One year later....

wow, the new Health stage is probably in Philly today. One year ago, I was there freaking out! Thank Allah Andy was there to talk me in from the ledge! Of course, if I knew then what I know now, I'm not sure I would have gotten on that plane! Don't get me wrong, I love what I'm doing and I honestly believe that I'm making a difference in my town, but PC Morocco is not the experience I was looking for. We have, without a doubt the worst Country Director in all of PC! He represents everything that is wrong with the world today. I'm not alone on this. Even our staff is challenged by having to work with such a terrible person. Unfortunately, Moroccans that work with Peace Corps do so through yearly updated contracts, so if they rock the boat too much, they're gone! Talk about lack of job security, way to go Peace Corps....throw these Moroccans a bone with such a good job, but limit their freedom....that's the American way! A lot of this is stemming from the fact that my good friend just got sent home for not wearing her bike helmet! A BIKE HELMET, that's right! Your tax dollars at work people! They've probably put about $40,000 into training her and supporting her service only to send her home for some stupid rule before she got a chance to get some good work done. Now they're making her pack up her entire life in less than 2 days so she can report back to Rabat for "processing". Ok, fine, she broke a rule, she's going home, but does our country director have to be so rude about it? He completely belittled her in front of our programming staff by making her read the policy on bike helmets out loud and then asking what she didn't understand about it. He's just a little, little man and I think the volunteer community needs to rise up and do something about him! I feel bad for the new trainees coming here in a few days. There's no possible way to completely explain to them what they're getting into. It just makes me mad!

T minus 4 weeks and counting.....

I've been doing a shit ton of shopping lately, and not working, so that kind of limits things. I still need a lot of clothes to take with me, mainly skirts and long dresses.

My birthday was great though! Moroccan food is amazing and living there for two years will be just fine. They even gave me a bottle of moroccan wine because I am "special". Who knows. But now I'm planning my going away party (isn't someone supposed to do this for me?) it should be pretty fun. I just want as many people as possible to get drunk with me that night!

Oh yeah

AND whfs went off the air today! it's now some spanish bullshit. at least is wasn't dc101. Man this place is going to shit.

It's begun

The tightness of the chest, the shortening of the temper, the heart beating uncontrollably, the rushing out of rooms while pushing back the tears, the quick trips for the pint of Ben and Jerry's.... the panic attack is just around the corner.

It almost feels good just to feel something, just annoying that it's this. And now I have a trip to Cali to visit the Mimi looming over my head (the tickets were purchased this evening, there's no backing out now) it's just adding to the madness. Of course I'm blowing things out of proportion! I always do. If I did have something big going on, it would take up more room and things would remain their proper sizes, but I don't, so they inflate. The peace corps is pretty big...it's funny I try not to let it be.