I survived the holidays! :)

Hello Family and Friends,
Sorry I haven’t written since Christmas, things have been rather busy around here and I was having some computer problems. HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope this year brings all of us endless amounts of peace and love. But even if it doesn’t it will atleast bring us a new president THANK GOD! Just kidding! Anyway Bouarfa is still treating me well. I am still the town celebrity but I think people are starting to realize that I am living here. INFACT I am a proud home owner!!! (Or apartment renter but whats the difference) But seriously this week I obtained my apartment and while I will live with my host family through January I have started painting, moving and enjoying my new home! It is a small apartment with a bed room, living room, kitchen and bathroom. Also as an added bonus a BEAUTIFUL roof with a wonderful view of the mountains. Hopefully this roof will serve as a wonderful summer hang out and tanning bed. I will be posting pictures of my place as soon as the paint dries!

This last week I went to a town about 5 hours away to go to the Moroccan equivalent of walmart to buy new stuff for my house. It was a nice trip with my site mate and her host mother. Aside from the shopping I took my first trip to the Hammam which is the public bath here in morocco. I hadn’t showered for about 6 days before I went and I was dying to feel clean. While I was nervous, it ended up being an amazing experience. It is similar to a sauna and endless amounts of hot water are more exciting than you know when you have been as cold as I have felt. I am really glad I went and my new apartment is only a few blocks from one in my town although we convinced my land lord to put in a hot water heater for us so I will have a hot shower at last! I know that sounds like a small feet, but in broken Arabic I have to celebrate such accomplishments.

Teaching has been going really well. I must guiltily admit that I am inlove with my aerobics class. The women are so into it and I basically get to stand on a stage and dance to Beyonce for an hour. I have done no advertising for women that don’t go to the womens center and already I have 4 outside students just based on word of mouth. At the Dar talib my English classes are going well and I am bonding well with some of the students. Some of the girls especially are just amazing and I am looking forward to doing a lot of empowerment activities with them. Today one of the them even came up to me and told me she heard that I taught aerobics at the nedi and she organized 10 other girls who want to do aerobics so now I will be teaching there also. So now I am teaching 8 classes a week, 5 english and 3 aerobics. The ball is finally rolling and I swear there aren’t enough hours in the day! I love it!

Next week I will be traveling all week to get an HPV shot and to go to the dentist. I have a two day travel to go to a Peace Corps approved dentist and to be honest I am absolutely dreading it. I sweat over a dentist appointment in America and then add in the language barrier and im a mess. I am sure I will be fine although I will be missing a week of classes which I am bummed about. Guess I should appreciate the vacation and remember I still have 2 years here. I still cant believe I have been in Morocco for 118 days! Wow! That’s a loonnggg time to go without chili’s ;) Just kidding…nice to know that I am over the hump and hopefully homesickness is behind me for now. I do however have a small addiction to checking my mailbox and I hope that too comes to an end. Mail hasn’t been coming lately and I am expecting some fabulous packages from some of my fabulous friends so pray that I get them! Other than that things are great! Just trucking along and missing you guys! I had a great new years considering but I still wish I could have rang in the new year with my loved ones! I have included some pictures from new years, our hike to ring in the new year, (im an experienced mountain climber nowadays lol) and dance parties with My site mates host mom.

Thank you all for sending me delicious candy and cookies etc! I am going to be the size of a house if packages like this keep coming :) Flavored Tea bags, Magazines and books would be great too! Or anything you can think I would like in my house. Ive been very blessed and dont need much so only send something you are dying to. Also letters make me just as happy and only cost 90 cents to send!

Love and miss you with my whole heart!
Xoxo
kris