I missed my host brother’s wedding. Ever since I arrived here over a year ago, my host family has been talking about this wedding and my crucial role in it; like the previous volunteer at our host sister’s wedding, it was written that I would be the photographer and token foreign dude singing songs in [...]

I’ve tried to start writing again a number of times and the task always seems daunting. I promise my next post will provide a legit update on work, cultural experiences, and generally insane events that make up my everyday life, but, as usual, I feel more inclined towrite about nature—specifically, the beasts Mother Nature, the world’s cruelest [...]

Many of my loyal readers (aka concerned friends and family members) have informed me it has been quite a while since I updated my blog. Indeed, I can corroborate this statement based on my primary measurement of time, which indicates I have completed approximately 2 seasons of Mad Men and 1 season of the Wire [...]

Recently, while I was kicking back, unapologetically feeding my new addiction to Mad Men (have you seen that show? The writing is superb, the acting is convincing, and well, ok I’m comfortable enough with myself to say it—I dig the men’s clothing. OK, before you judge me (perhaps it’s too late), consider these two points: [...]

But I thought you might be interested to watch my first performance at an international music festival (”international” primarily and solely because I was playing at it). There were a few thousand people there, and in case you didn’t recognize the song from the Billboard top 40, I am singing a medley of traditional Berber [...]

Turns out, food and water are necessary for survival. Also, they appear to be directly correlated with brain function, so please forgive any errors, vagaries, oversights, misspellings, semantic confusion, fraud, slander, treason or vehicular manslaughter found within the following post. Contrary to popular belief, Ramadan does not refer to a flying, horned dinosaur. It is a [...]

Now that I have moved into my house, I am basically alone. I write “basically alone” because I wouldn’t want to overlook the scorpions, lizards, birds, insects, spiders and mice that live there too. In the past week I have killed a scorpion, heroically battled a mouse (read on for details), and contemplated ways to [...]

Over the past few weeks I have had many notable experiences—a wedding that lasted until seven in the morning, a baby naming ceremony (Mostafa, in case you’re wondering), and local elections, complete with post-election celebrations for those who, in the great tradition of politicians in the developing world, skillfully out-bribed their competitors. But I am [...]

After 2 months of intensive language training and super intensive fly-extermination, I swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer and moved to the site where I will spend the next 2 years. The language is a little different here, and the flies are a little more agile, so I am trying to adapt everything I [...]

By far, the most challenging thing so far has been learning the various language(s) spoken in our communities (it’s worth noting that learning the language(s) narrowly beat out using a Turkish toilet for the challenging task award, the details of which I will leave out for now, out of respect for my mother. In the [...]

OK, so it’s been a long time since my last post. I thought I was going to be able to update this more frequently, and hopefully I will once I get to my final site in May, but training has been very intense and internet access has been unreliable to say the least. Insha’llah I’ll [...]

S-salamu alakum! Where do I begin? I have been in Morocco somewhere between 10 days and a lifetime. It might as well have been a lifetime, since I already traded in the American name that suited me quite well for my first 24 years for a proper Moroccan one: M’barek, “Brok” for short. According [...]

That’s right, I’m really finally leaving. I know, I didn’t believe it either, and I guess I still have a few days to change my mind. Really, who would have to know? I could ditch the Peace Corps training group at JFK and head off to the Cayman Islands for the next couple years, all [...]