long time no write.

 Sorry dear internets that I have been so absent as of late. I’ve been out and about (read out of my home site) for a while. First there was the Training of Trainers for those of us lucky PCV’s who were going to be coordinating spring camps here ( I was a coordinator). That was up north in the wonderful city of Mohammedia. After the training I only had a few days until I had to be at my spring camp so me and a few other volunteers took time in Casablanca and took a little hiatus from Morocco and went to the Morocco Mall. The Morocco Mall was a trip- it felt like any other mall I’ve ever been too, but almost in a way where it was trying harder then any other mall. There was a two-story fish tank and a huge food court where I got to indulge in Starbucks, sushi, and tofu fries. I also got some really great new clothes, a couple of cardigans and 2 new shirts, getting new clothes is always fun and also a way to feel “more normal”. It was also nice to eat some food I don’t really know how to make myself. (I also love sushi so so much, and tofu! I miss tofu so much). The Morocco Mall was a nice sejour, but it was also really nice to return back to Morocco.

sushi and starbucks... YUM! i put my vanilla latte in my hands and just smelled it for a while. it was wonderful

the big fish tank in the Morocco mall- it's two stories high!

Hassan II mosque in Casablanca

In front of a big door at Hassan II mosque

vegetables being poured out for a daily souk in casa

After the Morocco Mall I headed to the ‘green city’of Benslimane to work at spring camp. Spring camp here is a week long excitement where us PCV’s are responsible for English classes as well as what is called “clubs”. Not all camps are created equal some PCV’s were responsible only for English classes, some volunteers were responsible for every moment of programming every single day. I felt really privileged because I had a great Moroccan staff, and a really energetic PCV helping me along the way. The kids were rough the second week around but I gave them a strict talking to on the second day in and things got a little bit better.

the girls from the first week dressed up for the moroccan wedding

me and my fellow PCV with the "happy couple"

creepy zoo/amusement park we went to the second week

a snapshot of the camp schedule. 

Spring camp was hard in a lot of ways but a huge part of it was that I was out of site for so long. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a picky eater, but week three into not eating my own food is rough sauce. Don’t get me wrong the food at my camp was great, however, not the way I prefer to eat (for example, I like my spaghetti with sauce, and the sauce not to have meat balls in it, or I prefer a sandwich with more then lettuce and tomato on it). Camp was pretty exciting though. There was a lot of singing, dancing extremely loud music and even a fake Moroccan wedding! By the end of week two I was tired, burned out and absolutely ready to go home.

After being away for so long it’s been kind of hard to get the momentum up for my classes. I’ve been having a lot of difficulty with attendance which, since the end of April has dwindled down to more or less nothing. The kids are getting ready for the baccalaureate tests (like a way more awful SAT’s) and end of the year exams so they’re way more worried about spending as much time as they can studying and not attending my supplemental English classes. The Netti/woman’s center where I try to go during the afternoon is also winding down, I’ve heard rumor that they’re going to be closed once school is over so slowly but surely the places where I interact with people are getting smaller and less frequent. Peace Corps knows that work more or less disappears come summer time, so they have activities such as SOS camps (for orphan villages) and summer camp programs that happen in coastal cities. I’m looking forward to maybe doing some work somewhere else, but I’m also planning a vacation home to America for my friends Tina and Jon’s wedding, so I don’t want to be caught in a position where I would be out of my community for over  a month.

If life was exciting and fast paced before (which it really wasn’t) things definitely aren’t now. At the end of the slow hot summer I will emerge one year into leaving America, and that is crazy. As I’ve talked about before Morocco/Peace Corps time is a lot like Camp time, a day can be eternally long and be gone in a blink simultaneously. It’s a little disorienting sometimes, but helpful in others. I’ve already started experiencing the famous Moroccan heat, it held at 95 degrees all last week, I’ve been telling people that “it never gets this hot where I’m from, and it’s only May!” they laugh and I can see in their eyes that they pity me, because after a lifetime of summers in New England I do not have the history, adaptation or experience to deal with the summer that is about to explode it’s hot breath into my life.

Another challenge for my current life/lifestyle is the fact that for reasons I’m not entirely clear of the water in my town is off more or less most of the time. I have a few theories. 1) if you leave the water in the pipes, soon it will be so hot that the water will just start to evaporate. I made sun tea the other day and after a day in the sun the glass was too hot to handle without a towel and the water was steaming hot. 2) the government in my town isn’t consistent about paying neighboring towns to encourage consistent water supply 3) conservation. I don’t really know I’m assuming that as  with all things the lack of water is a combination of many factors. I’ve bought enough water bottles and water jug to make it around 2.5 days before things get real. (Also after 2.5 days I will still not have showered so that’s another hitch in the giddy-up). Whenever the water is on I’m diligent about refilling the 6 litre bottles I leave in my fridge and the 4 5L bottles and water jug I have nestled in the corner. I’m hoping to use this as a learning opportunity as to how much water I really need to survive, and how much water you really need to perform certain tasks. I’m a terrible person and I’m definitely the kind of dish washer that just leaves the water running the whole time, that life, my dear friends, is no more.

The longer I live alone the more I love it. This month alone, even with the decline of good-looking vegetables I have started getting more creative in the kitchen. I made my first Moroccan style Tagine with some potatoes and beans and carrots. I made my own lemonade, and watermelon-cucumber juice and then combined the two into ice-pops for one of the unbearable days I will see in my future (there isn’t such a thing as ice cream in my town). I also have started making my own salad dressing (I’ve gotten good a  spicy garlic mustard vinaigrette that I love to put over beets and bean salads). I also made my crowning achievemens-was vermicelli noodles, braised collard greens with garlic covered with a thai style peanut sauce- kids I’m in love. As long as I can get greens or peanuts this dish is going to become a regular in my kitchen. I gave a session to the new group of trainees this week about emotional health and one of the coping mechanisms I encouraged them to try out was cooking, I’m going to take my own advice to heart and even though it will be so hot I wont want to do much of cooking or eating, I’m going to try my best to discover fun summer dishes that will keep me healthy and satisfied. I will also be inheriting an electric oven this week which I am thrilled about! So get ready to see some quiche’s and home baked bread in my future.

This update is way long overdue  and I apologize. I avoided updating because I wasn’t feeling 100% like I said in my last post the combination of my foot getting fractured, my 26^th bday, 6 months in site then spring camp made for a blended up cocktail of not-ideal emotions. I try to avoid projecting my negativity out and about, and I felt that sentiment also applied to a string of complaints on my blog. Also because I took so long this blog entry was kind of hard to write.  You know when you finally get to talk to someone on the phone after a long while and you realize you have no idea what to update them on because so much stuff has passed, but now it seems like a trivial and distant memory, then you end up just sitting there with nothing to say.  That’s kind of how I feel about this blog post, even though I managed to get it to be 3 pages long in my word document.

I will also put it out there, dear readers that for a good part of the summer I’m going to be minimizing my internet consumption. The service in my site was shoddy at best, and now the company I was using is charging by bandwith and not by time, which made an already shitty investment an even shittier one. I realize for my emotional health I can’t spend my days looking at people posting about their summers (read I can’t emotionally handle watching people update about camp and me not being there) so instead of torturing myself I’m going to only use internet once or twice a week at the cyber café’s. I’m going to try and update my blog regularly but as a result I will not be available for skype regularly, so if you want to do that you should call my Moroccan cell phone with a skype subscription or email me a week ahead to set up a skype date. I’m hoping this summer will be an opportunity to read more books, work on more crafts and do some solid cooking and not a time to wallow in self-pity and longing for my friends and campers enjoying the cool breezes off of the waterfront. Enjoy the pictures as well as the link to my peace corps cribs video that gives you all a virtual tour of my home. 

my x-ray of my foot! my first broken bone ever

a compilation of some of the rides at the weird zoo we went to on our field trip at camp

i think it says in arabic to watch out because they'll bite off you're fingers ;)

the moroccan flag

on our way to spring camp training our bus broke down!

the week before spring camp my orange tree bloomed. it smelled so nice! then i had to leave by the time i got back all the flowers had died.

My peace corps cribs video!