Talking to kids about our move

It was really fun to hear what kids were thinking about us moving away.

Sofia (helping me clean out my car before selling it)

Why are you selling your car? Won’t you need it to get to Morocco?

Morocco is across the ocean so we can’t take our car.

So how are you going to get there?

Can you guess? What do you think would work?

Oh, I know! You’ll take a boat!

That’s a great guess! But it’s expensive to take a boat so we’re going to fly there.

Ohhhhh, a plaaaane.

(We had that conversation a couple of times J)

Ella (in her basement next to our mound of stuff being stored at her house)

Sarah, are you guys moving away?

Yep, we’re moving to Morocco.

Are you ever coming back?

I think so! But we don’t know for sure.

If you do come back, will you buy a house?

Probably not – we’d probably get an apartment.

Welllllll, I have an idea of where you could get an apartment.

Oh yeah? Tell me!

Welllll, it’s really great for kids, but it’s up in Michigan. It’s Great Wolf Lodge. You could get an apartment there and we could come visit you and play!

Ezra (my darling niece)

She and I had a Starbucks date to talk about my move. I showed her Morocco on a map (‘oh, that’s not too far!’), talked about what it was like there, showed her pictures from Google images, and flipped through an Arabic alphabet workbook I bought for each of us.

On the way to drop me off at the airport, Ez brought a suitcase with her so she could pretend she was going somewhere too. I asked her where she was going.

‘I’m going to Morocco. I have a friend who’s been there and she said it’s AWESOME. They have a beach and desert and mountains … and you can ride a camel there!’

She’s so precious! I would love for her to visit  :)

Kindness seen in Rabat today

Taxi driver picked up another young woman on the way to the place I was going. When she got to her stop: 'Get out of here. I don't have change. Go on ...'

Sweet guy.

Loving and Leaving

It is so good to be well loved.

And it is so hard to leave.

I am excited to be living in Morocco now, but it comes at a GREAT cost of 4,142 miles of distance from our family and friends who we love so much.



After I finished going through security in Cincinnati (TSA Precheck for everyone! Hurray!), I could still see my sisters and nieces standing at the security entrance.

We stood there blowing kisses and waving at each other for a while. Ezra was yelling "I love you Sarah" and I was crying too hard to yell back anything that she could hear.

I loved living so close to my family and being able to visit all the time and see those sweet girls change every time I was back.

I hope we can make the most of FaceTime/Instagram/etc - that's why I got an iPad!

I'm so grateful for the last week of time we had together before I left. Jessica was an amazing hostess and had so much fun, including making colored volcanoes with Pippi Longstocking.

(We've got a great TV show we made together about volcanoes that I'll try to upload if I can figure that out.)

Columbus was the city of friendship for me. Deep, deep relationships that endured hard times over 8 years. I remember moving to Columbus in the winter of 2006-07 not knowing many people at all, spending time with my nose in books trying to learn how to invest the money my Grandpa had just given me for Christmas.

8 years later, we had the goodbye party of our lives with all of my closest Cbus friends. It was amazing.

Super fun.
Super memorable.
Super meaningful.


Cory and I got to do a little Moroccan Arabic faux conversation, in which we cracked ourselves up :)

And we were sent home with an incredible scrapbook which we of course brought with us to Morocco.




Leaving Columbus friends started to sink in the Saturday night before I left - and resulted in me sobbing in the church lobby the next morning in Karla's sweet embrace. The day I left, I started crying again in the lobby of the J. Bentley Spa with Ann, shamelessly begging her to keep hanging out with me for the rest of the day.

I'd been crying about leaving friends and family for a few months before leaving. And, if the crying I did while writing this post is any evidence, the grieving of leaving isn't over yet.

so much kissing!

Apartment hunting

We have our list of priorities:

- Safe (that's Cory's)

- Not dingy (that's mine)

- Close to stuff/tram line

- Cool neighborhood

- $500/mo for 3-4 rooms plus bathroom and kitchen

- Friendly neighbors

- Enough kitchen counter space for Cory to work his magic

We found a couple of online listing sites and started looking. That's where my 'not dingy' preference came from ... a lot of the postings in our price range in the neighborhoods we wanted looked pretty dingy and depressing. 

Last night we called about a really cute furnished place but it had already been rented. I called about that one in French.

Then Cory called the latest one on the rental list (surely it wouldn't already be rented if it was just listed a couple of days ago, right?!) in Arabic. He said it was available and asked if we wanted to come see it right away - we hopped in a taxi and off we went!

I know they say you shouldn't buy the first thing you see, but we were charmed.

Isn't it lovely!?

The neighborhood is amazing, it's right by the tram line, it's got 2 bedrooms, and it's $500/mo on the dot.

We called this morning to set up an appoinment to meet with the property owner. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: if all goes well, we move in next week!

Our First Walking Adventure

Sarah, who is a trooper, slept for 16 hours, and then was ready to go exploring. We went all around.

First stop was for some coffee for me and mint tea for Sarah

we walked past, but didn't go in, the chellah

Sarah right outside one of the many city gates

a funeral (the folks crowded around the grave are the black dots toward to center) in the "cemetery of the martyrs" 

مقبرة الشهداء

the view of the Rabat beach from the Oudayas 

Whelp, She's here!

Sarah wanted to tell you all about the amazing trip she had, how everything working out amazingly well, and just how enjoyable full-flat seats in first class really are. But soon after this photo of her proudly displaying her bags was taken, she fell fast asleep. I'm sure you'll get an update in the next couple days. In the meantime, I am SO HAPPY to have my wife back with me, and we are really looking forward to great adventures together!

Sarah's on her way!

If you think of it, maybe say a prayer for Sarah that she have safe flights, and enjoy herself in First Class on the way over. I hope she meets fun, interesting people and the gets good sleep on the plane (which shouldn't be difficult with full-flat seats!). I am SO excited for Sarah to come enjoy the adventure!

getting to work

So, i'm finally well enough to do some work. I've talked with some stakeholders in various cemeteries, including folks who have paid for restorations, and other people who are asking for money to restore other cemeteries. I also had my first actual interview today as well. I'm feeling great to be working and doing the research that i came here to do.  

City by the sea

getting up and about was been a little tricky for me. i definitely overdid it walking to the airport and back and drinking water out of the tap the first day. But I was good today for a walk around town and I made it down to the water.

I'm really missing Sarah a lot and excited for her to come join me!

The bed probably won't be as spring-y tonight...

Well here I am in the middle of Eid al-Adha, which commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command, and God's provision of a sheep instead. It's the biggest holiday of the year, and everything closes down. So instead of the very important business of settling in (I still haven't gotten a sim-card for my phone, or made it into the medina for an eggburger) I have been walking around and taking pictures.

A secondary school on our street. I wanted to show the Arabic and Tamazight writing

view of our neighborhood from the back. Notice all the satellite dishes

Our neighborhood from the street

Let the slaughter begin! Sheep are generally killed where the blood can be quickly rinsed to outside the home

Lots of cart owners were about collecting the hides of all the recently slaughtered sheep

Every couple hundred feet there was a guy with a fire going, with some kind of mattress spring set or bed converted into a grill, burning some sheep heads and feet  and then hacking the skull apart (they taste better burnt, and it's the best way to remove the hair).

Everyone was very happy to have me take their picture with their goat-head-bed-grill (I asked everyone pictured above). These guys had the best fire going and were the friendliest. 

Here!

I am knackered from the flights, and trains and taxi, as well as being up for about 36 hours straight. But here are some absolutely true goodies to tide you over until I can do a proper post.

• On the flight over I watched Chef, Godzilla, Neighbors and Edge of Tomorrow. I enjoyed them all. 
• The olfactory experience of walking into Paris Charles de Gaulle airport confirms that in terms of perfumes and deodorants, the French as a people prefer a pound of cure to an ounce of prevention (of B.O.). Except, they use ten pounds of "cure" and it doesn't so much eliminate odor as provide fruity and sandalwood accents to the stink. 
• They lost my bag at CDG. Hopefully they'll fly it over here tomorrow. I did the lost luggage conversation entirely in Arabic. I've still got it!
• When I was leaving the airport and going through the final customs baggage x-ray, the guy called me over and pointed to the image of my bag. I was very surprised to see the distinct outline of something that looked very much like a revolver pistol. The guy said, "Did you bring a gun to our country?" I said no. He asked what that shape looked like to me, and I had to agree with him that it did, in fact, look like a gun. Then he started laughing and pressed a button. The outline of the gun disappeared. He explained that he can superimpose gun images on the screen to compare anything they see with the real thing. He was just having a bit of fun with me. Hilarious!
• I was not in the country for 2 hours before I has someone feel the need to tell me that he wasn't a member of DAASH (known to you english-speakers as ISIS or ISIL). Interesting that he felt that he needed to tell me that.
• I was not in the country for 3 hours before someone who was returning home from America started telling his buddies that although Americans can be shockingly racist, have no national food culture except for hamburgers and steak, and tend toward religious persecution of others in the name of Christianity; they are a fair and law-abiding people. He felt relatively safe in America (except for when he was concerned by angry Christians. A story for another time there.) and was grateful for that. 
• I was not in the country for 4 hours before my Arabic was so impressive that I got a marriage offer. I told the young lady that I was already married and she reminded me that having multiple wives is permitted in Morocco. 
• It was not 5 hours in country before a felt a deep and abiding sense of coming home to the place that shaped my early adult years and made me who I am today! No eggburger tonight, but I'm definitely going hunting tomorrow.

Welcome back!

The journey begins

Cory Pechan Driver is off! A few words from the airport parking garage before beginning the 17-hour journey ‪#‎eggburger‬