Laundry list

I thought you would appreciate this list. I will give you a better picture of what's going on right now but for now you're going to have to settle for this.

I just made these notes on my notepad so I can remember to do things, I thought you would like to read them.


write cile a letter
Find so and so on facebook.
Do laundry in bathtub.
Rinse half an hour later.
Update blog
See ministry of Health
CALL IMPORTANT GUY TOMORROW (I have to do that....oh responsibilities)
Make bagels
Start re-hydrating beans
Buy shelves
Be happy

It's a good thing they think I'm slow.

So, this day is deserving of another post. So, Rachel and I went over to this family's house for couscous. After lunch, the father asked me if I wanted to wear traditional Berber costume. Uh, of course! The following pictures are the consequences of such actions.

Who wouldn't want to buy me an appletini?

 Ah yes, gaze at my head dress while I look majestically to my right.

It's like we're the happiest little family!

And now comes for the second part of this blog. This is a much sadder story. So Rachel and I were on our merry way to buy things to make chili. All of the sudden I realized, I didn't have my keys.

W
H
A
T
?

So after a couple of minutes of frantically trying every key I had in my pocket (alas, not the right key, which I knew, yet tried them all anyway) into the lock to see if it would turn. I'm pretty sure I enacted the definition of insanity.

None of them worked, of course. After thinking of every way to break into my house, I gave up. So I went to my neighbor's store. I asked him if he knew of a locksmith. Well, of course he did! That locksmith turned out to be a regular handyman. He actually took a hammar and a peg and pegged out my lock. Yes, he practically beat down my door. Yay! I had an open door! Boo...I didn't have a way to close it. So then, me and this guy who was helping me ran all over town trying to find the perfect lock (why, I'm not 100% sure), but eventually we settled on one. When I returned to my door, my neighbor just kept clucking his tongue at me and telling me hashuma alik (as in, shame on you/why the heck would you forget something like that?)

This is the door that caused it all!!

In other good news: Hey! Cow hooves! YeeeeEESSS!

This is what happens when you give a Moroccan a camera!!

Hey everybody! 

My friend Rachel (a PCV) is over and I asked her if she wanted to see the bunnies that live next door!

Rachel says, "Before I even had mah coffee, I had bunnies in my arms!" (That's the Floridian accent)

My neighbor offered us an adult bunny to pet and hold but we weren't having it! We wanted baby bunnies and meant it! If I do get a bunny, I'm going to name it Jenkins!

That bunny is TINY! It's also resting on a recently washed blanket. 

This is a comparison for size. That is Rachel's hand.

The world's most chill bunnay. 

Rachel being delighted by said bunnay. 

This is me every morning!

So I gave my neighbor my camera. It's a plethora of bunnies!

 I knew I had a sheep next door, I just didn't know how close!

I was totally surprised that this showed up on my camera. Isn't he cute? I'm also realizing that almost all of my blog posts are about farm animals.....but that's cool right?

More Bunnies!

I really want the chickens to start laying eggs! I want some!

And that's been neighbor fun times with Aly and friends. 

Must...not...procrastinate....

Molly McNeilly, if you read this, I no longer have your email and I want it so I can talk to you!!! Miss you!

Anyhow, hey everybody! Nice to see you, sorry I've not written sooner. I just finished a training for the Volunteer Support Network and so now I'm going to be working on my counselor skills! Hooray! I'm really interested in working on mental health while I'm in country (and after of course).

In any event, I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Last week end, I took a fun trip to go see a good friend of mine for my birthday. We (plus a bunch of other great people) watched the superbowl and really had a rousing time. After I came home, I wrote a speech in Arabic, had my students and tutor look it over and then gave a speech to all of 10 people (most of them were my students). So...at least my community meeting is over! Right? Yeah...it's over for now. Haha, I'm considering doing another speech next month Inchallah.

This next week I'm definitely looking forward to heading off up north to go to my first big Peace Corps conference called PPST (that is to say post training training hah). I'm really looking forward to seeing some volunteers I haven't seen in 3 months! I'm not looking forward to a language test....which I should probably study for. Ha, I feel like a typical college student. In fact, I'm procrastinating right now from turning in an important document to Peace Corps in order to write this post....oh procrastination, you're totally going to make me stay up all night writing this. 

The good, the not-so-good, and the terrifying.

Hey all,

So, the good news! I got my computer back as you may have noticed.

The not so good: I lost a lot of information but I will slowly and surely put my lifeline back together again. My computer also took a little vacation without telling me. This is to say that, I had a miscommunication with the guy who fixed it (not his fault, he was after all speaking a language he knows well, and I was doing the opposite of that) happily though, everything turned out ok. I'm so glad to have it back!

The Terrifying: Sorry I've not posted recently. About that. I've been trying to put together a community assessment on my town, which is more or less coming together. The real problem is is just trying to make myself sit down and type it all out. I was reflecting today why I haven't just punched it out yet. Why can't this be like college, where I just spend endless hours on it? Oh yeah, because this isn't college and I am putting together a somewhat coherent and professional piece of work, which in itself is sort of a terrifying thought. Aside from that, I am also signing on to actually speak in front of the community I serve.

"What? No, you're joking," you must think. Au contraire, mes amis! Somehow, I am going to make a sincere effort and give a 15 minute speech in Arabic (more or less....) Hopefully, I'll just say it, and get it out of the way and then we'll have some sort of discussion after that about how I can better serve the community or about the needs I didn't address, etc. My Arabic is shwia (not so fantastic-but what do you expect? I've only been speaking this language for 5 months) but I'm going to give it the good old college try! Can't ding me for effort! We'll see how that goes. For now, I turn 23 tomorrow! First birthday I've ever had in a foreign country and I'm rather looking forward to it.