So this past week has been filled with a lot of trying times, the weight of three months with a host family is starting to really sink in. Not to say that I dont appreciate my host family, but somethings so basic as wanting to drink water makes me the subject of scrutiny here. Last week was one of the most mentally trying weeks of my life, not only did i have an 8 day long spring camp at the dar chebab with all new kids teaching english every morning, but also didnt really have the access to normal stress coping mechanisms. I feel like i was really tested and came out of this week with an even better reputation and relationship with the people of my village.
First things first, I want to rewind to a few weeks ago when I officially swore in as a Peace Corps volunteer. You may be asking yourself why Ive been here for several months and only just swore in as a volunteer. Well before this event, I was actually referred to as a "PCT": a Peace Corps trainee. There are certain criteria that you need to do in-country; such as learn the language, learn more about the culture, learn more about protocol, etc... before you can officially become a volunteer and start your service. That happened for me on April 4th, and I just happened to be sworn in by Secretary Kerry himself, which was, of course, a great honor and I feel was another stamp of approval that PC Morocco is exactly where I should be.
I am the one in the front row on the right hand side in all white
So after this ceremony we were officially volunteers and as someone joked, its called "Peace Corps" because once you're a volunteer they say "Peace Out" basically to comment on the amount of things you have to start figuring out on your own immediately. So at 6 am the morning after this ceremony, I awoke and headed to the train station with all of my belongings, including a recently purchased toaster oven ;), and set out with my site mate Jenna and a couple of other volunteers heading in the same direction. 10 hours later and we finally reached our home for the next 2 years.
Ive now been in site for a little over two weeks. The first week was primarily getting to know the people and the layout of the village and settling in. I honestly feel like I havent had a single relaxing day since coming to Morocco, there are always classes or sessions or something to do. When picturing Peace Corps, I kind of assumed there is a lot of down time, which I have been told there will be, but right now the pace is really fast and the host families are really deterring any chance of alone time that might otherwise be available. So last Sunday my village started their spring camp. Students across morocco are out of school for their "spring break" this week, and the Ministry of Youth and Sports has determined that every town should also have a spring camp of which I was a part. Me and my site mate were given a group of older girls (13-18 ish) to have english classes with and do camp activities. The director of the camp was very unclear with us beforehand as to exactly what we would be doing so we had to prepare a lot of filler or backup activities to plan for any sort of requests we might be given. Im glad we did this because we were really caught off guard when all of the sudden we were taken into a classroom and told to "teach a little bit of english." It turned out okay and I felt like as the week progressed it became easier and easier to make things up on the fly. It is really stressful being constantly asked to come up with camp games then translate them on the spot and hope everyone would understand but for the most part it went by without too much flaws and I feel like I really established myself as a good, reliable english teacher for the village.
One interesting thing that we did with the girls was a Peace Corps project where you have the students draw a map of their town without priming them for anything and see what they put as the most important places. One interesting thing about that for my town was the fact that if you were to come to this village as a tourist, one strip of the road would probably stand out as the most active and the highest concentration of people. You may be tempted to call it the center of the village. The girls completely left this out of the drawing for a reason that I predicted in my head beforehand. This part of the town is completely filled with coffee shops. Girls are not allowed to go in the coffee shops, thus they did not include it at all. Another thing that we did was their "wants" and "needs" for the village. Their "Wants" were: coffee for girls, a hotel, a hospital, a swimming pool, a park, a garden, restaurants, a sports complex (specifically for tae kwan doe and yoga)... their "Needs" were: trash cans, a supermarket, help, tolerance, transportation (to school), english club and technical help with computers.
On friday of camp, we did a fake souq day in the morning where kids could pretend to buy products. Some odd things that were sold at the souq, to little kids i might add, were lacy thongs. There were probably around 10-15 camp counselors during spring camp and then some adult volunteers. I was told that the counselors were children from the high school who were picked because of good behavior so it was really good people to network with so to say. They all kept showing me the lacy thongs which was really awkward but whatever. Later that day they held a fake wedding which was quite the production not just for the camp but for the entire community. All of the girls, myself included, wore caftans or jellabas or cinderella outfits with tons of makeup (not me) and glitter. One of the little girls was chosen to be the fake bride and it is tradition for the brides not to be seen so she had a blanket over her and then was carried to a cocoon-type-contraption on a horse. The fake groom was also on a horse but instead of in a cocoon he was encased with flags. As we paraded around town, the crowd continued to grow with villagers who had heard the music and decided to get themselves dressed up and join the procession. I was a big attraction in this procession and people kept coming up to me with flowers or wanting me to dance or wanting me to explain to the 3 tourists on motorcycles who had stopped to take pictures what was going on. People were shocked that i had a kaftan and I think i took pictures with everyone in the community. It circled around town that I am a very good dancer, Im not sure why, and now a lot of people like to tell me that i dance very well.
The next day it was overcast which made it a good day to play soccer as the heat wasnt unbearable. The girls had all told me that they want a girls soccer team in town bc that doesnt exist right now. I feel like I definitely have the background to facilitate this so I took the girls to the soccer field, which was empty at the time, and brought an NGO/Peace Corps-provided soccer ball. Within 5 minutes of the 10-ish of us playing, the field was surrounded with guys staring at us. They werent trying to play, but they just wanted to watch all of the girls playing. You would have thought it was girls gone wild at the soccer field. I got really angry and stopped the game, I yelled at them telling them to go away there are plenty of other places. My darija obviously isnt the best so I couldnt say most things I was really wanting to say. Luckily another girl was enraged too by our guests and yelled at them more and physically moved one of them who had encroached upon our game. The head of the youth center also helped us a bit but it was hard for us to play and then about 20 min later the mudir told us to stop playing bc camp was over for the day. I really want to figure out a way to prevent this and its really eye opening to see the obstacles that these girls face when they want to do something as simple as play soccer.
So on the final day of camp it is a big to-do. The camp ends with a talent-show-like ceremony. As the leader of the english group, I was supposed to be in charge of the girl's performance. Earlier that week I taught them the lyrics to "One Thing" by One Direction (again, yes) and since I had already done this during my training period, another volunteer had come up with choreography so I asked them if they would like to sing that song and do a dance. they all agreed and so the rest of the day I listened to that song about 85 times. The girls really got good at the lyrics and the dance moves. Some of the other counselors (who were about the same age as my group) seemed to get jealous or excited about the dance and one of the males actually decided that he wanted to participate in it as well and quickly memorized the dance moves. I was told by the camp director that we would actually be the finale. it was just so surreal. When they called us up to the stage they introduced us as "Christen's group" which was even more ridiculous. So the who camp was there as well as many of the adults in town. The girls were extremely nervous so i kept trying to calm them down saying they know it and they are gonna do great. After the performance everyone seemed really relieved and excited at how well it went. I was really proud of them bc a lot of them dont even speak a full sentence of english yet they memorized about a minute of the song completely in english. After camp I was really relieved and there was a big dance party and everyone seemed to let loose a little. It was such an exhausting week but I definitely feel like a part of the community. I was invited to the high school on Wednesday to shadow the kids which I am very excited about. I will; leave you with some pics of the week
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