Full (dis)Closure

My name is Duncan Palfrey de la Feld, and I was a Peace Corps youth development volunteer in Morocco. I served in the small village at the northern edge of the Middle Atlas Mountains called Immouzer Kandar, not Freedonia as I called it here (a simple anti-terrorism ploy that undoubtedly saved the lives of thousands). On November 20^th, 2008, I swore into Peace Corps service in Fes at the Merinides Palace Hotel to the accompaniment of all the pomp and circumstance you'd expect from one of the most exclusive hotels in northern Morocco and the setting for Paul Bowles's The Spider's House, only without any reference whatsoever to either Paul Bowles or The Spider's House. I arrived in site on the 21^st, and served until yesterday, November 12^th, 2010, at around three o'clock in the afternoon (Greenwich Mean Time), when I stamped out of the Peace Corps amidst the fanfare one normally associates with an intermission during a PBS Masterpiece Theatre marathon.

And though I may no longer be receiving US government subsidized healthcare, I'll always be a volunteer – even if it's an RPCV (the “R” stands for “returned,” in case you didn't get that). When I enrolled I signed away the rest of my life to the Peace Corps's Third Goal: to educate all of you about the people and culture of Morocco. So that means that even if I'm no longer living overseas, you can still look forward to reading about culture, dialogue, and whatever other nonsense I think you need to know about, with the sole disclaimer that as I return to American society and achieve gainful employment, it may hopefully be happening with increasingly less frequency.

I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far, but either way I'd like to thank you for sticking with me as long as you have, and I hope that my journey has taught you something about the world outside of America's borders. It's certainly schooled me.