Whenever I run across a Peace Corps Morocco Volunteer blog, I am reminded just how long it has been since I was in country. In 1988, we had no computers, no Internet access, and no cell phones. Where i was, even the regular telephone service was only available by walking down to the Post Office and asking the clerk to crank the phone until he was able to reach Fez or Rabat. The difficulty in communications was both frustrating and liberating, since it forced us to rely largely on our own resources and our relationship with the village.
Notwithstanding the advances in technology, it seems that interpersonal relationships have not changed much. A recent post on a volunteer blog describes how a female volunteer, after a year alone in her site, decided to ask Peace Corps to send a second male volunteer to her site. With some frustration, she describes being harassed on the street and propositioned on a regular basis in person as the reason for asking for a second, male volunteer.
When you are a foreign woman in Morocco, accompaniment by a man, or better yet, another Moroccan, can help reduce incidents of harassment. However, i well remember at least one instance in which my presence failed to deter harassment of the woman I walking with down the streets of Fez. The behavior of indigent men on the city streets toward foreigners and particularly foreign women has long constituted the ugly side of a beautiful country. I am regularly assured that it has been ameliorated, but articles such as this one make me not so sure.