Spring is Here!

After a week of the coldest and wettest weather yet, spring arrived overnight. The trees are leafing out, birds are singing, wild flowers are blooming, and the roosters are crowing around the clock.

The women have cast off the blankets they wear as coats, except for those being used to tie a toddler on their backs.

Packs of children, laughing and screaming, run through the streets to release their pent-up energy. I went an entire day without wearing my coat in the house. The air fells softer and definitely warmer.

I know now that I can hang on through another winter.

Working With Artisans

Yes, I am working here. My Peace Corps counterpart is Adwal Co-operative, a weaving co-operative. They even have a website, thanks to Lynn, the former PCV at http://adwalweaving.com . The co-op makes beautiful carpets and fabrics using traditional designs from their Berber roots. They have three vertical looms, two horizontal looms, knitting machines, a new outdoor workroom and showroom. Pile carpets called zrbya are woven in natural wool with the Beni Ourain abstract design of the region. Any of their products can be special ordered by sending them an e-mail in French or Arabic, or to me in English.
At this point, I’m still observing and trying to communicate. I go to the co-op so the women will become familiar with me and trust me, and to watch what they do and how they work. It’s fascinating to watch them weave patterns from memory passed down through generations. It’s clear to me that not only is weaving their work but also their social life.
Adwal Co-op has quality products, but is most in need of finding markets for them. Competition in carpet weaving is intense. So far my most productive work has been to secure three orders on-line, which is probably the best way to reach the American market. We are currently getting ready to attend Marche Maroc in Fes at the end of March. This is a craft fair established by Peace Corps volunteers and is held twice a year. I am helping the co-op with their product selection—items that will sell to tourists—after observing at the fair in Marrakesh that items which fit in a suitcase sold better. Just before Marche Maroc, a group of knitters from the UK is coming to the co-op for a workshop on natural wool dying followed by a traditional Moroccan lunch. We are also working with some people in Fes to put together day trips to our area since we are off the beaten track—no tourists pass through here—but in a scenic area with many interesting activities such as couscous rolling workshops, olive oil pressing, and hiking, in addition to the natural dye workshops. The plan is for them to visit the co-op showroom and buy a hand-woven carpet at a fair price without haggling in the souks. March is turning out to be a busy month. I keep waiting for all the down time we were told to expect. Maybe that comes when it’s too hot to move.

Olive Season in Morocco

Would you buy this liter of brownish stuff in a recycled Coke bottle from a roadside stand in Morocco? Neither would I—until now. If you did, you might well be getting the finest of traditional olive oil for about $2 a liter. It’s olive season in our area and now is the time to stock up. We have been fortunate to experience both the olive picking late last year and the olive pressing which is currently going on.


One day in late December, our host family invited us to go with them to their farm in the valley where they grow olive trees, almond trees, and a large vegetable garden. It was a pleasant day, like a fall Montana day, with warm sunshine and crisp cool air. We all shed our coats except for our host mom who is made of steel. (She wore her long black wool coat all during the picking, eating lunch, and the hour’s walk back to the road.) Some people beat the olive trees with sticks until the olives fall off, but not our host family. They treat their trees kindly, and we picked every olive on the tree by hand, dropping them into a canvas spread under the tree. The olives were then hand-sorted and put into bags, ready for pressing. On the walk back to the road to catch a taxi back to town, we passed by a spring where a cut-off soda bottle had been left as a drinking cup. Our host mom rinsed out the cup and offered us a drink from the spring. She gave it to her daughters too, so we put aside thoughts of giardia or worse and swigged it down—as yet to no ill effect. When a taxi finally came by, it had three people in it already. There were five of us but we all piled in anyway, with one person sitting to the left of the driver. Luckily it was a short trip home.

Last week, we were invited to spend the day with another family to participate in the pressing of olives into oil. Again, it was a beautiful winter day. The small mud and concrete building that houses the press is on a hillside overlooking the valley, and the view from there is stunning. First we loaded sacks of olives onto a donkey and hauled them to the press. There they were dumped into a large circular stone mill with a huge grinding stone hooked to a horse that walks in circles around the mill. While the horse was doing his work, we ate fresh bread dipped in olive oil and drank coffee. After the first grinding, the mash was put in shallow baskets which were stacked in a column under the hand press. The weight was slowly tightened on the baskets while the oil poured through the basket mesh into a tile container in the floor. Hot water heated over a wood fire was added to aid the oil flow. The water and oil naturally separate while sitting. The mash in the baskets was then dumped back into the grinder, and the process was repeated two more times. After the third pressing, the oil in the floor was skimmed of impurities and funneled into various plastic containers. The men then lugged about 15 gallons of olive oil back to the road. As you can imagine, this is a time-consuming process. I spent part of the day sitting on a rock outside in the sun looking out at the mountains across the valley and listening to the squabbling of chickens and the sound of horse’s hoofs plodding around and around. The next time you buy a bottle of traditional olive oil from the store, think of the labor of men and women, donkeys, and horses that went into it.

Winter in Morocco

It snowed this week and I’m colder than I have ever been. This is not the Morocco of scorching desert sands. This is the Morocco of the Atlas Mountains. Even though we’re from a cold climate, the difference is that here the houses are just as cold inside as the temperature outside—often colder. You know you’re in Morocco when you have to go outside to warm up, or when you have to put vegetables in the refrigerator to keep them from freezing during the night. And as usual during inclement weather, the power often goes out. There’s nothing quite as dispiriting as being cold and damp in the dark. Condensation drips down the concrete walls and dampens every surface. If a sunny day comes along, every rooftop across town sports a colorful variety of blankets as the women haul all their bedding up to the roof to dry out. I hope one day Moroccans will discover the benefits of insulation. The upside is that the view of the snow-capped mountains is a stunning sight and the valley turns a glorious green. February promises to be a long month, but as Shelley wrote, “When winter comes, can spring be far behind?”

Moving In

I imagined moving into our own house and fixing it up by painting and decorating, maybe with Moroccan carpets and handicrafts. Ha! The reality is that the PC allowance for settling in doesn’t even cover the basics of appliances and furniture. So we moved into a fourth floor walk-up apartment and are learning to overlook the cracked windows, shutters missing slats, doors that don’t close (which the landlord will fix, inshallah), chips in the paint, a lopsided sink, and a funky odor coming from the ventilator shaft. (And really, isn’t it just common sense to put a drain in the lowest part of the floor or sink or whatever you want drained?) It’s back to college living with cardboard boxes for end tables and plastic lawn furniture in the living room. Our kitchen consisted of a counter along one end with a sink in it. There were no appliances, or cupboards or shelves. But it does have stunning views of the Middle Atlas mountains, is close to transportation, our counterpart co-ops, and is just up the street from a great little coffee shop with outdoor seating that welcomes western women.

Every time we buy something like a plastic table or ponj or wash buckets, we have to hand carry it back to the apartment, which means passing in full view of all the patrons of the coffee shops and everyone in the streets and on their rooftops. I’m pretty sure everyone knows what we have purchased, and Moroccans never hesitate to ask you where you bought something and how much it cost. Then they will shake their heads and say “gali bezzaf! (very expensive!), knowing that they could have gotten a better price.


One of the goals of Peace Corps is to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of people served. I’m afraid we may have temporarily set back the cause when we recently bought a refrigerator. After visiting two or three stores two or three time each, asking prices, and having our host family ask prices, we finally settled on one. Two days later when we went back to have it delivered, the salesman led us to another model of the refrigerator we had purchased and launched into an explanation of …………something. We clearly didn’t understand so he went over it again, louder, with an increasing number of onlookers and a French speaking person who was called in to explain it to us in French which we didn’t understand either. Finally we just nodded in agreement and got in the truck for the delivery. Two men, not much bigger than me, hauled the refrigerator up four flights of stairs. After setting it up, we were admonished to wait until five o’clock to do…………… something—we weren’t sure what—but he kept pointing at the plug and the wall socket and the refrigerator motor. We both heard him say something about butagaz. When I don’t understand what’s being said, I sometimes make up my own dialog to fit the gestures. I thought he said he would come back at 5 with what we decided was a grounding wire or something we needed to save us from sparking an explosion. Five o’clock came and went and no one showed. So the next morning we went to the store and asked the owner what we needed. Again he pointed to a wall socket in the store that had a third prong, so yes, we were convinced that’s what we needed. Finally he sent one of the delivery guys back with us to do whatever needed doing so we could use the refrigerator. He grabbed the plug and………. plugged it in. That was it. He also showed us how to move the shelves to different levels and how to open the vegetable bin. I can’t imagine how helpless he thought we were to not know how to plug in a refrigerator. He may even think we had never seen one before. Apparently what he told us was to wait until five o’clock to plug it in because they had laid it sideways for delivery and the fluids had to settle. I’m also making this up but now it seems likely. It was another “lost in translation” moment.

Holiday Season In Morocco

On Christmas Eve, we went to Fes where we met up with some other PCVs for the holiday weekend. We had decided to treat ourselves to a riad in the old medina, but it turned out to be not much of a treat. It wasn’t up to my standards for cleanliness and it was cold. But there was Wi-Fi, so we did get to Skype with family. Christmas day, six of us met for a fabulous dinner at Café Clock, a British owed café in the old medina full of art, artifacts, and charm. We had a delicious three course meal including a glass of mulled wine which was just the thing for a rainy evening. There was pâté, calamari, pumpkin bisarra, roast lamb, turkey, roasted vegetables, fig pudding, pomegranate meringue, Christmas decorations, Moroccan music, and waiters that danced to the drumming. It was a fun and festive cross cultural event—a little British and a little Moroccan in the company of American friends.

New Year’s Eve was, as usual for us, a non-event where we didn’t stay awake until midnight. The most exciting part was that we were home in our own apartment for the first time, having moved in earlier that day. We can now be adults again and set our own schedules. The obligatory overeating four times a day so as not to offend our hosts is over. We can wash dishes in hot water, turn the lights up enough to read, and stay out as late as we want. Our host family is wonderful and we will miss them, but it is time to be on or own. The new year will be truly new.

New Year’s Day was equally non-eventful. It’s a holiday in Morocco, but in our little town it seemed like business as usual. The carpenter across the street turned on his buzz saw bright and early and the rooster that likes to crow all night long was still at it. In the afternoon I visited my host family to do henna with my host sisters—apparently a tradition for the New Year. There was a delicious cake along with the usual afternoon “snack” of bread, jam, honey, zmeta, cookies, tea, and coffee. At night a lot of children were running and yelling in the streets and horns were honking. This could have been a new year’s celebration—or not. There’s a lot that goes on that I don’t understand.

Changing Acronyms and Moving On

Much has changed in the last few weeks. We have left our community based training center in Midelt, become full-fledged volunteers(PCVs) instead of trainees (PCTs), moved to our permanent location, moved in with a new host family, gone to a craft fair in Marrakesh, and started our service with the co-ops.

Our swearing-in ceremony was memorable and took place in Rabat, the cosmopolitan capital of Morocco. The US Ambassador attended as well as various dignitaries of the Moroccan government. The speeches were short and to the point, we all took the PC pledge and then adjourned to a fine lunch on the beautiful grounds of the Peace Corps headquarters. The day was sunny and warm and the menu was turkey cooked several different ways since it was the day before Thanksgiving. We got to stay in a nice hotel in the heart of Rabat with private baths and hot water. Luxury!

Thanksgiving Day was spent on local transportation traveling to our permanent sites. As usual, whenever we have to haul our luggage around, it rained. We did manage to get to our site in time to enjoy the American version of Thanksgiving dinner with Pete, our youth development site mate who is an excellent cook. We had roast chicken instead of turkey and chocolate chip cookies instead of pumpkin pie, but otherwise it was a traditional and delicious meal.

The PCV craft fair in Marrakesh, Marche Maroc, came just days after moving to REK, our new site, so it was a learning experience for us. The fair wasn’t a big success for the artisans, which was disappointing. There were a lot of people in town for the international film festival but they didn’t seem to make it to the Artisanal Ensemble where the fair was held. Those who came seemed to be only buying small items which would fit in a purse or suitcase, or shopping in the Ensemble shops where credit cards were accepted. Our co-op’s only carpet sale was to a PCV. The next fair will be in Fez in April, and we all hope for a more successful market there.

Marrakesh is in some ways an overpriced tourist trap, but still a fun place to visit in a stunning setting, and the warm weather was much appreciated. The main square, Djema el Fna, is full of performance artists, snake charmers, musicians, and various hustlers. At night there are brightly lit food stalls where food is cooked in bubbling pots and over smoking grills. You can even have a goat head complete with eyeballs if you like. We ate kabobs there twice and they were tasty and fragrant. The most fun for me was relaxing on various rooftops overlooking the medina and the magnificent Koutoubia mosque.

We recently attended our first wedding. It was a two day affair. The first night was a henna party for the bride and the second night was the actual wedding. Everyone was dressed in their shiny, sparkly, lacy, sequined, gold and silver best. This included me in my borrowed caftan resplendent with crystal beads. Our family made quite a showing in our finery as we walked to the wedding with our host father pushing a wheelbarrow with a 50 pound bag of sugar—a traditional wedding gift. At the home of the bride, we were greeted at the door with drumming and chanting, and our usually quiet host mom burst forth with an astonishing ululation. The men and women were separated in different rooms, and I have to say the women appeared to have a lot more fun. There was dancing on the table, line dancing and belly dancing. Some of the older women could shake it with the best of them. We ate dinner around 10pm, first the men, then the women. I helped polish off the chicken tagine with the requisite round of bread when another course of meat tagine appeared. This was followed by couscous, and finally by a fruit plate. At that point, I decided to call it a night, but the party went on until 3am. The sensible part about wearing a caftan is that underneath all that shine and glitter, there may well be a pair of heavy knit leggings or pjs.