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?!?...