I'm going to Boulemane!!!

Last night we had a very dramatic unveiling of our permanent sites in the style of jeopardy. We literally had to guess where we were all being placed...so nerve wrecking, but exciting all at once. I can't disclose my exact site, but I can tell you that its in the Boulemane province and that I'm going to be at a site in the middle atlas mountains. I'm leaving to my site tomorrow morning with a few other volunteers that have been placed within a few hours from my site. I'll be there for a week. We are the few that have been placed this far north. :)
I'll let you guys know more about it once I have been there.

photos

here are some photos:

this is my berber smear :)

movie studios in ouarzazate, this is a façade for a movie that i havent seen

maybe you guys know what its from?

this is part of the village where i have been staying recently

its in the valley of the roses

another example of me going native

this is at the weaving association in my homestay village

I Have A One Legged Eagle

True to peace corps spirit, I went an entire week without showering. I spent the last week with my homestay family in the village in the valley of the roses. I have to admit, I wasnt looking forward to a whole week of "i don't understand" and 8 hour days of language instruction, however, it went much better than I had anticipated. On the first night there my host brothers (ages 8 and 11) gave me a tattoo of an eagle. One leg wouldnt stick and since I didnt shower the entire week that I spent there, I arrived back in Ouarzazate with a one legged eagle still on my arm.
I have finally started feeling like I have integrating into the community. Walking down the (only) road in the village is a constant barrage of greetings. Here is an example of the usual greeting:
- salam aalaykum
-waalaykum ssalam
-la bas?
-la bas, hamdullah; la bas?
-la bas; hamdullah; bilxir?
-kushi bilxir; hamdullah
-hamdullah
and this is the shoerter of greetings. sometimes they ask about our health and then about our family.
its really kind of tiring to do this with every person that you encounter, but it feels great to be able to finally understand it all and to be able to respond correctly :)
oh yeah, another way that I feel a bit more integrated is my berber smear. Thats right a berber smear haha
My host mom wanted to do henna on me so i agreed to, but this henna is unlike anything I had seen before. she just smeared the henna "doughy" stuff on my hands and wrapped them up so i had stumps for hands for a whole night. i have redish browish stains on the underside of my hands and my fingernails. though it looks dirty and really odd, i appreciated it because it was her way of making me more a part of their culture.
also my next door neighbor gave me a jellaba and head scarf!!
ill try to take pictures of both my berber smear and the jellaba to post on here soon.

Isolation?

I will be spending this coming week in my host village and one of my taks is to think about isolation. We will be getting interviewed for our final site placement so they have asked us to think about what isolation means to us. I've been thinking about it a bit, but I'm still having some trouble coming up with a definition in this context.
For example, two other trainees and myself spent three days with a current volunteer out in the desert; and thats pretty isolated. The volunteer is pretty far from many other volunteers and from any bigger cities. Public transportation by his site was scarce and we had to go out and wait for a bus at least a half hour before its estimated arrival time. The site was also rather barren and extremely HOT (90-100 degress in march!) Other than these minor details his site was great. His community really liked him and he had many gfriends there. Becuase of this, I can't make up my mind as to whether i want to be near to other volunteers or whether i would rather have only my community as my social network. All I know is that I don't want to be placed in the desert.