More Pictures

Hello Everyone!

Sorry for the long delay in updating this thing. Well here are some more pictures of Ait Hamza and some of my friends. Things here are going well, and tomorrow myself and three others are going to a town called Azlag or Kalaa Magouna to spend a week with a current Peace Corps volunteer. The town sounds really cool, apparently it is known for its roses and an annual rose festival. The volunteer we are visiting works with dagger makers and he has said that there are a lot of artists in the town so I am pretty excited to see this place. After that I am heading back to Ait Hamza, the little berber village for more language training. Hope you are all doing well and feel free to comment to me from this blog site or email me! I love getting letters!

My host mom and sister in Ait Hamza

My really cool language teacher-Malika
My friends-Lauren, Cory, Julianna, and Christine

My host family in Ait Hamza

Back from Ait Hamza

Sorry that it has been so long since I have updated you all. I have returned from Ait Hamza safe and sound and I will be in Azrou for a few more days before I spend a week at a Peace Corps Volunteers house. I have several pictures that I will start putting up, but for now this is all I have. When I have a good chunk of time I will tell you all about Ait Hamza and the interesting sites, sounds, and toilets(or lack there of). For now I will just tell you that I am doing well and trying to learn as much Tamazight as I can.

Some shoes in Azrou

A few of us were taken to this carpet shop by a local Peace Corps Volunteer and the man pictured with me served us tea and told us all about the history behind Moroccan carpets.

On to my first homestay

So tomorrow I will be leaving Azrou for a small village called Ait Hamza for my first homestay. Don't even try finding it on a map.....it's that small. I am going to be with a group of 4 other individuals and we have switched language groups. I will be learning Tamazight which is a berber language that has mixed with some Moroccan Arabic over the years. Apparently Ait Hamza has a cooperative of women weavers and the mother of the family I am staying with is one of the weavers, so this should be very interesting. The town sounds very similar to Monduli, where the Masaai girls school is in Tanzania. I guess there is a river and some really great waterfalls. I will only be there till Sunday and then I will head back to Azrou where the entire Small Business group will be going on some field trips and then find out where our final site will be. Be thinking good thoughts for me that I will get a site with an internet cafe really close by! Thanks for all the emails and if you want to contact me my phone number is:
011 212 7708 2113

Love,
Kelsie

First week in Morocco

Well I have survived week one in Morocco! The first few days I spent in Philadelphia going over Peace Corps policy. There were about 53 volunteers, half in Youth Development and half in Small Business Development. Then we flew to Rabat, Morocco for 3 days. We got all our shots and were introduced to more policies and procedures. Rabat is a fairly large city on the coast of Morocco. I was able to spend a little time in the market and see the coast from our van. Then we split up and all the SBD volunteers went to a small town outside of Fez called Azrou. Azrou was once occupied by the French so it looks as if we are in this little Euro town in the hillside. You can go hiking in the mountains and see some, I believe they said colubus? monkeys. The weather is cool and breezy (very nice actually) and the food is great. For the next week we are all together in what they call a hostel, but is actually more like a 5 story house. The roof has a tent with carpets where we can hang out, sleep, or do whatever we like. It is very nice. After the ten days in the hostel are up we are going to be with our host families and continue with our language classes.

Well, I hope you are all doing well and soon I will post some pictures of shopping in the market.
Miss you all and I will write more soon,
Kelsie

Morocco

FYI, Morocco is located on the Northern tip of Africa south of Spain. For more information check out Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco

First Post

Hi all,
This site will mainly serve as a place to post pictures, provide updates on my whereabouts and contact information. Many of you I have not contacted all summer; I apologize! Please drop me an email or phone call if you get a chance - I'll be in the States until September 10th. I hope you are all doing well.

Byeee