Just wanted to write a quick note to say that Barcelona was amazing, the cruise back was great and San Juan was a nice stop on the way back to Iowa in December, :). Now I'm on to my next adventure, hopefully becoming a teacher, :). Working my way on to becoming an elementary ESL teacher in Nashville. I know I really should have updated this when I arrived home but it was such a crazy transitional time for me. I've been getting back into belly dance, horseback riding and hanging out with old friends while making new friends. Just working on finding my way along this path that we call life.

Ok...I arrived in Vienna around 3:30pm on Sunday via the best bus I've ever taken. It was like being on a plane, only without tha hassle of check throughs and my ears popping. There were leather seats, it was warm, I actually had to wear a seat belt, there were free warm beverages and even had movies to watch! The 5 hour ride went smoothly and quickly. It was a drizzly overcast day, so the view wasn't top-notch unfortunately. Found my hostel with the help of a very nice Austrian who spoke perfect English and settled in for the night. Finished uploading photos and then ran into 2 others at the hostel, an american and an aussie. Nice guys. Had an "Austrian" dinner of sausage dumplings. Was good but the proportions were huge! Should have went for the one ball...;). Then had a couple drinks in the really nice downstairs bar before an early night. I was exhausted!

Started around 10am on Monday due to the drizzly weather and travel fatigue. Walked all over. Basically did Vienna in a day. Started out at the Schonbrunn Palace. Loved it. There was a Christmas market out front playing Christmas music and beautiful gardens to explore. Spent 2 hours easy there. Then ran around trying to see everything else before it got dark at 5pm, a bit better than Prague in that area. Colder though! Returned to the hostel with Subway for dinner and met up with a few people before heading out to the Christmas markets with the Aussie. Was fun. You can get mulled wine as well as blueberry cider, apple cider, raspberry cider, and a few others. And for 2 euro you can even keep the mug! There are 11 markets in Vienna and each one has their own unique Christmas mug design.

Tuesday I woke up early to get everything out of my room and went to watch the Lippizaner horses do theire morning workout set to music. It was really nice. I really wanted to ride one of these amazing creatures. Watched the horses play for about an hour then went to the Belvedere Palace. It was ok. I much preferred the Shunbrunn Palace and even went back so I could take the tour of the inside. The rooms were amazing. After which I met up with my Austrian friend. I hadn't seen her in about 3 years, a long time. She drove me out of the city a little so I could see Vienna at night from the foot of the Alps. Was so cold! Had dinner of yummy pastries from an Austrian bakery before meeting up with a few people for a night exploring more wonderful Christmas markets. Overall a great night. Decided to keep my mug from the Nashmarkt. A beautiful blue cup wit Christmas symbols on it. Had the most delicious hot chocolate with Baileys, :). Went to a club for a little bit but none of us wanted to pay the cover.

Then I stayed up until 2am, took an hour nap, and then a taxi at 3am to the airport! Had an early flight at 6:30am and Vienna public transport to the airport stops at 11pm. Checked in with no problems and made my Barcelona flight just fine. Fell asleep before we even took off. I was so tired! Slept most of the flight, landed and got my bag just fine. The smoothest flight yet of this trip. Got on a metro and found my way to the apartments we rented these past 3 nights, all very easy.

Well, very tired now and lots to pack for the cruise tomorrow! I'll post a blog on my Barcelona adventures soon!

Oh, and I forgot to mention my French SIM card is no longer functional, learned this while in Paris when I bought t recharge and tried charging it. I could turn on the phone but the card was no longer able to connect to a signal. And of course the recharge was non refundable…but I must have looked very sad because the guy made an exception for me, :). My time in Prague was much too short. Arrived a day late due to flight changes so I only had 3 days instead of 4 and you really need a week to really appreciate the city. I arrived to the hostel around 6pm on Wednesday and enjoyed a piece of delicious lasagna con Bolognese and had my first Czech beer, a Pilsner Urquell. It was a bit too bitter for my taste but good. The hostel was amazing, such a cozy warm place and many good people. The basement bar was perfect with the brickwork and comfy chairs. Later that night I made my way to a local club with several others staying at the hostel through the cold drizzle. The first was a modern style “hip” bar where the drinks were pricey so we went to another cheaper place where they played reggae. Was a late night not going to bed until 3am. Took a perfect shower. There was a hot towel rack to place your towel on as well as assisting in heating the shower area, the water was deliciously hot with the perfect pressure. It was heaven. Thursday I woke up around 10am and had a late start leaving the hostel by 11am. Took a tram down to Charles Bridge and made my way to Old Town Square. I haven’t taken trams since Old Threasers in Iowa, loved it. They have both styles in Prague: trolley style and tram style. I will miss such easy public transportation. I must say that Prague’s is the best I have seen in my travels, so easy. I wandered around Old Town Square through the drizzle for a bit before having an amazing and filling lunch. It was a chilly, rainy day and overcast. The restaurant I chose had these great heaters with a strong flame which was nice and toasty. There was Minestrone soup with fresh vegetables that the restaurant produced themselves, Czech goulash with bread, and Apple Streudal for dessert and a Mad Apple cider to drink, the alcoholic kind, :). Of course it was a Czech cider, they really know their stuff when it comes to beer and cider. Goulash is a thick and hearty beef stew type dish with only meat. After lunch I walked over to the other side of Charles Bridge and up to the castle but didn’t explore it that day. I wandered through the souvenir shops a bit and then returned to the hostel where I had another dinner of the same delicious lasagna. Had an early night at 1am and got some good sleep. I was in a room of 6 beds but only one other person which was nice. Friday I was ready to go by 10am and took a day trip to Kutna Hora with 3 others, an Austrian who lives in Australia, an Aussie and a Turk. Prague has this great process where if you buy a return train ticket it is discounted, but even more when you purchase a group return ticket. We each paid 109 crown for a return ticket to Kutna Hora as a group rather than the 97 crown it would have cost each way had we booked separate tickets. Quite the deal! Kutna Hora is known for it’s church decorated with human bones. Yes, human bones. It was taken over by new power 600 years ago and the guy decided to take the piles of bones, clean and separate them, and create decorations with them. There is a chandelier as well as several other artistic creations. We arrived during the hour they were closed so we walked to the center where we had very large pizzas in this cute local restaurant. The whole village was just so picturesque. We then made out way back to where the church was locate so we could explore these bone wonders ourselves. A very interesting creation. Part of the reason behind the bone creations was to show the transience of life. It was also a very exhausting day. Arrived back at the hostel and had a delicious hot chocolate with peppermint liquor to warm up. Was perfect in the cozy den that is also the hostel bar. Ate another slice of lasagna with a Kozel this time. A little more bitter than the Urquell. After eating my fill I decided to finally try this Bechrovka liquor. It tasted like Christmas. It’s a local Czech liquor that has hints of cinnamon in it. Very nice on the rocks. Then a bunch of decided it would be fun to go to the city center to a bar called The Pub. Well…we made our way downtown to where we thought this place was but then we couldn’t find it. And of course everyone we asked had never heard of The Pub. So we ended up walking around for about an hour in the cold before just stopping at another hostel’s pub. Was fun and good music. We had dwindled in numbers and by the end of the night we were 6, so we decided to take a taxi back to the hostel, all of us in 1. It was just like Morocco, 2 people in the passenger seat and 4 in the back. Again, I took a wonderfully hot shower. It was a good night, lots of fun people. Went to bed around 4am. Then woke up early at 9:30am so I could take in the sites on my final full day in Prague. I ate a decent breakfast and then followed a guided tour down to Old Town Square to view Prague. It was Prague’s Free Walking Tour and amazing! The guide was funny and informative and I was able to really see the center of Prague and the Jewish quarter. It lasted 3 hours and was a nice day, the sun actually game out. The history was interesting and the buildings gorgeous. Being able to visit a city such as Prague is a priceless opportunity. I finished my day by having a BLT on a bagel from a place called Bohemian Bagel and a smooth peace of Baileys flavored cheesecake. I then found my final souvenirs, a few post cards and a lovely peace of bohemian crystal, a blue tinted shot glass with Prague frosted onto it. Then had goulash for dinner at the hostel and a cookie. Was still warm from the oven with raisons, chocolate chunks and oatmeal. Had a dark Kostel, very nice. Less bitter than a Kostel light. Enjoyed a few mixed drinks and good conversation before an evening out. We tried to go to a new club…first we couldn’t figure out how to get in…then we were denied because it was a private party. Se went to a previous club. It was very unique, like being in a metro, very Matrix. Lots of odd pieces of electronics and wheels. Had a very late night of until 5am this time. A great way to end my short stint in Prague. Now I am on my way to Vienna via a Student Agency Bus. Very nice. Leather seats with seat belts, free hot cocoa, in flight entertainment and even free wireless! Though the wireless doesn’t really work so well… It’s like being on a plane. Another rainy dreary day in Eastern Europe, but that’s winter for you. So far I am quite enjoying my short vacation and meeting so many interesting people. Many take a year off to travel around the world…maybe once I am debt free. There are so many places I still want to visit. Made it to my hostel in Vienna with no problems, but very tired. Had a fun time trying to figure out how to set up my bedding, haha. Apparently I had a duvet cover thing to put over the heavy blanket lining thing. 2 people later it was put together, yay! Wombats seems like a nice hostel, but I don’t know if any can really compare to the one I was at in Prague, Sir Tobey’s Hostel. Everything was just so perfect and cozy. Well, off to explore some Vienna, only here 2 days and might stay the night in the airport Wednesday night as my flight leaves so early. We’ll see!

And here is the rest of the Casa-Paris story. The plane was kept in France due to mechanical issues so they flew a jet from London to Casablanca with English only speaking flight attendants. Was great for me to hear English, :). I was speaking to a few of them, it turns out they arrived in Casablanca around 2am and then had to fly out again at 2pm. Our flight took off an hour late because they had to stock the plane with food, not our wonderful staff’s problem. The plane did take off and I arrived in Paris a day later than planned, but in one piece and with all my luggage. Then after I landed in Paris I had to log onto the internet really quick so I could get my friend’s number in order to have a place to stay. She had responded, humdullah, and I had just enough credit on my phone to send a few messages but then I got out at the wrong metro exit not knowing there were 2. So a lovely Frenchman let me use his phone to call her and figure out how to meet and why we were in 2 different areas. I made my way over to the correct area and my friend. I hadn’t seen her in about 5 years so it was nice. We had both studied on the same study abroad program. She made me pork chops and cauliflower and broccoli for dinner, then we had coconut ice cream for dessert. Was an amazing meal after living in a country with very few pork products. Stayed up late chatting and then woke up early. She had class and I had to make my way to the airport. I decided to take the RER this round. I had taken the Roissey Bus on the way into Paris and it had worked really well but I was used to the RER. Well, there were issues with both the train and my credit card, so I backtracked and found the Roissey Bus station. This took an hour as I had to make several metro changes. The bus arrived within 10 minutes and I made it to the airport easily and hassle free. I have been won over by the Roissey Bus versus the RER B. Welcome to Paris. During my 9 months studying there I can't count how many train and metro issues occurred. At least there wasn't a strike! I had a simple breakfast of cereal and grape juice with my friend before leaving for the airport then a wonderful lunch of Quiche Lorraine and a Banana Chocolate tart, 2 of my favorite foods from when I studied in Paris. They use dark chocolate in their pastries...delicious. Made it to the airport with plenty of time and check in was so easy. And the lounge was so nice...comfy plether seats and a great ambiance, much better than the Morocco airport where there were stray cats begging for food.

So I went to the airport and everything went smoothly other than the policeman who tried to take my painting out of its tube and unroll it...I stopped him from ruining it. So I was waiting for my 7pm flight to Paris...it never came. The plane literally never arrived. So...I got to go through the fun part of getting my checked luggage back and going to to the ticket counter for a hotel voucher. They rescheduled the flight for 2pm tomorrow, unfortunately my flight to Prague leaves at 2:45pm meaning I will miss my flight. Both were booked through EasyJet so I hope the guy was correct when he told me that they will change my flight for me when I arrive in Paris, though whether they will take care of my hotel is another question. Such a crazy start to my travel home! I was very upset of course, on the brink of tears. It had been a long day and I don't care much for airports. Much better now after a long, hot bubble bath, some texts ranting about the whole fiasco, and a coca cola. I don't even care it was 40dh. Now I will relax and get a good night's sleep and leave at 10am tomorrow and start this process all over again. I hope everything works out with my Prague flight and I do have a friend in Paris. I just don't have her number and she doesn't have mine...I don't even know my own number, haha. At least the hotel is very nice which helps make up for some of the hassle and I will actually be in Paris long enough now to have a nice dinner, inchallah with my friend. There is always a silver lining to every cloud, even the dark ones. And the French people on the flight were so nice! As were the Moroccan staff. It wasn't their fault the plane didn't show up.

Morocco really doesn't want to let me go! Hopefully it will let me leave tomorrow and I can get my Prague flight rescheduled...I did book the 2 together. Really regretting that no travel insurance now!

Ok. For those actually reading and following this the following is my travel itinerary:

Tonight (Nov 15): Paris, France (layover)

Nov 16-21: Prague! (5 nights)

Nov 21-24: Vienna! (3 nights)

Nov 24-28: Barcelona! (4 nights)

Nov 28 - Dec 12: 2 week cruise across the Atlantic (limited internet)

Dec 12-13: Night in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Dec 13-14: Flights back to Iowa

December 14: Back home in Iowa!!!

Today was my last day as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco! These past 3 weeks have been a whirlwind. After arriving back in site from a VSN committee meeting I took time to visit friends and volunteers in the region as well as create my costume for Halloween. I was a Greek wood nymph in the end. I hope to be able to post photos soon. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera. After Halloween I had a week to get everything sorted out to leave my site. My replacement came for her site visit on October 31st and was in site until November 4th. It was 5 days of craziness, but good. I met with my landlord to have him sign off that I was good to go and to discuss the new volunteer taking over the house after I leave. I also introduced her to the cooperative. There were only a few women there but she was able to meet the president. Last Tuesday we spent the day touring Errachidia. Wednesday I mailed my large suitcase through the post office and tried to visit the delegate and Gendarmes but there was a strike that day concerning government officials. I showed my replacement where to pay her electric and water bills instead. That night there was a funeral feast as my host mother’s brother had passed away. Unfortunately I was unable to attend but visited everyone the next day and had lunch with everyone. Thursday I mailed my other smaller and lighter box, visited the delegate to let him know I was leaving, to introduce him to the new volunteer and have him sign a piece of paper for me. Then we visited the Gendarmes before going back to site. Friday she returned to her hub site. I spent the day in Errachidia visiting volunteers and shipping my bike to Peace Corps headquarters. It was a nice relaxing day. Saturday I visited my host family but no one else was around. Sunday I visited my friends and neighbors in site to say my final goodbyes. It was a long day. My neighbor agreed to pay my electric bill when it comes. My counterpart and friend gave me a simple wedding caftan and tirz d fasi item as gifts. It was really sweet of her. Then I took the rest of the night to wash my hair and finish packing everything up. Monday I left early and tossed my keys in the door as I left. I took a 5 hour bus ride to Kalaa Mgouna to meet up with a friend of mine I wanted to visit before leaving the country. It was nice visiting her village. Made good ole fashioned mac and cheese for dinner and stayed up late talking. Tuesday I woke up early and met some friends in Kalaa and traveled with them to Marrakech for one final night on our way up to Rabat. It was nice and lots of fun. I bought a cute new shirt and gold Moroccan slippers that are very comfortable. Then had an amazing tajine of succulent chicken and amazing vegetables. We had a hard time getting our luggage stored for a day but we managed it all. Wednesday we woke up early and caught the 9am train making it into Rabat around 2pm. I ended up sharing a room with 2 other stage mates, it’s been fun. Wednesday I came to headquarters to get some things done and then had a Panini for dinner and sleeping early. Yesterday I spent a crazy morning getting my bank account closed, signatures, and everything handed in and completed. Had amazing sushi for lunch and German institute for supper. Gotta love pizza and salad, :). Hung out at the Marine House until 1am hanging out with friends and learning how to play darts. Today I slept in until 9am, showered and had a late breakfast before coming back to headquarters and finishing up last minute details. Now I am officially done! And having an amazing supper at the French Institute to celebrate with friends, :). Took many photos and will enjoy many memories.

I know it has been awhile, almost a month since last I updated my blog. I had COS Meds and Conference in Rabat until October 4th, then I traveled back to site October 5th. Nothing extraordinary happened along the way, it was actually a quite smooth trip. I stopped in Fes the night of the 5th to visit my tutor who is now studying at university there and then made it home on Monday. I had a whole week in site before heading up to Rabat again, for a VSN committee meeting. During that week in between Rabat trips I relaxed, cleaned up my house a bit, did laundry and visited people. I went to the coop one day as they weren’t meeting Wednesday. It was nice to see everyone. Then I started my second trip Wednesday, October 13th so I could be in Rabat by the 14th. I took the day to relax and get some internet things accomplished such as my TFA application. TFA stands for Teach for America and is a 2 year program where you are placed in a place where there is high educational inequity and you work in lower income schools as a teacher while being certified and earning a full beginning teacher’s salary. It is a great alternative licensure program and I really hope I am accepted. I won’t know for awhile. I spent that Friday and Saturday in meeting for VSN to discuss changes in the curriculum and then traveled back to site that Sunday. So I have now been in site since Monday October 18th, about a week. It has been a crazy month! This past week I have been deciding what to keep, what to mail home, what I will take while traveling back home, what I will sell, give away and leave for my replacement. I also have loads of other things to do before I leave in 2 weeks! I’m still not quite adjusted to the fact I am actually almost finished… On my travels I developed a sinus infection which is finally gone, humdullah. But now I have a clogged ear and a rash. The ear is from the altitude changes and remnants from the sinus infection combined in traveling back home. The rash is an allergic reaction to an antibiotic they had me on for the sinus infection. I’ve been taking Benedryl for the rach and it seems to be improving. Last weekend I went to visit a friend about 30km from me, was nice. Made an oreo cheesecake with real oreos, :). Sunday I visited my women at the cooperative. They were working on orders and projects for the coming cold weather. Lots of knitted sweater outfits. They love the cross stitch project I am almost finished creating. I plan to leave all my leftover cross stitch items with the women when I leave they love it so much. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday so I stayed home and rested. Today I went to town and arrived home later than expected so I hope to visit some people tomorrow. Might have lunch with a friend. Lots of people to see and spend time with before I leave. I don’t know when I will be able to return for a visit. Today I also finally got the fabric to make my Halloween costume, :). A lot of my fellow volunteers and I are celebrating Halloween this weekend. Our last hoorah before the 4 of us 2nd year SBD and YD volunteers depart the region. I’ve decided to go greek. Bought a dark green fabric and a gold sash for a belt and plan to be a Greek Goddess. Debating on who…there are so many. These 2 years are simply flown by, I find it hard to believe it’s the actually the end and I’m not just leaving for a visit home. I’m excited and ready for whatever my next adventure will be, but I will also miss my community here. It is a bittersweet feeling. Only 2 more weeks in my site, about a week in Rabat and then my month of vacation traveling home. And so much to do before I leave!

I arrived in Rabat Tuesday afternoon and had a lovely dinner of lasagne at a nice restaurant near the awesome hotel Peace Corps is putting us in. The rooms are so nice and there is hot water all the time!

Yesterday I had every single one of my medical appointments. I started off my morning with an 8:30am meeting where we also got our TB tests. Now we all know how much I dislike needles...and I had to have the test done TWICE. The first attempt didn't work so they had to give me another shot of fun tester fluid under my skin. At this point I was sufficiantly freaked out but had to be donwtown to get my dental x-rays and dental appointment and cleaning by 10am. I left Agdal at 9:30am. The taxi ride down made me very motion sick, great on top of the lowered blood sugar from my needle freak out, so I managed to get over to the x-ray place where it took me an hour to get my dental x-ray done and printed out due to so many people being there. I was an hour late to my dental appointment but was able to get in and out. Good news: no caveties and my teeth were clean! Dental cleanings are the worst though with all that scraping against my teeth and gums, but I made it through. My lower front teeth are still a bit sensitive, but clean, :).

I then had a quick lunch of yummy thin crust pizza before rushing back to Peace Corps HQ to have my physical down where I was prodded some more. Had a quick meeting with the country director before running out and having some blood drawn. COS meds are very thorough in everything. Crook of my arm is still a bit sore, but good news is all my appointments are done!

I slpurged on a nice meal at the French Institute last night. I had filet mignon with blue cheese dressing for dinner and then a small creme brulee, brownie and mousse with coffee for dessert. Delicious. Today I'll have some sushi for lunch and pizza for dinner, :). Today is my free day with no meetings or appointments.

Been thinking more and more on my return home, not long now at all.

My birthday was last Friday. I celebrated by making myself a lemon pepper glazed broiled chicken breast and fried green beans and garlic with cheesecake brownies for dessert. I also replaced my empty buta gas tank for my stove and oven operation. Then I visited my friend's sister as my friend was out in the fields and my host family. In the morning I went into Errachidia and enjoyed a banana juice at a cafe while perusing the internet a bit. I had a great day.

Saturday I went up to Ifrane to visit my CBT family. It was so great to see them and I had never been to Ifrane before. It was so much cooler than my village in the south! It felt amazing to sleep with a blanket at night and wear a sweater again. Then Monday on my way up to COS medicals and conference I stayed with one of my CBT mates in Taza. I really liked Taza, it's a nice city and beautiful. I visited my friend's cooperative and some of the volunteers in the area.

Then I made my way up to Rabat for COS Meds and Conference.

It's been awhile I know. The weekend of September 19th I went to a fellow stage mate's berber wedding. I have been to Arabic weddings but not yet a Berber one. One of my friends just married a Moroccan. It was so much fun. She wore this elaborate Berber headdress and had her face and hair covered, the only parts of her body showing were her hands and feet. The headdress was a large triangular red fabric with red and yellow scarves hanging down her back from it and a black sheer veil over her face. The first night she had her hands and feet hennaed as well as any guests who wished for a bit of henna design on their hands. The next day was her wedding in which we started with a lunch, some dancing and then had the bridal train were we all piled into cars, trucks and transits honking and uulating our way around her village before settling down for an early dinner and lots of haydeues. Haydeuse is a berber dance in which there are 2 lines of people who do the same movements while rotating in a circle to berber drumming and singing.

It was such an amazing experience and made better by having had lived in Morocco for the past 2 years and the bride being a friend I knew. It felt so normal.

I know everyone is probably wondering what I have been up to lately as my last update was a month ago. To be honest, not very much. Ramadan was a lazy month in the fact that no one was doing much work, or more specifically, my women were not currently meeting to work. The month of Ramadan is a very holy month for Muslims and as such, my women met twice a week to chant verses out of the Koran, retell religious stories and to pray. I went the first Monday I returned. It’s always interesting to experience a different religion and culture. I was also able to understand more of what was being said this year, though the Koran chanting still simply sounds like beautifully sung cadences to me. I did not completely fast during the month of Ramadan and only broke fast with Moroccan families a handful of times this year. My system couldn’t handle a complete fast and much of the time my ear ached enough that I preferred to stay in majority of the time. I did have a meal with the host family with the traditional figs, dates, pastries, harira (soup), milk, and eggs. Then a couple weeks later I broke fast with my friend Layla and her family in Errachidia with many of the same items with slight variations. Her mom always makes the best meals. I was supposed to go again but things came up and I was unable to. It was a long month between the fasting, no work, and lingering summer heat. I worked on several personal projects and read many books. As well as much research on post Peace Corps plans and travel. I have finished booking my hostels and flights for Prague, Vienna and Barcelona. Very excited. Only 2 more months! I also plan to apply for a few Teaching Fellows programs when I return. I would really like to become a teacher and there are several really good alternative teaching licensure programs that sound perfect. I am still researching as to what I would like to teach and what I would be qualified to teach. Friday was the end of Ramadan! I saw my neighbors briefly, was really nice. Saturday I went to town hoping to purchase a medicine for my ear, but I forgot the pharmacies would be closed for the holiday. I tried a week of ear drops and one antibiotic with only a little luck at slightly decreasing the inner ear pain, so I will be trying a stronger antibiotic this round. I was able to purchase it yesterday when I went to town, hope this one works! Saw a few volunteers while I was in town, was nice. Visited my counter part and friend today. The coop isn’t meeting yet as there are still many people still visiting and out of the village. Ramadan only finished a week ago. I expect things will pick up again in a couple weeks. So I’ll probably have things to do after I go to Rabat at the end of the month for COS meds and conference. Saturday a friend of mine and stage mate will be getting married! Hard to believe our 2 years are nearly up. Only 2 more months now. I will miss Morocco and many people here, but I am also ready to come back to America. It’s been the experience of a life time. I have a busy month ahead of me. Friend’s wedding, then the following week my birthday, then I’ll be traveling to Rabat for COS meds and conference. For my birthday I hope to visit my first host family. October seems fairly free at the moment, but I know it won’t be. I still hope to hike the Todra Gorge and visit as many friends as I can before I leave and get many things done in my site. Once November hits work will stop and I’ll just tie up a few final loose ends before taking my vacation back! We’ve had several storms roll through, rainy season here in the desert. So the temperature has been slowly dropping, but not quite enough yet, still 86 in the house. Soon I won’t need to use my fan anymore, humdullah! Only 2 seasons here, Summer and Winter with a month or 2 of rainy season thrown in here and there, generally in between seasonal changes. For those of you reading this back in America, I’ll be back in Iowa in about 3 months, :).

Ok…after Al Hoceima I jumped over to Ras el Ma, aka Cape de l’Eau. Woke up early on Saturday morning around 7am to catch an 8am bus. Well, after arriving to the bus station we learned the bus was full and had to wait for a 9:30am. It was a long ride. We arrived in Berkane around 3pm and Ras el Ma around 4pm. I settled down and then changed for an afternoon swim in the Mediterranean. We had an awesome house all to ourselves. Just beautiful. The Mediterranean was so choppy. I played in the waves for a bit but didn’t go out too far due to the tidal pull. Then after swimming I showered and walked downtown with several friends and we had the most amazing seafood dinner. A couple kilograms of tasty shrimp, perfectly breaded calamari, soft red snapper and buttery sol. We ended our perfect dinner with a scoop of ice cream before walking back to the house. It was an early night for all. Then Sunday I woke up really early, changed my cell phone time as it was “fall back” here already, went back an hour. Had a breakfast of yogurt, granola and coffee before hitting the beach nice and early. Played around for hours in the water. The waves were just as strong and I decided to go out further. Was a perfectly tiring time out in the water other than the fact that a huge wave hit me and I totally lost my sunglasses, :(. Afterwards I went back to the house, showered and bought supplies to make a tuna melt for lunch and Pringles. The house was having plumbing issues so we had some staff over. At one point I took a nap only to wake up and be told we had to pack up and move to separate apartments. I was not very happy about this as I was still groggy and the house was so nice. The apartments were ok, but at least the plumbing worked. Went for another afternoon swim and then we had fajitas for dinner. Was delicious! Had a bit of a late night and a night swim before heading to bed. The water was so calm. Monday I woke up early again and hit the beach around 9am. Starting to get a nice tan, for me, ;). Relaxed and read for a bit and then swam. This day the sea was calmer and we swam out a ways where it was gentle and just floated. Was wonderful. Afterwards I went in and had a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch before going out on a Catamaran! That’s a type of sailboat. I should have taken my Dramamine though…got a little seasick. Was still a great experience. After we reached the open sea we all jumped/dived off/out of the boat and swam around in the clearest, blue/greenish water I have ever seen. A friend took photos but alas I was unable to get them from her. It was just beautiful. That night we went out for dinner again and of course got another fish platter. This time only calamari, sol and shrimp. And ice cream afterwards again of course, :). Then as there was a bit of a fair going on we all decided to do the bumper cars. Was a blast! Some then did the ferris wheel after that, an interesting setup. Goes around much quicker here and virtually no safety bars of any sort. Tuesday was out final day. Went for my daily swim as usual in yet another calm sea. Was pure bliss to simply float and swim around in the water. Then for lunch we had our final fish meal of shrimp, sol and calamari. Afterwards we bought supplies to make Italian for dinner. And it was amazing! A friend of mine made an absolutely delicious tomato sauce to put over pasta and garlic bread. I made caramelized banana filling for dessert crepes. I ate way too much and just relaxed afterwards. Wednesday morning was a long travel day with a stop in Oujda for an early meal. Thursday I went to town and bought a few things and simply relaxed and caught up on sleep and rest. It was also the first day of Ramadan. I was too tired to break fast with anyone though. The past couple days I have just been catching up, doing laundry, relaxing. I was gone nearly 3 weeks. I have also begun making my travel plans for after I COS. I find myself planning my vacation backwards. First I decided to do the cruise, then booked my final flight back to Iowa. Now I have a flight from Vienna to Barcelona for the pre-cruise get together and to celebrate Thanksgiving with my fellow cruise taking volunteers. Now I just need to sort out my flights out of Morocco and to Eastern Europe. I have decided to do Prague and Vienna. I also haven’t had a very good internet connection since my return back to site. Though part of that could be the storms that have been rolling through almost daily now. I have so much to do before I leave in less than 3 months now. Crazy to think about it. I am thinking of applying for Teach for America or a fellowship program similar to that when I return home. After much though and discussions with friends and fellow volunteers I believe I should give teaching a try. I’ve always been drawn to it through working at camp and in speaking to several of my friends who are teachers. We’ll see what life has planned for me when I return back to America. I’m also still definitely taking a short break to Australia mid-February through May, maybe a little longer depending on what work I find there and what work opportunities I come across in America. Hope all works out. That’s the final leg of my vacation through to my current standing here back in site. It’s nice to be back, though I must admit I am counting down the days till my COS date. I’ve been here for a long time now and am simply ready for my next adventure though I will miss Morocco and many people here.Monday I went to my women's new coop where they can now meet as they please, :). Due to it being Ramadan, work is at a standstill and they currently meet twice a week to sing verses out of the Koran and tell biblical stories during the morning hours.I finally broke fast with half of my most family on Tuesday evening. Last year it was always both families but now that they have moved into their new home they have moved into 2 different floors. I was also surprised to not see the usual festive shebekiya. Deep fried pastry coated in honey and sesame seeds. It was a quiet affair. I had fasted all day and was having trouble communicating.Yesterday I went into town to use internet as can be noted from my blog entry with Ras el Ma photos. Also to purchase a few food items.Today was not very note worthy as I stayed in and rested. I had planned to visit my women again, but had an ear ache. I hope to visit my counterpart tomorrow and start planning a few workshops. I won't be doing very much traveling over the next 3 months and hope to get several desired projects completed before I leave. I hope to break fast with my favorite neighbor tomorrow as well. I haven't been breaking fast very often during this first week of Ramadan as I haven't been completely fasting and feeling a bit under the weather. I am feeling much better now and plan to enjoy harira (soup), shebekiya, eggs, figs, and dates during the remainder of this Ramadan month, :).

Seems I have forgotten to transfer my blog update to my USB, so until I can find my way to a computer and internet again please enjoy the photos of my trip to Ras el Ma. Currently I do not have a very good wireless connection in my site, possibly due to all the storms. We had an outright downpour the other day.

Some volunteers decided to commemerate our trip, very pretty. This is where I got to swim everyday, :)

Some decided to brave the Moroccan ferris wheel, they move a bit faster here and have less safety features...the rest of us just did the bumper cars.

One of many delicious seafood platters enjoyed by several of us

The catamaran me and several others sailed out on one day, apparently I do get a bit seasick, so I spent the majority of the trip laying down. But the swimming part was fun!

The beautiful open sea view from the catamaran

Several volunteers helped to make an amazing dinner of fajitas

Me posing at sunset on the beach so near our apartment

Beautiful sunset view of the Mediterranean

After my 5 wonderful days in Chefchouan I made my way over to Al Hoceima, a city on the Mediterranean 6 hours east of Chefchouan. I woke up very early at 5:15am to catch my 6:30am bus which ended up not arriving until 7am. The bus ride was the worst I have ever been on n terms of windy curvy roads. The bus itself was very nice, the air conditioning worked and I had leg room and 2 seats to myself. The road was worse than the Tichka pass, which is the windy road between Ouarzazate and Marrakech. I was lucky to sleep the majority of the way. I arrived in Al Hoceima around 1pm and made my way to our hotel. I was meeting with a couple friends who happened to all be male. The only reason why I feel this needs mentioned is I ended up staying in a single because the hotel staff wouldn't allow an unmarried female to share a room with a man not her relation. That rule does not normally apply to foreigners. But it turned out I had a much nicer room than the 3 boys so I didn't put up too much of a fuss over paying more than them. After settling in at the hotel we ate lunch and then made out way to the beach and had a late afternoon swim that was wonderful. The water was so turquoise. Then we came back to our hotel, showered and had dinner. I ate delicious shrimp.

On Day 2 we all slept in, had a full breakfast and found a new better place to stay. This time I was allowed to share a room with a male. Just a good friend of mine. We spent all day at a beach further down the road and I lost my Moroccan silver ring, :(. Was very sad. I've lost so many things in this country. Other than that it was a great day. We then had a late lunch where I had a salad before showering and relaxing. We had a late dinner where I had calamari.

It was a nice relaxing stop along the way. The beaches were so beautiful if a bit dirty. We left early on Saturday to make our way to Ras el Ma, aka Cape de L'Eau. We had planned to take an 8am bus but it was full so we took a 9:30am instead, but I will describe my adventures here in Ras el Ma in another entry. Enjoy the photos!

Where I went swimming on Day 1

Posing pretty on the beach

Beautiful sunset

Colored water jets in the main square

On friday I woke up very early to catch a 6:30am Supratours bus from Essaouira to Marrakech in order to get to Fes before dark. My original plan had been to catch the 9am train but I missed it by 15 minutes, so I waited at the Marrakech train station until the 11am train. I had a yummy lunch and read for a bit. The train took nearly 8 hours, I arrived in Fes around 7pm. It was very hot as well, no air conditioning in 2nd class on that train! I then stayed the night in Fes, just relaxed and took a nice shower. I stayed in a very nice hotel not far from the bus station that was also air conditioned! It felt wonderful. I've been to Fes before, so I was ok just staying and relaxing at the hotel without doing any exploring.

The next morning I took a 7am CTM bus to Ouazzan and then a grand taxi the rest of the way to Chefchouan. The CTM was wonderful and air conditioned, :). Fes and Chefchouan were a bit warmer than Essaouira but still cooler than Errachidia. I arrived in Chefchouan before lunch and found the hostel where I had a bed on the roof for only 40dh a night. Was awesome and so nice. I ate a delicious lunch of a cheese salad made with fresh cheese produced in the region and shrimp with a flan for dessert, then explored the old Kasbah in the square with a friends before going back to the hostel and relaxing. Met a really nice american and some australians during the day as well. Many of the australians were leaving for Fes in 2 days time.

The blue of Chefchouan

The blue of Chefchouan

my beloved roof top bed at the hostel

On Day 2 I hiked up to the fields with a peace corps friend and the american I had met the day before. We had a full lunch and then a hot steepish climb up the mountain and past a church/synagogue. I had yummy chicken pizza with the cheese salad and flan again. The hike up was during the hot part of the day, we were so hot by the time we reached the top and there was an amazing cold water source with the most deliciously cold water. We had decided to make this venture at 3pm, not the coolest part of the day. But we made it and without burning. I did manage to lose my sunblock on the way up though, :(. We took some great photos and then made our way back down, showered and then ate dinner. I then had a late shopping trip with the american I'd met and we bought some things from a local seller. I bought a beautiful long sleeved short red patch-worked silk dress. It's beautiful. It was also the American's birthday.

me and my new american friend on our mountain hike

me posing in front of the beautiful views

not a Moroccan mountain hike without seeing a herd of goats

view on our hike

Chefchouan's view at dusk from the nearby mountain

I had planned to leave on Day 3...but then decided I liked Chefchouan so much and didn't desire to stay in Fes for a couple nights that I changed my mind. Luckily I was able to sell my ticket to another traveler and bought a new one to leave on that Wednesday, August 4th. The australian guy I met walked down with me to the bus station to see about changing my ticket. Boy it's a steep walk back up that hill! For lunch we bought some food and made a veggie and tuna couscous with fruit for dessert with a relaxing afternoon of fast internet. That was another great aspect of the hostel, the super fast wireless internet that I took full advantage of. We went out to one of the local restaurants for dinner and brought another American with us who had just arrived that day. Always great food.

On Day 4 I spent the morning post card shopping with my new friend as well as with another American who had just arrived and one of the Australians. It was a great morning. We started with a yummy breakfast of melowee and honey and orange juice. For lunch we bought fruit and some tomatoes and watched part of Sex and the City 2. Then we ate an early dinner in the cutest little nook of a restaurant in the square but soon regretted the decision as it was so warm. It was me, the 2 americans, a girl from japan and the aussi guy. I ate pastilla and had "cake" for dessert with coffee. The "cake" was actually an assortment of cookies. We were going to take a hike but decided we were too tired and too dark, so we wandered around the medina instead and took photos and shopped. Earlier that day I had bought a new blanket. It's thin and large with different shades of blue and made of cactus fiber silk. Later that evening I bought a new purse and earrings as well. The purse was a green version of the blanket fabric and I bartered the price down to 55% off his asking price, :). The earrings are an amber colored plastic set in silver. Then that evening we finished watching Sex and the City 2. It was our Aussi friend's last night and was supposed to be mine...

many things to be purchased in Chefchouan

store shopping at night

But alas on Day 5 I decided to extend my stay one more night. I had switched my ticket the day before and decided to travel straight to Al Hoceima instead of down and around to Fes and Taza. I enjoyed a relaxing day hanging out with the 2 american girls. We had a small lunch, relaxed and then took a late hike up to the church/synagogue before eating an early dinner where we met an English guy. I missed our aussi friend's presence. The place where we ate dinner did not have friendly staff, but the food was good. I had my now favorite cheese salad and a delicious carrot soup that was supposed to be onion. Oh well. I had a late night not going to sleep until 1am and then getting up very early at 5:15am to get my 6:30am CTM to Al Hoceima.

I absolutely loved Chefchouan. My bed on the roof was perfect during the summer, the place was clean, the bathrooms nice and the people so great. The food was decently priced and delicious. Overall a great experience and I was sad to move on. I had also met many interesting fellow travelers.

I started my vacation by spending 2 nights in Tinjdad. There was a small craft fair and a few of my fellow small business development volunteers in the region there with their respective cooperatives.

Then I took a very early bus to Essaouira on Monday and got there by that evening and checked into a very nice Riad reccomended by a volunteer. The Riad Maktoub. The people are very nice and the rooms are great. I went to bed early as I'd had such a long travel day, about 13 hours. Then I woke up early the next day and went on my horse beach ride. I was very excited to be near a horse. For me to be around a horse is to be home. I always feel completely myself around them and happy. I rode a half blind stallion Arab Barb named Atlas. He was a very good boy other than the head jerking. The saddle was interesting, a mix between an English and a Western. Great for trail riding other than the fact it wasn't the most comfortable. The ride included me, our guide, a girl from the Netherlands and a guy from Senegal. A very multilingual experience for me. I spoke darija with the guide, English with the girl from the Netherlands and French with the guy from Senegal. Everyone was very nice. We began the ride at a leisurely pace along the beach with some trotting here and there. After about 2.5hours of riding along the beach we went into the "forest" to have our lunch. Basically this was a trail-less meandering through low brush and loose stones and steep sand hills. Quite the experience. We ate a Moroccan picnic lunch of rice with corn and tuna, a salad of tomatoes and cucumber with yellow melon for dessert and water and coke to drink. Good and filling. We relaxed for about an hour before heading back out. We rode a bit further along the beach and then on the way back we had a couple sprints of cantering/galloping. I can't even begin to describe the feeling of riding a horse at a run along the beach, splashing through the surf, feeling the wind rush past you... It's exhilarating. The next 3.5 hours passed all too quickly. It was nice to get out of the direct sunlight. I was so sore after I dismounted but each aching muscle was completely worth it. I've missed being near horses so much. This was my first real ride in 2 years.

Stable

Stable exit

Pretty beach and fellow horses

Me on Alamo

Family of camels

The Arab Barb, Alamo, that I rode

Our lunch

Rocky Beach

The next day I had a delicious lunch of a cheeseburger, chips and chocolate custard cake at a place called La Cantina which is owned by an English lady. I spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and reading a book before heading back to my hotel and relaxing by watching a movie, eating a yummy cheese crepe and ice cream washed down with a refreshing coke.

Wednesday I woke up, walked along the beach for a couple hours before showering and eating another cheese crepe for lunch. Had a coke at a beachside cafe before doing a little shopping. For dinner I had wonderful pasta at a place near my hotel. It was penne pasta with fresh tomato/basil sauce and shredded Parmesan on top. The food was amazing and well priced and the staff were very friendly.

Hotel Room

The weather was perfect. A nice 85-90°F during the day with a cool breeze. Such a treat after 112°F dry hot desert weather.

Now I have found my way to Chefchouan and hope to enjoy another day here before visiting friends on my way to Ras Lma.

Just a short post to let everyone know I will be going on a nearly 3 week vacation around Morocco starting Saturday (tomorrow!). I'll have my laptop with me and hope to continue updates and photos along the way.

Yay!

Wow it has been a busy week. I had my site visit for a new volunteer on Thursday. One of my program staff came to my site to speak to my women and host family and ok everything for a new volunteer. All went well. I even got to see the new building my women are now renting. Yes! My women have a building now! They managed to find one free to rent and it looks to be in pretty good shape and not too large. They have all of their machinery set up now and have moved everything. They are currently cleaning it up and getting it ready to work in. This is such a relief to me and so great for them. They no longer need to share a building and can work everyday now if they chose to. Much better than the previous once a week, :).

Then that same evening I was invited to Day 3 of a Moroccan wedding. They are generally 4 day affairs here. The 3rd day is the bachelorette/bachelor party. I’m not sure what the men do but what the women do is meet with each other and basically have a long dance party with a very late dinner (around 3am) of couscous. The women just loved me, haha. As many of you know, I used to take belly dance lessons and performed back in Iowa. I just had a blast. I danced so much I got a blister on my bare foot. By then it was also around 2:30am and I ended up falling asleep and sleeping through the dinner. Then meandered my way back home around 4am. The wedding was the next night but I was too tired to do that 2 nights in a row. I also wasn’t feeling the best. I had also went to a wedding the previous Monday. Well, part of one. It was so hot in the house and so many women were wearing perfumes that I got sick and my allergies wiped me out so I had to leave around 2am when they were eating the wedding dinner. I had went over around 9pm and had my hands and feet hennaed. After 5 hours I was very sleepy and had only been invited that night so no time for a preparatory nap. The wedding on Monday was for a neighbor of the host fam’s and held at the host fam’s house. I was sad to miss the wedding part. Both events were held on the roof. The second wedding party I went to was in the next village over (basically the next mosque) and for a sister of one of the women of the coop I work with. I was sad to miss that wedding as well, but at least I got to go to the Bachelorette party. I really do just love to dance.

Then Saturday I had a couple friends from the region over. I met them in Errachidia where we picked up food. Then we spent the night hanging out, watching moves and eating awesome food. I made a buffalo chicken pizza and had ranch dipping sauce and made cheesecake brownies, :).

Such is the glamorous life of me n Morocco. The wedding activities were so much fun. For the one of the coop woman’s sister, my friend Khadija dressed me up in a caftan, the traditional wear you wear to a wedding. Very pretty. I hope to go to another shindig before wedding season is over. Summer here is when the majority of Moroccans get married. On the final day of the wedding, day 4, everyone eats dinner, then dances, then at the end of the night the bride leaves with the groom in a car to the groom’s house. At night you will hear much music and honking and ululating.

And now my exciting news, :). I’m going on vacation! Basically I have a lot of days to use by August 12, so I am taking almost 3 weeks to travel around Morocco. Very excited, :). I don’t take many vacations here, lots of medical trips and work related leave, but not very many vacations. And summer is the time to take them. Been around 110°F in my site, nearly 100°F in my house during the day, a little cooler at night. I hope to update my blog along my journeys. I plan to shoot out to Essaouira, again. Really loved it and hope to ride a horse this time. Then I’ll head up to Tnagier and Chefchouan in the North before hopefully visiting friends near Midelt and in Taza from where I will finish my travels by going to Ras Lma, or Cape de L’eau in French, for about 5 days with many of my business stage mates. Very excited. Ras Lma is near Algeria on the Mediterranean, :). It will be a nice respite from the heat and a chance to relax and visit places I have not seen before.

Only about 16 weeks left…4 short months. I’ve been living here for 2 years now. It’s amazing how normal so many things have become to me now and how I can still be surprised every day by this or that. I love taking a Grand taxi and watching the scenery pass by me and think…I’m living in Morocco. I live in the desert. I haven’t been in the snow in 2 years. A crazy concept for a born Iowan. Moroccan has wormed its way into my heart and I will miss this country despite the frustrations. There has been much to make me smile and laugh as well.

As posted the other day I had gotten my hair cut. I was ok with it but not ecstatic. I had wanted something more along the lines as a pixie haircut. So today after returning to Errachidia I decided to print off photos of Victoria Beckham's pixie haircut and go to another hairdresser I knew downtown. So armed with photos this time and on my own I managed to relay what I wanted and now have the cut I had been thinking about, :). Pretty proud of myself. Even made some new friends in the process.

Yesterday I went to a friend's site about 1.5hours outside of Riche. It was so nice to have some fellow volunteer girl time. Sometimes it is difficult to find in a region where one is surrounded by boys. We spent the hottest part of the day staying cool in her house and catching up, then we went to her coop where I met her women and saw what items they made. After that we found our way to the river and hung out by the river dangling our feet in it's cool waters. Then we found our way back to her house where she made a delicious columbianesque grilled chicken salad and watched a hilarious movie, The Hangover. We were definitely both in the mood for comedy. This morning transportation was a bit shwiya (ok, slow, etc.) so we watched another movie in the cool of her house until there was a transit to be taken. A transit is a van basically that they put benches in and pack as many as they can into it. We had it to ourselves which was nice. Then I found my way back to site getting the haircut along the way.

Tomorrow I have a site visit to discuss having another volunteer replace me when I leave. I'm not sure how I feel on that subject yet, so time shall tell. And tonight I am making my yummy cheesecake brownies. Haven't been baking or cooking much due to the heat, but we just had a storm come through that cooled things down a little.

Ok. Below are the before and after photos involved with my 15dh haircut. From a girl who has one hairdresser until she was 18, then only went to the zwine places since then, it is always quite a concept to allow myself to have my hair cut for 15dh, or in USD, about $1.7o. Yes, I got a $2 haircut. But that's the standard rate in Morocco. Majority do know what they are doing. This haircut...well, it will grow out and it is nice for summer. I wanted short and I got short. The haircut itself is well done and looks great, just very very different for me as I have never had my hair this short before in my life that I can remember. Still wrapping my mind around it... Getting your haircut in Morocco isn't that different from America. They use the same techniques, Morocco just has its own style.

I still remember seeing her basically shave the back of my head...I think the emotion I felt was a mixture of fear and pure liberty. There is something liberating about making such a drastic change. I also had my Moroccan friend go with me and help me with some Moroccan terminology. This is my 4th and final haircut here in Morocco. My hair is now virtually henna free, it will grow back, and as I mentioned before, perfect for summer, :). Require much less shampoo and conditioner and water as well. Which are important factors considering prices and the fact that I generally take bucket baths. Not as bad as you would think, I don't mind them at all.

As for heat, currently the weather is about 104°F, a dry heat, but getting hotter. And the sun is much stronger here than in Iowa. Also, no air conditioning, but I am lucky to have electricity and have a fan. I'm also thankful for the winds that have come through the past 2 days, cooled off the weather enough for me to regain an appetite and workout!

Enjoy the photos!

Before

After

After side shot

Worlds Apart

We seem to be worlds apart, you and I.

You say salam as I say hello.

Your time moves with a gentle purpose

As mine hurries to be rushed.

Even though your veil covers your hair,

You still feel the same wind, the same sun.

Even though we speak two tongues,

We still appreciate the other's presence.

This land you call home varies region to region

As my home varies state to state.

We both understand the value of people,

We both appreciate our lands.

To each his internal rhythm and beauty,

To each her dreams and fears.

We seem to be worlds apart, you and I,

But we're much closer than we think.

---Jennifer Jae Boyd---

An original poem written in Morocco

I finished my wonderful vacation with 3 days in Essaouira. It was beautiful. I never lived near water and when I get the chance to see the ocean it is always a majestic beauty, able to nourish and destruct. I arrived in Essa the afternoon of Friday the 25th. I managed to find my way to the main music area and some fellow volunteers who were able to take me to the apartments we had all rented out for the event. I wish I had taken photos of the apartment. It was perfect. There was the ground floor, 2 middle floors and the roof floor with an open area all the way down between them. We had several dance parties, listened to amazing African bands and wandered the streets of Essaouira. It was so amazing to watch a band perform while on the beach. The crowds at the other stand were not so much fun with all the butt pinching. Also on that same Friday I somehow flushed my phone in the toilet. Yes, I actually flushed it, I was able to save it for the SIM card though for which I was thankful. Then Saturday was amazing, to be so unconstrained by time and to live the day from need to need, sunrise to sunset. I enjoyed a couple hours on the beach with a few chances to play in the ocean waves. On a break I had to move our things away from the incoming time and accidentally tripped over a Moroccan. Oops. Then later that day I had delicious crepes for lunch, a banana and nutella and a cheese one. Took a wonderfully relaxing "real" shower and then relaxing until the early evening when we all went to a hotel and watched the American versus Ghana game. Drank some wine and smooked some hookah. Then I realized quite how sunburned I had become afterwards and had unfortunately forgotten my Aloe Vera at home in my site... Lotion was my alternative.

Sunday I saw a few friends off, took some photos of the fish market that I hope to upload another day, and bought a sun hat and new shirt that was nice and flowy. It's a beautiful green color and didn't bother my sunburn too much. Sleeping was a whole other story. Watched a bit of music that night and then ate a wonderful fish dinner of John Dorey.

Monday I made my way to Tinjdad, rested, then made my way on home to Errachidia. Unfortunately I lost one of my favorite pairs of earrings from Ireland along the way, :(.

Then this past weekend I visited the mountain near Riche where several volunteers live and we had a few 4th of July celebrations. Was so nice to enjoy the cooler weather and be around so many great people. I showed one friend how to make a cheesecake, turned out perfectly, then my other burned. C'est la vie. Unfortunately I did not take any photos.

Today I spoke to my counterpart and she told me they finally found a building for rent! Humdullah! So excited, they are hopefully to move in next month, :). I also learned I am to be replaced. I hope I can get this site ready for a new volunteer in the short amount of time I have left. I've heard the experiences of the COSing volunteers, but it is another to actually live it. I feel time is slipping by all too quickly. It will be nice to return home for a bit, a couple months. Then perhaps about 4-6months in Australia if all works out. Then not sure... I might try Crisis Corps, a 3-6 month mini version of Peace Corps for returned volunteers, or perhaps find a job somewhere, though doing what I am not sure. I know when I created this blog I mentioned International Relations and Law...but I'm not so sure. I really love working at summer camps and may try to find a year round version. A friend mentioned I should be a teacher...who knows. I know I'm not a high power executive type. I hope to find something rewarding in a beautiful place. I do miss Iowa.

Ok. One thing I have forgotten to mention in my previous blogs is that I painted my bathroom. That was a process. I had decided to use oil based paint as I bathe using water in a bathroom and the current water based paint is slowing being washed away. Getting oil paint out of your hair can be quite fun. The original plan was to paint it a white base coat first and then sponge a light blue coat over it... Took a little more paint than I expected and have yet to finish the job. Got a little side tracked. Here is a photo:

I also made myself a new purse. No photos yet, but it really pretty. The outside is black and the inside is a light blue. I created a blue design on the front with thread and some clear seed beads. I am very proud of my newest sewing endeavor. I also made a dress, the first I have ever fully designed myself... it is an ok first attempt. With a belt it looks great, but there are definitely a few faults. Again, soon I hope to have a photo to put up.

I've also been reading bzzaf (alot). As I mentioned in a previous blog I am reading Three Cups of Tea, an amazing book. I have also recently read Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean, Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella, The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham, The Color Purple by Alice Walker and Dreams of Tresspass by Fatima Mernissi. Anyone wanting an insiteful and partially humourous view on Moroccan women should read Fatima Mernissi. Great author who grew up in a harem in Fez. And a harem is not a brothel or place where a man has multiple wives. A harem is basically where families live together and the women are hidden away from the public eye and not allowed to leave the house unescorted by a male of the family. This particular novel was quite fascinating and very informative. Several of its facets I see still ever present here. The hiding of women in many villages, the hammam rituals, female relationships...

Also below I have included a few sunset photos taken from the view on the roof of my house and food endeavors. I've also posted the rest of the photos I took at camp, the ones at my "wedding" and tree planting. Enjoy!

My yummy very cheesey pizza

Made from scratch black cherry pie, and yes, I did pit 2lbs of cherries.

Sunset from my roof

Sunset from my roof

The 'married' couple

The wedding platter. That gooky stuff in the center is henna.

My dirham (rather than dollar) dance

A camper doing my wedding henna

My pretty henna

My pretty henna againThe pepper tree planting the kids did while at English Spring camp

Amazing, 2 updates in 2 days, :P. So... My plan yesterday was to drop off my laptop to have all the information transferred to my external harddrive (much thanks to my friend john for bringing it to me), to call the Apple store in Casablanca and walk to Marjane. Well, life wasn't so simple as that for me, of course.

First...the info from My Documents transferred just fine within an hour, hymdullah, but he was unable to transfer the documents on my desktop. But he explained he would try using a different operating system and I was to stop by tomorrow (which is now today). Then I called the Casa Apple Store. Mushkil (problem) 1: they were out of MacBooks and would not get another shipment in for 2 weeks and were unable to give me an idea of price. Mushkil 2: the laptop would be French manufactured meaning parts may or not be available in America. Of course this was upsetting to me as this was my plan of attack considering price and quality of PC's here. So I decide to walk to Marjane to cool off and think. Several friends received uninspiring texts from me which I have now apoligized for being so crazy. Well... I started my trek by the beach, but went a mile in the wrong direction. So I backtracked and then walked about another mile further and started following signs which said "Marjane" and pointing me in the correct direction. Or so I thought. Well, I started on the wrong side of the road and then ended up having to go down to a lower road and in completely the wrong direction. So I gave up for the day as my feet were accumilating nice painful blisters from wearing my Chacos sans socks. And of course there were zero taxis the entire way back to my hotel. Hence to say I 'meandered' for about 5 hours. Definitely got my workout for the day! I finished my evening eating a Big Tasty from McDonalds and watching Jerry Maguire before reading part of a really great book I am currently making my way through called Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. If anyone has the ability to get their hands on a copy of this book, it is an amazing and awe inspiring story of how one man, Greg Mortenson, began a journey to gather funding in order to build a school in an impoverished village near K2 in Balistan Pakistan and is continueing to accumulate funding to continue building schools in this part of the world in an attempt to stop terrorism by allowing both boys and girls to attend non-extremist schools.

Now for today... I woke up fairly early, for me, and took a taxi to Marjane this time. Now I know the way there. Bought a few needed and desired items, checked out DVD player prices and then had lunch at my hotel before stopping at the computer technician's place who was getting my information for me. Turns out he had a chance to look at my computer, found the issue, fixed it, and now I have a working PC again. I was so shocked. He told me it would take him 2 weeks to look at it and it sounded unlikely he could fix it. Hence to say I am a very happy volunteer now, :).

Now this evening I plan to eat some delicious sushi and meander the medina for movies and TV series.

Also after starting Three Cups of Tea I am inspired afresh to help my village. As all of you who follow my blog know, I have been having trouble getting my women a building. Either there is a place and no money, or the option of possibly getting funding only to find out there is no longer a place. I plan to bug my commune to donate land and my delegate to allocate the funds and have a building built. Where there is a will there is a way.

So... In May we had our Regional meeting, was good. I had 4 of the new volunteers stay at my house that night and made really yummy buffalo chicken pizza. Otherwise not too much happened the rest of May. I had a wonderful 3 weeks in site where I relaxed and met with my counterpart/friend a few times to discuss building options. Currently no possibilities as of yet. Still trying. I rode my bike into Errachidia one day and hiked up a plateau about 6km out of Errachidia with a friend of mine. Was nice. Knee ached a few days afterwards, but it's getting stronger. Did really well and worked out for the last 2 weeks everyday in May and was even eating healthier, :). For those of who know me I know that sounds very shocking, :P.

Then at the end of May my laptop died, again. Same problem. Just stopped charging. Lasted 3 weeks after being "repaired". Memorial day weekend I went to Errachidia where we had a small BBQ prepared by 2 amazing cooks. Lots of food and all very delicious. Then the day after 2 of the same people who had stayed with me after the regional meeting asked if they could again as they were in town for a meeting, they had enjoyed my previous cooking, :). So made a very cheesey quiche and lemon bars.

Later on in June I tried to bike to a village 6km from me to help them with basic business skills for the new beef cattle cooperative. The wind that came up suddenly was terrible. I got about 5km before I had to give up and turn back home. There was visibility maybe a mile in any direction due to the dust and such strong winds I couldn't peddle forwards. The wind honestly pushed me the entire 5km back to my site without my need to peddle it was that strong. The road is almost completely flat. That was a fun adventure. I arrived home right before the rain hit.

Then the following weekend I visited some friends in the mountains. Was nice and cool and much needed. Ate really amazing food and had great company, :). After I arrived back home I relaxed and visited people. Then a couple saturdays ago I was finally able to visit the cow coop 6km from me. Was a really nice day. I taxied it this time and stayed for about 4hours. I saw their head of 12 bulls, discussed a few basic accounting terms and had really yummy couscous with 2 of the women and their family. They had rabbit as the meat. I must say it was the first time I have had the chance to eat rabbit. Before lunch I relaxed in their beautiful garden. They had grapevines overhead with date and pomegranite trees in the garden. They have a german shepard looking dog named Rocky who is afraid of water, haha. I also got to hold one of their cats, Mushid, for awhile. He was a very pretty, healthy tom cat. I really miss my cat that ran off, so it was nice. I never did manage to find a stray to take in. Most run away when you come near them. There are a few cats near my house that will randomly come in, but run away as soon as I try to go near them.

Currently I am on vacation. I stayed the night with a friend in Errachidia saturday night and we made steak with a red wine, onion and mushroom sauce, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans. So delicious. Sunday I traveled up to Khemisset to visit a friend for a couple days. Monday I went to Volubilus, near Meknes, on a day trip. Was amazing. I'll post photos as soon as I have a laptop to transfer them to. Then I went back to Khemisset where my friend and I made lemon/pepper marinated roasted chicken with a tomato/balsamic vinagarett salad and watermelon for dessert. Then today I traveled to Rabat and will be here for about 3 days before traveling onto Essaouaira for the Gnaoua music festival, then inchallah Tingrir for a day or two before making my way up the mountain near Riche for 4th of July celebrations at a volunteer's site. A very nice vacation and much needed. Errachidia is getting quite warm, but not too bad yet. Around 100F.

Also, my laptop died one last final time, lasted 3 days this time after the "repairs". Then the person tried to get to work over the course of 2 weeks with no luck. So I hope to travel to Casablanca tomorrow to visit the Mosque there as well as to purchase a new laptop. I have decided to purchase a MacBook. I hope all goes well. There are a few stores in Rabat I hope to look at as well. I was hoping my laptop would last a final 5 months, but unfortunately it will not, :(.

RIP faithful laptop.

A friend of mine texted me today to let me know my laptop was done! So excited, :). I charged my internet USB and can now happily sit on my roof and surg the net, :). I went the past 18 months internetless, but it will be very nice to have in my final 6 months. A friend of mine visiting the states is also going to bring me back a 500GB external hard drive which will be very nice. Music, movies and shows take up some space and unfortunately I can only burn things onto 700MB CDs as I haven't found a DVD brand that works yet... Inchallah.

Otherwise this past weekend I did a lot of baking. Finally found a good white bread recipe that turned out well and made myself a nice turkey sandwich with some of the chedder cheese I'd made. Which by the way turned out ok. Taste is a bit off, but I am used to sharp chedder. It's also crumbly so a bit difficult to work with but makes a great pizza. Also found a very yummy cheesecake recipe that I really like so far. Just something basic that I can play around with. And of course my now infamous cheesecake dark chocolate brownies. Very yummy.

The grand thing about me now having daily access to internet, or nearly daily anyway, is that I will now be able to update my blog more often! Or, I will try anyway, haha.

No update on a building for my women yet, haven't had a chance to bug the delegate again. I am excited that we just received a bunch of new health and environment volunteers in the region, though it had increased our numbers significantly. Never dreamed I would be near so many other Americans during my service. It is nice to have other people to collaborate with, but it's also nice to just stay in site and be around my Moroccan friends. Though I haven't visited my host family in a long time and feel terrible about that. It's been a busy couple of months. I have every plan to see them tomorrow as well as my neighbor. She has invited me to tea so many times and I adore her. I hope to spend more time in site these next 6 months and get several projects up and away. Lots to do.

So...I went to the health run in Midelt the weekend of May 1-2. I had a good time, lots of volunteers helping. Even had 3 of us volunteers from Iowa. I spent Sunday making shishkabobs for about 5 hours with 2 other volunteers and 2 moroccan women. My sinus infection had unfortunately returned full force so I went back home that night. I had a great night's sleep and awoke with a bit of a fever and was dizzy and out of it. So the plan was to watch movies and TV shows on my laptop all day. This happened for about 2 hours as at one point I swung my keyboard cord around my laptop, caught the back of it and it flopped onto the floor backwards off of it's stool, :(. At the time I just put it back up and it was still functioning fine, but what I didn't realize was that it has stopped charging...big mushkil (problem). I noticed this fact when the computer died while watching a movie. I checked the cord and outlet and electricity but alas it was something internal, :(. I took it to a cyber guy who fixes laptops and really hope he can fix it. I finally got wireless internet in my site and use my laptop for many things. Moroccans are very good at fixing electronics so I am hoping. I won't know until Monday.

Otherwise I had fun working at Spring Camp end of March/early April. Of course they wanted a wedding again this year and as I was the only female volunteer I was the one married off again, this time to a Moroccan. I have been to 0 weddings and in 2 now. Always the bride and never the bridesmaid, haha. Spring Camp was so much fun. Me and 9 other male volunteers from around the region. A good group. There were quite a few trouble maker campers, but some really sweet ones as well. I taught hand arts of course, :). We also did an American games night, an american movie night where we watched Wall-E, the Moroccan wedding, a talent show night and then final good byes night where they played a Moroccan game similar to Jeopardy. I also got very little sleep and began a sinus infection.

Then later on in April I went to Rabat for a warden conference where the wardens of each province meet and discuss what we would do in the case of an emergency or evacuation situation. Learned several useful things and had fun getting to know new people and enjoy some time in Rabat.

The day before the Midelt run my region had out going away party for those ending their service and returning home soon. Am very sad to see many of them leave. I have known the ones in my region for the last 18 months. I am excited to meet the new volunteers and they will be great, but life will be a little different without these familiar faces. It also marks my final 6 months mark of service. It feels like such a short amount of time considering I have been living in Morocco for the past 21 months.

Then these past couple of days I have been in Kalaat-Mgouna at the yearly rose festival attending a SIDA training of trainers (AIDS) and helping with a booth at the festival where Moroccans and volunteers are explaining different health information and what AIDS is. It has been a good couple of days. I am looking forward to returning to my site today for some rest and to do a few things with my site. I have been out of it for a bit of time now.

I need to speak with the Delegate again about getting land and a building built for my women. They are not able to share the elementary school anymore and there are no buildings currently available to buy or rent even if my women had the money which they don't to buy a building. The Artisana has funds to build a building for a cooperative if the community donates a piece of land, so that is the current direction I am trying to pursue. Inchallah.

Overall a busy month. Had internet in my house, well, on my roof, for about 3 days before I killed my lap top. Unfortunately all of my photos are on that, so I will be unable to share any until it is either fixed or I am able to retrieve the information off of the harddrive. I am hoping it can be fixed. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Here are some of the photos I was able to take with my semi-working camera: Errachidia to Oaurzazate Bike Ride (End of February)

Looking back towards home. Bike Ride Day 1 (15km)

Traveling to Errachidia from site. Bike Ride Day 1 (15km)

Traveling to Errachidia. Bike Ride Day 1 (15km)

On the way to Tinjdad. Bike Ride Day 2 (80km)

On route to Tinjdad. Only 267km to go!

Then camera broke after this photo, :(

Errachidia Spring Camp (End of March/Early April)

Me and a camper

Me and several campers on final day

Our wonderful American volunteers minus 1

Yummy Friday couscous

Cheesemaking Workshop (February)

Testing the curd to see if it is ready to cut.

Cooking the cheese curds.

Draining the cheesecurds.

Draining the cheese curds.

This is how you drain the cheese curds, by hanging them from something.

Yummy sushi (cooked) that I made for a participant's birthday celebration.

And of course the birthday cake, :)

This month started off really crazy with the GRE and my asthma testing. I finally returned to site and hung out for awhile and then held a cheese making workshop for volunteers around the area. One of my friends came down to lead the majority of it. Was a lot of fun. One night we held a birthday celebration for a fellow pcv. I made sushi and cheesecake. Was so yummy. The workshop was very successful. Every fellow SBD volunteer in the region were able to come for at least one day of the workshop as well as several YP and a few JICA volunteers. JIPCA is Japanese Peace Corps. They do many of the same things that we do and there are several in the area. We did several cheeses using materials found only here in Morocco. We made several cheeses, each day being about 6 hours of making one cheese or another. We did Neufchatel, Yogurt, Gouda, Monterey Jack, Cheese Curds, Yogurt Cheese, and Feta. After the workshop we got paid for March and I finally had some extra dirhams to finally get a nice 2 gallon cheese making pot, wooden cutting board and a nice floor length mirror. Still a few things on the list, but little by little. Went on an awesome bike ride this past weekend, :). There were several of us who took about 3 days to bike from Errahidia to Ouarzazate. It was amazing other than day 2. Day one we biked from Errachidia to Tinjdad, about 75km. It was a nice ride, a little windy here and there but overall not bad. Pollution was a bit much for my asthma, but the last 20km weren’t too bad. My camera stopped working though so the only photos I have are the ones my friends put on facebook. Day 2 we had planned to go all the way to Boulman Dades… Yeah. The wind was so strong, at one point I was peddling and barely moving. We got into Tingrir and decided to call it a day and then got the great idea to reverse our trip. So we took a taxi to Oaurzazate and biked from there to Skoura. Such a great idea, the wind was at our backs and so much nicer. Then on Day 3 we finished out our trip by going all the way to Tingrir and then taking a bus back to site. Final day was tough as I managed to pull a muscle near my near, made peddling painful, but feeling better. Stairs are still an issue but I don’t have too many of those in my site. Though, the trek from Bouleman Dades to Tingrir was us going into a headwind again, no luck on that piece of ground. Feeling in such great shape now and we’re hoping to do a second trek around May to the coast from Bouarfa. Still working out details but would be so much fun. Currently just resting up from everything. Made a Chedder cheese and attempted to make a Mozzarella. Cheddar looks good, Mozzarella tastes fine but didn’t stretch like it was supposed to. I really do need citric acid to make that one. But going to try again with a few changes and see how it works out. Flies are coming out. Annoying buggers. So that’s the current update. A pretty busy month for me, this one should be more relaxing. Just letting the knee heal up so I can start biking again. Been lounging in site visiting people I haven't had a chance to see in awhile and thinking up new projects to do with my women and on how I can help them get their own building.

This month has only recently begun and yet so much seems to have happened. I was in site a few days and then I traveled up to Rabat via Azrou and Khemisset for the GRE. I studied as much as I could these past 2 weeks and hoped for the best. I was supposed to room and meet up with a friend and then she decided to cancel taking the GRE. The travel up was good though and ended up rooming with another friend so it all worked out. I stopped in Azrou on Wednesday night after a crazy morning of getting everything ready. I was able to meet many of the new business and youth development volunteers that just came in about 6 months ago. It was a good time and great to meet new people and see ones I’ve already met. It was very rainy though so all my clothes got damp. Then I stayed in Khemisset with a friend of mine the next night, always good to see CBT mates. Ate yummy pasta for dinner and pancakes for breakfast. Then I came up to Rabat on Friday and hung out with fellow volunteers also taking the test. Went to bed around 11pm, had planned to go to sleep earlier but you all know me and my night owl ways. Then woke up very early at 6am, took a shower and made my way to the test center. We then had to change locations due to construction or something. The first 2 writing sections I thought went well but then the verbal and math were more difficult than I thought they would be after all the pretests. I really hope that I did ok. That night was crazy, we celebrated and went to the German Institute, really good pizza. Unfortunately I wasn't able to eat and enjoy myself.

Then Sunday I just relaxed. I went to Marjane to get some desired items and just hung out downtown. Ate at a cheap burger place for lunch and had soup for dinner. Just a relaxing destress day.

Yesterday I had my asthma testing appointment and learned that I really do have asthma. It was interesting to breathe into the machine and took about 2 hours. Was a bit crazed. Went to Peace Corps headquarters in the morning to get all the info and was late in leaving for my appointment, then I ate a quick lunch at McDonalds before rushing back to headquarters to use internet and get reimbursed for my last medical trip and this one. Was very low on cash. With our new monthly payment system it is very difficult for me to afford to come up to Rabat now. Later that night I met up with some volunteers and ate at the German Institute, it was so yummy. Overall a good night. After dinner we all walked down to the beach and on the pier and watched the waves crash against it. Was so beautiful and nice to be near the ocean for a bit of time.

Woke up early this morning to have my lung xrays deciphered. All good, just need to be put on an inhaler. Only minor asthma. At least it wasn't my imagination, haha. They also think it may help with decreasing the ear pain, inchallah. So I had lunch at McDonalds again because it was quick then made my way back to headquarters.

Currently there is a transportation strike going on, so was glad to be able to get a ride to Azrou from a staff member. Going to check the bus schedule in the morning but really hope I am able to get back to my site tomorrow. So tired and just want to spend a few days recouperating back at home.

This weekend I will be cooking many chinese dishes to celebrate Chinese New Year, very excited, :). Then there is my cheese making workshop later this month and inchallah the 300km bike trip the final weekend. Another busy month ahead of me, but good. Haven't given up on trying to get my women their own building yet, still looking for ways to get funding.

Otherwise life is good, :).

And January:

This month I began going on long bike rides with a few volunteers from around the area. Our first trek was 3 of us and we biked from Errachidia to Boudnib. 90km total. Was only 85km from my site. It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed myself. There was a late start, but still made it before dark. The trek was mostly flat with some hills, then there was this great downhill. The last 15km were torture. This was the longest bike ride I have ever done and hadn’t biked very much beforehand. A great experience though. The ride got many of us motivated to do a long 3-4 day bike ride from Errachidia to Ouarzazate at the end of February.

Then the following week I went to Rabat with another volunteer for ear issues. They looked at my ear and even took cat scans but they can’t figure out what is wrong with it or what is causing the pain. So I’ll just have to deal with it for another 9 months and have it looked at again when I return back home to the states. Overall a really good trip. Was about 4 hours for me straight biking, about 6 hours with breaks. At least the pain isn't daily. I still think it is from elevation changes, who knows.

Then the Sunday after that 4 of us took a 60km bike ride to Erfoud. It was a beautiful day as well and the trek was beautiful. We passed the Ziz Gorge and stopped at the lookout there for a bit. Then we stopped in Aufouss and had an amazing lunch. One of the bikers had made yummy wheat bread that he then put turkey and cheese on with mayo and mustard. Seems normal, but abnormal here in Morocco. It took us about 3 hours straight biking, about 5 hours total with breaks. Overall lots of downhill and much easier than Boudnib.

Then the next weekend me and another volunteer rode to Tinjdad from Errachidia, me from my site. Errachidia to Tinjdad is about 80km. This trek was harder than Boudnib, lots of gradual hills. There was one that I thought would never end, haha. Took me and my friend about 4.5 hours straight biking, about 6 total with breaks. Was a bit chilly, but a nice and sunny day. Was wiped out after we arrived. So glad my Tinjdad friend had a shower, :).

And let me tell you, my butt was sore after each and every ride. Definitely need to create a seat cover for my bike, haha. Overall it's been really great exercise and loads of fun.

Otherwise my village was harvesting olives the majority of the month. I had a site visit at the beginning from my program assistant, was a good experience. Much of the month was spent reviewing for the GRE when I could which didn’t seem to be very much. We also had to have our H1N1 shot. Good to see volunteers but I really hate needles. I survived, :). Really crazy month overall with all of the traveling. I also gave my friend back her cat.

Then at the end of the month I got a new haircut. My split ends were getting pretty bad. The original plan was to just get a trip as my hair was finally just getting long enough again, but of course I decided to do something a bit new...much shorter han planned but I like it, very cute.

I celebrated l'3id kbir with the host family again this year. Was a good time and lots of good food. Felt a bit different from last year, a bit less festive, but my host sister has also moved away and I have been very busy the last couple of months. Below are a few photos:

Here is December:

December was also a very busy month. I started the month off by going to Rabat again, only this time for an entire week. My stage had our mid-service medicals. Was a crazy week but also really good. Was so great to see everyone. The medical stuff wasn’t so fun, but I’m all healthy. Ate very well as always. Went to a great pizza place and discovered a really great place to have juice, kind of like shakes here. There is a banana chocolate coffee mixture that I get. I also finally spliced my buta hose myself, :). Was very proud of this feat. Now I can use my stove and oven at the same time!

After meds I went home. Spent much of the month staying in site and hanging out. My host sister that got married in June came back for about 5 days and I got to see her which was really nice.

I hosted Christmas in my site. Was so much fun. Made a yummy lasagna, dinner rolls, salad and pumpkin pie for dinner. We had Cajun tuna spread and crackers, popcorn, eggnog, hershey’s kisses and sugar cookies for snacks. Stayed up chatting and then after muffins in the morning everyone went home. Me and one of the girls took a walk to Meski, the nearby village to me, after everyone left. Was really nice, a beautiful day.

The highlight of the month I would have to say was New Year’s Eve in Merzouga. It was so crazy! Went down to Erfoud where everyone going met up and then we piled into a bunch of off-roading jeeps that we then took the “scenic route” to Merzouga. Basically we were racing each other off the main road in the more desertic area. Was so much fun. We then arrived in Merzouga and hung out until dinner. Several of us walked out into the sand dunes to watch the sunset. Was very sad I didn’t have my camera. Still being fixed. We had an awesome dinner and then hung out and partied until midnight and then some more until 3am. We then had to wake up at 6:45am to get on the camels for our morning excursion into the sand dunes. Was so cold! But beautiful. I then returned to site and that was how I rung in the New Year. Was amazing and my favorite thus far. Unfortunately there are no photos for this month as my camera broke and took until the end of January to finally be fixed. Roads were bad and so it took awhile to receive the new part. I was also taking care of a friend's cat during the month. I renamed her Shitaana which means the devil in darija. She could be really sweet but had a few issues such as not being able to learn not to do something and climbing all over everything.

Yes it is February, but I have finally had a chance to write updates for the last 3 months. Here is November:

Let’s see…it has been a very very long time since I have updated this. I celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving in a small site with fellow volunteers. It was amazing. We had 2 turkeys, one was cooked in the oven in the traditional manner and the other was deep fried. Quite the interesting spectacle to watch. Then we had green beans with French fried onions on top, regular green beans, stuffing, cranberry sauce, biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy, and carrots. Then for dessert we had several pies. We had 2 pumpkin, one pumpkin cheesecake, an apple pie and a cake. So yummy. Totally ate myself into a food coma. I was so full I was in pain, but the food was just so good. There were about 20 of us. Almost the whole region. Good times. We also had a night of Thanksgiving Trivia that our host and hostess created. One was definitely easier than the other but also so much fun. We even got to play Cranium, love that game. The following morning we had to get up way early to catch a 5am transit that actually left at 4am. But we were able to call and get another transit and all go back to our homes.

Moroccan taking advantage of comfy flour sacs in a transit to sleep

Everyone has to have a pumpkin with berber symbols for halloween

My friends' site

My friends' house

The dessert table, yummy.

The pumpkin pie I made from scratch. Yummier than it looks, ;)

And this is my awesome pumpkin cheesecake.

All the yummy food My beautiful plate of food The turkey's in the broiler About to boil the turkey

We also unfortunately had a fellow volunteer pass away quite unexpectedly. Many of us went to her memorial service in Rabat in support of each other. She will always be missed.

Workwise not much to report. Women are doing well. I had hoped to help them get a building with a SPA grant, but was unable to attain it. Looking for other options at the moment and trying to work around not having their own building.

Wow, let’s see…it’s been a long time since I updated this. Hmm… not too much has happened in site after Rabat and Fes. Have been doing a lot of relaxing and reading. I went to Erfoud over the 17th and 18th for the Date Festival. I had a really good time. There were so many dates! Erfoud is very well know for its dates and holds a festival every year sometime in October. Was nice to see friends and play some Nintendo Wii. Then I went to Errachidia for flu shots. Was not looking forward to that! I absolutely detest shots. Managed to get through it, had fun seeing people in the region. I had made a successful Chocolate Cheesecake to share with everyone. Only I had ended up stepping on about 1/4th of it. I had stored it in my bedroom so my cat wouldn’t eat it as he tries to do and forgot I had set it on the floor of my bedroom and opened the door and stepped in…oops. Still tasted fabulous. Bought some really pretty pink fabric that I plan to make a skirt out of it. Was also very happy to find the seed beads I needed to finish my belly dance costume that I planned to wear for Halloween. That was my next big activity. I went down to Tinjdad to celebrate Halloween with several other volunteers. I wore my finished belly dance costume and had a lot of fun. Was sad to learn that a fellow volunteer had to go home.

Let’s see…before Halloween I hung out with my retired nomad neighbors and they had a friend henna my hands and feet. Too bad the henna didn’t stain my skin very well, but it was a fun experience. My bike tires are also both so completely flat that I’ll have to take it to a gas station to fill the tires. Hand pumps are doing absolutely nothing.

Received a much appreciated package from my mom, :). American food is always appreciated. Also had a much needed pair of jeans and wonderful knee high socks for when winter sets in. Currently 68°F in my house and steadily declining. Refusing to use more than one blanket as long as possible. I also received a bundle of letters from the Middle School in Iowa I have begun corresponding with and was very happy. Getting mail of any sort is always a happy day.

The king was in Errachidia for nearly a week. That was interesting. I had so much trouble getting transportation into town. I finally was able to get in toward the end of the week and almost got stampeded. I was checking my mail and the king had just finished a speech and was driving away and everyone decided that they wanted to run after his car. Several policemen had to actually pull people off of his car.

Another bit of work news. A coop about 10km from me came to my site and asked me to help them with basic business skills. They are a new coop and specialize in beef cattle. They just purchased a building and will be buying cattle soon. I visited them not too long ago. There are about 8 members and they are so nice. 2 of the women are also artisans who make stained glass pictures and paint on fabric, glass and mirrors. They mainly do floral patterns, very cool.

My coop supposedly had elections last weekend but are had trouble finding a location. I went on Sunday and I think they had started the process of it all but they speak so quickly I’m not sure. I love my current president and am nervous about working with a new one, but that is the coop’s choice. So far they have proved themselves capable. They have also found a building finally but it would cost them their entire bank account, about $3,125 USD. I am hoping to help them gain funding to be able to make this purchase. It would be so helpful to them and then they could finally work on a daily basis. Things seem to finally be going somewhere on obtaining their own building.

And that brings us back to the present. I am looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving with friends this coming weekend even though it will be in a cold site! L’3id kbir (the big holiday) is this month as well. The one where they sacrifice a sheep. I’m looking forward to the seasoned beef kabobs, :). Also been working on my cross stitch projects a bit and hope to start making my own cheese soon. Speaking of cross stitch I plan to hold a cross stitch techniques workshop for a friend’s coop next week depending on the king. Very excited, :). I’ve had to push the workshop back several times now because he keeps post-poning his visit.

My cat has recently ran off about 4 days ago. Hoping he comes back, he is an un-fixed male. Waiting another week and if he hasn’t returned I’ll adopt a friend’s kitten. I am really hoping my returns.

Let’s see… I went started traveling to Rabat last Tuesday for another ear exam. I looked at the bus schedule, buses at 12pm, 1pm, and 1:45pm. I thought I would try to catch the 1:45pm. I left my house at 12pm, managed to get a taxi at 12:30pm and thought I would make it to Errachidia just in time for the 1pm bus. Unfortunately the taxi was stopped by Gendarmes for speeding. Grrr… So I didn’t get into Errachidia until 1:15pm missing the 1pm bus and only to arrive at the bus station to learn that there no longer was a 1:45pm bus. I really do wish they would update their bus time schedule. The next bus wasn’t until 3pm and was full and the next wouldn’t be until 5pm and unfortunately due to the inability to travel at night I was forced to take a taxi. Luck had it that I got a taxi right away, the bad luck was that I had to squish into a back seat with a very large man, a not so small woman and an average sized woman. I was not able to get a window seat either. I’ve been uncomfortable before, but this was actually painful, for 4 hours. It was such a relief to arrive in Azrou. One of the doors to the backseat of the taxi didn’t shut so well either and opened up twice on the way to Azrou. Hence to say it was an adventure. In Azrou my friend and I ate with a few others and I was able to take a very appreciated hot shower and was able to get a good night’s sleep. Travel the next day was absolutely magical in comparison. I arrived at the Azrou taxi stand and was able to get a taxi to Meknes within 10 minutes, was comfortable, arrived in Mekness by 9am and caught the 9:30am train to Rabat city center. Arrived by 12pm, had previously reserved a room and was able to set down my things by 12:30pm. The travel was so smooth. I also met two wonderful ladies on the train who do belly dancing from the states. Then in Rabat I made a nice trip to Marjane, ate McDonalds and stopped by the Peace Corps Headquarters office. It was great to be able to peruse all the books in the library and use the free internet. That night was a bit irritating as several times guys tried to follow me within a block of my hotel, but other than that I was able to pick up a few new movies in the Medina, :).

Thursday was crazy. Woke up early, found my way to the ear clinic and waited a few minutes. The doctor looked at my ears and jaws. I had a hearing test done which concluded I still have a loss of hearing in my right ear. Then they took me to an operating room and laid me down on a table and stuck wet pieces of cloth into my nose and told me to breathe. I was freaking out just a bit here because I had no idea what was going on. Found out a few minutes later the pieces of cloth were to numb my nose so they could use a microscope to see the inside of my ear drum to see if there was anything clogging the insides of it. It looked fine to them. The doctor then told me he would give a prognosis after I had all my previous test results sent to him and all my previous treatments and recommendations. He also wishes to see me again in 2 months, which I will be in Rabat anyway for mid-service medicals. I then went back to the office, got reimbursed and hung out for a bit before heading out to an amazing lunch at Pizza Hut and catching the 2pm train to Fes where I was attending a Marketing workshop/Craft Fair with my women.

The craft fair was awesome. It was so great to experience one and to hang out with fellow SBDers to share information. SBD is small business development. I also ate very well for dinner while I was there, ;). I was able to eat the most amazing sushi ever one night, well, maybe not ever, but pretty amazing. My women sold a few things and had a woman place an order for a few more things. Overall it was a really great first experience for them. It was also nice for me to see all the other artists that other volunteers work with and to get a few ideas and helpful hints. I wasn’t a fan of the hostel. It was a great location, but the management was something else. I wanted to get a receipt for one night but no one could write a receipt for me and the owner was on vacation the last two days I was there. Very irritating. There were many other issues as well. Travel back was good. I traveled with a friend and two of his artisans. Mine didn’t tell me when they were leaving and I forgot to ask. I just took a bus back and then crashed when I returned to my site. Traveling to Rabat and Fes so soon after my return to from the states was exhausting. I’m sure every tourist feels the same way.

So back in site and just relaxing for a bit. My women won’t meet again until Sunday as school is back in session. Been trying to pay my rent all week. Beginning to wonder if my land lord moved. I’ll just have to pay his aunt tomorrow. I do miss being able to just send a check through the mail or putting it in a drop off box.

Otherwise nothing too big going on this month. Hope to go somewhere for Halloween. Very excited it’s on a weekend. I’d say it is one of my favorite holidays.

Blog update. Been a long time I know.

Let’s see…let’s start with August. I was pretty sick the first week, didn’t leave my house for 5 whole days. The second week I visited friends and host family in site, went to the coop a few times and started preparing for my Marrakech/Tiznit trip and trip back to America shortly after. I left for Marrakech on the 15th and spent a very hot long 10 hours on a suq bus to Marrakech as the nice air conditioned CTM was full. I then did lots of shopping for gifts for friends and family. Took awhile to find a hotel with an open room, but finally found one for a good price and crashed very late after a very nice hot shower. Got up early the next day to take a CTM down to Tiznit. Was very excited to get a ticket. It was such a nice smooth air-conditioned ride. It felt like heave after the suq bus. I met a friend of mine in her site, about an hour outside of Tiznit on the 16th. It was about another 9 hours from Marrakech to her site. It was so nice to stay for two nights and meet so many awesome volunteers. The next day we went into town for a bit where I bought too much silver jewelry and then we all met up in the village that was hosting the festival. I helped the girls with French and Arabic as they are all Tamazight speakers. It was fun. As to the significance of silver jewelry, Tiznit is very well known for it’s silver jewelry selection and Silver Souq. Then I took a city bus into Tiznit on the 18th where I caught a taxi to Inzegane, a big bus stop. I had just missed the CTM by about a half hour, so I took a suq bus. I must say it was the worst one I have yet seen here in Morocco and I got to take it for the whole 9 hours to Ouarzazate. The seats were too close for me to sit normally with my long legs and the cushions had lost their cushioning, but it made it to Ouarzazate, humdullah. I stayed at a nice hotel near the medina, took another nice hot shower, and then left around 12pm the next day via CTM where I ran into a couple other volunteers. I should have stayed with the one in her site, but I thought she was still gone. Next time. Overall it was a really good trip, very long, but successful. I bought all the gifts I had wanted to and was able to see several friends along the way and even help out with a health booth even if it was for only a few hours.

I then rested up in site for about a week before my big states trip. I had lftur (breakfast) with a friend one night of shark and sardines. Her friend can cook! Though my house reeked of fish for awhile and I’m not a big fan of fish.

Then the big day came. I began traveling to Casablanca on the 31st staying with a friend that night near Rabat. That was about a 10 hour bus ride. Then early the next morning I took a train from Rabat to the Casablanca airport, about another 2 hours, and took an easy jet flight to Madrid on the 1st. Yes, it really does take me about 12 hours to get to the airport. Once in Madrid I met a friend at the Hilton Hotel there. She was using her parents’ hotel points and boy was I lucky we were flying in and out the same day. I had never experienced such luxury. It was also my first trip out of Morocco in 12 months. We were served free champagne and wine as well as many savory snacks including several pork products. It was heaven. Alcohol and pork aren’t viewed so well in Morocco, pork is near impossible to find. I was also able to take my first bath in nearly a year and it was fabulous. Then the next day we took a shuttle to the airport and parted out separate ways. My delta flight left right on time and was so nice. I had two seats to myself and excellent service and good food. The seats seemed so spacious after 12 months of Moroccan suq buses. Then I had a 7 hour layover in Atlanta which passed quickly as I was able to chat with a really nice guy who happened to be coming from Saudi Arabia, an American. My flight left on time from Atlanta and I arrived in Des Moines, IA with all my luggage, :). My parents met me and drove me home where I crashed.

The next morning I couldn’t find my car keys. Apparently my mom had given them to me the night before while I was completely out of it. Finally found them almost 2 days later clipped to my suitcase. I spent the first two days resting and roaming around my home town. Saturday I went to Ames to see a good friend of mine. Sunday I had a family picnic, was so nice to see everyone. Then I went to Des Moines and saw the new Harry Potter! Was so excited to go to a movie theater, :). Monday I met up with an old friend for lunch and then another good friend of mine for a movie and dinner. We ate at the Cheesecake factory where I had awesome food and a very tasty beverage, ;). Then we watched The Ugly Truth. Hilarious movie! Afterwards we ate amazing cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory and then slept on the floor of her new apartment as she didn’t have furniture yet. Very comfy carpet. Tuesday I stayed home. Wednesday I went to my college town and visited with several professors. I was going to go to Ames for a belly dancing class but decided to stay home and relax as I was still tired. I wish I had gone though, I could have really used the class and it would have been nice to see my friend again. Thursday I went to Iowa City and saw a sorority sister of mine. We ate amazing steak at the Texas Roadhouse and then went out for drinks at a local bar. Was great to catch up. Friday I saw my two friends who had just gotten married and we went with another to the Cheesecake Factory again. That was a late night but a good one. Saturday I saw another sorority sister in Cedar Falls. Was great to catch up with her as well and inherited many good books and a wonderful meal and mudslide at Applebees, my favorite restaurant. I also got to see my brother, new niece and 2 nephews on the way up. Sunday I met up with my Des Moines friend one final time and we watched The Time Traveler’s Wife. Good movie, but book was way better. Ate some amazing Coldstone ice cream and just wandered the mall a bit. Monday I went shopping with my mom in Des Moines. That was a very long day but good. We went to all the craft stores and a bookstore. Bought some cross stitch supplies and salivated over books. I’ve missed Barnes and Noble so much. Then we got Culvers on the way home and I just relaxed for the night. Tuesday I went back to Des Moines to finish my shopping and had dinner with one of my aunt and uncles at a place in my home town. Wednesday I went back to my college town to look at the specialty shops and see a few more professors. I went to Central College in Pella, IA. I really like Pella. Came home and packed. Had an awesome steak and baked potato that my dad has grilled. Thought my bag was fine, 48lbs. Well, it would have been fine if not for my easy jet flight. Had to take out 4lbs, :(. Stayed up very late, but managed it.

Flight back was crazy. First a 2 hour delay in Des Moines so I didn’t get my final deli sandwich, had to run to catch my international flight. Sat by a nice woman. Then my easy jet flight was delayed 1.5 hours and they made me pay an extra 22Euroes for my purse. Luckily I was flying back with another peace corps volunteer. Got in and took a train to Rabat and a taxi to my friend’s site where I crashed for the night. Was really great to see her. Then stopped in Azrou to drop off a friend’s camera and a friend’s laptop battery. Stayed the night in Midelt and left on Sunday to finish the journey to my site. Fairly smooth other than my Azrou to Midelt taxi. We had to pull over a few times due to the transmission not working so well, but I made it. Took a nice solar shower and unpacked and relaxed. Monday I rested all day, then Tuesday I visited my counter part, host family and neighbor who took care of my cat for me while I was gone.

My birthday is tomorrow. The big 25. Not planning to do anything special, maybe bake myself some brownies and just relax. Was gone for 3 weeks and just returned 3 days ago.

As you can see it’s been an exciting 2 months for me. Hard to believe it’s nearly October already. I have a trip to Fes and Rabat next week. 2 of my women will be attending a marketing workshop in Fes and I will be going to Rabat for a second opinion on why my ear clogs up every so often and has a persistent pain. Usually not too bad.

Ok. Below is a photo taken of Lake Tislit near Imilchil from my 4th of July weekend. It was a bit rainy that day, but still beautiful.

Will be glad when the locusts die off. They like to jump and fly at anything that moves near them. And still dealing with the fearsome turk. A friend of mine left it uncovered the other day. I’ll just say it’s a bit of a shock to see 6 huge black beetle/cockroach things in your bathroom. I like summer other than the darn bugs. They’ll go away around September inchallah.

I’ve been back for about a week since my latest Rabat trip. I had to go up for a medical thing, like usual. As far as I know all is well, :). I have a new allergy med that I think it is actually causing my ear to ache more, but I’ll re-evaluate after a month. The trip was a little crazy. Had trouble finding an open room in Rabat on Wednesday and then just stayed with a CBT mate of mine on Thursday, she lives about an hour outside of Rabat. Then I was going to stay in Midelt, but my friend backed out last minute and I stayed with another CBT mate of mine in Azrou instead. It was nice in the fact I was able to travel there with a friend and was able to just relax and use internet while my friend did his thing. Also got to see my language trainer from training, :). Haven’t seen her in 8 months, so it was really nice. The bus ride back to Errachidia the next day was crazy. The buses weren’t running between 9am and 11am, so had to wait a couple extra hours and then fight my way on the 11am bus and enjoy a 6 hour ride back instead of the normal 4-5 hours of the 9am bus. I should have awoken an hour earlier and caught the 8am, but that’s Morocco for you. I didn’t realize traveling during the summer was so different. I also wasn’t feeling well the entire way back, hence I was very happy to return to my house after a long journey back.

Otherwise just been going to the coop and hanging out with my women since I got back. I also dared and dyed my hair with henna. It’s a pretty deep red now, but I love it. If I’d henna’d my eyebrows you would think it was natural. Posted some photos below so you can see the difference in color. Basically I had to sit around for 4 hours with plastic on my head before I could rinse it out. Normally women here henna their hair in hammam for about an hour or two, but I wanted the really rich red color and it’s too hot to go to hammam during the summer. Henna is supposed to be really good for your hair and also a cure for dandruff. Not so sure about the latter, but hair feels much healthier now and head isn’t as itchy as it was. Looks great too, ;). My coop women loved it.

Weather’s been a bit warm as well, so started sleeping on my roof until the temperature in my house goes down a bit. As you can see by the following photo, my new roof bed isn’t so bad. Just wish I had a fluffy blanket and it would be perfect. Sure beats sweating all night, it’s actually cool enough on my roof to use a blanket. Had to deal with a small plague of locusts the other night, but as soon as I turned off the light they stopped bothering me and my cat killed many of them. It’s also just nice to look up at the stars late at night, so beautiful here.

Otherwise life is good. My host family is great. I’m planning a trip out to the West coast for about a week to visit Essaoura and Tiznit. Have friends near both and plan on doing some shopping and hanging out at the beach. Essa is great for the beach and Tiznit is very well known for its silver jewelry.

It’s days like today (Monday) that make me happy to be a volunteer and not sitting at an office job all day. My coop president and a couple other women decided to take a walk through the forest today instead of going to the coop. It was so nice to just hang out and be outside getting some exercise. Great bonding experience, :).

So far July has been a good month. For the 4th of July I went to Imilchil to celebrate with other volunteers. We were going to go celebrate at the lake, but it was a stormy day so we ate at a volunteer’s house and then took a walk out to Lake Islit. It is a beautiful lake about an our walk from Imilchil, many tourists come to this lake. We basically just walked around for awhile and then we went back to Imilchil and ate awesome pizza and apple pie while celebrating 2 volunteers’ half birthdays with carrot cake. Overall a good time. Then I stopped by 2 volunteers’ sites on my way back to Errachidia. It’s always nice visiting other volunteers’ sites.

Then the following week as my counter part who is also the coop’s president was busy with her cousin’s wedding, none of the women were meeting, so I just relaxed a bit and worked on some personal projects. I also had tutoring Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as my tutor and I have been very busy this past month. She went over vocabulary and practices for Ramadan, the month before Ramadan, summer terms, and wedding information as summer is wedding season.

The month before Ramadan is a holy month in which many Moroccans begin preparing food items special to Ramadan and cleaning their houses. This month is called sh3ban. Two things that every Moroccan serves during Ramadan are shb3kiya and zmita. Shb3kiya is a fried bread item dipped in honey and sesame seeds, very yummy. Zmita is a dish made with burned flour, crushed fried almonds or peanuts, sesame seeds, fennel, and with whatever other spices Moroccans may wish to add. During sh3ban, Moroccans prepare these items which will be eaten throughout the entire month of Ramadan. Women will also bring their blankets down to the river to wash them and clean every corner of their home as well as all the clothing, pots, pans, etc. My neighbor told me the other day that whenever I want to wash my blankets she’ll go down to the river with me and help me out. It’s about the only way to wash a blanket here due to the nature of no washing machines and buckets can only hold so much. I tried my hand at hosing down a blanket in my upstairs room on one of my lines, it was fairly successful, but I would prefer the blanket to be a little cleaner.

Ramadan itself is the only month in which Muslims fast and pray. It’ll start around August 22 this year and is also when Moroccan time goes back an hour again and goes back to normal. They don’t observe daylight savings like the rest of the world. Even though we moved our clocks ahead an hour, the majority of Moroccans such as my village still run on what we lovingly call old time. During Ramadan Moroccans do not eat or drink anything during daylight hours. They will wake up very early in the morning to eat breakfast and drink as much water as they can, generally around 4am, and then sleep again. Then around 6pm, after the sun sets on TV, Moroccans eat Lftor, breakfast. This meal is very large and starts with a round of milk, juice and dates. On the first day each person eats 7 dates. Then after the milk and dates they eat melowee (flat fried bread), eggs, shb3kiya, zmita, and their main course of some kind of meat. Then later that night they have a 2nd lighter meal and then a 3rd meal around midnight before going to sleep and waking up at 4am for their final meal before fasting begins again.

That’s my little cultural piece for the day.

Saturday I went to my coop and just hung out with a few of the women for a bit working on my cross stitch while they worked on their tirz d fasi, fasi embroidery. Sunday I went into town and went swimming with my tutor, her mom, her friend and a friend of mine at an indoor swimming pool for women only. My friend and I felt like celebrities with all the Moroccan teens and kids coming up to us. It was good, the day was 42°C, 113°F, but the shade the pool was under and the coldness of the water actually made me cold. Was a good feeling. Then when I returned back to my village my retired Nomad neighbor invited me over for tea, it was my favorite, mint tea, :). Then she invited me to see their nomad tent that was set up beyond the small hills across the road from us, so I went over with her younger daughter, about 8, and hung out under the tent for awhile with her and her 2 friends, also neighbors of mine. I learned to how to play a rock game that I am horribly bad at, we played with a bunch of baby goats and I got to ride their donkey for a little bit. My little friend was just leading him around the area. I had a blast, I’ve missed horseback riding so much that riding a donkey was a nice surprise, :). While I was under the tend every time the baby goats came they would basically stampede down the hill and all I could hear would be this running of goat feet. I had so much hanging out with them.

My language is slowly improving little by little and making wonderful friends here. I think it’s so cool that my neighbors used to be roaming nomads, they actually still travel from time to time. I’d love to go with them sometime. I think it would be fun to wander the desert.

Been baking again and made awesome white bread. Decided to use a mixture of white flour and yellow flour to help give it stability and it turned out really well. Made myself a couple grilled cheese sandwiches, they were amazing. My next attempt is to make brown sugar using white sugar and date juice and make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Been told date juice has similar properties to molasses which is all brown sugar is, molasses sweetened white sugar.

Hooray ! I finally decided to buy an external keyboard that I can just hook up to my lap top, :). It’s so nice to finally be able to type at home again. It’s a French keyboard with Arabic symbols, but that’s ok. Getting very used to the French keyboard anyway and I sometimes have the need to type in Arabic. My lap top still has a few issues due to the heat, dust, etc. and only minimally cfunctions at the moment, but I can wait and have those issues fixed when I take my trip to Iowa. My dvd player doesn’t always function very well, but it is mainly when I use Moroccan burned dvds, my American ones work fine and I think it just needs cleaned.

I was able to hang out with a couple pcvs this past weekend, so that was nice. Visited my host family and my counterpart. My women are working in the fields until Thursday, so not too much going on this week in that arena. I am considering planning a small summer day camp in my site this summer, just depends on many factors. I think it would be really fun. The volunteer before me did a travelling summer camp between her site and a few other volunteers and think that would be an amazing thing to do myself. Unfortunately I didn’t think about it until now as life has been so crazy. I will attempt to plan something for next summer. I have a few friends who would be interested in helping and a volunteer near me who helped the volunteer last year that I can gain some insight and advice from. I have plenty of camp experience, ;). Otherwise just planning to assist my cooperative women with getting funding to purchase or build their own building and general business practices such as budget planning; product development; etc. My counterpart is also going to teach me the moroccon form of embroidery called tirz d fasi. Very excited.

tirz d fasi is moroccan for fasi embroidery. This is basically just the typical Moroccan pattern they use on tea covers, bed covers, pillow vovers, etc. Generally they use the colors red, green or black. Below is a photo of a bedsheet cover using tirz d fasi. I am very excited to begin learning, :).

Summer is warming up, been getting a few summer rains and almost daily wind/thunder stroms. I love listening to the storms. I might turn my upstairs room into a summer bedroom, just need to purchase a ponge to put up there. Going to try to plan a few trips to more northern sites in the next two months so I can get out of the heat a bit. Might celebrate 4th of July somewhere.

Had my first experience in getting my buta gas tank replaced. My buta gas tank went out on Saturday, so as I have no wrench or anything to unconnect it I went to my host family’s house and asked my host brother if he could do it for me. He owns a hanut store and sells buta gas, so very nice. I can now begin baking away again. My mom just sent me a Pillsbury Best Desserts cookbook, so sweets will be the highlight of my summer existance, haha. I hope to start baking with some of my moroccan friends. They would absolutely love my new cookbook.

My mom also sent me my clarinet, so excited! I just need to start practicing again, boy am I out of "shape". Which also reminds me that I need to start working out again as well.

Another little exciting tid bit, well to me anyway, I saw a herd of camels in the dessert across from my house today. Apparently nomads herd them around me. Had no idea. I'll try to take a photo sometime, didn't have my camera with me in the taxi.

Well, I hope to update this a bit more often and include some more cultural information. At the moment I am going to go swimming for a bit at the local hotel with a friend. So excited, :).

nshufk mn b3d! نشوفك من بعر (see you later)

I returned about 4 days ago from a training in Marrakech. It was awesome. The first two days of training weren't so great, but it was really nice to see friends I hadn't seen in 6 months. We also had access to an AMAZING swimming pool even if we were far from downtown kech. Staying up till 1am and getting up around 8am was exhausting, but worth it. On the way to Kech I was able to stay the night in Ouarzazate and get some new summer clothes, very light and flowy caftan/jallaba things. Also while in Kech I got to eat amazing sushi! I was so excited. Also had Pizza Hut one night, had to have my american pizza, and ate in the jma fna one night, the downtown kech market area near the mosque.

Before Kech my cat was very good and killed a scorpion for me, :). I woke up to a dead one in my kitchen. Been dealing with way too many bugs lately. Darn beetles seem to be everywhere. Cockroaches are scary over here, very large. Luckily I haven't seen too many. And my roof has been dropping bits of rock lately. Praying it's just the heat and nothing is actually living up there. That's a scary thought. Other than the scary house issues, life is good. Cooled down to about 90F this week, but it'll only warm up again very soon.

Attempting to plan some inter-morocco travel or a short trip to Europe this summer before my trip back to Iowa. Not sure when or where yet. Somewhere I could swim would be great.

Otherwise not too much going on at the moment. Women have been out in the fields so not too much coop wise happening this week. Still working on getting my lap top keyboard fixed. Inchallah soon. Some exciting news, my host sister just got married. Unfortunately due to my need to travel to Kech I was unable to go, :(. But I may get to go to a wedding in Midelt for the cousin of my tutor, that would be fun. We've now hit wedding season, I hear the music weekly these days. My tutor just did very well on her Bac, so she will be leaving this fall to go to school. Sad she'll be leaving, but happy that she did so well.

As the weather warms up, people have begun taking afternoon naps and staying up much later. We had a time change, but I do not believe it is being observed by my village. We now have what I call "old time" and "new time". It makes life interesting, haha. I'll be glad when this time change goes away around August 20th, right before Ramadan starts.

I attempted to make scones the other day. Didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped they would, but I have plenty of time to try again. Well, I should go do my shopping for the weekend.

Hope to have a more exciting update soon.

It really has been awhile since I have updated this. Well, part of that is due to the fact I have not yet had a chance to have my malfunctioning keyboard fixed yet. It's difficult to type when you can't use A or S. I'm hoping to have it fixed before I take my trip home, or I might just buy a plug-in keyboard until I can get a replacement internal keyboard.

I haven't been up to too much this month. I hung around in site for the first half of the month visiting people, working on my cross stitch, etc. Been reading a lot. I did make my own blank writing journal. I ran out of pages in the one I had brought and could not find one here in Morocco, so after hearing how another volunteer makes her own I decided to look up book making online and create my own. I really like it, :).

I had a Warden meeting in Rabat on the 22nd. It was so much fun to see friends and meet new people. I was also able to see Alicia Keys perform live in Rabat for the music festival. That was pretty cool, I'd never really been to a live concert before.

Then this week we had our test consolidation where everyone in the region goes to their designated consolidation point sites in the case of an emergency. Generally when there is an unsafe situation for volunteers we all gather at these points and wait for further instructions on whether or not we will be evauating the country. This test exercise ws to get an idea of how well it would work and what we need to do to make it work more efficiently in a real emergency. It was really great to meet people I haven't had a chance to see yet and to hang out with friends. Even got to go swimming!

Been baking a lot of well. Had a friend come over a couple weeks ago and we made awesome chicken quesadillas with some substitutes of course. Didn't have time to make salsa. I made awesome lemon bars the other day as well. I would have to say my oven is my best investment yet.

Been injuring myself as usual as well, haha. First cut my finger on a glass I broke while washing it, then pinched the skin on the back of my hand in a door as I was opening the bolt and then sliced my thumb on the lid of a sardine can while tying my garbage shut. All minor injuries of course, :).

Next week I will be going to Marrakech for my IST (inter service training) for a week. It'll be really great to see people I haven't seen in 6 months as well as to get some more information to help me in site, not to mention there will be a pool, ;). I'm always excited to swim. It's been warming up here, in the upper 90's. But a dry heat.

hmm...some exciting news for everyone in Iowa. I have planned and bought tickets to take a trip home in September, :). Very excited. I'll be home for the first 2 weeks of September.

Hope everyone is well!

Here are some photos I took while in Marrakech for a day last month. They are of the souk and one of the carriages they have near the souk:

Hmm…since Spring Camp I’ve basically just stayed in my site. I was stuck in Errachidia for about 4 days a couple weeks ago due to the strike, but other than that no traveling. It’s been nice to just stay in site and relax a bit.

A couple weeks ago I held a small skirt creation workshop in my house for 4 of my cooperative women by their request. I showed them how to create a very simple elastic waist skirt. It went over very well. Now more of the women want me to hold another workshop on more complicated patterns soon. Pretty excited to be relaying some of my knowledge, :).

Other than that not too much has been happening. It’s been warming up here in Morocco, especially down south. Been reaching the upper 80’s and it’s only going to get warmer. The bugs are also beginning to come out due to this warmer weather. Lucky for me my cat likes to catch and eat most of them. She’s still a kitten and ornery, but a good addition. I like her company as well.

I’ve also learned how much I really like cooking and baking while here. I use a buta gas stove and oven for my cooking needs. Basically a buta gas stove is a glorified camp stove and a buta gas oven is something we lovingly call a fire box here. I also have to make everything from scratch here as there are no mixes, etc. Frozen dinners can be found in large cities where there is a Marjane, but nowhere down south. My closest Marjane is about 5-7 hours by bus away. I make biscuits, tortillas, brownies, omelettes, and many other items from scratch. And all the fresh fruits and vegetables! I hope to learn to make Moroccan tajines and Pastilla someday as well. Pastilla is the most amazing dish ever. It is a mixture of chicken, almonds, onions, powdered sugar, cinnamon and spices(pepper, ginger, parsley, coriander, tumeric) within a phyllo shell with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top. Seems my life revolves around food here. I could eat with a Moroccan family any day of the week I wish to, but in my village they only eat Duez for lunch and some kinds of flour based soup for dinner. Duez is a type of tajine eaten in villages. It consists of an oil based sauce with paprika, parsley, pepper, and ginger. Then it generally has tomatoes, carrots, and potatoes for the veggies with some kind of meat in the middle. Generally this is chicken, but it could also be mutton, beef or some other animal. Bled soup is basically flour based with some kind of pasta and maybe some oil and pepper. But there are many kinds.

My daily routine is basically to “live” in the morning and then visit members of the cooperative or fellow villagers in the afternoon. So I generally stay in my house until 3pm just so I can avoid eating lunch with people. I just don’t care for village Duez, otherwise I would love to go over to people’s houses for lunch. I feel bad for avoiding lunch, but I really don’t like the village Duez. I do generally eat with someone on Fridays as that is when most Moroccans eat couscous. Twice a week I hitch a taxi into Errachidia for tutoring, souk, internet, post office. What I mean by “live” is, I have to do everything myself. I have to cook my meals, wash my dishes, do laundry by hand, bucket bath, etc. I have a solar shower though which is nice. Laundry is easily a 1-2 hour process. Then the days when I go to Hammam, that’s about a 2 hour process as well. Hammam is the public bathhouse. Very nice place to go to in the winter months here, not so great in the summer. Beginning to lose track of my days of the week here and the date of the month. Time is very different here.

So that is a bit of an update on my life here in Morocco. Overall life is going fairly well. Better now that I don’t have to make so many trips to Rabat. I can’t currently ride my bike because it makes my knee ache, but I’m hoping after taking a 2 month hiatus (possibly 4 as the summer months will be killer) that my knee will be better.

I’m also beginning to realize that my Fiona (my cat) is really a Fiero. Kittens are very difficult to judge when they are so small. A male cat is better anyway because then I don’t have to worry about kittens.

Also, currently my cat spilled water on my keyboard which really sucks because certain important letters no longer work on my keyboard. Only 5 keys and not even all in the same spot, just on the same side of my keyboard, but important keys: fn, A, Q, S, and V. Makes me very sad that my keyboard doesn’t fully function anymore because of something stupid that my cat did and not even sure it can be fixed, :(. Going to check with the computer guy in Errachidia. If all else fails I can always buy an external keyboard to plug into my USB port. Basically I just need a new keypad replaced. They should be able to do that here, but I might have to order one as I would want it to be an American keyboard.

Otherwise things are good. Haven't traveled too much this month, just spring camp at the start and then I went to Erfoud this weekend to visit a fellow volunteer. It was good. We hung out, I got to use internet, watched a good movie and ate some American candy, :).

Currently I am attempting to find a horseback riding trip near by in my affordability range. Otherwise if I can't find one, I might take a trip back to the states in September, not sure yet. Still deciding.

Wow I have had a very long month, but it has also went very quickly. I had my regional meeting in Ouarzazate. Overall it was a very good meeting. We were able to discuss issues we have all been dealing with and about each other’s experiences.

After the regional meeting I returned to site for about a week before heading off to Spring Camp in Errachidia. I worked with 6 male peace corps volunteers and 1 other female. Then we also had about 6 Moroccan staff and a little over 100 kids. Overall it was a really good and fun week. Us Americans met up Saturday night to plan and discuss what would happen during the week.

Then Sunday we moved our things over to the Center we would be staying in and had a meeting with the Moroccan staff at which point we cemented and clarified the schedule. Afterwards we hung out and relaxed for a bit before finishing up last minute things.

Monday was the day the kids arrived. They started arriving right after lunch and we spent until Supper time interviewing their level of English. Me and the other female volunteer teamed up and we had lots of fun. Afterwards we relaxed a little before supper. After supper we all went to the Dar Chebab to go over rules for the camp. It was a very long night.

And Tuesday was a very early morning. We had breakfast at 8am, but we had the kids meet outside at 7:30am. Then we had English lessons, I taught the very beginners with the assistance of our director. I had a lot of fun teaching them basic greetings and such. We also played “Big Booty”. That was a bit of a challenge to teach, but they caught on eventually and had a lot of fun with it. My darija is still very much a work in progress, so I think my mistakes helped them not feel so bad about making their own. Also the guy helping me out was pretty amazing. After English classes we had sports. Basically the girls played basketball while the boys played soccer. I attempted to play basketball with the girls and ended up twisting my foot. Did a pretty good job of tripping over my own feet, haha. After lunch we held our clubs. I helped teach Arts with another volunteer. Explaining friendship bracelets to 21 kids with varying degrees of English was a very interesting situation. In the end everyone had created some form of a friendship bracelet, :). After clubs the youth listened to information regarding SIDA (AIDS) before having an amazing supper. After supper we had a talent show. Some of the youth were very talented as well as many staff members.

Wednesday we went through the same program except instead of AIDS they youth discussed different issues currently going on around them such as Immigration and Technology. Overall a very good day. My partner and I taught our Arts club how to make paper cranes. It was a very successful venture. For the evening activity we played American games in which the kids had a great time. There was dizzy bat, balloon stomp, musical chairs, tug of war, limbo, and a fifth game I am having trouble remembering.

Thursday was the bog day of the week. We all took small “school buses” to Merzouga. Basically a school buy here is a van about the size of a 15 passenger van but with benches in the back where you have to squeeze in. For the trip down I sat in the front, but on the way back we all squeezed into the back with the kids. We started by waking up at 6am and left by 7am. We had breakfast at a rest stop next to a gorge near my village. Was a beautiful spot. Afterwards we finished driving to Merzouga where we walked to a large sand dune and then made our way up it. It took us about an hour as it is very tall. There is a reason Moroccans call it a “Mountain of Sand” in darija. Then I attempted to roll down it like you would a hill, but was having technical difficulties, haha. So I ended up just semi skiing down the dune. It was great walking barefoot in the dry warm sand. After rolling down the hill I came to the realization that I had sand everywhere. After the dunes we had lunch of a baguette, some cheese spread, a potato and egg in Rissani. Then we visited an old area before heading onto Erfoud where we visited a really neat fossilized rock place. Basically they take fossilized marble and make it into really cool tables, fountains, plates, etc. After the museum we visited Hotel Xaluca (pronounced shalooka). It was an amazing hotel that was much too pricey for my Peace Corps budget. We finally arrived back at the Center later than planned and ate dinner. Well, I skipped dinner as I had gotten so motion sick from the vans on the hour ride back to Errachidia. The plan was to watch an American movie, but there were technical difficulties, so we ended up scratching the movie. I was just thankful for the chance to take a nice long hot shower to get all the sand off of me.

Friday we went back to the normal schedule and also hosted our last day of clubs. My partner and I let the kids draw and paint pictures of things they had seen while on the Merzouga field trip. English class was good, the first I had taught completely on my own, :). I sat out during sports again as I did not want to reinjure anything, haha. After supper we held a fake Moroccan wedding. And lucky me was the bride. I actually had a lot of fun letting them dress me up, do my make-up, etc. I will never forget walking down the street from the Center to the Dar Chebab with a band following me and playing music and my entourage of girls ululating. I ended up changing my dress once, but I have to say I liked the green one much better than the white one. That was also a very late night. I think we crashed around 1am.

Saturday was the last full day of camp. We had our final English class which was basically just a review. Then we held our English Olympiads where we have several different stations where kids have to use English words to gain points such as pronouncing words correctly, playing hangman, charades, etc. After lunch we announced the winners and then let kids prepare for the Spectacle where they could perform different pieced they had learned throughout the week or had compiled themselves. Overall a very good night with many interesting acts. After supper we had a bit of a yogurt/toothpaste fight. I got toothpaste in my ear, that was fun to get out, and the bad ear nonetheless, haha. I chased down my fair share of campers, ;).

Sunday the campers all went home, we had a meeting with Moroccan staff and then went to a volunteer’s house to unwind. Overall the camp was a great success and the food was amazing.

Monday I just relaxed and recouperated a bit. I tried to get wireless internet, but both places told me my site isn’t part of the coverage area yet and a fixed line is not available either, :(. Maroc Telecom made it sound as if they are planning a project to expand coverage, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. A friend of mine is letting me test his Wana wireless in my site as well, so hoping maybe I’ll get lucky.

Tuesday I had my tutoring session at 8:30am, very early. Then I just went back to site, did laundry and visited my host family. Still very exhausted.

Wednesday I visited people in my site and caught up with my counterpart. I am working on helping the coop ship some bracelets to the states per request of the previous pcv.

Thursday I just came into Errachidia to load up on food supplies, meet up with a friend and catch up on emails and such.

Hope everyone back home is doing well!

Before

After

I decided to chop off all my hair because the split ends were getting so bad. I think it turned out well other than the fact it cost me 200dh! I've only ever paid 30dh here in Morocco, so I was very shocked. I should have asked before hand, but I thought it was only going to be about 60dh, boy was I wrong.Otherwise my trip to Rabat has been ok. The trip itself has been good, but they can't figure out my knee pain. I don't know if I pulled a muscle or what, but wearing a knee wrap doesn't even help the pain, and it's only my right knee. Had some x-rays done that showed nothing. The pain has been getting steadily worse and the more I walk on it the more pain it causes me. I guess I'll just have to learn to live with it. Someone told me it was due to lack of exercise, I guess walking 1-2 miles per day and riding my bike 35km once or twice a week isn't considered exercise.Well, I should get some things done, I'll keep everyone updated on whether or not my knee ever improves!

Hello everyone,

So I have one week to complete my CBT project. I have begun creating a grant proposal writing manual to be used by the women of Ain Leuh. I am currently researching one grant opportunity they would like to apply for and am creating the manual in English/French/Darija Tranduction/Darija written in Script. I have nearly completed both the English and French portions and will be starting on the darija tranduction this evening. As many of you know when I worked as an AmeriCorps*VISTA, it was my job to create written manuals and documents to preserve the way things were done in the agency and to increase business efficiency. So I am very excited about this current project of mine. Two women in the coop can read basic script and they have a current translator they use when communicating with foreigners, so I feel they will actually be able to use this document. Other members of my group are working on other small scale projects as well to increase marketing opportunities as well as assistance in creating a budget plan and better business track keeping methods.

Other than that, things have been quiet in the home. My host sister had a friend visiting for a few days from Azrou and now my host sister is currently staying in Azrou visiting her friend there. Language lessons are going along steadily. One of our program people will be here Thursday to discuss possible site placements and to get a better idea of where to place us. I am excited to be learning where I will be in about a week, but also nervous for training to be over soon. Our swearing in ceremony will be on November 20th, then it's off to a new place and new adventures and a sad good-bye to close friends. Once in my site I won't be able to visit them very often and I will officially be on my own.

There has been a website just recently developed and still being fine tuned for the cooperative I am currently assisting in Ain Leuh, it is: http://ainleuhcooperative.webs.com

I've been creating a list of things I would love if anyone desires to send a care package my way, ;). Right now I can receive small packets at the Rabat address, but no boxes until I get my official site placement mailing address. So far the list includes:

- Pretzels

- Reeces peanut butter cups

- Precise V5 or V7 pens of any color

- College ruled notebooks (small or big)

- Plastic ziplock bags (any size)

- folders

- cross stitch kits

It's a small list at the moment, but I will think of more items I'm sure!

Otherwise things are good so far and I will try posting pics in a new blog, not having too much luck this evening!