Why I love training

-Jellaba shopping
-Figuring out which hanut has good cawcaw and snickers bars
-Going on hunts for Coca Lite
-Saying hello to the barber next door every single day
-Doing laundry on the roof and fighting for buckets
-Soccer on the cement slab behind the hotel
-Going crazy when we see a little kid with an ice cream cone and a dozen of us going on a hunt to find the soft-serve man
-Silly crushes
-Yet another power point presentation
-The same food...again...and again... but loving the fresh veggies
-Theme parties
-Slowly being able to communicate with the women who wash and cook in the hotel
-Stealing and holding hostage clothing articles
-Pineapple and figs... don't ask
-Talking about things that are taboo on a constant basis
-Assram (diarrhea) in skits and songs and posters
-Fighting over the two PC computers we're allowed to use
-Movies projected on the wall
-LCFs
-Being with the same 45 people 24/7
-The Hammam
-Cucumbers
-Fighting over fries/fried potatoes whenever they're served
-Signing in and out
-Having a curfew
-Not minding having to sign in and out or having a curfew
-The zween zween zweenmobile
-The drive to CBT site
-Shopping for CBT at the mini veggie marche
-Arguing about how many containers of yogurt seven people can eat in a week
-Sleepovers at the LCF house
-Cooking on butagas stoves
-Breaking for tea... and harsha or mismamen or cookies or helwa
-The entertainment value of certain staff members' training sessions
-The lack of privacy, ever
-The constant need to get toilet paper from the front
-Learning Tamazight and forgetting the raighn
-Being totally coddled
-Taxi strikes
-The gossip chain
-Trying to find the table with the big cups for water or with the chair where your thighs don't scrape against the bottom of the table for dinner
-Doors slamming at all hours of the night
-Playing guitars and Berbr instruments and having sing-alongs a la crazy stereotypical Peace Corps get-together
-Back massages, constantly
-Trying to save a seat in the conference room so you're not stuck behind a pole
-Being on the same block as three internet cafes
-Going to a cafe and not worrying about people thinking you're a prostitute
-Drinking a nesnes or cafe au lait at the cafe with the little baby boy Hassan
-Walking by and having the cafe owner of the cafe with the little baby boy Hassan wave and ask how you are
-Hearing other trainees skype their families
-Learning, constantly
-Being challenged, constantly
-Sharing real conversations with the LCFs and getting to know them
-Text messaging the crap out of your program staff when you are in the taxi ride from hell
-Late night text message conversations at host family at CBT with other trainees
-Sharing bug, mouse, and other beastie stories with other trainees
-Sharing embarassing bit lma stories and having competitions about bitlmas.
-Acting like children when presenters throw out candy for right answers... and turning into rabid dogs when they throw out packages of M&Ms
-Having really, really, really inappropriate conversations
-Swearing
-Venting to each other
-Being with people with similar worldviews or similar goals and ambitions but who are different and diverse enough to make things interesting
-Getting an allowance and going and spending it on candy and clothes
-Feeling at home with homestay families
-The feeling of coming home when returning to the seminar site
-Sharing three showers that are sometimes hot with 50 people
-Feeling like showering every three days is bizzef
-Making poster after poster after poster
-Stressing out about big announcements- what language, what CBT, what site?
-Requesting books from the library and discussing books
-SDL
-PACA
-Feeling guilty for "wasting" SDL days
-Sharing books with other trainees
-Getting free stuff from volunteers who are leaving the country
-Discussing bodily functions constantly
-Feeling like if I could do training in different countries for the rest of my life, it'd be the best sort of pseudo-profession ever

I know I have to leave the nest soon, but it feels like we're one big happy crazy dysfunctional family. I will and have to embrace the isolation that will come after swearing-in, but training has been more than I expected and more than I could ask for. I don't feel ready, but I feel readier than anyone should feel after two months. I have two weeks left, but really, I'm already feeling it... and it's exciting, but really going to be nostalgic.