Written January 3

Things have been going fairly well in my village. I’ve been in site since last Monday. I decided I’ve been travelling way too much and needed to stay in site for a bit, amazing how time flies. I hadn’t planned on going anywhere next weekend as well, but I will be visiting a friend anyway. I haven’t seen this person since we’ve moved to our new sites and she also happens to live near Oarzazate which is the closest place to me where I can find good chocolate and cheese other than Red Ball (gouda). I didn’t do anything exciting for New Year’s, but I don’t do very much for it normally, no biggie. I’ll just party it up next year, ;).
I started moving a few things into my new house, taking measurements, and cleaning. The fridge no longer smells of milk! Yay! Haha. So far I’ve only tackled the bedroom, but that is the room I plan to paint first since that’s where I will be sleeping when I move in. After the bedroom I will start tackling the bathroom. I was going to tile the floor myself, but I don’t have a tile cutter and it is shaped a bit odd in places, so I fear I will have to pay someone to do it, L. I had really wanted to do it myself, other than cutting tile, it wouldn’t have been too difficult to do the floor. I’m also looking at putting in a new Turkish faceplate, but depends on pricing. If too much I’ll just buy some white porceline paint and just give it a fresh coat of paint. I’m painting my bedroom a blue/green and plan to leave the main room and sitting area white. The bathroom will be blue as well. I’ve been taking down quotes and such as well to paint on the walls. Then for the bathroom/sitting areas, I want to create beaded curtains, but depends if I can find the necessary supplies. I do work with a coop, so I have resources to ask. I can do two things at once, personal and work, J. Whoever said you can’t combine work and play? I also want to re-fabric my ponges, etc.
So those are my projects for the month, preparing my house for move-in on February 1st and start interviewing the women in my coop on their daily schedules, seasonal differences, what they create, etc. I have 28 women to work with, so quite the project. I’m also going to speak with my counterpart on starting English classes for women who want to learn some English, maybe some French as well.
I have had one funny incidence so far in preparing my house. I was moving my mattress around in the bedroom when somehow I finished yanking an electrical socket out of the wall, it actually sparked. Apparently one of the wires broke. So I went to try to explain what happened to the neighbor who’s relative is the landlord. Finally after kind of understanding, she came to look at it with me. All I wanted to know is if it would be a problem to leave the wire exposed like that as when I touched it to the wall, etc., nothing happened. I tried to demonstrate this for her and she kept shoving my hand away like I was going to touch the wire with my hand. I’m not an idiot! I’m not going to touch a possibly live wire. Somehow in trying to explain this the socket disconnected from the other wire. So yeah. I then asked my host brother who explained in French that no, it was not going to cause a problem. I should have went to the boys first, they at least speak enough French to understand me. So I called the landlord who was going to have his cousin come over. So far zero news, but I’ll just bug him again tomorrow or Monday. I just want the wires taped or whatnot so I can paint the walls.
I went to my coop on Thursday afternoon and met 3 more of the women. I may have met 10 of them so far during this previous month. This month I plan to really start getting to work and going in on Sunday afternoons and Thursday afternoons, visiting women in their homes, etc. It’s so easy to get caught up in just living here in Morocco. I have a few ideas for the women, but I really need to get to know them better and their products before I can really start suggesting anything. I have the next 4-5 months to lay the groundwork needed.
Otherwise not too much. I go to tutoring twice a week. Keeping my eye out for a female tutor. Current tutor is ok, but I would really prefer my own solo lessons with a female who would know more of the terminology I need to know.
My host family is great. It is now olive season, so they have been working in the fields collecting olives. I hear it is a good crop this year due to all of the rain. The weather seems to be getting slightly warmer. I really hope so! But I think it is just a warm spell. But it really will be warmer by March. The days are fine, but nights get really chilly. The people in my village are great overall, but sometimes it can be frustrating to be stopped by 5 people on my way to meet someone or go to Hammam, it’s also exhausting trying to visit everyone and maintain relationships with people in the community. It’s good and bad at the same time. I’ll never be "alone", that’s for sure!
I spent a bit over an hour at the post office Friday. I grabbed a number like I’d been told to do the last time and was waiting patiently for it to come up, no biggie. Then after 30 minutes of waiting a worker told me I could have just went to line 5, so I go to line 5, they were just closing down for prayer hour when I got to the window. Grrr… Apparently the only thing you have to grab a number for is if you are receiving money. But at 1pm, the guy kindly taps my shoulder and takes care of me. So it all ended up, but I got very frustrated for a bit there. I was finally able to mail some xmas gifts home to the family, a bit pricey, and had received two packages from my mom, J. Was very excited, she had sent me several books and a Betty Crocker brownie mix!