Bringing the World Home (the Peace Corps Third Goal)

"The logic of the Peace Corps is that 

someday we are going to bring it home to America." 

President John F. Kennedy, 1961 

What makes Peace Corps service unusual (amongst many other things), is that service continues long after volunteers leave their host countries! I have written in previous posts about the goals of the Peace Corps that volunteers are expected to work towards - Here's a quick reminder:

1. Helping the people of the host country with technical skills.

2. Helping to promote to the host country a better understanding of Americans.

3. Helping to promote to Americans a better understanding of the host country.

Goals 1 and 2 were very much a part of my time in Morocco. I was able to take small steps towards Goal 3 during my service: through this blog, through time spent with visitors, through a pen pal program with a home school in Connecticut, and a few guest blog posts here and there. But the real work on Goal 3 started when I came back to the US.

A lot of Goal 3 seems to happen informally as we catch back up with friends and family, but I am also on the lookout for chances to speak about our experiences in larger settings, and Justin and I were recently fortunate to have our first opportunity to speak formally about Morocco; in this case, to the 8th grade class of The Emery/Weiner School from Houston, Texas! 

How did I manage to connect with 8th graders from Houston you might ask? Through my lovely friend Nishta, a high school classmate and teacher at The Emery/Weiner School. Nishta and I have been able to stay in touch through the wonders of Facebook and I even wrote a guest post for her fantastic blog while in Morocco. When I got back stateside, Nishta and I reconnected and set up a time to speak to her students when they came to visit Washington, DC on a class trip. So earlier this month, Justin and I put on our coworker hats once again and collaborated on a powerpoint presentation to deliver about our experiences - ranging from why we joined the Peace Corps, to the type of projects that we did, to some of the key lessons we would want Americans to learn about Morocco. We weren't sure how our presentation would go over, but to the credit of these mature, respectful, and talented students, we spoke to an excited and engaged crowd of 60 with tons of interest and lots of questions!

Huge thanks to Nishta and the wonderful folks at The Emery/Weiner School for the work that they do with these great students. We were really impressed by their interest in Morocco and the Peace Corps and questions that showed real thoughtfulness, but beyond that, when having a dialogue with the students about volunteerism and service, we were also incredibly impressed by the volunteer activities that these students were already doing back in their own communities.

Incredibly thoughtful thank-you notes from Nishta and her students.

It was truly a fantastic Goal 3 experience and we're looking for lots more of them! If you're interested or know of opportunities, please let me know. And if you're interested in seeing the presentation that we gave to Nishta's students, you can download it from here.

What I Wish You Knew about Morocco (Peace Corps Week special)

In honor of Peace Corps Week, current and returned volunteers worldwide have been asked to share messages on the theme of "What I wish Americans knew about my host country." It's been over half a year since I returned to the US (cannot believe how quickly the time has flown!) and hardly a day goes by where I don't reflect about my life in Morocco, compare cultural differences, or think about some of the lessons that I gained over my two years. So in honor of Peace Corps Week, I thought I might share some of the key things I learned.

Let's start with some basic ones:

1. Morocco was the FIRST (yes, first!) country to recognize American independence, and has signed the longest unbroken peace treaty with the United States in American history. Moroccans are very proud of this relationship; it's something that I heard from friends and strangers almost every day.

Moroccan children hanging with Mrs. Clinton at the Embassy.

2. It's not just deserts! From rolling hills to snow-covered mountains, massive forests covered in cork trees to oceanside resorts, rocky plains to yes, the Sahara desert, the country has some of the most diverse landscapes that I have ever seen.

From Tangier, to the Sahara desert, to the snow-capped Atlas mountains.

A few that dig a bit deeper:

3. Moroccans are literally the most hospitable people that I have ever met. There's a reason that Moroccans all call each other "brother" and "sister" within just a few minutes of meeting. It is so common to meet someone on the street, ask for directions, and all of the sudden a few minutes later you find yourself on the way to their house for tea and then dinner and you are meeting the full extended family. During my Peace Corps training, I was warned not to compliment someone too heavily on an item, because they would surely try to give it to me - this happened several times when I forgot! This isn't to say that people don't have arguments or issues amongst each other, but there is something deeply inherent in the culture and religion to be open, generous, and hospitable towards others.

Justin and I with our Moroccan family.

4. As the US is an incredibly diverse country, so is Morocco. Morocco is primarily a Muslim country (about 99% identify as Muslim) but I observed an incredible diversity in people's perspectives and views - some are what we might call more conservative, some more progressive. I saw many women dressing in a western style, many others fully covered, and pretty much everything in between. The Moroccan Arabic language is most commonly spoken but the accents and vocabulary change between every community and region in the country. And that's not to mention the parts of the country heavily influenced by the Spanish and French, and an incredibly rich history - Morocco has some of the most beautiful Roman ruins in the African continent.

Roman ruins in Volubilis.

5. The word "inshallah" is a defining aspect of Moroccan life. It means "If Allah wills it" and comes into play when thinking about everything from plans for a meal, to an upcoming trip, to meeting a future husband or wife, even about death. It means accepting that God works in mysterious ways and is in control of plans. But interestingly enough, there is a line in the Koran that says that while God is in control of plans, people must still put in a strong effort and work hard and will be rewarded. 

A group of students in our job skills training class.

And one last one that's kind of fun:

6. Maybe you have heard of argan oil? It has now become famous in the US and is included in all sorts of cosmetics, and pure argan oil is extremely expensive. You might not know about the traditional method of extracting argan oil, and here's where it gets fun. Goats in Morocco climb the argan trees. The goats then eat the argan nut. The nut passes through the goats, the waste matter is gathered and the argan oil is then extracted from it. So this expensive, famous, extravagant cosmetic... is derived from goat poo. I can't make this up.

Goats in trees! Where argan oil begins :)

An unfinished project, now complete!

I've written pretty extensively on this blog about my work related to gender issues and women's empowerment as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco (if you're new to the blog, you can read some of those posts here). About halfway through my service in Morocco, I started a project with an amazing group of young Moroccan girls from GlobalGirl Media, an organization that empowers young women from underserved communities by teaching them new media and leadership skills. 

These girls were passionate about creating a video on an issue that affects girls and women in Morocco and in other countries throughout the world -- sexual harassment. I wrote a grant for their project, to cover the costs of filming people throughout Morocco - women and men, old and young, in small and large communities - as well as the editing and production of a video with their findings. Unfortunately, the filming took longer than expected and I left Morocco before the project was completed. I'm happy to say though that these dedicated individuals remained committed to the project along with other Peace Corps volunteers and have completed an amazing 3-part video! It's really exciting to see what these girls have been able to accomplish and to know that I played a role in helping them to express themselves and to stand up for issues in their country.

If you are interested, the 3-part video can be viewed on the below links (they have English voices dubbed over):
Part I: Is this Normal?
Part II: Let's Talk about Normal
Part III: Time for a New Normal

In other news, Justin and I are enjoying our time with the adorable Katie and exploring DC as much as possible when it's not covered in snow. We're counting the days until springtime, cherry blossoms, picnics and bike rides! More updates to come soon.

One Month Back

Today marks 1 month since Justin and I returned to America. In some ways I feel like we never even left the US and in other ways I am reminded daily of our 2 years spent away from it. It’s been a whirlwind for sure and I cannot believe that it’s been so long since my last post! I do plan to continue blogging, to talk about our experiences transitioning back, teaching others about our time spent in Morocco, and maybe some other fun stuff in between :)

So, where to start?

So many people have asked about our experiences in Morocco, and it’s hard to give a concise answer about something that has changed and affected me in so many ways. Truly, it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life – to learn about a culture and way of life quite different from my own, to have the opportunity to affect other people’s lives, to figure out how to solve difficult and uncertain situations with limited language and technical skills, to be able to truly experience another country for more than a brief visit…  each of these would take days to expand on how they have affected me.

If you’re curious about some of the work that I did in Morocco, you can look at my Peace Corps Description of Service, which you can access by clicking here. This is an informal version as Peace Corps limits us to fewer pages, but I wanted to include as many details as possible!

Since coming back, we’ve spent lots of time in between New York and Washington, DC (our new home) and in the coming month we’ll be moving into an apartment, starting a new job, starting school (Justin), going to a wedding (my brother’s), catching up with lots of old friends, and continuing to adjust to our new lives – so I’ll have lots to cover in future posts! In the meantime I’ll leave you with a photo from one of our last trips in Morocco and our favorite city to visit, Essaouira.

Our Last Days in Tiflet

A short update: We said tearful goodbyes to friends and family and left our 2-year home on Wednesday morning. For the last few days we've been finishing up paperwork at Peace Corps headquarters in Rabat. We will be returning to the US tomorrow and I'm excited to come back, but I remain very reflective about our experiences living in Morocco.

In our last days in Tiflet, we took some photos to help remember things by. I realized that I haven't posted a lot of photos of our community on this blog, so I thought I'd share some of my favorites.

Tile pieces inlaid into cement - lots of houses in Tiflet have this and I love it!

In downtown Tiflet.

Justin in front of our Youth Center, where we worked.

Our favorite animal in Tiflet! Most donkeys/mules are used for work purposes
and are usually tied up by the legs or neck. This guy, on the other hand,
does not appear to have an owner and we often see him lounging in the
grass or slowly meandering across the street blocking traffic. I tried to get
close for a photo but being the independent donkey that he is,
he wouldn't let me too close :)

Wood piled up for burning to heat a hammam, or public bath.

Traditional honey-covered Ramadan sweets.

Piles of fresh vegetables at our daily market.

Our post office. Justin and I have a side hobby of taking photos of
post offices which we haven't done much in Morocco but look forward
to resuming when we're back in the US!

Sunset along the main road to Rabat, with a mosque minaret on the right.

An apple a day...

The newest updates: Last week Justin and I returned from an "In-Service Training" (IST) in Marrakesh for the newest group of Peace Corps Volunteers, where we gave a presentation about our awesome Job Skills training workshops. After IST, I participated in my very last meeting with the Gender and Development Committee in Morocco and was able to sit back and really appreciate how far my efforts have gone in the last 2 years to promote gender equality activities in Morocco.

So all in all a productive week! However, my excitement faded quickly upon getting back home last Tuesday, as that evening I managed to slip in the shower and bang my chin against our bathtub, breaking open a pretty deep gash all the way to the muscle. 

But this blog post is not to complain about the injury - Rather, I want to gush about the medical treatment that I have received in the Peace Corps, which is better than I  have ever experienced! As soon as I banged my chin, I called the after-hours Peace Corps medical duty phone. Within a minute I was connected to a doctor who told me immediate actions to take with supplies from the medical kit that Peace Corps provided us with. First thing the following morning, I went to Rabat where I met with the same Peace Corps doctor, who brought me to an amazing plastic surgeon for a quick consultation followed by stitches in my chin. All within about 18 hours of my injury.

From my fractured leg bone to now this, I have been so impressed with the medical attention that I've received in the Peace Corps. Before we left for Morocco, there was some negative press about medical problems with the Peace Corps, but for me I have had nothing but positive experiences. Even so, I have promised myself that the chin injury will be my very last medical issue, because I need to return to America in 1 piece! :)

In other news, we are finalizing most of our projects and beginning the packing process. I can't believe that our return to the US is getting closer and closer! Over the coming weeks we plan to spend lots of time with our Moroccan friends and family and do some final sightseeing too. More to come soon!

Job Skills Workshops Conclusion

This past weekend, Justin and I, along with our two Moroccan counterparts Abdellah and Badr and new Peace Corps Volunteer Tim, presented certificates to 25 Moroccan youth who completed our month-long "Vocational Skills for Moroccan Youth" training workshops. 

Workshop participants with us and our counterparts

Participants attended 7 workshops in total, ranging from writing a CV, preparing a "Demande d'Emploi" or "Lettre de Motivation" (the Moroccan equivalents for our cover letters), interviewing, job search and social media skills, entrepreneurship, financial management, and career planning/goal setting. Participants completed homework assignments including making a CV, writing a cover letter, and even doing a mock interview.

Here, I'm talking about needs and wants, related to financial management.

When Justin and I first began the process of developing these workshops with Abdellah and Badr, we were blown away by how little education students receive here on goal setting or potential career/educational paths and what it takes to realize their potential. We've been told that there's one person in our community who is like a guidance counselor and visits each of the high schools once a year, gives a long-winded speech to students, and leaves without spending individual time or taking questions. Many students end up on a career path based on what a family member or friend does because they don't have a sense of what opportunities are out there, and no one has ever encouraged them to think about their interests and pursue them. Then, when it comes time to look for jobs, not only do many students not know how to create a good CV but many also lack the knowledge of where or how to look for jobs or the self-confidence to express themselves to a company.

Justin in action! He is teaching about the qualities of a successful person.

For our final session, we gave out certificates, had a small party, and asked participants to fill out evaluations about their experiences in the workshops. The responses were overwhelmingly positive. Not only did participants highlight tangible new skills that they learned in the workshops, but they also noted some unexpected new qualities that they gained: self-confidence, motivation, and leadership. One participant said that in the interview she/he "learned how to be me in that moment." Another participant learned that he/she "could be a manager, not just a worker." And another participant told us about learning "how to reach my dreams, how to have a will for success, and how to be an accomplished person." Many participants said that the mock interview was one of their greatest experiences. For many it was their first interview - two participants were so nervous that they actually walked out before the interview! Their peers were able to get them to come back in; the group as a whole was really supportive and the mock interviews presented a great opportunity to learn how to express themselves in a safe and comfortable space.

The workshop team! 

Next week, we'll be going to Marrakech to share the program with other Peace Corps Volunteers. We hope that we can encourage others to replicate the workshops in their communities, and maybe this will be one of the legacies that we can leave behind here. For us, it was one of our last big projects and it was great to end things on such a high note. 

A signed banner with all participant names.

A big shout out and special thanks to Abdellah and Badr, who were the primary facilitators and worked with us in every step of the planning process, and without whom we could NEVER have pulled this off.

Some of our newest projects

I mentioned a little while ago that we've been working on some exciting projects! One of those projects is a website that I built at the request of Peace Corps Morocco staff, to help promote Peace Corps and volunteers' projects with current and potential partners. Peace Corps Washington has fairly strict guidelines in terms of content and layout, so I didn't have a lot of creative flexibility, but I'm still pretty happy with the result. I actually finished the website at the end of last year, but the process of getting all of the approvals from Washington took a long time and it finally went live last week. Here's a  screenshot of the homepage, and you can check it out by clicking here!

There's more: This past weekend, Justin and I along with two local counterparts and close friends launched a project that has been in the works for the last 9 months or so. Unemployment is a major issue in Morocco, particularly for youth; according to a report that came out last year, 49% of Moroccan youth are neither employed nor in school. Although Justin and I are not in a position to address the lack of available jobs in Morocco, one thing that we realized that we could do was to help provide youth with the tools and skills to better equip them to find a job. So we worked with our friends to develop a workshop series on employability skills. We held the first two workshops this past weekend with sessions on creating/improving their CVs and the Moroccan versions of cover letters. We'll continue over the next 3 weekends with sessions on interviewing skills, goal setting and career planning, entrepreneurialism, conducting a job search, social media, and financial management. The first two sessions went really well, with participants asking lots of questions and expressing that they have already begun to gain new information. We're excited to see how the remainder of the program will go, and I'll post an update when it's over! Check out some photos from the workshops, and if you're interested, you can learn more on the Facebook page that we created for the program, which also includes some of the course materials.

Where "Mad Men" Meets the Peace Corps

For those of you who don't know, before the Peace Corps I worked in advertising agencies in New York City. My life has gone from developing marketing strategies and producing television and radio commercials, billboards, websites, and lots more... to teaching English and aerobics, developing programs for youth, spending time with people in the community, studying a new language, learning about a new culture, teaching about America, doing activities for women in the community, and so on. 

A pretty big change as you can imagine! But one thing that I did not count on was being able to continue some marketing/advertising related work in Morocco. Recently, I was highlighted in a "Peace Corps 101" radio interview to provide marketing tips for Peace Corps Volunteers. You can check out the interview here!

On this blog I haven't talked about all of the projects that I've done in Morocco, but here are a few specific things related to marketing that I talked about in the interview. With Peace Corps Morocco's Gender and Development Committee, I helped to revamp the committee to be more relevant and helpful for Volunteers and used strategic planning models to develop a vision and mission statement. I created a website and new communication channels to make it easier for Volunteers to learn about and access resources for gender initiatives. For Peace Corps Morocco, I created a website (which is almost finished!) at the request of staff to showcase Volunteer efforts and to promote our programs to governmental and NGO partners in Morocco. And lastly, as the PR Senior Advisor for the Serving Volunteer Advisory Council, I'm currently running all PR outreach efforts for this global group dedicated to connecting Volunteers and helping provide strategic solutions to worldwide issues.

These are the big ones - and I have one more big marketing-related project in the works that you'll hear more about in the coming months. So while a lot has changed, it's been nice to continue some of the marketing-related work that I enjoyed back home!

Some of the work I've done recently

You might already know that International Women's Day was last week - If you didn't, you can read a bit more about it in my blog post from last year. This day marked the culmination of a few fun projects that I've been working on, so I wanted to share them with you!

My role as the Chair of Peace Corps Morocco's Gender and Development (GAD) Committee is to help motivate Peace Corps Volunteers to plan gender awareness activities for women and men, boys and girls, in towns throughout Morocco. The Committee tries to create resources to provide Volunteers with ideas for projects and helpful information on gender-specific language, cultural ideas, and current events. As International Women's Day is a great opportunity to do gender awareness programming in Moroccan communities, we wanted to focus great effort on motivating and supporting Volunteers during this time. So here are some of the things that we did:

• Created a toolkit for Volunteers with 5 different types of activities that they could do during International Women's Day, with topics ranging from volunteerism to leadership, harassment to empowerment. If you are interested in seeing the toolkit, you can view and download it here.

• Partnered with the "Division des Affairs Feminines" (the Division of Women's Affairs) of the Moroccan government to plan a special event to celebrate women and to symbolically launch a week of gender programming throughout the country.

• Partnered with the U.S. Embassy to print t-shirts that we distributed to Peace Corps Volunteers who committed to leading a gender awareness activity during this time. We also printed stickers to match the t-shirts that Volunteers could give out in their communities.

I'm so excited to say that almost one-third of the Peace Corps Volunteers in Morocco committed to leading a gender awareness activity in their communities! Which means that if each event has 20 people, we will have reached thousands of people with programs ranging from leadership to volunteerism, running to empowerment, women’s and girl’s health to film screenings, harassment to art, women's rights awareness to employment, self-esteem to gender roles and stereotypes… and the list goes on and on!

Yesterday, I attended the event that I helped to plan in conjunction with Peace Corps staff and the Moroccan government. I was asked to deliver a speech at this event on behalf of the Peace Corps, highlighting Volunteers' gender-focused work in Morocco during this time. The most exciting part of the speech, for me, was that I chose to challenge myself and deliver the speech by myself in ARABIC, instead of with a translator. I wrote the speech in English, translated it into Moroccan Arabic, then sat with a friend to review the speech line by line (special thanks and a shout-out to Abdellah Boutahar!). I was really happy to see that I was able, fairly successfully, to write most of the speech by myself, and when an American started delivering a full speech in Moroccan Arabic, the crowd was blown away! I gave my speech alongside several Moroccan government officials, and I was told that many people thought my speech was the highlight. It was a massive language challenge and I'm so excited that it was a success.

So that's what I've been doing lately! Justin and I have a few other projects up our sleeves in the coming months, so you'll be hearing more about those soon. Enjoy a few photos from yesterday's event:

Schmoozing with the Minister of Youth and Sports,
along with the Peace Corps Country Director.

With other members of the GAD Committee, showing off our t-shirts.

Dancers from Casablanca perform at the event.

Last minute language prepping before my speech.

Delivering my speech!

I love this paparazzi shot - I am being audio recorded,
video recorded, and photographed all at once!

Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World)

I am happily back in Tiflet after a few weeks of being on the road! The first half of my travels involved an 11-hour journey to a small town in the south of Morocco called Taznakht. One of my Peace Corps friends organized a camp called Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) and I joined 8 Peace Corps Volunteers and 10 Moroccan staff to help run the 4-day program. 

GLOW camps were first started back in the 90’s by Peace Corps Volunteers and since then have spread throughout the Peace Corps network as a way to educate girls on important life skills and to empower the girls to use those skills in their lives and to share with their communities. Our camp had a variety of workshops ranging from very serious topics to more lighthearted: gender roles, self-esteem, Morocco’s family code law, goal-setting, self-defense, women's health, beauty, calligraphy, rape laws in Morocco, harassment, henna, belly dancing and cinema. In between the workshops, we led them in singing, dancing, games, scavenger hunts, field trips, and did I mention dancing?

For many girls, this is often the first opportunity to leave their town and participate in a camp-like experience and it was really amazing watching them grow over the course of the 4 days, develop a sense of comfort with the group, and make lots of new friendships. For me, it was also a welcome challenge with my language skills - the camp was run almost entirely in Moroccan Arabic, and in leading some of the workshops and participating in others, I found myself talking about topics that I had not yet discussed with Moroccans. It was nice to step outside of the boundaries of typical language that I use in English classes and in day-to-day interactions. 

I left the camp feeling mentally and physically exhausted but so grateful to have had the opportunity to share this amazing experience with 45 of my newest Moroccan friends ;) Fortunately, my recovery came in the form of an awesome vacation with Justin. More on that in the next post - In the meantime, enjoy the photos from the camp!

First day of camp, getting everyone up and moving.

Homemade face masks in a beauty workshop.

A "Hands of Peace" poster that girls created.

One of the MANY impromptu dance sessions during the camp!

Girls practice moves in a self-defense workshop.

Some of the Peace Corps Volunteer staff, on field trip day.

Playing games with the girls on field trip day.

In my harassment workshop, girls wrote on slips of paper how
harassment can make them feel. In the middle, in Arabic,
it says "Everyone deserves respect."

Girls create a poster about a world without harassment.

With 2 other Volunteers, enjoying the beautiful weather!

Things I Wish I Knew

I just spent 3 days with a group of 96 excited, apprehensive, eager, and motivated Peace Corps trainees! They just arrived last Wednesday and have been thrown into the grind with 2 months of intense training to learn everything from Moroccan culture and language to figuring out how to assess community needs and develop an action plan to lectures on Peace Corps policies and procedures. My time in Rabat was spent in sessions talking about gender-specific programming, volunteer diversity, and harassment, and out of sessions talking about everything and anything on these trainees' minds - how to manage language learning, volunteer experiences, the kinds of programming we do, what the food is like, you name it.

Sharing some of my experiences with them was really exciting, and in return I soaked up so much of their energy and motivation. Watching a group of individuals who are about to embark on this amazing adventure, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic about those first few months when everything was so scary and overwhelming, but at the same time incredibly new and exciting. I have now been living in this country for over 16 months (scary!) and while I’m no expert, I certainly feel I’ve come a long way from those scary initial months. So I thought it might be fun to make a quick list of some of the things that I wish I knew (or wish I understood) about this experience at the very beginning, for better or for worse!

1.   My job might will be ambiguous

My official title is a Youth Development Volunteer. What that means in Morocco can vary from being an English teacher to running sports teams to doing job skills trainings to developing health activities to cleaning up neighborhoods to teaching about citizenship to training teachers to supporting cooperatives and artisan groups to promoting cultural exchange to working with people with disabilities… and pretty much everything in between. What’s awesome about this is that Volunteers truly have the opportunity to match their skills to the work that they feel is both important and needed in the community – but what makes it difficult is actually determining what those are.

2.   Making mistakes is okay

I very distinctly remember on day 2 of our training, my Moroccan Arabic language teacher sent me out of the classroom and into the street to have my first “conversation” with a Moroccan. He picked out a girl near our training center, asked if she wouldn’t mind speaking with me at a 1st grade level, and then pushed me towards her. I consider myself an outgoing and friendly person but I remember feeling more scared of this encounter than anything I could remember… mainly because I wasn’t confident in my language skills (pretty reasonable after only 1 day!) and I was practically paralyzed with fear about making mistakes. But I sucked it up and went into that conversation, and laughed with her as we worked together to construct a very broken conversation. And this spills over into so many experiences that I’ve had – I can only improve from learning and I can only learn from doing and if doing involves making some mistakes, then it’s an important part of the process. 

3.   Morocco gets COLD!

Yes, I know that Morocco is on the edge of the Sahara Desert. But there are mountains and forests and large bodies of water and did I mention ski resorts or that homes are generally not heated? And I’m fortunate to be in an area that’s not even the coldest part of the Morocco by far.

4.   Everyone’s experience is different

Peace Corps staff teach that we shouldn’t compare our experience to any other Peace Corps Volunteer’s, because every person’s situation is so different – varying communities, backgrounds, attitudes and perspectives contribute to totally different experiences. But it’s certainly hard when we’re all trying to figure out our ways at the same time.

5.   Relationships take time to build

Just like making a good couscous here, relationships take time to develop, build, and nurture. It has taken me until just a few months ago to develop strong relationships with young women in my community. Part of this comes from cultural restrictions – these women just don’t spend as much time out of the home, so there’s less opportunity to create relationships – and part of this comes from me being with Justin and spending less time on my own developing individual relationships. Regardless, I have been patient and I am so happy that I have done so, as I’m now being rewarded with some wonderful friends and potential partners.

6.   I am stronger than I think

I am truly proud of what I have been able to do here – not just in terms of programs or classes or partnerships but for the personal leaps that I have been able to make: living in an unknown place separated at an enormous distance from friends and family and the comforts of the U.S. that we are used to; learning a spoken language for the first time (other than English) in my life (regretting that choice to study Latin in high school); figuring out how to understand, appreciate and respect a new culture, religion, and way of life; dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity (see #1); and taking new experiences and adventures head on and with drive and positivity!

7.   Time will fly.

Cliché but very, very, very true.