First Hammam:

Bodies of women crowded into a hazed room of steam. Body on top of body being scrubbed down. Women of all sizes, children. There was fighting and loud talking between women who were territorial over the limited sitting spaces on the ground. The floors were wet, walls cold, ceiling dripping condensation onto our heads. The walls and floor all tiled and slippery from soap. Women scrubbed each other with their hand mitts like a piece of meat. Four hours one woman can spend in a Hammam. Two hours for me was enough. I sat outside and waited for at least an hour for my host mom to come out. The time she had in there must have been very valuable to her, it was an escape from the house.
It was not like my experience in the Hammam in Rome except for the fact it was dimly lit, warm and there was water. There were so many bodies around. I was the only one in there who had short hair and was blonde. I was a spectacle, everyone watching me.

You scrub your skin and layers peel off of you. You are left with a fresh coat of flesh like the day you were born. It was dark in there. There was a warm yellow light. Haze. Children screaming and crying due to the heat. Women drinking from the faucet to keep hydrated. Older women with henna in their hair, the color melting away, running down their backs in the steamed room.
You sit in a wet space and soap up while seated in your underwear. Scrub yourself, have others scrub you, you scrub others. Rinse. Sit. Scrub again. Rinse. Sit. It is a repeated process until one feels they have cleansed themselves fully.

I can cook I promise

I’v been insisting that I learn how to kneed bread and that I want to help them but my mother just gently laughs at me and tells me my hands are for writing. I did however convince them that I could cook and I made my first attempt. A simple alfredo. I took a trip into Ifrane and searched high and low for the right type of cheese settling for the only package of grated cheese I could find. My only other option in the entire city was a block of Gouda. When I brought the package home my family was astonished at the package and it took a few moments to convince them that yes it was in fact cheese. Normally cheese is grated at home.
I went to work in the small kitchen and was being surveyed closely by my host sister, brother and mother who found it amusing that yes this young American girl does know how to cook. It was a little difficult trying to cook with them there as the sister refused to let me strain my own pasta or stir the pasta myself, afraid that I would burn myself. Luckily alfredo does not take a long time to prepare and before we knew it we commenced eating. I closed my eyes for just a few seconds with the first bite and briefly envisioned myself sitting in the Piazza of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome with a nice glass of vino. Luckily the family enjoyed the pasta and I received a round of applause at the end of the meal by my whole family.

Final Site Placement!

Bliss. I have arrived to my final site in Zaouiat Sidi Abdessalam. Excitement overcame me. Even my blind host father embraced me and expressed his excitement I was to stay there. One of my host sisters will also be staying in Zaouiat from now on. No longer will she travel to Meknes. I am glad; she keeps me company and helps me with the language.
Having arrived in October I was immediately introduced to the consequences of living at high altitudes and in cold weather. When it rains here the temperature drops drastically and the village streets turn into cascades, feeding into the river below. When I first arrived the weather was warming and the river nearly dried out. There have been fears in Morocco of desertification and lack of water but the past few weeks have been nothing but rain. The moisture is seen as a blessing to many farmers as it helps with their crops but in many parts of Morocco the rain is becoming a larger issue and vast parts of Rachidia, a nearby region have been witnessing severe flooding. Every night on the television there are new visions of the destruction the rain has caused.
The moisture is starting to drip from the ceiling leaving its imprint on the cold concrete walls; taking shapes like clouds do in the sky. If it were not for the wood stove I might freeze to death. I can see my breath as I sit in my room. I have been confined to the small wood stove in the communal living room where the family sleeps, eats and spends all their time. All of the walls have one long sofa against them. The father sleeps on a mattress on the floor and there is enough room for a small round table which we eat at and a TV that is on all day and receives three channels. The shows are all soap operas with a few dubbed French and Spanish ones. News plays on occasions in both Arabic and French. On Sunday mornings I was amused to see that the Bernstein Bears cartoon airs here. I grew up on the Bernstein Bears books.
It’s interesting how all the homes in Zaouiat have a television in them and it is the main source of entertainment. During dinner the television is also a guest at the table and like the family story teller it does most of the talking.

I just found out that my brother here is attending school without any heat in the building. He is also without any boots and he was freezing when he came home from school for lunch today. He tried fitting into his mothers black boots with pompoms but they did not fit. It took me 15 minutes of insisting before he put on my boots that fit just right. I can see him there in my mind, sitting in a cold concrete classroom, trying to remain focused in the bitter cold with his arctic hands frozen to his pencil.
Here you heat the person and not the room. It is certainly more difficult to adjust to at first but it actually makes more economical and ecological sense. We have come to depend on the wood stove. Cooking our dinner on the flames of the fire. There is constantly a tea pot on top with water which is used to wash your face and we use the flames to toast our bread in the morning.

On October 18th, twenty-four women participated in a group discussion concerning the history and future of artisan production in Zaouiat. Initially, we began the meeting with our questions in Tamazight. However, the women suggested we conduct the meeting in Darija. Although the change in language proved challenging, we were able to progress through our questions with the assistance of our LCF.
Following our meeting with the artisans, and informal ones with members of the community in Zaouiat, we had two Needs Assessments. The first was a formal one we compiled by asking the weavers directly and the second was our impression of the current attitude and state of mind of the women, obtained through informal discussions and speaking with our families at home. While the first may have been closer in form to the ideal we will strive for in service, the meeting was difficult to control and we felt that the list we ended up with was neither reflective of the artisan’s needs, nor realistic for us to implement. The women did agree that, among other things, they would be interested in workshops on natural dyeing and forming organizations, but the predominant demand was for community amenities.
However, since our informal analysis had shown that attempts at forming a cooperative in the past had simply ground to a halt, and attempts at selling to Al-Akhawayn University or setting up pricing systems based on output had failed and often cost the women money, we were hesitant to approach large projects or make promises. Rather, we felt that the most important thing was to give something concrete and, in some way, helpful, rather than uncertain hopes. We ultimately decided to hold workshops with guest speakers, since it was realistic and more beneficial, given our limited language skills and time frame. Amina Yabis led the first about natural dyeing, as the women would be able to use natural materials around Zaouiat for their own work. We also decided to invite a speaker from the Artisana in Azrou, Hossein Zahri, because we felt that the majority of the women were not aware of either the benefits or pitfalls of Nedis, cooperatives, and associations, nor of the steps necessary to create them.
Preparing for these workshops was relatively simple; we invited Amina for the day of Sunday, October 26th, and Hossein for the afternoon of Monday the 27th. The week before we bought wool for demonstrations from the suq in Azrou, and prepared it for dyeing as well as we could, based on our research of the process. We invited the weavers who had seemed most interested in serious discussion of their work at the meeting, and ones who had particularly impressed us with their skill. We met Amina in Ifrane, and although she was somewhat late so were most of the women, and after a brief scare that we were going to throw a party and no one would come, we finally had our speaker, a medium-sized but interested audience, and all the materials necessary.
Amina, a practiced speaker, did very well transferring knowledge of how to dye with natural products and which materials produce specific colors. As an attempt to leave concrete reminders, we bought a book from her to leave in the community, which explains the whole process and gives more details on the materials. Furthermore, we made bundles of the samples for each household attending, which was simple but pleased the women. Overall, they seemed happy and several at least said that they would use the skills in the future. As they left, we reminded them of the meeting on Monday.
The next morning, we called to confirm with Hossein that he would be attending that afternoon, and then went around the community reminding those we had marked as interested and motivated. At 3 o’clock, a few women showed up exactly on time, and more trickled in until we had a good-sized audience of about ten. At 3:30, we called Hossein to confirm that he was on his way, and learned that he was patiently waiting for us in the Artisana in Azrou. After he explained that he had a meeting in Ifrane, and could not come to Zaouiat that day, we spent a few frantic minutes discussing our options and ultimately decided that since we had the women there, we should discuss their experiences with working together and with weaving as a business.
The discussion was essentially a more rational and focused repeat of the first one, in which we were speaking with women who took their work seriously and wanted to explain it to us. We found that they enjoyed working together and felt more productive in small groups. Furthermore, they sometimes shared the responsibility of purchasing supplies or selling goods when a few could not go to the suq or markets. Concerns about more formal production arrangements seemed to be about lack of productivity in large groups, or misunderstandings such as believing that many women would be required to share one loom. Regarding general business practices, we found that some of the women had difficulty pricing their products and recording the costs of inputs, and would occasionally sell for less than they had paid for materials. The meeting ended with no real conclusion, but at the least the women did seem interested in forming an association or cooperative in the near future.

Technical:

Unlike the other training groups ours was rather unique. Most groups performed the technical aspect of their training in their community which they lived. As most inhabitants of Zaouiat are farmers and our program managers did not know of any artisans here we were assigned to an already organized co-op in a city roughly 30 minutes away. The majority of products created by these women consist of woven carpets, each done on a hand loom. Here is their link if you would like more information. http://www.freewebs.com/azrouartisana/amalweavingcooperative.htm

Our task was to work with these women and develop an action plan to help them in the course of our training which is roughly a month in a half. On our first day at the association we asked a series of questions about what a typical day was like for the women and how things generally work there. The next meeting we had was with the executives of the Co-op in which we had them create a community map. We provided markers and a large piece of blank paper and asked them to draw their city, locating important landmarks and places that they go to frequently.

It is interesting the way in which they decided to complete the map. The women were very timid at first and originally wanted us to draw the map as they claimed to have no drawing skills. After some encouragement one of the women took hold of the marker and with the direction of the other ladies drew a large circle in the middle to mark the co-op. Lines were drawn out of the co-op, marking the distance each women was from the co-op and who was close to who. When asked where certain landmarks were in the city they had difficultly being able to place them in relationship to themselves. Although this map did not provide an actual representation of their city it did provide insight to the lives of the women and their way of thinking. Women in the co-op general go straight from home to work and vice versa, not really being able to walk around their own city. Their life is structured around the co-op and the lines drawn appear to be a representation of their relationship to their community.

When asked where they do not like to go in the city the response from one lady was public parks as she doesn’t like people to watch her.

After our third trip we discovered that continuing our work at the artisana there was going to be more difficult than we imagined. One of our first concerns was that we were learning a different language than the artisans speak. They speak Darija and we were learning Tamazight. We had a difficult time asking questions and conducting interviews and understanding their responses. The travel was also proving to be an issue as it was far away and took away time from our language lessons and, the schedules of the women were not that flexible that they could receive us when we came for our brief hour sessions twice a week.

Fortunately, after talking with the women in Zaouiat we were extremely excited to find that yes there are artisans here but most just do not think of theselves as such. Almost every woman in Zaouiat is a carpet weaver and has a loom in her house. The products range from traditional carpets, pillows, jellabas, buttons, purses, needlepoint, embroidery, knit sweaters, and pants. Weavers use materials from different sources. Sometimes they recycle wool from old sweaters to make their rugs. Women who own sheep will often prepare wool on their own. The women also use commercially processed yarn purchased most often at the s-suq in Azrou.

The artisans of Zaouiat are not uniform. Many use traditional Berber patterns but we also found examples of individual creativity in the textiles of Zaouiat. One woman sells embroidered cloth to a shop in Fez. Another has found a market in France for her carpets. Yet another woman sells knitted garments to friends and family throughout Zaouiat. Several women participate in Ifrane’s craft fair in the spring. Although all are talented, some artisans are more skilled in commerce.

We walked around and saw many carpets made here and were extremely impressed in their quality and design. The women in Zaouiat however are not yet formally organized and only create carpets and blankets for their families. We have heard that there was an attempt a few years ago to form an association and the paperwork was near completion but due to the expenses of traveling to Meknes to process the paperwork and the cost of making photocopies the project was dropped.

The more information we found out about the weavers in Zaouiat the more we decided we had to convince our program manager to let us do our technical in Zaouiat. We had many opportunities to integrate with the people of Zaouiat. We adopted Tamazight names, which were assigned by our friends in the village. I will forever be referred to as Karima in Morocco, which I have heard is a good name meaning generosity.

We have witnessed many situations in Zaouiat, both religious and cultural. During the first week, we were walking around and stumbled into the ceremonial recognition of a new soccer field where we met many local and regional officials. Unfortunately, we also experienced a death in our town. Our cook’s mother passed away and we went to her house to pay our respects. We witnessed the grieving at her house and then saw the ceremony at the cemetery the following day. In addition, we celebrated L-Eid in Zaouiat, which we spent with our families. As a group, we united and went around the village greeting people and enjoying a cup of tea at each house. The women in our group also had traditional henna painted on their hands for the celebration. One of the more entertaining moments was when the group was dressed in traditional clothing and paraded around for our families. We learned that the best way to integrate into the community was to make time for tea and conversation with the families.

Not only were we already integrated into our community but the women showed a willingness to work with us. Thankfully after a meeting with the program manager we were allowed to stay in Zaouiat and perform our technical training in Zaouiat. We only had two weeks left in training and we had to make use of the time as effectively as possible. Our first step was to find a time in which of the women in town could get together and sit down with us for a little question and answering. We walked around house to house inviting women we knew weaved and invited them to attend. The local authorities, the Qaid, Moqadem, and Sheikh, played an integral role in inviting women to attend the meeting.

Task One:

At the onset of our arrival we had to check in with local authorities stationed on higher ground. We followed the path laid out by the frequent trips taken by the donkeys only to find that the Calif (mayor) was out. As we walked back we discovered the reason for his absence at his post. It was the inauguration day of a new soccer field and darshabeb (free school) which was to be built. A mass of men lingered around the new field. Women watched from a far occasionally resonating a reverberating shriek which I was told is a customary way to welcome guests. While most local women stood afar few women, including the ones in my group stood amongst the elite men from outside the village. I later found out that one of the females was an engineer of the project; another is a VP of an office and one a president of an association. Fortune also graced us with the chance to meet the president of the Tamazight communities, who interestingly enough is deaf. (a deaf leader… something to pounder on in the future)

Shortly, the Caid showed up to the event. At that time, an elder of the village approached him vocalizing his objection to the field being built as he believed the land was stolen from him. With a lack of a written documentation of the land being his, there is not much to be done. Distressed, the older man became louder and the confrontation escalated. A group of men formed around the conflicting pair. Attentively the Caid listened to the man and tried his best to resolve the quarrel for the time being. Patience and listening skills I found are an honored characteristic of authorities in Morocco. One is supposed to firstly listen to what someone has to say and be patient before taking any action. Despite efforts however, the older man would not settle and the event became a little physical. At this point the local police took action and had to move the man away from the Caid so that the Caid could continue on with the dedication.

Training: Octoberish

My CBT (Community Based Training) group made up of 4 other PCT’s(Peace Corps Trainees) was assigned to do our training in a small Berber farming village named Zaouiat Sidi Abdessalam located in the Middle Atlas Mountains. It is recorded that there are 240 households here and I am almost sure more animals than people. Inhabitants are believed to be related to the founder of the site, Sidi Abdessalam.

Abdessalam reportedly was a very religious man who decided to move away and live in solitude. He found this scenic landscape in a little valley with a stream running through its heart and decided to set up his abode. In intervals his family followed him to this site and when he died they erected a modest sized mausoleum on site which is still visited. It has been customary for inhabitants of Zaouiat to marry within the family and most people here are either married to first cousins or friends of relatives. Zaouiat in all its forms illustrates a collectivist community in which one looks out for the other.

Zaouiat feels like one large house and people walk around visiting each other unannounced and sit for hours drinking tea and conversing about the weather, how three cows died the night before due to cold and if one’s family is well. Due to the comfort of everyone being comfortable with one another, women here walk around in pajamas unless they go into the nearby cities for shopping in which they outfit themselves in jelabbas. Another characteristic of women’s dress here is a bath towel fastened onto their shoulders cloaked over their front acting as an apron and another defense against the cold. Men here on the other hand appear to be more modernly dressed and enjoy wearing various track suits and the young ones are fitted in the classic white and black converse. Since men have more freedom to travel and are generally the ones who go to the cities it only seems to make sense they would be more contemporarily dressed.

When my community based training group (CBT) and our Language, Cultural Facilitator (LCF) arrived into Zaouiat we were all delivered like babies in a basket to our home stay families. Everyone was very nice to us but with our limited vocabulary it was difficult to explain ourselves. We arrived with a vocabulary bank of 5 or so words which couldn’t get us past “Thank you” and “How are you?”. The first day I walked around with a little notebook and pen recording everything I could point to. At arrival, two of the home stay families pulled out last minute and two of the girls in my CBT group were periodically destitute. Fortunately within fifteen minutes of inquiry two families graciously opened their homes to them and we all were successfully placed within a family. We all were fortunately only a few steps away from one another. My family consists of my mother father and my 15 year old brother. I have three sisters. One is 23 and lives and works in Ifran, another is 20 and lives in Meknes and one is 22 and lives in Zaouiat with her husband. After briefly settling into our housing situation we went straight to our LCF’s house to being language lessons and make lunch.

During the time which we arrived, the whole community of Zaouiat was fasting for Ramadan and we had difficulty finding bread. An endearing woman over heard that we were in need of bread and she brought out a fresh loaf she had just baked to give to us. For a people who are said to live in poverty, the hospitality emanated is rich in quantity and quality. From the beginning our group felt welcomed and protected by the community. Everyone’s host mothers even insisted on accompanying us to class on the first day, afraid and assured that we would get lost despite literally being around the corner from where we all lived.