here's some tips i've thought of for people coming. I'm going to put a better version of this on my blog in a few minutes ( www.peacecorpsben.blogspot.com) :
the PC Experience
we'll have a new Country director around christmastime
dont worry about trying to study MSA arabic before you get here. the local dialect is so different, it's not worth it. if anything, brush up on French if you used to study it. it can make the landing a lot easier if you know some. after training, though, french can be a liability since everyone knows you speak it and they'll then always respond just in french.
DO learn to read/ write arabic script. it will help a lot with pronunciation and that makes everything better. The PC transliteration system is a crutch and will run you into the ground... once you get going in your classes, ask the teacher to write words in both until you can follow along with just the Arabic
living in a new place is like starting up exercising : it starts bad and painful and you're sore, but it only gets better and easier :)
we're supposed to start doubling up the bigger sites with vols, so chances are good you may have a site mate in your first year, expect to spend most of your time out of site traveling around. a month and a half in site, then you're gone for two weeks for more training, then gone again another week for spring camp, then you go back to your site for a month and a half and then you're gone again for another training and another camp.
once you get to country and you're trying to find a phone, make sure you get the Nokia one with the small LED flashlight on top. that is a lifesaver i use it every night around my town or in my room
for calling home, i keep a stack of 20 dirham recharge cards handy that i get from the teleboutique, and they always last about 20 minutes calling home directly from the phone... just type in the number 001 then area code and number, and costs more than skype but i end up calling home a lot more often. Skype is too much of a process to get going, leaving my house and going to the cyber and trying to find a computer that's got it and works. Just direct from the phone sounds better, too, and in US dollars its about 3 dollars for a good 20 minute conversation, Plus the biggest benefit is that you can use your morocco money instead of having to from your US bank account. Which leads me to...
--dont save dirhams ( i do save dirhams, but im able to save about 1000 a month because im trying to go to europe several times the next few months. Yes, we are close to Europe but though it is cheap to get there usually vols just have money to GET there and then run out of money once they are there unless you know someone you can stay with)
Morocco experience
--the streets are safer than the sidewalks
--morocco is a shame based society. to shame the person that is bothering you, that means you have to reach a certain threshold in embarassing the person. They teach us the word 'shuma' early, shame on you!, but it doesnt work if you whisper it to the guy that's giving you crap.
you have to yell it loud enough so that everyone and their mama know this guy did something bad.if you dont say shuma loud enough for other people to hear, then the guy might interpret that as not being serious, or even that you're flirting back
--all they care about is that you continue to talk to them. so yell 'shuma', and set an eample early for the others that might do the same thing.
GETTING HERE
--dont worry so much about the weight of the bags. My friend Adriana had both of her bags way over and she paid an extra 50 dollars when she checked in. BUT when you get here you'll get even more stuff and it will be a pain to travel with, though after training they ship things ahead of you
PC didnt give her any crap about it, so if there's stuff you can't live without, dont stress out over it. she made it here fine and didnt have to part with anything.
-stuff id bring if i could do it again :
nearly all major brands of toiletries can be bought, things like nice shampoos and soaps and things. they have supermarkets in all of the big city that sell even more things than Walmart (you can buy motorcycles in them even)
The important exceptions, however :
a big 50-pack of ear plugs (great for host families, traveling, donkeys and chickens screaming at 4AM, the airplane ride, in fact great all of the time so long as noone is talking directly to you)
big bottle of high# sunscreen and of good lotion, In general you ask PC and they give you only generic trial-size versions of everything. Sunscreen is more important to bring than lotion, since Moroccans use lotion but dont use sunscreen, though you'll probably wear so many clothes even in summer that you wont burn.
You'll have a site that is either extreme summer or an extreme winter. not a lot are in between. I'd bring things for Winter just in case because good winter gear is hard to find here, but summer clothes are everywhere
.DONT bring the solar shower that's listed in the welcome book
--bring a couple of decks of UNO or a board/card game that you like. UNO is especially good because you can teach it easily to people even if they dont know English, and its fast and you can play for an hour without getting bored of it. And I used UNO cards in my English classes at summer camp, just telling them to recite the color and the number, then i add extra cards to make bigger numbers or i make them add the two together. its a great flow activity
games are great because you can bond with people even if you dont speak their language
novels are abounding here, if you bring books id bring the ones you love the most, or reference books. i brought a suitcase full and most of those books i could have found here.
a good website is goodreads.com, and the more people in your group that use it, you're able to see what other people are reading and share books more easily that way. seriously works, i use it all the time with people in the next region.
bring something just for fun that makes you smile everytime you see it
eletronic things
NETBOOKs are great because they are cheap and replaceable, rather than a 2000 dollar laptop
bring the simplest possible power adaptor (not to be confused with a transformer, which is not necessary and costs a lot more money)
-- a little hand held fan that campers use, not a bad idea.
a good travel hard drive with lots of GBs makes everything more fabulous especially when your group gets together (for ''media souk''). if its not a travel one, there's too much risk of you bumping it and it stops working, which I've seen happen
maybe you dont like podcasts, but in Peace Corps they are awesome. download all the TED Talks, RadioLab, This American Life, and iTunes University ones while you're still Stateside, because its hard to download them from here.
MY Kindle has been the best here I get TIME magazine each week that i download from the amazon site. A netbook is great, even if you just get one from walmart. they are only 140 dollars now
*cheap battery or battery-free speakers to play iPods out loud, especially nice for classes you may do or just around the roomif you replace a volunteer it makes everything a zillion times easier.
the PC Experience
we'll have a new Country director around christmastime
dont worry about trying to study MSA arabic before you get here. the local dialect is so different, it's not worth it. if anything, brush up on French if you used to study it. it can make the landing a lot easier if you know some. after training, though, french can be a liability since everyone knows you speak it and they'll then always respond just in french.
DO learn to read/ write arabic script. it will help a lot with pronunciation and that makes everything better. The PC transliteration system is a crutch and will run you into the ground... once you get going in your classes, ask the teacher to write words in both until you can follow along with just the Arabic
living in a new place is like starting up exercising : it starts bad and painful and you're sore, but it only gets better and easier :)
we're supposed to start doubling up the bigger sites with vols, so chances are good you may have a site mate in your first year, expect to spend most of your time out of site traveling around. a month and a half in site, then you're gone for two weeks for more training, then gone again another week for spring camp, then you go back to your site for a month and a half and then you're gone again for another training and another camp.
once you get to country and you're trying to find a phone, make sure you get the Nokia one with the small LED flashlight on top. that is a lifesaver i use it every night around my town or in my room
for calling home, i keep a stack of 20 dirham recharge cards handy that i get from the teleboutique, and they always last about 20 minutes calling home directly from the phone... just type in the number 001 then area code and number, and costs more than skype but i end up calling home a lot more often. Skype is too much of a process to get going, leaving my house and going to the cyber and trying to find a computer that's got it and works. Just direct from the phone sounds better, too, and in US dollars its about 3 dollars for a good 20 minute conversation, Plus the biggest benefit is that you can use your morocco money instead of having to from your US bank account. Which leads me to...
--dont save dirhams ( i do save dirhams, but im able to save about 1000 a month because im trying to go to europe several times the next few months. Yes, we are close to Europe but though it is cheap to get there usually vols just have money to GET there and then run out of money once they are there unless you know someone you can stay with)
Morocco experience
--the streets are safer than the sidewalks
--morocco is a shame based society. to shame the person that is bothering you, that means you have to reach a certain threshold in embarassing the person. They teach us the word 'shuma' early, shame on you!, but it doesnt work if you whisper it to the guy that's giving you crap.
you have to yell it loud enough so that everyone and their mama know this guy did something bad.if you dont say shuma loud enough for other people to hear, then the guy might interpret that as not being serious, or even that you're flirting back
--all they care about is that you continue to talk to them. so yell 'shuma', and set an eample early for the others that might do the same thing.
GETTING HERE
--dont worry so much about the weight of the bags. My friend Adriana had both of her bags way over and she paid an extra 50 dollars when she checked in. BUT when you get here you'll get even more stuff and it will be a pain to travel with, though after training they ship things ahead of you
PC didnt give her any crap about it, so if there's stuff you can't live without, dont stress out over it. she made it here fine and didnt have to part with anything.
-stuff id bring if i could do it again :
nearly all major brands of toiletries can be bought, things like nice shampoos and soaps and things. they have supermarkets in all of the big city that sell even more things than Walmart (you can buy motorcycles in them even)
The important exceptions, however :
a big 50-pack of ear plugs (great for host families, traveling, donkeys and chickens screaming at 4AM, the airplane ride, in fact great all of the time so long as noone is talking directly to you)
big bottle of high# sunscreen and of good lotion, In general you ask PC and they give you only generic trial-size versions of everything. Sunscreen is more important to bring than lotion, since Moroccans use lotion but dont use sunscreen, though you'll probably wear so many clothes even in summer that you wont burn.
You'll have a site that is either extreme summer or an extreme winter. not a lot are in between. I'd bring things for Winter just in case because good winter gear is hard to find here, but summer clothes are everywhere
.DONT bring the solar shower that's listed in the welcome book
--bring a couple of decks of UNO or a board/card game that you like. UNO is especially good because you can teach it easily to people even if they dont know English, and its fast and you can play for an hour without getting bored of it. And I used UNO cards in my English classes at summer camp, just telling them to recite the color and the number, then i add extra cards to make bigger numbers or i make them add the two together. its a great flow activity
games are great because you can bond with people even if you dont speak their language
novels are abounding here, if you bring books id bring the ones you love the most, or reference books. i brought a suitcase full and most of those books i could have found here.
a good website is goodreads.com, and the more people in your group that use it, you're able to see what other people are reading and share books more easily that way. seriously works, i use it all the time with people in the next region.
bring something just for fun that makes you smile everytime you see it
eletronic things
NETBOOKs are great because they are cheap and replaceable, rather than a 2000 dollar laptop
bring the simplest possible power adaptor (not to be confused with a transformer, which is not necessary and costs a lot more money)
-- a little hand held fan that campers use, not a bad idea.
a good travel hard drive with lots of GBs makes everything more fabulous especially when your group gets together (for ''media souk''). if its not a travel one, there's too much risk of you bumping it and it stops working, which I've seen happen
maybe you dont like podcasts, but in Peace Corps they are awesome. download all the TED Talks, RadioLab, This American Life, and iTunes University ones while you're still Stateside, because its hard to download them from here.
MY Kindle has been the best here I get TIME magazine each week that i download from the amazon site. A netbook is great, even if you just get one from walmart. they are only 140 dollars now
*cheap battery or battery-free speakers to play iPods out loud, especially nice for classes you may do or just around the roomif you replace a volunteer it makes everything a zillion times easier.
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