Lights, Camera, Blog Post!

We've had a few power outages recently, so I think I have light on the mind! I've been accumulating a collection of favorite lamps that I've seen on my travels in Morocco and I think it's the right time to share them. Enjoy :)

Some of our newest projects

I mentioned a little while ago that we've been working on some exciting projects! One of those projects is a website that I built at the request of Peace Corps Morocco staff, to help promote Peace Corps and volunteers' projects with current and potential partners. Peace Corps Washington has fairly strict guidelines in terms of content and layout, so I didn't have a lot of creative flexibility, but I'm still pretty happy with the result. I actually finished the website at the end of last year, but the process of getting all of the approvals from Washington took a long time and it finally went live last week. Here's a  screenshot of the homepage, and you can check it out by clicking here!

There's more: This past weekend, Justin and I along with two local counterparts and close friends launched a project that has been in the works for the last 9 months or so. Unemployment is a major issue in Morocco, particularly for youth; according to a report that came out last year, 49% of Moroccan youth are neither employed nor in school. Although Justin and I are not in a position to address the lack of available jobs in Morocco, one thing that we realized that we could do was to help provide youth with the tools and skills to better equip them to find a job. So we worked with our friends to develop a workshop series on employability skills. We held the first two workshops this past weekend with sessions on creating/improving their CVs and the Moroccan versions of cover letters. We'll continue over the next 3 weekends with sessions on interviewing skills, goal setting and career planning, entrepreneurialism, conducting a job search, social media, and financial management. The first two sessions went really well, with participants asking lots of questions and expressing that they have already begun to gain new information. We're excited to see how the remainder of the program will go, and I'll post an update when it's over! Check out some photos from the workshops, and if you're interested, you can learn more on the Facebook page that we created for the program, which also includes some of the course materials.

It Was a Very Moroccan Place [Guest Post!]

GUEST POSTER: Justin

Sidi Harazem sits about 10 miles east of Fez. Like Moulay Yacoub, Sidi Harazem has mineral springs believed to possess healing properties (unlike Moulay Yacoub, Sidi Harazem is also a popular brand of bottled mineral water sold in Morocco). Sidi Harazem is a popular recreation destination among Moroccans. Very popular. Actually, when we visited it with my sister and brother-in-law on a Sunday morning during a school holiday the place was packed to the gills, and not including ourselves we saw a grand total of one person who, based solely on appearance, was likely not Moroccan.

Sidi Harazem’s overwhelmingly Moroccan presence contrasted sharply with many of the places to which we had gone the week before, most of which were blissfully uncrowded and where the majority of the visitors generally appeared to be foreign tourists. This of course was not the case everywhere. Active Islamic religious sites are generally not open to non-Muslims in Morocco* and since most foreign tourists are not Muslim the proportion of local-to-foreign visitors was generally higher in places such as Moulay Ismail’s mausoleum (which actually constitutes a rare exception to the general prohibition, though only Muslims may enter a central chamber) and Moulay Idriss. But no place that we had visited remotely approached the concentration of Moroccans at Sidi Harazem.

*I do not know whether this is the reason in Morocco, but the Ninth Surah of the Qur’an (called At-Tawbah) contains verses (17-18) which some people interpret as forbidding the presence of non-Muslims in mosques.

We had spent the previous week visiting places of exquisite beauty (to our eyes) and tremendous cultural and historical significance (in our perceptions), yet the locals were flocking to Sidi Harazem. To be fair, Sidi Harazem is certainly not without allurements; it is situated in some lovely hilly country and is very clean. But it just seemed, to us, rather bland and somewhat artificial.

Sidi Harazem has two mains areas. The first consists of a flat and somewhat featureless stone-like space, with grassy sections and cafes off to the side. There was a massive concrete structure (possibly a sculpture, though of what I cannot imagine) at the entrance and a fountain in the center. The fountain is less like the Fez medina’s beautiful Nejjarine fountain and more like a rectangular pillar with spigots sticking out. And of course there are pony, horse, and camel rides; people selling balloons; snails, for eating; and harsha.

Sculpture(?) near the entrance to Sidi Harazem.

Where it says "fountain" above, you could be forgiven for
picturing something that looks like this
(the Nejjarine Fountain in Fez) ...

... but the fountain in Sidi Harazem is more like this.
Seen here with people filling vessels with the water.

Not sure what he used to dye the horse's hair, but I prefer not to know.

This could be the only living camel within a hundred kilometers.

To reach Sidi Harazem’s other main area you walk downhill, first past a big fancy hotel (not obviously occupied when we were in Sidi Harazem except for the cows grazing on its grounds) with a high fence, presumably to keep out the common folk, then past some carnival rides, including a disturbingly fast-moving (to us) Ferris wheel. The second area has more cafes, a second fountain, a larger grassy open space, and a group of shops catering to Moroccans, many selling cheap souvenirs. Football (soccer) matches and families picnicking or relaxing shared the grassy parts. Further down and off to the side there are two swimming pools, sparsely occupied while we were in Sidi Harazem.

Cow grazing on the grounds of a large, fancy, 
and not otherwise obviously occupied hotel.

I'm pretty sure this Ferris wheel was breaking the speed limit.

In some ways Sidi Harazem reminded me of Ifrane, a town in the Middle Atlas which the French developed to resemble a faux-Alpine village (it also houses Al Akhawayn University). Lauren and I will often ask young people in Tiflet what their favorite place in Morocco is, and Ifrane is the most frequent response. We visited Ifrane briefly on January 1, 2012, on a daytrip bus excursion with some of the youth of Tiflet. I did not much care for Ifrane, I found it expensive and artificial, even though it is pretty, well maintained, and clean. But for many young Moroccans with whom we speak, their idea of a great day is to take a bus to Ifrane and stroll around. Similarly, for many Moroccan families, a fun day out is apparently to pack the family, a pressure cooker, a Butagaz tank, and lots of empty water bottles in the car and then go to Sidi Harazem for a picnic (and to fill the water bottles with the special water).

Forgot to bring your empty water bottles to fill at the spring?
They've got you covered.

I do not at all mean to say or imply that they’re wrong or to mock, belittle, or denigrate  this idea of a good time as inferior to mine, it’s just a different notion of what constitutes fun. I don’t think it’s not a matter of accessibility, because there’s a lovely (and free to enter) botanical garden in the middle of Fez (Jardins de Boujeloud aka Jnane Sbil). We poked our heads in at the Jardins de Boujeloud when we walked by and while there were certainly people there, it was nowhere near as crowded as Sidi Harazem, which requires more effort to reach. And the entrance fee to most public monuments and museums in Morocco is only 10 dirhams (about 1.20 USD), which I cannot imagine covers their operating costs and is almost certainly less than the cost of the gasoline required to get to Sidi Harazem (gas is very expensive in Morocco). So this really seems to be a matter of preference.

Big grassy area used for football and picnics. 
The makeshift structures on the left provide shade for picnickers. 

It's not a picnic without a pressure cooker and 
Butagaz (a tank of cooking gas, the blue thing).
Please forgive the metal bars in the frame, 
I took the picture zoomed-in through a fence 
from a distance, to avoid seeming extra creepy. 

Then again maybe I shouldn't find it odd that Moroccans would not flock to their monuments. I lived in New York most of my life and only visited the Empire State Building for the first time (and the Statue of Liberty for the second) in the summer of 2011 in anticipation of leaving for Morocco, and it’s not like we spent every weekend at the Met. My friend Badr (who, by the way, loves Sidi Harazarm) and I have talked about the idea of Morocco that the Moroccan National Tourist Office promotes – camels and deserts and belly dancing, even though this idea bears little resemblance to the vast majority of Morocco. So then foreigners (myself included) come to Morocco and go to museums housed in old palaces, take tours of the medinas, and head down to the desert pursuing a certain idea of Morocco and wanting to experience authenticity, and these certainly are facets of Morocco. But in a way the experience of visiting Sidi Harazem gives a more accurate idea of contemporary Morocco (and Moroccans) than many of the other places we have been, and I was especially glad that we were able to bring my sister and brother-in-law there to share it with them. Even though none of us were thrilled by Sidi Harazem, it was a very Moroccan place.

Mmm...still warm.

Feeling healthier already. 
Though we were later informed that one must
drink several liters of the water 
(while still warm of course)
to enjoy the supposed health benefits.

Without knowing anything about this guy, I'm guessing that, 
in decreasing order of likelihood, this t-shirt is (a) intended as a joke,
(b) a political statement (not endorsing terrorism), (c) something the 
wearer thought looked cool without noticing, understanding, or caring 
about what it said, or (d) meant to be taken at face value (very unlikely).

What we've been up to, and post-Peace Corps updates

It's been a busy few weeks! How have they been busy, you ask?

Travels with Liz and Dave
The same morning that we said goodbye to my brother Neal and future sister-in-law Erin in Casablanca, Justin and I rushed up to the Rabat airport to meet his sister Liz and brother-in-law Dave. They visited during a school holiday in Morocco, so we were able to take some time to travel around with them to a few places: Rabat, Meknes, Azrou, Fez, and of course Tiflet. A few photos are below, and look for future blog entries about some of our travel experiences!

Dave and Liz in our riad in Rabat.

In Rabat's Kasbah, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Justin and me in a beautiful old Koranic school in Meknes.

Liz and I try out Moroccan style scarf-wrapping in a cooperative in Fez.

Justin and me in an old Koranic school in Fez.

Dave shows off his scarf-wrapping, in Fez.

Liz and Dave, at a beautiful outlook en route to Azrou.

Justin and Liz in the Chellah in Rabat.

Springtime in Tiflet
Even though we were traveling, it was very much a working holiday! We have lots of exciting plans for the coming months, and now that we're back in Tiflet, expect more posts soon as projects come to fruition. Meanwhile, spring has (finally) arrived in Tiflet with beautiful sunny weather every day! And with that beautiful weather, I have proven myself as a gardener. Check out my handiwork:

I harvested the spinach to make a birthday pizza for Justin, at his request. But I've planted a new round and am keeping my fingers crossed that the green thumb wasn't just beginner's luck :)


Women's Leadership Workshop
One of the projects that I had been preparing for was a women's leadership conference in Rabat, that a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer planned along with a Moroccan NGO called "Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc."  I brought 2 women from my site to the training, and I stayed for the weekend to help the Volunteer. Being around this group of 20 women, of all ages and backgrounds, from small and large towns across Morocco, was absolutely inspiring. Here's a photo of all of the workshop participants and the trainers:

Post-Peace Corps Plans
I haven't really written much about it on this blog, but post-Peace Corps plans have been a topic of much discussion, consideration, and anxiety for Justin and me, really since before we even came to Morocco. One of the things we knew we wanted when we left the US was change, and Morocco has given us plenty of that. As we think about returning to the US, what seemed impossibly far off when we first got here is now surreally close, and we’ve finally decided to continue that theme of change by readjusting back to life in the US while at the same time integrating into a new community, the Washington DC area. Granted, it won’t be nearly as different from New York as Morocco was, but will certainly be quite the change from our lives now! We’re confident that our skills and experiences from integrating into a new community here in Morocco will serve us well as we return and reintegrate in the US.

Now here’s where you come in, dear readers. I plan to return to the marketing/advertising world and am seeking opportunities as a Marketing or Brand Manager in the Washington DC metro area in late summer/early fall. If you are involved in the marketing/advertising scene in the DC area, know people who are, or your company is looking for a new marketing person, I would be immeasurably grateful for any and all tips, leads, referrals, or introductions! The same goes for any insights on places to live in the area. Click here to view my resume, or here for my LinkedIn profile, and read a bit more about my marketing and advertising background. And you can be sure that we’ll be experiencing as much as we can of this amazing country as our remaining time ticks by - and of course sharing it here! 

Doorways of Fes

Greetings from Fes! Justin and I are finishing up some tourist/tour guide time with his sister Liz and our brother-in-law Dave. Full blog post on their visit coming soon, but in the meantime, I was struck by the beauty and variety of many of the doorways in Fes. Enjoy :)