With heavy hearts, it's time that we tell everyone our Peace Corps service is ending early.
First and foremost, we want to send a thank you out into the world to all of the amazing people we've met during these last 10 months. Moroccans, Americans, cats, whoever - you're great. We have been greeted into this country with hospitality that neither of us ever imagined. Our two host families let us not only into their homes, but into their families and hearts. It's something we'll never forget.
The Moroccan friends that we have made are phenomenal people, and have been nothing but friendly, helpful, and supportive. Despite some language barriers, we made some lifelong friends and had a lot of entertaining times.
The Peace Corps Morocco staff are all gems. Every single one of them. They worked nonstop supporting just under 200 volunteers at a time, giving us personal attention and helping with whatever questions arise.
And the other Peace Corps Morocco Volunteers are the worst people in the world. Just kidding - gotta keep you paying attention. We all traveled different roads to get to Peace Corps and it was a privilege and an honor to walk on the same path as all of you.
And, not to be forgotten, everyone who supported us in any way shape or form while we were here. We loved the post cards, care packages, visitors, FaceTime sessions, Facebook messages, snapchats, and everything else. You're all the best. Period.
After being in Peace Corps for these past 10ish months we can safely say that it is a fantastic and unique program that does great things around the world. Thinking of joining Peace Corps? We are too! (the Peace Corps retirement plan that is - check back in 2076. We're planning on breaking the record set by Alice Carter for oldest PCV - challenge accepted) We had a lot of great experiences, and are sad to end our term early, but the time has come for us.
There have been a few situations that have lead us to the conclusion that we can't complete our service. We believe that if we stayed, we wouldn't be able to put every ounce of effort into our work, and that isn't fair to anyone (Peace Corps, the Moroccans we would like to serve, or ourselves). To be successful in Peace Corps, you must be fully committed and we could not say that we were anymore following some incidents beyond our control and their effects on us.
We do hope that Peace Corps will place (male) volunteers in Taounate in the future, as there is still a great need for the work we all do! We are also very excited about the continued work volunteers are doing to help combat sexual harassment and promote gender equality in developing countries like Morocco.
We'll leave Taounate on Monday for Rabat where we'll get to go through the final medical and dental and administrative stuff (woo!) before heading back to Washington, DC, at the end of the week.
The time between now and then will be filled with meals with our Moroccan families and time with our other friends here in Morocco.
Extra note: For anyone reading this who has questions about Peace Corps. serving as a couple, Morocco, how cute our cat is, etc, please feel free to reach out to us! You can leave a comment or send Alexis an email at alexiskathrynthom@gmail.com or Toby an email at thom.toby@gmail.com
We will be leaving the blog up for posterity and for future PCVs.
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