Working on A Life

Cows, Spears & Dust

2009-12-30T20:40:00.000+03:00

... and thorns... and Frisbee... and the Chumba...

Dispatches from a month amongst the Maasai

Greetings all,

This summer has been something of a whirlwind for me, with trips to Kenya and Ireland and numerous games of Frisbee with the Boston collective, family, The Girl and other social engagements. As a result, and as has been correctly pointed out by my parents (as usual, thanks M&D), that I am a bit behind the times in terms of keeping you all up to date. In point of fact, it has been well over a year since I've posted to this site, which is shameful even by my own lax standards. Not that I have been completely silent in the world of the internet as I started a second blog in collaboration (or attempted collaboration) with my housemates, which is more a city life, random thoughts and happiness collection than it is a chronicle. You are all more than welcome to pursue that fine body of literature here... Of course, I've moved now so that site will cease to have the same level of input....

In terms of working on a life... some background details from the last year are necessary before my summer adventures will really make sense. As many of you no doubt already know through direct contact or other sources, I have taken up residence in the greater Boston metro area and, for the last year have been working towards a masters degree in Public Health and the epidemiology of infectious diseases at Boston University's School of Public Health. (For those that are now saying epi-demi- what?? and scratching your heads the word epidemiology is actually a link to Wikipedia where all answers reside) Thus far, this experience has been wonderful and fulfilling and right up my alley; a combination of hard science, personal interaction, travel possibilities and interesting people and new ideas. It has also been difficult and occasionally frustrating and generally what you would expect from a high caliber graduate degree program. I plan on wrapping up my masters this coming December and once again entering the wild and crazy world of job hunting in a recession... That, however, is a different story for a different time.

INTRODUCTION:

As part of my degree program I was responsible for completing a practicum, where I get out into the real world and get some experience in Public Health on the ground and get a little time away from the abstract theories, a little distance from the power point slides and chalk dust... Since my wandering tendencies are well known I decided to take advantage of a program offered through the school and do my practicum working with the Maasai people's of south-western Kenya, near Mt. Kilimanjaro. So, on May 25th I once again crossed the Atlantic, spent 8 hours sprawled out over 3 chairs in front of a shop that sold 30,000 dollar watches in London's Heathrow airport and felt the freedom of African skies... eventually.... There was a 5 hour land-rover ride in there someplace as well...

I should probably also mention at this point that there were 20 odd other people on this trip, none of whom I knew before getting in those land rovers (at least not very well) and all but one were women... We met up with 5 Kenyan students who joined our group, 4 of whom were men so that evened things out a little bit)... The drive to our camp was kind of fuzzy, both because I was seeing the landscape through tired eyes and because there was a great deal of dust obscuring the windows of the tired old land-rover. (which looked to have seen action in WWII but I later discovered was actually a 2008 model) The bumpy roads and questionable seat belts often made clinging to something for dear life a priority over sightseeing. We arrived at our final destination, Kilimanjaro Bush Camp (KBC) completely exhausted but with the heightened senses and interested attitude that is my favorite part of being in a new place for the first time.

CHAPTER 1: KBC

Despite being the beginning of winter and the end of Kenya's rainy season, it was near enough to the equator for the sun to be fierce and hot and the rains had not come for several years a set of circumstances that combined to completely parch the landscape and, we would later discover, made life extremely difficult for the proud people that called it home. The camp, run by the School for Field Studies (based in MA) was an oasis of thorny Acacia trees, tended by dedicated local Maasai staff and watered by wells and pumps bought with tuition money. Most of the year the camp served as a research station for wildlife management and environment students who lived there for 3 months at a time and learned the basics of big game conservation and human/wildlife conflict scenarios where it was actually happening. Somewhere along the line the community had confronted the school in the jovial African way and pointed out a simple truth that I learned myself during PC in Morocco. They would be much more capable of interacting favorably with the wildlife if their own families weren't dying of diarrhea, malnutrition, malaria, or one of the myriad other health problems that come from being a resident of a place that often seems to be doing it's best to cause you grave bodily harm. In response the school began taking summers off from wildlife programs and instead started bringing in graduate student public health researchers to gather the baseline data needed before health interventions can be made. Its long slow work, especially for those who are suffering while it happens. My group represented the third year of data collection.

The camp itself is located inside a mile long circle of fence designed to keep the animals out but which did a better job of trapping students inside (for our own safety of course). We did often see a plethora of wildlife inside the compound also, including monkeys and baboons, many birds, the occasional poisonous snake, scorpions in our laundry sinks etc. The fence had been knocked over and repaired several times when the elephants had decided that they wanted inside to have a go at the relatively lush vegetation. Nothing gets in an Elephant's way for long. They were kept at bay by our Maasai night guards wielding traditional Maasai clubs and spears and modern high powered flashlights. The camp was beautiful and in early mornings and late evenings when the cloudy haze cleared it was dominated by views of Kilimanjaro, humbling to all who have stood in it's shadow. Accommodations were fairly nice overall with 4 person bungalows draped with mosquito netting. Power was provided by solar during the day and by generator for a few hours each night... even internet was sometimes available on a connection routed from Italy, through Dubai and on to KBC by satellite. It was slower than molasses on the best of days and we didn't have many of those.. Running water was the greatest luxury, complete with showers and flush toilets, which blew my mind. Hardly roughing it (depending on who you asked).

As people in confined close quarters are wont to do when stuck with each other for 4 weeks, we all became friends at an accelerated pace and found entertainment in Kenyan campfire stories (usually with a moral that defied translation) books, crossword puzzles, soccer, Frisbee, disaster movies and frenetic dance-offs in the Chumba, (our all purpose meeting/dining/working/classroom/library hall), advanced discussions of poop and food we missed (familiar topics in any African ex-pat community), pinata making and destroying, cooking/baking, running and comparing how dirty our feet got (the red dust got in everywhere, socks and shoes were seemingly no barrier at all). When we escaped the confines of the fence to check out the local market town, Kimana, we frequented Club Kimana, a bar run by the former chief of the region and listened to Ace of Base on repeat because it was the only tape the

Oh.. and we managed to do a bit of work here and there as well...

CHAPTER 2: MAASAILAND

Formerly semi-nomadic, the Maasai are becoming more and more sedentary with the influx of modern technology and modern thought into their world view. They make up about 3% of the Kenyan population and yet hold a fairly complete monopoly as the image people think of when they think of Kenya or even Africa in general. In traditional garb, which is still widely worn, they paint a picture of Africa encapsulated in a single person. Lounging idly balanced on a stick with effortless grace. Decked out in hundreds of thousands of tiny little seed beads in a riot of color. Pestering on anyone that remotely resembles a tourist during market day to sell everything from yards of colorful cloth to jewelry, to lion's teeth.

In my own experience there I found them to be a friendly people, though sometimes with little patience for a bunch of white people asking silly questions about where they normally go to the bathroom. Their language, Ki maa is fun, yet more or less incomprehensible to me, even after 4 weeks. I learned to say "potato" while working in the kitchen and its pretty much the only word that stuck.. I still couldn't spell it reliably... Most still attempt to hold much of their fortunes in livestock, mainly because the land isn't really suited to anything except a pastoral livelihood, yet with the lack of rain it's beginning to fail even this and many of the men were far away grazing cattle in other parts of Kenya where there was still grass, leaving the women behind with little to sustain them and bringing conflict with them to regions inhabited by other tribes. The government has even taken the somewhat extraordinary step of opening nearby Amboselli national park to them for grazing, provided they stay away from the more touristy areas. With little or no concept of land ownership they live collectively on group ranches, or large swaths of land (thousands of square kilometers) where any member of the ranch can live wherever he feels like having one of his wives erect a house made of cow dung and grass.

These homesteads, called Bomas, are often heavily family oriented, though sometimes an unrelated group will band together for protection. Traditionally they are built in a protective thorny circle of Acacia branches with the house of the eldest wife nearest to the entrance and the rest of the wives arrayed in descending order around the edge. The interior of the circle is reserved for susceptible livestock. The Masaai also rent their land to enterprising farmers from other tribes as an additional source of revenue, despite the fact the the farms overtax the fragile ecosystem and further deplete all of the few sources of fresh water that remain. Its a depressing collection of no-win scenarios they they bear stoically, women patiently waiting in long lines to get aid agency handouts of corn and other staples.

Their culture is enviable and still strong, even in the most disrupted areas. All Maasai belong to age-sets, or groups that have birthdays between certain years, and their position in Maasai society is determined by these groupings. The younger age sets are herders of small animals (sheep and goats), the teen years are reserved for Moranship, or the warrior years where they range long distances with the cattle and formerly raided other tribes. Older men are junior, then senior elders whose only responsibilities aside from lounging and drinking tea involve maintaining the customs and leading the tribes with their collective wisdom. Song, story and dance were practiced with great gusto and I was privileged to witness and even participate in these dances on several occasions. A testament to American culture, at one point the group of us sang the theme song of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to a group of Masaai women, much to the delight of everyone involved.

As our research was about to show, these people were widely variable even within the tribe and had just as wide a range of health issues and other problems. It was yet another situation that left me wondering if it would have been better just to leave them alone, rather than to introduce too much of a new world too fast. Of course the answer is that you can't deny any people equal opportunity, but it still sometimes makes me sad.

CHAPTER 3: THE WORK (and the malaria)

I mentioned that the group of us were there to fulfill school requirements at the same time as we met a community need to gather health data. The process was interesting, often exciting, more than a little frustrating and yet, somehow, we managed to pull it all together at the end and put on an awesome presentation for the community stakeholders. The researchers/students were divided into 5 teams, covering a number of water based health topics, including Hand washing (my group), childhood diseases, water sources, water collection and household sanitation. Each team devised a survey with questions geared towards finding the status quo of health practices and problems among community members. The 5 surveys were compiled together into one massive survey, formatted and then conducted in the community by researchers with Maasai translators. And here in one sentence I have described many, many hours of work. After the 45 minute survey had been conducted in more than 200 households we returned to the camp to do some basic statistics and prepare our reports.

At some point in the analytical process following the survey I managed to contract malaria, which didn't aid much in my participation in my groups analysis. I still managed to hold my own. (I hope, its possible my group was just being kind) Let me tell you though.. Malaria is no fun. I was on medicine to prevent it, and while clearly, that didn't work out as I had hoped, it did work to keep my case relatively mild. I'm not sure I would have wanted to experience the full blown version. I was out of it for days, with headaches and muscle fatigue and general malaise. The local medical staff was wonderful and the doctor went into great detail to describe the mechanism of my treatment once he learned that I was a student of Public health and had an abiding interested in Malaria. In most ways, I'm actually glad now to have had the disease, as I'll have an even better understanding of the situation faced by hundreds of thousands of people in Africa and Asia daily. Also, its a great get out of homework free card....

Once data was analyzed and reported, it was presented... and in this presentation was I think the best result of the whole process. Many members of the local community came to see us, and to see what we had done. Figuring out how to present the data to an illiterate audience was a challenge but also a wonderful experience, and their questions were no less thoughtful or thought provoking for not being based in the literate word. Many local public health experts who had participated in the design of the questionnaire and provided us with useful cultural and health related background information also attended and got to see what it was they they had helped to create and to see why it was so important. The community as a whole can see that the school is working to help them, and not just the animals. Eventually, interventions can be performed that specifically target the problems identified by this baseline research, doing the most good for the smallest expenditure of resources. Anyone who wants to see the final survey or read my groups report on hand washing can feel free to contact me.

CHAPTER 4: SOME OTHER STUFF TOO!

Not all life at KBC was related to the project. As mentioned, fun was had around the camp in other ways also. (Yay Frisbee!) That said, it was certainly the out of camp field trips that proved to be most rewarding. We had a number of community service days, most of which were awesome. The first was manual labor helping to build/cement water irrigation ditches in a way to maximize efficiency and minimize water lost to evaporation and seepage into the soil while reducing contamination somewhat. Part of this project also included building a wall around a spring that served as the areas primary water source, so it couldn't be contaminated by drinking animals, people bathing, or other general missuses. On day two, we went to pick up trash around town with some school groups but ended up being the showpiece for an environment day spectacle where we sat out in the blazing hot sun for hours watching group after group of school kids sing and seeing elected officials give speeches in languages we didn't understand. This was a very typically African day, and I must say one of very few. The camp ran amazingly efficiently considering it's location. On the third day (which I missed due to the malaria) the group went out and helped weigh and vaccinate babies and distribute drugs to the populace. Lastly, we visited an orphanage and played with the children for an afternoon of fun and excitement.

In order to relax, we also had two safari days, where drivers from the park would take us out in the beat up land rovers and drive us around the national park to see the amazing array of wildlife. While some of my favorite animal encounters were the random ones near the camp that resulted in spur-of-the-moment off-roading, the national park was still absolutely amazing. I loved every second of those trips, from the company, to the vistas, to the buffet lunch at the resort hotel... I think pictures probably speak louder than words at this point so I'll stop talking about it here and just let you enjoy.

We took a hike to touch the border with Tanzania and visited a local volunteer counseling and testing clinic for HIV sufferers. Ohh and shopping... lots of shopping... mostly for bead work and other Maasai artifacts

CONCLUSION: (bet you're glad you're almost done)

In the end, this was an amazing trip and an amazing way to satisfy a school requirement, though a lot of work also. I think the best part for me was coming home with 10 more friends than I left with. Now I actually have people to hang out with at school! I would love to hear from all of you as to what you've been up to lately. Look forward to more from me about my trip to Ireland (which will be shorter) in the near future! (as soon as I can work it into my school schedule)

Love you all!
Until next time,
Stay well!
-Andy

With A Little Help From My Friends...

2008-07-29T20:42:00.009+03:00

Hello all,

Greetings from the Red Island! As always I hope that this note finds you all well and in fantastic health and spirits. Also, as always, I’m quite a bit behind in my updates so, as always, I hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. Alas, bad news, my camera was out of commission from my work trips and I only recently got it back from the shop so there aren’t as many good photos accompanying this letter online but there are still enough to make it worth checking out the illustrated version at http://atibbs.blogspot.com.

As July comes to a rapid conclusion (where did the time go??) I’m finishing up at the office and finding it frustratingly… well… frustrating. It took three days and much communication across oceans and continents to ensure the proper size and placement of logos on the front page of the final report document. I didn’t expect anything else really, but I had hoped. I also suffer from the affliction of having too many bosses who all have to sign off on the same document but who apparently don’t talk to each other and all want different things. It’s been a good learning exercise and needless to say I can’t wait till I am one day the boss and can be petty and exact revenge on a group of interns of my own. Insert evil laugh here. In any event, the 55 page report documenting my travels and discoveries (but only the positive ones!) is now complete (for the third time) and submitted to the powers that be. If anyone wants to see it let me know and I’ll be happy to fire you off a copy. For the next three days I’ve been demoted to doing data entry projects and am taking time off to write you all this wonderful letter.

Thankfully and excitingly life has not all been work in the few months since last I wrote. Much of the summer has been indelibly shaped by an unexpected but welcome and awesome friendship with a local PC volunteer and her friends and family, as well as by the arrival of my own brother and sister to the Love Shack.

It all began immediately following my return from the last of my work trips. While I was still mulling over what I had seen and done on those adventures I went out with a group of PC volunteers to an ex-pat bar downtown. I was invited by Molly, whom I knew and had been in contact with about another project that we were cooperating on for the PC environment program. Spent much of that evening daydreaming and drifting but managed to have a great time discussing ecosystems and favorite bird behaviors and to make plans to meet Molly and her friend Laura, who was visiting from the states for lunch the next day to discuss the project.

So, I met the girls at a hotely (a small local restaurant) in the same neighborhood as my house. Sitting around a plank table on makeshift stools eating Chinese noodles, rice and eggs in the shadow of a truly awesome wall poster depicting crystal tableware and a stack of neon orange pancakes we discussed the economics of Africa (and the world), our various travels, McDonalds abroad, politics, and the pros and cons of various religions and traditional beliefs from Mormon to Voodoo. We did not discuss the project. Several hours passed amicably in this way and when we emerged back onto the street it was as true friends. To celebrate these newfound friendships I decided to skip a few days of work the next week (one of which was a holiday anyway) and travel with them via public transport to Andasibe, the rainforest in the east, for a few days of exploration before they had to return to Molly’s site in the North.

We arrived without incident in the evening and set up lodging in a hostel run by one of the NGO’s I visited on my work trip to the same locale. After a scrumptious dinner of rice and beans at the local hotely (which came highly recommended by the volunteer that lives in Andasibe,) and some more conversation we retired for the evening. The whole time we were there the stars were nothing short of amazing. The moon was new and building so for much of the night, every night, we were treated to the full effect of the African sky. I firmly believe that if you have never been to Africa you have never truly seen the stars. (Though perhaps I would be willing to concede that they are almost as good elsewhere)

I’ve also decided that you can never get enough of the rainforest. There is just so much to see and take in. Every time you walk through its different and equally amazing. There are millions of variations just on the color green. Birds and lemurs call as if to compete for your attention, though it remains difficult to see anything through the dense brush. The corrosive smell of decay and the fresh smell of new growth and rebirth are present in equal abundance, reminding you constantly that one is not possible without the other. This time, because our guide was hand picked for our visit by the local volunteer, he was actually the chief forester in charge of tree nurseries and forest rehabilitation. This presented an amazing opportunity to delve into the world of plants that make up the structure of the forest. The organization who manages the private reserve which we visited, Mitsinjo, is busily redeveloping the forest from the ground up. Planting more than 70 species of trees of different types, each with its own rate of growth, lifespan, and shade tolerance, they hope to eventually bring back some of the endangered, slow growing hardwoods that used be the primary players there. Palisandre(sp), a tree which grows only in Madagascar, is one of the densest trees on earth. It grows a vertical meter every 20 years and is highly sought after as a building material for furniture and hardwood floors. There are hardly any left. We saw only a couple of them in the forest, mostly saplings shorter than me and less than two decades old. The oldest and largest that we saw clocked in at something like 700 years and was still only 6-8 inches in diameter.

I was also forced to somewhat revise my opinion of Eucalyptus. Previously, I looked on these interesting trees with their distinctive peeling bark as an introduced blight on the local landscape. Invasive and hungry for the water that is so needed by other rainforest species it would have gladdened my heart if someone had found a way just to get rid of them all. I learned from our guide that the French brought these fast growing trees here as fuel for the railway steam engines. He also made me consider that properly managed, these trees could be the only hope for saving the forest from the charcoal makers by giving them an alternative source of fuel.

The most exciting thing that happened while we were in the forest however was completely unexpected. It just so happened that a BBC film crew were using Mitsinjo’s forest to film nocturnal creatures called Tenrecs (think tiny hedgehogs except not at all related) and we managed, no doubt thanks to our copious charm, to wrangle an invitation to go with them and watch them film some segments. This was a truly amazing experience. Granted, I may never look at a nature documentary the same way again. The amount of equipment required is truly astounding and there are other secrets which I will keep to myself for fear of ruining your impressions with inadequate explanations.
>"My tomato... SO THERE!" Lesser bamboo lemur

>Dancing Lemurs Dancing
>Mongoose Lemur

All in all it was a great trip and the girls and I went our separate ways with the promise that my brother and I would join them later in the month in Molly’s village to the north for the celebration of Malagasy Independence Day on the 26th of June. I was excited about this trip for many reasons, not least of which that I wanted to see some PC sites in order to better compare and contrast to my Morocco experience.

I took Matt fresh off the 24 hour plane ride, gave him one day to recover and then stuffed him into a Malagasy Taxi-brousse, a decrepit bush taxi little larger than a mini-van into which they routinely cram at least 15 people. Its run down, dusty, bumpy, there’s no padding in the seats and we were on board for something in the neighborhood of 20 hours before being discharged in Antsohihy where we would take a brief overnight rest before boarding another bus for the last leg of the journey. It was awesome in a forget-how-to-use-my-legs-wish-I-had-Valium kind of way. Cold though… We got the front seats because I made reservations in advance and this would have been great except for two minor details. The driver insisted on blasting Malagasy pop music for the entire 20 hour trip and our window refused to roll up all the way. If we had any doubts that it was winter in the southern hemisphere they were dispelled along the route.
Matt by the Brousse before our big journey

In any event we arrived in Bealanana without serious incident, sore and dusty but feeling very much in harmony with the PC spirit. Reunited with M&L we resumed our discussions pretty much where we had left off several weeks before in the appropriate setting of M’s one room house and with the added benefit of Matt’s awesome sense of humor. We got a lot of reading in, explored the surroundings a bit, and made peanut butter with peanuts harvested from M’s garden using a large mortar and pestle on the street in front of the house, much to the amusement of passersby I’m quite certain. Especially when we started belting out camp songs. We also succumbed to our own patriotic leanings and L turned tattoo artist giving us all patriotic motifs with marker.

The town itself was actually quite large and a pre-holiday party atmosphere was building. Each night there was festivities and performances on the town square and Malagasy flags and other decorations sprouted from windowsills and balconies all over town. Despite our best efforts to procure a second chicken to supplement the one M had inherited from a previous volunteer there was not a chicken to be had in town. Every walking bit of poultry of decent weight had already been spoken for weeks in advance in anticipation of Independence Day feasting. There was even a small, seedy looking carnival doing banner business.

M was an amazing hostess and quite patient of our invasion of her space. She was an awesome chef using primarily an “improved” cook stove made of clay and rice hulls to make us one-pot vegetarian masterpieces over charcoal with ingredients from the market across the street. This didn’t stop us from getting her into trouble with her super cute landlady though, who took the time to berate M for having the tenacity to ask her guests to fetch water, despite the fact that she was busy baking us a Dutch oven pineapple-upside-down cake at the time.

The big day finally arrived and the Malagasy started hitting the booze early in the morning which made for some interesting people watching from the balcony. The official festivities included parades, (in which we were obliged to make a brief appearance), many speeches (which seem to be something of a Malagasy national pastime), soccer matches, bare knuckle boxing and a grand ball (which is not nearly as grand as its name would lead you to believe). We spent most of the day cooking and listening to music and ended up with an awesome feast - barbecued chicken and vegetables, cakes and bread, potato salad and traditional Malagasy salads of various compositions. Something for every palette. I could no doubt continue to regale you with tales of good times and good food, but I don’t want to make you jealous.

We ended up back in Tana eventually after a reverse of the taxi ride (for which we were better prepared) just in time for our own Independence Day celebrations. M&L eventually joined Matt and I in the city and we hung out and did city things (like getting our own official rubber stamps made and drinking homemade beer from the Hotel de France) for a few days before L had to catch her flight back to the states. My family then recruited M to help decorate for the Ambassadors 4th of July bash. This was a good time. We decorated 600ish cupcakes and arrayed them in the shape of a giant American flag. This turned out to be an amusing dessert choice for the party because Malagasy people have no idea what to do with a cupcake. Or a hamburger for that matter… which made flame broiling my hands at the grill for 2 hours worthwhile. I think perhaps my favorite part was the Malagasy choir’s rendition of the Star-Spangled-Banner… Or perhaps Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World.”
>Molly,me,Laura,Matt in true Malagasy style

Later in July M’s parents flew in for a month long visit and Matt and I took them up on an invitation to accompany them to Morondava, a beachy town on the Mozambique Channel to the west of the island. We figured it was probably worthwhile just to watch M make her parents ride in a taxi-brousse for 19 hours. (It was). M was going to Morondava to run a marathon and the rest of us (who thought she was quite crazy) were going to hang out on the beach and witness the weird majesty of the avenue of the baobabs. (Also because the Morondava region is supposed to be interesting and unique and I hadn’t been there yet).

It was an amazing trip. Definitely one of my favorites thus far. Our hotel was cheap, yet our room had a clear view of the water and the surf lulled us to sleep each night. The beach in front of the hotel was well maintained and we swam for hours every day in the buoyant, salty water of the Indian Ocean, riding the waves and swimming from sandbar to sandbar. Each morning the water as far as the eye could see would be dotted with native pirogues, usually with a basic square sail made from whatever scraps of material they had to hand and an outrigger. The fishermen would pull in all sorts of things, from squid to sharks and paddle them in to their women on the beach who would, in turn, prep them or sell them to local tourist hotels. Each evening the sun would set directly into the water rendering the sky and the crests of the waves in a multitude of orange and purple hues. The word idyllic springs to mind most regularly looking back on it.
Lizard Friends at the Hotel in Morondava
Lizard Friends at the Hotel in Morondava
Lizard Friends at the Hotel in Morondava
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!

We rented a car one day to take us out to Kirindy Mitea National Park, home of the “dry” forest. (as opposed to the rainforest?) We actually ended up going a day later than we had planned because there was an apparent shortage of gasoline that it took us the better part of a morning to discover. Sometimes events conspire to remind you that you’re still residing in the third world.

The park was interesting and I was pleasantly surprised by the abundance of birdlife. There isn’t as much underbrush in the dry forest and so you can see the birds better than in the rainforest. My favorites, the Paradise fly-catchers in the black and white morphology, were displaying! Exciting stuff indeed. We also saw 3 types of lemurs and if we had camped out there we might even have seen a Fosa, Madagascar’s largest mammalian predator. (Which looks like a cross between a dog and a cat and is in the Civet cat family I think.) The highlight of this excursion however was most certainly the Baobab trees that line the road. These giants are truly bizarre and yet this only increases their appeal and their majesty I think. They are wonderfully weird. I could, and did, stand and look at them for a long time. We visited all the main attractions; the “lovers” baobab, the “sacred” baobab and wound up our visit with the classic but still amazing sunset photo shoot over the “avenue of baobabs.” I think that many people who come to Madagascar probably have these exact same photos but the event itself is certainly spectacular enough to make it worthwhile. Our only regret is that the chameleons have gone into hiding for the winter, though M and Matt did manage to find natures version of gladiators when a dragon fly that had been caught in a spiders web turned the tables and ate the spider earning his freedom. Who says the best drama is on television?
Baobabs! My new Favorite Trees
Baobabs! My new Favorite Trees
Red-Capped Coua
Lazy Sifakas
Red-Bellied Lemur with Tagging Collar
Paradise Flycatcher displaying
Sacred Baobab
Lover's Boababs
Avenue of the Baobabs
Avenue of the Baobabs
Awwww!
Wow...

Getting to know a praying mantis

Our final full day in Morondava was the day of the Marathon. Matt and I made signs and decorated to support our favorite runner (and we were the only ones… the idea of a cheering section has apparently yet to catch on in Madagascar). I must admit that despite thinking marathon runners are crazy I still found it to be nothing short of amazing. A group of 45 foreigners organized by an American tour group in Boston had come to Madagascar specifically to run this marathon. Other than them it was 30 Malagasy guys and M. The runners got up at 3:30am to be bussed to the starting line 42 kilometers (26 miles) away and were supposed to begin running at 6am in hopes of avoiding the worst of the day’s heat. Unfortunately, their shuttle broke down and they started more than an hour behind schedule and had to finish during the suns worst hours. Much of the course was deep sand and they couldn’t close the road so they also had to dodge traffic. Despite all of this the first Malagasy men finished in less than 3 hours and most did so without shoes. M was awesome and came in second for the women (no Malagasy women ran) and got a spiffy golden trophy to display proudly at the PC house in Tana. A pretty great day all around I think. It has inspired me to attempt to train for a marathon at some point in the next few years. I would like to at least find out if I’m capable.

Unfortunately, the trip had to end and we taxi-broussed back to Tana and I returned to the office. I’ve been using the afternoons to do things around the city with Matt and Megan and just to relax. M and her family have left and it’s back to just us again. Our own family is planning to leave on our first full-family vacation in quite some time the first day of August. We’ll spend ten days driving south, seeing the sights along Madagascar’s highway 7, a trip that was suggested to us when we first arrived. I’m looking forward to it, even if we have all grown up so much that it means a rather cramped car. I’m sure I’ll have something to say about that trip in the not-to-distant future.

In the meantime, this letter is quite long enough. I do hope you’ve enjoyed it though. If the fancy strikes you feel free to write and let me know what you’re up to! I’ll be changing mailing addresses shortly so it is perhaps best to start sending any paper mail to the new address, listed below. E-mail is also welcome!

Until next time,
Stay well!
Love and Luck in Everything
-Andy

Hope and Oranges

2008-06-01T17:32:00.021+03:00

Greetings Everyone!

As always, I hope this letter finds you well, healthy, happy and safe wherever you might be and whatever you might be doing. It has been a particularly fine ‘fall’ day here and as I sit to write the garden is at is fragrant best, a riot of color in the sharply slanted rays of the late afternoon sun. The neighborhood birds have discovered the birdbath I built and have been visiting the yard in noisy flocks for a chance to splash around in it. It is amusing to watch them at their bathing because it is perhaps the best time to observe them as individuals, some timid and tentative and others rollicking and playful. Our first batch of bananas has ripened on the tree in the back (and if anyone wants some we find we have perhaps a few too many all of a sudden) and our tiny vegetable garden has grown in size and density until it now more closely resembles a small jungle. It has already provided us with fresh lettuce, green beans and various herbs, with tomatoes beginning to ripen on the vine. Strange to think that technically speaking winter is rapidly approaching. The only evidence of the season is that is chilly nights and mornings before the sun completely asserts its dominance. We’ve been cheating a little and for the last few days have had fires in the wonderful fireplace in our living room, despite it being perhaps not quite cold enough in absolute (New England) terms.

It has been pointed out by several friends in recent conversation that I am perhaps a tad overdue in writing this letter for which I most humbly beg pardon. The good news is that I’ve been busy traveling for work and thus would presumably have much to discuss. If only I could figure out how. Confronted with the task, I’m having a bit of difficulty figuring out where to get started. Still, the best way to begin is to begin so here we go and I apologize in advance if what follows seems more s stream of consciousness than a proper, well organized note. Not that I ever manage to write those anyway:) .

Though I haven’t been on any longer trips with the family since the ones I recorded in my last update we did make good use of the remaining April weekends playing softball and visiting the ‘croc farm,’ a smallish but otherwise impressive zoo with a main attraction I’m sure you could guess if you put your mind to it. I’ll spare you the trouble and tell you that there were thousands of crocodiles at the park varying in size (and I assume age) from hatchling to goliath. It was also my first chance to see Madagascar’s only mammalian predators, the civet cat and its larger cousin the Fosa, several species of parrot and, of course, chameleons and lemurs. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the park was that the Malagasy visitors seemed much more fascinated by the ostriches and retired donkeys than they were in the native wildlife drawing the ooohs and ahhs from the foreign guests. There is probably a lesson there on perspective. I’ll get to more on perspective later I suspect. I’ve had many pointed illustrations recently.

Softball was a great time, except that I hadn’t played softball in probably close to 10 years (now that’s scary to think about too hard) and I haven’t done any sort of sport in a few months so jumping right into a two day tournament was probably not the smartest thing I could have done. At 26 I’m tied for the youngest player on the embassy team with a visiting Peace Corps volunteer and even we couldn’t really walk properly by the second day. The Malagasy teams we played against might have lacked some of the skills that come from watching and playing baseball as a youth sport and a firm understanding of the rules but they more than made up for it with speed and endurance gained from years of soccer and hard physical work and they were excellent sports. Better sports, I’m embarrassed to say, than many of the American players who also seem to believe, rightly or wrongly, that arguing balls and strikes and close plays with the umps is just part of the fun. I also got to meet, and get to know through fun and mutual suffering, a number of people who work at the embassy and found them to be, in general, a good humored and enjoyable crowd. I was also struck momentarily by the fact that they represent an interesting microcosm of America and American life. A cross section of the country and the lifestyles united by the fact that they choose to work abroad but diverse in many other ways. I wonder how often anyone stops to notice this.

Our only other family outing was a continuation of our plan to pick compass directions randomly and travel as far in the chosen direction as we can manage on a weekend. This time it was a short (3 hour) jaunt to the west, to visit a large lake, see a waterfall and some natural geysers. This trip was mostly a bust since we couldn’t manage to find our way to the lake (we saw it from a distance but the guide book instructions were very vague), the road to the waterfall was too rugged to get the car down and the geysers were not truly geysers. Still, the area was beautiful; the hotel was nice (many spiders! Yikes) and the mineral springs were impressive. Plus we hadn’t yet been west so it was all worthwhile in the proper spirit of the thing.

It is my more recent adventures that have captured my full attention however. For most of the month of May I have been traveling for work on a project to photograph and document project successes and best practices of a Malagasy NGO headquartered here in Tana. The organization works, with its partners, throughout much of the east and south of the country and I have covered a lot of ground and seen parts of Madagascar that I am sure very few foreigners get a chance to discover. For the most part this trip has been about people, not places. The rural people, often far from roads, forgotten and underprivileged, in some cases starving or dying of disease yet always doing the best they can with what they have. They are wonderful people with a ready smile and a quick laugh despite their circumstances, a song on their lips as they go about pounding the daily rice ration. Proud men wrapped in gaudy blankets against the chill of morning mists clutch razor sharp spears and guard herds of cattle as they graze and water. Happy children in crowded classrooms do long division to show their strange guests how much they know, play soccer in tattered clothing with a wad of plastic bags as a ball and race bicycle wheel rims through a drizzling rain amid the squawks of startled poultry. Girls as young as 13 and married proudly show off their infant children, or shyly hide, peeking out from behind the doorframes of their tiny houses. This is a different world, far from anything I knew or understood even after spending two years in rural Morocco (though there are definitely some points of correlation) and these are the faces that populate that world. The faces of people that for 23 days in May have shared, as best they can with me, their lives, their troubles, their triumphs, their hopes, dreams and accomplishments. They are the faces I have attempted to capture on film and will attempt to capture in words knowing full well that I am doomed to failure from the outset. No image I can create will ever adequately describe the lives they lead. Many are the faces of my dreams now also, a permanent mark on my soul.

My translator, guide, and friend on these journeys was a 23 year old Malagasy girl from the capitol city’s ruling class (though such a distinction is not technically supposed to exist any longer) named Arivony (pronounced Arvoon). She is the stereotypical definition of a city girl and like most royals, a tiny bit conceited from time to time, all of which means that in many of the places we visited she was almost more of a foreigner than I was. She was also amazing, conducting interviews with busy, well dressed professionals and people with nothing but the clothes on their backs and often not even that, arranging meals and hotels and generally being my fixer and confidant. I certainly couldn’t have done the trip without her.

Arivony

She and I had many interesting conversations during our many hours in the car or evening meals about life in Madagascar. She helped to shed light on traditions, like the giving of gifts, weddings, funerals, the ancestors, ‘spells’ of protection and others. One of the most interesting discussions concerned the social hierarchy of Antananarivo (and by extension much of the highland plateau). It turns out that to this day there are three major social classes in the capitol. Arivony translated them as ruling, servant, and slave. Historically the ruling class would be in charge overall, with the servant class working for them in the bureaucratic positions common to any government as well as in more standard servant roles, and the slaves, literally slaves in historic times, doing the hard manual labor and menial jobs. Now of course, there is no literal slavery and as Arivony puts it, “everyone works” but socially she still can’t marry anyone from either of the lower classes (she wears a golden identity bracelet to mark her status), each class has specific areas of the city in which they are generally found, distribution of wealth and position is generally still along the these class lines. They tell the classes apart by designators familiar to the racial conflict in the U.S. The slaves are for the most part of African decent brought up from where they had settled in the costal regions and have darker skin and different hair than the lighter skinned, straight haired ruling class of Polynesian decent. She also told me that it was getting more difficult to tell them apart and she had once accidentally dated someone from the servant class but had to break it off when she found out where he lived despite the fact that “he was a nice guy.”

In the end I think it was good for her to get out of the city and see some of the things that we saw. I know it was good for me. She started out believing that the people we visited were simply a bit backward, as if they had a choice in the matter. I found this view a bit amusing considering it was coming from a girl that wears her own baby teeth as jewelry in a spell to ward off evil. “Backward,” like most things, is a matter of perspective.

As we traveled further from the city I had to keep revising my definition of true poverty to be in line with what I was seeing. On the first leg of our journey to the east people lived deep in the lush rainforest, at least in places where it had not been logged for charcoal, as their ancestors had lived for generations before them. They farmed small plots wrestled manfully from the dense surrounding vegetation and scattered over many acres. It is an extremely difficult life, always at war with the surrounding jungle but much more sustainable than the slash and burn agriculture that is rapidly coming to replace it. It’s hard to tell right and wrong in situations where any option condemns either the people or the earth on which they depend to painful life and slow death. There is not enough food during the months at the height of the rainy season when the rice crop doesn’t grow to keep the children in school. I saw many with the red hair and distended bellies of kwashiorkor disease due to a lack of protein in their diets. The people live in bamboo and grass huts built on stilts to discourage rats and minimize flooding. The huts do almost nothing to keep the elements out or provide privacy but do keep the choking smoke from cooking fires in. (Yet, if you teach them how to make a chimney for their fireplace the number of malaria deaths increases exponentially. It turns out that the smoke from the fires also cuts down on the number of mosquitoes in the house.) Local organizations were struggling to provide centrally located sources of clean water, increasing agricultural diversity in an attempt to provide year round food sources and using puppet shows to provide information on family planning, health, sanitation and nutrition (to great effect). Its not often you can say a puppet show restored a bit of your faith in humanity.

Not everything was working however. One of the villages we visited was a completely deserted ghost town. The people who lived there, I later discovered, were deep in the forest where they stayed for most of the year, only returning to the village for festivals and funerals. Yet two wells had been dug in the village to provide clean water, only this hadn’t been discussed with the people of the village first and instead just seemed to appear out of nowhere when they returned from one of their long absences. Village elders declared the wells black magic and had them boarded up without ever using them, posting sun bleached cow skulls around the village on the end of long poles as warnings.

To the south conditions were no better and often worse. Bamboo huts were replaced by structures built with mud and sticks directly on the ground that I first mistook for chicken sheds. Often these houses had dimensions smaller than 6x8 feet and I could easily see over the peak of the roof without having to stand on anything. You had to crawl to get in the door and there were no windows. The grass roofs were black from years of cooking smoke seeping in as it attempted to find an escape from the crowded interior. In such a dwelling might live a family of 11 people or more. TB and Malaria are rampant despite a pitched battle being waged against them by the government, USAID, the UN and a variety of local organizations, including my own. We gave a ride to a family whose young daughter had gone into a malarial coma (the first I had ever seen), muscles clenched and sweating. They couldn’t afford to bring her themselves and it was too far to carry her. I can only hope she made it, but there were other children at the clinic that did not and statistics were against her. That particular clinic saw an average of 36 malaria cases a month, which may not seem like many until you realize that many people can’t get there at all and the disease is often in its terminal stages before the child is deemed sick enough to be worth the expense. Of the average 36 cases more than half die even after aggressive treatment.

Family planning was also high on the agenda of the aid organizations, since a woman in a rural village would, on average have around 12 children, 4-6 of which would survive to adulthood, the rest falling to malnutrition, gastrointestinal maladies, malaria or TB (though exact cause of death is often impossible to determine because they lack the resources to get to the nearest hospital for testing). This was expected as a matter of course. Men might have up to 10 wives and therefore father greater than 100 children, so even though he was relatively well off (men ‘buy’ their wives as a traditional check to insure that he is rich enough to then provide for them) that’s a lot of mouths to feed. I have no source for these numbers except my own observations and the interviews I conducted but it is a sad state of affairs even if only those few families are affected. Most families are willing to give up everything they owned to afford school fees and this is often what it takes. Teachers were often paid for by parents organizations and sometimes went hungry themselves in lean times, or walked miles a day to get too and from remote schools.

Some things are working. These are truly intelligent people and programs to increase their knowledge of disease, literacy, nutrition, health and sanitation and the benefits of clean water seem to be taking hold. School children raced to demonstrate that they wash their hands before meals and after using the latrine and treat their water to render it safe. They carry these lessons home to their parents from the classroom. Adult literacy classes often lead to the creation of village development associations that take on new agricultural challenges, like raising green beans and honey bees, building toilets and creating income generating arts and crafts co-operatives. Certainly, heartening progress.

Still, when you come from a life of relative privilege it is difficult to remain unaffected by such a total lack. By the time we reached the far southern port city of Fort Dauphin on our last set of visits both Arivony and I were feeling it. Her attitude had changed over the course of the trips from one of self superiority to one full of empathy and a kind of fierce national pride. If my visit and our trip had accomplished nothing else but to be able to be a catalyst for that single change - the creation of an outgoing and charismatic advocate with powerful friends and a better understanding of her own country - it was completely worthwhile. She broke down completely into tears during and interview with a 73 year old man whose wife had left him with a 4 and 5 year old child when he had contracted TB and had to stop working. We conducted the interview sitting on the floor of a house barely standing after a storm had pushed to a rakish slant. The organization we were visiting with donated rice to the small family, cooked by neighbors. It was the only house I visited not permeated completely by smoke and it felt less alive because of it.

Supposedly the man was cured of TB but still had a deep racking cough, as did his children and many of the neighbors. In the end we decided to use some of our own resources to transport as many children from the village as possible to the clinic 20 kilometers away for testing if for no other reason than to feel like we were doing something. Eventually we managed to get organized and took 40 kids in two trips in the back of our pickup truck amid a bit of a festival atmosphere.

The clinic itself was overwhelmed with patients already, with one doctor seeing between 30 and 300 patients a day (and on market days sometimes as many as 1000). Bloody surgical instruments sat soaking in bright colored plastic buckets on the floor of his office waiting to be decontaminated according to instructions someone had hand painted onto the wall above the sink. The room reeked of blood and worse. Charts taped to the crumbling cement walls tracked disease trends and progress in family planning programs, the graphs fluctuating wildly up and down the damp and yellowing sheets of paper. Yet these people were lucky. They had a skilled doctor and a clinic for him to practice in. White skin and a camera occasionally come in handy and the clinic managed to test every child we brought. The TB technician of the local aid group volunteered to be responsible for overseeing the results were properly distributed and any prescribed treatment followed. (the treatment for TB requires a 7-9 month course of daily antibiotics and is notoriously difficult to follow under such conditions except under direct observation) I also bought a literal truckload (200+ pounds) of oranges for the equivalent of $6 at a local market and passed them out to everyone I could find in every village along the way. So for the price of a little gas and $6 worth of oranges we helped in a small way and our own smiles returned. Tax dollars well spent I think. Later over lunch Arivony said, “I will never again say that I am poor, in fact today I think I am richer than I have ever been, though I have no money.” I can’t help but to agree. The people we visit are also rich in many ways and would never call themselves poor. “We have family” they would say, “we have our pride, we have our homes, we have our fields, we have our cattle and chickens, we can read, we can write, we have our ancestors and the stories of our ancestors, we have traditions and magic. Yes, we have no money, but we can still dream.”

Now, home again, I’m left with 2000 photos, mostly portraits, and the challenge of trying to figure out what it all means. The surreal nature of my double life sometimes strikes me as I write in the garden or go out for drinks with Peace Corps volunteers (some trying to escape their own ghosts I think). At an expat bar where a decent cover band does Steve Miller Band and the Beetles I have to stop and close my eyes and for a moment the music disappears I’m back walking among the proud people of rural Madagascar. In the end it is the question WHY? that most often recurs. The ways of fixing these problems are out there already. What’s stopping us from finding the resolve that would be required for bringing the combined force of will of the human race to bear on them? And my determination to go and complete my education and spend my life helping these people and others like them is redoubled. I would not have traded this trip for anything. It was a truly amazing and wonderful experience and I’m sad I have to return to the office this week. But I won’t be alone there. I will still have the faces.

I apologize that this letter is longer than usual, but I hope you found it worthwhile. Please write me! I would love to hear from you.
Until next time my friends,
Stay well
Love and Luck in Everything and next time you’re down have an orange and think of your wandering friend,
-Andy

It all begins with the letter A

2008-04-09T17:30:00.009+03:00

Greetings All,

It is my sincere hope that this letter finds you all happy and healthy and in excellent spirits wherever you are and whatever you might be doing. If all of my travels and travails, adventures and mishaps have combined to teach me anything it is that the everyday is extraordinary in many ways that we all too often take for granted. I would love to hear what you’re all up to!

I’ve been moderately busy since I last wrote, continuing to get settled in and explore the surroundings, both close to home here and on some longer weekend excursions. I continue to be impressed with this country and its people the more I get to know them. There is always a smile on every face and a greeting on every tongue… The Malagasy people are culturally and physically diverse. There are 18 major tribes on the island, each with its own belief set, cultural practices and language dialect. The highland plateau where we reside, almost universally at an altitude of 3500 feet or more and dotted here and there with volcanic monoliths lording over the plain, is relatively well off and its inhabitants bustle about daily business with vigor in the moderate climate. (Temperatures so far have been between 75 and 80ish each day with varying humidity and occasional apocalyptic rainstorms) Agriculture is the main activity and rice is far and away the main crop, with cassava, corn/millet, and vegetable gardening for sustenance. They are good farmers and getting better all the time through initiatives available through USAID and Peace Corps and local NGOs that are helping them to diversify crops and increase yields. They would happily produce even more if they weren’t restrained by the abysmally bad roads that render them unable to get any surplus to export markets. In the lowlands, the vegetation is thicker and the weather warmer and the people are more laid back, slower speaking, with long siestas thrown into the daily routine during the hottest hours when work is a near impossibility. Fishing along the coast is important economically, as is, unfortunately, slash and burn farming. Coconuts are a common daily food. In the far south, where I have not yet been, the climate is semi-arid with cactus and baobab trees. I’ll get there eventually.

Physically speaking the people who live here are as diverse as the landscape. Every conceivable skin color is represented except for pure Caucasian (yes I still stand out) and facial features are most often a mixture of African and Polynesian. (But with significant representation from Asian, Indian and Arab populations) It’s usually a very flattering combination and they are, generally speaking, a beautiful people with short frames and slight builds.

The family belongings, having arrived well before we did, were finally located and delivered to the house for the most part intact, and for the last few weeks we’ve been navigating a maze of cardboard boxes, bubble wrap and kilometers of tape trying to get things sorted and stored away and assigned a proper place. The task is a bit daunting, especially with mom, the master organizer, away at the embassy much of the time. Not many of my own personal belongings remain with the family after my being away for 7 years and 3 major moves. There is something humbling and I suppose rather liberating in the realization that most of what you own can fit into a couple of moderate sized suitcases. I have other things in storage of course but it’s been so long since I’ve seen or had access to any of it that I honestly don’t remember what’s there anymore and am clearly doing fine without. In the meantime I’ve been amusing myself unwrapping boxes full of things at random just to be surprised. I’m proud to report that with few exceptions the job is mostly done and we are officially Home.

To celebrate/take a break from all of those good times we took a family trip to the east over the long Easter weekend holiday. There are only 7 major paved roads in the entire country so once you get on one of them going in the right direction navigation is not terribly difficult. Getting on the right road in the city IS troublesome, as nothing is obviously sign posted and there are many places to go wrong. Still, with satellite images courtesy of Google, a fairly useless map, directions and two tries we managed to get on the road to Andasibe, about 100 kilometers and 4 hours from Antananarivo.

Andasibe is about halfway to the Indian Ocean coast at the junction where the lowland forests meet the highland plateau. Its home to a grouping of Madagascar’s best National and Private parks highlighting both secondary and primary rainforest growth and all the accompanying flora and fauna, both avian and terrestrial. Lots of lemurs and birds! How can you go wrong? We stayed at the Eulophilla lodge, named after a rare white orchid that grows only in the base of certain trees in this one part of this one country (we didn’t see any). The Lodge was set up in the safari style and accessed by a rough 5.5 kilometers of dirt track and well worth every meter, especially the last kilometer that overlooks the hotel. It’s located in a clearing in a valley surrounded by wooded hills, including a large swath of private rainforest reserve, and consists of a cluster of thatched bungalows (and a few newer tin roofed ones) surrounding a huge central lodge and restaurant. The whole complex is bordered by several small rivers that crisscross the property and is quite beautiful. We stayed for three nights and were well looked after by the English speaking majordomo Donny.

One of many types of Orchid we saw in and around the rainforest. This one happens to be in the garden at our Lodge.

We took several rainforest excursions over the weekend, both in parks that consisted of secondary growth so the under story was still extremely dense jungle. I love the rainforest. There is nothing that quite puts you in your place like a fern that’s taller than you are, or a plant that looks like something you might enjoy having in a pot at home except for the real possibility that you might one day fall into it and drown in the rainwater it catches and/or decapitate yourself on its saw blade leaf edges… Actually though, aside from the plant life being a little vicious I learned that there isn’t any animal in Madagascar more dangerous than a scorpion and I’ve long since lost my fear of them! The first morning was a bit rainy so we didn’t go too far for our first trek, accepting a tour of the hotels private reserve. After several hours of steep trails and more than a little bushwhacking (for which I had much enthusiasm and my parents slightly less so) we were rewarded by up close and personal contact with a family of red-bellied lemurs and a pair of Diademed Sifakas. The lemurs are all amazingly curious and kept coming closer to investigate my camera flash. Mom and I were delighted and dad used the opportunity to recuperate.

A look at how thick the under story is. Keep in mind this is the CLEARED trail. Half the time we were out we were beating our own way through.
Cool thorn spider. I've seen many awesome looking spiders that I wouldn't want to mess with.
A tree bark gecko we scared up on our rainforest trek
Awww.. so cute. A male red-bellied Lemur
Curious male red-bellied Lemur. (Males have the whte eye patches)

The second day we traveled by car to the next door National Park and did another “short” trek which was less strenuous (slightly) but equally rewarding. We saw paradise flycatchers, Blue Coua, Indri-Indri, common brown lemurs and more Diademed Sifakas along with some of the biggest and scariest looking spiders I’ve ever seen… which are apparently completely harmless (I think I’m ok with not testing that) and some really cool lizards. Our guide couldn’t have been older than I am but spoke passable English. He would set a nice languid pace for us until he got on the scent of something and then we would dash off on a mad scramble through the underbrush to try to be the first and the closest of the many tourists in the park to reach and photograph it. Then we would lazily continue to the next point of interest. The park itself was well organized if a bit expensive and had way more infrastructure than anything I saw in Morocco. The park area was only 810ha as opposed to my park in Morocco which was 58,000ha.

Madagascar Kingfisher. I appologize for the bad photo, this is as close as he would let me get.
Male Paradise Flycatcher in his red morph (he can also be black and white). I'm a bird geek... so sue me.
Curious Common Brown Lemur
Diademed Sifaka. These guys eat higher up the trees so they were a bit harder to get a photo of.
An Indri Indri. The biggest Lemur remaining in Madagascar. Looks more like a messed up panda.

On the way home from Andasibe we stopped at Madagascar Exotic, a wild animal “zoo” of sorts, which specialized mostly in the reptilian, but also a few amphibians and butterflies and the tamest lemurs yet. The guide book was a bit suspicious of the conditions that the animals were kept in but I didn’t see anything to grievous. All the animals were certainly well fed and seemed cared for and it was nice to have the opportunity to see some of the harder to find and more bizarre looking lizards up close. I think that it was a good example of a private eco-tourism initiative and while it could benefit from a little training and support from outside I was pleased that the locals were able to make their environment work for them in a more or less symbiotic fashion. To help support them (and because I liked it) I also purchased some Batik; a type of art that uses layers of wax and dye to leave designs or images on cloth. I had encountered the technique before in West Africa but the designs here are much sharper and better defined. Both are good for their own reasons. The style (in general) is rapidly becoming one of my favorite art forms.

A big male chameleon. Note the two horns.
I love chameleons. They're so colorful. This one wins an award.
A tomato frog. Its toxic but not dangerous unless you lick it. After you!
My favorite Gecko. Good luck finding it in the wild. In addition to the camo its nocturnal.
This lichen colored lizard was much harder to spot until I scared him over to the green side of the log and snapped a photo before he switched his pattern. I was amazed at how fast they change
Worlds smallest Chameleon. This bad boy is full grown and eats fruit flies like nobodys buisness
A super closeup of a Dancing Sifaka
A cute Dancing Sifaka

The following weekend we took a day trip just outside the city to the royal compound at Ambohimanga, or blue hill. Though Madagascar no longer has any royalty (in name at least. The current president has the same last name as the last queen) they still have a rich royal heritage and various palaces and structures built for the royal families occur with some frequency in the city and surrounding countryside. The original “palace” built on this particular hilltop is nothing more than a one room wooden hut with a steep peaked roof, representing only slightly better accommodation than might have been enjoyed by the king’s loyal subjects. It’s certainly not something that you would have expected to find associated with a king of anything… never mind a country… and he shared the space with 12 wives and I’m sure an amazing number of children! After the king passed (in the early 1800’s) there was a long line of powerful queens who moved the capital to its current location in Antananarivo, but kept Ambohimanga as a home and place of relaxation and built a much improved but still not palatial Victorian house with a turret that takes full advantage of the hills most amazing asset… the amazing view. Today, after being closed to foreigners for most of its history, the hilltop is now a tourist attraction for the view and its beautiful gardens and a UNESCO world heritage site as well as remaining a popular place for the local people to make scarifies to the ancestors for, among other things, improved fertility.

The brown building on teh left is the kings "palace" at Abohimanga
A look at the top of the glassed in tower Madagascar's Royal family built to take in the view provided by thier hilltop palace at Abohimanga
A look at the Victorian 19the century residence of the Queens of Madagascar at Abohimanga

During the week I’ve been doing work for Peace Corps and a couple of other groups and its finally starting to pay off in travel dividends and contacts. I recently got to take a jaunt out to see the current group of Environment volunteer trainees and help out with a few sessions at their community based training site. They seem like a fun group and I must admit, despite all my problems with PC that I’m a bit jealous of them just starting out. To be fair, I think they were equally impressed that I had finished and I had fun telling stories and swapping cultural anecdotes with them. As amazing a time as I’m having here it’s nice to be able to communicate with people of roughly my own age, interests and experience from time to time. After a day of sessions I went with the training staff to their overnight quarters at the Peace Corps training center at Montasu (sp?). It was simply amazing. Perhaps it was only because I got to see it just at sunset and sunrise but the place was breathtakingly beautiful. Situated on a lake it consists of a cluster of buildings which all seem to have equally amazing views. The wood paneled resturaunt/dining hall has a wall of glass which provides a panoramic vision of the lake and islands as you eat. PC had to stop using it to train new volunteers because too many would get comfortable there and the shock to their systems when they left and got to their villages would be too much to handle. I’m glad that I got to see it.

It seems almost as soon as I got back I was off again. This time it was to the south and the city of Antsirabe (beginning to detect any themes with the crazy ‘A’ names yet?) for another weekend exploration. We had no specific agenda except to see the sights on the way there and check out what, if anything, the city had to offer in terms of tourist attractions. The drive took the better part of 5 hours (including lunch) to cover about 100 miles. We ended up at the hotel Trianon, a very nice place with an awesome and accommodating staff set up in an old colonial era house. The rooms were airy and the décor was quite interesting. The food was excellent, though I’ve still yet to have much in the way of actual Malagasy cuisine. I hear from the PC volunteers that its extraordinarily bland but I still want to figure it all out.

Hotel Trianon. Our home in Antsirabe

I really liked Antsirabe. It was a quiet seeming place where the most common means of transportation was by rickshaw. (Those guys must have the toughest feet ever, running up and down the streets all day with no shoes). It used to be famous for its thermal springs and baths but they have fallen into some disrepair since the colonial days. The Hotel des Therms is still the most impressive building in town despite the fact that its clearly beginning to deteriorate. Actually bathing would be taking your life into your hands though I think. The other famous draw to this city is its gems and minerals. All the street vendors sell fossils, petrified wood and gems of almost every conceivable type (except diamonds). One sidewalk stall was offering up a few emeralds the size of my thumbnail and small sapphires of every conceivable shade of blue. In a sidewalk stall! Another had a basket of rough cut rubies too small to make into anything but a basket full! Some of these people were “wealthy” by western jewelry store standards but still can’t always manage to put food on the table until they find a buyer to convert the stones to ready cash. Just goes to show that wealth is all about perspective.

A rickshaw takes a passenger up the steepest hill in Antsirabe... barefoot
Looking down at the colonial era bathouse from the Hotel Des Therms
The unused but picturesque Antsirabe train station with a rickshaw in the forground
A cathedral in Antsirabe. Chistians are divided between the majority protestants and the minority Catholics
Looking up at the huge front facade of the Hotel des Therms
One of the lakes produced by the thermal hotsprings. There was no evidence it was hot and it wasn't really clean enough for me to put my hand in and find out. Looks nice though

Our final stop in Antsirabe was just outside the city limits. The whole region used to be volcanic; hence the gems and such, but perhaps the precious stones were not the earth’s most beautiful gift to the region. High up one of the volcanic hillsides in a half formed crater is a wonderful captive lake called Tritriva. Ridiculously deep and with a great deal of local history the lake is a gem in its own right.

A view of the Lake in a crater, Tritriva
Another view of the Lake in a crater, Tritriva

Anyway… It’s been a great adventure so far. Thank you all for traveling with me! Sharing the stories is almost my favorite part and possibly the most important. Understanding is the key to everything. That being said if anyone wants to be removed from the list (or know someone that wants to be added) this is always possible. Just drop me a line. I’m sure that I’ll have more to share soon.

Until then,
Stay well
Love and Luck with Everything
-Andy

Love Shack Madagascar

2008-03-17T22:43:00.010+03:00

Greetings all,

Hello from Madagascar. I hope that this note finds all of you well and happy. Living life and enjoying it. Getting the most and the best out of things etc.

I’ve been here a bit over a week and am doing fine (minus all the stresses that accompany preparing for Graduate school from an Island nation in the Indian Ocean. I have a whole new respect for those few people that managed to do all this while they were actually serving in PC) now that I’ve recovered from the jet lag. There must be something about changing hemispheres that makes it worse than normal. It’s nice to be back in Africa, though, like most places Madagascar and its people defy easy classification into any category as large as that of a continent. I was beginning to enjoy the quieter hustle and bustle of D.C. but its no real substitute for how alive you can feel simply by being here. Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital city located in the island’s central highlands (the altitude is almost 4000 meters), is a thriving metropolis in its own right at the same time more laid back and much less sterile (and I mean that in a good way) than its American and European counterparts. It is a city on foot as cars are much too expensive to own and operate for most of the population. Everywhere people are walking to and from various errands, stopping on street corners to chat and be social. Street vendors offer snacks and simple meals to passersby. Children play soccer with balls made of plastic bags and twine and adults play pickup games of varying seriousness in nearly any available open space. Chickens and Roosters dart out into traffic and back to get the smallest kernel of grain or elusive insect, narrowly avoiding a gruesome death themselves in the grill of a ubiquitous circa 1960s Citroen taxi (though apparently cockfighting is popular so perhaps death by auto would be preferred). Butchers hang their wares in their shop fronts, café’s set up benches made of old fruit crates and bits of brick on the sidewalk to lure in customers and impromptu “phone booths” where locals can borrow a cell phone for a small fee, spring up on every corner. Men and women carry their goods to and from fields, markets, and homes balanced impossibly on their heads (and some loads seem bigger than the porters!) with a sensuous grace that comes from a lifetime of practice and can only be found on this continent.

Because transportation is difficult, and often dangerous in overcrowded, under-maintained vans, neighborhoods as a unit of organization are much more important. Each has its own character, developed over time and refined by tradition. Most have markets where, if you can handle the hustle and bustle, you can find almost anything, prices negotiable. Some goods rotate days of the week. Souvenirs can be purchased in one market in Hectare 67 on Thursday and Friday while Wednesday you might only be able to find discount foam mattresses. Some neighborhoods have specialty markets where certain goods are sold in co-op fashion by groups of artisans and families. Down the street from the house is a garden market where decorative plants, planters and other basic garden materials are sold. (Because our neighborhood has fenced yards and gardens) I visited the “bamboo” market in order to get a better feel for things in a part of town more for locals than expats, not really knowing what to expect. Like anywhere I’ve been in the third world we were set upon soon after entering by a crowd of hopeful entrepreneurs attracted by our white skins and (ha ha) deep pockets. Most people were friendly though and as we moved through the market and looked at different pieces of the impressive bamboo furniture we left most of the group behind and dealt with craftsmen and women on a more individual basis. Prices were reasonable and any form of furniture available (upon request if necessary). I ended up negotiating for a bamboo lounge chair and handmade cushion. I found (after Morocco and even Ghana) that the whole process was quite laid back and pressure free. Perhaps I’m just getting good at it or perhaps I paid too much but in any event it was fun! Unfortunately, there is also a healthy underground trade in wildlife and wildlife products. I had the opportunity to buy some lesser Vassa Parrots (all black) who were so bored and miserable in their tiny little cages that they had stopped caring for their own feathers. Alas, I am confronted with the age old problem; do you rescue one bird from a horrible captivity or do you leave him there with the hope that by denying his captor business there will be no reason to trap more birds in the future? In the end I left the parrots and a piece of my heart behind. Sometimes, one can only hope for a better future. I know of some people that took the other road and have endangered tortoises roaming their gardens.

The neighborhood in which the house is situated, Ivandry, is a bit different in so much as its well-to-do. The houses are large and most have yards with 20 foot high walls or hedges, fences and full time security. Most, if not all residents have cars and so, paradoxically, the streets are quiet because they lack the more regular pedestrian traffic of the other neighborhoods. Instead of markets we have grocery stores and box retailers. This is both a bit sad and, having lived without these things for several years, much appreciated. Sometimes, I can’t help but feel a little guilty. It’s also a bit further away (I’m sure on purpose for embassy security reasons) from the city center than I would have liked. Otherwise, I can’t complain.

The house is awesome. It’s called Akany Fitiavana in Malagasy, or Villa of Love, or more colloquially perhaps, the Love Shack. Except that shack would imply something small, which is hardly the truth. As my father would put it its funky huge and roughly rectangular shaped. The floor plan is mostly open in the main part of the house with a beautiful antique parquet floor made of thousands of individual little wooden pieces. The dining room, living room and sitting room comprise one wing of the house and are all actually just one space, divided only by the furniture and a free standing fireplace that opens into both the sitting and dining rooms. The kitchen is in the back of the house and divides this main wing from the living quarters; a study, three bedrooms and two baths. The entire front side of the house (sitting room, living room, study, my bedroom and the master bedroom) is a series of French doors that we open during the day to listen to our personal collection of wonderful wild birds and catch the flower scented breezes off the garden. There is no need of lights during the day as the whole house is bathed in sunlight from dawn until dusk. A glassed in sun porch, where I read, write and spend much of my daylight hours at home, is accessible through the French doors in the living room. It provides a 180 degree view of the front yard and garden.
A side on view of the house from the front yard
A view of the house from the front yard

Of course, if the house is awesome than the garden is nothing short of spectacular. I fell in love with it almost immediately. A little overgrown and under-watered when we first moved in (the house has been vacant for some time while undergoing renovations) it was clearly a once loved project and with a little TLC from us and our dedicated and knowledgeable garner Dola it will be again. My mother and I have decided to start a book of all the seemingly countless plants found therein, which will be something of a challenge since we can only readily identify the smallest fraction, and many of those only generally (like palm). We’re trying to photograph each plant as it flowers in hopes of someday having something to compare them against. My current favorite is a tree with large, delicate purple flowers that, while simple, might be the prettiest I’ve ever seen. The garden in the front is a ring around a grassy rectangle that is perfect for lawn recreation. (though I’ve already managed to lose a wiffle ball over the wall into the radio Netherlands compound.) In the back, the garden consists of a series of large flower beds on both sides of the driveway and a second series of herb and vegetable plots in a ring around the outbuilding that holds the laundry room, pantry and the guards’ break/bathroom. All things considered it’s going to be a tough place to leave come August.

A view of the palm trees in the garden out front
Just a few of the many roses gone wild in the yard. Not african really but pretty!
A pretty yellow lilly-esque flower outside the window of my room
This little Madagascar Fody is the undisputed king of our yard
These little green lizards are everywhere!
There are at least two nesting pairs of these Myna birds on within sight of the yard. They are noisy but cool since they mimic all the other birds around.
We have a family of these stonechats that come eat little lizards off the plants by the sunporch
My favorite flowering tree produces these wonderful blossoms
My favorite avian visitors to the yard are a pair (at least) of Madagascar Bee-eaters
Their areial acrobatics are absolutely amazing.. capable of catching any flying insect midair.
Madagascar wagtails. We have a pair in the yard that dig for grubs when it rains and then beat them to death on the patio brickwork.
This tiny bird is a Madagascar White eye who visits whenever the trees have ripe berrys or seeds.
To occupy my spare time and in hopes of getting a chance to get out and see some of the countryside on someone else’s dime I have offered my services to Peace Corps Madagascar (who’s main office is basically next door to the house) and to USAID as an intern/will work for food and transportation volunteer. Peace Corps here is a totally different (and much superior) animal than PC Morocco, but since the details of the differences matter only to a few of you I will save them for more personal letters (so ask me if you really want to know). Suffice it to say that after several meetings at the PC office I almost cried at the injustice of it all. So far I’m doing a lot of database work, creating a central repository for all of the technical resources collected by the different sectors, but I’ve also had the opportunity to travel with the Environment Program director to a session for a group of new trainees at a local orphanage and womens’ shelter. Despite all of PC Morocco’s problems I find that I miss the lifestyle sometimes and it was very nice to be back again amongst a group of volunteers happily discussing the size of various parasites they have or how much they splurged on a cheeseburger the last trip to town. Not to mention that the orphanage, run by a group from England, is a wonderful example of how going green is to everyone’s benefit, even orphans and battered women in the third world. They have self-composting toilets, make their own charcoal briquettes, recycle everything, including making fresh new paper out of any old scraps they collect, raise their own fruit etc. The whole compound is almost self-sustaining since they sell their eco-friendly products. I was so impressed that I bought some recycled paper greeting cards… In truth, I would probably have bought them anyway since the designs are cute, but I’m happy to support a good cause and supply my letter writing habit at the same time. The kids were adorable and I had a great time, along with the trainees, playing with them after all the formal activities were finished.
One of the trainees makes a new friend for life
These girls may not have much experiance with cameras but clearly they get the idea
Since I was showing them the pictures as I was taking them they thought it might be funny to make faces. I didn't discourage them.
Not sure which girl won the contest. Cast your vote!

As exciting as all of this has been and continues to be I have been on one other excursion you might find interesting; that, in fact, you may have been waiting for. This past Sunday marked our first out-of-town family excursion. Actually, we started out driving through town to try and figure out the maze of one way streets and rotaries (roundabouts, traffic circles, whatever they may be to you) on the route to the embassy. Then we went out past the bamboo market and through the suburbs of the city into the countryside.

Most of the area surrounding the city is taken up by rice fields. Acres and acres of flooded fields and rice plants, all laboriously planted by hand one at a time. Great egrets and Madagascar Kingfishers ply the waters while Kites and Marsh Harriers effortlessly circle above searching for their morning meal. Between the birdlife and the guys with the fishing poles I concluded that there must be fish as well as rice in the fields. Rising up here and there from between the stalks are mounds of decaying brick in no discernable pattern which we later deduced to be tombs. When you worship your ancestors apparently there is no problem with burying them amongst your major food crop. The road cuts through some rolling hills and a few small villages over the next 20 kilometers and eventually, seemingly in the middle of nowhere (in fact it pretty much IS in the middle of nowhere) you come to a 4 hectare botanical garden and nature preserve called (perhaps not creatively, but effectively) Lemur Park. Its setting, bounded on one side by a rushing brown river (erosion is a problem during the wet season) that acts as a natural fence for hydrophobic non-swimming lemurs and on the other by an actual fence, which our guide informed us is not so impenetrable a barrier for the acrobatic residents. The countryside is a beautiful mix of natural geologic sculpting and agricultural landscaping with a few human dwellings thrown into the mix to provide a sense of scale. The park, run by French and Japanese non-profits is home to more than 50 lemurs representing 9 species, from the famous ring-tail to dancing lemurs to the tiny nocturnal grey and brown mouse lemurs. I am happy to report that the lemurs are every bit as cute as you might imagine. They are not especially shy even in the wild (much to their regret sometimes I’m sure) and in the park with its frequent walking tours and all kinds of people they clearly realize that they have nothing to fear. We arrived after the morning feeding (they have to feed them each day in order to keep them for escaping over the fence and “expanding their territory”) right about time for an early afternoon nap up in the treetops. Our guide coaxed a ring-tail down out of the trees with a promise of food and it walked right across my feet to reach some leaves. The “dancing” lemurs move across the ground in giant aerobic looking hops with their arms fully extended above their heads. Despite the fact that this was a more or less captive environment it was still terribly exciting and quite well done. The park is proud to report that the Lemur families within its walls are comfortable enough that they have begun to breed naturally. It was a great introduction to the flora and fauna of this island nation. We also saw several species of tortoises, some of which may live for more than 160 years and many species of chameleons in just about every conceivable camouflage color pattern. There was also a plethora of bird life including giant Hammerkop nests and a Fody nest complete with hungry babies. I was quite satisfied with my visit (with the possible exception of the service at the café) and would definitely return. It would be better if I had some company ;-)

A small community across the river from the park.
This baby fan palm is the national plant of Madagascar and my favorite species of palm.
Our first lemur encouter of the day was this sleepy brown leumr
Who only let my flash keep him awake for two photos...
...before dozing back off.

Madagascar is famous for its wide variety of lizards. We must have seen a dozen species just in this small park. Notice how he's watching me even while moving away
I love the clouds here. They are so sharply defined and vivdly white and clear
Something about this arrangement appealed to me.
Another chameleon another color pattern. No two were alike on the day.
I think this is the only chameleon that didn't watch me the whole time
This white or Dancing lemur was one of many we saw. There are two families that live on the preserve
This is an endangered mongosee lemur coming to see if we have anything to eat
Here is a dancing lemur dancing. They were so acrobatic and quick that taking their picture was extreemly difficult despite close proximity.
A curious ring-tail coming to investigate.
He eventually padded up to me and used my feet as a step stool to reach some leaves he was interested in.
One of several cool tortoises found in Madagascar and in danger of extinction through the illegal trade in wildlife.
This black-faced lemur was probably the most shy of the species we saw.

Well, that will about wrap things up I suppose. Not bad for the first week if I do say so myself. I haven’t managed to experience everything yet, but it is my sincere hope that over the course of the next five months I’ll be able to make the very most of this opportunity. I hope that you’ll all come along for the ride, vicariously at least, though the more the merrier in person! The visit would be well worth your while!

In the meantime,
Stay well,
Love and Luck in Everything
-Andy

The Lost Obroni Speaks

2008-03-17T10:19:00.012+03:00

Note: This letter was never sent out to the group but I hope you all find and enjoy it here!
Greetings one and all!

As always, I hope that this note finds you well and in good spirits. Enjoying the day wherever you are and generally being happy! It has been months since last I’ve written and in the meantime I’ve hopped across countries and continents and states, celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with family, explored the U.S. capitol city with friends, passed out valentines to strangers, gotten accepted to graduate schools, and crossed the equator. Having just typed that all out I realize that catching up in one letter will be next to impossible but I’ll do my best, as always, at picking up where I left off.

As I write I’m sitting on the sun drenched porch of our newest family home in Antananarivo, Madagascar, listening to the birds sing and the breeze whistle its way through our beautiful garden. I’ve been here a week now and I have much to say about this country and my experience already but I can’t in good conscience write about new adventures without first completing the record of the old. In any event I have some wonderful pictures of my travels in West Africa that I’ve been promising you all since October and it’s about time that I delivered on that promise.

When last I wrote I was sitting in an overheated and dilapidated internet café in the capital of Burkina Faso getting ready to depart for Banfora, a town in the southwest of the country. We had read in the guide book and heard from a few people that Banfora was a great place to visit with a very laid back atmosphere. Also, there were a number of nature excursions within biking/mopeding distance of the town and since at most of our other stops had little or no natural component or the nature was too hard to reach in public transportation considering the state of our language skills we decided that we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Besides, we had missed out on hippos in Ghana and figured we had a better chance of seeing them in a lake rather than a river.

The bus ride from Bobo to Banfora was probably the first truly uneventful ride (aside from the fact that the bus was crammed to the gills and we were unable to sit together) we had yet had on the trip. Only about an hour long we arrived right on schedule, so much as we had one, and were immediately assaulted by a horde of hopeful guides and porters. So much for laid back. After a few increasingly agitated exchanges we managed to get the guide book out and attempt to find our hotel on our own. Normally this would have been easy in a town with two streets but, already frustrated it took us a couple tries. Once located, the hotel operator turned out to be a wonderfully nice man and he and I made friends. A fact that would shortly become critically important, as you’ll see. The room left a bit to be desired. The temperature was infernally hot and since we were unable to afford air conditioning at most places we were forced to suffer by with only a rusty, single speed(slow) ceiling fan, secured to the ceiling only by its electrical wiring.

The town, after escaping the crowd at the bus terminal, actually was charming in its own way. Small and compact you could walk everywhere. There were a couple of low budget hotels and some restaurants (we ate at a McDonald restaurant that I’m quite sure was not sanctioned by the franchise. Locally owned it served heaping portions of beef in every conceivable variation, dirt cheap since cows are one of the national industries, and the garlic potatoes were amazing. It definitely qualified as one of the best meals I’ve had in Africa that wasn’t strictly speaking African. Simple and yet delicious.) catering to a tourist crowd that favored places that were off the beaten track. We walked around the market and tried to stay out of the heat as much as possible. The first day we rented a couple of barely functional bikes from the hotel and rode a few kilometers out into the bush to the village of Tengrela. The village was beautiful and synced with my mental image of what an African Village should be. Wild lovebirds flitted about the tall trees. The lake itself was lovely and huge (dashing our hopes of easy hippos) part covered with water lilies (with saw tooth edges… no such thing as an easy meal here for anyone). We hired a boat (witch first had to be bailed out… no such thing as a watertight boat either) and were paddled out into the middle and back and a half hearted attempt to find some hippos. No such luck. It was still more than worth the trip out.
The basic plank boats I went hunting for hippos in. Tangrela Lake in the background was quite beautiful
A photo of me on the hippo hunt at the lake.

The next morning we had arranged to rent a moped (I had received instruction on how to drive it from my friend at the hotel) in order to get to the sacrificial pool and natural waterfall at Kartigula about 15 kilometers from the main town. Unfortunately our plans changed. Carly hadn’t been feeling well for a few days and overnight she came down with the telltale fever of Malaria… at least we finally guessed that it might be malaria since it’s notoriously hard to tell sometimes. First thing in the morning we located a lab that would do the simple blood test and we waited around for it to be completed. It came back positive and suddenly a trip to the hospital was in the works. My friend at the hotel guided us there and showed us where to wait and I put my French to the test to translate for the doctor and pick up the prescription from the pharmacy. I was surprised when the treatment turned out to be only 3 doses of medication to be taken over three days. We hoped for the best.

By the time we got all that sorted out it was past lunchtime. We voted to try and make the moped trip to the falls anyway, malaria and all. So we loaded up and attempted to follow the directions we had received the day before. It was supposed to be very easy and yet somehow we got mixed up and ended up covering miles and miles of back trails through the sugarcane fields, getting back on track only after about 5 sets of directions from locals. We were within spitting distance when the moped simultaneously broke down and ran out of gas. Thankfully, some men agreed to take it to the local village mechanic and have it fixed while we toured the falls (for only a small additional fee of course) and we were able to enjoy the falls and make it home (the right way this time) all in one piece.
A view of the Falls and the sacrificial pool at thier base. Most natural wonders became religous sites for the first inhabitants of the region
A view of the falls from the top.

With Carly on the road to recovery and our nature options exhausted we returned to Bobo to attempt to figure out transportation to Benin. As per our usual track record this proved to be not nearly as easy as we had hoped. With no direct bus available we were forced to take a long overnight ride back through Ghana and change over in Accra for a bus that went east towards Cotunu, Benin’s commercial capital. This actually worked out pretty well and allowed us to do an overnight stop over in a part of Ghana we would otherwise have missed out on in the town of Keta on the south eastern coast near the border with Togo. After a relaxing night to recover from the long bus ride we set off for Lome, the capital of Togo and from there to Ouidah, our first stop over in Benin.

Glossing over the transportation issues and the most bureaucratic border guards I have yet encountered Ouidah was awesome. We went there because it was supposed to be a center for Voodoo, which I am very interested in learning more about, and because it was one of the main depots for the sale and shipment of slaves (which is how voodoo made it to the new world in the first place.) The town is packed with history which is all displayed in poor museums filled with unenthusiastic guides speaking rapid-fire French. And yet the gravity of the place still manages to get to you. (And to be fair there was one museum on African women that was spectacular) The best parts of the town can be seen alone and on foot. There are fetishes on many corners and the road from the town to the beach where the slaves would have departed is lined with monuments and protective charms. On the beach itself is a symbolic monument called the Door of No Return etched with bas relief’s of departing slaves bound in chains.

This was an interesting yet typical meal. Ingredients: Tomato sauce, peanut butter, rice, noodles, hardbolied egg.
My favorite fetish in Ouidah. No idea what it means.
Another view of this intricate fetish.
A view of the Door of No Return looking out towards the ocean.
A closer look at the bas relief carvings on the ocean side (looking towards land)
One of the protective fetishes on the door of no return platform
I'm not a beach person but I could get used to scenes like this. Especially like the sack cloth sailboat in the background

From Ouidah we moved on to Porto Novo, the capital of Benin. It’s actually a very laid back feeling city because most of the hustle and bustle that is usually associated with a capital actually takes place in Cotunu. We stayed in another rundown hotel by the lake because we had heard that you could arrange boat tours from there to a village on stilts in the middle of the lake. Apparently, the slave hunting and blood thirsty kings of the Dahomey Empire had received word from their Voodoo priests that if any of their soldiers crossed a body of water the empire would collapse. They took this news rather seriously and forbade their soldiers the use of boats. The people whom they were hunting capitalized on this and built a village on a small island in the middle of a lake. All was well until the next wet season when the island ceased to exist. Not a people to give up easily they simply jacked up their houses and started carving more boats. Several hundred years later the village is a sprawling metropolis of more than 4000 people all completely inundated for much of the year. They have completely adapted to this environment, with fishing as a livelihood and handmade boats of all shapes and sizes. When we visited on a Sunday we saw many people poling their way to church. (Benin is a shining example of multi-faith tolerance. The floating village and every other city we visited had Christain churches, mosques and voodoo temples and for the most part they get along just fine.) Even the cows had floating pastures.

The stilt village on the lake outside Porto Novo. Called Aguegue
Another view of stilt village
A third stilt village view.
Floating cow pasture. The grass is replensihed each day by hand.
Our noble and tireless boatman... but unlike our other boatrides we had a motor for part of this one.
Last view of the stilt village.
Everyone headed to the church "parking lot"

Porto Novo also turned out to be a good place to take in some information about Voodoo. We hired our boat guides to take us around the city and introduce us to a Voodoo priest. It was an interesting experience though I’m still not sure what really goes on. The priest had a small living compound set up within his house where his personal spirit gods lived and communicated with him. We chit chatted awkwardly for a bit (how does one make small talk with a Voodoo priest and his resident ghosts?) and look at several other temples around the city.

The voodoo priest we met with in Porto Novo. He was a pretty intimidating figure.
Houses for the voodoo priests private spirits. They speak with him and are his connection with the spirit world.

Our last stop in Benin before heading back to Togo was the town of Abomey, formerly the seat of the Dahomey slaving empire. Each successive king swore that he would leave the empire bigger and stronger than he found it no matter the cost and each one built a bigger and better palace than his predecessor. Abomey is full of their ruins. We took a tour of one that had been restored by the government and were appalled at the barbarity of the human race once again. These were men that would quite literally kill you as soon as look at you and who made their livings selling their own countrymen into slavery. They decorated their palaces with murals and tapestries of new and interesting way to kill people. You would laugh at some of them if you didn’t know that they really happened to someone. Instead you want to cry. It’s certainly humbling and it’s almost hard to let yourself think about it too much.

We acquired, with our usual degree of difficulty, this time due to a long term taxi operators strike, transportation back over the Togolese border and on to the capital at Lome. I didn’t like Lome for a lot of reasons. It was a dirty congested city and it was difficult to get from place to place. It felt unsafe where most of the other places we had been in were different but still comfortable. Still, we managed to get out and see the Fetishers market where they make fetishes and sell ingredients. It’s become something of a tourist trap now but there is still an amazing collection of everything you could think to put in a witches brew. Dead birds, lizards, skulls, monkeys, snakes, organs, whole heads and tails of things, crocodile skulls and bits of things I didn’t even want to think about. There were hundreds upon hundreds of different things of all different species. We asked if they still collected specimens to sell or if they were only selling older models. Unfortunately they say they still collect regularly, though I hope they were just telling us that because that’s what they thought we wanted to hear. Everything was completely desiccated and older looking at least. I got roped into getting a travelers fetish from one of the venders but I must admit I’ve had pretty good luck since I “turned it on.”

Alas, our final experience of this phase of the trip turned out to be a negative one. We were robbed by a group of brigands on the main road by the beach directly outside the presidential residence as we were walking back to our hotel from dinner. We knew better than to be walking in the dark but misjudged the distance. The only good news was that they got away with nothing that would prove valuable to them. Nevertheless we were glad to escape Togo and return to Accra and our wonderful host family.
Ok.. there was ONE good thing about Togo. At least the Flag beer came in sizes bigger than 20cl!

The rest of the trip was a relaxed immersion into the culture of Ghana. Drinking palm wine in local cafes and eating local dishes at home and at our neighborhood restaurant, where we quickly became regulars. We screen printed more tee-shirts and hung our with the host fam, went to church and generally thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. When the time came to head back to the US it was the usual mixture of sadness and promises to keep in touch and the excitement of getting back home again.
Enjoying Palm wine with John and Prince. Made from tapping the sap of a plam tree. Its pretty good and gets more alcoholic the longer you take to drink it.
Enjoying a coconut from the tree out front.
Did I mention that religion was a big deal here?

Me and my new best friend and all around great guy, Kobby.

I headed down to DC where I would meet up with my family and friends for Thanksgiving and followed that up with a wonderful Christmas and New Years in Arkansas with my grandmother. Post holidays it was back to Boston for some time with friends and then again to DC where I took up temporary residence with my parents and explored all that the wonderful city has to offer.

Which… with the understanding that much was glossed over, left out or forgotten… gets us pretty much up to date with the sun porch and the bird songs. Of course, I’ll write soon with more details on life in the moment.
In the meantime, I would love to hear from all of you! Take care of yourselves out there. Do something exciting… remember to smile… The world is a magical place.
Until next time,
Stay well
Love and Luck in Everything
-Andy
The hope and future of Africa... and one mischevieous little boy :-)

Bonjour de l'Afrique Ouest!

2008-03-15T16:17:00.007+03:00

Note: This letter was originally sent 16th October 2007

Hey All,
I hope this note finds you well. I'm sorry in advance that it lacks a bit in the insight department and is more a report of facts of life for the last few weeks. I find that I'm very short on time at the moment. :-) Further insights will be dispensed at a future date when I get around to posting this on my Journal site with its photos!

At the moment I'm in an Internet cafe in the second largest city in Burkina Faso, called Bobo-Diasoluo (I have no idea how to properly spell it but everyone just calls it "Bobo" anyway) My French skills are getting a workout and I'm getting by but I'm definitely rusty. My accent stinks. :-) The border crossing from Ghana yesterday was smooth and hassle free. I wish I could say the same about the transportation (more on this to come) We hired a local to carry our bags and point us in the right direction. He helped us out and found us a seat in the "bus" (using the term extremely loosely) to the city. I only hope things go as well for the next few crossings in the coming weeks.

Thankfully the people are quite nice and forgive me for my cultural faux-pas and are appropriately grateful for my attempts at language. This morning we toured the old city here and checked out a mosque made in the Sahel style architecture. Think a giant mud castle with 2 conical towers and logs sticking out of it like porcupine quills every few feet. I'll get out a picture whenever I can. We've also done some shopping and in the process learned a lot about a bunch of different tribal artifacts from all of the tribes that have converged (and continue to converge) here over the last few millennia. It’s interesting and from time to time it can be a bit humbling. I find all of their various religious beliefs to be quite fascinating. I'm strange like that I guess. Needless to say, we made a few purchases and had to spend an hour at the post office trying to figure out if it was worthwhile sending them and not having to carry them on the next few legs of the trip. Someday I hope to be rich and not have to worry about things like the cost of mail. I don't need to be fabulously wealthy or anything... just have enough to do the things I want to do and make everyone else happy at the same time. :-) Doesn't seem like too much to ask does it.
Typical Traditional Mosque arcitecture in the Sahel. Western Burkina Faso, Mali etc.

Before we were here we did the whirlwind tour of northern Ghana. It’s been flooded out there for a while but now the dry season has settled in with a vengeance and the waters are starting to recede at more than a meter a day. Our first major stop was at Mole (pronounced Mole-ay) Ghana's premiere national park. We did a walking safari with the required but unfortunately intrusive armed ranger and saw many interesting animals including warthogs, baboons, green monkeys (and perhaps a few other species), three kinds of antelope/gazelles numerous birds, and (drum roll please) elephants! The birds are always my favorite since they are so various and colorful, we've seen 80 species in Ghana so far, though I have to add that anyone who doesn't find elephants to be impressive might have something wrong with them. If we had had a car and were willing to take a guide out at night then we might have seen some lions, leopards and some other big mammals. I can't forget the monitor lizard... probably the most humorous of our sightings running away from us at top speed on his dumpy little legs.

One of the many baboons we saw at Mole. They were definately not afraid of people!.
In fact one of the best places to find them was the park workers trash heap!.
Pumba! The warthogs were in the hotel compound when I woke up in the morning
It was truely awesome to see elephants in the wild. They are definately impressive beings.
Mole NP waterhole at Sunset
Mole NP waterhole at Sunset, another view
An African version of patio lighting

From there we headed to Weichu, a hippo sanctuary in a little tiny town in the middle of nowhere. In hindsight, this might have been a mistake. The sanctuary itself was extremely interesting, comprised of a stretch of the Black Volta River that forms the border between Ghana and Burkina and the surrounding countryside. It’s completely a community effort and in that respect it’s truly an amazing example of a community conservation initiative that works. The problem is getting in and out. The only public transportation to and from is in the form of a small, dilapidated covered pickup truck with wooden benches for passengers in the bed. Into this conveyance cram 18 or so poor souls (including yours truly) for a bumpy 50 kilometer ride over a jolting dirt track. At one point everyone had to climb out and wade across a river before re-boarding on the other side. We passed a few similar vehicles that had broken down on the way and at each one more people climbed into or onto the roof of our truck. We almost made it all the way ourselves but about 5 kilometers shy of the goal then the rear axle fell off the car and we slid to a sudden and rather jarring stop. Carly got a few bruises, I escaped injury altogether but the school boys who had been riding on top got thrown 50 or so feet down the road and got the worst of it. Anyway... we made it eventually and not too much the worse for wear. Didn't see any hippos but got to do a neat river safari in a local canoe and take some tours or Lobi (the local tribe) living compounds. I loved these because of their "living history" feel but was, at the same time, disappointed that there are people in the world who are still living in such conditions.
The name of this truck (and its condition) probably should have given us a clue. Still, we wrode in it anyway, at least untill the rear axel fell off.
View of a Lobi family compound from the observation deck at the Hippo Sancuary lodge.
View of the Hippo sanctuary observation deck from one of the Lobi compounds I visited
A blind Lobi Grandmother with traditional lip piercing consented to have her picture taken
Under African Skies

So far, the only bumps (literally) in the trip have been the transportation. The last few days have given us severe headaches in that department. We got stranded in the hippo town for a few extra days thanks to the fact that the cars to and from the place kept breaking down. Also, it was a Muslim holiday and a predominantly Muslim village so it was a bit hard to find people to help us work things out. The locals kept directing us to this Canadian aid worker who was there and she condescended to us about a number of things that we already knew, having been aid workers ourselves in Morocco for a few years, and not actually solving any of our problems. We got out in the end only to have the bus to Burkina that we were going to take turn out not to exist. We got to the border anyway and then the car from the border to this city broke down and I had my first real conversation in French arguing with the driver to get enough of my money back to pay for the new bus we had to flag down from the side of the road (a failure I might add). I think from here on out though we are sticking to more major routes and so things SHOULD be better... it remains to be seen if they are.

Other than that things are fantastic... I really love the feel of the place and the people (when they're not trying to get me to buy postcards anyway) and I hope that things continue to be as good. In the next few days I'm planning on moving to another town near here and then taking some bike excursions to another hippo lake (where hopefully they are a more captive audience than on the river) and some waterfalls. Then to the capital of Burkina before the long bus ride down through Togo. Hopefully I'll be able to keep you posted on the way.

Until then,
Stay well,
Much love and luck to everyone!
-Andy

The Spirit of Africa

2008-03-15T12:43:00.009+03:00

Note: This e-mail letter was originally delivered on or about September 29th, 2007

Hello all,
Greetings from Ghana. Ete sen, how are you? I hope that this note finds you all in great health and good spirits and, for those of you up north that the weather has not yet gotten too cold. If so… you could send some our way… A bit of chilled air would be more than welcome.

Cold is definitely not the problem here. The weather has been too hot to handle for the last two weeks, though thankfully for the first week it was overcast and a good, mid-level introduction to the level of humidity that we could expect in the future. In all honesty, it hasn't been unbearable, and has actually been quite accommodating given the proximity to the equator. Every day feels like rain but the storms seldom actually come through. The one storm we've had though was a doozy and I definitely got caught out in it. Most of my wardrobe turned semi-transparent which made me all the more noticeable… not that I need help with that given my white skin and red hair. I tend to stand out in a crowd here.

That being said, I've never felt uncomfortable with it in the same way that I would in Morocco. It's almost as if the people here have better, more important things to worry about than how strange I am. Still, I sometimes wonder just how strange that is. I can't see myself so I can't really answer my own question but the reactions of young children who still turn and point when their better mannered parents restrain themselves give me some idea. (In Morocco the parents would be the ones pointing… The kids would be laughing… and ALL would proceed to speak down to me as if I was an idiot… just to give you some idea of what it was like being different THERE and the differences here.) Often, I get called Obroni, "whiteman" in Twi (pronounced tCHwee), the Ashanti dialect most common in the capital, instead of my name. For someone used to getting called "red" or “carrot top” for other, equally obvious reasons I can understand that. If I make the effort to introduce myself or use the little Twi I've figured out so far the vast majority are more than happy to adjust and treat me as a full equal.

So… AFRICA… I must admit besides stories and national geographic specials I hadn't had much idea of what to expect. The third world nature of the place I can understand having seen, felt and tasted what it’s like in Morocco but beyond the poverty and the problems shared by developing countries everywhere It's amazing here. Even far from the bush of rural Ghana you can feel the spirit of the country and the continent in every action, in the way people dress, in every conversation and every market transaction, every smile, joke and every prayer. These people are trying to take what they've been given and run with it. Trying, sometimes misguidedly, sometimes inefficiently, sometimes in new and amazing ways, to move forward and improve their own lot, the lot of their families, friends, neighbors and countrymen. After two days here I could see what was missing in Morocco… that drive to improve, to fix what's broken. To complain and then move beyond the complaint. It's unbelievably refreshing (and yet at the same time almost unbearably sad) to realize that many of the problems I had accomplishing work in Morocco were not in myself, or the methods I was attempting, but in the people themselves. It's hard not to love the people here too much. It was hard to even know the people there.

Much of my time so far has been spent in and around the capitol city of Accra. We've been reconnecting with some of Carly's old contacts here and staying in an apartment next to her old host family. It belongs to the landlord's daughter who's off at boarding school currently and was therefore vacant. We met the landlady (one of several "Aunties" I've acquired—All older women are called Auntie by all younger people as a respectful method of address) in the whirlwind of activity the night we arrived and have since been warmly welcomed (as a quiz of our Twi knowledge as much as for any other reason) to the building every time we return home from an outing. Carly's old host sister (Cynthia) and host mom (Auntie #2) are our main contacts next door and her host sister's young children (Kobby who is almost 3 and Duke who is almost 1) are a constant source of both amusement and frustration. I'm pressed into service as a babysitter when the women are in the kitchen or are otherwise occupied and I've been impressed by their attention and knowledge.

A view of a typical Ghanaian shop from the balcony in front of our appartment
You can get almost anything done at these little shops on the roadside. This one happens to be a TV repair shop

A generation gap. Kobby and his Grandfather who is in Traditional dress.

Education and religion are very important here and both are almost universally attended. Kobby is already in school five days a week and knows the full alphabet (when he can be coaxed to sit still long enough to recite it) before his third birthday. We're trying to convince his mom that she shouldn't completely neglect his education in Twi in favor of English while he is young and completely capable of simultaneously learning both. Education is based on the British system (I'm not completely sure what that means) and there are many levels… Pre-school, Prep school, Primary school, junior secondary school, secondary school and university. The schools are half funded by the state and half funded by tuition paid by the parents. As a result they get some say in where their children go and each afternoon, kids of all sizes and dressed in an amazing array of brightly colored school uniforms make their way in different directions across the city. When it comes to secondary school and college prep they will even travel across the country to attend good schools, most of which are boarding school "Academies." I also visited the University of Ghana at Legon. The campus is sprawling and quite beautiful and has much the same atmosphere as university campuses back home… half hushed study and half un-restrained foolishness that comes with learning just to live. Faculty and students from all over the world share classrooms and knowledge as readily and as successfully as anywhere in the first world.

As far as churches go… there is one or more on every street corner and every denomination imaginable is represented. On one end of our street there is a Mosque ringing out an all too familiar call to prayer at all hours (Happy Ramadan everyone!) and at the other end there is a Hindu temple. Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, Mormons, and a hundred other variations on the Christian theme all are represented in triplicate and are all packed every Sunday and most other evenings. (Sometimes too often in the case of the church that meets in the basement of our apartment building.) The missionaries that came with and before the colonial era did their job well here and their converts have become missionaries to their own people and have adapted their own culture and practices to mesh with their Christian faith. Most churches are very active in their support of schools and hospitals as well as branch churches around the country. When they meet a traditional practice that might have been a barrier they integrate it instead of demolishing it. Everywhere, you see Ashanti symbols which adapted their religious meanings to better fit (or not conflict) with Christian principles, and the practice of religion here differs enough from the more sedate versions of the same in the U.S. and Europe that it could qualify as aerobic exercise. In most ways all this faith is a great thing. It's real and heartfelt. But like religion everywhere it sometimes leads to turf-waresque problems and other issues that institutionalizing faith has had since the dawn of time.

I've been out a few times with Carly's host brother John. He's the same age as me and went to a high school that specialized in Art. His talent is quite amazing but is underused because there isn't much room for that kind of thing in his world. Talking with him makes me sad because he is torn between wanting to just be young and the responsibilities of life. As the last born in his family he has responsibilities to the family members born before him and so he is pursuing visas to work abroad in many and not always completely legitimate ways. This makes me cringe but I can't deny the difficult road ahead of him. I'm sure that he would do things the right way if he could see any light at the end of that tunnel. Carly and I are trying to help him get set up designing and screen printing various "I love Ghana" shirts for the baby tourism industry (and for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament in 2008) in hopes that will keep his artistic side entertained and help him buy paints for the canvases that have no current market but better express his soul.

Our Friend (Carly's Host Brother) John using his artisic ability to design and print tee-shirts
Carly and John modeling some of the nights finished product. There were three designs in total.

In the few days off that he's had to spend with us we've spent some time in the city, made traditional Ghanaian food and gone to the beach, a beautiful tropical place with white sand and palm trees. A place where fishermen fix their nets in the shade of their enormous beached dugout canoes and wait for the tide to come in so they can float out for another shift. Where young boys wade in up to their waists and float long lines out on the riptide in hopes of snaring a squid or other big fish to supplement their diet or income. Even though I don't often consider myself a beach person I will admit that I had fun there, like one of those places you hear about in stories. We pretty much had the place to ourselves but our white skin did attract some local kids who I taught to make sandcastles using an old bottle I cut in half with my pocket knife to make a bucket. I also swam for a bit. The body surfing was great but the riptide was fierce and it took a lot of energy even to stay in one place.

Making plantain paste in a giant mortar and pestle as the first step in making Fufu. A traditional meal.

A bit further in the process. Definately takes quite a lot of work and more coordination than you would think. I tried it later.

This is a really big boat all carved (as far as I can tell) out of one tree. We took shelter in the shade it offered since there wasn't much otherwise.
Different view of the boat and its cool paint job. Every boat has its own unique color scheme.
A curious little girl on the beach selling rolls. I bought a few in exchange for this photo.

The city of Accra is a crazy place packed to the gills with people and buildings and cars… Way, way too many cars. Having been built for a different age when so many cars weren't even really a consideration it still has traffic circles (roundabouts, rotaries whatever you want to call them)instead of overpasses and only about half the traffic lights work at any given time. Traffic is ALWAYS backed up and emissions standards are much lower than the developed world. The result is that most of the time you try to get from point A to point B you end up feeling like you're in the world's biggest parking garage and every car is running. On the upside, all the parked cars have created a niche market for selling just about everything. At all the intersections ladies with baskets, bowls and boxes perched unbelievably on their heads in perfect and graceful balance will sell you water, plantain chips, apples, meat pies, skewers of mystery meat, bread, rolls, shrimp, fish, things you might need to make dinner, candy, gum etc. while the men sell just about everything else, walking between cars offering phone cards, newspapers, shirts, shoes, auto decals, matches, knives, machetes, umbrellas, chocolate, window washing, windshield wipers (installed while you wait) and many others. People will also get on the buses (really just 15 passenger vans that ply various routes around the city) to sell miracle remedies or preach the word of God (often related). It takes hours to get anywhere but the spectacle of this impromptu market often makes the wait worthwhile.

A sample of traffic in Accra. This is one of the main roads and none of these cars are moving. If you look closely you can see some street vendors.

Still, it's nice to get out of the city. So far we've been on a trip to a botanical garden that was a remnant of the British African ideal but still maintained enough of its African character that its trees and birds were quite amazing. We just got back from a longer expedition to the city of Cape Coast where we experienced one of the many slave forts in this part of Africa. A monument to a darker time, its both a sad testament to humankinds ability to behave with an unbelievable level of evil intent and also a beacon of hope for the future as well as a place for many to return to their roots and discover their past.

I love these huge trees! The black mass behind my head is an ant colony working its way up the tree. They bite!
This is a Ficus. yes.. A ficus. It started as a vine and over the years completely surrounded and strangled its host tree, which then rotted out from the inside leaving only the tree size hollow ficus behind. This is a view as the dying tree would have seen it.
Self explanitory. The beach at Cape Coast
Carly at Cape Coast Castle Courtyard (how's that for alliteration) View of the colonial buildings and slave auction building in the back.
Slave dungeons at Cape Coast Castle. More than a thousand would be down here in pitch darkness at any given time.
The fishing shantytown at Cape Coast. Each family has thier own set of "colors"
A veiw from the ramparts of Cape Coast Castle down the coast towards the next fort in the Chain. (Elmira)

A nearby national park shelters one of West Africa's remaining rainforests and we spent an entrancing night there being lulled to sleep and kept awake by the incredible diversity that threatens to overwhelm such puny visitors as I am. After some haggling and negotiation that shouldn't have happened… corruption can still be a problem even here… we arranged a guide for the early morning so we could watch for birds and experience the forest and so we enjoyed the rainforest canopy walk, 30 meters above the jungle floor, just as the sun was rising. Despite a bit of human taint, the experience was awe inspiring. I personally find the touch of God much more readily here, amongst the call of exotic birds, the hush of trees 200 or more feet tall, the chattering troops of monkeys, the soft breath of the wind and the smell of decay and regeneration than I do in any amount of fire and brimstone preaching. Yet still human kind is wantonly destroying almost all such places. Even here logging, and poaching are still a problem (often because local people don't have any other choice) and species are disappearing. We saw many beautiful birds, monkeys, and all types of flora. I will remember that place for a long time. We shared the hotel we stayed at afterwards with many crocodiles and more than 20 additional species of birds. All in all I think I've seen more bird species here than I have in my whole life up to this point.
Home away from home in the middle of the rainforest... ok.. well maybe one edge of the rainforest.
Taking in the canopy walkway at sunrise. Birds and monkeys abound. The walkway is built of extention ladders and plywood and is 40 meters up the trees. Thats only about halfway up. These are some tall trees.
Views of the jungle at sunrise.
Views of the jungle at sunrise.
Views of the jungle at sunrise.
This was probably closer than I really wanted to be... but the birds were getting closer so I figured this was safe right?

Anyway… Quite enough for now I've probably got half of you asleep J I need to be asleep soon myself so I'll call it quits though I could go on and on. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. Not to long for now I'll be departing on my month long excursion of Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin and be trying out my rusty French on people who actually speak it. Wish me luck. In the meantime, I'm trying to get organized for grad school and study for the GRE amidst all the other craziness. Wish me luck for that too.

Much love and luck to everyone…
Hope to hear from you soon
Until then…Stay well
-Andy

Going Out With a Whisper and ¡Ciudad de iglesias!

2007-03-29T14:07:00.002+03:00

Note: I neglected to put up this e-mail about my last days in Morocco so in the interests of keeping things in good chronological order I had to poach this space at the begining of the e-mail about my trip to spain This Letter was originally sent out the 11th of Septmeber 2007

Hey All,
I hope that this letter finds you all doing well and taking as much advantage as possible of the last few remaining warm days of the year. I find that I'm about six months behind in my group letters without even really knowing where all that time disappeared to. For that I sincerely apologize.

Those of you who have been following along and counting on your fingers the whole time and realized that I should have finished up my Peace Corps experience about three months ago are correct. I did finish on schedule the first of June and have been putting off writing this letter while I relaxed and recovered from the experience. Contrary to popular belief this isn't because I'm lazy (though I'm sure that this was part of it) or busy but because I feel that I'm responsible for somehow distilling and encapsulating the two years of my experience into some manageable and digestible bit of wisdom before distribution to the masses and I've found the task to be extremely daunting.

Having had the summer to think about it, swimming, sailing, diving, and learning to water-ski and play tennis lakeside at a friends house in Michigan (jealous now aren't you) and visiting school friends in MA I've decided that the reason the task is daunting and unmanageable is because its quite impossible. Despite this discovery or in-spite of it, and due to converging factors (like my mother convincing me that many of my relatives and more than a few friends probably believe me dead or worse) I've run out of time to put off writing something so here goes.

So, essentially, the last you heard from me was the end of February. As I've already mentioned previously PC restrictions on my travel limited my movements in March, April and May – being the last three months of my service in Morocco – to the occasional Saturday night soiree in the big city rather than the vacation-extended trips and long weekends that I managed to insert in most of the other months of my second year there. Unfortunately, this means that I have rather less to report than usual for those months, though I certainly tried to make as good a use of my time as possible and accomplished a great deal more than I might have expected from previous experience.

My forced confinement had its benefits and I spent a lot of time playing with the younger members of my host family. The youngest, Hussein, underwent a radical transformation in his level of awareness in the last few months I was there and it was an interesting study in child development. During my 8 months there he was capable of walking around and making various noises that might generously been considered words by those that spoke the language better than I do and/or were in constant close proximity to him. In the last few months he really gained a command of the language and with it a whole new array of methods to use when begging for candy. I don't think a day went by that he didn't try to beg, borrow, lie, cheat or steal a sweet from me and most of the time he was too cute to resist but at least I made him help with small chores and switched over to yogurt and fruit eventually so I wouldn't contribute too much to rotting his teeth out before he even finishes growing them all in.

My host sisters and my older host brother and I also had several bonding experiences over the Frisbee. After two years of trying I managed to finally teach a Moroccan how to throw and catch the thing properly and we had some interesting games on the rather precarious path that leads up to the house. There is a steep drop off on one side and a steep hill on the other and both sides are fenced of with brambles and prickly pear cactus with spines that punched right through the tough plastic of the disk.(Leaving a nasty surprise for the next person to have to catch it!) In a metaphor of sorts for life in the village any mistakes or variations from the established game were quickly and severely punished by the environment in which we lived and were just as quickly eliminated. I've never played with a group that could throw the disk so straight and level so consistently. I wanted to try and take them someplace more open, like the village soccer field; so that I could teach some more variation but the girls weren't allowed to go farther away from the house and I gave up in protest. I did leave the Frisbee there though in hopes that they will someday discover its true potential on their own.

Ironically, I also managed to finally meet a few of the leading members of my community. Mostly they sought me out because they were annoyed with me for doing projects in the village down the road and I had to explain to them that the reasons I was doing work there and not in my own village had to do with the fact that the development association in the village down the road was organized, had a firm grasp on what it wanted, and had the support of the community to help them get there. In a moment of startling clarity I had the association president of the active village come up and explain the ground rules and the ins and outs of basic proposal writing. Not to be undone by another village and by making it a competition of sorts between the development associations of the two villages I managed to light a spark, albeit a small one, under my own association and whip them into some semblance of an organization. By the time I left they were drafting modest written proposals despite their earlier assertions that no one in the village could read or write well enough to do so. Still a far cry from ideal, especially considering no one is replacing me to follow up and continue the push but its far better than nothing.

I also managed to perk up some local interest in the environment by involving the local tourism leaders. The plan was the combined brainchild of myself and Brahim, the owner of the hotel in the village. He's not around much because he works in London (for Disney of all things) but he has a vested interest in keeping the village and the park clean so his guests can feel immersed in the naturalness and culture of the place without tripping every three feet over a dirty diaper, a plastic water bottle or other debris of a newer (and better?) age. He proposed that I try and organize the local tourism agents and hotel owners to provide incentives in the form of cash prizes of village improvements to the cleanest village in the region. He agreed to do a pilot project by sponsoring a village cleanup day for my village and providing permanent trash barrels and manpower to jump start the initiative. As one of my only environmental education activities during my service it was a great success and I was extremely pleased by the turnout and the level of interest from the villagers. I only hope the understood a bit of the reasons behind the event instead of just making a fun game out of garbage for the afternoon.

It also took me the better part of the three last months to track down all the required paperwork to finish out the projects in the village down the road. Even at their more advanced state of organization they were still Moroccan to the core and unannounced tea parties, weddings and visits by high ranking government officials continued to stall my receipt of the documents for weeks. I can't begin to describe the frustration that comes from needing only a piece of paper from someone and despite many appointments and attempts simply not being able to get it. This is Morocco. Absolutely no sense of urgency in anything… with the possible exception of the kings business.

Speaking of which… in the space of the last month I was there they repaved the major road that runs through my market town and repainted every shop and mile marker, rebuilt every wall, picked up all the garbage in a 10 kilometer radius of the road and replaced all the street signs because the king was supposed to drive through. DRIVE through… not even stop. He didn't end up coming but it's a classic example of how much work CAN get done under the right circumstances. After two plus years there I'm convinced that the only thing that Morocco truly lacks to become fully developed is self confidence and the proper motivation. I, and the other volunteers too, did nothing for Morocco that it couldn't have done for itself both in small and large scales. Yet between laziness, corruption and a misplaced sense of traditional values it doesn't happen.

Moving out of my village was not the heart rending tear-jerk affair that it was for many of the other volunteers. It was simply too conservative a community for me to form that kind of connection. I gave most of my acquired belongings to my host family and the new volunteer down the road in the motivated village and met up with the other volunteers of my group in Rabat for a very un-formal and anti-climactic swearing out and a week long paperwork process. I had my exit interview with the big American boss which went pretty well. I presented my grand scheme to make PC better in Morocco in the future and he at least listened attentively and took some notes. To late to change anything for myself but hopefully it will make a difference for volunteers of the future. I've since found out that his position has been offered to him for an unprecedented third tour of duty and he's thinking about retiring to Morocco. I've decided that he's a perfectly nice guy if a bit socially awkward and tragically overprotective. Instead of actually making us safer it only suffocates us. As if to add insult to injury no one at PC even said thank you to us and the Moroccan staff member refused to come to the goodbye picnic that we organized and paid for ourselves to commemorate the event. Good riddance to him and to all that are like him in the Peace Corps program. If there is an argument for not using host country nationals as staff he's it. In an organization that is designed to promote cross cultural cooperation and understanding he did nothing to understand the trials and frustrations of the Americans who depended on him.

I visited my parents in Bulgaria on the way home and enjoyed two weeks there in their company. We got to see many of the Bulgarian sights and enjoyed the food a great deal. In a bit of pure coincidence President Bush was visiting at the same time we were and we got to meet him and shake his hand twice during his visit. I suppose that most people probably wouldn't make much of this opportunity these days but I find that I can certainly still respect the office he holds and so it was an interesting and unique opportunity. I've now shaken hands with two consecutive presidents.

Since the conclusion of that visit I've been busy doing not much of anything. I've started working now on applications to grad school. I've concluded that the field that combines the largest number of my interests is Global Public health and/or Epidemiology. I'm applying to six schools in early December. Wish me luck. Any tips or hits are appreciated. In the meantime I'm taking another trip; this time to West Africa and the countries of Ghana, Togo and Burkina Faso. I'll be gone from the 12th of September to the 19th of November and I'm very much looking forward to it. The plan is to work on my French Language and get a feel for some new cultures as well as doing some basic surveying work to see how the aid field manifests itself in West Africa. Mostly though it's just a vacation. I'm going to try and be better about the e-mails from there. If you get this and aren't interested in receiving the start of a new chapter in the diary of my life then this is probably a good time to ask to be removed from the list. Just send me an e-mail.

Actually… Everyone should send me an e-mail and let me know how their doing. I would love to hear from all of you. There is no adventure to small to make a good story.
So... If you read this whole thing looking for the bit of wisdom that ties it all together maybe you'll go away from this disappointed. I'm leaving the analysis for another day, a few years down the road when I can sit and reflect and have some more experiences with which to put it all into perspective.

Here's to life, May it always be a work in progress. I'm definitely still working on mine!
Until next time,
(sooner than you think I'll be in Ghana and fishin' for love!)
Go well, Stay well
Much love
-Andy

¡Ciudad de iglesias!

January/February (PART 2 of 2)

Hey All,

Well… Its now the end of March and therefore time for the second installment of my January/February doings in Morocco. As always, thanks to all of you who have kept in touch and who have read and commented on these letters. No matter where you are or what you’re doing in life it always feels good to be connected to other people. I’ve had enough of a taste of the solitary life here to realize that its not something that I would ever want or ever wish upon anyone else. I hope that you are all doing excellent and that this letter finds you all in good health and high spirits in the midst of your own adventures big or small.

Mine continued after the departure of Leo and Jess in the middle of January. I returned to my mountain home and decided almost immediately to take advantage of the mild weather ( I could comfortably pass with just a tee-shirt in the sun and froze to death in the shade) and do a bit more exploring of my surroundings. I hadn’t actually done much hiking or wandering since moving to my new village because I had always been prevented by some outside factor. Either it was 120 degrees, or snowing, or I was busy meeting with village associations, or setting up my house, or traveling or it was possible that I simply wasn’t up for it. I’m tired of exploring alone. Anyway, at the end of January and beginning of February I was presented with a few uninterrupted weeks of village time and a great opportunity to escape above it.

I slung my camera over my shoulder and headed up the trail into the park. The ministry of water and forests (think park service) had recently put up some new signs where the road ends and the trail begins on the outskirts of my village and I stopped to read them. These signs are something that various PC volunteers have been fighting to get or make for pretty much as long as we’ve worked with the Moroccan National Parks because they represent the most basic of infrastructure and a jumping off point for things like marked trails, visitors centers, picnic areas and scenic observation points. Things that we all associate with parks back home but which are totally lacking in the parks here. The fact that there is no structure or organization in the parks to either generate income locally or to prevent tourists or locals from doing damage in random wanderings is one of the major problems we face. Of course, despite all our demands and offers of assistance as far as I know no PCV was involved with these signs, a disappointing but otherwise completely normal fact of life for us.

After reading about it in French I decided on a whim to leave the main trail and take a barely discernable track up into the rock spires of the Takenhourt Mufalon Reserve (RMT). Takenhourt is a sprawling 3800 Meter mountain monolith that towers over the end of the valley in which my village resides (though I discovered that I can only see a false summit from my house). It is a fenceless reserve for Mufalon, or large mountain herd animal more commonly known in English as Barbary Sheep. I specify that the reserve is fenceless because it’s the only one that I know of in Morocco where the animals aren’t fenced in and carefully controlled. Several factors prompted me to go in this direction. Firstly, I had always wanted to see if I could get up to the rock pinnacles about halfway to the top of the mountain since they are one of the most unique and striking geological features that I can see from my courtyard, or indeed, from anywhere in the village. Second, I wanted to see if the reserve was actually a reserve in anything more than name, or if the local villagers grazed their own sheep or goats in the area illegally but totally without consequence as they would (and often do) in other protected regions. And third, I wanted to see if I could find a Mufalon, or signs of them, since a team of park personnel had failed to do so in December on a trip that they failed to tell me about and then berated me for not attending.

The park was amazing. The difference between the protected area of the reserve and the other mountains that I’ve climbed since being here was immediately apparent (Indeed, its apparent from the ground once you know what you’re looking for). The mountainside was covered in full sized trees and green vascular plants. Even the rocks themselves were blanketed with moss and lichens. There was grass and topsoil and flowers. Butterflies flitted by and birds sang from cover as I passed them by. I really felt almost as if I was trespassing since it was so pristine and beautiful. I tried to capture some pictures of it but the sun was intense and not good for photos and I’m not sure that they would have done the place justice anyway. After some serious boulder hopping I managed to seat myself on the biggest of the rock spires that overlook the valley that contains my village. It was no where near the actual summit of the mountain, which was still caked in its wintertime snow layer, but it was no less spectacular for that. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon and while I didn’t see any Mufalon I did see evidence of them!

A view of my valley from the spires of the mountain that overlooks it.

A view of my village from on high.

A rock-assisted self portriat on top of the spires of Tackenhourt.

I’m glad that I went when I did because for the next week or so I was laid out with a sinus infection. If its not one thing its another.

The first weekend in February I had managed to put myself back together and headed to Rabat to meet up with Carly and some other people that were hanging around there for Superbowl parties. Rabat is one of the only places in Morocco where you can manage to watch the game at all on Armed forces television. I wasn’t terribly interested in the game and didn’t even really know who was in it until the day of but it was nice to see people. I spend some time de-stressing and then went to the party that was thrown by the Marines who guard the embassy for the first quarter. Since the game started at 11:30PM it would have been a bit rough to watch the whole thing considering it wasn’t really why I was there in the first place. As weekends tend to do, this one came to an end all too soon and I caught a ride back to my site with my Program staff, who were visiting the region to do some site development in the village below mine where I have some projects going on for a volunteer who left early.

During that next week I managed to finish one of these two projects and collect all the paperwork I needed to submit to PC to get me off the hook financially. This is not as easy as it sounds since I need receipts for all the materials and labor used to complete the project. In the end though it all worked out and 130 new households in the village have clean running water in their homes and all the mechanisms were in place for the sustainability of the project for future generations of villagers. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet gotten to properly celebrate this because the second project concerning the re-building of a road and the construction of erosion control barriers to protect it is not progressing nearly as satisfactorily and I’m worried about getting it finished in the few short months that I have left because no amount of pressure that I apply seems to be working. Instead of helping me PC seems more interested in threatening to dock the amount from my already small readjustment stipend. I guess that’s easier for them. Wish me luck.

In the middle of February the whole group of Environment and Health volunteers that I came to the country with (those of us that are left anyway) went to Rabat to attend our Close of Service Conference that will prepare us for wrapping up any loose ends and teach us what steps to take to better prepare ourselves for the transition back into “normal” society at home. Though this conference was perhaps the most useful of the three times we’ve all gotten together during our service and contained the most relevant information as usual it was mostly just good to see everyone. I don’t know many other circumstances where people that were thrown together originally for three months and then only see each other once or twice a year for a few days can be as good friends as we are. I haven’t met many people who volunteer for PC that I wouldn’t want to know as a friend. We reviewed our service during the day and ate sushi, watched movies and went out to the clubs at night. Who needs sleep anyway?

We stayed at the hotel Chellah, the same hotel where we had all stayed for the first three days of our time in Morocco and a really nice 4 star place. It all seems like forever ago now… and I feel like the food was better that first time but maybe its because I’ve had two years of fond memories to hype it up to myself. I remember thinking that COS conference felt so very far away then.
Everything went very smoothly and it was a lot of fun. In one of the sessions we got to talk to a panel of former volunteers from various posts and times that had managed to make it back overseas to Morocco for some reason or another. It was very useful to get their mixed perspectives on what I should be doing and how I should be feeling about my future plans.

When the conference wrapped up and people began to go their separate ways Carly and I traveled to Tangier at the northern tip of the country by the Straits of Gibraltar in order to prepare to blow the last of our vacation time (It all had to be used up by the end of Feb) on a week long trip to Sevilla, Spain. I was amazed by how close the Spanish mainland actually is. You can see the closest towns along the coast down to the windmills that generate their electricity. Buying tickets for the ferry ride from Tangier to Algeciras, a Spanish port city on the Med was quite easy but ease ended there. At first we couldn’t find the embarkation cards we had to fill out to clear passport control and then we got all the way to the boat before anyone told us that we needed to exchange our tickets for boarding cards before we could get on. Luckily, we managed and were soon on our way. The crossing was smooth and about 2 hours long, followed by another two hours on the bus to Sevilla, which we lucked out and caught right away.

After taking a taxi to our Hostel from the bus terminal we set out to explore the sights and sample the Tapas (think glorified snack food) bars that the city and the region is famous for. I found the city to be amazing for many reasons. First, and not to be under-rated in importance, it was so…. western. Despite being slightly chilly there were people dressed much more scantily than I have seen in years outside the very center of the touristy parts of Marrakech, men and women going hand in hand, or arm in arm or *gasp* even kissing in public. Drinking was not only allowed but almost worshiped with just about every restaurant, including the coffee shops, willing to serve you something with a little kick. (and yet they handle their booze so much better than most Moroccans I’ve seen drunk). The shape and variety of the food was sublime and you could get pork products… In fact, in an area famous for its Iberian pork its about all you could get. The history and the architecture was gorgeous and the center of the city was dominated by a massive cathedral that I couldn’t really get enough of. (much to Carly’s dismay I’m sure). I must have taken a hundred pictures of the place in all different weather’s while I was there. Every time I walked past it some new angle of the place would strike me, or some new subtle shadow…

It was rather difficult to get inside actually, because it was the run up to lent the week we were there and the order of monks that runs the place and cares for it had other things on their mind than appeasing the early season tourists. Actually, we got our first glimpse during Sunday morning Mass, which I attended with Carly. We had Mass in a small side chapel having just missed the service in the main part of the cathedral. It was very nice none the less despite my nervousness in participating in a strange religious service in a strange language. At least I’ve gotten somewhat used to not knowing what’s going on. And at least I was there in the proper spirit of worship. A girl in the front row was taking flash pictures throughout the service and videotaped communion. Later on in the week we managed to get inside the building and visited its numerous privately donated chapels and tombs, including that said to be of Christopher Columbus but actually containing on of his sons. The cathedral itself is actually a combination of Gothic and Renaissance with more than a dollop of Arabic mosque thrown in because the original church was not a church at all. The main bell tower could be easily and without much alteration be substituted for the main mosque tower in Marrakech without anyone noticing. It was kept from feeling more open by the biggest organ that I’ve ever seen placed right in the middle of the sanctuary. I’m not sure why they did this because, as Carly pointed out, it severely limits the number of people that can see the main altar at one time. Not that there are enough people in Sevilla to fill the space anyway.

This is about as much of the Cathedral as you can fit into one photo these days. We saw paintings of the city during a parade during a museum visit where the entire thing was visible but today its blocked by buildings.

I shamelessly copied someone else who I saw taking this picture. I like it anyway. :-)

A statuary representation of the patron of the Cathedral of Sevilla. (I forget the name unfortunately)

A tabeau over one of the doors of the cathderal. I wanted to get some example shots of the amount of work that went into the place.

This bell tower was a converted mosque tower originally and would still fit in pretty easily in Marrakech. Providing you removed the bells.

An example of the butressing required to keep everything in place. As seen from a window of the bell tower on the way up. The tower itself was interesting as it had a ramp instead of stairs to facilitate an officer of the guard riding his horse up the 37ish floors.

A look down at the cruciform pattern of the cathedral from its bell tower.

A view of the bullring from atop the bell tower.

There was no flash photography inside the cathedral so all the interior pictures required a steady hand. I hope you appriciate it! It was a very impressive place.

This is the main alter. I think that it would have been much more impressive had it not been guarded by the big cast iron fence.

The place did have an amazing organ. It took up a ton of the floorspace inside the sanctuary. This is as much of it as I could get in one picture

A closer view of one half of the organ. Its carved out of wood.

One example of the beautiful stained glass windows. I found that they were mostly historical pictures rather than strictly religious ones.

A view of the statues holding up the Crypt box of Christopher Columbus (actually one of his sons)from the front.

A view of the Crypt of Columbus from the side. It is an impressive monument even if he isn't actually in it.

Other sight seeing highlights included the gardens of Alcazar, which we visited on a rainy afternoon. They were still quite beautiful, converted to a Renaissance garden of hedge mazes and statuary from the original Arabic food and fruit garden that occupied the site when the Arabic rulers of Andalusia held sway. There was also much of the same arched windows and plasterwork that have become so very familiar to us in Morocco as the decorative taste of the historically rich and famous. As you walked room to room it was much like stepping back and forth across the Strait, the Spanish court’s influence heaviest in some places and Arabic prayer fountains dominant in others.

One of the original rooms of the Alcazar palace from when the Arabs ruled southern Spain. Note the same intricate plasterwork that marks important buildings in every Moroccan city.

More examples of the Arabic influence in the Alcazar palace. Cool arches and more plaster.

All carpets should be as intersting as this one with a naval scene at the Alcazar palace. There was a giant room with these covering the walls.

I really liked this picture of the former public baths in the basement of the Alcazar palace (again dating from the arab times... europeans probably didn't bath much in the dark ages that followed)

These gardens were converted to a european style from former arabic fruit/vegetable gardens. Now its all statuary and hedge mazes.

Another photo of the Alcazar Gardens.

We also visited the bull ring, one of the first and the biggest in the nation. Unfortunately, the bullfighting season began about two months after our visit with the culmination of festivities of Sevilla’s famous holy week and we didn’t get to see action. The museum and the short tour was still worth the visit though. We saw many other parks and gardens on our strolls around the town and spent a great deal of time simply relaxing and visiting various cafes and restaurants, lounging about and looking at other churches (of which there was an impressive example just about every block) and architectural marvels of southern Spain. I think that we probably went into just about every supermarket that we saw and just let the amazing variety wash over us. And these were small family operations compared to those in the US!

A photo of the interior of the bullring. Empty at the moment but I read that the sport is more popular than soccer during the Bullfighting season despite the protests of animal activists.

A monestery behind the modern opera house was just one of many beautiful catholic churches in Sevilla. You can see the cathedral tower in the back left of the photo

I'm pretty sure that this is the facade of the library of the indies where all the records of the discovery and conquest of america are kept. I hope to get back here someday.

Front door of the impressive semi-circular city/province headquarters. It was too big to get into one photo so this is the best I can do.

One of the towers on teh end of the same building. I really liked the arcitecture of these spires

Culturally, we visited the Flamenco dancing museum and went to a demonstration of the performing art itself. The museum was a brand new ultramodern affair with touch screen computers and various videos of all the different dance styles and costumes and interactive interviews with past performers. Unfortunately all those hundreds of projector bulbs made the place rather stuffy and hot and the museum was a bit light on actual historical or technical information about the dance or the musical style. The dance performance on the other hand was located in a small but beautiful venue in the courtyard of an old Jewish house that has become a center for Sephardic and Andalusian culture. I only wish that the performance had been slightly longer but what it lacked in length it made up for in the intensity for which it is so famous. Not only the dance but the singing… and the guitar work was simply amazing. If we could have afforded it we probably would have tried to go see one of the actual theatre shows as well.

I was, of course, sad that the trip eventually had to come to an end. I would have happily stayed in the city for longer and probably wouldn’t have run out of things to do for quite some time. Sevilla was the main port city during Spain’s discovery and subsequent capture and colonization of the American continent and there are many libraries and relics to this time there that we didn’t even begin to touch upon. Then there is bullfighting and holy week… neighboring national parks and much else to see in the surrounding countryside. Too much! Ahh well, just an excuse to come back again sometime in the future! Preferably knowing a bit more Spanish…(what I did know I learned through American movies and other media and pronounced with a Latin American accent I’m sure… not the slurred lispy accent of true Spanish Spanish.) though most people were happy to try English with us, save for the woman at the Laundromat (thank goodness for clean clothes again!). She was patient and Carly’s Spanish is better than mine thankfully! The place was also crowded with other Americans doing university studies in Starbucks (yes we went) and jogging through the historical district. Just looking around from any downtown spot its not hard to see why its such a popular destination.

The return across the Med was in a smaller boat over much choppier waters and I must admit to being slightly under the weather but it was survived without incident and we were back in the very different world of Morocco once again. After a night we were on our way home to spend the last few February days daydreaming. At least for me… between bouts of battling with one association or another in this or that village over something or another. I was both re-energized and more ready to head out for good. Soon now…

Well, that’s it form this end until the March letter hits newsstands near you. You’ll have to wait a bit longer for that though… some of the writers have missed their deadlines. Until then, I hope that you are all amazingly well. I miss you all and please do send me an e-mail or a letter. Not much time left for the snail mail so tell me what’s up!

Love and luck in Everything

CHEERS!

-Andy

Revenge of the Goatman!

2007-02-28T16:04:00.000+03:00

January/February(PART 1 of 2)

Hey All,

Excited to hear from me again? I realize that its been quite some time and for that I apologize. It has also required that this latest group letter be split into two parts so that I don’t overwhelm you all with a massive backlog of details about the last two months of my life… Besides, February isn’t (quite) done yet so if I sent part two now I might be jumping the gun a bit.

It’s a great day to write a letter… Sunlight streaming in through the windows, relatively warm… some music and a hot cup of Gingerbread Cream tea. Sounds of village life in the background, children laughing/crying and carrying on, roosters and donkeys and the thum… thum… thum… thum… thum of laundry on the wooden washboard outside my window. Its all very peaceful and serene, at least in its own way. Its hard for me to imagine sometimes that there is another world out there. This scares me. Its also hard for me to believe that there are only three more months left of my service here and that these three months will be full of paperwork, medical exams and general sloth and should fly by even faster than the rest of my service. This is OK with me. Its time to be finished and to move on. I’ve started the process of reconciling all the disparate aspects of my service, both positive and negative into some kind of memory collective that I can be, at the least, content with. It’s a much harder process than I would have thought at the beginning, or even the middle of it all. I often find myself daydreaming about what life could have been, what service should have been, what life will be etc… with the accompanying roller coaster of emotions. Happiness, anger, fear, hope, sadness, confusion, worry… Despite the fact that I often find myself doing nothing but thinking its still all rather exhausting.

But I have been up to a few things in the last months other than sitting and thinking. As I concluded in my last e-mail (way back in December) all the volunteers in the country were on PC lockdown for the first two weeks of the new year starting on December 28th. Ostensibly this is for safety and security reasons because it happened to co-inside with the biggest holiday on the Muslim calendar L’aid Kabir (the big holiday) and is the busiest period for public transportation with a corresponding rise in accident statistics. However, as my friend and fellow volunteer pointed out wryly in his last group e-mail (which I’m shamelessly plagiarizingJ) we really take our lives into our hands any time we ride in any form of public transportation in this country. My usual motorized means of transportation out of my village is a 6km long ride down a (barely) one lane dirt road crammed in the back of a 15 passenger van (that has no permanent attached seats) with 42 people in it. Its probably more safe with all those people because without them the 18 hay bales,6 people, 48 suitcases, and a dozen sheep on the roof would make it rather top-heavy. Last time I got a ride I had to stand up and not touch anything because the last thing in the back of the van before me was 2 tons of unprocessed ripe olives and every available surface was smeared with a deep purple slime that was actually quite slippery and which I’m sure would never have come out of any clothes that came into contact with it… (this is not to say that I have any “nice” clothes left anyway). The unfortunate boy who was paid a few cents to ride back there with the olives was already covered head to foot in the stuff but he and I had a good laugh trying to stay out of it anyway. It was an experience much akin to what I imagine surfing must be like. All of this is a marked improvement on what transport was like in my last village. I have many more stories but I digress. The point is to say that the restriction doesn’t actually make that much sense since we aren’t really safe at any time and the increase in accident statistics is simply a result of there being more people on the roads to have accidents rather than it being actually more dangerous.

As a result of the restriction, my new years eve party consisted of a number of congratulatory text messages, a good book and a phone call with my girlfriend at midnight. I did try to have a conversation with my host dad earlier in the day about how it was a holiday for the rest of the world as well as the biggest yearly celebration in the Muslim calendar. He realized the significance to me but it didn’t mean much to him. He pointed out correctly but rather depressingly missing out on the spirit of the thing, that one day was the same as the next and that any given day could be said to be one year from its previous incarnation. Who got to pick Jan first as the beginning? Why not the 12th of September? Their religious calendar rotates forward every year by 11 days because its based on the phases of the moon so some years their new year actually would fall on the 12th of September and the fixed nature of our calendar is equally baffling on their terms. (They have however, conceded its usefulness for commemorative secular holidays like Independence day and for business purposes. I guess it would be rather too confusing to issue compound interest or determine the due date of a bill payment based on whether you could see the moon or not.) They must apply similar logic to birthdays, which aren’t celebrated in this culture either and are often only remembered after much searching through the family records (which my host family keeps in a Transformers trapper keeper – remember those? - binder under the sink in the kitchen). Some older people I know only have a season of the year listed on their birth certificate and can only remember the year they were born by associating it with some major life event, like the end of the French protectorate or a major flood.

My level of participation in this years L’aid Kibir holiday was much increased over that in my last village last year. This was partially because I’ve gotten over some of my inhibitions against inviting myself to things and partially because I really couldn’t have missed the festivities if I had tried since they gathered to kill my families sheep right under my bedroom window. Also, my host dad hasn’t been paid in 11 months (and interestingly works for the same organization that is supposedly supposed to be directing my own work… coincidence?) so my rent money went a significant way towards completely funding the celebration in this house and they can’t really deny me.

The first day of the festival starts with each family/household killing their own sheep in a ritualized fashion. To give some perspective on this and so that you can relate to its significance let me give you some numbers. In my village alone there are approximately 67 households, which amounts to just over 600 people. That’s 67 sheep in one day, in one village. The previous average meat consumption per week for my entire village might not normally exceed a single sheep. Most people can only afford a few grams of much cheaper chicken per day, if they have any meat at all. In all the times I’ve eaten with my host family I’ve never had red meat and we’ve had only one bite of chicken each on two occasions. On a global scale I think I read someplace that there were close to 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, all required to participate… you can do the requisite math if you’re interested. (ok… I was curious and I did it. Based on an average of 5 people per household that’s 320 million sheep in one day)

>Members of my host family enjoying a once yearly soda treat

I went out to the screams of the fluffy and dying all over town. I watched several sacrifices from my rooftop. The time honored and Q’uran dictated traditional method of slaughter would drive the animal protectionist people in the states nuts. Facing Mecca the head of household slices the throat of the animal deeply (sometimes) and then simply waits for it to bleed out. This takes many minutes. Most of the sheep I watched stood back up and wandered around for a bit before the reality of their situation hit them. The last few minutes are filled with some rather violent convulsions. I’ve become somewhat immune to the effects of having to kill my own food (or have it killed for me in most cases) and so I was much more interested in the follow up. Once the animal was well and truly dead a hole was poked in the inside skin of its leg near the anal opening with a long sharpened stick. The skin is then separated from the body by putting your mouth up to this hole and blowing air in so the skin inflates like a balloon around the rest of the body. I had never really realized that this was possible (despite some previous experience that should have made it clear to me) and it fascinates me every time. Because the hole they make is so close to the anal opening it’s a practice that has also spurred a whole slew of PC urban legends. I’ll leave them to your imagination. Once this is accomplished the whole skin can be removed using a single slice and then pressing your fist into the air gap to remove the last of the skin/fat connection. This is accomplished by starting with the back legs and then breaking them at the knee joint to create a natural loop to hang the animal by, finishing downwards towards the head, which is completely removed. The organs are removed and saved (almost all are eaten including the intestines, which my host mom wound up like yarn around her hand) and the body washed of all remaining blood.

>My host siblings with the fresh (still dripping) sheep carcas... They like posing with dead things for some reason.

>The whole gang hanging around outside my window. The kids are acting like monkeys and the adults are trying to skin the sheep.

My host mom is one impressive lady. While I worked with my host siblings to cut up the liver into bite sized pieces and wind each one in a sun-dried layer of subcutaneous fat to be placed on skewers and bar-b-qued she roasted the head on a fire, hair and all. Let me tell you, this smells absolutely horrid. Then she scraped off the burnt skin and hair and removed the horns with a hatchet, opened the skull and dumped the brain onto a plate and broke the rest of the head up into more manageable pieces. My first meal of the holiday was liver/fat kabobs (actually pretty tasty) and sheep brain scrambled like eggs with salt and cumin. Not my favorite but perhaps it was a texture thing. I skipped the meal where they ate the rest of the boiled head parts, having already tried that. I just can’t get over the empty eye sockets looking at me while I eat. The rest of the sheep is prepared in various ways and most are pretty tasty, though there are definitely people I know who would argue with me about that.

The communal celebration of the holiday is also interesting. In my village there was a “Bituman” and several apprentices that came out to terrorize children and dance the evenings away. I’m not really sure what the direct translation of this word would be but “Goatman” works fine for me. Basically, some of the town youth make a costume out of un-cured sheep skins and a goat head that is ridiculous in its complexity, dress someone up in it… give him a goat hoof club and send him out around town with 3 or 4 others dressed in a funny combination of drag and Halloween costumes from the salvation army, carrying whips to round up and beat the towns children viciously and repeatedly. In return for these beatings they get… nothing. No candy, no money, no toys… nothing. Its hard to determine the motivation but they LOVE it. Not only that but there were some tourists visiting that had young children and even these kids joined the game with enthusiasm… leaving their Gameboys behind at the hotel. The game would start every evening for the week of the holiday about an hour before dusk and continue a few hours after dark. The general game of tag would go for the first hour and then the monster man would be joined by a singing and dancing drum troop of the rest of the male village youth. This troop would visit each house in the village one at a time over the course of the week and lead the villagers in song and dance, drink coffee and pray. I got dragged by my host sister on the rounds for several nights and used the opportunity to take some pictures of the goat man.
>Kind of speaks for itself.... neat costume but it started to really reek by day five.

>My host sister Hadija with some apprentice goatmen. She took many more beatings than strictly called for in the name of flirting with the men behind the masks...

Each evening the festivities would finish with the majority of the village gathering around a central fire pit and dancing, drumming and singing until some unseen signal sent them all home to each other’s houses to enjoy meals made exclusively of sheep meat. It was all somewhat surreal and yet also somewhat fun.

During this time I also met Brahim, the owner of the hotel in my village. He’s married to a British woman and works as an IT specialist for Disney in London, though visits Morocco frequently. He and I talked about the village and what could be done to improve its future. We agreed that trash was a problem both for the health and the image of the village, which is trying to re-invent itself as a gateway of eco-tourism into the adjoining National Park. He agreed to provide trash barrels for the village if I would educate the villagers about the importance of this particular aspect of environmentalism and if we could secure a promise from the village association to assure the projects long term sustainability by assigning someone to collect and dispose of the garbage. I’ve been working on this project off and on ever since with informal education sessions and talks with the village association president. We’ll see if it ever actually leads anywhere. Brahim, his wife and I also talked at considerable length about working in rural, disheartened communities in general and they were, for the most part, understanding of my difficulties and appreciative of my successes. I’ve maintained communication with them via e-mail since their departure back to England. It was more support and progress than I’ve received from PC or my official Moroccan counterparts in some time as well as more concrete, rounded and realistic project ideas with some hope of success.

After the fire died, the last drumbeat had faded into silence, and the Goatman was banished for the last time I had a celebration of my own. The travel restriction lifted and I headed to the airport in Marrakech to meet my College roommates and best friends Leo and Jess who were arriving for a visit. This was definitely one of the most exciting moments of my entire service and technically I was working the whole time they were here since the 3rd goal of the PC is the education of Americans about the culture and people of Morocco. Mostly though I was just happy to have their company for a while and also to get them away from their silly desk jobs.

There was a slight hiccup at the beginning when they didn’t get off the plane they were supposed to be on due to a slight mix up over what day of the week it was and it was an indication of my stress level and anticipation that I just about had a complete and uncharacteristic meltdown. All was well in the end though and they arrived the next day. We managed to have a great time despite encountering just about every travel problem I’ve yet seen in Morocco… and this as I’ve covered, is quite a considerable number. We traveled immediately to my village for a few days, did some hiking and talked and talked sitting on my roof with my village sprawled out below us, overlooking my life in more ways than one.

We returned to civilization and met up with Carly in Marrakech, where we spent a few more nights seeing parts of the town that I haven’t seen before, shopping, and experiencing Moroccan food again from a long forgotten tourist point of view. Of these sights perhaps the Bahia Palace was the most impressive. It was begun by some long forgotten king of some long forgotten dynasty. One of many that has controlled the city of Marrakech, which has a reputation akin to a frontier city in the wild west period of the U.S. in that it was only ever barely under the control of the rest of the country or even the of the people that supposedly ran the city itself. The Palace was then added onto by any number of other kings and parts of it are still in use by the royal family today. Mostly its main impressiveness comes from the sheer scope of the intricate and delicate looking plasterwork and natural cedar wood hand painted ceilings. The rooms themselves are empty though and it made me wish that they would furnish one in a model of what it might be like so that people could get the complete picture.

>Leo and Jess at the Majorelle gardens in Marrakech... Still one of my favorite colors for a house!

>Leo and Jess in front of the Koutoubia Mosque Minaret our first full night in Marrakech

>Hand painted ceadar ceiling inside the Bahia palace. There were seperate rooms like this for wives and mistresses... How properly religious of them...

>An example (and not the best one) of the intricate plasterwork. I liked this window for some reason

>Beautiful Alabaster fountian inside the Bahia Palace in Marrakech. I liked the mirror in the picture

After Marrakech we went down the Atlantic coast to the city of Essaouaria, an old Portuguese fort town that I had visited once before for the music festival last June. After some hotel issues we settled into a place operated by a fast-talking Australian/Moroccan named Taz. I’ll admit that I was initially adamantly against staying there since he approached us on the street but when our own hotel reservation turned out to be a disaster it was great to have already scouted out another alternative. It takes me too long to admit that I’m wrong sometimes… but I can do it! We watched the sunset over the Atlantic from the roof and had delicious Italian food. We walked along the beach and checked out a half submerged castle (Leo and I soaked our pants to do so but it was worth it!) fended off the camel jockeys and dodged camel dung while we played Frisbee (its been much too long since I’ve played against an opponent that can catch. Moroccans seem genetically disinclined to any sport that involves the use of the hands.) and generally relaxed and had a good time. Carly and I tried to do some bird watching only to realize that the birds we intended to watch had left in October and wouldn’t return until April. Ahh well. We got in some good bird watching the few days when we departed for Agadir, a bigger more modern city a bit further south.

Some large wooden boats under construction at the docks in Essaouira. I was amazed that they still made wooden boats this big!

>Carly and Leo posing at the fort in Essaouira with some traditional fishing boats

>Traditional fishing boats in for rest or repair

>Me, Carly, Leo and Jess on the beach in front of the eroding castle.

In Agadir we shopped for souvenirs and had an adventure figuring out how to send the larger ones home via the post office. I’m happy to report that the process was a success. We wandered through the Souss river estuary planning a sunset stroll down the beach only to be stopped at the edge of the kings compound by the guards. Despite the fact that Carly and I have done the same walk three times before they didn’t want to let us pass the last 100 yards to the beach. It took some fast talking about completely unrelated subjects like the weather and village life, to convince them that we were indeed 4 harmless nature lovers and fundamentally incapable of breeching the multiple barbed wire fences, evading the armed guards and dodging the thousand or so video cameras to get into a compound that the king stays at a couple times a year, and that sending us back through a swamp in the dark with no flashlight was cruel and unusual punishment. We made it through though and celebrated our success with McDonalds french-fries and home-made Ice Cream. I was extremely sad to see them go back home.

Their visit was also enough to get me thinking about the road less traveled. Here they are with real jobs and salaries and a whole new lifestyle. As Leo put it they were still just as broke but they were broke in better apartments and eating better food than we ever did in college. It makes me wonder if I shouldn’t have done the same. I’m going to go home to the discovery that absolutely everything has moved on and I’m still going to subconsciously expect a life of futon couches, TV’s propped up on milk crates and ramen noodles. Some days I regret the choices I’ve made that brought me here, especially when nothing ended up being like it seemed it should, but in the end I am still happy with my life choice and my plans for the future. People at home respect what I do, or even what I’m trying to do and that respect is gratifying and often enough of a reward to shield me from the more disappointing aspects. Of course there is also the fact that at least my life here has made me see that Raman noodles can be a delicacy and I would kill for a cheap Wal-mart futon again! The variety of Perspectives on life have always fascinated me and this experience has opened my eyes on a whole new level…

Quite enough for now I think… I’ll finish up with February in Part two in the not to distant future. You won’t want to miss it. I went to Spain! I just got some letters from some people that I haven’t heard form in a while and it was great! I’m jealous of all the “normal” details, random thoughts, correspondence chess games (found a good e-mail site for this if anyone is interested) vacation photos and work problems. Makes me feel connected still and its vitally important. I couldn’t do this without you guys. Thanks for staying in touch… and for those of you that have been delinquent you still have three months to make up for it! No hard feelings. J If you can’t manage it then I’ll be home soon!

Till next time, stay well.

Much love and luck to everyone!

Cheers!

-Andy

Winter Wonderland

2006-12-29T16:43:00.000+03:00

Hey All!

Winter has finally arrived with full force here in Morocco. I’ve dug out my warm clothes and am currently wearing most of them all at the same time. My room has thus far stayed above freezing and I have a heater if it gets too bad but for the most part I just tough it out. I hope that wherever you are you are staying warm and well as the holiday season progresses. Know that I’m thinking about all of you and sending best wishes from my mud house in the middle of nowhere!

My holidays have been quite wonderful thus far and I’ll tell you about them but I am, as always, getting ahead of myself.

My post-Thanksgiving November was pretty uneventful. I made it home from Carly’s house and picked up my daily routine as if I had never left. This is pretty much because it’s the same thing every day. Wake up… read… write…cook… clean… or some minor variation thereof. I’ve had the added benefit of being able to talk to my host family a bit more of late. I enjoy being much more connected here than in my last village. I might not be treated that much differently day to day but I’ve already visited more places and met more people here and I know for a fact who is in my family and who I’m allowed to talk to consequence free. This makes a significant difference in the feel of the place.

Things picked up in the first week of December. My Program Manager visited the region to pack up the house of a volunteer who had been medically evacuated (and who’s projects I am now responsible for) and dropped off my new bicycle. It’s a beautiful Trek 820 and I’m very excited about it. At first I feared that I would have to wait until spring to ride it around but after much debate I decided that I would bundle up and brave the cold air and ride it to my market town, about 16 kilometers from my house. The ride went extremely well on the way there, despite being more than half uphill and the last 10 kilometers without a break! Needless to say I was extremely proud of myself and extremely sore for the ride back home (and the next day). It was worth it though, if for no other reason than for the sense of accomplishment that accompanied the ride. I plan on doing the ride by bike for as long as the weather continues to permit it and as long as I don’t have too much to carry there or back.

Almost immediately after that I went WAY into the mountains for the farewell/project completion party of another volunteer who had just finished after extending his service for six months. (brining his total to 33 months.) He stayed because PC could not place another volunteer in the same site due to new safety and security regulations and it was the only way he could finish his project. The project was well worth it in my opinion, but the prevailing opinion is that he is completely crazy for staying here longer than he had to! The project itself consisted of a two floor community center. The top floor was for meetings of the men’s association. The bottom floor was a neddie, or women’s center, where they set up machines for spinning, weaving and other arts and crafts projects. The building made use of appropriate technology to heat itself in the winter. It did this by means of a solar wall, or a large section of a southern facing wall that is painted black and then covered with plexi-glass to hold in the heat. Its actually remarkably efficient. Even installed incorrectly (ahhh… Berbers!) it was nearly a comfortable room temperature in the room that employed this technical innovation.

A shot of the complete association building with the solar wall.

A close up of the solar wall at sunrise. The pannels were all supposed to be the same, the wood slats are a berber addition.

The party itself was a new experience for me. The volunteer, Chris, was much better integrated than me, perhaps because he is something of a language genius (he learned Berber, French and Arabic fluently during his stay, all from scratch), or perhaps he is more social, or perhaps he simply got a more social village situation. It was a two day party, with the villagers gathering together to prepare food the day before the actual celebration and eating copious quantities of goat head. It was the first time I had sampled this delicacy and except for the rather overpowering smell of burning hair (the skin and hair are seared off the head before it is smashed into pieces with a hatchet and boiled for a few hours) I didn’t really find the taste all that bad. I even tried an eyeball, which didn’t really have any taste at all but which I still don’t think that I will try again if I can at all avoid it. Its just a texture thing I think. Still, there is something rather disturbing about eating dinner out of a plate with an empty eye socket looking up at you and the man next to you is noisily sucking the marrow out of piece of jawbone with yellowing teeth sticking out of it still.

The next day was a flurry of activity preparing for the honored guests. These included our technical bosses at the ministry of water and forest, despite the fact that they didn’t help at all with the project and hindered it more often than not. At lunchtime there was the largest meal that I think I’ve ever had, with 4 courses including dessert. It was protein overload for me, since I’ve become essentially a vegetarian when I cook for myself, but thankfully I didn’t get sick. I just couldn’t really move very fast for a few hours afterward. I spent the evening of that night helping Chris pack and say goodbye to all the people that had been his friends and family for the last 2.5 years. It made me sad to think about how few people I’ll have to say goodbye to when I’m finished.

Part of the welcome for the dignitaries, all the guys are on the other side of the line.

Just a fun art picture I took because I thought the water glasses were funny... given the circumstances

One morning the next week I rolled out of bed late after sleeping in and opened my door to find the village blanketed in white and snow still falling heavily enough that I couldn’t see the mountains on the other side of the valley at all… Actually, I couldn’t see much of the village in the valley bottom either. What I could see was almost unspeakably beautiful. I dug out my camera and did my best to capture all of it but didn’t do very well. I did get some nice shots of the mountains after the snow stopped and it cleared a bit. (I’ll attempt to post an example on my journal page at the earliest possible moment so make sure you keep checking back! ) While I was out there recording the event for posterity one of my host sisters came up to clear the snow off the satellite dish. I ambushed her with a snowball from the other side of the courtyard. At first she seemed utterly at a loss for what to do about this and for a moment I felt bad about it. She figured it out soon enough though and before long her brother and sister had come up to offer her reinforcements against my superior snowball fighting skills. We blasted each other until our hands got too cold to continue and then I amused them by lobbing snowballs from my roof into the courtyards of the surrounding houses. My house is ideally placed for such a bombardment because it is highest in the village and yet still close enough to the others that with an able assist from gravity I can hit a large number of courtyards. Unfortunately, some of the neighbors lacked a sense of humor and we retreated and built snowmen for a while instead.

The mosque tower through the trees by my roof. I enhanced this a bit so that you could see everything

Whats wrong with this picture... Yes, that is a cactus.

My host dad clearing the snow of the dish

My Oldest Host sister Hadija and my host brother Ayou. For some reason they always have to be holidng something, though this time I bet they wish they weren't!

My other host sister, Azeel

The kids and thier first snowman

To my amazement my host siblings had no idea how to play in the snow. As far as I could determine it was their very first serious snowball fight (certainly for the girls and I’m pretty sure for the boys as well) and most definitely their first snowman. I also made some snow candy with maple syrup (a rather precious commodity I might add) which was a hit once they got past the fact that they had never put anything so cold in their mouths before and it was quite shocking to them, as evidenced by some rather hilarious facial expressions and some snorting of snow out of noses. (they don’t really brush their teeth and so I imagine they are quite sensitive). I made up for it by giving them their first taste of hot chocolate and letting them warm their hands on my heater. It was a great time and I got some good pictures of them for the first time. It really made me feel closer! Next up, we will attempt to conquer the game of UNO.

Me in the Snow... bad picture but I had to use a stool as a tripod

My siblings again

Gettin Warm

My Host brothers Ayou and Hussein

Cool Picture of mountains with some clouds

The snowstorm did keep me from getting to town early in the week but I managed to convince PC to let me go to the city a day early for my weekend so I could do some work on the computer and do some Christmas shopping. Carly was coming to visit for Christmas and I spent my extra time at home cleaning the place up and preparing to have guests.

I met her in Marrakech and we bummed around for the weekend before heading back to my house, where we spent a few relaxing days, cooking excellent food, including baked ziti and chicken, macaroni and cheese from a box and Oatmeal butterscotch chocolate chip cookies. After a few days we left for Oukaimeden, the ski resort mountain in the next valley over from mine. We left my house early in the morning and 6 different transits later we reached the mountain around 3 in the afternoon, despite the fact that, as the crow flies, its less than 20 kilometers from my house and in your own car would certainly take you much less than 2 hours to drive. Still, we had some adventures with it. We didn’t really know the names of any of the intermediate towns where were would have to pick up taxis. Also, we were dressed and provisioned like proper tourists which means that we had to constantly fend of people who wanted to “help” us. Thankfully, (or not, depending on your perspective) we were “rescued” by an older Berber man dressed in the shabbiest Jelaba (Berber hooded robe… think Jedi in Star Wars) I’ve seen in quite some time. He rode the first few legs of the trip with us and then realized that we were going to the ski mountain like he was. He offered to show us the rest of the way. We had lunch with him in a café that Carly swore smelled like baby diapers and he proceeded to explain in a rough mixture of Berber and French that he was a ski instructor. He did manage to successfully guess my ski-boot size, but I never tested out his credentials past that. We went our separate ways when we reached the mountain. One of those encounters that you will always remember and yet never quite belive.

Oukaimeden the town was a mixture of Berber Bled and European-alps timeshare. The former looked as it always does, if a bit more snow covered, the later looked rather neglected. The ski season hadn’t really gotten going yet (and probably wouldn’t have been going at all except for the previous weeks snow storm) and most places were still closed up for the off season. We stayed in what once must have been a nice hotel but had fallen on some hard times relatively recently. It was huge and built in an “A” frame style. Each room had a nice sunroom and a glass wall that heated it up during the day. However, the bricks were falling off the side of the hotel and sliding down the bottom in heaps and the roof of the much touted indoor heated pool (our own reason for trying the place) had been caved in by heavy snowfall in the last winter and was now filled only with broken glass, snowdrifts and dead birds. The décor was nice with a large central fireplace centerpiece that they were too cheap to run in the off season. We bought our own food and ate oatmeal cookies instead of partaking in the overpriced menu, though when they realized that we were staying only one night they mysteriously included breakfast for free with the room.

After we settled in the room we went out to hit the slopes. We rented modern but slightly abused skis from a Berber outfit on the side of the road. The proprietor of the place knew a few other volunteers, (This prompted a theory that they must think all the best skiers at the mountain must speak Berber, or conversely, if you know how to ski you must know Berber since there are a bunch of us that have been and it no longer seems to surprise them) and gave us a pretty good rate on stuff. We skied for a few hours. Only a couple of small hills were open with enough snow to ski on. Carly, who is a champion skier, compared it to skiing on the bunny hill in the alps, with gorgeous mountain views all around but a slope that even I could handle with relative ease having skied about 4 times my whole life. The harassment wasn’t as bad as I had feared but there were plenty of sleazy guys around who would “monitor” you and help you with the lift or to ski if you needed it. This would have been equivalent of paying some random unwashed, unshaven guy you’ve never met, wearing a bright pink one-piece snowsuit to straddle you, which in the women’s case they probably would have happily done for free anywhere else in the country. I seriously will never understand French tourists obvious attraction to this kind of treatment.

We called it quits at sunset, returned the skis and relaxed. The next morning we elected not to do any skiing but instead rode the chairlift to the very top of the mountain to take in the views. It was absolutely spectacular. I can’t really do it justice but the it was moderately clear and the views of Mt. Toubkal were amazing. There is something about snowcapped jagged peaks that will always have the ability to take my breath away. Plus, someone had done a really neat map table at the top and I got the names for many of the mountains that I hadn’t known before. We rode back down and returned to the city without serious incident.
Carly on the Ski Lift

Part of the view

More of the view

Jebel Toubkal... highest mountain in North Africa

We spent the next couple of nights at a resort on the outside of Marrakech that happens to be owned and operated by a relative of Carly’s. It’s a completely comfortable place with awesome decoration and really cool atmosphere that caters to the jetsetters of Europe who have some free cash lying around. The owners make a really interesting couple. The wife runs the hotel while the husband runs an NGO designed to protect culture of local peoples, the environment and do development projects. He also glob-trots, teaching courses in anthropology and doing/overseeing projects in several countries. We had dinner with their family several nights and the conversations were some of the only times in Morocco where I felt intellectually stimulated and totally interested. Their children are multi-lingual and equally comfortable in French and English and had to do their best to remember to speak in English for those of us less well rounded. We also met some of the husbands colleagues from university in Sweden. They are a couple only a bit older than me who seem super nice and who are driving home to Sweden from Marrakech in a 1976 Saab. They are planning to visit me in the mountains when they return in March when I hope to get the story of the trip.

We also got to help decorate the Christmas tree! Yay for finally getting some yuletide feeling to this season!

On Christmas eve we returned to Marrakech proper to meet up with some other Volunteers for the holiday. Despite having some serious trouble with the hotel that almost ruined the mood we had very nice dinners in new restaurants on both Christmas Eve and Christmas (Italian on Christmas Eve and Lebanese on Christmas Day) and the company was much appreciated. We also did some good shopping (though I didn’t really buy anything) and some exploring of new places in the city. All in all it was a great holiday, though I do definitely miss my family and friends. Thanks for the e-mails, those of you that sent them!
Our Christmas Crew

I’ll be spending New Years here in the village because it happens to coincide this year with the biggest holiday in the Islamic world, (cleverly named “the big holiday”) and because so many people are on the roads now we are forbidden to travel for two weeks. So while you are all drinking champagne to ring in the new year I’ll be eating copious amounts of freshly slaughtered sheep (everyone is required to sacrifice a sheep) including parts that you would rather not know about. Interestingly, another part of the holiday is for some lucky young man to get dressed up in the still bloody skins (including a mask made of the facial skin) and run around town beating children with a stick. Nothing like a little animal sacrifice and some beatings to welcome in 2007!

The upside is that it IS 2007! You’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned work at all in this e-mail and that’s because there hasn’t really been any developments in that area that have been noteworthy. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows despite the wonderful holiday. I’ve been suffering from bouts of depression brought on by boredom and shattered illusions and am having trouble finding the motivation to do even the things that have previously brought me the most happiness, like writing letters, keeping my journal and reading. Hopefully, this too shall pass, but I’m definitely ready to finish up this experience and move on to the next part of my life. I’ve also been experiencing almost daily headaches that I’ve finally broken down and called the doctor about but thankfully they are quite mild thus far.

I’ve got some great stuff coming up though! As soon as the travel restriction lifts I’m meeting up with two of my best friends from school, Leo and Jess, who are the first (and only) people to visit me from the states. We have a great Atlantic coast trip planned. Then in February I’ll be using the last of my vacation time to visit southern Spain. (if you haven’t gotten me a Christmas present yet its not too late! Monetary contributions to my travel fund are always appreciated! ) Any recommendations on cheap places to stay in Seville or thereabouts, as well as what to see or do, would be welcome. Things are a bit hard to plan from here.

Whew… so this is quite long enough and I’ll let it go here. As always e-mails and letters are all welcome. In fact, I think that you should all resolve to send me something in the first few months of the new year! Also, come back soon to check out the illustrated version of this letter on my journal page, http://atibbs.blogspot.com . Until next time my friends, stay well.

Much love and luck to everyone!

Cheers!

-Andy

In Memory of the Turkey

2006-12-02T15:16:00.000+03:00

Hey All,

How goes? I’m killing time while I wait for the village shops to open so I can buy eggs to make myself some banana bread for breakfast tomorrow and some rice so I can make my dinner tonight. Having this computer at my house is a great blessing, despite its rather decrepit appearance. One man’s trash… Not that my dad would have ever throw it away. I hope that you all had an excellent Thanksgiving! More on mine later in the e-mail as I try vainly to keep things in chronological order… and a happy upcoming holiday season. I’m sure that I’ll grace your in-box with my presence at least once more before then but you never really know with the way that things have been going.

For those of you that haven’t had the opportunity to check it out yet I culled through the 800+ collective pictures from my parents visit here in October and I put the 15 or so best ones up on my journal page (http://atibbs.blogspot.com) for your viewing pleasure. Some day, when I have unlimited internet time and nothing better to do I may post the other 785 but don’t count on it anytime soon. Since I like having illustrated versions of these letters I’ll try to continue the practice, now that I’ve figured out the best way to post them. Check it out when you can. I’m also going to post some articles that I had published in the latest version of the in country magazine. I figure I won’t subject all of you to 3 multiple page e-mails all at the same time. I actually got some feedback for the Social Malfunction article. Apparently I hit the nail on the head. I’ve been trying to write more now since I expected to have lots of free time… and I do… but I’m still lacking the motivation and I have to spend a lot of time walking back and forth to the next village…

Around the Village…

The reason for that is that I’ve officially signed my life away and taken over financial responsibility for the projects of my former site-mate. He had to go home for medical and personal reasons (and ended up getting diagnosed with diabetes) and left two serious projects in limbo in his wake. I’ve spent the last month and a half catching up with the progress since he left, figuring out the budgets and otherwise picked up and tied off the loose ends. He had gotten them money to dig a new well and run piping to each household, and to re-build a washed out road and put in erosion control barriers. Much to my delight, the village association responsible for the projects really is responsible. This relegates me to the position of collecting and tabulating receipts, taking photos and generating meaningless reports to clutter the desks of my superiors and the donors… Oops… did I say that out loud? Anyway… I generally end up in this other town 2-3 times a week, once I got started. I have to go through it to get to my own town from the road anyway, so its really not that big of a deal.

So… where did I leave off last time. Ah yes… Ramadan and my parents visit. Well, Ramadan finished off with barely a whisper. There is a 2-3 day holiday at the end of the month of fasting which I was keen to observe but practically missed from the lack of excitement. From what I could see strolling through town and from my rooftop vantage point (my roof is a great place to observe the village as I have the highest house up the hillside and look down on almost everyone. Correspondingly my nearest neighbors down the hill have now closed in their courtyard… I honestly hope that this is a coincidence and that they are just closing it in because it makes it warmer in the winter, but one never knows in this culture.) it involved a lot of house to house visiting by the women of the community all dressed up in their holiday finery. For the sisters in my host family this involved matching neon green skirts and tops with hot pink headscarves. Someone call Cosmo magazine! I had a bowl of candy, some banana bread and hot water for tea in case my house was visited but it wasn’t to be. Nor was I invited anywhere else either. I guess that I just haven’t been here long enough… but its no big deal. Even given the snuff I feel much more a part of the community in the new place than I ever did in the old. After it was all said and done I got invited to participate in the “big” holiday at the beginning of January. Count me in!

Been to suq (market) a few more times since I first moved in. I still can’t get over how big and crazy a place it is. It happens on Saturdays and its really the only day that I can be guaranteed transportation to and from town so I try to take advantage of it. Even though it involves riding in a Mercedes van that carries cows and sheep as often as it does humans with 42 other people. You only think I’m joking. Somehow I always miss the memo about when the transit leaves on a given Saturday too and I’m the only one waiting out there for hours in the cold. C’est la vie. We do the 15 kilometers in a bit under an hour with various stops and starts and I’m deposited in a wonderland of beehive-esqe activity where 300+ shopkeepers all try and sell the same 12 things to several thousand other people. I know it doesn’t sound like a sound business principle but somehow it works. My current theory is that all business in Morocco is based on some kind of personal relationships and so, members of each town only go each Saturday to shopkeepers with whom they have done business before. These shopkeepers will extend credit only to members of that town and so… members of another town have to build a relationship with some other guy that sells the same stuff. Or… they could just all be very silly. Who knows? The other interesting factor is that we are so close to the city that there are always tourists flocking to the market on Saturday and its fun to watch them walk around, wide eyed. There is absolutely nothing for sale that any tourist would want… mostly cooking oil, aluminum pots and pans and plastic buckets, but still they come to get a taste of a life less privileged. Little do they know that they are the spectacle. Unfortunately, except for the few shopkeepers that know me, (yes I shop at the same ones as everyone else in the village) I get lumped in with the rest of the odd looking white people despite my much deeper insight. The fact that I speak (sort-of) the language doesn’t count for much.

Other than that I’ve just been kickin’ around the town. I’ve had tea in a few houses and met a few people. Had two community meetings where they presented me with a list of village priorities, voted according to need and desire. Basically my whole job handed to me on a silver platter. Unfortunately, due to time and money restrictions (even here the two are pretty much synonymous) and the fact that my boss doesn’t want me to put any effort into it I won’t be able to do much of what’s on the list… well.. nothing that’s only the list exactly. Instead I’ve been delegated as the “Monitoring and Evaluation” guru and I’ll be looking into the success of all the projects that came before me. I’m also running classes on how to write grants, starting with one to improves schools and education. Its 300,000Dhs (divide roughly by 10 for dollars) and the grant is due in by the 29th of December… Wish me luck. Better yet… wish them luck. They are doing great but, as per usual, the grant is held up by some officials someplace waiting for a stamp. At least my villagers are working on it.

As far as personal projects go I’ve been re-painting some trim in my house, my doors and shutters and making homemade curtains. Now if I could only get the place clean!

My new Curtians! Sewed them myself

For a few days at the end of October just after Ramadan I was graced with a visit from a guy that had just finished volunteering in Ghana named Johannes. I helped him make sense of his maps and figure out a short hike a few days up into the mountains. Apparently there aren’t very many of those in Ghana and he was quite impressed by the scene right in my backyard. Alas, the weather was crap and he spent a lot of time in shepherds huts and roadside guesthouses fighting some German tourists for space to dry his socks… but I think he had a good time still. While he was at my house we did a few short day hikes, made some good food and made fun of a lot of dumb PC rules. More of mine than his unfortunately. He gave me some good tips on what to see for my planned visit to Ghana sometime next fall.

In news from the last village… my site mate Mark had to go to court again for all the same stuff that we got arrested for last year. You think SOMEONE would have figured this out by now. Hello? Anyone? I talked to my host dad from the last village on the phone today and things are good with them. He wanted to know when I was visiting. I made some vague promises and actually do hold out some hope that I’ll make it back up there after service or that I’ll manage to complete the Toubkal circuit hike despite PC not allowing us to camp or hike anymore. (Yes… despite the fact that we are environment volunteers and we “work” in the park.)

At large in Morocco…

I’ve also taken a couple of trips outside the village since my parents visit for both work and pleasure. The first weekend in November I took a trip north to meet up with Carly in a town just east of Rabat on the Mediterranean coast called Kenitra. Its an ok city with not a lot going for it in terms of tourist attraction and yet it still manages to do ok for itself. In doing some pre-trip research I could only find one website and it was dedicated to the Kenitra clubbing scene. The purpose of the visit (other than to socialize) was to see some birds at a lake just in-land from the Med called Sidi Boughaba. Getting there was a bit tricky but we managed it and the park was fabulous. I couldn’t believe the infrastructure. There was a visitors center/environmental education center, picnic tables, pathways, even bird blinds. Of course it wasn’t run directly by the Moroccan version of the park service whom we environment volunteers are supposed to be working for, but is instead contracted out to a British NGO, the Society for the Protection of animals and Nature. (SPANA) The guy in charge of the center was super nice and gave us the educational tour and told us a bit about birds on the lake before setting us loose on our own. We saw some neat stuff including flamingos, and a couple of species of ducks that we hadn’t seen yet in Morocco. Despite the great birds I think that the best part of the outing each day was a fabulous picnic lunch with real turkey sandwiches. (a splurge at the “hypermarche”)!
View of the Lake

Overlooking the Estuary

Carly and I at the Lake

I was supposed to meet the new director of PC on his first official visit to a post the next weekend in Marrakech, but it wasn’t to be. The scheduling got messed up someplace and the Marrakech part of the trip got axed. Carly did get to meet with him though and I guess that her visit was a huge success. She says he’s a nice guy. PC officialdom here in Morocco played paranoid and only people who had been officially sanctioned and briefed and warned not to make any cheese jokes. (the guys last name is pronounced “chedder”) You can check out info from the visit in a not-very-well-written press release on the peace corps website (http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1164)

Instead, I ended up getting tapped to go to a conference in the capitol on the usage of biological and bio-mechanical erosion control techniques put on by an NGO promoting the use of Vetiver grass. (http://www.vetiver.org). Its non-native to Morocco and therefore not exactly 100% desirable in every aspect but there is no question that its good at what it does. It’s got an incredible root system that stabilizes roadway embankments and run-off ditches among other things. It acts as its own biological control and is non-invasive in the technical sense of the word. Its grazable, renewable, can be used as thatch on roofs, fuel for cooking, arts and crafts, purifies water, detoxifies old mine sites and quarries and any number of other potential benefits including being the base ingredient in many perfumes and colognes. Too good to be true? Probably… But I’m grateful for the opportunity to exercise the scientific aspect of my brain a bit. I’ve taken some plant samples home to start a nursery because my colleagues projects call for the grass’s use and USAID who is funding the project really wants to see it happen. The conference itself was a really interesting mix of Moroccan government and NGO participants and I spent most of the time trying to translate for the other to PCVs into English from the French. The organizers and presenters all spoke English and were either from Australia or the States though so that helped. We asked a lot of questions during breaks and after the fact and received a lot of promises of support.

Vetiver Grass

About a week after I finished with that it was time to take off for Thanksgiving celebrations being held this year at Carly’s house in Dayet Aoua, a village in the center of Morocco, just south of Fes. Carly had bought us a turkey and it was running around her yard when I arrived. Her host family was fattening it up for us with a bit of corn each day. I had volunteered to kill the bird this year since I hadn’t managed to participate at all last Thanksgiving. We celebrated on Saturday because it was easiest in terms of getting all the participants there and using a minimal amount of vacation time. 4 other volunteers managed to come. The big day rolled around and Carly’s host dad “helped” me do the deed… Ok… Well, actually he did the deed but allowed me to hold the neck and give it a last ceremonial chop. I’m not real sure the way that they kill animals is the most humane. We made sure that we were properly facing Mecca and he prayed first but in the end it took the turkey the better part of 20 minutes to fully bleed out, stop walking/thrashing around and kick the bucket. Carly and I plucked the bird and then her host mom helped us remove the innards. I prepped the bird to go into the tiny sheet-metal oven… We used a stuffing of oranges, onions and herbs and basted with apple juice and broth. Mmm… Fruity… I must say that given the conditions and seeing that it was my first attempt to cook a turkey under any circumstances that it came out fabulous!

Me Holding the Bird

This was the hardest part

Carly and I... Almost there!

The part where everyone else starts

Little Butter, Little spices... Little gross

Not much clearance in the oven but smells delicious!

Carving the Bird

We also managed to use the same oven and a two burner stove to crank out the other necessities of thanksgiving including apple sauce, apple pie, pumpkin pie, sesame green beans, garlic/rosemary mashed potatoes, creamed corn casserole, stuffing, turkey gravy, chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies, and salad w/dressing. All completely from scratch. We even had home made liquor! Ha! Definitely a PC thanksgiving but I couldn’t have asked for better and everything tasted wonderful, just like it would have at home. The only problem is that it made me want to see all my friends.

The Full Spread

Pie, Sweet Pie

Our Thanksgiving Family

Hmm… well I guess that’s about it for me for this edition of my life. I hope to hear from all of you soon. I’ve got a touch of holiday homesickness and PC and Morocco are still managing to get on my nerves quite regularly. Six months left… Got some interesting stuff coming up including a visit from some of my best friends and (hopefully) a ski trip over Christmas. Please (!) write me and let me know how things are. Regular mail or e-mail are both fine!

Till Next time… Stay well
Much love and Luck in Everything
Cheers!
-Andy

Social Malfunction

2006-12-01T15:32:00.000+03:00

Social Malfunction
Andrew Tibbs

Living this solitary Peace Corps life has changed me. Certainly I'm stronger now in many ways. More independent, more self-sufficient. Definitely more capable of finding solutions to problems on my own. I'm seriously going to rock the charades tournament at the next block party I'm invited to... provided of course that I feel like going. And there's the catch. All this new strength, independence and self-sufficiency has come at a price. I've forgotten how to be social.
I mean, I'm a hermit now in the most classic sense of the word. I snarl at little kids that play by my front door. I live so far out in the boondocks that I rarely get any visitors and, when I do, I usually can't wait for them to leave. I've forgotten completely how to make conversation for more than five minutes at a stretch, probably in part because any word longer than four letters leaves me tongue tied and gasping for breath. I purposely go out of my way to avoid places where I might see people I know. What the hell is wrong with me? I didn't used to be like this.
I had a blast in college. Joined a bunch of clubs, partied, played random pickup games on the quad with total strangers. My roommate and I were famous for our dry humor and always had quick sarcastic comments and thoughtful turns of phrase on the tip of the tongue. Now whenever I meet up with a friend I haven't seen in a while I find myself staring off into space and inserting long, awkward pauses into the conversation so that I have time to formulate my next thought. I complain about the same things over and over just to kill time.
I don't think that I'm alone in this. I've heard tons of stories of other volunteers who have felt the same way to one degree or another whether they realized it or not. Two days ago I talked to a friend that had had a low key gathering of people at her house. They had a good time but when transit problems delayed the departure of the guests for just an hour or two the hostess admitted that she had been ready to pull her hair out. Over two extra hours? Like me she wonders if she'll ever feel normal social emotions again. Another confession: Talking on the phone with a volunteer who had discovered that a friend of hers had been in her town and yet, had neglected to let her know so that they could meet for lunch or something. You tell me if this is normal behavior given how little time we get to spend together as it is. Shouldn't we WANT to get together whenever chance happens to allow it? Still more evidence; I was in Marjane and spotted another volunteer that I had met once before at the other end of an isle. I waved and she looked right at me, smiled... then turned her back and walked away. Now perhaps there is some innocent explanation for this. Perhaps she didn't have contacts in that day and mistook me for some sleazy red-headed Berber man hitting on her in the supermarket. (because this happens all the time I'm sure... I only wish I was kidding) Perhaps if I had followed up we would have had an opportunity to catch up on what had been going on since we had last seen each other... but I didn't follow up. I didn't feel like it.
I could go on and on but the point is that there is something about Morocco, about living the way we live, that is killing our social instinct. (too much fresh air perhaps?) Here we are, already bound to a common cause and sharing at least some interests by default, yet we rarely seek out chances to discuss them with each other. Why? I wish I knew. I nearly always come to regret the missed opportunities to chat with a friend or acquaintance right after it happens, even if the only conversation I'm capable of having at this point involves my nodding off and drooling on myself in company. Yet I pass up those opportunities all the time. I can only speculate as to the reasons.
Firstly, let me point out that while this is a problem that scares me when I stop to give it some thought, I'm in no danger of becoming the next Ted Kaczynski. (Though I did draft this essay on a manual typewriter in a one room cabin in the middle of nowhere....) I'm not psychotic and I WANT to be social. I am constantly surrounded by people here in the village and I have meaningful relationships of some sort with many of them. There is the bread lady, the egg guy, the shop keeper, the butcher, the guy-that-sits-on-the-rock-all-day, etc. It’s just that, well, they're all Berbers. Don't get me wrong. I like the Berbers. Really. Let’s not kid ourselves here, though, between their worldview and my language skills, conversation with most of them is like talking to pre-schoolers. They are very sharp, friendly, intelligent, often precocious and yet you end up pointing out the obvious a lot and are limited to a very finite number of topics. "How is the weather today?" (Umm... it’s raining) "It’s hot." (Yup, sure is.) "What time did you get up this morning?" (Wouldn't you like to know?) "You married yet?" (Ahh, women. Nothing but trouble yek?) "Will you fast during Ramadan?" (As far as you're concerned. HAHAHA) and my all time favorite... "Can you get me a visa?" (No, and if I could the only reason that I would give it to you would be to strand you in downtown New York alone after dark... OK... I'm really not that mean I swear but I have thought about it. Does that make me a bad person?) So I'm definitely not having regular, deep, meaningful conversation with anyone, which has in turn, negatively affected my confidence when I CAN have them.
Another reason is related but more direct. I live in a news void. At home I'm subject to 24/7 media bombardment and its pretty certain that if something big happens I'll know about it within 25 seconds and be discussing it with friends via phone, e-mail, or in person, pretty much immediately. Here its likely to be 25 days before I hear anything. (with the possible exception of volunteers' social lives, news of which travels at warp speed) Thus, I worry about starting conversations involving current events only to later discover that its actually old news. Add to this the fact that phone calls cost more than food and until recently I lived six hours from the nearest computer and I'm left with a dilemma whenever I do learn something gab worthy; "Do I call someone about this... or eat this week?" (and some weeks it’s been close) None of this is calculated to make me feel less socially inept.
I also feel like the reason that many of us can only barely tolerate visitors long term has to do with our coping mechanisms. We've all developed these. Routine ways of doing things that get us from point A. to point B. Some of these things might come off as a tad OCD and not completely sane in the eyes of a potential house guest and so we are forced to switch out of our comfort zone for the duration of their stay. I'll freely admit that I sing out loud while doing housework and have gotten some strange looks. We have kooky organizational schemes that involve things like leaving a 35cm patch of floor empty, or a certain coat hook unused for no reason, or sweeping the floor only on every third Tuesday. These are things that a house guest might unknowingly violate or tamper with. When life is already as absurd as it is here these little things make all the difference between comfortable insanity and screaming loonity (yes I made this word up). Since we think we can't explain them, the only way to insure their sanctity is to keep people out altogether.
Finally, we live in a society which doesn't understand the concepts of privacy or personal space but come from a society where these things are valued above all others. I don't care what Peace Corps says, that's a hard switch to make. When we do have moments alone we want to capitalize on them to the best of our ability. Having people around might cut down on the number of invitations to drink tea flavored sugar water in the short term, but it also increases visibility and leads to fewer private moments later on. Especially if some of your guests happened to be of the opposite sex. Hard to say which is better sometimes.
So, am I damaged for life? I hope not. I hope that when I get off the plane back home everything will feel perfectly normal and I'll laugh at myself for worrying about it. I hope that I can just slip back in there and guilt-trip all my friends into picking up my tab for a few nights out because I've just spent two years in a dry Muslim country. (HA) In the meantime maybe we can all try to be a little more extroverted so that when we do get home we don't have to wonder what we might have missed while we were busy categorizing flip flops all alone. (This pair for the shower, this one for suq, one for my salon, this one for rock climbing...) It should be easy once we all realize we are in the same boat. (sinking ship?) Next time you're in someone’s neighborhood give them a ring. You don't have to hug them or anything but a little conversation can go a long way. Just make sure you don't hang your coat on the third hook from the left.

In the Beginning

2006-12-01T15:30:00.000+03:00

In the Beginning
A Look Back
Andrew Tibbs
I guess you could say that joining the Peace Corps was something of a split second life decision for me. Making split second decisions on what to do with your life for two years may seem somewhat risky, especially when you're considering leaving civilization behind. For me though, it was all a matter of timing. I had more or less finished college but was certainly not ready to make any serious life shaping plans. I had no idea yet what shape of a life I even wanted. So, I went searching for something to do with myself and wound up on my college Peace Corps recruiters doorstep. I liked what I heard there. It was a two year delay on real life, more time to think things over, while at the same time getting me out there, helping people, making a difference. With luck I would make contacts in the international community that could help guide my vague notions of my future and shape them into something feasible. I signed on the dotted line
Or tried to. The Peace Corps application process was a maze of paperwork, interviews and medical clearances that would put astronaughts pre-flight checkups to shame. A year or so after beginning I was ready to give up but pretty much that very same day they called and told me I was going to Morocco. This came as a small shock to me since I had been preparing to go to Jamaica, but hey, I was desperate to get going somewhere... anywhere where I could use my fresh minted, hard earned college degree. Anywhere not Target, where I had been killing time while I waited.
I was definitely excited. At least once I figured out where Morocco actually was. One of my friends wondered if there would even be much need for Peace Corps in a country full of casinos and looked after by a good looking European princess. Ahh, if only. Instead I was off to do environment work in the national park system in a different monarchy on the North West coast of the African continent. Monaco it definitely was not. I tried to find out all I could of course. Travel books and essays, guide books, news articles. Whatever I could get my hands on really. It was all interesting but kind of vague for my purposes. I couldn't find a single thing written by someone who had gone just to hang out with the locals. I resolved to keep my attitude as accepting as possible and my expectations minimal. Ready for anything. World here I come.
Nor was information very forthcoming from Peace Corps. Instead of sending me stuff they asked for still more details about my life so that the "staff could be better prepared for our arrival." The packing list had a million and one items and a note saying that we may or may not need any of it but they can highly recommend at least the underwear. The recurring theme of all correspondence from them was; "Morocco is the cold country with the hot sun." Well, Great... what does that mean exactly and what should I bring? Calls to the information desk never breached the voice mail wall. Clothing was supposed to be "business casual" which left me wondering what type of rural African village this really was. Eventually, I just threw a bunch of stuff into a bag using the "little bit of everything" approach and two rolls of duct tape to cover the contingencies. I could barely lift the thing but in true boy scout fashion I was prepared.
My friends and family were supportive, though now I realize that they no doubt thought I had gone off the deep end. Or at least further off than usual. Here I was packing off to a Muslim country at a time when tensions were high, opinions were hot, and understanding was minimal. I figured that this made my mission more important. Things couldn't be as bad as all that. I exchanged addresses, shot rolls of photos to decorate the walls of my mud hut (see, already a use for the duct tape) and extracted promises from absolutely everyone I knew even vaguely to keep in touch. I must have known subconsciously even then how important these links would be down the line. A few low key (mostly) parties and tearful goodbyes later I began the first leg of my new life. A thirty minute flight to Philadelphia for "staging."
Staging was a crazy experience. I hadn't even left the States yet and I was already in over my head. I had met a new friend at the airport baggage claim (she and I were the only ones with 300 pound bags on the thirty minute flight from Boston. Peace Corps seemed a fairly safe bet.) and was nearly overwhelmed by the relief of finally being able to truly share the experience with someone who was actually doing it. Before that moment I hadn't even realized that I had been so stressed out and nervous. There were two more recruits in the airport van to the hotel and the four of us got lunch together and talked shop as if we actually knew what to expect. It made me happy that I wasn't the only nervous one there.
Activities included myriad ice-breakers and get-to-know-you games which served only to make me jealous of everyone else's qualifications. There were people that had already lived in Morocco, people that had worked at Jane Goodal's field research station, people that fed me homemade chex-mix while calmly relating that this would be their eighth trip to Africa. There were old people and young people, nurses and forest service employees, experienced and inexperienced, published scholars, married couples and single people. I wasn't even the only red-head. 48 people all told, and though I didn't realize it at the time they were all just as clueless as I was. When it came to this experience we were all equally green.
To be honest, I don't even remember what we learned at staging. Only snapshot images of bright colored maps and photos of Morocco and an energetic man (who talked to groups like us for a living) explaining the basic ins and outs of living in a culture that's not even close to anything like you might have imagined, so that hopefully we wouldn't embarrass ourselves or our nation in the first five minutes off the plane. No nose rings, no motorcycles, no pressure. Got it.
Then the long ride over the Atlantic and WAY out of my comfort zone. I think that peer-pressure to be strong was the only thing that kept us all from screaming. It certainly wasn't the in-flight movie. I pretended to sleep but couldn't have actually managed it if someone had shot me up with elephant tranquilizer. When we arrived and walked down the steps to the tarmac it was into the light of the rising African sun. I had a silly urge to commemorate the occasion somehow so when I got to the bottom step I jumped and hit the ground of my new country, my new home, with both feet. Perhaps only the watchful security official noticed my over-enthusiastic arrival but it was still worthwhile. I had cleared the hurdles, stuck with it and made it happen. I had arrived to make my difference.
Now, 18 months and many stories later I realize that those first hurdles were the shortest and the easiest to overcome. Making it here was just the beginning. But I've also learned what adaptability really means. For one thing, it's impossible to have no expectations. For better or worse experience has repeatedly shattered mine. For another, except for the duct tape I packed mostly the wrong stuff, but in my defense I'm not sure there is "right stuff" and I've become an expert at improvising. Of those 48 odd strangers from Philly only 25 remain here and they are all friends. Some great ones. We've all taught each other something by now and none of us probably would have made it alone. Ohh, and Morocco really is the cold country with the hot sun. You'll just have to visit and see for yourself.

More Vacation Photos

2006-11-13T20:25:00.000+03:00

Waterfall Pictures

2006-11-06T22:26:00.000+03:00

Some shots of the Cascades d'ozud (which I'm not spelling right) Pretty Awesome.

My Parents Saw the King

2006-10-26T13:44:00.000+03:00

Hey guys... I'm working on the picutres for this but things have been a bit hectic here this last week so I'll try to do it saturday... Sorry for the delay.

Hey All,

How are things going? I apologize as it’s been more than a month since I last managed to write. It’s been kind of a busy time for me with a new site placement, getting to know people and surroundings, and a visit from the parents. Good times! First though let me reiterate that I would LOVE to hear what’s been going on with all of you lately. I get so little news so feel free to write me. I have internet with remarkable regularity now (At least once a week!) and a stable post office box with now strings attached. If you need/want the address feel free to let me know.

So, as I said things have been busy for me. Of course, busy in Morocco is something of a relative term. I suppose but I've gotten so used to it that just a few "events" a week makes it seem busy. I'm going to be so screwed up when I get home that someone should sell tickets to watch me for the first few days. You never really think about culture shock going the other way. Then, most people don't spend quite this long away from their own culture. But I digress.

When last I wrote I had just moved into my new place. Now, having lived there for a few months I still feel like I 'm just beginning to get to know the place. I still haven't met too many people despite trying to put myself out there every day that I'm in the village for at least an hour or two. This is not as easy as it sounds. "Tassa," as I've affectionately taken to calling it, lacks the centrally located meeting place that my other village had. Generally, I have been just going to the shop to meet people but most families send their kids to buy stuff so its not really all that great a method. I have been doing alright with the kids though. My efforts haven't really been helped out by the onset of the month of Ramadan which started in the last week of September and ends around the 23rd of October. While it means that more people are at home in the village it also means that the level of outdoor activity drops significantly. As an example my host family watches at least 12 hours of TV per day. Annoyingly the TV room is located directly beneath my bedroom but at least they go to bed fairly early. Ramadan itself has been going pretty well. I fasted for the first part of the month just because its such a good integration tool and conversation starter (During Ramadan fasting is often the ONLY conversation starter.) but I stopped when my parents came to visit a couple of weeks in. (but don't tell my villagers!)

I must say that while meeting people has been more difficult than I had hoped the people that I have managed to contact I've been able to establish pretty good relationships with. It helps being able to speak (more or less anyway) the language when you arrive instead of dealing with a six month learning curve. It has also helped to have the advice of the volunteer that lived in my village before me. All this to say that I'm happy there whether I manage to get any work done or not, and in just a few months I've managed to get myself more connected and more a part of the community than I did in a year and a half in my former location. My host family seems too poor to feed me on the same type of regular basis that my last family managed during Ramadan, but I have eaten down there a few times. Have also had some good conversations with my host dad and mom about the goings on in Morocco and in the world in general, observed my host moms cooking techniques and played endless camp games with my siblings over bits of hard candy that I've managed to smuggle the ones that aren't fasting. Good times all around.

My house is a couple of small rooms on the roof of my landlord's house. I like it but the emphasis is definitely on the word small and the rooms are connected by an exterior courtyard instead of an interior hallway. The centerpiece of the courtyard is my landlord's skylight and I can communicate with the people down below quite easily. The kitchen is a wonderful improvement on my old one but I'm definitely lacking in adequate storage space for all my clothes and belongings in the bedroom. I have light bulbs now, which is great but I don't actually have a lot of electronics to use any more and I find that I rather miss my candles when I read in the evening time. My bed doubles as a couch and I picked up a couple of stools and a small table at the local market town to round out the furnishings of the place. I like to sit out on the courtyard in the evenings after they turn out the streetlights and watch the stars. It's an amazing place. The sun rises on one end of the valley and sets at the other which does neat things with the light. Everywhere you look there is mountains and trees and green. There is a Barbary sheep reserve at one end of the valley and I'm going to try and get up there one day with my host dad. If I stand up on the roof I can even get cell phone reception which means that I'm so connected now comparatively speaking that I hardly know what to do with myself. (of course this isn't all great… there were some advantages to not being reachable when it comes to PC and its policies).

I've been killing the free moments between my integration efforts catching up on my journal, exploring my surroundings (there's a neat fire tower up on the mountain behind my house) and picking up on my other writing. (I've decided to try and write a few articles just for my own enjoyment as well as some for the PC morocco volunteer magazine) I've tried to make myself more organized with some good results but I'm not sure how long it will last. My parents helped me pick up some much needed furniture and materials for some home improvements and brought some snacks from the US. So, for the last week I've been painting and sewing curtains and eating cheese-its!. They also brought me a broken down computer that still works for writing and the occasional bootleg DVD movie, so that’s cool too.

Of course, better than the material goods that I scored when they visited was the visit itself. It was so GREAT to have them here for a few days. It was nice that I finally got to show them the things that I've seen and done and experienced first hand instead of only trying to explain it with words. They were very excited to hear and see all the good things and very understanding of the problems that we in PC face with PC itself and with Morocco. I definitely appreciated their support and suggestions. I'll tell a little bit about the trip and I'll get the illustrated version (from the 700 or so pictures that they took while they were here since my camera is still in the shop) up on my journal site (http://atibbs.blogspot.com) as soon as I get a chance. (sometime this week)

I took the train to meet them at the airport in Casablanca where we rented a car from a very nice man named Tyeeb who met them there. We traveled to Meknes and started getting caught up on old times in the car. The first night we met up with my girlfriend Carly at the Meknes Ibis hotel and ate at McDonalds. Normally McDonalds wouldn't have been my first choice of restaurants but because it was Ramadan not much else was open to us. This was to become a recurring theme of the trip, though I think that we did very well in overcoming the difficulty.

We checked out the main sights in Meknes the next day, including a neat mosoleum where they took the picture that was on the front cover of my guidebook and a giant gateway built by a tyrant that caused the deaths of thousands of people and never managed to actually bring the city to the prominence that he envisioned.

After we finished there we moved on to lunch at Volubulis, the ruins of the southernmost roman outpost at the height of their empire. It's famous for its mosaics and its bronze statues. The best of these have, of course, been moved to a museum in Rabat but the mosaics that remained were indeed impressive. There were a few other tour groups there but the site was quite large and we weren't crowded. Like most attractions in morocco though it definitely lacked in interpretive qualities. There were no maps and only very few signs telling us what things were. My mom and I had done some research before arriving there but it was hard to match it to details on the ground. We probably could have learned more if we had hired a guide at the gate but my distrust and distaste for Moroccan hecklers didn't really even allow me to consider this possibility. We did alright on our own though. It was a neat site but the day was really hot and hazy and we moved on to Fez (Fes) fairly early in the evening.

We did hire a guide in Fez and after some difficulty finding him he led us all through the old city Medina where we saw mausoleums, centuries old universities that taught religion, astronomy and mathematics all under the same roof(makes you wonder what happened there…), the ancient tanneries where workers cure and dye hides in foul mixtures of pigeon excrement the same way that they have for centuries and, of course, had tea at a carpet merchant (but didn't buy anything). It was a pretty impressive place.

When we finished there we moved on to Carly's village where we had a few days of Berber culture and her host family was nice enough to have all of us over for the breaking of the fast meal at sunset. This was an interesting and rewarding experience, especially for my parents, but also for me since I've been trying to experience the breaking of the fast in as many different regions as possible. Her host mom put out a fantastic spread and Carly and I made a stir-fry for the later evening meal as our contribution to the meal and as a thank you. We used Carly's house as a jumping off point for a tour of nearby lakes and some bird watching as well as a shopping excursion to the town of Asrou and an afternoon picnic in the cedar forest surrounding the town. Mom really enjoyed the Barbary monkeys that we discovered taking advantage of the tourists beside the road. (and you wonder why we have 700 pictures).

From there we moved on to the Cascades d'Ouzoud. I had never been to the region and I wanted to see these waterfalls at the same time. It was a long days drive and more difficult to get to that I anticipated but my dad held up well behind the wheel and it was totally worth the trip. Thanks to a tip from a volunteer in the region we got set up with a decent hotel and Carly and I made friends with the owner as well. My parents also finally got to experience some real, non-Ramadan, Moroccan cuisine and my mom enjoyed bargaining for trinkets in the shops beside the trails. The road there twisted and turned its way through some beautiful gorges and the falls themselves were spectacular. We spent a bit longer there than I had planned because we were captivated by them and because it was a great spot to just lounge and relax.

As a result we rolled into my village in the late evening after dark after a shopping excursion to pick up some goods in Marrakech on the way. My parents enjoyed spending some time exploring my town and visiting my house. We didn't really get any invitations to eat anywhere so I arranged for food for them at the hostel where they were staying. My mother helped me organize stuff in my house and find some shelves for my clothes in the nearby market town. It was nice to have them there and get them to see the place, but I was at a loss for what I should do with them there otherwise. We did manage to stay busy though. 

After a few days in my site we went to Marrakech in the early afternoon and checked into our hotel near the center of town. Marrakech is my town now but I haven't really had that much of an opportunity to get to know it yet. Still, we visited some of the bigger tourist attractions (and discovered that some of them were not as interesting as we might have hoped) and since several of us were feeling a bit under the weather we decided to take it easy for the afternoon and just hang out around the pool until evening. After sunset we went out and explored the markets and endless vendors of the medina and watched some of the street performances on the square over delicious ice-cream. We would return to Marrakech but first we went to check out my old haunt of Ouarzazate.

As it happened the king was visiting Ouarzazate to do a number of things and we had trouble finding a hotel room as a result. It all worked out great though because we had to stay in a couple of really nice places that I might not have discovered otherwise. Our time in Oz was relaxing and I spent some time shopping with my mom in a lot of the little tourist boutiques, showing them were I had spent a lot of time and checking my mailbox there. We even saw the king as he drove by twice! Not many volunteers' parents can say that they've had that opportunity! It also meant that they got to see Oz at its best, with all the flags flying and all the fountains working and all the buildings and storefronts newly painted.

We spent our last day together back in Marrakech expanding on our previous experiences and getting me a few more things for my house that we had missed the first time.

All told it was an amazing experience and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. As I said, look for the illustrated version soon. As it is its time for me to go buy my vegetables and catch my transit van back up the hill. You're probably relived anyway since this has dragged on a bit. Still, I hope that it finds you well and happy and I hope to hear from you all soon. Stay well.
Much love and luck in everything!
Cheers!
-Andy

Nomad No More

2006-09-20T16:04:00.000+03:00

Hey All,

How are things going. Thanks to everyone who got back to me on my latest, semi-frantic e-mail. I'm happy to report that things have definitely taken a turn for the better in the weeks since I dashed that one off. If the experience reminded me of anything meaningful, its that I still have great friends who care about me and I definitely, definitely appreciate that. Of course, that being said, really things couldn't't go anywhere BUT up either.

So, I've got a new place to live now. Same national park but this time on the north side of the mountains instead of the south side where I was before. As the crow flies its really only about 20 kilometres or so over the big hills to where I lived before. Of course that 20 kilometers is a 9 hour hike and generally takes two days. Definitely have plans to do that in the future if I can arrange for people to go with me. There seems to be no shortage of people on this side of the mountains who are interested in doing so. Sounds great to me! The name of my new village is Tassa Ouergaine and I'll get into it in more detail in a bit. First though, let me chit chat for a bit about the month of August.

If I had to choose a word to describe my life this August it would be NOMADIC. This begins as something of a novelty but by the end of the month I was definitely ready to have someplace to settle down. Thankfully, the month was broken up in the middle by a vacation that I already had planned to take to the north before trouble struck. Before that I also got to attend a few meetings in Marrakesh with the ministry officials, which turned out to be a good thing because now I still work for them. Unfortunately this meant that I had to spend a couple of nights in Marrakesh during the very hottest part of the summer. I passed them on the roof of our usual PC hangout and, as usual, met up with a bunch of other PCV's that were swinging through. Its times like this in life that you really come to appreciate that built in support network. I got lots of sympathy and offers of help. To be completely honest though there was also some second guessing and people that wondered why I had acted the way I did instead of just ignoring the threat as the probably harmless scribble that it was? Well... lots of reasons and I still don't regret them.

Anyway... the meetings were with the BIG boss of the ministry for this region. Which means that I've now met absolutely everyone at the office in Marrakech EXCEPT the person with whom I'm supposed to be working with most closely. Go figure. The meeting itself was pretty worthless. Lots of posturing and promises of support that were pretty much exactly the same as they were last year at this time. I'll be impressed when it actually starts to manifest itself. At the time of the meeting I figured that I probably wouldn't even be in the park anymore so I was only interested in stealing project ideas from the other volunteers that were presenting their progress and plans. I'm still not sure the best method to do the Environmental Education that has become our focus. I got to see a few of the new group of Environment people that I helped teach during training and offer them advice on the progress of their first few months. The group for Toubkal park seems to be pretty motivated and now I'm excited to be close enough to work with them on making their plans a reality, since working with my own plans will be, at best, a difficult propisition in the time remaining. At the end of the meetings our assistant program manager from PC went with people up into the hills to visit their sites, meet with associations and generally iron out any difficulties that popped up in their first few months at site. I broke off from the group and started my vacation 3 days early just so that I would have someplace to go that wasn't quite as hot and wouldn't require a trip back up the mountains, only to come down again within the week. I was also excited to see my friend Carly, who had offered me a place to stay for a bit and a number of other people that were converging on her house for parts of the week. I had a plan to do some work while I was there and earn back some vacation time as well.

The bus ride was long but uneventful, though I had to scramble to find a bus that wasn't full. (next time I'm buying tickets in advance during tourist season, though its generally not a problem!) and I arrived tired but unscathed. The first week was a good time, meeting up with other PCV's from the north and other travellers like myself, cooking some good food (awesome carrot cake!) and working out still more details of the bird survey project that we're still trying to get off the ground. I'm sorry to say that after this latest session we decided that its simply not worth our while to continue the project because PC isn't able to keep its promises to us. Despite their constant assurances that its the best proposal they have ever seen they seem unable to actually admit that its good enough to submit for consideration, suddenly they don't have money to pay for travel that we've asked for all along, and they want us to get a local organization they won't even let us meet with to take complete ownership of the project. Sometimes I think that I will never understand. Another good project to the PC graveyard... At least I know that I'm an OK grant writer! The other work that we managed was an environmental education hike with several young boys from Carly's village. It was awesome. Where all my (and her) previous efforts with young boys have been nothing but trouble we discovered that with a small group and less materials to fight over they are much better. We also had the advantage of having one very well behaved older boy to ride herd on the younger more troublesome ones so that we didn't have to spend as much time doing discipline. Language was still something of a problem and the hike might have been a tad bit too long for the age group but I think that everyone still had fun and it made me feel like it really was possible to do EE here. The best part of course was that between these two projects I got some vacation time returned... Mission Accomplished.

For the second week of vacation we departed for the village of Chefchouen in the north. Notorious for its Kif (marijuana) crops which produce 2/3rds of Europe's supply and a third of the worlds total, its located in the Rif mountains south of Tangier. No worries though, we went for the scenery and the hiking -- which were also spectacular -- and avoided the chemical based fun. All the buildings in the Chefchouen Medina are "bluewashed," or painted blue with a kind of dye that runs when its wet so its not really like paint. We were unsure of why they did this exactly since it seems to be a lot of work (it rained a couple of the days that we were there and we saw lots of people re-applying the dye) but speculated that someone started it and it got mentioned in a guidebook so now they keep it going for tourism. It could also have some historical cause because the region has a different history than much of the rest of the country. It was controlled by the Spanish instead of the French so the main European language spoken there is Spanish (and just when I was getting back into French!) and the Berbers and Arabs of the region (its debatable whether its a Berber or Arab town but the main language spoken in it is Arabic. Since I only speak Berber and French I was pretty much useless but I was impressed by my companion's language abilities!) maintained a near constant rebellion against the Spanish occupation, whereas the rest of the country mounted a more passive resistance against the French. Still, the Spanish did manage to leave some influences behind, despite the hatred for them, namely language and architecture (there is lots of Spanish tile roofs... many of which were merely facades on regular Moroccan buildings. Also for tourists??). I found it all quite interesting and would love to learn more. Maybe someday. For now I have to make do with what I gleaned from the rather low budget museum displays inside the local kasbah in the former Spanish prison building. (who's art wing was the most interesting aspect actually, though the art had nothing to do with Morocco or Spain but rather Hindu religion and Tarot cards...) The town has a lot of potential to be truly amazing and I think that they are on their way to realizing it but there are still a lot of Moroccanesque annoyances... namely a complete lack of understanding of customer service and VERY pushy marketing of restaurants and shops. The food was OK for standard Moroccan fare. Its a shame that tourists like the stuff so much because I'm sure sick of it and wouldn't have minding a cheeseburger or a real pizza a couple of nights. The shopping was excellent though, the main product being light woven blankets in a lot of colors, and it was a great time going from shop to shop looking for the best ones and the best bargains. They were so cheap that even I could afford a few. We did a day hike looking for pot fields to take pictures that would shock the parents and actually found some, had a good picnic lunch and great conversation. Perhaps the best part was that my hotel room was only big enough for my bed. J

After the Chefchouen experience I returned to Ouarzazate where I learned that I was getting placed in a small town called Aguerzega about an hour outside of town. As you know from my last e-mail I was excited by this placement because it meant the easing of my transportation and communications difficulties without any major changes in my group of friends and acquaintances, my contacts in OZ or my post office arrangements. Unfortunately, I couldn't move in immediately because my landlord/the president of the village association that I was going to be working with was out of town for the week. Despite this I had a very positive meeting with the project team that the regional volunteers are working with and started making contacts. I spent the intervening week living at another volunteer, Adam's, site which was only a few kilometers from where I would be moving to. During the week we went for hikes in the region, explored my new suq town I brought some of my stuff with me there because moving to that town was such a sure thing. We visited the house that would be mine (full of several tons of drying almonds at that time) and met my neighbors. When the week finished I returned to OZ for a few days to wait for my Program Manager to contact the president. In the interim I waited and sweltered and was thankful for nightly thundershowers, which are a rarity in the south. Apparently, I was thankful a bit too early. Mother nature threw a wrench into my plans with those storms. Augerzega was severely damaged by the weather and the villagers asked that I not be moved in until they had rebuilt some. It didn't matter anyway because in that state it no longer met the safety and security criteria of PC. (no one mentioned what would have happened if my landlord had been around when I was SUPPOSED to move in)... So... back into limbo I went and out went my distressed e-mail...

Within a few days though I had a new home and a new plan. Aicha (the assistant to my boss) was going to be doing visits in the region the first week of September and Mark would be one of the people she was visiting. At that time we would retrieve my stuff from my house and she wouldn't leave me until I was moved in on THIS side of the mountains. Sweet... now I could bring my bed and my oven and not have to worry about paying an arm and a leg. A few more days in OZ and we were on our way. Had some interesting conversations about religion and terrorism with her on the way up and back and over the next few days that we were together. It turns out that the police that had been assigned to the region specifically to protect Mark now that I had had this incident had discovered two members of the terrorist cell that they just busted (a group with ties to Iraq supposedly) hiding disguised as camping tourists at the lake by my village. Perhaps I did have some reason to worry after all? I'll never know I suppose. The move went off without a hitch.

Now I've been here for about a week. Yet to make any significant contacts in the new place, though I keep trying to put myself out there. I e-mailed the last volunteer to live there. She finished at the beginning of June. I have power and phone reception and I can definitely get to Marrakesh and back in a long day of traveling. Pretty nice compared to where I was before. The market town is named Asni (south of Marrakesh on the maps). Its huge compared to what I'm used to and I can use the computers here (but don't tell PC). Have a new Post office box that I urge you all to write to! I will write back I promise! The address is as follows, though I'm going to send it in a separate e-mail as well so no one has any excuse to miss it! My town is beautiful, right next to a nature reserve for Barbary sheep that consists of a near vertical cliff face. There is a river and lots of apple trees. My house is a bit smaller than before (which I didn't think was possible) but I've settled in well there. I have a bedroom and a nice kitchen and bathroom all based around a central courtyard that is the roof of the house of the family down below me. No running water but the tap isn't far... I'm excited and scared to be starting over. Hopefully I'll be able to at least participate in regional projects

OK... well... getting long winded so I'll wrap it up, since I'm into September's news anyway. I'm interested, as always, in hearing whats up with you all at home. Please, send letters or e-mails! Also, there seems to be some problem with the post office not shipping packages to morocco anymore so I'll let you know more info on that when I can. If someone wants to ask around at the post office over there I would really appreciate it. Letters though, still get through fine so keep-em comin'!

Here is my new Address

Andrew Tibbs
B.P. 196
Asni, 42150
Al Haouz
Maroc (Morocco)

Till next time, Stay well...
Love and luck in everything!
CHEERS!
-Andy

A Distant War Comes Kocking

2006-08-07T16:45:00.000+03:00

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~

Village and Villagers

2006-07-10T17:04:00.000+03:00

My Life, The Novel

2006-07-09T17:06:00.000+03:00

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!

2006-07-09T14:59:00.000+03:00

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!

2006-07-09T14:51:00.000+03:00

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

Gone to the Birds!

2006-03-06T16:11:00.000+03:00

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

Allah Akbar! (God is great!)

2006-02-28T00:19:00.000+03:00

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