Its my Birfday

Just wanted to tell you all that I am about to turn 25 and celebrate my quarter century in Tangier. I am so excited! Then it is back to work... I love you all and wanted to give a shout out to my mother, Nikki Josefson, who 25 years ago gave birth to me. She has been a great mother and I appreciate everything she has done for me in the past 25 years, all starting with being in labor for 36 hours.
Love
Emmy

Reinvigorated...Again

I just had training in Azrou last week and it was great. I don't know if I learned that much but I definitely got inspired. It was also great to be back with all of my friends again. Training was a great time to bounce ideas off of each other and learn about each others sites. This week I have started working on my training of birth attendents project. I will be working with my friend Carrie setting up a training for birth attendants. Most women living in small villages, like ours, give birth in their homes and most of the time the women give birth in very unsterile rooms. There are also lots of urban myths the women believe in like pushing on the belly with extreme force will make the birth faster, which maybe it does but is very dangerous for the mother and baby. So Carrie and my job is to set up a training of women who are interested in being present at these births to make sure it is sanitary and safe. After training I have a new found motivation and have lots of project ideas. I am planning on doing a bathroom project in my market area so the men stop going to the bathroom beside my house. I also want to do a eye glasses project to get the people in my village glasses, but this project wont happen for awhile. The project I am most excited about is health lesson vidoes. The girls at my neddy will help me make the videos and in doing so they will learn about health stuff. Then we will show the videos to classes and the girls will become the teachers as well, which makes the project more sustainable.

After training I went to Fes and it was amazing. The street food was amazing and I found out that is where Algebra was invented, which is cool but I hate Algebra. Now I am back home for about a week and then I am off to Rabat for a shot. Then I am going to Tangier for my birthday; which is going to be a blast.

I love you all and hope that people are still reading this. I am trying to keep up with it but not doing a great job at it.

Love
Emmy

Life is good here right now.

Teaching and Learning

Enjoying Peace Corps friends and doing my best to enjoy the small things.  This past week was a good week.  I started the week with my boss coming to my site to review my progress and to assess my site.  My boss, Rachid, told me that he was impressed with my progress thus far and was impressed that I have started teaching already.  It was good to hear that I am on track and doing better than what was expected of me.  I also got some ideas for projects in the future.  Just this past weekend I had a HIV/Aids training at my house, which was interesting.  Morocco does not, currently, have the same problems with Aids as the rest of Africa, yet.  However, the U.N. predicts that they are headed for an epidemic because of the culture here does not allow them to discuss such issues and they are unwilling to recognize that Aids even exists in Morocco.  This past week I asked my nurse if there was Aids in my village and he scoffed and told me that Morocco does not have these kinds of problems, Aids only exists in the West because our morals are all wrong.  I followed this response with asking if men in my site sleep with prostitutes and he said of course their are prostitutes in every village in Morocco, and most men sleep with them.  After sleeping with prostitutes these men will go home and sleep with their wives; most of these encounters are unprotected.  This is why Peace Corps is here to break through the stereo types and teach men and women about Aids and STDs.  

I am getting really excited to come home in December and cannot wait to see everyone.  Being so far away reminds me of how much I appreciate you all.

Love 

Emmy

Update

This past weekend I had a group of eight Peace Corps friends come to visit me and it was so great. We got to be American and dance the night away until four in the morning everynight. One night we even watched the sunrise over the beach, which ended up not being as beautiful as we hoped because the sunrises to the East, not over the ocean. It was great to see everyone, some of them I hadn't seen since training in Ouarzazate. Then I had four girls come to my house and that was a blast we watched the sex in the City movie, and realized how our lives are so different. While Sarah Jessica Parker is buying 800 dollar bags we are trying to figure out how often we need to shower to be presentable to the world. I have found that even after a week I only shower because in my past life it would have been unheard of to go this long without a shower.
This past week was a good one. The sbitar was really busy and I am starting to feel more comfortable there. I read my journal this week and realized how far I have come in the past nine months. The first week of homestay in my site I was pleading to God to help me get through the day and I needed pep talks just to leave my room. Now I leave my house without fear. I still am not as busy as I would like to be but that will come with time and toothbrushes. I want to do a toothbrush project with the primary school kids where I brush my teeth with one class everyday for three weeks. Then the kids can bring their toothbrushes home with the knowledge of how to use them. Sachel is doing a toothbrush drive at his wedding to make this possible.
Life gets better here everyday.
I love you all and miss you all
Emmy

Ramadan comes to an End

Now that Ramadan is coming to an end I am going to take a little time to explain to you what Ramadan is. Ramadan is the celebration of the Koran being revealed to the Prophet Mohammed. To celebrate this Muslims fast during the day light hours for an entire month. Just before the sun goes down everyone enters a state of complete chaos, everyone starts running to their houses and taxi drivers start driving like mad men. I have been in taxis many times when all of a sudden the taxi drivers realize that the sun is starting to set and begin to drive like nascar drivers. Once the sun sets everyone breaks fast; this consists of eating dates, cookies, and soup. Whenever I have broken fast with people they never drink water and that is all I want after a day of living in eighty degree weather. Fasting means no food or water all day long. The no food thing is not that hard but the no water thing drives people to insanity, me especially. I fasted the first day then got really sick and decided that I couldn't do it. But, then once I got better I decided to start fasting again, and it was hard. Yesterday was Laid which is the celebration of the ending of Ramadan. I was so happy that Ramadan has ended because now I can start carrying around a water bottle with me again. I also don't like getting up at four in the morning to eat real quick and then go back to bed.
I admire the devotion that Moroccoan's have for God, their devotion is part of their everyday lives not just a Sunday morning after thought. Once the sun goes down and people can eat again Ramadan is a very peaceful time of day. I really enjoyed standing on my balcony looking out at my town and watching everyone rush to the store to get last minute things, and then once the imam called out and it was time to break fast silence filled my entire town, it was very peaceful.
Life here in Morocco is getting a lot better I am starting to get used to the culture. I am no longer in a state of confusion all of the time. I know how to get around for the most part and understand when things don't work out as planned. My language is coming along slowly but surely. The loneliness and the lack of work has been the hardest things to get used to. I am getting more comfortable being alone most of the time. The work part is starting to pick up but will never be the same as life in America. I have started to force myself to enjoy this experience because I feel like it is one that will help guide me in the future so I want to learn as much as possible from it instead of wishing it away.
I love you all
Emmy
Mbark Laid (Happy Laid)

Hello

This is going to be a quick post but thought I would update you and then next time I will send a thoughtful post in the next week. I am currently trying to survive Ramadan and it is surprisingly not as hard as I thought it would be. I had a lot of anxiety about Ramadan before it came because I was told there would be a lot of people trying to get me to become a Muslim. But, this is not the case and it is actually a spiritual experience. Two different times I have found myself getting stuck in Smimou because it is time to break fast and so there are not any taxis at this time. Anyways, twice I have broken fast with my favorite store owner and he gives me soup and dates and a pop all for free. Breaking fast with this guy has given me some of my favorite times here in Morocco.

I need to go but I will be back soon. I love you all. I am doing good though and starting to appreciate this experience.

Love Emmy

Six Month Synopsis

I just need to start this blog by bragging at my skills to conserve water. I just got done making lunch and first I had to wash dishes to have the ability to boil my noodles. I used my rinse water as the boiling water for my noodles, then I saved that water for rinse water again, and then I took that rinse water and put it in the back of my toilet for flushing later, that one liter of water got used four different times. In America this would never happen, and honestly the only reason I am so efficient with my water is because I have to haul it myself, and it sucks.
My agenda for this blog is that I wanted to do a six month recap on my time here in Morocco. Can you believe I have already been here for six months. Time is weird here the days go by so slow but then when I look back on it I don't feel like I have been here this long. I am hoping that the days start going by a little faster because I have to entertain myself for most of the day. In America my life was planned for me I woke up and went to school, then went to work, and anytime leftover was spent with my friends. I dreamed to have days where nothing was going on and I could just watch CSI all day long. Now my dream has been granted and I now yearn for a job that forces me to work seventy hours a week. It is a burden to have so much time on your hands. I have been studying for the foreign service exam, playing my guitar, reading lots of books, and watching movies. I am going to start working on my resume next week, so right when I am done with the Peace Corps I can get myself that seventy hour a week job.
Back to the agenda, I left Bemidji, MN on February 29th, it was leap day. I think that was officially the scariest day of my life, I cried a lot. I had three days of training in Philly which was so intimidating. The only thing I really remember is learning that two-thirds of the Peace Corps goals is cultural exchange. This bummed me out because who cares about culture exchange but now looking back I remember that part of the reason that I wanted to live in another country for two years is to truly understand another culture. All I can remember from Philly is eating a lot of cheese steaks and I kept thinking what the hell have I got myself into?!?!
Then I started training in Ouarzazate where I spent a whole bunch of time sitting in a classroom and doing skits. I hate skits because not very many people are good at them. I did enjoy this time making some of the greatest friends I will ever have. Training was the time I call “waiting...anticipating...” Actually, all of Peace Corps so far has been a process of patience and flexibility. I waited months for my application to go through, then I waited for my country and departure time all while living with my parents and working at a gas station. Then I got to training and everyday was a waiting day. First we waited to know which language we would be speaking, of course everyone wanted Arabic and most of us did not get that. Then we waited for months to find out where was our site going to be? I still can't believe that I was lucky enough to be placed in Essaouira, you sill all understand why when you come and visit me. Then we got to our sites and we were waiting to get out of home stay, which couldn't have gone any slower. Now I live in my own place and I still wait for the next fun weekend with my friends to come or the next time I actually have work to do. I have heard that life in site is pretty slow until March then projects begin to take off.
In these past six months in country I have learned a lot. I have learned how to get around this country where transportation is not reliable. I have learned how to use a Turkish toilet and when necessary, yes I do use my hand to wipe, it really isn't that bad. I have learned the true art of taking deep breaths and just being patient for hours on end. I have never really been forced to be patient, in America everything is given to you when you want it. I wait for hours for taxi's, food, and sleep. I have learned how to live with things that I would not tolerate in America, such as unwashed sheets in hotel rooms and bedbugs. My host family had bedbugs that I could not get rid of and now live with me at my new house, but I have moved on and try not to itch.
When you don't know the language very well you have a lot of time to observe. Through my observations I have found that Moroccan culture is very different from American culture. Women here do all of the hard labor and men do a lot of sitting. I haul my water and never has a man offered to help me carry my water, but I have had girls help me. One day I tipped over my wheel barrow that was full all my water jugs went flying, all the men sat and yelled at the women to help me, I am now better at maneuvering a wheel barrow. Moroccans also really like to say you know nothing “or tsint walloo” this is the most evil saying on the planet. It happens to all of us volunteers and is a saying that we would never say, not even to an Indian telemarketer. But, I am growing a thicker skin. Moroccan people are great people and I am appreciative that they are allowing me into their lives for two years. I am especially appreciative of my host family, because they allow me an intimate view and understand what a Moroccan household is like. They are real around me and don't hide who they are.
There are days that I hate it here and there are days that I love it here. I am on a roller coaster of emotions constantly. Within a day I can feel completely different but I know that I am here for a reason. If anything I will be a more patient person when I get home. I have been to seventeen countries and Morocco has challenged me more than any of the other sixteen. But, there is something to be said for toughing it out and seeing what you are made of. I can do this for two years but not a day longer. My goal for the rest of my time spent here in Morocco is to be as good at guitar as Eric Clapton, travel all over this country, survive, and most of all learn everything there is to know about Moroccan people.
I love you all
Emmy