I am now located in a small beach-side town north of Rabat. My group and I will be receiving orientation briefings, and meeting PC staff and officials for the next couple of days. The town is small and quaint, and has a nice draw or awe to it. After daily briefings, we are able to venture out to the beaches and enjoy the scenery. Moreover, in the mornings, groups of us are able to jog and enjoy cooler weather. Currently, the weather during the day is humid, although not extremely hot, just messy.
We are just a few days away from moving in with our host-families, so this can be considered a sort of "silence before the storm" period. The room and board is pretty nice. It is not as convenient as what you have in the states, but we are able to manage pretty well. I also want to add that The food and mint tea has been excellent.
We had just started learning some Moroccan Arabic terms; and, unfortunately, Moroccan Arabic or Darija has many nuances compared to Modern Standard Arabic of which I have studied. I do not think I will have any problems transitioning between the two, however I will have a small learning curve, albeit not as large as my counterparts.
In all, things are going well and I have not run into any shell-shockers yet, although I have only been in country for two days. The volunteers are a great group of people and everyone, from the locals to the staff, have been real nice.
Thank you,
Hi Damion,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Morocco and I hope that everything is fine with you.
My name is Abdelkrim and I help PCV working in my province. I will start reading your blog and follow your work in my country as I like your profile and think you will be doing great job here. The town where you are going to be next is called Azrou and it's located in the Middle Atlas ( in french " L'Anti-Atlas"). I have a little note to share with you here as a friend, I think that you should change that Morocco map you did put on here, why ? Simply because you are in the Kingdom of Morocco right now and you are as PCT not yet a PCV a guest of His Majesty who considers " the western Sahara" part of it's land and territory even if it's legally speaking a disputed land. You are not the first PCT to use a map that only show Morocco as far as Tarfaya when it's in fact a long coastal cities from Tangier to Al Gouira only 40kms from Mauritania. I think to be a good guest of HM at least change that map and utilize one that shows the complete Morocco map. I don't intend here to be rude nor to make any pressure on you, this is just a little note to explain a political fact. Thanks for your understanding and hope that we will keep in touch and hear from you soon.
Kind regards
Kareem