Rock The Kasbah

We were just a normal (well probably not normal) family of six living in Colorado Springs when we got the opportunity of a life time. We've always wanted to give our kids a global perspective. So when the Peace Corps came calling we were ready. We rented out our house, said good-bye to our friends, loaded up on sunscreen and headed here which is Morocco for two years. Having done this whole moving overseas things before I can tell you that it is much easier to move and live in Europe with young children than to move and live in Africa with older kids. See my oldest is now 12 and has that obligatory preteen angst. I have two others following close behind at 11 and 10 and then the baby of the family is 6. Except don't call her a baby or she will sumo wrestle you to the ground until you eat those words. I was so excited about the idea of living the simple life in Africa. But let me tell you, nothing is simple here. This long list of complicated things includes food shopping, driving, finding stuff for my kids to do, trying to get money out of the atm and attempting to buying something with my credit card, just to name a few. And what complicates the complicated list even more? I don't speak French or Arabic, but I have become fantastic at charades and smiling. Although the American cultural phenomenon of smiling can get you into trouble here... We want to learn at much as possible while we're here. This would include French. My kids have already become swearlingual on the bus to school. So that's a start. But our biggest goal? To do as much travel as possible. So we've been to: Spain (Where the boys saw their first glimpse of topless sunbathing.) French (Where we ate our first and hopefully only $100 breakfast, but it was near the Eiffel Tower.) Italy (Where we saw St. Catherine's centuries old severed decaying head in a church.) Sahara Dessert (Where we rode camels and got the condition known as camel crotch.) And Egypt (Twice actually. See the first time they didn't let us through passport control and we lived in the terminal at the airport for 40 hours before being deported. Our second trip there was right after the revolution and we thwarted the US Embassy's travel warning not to go and got in!) As for me, I document the journey and it's always an adventure. So come check out what we're up to now at www.rockthekasbahafrica.blogspot.com