Au revoir a Morocco.  Morocco was filled with colors and spices, fruits and meats, accusations of racism and nights of gin.  It’s a beautiful country.  After a week in our transition conference I was officially COSed, no longer a Peace Corps volunteer.  I spent another several days in Rabat with volunteers that were transferring or other stragglers merely enjoying Morocco.  In Rabat I bought some new shoes and a pair of jeans, sat and watched the ocean, wandered the small aisles of the medina, and said goodbye more times than I care to count.  If my evacuation from Guinea was about enduring until I could be resettled, my evacuation from Niger was about learning to be okay with being adrift.

For several days saying goodbye to my Peace Corps family was excruciating.  But in the end wise words from good friends left me feeling like the community that I’m always searching for already exists, it just isn’t all in one place.  And that’s okay.

Now I’m sitting in the airport in Marrakech and I’m feeling truly wealthy in friends and family.  The sense of loneliness and isolation, which became truly debilitating throughout my service, is receding in the warmth of those friends and that family.  I still don’t know what I am doing, but it does not matter so much to me now.  It will work itself out.

After saying goodbye to the last of the volunteers in Rabat, I headed down to Essouira (pronounced like sour with a hard r), which is like a small resort town.  The train from Rabat to Marrakech costs 120 Dirhams, which is about $15.  From Marrakech I took a bus to Essouira for about $9.  The bus station is attached to the train station so it was very easy to go from one to the other.  Morocco has great transportation.  In Essouira I paid a taxi to take me in a circle, and then got lost in the Medina.  I stayed at a hostel called Riad El Pacha, which I highly recommend.  A dorm style room costs about $10 a night and they give you breakfast (fresh  squeezed orange juice).  To get there you can either pay a guy to take you (they will try for 100 Dirhams, but I paid mine 6), or you can find it by walking into the medina, turning right in front of the wall, going through two sets of arches, and then turning left when you see the sign.  If that sounds confusing it’s because it is confusing as heck.  There is a reason there are guides who make money taking tourists to hotels.  Oh yeah, they also get commission, so they will try to bring you to a different hotel.

Anyway, in Essouira I met a couple of other volunteers (hi Will and Emily!) and we spent a lot of time doing almost nothing.  I drank a lot of tea and ate some great sandwiches.

Marrakech is a giant festival of tourism, but it was still a lot of fun.  There is fresh orange juice for $0.40, snails for $1, and all kinds of food at night.  It’s a little ridiculous.  The market is also huge, full of vendors selling all kinds of things (much of it exactly the same as the shop next door).  I was only there for a night, but I don’t think I’d want to stay more than a couple of days.

And now I’m headed to Portugal.