I'm Here!

This is copied from a mass email I sent on March 9th, 2009.

I am in Morocco, and it is late, and we meet our host family tomorrow, so I should be in bed. However, I feel like I should take advantage of the internet while I have it. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get Google Blogger out of French, so I don't know how to edit my blog. Hence, the mass email. In the future, those of you who want to, can check our status on my blog. Fir those who would like to see how Sean and I are doing in the Peace Corps in Morocco via mass email, please let me know and I'll keep you in this group. My first official Moroccan entry is as follows:

Well, firstly, I should probably announce that after a supernaturally long day made possible only by international travel and extravagant changes in time zones, Sean and I have made it safely to Morocco!

We landed in a surprisingly lush Casablanca for an immediate bus departure to our Pre-Service Training site in a medium sized town in the Azilal province at the base of the High Atlas mountains. The 3.5 hour ride out of Casablanca and through the countryside was both surprising and breathtaking. This winter has been the coldest and wettest in Morocco in several decades--a welcome relief from many years of drought. As a result, the dry, brown landscape I’ve been imagining has been transformed into a palette of bright, new green interspersed with brilliant patches of yellow and orange. Occasionally, we would pass an entirely orange square in an otherwise almost exclusively green field, which of course incited excited tugs at Sean’s sleeve.

In fact, excited tugs and pokes have been a decidedly common occurrence in the first few hours and days of our stay in this spectacular country. Along with the verdant landscape, we saw several shepherds with their flocks of goats, sheep, and herds of cattle. Donkeys seem to be everywhere, be it pulling a cart full of fresh local oranges, carrots, or beets, being led by a smiling, weathered old man, or just grazing alongside the road, in a field, or behind some hanuut (store).

Also dotting the landscape are mud or cement block houses. Sometimes solitary, sometimes in somewhat large, high-rise clusters, they all seemed to have laundry or gorgeous, colorful rugs hanging from the walls or strewn in the nearby densely packed prickly pear corrals.

Once we arrived at our hotel and checked in, we had a fantastic lunch with all of the Peace Corps Host Country National staff. The food, even more than we expected, has been consistently stellar--amazing fresh produce, notably the famous Moroccan oranges, which line the streets here, and strawberries, which are in season now. There have been a variety of fresh salads, my favorite being the beets, as well as cooked vegetables, meat and fish dishes, and of course, the national dish--cous cous.

Everyone, volunteers and Peace Corps (PC) staff alike, is sincerely great--interesting, friendly, and intelligent. Our days have been jam packed with Darija (Moroccan Arabic) language classes, policy review, logistics, and a crash course in cross-cultural training. I can hardly believe that it has been only 4.5 days in country! I have already learned so much, and I feel surprisingly comfortable (of course, not too comfortable!) We have ventured out several times to the souk, and I’ve been able to get pretty much everything I want with a combination of gestures and my limited Darija. The locals have been incredibly friendly, helpful, and curious about us. They make an effort to teach us Darija, French, or whatever they think will be useful for us. Today we took taxis to the top of one of the hills at the base of the mountains to see some waterfalls and an ancient casbah. Very nice! Since the weather has been so nice the last two days, we decided to walk back (about 4 miles), through town. On the way back, we stopped at a coffee shop for Moroccan mint tea and French pastries.

Tomorrow, we head out to our host families for our more intimate Community Based Training (CBT). We will be staying with host families for the next 2 months and spending our days with our Language and Cultural Facilitator (LCF) in daily 8 hour intensive language classes. Sean and I will be learning Tashelheit, which is one of two major Berber dialects, spoken primarily in the more remote southern part of the country, although it is widely understood and there is actually a movement to make it the exclusive national language of Morocco. We will spend our evenings at home with the host families, practicing our language skills more and getting to know the cultural customs and etiquette. After that, we’ll swear in and be sent to our final sites. More on that to come! For now, everything is fantastic, and I’m super stoked about the present and future! Hooray!