Sweet Home Morocco...

First, it has been awhile since I last posted, between the holidays and finding a place to live, life here has been topsy-turby. My holidays were great for being 3500k from family and friends, but the never seemed like Christmas or New Years, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy myself and everyone I celebrated the season with, it felt more like a party and less like what it should feel like... it that makes any sense. So I am not sure I want to be away from family again on these days... something was missing and I believe everyone was feeling the same way.

Now onto my home for the next two year... nshallah. After looking at many places most of them very zwin (beautiful) but to expensive, I was beginning to see the shade pulled on the month of December and the real possibility of having to extend my host family stay. So between looking for a place, the holidays and talking to PC Admin about how I go about telling my host family I need a place to stay in Arabic, what it will cost me and if I can keep sane during an extended stay. The idea of not getting ones own place here it trantamount to a prison sentence, no matter how nice the family is or your relationship with them, three months of living in someone else home is... indescribable.

So on December 27th as one place fell through, another opened up by chance. A women walked by the snack shop of my friend and tutor Ali, he ask if she knew of a place rent... she happened to have just moved out and was on her way to give the keys to the owner... I got up and she showed me the place and two hours later I paid my first months rent and had the keys. Renting in Morocco... what an experience.

Now to describe my place... it sits in a small square in the BenSeffar section of Sefrou, from the outside it reminded me of VanGogh's Yellow House that he lived in Arles with Gaugain. It sit above a sandwich shop and hanot with many cafes around it. Across the street is a mosque with a small vegetable souq attached. It is busy and noisy and I like it. Inside it is full of light, huge windows open floor plan and actually warm by Moroccan standards. The down sides would be no hotwater, shower and turkish toilet along with lights fromthe street streaming in the front windows (need curtains) and lots of noise in the AM but that isn't too big a deal.

So as of the first of January I have my own place to live and furnish... it makes it so much easier on oneself to have the comfort and santuary of a place of my own. Bought my first piece of furtinure... a desk, it is wood, old and looks like it has been through a war... PERFECT!