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