Hello Everyone and a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! I am so excited for you all to have a great holiday Inshallah! I myself just had a splendid holiday here in Morocco. It is called Leid Kabir and I spent a great time with my entire extended host family. We all went to my grandma’s house in the neighbor city and enjoyed 2 days of eating, talking and relaxing. I was very apprehensive about the holiday because the holiday is centered around the slaughtering of a sheep and then 3 days after are spent consuming all the meat. Since I didn’t eat meat in the states and have never even had lamb I was worried but I survived! I even ate heart and liver wrapped in fat. I was so impressed by the way my family knew how to butcher and prepare every single part of the animal. I felt so honored to be part of their family for this important holiday and its worth noting that the sheep that was shared with me cost about one months salary for my family to purchase and they tried giving me all the ‘best’ pieces. All the neighborhood families did that same thing and then people went from house to house just saying Mbrouk Leid and sampling each others food. One of the many things I love about this country is the hospitality and if its even possible people become even MORE hospitable during this holiday. Yesterday I went to my tutor’s house for a delicious lunch and her family was so welcoming. Then on the way home a shop keeper and a woman sweeping her front porch (both strangers to me) invited me in for tea. I declined because I was running late for dinner with my family but its nice to know that I would NEVER go hungry or homeless in this country. I am often caught of guard cause I was raised to be weary of ‘strangers’ etc but here that notion does not exist. One of the many things I hope to bring back to the US after this experience is the idea of an ‘open’ home. I want people to know that they are ALWAYS welcome in my house, stranger or not.
Aside from the big holiday, not too much has happened since I last blogged. I have been practicing my aerobic routine like a loser in preparation for this week. It will be my first real week of work and I will be teaching English and aerobics at the women’s center. Those of you who know about my severe lack of coordination are probably laughing right now but shut up these women can’t WAIT to have me teach them ‘sport’ as they call it lol. Oh I almost forgot the big news! I may have found my apartment! I originally wanted to live with my site mate Kirsten but the Peace Corps said no so we set off looking for two places. We spent a whole day house hunting with one of our Moroccan friends and we left feeling really disappointed. The idea of someone living alone (especially a woman) is nearly unheard of here so all the places we looked at where HUGE built for families. We also don’t have a lot of money for rent because of budget cuts. Just when we were about to give up for the day, Kirsten and my friend looked at one more place and they hit the jackpot. It is an apartment building with 4 apartments. The first floor is a large household appliance store then the second floor has 2 empty apartments and then the 3rd floor has 2 apartments where 2 local doctors live alone. Well since we cant live together Kirsten and I wanted to be neighbors and our doors are LITERALLY 3 steps away! Lol…the inside has a nice kitchen, bathroom, salon (living room) and a bedroom. It is a little small but since its just gonna be me and my small peace corps budget I figured the smaller, the easier to decorate with limited funds. We will be returning next week with our tutor to finalize rent negotiations and then the Peace Corps will send out an employee to approve it for safety reasons and hopefully we will have it in the beginning of January. I will still be living with my family until February but we want to have it early inorder to start moving in little by little. I am very excited cause it has been months now that I have been living out of suitcase and in some one elses house.
I am including some pictures. They are off my brother and cousins coloring with the crayons I brought, The ipod cover I made…I learned how to knit! One picture of my mom dad grandma and neighbor, & one of my mom and her 3 brothers all of which I adore! One of her brothers even yelled at my mom because the peace corps sends my family a small amount of money to cover the electricity I use, food I eat, etc. well my moms brother said she should just let me live here for free for 2 years because I am such a nice person etc. It was so cute. My mom assured him it wasn’t my money and he eventually let up. One pic of me, my brother and cousin, a picture of my scared face…that was my dedication face to the sheep. Pictures of my BEAUTIFUL henna that my aunt applied on my hands…it took 2 hours of work and then they wrapped my hands in cotton and slept with the henna on and then in the morning they wash off the actually henna and it stains your hands. I will not post the pictures of the sacrificed sheep but I have included one of the meat that was being prepared. It was really interesting, my mom cut up the heart and liver wrapped it in fat, put it on BBQ sticks and then they grilled it. A pic of my ADORABLE little cousins pounding on the window trying to ‘talk’ to the neighbors lol, and lastly a picture of the beautiful mountains that are my grandma’s back yard.
Well I hope that made some sense. I look at the pictures and get so lost in the story that everything I type sounds ridiculous. I am about the head to my site mates house to watch the new season of greys anatomy! I love her parents and ive never even met them cause they send ‘us’ GREAT burned dvds lol. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven yesterday when I found a channel on my family’s tv that plays OPRAH! OMG I swear it’s the little things.
I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL Christmas and I wish you know how badly I want to spend it with each of you. I am really sad and worried about this being my 1st Christmas away from home but I have a lifetime of Christmas’s ahead of me. Ironically enough its my first day of work here so maybe I will be distracted enough to go through the day just fine. You are all constantly in my thoughts and prayers and I hope to talk to you soon.
MISS YOU MORE THAN WORDS CAN SAY! Here’s a new wonderful year…may god bring us peace and joy in 2008.
XOXO
Kris
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