Author Archives: Richard Reilly

Getting in the Grove

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The more time that passes living alone, the more I figure it out.  In the first week, I didn’t have a good place to read or write.  Yesterday, I made space.  I ended up reading quite a bit of a fantastic book–The Good Earth–and actually wrote for the first time in a while.  I’m slightly confused about what came out, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.  I always return to poetry when I have pent up emotions I need to ventilate.

The next forty days or so promise to be crazy.  I sat down and wrote out a schedule of events.  I don’t have much free time starting this Wednesday.  There are trainings, festivals, events, and much more.  I like being busy.  At the same time, I am starting to get somewhat of a schedule for work.  What more can I really ask for?  I needed a way to stay busy and I am starting to figure it out.  Now if I could just find a place to buy a desk…

Pacify

 

The Mental Stress of Service

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“The far darker side is the mental effects. For all intents and purposes, you will feel more alone than you have ever been, felt, or dreamt of being in your entire life. Sure, you will be a ‘member of your community,’ insofar as a 20-something foreigner with a very limited knowledge of their language and even less understanding of their cultural norms can integrate into a community which is physically and emotionally homogeneous. Let me say again: You Will Cry. You will cry, you will want to curl up in your empty bed and scream for the ‘simple’ things in life. You will want somebody to hold you, to just wrap their arms around you and pull you into them. There will be days when you feel like you are empty inside, there will be days when you feel like going nuclear and destroying anything you can get your hands on, including your neighbors, students, colleagues, and yourself.”

–Shawn (http://shawngrund.blogspot.com/2011/05/dark-side-of-peace-corps.html)

I’m starting to find that having a host family was a way to force us as volunteers into a routine.  In the week since I got my own place, my routine has broken down in a few places.  On top of that, I no longer have a reason to bottle up my emotions.  This weeks has had some of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my service thus far.  It’s hard to predict what will happen tomorrow–or this evening–and that makes everything either really entertaining or really annoying.

Like yesterday.  I had a difficult day in class and was supposed to follow it up with a second class.  As I walked to my Youth Center, however, I realized that would not be the case.  Instead, there were two armed guards at the two entrances   The governor for the region was inside, giving a speech to the educators of the regions.  I waited in an office nearby and ended up meeting with several of the educators afterwards.  Take my word for it: every day takes a severe turn from what you expected.  This is why all former volunteers tell you not to have any expectations.

The lonely part is terrifying.  I can visualize my best case scenario and worst case scenario back home….and I wouldn’t be as lonely as I am here.  I have friends nearby, yes, but my daily life is in this town.  This town where I don’t honestly understand 95% of what is being said.  Where I’m having trouble starting my work.  Where social interaction is important and it’s hard to be included if you are an outsider.  It’s all very frustrating.  In the end, I force myself to do things everyday.  Leave my apartment at least twice a day–at least one of those times should be long.  I force myself to buy something–something small so I have some interactions.

The thing is–it’s okay from there.  All you have to do is go out.  People who know you, want to talk to you.  People who don’t know you stare, and sometimes try to talk to you (in French .   But it gets you out of your head.  That’s the most important thing.  This has been a difficult week–and I think it will only get harder.  And better at the same time.  Only time will tell.

100 Days Into My Peace Corps Experience

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Fes

100 Days In

100 Days Down.  700 to go.  The past week has changed everything for me.  It started with Spring Camp.  That gave me the first experience of interacting with kids in Bhalil.  Once camp concluded, I got to work on some of the most important aspects of my time here.  First, getting a house of my own.  As of yesterday, I have the key to my very own beautiful apartment.  I will be spending the week ahead furnishing it and moving in.  Secondly, I am filling my schedule with classes.  I already have three English Classes scheduled in the week ahead.  I am likely to get a couple more over the next couple days.  Most of them will be reoccurring.  This will be the core of my service.  All of my projects will branch out from the kids that I teach.

Starting to be successful is changing a lot.  There have also be recent changes back in America.  It has all brought me to a strange understanding.  I now know what I am doing in Morocco.  I now know the full extent of the sacrifice I made by leaving America.  The combination is strange.  On the up side, my feet are planted firmly in Morocco and my service will benefit from that.  On the down side, there is no going back to the way things used to be.  I knew Peace Corps would change my life.  But what surprises me is how it changed me.

The emotional roller coaster that was 100 days of homestay is over.  It made me realize how many emotions can be active at the same time.  There was one point when I almost exhausted my vocabulary for emotions and honestly felt all of them simultaneously.  It is exhausting.  However, considering I was an anxious wreck only six months ago, this is a great change for me.

The other aspect is Love.  I have come to realize the true meaning of love here.  In all forms.  I have never truly understood how much I love my family…because I have never had to miss them this much.  It is a great thing to realize.  The same happens for friends.  I coming to realize who I was close to because they were around…and who is honestly a good friend (and how I can be a better friend).  As for romantic love, that is a whole other can of worms.

I am ready for the second 100 days.  I know that I do not know what they hold.  That is clear.  I barely understand what tomorrow holds.  But that is part of the beauty of Morocco and Peace Corps.  You never know what is going to happen…but is usually turns out for the best.

Like being ushered into a random house and given cake, peanuts, and tea.

Morocco is awesome.

The World of 2015

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I will be back in the United States in 2015.  I’m not really sure when, but it will be 2015.  There are some early Close of Services in March.  Then again, I want to travel.  It’s all too far away to think about with any precision.  I will be back in the United States between March and July of 2015.  When I do, the country will be mostly the same.  It’ll be the small things that will have changed.  That’s what I spend a lot of time thinking about.

Family
-My dad will be 58 and getting closer to retirement.
-My mom will be 57 and about to start her last year of teaching.
-My sister will be turning 30 around the time I get back.
-Dasia will be 15 and probably have a Driver’s Permit.
-Jade will be 13 and getting ready for High School.
-Kyra will be 10 and starting Middle School.
-Sidenote: My parents will likely have a new dog!

Technology
-IPhone 7 will probably be the big thing.
-The PS3, the XBOX 720, and independent game systems will be on the market (I want one).
-The new technology will likely be “flexible tablets.”
-Google Glasses will be on the Market.
-Supermarkets will have more “do it yourself” checkouts than human checkouts
-Space Tourism will allow civilians to orbit the moon in a “Lunar Hotel”
-Self-driving cars will be on the road, but not ready for general sale.
-Personal Computers will have up to 100 TB hard drives.

Politics/News
-The New World Trade Center in New York will be open
-The first Presidential Candidates for 2016 will already have announced their candidacy.
-The Defense of Marriage Act will be overturned.
-3D Printing will render gun control obsolete.
-For the first time since I was 12, the United States will not be at war.

It’s strange to think about a lot of these things.  Everything moves so quickly in the world nowadays, that a lot really does change in the course of two years.  It’s all very exciting and scary.  By the way, if you find this stuff as fascinating as I do, I get most of it off a single website.  Check it out.

http://www.futuretimeline.net

 

 

How to Buy Meat in Morocco

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Meat hooks at a butcher.

Meat hooks at a butcher. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The local butcher has a shop just down the street.  His tactics for increasing sales are obvious—and appear to be working.  On the outside door to the shop hangs a cow head.  Every day, a cow head will be there.  It’ll look very much alive except for the vacancy in its eyes and the tongue hanging slightly out of its mouth.  This the butcher’s way of telling his customers that this meat is fresh.

The rest of the cow hangs behind the butcher.  You walk into his store and ask for a certain number of kilos.  The butcher will go to the dead cow and cut off a slab for you—nice and fresh.  He’ll weigh it.  Once he has the right amount, he’ll grind the meat up for you right there.  He puts the slab in the top of the grinder.  Out the side comes ground meat.  This cow won’t even be 24 hours dead by the time his meat is in your stomach.

But that is nothing compared to the chicken vender.  I have only gone once.  With my remaining 700 days in Morocco, I have no intention of returning.  For one thing, I don’t like chicken very much.  For another, I prefer not to see my meal slaughtered.  The chicken vender has a simple setup.  You walk up to his window and ask for a certain number of kilos.  He will walk to the back of his store, where ten chickens are in a pen.

These chickens are always hiding in a corner.  They are able to see what happens to the chickens that get “picked.”  They push each other to hide in the furthest corner, not wanting to die.  The chicken vender picks out a chicken for you and brings it up to the window.  He weighs the live chicken right in front of you.  If the weight is correct, he puts the chicken on the ground, holds its head upward, and cuts its throat.  The chickens in the pen huddle closer together.

After that, the chicken is sent through a defeathering machine.  After a few minutes, you have your meat ready.  The one night that I witnessed this, we ate chicken.  It’s strange to think that the meat you are eating was alive just a couple hours ago—trying not to be the winner of some reaping.  But that’s how it works here.

In America, we hide the process of killing.  When we go to buy our meals for the day, we see processed meat, not living animals.  It makes it easier for us to stomach.  As for me, I’m tending towards the side of America.  Once I’m on my own and cooking on my own…I can’t see myself buying meat.  I don’t know how to be a vegetarian…but I may have to figure it out.

It’s that or learn how to be okay with reaping a chicken every few nights.