The big day has come.

Hello all:

Tomorrow is the big day, we get to swear in. I will keep you posted and post some pictures afterwords but the day is finally here!

Thursday I am moving to my final post, inshalla!

Also, I forgot to follow up on the gift giving, basically it was AWESOME. I got my mom some new cups (with oranges on the side) and a kitchen strainer and a cool scarf, she cried. I got my host brothers a NEW, working soccer ball. They haven't had one in quite some time. I got my oldest host sister (she is 7) a coloring book in both French and Arabic and some markers (good ones, since they never get good anything) and my little host sister a pretty pink hat with a bow, she never takes it off. My host dad got a certificate from the Peace Corps and the pictures of his family my dad printed out in America and mailed to me.

There is no better feeling that watching people receive gift. In return for my gifts, my family got me another kilo of almonds. There is a very genuine and sweet story behind this. So my training village is the self proclaimed almond capitol of the area. I happen to like them a lot and they are quite expensive in the states, so I started asking everyone I knew where I could buy a kilo of almonds that are from my village, to support the local economy and all. After about a week of non-stop asking, my dad comes home with a bag. I was like "where did you get them?" He said "I had to walk to another village today to get some" which just made me laugh. Like my village is supposed to be the Almond capitol, i don't understand why I can't get Asfalo almonds. Either way i paid him and was grateful. Mind you, I have been eating this almonds for about a month now, and I haven't even gotten through a 1/2 kilo, so I decided to donate the other half to our party for our host families. In the mean time my mother had noticed I did not have anymore and went back to that same village and bought me some as a thank you gift. I thought it was the nicest gesture of all time, she knew I loved them and noticed i was out, so got them for me. Now I have another kilo of almonds on top of the ones I didn't finish in the first place to hold me over for quite some time.

i will update you all soon!


love you all.