09/14/07
Dear Friends and family,
So at this point you are probably pretty confused because I keep posting several different blogs from different days at the same time….reason being is that I have had regular access to electricity so I type up my blogs on my lap top and then when I get to a cyber café days later I use my flash drive and just transfer them to the internet so that I save time and money. I am now in Fez at my training site. It is basically a hostel type place and we will be here for 3 months but not consecutively…we move back and forth from here to our homestay families, I have a whole schedule of where I will be and when, but for security reasons wont post it. Most of our homestay sites are within an hours travel from here and we will be receiving CBT which means Community Based Training at these sites. At this point our group of 29 youth developers (the other 38 volunteers have left to a different site because they are business developers) will be separated into 5 to 6 people and we will learn Arabic in these groups with a teacher. Our teachers seem EXTREMELY kind and smart. Most speak 4 to 5 languages! Our site here in Fez is much nicer than I was expecting. We have Western and Turkish toilets, nice beds, and plenty of space for our mountains of luggage. NOT TO MENTION a beautiful white kitty Cat (please don’t tell Queen Elizabeth and Princess Sophia!)
I had my first authentic Moroccan meal tonite at lunch (7 pm…will explain later) because the hotel food was rather European and catered to tourists. I was absolutely delicious! Everything here is so rich and sweet! Today was the first day of Ramadan so our eating schedule is a bit different. We are given bagged Breakfast at nite time to eat in the morning and then we have a snack at 12 and then lunch at 7pm and Dinner at 10pm. This is because people are fasting till sunset and it is rude to be eating while they cannot. I have no complaints about waiting cause the three ladies that are in the kitchen certainly know what they are doing! J
The only real adjustment I am struggling with as of yet is the luxury of being able to just pick up the phone and call whomever I want whenever I want. Its weird but I will be getting a cell phone mostly likely on Sunday and I think it will help a lot.
I learned a bit of Arabic today because we learned how to use a Turkish toilet. (google a picture of it!) Here’s some of what’s to come:
Lma Water
Stl bucket
Sabun soap
Papier-genic toilet paper
Futa towel
Mika khla black plastic bag
Fin bit lma hashank? Where is the bathroom?
Arabic is a very challenging language but I am increasingly feeling less worried and more excited to learn it! I just hope my studies go well cause sometimes I am slow catching on to languages. I really do believe that this experience will mold me into the person I was meant to become! A person only knows who they are when they are pushed to their limits, mentally, physically and emotionally.
I hope all is well with you guys in the states! I will eventually stop emailing you guys reminding to check my blog because it may be bothersome to you busy people ;). Just keep checking it regularly and I hope you are enjoying my stories. Email me with whats going on with your lives too…it doesn’t need to be all about me…Although it almost always is ;) jk!
Miss and love you all! Happy Ramadan!
Masaa’ al-khayr (good evening)!
Xoxo,
K
Ps if anyone is interested in owning my sidekick 3…I am willing to mail it back to the U.S. but since postage is so expensive here, I would have to charge what it would cost me to mail it and I would assume that is somewhere between $50 and $75…still its much cheaper than if you bought it outright…let me know J
Dear Friends and family,
So at this point you are probably pretty confused because I keep posting several different blogs from different days at the same time….reason being is that I have had regular access to electricity so I type up my blogs on my lap top and then when I get to a cyber café days later I use my flash drive and just transfer them to the internet so that I save time and money. I am now in Fez at my training site. It is basically a hostel type place and we will be here for 3 months but not consecutively…we move back and forth from here to our homestay families, I have a whole schedule of where I will be and when, but for security reasons wont post it. Most of our homestay sites are within an hours travel from here and we will be receiving CBT which means Community Based Training at these sites. At this point our group of 29 youth developers (the other 38 volunteers have left to a different site because they are business developers) will be separated into 5 to 6 people and we will learn Arabic in these groups with a teacher. Our teachers seem EXTREMELY kind and smart. Most speak 4 to 5 languages! Our site here in Fez is much nicer than I was expecting. We have Western and Turkish toilets, nice beds, and plenty of space for our mountains of luggage. NOT TO MENTION a beautiful white kitty Cat (please don’t tell Queen Elizabeth and Princess Sophia!)
I had my first authentic Moroccan meal tonite at lunch (7 pm…will explain later) because the hotel food was rather European and catered to tourists. I was absolutely delicious! Everything here is so rich and sweet! Today was the first day of Ramadan so our eating schedule is a bit different. We are given bagged Breakfast at nite time to eat in the morning and then we have a snack at 12 and then lunch at 7pm and Dinner at 10pm. This is because people are fasting till sunset and it is rude to be eating while they cannot. I have no complaints about waiting cause the three ladies that are in the kitchen certainly know what they are doing! J
The only real adjustment I am struggling with as of yet is the luxury of being able to just pick up the phone and call whomever I want whenever I want. Its weird but I will be getting a cell phone mostly likely on Sunday and I think it will help a lot.
I learned a bit of Arabic today because we learned how to use a Turkish toilet. (google a picture of it!) Here’s some of what’s to come:
Lma Water
Stl bucket
Sabun soap
Papier-genic toilet paper
Futa towel
Mika khla black plastic bag
Fin bit lma hashank? Where is the bathroom?
Arabic is a very challenging language but I am increasingly feeling less worried and more excited to learn it! I just hope my studies go well cause sometimes I am slow catching on to languages. I really do believe that this experience will mold me into the person I was meant to become! A person only knows who they are when they are pushed to their limits, mentally, physically and emotionally.
I hope all is well with you guys in the states! I will eventually stop emailing you guys reminding to check my blog because it may be bothersome to you busy people ;). Just keep checking it regularly and I hope you are enjoying my stories. Email me with whats going on with your lives too…it doesn’t need to be all about me…Although it almost always is ;) jk!
Miss and love you all! Happy Ramadan!
Masaa’ al-khayr (good evening)!
Xoxo,
K
Ps if anyone is interested in owning my sidekick 3…I am willing to mail it back to the U.S. but since postage is so expensive here, I would have to charge what it would cost me to mail it and I would assume that is somewhere between $50 and $75…still its much cheaper than if you bought it outright…let me know J
1 comment:
You go girl! Just remember you are a quigley princess and any man over their better treat you like royality or I'm prepared to travel to Morocco and slap him up side the head my self. Sounds like you are really enjoying your journey I'm so glad we can travel with you through this blog now that you are there you are actually working your way home! Think about that. Enjoy yourself and stay in touch we love you!
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