Get back. Get back to where you once belonged.

It's official: I'm headed back to Morocco.

I finally got everything dotted and crossed and have a rather large handful of assignments to complete, and the itinerary made it through.

Two days from now -- and it's been a blessed relief to have two spare days in Florida -- I will be on my way back to El Maghreb.

I'm officially signed on for a one-month trial with Rustic Pathways, a travel place for high school students. I'll be the acting country director for Morocco, and I am quite psyched about it. After all, the company's goal is to introduce U.S. kids to other cultures, and I loved the culture I lived in for 27 months.

My plan there is kind of vague now. Not that I haven't put a lot of thought into it; I just haven't decided on the best route to take. What I will be doing is laying out two itineraries for summer travel, and my mission is to find safe places and travel for about 15 kids.

In Morocco, this is harder than you'd think. I'm already stumped on transportation. RP doesn't like public transportation and the private alternatives aren't really regulated in Morocco, so that's a hurdle.

Another task is finding potential housing, which is bizarre to me because the budget is a BIG step above what I did on my PC stipend. I'm kind of like, "Oh, you mean I can look for a place with *hot* water?" I'm really not used to that at all, and I'm more inclined to search at budget places.

Looking at my new guidebook, I've been surprised to even realize there ARE high-priced hotels and such in Morocco. They were so far out of my PC budget, they were just dead to me, I guess. It didn't even occur to me they existed, seriously.

Since I will be there from Oct. 22 - Nov. 21, I have a big challenge in the fact that there are two holidays during that time. One's the Big Kuhana - 3id Kbir, or "The Big Holiday." Religiously speaking, it's like Easter and Christmas combined and travel leading up to the two-day holiday is Thanksgiving-ish. It's so bad to travel during that time that PC doesn't even allow Vs to do so.

And my flight will leave the day after it's over, I think. Great. I really had hoped to just sit in Midelt during the holiday but since I have to be eight hours away the following day, it might not be possible.

Still, I do hope to try to get to Midelt. It's not on the beaten path of the itineraries, but it's not far off and God knows I can make calls from there just as easy as anywhere else.

EC's been alerted I hope to come, but I haven't communicated anything to my host mom. I don't want to make a promise I can't keep, but then, I am not sure I want to just surprise her, either.

We'll see what happens.