A Distant War Comes Kocking
Hey all,
How goes the battle? I hope very well. I miss everyone and can't wait to see people again in just 10 short months now. Thanks to those that have written or e-mailed. Its good to hear from all of you.
So, July was indeed a long month and not a terribly exciting one until the end. I had planned to write some reflections on my time here thus far but events have caught up to me and kept me from getting around to it so you'll have to survive with the standard e-mail again this month.
The July 4th weekend was uneventful. Instead of celebrating I spent some time trying to explain to my villagers what the holiday meant. I'm not sure they get it, though they have equivalently the same holiday themselves. Not quite completely the same without the barbecue though. I had been invited to a party down in town but I decided that I had been away from home too long the month before and skipped it.
My village was starting to come alive with summer visitors and tourists. I had noticed that there were many fewer of each of these than there were last year at this time. I can remember June being always crowded and that the letup didn't come until the end of September. Even through July there have been fewer tourists than I remember, though more than June. My villagers picked up the rumor someplace that this was because of the world cup. Who would come to a remote mountain valley in Morocco when you could go watch soccer in Germany? They could be right but I have no real idea. My ex-tutor that runs the gite above my house just finished his university degree in economics and his "thesis" was about tourism in the mountains. Despite being 58 pages of dense french I suffered through it and learned some interesting tourism tidbits. Morocco has been averaging between a million and a 1.5 million tourists a year for the last half decade and the majority nationality is British, not french as I had expected. I suppose that when I think back on it I guess I remember at least as many British tourists as french... but I don't' really know.
I've defiantly talked to a lot more tourists this summer than I ever did last summer. I even am beginning to know some of the European guides, who remember me as well and ask how I'm getting along. Most of them are kind of shell shocked that I've managed to make it this far. Had a long talk with a girl from the Chech(sp?) Republic who happened to have interned for the Eaux et Forets (water and forests, the ministry I supposedly work with). She told me more in one evening than I've learned about the organization in 17 months. She was also a very religious catholic so it was interesting to see how she looked at the society around her. Being a single woman living and working and travelling in Morocco for 3+ months was definitely beginning to show in her state of mind. Braver than I would be, that's for sure.
My village appreciates that I can speak with these people that come in. The villagers are endlessly curious about the foreigners and ask me where they come from, where they've been in morocco, what they think of the place, what will make it better etc. Its fun to play translator. This also has the added benefit of scoring me more respect with both the village and the tourists. My villagers have also become convinced that I speak both British AND American... As shameful as it probably is, I've done little to correct them. To further facilitate the communications and information flow between the village and the tourists' and guides' I've been doing small projects, like starting guest books and suggestion books for the gites, cartes visites (business cards), hand drawn with colored pictures of the place and then color copied in town, even the beginnings of a web site for the place. I'm even doing English lessons in basic hospitality. These aren't going well but work as part of the bigger picture. Every little bit helps, often as much for me as for them. My host father actually offered to go into the serious tourist business with me once they pave the road (they have started serious work on this now finally). After a few years he wants me to come back to morocco and have me take care of the public relations side of a new hotel/tourism complex while he handles logistics. Who knows?
The other summer visitors, the members of families of permanent residents that come back to visit for the summer, are much more annoying. They think that they are all extremely smart and they lord it over both the villagers and me. Definitely lacking the traditional sense of hierarchy and respect that is so much a daily part of life amongst the families in the village. For me its just a matter of trying to find my niche all over again, and re-learning to ignore being called stupid. I did have one good moment when a 12 year old boy was trying to teach me Berber words over lunch at a construction site. The workers all laughed at him and explained that I knew more Berber than he did!
Other than that I've simply been reading bzzaf (very much), keeping up with my journal and trying to get motivated to do other things, like write letters, stories and essays. Not to much luck on this last score. I've started going to sit in a shady spot by the river which helps me focus, but I even there I often get distracted by the abundance of nature - especially birds- that abound this time of year. I also bake (got some good banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, biscuits, pot pie, pizza, mac and cheese etc) and attempt to expand my cooking repertoire.
As far as big projects go, I'm still a bit stalled. I conducted a class in grant writing with the members of my community that could read or write in either Arabic or french and told them that they should write up their own proposal for the drinking water reservoir that they want to build. The problem is that the only literate people are the annoying ones that are just there for the summer and care very little about the well being of the village. The association is supposedly making sure that it gets done though. I'll find out towards the end of August how true this is. I also went to town for a few days towards the beginning of the month to check my mail and while there I wrote and submitted a proposal to do an Environmental Education count and bird census that would involve a hike from one side of the park to the other in September. I got some positive feedback on it so here's to hoping.
Of course all of this may be for naught thanks to the war in the Middle East. How could so distant a conflict affect me in my remote mountain hideaway? I may never know exactly, but in general terms its easier than you think. The conflict does stir up the passions of many of the people in Morocco and they clearly come down on the Lebanese side of things. The king even used the anniversary of his coronation to cancel all festivals and fun in the country to show solidarity with their brothers in Lebanon. Since the conflict started I've been listening every night to the BBC radio news hour to keep myself informed. Whenever the topic came up in conversation I simply responded with the neutral "war is bad" line and went about my business.
Unfortunately, this was not enough to keep me clear of the hostilities completely. I woke up one morning near the end of July after a particularly horrific day of Israeli bombardment to find a message hastily scrawled on my door in black cursive writing. The war had quite literally come knocking. It was written in french and read "Un ami d'Israel n'est pas un ami d'maroc. Departez Immediatement" which translated and with the bad grammar and spelling corrected reads "A friend of Israel is no friend of Morocco. Leave immediately." Needless to say I was quite upset by this and after taking some pictures and trying to figure out who might have written it I went and called Peace Corps to report the incident.
To their credit they took the event seriously and immediately dispatched the Gendarmes to my site and sent me to stay with Mark until they figured out what was going on. About 11 gendarmes eventually showed up and they did the whole crime scene investigation, dusting for prints, picking up cigarette butts to test for DNA and taking photographs. Much to my extreme embarrassment they also interviewed the majority of the population of my village and took handwriting samples from those people that spoke some French. The gendarmes have now been to my village twice EVER and both times have been because of me. My host family was mortified and the president of the association for the commune (who incidental has never spoken to me before) assured me that now they would treat me even better than before!
I spent the rest of the week at Marks' site until the safety and security representatives from Peace Corps made the trip up to visit. After visiting my village and attempting to ascertain how I felt about things we reached a mutual decision to move me to a new site to finish my service. I had mixed feelings about this at first because while I don't know who was responsible I do know a few people that I'm sure aren't and they don't deserve to lose me under such negative circumstances. After some serious soul searching though I feel that moving is the correct choice and have no regrets. For me the decision was influenced less by true fear than by the fact that my village has always been difficult and never overly welcoming. While I don't really think that any of the permanent residents of the village committed the crime (the gite was full of guides and tourists and there were many visiting Moroccans in the village that day) I realized that I really know very little about any of them. I would rather leave now and remember happy times and accomplishments rather than have my imagination constantly (and perhaps unjustly) assigning hatred and malice to faces where before there were only smiles. The ruckus caused by the ensuing investigation (the interviews uncovered a host of other minor legal problems that had successfully been kept under wraps by the population for decades in some cases) also did some lasting damage to my reputation in the village and created more enemies in some cases. All in all I'm simply uncomfortable there and on top of all the other difficulties of Peace Corps service that's simply something that I don't need at this time. Ironically, after visiting our sites for the first time and seeing how bad the road is and how hard it is to communicate the Safety and Security manager is having doubts on the overall safety of our sites in the first place and Mark might end up having to move as well.
My direct manager was (is) on vacation in the states at the time of the incident and the assistant manager is having an extremely bad month of things. Five of my comrades quit for work related reasons in one week alone at the end of July. As a result I won't know where I'll be moving to until at least the 15th of August. Till then I'll either be on vacation or sleeping on Mark's floor. I'll keep you all posted as soon as I know anything of course. Until then, as much as it pains me, I have to ask that you don't send any more letters to my site address. I should have my Ouarzazate address for at least another month, and can get things forwarded from there after that, so if you want to send stuff there that should still be fine. (for the address check out my last group e-mail or go to my journal site http://atibbs.blogspot.com) That said, at least for the next month, e-mail might be the best way to communicate with me.
So... that was my July. My upcoming plans include a meeting with my counterparts and the "new" volunteers in Marrakesh and then off on a work/vacation trip to the north which takes advantage of a couple of well placed Moroccan holidays. I'll make sure to tell you all about it and, hopefully, all about my new home as well in my next communication.
Till then I wish you all nothing but the best and please, stay safe and stay well.
Much love and luck in everything
Cheers!
-Andy
--
Andrew Tibbs
Environment Program
Peace Corps Morocco
~Not all who wander are Lost~
How goes the battle? I hope very well. I miss everyone and can't wait to see people again in just 10 short months now. Thanks to those that have written or e-mailed. Its good to hear from all of you.
So, July was indeed a long month and not a terribly exciting one until the end. I had planned to write some reflections on my time here thus far but events have caught up to me and kept me from getting around to it so you'll have to survive with the standard e-mail again this month.
The July 4th weekend was uneventful. Instead of celebrating I spent some time trying to explain to my villagers what the holiday meant. I'm not sure they get it, though they have equivalently the same holiday themselves. Not quite completely the same without the barbecue though. I had been invited to a party down in town but I decided that I had been away from home too long the month before and skipped it.
My village was starting to come alive with summer visitors and tourists. I had noticed that there were many fewer of each of these than there were last year at this time. I can remember June being always crowded and that the letup didn't come until the end of September. Even through July there have been fewer tourists than I remember, though more than June. My villagers picked up the rumor someplace that this was because of the world cup. Who would come to a remote mountain valley in Morocco when you could go watch soccer in Germany? They could be right but I have no real idea. My ex-tutor that runs the gite above my house just finished his university degree in economics and his "thesis" was about tourism in the mountains. Despite being 58 pages of dense french I suffered through it and learned some interesting tourism tidbits. Morocco has been averaging between a million and a 1.5 million tourists a year for the last half decade and the majority nationality is British, not french as I had expected. I suppose that when I think back on it I guess I remember at least as many British tourists as french... but I don't' really know.
I've defiantly talked to a lot more tourists this summer than I ever did last summer. I even am beginning to know some of the European guides, who remember me as well and ask how I'm getting along. Most of them are kind of shell shocked that I've managed to make it this far. Had a long talk with a girl from the Chech(sp?) Republic who happened to have interned for the Eaux et Forets (water and forests, the ministry I supposedly work with). She told me more in one evening than I've learned about the organization in 17 months. She was also a very religious catholic so it was interesting to see how she looked at the society around her. Being a single woman living and working and travelling in Morocco for 3+ months was definitely beginning to show in her state of mind. Braver than I would be, that's for sure.
My village appreciates that I can speak with these people that come in. The villagers are endlessly curious about the foreigners and ask me where they come from, where they've been in morocco, what they think of the place, what will make it better etc. Its fun to play translator. This also has the added benefit of scoring me more respect with both the village and the tourists. My villagers have also become convinced that I speak both British AND American... As shameful as it probably is, I've done little to correct them. To further facilitate the communications and information flow between the village and the tourists' and guides' I've been doing small projects, like starting guest books and suggestion books for the gites, cartes visites (business cards), hand drawn with colored pictures of the place and then color copied in town, even the beginnings of a web site for the place. I'm even doing English lessons in basic hospitality. These aren't going well but work as part of the bigger picture. Every little bit helps, often as much for me as for them. My host father actually offered to go into the serious tourist business with me once they pave the road (they have started serious work on this now finally). After a few years he wants me to come back to morocco and have me take care of the public relations side of a new hotel/tourism complex while he handles logistics. Who knows?
The other summer visitors, the members of families of permanent residents that come back to visit for the summer, are much more annoying. They think that they are all extremely smart and they lord it over both the villagers and me. Definitely lacking the traditional sense of hierarchy and respect that is so much a daily part of life amongst the families in the village. For me its just a matter of trying to find my niche all over again, and re-learning to ignore being called stupid. I did have one good moment when a 12 year old boy was trying to teach me Berber words over lunch at a construction site. The workers all laughed at him and explained that I knew more Berber than he did!
Other than that I've simply been reading bzzaf (very much), keeping up with my journal and trying to get motivated to do other things, like write letters, stories and essays. Not to much luck on this last score. I've started going to sit in a shady spot by the river which helps me focus, but I even there I often get distracted by the abundance of nature - especially birds- that abound this time of year. I also bake (got some good banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, biscuits, pot pie, pizza, mac and cheese etc) and attempt to expand my cooking repertoire.
As far as big projects go, I'm still a bit stalled. I conducted a class in grant writing with the members of my community that could read or write in either Arabic or french and told them that they should write up their own proposal for the drinking water reservoir that they want to build. The problem is that the only literate people are the annoying ones that are just there for the summer and care very little about the well being of the village. The association is supposedly making sure that it gets done though. I'll find out towards the end of August how true this is. I also went to town for a few days towards the beginning of the month to check my mail and while there I wrote and submitted a proposal to do an Environmental Education count and bird census that would involve a hike from one side of the park to the other in September. I got some positive feedback on it so here's to hoping.
Of course all of this may be for naught thanks to the war in the Middle East. How could so distant a conflict affect me in my remote mountain hideaway? I may never know exactly, but in general terms its easier than you think. The conflict does stir up the passions of many of the people in Morocco and they clearly come down on the Lebanese side of things. The king even used the anniversary of his coronation to cancel all festivals and fun in the country to show solidarity with their brothers in Lebanon. Since the conflict started I've been listening every night to the BBC radio news hour to keep myself informed. Whenever the topic came up in conversation I simply responded with the neutral "war is bad" line and went about my business.
Unfortunately, this was not enough to keep me clear of the hostilities completely. I woke up one morning near the end of July after a particularly horrific day of Israeli bombardment to find a message hastily scrawled on my door in black cursive writing. The war had quite literally come knocking. It was written in french and read "Un ami d'Israel n'est pas un ami d'maroc. Departez Immediatement" which translated and with the bad grammar and spelling corrected reads "A friend of Israel is no friend of Morocco. Leave immediately." Needless to say I was quite upset by this and after taking some pictures and trying to figure out who might have written it I went and called Peace Corps to report the incident.
To their credit they took the event seriously and immediately dispatched the Gendarmes to my site and sent me to stay with Mark until they figured out what was going on. About 11 gendarmes eventually showed up and they did the whole crime scene investigation, dusting for prints, picking up cigarette butts to test for DNA and taking photographs. Much to my extreme embarrassment they also interviewed the majority of the population of my village and took handwriting samples from those people that spoke some French. The gendarmes have now been to my village twice EVER and both times have been because of me. My host family was mortified and the president of the association for the commune (who incidental has never spoken to me before) assured me that now they would treat me even better than before!
I spent the rest of the week at Marks' site until the safety and security representatives from Peace Corps made the trip up to visit. After visiting my village and attempting to ascertain how I felt about things we reached a mutual decision to move me to a new site to finish my service. I had mixed feelings about this at first because while I don't know who was responsible I do know a few people that I'm sure aren't and they don't deserve to lose me under such negative circumstances. After some serious soul searching though I feel that moving is the correct choice and have no regrets. For me the decision was influenced less by true fear than by the fact that my village has always been difficult and never overly welcoming. While I don't really think that any of the permanent residents of the village committed the crime (the gite was full of guides and tourists and there were many visiting Moroccans in the village that day) I realized that I really know very little about any of them. I would rather leave now and remember happy times and accomplishments rather than have my imagination constantly (and perhaps unjustly) assigning hatred and malice to faces where before there were only smiles. The ruckus caused by the ensuing investigation (the interviews uncovered a host of other minor legal problems that had successfully been kept under wraps by the population for decades in some cases) also did some lasting damage to my reputation in the village and created more enemies in some cases. All in all I'm simply uncomfortable there and on top of all the other difficulties of Peace Corps service that's simply something that I don't need at this time. Ironically, after visiting our sites for the first time and seeing how bad the road is and how hard it is to communicate the Safety and Security manager is having doubts on the overall safety of our sites in the first place and Mark might end up having to move as well.
My direct manager was (is) on vacation in the states at the time of the incident and the assistant manager is having an extremely bad month of things. Five of my comrades quit for work related reasons in one week alone at the end of July. As a result I won't know where I'll be moving to until at least the 15th of August. Till then I'll either be on vacation or sleeping on Mark's floor. I'll keep you all posted as soon as I know anything of course. Until then, as much as it pains me, I have to ask that you don't send any more letters to my site address. I should have my Ouarzazate address for at least another month, and can get things forwarded from there after that, so if you want to send stuff there that should still be fine. (for the address check out my last group e-mail or go to my journal site http://atibbs.blogspot.com) That said, at least for the next month, e-mail might be the best way to communicate with me.
So... that was my July. My upcoming plans include a meeting with my counterparts and the "new" volunteers in Marrakesh and then off on a work/vacation trip to the north which takes advantage of a couple of well placed Moroccan holidays. I'll make sure to tell you all about it and, hopefully, all about my new home as well in my next communication.
Till then I wish you all nothing but the best and please, stay safe and stay well.
Much love and luck in everything
Cheers!
-Andy
--
Andrew Tibbs
Environment Program
Peace Corps Morocco
~Not all who wander are Lost~
posted by Andy & Erin | 4:45 PM
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