Pictures!

So you may have noticed that you recognize some of the people on the slide show to the right. That is because I finally got round to uploading all the pictures we've taken in Morocco. You can sit back and enjoy the show here on my blog page, or if you click on it, you will be brought to my picasa web page so that you can browse all the pictures at your leisure. Happy viewing!

Additional Blog Notes...

First of all, I would like to introduce you to Igli, our angsty and entertaining adolescent cat. Also, I want to point out that I have been behind on my posts so below are three posts which I added at the same time. Just didn't want anyone to miss them. Finally, I'm happy to report more recordings being showcased on the MySpace account: http://www.myspace.com/moroccansean . This time its all sounds from the field as it were. There are two good examples of the "target language" of TashlHite in use; one of me practicing with my tutor, and one of a typical conversation around the tea table. Then there is "The Afternoon Drum Session", in which some neighborhood children get together and start a drum circle, which is later accompanied by the afternoon call to prayer. Then there is " Pious Bleach Delivery Service", a recording of the our local version of an ice cream truck, except that this truck sells home-made bleach for house cleaning and they blast Arabic readings of the Koran instead of cute melodies. Finally, there is "Banjo on the Hill"; a bit hard to hear, but this is a recording of a pretty decent banjo player, belting out a tune up on the hill overlooking the fields I happened to be walking through. Enjoy!

International Hand Washing Day

Yesterday, October 15th, was "International Hand Washing Day", which by the way is not an easy concept to convey to people who are not familiar with attributing days to the celebration of random healthful activities, especially in a second language. Nonetheless, after reading about the significance of hand washing (regular/proper hand washing can prevent as many as 50% of deaths caused by diarrhea among children, and a quarter of all respiratory illness among children, as well as many skin and eye infections), I decided to use the day as a personal motivator to get out and do some grassroots health training. Luckily for me, "Hand Washing Day" fell on a Thursday this year, which happens to be souq day. And what better place than a popular souq attracting many men, children, and some women from all over the area to disseminate healthy hand washing tips? You might be thinking, "But isn't it awkward to go up to a bunch of strangers and try to teach grown men how to wash their hands"? The answer, is "Yes. Extremely awkward". That is why I took advantage of a traditional cultural practice to help me break the ice. If you have ever been a guest in a Moroccan household and eaten a meal, or even at Moroccan restaurants in America, you have probably seen what we call "lmaxsl". This is basically a kettle of water and a basin to catch the water in. As a guest, you are presented with the "lmaxsl" and somebody will offer to pour water from the kettle into the basin so that you can wash your hands. This portable hand washing device, which Moroccans are very comfortable with, seemed like a great way to open dialogue. My idea was to walk around souq with the "lmaxsl" and offer to wash peoples hands in hopes that they would ask me what I was doing. I also made some fliers with all the necessary hand washing information in transliterated TashlHite as well as in Arabic, in case people wanted a reminder later, or in case my language was failing me.
Amber and I woke up a bit earlier than usual Thursday morning, and practiced telling each other how and when to wash our hands in TashlHite, over breakfast of barley couscous, coffee, and tea. Then we gathered our things, wrote down a quick shopping list, and headed out the door. Souq was already bustling when we came over the hill into the center of town. Knowing that the best fruits and vegetables go fast, we did our souq shopping first thing. Just in from the front gate and to the right, I visited my spice guy. He has a beautiful array of colorful spices, beans, pastas, and grains. This day I just asked for 2dhs worth of cinnamon, and a bar of soap to offer to people washing their hands. Then I headed all the way back to the far right corner of the market where I found my veggie seller, busy as usual. I bagged up all the fruit and veggies I thought I would need for the week and handed them to him to weigh. Some quick stops at the wholesale onion pile, an apple dealer, and a friendly banana salesman, and then it was time to buy the "lmaxsl". We found an appropriate size an price at our neighbors shop, paid the man, and we were off to teach health. We walked across the street to the "sbitar" (rural hospital), and filled up the kettle with water. In a moment of clarity, Amber remembered that we did not have a drying towel. As she prepared in the sbitar, I ran back outside and bought a hand-towel. When I returned, everything was ready except for our nerves. Up until that moment, the idea had seemed so exciting and fun; but as we walked out of the sbitar and down the busy street, I felt more than a little nervous that things wouldn't go as I had hoped. We both looked around anxiously for friendly faces, but most people were just busy doing there shopping. In fact we made it all the way to the back of the souq without washing a single hand or talking to anybody. In the back of the souq, there were some small cafes. Knowing how important hand washing is before eating, I asked the owner if we could hang out around the cafe and offer to wash people's hands, to which he agreed. This was a cafe full of aging men much more concerned with their tea and their socializing than with what we had to say, so we took it in stride when we were awkwardly turned away by the first few people we asked. Perhaps out of pity, of just in the spirit of the quirkiness of the moment, eventually some men did agree to wash their hands. And to my surprise, they even asked us the right questions so that we could have a fairly natural discussion about hand washing. After the discussion, we gave them some fliers in Arabic. When the other men in the small cafe saw this, many of them wanted to read the flier, so that soon many of the men were sitting around reading the fliers and discussing them among themselves. Having affected all the people we could at the cafe, we decided to move on. Outside, not far from the cafe, there were a few kids looking at us curiously. We convinced them to wash their hands, and then gave then the fliers and told them what the fliers said. When two of the boys still seemed interested, we asked them if they would be interested in helping, to which they said yes. We went over the information with them one more time and then gave them a handful of fliers to pass out and discuss. Another lull in participation followed, but emboldened by some success, we carried on. Anyone who saw the "lmaxsl" and gave us a funny look, we would ask if they wanted us to wash their hands. Children proved to be more curious and therefore more participatory. At one point, near the entrance of the souq, we ran into our imam friend. We greeted each other and he asked us what we were doing. We explained it to him, and asked if he would like to wash his hands, which he reluctantly did. Somehow, this became the tipping point for a mass of interest. Soon we had a line of people waiting to get their hands washed, and we were passing out fliers and talking about hand washing as fast as we could. Eventually, the crowd of people got so thick that people were grabbing for fliers without even being able to see what they were. It was a feeding frenzy until we were out of fliers. Luckily we still had the original, so we went and made another 80 copies and refilled the kettle. When we returned, we had figured out the system, so once again near the souq entrance we quickly amassed a circle of curious people wanting to get their hands washed and hear what we were talking about. All in all we washed probably 30 peoples hands, and gave away over 200 fliers, although probably only about 150 should actually be counted. In addition, we thoroughly trained two kids who turned around and taught others. In fact, I noticed this effect happening a lot among the grown men as well. When the big groups would form around me, I would talk to one man about the importance of hand washing, and then hear him explaining it to other people around the group. So as Amber and I walked back home in the afternoon with bags full of our vegetables, some soap, and a well used "Lmaxsl", it was with a sense of accomplishment that I have rarely felt since coming to Morocco. Don't forget to wash your hands!

Desert Dessert

We are maybe an hour up a deceptively steep desert path. It winds out of the ravine where our quiet neighborhood rests, and then aligns at the top of the hill where a vast flat desert stretches on into infinite. Eventually a triangular intersection in the dirt leads it north following a riverbed snaking into the majestic foothills. The long flat desert hills fall away replaced by ever-steeper, wind-chiseled rock faces. We have just crossed the deep sandy bed of the parched river. Our bikes cast oblong, slender shadows rippling along the rocks and pebbles. To our left, a beautiful sculpture of deep red dirt and rock cleaves up into the sky framing the moon still visible in bright daylight. To our right, a bit further off, a wide round mountain pulls away from the riverbed, curving around towards the taller purple mountains behind it. A herd of sheep and goats numbering in the hundreds trot across its face like water pouring sideways, separating and rejoining around outcropped boulders, always finding the path of least resistance. A shepherd wearing a green turban scrambles up the rocks directing the animals and staring down the valley at a pair of tourists on bikes. There's something unusual about them he can't place. They seem more at home than they should. Way up ahead, we will encounter a single fig tree carefully propped up by a stick. It grows from an unlikely babbling stone well at the top of a desolate hill. But that will be later. We are still near the riverbed being watched by the shepherd. Bumping down the road ahead of us is a large green truck with colorful yellow and red decorations and a white grill. We have pulled our bikes off into the brush to let the truck pass. We are waiting, watching the sheep and goats flow by. The truck trundles to a stop at our side, still loud and chugging. The driver asks us where we are going. We ask him where he has been, and say we are going there. He smiles, reaches across to the far end of his dashboard, and then stretches his hands down to us. His hand opens to reveal a collection of golden dates. Amber takes the handful and he repeats this action offering another handful to me. "Llah yrhm welidin", we chant (God bless your parents). The truck lets out a squeak and a long grunt and is off again on the bumpy road, dust and diesel rolling on after it. A breeze blows down the mountain cooling the sweat on our temples. We watch the shepherd watching us. We turn and look at the moon. We eat our dates.

Agadir

It has been said that Agadir is a city without a soul. Devastated by an earthquake in 1960, which buried the waning port town along with 18,000 of its unfortunate inhabitants, Agadir was quickly rebuilt in the modern, preplanned grid style for which it is now recognized. Its subsequent lack of chaos and organic growth evident in most other Moroccan cities may be superficial evidence of soullessness, however, a closer look at the city revealed to me depth and personality which discredits Agadir's regrettable nickname, "the LA of Morocco". It is true that Agadir is modern and organized compared to other Moroccan cities, but I found the inhabitants to be equally, if not more welcoming than their Moroccan peers.
We arrived later than we had hoped to the ever-bustling transport hub of the outer suburb of Inezgane. Climbing down from our bus, we traversed pushy ticket salesman yelling out common destinations, food cart workers fanning glowing embers with torn squares of cardboard beneath bright spiced meats , and children wandering between the buses with boxes of Kleenex, gum, travel medicine, fans, and other trinkets for the tourists and departing travelers. Just around the wall of the station, across from an vast souq market, down an alley that smelled of urine, we found the entrance to our towering hotel. At the front desk was a smart and vivacious, well dressed Moroccan. Short, broad shouldered, and with an unusually long gait, he quickly prepared our paperwork and promptly lost us behind him in the cavernous halls as he galloped up the stairs to inspect our room. Soon we were settling in to a pleasant room overlooking the busy street below, with fresh towels and hot showers.
The next morning we woke to the sound of horns and squeaking brakes from the street below. We were visiting Agadir to meet some friends from our old training group back in Azilal, Marge and Jess; and also to pick up and meet Marge's parents, who were flying in from the states the following day. Soon enough we got a call from our friends, who had just arrived from their homes south of Agadir. I rushed down the three flights of stairs to find them already talking with the jovial hotel staff, which had multiplied to three gentlemen. I brought them up to see the view from the room as we finished packing our belongings, and then, after paying at the front desk and bantering in TashlHite about sleeping and dreaming, we bid farewell to the kind men at the hotel and walked back around the wall to the station where we had arrived the night before. In the morning sun, were row after row of hundreds of sky blue grand taxis (Major cities in Morocco, like in America, have "petite" taxis, which transport passengers within the city. All across Morocco, however, there are also "grand" taxis, which are perhaps the most common form of transportation between cities. Each region of Morocco has a different color scheme for its taxis. In the Agadir region, taxis are a smile-invoking, retro, sky blue. In my region of Ouarzazate, the taxis are a similarly retro, but far less smile-invoking, yucca beige. Unlike a petite taxi which will take 1-3 passengers at any time, grand taxis will only leave for their destination once they have at least 6 passengers. Occasionally, this number may grow to as many as 10 passengers. In these cases, passengers may sit between the driver and his door, or even in the trunk!) The friendly blue sea of taxis sparkling in the morning sun was enough to renew my faith in the "grand" taxi experience, which had been severely tested the previous day upon trying to arrive in Agadir.
The previous day: We had, as usual, had no problem getting into the city of Ouarzazate, however, once we arrived there, we found our intended bus already full. Usually this is not an issue because there is always the option to take a grand taxi. We headed to the taxi stand, still confident things would go smoothly, but that was not our destiny. Instead we found a group of scheming "kurtis" (the men that sell taxi seats). First, they insisted that because there were no taxis from the region we were going to, we would have to pay double for the "round trip" price. To this we responded that we would gladly wait for a taxi from the intended region to arrive. When one such taxi did arrive, they preceded to fill it with people who arrived after us in line, so that there was no seats left for us. For nearly a half an hour, with the taxi full and waiting to leave, we stood fervently behind it, arguing with the "kurtis" in TashlHite, and blocking the taxi from leaving. When it was clear that we could not change there mind, we said that if we could not take that taxi, we would surely not give them the pleasure of taking any of their other taxis, and with that we walked to a nearby bus station and bought tickets on the next bus. This gave us some time to relax in Ouarzazate and eat lunch. Oddly enough, as we walked back towards the bus station from lunch, we came across one of the more sleazy "kurtis". Half-joking, I gave him a full and pleasant Moroccan greeting, to which he replied unexpectedly, (in tashlHite) "Please don't take what happened at the taxi stand personally. It's just business. You have to understand that people here in Morocco are not honest and trustworthy like they are where you come from. Forgive us and have a good day." And with that he was off with a wave and a smile. As it turned out, the bus we took ended up being a much nicer and (as always) cheaper option, and it was worth the stress of the argument to have experienced the event, and I suppose, to practice arguing in the "target language".
Back in Agadir: After taking in the view of the taxis, we grabbed some delicious avocado-banana smoothies and pastries to fuel us for the day ahead. From there we headed to a new hotel in downtown Agadir and dropped off our stuff. The hotel was downright fancy, despite a very decent price tag, and was just a short walk from the famous sandy Agadir beach and surrounding boardwalk. As we left the hotel, I got a call from a Moroccan friend, who lives in Agadir, but grew up in our town. He was working not far from the hotel so we made our way down the hill to meet him. As we walked, I was a bit surprised, by the none-Moroccans that I saw. Although, I was expecting to see lots of tourists, we happened to visit during a lull in the tourist season, so what I saw instead, was a surprising number of expats living in the city; fair skinned Americans and Europeans, with cargo shorts and worn t-shirts ambling down side-streets with strollers or pets on leashes. I later discovered that there are whole neighborhoods dedicated to these expats living in Agadir. In fact, our next stop would bring me to Marjon, the epicenter of these foreigners.
As you may know by now, Marjon is a large department/grocery store that exports goods from around the world and therefore provides volunteers and expats with many of those basic things that they used to take for granted while begrudgingly walking up and down the well lit grocery isles of America as just another chore to check off the "to do list". This being our second visit to Marjon since arriving in Morocco, Amber and I were much more controlled with our purchases than last time, and I felt proud to have largely overcome my urge to splurge. At least in my buying habits, I have taken one more step towards assimilating with the Moroccans that I live among. In fact, I spent the majority of my time at Marjon talking with a group of employees who decided I was the coolest thing since white bread because I knew some TashlHite. They even invited me up to the employee lounge for lunch, but I had to take a rain check. This actually proved to be a common theme in Agadir. Everywhere that we went, we were approached as tourists, but after a few words of TashlHite were spoken, we were embraced as friends. Wide grins spread across the faces of salesmen, waitors, and passersby, when they discovered that we were speaking their original language (not, mind you, the languages they speak most of the time, Arabic or sometimes French; but the language that their parents speak with them back in the adobe homes of their childhood). In true Moroccan fashion, many of these startled new friends would invite us to their homes for tea or a meal, and many even gave us their phone number or email address. Even for Morocco, the people of Agadir were over-the-top hospitable and friendly. When we visited the famous, vast markets of souq Lhed, we were given free fruit, dates, or in one instance, a key chain with a painted seashell. At one DVD shop, when they discovered that we spoke TashlHite, they asked if we were interested in the latest TashlHite version of the animated movie "Ratatouille". "Yes of course", was our immediate response. Entertainment and language study in one sweet Pixar package, and all for just 10 dhs!
Eventually we made our way to the beach to watch the sunset. This was my first time seeing the ocean since we flew over it and landed in Africa almost 8 months ago. We walked around barefoot in the fine sand and savored the views of the sun setting over the water. To the right, framing the sunset, was the tall mountain where ruins still stand of the original 16th century kasbah from which Agadir gets its name ("agadir" is the Tashlhite word for wall, but it also refers to a walled fortress). On the steep face of the mountain below the kasbah "God, King, and Country" are written in large Arabic script which lights up each night after the sun set. Under the green glow of the script on the mountain, we wandered around the boardwalk enjoying the cool air of early fall days. After a while, we decided it was time to go to bed, but all the roads back to our hotel were now blocked for what we were about to find was a huge street parade. We joined the crowds gathering on the sidewalks just as the parade began, and watched as float after energetic float pasted us by. In addition to floats representing most of the regions of Morocco, there were also camels, jugglers, stilt-walkers, skate-boarders, free-style bikers, a float depicting the famous food of Morocco (tagine and couscous), and even a float blasting the classics of the late Michael Jackson while Moroccan youth took turns break dancing under a disco ball. When the parade finally passed, we crossed the street and continued to the hotel. Before going to bed however, we decided to get a late-night snack. Most of the cafes and hanuts around the hotel were closed, but after rounding one street corner we observed a bright yellow and white neon sign coupled with the delicious smell of a well used grill. I can't remember the exactly name of the place, but it was something like, "The Brooklyn Diner". Buzzing with activity and smelling better and better the closer we came, this little swarma deli was exactly what we were looking for. In fact, it was beginning to seem like Agadir knew my desires better than I did. My final desire, to get a good nights sleep, was also met by the accommodating city, so it was with bright eyes and rested body that I awoke the next morning to another beautiful day.