some time away

As opposed to trying to write the past few months of my time here, i thought i could do a little picture diary. I left my site on June 24th and traveled around the north for a few weeks before spending a week in the capital for a little relaxation. I'm now starting my third week at summer camp!

Hope you enjoy the pics.


I did a tour of the northern part of the country, and this was my first stop. We'll call it beatiful coastal town number 1!



This is the main square of the same town. The entire north has tons of spanish architecture and i fell in love!



Coastal town number two has the cleanest walled city i have seen in this country. Spotless! Here are some villas with views of the ocean.



The same city, from where i sat and waited for the sunset.



One of the most incredible sunsets i've seen. no obstructions to my view, amazing!



Coastal city number 3 is a real city and a place i could actually live. It had a really relaxing vibe and made me feel like i was in a whole different country!


In the old city, a great people watching location.


Most cities turn old palaces into museums, and this was one of the best i've seen.


This is the garden in the American Legation museum. There are letters here from George Washington from the Sultan. Did you know that this country was the first in the world to recognize America as a country when the Declaration of Independence was signed?


People sell stuff all over the place, but only in the north did i see these crazy hats. They were everywhere and many extremely festive!


A kid in the old city near a cool stoop. I tried waiting for him to leave, but i guess he was pretty happy with his spot.



A short ride from city number 3 took us to the Northern most point in africa on the atlanic ocean. here it is!



In the same area, we find the "cave of hercules." Mythology claims that this is where hercules was when he separated Africa and Europe into two continents!



This is me, with my feet in the mediteranian sea! It was the first time i'd ever seen it, how exciting!

Spices for sale. doesn't it seem like it would just all topple down if someone bought some?

Looking out a window of an old palace, the view of the mountain side town in gorgeous!

This is the hotel i stayed in, beautiful and perfect location. only 6 dollars!

An alley stairway in the blue city

Now we move to Summer English Language camp. I will spend a month here working 2 sessions. this is AbdelAli, one of my favorites who returned for a second year! He is one of the most talented people i have ever met.

Me and Mohamed, the cutest little thing ever. He won my library reading race.

We had an "american games" night and they loved the dizzy bat game!
Some girls show off the traditional clothing of their region
Hmza, such a sweetie!

Habiba, such a beautie!

And little Ayoub, the cutest of all.

a much needed trip out

I recently managed to leave town for 12 whole days!!! thats right kiddies, i busted out and was able to see two of the places i've wanted to visit since i arrived here. and in the middle, i was checked out by the docs to commemerate being on the downhill slide of my time in country. clean bill of health! humdullah!!!

so some of you know about my obsession with fountains. well, this was my first trip to a real waterfall, and needless to say, i'm in love!!!!! so incredibly beautiful. i was in heaven and took at least 4 billion pictures!

We arrived at the village, and i thought "where is this thing??" then you walk about a hundred yards and notice this big cliff. all the sudden you're standing right on top of them! crazy!

This is where the collide about halfway down.

and then you can walk all the way down to the bottom of the falls where the view is equally breathtaking!

truly a dream come true. me and a real live monkey, living out in the wild and sitting in the palm of my hand!

so the waterfall was pre medical visit. after, i went to one of the imperial cities! this is at the tomb of a famous old leader. love the doorways in this country!

just outside of this city, there is old roman city. all ruins and not completely excavated, this place was incredible. Here i am next to an old well.

once again i took a million pictures, but tried to choose some interesting ones. this is some sort of aquaduct or something.

this was the center of town where the government buildings and public square was. now some birds call it home.

They call this the "arc de triomphe." not quite the one in paris, but still pretty cool.

This is just off the main road of the town. these houses were of the weathly people and many also had shops and businesses attached. sweet!

this house is called "the house of columns." i claimed it as my own as it is so beautiful! lots of columns and a beautiful courtyard. i'll be moving in next month.

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!