Like Whitesnake, here I go again.

Dear, kind, indulgent readers, le sigh, it’s time to just accept that I will always be the occasional yet verbose blogger. It’s turning into a bit of a habit that I post a novella length update, apologize, swear to update more often and in shorter pieces, then time passes and I find myself in the same scenario. Alas, I am the way that I am.
Now the topic you’re all on tenterhooks to hear about... Me!
Oh my, all the things that are new that need talking about. When last you left your intrepid heroine (c’est moi) I was Fes-ward bound to assist Operation Smile yet again with another mission. This time, I announced, that I was going as an official, titled, volunteer. My title? Patient Imaging Technician... yes... I’m a PIT. This rather unfortunate title causes me to pause and tip my hat to Ms. Bombeck. I may be a PIT, but, if life is a bowl of cherries, I’m glad I’m not in the pits. The job of a PIT is exactly what it seems like: I take pictures of patients. This is pretty boring the first couple of days of the mission: 8 hours of snapping shots of squalling wee ones for two days. Then the surgeries start and things get interesting. Once the patients are put under I come in and take a few more pictures then I hang around until the surgeons are done and I take even more pictures. You may be thinking, why so many pictures? An excellent question, Operation Smile may be a humanitarian organization offering free services to those who could never get them otherwise; but, free or not, they still expect professional level work. The photos are meant for quality control. So that’s my small but important role with OS.
Some of you may be thinking my job sounds dry but to you I say, “NAY!” Actually it’s amazing. The doctors and nurses that come to work with OS are some of the best people in their field. They come from all over the world to do this work.BTW not only are they doing this work but they have to pay for the opportunity to do this and they have to take vacation time for this from their real jobs. I, personally, enjoyed working with them because they were fun to be around and because they encouraged me to hang around and see what was going on during the surgery. It was so very, very cool. There were, also, a couple of residents who were there for the educational experience and they were happy to answer all of my questions.
Immediately after Op Smile My counterpart and I organized an AIDs awareness 5 km run for the students that live in my market town. That was a glorious success. We had a turnout of nearly 150 students, most of these were boys under the age of 15 but I am not complaining. As a matter of fact, I am just grateful we had people show up. The first event is notoriously a flop in regards to attendance numbers. This means that next year (absolutely everyone demanded we do this again next year) we may double or even triple the attendance numbers. I am very excited.
Hmm, what came next... oh! My parents! Huzzah! It was absolutely wonderful having daddy and the mom lady seeing my life and the beloved-thorn-in-my-side that is Morocco. What can I say, Moroccans drive me nuts but, by god, they drive ME nuts... and I love ‘em. Trash talk Morocco at your own risk >:| That’s my scary face... it makes you quake in your boots. Having the parents here was really a fun experience. One, b/c mom and dad are awesome. Two, b/c seeing their reactions to Morocco reminded me of what I felt like the first few weeks I was in Morocco. We had a blast, we saw visited the night market in Marrakech, walked through the Rose fields of Klaat M’Gouna (the City of Roses) and drove past the nomads and wild camels that live near my village-I think I was more excited about this then they were. My parents were absolute troopers, too, I wasn’t very nice to them (to be honest). I made them travel via souk bus b/c that’s how Moroccans travel and it’s the best way to see the country. But it’s also very dirt... and you take your life into your hands every time you step foot onto one of these death traps they call a bus. I think the night we spent in a very loud hotel followed by a ten hour bus ride was a bleak point in their adventure. It didn’t help that the slave driver (yours truly) took them immediately off the bus in Fes to walk through the medina to see the tannery. I thought it was a lovely stroll; they titled it a “forced march.” Alright, I own that one... my bad, I’m sorry. I just forget that other people don’t have to walk 2 miles to get a ride anytime you want to go somewhere. I find walking therapeutic; I guess this is not the commonly held belief.
One down side to seeing my parents reaction to all the things I accept as part of life is that I realized how much I have changed... and I begin to worry I really, really won’t fit in when I get back home. It’s a good thing you guys love me, b/c I’m going to be testing the limits until I readjust.
After taking my parents on a short visit around Morocco we took a week and went up to Spain. Oh my heaves, it was glorious! We went to see Alhambra in Granada, and we saw the Hotel America. Mom snapped a picture of the sign in such a way that it said “Hotel ‘Merica”- Facebook download pending. I got a kick out of it when we made a 3 hour trip to Great Britain in the form of Gibraltar (I got to see the monkeys! And our bus driver got one to jump onto my shoulder... hee hee hee) Of course while we were in GB we ate fish and chips, I felt very authentic. We made a couple of other stops here and there but my favorite place was Barcelona. It was so much fun! We saw Gaudi’s Cathedral and I have to tell you, if you were to visit Spain and only got to see the Cathedral it would be a trip worth doing.
EEEEEEEEEE! After we went to the Cathedral we passed a... STARBUCKS! Are they the devil? Yes. But I have been living in a developing country for over a year and that Carmel Macchiato was glorious! I even made my parents take a picture of me with said beverage in front of said store to prove I wasn’t dreaming.
So I have to say that the trip was a definite success.
I got home from this grand adventure and almost immediately had to take a work trip to Rabat (the capitol of Morocco) where PC HQ is so I could have my mid service medical check-up. A clean bill of health... ish. At least I don’t have any parasites (nearly all PCVs end up with some type) I do have giarrdia but it’s a minor case and since it’s unavoidable the doctors say it’s better I just wait until the end of my service to treat it. In the spirit of open mindedness, and since I’m going to be spending so much time with it, I named it Leroy.
So that took a little less than a week and I was finally free to go home. Now the thing about my home is that it’s made out of mud brick. This is quaint most of the time... except it’s been raining for the last three weeks and last sat (when I’d been home for about two days) my roof caved in! Ok I’m exaggerating, I just wound up with more holes in the roof then I had buckets and it was basically raining inside my house. This wouldn't be quite so bad except a leak in your mud brick roof doesn’t just mean the rain comes in; it means a stream of mud comes in. Blah. So with my main room quickly becoming a swimming pool I packed up all of my possessions and moved into the spare room of a PCV who lives near me. I’m just glad I have someone so close to me and that I so few belongings that everything I have only fills half of that spare room. I am now in the process of finding a new home. There was a bright side to this event, though; I have been planning on moving into the village i am now in for a few weeks now. This just accelerated the process. Huzzah.
Alright my dearly beloved, you are now updated to all of the events in my life. Next week I am headed back to Essouara for the Ganoua Music Festival where I will offer free blood pressure testing to people as a ploy to get them to listen to our health lessons. I was at this event last year and i had so much fun i know this will be equally as fabulous. It’s kind of weird to me that I have been here long enough to be doing my second anything when it comes to annual stuff. This was my second birthday in March, we just finished my second spring, it’s getting back into the hundreds and so marks the beginning of my second summer, this is my second Ganaua... weird, mes amis, very, very weird. Funny thing about this being my second summer, I was walking down the street this morning thinking, “Oh this is lovely, maybe it’s going to be a mild summer.” Then I saw the bank thermometer when I got into town... it was 100 degrees at 9 am. Maybe I’m just adjusted, or maybe once you’ve lived through 120 degrees, 100 degrees is nothing.
Ah well, I must be off to the market, those lovely summer veggies are calling my name.
Ciao!