Carrie and I just got back from our first four days at the city which will be our home for the next two years (why don’t we call it Kalamazoo), and we both think that we’ll be quite satisfied. The city sits on a plateau between 4000 and 5000 feet, which makes for good views in all directions. To the east, we can just make out snow-capped peaks in the High Atlas Mountains. For an environment and health Peace Corps site, Kalamazoo is pretty plush. We have electricity, running water, convenient stores, a large market every week, and an internet café. Like most Moroccans, people are friendly and there seems to be little gender division. Men and women work together in the fields, and in the home, men do go into the kitchen although women do the cooking. As for projects that we will be working, we just have to wait and see what our counterparts at the hospital and Department of Water and Forests as well as the townsfolk have to say. From a health and environmental perspective, one of the obvious problems that we saw was a very degraded stream and valley behind the market. Lots of trash gets thrown into the valley, and the water quality looks really bad because of pollution from latrines and the market. There are several active associations in the town and the natural resources are interesting. Kalamazoo is surrounded by thuya and carob forests. The former is used for artisanal wood-working, and the later is an expensive food. Our family couldn’t be more friendly. They have three children (another on the way) and a nephew that lives there. The ages are 2, 4, 9, and 11. The children are real cute (the 4 yr. old told us that we need to go to school with her so that we can learn to talk) and well behaved. There are also about twenty-five other kids in the same age range that hang out by our house after school. We play games with them sometime. Taarabt, the wife, is really nice and an excellent cook. Furthermore, the family has hosted Peace Corps Volunteers before, so they are used to the quirks of Americans. Other volunteers have had mostly positive things to say about their sites. A lot of volunteers have reported caves near their sites, which suggests an opportunity for weekend trips for me. Alex is near a ski resort and Jonathan can see the Mediterranean from his site. We also have plans of visiting some of the small surf villages between Essaouira and Agadir. A word about Essaouira. This major tourist destination on the Atlantic was once known as Mogador (they should change it back). All the buildings are white and blue and there are endless maze-like streets of shops with all kinds of interesting products. The atmosphere is really laid back and you can shop or relax at a café by the ocean without being harassed. You can also get by with only English. If you’re not interested in shopping and a little history, the town offers windsurfing, camel rides, relaxing, and watching people and cats.

Site Announcement and Phone Number

The last two days have been big. We have our site placement. I'm not allowed to give specific info, but I can say that it is about 2 hours from Essaouria: a seriously beautiful tourist destination on the Atlantic coast south of Casablanca. Our site will have electricity although running water may or may not be available. The town is large: it has a market and lies at the foothills of the high Atlas mountains at around 4000 ft asl. There are calcarious rock formations although I dont yet know if they are karstified. Also, people can call us now. I am not supposed to post my phone number, so email us and will give it to you via email.

SALOM everybody... site announcments Friday morning!!!
We got a cell phone so give us an email if you are interested in the number.
Will update as soon as we hear something!

I had a very touristy morning... a group of us went to the big film studios nearby where they filmed Cleopatra, passion of the christ, parts of gladiator etc
It was fun and a good way to decompress after our language tests!
I just found out that we can fly from here to paris, london or barcelona for 13 euro, I am so excited, I'm not sure if 2 years is enough time to explore all of Morocco plus Europe and then africa of course... if anyone wants to meet up in any of the above listed places we could possibly swing that; just putting it out there!!! love you all
Carrie

Half way through training now, we have 13 more days in community based training and the rest is seminars during Ouazazate. Tomorrow we have our practice language tests... just to let us know where we are so far and what we still need to really work on. We can actually make sentences in Tashleheet now. Training is completely exhausting!!! These pics are from Bens fieldtrip. The picture of us girls is my CBT group in our wedding garb, we are having a mock wedding this week so our families let us borrow wedding clothes to wear. Today's a day off for both me and Ben, we spent the morning doing laundry and this afternoon we're going for a walk. It's nice to have a day completely off...we don't get enough of them. Training has been really difficult and frustrating for me, but I'm making it although counting the hours and the days til it's over. I think all of the groups have been pushed to the edge though, it's extremely difficult to spend ten hours a day with people you may or maynot care for too much and then put learning a new language and being in a totally different culture on top of that... it's been a test. The one picture I described earlier, its the mural our group painted. The group pic is of the environment trainees only, so I'm not in that one but our group is about the same size.

FYI we'll be out of contact for the next 8 days... we're doing great!

Everthing’s going well here. We’ve been in Ouarzazate for 5 days and are getting ready to leave for our next community based training which will be 8 days (apart! ) We’re getting better at the language and can ask/answer simple questions and make short sentences, TashlHeet is hard! It’s a lot different than other languages, but we’re hanging in there. I have become the hotel barber and have cut about 5 people’s hair and since we can’t make money in the PC, I’m paid in chocolate! Not a bad deal. One of the volunteers was a personal trainer so he’s been doing daily workouts on the roof (Billy has nothing on him!) I’ve gone 2 days now and am SORE but it feels good especially after being stuck sitting in a room 8 hours a day. My group learned about different ways to get health messages out including posters, games, paper mache and murals. We got to paint two murals on our hotel roof (I’m not sure why they agreed to that!) But I’ll put a picture on. It was fun and I got a sunburn. It’s been pretty hot the past few days here, so people are thinking it’s going to be a hot summer. I’m hesitant about living in the desert, I’m not sure if I can deal with 150 degrees??? Our staff convinced our hotel restaurant to make American food for us so we’ve had some new additions such as spaghetti, scalloped potatoes mac and cheese and French fries. Each of these has filled me with joy. Hope everybody’s doing well! GW--- send spring break photos! looks like I cant get our photos uploaded...maybe next time!