The eternal struggle...

Of hating the game and not the player. When it comes to Moroccan condescension that is.

As an American, I was brought up with a certain social etiquette that dictates we restrain ourselves in a situational battle of the wits. Whether it's a discussion of literatutre, history, computer savvy, or fashion sense one should navigate said situation with a certain amount of tact, well, in tact. There exists a manner in which to defeat your opponent in a diplomatic and somewhat respectful way even when you are blatantly more intelligent or have a better understanding of the situation. In a worst case scenario, passive aggressiveness is utilized to put the proverbial fork in them. Rarely, almost never, do we begin a discussion - one which hasn't reached argument or even debate status - with our pants down and tape measurer in hand. Welcome to Morocco.

The Moroccan way, it seems, is the practice of patronization without the required goods to back it up, and the presumption that you possess no goods at all - youyoungdumbblondefemaleamerican. Ahem.

As Americans we are instructed not to make assumptions of opinions, experience, or backgrounds at the risk of 'making an ass at of you and me' by making an unwise assumption. Host country nationals make a hobby out of this. They assume as a young twenty-something female I must have nothing past a high school education and no work experience, and where is your husband to speak for you? Most of you who know me can imagine the most difficult aspect of this ongoing scenario is the difficulty in restraining oneself from stooping to their level of ego competition. Overreactions tending to boil just under the surface of my complacent smile: 'I have a better education than YOU, you 40 something old man! You dropped out before highschool!! I've been earning my own money since I was 15! You have a donkey to show for yourself?! And you're telling me how to run my class???? BLEURGHHHH.' Ahem, or something like that.

Before I completely corner myself into painting a picture that every Moroccan is intentionally like this, I want to clarify that it's not the individual I am accusing of this attitude, it's the culture as a whole. (Haha, oh dear, that sounds so terrible, give me another few paragraphs to clarify.)In so many words, it's not the player, it's the game. The social construct is set up so that you are continually playing the 'mine's bigger' game. Whether it's smarter, better, faster or harder, either way you are continually in dispute over something. In America, this is usually a quality that is a major 'Deal Breaker' in another person- thank you Liz Lemon. This is a quality in people we, or at least I, deliberately avoid. I don't really enjoy continually trying to prove myself or justify my actions in nearly every conversation with someone over the age of 12. Hell, sometimes even with toddlers too. (My mom makes better cookies than your mom. ... How would you even know that? Why would you need to say that? By the way, she totally doesn't, my mom has freaking awesome cookies. And 'your mom' jokes? Really?)

I want to spend my time talking about places I want to visit over the next two years, how Zooey Deschenel and Katy Perry could be the same person if they never opened their mouths, how Vagabond by Wolfmother is pretty much the same song as Little Yellow Spider by Devendra Banhart if you think about it, about how much tastier pancreas is than brain, etc. I don't want to be head to head over some pedantic asinine argument against someone who has no idea what the balls they are talking about. And if I politely try to back out or change the subject, to them it's obviously because I do in fact, know nothing, not due to the fact I'm afraid of what I might do to them if we continue down this circular third dimension of hell conversation even Dante is unfamiliar with. Oy.

So, okay, even though there is a significant amount frustration that comes with this situation (see above) - that occupies about 75% of my conversations in country - here it appears to be a bonding experience, it's an arm extended in potential friendship: 'Hey, you're an idiot!' 'Hey, so are you!' - Insert culturally appropriate embrace here. - Everyone does it. To each other. Not just to the youngdumbblondefemaleamerican. It's just how it's done.

A few months ago, my first in country I believe, I wrote that one of my aims here is to learn how to chill the eff out. Which, I do believe, obviously still stands. I need to learn how to handle this mantra of being told I know nothing, pretty much on a daily basis. I mean, let's face it, I'm 23, I really don't know anything. I may know more than a lot of other 23 year olds out there, but in the grand scheme of things, I know pretty much squat.

Thus, for the next two years, I'll let you win. I can endure some ego bashing for the next 20 months. I'll sit and smile while the independent- opinionated-feminist-environmentalist-stubborn-bull-headed-Taurus lurks just beneath the surface biting her tongue harder than Bella wishes Edward would. Somehow figuring out how to turn said frustration into a catalyst for the a future project that could maybe even help to change some of these notions. I will, however, draw the line at the illiterate hanut worker attempting to outsmart me in a global warming debate. Nope, you're not winning this one, my friend.

Great Odin's Raven

Anecdote time.

So on Tuesday nights - on a night just like this - I have my beginner class, my quatrieme-annee kids. After being about 45 min late (it was raining), a few show up and we decided to review their food and culture chapter as they've got a test tomorrow. We sift through the pages, spending extra time on the big supermarket picture, answering questions about what we usually buy, cook, and eat by referencing said picture. One of the questions happened to be 'What kind of tagine do you like?' I expected the perfunctory answers to include something along the lines of 'I like a vegetable tagine,' 'I like a chicken tagine,' etc. I did not, however, expect one of the newest girls to scream "I love lamp!"

I knew she meant lamb, but I felt the natural response was still appropriate:

"Do you really love lamp or are you just saying it because you saw it?"

"I love lamp... I love lamp tagine."

I later clarified it was a silent 'b' at the end of lamb.

You stay classy, San Diego, and thanks for stopping by.

24 hours ago, Jeter wasn't in my bed.

So I've officially gone against everything I believe in. I'm officially a cat-owner. This was not a choice. You may well know I am a loyal dog fan. Always have been. Always will be. Albeit, I was, very kindly, given a two-month old kitten from one of my BAC students. Last night. At 8:30. In a plastic bag. I got a knock at my door, and there was my one of my favourite students; with a meowing souq bag.

Then comes 8:45pm. This kitten and I are having a staring contest; sizing each other up; testing boundaries already (it - trying to jump on my bed, me - attempting to check between its legs, trying to determine if the it is a he or she). 9:00 - what the hell do I do with this thing? Cardboard box and blanket? Too small. Washing bucket and blanket? Too short. My laundry hamper? Ding ding. So after some warm milk and crushed cereal pieces, we were both off to bed. Only around four mewings woke me up last night, can't complain too much.

This morning appeared to be bonding time. We proceeded to snuggle and watch 30 Rock together. Until I saw a flea. It was then bath time. Any bonding that had previously occurred was immediately negated by my scrubbing of the cat in Head & Shoulders. In a bucket. Once the fleas had been dealt with, we became reacquainted via the medium of blow-dryer. The little guy...gal...thing loves some warm air being blasted at its behind, that's for sure. Then, while it napped, I made some home-made cat food - as dictated by Google. Some sort of rice, sardine, carrot, oat concoction it seemed to be rather pleased with. Pat on back. Post-feast, my eight year old host brother came over and proceeded to torment, ahem, play with it, until it passed out again. It slept until I came home from class even. It is currently using my body as a personal jungle gym.

Moral of the story - I need a name.

I'm one of those people who definitely plans ahead in terms of pet names. Maybe not kid names, but future puppies... oh you betcha. Falcor and Pantoufle, my friends. - Extra friend points if you know where those names come from. - But I just couldn't use obvious doggy names for a kitten now could I?

So I started brainstorming... possibly Watson? I just watched Sherlock Holmes and it seemed cute enough. Meh... no. What about... Jim? Robert? Devendra?... Trying to hard. Ah! Janice! Wait... no... even I can't help hearing 'OMG! Chaaaaaandler Bing!' instead of 'Me and My Bobby McGee'. I really wanted something like Paul Anka, like the Gilmore Girls did late in the series... Tunde Adebimpe? Has a ring to it... but not quite right. Okay, music not working... Time to bring brother in on this via skype... Sports icons! Okay, so naturally Yankees come into discussion first... Clemens? No... Ah! Pettite! So then when some one is like 'What's its name?' I can be like 'Pettite.' And then they'll be like 'Okay, I'll pet it, but what's its name?' And then I'll chuckle.... No. Too long winded and I'm obviously in the wrong country to play name-puns in. ... Okay, so naturally next would be Jeter. Jeter! I like it.

Currently, Jeter is nibbling my ear lobe. I gave Jeter a bath today. I'm in bed with Jeter right now. Ha. I like where this is going.

The only mushkil (problem) lies in the fact Jeter may or may not be a girl. Hmph.

Best site-mate and site-mate-girlfriend EVER.

So I just needed to share (brag/boast/neener-neener-neener) that I am far too lucky to have, officially, the best site-mate ever. Evidence being displayed by relevant photo documentation. Yes, that's right, hazelnut STARBUCKS coffee syrup and mini (the best kind) REESE'S PB CUPS! A Valentine's gift from the happy couple. My insides are currently combusting with joy. And, thus, I currently look like this:

Pure, complete, unadulterated bliss. Sigh.

Morocco, Kan Hubk

So since my Valentine's Day is shaping up to be a marathon of The Office while wrapped up in a significant amount of layers, I thought I'd take a moment to list some things and/or people I'm currently in love with.

- The Office (So, does this mean John Krasinski is technically my date for the evening?)

- My host-sister for cleaning my entire apartment while I was up North for two-weeks. No, seriously, she did that. Insane.

- My site-mate, Nathaniel, for devising an ingenious plan on how to give me back my laptop upon return to Sedona-miz yesterday.

- My new hard-drive which contains enough TV and movies to keep me indoors for the next three weeks straight.

- Yorda's laugh, sexting, flexibility (literally, not metaphorically I should note), and regular interjections of 'Good Talk'.

- Alli's morning hair and six-eyes pointing towards me re-enactments.

- The view from my roof this morning.

- Zooey Deschanel, for obvious reasons.

- The BRATT diet, for more obvious reasons.

- The fact that I'm still sporadically giddy that two of my favourite people are getting married next July and that I get to see them in just over two months.

- Hershey's Hugs and the fact that they are coming some time in the near future from mommy.

- Garnier Skin Naturals - Pure Active Anti-spot roll-on... thank you Marjane for making me not look like I'm going through puberty for the first time in six months.

- Hotel Azrou and Especials

- La Vache Qui Rit, what would I do without you.

... to be continued.

Lots of love to you all!

Violet - how the environment led to my Grandma.

Okay, so, long story short, I'm in the middle of an extensive Post Pre-Service Training (PPST) extravaganza in Azrou for two weeks where we are having various long-winded sessions on random aspects of opportunities that could be presented to us over the next two years. Speaking of long-winded, look at that sentence. Yikes. Anyways, to draw a wee anecdote out of one of these sessions I will provide the following:

One of our sessions yesterday was on how to incorporate Environmental Eduation into our Dar Chebab classes and collaborating with regional volunteers of other sectors. Which, obviously, lead to impromptu nature-themed haiku writing and sharing with the class.

Grandma's Lemon Tree
Waited Outside, While She Died.
Lemon Cake Service.

So since my fellow volunteers thought I was a little looney-tooney, I thought I'd throw it out here and kind of explain what I meant.

I guess it was just kind of a sweet reflective moment for me. While most people went with grand-strong-burly-tree-enraptures-my-view-and-stimulates-liberal-thinking sort of poems, my mind sort of took a detour and drifted towards my grandma's house which was pretty much enveloped in some sort of foliage at any given time. Particularly, she had this huge lemon tree next to her front door which was always the last thing I saw going in and first thing I saw going out. We would always steal a few of them before jumping into the back of my Dad's jeep after our weekly visits. It was just kind of a given whenever we would venture out there every Wednesday afternoon. So when she died almost six years ago, it warmed me when her neighbours across the street made the most amazing lemon cake I had ever tasted for the funeral service and I knew it had been made from that tree. The tree that had waited outside all those years and was ultimately utilized in just a really sweet and simple way.

Anyway, I know this was totally tangental from my service here in Morocco, but I kind of like the fact that my mind wandered in the direction of my Grandma during an environmental activity rather than any hippie dippie expectation my Greenpeace time could have fostered. Miss you Grandma.

Cover of the Rolling Stone...

So as a direct result of having the best mommy ever, I received a well-stuffed care package last week containing, amongst many other wonderful things - most notably baked alcohol-infused goodness- December's issue of Rolling Stone. Sigh. After having read it cover to cover about 4 1/2 times now, I'd like to share some high-lights and facts I didn't know after being in Africa for five months.

Barack Obama got a slap on the hand by the Editor of RS (fair). Bruce Springsteen is still hot stuff (no kidding). Glee is apparently saving B-list singer's careers (?). People still care about the Jonas Brothers (why?). Dave Grohl and Jack White are demi-gods (fact). Britney lip-synchs in Australia (durrr). Taylor Lautner is hot (durrr). Tom Petty is a brilliant hippie red-neck (the best kind). GAP has really cute clothes (grr adverts you torture me). A kid named Justin Beiber exists (wtf?).

Also... The Dead Weather??? Them Crooked Vultures??? Where have I been??? In Morocco it seems.

(Random interjection - writing this at 10am and just got fresh baked bread delivered to my house by my 8 year old host brother. Speaking of awesome moms, my host-mom is pretty lovely too.)

That brings up a couple other random musical pop-culture references I've associated lately. So my goofy-go-lucky CBT-mate Pete introduced me to the awesome-ness that is A Band of Bees back in September and I've been loving them ever since. Despite not knowing their name, I knew I had heard a couple of their songs before. Being UK based, I figured Radio 1 had something to do with that, but recent epiphonies explain why 'A Minha' is so damned familiar - Citroen and Magners commercials. Go figure. Great tune, however. Give it a go.

Also, as of late, I've been working my way through Tom Robbins' Skinny Legs and All. It's a rather kooky tale full of bizarre-o characters pushing buttons on religion, politics, and family landmarked by random inanimate objects throughout. I love it. So with about 50 pages to go I was like 'What the balls is the background of this book and who is this fella Mr. Robbins?' So turns out he also wrote Still Life with Woodpecker which is something I've been craving to read since a friend at home raved about it. Randomly enough, it's also the book that Drew Barrymore's character is reading in the diner everyday in 50 First Dates. Always been intrigued. Annnnd turns out a beloved band of my brother and I, badass Aussie rockers Wolfmother, also borrowed their name from Skinny Legs and All. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon?

I've kind of had She & Him Volume 1 on repeat this week. Dancing around alone in my house kareokeing the hell out this album is pretty much pure joy by definition.

I booked London this week! No I'm not playing the O2 any time soon, I'm flying out ridiculously cheaply at the end of April for the May Day bank holiday weekend. I absolutely cannot wait and anyone within a two-country-radius had better be there. Eeeeee.

Last weekend the local soccer team and I were interviewed by a Portuguese newspaper, The Record, covering women's football in Morocco. Basically these three, yes good looking, Portuguese dudes are travelling from Portugal to South Africa for the World Cup, discovering and documenting the football culture in every African country they pass through along the way. Sounds like a pretty stellar six months to me. It was truly a great experience for the team. The day of the interview, Saturday, was a huge day for boys soccer in town, so having a foreign newspaper focusing on the few girls there rather than the few hundred boys was such a rush for them. The validation, motivation, and self-esteem boost was greater than anything the journalists could have imagined. It being a small town in Morocco, the entire city knew about them within the hour and my host-sister was star of the show. Couldn't have been prouder.

The guys needed a place to crash that night, so I let them stay in my house instead of blowing money on a more-than-likely crappy hotel-hostel within the town. First instinct was to sit and chat over dinner before crashing at my host-families for the night. They were well travelled dudes with interesting backgrounds, so hi new friends. After five seconds of contemplating said scenario I remembered which country I was in and bolted for the door. Again, it being a small town in Morocco, spending more than two minutes with them in my house would have been Hashuma bizef (seriously shameful) and my reputation would have sunk faster than Ben Affleck's career after Gigli. So I bee-lined it for my host-fam's and basically told the Portuguese - mi casa es su casa. Too bad it's Spanish.

Yesterday, I had a wee trip into Kech to meet up with the regional lady friend volunteers - Kate, Sarah, and Rachel - over some coffee and msimmon (delicious flat fry bread) with cheese. The cafe owner is kind of in love with Kate and gave us a banana chocolate msimmon of sorts on the house. Delish. So over our fried treats we had some work chat (Spelling Bees... Art Newsletters... Volunteer clubs... Moroccan Clue) and normal girl chat (scarves... shaving schedules or lack there of... shopping in Malls). The last topic I found slightly humorous as the mall Kate had shopped in was called the Two Towers in Casablanca. I asked her if she had seen any Orcs running around. Note to self: save Lord of the Rings themed jokes for the company of dudes. Or maybe just my brother.