Under the Milky Way

Reality began to set in as I shoveled food into my mouth and the peace corps lounge got dark and empty and lonely. The shuttle to the airport was wildly unexciting, and I think I fell asleep at some point (so many nights of bad sleep combined left me desperate for some zz's). I awoke as we were pulling into the dark airport -recognizing it by its shadowy darkness and immediately was reminded of the night when we arrived in Liberia just a little over 2 months ago- nervous, luggage-less, and not sure what to expect. With no one to help me from this point on, I groggily pulled my two backpacks on me. I tried to use the crutches I'd been given, but I couldn't balance with all of my bags. So I just hobbled my way to the entrance carrying them in my spare hand.  The airport in Liberia is itty bitty, feeling like an old warehouse divided into sections. Despite its size, I struggled to find my way from place to place with the lack of signage as this Atlanta gal is use...

I hadn’t run in three days after a weekend bout of stomach issues. I had decided to go for a short jog down my favorite path just to get my blood moving. When I started running, I felt my sluggish legs working underneath me. Instead of trying to push through it, I just allowed myself to slowly jog down the path, trying to re-center my mind, forget my daily frustrations, and enjoy the lush, jungle setting of my own “gym.” Somewhere in the slogging, I tripped over something and smacked into the ground, sliding forward on the loose gravel and grass. My hand, which was inches from my face when I fell, caught a lot of my weight, and I feared that it would be gushing blood when I flipped it over to look at my palm. Quickly I did just that and was surprised to find only a few faint scratches on it. I rolled my body over, stood up, and looked at my knees. “FU*!,” was my only reaction. I repeated this over and over again as I assessed the damage. My right knee was already dripping...

I guess it's time to get back to this whole blogging thing, as it'll likely be the most efficient way to share experiences during this second Peace Corps stint! So my group and I (LR-23 as we’ve named) have been in Liberia for over three and a half weeks. And it has been an eventful time FOR. SURE.  Peace Corps Liberia Training Hub To begin with, we were luggage-less for our first entire week in Liberia. Our bags got stuck in Brussels during our four-hour layover between DC and Monrovia. The handling staff decided to go on strike the same morning we arrived meaning that when we took off for Monrovia, we already knew that we would only have our carry on bags when we arrived. Thankfully many of us at least had more than one outfit, but arriving in a new country after ~36 hours of traveling without clean clothes to change into (and three hours late) was not what we’d hoped for. The Peace Corps staff greeted us at the airport with Liberian flags (probably to keep...

Excited. Nervous. Unsure. Oddly relaxed. These were the main emotions I was feeling as I rode the shared taxi to my next destination—a rural Berber village in the High Atlas Mountains about 60 km south of Marrkech, a major hub for tourists. I was past ready to leave the tourist trail of cities, souks, and snake charmers and veer off into the local, village life that I have become so accustomed to in Malawi. Visible ahead of the car were layers of blue, hazy mountains with snow-capped ones peeking out from behind them. I felt like I was in the Himalayas, not in southern Morocco. As we approached the village of Marigha, which means “salt” in Berber and where I would be staying for the next week or so, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The road was twisty and full of turns like it’d been designed to make carsick people throw up, but the view was incredible. Being back in the mountains, I could feel my heart swell with happiness. There’s just something about those layers of mysteriousnes...

One week in Morocco has passed already! I have learned so much about Moroccan history and culture, but I still have a lot more to go. I’ve been in three different places since arriving- Casablanca, Essaouira, and Taghazout. Each place has been drastically different from the other despite all of them being on the coast. Across these 3 places and 7 days, I’ve seen a lot of beautiful sights, eaten a lot of delicious food, and met a lot of cool people. In Casablanca, I wandered around the big city with my couchsurfing host. The city was a bit (actually A LOT) overwhelming and intimidating for me, but my host, Khadija, helped me out a lot. Not only did she insist on cooking almost every meal for me, but she took me to a museum (where she translated EVERYTHING into English for me because they only had descriptions in French and Arabic), to historical souks and monuments, and to the major streets in the city to view architecture and other random things. The major takeaways for me w...