Disclaimer

The views, opinions, and observations expressed in this journal are my own and in no way reflect the views, opinions, or policy of the Peace Corps, Peace Corps Morocco, nor any other governmental or non-governmental organization.

Nor is anything written here necessarily drawn from my own views, opinions, and observations. Please consider all postings and pictures complete fabrications with absolutely no bearing on reality. For legal purposes, please additionally regard the author as utterly imaginary.

Friday, January 24, 2014

figuig pictures, and Morocco in the news, and a brief look back

first off, here's some pictures from figuig!-- to see them better, click on one and it will let you scroll through them.


























Thankfully, the law that encourages rapists to marry their victims has been amended. While the ruling was a definite victory, it was a small one. You can read why in the following NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/world/africa/after-debate-moroccan-government-amends-rape-law.html?_r=0

Morocco actually ended up on the front page of the paper (front electronic page, that is) for two days in a row. Today an article appeared about a small Berber village that is protesting a silver mine, which has used up and/or polluted most of their water supplies. The Amazigh (the free people) simply walked up tot the top of the hill and turned off the mine's water pump, where they have continued to stage a protest for the last couple of years. Naturally, the mine is owned by the King of Morocco. You can read the piece here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/world/africa/on-moroccan-hill-villagers-make-stand-against-a-mine.html?hp


In other news, last weekend I went to Rabat. Among other things, I ran a couple of training sessions for fresh-from-the-promised-land peace corps volunteers. One hundred and four Americans arrived maybe two days before I was up in front of a group of them talking about how to start clubs at the youth center. I was the first current Morocco volunteer they'd met, so I got a lot of questions. For the first session, after a couple minutes of failed attempts at getting it started, I just sat down and fielded questions.

They are at the stage where I was about 22 months ago. A number of things have become totally normal to me, but seemed to frighten them. Generally speaking, those things had to do with toilets, showers, and intestinal problems. And some work stuff too.

But what was really incredible is that I basically couldn't put myself back in their place. I couldn't really remember what it was like. I don't know how I was feeling in those first couple of days. So it's a good thing I've been doing this blog.




1 comment:

  1. I've been there last month ..figuig looks like the magic i really enjoyed my time there !

    ReplyDelete

Disclaimer

The views, opinions, and observations expressed in this journal are my own and in no way reflect the views, opinions, or policy of the Peace Corps, Peace Corps Morocco, governmental or non-governmental organizations.

Nor is anything written here necessarily my own views, opinions, or observations. Please consider all pictures and texts here to be complete fabrications with absolutely no bearing on reality, this one or any other. For legal purposes, please additionally consider the author to be utterly imaginary.