The Desert is Sopping Wet. Oxymoron?

And now for the big news...

I am no longer a PCT (trainee), but have officially been sworn in as a PCV (volunteer).  Please, no applause necessary... 

Me and my fellow YD PCVs after our swearing-in ceremony.

I arrived at my final site late last Friday night, after two long, hot and sweaty days of travel by train, taxi, bus, pick-up truck and foot.  I some how misunderstood my host dad's instructions to "wait at the bus station" and ended up being graciously kidnapped by a Berber speaking family, with all of my stuff in tow - lugging around two years worth of stuff is no small feat.  Suddenly, my "Intermediate-High" Darija language skills plummeted to zilch.  Thankfully, I was eventually able to figure out that this family was going to babysit me and force-feed me immeasurable amounts of couscous and sweets until my dad got off work - 8 hours later.  

I'm now living in Taroudant Province, 1 1/2 hours south east of Agadir.  This is where I'll be for the next two years.  There is one main road that goes through town - so far its the only paved road I've seen.  Otherwise, there's about 3,000 people in the town and an unknown number of surrounding villages.  It's uber-conservative here.  Most women in my town wear a loose outer garment and cover their hair Arab-style with a fulwar (veil, hijab), and the Berber women swaddle themselves in these beautifully dyed and printed lizars (sheets).  To be fair, school-age girls generally wear non-fitted jeans and tunic to knee-length tops and cover their hair.  Some men wear jelabas (long robes with hoods dangling in the back), but most of them wear jeans and t-shirts/button-ups, Western-style.

In other news, it's been pouring buckets non-stop for a week now.  I have to say, I was quite taken aback when the rain would not relent;  I naively assumed that it didn't rain much, if at all, in the desert.  Little did I know...  However, the sun decided to peek its head out today, but that doesn't make the muddy roads any more fun to trudge through.  I'm also apparently the only one in town who wasn't in on the joke, and thus do not own rain boots.

Things move at quite a slow pace here, which is definitely going to take some getting used to.  My first full day here I decided to venture out into the big, bad world to make photocopies.  It took me an hour to make twenty.  That was the only activity I accomplished that day.   I have spent this first week getting wlft, or accustomed, to my site.  I visited my gendarmes, khalifa, and basha (local government officials), and I was somehow able to communicate to them why I was there (At least I think I did.  There's a large chance that they took pity on my broken Darija and just "smiled and nodded" for my benefit).  

Otherwise, I've spent some time at my Dar Chabeb (DC) and Nedi Neswi (NN).  There are zero-to-five kids yet so far at the DC, but I'm hoping that's due to the torrential downpours and flooding of the past week.  Today, I spent three hours at the DC and a few lycee (high school) students showed up so I was able to talk to them about possible classes/activities.  We had an impromptu English session, and we finished the day with a healthy dose of ping pong.  I also met some of the ladies at the NN, and they have been lovely.  They have graciously attempted to teach me how to crochet, all the while making fun of my lack of ability in anything that has to do with yarn or thread.

As they say here, l'awn (good day).

Must. Eat. More. Howli....I mean sheep...

First things first, I survived Aed el-Kbir, the biggest holiday in Islam.  This holiday commemorates the story of Ibrahim and Ismael in the Quran; the same story is told in the the Torah and the Bible with Abraham and Issac.  Basically, Ibrahim was about to sacrifice his only son to demonstrate his faith and submission to God when a goat/sheep appeared "in the thicket."  God told Ibrahim to sacrifice the goat/sheep instead.  Alas, we have Aed el-Kbir.

Now, you may be wondering why I chose the term "survived." Well, let's just say there was a lot of animal sacrifice going on.  My family slaughtered nine sheep - one for every married male member of the household.

These are the first few sheep that arrived...if only they knew what was coming.

This one knew all too well...

The open sewer full of blood must have alerted this one to his impending doom.

 We ate every single part of that sheep for five days. I ate kidney, intestine fat, liver, heart, stomach, head, eye sockets, legs, etc.  Every morning for breakfast we ate liver kabobs swathed in intestine liver.  Mmmm, scrumptious.

These cutie-pies are my twin 10-year-old host siblings, Simo and Mouniya.  Those legs were our lunch the next day.

L'Aed is also a time when everyone gets dressed-up and receives presents - usually presents of clothes, but I thought I'd do it American style and give "stuff." The day was quite exciting, what with all the slaughtering going on and the hoo-ing and haw-ing over all the meat and how zwinin (beautiful) we all looked in our l'Aed outfits.  Just to clarify though, our family only made us, the foreigners, wear traditional, Moroccan clothing.  Everyone else was wearing suits and dresses.

 I must thank my dear cousins for this beautiful bubble-gum look.  Note the red sequined headband.

The haze in this picture is due to the common practice of grilling inside the home.  Don't ask why.  Never, ever ask why

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Five days of eating meat, and only meat, three meals a day, does not help with digestive issues.  This was definitely a great holiday to experience, but if I miss it in the future, my stomach will thank me.  L'Aed concluded our first home stay experience, so now I'm off to my new and exciting adventure in the South.  Wish me luck.