In Morocco: Clinic, Co-Op, Camaraderie

By JOHANNA SOMERS | VIRGINIA BEACH, PEACE CORPS WORKER, 24

I WAKE TO THE CALL to prayer at 4 a.m. and again at 6:30 to the call of roosters and donkeys.

At about 7:30, I roll out of my mattress on the floor and head to my 3-foot-by-3-foot kitchen. I boil water on my small gas tank for coffee, and then I shower with cold water from a bucket over my Turkish concrete toilet. I grab cereal for breakfast and head to the clinic.

I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, and I love my job! I work as a health teacher in the local clinic and elementary school. I also am collaborating with the local government association to clean up the town’s drinking water, which comes from a spring that is tainted with gasoline, has no cover and lacks chloride treatment.

At the clinic, I greet 15 to 20 women who have come to have their newborns vaccinated. Then they are sent to the room next door, where I teach.

I speak the local dialect, Tashelheet, a Berber dialect of southern Morocco, and I also use a variety of visuals on pre natal care, vaccinations, family planning, hygiene, hand-washing with soap, brushing teeth, microbes, water purification, diarrhea, chronic illnesses like diabetes, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. The women laugh at my over dramatizations on microbes and diarrhea.

Around 1 p.m., I head to the argan cooperative and say hello to the many women employed there. Argan is a fruit that is transformed into a kind of gourmet peanut butter, cooking oil and skin lotion. It has reached European markets and is beginning to reach Asia and North America.

The cooperative brings a lot of tourism to the small town of 3,000. I often find myself speaking to French, Japanese, Dutch, British and even Americans. Thank goodness English language has traveled far.

I head to my home, make lunch and take a breather. Later I visit the small store near my house to pick up supplies for dinner and socialize with the women in my neighborhood. I head in before dark, do some exercise, watch Al Jazeera in English and fall asleep to my latest book.

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