Tinerhir
So we left the ourika valley a few days ago and traveled to ourzazate for a night. Then this morning we took a four hour or so bus ride to a town called Tinerhir. In the ourika valley we were doing community service at local children schools. We spent the first two days working in the gardens transplanting iris plants and aromatic herbs at a DAr Taliba, which means a boarding school for girls. The girls are all from surrounding Berber villages and spend Monday through Saturday morning at this school and then go home for the wknd. The third day we planted 30 trees at a local primary school in the village for boys and girls. We planted olive, quince, avocado, lemon and carob trees, which is what the teachers/ppl said were the kinds they wanted. The community service activities we did were a great way to contribute to this area ad to these people because it will really make a lasting impact and by planting herbs and Fruit trees we are leaving them something they can really use and benefit from- for instance the olive tree will continue to produce fruit for 200 yrs, so we will continue to help and make an impact on these people for as long as these plants live. Everyone was so excited and grateful for the work we did and the girls wrote us an adorable card thanking us.
So now we are in Tinerhir where we will be for 3 days or so. we have a Peace Corp volunteer named Ned that we
will be working with during our time here. Tonight we had dinner at another one of the peace Corp volunteers apartment and we made our own dinner which was fun! We bought everything in the local souks and cooked ourselves. It was delicious! The Peace Corp volunteers are soo nice and I like them a lot. Tomorrow we will be going to where they work and screenprinting shirts ( Ned is an artist so he designs/makes these awesome shirts)
and playing games/interacting with the people they work with: they work with a handicap cooperation/organization so it is I think around 25 kids of a range of different ages all with disabilities o some kind whether they be blind, deaf or something else. Then our last day here, or the day after tomorrow, we here we will
head out to another village just outside of Tinerhir where we will be staying the night in homestay families. I think we will also be learning to weave rugs, as well!
That is all for now, but whoever blogs next will fill you all in on exactly what we do here in Tinerhir over the next few days!