a large number of people from that village do in fact have darker skin there is an extremely high number of people in our very own village that also have dark skin, yet speak Arabic as their first language. Some of the discrepancy is due undoubtedly to the fact that for hundreds of years, darker skinned sub-Saharan Africans have come to Morocco, many as slaves, concubines, or as hired armies, and now the descendants of these people live in all parts of Morocco, and consequently identify both as Arabs and Berbers. In the northern portions of the country, Berbers tend to have fairer skin and may even possess blue or green eyes and lighter hair colors such as red. So all of this to say that differences may be observed, but in doing so, one will undoubtedly make incorrect assumptions about the person or group of persons being observed.*

Clothing for men varies quite a bit depending upon what the occasion is. Men who work in towns or at government offices typically wear slacks and buttoned shirts. Men who want to relax may be found wearing track suits or the more traditional foqiya (some version of that dress thing I was wearing) here in the south. In the north track suits or the more famous jellaba is typically worn. There is very little difference between these except that the jellaba has a hood. For men, they are often brown so when the weather is bad and everyone has their hoods up it looks like there are a bunch of ewoks walking around. In the south, there is a “traditional” foqiya that is blue with some gold embroidering. As far as I can tell in our area there is very little difference between what Arab men and Berber men wear. I would say that the greater difference is between north and south due to climate differences.

* Information was taken from Orin Hargraves’ book Culture Shock: Morocco

A little info about our village...

2006-11-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

We thought we’d take a little bit of space to tell you about our douar (village) and community. Just some basic stuff like who lives here, what we do for a living, how many of us there are, and all that. Hopefully too a little bit about what is worn here, what kinds of things are eaten…but let’s start with the basics!

First, here is a little map of our douar and the ones around us. We didn’t put names of douars for security’s sake, so it is a little vague, but gives the general picture. Our douar is about 4 kilometers from the main road, and the farthest douar (the one we haven’t visited) is 11. These are all considered our site, or area to work, although it isn’t expected that we’ll hit all of them equally, just that we’ll seek out the greatest needs and people interested in working with us.

Okay, so, our douar has about 1100 people in it, and that translates to about 125 households. Some employment is in our local government or schools, in the little city about 15 km away, or in one of our little shops in town. There is a large percentage of men who seek jobs in other parts of Morocco, both in private businesses and in the military. Also, some families have sons and daughters living and working abroad. France is very common, because French is taught in schools to all children and used in official documents, etc., but places like Spain or Italy are possible as well.

The whole of Morocco is composed of people of Arabic and Berber descent. We are located in the province of Tata, which is composed primarily of people of Berber descent who speak a Berber dialect called Tashelheet. For a reason we don’t know yet, our little group of douars, except for one, speak Arabic. Despite this, in most of the douars there is strong Berber influence on the culture. In addition, there is a strong cultural influence from the south of Morocco and the Saharan culture there. For example, the way we demonstrated of making tea is generally acknowledged here to be “Saharawi.”

Dress is one readily apparent thing influenced by this mix of cultures. From the south comes the Saharan wrap that is worn by some women here. (For a picture of me displaying it, click here. In some of the douars here, that is all that is worn. In our douar about half of the women wear that, and about half wear the Berber influenced dress. For some women, it just depends on the day! The Berber women’s wear consists of a multi-layered satiny skirt, usually in white or light blue, and long of course. On top they wear a black scarf. Aha, I found a picture...

(From this website...http://lexicorient.com/morocco/tata.htm)

Just a quick note, pictures are sensitive things in this culture. People are often hesitant to let you take them, unless they know you well, because they are not sure who all will see them, and that they will be respectfully used. For that reason we've been slow to use our camera in town. We imagine eventually we'll start taking pictures of people we know and memories around town and all, but even when we do, we can't post them online without asking the people in them... Many people in town are quite unfamiliar with the internet, but even if they did fully understand, probably wouldn't feel comfortable with pictures in such a public place... We want to share our lives with you, and so we just want to explain why pictures of the people around us may be scarce, but we'll do our best!

That’s probably a good amount of info for now, we’ll add some more next week, and let us know if you have any particular questions you’d like us to answer!!

It is getting cool here!!

2006-10-29T06:29:00.000-08:00

Before I forget, I did some updating in our Mail Advice and Wish List page, if you are interested, click here!

Okay, so did you know that October is Fair Trade Month? Me either. I’ve been looking into Fair Trade more lately, and since it’s the month and all, I thought I’d share in case you are interested. Mostly I’ll give you some links to learn more, and also to do some shopping, because, well, shopping is fun, especially when you are supporting people in the process!

At Oxfam they have some great information on what Fair Trade is and their Make Trade Fair campaign.

As always, I bring you Wikipedia's Fair Trade info.

Some places to check out...

Global Mamas They have clothes for the whole family, with accessories and stuff for the home.

Sweatshop Free Sneakers. Always a good thing.

There is lots of great fair trade coffee available. Peace Coffee is a Minnesota based company that makes some kick butt coffee.

Check out People Tree for more great clothes.

Finally, Respect, a fair trade sports blog. Of course. :)

Now I said I’d say a little about the holiday that celebrates the end of the month of Ramadan (see the last entry for some Ramadan info if you missed it). Because Islamic months are lunar, no one knows until the holiday has almost arrived, because they have to watch the moon and see. For example, this year we knew Sunday/ Monday-ish that the holiday would be Tuesday.

As with many Moroccan holidays, the focus is on spending time with family. In our part of the country, many of the men leave to the larger cities throughout parts of the year to earn money, and holidays are fun because as many people as are able come home to celebrate.

On the morning of this particular holiday (And maybe others? This is the first one we’ve really celebrated here!) people walk around town and knock on doors to say congrats to each other. The kids wear new clothes, and have a great time running all over town to say hi. We didn’t observe too much other out of the ordinary stuff as far as celebrating goes, but, like others we spent time with our (host) family, and enjoyed having people around we don’t get to see too much of!

That’s about all about that. :) Mike and I have been working lately on our (required) Water Resource Guide for our area. We need to become experts (just by talking to all the current local experts) on what the water situation is in our area. For example, how many water towers (although they are usually on mountains, not towers, in our area) there are and how many people are served by each, and how they are fed, and if there are people without access to public water, etc. We are compiling this info both for use locally and for the government ministry in charge of such things. For example if we were to notice some particular need, our community can use that information to rally the people to solve it, or to apply for a grant, or maybe even just hold some sort of training. The ministry can use the information from all the volunteers to see how things are moving towards their goals.

We’ll write more soon, and Happy Halloween!

Ramadan!

2006-10-25T04:20:00.000-07:00

So, finally! Here is the scoop on Ramadan. Definitely not the whole scoop, because Mike and I are far from qualified to deliver that, but we can give you our perspective. As always, we can’t speak for a whole religion or even a whole country when it comes to traditions and beliefs around Ramadan, but we can give you our take on what life is like for those in our villages this time of year!

What is Ramadan? Let’s see if I can find a good source here…. okay, here, from Wikipedia, Ramadan is "is the ninth month of the Islamic (Hijri) calendar, established in the year 638. It is considered the most venerated, blessed and spiritually-beneficial month of the Islamic year. Prayers, fasting, charity, and self-accountability are especially stressed at this time; religious observances associated with Ramadan are kept throughout the month."

The Islamic calendar is lunar, and moves forward on our calendar about 10 or 11 days each year. Holidays then move a little bit each year, and this year Ramadan began September 24th and yesterday was the holiday that celebrates the end of Ramadan (I'll come back to that...).

Okay, so onto how people live out the ideas from the definition above. Fasting, which is abstaining from both food and water, is observed during daylight hours. People eat a pre-dawn meal, at this time of year around 4 am, and try and stock up on energy and water to last them through the day. Fasting is observed until sundown, right now around 6:15, where people eat a fast breaking meal, usually consisting of Harira, a Moroccan soup, called Harira, is served, and various breads and sweets. Dates and juices are also typical of this meal. Moroccan tea is, of course, present, and people will make a type of coffee, a little bit of instant coffee mixed with a much larger portion of sweetened milk, sometimes as well. Depending on the economic level or tradition of the family, some will eat their regular dinner meal around 10 or 10:30. Staying up later is normal during Ramadan, and some people may stay up until their pre-dawn meal, and then sleep.

Fasting is a requirement in Islam, so everyone participates, although there are exceptions for those who are sick, pregnant, nursing, or traveling, among others. Fasting is also not just from food or water. Participants are to refrain from things like smoking, intercourse, and gossip, and in general are to be more mindful of their behavior and the influences around them ("bad" movies, music, etc.)

This is just a very brief sketch of the month (I didn't even really touch on the charitable aspects of Ramadan!!), so please let us know if you have questions, and here are some great resources if you want to investigate further.

Wikipedia Ramadan Article

An Idiot's Guide to Ramadan, BBC

Sawm: Fasting the Month of Ramadan

I do want to tell a quick story though that does touch on both the kindness of Moroccans, and Ramadan charitableness. :)

I was traveling a couple of days ago, and was close to the end of about a 4 hour taxi ride. We were only about 20 or so minutes outside of Tata, but it was time to break the fast, and the taxi occupants decided not to wait until we got to town. The problem was we were driving through lots of little villages, and there were no cafes to be seen for travellers to stop at. One of the riders spotted a door open to a tiny hanut, and we quickly pulled over to buy some water and yogurt...not as good as a meal at home for my taxi mate guys, but... so I wander into the hanut, definately searching for some water, and one of my fellow taxi riders insists on buying both of us yogurt and muffins. As a woman traveler in Morocco, we have to be aware of people with wrong intentions, but there was not a bit of that in his face, he was just doing a kind thing. That is cool enough, but as we were sitting and breaking the fast, men and women from the surrounding houses kept showing up with bowls of soup or dates or cookies... even tea. We had an impromptu feast! It was that much cooler because no one was surprised, or making a big deal out of it, on the giving or receiving end. There was appreciation for sure, but it was accepted that this is just how it is -- it's just part of the culture to take care of each other and make you feel at home even in the middle of a strange douar.

Anyway, just one of those Peace Corps moments... :)

Yesterday we celebrated Eid L'ftur, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, so I'll write about that next time!

2006-10-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hey!

So, here are some random pictures, and I promise to have some Ramadan info soon. I had an informative entry about 1/2 written, and managed to delete it...don't ask. :)

This is a cute camel pic Mike took one evening.

This one defies description. :)

A little Jack update. :) He's doing well, and pitching in helping Mike sort through some donated soccer shorts and jerseys.

And here's a Huffman family pic. :)

Will write more soon!

Smelly times are upon us

2006-09-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

Hey there, it’s been a while since I last entertained you with my informative and enlightening point of view from morocco. For any of you out there who think that PCVs don’t work, or are just lazy bums freeloading on government money, I am writing this today to let you know that that is not the case. Those of you who have read previous posts of mine may think that we have dropped the ball on one of our most important tasks here and again, I can assure you, that is not the case. We initially had a great deal of success doing our field research followed by what can only be called a ‘dry’ spell that I know most volunteers in Morocco experience during the summer months when so many local people intelligently head for the beaches in an attempt to avoid the scorching summer sun.

Nonetheless, after scouring store after store, I have recently been encouraged to once again ramp up my exploration. Within the last couple weeks I have come across two magnificent new products that I think could really be popular if they were marketed correctly. First, there is the delicious smell of Nana. Why should a scent of this magnitude just be limited to nursing homes and our favorite granny’s house. Imagine: you are a family of four and you’ve just picked your kids up from their favorite grandparents’ house. They don’t want to leave. Their bawling their eyes out and nothing you do is working. Then you remember you just purchased Nana and begin spritzing the minivan. Instantly, the children are silenced, reliving their weekend of spoiling. Of course this is only one of any number of uses for this fine Eau d’ Toilette.

The next will certainly have a very specific market base, but with a little luck, it too can be expanded, bringing profits to all who invest. The name: Springer. I know what your thinking, “Of course, the smell of that favorite dog of the bourgeoisie, the springer spaniel.” But I feel the makers were going for a much different appeal, thus, I propose the Jerry Springer angle. Sure it’s a worthless show about all sorts of nothing, but we, the American people love our worthless shows all about nothing. Do you really want me to start naming them off? No, I didn’t think so. One, because it would take forever. Two, you know there would be one in the list that you watch!!!

Okay so enough about work! Yesterday around 11 or so the power went out. Not a completely strange occurrence, so I thought nothing of it. A few hours later however I decided that I would just check to see if other houses did in fact have their power out as well. Since our fuse box is only accessible from other part of the house where no one lives, I have no way of checking if it was just a fuse or something along those lines. Well, am walking around and lo and behold I hear a TV. Oh no. I have to go find the landlord and get into the house and possibly even buy a fuse and I don’t know if they sell them in town or if I’ll have to make the trek to centre for it. I find the landlord and we walk back. We call (by call I mean find him in his car on his way out of town) the local electrician to also come take a look. He opens the fuse box and flips the switch. Nothing. Great, larger problems than I thought. We go outside and… turns out… the meter reader man took my meter!! Fantastic, I’m thinking at this point. Simply disconnected it from the house. Most likely because no one had bothered to pay the bill for a while, which our landlord said he was going to bring to me but hadn’t yet. So this is quite the predicament. Well, no worries. Our local electrician was already on it. Back to his house, he grabbed an open ended extension cord and hooked me back up via our nice neighbor’s light switch in his courtyard. Powered up in no time at all. All we need now is our own meter back because this morning our landlord came back and quick disconnected it giving me instructions that if anybody came asking I was to say that I didn’t need anything. HMMM, something smells fishy besides our cat’s delicious sardine feast.

This just shows what is great and not so great about life in Morocco. In spite and as a result of all this, we are doing well.

2006-09-17T04:49:00.000-07:00

September is flying by, just like August did. The new group of Morocco trainees arrived this last week (Welcome to Morocco guys!), so we are no longer the newest kids here. The new group is half Small Business Development and half Youth Development. It’s fun for us to think back (not that far ago…) and remember what we were thinking and feeling when we got here. We haven’t been here for very long…but we’ve come a long way and done a lot of learning.

This past week, I (Jana) participated in a training for the Volunteer Support Network. It is a volunteer run group that is, well, exactly what it sounds like! :) Whoever is interested can sign up to go to the training, where you learn about issues that volunteers typically deal with, the “cycle” of volunteer life (there is a certain pattern of ups and downs that has been documented that most of us go through during our service), and a basic outline of a counseling session. We are obviously not professionals after this weekend, but we are able to do some kick-butt listening, and hopefully lead a volunteer through the steps to devise their own solution to their problem (if necessary – sometimes they just need someone to listen!). What we were learning was really interesting, and it’s a good feeling to know that you are prepared to help someone out if they need it. Our names now will go on a list of trained volunteers that people can call or e-mail if they want to talk, and we can assist in future trainings, if needed.

So, what else do we do here besides play with the cat and make tea? Our jobs right now (for the first few months or so…) are to learn the language, get to know the community, and start thinking about and planning for the work we’d like to do here. We learn oodles of stuff in training, but it’s only when we get to our community that we see what of all we learned will be useful and relevant. So, we’ve been here for a bit, and here is some of the stuff we are thinking about….of course, all of it is dependent upon whether there is interest in the community and various community members coming forward to get involved, etc. We always have to remember not to get too far ahead and excited about our own ideas that we just go ahead with them on our own. Our job is to bring new perspective, and find and bring together people and resources in the community to make things happen. We aren’t really the do-ers – we should be facilitators or co-trainers, etc. It is a tougher role, and takes longer, but leaves the community in a richer place than if we just did it ourselves… Anyways, back to the ideas…

1. Traditional Birth Attendant Training – Many of the women in our area, whether due to finances, distance to the hospital, or tradition, give birth at home, assisted by women in the community who are known to assist with birth, but generally have no formal training. PCV’s have done trainings going over things such as good hygiene practices, when to refer women to the hospital, HIV/AIDS, etc.

2. Men’s and Women’s Health Talks – Many of the issues in health are things that this culture would not be comfortable talking about in mixed gender groups. We are considering ways to meet, perhaps with women’s craft groups or the men’s associations to do health talks that could be about one issue, or perhaps cover a range of isssues.

3. Teaching Health in Schools – Many volunteers have done this and been really successful! Teaching health to kids is a great way to get the whole family involved, get to know your community, impact the future – good stuff. :)

4. Health lessons to those waiting at the local health clinic

5. Painting Murals – Another classic PCV activity. It’s a great way to leave a lasting health message, but also get people from the community involved in planning and creating!

This isn’t everything we’re thinking of, but we wanted to say a little bit about our work, since it is starting to get off the ground a little. We know that this is a lot of ideas, but also know that a lot of things will fall by the wayside. Some things may be fine ideas, but there isn’t community interest. There may be things that we think are great, but are misguided and won’t work for this community. Some things it just isn’t the right time for… so, we’re going with the have a lot of ideas and see what pans out approach.
:)

That’s all for now! Ramadan is coming though… September 24th…. stay tuned…

Answers, Stuff from Mike, and More Tea

2006-09-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

Hi! Jana here. I realized that I am terrible at answering the questions that people ask in comments, and so I am going to be better at answering them! Here is some from the last entry.

About Jack...

"Will he be a house cat, or is there even such a thing in Morocco?"
Jack will be a housecat. Most cats here are not, they roam and I think probably have a few family's that are "home" where they get a little food. They are not generally mistreated, but tend to be a little skinny. Jack is not going to roam, but his house involves a courtyard where he can be outside, and at night hunt grasshoppers that are attracted to the light, so, he gets the best of both worlds I think. Staying away from other cats and the stray dogs around is safer for his little self, and keeps the fleas away!

"Is there any place to get drops for his eyes?" "Did you have to take him to the vet for his crusty eyes?"

Due to dust and flies, etc. eye concerns in people are pretty common here (the not very friendly trachoma used to be a big problem in our area, but due to a concentrated campaign to eradicate it, it is on the decline). Anyway, because of that eye cream is everywhere, and the doctor at the sbitar recommended using a little of that. I bought some last week, but his eyes, with some cleaning in the am and pm, are now non-crusty and the redness is gone... hopefully for good! I'm a little afraid to use human strength medicine on him, but don't think there is a pet pharmacy around...

What kind of food do you feed him?

Right now we are feeding him rice and tuna, eggs, bits of the meat we eat...whatever we have handy. I'm doing some internet research on kitten nutrition to try and make sure we are doing alright, but most of the sites talk about which manufactured food to purchase! Any advice here would be appreciated, if you happen to know something we should know.

About Tea...

Is there mainly one kind of tea sold in your area, or do they have many varieties like we do here?

Tea sold here is Gunpowder green tea. Check out that link for good info. That is pretty much all that is used. In a trip to a bigger city that has a bigger supermarkety store, you can find herbal tea and "regular" tea bags.

Alright :) I'm going to finish up this tea business, and then Mike will finish up.

So, we just finished rinsing. Next step is just to pour out your rinse water into one of your cups, and then discard of the rinse water if you need the cup (depending on how many people you have) and clean it out.

Fill the teapot about 2/3 full with water, and put it back on the buta.

This is about what the tea looks like when it is done...about when it comes to a boil.

There are two words for sugar. One for sugar that comes in a cone shape, and one for granulated sugar you use for baking, etc. Cone sugar is what you use for tea, but you have to break it up into chunks first. A lot of people in our area, including us, just find a rock...

And then use it sort of like this to break up the cone.

This is about how much sugar is in a typical pot in our area. Yes, it is sweet :)

So, after putting in the sugar, the way to melt and mix up the sugar is to pour tea into the glasses and then pour the glasses back into the pot. It also helps to cool it down a little. Everyone I've seen pour tea here can do the really tall pour -- here is Michael doing a darn good demonstration...

When you have poured the tea in several of the glasses and back into the pot, you taste it to make sure it's alright (meaning, does it have enough sugar?) and then pour out your glasses. More bubbles (from a tall pour) are better, and you only pour about 1/2 a glass full.

Here is the man behind the tea. :) Now, enjoy tea, and the way we do it here is to add more water to the pot and put it back on the burner and make a second, and maybe third, pot, all with lots of good conversation and such.

Okay, enough from me. :)

Here's Mike --

It’s been a crazy month for Jana and I and I don’t really even know where to begin. We are beginning to feel settled into the community a little, and even more so into our own house. We are starting to get a routine, but maintaining the motivation to continue working on things wanes at time when the temperature makes sleeping at night a tough task, and makes everything almost too hot to touch including walls, and the ground. Our little Jack has taken to sleeping in the bathroom because we usually take a couple showers in there, keeping the ground cooler. At first he thought it would be good to lay on the squat plate itself, but luckily a bath later, and a cover for the squat plate, and he sticks to the floor now. I haven’t yet given him a full blown shower but I have been getting my hands wet and wiping him and he seems to like that. I have never seen a cat pant so much. Anyways, we do have actual work and lives outside of the cat so I will move on.

This month has moved as quickly as we expected as we went to a SIDA, (French acronym for AIDS) training that was led by a volunteer who is about to finish up her service her in December. It was really a great opportunity to meet her and get her perspective on life here, the challenges and perspectives, but mostly techniques for overcoming those challenges. She commented that she appreciates Morocco because everything is a challenge, nothing and I mean nothing, is easy. Transportation is probably consistently the most difficult and frustrating because we have to use it but it is so unpredictable. For example, when we were trying to return from our SIDA training, we went to the bus station to ask when the bus would be there because we knew it only returned every other day. We were assured by someone who we thought worked there, or at least answered like he knew that yes, Monday the bus would be at the station and leave at 9. Perfect, that would get us home at a good hour. We show up and another guy washing buses says, oho… no bus here today -- it was here yesterday though and should be coming tomorrow. So we rushed to get a taxi to a different place about an hour and half away only to miss that bus at 10 by about 15 minutes. There was a taxi going to tata but it only had one spot, and of course we are two. We had to wait from 10:15 am until 4 pm when last bus arrived. It was packed, and we had to stand for the entire 5 or so hours it took for us to get home. That is was I call excruciatingly frustrating. But we rode home standing next to the sister of one of the ladies who works in our clinic as a cleaning/assistant type person. We had a nice chat and only the next day did we find out who she was. The point? None except to say I have yet to appreciate frustration, anger, and disappointment like our friend Lo has learned and to realize that while those things are challenges, if we overcome them, they are the things that mold us and make us the people we are supposed to be either by teaching us patience, love, or understanding or another life lesson.

Making Moroccan Tea -- a Tutorial

2006-08-26T02:54:00.000-07:00

But first, you have to meet Jack. :)

So, he's not very good yet at posing for the camera. Here's another try...with Mike looking a litte crazy :)

Mike has never been a cat guy. When I volunteered at Feline Rescue, he was glad I had somewhere to get a cat fix, but was always glad there was a reason not to get a cat (landlord rules, leaving for PC, etc.). He, sort of, though, came around when the cat that hung out at our host family's house took a shine to him. All of the sudden, he was a man who wanted a cat. No arguments here, but there isn't really somewhere to just go get a cat here, so we didn't have any plans...

(I should say quick that the decision to get a pet in Peace Corps is kind of a tricky one...from how your community will view American-style pethood, what to do about nuetering and vaccinations in a place where those things are not normally done, but still important, what happens when the volunteer leaves -- does the pet come home, or stay with the host community and adapt to a very different life? We haven't answered these all yet...)

We went to the sbitar (local health clinic where we work) last Monday, and it was quiet. Mike and I were sitting and talking to the doctor and assistant who work there and in the middle of saying something I am startled by a giant meow. because I hadn't even seen the tiny little thing that made it before it talked!

He was oh so skinny and his eyes were a lot crusty and he sort of toppled over when he walked... we asked whose he was and where he came from. They said he had been there with his mom and siblings (who they said were "very pretty, not like this one...") but they'd moved on...so, there he was, little orphan Jack.

I think we were both thinking, gee, we want a cat, and here is one that no one wants... but he is a little, well, sickly looking... but, we're suckers for an underdog...undercat? So, we borrowed a box from the clinic and took him home for a bath and some food.

You can see he's making himself at home. :)

He's been exploring and finding the coolest places in the house to chill, and, I was home alone so I don't have a picture, but I bet it looked hilarious...I was laying forward, leaning on my elbows, watching a movie and he crawled up my back and onto my head. He just sat there for a while, but then started attacking the bun in my hair. :) Needless to say he's keeping us entertained, and me company while Mike is traveling this weekend to P.C. headquarters for the quarterly Volunteer Advisory Council meeting (I think we wrote that our training group elected Mike to represent us -- bringing ideas/issues to Administrative staff?)

So, that is our new baby, Jack. :)

On to tea!

The first thing to say, is that I said this was a "Moroccan" Tea tutorial...which it is, but specifically our area of the country. The love of tea is country-wide, but this particular process, the way I understand it, is sort of a Saharan thing.

Here goes:

First, you heat up your water in the kettle. Most people do it on one of these little buta tanks -- it's good for making tea wherever you happen to be sitting!

Next, pour the tea into your hand to measure...about a handful.

Here is what the tea looks like.

So you pour your tea into the pot, and then add some water from your kettle -- just a little -- and then swish it around to rinse it.

Oh, forgot we had a picture of that. Here is Mike rinsing...

We are just getting to the good part and I am so, very, out of time. Sorry, I'll finish next week! Have a good one!

House continued!

2006-08-17T03:29:00.000-07:00

Alright :) More pictures. These are the stairs up to our roof...

Here's a sort of fuzzy shot from the roof. We'll have more of these as life goes on, I'm sure.

Of course :) we have to have a bathroom shot...

Here's the view from one direction in our bedroom, including our bed and the mosquito net all bunched up in the back. If you look too, you can see that our bedside tables are, um, luggage. :) So far we have slept mostly outside in the courtyard though -- it is a lot cooler!

Here is Michael showing off our dresser. :) Michael dreamed it up and ordered it from a shop here in our bigger town. Hooray for finally unpacking out suitcases!!
We'll have some more pictures later, as we settle in and make it look more homey.

We were honored to be mentioned in AIDS Combat Zone's post International Carnival of the Pozitivities, number 2 (to check out what the Int. Carnival of the Poz. is go here). Brad and Faith have a great website, with links to tons of resources. In addition, Brad and his wife Whitney are applying to Peace Corps, and are blogging the experience at Life is Calling.

We'll write more soon!

Pictures of the house

2006-08-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

in the entryway...

one view of the courtyard...

a second view...

the kitchen...

okay. so it is hot here. sometimes we get a little crazy :)

An important new purchase last week...we had to search for these fabulous mugs. Worth the wait!

this is our sitting room...

and our Moroccan tea set. time is short at the internet cafe this week, but we will try and show and tell you how it all works soon.

hmmmm...blogger has decided to stop uploading pictures :(

i will put more up next week, along with what we have been up to lately! have a good week!

Oops!

2006-08-03T04:10:00.000-07:00

I forgot to put these pictures up with last week's blog entry from Mike...

The "Survivor" Pigeon

The Pigeon House

Mike in Moroccan gear...he likes having his picture taken, can you tell?

We moved! We settled in for about a day and we are off this weekend to meet up with some other volunteers for an HIV/AIDS mini-training session. We'll post house pictures as soon as we can though!

How cool is this?

2006-07-27T03:00:00.000-07:00

From dear old mini apple... the Mother Bear Project.

More from Mike

2006-07-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well we are definitely on the back end of our 2 month stay, and it is a time to reflect on what we have learned and the many things we still need to try to get our head around. During the past month and a half we have, on occasion, had to catch a few pigeons that live with us and throw them into the homemade house that is above the entrance to our house. The logic of putting birds that have no regard for where they “go” directly above the entryway has evaded me thus far. Regardless, about 2 weeks ago the local troublemaker cat snatched one of these birds because we didn’t throw some of them up in the house. Well, this week he came back and ate 2 birds in 2 nights. It was beginning to feel a bit like survivor, sure a slightly more gruesome version, but still they were dropping like flies, (actually the flies seem to be multiplying here) to where there is only one lonely bird left. I haven’t told him yet but there is not really much of a prize for being last one in the house, just the knowledge that he’ll be extra plump when the cat does eat him, and he will get him!
Growing up in the rainforest of the Philippines I always loved the rains we had there. They would usually come in the afternoon, while we were taking our afternoon nap. The noise it made on our tin roof is a sound I will always remember. After living here for a month and a half, we have had only one real rain and 3 other sprinkles. The effect these have on the temperature is amazing. There is almost always a breeze here for which I am grateful, however, when it is really hot here, it feels like you are sticking your face in an oven that just cooked thanksgiving turkey The few times it has rained, the temperature drops to a much more bearable degree. Even though there is dirt particles in the rain that makes everything feel grimy, people, including me, still go out and enjoy the cooler weather. I wrote in my journal that it feels like a big spray bottle, which by the way, I have come to love and use daily. Other volunteers have said that when it rains really hard, houses in this area sometimes crumble since they are made primarily out of clay and mud, with some cement. We haven’t seen anything close to this yet.

Okay, more from me too -- Jana here. :)

Just some lists of things!

Things we miss...

1. people, of course. we couldn't even begin to name you and all we love and miss about you! and the ability to talk to you whenever we want.
2. ice water! it was everywhere in the u.s. and we did not appreciate it! the belief here is that drinking really cold water will make you sick, so it's hard to find.
3. eddington's soup and breadsticks on a chilly day
4. chilly days :)
5. fall (okay, we haven't even missed it yet, but i LOVE fall!)
6. chipotle
7. coffee shops
8. dear old AC

things we appreciate here...
1. fruit equals dessert here. it is eaten sometimes for snacks, but mostly at the end of meals! it is just a good thing.
2. the hospitality morocco is famous for really does exist. people are so generous and open with their homes.
3. orange blossom tea... when we were up north a little during training, the orange trees were in blossom, and if you rinse them and put them in tea they taste as amazing as they smell!
4. community. if someone is sick or injured, or leaving town, or whatever, everyone goes to visit. it's cool to be a part of that!
5. public transportation and local produce are just cool things -- good for the environment and all. :) that's all we've got here baby! okay, we miss the convenience of our cars...but learning patience is a good thing too. :)
6. i've always wanted to live by some mountains, and now we do!
7. courtyards -- you are outside, but inside. :)

this is a pretty upbeat blog, and things here are generally upbeat, but as can be expected when two different cultures collide, there are some struggles too. here's a list of things are difficult here, because we want to be honest and it's part of our experience too...
1. moroccan ideas of privacy, i think mike alluded to, are pretty different. people have grown up being together all day, all the time. they sleep and eat and just plain live together! it's not a bad thing, but definately different than the states where we have our own space and personal time. our host family has been very accomodating, i think we just feel guilty when we take our personal time, because we know they don't really understand!
2. although public transportation is admirable, travel is definately a hassle!
3. relationships between men and women here are different. it was something we were aware of before we came, but navigating how to be in day to day life is a struggle. we want to be respectful of the culture we are here to be a part of, but not lose ourselves in the process. and don't get me wrong! mike's job of supporting me and knowing when to push the issue and not is just as difficult as mine -- and he's doing a rockstar job.
4. we are foreigners. most foreigners here are tourists, and are perceived as having a bit of money to spare. a couple of results of this are that we get asked for money at times and when we go to buy things, we, not always but at times, get the "foreigner" price. it doesn't always happen, and there have been a lot of positive experiences developing relationships with store owners. as we have gotten to know people in our town and the big town near us where we do our shopping, these have gotten better and better, but at times, it is just a nuisance, you know? :)
5. one last thing, not necessarily a morocco thing even, is small town life. :) we go on a walk and talk to someone, and news of what we said gets home before we do! or if we ask a silly question at the local shop, we hear about it at home... we are a novelty still and what we said was probably pretty funny...but it will be nice when we are old news. :)

that's what is going through our heads! we have been purchasing lots of things to move into our house august 1st, which has been a little stressful, but a lot of fun too. mike made the comment that it is like getting married again, because we are setting up a house from scratch, which is really true! we are hoping to get the key in the next week or so, so we can start cleaning and moving things in, so hopefully we'll have pictures soon!

Some random things...

2006-07-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

It’s been a couple of crazy weeks for us here as you can tell from the pictures last time. Alright, so crazy might be a bit of an overstatement, but we do finally have a place to live once we move out at the beginning of August. The time has gone by pretty quickly until this point but the last week and I fear the following couple might not move at the same speed. In the next couple weeks we’ll get to go on a spending spree of sorts buying up all sorts of stuff to fill our house. Some of the essentials already have been purchased. The always useful spice rack and juicer were Jana’s high priority items. Lesser items like somewhere to sleep and eat are soon to follow. I’m sure once we move in pictures will be forthcoming but there are a couple rooms and a kitchen. The landlord did take back one room he had promised us but we will survive. All the inside walls are cement covered which is the exception here but hopefully should cut down on the amount of dust we inhale.

In general it is nice to use our Arabic with people but occasionally there are people who speak English to some degree. There is one nice man who talks to us using English and most of the time can be understood, however, on a couple of occasion we have been thrown by his use of the word “needs.” An innocent word it would seem but, one time he was asking about how long we had been here and then he asked about my family. Then he asked “… and do you have needs?” Well, sure I have needs, like an air conditioner for one but I wasn’t quite following so we tried again. Eventually we got it straightened out that he was asking if I missed my family back in the states after these 4 months. I said I did a little and he just smiled and shook is head. It’s probably not the easiest for a lot of them to understand since they usually don’t leave the house unless they go to school or work somewhere else. Women usually move in with their husband’s family, sometimes into a different portion of the same house but in very close proximity.

Jana may add something too. The computer is hot on my lap and its 9:30, time to move the bedding outside so that after dinner – about 11:00- all we have to do is take our showers to cool down and then hop right into our little mosquito net, spray down the sheet with water, spray down myself with water, and then its off to air conditioned land.

I think this is how we write our names, basically the sounds translate like this and of course your reading right to left
Maik u djana hoofman
مايك و دجانا هوفمان

Hello now from jana hoofman... I'm just going to add a few random thoughts and happenings.

First, a blog has been created for the newest member of the Huffman family! Michael's brother and sister-in-law are expecting in November, so we're excited to keep up with them here!

I said I couldn't find the temperature here on the internet, so my mom the internet whiz took over. Here's the link, if you are interested,but just FYI we're in the hundreds this week...and as far as the extended forecast looks...yikes!

This link was sent, due to the heat, by a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer. :) It is vital info for us, but maybe for you too if you are ACless or just want to put off turning your's on for a little while!

Another Girl at Play is a group of women who have taken the scary step of declaring themselves "artists" and choosing it as their profession. Not only are they inspirational, they make great stuff! Jewelry...songs...books...

A couple of my favorites are Andrea Scher's Superhero Designs (check out her blog too for good pictures, good thoughts, and links to other good sites!) and and Jenny Hart's Sublime Stitching... cool girls.

One last link -- the Nata Village Blog (brought to my attention at Botsblog -- if you'd like go read why they feel this blog is so valuable!)

And it isn't that I thought the spice rack was the most important thing... we just found a cute one! Spices are bought here in bulk, so a spice rack will be very useful. :)

Stay cool!

Henna and a Haircut!

2006-07-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! We didn't bring a thermometer...and I can't find a website with a temperature...but it is starting to get REALLY hot here. We say that every day now, and the next day seems a little hotter. :) The nights have been cooling down most of the time, which is heavenly. The nights it doesn't are not fun because you wake up still sleepy and really thirsty! Us Minnesota kids are definately making an adjustment, but so far we're doing pretty well. There is usually somewhere to sit in the house where the wind is blowing and it's a little cooler -- that, and some water -- perfect. :)

Not too much is happening as far as daily life is concerned. We are talking to more people, learning things about our community little by little. We did look at a house that we could live in starting in August which was fun. It's a cute place, so now we are excited to start shopping for house things.

Mike got a haircut! Normally, not that big of a piece of news, but Mike received the first ever haircut given by ME. Brave guy! He had purchased clippers so we could shave it if something went terribly wrong, which was a strong possibility. Luckily it went pretty well, with lots of teamwork and direction from Mike. Here's the new look. Oh, and he ditched the goatee and moustache too!

Mike thought I should include this picture he took of me talking on the phone to the States from the phone booth. The cheapest way in town!

I have had henna done 3 times since I've been here by very kind people. I don't think I got any pictures up last time, but this time can't be missed. My host mom is the rockstar of henna in our town. She takes electrical tape and makes fabulous designs and then puts the henna over the tape. When the henna and tape come off, this is what we are left with:

and my feet...

okay, last one. with sandals :)

doesn't she do fabulous stuff? I'm so lucky she's my host mom, and grateful she took the time to do it! It's a process...the application of the tape, leaving it about 2 1/2 hours, and then removing it -- for both hands and both feet. All in the name of beauty :)

Mike's birthday is coming up this week! Birthdays are not celebrated much here. Some of the people in our area don't know when their birthday is, and don't know therefore their exact age. Others have it written on papers somewhere, but don't know it by heart. I think we'll just have our own quiet celebration! Happy 26th Michael :)

A List

2006-06-25T06:21:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since you all heard from me. It’s just ‘cause we don’t get to the internet café too often and we really don’t pull out the computer that often. In honor of my friend and cousin-in-law Ben, who is starting his residency, because he enjoys a good list way more than the average person, here is my first list. My first list is, of course, a list of firsts.
Since being in Morocco and moving to our permanent site I have:
- become neighbors with my first 107 camels and another 122 after the first batch disappeared by way of front end loader and large truck due to their being sick. Unfortunately none of this fine camel meat could be eaten, but instead was taken out to the desert and buried. This was a fantastic shame for all our townspeople who would have loved a succulent chunk of camel. I hear it is truly delicious, very little fat, a little watery but that’s to be expected, okay, just kidding about it being watery. I, in fact, had a plan to take a picture and include it in this post but as you can see there is no picture. There may be very few pictures coming since taking a picture involves unlocking the suitcase, unpacking some of our other locked valuables and digging out the camera, taking the pictures as inconspicuously as possible so as not to appear like the tourists who continue to propagate the notion that all white people are tourists, and as tourists we carry around ginormous backpacks full of pens which we indelibly want to, or possibly even need to hand out to any and all children whom ask. In our village there are only a few children who consistently ask for them despite the fact that most children here appear to go to school and would potentially use a new pen.
It appears my list is not so much of a list as a dull report in list form. Nonetheless I shall carry on. I have additionally:
- witnessed my first fainting. Well not so much witnessed the person fainting as seen the aftermath that ensued. Unfortunately the person was Jana, but thankfully there was no harm done except maybe to her self-esteem since it was our first day of visiting the sbitar, the local clinic, where we will be going regularly for the next few months. As she was leaving the office we were in she collapsed and a nice lady sitting in the waiting room evidently tried to catch her but all I really saw was the lady toppling over Jana and then scurrying to get up so as not to be improper. Then, of course, because I had never seen Jana faint, I freaked out a bit. All was okay and we returned to observing the nurse hard at work.
- become a volunteer in the peace corps. Yeah, there was sitting in air conditioning, swimming, and overall a feeling of excitement, exhaustion, and something that felt like quiet confidence because really unless there was something I couldn’t control I knew we would make it at least that far.
- used the door of my room to improve or rather obtain one bar of rizo (aka reception) on my cell phone. Of course this does us very little good if someone calls because if we take it off the door, we lose our bar but we do get some text messages via the special door rizo process however.
There have been other firsts for us but these are the ones that stick out for us at this time.
As we have become more familiar with Tata the town, we have made a few friends around town. Just today I met a butcher who had hosted a previous volunteer during her home stay and welcomed us to his village any time. There are still the few odd folks who like to think we’re French tourist but we usually just say hello and keep walking. We’ve been walking around trying to find out what kinds of things are offered. For example, cheese is available but Oreos are not. However, as we have been perusing the shelves one thing we have noticed is the huge selection of colognes they have. Maybe some info first. For any big occasion and sometimes for visitors it is tradition to have massive bottles of cologne that you use to douse all attendees. Sometimes if we are lucky they have two and do both at the same time, or at the very least, come around a second time to make sure the late comers get the special spray also. So carrying on, some of the flavors we have noticed are your traditional Hugo Boss’s and your less familiar Carlos Moya’s, who to my best guess is a Spanish tennis player who thinks he smells pretty good. But as you explore the deep recesses, you see some slightly less familiar brands. A couple of our favorites include One Man Show and Jet Ski For Women. When you are about to head out on the town there is nothing you want more than to have the subtle tang of jet ski fumes engulfing you, am I right ladies? As of today we remain vigilant in our search for Jet Ski For Men because I don’t think we guys should be left out when it comes to smellin’ like a jet ski. Well here is the deal. If you have seen any others that are comparable, or if you have some ideas of your own that you think would be good competition for the likes of these, go ahead and put em’ up on the blog for all to enjoy, alright?
One last thing. I was dancin’ around on Chelsea’s blog mainly because I hadn’t seen any pictures of the little bundle of new Rustad (Norah) and saw that Olivia and I share a little something. Well not so much share something, as are opposites with regard to shadows. While she was discovering shadows and actually going out of her way to avoid them, I was finding that shadows are an excellent way to keep cool when it is really, really hot. As Jana can attest, every day we walk past a building at about 9 am and every time I say, “Ah, the best 5 seconds of my day.” Well, that’s about all. Almost 2 whole pages from me. Too much I know. Oh yeah, too bad, USA aren’t as good as they thought in soccer, out of the World Cup in the first round, but yeah Ghana, on to the second round on the first try.

Note from Jana: I have NO IDEA why I fainted…how embarrassing… :) I think it was a combination of a warm room, long sleeves, and the tension/nervousness of our first day working with our new counterpart (the nurse) and meeting a lot of community members. Crazy. Luckily, so far, it has been an isolated incident!

Bye Grandpa

2006-06-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

My (Jana) Grandpa passed away last week. It’s been tough to try and say goodbye from far away, and I’m missing family big time. Just want to say I love you Grandpa – we love you – and we’ll miss you.

I promised interpretive dance...I'm not trying to lead you on, but the download process is a little more intense than I thought. I will get it up as soon as I can.

Here are some pictures from swearing in:

Your very own new Peace Corps Volunteers. :)

Here's some fellow new volunteers getting some quality time in the day we took off to our final sites and went our separate ways!

Let’s see, I said I’d say a little about our daily lives. Most homes here are built around a courtyard and there are several rooms that come off that courtyard, but aren’t connected to each other. The rooms heat up during the day and stay warm, so we usually sleep in the courtyard at night. Most homes offer mats and blankets and pillows for sitting in their living roomish areas, and they are pretty mobile, so we can sit outside or in the large entryway or wherever it is cool!

I think I may have talked about food before, but here’s some more info. For breakfast we drink tea (strong green tea with plenty of sugar), and have bread with butter or apricot preserves or cheese or olive oil and olives. Lunch is usually a local dish with potato, onion, carrots, paprika, cilantro and some other ingredients I probably don’t know about. :) Dinner can be pasta or omelette or a rice dish… Fresh fruit is the typical dessert we’ve experienced so far in Morocco, both where we trained further north, and down here in the south. Watermelons are in season and we’ve been eating TONS of it! :) Breakfast is early, lunch around 1:30 and dinner around 10 or so, so there is usually a snack sometime in the late afternoon. Tea and bread are typical fare for that.

We have settled into a routine here. Weekdays we spend the morning at the local clinic. We get to observe what sorts of things people come in for and practice our language and just see and be seen and become associated with the clinic. We’ve spent the last couple of days doing a short interview with patients as they’re being seen which has been great language practice, and we’re learning more about local health habits (teeth brushing, hand washing, etc.) We come home and eat lunch, and then usually nap a little – it’s crazy how quickly your energy gets zapped navigating in a different language and culture. After napping :) we spend some time with language or reading through and planning some of our health and technical things. Evenings in our douar are visiting time, so some evenings we’ll go with our host mom and visit others, and often others will drop by our home and sit and talk for a while. Once it starts to get dark we spend some time journaling or reading or whatever and then it’s time for dinner. Since dinner is later, usually we head to sleep right afterward. So, that’s it – our life!

We are working on getting a new address. The post office in our town is getting remodeled right now, and so we can't get a post office box...yet. The word is it will be done around the 25th of this month, but at that time we have to hope they have open boxes! Mail sent to the address above will reach us eventually -- it goes to the PC office and a staff person will bring it with them when they come by...sometime. :) We'll keep you posted... no pun intended. :)

We send lots of love to (everyone. always. but especially right now) Mom and Dad and Jevan and Garth, Mary, Ben and Krista, Tim, and Jean, Arnie, Melissa and Stephen, Dustin. We miss you and wish we could have been at what sounds like a wonderful service. (But what's this about Niagra? Troublemakers...) :) Our thoughts and prayers are also with Corny and Mervin, Frank and Lois, and Shirley and Dave.

Settling In

2006-06-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

I don't have any pictures today unfortunately. Next time, I hope, along with, if I can figure out to do it, video of our own Mike Huffman doing interpretive dance. Yup, you heard me -- you have to see it to believe it!

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind. We moved to our new home. Let me tell you, that is a crazy feeling. We've been moving between our group training site to our language community based training and gone to visit other volunteers and visited our sites, but none of that travel compared, for me, to that last taxi ride where we strapped everything we owned on top, and drove in to our community to stay!

We've been there two weeks now and things are going well. This is the awkward stage where conversations are simple and there is a lot of smiling and "I'm sorry, I don't understand" ing. We are both more tired than usual, probably a combination of heat and cultural adjustment. We were well prepared for this time by previous volunteers and our trainers, and it is doable and exciting because we know that it's worth it! We will, through this, get better, little by little, at our language, get to know who is who in our community so we can figure out what the assets are we can encourage and build upon in our work. For example, there is a group of women who gather and make beautiful rugs by hand. When they need money for supplies, they work together and cook for special events in town. This is the kind of organization, as well as some of the neighborhood association's in our area that are working on delivering trash pick-up to the area, that we want to come along side of and see where we can pitch in.

We still have so much to learn and lots of people to get to know and get to know better, but things are off to a good start. Our host family has been great at taking good care of us, from good food to introducing us to everyone they know! An important part of the culture in our village is just conversation time. People will visit family, friends, or neighbors in the late afternoon and evening and sit and have tea and talk. About what yet we are not entirely sure. :) It'll come...we hope. :)

We'll try and let you know more about daily life around us, stuff we start to take for granted, but is different than life at home. Let us know though if you have any questions!

Mike and Jana - Peace Corps Volunteers!!

2006-05-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

We did it! We signed in this morning as Peace Corps Volunteers! The ceremony and reception were nice. We'll post some pictures soon, but for now they are still on the camera. It is nice to be done with training and on to what it is we came here to do...but a little scary too!

But I'm getting ahead of myself -- last week we finished up our training in the Azilal province up in the mountains and headed off to meet up with the environmental sector that arrived with us and has been doing their training in a different area of the country. Before we left we visited the Cascades d'Ouzoud -- a beautiful waterfall in the area where we were training.

There is the falls and us at the falls (obviously) :) and Mike waving hello to everyone at home. The last one was a mill, grinding grain, that was powered by the waterfall.

One last picture. There are monkeys at the waterfall. I don't remember why...but they are so not shy, so here is a really close picture. It was as close as it seems, and after I took the picture it started walking towards me and looking at me like it wanted something I had -- I took off!

Oh, but even before that I had a couple of pictures from our trip back from our site visit. We stopped on our way home in Marrakesh. It is all about tourists, which has its pro's and con's. There are a lot of people trying to sell a lot of things, and we get just as much attention as any tourists. It is a lot of fun though to wander the covered markets of Djemaa el Fna and take in clothes and spices and pottery and huge old wooden doors that you'll never buy but are beautiful. There are juice stalls in the square and we had some fresh orange and grapefruit juice and ate breakfast at a cafe on the square. It's a giant transportation hub, so pretty much all PCV's will visit at some point, but it was still fun to experience for the first time! A couple of pictures...

So, that's what we've been up to the past couple of weeks! We leave tomorrow to start heading to our sites and begin the process of language improvement and getting to know our community. The first months are going to be quiter because our primary jobs are the ones I mentioned above. Doing that will allow us to see what the needs in our community are, get to know who the interested people are that we can partner with when we begin more structured projects, and build trust within the community because once we have that, we'll be able to talk to people about personal concerns like health and hygiene. Peace Corps doesn't have us do any projects that require funding until 6 months, when we will have "In-service Training" and learn about grants, etc. I believe part of it is that the first months really are to focus on relationship building and language, and also because our jobs really are about education and capacity-building -- helping the community members learn how to accomplish the things they feel are important -- not about being deliverers of project money. Although that can happen too if the community is interested in providing a certain percentage of the project money or work and partnering to apply for a grant.

It will be quieter as well because things are just quieter in the summer months! People cope with the heat by taking it easy during the warmest parts of the day. We've gotten some coping tips from current PCV's -- sleeping with wet hair or clothes or sheets...especially if you have a fan you can turn on the wet sheets. :) I'm sure we'll devise some of our own strategies too and we'll keep you posted!

Next time we write we'll have moved to our final site and be settling in for the long haul...well, at our host family's house for a 2 month stay and then we'll search for our own housing but -- we finally are going to live somewhere permanently! It's been fun to see a bunch of the country, but it will be nice to retire the suitcases. We'll try and post again soon!

A sore man's perspective

2006-05-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a while and I thought that rather than send out an email to all I would try this again and see how it goes. First I shall say, I am sore as can be from having played soccer three days in a row and not stretching pre or post game and I am just getting too old for all this running around. Nonetheless, it remains fun and a way to meet and talk with some of the local teens and practice my language. I just came from having a somewhat rough 15 minute conversation in a language i didn't know 2 months ago, which thankfully is getting easier and easier. Only sometimes do people look directly at me and laugh. Other volunteers have had it much worse. One for example has been told numerous times that she knows walu which means nothing. That might get discouraging after a while.

Anyways, on to the trip to Tata. As Jana mentioned, it was overall an incredible trip. We spent our first night in Agadir which is quite a tourist town. From our training site it took us pretty much all day, so we had the evening for walking around. Jana had been before but for me it was all new. That will most likely be our relaxation town when we need a break. The next day we took the long bus to our site. Silly us, it took 10 hrs whereas the direct bus will only take about 4 to 4.5 if all goes well. Of course part of the ten hrs were the one hour lunch taken by the driver and the other two 25 or so minute breaks for no real reason but to try and drum up more people to travel to the wonderful region of Tata. Slowly we are learning flexibility and adaptability. Key words in PC.

At our site we had a bit of trouble finding our family becuase our family was moving to a bigger house that day. No problem, (another key mike phrase) we eventually found them and met the whole family. there are only four, so only two children. Mohammed, who is 3 or so though, is quite a musharib, (trouble maker) so he kind of makes up for the lack of children. Elias is 10 and you hardly know he is there.
The entire village is way more friendly than I could have ever imagined. We met both our association president and the commune president that same night and both offered many times that if we needed anything they were ready and willing to help. We met with our sbitar (clinic) nurse who is our official counterpart and he seems very knowledgeable and hard working. We were able to visit our souq which is pretty close. That is the market where we will buy most of our food for the week. Oh, I nearly forgot, we will it appears have both electricity and running water in our house when we get our own place. I don't think hot showers will be an issue. There are rumors of the water in the piping being so hot during summer sometimes that you can't even touch it. I have not validated that yet. I do know it get to about 130 -140 F at times which basically sounds terrible.

Our douar (village) is just one in the commune. I believe there are 6 or so but am not sure yet. It is an oasis town with a natural spring. There are many palm trees and lizards that are about as big as my arm below my elbow, and we eat them. well, i haven't yet but i imagine i will at some point and i will like it. I imagine it is better than intestines wrapped in a thin sheet of fat. however, I have had neither yet, but there is still time.

Tata, the nearest large town seems to have all the things we would ever really need, just not some of the stuff we may want. So far, we haven't had any major cravings so those wanting to send stuff, just wait, your time will undoubtedly come. Well, this is turning into quite an entry but the last thing i wanted to write about was the tea experience. So first off, it takes about 30 minutes to have 2 3oz glasses of tea becuase it is made in a small tea pot with a very special method. first the water is heated in a kettle, then the tea is rinsed with warm water. about a cups worth of water for that. Then the water is added to the tea pot, and the tea is boiled for 5 or so minutes, then sugar is added, usually a lot of sugar, then tea is poured into everyone's cup if it is a small enough group. becuase tea in the south is super bubbly, one needs to pour from far above the glass to accomplish this. The final piece to the tea puzzle for us was my host father yelling atay saharaweed, meaning tea of the sahara. And this was every time, I started yelling it back becuase I thought maybe he thought I didn't know it but it didn't matter. We just ended up yelling it back and forth for a few times and then would laugh, 2-3 times a day. I made it once and the first batch was a little sweet. They thought it was funny to call it honey, but the second batch had mint in it and it was delicious, if i do say so myself.
well, i written quite a bit and said quite a little but in case you couldn't tell, we love our town and can't wait to get started. I know, punctuation and capitalization go much worse towards the end, the shift is a bit sticky and my energy is low, poor me, poor me.

Silly pics continued...and pics of our new home!

2006-05-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

We made it back from Tata and we LOVED it! Hooray!

But first...finishing up pics from last time...

Here's a picture of Mike up close, to balance out that picture of me really close.

Here's the promised dress picture, along with me are my host sister and brother.

And you know when somebody looks all fancy you've got to get pics with everyone... :)

Okay! So here our some pictures of our site. Driving from green mountains to dusty desert was a little scary at first. We thought the terrain might be a little...empty. The bus we were in kept getting warmer and warmer the further south we got...but when we pulled into our site and looked around -- it's really pretty!

There is a palm tree oasis, we think watered by a spring, in our site, and so that is what the green stuff coming out of the earth is here is the tops of some of the trees. Walking around inside it was cool and shady and just plain cool.

Within minutes of arriving at our site we met some of the big people in town and the next day visited the school and clinic and the village association where the local women make carpets. Everyone seemed really enthusiastic about us being there so we were excited. We just need to find out what they are so excited about and what some of the health topics the community is interested in learning about are...and get better at our language -- we're ready to get sworn in and get started!

We have only about one more week at our health only training site, and then we meet back up with the environment volunteers for a last couple days of training. We'll swear in, assuming we pass our language tests (coming up this Monday!!!), on May 22 and then head out to be real Peace Corp volunteers on the 23rd!

We're off to CBT tomorrow to finish language learning and practice, and I think from here on out time will fly even more than it already has! We'll post more info about our site in the near future!

We know!!

2006-04-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so first things first. We know. That's right. :) We can't say specifically because it's prohibited for safety and security's sake, but, on this map, locate Tata and that's our closest city! Yep, south...which means HOT! It's very much desert there and, based on the little bit of info we got, it sounds like there is some active community organizations that we'll be able to work with. That's really the most important thing and so we are excited to take off tomorrow and get a chance to go check it out in person! We'll leave tomorrow (Sunday) morning and travel Sunday and Monday, spend time meeting the officials around town and hanging out with our new host family for a few days and travel back the following Saturday and Sunday. We're excited to know, and to go, and we'll have TONS more to tell you about it when we get back!

On to the promised silly pictures. :)

There is an eye make-up that Moroccans use that stains, for a few days, some kick-butt eyelinery type stuff, called kohl, around your eyes. My host sister offered to apply some last weekend and here's how it went...

Here is the finished product!

Later that day, I got dressed up in some more Moroccan clothing. The dress is one that is used for weddings or holidays (as I understand it...). The headscarf is a Berber tradition. Bad news...slow picture loading and I have to be back in about 7 minutes. I don't know if I'll make it back before we take off tomorrow bright and early...but I'll post those pictures as soon as we get back along with lots more info about our site!

Baby Norah

2006-04-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

So we just got back and I made a bee line for the internet cafe...here's what I found:

Norah Kathryn Rustad was born Tuesday morning -- hooray!

Here's Mama and Olivia with her new baby sister. :)

Here's Papa too of course!

Tons of Congratulations to you guys and Mike and I send OODLES and OODLES of love. I can't even say how much I wish I could be there and meet her!

(All pictures here were stolen from Chelsea's blog.)

Coming soon...more pics of Jana Moroccan style...good times. :) Very funny. You don't want to miss this...

Time is moving quickly...

2006-04-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

First of all, I want to say we love you guys very much. Thank you for your comments and e-mails and letters (and Prince Valiant comics...). :) We are very lucky to have you and you totally make our day and make us laugh tons.

We're back again… we’re in our seminar site just for about 4 days and then we’re heading back to our community based training sites. Everything is happening so fast! We go back in 4 days and are there for about 6 days and then…the big moment…we’ll find out our site placement -- where we’ll be living for the next two years!!! We’ll find out the vital statistics of our community, the next day we’ll have “mid-term” language interviews, and the following day we’ll take a week and travel to our new sites and check out the situation. It is so unbelievably close and I think we’re really excited and a little nervous. More traveling and finding out exactly what we’re going to be up to during our service… :)

Our CBT was a really good experience this time-- not that it wasn’t last time! Our language is just getting better. Not good, mind you. :) Just better. We can conjugate verbs now in the present tense, so we don’t have to say, “Now, he went to the store,” (because the infinitive of verbs in Darija is he in the past tense…) instead of, “Now, we need to go to the store.” We all feel like we are learning so slowly, but when you look at where we were a week ago, or two weeks ago, it’s kind of amazing! There is something new and big to learn each day, which is sometimes overwhelming, but you get to go home and use right away which is FUN and the pace keeps us on our toes and motivated.

Here’s some pics, and we’ll keep you posted!

Here's Michael and our host brother Azdine (my spelling is a little interpretive, I only know how to write it in Arabic script...)

Here's a picture of our whole host family, except for our host grandma.

Here's an action shot of us hanging out on the patio, shelling peas, or whatever it is you call taking peas out of pea pods!

One last thing, please keep your thoughts and prayers with the Rustads because Baby Ru is coming any minute now! (I'm really excited!) Although...I'm a little behind the loop, understandably, so really...Baby Ru could be here...but keep them in your thoughts anyways please?

Oh, and remember Jevan, nobody puts Baby in a corner. :)

lots o' pics

2006-04-11T06:46:00.000-07:00

This is our CBT village on the hill.

Michael took this picture on a walk near our CBT village...not bad. :)

We had a flat tire during our taxi trip back to our seminar site. We were back on the road quickly, but had enough time to take a couple of pictures!

Today is an Islamic holiday that celebrates the birth of the Prophet, so we had a special breakfast which involved a lot of cookies and breads, and got dressed up Moroccan style... :)

Here's our CBT group (the nice way). The woman in the pink is our LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator) Amina. :)

Here's our CBT group (the old school rap way).

We're off to CBT again tomorrow! We'll try and post soon when we get back!

A quick note on modesty...

2006-04-09T06:08:00.000-07:00

Hey, there have been a couple of questions and I have learned a lot since coming on what modesty is in this culture so I thought I'd share a little tiny bit... I still am learning the boundaries a little, so don't quote me on this. :) What I have learned though is that modesty in the neckline is important, and many women who wear headcoverings (though not all here) cover their necks something like this...

(The picture is taken from wikipedia's article on "Hijab" if you'd like more info.)

However, just as important as appropriate neckline in the villages we visit or go to for CBTs is that if we are not wearing a skirt, our butts are covered. If you wear a skirt, your shirt does not need to be as long, but if you've got pants on shirts around mid-thigh are ideal.

The women in our group will not generally be expected to wear traditional local clothing for women, but to integrate into our communities we will definately need to be respectful of them. There is certain leeway allowed to foreigners, but if you push that too far, people may make certain assumptions about you that could make it difficult to have sufficient credibility to do your work in your community. The other concern you may run into if you are not respectful of the norms is that people look at you as being more liberal...and you are potentially open to more harassment from men. Again, it just depends on the area. Harassment is, though, generally more of a big city thing (where there are more tourists) than a small town thing.

The volunteer I visited on my field trip, just for examples sake, initially wore the traditional dress of the women in the area (like what I had on in the picture). But, it was a bit restrictive, and the shoes that go with it made walking around to talk to the community a bit harder. She downgraded to a headscarf. Over time she began to wear a sunhat (to be respectful of the headcovering norm in her area) and she wears long sleeve shirts and pants and integrates fine. It all depends, though, on your community as far as how conservative they are and what they'll expect from you!

I didn't bring any shirts that are long enough to wear with pants, but luckily did bring plenty of skirts. In the "big town" where we are staying for our seminar site, we can do long sleeve shirts and "shorter" shirts and generally be okay. I need to ask though, if I work a long scarf tied around my waist with pants, if that would make them more acceptable, or if I should invest in some longer shirts.... still so much to learn!

We made it!

2006-04-07T11:27:00.000-07:00

We survived our first “Community Based Training.” More than survived, we really enjoyed it. :)

Here’s how it works…we split up into groups of 5 or 6, and each group has a Moroccan staff person called a Language and Culture Facilitator (LCF). We spend our days doing lots and lots of language learning and practice, as well as training on the work we’ll be doing …right now mostly the vocabulary we’ll need and how to familiarize ourselves with the resources in our community. We also have some cultural discussions about what we’re experiencing and things like non-verbal communication…what gestures we’re seeing mean (and which ones not to accidentally make!) In the evenings we stay with host families and experience daily life in Morocco and have lots of opportunities to practice our language. We learned more about laundry Moroccan style and a lot about food traditions and family. Our family was VERY nice. They had hosted a volunteer two years ago and so they knew how to utilize non-verbal communication to be very hospitable. There are 2 parents, a daughter around our age, and a 10 year old son, as well as a grandma and a young woman who is staying with the family because her family lives far from the secondary school she attends.
Some things we are learning about Moroccan culture: Moroccans drink oodles of tea. Mostly mint tea. We did have some amazing orange blossom tea, made from orange trees growing in the area. You just pick the blossoms and wash them and add them to the tea…wow. :) (We learned tea-making Moroccan style in our training because it is a vital skill in these parts!) Couscous is usually made on Fridays. Moroccans eat it with their hands, as they do much of their food. Most food is dipped from a communal dish with bread. Couscous, though, is made into little balls and then popped into your mouth. I attempted this for the first time this past Sunday and it’s a little messy for a novice like me, but fun. Evening meals are generally later than most of us are used to. Depending on the family they are between about 8:30 and 10ish. Religion is essential to daily life in Morocco. From greetings to compliments to hearing the prayer calls from the Mosque 5 times a day to how it influences ideas of appropriate dress, it is integral. That was a wee bit random, but we’re learning so much each day, it’s hard to even realize all of what we’re absorbing…definitely let us know if you have questions about something!
The week passed quickly. We had “school” from 8 to 5:30 or 6 and then spent the nights studying and playing soccer or watching TV with our families. We had Sunday off from school and spent the day with the family. The larger towns in the area have a market day each week, called the souq, where all the meat and vegetable and clothes and teapot and spice and other vendors bring their goods and people come from a large area to stock up for the week. Sunday was our town’s so we went in the morning with the father and kids from our family, because going to the souq falls usually within the man’s duties. Our town is on a mountainside which leads down to a river, so we spent the evening walking down to the river and around the area and it was BEAUTIFUL!
Now we’re “home” in our seminar site, doing some more training in our big group. We will go back for our next CBT phase next Wednesday. I am going to sign off and go make some flashcards now, but I'll try and post again soon!

A couple more pics!

2006-03-29T06:16:00.000-08:00

Here's a silly beach shot...rough life. :)

On market day in the volunteer's village we went to visit -- her front yard turns into the local parking lot!

here's me in traditional dress :)

We'll write more once we get back from CBT!

Home Sweet Hotel...

2006-03-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

Hey! We’re back!

First, the news. Before we left, we learned we’ll be learning Moroccan Arabic, or Darija, as opposed to one of two regional Berber dialects. There are pros and cons to all of the language assignments, but we’re excited about learning the language that is spoken throughout Morocco (along with French in more urban areas). Many times when people learn a Berber dialect, they also learn some Darija to assist in travelling, etc. so they get the benefit of picking up a couple of languages! We’re excited about our assignment though and ready to get to intense language learning.

We found out about our language assignments, and based on our languages, went to visit a current health volunteer who worked in a site utilizing that language. We left Sunday and got back this past Saturday. It was great to see more of Morocco! They broke us into pairs to travel, and Michael and I went to see different volunteers (which we were open to to get the advantage of two perspectives). I ended up heading to a site south of Agadir, and Michael went to a site near Essaouira….so we both spent the night on Sunday night in beach towns before travelling on. My group waded in the ocean and watched the sun go down and I remember saying, “Wow…this Peace Corps gig is rough!” But, the next day it was on to reality. ;)

My pair spent the week with our volunteer and she introduced us to resources around town at the health clinic, local government, school, and more and helped us to get a feel for what the structure was like and who we could potentially help or look to for information and assistance. It was VERY valuable! We also spent two nights with host families in the area and boy, oh boy was that nerve-wracking. We have so little language yet and here we were going to spend multiple hours with a family – let alone worrying about making a cultural mistake and offending someone. Our worries were groundless because our families were so kind and very generous. My travelling partner and I had different experiences in terms of activities, but we both really enjoyed the family’s willingness to share their language and daily lives with us. I experienced some Moroccan dancing lessons, my first real family meals, where they think you are being shy about eating, so if you stop they encourage you with choruses of “Kuli! Kuli!” (Eat! Eat!), and being dressed up in the traditional women’s dress of the area.

We were escorted down by Peace Corps staff and our volunteer, and once our week was over we were to travel back alone --- help! We were a little nervous, but we got good instructions from our volunteer and it was very empowering to make it! To realize what you can do and communicate, even with just a little language was cool, and we know it will only get easier from here the more we learn! It was a confidence builder for sure and just plain fun to have an adventure.

Here’s some pictures from the week…

Our first ever camel head...

Cacti were EVERYWHERE in the site we visited. So much so that Oxfam came and set up a cooperative for the women to make jam from the fruit, as well as pickled cactus leaves and date jam.

We were lucky enough to have henna done by one of the host families. Here is a picture of them hard at work!

This computer is only choosing to upload some of my pictures, so just one more. This is the traditional dress of the women in the village we visited!

Okay, so now I've tried two computers and it still isn't working!! I'll try and stop back at the internet cafe before we take off on Thursday and put up the last couple of pictures...

This week we are learning some technical aspects of our jobs here, and Thursday afternoon we’re off again! We are going to our Community Based Training sites, where there are 5 or 6 of us in a small town, and we live with separate families in the evenings and overnight, and meet together during the day for language training and with our Language and Cultural Facilitator. We also do some survival training and learn more about community life and how we’ll go about working with people to do our health projects. We found out some info about our host family yesterday, and in addition to the Mom and Dad, there is a 25 year old daughter, a 10 year old son, and a grandmother. Word on the street is that they are a really nice family, and we’re pretty excited (though a little nervous!). We sort of bop back and forth for much of the rest of training between here (our seminar site where we are all together) and CBT, until, I think the last couple of weeks where we’ll meet up with the environment kids and do some last training before we swear-in as real volunteers!!

One more thing, a HUGE congratulations to Stephanie and Chad King, who got married on the 18th. Woo hoo!

Jana :)

Well hello hello all,

First the important stuff. I am in mourning for my Golden Gopher Men’s hockey team who plummeted out of the NCAA tournament and my favourite Liverpool Football Club who failed to repeat as Champions of European football’s top championship. Probably about 2 people care who may be reading this but oh well, it is my blog, and you don’t have to read it.

Nonetheless, we were gone the past week and I also had a “site seeing” experience on the ocean. It was lovely. The toughest part was definitely tearing the little heads off the shrimp that we had to eat when we got to Essa. There were three PCT’s and our Volunteer so we were a good crew, filling up grand taxis quickly and bringing the fun with us wherever we went. We had a makeup session, guys included, well, except for me cause I’m a coward and didn’t want a little coal stick jabbed in my eyes but my pal houman did and I think he looks pretty good, don’t you,

We did all the work stuff but that isn’t too fun but we did teach a lesson IN DARIJA!!! We weren’t that great but the nice nurse helped explain and translate for us. Hey I’m pretty proud that we even tried after 1.5 days of official language training. My lesson was on the D’s and the importance of clean water and hand washing for preventing said D’s.

I spent a night with a “family” that turned out to be a single dude of 26 and his cousin who was helping him with building on to his house. We ate 2 meals of bread and argon which is pretty special here but isn’t my favorite yet. In the A.M I did get up early and assist in taking the donkey’s out to pasture if you will. (Jana thought this meant I killed him, which I by no means did) Then I got recruited for a couple of wheelbarrow loads of sand moving for their project. It was okay but I haven’t worked so hard in ohh, like 4 weeks. All I’ve been doing here is getting up, eating breakfast then class then eating snack, then class, then lunch, then class, then snack, then class, then personal reading time or football then eating. I can’t complain since it is totally sweet food but it’s probably not healthy for my heart.

Like jana said we are going to be going to a great house with HOT showers we can use like 2 times a week!!! I really don’t mind cold bucket showers since it is nice and toasty in the middle of the day when I try to take them but warm showers are totally worth bragging about to the other people in my group since none of the rest of them have them. HA!

I noticed I have been using a ton of exclamations and caps and that is not my style normally but it is me, just a little bit more exuberant than normal. My week apart from my lovely wife made me appreciate her more than I imagined and I am so glad to have someone here to share all this with. It will make it so many times easier I think in every aspect like integrating into the community because we will have access to both men and women where if we were single we would be limited by our gender. Obviously to have each other to lean on and bounce ideas off of will be pretty neat too. I know there will be tough times but I also know we’ll be okay.

Well this is a lot of writing for us and a ton of reading for all ya’ll. Thanks for checkin’ in.

Michael

Learning...

2006-03-15T10:53:00.000-08:00

Hey!

Here’s update number two from our Pre-Service Training. Things are moving right along…we started learning Arabic script yesterday. It’s complicated, there are approximately 28 letters (depending on how you count), but letters have different forms for when they stand alone, when they are the initial letter, middle letter, or end letter in a word… here’s a little sample of some flashcards to see what it looks like.

Here are some pictures of the countryside during our drive the other day to our current location…

Loading them is a little slow, so I'm sorry there isn't more!

We also did our first load of laundry by hand. The women that are our fabulous, fabulous chefs for training were doing their laundry when we arrived. We were obviously newcomers to the whole affair, so they taught us, through demonstration rather than words because we don’t have too many words in common yet… They were VERY kind. They showed us how to use our soap and how much water to use, and then how to squish the clothes around and finally scrub them all up on the washboard. Here’s some pictures of Michael in action first rinsing and then presenting his newly clean clothes.

One last picture. This is the view of the mountains near us from one of the hills in town.

Two more days until we find out the language we’ll be learning and speaking for our service. We’re excited to get started with that. Then Friday or Saturday we take off for our “field trip” to visit a current health volunteer and see what life is like! All this to say we may have a little gap in blogging, but hopefully we’ll have lots to say when we get back!

We're in Morocco!

2006-03-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

I don't even know where to start. Our flight to Casablanca, and short bus ride to Rabat were uneventful (which is good). We met with our Country Director and other staff, and got a chance to ask all sorts of country specific questions we'd been dying to ask at staging, but, understandably, they were unable to answer.

Following our initial day of general intros to the staff and program, we've been getting acquainted with the medical procedures and staff, learning Morocco specific and general safety techniques, learning about resources and procedures, etc. We had a visit from the U.S. Ambassador Riley and his wife Nancy as well on well, someday...they are sort of all jumbled up. :) They have been very respectful of our jet lag, etc. but there is still a lot to get done in our short training time -- so we are moving quickly!

This morning we separated from the 24 or so Environmental sector volunteers, and the 27 or so of us Health people drove to a smaller town that will be our training base for the next 11 weeks or so. The drive was amazing. We took some pictures, and will try to get them posted...but right now just figuring out the whole internet cafe and currency and language thing might be enough. There was just a huge variety of landscapes -- green prairies, cacti (is that right?), palm trees, beautiful mountains. So yeah, we drove up into the mountains and if you know me (Jana), I'm a little afraid of heights. Picture steep mountain roads and a nice tall bus....I just looked the other way. :)

This upcoming week will be, I think, lots of culture and beginning language training. We haven't found out yet if we'll be learning Moroccan Arabic, or one of the two local Berber languages, so we're eagerly anticipating that. The week after this we are going on a "field trip" to visit with a current Health volunteer and check out what life is really like. We're all looking forward to the chance to get a handle on what we'll be doing, how we'll be living, etc., although this will not be our site, just an example site.

I should get back and get ready for dinner. We had our first couscous dish this afternoon and it was WONDERFUL. So, we have lots to look forward to in the next couple of weeks, and the food for the next two years!

Take care! Jana

A little time to sleep in.

2006-03-06T05:36:00.000-08:00

Its been a hectic two weeks of preparation and a final whirlwind goodbye tour of friends and family members culminating in a 3:00 wakeup on Saturday to catch our flight to Philadelphia. By Saturday evening we were exhausted to say the least. Listening and actually trying to absorb what is important in addition to making small talk with 50 other people wore me OUT! So for dinner on Saturday at 8:00 pm we finally went to an Indian restaurant that is just down the street from where we are staying. Sunday was another full day of training but after a good night's sleep the time didn't seem to drag on as much and we were out of there in no time.

Probably the most important part of training for myself was finding out that Jana and I will be staying together with a host family during our training and throughout the entire process. We found out that we will fly into Casa, spend 3 days in Rabat, then be shipped off on another 3.5 hour bus ride to our seminar site. Much better than the Environmental people's 7.5 hr bus ride.

We'll spend about a week in our seminar site with intensive language studies, and then we are split again into groups of 5 or so and sent to our training community where we have set goals and objectives that are supposed to help us understand what exactly we will be doing. Only then will we know which language we will be expected to know.

So today we finally get to relax a little. We slept in and don't have to check out till 11. We fly out from JFK at 6:40 tonight and have a 7 hr flight.

We've been told there are inexpensive internet cafes in Morocco, but it might take us a bit to find and use them -- but stay tuned!

Mike

See you later everyone! We love you!

2006-03-03T21:01:00.000-08:00

It's about 11 pm and we are up early tomorrow to be at the airport at about 5:30 am...I hope we can fall asleep!

We wanted to take a minute though to say THANK YOU to all y'all. Seriously. These past few weeks and days have been wonderful and tough, but it is so meaningful to know that there is a darn cool group of people "sending" us to Morocco. We are blessed to be surrounded by wonderful people and well, it's hard not to miss wonderful people!

No goodbyes and all that, but thank you again, we love you very much, and please, please keep in touch.

mike and jana

peace corps makeovers.

2006-02-26T19:28:00.000-08:00

so this post is hard-hitting, heart stuff. okay, not so much... lots of that is happening, but this post is all about our new looks :)

michael first.

before...

and after...

he was a sad guy to cut his hair....but this will be a whole bunch easier!

okay, me next. my natural hair color is sort of dark blonde, and i thought i better try and dye it back to a more natural color instead of letting my roots just grow out and have a big line. when they dye it, my favorite hair gal said, they go two shades darker than your natural so that it fades to match your natural color, but WHOA was it dark.

before...

and after... me making a weird face.

so, now we are spiffied up and ready to go! if only we were packed...

:)

we visited mike's parents and grandparents this weekend, and we had some very quality time and ate his mom's amazing cooking...we were spoiled rotten. :) here's another cute grandparent pic:

less than one week to go!

2006-02-21T16:02:00.000-08:00

Well, this is officially my first post and since I figured I just sent out a mass email annoying people to come look at our blog, I had better put something on here and not just coast. Making Jana do it all sounds nice but my parents want to hear from me once in a while so this is the start of many rambling notes about my side of our story.
Please enjoy and be aware that I have a documented aversion to capitalization and punctuation but I do like long drawn out sentences that can usually be said in oh... about 4 words.
mike

14 days.

2006-02-18T21:00:00.000-08:00

So I tried not to freak out too much when the count went down to the teen range...but we're about to hit single digits and I have to say it again...whoa. I've been keeping up on some Peace Corps adventures online (specifically Lindsay's Life on My Own Time and Clare's so it goes, in addition to some others, and when reading about others packing up and leaving I remember feeling like I just couldn't wait. Now that it's here, it's all happening so fast!

The goodbyes have started, and it's been amazing and awful. I think I mentioned before that this change is wonderful opportunity to take intentional time to appreciate the quality people around us. But that just makes it so much harder to say goodbye! I finished my job yesterday, and was given the sweetest going away book and a good old-fashioned sloppy joe lunch (we did the official going away out to lunch last week...this was just another good excuse for a party.) :) Yes, I cried. I was honored to be honored by the strong, wonderful women of the N.I.P Community Clinic. You couldn't ask for a better group of role models.

Last night my cousins Melissa and Ben were in town from Oklahoma City and Chicago, and it was perfect to be able to see them and my aunts and uncles and a cousin who lives nearby. This morning we said goodbye to my grandma (we call her Bestemor (Norwegian for grandma)) and my uncle...

(The cutest lady you ever did see!)

This is hard!

Mike's got 3 more days of work, but I'm glad we're to the part where we can begin to focus on getting ready to go. We've moved. We've sold 1 of 2 cars. Work's (almost) done. Time to get our ducks in a row.

The New York Times had a piece on Morocco today, and you can check it out here if you are interested!

One other picture of the sleepover cake from the Flip-Flop girls. If I were smart, I would have taken a picture before we ate it, but it's still darn cute.

Chelsea found a Moroccan proverb -- "You can't catch two frogs with one hand." The frog in front was to the right of the Moroccan flag on the cake. So, he shall be travelling along on our adventure. :)

Lastly, here are the nominees for Bloggies for 2006. It's a great list of great blogs!

Whoa.

2006-02-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

We are down to 27 days...

A month can seem so long and so short at the same time! Things are becoming more and more concrete, and therefore more and more exciting...and scary! My car has been sold, and we are moving out of our apartment and storing all of our belongings this upcoming weekend. My replacement starts this Friday at work, and will train with me through the following week and then I'm done! I'll have 3 days the week after to run some errands and do some shopping while Mike works three more days, then we are up to visit his family ...we come home and finish up and rest up for 4 more days and then...

we leave.

I had a going away sleepover, reminiscent of our college days, with the Flip-Flop girls this weekend...and it was wonderful to just soak in quality time with them before we go. Saying goodbye, as darn hard as it is, is a break in the status quo, and, yes I'm getting cheesy here but bear with me, and that break has allowed me to look at things in new ways. It's been cool to take stock of the quality people around me and take intentional moments to appreciate them. Cheesy, right? But important anyway.

Time for more packing.... :)

Preparation

2006-01-21T07:55:00.000-08:00

here's what we've been doing lately to get ready...1 month1 week and 4 days until we go...

1) reading!

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Islam

the author of this book does a fascinating job of explaining Islam. Moroccans are nearly all practitioners of Islam...but i think you'd find it an interesting read as well. why? there are so many people in the twin cities to whom this applies. various permutations of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam and other religions are playing major roles in world politics. lastly, as a Christian, i find myself thinking a lot of about what i believe and why as i read about different views about how to get to heaven or original sin. a quick note though: the author is writing about her(?) own faith, and there is a tiny bit of bias, as there would be with anyone writing about what they hold as their most core beliefs...

Culture Shock! Morocco
this one i just started yesterday... the most interesting thing i've read so far is about the moroccan concept of friendship. it is all about interdependence. the more friends rely on each other for favors or borrowing of items, etc. the better friends they are. the author says to be mindful in the beginning of a person who is asking much of your time or money, as it will be difficult to change that relationship later. on the other hand, we'll need assistance as newcomers to the culture and town, and when moroccans ask us to reciprocate, the book says there will be hurt feelings and misunderstandings if we refuse... isn't this kind of stuff fascinating? it isn't just the surface differences, which are useful too, but down to the daily life, thought process kind of stuff... the stuff that could take a long time to figure out on your own. they have "culture shock" books for tons of countries, so look one up if you're traveling somewhere...

chelsea recommended nine hills to nambonkaha as well. it's the story of a peace corps volunteer in cote d'ivoire who was also doing health work. reading about her successes was definately inspirational, and it was good also to read about the struggles she had within the culture there, and how she found the balance between changing the way she thought, or working to change the way the village thought.

okay, so that was a lot about reading. we are also making this huge packing list. we shopped the other day for things from rechargable batteries to facial soap to pens and pencils...when we checked out the guy must have thought we live in a cave or something and only venture out every couple of years for supplies. mr. and mrs. hermit. other than that we're getting our cars fixed up to sell, collecting addresses and pictures of people around us, buying long skirts at savers, and lots of other little things.

The Invitation Has Arrived!

2005-12-02T21:31:00.000-08:00

Ready?

Okay, a little bit of the scene. We'd been WAITING for this package...I called Michael at 5 o'clock sharp on Tuesday to see if the envelope was there (we had agreed ahead of time to open it together) and it WAS! Oh my goodness. Luckily traffic was moving relatively quickly because I was the most impatient person in the world. I got home from work around 5:30 and had somewhere to be by about 6 so I was changing, brushing my teeth.... we sat down on the bed to open the packet. Michael took a picture of the packet and me opening it (which is funny if you know Michael, not really the sentimental type...so this was a big deal). I open it, pull out the letter on top.. it says we are going to...

Morocco

Staging begins March 4, 2006.

Our Job Titles -- Community Development Agent: Health and Sanitation Educator

We'll be living in rural Morocco in anything from an adobe house to a traditional apartment.

I have to say that now that we have a concrete time and place, March seems so much closer than it did four days ago!

It is coming!

2005-11-26T08:57:00.000-08:00

We get update e-mails from the peace corps everytime they move us ahead in the process... so we got them when we got our dental clearance, our medical clearance, etc. Here's the one from Wednesday morning...

"Peace Corps has updated your Application Status account. Log in to http://www.peacecorps.gov... to see the latest information."

The only next step left was invitation. This is what invitation means! Michael had talked to our placement officer earlier this week to anwer a question she had, and she gave us a hint info may be coming...but it was dependent upon the final approval of our skills, etc. by the country. So, unsure of what might happen, we have been quietly, tentatively excited like crazy! Back to Wednesday morning, I checked our account online and it has changed to an "Invitee toolkit" instead of a "Nominee toolkit" and here's what it says:

"Peace Corps sent you an invitation kit on November 22, 2005. Within 10 days of receiving your kit, please call us regarding your decision to accept or decline our invitation. If we do not hear from you within this period, the assignment may be offered to another applicant."

This packet will tell us WHERE we're going! and more about what we'll do, what to bring...so now we just wait for the packet... the suspense is killing me!

medical clearance!

2005-11-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

hey, so, the big news is that we got our medical clearance for the peace corps. (woo hoo!) i spoke with one of the placement people in washington, d.c. and she said we are still on track for leaving in the first quarter of 2006....so far so good!

here are the two blogs i keep an eye on to get a sense of what our experience might be like:

Lindsay in Cameroon: http://eskimolinds.blogspot.com/

Clare in Senegal: http://clare.overt.org/archives/cat_peace_corps.html

both french-speaking african countries, so, possibilities for us!

next week is thanksgiving, then christmas will be here in no time, then in january we'll hear where we go, and then scramble around getting ready until we leave in march! time is getting so short! i'm really excited for the holidays though, lots of quality time with people i love.

only 3 1/2 to 4 months left...

Our teeth are approved for peace corps service!

2005-10-08T16:53:00.000-07:00

The rest of our bodies are still waiting. We got letters yesterday in the mail with our dental clearances. We will always be cleared together, and a phone call to one of the med folks earlier this week revealed that Michael is missing some lab tests, so we'll have to wait for those to get our Medical Clearance...

It is now October... if we still leave in March, that means only 5 or so months to go! Thanksgiving will be here in no time, and Christmas is always sooner than you think. In January we will hopefully get an invitation...and then learn, shop, think, and scramble around for two months before leaving! Woo hoo!

We're definately excited. I am dealing though, with the idea of not being a part of the fabulous things that will continue to go on in the lives of people I love. I have a friend getting married, one having a second beautiful baby... and I will learn about these things, and see pictures, but ...just that humbling realization that, yes, life does go on without me... believe it or not. :)

the next step

2005-09-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

We have submitted our Peace Corps medical, dental, and eye exam packets. Now we wait four to six weeks for medical clearance -- one more step taken. We won't receive our invitation packet (assuming we pass medical and legal clearance) , I believe, until January or so, so we won't have any more big "news" until then. People are interested to hear how things are going, but it is definately a process with slow but steady developments (at least in our case). I never quite know what to say when people ask how "Peace Corps stuff" is going! It will be wonderful to have something fabulous to say in January. :)

Everyone who conducted the exams (nurses, doctors, etc.) was supportive and interested in what we were doing and where, but my favorite was my dental hygienist. He was a younger guy, pretty macho, but very kind. He didn't know much about Peace Corps and was interested, but expressed something I hear from a lot of people -- I'm glad you are doing that, but I don't think it is something I could do/ would choose to do.... I was trying not to get too sappy (because I'm the girl who cries at Hallmark commercials...) when as I was leaving he, instead of passing on the usual toothbrush and floss, opened a box of toothbrushes and turned it into a plastic bag and threw in a couple handfuls of floss boxes so we'd be prepared. It was such a sweet thing to do.

It is interesting (and inspiring) to think about how Peace Corps volunteers are in country serving, but, couldn't be there without the support of those at home...from toothbrushes from the hygienist to emotional support from friends and family. All sorts of big and little efforts form a network to send this one (or two in our case) person, sort of as an ambassador... so the PC volunteer is a conduit to send love, care, concern from the group at home to those around them while they are abroad...

Alright, well that was a little dorky, but it strikes me more and more how those around Michael and I are becoming invested in what we do. Very cool.

time creeps and rushes by....

2005-07-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

this is the beginning of our peace corps blog.

(for a solely jana blog with some not so peace corps content, you could visit www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=supergirlmpls)

michael and i have been married for 2 years. we currently reside in st. paul, minnesota, and are nominated to serve with the PC beginning march 2006 somewhere in french-speaking africa. i hope to add more about the process that led us to this point, but for now this is where we are at!

we have 7 months or so before we'd leave. it seems so far, but time is flying by!