There
is no real way to explain my new town, but I’ll try my best. Tafraoute is a small town of about 5000
in the middle of a bowl of mountains.
Though it is a small town there is everything I could need here is way
of amenities. The town itself is
beautiful there are many new apartment buildings going in around where my host
family lives, they fit in well with the look of the town and even have pink
walls like the rest of the buildings.
It really is in a bowl of mountains and no matter where you turn you
will see rocky peaks. There is
large park in the middle of town where everyone congregates after the sun goes
down and it becomes bearable to leave the house (the weather really hasn’t been
that hot yet). The people here
haven been amazing and so welcoming, though they are familiar with tourists, so
it will take some time before everyone knows us for volunteers not tourists.
Me
new host family has been amazing as well.
I have 4 new host siblings, 2 girls and 2 boys as well as a baby coming
any day now. Their house is
gorgeous and I’m lucky that they will be my family for the next 2 years. They have a big courtyard with grape
vines and a pomegranate tree. I have my own room that is not really connected
to the rest of the house and an English toilet!! I’ve been trying to learn how to cook a bit from my new host
mom, she 9 months pregnant and still hand making all the bread that we
eat. I found an Arabic tutor who
also plays the banjo and may be lucky enough to get some banjo lessons as
well. As I write my new kitten
that my host mom gave me chases a fly that is attracted to the light from my
computer. Sarah and I have started
teaching a few classes at the women’s association in town right now we just
teach some exercises classes but next week will be starting some English
classes as well and the week after that we will start working at the Dar Shabab
as well. Summer is slow time for
us because things are closed and it’s hot and there is a month of Ramadan to
take into consideration.
My
new Moroccan name is Amina and I’ve really tried to embrace it. I’ve learned to de-flea a cat with
nothing more than some soap, water, and my hands, (I’m coved in flea bites) I’ve
bought the traditional wrap that the Moroccan women here wear, I’ve started
showing up late to things, not that I already didn’t, and expecting people to
be late as well, and as of right now I’m pretty sure I’m renting a house I’ve
only seen the outside of. I’ve
also become pretty scared of dogs, and have had to remove a large frog from my
bed in the middle of the night.
Though I’m not afraid of frogs my reactions surprised even me and I
preceded to lightly sandwich the frog between two sandals and get it our of my
room. The house that was offered
looked perfect though we haven’t been able to see the inside of it. It’s one big building with two
apartments in it and we would have both of them. This would mean we would have a private roof and our cats,
which are sisters, can play together when we are gone. So all in all things here are going
pretty well! I definitely can’t
complain and I’m excited to get more work started. This summer we have the opportunity to have summer camp at
our site, go to summer camp in Agadir, and help at S.O.S camps, which is like a
compound where orphaned children live in families together and a surrogate
mother. Hopefully I’ll be able to
help with a few of those things and get to see some of my friends.
My new kitten! Her name is still to be determined, I guess she loves rainbows as much as I do
View from Tafraoute
Taking a good tourist picture in the entrance to Tafraoute
