Yesterday we all took the oath to uphold the constitution so now we're officially Peace Corps volunteers, no longer trainees. Now we're all heading to our permanent sites, and it turns out that the Association in my site makes couscous, traditionally, by hand. So it looks like my Couscous Chronicles may actually start including talk of couscous.
So it's been an eventful past month and a half:
- First big Projects: We finished up the five weeks of Community-based training in Itzer by completing individual projects to help the association there. I made a website as my project: www.afcmaroc.org. The Arabic site isn't quite finished yet, but you should visit the French and English sites and let me know what you think, and whether you have any suggestions. We also spent some time putting links to the website and reviews of the treks all over random travel forums and Wikitravel, to try to advertise a bit for them. Let me know if you have any suggestions for other websites where I could post links or reviews.
- We learned our site placements about three weeks ago and immediately went off for a week-long visit with our new host families, whom we'll be living with for two months while we get to know the community. My village, "Khoukhat" is super small, about 400 people.
- My new host family: the father is the Cheikh of the village (I guess kind of like the mayor for a small town) and he drives the daily transport to and from all the cities nearby, and he owns the one "hanut" (small convenient store) in the village, and his daughter is president of the Association. So it looks like I'll be pretty well-connected in town. They're by far the richest family in the village, and the only house with running water. (Though no hot water, and they only heat up the bathing room once a week, so I think I'm going to start commuting into the next town to bathe too).
- US Election: I really missed being in DC during the whole election - election coverage was pretty much the only thing on the news here for weeks before the election, and it would have been fun to be in the States for this, but it was also pretty cool being in the middle of nowhere. Wednesday morning after the election I got up with my family at about 5am at the first call to prayer and immediately turned on the news and saw the results. I was going to town with my father that morning to run some errands, which means leaving the house before dawn and driving through the village to pick up everyone who needed to go to town for whatever reason, and every time someone climbed into the back of my host father's van he would announce that Obama won, and the passenger would cheer. I can't even count how many "congratulations!" i got that day from random people on the street. It was cool to think about people in tiny villages all around the world who don't have running water but still cared passionately about this particular election in America.
- Language Test: We all had to take this Language Proficiency Test in Moroccan Arabic ("Darija") I guess for our own knowledge of our level as well as for the Peace Corps' own self-assessment. Six of us tied for the best with a score of "Intermediate High".
- Sweet Talent Show Performance: As if this whole training time didn't feel enough like summer camp already, we ended it with a talent show last night. A handful of us created this dance team and performed. You can watch our act on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=dnYZzepF8nM - What Happens from Here? The only real goal for the next couple of months is "integrate" so I'm not exactly sure what I'll be spending my time doing. A lot of studying Darija and wandering around the village and chatting with people, I guess. It might be kind of hard not really having much to do all day, so write me emails and send me stuff in the mail, so I have an excuse to commute to town for internet and the post office.
