Covering worn in my town
Look here for infortmation on the Beber languages including Tashelheet the language spoken in my region.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_languages
This is it. This is it. I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer offically. This is what I kept saying to myself because its hard to believe. Everyone who knows me know that I wanted to be apart of Peace Corps for a long time and now the day was here. What I wasn’t prepared for was the day after swearing in. This day was painful. I was separated from new friends and began my trek to site. I also said bye to my first host family who really helped me adjust to Morocco. I cried with tears that i didn’t expect to come and on the ride to the bus station wondering if I would ever see some of the amazing people I who helped nuture my integration into a completly different culture. The trip to sight was full of these thoughts and my future and what my life would be like here in two years. My body needed to catch up where my mind was because I began to feel not so healthy. I would descibe it as weak and after a good rest the journey continued. I arrived to site on a friday feeling okay and scared. Worries came over me as I thought of every possible thing that could go wrong. A greeting changed everything. A woman kissed my hand, I hers, then my forehead, then my shoulder, then we brought our own hands to our mouths. This was my welcome. In the next few days finding my place in town was alot easier than expected. People greeted me and told me many Marhaba bikums’ Welcome. I oooed and awwwed the picturesque view provided by the lower Atlas Mountains while walking hand and hand withmy young, not so interested in the scenery, host brother Mohamed to school. Town was deserted but on the way back I was feeling good until I heard my name. I gingerly walked head down to this person to find it was my nurse who wanted to know when I arrived and told me to report on Monday morning at 930 sharp or so I thought. I didn’t know to believe him cause he looked like he was on the wrong side of the day with the 5 o’clock shadow and all. Sunday I sat at the female wall of walu or nothing sitting with the adal drapped women. The Berber women in my village wear the waist length sheet with hand stiched designs. They also wear long skirts and shoes with bright colored pom poms. The women talk every night at the wall and I now have joined them with little understood. My first day I was late and because I didn’t quite understand my nurse. I got there and he told me I was late and laughed with me about it. We hade a few patients come in and I greeted them and followed the lead of the nurse. We discussed all the health issues and where they were in the 52 douars in my site. Walking home that day I got the same feeling again. The one that is like wow I’m here serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer and I can’t believe it. I tried hard as I might to hide my happiness but Mohamed saw the smirk on my face and smiled back on the way home and I felt that he understood if only for that small period in time we shared non-verbal communication of pure and utter happiness.
