December Update

Here is December:

December was also a very busy month. I started the month off by going to Rabat again, only this time for an entire week. My stage had our mid-service medicals. Was a crazy week but also really good. Was so great to see everyone. The medical stuff wasn’t so fun, but I’m all healthy. Ate very well as always. Went to a great pizza place and discovered a really great place to have juice, kind of like shakes here. There is a banana chocolate coffee mixture that I get.

I also finally spliced my buta hose myself, :). Was very proud of this feat. Now I can use my stove and oven at the same time!

After meds I went home. Spent much of the month staying in site and hanging out. My host sister that got married in June came back for about 5 days and I got to see her which was really nice.

I hosted Christmas in my site. Was so much fun. Made a yummy lasagna, dinner rolls, salad and pumpkin pie for dinner. We had Cajun tuna spread and crackers, popcorn, eggnog, hershey’s kisses and sugar cookies for snacks. Stayed up chatting and then after muffins in the morning everyone went home. Me and one of the girls took a walk to Meski, the nearby village to me, after everyone left. Was really nice, a beautiful day.

The highlight of the month I would have to say was New Year’s Eve in Merzouga. It was so crazy! Went down to Erfoud where everyone going met up and then we piled into a bunch of off-roading jeeps that we then took the “scenic route” to Merzouga. Basically we were racing each other off the main road in the more desertic area. Was so much fun. We then arrived in Merzouga and hung out until dinner. Several of us walked out into the sand dunes to watch the sunset. Was very sad I didn’t have my camera. Still being fixed. We had an awesome dinner and then hung out and partied until midnight and then some more until 3am. We then had to wake up at 6:45am to get on the camels for our morning excursion into the sand dunes. Was so cold! But beautiful. I then returned to site and that was how I rung in the New Year. Was amazing and my favorite thus far.

Unfortunately there are no photos for this month as my camera broke and took until the end of January to finally be fixed. Roads were bad and so it took awhile to receive the new part.

I was also taking care of a friend's cat during the month. I renamed her Shitaana which means the devil in darija. She could be really sweet but had a few issues such as not being able to learn not to do something and climbing all over everything.