Peace Corps Training in Fes, September, 2005

I can't say enough how awesome the other people in my group are. Training is a bit like summer camp; but even better. It's a diverse group. Besides being from all over the US and with different backgrounds we're not all recent college graduates. Our youngest is 21 and our oldest is somewhere in his 40s. I can't remember exactly. We already lost the oldest of the group we started out with in Philadelphia. Barbara is 77 and she went with the other half when we split in Rabat. It's a fun community of volunteers. Last night somebody got out a laptop and others found DVDs and we borrowed a screen and projector from the PC staff and watched Conan O'Brian and some movies. There's a musical exchange going on here too with everybody sharing CDs and IPODs. We even have a couple guitar players and some harmonica attempts going on.

Of course the best parts of the group have to be the skill sharing. We have Ultimate Frisbee hour and pilates class and meditation and charades and all sorts of other stuff going on. It's nice to be in a city where we can go out and are actually encouraged to go out. In Rabat, the downtown area was considered "dangerous" and we had a curfew. In Fes, the staff tell us to go out and explore the city. The place we're staying is more relaxed too - though it has fewer creature comforts. We can play frisbee in the courtyard and go into the kitchen to chat with the staff or grab a snack but the toilet and shower situation is very different. For those of you interested in logistics, it's a sort of youth hostel building and the bathrooms are shared. The toilets are what the French call Turkish toilets - a hole in the ground. The way to flush is to pour a bucket of water down the hole and the way to clean without paper is to splash off with water from the bucket. Basically it means that I wash my hands at least 10 times what I do in the US and I'm keeping my fingernails as short as possible. And I'm very careful about when to use the right and left hand!

As for the Peace Corps (PC) I have learned that they use a lot of acronyms. I am now a PCT (trainee) and after I am sworn in Nov 25 I will be a PCV (volunteer) which I have already said out loud in front of the group several times as PVC. It's the outdoor maintenance worker in me, or perhaps the dyslexic in me. Either way it's interesting trying to remember all their acronyms. PCMO is used a lot (Peace Corps Medical Officers). I had to call them today because I had a little cold and lost my voice. It was very hard to communicate over the phone and it's making Arabic class complicated. 

Saturday I had my first Arabic language class. I’ve learned that there is a difference between Classical or Standard Arabic and Moroccan Arabic, which is called Dareeja. What we learned Saturday was some of the basic beginner phrases which I'm going to try to transcribe into our alphabet. We started learning Arabic script on Monday and it's not very hard so far since I've been working on it all summer. So far, we learned the basic greeting S-salam a alaykum and the response wa alaykum s-salam. Then we learned how to ask a person's name: shnu smitk. Smiti Heather. and the pleased to meet you phrase "mtshrrfin". In case you can't tell, learning Dareeja has been my favorite part of training so far. We've learned quite a bit more in class and it's easy to pick up words and phrases by talking to the staff during the rest of the day.

Learning how to live in Morocco

Besides Dareeja classes we have lots of sessions about basic things like preparing food and water safely, health stuff, teaching methods and cross cultural issues. 

Today I thought it would be okay for me to wear a tank top around in the hostel / training center as long as I didn't go out on the street. I would have put another shirt on if I was going out - but I was told by one of the Moroccan teachers (a woman) that I was dressed inappropriately. I changed into another shirt, but this is going to take some getting used to. The trainers also stress how important our reputation is and how much everything we do reflects on Peace Corps. 

On the flip side, Peace Corps has been in Morocco for so long (since 1963) that a lot of people have already heard of it. One of the PC doctors (PCMO) told me that he's from a small village in the far south east of the country and the first time he ever heard English or saw a guitar was with the PCV that worked in his town. He says he still remembers some of the songs she would play for them on her guitar.

I've been learning more about the role we're expected to play here, working at a Dar Shabab. Technically, my boss is the Moroccan Ministry of Youth and Sports, even though my living allowance is supplied by US taxes though the US federal government. Actually, your tax money is pay for me to use this computer. It costs 10 Dirhams per hour in the cafe I'm at now. The exchange rate fluctuates between 8 and 9 Dirhams to the US dollar.

So, working for the Ministry, I have the freedom to do anything I think would benefit my community's youth and sports. It's all very vague, but the Peace Corps puts us in the Dar Shabab so we can establish ourselves in the community. We can start out teaching English, and if the community likes that, we can continue. If there's something else that the community wants, we figure out how to make it happen. In all cases we're supposed to work in conjunction with a Moroccan counterpart, mostly to transfer our skills to them, but also to integrate us more into the community. The more I learn about what different volunteers are doing in their communities, the more I think that I will only be limited by my creativity and the desires of the community. Anything I can think of should be possible, if the people are into it.

A week later

I just found out who is in my CBT group and some of those details. We'll be in Sefrou - which is just south of Fès. Besides the five of us trainees and Amina, we also get Sara - a PCV from California who knows linguistics and is an awesome teacher.

The host family that I will meet tomorrow and stay with off and on until the end of November has much more preparation than my AFS host family. I have nothing against AFS - on the contrary I loved it. But Peace Corps takes a completely different approach to preparing host families for us. I almost feel spoiled. They really put a lot of work into it.

My family has two daughters - Essma who is 20 and Aisha who is 14. I'm so excited to meet them; they're going to be a lot of fun I think. I don't know how old the parents are; the father is Abdelhaq and Malika is the full time mother and runs the house.