I left off in the previous post with the conclusion of our staging day in Philadelphia. Despite getting just three hours’ sleep the previous night (I woke up at 3:30am to leave Bay City), we loaded the buses at 11:30pm and settled in for a two hour drive to the airport. Upon arrival, we organized ourselves in small groups of ten each and settled in to wait for the gates to open. We flew Royal Air Maroc, departing JFK at 7:30am on September 11.

This is a picture of our entire group and all of our luggage – we took over most of the plane!

As many readers of my blog know, Jon and I have done our fair share of traveling. However, we made a rookie mistake at the airport! Going through security was a bit chaotic due to the number of trainees in our group (since everyone was trying to stay together). In all of the bustle, both Jon and I walked away from security with only our bag/backpack. We had completely forgotten about our small rolling suitcase! It was an hour later before we realized what had happened – that we had lost the bag with all of our clothes and toiletries for the first nine days. We hurried back to security and luckily they had our bag behind the desk; they gave it to us with no problems whatsoever. Jon and I breathed a sigh of relief after that and laughed at ourselves for our rookie mistake.

There was more excitement to be had after boarding our flight. Jon and I were seated two rows up from the mid-section of the plane with the bathrooms. After everyone had boarded and was seated, there was a scuffle toward the front of the plane near the doorway. I looked up but didn’t pay much attention; I was tired and went back to reading my magazine. The next thing I knew, two big men where coming down our aisle dragging or carrying something in between them; I could hear chains but assumed it was some sort of heavy luggage or cargo. When they passed our row, I found out what it really was – a man who was handcuffed and chained! The group stopped in the mid-section of the plane by the bathrooms and that’s when the man who was handcuffed started yelling. It was rather scary sitting there and not knowing who these men were or what was happening. I kept looking at the flight attendants’ faces to gauge their emotions; if the flight attendants were calm, then I would be too. Eventually, the two large men reversed course and took the handcuffed men out and off of the plane. I found out from a couple people sitting closer that they were ICE agents and there was something happening with extraditing the handcuffed man, but no further mention of the incident was made.

We were excited about our flight to Morocco until “the incident” occurred.

We took off soon after that episode and luckily, the rest of the flight was uneventful. Two meals were served – a breakfast full of bread items and lunch/dinner that was surprisingly pretty good. We slept for a majority of the flight and before we knew it, we were landing in Morocco – our home for the next 27 months!

I ordered the beef option for lunch on the plane; this meal was not too bad (for airplane food!)!

Arrival in Morocco was fast and easy. Peace Corps representatives met us at various points along the way to ensure everyone had arrived and to help with questions on immigration forms. All of the luggage arrived and was sitting out waiting for us; we quickly found our bags and made our way outside. At this point, we dropped off two bags to be stored at Peace Corps Headquarters for the duration of our training. Jon and I packed these bags with items that we won’t need until we have our own apartment or house – things like bedsheets, kitchen supplies, and winter clothes). Waiting for us on the bus were baggies with bottles of water and snacks (fruit and cookies – yum!). Another two hour bus ride took us to our hotel where we will be staying for nine days of orientation. After a quick meal, we checked into our rooms and crashed!

Once we arrived in Morocco, we loaded all of our luggage onto 3 buses to drive us to our hotel for orientation.

We entered Morocco on September 11!