August 31, 2001
Well of course I couldn't have thought of this earlier (like before I left), but I had to cut my hair. This would not have been a problem at home, since as some of you know I cut my own, but I usually have the benefit of a mirror to judge evenness, and do not here. Mirrors are in fact in short supply. All in all I think I did quite well, though.
In more exciting news, the health sector is moving to Azilal on Sunday. Azilal is apparently a "one horse town" (or donkey), but does have a nice hotel at which we stay for the first week, and internet access. We spend the first full week at the hotel and have technical seminars and language training, and then the next Sunday we move to our "CBT site" (Community Based Training) for a full week, after which we go every Sunday back to the hotel (a 2 hour trip for those farthest away) for a rest day, seminars Monday, and Tuesday, morning and then back to the CBT sites Tuesday afternoons. We are at our CBT sites with 4 to 5 other volunteers and 1 language/cross culture teacher, but each have our own homestay family with whom we stay for the last 5 weeks of training. One of the weeks is spent visiting what will become our final sites (which we find out Sept. 22), and the last week is in Ourzazate for a GAD (Gender and Development) conference and swearing in. Overall, I think the structure of training is quite good, as it allows for a somewhat gradual introduction into full Moroccan society while still teaching us most of what we need to know.
We had an interesting lecture yesterday about Berber culture. The word Berber is of Greek origin (ancient Greeks called non-Greeks Barbarians because they thought their languages sounded like "bar bar") and just happened to stick as it was also used by the Romans. I was very surprised to find out that Berbers are not considered a separate ethnicity. It is really just a language identifier. There are about 3 Berber dialects (or at least 3 in Morocco), though the similarity between them seems to be very great. Most of us in health will learn one of two Berber dialects, with only about 5 (out of 18) continuing to learn Arabic. Currently, we all have Arabic, or Darija, the Moroccan dialect, for 4 hours a day. We have also been learning the script, although Darija is never written. Standard, or classical Arabic is what is written (newspapers, book, magazines) and spoken in the media, but each Arabic country apparently has its own spoken dialect. (Apologies to Dr. Burkhart, since this is probably old news to him.)
Yesterday, we also had the Program Director (or some such title) and 3 of the Program Coordinators from USAID Morocco come speak with us. That was really interesting! USAID Morocco has had its budget severely scaled down recently because it is now considered a lower-middle income country and has shown considerable improvement in most of its statistics. Morocco is part of the Asian region (which makes no sense to me), and so has to compete with countries such as Bangladesh and India for funding. Part of the reason the Morocco "division" hasn't been totally pulled out by USAID is that while there has been immense improvement in many areas, some of its statistics are closer to those of the poorest countries. The illiteracy rate among rural women is 89 percent! Hence, its strong possibility as a secondary project for me. Sorry, I promise no more lectures for at least a few days.
Life continues to be quite good here, although some of the closest friends I've made in the last 3 weeks are not in my sector, so I won't see them for awhile. Otherwise, everything is running along, pretty much as planned. I hope you're all doing well, and school, for those of you dealing with it, is fun.
