I've been lucky to have the chance to host a number of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) that have served elsewhere over the last couple of years. We have had some very enlightening conversations. One topic that we always bring up is our respective tours of service. I am always curious to find out what other Peace Corps countries are doing and to hear about any successes and challenges they have had.
All of the Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) I've hosted have come from Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of these PCVs have had a much more challenging experience from the viewpoint of having to do more with less. The last RPCV that came through remarked about how impressive Morocco's transportation infrastructure was in comparison to her host country, which allowed her to travel with relative ease throughout the entire country east to west and from one of the southernmost cities on edge of the Sahara in Zagora to the northernmost city in the country Tangiers sitting right on Mediterranean coast . She was also astounded by the great diversity of food that Morocco was blessed with. She had mentioned that for the majority of her service she had eaten maize (corn) almost everyday because that was the main staple that was available. Other vegetables and fruit showed up at the market only on an occasional basis. She said that it was tough at first, but then she got used to just eating to subsist. It's refreshing to hear these sorts of accounts because it is very easy to focus on the negative or the things that frustrate me about my host country and I forgets how lucky I really am. It puts things in context.
Some RPCVs after having traveled through Morocco question why volunteers are here in the first place. Compared to their countries of service, Morocco is the developed world. When I arrived here, I and all my Small Business and Youth Development stagemates stayed at a very fancy star-rated hotel in the heart of the capital. We had hot showers, internet, buffet-style meals, comfortable beds to sleep on, and a nice balcony to ponder about what lay ahead in the mysterious land of the far west. When I took a stroll around the capital walking down the famous Mohammed V Avenue, I was impressed by the landscaping, the cleanliness, the well-kept French-style administration buildings, and even just how the roads were marked and curbs were painted. My initial impression was that it appeared that Morocco seem to be in better order than my native Venezuela. If I was to simply visit Rabat, Casablanca, and other major Moroccan cities, I would come to the conclusion that Morocco is developed and doing quite well for itself. It makes sense for many RPCVs to question Peace Corps' role in such a country, not to mention that Peace Corps Morocco is the second largest program in the world with over 200 volunteers year-round. When I hear their stories and their comparisons, it makes me question my role.
I live in what is considered a semi-urban site. The population ranges from 50-70K. The city is blessed with a river that runs through it, which irrigates the many farms that surround the city, and heavy winter rains and an occasional snow that keep the city looking remarkably green. I have internet in my home, running water, and reliable electricity. When I signed up, I thought that I would be hauling my water, lighting candles at night, perhaps performing rain dances with the locals, and then coming up with some development scheme, with input from the community of course, that would aid my community in some noticeable way. When it comes to governance, I would have to say that the Fes-Bouleman Province may be an exception to the norm. In just two years, they widened and repaved the main roads of the city, refurbished the old city, installed brand new street lighting and Christmas-like lights all over town, and built a few new administrative centers for various delegations. Also, right now the road to Fes is being widened into a four-lane highway, which will make the 30 kilometers to Fes a breeze. The municipality and provincial government are producing results. A few of my fellow PCVs that have visited have said that I am indeed not in Peace Corps, but Posh Corps. At the start of service, I did feel as if my experience was not the true, genuine Peace Corps experience.
So it appeared that my community had a lot going for it. They had easy access to one of the biggest tourist markets in Fes, reliable communication services, decent roads, public and private schools, and a delegation that seemed to be improving their lot. I was also the fifth consecutive volunteer in this site. I thought, "After so many cycles of volunteers, shouldn't these artisans be at a point where they don't need our assistance? Was PC just scrambling for sites? Am I not going to be competing with what appeared to be a city with plenty of university educated young people who also happen to be unemployed?" With so many resources, I asked myself the existential question, "Why am I here?"
It wasn't until my language began to pick up that I began to understand my role. Once I got to talking with people about their life, their challenges, their history, and the work of previous volunteers, a need began to take shape. I took a couple of trips to Fes to check out the artisana markets to see how well my artisans fared against what seemed, at first glance, like a saturated market. The quality of their products was just as good if not better than most, but they weren't selling a whole lot. The coops that I spoke to had no problems producing a large number of items on demand so production and quality were not the problem. Despite being 30k south of Fes, our city did not see a steady flow of tourist. Those that do come don't always stop at the artisana so location is an issue, but I thought, "Why not sell in Fe?"
When I asked, several artisans in my artisana complex unanimously chimed in that doing so would undercut their gains significantly. They explained how Fassi, Rabati, or Cassawi bazzarists have a practice of lowering their purchasing price with every buying trip and then they turn around and sell the product supposedly at five to ten times the wholesale price to tourist. Some of the weaving cooperatives in the region were formed for the specific purpose of selling at a higher price collectively.
Furthermore, they were also worried that some of the big-city bazzarist could potentially steal their product ideas and have some other coop or artisan produce the item at a lower price. When asked about any trusted retailers, most said that they preferred to sell directly to a customer and not a middleman. It was startling to hear these accounts. There was so much distrust in their fellow Moroccans who were just 30k away.
If they weren't planning to sell to Fassi medina shops, who were they hoping to target? Each coop I spoke to hoped to target the foreign market and wealthy Moroccans who in some cases are émigrés living or working abroad. They say that foreigners are usually the ones that value their handmade work and pay the prices they feel the product warrants. They told me stories about different artisans or coops getting linked with clients in Europe and how much money they had made. These opportunities also led to trips to various expos abroad. I looked up some Moroccan artisana retailers in the U.S. and told them that it was possible to link them with the Moroccan owners, but upon suggesting this option, one of my artisans told me that he did not want to work with Moroccans abroad. He feared that they would exploit his goods just as the middlemen in Morocco. I was reminded once again that I needed to bypass the middlemen and find direct selling options. Now, I was confused. It's not just big-city bazzarists from Morocco that they were afraid of, but Moroccan bazzarists in general or maybe just other Moroccans in general? Hmm.
Well, feeling the need to get going on something I endeavored to improve the marketing of a few individual artisans and one coop. Some friends with some fine cameras passed through my town and were gracious enough to take hundreds of product shots that I then cropped and modified for a catalog, website, and other marketing materials. A previous volunteer had done a similar project compiling products from all artisans at the artisana and of other PCV sites. The catalog ended up being a whopping 25MB in size even after compression. I wasn’t even going to attempt something of that scale; instead, I decided to focus on one particular cooperative.
I began work on an English-language website for the
Cherry Buttons Cooperative. We first set up a number of services like
Box.net, a few Picasa Web Albums, Google Docs,
Skype, and opened a
Wordpress account. I walked my counterpart through most of the services. She began to use Skype immediately alerting her son in
Belgium to do the same. He installed it and from then on he became a fixture of our daily
casse-croûte (evening snack). My counterpart would call just as they were about to start. They watched each other pour their tea, expressed how much they missed one another, and then spoke about their respective days. It was cool to see how this technology brought the family closer. For the Wordpress site, I interviewed Amina a couple of times and then spoke to past volunteers to get some content. We then launched it just before her departure in late June to the 2009
Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. I was happy to be busy, but the nagging question of sustainability was in the back of my mind the entire time.
I knew that a PCV or an English-speaking person would need to be responsible for the English version of the site, but I was hoping that with a French site I could begin to train someone on how to update, maintain, and respond to the inquiries that the site was generating. With the help of Fouzia Chkar, a very intelligent and talented interpreter, we translated the English text to French and then we launched a French language version,
Boutons de Cerises, of the same site in December 2009. Fast-forwarding to September 2010, both the English and French sites were generating inquiries, but Amina had no one to respond to them. I sat down with her from time to time to go through the emails, which ranged from questions about prices, availability, production, shipping, the djellaba button-learning class we advertised, and about the coop's community outreach programs and trainings, but we often respond late because of schedule conflicts or lack of an internet connection or a working computer in her home. From the moment I began the project, I asked Amina to recruit someone that would have the time to be trained on everything I had done, but for a number of reasons, she was unable to. The website has the potential to do as requested, to reduce the dependence on a middleman, but without the administrative organizational structure, it's very hard to see it progressing.
For all the bad talk the artisana middlemen get, they play a vital role in the Moroccan economy. My artisan community only point to the large gains made by the bazzarist, but fails to understand the underlying reason. Most middlemen have as their lifeblood a network of producers, retailers, wholesalers, and direct buyers. They recognize the value of building a clientele, whereas most of my artisans are only concerned about making the present day sale. The smart Fassi middlemen creates a welcoming environment in his shop and invites you to tea to find out if your friends, family, or colleagues could be potential clients as well. They have control of at least 3-4 languages. They can speak Tamazight to their producers, Darija to their Moroccan colleagues, French, Spanish, or English to the tourists that pass by, and correspond in French or Fusha with international clients. In addition to being fluent in 3-4 languages, some are also tech literate. In contrast, within the artisan community, the illiteracy figure has to be above 60% (Here's an article on a recent move by the Moroccan government to eradicate illiteracy, "
New literacy agency will target Moroccan women, rural dwellers"). If it wasn't for the bazzarist, artisanal products wouldn't move in Morocco.
When President Kennedy issued the call to establish the Peace Corps, it was with the intention of sending men and women to countries seeking technical and development assistance. In Morocco, I don't think this really applies. I don't think Morocco lacks in technical expertise; it's just that the majority have left or are leaving the rural areas for the big cities. There is certainly a need in my town for assistance, but it is partly due to the flight of young people or brain drain to Fes and other big cities. One of the reasons why my counterpart is unable to find a recruit is because that individual is likely to find a better paying or more prestigious job in the big city. Some of the young men nearing marrying age in my town have said to me that they have little time to do unpaid NGO activities. They're thinking about landing a secure job and accumulating some capital to build a nice nest for their future family. In my opinion, the technical expertise--although I think it could be fine-tuned a bit--is already here; it's just not in many of our sites.
My counterpart is not alone in this pursuit for talent.
Even the government has problems keeping rural schools staffed. Part of the reason why rural schools are understaffed stems from the misguided attempt to import help from the cities rather than to develop it locally. Also, it could very well be that those students from the country, after getting a taste of the big city, vow never to return. The Maghrebia article goes on to speak about the hardships the families endure being separated. It also should note that another reason why teachers leave is due to the shoddy infrastructure in many rural sites. Taking someone from a cosmopolitan city like
Rabat or
Casablanca and then placing them somewhere where running water and electricity are a luxury can be a shock for many. These city-slickers can feel just as isolated from the community as a foreigner. Ironically, I've heard of some cases where the PCV who has been living in the community for some time is one of the individuals that helps the urbanite integrate and in some instances serves as a translator for the university-educated Moroccan who's been exposed to French and English, but never to a Berber dialect like Tamazight. Many Moroccans who take rural posts are doing so knowing that their appointment is temporary and much like volunteers begin to count the days till the end of their service when they may be relocated closer to family or to a more urban location. I believe that as long as infrastructure developments lag in the rural parts of the country, the cities will only continue to sprawl, the youth will continue to migrate to the cities, and the human capital will continue to go where it can yield the highest return.
This urban and rural divide is not unique to
Morocco; it seems that many developing countries face the same dilemma, but why is this the case? Not long ago, I read an interesting account of how development funds from the World Bank, IMF, and other large loan-making organizations were issued to developing countries.
John Perkins, a fellow RPCV, in his
Confessions of An Economic Hitman
shares hist personal story as that of a self-described ‘Economic Hitman’ who traversed the world selling massive development projects to Third World countries for the purpose of putting these countries in debt holes they would never be able to climb out of. He spoke of projects that were often constructed without a proper environmental assessment or without any consideration for those who would be displaced. He also said that it was quite often the countries’ urban business elite or foreign companies that benefited the most from the projects reaping windfall profits from the expansion of the industries they already controlled. From his insider’s account, it appears that the development schemes are also in the hands of middlemen/women. Some of these middlemen/women proposed development schemes that would increase the energy supply of the cities so that the urban factories could expand production at the expense of building a dam that destroyed the fishing and agriculture of the people living downstream. If infrastructure is largely a government initiative, could it be that the development monies whether through foreign loans or tax revenues are also being hijacked by urban middlemen/women who are widening the divide?
Diverting resources is not the only way to hijack development funds. Middlemen/women can also siphon funds through legal and illegal means.
Corruption is a muskil kbir (big problem) in Morocco. In a country where the illiteracy rate is well above 50% in the countryside, it’s likely that only a few people understand where the money is going and how it’s been applied; the majority is completely clueless. Abdelrrahim El Ouali shares similar views in his article for Inter Press Services titled "
Morocco on a slow march to literacy". The illiteracy rate is even higher for women so it’s likely that a female’s point of view is missing. When it comes to development dollars, it is quite easy to overstate expenses to a grant-making NGO that is on another hemisphere and that likely does not have enough on-the-ground experience to scrutinize the accounting or the delivery of the goods or project. Mr. Perkins is skeptical of the development schemes that are drawn up in boardrooms of the big grant and loan-making organizations for the very reason that quite often those development dollars or loans do raise GNP and per capita income, but in some cases do more to exacerbate poverty and, I would add, to displace people leading to the creation of large urban ghettos, favelas, and barrios.
So where do some volunteers fit in the large scheme of things? During our Pre-Service Training, we were handed a big, thick yellow manual titled
Roles of Volunteers in Development along with our
Participatory Analysis for Community Action (PACA) tool book that attempted to clarify the Peace Corps mission. Our program staff provided us with some insight of the artisana sector and previous volunteers shared their successes and challenges. One thing that we were told repeatedly was that our role was not that of someone that should be doing the work for the community, but rather enabling the community to carry out the work. We were told that we should view our role as a facilitator, someone that brings people and resources together.
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| Amina and Kawtar of Réseau d'Initiative des Femmes Marocaines |
After a few months in site and after conducting some preliminary community assessments, a large number of volunteers realized how much power the middlemen/women had and decided to do something to balance the gains. Our method to diminish the power and control was to empower our artisans with information, trainings, financial resources, and if need be, to serve as a middleman/woman ourselves.
My counterpart has benefited from these trainings and financial resources. She said that the first volunteer, a fluent French speaker, helped her improve her conversational French tremendously, which opened other doors of opportunity. When volunteers approached her about working on
Camp GLOW, she was smart to know that one thing could lead to another. This willingness to help led to meetings with prominent women business owners, gestures of goodwill from politicians seeking the support of her members, and an overall expansion of her business network. She's been to the
U.S. twice to participate in the 2009 and 2010
Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. Through her masterful networking skills and because of her eagerness to learn, she has been able to cut out the middlemen from her business. She doesn't rely on others for invites to various expos; she gets invited personally. Had we not been there to provide the assistance (free-of-charge to her, but at the U.S. Treasury’s expense), I doubt she would have had this much success in such a short period time. Her coop still faces many challenges as any typical business does. Nonetheless, she's a great example of how grassroots development can take root in a community.
Volunteers across different sectors in health, environment, and youth development serve as facilitators as well. Many have organized health screenings and AIDS awareness campaigns and testings, have brought resources to improve irrigation or plant trees, or to support a local short-film festival, or have invited people versed in women’s rights to educate women on the recent changes to the
family code (Moudawana). This year’s
Camp GLOW was another good example of facilitators at work. I and a few other volunteers worked to secure funding for the organizing association. Once I linked the primary sponsor with the association, I stepped aside. The accounting and the logistics were in the hands of the association. The event had some successes and pitfalls. Despite going over budget, by managing the bookkeeping this time around they also learned how to price future camps more accurately and the association is now more aware of funding opportunities for future camps. I believe these efforts by various volunteers however big or small are making a difference.
In Morocco, PCVs are going against the tide. When a lot of young people are looking to move to the big city for university studies and work, volunteers are going the other way. When a lot of young people are looking to improve their French, Spanish, English, or Fusha to enter into a prestigious school or improve their employment opportunities, volunteers are learning the colloquial Arabic or Tamazight dialects. When a lot of Moroccan youth aspire to go to Europe or the U.S. to study, for employment, or better living conditions, a lot of us go to some of the most remote sites to endure the bitter cold, sweltering heat, blackout prone electricity, polluted water, stinky Turkish toilets, parasites, leaky roofs, and a host of other inconveniences that are normally not part of the climate-controlled and sanitized European and U.S. American lifestyle.
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Most business meetings are preceded or followed
by a food-coma inducing meal |
My mother shares many of the same sentiments that many Moroccans articulate. They ask, “Why would you leave the comforts of the U.S. to live in a sub-developed country and why would you leave your salaried job for an unpaid one?” Before I arrived to Morocco, I used to tell everyone, not knowing exactly what I was getting into and in true Peace Corps idealism, that I was going there to do my part to help people in whatever corner of the world I was sent to. Now with two years into my Moroccan small business development experience, I tell people that I’m doing my best to bridge the urban and rural divide. When I explain to my Moroccan friends what I do, I say something like, “Ana bHal kantara bin nas mn medina kbira wlla mn l-xarij ou bin nas f l3arobia”, which in my choppy Darija literally translates to 'I like bridge (kantara can also mean harmony) between people from big city or from abroad and people from the country'. To which they respond, “Oh, so like a middleman, right?” Right, but an unpaid one. Upon hearing this, they say meskin (poor thing) and then they offer me some lunch. I may not make money by linking people with resources, but I have had my share of couscous bribes. Fortunately, until the infrastructure rolls in, I and other PCVs will continue to be the beneficiaries of this lopsided ordeal. All I can say to all that are lucky to be chosen for this post is to enjoy it while you can.
, which chronicled the evolution of Abrahamic faiths. Ms. Armstrong’s detailed account of the birth, expansion, inner struggles, outside influences, and future challenges of each of the three Abrahamic faiths helped me understand the context in which the divine scriptures were written and how over the centuries different people in different regions with different influences read or heard the scriptures, which helped them determine a course of action for their lives and the lives of others. Several years before coming to Morocco and before I even applied to the Peace Corps, a dear mentor of mine recommended Ms. Armstrong’s 
, which documented the interaction between East and West and Christianity and Islam crusade by crusade. These two books gave me a lot of great insight and also gave me more of an impetus to continue learning. 
. This book was written shortly after 9/11 in the hopes of creating an interfaith dialogue and to counter the media’s negative portrayals of his faith. It’s a contrast to Armstrong who as a religious historian attempts to remain objective in her narrative. Nasr makes no excuses about what he believes and has little regard for the work of Enlightenment scholars who first attempted to describe his faith. In fact, in his preface he goes on to say that the Age of Enlightenment was “an age of the darkening of the soul and eclipse of the intellect”. Like Armstrong, he compares and contrasts various passages in the Torah, Bible, and Qur’an to show how the scriptures resemble one another. He counters the media critics who allege that Islam is a violent religion or that it supposedly endorses violence by pointing to other verses in the Qur’an that speak of tolerance, forgiveness, and peace.
, a book that supposedly is banned in 
