Faucet?

These are a couple of Marks family members. What makes the picture funny however is that in every picture we take of just one or two of the girls they compulsively want to hold up something at head hight. Potted plants, tea pots, other cameras, balled up head scarves.... whatever. Mark wouldn't let them in this picture and they freaked out and refused to have thier picture taken by a blank wall so they ran and stood next to this facuet instead. Someday maybe I'll figure out why.... someday....

More Scenery

Picture taken on a hike up to Alithia's village (another voulenteer on the other side of the mountains)

High up

This is the ridgeline on the other side of me. The picture was taken at about 12,500 feet at the top of a pass through to a village I was visiting for the day.

Hanging with the Girls

Hanging out with the girls of Mark's village. I'm sure mine are this cool but the men don't really let me talk to hem. The bamboo sticks with the red string are hand looms and they are working on scarves which they wear around thier other scarves on their heads. They've already offered to make me one for my mom and I'm sure they would take other orders... just let me know.

Beach fun

Yes... even I can be silly from time to time... and yes.. the wind really is strong enough to hold me.. yes... I did get a face full of sand... and yes... sand did blow into my backpack. All of which is totally worth it for the humor value of course....

Here's one of me in the entrance to my secret forest grotto where I go to avoid the berbers for a bit. Its pasture land but don't be fooled. The perspective is a little wierd but its verticle behind me, climbable only because the grass clumps make huge steps

Picture This

Here is a test picture from the last month. These are some girls from marks village of El Limouda. The've become normal to me but might strike some of my friends back home as being a little exotic... All a matter of perspective. :-)

Beach Bums and Onion Baseball

Hey Everyone,

Month 2 in Amssouzarte down the tubes and not to much stunning to report. I'll do my best to make it entertaining however.

First I know everyone is waiting with baited breath after my last e-mail to hear about the results of my run in with the Moroccan legal system. This is as good a place to begin as any and so I shall relive you of your worries. I am happy, (and yet somehow disappointed at the same time) to report that I have been absolved of any Moroccan criminal record and am free to continue trying to help the people here. I'm sure someone at PC's budget room breathed a sigh of relief and at least I've still got the story. Speaking of which the appeals court was interesting and in the Atlantic seacoast resort town of Agadir. (bonus!) I got the usual call from the PC safety and security coordinator... (who fell in the process of dealing with us and broke his leg) to come and call him back. The problem being that I had to call by noon and got the message at 11:30 requiring me to run all the way to the phone 5 kilometres away. I made it and he tells me that I'm due in court in two days in Agadirand have to go get mark and tell him we're leaving. Ironically enough my program manager has just finished telling us the day before that we were finished with the process and didn't have to worry about it anymore... Nice to know that they talk to each other up there. We head out and sign the summons at the gendarmes office and then head to Agadir (mind you after waking up at 4 am and riding in a crowded dusty land rover for 5 hours). We had the afternoon free so decided to quest for some American cuisine and went looking for McDonalds. On the was as if by fate we bumped into a delivery boy for pizza hut and decided to go there instead. Being the man of the world that I am I usually avoid such places when I travel but after 60 plus days of tajine I was ready! Nor was I disappointed... we demolished a large supreme pizza and breadsticks and then decided that we needed to walk off enough calories to avert the current hunger crisis in Niger... on the beach.

We found it eventually by heading the same direction as every other non Moroccan in the vicinity and walked its entire length, which after heated debate we judged to be about 5 kilometres... We still had all our stuff and were in no way dressed for the beach but managed to have a good time anyway soaking our pants and getting harassed by people who wanted us to Jet ski (backpacks and all aparerantly). The beach in an Arabic nation is an expanse of stunning contradictions. Everywhere you look differentness confronts you. There are ugly European tourists in g-strings and Speedos (eww!) who's presence is a requirement for the beach, the town and even the country to survive, side by side with fully decked out Berber women who's face or eyes is the only thing you can see. Then there are the inbetweeners, people in bathing suits but headscarves, or Moroccan women swimming in pants and teeshirts without the scarf. Family groups gather just as they would at home and eat tajine out ofTupperware with bread, or cook rice in a pressure cooker at the same time others munch down western food with reckless abandon. All is overshadowed by the ever-present slogan of morocco spelled out in 40 foot letters on the hill at the end of the beach lit up at night so its the first thing and the last thing you notice when coming or going anywhere in Agadir... GOD, COUNTRY, KING.

After exhausting ourselves at the beach we retired to the only hotel we could afford on our PC expense account, no thanks to the would be guide who called us "shit tourists" when we tried to talk to him in his own language and showered to rinse off the beach sand. Having been thwarted in our quest earlier to find McDonalds we decided to do that for dinner after hitting up the internet and to our surprise we found it was right on the beach... right next to yet another pizza hut. A big mac and fries hit the spot and I got an extra pair of flip flops (a summer promotion here) in the bargain. Not only that but its the 5th anniversary of the coronation of the king and there was a huge concert in the square right by the restaurant. We stayed and watched that and I was delighted to discover that there is arabic music out there that isn't half bad. For pretty much everyone's sake I hope the trend catches on.The next morning we stumbled awake early in order to be on time for court at 9 am. Our translator met us there and we went in as soon as they opened the doors, only to discover that the gendarmes had "mislead" us once again and appeals court didn't start till 12:30... Ahh well.. more time to enjoy the beach. We went back at 12:30 and packed into the court room with many many other moroccans who haven’t showered in at least a year and at least half of whom were convicts in the handcuff and police escort sense of the term... This wasn't calculated to make me feel good about the circumstances. About an hour behind schedule (apparently a new record in timeliness) the judges got started, going through about 5 cases before someone passed them a note and they called me to the bench... After waking up my translator (who was a woman and therefore seated in a different part of the room) and reminding her of my name... I went before the judge and stated my case again. You could tell hewas bored by the circumstances and he clearly had other cases to see that were more exciting. He didn't even bother to check out the evidence I had brought with me. He repeated the process for mark and then we all left with the promise that we would hear something by Thursday.

Mark and I left for Taroudant and stayed there before heading back up to site the next day. All in all it was a rewarding and interesting experience. We got the news Thursday that the Judges had agreed with us that the whole thing was silly from the beginning and now we shouldn't have anything to worry about until we attempt to renew the citizenship card next year... Mark and I are planning to start now :-)In other news around town my host dad, soon to be my landlord is putting the finishing touches on my house. I should have running water (at least until the pipes freeze) and a new kitchen ( a countertop) Next step comes with furnishings and fixings as well as learning how to buy food from a weekly farmers market instead of a supermarket. I had been labouring under the happily delusional impression that all meat is raised in plastic wrapped Styrofoam containers until ready to be plucked from the vine. At least until they slaughtered a cow in my village recently. The preferred method of advertising what meat type is on sale is to prominently display the head of whatever animal was unfortunate enough to have crossed paths with the knife wielding butcher most recently. Its gruesome and takes a bit of getting used too as you walk from stall to stall. You also have to get used to flies on everything, but then the alternative is to not eat at all and so its remarkably easy to adapt.

Amssouzarte itself has recovered from the flood a few months ago with amazing dexterity. Except for a soccer field sized mud pit kept clear by constant use the new rocks have been stacked into new walls reminiscent of New England farm fields and everything is green again. I'm blessed to live in a region of morocco where there is year round water. Most of my friends are rationing and only get water for about an hour a day. All about conservation. The evenings have already started to get colder and with no readily available method to heat my house its going to be a long cold winter. I'm trying not to think about that too hard. I did think about it enough to choose an apartment over the public baths so my floor is slightly heated at all times... Probably won't make too much of a difference but every little bit helpsMy language continues to improve in spits and spats and I alternate between being praised and being told I know nothing. I've learned to deal with this as normal and just keep plugging away. My focus has started to shift as I become more comfortable with the people and the surroundings into trying to decide things I can do for them. So far I've come up with a couple of ideas and they have suggested a few. They are thinking about starting fish farming for four reasons and have in fact, already built several tanks for this purpose. The reasons are, dietary variety, selling the eggs for profit, increasing iodized salt in the diet to reduce the number of people with thyroid disorders, and tourist attractions. I'll probably help with this project at some point. The other things that they are interested in is planting more trees and building a woman’s centre. I would LOVE to do this last thing but its difficult to get support for a project when you haven’t discussed it with the people that would benefit the most from it.

Actually I haven’t discussed anything with the women at all and its definitely a moral dilemma for me. As much as I'm enjoying my time here in Morocco I think I would have trouble dealing with the Arab world on a long term basis. I have too many friends that are women, who's thoughts and opinions are unique and interesting and entirely valid, and that matter to me a great deal to be able to easily tolerate a society were 50% of the voice is ritually excluded as a matter of course. And its god's will so there is no argument. I've been reading the Q'uran to try and increase my understanding as well as trying to build up the trust of the (insecure?) men to let me talk with the women. I'm also trying to build relations with some of the younger teenage girls that still have some freedom of movement hoping to get an in to the women crowd. Its a delicate balance. Conversely, Mark's village only 10 k away is a complete 180 and there we ONLY talk to women. Its a refreshing switch andthey love to joke around all the time. The jokes have a dangerous edge though because talking about marriage and the like is only ever half joking. By being foreign we are the most eligible bachelors in town. They other day though we tried to teach them about baseball by playing catch with an onion... The onion proved to be not very aerodynamic and it turned more into a game of Berber soccer (aka race the onion down the nearly vertical hill at full speed in flip flops). They loved it.

I managed to finally make it out to see the lake that’s 7 kilometres from my house. Let me tell you that seven kilometres is no joke though and nearly all of it is pretty much straight up hill. The lake was totally worth it though, glistening blue-green in a bowl which must have been carved by a glacier in years gone by. I went swimming in its "refreshing" depths and couldn't touch the bottom, even a few feet from shore. Probably go camping up there in the early part of October to meet some friends coming through from the other side of the mountains. There are lots of Shepard’s shelters so I wouldn't even need tents or anything. The problem is food... probably going to be sardines and bread for a lot of the time as there is nothing close to camp stoves. Probably have to go back to my cub scout days and make some out of tuna cans, wax and cardboard to boil water for coffee and such... Something to look forward to. My grander plans to hike up to Toubkal feel through, thoughI'm still not sure why... We just didn't go... Maybe sometime in the near future.Monday I have my first meeting with the Department of water and forests... the agency in charge of the park. Its in Marrakech and it will be my first trip to the city. I'm excited to see the square with all its monkeys and snake charmers and fire breathers... It will be fun to play the educated tourist. My language will mean little there as its not a Tashehiet region but I should be able to get by with French just fine. I'll be like the millions of other French tourists there.

Thanks everyone who sent letters and such... Its a slow process but I've been receiving and replying to them as soon as I get them (there often isn't much else to do :-)) I love you all and really truly do appreciate it. If I think of more to add to this e-mail I may send out addendums before I head back up the hill in a week or so... If not, keep in touch!
Till next time...
Love and Luck
Cheers!
-Andy

P.S. For anyone who notices a very slight British accent in this message... you have good eyes. The spell checker was smart enough to realize I was writing in English but not that I was American. Still have a ways to go Mr. Gates…

The Truth and nothing but so Help me Allah (court addendum)

Hey all,

First and formost happy July 4th. I hope you all managed to do something fun and not to ileagal to celebrate. Mark and I are here in Oz and will celebrate as much as the 128 degree temp lets us. You heard that right... and for those of you south of here... I'm truely sorry. Secondly, after reading an e-mail about Mark and I and our recent adventures that was almost completely false and because the truth is a fun enough story without blowing it all way out of proportion I feel the need to set the record straight and satisfy curiosity about our recent brush with the Moroccan legal system. If thats not something that interests you... read no further but do take care of yourselves until the next time I see you!

From the begining, Mark and I began our adventure with the Gendarmes in Taliouine about a week after ariving in our site on June 2nd. Taliouine is a tough 6 hour trip from our site and we managed not to forget any of out paperwork in the interests of not having to do it again too many times. June 2nd was 6 days before the deadline of 3 months ran out and we would become illigeal aliens in Morocco. We arrived early AM and then had to sit around and wait until the Gendarme commander could come and start the process. He did arrive and before noon we were all set... our folder was complete except for the Attestation de Travail from the eaux et forets, which they hadn't sent us yet, but we were told that this wasn't a problem and we got our reciepts for the Carte de Sejour and went on our merry way 6 hours back to our sites all proud of ourselves and thinking we had actually accomplished something. The next day the Gendarme commander sent a Gendarme all the way to my site to tell us that actually, not having the thing from the Eaux et Forets WAS a problem after all and that we needed to go to Marakesh to get it, post haste. I told him I would do what I could after he tried to find someone to re-explain in english what I needed to do. (HA good luck with that) It was Saturday, and since I thought my chances of finding anyone to give us permision to go to Marakesh on sunday morning were pretty slim I waited till Monday to call my Program Director. I repeated the message to him and he told me that the thing from the Eaux et Forets was on the way. I mentioned that the Gendarmes had been pretty adament about needing it by wednesday and he just kinda laughed and said that the Gendarmes were pretty adament about everything and that it was in the mail. We would get it when we got it. Mashi Mushkil.

A week or two goes by and we are definately past the deadline... whatever... they havn't sent anyone up to bother us in a while so I figured someone, someplace has passed on the message and that we are in the clear. About as I was thinking this the mayor figure in my town comes up to me (again, Sunday morning) and tells me that Mark and I are REQUIRED to go and see the Gendarmes first thing monday morning... Regardless if we have the required paperwork or not (shit). I walk the 6 k to the phone and bother my assistant program director on my own dime to tell her that Mark and I will be travelling the next day to see the Gendarmes and that I don't know what they want... She was cool with that and I think more than a little curious herself, considering we already have our Carte reciepts and they should be done with us. When I got back to town I asked my mayor if anyone had told Mark he was supposed to come.... He shrugged and gave me an Inshallah (double shit). By this time it was too late for me to blitz the 12 k or so to Marks house and back so I inshallahed myself and went to dinner. (my 5th meal of the day) Incidently, immediately before this a flood wiped out the road to my town so I had to get up at 4 am and Hike over a mountain for 6 k before being able to reach the nearest road still passable by 5 am. Because my host brother that was guiding me over the dark rocky terrain decided to stop and have tea with a shepardess on the way (hashuma!) I saw the taillights of the the 5 am transport into Taliouine cresting the rise into the pass out of town. It was at about this time that my host brother tells me that this isn't a problem because there is a 7:30 transport. I just stared at him with my best "why the hell didn't you tell me that in the first place" look which was totally lost on him because he was already nose down in his next glass of tea at the local cafe. I waited for the next transport and caught it no problem. He drives about half way and then stops at one of the suq towns along the route and transfers me to a bus that will supposedly take me the rest of the way... Problem being that the bus dosn't depart till 11, which will put me in Taliouine first thing in the afternoon, but not first thing in the morning. I shrug this off and take a nap on the bus, have tea with the driver, etc. 11:30 rolls around and we take off. I stumble in to the Gendarmes' office about 1:30 pm praying for Mark and Coffee and getting niether. I stick my head into the commanders office and he becons me to come inside. The first two questions I get after 5 minutes of greetings are... "why so late?" and "where's your freind?" I'm tempted to answer... "its Morocco duh... " and "what friend?" but I settle for... "sorry, transport was bad." and "I don't know I thought he would be here already." I could have answered "because elephants trampled my little sister" and it woudln't have mattered because he speaks arabic and french and I speak tashelhiet and english. He shrugs and frowns and mutters to himself about how all americans are problems and we are his current biggest and then evidently decides to proceed anyway and using some combination of english, french and arabic with a few tashelhiet words thrown in when one of the other Gendarmes comes in to bring him (but not me) coffee that I have broken the law and have to go to court. Having been in a berber village where I've done absolutely nothing for the last 3 weeks this is news to me. He tells me something about having to see him within 15 days, not 3 months to start the application for residency. Ok.... also news to me... I tell him I understand and will talk to the PC about paying the fine and going to court. He tells me that I have to stay there until the find someone who speaks english to tell me in greater detail what I did wrong. I tell him its no problem, I understand... He tells me to follow him to a little white room next door, has me sit inside and shuts the door behind him. I hear a click and sure enough... its locked... I have a table and a chair for company.

About this time i decide that I need to call PC. I get my phone out and turn it on. Its dead as a doornail because there is no power in my village.... I look around for an outlet... walu... I shrug and get out my most recent trashy novel and start to read. Every 10-15 minutes a gendarme sticks his head in the door to check on me and I give him a cheery wave and flash a smile. They frown more each time. If they are trying to intimidate me by leaving me alone they've forgotten where I've been for the last 3 weeks.

After 2 hours, the commander comes back in and gets me and tells me that they can't find anyone to translate but that I'm going to have to remain thier "guest" until mark manages to get off his lazy butt and get down from the mountains (ok... so I'm paraphrasing that). I fast talk them into calling my program director for translation by not dissagreeing when they think its the consolate. Unfortunately he dosn't answer his phone but he calls my assistant program director with no problem after I broke the barrier. I breifly explain to her whats going on and she has an arguement with him on the phone for a while, presumably over who was the bigger idiot as it was all in arabic and I didn't understand a word. After, she tells me that she's going to talk to Bruce and my program director and see what pans out, and he's going to make some calls too... She finishes by telling me to "sit tight." Don't think thats going to be a problem! The commander makes a call and *poof* imediately becomes friendly. Apparently he's decidded that he was the bigger idiot. He calls my program assistant back and tells her he's made a mistake and that we were right all along, mashi mushkil. He offers me coffee and lunch which I refuse on principle, citing my need to find a hotel because it would be dark by the time I got home now. I leave for home the next day thankful its over. That week our papers from the Eaux et Forets come (thanks guys! only 3 weeks too late) and Mark and I call to tell PC to tell the Gendarmes that we'll bring the papers by on our way to Oz for our weekend out of site on July first. Mashi Mushkil....

The following week we call our program assistant to finalize travel plans and locations for our first weekend out of site in 6 weeks and she tells us that the Gendarmes have decided that they wern't the bigger idiots after all. (why does this not suprise me) and that we'll have to go to court in Taroudant, our provincial capital after all. We make arangements to meet Machmudi at the Bab in Ouarzazate Thursday the last day of June and then travel with him to the court etc. This part all goes as planed with the exception of a freak car accident on the way from Oz to Taliouine where a power pole worker attempted to throw a chunk of wood through our windshield. We got to the Gendarme's late (again) but they were much nicer this time, signed our names to something written in arabic that we didn't understand, (lesson here?... Probably.) and were on our way to a 3:30 appointment at the prosecutors office in Taroudant with the assurance that it would take 10 minutes and we might have to pay a fine of 5 or 6 hundred D's. Mashi Mushkil. A couple of hours later sitting in the Prosecutors office he explains what we did etc. fills out some more papers in arabic we can't read that we then sign saying that we'll have to go before the judge. This is mildly suprising to both us and the gendarme that came with us. We go downstairs and sit in the big intimidating courtroom on the defendants side after being seperated from the people we came with by a couple of police officers. We are clearly the only non moroccans there. We watch a few trials without really understanding whats going on. Then there is a short recess and the main judge comes back alone and calls my name. I go up to the judge and stand in the little railed off box right in front of him and look way up to him on his high bench. Machmudi comes and stands next to me to translate. He asks me the usual... my mothers name... my fathers name... when I was born.... if I understand what I did... I nod to this, though I really have no clue when it comes down to it.... After about 3 minutes of this he sentences me to a month in jail and a 3000 Dh fine. Then he considers for a minute... looks at me.. and waives the jailtime. I didn't understand any of this so I'm still standing there with a dumb smile on my face. Machmudi translates and I frown for a minute, then shrug and smile again on the way back to my seat. I tell mark "yikes" as he walks up and resist the urge to give him a high five. Probably wouldn't have been appropriate. A similar sentence comes down on him, though he manages to have a legal dispute about laws in the US first and how ingnorance is no excuse. The sentence comes as a suprise to everyone, and there is a chance that we'll have to go see the govenor of the province to get permision to stay in the country but we so far havn't had to do that.

PC is considering appealing and will talk to the embassy on Tuesday. After the trial machmudi's 2 phones were ringing off the hook and mark and I were elated... Finally... something to talk about! Anyway.. we're here in oz until they figure out if we need to be involved in any appeal and then back to the bled.

Hope things are good for everyone and that you're settling in to your villages. Sorry for the length of this e-mail. I'll keep you posted on any futher developments. Stacey or Erica, forward to any health girls you might think would be interested.

Until next time
Love and luck
-Andy Tibbs

Smooth Criminal

Where to begin....
Hey All,

Finally out of the boondocks for a weekend and perhaps more (reasons forthcoming) and I know you have all been waiting with baited breath for my newest addition to the continuing saga that has become (or perhaps always has been) my life. I'm not real sure where to get started.

Most of the month has been dominated by settling in and figuring things out in my village. This has been going, but going slowly and I'm not real sure how to improve on the situation. My host family in Amsouzarte has had voullenteers in the past and thier legacy is going to be incredibly difficult to live up to I suspect. I'm not really even competing in the same league as the villagers are quick to remind me. Jason in his time in morocco managed to found his own NGO, marry a moroccan woman, extend his tour for 4 years, and learn arabic to a fluent level. The only thing that I've got on him is that I'm learing Tashelhiet, the day to day dialect of the village so I can talk to everyone, not just the men.... wait... no I can't because I havn't been aloud to meet a woman over ten years old since I got there.

All that aside... my language improves daily and I find that when I need to get something across I manage just fine. Starting to see the barest gilmmers of project ideas, though my community has been closed mouthed about this as well and I've been trying to insert myself into more day to day conversations just to pick up a new word or two. Generally I'm welcome if for nothing else then the entertainment factor. My host family (the ones I've met anyway) consists of 3 older brothers (including my host father) that are the patriarchs of the town and have considerable sway on our entire 10 town district though they don't hold official positions of power or politics. Between them they have 6 sons, 4 of which are my host brothers. I like 2 of them quite a lot and think that we'll probably manage to become friends at some point. The other 2 are the whispering and pointing type and get too much amusement out of making me say things that I don't quite understand for me to feel entirelycomfortable with them. One might think that they would have grown out of this by the time they were 31 and 27 but then... I guess not. There is also a number of smaller children running around but I don't know who they belong to in my family as they call everyone in my family father and respect pretty much no one else.

The children of my village are the bane of my existance which is a shame because I really do love kids. The problem lies in lack of dicipline, or in the type. The kids have no respect for anyone that won't hit them, and only totally obey people that can make them miserable at home. Everyone else is fair game for tormenting that includes name calling, rock throwing and various other issues. I made the mistake of trying to educate some of the children that birds were good for them in a lot of ways and so they shouldn't kill them unless they have too and the only result was that they now make a point of kiling as many birds as possible and parading them around in front of me. They still treat me like an oddity, or a crazy person and constantly badger me to give them a pen or to run errands for them etc. I'm obviously going to have to work on this and I've been talking with the school principle about doing some environmental education when school starts back up again in the fall.

Pretty much everyone else I meet is very nice and polite to me except for reminding me of my various inadequacies (they do this to each other too, so I'm not really bothered by it). My host father and I have actually started to get a long quite well and we've reached an understanding that if I have to eat 5 meals a day then at least 2 of them can be snack sized and I'll still be quite happy. They whole family works construction and for the area we're pretty well off so I spend some time visiting various worksites and helping out from time to time when I feel up to it. The construction tequniques would make anyone in charge of saftey wince quite often and the quality of materials is whatever is available, not whatever is going to last but the methods that they do have are remarkably efficiant and well practiced and for having to work by hand they get a lot accomplished. This is a good thing because they spend at least half the time resting and telling stories.

The village itself is nestled into a pristine mountain valley at the junction of two rivers and is completely and totaly beautiful as spring loses itself in summer. There are lots of trees and shade and the farm fields are terraced up the mountainside bringing lines of green to otherwise barren and rocky jagged peaks. I'm surrounded by some of the highest peaks in the range and my village is at an altitude of just over a mile high. There are a few less waterfalls now that summer is progressing but this could also be because the farmers are constanly diverting and changing thier flow and how they fall down the cliffsides in order to get water to various out of the way terraces. Main crops include wheat, Tumzine (a wheat varient used mostly for animal fodder but also consumable as a wheat substitue in the poorer areas.... like mine) and corn as well as various tree borne crops such as cherries, apples, apricots, almonds, and walnuts. I can't wait for fresh walnuts which I'm told will be harvested at the same time the leaves fall in september.

My daily life has slowed down considerably and I spend a lot of time just sitting and talking, or watching whats going on in town. This change of pace has and I'm sure will continue to be my biggest challenge as someone thats always appriciated being busy and having work to do all the time. I'm never quite sure what to do with myself and visiting construction sites isnt' always an option. I've managed to explore the town pretty thoroughly but havn't yet obtained an explanation of all the buildings or areas yet. I've also started my project to climb all the surrounding peaks before the end of the summer. I managed 2 last week as well as several other hikes and brough my total for the week to about 100 kilometers. I walk at minimum 6 k a day just for exersize and some days as a matter of nessisity as that is the distance to the nearest phone and the weekly marketplace. I also visit mark from time to time 15 ks away. We've been seeing each other at the market each week and hiking coperatively from one of our towns or the other the day after. Its good to have someone around that speaks english with once a week. Otherwise the nearest english speaker is more than 50 k away and I'm having difficutly finding a tutor for that reason. I try also to get the BBC news once a day on the radio and occationaly tune in to some of their more interesting science or news or political programs when the opportunity provides iteslf. Evenings are spent socializing the best I can or watching soccer highlights on the saudi version of ESPN before dinner. I follow dinner by reading a chapter or 2 of whatever is handy and then hit the sack to do it all over again the next day.Probably the biggest event affecting the whole town was a late spring thunderstorm that rolled through town and dropped golfball sized hail on everyone and everything as well as more rain then I have seen in a long time. Apperently it was more rain than they had seen in a long time as well because the rivers each grew in size until they were about 10 times thier daily average and managed to smash many of the carefuly laid out irrigation ditches and completely destroy most of the farmland that was directly on the valley floor. Waterfalls and irrigation ditches on the cliffsides overflowed and became raging torrents for a few moments smashing more fields and a couple of livestock barns. Certianly gives you a new perspective on living in a mud house build 200 years ago and hanging on the side of a cliff. No one was hurt though and though I would never say it to any of the people i live with from a naturalist and scientific point of view I found watching the whole scene facinating. It was an amazing demonstration of the power of nature as large boulders rolled by larger than my house by looking as if they weighed nothing to the force of the rushing water. As a side consequence the road to my village washed out badly enough that I figured it would take them a month to fix it. Not really a problem as I have to walk 6 k to get a ride anywhere anyway usually. However because the road is so important the morrocans demonstrated an efficiancy in manual labor that I have never before seen and must have taken many years to perfect and cleared out the whole road and repaired it in a little over 4 days. Now, almost a month later you can still see the damage but only if you know where to look, and I suspect by next growning season you won't be able to see even that.

I got a visit by the homestay coordinator in my third week so he could pay my family to like me and to feed me and give me a blanket to cuddle with and he got the process started of finding my own house. Turns out my host family owns three so it shouldn't be that difficult. I'm looking forward to moving in sometime around the first of august, though furnishings will take a bit longer. The thing I most want to do is start cooking for myself. I think that after 2 years it will both provide me with something to do that I enjoy and it will take up some previously unused time during my day. Of course during the winter availablity of food could be a problem. As is we usually eat pretty much bread, potatos, and chicken with tomatos or squash thrown in from time to time to liven things up. I'll be able to import some things from supermarkets in Ouarzazate or Marakesh when things get rolling however.

Probably the most interesting story of the month evolves from my continued attemts to get a carte de sejour... or the moroccan eqivalent of a work visa. Mark and I went to do this the week after we got to our sites 6 hours south to the provincal seat and our local police office. They were a little purturbed that we waited until the last week to get this done but otherwise everything wen't smoothly and we got everything all settled. We got the interm paperwork etc and headed home. Made for a long but successful day. About 2 weeks later I got a message from the mayor in my town that I needed to go back and see them. Mark was sick so missed the message and I ended up going alone. When I got there they were upset that Mark hadn't come and told me in some combination of 4 languages that we broke the law and that they needed to find an interpreter and tell me exactly how and what I needed to do about it. So they brought me to an interigation room and locked me in there for threehours while they worked on this... I figured I should probasby call PC but couldn't convince them that was a good idea and my own cell phone was dead as I have no power to charge it in my site. After three hours when they still couldn't find ayone to interpret for me I finally talked them into calling the office and things were quickly straightened out. The police were very appologetic for having detained me and offered me lunch and coffee. I spent the night and headed home. 2 more weeks pass and my program director tells me that the problem has resurfaced and that Mark and I will have to go see them again because there is a small unheard of bylaw that says you have to start paperwork to get your visa 15 days after deciding that you will be in the country for more than the 3 month tourist visa lasts. Since we clearly intended to stay here for 2 years from our arrival we didn't even know where our police station was going to be until about 6 weeks past the deadline creating a logistical catch 22. We'll accept this, pay the fine and move on and the whole process will be cleared up in an hour tops. The PC is going to send the saftey and security coordinator to help with this process. We get there... go to the courthouse and to the procecutors office. He reads our case through and decides that we need to go before a judge to figure out what our fine will be etc. We go before the judge, a very intimidating process as in moroccan courts all the defendends wait thier turn in the courtroom and we were clearly the only non moroccan defendants. He tells us much to pretty much everyones suprise that we are sentanced to a month in jail which he will suspent because of our previously clean record (what record?) and a fine of 3000 dirhams each (a little over 350 bucks). PC was pissed and will probably appeal. I'm stranded in Ouarzazate until they get with the embassy and decide what to do. Since its the weekend of the 4th that means I'll be here till tuesday at least and probably wednesday all on the PC's dime... Sweet.... Only problem is that its about 132 degrees here... redicuous... I think so. As for lasting effects of my newfound criminal status in Morocco... I have no idea. For the time being mark and I can only laugh and shock people with the story. Hopefully that will be the end of it though we may have to be involved in the appeal process somehow. I have to do some soul searching to decide why a country I only want to help is trying to do this to me but my sprits are good and I'm looking to stick it out and continue to have a great time in my village when I get back there.

Got some great adventures planned for next month including a 5 day hike to summit Toubkal itself, the third highest mountain in africa and a trip to a beautiful high altitude lake all inside the park that is now my domain. Look forward to telling you about it then.

A note about mail... I've been reviving everything up to large padded envelope sized packages at my village but it takes up to 5 or 6 weeks. I just got something two days ago dated from the end of may... I still want them though and have dutifully replied to all that I have so far recived. Let me know if and when you get them... (you know who you are and everyone else better shape up). Stuff to my PO box (the one thing I've revived there) got there in considerably less time but the next time I check will probably be the first weekend in August. I write a lot of letters so if you want to be included in the mail train drop me your address or better yet.. mail it too me... Just don't expect the replies to be instantainons as I suspect it takes mail as long to get out as it does to get in.

A lot else has happened thats not as interesting or that I don't know how best to explain but this is long enough and you get the idea.... I'm safe, well and happy and I wish the same for all of you. Continue in all your endevors to the best of your ablilty and keep in touch!

Love an luck
Cheers
-Andy

Reflections

Hey all,So I'm writing to you as a true voulenteer for the first time. I've sucessfully completed the swearing in process and tomorrow I depart for the site that will be my home for the next two years. I have some mixed feelings about this I must admit. First and formost I'm super excited to be out and about and on my own again after 3 months of very rigorous training. I'm also scared to death and more than a little nervous about lacking a support system and having little or no contact with the outside world except by letters and an occational trip to an internet cafe about once a month. There isn't much I can do about it except adapt and I would like to think that I'm more than capable of doing so. For those that have written, thanks a million for your continued good wishes and support. For now I just want to look back on my training and some of the things that I've learned. There have been many but I'll only touch on a few. I'll probably also get side tracked a lot talking aboutthings that have happened in the last couple of weeks. Bear with me.First and formost, moroccans, and I'm going to generalize, are all very nice people and very warm and weloming. Over the last 6 weeks in Timnit my host family has become more than just people providing a bed and breakfast service while I was working on other things. They have managed to intigrate themselves into my life and make themselves my true substitue family. The fact that we can only understand each other about half the time is irrelavent. I'm still important to them and they are still important to me. My host brothers know what I'm saying before I can finish saying it, (which probably didn't help my learning process much but was still nice) and I managed to understand them. My father and I rarely understood each other at all but that didn't take away from his excitment to share things with me and he actually cried when I had to leave for the last time promising phone calls and visits in the future.Our last week in Timnit was spent working on various reports and a book for the community that they can give to interested NGO's which details all thier available resources. For the 5 of us still around it was eye opening to see just how much we had managed to collect in the way of information. We had gone from seeing Timnit as a backwoods underdeveloped collection of 300 year old mud houses to seeing it as it truely is. A self sustainable isolated community which has survived and pospered and adapted to the times unmolested and for the most part unchanged for longer than the United States has been a country. Obviously they must be doing something right. What they lack in money they make up for in spirit and manpower. What they lack in technology they make up for with community and tradition. They have everything they've ever needed and now more with the addition of power and hopefully soon the return of running water. I actually fear that the times may be catching up withTimnit. More and more people are having to leave to find high paying jobs to support new habits and outside products. Coca Cola, cell phones and Television are going to change Timnit forever.Not all the changes are negative. We've seen positive progress in womans rights and literacy even in the short time we've been here. The king is earning his reputation as the king for the poor. In Timnit womens literacy classes are starting and the new womans rights laws are dinner time discussions with positive outcomes. (for the most part... this is not true in other parts of morocco. At one point there was a demonstration for womans rights on the streets of Casablanca and the next week there was a counterdemonstration where 3 times the number of women showed up. Sometimes radical funamentalism still manages to rear its head even in the most progressive of countries) When I first met my host sister Rita I was suprised and saddened to find her with no educational options despite her obvious desire to continue to learn and her quick wit and intelligence. I'm happy both to see and to say that there is light at the end of the tunnel for her and I hope for the best in her future. As amazing as Timnit is, some people deserve more. My host father actually brought my host mother to Ouarzazate for our swearing in today and I was amazed to discover that it was the first time in her entire life that she had been out of Timnit. Ouarzazate is only an hour away but sometimes you would be suprised how different a world an hour will bring you. Made me glad I had contributed money to pay for a taxi to go and get them even if it meant a few less stamps or american candies for me.I also have a new appriciation for small things. Little things mean so much to the people in the outlying areas here that we take for granted. Little boys playing under a streetlight for the first time and thanking god for bringing them light was something that will stay in my memory for the rest of my life. Working clocks, reliable batteries, cheap reliable communication, family... all these things are a big deal to them. They are important to us to but not in nearly the same way. There are countless others as well and its changed my whole perspective on value. Certian things are more important than others but its all a matter of personal perspective and as your world view changes new windows open and its as if a strong wind blew through and re-arranged the furniture. It makes me wonder how long I will have to be back in the states before things go back the way they were. I don't want to lose the new perspective but who knows if I'll have a choice. We all have to adapt justlike everything else.Not the least of the things I've learned is the language. Here I use the term learned losely. We had our final language tests earlier this week and I'm still here so I must have passed. Actually I did better than I thought... which is probably more a testament to the sympathies of the tester than to my abilities. I'll find out soon enough. I would never have imagined before hand the doors that opened for me once I started using the local dialect to talk to people. It makes me proud to be an american more than perhaps anything else. To go into town and be recognized as peace corps because we are the only ones that bother to learn the berber dialects. People try to talk to me in french and laugh, part in delight and part at my pronunciation, when I reply in berber. If nothing else it gets some smiles and better prices on leather flip-flops.Anyway, I suppose that I should wrap this up with some discussion of current events. As you may have gathered from elsewhere in this letter our training is done. Our swearing in party went well today and was attended by the ambassador from the states and the govenor of the Ouarzazate province as the representative of the king. We were all hoping that Brad Pitt would attend as he is here filming a movie but alas, it was not to be. My host family did attend and wished me well, though they would have much prefered if I wasn't going someplace so far from them. Protectiveness is also a trait here that I find admirable, if a little cumbersome at times. I've repacked my stuff and I'm in the process of running a hundred errands to get ready to go out into the wilds for a month without a taste of civilization. I'm sure I'm going to forget something (like bringing enough toilet paper) but whatever it is I'm just going to have to take it as it comes. The adventure continues.Speaking of errands.. time is waning and I just got a couple more added to my list. Off to get my picture taken for the moroccan equivalent of the green card...Love and luck to allCheers!-AndyP.S. My next e-mail will probably come towards the end of June begining of July. Sorry about that but its the breaks. Until then stay well and I do appricate real mail at any time! I'll check my e-mail tomorrow morning before I go hopefully so if you have last minute messages I MAY get them.Cheers-Andy

Adresses and Appologies

Hey all,I applogize for not sending out a group e-mail last week. There were many factors that contributed to this but I must admit that laziness was probably one of them. I will try to do better in the future though you should expect not to get them more than once a month, or twice if I'm lucky about it. As it is I've been super super busy writing all kinds of final reports and attending even more training sessions than usual. Add to that the fact that the health group has come to ouarzazate to finish up their training and for the official swearing in process and so the same number of computers and bandwidth now has to be shared that much farther.Now that I have a computer I don't really have the time to go with it as I'm skipping lunch but I did want to get my addresses out there. Once I leave Oz it will probably be close to a month before I see a computer again so don't be suprised!Anyway, for letters supposedly I should be able to get those up at my remote mountain village. I wouldn't send too many letters until you know for sure that i have been reciving them and please don't send any money of any variety as everything is opened and cash like things never make it.Adding to the confusion the address is in french and written by a person whom only has a basic elementary school understanding of the french alphabet so while it should reach the right place I can't promise it. Please make sure you write my full name "Andrew Tibbs" when you address the envelope as nick names are a foriegn concept and they would only be confused by a letter addressed to Andy (I think)The address... again only for letters....Andrew TibbsDouar AmssouzarteC.R. Tobkal . AskaouneTaliouine . TaroudantMarocFor packages and the like I have a much more reliable post office box in Ouarzazate which I will have access too towards the last few days of every month. Once again please include my full name. Packages must have a green customs label and if you include the value of the enclosed items on the paperwork keep it under 50$ (even if its more) and clearly mark everything as a gift. The boxes will all be opened and searched for taxable items (under 50$ is exempt and they dont' really have much of an idea what things cost in the states) and items that go against the teachings of islam (no bibles or porn people!). Of course you can also send letters to this box and (probably) be sure that they will reach me but only once a month.The address isAndrew TibbsB.P. 56OuarzazateMaroc(B.P. stands for boite postal in french and there are a lot less other lines because Ouarzazate is the capital of its own province so most of the address is just understood.) As far as I've been able to determine they don't really need zip codes (at least I wasn't given any) but I'll be sure to correct that if it becomes an issue.Finally, I promise to write back (eventually) to every letter I recieve and I'll have plenty of time in the next couple of years to work on my corespondance so keep them coming!Love you all and I'll do my best to get out a more interesting group letter tomorrow or monday!CheersLove and luck-Andy

Education All Around

Hey all,Sorry about the delay in getting the word out this week. Many reports and papers have to be written as my training experiance draws to a close in the next two weeks and I find that my available free time is rapidly dwindleing. Not to worry however because truth be told you probably wouldn't have missed much if I had failed to get the e-mail out at all as not to much of any interest happened this week. I have gotten healthier and think that I have managed to shake off all but the most lingering effects of my bout with food poisoning a couple of weeks ago. In any case I'm eating normally again and havn't had any serious problems with that. I've fought of a migrane headache this weekend which was probably stress induced but who can tell about these things. Otherwise I'm fit as a fiddle and dealing with things as they come. Thanks for all that wished me well!We are entering the tenth week of training in country and some days it feels like we've been here 10 years, others it feels like 10 days. Depends on where we are really.The classes in Ouarzazate have started to become unbearable in duration and repeditiveness and while I am loath to leave all my compainions behind I must say that I am looking forward to the end of the training portion of the experiance. The only thing that I think I will miss about it is the language lessons, though not my favorite by far the most useful of them. I've made significant strides in learning my local language but during the visit to my site still had to face the depressing realization that I'm not going to know a lot of what they are talking about most of the time, and even if I do I will be unlikely to be able to respond adequetly. Most of the other voulenteers that I've met have managed to do ok though so I can only hope that continued profficiancy will come with time. One of my first tasks upon reaching my site will be trying to find anyone in a 50 k radius that can speak enough english to tutor me. This could definately be a serious challenge considering thatthe region is so remote that they still speak pure berber, not mixed with arabic at all like the region that I live in now. As it is I already know 4 ways to say the number 2, and eventually I'll have to memorize new ways to count all the numbers, as well as new words for other items that I only know the arabic equivalent of now. In a way it will be like starting from scratch with no teacher to help me but then I guess thats why they give us the first 6 months to do nothing but work on becoming integrated into the community and assess thier needs. I'm a bit depressed about my remoteness but not overly so. That is after all more or less what I signed up for and I could just as easily have gone to a country that had no means of communication whatsoever. Keep in mind though that I'm not ignoring anyone by any means and it looks as though I'll be in a city with internet at least a couple of times a month on work realated travel. (sweet). I'll send out my mailing address next weekend, though I still may have to have 2 addresses, one for packages and one for letters. (I'm sorry if I'm repeating myslef... told you my week wasn't terribly interesting)Most of last week was spent in Timnit. It was nice to get to hang out there after a week away. The welcomes we get would lead you to belive that we had been gone for a year and we are definately a village fixture in town now. I'm not sure what they are going to do when we leave as we are often better than television with our strange activities and constant questions. I suspect that they will have more voulenteers when it comes time to bring in the next group. Their patience with our language is nothing short of amazing and sadly not something that I think you would encounter in random small town america. Firstly, in the states the focus is on the individual and at best we only know a few of our neighbors and we're lucky if we know them well. In Morocco everyone knows everyone and everything about them and thats just the way it is. They do everything in groups from greetings to food to working on projects. A typical buisness meeting in Morocco would involve a group of peoplesitting around and talking about each others familiys over tea and maybe if it was really important or they had enough time they would talk about the project. Its the social relationships that are important here and not the task. This can be refreshing in some ways because they really do honestly care about you and about everyone that you know and have contact with. Its not faked or used to break the ice like you would do it in the states, but it can also be extreemly frustrating to those used to working under the american system because getting even simple things decided could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 30 days. They are also very big on saving face. No moroccan will ever tell you "no" directly (or anything directly for that matter). This would be terrible for them and they find it both shocking and refreshing when we do it to them. Instead they will beat around the bush and say something like "yes inshallah" (yes god willing) and then just decide that god didn't willit. Or they will agree to make an appointment with you but then say that they will get back to you with the time and never call. I find the whole difference fasinating, but then I havn't tried to work inside the system yet without moroccan help. I'll have to get back to you on that and tell you how it goes. Their lack of directness and thier community mentality vs the individual mentality along with thier conservative and religious beliefs are the things that set them appart from americans more than anything else.The highlght of our weekly activities was doing an environmental education and tree planting activity at the local school. There are about 100 students total who come to school on an alternating schedual with about half or a little more in class in the 4 classrooms at one time. They are roughtly broken up by grade and they have both boys and girls in grades 1-5. Grades 6-8 occur in the town of Skoura about 8 kilometers away. As a result of this and pressure to preform chores at home the girls rarely if ever make it past the 5th grade, but at least unlike thier parents they can read and write. Also womens literacy classes have just started in Timnit and it was really interesting and encouraging to see how much interest there was in that. Our group did 3 environmental ed activities with what turned out to be about 70 kids (we had made them flexable as we had no idea how many people were planning on attending) covering the water cycle, trash disposal (a totally forigen concept toa community that didn't generate any trash 10 years ago) and local animals and thier benifits. The games went off without a hitch despite our almost total lack of technically appropriate language and a good time was had by all. I of course ended up soaked but in 112 degree head this wasn't exactly a huge problem. We followed up these activities with an activity where we planted 6 trees and explained thier care and future value. They will probably all still die as the conditions are pretty miserable at the school and there isn't nearly enough water to keep them alive but at least we were professional and gave them every chance and motivation we could to keep them alive. We also decided to make our community project a donation of environmental ed tools to the school and a ciriculum plan and activity books in arabic from them to run some ed classes on thier own. It was really rewarding to see the kids so receptive to both the activites and the potential for further environmentaled.The rest of the week at Timnit was less than exciting as our teacher was sick and we had to cut back on the usuall number of language lessons. The extra time was appriciated however as we ended up doing our community resource report and our training evauations and reports. The peace corps like many government agencies is very good about giving you paperwork to do and not very good at giving you the time or the materials to get it done. Such is life I suppose.We returned from Timnit to do some more environmental ed at the local youth center. The kids that showed up for the classes were all in the advanced english class offered by some youth development voulenteers inticed by the offer of 22 americans fresh off the boat for them to talk to and practice on. As such it was a double success for pretty much everyone involved as it was easier for us to present and they probably got more out of it then our young school kids audiances. My group present our water cycle activity again, modified of course for an older and much more diginified audiance. Personally I just think that made getting them all soaking wet and runing around like crazy that much more fun. Some of them might be of differing opinions. Over all it went well and we got across all kinds of messages from composting to bioacumulation of toxins from pesticides. (DDT is still commonly used here). At the moment we are working on an AIDS and HIV workshop and figuring out how thatfits into environment projects. The truth is that it dosn't very well except in specific cases but AIDS education and HIV work is where the money is in Africa these days and we can get more funding for our projects if we work it in. AIDS isn't a problem in Morocco at the moment but the cases are increasing as the contry becomes more modern and traditional beliefs about sex are changing slowly. Perhaps we can do some good in preventing it from becoming so debilitating an epidemic as our brothers to the south across the great sands are experiancing. Morocco is very progressive as far as its anti aids stance goes and it shows in the numbers. Treatmet for the disease is offered free of charge and anonomously.Unfortunately I'm about out of time for the week so I'm going to leave it at that. Trust me when I say thats about all that happened anyway. I'll be back late next week as well due to the fact that its our last week in Timnit and we are spending the weekend saying goodbye to our familys and throwing them a hoppin' thank you party. A couple of them will get to come to Ouarzate for our official swearing in as voulenteers. I'm lobbying for my host siblings (brother and sister) but I think keeping my dad out of the loop would be impossible. We'll see how it goes. Until then keep me posted on news from the sates. Don't hesitate to e-mail even if you are getting this forwarded from another source.Take care of yourselves and don't do anything I wouldn't do!Love and luck-Andy

Rachid of Amssouzarte

So another weekend finds me back in Ouarzazate after a week that was both crazy and lazy all at the same time. When last I wrote I had just found out my final site placement. The place where I will, inshallah, spend the next two years of my life in some kind of a successful mannor. It was an exciting moment and I was greatly looking forward to getting there and seeing it and meeting the people there. First however I was schedualed to meet with my boss of sorts in Marakesh. Apparently its someone who works for the department of water and forests in Morocco and is in charge of the region of Toubkal national park where I will be working/living. Marakesh is actually quite a ways out of the way so this was going to limit the amount of time I would be able to spend in Amsouzert, my new home. I was actually fine with this because I wasn't sure that I was up for spending 6 full days with a family whom I didn't yet know with my current language ability and no support system. I figuredit would be much better to kind of ease into it. Well, I woke up early morning the night before I was supposed to depart and was very and violently ill for the rest of the morning so I did not get on the bus for the over the mountians ride to Marakesh the next morning. I was sick for most of that day instead and then I recovered most of the way and to this day I'm hovering in a state that I would classify as about 90% recovered. My stomach still dosn't agree with me all the time and I have to use the facilities a bit more often then I should. I can say that nothing quite makes you wish for home like lying curled up on the floor of a hostel bathroom, not daring to get to far from the toilet. It was the first time I really regretted being out here on my own, but then I pretty much regreted life in gerneral at that point and like the sickness the mood passed with time. On the upside a couple of the Health program girls who I havn't seen in 2 months came through the hotel the nextnight on their way to thier respective site visit locations and I would have missed them if I had been healthy. No offense to them of course but I think that I would have rather been healthy of course, but I suppose you have to look for the silver lining. Anyway, this "food poisoning" or whatever kept me stranded in Ouarzazate until tuesday morning when I reuited with Mark and one of our Moroccan Teachers for the trip up the mountians. Mark is a fellow traniee who's site is about 10 kilometers from mine, which could prove interesting in the next few years as we get along well enough but our personalities are not very compatible. C'est la vie.The ride to Amsouzert is, in a word, arduous. You have to take a grand taxi (think 7 people in your standard midsized car) up to the foothills town of Agouim between Oz and Marakesh. From there you take an unpaved, ungraded, unmaintained dirt road that is actually in pretty good shape considering, up to the base of the actual mountains about 20 kilometers in a land rover. Land rovers are great and they can go anywhere but the moroccans are economical about space and managed to somehow cram about 18 people inside the one that we were riding in. Makes for an interesting if somewhat uncomforable ride. From Tidlli in the base of the mountians its up and into them about 40 kilometers on a much much worse unpaved dirt road again in a crowded land rover. Only one a day goes from Tidlli to Amsouzert unless it happens to be a market day and then there are a couple. It took us about 12 hours the first time to travel 120 klicks with moroccan assistance the whole way. Its out there.However, the end result was worth the ride. The village of Amsouzert is located in a high mountain valley with steep walls and a gorgeous view of a few close peaks. Its green and lush (at least at this time of year) with large trees. The ones I recognized were some birtch and some aspen trees. 2 rivers (large creeks really) meet on the valley floor and flow downwards back towards agouim in the foothills, though all the water in the rivers is used long before it gets there. At the source where we are there are thousands of small waterfalls coming down off the mountain sides. Some of them are more specatcualar than others but its still amazing the sheer amount of water after coming from such a dry region for a couple of months. The village itself is quaint with 40 households, at least a quarter of which belong in some way to the family that I'm staying with for the first couple of months there and that pretty much owns the town. They have a working hydropowered grist mill andhorses donkeys and mules are the primary means of transportation for 90% of the population. They have no power but compensate by using large scale solar energy and hydro power. The solar cells on my house comforably power florecent lights in each room as well as satalite tv and a few other appliances outside the standard rural village relm. (my host father runs a pretty successful construction company.) If they do happen to run the battery down there is backup lights in each room that run off of hydropwer from a turbine generator on the valley floor. Its all very efficiantly arranged and they seem to be happy with everything the way it is now. Hopefully further needs assessment tasks will reveal some way in which I can be useful. In the meantime I'm just going to enjoy living in a town with 200 people where jobs like millwright and ferrier are still practically applicable in everyday life. They have given me the name Rachid and for the most part accepted me with open arms.Of course there are also disadvanages. The town has no phone, no cell phone coverage and consequently no means of communicating with the outside world on any basis that would be considered regular by modern standards. Even a post office is going to be an issue, as there is one 3 kilometers away but everything that is sent there has to go on the top of someone's private land rover and is prone to prying morroccan eyes and fingers. Also no one speaks french or english so finding someone who can read the address on the envelope enough to understand my name and get me my letters is going to be a chore assigned to some gradeschool boy because he can at least sound out the alphabet. As a result for packages at least I'm going to have to open a PO box in Ouarzazate or Marakesh and be able to check it only once or twice a month. To look on the bright side if I have to come here for my mail then I'll have an excuse for work related travel here reguarly, as well as to Marakesh reguarly tomeet with my supervisor and so I won't be stuck in the hill towns. Its not that I didn't expect to be out there, its just that there are reltionships that I would like to continue while I'm here and I expected to have easy access to at least letters and packages in order to facilitate that. We'll see how it goes and there may be a supplemental e-mail at some point in the future with my address updates and letting you know that I can lift the restriction on sending me packages.As for what I did while I was there the answer is a whole lot of nothing, save look around and investigate my surroundings some. Mostly I just sat in front of my host uncles store and wished people would not give up on my language so easy. There has been voulenteers in the area before about 8 or 9 years ago who stayed with the same family that I stay with now. All they remember about "Jason" is that he was fluent in the language and did all kinds of good things with the village. They remember nothing about him having to learn the same way that I will now and as a result I'm treated by the older generation like I'm some kind of damaged goods. I found out later once I got back here that Jason went on to found his own NGO after his service called the High Atlas Foundation and filling his shoes is going to be something of a major obstacle to my own service here. At least they all know what peace corps is all about anyway and once the younger generation decided that I wasn't amonster I made some significant progress with them towards the end of the week. The structure of my village is very odd. Its controlled by my host family which consists of my host dad, and his 3 brothers, all in thier 60s. They all have kids between 25 and 30 and then those kids have kids all between 5-10 years old. There are no teen agers whatsoever (very few anyway) which was our main means of integration in Timnit. Now I'm going to have to find another way. Before I left I managed to make friends with the 24 year old host cousin of mine. He's married and has 4 children. I can't even imagine being my age and having that much responsiblity already. I went and helped him water his fields at dusk which was a fun experiance to see how different it was in a river area than it is in the dry regions that I've studied so far. Where in the desert watering is a matter of sitting and waiting for a trickle to make it to all corners of a field in Amsouzert its more a mad dash to keepa gushing torrent of water from destroying the very crops that need it to live. I proved to be a competent if somewhat too slow field waterer. It was fun to get out and wade in the river too. The moroccans do it in knee high duck boots which they insulate with pieces of rag. I just rolled up my pants and walked around in my sandals. It was cold but not unbearable, even if they did think I was somewhat crazy. I have to admire thier agility however as they jump from slipery rock to slippery rock, uphil and down without slowing, pausing, or using thier hands for ballance. I hope to emulate this one day but it will probably take me all 2 years and a whole lot of courage to figure it out. Thankfully my compainion realized I would have trouble after the sun set and we walked back along the road and not up river.After meeting all the local officials and spending some time with our new family and our new home Mark and I managed to make our way back to Ouarzazate in only 6 hours, aided a great deal by the fact that the guy who drives the land rover to Amsouzert (and consequently past Marks town as well) stays at my house several nights a week and so getting a ride all the way back to agouim is simply a matter of telling him that I want to go with him that morning. It was a good discovery to make and made me feel slightly better about my remoteness even if I still only manage to get out once or twice a month. Hearing other peoples stories about their sites also made me feel somewhat better as not everyone had a great experiance and some people had downright bad ones. Mine probably ranked in with the average. Mark and I definately have the sites that are the hardest to reach and furthest away from civilization. All in all however, once I figure out the mail thing and win that psycologicalvictory I think that I will have a great time out there and I can't wait for people to come and visit me and share the experiance. *hint hint*This week its back to Timnit for tree planting (even though there is no water for them and they'll probably die) and improved cook stove installation (even though they don't use cook stoves). Sometimes I wonder. A memeber of our group resigned after visiting his site so the timnit group is down to 5 people. I'm gonna miss Josh but if he is happier not being here anymore then I can certianly understand that. Most of us have a good time but its certianly not all sunshine and roses and even I fight off doubts every day of some sort or another. Thats life and we go on.As must I as my time in the internet cafe is up...Great to hear from those of you out there. Your feedback is encouraging and makes me smile.Happy Anniversary Kathi and CraigHappy Birthday MeganLove and Luck to EveryoneCheers-Andy/Rachid

Is it Everyone's Birthday?

Hey all,So I figured I would stop slacking and get back to writing everyone. Some big news today with the announcement of the final sites where we will be living for the next couple of years. Unfortunately for you you are all going to have to wait till the end of the letter to find out about that. If you have a problem with that imagine waiting 2 months for it. If you have a problem with that then I suppose that you could just skip to the end of the letter and get your fix but a few other interesting if not exciting things have happened in the interm since my last letter which I hope you'll enjoy reading.Firstly I should probably mention that on the 16th I turned 23 years old. Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes. I've gotten a couple of cards and a couple of e-mail variants. For everyone who forgot... shame on you.... no.. just kidding really it was a great birthday and I had more attention then I really wanted anyway. I spent half the birthday in my training community Timnit and half here in Ouarzazate. I should probably learn to accept birthdays just like the Moroccans do... which is just to forget that it exists. When I asked my family about thier birthdays it started a heated argument about how old they actually were and though I did manage to get across that I was a year older well... lets just say that there was no parade or fireworks. Its actually kind of refreshing.One birthday they did not forget is that of the Prophet. This year it fell on the 21st of April and was celebrated throughout the country of Morocco. The prohpet shared his birthday with Melanie, a girl in my group and the other Andy in the group down the road. They celebrate the prophets birthday on the Lunar calander, which only has 29 or 30 days a month and therefore jumps forward 11 or 12 days every standard calendar year. (for instance, next year the prophets birthday will be sometime around the 10th of april) All the religous holidays share this calander and rotate on the same basis so Ramadan for instance is at a different time of the standard year every time around. (falls in september this year). Most moroccans have family members living in the big citys sending money back home and they use these holidays which generally last a couple of days to come home and be with their families. My older host brother was one of these people. Usually he travels around to variouscities putting up cell towers for the national cellular office but ne came home for a week to celebrate the holiday with us. When he goes back my middle host brother who has been my compainion will go with him to increase the families income level. There was a pretty close to tearfull goodbye, though I think that saying goodbye to Melanie caused more tears than I did *wink*. To celebrate the prophets birthday the moroccans eat. I'm begining to suspect that this is a primary means of celebrating pretty much anything in Morocco, much to my waistline's dismay. This is even backed up language wise where the word for celebration (layd) is the same word they use for feast. We had a crazy large breakfast followed up by several snack times and visits to other people's homes(where we ate more and drank tea bizzaf (alot)), then a crazier big lunch. After lunch we went out to the fields to water, because that can't stop even for the Prophet. I got to watch the whole irrigation processfrom begining to end (usually I'm in school) which was neat. The irrigation ditches are simple but effective so long as there is water and gravity to move it around. After that we played soccer in the dry riverbed. I sucked for a number of reasons. First there were rocks and holes and sticks and hills everywhere and I couldn't help thinking continueously that the number one reason for Peace Corps medical evactuations is soccer related injuries. Second, I've been doing nothing but sitting in a classroom for hours on end during the last 2 months. Neither is very condusive to keeping up with a bunch of hardworking able bodied moroccan teenagers on thier home turf but I'm proud to announce that at least my team won. I also did score a few times... It was good to get out and exersize but I think that next time I'll wait until they have stadium lighting and I don't have to play in the blistering 90 degree sun...Speaking of lighting... As I mentioned power has come permanently to my little oasis town. Its many advantages are already showing. My family now spends most of its free time watching video cd's or trying to get the picture to come in clear from the antenna so they can watch egyption soap operas. This all wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't expected to be wonderfully amazed by endless hours of TV that I can't understand a word of. What am I supposed to do though except tell them that its cool when they ask because to them it means the world at the moment. I can only hope that it wears off eventually... I'm also expected, as the resident american to be the expert on TV. However I've never had to play with things like the antenna gain, or the vertical hold so usually I'm just as clueless if not more so than they are. Its kind of humiliating to have to admit technilogical inferiority to people whom a light switch is brand new technology but I find that I can live with it. Ialready have to admit that I don't understand THEM 10 or 11 times every day so its becoming familiar. There are true advanages to the power though. The lights in the rooms are definately easier on the eyes and they don't have to use batteries as much, which is good because they have no way to dispose of them and so just throw them on the ground. Also helps with arts and crafts and cooking. It provides more time for women to make things to sell in the suq (market) and therefore increases income (part of which will go to paying the bill so it remains to be seen if its actually that benificial) and for cooking its just easier on the women and the men can do something in other areas of the house instead of hanging out by the one light in the kitchen.We finished up the holdiay by having a big community meeting organized by us americans so that everyone could talk about the benifits and problems of living in Timnit. Overall it was a huge success with 24 people attending and participating including 13 women, which is almost unheard of in this country. We learned a lot and despite some current and raging community infighting the people that did attend had a pretty good idea of the strenghs of their community and what they wanted to see happen in the future. We can only help them minmally but they are genuinely grateful even to have us there to try and to do what we can and its an awesome experiance over all.Alright... I guess thats all I've got going on for Timnit so if you'll give me a drumroll i'll let you in on where I'm going... I'll know more about it next weekend so I'll go into it much more in depth then. I'm heading way way way way out there into Toubkal national park to a small village of about 43 familys that I think is called Asoukzar. If not then I'll be sure to correct it. Its 60 klicks from the nearest paved road, with seasonal running water (pipes freeze in the winter) and no power with the exception of solar and some hydro electric. No cell service though there is some in my market town only 3 kliometers away so people should be able to call me on wednesdays during market times. The nearest internet is actually here.. in Oz which is 130 klicks and about 5 hours on a good day so my internet is going to drop off I would imagine to about once a month or so or when I go into marakeseh (230klicks) to meet with my supervisors in the park office. There are 3 othervoulenteers from my group going to the park, one only 10 klicks from me so we will be working together often. The others are a 2 day over the mountians hike from me... which I will probably also do on a semi regualar basis. My town, which you won't find on a map is right next to Jbel Toukbal, the highest mountian in north africa so that will be a fun climb at 4000 plus meters. Anyay... thats about all I know so far so I'll let you know more as life progresses here... Ohh.. its stunningly gorgeous by the way so everyone will have to come visit!Out of time but I love you allHope things are going well and keep the e-mails flowing while I have the chanceCheers-Andy

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

Hey all,I know that this is about the time of my usual weekly mailing but I've elected to spend my internet time this week posting some pictures on line to share instead. My friend Erica has graciously allowed me to share the link to several pictures she took of Stacey, me and others of the whole health/environment group in Philadelphia and Rabat a couple of months ago at the start of this adventure. I've also collected a few pictures from people of Timnit, the town that I've been living in off and on for the last 3 weeks and will live in for 3 more. I hope that you enjoy them. The other reason that I havn't been writing this week is because nothing all that interesting happened, except that my village got power in the houses for the first time. In a way this makes me sad because the first thing everyone did was dust off thier televisions (which they previously ran off batteries). I'm happy for them though... Anyway.. have to run or I'm going to be late for my next presentation... Talk to you all soon! Love and luck-AndyPhotos From Ericahttp://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=svwlj97.rhclk4b&x=0&y=bl77yePhotos From Timnithttp://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=h08fu1b.ft361wv&x=0&y=h10j4qIf you have any problems reaching the photos please let me know

One Candle Power

Hey All,Time for another weekly installment in the ever unfolding story of my life. Its been an exciting week and I'm feeling slightly daunted by the task of putting it into words so bear with me, and my spelling. (thanks dad... if I had a spell checker I would use it but the dictionary on these computers is only in french...)So, Let me begin where I left off. I told you that I was headed up into the mountians for a week on a field trip to live and work with another voulenteer in the environment sector and to see what day to day life was like. Over all it was a fabulous time! I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to get out there and see how things actually worked on the ground. I feel like this one week was better than all of the training we've had up till now combined. Maybe it was just better in a different way because its not like the training was useless or anything... Just not always real world applicable. I'm sure that it will all balance out in the end because for this week I got little or no language training as they speak a different dialect in Imichill and we didn't end up doing much related to environment... but I'm getting ahead of myself.The story begins with our first experiance of true Moroccan transportation. Up until this point we've been moved from place to place in safe little groupslike flocks of sheep with a sheperd. Moroccans who work for the peace corps and teach us launguage helping to smooth over any bumps in the road. For this adventure it was just Sumona and I. To get to Imichill is an adventure all in itself as it requires 4 seperate forms of transportation. First we had to take a petit taxi to the bus station to catch a bus at 8 am for Errachidia. A town thats a crossroads of major north south, east west routes.... but otherwise has nothing going for it. The bus ride from Ouarzazate thier takes about 5 hours on a good day in a coach bus thats been retrofitted to hold more people, and has no functioning air conditioning, bathroom, lights, etc. Then add to that about 100 people and temps of about 95 degrees and you have a great morning. From Errachidia we took a grand taxi to rich, up into thefoothills to the north. Grand taxi's are old old mercedes sedans that have seen thousands upon thousands of kilometers of use and into which you cram 7 people and all thier luggage including the driver. Thats 4 people in the back and 2 in the front bucket seat in case you were counting. It makes for a tight fit. It takes about an hour (still 90 degrees and no working windows, with the guy in the front seat smoking) to get to Rich where we meet Jason, a health voulenteer working in the area. I must pause with my transportation story to tell you about him... He deserves his own paragraph.As one of my friends described him trying to use as few words as possible Jason is a one man punk rock roadshow complete with tatoos of a questionable nature proudly displayed in the open meets peace corps heath voulenteer. I'll go further and say that he was quite possibly the last person I would have expected to see come meet me at the taxi stand to hang out with me for the night. Not only did he look the part but he had all kinds of adventures that reinforce it. He never stops talking except to breathe and it dosnt' really matter about what because he changes topics so often its hard to follow. It was amazing, probably one of the more interesting people that I've ever met and great if for no other reason than that if he can make it here for 2 years there isn't a reason for anyone else not to... Needless to say we spent the night in Rich and it was a very interesting time. We ended up watching Independance day on the local movie channel and were met at the hotel by anotherhealth voulenteer named Zach who was the total and complete opposite of Jason with a very zen like calm about him.The next morning we took a tranzit (think 12 passanger van in the states, then add 14 more people and 5 people riding on the roof with the luggage and several sacks of potatos) on a 5 hour ride up and into the mountains, down into the valleys and finally up to ~8000 feet and the town of Imichill. I pretty much loved the place at first sight. Its a quaint little village of about 650 people thats most famous for a berber engagement festival where the whole town partys for 4 days and where the brides to be pick thier husbands. Obviously this in unsual in a generally male dominated society but the town is strongly oriented to thier berber traditions. Enough so that whenever Sumona tried to speak arabic they shushed her and made me say whatever it was she wanted to say in Berber, albeit the wrong dialect. They all understand arabic just fine, at least the men, they just have to much pride to use it at home. Its almost refreshing. The town itself was cold, but not freezing. Apparently the last of the snow had melted about 2 weeks before we arrived. They have no power, except for a group generator which provides power to segments of the town on a rotating pattern so that generally (but not always) people get power every 3rd night. The rest of the time its candle power (I'm still amazed at how much light one candle can put out when there is absolutely no other light) and buta gaz lanterns (like propane lanterns only with no globe to protect the mantle and with butane instead of propane) They have running water only in the loosest sense of the word about 2 hours every morning because there isnt' enough in the gravity powered water tower to provide it to the whole town all day. In the winter the pipes freeze and people just melt snow. They survive the winter by spending all thier waking hours huddled with the woodstove eating bread and potatos. Sounds like fun to me. The voulenteer we were staying with for the week was super. Her name was Jackie and she was the sole voulenteer/anyone, working on eco tourism for the 58000 hectacre eastern high atlas national park. The tourists have already started arriving, the problem is that they have no idea that they are in a national park... I guess they just come because it looks pretty. Jackie is conducting tourist surveys to see what improvements would most benifit the part (visitor center, restrooms, hiking trails etc.) and she is designing a brochure and creating some long trecking trails in the park (120 klicks from one side of the park to the other, a walk that I'm going to do one of these days, maybe when I visit for the wedding festival next summer). Currently the park is a park in name only with zero infastructure to support mass tourism. 2 more voulenteers from our group of trainiess are going to be put in the part to speed the process up some. (I won't be going here though as I would beunable to communicate. At the same time as all that is going on she's teamed up with her site mate, a girl in the small buisness development program named Victoria to do some general health projects in town (which I'll get to in a second) and to build a bridge so car traffic can get to some of the smaller duars (think subburbs of a subburb). Victoria's main project is organizing a weaving cooperative so that the women of the town will actually see some of the money from thier amazing weaving and so that they can get a fair trade label so that tourists will know when they buy things that they are buying an authentic and direct from the source item. I actually got to witness some of the weaving, which is done by hand on a loom that looks like its been around since the stone age (and probably has). It takes about a week to make a 1 meter by 2 meter cloth used to wrap bread. The woman doing the weaving was one of the strongest berber women I've yet met. An unmarried 27 year oldnamed Nyima who was definately giving me the eye the whole time we were there for tea. (Perhaps its not safe for me to come to the wedding festival after all)The first couple of days that we were there we got to help out in a totally hands on way at the local hospital. The handicapp association in the region had teamed up with a german NGO to bring doctors from Marakesh to assess the needs of the regions handicap people in order to make thier lives better, either with physical aids such as new crutches or glasses or through surgical means. For most of the time we were just the 4 token americans... kinda like a good luck charm. We got some sweet food out of the deal which was fine by me. We did end up helping out though because the X-ray machine in the hospital had never been used before. (a combination of lack of power and lack of trained personnel) and the X-ray tech, while competent was having a great deal of trouble with the machine. It was donated from the states and the manual was in english. Victoria and I quickly translated some key sentences into french, the fired up the generator and we were in buisness. The doctorsassessed 120 patients in 2 days. (e aslo had to make some more patient record cards as they only had 100) and then, after some more sweet food, came the music and dancing.The town got crazy in honor of the doctors and put together a Haydus. Its a local music festival and dancing extravaganza and all very much cool. There were real live belly dancer like dancers, along with traditional berber music and dancing that my guide book tells me that the the average tourist will never actually see. It was a proud moment for me. It went on all afternoon and well into the late evening. They even had familiar childrens games like egg and spoon races and potato sack races. (along with some not familiar like smearing each other with yougurt) They even had a piniata like game where they hung clay pots from a wire and had adult men blindfold themselves and take whacks at them with sticks. Even I was startled when a live dove flew out of one of the pots. The other indication that the town was more Berber than arab came later in the evening when people busted out the home fermented fig Shnops. Must have been strong stuff because it didnt' take long before anumber of people were sharing the stage with the dancers. It was pretty much understood that the american females would all be given a lesson in belly dancing and I was to get a lesson in how to play one of the drums properly but the opportunity never materialized as we broke for dinner and were hustled away to eat with the preformers. Dinner was delicious as always only more so whith roasted whole chickens and a delicious pressure cooked rice dish with tomatos and spices. All and all an amazing evening. We elected not to rejoin the festivities after dinner as the men were becoming a little too frisky for the womens taste and saftey and security are paramount but we heard (literally) that it went till 1 am.All this was definately the highlight of the week but there was many other minor triumphs. To give a quick rundown we did get to hike into the park and actually do some environment related stuff... We did 30 kliometers on Thursday to visit 2 gorgeous high altitude lakes named Isli and tislit or groom and bride respectivly. There is a legend behind it that sounds an awful lot like romeo and juliet except that there is a happy ending. Also Sumona and I cooked our first Tajine dish and it came out amazing. It even got the approval of a Berber woman that we invited for dinner, which is rare praise indeed. The same woman offered to teach us to make berber Cuscus in trade and we gladly accepted. I'm still not sure I can remember all the steps of the 3 hour process but if I can everyone better watch out when I come home because its one of the most delicious dishes I've ever had. I also got my hands tatooed with Hena, a temporary dye usually only for women but men in Imichill have aspecific pattern done as well. Should last a couple of weeks. Till then my palms are the same color as my hair in an intricate starburst/flame pattern.Alas even totally satisfying and rewarding fun weeks must come to an end and Sumona and I departed Imichill and returned to Ouarzazate by the reverse of how we arrived. I'll spare you the details because with the exception of Jason its all the same as before. Now I'm back in Ouarzazate, getting ready to head back to Timnit tomorrow. Thanks everyone for the e-mails, its great for my spirits, though with the redsox starting off not so hot and Barcalona losing to real madrid I'm not sure I'm happy with the sports world at the moment. Keep them coming, I love to hear from you all. I'll be back in Ouarzazate sat night/sunday so you'll probably hear from me again then. Take care of yourselves, all of youI love and miss you allCheers!-Andy