The Triple H

Written by: Soufian A. – CorpsAfrica/Maroc Volunteer
Date: February 18, 2015

I was so inspired by the experience of spreading social love in Agadir with the Wake Up Agadir Association, I also recognized, I had a lot of changes to make on myself. The changes were important so I could truly capture the essence of my being. This required me some self-reflection and making a commitment to myself and to people around me.

Throughout my lifetime I’ve been able to run into many interesting individuals. These people that I meet bring their own unique talents to society and eventually turn into friends. It is safe to say that we can think we have a lot of friends from all over the world thanks to the social networking technologies that we utilize daily! Friends will have an unconditional love and will support you, they stand by your side. It really doesn’t matter if you end up apart from a lifelong friend.

Being isolated from my family/friends was kind of        hard for me, but the warm hospitality and love I’ve got from people at my site makes me feel that I have another home in the middle of the mountains.

A friend visit at your site is a precious gift, a support in the service – I feel blessed having these three Hamzas (Triple H) at my site, they brought Agadir energy to my village. A sweet thanks to Ismail who surprised me last month by his visit and stayed for a week when I was weak and cold, when he shared with me a Capoeira workshop with kids that motivated the Triple H to come visit this month with an organized program and supports for kids.

They gathered in Agadir and decided to collect clothes and look for donations such as toothbrushes and toothpaste with the help of Youssef, our mutual friend, who played a major role in this initiative, but unfortunately couldn’t make it to the valley.

They traveled the same day as I did (I was coming back from the Swearing-In ceremony of the second group in Rabat). We met in our souq town and made it together to the valley. I was surprised that they had collected five big packages of used clothes and carried that all the way from Agadir – they were very welcomed by my host family who helped them to carry the packages by a mule to my room.

A day later after they had relaxed and absorbed the valley’s energy, we started our program by arranging the clothes; most of them were for kids. And then I invited the kids of my village to meet in the Mosque’s classroom on Wednesday January 28th morning and tried to share out the clothes equally between girls and boys – They were nearly 40 kids. This continued by a dental hygiene workshop led by me and Hamza my colleague in Wake up Agadir Association. We taught the kids how important it is to brush their teeth regularly in a fun way by drawing a mouth in the board with names of the mouth’s parts in Arabic and give toothbrushes and paste donated for students who won in Question/answer game. Kids love it! I was really honored to feel useful.

The special thing about the Three Hamzas is that they’re all members in “Capoeira Senzala De  Santos-Agadir-Marroccos Association” in Agadir, and without no hesitation they were so glad to continue what Ismail already started. They taught basics Capoeira movements. Some kids still remember “Ginga” the main movement in Capoeira, and made fun of this weird (to them) name. The two Hamzas (unfortunately one of them had to leave the Valley for reason that he went back to the town were he is studying) had organized three morning courses during the staying week for like an hour and half or maybe two – kids seem amused and learned a lot. This was another chance for them and for me to learn more and put into practice the movements in a Roda. I think Ismail’s energy had been sustained.

I’m a beginner and having not played Capoeira for some time, I immersed myself in the memory of last game when I was playful with the group at the beach. It was magical and powerful, which seemed to last an eternity. I humbly thank Hamzas and Ismail for bringing the spirit of Capoeira. And who thinks that it will be played at the hills of Azzaden valley. Capoeira brought joy, mutual respect, and discipline to kids. And I’m so excited about the idea of hosting the Agadir Capoeira Association, so kids will have the ability to play and hear the music and chant.

I’m tempted to stop at this point but it seems premature. So let me transport you, dear Reader, to the next highlight of the visit. Besides being social we had such a great time hiking and chilling down in the river. Moreover, the visit of three Hamzas from Agadir motivated four close young friend villagers to take the initiative to start a Tagine tour; this was an amazing five days non-stop campfire and music (guitar and chant), we had our jamming with the kids that always concluded with a delicious Tagine. 

Happiness was reached at my site, and made me think to myself in the words of Wisdom‘s Ocean: “Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Much love,
Soufian

If I Can Do It, You Inshallah Can Too!

Written by: ElGhali – CorpsAfrica/Maroc Volunteer
Date: February 17, 2015

Oh by the way, you can take notes!

My old house being too far and too expensive, I decided to move to a new house with a better location and free rent, yet, it was a tough call to make due to my landlord – the sheikh – I had to choose the rights words and argument so he would not feel too bad losing the rent I had to pay.

Surprisingly, I chose to go to a funeral that happened near my ex house and meet the sheikh there and bring up the topic… but I needed a motive, so I set up an alarm as a phone call, but I had to be careful not to be too phony. Fortunately he seemed  understanding, so then I finally could move to my new house with no hard feelings or unexpected reaction that would have ruined my entire SERVICE … yet, another journey just started, and new leads took place at my new relocation zone!

I felt like a newborn, in a my new neighborhood. Opening new doors at my new house had been an uncharted territory where too many questions were raised, as well as many visitors come by, so allow me to take you through a self discovery experience.

Looking at my new room brought some feelings of loneliness, quietness, mystery, or simply boredom, so I had to give my garage-looking room a different personality, so I started inviting my new ‘hood kids to come over for tea and opening new chapters for my CorpsAfrica service.

As I noticed, kids have an open-ended expectation of my service and somehow they are experts at asking questions and going along with whatever the group decides. In a way, I feel that they have a great disciplinary attitude and that is why I enjoy working with and supporting kids in need. Thanks to Kamal, Toufik, and others I could clean my two rooms and around 50m square yard.

Not too far from my house, I had the chance to meet many young, ambitious and motivated women who actively are working in on daily basis with an association of weaving and embroidery, but our meetings were short and sneaky, so I decided to invite a female American best friend who is smart, resourceful and sociable to come and visit. Her name is Cristina.

I tried to set meetings with the girls at their houses with the presence of their parents and Cristina so to avoid any misunderstanding, and with the arrival of my friend I must admit that her ideas and suggestion took my flaming aspirations for success into a clear, and fresh order.

Having a second foreign opinion can be overwhelming and so could be Cristina’s questions. My site has a unique building architecture, and designs, however, as a Moroccan I could not help to notice that nothing seems unusual or just odd, yet my assumptions were quite deceiving.

The architecture of the walls as high and closed into massive piece of lands are revealing of a story back to 2000, the community have had a reputation of a high level of crime, and only few people who could protest against those criminals due to the fear that surrounded the whole community, but now the local authorities have maintained the order ever since.

Walls as symbols illustrate privacy, safety and unity also could be a sign of fear, terror and individualism. I think humankind have always shared weakness and power but somehow a wall is what it takes to determine the line between them.

Throughout our community walk, we noticed that many walls were painted with marks of corn stalks that symbolize wealth, and even a celebration that happened at that house and those corn stalks are an Amazigh type of flowers that claim a event and a timeline of a week. Well of course all events are a free ticket invitation and sugar is the right gift to take to pretty much all the events.

Speaking of events, since the arrival of Cristina, we have been recreating the spirit of my kitchen and even built a fire place where I could heat up water for me (and Roy the Dog), and since I have a yard full of broken olive tree branches, we decided to make a fire so to heat up water for our first shower .

Once I started the fire, we celebrated the innovation and soil and Roy! He stared at me as if I just created fire!

Since a hamam is not an option for me in my village, I felt blessed with the humble and smoky shower.

Having Cristina at my site was a source to socialize with women, and even fun time with kids of my neighborhood.

We played one of the favorite card games with kids at my house, and let me tell you one thing. The game might look too easy but those kids are THE MASTERS of it. It is called Kanza OR 15.

The rule is to pick two cards from the table and one from your hand but the total of the card numbers has to be 15. On the top of all that, you should keep your eyes open on the gold symbol cards because those compt as the number mention on them yet the others count as 1. The game ends when one of the players reaches 72.

The fun part is that the main game rule is to play fast!

Well, since they like the game so much I used it as a formal tool to teach numbers in English, and guess what, a cocktail of Arabic, Amazigh and English! It turned into madness and tears of laughters.

For two months and half now, I noticed that there are some people that talk behind my back or simply change their language to Amazigh once I join the conversation, but I wished to know what they were saying behind my back, so I thought about asking for a helping hand from a CorpsAfrica Volunteer.

Soufian is an Amazigh and serving in CorpsAfrica in region at the High Atlas, he is super friendly – but he can switch to weird sometimes 🙂

I invited him over and asked him not to use a word of Amazigh. He actually played along really well, and helped me redraw some new lines and boundaries with those who make fun of me.

It was funny at first, because people assume that he is not Amazigh but we figured through our meetings with people from here and there that we have a sort of understanding and mutual respect but with an extreme cautiousness.

I think have those two friends over was an imperative and could even be determined as key element for my service stability, at the same time it has been an organic experience for everyone.

I feel more confident, and safe enough to face the rest of this \ challenge that is CorpsAfrica service and I learned not to paint everyone with the same brush          .

 

Childhood

Written by: Abdelghani – CorpsAfrica/Maroc Volunteer
Date: January, 28, 2015

After the floods, water returned to my village, but there are still some issues – the road still rough, there is no public lighting (as we know light is part of life) and yet people are still patient and we walk everyday to the main city and really I feel sad when there is no light except the moon who direct us to village. These people are optimistic and even they are poor, they are aware about their village, and their families, and their children.

I am sure that the first thing that anyone thinks about is the kids of the village.  Childhood is the early part of life that is always considered the sweetest period, whether it was full of joys or deprived of them. When we talk about this issue we feel a kind of regret because it seems to us like a dream, belonging to a distant past. But if we travel deeper in time we may find that childhood is still alive within us. In every village and every town across the world, children have a place where they can play and relax, explore and create, and have fun. Play is invaluable to a child’s health and well being, and is vital to every child’s development.

Children in my village just don’t have the same opportunity as we did as children. Some people see play as just a way to pass the time, however child’s play is more because its encourages children to think for themselves. The children in my village, they create places next to the river where they can play anything, especially football. Hence we must look after children because they are as vulnerable as the repeated melody of nature the nightingale’s songs, river’s flowing and the butterflies’ dance over roses they all need protection.

The association of my village and I are working on this issue and figured out for many activities with youth and kids and that is going well, especially thanks to the president of the association this amazing person. Even he though is busy with work and lives far from village, he still think about his home and helps people with money and comes everyday to see what is going on. I am happy to see that the youth get up and work to develop their village and help each other

 

A Dream Inside A Dream

Written by: Mourad – CorpsAfrica/Maroc Volunteer
Date: January 20, 2015

Some things never change; and old habits die hard! But today something changed intuitively! I was a dream catcher chasing good dreams in a dreamland!! Deeply sinking in my sleep, not aware of the world outside, dreaming of another world with red sparkling skies, glittering stars and yellowish clouds, a world in which people spoke a strange language. I was deep in my sleep, and I didn’t want to wake up! I wanted to live inside this strange universe forever, but then I heard something hitting my window! I opened up my eyes slowly. I was still in my bed but my senses were beginning to work again. Someone was throwing rocks at my windows and yelling “Waa Mourad!! Waa Mourad!” I eventually figured who this person was! I recognized his voice, and knew that it was just Hussa again, my host dad or Bi Salman as the villager likes to call him. He had become my new alarm clock since the first day I moved into his brother’s house. I answered him lazily “I’m coming down, I’m coming Hussain!! “ He replayed “Yallah srbiat srbiat (hurry up hurry up)!!”

I felt like something alien that morning, I heard some unusual noises of people talking, and I wondered what was going on. I left my bed advancing like a drunkard in the haze of my slow footsteps towards the door. When I reached the small hall of my house there something very white flashed through my eyes!! Something very, very white!!! It was snow and a lot of it!!

I bent down and took a handful of snow that melted and made my hand feel frozen! “Oh God,” I thought, “am I dreaming??” I felt like I needed someone to slap me mercilessly on both of my cheeks, I felt that I must be in a dream within a dream, and wanted God to wake me up! I could hardly open up my door as it was entirely covered with snow! Then the white flash hit my eyes again! What a view! I could not believe my eyes nor could I tell if I was in my village, Alaska, or maybe another world completely!

I went up my roof and followed my footsteps, which were soaked deeply into the snow! From this corner I could capture the magnificent view of the whole village; I could see the glorious hills and mountains of the High Atlas standing still! They salute me every morning. I want to speak to the mountains someday, and ask them how they can bear the cold and cruel weather through all of these years?? The mountains speak a strange language that I could not understand, but I feel that I understand the feelings underneath of their silence.

The snow brought a day of celebration and hard work to the village. Every family was up on the roofs with their spades and shovels washing away snow! The snow brought solidarity and cooperation among the families; I saw my host mom helping my host dad with this hard task and the kids also contributed. After this, the children seized the opportunity and played with snow. My awareness was coming back slowly to reality and I sunk inside my mind thinking deeply about what a marvel I’m in!! I saw Rachid, my host dad’s son, playing in the snow!! I never saw snow as a child, so I did not have the opportunity to build a snowman or to ski. It was always a dream of mine to enjoy the beauty and the fun of it. This was my opportunity to leave my cozy comfort zone, become a kid again, drop everything and go outside to have fun.

What really makes me happy is the culture of sharing in this small village. Everybody shares everything here, and I realized that the ultimate happiness is when I share something with people as well. It could be anything material or immaterial. I feel happy when I bring happiness to someone else. Indeed, it is a contagious energy which one cannot escape from! I gathered kids around me, and showed them how to build a snowman, we worked on it all together and divided tasks; some brought shovels, some went to their houses to find a carrot for the nose and walnuts for the eyes. A lot of villagers stopping to observe what we were doing!! The kids and I had never built anything with snow and were really excited to find out how our snowman would look!! I rolled a big ball of snow for the head, and let Hassan stick the carrot and walnuts to make the face, and wrapped a red scarf around his neck. But the snowman was shivering; I told kids that we must help him by giving him some warm clothes as well. The innocent kids felt a kind of empathy and loved the idea. They hurried up to cover his head with a bubble hat, and his hands with warm gloves, one of them brought a warm jacket from his house for the snowman so he would not feel cold, and we agreed to call him “Uncle Pililo”.

I really felt amazing moments of joy with the kids. I felt happy when I saw all of them wanting to take pictures with Pililo, talking to him, kissing him, and dancing around him.

The fun has not stopped right there, the kids insisted on taking me downhill outside of the village where they were skiing in snow!! I was really curious how they were skiing, since they don’t have skis or any sport material for skiing. I wondered what they really meant by skiing. We arrived at a very steep slope that ended suddenly, and was covered with snow. The kids began lining up taking a plastic bag, sitting on it, and holding it firmly while bending down and raising their legs in the air. They skied down with great speed like bobsleds. They jumped off the end to see how fast they could travel through the air before landing. After a while, the kids insisted on me trying. I hesitated but then decided I wanted to have fun! I took the plastic bag, following their instructions and pushed myself down the slope. Unfortunately, I fell down the slope and became drenched with cold, snowy water. Al the kids laughed hard at me, asking me about the experience. We then had a wonderful time snowball fighting, although the kids beat me badly. I couldn’t make any more balls because my hands were freezing and I could not feel them!! I decided to surrender, raising my white flag before any of them could kill me with their big snowballs.

Someone said that happiness is only a pursuit, and I was pursuing moments of happiness in my white dreams forgetting that simple things can make a huge difference in reality and shower one with great moments of joy making him want to leave his dream inside a beautiful dream.

Thanks for reading!!

Cheers      

First Community Meeting

Written by: Mourad – CorpsAfrica/Maroc Volunteer
Date: January 16, 2015

Today was the day of El Mossem. It is called “Mosem Lalla Mamasmbark Tagorram” (El Mousem is a religious celebration which take place every year, it coincides with the Muslims celebration of the birth of the prophet Mohammed peace be upon him). The village was crowded of people; children, men, women – younger as well as older people.

I saw new faces for the first time, and I had the opportunity to talk to some young men who spend most of the year outside the village for work. Omar, a 23 years old young man approached me and said “So you are the guy from the association aren’t you? How is it going?? Are you getting used to cold??” I realized that he speaks good Arabic and the conversation went smoothly with him. Omar is a mason who works in a building workshop in Casablanca; he seems very open, and realistic and willing to share his stories. Omar told me about his experience in Casablanca, when he first went there he thought himself a stranger in a new world!!  He was lost and had difficult days in the city. He was exposed to robbery, cheating, and racism because he didn’t knew Arabic but after few months he integrated well in the city life, learned Arabic, made friends, and found a job. “There is absolutely nothing to do here if you don’t have goats or land field, I only came here to see family!!” Omar said.

After lunch, I had an opportunity to ask people questions about El Moussem, its history, and significance of some practices (I got really interesting facts I will write a full blog about El Mossem soon). The conversation progressed, and we talked about the community.

The president of the association along with the member of the commune urged me to gather people today to hold a community meeting. Actually my plan was to gather them on the 16th of January, but they have insisted on this day; their argument this time was that this will be a great opportunity giving the fact that all important people are inside the village to attend El Mossem, they were actually right for the reason that in the ordinary days the village are empty, and looks like a ghost town. This because most of people travel outside the village for work in Agadir, Marrakech, or Casablanca. I changed my plans and we agreed to meet in Dar El Maarouf (A house in which people are invited during El Mossem) right after the Aichaa (mid-afternoon) prayer. At 21:00 people started coming by groups of 5 to 6 men. After 10 minutes the room was full of men but some important people were late like Hussain and Omar.

I was a bit anxious about this but I didn’t want to lose my cool. I asked the president to call them so they can hurry up!! I never thought that I will have performance anxiety when talking to villagers until I was put in the situation, villagers were looking at me like they don’t know me at all, their facial expressions changed drastically, and they looked very serious!! I felt awkward for a while because I got used to their smiles, but after the meeting I understood why they were giving me dead looks!! This made me nervous before starting my speech! It was normal; I wasn’t prepared for this at all. While waiting for other attendees, I was glancing at my scrambled notes that I took, wondering how am I going to start all this and whether people will understand me.

The president suggested drinking tea before starting our meeting, we agreed to this suggestion. Right after that I had the room full of people with a noticeable absence of El Fkih !!! Their ages alternate approximately between 27 to 60 years old. I already knew half of them, but I didn’t know what their thoughts, ideas, opinions are. When all attention was towards my direction, I broke the very serious atmosphere with a funny question; I told them “So are you ready to learn your first lesson tonight? Did you bring your copybooks and blackboards??” Everyone started laughing claiming that they forgot about this!!

After this cool unexpected intro, I started introducing myself again to the community thanking them for coming. I also thanked them about their trust, care and hospitality, and the fact that I feel now as if I become one of them. They thanked me back saying that they will always be there for me to offer any kind of help I need along the way.

Then I moved to say what the goals of this meeting are. I basically said that I am here to listen to their ideas and opinions about how can we all participate in the development of the village, and to give the opportunity to each attendee to voice his opinions, suggestions, concerns and priorities freely and democratically. I also emphasized on the fact that in order to have a successful dialogue we need to listen to each other and respect different opinions in order for us all to work toward coming up with a good, solid idea to work on along the way. I felt relieved because most of them understood what I said. I figured this out by them nodding their heads whenever I finish a point. Moulay Mohammed, the son of the elected member of the commune, and my new guide, was helping with the translation from time to time. Afterwards I told them briefly about what I basically realized from my interviews and interactions with families in my first month and a half in the village. I corrected the idea which some people held about me that I’m working for the el makhzan (government) by saying that I’m an independent volunteer who doesn’t have any political belonging

I explained to them how this discussion must go and that I will start calling names and then asking them to present themselves and ask them questions like what are the issue that faces your community? What’s difficult about living here? What does your community need?

I was surprised because most of people gave me good suggestions and ideas and they supported them with facts and stories. The president of the association tried to take control of the discussion by interrupting some speakers, but I asked him to listen to the idea first and when the speaker finishes his idea then he will be allowed to give feedback. He seemed distracted by my comment but understood the underneath message.

It was difficult a first to get people to listen to each other and to organize the meeting on how I wanted it to go. Some late comers didn’t find a place inside the room and were standing, others were talking while someone speaking but I tried each time to comment about how this should go in the future. When the conversation progressed I realized that most of men got it and grasp the rules of the discussion. This really made me happy because at least I introduced a new way for villagers to discuss which were really absent from their culture. They tended to discuss with arguing, and most of their previous meeting ended with disagreement and fighting.

The most constant issues that were raised by villagers were the problem of the road, education, water, the absence of the place of the association, as well as the absence of cooperation or any project that can provide the community with a financial income. When everyone spoke and said his opinion I opened the discussion and expressed my readiness to answer any question about the association

We agreed to meet again after 15 days to brainstorm all this ideas and to see the feasibility of each idea in order to come up with a one good solid idea which CorpsAfrica, the local association and the community will work for.