I Hate Flies

Its 6am and I woke up to the rooster next door cockle doodle doodling. He seems to live on the roof and for some reason he always comes to the edge closest to my window seemingly to wake me up. Once he starts, the donkeys soon follow and I think once one starts, they all start hee-hawing. Normally, I just turn over and fall back to sleep, but today the flies won't leave me alone. I don't know where they come from – my window has a screen and my door is closed when I sleep. There weren't any flying around when I went to bed last night, because I killed them all with my trusty Reader's Digest! It's too hot to wear much to bed, so I am in a t-shirt and shorts, which leaves plenty of skin for the flies to find. Its when they land on my face, especially my nose or lips, that really gets me going. I tried pulling my sheet over my arms and legs, but that drove them to my face! GROSS!

I had heard that the flies were bad during the summer, but I thought I might get lucky being in the mountains. No such luck. I've gotten used to them on the table when we eat and finding them swarming in the kitchen, but it really drives me crazy when they land on me!

I have a meeting this morning, which I am leaving for at 8:30, the time I usually roll out of bed! So, I'm annoyed that I'm missing out on my last hour of sleep. By the way, if it sounds like I get to sleep in, consider that we don't eat dinner until 11-ish and I don't make it to bed until midnight or later.

Friday Evening: The meeting went well. It was with the presidents of several associations in my rural commune and a neighboring one. MEDA is working with them to create a new association to manage and protect the forest in the area. I didn't understand most of the meeting, but I got the gist of what was going on and was able to repeat the highlights to some of the MEDA staff to prove that I understood something!

If you are interested in some background information on the forests and this project, here it is. A rural commune is kind of like county government in the U.S. Its a local unit of government that collects taxes and provides some services to its residents. My village is the “capital” of the rural commune, so both the village and commune have the same name. The commune governs a sizable area of the surrounding countryside, which includes a bunch of smaller villages.

The area is mountainous and forested in some areas. Due to a number of factors including erosion, clearing land for farming, and cutting trees for firewood the forest is disappearing. The firewood issue is a big one, remember that fantastic hammam experience I told you about? Wouldn't be possible without some firewood feeding the fire. Consider that a majority of the houses in my village have their own mini-hammam on the roof, which they fire up once a week. Plus, there is the communal hammam that provides hot water all day, every day. Don't forget the bread, many families still cook their bread in wood ovens – there is a somewhat pervasive view that bread baked in a gas oven isn't as good as bread from a wood oven. So, people in my commune are still cutting a lot of wood for fires.

The national government, through its Water and Forest Ministry developed a forestry management plan for the region which includes planting new trees, preventing the cutting of existing trees and fencing off areas to protect them indefinitely. Interestingly and perhaps somewhat progressively, when Morocco conducted a comprehensive inventory of its natural areas, it allowed indigenous groups and existing communities to remain within newly designated protected areas. The idea being that through grass-roots development, these communities could live in harmony with their surroundings. My commune is not in a national park or SIBE (Site of Biologic Importance – the acronym comes from French, so it doesn't quite translate), but the forest is critical and needs to be protected.

The idea behind this new association is to help get local buy-in and support for the forest management plan. If the existing community associations are supportive and bringing their constituents along as active partners in managing the forest, then the plan will be more successful than if a forest ranger from Rabat comes in and tells people not to cut trees down. Once the association is up and running, environmental education about the benefits of a healthy forest and alternatives to all that firewood must be presented. That is where I come in.

The Peace Corps Morocco Environment Program is a partner with the Moroccan Ministry of Water and Forests (EEF). We have a MOU and a strategic program plan that was developed jointly by PC and EEF. The main goal of our plan is environmental education – building an environmental ethic in our communities and linking it to everyday life. In my community, trash is the other big issue. Although the commune collects trash every Friday, they take it across the valley and dump it on the side of the mountain! I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone open a package of candy, cigarettes, etc. and just drop the wrapper.

Changing those kind of behaviors definitely won't happen overnight, but one of the PC target audiences is children – if we can get them early, it is easier to teach them new environmental ethics than if they are adults and already have habits and ideas somewhat ingrained in their minds.