Home For Now...

So I have arrived at the homestay in Rabat and boy is it incredible. While I have no pictures to upload yet, hold tight...they will come soon! I just wanted to record what little I had observed so far before I forget...which wouldn't take long.

The people here are wonderful. After a not so pleasant journey via aeroplane I arrived in Casablanca with 4 other fellow volunteers this morning. I haven't slept in over 24 hours and still going strong! I have found as I have traveled that jet-lag (luckily) doesn't affect me much, I think because I'm too psyched to be in a new place. So we drove 2 hours from Casablanca to Rabat. I snagged a window seat and tried to take mental notes while staring intently out the window the whole way.

My first impressions:

First of all, you know in pictures how you see these beautiful images of bright white or pink cement(?) houses with the blue sky and green grass and yellow flowers and the colors are so saturated that it doesn't seem real? Well, I discovered today that it is in fact real, not another photoshop enhancement (atleast not all the time). Literally we drove by these small neighborhoods of rows and rows of white homes with bright red laundry hanging across the roof, and the blue sky and ocean are in the background with yellow bushes surrounding it all. It was just beautiful.
Secondly, while much of the drive down here looked relatively similar to places you'd find in the states aside from the lack of green grass and the multitudes of people trekking along the highway, there were sections of the above mentioned color-coordinated homes/scenery and also there were the blocks of rundown makeshift homes that are all connected and seem to be made of tin roofing. (That had to be some sort of terrible run-on sentence, I apologize). Now, this was somewhat expected as much of the images we see today of Africa are images of these homes. What was the real kicker was.....that every single one of these little homes (there had to be atleast 200 in each grouping) had their own satellite dishes! BIZARRO! Sadly I didn't snap a picture because I was too busy staring awestruck at the sight. Just lines of tiny square homes made of scraps with satellite dishes.

The home is wonderful and the lunch today was delicious! All things I'd never eaten before and could not even begin to explain what they actually were. The cooks live in the house with us and provide us with every meal...all traditional Moroccan cuisine. And everyday at 4pm they serve tea and desserts. YUM...That's in about 30 minutes. I'll let you know how it is later!

I believe that's all for now. Just wanted to give you a brief update....much more will come.

On the schedule: Tonight Sting is playing at the Mawazine Music Festival...it's the last night of this 2 wk long festival of international artists including Elton John, Harry Connick Jr., BB King, and all sorts of local African music. And it's FREE!

Tomorrow we have "orientation" at 9:30am and then we can peruse the city at our leisure.