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Published: March 3rd 2013
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3/3/2013
Anticipation builds!
Life has not been dull here in Morocco and here we are, two adults, back in school, awaiting graduation and our new careers. One of the anticipatory things right now is the decision about where we will be sent for our 24 months of work after our present training is completed. Throughout the country, there are locations that have specific needs. There are locations which have host families who want only females, males or couples and cities with new youth sites (dar chebabs) that need to be developed. There are big cities and rural villages. We are not privy to any specifics of where these various locations are, but we have some preferences as to where we would like to be placed. So, here we go. Morocco is a big country, but it has a huge amount of coast and we hope to be near it. It is a bit more expensive to be coastal, but we are hoping that they will pick couples for these locations - - we do have two housing allowances to put together. As you may suspect, Clay’s top priority is computer resources (fast and reliable internet). Ann would really like
flowing hot water and a regular toilet. The fact that these things are not to be taken for granted is quite simply our world now. We just had our site “interviews” with a PC representative and we voiced our preferences. Now we wait for the powers that be to tell us our fate, which we should know it about two more weeks. Do they throw a dart at the map? We will see!!!
The end of this work week was filled with rain, wind and cold weather, topped off by continued language learning in the morning and teaching youth in the afternoon/evening. We are starting to know people by name. On the street, Clay gets complimented on his new Moroccan outfit. People are starting to respond to our greetings and smile at us without distrust or confusion. We have heard through the grape-vine that our group has made a good name for itself and that says a lot for our hard work. We are both starting to think in Moroccan Arabic. We are eating lots of vegetables and fruit (yes, and bread) and last week, we might have had a whole chicken thigh between us. We have definitely reduced
our dead animal intake. (Much to Clay’s dismay!)
Saturday we were allowed to leave Ain Cheggag again and we went to the same hotel that we visited previously. We had heavenly hot water in abundance, huge tub and shower, and a big bed. Ahhh….. Best part is, since we made friends with the manager (who lives in Ain Cheggag) the last time we were there, he gave us more than ½ off the price and we had lots of fall-apart beef in our tagine!!!! Sunday also turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day. We have lots of photos for you to enjoy. We were stopped by a man we knew who wanted to practice his English and while speaking to him, we saw our host Dad driving down the street and joined him for the horse training again (this time, it was just up the road). Later that day, we strolled around town and enjoyed the sunshine! On our walk, we even got to meet a baby calf at the neighbor’s house and step in a whole bunch of soggy poop! Not to worry! We saw the poop and said, “No way!” However, the mother at this house
yelled at one of the kids and in a flash, he brought out someone else’s sandals for us to wear. Seriously? We did graciously accept the offer and trod through the poop to see the baby cow. We failed to mention that one of the reasons we did not want to tread through the nastiness was that we were wearing our flip-flops for the first time since being here (bad timing with the poop, but lovely day outside).
We have much to be thankful for and LOVE that you are following us on the blog. We believe that as we move forward in this journey, we will continue to discover new and exciting things to share with you all… a new location, new jobs and new people. Just as people in New York are different from people in Florida in many ways, we are told that Morocco will offer much diversity within itself too. So please continue to follow while we explore further and get our marching orders to… You will have to stay tuned to find out!
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Craig Tomlinson
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Enjoying the pics...keep them coming!
When do you actually start doing the Peace Corps bit? I expected you'd have dug 100 wells by now..and planted some crops or something? ;)