Those in mud houses should not pour water.

The reason it is impossible to discuss the “Peace Corps” experience is because every single experience is different. Vastly different. Even when those volunteers are serving in the same country. Take Morocco for example.

I serve in a pretty large city. It is located on the southern coast, influenced by centuries of occupation by different forces, and the immigration of people from the south and south east. Most people speak two or three or four or five languages with equal poetic fluency. I have access to French-owned grocery stores which have things like tampons (not found elsewhere in Morocco – they take your virginity for future reference) and peanut butter. 

My girlfriend served in a different yet stunningly beautiful environment, surrounded by mountains atop an oasis. She had access to a destination many from Europe travel to on holiday and was surrounded by people extremely proud of their Tamazight culture.

I’ve had the luxury of traveling to quite a lot of other sites. Each one has been breathtaking. Each one has been a place I could see living for two years – yet each one has completely different challenges and opportunities.

In the days leading up to our mid-service training I took a different long trek. I ended up 52 km from the start of Timbuktu. The houses are equal parts mud and concrete, you fight sand flies and camel spiders, and to get here I had to change buses 4 times despite being told it was the most direct I could get.

It is stunning. With scenery out of a Jurassic Park set in the desert, an unforgiving sun, and generosity immediately extended to me by association. I’m happy here.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing what a fellow volunteer does for part of his service – meeting the band he has worked with and hearing them play around on brand new equipment. After much work they have a grant to create a music studio to teach folks how to keep the music of this location alive.

I got to sit, in a tank top dress, sipping Moroccan mint tea expertly prepared by a close friend, listening to absolutely incredible live music performed by four talented musicians, under an enchanting banquet of stars, until dinnertime. For dinner? You ask. A glorious meat and vegetable tajine made with care by the same friend.

We slept under the stars.

I woke with the sun, put sunscreen on my face and lay studying darija (Moroccan Arabic), going over verbs that I have forgotten since our intensive language training. I stayed that way until the boys came back over to practice – this time, with renewed excitement as they broke out the new speakers. Huge smiles crept across their faces as they ran head first into meshing perfectly.

They are unreal. I can’t wait to help promote them in anyway – I know their music will be appreciated by my friends worldwide.

In the meantime, check out their soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/search?q=daraa%20tribes

When you are rightly awed – remember this is what they sound like recorded with a regular garage band microphone. They just opened the new equipment up this morning. It’s about to blow your world from half way across it.

After that I was lucky enough to accompany two volunteers to the house of their friend, an elderly blind man who speaks excellent English – which he learned by communicating with folks via a special e-mail program which reads him what is typed. After a long wonderful conversation he asked us to teach him some proverbs.

He could remember part of one having to do with glass and stones. Ahh, yes “Those in glass houses should not throw stones.”

A fellow volunteer chimed in “but those in cement…”

Of course it was followed by laughter.

The man replied, with a truth I can't forget...“Ahh yes and perhaps those in mud houses should not pour water.”


#WaterSavesLives

Our Beauty Is Not Scale Deep [A Test in Bragging Through My Insecurities]

Everyone loses or gains weight during Peace Corps.

Your diet changes from what you have known your entire life to something very different.
Often you are eating meals generously provided by others that you have no control over.

There are less chemicals (or different ones).
There are more/less meal times.
You are invited to more/less celebrations.

You are teaching more/less aerobics than you ever have.

You have more/less opportunities to do all the working out your body is used to.

Everyone gains or loses.

Some people more or less than others.

Some people’s bodies change drastically.

I’m going to MST (Mid-Service Training) in a couple of weeks.

I’m going home in June.

I’m nervous about a lot of things seeing a whole bunch of people who haven’t seen me in months and months or years. The number one thing I’m nervous about, based on the limited conversations I have had with my home world, is what people will say in regards to my current physical appearance.

My weight should not concern you.

At all.

Ever.

Don’t tell me I am more beautiful now.

Don’t tell me I look healthier.

Don’t tell me I look stronger.

Don’t tell me my body is better.

I have been beautiful, healthy and strong with a great body my whole life. None of that has to do with my weight.

My beauty is not scale deep.
My health is not contingent on the highly critical public eye curve meter.

I could have kicked your ass two years ago.
My heart has been beating since birth, that’s a pretty great body.

I, like every other female human I know from my American life, have seriously struggled with body image.

I’ve counted calories.

I’ve cried in front of mirrors.
I’ve worked out till I puked.

I’ve run until a website told me I burned as many calories as I took in that day.

I’ve been sick.

That was years ago.

Since then I tell myself every day: my beauty is not scale deep.

It has nothing to do with what you think about me.

I don’t want to go back to a PC function or America and have you try to convince me it does.

My weight has fluctuated based on any number of things. Namely, stressful jobs deserve 2 am pizza, in my opinion.

Yes, I weigh less now than I did a year ago. No, I have NO idea how much.

I have worked out almost every day of Peace Corps. Because I have time and space and will. Not because I want to lose weight. Not because I want to look like I have no ribs. Not because I want you to approve of my body.

I eat considerably healthier here, because I have no choice but to cook for myself most days. Because fruits and vegetables are the cheapest things. Because processed foods are expensive.

So yes, I weigh less now than I did a year ago.

I’m here, begging you.

Please.

I have enough neuroses for both of us. For all of us.

I’m beautiful, healthy, strong, and proud of finally loving my body, no matter what form it comes in.

I don’t want comparative compliments.

Feel free to compliment. But please don’t say I am "better than I was" because the scale reads a smaller number.

I’m not better than I was - in the way you think.

I’m better than I was in eleventh grade.

I’m better than the sick girl who couldn’t find confidence anywhere.

I’m going to stay this way and to do that I need your support.

I need you to acknowledge that right now I am happy and healthy but not relate it to my current or previous waist size.

I also need you to not talk about your weight in front of me.

You're beautiful.

When you say you aren't. When you say "I'm fat." 

I think, look at this stunningly beautiful woman. She thinks she's fat. If she thinks she's fat, she must think I am a blimp. She thinks she's ugly. She must think I am hideous. 

This cyclic mess damages both of us.

Look, you're beautiful. I'm beautiful. You'll be beautiful no matter how much you weigh or how old you get or how many pimples show up or how much hair grows or how much you shrink or how defined your muscles get. So will I.

A final word.

Curves are f*cking awesome. Hips mean you are able to have a child. YOU CAN CREATE LIFE INSIDE OF YOU (if you so choose).

STOP DOUBTING THE BEAUTY OF THAT!!!!!

Anyway,

I'm beautiful.

You're beautiful.

Don't forget that.

p.s. If you are struggling with eating disorders, please reach out for help. Getting help is not about being weak, it’s about knowing how heavy your load is and how much easier it would be to carry with help. Quit Facebook, turn off the TV, put down the magazine, and call someone.