Wednesday, April 16, 2014

My Crazy Moroccan life (sorry for the long wait)

Well well it's been awhile old friends and I'm sorry to all my friends and family for the delay in writing a new post. I haven't been motivated lately to write blogs, but hopefully most folks have been seeing my pictures and statuses on Facebook. I know I mentioned last time that I would start an audio component to my blog, but since I'm typing this on my phone that will happen next time. 

Okay. Here we go. I had an amazing time leaving with my host family in Agourai over the past few months. The love, support, food, and laughs were the best and I really will miss them now that I have left. My fellow volunteers and I threw an awesome going away party for all our host families and it was a blasty-blast. 

Shortly after leaving our beautiful town, we headed back to Rabat, which is the capital of Morocco for some much-needed R&R, but not before taking language proficiency, (I did surprising better than expected) and then we learned about our site assignments. Did I mention this whole process took place over two of the most intense days I've experience in a while? Finding out where you are living for the next two years coupled with wanting to do well on a test was beyond stressful. Whew! 

Now back to my site assignment. I ended up in a small town near Fes, which is cool but as was the case with many of my fellow PCTs (still trainees because we didn't swear in officially till week's end) it wasn't exactly what I wanted but I tried to believe it's the place I'm meant to be. 

In addition, to skip over all the boring parts I will just say that being sworn in by the Secretary of State was pretty cool and taking the same oath as the President of The United States was awesome! I doubt that will be the last one I ever take, inshallah (god willing). 

The next morning after a fun night of partying with my now fellow PCV (volunteers), we all said our goodbyes with many hugs and tears exchanged and began the short or very long treks to our new communities. (Mines was only 3.5 hours away; others had to go 14+ hours, youch!)

Now I'm in site with a wonderful new host family for a few more weeks and then I have to (in no particular order): did a place to live, get a tutor, find a community counterpart, make a difference in my Dar Chabab and community, and change the world. Haha. It's been a stressful and trying several days, but no one ever said it would be easy trying to integrate with a community, especially when your language skills are there still, but they will. 

Right now I'm focusing on bonding with my host fam and building a relationship with my Mudir (director of youth center). He seems to be a good person who will take an active role in bringing life to the Dar Chabab (youth center). We have pool, table tennis, and a sweet sports complex attached to my center so I'm hoping these will be big draws for young people and eventually the community to come and engage with me. If for no other reason but to see a live action American doing American stuff, whatever that may be :)

Until next time

Anas wlla (or) Daviyion 



As always here is a boatload of pics for your viewing pleasure. 










My CBT mates and two current volunteers that helped us


My old host family in Agourai (Most of them)







From my first class taught to Moroccans













My place of work for the next two years


Me new host family (Most of them)