Agadir trip! ishwa bzzaf!

First time to see the Atlantic!

So it has been a little over two weeks in my site and things are starting to have a slower and slower pace. We are still working out transportation in and out of our site. hopefully we will be able to find better contacts that we can call upon. We are starting to develop a rapport with the taxi owners around town, so that helps a lot. Because my site is so far from the main road, I have to bike or walk to the my souk town that is on the paved road that the cars drive down, about 8km away from my home. The main problem is that not a lot of people travel a lot to my nearest major city, and they only will go if they have a full taxi (6 people). It is either a long wait or we pay for all of the seats, which is a lot of money.

I’m still getting used to my family and how everything works. I am starting to really feel the cultural differences as far as sense of time goes. I have many an awkward feeling when I am just sitting down with them for hours at a time while they work on spinning their wool or making these really neat bread containers called “agunins”. But just sitting down and listening to them speak really helps me out. I tried to spin wool, but it takes some getting used to. It is amazing to see the whole proccess of how things are made. Once they shave the wool off, they wash it, let it dry, pick through it for debris, brush it, then spin it. Then they will use it to make blankets. How cool!

I went to my first “sobey” which is a baby-naming ceremony. There is a ton of dancing, music, songs, and food. And it is all of the women in the town that are there. No men allowed! I am determined to learn at least one song and play the drum by the time summer is over. There are a lot of pregnancies and births in my site, so I should be able to get a lot of practice in.

I took my first trip to Agade this weekend and swam in the Atlantic Ocean!! Agade is a nice city, but it is a little too big for me. It is nice to get a break from the religiously driven cultural norms and wear shorts and short sleeves. There are also a McDonalds and a Pizza Hut there too. Not my cup of tea, but the other volunteers were so happy!! The beach was fantastic!! The only annoying part was all of the solicitors walking by every few minutes asking us if we want to jet ski, use an umbrella, and by expensive food and jewelry. Other than that, it was so great! I definitely got my fill of sun… too much in fact, because my back is so sore from burns! I won’t see the ocean again for a while so I guess it is worth it. There is also a supermarket equivalent to Wal-Mart here. Marjan is sinful. You can buy flat screen TV’s, laptops, patio furniture, Oreos, good lotion! It is really expensive though, so it can be dangerous if you don’t keep track of what you are buying. It really makes me excited for my house though J

much apologies for the delay

It has been way too long since I last reported what has been going on here, especially when so much has happened! Much apologies to those wonderful people who want to keep up with how I am doing!

So as of May 5th (happy cinco de mayo!) I am officially an employee of sorts of the U.S. government as a peace corps volunteer!! We finished up our training in our village a few days before that. Our final assignment was to create a health lesson and present it to our specified audience. My PST site mates and I decided on creating a presentation on germ awareness and to speak to a classroom of 9-10 year olds. One of our site mates is a tremendously talented artist and created a wonderful poster for us. We had the kids play a game of "hot apple" and tossed around an apple that secretly had glitter on it to show how germs spread. Then we had extra apples and we practiced washing our hands and the apples, then afterwards we divided the apples and had a nice snack. Even with a bit of language difficulties, it was a really good lesson. The kids seemed to enjoy the activities and they were already pretty knowledgeable of germs and what they do. On our last evening in our PST site, we invited all of the families over for a going away/thank you party. We had no idea that we would end up hosting the whole village! people brought drums and various instruments over and our host moms dressed all of us girls up in the traditional wedding outfits. It was awesome! Fortunately we had enough cookies and fruit for everyone who came by. Leaving the next day was difficult though. The night before, my sister took me around to her friends houses for me to say good bye. There was a lot of crying and even my sister eventually broke down that morning that we had to leave. I really was blessed to have such a wonderful host family there. Luckily our PPST (another training session after 3 months of being in our final sites) will only be 30 minutes away from my PST site so I will be able to go visit them soon!

So I am finally at my site and starting to get settled in to the expectations for the next two years! My host family is really nice here, but definitely different than in PST. I have a much larger family; 2 sisters and 3 brothers ranging from 16 years old to 4 years old. My sister makes bread every day and it is soo delicious!! I have had so many different types of food here: Tagula, tasaht, tabaht, and I witnessed my first lizard tajine...and I know that I saw that same lizard alive the day before with a string tied around its waist and being played with...I'm still getting used to the way animals are treated here. I will definitely never be used to it, but maybe I will be able make a difference later on when my language skills are better.

So for the first week here in site, my site mate and I have visited the local medical clinic and the high school. The workers at the health clinic are very accommodating, which isn't always the case here. We hope to visit the other schools in the next couple of weeks. We have to do a lot of traveling for various PC business. I am going to visit Agadir next weekend!! It is a coastal city that is very modern, from what I hear!

More pictures are to come! Stay tuned!