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05 April, 2009

The "Beat"

You know how cops in the states have a beat. Well we volunteers have that here in Morocco too, but spell it differently. Here we spell it “Bit” which is short for “Bit L’ma”. L’Bit is stolen from Arabic and means room. Bit L’ma is a toilet room, and for almost all of us in the bled(rural areas), this is just a small room with two foot indicators and a hole in the ground. Also known as a Turkish toilet, this is perhaps one of the most feared aspects of serving in Morocco for many volunteers. When someone has to visit the Bit L‘ma, it is customary to excuse yourself and say “hashak” after you have mentioned where you are going. Hashak is a phrase expressing apology for mentioning or doing something undesirable. You can also say it after you mention a dog or a donkey, while you are washing your hands, or god forbid, if you were to fart “hashak”. Among volunteers, the “hashak” is unnecessary, but is often added for good measure. Among Tarabut Hussein, we have borrowed the term used by cops in the states. When it’s time to go, we just say, “I’m walkin’ the beat” and everybody is savvy. This also seems a satisfactory euphemism, because as with policing, going to the Bit is no easy task. I am proud to say that I have finally mastered it, but I am not as proud to say how long it took me to figure out the finer details. And in case your wondering, no we don’t use TP. A luxurious Bit will have a bucket and a facet. More primitive Bit’s will have just a bucket which you must remember to fill up prior to evacuation. Either way, I am happy to report that the water actually does a very good job and I get to feel all pretentious about how little water and paper I’m wasting. Yeah! So how did I learn? Well as you might expect, most of the time, its what we in the Peace Corps call SDL or self-directed learning. We did have a Bit session as part of our training in Beni Mallal though. Men and women were split into two groups and taught separately. Men where taken outside where a BIC pen on a string was taped to our backs. We then stood on two foot markers drawn on the floor and had to squat so that the pen landed in the tiny opening of a liter water bottle. This was very useful for aim, but cleanliness was mostly overlooked. H’humdullah, all is well on my beat these days.