My first Moroccan Thanksgiving!

Hello Family and Friends!

Happy belated thanksgiving! I hope you all had a really great holiday! Things here are going great! This is my last week of training and everything is going off without at hitch! It has been a crazy 2 weeks and I will be sad to leave all my friends when I head to my site on Tuesday.

Thanksgiving was great! All the volunteers got to take over the kitchen and cook a huge feast! We received Stove top stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie mix straight from the American Embassy. With lots of help and tons of food we spent hours cooking. While we had access to a kitchen, most kitchens here don’t have ovens. So every time we needed bake something, we had to drive to the local public oven. As you can imagine, it was quite the mission and turned out to be a really awesome experience. There was a car full of Moroccans and Americans, and about 15 pumpkins pies, 3 huge turkeys and so much more. We had a great time and even though it was kinda stressful we pulled off dinner for 90 people. For some of our language teachers it was their first thanksgiving ever! Even though I wasn’t with my family, I felt right at home and loved.

Tomorrow I will finally be sworn in as a volunteer! I cant wait! We have the largest stage (group) of volunteers Morocco Peace Corps has ever had and we are the FIRST group to swear in all the volunteers…usually by now someone has gone home so its something to be proud of. We started as 67 and tomorrow we will officially be done with training and hopefully never see another powerpoint presentation in our lives! J My old homestay family may come to see me get sworn in which will be great! Other than that we have had a lot of fun around here lately, dance parties, a talent show and lots of last minute bonding before we are sent off to live on our owns. Its really nice to be around tons of people who all feel the same and we all share similar fears. Christmas is in just a few weeks and it will be our first real holiday alone. Luckily everyone is really supportive and I know I can get through it with the love of my friends and family. The other day I won a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for having the furthest site! Lol…small price to pay for some delicious American food!

Speaking of Americans…the other day my roommates and I were walking through the park in Fez and an older man with a New York Yankees sweatshirt walked by and he stopped us and asked if we were American. We talked to him for a while and it turns out he lives in Bablyon and he was just in Morocco visiting his mother but it was so funny cause he has an New york accent while speaking some Arabic to us. SMALLLLLL WORLLD HUH?

I always have so much to say and then the minute I sit down to write my blog I just forget everything! Some random things:
-The other day on the bus ride to my site I saw 5 camels
-Another bus ride I saw like 50 monkeys just chilling on the side of the road in the forest
-The Congressional Liaison for the Peace Corps came to visit Morocco and we got to talk to her about Congressional Support for the Peace Corps etc. It was really interesting!
- We had a talent show and I danced to Souja Boy with some other girls (for those of you who know what Souja Boy is you can imagine how ridiculous it was lol..pics included)
-Its getting REALLY cold here…winter without heat should prove to be an interesting journey to say the least.

Anyway I am sorry I don’t have exciting stuff to tell you guys! I will be posting more soon! December is a very special time in Morocco because of a holiday called Leid Kabir so I will be sure to have more stories next month! MISS YOU ALLL SOOOO MUCH!

XOXOO

Kristin

ps. Thank you to my uncle mike for the wonderful thanksgiving phone call! Here is my phone number for anyone who wants to use it! 01121250527461

PS. these pictures are of thanksgiving dinner, me and my roomates, transporting the pies, the community ovens and my ridiculous talent show costume!

Happy almost thanksgiving!

Hello Family and Friends! I pretyped my blog on my laptop and now that I am at the cyber it wont open. But atleast I got the pictures up! These are pics of my week shadowing the other volunteer, my host family, my site mate, some pics of my site and my friends birthday. I hope you are all doing well! HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I will write more this week!
LOVE YOU!
XOXO
Kris

'If I had a million dollars I would buy peace'

Hello Friends and Family!
Hope all is well! The holiday season is fast approaching and time is just FLYING by and I am still running strong. For the last week I have been at a fellow volunteers house in a large town called Errachidia. We have had a very nice visit and I have finally had time to just relax, read and even watch some old episodes of sienfeld lol.

This week we were basically assigned a current volunteer to shadow. My volunteer Floyd, has a beautiful dar chebab with very eager students! He has been here for a year and has certainly earned the respect of his neighbors. One of the things that stood out about this week was his girls basketball team practice that I attended. I went to watch wearing jeans a shirt and flip flops ready to act as a cheerleader. Ofcourse with my luck they were down a player lol. I jumped in and spent almost 2 hours playing my least favorite sport. I HAD AN ABSOLUTE BLAST! When we first started playing we even had a large audience of neighborhood guys because womens teams are not really common around here. Once the guys saw that the girls were legit and quite talented they backed off. Needless to say I was not the MVP but I had so much fun! The girls certainly knew what they were doing and looked at me crazy when I continued to be the reason the whistle was blown. One girl even looked at me and said 'You do a very good job of getting the ball out of bounds' lol...she was trying to compliment my short comings in the nicest way possible.

Later in the week I sat in on Floyd's advance english class. The students impressed me beyond belief! They came in all ages, sizes and shapes and simply shared the desire to learn. Infact many of them come straight from 6 hours of school, study english for 2 hours and then finally head home for a night of homework around 8 pm. For this particular class Floyd used a Barenaked Ladies song to express the idea of a conditional (ie. If I buy a BMW, I will be poor) So anyway the song is called "If I had one million dollars" The verses go on with a guy professing all the things he would buy in order to gain the love of this girl. After the students listened to the song, the completed their answer to the question 'What would you do with a million dollars?' Their answers blew me away. Almost EVERY single person mentioned giving money to the poor and then traveling etc. But one student inparticular really made me think. When asked, he quickly answered...'If I had a million dollars, I would buy peace.'

WOW! First of all it was precious! Secondly is it possible that in todays world people still think that way? Moving out of the country makes you question many things about your own society. I am a proud American and always will be. What baffels me is how tainted our proiorities can be at times. On top of that why am I so complacent with these social norms until moments like this when a Moroccan makes me wonder 'How much does peace cost?' Its a crazy world and without getting too political or phylisophical...I just wonder how we got where we are now.

ANYWAY tomorrow will be my last day in this city, I will go to the tutor in the morning and then attempt to teach Floyds beginner class. I havent taken many pictures but the ones I have of my site I will post soon.

For those of you still wondering what to send:
I am craving...hot tamales, twizzlers, glamour and ANY book you like! Looks like 2 years is going to give me PLENTY of reading time!
Also I got a new address....my final address so feel free to FINALLY send boxes just bear in mind I have already NOT recieved one sent package and everything that is sent to me is opened and inspected. Lastly if you send anything of value (dont please) I will be charged in order to get it OUT of the post office.
LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU MORE THAN YOULL EVER KNOW! Thanks for your love!
xxoxoxo
kris

Heres my address:
Bwat Postale 158 Bouarfa, 61200 MOROCCO

hello from bouarfa!

Hello Friends and family,
How are you all? Good i hope. I am great. I am in my site...which is very nice! I am really happy but feeling QUITE overwhelmed and feel a little eager to head to my next stop just so i can have some time to soak up the idea of living here for two years. I am in good spirits but have been pretty sick. Since I am sooo far east the food, water and everything is different AGAIN so my body is acting like I just arrived to morocco again. My homestay family is great. Just a wife, husband and the cutest little 3 year old boy. I have a nice room and my own bathroom (which is unheard of). I am just a little attached to my old family but i am sure this one will grow on me too.

There is a current volunteer here already and she has been REALLY helpful! I had to go to all the cops and mayor and etc to introduce myself and she has been my translator. I am shocked by how well I understand people...i just need to work on speaking more. I am REALLY excited about my potential work! I will be working at the Nedi Neswi which is usually just a place where women gather and do skills transfer. However the one in my town is EXTREMELY well established and acts more like a technical school.So there are 3 classes, sewing, computer science and hair dressing! All the women have to enroll and go to classes for 2 years and finally they recieve diplomas! I am hyped cause I will be able to do womens health forums, teach yoga and aerobics etc. The ideas are endless. I may also seek work at a near by boarding school where children from far homes in the mountains/desert come to live in order to attend school.

All in all things are still going amazingly! Everyone is so welcoming and all the people I will be working with are really happy about my arrival. Winter should be interesting...I will be living in below freezing temperatures with no heat and no insulation. Most Moroccan families own well over 50 blankets...all of which i will put to good use :)

Next week I will be headed to Errachida to visit another volunteer so that I can view more teaching techniques etc. Then I will head back to Fez and have my final 2 weeks of training and the FINALLY i will be sworn in as an offical volunteer! Then I will head BACK to my site and live there for 2 years (Enshallah-god willing)

So thats the update for now! I promise I will write more soon! Thanks again for all your thoughts, prayers, letters and love!
xoxoxo
kris

Hello Friends and Family!
Here are some pictures from my trip to the medina which is a place where you can buy anything imaginable and it is what Fez is famous for. It was awesome! Also some pics of my friends and I out celebrating our site announcement. The other pictures are from halloween! We threw a really fun party! I was pepto bismol and my friend was diarreha lol! We had to be creative since we were resourceless! I hope all of you had a nice holiday! You all keep asking me what I need...answer is Imitation cheese from macaroni boxes and maybe a flash drive (about $15) I HATE for you guys to go out of your way ESPECIALLY cause I can get almost anything here but you are ALL begging me for ideas so I am just throwing them out there! THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your kind words, packages and emails you have no idea how much I depend on these things to avoid getting homesick! Love and miss you all!
xoxoxo
Kris