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