In which Alisa gets serious:

According to my good friend (code name Panda) my spirit animal/patronus (PC is full of Harry Potter nerds -- including me) is a flying squirrel, because at first I seem all cute and sweet and then I do something BA like fly (or drink lots of really crappy vodka).

But these past few months I've felt the very opposite of BA. Instead I've felt mostly guilty. Guilty that I don't automatically love Peace Corps and Morocco. Guilty that I'm still not so secretly hoping for evacuation. Guilty that I'm not integrating at the speed Peace Corps expects me to and guilty that I still have no freaking idea how to start or do work here.

But it's sort of hitting me that even if I'm hiding in my 50 dirham hotel room, eating pasta salad made from canned veggies, and facebook hating all of you in America, I'm still at least a little BA. Because every time I and any other female volunteer leave our houses we have to deal with ridiculous male machismo harassment and that takes strength. Something as simple as buying plates for my new apartment requires riding a souk bus for two hours and haggling in a language that I am daily told I know nothing of and that takes determination. And at least once every month having my insides explode out both directions and the only outlet being a Turkish toilet, that takes perseverance or stupidity or something.

And after my trip up north to Azrou for PPST (post-pre-service training -- gotta love government acronyms) I've realized I'm really, really fortunate to be in Morocco. Just in the past two weeks I've walked through a park that would have fit in in any town in the US, ate sushi (real, tasty sushi!), had an honest to god caesar salad (a salad without cinnamon, sugar, ketchup, and/or mayonnaise is a miracle in Morocco), and watched a bootleg version of the latest Harry Potter movie. All these little reminders of home and they're in my PC country. That's definitely something to be thankful for. And on top of all of that I got to explore a little bit of Fes, buy a supposedly real Berber carpet in Meknes (I don't really care about the realness, because it's beautiful and I can fake it if I have to), go on a fruitless search for wild monkeys (but still there was the possibility of monkeys!) and had a couple of Moroccans be disproportionally pleased about my Tash skills, which after months of "walu! walu!" is beyond refreshing.

The point I'm poorly trying to make with all of this is if you're (my fellow PCVs) feeling down, remember that A) just existing and doing your day to day thing over here is pretty bad ass and B) it could always be worse. We could be in a country where we don't even have the possibility of monkeys.

In which Alisa lives her worst nightmare:

ZOMBIE CAMEL SPIDERS

Okay, first of all you need to see pictures and facts on camel spiders to truly understand just how frightening they are. See below.

this was in my house!!

Facts:
1. Camel Spiders can run up to 10 mph
2. While their bites aren't horribly poisonous, they leave jagged marks from their giant monster teeth that usually become infected.
3. They are f'ing TERRIFYING.

true story.

I finally have a house (pictures will be coming soon, I swear) and my 4th or 5th night in it was really hot (my site usually gets up to at least 115 these days) so I decided to open my windows. Little did I know this was an epic mistake. A few hours later I got up to go get a drink of water and see the devil monster above crawling on my window screen. I promptly began screaming and woke up my neighbor's newborn and then called another PCV in hysterics. Luckily she talked me up to ninja status and I was able to get a broom and whack the crap out of the spider. Unfortunately, they really are as fast as all the urban legends say and there was a scary minute or two when I couldn't find it. Once I did, whacking resumed until I thought it was dead, due to the guts kind of hanging out. Sadly, I was mistaken. Then an hour or so later I finally worked up the courage to go up to the window to take a picture and it started twitching and trying to crawl. It was a zombie camel spider. Zombie. Camel. Spider. My windows will never be opened again. Ever.

Thank god the past month hasn't been all camel spiders though. My site-mates had a scorpion. :( There's been another trip to Agadir, several trips to Tiznit and Tafraoute, and now I'm in Azrou, a small town near Fes for more Peace Corps "training". Azrou is amazing, mostly because of the weather. I actually get to use my blanket at night and there are trees here! And I had sushi in Fes and it was state-side delicious. As for work, which you all have started to ask me about, there's not really anything so far. Basically Peace Corps just wants us to survive this summer and Ramadan, get our house and all the admin stuff that goes with living in Morocco taken care of, and be ready to really start up in the fall. I also purchased my tickets for October, so I'll be in DC October 16th through the 24thish and in Bristol from the 24th until the 31st. 

And so many of you wonderful people have been asking me about care packages. I didn't want to do a wishlist post, but I think I'm going to cave. Check there for my address and things that will always, always make me smile. 

See you all in 88 days!

In which Alisa is officially all sworn-in:

It's been another month or so since I've posted and honestly it's because I'm not really sure what to say. That and I don't have internet yet in my site. Mainly it's the internet.

Anyway, so some big things that have happened in the past month:

• finished CBT 
• passed my Tashelheit language exam (woohoo!)
• was officially sworn-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (no more PCT!)
• and moved to my site (my new host mom is amazing by the way)

I think that's about it for the big things... so some little things that have happened:

• got epic food poisoning (fyi: PCV girls, there is a new PCMO and he sounds young and is American. I'm just saying).
• a cockroach crawled on my arm
• finally ate bacon, but it was just a little piece and very expensive
• went to the beach twice (Sidi Ifni and Agadir!)

More things have happened, but honestly I can't remember right now. So just know that I'm trucking along over here, but am also counting down the days to my favoritest Britany's wedding. I'll be seeing you all in DC this October!

And here, more pictures!

CBT girls all dressed up in traditional Berber wedding gear

Peace Corps Morocco's very last Health and Environment Staj

The view coming down my mountain

In which Alisa decides her future career:

Let me preface this by saying this post has almost nothing to do with Peace Corps. 

But I was talking with a girl in my CBT (language training group) and she has a friend who is in hospital administration. I had sort of thought about that as a possible career (in the back of my mind kind of way), but never taken the thought further. Until I heard about this girl's friend. She has a NY apartment for the weekends and makes insane money and loves her job and she gets to wear scrubs! That's my dream: work in a hospital, make lots of cash, and get to wear scrubs all without actually having to go through med school. 

I think there might even be one or two Peace Corps Fellows schools that offer MBA's with hosp admin concentrations. 

And mainly I'm putting this in my blog because I tend to forget my best ideas, which explains my life really. Also, so I can remind myself to start studying for the GMAT. 

The end.

In which Alisa drove through a cloud (THROUGH A CLOUD):

Site visit has been completed and it was a crazy week. CRAZY. I'm not even sure where to begin...

So my site is in the south of Morocco but on a mountain in the Anti-Atlas, so we get the best of everything? Like crazy hot summer weather and crazy cold winter weather (SNOW even). Also, hence the title of this post: I'm like 90% sure I drove through a cloud coming down the mountain on my way out of site to come back to Oz. 

I like making lists, so here's the good and the bad of my site:

GOOD:

-It's really, really pretty on top of the mountain.

-There is a mini super market in my town, which is probably where the majority of my money where will be spent. 

-There's already a ton of work for me to do. 

-The town officials are nice and I have good connections already in place.

-My site-mates are super nice and I couldn't be more psyched to actually have site-mates. I couldn't imagine being on top of that mountain by myself.  

-My host mom might be the nicest Moroccan I've met so far. I LOVE her, even if she calls me Elise.

-I learned I can travel to Portugal for about the equivalent of $8 USD. EIGHT DOLLARS. EIGHT DOLLARS!!!

-I'm about 4 hours from Agadir, the best place I've been to so far in Morocco. I ate McDonald's, chilled on the beach, had Indian food, and went to French Target all in one day there. 

BAD:

-I'm in a pretty remote location which I'm honestly not that psyched about. 

-There is no internet in my site. I know this is Peace Corps and all but when fellow volunteers have DSL in their houses and I have to take a scary souk bus to a town 45 kms away just to check my email, I can't help but complain a little.  

-There are known scorpions, snakes, and camel spiders (!!!!!!) in my area or at least that is what I was told. 

-I'm about 4 hours from Agadir, why can't I be cloooooser???

-There may be no available housing in my site, but this needs to be investigated a little more. 

-For some reason transportation always seems to go horribly awry when trying to travel out of the Tiznit province. 

-And my town is pretty conservative. The women almost never go "downtown" and my host mom and her daughter-in-law won't leave their house. 

So all in all, my site is pretty good and I'm excited for June. Also, I now have an address. You guys can send me things! I'll be emailing it out soon. And I think that's it...