Leid Mqur...

Explaining Leid Mqur to Americans is as difficult as explaining Christmas or Thanksgiving to Moroccans. I don't know much about Leid except that it is one of the biggest religious holidays for Moroccans. A big focus of the holiday is charity and of course, getting together with family. The charity ususally consists in giving those less forntunate some of the sheep that has been slaughtered. Every family, with the means to do so, is expected to slaughter a sheep on Leid. They cannot, however, slaughter it until the king hs slaughtered his own sheep. The head of each family slaughters a sheep and then proceeds to skin it and dissect it. There is a certain order in which the sheep is eaten. In my town eat the liver, heart, pancreas and intestines on the first day. Most of these are eaten on skewers. One such delicacy is heart wrapped in tummy fat skewers. Yum! Some of the photos below show my host dad slaughtering the sheep for our family (you can also see some of the women preparing the organs for consumption just as they come out of the sheep).
The pictures with the boujlood (guys wearing sheep skins) may be very specific to this town. I know only of one other town near Marrakech that does this. The night of Leid a bunch of young guys wear donated sheep skins and parade around town asking for monetary donations. Notice that those skins were on the sheep only a few hours prior to this parade. They do this procession (while beating drums) for a coupe of nights in a row. It really is quite interesting to partake in.
This Leid, like the one at the end of Ramadan; requires that people visit their neighbors and friends. I made the usual rounds and drank tons of really sweet tea and ate bunches of sweets. Lucky that I am vegetarian because I got to skip all the skewers at every house that I went to. Can't wait for Leid next year :)

keyboard isnt working... will write about leid later
se ths owits ig ntirw hi sie

Utfl

Its snowing! I can't feel my toes haha. We had our first big snow the day before thanksgiving, but that snow melted within a day. Monday's snow is still here! Yesterday I walked around on roofs observing what everyone in town was busy with. Now that it finally stopped snowing our poor mud roofs are laden with snow and in some cases are leaking as well. Everyone has been up on their roofs shoveling snow. My town looks quite beatiful right now, but its rather cold for someone that has lived in southern california her whole life :)







Im standing on my sitemates roof surveying the snowfall.

My sitemate in my my muddy alley. Earlier in the day everything was pretty and white and now as the snow is shoveled and starts melting, we just have a muddy slippery alley.

Utfl! (snow)

I'm actually standing on a roof while taking this photo. And so are those guys. They are shoveling the snow off their houses to stop leaking in some cases or possible caving in of the roof.

Photos...

Part of our bridge got washed out during the recent storms that we were having so now we have to climb over these rocks to get to the other parts of town. (thats my sitemate by the way)

My town. Isn't it pretty?

This is how people in my town get wood for our fornus. People that live on the other side of the mountain bring wood on horses or donkeys. They walk about 2-3hrs to get to our town and then walk back. Sometimes they make various trips in a day, especially when the weather is nice and sunny.

My fornu! This is a little wood burning stove that has pipes going out through my roof. I make fires in it to keep my room warm. If it wasn't for this amazing stove, I think I would freeze :/

I went to a craft fair with the women of the weaving cooperative that we have in town. I helped them set up this zween tent. Isn't it pretty. They make this kind of stuff everyday. Its incredible how dedicated the women are to their work, especially now that its freezing cold in the building in which they work.

This is one of the nearest large towns from where I live. This is a view of Azrou and its beautiful mosque as seen from the roof of one of the city's hotels.

In the Fes medina. These guys bang on these pots until they shape them perfectly. The sounds of their work just fit in perfectly with the atmosphere of the rest of the medina.

A Little About My Work

my town from the mountain behind it :)



I realize that I have not mentioned much about the work that I am supposed to be doing here. My first six months in site were to be dedicated to learning the local language and to assessing community needs as they relate to health. I am currently in the sixth month of service and I am rather disappointed with the way that my language has progressed. I have, however, been assessing community needs.
My job is really that of a job educator. I can educate through whatever medium suits my community best, whether that be by health education at the elementary school, tea talks, or whatever else I can think of. I don't yet have permission to teach at the school, but it is the place where I most want to work. In the meantime I have been hanging out at the clinic and doing informal education primarily with the women of the weaving cooperative in my site. The women are very curious about the causes of hypertension and high cholesterol, so I have been telling them what little I know about these topics. In the future (iunshallah) I want to talk to more women about these topics and others such as birth control and STIs. I was surprised to learn that many women have STIs, but don't know what they are. Also surprising was the fact that many women use birth control, but most use only the pill and use it rather irregularly. I want to tell them about its proper usage and also to inform them about alternative methods.
In the schools, I want to focus on three topics: dental hygiene, general hygiene, and nutrion. These are all topics that I feel are good to focus on for kids because at this age bad habits can still be changed.
I will write more about my work in the future.

Anzar, anzar, anzar

Rain, rain, rain. Its been raining everyday for some time now. We haven't had people or animals dying in my town like is the case in other parts of my province, but there have been many crops lost and just LOTS of flooding. I bought my veggies in a very muddy souk today. But my biggest problem thus far has been my leaky roof. I know this may not be of much interest to anyone, but seriously, a leaky roof is no fun.
Last night I awoke around midnight because little drops of water were falling on my pillow! I had to rearrange all my furniture(ponjs, table, and rug) so that nothing would be in the path of the leaks(all 10 or so of them!) My poor mud house... I think that my landlord is probably mixing mud and straw(hay) right now to remedy this small mushkil (problem).
Hopefully this rain eases up a bit because there are many areas that are super flooded and many people are losing their homes.

Ramadan Pt. 2

Ramadan is finally over. I can eat lunch again!
The last day of Ramadan is called the 'laeid' and was actually quite interesting. We didnt know when the last day was until late the night before because he had to wait until they could spot the new moon. Once the official news arrived that Ramadan had ended we had a big dinner and got henna done :)
The next morning felt like halloween, as my sitemate described it. Everyone puts on new clothes and goes around town to relatives and friends homes. They stay and have some sweets and a cup of tea and then move on to another home. My sitemate and I baked sweets early in the morning and then started our rounds. We passed out date 'cookies' and banana bread since we werent staying at home to invite people in for tea. We went from house to house eating cookies and drinking very sweet tea. Despite how full I got and the amount of sugar that I consumed, it was fun nonetheless.
Maybe next year ill stay home and invite my neighbors over :)

Fall is here!

There has been much happening lately but I was just able to get to the internet. Since its being really slow I'll save my hail survival story for later and just tell you more about Ramadan. On a sidenote, fall is finally here as evidenced by the great amounts of rainfall we've been having and the slight chill in the air. Izyl.
So about Ramadan...
Things I like:
the large amounts of dates that we consume (the fast is broken everyday by eating a date)
shebekia...i have no idea how its spelled but its a fried pastry covered in honey...yum
tharirt: really good soup with chickpeas, lentils, and cilantro
having breakfast at 630pm
Things I don't like too much:
the hunger i feel at noon time
being woken up at 3am for 'dinner'
that i cant pace myself and always eat too much at break fast (lfdur)

I don't have much time now but I just wanted to give a basic idea of our breakfast. At the second to last call to prayer we break fast by eating a date and then eat many sugary and bready things accompanied by hot coffee or tea (very sweet, of course). We also have hard boiled eggs with salt and cumin. Once finished with the all that we have the tharirt (or 'harira' in darija). After that we get rolled home haha but seriously I eat a lot. This is pretty standard in most homes with slight variations here and there, depending on the income or size of the family.
We're halfway through. Almost there :)

Ramadan

Today is the first official day of Ramadan. What better way to find out than a glaring wake up call at 2:30am??? I had just managed to fall asleep when suddenly I was woken by drumming outside by house. Now this isn't the type of town that has belligerent youth coming home at 2am banging on drums...so I automatically surmised that this was on official annoucement of the beginning of Ramadan. It was a sole drummer just walking by all the houses, making sure he was heard by everyone.
I was informed by my host family yesterday that today we would begin our month of fasting. For almost a month now members of my community have been asking whether I will fast ( or 'zum' in Tamazight) for Ramadan. I tell everyone the same thing: "iyeah inchallah" or yes if god wills it. This is my way of saying that I will try it but make no promises to fast the entire month. I ate a lot last night like my host mother advised me to but I didn't eat the meal before sunrrise this morning...so I am a bit hungry already and its 1:30pm. I can't eat or drink (or put on chapstick) until sundown today...so about 8pm.
Its day one and its harder than it seems.
Inchallah this gets easier...
:)

My New Home

this is my new home :) its really cute and has an awesome blue door haha. its the only angle at which i could take the photo because i live in a pretty narrow alley. once the guys finish painting the house i will be the only person in my alley with a white house... its mud so that means it will be warmer in the winter and its super cooler now that its hot out.

this is my zween (cool) stove and buta gas that makes that stove function. i set it up all by myself so inchallah i dont blow up some day soon. i checked for leaks and it was fine so i think ill be fine.

look i can actually feed myself! :)

just in case you didnt know this, i could never cook a decent meal in the states and now that i have my own home out here i can miracumously cook good food. amazing. i also noticed that i have been missing spicy food without really knowing it. every meal that i have cooked thus far, except for breakfast, has been super spicy. i love it. moroccans dont like spicy food...what a pity.

'Tis the Season to get Married

Like ice cream, there is a season for weddings. Though I have only been to two weddings this summer, and hopefully no more, there have been a countless amount occuring.
Peace corps staff tried to prepare us for these bled weddings by organizing a mock wedding for us during training. So I should have expected what came my way on that first wedding that i attended right? Oho! I knew that these affairs ran pretty late, but i didnt realize I would be eating dinner at midnight and going to bed at 4am while the party was still going on in full swing. I expected more variety in food, but alas they serve the same thing at every special occasion. We were fed the same thing that is given at a funneral or sadaqa: a couple rounds of really sugary tea, a course of sheep meat in all its juices with a sprinkling of olives, and fianlly a giant dish of couscous topped with chickpeas and a chunk of sheep meat. As many of you know I am still a vegetarian, and luckily I have managed to skip the sheep meat without too much argument.
Ok, so after we have eaten until we can't anymore, we go outside and mingle...with only those of the same sex, of course. This is also some that our mock wedding didnt prepare me for; the separation of the sexes. Men eat their meal in one room while women eat theirs in another. The same applies with dancing; girls and women dance together while men keep to their side and dance ensemble there. The only room where i saw the mixing of sexes was in the room where the bride was kept for the majority of the celebration. They built her a quasi throne and people would go in and see her, but she didnt come out until after dinner to do the ritual wedding day practices. While she changed, before making her appearance, the crowd enjoyed the hired ahaydus group.
The bride is carried out piggy back style and is completely veiled. We never see her face during the ritual practices. After this is done, she is carried back inside in the same manner. At this point the other band (with many loud speakers) begins to play the traditional berber music (which many of us have grown quite tired of) and the crowd goes wild. So thats a bled wedding, well in my region anyways.

More Photos

i had to walk behind these sheep this morning on my way to town. many of the men in my village are sheep herders so i often run into sheep.

oh wonderful berber decor. at least the people are resourceful. these trees are made from used waterbottles. we recycle. :)

saw this in azrou on one of the medina walls. i think someone was thinking about dali.

my host nices pretending to weave on the loom in the weaving co-operative in town.

arent they cute?

sunset as seen when walking through the fields back to my current home.

The 9 Person Taxi

I just rode in a taxi with 8 other people. You may be wondering how this is possible... Is it a giant taxi? or is it a super magical taxi resembling mary poppins bag? The latter is closer to the truth. how do you get 9 people into a 6 person car??? this is how: you super squish 5 people in the back seat (i couldnt feel my legs i swear) and of course theyre not youre normal size people; some of them have to be those hefty country women. then you put 2 guys in the passenger seat and finally you have the driver in his seat with another man sitting to his left. yep. thats how you get 9 people into a taxi.

later i can tell you about 27 people in a large minivan or transit as we call them here.

Bismillah

bismillah literally means "in the name of god" and we say this a lot.

before eating or drinking anything, bismillah. before entering a house or building for the first time, bismillah. before starting a trip (usually as the vehicle starts up), bismillah. before holding a newborn baby, bismillah. etc.

we use god phrases a lot in this country. they are an integral part of everyday speech.

photos

this is azrou. the rug shop on the left side belongs to a really nice man that invites all us peace corps volunteers over for very good tea.

this is what my site looked like a few weeks ago before they harvested all the wheat.

i went to sefrou with my host mom to help her out at the craft fair and this is the giant djellaba at the craft fair entrance. on the last day of the cherry parade they sat me on a parade float which carried this djellaba and i found myself in the whole parade. haha.

Death in the Family

Mmt is the word for death in the tamazight language. A couple of weeks ago I learned what happens when a community member dies. I was getting dressed for breakfast one morning when all of a sudden I heard a lot of women wailing. I went outside to see what was going on, only to be told that my nieighbor (also my host uncle) had just passed away. At that point I had no idea what the mourning procedures would be like so I just followed around my host sister. I had no idea what to say to people when they came up to me and told me that their relative had died. All I could say was "i'm sorry" and stare blankly.
My host mom spent the next three days at the dead man's house preparing meals for all the mourners frequenting his home and my host dad was somehow mourning the death of his brother. I didnt see them much for those three days, for people didnt really want me going to the dead mans house because there were too many people crying. I had dinner there on the last or third day of mourning. They slaughtered sheep to feed the guests and also had couscous.
It wasnt until I met with my language tutor that I got some clarification about what had happened on those three days. According to him it is customary to mourn for three days. They also bury the dead within hours of their death; as was the case with this man who died at 7am and was buried by 10am. Interestingly enough the women are not allowed to go to the cemetery for the burial because "they cry too much." Also the widow wears all white. And even now, three weeks later, I still see her walking around in all white clothing.
Theres many details which I am sure I have forgotten about, but I was really just terribly confused when this was happening.

I Got New Shoes

I'm going to cover a lot of things here, so sorry if you end up super confused.
I'm finally swearing in as an official Peace Corps volunteer tomorrow! and then i'm off to my final site, which I have been informed is very cold right now. There has been new snowfall as of last night in the mountains sorrounding Ouarzazate so I can just imagine how much worse it it at my site since its much colder there.
Oh yeah, the title to this post refers to the ratty shoes that I have been wearing and the new ones that I just bought today :) I happen to be throwing out old shoes (fun steps!) just at the time that I'm starting in new stage here in Morocco...corny, I know, but so fitting. The new shoes are also super new because they are sandals and I frankly cannot remeber ever having bought sandals before....so see, new stage. haha
ok I won't bore you with this stuff any more, so I'll explain the photos below:


I realize that I never wrote about the mock wedding that we had in Ouarzazate, so I'll tell you about it now...a month later :) We had to borrow clothes from our homestay families so that we could attend this mock wedding. The purpose was to prepare us for the weddings that we may be attending in the future. We drank mint tea with pounds of sugar in it, had plenty of dates and candy, and then proceeded to dance the night away. (by the way this my languge group...we lived in the same village for training)

This is my language group at our training homestay village. We noticed that a storm was slowly approaching our village from the other side of the mountains so we climbed up to the roof and waited until we were finally pelted with the largest rain drops ever. We just went there last week for the last time ever.

I thought that this image would be interesting because it's something that seems very commonplace to me, but maybe back in the states this is very new. On the days that I didn't have class during my homestay, my host mom would always show me how to make the bread that we eat everyday. This is an image of the wood fired stove and oven. They only use this stove to make couscous and the oven is only used for making the bread. They have regular gas stoves and ovens for the rest of the food. This bread is awesome...made out of wheat that they grow and harvest in their fields :)

I got henna again! We threw a large party to thank our host families during training since training has finally ended. I'll definitely miss my host family, but now its time to move on to my permanent village. do you like the design they made?

This is the beautiful village that I am leaving :(
but i'll be sure to go back at some point...maybe for the august harvest of all things yummy :)

More Photos Part 2

internet went weird on me

heres the rest:

this is a view of my village from more in the center of it...i will be living way out there by the mountain

road sign on the way to my site...this is part of the cedar forests kind of near me

my new friend :) we saw this camel on our way up north...itsn't that look he's giving me amazing???

i swear he's not in pain. he's posing again :)

More Photos!

Just got back from visiting my permanent site :)

Its basically farmland surrounded by mountains. Temp wise its nice and cool but ill be freezing in the winter.

I'm near some cedar forests and also some ski resorts...so plenty of snow will be coming my way this winter.

Oh! I saw barbary apes in the cedar forest!!! My new host family is samll and really nice. My host dad salutes me everytime he sees me and my host mom is one of the head women at the local weaving cooperative. she makes beautiful rugs. you guys should come visit :)

i have some new photos from this past week:

i live in one of the houses at the foot of the mountain

these are the fields i walk through to get to the main part of the village...thats behind me

I'm going to Boulemane!!!

Last night we had a very dramatic unveiling of our permanent sites in the style of jeopardy. We literally had to guess where we were all being placed...so nerve wrecking, but exciting all at once. I can't disclose my exact site, but I can tell you that its in the Boulemane province and that I'm going to be at a site in the middle atlas mountains. I'm leaving to my site tomorrow morning with a few other volunteers that have been placed within a few hours from my site. I'll be there for a week. We are the few that have been placed this far north. :)
I'll let you guys know more about it once I have been there.

photos

here are some photos:

this is my berber smear :)

movie studios in ouarzazate, this is a façade for a movie that i havent seen

maybe you guys know what its from?

this is part of the village where i have been staying recently

its in the valley of the roses

another example of me going native

this is at the weaving association in my homestay village

I Have A One Legged Eagle

True to peace corps spirit, I went an entire week without showering. I spent the last week with my homestay family in the village in the valley of the roses. I have to admit, I wasnt looking forward to a whole week of "i don't understand" and 8 hour days of language instruction, however, it went much better than I had anticipated. On the first night there my host brothers (ages 8 and 11) gave me a tattoo of an eagle. One leg wouldnt stick and since I didnt shower the entire week that I spent there, I arrived back in Ouarzazate with a one legged eagle still on my arm.
I have finally started feeling like I have integrating into the community. Walking down the (only) road in the village is a constant barrage of greetings. Here is an example of the usual greeting:
- salam aalaykum
-waalaykum ssalam
-la bas?
-la bas, hamdullah; la bas?
-la bas; hamdullah; bilxir?
-kushi bilxir; hamdullah
-hamdullah
and this is the shoerter of greetings. sometimes they ask about our health and then about our family.
its really kind of tiring to do this with every person that you encounter, but it feels great to be able to finally understand it all and to be able to respond correctly :)
oh yeah, another way that I feel a bit more integrated is my berber smear. Thats right a berber smear haha
My host mom wanted to do henna on me so i agreed to, but this henna is unlike anything I had seen before. she just smeared the henna "doughy" stuff on my hands and wrapped them up so i had stumps for hands for a whole night. i have redish browish stains on the underside of my hands and my fingernails. though it looks dirty and really odd, i appreciated it because it was her way of making me more a part of their culture.
also my next door neighbor gave me a jellaba and head scarf!!
ill try to take pictures of both my berber smear and the jellaba to post on here soon.

Isolation?

I will be spending this coming week in my host village and one of my taks is to think about isolation. We will be getting interviewed for our final site placement so they have asked us to think about what isolation means to us. I've been thinking about it a bit, but I'm still having some trouble coming up with a definition in this context.
For example, two other trainees and myself spent three days with a current volunteer out in the desert; and thats pretty isolated. The volunteer is pretty far from many other volunteers and from any bigger cities. Public transportation by his site was scarce and we had to go out and wait for a bus at least a half hour before its estimated arrival time. The site was also rather barren and extremely HOT (90-100 degress in march!) Other than these minor details his site was great. His community really liked him and he had many gfriends there. Becuase of this, I can't make up my mind as to whether i want to be near to other volunteers or whether i would rather have only my community as my social network. All I know is that I don't want to be placed in the desert.

Homestay

Before I get to the details about the special celebration in my host village, I want to tell you guys a little about the new things that I am becoming accustomed to.
We have mint tea everyday...with TONS of sugar. At my homestay I had it everyday with my family right before dinner at 9:30pm.
I have also been getting used to the greetings here. there are a serious of questions and handshakes and hand kissing. Usually its just a handshake and then you touch your hand to your chest as a way of saying that the person is now close to your heart.
There are a lot of ritual like activities when it comes to greetings. for example, we're supposed to start greeting from the right and then move around to the others. The tea drinking also has its share of rituals. They always pour out one cup and then pour it back in and then finally pour out all cups.
We always sit on the ground when we eat and people almost always eat with their hands...usually just the right hand.
Hashak(excuse me) for mentioning this but i've also been getting used to the turkish toilet!!! I'm sure you guys all know that its essentially a hole in the ground. They also have these public bath houses which i have yet to go to.
A lot of these things I experienced for the first time once at my homestay and out of the "luxury" of our current lodgings. I was also able to attend a celebration called Sadaqa. They had this celebration because a guy had been sick in the hospital for about a month, and was now better so he had returned home. It was a two day celebration where the women of the village were invited to a feast on the first day and the men on the day after. I went with my host mom and my host sister. There were about 60-70 women sitting in a courtyard just completely relaxed and socializing with everyone around them. Some women brought out tea various times so we were all able to have tea and cookies a couple times. then a younger girl came around and sprayed us all with perfume. while this was happening, some other older women brought out a metal container with hot coals and took it around to the married women. the married women then stood over it, not on it, so the the smoke would go up into their skirts. once this was over they brought out little tables and large trays of couscous. after this meal i went back home with the women from my host family. this experience has thus far been the most surreal that i have had.
hopefully ill have many more

right now im in the desert in the south of the country
a few of us were just on a few hours long taxi ride to come to our fieldtrip here
i think the heat of the place might be worth it if anything just for the amazing scenery on the ride out here
there were some curvy roads through the mountains and desert that felt like being in a kiarostami film
there were also some amazing palm groves in the middle of nowhere
well time to go explore the area
bslama

isminu nadya

hi everyone!
i wish i could have written during the week but i was about 14 km from the nearest internet connection. I spent this past week in a small village situated in a beautiful valley. I dont even know where to begin telling you about it... I lived with a moroccan family and had a great experience. I ate the best couscous ever! it takes a couple hours to prepare on a wood fired stove, and my host mom even let me help with it.
ive been learning the tamazight languaga also. its one of the three berber languages. i also got a new name :) my new name in that village is nadya :) the people were really cordial and generous and really understanding considering that we went there with close to no knowledge of their language. this is the language that i will be using for the next two years.
being in that village with my host family was one of the best learning experiences thus far. I was able to observe the way in which the families interacted and just generally how life is in a small rural village. we went on a few nature walks through the fields and ate almonds right off the trees. there were also many rose bushes lining all the fields...and soon theyll be blooming :)
theres a lot more that i will write about...but i will do it a bit later once i can collect my thoughts better and reflect on the past weeks events.


oh, if anyone wants me to write about anything specific such as food or dress or whatever, let me know

Tamazight

Im learning Tamazight!

thats my language assingment :)
i dont yet know my final site...but i will in about a month
will write more later

Ice Cream Seasons

i have found another ice cream lover! and i he loves it more than i :)
we went looking for ice cream yesterday because it was about 80 degrees outside, but we didnt find any. apparently its still too cool out for ice cream...
ouarzazate, like i said before, is a dessert city. everyone stays indoors around lunch time and goes out agin around 3pm. we spent many hours in a plaza interacting with a bunch of little kids. the cultural differences still stand out a lot to me and its very interesting to note all these differences. we learned how to say high five in darija (moroccan arabic). i also had many other interactions with locals at the souk...and they all think im moroccan!
ill write more later...its ice cream hunting time :)

Rabat to Ouarzazate

salamu aalayum!
so i finally have some free time to write,
i have made it to morocco safely :)
we were in a swanky hotel in rabat for a few days doing all the administrative things...and a bit of sightseeing
being here still feels extremely surreal...especially hearing the call to prayer while in the crowded rabat media.
a group of us also visited the casbah in rabat. it was the absolute best thing i did in rabat. after bypassing so,e protesteors on the main avenue, we made it to the casbah sa the sun had just set. from one point in the casbah we could look over the atlantic ocean at the last faint glow of the sun. it was beautiful, to say the least.
After a 9 hr bus ride through the high atlas mountains, we now find ourselves in ouarzazate.
ouarzazate is a small desert city with very dry warm weather. though a bit more conservative (in appearance) than rabat, it is still quite a modern place. they have a couple film studios here...apparently the sheltering sky and many other films have been filmed here. the people are all very kind. today we had an arabic lesson in which we had to go out in town and approach stranger to engagein conversaton with them. I met a great group of university students who were kind andinterested in americans (and mexicans)
as a side note, many people here have told me thqt i look moroccan, so many try to speak to me in darija(moroccan arabic)
i havent yet tried too much moroccan food except some great veggies prepared in a more moroccan way...and lost of yummy olives!
im heading to my first homestay next week, but i will try to write again before then.
bslama!


*i apologize for all the grammatical errors, but the keyboard here is still very new to me.

Last day of orientation

So i'm in Philadelphia now and am just about done with the last of my orientation. I will be leaving to New York tomorrow and from there we're all taking a flight to Morocco. I'm really excited and can't wait to finally arrive in Morocco. I'll let you guys know how it goes in those first few days. :)

three more days to go

i know that i've mentioned to some people how odd it feels to be making one of these blog things, but i'm doing it anyways. i'm using this thing to keep everyone somewhat updated on what it is i will be doing in morocco.
i'll be in philadelphia for training starting this friday and then i'll be flying out to morocco on the 3rd of march.
when i know my permanent address out there i'll be sure to let you guys know. then you can write me letters! :)