Bring Enib Home!

Hi Everyone!

Take a look at our page to bring Enib back to the United States!

Here's the GoFundMe page!
Every little bit helps :)

Only 10 Months of Couscous

With heavy hearts, it's time that we tell everyone our Peace Corps service is ending early.

First and foremost, we want to send a thank you out into the world to all of the amazing people we've met during these last 10 months. Moroccans, Americans, cats, whoever - you're great. We have been greeted into this country with hospitality that neither of us ever imagined. Our two host families let us not only into their homes, but into their families and hearts. It's something we'll never forget.

The Moroccan friends that we have made are phenomenal people, and have been nothing but friendly, helpful, and supportive. Despite some language barriers, we made some lifelong friends and had a lot of entertaining times.

The Peace Corps Morocco staff are all gems. Every single one of them. They worked nonstop supporting just under 200 volunteers at a time, giving us personal attention and helping with whatever questions arise.

And the other Peace Corps Morocco Volunteers are the worst people in the world. Just kidding - gotta keep you paying attention. We all traveled different roads to get to Peace Corps and it was a privilege and an honor to walk on the same path as all of you.

And, not to be forgotten, everyone who supported us in any way shape or form while we were here. We loved the post cards, care packages, visitors, FaceTime sessions, Facebook messages, snapchats, and everything else. You're all the best. Period.

After being in Peace Corps for these past 10ish months we can safely say that it is a fantastic and unique program that does great things around the world. Thinking of joining Peace Corps? We are too! (the Peace Corps retirement plan that is - check back in 2076. We're planning on breaking the record set by Alice Carter for oldest PCV - challenge accepted) We had a lot of great experiences, and are sad to end our term early, but the time has come for us.

There have been a few situations that have lead us to the conclusion that we can't complete our service. We believe that if we stayed, we wouldn't be able to put every ounce of effort into our work, and that isn't fair to anyone (Peace Corps, the Moroccans we would like to serve, or ourselves). To be successful in Peace Corps, you must be fully committed and we could not say that we were anymore following some incidents beyond our control and their effects on us.

We do hope that Peace Corps will place (male) volunteers in Taounate in the future, as there is still a great need for the work we all do! We are also very excited about the continued work volunteers are doing to help combat sexual harassment and promote gender equality in developing countries like Morocco.

We'll leave Taounate on Monday for Rabat where we'll get to go through the final medical and dental and administrative stuff (woo!) before heading back to Washington, DC, at the end of the week.

The time between now and then will be filled with meals with our Moroccan families and time with our other friends here in Morocco.

Extra note: For anyone reading this who has questions about Peace Corps. serving as a couple, Morocco, how cute our cat is, etc, please feel free to reach out to us! You can leave a comment or send Alexis an email at alexiskathrynthom@gmail.com or Toby an email at thom.toby@gmail.com

We will be leaving the blog up for posterity and for future PCVs.

Big changes

Okay, it's been forever since we posted - sorry! But some big stuff has been going down. 

Most recently, Alexis spent the last week in Agadir, a southern beach resort town. It was for a Community Health training to prepare for new projects and activities in site and with other volunteers around the country. It was really helpful, with a huge group of people, and a great chance to visit Agadir. 

It was lovely. Definitely a place to visit if you ever make it to Morocco. 

In other news, we have recently been approved to move to another site in Morocco. Where? Yeah, we don't know yet. 

Why? It's been tricky. One of the perks of Taounate was always that it is a little bit bigger (around 50,000 people) and has recently gotten a lot bigger. With that, however, comes the struggle of mixing older and more conservative lifestyles with younger and, potentially, more liberal ones. The result is a mixed bag. While there are people who speak English or who are looking to be doctors or educators, there is also a high population  of ne'er-do-well individuals who spoil a great situation for everyone else by being jerks. In short, it's a good site for a male Peace Corps Volunteer or two. 

However, Alexis (as well as a female volunteer from two years ago), faces quite a bit of daily harassment in different forms. Her security hasn't been at risk more than a few boys (with poor aim) tossing rocks at her, but that in addition to everything else has reached a not great level. The majority of people we know here are wonderful, generous, and kind people, but the small percentage who are jerks have made it a non sustainable environment for us. 

We explained the situation to Peace Corps staff and they agree that it's no longer a good fit for us here, and we'll be moving soon. But for now, it's just a waiting game to see when and where. 

Other than all that, Morocco is moving into the Fall and it's pleasant and rainy outside. Also a huge thank you to everyone who has been sending post cards and care packages! These last few weeks have been a little rough, and it's made a huge difference. (Also hold off on sending any more until we have a new address please!) 

And obviously, Enib the cat is great. 

Another visitor and some travels

It's been a busy week here in Morocco!

Last Sunday, we went into Fes to meet up with Toby's sister Emma. She was visiting a few places in Europe and able to benefit from the €20 flights from Rome to Fes (ahem. Reread that and plan your next vacation accordingly)

We all and up to Taounate and she got a chance to see our site, how we live, the people we hang out with, and a little bit more about Peace Corps life (the summary there: we've gotten really cheap).

While in Taounate, we took Emma to have lunch with one of our favorite families. We expected just a normal lunch with amazing food and a lot of talking about the differences between America and Morocco and them telling her to stay longer. Well this one definitely had all that, but with some extra added funzies. 

Fatima, the mom, gave her some dried figs, made us all a chocolate cake, did both of our henna, and gave her a beautiful new jelleba. It was a lovely lunch and an amazing representation of the hospitality we see from Moroccans every day. 

From Taounate we took the bus to Casablanca (it's only a little over 6 hours!). While we were there for business (we took the Foreign Service Officer Test), we still had a chance to explore the city and find a few familiar tastes. 

This was our first real time in Casablanca (yes, we landed there, but we aren't counting that hazy experience), and we weren't disappointed. It's a lovely city that really is a lot more like Europe than most of our experiences in Morocco. 

It's beautiful. Right on the coast. The largest mosque in Africa and the seventh largest in the world. A cute old medina. Starbucks. A huge mall with a fish tank. Great food. All sorts of stuff. 

From Casablanca, Emma continued her world travels and we went to visit friends for a few days in Tiflet before returning to Rabat for some dental work. 

We'll be in Rabat for a couple days (Insha'Allah) and will return to Taounate for Toby's birthday and to, finally, get back to work!

Post-Eid update

We were fortunate enough to have two couscous experiences with the rams from Eid. First, on the day after with the family we spent most of the first day with: 

As we observe on most Fridays. 

The, on the following Tuesday, our neighbors also brought us a plate! 

So much couscous. 

Now things are calming down and everyone is getting into a routine. Schools have started, the weather is cooling down (to a lovely, lovely place), and days are getting shorter. 

We have a pretty packed October coming!

4-5: Emma (Toby's sister) visits Taounate

6-9: we all go to Casablanca - we're taking the Foreign Service Officier Test on the 7th

10-12: visiting the lovely city and people of Tiflet

13-15: Rabat for medical/dental work

16: begin work at the Dar chebab again!

17-19: friends visit Taounate to celebrate Toby's birthday

21-27: Alexis goes to Agadir (southern Morocco, on the Atlantic coast) for a Community Health training 

It's a busy time of year for us, we're learning. 

And here's an attempted family picture taken through our window:

Eid Mubarak Said! - Definitely some graphic pictures.

Wach mabrouka! Llah ibark fik! TbarkAllah!

All of the happy phrases we know!

Today was our first Eid al-Adha, or Eid Kbir (Big Feast, in the local darija) in Morocco, and it was definitely somethin'. Of course, we've heard all about it and researched it some and read blog posts from volunteers in previous years, but it's always different in person, you know. And by different, I mean more intense, but in a good way.

The people we know in Taounate are all great humans, and we had six total invitations to different families for the whole sha-bang. We chose to go with the family that we broke fast with the most during Ramadan for the part where a ram is sacrificed and the beginning of the day, then we had a snack and dinner with our host family. We ate a lot of ram, in other words.

I'm going to try and go through the day chronologically from here, including pictures. If you have problems seeing blood or don't want to see the in-process pictures of the slaughter, maybe cover them up with a post-it while you read... because we have quite a few of them. It's not pleasant to look at, but it's an important part of the day. In fact, it's so important that we saw it done on national television a few different times. Fun fact: the King's rams are very clean and very big.

We went to our friends' house at 9:30 this morning, with some homemade cookies and kettle corn as a gift(!), to get things started. They live on the sixth floor of their building, and have a roof where the ram has been for a few days. He was a good lookin' fella and cost them 47,000 ryal - sounds expensive, yeah? Well it is. And it's a big deal to get a good one. That comes to 2350 dirham, or just a little less than $250.

Here he is with some little boys dressed in their best for the holiday:

After we had some tea and went through a series of greetings, they started tying him up and getting everything ready. In order for the whole process to be Halal, the ram can never see the knife; he's not supposed to know what's coming to him. At the same time, they had us look across the street while the neighbors killed theirs. I think it was a way of leading us in to the process gently. It's easier to see something far away than up close. This family also knows that this is our first time experiencing most of these customs and traditions.

Then, well, they slit his throat and waited for him to bleed out. 

Then the real process began. In order to separate the skin from the meat bits, you have to get a layer of air in between them. I had heard about this part before, but wasn't expecting the dad to make a good cut in one leg then blow it up with his mouth. This year was an unusual one, though, because they usually have another dude come to do the throat-slitting and they usually get an air pump for the skin part. But they decided to do it the traditional way this year.

It was crazy to watch it just blow up like a balloon. The next step was to hang it up by the ankles, take the head off, and work all of the skin off. Once the skin was completely off, which took about a half hour (still not sure what's going to happen to it), he slit it open below the ribs and it was time to take out all the internal organs. This part was a whole family affair - even the little kids were helping. Conveniently, they assume we have no idea what we're doing and they set up a seating area for us outside so we could drink some tea while we watched.

That was the hard part. Now the sheep meat has to rest/drain for a day and we'll eat that tomorrow with couscous - we'll be with the same family, so plenty of pictures of that, too!

For today, we ate the inside bits. But first, and definitely most importantly, it needed to be cleaned. It took a long time, but it was also cool to see how thorough they were with every single step. And nothing gets wasted! It's an awesome process.

After all the cleaning, the mom brought out the liver (which she apparently took into the kitchen and cooked at some point...) and the dad cut up pieces of caul fat and wrapped it around small pieces of liver and put them on skewers to be grilled. Liver and fat kabobs for breakfast! Not a joke.

Honestly, with some salt and cumin, they aren't bad. It's called Boufaf. We also had some large intestine that was wrapped around the skewers and grilled for a while. Once again, if you add some salt and cumin, it just tastes like grilled fatty meat stuff. We also had some heart, throat, spleen, and kidney - at some point, I couldn't really tell them apart any more.

At this point, we had to take our leave, but not before securing that we would be there for couscous tomorrow!

Next, we ran home quickly to grab the cookies we made for our host family and went over there. Luckily, the sacrifice was already done, and the skin removed. We just had another chance to eat the Boufaf and some other internal organs, but then also a lot of cookies and tea.

This family knows a few other Americans, so they weren't upset when we said we needed to go home and sleep for a while. Which we definitely did.

Our night was capped off by going back to our host family for dinner at 9 and eating some beef. Host-sister, Najwa, doesn't like sheep organs so much, so Mama Fatima made some grilled beef, which was tasty. Of course, we also had a few pots of tea.

Now, we're home, eating some Pepto, and preparing for more family and sheep times tomorrow!

I, Alexis, also had the very important task of keeping their new kitten, Liya, away from the mess today. I clearly took it very seriously.

Before the Holiday

We've got a big week coming up! This Thursday will be Eid Kbir (in darija, which translates to The Big Feast), or Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice. We are 100% not experts, but Wikipedia generally knows some stuff.

Insha'Allah (God willing), we'll have a better understanding by the end of the week. Or at least a solid understanding of how the festivities go down.

As far as we've heard and noticed, thus far, town kind of goes crazy real quick then shuts down. We went out to the marche today and found it more packed than we've ever seen it (excluding Ramadan nights, of course). Everyone was buying those final things they need for the coming holiday, and it was a little overwhelming. But this time! As compared to Ramadan, we knew what was coming and also knew that we had to get all of our shopping done, too.

Here's Alexis trying to maneuver around a Hanut. 

Here is our bounty for the week:

We spent 89.5 dirham. Ack! So expensive! We're volunteers - not made of money! Yeah, it was approximately $9.23.

(1 kilo of unpopped corn, 2 kilos of macaroni, small box of cornstarch, 8 small (freshly cooked) baguettes, 1 dirham worth of spicy peppers, 1/2 kilo of green peppers, 1 kilo of tomatoes, 1 kilo of red onions, 1 kilo of oranges, small bottle of vinegar, 1 kilo of carrots, 4 packets of vanilla flavoring, and 1 massive head of cauliflower). 

From what we've been told, everything will pretty much close Thursday-Sunday while people are spending time with their families. Here in Taounate, we have a lot of people who just live here but their families live off in the small communities near-by, so maybe everyone will be gone? Or not? Stay tuned.

Anyway, the attitude in town is really peppy and upbeat. It's really a lot like the holiday season in the US and Europe, but it's still summer out and there are sheep everywhere.

The same people who were really excited that we fasted during Ramadan are also really curious about our Eid activities. Here's an example of an average conversation with any of our neighbors or random people who decide to talk to us while we're out and about.

Note: Yes, translated. Also yes, this is how limited our language is.

A&T: Salaam u-alaikum.

Other person: Wa-alaikum salaam. How are you?

A&T: Good. I'm good. How are you?

O: Good. I'm fine. Everything is great. How is your family in America?

T: They're good. Everything is good.

O: The feast is coming this week. Will you be in Taounate?

A: Yes, the feast! Yes, we will be in Taounate at our house.

O: Good! That is great. Did you buy a sheep?

T: No, a sheep is expensive and we are only two people.

O: That's okay! You can buy a small one!

A: The poor things!

O: *laughs for a while* okay, see you! Have a good feast!

We've gotten a bit formulaic about it, but everyone seems happy with our response. 

Here's one of the sheep. Every family has at least one. They'll all be sacrificed on Thursday. Read the Wikipedia. It'll explain better.