Still going strong...

7 October
I have been in my CBT site for almost three weeks and I THINK I am beginning to settle into my host family and my community, That is not to say that I don't feel like "The Man Who Fell To Earth". I barely can converse with anyone outside of my PCT (even there they wonder what I am saying if the word ends in "R") and I am still dealing with eating many times a day and some of them are very large meals and at hours that my system just can not deal with day-in-day-out. So I skip meals when I can and my host family is trying to feed at 9:00 versus 10:30-11 and that has helped. Well enough of the mundane (not that there is anything mundane about my life in Morocco).

Since I last logged on and posted an update we have had another wonderful American/Moroccan Saturday lunch, traveled to Azru again, Hmmam and saw the weather change from a beautiful day to a raging hail and rain storm that turned the town streets into a river. And of course during all of this attending the lmdrasa 10 hours a day.

First other wonderful Saturday lunch. we started by going to the "meat district" and purchase some lamb, now this is not Sam the butcher down the street; in a long building that made a "U" around the old suq (market) there are many small shops that slaughter and sell meat of all kinds, the butcher is standing (in sandles) in pools of animal blood, bones, body parts. chopping and slices up the meats. We purchased 2 kilos of lamb, walked past the cow head laying on the counter and headed to the veggie stand and then back to the lmdrasa for a BBQ. Arhhh you say sounds good. except grills are not a household item in my town, nor is charcoal. So how we found a small grill, and I mean small. The previous night LCF spread the word that we need charcoal and we had a few boxes of charred wood to start our cookout. Funny thing is that my town has a place where they make a low-grade charcoal and ship it who knows where. So I guess my reason for telling this story is that things we have taken to granted like having a small BBQ takes more planning and a little ingenuity to get the fantastic meal that we end up devouring. "SO DELICOUS"

L-Hmmam. the Moroccan version of a roman bath, I figured I had to try it al least once and if it wasn't what I wanted it would be a one time experience. A little about the Hmmam, it is three rooms, warm, warmer and the Gates of Hades. The idea is to start in the hottest room and work your way back out. So you strip down to your underwear (the change to dark boxer shorts is looking more and more like one of my better ideas for this adventure).
We headed into the hot room filled our buckets with hot water and one with cold. You douse yourself with the hot and take a very Moroccan soap and lather up and wait for the sweat (not a long wait), once that happens you take a brillo pad like glove and scrub you flesh as if you are cleaning burnt food out of a frying pan and all of a sudden a layer of dead skin starts to come off, and that is when you pour the hot water over your head. Now head is the tricky thing at this point someone will come over and scrub your back like they are using #60 grit sand paper on a beat up piece of wood. From here you move into the next room, get stretched up and do some more cleaning and then finally into the normal room and shave and get ready to get dressed. About an hour and half later I and clean (remember this is the first real shower I have had since I left the states, over three weeks. But in the end I am clean and all my skin is as smooth as a baby's bottom. 5 days later and no duws (shower) yet and I still feel clean. well you know what I mean. I can't wait to go back, hot shave for the first time in weeks. Life is full of little things that make my day.

Every Sunday we are FREE (well Peace Corps free, still on a short leash) and this time four of us decided to explore Azru (our hub-site) and see what is there besides the hub and 40k people. Our plan was to stop in the Cedar Forest and see the monkeys. If nothing else if I told me sons I had a pet monkey I could never do anything wrong in there eyes again...haha. But the weather changed in the morning and the walk from the monkeys to Azru was about 7km so we decided to just head start to the city and visit the monkeys another time.

Azru it turns out is a pretty cool city, we stumbled upon a maze of some great little shops tucked into these tiny streets and alleys. carpets, jewelry, new and used, Moroccan clothing and just a wonderful favor of a thriving Moroccan city, I could be comfortable in a place like that. So we eat, shopped and meet up with another SBD'er from another site and had lots of laughs. The weather cleared and we hoped a Grand Taxi back to town.

Lastly the weather in the Middle Atlas showed itself yesterday, the day started like almost all our days here blue skies, a temperature of around 70 and dry. Around 2:30 we had a meeting the co-op (weavers) and out of nowhere the sky turn black and it started to drop large rain drops. Well the large rain drops quickly turned into a hail storm with hail about the size of chestnuts and the an incredible amount of rain, the town's main road was a raging river of water and water was pour from everywhere. We had to use a taxi to get from one side of the road to the other. INCREDIBLE and then it got cold. The down side is that most of the homes and business had water in then including mine, I had buckets in my room to catch the drips. The reason the home get water is that they are made from a pores block and then skim coated and there is no barrier or sealant, so like an old basement the water is coming in through the walls. I am now believing that it is going to be very cold here very soon getting my winter coat, gloves and more clothes this weekend form my hub. Brrrrrr my room is raw and cold now.. No heat and cold water to wash. oh yeah living large!

Finally until we get better internet access this blog will be spotty in updates. thanks for reading and in-shalla I will get back online soon.

Happy Birthday Carolyn. I miss you as always!!!!!