Katie Butler - Volunteer in Morocco
Katie Butler - Volunteer in Morocco
Katie Butler - Volunteer in Morocco
Notes From The Field - a Peace Corps Volunteer's Moroccan Experience
MOROCCO
Volunteer: Katie Butler, MSc.
Location: Azrou
College: College of Engineering
Department: Environmental Engineering Sciences
Home of Record: Clearwater, FL
Assignment: National Park Development
Language: Moroccan Arabic
Training Period: 10 weeks (Aug. 1999)
Working with: Ministry of Waters and Forests
The sunset near Azrou (my town) of a few volunteers after a hike. We camped here for the night.
"Aicha" (in the head scarf) is my best friend here, also in the photo are her nieces and nephew at a feast.
"Henna" is my hand in the process of being henna-ed before the big feast (aid l'kbeer), the largest holiday for moroccan muslims. Henna art is done for women for special occasions: birthdays, weddings, holidays, travelling.
The traditional Moroccan cous cous. Most families eat this every Friday (Friday being the Holy Day of the week). It takes about four hours to make cous cous.
A Pro-Palestine demonstration by high school students that passed by my window last October.
"Thanksgiving" is the only photo i have of me, since I tend to take all the photos. I'm on the train with a friend eating turkey and mashed potatoes that we cooked the night before out of a nalgene bottle - kind of a true Peace Corps American holiday experience.
Training
10 weeks long. I departed June 25 for DC then the 26th for Casablanca. We trained for 2 weeks in Rabat (the capitol city), 6 in a small village and then two more in Rabat before swear-in. There were 80 in my training group, 24 in my sector (Environment).
The Workplace
I work for a Moroccan government counterpart with the Ministry of Waters and Forests on creation of a national park in the Middle Atlas Mountains. On a daily basis... Life in a city of 50,000 is different from "typical" Peace Corps service in some ways: I can check email at any of four cybercafés in Azrou, so I do that a couple times a week. I visit my office three times a week, spend a lot of time eating and talking with families, and spend a lot of time reading and playing the guitar in my house. My work with the park involves desktop publishing, HTML authoring and developing research strategies for cataloguing biological diversity in the region.
My other work (secondary projects) are creating an urban environmental association in Azrou to work on developing "smart growth" plans for the town, dealing with the garbage problem, and developing sustainable tourism.
Challenges
The biggest challenge in Morocco for women is dealing with the astounding amount of sexual harassment that comes from every man on the street. Think Italy times 50 and in every language. Other challenges, are, of course, language acquisition (Moroccan arabic), dealing with the amazing amount of red tape one has to go through with the Moroccan government.
Life
I live in a mountain city called "Azrou", which means "boulder" in the local Berber dialect. It is amazingly beautiful, receives a lot of rain and has the largest stand of old growth cedar forest in north Africa. I live in the old "medina" (city) which dates from the 12th century. My office is two kilometers outside of the town. The PC office is five hours away by public transit. My house has two-foot thick mud walls--very cool in the heat of summer, and running water and electricity.
I have a bicycle, but I am a runner, so I jog to the office. Around Morocco, public transportation is fairly good. I take grand taxis (old Mercedes with 6 passengers), buses and the train. The big cities in Morocco have movie theaters and restaurants, so we go there. Also, I do a lot of hiking in the mountains around my site.
Rewards
The US Government gives me the equivalent of about 200 US dollars per month--which is plenty. The best experience is making Moroccan friends who understand me and like me despite the fact that I'm very different from them (not a Muslim and not married). Really crossing cultural borders. Worst is the harassment, by far.
Yes, I'd do it again. In a Heartbeat.
Advice
Be prepared, be ready for Peace Corps service. I knew what I wanted to do and was trained for it. That helped my recruiter to find me the right assignment. As for leaving the states, I just knew it was time. I knew I was ready. It was still a little daunting, but I knew.
Plans after Peace Corps service
Maybe Alaska? I have my MS degree, so I'm REALLY done with school now. I enjoyed my work with the EPA, so I may go back to work for them at a field station in Alaska or Colorado or someplace.
