Blogs from Fès-Boulemane, Morocco, Africa - page 27

I'm back! Community based training is officially over and we're moving onto the next phase of training. Before I get ahead of myself, though, let me tell you about all that has happened recently. Just before we last left Immouzzer we were treated to a royal visit of sorts. The king of Morocco, with his whole motorcade (which includes about 40 cars, motorcycles, and helicopters) passed through Immozzer and drove right past our compound. We got word of it about 10 minutes before he came through so we were all out on the sidewalk with a big Peace Corps sign waving as he went by. The king drives his own huge black land rover with red and green Moroccan flags on the side, and he waved back as he passed us at 80 miles an hour. ... read more

One of the things that most of the CBT groups do before they leave their site is to throw a party for the families they’ve been staying with. We were going to have it at my house, but since somebody close to the family had died it would have been Hashuma. I actually heard that the small “party” we had for Asmae was considered hashuma by several neighbors, and I hope Asmae doesn’t let them get to her. So, we had the party at Nada and Michael’s house, which was next door to mine. We ordered all sorts of food made, from millefeuille and msimin (also called millewi) to sheet cakes and little pita breads stuffed with pizza makings. I popped popcorn and helped make the mint tea. I’m very excited that they have popcorn here, ... read more

"You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to offer." - Eleanor Roosevelt I doubt Eleanor could have imagined some of the situations I've been meeting with my best lately, but her advice still works. My camera has decided it doesn't like computers anymore, so I can't upload photos until I figure out another way to get them off the camera. On the bright side, I got to travel to Fès on Sunday with Asmae and spent the night there with her at her aunt's house. It was almost creepy how much her aunt reminded me of my mom's sisters. If my grandmother had had another daughter, she could have looked just like Asmae's aunt. I would post a photo to prove it ... read more

Wow! It's been a long time since I wrote anything substantial here. Before I go into details about what I've been doing, there's just a little more business that I have to take care of. First, the Peace Corps is extremely wary of sensitive material, and particularly since Morocco is a conservative Muslim country with many proud and beautiful traditions concerning religious and family values, the PC doesn't want to risk any offense to our host country national counterparts and/or their communities. As a result, any deragotory or culturally insensative remarks, pictures, etc. that can be connected to any volunteer are considered to be a danger to the success of our mission of promoting world peace and friendship. Please, please, PLEASE do not do anything that would connect me with any material of this nature because ... read more

Hi everyone! Welcome to my blog! Hope everyone found it easily enough. From now on I will be posting messages here so I won't clog up your e-mail inboxes anymore, so if you want to know what's going on with me feel free to check here anytime. I will still be checking my e-mail regularly so if you want to send me a message that you don't want everyone else to read, please do so. Otherwise, I believe, everything you post here will be availble to be read by anyone who checks this blog. I'm going to add my previous e-mails to the blog so that my diary is complete and then I'll add a post about what's been going on lately. ... read more