Yesterday, Khalil sat down next to me on the couch and handed me a small multi-colored bouncy ball, insisting that we should play soccer with our fingers. After we set up a makeshift field using a remote control, phone, and a few pens, we “kicked” the ball around for about twenty minutes laughing and wrestling […]
Category: Peace Corps
A Big Family
There’s probably not much I hate more than being sick, so when I was bent over the Turkish toilet last week heaving up my insides, I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d gotten myself into – you know, running off to a foreign country and eating food that’s in the process of taming my stomach. […]
The Days of Allah are Longer.
This is sort of backtracking a week or so, but it’s a story I wanted to share, because it’s about one of the highlights of my time in Morocco so far. It’s not that it’s exciting or adventurous or anything like that; it’s just one, long, really good day, especially since most days, I just […]
On Being Different, or maybe not so much.
Maybe it just stood out to me for some weird reason, but I seem to remember a time when we were kids and one of the big topics of conversation in school was to celebrate our differences. After all, every single person has a unique set of fingerprints, different colored hair or skin, different ways […]
“This is Morocco.”
Where to start? I had my first experience at the hammam, or public bathhouse. It’s kind of like a large, three-room sauna of sorts, where you literally go to bathe. In one room, there is a small pool of warm and cold water, and you can mix the two in buckets to get the right […]
Fouad to the Restroom
So, this picture, I would think, is fairly self-explanatory, but because it humors me, I’m going to give a rather thorough explanation. Turkish toilets do not have seats. Let’s start there. Some folks in the group have a problem with this, but it has quickly become one of my favorite things here. There’s a wonderful […]
Hello from Sefrou!
I had a dream last night that several years had passed, and Khalil and Fatima, my host family brother and mother, were coming to the United States to visit me. I was at the Nashville airport waiting for them to arrive, and when I saw them, they were jumping up and down yelling excitedly, “Salamu […]
Maroc Arrival
Well, it’s finally here, and that sixty or so hours of traveling (from Nashville to Philly to JFK to Casablanca to Mehdya, where I am currently) just completely took it out of me. I’ll keep this first post short, as I mostly just wanted you to know that I made it okay. I’ll have a […]
For the Good of a Slightly Controversial Topic.
I’m fourteen days or so away from moving to Morocco as a Peace Corps Trainee, a country that is around 98% Islamic. While there, I will be learning Moroccan Arabic and immersed into a community of people undoubtedly devoted to their faith. My responsibility to love and to serve this community includes the obligation to respect their […]
A Legacy of Service, or Why Morocco Mattered to Me Before This
Morocco was, strangely, my first choice, among Peace Corps countries I could serve. I say “strangely” because as I dreamed about Pacific Islands or Guatemalan potholes to hell (my dear friend Maria really wanted me to go to Guatemala), Morocco was never a serious consideration. I mean, I certainly mentioned it in one of my […]
