كيف تقولون?

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It’s interesting for those volunteers from the Sunshine State. We left a beach and here we are again… on a beach. It’s a particularly humid beach as well, my hair didn’t even dry from last nights shower! Ah well, we’ll adjust.  It is hot and humid where we are so excuse my general sweatiness in the pictures I will hopefully post here in a moment 🙂

We started language training, maybe it will help me if I also teach it to my friends who read my blog 🙂 If you know me at all your know that I am a bargain hunter, just this morning I tore a goodwill tag off of the shirt I am wearing! So learning phrases for the souk was up on my list…. I will write them out sort of phonetically as the arabic script does not make sense and it’s Modern Standard Arabic rather than Darija (or Moroccan Arabic) which is what I’ll be learning.

How Much?  (BuhShaaal)

Dollar (or Moroccan Currency is Dirham)

One    Waahead

Two    Juuj

Three    Kletah

Four    rebaaah

Five     xamsa

six        staa

seven     sebaaaah

eight    temenia

nine      t-sood

ten        Aashra

Keep on MaROCKin me baby….

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I’m not going to lie… the flight here to Morocco was painful. We left Philly at about 12pm got to JFK airport around 3, and then we waited…. and waited… and waited…. for 5 hours.

Then our flight was delayed another hour.

Then we left on our 7 hour flight to Morocco. I didn’t sleep a wink because I’m handicapped in that way and I cannot sleep while I travel! In my next life I want to come back with that skill.

It’s about 6PM Moroccan time, 4 hours ahead of Florida. So I have been awake for 36 hours. I just took one of the greatest showers of my life and it was cold and in a stall smaller than a phonebooth, but it was glorious. 🙂

We are here though. I honestly never thought I would get to see Morocco after the Peace Corps journey I had. But I”m here and I’m stoked. We filled out a bunch of paperwork and got our schedule for the next 4 days

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and now what??????!!!

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So after swearing in we have been released into the world of Peace Corps Morocco. I’ve been in my site, known as The Christmas Village for about 5 days now. So far I’ve been intimidated, sad, overwhelmed, welcomed, loved, and then it all happens again. I feel like I don’t speak any Darija, even though I scored higher than the required score on my language exam. I am working on it and every day I get a little braver. I have rediscovered where the post office is, the book store, several hanuts, and I know how to get home from all these places as well. I have taken cabs all over at this point so I have that and the lingo down.

Basically I keep remembering what my mom always told me growing up… when you are scared or sad the best way to make yourself feel better is by doing something nice for someone else… Isn’t that what I’m here for? All these feelings of uncertainty won’t last long because I will integrate, make friends and before I know it I’ll be eating taco bell again!!! 🙂

I FINALLY have all of the luggage I brought to Morocco with me in one place, and that feels fantastic. I also know I will NEVER bring this much luggage with me EVER again ANYWHERE.

 

Hammer Time!

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I live in a cement apartment building on the one and only road in the center of The Christmas Village. My apartment is older so with my free time I try to do things to make the apartment look nicer/things that will make me happy. This involves hanging up shelves and painting, more often than not. Before Morocco I had never experienced hammering nails into cement…. Its dangerous!! There are sparks and its noisy and you don’t get very far. I figured the small hammer I had bought at souk was just not the correct tool for the job and perhaps I would have better luck with something a little more substantial. Later that day I went to the hardware hanut (store) and bought some paint, nails and I asked if they had a bigger hammer (all in Darija, mind you). The man responds with something I didnt understand but sent another man running off, presumably to get me a bigger hammer from a different hanut (this is common practice when one hanut doesn’t have something they r

Updating is hard!!!

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3-24/3-30

I have been running around Morocco like a crazy person this last month or so. Let me sit down and update you as concisely and as entertainingly as possible. 🙂 My month began with the bi annual VSN meeting in Rabat at the Peace Corps office there. VSN is the Volunteer Support Network and I am the elected representative from the Youth Development 2010-2012 group. VSN trains volunteers on active listening skills in order to form a great in country support system for every day annoyances and for real life big crises. I think VSN is great and will keep getting better. VSN really has taken off since Peace Corps negotiated a deal with Maroc Telecom that gives us unlimited volunteer to volunteer calling for only 120Dh per month. Really a bargain if you ask me! We sign confidentiality agreements and basically all the most awesome people are VSN trained. As VSN rep I’ve also been asked to coordinate some social events at our training sites. I was in Rabat for about 3 days and we went to see the old Roman ruins there, and enjoyed the very modern city of Rabat. I get so excited to see grocery stores these days! I’ve made a promise to myself that whenever I find myself in the north of the country and I have a flexible schedule I will visit my first homestay family in Ras L ma. So after Rabat that is where I headed. It was amazing to see them! I had great food, slept awesome, hammamed, and just enjoyed being around my amazing Moroccan family. I told them I am returning in the summer to learn how to cook all delicious Moroccan things. I can’t come back to America after two years and just be great at making things like tortillas from scratch and stove top popcorn. Dare to dream Rachida!! After visiting family I went on to visit some of my peace corps family in my friend Jo’s site. Her site is pretty isolated and she goes without things like running water and internet all the time. I met Jo, Molly and Sam, just northeast of Fes and enjoyed some real life Peace Corps livin. I got roped into coming along to another volunteers house, Pete. We hung out American style there for a day just resting up for the upcoming and ominious spring camp that all YD volunteers must participate in. Honestly it was such a great time and I’m glad I was able to see some other sites. The more I see other sites the more I’m grateful for the Christmas Village and the more it starts to feel like home. 🙂 een running around Mor3-24/3-30 I have b3-24/3-30 I have been running around Morocco like a crazy person this last month or so. Let me sit down and update you as concisely and as entertainingly as possible. 🙂 My month began with the bi annual VSN meeting in Rabat at the Peace Corps office there. VSN is the Volunteer Support Network and I am the elected representative from the Youth Development 2010-2012 group. VSN trains volunteers on active listening skills in order to form a great in country support system for every day annoyances and for real life big crises. I think VSN is great and will keep getting better. VSN really has taken off since Peace Corps negotiated a deal with Maroc Telecom that gives us unlimited volunteer to volunteer calling for only 120Dh per month. Really a bargain if you ask me! We sign confidentiality agreements and basically all the most awesome people are VSN trained. As VSN rep I’ve also been asked to coordinate some social events at our training sites. I was in Rabat for about 3 days and we went to see the old Roman ruins there, and enjoyed the very modern city of Rabat. I get so excited to see grocery stores these days! I’ve made a promise to myself that whenever I find myself in the north of the country and I have a flexible schedule I will visit my first homestay family in Ras L ma. So after Rabat that is where I headed. It was amazing to see them! I had great food, slept awesome, hammamed, and just enjoyed being around my amazing Moroccan family. I told them I am returning in the summer to learn how to cook all delicious Moroccan things. I can’t come back to America after two years and just be great at making things like tortillas from scratch and stove top popcorn. Dare to dream Rachida!! After visiting family I went on to visit some of my peace corps family in my friend Jo’s site. Her site is pretty isolated and she goes without things like running water and internet all the time. I met Jo, Molly and Sam, just northeast of Fes and enjoyed some real life Peace Corps livin. I got roped into coming along to another volunteers house, Pete. We hung out American style there for a day just resting up for the upcoming and ominious spring camp that all YD volunteers must participate in. Honestly it was such a great time and I’m glad I was able to see some other sites. The more I see other sites the more I’m grateful for the Christmas Village and the more it starts to feel like home. 🙂 een running around Morocco like a crazy person this last month or so. Let me sit down and update you as concisely and as entertainingly as possible. 🙂 My month began with the bi annual VSN meeting in Rabat at the Peace Corps office there. VSN is the Volunteer Support Network and I am the elected representative from the Youth Development 2010-2012 group. VSN trains volunteers on active listening skills in order to form a great in country support system for every day annoyances and for real life big crises. I think VSN is great and will keep getting better. VSN really has taken off since Peace Corps negotiated a deal with Maroc Telecom that gives us unlimited volunteer to volunteer calling for only 120Dh per month. Really a bargain if you ask me! We sign confidentiality agreements and basically all the most awesome people are VSN trained. As VSN rep I’ve also been asked to coordinate some social events at our training sites. I was in Rabat for about 3 days and we went to see the old Roman ruins there, and enjoyed the very modern city of Rabat. I get so excited to see grocery stores these days! I’ve made a promise to myself that whenever I find myself in the north of the country and I have a flexible schedule I will visit my first homestay family in Ras L ma. So after Rabat that is where I headed. It was amazing to see them! I had great food, slept awesome, hammamed, and just enjoyed being around my amazing Moroccan family. I told them I am returning in the summer to learn how to cook all delicious Moroccan things. I can’t come back to America after two years and just be great at making things like tortillas from scratch and stove top popcorn. Dare to dream Rachida!! After visiting family I went on to visit some of my peace corps family in my friend Jo’s site. Her site is pretty isolated and she goes without things like running water and internet all the time. I met Jo, Molly and Sam, just northeast of Fes and enjoyed some real life Peace Corps livin. I got roped into coming along to another volunteers house, Pete. We hung out American style there for a day just resting up for the upcoming and ominious spring camp that all YD volunteers must participate in. Honestly it was such a great time and I’m glad I was able to see some other sites. The more I see other sites the more I’m grateful for the Christmas Village and the more it starts to feel like home. 🙂 occo like a crazy person this last month or so. Let me sit down and update you as concisely and as entertainingly as possible. 🙂 My month began with the bi annual VSN meeting in Rabat at the Peace Corps office there. VSN is the Volunteer Support Network and I am the elected representative from the Youth Development 2010-2012 group. VSN trains volunteers on active listening skills in order to form a great in country support system for every day annoyances and for real life big crises. I think VSN is great and will keep getting better. VSN really has taken off since Peace Corps negotiated a deal with Maroc Telecom that gives us unlimited volunteer to volunteer calling for only 120Dh per month. Really a bargain if you ask me! We sign confidentiality agreements and basically all the most awesome people are VSN trained. As VSN rep I’ve also been asked to coordinate some social events at our training sites. I was in Rabat for about 3 days and we went to see the old Roman ruins there, and enjoyed the very modern city of Rabat. I get so excited to see grocery stores these days! I’ve made a promise to myself that whenever I find myself in the north of the country and I have a flexible schedule I will visit my first homestay family in Ras L ma. So after Rabat that is where I headed. It was amazing to see them! I had great food, slept awesome, hammamed, and just enjoyed being around my amazing Moroccan family. I told them I am returning in the summer to learn how to cook all delicious Moroccan things. I can’t come back to America after two years and just be great at making things like tortillas from scratch and stove top popcorn. Dare to dream Rachida!! After visiting family I went on to visit some of my peace corps family in my friend Jo’s site. Her site is pretty isolated and she goes without things like running water and internet all the time. I met Jo, Molly and Sam, just northeast of Fes and enjoyed some real life Peace Corps livin. I got roped into coming along to another volunteers house, Pete. We hung out American style there for a day just resting up for the upcoming and ominious spring camp that all YD volunteers must participate in. Honestly it was such a great time and I’m glad I was able to see some other sites. The more I see other sites the more I’m grateful for the Christmas Village and the more it starts to feel like home. 🙂