hello all! I am really bad at this! but still to be fair, i still don't really have internet in my house and I'm not motivated enough to go to the cyber cafe. The one I walked into was kind of sketch.
This week they announced our sites. I'm attempting THIS LINK to google maps that shows you where i am. It's a small city of 2,000 people called N'koub/Nekoub/nkoub There's a whole bunch of different ways to spell it. I'm very excited to get there! We swear in nov 17th so I should be arriving in site somewhere around the 21st or the 22nd I'm excited. I'm in the southwest of the country and it seems like there's a lot of different stuff I can do. I'm sandwiched between the High Atlas Mountains and the Sahara- so it will get hot! The one thing I'm nervous about is the fact that, as you all know, I have been spending the past few weeks learning a wonderful language called Dirija. N'koub is city where the community speaks a native dialect called Tashlheet, in case any of you were wondering- it is indeed a whole new language. Morocco has a huge variety of languages and native populations more commonly known as Berbers or Amazight (amazight is more PC). Tashlheet is a dialect of the Amazight community- The script is just recently standardized and I'm hopeful I can learn how to speak both Dirija and Tashlheet. I know Peace Corps put me there (inshallah (god wiling) ) because I'm doing well in Dirija (?) or because I do have an aptitude for languages (ishallah)- So if the Peace Corps has confidence in me, I'll have confidence in me too. I'm very thankful Peace Corps gives us money for a tutor, hopefully I can find a good teacher to guide me along in my continued language learning once I arrive in my new home.
Other than that coming up this week is a very important Muslim holiday called Eid Al-Adha (link to the wikipedia article.) As a vegetararian i'm a little concerned seeing as it is pivotal upon the slaughtering and consumption of a sheep. should be interesting. Expect a post on that next week.
Lately life is comprised of what has become habitual here (which I often remind myself was not habitual several months ago). I go to language classes, walk up my crowded street filled with fruit and vegetable vendors and find my way to my host families house where we watch tv in Egyptian or turkish arabic and the occasional American movie. I had a great experience last weekend where there was a movie on the Moroccan channel that was in Dirija with French subtitles- seeing as I speak french I was able to understand the movie as it went along, and I was even able to pick up a word here or there in Dirija. I loved it most because for the first time we all were sitting in the living room watching tv and laughing at the same jokes and the same moments. Much unlike the experience of us watching Blades of Glory together, where for an hour I laughed and I think my host family was very confused. I don't think Will Farrel translates all that well. My favorite part about the movie was that there were several scenes where there were 2 french people and 2 moroccan women, with no language in common. I'll put the paraphrased dialogue and scene here
french lady: Is there any more chicken?
Moroccan ladies: what is she saying?
French lady: IS THERE... ANY. MORE. CHICKEN???
Moroccan ladies: Let's just laugh and pretend we understand *hahahhaha*
French lady: Why are they laughing?
French Dude: I think maybe they don't understand, maybe try acting it out?
French lady: IS THERE.... ANY *moves arms wildly indicating MORE* * then she proceeds to cluck and walk like a chicken*
Moroccan ladies: What is she doing? I guess we should join in... she seems to be sharing this with us
and next thing you know everyone is standing up around the table clucking and dancing like chickens. I feel like anyone who's been in a place where they didn't speak the language may have had an experience like that. In Belgium I remember answering a questions I didn't understand with either a "Yes" then receiving a confused face and then saying "No". I feel like sometimes us PCV's in an attempt to communicate with our community here in Morocco live in a constant game of charades in an attempt to understand each other and for all we know we've confused the lights out of our host country nationals and we are all proverbially clucking like chickens around the dinner table. (I'm thankful and also not thankful that my host family speaks incredible french so we've had a lot more luck having effective and substantial amounts of communication). I look forward to my new experience with not only my ability of Dirija, but a whole new language coming down the road! whew.
I find I have to take my experience here day by day in a lot of ways, because all that is coming can be both overwhelming and daunting.
I will leave you all with some pictures from my activities/experiences in the past few weeks.
This week they announced our sites. I'm attempting THIS LINK to google maps that shows you where i am. It's a small city of 2,000 people called N'koub/Nekoub/nkoub There's a whole bunch of different ways to spell it. I'm very excited to get there! We swear in nov 17th so I should be arriving in site somewhere around the 21st or the 22nd I'm excited. I'm in the southwest of the country and it seems like there's a lot of different stuff I can do. I'm sandwiched between the High Atlas Mountains and the Sahara- so it will get hot! The one thing I'm nervous about is the fact that, as you all know, I have been spending the past few weeks learning a wonderful language called Dirija. N'koub is city where the community speaks a native dialect called Tashlheet, in case any of you were wondering- it is indeed a whole new language. Morocco has a huge variety of languages and native populations more commonly known as Berbers or Amazight (amazight is more PC). Tashlheet is a dialect of the Amazight community- The script is just recently standardized and I'm hopeful I can learn how to speak both Dirija and Tashlheet. I know Peace Corps put me there (inshallah (god wiling) ) because I'm doing well in Dirija (?) or because I do have an aptitude for languages (ishallah)- So if the Peace Corps has confidence in me, I'll have confidence in me too. I'm very thankful Peace Corps gives us money for a tutor, hopefully I can find a good teacher to guide me along in my continued language learning once I arrive in my new home.
Other than that coming up this week is a very important Muslim holiday called Eid Al-Adha (link to the wikipedia article.) As a vegetararian i'm a little concerned seeing as it is pivotal upon the slaughtering and consumption of a sheep. should be interesting. Expect a post on that next week.
Lately life is comprised of what has become habitual here (which I often remind myself was not habitual several months ago). I go to language classes, walk up my crowded street filled with fruit and vegetable vendors and find my way to my host families house where we watch tv in Egyptian or turkish arabic and the occasional American movie. I had a great experience last weekend where there was a movie on the Moroccan channel that was in Dirija with French subtitles- seeing as I speak french I was able to understand the movie as it went along, and I was even able to pick up a word here or there in Dirija. I loved it most because for the first time we all were sitting in the living room watching tv and laughing at the same jokes and the same moments. Much unlike the experience of us watching Blades of Glory together, where for an hour I laughed and I think my host family was very confused. I don't think Will Farrel translates all that well. My favorite part about the movie was that there were several scenes where there were 2 french people and 2 moroccan women, with no language in common. I'll put the paraphrased dialogue and scene here
french lady: Is there any more chicken?
Moroccan ladies: what is she saying?
French lady: IS THERE... ANY. MORE. CHICKEN???
Moroccan ladies: Let's just laugh and pretend we understand *hahahhaha*
French lady: Why are they laughing?
French Dude: I think maybe they don't understand, maybe try acting it out?
French lady: IS THERE.... ANY *moves arms wildly indicating MORE* * then she proceeds to cluck and walk like a chicken*
Moroccan ladies: What is she doing? I guess we should join in... she seems to be sharing this with us
and next thing you know everyone is standing up around the table clucking and dancing like chickens. I feel like anyone who's been in a place where they didn't speak the language may have had an experience like that. In Belgium I remember answering a questions I didn't understand with either a "Yes" then receiving a confused face and then saying "No". I feel like sometimes us PCV's in an attempt to communicate with our community here in Morocco live in a constant game of charades in an attempt to understand each other and for all we know we've confused the lights out of our host country nationals and we are all proverbially clucking like chickens around the dinner table. (I'm thankful and also not thankful that my host family speaks incredible french so we've had a lot more luck having effective and substantial amounts of communication). I look forward to my new experience with not only my ability of Dirija, but a whole new language coming down the road! whew.
I find I have to take my experience here day by day in a lot of ways, because all that is coming can be both overwhelming and daunting.
I will leave you all with some pictures from my activities/experiences in the past few weeks.
what?!?!? you're going to eat me? baaaaa....
cafe or qhawa- of which i drink a lot.
my host family eating bourbush or snails. my host family loved them
haddou- my lovely language teacher. he made a sound like : "meeeeeeh" in a high pitched tone. He's great.
the view from moulay yacoub
us girls overlooking moulay yacoub
yay! i'm in morocco! yay I'm in moulay yacoub. My friend said I look like patrick from sponge bob.
rachel drew a representation of our class. shannon is nn3s or sleeping, gary is saying "oh! is this dirija?" kathy is saying "shnu?! shnu?!" or "what?!what?!" Haddou is saying "Sm3!" or "LISTEN!" I am singing and Rachel is saying "ooo! kitty!" I would say this is a very realistic representation of my classroom experience.
Me and some kids eating the pumpkin we carved for our Halloween party.
Oh! Hello Donkey.
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