Typical Day

I thought I'd give you a moment by moment account of my day. I get up at 6:30 and help Aicha set the table for breakfast; unless I get up at 7:30 and in that case I just eat. For breakfast we usually have French bread, cereal, yogurt, cheese, and sometimes these thin pancake things (not like a crepe, but still delicious with nutella). I leave for my placement at 8:45. Typically, despite being the first one up, I am the last one in the van. This works for me because then I get to sit up front and talk to Ismail. Last week, I learned how to ask what someone's opinion is. I tried my new phrase on Ismail one morning and he missed the fact that I was merely telling him my new phrase and not really asking his opinion, because it got very confusing. He got me back this week by teaching me a phrase that means not my problem. I thought he was telling me it wasn't his problem and thought it was rude of him. Then I caught on.

From 9 to 12 I'm with the infants, unless they make me cross eyed by 11:30 and then I pack up early and go sit outside and wait for Ismail to pick me up. That happened twice this week. Sometimes after placement I put my basket of stuff in the van and my roommate Susan and I walk home. The Foret du Hilton is near the hospital and it has a great walking path through a eucalyptus forrest so it's very relaxing and a nice way to get in some exercise. From the Foret we take Lala Merryiam past King Mohammed V's in laws home to where we live in Hay Riad. The whole walk takes about an hour and we make it home just in time to eat lunch. Our neighborhood is very affluent. The minimum size is 5000 sq feet and the house I'm in used to be for the Ambassador of Malaysia. In fact there are a lot of Ambassador's residences around us.

After lunch we will have a lecture, cultural activity, or free time. Today we had an impromptu stop at a chocolate shop in Agdal as a cultural activity on our way home from the laundry. Then we went to the Marjane, which is like a WalMart and did some shopping for the house. This afternoon Mohammed gave a lecture on Islam. I opted out since I participated previously and sat outside and painted. On Tuesday afternoons I go to Mohammed V University and work with students in the Masters Chemistry program on translating scientific papers. The one we are working on right now is about corrosion. I like working with the university students, because they are very enthusiastic. Translating the papers from French to English is tricky because if you do a direct translation the meaning gets lost. So, I think mostly this is about having them learn to trust how they are explaining it to me and writing that down, rather than going for a literal translation. Also, there are some funny phrases or word choices they use which aren't the most appropriate for scientific papers. What is hard about helping them is that their grammar is better than mine will ever be and so when they ask me something technical like the past perfect tense of who knows what, I am no use.

Five o'clock is tea time. Mint tea is a cultural icon in Morocco. I find this very fortunate for me since I love mint tea, the tea is also very sweet which is another bonus for me. I have managed to miss the tea preparation lessons twice now. For this I am very disappointed, because the tea is prepared very specifically with some glasses being poured off and disposed and another glass being poured off and kept. I don't understand the ritual and it's something that I really want to see. Serving the tea has its own set of rituals. For example, the tea is served hot in small glasses. When pouring the tea the more foam created by distancing the pot from the glass the better. We have all spent a significant amount of time working on the perfect pour.

Dinner is served at seven and it is a lighter meal. In Morocco lunch is the big meal of the day and the one where you have meat. Dinner is generally soup, leftovers, and salads, it's all very yummy and fresh. Then I have a couple of hours until bedtime. Sometimes we all hang out and talk or play games. Lately it's been pretty quiet because everyone has colds. That's my average day here in Morocco.

Love Hate Relationships

I survived my week of little boys!! By the time Friday rolled around I was contemplating spitting back up the words I had just eaten. Dien, is one of the boys I have had this week. Unfortunately, he has an awful temper which Salah manages to whip into a greater frenzy. Needless to say our Uno game took a walk on the dark side. Fortunately, one of the moms with good english and pity for me helped referee the situation. But, when the next day rolled around I was better prepared and it's now understood that fighting means you leave the table. Furthermore, you are not welcome back that day. I find that this threat works well because Salah is essentially a ham who needs an audience. I've got him on video doing all sorts of little boy goofy things. I can't wait to show you guys, because he is a cutie.

Anwar is another boy who was at the hospital this week. He's eleven a phenomonal artist, very bright, and understands english. I'm partial to him and Salah because they have good hearts and are gentle with the other kids. For instance, there is this little two year old girl who laughs and just looks for trouble. I like her too. One day she ran up behind Salah and whapped him on the back and then turned and ran away laughing to her room as fast as she could. Salah just rolled his eyes. But, back to Anwar. On Friday he gave Barbara and I each one of his books, which I thought was really sweet. Then it came about that the jacks were missing and Anwar had all these tears coming down. He had evidently taken the jacks and given us the books in exchange. It was an interesting situation and I'm not really sure what all happened, but he's a good kid.

The rest of my weekend I spent in Marakesh. Of the medinas that I have been to it is the cleanest and most touristy. I also liked it the least. It's not that I didn't like it, it was just sort of disnified Morocco and I'm a Morocco afficianado now.

Eating my words

I've had tablefulls of little boys this week, and I need to change my previously stated opinion. Little boys can be very sweet and I like them a lot. They like to do very different stuff, but they are great fun too. For instance, I now know two magic tricks. (They are tricks when I do them since I'm not a pro). One is a card trick and I'll admit I'm pretty good at it. The other one involves a slight of hand. Apparently I have lots of enthusiasm for this one, but little finesse because it's a lot harder. Little boys also like the rattle snake eggs that I brought from home. You know those touristy packets with the paper clip and rubber band that rattle when you open it, making you feel like the eggs have hatched. Khadija wrote on the packet in Arabic so that I could produce the desired suspicious effect before the victim opens the packet. In short fear of snakes is pretty universal!! I've even done it to some of the moms and they will laugh pretty hard at each other.

This past week Barbara has been in the asthma ward with me. She's 85 and wonderful. The first day we observed a lot of the physical therapy, which I described earlier. She said the technique that they use to bring up the mucous is called cupping. It's nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of during the morning, because she knows a lot about asthma. I enjoy her company a great deal and it's also fun to see how the children interact with her. The older ones like her a lot and she gets to work with them on math and reading and then they write her name in Arabic. It's pretty sweet. I did have to tell her this morning though, as I was late for the bus that she needed to move slower so that we could blame our late departures on her age and not my tardiness. We'll see what happens on Monday.

Placement has been really good this week, everyone who works at the hospital is getting to know me and so they all come around to say hi. The kids look for us in the morning and it's fun to walk by their rooms and say hello. I get so attached to some of them, I don't want them to go home, but you've got to be happy for them too. The amount of phone numbers I have been given from moms is tremendous, it's a good feeling.

Other things that I've been up to this week are the hammam and hanna. The hammam is a public bath, where you can pay someone to scrub you down like nobodies business. I haven't felt so clean in a long time. Hammams are social activities like going to hang out at the beauty parlor, but their is a lot more too it than that. I would rank it up there with Fes as far as must experience personally, because words don't exist to describe the ritual. Because I was sqeaky clean after the hammam, Khadija put hanna on my hands. I've long felt that hanna wasn't for me. Turns out that's just not true, I just had my feet done last night and they are zwina bzaaf (very beautiful). It helps that Khadija is an incredible hanna artist, because I have beautiful flowers around my ankles and vines down the tops of my feet, with fronds and all.

angie.bt@gmail.com

This is my new email address. Hopefully, I'll be able to send individual communications now. Sam hope you're doing well with all the snow. Unfortunately, the blower in the barn doesn't work. What a shame!! And please don't curse me either, I'm PMSing and will just cry. You should have yourself a nice bottle of wine on me!! And take a hot bath.

This weekend the rest of the volunteers which came with my group left. It was very sad, because I had grown fond of all of them. The bright side is that Elena and Hilary, who were here when I arrived have one more week left before they leave, so it's not as if the house has changed over completely. The new group which arrived this weekend consists of six people. Teal, Erin, Barbra, Caroll, Susan, and Dan. Barbra ran a children's hospital in Oregon for many years. I'll be asking her lots of questions this week. It's nice to have that resource fall into place. Everyone is very interesting and brings a new dimension to the house.

This is kind of a flat blog, so sorry. My excuse again is PMS and house changeover. I expect a complete recovery after some chocolate bars.

The blind leading the blind

Seen it.

email

Hi everyone. I am getting emails, but none are going out from my email address. I am working on getting a new email at gmail, I just haven't done it yet. I'll post it as soon as I do. All is well here, we're off to Tex Mex for dinner. Besilamma

Warmth

This last weekend was really good for me, because I figured out that I am able to navigate successfully on my own.

Perhaps more importantly though, I figured out that I have plenty of time to do that once I am finished here in Rabat. So, I kind of doubt I'll head out for big weekend trips over the next couple of weeks. Instead I'm settling into Rabat and my placement at the hospital. My roommate, Maria, has kindly shown me how to add pictures to my blogspot. (She is the one in the green shirt in the Volubilis photos). Be sure to check out some of my earlier posts because it's gotten a little livelier. Unfortunately though, my spelling and grammar remain poor so you're stuck with extremely short or runon sentences.

Part of what Cross Cultural Solutions offers its volunteers are cultural activities in the afternoons. On Mondays we have arabic lessons and Wednesdays it's generally a lecture about the government, economy, or other current issues. This past week we had a handicapped gentleman come and speak to us about disabled persons in Morocco. Hakeem is part of an advocacy group which raises awareness about handicap issues such as curbs which provide better access to sidewalks. The general impression I received is that it's a frustrating process, because there are no accepted zoning codes. But, their group has received recognition from the government, because new construction in public areas like the promenade along the waterfront are now accessible. To me it seems like a lot of Morocco is getting ready to become much more prominant as a tourist destination. The new King is putting a lot into infrastructure, tourism, and safety. When I was in Ifrane there was a lot of new construction happening.

The lunch bell rang. Be back Later!!!

The food is good here at the house. The first two weeks the regular cook, Aicha, was on vacation and the meals were all right, but they all tasted the same. Now, Aicha is back and things have greatly improved. She is from Meknes and evidently Meknes is known for its good cooks. I would agree because the best meal that I have had dining out was in Meknes. Also, the best wine I have had here was from Meknes. On a scale of 1 to 10 of all the best wines I have tasted, I would rate the Meknes wine a solid 9. Very tastey.

Other things I've done this past week are tour the archeology museum, hence the photo of the marble head. That head in particular came from Chellah, one of the first Roman ruins I visited in Morocco. The entire museum though is full of spectacular artifacts from Chellah and Volubilis. One ruin at Volubilis was called the house of the dog, after a bronze dog which was found at the site. I imagined a little 2" figurine. To my surprise the dog is at the museum and is actually about 2'x2' and was a spout for water into a fountain. I was humbled at the quality and number of artifacts.

The other pictures are of Ismail and a little boy who danced for us this week. Ismail greets us warmly in the mornings and drives us to our placements, but for the music and dance this week he turned into an enthusiastic drummer. Danielle and I are in front of the lighthouse on the beach in Rabat. I guess it makes sense that there is a lighthouse here, but it did catch me by surprise. Fatima is the little girl in the other photo. I would take her home in a minute, but she has this really great mom who wouldn't appreciate that much. Fatima is the reason I titled this post warmth. Because as I sit here on the cold tile I am missing the heat she puts off when she sits plastered next to me at the hospital. As a general warning to everyone, the amount of personal space I require is gone. So, when I get home and sit right next to you please be understanding. Fatima is the one that I am thinking may be a good penpal for Jay. You'll have to let me know Jill, if Jay would mind corresponding with a little girl. Her languages are French and Arabic, but she'll be learning English in school soon. Plus it can be fun trying to translate letters.