Our new sleepy life

Greetings from CBT –Community Based Training- and our home for the next nine weeks, a small town about twenty minutes outside of Fes. CBT means we’ve pared down from our class of 97 trainees to a group of five, plus a language and cultural facilitator to really get down to the learning of Darija and the figuring out how to exist within Moroccan culture for the next two years.

How’s it going so far? Shwiya b shwiya. A word about our town: it’s a green, quiet place, with not much going on beyond pastoral beauty. Literally pastoral, as you’ll see from the pictures below. We’d be posting more except there’s just one crummy cyber café in town that doesn’t work. We’re hopeful to find some alternatives soon.  

We live with a really lovely host family in our town, a married couple with no children, but who live on a kind of family compound with brothers and sisters and their families, so there are cousins and Aunts and Uncles and lifelong friends popping in and out of our world. Our house is like the eye of the hurricane, but there are always interesting folks to talk to -a few who speak pretty good English- and sweet folks to at least try to talk to.

We spend about six hours a day in language and culture class, and most of the rest of the time we are eating. Four meals: lftor (breakfast), lrgdda (lunch), kaskrut (tea!), and l’aisha (dinner). Our host mother is a fantastic cook. We’ll have more to say about her amazing cooking later. More to say on everything later, but we have to dash.

In one of the houses on the compound, there was a party this weekend for an engaged couple. We got separated so that Britt could get Henna-d and I could get stuffed full of delicious food with the men. Later, I got some Henna on my left palm, I gather as a newly-married couple will. This picture, our faces: typical. Confused, out of our element constantly, but mostly very happy to be so.

movin' on up

Tomorrow we will leave the hotel in Rabat and head to a small town outside of Fez to begin ten weeks of language and culture training. We have been living in sort of a vertical world this past week, walking up and down the 8 floors of our hotel for meals and workshops. Now, we're moving horizontally, up a bit towards the mountains, and into a host family's home. We are so excited to meet out host family, to get settled for a while, and to keep learning Darija. But, we are also pretty nervous.

We don't know what our internet access will be like once we head out, so know this: we miss you. We love you. We are safe and sound, happy and well-fed. We promise to share photos as soon as we can.

Computer NOT Destroyed, Lahmdulillah!

Yesterday, our first day off in Rabat, we finally had the chance to stretch our legs and just as importantly, get to a cafe with some decent wi-fi. Upon arriving, I open exactly one email, then accidentally dump hot, sticky mint tea (the toxically sugary, incredibly addictive national drink) on my keyboard. And the computer goes black, then white and has a major computer seizure. Then zip. Dead. Bad end to a great day.

But then Britt googled some instructions and I showed incredible restraint -if I do say so myself- by letting it dry out for a full 24 hours before trying to power it back on and...success! There is a very common expression in Darija, "Lahmdulillah!" Praise God! It will be our most useful phrase during these 27 months, I'm sure.

Some pics from our day around Rabat.

Peace be upon you!

The Moroccan Arabic words for hello translates, literally, into "Peace be upon you." It's nice, isn't it? The language we are trying to learn, Darija, is not really a written language (Moroccans speak Darija but read and write in standard Arabic), so that makes things challenging. We've been spending our days in language workshops, safety & security workshops, health & safety workshops, and more. And more vaccinations!

We have very sporadic, practically non-existent, Internet access, so this will be brief. We are safe, busy, happy, and healthy. In a few more days, we will move to a small city outside of Fez. There, we will live with a host family and take many more Darija classes. We will leave this group of 100 volunteers and move to this city with just three others.

Today we have our first free day. All of our trainings have been in the hotel, and we haven't seen much of Rabat, so we were excited for the chance to explore the city. We visited the ocean (spectacular waves), the Kasbah des Oudaias (spectacular views), and Chellah (spectacular ruins). We took a nap, found an Internet cafe, and have worked up an appetite for dinner. We've also had the opportunity to practice our Darija a bit. Luckily, locals seem charmed when we try to speak Darija with them and are patient and helpful. We are grateful. We have a long way to go.




Love,

Britt & Pete

Goodnight Rabat

After many hours of traveling, we've made it to Rabat! We are here with about 100 fellow volunteers. The Peace Corps is treating us well and feeding us well. Training has begun already. We'll be busy the next few days learning policies and getting vaccinated (we got four vaccines today, including one for rabies, and I made myself stop thinking about the needles and start thinking about Dunder Mifflin's fun run walk to raise awareness for rabies instead. Sigh. I miss television already). We're also meeting new folks, adjusting to the cool weather, and getting ready for language classes.

Here is the view from our room at night:





We miss you. Goodnight.

The Narrators/All Will Be Well

With my customary procrastination, I was trying to finish a library book on my last night in Texas. I read this passage:

“How can it be described? How can any of it be described? The trip and the story of the trip are two different things. The narrator is the one who has stayed home, but then, afterward, presses her mouth upon the traveler’s mouth, in order to make the mouth work, to make the mouth say, say, say. One cannot go to a place and speak of it; one cannot both see and say, not really. One can go, and upon returning make a lot of hand motions and indications with the arms. The mouth itself, working at the speed of light, at the eye’s instructions, is necessarily struck still; so fast, so much to report, it hangs open and dumb as a gutted bell. All that unsayable life! That’s where the narrator comes in. The narrator comes with her kisses and mimicry and tidying up. The narrator comes and makes a slow, fake song of the mouth’s eager devastation.”
-Lorrie Moore, Birds of America

It's heartbreaking, but true, I think, that for the next two years, to you all back home, we will be primarily the narrators. What we can share is what we can share, and though it isn't everything, it must be enough.

I don't know how this will work, posting from my phone here at the airport in the last few minutes before we board our flight, but here's a song we wanted to share on the blog. We've been listening to it a lot lately, usually shedding tears, and believing as deeply as we can that it's true:

If this link doesn't work, search YouTube for "All Will Be Well" by the Gabe Dixon Band.

"All will be well, you can ask me how, but only time will tell."

-Pete

Made it to Philly

We've made it to Philadelphia! Tomorrow we will meet the others in our cohort, and Tuesday we will fly to Casablanca. Check out our gear:



All we own in two big suitcases. Okay, two suitcases plus a 5x10 storage unit where we hope things will survive a couple of Texas summers. Plus a lot generously stored at Casa Luby. Including a lot of items that had to be removed from my bags at the very last minute to keep them under 50lbs each. Which, for the record, is very hard to do.

Also:




We miss you.

Risk Party

How can we say possibly goodbye to so many people that we love? And how can we be brave enough to actually get on that plane and move to Morocco for two years?

With your help, we have been trying to do those things. Between Christmas and New Year's Eve, we invited a bunch of family and friends to a farewell party so that we could gather lots of dear ones in one place. And instead of just eating chips and guacamole and lots of Mexican food (which we did, and it was awesome), we also invited people to bring us a story about a time in their life when they took a risk. A lot of people shared some really terrific stories. And even more people came and cheered for us and hugged us and wished us well. There were a lot of tears. And laughs. And stories. And hugs. It was a Risk Party.

For those of you that shared a story, either in person or by email, thank you. We hope to recall these stories on hard days (and we already have). And for those of you that continue to love us and support us even when we decide to up and move thousands of miles away, thank you. Thank you for helping us grow into braver, more adventurous people. Thank you for trusting us even when we sound mad, mad, mad. Thank you all for your words of encouragement, your travel advice, and the time you've taken to show your support in so many ways.

We get on a plane tomorrow morning. See you in Morocco.

They don't tell you how hard it is

To pack up your home for two years, both physically and emotionally. We have almost moved all of our stuff into storage. That was not fun. That was really hard. Plus we are tying up a ton of loose ends: getting property insurance, selling our car and lots of other things on Craigslist, saying goodbyes. These few weeks have been stressful and busy, and they aren't what first comes to mind when you think, "Yes! I'll join the Peace Corps!" I'm saying it because it simply needs to be said: it's really hard.

Regardless, we are grateful. We are grateful for the friends and family that are supporting us in so may ways: feeding us, helping us move, providing emotional support, loving us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Here's a few photos of what we've been up to. Mostly moving:








Becoming a certified Master Naturalist:





Being a rock star:





And feeling sad about how much we are going to miss you.

What were you doing New Year's, New Year's Eve?

We were enjoying our visitors. Kate, Mike and Jack were down from Worcester, and our good friend Drew visited from Colorado. We went for a hike insofar as that's possible in Arlington, TX; decorated Christmas cookies, ate way too much and all struggled to stay up until midnight. Here are some pictures of Drew, who has a special, special knack for unusual poses.

And Britt and Drew were able to take one last jumping picture before Morocco.

Taken early in the morning before Drew left for his flight. He can barely lift his feet off the ground for the grief of parting.

season of hope

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  A LOT has been happening for us over the past few weeks.  We have been incredibly lucky to spend time with so many people that we love over Christmas and New Year, and we're thankful for the generosity and hospitality that everyone has shown us.

As part of my role at TCU, I had the opportunity to write a short Advent Devotional for the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (shout out TCU RSL!).  I'll share that with you here, plus some photos from Christmas.  More to come!

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”  
- Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

I’m not very good at living in the present.  I like to linger in the past, holding on to fond memories and twisting them through my fingers to remind myself over and over again of how good life can be.  Or how terribly sad.  And when I’m not doing that, I’m day-dreaming about the future: bright days and silver nights and endless possibilities of what might be.  The present seems too anxiety-ridden, too busy, too, too, too.  That’s why I like this quote from Barbara Kingsolver so much.   Hope seems like a lofty, future-focused thing, hard to pin down, but Kingsolver demands that we touch it and hold it and settle down with it right now at our kitchen table.

In a few short weeks, my husband and I will be moving to Morocco to serve as Peace Corps volunteers.   Joining the Peace Corps has been a goal of mine for many years, and so I’ve spent countless hours day-dreaming about what it might be like to live and serve in a new community.  It’s auspicious that this move is preceded by Advent, a season of preparation, anticipation, and hope.  Each week as we light another Advent candle, more and more of our time will be spent embracing those that we love instead of working long hours.   More and more of our belongings will make their way to local charities.  Vaccinations and paperwork replace trips to the mall and time lost on the internet.  This next step in our lives is something we have hoped for and imagined for years, and we’ve finally invited it under our roof.

As we live into this adventure that we’ve hoped for for so long, I have to constantly remind myself to try and stay focused on the present.   It’s easy to think about Christmases past: how tricky it is to navigate my divorced family, how much I wish my grandfather was still here to make divinity and creamy fudge.  And it’s exciting to imagine Christmases of the future: how will we celebrate in a Muslim country, and what new traditions will we embrace?  But, right now, I have this Advent, this Christmas.  These hands to hold, these people to hug, these candles to light.