finally an update

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Hello Everyone,

Well, it's being a while since I posted anything on my blog which I apologize for. No excuse really, just got lazy for some reason. This posting finds me in the middle of Ramadan, though I'm not fasting but it sure is hot here. The other day atar hit 120 degress. Not fun by any means, but the cold season should be coming soon and it does actually get cold here during the night and day.
So what has being happening. School ending in June and since most of my students left aoujeft to go home for the summer, their wasn't much for me to do so I went to atar and stayed for about a month. In july dad was kind enough to buy a plane ticket home so I went home for four weeks for the vacation. Going home was wonderful, just being back at the house with good food and lots of it and being able to talk as much as I wanted on the phone and to people and seeing all of my friends who I missed a lot this last year. It was so hard to come back but I figured that this is the start of my second and last year here and everyone says that it will go by fast. I figured the first year is the hardest and I made it through that so I can make it through this one.
My region has about six new volunteers along with the seven second years that are up here. Everyone seems nice and really anxious to start work. I finally have a site mate! Well not an actual site mate in my village of aoujeft but in the village of toungade which is eight km from mine. So she is a lot closer then the folks in atar. I have already being out to see her and we plan on hooking up at least twice a month. Improvement over not having anyone to visit last year. She is doing agriculture and is really nice so that is good to have someone so close. I went to see her last week and her host family are all very nice. We both got a bunch of henna done on our hands and feet which I 'm going to try and post pictures of but may have to wait till I come in in oct.
I'm also going to post a list here of food that is always greatly appreciated if anyone wishes to send care packages, remember it takes about six weeks to packages to get to me and I love getting mail so if anyone cares to send anything here are some ideas.
Crystal light on the go drink mix. Comes in a box, not the round tube kind.
Beef jerky
Candy, starburst, jolly ranchers, lifesafers, other hard candy. Don't advise chocolat yet since it is still really hot.
Lipton soup mixes. I have chicken noodle kind right now.
Ramon noodles
Beef and chicken bouillion cubes
Any other type of sauce mixes, gravy mixes, spaghetti, mac and cheese, not the whole box just the cheese sause.

I can usually only do water bases sauces since I don't buy milk much and I don't have butter. So just water bases sauces would be good. Thanks.

jolene

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