Pictures galore. I'm not exactly sure what order these will post as so here's a general recap. The first image is of my site mate Peter with his adorable and slightly crazy cat HanShush, a very Merry Christmas picture complete with the teddy bear my mom sent to me. The next image is of my other site mate Alex putting a cigarette bud out on Peter's heal because it's so calloused. Needless to say it was hilarious. Then there's the image of me taking off the top of my apple off because it caught on fire in the stupid Moroccan oven. Hmm, i'm going to have to rethink my hopes of becoming an excellent baker here.

And then there was L3id. Here are a few of the many gorey pictures I have. Alex and Peter decided to buy a sheep and slaughter it in honor of the holiday, yummy. And L3id wouldn't have been complete without a lovely group picture by the freshly slaughtered sheep (as it's still getting skinned).

But really it was all pretty fun. I ate lots of strange sheep organs which included heart, liver, intestines, lungs, stomach and balls (yup the balls). My stomach however did not agree with most of this, let's just say a week later I am still sort of in recovery.

Christmas was better than I expected I got to hang out at Peter's house and cook and watch "A Christmas Story" (thank you mom!) I got my Christmas package from my mother exactly on Christmas day which was quite possibly one of the nicest surprises ever. Other than all that all I have to say is it's been cold, very cold. It snowed last week, the day before L3id which was beautiful but it only lasted until the afternoon... and even though the sun comes out everyday here it doesn't get very warm. Ok, well I'm off to Rabat for some Peace Corps stuff on Thursday and on Saturday I get to hang out with my bestest friend from stage in Azrou! Yay!

Happy New Year everyone!

Currently, I am learning how to waste a lot of time. No, I mean it… the women I’m working with are meeting twice a week which means I have a lot of time to fill. I spend a lot of time at my family’s house reading and trying to learn more of the language, and in the mornings I generally go on 2 to 3 hour walks. I currently have blisters on my feet from walking too much, which should mean that I’m walking less but I’m not. I just try to tough it out and hope that eventually I’ll get tough skin like the Moroccan womenJ Anyway, I’m pretty much just settling into a simple life here. I’m trying to figure out ways to use my time and be productive but there’s a lot of time and space to fill out here. I mean the town is beautiful but there’s only so much exploring of bare land you can do each day. And general conversation with the locals is still difficult at best, I have a lot of work to do on the language and I’m not really sure how to do it. I guess something will just come in time.
Well, not really much to report simply because there isn’t a lot going on. Just adjusting to my new life and trying to imagine the next 2 years. Also imagining what it will be like to live in my own place here in 2 months. I mean I really enjoy the family I’m staying with but it will be nice to be at my own place too come February 1st. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll have internet again until after Christmas, so Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it. It should be an interesting day for me, not only will I be apart from my family for the first time but I guess I won’t be celebrating the holiday at all this year. Instead I’ll be celebrating L3id Akbar, and slaughtering a sheep around the 23rd of December. Let’s hope I can stomach it in more than one way.