Staging Day 2

Today was another great day, but this will be a short post because it was also a long day. :)

More Staging, which meant more discussions of safety, security, dealing with unwanted attention, what to expect during training, etc. Yesterday's creative expression was illustrating our anxieties and aspirations; today's was creating skits of different types, illustrating adjustment tools and integration/acceptance strategies. One was musical; I couldn't hear the first verse, but the second included the line, "Eeeaaating couscous / All our clothes are loose-loose", which I found hilarious.

Lunch was with another great group of PCVs (I love these people!), and dinner was with a group of old friends who came here to see me. I have such awesome friends! :D In a delightful turn, we ended up at the same fantastic sushi restaurant as a group of my new PCV friends, so I was able to introduce them to each other. (Well, there were about 15 PCVs, and the restaurant was narrow, so only two of my new friends were able to meet my old friends. But as it happened, those were the two I've spent the most time with, and who I'd already told my dinner companions about!)

What am I grateful for today? All the love my friends have shown me, not just in the past few weeks, but over the years. Decades, in some cases. :) These friends gave me two unbelievably awesome gifts: they bought carbon offsets for my flight to Morocco, and contributed to The Loret Miller Ruppe and Loret, Jr. Fund for the Advancement of Women, a special fund that the Peace Corps uses to support projects helping women and girls. I have such amazing friends!

What have I learned today? The Girl Scouts were right when they compared old friends and new friends to precious metals. I love my old friends so much, and I'm making wonderful new friends...and it's all so very precious to me. Love!

Current mood? Excited. Happy. I was in such a ridiculously good mood during dinner that I was almost bouncing. Even saying goodbye to such wonderful friends, sad though it makes me, can't take away the joy of knowing that I'm embarking on this wonderful ... journey. In all senses of the word. :)

Words of the day:
Zween(ah) - cool/neat/pretty/snazzy, usually used as a compliment to a spiffily-dressed person
Courgette - zucchini. Because apparently "zoo-kee-nee" is something very x rated in Moroccan Arabic.