Eid Mubarak! This week marked the end of Ramadan; culturally, the end of Ramadan seems to be akin to Thanksgiving in the US, and in terms of religious importance, the end of Ramadan is kind of like Easter. Not a perfect comparison of course, but it gives you an idea.
This week, I didn’t have any work because officially, Eid happened on Wednesday—it’s kind of like the week of Thanksgiving or the week between Christmas and New Year’s except no one really worked at all. Technically, Eid is “only supposed” to last for a couple of days, but the government has the authority to extend the holiday. A lot of people travel for Eid, but a lot stay in their communities. Regardless, Eid is a time for Moroccans to officially break the fast and spend time with family members.
Religious Moroccan holidays can be somewhat of a mixed bag for PCVs depending on the vibe of your site. A lot of my friends at smaller sites have been running around all week to various people’s homes, but that hasn’t really been the case for me.
On one hand, this is kind of disheartening—it can make you feel like you’re not doing something right because it feels like “everyone else” is enjoying Eid at their sites. However, at my site specifically, as I’ve written about before, my experience has been heavily influenced by the consistent European tourism, and Eid is no exception.
The tourism means that just about everyone I’ve met at my site is a) accustomed to having foreigners around and b) at least mildly aware of the fact that foreign tourists come from a different culture. As a result, I think I’m able to have a little more leeway in terms of what I do on a daily basis, but it also means that generally, people at my site have been very chill with the idea of me doing my own thing.
It’s a happy medium most of the time: I speak Arabic and know a lot of people in town so I have more clout than a tourist, but I’m also not the first blonde person in a baseball hat they’ve seen walking around. This doesn’t mean it’s okay for me to run around in a tank top and shorts—especially given that I work with younger kids and the older women in my community tend to be much more conservative—but it does mean that I’m afforded a degree of independence that isn’t necessarily the case in smaller sites.
However, since people are accustomed to me doing my own thing the other 363 days of the year, I’m not fielding breakfast and lunch invites all day for holidays. Instead, it means a lot of WhatsApp messages between me, my older students, and others I’ve met, wishing them a happy Eid. At first I was a little disappointed and felt like I had done something wrong to be in this situation (I’ve written about miskina culture in the past), but then I also took a step back and remembered that the situation actually makes sense given the amount of independence I’m afforded the rest of the year.
I also think there may be a correlation between a community’s familiarity with Peace Corps and what happens on Eid. I say this because a good friend of mine—who lives in a smaller site nearby—was also in a similar situation this week. Our sites are very different in many ways, but her site is a brand new Peace Corps site and mine hasn’t had a volunteer since 2005. Other sites, both big and small, have consistently had volunteers for years pre- and now post-covid, and are very accustomed to the PCV’s role and having them as a community member.
Therefore, it’s not great to play the “comparison game” with other volunteers, as this illustrates that the contexts for our sites vary widely across the country. It’s a very different situation for a small site that has had a volunteer for 10+ years compared to a brand-new small site or even a larger site that hasn’t had a volunteer in a while. This all goes to show that everybody’s experience is different (and means that you should take my blog with a grain of salt).
At the end of the day, I’m very happy with the fact that the culture at my site lets me be relatively independent, and feeling a little lonely on a Moroccan religious holiday is a small price to pay. I’ve been taking the extra time to do my own thing and catch up on some longer-term to-do items.
This week I also wanted to share some of my latest media-related favorites; “doing my own thing” of course includes quite a bit of… content consumption.
Books:
- I’m really enjoying the original Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn, which was the basis for the Netflix adaptation. They’re easy reads and Quinn has made a great effort to write in a very unique plotline into each, but also mentioning the other plotlines just enough to create cohesion throughout the series.
- Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe is my top nonfiction book for the year so far. Absolutely fascinating read that brings to light a lot of the issues with Purdue Pharma that never made the news.
- The Firm by John Grisham is a book I probably wouldn’t have gravitated toward on my own, but the plot just kept on giving and giving. Surprisingly, “lawyer thriller” may be a new favorite subgenre.
- Paris: The Memoir by Paris Hilton. This book gets better as it goes on and honestly gave me a lot of context for Paris’s platform these days. Definitely worth a read, especially if you’ve never looked into why she keeps showing up on Capitol Hill every other month.
Podcasts:
- Maintenance Phase with Michael Hobbes and Aubrey Gordon: I’ve been listening to back episodes, and they talk about and debunk the more questionable wellness and diet fads that have perpetuated American culture since the 80s. Super funny, but also super informative—I’ve found that I really enjoy learning about historical and cultural contexts from the 90s and aughts and this is no exception.
- Normal Gossip with Kelsey McKinney: I’m someone who can’t stand celebrity gossip but loves an insane story, so this fills the void. Every episode consists of a wild morsel of gossip submitted from a listener—a “friend of a friend”—and Kelsey walks through it with a fun guest every week.
Screen Time:
- I’m really into Arrested Development and am slowly working my way through the older seasons. An underrated absurdist gem for those who lived under a rock for a time (me).
- The most recent season of Worst Cooks in America basically has a bunch of spoiled nepo babies. Fantastic entertainment that made me feel surprisingly competent and creative in my bare-bones Morocco kitchen.
Music:
- Djesse Vol. 4 by Jacob Collier: I have been a Jacob fan since his first album and when his main platform was Youtube. This is his best work yet, and to borrow from one of his Instagram comments, “Bro assembled the avengers.” It’s not often you can get Shawn Mendes, Brandi Carlile and Madison Cunningham on the same album and make it work.
- I have to acknowledge Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter: It’s fantastic. I love that she includes up-and-coming Black country artists but also brings in Miley Cyrus, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. I also love that it’s kind of its own genre. Give it a listen if you haven’t already.
Anyway, that’s all from me this week! As always, more to come.
Anna Weber 