I guess I'm keeping up with this whole "one post a month" thing. Fear not, once I get my own place and actually have more regular access to Internet, the updates should increase. In the meantime, I direct you all to my Facebook where you can stalk me through photographs.

So, what's happened in the last month? First, I found out where I'm going to be living for the next two years! I'm up in the northeast, pretty close to Algeria, which should be exciting. I got to go visit my site for a week, and although I didn't get to see/do a whole lot while I was there, what I saw looked chill. Then I came back to my training site, turned 23, and got super sick. Fortunately I was healthy in time for eid, which was this past Wednesday/Thursday. 

Eid L'Kabir was pretty exciting. My family had bought a sheep a few days earlier, and my little brothers and sisters kept prancing around the house/running up to me and saying, "Meetra! Meetra! Today the sheep (draw finger across throat)." The kids also got new clothes and money, but they were far more excited about the death of the sheep. And then at long last it was time for the family to gather on our roof. My little brothers wrestled the sheep to the ground, my dad drew out his knife, and before I knew there was sheep blood all over the place. I'll save you the rest of the details, but suffice it to say that after the whole affair was over my mom and I ate cake and that was awesome. We've been eating sheep ever since which has been less than awesome. A word of advice - brains look a lot like eggs. I learned this the hard way.

But alas, training is (almost) over now. I've left my CBT site and returned to Mehdia, where I'll spend a few more days chillaxing with the other trainees until Wednesday when I officially become a Peace Corps Volunteer! Then I'm off to the cold north to begin actually doing stuff. It might be awhile until the next post, but go to my Facebook and look at dead sheep pictures to tide you over until then.

Yeah, I know it's been a month....

.....and you're all always asking me why I don't update the blog, but then again, you don't comment, either, which leads me to believe that you just want me to update the blog so that you can theoretically read it if you feel like it, but you aren't actually reading it. I'd be annoyed, but I'd probs be the same way.

So, Morocco. It's pretty awesome. It's been so long since I wrote anything that I don't really know what to say, but I think all my stomach issues have resolved themselves, which is super exciting! Of course, now that I say that, I'll probs wake up this morning at like 2:30 to vomit. It's both super convenient/super annoying that I always tend to get ill in the middle of the night/early morning....

But no one wants to hear about my digestive issues (slash you've all probably heard all about it). So let me tell you how adorable my host family is! They're adorable. I have five little sibs, aged 11 to 4. My "mom" is 28 and super hilarious. More importantly she thinks I'm super hilarious. Like this one time I accidentally locked myself in the bathroom and had to be "rescued" by my little sister and a wrench, and my mom laughed about that for hours. And then she told everyone about it and they all laughed, so I'm just glad that I could bring some joy to my Moroccan family.

Well, that's it for now. PS - You all should comment on my blog posts so that I know that you're actually reading them. Just saying. Peace out!

My first post!

Friends, family, people who found this blog through PCJ,


I apologize for taking so long to write my first post. When I started this blog I had high ambitions that blogging would be a daily (or near daily) activity so that all of you back in the states could follow along on this journey in excruciating detail. But after the first day I discovered that one of the last things I wanted to do after 10 hours of orientation was to write a blog post about my day. Anyhoo, here's the abridged version of the last 6 days -


I left the 'Nati on Monday to head to Philly for a brief orientation before we left. On Tuesday night after spending way more hours than necessary at JFK we flew out to Casablanca. (Note - Doesn't knowing that there are direct flights from the U.S. to Morocco make you want to visit me more?) So we got to Casablanca on Wednesday morning, then took a bus to Mehdia (hey, isn't it hilarious that the town's name is 6/10 of my last name?)


Since then we've just been doing a lot of orientation type things. I could tell you all about it but most of it probably wouldn't be very interesting to any of you. (Unless any of you want to know more about the proper way to wipe after using a Turkish toilet, because we spent a whole lot of time talking about that....)


So tomorrow I head out to my CBT site. I'll be living with a Moroccan family there for the next 10 weeks, and I'm not sure what my Internet situation will be. Which brings me to the real reason I wrote this post.....


I have a cell phone now! It's insanely expensive for me to call you but only 12 c/minute for you to call me if you use Google voice. (I think it's 19 with Skype.) My number is on Facebook, and you should all call me. (Remember that Morocco's 4 hours ahead of Eastern time....) My arms still hurt from all the shots (meningitis, rabies, and typhoid), so that's gonna have to be the end of this post. Maybe I'll try to be all savvy in my next post and include pictures and stuff.