It’s hard to believe that it’s almost been a year since I arrived in Morocco
A few weeks back I went up north to a training to speak to the newer volunteers. I know I say this a lot, and I’ll keep saying this, but I HATE traveling in this country. The waiting, the inconsistency, the harassment, it’s exhausting. To get home I stop off the main road, take a 45 minute taxi ride to the center of my site, then I either walk an hour or if I’m lucky, I catch a ride to my village. On my journey back to my site from the training, I was exhausted, smelly, and irritated from spending hours on a bus and train when I finally stopped off the main road. Immediately my feelings of frustration faded when the cute butcher gave me a chair to sit at his shop while I waited for a taxi. Once I caught a taxi and made it to the center of my site, I ran to the vegetable man who lives in my village to see if he was still around. When I saw him cleaning up, I yelled his name in excitement, and asked him if he would take me home, as that walk in the dark would most likely result in me getting bit by a rabid dog. He laughed and took me home minutes later. It felt so good to be home. It’s nice I am finally feeling this way about my site.
Yet, there continue to be days where feelings of homesickness are overwhelming, and I stay inside to eat tootsie rolls or an entire box of Mac and Cheese mixed with bacon bits (thank god for care packages) and watch ‘Breaking Bad’ or whatever TV obsession I have that week. The other day, I was on Facebook and I was looking at a page my friends from college started for events and such. As I was looking at this, and realizing all the times I was going to continue to miss out on, I cried. Now, I can probably name very few times since being here that I’ve cried, but there is no denying how much it pains me that I will miss out on being with my loved ones back home. No need to worry, this cry was short lived. And yes, this was one moment where I ate 15 tootsie rolls in the matter of 5 minutes. Don’t judge.
Last week I finally submitted my first grant proposal to build a women’s center in my village. I am fortunate enough to have found English speaking counterparts to work with, however, the most challenging part of this whole process was getting a legit budget. Since my counterpart is a teacher, he left for 2 weeks for vacation. During this time I was left all by my lonesome to meet with people and get a price list for all materials that are to be needed. Getting this budget took me about a week, usually of me going out everyday and finding Mohamed, or Hamid, or Mostafa, or Rashid, or some other Moroccan name to get an answer. This, mind you, was all done in Tashlheet. I would walk around with my Tash dictionary and all my papers just to find the right person who could give me an answer. The majority of the time I would ask somebody where the person was I was looking for that day, then they would write the name down in Arabic, and I would continue walking around showing this piece of paper to whomever I passed until I was successful in my mission. After getting a budget, I spent about a week writing up the grant. I should hear back from the organization in a few weeks if my grant has been accepted. Fingers crossed.
About 2 weeks ago I went to another festival with animal slaughtering where Angelica and I witnessed the massacre of 6 cows. Then we went to a friend’s house and ate delicious tajine and pasta with tea and nuts. I know this is going to sound absurd, but I love me any Moroccan holiday where an animal is slaughtered because whatever I am going to be fed is going to be DA BOMB! Pictures are posted on Facebook, with a warning in case you’re not in the mood to see dead and bloody cows. I have a video of the slaughtering as well, but I didn’t think too many people would appreciate that.
Now that my grant has been submitted and my weeks of being consistently busy have faded, I am trying to find ways to entertain myself. That’s the thing about life as a PCV, there are days when you are so busy you barely have time to fit in one episode of Dexter, and then there are days when you go through an entire season way too quickly. Lately, I’ve been daydreaming a lot. Most of these thoughts are spent on FOOD! What I would give for Ben and Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, my moms’ lasagna, my Magrandes’ tacos, BACON, loaded nachos, thin mints, sushi, a killer breakfast made by my older brother, greasy happy hour food, oh and a Blue Moon. I would kick a small Moroccan child in the face for a tall glass of Blue Moon. Until that fateful day when I step foot on beautiful US soil, I’ll have to continue life as I do, not eating these foods. Is it May 2013 yet because I’m starving????
