Morocco Bound
December 30th, 2008 by 605BAD.Hey there Peace Corps folks. I, like many I’ve noticed on this site, am a new recruit. My mission is set in Morocco as a health worker and is set to ship out March 3rd, 2008. Just recently I began to realize that in a couple more months I will no longer be working as a lab technician for Valspar paints but will be in some foreign land with little knowledge of the language or what I’m doing there. This reality is really setting me on edge. How am I going to possibly educate a people who’s language I can barely speak? I have a B.A. in Biology and can do PCR and Southern blotting like you wouldn’t believe, but aside from that my skills in the immediate health field are slim to none! I would love to know what past Moroccan volunteers have done to prepare for their service and what challenges past health workers have worked with and what they did to meet those challenges.
I’m trying to get a hold of a professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities who teaches arabic to see if he has any connections with Moroccans here in the states. If I could hang out with and get to know any that would be invaluable. Any information before getting over there will be a life saver (what do people do for fun? what is the age group in rural areas, mostly 15-30? How do Berber people differ from Arabs if at all? etc.). Either way, I’m just going to keep studying Arabic and hopefully learn some things about Muslim belief and culture. But anything guys…ANYTHING…would be swell. By the way, are there any other people heading to Morocco with me. Where my peeps at?
January 14th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I am also going to Morocco in March ‘09 as a health worker. It is hard to imagine how different our lives will be in a couple of months and to imagine myself having to solely rely on a different language to communicate but I am looking forward to it. I feel like time is running down so I am mostly spending lots of time enjoying what I love about America that I know I will miss.
I called and asked about what could be done in preparation and was told that besides going over the few language lessons they have online there isn’t much to do. I was interested in getting a Rosetta Stone and I asked if French or Arabic would be more useful and was told that French would be since everyone who goes to school learns French and many (or most?) volunteers will end up learning Berber which there is no Rosetta Stone for.
I met another girl who will also be a health educator and who lives close to me in MD and we are actually going to get together this weekend with some people who are from/have visited Morocco and listen to their stories. I will let you know anything of interest.
January 30th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I am trying to reach PC healthcare who may have a story to tell of working in areas of disaster or extreme poverty. Please email me at kaplanstories@live.com for submission guidelines and please spread the word among your PC friends! Keep up the great work.
~ Nancy Leigh Harless, ARNP