4th Week in Community Training

L to R: Abdulahad, Sfia, Fatiha, Lmkki, Me, and Brahim

This last week was my fourth week of community training. It was a good week with several events happening. I had a language eval which I did well on, had a party with the family where they invited around 30 relatives, got some henna on my hand (which I found out later is a female thing), and generally had a good time. I’ve posted some photos.

The big news of the week was my site announcement, where I found out where I’ll be living for the next two years. It’s a town of 5000 in the Jerada province, which is about 30 km from the Algerian border in northeast Morocco. I’m excited; this a nice site and I’ve heard great things about it. This includes the fact that it has a large river running by it, has a strong association, has electric and water, and is 3 hours from a very nice beach on the Mediterranean. 20 km from me is Graham, who I’ve been rooming with at our hotel we use as a base in Ouarazate and who is also in my language group during community training. We get along well; he’s a smart guy, is from Baltimore, and has a background in economics. Another guy I get along with is Josh, who will be our next closest volunteer, is about 100 km away. All three of us will probably be working on some projects together and will also be learning some Algerian Arabic in addition to Moroccan Arabic. Also, our sites are about 3 hrs away from the Mediterranean, and a great beach community called Saidi. From there, its another few hours to the port city of Melilla, where ferry’s can take you to Europe.

I leave tomorrow for my first site visit. From Oz, it will take three days to get their, we’ll stay for three days, and then will take three to come back. Will probably stay the night in Rabat and also in Fez or Oujada, neither of which I’ve seen. I look forward to getting out of the Ouarzate region, where I’ve been for 2 months and seeing the rest of Morocco. I’ll tell you all about when I return.
Like I said earlier, I feel good about my language progress. I think I’m about 30% fluency right now, which can get me around Morocco for the most part. After a year, I hope to be around 80% in Darija, and then switch to classical Arabic and/or French. Peace Corps pays for my use of a tutor, which is real nice.

Well this is a good point to stop, and I’ve had some stories that I haven’t included in my last couple posts, but I’ll try to play catch up starting next weekend. Ill have some free time to sit around this week and write something poetic.