Ok. I know, I know. I havent written anything since the beginning of April. I promise I have reasonable excuses. One being that Im in the Peace Corps. That is my excuse for everything now. Anyway, in the month and half that has transpired since the last post, basically everything has happened. I found out my post, was sworn in, and moved to my post. I cant say exactly where for my personal safety, but Im in the Berkane region, in the mountains south of Berkane. Its a beautiful town in the mountains, near the sea. The people are very nice. There is great hiking. Its hard being in a new town, especially when one doesnt know anybody, cant speak to anyone in English, and is living with a local family in a tiny little farm house. Anyway, right now my days dont consist of much beyond reading books, writing, playing with my brother and sister and hanging out at the cafe.
Yup, this post is not much of a consolation for all the time missed, but if anyone is still out there reading it, its a brief update. Hopefully, when internet is more easily accessible I will be able to do a solid job of this. Or again, maybe not. We will see. In the meantime, if anyone wants to know more, they will have to send me personal emails or mail. Email is gettle.colin@gmail.com.

Im in Ourzazate, our “hub” site and we only get a small amount of time to use the spotty internet at the hotel. I don’t have much time to write right now, so I apologize in advance if this email is littered with mistakes. I will hopefully be able to put more into them in the future.

April 1st. One month since leaving my waving parents in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport. On most days since then it seems like time has gone slow-mo. Maybe its because we have been going non-stop or maybe its because there is no solid routine. I would imagine it is both, but this last month has been a long one. That’s not to say that it hasn’t been good though.

I live in a village with 5 other volunteers, a trainer, and hundreds of Moroccans, and I’m happy to already call a lot of them my friends. It is definetly hard being around the same people all the time, but it does force me to build relationships that might not have otherwise happened. The five of us do most things together, even when we are not in school. This weekend our mission is to procure some tire tubes so we can go floating down the river near Idlesen.

I also feel like in the last month I have gained pretty tremendous ground on Darija. Already I feel more confindent in it than I ever did in any of the other languages I’ve studied. There really isn’t anything better for learning a language than being emmersed in it to the point where you are forced to use it for daily needs and wants. Im already able to have simple conversations with my teacher and even once in a while with my host family. Context definetly works to my advantage in most of these conversations.

Additionally, my perspective is constantly in a state of alteration. I learn new things everyday about Moraccans, the culture, and my village of Idelsen. All my preconceived ideas are being flipped around. There is no way, as I see it right now, that I wont come away fromt his experience not having learned more than I can teach. This last week we have been planning for an Earth Day Celebration for our village. In accessing what Idelsen needs and wants, we have discovered that they would be a model for any US town. Its easy to be distracted by the trash and plastic bags strewn around (and that is a real issue for them which they are aware of), but they don’t create a lot of trash, they use most of their water very wisely, they reuse, they compost. This is more than likely an issue of saving money, but since when in the US have we not been concerned with saving money. Im really excited about what the people here already do, and look forward to conspiring with them on ways that they can improve.