Lately it has felt like this is literally what is expected of me. Not just by my Cooperative and counterpart, but by my landlord, Peace Corps, the guy running the hanut next door, everyone. I need to learn the Moroccan equivalent for Rome wasn’t built in a day.

This month I have been working on emailing small e-commerce clothing businesses that buy from indie groups. I put together this website and blog in order to showcase their work and have been facebooking and twittering to create some sort of “online presence”.  The issues with this are two fold: To make this sustainable we first need to see some sort of success (which takes time) and secondly need to buy a computer and internet access for the cooperative (currently I work on my personal netbook which will return home with me at the end of my service.) and subsequently train several girls on how to use it and most importantly how to find and conduct business on it. Now, I am working everyday to make it successful by seeking out businesses and finding opportunities. Recently I’ve begun working on procuring a grant in order to buy the necessary overhead to maintain this as a sustainable option. Quickly I realized the fact  that the money just isn’t there. Not in the grant fund set up by the Peace Corps and not in independent grants either. This leaves two options: fundraising or financing it through the funds of the cooperative. Personally, I don’t feel comfortable fund raising for a For Profit organization who could quite possibly have the funds available for a computer and internet but are unwilling to use it. So at this point I am left with the option of convincing my counterpart that buying a computer would be a good business idea for us. Which makes the success of my current work all the more important. Of course the computer sitting idle in the next room (paid for by the Peace Corps but belonging to a separate cooperative) makes my Counterpart rightfully skeptical and wonder why the Peace Corps won’t buy her one too. So although I see convincing my Counterpart to spend the limited funds of the Cooperative on a risky and expensive piece of equipment as extremely difficult, I also see it as a very important step in developing a market outside of Taza and perhaps even the best option of all- because we all know that when we buy something with our own money it tends to hold a special value above the amount you paid. It represents the effort you put into making that money. Wish me luck!

     Recently I met an American teacher here in Morocco who works for a school in Fes called Amicita. The school is an “international tri-lingual school located in the breathtaking city of Fez, Morocco. [They] offer an American-style education in an international environment, serving students from all over the world while honoring the beauty of the preserved ancient culture of Fez still present in the city today.” (http://www.americanschoolfes.com/). She invited me to come to Fes and speak with her Senior class about Peace Corps as well as the college experience. This was by far one of the most interesting conversations I’ve had with Moroccans since I’ve been in country and it was amazing to see the disparity between the “uneducated” young women I work with and the upper class students at this school.

                The first difference was how they were dressed. None of the girls wore hijabs and (as it was a hot day) most were wearing short sleeve shirts with no jacket. The girls in my coop never leave the house with their arms exposed and 3/4ths of them wear hijabs. The next difference was the level of ambition the students had. Out of a class of about 11 students (one boy and ten girls) most of them were planning on going to college abroad immediately after graduation. Many wanted to be business majors, one wanted to be an engineer, and one wanted some sort of career in media. I could tell immediately that the school had done an amazing job of showing these girls what it was they were capable of.

                We hit a lot of topics in the short time I was there – what college was like, how hard classes are, the experience of foreign students, how to set yourself apart from your classmates, extra-curricular activities, and balancing a job with school work. Additionally, we spoke about feminism, having a boyfriend, balancing a love life with friends and schoolwork, and drinking. I was surprised at where our discussion led as it is “shuma” (shameful) to talk about this kind of stuff and certainly to partake in it. It was interesting to see their candid views on boyfriends/love/feminism (the idea of putting yourself before a relationship always makes a splash – one girl even told me it was outright “wrong”, although some seemed to agree or at least understand it was an option).

I was so grateful to have had this experience. I felt like I was really able to introduce new ideas to the Seniors or reinforce things their teachers have been telling them. I felt like I made a difference in a way I am unable to with the women in my cooperative because of the importance of assimilating into the culture and not rocking the boat I live in everyday.

The Small Business Development Sector of Peace Corps Morocco helps the Cooperatives that they work with collectively by organizing several craft fairs aimed towards tourist markets and wealthy Moroccans all over Morocco. My first craft fair with my Coop was in Fes- about 2 hours from our home in Taza. Although Peace Corps will pay travel costs for two women per cooperative to attend the craft fair, I was only able to convince one of my women- Haja (the president and my counterpart)- to come. The reason behind this is that most of the girls in Amal are younger (late teens to early twenties) and still need the permission of their fathers for things such as this. Unfortunately it’s frowned upon in the Moroccan culture for a young woman to travel unaccompanied by a male relative. So Haja and I set out together with 2 large bags of embroidered table cloths, bedding, and a few jabadors and djellabas.

Because I am younger and unfamiliar with the area, Haja was very skeptical as we were traveling through Fes that I knew where I was going (although, unlike most of my time here, I did!). We stopped several times to ask Moroccans for directions and after emphasizing multiple times that I did indeed know where the Dar Chebab was we finally arrived without getting lost. This cynical mindset continued until about two hours into the first day of the craft fair when amazingly we sold over 12,000 dirhams ($1,500) worth of product to an upper class Moroccan family. At this point Haja decided I did indeed know what I was doing and that having a Peace Corps volunteer was in fact a very very good idea.

                Now this is both a good and bad outcome for the future of my work here. On the plus side, my counterpart is much more willing to work with me and to trust my methods of getting business. On the downside, she now has the expectation of stellar sales at every Peace Corps run craft fair. After the first day where our sales were off the charts due to that one buyer, the next two days of sales were good- but not nearly as good as the first day. My job now is to make sure Haja understands that we won’t always make a huge profit but that’s the risk of business and an important step in growing a business. The craft fair was run exceptionally well and was a great introduction for my cooperative to see what tourists will buy. Haja even made several contacts in other cooperatives and exchanged patterns and product ideas. All in all it was a beneficial experience for both myself and my Counterpart!

*Picture of the Craft Fair- Courtesy of the wonderful Jo Troyer*

One of my favorite Moroccan customs is couscous Friday. Every Friday practically every family sits down together to a meal of homemade couscous covered in vegetables, meat, and broth. Guests are often invited and everyone converses happily while the latest soap opera dubbed in darijia plays on the TV in the background. My first invite came from one of the younger girls in my cooperative, Sa3ida (the "3" in the western spelling of her name represents a long "e" sound). Sa3ida (about 17 years old) lives with her mother (her only brother attends a university in Fes and is no longer at home). She provides the primary income to the household through her work at the Coop. Her house consists of two rooms and is part of a low income commune with neither running water nor electricity. The commune is located on the outskirts of Taza is a picturesque neighborhood with a fantastic view of the nearby Rif mountains. I was surprised to find out that she has about an hour's walk to work everyday since the girls in my Coop all warn me regularly that my apartment is too far to walk to (I live aprox. 45 minutes from the Artisana.)
    Upon entering her hom Sa3ida puts on a CD of Moroccan pop music and we find ways to converse despite my limited Darijia (most conversations break down to lively games of charades). Her mom is an amazing cook and very welcoming. Watching their dynamic reminded me of my family back home and how much I miss them.
    After a while the couscous was brought out with all my favorite veggies and what looked like a whole chicken. Everytime I took a spoonfull of couscous from my section of the communal bowl it was magically refilled by Sa3ida's mother, who would wait til I wasn't looking and push the best parts to my section.
  We ate for almost 45 minutes and after several assurances that I was incredibly full and couldn't eat another bite, Sa3ida and I took a long walk around her neighborhood.
    As always, I was in awe with the incredible generosity of the people in Morocco- especially when they have so little to give like Sa3ida. When I begin to lose faith in why I'm here, I think about experiences like this one and remember why these women deserve my best efforts.

A little background: I left for Morocco in September of 2010 months after graduating college. I didn't know any Arabic, much less any of the Moroccan dialect of it, called darijia. I spent 3 months living with a wonderful host family and learning the language and then was fully sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer and sent on my way to a new town where I would live for the next 2 years. The first day of work was nerve-wracking. I hardly spoke darijia- how was I going to teach these ladies how to market thier products; let alone build a relationship so they would want to work with me in the first place? Looking back there was nothing to worry about. The girls have been genuinely interested in getting to know me and what I'm doing since day 1. Moroccans have a great reputation for being a welcoming people but I truely think the Amal girls go beyond even that precedent. After about a month here the girls surprised me with my own djabador that they had hand sewn as a gift welcoming me into the Amal family. I feel truly lucky to be a part of such a wonderful cooperative and hope to share the experience with you here.