Oh hey..no I haven't been avoiding you! I just...you know. SO BUSY!

So I didn't die. I'm very much alive, and have been meaning to blog, but didn't really know what to talk about.

To put it simply, I left Peace Corps in late November and have since moved back to Washington. Leaving was not an easy choice, in fact it kind of ripped me apart. It was, however, what needed to be done. The situation I was in wasn't safe or healthy any more, and even on my most Morocco-sick days I can see that I'm still happier here than I was at the bitter end of my Peace Corps career.

Adjusting to life in the states has been a joy. I freaked out the first time I entered a Sephora and couldn't remember what I needed to buy, and just sort of stood in the middle of the store panicking. I've let the occasional "maskina/inchallah/hamdullah/bsa7a" slip here and there (it just feels so RIGHT) and I've had a few random crying spells. Sitting in an office all day is rough. I can't drink the way my friends do. I think I will always have digestion problems now. No one makes bread the way my host mom does, and NO one makes couscous. Much like Buster, I seem to find both crowds AND large, open spaces overwhelming. On top of everything, I miss my family and friends so much I often lose my train of thought. All in all, transitioning back to America is more difficult than entering Morocco was. Granted, this is a problem I was expecting to encounter.

One aspect of life in Washington that hasn't disappointed has been having my boyfriend back. We can go wherever we want together! In public! Of course, the places we usually end up at are more in the "Blockbuster going-out-of-business sale" category than anything else, but I can't complain. It's what we do. One day we DID go to a fancy restaurant and ate churros for dessert. That was a good day.

Drinking is an ongoing struggle. My tolerance is getting better, little by little, but sometimes I think I don't really want it to. All my light-weight stories are just too entertaining. Here are a few snippets:

I went to this little restaurant around the corner to eat dinner and read for a bit and, on a whim, ordered one glass of red wine. By the time I had finished my glass I was noticeably wobbly. I stumbled home and babbled at my roommate for a few minutes ("OH MY GOD. SWEET POTATOES ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE NORMAL KIND. THE NORMAL KIND SHOULDN'T EVEN EXIST.RIGHT?! RIGHT?!")until he found an out. Alone in the kitchen, I decided I should make my lunch for the next day. I took my time fixing lunch then went upstairs, called Andy and sounded crazy and passed out. The next morning, I discovered the lunch I had put together---a very tiny peanut butter sandwich and one clementine orange. Why did that take 15 minutes to prepare? I don't know.

Last night I was out with some girl friends. After a two drinks I could tell I needed to slow down. We were going into a bar when the bouncer told us there was a $3 cover charge. I FREAKED out about it, left my friends and took a cab home. Except I didn't go home. I called my boyfriend and said "ARE YOU AWAKE?!I'MF COMING OVER. OKAY BYE." I arrived, stripped down to my underwear and promptly fell asleep. (booty call fail).

The problem is I'm still really messed up emotionally, and you never can tell when drinking will lead to a cute story or a freak out.

At the risk of sounding like a total hot mess, I'll move on to non-alcohol related topics.

Surprising things about America:

I forgot your shit can get stolen just as easily here as in Morocco. Last week my bag was stolen from my desk at work. Considering the past 12 months or so, this was not that big of a deal. But getting new keys, ordering new credit cards and a new phone and losing some irreplaceable memories kind of sucked.

Justin Bieber is actually a big deal. (I was hoping it was just one of those weird trends that had picked up internationally)

WMATA (http://www.wmata.com/) is almost totally useless. My bus is late so often that I miss it if it shows up on time, and Metro has been using every three-day weekend as an excuse to do major construction on one or more metro lines.

You have to like, go to a doctor for prescription meds. I don't understand why I can't just text the pharmacist what I need and have her send it to my house, free of charge.

That's enough posting for now, considering I didn't even stretch first and it's been like three months. To everyone that is still making it work in Morocco, thala fraskum, twa7echtkum bezzaf o nchoufkum inchallah.

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.