aywa

I will post a more detailed entry once I return to America. I don't have much internet time available to me right now. I am currently in Paris after having taken an interesting route through West Africa. I finished my peace corps service on May 19th and then headed to Senegal and The Gambia. On monday I will return to Los Angeles and don't really know what to think about that yet. Anyways, I must leave now but photos and details regarding travels will follow soon.

Photos...as promised

pottery in fes


emmy and i made these shirts while at spring camp in boulmane. here we're demonstrating a three-legged race :)



volubilis. outside of meknes.

I meant to put more photos up but it just takes too long....
also, happy earth day!

Its cold again...

After a few weeks of warm and sunny weather, the cold weather has made a comeback. Aywa. I had a lot to think about recently and have been staying away from the internet. oops. Tomorrow I will meet the girl who will take my place in my town. I'm really excited to meet her but all of a sudden I'm having to face the reality that I'm leaving soon. I have been avoiding these thoughts and now I can't do that anymore, so I'm losing lots of sleep. Aywa. I really don't want to think that I may be permanently leaving the place that I have called home for the past two years. I love my town and the people that have made it a home for me. There is too much that I will miss and I really don't want to think about it because I just want to enjoy my remaining month...

Spring English Immersion Camp

Hi! I know that I have been horrible about updating this recently but I have been keeping myself busy. I spent this past week teaching English at a spring camp about 30km from my town. i was one of eight volunteers at this camp. Our responsibility was to formally teach two hours of English each day and then plan other activities for the children throughout the day.
My friend Emmy and I taught the intermediate class at our camp. We learned that we don't really know a lot of English grammar but we figured out enough to have some good lessons. Haha. The kids were great and so patient with us even if they didn't always understand what we were asking of them. After the English classes we hung out with the kids outside and did other activities such as three legged races and making cool shirts. (I'll post photos)
The camp was super tiring but I'm really glad that I was able to particiapte in it.

my new acquisition

Updates...

I was out travelling quite a bit last week so I have some more photos :) My friend (casey) and I went to Tetouan before heading to Rabat for a series meetings. Tetouan was actually a really nice city. The vibe of the city was unlike that of any other Moroccan city I have previously visited. The people were really nice, the food was great and there was just something that made it very likable. Though it was a bit rainy, we really enjoyed out time in Tetouan.
Afterwards, we had a conference in Rabat. During our time in Rabat some inclement weather descended upon the entire country. It became incredibly windy and rainy. This bad weather has yet to let up so I wasn't surprised to find my house a mess when I returned to my town. I returned Saturday to find everything completely soaked and a roof leaking in almost every place imaginable. My landlord has gone to survey the damage but can't repair it until the sun dries the roof out. The river was overflowing the day before yesterday so everyone in town was going out to have a look. I went along with a friend of mine. On a brighter note, I do have another photo of the rug being made for me :)

My Rug :)

One of my favorite old ladies decided that she is going to make me a rug so that I can have something made by her in America. Now that my departure day is slowly approaching, she has started to create this rug for me :) Following are photos of the first step, that of setting up the warp. I'll try to continue posting photos of her progress.

My (meskin) Mud House

There has been a lot of rain recently in the area of Morocco in which I live. There is something you should know about houses here. The roofs usually need repairing every year before winter. The rains cause the mud on top to slowly wash away and shoveling snow off roofs usually means some mud is scraped off.
I don't have a tv or any regular access to the Moroccan weather forecast but I know when we're expecting a storm of some sort because everyone in town is up on their roofs adding plastic and mud. Even so, many roofs still manage to leak. You see, our roofs aren't slanted...they're perfectly flat. So this winter, being mild compared to last year's, I think my landlord may have overlooked the repairing of my roof. Oops. After the first couple of days of rain I had a leak or two in my house. It really wasn't a big deal. But then the snow came and it melted and then came over a week of nonstop rain. Always raining...aywa. So my one or two leaks turned into 10 leaks in each room. I had to move all my belongings from my bedroom/living room beacuse I woke up to the sound of water dripping onto my blankets. I couldn't find a large enough dry spot in which to put my poor ponj(aka bed). My computer was also covered in water that morning. I couldn't stand anywhere in my kitchen without getting dripped on. So I moved into my dry room. Hamdullah for the dry room. A lot of families have the same problem. Oftentimes they re-mud one room very well so that they have atleast one dry room in the house.
Anyways, my house is now dry and being repaired but I thought I would just share some of the problems that people in my town ofter encounter in the wintertime...

Sana Saida!

I just wanted to say happy new year (sana saida) to everyone :)
I had a wonderful new year's celebration in the merzouga desert and have had a great start to 2010. Yesterday, we had free eye examinations in my town. Over 350 people got eye exams and free glasses(those who needed them). The best part is that it was all organized by the development association in my town. Inshallah, this year continues to be a good one.