Our First Weekend Away

This past weekend Chris, Yorda, and I decided to travel on our time off. We had from Saturday at 1 to sundown on Sunday to do with what we pleased. We had heard that a almost everyone from the youth development sector training group was getting together in a town 3 hours north of us. Originally, seeing as this was our first time traveling on our own, we thought that that was a pretty tall order. But seeing as we live in the farthest city from the hub we didn’t want to continue to isolate ourselves out here. We wanted to see the people from our training group and we wanted an adventure. So Saturday after lunch we set off for our hub city of Azrou. About 2 hours later we arrived and met our friends who lived there. While in Azrou we got to walk around in the city and saw so many awesome things to buy! Our plan was to meet up at Colin‘s, a Peace Corps volunteer, house for an American dinner. When we finally got there we were pleasantly surprised by the size and beauty of the home. Chris, Yorda, and I were joined by our friends that live in Azrou, friends that live in M’rirt, and 4 other PCVs. We didn’t even realize how much me missed interaction with other Americans! With about 18 people there total we had a party scene going on. We were playing cards, listening to music, comparing stories, and eating spaghetti. It was nice to be able to let loose and completely act American for a while. The PCVs we met were extremely nice and cool people. I haven’t met a volunteer that I have not liked. Afterwards Yorda and I spent the night at our friend’s homestay who lives in Azrou. We had girl talk until midnight. On Sunday we traveled another 40 minutes north to a city called Immozare. Where we were meeting up with more groups to “play a baseball game.” That was the plan but it was more or less a bunch more socializing. It was great accept for the fact that we had to walk about a half mile from the taxi stand to the field and the weather couldn’t make up it’s mind. It would sprinkle for 5 minutes then get beautiful again. After about a hour of that the weather finally committed to rain. It rained and rained. Soft then harder and harder. We all stuck it out for about an hour. I was hovering over my backpack trying to protect my computer, books, and clothes. After we couldn’t take the rain any longer most of us decided to walk back towards the taxi stand where we were originally dropped off and get some lunch. It was my first experience in a resturant. We weren’t exactly sure what we were ordering so when these plates kept coming we were a little taken aback. But we ate and ate and drank a lot of hot coffee. We were inside the resturant but there were stray cats coming and going in the door. One of them was quite friendly and kept pawing me for some food. I made the mistake of feeding him once. So after we finished our lunch we had to head off to our own cities. Chris, Yorda, and I had about 3 hours of travel ahead of us. We were cold, wet, tired, and so ready to get home and power lounge. It ended up taking us more like 4 hours because travel in Morocco is not exactly speedy. I will tell more about travel in another entry. So when we finally got home I got to do exactly what I wanted. I locked myself in my bedroom, unpacked my things, put on some wool socks, watched The Secret Garden on my laptop, and was asleep by 10pm. The weekend was full of real laughs, long walks, wet feet, and lots of accomplishment. It was so hard but extremely worth it.