SOUP!

I am in hog heaven. Someone asked me once if I’d rather have ice cream or soup for life; I answered soup.

And I have found my people.

Soup and stew are what they eat here with every meal after breakfast. Lentil soup, bean stew, chicken broth soup, cilantro, cayenne, onions piled in, thick and rich, soak up the last of it with the homemade bread. And the fruits and veggies are all locally grown and bought fresh daily in the local souk (market). And they gorge on cassava melon for dessert, which is sweeter than any melon I’ve ever had store-bought in the states.

I’m going to gain 100 lbs at least. But Lynn pointed out that all we ladies had to do was wear a jallaba and it’ll hide all of the weight.

One volunteer during lunch was too full to finish off what was on her plate. Another jokingly said, “You better clean your plate. You know there are starving children in Afri...” awkward pause when he realizes where we are sitting, “…here!” So much for mother’s reliable idiom.

Shots

The call to pray which ends the fast at the end of the day starts with a giant explosion. Literally, some one lights a huge firecracker and boom! fast’s over. I hate to admit it but almost every time, some of us Peace Corps kids out on the terrace hunch down a bit and look around in terror. It does sound like a bomb going off if you’re not expecting it.

Found out or schedules for the rest of training though I don’t have it with me so this will be a gestimation:
Tomorrow, we leave for our main training site, Azrou, and live there in hotels for about a week. Then, we break up into groups of about 6 people and go to community based training and live with a host family for 2 weeks. Then back to Azrou for debriefing for 5 days (I also find out my final site location at this time) then back to the host family for another week. Back to Azrou, debriefing, then going to my actual final site to introduce myself and meet my new host family, back to Azrou to be sworn in as an official Peace Corps volunteer. After this, I’m off to my final site and my new host family for good. All during this training process, we’ll have a language and cultural facilitator who’ll come with us, teaching us the entire time. At times, I’ll be doing at least 4 ours of intense language training a day, not to mention all the hands on technical training. I’m looking forward to all of it, but a little bit daunted by the days ahead.

So, if you don’t hear from me that often, don’t be surprised.

I’m sitting on the terrace of the hotel in the middle of Rabat listening to the call to prayer, waiting for the sun to set in order to eat. The weather’s a perfect 75ish and there’s a slight breeze on which I catch the scent of food cooking in the downstairs kitchen. If I crane my neck a bit, I can catch the tiniest bit of view of the ocean butting up to the city. Life’s so hard sometimes.
The trip to the airport yesterday was rather hectic. Getting 58 people onto a bus with each carrying about 4 pieces of luggage, then offloading all of that into the airport was quite a task. The flight was fine, slept some, and so was the bus ride from Casablanca to Rabat.
Morocco, or rather, what I’ve seen of it between here and Casablanca, is brown. The land, the sheep, the dogs, the cows are all the same shade of the earth, with splashes of color popping up in the form of houses (usually white) and litter (mostly plastic of some sort).
We were welcomed at the Peace Corps main office in Rabat and driven to the hotel and fed. I don’t remember much else since I was dead tired.
Today consisted of shots (hep A and rabies), safety and health advice (concentration: diarrhea), and a visit from the US ambassador to Morocco. John Wayne tried to get the hotel staff to join him in a round of ‘if you’re happy and you know it’ but failed miserably without Arabic.
Looks like it’ll rain soon, so I’d best be moeysin’ in right about now.
Oh, note on the cold weather: some of the trainees are on the terrace with me. I’m in a t-shirt and jeans and doing fine, but most of the others find it too cold and are wearing jackets. I hope this bodes well for my bodily being when it does start to really cool off.

End of an Era

I officially leave the US tomorrow.

Today ran pretty much the same as yesterday, only longer and without a plane ride. Orientation in the morning, lunch break with a group of Peace Corps-ees at an organic restaurant called The White Dog, more orientation and logistics for tomorrow’s departure, and dinner near Independence Hall with two of my favorite Corps-ees.

Many of the others are going out on the town tonight for one last American style hootenanny, but I’m currently enjoying the peace and solitude of the hotel suite. I figure this is probably the last time in a loooong time that I’m actually going to be alone. Collectivist culture may be the death of me yet.

Tomorrow at this time I’ll be in Morocco! We fly into Casablanca, bus to Rabat and chill in a hotel there for a few days before moving on to our training site in Azrou, where I’ll be placed with a host family for the duration of my pre-service training (11 weeks). After that, I’ll be sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer and sent to my permanent site, where I’ll live with another host family for 2 months and start working in that community. The long time spent with the two host families is supposed to help integrate me into my town and is also a basic crash course in Moroccan language and culture (none of the host families speak English). This is the aspect of Peace Corps that I’m the most excited about.

That's all for now. I hope Lyndsay has gotten her Peace Corps situation worked out, and my boyfriend is the most amazing man in the universe (I’m under contractual obligation to post that).

Oh yeah, post your address in the comments box or email it to me and I'll send you stuff when I have the time. I'll sen out my address when I get one.

Initial Impressions

(9/6/08) Everyone kept joking that today was a bit like freshman orientation, but I can honestly say that I have never been more comfortable in a complete group of strangers.

Saying goodbye to the parents and the boyfriend was unbelievably difficult this morning, so much so that I ended up hiding in the bathroom for a few minutes before making it to my plane. On past travel abroad adventures, I knew that I’d be coming home in a few months so the separation never hit me as hard as it had today. I was okay after take off and ready to get to Philly and meet everyone.

Turns out there are 58 trainees divided between business and youth development. Today consisted mostly of paperwork and general orientation (what are the goals of peace corps, why it was founded, what are your fears and expectations, etc) with tomorrow continuing on in the same vein, only more country-specific. Everyone seems of a similar mindset: kind of excited yet apprehensive about what we will be doing, even though no one really knows what their assignment will be in morocco until we pass through training. And no one seems to mind just playing everything by ear. They are just as anxious about the same stuff tat I am, which is rather comforting.

Post-orientation, about 10 of us ended up at an Irish pub for dinner and we finished the evening by toasting a painting of JFK above the bar with shots of captain (he began peace corps in 1961…jfk, not captain morgan). Some of the guys stayed to make up for the lack of liquor to be had in morocco, but I’m so bushed they’d have to carry me out after another shot. Glad I don’t have to wake up at 4 am tomorrow. Some of the guys may not make it into bed until then…