And We’re Back!

And we’re back! Since the last time I posted an updated a great deal has happened.  For starters, not long after my last post I finally decided my nagging wrist pain needed a real checking out. It had been about two and a half months since arriving in country, and still not feeling it get better (it hurt when I put weight on it but otherwise was fine) even with the wrist brace the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) had quickly provided me with. So just a couple of weeks into my second home stay I found myself headed to Rabat to get an x-ray. I made the journey with several environment volunteers headed there for mid service medical exams, who were kind enough to show me how to get there and then show me around the city. On the way we joked that one of them knew the our hotel manager already because he had made the trip to Rabat seven times during his service in just his first year. Little did I expect to find myself just over two months later in the same family of volunteers who know the fair capital city of Morocco oh too well. I left at the end of the week with a good ol’ hard cast most people remember from childhood. Turns out I had a scaphoid fracture in my wrist, an injury commonly associated with bar room brawls. But the week was not entirely a bust. My timing not only coincided with mid service medicals giving me the rare opportunity to spend almost a week with an entire stage (gatherings of which only occur four times in each stage’s Peace Corps experience), but also lined up perfectly with the annual Mawazine world music festival.  In what I liked to see as a silver lining to getting a cast at the start of summer I saw two amazing west African concerts, Thievery Corporation, and… wait for it… Elton John! All for free! I will admit that a great portion of the Elton John concert included songs I had never heard, but his encore of first the Lion King’s “Circle of Life” (nice Africa call out) and then “Your Song” was the perfect way to end a trip and a week spent with new friends. (Of course the incredible DJ at the after party mixing Red Hot Chili Peppers into a club dance song only to be joined by one of the best Spanish guitarists I have personally ever seen didn’t hurt either).

My return to site found me back at home with my wonderful host family getting settled into my life here. These tasks included locating an apartment (no I do not live in a mud hut, there are volunteers here, a large number who live in mud homes, which is actually preferable in the freezing winters, no indoor heating and all that), applying for my Carte de Sejour (Residency Permit) so I wouldn’t be deported (requires much more than just waiting in line), working on my language, and learning how to bathe with a cast (bucket baths are actually easier for this than showers). I made it out of site a couple of weekends, including an Alice in Wonderland party, and a trip to the Sacred Music Festival in Fez for the headline opener, it was supposed to be Ben Harper but I was more than happy to find out he had canceled last-minute and been replaced by Amadou and Miriam. Known as the “blind couple from Mali” they put on a phenomenal three-hour performance with no breaks. While the tickets may have been expensive (at 300Dh they tickets are a normal concert ticket price of $35 but generally far out of a PCVs price range) the concert, set in an ancient castle where the volunteers in attendance started the movement to get the seated crowd of tourists and wealthy Moroccans up and dancing in front of the stage (really there was no other option, just listen to the music on their website http://www.amadou-mariam.com/). The whole experience reminded me a) why I rarely regret the purchase of any concert ticket, and b) how much I love the friends I have made in Peace Corps.

I’m sure this is starting to sound the same way it did to my parents when I would give them updates: like the movie “Volunteers” isn’t too far off point. Well I had the same feeling when I arrived at my Post Pre-Service Training at the end of last month (you’d think they could come up with a better name right?). On my way to the two-week training in Ouarzazate with the Health stage back together again in our entirety (well minus two) I had spent twice as many nights living in a hotel in Rabat than in my apartment I had moved into on the first of July, and that’s not including when I got my cast on. I spent a full two weeks in Rabat expecting to stay only 3 days. Luckily I quickly became friends with housekeeping who gave me a much larger room with a balcony, and for a small fee would do my laundry for me, a much-needed service in mid-July even with a shower. By the end of training I’d spent four out of five weeks in a row living in hotels. This left me at a fresh beginning point when I finally arrived back in site, three days before the start of Ramadan.

Ramadan has been interesting, fun, and not as difficult as expected, but with it’s unique annoyances. The schedule of eating breakfast at 7:00pm, then again at 1:00am, only to come home to sleep under a window with no curtains and wake up at 7:00am, makes afternoon naps necessary, and life painful if you miss them. Luckily the food is not as sweet as I had expected, although in no way is it healthy for you. To break fast (they actually use the same word for breakfast even though I’m almost certain it doesn’t break down into parts the way it does in English) we pretty much eat the same thing every day. First you must have at least one date, or two+ depending on how hungry you are at the moment, then out comes the fat bread (bread baked with a middle layer of fat, chopped up carrots, olives if you’re lucky, and sometimes chicken meat or chicken liver), hardboiled eggs with salt and cumin, and chebakia, which is essentially a fried sesame cookie soaked in honey (couldn’t handle it the first time I had it but now love it, much to the chagrin of my teeth). Then after stuffing yourself with all of the fat bread etc, out comes the harrira, which is a spice and salt heavy soup with chick peas and, if you’re at my family’s, some noodles, delicious but with the prospect of having two bowls forced on top of an already full stomach it starts not sounding as good.

On the work side of things I have just started making a routine out of spending time at my sbitar (health clinic), and hope to start working with a nurse from a neighboring town next week. More on all of that later, as well as on the regular TV shows on during Ramadan meals and their accommodating nature. I hope to blog more regularly now that I feel more or less fully settled in, so I would love comments and questions about Morocco, Peace Corps, or anything in general really (I’ve kind-of been having a craving to do research on the economic situation of Rwanda recently so that might tell you where I’m at on answering any and all queries). Hope you enjoy this and what’s to come.

PS. I may have gotten the title for this post from the gchat automated comment after a disconnection… well either way it’s firmly imprinted in my mind at this point as a catchy return.