Gone, But Not Forgotten

When I was in Rabat at the end of last month for my mid-service medical exam, I sent a letter to my folks in the states. It sounds like they received it about a week after I'd sent it. If I've got a letter to send to the states, if I'm about to travel to a major city here in Morocco, I usually wait until I get to the big city to mail it. That way, it will likely arrive sooner than if I mail it from the town in which I live. Once I mailed a letter to the states from the town in which I live, and it took six weeks to arrive!

Anyway, soon after my folks had received my letter, I received an e-mail message from my mom, in which, among other things, she acknowledged that they had received the letter. She also described how, when my dad was reading the letter, their dog, Star, walked over to my dad and started sniffing the letter! As Star was sniffing the letter, she started wagging her tail! It seems as though she picked up my scent on the letter!

Efficiency With A Snap of the Fingers

On my way back from my mid-service medical exam in Rabat this week, I visited my friend and fellow PCV, Jack, who lives and works relatively close to Marrakech. I arrived in his town when he was still at his dar chebab (Darija, or Moroccan Arabic, for "youth center"), where we, as Youth Development PCVs here in Morocco, generally do most of our volunteering.

He was finishing up teaching an English class when I arrived. I stuck around not only for the rest of that class, but for all of the next two classes he was teaching.

I got a good tip from him on dealing with classroom misbehavior. At one point, some of the students in his class were talking amongst themselves. He responded to their chatter, by keeping his cool, but also by snapping his finger. Immediately his students fell silent. I thought, "Now, that's one that I've got to remember!"

The Luxury of a Hot Shower

I am blessed in many ways, including by having a shower in my apartment where I live down in the Sahara. Unfortunately, I don't have hot running water, which means that when I take a shower at home here in Morocco, it's a cold shower. Consequently, during this time of the year, in autumn and winter, when I'm in my town, I delay taking showers for as many days as I can, to avoid taking cold showers during cold weather.

Thus when I was in Rabat this week for my MSM (mid-service medical exam), it was with great delight that I took a hot shower last night in the hotel where I was staying. I reveled in the luxury of it. It was so much more enjoyable than hot showers which I've taken in the states, surely because it had been so long since I'd had one. Looking back at how I failed to appreciate hot showers as much when I still lived in the US, I thought of how, so often, we don't appreciate something until it's gone. And how many of us take for granted conveniences we have which others, living elsewhere in the world, don't have.

MSM (Mid-Service Medical Exam)

Today I had my mid-service medical exam (MSM) and my annual dental cleaning here in Rabat. If a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) has developed a medical condition or a dental condition which the Peace Corps can't accommodate, then the Peace Corps will medically separate a PCV (meaning that, under the medical separation, the PCV's service ends and the PCV gets sent back to the US). All went smoothly with my MSM and my dental exam. So, all I have to say is, onward with my Peace Corps service!