Landed

Woke up too early (8:00ish), showered, got my complementary breakfast, and ate/talked with some other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers). Printed some song chords I wanted to take, and eventually we all made our way onto the bus. We got to the airport about four hours early, so we all put our stuff down (security made us move our bags a few times as we cluttered up the place). Got some lunch, chilled some more, and eventually we were allowed to check in.

At the terminal, I met a Mexican Ashkenaz black-hatter. Yeah, didn’t quite know they existed but they do, apparently there are a lot of Jews in Mexico (and frummies too). On the flight, I ended up sitting next to a Liberian (that’s West-Africa, folks) missionary. We had a very long discussion about G-d, Liberia, Africa in general, Jews of Africa, tribalism, his mission, countries he’s been to, and Peace Corps (apparently he met some PCVs growing up). By-the-by, I initiated all the topics of conversation, he’s not the preachy type of missionary (he works mostly with community development).

Got to Morocco, and had to go through customs. I said “good morning” to the guy behind the desk in Arabic, and we ended up having a conversation. I understood maybe 30% of what he said (and he said it fast), but whenever I responded, he seemed to smile and would carry on the conversation from the point I just said, so I assume I was actually part of it.

Bus ride from the airport was long. We eventually made our way to the hotel. I’m in a small room with three other guys, and will be for five days. We had lunch, then a meeting (about the Peace Corps Morocco staff and some medical stuff).

Afterwards, we chilled some more. Made my way to the lounge where there was some (British?) movie on TV with Arabic subtitles. From what I saw, it seemed to be about a Holocaust survivor who finds the Nazi responsible for his family’s murder. Crazy theme for a Muslim country, maybe I’ve misjudged. A Jewish protagonist, vilified Nazis, and no Holocaust denial from that channel. And they had Arabic subtitles, so it’s not like the network just didn’t notice: someone had to go through translating it. Went to the beach with some other PCVs after a few minutes of that. We met a Moroccan surfer who went to college in L.A. He was nice. Morocco’s kind of rainy, I didn’t expect that.

Dinner (break-fast, it’s RamaDan after all)’s soon. Not much else. The other volunteers are all cool/nice. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.