What will YOU be doing for dos años?

Hi folks, understandably, you might be curious as to what exactly I'll be doing in Morocco for two-plus years. And it's a good question, one which I'm not entirely sure of the answer. Technically speaking, I will be a Health Educator with the Peace Corps Community Health in Rural Morocco program. That's vague and could mean anything. My job description states that my primary duty is "to improve the health status of rural community members through the use of preventive practices, reinforced by positive social and environmental change." Also vague. The friendly Kentucky-blue packet that the Morocco Peace Corps office sent me clarifies that "generally, your job will be to identify health issues in your community, their causes and consequences, and to develop and implement educational strategies and promote behavioral chance that address the problems."

That's definitely good news, I think. I love health related stuff, I love problem solving, and I love communities.

Having spoken with a few current and returned volunteers from Morocco, I've learned that most of my first year will be consumed by me lurking around my town/city/village/commune/collective/kibutz/whatever (Peace Corps leaves these details up to my imagination until I've gone through the two-month long training), drinking lots of sweet mint tea, crying myself to sleep at night from foreign-language overdose, and spending lots of time trying to convince my homestay family that I am indeed actually full after 5 heaping plates of food. Yes, believe it or not, my stomach actually does get full sometimes. Essentially though, Peace Corps wants the volunteers to spend their first year being social butterflies in the community, learning the language and makin' friends.

But after the first year, work will apparently pick up satisfyingly. If I understand correctly, volunteers are assigned a primary job (which could also be very vague) and are then expected to pick up a secondary project. For my primary project I could end up collecting and analyzing communicable disease data as a method of needs assessment or I could be conducting HIV/AIDS education. My secondary project could be very closely related to my primary job or could even have no direct link to health at all (I've been told some health volunteers teach English as a secondary project).

In other news, I recently informed my boss that I'll be quiting my job in San Francisco to peace out to the Peace Corps; went well, I think. I'm sad that I have to leave SF and also sad that timing will only allow me to spend about a week at home in Kentucky before departure, but I get more and more excited about Morocco with each passing day. Peace Corps Morocco yay!

Cheers,

Adam