Rich, Peace Corps, and Looking Forward
I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer now! Up to this point I have been in training but I have now sworn to uphold the constitution and such and am a full fledged volunteer. Our group swearing in even made the national news!
At the swearing in
Rich
I’ve now been in my new site for a little over a week and I’m glad to say that I really like it. It’s actually a lot like the Moroccan version of Fort Collins. It’s about an hour north of the nearest big city, Errichidia, and is just a little ways into the Atlas Mountains. The first thing you notice about Rich is the incredible mountain views all around the city.
It is a truly beautiful city! It is slightly bigger than I would have imagined heading into the Peace Corps but that also means that there is a lot of work to be done. The youth at the Dar Chebab (Youth Center) are pretty engaged and want to learn and you get the impression that if they just had a few more opportunities that they would really thrive. I’ll get a chance to see if that is the case first hand in the coming two years. Also, I am now a resident here and have my very own mailing address:
Peace Corp Volunteer
Taylor (Elias) Dunn
BP 106
Rich 52400
Province De Midelt
Morocco, Africa
If you take the time to send me a letter I promise to do the same!
My site mate, Galen, has been in Rich for a little over a year and a half and he is a great resource and has done some really great projects. In the coming weeks I will be taking over about half of his classes at the Dar Chebab and we will also be working on a project to build a couple of parks/gardens around town. Women in Rich don’t have much opportunity to gather outside of the home, but public gardens are an exception and we hope that by bringing a couple of new gardens to some neighborhoods that it will encourage more activity in the areas.
It's been a little cold here recently.... I'm staying in the pink one.
Peace Corps
I am really amazed at the amount of new things that I do every day. I wish I could write about every experience that I have here. Random walks to the bus station turn into expeditions through ancient Kasbahs. Visiting a family for an hour can turn into an adventure that leads to three Moroccans and myself pushing an out-of-gas motorcycle/truck down the highway at 3:oo in the morning. A fishing trip turns out to be a trip to a beautiful lake for a day of swimming and sun. It’s really unbelievable how much I have had the opportunity to experience in such a short time.
Just another day walking a few km to the bus station
Of course, I am not just here to travel and have adventures. I am also here to make a small difference in the lives of others and spread the goodwill of the American people to the country of Morocco. In this respect, I think the Peace Corps is worth its weight in gold. I have had conversations about economic policy, Israel, Egypt, democracy, terrorism, family, and friends. Each conversation brings people closer to understanding each other. There are people in this country that think all Americans have maids and don’t know how to do anything worthwhile. I’m constantly struck by how much international relations have been accomplished without me having done any actual work to this point. WHY ARE WE NOT FUNDING THIS MORE?!?!
Looking Forward
For the next couple of months I will be working my hardest to learn the language. It’s a bit of a wakeup call to be dropped into a city where you don’t really know anyone and have to rely on your own language skills to get by. I have pretty much failed at this point. I feel like my language is not going well right now and that I will need to make a serious effort to get where I need to be.
I also will be house hunting for the next couple weeks in hopes that I can find a place of my own before Christmas. While living with a family is great way to integrate, I am in desperate need of my own house with my own bathroom and my own cooking. It’s just really hard to get into any sort of a routine when you rely on someone else for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Our Thanksgiving Turkey!
Let me know if you like the slideshow better than the other way. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, please let me know how you are doing, if not in the comments then send an email my way!
That’s all for now but a little quote on the way out…
“ I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
Henry David Thoreau
Taylor
Great to read this stuff. Is there any point in sending care packages or would all the stuff wind up with someone else?
November 30, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Care packages are always welcome! Provided you’re not sending anything super expensive it should get to me… they also search for things like Bibles I think, to make sure I’m not spreading things like Christianity (so try and contain your constant desire to spread the good book, just this once!).
November 30, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Happy Holidaze Taylor. Wonder what your celebration will be like there? I’m enjoying reading about your travel and progress. Take care and Merry Christmas!
Mark Miller
December 5, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Thanks Mark!
I’m actually headed to a friends place for the holidays and we’re gonna do our best to have a good ol’ fashioned American Christmas complete with a tree and gifts. Hope your holidays are great! Thanks for the note and taking the time to read.
December 6, 2011 at 4:14 pm
so more real world stories:
monday i’m at school; it was single digit temperature, by the way, and i think i have to institute my own policy that if it is 30 or below, then that is an automatic sub day for me. anyway, bell for 2nd class rings at around 9:20am. it’s my freshman class, a bit squirrely, but i don’t mind them so much. i banter with them as we start to crack into a freewirting prompt lesson, and then isaac munoz comes in a few minutes after the bell.
…first, some background on isaac. stocky kid, around 5′ 5″; transferred from california in the middle of the semester for reasons unknown; trying to grow a mustache, but he’s only 14, you know? huge problem with male authority; has no desire to bring anything to class; has no desire but to sit there with his head down on the desk; he and i have gotten into it on several occasions about his lack of work ethic and how i expect more from students; what my dad would call “a real punk!” (and he actually did, when i told him this story); thinks he’s a man…he’s not…
now we all know about the singing policy if you come late to my class. my freshman immediately are calling for him to sing. my eyebrows say this isn’t the kid who is going to sing. hell, i haven’t seen him in 2 weeks, because he doesn’t like me riding him all the time. at the very least i ask him to remove his raiders hat (that detail adds character…”oh, now i know what kind of individual he thinks he is”). the last time i told him to remove his hat, he kept putting it back on. this time, i simply and physically take it from him, because i’m no longer dealing. i step to the back of the class to hang it on my coat rack near my desk, and this kid goes from 0 to 60 in a heartbeat.
0-60 means one of the most violent 14 year olds (who apparently is passionate about his hat) approaches me with every “F-bomb” he knows; in front of a stunned freshman class, that is now physically scared and wondering what’s to come, he is in my face pushing me, to where i have to resist him with my right hand in his chest. think drastic profanity from a foot away with the word “hat” thrown in here and there, and you’ve got it. the look on his face is evil. his fists are clenched, and my smirk doesn’t help. because deep down inside, i’m from california too, and i’m thinking kurt russell tombstone: “skin it! skin that smokewagon and see what happens!”
but i’m calm, cool, “step back…you’re gonna want to step back; don’t do this. seriously, it will be the last thing you’ll do…you need to get back to your seat…” he slaps my arm away…”go sit”…”i’m not a dog you [expletive]“…”sit!” (my smile doesn’t help there; he’s still coming and vehement, to the point that this kid won’t calm down and i have to tell another student, kendra, to go find a campus monitor because he needs to be removed from the class. she runs and returns with 2 female janitors (not what i had in mind), who also are stunned. there is another female teacher in the hallway…stunned; the copy room lady…stunned. i have to grab this kid by the shoulder and the shirt (he gets his hat) and strongly escort him out of the room. finally, the campus monitor arrives and takes him from there.
i walk back into my room to a round of applause from my freshman class: “that was the coolest thing i’ve seen!”; “you’re some kind of hero or something!”; “you’re my favorite teacher, you know that?”; etc… i chuckle and get right back to the freewriting prompt without skipping a beat. the topic of the prompt, by the way: Human Weakness…
be good…
d
December 8, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Quick Note To all those that read Danny’s comment: This is what I mean when I say please post! It’s such a nice break to get a little story from home, and a funny one at that.
Now, Danny… Awesome! I had this kid in one of my classes when I was student teaching, right down to the mustache! I call him out one class and send him out to the hall. He goes quietly… too quietly… I sneak up to the window and catch him distracting my class with any number of obscene gestures and inform him that it’s time for him to grab his stuff and make his way to the office. Clearly not happy about being caught, he gets his stuff and makes his way toward the front of class where I am still teaching (at this point I should mention that this kid is probably 5’10″ which makes him one big 8th grader). He’s walking toward me with his head down and I can read his mind via body language, “I don’t have to take this. I’ll show him!” He walks up to me (head still down) and straightens up to get in my face…… but about halfway through he realizes that he only comes up to my chest. His eyes look up and the rest of his body immediately shrinks, he has just remembered that I am half a foot taller than him. He turns and walks away without another word. Overall advice: Get taller and you’ll avoid some of these confrontations…
Thanks for the note and hope all is well. I’m actually off to teach at the Dar Chebab (Youth Center). I’ll do a post about the difference between American and Moroccan students one of these days (spoiler alert: they aren’t a bunch of punks).
December 8, 2011 at 3:08 pm