Pictures galore. I'm not exactly sure what order these will post as so here's a general recap. The first image is of my site mate Peter with his adorable and slightly crazy cat HanShush, a very Merry Christmas picture complete with the teddy bear my mom sent to me. The next image is of my other site mate Alex putting a cigarette bud out on Peter's heal because it's so calloused. Needless to say it was hilarious. Then there's the image of me taking off the top of my apple off because it caught on fire in the stupid Moroccan oven. Hmm, i'm going to have to rethink my hopes of becoming an excellent baker here.

And then there was L3id. Here are a few of the many gorey pictures I have. Alex and Peter decided to buy a sheep and slaughter it in honor of the holiday, yummy. And L3id wouldn't have been complete without a lovely group picture by the freshly slaughtered sheep (as it's still getting skinned).

But really it was all pretty fun. I ate lots of strange sheep organs which included heart, liver, intestines, lungs, stomach and balls (yup the balls). My stomach however did not agree with most of this, let's just say a week later I am still sort of in recovery.

Christmas was better than I expected I got to hang out at Peter's house and cook and watch "A Christmas Story" (thank you mom!) I got my Christmas package from my mother exactly on Christmas day which was quite possibly one of the nicest surprises ever. Other than all that all I have to say is it's been cold, very cold. It snowed last week, the day before L3id which was beautiful but it only lasted until the afternoon... and even though the sun comes out everyday here it doesn't get very warm. Ok, well I'm off to Rabat for some Peace Corps stuff on Thursday and on Saturday I get to hang out with my bestest friend from stage in Azrou! Yay!

Happy New Year everyone!

Currently, I am learning how to waste a lot of time. No, I mean it… the women I’m working with are meeting twice a week which means I have a lot of time to fill. I spend a lot of time at my family’s house reading and trying to learn more of the language, and in the mornings I generally go on 2 to 3 hour walks. I currently have blisters on my feet from walking too much, which should mean that I’m walking less but I’m not. I just try to tough it out and hope that eventually I’ll get tough skin like the Moroccan womenJ Anyway, I’m pretty much just settling into a simple life here. I’m trying to figure out ways to use my time and be productive but there’s a lot of time and space to fill out here. I mean the town is beautiful but there’s only so much exploring of bare land you can do each day. And general conversation with the locals is still difficult at best, I have a lot of work to do on the language and I’m not really sure how to do it. I guess something will just come in time.
Well, not really much to report simply because there isn’t a lot going on. Just adjusting to my new life and trying to imagine the next 2 years. Also imagining what it will be like to live in my own place here in 2 months. I mean I really enjoy the family I’m staying with but it will be nice to be at my own place too come February 1st. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll have internet again until after Christmas, so Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it. It should be an interesting day for me, not only will I be apart from my family for the first time but I guess I won’t be celebrating the holiday at all this year. Instead I’ll be celebrating L3id Akbar, and slaughtering a sheep around the 23rd of December. Let’s hope I can stomach it in more than one way.

Fez!


It’s official, I am Peace Corps Volunteer. I spent the last week in Fez to swear in as a Volunteer which of course was great. It was great to be in a big city for a few days. The medina there is amazing, the oldest and largest in the world I believe. We somehow found our way to the tanneries in the medina and of coursed managed to get lost for a while afterwards. It was all very good though, we tried to go out and enjoy the city. It was great to just roam around and feel the pace of the environment. It was also good to have McDonanald’s… yeah, I went there and it was damn good. I also went to Marjan (a chain of stores only in very large towns in Morocco). I experienced just a little culture shock when I walked in there… it’s huge, and you can get everything there, it’s a giant supermarket meets Walmart. I suppose Fez was really a good break from everything, for a second I almost felt like I had left Morocco, you know minus the constant catcalls and all.
The bad thing about swearing in was simply saying good bye to everyone. We were a group of 67 in Fez, no I’m down to a group of 1, me. Well, not exactly since I do have two site mates who are really cool. I am currently in Rich, I’ll travel to my town tomorrow morning. Finally, I can unpack my bags and call a place home. I’m very happy to be done with hauling it all around but it comes with the sadness of no longer being in training with my friends. So it goes.
Thanksgiving was great the other trainees made us a fabulous meal. We were all very impressed; everything from turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and green beans to apple crisp and pumpkin pie. It was cold and rainy in Fez the whole time we were there which just made it feel all the more like it was really Thanksgiving… or fall or winter or whatever.
So I stayed in Errachidia last night, when we arrived there it was a complete downpour. People say it hasn’t rained there like that in years. It was crazy; just imagine 10 or 15 volunteers getting off this bus right as it’s getting dark, being absolutely soaked from the rain which is just beating down, and then trying to carry all their baggage to the hotel 2 blocks away. I dragged my bags through huge puddles of mud and managed to get soaking wet. I was freezing all night long, this of course didn’t help my efforts to get over my current cold… yup it’s the second one since I’ve been here. It’s definitely pretty cold here and apparently it has already begun to snow at my site. Brrrrr.
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Getting Berber with it. Or at least my hands would say so. Here they are covered with Henna in the typical Berber way, you place a blob of gooey Henna in the middle of your hand and cover it with plastic bags overnight. I however, took it off after about 3 hours… it’s really hard to do anything when you have bags tied over your hands and all you have is little numbs. Anyway, I did the Henna as part of our going away party in Hdida. Yup that’s right, I’m done with training in Hdida… and I’m very happy to move on to my final site, Assoul.
But first there’s Fez for swearing in as an official Volunteer and Thanksgiving. Nothing much to report other than I had a language proficiency test today, which I guess I survived. I basically know just enough to get by, which is sad but the dialect I’ve been learning and what I will have to learn in my new site are pretty different. So I get to learn the whole language over again. But what can you do?
Anyway, not much else is going on. Just finishing packing all my stuff to take to Fez, it will be my second to last time that I have to pack it all up, amen. I can’t even count how many times I’ve packed and unpacked in this country, ugh. So, that’s it for now… tomorrow I’ll travel 12 hours to Fez!

Pictures:

- Spreading the corn on the roof of my new house in Assoul to dry it for use in the winter.

- The kids in the house playing on the chalk board

- The view of Assoul from my window, not too bad huh?

In the bled… or at least that’s what they call it around here. The bled basically translates to the sticks, the far off places that people rarely travel to. The funny thing is that I actually really like it. I was afraid that Assoul might be too far out, too far away from my comfort zone but it isn’t. I remind myself that I really had no idea what to expect when I got to Morocco, so here I find myself about two and half hours from the closest internet service. The good news is that I have cell phone reception and electricity. The only glitch is that running water is limited. Some houses have running water for several hours, some for only an hour. Of course there are ways to deal with this and I will make it work even if it is a little difficult at times. The other good news is that I am allowed to travel to my nearest internet site once a week which means that I will stay there, a town called Rich one night a week at a hotel with a hot shower.
I have a new host family in my site; I will be living with them for my first two months here. I officially move to Assoul the end of November and will live with this family until the first of February. My family is great; they have hosted Peace Corps Volunteers before and seem to be accustomed to Americans. My host father speaks English almost fluently which is great for my lack of language in the Berber dialect I’ve been learning. His wife tries to speak to me but the dialect here is different than what I have been studying which is challenging to say the least. She is convinced I know nothing… which is sometimes true. Regardless, they are very nice people and the food here is really good (even if I am still having some stomach issues). Anyway, my host family also has 3 children, 2 girls and 1 boy. They are really sweet, and I can’t wait until I can speak with them more. Overall, the family is calm and respectful and I enjoy them very much.
I am replacing a volunteer at my site; she has been here helping me everyday find my way and introducing me to everyone. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She has been my translator and friend through this whole process. It will be strange to come back in a couple weeks and she will have left. Still, I am so thankful that she has been here to help me figure out what I’ll be doing for the next two years.
A little about what I’ll be doing…I am assigned to work with a women’s weaving cooperative. They are in fairly preliminary stages which means I can hopefully help them with product development (color & design), organization, and marketing as well as funding for a building and looms. It sounds like a lot but really it’s just little steps (many of which have been paved for me by the previous volunteer). Really those descriptions are wide open and just ideas that I’ve had since I’ve been here. It’ll be interesting to see how it all works out or if anything works out. Inshallah.
So, only about two more weeks until I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer. We’ll go up to Fez to swear in and have a smashing thanksgiving. I honestly can’t wait to move to my site. I’ve been moving around so much the past couple of months that I feel like I’m a gypsy… Oh wait a minute, I am a gypsy (just for a little while longer though).

The camera is up and running again... so, if everything works accordingly:

The first picture of the map has push pins with each of us trainee's pictures on them. This is how we found out our location for the next 2 years.

The next one is me with my training group in Hdida. My teacher is the woman in front with the skirt on.

Next is a picture of my trainig group again, inside our artist's association with their new sign we made for them.

Next is our classroom in Hdida, yeah we're freezing, and yeah that's me and Briana under a blanket because we can see our breath.

Finally, our lovely Halloween picture, that's Briana, me, Kristian and Blake... we were all kitties with booties (it's a long story and honestly a stupid inside joke) but hey we had fun:)

So, two weeks later…I’m currently back in my luxurious life in Ouarzazate. However, I leave tomorrow for my first site visit to where I will be living for the next 2 years.
First a recap on my last 2 weeks… and some dirty details. I showered once in 12 days. Here’s the problem, it’s either ice cold bucket baths or nothing. I’m sure in due time I will get use to the bucket bathing system but for now it’s definitely difficult. Another dirty detail, my stomach just keeps going to the dark side. I don’t know if it’s the excessive amount of bread I eat (because really that’s all they eat here) or the vast amount of oil that everything sits. Regardless I’m trying to tell myself that in a couple more months I can make my own food and solve a lot of my g.i. problems. Oh yeah, and to top it all off, I’ve been sick for the past 2 weeks. Really it’s just a cold but colds are never really fun. I’m going to make an educated guess and say that maybe the reason why I’ve been sick is because my classroom stays at about 48 to 50 degrees all day. While that may not sound too cold, when you are sitting for 10 hours a day in it wrapped in blankets and every article of clothing you own, you know it’s cold. For this reason I hope I get a mud house at my site, my current classroom is made of cement which is supposed to be hot in the summer and cold in the winter, mud houses are the opposite. Who knew I’d ever ask for a mud house?
Anyway, we are almost done with training, my group has more of less finished our project and when we return to our training site in 2 weeks it will only be for 4 days. Kind of crazy when things are suddenly coming to a very quick end with group activities. It’s scary because of the language also. I try hard but this language is ridiculously difficult. And little by little I hope to understand more of it.
So, we’re here in Ouarzazate again, we got here on Halloween which meant me and couple others went “out” and then came back to the hotel for a little Peace Corps party. Needless to say we had a good time, definitely not my craziest Halloween but it was good.
Drum roll please, tomorrow I leave for the very small town of Assoul in the middle of nowhere (you might be able to find it on a really big map of Morocco). My nearest town with internet is 3 hours away. I think it’s a dirt road to get from there to Rich, my nearest town for internet. I’m trying to stay positive about my situation even though the one thing I requested for my site placement was to be in or near a large town. It’s ironic that I am the one person in my sector (small business development) that is the furthest from anything. The up side is that I will have a couple other volunteers near me from different sectors (health and environment I think), can’t wait to meet them. Also, I have met the volunteer that I am replacing and am very excited to meet up with her again before she leaves in a couple weeks… of course to talk about all the ins and outs of the community.
Enough for now, I’ll try to post something as soon as I can about my official site.

Back in Ouarzazate for a couple more days. It’s always nice to come back here. We just returned from 4 days in Hdida which was actually really good. Saturday, the 13^th was the L3id, a big celebration for the end of Ramadan. We all got dressed up… my family adorned me in a giant dress with a wonderful 80’s style print… the shoulder pads were the best part. Then a huge piece of black lace fabric went on over the dress. To top it off I had to wear a lovely neon yellow scarf in my hair. We all looked pretty ridiculous as our families dressed each of us in a similar fashion. Oh, and the big news is that my 13 year old host sister decided I was cool enough to hang out with. I guess she finally decided I wasn’t such a threat after all. I currently don’t have any pics because my camera has been out of service but I will eventually get them from some of my friends and post them. Anyway, for the big celebration we got dressed up, I got henna done again (which I am obsessed with, by the way) and walked through town, going to each house and greeting everyone. I think I kissed more people’s hands that day than I ever have (as is the tradition… it’s a little more friendly than just shaking hands). Anyway, we ate lots of rice with buttermilk, cookies and tea. That evening I had my first tagine with my family, by 2am my stomach was in hell- enough said.

The following day we had a free day to integrate with our community (this was also the first time since I‘ve have been in Morocco that I have had 2 days off in a row). I went to the Hammam in a near by town with a couple other trainees and their host sisters. A Hammam is a public bathhouse which includes 3 steam rooms of varying temperature. I was a little worried about going but it was actually a really good experience… and my skin still feels amazing. The only problem was that the one we went to was a little on the dirty side… with that said I would definitely do it again but in a cleaner place. I must say there is something absolutely wonderful about being in the hottest steam room and pouring a bucket of cold water over you… it feels soooo good.

So, in a couple days I leave for Hdida again, this time for 12 days which is our longest time period we will spend there. It’s a little weird to pack and unpack your life every couple of days. When I return from my 12 days in Hdida I will find out my official site for the next 2 years. I will then go to this site the next day and live with my future host family for 9 days. It’s crazy to think that I will know my location for the next two years in exactly 2 weeks. Once we return from our site visit we come back to Ouarzazate and then return to Hdida for the last time for 4 days or so. We will then presumably being traveling up north to Fez for our official swearing in, and thanksgivingJ. So, there’s the crazy schedule. My class/lecture days are significantly longer now that Ramadan is finished, we start at 8am and go until 6pm. We do have breaks but it’s still a long day. Sometimes I feel like there’s so much information being shoved in my head I just cant think anymore. But really it’s ok, I mean it’s good and the language is getting better. At least now I have basic communication down and I can generally understand what my family members are trying to say to me.

And perhaps as my final point I should add that after being here for a little over 5 weeks I now feel like it’s all so much more comfortable. What I mean to say is that I have been having a great time here since the beginning (for the majority of the time)… but now it all just feels a lot more comfortable, like I can actually see myself here for 2 years.

<--The view from my roof in Hdida

-->My house in Hdida. Trust me... looks are

<-- The girl closest to me is my host sister... and a bunch of her friends and cousins (everyone is related in the town)

--> The ladies in the village painted our hands as a welcoming into out new community... here I'm letting the henna dry, it now looks pale orange.

And here's the details:

Just got back to Ouarzazate after my 9 days in the very small town of Hdida (about 200 people). Coming back to Ouarzazate is wonderful to say the least… a few of the good things: western toilet, food, hot showers, and laundry facilities. Hdida put a lot of things into perspective which is only made more extreme by the fact that it’s Ramadan still. I feel like I’ve been starving for the past week just because no one eats during the day and the stores are generally always closed during Ramadan. I can only imagine what these places that I’ve been living in will actually be like in a couple weeks when Ramadan is over.

Some notes about Hdida…I live with a husband and wife who are significantly older. The man is called the Haj, which means he is the most respected older man, and probably the richest too. The only problem is that he doesn’t really move around, he is basically tied to sitting in one room all day. His wife spins wool for most of the day. So one of their sister’s lives with them, she too is older but manages to run the house. She has become my go to person but the language barrier is still huge. The sister has a daughter of 13 and she too helps run the house. Together they take care of the husband and wife and prepares the meals. The daughter is well, how do I say?... a little cold towards me most days of the week. In fact, the family seems difficult to read in general just because there is no communication there. Of course I am trying to communicate what I learn in my language classes but more often than not they have no idea what I am saying… and let’s be honest no one can learn a language in 6 days. So yes, there have been a lot of difficulties in the past week.

I thought I’d share some other details on what life here is like, through my perspective at least. I wanted to mention that Ouarzazate and the area around here does in fact look exactly like the Morocco seen in the movie Babel. It’s unbelievably dry here, I really have never experienced anything like it… and the sandy dust accumulates everywhere within about 5 minutes. I guess I should be honest and say that it is more of a third world country than I thought it would be. Oh, and having running water and electricity doesn’t mean that much, Morocco is still pretty much in it’s own world. There’s a sense of dirtiness in the streets that I love in the cities but somehow dislike strongly in the villages. The women in my village are tougher than any that I’ve seen. Their hands are about twice the size of mine and their feet look like they could tell the stories of a thousand lives.

Anyway, I am currently covered in about 40 bug bites… they’re definitely not mosquito bites so who knows what they actually are. In all honesty it’s not that bad… it’s just a lot of adjustments that happen in really quick spurts. I’ve been in Morocco for exactly 3 weeks and it really feels like I’ve been here for about 6 months. Time moves slowly here, slower than I’ve ever known before… sometimes I love it (and well, other times… you get the idea).

Off to a small mountain village tomorrow called Hdida, dont bother looking for it on a map becuase the chances of finding it are slim to none. If you do want to know where I'll be... look up Kalaa Mgouna... Hdida is about 6 km up the mountain from there. Anyway, it's supposed to be a beautiful mountain village with lots of greenery and it's supposed to be cold (a very welcome releif from the heat of Ouarzazate). So, tomorrow I finally get to meet my first host family the family I will be staying with on and off for the next 3 months. All I know is that the father is retired, the mother is a housewife(of course), they have a 13 year old daughter and the grandmother of 56 lives with them too. Can't wait to meet them! So i will be in this town for the next 9 days, then back in Ouarzazate for a few ,then back with them, and so forth for the next 3 months. I will have running water and electricity there but I do not think there will be internet since there is only one store in town... and it's ramadam which means hours for everything is a little screwy. The good news is that I will be there with 4 other trainee volunteers plus a volunteer who has been living there for a year and of course my teacher. In addition to this I do have a cell phone here now. It's ridiculous for me to call anyone living on what I have because it's so expensive but if you want my number I'll be happy to give it to you, just send me an email.
and now onto Hdida... here comes the real test... sounds good to me.

pictures f ouarzazate... i have no idea how to make these look better because i am using a french and arabic computer that does not say anything in english.

anyway, just wanted to give everyone an idea of what it looks like from the view of my hotel here. on saturday i will leave this beautiful place to live with a family in a village somewhere nearby. and then we do a back and forth routine between the hotel and our families for 11 weeks. anyway... i am very exited to meet my family even though i can only say about 5 things in arabic. i guess i will be adding to that this week with more classess. so, yes all is well and good and nothing else to really report other than this keyboard is really hard to type on. more details when i can figure out how to connect my computer.

here!
well, almost here... still in rabat doing more training details. it has been good, but it's a lot of information each day and i feel ridiculously tired all the time.
i'm not really sure how to describe anything right now, it just feels right. from the moment the plane landed i knew this is where i am supposed to be and as we walked through the madness of the medina (huge outdoor shopping market) i felt it even more. let me tell you how good that feels after months of not really know that this was the right decision.
and then i think, wow... i'm in africa.
well, i move to ouarzazate on friday... i'm of course really excited to see how that turns out. we will be living in a hotel and with a family in the surrounding area on and off for the next three months of language training. which is a slightly different picture than i had imagined but it's still good.
ok, that's all for now, i must get sleep... oh, and is anyone hooked up with skype? i'm still figuring this out but apparently i can call people for free and talk to them online using my built in mic. anyway let me know if anyone is using that or would like to?

I leave for Morocco tomorrow...

We fly into Casablanca and then take a bus to Rabat. When we get to Rabat we get to sleep, eat and relax for three days (sigh).

The exciting news is that I found out where I will be doing my training for the next 3 months! I'll be in Ouarzazate which is described as the Hollywood of Morocco... not so much because of the size of the town but because it is the center for films which are shot in Morocco. If anyone saw Babel, it was filmed in the area of Ouarzazate. Although this area looks bleak in the film, the actual town is an oasis.

The down side of all this... I will not be learning Arabic but rather, a Berber dialect. Although, if I want to learn Arabic the Peace Corps will pay for a personal tutor. (I guess it's a good thing I didn't get a chance to learn Arabic before I left?)

Anyway, all is well- the people going to Morocco all seem cool and interesting- and with the exception of a maybe 5 people, everyone is in their mid-twenties.

Oh, and if you want to know how to say Ouarzazate, it sounds a lot like "where's it at" with some "z" infections in there. It's become a dumb joke that we laugh at relentlessly between me and a couple of other people here.

Ok, well I'm off to have my 'last supper' here in the US... & maybe my last martini for a very long while too.

Ok, here we go... as many of you know I'm a little hesitant about this blog thing, I mean do people actually want to know what I'm doing? Well, whether or not you do... I'm putting it out there.
I leave for Philadelphia tomorrow morning at 6am for 3 days of "staging" as the Peace Corps calls it. Then, I leave for Morocco on Monday the 10th.
At this point I have no idea what to expect... I'm assigned to do Small Business Development for Artists (whatever that means, right?).
Anyway, the packing is all done... I guess this means I'm ready?!?...