Saturday, March 22, 2008

imik s imik...

The past 6 days/nights were spent away at our CBT sites (community based training). There are 5 of us in my group - Whitney, Emmy, Eli, Andy - and we have an LCF (language and culture facilitator) named Samira, who is pretty much fantastic. We each stayed with a host family and came together every day for school aka crash course in TashLheet. We'll return to our CBT 3 more times over the next two months. Which is good, because I baby step it into relationships with people and I know there's a lot of potential with my host family.

My host brother is 12. His name is Soufiane, which is pronounced like "Sufjan," which is amazing, if you know what I mean... We count together in three different languages.

My TashLheet is rocky. Like the Grand Canyon. Give it time, give it time... I have only been studying it for a week.

It feels so good to laugh as hard and as often as we do here.

I'm happy to be back with the big group for a few days. It's crazy that we've only been here for 3 weeks. It feels like months already. I love the people I am with. I'm so thankful to be here.

I want to write love poetry to my Chacos. They inspire.

Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading. The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting.


Friday, March 14, 2008

the shoes make the woman

I don't think I gave cargo pants a fair shake before. I quite like these things.
So. Morocco. I kind of love this place. I kind of love my new Chacos.
Who is this cargo pant, Chaco wearing person? Different clothes. Same me. Kind of liberating.

"My Humps" was just playing in the internet place. Oh, Fergie... Never leave me.

I'm going to be learning the Berber dialect, Tashelheet. Found that out yesterday. I'm excited. These next two years are going to be a triiip. Everything is going really well thus far. I really really enjoy all of my fellow health trainees and I've had a lot of fun getting to know the town where we're doing our training.

The typhoid vaccine, however, is one unfriendly fellow.

We finally had couscous today!