Headin Up Nawth

In just another day here I'll be making my way up to Rabat for COS Conference. We'll have dental and physical checkups, an exit interview with the Country Director, and a couple days of conferences relating to the transition to life following Peace Corps. Just imagine: as you go about your week, there will be approximately fifty Americans running around the Moroccan capital, home to the King and the 2020 Summer Olympics, each with a small white cup held delicately within an innocuous brown paper bag, on a mission to deliver a sample of his or her own-- well, you know-- to the lab before the time limit expires. 

Been keeping busy here. My sitemate and I realized that, though I will be returning to Amizmiz on Oct. 4th, she will be away until much later this month, giving us precious little time to enjoy each other's company before I head outta here for good, and she gets a newbie to haze. We've been making more effort than usual to cook dinners and watch bad tv together in the past week. Sushi? Chicken nuggets? Green beans and mashed potatoes? American-style hamburgers? Bread pudding? The occasional adult beverage? Mm hm. 

Speaking of the new volunteer-- my replacement-- the only detail we know is that it will be a guy. He is not yet aware, but the plan is for him to take my house as soon as he finishes homestay, thus saving myself and him a huge pain moving all of my crap across town and back. Hopefully he will be in agreement.

I've consolidated things around the house, figuring out what I'll need to ship back, what will go to my sitemate, what will stay for the new volunteer, and what I'll lug to France, Denmark, and eventually Illinois with me. I've ended up needing to take home much less than initially anticipated, which is a relief. I thought I'd be paying a fortune on airline extra baggage fees or shipping to America, but that seems to have mostly been avoided. There is even room for gifts-- any specific requests, by the way? Now is the time!

When I return from Rabat I'll have a few open weeks here, during which I hope to take care of said shopping, wrap things up with the counterpart, and I should probably start saying my goodbyes little by little. I'm anticipating that time to go quickly. The new volunteer arrives on Halloween for site visit-- a period of five days during which we go around and meet the necessary people, register him with the gendarmes, and give him a crash course on Amizmiz. Then he'll head out until to go swear in as a volunteer, and will return on the 25th for good, almost two weeks after my departure.

Also, it seems that over the course of the last few months I have written a little album- a collection of songs, if you will. Thanks to this here geetar and computer, I was able to do so. Not sure how it came to be, but it did! Almost done. Just finishing up the last song, then I'll post a link to the whole thing here if anyone is interested. And no, it does not sound like "Moroccan" music...