Moroccan country living

Occasionally, Abderahim will say to us, “would you like to go for a drive?”  We’ve learned that usually means we are about to have an adventure.  Yesterday, we drove out to the plant nursery that Abderahim’s friend owns.  To get there, we drove through a huge area in the early stages of residential housing development.  Trees have been cleared, roads bulldozed and sewer pipes are ready for installation.  Immediately adjacent to the new development is another section of houses, shacks really, built of sheetmetal, cardboard, sticks, whatever.  Every one of these places has a satellite tv dish.  After a distance of about 4 miles, we entered a bucolic rural area of green rolling hills.  There are rectangular parcels of 2 hectares (~ 5 acres) along both sides of the road.  We stopped at the nursery but his friend was not home.  We drove back down the road about a quarter of a mile and then up a road to the house pictured above.  The house looked very much like one of those little stucco on cinderblock houses in small  Baja California towns.  The kitchen is outside the main living area and there is a shaded outdoor room for visitors and dining.

Abderahim’s friend from the nursery, Driss, was there helping his friend, Beha, with his irrigation system.  Behind the house, were about 40 avocado trees, some newly planted, others looked a few years old.  We walked back to the house and were welcomed by Beha’s wife.  Abderahim tried to decline an invitation for tea and snacks, but was unsuccessful. The tea and snacks turned into a full scale lunch invitation that he also tried to decline to no avail.  Wafaa, wife of Abderahim, had spent the morning cooking our lunch and we were expected back to the house soon.  Beha’s wife got on the phone to Wafaa to explain the situation. It finally worked out that Abderahim drove back to the house to pick up Waffa plus her lunch.  So we all sat outside under the pergola and had lunch together.  While we were waiting for Abderahim and Wafaa to return, Nancy and I talked to Beha about the fruit trees he had planted around the property.  Besides avocado trees, there were orange, lemon, fig, apples, japanese plums, peaches, grapes and a berry (pictured below) tree that we’ve never seen before.  The berries were sweet, sort of a cross between blackberries and raspberries, but somewhat sweeter.

After lunch, we drove to Driss’s nursery and he gave Abderahim eight fruit trees.  Abderahim later gave me three of the fruit trees – orange, lemon and grapefruit to plant at the dar chabab.  Nancy and I think it’s time to form the dar chabab garden committee.  If the trees keep coming like this, the dar chabab students need to have a landscape design plan.

Traditionally men pour the tea

Wafaa in white jallaba, Abderahim on the phone

Languages

Reda.  He’s five years old and lives in our host family’s house.  We have an official tutor, Yousra, a university graduate that we meet with every week, but Reda is our go-to guy around the house.  Not only are we trying to get a handle on darija, the Moroccan Arabic dialect, but we also have Modern Standard Arabic and French in the mix.  Fatna, one of Abderahim’s sisters, who also lives in our house, speaks Spanish pretty well.  When she’s around, we can get the Spanish to darija conversations going.  Reda is quickly picking up some of our English and Fatna’s Spanish, so he is rambling on these days in quite a linguistic free for all.  Abderahim told us yesterday that Reda was talking in his sleep the night before last and using a variety of words from different languages.  Reda is also the comic relief around the house.  Here he’s giving us a lesson about Moroccan money. 

Spring Camp April 2014

This week was another school break for all Moroccan students.  Many dar chababs (youth centers) around the country host free camps during those vacations.  Our dar chabab was open Monday – Saturday, in the mornings.  Typically, there were 20 – 25 students, age range from 20 – 28, with more women than men attending.  Our theme for the week was “The World” with Nancy and Jenay alternating days with English lessons around that topic.  The students organized daily activities that included skits, scavenger hunts and improv comedy.  Our host, Abderrahim, has a friend that runs a plant nursery.  One day last week, we were talking about the garden outside the dar chabab.  It is in a state of neglect.  I mentioned that with some students help,we could get the garden back into shape by cleaning it up and planting some trees and vegetables.  By chance, Abderrahim’s friend with the nursery called him last Monday to say that he had some trees to give to him.  The next day, ten small cedar trees arrived.  On Wednesday, I gave a lesson about trees and why they are important.  I found a good quote:

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.  The second best time to plant a tree is now.” – Anonymous

Over the next three days, the students cleared some brush around the garden to create new paths and planted the new trees. The soil was pretty good in some of the spots and a bit too sandy in others.  We mulched vegetable waste from our kitchen and coffee grounds into the good soil we found. Then spread it around to the sandy areas. We saved one of the trees for planting for a small ceremony we had today. In the future, we plan to continue the garden project with more trees, paths and perhaps some benches. 

 

 

 

Mehdyia

“The beach here looks just like California with surfers, boogie boarders, and swimmers until the CAMELS arrive!!!” – Nancy

Mehdyia is a 30 minute bus ride from Kenitra.  It’s a nice little beach town with a turbulent history.  It was founded by the Carthaginians, who established a colony at the mouth of the Sebou River.  I think this river is how the Romans later made their way to Volubilis.  Although I haven’t read this anywhere, it makes sense to me that since the Sebou is navigable and makes its way inland near Volubilis, that’s how they arrived in that place.  It was a natural site for the shipyards of the Almohad sultans, as it was and still is, surrounded by forests.  In June 1515, King Manual of Portugal sailed a fleet of 200 ships up the river and established a fort on the riverbank.  The sultans had disguised their fortifications and waited about a month to let the Portuguese drop their guard.  The Moroccans then moved in and destroyed the Portuguese force.

Later, in the 16th century, Mehdiya became a hideout for the English privateer, Mainwaring.  From here, he preyed on all shipping, selling his captives according to their religion and race in slave markets in Fes and Algiers.  He retired to a respectable life in England but shortly after his departure, his lair was destroyed by a Spanish fleet in 1610.  The Spanish stayed and fortified the kasbah for 50 years before they were kicked out by one of Mouley Ismail’s generals, Ali er Riffi.  The town last saw military action in 1942 when two American destroyers swept up the estuary and landed marines on the quay.  The Americans established a naval base and stayed in Kenitra until 1978, when they turned the base over to Morocco.  The older generation of Kenitra still talk about when the Americans were here, in a good way from what I can gather.  (Most of this information came from, “Morocco”, by Barnaby Rogerson).

There a couple of these billboards around Mehdyia that advertise e-cigarettes.  What I find amusing is that they say that they are 100% natural and that “you can say good night to insomnia”.

 

 

Dinner

One of the women in our house, Fatna, has cousins that have a butcher shop.  She took us to dinner there last night about 9:30pm.  There were tables outside and lots of people in the street. They were grilling sausages and other meats.  Not sure what we had, but it was a delicious mix of meats in a pocket sandwich. Everyone was very nice and happy to have “the Americans” at their shop!

Nancy

Note from Scott:

Setting up and using satellite TV works differently here in Morocco. You buy your dish and set it up on your roof or balcony.  I’m not sure how much they cost but I’ve been told that they are not expensive.  There is a device you can use to help you find the satellite in the sky or you can use the “trial and error” method Mohammed, our Fes host, used to find the satellite. Once you connect through the receiver box, you have satellite tv.  No charge, no monthly bills.  The Moroccan government decided that satellite tv should be available to all and may well be the case in other countries across the region.  Our house is connected to Nile Sat.  There are 1000 channels on this satellite, most of them in use.  There are channels from all across North Africa, the Middle East, France, England and the US.  Amazing.     

It’s Official

Note: This was written before the previous post but posted after.

Last Saturday, before we left for Rabat, Nancy and I packed our suitcases and said, “see you later, not goodbye” to our host family in Fes. Two months is a long time to spend with another family, especially in a two bedroom apartment with 6 other adults and one bathroom. In spite of our busy training schedule, everything worked out well and we had a good time. Our last morning after breakfast, I thanked Mohammed for everything and for letting us stay at his house. He said “darik”, which after I thought about it for a minute, means “your house” or the Moroccan version of “mi casa es su casa”.

That same afternoon, we found out where we would be living in Morocco for the next two years. The two things Nancy and I asked for in our final site were that it be close to a transportation line and not in a large city. Kenitra is on the coast, 30 minutes north of Rabat on the train line that runs from Tangier to Marrakesh. It’s about three hours north to Tangier and one hour south to Casablanca by train. Kenitra’s population in 2004 was about 350,000, but it’s bigger than that now. Large by Moroccan standards, but it’s a university town, so there will be lots to do. Mehdya, a nice little beach town, is about a 20 minute cab ride away.

On Sunday, we had a darija language placement interview in the morning. It was stressful, but we both passed. Later that day, we walked to the beach from our hotel. If you walk along the coast towards Sale, you come to a small bay before the mouth of the Oued (river) Bou Regreg. It was a sunny day and there were many people on the beach and in the water.

We were very busy during the week with training, paperwork and last minute details. It rained quite a bit on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Dinner was not included with our hotel stay so we had dinner out every night. There are a number of good restaurants in Rabat that cater to an international crowd. In one of the restaurants, we met the founder of Corps Africa. It is a Moroccan version of AmeriCorps, where Moroccans can volunteer in different parts of the country. We also met the founder of Anue, an online marketplace for Moroccan artisans to display their works for sale directly on the internet. Both of these organizations were started by former Peace Corps volunteers.

One evening, we went to MoHssine’s (our LCF) family house for dinner in Rabat. His mother cooked a fabulous meal with grilled chicken and rice along with a cauliflower, potato and cheese casserole. We had an orange cake, mint tea and candies as the first course. Moroccans like to have their sweets at the beginning of the meal. For dessert, we had strawberries, bananas and oranges.

On Tuesday, the announcement was made that Secretary of State John Kerry would be coming to our ceremony. He had previously been scheduled to visit Morocco a few months ago, but had to cancel that trip. By coincidence, this visit corresponded with the timing of our ceremony and was invited to speak. The Moroccan Minister of Youth and Sport, a representative of the new Ambassador, Dwight Bush and the PC country director, Ellen Paquette were also in attendance. Mr. Kerry was in good spirits, gave a good speech and took some pictures with our group.

Dinner with MoHssine’s family.  Most of our CBT group, MoHssine and his brother.

Secretary of State John Kerry

 

Kenitra

We are here in Kenitra with our new family!  We don’t have internet all the time, so communication may be spotty for the month.  We are living with an extended family in one house with four levels.  The patriarch, Ahmed, is 92 years old (former Imam) and he lives on the bottom floor where the main salon, eating area, and kitchen are located.  He grew up in the house and as his family increased they added floors.  The next floor is another salon and eating area. Third floor has the sleeping rooms for one of the sons, his wife and two teenage daughters.  Fourth floor is the youngest (mid 40’s) son’s space with salon and two bedrooms.  We are in one of these bedrooms and the parents and 2 kids (5 &9 years old) sleep in the other room.  There is a toilet on each floor.  It seems like a great arrangement.  The son’s wives in the first floor kitchen do all the cooking and we all eat together there. The food is, once again, excellent.

            The dar chabab (youth center) is a 3 minute walk from the house.  It is very big.  The peace corps volunteers that we are replacing teach classes and activities everyday but Monday.  There is a large university nearby and most of the students at the dar chabab are from there.  Besides English classes there are music classes, basketball, yoga, scouting, dance and much more.  We are going over today to observe Shane and Jenay’s classes.  They will teach two more weeks and then it will be ours.

            Shane and Jenay’s apartment is across the street from where we are living now.  It has two bedrooms, a salon, kitchen and modern bathroom.  It’s relatively new and the other people in the building seem very nice.  They leave on May 9^th so hopefully we will be able to take over the rent and stay there.  They had a hard time finding an apt. when they came here 2 years ago so we hope everything will work out for the transfer. 

            This morning was our first chance to walk around the neighborhood with one of the sisters and daughters.  They introduced us to many shopkeepers, it was amazing how many people spoke English.  Many have family members that have moved to the US. We are just a few blocks from the old medina and walking distance to the train station. 

 

So far, kulshi bixer (everything’s great)!

 

Nancy

 

Rida, age 5 and Fatima Zahra, age 9

 

 

Wafaa and Abderahim

 

 

News

Nancy and I are in Rabat this week. We have been very busy and the wifi is not that great so I haven’t been able to post. We are in a cafe and I only have a few minutes to get this out but we will be living in the city of Kenitra for the next two years. It is up the coast from Rabat about 30 minutes. More later!