The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

No, Clint Eastwood has not randomly come to Sedona-miz. (Though how awesome of a coincidence would that have been? Clint & Sedona. Mmm, yes.) Instead, this is a current summation of this past week's adventures.

The Good:

Weddings. Weddings! Who knew I was such a gosh darn sap? Last Sunday, I had the privilege of witnessing two of my good friends from Uni marry each other, on one of the most beautiful days I have ever seen in London. At the Bingham Hotel, in Richmond Upon Thames, Paige & Harish exchanged vows in front of around 50 of their closest friends and family. I had been excited for the day to come for some time, but I hadn't anticipated quite how touching and wonderful it was going to be. I blubbered all over myself during the ceremony & speeches. Thankfully, I remained composed for the rest of the evening. Champagne may or may not have had something to do with that. Reacquainting with friends I hadn't seen for three years, some even six, was a gift in itself. I felt like I was home again, in a country I adore, with the people I love. Since it's still another six months until I get that feeling back permanently, I look forward to July when two of my very best friends get hitched as well, just this time in St Andrews.

Speaking of St Andrews and weddings and people I went to school with - I'll keep it brief, but my God was the Royal wedding beautiful yesterday. I mentioned blubbering before; it was more of a slow and steady trickle this time... But come on! That dress. And tiara. His 'I'm-quite-pleased-with-myself' smirk. The flower girls. And the choir boys singing. And... all of it. I'm a sucker. So sue me.

The Ugly:

Yes I realize I'm reversing two of the adjectives, but stick with me. The ugly should be quite obvious. There was, as I'm sure you all are aware by now, a remotely-detonated bombing at a cafe in Jma El Fna square in the center of Marrakech yesterday. No, I was not there. No PCVs were injured. No, Peace Corps does not have plans for consolidation or evacuation as it stands. Sadly, 16 people were killed, and around 20 injured they say. Among them French, Canadian, British, Swiss, Israeli, and Moroccan nationals. The cafe is known to be a hot tourist spot, one I've frequented in the past myself, so they believe the aim was at foreigners. Though the ministry of the interior says it has hints of Al-Qaeda, no one has claimed responsibility, so blame has yet to be placed. Here are some articles for more information:

New York Times

Reuters

Al Jazeera

The Bad:

Without making this terrible event at all about me, I'm disappointed in it's timing. There is never a good time for someone to cowardly plant a bomb full of nails in a cafe full of people enjoying their country, for someone to die while on vacation, for people to lose their lives for simply enjoying a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, the ramifications of this incident will extend far beyond those present at the cafe. This will strike hard the tourism industry here in Morocco. An industry the local economy relies so heavily upon.

A direct example of this would be the planned of visit of my best friend, her fiance, and her cousin this past weekend. They were due to fly in on Friday morning, and with the explosion having happened Thursday, this quickly made them question their visit. Well-versed travellers and hardly skiddish, they were forced to cancel their trip under the guidance of 'better safe than sorry'. Which I totally appreciate and understand. Unfortunately, in addition to my best friend, my brother has also been forced to cancel his trip this month. He was due to come for my birthday while on his R&R from the Army in Iraq. Yet, it seems Morocco is now listed as a hot-spot and he no longer has clearance to enter the country.

Lame.

So you see, friends, this week has had its ups and downs.

Yay for weddings. Boo for terrorists.

An anthem we all can stand by, yes?

Shall I make tee-shirts?

Medical Clinic

How about we take a quick ride back in time to March when the Sedona-miz Dar Chebab played host to a week long free medical clinic serving the needs of both Sedona-miz and the mountain villages surrounding.

I admit I sort of dropped the ball in telling you all about this in a timely manner, but the last month has been a whirlwind, so my apologies. Back to the point, however. So back around the second week of March, a team of three doctors, around eight nurses, and five or so general helper-outers from America hopped on board an airplane headed for Sedona-miz. They were invited by a local ex-pat couple who have been working in medical outreach for sometime here in Morocco. Every year they try and bring out either a dentist or doctor to help the sickly & far reaching ends of the village. They coordinated with two associations I work with here on a regular basis and after persuading the Mudir to allow us to use the Dar Chebab grounds exclusively for a week, we were in business.

We saw on average 150 patients a day who were composed of mostly women and children - we assume the men were either at work or too embarrassed to come to American women with their, ahem, hashuma problems. Over the course of five days we saw everything from the common cold and allergies to head tumors, full body rashes, and more nether-region problems than I could keep count of. If there's one thing I know Peace Corps has got to keep working on here in Morocco, it's SIDA (AIDS) and STI education. Half of these women didn't even know what their problems were or how they possibly could have gotten them. Let's just say I got to know a little more information than I needed to know about my neighbours and extended host-family members.

All in all, it was a productive and successful week with only a few setbacks due to the weather conditions (within the week it went from hailing golf balls to sunny and 90 degrees). The team from America were a wonderful array of young nurses and jet-setting development workers. Met some great people I hope to stay in contact with for sometime to come. With over 720 patients seen and treated, it was one of the more gratifying weeks I've had in Morocco lately.

The Moroccan half of the team, including me, who helped translate symptoms and treatment instructions between the doctors and village patients

The waiting tent outside of the Dar Chebab. You'd swear The Beatles were playing Sedona-miz the way these Berber ladies were storming the gates.

Inside the waiting area before being instructed to go to one of the doctors.

(FYI - behind the curtain lies the Gyno room. Forever is that instilled in my memory.)

Doctor checking out a young boy's ear infection. I couldn't exactly take photos of the tumors being removed discretely. You'll have to settle for the excitement of an ear exam.

In addition to exams, the American team brought suitcase upon suitcase of medication to prescribe to those in need. (Most important - Flinstone vitamins I say.) The only people against handing out free meds were the local pharmacies, who apparently had little to no business for almost a month after... whoopsies.

Spring Camp Taroudant

After having slept 13 hours upon my return to Sedona-miz, I now feel up to the task of filling you in on what I've been up to lately. Namely - Spring Camp down in Taroudant.

Last year I worked close to home, spending the week with around 90 kids in Marrakech's Centre D'Accueil, teaching English, holding an Environment club, touring the region's water treatment plant (which pretty much only reeked of methane, never again...). I had originally planned to work this year up in a town called Azzemour (Tash for olive) which is just north of El Jadida along the coast. It had only 18 campers last year, and after having had close to a hundred during Spring 2010, 18 sounded like a nice number for a week of near-sleepless nights. Fast-forward to a week before Camp 2011 is due to start. I was informed that Azzemour's Centre D'Accueil hadbeen closed for refurbishing, and I was now being sent to Taroudant. 'Sweet!', I thought, 'Two of my good staj friends are working that camp & I've never been south of these mountains, done and done.' Little did I know that 175 kids would be attending... my dream of a calm lackadaisical week with 18 campers evaporated the second I arrived.

Don't get me wrong, we had an excellent time and did the best we could with 9 PC volunteers & around the same number of Moroccan staff, but with 175 kids, it was pretty much insanity from start to finish. To give you an idea of our day-to-day, here's our daily schedule board:

Fellow PCV Bjai and I were in charge of Beginner-Low English, which means they basically knew squat upon arrival. With a class of around 45 we tried to keep activities as fun as possible, in order to keep the attention of not only that many people, but the punks that naturally find their way into any camp - in both Morocco & America alike. We did the expected number learning, animal vocab, fruits & veggies, etc. Lots of pictionary was played, men were hung, charades was enjoyed. The highlight, though, was definitely ending each day with about 20 minutes of Hello, Goodbye. A big shout out to the Beatles for creating a song with super simplistic lyrics so that even the most novice of Moroccan English speakers can wrap their heads around it. An a capella performance accompanied by desk drum beats made for an excellent close of each class. Mental high-five to Pringles-Beginner English Class.

Other than English, PCV Anna and I did a sweet Art club in the afternoon, in which we made Origami and friendship bracelets.

We all participated in the rest of the activities, which included a Scavenger hunt, Talent Show(s), a 'Religious Night', Improv Comedy, Taroudant Excursions, and a 'Spectac' to wrap things up the last night. Kids had so much fun, they all signed a petition to keep camp going an extra day. No joke. Moroccan staff were obviously as against this as we were, having not slept the entire week. I think we all averaged 2-4 hours of sleep a night, 5 if you were really lucky. And given the sleeping set up we had, that was impressive in itself:

Other random highlights include, but are not limited to:

- The dance five of us conselours did to Taio Cruz's 'Dynomite' for the talent show. There's a video out there somewhere, probably, (scarily,) (unfortunately,) making it's way to facebook soon. It was kind of awesome.

- The random homeless boy that joined our group on a walking tour of Taroudant one afternoon. Seriously the sweetest, most well-behaved Moroccan kid I've ever met, never mind the homeless part. He ended up showing up to camp every day after & just kind of tagging along. We fed him more than I thought was humanly possible to feed a 10 year old, and adored his company throughout the week. Adorable.

- This group of kids that could have easily beaten any group on America's Best Dance Crew. Like, Out. Of. Control. Good. Comparable to those Jabberwocky guys. So cool. So, so cool.

- Taking the winning team of kid's from the scavenger hunt out to smoothies in town. Most were excellent English speakers and we had a pretty awesome & liberal convo while enjoying our fruity drinks. Basically, it ended with the American PCVs begging the boys in the group to stay wonderful & sweet and not turn into the gross disgusting jerks that ruin a Moroccan male's reputation. They pinky-promised.

- Water balloon fight that lasted a couple days and ended in a one hour battle the last day of camp as the kids were leaving. Anna & Crisi introduced the first balloon in their English class as a disciplinary action against a punk kid that wouldn't shut up in the back of the room. They listened after that.

Anyway, all in all, another successful and enjoyable week of camp. Met some awesome PCVs I hadn't known before & loved a good chunk of the kids that came. Thankfully, after camp ended, we PCVs spent a good two days on the beach in Agadir, sleeping off the exhaustion in the sun. Just what the doctor ordered. And after another week of class here in Sedona-miz, I'm heading to London for a good friend's wedding on Easter Sunday. Can't wait to wear spring dresses & my hair down and have it be culturally appropriate!