Interview with Anjie W. Bertramson, November 13, 2021

Interview Summary

Anjie Bertramson served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco from 2008-2010 in a Small Business Development program. She had a long-held interest in service work but had not thought of the Peace Corps until she encountered a recruiter at a job fair. She applied and was accepted to a small business development program in Morocco. Training in-country was headquartered in Azrou, but most language and cultural training took place in small groups in smaller towns. Anjie was selected to learn one of the indigenous Amazigh (Berber) languages, Tamazight, but unfortunately discovered that the dialect she was taught was not the one spoken by people in Ait Idir at her site in the High Atlas Mountains. Her work with a weaving cooperative provided her with an important entree to the women in her town, although cultural norms and the difficulty of finding markets for the women’s work made establishing this as a business challenging. She organized other projects, such as a successful dental hygiene workshop and worked with a doctor from a nearby town to provide diabetes testing.

Interview Keyword

Peace Corps (U.S.) Morocco (Country of service) 2008-2010 (date of service) Peace Corps Volunteer job: Small Business Development Peace Corps (U.S)—2000-2010 English (Language) Amazigh (Language) Tamazight (Language) Arabic (Language) Azrou Ait Idir High Atlas Mountains Rabat gender roles diabetes culture weaving cooperatives women scorpions

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