Leaving Sefrou
One of the things that most of the CBT groups do before they leave their site is to throw a party for the families they’ve been staying with. We were going to have it at my house, but since somebody close to the family had died, it would have been hashuma. I actually heard that the small “party” we had for Asmae’s birthday was considered hashuma by several neighbors, and I hope Asmae doesn’t let them get to her.
So, we had the party at Nada and Michael’s house, which is next door to mine. We ordered all sorts of food made, from millefeuille and msimin (also called millewi) to sheet cakes and little pita breads stuffed with pizza makings. I popped popcorn and helped make the mint tea. I’m very excited that they have popcorn here, it’s easy to find in the suq (market) and very cheap. I was also happy that on my first try I managed to pop a big kettle full of it without burning any. We had a lot of popcorn.
The night before, we also had a party at the Dar Chebab in appreciation of all the students who came to our English classes. We played games like musical chairs and chess in the back room and had candy for them. After the students left, we had a smaller party for the guys who work in associations at the Dar Chebab and who helped us with a lot of our projects and classes while we were there. It was a typical Moroccan party with pastries, candy and soda. They ended up singing songs for us and pulling out the CD player and putting on my Shrek CD, which we had already played several times for the musical chairs game. I was surprised how much they like Shrek here.
It is also customary for PCTs to give gifts to the families we stay with. They are given a fairly substantial amount of money to house and feed us, but we are also expected to give them gifts. Throughout the stay, I brought home fruit and olives or other contributions to the kitchen and I gave Malika a nice scarf for Eide since she had gotten me the new shoes. We were told kitchen wares are the most appropriate parting gift, so I found a big platter that came with matching small plates. Peace Corps also printed out appreciation certificates with a photo of us with the family and I framed mine before I gave it to them. It was all very rushed at the end, but it went well.
It was very difficult leaving Sefrou, since I feel very close to the family I lived with there. Abdelhaq made it clear that if I ever needed anything I could call him. He also wanted me to give him the phone number of the family I’ll be staying with in my final site so he could call them and tell them to take good care of me. It’s completely unnecessary since Peace Corps takes care of all of that sort of thing, but it was sweet of him to offer. I hope they come to visit me.
When I got to Immouzzer, all anybody could talk about was where we were going to be sent. Nobody knew their sites yet but everybody was speculating as to where we would be placed. After a few hours of agonizing informational sessions, they passed out envelopes with the name of our town in it and we all opened them at the same time. It was a lot of suspense for nothing because nobody had ever heard of their town and armed with only the name we still knew nothing about the place. Soon however, they passed out files of information about our towns or villages and maps so we could try to find where in this diverse country we would be living for the next two years.
My town is about an hour north of Marrakech and I can travel to the big city by either bus or “grand taxi” which is an olive green Mercedes packed with six passengers. There is always a designated taxi stand in town and taxis call out where they are going and wait until they have two people to sit in front and four to sit in back before they will leave. If you don’t want to wait for enough passengers to show up, or if you want space to breathe during the trip, you can always pay for another seat or two and get the taxi going sooner. I have paid double before in order to sit alone in the front seat. Luckily, if there are two women, they generally get to sit up front together. You just have to hope that the other people aren’t too big.
Stereotypes aside, Moroccans can be very big people sometimes, especially the women. Imagine if all you ever did was cook and clean the house and eat lots of sugary and oily foods. It doesn’t matter how hard they work sometimes, and believe me women in Morocco work very, very hard. If you don’t ever leave the house or get any exercise besides scrubbing the floors and laundry, you won’t stay thin unless you have super-genes. There is an old saying in Morocco that a woman only leaves her house twice: once for her wedding and once for her funeral.
Lots of things are changing in Morocco, but there are still many communities that are very traditional here, and most of the communities that Peace Corps Volunteers are placed in are small and fairly traditional.
In anticipation of our departure to these communities and our impending separation, and also in celebration of the end of the suspense as to where we will live for the next two years, quite a few of us went out to the hotel in Immouzzer that sells alcohol. It was the first beer I’ve had since Philadelphia and I didn’t even care that it tasted like bland pale mass-market beer. It was actually brewed in Fès and now I’m wondering if that brewery does tours, or even where it is.
This was a brief visit to Immouzzer, but it was probably the most exciting because we have been waiting for so long to find out our site and what it will be like.
