will be spent in Beni Mellal! I’m very excited for numerous reasons. First of all, Beni Mellal is a city of approximately 140,000. It is located conveniently between Fez and Marrakech and sits at the gate to the western side of the Middle Atlas Mountains. It is supposedly quite lush and green and has some amazing look-out points. I will find all of this out on Saturday when I visit my site for a few days. We are currently all in Fez and some people will literally have to travel for 2 days before they have to get to their sites; I have to travel for 4.5 hours. Hamdullah!

Today is the BIG DAY! We’re back in Fez from our training site in Meknes and tonight in a special meeting, we will be finding out where we will be spending the next two years of our lives. It’s exciting, yet scary. Don’t worry, we’ve been assured that all of the sites can be found on the map. I’ll make sure to bring my magnifying glasses to the meeting.

Folks, it’s that time of year again. The time when we all come together, fast during the day and eat copious amounts of food at night, it’s Ramadan! Ramadan began in Morocco on Monday and I must say it is a very exciting time for many reasons. First of all, I’ll let you all know that yes, I am fasting. Even though Ramadan is a month long, people don’t fast for the entire month. If they did that, a huge group of people would die every year. People fast only during the day and this means no food, no water, nada. So, here’s the schedule: you fast until the futr, the breakfast, …

I’m sure that all of you know that the Moroccan currency is the Dirham, right? And luckily for all people on the US-Dollar economy, the conversion rate is just about 10 Dirham to 1 US-Dollar. Coming to Morocco, I thought, ‘whew I’m glad I’m not going someplace like Turkey where the currency rate is about 1,302,498,580909835,2.3 Turkish Lira to the dollar.’ BUT NO! I swear the Moroccans knew I had that thought; I’m convinced that there was a convention and that all 30 million decided to switch the system on me: the actual hard currency is in dirham. This is to say that a 20-dirham note has the number 20 on it, etc. However, …

Greetings. I’ve learned many things in the month that I have been in the Peace Corps, and most recently, I have learned that pommegranites here in Morocco are absolutely great!! When you eat too many pommegranites (excuse the spelling, as I have never written this word before), however, your fingers turn yellow. I won’t stop eating them, though, as this merely gives into the system.I generally like the food here very much. I always have bread with apricot preserves for breakfast and the coffee is absolutely piping hot. I have this feeling that the coffee is something similar to the chicoré (sp?) coffee one would receive in New Orleans. I eat breakfast around 7am, and …

Hello! I know it’s been a while since I’ve written; getting to a computer that has somewhat good connection here in Meknes has proven a little difficult. No worries. Things are going well, I’m in my second homestay and I really like the family: I have a brother (29), two sisters (20 and 30), a cousin (6), and a mom and a dad. Their appartment is far from my taining site, so I have to take two grand taxis. Grand taxis are great!! They are these 1970’s / 1980’s Mercedes Benz taxis that stuff 4 people in the back and 2 people in the front, plus the driver. They usually have specific routes, so …

It’s been a rough week. I began feeling ill last Tuesday and by last Thursday, I had a 102° fever. I cannot remember ever being so sick in my life. On Saturday, we left Rabat for Fez and tomorrow I will be going to Meknes for my Community-Based-Training. I can’t really say that I saw much of Fez because I was either in the bathroom or lying down on my bed. I feel almost 100% and very glad that I am eating again and that I’m able to walk around a little bit.I will be spending the next eight weeks between Meknes and Fez. In Meknes I will be doing smaller-scaled projects with the …