From City to Village

Yesterday was the best day so far - We went to a small village about an half hour out of the Medina between Marrakesh and Safi .  It had a completely different feel than the city of Marrakesh, one that I really, really loved.

Katera (I am not sure of the spelling) is a small mining town, the silver mines closed down 20 years ago but the families who established their homes stayed.  Rabha, one of Dr. Helfman's MEPI (Middle Eastern Partnership Initiative) students, lives with her husband, who is a police officer, in the village.  She is originally from Fes but moved to Katera four months ago.  She is truly an amazing women.  Her civic engagement project is to get women and girls of the village to work and make a life for themselves.  She explained that girls only go to school until 8th grade and then they sit at home with nothing to do just waiting for a husband.  Most of them are illiterate and the only hospital they have in the town is one for childbirth.  With the help of the community, she started a club that has girls sew traditional outfits, make crafts like vases and little jewelery boxes, and learn to read and write. They are also hoping to be able to offer medical assistance eventually - they had their first two cases recently.  We got to meet the whole community, everyone was so welcoming and wanted to take pictures of us and with us.  We also were able to visit the building of the organization and see the women and girls in action.  Not only did we visit, but we also helped plant trees and paint metal bars that will eventually be swing sets - they are creating a playground for the children.  I met a wonderful girl named Maryam she is 18 and works on making many of the beautiful crafts (I bought one from her).  She was so kind and showed Hanna and I around even helped us try on some of the traditional dresses, it was fun :)  Rabha made us a traditional Moroccan lunch - it was soooo delicious!  There were three different kinds of tangines which are dishes of cooked vegetables and sometimes have chicken in them and the one even had cooked grapes yum!  There was couscous and salads and this yummy herb mixture that tasted fabulous on bread.  After lunch and painting and exploring we went back to Rabha's house for tea and deserts (she spent a whole day preparing, until 1am and woke up at 4am the day we met her...crazy!).  There was also a band there with crazy music, dancing, and yelling, it was so fun!  I would love to help Rabha when we get home by helping the ladies' sell their crafts in the US.

I was going to post two videos but they are taking too long to upload so I'll put them on asap.

Love,
Lauren