And...I'm in Morocco!

            On Wednesday we left the luxury of our hotel compound in Marakech where we had been since we arrived in country Monday for a windy trip through the Atlas Mountains.  We had a police escort for the entire 4 hour trip on twisty, skinny roads.  The terrain reminded me a lot of Southern California-scrub brush, mountains, and even snow, as well as palm and fruit trees.  The two buses pulled up to Ouarzazate and through the main square to our hotel.  Up until then, it had been a whirlwind of information, people and things to remember.  Since we arrived in Ouarzazate it has been some of the same, but has calmed down a lot.

            Since Wednesday we have been doing a lot of training and have begun to learn a little bit more about our specific roles as either Health Education or Environment volunteers (which has made everyone less restless and more directed).  And today, we finally learned our CBT (community based training) sites and the groups we will be with, as well as the language we will be learning for the next two months.  Drum Roll please…Arabic (Darija)!  I’m very excited.  I did some work before I left for Morocco on learning some simple phrases along with the Modern Standard alphabet.  I have a large(ish) CBT group of 7 which I think is nice-a good chance to get to know a lot of people and if I ever get tired of someone there will be others to talk to. 

            Tomorrow morning we all leave each other and head off to the CBTs.  It will be sad to leave everyone (we all have become close over the last week and I really feel that I have bonded with almost everyone here) and I know I will miss being able to eat meals and speak with lots of different people.  We have a truly wonderful group of people from many different backgrounds and I have really enjoyed getting to know them.  But tomorrow is the big day.  I will meet my host family and learn a little bit about my community and begin our language lessons with Mohammed, our language and culture facilitator.  On Thursday we all return to our hub in Ouarzazate with all the other health volunteers to do more training (and get a second rabies shot, woo) and I will likely have more to post then (or will try to since I won’t have access to internet at the CBT)….lots more impressions and things to talk about then!  I will also do my best to put some pictures up either on here or the Facebook.