Allah Akbar! (God is great!)

My host dad at prayer... Symbolic almost eh?

Good Friends, Cold Weather

Hey All!

Well, I must say I apologize for it being such a long time since I've managed to write. I haven't been sitting at a computer for any significant amount of time for more than a month, though, as you are about to see I would be hard pressed to explain what I actually HAVE been doing all that time. Ah well... Some of you will also notice that you are getting this e-mail from a different account. This is because Umass decided to stop letting alumni use the mail system and didn't bother to tell us (or at least me) until after they turned it off and I couldn't get in any more. So much for all my saved mail and contacts. If there is anyone that I'm forgetting don't hesitate to let me know.

Lets see... where did I leave off? Christmas and New Years... ugh... that was a while ago.

OK, pretty much the first thing that happened after new years was that I got really sick. Some phantom pain under my rib cage on the left hand side. I pulled some strings and pitched a fit and got a chance to see the doctor in Rabat. It was also a good chance to meet up with some people I knew and see the embassy. (just because I wanted to, not because I was sick). Conveniently, I also got a chance to meet a friend who was returning from a trip home and chit chat. A good transition from my conference where I got to see everyone.

The doctor was not particularly helpful. The problem was diagnosed as "gas troubles" and I was given some drugs and sent to the lab for further testing. The lab was nearly impossible to find since not even the police seem to know what the street names are and this is NOT a small city. I did find it eventually though. The results were negative for major parasites (I do have some minor ones that don't cause disease or illness). The problem persisted painfully for about another week and then dissipated on its own. Hopefully that will be the end of it.

It was the first time since arriving in the country nearly a year ago that I have been able to get north of the city of Marrakesh. From Mkesh northward there is a train system that connects many of the major cities and is clean, runs on a schedule and a very smooth ride. I am not used to such treatment! The country to the north of the mountains is a COMPLETELY different world than the part of the country I've come to know and love in the last year. First and most importantly its not desert. There are green fields and even trees as far as the eye can see. I had forgotten what this could be like. I really liked the landscape out the train window. Morocco really is amazingly diverse in terms of climate and ecosystems. You name it, it probably exists here someplace. Mountains, deserts, rivers, lakes, forests and fields. Craziness...

I went back to my site in the hills to hang out with the villagers for a few weeks after that. The situation in my village is looking up these days I'm happy to report. I think that my still being here for the winter months has finally gotten through to some of them. I may still be the crazy American kid but now I'm the tough, Berber wanna-be crazy American kid. Its a small but significant difference. The women have been by my house several times on their way back and forth to the bath house and once even got into my kitchen. Thankfully it was more or less clean that day and they had to look at things with a candle so it managed to meet with their approval. I managed to get out a few sentences in conversation after I got over my initial shock. They haven't done anything that openly before or since but in general have responded to me with more than just a hello on the street. I've also gotten a few other invitations to dinner and/or tea... which is awesome. About time.

I have started to cook one meal a day for my Berber friends... despite their being extremely obnoxious from time to time. It gets me free lunch and a ticket to other peoples houses from time to time. My main friend, named Mohamed (of course) is a Berber plumber and I've become his assistant (despite him being younger than me) when I'm around in the village. Berber plumbing, like most Berber construction is at least 48% destruction and 52% construction for everything they build... which makes for very fun but very slow projects. A sledge hammer and chisel for knocking out conduits in cement walls for the pipes is as important as a pipe wrench. Still I'm learning a lot about how plumbing must have worked before many modern advantages. Actually I didn't know all that much about plumbing before so its good for a lot of reasons. We've been fixing a lot of pipes lately in the village due to the cold weather. Their water pipes run outside the houses and freeze often. We've also been installing plumbing in the new floor of the hostel I have my apartment in. I offered my design suggestions for things that tourists might like. Before I leave I'm going to paint my name and the PC logo on it and say it was my project!

Unfortunately, real projects have failed to keep pace with social integration at least for my specific village. PC projects are funded through co-operation with a variety of partners but in PC morocco and especially for the environment program most of the money comes from USAID, a US government agency responsible for distributing American foreign aid money. This physical year they only gave PC about $60,000 which amounts to about 12 fully funded projects. Most of the money was taken up by last years project backlog before we were even eligible to apply for it. Yikes... My trees project got axed before it even took off. Since then I've managed to find funding for about half the trees I asked for from another source and I've reapplied to try and get the remainder from whats left of the USAID money. Wish me luck. If nothing else we'll just plant half as many trees. Hopefully soon since the planting season is RIGHT NOW, but you simply can't rush things around here for any reason, natural laws included.

The winter makes other things difficult as well. Travel into and out of my site has been nightmarish of late. One road at least is closed at all times and a couple of times both roads have been closed for a day or two. You just have to pray that good weather and your travel plans co-inside and mine definitely have not! I got stuck going back to site not once but 2 times and one of those times I spent 2 nights on the floor of someones house with the other 16 passengers of the land rover. A snickers bar and some peanuts were my only sustenance... ohh and tea was provided free of charge.... Good think I had my sleeping bag since I was excluded from the huddle for warmth by mutual agreement. I've had problems getting down a couple of times as well. When I went on vacation towards the end of January I had to ride a horse 31 kilometers on the road before finding it open enough to allow automobile traffic. But I made it out for vacation which is what counts!

Vacation was an excellent time. I went with three other friends over to the other side of the mountains. We spent 3 nights in a hostel in the town of Imlill (renamed Aspen for the occasion). We were going to go skiing but it snowed to much (ironic huh) to get to the mountain so we just sat fireside, had some drinks and enjoyed movies in good company. It was extremely relaxing and worthwhile for many reasons. It was also, like the rest of Morocco, extremely cold at the time. After that we spent a night in Mkesh. We spent some time shopping (I got some more Moroccan clothes) and went to a really nice restaurant. I had sushi there. It was a great night and a good end for the trip.

February began with another couple of weeks back in the mountains. Visited Marks a few times to make myself feel better about my site. His is brutally cold and his house is the coldest place in it. Definitely did some great meals though. Getting to be a pretty good minimalist cook. My dad says its in the genes because my mom was a great one when she met him. What I wouldn't do for some of her cooking now! Or at least some ingredients besides rice, potatoes, onions and peppers. Actually peoples Christmas packages and cards got held up by the Moroccan holiday of L'aid Al Kibir ("the big holiday") but now that they have been arriving I've gotten lots of nifty American treats! Thanks all!

L'aid Al Kibir was an interesting and frustrating experience for me. I tried very hard to get my new friends to include me to no avail... but I still had a nice time. Its the holiday where they ritually slaughter a sheep or goat and eat nothing but meat for 2 or three days. Defiantly a family affair. Kinda scary. In marks village they dress a man up in the bloody and dripping skins of the animal and he runs around town chasing small children like the Bogey man. If he catches them he beats them mercilessly for a few minutes. Everyone loves it. I will never understand. Nothing like that in my ultra-conservative village. Though I didn't get to watch the sacrifice and there was no goat man they did bring me a steaming pile of fresh meat. Apparently it offended them that I was going to eat vegetarian. Thankfully it was the part they wanted least and therefore the most palatable for me. No brains, stomach, liver, intestines or roasted goat head for me thanks!

OK... Think that's about it for interesting stuff In January... I'm going to save February till the end of the month though I know its already half over. A lot of stuff has happened and it would just make this e-mail too long. Plus I have to give you all something to look forward to in the future.

Have a great time doing whatever it is you're doing...I miss you all! Thanks again for any letters and Christmas stuff you may have sent my way... or regular mail...
That's always good too.
Love and luck in Everything
Cheers
-Andy