Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Mental photos
So this evening I am sitting on the top of our center looking into the southwest at the most amazing sunset and light I have seen in the past 6 months of traveling. The sun is now red and is about to go under the horizon, but in the last rays of light I'll describe the evolution of the light in the past 15 minutes. It started with the sun being low in the sky but still behind a layer of cloud, it was a bright gold, very strong light color like a really hot flame. The edge of the cloud and the open sky way a single ray of the brightest light; like a ribbon waving across the sky. The sky to the north and east was turning ever more purple but as the sun descended it hit the medina and light up the white buildings slowly turning them orange as the sun lowered. The depth in the light was amazing and you could see every corner in the countless building. The mosques rose above everything like orange pillars. A rainbow came out of nowhere in the north and was part of a purple that the sky was becoming. All of a sudden the sun hit the horizon and the sky turned deep orange and the light died on the city only to turn the cloud that was once this bright white gold into a pink deep fire. The sun turned dark red and then dipped below the horizon. The curtain of cloud is still red but slowly tiring. Cobalt gold dying into dark grey. Didn't have my camera, this is one of those mental photos. Now the call to prayer starts.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Todra in 54 hours
With ISP upon us, I wanted to try and go on one last grand adventure before I had to face the reality of starting my research project. I had aspirations of visiting the Todra gorge ever since I had read about it in the guidebook. It boasted 1000 ft. walls and a narrow bottom. The gorge is located on the other side of the Atlas Mountains near the desert, a long way from Rabat. To get there we had to take a 14-hour bus ride down to Marrakech, up over the mountains and then back up the other side of the mountains to the small town of Tinehir.
The bus ride was a surreal experience and would turn out to be the most interesting part of the short weekend for me. Mike, Kelsi, Henry and caught the bus leaving Rabat at 10 on Saturday night. These buses are a dirtier, older version of the tour buses we have been traveling around the country in our group for the past 3 months. They make constant stops in order to try and maintain a full passenger load, as to increase profit for the bus driver and decrease happiness of the customer. The most interesting of these frequent stops occurred at the base of the Tiz’n Tichca, the highest mountain road pass in Morocco. It was about 4 in the morning and I had only been able to daze off and on into lucid dreams of snow, Erica, thanksgiving at home and other comforting thoughts. To announce stops they abruptly switch the cabin lights on….brutal. I stumbled off the bus to three shops lit up in what was otherwise a surrounding darkness and freezing air of the high Moroccan mountains. Smoke was billowing up from two barbecues stationed in front of two butcher shops ready for hungry customers from the bus. I have the remaining image when looking into one of the shops of this solitary face in a sea of products surrounding it.
I drifted in and out of sleep over the next couple hours awakening to sunset over the now desert landscape. We arrived in Tinehir around 10 or 11 on Sunday, and quickly jumped in a grand taxi that drove us up into the gorge. The beginning of the gorge is beautiful with a long green palmary spilling out of the mouth of it, but as you drive further into it, and the walls become more spectacular, it becomes increasingly apparent that this is a very touristy destination. Hotels and small guesthouses are everywhere and there are a number of tourists walking along what is now a paved road bottom of the gorge. We decided to spend the night in a spectacularly placed hotel in the narrowest section of the gorge under a HUGE overhanging wall. Although exhausted, we managed to walk up a bit and sit on some warm rocks further down the gorge where it opens back up.
We were all very impressed with the physical beauty of this place, but we all agreed the infrastructure and people marred the experience. It is kind of disappointing to end the description at that, but that’s the impression I left with. We crashed really early that night and slept in. We woke up, packed and decided to start hiking down the road in hopes we would hitch a ride back to Tinehir. 4 or 5 km later we got picked up. Nobody wanted to pick us up. It was strange. Perhaps we smelled kind of funky from the bus ride the night before.
Back in Tinehir, we passed the time by talking with a local man who was nice enough to show us around without trying to get us to pay him. I had decided I needed to get back to Rabat to be able to start some work, so my plan was to leave the others on the 5 o’clock bus. I spent the remainder of my time shopping and bargaining, at one point being called a “Berber” because my price was to low. I think it’s the Moroccan form of the “Jew” insult. Little did he know…haha. I found that pretty funny for some reason: maybe it reminded me of high school and how my friends would react to me not ever wanting to spend money, I don’t know.
The bus ride back was long and uneventful, but when I finally got off the bus at 5:20 the next morning, I had a pretty unique experience. I walked through the medina virtually alone. It was eerie to a point where it hard to describe. Having lived in this city for the past three months and never seeing the streets empty left me under the impression of never really feeling alone. For the first time, I was alone. It was dark, and I didn’t have my key to my house. Being me, I didn’t want to wake up my family, so I decided to wander around as much as I could until I either got mugged or couldn’t stand anymore. I walked around, found some comfortable stairwells to take little naps in. Around 5:45 the call to prayer started and awaked the medina for a moment. It was amazing to just sit in the dark stairwell with a little light coming in from the street and listen to the prayer erupt around me. It finally died, and I moved on fearing the man of the house would come back from prayer and leave for prayer. The only things that were open where the mosques. I discovered new ones i never new existed, especially on the main drag where I am normally only used to seeing barber shops and street venders. At 6:30 I decided to ring my bell, my dad got mad at me for not ringing it sooner thinking I was crazy to wander the streets alone. I disagreed, but didnt say anything.
random facts:
-28 hours in a bus
-24 hours at the gorge
-stupid idea?
-it was cool to see people climbing in the gorge
The bus ride was a surreal experience and would turn out to be the most interesting part of the short weekend for me. Mike, Kelsi, Henry and caught the bus leaving Rabat at 10 on Saturday night. These buses are a dirtier, older version of the tour buses we have been traveling around the country in our group for the past 3 months. They make constant stops in order to try and maintain a full passenger load, as to increase profit for the bus driver and decrease happiness of the customer. The most interesting of these frequent stops occurred at the base of the Tiz’n Tichca, the highest mountain road pass in Morocco. It was about 4 in the morning and I had only been able to daze off and on into lucid dreams of snow, Erica, thanksgiving at home and other comforting thoughts. To announce stops they abruptly switch the cabin lights on….brutal. I stumbled off the bus to three shops lit up in what was otherwise a surrounding darkness and freezing air of the high Moroccan mountains. Smoke was billowing up from two barbecues stationed in front of two butcher shops ready for hungry customers from the bus. I have the remaining image when looking into one of the shops of this solitary face in a sea of products surrounding it.
I drifted in and out of sleep over the next couple hours awakening to sunset over the now desert landscape. We arrived in Tinehir around 10 or 11 on Sunday, and quickly jumped in a grand taxi that drove us up into the gorge. The beginning of the gorge is beautiful with a long green palmary spilling out of the mouth of it, but as you drive further into it, and the walls become more spectacular, it becomes increasingly apparent that this is a very touristy destination. Hotels and small guesthouses are everywhere and there are a number of tourists walking along what is now a paved road bottom of the gorge. We decided to spend the night in a spectacularly placed hotel in the narrowest section of the gorge under a HUGE overhanging wall. Although exhausted, we managed to walk up a bit and sit on some warm rocks further down the gorge where it opens back up.
We were all very impressed with the physical beauty of this place, but we all agreed the infrastructure and people marred the experience. It is kind of disappointing to end the description at that, but that’s the impression I left with. We crashed really early that night and slept in. We woke up, packed and decided to start hiking down the road in hopes we would hitch a ride back to Tinehir. 4 or 5 km later we got picked up. Nobody wanted to pick us up. It was strange. Perhaps we smelled kind of funky from the bus ride the night before.
Back in Tinehir, we passed the time by talking with a local man who was nice enough to show us around without trying to get us to pay him. I had decided I needed to get back to Rabat to be able to start some work, so my plan was to leave the others on the 5 o’clock bus. I spent the remainder of my time shopping and bargaining, at one point being called a “Berber” because my price was to low. I think it’s the Moroccan form of the “Jew” insult. Little did he know…haha. I found that pretty funny for some reason: maybe it reminded me of high school and how my friends would react to me not ever wanting to spend money, I don’t know.
The bus ride back was long and uneventful, but when I finally got off the bus at 5:20 the next morning, I had a pretty unique experience. I walked through the medina virtually alone. It was eerie to a point where it hard to describe. Having lived in this city for the past three months and never seeing the streets empty left me under the impression of never really feeling alone. For the first time, I was alone. It was dark, and I didn’t have my key to my house. Being me, I didn’t want to wake up my family, so I decided to wander around as much as I could until I either got mugged or couldn’t stand anymore. I walked around, found some comfortable stairwells to take little naps in. Around 5:45 the call to prayer started and awaked the medina for a moment. It was amazing to just sit in the dark stairwell with a little light coming in from the street and listen to the prayer erupt around me. It finally died, and I moved on fearing the man of the house would come back from prayer and leave for prayer. The only things that were open where the mosques. I discovered new ones i never new existed, especially on the main drag where I am normally only used to seeing barber shops and street venders. At 6:30 I decided to ring my bell, my dad got mad at me for not ringing it sooner thinking I was crazy to wander the streets alone. I disagreed, but didnt say anything.
random facts:
-28 hours in a bus
-24 hours at the gorge
-stupid idea?
-it was cool to see people climbing in the gorge
Monday, November 12, 2007
Rural Home Stay Week
Its hard to describe a whole week in detail, especially when days and nights run together like they do out in the country. It's not so much that you count days when you are out there but you just go through cycles. Life is a cycle that is dictated by the rising and setting of the sun. Cliché perhaps but it is very true: you wake up with the sun at about 6 and go to bed shortly after the setting of the sun. You have a morning devoted to whatever task is at hand. Then, you eat. Then, you have your afternoon devoted to whatever you are doing. Then, you eat. Then, you lounge with family. Then, you sleep. Then, wake up and do the same thing over again.
Our week in a rural village started out with a three-hour bus ride south to a town called Boujaad. There we were greeted by a ridiculous parade of people in this one neighborhood. They were welcoming us to this education center where we learned briefly about what they do. The parade convoy was then marched up a block to a nice house where we all enjoyed a huge couscous. The entourage made me uncomfortable. We then boarded the bus to make our way to the little villages, in which we would be staying individually with families for the next week. I didn’t really know what to expect, but, surprisingly in my case, I wasn’t really worried about it at all. I know that comes as a great shock to some of you, but there was just no need to worry about it since I would be there for the next week regardless and that would just make it that much more uncomfortable.
Luckily, I was to live in this secluded complex of houses closest to the hills and farthest away from the main village with five other of my close friends; Bryon, Alex, Mike, Dan, and Greg. So, the men (our host fathers and us) set off to our homes walking along the highway for ten minutes and then following a pleasant dirt road into the hills. The sun was low in the sky and sent rays of yellow light up into the darkening sea of blue; it was beautiful. I got to see the silhouettes of the neighboring houses above me for the first time, a sight that every night subsequently I would be able to sit back and just soak in. The setting of the sun, the evening light and silhouettes would become my favorite memory.
My family was relatively small in comparison to others. I had a father, mother and three young sisters. This is a regular village not even a poor one by any accounts but I now know what its like to live at the $2 a day mark. I have never eaten so much bread in my life. The diet consists of bread at every meal along with olive oil or this kind a melted off butter I describe later, and maybe a plate of tagine, lentils, or salad. To wash it down you have Moroccan whiskey, aka sweet mint tea, a lot of tea. The bread(hobbes) is amazing, fresh baked every day before every meal and the olive oil…best I have ever had.
I find it pretty hard to account for everything that went on during the week, so this is going to be loose thoughts from the week that will float back to my memory in hopefully somewhat of a chronological order. The pictures will help more description of the time that was spent
Here are some notes I wrote on my first night there:
- Sitting in silence on the concrete floor with a worn sheepskin mat over it with my father Mustafa. The room is dark with only one halogen light bulb powered by a solar panel that sucks up the suns energy all day.
- We both silently sip on tea and eat bread with what seems to be melted goat butter? That tastes a little off. I don’t eat very much of it.
- His praying in the corner is the only thing I can hear. Short swift mumbling under his breathe.
- We sit again in silence, youngest daughter has joined us in silence. Mother comes into room and beings to pray in corner. Silence.
That was the theme for the week. When I was with my friends I was talking, joking, playing cards, playing a game like charades. When I was with my family it was quiet and I was blissfully ignorant to what was being said around me and unable to communicate as they only speak Darija (the Moroccan dialect of Arabic) and I don’t really know much. It was kind of nice not being able to communicate. Just sitting back and staring at each other until we would all go to sleep.
I would follow my dad around in the hills whether he was herding or digging holes for the current reforestation project in the area. It’s hard to imagine that trees once grew here.
There was a craggy hill behind all our houses and we would hike up it for a nice view and good game of charades. The evening light would drape across the valley and would invite good emotion and comfort at our current position. The best way to describe this place is a simple beauty. Life is simple here. The landscape is simple, the houses are simple, the diet is simple.
Some funny notes taken from day five.
- Day 5…Madness sets in.
- We sit and laugh at everything
- The Kfupe rides again…
- This room smells like “someone took a shit on a pile of old socks and the threw bottles of concentrated B.O. extract on it and then someone took another dump on that.”
- Its been concluded, by scientific inquiry and analysis that when two men are sitting alone things are fine…when more join them the farting begins.
- The brilliant Greg is quoted again…“ Hey are you guys sexually frustrated? Have you considered whacking it to the cover of my Jane Austin novel?......(long pause)…..because I have…(long pause)…there is plenty of cleavage and the women are looking at each other like they want to scissor…(long pause)…can I borrow that book tonight? (Alex)”
I feel like that might be the best way to end this entry and let the pictures fill in the rest.
Hope you enjoyed.
Our week in a rural village started out with a three-hour bus ride south to a town called Boujaad. There we were greeted by a ridiculous parade of people in this one neighborhood. They were welcoming us to this education center where we learned briefly about what they do. The parade convoy was then marched up a block to a nice house where we all enjoyed a huge couscous. The entourage made me uncomfortable. We then boarded the bus to make our way to the little villages, in which we would be staying individually with families for the next week. I didn’t really know what to expect, but, surprisingly in my case, I wasn’t really worried about it at all. I know that comes as a great shock to some of you, but there was just no need to worry about it since I would be there for the next week regardless and that would just make it that much more uncomfortable.
Luckily, I was to live in this secluded complex of houses closest to the hills and farthest away from the main village with five other of my close friends; Bryon, Alex, Mike, Dan, and Greg. So, the men (our host fathers and us) set off to our homes walking along the highway for ten minutes and then following a pleasant dirt road into the hills. The sun was low in the sky and sent rays of yellow light up into the darkening sea of blue; it was beautiful. I got to see the silhouettes of the neighboring houses above me for the first time, a sight that every night subsequently I would be able to sit back and just soak in. The setting of the sun, the evening light and silhouettes would become my favorite memory.
My family was relatively small in comparison to others. I had a father, mother and three young sisters. This is a regular village not even a poor one by any accounts but I now know what its like to live at the $2 a day mark. I have never eaten so much bread in my life. The diet consists of bread at every meal along with olive oil or this kind a melted off butter I describe later, and maybe a plate of tagine, lentils, or salad. To wash it down you have Moroccan whiskey, aka sweet mint tea, a lot of tea. The bread(hobbes) is amazing, fresh baked every day before every meal and the olive oil…best I have ever had.
I find it pretty hard to account for everything that went on during the week, so this is going to be loose thoughts from the week that will float back to my memory in hopefully somewhat of a chronological order. The pictures will help more description of the time that was spent
Here are some notes I wrote on my first night there:
- Sitting in silence on the concrete floor with a worn sheepskin mat over it with my father Mustafa. The room is dark with only one halogen light bulb powered by a solar panel that sucks up the suns energy all day.
- We both silently sip on tea and eat bread with what seems to be melted goat butter? That tastes a little off. I don’t eat very much of it.
- His praying in the corner is the only thing I can hear. Short swift mumbling under his breathe.
- We sit again in silence, youngest daughter has joined us in silence. Mother comes into room and beings to pray in corner. Silence.
That was the theme for the week. When I was with my friends I was talking, joking, playing cards, playing a game like charades. When I was with my family it was quiet and I was blissfully ignorant to what was being said around me and unable to communicate as they only speak Darija (the Moroccan dialect of Arabic) and I don’t really know much. It was kind of nice not being able to communicate. Just sitting back and staring at each other until we would all go to sleep.
I would follow my dad around in the hills whether he was herding or digging holes for the current reforestation project in the area. It’s hard to imagine that trees once grew here.
There was a craggy hill behind all our houses and we would hike up it for a nice view and good game of charades. The evening light would drape across the valley and would invite good emotion and comfort at our current position. The best way to describe this place is a simple beauty. Life is simple here. The landscape is simple, the houses are simple, the diet is simple.
Some funny notes taken from day five.
- Day 5…Madness sets in.
- We sit and laugh at everything
- The Kfupe rides again…
- This room smells like “someone took a shit on a pile of old socks and the threw bottles of concentrated B.O. extract on it and then someone took another dump on that.”
- Its been concluded, by scientific inquiry and analysis that when two men are sitting alone things are fine…when more join them the farting begins.
- The brilliant Greg is quoted again…“ Hey are you guys sexually frustrated? Have you considered whacking it to the cover of my Jane Austin novel?......(long pause)…..because I have…(long pause)…there is plenty of cleavage and the women are looking at each other like they want to scissor…(long pause)…can I borrow that book tonight? (Alex)”
I feel like that might be the best way to end this entry and let the pictures fill in the rest.
Hope you enjoyed.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Halloween
here are some pictures from a fun halloween party that the SIT kids threw at our center. creative costumes were seen and fun was had for a couple hours until they had to close the center down.
My 21st in Rabat
A low key birthday was had on the 30th of October, this 2007. Mike, Hen, Daniel and I decided to skip our second Politics lecture involving an elaborate escape plan from our Center where we barely made our way down an alternative stairwell out the front door before the angry tribals got us with their spears...my imagination got a hold of that thought. wont happen again. sorry.
We took some taxis down to Marjane (a big superstore on the water) to purchase a picnic of bread, bad cheese, dark chocolate, 7up and a bottle of Sunrise Tequilla. Its amazing how many "muslims" are buying alcohol. I put the quotations because alcohol consumption is forbidden in Islamic law. Almost everyone in the checkout line had some form of alcoholic beverage in their pile of stuff. I found the irony interesting. Is it hypocritical, hypothetically speaking, for a Islamist man to hate America, even though he is buying a six pack of Budwieser? The consensus of my peers is yes.
Anyway, we went to the big and beautiful public park by the Hilton in Rabat and had our picnic, talked, laughed, played frisbee and hung out until it got cold. Pretty much, not much more I could have asked for granted my surrondings.
We took some taxis down to Marjane (a big superstore on the water) to purchase a picnic of bread, bad cheese, dark chocolate, 7up and a bottle of Sunrise Tequilla. Its amazing how many "muslims" are buying alcohol. I put the quotations because alcohol consumption is forbidden in Islamic law. Almost everyone in the checkout line had some form of alcoholic beverage in their pile of stuff. I found the irony interesting. Is it hypocritical, hypothetically speaking, for a Islamist man to hate America, even though he is buying a six pack of Budwieser? The consensus of my peers is yes.
Anyway, we went to the big and beautiful public park by the Hilton in Rabat and had our picnic, talked, laughed, played frisbee and hung out until it got cold. Pretty much, not much more I could have asked for granted my surrondings.
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