You will let me know when the lambs stop screaming, won't you?

A photo post. Mabrouk L'Eid!


Youngest host brother with the sheep.


The family


Some tasty innards, waiting to be cooked


Relaxing with tea

You probably work in development if:

After seeing a used condom discarded in the street, your reaction is to think "good for them!"

Slow children crossing

I swore in as a Volunteer one year ago. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of the day I arrived in my site.

After a full calendar year, there's still a crazed young child that runs after me in the street yelling "HAWAII! HAWAII!"

It took me a few months, but I finally deduced that he thinks "Hawaii," a popular brand of orange soda here, is the same thing as "how are you."

Something clever that I didn't write:

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him,

"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

"She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be an Obama Democrat."

"I am,"replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."

I'm kind of an idiot.

Andy: oh my god are you ready
for how excited i am right now
you aren't
is the answer
because I am about to watch the first episode of this new show
me: what show?!
Andy: it's called
The Walking Dead
me: is it about zombies??
Andy: YES
me: wait
like fiction?

A Big Thank You to Matt and Tanie

Yeah, it was the batteries.

You need muscles.

Hi.

There aren't many people who speak English in my town. Most of the people that say they "speak English" actually know a few key phrases like "you're crazy!" and "I eat couscous." It's like how you can convince someone you speak a Berber dialect if you know how to say "bread" and "tea." The point is, it's always very surprising when someone I've never met throws out a new string of English words that make sense in the given context.

FOR EXAMPLE.

I've been troubleshooting, sort of, what's wrong with my water heater over the past few weeks. It stopped producing hot water this summer, but I was hardly bothered by it then. Who takes hot showers in June? Lately, of course, it's been a bit of an issue.

Not wanting to admit that there might be something wrong with the actual water heater, I decided there was a problem with my buta. Buta, for those of you who are not aware, is what we call our huge butane gas tanks that power our water heaters, stoves, and ovens if we have them.

Butas are very heavy. I had an inkling that mine might be empty, but the tank itself is so goddamn heavy I can't tell if it's got anything in it or not. Last week a friend was visiting and he confirmed that it was, indeed, empty.

I sat on this information for a couple days, but tonight I was feelin' sassy. I decided to deal with this buta once and for all. After eating cookies and watching a terrible Mexican soap opera with my host aunt, of course... and after stopping by my landlord to borrow a wrench, making sure I dropped some hints that I'd be carrying my buta tank down to the shop to have it filled and trying to look as weak as possible so that maybe he'd just do it for me. No dice.

Once I got the empty buta into a comfortable position, I found it was sort of easy to waddle down the hill from my front door to the shop. The fact that I live on a hill becomes important later (foreshadowing!).

The shop assistant filled up my buta very quickly and then just kind of looked at it and at me, as if to say "I can't wait to see how this is going to go." I smiled down at my buta as if it were a loyal pet or something and nudged it. Except it didn't move. This was supposed to be the shop assistant's cue to offer to carry it to my house, but once again, no dice. So I asked to borrow his buta cart and started trying to roll it up the hill to my house.

Some tips for dragging a full butane gas tank up a gravelly hill:

1. carbo-load.
2. don't wear ballet flats. Serious work requires serious footwear.
3. get someone else to do it. The common term for this in Peace Corps Morocco is to "small boy" it, referring to the Moroccan tradition of making a little kid run your errands for you, but I think that regarding buta, you might need to "large boy" it.

After about five minutes of huffing and puffing and dragging my buta uphill, I looked up to see that I'd moved about three feet, and sort of more sideways than up. At this point I also noticed a group of teenage boys staring at me. I may have disobeyed tips 1 and 2, but it wasn't too late for 3:

Alli: Yimkin y3awni? (Could you help me?)
Boy: You need muscles! (<--note the English here)
Alli: Haha, yep.
--awkward smiles all around--
Alli: ...Iwa...y3awni? (So...help me?)

The boy very nicely (and effortlessly) dragged my buta up to the alleyway where my house is, allowing my poor little arms to recuperate for the last hurrah--getting the buta off the cart and into my house. He said nothing else in English, leading me to believe that the one phrase he's picked up in life is "you need muscles!"

At this point I'd like to point out that my water heater still doesn't work.

15 Books in 15 Minutes

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books/authors (poets included) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

Harriet the Spy - Louise Fitzhugh

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck

Atonement - Ian McEwan

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

Winnie-the-Pooh/ The House at Pooh Corner - A.A. Milne

Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll

Skinny Legs and All - Tom Robbins

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

The Thornbirds - Colleen McCulloch

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

Calvin and Hobbes (comic books count, I decided) - Bill Watterson

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

The Lorax - Dr. Seuss

Step 1: Apply Paint Thinner Directly to Skin.

The word for paint thinner in Darija is "doulio." It's one of those words that I have no reason to know, but there it is. Here's a dialogue, translated to English for your reading pleasure:

THE SCENE:
Khadija's house. Mexican soap opera dubbed in Darija on the tv. Khadija and I lounge on the floor as she draws henna flowers all over my hands.

Me: So this isn't the first time I've done henna, but my hands feel like fire and my skin's turning red. So good or no good?

Khadija: It's no problem. It's probably because you're so insanely white.

--time passes--

Me: Yeah, maybe it's because I'm white. It's very...I don't know. It feels very much like fire.

Khadija: Well, I mixed the henna with paint thinner. Sorry I forgot to tell you.

Me: Sorry, paint thinner?

Khadija: Yeah. No problem?

Me: I guess?

We Teach English Good.

Note: I didn't write "Alli-Pants" on my own Manual. My dearest Jolie prepared my book for me.

So last week I was in a small town facilitating a series of sessions on English teaching to some new Trainees. Having no degree in teaching, I was clearly the best person for the job.

The week was long, exhausting, at times frustrating, but in the end I think it was really good for me. I needed a break from my life, and I stayed away just long enough to start missing it again.

Some things that happened:
So I stayed with a different host family every night. There were two single girls, one single boy and one married couple in the training group, and I stayed with each family once (except the single boy) and with the language teacher the remainder of the week. Each family had a different way of making me feel welcome. In one house, the host father taught me magic card tricks. In another, a host sister sat with me and showed me her homework. The most surprising demonstration, however, occurred on Tuesday night.

Usually when visiting a new town you want to locate the hemmam, or public bath. Drawing hot water for a bath can be an awkward favor to ask of your host, so if it's possible to just go to the hemmam, that's the option I want to pick. Unfortunately, the tiny town I was sent to DID NOT HAVE A HEMMAM. I know. I was thrown, too.

So Tuesday night rolls around and I'm a little smelly. The host family I am visiting seems really open and cool, so I decide to ask if I can take a bath there. My first warning signal should have been how ready and rarin' the host mother was to set up my bath.

About twenty minutes after I asked to bathe, the host mother came into the living room to tell me "it was time." She very nicely led me upstairs to the bathroom, then into the bathroom. Then waited patiently as I set down my things.

Oh, God. I realized. She's not leaving, is she?

No, self. No she isn't. I, an able-bodied adult who has taken the reins concerning my personal hygience since I was a child, was destined to be bathed by a strange woman.

I realize that this is far from the first time this has happened to me in Morocco. However, it's the first time it's happened to me outside of a hemmam. In the hemmam, you at least kind of see it coming.

The funny thing is, once she started scrubbing my back I was totally okay with it.

So another thing that happened was I got to feel smart for a whole week. Translating stuff for Trainees and their host families. Finding that someone actually values my opinion and wants to hear about my experiences in the field. It was nice.

I could go on to tell you oodles of anecdotes, but I'm going to just skip to, what I feel, is the defining moment of the week.

By day four, my body had completely started to reject the host family diet of a huge breakfast, followed by a coffee break, followed by a huge lunch, followed by a coffee break, followed by a huge afternoon snack of differing oily breads, followed by a huge dinner. Considering my body has grown accustomed to my usual lazy diet of hard-boiled eggs, I can't really blame it.

I do wish my body had been a little more forgiving when scheduling it's mutiny, because as it turned out, I was booting into a squat toilet at the exact same time that the Youth Development Program Manager and Assistant were waxing motivational to my group of stressed-out, fatigued Trainees. Let me tell you, the house we were in had to have been built with the idea of maximizing echo capability in mind. I did everything in my power to control how loudly my melodious wretchings wafted through the house, but I still think it was fairly obvious what was going on. I only hope no one saw the juxtaposition of my being violently ill against Peace Corps Staff's attempt to invigorate and inspire as foreboding.

!!!

Once upon a time, not too long ago, a @#%%& like myself had to strong-arm a ho.

Based on zero scientific inquiry or conversation with my fellow stagemates, I feel confident saying that, for most of us, the second year is getting off to a much smoother start than the first.

Things are just EASIER all of a sudden. I have a better idea of who I can rely on in my community, what kind of projects my kids want to do, what will work, what's not worth the effort, etc. I even have cool new kids coming to Dar Chabab. I didn't expect to get many new recruits in my second year, but there are three in particular that I'm already quite fond of.

There is so much stuff that I'm more comfortable with, too. Last year, if I had too much downtime I started freaking out that I wasn't serving my community well enough or something, that I was being lazy.

Five seasons of West Wing later, I think it's safe to assume I got over that.

If a kid is giving me lip, I'm not worried that if I'm strict with him he won't come back to Dar Chabab. THEY ALL COME BACK. And if they don't (THEY DO) then chances are there wasn't much you could do for them anyway. I know now to invest my time in kids that want my help.

I'm also taking a lot less shit from people this year. Examples of how none of my problems are a bitch:

-A counterpart tried to insert himself into Dar Chabab activities, re-working the schedule I so carefully crafted based on student needs, and I shut him down in a meeting in front of his peers. I should also note that he made these suggestions after coming an hour late to a meeting he set up, wearing the dumbest, most ridiculously over-sized wristwatch I've ever seen. This is awkward because my role as a Volunteer here shouldn't be taking control over everything, but when someone is demanding to have large blocks of time alloted to them for doing activities that kids aren't really that interested in (and acting like a douchebag while doing it), you see where I feel the need to step in.

-Some punk made kissy noises at me in the street and I confronted him about right then and there. I'm not sure if it actually did any good, but I certainly felt a lot better about myself.

I'm sure I'm headed for disaster soon, but for right now I'm glad to be here. How are you?

Fun with Comprehension

You may not believe this, but there were dark times in my past when I didn't know everything.

For example, as a Peace Corps Trainee I had this wild idea that one day I would be able to understand Moroccan people when they spoke to me and all my communication troubles would be over.

As it turns out, learning to comprehend words is only the first hurdle. I've got a much better grasp on Darija than I did in the early weeks and months, and I've noticed that instead of making me stress-free about communication, it's just made room for me to focus on new problems.

1. Did he really just ask me that?

On a few recent occasions, I've completely understood an individual, but was so thrown off by what he was saying I assumed I hadn't heard him correctly. Let's go to the very scientific transcript:

Boumar: Chal 3andek b kilu? (How many kilograms do you weigh?)
Alli: ...chnou? (What?)
Boumar: B kilu. Chal 3andek daba? (In kilograms. How much are you now?)
At this point I started imploding.

2. Wait...that's not Arabic is it.

Sometimes a student will be talking to me in Darija, then swiftly change the subject and throw in an English word or two. It's pretty embarrassing when you don't realize you are being spoken to in your native tongue. To the transcript!

Oussama: ...Iyeh, 3andi qraiya fe l3chiya welakin ghanji ghadda. (Yeah, I have school in the afternoon but I'll come tomorrow).
Alli: Wakha makayn mochkil. (Okay, no problem.)
Oussama: Alli! Chnahiya annieareyouokay? (Alli! What's "Annie, are you okay?")
Alli: Ach gilti liya? (What'd you say?)
Oussama: Michael Jackson! Annie, are you okay? What is it?
And then I launched into an awkward explanation of the storyline for Smooth Criminal.

3. Details schmetails

Darija is all about inferences. Even when you have a strong command of the language, it can be difficult to follow a train of thought because Moroccans can go for minutes on end talking about someone or a group of people without ever directly calling them by name. This happened last week:

Oussama: Jau lekhrayn? (Did the others come?)
Alli: Chkoun lekhrayn? (Who are the others?)
Oussama: Smithum. (What's-their-names.)
Alli: [bewildered stare.]
Oussama: Huma! (Them!)
Alli: [whimpering]
Oussama: HUMA li jau hanaya simana li daz m3a babahum. Jedad. (THE ONES that came here last week with their dad. They're new.)
And twenty minutes later we arrive at the same page. And yes, they did come.

Things I Wish I Didn't Do Semi-Regularly

I fell in a creek on my way to work again.

Twelve months later

I think after doing anything for a year it makes sense to review and evaluate one's work, health, and general position. Most business owners would agree.

Let's start with the fun ones.

Mental health!
Apart from some odd habits formed as a result of spending so much time alone, I'm in a pretty good place right now. For example, I've gotten increasingly OCD in terms of having to do everything in a specific order. However, this weird tic also helps keep me busy, and as I've mentioned in earlier posts, being busy is very good for my mental state.

This month has been a good one in terms of motivation to do...well anything, really. For Pete's sake, I went running this morning. I just feel more stable in general. Things that might, in darker times, make me melt down, are no big deal lately. Example: I was in Fes the past two days meeting new Trainees and my cell phone AND iPod went completely dead. And I finished the book I was reading. And my program manager accidentally walked away with my pen. I didn't have chargers for either electronic device, nor did I have a replacement book or pen. This means that after an exhausting 48 hours of re-living "informative" sessions on bicycle safety, the (unofficial and heavily Berber-biased) history of Morocco, and cultural differences I had to take a three-hour train ride with no entertainment and no means of communication should I run into trouble. March/April/May me might have freaked out about this, but September me stared out the train window and fell in and out of consciousness, and everything was fine.

Physical health: I have a fancy new flu shot, I was weighed and blood pressured recently (both are fine) and, like I said before, I am feeling motivated to exercise. All these things make me feel a lot better about the sugar-based diet I seem to be on.

Work: It's too early to tell if any of my efforts are making a difference, but things are going okay. A running club I tried to get off the ground in March (note to self: it rains a lot in March and also you are really busy) has resurrected itself. Right now we are a small band of adventurers---just the host cousin and me, actually--but we run laps on the track every Tuesday and Sunday morning that we are both in town. After that we do some other exercises (today I taught her how to do a sun salutation), talk about who is more out of shape, then go home. Except today we ate breakfast together...which consisted of a candy bar, a pastry, sugary mint tea, bread and cheese. I know. We are working on it.

Another project I want to give a whirl is a club for English speakers. I'm working on the name...probably something like Anglophonia. My vision is to have bimonthly meetings with presentations on either different social issues or different Anglophone cultures. The problem here is that the vision is solely mine and I can see the whole project turning into a lot of work for me with hardly any skills transferred to Moroccan counterparts. It sounds bad, but a really important part of my job is finding other people who can do it for me.

Of course, there will also be day-to-day activities at the Dar Chabab. I'm still tweaking the schedule but it looks like there's going to be a lot of English tutoring this school year.

Social life: Before accurately evaluating this, I need to note that after a year living in Morocco my definition of normal is not yours. For example, saying that I get to see my closest friends every few months probably sounds pretty depressing to most readers. Saying that the bulk of my verbal interaction takes place in a language I'd never heard of 15 months ago might sound pretty stressful. Saying that I spend almost every Saturday night cooped up in my house watching The West Wing might sound pretty tragic. However! This stuff is all fine. I get a little lonely and I'm definitely not fluent in Darija, but I'm lucky to have internet and people in my town are pretty accustomed to my accent now. Plus, the relationship with the host family has never been better. I was at an engagement party for one of my host cousins last week and my host aunt spent five minutes explaining to one of the party-goers how I have two sets of parents now, her house is my house, I'm Moroccan, every time I open my mouth an angel gets its wings, blah blah blah. Truth be told this is all pretty standard coming from a Moroccan woman, but it's still nice to hear.

Regarding Andy: long distance relationships still suck, but it's bearable and I get to go home for a little bit in December.

Because, at the core of my being, I am a complainer, I need to come up with something negative to say. I'm currently COVERRRRRED in mosquito bites. I'd say about 50% of the last half hour (or 25% of the last hour) was spent scratching some part of my body. Let's go to the pie chart:



I'm just going to let Science do the talking on that one.

The Pros and Con of having epic playlists

Pro: Congratulations, you have an epic playlist.

Pro: It has "Hashpipe" on it.

Pro: You no longer have to skip through a ton of crap you don't want to listen to on long car rides.

Pro: Other people are probably really jealous of your epic playlist.

Pro: After a really long day of running around Rabat you can get to your taxi stand, plop down in a seat and, while waiting for the cab to fill up, listen to "Don't Worry, Baby" and tune out everything around you.

CON: YOU TRY LISTENING TO GAGA'S "ALEJANDRO" WHILE SITTING STILL IN A CLOWN CAR FULL OF MOROCCANS.

early morning anecdote

I'm treated like a child fairly often in Morocco.

Sometimes it's awkward, like when my landlord musses up my hair and claps me on the back so hard I stumble forward a few paces.

Sometimes it's humiliating, like that time I went to the hammam and was bathed by a naked stranger, then ordered to sit obediently in my underwear next to my host brother until our mom came.

And sometimes, some glorious times, it really works in my favor.

Yesterday morning I had to go to Rabat. Usually, getting to Rabat from where I live is almost comically easy. Grand taxis go straight there and back ALLLL day long.

Unfortunately, you can't depend on anything in this crazy world. According to a society of Cartographers for Social Equality, you can't even depend on latitude and longitude! Likewise, I arrived at the taxi stand yesterday morning to find at least 50 stranded hopefuls with no car in sight. Sucks to be us!

Actually, it sucks to be them, because when I walked up to the guy in charge of things to ask if he had any idea when a taxi might show up, he ordered me to sit next to him on the curb so that when the taxi DID come he could grab me and run to ensure I got a seat.

And that is exactly what we did.

Hey Summer--make like a tree and get outta here

It's obvious when looking at a calendar that I've been here a year. The simplest reasoning skills will lead you to this conclusion. I arrived in Casablanca on the morning of September 10, 2009 (it says it right here in my planner) and, a year later, I'm here in Morocco (my planner doesn't actually say this. It says that I need to buy more milk).

This is all pretty straightforward, but what REAAALLLLLYYYY made me see that I've been here a year was when I needed to put on a jacket in my house this morning. Yep, the very same house where, just a few months ago, a No Pants Policy was in effect. I've come full circle here, and now it's time for another go around.

I've so far spent about 1/24 of my life here, and by the time I leave it will be about 2/24, or 1/12. I know. I love reducing fractions, too. I'll spare you a long post about What It Means To Be In Peace Corps For A Year because I'm sure someone else will do that. Instead, I present you with a year in pictures:


Here's my CBT group last September, showing off the map we drew (Tanie drew) of our CBT site.


This was from L'Eid 2009. Me, Tanie, and her host cousin (?) getting henna'd


My friend Juan and me, moments before we swore in as PCVs last November.


From a day of SIDA activities, December 2009


Moving into my own house!


Donniell and me gearing up for my first trip to Fes


My town, and my friends, in the springtime


That one time I had a dog


Origami-ing with American kids at the American Club in Rabat


IST


My host cousin, Fuziya, getting married


Summer camp! (I'm the mime)

It's been a year. And now for something completely different.

A final word going out to Terry Jones: Jam3 rasek. Seriously, fuck you. I'm so sick of your shit and you are potentially endangering countless Americans abroad. The military aside, there are over 200 Peace Corps Volunteers currently serving in Morocco with 68 new Trainees arriving next week. And that's just one of the Muslim countries that welcomes Peace Corps. You and your hate can go to hell. Peace Corps had to evacuate Morocco in 2003 because the U.S. invaded Iraq and if my service comes to a similarly abrupt end because you're a dick, I'm going to do everything I can to educate the rest of our God forsaken country on why Islam is NOT out to get them.

I'd also like to mention that a few moments ago, one of my Muslim gendarmes stopped by my house to make sure I was aware of your shenanigans and make sure I was okay. This afternoon a dear Muslim friend now living in America called me to check in and wish me a happy L'3id. My Muslim host family only let me go home tonight on the condition that I come to their house as soon as I wake up tomorrow to eat breakfast with them. If these are really the people you want to protect your country from, I'm speechless.

For New Arrivals

My friend and fellow Stage-mate Ben posted some (I think) useful information for the incoming YD and Small Business Volunteers. Check it out at http://peacecorpsben.blogspot.com/

I would add that "Stuff You Should Know" and "Coverville" are awesome podcasts. Time well spent (Killed? Wasted?)!

Bear with me here for about eight minutes

Barring images from Life magazine, this is both the saddest and most beautiful thing I have ever seen and probably ever will see:



Next time you think you are having a bad day, take solace in the fact that you are not a woman trapped in the body of a swan, in love with a prince who in Act III is going to cheat on you with your evil doppleganger and drive you to suicide.

And then I say something!

I'm a complainer. I whine, I bitch, I moan. It's more a cry for attention than a sign of actual discomfort. What can I say? I'm the baby of the family.

I've got a lot going for me these days, though. I present to you, once again in lazy bullet-point form, things I like:

~I'll start with something that is usually a complaint. People won't leave me alone. There's always someone knocking on my door, random people stop me and want to know why I haven't been to visit them yet, my three-year-old host brother cries every time I leave his house and two men I barely know have proposed marriage. Yes, this is all very exhausting, especially for someone who needs like 23 hours of "me time" every day. But here is another way to look at it: My biggest problem in life right now is that I'm too loved.

~Marjane sells apple juice. Donniell, you're welcome.

~Mad Men is a part of my life again! I'm caught up through the second episode of season four and downloading episodes three and four as I type. Getting back into Mad Men is like riding a bike. I'm already way too emotionally involved and may have cried with Betty Draper when John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead (spoiler alert: JFK was assassinated in November 1963. Not sure if you heard about that.). Sure, my torrent downloader is telling me episode three will take 19 hours to download, but I'm optimistic. I'm pretty sure it's bluffing, and if not, let's be honest. I've got the time.

~I'm about as lucky as I can be in terms of what's waiting for me when I get home.

~My Dar Chabab kids have started stopping by my house, text messaging me and sending me facebook messages regarding when we are starting activities again. I've become such a recluse during Ramadan and it's exactly the push I need to start planning the 2010-11 school year.

~I just finished reading a book about methods of defeating your own clone, so I'm all set if that ever needs to happen.

~I've been in Morocco a year and don't (for the moment) want to shoot myself. Break out the bubbly!

Half-Assting

Half-assting is how I am referring to my version of Ramadan fasting. I'm doing my best, here, but of the 16 days of Ramadan that have gone by I have successfully fasted for six of them. The other ten days have been spent drinking water during the daylight hours and eating a piece of fruit or something when my stomach starts to hurt.

The problem is, when I go all out balls-to-the-wall and abstain from food and water whilst the sun is up, I also tend to abstain from friendliness, lucidity, consciousness, and general normalcy. It was easier to act like a human when I was at summer camp and fasting because I was surrounded by about 80 people doing the very same thing. Unfortunately, being in site is a different story. Sure, literally every adult in the town I live in is observing Ramadan. The difference here is I have no reason to be out and about all day commiserating with my fellow fasters.

What follows are reasons why I wimped out and now drink water and occasionally eat a little during the day:
1. It's hot.
2. Like, really fucking hot. According to my landlord it hit 46 Celsius the other day.
3. Ask my mother why it's important that I'm fed and watered regularly.
4. A couple days ago I was helping my host mother get food ready for break-fast and she asked me to take an empty butagaz tank to...vaguely somewhere in the corner of the kitchen where she pointed. Confused and loopy, I tried to put it on the shelf above the sink but was too weak to lift it over my head (granted, I probably couldn't lift an empty buta over my head in my prime). She looked at me like I was completely crazy...then I realized she wasn't motioning at the corner of the kitchen but at the front yard area, just outside the kitchen. That certainly makes more sense.
5. I can't be bothered to do anything. Granted, I'm not exactly swimming in work opportunities right now. But school is right around the corner and I could be preparing stuff, working out a new schedule, what have you. Right now, however, my starved brain can only focus on how last year, excluding a small number of really great kids, most people sort of shat all over my Dar Chabab schedule and did whatever they pleased. I think about this and then I take a nap.
6. In the eleven days I have been back in town after camp I've watched twenty movies and I think three episodes of Mad Men. That's twenty feature-length films. Including a two-part documentary of Bob Dylan which was mostly just footage of people booing him in England then cuts to Dylan, PRESENT DAY, talking about how weird he is (his words).
7. Just look at this blog post. It's rambling, I've come up with six other things so far, and I only used caps lock once. Further, two of the things just talk about it being hot out, and one of them refers you to my mother. THIS one is a cop-out meta-bullet point. The light of the Evenstar is fading. What?
8. My house is disgusting. There are scattered Arabic flashcards on my kitchen floor that a gust of wind blew off the table four days ago. Four. Days. Ago.
9. I've needed to buy milk for three days. The shop is thirty seconds from my house and, despite Ramadan, is open semi-regularly. Think about that.
10. I keep finding myself listening to Everclear. That's not really an indicator of Ramadan sucking the life out of me, but it's still kind of weird.

Ten is probably a good number. I will stop there and spare you the other weird shit I've been up to.

So the thing is, plenty of Volunteers slow for Ramadan (that's the opposite of fasting). Why am I making such a big screaming deal of this? Because in the weeks leading up to Ramadan I skipped around town twirling a rhythmic gymnastics ribbon announcing that I would be fasting for the whole month! No sweat! I am the best Peace Corps Volunteer ever!

Now I don't have the heart to tell everyone I'm not, so instead I'm lying about it. This is exactly the kind of behavior I despise.

In the interest of not leaving on a bitter note:



One last thing, today is my Pop's 80th birthday! My whole family is surprising him in Louisiana today. Keep on truckin,' Pop!

maybe it's not that funny...

but I sure as hell can't stop laughing at this!

Today's unpleasant stomach cramping is brought to you by the Holy Month of Ramadan

My goodness, it's been nearly a month! I feel terrible for luring my reader(s?) into a false sense of security by blogging semi-frequently, then BAM. I pulled that rug right out from under that reader(s?) feet, didn't I? And not in a cool way, like how magicians pull tablecloths really fast and none of the silverware or strategically placed wine glasses even quiver. Oh, no. I pulled that rug away the way a heartless school nurse rips a bandaid off a whiny kid. Residual pain? Yes, please.

By the way, it's okay that that last paragraph makes no sense because I'm fasting. I have an excuse to be crazy AND crabby for a whole month!

For the record, I have reasons for not blogging. I've been quite busy collecting memories to blog about. I traveled through some pretty great beach towns with some really good friends, then spent nine days working a summer camp. Here's some stuff that happened, presented to you in sloppy, half-ass bullet-point form:

*Moroccans can really suck sometimes, and yes, that is my personal opinion and not that of the Peace Corps or the United States government. My friends and I booked a nice bus to get from Point A to Point B, as opposed to the shitty souk buses that can involve all of the following: crazies, chickens, chicken shit, druggies, perverts, and B.O. The perks of this bus, in theory, include departing and arriving on schedule, air conditioning, and reserved seats.

Unfortunately, we live in Morocco. The bus left a bit late and the air conditioning left much to be desired, but these minor inconveniences paled in comparison to the Epic Battle of No Dibsies 2010. When we all boarded the bus, we found that random people were sitting in our seats. No big deal, we asked them to move because we had made reservations to sit together. One of the ladies said something about wanting to sit nearer the front and basically refused to move. This was annoying, but what really set me off was the pudgy bald man in my seat that refused to even RESPOND to me. He just totally tuned me out like I wasn't there. Fucking jackass. I ended up sitting next to a random lady who refused to speak to me in Arabic and insisted on using French, even though I pretty clearly couldn't understand or respond in kind.

I hadn't meant to allocate so much space to that bit because, overall, it was a pretty small blip in an otherwise rockin' few weeks. Awkward. Moving on.

*There is a great beach in Agadir and I got the worst sunburn of my entire life (think about that, parents). My body reacted so violently that I actually had a fever and chills the night after I'd been sitting in the sun, then the next day I was limping because my legs hurt so bad. I'm kind of an idiot.

*Agadir has an English karaoke pub. Whaaaaaaat?! I think I drank 2.5 liters of beer, and my friends and I karaoked "One Way or Another" to a cosmopolitan audience who I don't think had ever heard the song before.

*David is a hilarious person. Two quotes I wrote down from him:
"The rules on Moroccan men wearing pink ladies sandals are pretty laissez-faire..."
"One kid I'm bringing to camp seems too young. He's really small...and he's retarded as shit."

*This turned out to be the month of saying ridiculous things that can only be followed by "that's what she said." I've compiled a list of things that were actually said, most of them unfortunately by me. I decided to just leave them out of context.

"I've been blowing mad d." -me
"You might want to beat it again." -me
"Gahhhh my body can't handle sausage." -me
"I don't know what to do with my hand!" -me
"I'm gonna see what time it's coming inside." -donniell
"I've got a biiiiig package waiting for me." -donniell
"The sun basically comes right in your face." -juan camilo
"Is it cold enough to get hard in site?" -donniell

*

*something about camp I can't express with a clip from Wet Hot American Summer: Ramadan hit right in the middle. It was really weird to be on a packed camp schedule from 8 am to 1 am everyday, then suddenly flip it inside out. Once Ramadan started we didn't start camp activities until 12 pm, ate breakfast at 7:30 pm and did activities well into the night. We started out with about half of the Americans fasting, but the shitty camp food mixed with the shitty hygienic conditions made everyone get sick pretty quickly and by day 3 of Ramadan hardly anyone was fasting anymore. I'm still trying to get back on track.

*Things you can do to take your mind off food:
-draw a series of angry animals to express your angst. How 'bout a Goddamn Gorilla? Or maybe a Caustic Chameleon is more your style.
-take naps, then wake up to find out that some punk-ass kid has accused you of not "really fasting" because you fell asleep in the middle of the day.
-go to the beach (this one isn't really funny)

*There was a kid at camp that everyone called Chocolate Rain for reasons you might be able to guess. I have no idea what his real name is. He won "Star of the Day" once and his certificate read "Chocolate Rain."

*Nice things about Ramadan:
-the guy driving my taxi from Rabat to my town drove me straight to my house after I mentioned I was fasting.
-the fruit seller gave me a crazy discount then told me I should stay in Morocco after my Peace Corps contract runs out because I was fasting.
-in general, people are really nice to you if you are fasting.

Annnnnnnnnd scene.

SUNSHINE DAY

This is a great title, because I'm in a good mood. Also it's really sunny outside and I think I lost ten pounds sweating today. Do you see how there are two meanings there? Because I could flesh it out a little more.

See, the word "sunshine" evokes a feeling of carefree bliss. But in the literal sense, "sunshine day" simply describes a hot, sunny day.

It also recalls memories of the Brady Kids singing "Sunshine Day" in colorful, fringed costumes. This was most likely both a happy and sweaty event for them. Do you see how many levels this title works on? It's really just ridiculous.

Now that we are all on the same page...

When I was really stressed out and overwhelmed this past spring, I longed for the lazy days of summer. I'd heard past volunteers talk about how much time they had to read, watch tv, spend time with their host families, cultivate hobbies. I thought to myself, "I WANT THAT. Where is this free time you speak of?"

Then summer came. You may remember I made a list of goals to accomplish for the summer. I realize I could just look back at that blog, but for the sake of drama I am going to tell you that I ALREADY FORGOT ALL THOSE GOALS. Except the one about Single Ladies, but honestly I don't even plan to carry that out. I've moved on. I'm obsessed with Ciara's video, "Ride" now.

More to the point. This summer has so far been an incredible rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows.

I'll pause momentarily while you let the poetry of that last sentence wash over you.

One day I am so happy to be in Morocco, the next I want to get the fuck out and pretend like this 10 month blip never happened. Sure, I have good and bad days no matter what the season, but something about summer has made everything feel more intense.

Then I realized it's all linked to my productivity level. I've always been a to-do list girl. Checking things off my list feels like ... well my mom reads this so I won't get too detailed here. Anyway, in the summer work really slows down and a week may go by where I don't really NEED to leave my house. Then out of the blue a fun opportunity pops up and I couldn't be more excited.

This is bad for me. I don't handle downtime very well at all. I am either running around like Sarah Goldfarb cleaning her apartment on uppers in Requiem for a Dream or utterly useless, pantsless, and directionless. Just look at this graph I drew up for the occasion:



As you can see, the more stuff I'm doing, the more of a happy maniac I am. Yesterday all I did was watch How I Met Your Mother and drink iced coffee. In other words I was depressed AND tweaked out at the same time. Today, I got up early, visited a bunch of families, and did my laundry and bam, I'm a happy camper again.

I think I'm becoming one of those people that can't stand to be alone with her thoughts. Am I that annoying?

Things I Care About This Week

Podcasts.

Recently I was trying to log into my iTunes account to buy music but couldn't remember my password. After a series of very unfortunate events I locked myself out of my account indefinitely. Because I don't have a ton of money I figured it was a blessing in disguise and left it that.

Then, a revelation. UNTIL YESTERDAY I DIDN'T HAVE THE MICHAEL JACKSON CLASSIC "PYT" IN MY ITUNES LIBRARY. If there was ever a reason to open a new iTunes account, this is it. I mean, that used to be the song I'd get drunk and request at dive bars. Whenever it played, Candice, Emma and I would totally freak out. After MJ died, there was a karaoke night dedicated to him. My sister and I went, and I was devastated to see that PYT was not an option.

Since buying PYT, I started dabbling in podcasts. Things You Missed in History Class? My AP History teacher doubled as the JV basketball coach and didn't realize that AP students were expected to take a special exam until halfway through the semester, so yes please. This American Life? Why yes, I did used to work at Lisner Auditorium.

Also, podcasts are F-R-E-E.

How I Met Your Mother.

I have to admit, I was not a fan after the pilot episode. Ted is a pretentious douchebag, Lily is a bad actress and self-consciously cute and small and Robin is a terrible person. But then I kept watching. And watching. And watching. And there was that episode where Marshall was obsessed with charts and graphs. I'M obsessed with charts and graphs! It all fits! Plus, NPH. Just the fact that NPH is connected to the show makes it worth watching.

Harcha.

Oh harcha. Harcha, for those who do not dwell in Morocco, is kind of like cornbread. Warm and crunchy with a slightly sweet taste. I can't get enough. I ate 5 dirham worth in one sitting yesterday. That's a lot, and no I'm not ashamed to admit it. The only downside to this is that now people in my town are figuring out how much I like it, meaning I will probably get gifts of harcha to the point where I can't stand the sight of it anymore.

Banana-coffee smoothies.

I'm obsessed with these smoothies, made in Rabat, that I sometimes consider takng a day trip jsut to indulge in one. Of course, I never ACTUALLY do that. I do make a point of having lunch at the smoothie place every time I'm in Rabat, however. I tried to make the smoothie at home and, while tasty, it just wasn't the same.

Jello Shots.

All I need is for someone to send me Jello from America. It's going to be awesome.

I'm American again

Hamdullah. After a muggy, cramped, hour-long cab ride in 101 degree heat I arrived in my province capitol to see what's what about my carte sejour.

Flashback: Before "Eastern Roadtrip 2010: That Time I Almost Died" I brought my typo-riddled carte sejour to the province police to get it fixed. The biggest problem was that it said I was a French citizen, but there were also a couple issues with the spelling on the Arabic half of it. Instead of saying "mutataw3a" which means volunteer under the occupation part, it said "muMtataw3a." Honestly, what the hell is a mumtataw3a?!

The guy that handles foreigners took my carte (and my 100 dh) and, all smiles, said he'd call me in a week with the fixed carte. It would take a week for processing. No big deal! I left his office feeling good about the transaction.

Flashforward: That was 15 days ago, and I now realize I never took down his phone numnber. I just gave him mine.

Since I'm not exactly drowning in work right now, I took it upon myself to go back out to the police station and check on progress. Turns out the guy left for vacation and either forgot to call me or figured it could wait til he got back. I'm actually not that annoyed, stuff like this happens all the time in every country when processing people's paperwork. The important thing is I have a NEW carte and it even says I'm American! I'm one passport away from being a whole person again.

Weird, wild stuff

I've been traveling a bit. My itinerary was something like this:



As you can probably imagine, lots of stuff happened and I took notes on the important things. Let's go to the scribble pad!

Fourth of July in my province capitol: awesome. Two volunteers live there, giving us ample space to prepare the feast and eat it, too. Lots of merry was made, bubbles were blown, pictures taken. We even made s'mores, because I am lucky enough to have an incredibly talented cook in my province who made graham crackers and marshmallows from scratch. I didn't even know you could make marshmallows, I thought there was a special Jiffy cloud in the sky and NASA had a top secret multi-billion dollar program that sent shuttles to and from. I guess the marshmallow recipe makes more sense.

I hung around the capitol on Monday morning with David because we both had some business to see to. I still have an issue with my carte sejour (I'm still not French) and he needed to open a post office box because the post office in his actual town is a small room that never seems to open. The man I talked to about my carte sejour was very nice, but I still had to pay 100 dirham to get it fixed. And I still don't have the fixed carte in my possession, so it may not be over yet.

After TCOB in the capitol, David and I procured transport to Fes, where we'd be reuniting briefly with our dear friend Pete. Fun points about Fes:

-I started having ridiculous hot flashes and was walking around the city dripping in sweat. I think this was related to the 102 fever I woke up with later that week, but at the time it was just gross and weird.

-Speaking of sweat, the hostel David and I stayed in was really humid and when we woke up in the morning the first thing he said was "your hair is either really sweaty or really oily. Either way....hot." Watch out, Andy, we have a charmer.

-Pete has a girlfriend in Fes. She's an American student doing research with Fulbright money. Our second night in Fes, we stayed at her house and OH MY GOD. It's right in the old medina, three stories, skylight, the works. Absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to take pictures of it but felt like it would be weird.

Moving on...I got a train out to Oujda on Wednesday morning and spent six hours sandwiched in between a group of lively Moroccans who had never met each other before, but all became fast friends on the train. I think they are planning to go into the Biz (that's show business) together. Some sort of family-style variety show, but with less singing and dancing and more tired, over-acted skits about marriage, weddings, disrespectful children, lazy husbands etc.

After that gem of a train ride, I was denied a bus ticket to Erika's town. I was two hours early! The man said it was completely full. I pleaded that I didn't mind standing the whole time but got completely shut down.

Plan B! Taxied to a closer town where one of the newbie Environment volunteers lives and basically invited myself to his house for the night, until I could make moves to Erika the next day. He was very welcoming, hamdullah.

Interesting plot twist: I woke up the next morning running a really high fever. OUT OF NOWHERE. I had been totally fine, and all of a sudden I can't move without searing pains shooting through my head. Great day for traveling, yek?

After chugging water and feasting on ibuprofen, I started on my way to Erika. I just kept thinking, "as soon as I get to Erika's house I can take my pants off and go to sleep." (More or less what actually happened). Hamdullah travel was much easier this time around. I would have had an issue in one random town midway between Joe (Environment volunteer) and Erika, but there was luckily a stressed-out man trying to get to the same place I was. I just followed him around until he solved both our problems by finagling a taxi going directly to Erika's town.

The next two days at Erika's were kind of uneventful. I was too sick to leave her house so I only really saw one block of her entire town. The only thing worth blogging about is this:

I was sprawled out in my underwear, fast asleep, when I heard banging on Erika's door. Half-conscious, I figured Erika would handle it, but then I realized that the shouts accompanying the banging were coming FROM Erika. She locked herself out, I guess? With unexpected vigor I leapt up and ran to open the door. As I pulled it open I started thinking "you're not wearing pants you're not wearing pants you're not wearing pants" but it was too late to do anything about that. Erika--and her young (thank heaven, female) Moroccan friend were standing there, gazing at me in all my pantsless, slightly delirious glory.

I answered SOMEONE ELSE'S door without pants on. That's not even okay in America. It's even taboo to answer your own door without pants on. Just think of that time on the Simpsons when Homer answered the door wearing a grocery bag.

So anyway, the ensuing conversation with the Moroccan girl was just a barrel of awkward. I have a lot of trouble understanding people out East when I'm healthy, and in this situation I was totally sick. I came off pretty rude, but I mostly just wanted her to leave me alone (she kept suggesting things to make me better).

After a day and a half or so of being a really gracious houseguest at Erika's (ie, barely talking to her and sleeping the whole time) I started to rally and by the evening of the last day I was there we were back to normal Erika/Alli shenanigans. We baked a cake, talked in weird accents, bitched about Morocco and binge-watched "Weeds." We got down to Melanie the next day, did more or less the same thing with her (insert cookies for cake and "Eastern Promises" for "Weeds") then got back up to Oujda.

Transport continues to be a bitch and we got, literally, the LAST three tickets out of Oujda on the sleeper train to Rabat.

Possibly the best part of the trip: we were killing time at a hotel cafe near the train station and they had a pool. After about an hour, Melanie and I couldn't stand it anymore and went swimming. I think the pool employee got in trouble for letting us swim since we weren't staying at the hotel, but I kind of don't care.

The train, once we figured out what compartment we were in (a seemingly simple task that came very close to being catastrophic) was really nice and AIR-CONDITIONED. We went to sleep almost immediately, but I have to admit I laid awake for a bit, wistfully imagining myself in the train with my sister. Having just screwed Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye out of their room, we decided to go down to the club car to keep them compnay and sing borderline creepy tunes about washing our hands, feet and hair with snow.

Not much interesting happened after that. We arrived in Rabat around 6:30 am, got breakfast, then parted ways. Melanie and Erika were traveling to summer camp and I was going home, finally. I got back to town just in time to watch some of my kids compete in a ping png tournament.

Well-played, ants.

Today, in an attempt to get rid of the ants that have infested my kitchen, I managed to spill copious amounts of honey in my sink and drip it all over my floor while cleaning it up. After that, I knocked over my little container of brown sugar.

Minstrels will write songs about this.

Americans are slaves to the clock.

Syke!

Today I had to go to my province capital to turn in some scholarship forms for the kids I am incha’allah bringing to summer camp. The Dar Chabab director had business in the capital, too, so we agreed to meet at 8 am at the taxi stand and travel together.

I got to the taxi stand a few minutes before 8 and told the driver where I was going, but that I was going to wait for someone. No big deal. In Morocco, traveling by taxi is a little different in that you cram six passengers into the car, and the driver won’t leave until all seats are either filled or paid for (ie, if I was obese and needed two seats I could buy two places in the car).

At 7:57 am (I know the exact time because it was later rubbed in my face…teaser!) The driver had collected four other passengers going to the same town. This meant the whole cab was waiting on the Dar Chabab director. I was totally fine, sitting on the curb reading my book, when all of a sudden the driver tells me to get in. He wants to pick up the director on the way (the Dar Chabab is on the road we would be taking. I barely have time to consent because the passengers are rushing into the cab and the driver is ushering me in along with them.

As we pull out, I see my boss and the driver flags him down. It takes him a full minute to realize why the hell some taxi driver is pulling up alongside him, telling him to get in. He gets in the cab all confused, then sees me and starts laughing about how it’s only 7:57! He still had three minutes! He wasn’t late! You Americans are so crazy about keeping on schedule!

He was talking so fast I couldn’t get in a word to explain that the driver, not me, was being the time nazi in this situation. Wamp wamp. The teasing didn’t stop when we arrived in town, either. We got to the ministry office around 9:15 and noone was there yet (because, honestly, who’s at work at 9:15 on a Monday morning?), which prompted my boss to say something like “it’s a good thing we left EXACTLY AT 7:57 this morning…”

By the way, the original plan to meet at 8 am was not even MY idea, but his. I’d have been just as happy to go at like 11. Or, hell, NOON. Ballsy, I know. But I’d do it. To prove a point.

Anyway I have to go it’s almost 6:00 and 6:00 is when I have my snack.

a few things

I think I've mentioned the summer camp I'm taking some kids to in August, yes?

Well.

I can take four, and this past week I've been getting them their paperwork so they can get parental permission, ID photos, birth certificates, etc. The plan is for them to get everything filled out and turned into me so I can bring their files to my Ministry of Youth and Sport (they are paying for the scholarship students) representative on Monday. It should be a pretty simple task, right? All four of them know where my house is, so all they need to do is gather their paperwork and drop it off with me by Sunday-ish. And if it takes longer, it's no big deal. Camp isn't until August and my representative lives about an hour away. Easy peas.

At least, that's how I saw the situation. Apparently one kid sees things quite differently. The following is a text message I received at 6:52 am on Monday:

FIN NTI DABA ALLIIIIIII

In English, this translates to "WHERE ARE YOU NOW ALLIIIIIII" and no, I'm not exaggerating on the number of i's there. I counted. Seven.

When I crabbily responded I was at my house, he wrote back, totally normal, that he'd be by at ten to drop off his folder with me. When he showed up at 9:57 I asked him what his deal was and he said someone had told him (very mean-spiritedly) that I left to travel and he wouldn't get to go to camp now because I wasn't around to turn in his forms.

All I can say is this camp better be out-of-this-world fun for the amount of stress it's causing this poor kid.

Next order of business. I carried a watermelon! My boo Donniell already made a Dirty Dancing/watermelon reference in her blog (we like our watermelon in Morocco) but I don't care. It's just too easy.

But yeah, I finally sucked it up and bought my own watermelon. I had recently had this conversation with another volunteer:

Erika: i watched lord of the rings today

me: i cleaned and reorganized my entire house

OMG

SHUT UP

Erika: and ate way too much watermelon

me: I DID TOO

lord of the rinfs (sic)

Erika: REAAAAAALY!

me: not watermelon

Erika: schwing!

me: i'm too lazy to carry watermelon to my house

Erika: i was at someone elses house

and i small-girled* some little bitches to carry it to their house

That bolded part there makes me feel like a big fat liar, because the VERY NEXT DAY I was shopping and the watermelon man offered me a free sample. After trying to just buy part of a watermelon (not happening) I asked him for the smallest one. Next thing I know, I am lugging 10.5 kilos of watermelon to my house. Worth the sweat and sore arm muscles? I think so...it's been two days and I've eaten 2/3 of it.

Another thing. I'm worried about myself, because Single Ladies is slowly taking hold of my brain. I watch it everyday and yet come no closer to learning the dance. I keep hoping if I just kind of stare at it I will absorb the choreography, similar to Professor Harold Hill's method for learning to play music, but with less swindling and capital T Trouble in River City.

Back to the point: Single Ladies is on my mind all the time. For example, when I saw this photograph the first thought that went through my mind was "that statue knows the dance better than I do."



(photo credit: my dazzling cousin, Janie Taylor. Google her, she's kind of a big deal in the ballet world--and should be a big deal in the photography world.)

In closing,


*to "small-girl" or "small-boy" something is to find a small child to do a task that you are too lazy to do. It's a common practice in Morocco...just yesterday I was celebrating the USA win over Algeria and small-boyed a kid to bring an extra glass for tea.

i don't really like grateful dead

and yet i have a ton of the dead in my itunes library. what's with that?

Anyway, today I realized that my best friend in town is the old man that guards the Dar Chabab. I see him 5 times a week and we almost always walk home from work together (he lives at the bottom of the hill, I live halfway up). His favorite thing to do is sit around and watch the world go by, preferably with a cigarette and a friend to talk with. For this reason, he has become invaluable to me. I don't have an Arabic tutor anymore (and honestly haven't even tried to find one), so I get a lot of practice just sitting around talking to the guard.

Sadly, today was the last day the Dar Chabab will be open until next school year starts. There's some camp going on there that I'm not involved in and the guard invited me to come by and sit with him during the long camp hours, but other than that I probably won't see him much.

Second order of business, there were like six students from Texas in town today. I heard they were coming a few days ago and was wildly excited, but when I actually met them this morning I was sort of disinterested. I think it had something to do with how they showed up for a meeting at the DC while I was cleaning my classroom with some of my kids. We were having a blast running around barefoot on the soapy wet floor and all of a sudden I had to go be social and shake hands with all these strangers. Some random guy I had never met started telling the Americans all about my work and how well I speak Arabic and it was just total bullshit. The bullshit level was made clear when the guy made me translate things for him and I didn't understand half of what he was saying. I'm working really hard here but I'm not perfect. Hell, I wasn't even wearing shoes during this whole transaction.

Soon after my translation fail I was able to escape back to the comfort of my classroom and resume having fun. The meeting I was missing out involved a bunch of cross-culture games between the American students and some hand-picked youth from my town. Of course it occurred to me I should be involved in that, but then I just kind of felt like my place was with the couple kids that showed up to help me clean out my classroom for summer. Plus it was way more fun.

One last thing, I am INSANELY fatigued lately. I don't know if it's the intense sun beamage or what, but yesterday, after sleeping 10 hours, I took a two hour nap and had two cups of coffee and was still a zombie. I'm a bit bit better today but I feel like something is off. In Darija you say "ana madiggadigga" which translates more or less to "I'm in pieces." I just really like saying "madiggadigga" and the sound of the word goes so well with how I feel.

snack time!

summertime goals

...because I'm more likely to work towards them if I post them publicly on the internet.

(currently enjoying jaydiohead)

Summer 2010 Goal 1!

I really want to learn the Single Ladies dance. I'm obsessed with the video. I watched it four times today. I don't get tired of it, and can't fathom a situation where I wouldn't rather be watching it.

That's a bold-faced lie, but still.

The problem is, everytime I watch it, I watch it with the intention of learning the dance. Then I stand up and try to follow along and immediately feel like a freaking idiot. My hips don't work like Beyonce's. I can't even do the first 8-count and look like a sane, attractive person, much less the part where she does that crazy thing with her vag and ends up on one knee. Who even thought that up?

Moreover, there are parts where Beyonce herself looks like a spaz. Granted, she can pull it off because she's awesome.

One last thing about Single Ladies...if these male ballet dancers in full costume for Don Quixote can do it, so can I. Right? RIGHT?



Not gonna lie, going on youtube to get the code for that video led to a sizeable amount of my time being spent watching Alex Wong of Miami City Ballet's other posted videos. I need a hobby, which brings me to:

Summer 2010 Goal 2!
Everyone here has cool hobbies. I want to know how to do stuff. Right now the only hobbies I indulge in are crossword puzzles and doodling my own wallpaper. LAME. I want to know how to knit, or something. Then again, if I'm going to take up a new hobby, it should be something radically new, right? RIGHT? Like...I should learn how to eat fire.

Summer 2010 Goal 3!
Give up caffeine. KIDDING. lmaozzzomg I had six cups of coffee today.

Summer 2010 Goal 4!
Wash clothes as often as possible. Washing clothes is super-fun now because I was recently enlightened. Don't use your hands, sillies. Use your feet! After soaking laundry in soapy water for an hour or so, break out the iPod, put on a sweet song and start stomping. It makes me feel like Lucy Ricardo and also brings back pleasant memories of my old job as an office manager.

What's that, you say?

In my last weeks on the job, I started cleaning out a storage room with files dating back to the Great Society. I ended up spending at least four hours a day (completely made-up estimate) shredding paper, then maximizing recycling bin space by jumping in the bin to pack down paper. Man I loved working there.

Summer 2010 Goal 5!
Get the hell out of my town more often. I have never been south of Azilal province, and that sickens me. I don't even have a good reason. I want to go out east this summer and then at some point see Marrakech FINALLY.

Summer 2010 Goal 6!
Survive Ramadan. I'm going to fast! Somewhere my mom is getting stressed out at the mere memory of what life was like for her when I hadn't eaten for like 90 minutes. Sure, my metabolism has settled down since high school, but I still tend to eat...healthy portions...so Ramadan is going to be a character-building experience, fo shiz.

I think 6 is good, yeah?

I'm SOMEBODY now!

So, this was roughly the reaction I expected to have when my Moroccan ID was delivered to me after waiting 7 months since applying.



You know, up until the sniper part. I imagined taking my little pink Carte Sejour in my hands and shrieking to the rooftops about how I'm legally allowed to be in this country now.

Instead, my Gendarme handed me the card then informed me there was a typo and my card says I am a French citizen.

Why do the gods of identification papers have it in for me?

On a different note, I had my fortune read against my will yesterday. I was standing around waiting for the storekeeper to come back from his afternoon prayer (I swear, it's like that man prays five times a day or something) when this crazy woman beckoned me inside her house. For a normal kid raised in America this would set off all kinds of alarm bells, but my first thought was literally "whatever, it's not like I've got something better to do."

I assume she is just going to do the customary tea and cookie thing, then harass me about getting married, but instead she whips out tarot cards and goes to town. If I understood her correctly, I have a brother, my father is very ill, I'm going to get married, then pass a driver's test, then move back to America.

Suck on that.

I'm going to provide you with another youtube clip in an attempt at some auto-therapy. That's a word I made up. It means I'm doin therapy to myself.



This, my friends, is one of the greatest movies of all time. I'm also weirdly obsessed with it. I can remember watching it when I was a little kid and my sister had her friends over and they graciously let me hang out with them. Before I left for Morocco, my sister and I made a point of getting wasted and watching it. Sure, I ended up booting all over her apartment then passing out then waking up in my own apartment hours later, but that's not Labyrinth's fault.

I'd love to tell you I can watch Labyrinth whenever the hell I want. I'd love to tell you that today I blew off work because I stayed up too late watching Labyrinth the night before, resulting in a Labyrinth hangover. I'd love to tell you that I was planning to quit my job here so I could take my One-Man-Show version of Labyrinth to stage and screen.

Oh how I'd love to tell you these things. Sadly it is just not in the cards for me (the crazy lady made no mention of Labyrinth...although maybe she did because I don't know how to say Labyrinth in Darija. I'd love to tell you I know how to say Labyrinth in Darija.) Nope. I can't do any of those things because someone I THOUGHT WAS A FRIEND, SOMEONE I THOUGHT I COULD TRUST, denied me access to Labyrinth. Why would anyone want to hurt me that badly?

Now for some "On the Home Front!" updates:
-Mumus are allowed in my house. They do not violate the no-pants policy. I am currently wearing mine and don't plan to take it off until I have to go outside again. Then I will come home, check my pants at the door, and reunite with the mumu.
-I have dark brown hair now. My hair was getting really light with all the sun exposure and I made an executive decision.
-I made delicious falafel today.

So it's wedding season

Listening to U2

This morning I woke up to a text message from a 50-year-old Moroccan midget asking for my hand in marriage. A text message. Asking for my hand. In marriage. From a 50-year-old Moroccan midget.

I had to read through it three times before I even understood what he was asking, because he had written it in Darija, phonetically spelled out using the English alphabet. Truth be told I don't understand the message word for word but the basic gist was "hi, how are you alli fine? so, important, marry me. think about it. okay sorry bye."

Um.... WHAT?

After I texted back my response ("no," in case you were curious) I got to thinking.

Fact: I am not smoking hot. I'm not saying I have one eye or a hook-hand or anything. I'm a normal-looking person. I can even look really pretty when I try hard enough. But honestly, most of the time I'm out and about in Morocco I look a few shades shittier than everyone else on the street. I'm perpetually in need of a shower, I always wear my glasses and my clothes are usually stained or torn somewhere (or both). The summer heat has helped my look immensely, because now I am wearing short-sleeve shirts more often and showing off my super-sexy watch tan.

So I'm not very attractive in Morocco. Why else could I be getting so much attention?

It can't be my personality. God knows why Andy sticks around because I spend most of my time talking to him about:
-why I hate Joss Stone, and on one occasion sending him links from google images that illustrate how heinous she is
-Admiral Ackbar
-how much it sucks wearing pants these days

The rest of the time I spend acting like a child at the Dar Chabab and getting into really emotionally-exhausting games of Speed and Egyptian War.

Seriously, the only thing attracting these men to me (when I say 'these men' I'm referring to my stalker, this-other-guy-in-my-town-that-does-nothing-but-hang-around-waiting-for-me-to-walk-by-so-he-can-hiss-at-me, a cab driver in Rabat and the midget) is the fact that I have an American passport (barely). And now I pose this question: what the hell do they expect to do in America? Buy a big house with a chicken in a pot and two cars in the garage? Magically speak English upon arrival at JFK? Sit back as all their wildest dreams come true?

I just...don't know.

i give you a flow chart

Way too much of my time over the last few weeks has been spent discussing what this chart might look like.

I ain't steppin outta shit all my papers legit

you'd think i'm listening to something really hardcore based on that GANGSTA RAP title (represent. i don't know what i'm talking about.) but to be honest it's a Neil Diamond kind of morning (early afternoon).

This is going to be a long one...I decided to type up scribblings from my 16 hour vacation in the Casablanca airport, then I have ALL SORTS of fun facts to share about my romp through Europe.

For those of you who have no patience for my writing style, I give you something that those of us in the Biz call a "teaser:" A CRIME WAS COMMITTED IN MADRID. Who dunnit? Was he (OR SHE) apprehended? Do I still have all my limbs? Where are my pants?

This section dates from 13/05/2010:

My flight leaves at 9:15 am tomorrow and I decided I was too stingy to pay for a hotel room. Who needs it? I'm a hard-core, burly PCV. I wear flannel and am best known as the spokesperson for Bounty paper towels. I sleep all night and I work all day.

Correction: I am a small white girl who has a pretty sweet set-up in Morocco (one of my main complaints is being "too loved") and as I curl up on the bench to write this I pull my hood over my head to look less friendly. Too bad my hoodie is white with bright green stripes, has big festive buttons and flairs out jauntily.

Note to self: start dressing like an adult.

What was I talking about? Well whatever. So I'm at the airport for another 7 hours or so until I can check in, then another two hours before I am airborne. You know, like a disease. Next stop: Barcelona.

So far, mixed feelings about this airport. I like how easy it was to get here (taxi to Rabat. Train to Casablanca. Only one transfer.) and it's a spectacular place for people watching.

However. I paid 40 Dh for a cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwich. And the sandwich was not served politely at all. I get so used to small town hospitality that when people in cities are rude it's really shocking.

General thoughts on the trip ahead: Very excited. It will be weird to not hear Darija everywhere, but I am in desperate need of a break from PCV life. I love my job but when I get burned out like this I can't do it properly.

-Time check: 4:51 am

I dozed about 2 hours, then the cafe re-opened. Whoop! Now sitting in cafe, blasting Jesus Christ Superstar in my headphones, fighting the urge to break free in song and sipping coffeeeeee.

7:20 am

Holy shit, I almost just crapped my pants. They almost didn't let me through security because I don't have a carte sejour yet, just the receipt for it. Like, seriously I think the only reason I was allowed to go was that the security guy felt bad for the little American who mysteriously speaks Darija. I had to buy a Moroccan crepe to make myself feel better.

Okay so that's all I got in my scribble pad. Now for a brief account of the trip.

Barcelona:

Andy was nauseated in the airport when he met me at the exit. How flattering. He liked his gifty though (A Raja jersey, one of the Moroccan club football teams). And he brought me some baller stuff, too. SOUR PATCH WATERMELONS. ONE OF MY CALVIN AND HOBBES BOOKS. TRAVEL-SIZED CONTACT SOLUTION (it ended up being the wrong thing and almost burned a gaping, smoky hole in my eye, but it's the thought that counts.) A BALLET DVD because all I do is whine about how I miss taking class.

Our apartment was awesome. Nuff said.

We got to watch a Barcelona game in Barcelona, which was pretty ridiculous. We went to this bar called Dow Jones, where the price of drinks rises and falls based on demand. For those of you who don't know me well, I find economics incredibly stressful and confusing beyond the most basic supply and demand graph, but I still had a lot of fun.

Berlin:

Um, hello beer towers and currywurst. I'm not really sure how I survived 23 years without you.

The proprietor of our apartment was kind of a dick...he was mad at us for being late, but it's not like it was any of our faults that the EasyJet crew was convinced there was a terrorist on our flight and our departure was delayed by like an hour.

Some fun bars...a few we went to were:
Flo- only stayed for like 5 minutes because it was pretty empty, but in my short time there a song that sampled "The Dance of the Knights" from the Prokofiev version of Romeo and Juliet, immediately followed by a Lou Reed song. Um, hi, welcome to my brain.

Studio 54- I imagine it wasn't much like the ACTUAL Studio 54, unless the ACTUAL Studio 54 was about the size of my house, had a backyard patio and a DJ playing fantastic mix of 90s and early 2000s rap. But whatever, I had a good time and got my awkward groove on.

This Other Bar- It was furnished with thrift store furniture and Pretentions British Actors Talking About Acting (PBATAAs). There was a functional door, but most people preferred to enter the bar through an open window.

Madrid

RIP wallet and passport. WOKKA WOKKA WOKKA. (This is the crime I referred to earlier. Less interesting than a story that involves he/she criminals who may or may not have been caught and situations involving the loss of body parts and pants, but let me assure you it was a traumatic experience.)

More interestingly, the Munich-Inter Milan game was really fun to watch and the city was totally nuts with Italians and Germans running around everywhere in Blue and Red, respectively.

Our hostel was a pretty big flop--the reservation was for a room with a double bed and shared bathroom and we ended up with a room, slightly smaller than the last place I lived in in DC (my room was a modified kitchen pantry with no lock), with two twin beds and access to a bathroom wayyyy down the hall.

There was also a bit of a club fail. Turns out I'm pretty lame. I finally got around to wearng my Cute Dress for Going Out but spent the majority of my time in it stuffing my face with a ham sandwich, hanging around waiting for other people to get ready, wandering around a Madrid neighborhood then going home after a few glasses of sangria with absolutely no desire to club it.

I experienced culture shock at a fancy restaurant. A mix of not having any money (remember my wallet was stolen), not understanding the menu, not being dressed accordingly, not having been in a nice restaurant for 9 months and getting stressed out by the high-tech hand dryer in the bathroom led to me kind of shutting down and staring at my plate most of dinner.

I had to wait until Monday (same day as my flight back to Morocco) to get my emergency passport because of the Embassy's hours. The American Embassy is not a fun place to be, by the way. The only person who was remotely friendly turned out to be an RPCV from Burkina Faso, go figure.

Okay so that's my vacation in a nutshell... I got home okay, have enough money to hold me over 'til I can get a new bank card and my paperwork for a new passport is coming together. It's good to be back.

new time, old time and packages

listening to "stand by me" by john lennon

Daylight Savings Time stresses me out. It stressed me out in America, where people heed it, and it stresses me out in Morocco, where people heed it if it suits them. Here I feel like going by "new time" or "old time" depends on how late you are. Or maybe it depends on which hour will be less convenient for me at any given moment.

For example, on Saturday I threw a party for the kids that participated in the Reading Race. It was set at 4:30. I showed up at 3:30 to make sure the venue was all arranged, and found that about five kids were there waiting to be let in. It seemed really weird because I was actually expecting everyone to start showing up around 4:45 or 5:00...but just figured it was some new aspect of Moroccan culture I don't understand.

I greeted everyone and remarked that they must be excited to have shown up an hour early, and they all gave me these "oh, you" looks then informed me they were going by "new time."

Great, no that's cool. Just hang out and be obnoxious for an hour while I try and set up THIS PARTY I WORKED SO HARD TO ORGANIZE FOR YOU. No you CAN'T HAVE A COOKIE YET.

Of course, Daylight Savings wasn't supposed to start until Sunday morning at midnight, but whatever.

The next day (when daylight savings actually went into effect) I woke up nervous. I had changed all my clocks before going to bed, but upon awakening I couldn't remember FOR SURE if I had changed them or not. It LOOKED like 8:00 am, but how could I be sure? The street was still quiet...then again it was Sunday.

When I showed up to Dar Chabab, things went about as I expected them to. One kid was there at 10:00 and the rest trickled in after 11, shocked I was using "new time." Their chess club leader never showed up at all, even though I had seen him the day before (his wife and I had tea) and asked him TO HIS FACE if he'd be there Sunday. I'm assuming the stress of changing all his clocks led to some sort of breakdown and he needed "me-time" (he-time?).

My question is this: if you are going to bother to implement Daylight Savings Time, and everyone seems to know it exists (everyone always asks if you are going by "new time" or "old time") then WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE JUST USE NEW TIME. Or do away with DST and always use old time. Whatever, I don't care. Just pick one and send me an SMS. I'll be at home, pantsless, watching episodes of Glee.

Haha...I just got a mental image of important people having a huge round table meeting and just going back and forth about "what are we going to do with this new-fangled time business?" "well I think it's trouble. it doesn't make sense." "actually it kind of does...Benjamin Franklin--" "--I DON'T KNOW WHO THAT IS." and so forth.

And now: Mondays just got better.

I've had a care package stuck in customs in Rabat for awhile, and I decided that since I have Monday off, I would go out there Monday morning and see what's what. Maybe crack some skulls, if needed.

I wasn't super-psyched to go to Rabat on Monday, because, to be honest, I wasn't sure I'd still be able to get in a ton of doing nothing with no pants* on in my house. However, I am a responsible adult and I said to myself I said "Hey you! Roll up those shirt sleeves, eat your nutritious breakfast (four bowls of Wheaties and 12 egg yolks) and ease on down the road!"

If I had time right now I would link you to a youtube video of Diana Ross and Michael Jackson singing "Ease on Down the Road," but I don't. I do urge you to research this on your own time because it's the stuff jive dreams are made of.

My goodness am I glad I did (go to Rabat...I'm also glad I youtubed "Ease on Down the Road", though). Sure I had to pay an obscene amount of money at customs, an amount that forced me to leave, go to the atm, and come back. But my mom sent me nail polish! And a really cute dress! And new jeans! And saline solution! And Earl Grey tea for those days where I feel too classy for my instant coffee (rare, but treasured, days are these). Plus, by some lucky twist of fate I didn't have to wait for a really long time and ended up being out the door, package in hand, by 11 am, conveniently in front of one of my favorite spots in Rabat. There is a big swanky hotel across from Parliament and it has an outdoor cafe perfect for sitting around, drinking over-priced coffee and not being bothered by anyone. Then you can pop over to the art supply store around the corner and drool over all kinds of cool markers and pens. This is my life.

I made a really delicious salad for lunch today. It came from my handy Peace Corps cookbook and I am going to post the recipe here:

You need:
4 T olive oil
3 med apples, cored and quartered
2 green peppers, seeded and diced
salt and pepper
2 T parsley
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 med onion, finely sliced
4 med tomatoes, quartered
juice of 1 lemon
2 T mint, finely chopped

Heat oil in large frying pan and add garlic, apples, onion and peppers. Fry until lightly browned. Add tomatoes and heat through. Season to taste with salt and pepper; then pour into serving bowl. Arrange neatly and leave cool. Sprinkle with lemon juice and fresh herbs; serve.

Um, party in my mouth.

*The No-Pants Policy is still in effect, but at the moment it is no longer mandatory. Reasons include:

1. I may have over-reacted because
2. it's actually not that hot out
3. I think I was just having trouble adapting.
4. It's like my first semester of college when Emma and I experienced "fall" for the first time and it reduced us to whiny, crying brats rolling around on her dorm bed wearing seventy layers of clothing.