Readers choice

This blog is called readers choice, because I couldn't pick a title. So, your choices are Le Lego, Uno, Snowboarding, or Kicking a Barbary Ape in the head. Some of these topics are related and some are not. I think the easiest thing to do is write short stories for each. Here I go.

Le Lego
Earlier this week I took Lego's to the hospital, because kids like Lego's. I had another cute little ornry child who proceeded to chuck a lego out the window into this little playground between the hospital hallways. It's a similar playground to the tantrariums and bacteria incubators in US malls, only I never see any kids in this area. So, like all ideas, which seem so good at the time I placed le enfante out the window to retrieve le Lego. Immediately le enfante becomes possessed and rips around the playground. Suddenly I am realizing I made a bad decision. To make a long story short, two Arab mothers discussing my situation took pity on me and showed me the door to the play area. Meanwhile, the child realizing I wasn't paying attention to him came running back and wanted back in the window. Giant sigh of relief from me.

Uno
I'm not sure how it happened, but on Friday I managed to have a successful game of Uno with about four other kids. I know this sounds simple, but some of the kids only speak French, some only speak Arabic, and I speak neither. In truth, the actual Uno portion of the game was too hard to convey, but the rest of the game went well. Fatima, was particularly proud of herself, since she won something like four hands in a row. The director of the ward, was kind of surprised that I pulled this one off, but it really only takes one smart child paying attention to line everyone else out.

I must admit that the question I asked myself this week was, how did it become preferential to educate boys over girls. My first thought is that person who came up with this idea, simply desired an extreme amount of agony in their life. Not that boys are not intelligent, it just seems to me they are not as methodical as girls. This thought led me to think that perhaps the preference to educate boys came out of the sheer necessity to curb their unruliness and prevent lawlessness in society. Just an idea.

Snowboarding
This weekend was my birthday and I somehow got bumped off the camel trek in the desert of Ourzuga. I was bummed about that but, I still wanted to do something fun and decided to visit Ifrane,the home of Morocco's only ski resort. I stayed in the Hotel Chamonix and had a great trout dinner, with a yummy chocolate dessert. The next morning, I cruise around town a bit before going to the slopes. I ended up in this shop and negotiate for them to drop me off at Mischifflen and pick me up in a few hours, when I am finished for the day. Turns out there wasn't really snow at Mischifflen and neither of the lifts were running. All the rentals were run out of roadside stands in the parking lot and there was one snowboard available. I, however, did not feel like treking up the hill for several hours and decided to pass. Tarek, the gentleman driving me there, felt bad and asked if I wanted to see some apes. I'm not really a fan of apes, but when in Morocco....

Kicking a Barbary Ape in the Head
The forests around Ifrane are ancient cedar forests, which are gorgeous. This area is considered the Middle Atlas and the air is so clear and beautiful, it was a huge change from Rabat. At one time the forests of Ifrane had lions roaming wild, now there are only the apes. When we saw the first one on the side of the road we pulled over. There were other people around who had also stopped to look. I was pretty leary and left the car door open in case I needed to run back fast. Well, after you saw the first one there were lots of them. After a bit I felt more comfortable and so I shut the car door. I went over to take some pictures and turned around to walk back to the car when a middle sized one came running at me. I stuck out my foot and kicked it right in the head. It screamed, I probably screamed and then a big one started coming for me. At this point, I know I'm loud and running for the car. Visions of rabies shots are flashing through my mind, while it's gaining on me. I knew I wouldn't make it to the car fast enough so, I stopped and turned to face it real quick and that scared it away. Thank God.

I think Tarek must have felt really bad about that, because he proceeded to turn the rest of the morning into a sightseeing trek. We went through Azrou to a fantastic overlook of the Middle Atlas and then onto the Cedre Gourou, which is an 800 year old cedar tree. It's no longer alive, but it's still standing and is huge. Not what I expected from my trip, but a really pleasant surprise. When I leave my volunteering here in Rabat, I'll head that way again for a longer stay