My Shanona

TIMELINE OF OUR TUMOR

2008-11-18T10:52:00.004Z

At least 5 or 6 years ago – It began to grow… unnoticed.

Fall 2007 – Hassan started having simple partial seizures in his right arm. Perhaps 1 to 2 times a week. His would hold his forearm to his body and his hand would show a very slight tremor.

Spring 2008 – Seizure activity seemed to disappear.

Summer 2008 – When we were in the US for the summer, the seizures returned, with much more frequency, this time as interesting little laughing fits. Perhaps 1 to 3 times a day.

Saturday, 6 September 2008 – Visited neurologist #1 in Casablanca. She did an EEG, diagnosed probable slight epilepsy, prescribed an anti-seizure med (Depakene), and scheduled us to come back in a month. She told us to get an MRI done before we returned to rule out other causes of the seizures.

Monday, 15 September 2008 – Phoned the neuro to ask if it was OK to stay at 500mg a day of the drug (he was supposed to take 250mg for three days, then 500mg for 4 days, 750mg for 6 days, then go up to the prescribed dose of 1,000mg per day. However, when he hit 750mg per day, it made him feel terrible. He woke up in the middle of the night to vomit. He felt dizzy most of the day.). The doctor said yes, that was OK for now, and we would see about it further when we came to see her.

Saturday, 11 October 2008 – Got the MRI done (Because of the holiday that falls at the end of Ramadan, we got busy. He went to visit his family, and we had delayed the MRI and return to neurologist #1 by one week.).

Monday, 13 October 2008 – We picked up the MRI films from the radiologist’s office and took them directly over to the office of neurologist #1. She took a look at them and immediately informed us that there was a mass in the left side of his brain. She says that she will keep the films and go over them personally with the radiologist. She tells us that he MUST ramp up to 1,000mg per day of the drug. When we felt scolded about that, we reminded her that he called to check her OK. She explained that she didn’t have his file in front of her when she agreed. She says to come back to see her in a month and plan a follow-up MRI for 6 weeks. She says that if it is a tumor and we are talking surgery, that we will need to move very quickly at that point.

Tuesday, 14 October 2008 – I receive information that a co-worker, Ali, has a cousin who is a neurologist here. I talk to him and, no, the cousin is a dermatologist. However, she works in a clinic with a neurologist who she would recommend. We make the appointment to consult neurologist #2.

Thursday, 16 October 2008 – When Hassan runs in to pick up the MRI films from neurologist #1, she says that she has studied them with the radiologist and there is most certainly a tumor. She says we need to talk surgery. She says that the surgery would be approximately 50,000 Moroccan Dirhams (MAD) (approximately equal to US$5,882) and that she will show him the clinic and operating room where she works with the most state-of-the-art equipment from the US. Appointment with neurologist #2 at noon goes well. He takes much more time to study the images and explain what he sees. He speaks better English, so I immediately feel more comfortable discussing the situation with him. He says we could drill a small hole and take a small sample of tissue for a biopsy. Tumors are graded on a scale of 1 to 4. The bigger the number, the faster growing and more dangerous. 1 and 2 are benign, 3 and 4 are malignant. Even if we were to discover that the tumor is benign (which neurologist #2 estimates that it is… he expects it to be grade 1), we still have a tumor pressing on the brain and causing seizure activity. He recommends surgery. He says we could do surgery next week. We can expect Hassan to be in ICU for a day and then moved to a regular room for a 4 or 5 day stay. When I ask my husband if he feels any more comfortable with this doctor, he looks at me blankly and shrugs.

Friday, 17 October 2008 – We phone to schedule surgery with neurologist #2. I feel comfortable that surgery is the right choice, however much less certainty about who I should trust with my loved one’s head. When Ali phones his cousin to set things up, he tells me the surgery is set for 20 October. Whoa! Too fast! I have many questions about the where and how of the surgery, so the schedule is set to visit the surgeon again on 23 October and have surgery scheduled for 27 October. I am urged by a few friends (one also being my boss) to write an email to the school community to let everyone know what is going on. The news will leak, right? Might as well be the correct news, and from me. Before I write that email, I pull aside a few friends here who I have not yet had the chance to tell in person. When I tell Lizzy, she offers to contact a few doctors from her way-back files in Boston if it might help us to get more information and make the best decisions.

Saturday, 18 October 2008 – Though Hassan did not really want to tell his mother and worry her about all of this, I insisted. He called last night to discuss with her that he wanted her to come for a visit. We had agreed that he should wait and disclose the full truth when she’s already here. She and his sister, Keltoum, got on a bus tonight to arrive early the next morning.

Sunday, 19 October 2008 – Lizzy emailed the two doctors she knew in Boston (Drs. Daffner and Budson). Both of those doctors wrote back quickly and agreed on two names to refer us to (Drs. Wen and Black, both also in Boston). She emailed both of these new names, and briefly explained the situation. By the middle of this night, both Drs. Wen and Black had responded, agreed to look at any images we could send, and as well… something interesting. Dr. Black gave the name of Dr. Mustapha El Azouzi in Rabat, Morocco. Dr. Black says he is a particularly good surgeon if we wish to consult him.

Monday, 20 October 2008 – Ali has spoken with neurologist #2 (via his cousin) about the estimate on cost for this surgery. He tells me that normally the surgery would be about 70,000 MAD (US$8,235), but that with the family connection the surgeon could probably do it for about 35,000-40,000 MAD (US$4,117 – 4,705). These estimates are, I believe, for surgery only… not clinic fees, anesthesiologist, etc…. but I already can’t believe the difference in the cost of medical care here vs. the states. ALSO, I asked one of my good friends Barbara to help me out by trying to contact Dr. El Azouzi in Rabat. As we search for contact information online, we discover more and more about his ties with Dr. Black… and we discover Dr. Black is a pretty big deal. He’s a neurosurgery professor at Harvard, among many other things. Anyone he recommends is worth checking out, right? Barbara’s husband, Mohamed, knows many people in Rabat, and he sets to work trying to contact Dr. El Azouzi. But not before telling us, “Oh, I know him. He’s the doctor that cared for my father when he had a stroke.” Yet again, it proves to be a small, small world. Hassan’s sister, Keltoum, had to return home on the 8 hour bus trip today in order to be at work for the week.

Tuesday, 21 October 2008 – Mohamed continues trying to contact Dr. El Azouzi, to no avail. We decide to track him down the old fashioned way. On foot. We plan to go to Rabat on Wednesday, and Momamed works a few angles. He gives us a couple of different contact names who can help us find this elusive doctor. Barbara even pulls in a favor for us… a friend of hers, Peter, will pick us up at the train station tomorrow morning and take us to the hospital.

Wednesday, 22 October 2008 – We arrive in Rabat at 9am. It’s pouring cats and dogs. Peter picks us up and drives us out toward the hospital, however we can’t find the clinic we think we’re supposed to be headed for. Peter calls his sister in law, Wafaa, a dermatologist, and we go to pick her up so she can show us where to go. When we arrive at her office, she’s on the phone with Dr. El Azouzi’s office making an appointment for us to see him. At first his office suggests an appointment date a month away (That’s normal for the states, but quite abnormal here. This guy must be busy!). Wafaa begs. They agree. At about 10:45am, we have an appointment for noon. Peter and Wafaa take us (me, Hassan, his mother) out to lunch and then help us find the Dr’s office. They leave us to it. We were told the Dr. was in surgery and running late. He arrives in the office at approximately 2:30, and we’re across the desk from him by about 2:45. Let me stop here to say that I was really hoping that I could make it make sense to have surgery in Casablanca. It’s close to home, we have the “family” connection, etc. What I’m really hoping will happen here is that I say to Dr. El Azouzi, “Are you familiar with neurologist #2?” And he will reply, “Oh, my, yes. He is an excellent doctor. You are in fine hands.” Then my butterflies will die and we can feel calm and secure. I’ll save the suspense… things do not happen as I had wished. They’re better. Dr. El Azouzi, neurologist #3, examines Hassan, looks at the MRI films, and talks to us frankly about what he sees. He explains a lot, and has a very soothing manner. He thinks the tumor is a Grade II just by looking at the films. When he asks me if I speak English, I tell him how we got his name from Dr. Black in Boston. This thrills him, and there happens to be a photo behind my head of him with Dr. Black, Mrs. Black, and the previous king of Morocco. Wow. He gushes about what a great man Dr. Black is, and how good. He tells us that his consultation will be free of charge. We discuss how difficult it is to make the choices of where and who for the surgery. He has to turn to answer his office phone briefly, and I use that pause to ask Hassan if he can think of any other questions we need to ask right now. He says, “I feel like if I am with this doctor, I am okay.” Finally! Now he gets that “comfort level” I kept asking him about. When I ask Dr. El Azouzi one last question before leaving, it is one of those uncomfortable ones about money. I asked what ballpark we could expect. We do have insurance here, but you’ve gotta pay up front and then get the reimbursement months later. He said, as far as the surgery itself was concerned, he could do it almost for free. That left clinic fees and anesthesiologist fees totaling approximately
30,000 MAD (US$3,529). He could do the surgery on Friday. He expects Hassan not to need ICU care at all, and only a 2 day-ish clinic stay. I explain that I would like to wait a few days in order for my mother to arrive and be with us. We take our leave to consider all things.

Thursday, 23 October 2008 – As Hassan and I discuss things, we’re still reeling over how much we love Dr. El Azouzi. As it turns out, the Dr. is traveling to France for a meeting in about a week. If we don’t schedule surgery for tomorrow, we would need to wait until he returns from Paris. Not good to operate and run, right? Hassan feels good about the decision now, and he doesn’t really want to anticipate surgery for two weeks. So, we phone to schedule surgery for tomorrow morning. Hassan goes to get the steroid shot he needs to get a day before surgery in order to “soften” his brain. We phone another of his sisters, Yemina, to travel up by bus and meet us in Rabat tomorrow morning (His mother does not speak Arabic, only their dialect of Berber, so she’s a bit more of a stranger in a strange land here than me). I decide we need to go get a hotel tonight where his mother and sister can stay through his hospital stay. If everything is under control, I’m hoping he can go into surgery with no worries about all of us. One of the school drivers, Abderrahman, agrees to take us in the school van. My friends Barbara and Jodi are going along. It’s like a road trip. We stop for snacks and everything. Jodi keeps saying, “I can’t believe we’re taking him to have brain surgery!” When we arrive in Rabat, it’s raining yet again. We drive around for hours trying to find a reasonably priced hotel, not a total dump. Difficult, apparently due to a conference or two in town for the weekend. Finally, at around 10pm, we luck out, and get settled for the night. As we’re driving around, one of the teachers is online at the school helping to make plane reservations for my mom for the next day.

Friday, 24 October 2008 – Surgery day! His sister arrives at the hotel just in time to leave for the clinic. Finally we’re all taken care of. We arrive at the clinic at around 9am. By 9:30ish they’re taking him into prep. Perhaps 9:45ish, they wheel him away. I thought he was going to have a blood workup with the anesthesiologist. At 10ish, Dr. El Azouzi comes by the waiting area to tell us not to worry, everything will go just fine. I spoke to friends at the school at approximately 11am and reported that he was in prep. I told them I would phone when he was off to surgery. At 11:30ish, I began to get a little suspicious that I had misunderstood what was happening. The Dr. reported back at about 12:00 that the surgery had gone very well!! I didn’t even know he was in surgery! By 1:00pm or so we are in a private room and he is drifting in and out of the anesthesia. By that evening, he’s fully coherent and we’re amazed. The urinary catheter is causing him much more discomfort than his head. His sister Yemina and I go to the pharmacy to pick up meds he needs (things are done very differently here), and we also take samples of the tumor tissue to a pathology lab across town. They said the results would be ready on Wednesday. I got to stay in the clinic with Hassan, and his mother and sister retired to the nearby hotel.

Saturday, 25 October 2008 – My mother arrived in Casablanca this morning, and friends from the school picked her up. Hassan was still napping quite a bit, but doing amazingly well. Dr. El Azouzi stopped in and said he anticipated releasing us to go home tomorrow. Friends from the school visited and brought my Mom as well. Everyone was amazed that Hassan had just had brain surgery. Doesn’t seem real. He got up and walked a bit today.

Sunday, 26 October 2008 – Released from the clinic. Went home, got him cozy on the couch. The trip tired him out, but otherwise, he’s doing great. His mom and sister are keeping him more than well fed.

Monday, 27 October 2008 – Hassan’s sister Yemina heads home. I go back to work. This is when it comes in spectacularly handy to live in an apartment above the school offices.

Wednesday, 29 October 2008 – Today Hassan felt GREAT. He was talkative, laughing, and joking. Punchy, I called it. He had several visitors, and things were looking peachy. We tried to phone for the results of the pathology report. The lab says they sent it, but will release nothing via telephone. The doctor’s office claims not to have received it yet.

Thursday, 30 October 2008 – In the wee hours of the morning, Hassan woke up and got out of bed. I figured he was going to the bathroom, and I asked if he was OK. He said yes, but a few minutes later, my mom ran into our bedroom and said, “I think Hassan is having a seizure.” Sure enough, grand mal. He had walked into the living room where his mom was sleeping on the couch. He sat down and started stretching his neck and arms. Then, whammo. We could not get in contact with Dr. El Azouzi, so we took him to a 24-hr clinic here in Casablanca. Two teachers, Lori and Barbara drove us around looking for a clinic. I seriously kicked myself for not having a back-up plan here. We finally find a clinic and they admit him to ICU. There’s nowhere for me to wait. They say a dr. will be there in the morning and they’ll do a CT scan at 9am. On the way back to that clinic for the CT scan, I finally hear back from Dr. El Azouzi. He says a seizure is a normal possibility after his surgery. He says no need for the CT scan. As long as he’s “OK” we are directed to take him home. He tells me that we should up Hassan’s dose of Depakene from 1,000mg to 1,500mg per day, as well as add Urbanyl 15mg per day to avoid further seizures. We have to fight the doctors at the Casablanca clinic to discharge Hassan against their medical orders. Finally we get home. I nap at his feet on the couch and at about 2pm I awake to seizure #2. Call the doctor again, and he still says normal. Asks if Hassan is running a fever or vomiting? No. Don’t worry until he has 5 or 6 seizures in a day (not easy. I’m having to work hard to keepittogether through the seizures). Hassan begins to vomit. We attempt to get the new med from the pharmacy when it opens after the lunch break at 3:30. No go without a prescription, so I call the doctor yet again. Can he fax the prescription? Do I need to bring him in now that he’s vomiting? Before I can get my questions answered he breaks the news that the pathology report came in. It’s grade III. Anaplastic Oligodendroglioma. Now we have to plan radiation and chemotherapy. Barbara took the phone away (you think I was barely keepingittogether before that news???), and the next thing I know we are planning to take Hassan back to Rabat to the clinic tonight. While we were making the plan, at about 4:30pm, Hassan had seizure #3. This trip to Rabat was much less fun than the previous road trip to the hospital! Hassan’s mom had been slightly nervous at the thought of brain surgery, but I can’t fully explain how seriously FREAKED OUT she was by the seizures. You can take an old lady out of the Berber mountain village… Anyway, she called his sister Yemina to come back up for support. That will be good. Hassan was admitted to the ICU for the night. My initial plan was to camp out in the waiting area (which is a glorified hallway). When Dr. El Azouzi got there to check on us, he noted some swelling of the brain and said Hassan was dehydrated. The plan is to keep him as long as it takes to get him stabilized. Just take it one day at a time. I feel it speaks a great deal about this doctor that he took me aside, explained that I needed to take care of myself also, and (perhaps most importantly) I absolutely melted into his suggestion. Notable that he also offered to personally cover all of the clinic costs for this stay. I went home and slept soundly.

Friday, 31 October 2008 – I took Hassan’s mother and sister to visit him, and I went planning to spend the night. We got there in the mid-afternoon. He had been moved to a room, and we found him asleep. Much to our surprise, he woke up and had us all laughing in no time. He was feeling 110% better. After everyone else left, I broke the news to Hassan about the pathology report. He had been in no shape for this conversation during the 24 hours since I found out.

Saturday, 1 November 2008 – Dr. El Azouzi is scheduled to leave the country this afternoon, but he agreed to see me this morning. Before I even got dressed to make the trip over to his office, he popped into Hassan’s room at the clinic. He was pleased with Hassan’s condition and discharged us to go home. He gave us the name and number of a doctor in Casa in case we needed anyone in an emergency. He discussed the pathology report with Hassan. He summed it up by saying that he wished he could say “benign”… so, it’s not the best news, but it’s certainly not the worst news, either. He gave orders to rest, eat well, and see him in 2 weeks to discuss the plan for treatment. We took the train home and he got cozy on the couch again. He’s slowly processing the “cancer” thing.

Thursday, 13 November 2008 – Hassan has been getting stronger, venturing out, generally feeling much more like himself. No notable deficits. Perhaps a little irritability… who knows if that’s the surgery, the meds, the fatigue? Today we went to Dr. El Azouzi. He’s still very happy about Hassan’s progress and prognosis. He gave us the name of an oncology clinic in Casablanca. Once Hassan gets some necessary dental work out of the way, we’re on to the next phase of the journey.

This isn’t exactly what I had in mind for year two of our marriage. I’m sure it’s not Hassan’s ideal 26th birthday present… but there are so many good things about our situation. He had warning signs but not painful ones. We got a quick diagnosis and found a superb doctor. He’s got no deficits from his surgery… got right back to being himself. And I can't possibly say enough about the support that we've gotten from everyone around us. "Thank you" doesn't seem like nearly enough. I know the future might not be as smooth, but I am hopeful.

Here’s hoping future updates are happy ones!

Ode to Babs

2008-06-05T21:32:00.002Z

She hates to be called that.

However, as I’m about to spout much mush about my adoration of her, I couldn’t help it. Really. Sorry, Barbie. OH... she hates that, too!

Somewhere in time I read or heard that if one dies with five true friends, he is rich. I’ve often considered my extreme wealth in the form of exceptional friends gained in high school, college, and beyond. If any of you are reading this and wondering why I’ve never written an ode to you, perhaps it’s because I like to shop for gifts much more in America than here. Also, I can’t say I’ve ever known a friend who I thought would appreciate an ode in quite the way Barbara will! To get to the point... In Casablanca I have added to my friendship coffers with Barbara Stringer. And today is Barbara’s birthday.

It’s tempting to stop here with a simple “Happy Birthday” so daunting is the task of writing an ode. I shall do my best...

Barbara is caring, sensitive, zany, elegant, bright, gentle, fair, happy, enchanting, loyal, thoughtful, lively, dedicated, wise, worldly, witty, generous. I could go on. Basically, Barbara is downright delightful.

I am so happy to have met her. Getting to know her over the last year has been my tremendous pleasure. She has entertained me with her stories, worried about me when I was down, helped me when I was overloaded, and shared in some of my year’s simple and pleasurable moments. I enjoy her, and I seek her out.

I began this task with the intention of telling a bit of her story, for she has packed a dizzying amount of LIFE into her years. But perhaps I shall leave you with the hope that someday you will meet Barbara, and be thrilled with the stories from the source.

Perhaps cliché, but I feel that knowing her, being near her, not only raises the quality and enjoyment of my life... actually inspires me to be a better person. I hope that she takes it as a compliment when I say that sometimes I feel inadequate around her; she is so very good. I aspire to rise to her example.

Barbara, happiest of birthdays.

STORY OF JOB -- 2 of 3

2008-04-12T10:01:00.005Z

May 2007 – July 2008

Spring semester 2007, and we were busy making plans for more improvements and more growth in Agadir for the 07-08 school year when the bomb was dropped… our proprietor was backing out. Moulay Said told us in mid-May that he was having heart problems and would have to be gone much of the year for treatment in France. He just could not take the stress of worrying about the fate of our fledgling school. Fair, but utterly disappointing… not to mention we suddenly had no jobs. So, we began to feel out ways we could keep things going. We spoke to the parents and told them we were going to try to open a school on our own. We visited the Center for Regional Investment with our business plan, we visited villas with a real estate agent, we spoke to the parents and other local educators, all trying to make it work. We contacted a school in Casablanca that we had previously visited for advice, and spoke at great length about the option of franchising their school. We had one parent interested in investing the money we needed for start-up. And in June, our boss asked us to stop trying. He was still stressed out over the whole shebang. As Denise and I had started with him, he felt that anything we did on our own would ultimately be traced back to him. Turns out he didn’t so much have all of the appropriate permissions to do what we were doing in Agadir, and he was terrified of someone asking too many questions. So, in June 2007, Denise and I accepted that we were jobless, gave up the exciting and terrifying thought of beginning our own international school, and started to consider… what next?

We began the “Shannon and Denise International Job Search.” Very organized and efficient, I must say. We created a form on which to record the contact name, details about the job, what we had sent in application, etc. We had both just been married at that point, and the boys are limited in their easy options for travel. They could go to Turkey or Tunisia with no special visas, so we applied to schools there. We also hoped that if we got a job in a middle east country or Egypt that perhaps we could sort out visas easily enough, so we applied far and wide. We contacted that Casablanca school just in case, and they did have a few openings. So, we began talking to CV, the Principal, and HT, the Director. Bit of foreshadowing for you: Little did we know that by the time we visited the school to sign contracts, both of these men would be gone.

We were torn. We got replies… several from Turkey. Something in us wanted to venture outside of Morocco (and the boys were keen to see other parts of the world). However, in the end, my father’s practicality lives strong in me, and we began focusing on our possibilities with the school in Casablanca. One of the greatest benefits of choosing to go to Casablanca is that we had the opportunity to sign contracts for the 2007-08 school year before we went home to the states for a summer 07 visit (Our previous boss in Agadir honored his part of our contract to buy us a ticket home in the summer). On late June, we knew that the principal in Casablanca, CV, was leaving for the summer. At that point, our dealings began to be with the Business Manager, AG. We negotiated our contracts with him by phone, and traveled to Casablanca on July 7, 2007 to sign contracts. Denise as a music teacher, and me as an elementary classroom teacher. We travelled overnight by bus/train, and arrived in Casa at 8:30ish am. We found a bathroom in which to freshen ourselves, and then we took a taxi to the school.

Side note: If you notice my hesitancy to type the name of the school, that’s because I don’t want anyone associated with the school to be able to search the internet about the school and find this site. I’d much rather keep it a secret and be able to talk about my co-workers without worry!

Back to the story. We arrived at the school in Casa, and we met with AG and the founder of the school, SK. At this point CV, former principal, and HT, former director, were gone for good, and they had already hired a new Principal, a woman named Jodi, to be delivered in late July. We chatted about our experiences in Agadir, and what they were looking to do in Casa. They also want to franchise the school into other cities, so that’s one reason they were very interested in us… our experience in starting/running the school. They discussed the possibility of sending us to another city in Morocco in the future, perhaps back to Agadir, to open a new school. So, as we discussed the plans in Casa, they let me know that they had considered my experience and now envisioned my role with them as working with the administration in the area of student discipline, etc. That sounded interesting to me, and we continued talking as they gave us a tour of the school. They also showed us the apartment upstairs, as that is what they were proposing for housing. They said they were out of apartments, and that if we were both to receive school housing the four of us would have to share once again. We walked downstairs to fill out contracts, and when it came time for AG to type in my job title, he turned to the owner and asked what to call me. SK thought for a moment and replied, “Assistant Principal.”

Wow.

STORY OF JOB -- 1 of 3

2008-04-12T09:15:00.003Z

Jan 2006 - May 2007

Most of you know this story… So here’s a very brief recap. On New Year’s Day 2006 I got a call from my friend Denise who had recently moved from Ireland to Morocco. The tiny start up school that she was working for was losing one of two teachers. On January 24, 2006, I arrived in Agadir, Morocco to teach for the spring semester. It was a one-room type setup with seven students aged 3 – 6 years. I usually get really involved in projects, and this was no exception. By the time the end of the semester rolled around in June 2006, I had decided to return for the 06-07 school year. Perhaps my involvement with Hassan helped make that decision.

So, I went home for 3 weeks in the summer of 06, and I returned to Agadir to teach the massive 1st grade class… 3 students. Our overall enrollment had grown from 7 to 11, and we had 2 preschool students and a kindergarten class of 6. The proprietor of the school, Moulay Said, was the director of the Moroccan private school which housed our operation. As his trust in us grew, he was more and more hands off. He would wander downstairs once a week or so and ask us what we needed. That left us, Denise and me, to manage and operate our little school. We began the process for accreditation, we wrote promotional material, we visited the governor of the city and spoke with personnel from the US embassy on behalf of the school. I remember the most challenging aspect being our daily dealings with the parents of our 11 students. One was very down to earth, a few were always late, one drank too much, a couple were vicious gossips, one was an elderly single dad, and one…. oh, that one… very opinionated, very prejudiced, very controlling, very concerned father. I thought he was going to drive me to drink before my experience with him was finished. I wish I had kept a record of my dealings with him. There’s no way I could piece it all together at this point and convey the real madness of it.

I just can't count the times he said something that left me staring at him in bewilderment... blink... blinkblink.

2008

2008-01-07T18:14:00.000Z

Different languages in different alphabets have always facinated me. How can someone read information from those beautiful decorations? Does someone who does not know the English alphabet see the same decorative beauty (I doubt it.)? I looked for a list of translations of "Happy New Year" into different languages and alphabets, but I couldn't find a simple "Happy New Year." What I found at http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~infinite/pages/_Earth.htm is close. "May peace prevail on Earth" is a pretty good New Year's wish, no?

So, yes, may you all have a beautiful, peaceful, and prosperous year filled with...

happy moments

laughter

successes

confidence

love

friendship

understanding

and blessings of every sort!

Arabic

Armenian

Bengali

Bulgarian

Burmese

Cambodian

Chinese

Dari

Divehi

Dzongkha

Georgian

Greek

Hebrew

Hindi

Irish

Italian

Korean

Kurdish

Lao

Maori

Mongolian

Nepali

Sinharese

Spanish

Tamil

Thai

Literal Realization of the Family Tree

2007-10-26T19:36:00.000Z

How do you know when you've really been accepted into the family? When you've got an orange.

This past week, we had one week fall break with no school. Hassan and I left Casablanca on Saturday night toward Agadir and on to his mother's village for a couple of days. The house in which his mother lives has a courtyard of sorts in the center. A square area mostly open to the sky. At the center of that square area is a square planter of about 1 yard square, built into the concrete floor. In that square planter is a small orange tree. Currently there is a small crop of ripening oranges on the tree. Varying sizes and shades of green. Now the fun part -- everyone in the family has been allocated a specific orange on the tree. Everybody knows whose is whose and all are watching them ripen in hopes that his/hers will be the sweetest. Rumor has it that each year's small harvest is indeed sweet. Part of the fun of it is the gamble involved. I've never before considered the natural selection of fruit, but Hassan's orange broke open and fell off the tree early in the game.

I'm sure I'll be forced to share now.

This is a photo taken the last time we were in the village, August, just before we moved to Casablanca.

L to R: Family Orange Tree, Hassan's sister Keltoum, niece Fatima, me, sister Aicha.

Spices Gone Wild

2007-10-13T20:03:00.000Z

One great thing to take home from Morocco for souvenir (and personal use) is spices. The spices are usually sold at open markets in open baskets and bins... usually piled up appealingly, as illustrated below.

Some info from a website called gapadventures: There is something called Ras al-hanut, or ‘best of the shop’ – a complex spice blend used in many Moroccan dishes. It’s subtly curry-like with a spicy yet floral fragrance and robust but not overpowering flavour. Spice shops often employ experts who create the mixture using their own secret recipe and up to twenty-seven different spices. The tough part is in getting the proportions right, as spices can vary in intensity and flavour depending on how old they are or where they came from. Putting in a pinch of this and a teaspoon of that just doesn’t give you world-class results. Side note: I was too lazy to dig through my pictures, so I plagiarized these from random websites.

As you can imagine, things bought from an open market in a third world country are sometimes risky. I've found my share of stowaways in pasta and spices... but never anything quite like what is described here in two emails from the SistersT... they explain it in general hilarity, as always.

September 24, 2007 -- email from FrancesM.
that huge bag of spices we brought back with us from morocco... yeah, they hatched last week. thousands of tiny black cock-roach looking bugs, that evidentlycan't live in our atmosphere, because they died right away. so strange. they straight up, war-of-the-worlds killed over. how's life in casa treating you? i hope you've been well, and make sure you boil everything before eating it!!

September 27, 2007 -- email from T.Jo
I dunno if Frances M mentioned it, but she brought back some tahjin spices in the spring and guess what? They hatched out!!! She warned me this weekend about them basically taking over one area of her kitchen and I happily rooted around until I found those spices. As luck would have it, my bugs were mostly dead--but maybe 20 or so were alive still and slowly crawling around--perfectly sealed in a Glad plastic bag. I felt that the Glad company really lived up to its name, just seeing all those bugs perfectly sealed up in there, unable to invade my sanity and sense of cleanliness. I have a feeling actually, that those were some kind of weevils. It was a bit of a weevil holocaust. There were hundreds who didn't make it (depending on how you define make it--they hatched all right, just didn't live very long, best I can tell--very glad I skipped the larvae stage!!!).

Just more protein, that's what I say.

Story of Home -- 2 of 2

2007-10-08T20:43:00.001Z

Picture it, Casablanca, August 2007...

The school in Agadir closed, and with it, our stay in that last apartment. Our old boss was gracious enough to let us stay there until Denise and I returned to Morocco from our three week trip home to the States in late July. When we arrived back on 4 August, we began to pack up (solidly -- my least favorite thing to do), and get ready to move to Casablanca. We both accepted jobs at the same school here, and housing was part of the deal. Only one catch. One apartment left, so we would have to share. We hesitated, so they said that normally the Principal lives in the apartment above the Admin offices of the school. It is bigger than the other teacher housing apartments, so they offered us the bigger principal apartment to share, and this year's single principal could live in the teacher apartments. We accepted and accepted our fate to share an apartment for the next year.

We had come to the school to sign contracts in early July, just before we left for the States, so some of the the pictures HERE were taken on that visit, and some were taken when we first arrived to move in. Some things had been changed around... and some have changed since. So, don't be confused about the sofa wandering from room to room. And perhaps someday I'll get an after picture of the apartment all well lived-in. Almost two months, and almost unpacked! It's a place with lots of character. Old, and a bit crusty in places, but cool. Lots of the furnishings are Moroccan craft stuff. Many of the rooms have walls painted with a texture pattern to them... adds a certain something. I don't think I've gotten any pictures of the lanterns on almost every cieling fixture. I've spent some time debating on how to possibly get one of those back home in one piece. And check out the photos for the painted designs on the tables, cabinets, and doors. Very cool.

There are certainly some pros and cons of living above a school, and above one's own workplace. Pros - can sleep in till last minute, have office reaaaally close if you need to put in a few hours on the weekend. Cons - No fake sick days, have office reaaaaally close if you need to put in a few hours on the weekend. Mostly, things are working out beautifully. I do feel a bit left out of the fun. The other teachers who were provided housing all live on the same floor of an apartment building. It's about a 30 minute walk or 10 minute taxi ride from the school to those apartments. Sure, I know that might get old for several reasons... being so close to so many co-workers. But it would also be fun to be around for the last minute runs. Folks over there have identified a place that makes outstanding fresh strawberry juice, a cheese sandwich worth much discussion, and there is talk of an affordable salon. Not to mention the English bookstore around the corner. It's pretty much just us down here on Rue des Papillons (roughly translated Butterfly Route -- cool address, huh?).

Story of Home -- 1 of 2

2007-09-27T19:49:00.000Z

Picture it... Agadir... October 2006.

8ish months after my arrival into the country, I finally get my own place. This was expected from the beginning, but that plan fell prey to "Moroccan time." On any given day I could inquire with my old boss, Moulay, and I could always expect to hear that he had spoken to the lawyers recently, and that the contracts or escrow or whatever would be finished in about two weeks. Thus, we two-weeked ourselves through 8 months. It is important to note that within that 8 months, Moulay had graciously provided us with a washing mashine. Read Denise's account of that fabulous marvel HERE.

And in October 2006, that beautiful washer moved with us into the new apartments. It was a three story building with an open roof on the 4th. The bottom apartment was accessed by a door on the front of the building. Then if you walked around to a small side alcove, there was a stairwell door which took you up to Shannon and Hassan on the 2nd floor, Denise and Lahcen on the 3rd, and on up to guinea pig Nigel on the roof (Nigel was formerly Jermaine, but when Tito died... how can you have Jermaine without Tito?).

There were many pros to the new apartments, and a few cons... but it was a good life. Our two apartments had the only access to the stairwell and roof, so it was a nice space we shared, while not sharing too much.

HERE are more photos of the place. It should be noted that I picked out little to none of the fabrics, decor, or furnishings. Some were wedding gifts. Some were provided by my boss. It makes for an interesting mixture. Hassan picked out the covers on the sofas. Not too shabby, but he was working with pillows to match. His credibility gets taken away when you see the very mod curtain hanging in the extra bedroom. He didn't see much difference in those patterns. He didn't really understand why I refused to cover the sofas in that orange print. Those curtains were originally provided by the boss as a bolt of fabric to use for exactly that, covers for the sofas. Instead, Hassan had one of his genius days and installed a closet rod across the entire length of the guest room. The free orange fabric magically became bearable enough for a curtain if it would hide my huge new not-quite-a-closet.

And one other interesting note... The blue thing you see on top of the house in the exterior photos is the tent being erected for the wedding party we had up there.

Concurrent

2007-09-22T14:04:00.001Z

Is that the word I was looking for? I dunno. Seems too simple.

My new office smells distinctly of bug spray.

2007-09-22T13:40:00.000Z

Where else to begin after months of not blogging?

Well, it does. Strongly, at that. All I can assume is that it has something to do with chemicals used to treat the pressboard desks that were recently assembled therein.

I have a lot of catching up to do. It's a long history, and I'm not known for my ability to tell a linear, tangentless story.... perhaps I should break it up a bit. I'll focus on smaller subject-related stories that take place along the same timeline. What's that called? I can't come up with that word. I hate it when I lose words. Separate stories that are happening at the same time... I'll remember it as soon as I hit "publish post" I'm sure.

For now, I'll tell you I'm well. I'm a little overwhelmed by the new school/new job that I will eventually tell you about. My husband (still seems strange to say that) just started a new job. I'm making new English speaking freinds, and I can't fully express how great that is... but I'm really missing my old standbys. It's almost the first of October. Three more months to turn good on my New Year's prediction of staying in better contact this year.

Oh, and I just finished reading the last Harry Potter.

SER AHK UH ZEET!!!

2007-04-23T19:32:00.000Z

This morning, I found what can only be described as a filthy beast in my kitchen.

Here are the events of the morning:
I hit snooze a few more times than the world normally deems necessary. I had forgotten all about the plan to head to the school early this morning. So, Denise had come to the door when I was less than half ready to go. I dressed myself. I grabbed by toothbrush and paste and sleepily wandered into the kitchen to brush away the funk.

Side note -- Had to brush my teeth in the kitchen because the bathroom sink is controlled by the same water valve as is the toilet. That valve is shut off because the toilet is undergoing repairs. See, on Friday my birthday gift from my apartment was a flood. I arrived home to hear the beautiful sound of an ever running toilet tank with the cascading sound of water falling into water. Ah, that would have been the 2 inches of standing water at the foot of my toilet. The cause of this indoor fountain was the broken piece of metal in the tank that was no longer holding the floater in place. It had rusted in two. This toilet is only 6 months old, mind you. Why would anyone bother to rustproof any metal intended to live under water inside a toilet tank, right? This is Morocco. Don’t let anyone tell you they run on efficiency and logic here. Welcome to the third world.

Back to the funk. I was brushing. I turned off the water because I’m an environmentally savvy chick in that way. I walked out of the kitchen, still brushing, and tidied the toothpaste and towel back into place. Turned to walk back into the kitchen and HHHWWWWAAAAAAHHHHHH! That’s the best spelling I can do for that closed mouth half-shriek intake of air that let Denise know I had found a monster in my kitchen. I had heard tales lately of an invasion. Denise’s husband Lahcen was innocently lounging in their living room watching TV when he felt the house shake with giant footsteps. Legend has it that he was forced to battle another such beast on the roof yesterday. I never thought the war would come home to my apartment, but it has.

Cockroaches. No, don’t laugh and shrug like I built up the suspense for nothing. These things are not the usual petty nuisances that I have learned to deal with. Morocco is a lot like Midtown Memphis in the way that the war cannot be won. Your enemy will never stop fighting. And never stop reproducing. In Memphis, I learned that one must sign the treaties and accords, and then go on with life trying to defend your territory. Life in my first Moroccan apartment was the same. There were frequent invasions, but mostly by young soldiers unaware of the fate their curiosity would bring them. There was the occasional ½ inch scout sent to see if the territory was still occupied. I think their poisoned screams of agony sent my message well. We have been fortunate in the new Moroccan apartment. We sent the message early that borders would not be crossed with no consequence. And then it was winter. The hibernation of the enemy calmed my nerves. Alas, his time of sleep is over. And he grew. The three beasts we have bested in three days have been 2 inchers. I do not exaggerate. I just stood up and walked across the room to the ruler to check my figures so as not to mislead my public.

I haaaaaaaate cockroaches. I seriously just squirmed typing the word. Here they’re called Ser ahk uh zeet. Oil is zeet. So, it means something like “one who eats the oil.”

My wonderful new husband has the day off today. I finished off his to-do list this morning with “kill ALL giant cockroaches!!!”

Aren’t you glad I blog about the important issues in life?

It's a no go...

2007-04-06T21:53:00.000Z

We got to Casablanca early Tuesday morning to find that, indeed, the drivers were going on srike. No taxis to be found. Luckliy we found an enterprising young man using his minivan to shuttle some of the people left with no taxi. We found a hotel within walking distance of the consulate, just in case we were still taxi-less on Thursday morning (we were). Then for a couple of days we did little save relax, which was nice. Thursday morning at 7:30am we were at the U.S. Consulate, and after 2 hours of waiting in lines and rooms, Hassan had an interview of about 5 minutes. He was told that he did not currently qualify for a visa. That means I'll be travelling without him when I visit the States this summer.

We had both tried to avoid high hopes, but we're still both pretty bummed. Which made it a less than thrilling trek across town to the bus station (again... no taxis). When we bought tickets at 12pm, the first bus we could get on was at 7:30pm. So, we passed some hours, got on the bus, and got to Agadir at 6am Friday (today). There was one lone taxi at the bus station, which someone else got to first. So, we hauled our bags and tired bodies home on foot. And then we slept.

Off to Casablanca again...

2007-04-02T20:50:00.000Z

It's 9pm Monday night here. In two hours, Hassan and I board an overnight bus to arrive in Casablanca Tuesday morning. His visa interview at the US Consulate is early Thursday morning. Originally we planned to go up on Wednesday, but the rumor is that the bus drivers may strike on Tuesday and Wednesday over some new law. So, off we go to avoid getting stuck with no ride.

At 7:45am local time Thursday morning, we'll be at the Consulate for the interview. If they like him, he gets to come with me to the States this summer for a visit. If they don't, well, maybe next time. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Mawwage. Mawwage is wat bwings us togevah today.

2007-03-25T15:58:00.000Z

Hi all. I have been trying to sign on to this blog for two weeks now to share the first few peeks at my Moroccan wedding. It did not agree with my methods, and rejected me completely. As is just about always the case, when I finally reached the stage of screaming, "AHHHHH ifsomeonedoesnotcomeandprymyhandsoffofthis mouserightnowiwillshovethecomputeroffthedesk isweariwill," Denise stepped in and figured out a way to beat the system. So (finally) here are a few outtakes.

I was lucky enough to have Frances and Mark here for the wedding. Yay, more people who speak fluent English!

The technichal getting married paperwork happened in a very small, totally unglamourous office. They wrote our marriage contract into a record book which Hassan and I had to sign. Frances has all of the pictures of that on her camera.

Thursday night, we got henna done at home. Here's mine before scraping off the dried paste.

On Friday night, we had the wedding party in a tent room that had been constructed on the roof of our building. First the groom made his entrance.

Then the bride, along with a procession of chanting and drumming in-laws.

First we sat for some photos.

Then we got tired of sitting, so we stood for some photos.

And after what seemed like a long time... and some dinner... we changed clothes and sat down for more pictures. This time they were of us exchanging rings...

and feeding each other milk, and cake, and dates... and kissing each other on the forehead.

After the festivities were over, Frances, Mark, Hassan and I went to Marrakech on Saturday and Sunday. So, I suppose this is a honeymoon photo.

Now that I'm back in, I'll post more details and photos soon.

3 of 3 - few more village pics

2007-02-16T16:07:00.000Z

One day, I took a walk with the two 18ish year old nieces. We walked to the main road at Aksri. We walked through the olive grove. We walked through the village communal garden plots. We walked up the main road and took in this view. Then we walked to the bottom. Yeah, see those buildings down there? We walked down THERE. Not completely via roads, mind you. I learned quickly that Fatima is part mountain goat. I nearly tumbled down the mountain. She was doing okay, even though she had just broken a strap on her sandal. Yeah, SANDALS. Then, as it goes, we had to walk back UP the mountain. Paradise Valley, my ass.
Here are Hassan and his mother, Keltouma, in the foyer area of her current house. In a traditional Moroccan house, all of the rooms (most of them multipurpose) open off of one central area. This one is open to the sky.
Another view from the roof of the old house. The current house is in the foreground. The one with blue shutters to the right.

And there's the fire out back for baking the bread.

2007-02-16T10:06:00.000Z

Ok! I finally figured out my problem. Apparently I have the camera set to take pictures with the resolution used to take zoom spy photography. Nice pictures, but big. Denise helped me to resize them, and now this process is much faster.

I'll have to find an older picture of the exterior of Hassan's mother's old house. Didn't have one in this batch. This is the house that Hassan family lived in when he was born. It's up the hill from the house where his mother lives now. This one looks into the open interior from the viewpoint of standing on the roof. There are a couple of rooms up there on the roof/third floor as well. The green door opens to the exterior and I think would have been used as the front door.

This is the view from the roof of the old house toward the village proper (Hassan's mom's house is before you actually get to most of the village... Thank God! Those village roads are not always kind. More about the roads later).

In the kitchen of the current house. The couscous is steaming back there on the stove. The bread has been made. We were all just perched on stools and pillows... alternating between cooking and waiting. I got up to get the camera because it reminded me a lot of my family. 20 people standing around talking in the kitchen while someone is trying to cook for a holiday. Normal, right?

Me pretending to have cooked the couscous. Total fabrication there. Hassan's sister Zahara did it. I watched and tried to learn. I must mention here that Moroccan's don't think it's couscous unless you spend an hour steaming and stirring. Very involved process. Denise makes hers in 5 minutes on the stovetop, and the boys laugh in her general direction.

On Aid, or Eid, however you spell it... we went out visiting. Several sisters and nieces and friends of the family... and the white girl... set out walking through the palm grove. We stopped at several different houses along the way to talk and have tea, and eat some tidbits, and talk, and kiss, and ask about the families, and eat, and drink. Wow. At this house, we happened by at the same time as another group of women. The hostess blessed us all with fragrant oil.

A view from that house (which happened to be built into a mountain) across the palm grove toward the village. I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a picture of this house. It was multi-level. Built into the mountain, like I said. Even had a little room outside the front door for the donkey. Ah, next time.

Niece Fatima at the well in Aksri. Aksri is a small village where you turn off of the main road to go to Hassan's village, Tisgui. We walked up to Aksri several times during my stay. His family doesn't really use this well. There are far less impressive one nearer the house. Fatima was just showing this one off to me. The water bucket was sewn of tire rubber.

This is a restaurant and store in Aksri. It's the landmark for the place to turn to get to Tisgui. This general area of Morocco is known as Paradise Valley. Lots of palm groves in mountain vallies. Beautiful. It's a small tourist destination, so there are neat places like this, and a cool small hotel near this where Hassan's sister Aicha cleans.

Playtime is over. Time to go teach the children. More later.

Pictures from the village

2007-02-12T09:30:00.000Z

I'm trying to get some pictures up. Still having some troubles. Perhaps I'll have to make it two per post.

For now... there's me with my henna. It was still wet there. When it dried, we scraped it off. The design left on my skin was a reddish orange color. Lasted maybe a week and a half-ish. One of the cousins came over to Hassan's mother's house to do it for me, one of his neices (Fatima) got her hands done as well.

This is two of Hassan's neices, Nadiya and Fatima, on the road leading away from his mother's house.

LETTER TO MY FATHER

2006-11-24T17:59:00.000Z

(Subtitled: Cathartic spilling of the details of my getting married)

Dad,
I’m sorry that I don’t often share the details of my life. It’s not a decision to hold back, I just never think about certain details interesting you. When I speak to you, I try to think of what around me would spark your interest. Consequently, our conversations never turn to the personal. Hey, in my defense, you don’t ask many questions! In short, it’s dawned on me that I don’t think I’ve personally said to you, “Dad, I’m getting married.” Perhaps Mom has been our Important Conversation Filter yet again. I’ve always quietly wished that you would share more of your thoughts with me. So, now I will right my wrongs and spill all of the proverbial beans.

When I arrived in Morocco in January, I landed in an established group of friends, just the way I like it. Hassan was there from the first, and I liked him from the first. I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual, though neither of us could have predicted the long-range probabilities. You’ve not raised a romantic, starry-eyed daughter, so there never came a point when it seemed appropriate to gush forth any news. Hassan and I liked each other. We got more comfortable with each other. We spent a lot of time together. We started to say, “love.” We never discussed living together. He simply never left. I can’t remember when the talk of marriage began. I suppose it was joked about first, then talked of semi-seriously, then assumed to be part of the plan.

My plan began with bringing Hassan home for a visit first, and then bringing him with me when I moved back to the states. I was still thinking of getting married as quite a long term goal, sometime after we got settled there. At every turn, someone here warned me how difficult it is to procure the necessary visas for a Moroccan to get to the US. As I looked into the necessary steps, it became clear that it’s not an easy process. If we are an affianced couple, not married, then there are a great many time constraints that we have to work under. When we apply for a visa for him to come to the US, we don’t know how long it will take. When and if it does get approved by the US consulate here, then we would have 6 months from that date to arrive in the US. If we are granted the visa to come to the US to get married, we must be married within 3 months of arriving in the country. Somewhere in my research, I glanced at the information for couples who have already been married in their country of residence. This immediately looked a lot easier, because all of those time constraints are removed. That’s great for us, because we’re poor, and we’re not positive we’ll have money for airline tickets and weddings on the timeframe and demand of the US Consulate. All of this was just a string of logic in the back of my head throughout the Fall.

One day I was talking to Mom, who knew that I had really hoped to get both me and Hassan there for a visit during this Christmas. She asked if I was still considering that as an option, or how the chances were looking. I admitted to her that there seemed to be no way to afford it, even if we could get the visa worked out. I then explained a bit of the above information to her, and added that things might be easier if I got married here, perhaps sooner rather than later (I had just learned that after two years of marriage, Hassan would be eligible for permanent resident status in the states. That time starts ticking when we’re married, be it here or there). She expressed the sentiment of, “wow.” Then she called me the next day to say that she did not think that she could let me get married without her, and that she was considering the option of coming to Morocco for Christmas. She was quick to add that her visit did not necessitate a wedding at that time, but that she would feel better knowing that she had met him. Seemed a good thing to have my mother here for getting married though, so I began to think about the possibility of marriage in December.

I’m sure your next logical question would be, “and why, at that point, did you not feel it appropriate to share the news in an official fashion?” Well, because I still don’t know if it will be possible for me to get married at that point. It didn’t seem like the announcement I should be making… “I’m going to try to get through all of the red tape so that I can get married.” I just assumed that something would become more clear, more suitable for announcement. Perhaps I would be able to set a date at some point?

What I’ve learned is this: There are still a few hurdles before anything is certain. To get married in Morocco, I have to have a certified copy of my birth certificate. Since I had a passport in hand, the birth certificate didn’t make the packing cut. Mom is going to bring me a copy when she comes. I also need to travel 8 hours to the US Embassy in Rabat. There I’ll stand in lines and get a few things notarized over the course of a couple of days. Hopefully I’ll walk away with a paper saying that I’m a US citizen in good standing with permission to marry. Then I have to figure out how to produce a US criminal background check for the Moroccan authorities. This poses the biggest problem. One American friend here said that the embassy won’t fingerprint you, and the police here will give you a fingerprint card that you can spend money to mail to the FBI and order a report sent. Don’t know how long that would take. This American friend here advised me to have Mom bring a copy of a background check when she comes. Well, that isn’t so easy. My old employer won’t release the copy that they have, because they paid for it. Bullshit, right? So, without me present in the US for the police to fingerprint me, I don’t think I can get a federal criminal check. I might be able to get an Arkansas state report through a very happenstance connection I have, but who knows if the Moroccan police will accept that. So, it all comes to maybes. Perhaps when Mom arrives, I will have the necessary paperwork, perhaps not. We’ll know when we walk into the court here.

If I do have everything I need, then the wedding will be paperwork signed in an office somewhere. Moroccan “weddings” don’t contain any official or legal ceremony, they’re a big party. Since we don’t have the money to throw a big party, I first envisioned my wedding as a Justice of the Peace kind of affair with (hopefully) Mom as a witness. Hassan and I have recently discussed having his mother and sisters over to our apartment for dinner and some photos as a “wedding.” But, that will probably be the extent of the celebration aspect of it here. Most importantly, it would give Hassan a chance to share it with his family, because none of them would have the chance to come to the states when we have a wedding there.

When I take a step outside of the situation and look at it from another viewpoint, I realize that it must be difficult to swallow. I hope this helped, and I hope that I’ll be able to relay more information about Hassan and about our relationship that will answer your questions and concerns.

I love you,
Shannon

africanized

2006-11-03T16:14:00.000Z

You know how killer bees are really called Africanized Bees? Well, they are. And now I know that everything in Africa is just more agressive. The men, generally yes.

And the flies? Cheese and rice! Have you ever watched a "Save the Children" commercial and wondered why that Etheopian baby don't swat at that fly? Yeah, that fly that's crawling RIGHT ON HIS EYEBALL?? That's because the fly is an African one. Thus, that fly will go nowhere. But if it DOES go somewhere... that somewhere will be approximately 6 inches away (that's about 15 centimeters here), and he will come right on back to the task at hand.

I'm growing out my ponytail just so I can shake my head and hit my face with it.

potentially really long post...

2006-10-31T19:18:00.000Z

we'll see how this goes.

Most importantly, I am here as witness to the fact that I am, indeed, still alive. When I was in Arkansas this summer, I was heard to say, "I'm going to keep in much better touch with everyone when I go back this time." And of course, all of you knew then, and have proof now, that I'm a big fat liar.

I am a perfectionist. Those of you that know me as a sloth might choke a little on that last statement... but I mean perfectionist in the sense of "I can't make myself do it at all because I know I don't have the energy to do it justice." Not at all in the sense of, "I do everything perfectly." So, I'm pledging now to drop the idea that I should have a well written, grammatically correct, proofread, entertaining, informative blog. I pledge just to keep writing something... even drivel... to let you know I'm alive. How's that?

Here's the plan: I'll catch you up on the recent first. Then I'll go to the way-back files and start from the point I left off so long ago.

So the news of the week is: I WENT TO THE VILLAGE.

But before I went to the villiage, it was Ramadan. Ramadan is that lovely month when no one around me was eating or drinking during the day. It's the 9th month of some calendar that I don't go by, and this year it fell between Sept 24ish to Oct 23ish. Muslims celebrate this month as the anniversary of the time that Allah gave the Koran down to Mohamed. Did I mention that I am (according to the new pledge) refusing to look up the "appropriate" or "correct" spellings for... um... anything? So, yes, the Muslims, they were hungry for a while. The life in Ramadan, it goes something like this: you get up at about 3:30 or 4 in the morning to eat a pretty substantial meal before the sun rises. Generally folks go back to sleep until such time as they have to report to work, if that is indeed the case. This time is probably later than usual, as the entire society changes during Ramadan. Opening hours of everything change, nobody does much of anything that they can avoid, because they're hungry, and cranky, and whatever it is to be done would most CERTAINLY work up a thirst which they are not allowed to quench until sundown... which at this time of year came at approx 6:15 p.m. The streets are bare at that time, because the city shuts down to eat. Everyone traditionally breaks the daily fast with a soup called Harira. Also with sweet dates, fried breads, and various pastries involving sesame paste, etc. They are a traditional lot, these Moroccans. Many people will eat another sizable meal at 11ish before going to bed, and then getting up at 3:30 or 4 to do it all again.

Since everyone was hungry, and avoiding moving around too much, the supermarket was free and clear. It was like the "day after." Denise and I had the aisles to ourselves. This caused me to note that Ramadan is kinda like the anti-Christmas. No one is eating. No one is shopping. The stores close earlier.

I forgot to say that the fun parts about working on the sun's schedule is that you never presume, as a mere mortal, to know EXACTLY what time you can begin... or are required to stop... eating. So in the evenings... the imams at the mosques would call out when it was time to eat. Frequently we would have the soup on the table waiting to hear the call, "Allaaaaaaah, huakbar." My impersonation of that is much better in person. I tried the daily fast for four days in two two-day increments. It wasn't as difficult as it sounds... but I also was not trying the fast at the beginning of Ramadan when it was hotter and thirstier. So, then the waking up in the mornings? The imams also call out in the mornings, I think. And I suppose the faithful would have themselves trained to listen for the faint call in their sleep. Then there are those of us who would nevah evah hear that in a million years through the fog of sleep. In the new neighborhood (I moved into a new apartment at the first of October, pictures to come) there's a good soul who parades through the streets at 3:30ish banging a drum to wake everyone to eat. The first morning I heard that, I mumbled, "is he TRYING to wake everyone up, or is he just an ASSHOLE??" But he kept on keepin on. Every morning, the parade continued.

The day immediatly after the last day of Ramadan is Aid al Fitr. It's translated something like the Feast after the Fast. Denise and I created the school calendar this year, so we combined the requsite three days for Aid, and a "fall break"concept and had a week off of school last week. And in that week, I went to Hassan's mother's house in the village. I hope this thing lets me post some pictures when I cease with the typing.

Ok, now the village. It's about an hour or hour and a half up into the mountains. Pretty good mountains, so it's probably not much more than 30 miles distance covered. In the village, Hassan's mother's house does not have electricity. She doesn't have running water to speak of. There are no beds; everyone sleeps on the floor. And there certainly aren't western style toilets installed. Just the hole-in-the-ground Moroccan ones.

All that said, I had a fantastic time. Hassan's family is very lovely, and interestingly, made up almost entirely of women. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen watching his sisters and neices prepare all of the traditional dishes. I even got to practice some, including pitching the bread dough into the outdoor fire oven.

Ok, I'll detail more of that later. Scream at me if I take too long. And now I'll hope to attach some photos. Love you all.

to have a job... or not to have a job...

2006-07-10T11:26:00.000Z

I'm pretty behind on posting. I've got lots of placeholder drafts waiting to be filled with pictures and news. Soon... soon...

What's on my mind now, so close to the trip home, is whether I have a job to return to. This morning on the way into the office, Denise and I stopped in to chat to Moulay Said. He said that with the current number of students, he's not sure what to do. Today is the deadline he gave to several prospective parents to enroll, so, we wait. He's got a meeting with the proprietor of the new school this afternoon. And he said tomorrow we could meet to find out if any of the parents showed up to enroll kids in our school.

Wait. wait. more waiting.

more gore

2006-07-07T11:39:00.000Z

Yeah.. remember that cat attack from Sunday?
here's a look at the wounds yesterday.

The bruising from the bites is pretty sore, but otherwise I'm healing well. Denise isn't as fortunate. Her ankle still looks pretty funky and oozes. As illustrated here.

It's a great day for a rabies shot.

2006-07-03T17:10:00.000Z

Last night there was chaos on the homefront. Picture it. Morocco. 2006...

Denise was washing clothes in our new machine. The tub we use to drain the machine was full of water right in the way of the front door when Hassan arrived home with his bicycle. I was trying to help Denise quickly move the tub of water so he could enter. Poops-the-crazy-Siamese-cat came over to help us. Little did we know that ouside that door, waiting with Hassan, was the sweet fuzzy kitty that has taken our front garden as residence. Poops knew. Oh yes he did. And he wanted to kill that cat. And with no sudden movements on our part, Poops decided he could no longer live in this world, with that other cat on the outside of that door, without attacking SOMETHING. So, he jumped on Denise's bare left leg. He landed on her ankle/foot. She kicked a few times, but the cat was still attached, attacking madly. Denise reached down and pulled cat off foot, screamed wildly at him, and flung him away from her... away from the only exit door... toward ME! Poops bounced off of my right knee and landed about 2 feet away. He sat still for a moment, shook it off, and then lept across the distance onto my right calf. I was wearing long pants, though not thick ones. He got his teeth through and into my flesh, no problem, but I didn't get as many scratches.

When the screaming and throwing of shoes at the cat ceased, Hassan came in to see what the sam hell was going on behind that door. When Poops finally emerged from under Denise's bed, I asked Hassan politely to throw the cat off the balcony, which he did.

We're only the 2nd story.

So, here's the damage from last night. First, the bites on my calf. I have a couple of scratches, but it's all spread out because the stupid cat was wrapped around my leg.

And now Denise. This is only one side of her afflicted foot. The other side is worse, but I can't get the picture to post. Some bites. Lots of scratches. Thank goodness I bought hydrogen peroxide a few days ago.

I think both of us are a little worse off than even the pictures show.

So, today we were urged by everyone we know to go to the pharmacy and see what we could get. Maybe talk to a doctor even. We went, and they said we needed to see a doctor for a vaccination. Through the language barrier, we kept understanding that we needed a tetanus shot. Well, our boss took us to the clinic. And it turns out we needed RABIES vaccinations. There are a lot of street animals here and rabies is a problem. So even though Poops WAS an indoor cat, they err on the side of caution. Today we got two injections. Some immunoglobulin or some such, and the first of three rabies shots over the next month. At least they don't give rabies shots with big needles directly into your abdomen anymore.

for JT

2006-06-03T21:44:00.001Z

Apparently graffiti artists ‘round the world agree with you. Snoop Dogg and Tupac are indeed lyrical geniuses.It was dusk when Denise and I took a neighborhood walk to get this shot. Yes, that’s right. This work of art is just around the corner. Sorry that the light isn’t great, but you get the idea. And I thought the dumpster in front added a nice feel.

Tammi and Mike

2006-05-22T12:36:00.000Z

My friends Tammi and Mike got married yesterday. I am terribly sad that I could not be there for the festivities. I am just now at the age where friends’ weddings seem to be a celebration. Previously, weddings have always seemed very ceremonious to me. But now, more often, it seems like a big gathering of people who want to be present at an occasion of joy marking the fact that two people have found each other, appreciate each other, and actually want to try to continue the give and take forever. Well, that, (and I must admit that now that I know more established folks with the money to throw a good reception) people don’t want to miss a great party. And I’m afraid that I have. The beauty of a sunset mountain wedding… AND a wagon wheel dance floor?? I shudder to think of my own loss here. I can’t wait to hear the stories and see the pictures.

My wish for the two of them is simple. Peace and Happiness. Sometimes there will only be pockets of these amidst times of madness, but may you always recognize them and enjoy each other in them. Perhaps it’s a bit trite, but I still want to post the Marriage chapter from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.

On Marriage
Then Almitra spoke again and said, "And what of Marriage, master?"
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Tammi and Mike, may you always be pillars of the same temple.

Tech difficulties

2006-05-18T08:36:00.000Z

My old format began to bump all of the bio and menu section to the bottom of the page. I had to find a new format that would stop that until I have time to further fiddle with the old format. Thus, the new look.

choco crack

2006-05-10T13:35:00.000Z

Like I even need to say it. It's Choco Crack. Breakfast of... shannon.

The results are in! My hypothesis is proven!

2006-05-10T13:01:00.000Z

Absolutely anwhere in the world, when a camera is pointed at a boy in his mid-twenties, there is a 98.249% chance that he will spontaneously and involuntarily display a rude gesture.

school logo saga

2006-05-03T13:12:00.001Z

One of the myriad of things Denise and I tackled on our “road to the open house,” was creating a decent logo for the school. One with some sort of relevance. We have, to this point, had a bad taste whenever forced to use the original logo. One with only the initials of the school in a circle with random colors. No tie to the US or Morocco, or any indication that it was a school. I’m not certain, but it’s rumored that they let one of those grinder box monkeys from Marrakech design it.Well, we could stand behind it exactly... no longer. We brainstormed, figited with various clipart, and tried every color in the primary-school-appropriate spectrum. When we came upon puzzle pieces, I had a stroke of genious involving the US and Moroccan flags. Denise worked wonders to make it happen on a computer with NO graphics program. I fell in love with our puzzle pieces.Alas, when we proudly presented the new logo to our boss, he looked at us with discomfort. Nice, he said, but not allowed (I might be sentenced to the chopping off of my mouse finger for posting it here!). Apparently the Moroccan flag can ONLY be flag shaped. No manipulation. Ever. So, if you were ever planning on putting a green star on say a red.... say... circle?? FORGET IT. WALK AWAY NOW! We were a bit defeated at that point. When we revisisted the design task, here’s what we got.
Better than the original, I think. But it ain’t no puzzle pieces.

I got mail!

2006-05-03T13:12:00.000Z

Mom sent me a package of a few personal items and a few things for the school. We knew regular mail would take about a month to arrive. So, Mom upped the ante and sent it priority. That cost a pretty penny! It was scheduled to arrive in 4 – 10 days.

And right on schedule, approximately one month later, it arrives. An expensive lesson learned. When I went to the post office to collect my prize, I saw this:

The box was in great shape (sometimes mail gets tampered with and sorted through on its way here), and there on the front were... count ‘em... 67 $1.00 stamps. Now that’s satisfying. It’s always frustrating when you have to mail a heavy box, because you take in to the counter at your local post office... and they put a printed meter tape on it. C’mon! All that money and all I get is a boring old strip of tape?? No color, no pictures? I’m not sure who was responsible for my box of many colors. I have a feeling Mom tasked Dad with taking the box to the post office. And I have a feeling that Dad promptly pawned that stamping job off onto someone else.

Thank you, stamp fairy, whoever you are.

For all you Pulp Fiction fans

2006-05-03T13:11:00.000Z

it's not a quarter pounder here either...

Cast of Characters - part deux (the animals)

2006-05-02T19:25:00.002Z

As we prepared for our open house at the American School, we decided to get a couple of class pets. We were thinking fish and a small turtle. Moulay Said got us a small aquarium and gave us some money. It was a Tuesday, and Denise and I headed to the souk to buy fish.

We looked at the fish, and we walked out with three hamsters and one cage. We found out the shocking way that one was definitely a boy and one was definitely a girl. We got other cages to separate out the hamsters one from another. Now we are anxiously awaiting hamster babies. I say anxious because I had a hamster once. I didn't know she was expecting until I heard the crunching of her CANIBALIZING HER YOUNG. So, uh, needless to say, I voted Denise to keep a watch on the rodent baby situation.

Desi, Lucy (expectant mother... plotting escape), and Rosey the Nosey Neighbor (named in honor of R.Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet," and also because she would appear out of nowhere to check things out if Lucy and Desi quarrelled)

A few days later, on Friday, Moulay Said took us out errand running and shopping for school. One stop was a diferent pet store with a better selection of fish. We picked three, and the proprietor agreed to deliver them and help set up our aquarium on Saturday.

Side Note: he had one guinea pig in the shop that Denise went nuts over. She spent the next 2 weeks mumbling incoherently about guinea pigs.

Sammy, Fats, and Bing

That next week, one of our class mothers got into the spirit and agreed to look for a small turtle, since that was the original dream. She came back with two chameleons.

Fluffy and Princess

That weekend, we got a call from Moulay to go look in the classroom, he had found a turtle. Less like the size of a silver dollar... more like 2 adult handfulls. The kids loved him as he's the only one they were b rave enough to pick up alone. One day, Denise put him out into the school courtyard to get some sun and warmth. She didn't think about him until the Moroccan kids had come back through. Either he pusted outta this place on his own, or one o the teenagers decided to take him home. Didn't ever get a picture of him, but he looked sorta like... a turtle.

Then, for some reason I can't quite recall, Denise and I were back by the pet store in the souk. Bad idea. They had a little of young guniea pigs. So (like you didn't see this coming?), we have two. This time we insisted on a same-sex pair.

Jermaine and Tito

We now have quite a menagerie. And finally, we knew the kids would be diappointed about the tutle's mysterious disappearance. We got a friend to bring us another, smaller tutle. He's tentatively called Reginald.

Welcome to our zoo!

I am:

2006-05-02T19:25:00.001Z

Make sure to scroll down through the posts and look through the archives now and again. As I have time to finish up several drafts I've had on the back burner... the system shuffles them in as of the date I began the draft.

a VERY important lesson

2006-05-02T19:25:00.000Z

Don't drink the milk that comes in the little plastic bag. Oh, sure... "that seems like common sense," you say? Bollox. Everything is topsy-turvy here. You never know where the hit is going to come from.

I used to think I had a stomach of steel.

"What? The eggs have been left out of the fridge for a few days? No problem."

"Oops. I dropped my sandwich. Hurry! Pick it up! Ten second rule!"

Weeeehehehell, no more, my friends. No more.

Sunday night we were at the school, where we have been for a solid month as we try to get ready for an open house for recruitment of new students. Around 7ish, I start to feel a little funny. First it has the symptoms of a kidney infection, then stomach upset, then PAIN. MY GOD, the PAIN. It faded a bit, and we went home. As I started dinner, it came back with a vengeance. I left Denise to the cooking, and I went to my room to die. I tossed and turned and seriously considered going to the third world hospital (Want to know when your hidden bias against developing countries pops up? When you consider going to the hospital for an internal medicine issue). Finally, around 1am, I was about to try to find comfort again by spining in circles on my bed, and suddenly I got that surefire feeling that I was about to be violently ill. And I was. And then the world was a better place.

Everything I had eaten that day had also been eaten by someone else in the household. Finally, it dawned on us. The milk in a bag. Households here purchase milk in small quantities daily from the local shop. I've had milk from the small cartons with the two day expiration date before. No problem. So, I didn't really overthink putting the milk from the bag into my cereal. Well, that's the unpasteurized kind, apparently (something that could have been brought to my attention EARLIER). Not exactly fresh milk either. I guess Lahcen's system is used to it. Mine... had something to say about it.

Happy ending though. I was feeling so much better by mid-Monday that I was able to participate in the very American rite of a child's birthday party at McDonald's. One of our students, Adam, turned 5. Here he is with Denise.

And there's Yassine with Ronald. Adam and Yassine are our 2 Moroccan students. I bet they can handle unpasteurized milk.

A view of Agadir

2006-04-26T13:16:00.000Z

Here's the city along the coastline (port area is on the bottom right, along with a good deal of resort hotel construction).

And that photo above is as seen from this "mountain." The building you see at the top is the kasbah. Not much up there really except a good view of the city and camel rides for the tourists.
The Arabic words on the mountain are God, King, Country. It goes a little somethin' like this, "Allah, Alawatem, Alamellik."

This one's for Larisa...

2006-04-26T13:15:00.000Z

Because if camel bums don't make you smile. Well, then perhaps the terrorists HAVE already won.

My birthday

2006-04-24T13:13:00.000Z

My actual birthday on the 20th was a nice evening. The four of us were headed out to dinner, trying to find an Indian restaurant. There is one. Down by the beach. But we thought we remembered seeing another. As we got out of the taxi though, it turned out to be a Chinese place we misremembered. Well, that would not do. As we walked toward the real Indian food at the beach, we happened upon a Mexican restaurant. The boys had never had Mexican food, and we decided that a Moroccan take on the concept would be adventure enough for the evening. Nice place. Everything was really quite good in that "not quite authentic" way. The place even had really good music. In English. That I liked! Mostly Motown, as I remember. Stuff you can't resist singing along with, even at the table. I can't tell you how rare it is. Usually it's either in Berber or it's something akin to Celine Dion.

The boys that live in the apartment downstairs from us sometimes threaten to cause my ears to bleed with their Celine Dion on repeat. I cannot be held responsible for the harm I might do them if such torture continues.

Happy thoughts... happy thoughts... I got some lovely flowers on Thursday and Friday from one of my students and from my boss. Sadly, I waited to take pictures until they were a few days old and the cat had knocked them over. Still nice.

Coca-cola in Arabic

2006-04-19T13:35:00.000Z

Remember to read right to left

getting here

2006-04-19T13:34:00.000Z

I left Memphis on the afternoon of January 24th. Short layover in Atlanta, 6 hour layover in London... at which point I almost did not gain entry into Morocco. My return flight was booked for August 11. Since I did not yet have my employment contract or employment visa in my possession I could only be considered a tourist, and thus, stay only 3 months legally. Delta had gotten me as far as London, but British Airways refused to let me check in without a return flight within the 3 month time limit. At first I was told that Delta (grand coordinator of my 3 airline itenerary) would charge me a change fee. When I politely informed them that I had no money and would be taking up residence in Gatwick Airport a la Tom Hanks in "The Terminal," they were kind enough to work things out for me. The Delta agent put a "dummy" date of April 23rd into the system and put some special stickers onto my paper tickets. I had been hoping to use my 6 hour London layover to find a way into the city for some lunch as I've never been to London. After I finally sorted everything out between Delta and British Airways, I decided to play it safe and make my way to the gate area to be sure they were indeed going to let me check-in. So, I grabbed some really expensive airport fare for lu7nch, browsed my last English language bookstore for a while, and nodded of in the waiting area like a vagrant.

Now, the Delta agent who arranged my "dummy" return date and put stickers onto my tickets told me that I could simply peel the stickers off and show up to the airport in August as planned. Somehow, I didn't have faith it would go that smoothly. Royal Air Maroc is taking me from Agadir to Casablanca, then I'm back on Delta from Casablanca back into the States. I wanted to go to the airport here before April 23 just to check things out. To verify that they wouldn't see April 23 in the system and say, "she's a no show - cancel her."

Almogar airport is situated between Agadir and Tiznit to the South. It's a decent trek out of the city to get there. My boss, a handy guy to know, says he has a friend at the Royal Air Maroc ofice in Agadir. He goes over there with my tickets in hand, and Royal Air Maroc says everythings A-OK. They even peeled the stickers off for me.

I'm going on faith that all is well with the Delta leg of the trip. I suppose the worst case scenario is that Mulay Said has to buy me a whole new ticket home.

I do love free travel.

Funny lady

2006-04-16T16:00:00.000Z

I got an email from my friend Melody the other day. Actually it was more than a month ago. And I have not written her back. See, I told you... why can't I just sit still long enough to hit reply?

Melody lives in Iowa. Crazy, huh? She always, and I mean always, knows precisely what will make me laugh.

She said:
know how amused you were that we have convenience stores named "kum-n-go"? i thought of you the other day on the way to work because they had a story on the radio about a kum-n-go robbery. the item stolen, condoms.

Surprise!

2006-04-16T15:58:00.000Z

A group of my friends in college began a tradition of surprise birthday parties. It, of course, quickly became difficult to surprise each other what with all of the suspicion. We resorted to staggeringly clomplex plots and evil deceptions. Once I worked up tears, real tears, and feigned upset over a particular relationship drama to bait Frances into following me, unsuspectingly, into her party. Tony was awoken once in the wee hours of the morning and told he had to drive a friend to the ER because of a severe asthma attack. He stumbled to the lobby of his dorm to find his party.

Surprises for me were notorious failures. Once I was sent on a campus scavenger hunt. The planners failed to consider that one leg of the hunt took me right by the windows of the cafeteria. There I saw many balloons and the waiting partiers. Once they ALMOST got me. As I approached the student union, so close, a friend passed by and said, "Shan, sorry I couldn't make it to your party tonight. I have a test tomorrow."

After moving to California, we continued the tradition until it became ridiculously difficult to get everyone together and pull off a surprise. Then began the theme evenings. So, with time, I dropped my guard. I'm out of the habit of suspicioning. My birthday's not till Thursday the 20th. I knew Denise was planning to cook dinner for me. I got to request Indian food. I figured that setup would include Abdellah and Said, however my assumption was that the dinner would be next Saturday. After my birthday. Wrong. Denise insisted on picking up most of the ingredients while we were at the souk this past Saturday. I suspected nothing. She had tasked Hassan with getting me out of the house, so we went off to have a coke by the beach. I suspected nothing.

We arrived back home, and for some reason, I didn't open the door to my room and deposit my stuff there as usual. Denise had to think fast and invent a need to borrow something from me so I would go into my room. When I opened the door and four boys jumped off of my bed to surprise me, it worked. I'm pretty sure my heart skipped a few beats. I screamed audibly. They got me.

Denise had made an Indian-style tajine dish, as we couldn't get all of the necessary Tikka Masala ingredients. Dinner was lovely, and then there was cake! As you can see, the boys struggled with the spelling of my name. Well, it's phonetically correct anyway. And as it turns out, that didn't affect the taste at all.

They sang Happy Birthday to me in four languages, and then Abdellah insisted on this picture. I thought he was joking at first. He often is. Perhaps this customary American wedding pose is, in Morocco, a customary Birthday pose. Look how somber Abdellah is. Well, at least Hassan is amused in the background.

"Butterfly" jeans

2006-04-12T12:57:00.000Z

In the photo, you can barely see the side of the original butterfly below my right knee. He started it all... right after I ripped my favorite jeans on a nail at the edge of the stage in a theater in which I was rehearsing. These are my favorite jeans, without question. They have been for years, as is evidenced by the patches and threadbare nature of the pants. Oh yes, they're utilitarian patches. They cover holes and paint spills. Some are stitched to the reinforcements found on the inside. These jeans have seen some livin', and they're now held toghther like OZ, from behind the curtain. Side note: many thanks are due to my mom and to Carol W. for much mending, patching, and serging. I know that if I called my mother and was sobbing uncontrollably, she would be frightened at first. Might think that I had lost a limb or been snatched for ransom. However, when I finally blubblered out, "B... b... butterfly jeans," she would understand that they had finally met their overdue end, and that I was in the perfectly natural grieving process. It is to be noted that all of the patches, save one, are on the front. There is but one lone butterfly on my left rear pocket. It is solely aesthetic. One butt butterfly to "balance things out." Perhaps it's a good sign, a sign that my life has been lived with forward momentum. All of the snags and such are on the front. Sure, I've been caught standing still more than my fair share, but hopefully I haven't been backin' up.

Does this make me legit?

2006-04-12T12:46:00.000Z

My first business card, ever (not the best photo, perhaps... but you get the idea). I've previously had an actual profession, as well as a job with a fancy title. Just somehow never managed to order business cards before this.

A bit more about my job situation. Mom tells me that one of the most frequently asked questions of her, about me, goes something like this, "So what's up with this American School thing?" I think that spans several questions...

Does the American govt. have anything to do with the school? Nope. It's only called American School because we use the American style of classroom teaching, and we teach it in English.

Who runs it? It's a private school run by the director of a Moroccan school. Most American schools have their own facilities, but since we're just starting out this year, we're housed within that Moroccan school that he runs.

What's the purpose? To offer an English education. There are American schools in the larger cities in the north of Morocco, cities that have more international business trade, bigger populations, and more money. Before this year, people in Agadir only had the option of enrolling their kids in traditional Moroccan school (Arabic), or in French schools. When people choose English ed. for thier kids, often it's with the idea that it will help them get into college someday.

Will it be accredited? Good question. Our boss has had a meeting at the American Embassy in Rabat, a lady from the American Consulate came to visit, and they're looking into options for accreditation.

Much ado...

2006-04-09T16:52:00.000Z

I'll go ahead and apologize now that there's no photographic evidence of this. I was too busy gawking, and I didn't want to miss anything whilst running for the camera.

This evening, Denise and I were doing laundry. Fun fact, we were doing laundry in the bathtub, as we had let it get that behind with the weeklong trip and all. Anyway, Lahcen shouts for us to come to the balcony to see something. What we find outside our windows is a parade. It was the groom's family and friends on the way to the wedding.

The procession went a little like this:
First was a horse pulling a cart with a sheep on it (the sheep - a gift for the bride's family). Next came another horse pulling another cart with lots of colorful baskets, flowers, ribbons, gifts perhaps? Following that cart was a band of 5 or 6 Berber musicians in robes. They were playing things such as flutes, drums, and cymbals. And perhaps a rabab, a type of one-stringed fiddle (I'm making some assumptions here as I'm not quite yet an expert on Moroccan music or musical instruments). Just imagine something you might bellydance along to and you've got a general picture of the music. The family and friends all followed behind, and surrounded actually, the band... clapping, singing, and all dressed in finest traditional kaftans and djellebas of bright colors. Bringing up the rear there were three cars. The middle one was decorated with shaving cream and streamers. In Arabic across the back windshield the shaving cream spelled out "Happy Wedding." All three cars were honking to the beat of the band.

Good times.

I actually missed my opportunity to go to a Moroccan wedding last Saturday night. We had just arrived in from a very long, very tough day of travel back from Casablanca. I had gotten sick onthe trip, so my head could have exploded from the pressure at any moment. At that point, I was perfectly happy with my decision to shower and head straight to bed. Now, of course, I'm sad I missed out.

Moroccan weddings are quite the festive occasion (as if the sheep didn't clue you in). I got an account of the one I missed. It started around 9pm, but the bride did not arrive till closer to 10 when the hall was full (it was held at some sort of public hall/banquet facility). Through the course of the evening, there was much traditional music (live band), much eating (we got a package of some of the sweets and goodies we had missed. They were delicious, and interesting... Some were made with rosewater. They tasted a little like soap. Very interesting). However the American who gave us the commentary reported that there was not as much dancing through the night as she had expected. The bride had four different dress changes, and there was much ceremony when she came out in each. Party lasted until about 4am. All without the aid of alcohol, as Muslims don't, traditionally, drink.

Taghazout... playing catch up

2006-04-03T20:11:00.001Z

Granted, I've just returned from a week in Marrakech and Casablanca, but I feel the need to post first things first. Taghazout probably should have been my very first post. I went there, a small surf town about 20 minutes drive up the coast, on my 2nd night in Morocco. One of my very first experiences. However, I've gone up several times since then and always have a wonderful time. Have grown rather fond of the place, and have taken many pictures. I have no pictures from that first visit, so hopefully the richer story now will make up for the delay.

I had arrived in Agadir on a Wednesday evening, and that week Denise's roomie from Dublin (Norah) was in town for a vacation/visit (along with her friend Sally and Sally's daughter Ayoola). Here's Ayoola just so you can admire the kid that can pull off this hair!
Norah and Sally had made the acquaintence of two guys who kept a small place in Taghazout to go up and surf on their days off. We were all invited up that Thursday evening for dinner. There were 12 of us total, and we filled the tiny place. The apartment consisted of one room and a small entryway that included the shower/toilet, and a shelf for a cooktop with a water spigot and bucket that served as a kitchen. The whole thing was hanging onto the rocks RIGHT over the crashing surf. Not too shabby a bachelor pad. That night was my first tajine. Now I know that once you've had it several times a week at school and /or home it becomes less romantic. But that night was great. All of us on mats on the floor around the edge of the room. Small, low table in the middle with the food. Using bread as a utensil to scoop the tajine. A little wine, Abdellah in the corner, cuddled up to the sheshaw (hookah). A lovely evening. That trip was the first time I had the pleasure of meeting Sally. She's a clothing designer, a homeopath, and a true wanderer. I loved her stories about her live in the Austrailian outback with her Aboriginal husband... sleeping where they stopped, gathering a breakfast of coconuts, and having her daughter out there in the nowhere.
Here are some camels by the sea on the drive up one day. As well as a camper truck. I wonder who's camping with camels.

Norah and Sally were back in late Feb/early March, and they rented their own place in Taghazout this time. We were up there several times that week. One afternoon we girls all hung out on the balcony and generally heckled the surfers.

Sally, Norah, me, Denise

There had been a big storm the night before (Norah and Sal seem to bring that type weather with them). So, the waves were pretty decent, and all of the fishing boats had been pulled way up, so the surfers could ride pretty much all the way up to the beach.One night that week, the guys went up with us and we met Sally and Norah for dinner at a little place near their apartment. The proprietor joined us before the evening was done for an interesting time. Elizabeth is a Hungarian woman who has been in Morocco for about 50 years, since her early 20's. She ran a campsite in the days when Morocco was in it's heyday as a standard stop for the bohemians of the world. It was fun hearing her stories about converting from Catholocism to Islam, her life in general, and how much Morocco has changed with time.
Sally, Norah, Elizabeth

And then, on one of the girls' last nights in town that week, we all went up again, and Ottman (one of the friends who keeps the little surfer place from that first night) cooked tajine. Always a lovely time.Front: Otmane, Norah. Back left: Abdellah, Hassan, me. Back right: Lahcen, Sally, Khalid. Photographer: Denise.

SUCCESS! We have broken their little wills.

2006-04-03T20:11:00.000Z

Naptime, when I arrived, consisted of all of the children in a room specially for napping. In that room there was a television, and sometimes videos were shown. Also in the room was an exercise mat in that Kindergarten sleep mat style. There was approximately .75 mat per child. I do believe each child had a pillow, however. Now, the events of naptime went somewhat like this... all of the children horizontal for approximately 4 minutes, or until the teacher walked away from the window of the nap room (whichever came first). At that time, nap mats and pillows were used as weapons and wraps for human burritos.

We got enough mats for everyone, then we moved the naptime festivities into the classroom so it could be monitored properly. It was a struggle getting the little muppets to understand the simple commands "Stay on your mat," "Lie still," and "Be quiet." For a few weeks naptime, even in the classroom, looked a little like this:

Finally, today, a beautiful thing happened. There were six kids in class. Six kids went to sleep. On a Monday. A MONDAY, I said. A day when they usually only have one volume and one speed: scream and run. I would say it was a miracle if that didn't take most of the credit away from Denise and I. And right now, I'm enjoying feeling like we are GODDESS TEACHERS!

Costs of Livin'

2006-03-24T20:04:00.000Z

A few weeks ago, when I actually looked up the currency exchange rate, it was $1 = 9.17448 Moroccan Dirhams. I intended to post this at that point, but my get-around-tuitness is still that which you know and tolerate. So, here we are, pretending that the exchange rate is just the same. It likely isn't far off.

One Moroccan Dirham (Dh) is broken up into 100 Centimes (just like the US Dollar into 100 Cents).

The currency you'll most commonly see are paper bills of 200 Dh, 100, 50, and 20. Then there are coins for 10 Dh, 5, 2, 1, and 1/2. Then various coins of Centimes.

You'll often have 2 paper bills of the same denomination that look completely different, even different colors. That's because one is the old bill with King Hassan II (who died in 1999), and the other is the new bill with his son, the new king, Mohammed IV. Then there are some bills with the past 3 kings all together. Just have to make sure and look at your money.

Some of the comparison costs are:
Bread. A loaf of Moroccan bread is flatish and round. About an inch or so thick and the size of a small dinner plate. It is brought fresh to the local shops several times a day. A typical family here will have a couple of breads at a meal (if tajine is served, bread is used as a utensil to scoop up your food). Bread is not likely wasted. Most people will save old bread (old = more than 1/2 day) and will give it to someone with a donkey to feed. Bread here is held in a certain reverence and it's bad to waste. Bad. A loaf of bread here is 1 Dh and 20 Centimes. That's about 13 cents.

Gas. Most of the mid-size cars and trucks all run on deisel. I'm not sure the exact price of that, but it is cheaper than unleaded. Gas costed 10.6 Dh per liter the last time we rented a small car. There are 3.79 liters in a gallon. That means it's $4.38 per gallon. Yep, you read that right. We Americans gripe about the price of gas a lot, but the vast majority of the rest of the world has it far worse.

Rental car. 300 Dh for 24 hours. 250 Dh if you go back to the same guy and he likes you. That's $27.24.

Taxi. There are two types. Petit (small) taxis must stay in the city area, and are pretty cheap. Each city has its own color for its petit taxis. Agadir's are orange. Petit taxi is how I get around day to day. The fare us usually 5 to 15 Dh depending on where we're going. That's $.54 to $1.63. Grand taxis are a little bigger, are white (or cream) the whole country throuh. They can go pretty much anywhere, are a little more expensive, can be hired for a certain period of time, I believe... but I've never been in one.

McDonalds. Only for the rich here. A meal with a sandwich, fries, and a drink is about 49 Dh. That's about $5.34. You can go to a Moroccan restaurant and get soup, soda, and a full dinner for just about that price... prolly a little less.

More later.... any requests?

Molting

2006-03-24T20:03:00.000Z

That's right. I'm molting. Not the first time. I have a long history of not properly considering the sun's strength and my pale skin's tendancy to singe.

The other day I was on the roof washing clothes. I have been instructed to write more about my everyday life. Thus, I shall do so now in this aside... Keep reminding me to do this, because I often clam up when I'm not feeling witty or like I have something both informative and amusing to say. So, yes... I wash all of my clothes by hand. Only the richest have machines... and I ain't the richest. There are dry cleaners here but no laundromats. Washing clothes by hand is just what you do. So, we get out the big plastic tub and scrub away. The washing isn't so bad. Tide (or as they pronounce it here -- Teede) is a wondrous invention. Just a few hours of soaking, a little sloshing of the whole tub to pretend you're an agitator, scrubbing of the important spots... and there you have it. Clean garments. Often that's done in the kitchen, however on nice days it's tempting to go up to the roof and soak in some (too much) sun while doing the chore.

Skip forward... the drying certainly isn't so bad. We have a couple of small clotheslines on the balcony of our second floor apt, and there are several large lines on the roof. The sun here will usually take care of that in no time. I even bought some fabric softener that smells reeeeally good, so that plus the line drying works out just fine.

Now.... the middle bit is where I have the problem. I'll admit I've taken washing machines for granted in general. But OH, the spin cycle. I've never had cause to stop and admire the spin cycle at work. I was usually too annoyed that the lid to my washing machine locked during the spin cycle and didn't unlock itself for what seemed like HOURS if I was standing over the machine waiting to transfer the clothes to the dryer. I mean, seriously... IT'S STOPPED SPINNING ALREADY. Anyway... I will never take the spin cycle for granted again. I do solemnly swear. Because I hate to wring me out some clothes. My forearms might just turn black and fall off before I gain the strength to wring properly. That's why I said the sun USUALLY dries the clothes in no time. That's IF you get a respectable amount of water out of them. Most things I can handle.... my jeans take days to dry.

What can I say, I'm a wimp.

Cast of characters

2006-03-07T18:10:00.000Z

Denise & myself

Lahcen

Said

Abdellah

Hassan

Missing...

2006-03-07T17:53:00.000Z

The option of going to the movies... not the same in Arabic.

Tammi's death grip that keeps a 2 liter Coke fresh for years.

Tact and witty euphamisms.

Eavesdropping... not the same in Arabic.

The spin cycle... let me tell you, after a few times of wringing my clothes by hand, I will never, NEVER take the spin cycle for granted ever again.

Flotsam and Jetsam

2006-03-07T17:41:00.000Z

In the local dialect of the Berber language... The word to command someone to "Eat this" sounds like "shit."

So, "Shit. Shit." actually means, "Here, eat this. Eat this."

Bobby - a story of hypotheticals...

2006-02-27T13:28:00.000Z

Hypothetically, I've been spending a great deal of time with a young man named Hassan. Hassan is hypothetically Moroccan, which means he learned several languages in childhood and in school (Arabic, French, Berber). He's hypothetically picked up a good deal of German and quite a lot of English along the way in his hypothetical adulthood. Now, this mix of languages makes for a hypothetically interesting accent when one speaks English as a fifth language.

Since Hassan is hyptothetically a boyfriend-type figure, he... as endeared ones often do... has deferred to using hypothetical pet names. So, he will, hypothetically, greet me by saying, "Hello, bobby." This is hypothetically meant to be, "Hello, baby." I... one very unhypothetical shannon who doesn't much care for pet names and ubercuteness... have hypothetically refrained from correcting him.

It's much more amusing to me to be called Bobby. I mean, who needs to be called "baby" 10 times a day... ...hypothetically?

Walk it off philosophy of life

2006-02-26T17:35:00.000Z

I love my father.

He is practical. Calm. Contemplative.

He is the type of father who knows just what to do when the bottom of his foot gets sliced off by farm machinery... wait and see if the bleeding stops.

Strange Dreams

2006-02-26T17:34:00.000Z

The other night I had a dream. It was unusual on two counts. First -- that I remembered it at all. Second -- that it was sensical. Most often when I'm dreaming it goes something like this:

I am talking to my mom, but really it's my best friend from elementary school. She wants to put up a tire swing, but all of the trees are made of jelly. The end.

In my very sensical dream, I was on a road trip with my mother. I was driving my car and had lots of stuff piled into the backseat. I don't remember whether she was a passenger, my mom, or whether she was driving a u-haul or something behind me. I took a shortcut, and ended up running into the same cop over and over. He gave me three tickets on three seperate occasions for things like stopping in the middle of the road. I've gotta say, he was being a real ass, because I was not stopped in the middle of a road. I was stopped behind a rural gas station. Everybody knows that those gravel cut-throughs behind rural gas stations don't count as roads. Feel me?

Finally we were getting close to home. My dad was going to be in a town that we would pass through just before getting home. So, we planned to stop on the way and have dinner with him. Also joining us for dinner was the fictional daughter of a friend of his. She was about college age, and very pretty, and I did not know her in the dream. Over the course of the dinner, I became quite glad that I didn't know her. She was terribly, horribly, and worst of all - ignorantly racist. I sat in shock for a bit at the things she was saying, and finally I could abide no longer. I pitched a sideways "hope this doesn't offend you" glance at my dad, and pretty frankly told the girl what I thought of her views. Calmly, but much more bluntly than I would have in reality. And I requested that she remain silent from that point.

I think that was my subconscience trying to make me feel better with the level of bluntness in my daily life. I never knew just how fond I was of euphamisms and polite turns of phrase until I landed in a place where they mean nothing. You must be very blunt here when attempting to convey something in English. Very literal.

Bloc 18 No 108

2006-02-21T20:33:00.000Z

About a month in, and I'm living in Denise's apartment. It's been fun, but eventually I'm due to get my own place. As I've learned, it's standard for an American English teacher abroad to get a pretty sweet setup. I'll have no bills here save for groceries and entertaining myself. That's good, as I'm not making as much as is standard. If i opt to stay on through the next school year, my salary would double at least. Good way of saving some money. Not exactly the 401K dad was hoping for. We'll see.

Our (Denise's) place is right around the corner from the school. We're the second floor of a building with 3 apartments. There's a rooftop terrace. Not glamourous... but nice for drying our clothes on the line and sitting in the sun for a bit. The apartment itself has 3 bedrooms. Denise's, mine, and a bonus room... It has a half wall, but as you can see Denise had Hassan rig up a curtain, and it has worked well as a third bedroom for frequent visitors. The living room is a good size, and the bathroom is ok. The toilet is in a seperate closet sized nook, and the kitchen is big enough for 3 people to stand in if no one wants to move.

There we have a shot of the living-room-length couch and table where we eat, Denise checking the shower water, Lahcen as "kung-fu dishwasher," and my room. Note the lovely silk scarves I purchased at the souk to serve as a headboard (cheap!) as well as my red cow print blanket. My boss had that one picked out and purchased for me before I arrived. Staggeringly... beautiful? I think not. But it's really really soft.

Moulay Said has this place rented, but he has purchased a different building with 2 apartments. One up, one down. When the lawyers get through the paperwork on that transaction, we'll get to go and look inside. Now, who knows when that will be, as Moroccans don't worry about the word hurry (unless they've rented a car, see my previous post). The new place is just around the corner from where we are now, and just as close to the school. If we like it, Denise will have one apartment, and I'll get the other. Like TV's popular sitcom, "Friends." Only not across from each other. And not in NewYork. And there aren't 6 of us. Well, Denise, Lachen, myself, and Hassan are pretty standard. Abdellah is over frequently. Said comes now and again... so I suppose that counts. Only... two of them don't speak English.

So, which 'friend' am I?

Pics around the house are HERE.

Thanks, George!...

2006-02-19T19:21:00.000Z

...for being born on this BEE-you-tee-ful day.

In honor of Washington's birthday/President's Day, Denise and I scheduled a day off for ourselves. Admittedly, I'm getting a bit spoiled to being in charge. There is no longer a director for our American School, so Denise and I are on our own. We fiddled with the calendar for the second semester and added a few holidays in. As this is the first year of the school's existence, we aren't yet monitored by whatever governing body monitors the schools. So, freedom is ours, if only for a short time. We rented a car for the day, and drove out of Agadir. Lachen drove Denise, Hassan, Abdellah and I up into the mountains, past some stunning vistas, to Hassan's village. There his mother served us a lovely lunch of tajine. Before the tajine, we had almonds, fresh honey, really fresh butter, olive oil, & moroccan bread. Needless to say... stuffed. The people of this region are known for honey gathering (thank you Eyewitness Travel Guide), and so let me say a bit more about the honey. sweeeeeeeeet. chunky honeycomb. mmmmm. Is that a word?

Now, I would have liked to explore the village a bit more. A rather large one, I'd say, as mountain villages go. 300 families, Hassan said. However, the boys seem to have the mindset that if a car is rented, it is being wasted if not in perpetual motion. So, off we went to Immouzer. The drive and the place itself reminded me a bit of Blanchard Springs in Arkansas. Oh, except the face that when we were winding around the mountain... we were in 2-way traffic on about a lane and 1/2. Morocco is a bit like LA in that way that you pay attention to the horrid driving habits and begin to anticipate their moves and ultimately replicate them to keep yourself alive. Yep, drive crazier to remain safer.

Anyway, we drove past palm groves...

and almond trees everywhere...

terraced hills where the villagers grow food gardens and wheat for bread...

amazing.

And now back to Immouzer. It is at the base of a mountain where a spring is fed by waterfalls. The waterfalls high up on the mountain were smallish (they vary in different seasons), but we walked into a canyon where the spring forms a deep pool. An unofficial guide told us that the water was 45 meters deep, and offered to dive from the cliffs for a fee. We were all broke, so we had to pass.

We were back in Agadir by late afternoon. A great day, but Denise and I agree that we must take control of the itenerary next time so as to have a more relaxing day.

HERE are some more pictures of our day.

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?

2006-02-18T17:49:00.000Z

This sign points the way to our classrooms for the American School of Agadir.

Bit of a revolving door in respect to the teachers, as I've stated. The small American School is housed within a large school (Institution Al Imam Al Kastalani or IIK). We answer to the director of IIK, Moulay Said. He's a very nice man who enjoys learning more English from Denise and I. Our spring break is the last week in March, and Moulay has said that he would help us arrange bus/train tickets and find an inexpensive hotel in Casablanca. Yay!

More about the school. We have 8 kids total. One 6-year old, one 5-year old, three 4-year olds, two 3-year olds, and finally, our 2 1/2-year old. Talk about a will of Iron on that one. It is difficult because they are at wildly different levels. We're teaching simple addition/subtraction to the 5 and 6 year old. One of the four year olds recognizes all of his letters by sight and the others lack a bit. They, for the most part, meet in the middle. The two three year olds to very well in general, and this is the first year of school for the 6 year old. He needs a lot of social coaching. The parents range from fluent in English to very little English. The 2 year old is the only one who speaks English at home, so several of the kids are surpassing at least one parent with their English. I am amazed at how fast the little creatures learn. Here are a few pics of our American School facilities and kids...

Our day is from 8:30 am (thank you for the sympathy from those of you who know I am NOT a morning person, much less a morning Happy-Face-for-small-children person) to 2:30 pm. It is hella-nice to have afternoons free, though we should make more use of them than we do, perhaps. We do our fair share of relaxing, and have gotten to the roof to sunbathe and read a few times. Afternoon trips to the souk are not unheard of, but we try to stay away from Marjane if possible. More on those places later.

Ah, back to the school... When I arrived as the new teacher, the parents were very concerned. They had a meeting themselves, and presented us with a letter stating their worries and slight dissatisfaction in the decrease in their children's rate of learning since the first teacher left. They then requested a meeting with Denise and I. It was a bit of a stressful time as I was still adjusting to being a long way from home. The meeting went well, however, and we were successful in convincing the parents that we were happy in Agadir, happy to be teaching here, happy with the money (reason why the previous teacher left), and NOT GOING TO ABANDON SHIP.

Everybody seems to be much more at ease now.

For several photos in and around the school, click HERE.

Hip Hip Hooray! It's Couscous Day!

2006-02-17T15:26:00.000Z

The people... they eat couscous here. Lots of couscous.

It's traditional to have couscous on Friday, and our school menu conforms to tradition. So, every Friday we get a huge platter of the lovely fluffy pasta-ish stuff, accompanied by some stewed veggies and a little meat in sauce (watch out - sometimes liver). Bread for sopping. Yum. I've asked a couple of Moroccans why, exactly, it is traditional that couscous be served on Fridays. The first answer from my dear roommate Lahcen (who, coincidentally does not always deliver the most elaborate explanations) simply said, "because we go to mosque on Fridays." So, am I left to assume couscous is a holy food? Perhaps it's the Muslim rendition of the bread/Body of Christ thing. I posed my question to the Moroccan girl who teaches French on Wednesdays. She said that, as Friday is a holy day, couscous is simply a celebratory food. This didn't exactly satiate my curiosity as to WHY couscous is special to the people here... but at least I got a more satisfying answer than "just because."

Our menu is actually scheduled to rotate every other week. They're supposed to have a mixture of American and Moroccan foods... technichally on different days of the week. As the year wore on, however, they apparently just morphed the best of the best into a one week menu. Week after week after week - same food. Monday is pizza day. When it's good, it's edible (watch out - sometimes with liver). When it's bad... it can be used to cut diamonds.

Surefire...

2006-02-14T10:26:00.000Z

...way to cure those Valentine's Day blues:
Move to a country where it doesn't exist.

And the bitter irony of the situation?
All the men that offer me many camels...
in a country where Valentine's Day doesn't exist.

First Imressions from Third World Paradise

2006-02-11T15:59:00.000Z

WARNING: Rambling ahead.

So I've been in Agadir for more than 2 weeks now. I intended to record a little more in the way of details along the way. For my memory, but also for those of you who have never been here and have no clue how I'm living. So, now I'm reduced to thinking back over the time... trying to remember what has struck me. First, I think it was the dichotomy between modernity and simplicity. The people here seem to have a desire for finer things... gadgets and luxuries. However, they don't have the money for it, on the whole. The cost of living is very inexpensive because the wage (not much) that I'm making as a teacher in the newly formed American School of Agadir is serious wealth as compared to what the average Moroccan makes.

I assume a mechanic makes a decent living here... most of the cars on the road are held together by about half of the original bolts and welds. If they had duct tape here, it would work about as well. And by my count, about 1 in 5 of the cars on the road is a taxi. So, I've had my fair share of inspecting them from the inside.

The driving habits amuse me. There are, in most places, clearly painted lines along the road. Clearly painted to indicate clearly defined lanes. For no reason. Whether it be a mule cart, a taxi, a motorbike, or a private car... it drives straight down the middle. There is much passing, honking, and making two (or three) lanes out of one lane. There are a few proper stoplights, but mostly the locals just know instintively which roads at which intersections have the right of way. Then, of course, you have the roundabouts. Fuuuuuun. Every trip is my own rollercoaster ride without the line at Six Flags.

I must get serious about learning French, as living in a land where signage is in one language I don't understand (French) and one I can't read to begin with (Arabic) is a lot more diabling than I expected. I am fortunate to have the built in support system that I do... I don't have to feel my way alone. Denise knows enough Berber already to do some stilted bargaining in the souk. Her boyfriend Lahcen and his friends are happy to help us with running errands, learning languages, whatever we need. They do get a bit protective though, and it's fun to venture out without them. Even our boss, the director of the school that houses the American School (Moulay Said) has said to me that he is happy to help me in whatever I need, that here he is my brother and my friend as well. It's in his best interest to keep his teachers content, so he's more than happy to oblige our every request. Sometimes it takes a bit of sign language fumbling to communicate said request to his understanding, but we make do.

It's now starting to warm up a bit, but due to all of the rain when I first arrived, it was COLD. Outside in the sunlight it has been quite nice. At night it gets significantly cooler, and inside at almost any time of the day was freezing. I suppose due to all of the concrete, tile, and glass used in the makeup of our apartment. When it finally dawned on me to ask Moulay Said to get a heater for us at home, he got us three. And almost immediately the weather warmed. Ah well, the school will have them for the next winter, because the classroom was freezing as well.

The classroom... we have 8 students, between 2 and 6. This is the first year for the school, and they have had a continually revolving door of teachers. I am the 4th face they've known as a teacher, plus 3 different French teachers that come on in Wednesdays. The kids are of several different Nationalities: Norwegian, Hungarian, Dutch, Moroccan... Most of them are fluent in French as well as their native language, so the kids usually speak to each other in French. It's amazing how quickly they've picked up on English. They can speak well enough to convey their questions and needs, and they can understand even more.

The kids seem to have accepted me pretty well, especially considering the fact that I'm one of many to them. I suppose I feel accepted by Morocco on the whole. The people here are warm and friendly. Everyone who I have spoken to has asked how I am finding Morocco, whether I like Agadir. I do feel like I stick out like a sore thumb though. I suppose it's a combination... I don't cover my head, I dress plainly like a Westerner, I walk around speaking English (with a couple of Berber words thrown in to show off when I can). A white woman here is stared at. Blatantly. Persistently.

Did I mention that I have already been offered many many camels for my hand in marriage?