Site announcement

I now know where I will be living for the next two years starting somewhere around May 23.

If you read the previous entry, you'll understand that I can't say where, here, but if I know you in real life and you want to send me goodies or you just want to google it (you won't find anything), jet me an email if you're not on my mailing list, but I don't have an address yet. Hopefully I will by the end of next week.

So, after our LPI test (on which I was amazed to score an Intermediate-Low... really much higher than I think I deserve, but it means that I won't be unable to swear-in because of language issues, at least!), we played Jeopardy a-la-PC style (which was actually a lot of fun and our team won, even though I was one person off on how many PCVs there are currently in Morocco; there are 152 and I thought there were 153), had some free time so I did laundry on the roof and went to a cafe for a nes-nes.

Oh, and I keep wanting to talk about the donut guy here (the svenj man). There is a donut shop across from the training hotel and the man there speaks Darija, French, Tamazight, and Spanish. It's kind of amazing. I think he knows a few words of English too, but we have these two-minute conversations in, like, five languages. It's a little overwhelming, but it's really fun to learn a Tam word or two by getting taught it in Spanish. There was also a man at souq when we went to souq during the last CBT phase who worked at a travelling clothes-selling tent with really nice clothes. I almost bought a skirt. But, in any case, he speaks fluent, flawless Spanish and it was empowering to have a conversation that was fluid with a stranger in Morocco. He learned it from missionaries (non-evangelical) who worked at an old Cathedral in a nearby city. Anyway. Off-subject. I'll go back to site placement and yesterday. I'm stalling.

So, yesterday, after dinner, we piled into the conference room and, once more, with one of the zween power point presentations that we see on a constant basis during training, we got our site placements. I was third to last to know... and am in an area that is very densely populated with PCVs. I rushed to a cyber to update the blog, but it was half an hour before curfew (yes, as trainees, we do have a curfew), so I skyped my parents for a few minutes but had to go soon. It was shwiya ironic to tell my parents (who, incidentally, never actually gave me a curfew while growing up) that I had to go to make curfew.

My site is a brand-new site, which was really what I wanted and I am absolutely psyched about it. I think part of that comes from hearing from certain PC people that really, as far as development goes, PC Morocco doesn't make as much of an impact as I was expecting, but that it excels with cross-cultural understanding. I'm honored and excited to be most likely the first American living there, and hope I can set the stage for volunteers who may come after.

The site is on a road that is not yet paved, but they're starting to pave it, so maybe by the end of the two years, it will have a paved road. There is electricity and brand new running water (so had I come right out of college, there'd have been no running water), and cell phone coverage. I feel spoiled, but most of us these days in PC Morocco have a lot of that if not everything. I'm about 17k from internet, and the same distance from another volunteer, though that means about 45 minutes of travel time. That town also has a main souq, so inshallah, I'll be able to go once a week to stock up on veggies and fruits and any other necessities (like email).

I talked to the program assistant (is that really his title? The person I keep refering to as the one who has been leading training this whole time) about it and he said it got cold but not cold enough to snow, it got warm but not as hot as Zagora or Tata or the real desert, it's big but not big enough to sustain two volunteers, and that he was sure I'd love it. There's already a neddi (women's center), and he said since ONEP came in and started running water, it was much more of a site for maternal and child health type education than water sanitation. Awesome. I can see myself going to the sbitar and neddi on a regular basis and really trying to get to know the women there. It's also in what he describes as sort of an oasis- near but not in the desert, through but not up in the mountains. So... again, I learn my lesson about expectations. My only expectations that I thought were given was that I'd be in the mountains or the desert. Ha! Instead I get semi-desert semi-mountain oasis.

Honestly, though I haven't been there, I think despite the fact that I feel it might be a little Posh Corps with the electricity and running water, it sounds like it's a great match. Working with women, nice-ish climate for a Tamazight site (some of the Tashelheet people are near the beach= beautiful climate), and a new site. Close to other volunteers, including one friend from CBT, but also alone in a site. No internet at my site so I will be more productive and less of an internet addict.

So... we'll see! Tomorrow I head out there for a week. Scary. I probably have to meet with officials who don't speak English to introduce myself, and I know I have to meet my counterpart in the sbitar and stay with my host family. Intermediate-low might sound like a lot of Tamazight but I can barely have a conversation with someone on the street... let alone the people I'll be living with and working with for the next two years. Scary but exciting. I can't wait.