The Simple Life
For the past two months, staring up at me in our program itinerary in big black bold letters, were the much-discussed words “Village Stay.” I had heard horror stories about how no one escapes contracting some crippling intestinal parasite during the week, about how you will need nose plugs for the bus ride back because no one has seen a shower in seven days, about how for one week we must venture into a world without e-mail, television and- heaven forbid- Facebook! The village stay was a thing to be at once feared and eagerly anticipated.
On Saturday morning, we boarded a bus and headed east of Casablanca about three hours. Then, reminiscent of an earlier village expedition, we crammed some 15 students into the back of a cargo van and set off along a dusty unpaved road snaking over green hilly pastures. When we arrived in our village and nervously stumbled out of the van we were greeted by more of less the entire village standing anxiously in a cluster waiting to collect their mystery Americans who would share their homes for the week. We were the first group of Americans ever to stay with these families.

The village we stayed in is Arab as opposed to Berber, the original North African inhabitants who speak a different language called Tamazight. The village population is around 300. In some form or fashion nearly everyone is related, which made for some confusion when both my friend Sam and I were told we were living with Mustafa Faiz family of four! Turns out we were cousins. Actually I was cousins with about half a dozen of our peers!

The families stood excitedly on one side. The anxious students on the other. It was like picking teams for grade-school kick ball- the quiet chatter and nervous laughter. The roll call came…I grabbed my backpack, a two days supply of bottled water and a roll of toilet paper and approached the collection of curious villagers to shake hands with my Mustafa…and the journey began!

She’ll be falling off a donkey when she comes!
In one of my favorite movies the main character spends a summer in the Greek Isles enjoying a forbidden romance. In one scene she glamorously rides a donkey up the narrow stone streets, passing by blue and white villas as the azure sea sparkles below. Let me right now dispel this mythical image! Donkey riding is not in the least bit glamorous!

Before I knew it, my Mustafa- who shall from henceforth be known as my Baba or simply Baba- had flung my three year old sister on top of the donkey and was grabbing my arm to hoist me up as well. Baba is a rather a wisp of a man despite his vigorous lifestyle and I was sure that with my backpack on I had Baba by a good fifteen pounds at least. This coupled with the fact that there was no stirrup for support and that I had to maneuver some remarkable acrobatics to swing one leg high enough to straddle the donkey made for an interesting mount.

Once atop this donkey I quickly discovered that there was no “handle” to speak of and that the only thing within my grasp was the small child in front of me, who seemed ridiculously as ease with the whole situation. I was not sure if I was expected to hold her so that she did not fall off or if really in my efforts to “secure her” I was just looking for something to cling to while our donkey clopped up the uneven hillside.

With my legs flopping and hanging awkwardly six inches from the ground, a three year old in my lap, a thirty-pound sack on my back, and Baba at our side, I bumped merrily along to our house on top of the hill. I actually laughed out loud a few times as I pondered the situation and looked forward to more moments of hilarity and cultural exchange to come. Let the learning begin!

My family and village life
What do a cardiologist, an imam, and a sheep herder have in common? Me!

My most recent father, Mustafa, is 42 years old and grows wheat and herds sheep. My mother Aisha is 33. She was born and raised in the closest big town which has 60,000 people but moved to the village when she married Mustafa at age 18. I am not sure how much schooling she has had. Their 3 year-old daughter, Nohila, is one of the most beautiful children I have ever seen, with a mop-head of dark brown curly hair and big brown eyes.

Next door to us live Mustafa’s brother, his wife and their brood of nine children and one grandbaby. We spent most of our time together, including meals.

Our house is a stone/clay building with three rooms. All the floors are stone, though some have been covered by carpets. In the middle of the three rooms is a small courtyard with a single olive tree in the middle. The kitchen has a small fireplace where Aisha cooks bread, a gas burner to heat tea and tagines on, a very low round wooden table, and a place for sacks of animal feed, dishes and other kitchen essentials. When she cooks, Aisha either squats incredibly low or else sits on a small plastic stool only six inches off the ground so that she can knead the bread in the dish on the floor. I learned to make seven types of bread this week.

Our meals consisted of lots of bread, roasted vegetables, the occasional chicken (which I watched go from alive and clucking to roasted and savory- a first time experience!) Every meal was accompanied by lots of tea loaded with sugar as was every visit by friends and neighbors. People do not use tooth brushes either although there is a natural plant that they chew to clean their teeth.

The other two rooms of the house are fairly interchangeable. Both have stacks of blankets in the corner, mats on the floor, and a pile of pillows. We spent a lot of time on the floor-eating, sleeping, watching the small black and white TV, and weaving. The women sit behind the loom for a good chunk of the day, when they are not washing, cooking, and tending to the animals. Aisha’s day was a constant string of tasks from 6 am until bed time around 10. The carpets and blankets these women weave are intricate, colorful and truly beautiful. In the U.S. they would sell for at least 50 dollars each but in the weekly souk in the nearby town each one goes for between 6 and 12 dollars.

The men meanwhile spend most of the day outside, herding and farming. The drought plaguing Morocco these past few years has been placing a lot more pressure on these families. We had discussions with both the village men and women separately and both expressed hopes that their children would be educated and find work in the city or abroad as agriculture is no longer that viable.

Education, it seems, is by and large valued by the villagers though it is unfortunately not as readily accessible. The village has a primary school but the nearest middle school is too far away to commute. Families must either find financial means to pay for space in a dormitory, send their kids to family members in the city, or move to the city themselves if they hope to continue their children’s education. While some families find the means to do this others unfortunately do not.

Girls in particular are more likely to be kept at home to weave and take care of the house. Some are also married young to older men. An extreme example is the case of my friend Erika’s host mother who was born in 1988, after most of the students on our program! She has a four year old and an infant. The marriage age is going up though and the number of children per woman is going down. Women can access birth control at a nearby clinic. As a rule of thumb births occur at home, unless complications arise, in which case the hour long commute to the hospital often complicates matters further.

There is no running water in the village but a dozen wells provide the community with water carried to the house, I might add, by our dear friend the donkey! There were of course no toilets and without going into too much detail I would just like to say that I became very familiar with the great outdoors! We washed our hands before meals though no soap was used. Surprisingly, as a whole people seemed relatively healthy except for a few cases of the common cold.
Religious sentiment in the village is mixed. There is a mosque but I never saw my family praying. During our open group discussions one man said “Those who do not pray our not ours. They are not Muslim!” Obviously others disagreed with his perspective. The women expressed a desire for literacy classes so that they could learn to read the Koran.

I talked a lot with my mother throughout the week. We giggled over misunderstandings and taught each other bad words in our different languages. We talked about marriage, life in America, our lives as women in general. Despite language barriers I grew close to her in our week together. She expressed so many times to me that I was like family and that she hopes I can return and bring my parents with me.

I don’t know what I was expected to take away from the week exactly. But it certainly wasn’t pity. Perhaps I do feel a slight gratitude at having landed where I am in life due to the accident of birth. By American standards these people live in poverty. But at the end of the day, they are meeting their needs. They are fed, clothed, love one another and seem happy. I speak only for my host-family here as I know there were other more difficult family and economic situations in the village. I do hope that those who seek more-education, more opportunities, lives different form those they currently lead- that they are able to access those things. Their community center is attached to a larger organization that is working to realize those goals.

One of my best friends and mentors often says "There are so many ways to live your life." That is really what was echoing in my head as a rounded out my village stay and prepared to head back to Rabat.

A couple reflections and anecdotes from the week…
In the Spotlight
I realized how ingrained culture is in each of us as I grappled with the fact that personal space did not exist in this place and that was simply not ok with me. Being the first group of Americans in the village already put us in the spotlight. I answered a series of questions daily about America, which I actually did not mind so much. “Do you have mountains/sheep/rain/etc in America?" "How do you make your bread in America?" "Will you marry an American or a Moroccan?" "Is medicine in America cheap?"

The hardest part of all this attention was that I was never alone. I ate with my family, slept with my family, did daily chores with my family. When I wrote in my journal a handful of children looked over my shoulder or stood straight in front of me. I was led outside to go to the bathroom as they were afraid the stray dog might attack me, although it usually whimpered rather than barked. I could not go for a walk in the countryside alone. I was watched, guided, questioned all the time.

At times I was ready to tear my hair out, throw up my hands and run into the middle of the forest like a crazy woman just for a little solace. However, I fought back my individualist tendencies and took a deep breath…several deep breaths. If the roles were reversed, I would stare at me too. I would want to know what in the world made me come from some country across the ocean to this small village in Morocco. I would be curious. I would be concerned.

And the more I thought about it, I was doing the same thing to them. I was in their home, watching their lives, asking them questions. And our mutual curiosity wasn't really such a terrible thing after all. We were all learning, exchanging and growing together- no personal space for a week was a small price to pay for this experience.

Caught Red-Handed
Henna is a sign of celebration and love. Thus I was naturally flattered when my host family offered to "henna" my hands and feet. One night after dinner I got ready for bed, lied back with my feet on a pillow and let Aisha, my mother, go to work with the dark cakey clay substance. My feet and hands were coated in what felt like mud and then wrapped in cloth. It was like wearing surgical scrub shoes and small potato sacks on my hands. She strategically turned me on my side and placed me in the strangest position I think I have ever slept in. My palms were face up and my feet stacked!

All was going according to plan. I drifted off into a relatively comfortable sleep given that I was wrapped up like a roasting turkey in foil! Yet in the middle of the night I jolted awake! My eyes wide. My mind in panic!...I had to use the bathroom!

It was pitch dark outside. The wind was howling. I was sleeping in a room with three other people whom I didn’t want to disturb and I had mud drying on my appendages which were wrapped up like those of a mummy! I tried to ignore it. I told myself I could wait until morning. I didn't want to spoil my henna. -this symbol of love and hospitality so generously given to me by my family. I could be strong. Mind over matter. But alas, I started to dream of lakes and rivers and knew that I had to make a move, caked feet or not! I would leave my henna to the fates!

Don't fret (not that the state of my dyed hands and feet should really concern you at all in the first place!). All turned out ok. My feet are now appropriately red-soled with tiny little scalloped edges on the sides. My palms likewise are a burnt orange and my finger nails are shades of tangerine. The splotches on the pads of my thumb look like giraffe spots and my left hands looks like a kindergartener’s who just stuck his hand in finger paint for a mother’s day art project. And yet, despite it all my host mother oohed and ahhed over the henna, smiled at me, and told me it was “zwayn”- the all encompassing Moroccan word for anything good and beautiful! And you know what? Despite my better judgment I think I just might agree with her. For the next month I’m planning on wearing this gift with pride!

An Unexpected Adventure with the Peace Corps

“You’re going where?” These were the first words out of the mouths of nearly all our host families when they heard our weekend destination. “Taza is…..schwaya zwayn.” they’d try to say as convincingly as possible, careful not tear apart our fragile travel egos. In Moroccan Arabic schwaya means so-so and zwayn, perhaps among the most overused utterances in the language, is used to describe something that is good/pretty/tasty/healthy/etc. Although, by the amused and slightly disapproving looks on their faces, I gathered that popular opinion in Morocco said Taza was in fact not so zwayn after all. Our academic director told us that in his 15+ years with the program, only one other student group had gone to Taza.
Nonetheless, Taza was within a six hour train ride and, according to our faithful Lonely Planet, this unremarkable city was “a handy base” for exploring the mountains of the Eastern Middle Atlas and nearby caves and national parks. Perhaps the blasé city of 160,000 itself would not be anything to write home about, but we were craving some great outdoors and were willing to suffer the drudgery of a ho-hum city to get it.
When I got off the train in Taza late Friday night, my friends were huddled around a tall twenty-something blue-eyed man speaking glorious unaccented American English! It is funny how quickly my ears perk up to this now! Beside him, a small middle-aged woman was chatting in an unmistakably authentic Midwestern accent. The mother and son duo were from Fargo, North Dakota. The son, a recent college grad, was in his first six months of Peace Corps duty. He focuses on small business development in Taza, working with the artisans of a small craft center to develop and market their trade. His mother’s enthusiasm at being in Morocco visiting her son was enormous!
It was the mother-son pair that had spotted my group and struck up the conversation. I have observed an interesting tendency of human nature while abroad. In my “real life” (aka-the one I led before I fell madly in love with travel and the one to which I am schwaya reluctant to return), I have just about as much in common with someone from North Dakota as I do with a zookeeper from New Zealand…for example. However, across the ocean, suddenly a random guy and his mom from North Dakota become my compatriots! We chat, exchange contact information and make plans to have breakfast and go hiking together the next day! In Morocco we are instantly linked.
Saturday was an amazing day but turned out to be only the precursor to the pinnacle experience of the weekend. We met our new friend Paul and his enthusiastic mother for breakfast and continued on to the mountains with them for a hike. That evening we met the pair again for dinner, this time with a new character in tow.
Mike is also a Peace Corps volunteer in the Taza area. Morocco has some 160 Peace Corps volunteers. Taza, a city of 160,000, is the most populous station for any of the volunteers. The Peace Corps is only located in two Arab countries- Morocco and Jordan. Morocco volunteers are under intense security restrictions and consequently has a higher volunteer drop out rate than other countries. Aside from frequently reporting their whereabouts to both American and Moroccan authorities, the volunteers cannot travel together in groups larger than five at a time, which is considered a terrorist target. They are also forbidden from visiting the Western Sahara, whose sovereignty is a point of contention between Morocco and the Polisario independence movement.
While Paul is in the city, Mike, a specialist in the environment, is stationed a good hour van ride up a she’ll be comin’ round the mountain type of road (i.e. hairpin turns and nerve-wracking drop-offs). Only 500 people live in his village. No one marries into the village and the entire population is the result of five extended families and, I imagine, a slew of intermarriages. Mike’s village is Berber, the original inhabitants of Morocco before the Arab conquest. Their first language is, thus, a Berber, or Tamazigh, dialect. Their second language is Moroccan Arabic, which Mike has come to speak proficiently in his year long stint in the village. Fusha, or standard Arabic, is a stretch for the villagers, and only two people in the village speak French.
Only two hours after meeting us, Mike invited all eleven of us to visit his site the next day and to spend the night in his village- again proof of the bonds of nationality and travel camaraderie. Whether it was the fact that Mike lives alone in a remote village speaking Moroccan darija constantly and needed some company, or that he was so excited to show us what his Peace Corps work entailed, or the fact that Mike was genuinely an amazingly friendly and hospitable guy- we were eager to accept the invite.
The adventure began after breakfast Sunday morning when Mike informed us that our transit van would not be able to make it in to town to pick us up and we would have to trek uphill a good half hour to meet the van. The gendarmes (Moroccan police) get a kick out of pulling over drivers and asking for exorbitant bribes which multiply based on how many passengers are in the van and, I suppose, how grumpy that particular gendarme is feeling that day. So, to avoid a particularly notorious stretch of road, we would have to meet our van up the mountain a ways.
Hidden behind a large white gate sat a wide and boxy blue van with one middle seat and two make-shift wooden benches in the cargo area in the back. On the windows hung blue curtains, which we pulled shut whenever we passed a questionable authority to avoid the bribes. All eleven of us piled into the van with our two drivers, who were friends of Mike and, not to worry, reliable and safe!
We curved up the mountain side and watched the “so-so” town of Taza get smaller and smaller below us. An hour into our journey we stopped at the Friouato Caves, purported to be the largest caves in all of North Africa, although the villagers in Mike’s site will tell you that just over the mountains there are even bigger ones that remain unexplored. There are some 520 steps carved into the cave walls leading down to the hollows. The small framed circle of clouds and blue sky in the cave roof contrasted to the increasingly dark and narrow rocky depths below. When we got to the narrowest pass- the one which required a guide, a head lamp and a heck of a lot of guts- I balked. Evading the law in a transit van in rural Morocco was enough adventure for me for one day. I didn’t need to get wedged in between two rocks in a dark tunnel to boot! In retrospect, my fears were a bit irrational-small children and old women were also venturing into the tunnel- but like I said, I was getting my thrills in other ways!
When we finally arrived in Mike’s village later that evening he showed us around the small houses and led us on a long hike, giving us some background on his work, the community, and his “environmental schpeil”…There are a couple times in my life when I have literally felt I was on top of the world. Watching the sunrise in the Swiss Alps was the first. Standing on top of the mountains an hour outside of a random Moroccan town, nearly blowing over in the gusts of wind, and watching a beam of sun Biblically break through a grey cloud cover was the other.
We walked past a barren patch of grass with half-dead branchless trees. “The villagers use this for firewood.” Mike told us. “It’s technically illegal to take down green wood. So, they tear down branches, wait until they’re dead and dry, and then come back for them. It’s also forbidden to take wood from this area, but they really don’t have a choice. The women are overworked, so they can’t go far away to get their wood. They’re raping the forest, but they have no choice. It’s hard to realty be concerned about the environment when you need to put food on the table.”
Mike also told us about the inefficiency of the Moroccan Environmental Ministry he works with. Plagued by nepotism, unqualified persons with no environmental background are often promoted to high up positions in the ministry because of their fathers/friends/cousins and other connections. The ministry is “reforesting” the area by planting pines and eucalyptus, both of which are non-native to the area and drain ground water sources while their roots systems squeeze out other plants.
Mike also told us about some of the other problems facing the villagers. Once, a man came to Mike’s house with his finger split down the middle, black and blue in a week-old bandage. A week earlier the man had accidentally cut it with an ax and had only received one shoddy stitch for the bribe he had had to pay the nurse. The wound had not been washed. Traditionally, wounds are packed with plants. Mike instructed the man to wash the wound with soap and water and, fortunately, the shoddy stitch held it long enough for the finger to heal.
Education is another challenge facing the villagers. Down in the valley is a primary school, but the nearest middle and high school is far too far for the villagers. Not to mention the fact that children, especially girls, are occasionally kept at home in order to take care of household duties. Mike knows one family whose 45 year-old daughter was never educated, never allowed to marry, and continues to manage the family household.
So, while Mike is here to engage the villagers in projects to protect the environment, he is realizing more and more that problems of poverty, education and health are inseparable from problems of the environment.
That night the twelve of us worked together to make home-made tortillas, chop vegetables, and prepare a chicken for a makeshift taco night in the middle of the Berber Middle Atlas. While we were listening to music and cooking a couple of Mike’s neighbors dropped by to get a glimpse of the mythical eleven Americans who appeared in Taza! Word of our presence had spread quickly in and around Taza. Even before we met Mike, people in cafes and on the streets in town were referring to us as “Mike’s friends.” We were headliners.
Mike told us that his neighbors who had dropped by would think that we Americans were crazy! The men in our group were cooking for one thing! And our meal consisted of multiple dishes and plates instead of the one staple common plate of rice the villagers eat. They’d be talking about us, Mike assured us, for the next month at least!
After dinner we had smores, and in the morning Mike made us banana pancakes. We climbed in the back of our transit van, closed the curtains around us, and journeyed back down the mountain to catch our train. Along the way, I talked to Mike a little more about his experience. “I would recommend the Peace Corps hands down,” he told me. “I don’t know that my actual projects have really taken root. But I am trying to get people to think outside the box a little bit…and as far as a cross-cultural exchange it has been a definite success. There are good days, challenges and bad days…but I can say that, even now in the middle of my experience, it is worth it. And if you ask me ten years down the road I will say the same.”
So, for all those who laughed at our decision to go to Taza for the weekend I say this- you never know what experiences await you, who you will meet and where the road will take you. I have spent many weekends traveling around Morocco, but this was undoubtedly the most unexpected, the most eye-opening and the one that left me with the most to think about-hopefully it will give you all a little food for thought as well.