And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day.

Currently listening to Jimmy Eat World cover of the Wham! classic "Last Christmas"

I've been blogging a lot lately. taking advantage of the strong internet signal, plus a lot of stuff keeps happening and it's hard to keep up.

For starters, Merry Christmas everyone! It's not even lunch time here and I have to tell you my Christmas is going very well so far. Much better than what I was anticipating.

Usually I hate the fact that the first thing that I see/do in the morning tends to dictate my mood for the rest of the day, but today this worked in my favor. I woke up to

a) sunshine
b) two nice messages from my sister and my boyfriend

not a bad way to start off my first Christmas so very far away from home.

The day progressed nicely. We had coffee this morning! I haven't had any for two days so I was really excited. Plus, the two more annoying kids in my family were still asleep all through breakfast, so we actually had a pretty relaxing morning.

At Dar Chebab this morning I gave the kids little white circles to cut out snowflakes. They don't know it yet but the snowflakes are going to be ornaments on the recycled plastic bottle tree my counterpart and I have been putting together all week. We had time left so I taught them musical chairs and tried to do it with my iPod and a speaker. Fail. Couldn't hear anything. It was still fun though until the game got a little too heated and two kids got in a fight. Who can blame them? Musical chairs is a rough game.

Of course, there is one Christmas miracle I have yet to talk about, and it's quite possibly the most awesome thing that's happened to me in Morocco thus far. Last night my friend came to my door and asked me to come with him real quick. He led me around the corner, where I found a friend of mine dressed as SANTA CLAUS and bearing gifts! It was so so so so nice and I cried a little. I can't believe they found a Santa costume, and the gifts were so undeserved! Needless to say, I'm in a good mood.

Tut tut! Looks like rain!

Typed up 23 December

Current zippy Christmas song: Ella Fitzgerald’s take on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

I think the Darija word for “wet” is perfect. Fzg. It’s an accidental onomatopoeia. Fzg fzg fzg as my boots sludge through the mud. And there’s always mud. I think the name of the town I live in may translate to “I-turn-into-a-sinking-pool-of-mud-come-winter.”

What’s funny is how I look around and realize I am far from the only person having issues with the mud and fzg. You’d think that a person who has lived in this town his whole life would have some strategies or something for going on about his daily business, rain or shine. So not the case. I am quickly learning that Moroccans in my town are basically Gremlins that you can feed after midnight. Don’t get them wet.

When it rains here, everything comes to a stop. People stand around under awnings, no one shows up to work, stores don’t open, kids stay home from school. It’s the rainy day behavior I so desperately wanted in the States, and yet here I find it excruciating.

And I know what my problem is, too. When there’s something obstructing my path, like rain or being sick, I deal with it by working around it, or completely ignoring it if possible. I pretend I’m not coughing uncontrollably or plan around rain by giving myself more time to get places, wearing my hair up, etc. However, this isn’t really the way Moroccans deal with similar issues and that’s where I run into trouble. In Morocco, if it’s raining, you let the rain win. If you have a cold, the cold wins. Stay home. Wait it out. There’s nothing you can do about it.

Maybe after two years I’ll be able to sit back and accept that there are things I just can’t do anything about.

I once described the innards of my brain as the island of misfit toys

currently listening to ALL CHRISTMAS ALL THE TIME (more specifically, Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby)

I was thinking about the time I likened my brain to the Island of Misfit Toys in the Rudolph cartoon today when I was in the middle of a dar chebab meeting about the activities I've got up my sleeve for Christmas and started jotting down things to blog about. I'm not even sure if that last sentence makes sense because I started thinking about peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the middle of it.

Anyway this is going to be yet another rambling, disjointed entry. Hold onto your hats!

First of all, a bit I wanted to blog about before but couldn't figure out a way to write it in a way that didn't make me sound like Carrie Bradshaw. Don't get me wrong, Sex and the City is classic and a great way to pass lonely nights in Morocco. That said, I can't stand Carrie's writing style and I think she does as much for women in terms of gaining respect as the Spice Girls.

Off the soapbox and on topic: I find that in Morocco I tend to wish I was a man. And it's not penis envy. It's ability-to-obtain-coffee envy. In my current homestay situation I depend on my host mom for coffee, who depends on the shopkeeper that she has an open tab with. If he decides to sleep in, she can't buy milk in the morning and I am SOL. This makes for rough mornings that spill over into rough afternoons if I miss nap time. If I were a man, this would be no big deal. I could just skip the family breakfast and head to any old cafe and kick it. No problem. I might even have two cups, who knows. I'm crazy unpredictable, and who can understand a man anyway?

Sigh. Unfortunately for me, I feel comfortable in ONE cafe, and it's on the complete other side of town. A good 25 minute walk. Who's got that kind of time in the morning? Not me, that's who. Especially when I'm uncaffeinated. It's a vicious cycle.

Next!

Last weekend two dear friends and I reunited for the first time since swearing-in (bold-faced lie--I saw one of them a week after moving to site and then again a few weeks after that)and went to a little place called Marjane. The Marjane is a Super Target-esque store that would be totally ordinary and maybe even sub-par in the states, but in Morocco it almost made me hyperventilate upon entry.

Imagine spending three and a halfish months in small town Morocco, doing jumping jacks to stay warm at night, bathing every three days or so and considering it a good week if your bowel movements were more or less regular. Now imagine stumbling into a huge superstore with air conditioning, American music on the speakers, and BOOZE prominently displayed. My fellow Volunteers and I just stood in the entry for a solid minute, sort of giggling and trying to lower our heart rates. We then proceeded--slowly--up and down every aisle, inspecting every product and trying to think rationally about what we should buy. After an hour or two of blissful shopping to tunage like "Ghetto Superstar," we emerged triumphant with peanut butter, cheese, pepperonis (don't judge), Oreos, Snickers bars and various other tidbits. I was even given a printed receipt! Ridiculous.

Yukon ho!

Today I received my very first package from America in the mail. It was from my dearest daddy and it was magnificent. I can safely assure you that there is at least one Dwight Schrute bobblehead doll in Morocco as of this morning.

There is also at least one beloved lavender unicorn hoodie sweatshirt. And now, a spontaneous haiku:

mythical creature
you've one horn and you've one heart:
mine. How I've missed you!

And because I don't want to end this blog on a completely absurd note:

There's this part in Jesus Christ Superstar (and I assume this happens at some point in the Bible, too) where Jesus is surrounded by beggars yelling at him:

See my eyes, I can hardly see/ See me stand I can hardly walk/ I believe you can make me whole/ See my tongue I can hardly talk

And then they keep getting closer and encroaching on his personal space until he finally just flips his shit and screams "Heal yourselves!"

I don't mean to compare myself to Jesus in anyway, but I totally had a similar moment this morning. This kid kept grabbing my arm and another one was telling me something while another was whining that someone hit her and a third was asking me how to say everything in a 3 mile radius in English until a fourth grabbed my other arm and I sort of involuntarily jerked my arm away and said "What?!" irritably and a little loud. Of course I immediately felt like a complete bitch and spent the remainder of the morning playing Uno and trying to make as many silly faces as possible. That heals all wounds right?

inappropriate

currently listening to: “Camping Next to Water” by Badly Drawn Boy

current state: safe in my room, CLEAN, full of bread and cookies

‘Awkward’ doesn’t even begin to describe this afternoon. From 4 to 5 on Tuesdays I have informal tutoring sessions. Too many people have stopped me on the street asking for English classes, and they are all of different levels, so I think this might be the best way to deal with the situation for now. Anyway this man came today that I had talked to last week—he studied English in school and loved it, but he learned British English and wants to learn to speak like Americans. I told him to come by this week around 4 or 5 with a list of British terms and we’d go over them.

The man did indeed stop by, but instead of bringing his list of British terms he brought the lyrics of an Eminem song. Yeah. I spent an hour with a middle-aged man explaining American slang like “woody” and how “climbing up and down that pole” is a phrase that describes the movements of a woman performing a strip tease. Awesome.

Deep Thoughts, Why Rain is Sometimes Awesome and a Swashbuckling Adventure

Typed December 14

I sit through a lot of events where I don’t really understand what’s going on. Apparently you can’t learn a language in three months, no matter how hard you try. Anyway, as if my mind didn’t already wander enough, it wanders even more when everyone around me is speaking very quickly and passionately in Darija. Some things I was thinking about:

I don’t totally agree with Jim regarding his lyrical choices in “People are Strange,” even though it’s one of my very favorite songs. Yes, people are strange when you’re a stranger and yes, faces look ugly when you’re alone. I don’t really know about women seeming wicked when you’re unwanted, but I’m totally with him on the bit about streets being uneven when you’re down. My ability to trip and the amount of crabbiness I’m experiencing at a given moment are directly related.

Jim and I schism at “when you’re strange, no one remembers your name, when you’re strange.” I totally disagree. Everyone in this freaking town knows my name. This morning I was stopped by three people who called out my name, only one of whom I recognized. Everyone knows my name and everyone knows my business. Yesterday I went out of town and the police called twice, once to verify my itinerary and a second time to see if I came home. If you do a ‘man on the street’ style interview and ask where the American is, I bet you a million dollars he’ll know.

Anyway.

The other thing I was thinking about was a tip my dad gave me once when I was trying to get into running (fail). He’s kind of a big deal—ran the Houston marathon in ’96. Ain’t no thang. He told me that runners, over time, learn to rest while jogging. They will run at a steady pace, then when they need a break they don’t stop or even slow to a walk, but jog. I could never really figure out how to do that in running, but I realized that in life I have been doing that for as long as I can remember. And by as long as I can remember I mean since probably high school. I always seem to have a to-do list (in my more neurotic days I had two or three to-do lists varying in levels of urgency) and if I’m not ticking things off of it I feel like I’m not a whole person. Idle time makes me nervous. For instance, today is my day off, and I spent most of it working on uploading photos from an event yesterday—until my internet mutinied—then lesson planning for the week. I run Tuesday through Saturday (dar chebab, meetings, getting things together for my house) and jog Sunday and Monday (lesson plans, studying Darija, organizing paperwork). I’m not comfortable enough here yet to REST rest—read, nap, journal—on a regular basis, which sucks because I read blogs of people in my stage and see that they are chilling out, visiting friends, catching up on their reading. Why can’t I ever come to a complete stop? You’d think after 23 years I would run out of places to jog. Or that I would have more interesting stories to tell by now.

So those are my deep thoughts for the day. Moving on to why rain is sometimes really awesome.

Rain is sometimes really awesome when it’s Monday morning and you don’t work on Mondays and can thus stay warm in your jammies.

Rain is sometimes really awesome when you have a host mom that makes hrsha (Moroccan corn bread) and coffee on mornings when it’s cold and rainy.

Rain is sometimes really awesome when you work at a dar chebab that’s far away from the neighborhood that stampedes of children come from. Muddy streets cut attendance considerably and make the activities much more manageable.

Rain is sometimes really awesome when you have snuggly blankets and work that you can do from your bed.

However, sometimes rain is not really awesome. Times when rain is not really awesome are:

When you live in a house with a big skylight, and the method of keeping rain out is covering the skylight with an old piece of metal with some holes in it.

When your bedroom window doesn’t close all the way.

When you are walking somewhere and get stopped by a creepy man who helped Peace Corps find your homestay family and now thinks he’s going to be given your hand in marriage as a thank you gift.

When your boots don’t have good traction in mud and every step may be your last.

Finally, a swift recounting of a swashbuckling adventure. I should mention no swordplay was involved, but at times I felt like it would be cool if everyone was speaking Pirate instead of Darija, which that’s why I use the term “swashbuckling.”

At dawn, I crammed into a rickety white van with my two counterparts and thirteen kids from dar chebab in order to go to a seminar on youth leadership and give a presentation about their group activities. The van safely seated maybe 8-10 people. No big deal, we had some minors sitting on plastic stools in the back, next to the back door that didn’t close all the way. Nothing to worry about, especially since no one’s parents signed any sort of waiver allowing their children to take this method of transportation. Yes, I was the picture of calm.

A cultural lesson: Moroccan youth, especially boys, like to bang drums and sing songs on road trips, even when it’s very early in the morning, their chaperone has not had any coffee yet, and the van has a tendency to break down frequently on windy mountain paths that make you think Gollum will pop out at any moment.

Hamdullah, we arrived safely (and on time!) at the seminar. We breakfasted on glorious coffee and baguettes then got started with some icebreaker games. One that I had never played before involved everyone taking off a shoe and putting it in the center of a circle. Then one by one each person had to pick a shoe and describe the person who wears it. It was really fun, and I’m glad my shoe got picked pretty early because I wanted it back (it was freezing).

The kids did a really great job presenting their activities. They had a slide show of photos set to music and even dimmed the lights for effect. Each one rehearsed his or her part and no one goofed off. I was very proud, even though I can’t claim credit for any of it, having only been in site a month.

Finished off the event with tea, cookies and a music circle. I got to show off my moves (read: was coerced into showing off my moves) and it occurred to me that dancing isn’t necessarily shameful in Morocco as long as the dancer feels humiliated and self-conscious the whole time. That’s probably why people don’t drink here.

The ride back home was much like the ride away from it, except this time one of my counterparts started singing “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely” by the Backstreet Boys and everyone was totally shocked I didn’t know any of the words.

I think that’s enough for now…if I find myself thinking deeply again I’ll let you know.

oh my

current sap-fest of a song" "dreaming with a broken heart" by JM (hi candice)

Today started the way most Hunter S. Thompson pieces do. No introductory sentence, no set-up, just bam.

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like 'I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...' And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'” (the opening paragraph of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)

It occurred to me today that my Dar Chebab is what Hunter would call bat country.

There was a teacher's union strike today, which meant the kids in my town had nothing better to do than go to Dar Chebab and harass me. In other words, I walked through the big green gate, turned the corner, and was greeted by 50 or 60 screaming kids, all wanting something different. "basketball!" "english!" "ping pong!" "water!" "hi alli hi alli hi alli! labas 3lik? hamdullah! kif dayra? labas? nti labas? mzyan?"

Honestly it's really great to have such enthusiastic kids. It really is. I swear.

With the help of my boss's son I was able to get them all separated into groups to play basketball or study English. The ping pong table broke last week (see earlier posts) so that was out. I only had to scream at them once, and I didn't have to kick anyone out of the building (just out of my classroom), so I'd say the morning ended up being successful.

Moving on, because I actually sat down with a specific topic in mind.

Whenever you move somewhere new, you inevitably notice commonalities in your new neighbors. I'm pretty sure "commonalities" is a word. At least, I've heard a smug anthropologist or two say it. When I moved to DC I noticed how no one can be bothered to say full words. Instead they use acronyms: it's not Au Bon Pain, it's ABP. It's not the Department of Justice, it's the DoJ.

In Morocco I've noticed how reluctant everyone is to make a promise, or any sort of statement of solid fact. Any talk of the future usually concludes with an "insha'allah" (if God wills it). For example:

"Okay so I'll see you at four for the meeting?"
"Insha'allah."

Nothing is certain, anything can happen, we don't have control. I thought this concept was pretty interesting since I tend to be hard-headed and convince myself I can make things happen when I want them to happen. (Morocco has already started making me a little humble in that sense.)

So I realized how far this idea that nothing is certain goes this past Tuesday. In the afternoons I open up my classroom for some informal tutoring, and whoever wants to come and read or go over grammar or whatever is welcome. A couple times this week, an older guy came by to work on verb tenses. I wasn't sure where to start with him, so I started at the beginning with simple present tense. We were practicing things like "I eat lunch everyday" and "she watches television at night." Easy peas. TOO easy peas. So I stepped it up a notch and started asking him questions that he could answer using the simple present. We talked about daily routines and habitual actions, then I started explaining the concept of general truths, because those are good, simple statements to practice.

But oh my god did this guy not get the concept of general truths.

I said to him, "a general truth is something that is always true. For example, 'the sun is hot.'"

"No, not always. You can't know that the sun will be hot."

Well, sir, I'm pretty sure the sun is always a gigantic ball of super-hot gases. You can count on that. But whatever, we'll let it slide. So I says to him I says:

"Okay. How about, 'Moroccans eat couscous on Friday."

"But it's impossible to know if every Moroccan is eating couscous on the same day."

At this point I started having 'Nam style flashbacks of my days in sociocultural anthropology lectures when you couldn't get a sentence out without someone raising their hand to point out that your statement could be misconstrued as stereotypical, and decided it would be best to move on to the simple past tense.

Something completely different: today marks the start of my fourth month in country. Three months down, twenty-four to go! (Insha'allah)

On little boys and throwing rocks, on time and food and wearing socks

current jamz: "gethsemane" from Jesus Christ Superstar, seriously. I'm making you proud, momma.

Funny story, I once almost killed my sister and I because we were too focused on singing the entire score to JCS at the top of our voices, and not so much focused on how I was speeding like a maniac through rush hour traffic.

Anyway, on to the blogging.

First time a kid threw a rock at me at close range: COUNT IT. I was walking my host siblings back to school after lunch and this toddler was chillin out max and relaxin all cool with a rock the size of his FACE in his hands. It was the weirdest experience, his facial expression didn't change at all and yet I saw the rock and knew exactly what was going to happen. Luckily the kid throws like a girl and it just sort of fell at my feet. Kind of anticlimactic...I guess I could have said something like "he hit me smack in the jugular so I junk-punched him and now we are best friends."

Moving on.

Perhaps it's fitting that most houses I've visited for tea have two or three clocks that don't work on display. Morocco runs on a completely different schedule, a concept I was briefed on but didn't quite grasp how it might affect my life until really experiencing it. Sometimes lunch is on the table at 12:30, sometimes my host mom isn't even back from the community oven with the fresh-baked bread (amazing) until 2:30 or closer to 3. What's funny is I am already starting to have trouble getting places on time, and as many of you know I'm usually chronically prompt. Yesterday, for instance, I KNEW my friend was coming over at 4 pm to go walk around/hang out in the village-sort of the center of town-and yet when my host mom asked me at 2:45 if I wanted to make American cookies, I said "sure, why not?" Poor time-management+misreading a recipe+being afraid of my mom's oven= I was over an hour late meeting my friend. But the cookies were delicious.

And speaking of food, wow do I eat a lot here. I need to just suck it up and deal and be happy I'm not in a PC country where there's a lack of food, but my goodness am I expected to eat a lot. My host mom looks physically pained if I refuse a fourth piece of bread or respectfully decline a third cup of tea (even when I explain that I had tea with the family of a kid from the dar chebab less than an hour ago). Even when I do try to eat more, I still do something wrong. If I go for another piece of bread, I'm scolded for not putting butter on it. As soon as I finish the portion set out for me, someone semi-yells at me to take more. This evening, I was given bread, butter and tea, and was trying to eat all of it when my host mom gave me an apple, too. I didn't immediately eat it, so she ordered me to eat the apple. When I put down my glass of tea to take the apple, she told me I need to drink tea. When I picked the glass back up she said I should take more bread. How do you say "Go go gadget arms" in Arabic?

at least i'm not a goat

Currently Listening to “Little Queen” by Heart

Currently Reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (if you currently live in Morocco and want to read it, let me know and I’ll send it your way when I finish)

My goodness, it’s been a week. So much stuff went wrong that I ended up freaking out a little bit. Had a good wig-out/crying session on Wednesday and now I feel like I have some perspective. Maybe. Ha. Anyway I’m going to outline some of the shiz that went down so that at least someone can laugh at my current situation.

Earlier this week, something went wrong with the bathroom at my host family’s house and they had to have a man come and dig out a new sewage pipe thing for the Turk toilet. We were without a potty for like three days…instead there was just a dirty hole with a pile of dirt next to it. Still usable. No biggie, right? I am in the Peace Corps, after all.

I took the situation in stride, until Tuesday night when I got violently ill after being force-fed couscous (it wasn’t even Friday!). I was up every couple hours either booting all over the place or shitting into the little mudpit. Awesome. My host mom was really sweet, she came and sat with me on my bed for a little bit and got me water and stuff. I finally was able to get to sleep around 5 am, just in time to be woken up by the early morning call to prayer (we live across the street from a mosque).

Naturally, I was dehydrated and exhausted in the morning. I had made plans to go to souk, but I texted my friend to tell her I needed to sleep. Not that this happened—my host mom tried to make me eat breakfast (wtf?) and then the kids were being crazy loud and I couldn’t rest at all. Then my host mom left to go food shopping and I was alone with all my host siblings, ranging in age from 2-11. To sum up the experience, my toddler host brother took a shit on the concrete outside our house and all I was able to do in reaction was watch in horror. It’s actually really funny now but at the time I literally wanted to die.

I should mention that my host mom was totally shocked when I didn’t eat a big portion of couscous on Friday for lunch, as if the Couscous Incident from Tuesday never happened. She kept saying I didn’t like her couscous, and I couldn’t get the point across that I like couscous, but after almost dying three days ago I don’t want to eat a ton of it.

Thursday I went to the hemmam. It’s old news these days, but this time was a little different. Usually when I’ve been to the hemmam I don’t reallllllly need a bath, but in this case I hadn’t showered in 5 or 6 days (bathroom broken, remember?). Other factors that made this experience different:

-my 5-year-old host brother tagged along and has now seen my boobies

-I didn’t wear my contacts, so when I took my glasses off (it’s too steamy to wear them) I had no idea where I was.

-a strange woman I’d never met before scrubbed me from head to toe, then bathed me and shampooed my hair. Usually someone I go with will scrub my back or something but after that they let me clean myself, because, you know, I’m an adult.

Also! My cell phone in Morocco broke this week. It stopped sending text messages, and when my friend tried to fix it he accidentally locked me out of my phone. I didn’t even know you needed a pin number to turn it on, so we were sort of stuck. I ended up having to get a new sim (which my friend very kindly bought for me) which means a new number. Swiyya stress, but everything worked out.

Speaking of breaking things, some of the boys at Dar Chebab broke the ping pong table on my watch. Go me. I went into one of the rooms to grab a ball and came out just in time to watch the table come crashing down. Now the parents of Morocco will trust me with their young.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, right. So today was L3id Kbir, which one of my host relatives was explaining to me celebrates when Abraham almost sacrificed his son. Naturally, families here sacrifice goats in commemoration. It was…an experience. My host uncles slit the goat’s neck right in our front yard! Not as much blood as you’d think. Afterward they stuck a bicycle pump in its leg and filled the goat with air. You read that correctly. I think it makes it easier to skin? I don’t know. All in all it was a super-interesting process to watch. My family started cooking right then and there and we ate liver, heart, intestine and something else I didn’t know the word for. Apparently I’ll be eating parts of the head later…I’ll keep you posted.

tcob.

Typed at 10:12 pm on November 23

Currently listening to Ben Folds, Way to Normal album

Many things were accomplished today. In a related story, today was the first day I didn’t feel like a complete retard from dawn to dusk. My province-mate and I planned to meet up in our province capitol in order to meet our delegue for the Ministry of Youth and Sports here in Morocco, then I needed to buy a special stamp for my carte de sejour, then we needed to pick up some bags we’d left at the Peace Corps office. I’m sure none of this sounds particularly ridiculous, but these three errands involved:

1. telling Peace Corps 24 hours ahead of time that I would be leaving site today
2. leaving my house at 6:45 am
3. going to the gendarmes (fancy-pants police that follow PCVs around) to tell them I would be out of town all day
4. taking an hour-long car ride with 6 strangers
5. wandering around to various tobacco stores looking for a place that sold 100 Dh stamps (hopefully I bought the right kind)
6. teaching the delegue how to pronounce my name, then just telling her to call me Amal
7. taking another hour-long car ride to the Peace Corps office, but with 5 strangers this time (good ol’ province-mate was with me this time)
8. trying to remember where in the city Peace Corps is located
9. taking a 90ish minute car ride with six strangers, plus two backpacks, a large suitcase and a mosquito net
10. lugging said backpacks, large suitcase and mosquito net into a petit taxi when I got back to site and trying to explain to the driver where I live in a town with no street names (I literally just told him what section of town I live in then said to go to the top of the hill and I live by the mosque.)

All that and I managed to be home before the sun set, just in time for my host brothers to roll around on my bed then start touching everything that I brought back from Rabat and asking me what everything was. Ay caramba.

I must say, I’m pretty pleased with myself right now. So far in site, the people of my town have been helpful to the extent that I can’t do anything alone (I just recently was able to leave the house without my host mom making sure I had an escort). It’s difficult to adjust to that when you are used to handling most things by yourself. Today was different though! I did everything I needed to do, and I didn’t need a Moroccan to translate for me. Today was exactly what I’ve been needing—a sign that I’ll be able to handle the next two years. I felt so in control that I came home and started making excel spreadsheets and planning lessons. BAM.

“3awd 3afak? Mafhhmts walu.”

That means “Can you repeat, please? I didn’t understand anything.” Basically it’s the story of my life these days.

Let’s see here, it’s been awhile. I spent a week at the beach/Rabat finishing up training. The hotel we got to stay in in Rabat was super-zwin: western-style toilets! Continental breakfast! Free internet! Hot showers! Too bad we were only there one night.

The morning after the swearing-in ceremony (by the way, I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer now) I made my way to site—a seemingly simple grand taxi ride. Of course, we got a flat tire about halfway there and I got to chillax on the side of the road with five randos while the driver exchanged the flat tire for a somewhat less-flat spare. Nevertheless I made it to site in one piece!

I have a new host family now: mom, dad, gramma, three little brothers and one little sister. Everyone is so, so, so, so overwhelmingly nice I barely know how to react. Gramma won’t let me sit anywhere unless I have a sheepskin rug under my feet, and the other night we were walking somewhere and she randomly picked a flower and gave it to me. I wish I could understand anything she said.

It’s not just my host family that’s been incredible so far, either. Everyone keeps trying to claim me as their kid—people either refer to me as “bnti” or “mskina” which mean “my daughter” and “poor kid” respectively. I take a little offense to being called mskina all the time, but I also can’t help but admit that it’s basically true.

I think I’ve found a bizarro me in my host dad. Last Saturday I needed to get ID photos taken for my carte de sejour—basically my Moroccan ID—but none of the stores were open yet because everyone was still eating lunch or napping (oh, Morocco) so we went and sat at his favorite café for a bit. We just sat and drank coffee and I didn’t think it could get any better, but then he pulled out a—wait for it—CROSSWORD PUZZLE. Of course it was in Arabic, but just seeing a crossword puzzle was like a little taste of my old routine.

So I guess I could talk about some potentially interesting information. I haven’t really started WORKING working yet, but I’ve gone to Dar Chebab pretty much everyday to hang out with the kids. The site I was assigned to already has a very active Dar Chebab, so it’s difficult to figure out where I fit in and what I can do to help them out, especially since my language skills are so weak. I can’t believe I actually scored HIGHER on my Peace Corps language exam than what I needed in order to go to site without any problems. Luckily, the guy that’s been helping me out a lot around town says my accent is very good, so I guess when the vocabulary and grammar comes along I will be in good shape. Swiyya b swiyya.

Thus far this post has been very upbeat, but I want to note that community integration is freaking difficult. I thought training was difficult, but now I’m going to go ahead and say that this past week (my first week in site) has been one of the most difficult times of my life. As scary as training was at times, I had five Americans and a patient Moroccan on hand for support 24/7. I don’t mean to imply that the people in my site haven’t been amazing, but at the end of the day I only have myself to rely on. Swiyya stress.

Thursday—

Current tunez: “Just Got to Be” –The Black Keys

Current literature(z): Fun House by Alison Bechdel, a graphic novel that is somehow more depressing than Maus. It uses a ton of needlessly big words, which normally is a huge pet peeve of mine, but I think mixing cartoon images with SAT words makes the book enjoyable.

This week is going by super fast. I’ve got a little over a week left at CBT, then the ol’ gang gets back together on the beach for a bit before swearing-in in Rabat. Intense.

Good thing: I learned today that the volunteer I’m replacing will be in town for a little over two weeks after I move in, so I will have ample time to bother her and maybe even buy some of her stuff for my own place.

After language class the other day my CBT group and I went out to kick it at a café for a bit. I ran into my host dad at the café and said hey, but my group didn’t stay much longer after that because we had to get some veggies, etc. at the market. When I got home later that night my host dad basically called me a man for being out at a café and drinking tea and then my host uncle told me I should be wearing a veil when I’m in public. Cool story, Hansel…way to wait until now to tell me my behavior is problematic. I think they were joking with me, but then again I have no idea. Either way, not really how I wanted to end my day.

By the way, if I look horribly disfigured the next time I see you all it’s probably because trying to understand how to use the conditional in Darija is like getting round-house kicked in the face repeatedly and with a level of accuracy akin to that of imperial stormtroopers. Assuming the Empire has a training sesh on round-house kicking. I’m not really sure what their training program is like.

Well that was really weird. What can I say, it’s late.

Saturday--

Currently listening to “Omaha” by Counting Crows

Happy Halloween! I’m closing in on my last week of CBT…we had a farewell/Halloween party at Dar Chebab tonight that was really, really fun. Bzaf snacks, bzaf kids and even a live band. One of the girls braided a green thread thing into my hair so now I look really cool and I received little gifts from two of the other girls! A teddy bear (we named her Melissa) from one and a little “best friends forever” charm from another. It was really touching. I can’t believe how warmly we’ve been received here…the kids in my new town have a lot to live up to!

Other news: language is coming along, swiyya b swiyya. I can understand almost everything my baby sister says, which means I’m almost able to communicate like a 7 year old. I’ll take it.

Tuesday—

A few interesting things. I made a new friend today! My cell phone ran out of credit so during lunch I ran down to the market to buy a carte de recharge. Instead of cell phone plans, you buy recharge cards that have a special number on them. You dial 555 then enter the card number and voila, you can call and text. The amount you can call/text depends on how expensive of a card you buy. The girl working in the store was really sweet, and really excited that I was learning Arabic. Out of nowhere she gave me her phone number and declared that I was her new friend in Morocco. So that was nice. Of course, the universe evened everything out by making some punk bark at me while I walked home. Yes, he barked at me.

Tonight my CBT group had our family party. It’s our last week so everyone got together to say thanks/ eat a lot. I’ve never been on so ridiculous a sugar high; I actually felt my heart spasm a couple times. Pretty sure I caught diabetes. It was really great to get everyone together one last time, especially the host siblings. Brahim has two awesome kids in his family that I only really got to see at Dar Chebab, so it was fun to hang out with them in a different setting.

Tomorrow I have the dreaded LPI (Language Proficiency Interview). It’s not technically an exam, but you find out what level you are speaking at. Peace Corps provides volunteers with funds to get tutors in their sites, but if after a certain amount of time you aren’t showing improvement from your first LPI score, they can pull your tutor funding. So it’s a little stressful. At the same time, though, I can’t study anymore. Ay caramba. By this time tomorrowwww (love me some Kinks) it’ll be over with. However, unlike a final exam in school, I’m unfortunately (fortunately?) not finished with Darija.

Mixed feelings about leaving CBT. Excited, sad, terrified, relieved, ready, not ready. I find my mood depends on how much caffeine I’ve got pulsing through me. For example, around 9:45 am (i.e., right before my 10 am coffee break) I’m about ready to burst into tears and go fetal, but by 10:45 am I feel like the Biggest Little Girl in the World. A ballet teacher once told me that no matter how small I was I had to dance like I was the Biggest Little Girl in the World, and for some reason that image always stuck with me.

Random final thought: the souk is basically the Island of Misfit Toys from the Rudolph claymation movie.

Wednesday:

Real quick, I think I did okay on my LPI, but won' t know for sure for a few more days.

I gotsa place to live

Typed Tuesday, October 2

Welllll a lot has been going on the past few days. Most importantly, I found out my final site! I’m hesitant to post the name of it, but I will say I’m quite pleased. There are definitely pros (close-ish to a few big cities as well as some other YD trainees that I’m good friends with) and cons (following a volunteer who is apparently awesome), but I’m excited to get started!

Some stuff that’s happened lately:

My CBT group totally has a mascot in the form of a tiny and maybe crazy little girl. She’s three (ish), we call her Weasel and she sometimes licks walls. Her mom cooks for us everyday and Weasel likes to hang out and play peek-a-boo/ stare blankly at me when I talk to her.

My Darija class was attacked by bugs last Friday morning. I was sitting there, minding my own business and drawing Pooh Bear as a little black rain cloud in my notebook (totally normal) when all of a sudden this THING was sitting next to me. It LOOKED AT ME then slowly spread its little wings in what I perceived to be a threatening manner. As we all know, harassment happens when someone is made to feel uncomfortable or unsafe by another’s actions. In other words, that bug harassed me. I’ll pause a moment to make sure the gravity of the situation sinks in fully.

Last weekend Brahim and I were in a neighboring CBT site and got to do all sorts of fun things, most notably visiting the Dar Chebab there. We made Halloween decorations for the Halloween party they are having this coming weekend then played some games. One of them was most definitely a game I used to play in the states, only with booze.

I crashed at a fellow trainee’s house and over dinner his host mom told me I knew zero Darija because I didn’t understand one of the questions she asked me. Tough crowd.

Yesterday and part of today I was at the hub, freaking out about finding out my site, then finding out my site, then freaking out about moving to my site. There was also some delicious cheese and chocolate mixed in between the freak outs, as well as an avocado smoothie. I assure you that the deliciousness of the avocado smoothie has an inverse relationship with how gross it sounds.

I spent most of the evening talking with my host-uncle in a pathetic mix of Darija, French, English and smiling-and-nodding, then dazzling the host-siblings with my ability to make origami stars (thank you Asian friends from high school).

Final thought: Last night at hub we set up a projector to watch “The Hangover” and oh my goodness did I forget how funny that movie is.

oh.em.gee.

Once again, I sat down to blog and my whole brain went fuzzy. It was just one of those days. CBT is probably the hardest thing I've ever tried to do--learning a language in a sink-or-swim situation when you are spontaneously sick, generally cold and constantly sleepy. And frustrated. And crabby. And ridiculously sensitive.

Anyyyyhoo I'll just post some quick thoughts I scribbled down in my planner over the last few days:

My baking skills are known not only in my town but the next town over. Last Saturday I baked cookies with Lubna and Jamila (and Lubna's family), then on Monday the cook at my school (who lives in the neighboring town) told me Lubna's mom told HER that I was good at baking cookies. And I think something about how spiffy I look in an apron. Soooo yeah. No big deal.

I like clementines AND peaches now.

In class yesterday, Brahim and I presented a skit to everyone that involved me playing a crazed butcher. I tried to sell Brahim people-meat.

best idea ever?

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/bb2e/

OUTBREAK

My CBT group is dying off. Okay, maybe not dying, but everyone keeps getting really sick. A few weeks ago we were all feasting everyday on tagines and today I think half of us were able tochoke down some bread and apples.

Some random things before I sum up the past week:

Moroccans don't understand "what if" questions. Someone asked my teacher a hypothetical (if you could be the sun or the moon, what would you be?) and she just kept saying she would just be herself. Pfft, fatalism.

Some kid threw a rock at me today. Thankfully, I was inside and it hit the window, but it was kind of scary.

Onward!

Last Thursday was my birthday. I got to spend it at the training hub with all the youth developers. Everyone sang to me and it was really sweet/embarrassing. A couple of the girls bought me cake and tea that night, which was also really sweet. I was a little bummed I couldn't be with everyone in the states, but all in all it was a good birthday.

Friday was day 2 at the hub. A few of us got lunch at this delicious chicken place (pre gastrointestinal mutiny). A whole chicken, rice, french fries and four salads. Headed back to my CBT site in the afternoon via grand taxi (regular-sized car that 6 passengers pile into) and got home to find that my host dad had returned from his trip to France. He bought me a fancy tiramisu chocolate bar.

Saturday was a big day. In language class we took turns teaching and Jamila and I got to teach everyone how to tell time in Darija. Quite gracefully, too, I might add. In the afternoon I got a free moment to call the momma. Chatted for a bit until boys playing football near me got increasingly rambunctious and I needed to focus all my attention on not getting kicked in the face. Saturday night was our kick-off party at the Dar Chebab...it went really well! Although, I should warn you that teaching Uno to a large group of rowdy Arabic-speaking teenagers can be hazardous to your health/sanity. I also had an opportunity to showcase my sweet moves when we played a name game that involed standing in a circle, saying your name then doing a personalized dance, then repeating everyone else's. It's funny that this is my job, considering a few months ago I was sitting behind a desk processing employee hire forms (not that I don't love the lisner family).

Sunday=souk day. I fond a really pretty scarf but didn't want to cough up 20 Dhs...we got a ton of veggies though. Did some other stuff but my patience is wearing thin and it's not really very interesting.

I jotted down some stuff concerning the past few days, but most of it is sort of gibberish I wrote when I got sick of doodling. The shopkeeper that we buy food from a lot knows my name now which is really cool, Iplayed monopoly with my host sisters and won for I think the first time in my life (one of them tried to say she had rolled a fourteen at one point, honestly) and tonight I co-taught my first English lesson. The kids were way to smart for the lesson prepared, but nonetheless enthusiastic.

I gotta bounce, I'm falling asleep at the keys.

three weeks in

So, sorry I suck at blogging. My host family has internet, so I don't even have a good excuse.

I've been at my CBT site about two weeks now. It's incredibly posh. The town attracts a lot of tourists. I'll probably be really unprepared for my permanent site after swearing in 5my host family has a hot water tap, a dvd player, a western toilet and has even embraced toilet paper) but hey, one step at a time. swiyya bswiyya.

I spend most of the week at my LCF's (language and culture facilitator) house learning Darija. We have classes/training from 830 to 6 M thru F and 830 to 1230 Sat. When I'm not at school I try to find a balance between "me" time and "morocco" time. During "me" time I veg out and listen to my ipod or run occasionally and during "morocco" time i cultivate my lady skills. That sounds dirty, but what I mean is I try to act like a girl in Morocco should (I'm not a woman because I'm npt married. Also, when people ask me if I'm married I am supposed to stress that I'm simply not married yet). I do my maundry, help my mom set the table and clean up after meals, try to force myself into the kitchen, etc. My mom doesnt't really want my help cooking, though, because the last time was a disaster. I peeled one potato (poorly) in the time it took her to peel three and grate a few carrots. If I had the language capacity I would let her know that if she ever needs help impersonating robots, dinosaurs or zombies I'm totally down, but cooking has never been my strong suit. Just ask my real mom.

Things are going swimmingly with my CBT (community based training) group. We all have Arabic names now--Amal (me), Jamila, Nubna, Absalam; Tariq and Brahim. We have fun together... the other day our LCF qsked if we had any questions and Absalam shouted out "Would you rqther have crab hands or a tail?"

My host sisters are pretty col I guess. The littlest one cracks me up. She drew me this really pretty picture of a rainbow fish but instead of just giving it to me she followed me around for 20 minutes holding it. She even followed me outside while I took my laundry down from the line.

What else. Um... well we eat 'round the clock. Sunday I woke up at 10 am and had coffee (which in Morocco is a glass of warm milk with a splash of coffee and a cube of sugar) and a little pancake. Then around 1 pm we feasted on fish, beans and bread. I met some PCVs from the neighboring town for coffee at 3ish, then Brahim and I went to visit our fellow CBT mates, which meant another lunch at Lubna and Absalam's qnd tea and cookies at Jamila and Tariq's. I got home just in time for tea with my family, and then of course there's dinner. Sometimes I think I moved to the Shire, not Morocco, because my new diet is essentially that of a hobbit. Breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, supper...

I have henna on my palms and its really exciting.

two days to staging

It's been awhile since my last post...this month has gone by really fast! I moved back to Houston in early August, then came back to DC a few weeks later to see all my friends one last time and go to a big music festival. It was so hard leaving the city the second time around...I was definitely that girl that cries in the airport (and cries like an idiot for like an hour before even leaving to go to the airport). First time for everything right? I will probably be that girl again come Tuesday morning when my dad drops me off for my trip to Philly.

I spent the past couple days in Houma, LA where my parents grew up and my pop still lives. I love going back there, and not just because Pop's house always smells like bacon in the morning and you can find absolutely delicious shrimp gumbo in most houses and restaurants. I love it because it just never changes, even when it does. For example, my pop took my dad and I to have lunch at the country club on Friday--a time-honored Houma tradition. However, when we pulled up, there was a lot of construction surrounding the entrance and there were big "no parking" signs where Pop usually parks his car. No matter; Pop just pulled up to one of the signs, drove a little past it and parked in the grass. He can do that, see, because he's been a member of the club pretty much since it started and everyone in town knows him, anyway. My goodness I want to be crazy like that when I'm old.

The other thing I love about Houma is watching my dad just be in Houma. He completely changes--he's more relaxed, his accent gets about 16 times stronger and he's funny as hell. His best friend Mr. Biff owns a paint shop that we always go visit when I get down there and every time we go I almost fall off my stool laughing. It's like a scene out of a movie. There are like seven employees that just hang around and never really do anything, stools set up in front of the pay counter so you can just come and hang out for a bit if you want (no pressure to buy any paint or anything) and every morning this random octogenarian named Al comes in, yells "Biffaroo and Tyler, Too!" in greeting to my dad's bff, then goes and sits in the break room and eats breakfast. I wish I had a transcript of everything my dad and Biff talked about, but one of the better conversations involved the Rock of Gibraltar.

They had been fighting over where the Rock of Gibraltar was and my dad was insisting how he saw it on a map once and part of it is in Morocco. Biff was telling me how he'd need video proof of this when I get there (on Thursday morning, eep) and yelled at my dad "Hey! I'm gonna need video proof of you holding that map!"

To which my dad shot back, without missing a beat, "Do you have video proof of you without a map?" Classic!

Some other stuff I'll miss about Houma/ my friends/ life here in general:
-feeding the fish and worrying about alligators attacking me
-ridiculous, bright yellow pants and how mad a certain person gets every time I take a crack at them
-secret recipe bratwursts
-drinking a bit too much and being an epic fail
-DQ blizzard excursions
-watching Mad Men and The Office in big groups
-watching movies outside in the summer
-everything about DC

fear and loathing

location: panera, soaking up the gloriously free wi-fi
current tunage: "slicker drips" by the white stripes

from clapclapclapclap deep in the heart of texas:



honestly, can you really expect to sustain 600 pounds of man on 12 oz. of sausage? it's ludicrous.

only a few weeks 'til staging! i feel so unprepared...i've only found 2 long skirts. i need to get on that. the gap has been great though, they have a ton of lightweight longsleeve shirts.

i'm already hankering for a change of scenery though. too many people around here that could very easily be the caller in that jimmy dean clip. there's a creeper at panera as we speak that probably filled up on his fried egg, steak and sausage before coming here to walk past my booth a bunch of times and leer at me. i should start wearing my conservative moroccan warddrobe now!

another thing to add to my list of things i'll miss: dim sum and bubble tea. sigh. oh and ballet classes.

on packing, unpacking, moving and air travel

today was my last day in my sublet...i packed up my life (and left large parts of it in the apartment building's loading dock, which i have decided to call "the island of misfit toys") and chucked most of my furniture last night in preparation for my journey back to texas today. almost all my furniture. i left my bed intact overnight so as to sleep in it, then got up early to make sure i had time to get it out of the apartment before my very generous friend picked me up to take me to the airport.

probably should have considered the fact that i don't own any tools and my bed frame is too big to get through my bedroom door in one piece.

i got the mattress off easily enough (i'm not retarded) but my brain sort of shut down after that, so i decided to take a few very important, very serious steps (ie go for coffee then get on gchat to whine to my boyfriend for 20 minutes about why i shouldn't even bother to take the bed apart since i never paid a security deposit). after that one of my roommates (ex-roommates?) supplied me with a screwdriver and a hammer. ah, primates and tool-using. managed to get these tricky metal things off the sides of the frame, but the majority of it was still boldly intact. so out of curiosity i just started wacking at it with the hammer. after making a small hole, i decided kicking was the way to go.

this is the part where i tell you that kicking a bed in is an awesome way to relieve possible stress/anxiety/nervousness one may be feeling when one is about to move to morocco for two years and barely knows any arabic.

may have gotten a little over-excited when the frame finally crashed down into four separate, easily manageable parts. may have yelled something like "IT IS FINISHED" and freaked out my classy British ex-roommates.

side note on the Brits...i keep catching myself saying "fairy lights" instead of "christmas lights."

anyway so that was the best part of my day i think--totally dominating a cumbersome piece of furniture i'm pretty sure weighed more than i do.

once my dear friend The Sticky Bandit picked me up we had a nice car ride to BWI, where i managed to get both checked bags in under-weight (had to move some stuff around and physically sit on my backpack in public in order to get everything that i took out of my suitcase in there). spent some quality time with a turkey club and a darija textbook i found cheap online, did two crossword puzzles (be jealous) and found myself safely in the hands of my daddy by 6 pm central time. Had dinner with the parents, enjoyed a few drunken phonecalls from Grover, unpacked my life and made a cvs run.

pretty solid day, i think. i just never feel like i'm doing enough to get myself prepared for this crazy journey taking place in less than a month...

we got no food! we got no jobs! our pets HEADS ARE FALLIN' OFF!

current location: atop my bed
currently listening to: "don't look back in anger" by oasis

the title of this post totally relates to my life right now, if you assume i'm using the royal "we," i actually am pretty well-fed and i don't have a pet. if i did, i bet it's head would be fallin' off though.

anyway what i'm trying to say is i am now unemployed! for most people this would not be a reason to do a jig, but in my case i am moving on from something with a clear path in front of me. as clear as peace corps can be, at least.

it was really bittersweet to leave my job on friday. i had such a great few years with everyone, but at the same time i really wasn't doing what i want to do with my life.

so now i'm looking forward! in one month i will be on a flight to morocco, hopefully not losing my shit and having a freak-out panic attack. until then i'm just packing in as much time with my friends as possible, trying to learn darija (slow-going, i'm getting pretty nervous about being able to communicate effectively) and buying stuff i need for the next two years.

thing i will miss: wearing shorts when it's hot out.

tidbit

current location: la lisner
currently listening to: "your touch" by the black keys

My last big project at work before Peace Corps is to re-organize and clean out all the boxes we have in this little make-shift storage closet. Sounds boring, yes, but actually it's become pretty fun sorting through boxes of REALLY old memos etc. My personal favorite so far is a proclamation from then-Mayor Marion Barry (shudder) that designated October 8, 1982 as "Dreamgirls Day" in DC. No, I'm not making that up.

And now I present a memo dated November 8, 1973 from GWU's Office of the Vice President and Treasurer. Methinks it's still relevant today:

Memorandum to: The University Community
Subject: The Energy Crisis and the University Community

After President Nixon's message, each of us may have questions about what we in the University can do about the energy crisis. This memorandum is being distributed to aid in answering these questions.

What has already been accomplished?

Our major buildings have been professionally surveyed to minimize wasteful energy practices. Actions resulting from these surveys were:

- Heating, cooling and ventilating services operated only when needed
- Lights turned off when not needed
- Temperature controls regulated
- Water systems modified to eliminate waste

Marvin Center has a commuter parking pool board to facilitate car pools.

What more can we do?

Our plant personnel are continuing to work on the major conservation programs, but you, as an individual, can help too.

-Some Suggestions-

1. Turn out unnecessary lights which can be individually controlled in offices, classrooms and residence hall rooms (including fluorescent lights).
2. Minimize wastage of hot water for showers and other uses.
3. Turn down individually controlled radiators or ventilating units when too warm. Don't just open the window.
4. Sign up at the parking pool board, Ground Floor, Marvin Center to form new commuter auto pools.

There are over 20,000 of us in the University community. A little action from each of us adds up to a significant result. Please join us in our energy conservation efforts. Working together, we can make a difference!

important phrases to have at the ready

current location: in my apaaaartment, the home where i hide
currently listening to: where boys fear to tread- smashing pumpkins

a couple very serious, important phrases i've learned so far from a darija textbook i picked up to help me learn:

ahem. i'll type these out as best as possible with my american keyboard.

had l-kurat dyalu.
translation: these balls are his.

was l-bakit dyalkom kbir bezzaf?
translation: is your package very big?

tehe.

Eight weeks to go

current location: sort-of-not-really-morocco-actually-my-desk-at-work-in-the-states
currently listening to: "boxing" by ben folds

I didn't realize it was possible to feel two completely different ways at once, but Peace Corps has shown me the light. I'm totally devastated to leave my life here, but at the same time crazy excited to get started in Morocco. It's weird.

Last night my boss and I went to visit a co-worker who's been on maternity leave, and seeing her baby son just made me think of all the stuff I'm going to miss when I'm gone. That kid will be two and a half when I get back! He won't even know I ever met him, or that he kept crying if I even made a motion like I was going to touch him. In retrospect I guess we didn't have that much of a bond...

Anyway the point is, I know I'm going to be moving on a lot/metamorphosizing while I'm in Morocco, but it irks me that everyone else I know here will be doing the same thing. It's terribly selfish, but I want everyone to stay the same, frozen in time and space. Oh well. As a wise muppet once said, "wokka wokka wokka."

lies!

Current location: Washington, DC
Currently watching: The Bachelorette (not my choice)

I'm not actually in Morocco yet, but I thought I'd set up my blog now. I leave in early September for Peace Corps Morocco, and am getting really excited! Current activities include trying to learn Arabic and buying loose, flowy clothes.

Today was lovely, helped some friends apartment-hunt, ate delicious foods and then when I got home Ferris Bueller as on tv. Best day ever?