Hey Look! The Finance Minister!
Hey all,
Whats up back in the good ol' U.S. of A (or wherever else you might find yourself as you read this). September in the mountains has come and gone with amazing rapidity and some interesting stuff has happened... though by now my definition of interesting could be frightfully different then all of yours. If this is the case then by all means let me know. Until then... keep those letters coming.. cause nothing keeps me going like getting mail every week! As the weather gets cooler I miss new england with all its riot of colors and apple pies.... though I'm working on making my own. More on that later.
So, when last I wrote I was in town to meet with my Program Manager who was coming up the mountains with us to see how we were progressing in various areas and, supposedly to give us project assistance and tips. This was great because I really needed to get some things banged out with my landlord and my host family about what furniture was coming from where and to get on the case of the town council to get moving on some projects. We caught up with him in ouarzazate just fine and loaded up the land crusier with two bikes, 2 stoves, several boxes of various things that we've been waiting to get hauled up and a number of other things including a table and a chair. It was a tight fit but we managed. We had a good dinner at a pretty nice place and talked over italian food of comparitive religion and about how my film project wasn't really mine because "we've made it a group effort". (since that night I've heard nothing about it and no one has done any work except me *shrug*)
The next morning we got up early and made the trip up to marks village in a little over 2 hours from ouarzazate. The difference between that ride and the normal method of public transportation (20 people packed like sardines into a 1982 model expidition land rover) was like night and day. It was so fast and comfortable that Mark and I, now used to the plodding lumbering beast cars and being packed so tight we didn't go anywhere when the car hit bumps, were both looking slightly green when the car rolled to a stop half way.
Another thing I should mention is that this is the third time that I've experianced riding in a PC land cruiser to go someplace or do something... and each previous time we had been in some minor auto accident. (we've also had 8 flat tires on our various means of transport since arriving in morocco) This time was no exception and by far the worst of the bunch. We were on the narrow road up to marks village and the driver (these people are professionals mind you) drove us off the cliff so that the car was stuck half on and half off the road and we were tetering over the edge like you see in movies or cartoons. The driver got out through the passenger door while mark and I waited patiently to be rescued from the back seat (our door faced down hill) While we were in the car the driver began checking its stability by ROCKING IT BACK AND FORTH! Luckily it WAS stable and we lived. Now we had begun to gather a crowd because... well.. anything that happens thats out of the ordinary in even the slightest way is interesting to the berbers (writing letters draws a crowd). We unpacked the back of the car and after several unsucessful attempts to budge it and get it back on the road we ended up jacking it up and rebuilding the road underneath. (the berbers are very good at improvising things like this) We reloaded and drove the remaining 200 meters and unloaded marks stuff again, getting kids to haul it through town like a parade to his house. (consequently everyone knows everything we own... more on that later)
His village meeting went well, though he already knew exactly what he had to do there. (build a 3 kilometer cement or PVC irrigation ditch from the next town over... actually quite difficult because there is a sizable mountain in between). After eating a considerable amount of food and drinking lots and lots of tea I was ready for a nap. Instead we travelled to my village to do the same thing all over again. My meeting was a bit different and a bit more difficult because it was starting to get dark and it was generally time for everyone to get home and sit around and do nothing. We managed to collect everyone though (and some people I had met but didn't have a clue were on the council) and talked about projects. I was grateful to discover that the things I had determined were priorites for projects were also thier priorities (whew!) and that they were willing to help me with whatever was needed to get them done (sweet!). In the course of a half hour meeting I went from having one project that had nothing at all to do with Amssouzarte (Toubkal film DVD, which I've since heard the ministery of water and forests have taken over as thier own... blast and damnation!) to having 4 other active projects within the community. They are, in priority order, new fruit trees, drinking water for the whole village, (right now only about half have it in their homes, the other half have to walk about 500 meters to the spring), a womans center, and fish farming...
Right now I'm at work on the trees, though the going is slow and we are talking big numbers, like 5000 or so apple trees and an equal number of other mixed fruit species. This represents a substantial and nesicary shift in their agriculture system but I'm skeptical that its a good idea to do it all at one time. I tried to get advice from PC on this and got back a couple of sample grant proposals and a response that said "they are the farmers let them decide." This is not quite the approach I would have used but *shrug* they are the farmers. I also have to wait for the moroccans to come to me and tell me what trees they want. This is tantamount to sitting around the local cafe all day and discussing weather and politics and just about everything else and maybe eventually getting around to trees... sometimes. Its been 2 weeks and I've collected most of the requests finally but its a great example of the differences in a perspective of time between me and my moroccan hosts. The best part is that when the trees don't come on time it will be my fault and not thiers.
The day after the meeting we went to market and with the Program managers help we commissioned a bunch of furniture (several sets of shelves) from the local carpenter and got a bunch of dishes so we could begin cooking for ourselves (which I havn't done yet). All in all it was a very productive couple of days.
A couple of interesting things happened the next week as well. With no prior notice and 70 kilometers from the nearest paved road the Finance minister of Morocco and his eneterage decided to drop by for lunch. To this day i have no idea why, as he's not elected and so campaining isn't really nesicary. My town, with the help of the commune (10 villages grouped together and governed by another association) brought out a huge feast. The first time I've seen the fabled moroccan banquet extravaganza. There were 5 tables of people and 3 main courses (chicken followed by lamb followed by cuscus) then exotic fruits for desert. All told 20 chickens, 3 sheep, 25 kilos of cuscus and inumerable banannas, pinapples, and others met thier deaths for the minister and the total cost must have been equal if not exceeding the average yearly income of the villagers. All to hear promises about modernization. I actually ended up speaking with him more than the villagers got to and we talked about his son who was attending university... at Harvard. Make of that what you will.
The day after his visit there was a minor but definately noticable earthquake in the vacinity. It shook the building I was standing next to and made the road wave beneeth my feet. Nothing fell down but it was funny to watch moroccans scramble out of buildings with thier hands held over thier heads and then wander around as if nothing had happened. I taked to some of them about it and they said it happens from time to time... though no one could really seem to remember what the last time was. I checked the news sources available to me and couldn't find any mention of the quake or anything so I suppose that it was just a small one that went untoticed to all but a few in our mountian home. Mark, about 12 kilometers away probably slept through it.
I've taken up with a tutor at the insistance of my Program Manager, despite the fact that there is no one who speaks really sufficiant english. I've found somone thats the most compatible I can and we at least get along. He's good for things like helping with local customs and geography and the names of all the towns in my immediate area. The jury is still out on language though at least he makes me think more about it and the conversations I have and what I do already know. Mostly though it just seems to me like I'm paying him to learn english from me. We can generally get around in converstations though, (sometimes having to switch to french to do it). I still can't talk to anyone else fluently though. The political and religious discussions that PC tells me I'm supposed to avoid are of course the most interesting. Its what they talk about all the time so asking us not to talk about it is a bit unreasonable. There is need to be careful I'll admit because there are some subjects that get harped on endlessly. Tough converstions always begin with topics like "what do you think of september 11th?" or "Do you know osama bin laden?" These peaceful people still have danger buried in them like everyone else. Mark got shown a DVD of beheadings of americans in Iraq over dinner and really set him on edge and cemented his negative opinion of Moroccan males in general. The rest of the family he was eating with showed no negative reaction to such conduct and the men of the village asked him what he thought about the video and its "cool" content constantly for the rest of the week. My village is too disaplined to let things like that happen openly but I think that there are some of the boys about my age that would try to unsettle me on purpose provided an unsupervised oportunity. They resent me because I am their age and do no "work" (meaning demeaning manual labor that they are subject too because of thier general inexperiance) and often go out of thier way to annoy me. They know all of what I own and so I'm besieged by demands... give me a pen... give me your bike (this is the worst) etc. I have to lock myself in my house to avoid them and then they bang on the windows and door and yell my name until an elder happens to walk by and relives me for a bit. Hopefully some of them will be leaving soon to go back to school. If not I'll have to find some other way of dealing as the problem seems to be getting progressively worse.
Otherwise cross culturally things are going well. With progress on projects and a better understanding of what I'm actually doing I get along much better with the older set and get greetings on the street and other invitations I wasn't getting before. Still no one has invited me to their home or to talk to thier families yet.. but little by little...
We've gotten into Ouarzazate more than usual just because we wanted to pick up some packages. Mark got a hiking backpack from home and I got a typewritter from an in country friend of mine. Now I can bang away letters on a 1955 Royal model typewritter (one of the best ever built according to the previous owner who collects antique typewritters) that I can use to bang out letters. Typing at 50 words a minute or less is a bit difficult for me as I'm used to going much faster but I'm giving serious consideration to writing a book to help pass the winter months. If I like it then perhaps I'll even let you all read it someday. Then again perhaps not. I've been giving much consideration to author or journalist as possible future career paths as I love to write but my lack of experiance and lack of relevent degree may dampen plans... but I'm young and still capable of recovering from misguided attempts like this. I keep hpping that PC will catch up and give me the money it owes me since my court debacle so I can do things like pay rent and buy food... but i've now hit what I certianly hope to be a previously unprecedented number of administrative snags that typify working with moroccans. I'm told my rent money is coming in a couple of weeks. By this time I'll be 3 months behind... Thankfully rent collection is just as unorganized and no demands have been made.
The muslim month of fasting Ramadan is coming up and I am planning on fasting for many reasons, none of which are the right ones (according to my hosts) but which all seem adaquate to me. The foremost is just to see if I can hack it. No food or water from sun up till sun down. There are feasts at sunset every day though so I'm not going to be lacking for nourishment, just the timing is goning to be a little skewed. Wish me luck over your steak and cheeseburgers and whatever..... I'll also be coming back into town a bit early for flu shots on the 19th of october. I was going to post some more pictures to the online journal but I havn't got the time at the moment so it will have to wait until then. After that you can check them out at http://atibbs.blogspot.com
On this months perspective point one of my host uncles just got diagnosed with diabetes. This is a tough disease anywhere but in Morocco and especially where we are I can't even imagine the consequenses. Nearly 95% of what they eat daily is now prohibited and even items that diabetics normally get to partake of in limited quantities are forbidden because test strips and the machine that reads them are much to expensive and difficult to opportate. Insulin is expensive and requires the purchase of a refridgerator that runs on butane, which isn't really that cheap (since there is no power). Imagine changing your life to such a degree at age 70 with no outside support and the nearest doctor being 5 hours away. I helped to show him how to give himself the shot in a sanitary fashion. I hope he does alright.
Guess thats about it for now... If I think of anything else I might send out a shorter e-mail when I come for my shot. If not then you will hopefully hear from me again the first weekend in November.
Till then.. take great care of yourself
Love and luck in everything
Cheers!
Andy
Whats up back in the good ol' U.S. of A (or wherever else you might find yourself as you read this). September in the mountains has come and gone with amazing rapidity and some interesting stuff has happened... though by now my definition of interesting could be frightfully different then all of yours. If this is the case then by all means let me know. Until then... keep those letters coming.. cause nothing keeps me going like getting mail every week! As the weather gets cooler I miss new england with all its riot of colors and apple pies.... though I'm working on making my own. More on that later.
So, when last I wrote I was in town to meet with my Program Manager who was coming up the mountains with us to see how we were progressing in various areas and, supposedly to give us project assistance and tips. This was great because I really needed to get some things banged out with my landlord and my host family about what furniture was coming from where and to get on the case of the town council to get moving on some projects. We caught up with him in ouarzazate just fine and loaded up the land crusier with two bikes, 2 stoves, several boxes of various things that we've been waiting to get hauled up and a number of other things including a table and a chair. It was a tight fit but we managed. We had a good dinner at a pretty nice place and talked over italian food of comparitive religion and about how my film project wasn't really mine because "we've made it a group effort". (since that night I've heard nothing about it and no one has done any work except me *shrug*)
The next morning we got up early and made the trip up to marks village in a little over 2 hours from ouarzazate. The difference between that ride and the normal method of public transportation (20 people packed like sardines into a 1982 model expidition land rover) was like night and day. It was so fast and comfortable that Mark and I, now used to the plodding lumbering beast cars and being packed so tight we didn't go anywhere when the car hit bumps, were both looking slightly green when the car rolled to a stop half way.
Another thing I should mention is that this is the third time that I've experianced riding in a PC land cruiser to go someplace or do something... and each previous time we had been in some minor auto accident. (we've also had 8 flat tires on our various means of transport since arriving in morocco) This time was no exception and by far the worst of the bunch. We were on the narrow road up to marks village and the driver (these people are professionals mind you) drove us off the cliff so that the car was stuck half on and half off the road and we were tetering over the edge like you see in movies or cartoons. The driver got out through the passenger door while mark and I waited patiently to be rescued from the back seat (our door faced down hill) While we were in the car the driver began checking its stability by ROCKING IT BACK AND FORTH! Luckily it WAS stable and we lived. Now we had begun to gather a crowd because... well.. anything that happens thats out of the ordinary in even the slightest way is interesting to the berbers (writing letters draws a crowd). We unpacked the back of the car and after several unsucessful attempts to budge it and get it back on the road we ended up jacking it up and rebuilding the road underneath. (the berbers are very good at improvising things like this) We reloaded and drove the remaining 200 meters and unloaded marks stuff again, getting kids to haul it through town like a parade to his house. (consequently everyone knows everything we own... more on that later)
His village meeting went well, though he already knew exactly what he had to do there. (build a 3 kilometer cement or PVC irrigation ditch from the next town over... actually quite difficult because there is a sizable mountain in between). After eating a considerable amount of food and drinking lots and lots of tea I was ready for a nap. Instead we travelled to my village to do the same thing all over again. My meeting was a bit different and a bit more difficult because it was starting to get dark and it was generally time for everyone to get home and sit around and do nothing. We managed to collect everyone though (and some people I had met but didn't have a clue were on the council) and talked about projects. I was grateful to discover that the things I had determined were priorites for projects were also thier priorities (whew!) and that they were willing to help me with whatever was needed to get them done (sweet!). In the course of a half hour meeting I went from having one project that had nothing at all to do with Amssouzarte (Toubkal film DVD, which I've since heard the ministery of water and forests have taken over as thier own... blast and damnation!) to having 4 other active projects within the community. They are, in priority order, new fruit trees, drinking water for the whole village, (right now only about half have it in their homes, the other half have to walk about 500 meters to the spring), a womans center, and fish farming...
Right now I'm at work on the trees, though the going is slow and we are talking big numbers, like 5000 or so apple trees and an equal number of other mixed fruit species. This represents a substantial and nesicary shift in their agriculture system but I'm skeptical that its a good idea to do it all at one time. I tried to get advice from PC on this and got back a couple of sample grant proposals and a response that said "they are the farmers let them decide." This is not quite the approach I would have used but *shrug* they are the farmers. I also have to wait for the moroccans to come to me and tell me what trees they want. This is tantamount to sitting around the local cafe all day and discussing weather and politics and just about everything else and maybe eventually getting around to trees... sometimes. Its been 2 weeks and I've collected most of the requests finally but its a great example of the differences in a perspective of time between me and my moroccan hosts. The best part is that when the trees don't come on time it will be my fault and not thiers.
The day after the meeting we went to market and with the Program managers help we commissioned a bunch of furniture (several sets of shelves) from the local carpenter and got a bunch of dishes so we could begin cooking for ourselves (which I havn't done yet). All in all it was a very productive couple of days.
A couple of interesting things happened the next week as well. With no prior notice and 70 kilometers from the nearest paved road the Finance minister of Morocco and his eneterage decided to drop by for lunch. To this day i have no idea why, as he's not elected and so campaining isn't really nesicary. My town, with the help of the commune (10 villages grouped together and governed by another association) brought out a huge feast. The first time I've seen the fabled moroccan banquet extravaganza. There were 5 tables of people and 3 main courses (chicken followed by lamb followed by cuscus) then exotic fruits for desert. All told 20 chickens, 3 sheep, 25 kilos of cuscus and inumerable banannas, pinapples, and others met thier deaths for the minister and the total cost must have been equal if not exceeding the average yearly income of the villagers. All to hear promises about modernization. I actually ended up speaking with him more than the villagers got to and we talked about his son who was attending university... at Harvard. Make of that what you will.
The day after his visit there was a minor but definately noticable earthquake in the vacinity. It shook the building I was standing next to and made the road wave beneeth my feet. Nothing fell down but it was funny to watch moroccans scramble out of buildings with thier hands held over thier heads and then wander around as if nothing had happened. I taked to some of them about it and they said it happens from time to time... though no one could really seem to remember what the last time was. I checked the news sources available to me and couldn't find any mention of the quake or anything so I suppose that it was just a small one that went untoticed to all but a few in our mountian home. Mark, about 12 kilometers away probably slept through it.
I've taken up with a tutor at the insistance of my Program Manager, despite the fact that there is no one who speaks really sufficiant english. I've found somone thats the most compatible I can and we at least get along. He's good for things like helping with local customs and geography and the names of all the towns in my immediate area. The jury is still out on language though at least he makes me think more about it and the conversations I have and what I do already know. Mostly though it just seems to me like I'm paying him to learn english from me. We can generally get around in converstations though, (sometimes having to switch to french to do it). I still can't talk to anyone else fluently though. The political and religious discussions that PC tells me I'm supposed to avoid are of course the most interesting. Its what they talk about all the time so asking us not to talk about it is a bit unreasonable. There is need to be careful I'll admit because there are some subjects that get harped on endlessly. Tough converstions always begin with topics like "what do you think of september 11th?" or "Do you know osama bin laden?" These peaceful people still have danger buried in them like everyone else. Mark got shown a DVD of beheadings of americans in Iraq over dinner and really set him on edge and cemented his negative opinion of Moroccan males in general. The rest of the family he was eating with showed no negative reaction to such conduct and the men of the village asked him what he thought about the video and its "cool" content constantly for the rest of the week. My village is too disaplined to let things like that happen openly but I think that there are some of the boys about my age that would try to unsettle me on purpose provided an unsupervised oportunity. They resent me because I am their age and do no "work" (meaning demeaning manual labor that they are subject too because of thier general inexperiance) and often go out of thier way to annoy me. They know all of what I own and so I'm besieged by demands... give me a pen... give me your bike (this is the worst) etc. I have to lock myself in my house to avoid them and then they bang on the windows and door and yell my name until an elder happens to walk by and relives me for a bit. Hopefully some of them will be leaving soon to go back to school. If not I'll have to find some other way of dealing as the problem seems to be getting progressively worse.
Otherwise cross culturally things are going well. With progress on projects and a better understanding of what I'm actually doing I get along much better with the older set and get greetings on the street and other invitations I wasn't getting before. Still no one has invited me to their home or to talk to thier families yet.. but little by little...
We've gotten into Ouarzazate more than usual just because we wanted to pick up some packages. Mark got a hiking backpack from home and I got a typewritter from an in country friend of mine. Now I can bang away letters on a 1955 Royal model typewritter (one of the best ever built according to the previous owner who collects antique typewritters) that I can use to bang out letters. Typing at 50 words a minute or less is a bit difficult for me as I'm used to going much faster but I'm giving serious consideration to writing a book to help pass the winter months. If I like it then perhaps I'll even let you all read it someday. Then again perhaps not. I've been giving much consideration to author or journalist as possible future career paths as I love to write but my lack of experiance and lack of relevent degree may dampen plans... but I'm young and still capable of recovering from misguided attempts like this. I keep hpping that PC will catch up and give me the money it owes me since my court debacle so I can do things like pay rent and buy food... but i've now hit what I certianly hope to be a previously unprecedented number of administrative snags that typify working with moroccans. I'm told my rent money is coming in a couple of weeks. By this time I'll be 3 months behind... Thankfully rent collection is just as unorganized and no demands have been made.
The muslim month of fasting Ramadan is coming up and I am planning on fasting for many reasons, none of which are the right ones (according to my hosts) but which all seem adaquate to me. The foremost is just to see if I can hack it. No food or water from sun up till sun down. There are feasts at sunset every day though so I'm not going to be lacking for nourishment, just the timing is goning to be a little skewed. Wish me luck over your steak and cheeseburgers and whatever..... I'll also be coming back into town a bit early for flu shots on the 19th of october. I was going to post some more pictures to the online journal but I havn't got the time at the moment so it will have to wait until then. After that you can check them out at http://atibbs.blogspot.com
On this months perspective point one of my host uncles just got diagnosed with diabetes. This is a tough disease anywhere but in Morocco and especially where we are I can't even imagine the consequenses. Nearly 95% of what they eat daily is now prohibited and even items that diabetics normally get to partake of in limited quantities are forbidden because test strips and the machine that reads them are much to expensive and difficult to opportate. Insulin is expensive and requires the purchase of a refridgerator that runs on butane, which isn't really that cheap (since there is no power). Imagine changing your life to such a degree at age 70 with no outside support and the nearest doctor being 5 hours away. I helped to show him how to give himself the shot in a sanitary fashion. I hope he does alright.
Guess thats about it for now... If I think of anything else I might send out a shorter e-mail when I come for my shot. If not then you will hopefully hear from me again the first weekend in November.
Till then.. take great care of yourself
Love and luck in everything
Cheers!
Andy
posted by Andy & Erin | 12:13 AM
1 Comments:
How the cookie crumbles
Editor's Note: Here is a taste of our All You Can Eat blog. If you're hungry for more, visit http://extras.insidebayarea.com/blogs/allyoucaneat. A home just isn't the same when there are no homemade cookies in ...
K
My site free debt settlement consultations
Post a Comment
<< Home