“Vegas, baby!”

Almost a month of training has passed by, and when I say pass, I mean flew. What’s kept me busy?

-LANGUAGE CLASS: 5.5 days a week of learning the Darija language. Learning involves
-a morning fruit/cookie break
-a huge, delicious lunch
-an afternoon tea/snacks break
-adventures with Sandala Del Mika (a fictitious character my sitemate, Henry, has made up)
-tales of world travels
-physical workouts (jump roping, mid-arvo walks, ab exercises from laughing too much)
-PB discussions (politics, business, and peanut butter)
-memorizing (if God wills it) 3 verb tenses and 150 verbs, question phrases, names of items, family members, numbers to a billion, food shopping vocabulary, and Amina’s perfect answers to all of our questions…in Arabic script for a challenge

-HIKING: Last weekend, an easy 5k hike to a barrage turned into a 5-hour trek to a mirage. A coke’s never tasted so good as when we got back to the first hanut. We passed heaps of fat sheep and goats though (see picture above).

-FAMILY TIME: Watching old Arnold Swartzenager (spelling?) movies on television, cooking together, sitting together in the salon, sitting together on the outside stairs, sitting together on the stairs inside, charades, eating breakfast and dinner together, reviewing my schoolwork…good ol’ family bonding time.

-TRIPS TO AZILAL: Peace Corps sessions, kefta sandwiches and kababs, wandering the streets looking for something fun to do…

Wow…it seems like I’m super busy here, but after typing this...not really. I’m off to a Women’s Day meeting soon though so cutting this short. Tomorrow, there will be a film screening at the Dar Shebab, and us PCTs are helping the PCV with it. The local film is about women’s rights codes. Hope all is well with you, and if anyone has advice on posting photos, please share!

Last section, things I didn't expect to hear my first month here:
-"I love you I love you I love you!" -group of screaming kids yelled at us when we first got to site
-"It's Vegas, baby!" -said by sitemate's host brother and friend over and over
-"If only we were Jewish we could have partied with that tour group" -sitemate regarding the Jewish reunion in town for the weekend
-"Yeah, sure" -typical response to a yes/no question
-"It's good" -typical response to any how question
-"Are there frozen peas in the market?" -PCT question to PCV