Happy New Year! I hate Maroc Telecom.

So wee bit of a catch up: With only two days until 2010 - hello Marrakech! - my house can still be deemed your typical 'major fixer-upper' at the moment. Though it has indeed been painted! L'Hamdullah! But, it's dirrrrrrrty to the max, my stuff is shoved in one room, and there is no electricity. Yes, even after signing off on the house 3 weeks ago, the landlord/city/whoever-wants-to-take-responsibilty has 'I will do it tomorrow'-ed the hell out of this situation. I installed lightbulbs today though, and spent a bloody fortune on a refridgerator. Which is rather comical in and of itself.

I pulled out some dough from the bank, headed to the place that I had decided to buy from, and low and behold he had sold the damned thing already. So we go down the road and got a cheaper deal with a kursi (fridge-chair) included... suckaaaaas. We load the think on a donkey-cart to haul it up to my house and I get there (walking) before it does (naturally...). So my host-sister and I go in to clear the muck outta the way for a clear path, I walk through the kitchen entrance and ooooo shit... is this thing... wide enough? Uh-oh. Spaghetti-o's. Right, so I am of course plotting how to get the door frame off since I don't think a fridge is what I want adorning my foyer for the next two years, when delivery man arrives. My host-dad and him heave the thing up the stairs near my kitchen when the wave of expected perplexion hits them... wtf are we going to do. So they sat there contemplating different angles for a while, and then it hit me, take off the fridge door! And we did, and it fit, and all is merry in the land of Donniell's new flat. Well, almost.

Mother Effing Maroc Telecom is trying to make me pay for an ENTIRE YEAR of internet and telephone upfront for my house since I'm not a national. Bulllllpucky! I sat there arguing with them that no other volunteer has had to do that, and basically they told me to suck it. Or something close in Darija. I'm sure of it. The only way around it is to have a Moroccan co-sign to say that yes I will pay for the next two years, and then I can pay monthly like normal people. Here's to asking host-daddy for help again. (You like how even when I want something from my fake father I call him daddy... oh the extra -dy, how you work magic sometimes.)

In other non-house related news, I've been doing some Edgar Allen Poe action at the Dar Chebab. Little Raven, little Tell-Tale Heart, little House of Usher. Kids are eatin' it up, it's soooo awesome. Might do a little Ray Bradbury next month, we'll see how it goes over.

Christmas was truly delightful here for the record. I was expecting it to totally blowwww as how could one special day make up for an entire month of food and commercialism back home. But it more than sufficed, Nathaniel and Stephanie truly provided awesome company - with a little family phone in from Ami and her fam! as well as my own :) - and some awesome food. We seriously pigged out. Completely comotose while watching the first two epidsodes of Big Love (cuz what says Jesus's Birth better than some good old fashioned Morman polygamy?). We even voted, and Big Love came out over It's a Wonderful Life. I don't know if I'm proud or dissapointed at that. And I pretty much got a normal person's year's supply of coffee! Or, in my case, like a month, month and a half tops. Oh and that brings me to something else you people can send me! A thingy of Starbucks flavoured coffee syrup! I bought some in St Andrews and it lasted forever. Delish. Vanilla or Hazelnut please!!!!

That's all folks! I think. xx