Going Against What Nature Intended: Surviving Two Winters in the Maghreb

When I first heard from my Peace Corps recruiter that I had the choice of either central Asia or Morocco, I thought, "Hmm, do I want to freeze my butt in a Stan country or toast in the desert of Morocco?"  I decided to go for the heat.

I've never enjoyed the cold other than a day or two in the winter when the snow falls and everything looks squeaky clean with that fresh blanket of snow, but then that image is quickly ruined when a big semi-truck passes turning that fresh coat of white into dark, gray slush.  I also enjoyed creating softball size snowballs and hurling them at family and friends when they least expected it.  Other than that, winter for me has been about hibernating until the depression-inducing, gray overcast skies cede their control to the serotonin-reviving warm sun.  So when I got to Morocco in late August of 2008 and feeling the hot sun on my face, I felt I had made the right decision.  Little did I know what was ahead of me.

Living in Indiana, I endured a number of insane blizzards and temperatures that would make my nostrils freeze every time I would breathe.  Temperature-wise and as far as blizzards are concerned, Morocco pales in comparison.  This year, for example, my town got maybe two light coats of snow that disappeared within a day or two and it only got to about freezing a few times during the course of the entire winter.  However, I must say that this last winter was by far the worst winter I have ever endured.  It was a true test of wills.

Of course other volunteers deep into the Atlas Mountains had it much harder, but perhaps some of my lighter-skinned fellow volunteers of European descent have a genetic disposition that is better able to deal with the cold.  I know for a fact that I'm not made for cold weather.  Both my parents are from Venezuela.  They are descendants of generations and generations of tropical climate dwellers.  Their genes are specifically designed to weather the year-round hot sun and humidity coming from our dense Amazonian jungle forests and the always balmy Caribbean waters.  When my family decided to make the move to El Norte, the grand U.S.A., they did so for economic reasons not because they enjoyed wearing several layers to the point where they resembled the March of Penguins.  When I was born, I lived in the States for a couple of years, but then I returned to my parents' natural habitat.  For 8 years, I thrived in my natural habitat.  My melanin rich milk chocolate skin fended off the harsh sun hardly ever encountering sun burns.  Also, when the heat was stifling, my internal temperature controls turned on the boosters generating more sweat to cool me off.  I was in sync with my environment.

Then, our family decided to move back the good ol' US of A.  We moved to Oklahoma where the winters were relatively mild.  We lived there for a number of years before our family decided to continue the migration northward despite my many objections.  Once again, economic reasons took precedence over my need to live in a warmer habitat.  In Indiana, I endured five long winters.  Not wanting to endure another, I left for the sun-drenched coast of South Florida.  Sometimes I think it was my inner evolutionary survival of the species voice speaking to my subconscious urging me to return to a more favorable environment.

So in August of 2008 fast forwarding to Morocco, my internal temperature controls were functioning in proper form once again in the hot sun of Morocco, but this moment of comfort would soon be a cherished memory.  Our larger training group was divided into smaller sub-groups, which would then leave the urban Azrou valley to smaller rural villages deep into the Middle Atlas Mountains.  The day I arrived to my CBT site it rained.  I thought nothing of it.  Having seen what appeared to be an arid and parched countryside on my way there, I was happy that the rain had come.   Then, little by little the temperatures began to decline, and out of preservation I began to add one layer after another of whatever clothing would restore my body temperature to its homeostasis.  Little did I know, that was the start to what would be some of the toughest months of service.

We were told in training how cold it would get in Morocco, but not how the cold plays out in Morocco.  What do I mean by that?  Well, in the U.S., the temperatures go down and every household spoiled by the comforts of central heating makes a degree adjustment to the thermometer so that it can restore the house temperature to an optimal temperature where you can lounge in your home in a t-shirt as if there was no winter at all.  In Morocco, the realities of winter are ever present.  Your home, which should be your refuge, becomes an ice box because it is generally colder inside than the outside temperature.  In the winter, I turn off my refrigerator because my house is sufficiently cold.  My all-cement walls absorb the moisture of the cold rain and snow and cool my home to a cold-to-the-bone 40-45F.  You may think that 40F is not quite so bad given that I've endured below zero temperatures in Indiana, but I never worked, ate, and slept in 40 degrees day in and day out without any relief in sight.

My body, feeling out of sync with this environment, pleaded for the temporary and necessary comforts of the hammam (Turkish steam bath houses).  During homestay, I frequented the hammam more than the locals.  I was told that I would get sick by going so often.  I did not care.  The hammam transported me to my early childhood in Venezuela where just sitting outside would produce fat beads of sweat from my sweat-drenched head or to my many days laying out on the South Florida beaches and taking in the warm mist of the ocean--I also closed my eyes and reminisced often to avoid having to watch scruffy men scrubbing their privates.  While my host family members went only once or at most twice a week, I went every other day.  The hammam was my savior throughout my first winter in Morocco.

My first winter was easier to manage because not until late January was I responsible for a number of chores.  Most of the winter of 08-09 I was chilling with my host family who took care of washing my clothes and dishes.  I said thank you to my host mother for doing these things for me, but what I should have been doing was kissing her feet in utter gratitude.  I stated in an earlier blog how I plan to incorporate the Moroccan-style one-dish-serves-all tradition into my dining routine in order to rid myself of the burden of washing dishes.  Well, in the winter, washing dishes is the equivalent of dipping your arms and hands repeatedly in a fishing hole in a frozen lake bed.  You could boil water, but then you're using precious buta gas reserved for cooking.

The same applies to washing your clothes.  I remember staring long and hard at the wash bin where my clothes soaked for hours as I procrastinated and procrastinated the task of giving my clothes a few turns and a few swishes in and out of the water that I was told were necessary to ensure a decent wash.  As you can imagine, the swishing and turning became less and less important the colder it got and I began to place more faith in the magical disinfecting, cleaning powers of stationary soaking.  I became a full believer in the Tide commercials that showed how a simple application of the detergent would miraculously whisk away all impurities leaving the fabric white as new.  These two simple chores were put off until there was no option, but to confront it.  I braced myself and let out a few obscenities before digging in and shivering my way through it.

As soon as I learned that I was to be placed in a site at the foothills of the Middle Atlas Mountains, I immediately called my parents and asked them to send me all my wool, fleece, and UnderArmor that I had left behind.  Last year, October was a two garment month, November three, and December four, January and February 5 or 6 with a coat on, and then gradually in mid-March I began shedding the layers until I was back to one in mid April.  This year, October and November were warm except for a shower or two that would bring a bit of cold, but I was mostly in long sleeves.  Then, December announced the start of winter in the form of a series of  blustery and rainy days, and I'll never forget the howling of the winds made as they  funneled through my makeshift windows and doors.  In January, the rains fell persistently and temperatures plummeted.  February brought little reprieve as it continued to pour and kept my home at a steady 45-50F.  Now in late March, my house sits at a cool 62F.  I still have three layers on, but I feel liberated.


Some interesting things happen at 45-50F that I never saw before in the States.  I could see myself breathing at all times inside my home.  Whenever I decided to torture myself by taking a bucket bath despite the cold emanating from the walls, I could see the warm water evaporating from my skin creating an aura of steam all around me.  I just needed a light behind me and it would have looked like a scene from Close Encounters.  With the temperatures hovering over 40F degrees, it is impossible to dry your clothes unless the sun makes a rare and brief appearance.  At the sign of sun, you lay out your clothes strategically on the clothes line so that the sun's rays can hopefully get your clothes from wet to damp (the picture shows my steaming pants under the sun's rays).

If you suffer from bad circulation to your extremities, the joints to your feet and hands can begin to swell up in response to the cold.  Because my fingers were numbed by the cold, I was unable to type for any extended period of time.  Because the thought of the cold pervaded my mind, my work productivity slowed to a grinding halt at times and then sputtered along just enough to meet the most pressing of deadlines.

I never thought that in coming to Morocco that I would be camping for almost three months out of the year inside my own home.  Granted, I'm not sleeping outside exposed to the elements, but for roughly three months sleeping inside my sleeping bag was the only way to rest in comfort during the long, cold nights.  In the process of going to sleep, you had to master the art of zen meditation both to forget how cold it was and to help you remain completely still because moving an inch in your sleeping bag could potentially lead to the escape of what my bag's manual called convection heat (air that has been warmed inside my bag) that needs to remain trapped in order to preserve any level of comfort.  Trapping convection heat became the task of utmost importance.

When I cooked, I took advantage of the heat generated by the stove by "huddling around fire" and singing kumbaya, placing my hands around pots and pans until they were uncomfortably hot, and even inserting a warm toasting pan within my layers of clothing.  Indoor camping activities were limited to reading and thoughtful film criticism of the best movies of 2007, 2008, and 2009, all five seasons of The Wire, the first two seasons of The Office, and the best documentaries of 2009 just to name a few.

The Hills Come Alive

I felt guilty at first that I was not writing, researching, or meeting my artisans as often as I had done in the past, but when I did go to see my artisans, they too were laid out, wrapped up like mummies catching the latest Mexican soap opera dubbed in darija or chain movie-watching anything that came through their cable movie channels.  My artisan would ask me, "Wes shbeti sta? (Are you full/fed up with the rain?"  To which I responded with a resounding, "Iyeh, kayna sta bzzef ou l-brrd saib (there's a lot of rain and cold is rough)".  When any reference to the rain was made, most Moroccans would say with gusto, "L-hamdullah (thanks be to God)!"

This praise to God for the rain took me by surprise at first.  In the states, we seem to look down on rainy days.  They can be such an inconvenience and forget all the bumper to bumper traffic that is bound to come up.  However, in a country that is at the edge of the Sahara trying to prevent the expansion of that barren wilderness, the rain is welcomed and greeted with praises.  So on those rainy and cold days, people hunker down.  Acting in a culturally-sensitive manner not wanting to alter my artisan's routine, I joined her family in watching the latest prime time Mexican soap opera, Margarita, and gladly drank their mint tea.

Back in the states, I took for granted the central heating that was everywhere.  Sometimes I would only wear a t-shirt under my coat because some places would jack their thermometer well over 80F.  In Morocco, the saying goes that the only thing that is kept warm in the winter and cold in the summer is money.  Hearing this, I, from time to time, visited a few local banks, picked up a number to be able to speak to one of the bank consultants, would befriend some people by offering them my soon-to-be-called number for their number so I could continue to chill in the lobby basking in the central heating, and then when the security staff became suspicious, I always remembered that I needed to go somewhere else or acted lost and confused.  The bank was the only place that was humming with productivity.  Until that point, I never really gave much thought to how much the infrastructure of central heating can affect an economy.

Heating thyself

I could have made it easier on myself by purchasing a heating device that would fall under the generous 800DH($100) Peace Corps offers as reimbursement.  Looking back, I still have mixed feelings about getting a heater.  The two options available in Morocco are your electric radiator type or the butane gas heated ceramic plates type.  The butane gas heater is the cheapest, but also the most dangerous.  As you know, in order to have any sort of combustion, you need oxygen in the mix.  In the winter, in order to prevent the cold winds from invading your home, you naturally close all your windows firmly.  As soon as you turn on the butane gas heater though, the fire begins to eat up the oxygen in the room.  If you are not careful about ventilating the room by say opening a window, you could suffocate from a lack of oxygen.  Because a number of deaths are attributed to these heaters every year, several Moroccan TV stations run public service announcements every winter reminding citizens to ventilate the room and not to fall asleep while the heater is in operation .  The second option is the much safer electric radiator heater, which uses a kilowatt of energy a minute.  My former site mate told me that he once received a bill for nearly 500DH (a little over $60).  This may not be a lot in dollar terms, but in Peace Corps salary terms, 500DH is a quarter of our paycheck.  Preferring to forgo the risk of asphyxiation and to save my dirhams for future travel, I decided to tough it out.

If I could do it all over again, I think I would buy that heater and buy myself a water heater as well.  It is an investment in your sanity.  Some volunteers and some of the Moroccans I work with have asked me if I have considered extending my service for another year to which I reply, "No, because I would for sure go insane."  Some think that I'm referring to how difficult it may be living in Morocco, but I'm mainly thinking about how much I miss the warm sun and humidity of the tropics and how staying in Morocco would simply be going against what nature intended.