Hi all,
I've gotten pretty bad at this blog thing recently--I would say I've been very busy, but that's not really a good excuse. It's more that I've been waiting for something exciting to write about, but with most of the cultural adjustment and major holidays out of the way, nothing has come up recently. So, I'll give a quick update about a few developments in my service, and then I'll try to just post random thoughts and anecdotes about life here, even if nothing big is going on.
The major change in my life is that I moved at the beginning of January, from my mid-sized town to a small city called Azrou that's only about half an hour down the road. All of my work has been there, and all of my potential work is centered around Azrou, and I was essentially commuting, so it made sense to just make Azrou my home base instead. My new house is small but much cozier than my old one (and not infested with roaches, spiders, and centipedes, which is a plus) and I have more friends and contacts in Azrou than I had in my old site. All in all, it's a positive change, and worth the several months that it took to make happen.
As far as work goes, things are picking up a tiny bit, with not much happening now but a number of things in the planning process. Starting next week, I'll be teaching English to a group of female elementary school teachers from the school across the street from my house. I hadn't really intended to be teaching English here, but it's a good in at the school, which will hopefully make it easier to do some environmental education there (which is technically my program description, even if I haven't done any of it yet.) I'll also probably start working an orphanage/youth center soon, teaching English a few times a week and maybe doing other things as well. Things with my medicinal herbs and couscous co-operative are coming along, and we're planning a workshop so they can learn how to make shampoo, soap, and lotion, which is what they decided to spend the rest of the grant money on to expand their product selection.
On a slightly humorous note, I was contacted in January by the U.S. embassy in Rabat, whose media outreach program was doing a series with the national TV station on American aid projects in my region, and they sent a crew to film my cooperative and me. It aired across the country a week ago, so we're famous now. It's in Arabic, but you'll get to see a few of the women I work with, and some amusingly staged shots of me fiddling around with herbs and equipment. Also, the comments on the YouTube page for the video demonstrate an unfortunately persistent view about Peace Corps volunteers, but don't worry, my real name isn't in the video, so the "sleeping lion" won't be able to find me all that easily.
That's all for now, but I'll try to be more diligent and post again soon. A very belated Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year's to all!
Love from the Maghreb.
PS: to all the wonderful, wonderful people who send me snail mail sometimes, I have a new address:
[My full name]
B.P.332
Azrou, Province Ifrane, 53100
MOROCCO
If you sent anything to my old address since Christmas, let me know, since I'll be closing that box soon and I'm not sure I trust Moroccan forwarding services.
I've gotten pretty bad at this blog thing recently--I would say I've been very busy, but that's not really a good excuse. It's more that I've been waiting for something exciting to write about, but with most of the cultural adjustment and major holidays out of the way, nothing has come up recently. So, I'll give a quick update about a few developments in my service, and then I'll try to just post random thoughts and anecdotes about life here, even if nothing big is going on.
The major change in my life is that I moved at the beginning of January, from my mid-sized town to a small city called Azrou that's only about half an hour down the road. All of my work has been there, and all of my potential work is centered around Azrou, and I was essentially commuting, so it made sense to just make Azrou my home base instead. My new house is small but much cozier than my old one (and not infested with roaches, spiders, and centipedes, which is a plus) and I have more friends and contacts in Azrou than I had in my old site. All in all, it's a positive change, and worth the several months that it took to make happen.
As far as work goes, things are picking up a tiny bit, with not much happening now but a number of things in the planning process. Starting next week, I'll be teaching English to a group of female elementary school teachers from the school across the street from my house. I hadn't really intended to be teaching English here, but it's a good in at the school, which will hopefully make it easier to do some environmental education there (which is technically my program description, even if I haven't done any of it yet.) I'll also probably start working an orphanage/youth center soon, teaching English a few times a week and maybe doing other things as well. Things with my medicinal herbs and couscous co-operative are coming along, and we're planning a workshop so they can learn how to make shampoo, soap, and lotion, which is what they decided to spend the rest of the grant money on to expand their product selection.
On a slightly humorous note, I was contacted in January by the U.S. embassy in Rabat, whose media outreach program was doing a series with the national TV station on American aid projects in my region, and they sent a crew to film my cooperative and me. It aired across the country a week ago, so we're famous now. It's in Arabic, but you'll get to see a few of the women I work with, and some amusingly staged shots of me fiddling around with herbs and equipment. Also, the comments on the YouTube page for the video demonstrate an unfortunately persistent view about Peace Corps volunteers, but don't worry, my real name isn't in the video, so the "sleeping lion" won't be able to find me all that easily.
That's all for now, but I'll try to be more diligent and post again soon. A very belated Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year's to all!
Love from the Maghreb.
PS: to all the wonderful, wonderful people who send me snail mail sometimes, I have a new address:
[My full name]
B.P.332
Azrou, Province Ifrane, 53100
MOROCCO
If you sent anything to my old address since Christmas, let me know, since I'll be closing that box soon and I'm not sure I trust Moroccan forwarding services.
ahhhh yay new address!
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