1 YEAR!!

The official date was September 13, but I've been in Morocco an entire year!!! Hard to believe. I feel at once that I've experienced so much, and yet that it's just been the passing of a conglomerate of strange months, not the entirety of a year's time. I have 14 months left in country. Just slightly over a year. I may not leave having accomplished even a minute amount that I set out to, but yesterday I was watching sitcoms in Arabic with some friends and laughing...cause I actually understood almost everything they were saying.

I have 480 surveys sitting in my house, a few of them filled out. I'm discovering the process may take a good bit longer than expected (shocking, I know), as each survey with a bazaar usually equates a 1-2 hour interview/meeting. I'm learning all kinds of fascinating information about the process, problems, and other tourist activities that tour guides and bazaars are involved in, and learned a new card game (while waiting patiently for the right time to bring up questions). The cards themselves were yet another insight into life within the realm of another civilization. The faces of the cards were pictures of things like gourds, curved swords, and strange symbols I didn't recognize. Just made me think that even down to the silliest things like cards, another culture has their own meaningful designs on face cards and rules for the game.