First Days

Hello there,
so my journey began a while back to get to this point, so be ready for some back fill :) later. I wanted to keep everyone up on my experiences because each person I know has contributed in a way to get me here. So one Sat. the 7th at 7:30 PM I flew from Boise to Salt Lake City, then from SLC to JFK. Oddest thing in SLC, they have a smoking room, I have been in my fair share of airports and I've never seen a smoking room, and Salt Lake City UTAH has one? really?!? odd, but anyway my plan was to sleep on the flights as night and then be ready to go once a arrived in Casablanca (which everyone here refers to as Casa). However, the child sitting behind me from SLC to JFK did get the consept, nor did her parents... have you ever seen parents treat an 8 yr old like a 2 yr old?, it's sad. So I only had 2 hours of sleep going into Sunday, a 13 hour layover at JFK, which wasn't very fun, I just hung out at the airport walking around to stay awake. Did you know that you can't serve alcohol in New York before 12 noon, but apparently their bars stay open until 4am. So while I was waiting for the Air Morac counter to open up I was able to run into a co-worker that was on the same flight as me, and she and I chatted, and met Morase, the cutest old jewish man you ever did meet! He's 75-80 years old and lives on 5th ave, in NYC and travels a lot all by himself, (to go on group tours) but wow, I would like to be that independent at his age. We sat with Morase until we boarded, which by the way I saw an Airbus 380, it's HUGE! I didn't take a picture of it though, silly me. While we stood in line to board we met a man who's wife was on the board of directors for the school, small world huh? Then once we were abord the girl sitting next to me had an internship for a week at GWA last spring, even smaller world :) So the flight to Morocco was it's own cultural experience, first, the meal was awesome, caprese salas, regular salad, chocolate cake, dinner roll, cheddar cheese, spaghetti, coffee and drink (non-alcoholic, I'll get to the more later). Really good food, then Clash of the Titans (new version) was played, then another newer movie, then was Leap year, I slept about 4 hours on this flight. So besides the food, people just wandered all over the cabin like it was a lounge, oddest thing, getting themselves extra food and drinks. We were served breakfast too, yogurt, croissant, chocolate muffin and coffe. Once we landed it we deboarded into 100 degree heat with50+% humidity, and not too many places have AC... we went through customs and everyone's baggage was there so yeah!!! The school driver was there to meet us, (mini plug for something later, I smiled and waved at the toll booth attendant so kinda smirked and then really smiled, I'll get abe to this too) and we went straight to the school. I was given another don'ts list, which once is making eye contact with men, so of course I told my co-worker about the toll booth and she had to tell me how what I did was received... "Hey Baby, how you do'n, I think you're hot". Great! the girl that never flirts is doing it from the get go! So then we dropped off my bags, and then I went to the supermarket to get some toiletries, where I smiled at the male cashier (and I told my co-worker that he was looking at me first, I feel like I'm having to defend something that is just considered good manners, but oh well) I came home unpacked, went to dinner with my downstair neighbor where I almost fell asleep at the table. So one of the first things I noticed is that women do wear some tank tops, not very often, but T-Shirts are totally ok. So I've talked to some of the other co-workers and we've errored on the side of cautiousness with our dressing but am really glad that I brought t-shirts! So I went to bed around 10ish my time and slept like a log, woke up to the morning call to prayer and got ready went to school with the neighbor and helped in the library, went to the supermarket again and then to a dinner at one of the staffs house, there are about 30 of us new staff. I'm just starting to think about all the running around I'm seeing the HR Staff doing right now and thinking, ok this will be me next year! But these guys drive... yeah so driving, california drivers have NOTHING on Casa drivers, cars share lanes, people use horns as a greeting to let people know you're there, and using the road is an option (saw a Bus using the ditch when traffic was backed up...) so the motorcycles ride the lines or in between the cars, along with the pedal bikes, and rolar bladers, and the pedestrians constantly walk into traffic, I personally think they have esphixiation issues. Oh and they pile up on the left hand turn sometimes 5 cars and then all turn all at the same time... and it works however there are a few accidents, I've seen 5 since I've been here 3 days! We went to the beach today, and someone brought a bikini berka, what's that you want to know? well it's like a moomoo but it has embroadery and this one was sleaveless and had slits up the sides to the knee hence the "bikini" part. Since there was no one on the beach in a western style swimsuit over the age of 4, I just waded in the water, Marc our lucky English (from Whales) man of the day got to escort us, yes we were chaporoned. I've had to check my ego and realize that in order to make a difference here I'm going to have to be approachable and that changes my strong independance just while I'm here, besides it keeps us safe. I started orientation today too, so my goal is to write some each day and each person can read when they like... So since I've had you waiting to hear about the non-alcoholic drink thing from the plane... Moroccians aren't supposed to drink alcohol, so the aisle of shame (as it is being refered to) is an aisle that has a guard, and roll up door, you go in unescorted, they close the door behind you (but you have to show your passport to buy wine since they don't want natives drinking it) and they don't turn on the light so you have to bring your own light source to see the labels. So Ramadan started today, the chanting across the street was about an hour long, kinda pretty, but I've heard having a good voice is not a prerequeset, and that one isn't so good... I'll let you know.... More soon! see pictures at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69762&id=1020933390&l=0c2f374890