our GLOW camp was mentioned on Peace Corps FB page!

this is a pretty accurate description of my life

http://whatshouldpcvscallme.tumblr.com/

GLOW CAMP!

GIRLS LEADING OUR WORLD!!!

what? GLOW (girls leading our world) camps are a peace corps worldwide activity, the main purpose of the camp is to encourage self esteem and challenge campers to think beyond traditional gender roles

the where? a camp facility in the mountainous city of Azrou (which means 'rock' in berber tamazight) where the temperatures were cooool and the forests are filled with pretty green cedar trees!

the when? september 10 - 15th

WHO WENT? 39 girls who primarily no longer attend school, but are not yet married. the group ranged from 15 - 30 years old. (that seems weird in america but in morocco you arent a woman until you are married), 6 peace corps volunteers, and 5 moroccan staff.

WOOOOOOOOOOO! so the camp was AWESOME, but before the camp started i had my fair share of disappointment. you know the saying dont count your chickens until they hatch? welllll 3 out of my 5 girls backed out of the camp at the last minute. they gave me a whole bunch of reasons but when it came down to it a lot of dads said no and changed their minds and i think the girls might have been embarrassed or scared to step out of their comfort zone. the main demographic of girls we were looking for were girls who no longer attend school but arent married yet. this puts most of the girls we had attend between 15 - 23. in my village it just isnt normal for girls to travel without their families or the even LEAVE the house EVER. so i knew i was kind of pushing it but i thought maybe if i kept up good relations with the dads they might let them go. i learned not to talk everything personally too. ive only been here for a year, i cant change the way everyone thinks. but i did have two girls attend and hopefully they spread the word of their good experience and encourage girls to go if there is another camp next year...inshallah 

so heres the breakdown of all we did! (every morning we woke up early and did aerobics or yoga and then had a morning session and an afternoon session)

Monday - behind the scenes we were dealing with getting 40 girls to the camp facilities in general and once they allll finally got there we had a welcome session, dinner and ICEBREAKERSSSSSSSSSSS! 

Tuesday - guest speaker about communication (mainly perception vs. reality and how to effectively speak to others within moroccan culture). in the afternoon we did glow camp exercises about attitudes and self esteem and then took a walk around Azrou. 

Wednesday - guest speaker of a woman who is active in an environment association and explained how they can help their local environment. in the afternoon a midwife came and spoke about healthy living and answered health questions that are typically considered 'shameful' in moroccan culture. then we had a TALENT SHOW at night lol

Thursday - went for a hike in azrou through the forest. afternoon we went out to a building that supports shops of local artisans. in the afternoon we did a glow exercise that helped the girls determine their skills and potential. 

Friday - a female professor of Islam came to do a presentation of what is taught in the Koran about girls and women. in the afternoon we did a glow camp exercise about the messages the girls have received from various influences (mom? dad? tv? teachers? friends?) about the importance of marriage, education, health, etc. as well as a womens roles in society.

i have a lot more pictures to upload but every time i try they end up looking crazy...like these but here we are the end!!!

summmmmatime!

So the summer is wrapping up and work is picking up again but the month of august was really fun. Ramandan and the Olympics were in full swing - it was weird to be breaking fast and watching Michael phelps on tv at the same time but it was also really awesome because that meant I didn’t have to watch any soap operas lol. Right before I left for America I stopped off in Casablanca for a bit. I ended up going to the mall of morocco with my one and only and we were literally blown away. The mall included (among lots of other things) a pinkberry, starbucks, payless, pizza hut express, banana republic, h & m, zara , imax theater, American appearl, etc – it was nuts. It was one of the nicest malls ive ever been to and its brand new, it just opened in 2012! There was a HUGE aquarium too with mini sharks and cool fish in it too. It was cool to step into the western world before my arrival in America but glad malls aren’t the norm in morocco. It actually made me miss souk a little bit?

happy ramadan <3 mcdo

breakin fast, watchin mike

mall of morocco: plz note the giant aquarium behind us

pinkberry!

After 16 months and 28 hours of travel I finally made it HOME! Shaffer picked me up with chipotle in tow – it was literally perfect to drive in a car with ac and to not have to share my seat and eat my favorite food – I wish I could relive that feeling everyday lol once I got home I went straight to hanging out with my friends, we went out in a classic Baltimore fashion of debauchery – it was the perfect homecoming! I also had a bbq to see my whole family and my friends came too, it was so nice to see everyone after so long and realize that people still care about you and didn’t forget that youre alive. That sounds pessimistic but I mean it in the most positive way possible lol

bmore friendz

misssssinyall

I also went to Hershey park with gub, mary, and amber and ate chocolate and rode rollercoasters. We also had mcdonalds for breakfast, subway for lunch, and chic fli a for dinner – it was the most American day ive ever had in my life.

bootleg pic of hershey chocolate factory tour lol thx gub!

The following weekend I went to the beach with my cousins and Shaffer (its now a yearly tradition? Yeah? haha) but going to the beach was the best! After living in a restrictive culture for so long it was nice to be a place where anything goes…for better or worse…typical worse…and especially in terms of fashion. Good old ocean city md was filled with dbag people and apparel that made the heart flutter with joy.  We also spent time at the rehobeth boardwalk and I regained my faith in humanity. The weekend was filled with good beer, good food and family. That’s all you need.

famiiiiiily!

classic OCMD hats...we were integrating lol

Thanks to everyone who took the time to meet up with me (and most of the time feed me lol): my family n friends, the welkies (thank you for the polish feast!), Dr. Meisinger (thank you for the classic bachelor lunch), Camille (good luck in vet school), chris (move to hoco lol), Bonnie and Mollie (Hawaii 2013!), Lynn (come live in morocco w me? lol)

GLOW (Girls Leading Our world) camp is happening this coming week and im bringing 5 girls from my village. There will be about 40 girls total and the theme of the week is women’s empowerment and education! Im super excited for my girls and to work at the camp! Moroccan teenage girls are my specialty in morocco – sit around, watch mtv Arabia, put on make up, etc. lol ill post about the camp soon, hopefully everything goes smoothly! Shout out to gussie for planning it!

So I have been absolutely terrible at updating my blog this spring/early summer  - but im determined to get back on track for the rest of my service (less than a year LEFT AHHHH!). So here is a timeline of all the things ive been up to that are blog worthy.

March/April – finished beekeeping trainings, received my grant, bought some serious bee supplies, got my cat HW (shes named after the little boy in ‘there will be blood’), met up with Shaffer in spain, and helped out with jo and yanyi’s craft fair in fes!

May/June – celebrated my official one year as a VOLUNTEER anniversary, went to my friend Ori’s site to help him with a three day health event and went over to the coast for a music festival

Spring

I’ve been waiting to update my blog in case things went horribly wrong with my project, but so far so good! So this is the timeline for how things went down: in February we did a general information session with another volunteer’s landlord who is a professional beekeeper. Since that went well and everyone was really enthusiastic we set up training sessions every Sunday in March with a local bee technician. The first session was inside with videos and bee biology basics, the next week the guys went out in suits and practiced on the president of the association’s personal bee boxes, then the week after they prepped the place in the mountain (basically created a little bit of a terrace) where the boxes would go (I felt bad I just took pictures while they did all this physical labor lol).  Then came the part of my project where I freaked out – so in like October I planned to meet up with shaffer at the end of march (before I even knew I would have a project) and basically the timing worked out so that my grant money was going to come in while I was away – and my association thought I was like dipping out on them with the money to go to spain and they were pissed because we had to get the boxes before the price went up (bee boxes get more expensive as the spring gets closer to summer). The money ended up being deposited in my account the DAY before I left for spain – the problem here was that you have to move bee boxes at night when they are sleeping and all in the hive – also my association guys wanted to check out the bee boxes before committing to buying them. So I couldn’t stay for the actual money transaction which was going to be too late at night because we had to get back to fes so I could catch my flight in the morning - and then I signed my potential death sentence – I handed over 12,000 d’s in CASH to my association and LEFT it with them. I told them that if they spent it on anything else than bee boxes then I would have to back to America and I would go to jail lol BUT when I got back to morocco and they had purchased the boxes, had a receipt and even had 800 d’s left over and gave it back to me! I was like WHOA this is f ing legit and these guys are here to work and genuinely want to get things done! And once I was back we finished up buying the rest of the equipment and now theyre out there working with da beees! So everything is all good and im just finishing up the completion report for the grant. Woooo!

Also meeting up with Shaffer was sweeeeeet! The thing about peace corps is that your lows can be pretty low, but your highs are f ing AWESOME! Haha we ate so much pork and drank so much sangria…it was so much fun. Also I have some good stories pre shaffer’s arrival. So considering my day before I left I didn’t realize that my flight was into girona and not Barcelona lol so I ended up in this random town going the wrong direction on a train AWAY from barca and getting totally lost. Im so happy Shaffer wasn’t there because he would have KILLED me..but it was fun to see the spainish countryside haha also since I got to spain a night before Shaffer and stayed at a ‘party hostel’ in a 6 person room (although it was supposed to be 20 but a big spring break/study abroad group came in and they took it thank god). But this guy was wearing a maryland hockey shirt and we started talking – he was there for spring break and i told him I graduated in 2010 and that im in the peace corps now. And we talked about pc for a long time because he said that he is applying (but the catch is that he was in Barcelona for spring break). And after about 10 minutes I was like ‘okay im going to grab a beer, I can never drink’ and he was like ‘oh yeah- are you not 21 yet?’ and I just laughed and was like ‘uhh no I live in a muslim country, the one ive been sitting here talking to you about, remember?’ I might be in a 23 year olds body but I am 50 at heart now hahaa AND THEN I met this girl who is studying abroad in ROME for FOOD AND CULTURE. Im going to let you sit and absorb how awesome that is right?! OKAY so then she started bitching to me about how small her bed is, and how her roommate ate her peanut butter, how she is homesick (she got there in feb and probs headed home in may – shut up), how Italian guys are creepy, how tired she is of Italian food and just overall being ungrateful and annoying. But I was trying so hard not to one up her and be like LOOK BETCH, I HAVE IT SO MUCH WORSE THAN YOU STFU!!!!!!!!!!! But I sat and tried to smile and sympathize but im so scared im going to come back to America and be the annoying person who never lets anyone complain without making them feel like a butthole for bitching about dumb shit. But overall it was a hella funny night. at like 1 I was going to bed and everyone in the hostel was like just getting ready to go out. IM SO OLD.

Seeing Shaffer was a really cool. Its crazy because hes the first person (beside my parents…who are awesome) that ive seen since I left. It was cool to remember that my life was real back home and that its not just some weird story I read or a dream. We ate such good food and pork products and sangria and were good tourists when we set our minds to it. It was really relaxing and the exact opposite of everything I ever do in morocco (mainly in terms of eating good food and drinking good drinks).

Madrid y'all

Mexican food in Spain!

Sagrada Família

I also got my cat in March from another volunteer who was finished with her service. Shes great company and definitely gets people off my back about living by myself. Once I say I have a cat they laugh and forget to ask me the usual questions about being afraid and stuff. Shout out to Jo for babysitting her for me when I first got her and then ran away to spain lol I owe you one?

sleepy lady!

looking out the kitchen window

sleeping on her sheep skin rug lol

After spain came jo and yanyi’s craft fair. Their project made me realize how happy I am not to be an event planner, especially in a different language and culture. There were a lot of hang ups (like the Princess of Morocco’s tennis association overriding their reservation at a hotel a week before the craft fair) but it turned out great! Moroccan artists from all over the country were able to show off their products to a different audience and gain some business savvy knowledge. I also picked up some carpets (shout out mom, ali and ni!) and magic donkey boy (shout out gub!). my friend ali just got married (congrats girl!) and she was a fibers major in college and now works designing carpets – so it was cool to get her an authentic Moroccan carpet for her wedding present. The women who I bought the carpet from were really proud that their carpet wasn’t just going to America BUT it was also going for a WEDDING present lol

magic the donkey boy (the picture keeps uploading strangely)

Ali's carpet is the beige one in the middle from Beni Mellal (near Marrakech)

Ni's carpet from Ain Leuh (near Azrou)

All the artisans at the end!

Summer

On May 25, 2012 my staj celebrated our one year anniversary as official, sworn in volunteers. It hasn’t been an easy road since the environment program has been canceled, the ministry of water and forest has decided to stop working with volunteers and no one from our original programing staff still works at peace corps BUT were still here YAY!  Our staj’s nickname is ‘the forgotten staj’ lol fitting.

Also I went out to my friend Ori’s site to help him out with a huge public health event he did in his village and two surrounding villages. My main task, along with two other volunteers, was to distract the children while their parents went to see doctors. It was an awesome set up and VERY organized. Ori went around before the event and surveyed what ailments people usually suffered from, arranged for a general doctor to come to the event, but also specialists for the most common complaints. Men and women were separated, and while they waited health sessions were done ranging from maternal health to the risks of smoking. In total about 1500 people were able to be seen by the doctors and given medicine, but also some health tips to take home with them for day to day. The most popular lesson was “what is more expensive: medicine or soap?” NICE WORK ORI!

hand washing/how to make bubbles with your hand lesson

waiting for ze doctors.

Atlas mountainssss/ a village near Ori's site

my dog friend!!!

A couple weekends ago I went to Essouaira for a Guana music festival. It was really nice to get to the beach and enjoy the nice weather. It correlated with a heat wave that swept over morocco so it was really nice to wear a hoodie when you knew it was like 44 C in other places lol there was awesome food and it was nice to hang out with people I haven’t seen for a long time.

essa is known for their carpet boots. I LOVE THEM.

Berberz

Also here are some random pictures/updates...

the president, vice president, yanyi, and i were all in a car on the way to my village when they suddenly stop the car - jump out - and grab something from the road annnnnnd it was a HEDGEHOG (its on the dashboard) lol they took it home  for a pet so it could eat bugs and figs haha

I FINALLY learned how to cook and i made those tortillas from scratch! i can officially make like 5 edible and yummy dishes!  

poppyfieldz at my site

roof top sunset - mghila - my site

on the path to my host fam's house

mghila

Okay that’s all I got. PEACE. 

training

so for the month of march my association has been meeting once a week for some beekeeping trainings! if god wills it (inshallah) were going to have the beeboxes by the end of this week and be up and running for real! here are some highlights from the trainings though.

queen vs. drone vs. workers

bee box basics

practicing with the association presidents bee boxes

yea! teamwork! woooo!

beeeeeeeeees

working hard.

getting ready

setting up the bee box location

making good progress

the bees are almost here and we're READY!!!

the bees knees

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKEEEEEEPING! this is all my association has been talking about for the last 6 months and they're ready to go! in the beginning of feb we had a general information session with another PCVs landlord who has been beekeeping for 20 years. He came in and explained a typical calendar year and the budget and how much work the association can expect to do. since then ive turned in my grant and we are starting training sessions with a bee techinican from Sefrou. Here is my little spiel about the project....

"Mghila is a small rural village located in the mountainous region of Northern Morocco known for olive oil production and subsistence farming. Olive oil production is the main source of employment and income during the winter months of olive season. However, during the remaining months of the year most people are without a job. Beekeeping has the potential to provide an alternative source of income during the spring and summer months that is sustainable and environmentally friendly. Local beekeeping would also make honey more accessable and improve the nutrition of families in Mghila. The community is contributing to this project through labor, training, transportation, and storage for the equipment. The interested community members would be assigned specific roles in the implementation of this project by logistically caring for the bees, as well as planning and organizing amongst themselves.  The timeline for this project began this February with a community meeting set up by the local association as a general information session. The community hopes to start the beekeeping project this spring by bringing in a local bee technican to do trainings on hive set up, maintance, harvest, and off season care. The members of the community interested in working with bees are committed to sharing resources and working as a team to put in the long hours for the ultimate rewards – community development and honey!"

There's a lot of potential here but I'm staying cautiously optimistic.  Just wanted to give a little update about what I've been up to!

christine, her landlord (Said), me and my association.