I have many names- some people know me as Rainbow, some people know me as Michelle or Mitch or Rahama. My extra names reflect different times of my life- my time as an outdoor educator, and my time in Morocco.
Now I'm in Cambodia living life as an ex-pat and teacher.
All opinions expressed here are my own.
Happy birthday to me!! It’s been a
crazy 12 months. Fast and slow all at the same time. This time last year I had
just fractured a bone in my foot and didn’t know it, I was limping around,
about to head to spring camp. In all honestly not a lot has changed since last
year, my foot still hurts, I’m still not in shape, I still don’t do yoga
everyday. This is not to say that tings aren’t good. I’m feeling content,
established, happy most of the time, most days feel awesome but I still
apprehensive and sometimes nervous about things such as my foot, my place here
in my tiny town, how my service is going altogether, what I’m going to do in 8
months when I return home… the list can go on and on but who knows? It’s best
to focus on what is good and generally speaking life is all around pretty good.
My classes are going pretty well, and this week I enter a new chapter in my
service when my new site mate arrives, so that’s exciting. I should also
mention my list of accomplishments a little, non-work related I’ve made a ton
of craft projects in the last 12 months and learned how to make some really
good food.
Birthdays are really weird, I’ve
always liked celebrating my birthday, but I’ve learned that unless you’re
around a group of good friends, birthdays can be pretty dismal or sad. I’ve had
a wide range of birthdays in my adult life, going from awesome get togethers
with my closest, to mental breakdowns, to a nice gesture from my co-workers in
letting me use the company van to drive out to get tasty vegan food. The best
birthdays to me involve good food and good friends. This year was pretty low
key I spent all day finishing up a project and skypeing with my mom. Then I
made myself a cheesecake, which turned out pretty well and then attempted to
make gnocchi, a food I’ve never really even eaten before, so who knows if it’s
any good, tastes ok to me, but I’m bored with trying to make it, way too time
consuming currently, and they didn’t boil very well, so I’ve had to pan fry
them. I’ve also discovered that I do in fact have a super power, the power to
make a clean kitchen dirty in less then 5 minutes. It is not a fun super power
to have. Nothing like making delicious food then realizing you’ve managed to
make every single utensil, surface and dish not only dirty but a complete mess.
Worst. Power. Ever. This is to say that my kitchen is a total disaster as I
write this.
In other news I’ve become 12 year
old fan girl obsessed with the british tv show Doctor Who. It’s bad news bears, but as a pcv there's lots of empty time ( and space (!)) filling the days it’s easy to fixate
on something. I’ve started to say the word “rubbish” and have even begun
re-integrating other bitish-isms into my current vocab that I picked up when I
lived in London in college. I’ve re-watched several episodes twice in one week,
which is a new development (usually I give myself a few weeks between
re-watching something). I’ve become very endeared by the goofy childlike nerdiness of the
character of the Doctor and just the general awesomeness of this show. I’ve
always been a sci-fi and fantasy fan (having grown up on x-files, xena, captain planet and the superman show the louis and clark adventures that was once on tnt. ) so the fact that Dr Who appeals to me
makes sense. Dr Who now makes its way into my repetoire of shows I’ve watched
too many times- joining superstar shows like Community, Parks and Rec and The Office
peppering in Modern Family, Arrested Development, and Family guy from time to
time. I never really watched tv until I graduated college, and now it seems
like I do it far too often- To be fair, I often watch tv while I’m working on other
things like crochet or cross stitch. If I could get more audiobooks, or more
effectively download podcasts I would listen to those but instead I fall into
watching tv. Clearly the fact that I’m putting it in a freaking blog post
should be alarming. But here I am, airing my tv obsession on my blog. But for
reals, watch this clip and tell me this show isn’t awesome and perfect for me.
Shenanigans…. One of my favorite words, and my favorite slang word I’ve taught
to my classes.
So that’s about it for now. Life is
good. I love crochet. I love Doctor Who. I love food. I do not love a dirty
kitchen (and I do not love doing dishes. )
shenanigans quote video, for some reason i couldn't find the video through this link thingy on my blog stuff. anyways.
i have had so many intentions this month for this blog. i had half of a blog post in word and then my hard drive got cranky and when i restarted my computer the document didn't restore.
so for this month i had been wanting to put up a video blog from my trip over a month ago to a waterfall.. that still hasn't happened.
it's been a very religious-kind of month this so far and i've wanted to write about that. still hasn't happened.
i thought it would be fun to do a food/cooking video post and i'm glad that didn't happen because in my attempt to make delicious beet carrot orange juice my blender's engine kicked it and it would have been pretty obvious to you all that my kitchen is pretty sad and i had no idea what i was doing. i have a little extra funds so i'm going to start looking for nicer blender... i wish i could get a food processor, i'm not holding my breath on that one. but i might make a video tomorrow when i do my cooking adventure. we'll see. that might not ever happen either.
I've had a lot of luck this month and have been able to have great skype converstations/hangouts with friends and family which has been great. I love skype and I really love having internet. I don't know what's going to happen in the summer. it's possible the heat will melt my usb so we'll see.
Tomorrow i'm hoping to tidy up my house some more, and then make a shit ton of food. this week at souk (market) there were a lot of vegetables, i got really really lucky and was able to get LETTUCE! i'm so excited Most of the time I don't mind the things I can and cannot get in terms of vegetables and fruits but man. i want lemons... i want shrimp... i want more lettuce and cauliflower... also i miss planning, or buying things in a normal way. this week i ended up with a lot of vegetables and then got home and realized i had no idea what to do in terms of a cohesive menu with all the random vegetables i got. also a few weeks ago i was able to get collard greens/moroccan's version of kale and it hasn't come back since and it is so sad. i made this delicious and simple dish collards sauteed with a ton of garlic and onions then served on pasta with just a little bit of vinegar and some grated cheese... holy cow. one of the most delicious things i've ever made. i dream of it still. soooo... i'm hoping that i can rekindle the feeling of fresh, healthy and simple by making fresh spring rolls with peanut sauce tomorrow afternoon.. i think i'm in it to win it because i have beets, carrots, string beans, lettuce, fresh mint, strawberries and tomorrow morning hopefully a cucumber. I'm also soaking some barley overnight and last week i bought an extra box of oats and a new thing of honey, i got some walnuts and i am going to make some granola! hopefully... this could be great or terrible.
I'm realizing now food is a lot of what i think about. food is so fascinating. We all need to eat it. but it is such a crazy thing. when i was vegan everyone was always up my ass about the food i was or wasn't eating. i like to eat food. it gets me into trouble (read weight gain), it pre-occupies so much of my time. it's hard not to have an unhealthy relationship with food. during my service i get all feast and famine. one week i eat nothing but popcorn and bread and pasta with cheese sauce. the next i'm making quiche's and juices and salads and getting crazy. I need to be more consistent. so yes.
also there is some weird smell in my bedroom. i'm congested and i had been very unwashed so when i was playing the "what's that smell, and where's it coming from" game i was a contendor but now that i am no longer in the running (having showered and perfumed myself very nicely) i am thoroughly confused and annoyed. i'm beginning to think it's the neighbors. the wall next to my bed leads into my neighbors courtyard where they keep the animals. so i'm hoping that it's that.
so... here's a rambly completely tangential blog post for you all. maybe i'll write a real one tomorrow. or later this week. or something. It's not really an excuse because i'm not actually that busy but in terms of my service this is the busiest i have ever been . i have classes 5 days a week and i've been teaching the women at the women's center how to do bead crochet which has been fun. ok. so later this week i will post pictures of my bead crochet activity, my new mason jar holder i made, as well s maybe some of the food i'm constantly going on about and maybe me cooking in my kitchen. hooray for non committal irrelevant blog posts!
so it's been a while since i've updated here. i kept telling myself i was going to make a video blog entry about my trip to the waterfall a few weeks ago, but i started it and then i got annoyed that it wasn't coming out the way i wanted- so it's still a work in progress.
not much exciting has happened to be honest....
a bunch of puppies have moved in across the street from me and i like to check on them through the hole in the wall every day and i made the mistake of visiting them. i want a dog so badly! it's a little ridiculous. but for now it's "working" to just take pictures and visit every once in a while.
im currently in the big city helping my friend with a women's leadership training, should be good! it's my first event that in more of a "leadership role" for, so it should be fun.
i promise i will update again soon but for now here's some pictures. mostly of puppies and craft projects. and the mini pie i made the other day, because i was hungry and i could.
delicious mini pie!
these are the cookies my friends the cookie ladies make. they're delicious... the cookies, not the ladies.
all the bead crochets i started this week.
this dog i have named moose- both for the majestic maine dwelling animal and the word for "knife" in dirija. i should not have named him. damnit....
the puppies through the hole in the wall! look at those faces!
So as you all know I kind of live in the middle of nowhere,
this past week 2 peace corps staff came to my site to do the groundwork for the
possibility of me getting another volunteer here in april which should be
exciting. Anyways while we were waiting the one guy commented “we just kept
driving and driving and I was like, she really lives out in the middle of
nowhere!” the only time it bothers me is if I actually had a emergency
situation. When I broke my foot last march I couldn’t tell if I was freaking out
because I was hurt or because I lived so far away from legit medical care and
the process of getting to a hospital isn’t exactly fun- but 9 times out of 10 I
love living somewhere so far away from cities. It’s quiet and the stars are
better then anyplace i've ever been before. But because I live so far out in the bled (country) no one ever
visits which is really just a shame for the pcv community because I love
hosting and cooking for people, and im a pretty decent cook . So… because I
live so far away from everyone I laid the groundwork early for my favorite
holiday ever… thanksgiving. I may or may not have told everyone and
started planning the menu in june. Ooops. Let’s just say I had a lot of time on
my hands this summer, and I wanted to make sure no one had an excuse for not
making it to my house. So having more or less threatened everyone in june that
they had to come to my house for thanksgiving November finally rolled around
and thus my dreams were realized.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday ever. Let me tell you why,
it’s like Christmas but without what I like to call the present pressure.
Thanksgiving contains good food, good music, good people, good wine or beer (or
in the case of morocco any wine or beer) and no other expectations…. No
expectations except for full bellies and good company. When I was younger my
family used to go to Chincoteague Island and rent a cottage and just hang out
for 3 or so days. I loved it. We all sat around, hung out, drove around the
nature preserve saw some awesome little ponies, cheated at board games and just
enjoyed each other’s company (one year our dog had just recently had a litter of puppies so we brought all 10 tiny little guys with
us! So much fun). My fondest family memories are often pulled up from the times
we spent there, it’s also one of the few times my whole family got together at
the same time. Over the years my uncle took charge of thanksgiving and as
always there is a superfluous amount of food and really fun music. I wanted to
carry the family tradition of over-doing it over here in morocco. And while we
didn’t have as much left-overs as I was anticipating I think everyone was very
satisfied and full.
I was really hoping to have an all-american sort of thanksgiving, a flash back to home. On my trip home in august i had funding, baggage and timing issues and didnt manage to bring back with me all the things i had originally intended. But i got really lucky and have 2 friends who have an American
bank account and they generously got American commodities shipped over (ie
cream of mushroom soup, stuffing mix, cranberry sauce, marshmallows and of
course libby’s pumpkin pie mix) i feel so lucky that we all got to have such a taste of home. I was also really lucky that my host
family generously let me borrow their propane gas oven, because my microwave
size electric oven would not have accommodated our menu. The only weird thing about the dinner was that we
didn’t succeed in obtaining a turkey, as a vegetarian I have no idea what kind of meat
is available here in my site, so we made do with a full chicken, no one
complained.
At times my kitchen felt a little small, but it was worth it
to feel like my house was full, i think people enjoyed themselves and it was a really nice change from cooking alone in my kitchen and sharing my meal with episodes of the office and parks and rec. My lovely friends who got the stuff shipped
for us (Lauren and Justin) came up a day early with their food cache and a bunch
of stuff from their kitchen. i've never cooked so much food for so many people. realistically this was the biggest kitchen undertaking i've ever done and i think it turned out really well. everyone was
full and happy and I barely had to do any of the dishes (which to be honest is
my favorite thing about cooking for other people ).
I find I get a huge amount of emotional satisfaction from
cooking and hosting for other people. To me food is the craft that everyone
appreciates. I used to make home made presents for people all the time (ie bracelets, necklaces, crocheted things etc) and
while i try and tailor gifts to the people i'm giving them to, I can tell sometimes that I am handing
someone something they will never use, it will sit on their dresser for a few
years out of guilt and then they’ll either give it away or sell it at a tag
sale or something. Food however, unless you have allergies or some kind of
disorder is something that everyone appreciates. I love making something
delicious and fun and then serving it to people. I have a dream of someday
hosting dinner parties around an outdoor fire pit or something. Le sigh.
So in short thanksgiving was both wonderful and successful
and I’m so proud of the hard work Lauren and I did cooking it. Huzzah.
In other non-food related news I’ve theoretically started at
my youth center. Even with all the leg work and publicity I did in the weeks
leading up to it I still had pitiful (read next to no) attendance. Just like
last year I know patience and perseverance is key. I also have an ace in the
hole with this new sports association who may or may not be doing some
publicity for me to do another class later in the evening? I’m not 100% sure-
meetings always have the possibility of mis-communication and lost in
translation. But, I’m excited to have new work partners and a group of fun,
motivated young men who like me and seem to have my back in a totally
appropriate way. Nothing else
really exciting to report.
That’s all for now…. But! If any of you are like… wow… I haven’t
seen or talked to michelle in so long,… or wow! It’s so close to Christmas I should
send michelle a present because she’s so awesome my list is short. Yarn for
crocheting stuff (more then 1 skein so as to ensure there is the possiblitiy of
completing a project) anything pumpkin flavored, peanut butter, mac and cheese, any kind of salty snack
and if you’re feeling super fancy the stowaway backpack from llbean (in green).
Wow. I sure do beg a lot on this blog… sorry guys. I hope you are all doing
well and staying warm.
the lovely lauren working hard
our kitchen assistants! lucia and justin
first course of deviled eggs, home made bread, ranch dip and pumpkin soup with coconut milk
thanksgiving dinner! green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, onion gravy, veggie quiche, garlic mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and chicken!
Hello Internet world. I hope you are all doing well.
Holy cow. Morocco is hot. I don’t mean to whine but a
lifetime of new England summers have given me next to nothing for dealing with
this. The other day it hit 101 degrees in my house. My internal seasonal calendar is
totally confused. My brain keeps saying “but Michelle it’s june! What’s going
on?” and I say “Brain we’re in morocco now, this isn’t maine in june.. you best
be ready there’s more to come” my brain responds “awwwwww….” Most days it gets
to be 92-95 during the day then drops down to 87-89 when the sun is down. The
nice thing about it is that it’s not humid, which is a great thing. Also
Morocco does sell fans, my fan and I have become really good friends. The
hardest part about the heat is traveling, because you get all crammed up with 3
other people in the back of a 50’s Mercedes’, then you get to experience not
only your own sweat, but the special feeling of someone else’s body covering
half of yours, so it’s a double deal. Sauna? Not really… No….
But exciting news! My site just this week got a super fancy
CTM bus that runs through from my neighboring site all the way up to Marakesh.
It’s difficult to communicate why this is a big deal, so let me first give you
the hierarchy of niceness in terms
of modes of travel here in
Morocco- ONCF first class trains-
CTM buses (AC, and individual seats)- Supratours buses (reserved seats, but a
little cheaper and not as new as CTM)- ONCF trains (they never “sell out” so
you sometimes see people literally pulling people in and out of over-crowded
cars, and the windows don’t open, so it can get pretty unpleasant- Transit’s
(vans, with seats really close together, but generally you get your own ‘space’
and they have pretty decent circulation of air)- Grand Taxi’s (7 + passengers
in a Mercedes’ sedan but the drivers can get kind of stingy about how open the
windows are and they take the roller bits of the window controls… jerks), Souk
Buses (bus with no AC, no reserved seats and no “sell out” point (read people
crammed up in the aisles who get asked to sit everytime we pass a police stop),
also they stop ANYWHERE and so it makes any trip exponentially longer. But the
nice thing about Souk buses is that they stop in more places then CTM and
Supratours). So as you can clearly see CTM is up at the top of that list in
terms of awesomeness. Getting a CTM that comes through town means that as long
as I catch the bus in Marakech and barring mechanical dysfunction I will get
back to site in one day. Before it was always a crap shoot with catching a taxi
from Ouarzazat (the biggest city in my region, about 2.5 hours away from my
site). No more hanging out at the taxi stand in Oz for hours waiting for my
taxi to my tiny town to fill up! Or showing up too late and no other taxi will go to my site unless you
buy out the whole thing (which I will not do because that would be crazy
expensive). Now I can hop onto a
CTM claim a large amount of space and cruise all the way home with not a care
in the world. It makes traveling exponentially less stressful. Last time I went
to Marakech I was in site for 2 hours waiting for my taxi to fill up to take a
9:45 CTM bus in the a city about an hour away every minute it got closer and
closer to me missing the bus.
Every time I did that I was always so stressed I was going to miss the
bus, so I end up waking up really early and waiting around either in town, or
in front of the bus stop an hour away. The one downside though of having a CTM
in town is that me and the ticket lady at the CTM an hour away had become
pretty good friends because I always end up waiting there. She’s great,
understands my Arabic, laughs at my pathetic attempts at joking and shares her
food with me. It’s possible I’ll still go up there from time to time if I don’t
want to wake up super early to catch the bus here in town. It would be worth it
to sayhello to this woman from time to time. So yay! It’s the small things in life people. If you can’t get
excited about the small stuff what can you get excited about ?
What a thrilling rant about travel. Honestly every volunteer
I’ve talked to lately has heard about this new bus, I literally called the
volunteer in the site next to mine, and it was like listening to two teenage
girls get excited about a new hanson brother’s album or something. My one
friend said “now I understand what it must have been like to be our
grandparents getting excited about stuff when they were kids… vacuums… mops…
microwaves… new buses.” Good times.
After being in Rabat for so long it’s nice being home. I’ve
changed rooms, because the room I had set up in for the winter gets full
sunlight for the majority of the day, the room I’m in now is almost 4 degrees
cooler at any given moment. I decided to finally move the day my thermometer
read 101 degrees. 101 degrees… in june. ( i know we've already visited this, but this is a big transition/experience for me... i will admit sitting outside comfortably in june is nice- but 101.. come on now that's just silliness...) I remember my first summer at camp in
maine wearing sweatpants, a sweater and an overcoat in june, and sleeping with
two blankets on. The other night I wet a sheet wrung it out and let it dry a
little then laid it over me as I fell asleep. A damp sheet to keep cool is not
equal to a fuzzy blanket and sweatpants. Le sigh. I miss Maine. I miss Mass.
There is a distinct lack of cool green grass for me to walk barefoot through
here. There is however a large amount of rocks and a courtyard for me to
scamper across as quick as I can because my feet are literally burning from its
hours in the sun.
So yes. As you can tell by my rambly ranting things are a
bit boring here, but not boring in the mind numbing way, just boring in the way that you spend a lot of time fixating on small things and your successes are a lot smaller then they used to be.
After all that time in rabat then in ourzazate for the regional meeting I am so happy to be back in
site. As I said before I’ve changed rooms, and the new room has a nice cozy
feeling to it, that I really like. The one downside is that because there isn’t
as much sunlight hitting the room there isn’t a lot of light which makes
crafting a bit more difficult. I’m making it work though.
a close up of my flower garland
Now that my classes have tapered off substantially from
shwiya ( a little ) to walu (nothing). I have a lot more time to devote to
crafting! I’ve become obsessed with crochet these days. This week I’ve made a
flower garland and bunting. The flower garland I made from yarn I brought with
me from America and the bunting was made from a color changing yarn I got from
my good friend Kali, I have the crochet fever! I’m really enjoying having
different kinds of projects. I alternate between crochet, bead crochet and
cross stitch and lately I’ve taken up baking.
a view of my flower garland going across my new room
I’ve always
been a crafter, but I’ve noticed that sometimes you make something for someone
and you can tell they appreciate the gesture but what you have given them is
something they would never use or wear. I discovered, however, that baking is a
craft that most everyone (except for people with eating disorders, vegan or
gluten free people) can appreciate. I also was lucky enough to be passed down
an electric oven from a volunteer who just recently left morocco. It’s fancy
because it’s electric and not propane so it’s easier to maintain and understand
the temperature inside of the oven. So far I’ve made 2 quiches, a peasant loaf
and a sweet cinammon raison and almond bread. (did i mention i've only had this oven for a week and a half?) I really enjoying baking here
also because it is instant gratification. Very rarely do you finish a book in a
day, or a craft. But when you bake, you make the dough or whatever walk away
for 20 minutes to an hour then come back to a delicious present. I currently
have a “peasant loaf” with onions and garlic in it. I’m going to bake it first
thing tomorrow for a second breakfast. I’ve also gotten more exciting in the
kitchen. Last week and this week I made a thai style peanut sauce with Moroccan
collard greens and rice noodles. Super delicious. I also tried my hand at some
green beans with curried slivered almonds. I’ve also made my own watermelon juice
and lemonade, and iced tea with mint. I’m telling you people, come visit me and
I will whip you up a fancy Moroccan/michelle styled feast.
my peanut sauce with collard greens. delicious. i am obsessed with peanut sauce.
Not having classes means I’m trying to channel my time more
towards spending time with the people in my town. All the students are done
with school (unless you failed your exams I think and if you fail them you have
to re-take them maybe? I don’t know for certain). Because no one has school and
I don’t have classes I’m trying to spend more time with individuals in my town
as well as my host family. So far it’s been working but I’m also trying to just
stay upbeat and active as life gets a lot slower. because of how hot the sun is no one is particularly active until the sun has set or is setting. there are whole families that are just parked outside their houses, shop owners and workers are hanging out on the side walks, town definitely has a different feel. i'm going to try and benefit from this publicness the heat has brought out in people.
Please let me know if
anyone wants to skype/chat ahead of time or text me on my Moroccan number so I can
plan my internets accordingly. Not having the internet means I’m spending a lot
more time reading too. I’m on my 13th book in country!
Stay classy everyone.
some pretty looking vegetables in the indoor market in rabat. trust me the veggies don't look this nice once they've made the hot voyage over the mountains to me. veggies near me look substantially more abused and wilty.
some turtles for sale in rabat
me and a volunteer from sierra leone in jlaba's- i bought that one.
i got to "see" mariah carey in concert for free while i was in rabat. she showed up almost an hour and a half late then had sound issues. diva. but it was a fun experience.
Sorry dear internets that I have been so absent as of late.
I’ve been out and about (read out of my home site) for a while. First there was
the Training of Trainers for those of us lucky PCV’s who were going to be
coordinating spring camps here ( I was a coordinator). That was up north in the
wonderful city of Mohammedia. After the training I only had a few days until I
had to be at my spring camp so me and a few other volunteers took time in
Casablanca and took a little hiatus from Morocco and went to the Morocco Mall.
The Morocco Mall was a trip- it felt like any other mall I’ve ever been too,
but almost in a way where it was trying harder then any other mall. There was a
two-story fish tank and a huge food court where I got to indulge in Starbucks,
sushi, and tofu fries. I also got some really great new clothes, a couple of
cardigans and 2 new shirts, getting new clothes is always fun and also a way to
feel “more normal”. It was also nice to eat some food I don’t really know how
to make myself. (I also love sushi so so much, and tofu! I miss tofu so much).
The Morocco Mall was a nice sejour, but it was also really nice to return back
to Morocco.
sushi and starbucks... YUM! i put my vanilla latte in my hands and just smelled it for a while. it was wonderful
the big fish tank in the Morocco mall- it's two stories high!
Hassan II mosque in Casablanca
In front of a big door at Hassan II mosque
vegetables being poured out for a daily souk in casa
After the Morocco Mall I headed to the ‘green city’of
Benslimane to work at spring camp. Spring camp here is a week long excitement
where us PCV’s are responsible for English classes as well as what is called
“clubs”. Not all camps are created equal some PCV’s were responsible only for
English classes, some volunteers were responsible for every moment of programming
every single day. I felt really privileged because I had a great Moroccan
staff, and a really energetic PCV helping me along the way. The kids were rough
the second week around but I gave them a strict talking to on the second day in
and things got a little bit better.
the girls from the first week dressed up for the moroccan wedding
me and my fellow PCV with the "happy couple"
creepy zoo/amusement park we went to the second week
a snapshot of the camp schedule.
Spring camp was hard in a lot of ways but a huge part of it
was that I was out of site for so long. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not
a picky eater, but week three into not eating my own food is rough sauce. Don’t
get me wrong the food at my camp was great, however, not the way I prefer to
eat (for example, I like my spaghetti with sauce, and the sauce not to have
meat balls in it, or I prefer a sandwich with more then lettuce and tomato on
it). Camp was pretty exciting though. There was a lot of singing, dancing
extremely loud music and even a fake Moroccan wedding! By the end of week two I
was tired, burned out and absolutely ready to go home.
After being away for so long it’s been kind of hard to get
the momentum up for my classes. I’ve been having a lot of difficulty with
attendance which, since the end of April has dwindled down to more or less
nothing. The kids are getting ready for the baccalaureate tests (like a way
more awful SAT’s) and end of the year exams so they’re way more worried about
spending as much time as they can studying and not attending my supplemental
English classes. The Netti/woman’s center where I try to go during the
afternoon is also winding down, I’ve heard rumor that they’re going to be
closed once school is over so slowly but surely the places where I interact
with people are getting smaller and less frequent. Peace Corps knows that work
more or less disappears come summer time, so they have activities such as SOS
camps (for orphan villages) and summer camp programs that happen in coastal
cities. I’m looking forward to maybe doing some work somewhere else, but I’m
also planning a vacation home to America for my friends Tina and Jon’s wedding,
so I don’t want to be caught in a position where I would be out of my community
for over a month.
If life was exciting and fast paced before (which it really
wasn’t) things definitely aren’t now. At the end of the slow hot summer I will
emerge one year into leaving America, and that is crazy. As I’ve talked about before
Morocco/Peace Corps time is a lot like Camp time, a day can be eternally long
and be gone in a blink simultaneously. It’s a little disorienting sometimes,
but helpful in others. I’ve already started experiencing the famous Moroccan
heat, it held at 95 degrees all last week, I’ve been telling people that “it
never gets this hot where I’m from, and it’s only May!” they laugh and I can
see in their eyes that they pity me, because after a lifetime of summers in New
England I do not have the history, adaptation or experience to deal with the
summer that is about to explode it’s hot breath into my life.
Another challenge for my current life/lifestyle is the fact
that for reasons I’m not entirely clear of the water in my town is off more or
less most of the time. I have a few theories. 1) if you leave the water in the
pipes, soon it will be so hot that the water will just start to evaporate. I
made sun tea the other day and after a day in the sun the glass was too hot to
handle without a towel and the water was steaming hot. 2) the government in my
town isn’t consistent about paying neighboring towns to encourage consistent
water supply 3) conservation. I don’t really know I’m assuming that as with all things the lack of water is a
combination of many factors. I’ve bought enough water bottles and water jug to
make it around 2.5 days before things get real. (Also after 2.5 days I will
still not have showered so that’s another hitch in the giddy-up). Whenever the
water is on I’m diligent about refilling the 6 litre bottles I leave in my
fridge and the 4 5L bottles and water jug I have nestled in the corner. I’m
hoping to use this as a learning opportunity as to how much water I really need
to survive, and how much water you really need to perform certain tasks. I’m a
terrible person and I’m definitely the kind of dish washer that just leaves the
water running the whole time, that life, my dear friends, is no more.
The longer I live alone the more I love it. This month
alone, even with the decline of good-looking vegetables I have started getting
more creative in the kitchen. I made my first Moroccan style Tagine with some
potatoes and beans and carrots. I made my own lemonade, and watermelon-cucumber
juice and then combined the two into ice-pops for one of the unbearable days I
will see in my future (there isn’t such a thing as ice cream in my town). I
also have started making my own salad dressing (I’ve gotten good a spicy garlic mustard vinaigrette that I
love to put over beets and bean salads). I also made my crowning
achievemens-was vermicelli noodles, braised collard greens with garlic covered
with a thai style peanut sauce- kids I’m in love. As long as I can get greens
or peanuts this dish is going to become a regular in my kitchen. I gave a
session to the new group of trainees this week about emotional health and one
of the coping mechanisms I encouraged them to try out was cooking, I’m going to
take my own advice to heart and even though it will be so hot I wont want to do
much of cooking or eating, I’m going to try my best to discover fun summer
dishes that will keep me healthy and satisfied. I will also be inheriting an
electric oven this week which I am thrilled about! So get ready to see some
quiche’s and home baked bread in my future.
This update is way long overdue and I apologize. I avoided updating because I wasn’t feeling
100% like I said in my last post the combination of my foot getting fractured,
my 26th bday, 6 months in site then spring camp made for a blended
up cocktail of not-ideal emotions. I try to avoid projecting my negativity out
and about, and I felt that sentiment also applied to a string of complaints on
my blog. Also because I took so long this blog entry was kind of hard to write.
You know when you finally get to
talk to someone on the phone after a long while and you realize you have no
idea what to update them on because so much stuff has passed, but now it seems
like a trivial and distant memory, then you end up just sitting there with
nothing to say. That’s kind of how
I feel about this blog post, even though I managed to get it to be 3 pages long
in my word document.
I will also put it out there, dear readers that for a good
part of the summer I’m going to be minimizing my internet consumption. The service
in my site was shoddy at best, and now the company I was using is charging by
bandwith and not by time, which made an already shitty investment an even
shittier one. I realize for my emotional health I can’t spend my days looking
at people posting about their summers (read I can’t emotionally handle watching
people update about camp and me not being there) so instead of torturing myself
I’m going to only use internet once or twice a week at the cyber café’s. I’m going
to try and update my blog regularly but as a result I will not be available for
skype regularly, so if you want to do that you should call my Moroccan cell
phone with a skype subscription or email me a week ahead to set up a skype
date. I’m hoping this summer will be an opportunity to read more books, work on
more crafts and do some solid cooking and not a time to wallow in self-pity and
longing for my friends and campers enjoying the cool breezes off of the
waterfront. Enjoy the pictures as well as the link to my peace corps cribs
video that gives you all a virtual tour of my home.
my x-ray of my foot! my first broken bone ever
a compilation of some of the rides at the weird zoo we went to on our field trip at camp
i think it says in arabic to watch out because they'll bite off you're fingers ;)
the moroccan flag
on our way to spring camp training our bus broke down!
the week before spring camp my orange tree bloomed. it smelled so nice! then i had to leave by the time i got back all the flowers had died.
