Ouarzazate

To kids and men from the fourth planet I am from the arabic world - this is what I have learned over the past three days in Ouarzazate. I know this from two hilarious interactions with HCN's - that's Peace Corp speak for 'host country nationals' aka people who live in the country - anyway the first included a group of Moroccan children who when introduced to my friends and I in the square had a hard time with me being named Jed and with ,me being 'mirikan' and not 'maghreb'. With my arabic - thats an enormous complement! The second incident was on the edge of the old casbah of Ouarzazate, this one included the man greeting me with bonjour, my replying with assalam alaykum and his *naturally* assuming I was tunisian or Algerian! Another great moment in intercultural communication.Which i'm continuing right now - making friends with my local cyber owner Amin! I think he's inviting me to atay - tea in arabic - as I type - not today but maybe another.Anyway - i should get going, but don't forget to write those emails qnd letters! I love getting every one!

'massalma!