"It's Lonely At The Top"

Where do I start with this blog? I finally made it into my site and have been hard at work. Of course, by work I mean I’ve been trying to keep my sanity. Let’s talk about the biggest problem for me right now, language.
Tamazight is a dialect of Amazight, which means that there is no written form of it. It is only spoken. It is also an ancient language that has changed and evolved over time. Since the indigenous Berber people have arrived several empires have conquered their territory and left, these empires being the Romans, Arabs, and recently the French. Only the Arabs have stayed for good and have maintained political control over Morocco. The significance of this is that the Berber language stopped evolving on its own and started adapting words from these other languages. More importantly, the language never became a truly written language.

Writing a language down allows it to be definitive and set in stone, “this word means this,” and everyone knows it because they read it. All languages are fluid and change over time (we aren’t still speaking Old English) but all people experience this change and learn from it through communication. On the other hand, when not everyone is reading the same material or communicating with each other, the language is able to change course as it likes without the rest of the world knowing. Especially when the people speaking that language are isolated and self-sufficient. There is no contact with others and their language becomes distinctly different than the communities around them. That’s incredibly frustrating for goofball Americans who spend two months of their life believing that the language their learning in one region will be understood in the other.


I am starting over almost from scratch. To ask what your name is in Azilal where I was training you would say, “may sminik.” But now I have to say, “may dims.” To add to the pain, I’m dealing with people who don’t know how to listen to my heavy foreign accent because I’m in a region that has never had a foreigner try to speak the language. English is derived from Anglo-saxon origins with a heavy emphasis of added vowels where we don’t expect them. For example, try saying “A” without an “ee” sound at the end. It’s impossible because the “ee” is an added vowel that helps make the word. Tamazight is more latin based and involves speaking straight vowels, i.e. “A” sounds like “eh.” So when I say something like, “I hate your language,” everyone thinks “ayee haeet youar lang- shit, I’m done listening to this guy.”


Luckily, there is a monstrous advantage to knowing Tamazight, and it lies in the politics. A man of Arab descent and a man of Berber descent are indistinguishable except in dress and name, but there is still a political divide between the two after centuries of Arabic political control. To add to this, king Hassan II had outlawed the teaching of all Amazight dialects (Tamazight, Tashlehit, and Tarafit) after Morocco’s independence from France and Spain in the early 50’s. The king’s intention was to unite the kingdom under one language (a common person in the nation will speak up to three or four languages), which would make life easier for everyone but is impossible to do without stepping on the toes of the Berbers. Hassan II has since died and the laws have changed to allow the teaching of Amazight under the new king Mohamed VI. But the divide still exists between Arabs and Berbers in language. Many people in large cities that are largely Arabic refuse to have an Amazight language spoken in their house, only Arabic. Here in the Berber mountains you are not very special if you are speaking Arabic, but no one learns Amazight unless they are from that area. Especially not white tourists. So when some white American guy comes to your mountain speaking what sounds like the faintest bit of Tamazight and says he wants to learn more…the shit hits the fan! I am a rock star. I can walk five miles down the road after being in town for four days and have truckloads of construction workers yelling my Moroccan name, “HDDU!” People will sit and listen to me stumble over their language like an imbecile for hours on end and love every minute of it. I’m sure in a month it won’t be the same, but for right now I’m going to soak it up.

This doesn’t mean that life is easy. Because they’ve never had someone trying to learn their language before, the people here don’t understand the concept of speaking slowly and deliberately. My host family doesn’t know what to do with me either. The women are all too scared to talk to me and most of the men can’t get past asking me if I’m a Muslim or not. All these problems amount to a roller coaster ride of emotions. I feel like a superhero in the morning and will feel like a prisoner in the afternoon. It’s too bad Randy Newman didn’t live on a mountain as a foreigner, because “it’s lonely at the top.”

Stuck In Tounfite With The Mobile Blues

Hey there folks, sorry it’s been so long, but I’ve been in a bit of a transition. I’m moving from Ait Helouan to a small town far up in the Eastern High Atlas Mountains. Most other peace corps volunteers (PCV) have entered into their sites a week ago. But I still haven’t even set foot in my site. For the past week I have been coordinating with the local Gendarme (like the police but not, I’ll explain another time) to have much of my paper work processed, helped with a 5K in nearby Middlt (When I say nearby I mean 3 hours away) to raise AIDS awareness, and made my way to the large city of Khunifera to meet with the heads of the Khunifera health department (Khunifera is my province). I’ve been a busy man and am excited to get to my site tomorrow. But what am I going to actually do once I get to my site? That’s a big problem indeed. So let me deliberate a little as to what I’m thinking or at least have heard.

While in Khunifera, I met with several department heads and heard many different ideas of what is needed. It seems that there is a basic need to connect the people in these rural bled (country side) areas to the medical support that is available. For instance in my site there is a doctor and nurse, a clinic where I will hopefully work where pregnant women can be examined, children can be vaccinated, and pre/post-natal care can be delivered. But no one goes. Why?

It can’t be money because all the vaccinations and exams are free. The clinic is in site so transportation shouldn’t be such a large problem, although for some women in farther out cities this very well could be a complication. But from what I’ve heard from previous volunteers, a big problem is that these women don’t trust the doctors or simply don’t see the importance.

So my job is behavior modification, i.e. get these women to trust the doctor/nurse and to give a damn. But that raises another question, how am I going to change their behavior and get them to seek the health care they need? And is that the specific health care problem these people are facing? I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even know how to ask. So I’m going to do what every other health volunteer has told me they have done their first few months here, sit in a sbitar and talk until I just know. Until I know what people are saying, what they want, what they think, and what I can do for them.

Of course this is all if I can even get to my site. For the past two days I've waited for a big white and green cargo van called a transit to come rumbling down the street, driven by an old weathered Moroccan named Mustapha. Happened to finally meet Mustapha today as he rolled into town and I was told that he would be heading to Anemzi at 3:00. I waited from 2:30 until 5:00 unti outside a cafe with everything I own until I finally was told the transit left at 1:30. Enshahala (God willing) I will make it tomorrow. Looks like tonight is another night at my fellow PCVs' houses.

Peace America!

Another Day In The Life!

Sorry about the leave of absence there folks but I’m back and typing on a regular keyboard. Time is a tight commodity around here. Let me take you through one of my days.
Each morning I get up around 5:30 a.m. to try and study some new verbs and nouns while most of my family is asleep. At 7:00 it’s time for tea and fresh bread with the family and a bucket shower if I’m lucky. I walk on a paved road that spans over rolling hills and is laced with and mountains and wheat fields peppered with poppies on all sides. It’s pretty picturesque!
We start our language sessions at 8:00 and go until 10:00 when we stop for tea and more bread. We hit the language again at 10:30 until 12:00 when we stop for a two hour lunch of Tajin and (not always) fresh fruit. After that it’s more language (or cross culture training) until 4:00 – it’s time for more tea and bread at 4:00 – and the same from 4:30 to 5:30. During the whole time we are covering mostly new material that we have to somehow memorize by the next session.
Of course you never do get time to study it all because there’s a family of Moroccans waiting at home for each of us with small children that want us to give our undivided attention to them. It’s not just the kids either, the family is constantly pushing me into the family room to drink tea and eat more of that damn bread I thought was so delicious earlier that morning. After four sessions of tea and bread a day you start having nightmares of bread eating its way out of you like in the movie Aliens. But the next day it seems great again, don’t ask me how. Still, there is little studying I can do when people are force feeding me and asking questions I don’t know the meaning of.
Despite all of this you may ask “why don’t you just go study somewhere else?” There are two reasons I don’t do that. Number one; where the hell else can I go? This is a town of about 300-500 people with nothing but a few houses, a mosque halfway in construction, and a small shop about as big as an ice-fishing house. The only real place I can go to is another trainee’s house, which brings us to number two; I have no independence. The other night I went over to a fellow trainee’s house to have dinner and ran into one of my host brothers there. I told him to tell my host-mom that I was having dinner at the trainee’s house. Unfortunately half way through dinner I heard a familiar nagging voice as I was midway into eating some more of that damn bread. It was my host mother.
I couldn’t understand a word she said. I didn’t have to, it was written all over her face, “why weren’t you home yet? I thought you were dead. Do you know what time it is? Why are you eating here?” She had been pretty congenial up to this point but now was a blaze of angry-mother glory. Tight lipped with her hands on her hips she was ready to ring my neck.
Like when Luke Skywalker first realized that he had the hots for his sister, I had the wind knocked out of me. Luckily I thought enough to glance at the time, it was only 8:30. I quickly concluded that I had done nothing wrong because it was still early and I was a twenty three year old man for crying out loud. All fear subsided when the family I was eating with just laughed and started arguing in my defense. My host mother ended up going back home only for me to find her laughing as though nothing had happened when I got home. She has never scolded me since, but always demands to know where I’m going to and at times doesn’t let me go where I want.
My host mother is really sweet at heart but it is no secret that she is overbearing at times. Every where I go in the village, if I mention I’m living with Miriem the person I’m talking to gets a broad smile and follows with the word “ishqqa” which in Tamazirgt means “difficult.” Life can be pretty sweet here in Morocco as a trainee, but everything comes with some sacrifices.

Trying Again II

Hey again. I know it’s been a while, and for good reason; culture shock. I’ve been frantically trying to figure out any bit of Tamagzhit (Berber dialect) that I can. Up until the past few days we’ve been staying in a nice (by Moroccan standards, my shower didn’t have a curtain) hotel. A few days ago we moved into our host families’ houses in small villages near Benni milal in the Atals mountains. We have electricity and water, which is great, but the bathrooms are squatters and there is no such thing as toilet paper out here (I’ve stopped chewing the fingernails on my left hand). My host mother (Miriem) is extremely talkative while my host father (Moha) is content to sit and smile. I have a 25 year old brother Aziz, a 21 year old brother Bouzza, a 34 year old brother (Mohammed), a 21 year old sister (Aicha), her 6 month year old son (Salahaddin), a 19 year old sister whose name escapes me, and a funny 11 year old sister (Khadija) who runs and attempts to talk to me. Needless to say, they are a big family.

My first night here I couldn’t even say “rock” in Tamazight. In fact, I couldn’t pronounce Tamazight! I can now say a few useful pronouns (I, you, we, etc.) and know the names of a few nouns. You can probably understand that the dialogue between my host family and I is very limited. They say a million words so fast I can’t think straight, I try to sputter out one word, they all look at me with smiling but blank stares, I act it out, they all laugh. This goes on for about one to two hours and then we all do something else. My one advantage is that I know something about medicine. Khadija broke her wrist the other day and scraped her hands. Luckily I had some antibacterial ointment and band-aids for her fingers and told the family to put her wrist in a sort of makeshift splint. Then I told them to take her to the doctor in the nearest village. They probably understood none of what I said (they never did do the splint thing) but seemed very grateful for the band-aids and the fact that I cared. These people can’t understand me and I can’t understand them but I think there is a common enjoyment of each other that is shared, even if at the end of the day I am a nervous wreck.

Each day, I meet with a group of five other girl volunteers to be instructed in Tamazight for 4-6 hours a day. The rest of the time is spent doing cultural studies and spending time attempting to communicate with our families. My instructor, Samir, is a great guy and I enjoy his classes. One of the girls is actually closer to me than I thought as well. In college I had a long-distance track and field coach for one year named Cici. She was a tall black woman who had a heart of gold and would always talk about her daughter Naomi who went to Bethel. It just so happens that Naomi is in my group at my site and is a strong Christian. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I think God is building a strong ring of support around me (including you guys at home) even all the way out here in the high Atlas mountains of Morocco.

I will continue to let you know what’s going on. Hopefully once a week I can make it into a bigger city with the internet and keep things updated. Until then, take care and God bless guys. I’m going to keep doing my best.

Trying Again

I know I haven't been the best at keeping this updated. But my posts weren't getting posted, hopefully the problem is fixed now! My life right now is great, I am living in a small village (about 300 people) in the Atlas mountains about 120 kilometers outside Beni Millal. The days are hot with a cool breeze and the nights are just right for sleeping. Although that is hard to do with my host family's dog barking at the wild dogs that come out at night. There are a few in particular that I have been tangling with, but I have a big stick now to fend myself off with (I had only rocks before but my host-mother has fixed that). The food is delicious and I am learning Tamazhigt (the Berber dialect spoken here) slowly but surely. There are down turns to things like having to wash your clothes by hand, washing yourself with cold water out of a bucket only once every few days, and using your hand in the bathroom rather than toilet paper. But those are small in comparison to the kindess and generosity of the people as well as the beautiful landscape. I will hopefully have more time to update this and throw some new pictures on in a week or less. Until then, Bslama and God bless!

Hey Africa!