Moonfest and Smoked Salmon

The last few weeks have been busy and memorable. I left off in my last blog post with the preparations for the international music festival, Moonfest, taking place in Lalla Takerkoust. As planned, the women came to my house each day for a week to prepare platters of sweets to sell at the festival. I enjoyed having my house be the center of activity, especially since I knew it was just for a little while. I learned how to make new types of colorful and tasty Moroccan cookies. On the first day of Moonfest, our pick-up truck man Hassan came to my door at daybreak and we piled everything in the back. The women spent the morning setting up the display cases and products in the tent up by the lake. Meanwhile, two of the association members participated in a cooking contest coinciding with the festival. Choumicha, the host of a cooking show on national television (channel 2M), had selected a group of about 10 women from the commune to prepare traditional meals in front of a panel of judges. Our two members, Aicha and Rabia, won first and second place! They proudly returned to the tent, holding their trophies. Choumicha was impressed with their work and brought her film crew by the tent to interview Naima and the women about the Association. They showed up on national television a couple weeks later, making the whole village proud.

The rest of the festival went well. There was much more competition this year with other associations and community members often selling the same items. Association Tamyourt didn’t gain as much as in the previous festival, but we came out positive in profits thanks to some faithful customers. There were a few great bands in the concert roster, including the nationally famous groups Udaden and Rouicha. I was particularly excited to see Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara perform on Saturday night.

A few days after Moonfest, my parents came to visit! We spent a fantastic two weeks hanging around my site, hiking in the High Atlas, visiting Marrakech, Essaouira, and the Imouzzer Falls down by Agadir. I was happy to finally show them where I’ve been living and working the last 18 months and introduce them to my local friends and counterparts. Several people showed such immense kindness and hospitality in helping me welcome them that we scratched our original plans to travel up to Fes and Ifrane so we could spend more time in my village. Their visit gave me a renewed sense of appreciation for Lalla Takerkoust, and Morocco in general.

Once the parents went home, I returned to normal life in village. I busied myself with English and French tutoring and elaborating a new project proposal with the local sports association. I’ve applied for another USAID small project grant to purchase exercise machines (treadmill, spinning bikes, step machines) for a new youth and sports center being built by the soccer field. The grant has been approved, but we’re waiting on USAID to release the funds for the fiscal year. The recent budget cuts are causing some delays, and I hope it comes through.

The Women’s Association building is coming along nicely. We were lucky enough to get a visit from the Canadian Ambassador himself on Halloween. He and a small delegation came to check up on the construction site before the Embassy sends the next allotment of funds. They were happy with the work accumulated thus far, and the women can be proud of their accomplishments. The Kaid (equivalent of town mayor) and Communal Council helped us set up a welcoming tent and we of course prepared an impressive spread of Moroccan pastries and breads for the Ambassador to taste. In return, he presented Naima with a fancy wooden box of Canadian smoked salmon. After the delegation left, the women came to me inquiring what in the world was in that box. I wonder how they will divide up this gift. I can just picture them divvying out single pieces of smoked salmon to each member. It’s definitely not a type of food they’re used to. But, the gesture was nice and the whole visit was quite positive.

Today is the eve of the Eid Al Ahda. Tomorrow, many rams go under the knife. I look forward to participating in this week’s festivities. Things have evolved a great deal for the better since last year at this time.

As my mother reminded me yesterday, it’s been a while since I posted an update on Lalla Takerkouste, the women’s association, and life in Morocco. Summer has come and gone, as has Ramadan. Work at the bakery came to standstill in late July and August because the tiny loft becomes an inferno in high summer. That with the addition of heat emanating from gas stoves and the fact that everyone is fasting all day long killed any remaining motivation to work. During the summer, many Moroccan families living in the hot interior regions move out to vacation with relatives on the coast or up in the mountains. I followed suit.

In June and July, I took a couple trips to Essaouira, probably my favorite city in the country, to help out with an AIDS and health awareness campaign with other Volunteers and to enjoy the cool coastal winds. I took several exhilarating kite surfing lessons and wound up severely bruised from a technical mishap with my kite on the beach, but I don’t regret having done it.

In August I opted to escape Morocco altogether for a large chunk of Ramadan. I joined a small group of fellow Volunteers on a lovely trip around central and southern Spain. We visited, Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba, Granada, Sevilla, and spent a week at a beach resort in Marbella. The trip involved generous amounts of sangria, tapas, wine, and many games of cards. We returned to Morocco via a short ferry ride from Algeciras to Tangier, in time to spend the last 6 days of Ramadan in village.

Naima had been holding down the fort all summer, as she was required to stay for her job at the pharmacy. She and I had gone up to Rabat in July to settle paperwork for the Canadian Embassy grant. She’d received the first chunk of funds and launched the construction of the new Association building (foundation pictured on right). Luckily, her brothers and a couple other allies in the community have been giving her guidance on how to go about directing the labor, since she has no experience in that field. The building needs to be finished by the end of the year, at which time we will hopefully receive the solar-powered fruit dryers promised to the association since 2008 by CDRT (Development NGO in Marrakech). Once the building is finished, the women will finally have an adequate place to work freely, baking goodies and drying fruit.

In the meantime, there is a big international music festival next week in Lalla Takerkouste, called Moonfest (http://www.moonfestworldmusic.com/ ). All the local associations will have stalls to display and sell their products and the women are hoping to make a killing selling their sweets, crepes, and soup like we did last April. The festival will be shorter this time, but there should be many more visitors, including tourists and people from Casablanca and Rabat. Because the loft is too small to operate in, I’ve donated my house for the preparations. Today began the association take-over. We hauled ovens, ingredients, and other materials into my spare room and will spend the next 6 days baking away. Let’s hope it all goes well!

All In A Day's Work

After days of doubting and pondering how to proceed with the next 11 months of my service in Morocco, yesterday everything seemed to just come together. Following the Spring Festival at the Barrage in April, work at the Women’s Association began to wane and I was worried the bakery project was losing fuel. I had turned in my project completion report to Peace Corps and handed over the Association treasury to Batoul. I wanted to see if the members would continue to propel themselves forward with the bakery. A few of the women stopped coming to work, therefore discouraging other members to work as well. The reasons I was given for their reluctance to show up were varied and hazy. Some weren’t getting enough monetary compensation, others didn’t get along with certain members, some had family matters to attend to. I had also stopped going every day partly because I needed a mental break and in part because I felt the members should upkeep their product demands in the community on their own, without me around to handle deliveries and money exchanges.

By mid May, 4 women bobbed back up to the surface and returned to work diligently. We decided to move out of the leased locale because rent was robbing them of the majority of their profits. They moved back to the tiny loft donated by Naima’s father, while I sent a grant proposal to the Canadian Embassy in Rabat for the construction of a new venue. The Commune had recently signed over a piece of land for the Association, and they’ve been dreaming of having a proper building to work out of for years. I was prompted to apply with the Canadian Embassy by a Moroccan Peace Corps staff member but honestly didn’t hold very high hopes for it. However, two weeks ago, the Embassy called to say they were interested in our project. We scrambled to send them a few more requested documents and then sat down to wait.

As June arrived, bringing with it the first tastes of summer weather, I began fretting about the prospect of sitting through the next 3 months of hellish heat, with Ramadan looming 8 weeks away and not many activities in store. I holed myself up with books and television shows for a few days, beginning to wallow in my uncertainties.

Yesterday I opted for a change of pace and called up my new friend Delphine, a French woman who lives in my site with her Moroccan husband and their beautiful baby boy, Ismail. I suggested we go for a hike along the lake and maybe venture for a swim. The two of us spent an absolutely beautiful day touring the villages and orchards, visiting a few of the other Europeans living in the area. We finished at Brigitte’s, a German leather artist who’s lived at the Barrage for the past 12 years with her 4 children. They have an ultimate utopist hippies’ lair on the water, 7 km outside of town, with a quiet grassy beach that Delphine and I took full advantage of. I’ve been here for 13 months and this was my first swim in the lake! I can’t believe I’ve waited this long. I even coaxed (dragged) Haddock to come in for a swim, though he wasn’t as big a fan. He much preferred wreaking havoc with the neighborhood guard dogs.

On our hike back to the village, I received a call from the Canadian Embassy, informing me they’d selected our project for funding! I hurried home to spread the good news to the Association members and found them in the midst of creating new delicacies. They were trying out new Algerian recipes they’d found online, courtesy of the laptop my dad donated to them in February. On top of a new wholesaler client they’d found in Marrakech who ordered 50kg of cookies, they were making another order for some women at the governor’s office. They seemed proud and motivated, which made me so happy. I ate a celebratory dinner at Delphine’s house, with good laughs, good drinks, good stories. Some days can be pretty lonely and rough, but it’s days like these that make it all worthwhile.

The Festival

Spring break in Morocco has come and gone, and we’ve survived the first annual spring festival in Lalla Takerkouste. The days leading up to it and especially the seven days during it were exhausting to say the least, but it was well worth our efforts. This festival has given me a unique opportunity to really see how Moroccan women operate and work together under stress. I saw some true colors.

It started the eve of the festival. Batoul and I had ordered a set of glass display cases nearly two weeks prior with the village welder, but each time we went to check up on it, we received new excuses as to why they weren’t ready. The down payment was made and there was no chance of a refund. We had about 10 platters heaped with freshly made sweets and nothing to display them in. Naima, who barely stands at 5 feet, marched over to the welder’s on her lunch break and let him hear it. She told him, “Take off that mustache of yours and put on some lipstick, because you are not a man!”. By that night, somehow, he delivered three gleaming and beautiful display cases that became the envy of the festival participants. The next day, we piled all our platters, equipment, and a few young women on the back of a villager’s pick-up truck and slowly paraded our delicate cargo on the rocky dirt road to the festival grounds in the town center.

We started selling sweets (or Helwa in Moroccan) practically the minute we arrived. It took us a while to get relatively organized. The first few hours involved one girl accidentally knocking an entire plate of cookies on the ground while another one wearing ridiculously pointy cowboy boots with heels tripped on the gas burner and crashed against the side of the tent, nearly bringing the whole operation down. Then, just as we’d managed to set everything up nicely, a hail storm came out of nowhere, pelting bullet-sized hailstones all over our display cases. But, through all that, we kept on selling. Each evening, the women brought a large vat of Harira (Traditional Moroccan soup) and we made Moroccan crepes (L’Msmen) on the newly purchased L’Msmen grill. The commune set up a stage and had a DJ and live music groups animate into the night. A couple of the girls and I were logging 12 hour days working at the stand while the older women worked all day at the Association making more Helwa to replenish our quickly disappearing stock. During the evening rush hour, as I played cashier and had 6 women yelling out orders in French, Arabic, Berber, Ryals and Dirhams, and shoving bills at me, I got flashbacks of my 80 hour workweeks in busy South Beach restaurants. I don’t know if I would have made it through this week without that experience under my belt.

During the day, the Commune organized activities for the kids. A local artist did drawing and painting workshops and I helped out one day with a waste management education session. About 75 kids showed up and I thankfully had a translator help me out. It was chaotic but I think I got the basic message across about trash and hygiene. A group of three boys who attended the session stuck by my side every day, helping to pick up trash and bringing me an endless stream of paintings and drawings.

By the end of day seven, we were all weary and ready for rest. I crawled home and slept for 12 hours. I think I’m still recovering. After crunching some numbers, it looks like the Association will be able to pay rent for a few months with their festival profits. The members are happy and looking for another festival in the region to participate in.

Just Another Sunday

After a weekly visit to my town’s market, I saw Batoul, an Association member and close friend, making a fire for their Hamam on my way home. She said I should go see Naima (Batoul’s sister and Association President) at the Association. She had some updates to give me regarding the upcoming festival in town. So I dropped off my groceries and went to meet her. She was having mint tea with Latifa and Malika, who’d just finished their order of bread for the day. FtaH, Naima’s nephew, was off delivering. Once the 2 women left, Naima and I discussed the festival. The Commune has recently decided to organize a type of fair in town during school spring break. It will last a minimum of two days, April 5-6 (but may extend for the rest of the week if the turnout is good). There will be stands available for local associations to display and sell their products. One of the stands is reserved for us. We’ve got a lot of work to do in the next week, preparing pastries and figuring out the logistics. The Commune has also asked that I help them coordinate some environmental activities: trash management education, community clean-up and tree planting activities. (Finally, something related to my educational background!).

For the next couple hours, Naima and I organized the Association locale. We moved all the equipment we don’t use on a daily basis to the empty room, on top of the newly purchased table. Batoul and I had spent the day in Marrakech yesterday, buying the remainder of the equipment for the SPA grant. As we were emptying one of the large cardboard boxes of plates and bowls, I reached in to shift some items around and saw a sudden flash of dark fur swirl out of the box. I screamed and jumped upright. It was the biggest mouse-rat I’ve ever seen! Well, I’ve seen bigger in my house in Benin. But, it’s been years since I’ve been so close to one. Naima was in the other room and yelled back in alarm. I told her it was just a rat. She’d just filled two mouse holes in the room with pieces of rock and glass. I saw the rodent run straight for one of them and banged into the wall. He couldn’t find a way out. We slowly started emptying the rest of the equipment to move to the other room, wondering if the thing was still around. I eventually spotted it behind the flour bucket. As I moved it, the mouse-rat made a run for the oven. Naima and I cornered it there, emitting sporadic giggles and shrieks from the gross excitement of having a rat in our midst. We could hear its great mass clunking around between the gas tank and the storage cupboard. We shook the oven around until the rat finally exited the room and scurried out the front door to the gardens across the way. Hopefully it’s been terrorized enough never to return.

We finished organizing all the equipment and ingredient stock, making sure to keep all the foodstuffs in closed containers. We don’t have enough storage buckets for all the kilos of nuts, sugar, and flour we purchased for the upcoming festival. It will be good to get that display case and closed cupboard we ordered from the welder. Any day now… At 1, we went home for lunch, and returned a couple hours later to work with the women. A good group showed up: Naima, Rachida, Saida, Aisha, and Malika. Batoul was at home for her Hamam day. I’d made a comment to her about it yesterday while in Marrakech. I’d said, “what is it about the Hamam that renders women out of commission for the entire day?” She’d just laughed, then patiently explained yet another cultural norm I’d thus far failed to comprehend: The Hamam is a once a week event. It takes hours to prep the Hamam (if it’s in the home), scrub yourself down, and gather the energy afterwards to get yourself out of the hot steam room. It’s true, I’ve felt it. One is completely drained after that experience. Batoul gets a sort of flu half the time she goes. That’s why I’ve been staying away from the public bath. My flash bucket showers with never enough hot water are quick and sometimes painfully cold, but it gets my blood flowing fast and leaves me with enough energy to go about my day, most of the time.

Anyway, we made 4 kg of Qrishlat (little goldfish cracker-sized cookies with anise and sesame) today and discussed our gameplan for the festival. This will be good practice for the larger Moonfest taking place in September, and hopefully any other festivals we can attend during the summer. We are making Karbozel tomorrow: Crescent -shaped pastries filled with marzipan. I need to buy a carton of eggs and some margarine in the morning.

The Bakery

I’ve finally made some time to conjure an update of my work in Lalla Takerkouste. The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of activities at the Association, which has been a welcome change in routine for me as a Peace Corps Volunteer. In early February, I received a Peace Corps Small Project Assistance (SPA) grant to set up a bakery at the Women’s Association in the village. This wonderful news came just before I went home for a brief vacation in Ohio. With the immense help of my family and friend Caitlin, I took the opportunity to host a Moroccan dinner to share my experiences and talk about my upcoming bakery project. Just before going to Ohio, my Moroccan friends Naima and Batoul spent a day teaching me how to make couscous and tagine, so that I could replicate the feast in the States. We served traditional Moroccan salads and bread, Couscous with vegetables and caramelized onions, beef tagine with prunes and almonds, and an assortment of Moroccan baked goods, some of which were made by the Women’s Association members. All of the guests who attended the dinner, plus other family friends wanting to lend a hand, graciously donated funds to supplement the SPA grant. I returned to Morocco quite excited to get to work!

On February 28^th, two Association members and I began purchasing bakery equipment in Marrakech. We spent hours in various house-ware shops and covered market stalls in the old city hunting for all the items on our list and negotiating with store owners before transporting it to the village in an ancient little covered pick-up. On March 4^th, we set up shop and started operating from the newly rented locale. It’s an old house on the edge of the village, near the river, and right next to the olive and fruit orchards. For the past 10 days, a group of 5-6 women have been spending a minimum of 6 hours in the afternoons and evenings baking Qrishlat (little tea cookies we served with the dates and nuts at the dinner) and Ghriba (sesame cookies). Two women have also started working from 6-9AM to make traditional pan bread. They deliver it to the tagine café owners each morning, who’ve been selling them like hot cakes. We are currently the only source of this type of bread in town, and the demand is quite high!

The funds collected at our Moroccan Dinner in Ohio has been extremely helpful and will continue to be so in the early stages of the bakery. We’ve been able to purchase start-up ingredients and some extra equipment that hadn’t made it on the SPA budget. I’ve been monitoring all the expenses with the Association Treasurer and we’re aiming to get the bakery on its feet as soon as possible, so that we can save the funds for other projects. For example, we would like to do a computer literacy class for the women and students in the village and purchase internet modem sticks. This would permit students to do online researching for school, and allow the women to look up new baking recipes.

Yesterday, March 13^th, we had an opening ceremony, along with a visit from Peace Corps staff from Rabat. We gave the staff a tour of the locale with our newly purchased equipment on display, along with samples of tea and cookies. The Association boomed with dancing, laughing, singing women all afternoon.

There’s much work left to be done, but we’re advancing, little by little!

The Olive Mill

I had a really interesting day yesterday: I went to visit my host mother in the morning (Malika) and we got to talking about olive oil. I inquired if there were any old-fashioned mule-powered olive mills in one of the villages here. She said there were but wasn't sure if they were using them right now because the olive harvest was bad this year. She offered to take me to see one in the afternoon. We met again at 3pm and walked into town, first stopping by the pharmacy to say hello to Naima. We told her of our mission and she said we should go see Abdul's mill out on the road to Marrakech. She knows him and his family well and they have a little roadside shop selling various olive oil and argan products. It's about 2km away and Malika wanted to take the bus. As we were talking logistics, in walked Abdul himself! He owns a car and immediately agreed to show us the mill and drive us there. He's about 60 years old, speaks some English mixed in with German. Malika and I piled into his car with one of his construction workers and went to the farm. We entered the gated orchards and were greeted with a handful of parked 4-wheelers and a couple houses in construction. Abdul invited us to his house, a total bachelor pad; the kind of place you'd imagine some old renowned author to be hiding out in. Olive trees and dried out flower pots and fountains surrounded a courtyard sprinkled with roaming chickens, cats, and two enormous peacocks. We passed by decrepit couches scattered on the mosaic tiled verandah and entered his lair: One long room filled with more sofas and wicker furniture. Opaque laced sheets were draped loosely across the ceiling while vases of dried flowers and piles of old books filled every table. I loved it. He motioned for us to go sit on a sofa next to his bed while he disappeared to his kitchen. The coffee table in front of us was overflowing with “stuff”: Empty bottles of wine and orange juice, a plate of cracked pumpkin seeds, more books, an ashtray full of half-smoked cigarettes. Abdul handed us each a glass, placed a bag of dates in front of us, and perched himself on the edge of his bed. We held on to our empty glasses as he lit up smoke after smoke and told me about himself. Abdul is originally from here but studied in Germany and married a German woman. He spent 30 years there, raising 2 daughters. After his wife died, he retired and moved back to Morocco about 2 years ago. He indicated each of his family member’s portraits on the wall surrounding his bed. The biggest one was of a gorgeous young woman with long auburn hair: his late wife. He said he’s happy here, back in his homeland, running his farm, enjoying the sun, his whiskey and cigarettes. I kept wondering how Malika was taking all this in. She smiled and nodded even though we were speaking mostly English and German.

Abdul then took us next door to a house he’d recently begun leasing to an English-Austrian couple: Kevin and Bettina. They look to be about Abdul’s age- in their 60’s. Kevin was sitting on the patio, in his sweats and rubber boots, smoking and drinking “Speciale” beer. Bettina and her 3 little dogs gave Malika and me a tour of the house. They’d moved in a month ago from Portugal. The house was beautiful and spacious, all tiled and painted in blues and whites. Afterwards, she offered me a glass of wine or whiskey and I self-consciously declined, feeling slightly embarrassed to even be offered that in Malika’s presence. We sat on the patio and chatted a long while as Bettina, Kevin, and Abdul puffed and drank away. Kevin has lived in several Arab countries working with the British military and is retired now. Bettina is a golf teacher and works in partnership with Hotel Palmeraie in Marrakech. I told them of the bakery project we’re working on with the Women’s Association, and the prospective fruit dryer project we hope to be working on this summer. Abdul had heard about it all through Naima and offered to help in any way he can.

As the sun set and the cold surrounded us, we bid goodbye to Bettina and Kevin and finally went to see the olive mill across the street. Abdul was slurring his words considerably more now and his breath smelled of wine, but he was lucid enough to give us a pleasant tour of his domain. I photographed the mill (not in operation but cool nonetheless) and we visited the orchards and vegetable gardens. We looped back to his house and he offered to sit a while before driving us home. We hesitated but Malika seemed okay with staying a while longer, so I agreed. We sat next to his bed again, huddled around his space heater, and listened to his comparisons of Europe versus Morocco: Morocco is full of bandits, but there is sunlight and life is good. Europe is efficient and correct yet stressful and has a tendency to seep the life out of you. Around 7, we made a move to go home. Abdul graciously and carefully drove us back to town, where we met Naima closing shop and gave her a recount of our adventurous afternoon. Malika seemed pretty happy with the way the day had turned out, despite that it wasn’t at all what we’d expected. I learned there is a wealth of personalities in this place, and I hope to meet more of them in the future.

The Sculpting of an Infant

(Journal Entry from Benin 2007)

The sculpting of an infant. He called it an art. Get a stool and go watch them in the next room. You should know how to do it. I walked over to the curtain of the bedroom and peered inside. There sat the grandmother with her frail grandchild on her knees. The old woman wore a wrap up to her chest, her calves resting on the edge of a large basin set under her bare thighs. The tiny, transparent-colored infant lay splayed on her smooth dark skin, about to receive her first bath. I sat next to the baby’s mother to watch. Watch and learn.

The grandmother worked with firm, experienced hands. She didn’t handle the newborn with that touch of someone afraid to break the delicate creature just out of the womb. At her side were three buckets of water. One steamed, one stood quiet, and one held a mixture of both. The woman dipped a piece of fabric into the lukewarm water and squeezed it onto the baby’s skin. She lay the tiny girl on her belly and spread her buttocks to allow a trickle of water to clean the crevice. This was done repeatedly. As her right hand dipped the rag back in the water, her left hand squeezed the two buttocks cheeks together. She re-opened them for the trickle. She turned the baby on her back and repeated the process from that side. Water ran through the baby’s genitals and her minute arms reached out with stretched fingers at the sensation. It is to render them more sensitive she said.

Next was the head. After wetting the soft skull with the rag, the grandmother took a fishnet sponge sopping with soap suds and rubbed it in circles around the baby’s cranium. Soap covered the entire head. It must be getting in her eyes. The baby cried at the sting; the rubbing continued. I looked up to the grandmother’s beautifully shaped head. She was well-sculpted. Her hair was cut short to a simple black fuzz. I marveled at her smoothness; her bare shoulders and jutting collarbones. She was a strong woman, making a strong baby. Every part of the infant was lathered and scrubbed with the fish net. Contact with the gritty texture forms a tough layer of smooth skin.

With amazing confidence, she took the baby by one arm and dangled her whole weight on it. One arm, and then the next. The infant with puffed up eyelids gave little shrieks of high-pitched surprise, per perhaps pain. The grandmother held the two feet together in one hand and dangled her upside down. Before another sound of shock could emit the baby’s mouth, she’d taken her by the head and was dangling her by the neck. Setting the infant back on her thighs, the woman turned the baby’s head so that the chin touched the shoulders. One side, then the other. I held my breath, thinking it would surely crack that tiny neck in two. But the head held on to the body. The motion was fluid, natural, easy.

Then came the body shaping. She squeezed warm water onto the tiny chest, pressing hard, one hand supporting her back. Then she turned her over and squeezed hard on the back, running her forefinger straight down the spine and rubbing in circles at the tailbone. She ran her hands down her back and up her thighs to the buttocks, cupping firmly to form a round rump. The grandmother looked up at me and flashed her white-gapped teeth. She must have nice round butt cheeks. She did the same to the calves, pressing the flesh upwards from the ankles to the knee-caps. I thought of the people’s legs here, how I’d always wondered at their shape; long and thin with such high-set calf muscles. They are a well-sculpted people.

Thus concluded the first bath. Lotion and baby powder was applied generously. The baby had the rest of the day to sleep, suckle and grow.

The following day, I watched the second bath, eager to memorize the steps. At the end, the baby girl suffered her first feminine sacrifice. Her grandmother pierced the shaking and sobbing newborn’s ears with her bare hands. Now you are a beautiful girl.

The Boa's Den

(An old journal entry from Peace Corps Benin)

Friday, June 8, 2007.

I just went on a simply memorable adventure with two village hunters. Caitlin and I got up at dawn this morning to hike up the Shakaloke hill. We sipped on warm cups of mocha out of my thermos and drank in the scenery. Upon our return, Caitlin hastily left for Adourekouman, her village, in a government vehicle with her university colleagues. Once the excitement of the fancy automobile driving through the village had died down, I was called over by one of the town drunks sitting by my neighbor’s new little shop. I usually avoid any conversation with this drunk, because he tends to ramble in Idaatcha until I become so confused he finally explains in slurred French that he wants me to either have a drink with him or buy a round for him and his friends.

Today, seeing as I’d just refused sodabi from a bunch of women up the road and was then informed that my refusal meant that I had to buy them a bottle of the drink, I decided I should at least go and tell him hello and that my name is in fact Felicie and not Sylvie. He was sitting with a hunter named Richard. We exchanged words, and the conversation developed into something much more interesting than I had imagined. They asked me when I was planning on leaving the village to return to my foreign land and stated that I should never leave. I told them I would be replaced, and they replied no replacement would ever be as athletic and mobile as me. Apparently, over the two years I’d lived in Camate, this drunk whose name I’d never bothered to learn, had never ceased marveling at how much I run, bike, and hike. In his opinion, this was a good enough reason for me never to leave Camate. Or, he added, I should at least stay another ten years.

Conversation moved on to the wildlife in the hills around the village. Richard the hunter talked about what he hunts. He informed me there was a big boa constrictor near the village of Ekpa that recently laid 26 eggs! Seeing my curiosity and excitement at this bit of news, he offered to take me to see the newly hatched babies. I said “ok”, I was ready. He looked at me in surprise. Really? Are you sure? I nodded with a big smile and he got up to go change into his hunting clothes as I went home to put on mine.

Soon after, I heard his hunting dogs at the door. We set off in the company of one of my neighbors, Apolinaire the hunter. Fortunately, Apolinaire speaks adequate French, compared to Richard. We hiked to Ekpa, about two kilometers, and then climbed up the hill behind the Ifa Fetish house guarding the village entrance. Somewhere up there, the boa had her den. Hunters had been after her the past four months because she was reportedly feasting on villagers’ guinea fowl flocks. She had fled and sought refuge in a cave. We arrived to the mouth of the cave and Richard crawled in on his belly. The opening was barely two feet high. Apolinaire asked me if I was capable of going in. I was nervous, but decided that if they believed there was no danger, I was ready.

Bush rat droppings and moist, rich dirt blanketed the entrance. Richard was armed with various snake sticks and a rifle. He’d brought his flashlight, and I had my headlamp and camera. Apolinaire went in next, and I followed. The crawl space went upwards and became more and more narrow. I saw three iron traps set with open jaws, waiting for their slithering victim. There suddenly seemed to be little oxygen in that cramped space. Richard invited me to crawl up to the hole where I could see the babies he’d been trying to coax out. They explained the mother lay deeper in the hole and was not about to come out. I nevertheless imagined her storming out of the hole, mouth gaping, ready to bite our heads off. There was no hope of a quick retreat. The hunters urged me to go as deeply as possible and to shine my lamp down to the right. Light attracts them. I finally shimmied up past the hunters to the mouth of the hole and did as they told. I strained to see movement. Finally, I saw one. A shiny whitish head was peeking out from the rock, a hesitant tongue flickered. The men asked if I wanted them to try and get one of the babies out. They found my seeming anxiety humorous, so I figured there really was no danger. Try as he might, no boa came out, so Richard withdrew from the cave and Apolinaire helped me bring my camera back up to the hole to blindly photograph the vague area where I’d seen the baby’s head poke out.

Back out in the sunlight, we all looked at one another and laughed. We were plastered and encrusted in dirt. Richard went back in to re-set the traps while Apolinaire and I chatted amidst the rodent droppings and sleeping dogs. He asked if my stay here was almost over. It seems to be on everyone’s mind. They want to know when I plan to leave them, and they all say I should never go. He too said that if I get replaced it is not likely that this person would be so ready to be with the people. It is rare that someone would want to crawl way up a cave to see baby boas, and get so dirty in the process. You are as courageous as a man, he said. If I were God, I’d make it so you stayed.…

We walked back to Camate via the hilltop ridge. There was a phenomenal view of Camate at an angle I’d not yet seen. I grinned all the way home, very satisfied with the excursion. We sure turned heads, walking back; the three of us covered in dirt, one with a rifle, one barefoot, and well, me…

Amzmiz-Anougel Hike

Soon after ringing in the New Year in Essaouira, Jacy, Margie, and I headed to the mountains for some hiking. We took the bus from my site south to Amzmiz, an almost-city sprawled at the foot of the High Atlas. We first roamed the large Tuesday market, ducking into a dank kebab vendor’s stall for a cup of mint tea among a crowd of weathered mountain men huddled over steaming plates of bean stew. The quarters were so tight and the ceiling so low, Margie and I felt like Alice in Wonderland. We met up with Donniell, my sitemate in Amzmiz, and spent a languid afternoon at Maroc Lodge, playing cards and sipping beverages poolside. That night, Donniell made us a delectable dinner of steamed artichokes and garlic mayo, curry pumpkin soup, and a dessert of movie snacks fresh from America as we drooled over the film Julie and Julia.

The following morning, the three of us set off on our hike. We climbed the quiet little road to Anougel, a mountain commune I’d visited once by car with Batoul from Lalla Takerkouste. As to be expected, the views were magnificent. It took us a solid four hours to reach our destination, passing a few picturesque Berber villages along the way. We walked straight to the hikers’ guesthouse I’d seen before. It had been open and seemingly busy back in June, and I’d even talked to one of the managers about costs for a bed. Now, in chilly January, the door was firmly locked and there was no sign indicating it even was a guesthouse. We were tired and quite hungry. The prospect of hiking another 4 hours back down to Amzmiz loomed dreadfully. A young man walked by and gave me a questioning look as I hesitantly knocked on the door. I explained in Tash that we were looking for a place to sleep. He said the guesthouse was closed. They must only operate through Moroccan tour guides, with advance notice. I told him I’d come in June, and I knew Batoul, who works at the Commune down the road. I also added in Tash that we were hungry or “dying of hunger” as they say in Berber. The young man seemed quite amused and said “ok”. He retrieved the key for the guesthouse, let us in, and agreed to 30dh/person for the night. The house was basic but full of charm; the walls painted a bright pink, with stripes of blue on some of the pillars. I repeated that we were “dying of hunger” and he eagerly invited us to eat at his family’s house. We met his grandmother, a short, stout woman who loved the fact that we could communicate in Tashlheet. She apparently was accustomed to seeing French hikers come through because she’d adopted the classic “ouai” when she spoke. We drank tea and ate chicken tagine with the grandmother and a group of young women in another charming pink and blue sitting room. All the houses were built against the mountain side. The floors slanted noticeably downhill and the low ceilings all had skylights.

After lunch, the grandmother invited us to visit the rest of their house. There were a series of narrow staircases and winding hallways joining several houses together. The livestock was kept somewhere at the top of the houses, interestingly enough. We sat on one of the rooftop terraces and drank in the view; snowcapped mountains and green river valleys. The women instructed us to go explore the natural spring in the canyon down the road while they heated up the hammam for us. We gladly did as we were told. As darkness fell and the biting mountain air set in, the steamy little hammam felt like heaven. Feeling clean and exhausted, we happily sat down for another tagine dinner with grandmother. We chattered aimlessly in Tashleheet until they brought out a basket of mandarins and bananas for dessert. She encouraged us to eat as many as possible then lowered her voice and whispered to me that she can’t eat bananas. I gave her a questioning look, so she glanced uneasily at her grandson watching a soccer game a couple meters away before telling me through a mix of Berber and explicit charades that they made her privates itch. I quickly muttered a translation in English to the girls and they stopped eating. I wasn’t sure I’d understood correctly, but she repeated the charades several times, adding that if her granddaughter ate them, she had no problems, it was just her. I nodded sympathetically and we eventually bid everyone goodnight before hurrying back to the guesthouse. It was unbelievably cold. We dove under a minimum of 4 heavy wool blankets each and fell fast asleep. I smiled to myself as I realized I wouldn’t be able to look at a banana quite the same for a while.

New Year’s in Essaouira

At the end of December 2010, I received a visit from Margie and Jacy, friends who’d served in Peace Corps Benin with me. We hadn’t seen each other since 2007, when we were all still in Africa. Now both of them are in law school and had come to Morocco for their winter break. After they braved the blizzards on the East Coast and waited out the painful 48 hours of chaotic delays at JFK, we reunited with a seemingly endless stream of reminiscent stories from Benin plus three years of catching up. After a day in my village, we headed for Essaouira to spend New Years with a group of Volunteers. About a dozen of us PCVs and our holiday visitors rented out a Riad in the heart of the medina for a couple nights.

On the 31^st, Margie, Jacy, and I walked across the beach to the horses and kite surfers with the aim to go riding. I go there each time I visit this city, and I’ve dragged my friend Martin out horseback riding a couple times. I’ve learned a bit how the horse guides operate and managed to track down the one named Grek to get a good deal. I made sure to tell him we all knew how to ride and wanted good horses. Grek gave me his horse Silver, a beautiful grey. Jacy got Djambo, a young chestnut, and Margie got a big bay that looked an awful lot like Martin’s last horse, who the guides had affectionately nicknamed “son of a whore” for his apparent lack of spark. As we got moving though, it became clear he was a much different steed. He was spunky and rather jittery, and we later realized he didn’t have a traditional bridle on. He wore a glorified halter because as Grek explained, the horse otherwise tends to grab the bit in his mouth and run away.

We had a pleasant ride out, crossing Igrounzar River towards Diabat village and meandering through dune trails and the old palace ruins Jimi Hendrix is said to have visited in the late 60s. On the way back, the four stallions were rearing to run. As soon as we stepped onto the beach, Margie’s horse took off at a full gallop as she leaned back on the reins in a vain effort to stop him. This is when the non-bridle detail became especially noteworthy. It’s not nearly as effective at stopping a horse. Once we caught up to her, Grek had her get down and decided to give him his horse’s bridle. Margie understandably argued that if the bay horse doesn’t like the bridle, then she shouldn’t ride him with it on because he may lash out. Grek demonstrated that there was nothing to worry about but she wouldn’t have it, so he agreed to ride the bay while she took his more docile horse.

Once that was settled, Jacy and I galloped our even-tempered stallions side-by-side down the beach, feeling like we were in some sort of Ralph Lauren or Virginia Slims commercial. We eventually turned around to see Margie far behind, fighting to get her “calmer” horse to move. We watched her silhouette in the distance, arms flailing and legs kicking as the horse plodded along passively. Grek laughed and told her “I told you so” as they switched horses again. This time we all got a good couple gallops in before returning to the horse camp. It was smooth and exhilarating, a worthwhile 100dh!

That evening, after an afternoon of wandering the enchanting blue and white alleys of the medina and chomping on 5dh fresh sardine sandwiches, everyone gathered on the ramparts to watch the sun set over the Atlantic; an appropriate way to bid farewell to 2010. We returned to the Riad to drink wine amidst good company and humorous storytelling. Champagne bottles popped and a stream of silly toasts rang in the New Year. It was a memorable night. I rushed to bed after getting a warning bout of heartburn at about 1:30. My head was spinning so much though that I instead pulled on my running shoes, grabbed the house key, and dashed out into the cold deserted streets without a word to anyone. I ran a long loop around the medina, navigating somewhat drunkenly through the alleys I’ve thankfully grown to know well enough. I found a couple shops still open and bought a bag of chips before hurrying back to the Riad. The run and the junk food rid me of the spins, though it wasn’t my finest moment. I fell fast asleep. Thus began 2011.

Wed, Nov 17, 2010.

Mabrouk L3id! Today is the day, many sheep die. I went for a run at 7 and returned an hour later to hear loud prayer chants resonating across the commune, announcing this holy day of the Great Feast. I hurried to be at Naima’s house by 9am, in time for the sacrifice. I found Naima, her mother, and her older sisters at home with the children. They were still in their pajamas, busily at work in the kitchen. I sat and joined them for tea and cookies while the men made their way back from the Mosque. Fatima was making pan bread. She’s the quietest of the sisters. She sat in a corner of the kitchen pretty much all day. Batoul and Naima talk so much it’s surprising to see their sister is so different. Malika is the workhorse among the sisters. She’s always cleaning and getting her hands dirty. She has two children, Jalila and FtaH. There were 3 of Naima’s brothers at the house. One of them I frequently see on his motorcycle around town. The two others are from Agadir. One has an adorable 4-year old girl named Hiba, and his wife is 8-months pregnant. The other brother is father to a gangly and sweet little 10 year old girl named Acima, a 12 year old boy who always hangs around FtaH, and a new baby boy named Rbi3. The grandfather of the family is Ahmed, husband of Rkoush. Together, they make an adorable family.
After the men had their breakfast, they prepared the courtyard for the sacrifice. The oldest nephew helped the three brothers and their father with the huge task. They had 3 sheep to kill, skin, and cut up. One of the rams, the first to be sacrificed, was one of the biggest sheep I’ve ever seen. He was about the size of a Shetland pony: Tall, strong, and majestic. He had large curled horns on his proud head. As I sat in the kitchen chatting with Batoul and cooing over little Rabi3, I saw one of the brothers in his black hooded cloak pulling the beast past the doorway. Another smaller ram lay tied against the wall, braying. The women said they don’t usually watch the sacrifice, so before I knew it, FtaH ran in to fetch my camera and take photos. I hurried out to watch. They’d already slit the throat of the biggest ram. He lay with his head barely attached, as a pool of bright red blood covered a large part of the courtyard. They were bleeding him. He was still alive and kicking. At one point, his body heaved as if the animal was taking a deep breath, and his severed esophagus made a gurgling sound. The nerves to his brain were also severed, so I kept reminding myself the animal couldn’t feel anything. His legs kicked violently as blood continued to squirt out of his neck.
The women kept calling me inside to have more tea and pancakes. I finally went in but later witnessed the second sacrifice. Now that there were two dead sheep in the courtyard, there was much work to be done. Malika and Naima helped sweep all the blood down the drain. The men hung up the sheep and skinned them after blowing air through a hole in its leg so the skin would detach more easily. They handed the women the organs to clean up. The liver and heart were brought to the kitchen to be boiled as they cleaned the stomach and intestines of all their contents and removed the lining of stomach fat. Later, the boiled liver was cut up into squares, wrapped in fat, and skewered for a noontime barbecue. Every house in Morocco was doing the same thing; preparing a lunch of organ and stomach fat kebabs. The first kebabs were brought to me to eat sprinkled with salt and cumin, wrapped in bread. I was uneasy about eating sheep liver but I had to try it. It didn’t taste too bad. The stomach fat didn’t go down as easy, but I swallowed it all slowly, getting away with eating just one.
Afterwards, as everyone busied themselves with cooking kebabs or cleaning all the organs, blood and bits of sheep, I ran home to grab hydrocortisone cream for Acima, who’d developed hives from new clothes purchased especially for the celebration. I ran into my neighbor the Haj on my way back out the door. He asked me to come say hello and have a kebab. I decided to accept his invitation despite some previous electricity pirating issues in the past. They are my new neighbors after all. They’d moved in to the new house the day before. The walls are all unpainted and some were missing the last coat of cement, but otherwise it’s looking good. He gave me a little tour and took me to the kitchen where his sister and wife were cooking kebabs. This family had sacrificed a smaller sheep and a goat. Goats have less cholesterol, so some families kill a smaller sheep plus a goat for those with cholesterol problems. We all ate a kebab together while the Haj’s two young children giggled excitedly and played peek-a-boo with me. Before long I thanked them and excused myself from the awkward silences, as Acima was waiting for my hydrocortisone cream. I went back to Naima’s, put the cream on her niece, and sat in the living room with the women a while before continuing to Malika’s house in early evening. She was boiling sheep meat in the kitchen while Larbi was cleaning up the last of the entrails of their sheep on the roof. They insisted I stay for dinner: a platter of steamed meat served with salt, cumin, and bread on the side. I ate a couple mouthfuls and announced that I was “meated-out” and getting heartburn from all the sheep. It wasn’t a lie. They know of my aversion to meat so they didn’t push it. We sat together a while chatting. Larbi told me this year was special because he’d been given en entire five days off work at the mine for the Eid. I joked that he’d better spend it eating sheep to fuel his frail body for the remainder of the year working non-stop.
At 8:30, Malika and I joined Naima and her nieces to go watch the musicians in the village center. We sat in the street among a gaggle of women and girls waiting for the music as the Boujloud and Tamashut ran around terrorizing youths. There were 3 Boujlouds and several Tamashuts. The Boujlouds dress in goat skins, covered head to toe in it. Every time they passed by, the unmistakable billy goat stench wafted in my face. I wouldn’t make it 5 minutes in those costumes. These young men spend an entire day running around the village making grunting noises and chasing people with sticks. From my understanding, the Tamashuts are supposed to resemble cats. They paint their skin black and stick cotton balls on their faces. They look more like they’ve been tarred and feathered. Naima explained that each day of the Eid, a different group of boys dress up in the costumes. The stronger, older boys are Boujlouds and the younger, weaker ones are tamashuts because the costume isn’t as constricting. Their aim is to drive out evil spirits from the village. They run around smacking people with sticks until they give them a dirham. I was smacked a couple of times.
The music began at 10pm or so and lasted a few hours. Young men and children entered the circle, shuffling and bouncing along with the Berber music. The girls and women remained seated and huddled on the outside, sporting their elegant new clothes and giggling secretively with their friends. Naima and I retired from the cold and hurried home to our beds by midnight. Thus ended my experience of this joyous Moroccan holiday.