April's ending, what's next?

Hi Ya'll! Love to all my people supporting me, far from South Morocco!

Today has been good so far : the last week, I've been taking my Tashleheet book to all of my lessons, getting everyone there a chance to look at it. Many of them have never seen their own language written down before, even though there is a Berber alphabet and a Berber TV station—still, it's not quite THEIR language, in many cases different enough that they don't understand it. And my book is not quite their language either, the book has what's called Souci Tashleheet, the version of it spoken along the Souci Valley near the coast. To make it easier, then, for the volunteer that comes after me to Nkob, I'm getting people to help me translate this copy into Nkob Tashleheet. So that person will already have the Tash book changed into the correct forms. Many times it's just changing one letter in the word, a K into a H, or something.

But the surprise doing this was that Ilhem my 12-year old host sister seems to be taking this on as her own thing. She wants to help me do that, in exchange for English. Great! Well, I'd offered English just to her already, but it didn't catch on as a habit. Maybe this will make it more cherished to her, since she's putting in her own effort, greater “ownership of the lessons” and “buy-in”. I'm also hoping to take her with me to the Cyber after class today, get her hooked up with an MSN and Gmail account. She's the smartest person in Nkob, and the only class that prevents her from being No1 in the school is that she needs help with Music class. So that's on the Agenda, too!

I'll have to get a second guitar before too long so that I can have real classes, and there's a Korean girl that will sell me a violin (I want to take lessons while I'm here with the Music Prof at the lycee, he's an amazing violin player... I've seen better but he's really dramatic and focused on it).

There's a lot of things to look forward to the next 2 months, the next 6 months. I was upset last week, thinking that my laptop had something fatally wrong with it. I had it leaned on its side, watching while I had my head on my pillow when it started to make a wretched noise. So I turned it off immediately, let it set there for 3 days and luckily now it's started again several times without any trouble. That makes me happy because all of my creative work and my blog I can resume working on, plus just being able to charge my iPod and my Kindle.

WHAT I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO
Thursday I go to Agdez, where we'll have a bike ride the whole weekend through some of the offshoot towns around Zagora. It's sponsored by an NGO and it will be half PC volunteers, and half Medical staff giving check-ups and med supplies to people along the way. They've done it for four years or so. When we arrive to these towns, we will have our PCVs giving small presentations, English lessons, Small Business skills, games and activities plus health topics. Then there's a thing where these towns will host a celebrate us

It's just like what we did when we went to Mhmid before, though it's larger and better organized. But those PC English weekends I think we will try to do again before too long. I liked the first one we did and so I anticipate doing it again (plus I always cherish the times when the people in our region get together).

A few weeks after the bike ride and I'll take my first vacation, hoping to spend a week going from here to Agadir and back, seeing people around Tata and Taroudant. Especially before it gets way too hot. Anyone I see after the end of May will be as far North as possible, towards the Mediterranean coast.

The big thing that I'm doing in my free time –other than my usual Patience practice : marathon training and reading Proust—is that I'm researching to make a book for Peace Corps volunteers to use. Nothing too complicated, it's called Positive Psych & Brain Busters for PC Vols. So I'm summarizing all the things I know about that, and I'm going through the books that the PC library has about that. That means I'm reading things like : Understanding Youth, and STEPPING FORWARD Child Participation in Development. The main part will be activities that promote critical thinking, which is the biggest challenge and the greatest reward that we can cultivate during our service.


Other than that, May will bring its own surprises. I'll be spending that month getting ready to go back to Rabat to see all of my staj mates again. Finish the books that I borrowed from the library (the ones for my research on Youth dev, and Kundera which I really want to put down and never look at again, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus edition, and a few books I borrowed from other volunteers).

June : a week in Rabat doing more training, and several days spent going there and coming back. I'd like to go to the Gnaoua festival but I heard it's too many American PCVs, too much drinking, too much everything. That makes it more dangerous and I don't think I'd get to enjoy the music.

July : hopefully I get to fly across the Way, visit Switzerland for a night or two at the Montreux Jazz fest, Brazilian night. And I have a sneaking suspicion that Sade might perform there since her album came out this past February. Other than that, it'll be 4 weeks doing Summer camp in Ejjadida, the end of July and the first part of August.

Then, Ramadan! I'd rather disappear for the entire month this goes on. A couple of days with my host family would be nice, to break the fast together. It's a really REALLY big deal to wait until the moment the sun has set, and then wait for the Sunset call-to-prayer. It's like you can close your eyes and hear 6 million spoons, forks, bowls be picked up at the same time and carried to their mouth. And it's the best cookies and treats of the entire year. But this will be the hottest Ramadan in 10 years, since it moves forward and back, since it's based on the lunar calendar and not the Western one. And hot enough that, when noone is allowed to eat or drink anything—except the youngest and the sickest people—it's a real marathon to get through the month.

September, I'm trying to see if I can go to Madeira for a race. Any PC people want to go with me? It's the Coffee capital of Europe, a Portuguese island in the Atlantic, a 70 dollar, 1.5 hour plane trip from Lisbon. I'd be willing to translate for you! I'm hoping this would line up well with Eid Kbir, so I have a good excuse not to be around for that.

October, December-- There's stuff I hope I can do. It's coming quickly, but it's too far around the corner, so no point showing my cards too early. The sad thing is that November, all of my Regionmates. Literally, ALL of them, will be replaced. We'll get maybe 10 newbies that I'll have to nurse to health. And when they arrive, that's it : I'll have done all of the systematic Peace Corps stuff one time, and each thing I do I won't be repeating any more. We'll have a thing called Mid-Service Med's, then three months before going home we have our Close-of-Service conference. My regionmates will be doing that this summer. Then, the do their victory lap months, revisiting all the people and places that they liked the best before the end. I've been there at the Stamping-Out ceremony in Rabat (for the people that we replaced), and they give you a big stamp, Moroccan-style you know, that you stamp next to your signature in their Livre D'or. Then some are headed South through West Africa with Zach, my Spring camp coordinator. A couple of them will head to Brazil for the holidays. Jeremy's going to either Northern South America through Venezuela, Colombia and Peru, or South through Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru. Man, I'm jealous! Rachel is planning to go to Sao Paulo for awhile. The past two weeks especially I've been very pensive, remembering my first time in South America on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, tierra querida. Barranquilla, Santa Marta.

MISC Stuff to look forward to :
Once in Rabat, I'll join the Portuguese “Camoes” cultural center. So that means I can get a handful of books from their library to read, so long as I'm willing to come back a few weeks later by bus and drop them off again. I'll do the same with the Cervantes Institute. I realize for the same amount of money I can fly to these countries, going back and forth from Rabat or Marrakesh. But traveling there AND having the money to buy 4 or 5 books, that's trickier and more expensive than the travel. And I have the benefit of grabbing more books for free from the PC library while I'm at it. Until then, I have 4,500 pages of Proust in French, A la recherche de tempus perdu, which I'm reading on my Kindle and that I only payed $0.99 for! Plus, every now and then I spend $0.75 on an issue of O GLOBO, the biggest paper in Brazil. One click, and it downloads to my Kindle and I get to practice that language that I hope to teach and study one day at universities in America and Europe.

Peace and love!