Thirty Days. It’s like America is so close but so far away at the same time. You may as well be dangling a giant cheesy gordita crunch in front of me and saying, “One month. You have to stare at it for one month, but you can’t eat it yet.” Sick, sad world. I think […]
Category: Peace Corps
Collection of posts formerly titled under the blog I ran called “My Moroccan World” that detailed my time in Morocco as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
Quiet days in the Orchard
Since the end of the diabetes project, it’s been a quiet week in the olive grove. With September ending, the weather is finally beginning to feel like it isn’t August anymore. And I mean that. It changed overnight from sweltering hot to, “Oh my God, where did summer go?” I woke up cold in the […]
Hassan.
So, here’s a few thoughts about a man who has had a big impact on my life the past two years, but I don’t know that I’ve ever even mentioned him, so it just seemed fitting to say a thing or two. When I arrived in my village, Hassan – the director of my youth […]
Remembering Chris Stevens, Ambassador to Libya, 2012 and RPCV, Morocco
And this article showing photos of Libyans supporting Americans. This story needs to be told.
Dispatched to Melilla, or the “Bull-Fighting” Adventure to the Mediterranean
Well, I’m officially no longer a resident of Morocco. My Carte de Sejour expired. I would’ve asked my Gendarmes to renew the document, but since it took them nine months to get it to me in the first place (you know, cause processing a few pieces of paper is so difficult), I told Peace Corps […]
“Sometimes, the Only way to Return is to Go where the Winds’ll take You”
When I embarked on this journey a little under two years ago, the idea that this period of my life could ever come to an end was just absurd. Two years is just long enough that if you want to be here, it doesn’t just become some temporary adventure; it becomes your life. And when […]
The Difference a Year Makes
Last Ramadan, something didn’t feel quite right. For the life of me, I was having all kinds of trouble integrating. The only time I got to break fast was when I went to Avery’s site to see my host family who lived there. I had moments when I felt jealous of all my friends living […]
Telling Time by the Moon, or Stories from the Endless Ramadan Days
The Boulemane Province, at least on this side of the mountains, is a little like Southern California. It never rains. Or rather, when it does rain in the summer, it does so for maybe twenty minutes and then dries up before you notice it even happened. The only reason it is noticeable is because of […]
Ramadan Mubarak Said
Since Ramadan started, my landlord’s son, eleven year-old Mohamed, consistently shows up at my door every evening at approximately six o’clock sharp, which is about an hour before the call-to-prayer that sounds when everybody breaks fast (el-ftour). Mohamed always has on his blue shorts and a blue wife-beater that says something in English on the […]
