Weekend Get-Away, April 10, 2010

We’re back in Ouarzazate for the weekend. This was one of our two weekends “off” during training and we all decided to come to Ouarzazate to be “American” for a day, essentially. We came here after our morning class on Saturday and spent the afternoon checking e-mail then went for a deliciously refreshing swim at another hotel. Afterwards, we had a cards and movie night in our hotel room. It was quite fantastic. The six people from my training group piled in the room, and we borrowed a movie projector from Peace Corps staff to watch it in ‘big screen’. We ate popcorn and vented about language classes and culture shock. Then we were all able to sleep in peacefully until 9 am without our host family members knocking on our door to inquire if we were still alive and well.

We had thought of spending the weekend in another town, Telouet, 45 km up river from Asfalou to do some hiking. Telouet is supposed to be a beautiful spot in the mountains with a kasbah built into the cliff-sides. But, the road turns to dirt after Asfalou and only tourist jeeps travel that road. Finding an affordable bush taxi and still having enough time to enjoy the place was merely impossible in a day and a half, so we opted for the familiarity and accessibility of Ouarzazate.

Last Sunday, I went for an epic walk with my host dad and Hassan, his 21 year old cousin. Hassan is going to law school in Marakech and was back in Asfalou for spring break, so we could converse a good deal in French. The three of us walked barefoot in the river for a few hours, then stopped at a village 15 km upriver from Asfalou. We were famished and sought a shopkeeper in the desolate village to sell us bread and sardines. I can’t get over how rural villages are so void of people. There are just mud houses and sand and emptiness. Where is everyone? Brahim says they’re either in their houses escaping the sun, or down by the river working in the wheat, barley, and olive plantations. After our snack, we followed the dusty road all the way back to Asfalou, arriving just before nightfall. We hitched a ride in the back of a pick-up for a couple kilometers, then followed the narrow and harrowing path alongside the irrigation ditch for the last mile. I have found my match for ‘hiking on the edge’. It turns out my host dad is as much of a dare-devil as I, if not more. He made me jump across crevices, walk along disintegrating cliff edges, and traverse the river over sketchy bridges made of rotted planks and cement bags. I had fleeting moments where I actually feared for my life… but we made it home safe and I was extremely satisfied with the thrill of the day. We’d walked a total of 27km!

Training this past week was hectic to say the least. We’ve been assigned the ambiguous task of organizing an Earth Day celebration with the village. So first we had to use our meager community assessment tools to identify partners to work with and to identify what the environmental concerns of the village are. This would probably not be so hard if we had a good knowledge of the language and a couple months to do it, but we just have one week and one person who can translate for us. I don’t really expect it to be a hugely successful project, as I understand that training is meant to give us some experience in community interaction so we know how to improve our approach when we do the “real thing” at our final post. But, we set out to do our best. We met with the local school, the women’s group, and the olive tree association of men to set up Earth Day celebration. The plan is to do a village-wide trash clean up Monday morning with the school, then we will do an informative session on what trash can be burned and what should instead be buried. On Tuesday afternoon, we will be going back to the school to plant olive trees in the schoolyard and have the students draw images of the environment and how to protect it. We are providing the trees and the drawing material. With Zahara’s help the women are hopefully going to attend as well.