First blog from Corn on the Kob!

First blog from Corn on the Kob!

It was a great thing to be on the train for the first time with a Morocco Lonely planet travel guide, and I open it up to my town... theres only a paragraph, but it says about Kob : The greatest secret in all of Morocco is this nice exuberant town... thats a lot better than Wes's town whose first sentence says : There's no reason to stop in this dusty old mining town. Haha, but then again there's a difference between stopping in a place while on a strict time limit and getting to know a town like we do in PC...

As it is, I'm lying on the floor on a few thin pallets that were made into a bed for me in my room, one of two that belong to me for the next 6 weeks while I acclimatize to my new town and before I find my own place to stay here. The house is interesting, very large, very spacious, full of rooms, some of them for tourists that my host dad plans to bring here in the future. There's a roof and within 10 meters of leaving the door, the town plunges downward to the Draa river and the heart of the palm oasis that cuts through the valley. So I step out the door and to my right is the rest of the town up on the plateau and then to my right is the tops of the palm trees, thick and full and gorgeous.

My room is apart from the rest of the house in a sort of tower of rooms. That's because the two different courtyards separate the rooms into different sections of house that aren't connected above the first floor.

Some random thoughts from today:
“I'm so glad I have a cell phone with a flashlight on the end of it!"
“Five dirhams for kow-kow (peanuts) goes a lot farther here than in Sefrou!” The bag was a lot heavier than anyone that's been given to me before.
“This is like living more in Tarabuco than in Candelaria, but with less tourists so everyone remains nice.” In other words, there is a lot of traffic since this is the souk town, people come here from all over each Sunday to get there groceries and practical things. But they are all locals instead of foreign people with their guide books that don't understand the culture. So it's commerce without clash.
I felt confident and happy yesterday with my level of Darija and that I was able to talk to my host dad so well. But I've since found that my host dad is an exception. Everyone else is just Tash exclusively. At least I will be spending my time at schools, the kids all know French and some Darija. The others is a different story, but at least my job doesn't depend as much on communicating with them on a regular basis, at least in the beginning.

This morning was a wedding and before that the souk, so I feel that of the 4000 people that live here, today I saw maybe 25% of them and another 500 that don't live here. And it seemed that my host dad knew nearly all of them. He's a very charismatic and fun man to know, which I saw on display today watching him play with fireworks in front of the wedding car ('il faut rigoler quelque fois chaque mois') and when I first spoke to him on the telephone and in the street when he embraced me without having the time to comprehend who he was. “ Benji!” KISS KISS, KISS KISS, KISS KISS. His head moved from cheek to cheek in a blur so I couldn't see who exactly he was.

The energy level yesterday and today was intense, and now I feel guilty for staying here while there is an all-night party waiting for me.

Things seem to be fine on the work front. There's no english teacher at all, so I have the opportunity to do some of that—maybe train an english teacher group?--and that means I don't have anyone angry at them for doing their job for free. That happened to Clark and it's not the kind of friction that you want when you're first starting out (the teacher at Clark's first town spread rumors he was a spy because of this).

I was with a friend in Rabat and I pointed out a very broad man who had a great hat and a beautiful white beard, very lush gorgeous black skin. “I love the diversity here in these big cities.” There were people from all over West Africa and Europe, and the Arab world. And it's true. But just being in my town, it's a smorgasbord of human genetic diversity. This is where the nomads came through after traveling thousands of miles in the Sahara desert. There's Berbers, Arabs, and the Romans. Romans are those that have red hair and freckles superimposed on African features. And there's even people from Tennessee (me!). Today I told how my state makes all of the country music, 'for the cowboys'.

And apparently cowboy means 'pistol' so I said that and the 5-year old girl Rislan held up her hands and made shooting noises. Then I said that cowboys were the ones on the horses (chevals) with lassos... 'Ah! Comme les indiens”. Like the Indians. Yes. And that to me is a funny thing, how that before there was a lot of regional TV, the spaghetti western TV shows from America in the 60s were imported all over the world, so talking to anyone 40 or 50 years and older, and they know those shows ! Even in Bolivia this was true. They might only know how to speak Quechua, but they can sing the Moricone songs as much as anyone else. In Sefrou I said this and my host dad there sang the tune from any Clint Eastwood movie that I could name.

-The road that I traveled on yesterday had post-markings to the nearest big regional cities. I was glad to see that it said Rachidia, 300 km or 180 miles from here. That means my friends are even less than that—maybe. There is supposed to be a good music store there, so I hope to travel there before too long, maybe come back with a guitar. This morning I gave my host brother a lesson on playing the oud, he seemed to like it. But I wonder what I can do to include my host sister, that is about the same age.

As far as going to nearby places, I'll be traveling soon to Zagora, next weekend maybe, in order to pick up my two baggages that were shipped there and to get to know it.

OK, since I should move to the party now, I will copy some of my gratitude journal to this and pick a few pictures. This is the past 4 days or so.

11-11-09
last day as PCT's, tomorrow swearing in!
-spoke to my mom today on the phone, to catch up and fill her in. Bad reception though, so I will try again soon.

-sang in the talent show! Yorda was the M.C. Sam and I played simple gifts, then he did a version of eye of the tiger singing by himself, with words about morocco-hilarious- and then later we did a moroccan song. I forgot to explain to everyone that I sang Simple Gifts because it was something that we did at Swearing-In in Bolivia.... and that's why I sang it with my alpaca wool hat on my head and my Brazil belt on... symbolism. But I was trying not to forget the words, so I forgot to give any kind of background about that. But there were some other great things. Juan did karaoke to heard it through the grapevine, pete jason and danielle did a dance version without singing to THRILLER,

-the most fun part was at the end of the song with the LCF's, mbarak jumped up and danced back and forth, jumping like a rock star.... as did I. So we were rocking out on our Ouds while the 8 language teachers sang behind us. It was AWESOME, the kind of stuff you hope to be able to do when coming here.

-rachid made some great and funny videos from footage and photos that he collected. It was nice to see everything in that way and share those moments, some funny some cool, beautiful and amazing. I just wish SBD had the same thing! Even after the few days here, they still remain a mystery to me, how their CBT homestay experience was.
-azalia said she hadn't laughed that hard in a long time to me. I think we all felt the same way<

-sat with sam and fauve watching some of HE GOT GAME before the big show began, walked in to see Rachid getting ready with Yorda, who was reading a storym the conference room rearranged into a circular area as a stage, surrounded by a ring of candles sitting on the floor (during the show some people jumped up in fright as they remembered that they could go up in flames if they got too close). He told me Mbarak wanted us to practice upstairs on the terrace. So it was cool to see them arguing and giving orders to each other in the cold night on the roof in Darija, slightly nervous and unsure of their upcoming spot in the show.
-today David Lillie spoke to the whole group and it was a nice good pep talk
-funny to hear Ewald and jack joking earlier about what kind of vehicles they could use besides driving cars... hot air balloon (my idea, not motorized), gyroscope, sailing boat. Were they off limits as well?

-nice to have good memories re-enter my mind from last swearing-in, stuff I hadn't thought about in a while as I go through swearing-in again!
-glad to know that the Dr. told me that there is a direct way from my town to rachidia, I dont have to go all the way to ourzazate first
-got two nice emails from serena
-decided to go through ourzazate, spend the night there then go on the next day to corn on the kob! With william and cara, too!

-ate a lot of yummy olives... 15 of them? 20? good sandwich with cabbage reminded me so much of cole slaw sandwiches from back home.


11-14-09
saturday, first afternoon and night in Corn on the kob!
But first, marrakesh


-thursday, rabat: swearing-in, met the ambassador, he told how he met Ambassador Holbrooke, who helped the otehrs go through Ambassador training, and that 'he told us a lot of great stories about Bolivia'. I felt proud when he spoke to us during the ceremony and he referenced Obama's 'greatest memories coming from his time as a community organizer', which is what we are doing here. He also said : “I've been in a privileged position in the 6 weeks I've been here, but there's nothing except being in the presence of his Majesty the King that makes me so proud as to be here before you.” He's not the only one that Obama sent to Morocco. I've done PC twice because of Morocco, and I feel that his receipt of the Nobel Prize last month makes sense for those of us American Ex-Pat's and PCV's that are working in the Muslim world now. The one time that PC Morocco was shut down was when the Iraq war started, after all. Now things are far better.

-glad to see fatima one last time, my language teacher, but sad to say goodbye that night. I sent her several messages from the train and things, thanking her and promising to visit tinjdad!
-nice lunch on the PC property under tents


-cara won the contest for : think of an alternate use for hammam soap, 'I'd use it instead of toilet paper'. And she shared her earnings with me, a bag of snicker's bars!

-thursday night, went to the art gallery, met very charismatic 'hasher runners' that are rich and educated and beautiful— total 'BoBos', my kind of people... ?. The art was great, I got 2 pamphlets to cut out the paintings and hang them on my wall, one for me and one for other vols I know. Met the artist, too, a Moroccan man from Azila, in the North.

-came home to discover beautiful pictures of mae were published on a blog, so I downloaded them and have been showing off my niece! GORGEOUS ONES. I need to write them a letter and send mae a post card from here.

-Kob seems to have a lot of amenities, as did ourzazate. Maybe in a week I can go to zagora.
-good breakfast, sat with rachid, a little bit with juan, learned rachid will be in spain for 10 days, everything was precious and the emotions sincere. Walked up to an italian man, asking him about if he was a karate coach and if he knew Signore Gallucci, national champion 'fa molti anni'. He said no, he was from naples but that his son was world champion for his age group. I told him “Buona fortuna” but he quickly clasped my forearm, drew me close, wagged his finger and said “In boca al luppo”. Oh yes.... you're supposed to say that, it's the Italian equivalent of 'break a leg', or of not saying 'Macbeth' and instead saying 'the Scottish play'.

Then on the train to marrakesh, had a good time with anna and will on the train, hanging with cristopher and joli while they waited by the door for their stop, got pictures of that. Sat that morning with sam and yorda and got pics of them getting on the train, I had leftover penne all'arabiata that I saved from the Goethe Institute and it was extremely goood.

-marrakesh, ate with seth, penny, anna and will at the Cafe Earth, a vegan and vegetarian restaurant run solely by a young moroccan girl. Ate a delicious veggie burger—more like a glorified potato cake, no bun, full of green beans, nuts, veggies and good stuff, plus soy sauce sprinkled around the rim of the plate. Plus some apple/orange juice mix, and I tried the other things, salad with goat cheese, god I miss it already.

-sat with Penny atop the balcony for an hour or more, provoking her to talk about her experiences, thoughts about joining peace corps, ambitions for it and what she thinks she would like to do here. That is an essential thing to do, to constantly reevaluate what we are doing here and why.

-woke up, met wes, went to buy tickets with him at 7 AM. Got spots on the bus, then shared breakfast with Will, delicious bread and olive oil, butter and molasses. Discoursed on the nature of the croissant as well.

-GOOD BREAD in a little town between Mrkesh and Ourzazate. It was hobz style bread but with yeast, 1.50 D's, and worth 10x that. Would be good for an impromptu pizza.

-met a frail old berber lady with tattoos on her face who surprised me when she spoke very good french! I held her inside arm while she slid into the front seat, but she seemed lively, just frail.

-glad to be in the sahara again! After getting off the taxi, I sat around for 45 minutes until a bus came through towards Kob. And there was a young black african boy staring at me for 20 minutes of the ride, and I met a friend, the first guy I met from Kob, Jamal. He asked what I was going to do, who I knew, and when I got off the bus later, he helped call Zaid. Not even there and I have a friend to help me.

-so, the family! Zaid, Aicha, Mohammed, Ilheim, Rrislam, and Yassine (2months old! I;ve been in Morocco since before he was even born!) after meeting them, talking in french, tash, arabic, english, we watched cartoons and part of the brasil – england game. Then part of the egypt-algeria game.

Before too long, I got a tour of the BIG house, put my things in my room, unsorted it all, sat with Zaid on the roof, learning how he was in the military for 11 years, but that 'he won his liberty and left it, won the treasure of being here with his family instead of away for 5 months at a time.'

-father discoursed some on tash vs. tam, and so many things. Very interesting and lively conversation for an hour while the stars gradually came out in abundance—the sky here is exactly as good as it was in candelaria! Shocking in fact. I'd say it;'s like being in Candelaria again, but with camels. Especialy driving through the valley here, it mimicked the process of driving through the valley in the last 20 kms before getting into Candelaria.

-told Penny how it may seem frustrating that we don't have a giant packet of info, and we don't have a volunteer that we are replacing who can tell us in a day more than it will take us 3 months to find on our own. But I said that: 'when you consider that each site had a person at the beginning who was the one that spent 3 months finding out the things that are later passed on to each successive volunteer, being able to look like that at the long-term process of site development and your place in that, then you can see that we have the opportunity of being that person who prepares the way for the rest later. And that seems like a wild, great adventure!

-im not ben anymore—sometimes Benji-- but my arabic name Nabil, berber name ADI! Several times I forgot it and I sat there thinking, what is Adi? Then they say : unta adi! Then I smile and yell, OH! ANA ADI. I am Adi now! Another time this happened, each person at the dinner table (seated on the floor), said their name and last name. Zaid Daoudi, Ilheim Dauodi, Aicha Daoudi, etc. When it came to my turn, I said : Adi Daoudi. As if I was one of of the Daoudi family now... It was the first time I got a big laugh from everyone, so it helped lighten the mood and to humanize me some on my first day there.

-mohammed seems like any enthusiastic, young person that gets so excited when the conversation goes to HIS topics of choice, and his eyes light up and he is a little bit of a nerd. Just like me way back then. Eager to use that specialized vocabular for the things that he likes. Im glad that this is a family that I will grow with during my time here. And they seem to really like each other, a lot of affection.

-nice to hear Mhmed say 'bon nuit' to me while I walked up the stairs, loud enough for me to hear even though I was just beyond the door.

tomorrow, souk day! I bet it will be crazy