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.