Gone to the Birds!
Hey All,
How's life for everyone in all of your respective locals? I hope things are going well for everyone everywhere as always! Figured I would try and write up an e-mail and get caught up with the monthly updates. I'm not terribly into it at the moment so if this is a bit lackluster please forgive me.
OK... so, in an effort to switch my focus to projects that don't require as much money (for reasons that I explained in my last e-mail) I've been working with a small group of other volunteers to get some bird surveys started in the park regions where PCV's live. We would create a publicly accessible database with the information collected, do environmental education in the regions where the surveys would be conducted, use it as an opportunity to train park technicians in proper (scientific) wildlife survey methods and increase information about bird biodiversity in these regions that could then be factored in to park management decisions. We are also going to distribute information to communities surrounding bird sites about how they can take advantage of the environment to foster bird related tourism (one of the fastest growing outdoor activities world wide) to increase income and spark local interest in habitat conservation.
That's the idea anyway... given that this is PC and we work in Morocco with Moroccan government counterparts I can personally guarantee that this will not go as planned. In fact... right off the bat PC started not paying for our travel or lodgings to work out this project because... they are 50% over budget on work related travel expenses in Feb so we get zilch in March regardless of the worthiness of the cause... But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Basically, all we need for this project is some travel money and some good optics... maybe some money for photo copies and a couple of partners so we can effectively continue the education long term and develop some multi-lingual curriculum options. Three (me Mike and Carly) of us got together in early February to put together a proposal. To go to the 2 day project meeting I had to leave my sight 3 days early to travel to Marrakesh and get a form signed saying that I have my counterparts (who I've still not met) permission to leave my site (which he still hasn't visited) for the 2 days of the meeting. A bit odd... but then this is the government. Two of them actually. The extra time proved to be a benefit though because it let me visit my friend Carly in her site for a day and then travel to see some other volunteers for a night before heading to the meeting location with her. Was good to get up and see the Northern regions (and northern volunteers)up close and personal!
The meeting was back in the south though (I got to see a new road getting there and Monkeys!). We met up in the village of Rich (pronounced Reesh) and did some work on the computers before heading a bit further into the mountains to hammer out a project proposal at one of the participants villages. Our host's village was in the Eastern High Atlas national park and had some of the same rugged beauty that I've come to associate with Morocco's mountains. We hiked around a bit in the few days we were there but mostly we just hung out inside next to the heater and worked on the project, watched some movies and slept in. After one more day on the Internet we got things mostly wrapped up, worked on a set of survey methods (for which I've been soliciting help from some old college professors) and met still more PCV's who were passing through or working on other projects. I don't think I've met so many people since our in service training gathering in December. Awesome. Only wish it was possible to see and work with more people. I think that it would even be beneficial to project progress to be able to bounce ideas off of people, form project groups and brainstorm. Alas... it is and idea that will probably prove incompatible with our organizations rules that supposedly protect us.
When we finished up in Rich we all went our separate ways back home. For me this was a 7 hour bus ride back to Ouarzazate where I met up with Mark and still more PCV's(!) for the weekend. We watched more black market movies, I got my mail and some new music and then traveled back to site by normal means.
I spent a week there and made myself social. Luckily its starting to warm up and every few days the sun comes out and it feels like we just skipped spring all together. The rest of the time it snows. The biggest factor has been the wind which whips down the valley with such force that I literally have trouble standing still if I haven't braced myself for it. It also blows fine grained dust from the mountains everywhere and it stings any exposed skin and creates rather dusty meals in my windowless kitchen. Peter tells me that it happens at the beginning of every spring (that he's been here for anyway) and that it means the warmer weather will come soon. I'm not sure I want it to be spring yet.. I like winter... but I am happy that it MIGHT make transportation more regular and easy.
After a week back in site I went with Mark into town to check progress on the birds project, see if there was any developments on my trees project finances, write our third quarter of service reports and pick up the money for March. Was a rather slow weekend with no one around in town compared to the week before when practically everyone in the region put in an appearance at some point or another. Still, it was a successful trip in some respects. The birds project team had arranged a meeting in Rabat at the beginning of March with an association of science teachers that were interested in working with us and we are all going to get to go so long as we paid for ourselves. Mark had also arranged a meeting at our counterparts office in Marrakesh for the next Friday that I was going to go to as well. All of which sounded good to me.
On the way back to site my program manager called me and told me that there WAS money for my trees so I needed to arrange with my village how we were going to transport them and start classes on proper planting and maintenance. And ohh.. by the way.. you can't come to the birds meeting after all because its not safe for three of you to travel. WHAT? Awesome that the trees project is finally going to happen but I'm REALLY excited about the birds project and I don't really want to get cut out of it because of silly rules or because I'm too far out there for them to want me traveling all the time! Have to work on that I guess....
Anyway.. getting the trees money (at least half of it so far) is GREAT and I managed to arrange for transportation to come and meet me in Marrakesh on Tuesday (March 7th). Meeting the villagers in the city will be interesting in a couple of respects. First, I don't come here often enough to know any of the landmarks that they would know (only the tourist ones) and I don't have any of their phone numbers so I have to rely on them calling me, second it will be a chance to see how the villagers react to the city first hand. I'll give you a report of how it goes (providing it goes at all) in my March report.
In the future for me is the hopeful completion of this trees thing to some reasonable degree... perhaps the first of the bird surveys providing PC lets me participate. The new environment volunteers come in this week which means than in a couple of days I'll have been here a full year. Extremely hard for me to believe and everyone who's been here longer tells me the second half goes even faster. I've been asked to teach a session in their training on stress management (not sure why they picked me) and then I'm going on a vacation in April and seeing all the sites of the south that I still haven't gotten a chance to get to yet! Yay. I'll give you all updates on that in the March E-mail as well since I'm getting ahead of myself.
That's it for now... aren't you glad February is a short month! Oh.. happy extremely belated Valentine's day and and extremely early St. Patricks Day!
Miss you all, Stay well
Love and luck in Everything
CHEERS!
-Andy
How's life for everyone in all of your respective locals? I hope things are going well for everyone everywhere as always! Figured I would try and write up an e-mail and get caught up with the monthly updates. I'm not terribly into it at the moment so if this is a bit lackluster please forgive me.
OK... so, in an effort to switch my focus to projects that don't require as much money (for reasons that I explained in my last e-mail) I've been working with a small group of other volunteers to get some bird surveys started in the park regions where PCV's live. We would create a publicly accessible database with the information collected, do environmental education in the regions where the surveys would be conducted, use it as an opportunity to train park technicians in proper (scientific) wildlife survey methods and increase information about bird biodiversity in these regions that could then be factored in to park management decisions. We are also going to distribute information to communities surrounding bird sites about how they can take advantage of the environment to foster bird related tourism (one of the fastest growing outdoor activities world wide) to increase income and spark local interest in habitat conservation.
That's the idea anyway... given that this is PC and we work in Morocco with Moroccan government counterparts I can personally guarantee that this will not go as planned. In fact... right off the bat PC started not paying for our travel or lodgings to work out this project because... they are 50% over budget on work related travel expenses in Feb so we get zilch in March regardless of the worthiness of the cause... But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Basically, all we need for this project is some travel money and some good optics... maybe some money for photo copies and a couple of partners so we can effectively continue the education long term and develop some multi-lingual curriculum options. Three (me Mike and Carly) of us got together in early February to put together a proposal. To go to the 2 day project meeting I had to leave my sight 3 days early to travel to Marrakesh and get a form signed saying that I have my counterparts (who I've still not met) permission to leave my site (which he still hasn't visited) for the 2 days of the meeting. A bit odd... but then this is the government. Two of them actually. The extra time proved to be a benefit though because it let me visit my friend Carly in her site for a day and then travel to see some other volunteers for a night before heading to the meeting location with her. Was good to get up and see the Northern regions (and northern volunteers)up close and personal!
The meeting was back in the south though (I got to see a new road getting there and Monkeys!). We met up in the village of Rich (pronounced Reesh) and did some work on the computers before heading a bit further into the mountains to hammer out a project proposal at one of the participants villages. Our host's village was in the Eastern High Atlas national park and had some of the same rugged beauty that I've come to associate with Morocco's mountains. We hiked around a bit in the few days we were there but mostly we just hung out inside next to the heater and worked on the project, watched some movies and slept in. After one more day on the Internet we got things mostly wrapped up, worked on a set of survey methods (for which I've been soliciting help from some old college professors) and met still more PCV's who were passing through or working on other projects. I don't think I've met so many people since our in service training gathering in December. Awesome. Only wish it was possible to see and work with more people. I think that it would even be beneficial to project progress to be able to bounce ideas off of people, form project groups and brainstorm. Alas... it is and idea that will probably prove incompatible with our organizations rules that supposedly protect us.
When we finished up in Rich we all went our separate ways back home. For me this was a 7 hour bus ride back to Ouarzazate where I met up with Mark and still more PCV's(!) for the weekend. We watched more black market movies, I got my mail and some new music and then traveled back to site by normal means.
I spent a week there and made myself social. Luckily its starting to warm up and every few days the sun comes out and it feels like we just skipped spring all together. The rest of the time it snows. The biggest factor has been the wind which whips down the valley with such force that I literally have trouble standing still if I haven't braced myself for it. It also blows fine grained dust from the mountains everywhere and it stings any exposed skin and creates rather dusty meals in my windowless kitchen. Peter tells me that it happens at the beginning of every spring (that he's been here for anyway) and that it means the warmer weather will come soon. I'm not sure I want it to be spring yet.. I like winter... but I am happy that it MIGHT make transportation more regular and easy.
After a week back in site I went with Mark into town to check progress on the birds project, see if there was any developments on my trees project finances, write our third quarter of service reports and pick up the money for March. Was a rather slow weekend with no one around in town compared to the week before when practically everyone in the region put in an appearance at some point or another. Still, it was a successful trip in some respects. The birds project team had arranged a meeting in Rabat at the beginning of March with an association of science teachers that were interested in working with us and we are all going to get to go so long as we paid for ourselves. Mark had also arranged a meeting at our counterparts office in Marrakesh for the next Friday that I was going to go to as well. All of which sounded good to me.
On the way back to site my program manager called me and told me that there WAS money for my trees so I needed to arrange with my village how we were going to transport them and start classes on proper planting and maintenance. And ohh.. by the way.. you can't come to the birds meeting after all because its not safe for three of you to travel. WHAT? Awesome that the trees project is finally going to happen but I'm REALLY excited about the birds project and I don't really want to get cut out of it because of silly rules or because I'm too far out there for them to want me traveling all the time! Have to work on that I guess....
Anyway.. getting the trees money (at least half of it so far) is GREAT and I managed to arrange for transportation to come and meet me in Marrakesh on Tuesday (March 7th). Meeting the villagers in the city will be interesting in a couple of respects. First, I don't come here often enough to know any of the landmarks that they would know (only the tourist ones) and I don't have any of their phone numbers so I have to rely on them calling me, second it will be a chance to see how the villagers react to the city first hand. I'll give you a report of how it goes (providing it goes at all) in my March report.
In the future for me is the hopeful completion of this trees thing to some reasonable degree... perhaps the first of the bird surveys providing PC lets me participate. The new environment volunteers come in this week which means than in a couple of days I'll have been here a full year. Extremely hard for me to believe and everyone who's been here longer tells me the second half goes even faster. I've been asked to teach a session in their training on stress management (not sure why they picked me) and then I'm going on a vacation in April and seeing all the sites of the south that I still haven't gotten a chance to get to yet! Yay. I'll give you all updates on that in the March E-mail as well since I'm getting ahead of myself.
That's it for now... aren't you glad February is a short month! Oh.. happy extremely belated Valentine's day and and extremely early St. Patricks Day!
Miss you all, Stay well
Love and luck in Everything
CHEERS!
-Andy
posted by Andy & Erin | 4:11 PM
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