I wrote a long sort of blog the other day on my laptop but have decided against posting it here because it's very negative. I'm hot and tired and ready to be out of homestay and in my own house. I think things will settle down for me once I have my own place and am eating the foods I know I need to eat (ie- protein, fresh produce). I don't think I've had protein at all for the last three or four days until I ate cheese and yogurt today in town. I get in maybe two servings of fruit or veggies a day if I'm lucky. All of this is taking a toll, as is the lack of privacy.

I saw three houses yesterday. They're all mediocre and have problems, but it looks like they're my only options. Unless something crazy happens, I'll either go for a small house in the middle of town with no garden and little privacy, or a bigger place out-of-town a bit with a beautiful garden but few neighbors and a shady bathroom. We'll see. The house that had been built up so much is pretty much unusable. I sent an email off to PC today to discuss and hopefully they'll call me.

If the scale is correct in our clinic, which is debatable, I've lost a considerable amount of weight since being here. I'm hoping it's true. I don't feel smaller, but I guess I look a little smaller, and clothes aren't really fitting as well. Hamdullah.

I got some more books from the PCV who works in town, and we made veggie wraps and I ate about a ton of fruit. Delicious. I met with a potential tutor as well, which makes me happy. Unfortunately, he's going to France for two months.

Not too much to report, honestly. I love my next-door neighbors. I saw a baby who was 15 hours old and was anointed with a watery spice in my hair, a spicy stick to chew on that turns your tongue brown, perfume, rose water, pachouli, something similar to pachouli, avocado lotion, a powdery spice that smells sweet, and smoke from inscense. Despite that, I actually smelled pretty good.

I had an interesting conversation with a guy from Ait el Kharij (he lives in France 11 months of the year) about the history of the tribe of my town. Apparantly, the people only really came into Islam in the 1960s, and earlier in the 1900s tried to get independence from Morocco! Interesting. My hostmom's cousin who lives in Agadir but will probably come for a month this summer apparantly speaks fluent English and has done extensive research, so hopefully I'll be able to learn more details.

Safi. Barasha. UHlugh. Ad-dugh ad-righ aljazeera dghi. Adig rbbi str.