Ruth and the Very Weird Week

This week appears to have flown by. Unfortunately I don't have any more stories about killing chickens - just about eating food, food and more food. We've been going to each other's houses in the evening for kaskrut, which has become a game of oneupmanship between our host families. It's very amusing to see what amazing food item we'll get next - last night we had 'pizza', or as close as you get to pizza in Morocco, as well as an amazing pastry thing - don't know how it's made, but am determined to find out - it seems fairly straightforward (she says) - just a flaky pastry with honey and sesame seeds. Yum. We did have a pita bread type thing stuffed with ground meat (of some kind) and fat the other night, which I will now be steering clear of for the next two years. It should have come with a warning sign: although delicious, may cause fainting spells and vomiting. So that was my Thursday morning! I skipped going to the suq this week, which I was sad about, but it was in favor of a nap in the classroom, which was worth every minute. Feeling much more human now. I will be going to the suq next week, and hope to go to the meat section, since we didn't go to that area the first time we went. Today we barbecued lamb skewers at school - since on saturday we finish classes at noon, we cook lunch that day, since every other day of the week all of our meals are prepared for us. The grill was a tiny little thing, but we had lots of tasty vegetables crammed on there - as our language teacher would say - just delicious!

We had our first proper meeting on Wednesday with the women's co-operative that we are working with while we are in this town, which was really interesting. There are nine women in the co-op, which was established in 2007. They currently aren't weaving their amazing rugs, as they have a lot of inventory, and they are having trouble getting invited to various craft fairs to sell their products, which is a real shame. There was a PCV here a couple of years back, so the women here are looking forward to having another volunteer working with them. We have several different activities that we're doing with the women as a sort of test run - we'll be doing the same activities (which are basically needs assessment tools) when we get to our individual final sites. We have plenty of reports to write this week with regards to these activities - some group and some individual - the group one we will then present on Friday when we all congregate back in our hub site with the whole SBD sector.

Anyway, we'll be off visiting somewhere tomorrow, so there will be more pictures forthcoming soon.

R. / N.

xoxo