I’m not sure when I last when on a picnic, but it was long overdue. After a busy morning at the Dar Chebab with the new Palm Tree Environmental Club, I went with my landlady and her family to a place on the northern edge of town called “Mrbuh” - pronounced with the hard aspirated H at the end. Sorry, I forgot to ask what the word means. We didn’t end up bringing the kitchen sink with us, but we managed to haul with us so much that seemed to me like we were setting out to go camping. Tromping [View Full Entry]

---

---

This was the perfect trip to greet the new season. The sun was shining and all the flowers were out, but I didn't spend every minute of the weekend outside. As with other PCV get togethers, we had a movie marathon beginning with “Napoleon Dynamite” (home sweetpotato home!) and going through “Office Space” and “Brokeback Mountain” before finishing with some new Family Guy episodes. The landscape of Brokeback actually made me more homesick than the familiarity of Idaho-filmed Napoleon Dynamite. The movies are always a fun mini-vacation but the highlight of [View Full Entry]

---

---

My alarm went off at 5am and as I turned it off I wondered what I was hearing out in the street. Pre-coffee, I though of dogs and pictured all the strays of Kelaa sitting in the street below my apartment talking very loudly. I went upstairs to the kitchen, and as I crossed the open roof from the stairs to the door to the kitchen I could hear the sound more clearly. It was the three closest mosques calling out the pre-morning prayer with the usual delayed repetition that prevents me from distinguishing any one of them very well. I [View Full Entry]

---

---

Real happiness is linked to pledging oneself to a great purpose. One who lives this way is strong, strong enough to be happy under any circumstances. “The Buddha in Your Mirror” Last Thursday I celebrated six months since leaving Boise with phone calls from both a parent and a friend back home. This Monday, however, marks six months that I have actually been in Morocco. The flux time in Philadelphia doesn’t get any kind of anniversary. The time has flown by and I can tell it is only going to keep speeding up. Happily, I haven’t dealt with too much homesickness [View Full Entry]

---

---

Be brave enough to live life creatively Alan Alda While my parents were skiing in McCall, Idaho I went to hot, sunny Marrakech on my day off. If I am sweating in a T-shirt in March I don’t even want to think about August. They weren’t kidding when they said it gets hot here. Today’s bus ride to the city was a bit more exciting than usual and I blame it on the heat. Nobody is very happy to have the summer heat set in already. The rising gas prices have forced up the bus fare from 15 or 17 dirhams [View Full Entry]

---

---

Leaving Tingdad Cara and I were drained. I felt crabby and snapped at the first Moroccan who followed us. Usually I wait until they throw a few comments at us before I react but that morning I didn’t have one drop of tolerance left. It was one of those “you know you have been in Morocco too long when” moments. I actually looked around for rocks to throw at the guy. Kids here throw rocks a lot and it is one of the things we joke about when we talk about getting harassed. Maybe wanting to throw rocks means I [View Full Entry]

---

---

The reason I got to travel over to this other side of the Atlas is for a weekend workshop to train me as a VSN counselor. The Volunteer Support Network is a group of PCVs who are trained to counsel our peers. We are not professionals (three days of training cannot work miracles) but when we are out in our sites it is sometimes not very feasible to go to get professional counseling in Rabat. Peace Corps does provide psychologist services (and I have heard they are very good) though sometimes talking to a Moroccan, no matter how good they [View Full Entry]

---

---

My first trip over the Atlas to Ouarzazat proved to be quite eventful. The road from Marrakech to Oz (as we affectionately refer to Ouarzazat) is famous. During L-Eide I saw report after report on the news about people being stuck on the road overnight in the snow. Everybody talked about what a horrible road it is. So I wasn’t too surprised when the bus stopped on the side of the road not far out of Marrakech in a jam of full busses, trucks and cars. The pass was closed and nobody seemed to know when it might open. I settled [View Full Entry]

---

---

I got out of town a bit today and headed over to Ben Guerir where Bart lives. He was one of the Sefrou crowd and it was nice to catch up with him and see his town. He took me to meet his host family, who were very friendly and insisted we stay for lunch. They were having turkey and potatoes, which could be very American if cooked a certain way. This was definitely not cooked American, but it’s been long enough since I’ve had tajine that it tasted delicious. I haven’t quite recovered from homestay and am still trying to [View Full Entry]

---

---

Thanks to my dear friend Amanda you get a break from hearing about my daily routine. She always asks very pointed questions and in an effort to answer some of her recent queries I will delve into some cultural topics. Disclaimer: I am not Moroccan and have only been here for five months. I do not proclaim to know that much, but will try my best to explain what I have learned so far. Another problem here is that Morocco is very culturally diverse. Sure, they are all Muslims, but it goes way beyond that. This is a very culturally diverse [View Full Entry]

---

---