Taking a peek at village life

Oops. So I guess it's been a while since I've last written... and a good deal has happened. And if you're like me, seeing a super long post might be daunting and I don't want to bore you, so instead of recounting every little thing I've done in the past 2 weeks or so I'll just give you some little glimpses at what life has been like. Cause let me tell you - there have been plenty of new experiences in the past 2 weeks. I'll start with the village.

Alright so! As you might have read in the last post, my program planned an excursion to a rural village called Alateesha (don't hold me to that spelling). The closest city is Boujad, about 20-30 min away or so. Here's a map - Boujad is in the bottom right corner, right under the 's' in Atlas. Just to give you an idea of where we were at. Sadly my time was shortened a bit - because my stomach loves me so much, it decided to act up the night before. And by act up, I mean my body really didn't want me to leave quite yet for the village. So I stayed behind for a day or so to catch up on sleep and whatnot and set out on my own to the village a couple days later. And woo! That was a journey. I hopped on a train to Rabat at 9:45 am, switched trains at Casa to go on to Khouribga, caught a bus from there to Boujad (and whoa I stood out there. Not only was I the only non-Moroccan on that bus, but I don't think there was anyone not from a rural area on that bus) got a ride to the association in Boujad, and from there got a ride with the driver/2 policemen accompanying the program during the village stay all the way to the village. Made some friends along the way (there's no way I would have made it to the village had I not asked someone every single step of the way where I should be going) and 10 hours later, I pulled up in front of the house that I'd be staying at. By this time, around 7:30 pm, it was completely dark and had been for about an hour - the sun sets around 6 pm now, so after that you pretty much have to be back at your house in the village. I was pleasantly surprised to find one of my friends was staying there too! So especially after that long day that was really nice to just sit and relax and catch up on all the happenings of the village.

 Here's a look at where I was at for real. My house! There's a small TV I saw them turn on once or twice the entire time I was there but other than that there were no functioning electronic devices, so we had dinner by candlelight. And when it was time to brush our teeth/use the bathroom before bedtime, that meant taking a flashlight and walking around the side of the house to the backyard. That was actually a really cool time to be outside - when I turned my flashlight off and looked up, the stars were INCREDIBLE. Something I've only seen a handful of times in my life. I tried to look for constellations and actually couldn't find any, because there were too many stars and I couldn't distinguish any shapes. I also understand now how the Milky Way got it's name, because it definitely lives up to that when you can actually see it. And ahh I like to think of it as a little farewell, but the last night in the village my friend and I saw a shooting star - and not just the little ones you see for a millisecond in more lit up areas. This one had a trail and went far across the sky - it was something out of a movie. I could deal with having a sky like that every night.

Front yard of my home, with the oven
in the corner

On a different note, one thing I learned in the village is how much you can communicate without words, or at least with a very limited vocabulary. I really got a chance to test my Darija out here - my family, comprised of a mother, father, and 3 sisters, spoke only Darija (the middle sister, who had pretty good English, didn't come til the 2nd or 3rd day I was there. So after that we got into lengthier, more in depth convos, but until then we were limited to whatever we could communicate in Darija and through hand gestures). The youngest daughter knew some French, but it was about as good as my Darija. The father spoke some French, but thought it was way better than it actually was and also didn't understand why my friend and I didn't speak more. So that wasn't too helpful. He was saab bezzof - very difficult. Like I said, I won't go into detail about everything about the village and I don't want to use this as my ranting space, but he was a very traditional man who believed that women shouldn't have rights and should stay at home. He wasn't around much and didn't eat meals with the rest of the family, so I spent most of my time with my host mom and sisters, which was awesome. They are truly some of the sweetest people you'll ever meet - right away, they welcomed me into their home. The language barrier didn't stop them from talking to us a lot, and we actually got a lot across. The older sister, Naima, was about the same age as me. One of the little gestural-conversations we had revolved around ideals of beauty, if you will. She pointed to the side of my nose (implicating the nose ring) and basically asked why I had it. Same with my toe ring, and my non-lobe ear piercings. I didn't know what to tell her other than I liked them and they're pretty in America, to which she made sure to tell me that girls didn't do that in Morocco. Ha I think she thought it was a little strange (I've seen a handful of girls with nose rings in Morocco but yeah, for the most part it seems like it's not really a big thing here).

Rug I'm pretty sure my host mom wove. If you
turn right, right before the open door, you
enter the kitchen. But if you go out that open
door, you're in the backyard. And right next
to the cows and chickens.

But this little gestural-convo took an interesting twist that I didn't really expect. Naima asked my friend and I why we didn't wear a headscarf - I couldn't really give her a good answer, except that we just don't do it much in America and that I just chose not to wear one. Her response was "mashi zwina," or not beautiful, not so good. She then made a prayer gesture, and the sign of the cross, asking if either of us prayed. Neither of us do, which we told her. She seemed a bit confused - but as with my unconventional piercings and bizarre toe adornment, it just seemed to be just another odd thing about me. She didn't seem offended by it, or think of me differently (at least she didn't act any different around me). Surprised? I was. Maybe it's because I'd been warned that being a Jew or Christian was better than not practicing any religion, but this attitude and subsequent continuation of the conversation, as if this was just another weird thing making me different from her, was not what I expected. I anticipated that I might have offended her somewhat, or at least caused her some distress that I didn't pray. But no. She told her mother, and the other sisters found out later too, and again none of them seemed bothered. That a family living in a small, rural village with little exposure to the "West" (with the exception of the English speaking sister) could be so accepting certainly surprised me and gave me something to think about. If nothing else, this trip helped to break down some of the stereotypes often associated with rural life, and about how they view the rest of the world. But hey - what happens when you assume? Ha.. I hope someone can tell me the answer to this.

Anywho. Life in the village was sweet - it was quiet and tranquil, and nothing was rushed. If you enjoy a farm-animal soundtrack, then you'd be right at home. It was surprisingly cool here, too, but I actually liked that a lot - one thing I've been missing about being in the States is experiencing autumn, mah fav season. But on one of the days towards the end of the trip, the air definitely carried that distinct, autumn smell/feel, which made me super happy.

Another thing that made both my palette and my stomach happy was the food. Ah. Remember how I got sick right before leaving? Well, looks like I should have just gone to the village right away to experience my fams cooking - I was recovered by the time I got there, but my stomach felt so super normal, like it hasn't felt in a while there. That was awesome. The hobz (bread) was fresh everyday - the first morning there, I woke up and while eating a breakfast of tea, bread, and an olive oil/honey mixture (I was skeptical at first.. but again, my assumptions were proven wrong and it was delish) watched my older sister mix and knead the bread in a big bowl, and then set it aside to rise. I watched my host-mom put it in the igloo-like mud oven later. We had tajine of course, which again was so. good. Our couscous, or ksuksu, was a little different than what I've been getting in Rabat - there were of course the requisite vegetables like potatoes, squash, and carrots, but they also poured hot milk over the entire platter and it was even a bit sweet. Omg this was yummy! My host family also made a kind of oatmeal-like rice pudding thing for dinner one night that was also delicious. And every meal was, of course, accompanied by the wunderbar fresh hobz, which I so wish I still had. Ah.

You don't get an idea of the entire
 compound, but this was one of the walls of the
school. I just liked the picture...

I guess I'll skip to the last important part now. One of the things we did the last 2 days we were in the village was hang out at the local school and help out around the grounds. Ahhh. These kids were so cool. They were between the ages of 5-13 I'd say, and were clearly excited for us to be there. We sat in on class one day, and I ended up in a room where the teacher taught both 3rd and 6th grade, since they didn't have enough teachers to separate them. The teacher seemed really awesome - he spoke at least 3 languages and was super sweet with the kids. I've been learning about gender disparity when it comes to education, especially in rural areas, but this teacher made it a point to include all the kids in class, regardless of them being a girl or not. We stood up at the front of the room at the beginning, and our program director told us to do something for the kids. So we taught them "head, shoulders, knees and toes," which proved to be quite a hit. This turned into a lesson, learning some new English words, and they repeated it over and over again. Gah it was cute, and a bunch of them were singing that song for the next several days. When leaving the school compound to go back to Rabat, some of the kids followed us down to the end of the road and a few of them were still singing head shoulders..

Working hard. Yeah

But yeah, after that we spent the rest of our time outside, cleaning up the yard, whitewashing the walls surrounding the compound and the trees/rocks, and then painting the walls with designs and whatnot. It didn't feel like much at the time, but after everything was done, one of the teachers made it a point to let us know how important it was that we had come and how much it meant to all the kids/teachers. I guess we should keep in mind not to underestimate our actions, and what even the smallest gesture can do.

I was just starting to settle in and feel more comfortable with life and our routine in the village when already, it was time to go. So went a little less than a week in this village that somehow managed to accommodate 40+ of us. It was definitely leaving but, oh well. My host fam said I could come back anytime and I wouldn't mind taking them up on that offer.

Oh and you think I'm done writing. I'll keep the rest of this short. So I had a night in Rabat before leaving again, this time to the northeast of Morocco to a town called Al-Hoceima, right on the Mediterranean Coast. Again, this was quite a journey - overnight train in a freezing train car and then a 2 1/2 hour taxi ride left us with about 3ish hours of sleep, but we arrived, checked in to an awesome but relatively cheap hotel, and set out about our day. The group I was with took a boat ride of the coast and whooaa was that worth it. Ha I'm bombarding you with pictures with this post but I can't not show what this place looked like! Plus they're actually from my camera now so I feel better about it. Anywho, the coastline was rocky, cliffy, what have you, and it was a really gorgeous day. Our captain and first mate were both super cool, and oo hey the captain was originally from Corsica so spoke Italian! My Italian was rusty at first fo sho but ooh my lord it felt so good to break that out finally.

If you thought that looked like a Spanish
fort atop a small little island, you were
right - Spain still has some random and, in
some cases, pretty useless territories in parts
of Morocco. Colonialism/imperialism lives on!

The next day we made our way to another little town to do some hiking, which ended up being really sweet since we were right on the coastline. It definitely wasn't a stroll in the park, but that ended up being more fun - it felt like no one, besides maybe some goats and their owners, had seen this area of the land that we climbed. Again - so worth it.

Got back to Al-Hoceima later, called up our captain friend! And hung out with him and the first mate later. And then left the next morning. The hiking, boating, and general atmosphere of this town and the spontaneity of it all definitely made this one of the best weekends by far. I would go back there for sure.

I guess this about wraps up this post. I don't think I can tell you anything else exciting that's happened, except for what's to come next weekend - the southern excursion! We'll be spending a week down south, hitting up Marrakech, Essaouira, and ooo even taking a peak at the desert. But that's for another post. Bislemah!


WORD OF THE DAY:

Aloomam Almootaheeda (forgive me, I don't know how you actually spell it with Latin letters..) - United Nations. Not only is this word really fun to say, but it's totally random right? Yeah, one of the first words we learn in the Arabic textbook. Good stuff