Here we have another Peace Corps Volunteer blog. Joy works in a rural village and is helping rural women to form an association to sell their handicrafts. It’s not an easy job. Along the way she is teaching them about recycled materials, marketing, organizing, and more.

http://joyinmorocco.blogspot.com/

Here is a recent post that illustrates some of the difficulties a PCV encounters.

A Peace Corps Volunteer’s job description is not quite like any other. The more I examine the realities of my job, I see myself as a behavior change agent. I can’t give them the magic formula to running a successful craft business. I don’t have the foresight of which retailers will continue a steady, if not growing, business relationship with them. However, I can teach them some basic business skills and knowledge. I can impart some advice on colors, styles and customer tastes. I can teach them new crochet techniques. I can lead them through trial and error. And I can model good behavior. All of this is done in hopes that one day my counterparts see the value in changing their current habits.

I’m finding that two years service is not enough time for dramatic behavior changes. The challenge is that they need to decide to change. This goes back to the constant nagging question of motivation. How badly do they want this small business to succeed? I wonder.

Filling and shipping orders in a timely fashion is a key component for business success. An RPCV had placed an order of bracelets back in late October. The ladies did not finish the bracelets before she left Morocco in November. When I left for vacation in Spain, I gave them an envelope with her address.

Before I left, I told them, “Whenever bracelets are done, send it in the mail.”

In hindsight, I should have said “Next week, when you finish six bracelets…” Then again, maybe not. I’m not the boss. Time passes. It doesn’t occur to me to follow-up. Until February, when I realize no one has made the bracelets. Why? I don’t understand. In the meantime, they made plenty of tea kettle holders and lace doilies. (Note: none of those items are for sale.) Time doesn’t seem to be the limiting factor. Hmm. Lucky for them, the RPCV is forgiving and still wants her order. I personally mailed the bracelets. It’s almost five months since the secretary recorded the order in the Association notebook. I wonder.

I face the same confusion when trying to understand why ladies refuse to buy their own crochet hook. There’s one extended family that share one crochet hook between three ladies. To me, sharing one crochet hook is an unnecessary hassle. Some ladies have their own hooks but only have one. I repeatedly talk about the importance of gauge and needing various crochet hooks for different threads. For the new line of headbands, I want a loose crochet for a softer feel. Ladies need to work with a number 5 crochet hook. I reiterate this concept during the product critics. Hooks sell for 2dhs. Why do some ladies still refuse to make this investment? Why do they come everyday to the nedi and pester others (myself included) to borrow a crochet hook? They just spent 3 dhs on half a sardine sandwich the other day. See why I wonder about their motivation?

The issue of motivation makes me question my purpose here. If they can’t pay 2 dhs for a crochet hook, why am I trying to teach them new crochet techniques? Why am I attempting product development? Why am I working harder than them when this isn’t my life?!

Thankfully, at the end of the day, I find this in more ways fulfilling than frustrating. You might argue that I’m wearing rose-colored glasses. I delight in small successes as if they were huge milestones. And maybe they are.

The Association still haven’t started construction with the approved grant money. The legal paperwork to start construction have been stalled at the local municipality level. Yesterday, I ran into the President and Secretary after they had a meeting with the qiad. They were pressuring him to expedite the paperwork process. Sweet! Look at them take initiative and responsibility!

We recently had great success with a new line of headbands. In January and February, the ladies learned and perfected these new headbands. At the American Club Bazaar, these headbands sold like hot cakes. However, the production process has several holes. The thread is purchased unwound. Currently, a local tailor, Robio, winds the thread for us at 2 dhs a spool. Two spools produce one headband. With approximately 20 ladies, needing two spools of wound thread each, in addition to wooden beads and elastic bands, raw material cost adds up fast. Additionally, Robio misunderstood the proper thickness for the thread. On two occasions, we sent a bag full of thread to be rewound. Amina, who helped me send and collect the thread, was well aware of these costs. About two weeks ago, she bought her own thread-winding machine for 150 dhs. What great foresight! Go Amina! She’s learning how to wind the thread for future headband orders at 1.5 dhs a piece. What a good personal investment!

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Here’s another Peace Corps blog. The great thing about Peace Corps blogs is that you get to see what it is like for Americans to be totally immersed in Morocco.

Maroc, Je T’aime

Often the volunteers live in remote villages where there are no other foreigners. They interact with the people, they affect and are affected by the culture, and in general there is a genuine love and concern for the people they are working and living with.

Consider the bio of Nicole, the author of this blog:

I’m a 20-something who’s batting for Team I’m Spending My Golden Years in Africa. Seriously, though, I’m a Peace Corps volunteer in the beautiful country of Morocco. I grew up in southeastern Michigan,and graduated in the spring of 2008 from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) with a degree in linguistics, and Arabic and Islamic studies. After arriving here on 4 March 2009, I trained for two months in the province of Azilal. I now reside in the Tiznit province, which is part of the Souss region.

Official documentation regards me as a cooperante de santé, though I’m serving currently as a waste management infrastructure consultant (which is exactly as glamorous as it sounds, trust me). My village is just shy of 2000 people and we speak Tasoussit, which is a dialect of Tashlheit, which is a dialect that falls under the umbrella of “Berber.”

No, not Arabic — I said Berber. This distinction is very important.

On a personal note, I favor tea to coffee and hand-written letters to emails. I have a borderline-obsession with scarves and I make it a habit to trash talk on a daily basis. Should you want to talk to trash, scarves or hot beverages with me, or if you’re looking for an in-depth analysis of the international postal system

Now consider this recent post in which Nicole admits that she has stolen something from her host family….now this is good blogging!

That’s right, I did it. I slipped something that used to belong to my host family into my pocket and took it home with me. What I did is un-Islamic, unethical, and really, just blatantly wrong. But like I said, it was for the sake of entertainment… so, blame away.

Know that if you laugh, however, the universe will likely consider you an accomplice.

My weekly visit to Host Family was rough today. After nearly breaking a toe whilst wading through the river to get to their house, I found out that Host Mom is ill once again; in fact, she collapsed yesterday evening. Host Mom and Host Dad have hit a rough-patch in their relationship, and the kids were home from school because of last night’s outrageous (and I don’t use that word lightly) thunderstorm.

I thought that I was going to lose my nerve and walk out of the house before lunch was ready until Host Brother – remember him? He’s the cute one that, as of today, still thinks he’s coming back to America with me – presented me with a small instruction manual. Hoping that they were instructions on how to get through lunch with my sanity intact, I opened up the book and took a look.

The booklet was in fact a set of English-language instructions for a recently-purchased washing machine. As I read through the instructions, I couldn’t help but laugh.

…out loud.

…for an extended period of time.

…and at a rather loud volume.

The combination non-native English (remember, folks, that “in order to prevent the clothing the button makes the sound, it’s better to put the clothes with button inside other clothes”) and helpful illustrations (I found the sweating washing machine holding an umbrella and standing under a grimacing sun to be particularly informative) were enough to lift me from my bad mood, put the top-of-the-lungs argument I had just witnessed out of my mind and to even help me enjoy the undercooked, undersalted lentils that we had for lunch.

I got such a laugh out of the booklet that, after confirming that the whole thing was in English and that I wasn’t going to be removing any information crucial for the operation of said washing machine… that I ripped out my favorite page and stuck it in my pocket for a rainy day.

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Morocco has the second most Peace Corps volunteers of all countries. So it’s no surprise that there are some great Peace Corps volunteer blogs.

For those who don’t know, the Peace Corps is an organization from the United States that sends volunteers to countries all over the world to assist in community development and building bridges of understanding between cultures.

Our first PCV blog is Ben @ Morocco
http://peacecorpsben.blogspot.com/

Our only question is why does everyone keep using blogspot when MoroccoBlogs.com offers more flexibility and function for free….

Hello! I live in the Sahara desert in Morocco, in the Zagora region. It is my first week here as a Peace Corps volunteer after 9 weeks of training in the North of Morocco, which is very European and green. In contrast, my town is almost exactly the opposite. Beyond the door there are sand dunes, mountains, dried river ouds and the oases of the Draa river that host different towns. My town is Kob (not the real name) and it is on one of these oases.

Im 24 years old, I come from Tennessee and I studied at the University of Memphis. This is my second time to serve in Peace Corps, because I was a volunteer for all of 2008 in Peace Corps Bolivia, but we were evacuated after being in country for 8 months. I went home for a year to be with my family, helping to watch over my 1 year old niece and my grandmother who is bed bound after having a stroke 4 years ago.

It was hard to leave Bolivia, but Im glad to have the opportunity to come to serve in Morocco. I see you are from Louisville. My good friend from Peace Corps Bolivia came from there, AndrewPorter. After evacation, he went on to serve in PC Paraguay and is nearly finished there.

I do not know anything of what ages you teach, or what school subjects you do. At college I studied Spanish, French and Portuguese, with a minor in Music. Since leaving there, Ive lived in countries for different periods of time that speak all of those languages. But as a PCV it is possible to become much closer to the people in those places because they do such a good job preparing their volunteers to integrate into the community. And working in a place for 2 years, you have the opportunity to really feel at home and to make an impact. Hopefully I can find something sustainable, since as a Youth Development volunteer I can directly share life skills that will remain in Kob long after Im gone.

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