Working on A Life

Experience is what its all about. And the stories. Post college most people go on to find a job, or apply to grad school. I decided just to live. This is my story as related to my family and friends. (This journal represents ONLY my views and none of Peace Corps or the US government.)

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Location: New England

We are working parents looking to make the most of whatever adventures we can find close to home.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Village and Villagers



Sunday, July 09, 2006

My Life, The Novel

Hey All!

Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: A quick May Update
Chapter 2: Cavities, Parasites and Tuberculosis!
Chapter 3: Ugg.. Peace Corps...
Chapter 4: Birds, Beach and Bongos
Chapter 5: In Conclusion
Epilogue


Introduction
Definitely been a long time since I last sent out one of these group e-mails so you'll have to bear with me if I get a bit long winded. I'm going to write it out in book format with Chapters just to make it easier and more fun to read... If you want you can print it out and take a trip to the beach and read all about my life and times for the last two months! I should also definitely start out by asking how things are going for all of you back home or abroad with whatever is going on and wherever you've managed to travel. I just talked to my brother for the first time in months yesterday and discovered that he's trying out for parts in movies, working with movie companies and has a new girlfriend! I like surprises but this is a bit much... so write me and get me the updates! I don't want to come home and find out everything all at once... it might sent me into shock... E-mails are always good and my addresses are as follows... just a reminder... I love to get mail

Andrew Tibbs
Douar Amsouzarte
C.R. Toubkal, Askaoune
Taliouine, Taroudant
Maroc (morocco)
(NOTE: Please DON'T Send packages to this address... Letters only)
OR
Andrew Tibbs
B.P. 56
Ouarzazate 45000
Maroc (morocco)
(Packages AND letters are fine... things get to this address faster but I check it less often)

Chapter 1: A quick May Update
So... Not to much of interest happened in May up in the village (actually not to much of interest happened in May period) so I'll be brief... Maybe...

Now that I had been out and about for a while and gotten the birds project running at full steam, trees planted in my own village, and feeling refreshed from vacation I went home ready to get going on the next project on my villagers wish list... A tower/covered pool for drinking water for the 3/4ths of the village that currently lives without this "luxury." Personally, with the training I've received and with my own common sense thoughts I figured that this was an important project because it will save the women and children hours of time each day that they spend hauling heavy water jugs too and from the spring located at one extreme end of the village. This would allow them time to do other things, arts and crafts, socializing, etc. (at least in theory) I jumped right in with both feet and with the assistance and support of the governing body of the village development association we made schematics, checked out the site and determined the budget for the project. We also assigned roles for the next steps, which included getting official receipts for the goods that set the fixed price in advance and prepping the grant request, collecting pledges for transportation money for the goods etc. I felt pretty good about this and better about my role in the village than I had for a long time. Despite this new "progress" the after affects of the trees planting were already defiantly starting to wear off and we were back to the "well what is HE doing here again?" attitude from much of the village...

Work related but outside the village in May I presented my second topic at the Stage for new volunteers in Ouarzazate on the 8th and 9th on Moroccan Biodiversity. This was excellent because my own incoming group didn't' have enough training in this area. Unfortunately I still didn't have much training in that area and had to spend a day on the computer researching stuff. Most of the presentation was on birds though (because most of the remaining biodiversity in Morocco is avian!) and I borrowed pictures and a presentation from a friend that she had created for our in-service training back in December. I had plenty of material but alas! the projector didn't work and I had to revamp the whole thing off-the-cuff and on the spot. Given all that I still think that it went pretty well and I got a lot of good feedback. (sure beats session number 82 on harassment!)

Personally, I took one of my weekends off at the end of May to visit with friends near Marrakesh. It was a blast but all too short. We spent a lot of time touring gardens in and around the city and there are some beautiful ones, including a cactus garden put together by a Frenchman in 1948. We saw an owl there too! My totem animal and definitely a good omen! Also we splurged on Ice-cream... which is all homemade here and tastes different than ice cream in the states... but is still delicious... especially the fruit sorbet!



There was still no word on the transportation and travel difficulties that were causing me trouble in April and I hadn't received any feedback from my report on the situation except that they scheduled a meeting for me at the beginning of June when our entire environment group was going to the capital for Mid-Service Medicals, our yearly checkup and dental cleaning...

After the weekend off it was back to site for the end of May and the beginning of June!

Chapter 2: Cavities, Parasites and Tuberculosis!
Yay for not having any! Well... maybe... My TB test was inconclusive and it definitely reacted more than it has any of the past times that I've been tested for it. The docs say that they will let it go and test me again when I close service next July... fine by me.

Mid-Service medicals were the first week in June and it was great to be back together with the group for three relatively stress free days. Of course everyone was running around like crazy to different appointments but we had evening more or less free and had several good group dinners. Ok... so good group conversations... the dinners were a bit lacking. We had a reservation at the American club the first night but they were rotten to us and refused to serve us the full menu... allowing us only hot dogs and Hamburgers, then overcharging some of us... Seems a little strange... We ate at a Chinese restaurant a few nights later and it took 3 hours for some people to get food, which they were making one plate at a time. It picked up at the end of the week though and ended up being a great time. I stayed on an extra day to do some work and to hang out with friends a bit longer since I couldn't get home that early anyway... more on that to follow

Chapter 3: Ugg.. Peace Corps...
During medicals we also had individual meetings with our Program staff as well as a group environment meeting. Apparently PC Washington has been getting on PC Morocco's case about the "capacity building" component of our projects. If you're not sure exactly what that means... don't worry too much because neither do I. What it means for me is that the water tower project that I've been working on and reporting on for a year without feedback of any kind is now not acceptable because it does nothing to build the capacity of the community. (what?!?) The capacity that they are apparently looking for is the ability of the community to go out and find funding sources on their own and to be able to write their own grants etc. In my village they are more than capable of deciding what they want and asking for it... the key component that they are missing is LITERACY! To build them the capacity they need I would first have to learn Arabic, then teach them to read and write it. Then, since all the resources are available only in French or English I'll have to teach them those languages too... as well as having to learn to use a computer that they can't afford even to travel to... And here I thought that one of my roles was to act as a liaison between my community and the modern world... silly me.

One of my other friends got told that all her work with AIDS education and awareness and her strides towards woman's empowerment in her village were not really "accomplishments." Sometimes (frequently) I wonder what we ARE doing here since we always find out after the fact that the things we were trained to do and are doing well are actually the wrong things... The answer to that question is apparently Environmental Education... which we are all supposed to start work on hardcore in September. This plan is fraught with problems, not the least of which is that no one in the villages is interested and they have no reason or ability to change their current behavior even if they were. We also have no resources and our ability to discuss environmental problems is difficult in a language that isn't our first and in which technical terms for the problems don't even exist. I'll let you know how it goes since I have little choice but to attempt it anyway

Finally, we submitted some of our standard problems as a group for potential solutions and have since received back standard answers... Ahh well... it was worth the shot. Morale is definitely down in PC morocco and in my group especially with a few notable exceptions. I was not immune to the funk but have since started to consciously try and pull myself out of it. My friendships that I have developed since I got here and that I maintain through correspondence back home have been fantastic!

My meeting about my transportation situation went alright... but didn't really solve any of the major issues that I brought up in the report... only offered us concessions to make it more bearable and workable. We are trying it for three months to see how it goes but after that it will be so late into my service that moving would just be silly. Final verdict.. I'm probably staying where I am and likely getting nothing accomplished for the next 11 months of service.

Chapter 4: Birds, Beach and Bongos
After medicals I returned to my site for a week before departing again on a vacation. This time I went with a friend to the south along the coast to do some serious bird watching and see some of the rarest birds in the world, then up the coast some to the beach and finally up the cost further to a music festival.

The vacation was great... we met out in Marrakesh and then headed south to the town of Massa where there is a National Park that is supposed to be the most developed of any in Morocco... This is a sad state of affairs if true because its nearly impossible to find. Luckily there was a PCV in Massa who helped us out enormously and gave us the scoop. We found the park right as the sun was setting and saw the birds that we had come to see right away. After trying to bribe a park official to let us camp in the park he ended up letting us do it for free because we were clearly "bird experts." It was fun to camp down along the beach and allowed us to get an early start the next day. We saw lots of other great stuff but I'll spare you the details. The park itself was actually quite nice, once you know where it was.... but definitely nothing like a park in the states would be.

From there we went to Agadir and just hung out and relaxed for a few days. Did some more bird watching and lounged on the beach. The food was fantasic (as it had been for the whole trip! Yay not Moroccan food!) and we headed north again feeling relaxed and refreshed!

The music festival was in the old Portuguese fort city of Essouaria and the place was crowed with music lovers from all over Europe and Morocco. The city is already famous for its musical ex-pat community. I stayed with a group of other PCV's in a really sweet apartment overlooking the beach and inside the old city marketplace. It was an amazing place at an amazing time. The views of the sunset from the roof were fabulous and everywhere you went there were people singing and playing drums. The music itself is called Gnouan and its a blend of Moroccan music and the music of the slaves that the sultans of old brought in from sub Saharan Africa. Lots of drums and metal finger cymbals as well as some crazy dancing. There were also Jazz artists from France and elsewhere and some groups that blended the Gnouan music with Bob Marley style Regee that was pretty good. The only thing that was better than the location, the food and the music was the company!



Chapter 5: In Conclusion
Took a meandering route home, buying a real bed on the way (not sure why I never did this before... so comfortable!), and spent what little remained of June in my site watching the world cup on a TV powered by a car battery and a solar panel and lashed to a tree with waterfalls in the background and a cool breeze blowing down the valley.... Life could be worse I suppose :-) July is going to be a long month in my village after this weekend, followed by our programing staffs site Visit and a meeting with our moroccan counterparts in the begining part of August then another vacation... I'll get back to you then!

Epilogue
So... that's it for May and June... As always I probably could have gone on for quite some time about this or that... but that should get you the general idea and if you want more details you can always write (I don't want to beg! Don't make me!). I'm going to try and get an illustrated version of this e-mail up on my journal on-line but I'm not sure if I'll have the time this go round or not... If not then next time... but the text is all up to date on there so check it out! http://atibbs.blogspot.com/ Tell all your friends... I miss you all! Till the next time stay well.
Love and luck in Everything
Cheers!
-Andy

Bearing Fruit!

Hey All,

I hope, as always, that this letter finds you all well and comfortable in whatever lives that you're choosing to lead, wherever you are choosing to lead them. Special shout outs to my fellow world travellers spending semesters in Spain and Italy and Costa Rica and Australia. Told you that the time would pass faster than you could have imagined possible. I hope that you're all having the time of your lives! For those at "home" remember that the routine is easy to take for granted and worth a lot more than we often give it credit for. I thought about that as I heated water on the stove to dump over my head so I could call myself clean.

March has wrapped up and moved on to April and with it winter has faded away to become another memory. Spring has sprung pretty much country wide... meaning that its downright pleasant in my village and downright HOT in Oz! At least it isn't time yet to soak the sheets in the shower to sleep but I can tell that its rapidly approaching. New leaves are forming on the trees of my village and we went a few weeks recently without seeing a cloud in the sky. I think that I will miss the winter as summer time approaches and I can't escape the heat any longer but right now its hard to find anything to complain about... at least as far as the weather is concerned. Actually it turns out that March was an extremely productive month for me project wise and I'm feeling better about this whole experience as a result so there isn't much major to complain about on any front.

The major highlight of the month was the completion (except for monitoring and evaluation phases) of the tree planting project in my village. This was not accomplished without the usual collection of Moroccan issues. Since I couldn't go to my birds project meeting in Rabat (for reasons that I still don't understand) I met up with a friend there instead for the weekend before agreeing to meet my villagers in Marrakesh with the truck to pick up the trees on Tuesday. This process in itself was an adventure.

After finishing up my weekend I returned to Marrakesh and met up with my language tutor who spends much of the year in the city attending school for economics. This part went well. Then I stayed Monday night with a member of my host family who lives and works in the city and owns his own plumbing supply distribution company. My host family is pretty rich for my village but this was taking it to another level and he seemed anxious to show off his "wealth" as much as possible. He drove me around the city and gave me the Moroccan guided tour of sights and sounds in his own private car, offered to let me use his phone to chit chat with my friends, and brought me to the the Moroccan equivalent of Wal-Mart where we comparison shopped for computers and appliances and ended up buying four containers of yogurt and a liter of cooking oil. It was definitely interesting to see the different spheres of affluence and remember that it was all part of the same family.

We had a delicious dinner at around 11 pm Monday night at which I learned that the truck was not coming the next day. I began to make frantic alternative plans in my head but it turned out that I needn't have worried because the members of my community that I was supposed to meet showed up the next morning at the appointed time anyway. The problem was that they had with them only one small tranzit van (think 13 passenger van back home) with a roof rack to pick up slightly over 4000 saplings. They seemed to think that this would work fine. I certainly had my doubts but I did my part anyway. Or tried to. The man who we were buying the trees from failed to respond to my repeated efforts to reach him for most of the morning and into the afternoon despite my calling to confirm the previous day...

Eventually though this was all sorted out and we got our trees! After a very long packing process we even got them all on top of the car. Getting back to the village was accomplished in stages and once there the village association took the project out of my hands in a way that I was beginning to doubt would ever happen. They scrapped my original distribution schematic and divided the trees exactly equally between all of the members of the community, arranged to pay for transportation, started classes on planting methods and arranged for storage of the trees until such a time as they could all be planted. I was certainly excited despite the fact that I was left with nothing to do except sit back and take pictures for my project completion report!

In a few days all the trees were in the ground and the village was 4200 trees richer (mostly apple with a few hundred each of cherry, peach, pear, and almond) providing a fair number of them survive. In 4-6 years the income of 47 village families (527people all told) will increase by as much as 40% based on the current price of fruit and a bunch of other math I won't get into. Sweet.

After a few weeks working on that project at the beginning of the month I once again turned my attention to the birds project. We (being the project team) managed to find some equipment to borrow to start doing surveys. Interestingly enough we are getting some serious cooperation from our Moroccan counterparts because they are all worried about bird flu. Of course this doesn't really match our own goals and objectives but as long as we can get what we want at the same time its all the same!

I traveled to Rich where the project team met and we hooked up with several forest techs(think rangers) and a couple of members of various associations who were participating in a trial survey of several lakes in the Eastern High Atlas National Park. The lakes were a RAMSAR site which is an international convention on the protection of wetlands and wetlands wildlife. We made the 3-4 hour drive to Imichill (where I did my field trip to visit a current PCV during training) where we were staging for the survey in the back of an association car with a very excited project manager who pointed out all of his projects along the way. He turned out to be the best potential bird watcher among the bunch and happy to help us out in any way he could... including arranging hotels and transportation for the entire week.

The survey itself went well, despite being hampered by an early spring blizzard which dropped several centimeters of snow on us over the first few days of the project. We learned a lot that will be useful for future surveys and made some good connections. For instance, while the E&F is great for driving us around and are interested in the project for their own reasons they are terrible bird watchers... often getting ahead of the group and scaring away birds. More education in advance about bird watching etiquette is going to be needed. Also we are working on developing environmental education curricula and techniques to use in the villages we are doing surveys in. This would be the role of the PCV that lives in that site ideally but we really don't have that system in place yet so we didn't do anything like that this trip. I was also sick (Again!) which didn't help... but I tried as much as possible to solider on and get the job done. In the end we spotted about 35 different species, both migratory and non migratory. Its not a lot for the region but not bad either for just a few days work and not a lot of experience.

We also got the actual grant for equipment pretty much finished, though we are still working on minor changes. We are looking for monetary donations for travel and for bird books and we are writing to optics companies to see if they can get us some free binoculars and scopes. If you're interested in contributing there will be a web site you can go to. Its tax deductible. *wink* I'll let you know as soon as we get it through all the red tape and it gets put on-line. Alas it will probably be a couple of months... sigh. Something to look forward to in the future. In May we hope to do another survey, this time with a professional ornithologist from one of our partner organizations up near Rabat in the north. This will be another trial run and a learning experience for us. Hopefully he'll be able to teach us more about birding in morocco and birds we can find here specifically. Hopefully that will work out.

For the future in my village I've started work on the grant proposal for a water tower that will provide drinking water to 3/4 of my town.(1/4 has piped and safe drinking water already) It will cost much less than I had originally thought but still much more than it will be easy to come up with so wish me luck. I'm also doing a lot with the group of new volunteers that just arrived. I'm doing a lecture on stress management (which made my dad laugh but I'm a pro compared to a lot of people!) and perhaps one on biodiversity as well as hosting some trainees on a learning field trip to my site. (Already done this but you'll have to wait for the April E-mail for details). I'm also working to convince the members of the community association that they don't need a new building for a women's center because they can just use some of the various tourist hostels that just sit unused all winter to house workshops and classrooms for 3/4s of the year. Not going well so far but I'm hoping to get some help with this in a little while.

Personally my future plans for April include some vacation time with a friend and her parents down south. We will meet many others along the way and I'll see all the southern sights that I still haven't gotten around to seeing before staying at a really nice place in Marrakesh for a couple of days... Also have some camping and bird watching trips in the not to distant future that I'll explain further as details develop. Life's going well and I'm enjoying my time off that I spend with friends despite the PC organization remaining extremely frustrating most of the time. Can't win them all I guess!

Anyway... That's it for the month of March. Happy Easter (and happy birthday to me at the same time... April 16th!... my second one in Morocco)
Stay well!Love and Luck in Everything
Cheers!
-Andy

April Vacation!

Hey All,

I sometimes feel as if these e-mails are getting old, though I only send them once a month. I hope that you're all still getting something out of them. Day to day life in the village has settled into something of a routine, though I realize that on some level nothing that I do is truly routine in the American sense of the word. Perhaps it means I'm getting more accustomed to my daily life here... I'm sure that's true. I'm also probably slightly jaded with the difficulties of Peace Corps as an organization and the stresses of living here. Not to worry though.. I'm tough and will press on. Besides... most of the time the benefits far outweigh any potential shortcomings. Anyway... I hope that you are all well as always and I look forward to hearing about you and what you've been up to in these fine spring days. *hint hint*

Speaking of spring... It finally sprung full force this April... though not without a few major setbacks. Winter was more mild than I would have suspected given my altitude but perhaps my latitude had some calming effects and it wasn't that bad. Still it seems reluctant to completely give up its grip. There was one major snowstorm just before my birthday that defiantly rivaled anything that winter managed and kept Mark from making it to his house with his visiting parents. Luckily I was on vacation of my own and managed to be someplace warm, if not sunny, and not stuck up the hill for the big event.

Before I talk about vacations though I should talk about projects so you don't all think I'm simply enjoying myself here without giving anything back. The pace of the work has dropped off significantly following the conclusion of the trees project. The trees themselves have, for the most part, budded out and joined the rest of the great green curtain that shades my house and give my village its quiet and peaceful feel. Ive been gathering data and collecting signatures to start on my next project, a drinking water tower for the 3/4ths of the village that doesn't currently have drinkable water on tap. The project itself is pretty straight forward. Its a big advantage for such things to have the major village industry be construction. All I need is the money. Its a bit more than I can easily obtain but I'm confident I'll be able to find it someplace.

For the birds project (bird census in all the parks and protected areas coupled with environmental education, for those of you that forgot) I finished the grant/project proposal in conjunction with my partners. Good to have it written, though we expect that it will come back to us again a few times before it finally gets posted on the Internet and I ask for donations! (just be prepared) Other than those things I've been helping out a few times at the latest training session down in the city. Good to get to talk to the new folks and their enthusiasm is good for recharging my own batteries some. Nice to remember the idealism that marked my first few months.

My first presentation was on Stress Management... don't know why they thought I would be an appropriate choice for this but it went pretty well. Right after the session I went for some stress management of my own and left to go on vacation with my friend Carly and her parents who were visiting down in the south and said that they wouldn't mind the company. It was a great trip. It took advantage of a holiday in the Moroccan calender (L'aid Milud the prophet Mohammed's birthday) and a few weekends to allow us to travel around for 9 days. Our first stop was in the town of Erfud where Carly and I stalked a Belgian birding expert who was in the country leading a tour and with whom we had corresponded regarding our own birding project. We caught up with him in the hotel late that night and briefly discussed the project with him. That was it for work for the week! So nice!

From there we traveled further south to Merzuga. I had been to this town on the edge of the Sahara one time before and done camel rides on Christmas Eve with a group of friends. This time was a little higher class, and though we did the camel rides at sunrise which was a bit early it was still a blast. We did hike out to the dunes at sunset the night previous though and were treated to one of the nicest sunsets I've seen yet. Hopefully I'll get some pictures out soon

Next we moved on to Tinrhir, home of Todra Gorge. This large canyon carved into the rock of the mountains is quite impressive. The walls are quite massive and there were many Europeans more adventuresome than we were perched in various poses climbing up the vertical faces. We took a more mild adventure and hiked a ways up a dry creek bed for lunch in the shadow of a giant boulder. From there we enjoyed watching the goat herds do the same thing the climbers had been struggling to do with seemingly no effort. We only managed to get harassed by one Berber woman and her donkey who wanted a dirham or candy in exchange for a picture. We gave her some candy but she apparently really only wanted the dirham because she left before we could take one.

We had some hotel trouble over the next couple of days because Moroccans have trouble with reservations and the tourist season was definitely picking up with the warm spring weather. We managed to find some nice places to stay though and visited another gorge the next day as well as my friend Tina's site. This was interesting as it meant deftly piloting a tiny Peugeot (silly french car) down 16 kilometers of rough and unpaved road. There was also some serious cliffs involved which had us all a little nervous and Tina, who has travelled the road many times under worse conditions, had to stifle her laughter :-) Her site was nice though. Very pretty with giant cliffs in the background in contrast to the green fields spreading out into the valley. We got mobbed by kids when we got out of the car, got a cook stove demonstration and saw some women weaving a rug out of scrap material and then were on our way back to town.

The next day was my birthday. My friend Braden called from the states which was excellent and then we went to visit Carly's host family from training in the village of Azlag on the road to Ouarzazate. This was a really fun visit. The people of Azlag make their living by forging and decorating daggers and we made some serious purchases from her family. Plus the fields were beautiful and there were many interesting birds there that I had fun watching while all the girls got dressed up in new headscarves and chit chatted about all the latest gossip. One of these days maybe I'll get a chance to visit my host family from training but I doubt it would have the same kind of feel as the kids that were there have all gone off to the city to work now and it would just be me and my host parents.

We moved on to Ouarzazate and I had a wonderful birthday dinner at a nice Italian resturaunt and some good wine. I checked my e-mail and had a few notes from friends. I really appreciate you all and I'm sorry that I've probably forgotten most of your birthdays at least once since I've been here. Since there isn't much to see in OZ we moved on to Ait Benhadu a bit down the road after a nice breakfast with Adam and his parents (I think we all went on vacation at the same time). Ait Benhadu is a giant castle Kasbah built into a small mountain. Its one of the largest remaining here and it was where they filmed the North African scenes of Gladiator, which ironically enough may be pretty close to historically accurate, though I don't think that the romans got as far south as Ouarzazate... maybe though. I'll have to look into it

The highlight of the trip for me was getting to spend a nice time relaxing in a very fancy resort on the outskirts of Marrakesh for the next three nights. (Its owned and operated by a distant relative of Carly's) There was three pools! And Carly's dad humored me with a game of tennis. Though I haven't uhh... ever... really played before and haven't even held a racket in 10 years or so probably I did pretty well and maybe it will become a hobby when I get home. Though pulling ourselves away from the resort was difficult we did get into the city so Carly's parents could experience the medina (old city market) and the public square where all the street performers gather in the evening. We met up with another volunteer for dinner at a nice place where we could get sushi!

Alas all good things must come to an end and this vacation was one of them. I went home via a 3 day HIV/AIDS training workshop outside the city which was informative and stalled having to go back to the grind a little longer. Peace Corps did some silly things involving my travel and made me angry but I've since gotten over it. I met up with Mark and we attempted to head back up the hill together but a number of factors prevented our getting home. We got stuck in town for several days due to poor road conditions and no drivers and PC pitched a fit about this as well and is now talking informally about the possibility of moving us "due to difficulties with transportation safety and security". I refuse to think about this until I get more concrete info either way. I'll keep you posted.

That's about it for interesting stuff in April. I've done a few things in May already but I'll save those for another time and place. In the future I've got Mid-Service Medicals where I get to see everyone from the environment crew again! Yay. Looking forward to that. Also a vacation to a music festival in June.... but I'm getting ahead of myself. May, for the most part, promises to be a quiet month. Ok... I'm done... Take care of yourselves all of you and stay well! I miss you all. Congrats to Leo on his gold medal! Keep the letters and e-mails coming.. I thrive on your correspondence!
Much love and luck in everything!
Cheers!
-Andy