My beginning of my first adventure

I made it here in one piece with all my luggage. About 20 minutes outside of Rabat is the house for my first volunteer assignment. It is in a lovely area called Agdal which is mostly embassies and embassy staff. Needless to say, it is spotless. And the house has a beautiful yard in which to sit and contemplate the day ahead. There is a lovely mall about 100 yards down the street with a grocery and bank.

The inside of the house is as beautiful as the outside and since there are only 5 of us, 3 of us have our own room and two share. The rooms are set up with bunk beds and can usually accommodate up for 4 in a room. We meet and eat in the typical moroccan living room which is set up with couches around the area.

Here is the group sitting around last night in the freezing cold. The house is heated but it is still very cold. Not sure how I am going to survive in the mountains if I am freezing here in Rabat. We will see. Out with the long underwear!In my group for my stay here,Americans are in the minority (sort of). There is Marie who is going to be here for 9 weeks is a college student and lives in Dallas but is a refugee from Rwanda and has half of her family living in France. There is Gwen who is an 18 year old from Toronto who has been wanting to do this and explore since she was 15 and was just waiting to be old enough (she is here for 12 weeks). Mary is also from Toronto is is semi retired and has done several volunteer assignments working with children (her background is as an elementary school teacher) and she is here for two weeks like me. Alana is the quintessential New Yorker and since retiring from Verizon (I told her about all my phone problems the last few days) she has been doing volunteer work teaching English in over 15 countries since 9/11.

Our leader is Mohammed who was a Peace Corps volunteer for several years before he became director of this program when it opened 7 years ago. He is very approachable and has an infectious sense of humor. And then there is Kadisha who is the program manager/house manager. She is a woman who represents the new Moroccan woman.....she is young (in her 30s), single (she says that she wants to wait before she is ready to settle for a man telling her what to do :-), college educated and like Mohammed was connected with the Peace Corps for many years.