So my handoff of couscous in the London airport made news in Canada! Here's the link to the radio show that features an interview with Kate, the woman I sold couscous to in London at the end of April.
http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2009/05/episode-78-may-20-23-2009/
The part about our couscous starts a little before halfway through the show if you want to skip over the other random (and less interesting, I'm sure) stories.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
El Karma Couscous, the Famous International Brand
True to my suitcase-of-couscous traveling style, I packed about four times as much couscous as clothes and toiletries for my trip back to the states. I had arranged a hand-off in the
So I can check “export couscous” off my list of things to accomplish during my two years here. That made lugging a heavy suitcase across
Check out Kate’s side of the story on her website: http://www.feraltrade.org/cgi-bin/package/2package.pl?action=format_waybill&edit_id=1483
Another case of an abrupt change of plans, mid-stride:
This afternoon I was on my way to my tutor’s house after lunch for our normal Thursday afternoon tutoring session, walking along, making a mental list of topics to cover with her. Up pulls a truck with one of my (many) “uncles”, offering me a ride for the 200 yards or so to my tutor’s house. Those 200 meters were enough to convince me not to go to Hanane’s house, but instead go with them on some mission to this place where they dig paint up out of the ground, grind it and sell it. They assured me it would be a short and super fun field trip that would only take an hour and I could just go to tutoring late.
Five hours later, I’d:
Climbed this mountain (and then slid all the way down it while all the men watched.)
Colored on myself with this freshly-dug up paint.
Traipsed over a plateau to find and hang out in this nomad camp.
Where we ate this guy’s (“the cheese man”) freshly-made cheese. I wasn’t a huge fan of it – a little too goopy for me. .
Gained a whole lot of respect for this river-fording, mountain-climbing, sheep-swerving, bush-whacking car.
And discovered that views like these exist only a short harrowing hour drive away from my village:
Five hours later, I’d:
Climbed this mountain (and then slid all the way down it while all the men watched.)
Colored on myself with this freshly-dug up paint.
Traipsed over a plateau to find and hang out in this nomad camp.
Where we ate this guy’s (“the cheese man”) freshly-made cheese. I wasn’t a huge fan of it – a little too goopy for me. .
Gained a whole lot of respect for this river-fording, mountain-climbing, sheep-swerving, bush-whacking car.
And discovered that views like these exist only a short harrowing hour drive away from my village:
Dance, Monkey!
My host mother and the other women in the village never get tired of watching me try to dance Moroccan style. I try not to be offended when they’re like, “Dance!” and then I get up and dance for them, while they all fall out of their chairs laughing at me. This happens almost every time my host mother has guests over. I tell myself I'm the comedian and not the laughing stock of the village.
Mmmm... hedgehog
The other night I was on my way to my house, looking forward to a quiet evening with a book or maybe a movie, when I was intercepted by one of the neighbor boys, excitedly trying to show me something he was carrying in the pitch blackness. Turned out to be a hedgehog, which I think I’ve decided might be the cutest animal in this country. I’d never seen a hedgehog run – their tiny little feet are so comical and cartoon-looking.
Look at how freaking cute he is:
And it turns out the hedgehog is known as the smartest animal here. I got to hear all the hedgehog tales, of hedgehogs killing lions, and how hedgehogs have one and a half brains. But I guess this one wasn’t smart enough to outwit my neighbors - we ate him for lunch yesterday!
Look at how freaking cute he is:
And it turns out the hedgehog is known as the smartest animal here. I got to hear all the hedgehog tales, of hedgehogs killing lions, and how hedgehogs have one and a half brains. But I guess this one wasn’t smart enough to outwit my neighbors - we ate him for lunch yesterday!
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Should I Change my Title from “Traveling Couscous Salesman” to “Travel Agent”?
A couple of weeks ago I was going to Fes for a Peace Corps meeting, and beforehand I took orders for couscous from the Peace Corps office in Rabat so I could bring them couscous. I packed my rolling suitcase full of bags of couscous (about 50 pounds of it) and lugged it across the country, onto and off of half of dozen modes of transportation and up and down several flights of stairs and all around a not-very-roller-suitcase-friendly city to make the hand-off to the Peace Corps staff that had come for the meeting. And after that whole ordeal, I realized that the profit for the Association came to about $5. I discovered that I would have rather just given the Association $5 instead of struggling with that ridiculously heavy suitcase. That was the moment I decided that there was no way couscous could be our answer to the development of our village. It just isn't worth the hassle.
And so I made the executive decision to enter the tourism industry. I linked up with an American travel agent in Ifrane, a city a few hours away, who organizes tours for small groups of Americans coming to Morocco on vacation. The week of our meeting she had some tourists coming through who wanted to do a cooking lesson, and as luck would have it, her normal cooking lesson man in Fes was going to be out of town. So I offered to bring one of the women of the Association to Ifrane and we would lead a couscous-rolling and couscous-cooking lesson for these two American tourists. The president of the Association was a great sport and trusted me enough to come along even though she probably had no idea what was really going to happen, just that we were going to be cooking couscous in the house of a family we didn’t know, in some other town, for random people we’d never met.
Except for a couple of small kinks (one of the tourists was feeling sick and couldn’t really eat anything, and the woman whose kitchen we were using insisted on hovering over us telling us we were doing everything all wrong), I think it went well. And the profit we took home from that was more than we would get by selling 300 kilos of couscous.
The next month is going to be a busy one. . . two girls coming this Monday for a cooking lesson, and then two groups of tourists coming in May to have lunch in Khoukhate, and then maybe a group of study abroad students for a weekend; and I’ll be in the states at a wedding in the middle of all this. So much for thinking I’d have lots of time in the Peace Corps to read books and write letters.
And so I made the executive decision to enter the tourism industry. I linked up with an American travel agent in Ifrane, a city a few hours away, who organizes tours for small groups of Americans coming to Morocco on vacation. The week of our meeting she had some tourists coming through who wanted to do a cooking lesson, and as luck would have it, her normal cooking lesson man in Fes was going to be out of town. So I offered to bring one of the women of the Association to Ifrane and we would lead a couscous-rolling and couscous-cooking lesson for these two American tourists. The president of the Association was a great sport and trusted me enough to come along even though she probably had no idea what was really going to happen, just that we were going to be cooking couscous in the house of a family we didn’t know, in some other town, for random people we’d never met.
Except for a couple of small kinks (one of the tourists was feeling sick and couldn’t really eat anything, and the woman whose kitchen we were using insisted on hovering over us telling us we were doing everything all wrong), I think it went well. And the profit we took home from that was more than we would get by selling 300 kilos of couscous.
The next month is going to be a busy one. . . two girls coming this Monday for a cooking lesson, and then two groups of tourists coming in May to have lunch in Khoukhate, and then maybe a group of study abroad students for a weekend; and I’ll be in the states at a wedding in the middle of all this. So much for thinking I’d have lots of time in the Peace Corps to read books and write letters.
A Moroccan Tupperware Party
A couple of weeks ago my host sisters and I got invited over for tea to this house in our village where a group of other sisters lives, and I didn’t think anything of it, because I get invited over for tea all the time to random people’s houses. The spread was more elaborate than usual – all kinds of cookies and different breads and oil and jam and nuts and olives and pretty much everything. But even this isn’t really abnormal, because even now, five months into my living here, I’ve found people still serve more and fancier tea snacks when I show up. But then after we were done eating, the women pulled out this big bag of clothes that they then expected us to buy. And it all made sense, that’s the only reason we were invited over in the first place. So this caused quite the moral dilemma for me, which I still haven’t quite resolved: should I have bought something from them or not?
Reasons I should have bought something:
· I’m a small business development volunteer, so I should be encouraging entrepreneurialism whenever I can
· I could definitely afford them, and the women definitely needed the money more than I did
· I did eat a lot at tea-time
Reasons not to buy from them:
· I don’t want to set a precedent for buying whatever people bring to me to sell, even if everyone already knows I probably do have more money than anyone else in the village
· There wasn’t really anything that I especially wanted or needed
This same dilemma is the reason I still haven’t bought any carpets from anyone, even though I need/want some, and there are women who make beautiful ones in the next town that I would love to support. I’m just afraid that people will start coming to me every time they finish a carpet asking me to buy it, which I’ve heard has happened to volunteers in the past. And so far people don’t seem to see me as a walking bag of money. I’m still trying to figure out a sneaky way of buying things, like taking them to a craft fair and selling them to myself.
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