Visitors!

A few days ago my family left to return to America after visiting Matt and I for the holidays. They’ve agreed to write a guest post about their trip, but I wanted to put up a quick blurb too. I’ll try to keep it short so I don’t steal their thunder.

Their visit was great for many reasons, number one being that it was fantastic to see my family again after almost a year of being away. We also got to travel to tons of cool places, stay at hotels a few steps nicer than the ones Matt and I usually frequent, and eat lots of delicious food. We got to see coast, plains, desert, and mountains, and we visited some of the major cities – Casablanca, Marrakech, and Fes – as well as Azilal and my training site. We hit some really touristy places, but also got to see the more local side of things while sharing meals with my host families and Moroccan friends. All in all, it was a great trip.

I expected their visit to help me see Morocco through new eyes again. While this didn’t exactly happen (I suppose I was too excited to share the things that give me headaches on a daily basis), what did happen was a realization of how far Matt and I have come in the time we’ve been living here. I watched my family using the little bit of Darija they had learned, asking about how to share out of a communal dish, and being coerced into a Moroccan dance party by Mama Naima, and I was reminded of Matt and me at the beginning of our training here. Back then we knew just as little as they did, but here we are almost a year later, (somewhat) confidently leading them on a tour of Morocco. We’ve been living this transformation, so it’s been a little bit harder to see for us… and after living here for a while and still running into many situations every week where we have no idea what’s going on, it was a nice reminder and confidence-booster to see the change :).

Mom, Dad, Eric and Rachel – thanks again for coming! I miss you guys again already!

Camels!

Now they’ll understand that 50 degrees outside also means 50 degrees inside.

Classic sibling bonding time. In a cave.

I (won’t) be home for Christmas…

A couple months ago, I started making plans with friends to spend a small Thanksgiving together – I figured it wouldn’t be much, but it’d be better sitting at home on a holiday. As you can maybe tell by that attitude, I’ve had a pretty pessimistic view of what our holidays would be like this year. The prospect of not being home for Christmas for maybe the first time in my life (and Matt not being with his family for Thanksgiving for the first time in his life) was really getting us down. But I underestimated the wonderfulness of the PCV community – maybe it’s just because I was dreading it, but we’ve already had a holiday season that way exceeded my expectations!

For Thanksgiving, Peace Corps staff brought all the volunteers to Rabat to have a huge dinner, complete with deliciously cooked Butterball turkeys (also lots of couscous, lentils and dates… it was a multicultural holiday). We sat out under big tents, eating (mostly) American food and speaking English, and even got to go out that night to party with a LOT of PCVs. Unconventional, yes, but it also made for a fantastic day spent in good company, and I’ll take that for a holiday any day.

Thanksgiving in Rabat

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we got to celebrate the second big holiday in November – The Game. We had some other Ohio and Michigan people over, made a big pot of chili, and (despite the nerve-wracking game) had a great time watching OSU pull off the victory. We even rounded off the evening with a Euchre tournament to complete the Midwestern experience.

Our stream ended up being in Russian… but at least we had a good picture!

This past weekend I got to celebrate Christmas with a bunch of my friends in the area (OK I know it’s a little early for that, but we’re all traveling over the actual holiday). We had a girls’ night cookie exchange party, complete with Christmas-themed photo booth, Christmas music playing non-stop, mulled wine, and I think about 6 Christmas movies. We had a great time overdosing on all things Christmas together before we split up for the holidays.

Cookies!!!! and us in our PJs in the background.

Matt hosted a Man night in Azilal during our Cookie Exchange… not really holiday related, but as you can see, they had a good time.

I was even lucky enough to find a little plastic Christmas tree on sale this weekend, which Matt and I promptly set up when I got home. We wanted to bring a little Christmas cheer to our house for the most exciting event of the season – my family’s visit! They decided only a few months ago to come visit this winter, which of course did wonders to brighten my holiday attitude. I feel like a little kid again, excitedly counting down the days until Christmas and all the presents under the tree – except this year the present is my family :). No, we won’t be home for Christmas, but with the help of Peace Corps staff, friends, and family, we’ve been able to bring home to Morocco for the holidays, and I wish you all a happy holiday season!

Our little Christmas corner 🙂

 

A Moroccan Wedding

A couple weeks ago, our host family from Taounate invited us to attend the wedding of our oldest host brother. We were excited that they invited us, but also a little nervous; like l-3id, Moroccan weddings are much-discussed among PCVs here as a kind of volunteer rite of passage. Still, we were glad to have the opportunity to see our host family again and to experience such a big cultural event!

The pre-wedding festivities included multiple meals with our host family (which we tried to refuse to save our host mom some work, since everything that happened this weekend took place at her house, but she was having none of it) and a henna party the night before. Along with a bunch of other guests, we ate a delicious dinner followed by some dancing while the poor bride had to sit and watch us all while she waited for the henna to dry on her hands.

Matt in a nice shirt and me in my bright blue jellaba waiting for the bride to arrive. I got lots of questions on why I was wearing a jellaba – apparently it’s not formal enough for a wedding. Whoops!

The next day (after enjoying breakfast and lunch with the family) we showed up for the wedding at 8.  We all went out to the street to watch her be carried inside on a litter, accompanied by the traditional group of drummers.  The entire town seemed to come out to dance to the music and see the show. Afterwards, we headed upstairs for dinner where we had three huge courses of food – first big platters with 3 or 4 whole chickens, then another platter full of beef, and finally gigantic trays of fruit for dessert – each served Moroccan style, 1 plate per table with bread for utensils. After everyone was completely stuffed the dancing started. Moroccan women looooove to dance, and the men of our host family do too, which means we got pulled on to the dance floor often to make fools out of ourselves trying the Moroccan dance moves. There’s lots of shimmying that goes on… I have no idea how they do it. It’s a blast to watch though!

Some self-conscious dancing with Mama Naima

For the rest of night (another 7 hours!!) we danced on the roof and in the streets and enjoyed more food courses – platters of cookies, a slice of cake for all, and a bowl of traditional soup. The party lasted until 5 in the morning – a Moroccan wedding isn’t over until the couple has completed their 5-7 outfit changes and the subsequent photo and dance sessions. We were surprised to see that the wedding seemed to be more fun for the guests than for the couple, since the bride and groom spent so much time changing outfits and sitting for photographs that they rarely got a chance to join the party. Throughout the night they were presented in traditional wedding dresses from a bunch of different regions in Morocco, had their pictures taken, and sometimes did a little extra (there was a second go in the litters, and at one point we ended up back outside again for the groom’s henna ceremony and, of course, more dancing).

After the last outfit change, basically the entire room got up gratefully to go home and sleep – us included. It was great to see our host family and celebrate with them, but 9 hours at a wedding (especially while speaking a foreign language) is exhausting no matter who you’re with. But now we can say we’ve made it all the way through a Moroccan wedding!

– Cori and Matt

p.s. I know you’d all love to see some of the bride’s outfits, but without her permission I don’t feel comfortable posting those pictures. If you do an image search for “Moroccan Wedding Kaftans” you’ll get an idea of what her dresses look like. They’re beautiful!

Missing football, missing home

College football started last weekend. It still feels like the middle of summer here – it’s certainly hot enough and school hasn’t started yet – so the season kind of snuck up on me. Last Saturday, we were lucky enough to be able to stream the first Ohio State game of the season and watch most of it live (who thought we’d be able to do that in Peace Corps!) and it was a great way to feel like we were back home for a couple hours.

But this morning, before the sun was too high, there was a cool breeze coming in the window and it felt so much like a fall tailgate outside Ohio Stadium that I was stuck daydreaming all morning about hot dogs, beer, scarlet and grey as far as the eye can see, beer, the roar of the crowd in the ‘Shoe, beer, and Carmen Ohio. This week’s game is a little bit harder to miss than last week’s, because it’s the Alumni game, which means if we were home we’d be marching along with 600 other alumni “just one more time” in Ohio Stadium… and I wish I could be there with my friends.

Being out of Ohio for the football season is hitting me a little bit harder than I expected it to. Maybe this sounds a little silly to you if you’re not a sports fan, but I’m starting to realize how much Ohio State football means to me. It’s not about winning (well… it’s not all about winning), but also about how it makes me feel like I belong; like I’m at home. I wasn’t a big football fan until I joined the OSU marching band, but I definitely grew up with a deep-seated hatred of maize and blue. Football Saturdays bring back memories of my whole family decked out in scarlet and grey, my dad and my brother glued to the TV, my grandparents bringing us recorded videotapes of the close games so we could re-watch them, me playing really terrible middle-school versions of “Hang on Sloopy” on my trumpet, cookouts at neighbors’ and friends’ houses, and afterwards hearing the games endlessly analyzed by my extended family.

OSU wasn’t my original choice for college, but once I enrolled and joined the band it was all over – I’m a fan for life now. I have so many great memories from my time there, not to mention it’s where I met my husband and tons of good friends. OSU, and especially the football season, is one of the biggest things that consistently reminds me of home. Perhaps the hardest thing about being gone for this season is knowing that I’ll also be out of the country for next season, and who knows if I’ll ever be back in Ohio for a full season again. All I can say is, HAMDULILAH for wifi which means that even though we can’t actually be home, Matt and I can get a taste of it for a couple hours each weekend.

To all our alumni band friends: have an extra great time today for us!

To everyone else: O-H!

– Cori