11 days away from Assoul was definitely my longest departure in 6 months. It was a busy week and a half of travelling and site seeing in places that made me feel like I had almost left Morocco. The majority of my trip was spent in Agadir, a well known beach town that is quite modern. We stayed in one of the nicest hotels in Agadir, and this was our lovely beach front view from our balcony.

Regardless of the fact that we basically had to spend every day indoors for meetings, we did take advantage of exploring the city in the evening. It was a lot of good food, good people, and good drinks, but nothing too crazy. Below is a picture of Bri and me eating what we believed to be the most hilarious thing… a very phallic way to get two scoops of ice cream, and yes we were laughing uncontrollably about it.

That’s what being here does to you; it makes you crack up over ridiculous things that really shouldn’t be that funny.
After Agadir, Bri, Mia and me went to another beach town for a slight extension on work related vacation. We went to a town called Essaouira, a town which will forever more be considered my favorite place in Morocco. It’s hard to say what it is about Essa, maybe it’s that the Moroccans are more relaxed, or the lovely breeze off the ocean, but it’s truly a wonderful place. In our 24 hours there we found a great cheap hotel, ate amazing food, and shopped… we shopped like there was no tomorrow. After 9 months of not shopping even a person who doesn’t like shopping (like me) will embrace the wonderful feeling of finally scoring good deals on presents for family, friends, and of course me.

From Essa we travelled to Marrakech. It was my first time there also; a group of us volunteers spent one night there before departing on our different paths to return to our sites. Marrakech was about like I expected (even though I saw very little of the actual city). We stayed in the Medina there and had a great time bargaining our hearts out… I got a coral necklace down from 700DH to 150DH! That’s huge! Marakech was a spectacle all its own, it was hot, and the Medina was crowded with thousands of people.

This picture was of an alley just off the Medina, and it stayed packed with people roaming around well into the late hour of the night. Of course the pitfall of Marrakech is the obscene amount of harassment, I can’t really even remember how many times my ass was grabbed. Sometimes I just want to wear a sign around my neck that says, “I am not a tourist, I live here!” Ahh, but it was all a great experience… all except for the 14hour bus ride I did the following day to get to Rich and then the next day a couple more hour to Assoul. I think I’ve said it before but travelling in this country is exhausting and as it gets warmer the busses just get harder to travel on.
So, I’m back to Assoul now and taking a little respite from everything. I’ve had a nagging little cold since I got back and have started reading a lot again. I go to babysit my site mate’s cat and kittens for the past couple days, so of course I have to include a couple pictures of the adorable little monsters.

At 5 weeks old now, I’ll only need to wait another week to claim my kitten. His name is BuPastis ,which means the owner of Pastis (Pastis is a caramel colored liquor that turns white when you drink it with water… it seemed perfect for his coloring but also because I had never had it before Morocco). He is the larger of the two kittens and although they’re both cute I’m totally bias to him. He is so social, has so much personality and is a little plump… just like I like my kitties.
I guess it’s worth mentioning that apparently Assoul has invisible mosquitoes. I have yet to see any mosquitoes but they sure do like me. I have taken to hiding under my mosquito net which I just hung up a couple days ago. Hard to tell if it’s working yet but sure hope so since my body is already basically covered in bites and it’s only the beginning of summer (and yes it is quite warm, probably mid 90s most days and I’m fully covered with long sleeved shirts and pants). Eek. If nothing else, the mosquito net keeps the flies off me… and that is always a welcome relief.