http://www.flickr.com/photos/12973534@N04/
I’ve discovered that our time difference is 4 hours later than the East Coast of America.
I am still pretty unsure of how and how much internet access I will be able to use. I will know soon about the next 11 weeks, but after that, I will evaluate again. Even if I can’t get my computer online though, it’s great to have it – I type everything out ahead of time and then when I go to the café, I’ll be able to just copy it to the blog. So, however often, you will likely receive a very long update! I’m sure I won’t write as much once day-to-day life is more similar, but right now things are still changing a lot.
A little catching up to do here….
The last half of August…
Jesse and I flapped our wings until we arrived at my sister, Angela’s house outside of Denver Colorado. That week involved missing the end of the crazy turn-around Rockies game, finishing my dress!, major shopping at REI (don’t doubt the outdoor involvement of people in Denver! – that place was HUGE – 3 stories - and packed!), playing with my adorable nephews, and much other fun. Jesse and I went hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was totally gorgeous. We saw many beautiful waterfalls, tall and wide. We shared some of the most beautiful overlooks and trail walking and didn’t encounter any mountain lions or other such creature. We also got a change to spend an evening with Jesse’s cousin in the area. He took us to Red Rock Amphitheatre, where the nature rock makes incredible acoustics.
This was the first waterfall we came to and below is the view with us in front of it at the Rockies game ;)
After we returned from Colorado, we spent a couple of days preparing our next trip. We decided on a camping trip to Lake George in New York (Adirondacks) and then a couple more hours north to Montreal. This was great. In Lake George, we spent a day Kayaking on the lake (which proved challenging, but was fun). We visited a couple of small islands in the middle of the lake. We had a tandem kayak (which seat two) so we could stay together. We also went horseback riding one day for 2 hours. This was Jesse’s second time on a horse and he was great ☺ It would be fun to go again with just us and a guide (this time there we two others as well). Jesse and I (mostly Jesse) cooked breakfast and dinner and sometimes lunch almost every day. Jesse got very good at making a fire in our tiny fire pits. The whole time we were camping, I only saw one mosquito (and that was as soon as we arrived). How incredibly exciting! We thought for sure they would be everywhere. I also had the opportunity to learn good Frisbee throwing technique from Jesse! He didn’t learn good miniature golf from me when we got to Montreal (but I think he just wasn’t paying good enough attention when I was doing well). I made a hole in one!
And if you saw this course at the campground, you would understand that this was a great accomplishment (see flickr photo). In Montreal, I think we had the most fun – and mostly because we enjoyed speaking to each other with funny French accents. We learned a very small amount of French and we repeated it as much as possible in our conversations. We walked around Mont Royal, a huge park there and saw the most common site of Montreal – le Croix (the Cross). It is a 100 ft tall steel cross. It was first built in the 1600s after the village had survived a flood (or was it a drought?) I told you that we avoided big scary animals in Colorado, but I can’t say the same about Montreal. We were quite sure that there was a bear outside of our tent in the middle of the night one night. Remembering our survival skill review in Colorado, we tried various techniques to scare the “bear” away from our site. Eventually it left, but frightened might be an understatement. The next day, we did some investigation and detective work and inconclusively thought we may have had a raccoon encounter, instead or a bear, BUT, I think, due to our state of fright, I’m sticking with the bear story.
I arrived at “Staging” for the Peace Corps in Philadelphia around 1:30 pm on Saturday, September 8, 2007. There are 67 Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) – you will soon learn just how much peace corps loves their acronyms going to Morocco with 38 in Small Business Development
We learned that we 38 will have our base training site in Ouarzazate, which is the ‘door to the desert,’ just above the Western Sahara. Ouarzazate is known for it’s new (and old) movie studios. It is the largest in Africa and many American movies were filmed there. Ouarzazate in Tamazight (a berber language) means ‘without confusion,’ so that is good – maybe a very good place to learn these languages! ☺ We will be spending 30% of our time together there for the next 11 weeks. The other portion of our time is for CBT (Community Based Training) – I will be with 4-5 other volunteers and a language/cultural facilitator in a village somewhere “near there” – perhaps up to an hour away.
When we arrived in Casablanca, we were prompted to enter the “Crew and Diplomats” line for customs, which made us all feel quite special ☺ We then took a bus to Rabat (capital city) and toured the Peace Corps Offices of Rabat. They took our pictures when we arrived at the hotel (later on) –oooh fun… no sleep and over a day of travel later!) We will rest for 3 days in Rabat In Rabat, we had lost of lessons and vaccinnations and paperwork, etc. "resting" they called it. A few days later, the 38 Small Buisness Development Volunteers traveled 9 hours by bus down to Ouarzazate (Wait, “where’s that at?” you might say... or did you say? Because you were attempting to read what I wrote. When pronounced Ouarzazate is about like Where za zat? (more about that later).
So, these people I’m with… they are pretty great. Everyone is really very skilled and intelligent. Particularly thoughtful people too. It’s like I’m in a group of people that were pre-selected to make excellent friends. Love it.
My parents and Jesse saw me off in Philly. It was so great to be able to see them all. How blessed! My fellow PCVs thought it was pretty incredible to be able to have them there. They might have been a little jealous – if they weren’t so thoughtful.
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