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