Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post! What have I been up to? Humm... In mentioning the storm I believe I told you that we had no water in the village for 2 days after. Many places along the 2k open channel had filled with sediment but most importantly the structure surrounding the spring had been filled. About a week and a half after the storm there was a meeting with members of the commune (similar to a county), the villagers, and engineers. They hope to improve the structure surrounding the spring so that this does not happen again.
The overall damage by the storm was pretty surprising. Trees of substantial size were washed out and knocked over near the river. The road to the larger city was washed away in numerous locations and still is, weeks later. The whole village worked together to first restore water and then fix our dirt road to the village. In the aftermath of a large storm I am always impressed by the human spirit and kindness. I felt it in Denver after the blizzards of 06' and again here in my village in Morocco. We're really not all that different.
Last week I made a trip to the supermarket and bought some kitchenware along with items like sliced bread and cereal. But otherwise things have been pretty uneventful. I was eating at my host family's house every night during Ramadan but didn't visit them for a week afterwords. When I did go to visit my host mom was sure to hasuma me(shame on you) as she counted the number of days, one by one, since I had been over. I hadn't even come over to get bread, boy was I in trouble!
I guess maybe I'll finally toss in a little about the hike that was....well 2 months ago now. Sorry. Last year the environment volunteers hiked from one volunteers site to another in an effort to find a good path for tourists. This year we did the same hike and added an additional 3 days. In addition to finding a good path for tourists the goal was to make contact with village members to be able to provide additional activities and information. We hiked the original portion in 4 days, and rested at the original end point. The scenery was really amazing but it was a difficult hike. The first day we spent 5 hours waiting for our transit, the second was nearly all ascent, the third nearly all descent and the fourth was mostly in a river. Unfortunately somewhere along the river I twisted my ankle and after much debate decided I shouldn't continue after the 4th day. I posted a number of pictures on flickr and I'll try to post more soon. Overall the hike was a success and we are working on the ecotourism guide now.
My program manager (aka boss) is coming to my site tomorrow and we have our next training session in two weeks. I'll try to get some pictures posted and maybe I'll have new ones after training.
Thanks for the postcards, letters, and packages. I always enjoy them. I guess that all. Take care.
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