full circle...an odd experience

Interesting how life interferes and the next thing you know three months have passed. today is the 8th, and i leave for the capital on the 25th. For those of you who struggle with math, that leaves me with only 17 daysl left. 17 days!

This weekend brought my replacement for a visit. Yes, I will be replaced and hopefully all of my time, energy and work was not for naught. Her arrival stirred up all kinds of thoughts and emotions. exactly 2 years ago i too came on my site visit. I was shown around by my predecessor and was generally very excited and overwhelmed to finally see the place where i would live for 2 whole years.

It seems like just yesterday and at the same time so long ago. This time it was my turn to do the showing. I'm sad at the thought of leaving all of my friends and work with someone new, and yet so proud of what i've been able to accomplish and to be able to leave her with so much. On my visit i was able to see and carry-on one activity, and my replacement was able to take part in four. Girls soccer, english classes, youth and women's clubs, and the preschool class at the women's center. She met all of the people she will need to continue these activities and is really excited to begin.

She even plays soccer! The transition from me to her will be a smooth one and i'm really thankful for that. this town just may see sustainability yet!

not only does she inherit a town, but also a bike helmet!

The past two years have been full of ups and downs. depression, loneliness, diarrhea....i've been there. but i can't think of anything more fufilling i could have done with my time. the ups have far outweighed the downs and it's been an incredible learning experience.

I'm thankful for every day, every friend, every cup of mint tea. i'm thankful for the support i've constantly received from everyone at home and for my fellow volunteers who are now lifelong friends. I'm thankful for the laughter, the dancing, even the tears. i'm thankful that i've made it.

As for the future, well it is certainly coming at me at full speed. I've begun the job search and am feeling quite optimistic, but that doesn't make the process any easier. and every moment i spend thinking about the next step, i can't help but feel like i wasting the little time i have left here.

17 days to say goodbye.

boubaker aka 'bob' is one of my best students!

hanging out in the Youth Center

last spring i helped the preschool teaches write a letter requesting toys from an association up north. they came!

out and about

i'm so happy to say that the hell that was october is over, and i am happily swimming through november.

work is great. the past few weeks have been quite an adjustment as i've gone from working 4 hours per week, to working about 20 hours per week. things are really moving and i'm hopeful that good things will be happening.

so, in a nutshell. soccer! the girls team is actually entering the official boys club! this is pretty huge people. there is lots of paper work, and i have personally visited lots of parents in order to convince them that it is good that their girls are playing soccer. i have also started working with the leaders of the club to get money. we are going to write letters and prepare a budget to take with us as we visit community leaders and ask them to contribute. this should be happening in the next few weeks. if successful, the girls and boys teams will soon be playing with new jerseys, balls and all of that good stuff.

women's cafe. the women here dont really have a place to hang out and have a good time. so now every saturday night they bring cookies and drinks to the youth center. like our own little nightclub! we dance, we talk, we have a great time. i'm hoping to start bringing people to speak to the women about health and other important issues.

theater club. started out with a bang! 25 students came and by the end of day one had chosen to do a play on 'adolescence'. unfortunatly my counterpart had to leave for a week and we have now had to cancel 2 weeks of this club. we are to start again this friday and i just hope that interest has not been lost, and we can still accomplish something in the next month.

english class and youth club. both going well, i have lots of students and the youth center is pretty full most nights during the week, which is great. unfortunatly i really dont like teaching english. after christmas i might just stop!

this past weekend i left my town for the first time in 2 months. i had to go to the big city to get my yearly flu shot. everyone in my region had to go, so it was cool to meet a lot of people who i'd never met before.

And we went out! a lot of the hotels there have clubs. and these clubs are like 80's discoteches. pretty sweet. we drank, we danced. it was a blast.

then the next day i traveled to a little beach town that i'd been wanting to visit for a long time. unfortunatly the weather wasnt great and i didnt have much time there, but it was beautiful! the pictures you see with this post are from a few of the beaches there. it was at dusk and really foggy. needless to say the pictures didnt turn out that well. i brightened them on the computer, but they still are pretty bad. i guess that means i'll have to go back for some better ones!

ok, i guess thats all for now. i hope you guys like the new site. feel free to send any suggestions, comments, questions, etc.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

how i celebrated in a land of no halloween

i love halloween. in my opinion, it's in the "big 3" of holidays. you dress up. you eat candy. you party. nothing but fun involved. so as you can imagine, i couldnt just let my 2nd out of country halloween pass without a fuss. especially when 2/3rds of my job is cross cultural exchange.

Halloween this year fell on the day of my first classes, so i decided to take advantage. I would do some halloween themed lessons. i would bring a jack-o-lantern. i would make caramel apples. i would wear a costume.

I decided to be a black cat. simple. classic. easy. The week before i bought a headband and attached some ears. i also made a tail. i dressed in black, and used eye liner to draw on some whiskers. sweet!

we dont have orange pumkins here, but i thought, who cares! i bought a whitish green one and carved it up.

the caramel apples were a blast. the people who i bought the caramel from surely thought i was going on a binge eating spree, but i managed to find enough to make about 20 apples. they were delicious.

The big day arrived and i lugged all of my paraphenalia to the youth center. when i arrived i added my makeup and put on my costume. i lit the pumkin and put him outside. i brought candy which i gave out to all of my students, and some sweet halloween sticker. they learned vocabulary like vampire, witch, full moon, monster, pumkin, etc, etc.

i think they thought i was a loon. i've never been laughed at so much in my life. it was worth it.

when class was over i decided to bring some apples to my host family, so i wore my costume across town. i was greeted with much laughter. i gave them stickers and apples, and tried to explain why i was looking so crazy. me to a 70 year old berber man, " today is a holiday in america. everyone dresses like this. we eat candy!" him to me, "cat! makeup!"

when i was ready to leave one of my soccer girls said to me "teresa, take off that tail and the ears. people will laugh at you!" i took them off. my whiskers were with me until i made it home, where i finally washed them off.