Two worlds, one family
Hey All,
What’s up back in the states…? Or wherever you happen to be when you get around to reading this? I hope that all is well and good with everyone and my thoughts and prayers go out especially tothose in the Gulf coast region with all the worries that nature has brought you. Good luck toall the new college students and all the returning ones and hope you all have a great semester.
Enough about you let’s talk about me…
My month has been a slow one as I get more accustomed to my surroundings and the people in themevery day. I managed not to get arrested this month so that’s good. The gendarmes are stillhassling me off and on and holding up the paperwork so the root problem has yet to disappear. Hopefully once they get more pictures from me (though I’ve sent them 16 already they say theyare the wrong type) they’ll actually send the file to the authorities who process it in Rabat.After that another month or two and I might get my ID card… just in time to apply for it again.I’ve been keeping busy by writing tons of letters, (so for those who have written the repliesare on their way) and reading a bit along with the usual of walking around trying to find newplaces to visit and new things to see. Been down to Mark’s site a couple of times and hang outin the completely different atmosphere only about 12 kilometers away from me just for the changeand the chance to speak English more than once a week. Pretty interesting to compare the twotowns and speculate about why the differences happened the way they did. What we’ve come upwith has to do with strong leadership and at least in part with the presence of tourism in myvillage.
Home sweet home…
Other than that the big news is that I’ve successfully managed to negotiate rent and move intomy own apartment… now if only I had some furniture. Someday I’ll get around to finding a way toget some tables and chairs along with some stuff in the kitchen to do my own cooking. In themeantime I’m still eating the fare provided by my host family and not to bad off for it. It’s alot better than what Mark gets from day to day so I can be thankful for that at least. I washoping to get help translating my desire for my landlord and host family to help me transportfurniture but the PC representative that came to check my house only had about 5 minutes tospend and so I’m forced to do the best I can on my own. *shrug* I’m up to the challenge.
The apartment itself is in the basement of one of the hostels and I chose it both because it isthe best looking housing option and because it has a prominent position directly in the centerof town and directly above the public baths. This may not seem like it means much but the bathsare heated all the time and therefore warm the floor of my apartment. With no electricity inthe winter that’s going to be critically important to maintaining me at an acceptable level ofcomfort. Of course I’ll be eating lots of potatoes but I’ll survive and that’s what’simportant!
This is the part where I talk about the weather…
I’m actually looking forward to the start of fall because it’s been so hot through most ofAugust that I’ve been unable to do a lot of exploring. There isn’t any shade which limits thehours of the day I can move around comfortably to the early morning and the evening, which areboth important social times for the villagers so I generally stick around. With the onset offall its begun to cloud up in the early afternoon and has actually rained for about 5 days in arow in the evening, which I had heard would begin to happen but never actually believed havingnot seen a cloud in 3 months or so.
Mark and I have successfully lobbied to get bicycles which should significantly improve mobility, travel time, carrying capacity and range, not to mentionI’ve got it in my head to become a hard core biking enthusiast for exercise since myusual swimming method is out of the question and I really don’t want to start running. Winter from all accounts is cold but not terribly or bitterly so in my protected little valley home… (Mark on the other hand on his windswept fully exposed mountainside is screwed, much to the amusement of everyone that talks to him about it in my village). I’ve decided that if I speculate any more about it I’ll drive myself crazy, thoughI’m actually not nearly as worried about it as my parents.
Two worlds, one family...
Also of note for most of the summer, but especially towards the end, the region has been swarming with visiting family members that have long since departed the humble mountain villages seeking fame and fortune in the big cities. They all return for vacation to see and live with relatives. The upside (and sometimes downside) for me is that occasionally some of them speakEnglish and I can find out more about what’s going on around me then I would otherwise be able to. The downside is that they don’t speak Tashelhiet so whenever they are around the language shifts to Arabic and I neither improve my language nor understand what the heck is going on. Basically this means that for the last month or so I’ve been stuck. This is ok. One of the English speakers was about my age and we talked about religion and rap music and about how the spirits possess the injured and occasionally speak through them (yikes!). He also, predictably, likes soccer and so I’ve learned some about the workings of the Moroccan league and the African conference but heaven forbid if they ever change their uniform colors or I’ll be once again clueless.
Despite the fact that the visiting family has better connections, are better educated and have, in 90 percent of the cases at least, more money they don’t manage to help the village out much. One man had a house built for the 20 days a year he is in Amssouzarte, which sounds like, andis, a waste until you consider that most people just stay with family requiring them to buy morefood and blankets and shuffle people around to free up the space and ends up being a hugehassle. This was brought home to me in a discussion of weddings. Usually when you think ofweddings you think of a family affair with as many people in attendance as can make it. Apparently the people of my village schedule weddings in September and October despite thetraditional times being during the summer. When I asked what the delay was for they told me that it was because it’s cheaper to do the weddings in the fall because all the people go back to the cities. I can vouch… personally I’m ready for them toreturn and life to go back to normal.
Party like its 1899!
I’ve been up to the nearby mountain lake twice this month. The first time I went the 9 kilometers to the edge of the water on horseback, then swam the better part of a mile and then hiked home using a route that the Berbers would call “dee-rect” which basically means either a)Straight up or b) straight down a vertical face. The way home from the lake is an example of b. and basically I turned my legs into shock absorbers. Given that its been more than 10 years since I’ve even pretended to ride a horse (and they have no saddles, only pack blankets), at least 6 months since I’ve been swimming for exercise and my knees NEVER appreciate the shock absorber treatment I could barely walk the next day AND had managed to get sunburned despite the liberal application of sunscreen (which the Berbers find hilarious) but felt pretty good about myself otherwise.
The second time I went was a week later when Mark showed up at my house at 4:30 AM. After I figured out that he wasn’t Moroccan and or some kind of evil spirit contriving to make me upset before sunrise I woke up enough to understand that there was some kind of gathering at the lakefor young people. The purpose supposedly was to let young men and women from different villages see each other and interact socially under less (slightly less as it turns out) supervised conditions than they might otherwise find themselves in. We went and hung out with the girls from marks village (who provided us with breakfast and lunch) and we ended up being the onlyguys who dared to come near. Basically the party was just big groups of guys sunning themselvesand swimming and otherwise being macho within sight of the big groups of girls who cooked and watched without looking like they were watching and behaved just as they would at home. Still though it was cool for them because some of them had never been that far away from their house (about 20K which they walked both directions in sandals). For Mark and I it was another clear example of how things are so different here than in the states. We definitely still managed to have a good time though.
Yay paperwork!
The end of August has also brought the first quarterly report that will be the written record ofthe measure of my Peace Corps service and how it measures up to the project plan (there’s a plan? Could have fooled me!). Following the guidelines I spent a few days answering questions about my site’s geographic characteristics and population and about things I liked and didn’t like about training, if I was fitting into my site socially and culturally (by its very nature a fundamental impossibility) All long hand to be typed up later... which is a pain. The most important part, at least to me, was the part where I talked about potential projects. Right now they are only in the “thinking” phase and I have no idea how to really progress with any of them (with one exception). Hopefully that will change after a community meeting in my site during the visit of my program manager in a few days time. You all, of course, will have to wait to hear how that went.
The only project that differs from the general scheme of things is one that I’m putting together to make and environmental education DVD for the National park. I wrote out a detailed project proposal and timeline for this project spanning the next two years. My program manager was excited by its prospects and so if we can get the equipment it looks like it will happen. I designed the project because all my other options are more fulfilling a role as what international NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) would call a community development agent. I call this a “walking piggy bank” which, while necessary, isn’t really what I signed up for and isn’t hands on enough to make me truly happy. Most of the projects deal with agriculture or community associations and have little to do directly with helping sustain the environment or the park. (Not to mention that they could be done by any high school graduate that attended a 2week seminar on grant funding and money management) The video has the advantage of benefiting both the people and the parks environment directly as wellas being hands on and interesting.
Mr. Fix it...
It occurred to me as I was watching one of my host brothers under the cab of the family dumptruck fixing some mechanical problem or another that the secret to success in Berberville is all about being a generalist. All of my host brothers, beyond being able to do minor mechanical work on anything from bicycles to the big trucks can all weld, cement, plaster, chop and split wood, wire and program the satellite TV., farm with all its various subtleties, speak more than one language, cook to some degree or another and do pretty much anything else you ask them too. In “modern” society, like that in the states life tends to have diversified towards specialists who can do one thing better than everyone else and therefore people come see them about it. This is kind of strange to me because in nature rapidly changing systems, like I would classify the United States, tend to reward generalist behaviors because it’s easier to adapt to the changes, while static systems, like the Berbers, tend to reward specification with individuals to fill every niche. I got to thinking about this after reading the book “Human Nature” which postulates a theory that for the better or worse humans have removed themselves from the bounds of natural selection and taken the first steps towards managing the entire planet. Some made sense some didn’t but it was still interesting to read and made me think.
Katrina, Mistress of Death and Destruction…
I’ve been trying the best I can to keep up with the happenings in New Orleans and the gulf coastusually via the BBC on shortwave and images from Arabic TV news. There are few times in my life when I’m not completely proud of my American heritage and upbringing and I’m sorry to say that this may be one of them. Listening to the impassioned reporting of the BBC correspondent at theNew Orleans convention center about the worsening conditions in downtown and people fighting over food dropped from Blackhawk helicopters sounds more like something that happens in Somalia and not in my home. I sincerely feel for all the people affected by the tragedy but the political infighting about the response time is misplaced and should stop until AFTER things getback on track or we risk creating yet more delays. We need to show the ingenuity, camaraderie, and willpower that makes us a great nation and help ourselves out of the jam like we always have. Sorry… if I sound bitter it’s probably because I feel helpless.
The End…
Anyway, that’s about all I’ve had going on for me in the last month. Thanks as usual for anyonewho’s written me or sent me things. It’s truly awesome and like I said earlier the replies arewinging their way out to anything I’ve received. Make sure that you all take care ofyourselves… until next time… maybe sometime in the middle of September but definitely the firstweekend in October…
Tons of love and luck to everyone
-Andy
Ohh by the way... I’ve started to post old e-mails and pictures to my online journal found athttp://atibbs.blogspot.com in case you’ve missed an episode or want to check out past events. I’m thinking about posting things like site reports and project proposals up there so you canget a general idea of what I do, though they would be boring to most people. Let me know whatyou think of this.
What’s up back in the states…? Or wherever you happen to be when you get around to reading this? I hope that all is well and good with everyone and my thoughts and prayers go out especially tothose in the Gulf coast region with all the worries that nature has brought you. Good luck toall the new college students and all the returning ones and hope you all have a great semester.
Enough about you let’s talk about me…
My month has been a slow one as I get more accustomed to my surroundings and the people in themevery day. I managed not to get arrested this month so that’s good. The gendarmes are stillhassling me off and on and holding up the paperwork so the root problem has yet to disappear. Hopefully once they get more pictures from me (though I’ve sent them 16 already they say theyare the wrong type) they’ll actually send the file to the authorities who process it in Rabat.After that another month or two and I might get my ID card… just in time to apply for it again.I’ve been keeping busy by writing tons of letters, (so for those who have written the repliesare on their way) and reading a bit along with the usual of walking around trying to find newplaces to visit and new things to see. Been down to Mark’s site a couple of times and hang outin the completely different atmosphere only about 12 kilometers away from me just for the changeand the chance to speak English more than once a week. Pretty interesting to compare the twotowns and speculate about why the differences happened the way they did. What we’ve come upwith has to do with strong leadership and at least in part with the presence of tourism in myvillage.
Home sweet home…
Other than that the big news is that I’ve successfully managed to negotiate rent and move intomy own apartment… now if only I had some furniture. Someday I’ll get around to finding a way toget some tables and chairs along with some stuff in the kitchen to do my own cooking. In themeantime I’m still eating the fare provided by my host family and not to bad off for it. It’s alot better than what Mark gets from day to day so I can be thankful for that at least. I washoping to get help translating my desire for my landlord and host family to help me transportfurniture but the PC representative that came to check my house only had about 5 minutes tospend and so I’m forced to do the best I can on my own. *shrug* I’m up to the challenge.
The apartment itself is in the basement of one of the hostels and I chose it both because it isthe best looking housing option and because it has a prominent position directly in the centerof town and directly above the public baths. This may not seem like it means much but the bathsare heated all the time and therefore warm the floor of my apartment. With no electricity inthe winter that’s going to be critically important to maintaining me at an acceptable level ofcomfort. Of course I’ll be eating lots of potatoes but I’ll survive and that’s what’simportant!
This is the part where I talk about the weather…
I’m actually looking forward to the start of fall because it’s been so hot through most ofAugust that I’ve been unable to do a lot of exploring. There isn’t any shade which limits thehours of the day I can move around comfortably to the early morning and the evening, which areboth important social times for the villagers so I generally stick around. With the onset offall its begun to cloud up in the early afternoon and has actually rained for about 5 days in arow in the evening, which I had heard would begin to happen but never actually believed havingnot seen a cloud in 3 months or so.
Mark and I have successfully lobbied to get bicycles which should significantly improve mobility, travel time, carrying capacity and range, not to mentionI’ve got it in my head to become a hard core biking enthusiast for exercise since myusual swimming method is out of the question and I really don’t want to start running. Winter from all accounts is cold but not terribly or bitterly so in my protected little valley home… (Mark on the other hand on his windswept fully exposed mountainside is screwed, much to the amusement of everyone that talks to him about it in my village). I’ve decided that if I speculate any more about it I’ll drive myself crazy, thoughI’m actually not nearly as worried about it as my parents.
Two worlds, one family...
Also of note for most of the summer, but especially towards the end, the region has been swarming with visiting family members that have long since departed the humble mountain villages seeking fame and fortune in the big cities. They all return for vacation to see and live with relatives. The upside (and sometimes downside) for me is that occasionally some of them speakEnglish and I can find out more about what’s going on around me then I would otherwise be able to. The downside is that they don’t speak Tashelhiet so whenever they are around the language shifts to Arabic and I neither improve my language nor understand what the heck is going on. Basically this means that for the last month or so I’ve been stuck. This is ok. One of the English speakers was about my age and we talked about religion and rap music and about how the spirits possess the injured and occasionally speak through them (yikes!). He also, predictably, likes soccer and so I’ve learned some about the workings of the Moroccan league and the African conference but heaven forbid if they ever change their uniform colors or I’ll be once again clueless.
Despite the fact that the visiting family has better connections, are better educated and have, in 90 percent of the cases at least, more money they don’t manage to help the village out much. One man had a house built for the 20 days a year he is in Amssouzarte, which sounds like, andis, a waste until you consider that most people just stay with family requiring them to buy morefood and blankets and shuffle people around to free up the space and ends up being a hugehassle. This was brought home to me in a discussion of weddings. Usually when you think ofweddings you think of a family affair with as many people in attendance as can make it. Apparently the people of my village schedule weddings in September and October despite thetraditional times being during the summer. When I asked what the delay was for they told me that it was because it’s cheaper to do the weddings in the fall because all the people go back to the cities. I can vouch… personally I’m ready for them toreturn and life to go back to normal.
Party like its 1899!
I’ve been up to the nearby mountain lake twice this month. The first time I went the 9 kilometers to the edge of the water on horseback, then swam the better part of a mile and then hiked home using a route that the Berbers would call “dee-rect” which basically means either a)Straight up or b) straight down a vertical face. The way home from the lake is an example of b. and basically I turned my legs into shock absorbers. Given that its been more than 10 years since I’ve even pretended to ride a horse (and they have no saddles, only pack blankets), at least 6 months since I’ve been swimming for exercise and my knees NEVER appreciate the shock absorber treatment I could barely walk the next day AND had managed to get sunburned despite the liberal application of sunscreen (which the Berbers find hilarious) but felt pretty good about myself otherwise.
The second time I went was a week later when Mark showed up at my house at 4:30 AM. After I figured out that he wasn’t Moroccan and or some kind of evil spirit contriving to make me upset before sunrise I woke up enough to understand that there was some kind of gathering at the lakefor young people. The purpose supposedly was to let young men and women from different villages see each other and interact socially under less (slightly less as it turns out) supervised conditions than they might otherwise find themselves in. We went and hung out with the girls from marks village (who provided us with breakfast and lunch) and we ended up being the onlyguys who dared to come near. Basically the party was just big groups of guys sunning themselvesand swimming and otherwise being macho within sight of the big groups of girls who cooked and watched without looking like they were watching and behaved just as they would at home. Still though it was cool for them because some of them had never been that far away from their house (about 20K which they walked both directions in sandals). For Mark and I it was another clear example of how things are so different here than in the states. We definitely still managed to have a good time though.
Yay paperwork!
The end of August has also brought the first quarterly report that will be the written record ofthe measure of my Peace Corps service and how it measures up to the project plan (there’s a plan? Could have fooled me!). Following the guidelines I spent a few days answering questions about my site’s geographic characteristics and population and about things I liked and didn’t like about training, if I was fitting into my site socially and culturally (by its very nature a fundamental impossibility) All long hand to be typed up later... which is a pain. The most important part, at least to me, was the part where I talked about potential projects. Right now they are only in the “thinking” phase and I have no idea how to really progress with any of them (with one exception). Hopefully that will change after a community meeting in my site during the visit of my program manager in a few days time. You all, of course, will have to wait to hear how that went.
The only project that differs from the general scheme of things is one that I’m putting together to make and environmental education DVD for the National park. I wrote out a detailed project proposal and timeline for this project spanning the next two years. My program manager was excited by its prospects and so if we can get the equipment it looks like it will happen. I designed the project because all my other options are more fulfilling a role as what international NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) would call a community development agent. I call this a “walking piggy bank” which, while necessary, isn’t really what I signed up for and isn’t hands on enough to make me truly happy. Most of the projects deal with agriculture or community associations and have little to do directly with helping sustain the environment or the park. (Not to mention that they could be done by any high school graduate that attended a 2week seminar on grant funding and money management) The video has the advantage of benefiting both the people and the parks environment directly as wellas being hands on and interesting.
Mr. Fix it...
It occurred to me as I was watching one of my host brothers under the cab of the family dumptruck fixing some mechanical problem or another that the secret to success in Berberville is all about being a generalist. All of my host brothers, beyond being able to do minor mechanical work on anything from bicycles to the big trucks can all weld, cement, plaster, chop and split wood, wire and program the satellite TV., farm with all its various subtleties, speak more than one language, cook to some degree or another and do pretty much anything else you ask them too. In “modern” society, like that in the states life tends to have diversified towards specialists who can do one thing better than everyone else and therefore people come see them about it. This is kind of strange to me because in nature rapidly changing systems, like I would classify the United States, tend to reward generalist behaviors because it’s easier to adapt to the changes, while static systems, like the Berbers, tend to reward specification with individuals to fill every niche. I got to thinking about this after reading the book “Human Nature” which postulates a theory that for the better or worse humans have removed themselves from the bounds of natural selection and taken the first steps towards managing the entire planet. Some made sense some didn’t but it was still interesting to read and made me think.
Katrina, Mistress of Death and Destruction…
I’ve been trying the best I can to keep up with the happenings in New Orleans and the gulf coastusually via the BBC on shortwave and images from Arabic TV news. There are few times in my life when I’m not completely proud of my American heritage and upbringing and I’m sorry to say that this may be one of them. Listening to the impassioned reporting of the BBC correspondent at theNew Orleans convention center about the worsening conditions in downtown and people fighting over food dropped from Blackhawk helicopters sounds more like something that happens in Somalia and not in my home. I sincerely feel for all the people affected by the tragedy but the political infighting about the response time is misplaced and should stop until AFTER things getback on track or we risk creating yet more delays. We need to show the ingenuity, camaraderie, and willpower that makes us a great nation and help ourselves out of the jam like we always have. Sorry… if I sound bitter it’s probably because I feel helpless.
The End…
Anyway, that’s about all I’ve had going on for me in the last month. Thanks as usual for anyonewho’s written me or sent me things. It’s truly awesome and like I said earlier the replies arewinging their way out to anything I’ve received. Make sure that you all take care ofyourselves… until next time… maybe sometime in the middle of September but definitely the firstweekend in October…
Tons of love and luck to everyone
-Andy
Ohh by the way... I’ve started to post old e-mails and pictures to my online journal found athttp://atibbs.blogspot.com in case you’ve missed an episode or want to check out past events. I’m thinking about posting things like site reports and project proposals up there so you canget a general idea of what I do, though they would be boring to most people. Let me know whatyou think of this.
posted by Andy & Erin | 11:53 PM
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