Deep breath before the plunge...

Philadelphia, PA, USA

Well it finally happened, the looming departure deadline that I had been anticipating/dreading for months has finally arrived and I am sitting on a plane bound for the Peace Corps staging event in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the deep breath before the plunge and, when the 24 hour staging whirlwind has dissipated, I depart for Morocco on the 2^nd.

First I will be boarding a bus to New York, where I will be flying out from JFK airport direct to Casablanca. No stopovers or changes in Europe at all, which is very nice and means my incredible amount of baggage has little chance of getting lost along the way. Once on the ground in Casablanca, I board a bus to the red city of Marrakech and stay the night with my fellow volunteers at a hotel. Marrakech has been called the “Gateway to Atlas” that 13,000+ ft mountain range that the ancient inhabitants of North Africa believed held up the heavens themselves. From there we take another, longer, bus ride across the Atlas to the city of Ouarzazate, which is located between the Atlas and the “Sahel” the fringe country of the Sahara. It is here that my group of volunteers will settle in for our three months or so of Pre-service Training (PST).

I am sure I over-packed, but I can’t narrow it down much more. Will I be in the Atlas Mountains with the cold winters? Or the Sahara with the warm... well, everything. Or maybe the Rif Mountains and the National Park located on the rugged Mediterranean coastline? I have no idea and won’t know anything until over a month into training. I have been told that the Peace Corps selects your site based on your background and aspirations statement, and that the interviews during PST are just a formality. My best guess is work in the Atlas, that’s where a majority of the Moroccan National Parks are located. Plus my background is geared toward work in the mountains, what with growing up in Colorado and working at Yellowstone and Grand Teton for a couple seasons. It is a toss-up though, and I won’t know anything for quite awhile. I will be living with a Moroccan host family for the duration of my training and then stay with a second host family for the first 2 months at post. They will serve (in an ideal scenario, horror stories do exist) as a sounding board for my fledging language skills, be a window into Moroccan culture and family life, and also keep an eye on me during this crucial “break-in period”.

I am optimistic overall, and look forward to seeing the Atlas and the Sahara, learning about an entirely foreign ecology and geography, and being able to use this knowledge to further global understanding of conservation. I look forward to slowing down, getting out of the constant connection of the American grid, and learning. I brought journals and notebooks, art supplies, and plenty of reading materials. Although the initial PST is fast-paced and days are full, the first few months at post are said to be quiet and pass very slowly. I hope to use this time efficiently and learn enough about my village that I can determine how best to be an effective volunteer. I also hope to write plenty of letters or, ideally, answer plenty of letters (hint hint!). If I failed to give you my address before I left, contact my Dad via email at kolb@incitelearninginc.com and he’ll give you my information. I would post it online, but that seems to be one of Peace Corps’ peeves.

The final goodbye to family and friends was difficult, but not nearly the tearful occasion that other PCVs had described to me. I think this was for a couple different reasons, first that I had been gone before with the National Park Service, and also that “long goodbye” phenomenon that I described in my previous entry. I feel that I left no loose ends and that I have no pressing obligations tying me to the states; I feel I can stay out for as many months, years, as see fit. I am 22 years old and single; I have plenty of time. Still, I know I will miss my family and friends, and my home in the American West; although I do feel blessed to have Morocco as my post, it is said to be stunning. To those of you reading this, enjoy your next two years and feel free to write me from time to time (or send me a book, but no packages before May 5^th, as per policy).

Well l made it to Philadelphia and I am posting from my hotel it is full of confused Peace Corps hopefuls like myself. So it begins… I will update when I can, thanks for reading!

-Charlie

a Long Goodbye

Hesperus, Colorado

Well, I am officially in the final phase before my departure to Morocco, although sometimes it feels like I have already left... In fact, I do have people contact me occasionally in confusion, asking how I am enjoying Africa. But the fact is, I am still here in states and it is finally sinking in that I am leaving. Everything I see, and have taken for granted in the past, takes on a different quality. Everything is clearer, I notice things I haven't seen before, nuances of behavior or quality of light; everything I see is emphasized by the thought "this may be the last time I see this for a very long time".

Not that I am unprepared for March 1st; in fact I have spent the past year tying off loose ends and saying goodbye to friends and relatives, some of whom may not be around when I return. Each goodbye is bittersweet but an unforseen result of this intense visiting is that I am closer to my family and my roots than I have ever been in the past. I chose to spend my summer at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, for the simple reason that it would put me within a day's drive of much of my extended family. I put 25000 miles on my truck in that time period, taking advantage of this fact. As a result, I spent time talking, laughing, and bonding with my family and friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in years. Some of them had married, some had children I had never met, and some, I was saddened to see, were beginning to slow down and grow frail.

Moving to Colorado at such a young age, I was disconnected from the South and had been back only once or twice in the past 15 years. After this summer of goodbyes, I feel like I have a connection again. This could not have been clearer than when I visited my Grandmother's hometown in the North Georgia mountains and stayed with her best friend from childhood. My friend and cousin, Jane, had begun to slow down some, but was still sharp as a tack. She gave me a unique view of grandmother's life, telling me of the 1920s and 1930s deep in the Appalachian Mountains. As we walked through the deep green forests and I smelled the wildflowers, mosses, and green of the place, I began to feel an indescribable resonance. It was as if the mountains were tuned to some part of my soul and as I viewed the mist-shrouded summits around the town, I realized that this was one of the only places on earth I could be tied to by blood, both European and Cherokee.

In October, I said my final round of farewells in the East, and drove across the country to the Colorado mountains, and spent some time at home. Thanksgiving came and went and I began the first of my truly difficult goodbyes: my brother. I picked him up in Seattle at his University and we drove the Oregon and California coast together, we spent days on the beach, both camping and staying in hotels. We saw lighthouses, seals, seastacks, and every little thing in between. Some of our best times were in the quiet green cathedrals of Redwoods or just singing along to inane music in the car. By the time we got back we were finishing eachother's sentences and had so many in-jokes that nobody could figure out what the hell we were saying to eachother. We got home and spent Christmas together as a family, but before long he was gone, back to school, and the last I saw of him was his back disappearing through the airport gate. It is unlikely that I will see him in these next two years, as nursing school will take up much of his life and visiting Morocco can be... time consuming. But I feel that we left on great terms and I look forward to our future adventures (how about rowing across the Atlantic, Will?). The Kolb Brothers are at it again!

This long goodbye is now compounded by the realization that I have to leave the Colorado Plateau, which is quite simply my favorite place on earth. (For an accurate summation this incredible and diverse piece of earth, I recommend the essay "Come on in" by Edward Abbey). This was incredibly apparent yesterday as I drove back from visiting a friend at Great Basin, and drove through Capitol Reef, across Cedar Mesa, down the Moki Dugway, and through the great Comb into Bluff UT. I sat in the Twinrocks Cafe eating a frybread dish and sipping coffee as I looked out over the twisted cottonwoods and dormant fields along the San Juan River; beyond lay the cliffs that mark the northern border of Dinetah, Navajoland. I looked at the pictures of rock art on the walls, and at the faces of Navajos and desert rats at the surrounding tables and sighed. Ya'at'eeh. [it is good] Aoo'. [Yes it is...] I left with reluctance, and headed back to Colorado through McElmo Canyon as the sun set and the world grew dark.

Both people and places, so many loose ends to tie off; so many threads to pick up the on my return. This long goodbye has helped my put my life in perspective, to realize just how many people I will miss and be missed by. Now I rest, at home in the snowy San Juans, woodstove crackling and the cat sprawled out like a furry throw rug at my feet. I have things to do, packing lists to compile, and people to spend time with. The long goodbye continues, but is overshadowed by a sense of contentment and excitement in the face of the unknown. I will post contact information (or at least how to get it) as soon as I can; until then, enjoy your winter.

6 weeks... and counting...

Pre-departure

Well, here is my method for staying in touch with those of you in the first world who are interested in what I am doing and/or remember that I still exist!

I will attempt to update this every month or so during my posting when I actually have internet, which is only available in the cities. I will be leaving here on March 1st and, over the next two months, I will update this with information as I learn more about my assignment. Right now I am in the "reading phase" where I am devouring every Morocco book I can get my hands on and I am valiantly attempting to get a head start on learning Arabic... It's interesting.

Here's what I know so far regarding my actual assignment: I am posted to Morocco, which is in the Northwestern corner of the African Continent. Although it is directly across the Mediterranean from Europe, the culture is an overwhelmingly 98.7% Muslim, while the 1.1% Christian and the 0.2% Jewish make up the fringes. It is a country of extremes with the climate ranging from near-arctic winters in the High Atlas Mountains (Jebel Toubkal, the highest peak in Morocco, is 13,617 feet high) to scorching desert summers in the Southeast which is dominated by the Sahara. Throw in the rugged coasts, semi-arid plains, and lush, burgeoning river valleys, Morocco is not all that "Casablanca" depicted it to be...

I have been assigned as a volunteer in the Peace Corps Morocco Environmental Education program this could entail many different things but, as a generalization, I will likely be teaching about Biology, Ecology, and Resource Management in a village within, or on the fringes of, a National Park (yes they have them!). I may also get the opportunity to train Park Staff and help organize management plans (things far beyond my American GS-5 pay grade) for the Park where I work. Granted, these are all just ideas, and in reality I have no idea as to where they'll put me. All I know for sure, is that training starts March 1st (stateside), I arrive in Morocco March 3rd (for 3 months of Pre-service training, both language and technical) and officially begin my "project" on May 5th 2010. My ending date will be May 5th 2012, unless I opt to extend, which I don't have to think about for a very long time.

I will posted instructions for letter-writing and other methods of communicating with me in Africa as I discover them.

For those of you reading this in Durango, I've only got 2 months left to hang out! So call me if you want to see me before I skip town. For the rest, I hope that you enjoy your New Year's festivities tonight, as well as the next two years.