Bslama Imouzzer

Sorry about the long time-no blog. Training has been really busy but really wonderful. The last two weeks with my host family in my training site were great. Two days in particular stick out.

The first of these days was Eid Al-Fitr, the celebration ending the fast after Ramadan. I woke up and got to eat during the day with my family for the first time. We had sweets, bread, melwi (doughy bready pancakesque deliciousness) and tea. I began with probably two or three cups of tea. And that was my first mistake. My family then proceeded to our neighbor's house, which also happens to be where another trainee was living, for more of the same. And two more glasses of incredibly sweet tea. Then our two families moved on down the neighborhood for more of the same. 4 more cups of tea. In the afternoon, the 6 trainees and our language instructor went to visit all of our respective families to wish them an Eid Mabruk. That is when the tea drinking competition began resulting in another 8 or so cups of tea and 2 cups of coffee. I was happy to escape sans diabetes.
The whole day was really wonderful. I felt like I was having new language breakthroughs with my family; I held entire conversations. Also, my host father, who I initially thought didn't really care for me much and didn't spend much time with the family, suddenly began talking to me, he showed me his coin collection and gave me an incredible Amazigh (Berber) necklace made out of old Moroccan coins. As it turns out, it is just his Ramadan schedule that involves never being home at night. On most nights he stays at home, helps my host sister with her work and perhaps even likes me.

Our big success as a group was our big event with our Dar Chebab. The initial plan was to have three groups write three plays about issues affecting children that we would perform in classrooms. What we ended up with was a 2.5 hour spectacle with 6 plays, clowns, songs and about 200 spectators. The kids started showing up an hour early and sat patiently until nearly the end. Unfortunately, I also made my own big stage debut in Darija. I played the part of a mother who gets beaten by her husband after yelling at him for coming home drunk. Apparently my lines were comprehensible. 'Twas joyful. The plan all came together at the last minute, but it ended up being terrific. Smokey the Bear would not have approved of the enormous piles of leaves we burned under trees to make room for the chairs, but no harm, no foul. I am having difficult loading my pictures onto my computer but I will try to get some up as soon as I can.

We are now all back in Fes. I am definitely going to miss Imouzzer a lot. I got to see the moon rise over the mountains just like over the Green Mountains in Middlebury, I got to eat apples and grapes from out of my backyard, and the people were wonderful. We will find out on Wednesday where each of us will be for the next two years and then will be travelling on our own for the first time to those sites for a week. Anticipation is running high. Happy Halloween to everyone. I don't think I will be able to dress up like a tin of Skoal this year, which is a shame, but my roommate did bring some candy corn, so I think I will make it.

One love.