Alrightttt…So l’3id (Fukar el-Leaid) was good! I spent it with my host family and some of their extended family. We ate lots of great food, including cous couse which I haven’t had since before Ramadan, and just hung out. I guess in a lot of ways it was the Moroccan version of Thanksgiving. Things finally got back to normal the Wednesday after l’3id. It was so exciting going to Tiznit and seeing people in the cafés again! I also met the new moudir (principle at the high school) last week. He is very nice and eager to collaborate it seemed like so that was good. Mostly I’ve been continuing to make contacts, work on language, and plan but I think I’m almost to the point where I am ready to put planning into action and start working on some projects. Besides life going back to normal post Ramdan the other exciting bit of news is that Marj’s parents are visiting from North Carolina! We went to Agadir last weekend to pick them up which was a lot of fun. Sean and Amber from our CBT family came, unfortunately Nicole couldn’t make it though. Within 15 minutes of being with her parents I heard a y’all, then later on we got Krispy Kremes, smuggled broccoli, and M&Ms. All this made me very happy but very homesick at the same time. It was definitely a fun weekend which even included a Michael Jackson themes Carnival parade and some late night shwarma (gyros)! It came time though for us to get back though and overall I’ve had a good week of meetings with people and community analysis research. This Friday we have a meeting with the ministry of health and then I’m off to Marrakesh for the weekend with Marj and her Parents. We’ll meet up with her Uncles who will also be visiting and then Sunday we’ll be visiting our CBT host families. Take care and I’ll let you know how the visit to Kesh/CBT goes after I hopefully get a chance to post next week! :)
10/12
So after a three hour meeting with the ministry of health on the 2nd I took off for a much needed break in Marrakesh. Marj, her parents, and did a little exploring of Marrakesh and then we had a really nice visit our with our host families from training again since Marrakesh is close. We also met up with three other girls from Tiznit and two of Marj’s uncles who were also visiting while we were there which was nice. After a long weekend of browsing the markets, visiting with my host family, and yes, even KFC (we caved), it was time for me to get back to Tiznit. Since getting back to Tiznit I have had some discussions with some of the women in town about starting a women’s association. My counterpart has also been talking about working on a sanitation project and a training for the traditional birth attendants so since being back I’ve been busy with the planning stage of these projects. I also have a trip to Rabat for a SIDA committee meeting and then in-service training the week after in Marrakesh so things aren’t really going to slow down at least for a couple weeks. I’ll keep you updated though a long the way and let you know how it all goes! :)
