What a splendid day

Hello everyone!
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! I hope you all know how much I love you! I am having such a low key yet amazing day, so I thought I'd write about it. This morning I woke up around 8:30, I drank some coffee and I had my daily yougurt with fruit. Then I went to the Hanut (little food store) across the street and brought my hanut guys some cake for valentines day. I also purchased a large propane tank to finish the repair of my stove. Then I spent a while fixing it and I was thrilled I did it all by myself. Then I bought some chairs for my new kitchen table and finally I sat down to check the daily headlines on my computer. Then I had a very productive meeting with the head of my women's center. I am planning a pretty big play for women's day in march. Anyway by the time I was heading home for lunch it started to rain for the first time since I have lived here. Now it has been storming for hours and it is freezing! I have been bunddled up in my new heart blanket (sent by my dear sister) and reading and drinking hot tea for a while. I had a knock at my door and it was one of the Hanut guys with a giant fruit tart for me. It was absolutley adorable and its nice to have men see you as a friend and nothing more around here. Ive been listening to Norah Jones and enjoying the rain for hours. I know I sound like a hippy and thats ok because my biggest worry today was whether I wanted to take a hot shower before or after class. :) I know I am spoiled in a sense but I have to say living life with such a level of peace and solitude is truly a gift. In america I was always busy, stressed and spread to thin. While the lack of work here gets to me at times, the fact that the whole town shuts down cause of a rain storm is something I could get use to. So heres my assignment for you interested folks....next time it rains, cuddle up with a good book and some hot tea. Slow down and enjoy life, its not going anywhere I promise. If you end up liking that moment where you realize taking time for yourself is even more important than paying a bill or shopping, I have two empty couches here in Morocco...
I am the luckiest girl in the world...and today I can happily say not only am I surrounded by love of my friends and family...Im finally inlove with myself!
Miss you!
xoxo
Kris

Hello everyone! Hope everyone is having an amazing year as of yet. Sorry I have not blogged in a while...life happens. Things here are going absolutley amazing! I have moved into my own house and it has proved to be the best thing that has happened to me in a while. I will miss my homestay family but its just nice to FINALLY have my own space and to not have to eat an entire loaf of bread with each meal :) Also I got internet and hot water! I promise you will never appreciate a hot shower as much as I do...go a few months without one and you will understand lol. Work has been slow because of a school vacation but I got to go to Fez for a teaching workshop so that was nice. It was really odd to go to a big liberal city after living in Bouarfa for a while but no complaints here cause I got to eat pizza! This week I will be starting a girls club at the Dar Talib. Tomorrow we have a first meeting and we are going to spend it making valentines cards. They dont really celebrate here but it will be a nice cultural exchange. Aerobics has been going really well, infact the girls even asked me to start a basket ball team too! I have the slightest clue as to how to play basket ball but I am going to look for a Moroccan who does and I will just be a cheerleader lol. January was a great month I traveled alot! My boyfriend (Floyd) had a big birthday party about 6 hours away from my site and it was nice to get to see other volunteers and pretend like we were in america for a night. Then I got to see even more people in Fez, crazy how different all of our lives are even within the same program. Some people live in large cities where people will never know that they are not tourists while others live in tiny towns and mud huts. So far out of 29 youth developers 4 have left and apparently in two years we will finish with about half the amount of people we started with. It is very hard to live here at times and I cant blame anyone for leaving, I am just grateful that at this point it is not even imaginable for me. I have been getting OUTRAGEOUSLY good care packages which helps too. Thank you everyone who has sent me mail, I know it is not cheap and I feel gulity every time I get something but I promise you I will never forget your generosity. I have spent alot of time uploading these pics so I hope you like them!....they are mostly of my house. I have a bedroom (the blue one) and livingroom (yellow) bathroom and a kitchen. My house is small compared to most other volunteers but I really didnt want to come home to a big empty house everyday. I also have the luxury of living RIGHT across from my sitemate Kirsten. There is a picture of our doors almost touching! There are only 4 apartments in the building so we have one floor and above us in an empty one and one with a nice moroccan family. The mom that lives there is really nice. The other day she helped me hand wash all my clothes on the roof and then a few days later she knocked on my door asking for help with her laundry. I was a little confused but I followed to her apartment anyway. Well as it turns out she bought a washing machine from a bigger city and she had NO IDEA how to use it. It was kinda liberating to be asked for help rather than needing help for a change. All the directions were in french so I did my best setting it up, they are hard to find around here so she was so lucky to have 'former washing machine users' in her building. :) The picture from my livingroom with the window includes just some of the cards you guys have sent me!....boy am I loved! Some of the other pictures are from my travels and also when the girls at the Nedi cut my hair.

Other than that I have just been biking alot and doing things around the house. I biked 24 kilometers today and I hope to keep up with it! With the amazing american food people keep mailing me im gonna need alot of working out lol.(Ps the picture of my groceries is a direct shout out to the people that sent me pop tarts and mac and cheese lol I promise you my groceries dont normally look so american) Oh yea also in there is one picture of my dinner tonite. People always ask about the food here...for the most part its great! My dinner was so hot olives, a bowl of dates (DELICIOUS) and kristins pressure cooker special which is cous cous, peas and vegetables boiled with seasoning for about an hour. Cooking has been going pretty well except for I started another large fire today and so tomorrow I am going to finally give in and have it looked at while I still have my hair.

Well Hope you enjoyed the update and the pictures! I miss you all like crazy! Can you believe I have already been here for 6 months?! Only 21 more to go....lol sorry mom didnt mean to make you cry ;)

Love you all!

xoxo

kris

ps. if some of you could steal some equal packets from restuarants and mail them to me my morning coffee would love you forever! THANKS IN ADVANCE!