Ssalamu Ealaykum (Peace be upon you) from Morocco!

Well I made it! That is I have survived my first 5 days in Rabat (the capitol city of Morocco) and the Hotel Oscar experience. It has been such a whirlwind adventure from day 1. So for a brief recap, I started in Philly on Monday, Jan. 13th with some brief training and knowledge gathering that Peace Corps refers to as "Staging", where we meet all the volunteers that are part of our group for Morocco, which was over 100 people! Talk about daunting numbers of new folks to introduce yourself too. Following this one day bonanza of sessions, get to know you activities, and team builders we departed early the next day for JFK airport, but of course not before one last hurrah in Philadelphia where a bunch of us went out for Karaoke in Chinatown. I can honestly say I've never had that much fun singing while sober in my life, Morocco Idol better watch out for this mutaTwie (volunteer)!

After what seemed like hours we all finally cleared security and had what must have been the toughest conversations with loved ones and friends in quite sometime. All around me people are saying their 'goodbyes and see you soons' to those who mattered most in life. It was a very somber scene.

Finally we board and my excitement is hard to contain. This is my first international flight and it's like an 8 hour flight so of course having watched tons of movies about transatlantic flights I think I have this part covered...nope! Watching Red Eye or Flight Plan or really any movie involving planes, besides Airplane is a lie. There was nothing nearly that exciting happening. Haha. It was a great time chatting with other PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) and watching movies though and that suit me just fine until we landed in Morocco.

Now here on the ground things have been kinda  a blur, but it's been a ton of fun and man the food has been amazing. We are staying in Oscar Hotel in the capitol city of Rabat for about 10 days total before we all split up across the country to smaller communities were our language training will accelerate and we will be placed with out host families for the next three months #awesome! As of now we continue to learn about about Peace Corps policies, procedures and take intro language course. I am very proud to say that I have retained a good amount of Arabic in just a few brief lessons and feel fortunate that I have class with my roommate so I always have someone to practice with daily.

Well I'm sure there is so much more that I can write about, but I know everyone is really just here to see pictures so hope you enjoy and be your to follow my adventures here in the Morocco. Tell your friends and family too aka the more people who read my blog the more likely Google will pay me to have one. Haha. Don't you want to help your friend in a foreign country living off a small amount of Dirham (local currency) survive?  :)

bslama (goodbye)

View from the Rabat beach/Atlantic Ocean

My name in Arabic

Shopping at the Medina (market)

The beginning of an end for a beginning

Tonight (technically 12:06 am) I am chilling at my mom's place in what may be the last time for quite awhile : (   My time home has been bittersweet and full of awesome times with friends (still bummed I'm missing my bro Ricardo's wedding), family (seeing my kid brother for the first time in over a year), and food (goodness I think I ate pork in every variety I could find since it's readily not available Morocco). All in the all the time has been great and now I'm off to Philly to get ready to open the next chapter of my life, which is crazy exciting!!!!

Now Philly comes with it's own pros and cons. 

Pro: Get to see my girlfriend, Kristina again :). I love that girl and can't wait for one last hurrah 

Con: We are separating after two fun years together and who knows what life has in store for us next. However the cards may fall, I truly feel honored and grateful for the love and support she has shown me and truly teaching me how to be a better man and person in general. 

Pro:  Philly is one of my top 3 favorite U.S. city purely for history alone. 

Con: Freezing cold/Post snowmageddon. I'm not looking forward to my last time in a US city for awhile being a crappy weather one, but I'm sure I'll make the most of it along with all my fellow volunteers.

Pro: Get to meet all this new and exciting folks that will be apart of my Peace Corps Morocco group (96 strong, give or take a few). As a highly social person, I love meeting new people and I am excited about the prospect of leaving Morocco in two years with a plethora of good friends.

Con: What if all the new trainees that I will be with suck?! Lol kidding; they will all be awesome.

It's crazy how fast the time has flown since getting home and now leaving once more. This is the first time in 4 years that I have not been returning to my home/job at Penn State post break. This the first time in 4 years that I will not be supervising a staff of amazing RAs. This is the first time in 4 years that I have said goodbye to be people that I love and care about with no idea of when I will see them next. 

Wow! It's been such a strange feeling to have so much downtime to think about the random things like what I mentioned above, but those observations have really stood out for me over the last several weeks home (on top of selling out to the "man" and getting a northface bag, sobbing over all the cool movies I'll be missing, and how quickly I get things done when I'm are leaving the country).

As stated above this is the beginning of an end and my time in the US is slowly winding down. Though I've never considered myself overly patriotic, I find myself already missing the pleasures and greatness of being an American. In Morocco I still will be an American of course but there will not be the constant intentional or subliminal influences surrounding me, providing comfort and safety. I am hopeful that this cognitive dissonance will push and challenge me in ways I have yet to foresee and truly allow for me to explore a new beginning in Morocco. One that is full of mystery, growth, fun, and knowledge.

Thought I was kidding....

Well I finally found the document I was looking for that shows the picture version of the timeline to service. It's funny because looking at these cute little pictures, one might think everything happens so quickly, but really they need to say how many months passed within each phase of the process. Haha.

First post...Get ready for a wild ride!

Today I finally decided to get off my lazy tush and write my first blog post regarding my Peace Corps journey thus far. A journey you say? How is that possible?! You haven't even left yet, Daviyion. 

Haha. True, but getting there is half the battle. 

So back in the early days of September 2012, I decided that I wanted to join the Peace Corps. It was an easy choice somewhat since I am a naturally impulsive person and make my biggest decision based on the slightest whims. This has proven to be a remarkably effective method thus far in my life. I mean we are talking about a person who choose what universities to apply to for a first professional job based on who was playing the NCAA March Madness Tournament and 4 years later I am still glad that Penn State made the cut that year! 

A lot of people have asked me why do I want to do this. Questions like "Why uproot your life?", "Can't you do the same thing here (America). Why do you need to leave?", and generally just "Why Peace Corps?". 

For me, it was a lot of reasons; some more serious/important like I want to be more globally competent and learn/engage in the culture and communities and people from another part of the world to reasons such as losing a bunch of weight by being exposed to diet that most likely will not include late-night McDonald's runs :)

So to give a short version of my timeline here is what my start with Peace Corps has been thus far.

Early September 2012-Slept on it and pondered for about 3 days about signing up

Mid Sept. 2012- Decided to apply and tell the world about this via Facebook to much fanfare (note to self: Always tell your girlfriend/loved ones first before posting it online and then get that awkward call or text asking about what's going on). Won't be doing that again

Mid to Late Sept. 2012- Continue work on application, gather references, continued research, work on reflective questions for application (First time I really paused to think about what I was doing. haha.)

Sept 28th, 2012- Application submitted

October 2012- Don't remember everything, but I know that I had to complete some paperwork for pre-medical clearances and scheduled my interview with a local recruiter (This was the first time I felt anxious about things).

November 2012- Had interview with Nellie, Returned Volunteer who served in Nepal. It was AWESOME! The interview was scheduled for about 45 minutes to an hour and lasted nearly 2 1/2! What can I say? I talk too much sometimes.

Still November 2012- Learned that Nellie was impressed or curious enough to nominate me for service. That lead to a very exciting Thanksgiving for me. At this point, there was no looking back for me.

December 2012- This month is kind of a blur as I don't recall anything really happening big this month. Just lots of questions from friends and family when I went home for winter break.

January 2013- New Year, New Excitement! Eagerly waiting to hear that now that I have a nominate if there are any trips coming up around/during the upcoming summer for departure. No news or updates from my recruiter.

February 2013- While at a conference in NYC and with my girlfriend during the Valentine's weekend, bad news struck. There were no upcoming trips leaving for the summer that I qualified for. Talk about a damper on what is the most romantic time of the year. Thanks for my girlfriend for being there to support me and still making the weekend awesome! That could have been a rough one.

I learned that even though I for sure wouldn't be leaving in the summer that my nomination was still active and if anything comes open that I'm qualified for I will be notified. Pretty depressing, but I had no clue what that meant or how to plan my life moving forward. This was the first monkey wrench in the equation.

March 2013-Post New York I'm in a bit of a funk and start making new plans such has deciding to renew my Amazon Prime and Playstation Game Account for another year cause 'Hey, I'm not leaving anytime soon.' SURPRISE! I receive an email from Peace Corps indicating that I had been nominated for a trip departing in or around January 2013. Whoa! That's why later than the summer, but I can be flexible. I mean it was only a once in a lifetime opportunity. lol.

More time passes... Nothing big happens for a while and the only thing that I'm focused on is remaining possible for more news or updates and after nearly four solid months of a dry spell, I get some news!

August 2013-Hanging out in the office with a pair of my favorite colleagues when in a not untypical Daviyion fashion I drift out of the conversation to check my email and hear the familiar ding alert of a new message and in viewing the preview, I see the words, "Peace Corps", "Invitation", "Morocco". I think I literally screamed and in typically fashion, Jordan West just says, "did you get it"? ( I guess the sound coming from my mouth indicating Peace Corps joy vs the run of the mill joy). I laughed, actually read the email and laugh some more. I can tell you know few things can dampen your day when you learn that your life is about to be changed forever!

August-Now 2013- The thing I love/loved most about this phrase of the process is that things actually moved fairly quick in comparison to the first 2/3 of this journey. Me accepting my invitation with little to no hesitation to shock/dismay/joy/sadness/excitement of many around me, having to complete a TON of doctors visits and labs, updating my resume and writing a personal statement to share with my Moroccan contact in country, and a host of other tasks.

And that's it! My first blog down. This wasn't so bad. Granted I'm doing this in the comfort of my apartment, which is climate controlled surrounded by all my fancy tech toys and life luxuries. What will this experience feel like in the world of Morocco? I guess you will have to just join me on my Escape to Morocco and find out.

Until next time

P.S. These cute little guys roam the desert of Morocco. My goal upon arrival is to make one of these my pet. His name will be Mojo. That is all