November 19, 2001
Knowing what was in store for this last week, the fates must have had a good laugh at my silent (or otherwise) laments that I didn't have enough to do.
Monday morning dawned crisp and clear with Najia in the hospital in Essaouira giving birth to her second son. His name is Yasim and I don't know why anyone supports the myth that babies are cute. He's not, in fact looks very much like E.T. The seventh day after birth is when Moroccans usually hold the naming ceremony when relatives and friends come in and a lamb is slaughtered and eaten (presumably not until after it's been roasted). Given the difficulty of transport in the bled, this ceremony traditionally takes place at lunchtime so everyone can make it back to their houses before dark. Yasim's naming ceremony is being postponed until after Ramadan, which started Saturday (Friday in many other Muslim countries). Obviously if you can't eat anything during the day, slaughtering a lamb for lunch doest do you much good. Yasim and Najia are both doing well, and, as should be expected, Neither is participating in Ramadan.
Also, last week was the national [children's] vaccination drive. I had thought they were every six months, but it's just once a year. Margie and I didn't go on Monday, due to the excitement at home, Nor Thursday, when Mostafa, our boss, came for a quick "site visit." The three days we did go were great, though. We went out to the duoars with Abdulhadi, one of the two nurses at our sbitar (local clinic). Malika, the other nurse (he and Abdulhadi are married by the way, just as a point of gossip), stayed at the sbitar. Abdulhadi goes out to the duoars, both during the vaccine drive and as part of his regular duties. There are 75 duoars (which is a lot) in Akermoud's "health district" and the sbitar is responsible for 17,077 people (not including Yasim, yet). We were also accompanied by a nurse from Talmest (the town we had to go to for our resident cards), a largish town about 45 minutes away, the "lab guy" from Talmest, and a driver from Essaouira.
The vaccinations take place in either a school, or mosque. I'm not sure how many people you need to build a madrasa (school), but there seemed to be one madrasa for every five duoars. we would be at the first school from 10 until 1, and then drive to a second school and stay there from 2 until 5. Unlike in Turkey, non-Muslims aren't allowed in mosques here, so the two times the vaccinations took place in Mosques, Margie and I were unable to participate. our participation was exceptionally limited anyway, since our language skills are not very good yet, but we got to see lots of women and children. Hopefully, now when either of us wanders back to the duoars the women will invite us to tea and we can talk about health issues.
This is essentially our job. Many of the other sectors have projects they're supposed to work on, but our program is extremely unstructured. Mostly we're supposed to talk to women about their health and their children's. One of the vaguely more structured ways in which we can do so is to give "talks" at the sbitar. The topics for these talks include the importance of hand washing, clean water, family planning, nutrition, etc. When our language gets better, we'll also be able to identify other problems and create appropriate presentations.
The third big occurrence this week was that because of the new baby (and the corresponding influx of relatives) and Ramadan, Margie and I got to move out. I have an apartment with running water (sort of) and electricity. Now I get to buy everything else (which actually isn't that much).
I hope you are all doing well and everyone is having fun preparing your turkeys or non-turkey alternatives.
