It's Officially Official

I am now a fully fledged Peace Corps Volunteer. Today, after 63 days of constant language, culture, and basic-here-to-for-un-needed life skills training, I swore in to the United States Peace Corps. And the US Ambassador came to give us our oath; yes my friends, I'm kind of a big deal. I even had my picture taken with him, he and his wife are lovely people.
Now that I am officially a PCV I leave for my site again tomorrow but now it's for good; I don't know how often I will be qble to find a cyber in the next three months so I might not have a lot of posts until July of August. However, eventually I am going to get a small notebook type computer so after Ramadan you guys will probably hear more from me. Oh yeah, that reminds me, I had wanted to let you guys in on some of the big cultural differences here. I find them rather amusing.

1: Tide is the all powerful cleaner here. It removes tough stains from shirts, keeps the dishes sparkling clean, and some people have even been know to wash head wounds with it. That is one health concern I will be addressing.
2: Men hold hands with other men but they do not talk to women in public; parties are rather like 8th grade dances with the men on one side of the room and women on the other.
3: All parts of the body must be covered in public, this is true for men and women. But belching is completely normal wherever you may be.
4: During the month of Ramadan- they use a lunar calader so it is a deifferent time every year- everything stops and people just leave their cranky selves at home. My vote is that this is for the best.

Just some things I've noticed I'll make notes on more of them and post them as I can.
One last item of business; my mailing address has changed. Now that I have a final site I have a PO Box in mu souk town. I'm going to delete the other address so people don't try to send stuff there instead. Don't worry, anything that has been sent will be forwarded to me for the next couple of months. Although now I can get packages, dad seems to be having trouble with the US Postal system so you might see if Fed Ex or UPS is better. As far as needs I wish to impose on my dear friends to send me; books, any genre, any topic, any style. There aren't english books here so I need them from you guys. Also pictures of you guys would be nice, not to mention cheaper to send since those can be put into envelopes.

So from now on send all mail to:
Erika Pullen
BP 126
Rich 52400
Province D'Errichidia, Maroc

BP stands for Boite Postal which is French for PO Box, and to whom it may concern this is not anywhere near my home so it isn't a saftey breach to post this online.

I think that's all for now friends.