The transition to Fall has been very welcome. Summers in Morocco for a PCV can be pretty slow. School is out. Youth Centers closed. Ramadan happened, aka a month of hiding from the heat and any reminders of food or water. Towns shrunk, or grew, as Moroccans headed to the coasts or to visit family. Many volunteers take the time to travel to other sites or cooler countries in the down time, but being our first summer in site, we decided to stick around. Although the pace was very different from what we're used to, we are happy that we did. It gave us valuable integration experiences, planning time, and the availability to do off-the-cuff activities and camps. I also knocked out half of the books on my list for the year.
At the beginning of the summer when we were really still establishing ourselves in our assignment here, our director at the youth center would tell us to slow down, study, and sleep. As we continued to ask, when we were really wanting to spend more time working in our youth center, our director would continually tell us to essentially hibernate until fall. It was a little endearing seeing him counteract our eagerness, but also incredibly difficult to have projects and goals dependent on a person and a system that kept wanting me to take a nap! As I reflect on the frustration and confusion I felt with more personal time than I've ever experienced, I have to laugh and feel grateful for the purge that it became. I have been busy for as long as I can remember. Really busy. School, employment, sports, extracurricular activities, I have never done or been only one thing at a time. While I am here in Morocco now because of that ethic, I don't think it hurts to put ourselves on the shelf for longer than a 3 day weekend. At the end of the summer, I have now sweated out most of my zeal and picked up a bit of patience on the way. Granted, I was still ready for our fall program a full month before the director was ready for me. Tomato, Tom'ato, September, November.
Anyways, with much excitement, fall is here. Our program of classes and clubs have started, and there are exciting projects in the works for the future.
Zach works too, I promise. He is just a Quick-draw Mcgraw with the camera.
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