and the real Peace Corps begins

So now that CBT is over, I've spent about a month at my final site, where I'll be for the next two years (inshallah, or "God willing", as I am often reminded). A little about my site:

town from above, taken in April--it's much greener now

It's called Ain Leuh, situated on the north side of the Middle Atlas Mountains, in Ifrane Province. When I told people in Ouarzazate where I was going, every Moroccan person had the same reaction: "That's the most beautiful province in Morocco, and you are going to be very cold." It is indeed beautiful, in a similar way to home in northwest Connecticut, but much more mountainous. The elevation is a little under a mile, which is what makes it colder than the surrounding Mediterranean and desert climates. When I first got here in the beginning of June, I was sleeping under three blankets in a sweatshirt and long underwear, although now it's far warmer. This is in contrast to the days that almost always topped 100 in Ouarzazate, beginning in April.

The town itself is much bigger than most other Peace Corps sites, with supposedly about 10,000 people within the official town limits and a busy town center; it's actually on Google Maps and has its own sentence in Lonely Planet. (I think I'm the rare PCV whose site is actually bigger than their hometown in the U.S.) It's also only about 30 minutes from a small city called Azrou, which is connected by bus to all the major cities within a day's drive. 

Probably because it's bigger and more accessible, it feels very different from our tiny CBT village; my host mom lives in a small apartment building, that besides the decorations, looks pretty similar to a Western house (ie, it has a sink in the kitchen, a Western toilet, and a washing machine). My host mom is also a single mom who works and sends her younger daughter to five-day boarding school in Ifrane; she doesn't insist on a huge dinner at 10:30 or 11 pm, and sometimes serves leftovers that she's kept (all these things are atypical). My host sister plays me Justin Bieber music videos and once told me her favorite band was Slipknot; she's about to take a test that will allow her to train to become the Moroccan equivalent of an Air Force pilot. I have to keep reminding myself that not everyone is as Westernized as they are; there are definitely families in my site that are more similar to the one I lived with in CBT.

the whole town is set on a hill--there are stairs everywhere

As for work (oh right, that's why I'm here), we're not expected to get much done in our first few months at site besides getting to know our communities and continuing to work on our language. In the fall, I'll probably start teaching an environmental education program in the local elementary and middle schools. I'm also supposed to start working with one of several local associations (basically town chapters of various Moroccan development NGOs) on environment-related projects in and around the town. They're currently working on a project that involves hiking more fuel-efficient cookstoves out to nomadic shepherds in the mountains in order to reduce deforestation, just as one example. We're also pretty close to Ifrane National Park, which is home to the Atlas cedar and Barbary macaque (monkeys! I love monkeys), and I might be doing some work in conjunction with the national park system too.

In the meantime, though, I'm doing a lot of walking around and trying to meet as many people as possible. I've started weekly Darija lessons with a tutor, and I'm getting ready to move into my own house at the end of the week. I'll put up pictures once it's no longer completely empty and really dirty. Furnishing a house--much harder without Ikea. Keep in touch! Love from the Maghrib.

the lower-lying hills between Ain Leuh and Azrou