A colorful array of traditional Moroccan slippers on sale at a street market in the city of Fes. Landscapes of the Eastern High Atlas Mountains. Fishing boats in the city of Essaouira and sand dunes in the Sahara Desert. The 10,000 photographs Kristin and David LaFever took during their 27-month Peace Corps mission to Morocco include striking images on display at the Cazenovia Public Library in an exhibit titled "Morocco: (partially) Unveiled." But the couple said some of their most vivid memories weren't captured on film, like Kristin LaFever carrying a live turkey through the streets of town for their first Thanksgiving away from home, fasting during the month of Ramadan, drinking sugary tea with new friends and eating couscous with their hands.
David and Kristin LaFever remember Peace Corps service in Morocco with photographs
Cazenovia native remembers U.S. Peace Corps service in Morocco with photographs
Posted by Alaina Potrikus / Staff writer
August 19, 2009 6:00AM
Categories: Cazenovia
Caption: LaFever took this photo of a man walking in the Blue City of Chefchaouen in Morocco, where they spent more than two years in the Peace Corps. The photo is part of an exhibit now on display at the Cazenovia Public Library.
A colorful array of traditional Moroccan slippers on sale at a street market in the city of Fes. Landscapes of the Eastern High Atlas Mountains. Fishing boats in the city of Essaouira and sand dunes in the Sahara Desert.
The 10,000 photographs Kristin and David LaFever took during their 27-month Peace Corps mission to Morocco include striking images on display at the Cazenovia Public Library in an exhibit titled "Morocco: (partially) Unveiled."
But the couple said some of their most vivid memories weren't captured on film, like Kristin LaFever carrying a live turkey through the streets of town for their first Thanksgiving away from home, fasting during the month of Ramadan, drinking sugary tea with new friends and eating couscous with their hands.
"They are moving frames of our life, snapshots of these random but beautiful moments," said David LaFever, who grew up in Cazenovia and will talk about his experiences at the library tonight.
Submitted photoKristin and David LaFever hold their dog, Barley, near the Moroccan town of Tounfite where they worked with the Peace Corps, on New Year's Day in 2008.
The couple met while pursuing degrees in wildlife science at Virginia Tech. During their graduate studies at Texas A&M University, they married and made plans to devote two years to service.
The LaFevers didn't specify a location on their application to the Peace Corps. After three months of training, the couple was assigned to live and work in Tounfite, a town of 7,000 people at the base of a 10,800-foot mountain. Working with schools on environmental education programs, building the capacity of local organizations to implement the programs on their own.
Becoming part of the community didn't happen overnight, they said. They improved their standing by learning the local Berber dialect, a language that is not written nor taught in schools in a country where the official languages are classical Arabic and French.
"Moroccan people are above all else hospitable, generous and friendly, always," David LaFever said.
They rented a house made of mud, which kept them warm in the cold winter months and cool in the summer, when temperatures regularly reached the 90s. Meals were eaten communally, with bread but without silverware. The town had clean water, electricity, Internet cafes and cell phones. They adopted their dog, Barley, after finding the puppy atop a pile of trash.
"It opened our eyes to a lot of different cultures, people," said Kristin LaFever, a Virginia native.
Their mission was to help locals address environmental problems like overgrazing, which led to deforestation, erosion and flooding. They tried to combat the problem by handing out fruit trees, which gave farmers a more profitable and environmentally friendly crop.
They focused their resources on those with motivation to help change the community, in hopes of creating programs that would be sustainable after they left.
"It's very difficult to instill hope in someone," said David LaFever. "You can cultivate a seed of hope that is already there. We looked for those people, or they came to us."
"If we were going to have an effect, we wanted it to be a lasting effect," Kristin LaFever said. "It had to be driven by the people we were working with."
They learned lessons of patience and persistence that they said will carry on in their marriage and their careers.
"It definitely brought us closer together, strengthened our bond, by working through difficult situations together," David LaFever said.
They also walked away with a new respect for the Muslim community, making friends who taught them about kindness and compassion.
"Those are the faces of Islam we need to remember when someone who says they are Muslim commits a terrible act," David LaFever said. "The same is true of every religion, be it Christianity, Judaism or others."
The money they raise from the sale of framed photographs will be sent to Peace Corps volunteers still in the area, working on a midwife training program that the LaFevers helped develop in light of high infant and maternal mortality rates in remote villages.
The couple returned June 1, and will leave Cazenovia next week for Arcata, Calif., where David LaFever has accepted a position as an ecologist with the Bureau of Land Management.
If you go
What: Kristin and David LaFever present "Morocco: Cold Country with a Hot Sun," a discussion of their two years as environment volunteers with the Peace Corps
Where: Cazenovia Public Library, Albany Street
When: 7 p.m. today
More details: To purchase a photograph or donate to the LaFever's cause, email the couple at lafevers.abroad@gmail.com. The photographs will remain on display in the library through the end of the month.
Alaina Potrikus can be reached at 470-3252 or apotrikus@syracuse.com.
