Category Archives: Uncategorized

An Email Chain

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I have started to severely fall behind on my blogging.  This is not due to laziness.  Actually, I have tried to write updates several times.  Every time that I start to write, however, i censure myself.  On this blog, my supervisors and fellow Moroccans are able to read what I am writing.  As a result, most of my real updates are now going to be done through Email.  If you want to be included in my email list, just send me a message or leave your email in the comments.

Thank you =)

I will continue to update with writing material here once I have enough time to type up all the things I have written.

Working with Special Needs in a Developing Country

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI am coming to the end of a ten day camp in Eastern Morocco.  With more than 100 kids between two youth centers, this has been a great experience.  Today, however, opened up a new and rather interesting avenue.  At one of the youth centers, the administration lets two boys with Down’s Syndrome come to camp even though they don’t have the money to pay.  They have been a great addition to the camp.

As the son of a mother who works with special needs, I’ve grown up believing that special needs children need to be integrated with other children.  It helps the kids with special needs socialize while still giving them the care they need.  It also helps the kids without special needs because it teaches them how to interact with special needs kids.  Integration is extremely important.

So, when it comes to the developing world, dealing with special needs is usually a grand failure.  When a family has a kid with special needs, they are usually raised inside the house.  This has many facets to it.  Some families are ashamed.  Others don’t want their child to be subject to the harassment—many Autistic locals are simply referred to as The Local Crazy Man.  Whatever the reason, people with special needs are not integrated well into Moroccan Society.

Today I found a dark side to this divide.  90% of the kids at camp interact well with these two special needs kids.  The problem is three little boys who seem to take pleasure in bullying, harassing, and assaulting these boys.  It started off looking friendly.  The kids would ask the special needs boys to sit next to them.  They would whisper things in their ears.  The thing is, the special needs boys seemed to dislike what was being said and leave.

Later in the morning, I saw one of the boys give the special needs boy a hug.  He obvious didn’t like it and tried to get away.  The boy wouldn’t let go.  It eventually led to both kids on the ground and upset.  Only a few minutes later, I watched as a boy ran past one of the special needs boys and straight-up smacked him in the face before running off.  I ended up yelling at two of the young boys and bringing them to the Moroccan Staff.  The thing is, even the older Moroccans don’t know how to work with kids with special needs so they saw it as nothing more than boys messing around.

On the plus side, I just received an email telling me that I was picked to work with the Special Olympics of Morocco this September.  I really want to learn how to work with Special Needs kids in this country.  I worked with them a lot in America, but the dynamic is very different here.  Something like this could be well worth dedicating my entire service to.  Now if I could only figure out how to access the special needs population in my own town…

 

Change the clocks, again…this time for Ramadan

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IMG_1181Here’s the thing about Morocco.  It has two Daylight Savings Times.  The first one is like most other countries have.  The thing is, it is interrupted by a 30-day second daylight savings time.  This second change is due to the biggest holiday on the Muslim Calendar–Ramadan.  During the 30 days of Ramadan, all Muslims are suppose to fast during daylight hours.  That means no water or food between 5:30am and 7:45pm.  I consider this level of fasting to be a bit dangerous and excessive so I will not be partaking.  But there are several cultural changes I will experience in the days ahead.

  1. First and foremost, I must maintain the appearance that I am fasting.  Eating or drinking during daylight hours is considered very inappropriate whether you are Muslim or not.  Imagine not drinking water for 12 hours and seeing a person walk through the street drinking out of his water bottle.  So, for the next thirty day I will be hiding my water bottle and eating my meals inside
  2. Breaking Fast is the new cultural integration.  I have been told that most Peace Corps Volunteers will be invited to break fast with several families over the course of Ramadan.  I’ve already been invited by one man in this town and my tutor back in Sefrou.  I am excited to eat more Moroccan food over the next month.  It’ll be a good replacement for my own meals.
  3. Daylight hours means ghost town.  Since people need to save energy during the daylight hours, many will stay inside or sleep.  Several towns turn into nocturnal villages–with many people staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning and not waking up until noonish.  This will be an interesting experience.  Since it’s 100 degrees or more every day, this is probably a good thing.
  4. A third clock change at the end of Ramadan.  I feel like I’m never going to know what time it is if they switch the clock four times a year.

I am excited and kind of antsy to experience this holiday.  The thing is, Morocco is 99% Muslim.  By comparison, the US is only about 70% Christian.  In Morocco, this is something that everyone in the country does together.  It is a very community-based event.  I’ll keep you updated as I continue collecting the experiences.

Individual Struggles

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In the time that I’ve been in Peace Corps, I’ve come to solidify I thought process that has been growing on me over the past couple years: “Do not judge someone by their actions (or inactions).  Wait until you have the full story.”  This idea grew out of my father who told me this story (which I think is from the book, “7 Habits of a Highly Effective Person):

A man working in NYC just finished an 80 hour work-week.  He gets on the subway, exhausted, and tries to rest his mind as he goes home.  At the next stop, a middle-aged woman enters the subway car with a 2 year old and a 4 year old.  She sits down close to the man.  When the subway starts moving, the two kids start chasing each other around and screaming when they catch each other.  This annoys the man who just wanted a nice trip back home.  He notices that the mother is just staring out the window–not paying attention.  Then one of the boys knocks over the man’s briefcase and keeps running.  This annoys the man so much that he calls out to the woman and tells her to control her kids.  She snaps out of her daze and says, “I’m sorry.  Their father passed away this evening and…”

Ever since I heard that story, I’ve come to realize that there is little value in first impressions.  We all are experiencing our individual struggles.  That is how I am getting through today.  I am one of four volunteers helping run a camp in Eastern Morocco right now.  Tomorrow we will say goodbye to one of the four because his own personal struggle has grown in recent days.  It’ll be hard without him, but I know I cannot judge him for it.  On the same cord, I woke up feeling rather ill today.  In order to be prepared for when there are only three of us, I decided to use this morning to rest and get better.  I hope I won’t be too harshly judge for missing a day (though I’ve come to care less and less about what others think about me).

Then I logged onto Facebook this morning.  I started talking to a very close friend of mine.  She is going through a struggle with her family (the fighting itself sounds like it has a lot to do with judging others when we have no right to judge them).  I did my best to listen because that’s really all we can do.  When someone is struggling, we can listen.  From time to time, you may need to tell someone to snap out of it, but most struggles need little more than a listening ear.  Although, I wish I could be there in person to offer better support.

Thank you Dad for teaching me this valuable life lesson.

Getting into Summer Camp

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June 30, 2013Today is the fifth day of a ten day Summer camp which me and there other volunteers are working at.  We’ve done lots of songs.  We’ve taught the kids about eating healthy and exercising.  We’ve done art.  We even did a couple hours on environmentalism.  Now, halfway through the camp, I am really into the swing of things.  Today we are going to the swimming pool with more than 60 kids.  It is going to be crazy.

Today is a special day for me.  It has been since 2006.  It’s a day where I spend a lot of time thinking.  It’s strange how quickly time goes by at times.  Then again, considering how much has changed in the past seven years, it’s incredible how slow time is simultaneously.  Here is the piece I prepared for today.  I hope you like it.

Seven Years Later…

The Heat of Summer

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This week-long gap between two camps has been rather weird.  There is so little that I can accomplish in the period of a week.  This week felt like a bit of a waste.  I spent a lot of time thinking–which is why many Peace Corps members fear the Summer.  Too much thinking can make you remember what you are doing here AND what you left back home.  It’s a time where you can figure out what you want to do with your service or pine over the life you left back in The States.  I feel like I’ve gone through both of these at the same time.  I am starting to develop a realistic plan of what I want my service to look like.  At the same time, I see too much of my life back in The States.

On the plus side, I developed a lot of plans during this week.  I worked on my big project–which I hope to start in full force this Fall.  I figured out what kind of books I want to spend my time reading.  I started writing more than I have been.  During the heat of the day, I feel like there is little I can do other than watch a TV show or take a nap.  The think is, the rest of my city does that too.  I guess what I thought was laziness is just cultural integration.  This really is the strangest job I’ve ever had.

Here’s a poem from yesterday.

The Quarry

on Writing in the Peace Corps

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As the weeks pass, I feel that I may be among the lucky volunteers here in Morocco.  We have all be told a dozen times that we will have long stretches of down time.  This isn’t a Peace Corps thing.  It is a cultural thing.  Our job is to work with kids.  When it’s raining all winter or approaching 130 all summer, it is inevitable that whole communities forgo activities for extended amount of times.  Many of the volunteers that I have met fear this.  I understand their fear, but don’t share it.  There is an incredible feeling of purpose that comes with being busy.  To complement that, however, there is an incredible feeling of uselessness that comes with not having much to do.

I’ve experienced the uselessness before.  For me, however, I have an inexhaustible hobby that can take up hours or fit into the small crevasses of free time.  Currently, during training, my writing has fallen into the latter category considering learning a new language (and culture) comes first.  I’m well aware that this will change.  When the activity level dies down and I am sworn in as a volunteer, there will be days where it’s obvious not much can be done.  For that, I am thankful for my hobby.  I have five writing outlets in place at this moment.  First, I write in my diary everyday.  Secondly, I write a letter several times a week.  Those are the two that I currently fit into the small moments of free time.  Thirdly, I have this blog.  Fourth is a script I’ve been hoping to write (This will be a long term goal that will probably take off in the heat of the Summer).  Lastly, I have a short story I desperately want to write (even though it’s still in the theoretical stage).

With all these outlets, I am not afraid of the free time that comes with two years of service.  Writing is my way of untangling the thoughts in my head.  The more I write while in Morocco, the more I’ll understand about the people and the culture I encounter.  I’ll already spend two weeks realizing that the construction of a culture in sci-fi novels is one of the most fascinating and exciting elements of pre-writing….just because I’ve landed myself in a new culture.  I love the realizations that being in Africa are giving me.  They will make me a stronger volunteer and a stronger writer.

Today’s short story comes from my teenage love for zombies.  After seeing “Land of the Dead,” I was fascinated with the differences between all the zombies movies.  I wanted to give another take on the zombie story.  This story came out as a set of diary entries.  It is quite short.  Enjoy.

Day to Die

Halfway through Peace Corps Training

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I know I’ve been uploading mainly pictures.  So here’s a real writing update.  Today marks five weeks in Morocco.  Only 109 weeks to go =).  It’s strange thinking that this much time has already passed.  Like the rest of humanity, I’ve been fascinated by the passage of time since I was a teenager.  But this is the first period since high school that time has felt extremely fluid.  Like high school, each day is jam-packed with class, social interaction, frustrations, and excitement.  Unlike high school, each day is a massive cultural experience.  That’s not even mentioning the speech barrier.

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Despite these busy days, these five weeks have passed by in a snap.  At times I can’t believe that I’ve been in Africa for five weeks.  Other times, it feels like I’ve been here a year.  That’s why I’ve always been so fascinated with time.  It is going by so quickly and so slowly at the same time.  I’m quickly realizing what is difficult to be away from and what is easy to be away from.  Being away from my girl makes it feel like years have passed.  Being away from the entertainment world of America makes it feel like no time has passed at all.

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I was certain I was going to Early Terminate in the first two weeks of training.  It was a strange mixture of circumstances that brought me to that conclusion.  I even told my father I might be able to watch some Broncos games with him next season.  Then we started taking a little time out of our language lessons to start teaching English to the children in our community.  That changed a lot for me.  Being able to genuinely help students was exactly what I needed.  Then, during a free weekend, I had a long conversation with a close Peace Corps friend.  Now I have a hard time seeing what would make me go home.

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It doesn’t feel like an emotional roller coaster…but that is because the days stretch on for vast amounts of time.  The truth is I experience multiple ups and downs in a day.  I have overall amazing days and overall sucky days.  In the end, in the past two weeks, little has brought me down for a long period of time.  Once I got settled into the idea of spending two years here, I started making plans.  I know what my plans are for my Peace Corps service—but there are going to be long periods where I need to just fill time (like during the summer when it’s 120+ degrees outside).  For that, I made a list of personal goals.  This includes many writing goals—including finishing a film script I started working on last week.  Having a set of personal goals was exactly what I needed.

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We’ve talked to a lot of current volunteers.  All of them have advice.  All of their advice is simple.  But there’s this strange feeling when I am around them.  It’s like walking into a movie at the theater and seeing other people walking out.  You know that they just experienced what you are about to experience.  You want to know, but you don’t.  I have this strange sensation that I have important questions to ask the current volunteers….but I can never figure out what to ask.  It’s rather amusing.

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I am continuously reminded of something I wrote while in Tacoma with my girl.  It was about home.  It was then that I realize I did not have a home.  It isn’t with my parents.  It isn’t Tacoma.  It isn’t my grandmother’s old condo.  It isn’t my host family.  It won’t be my final site.  What I realize back then is that home isn’t a place—it’s people.  No matter how I look at it, I feel the tether to those I love.  I know where my home is.  Although I love this country and I’m dedicated to spending two years here, I know my home is safe in Tacoma.

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