The Inski Chronicles

Weekend in Vannes

2009-08-24T10:03:00.004+02:00

Spent a brief weekend on the south coast of Brittany in the beautiful city of Vannes. Here is a panorama from near the mouth of the canal that runs further inland to the port and city. I updated my website (www.aidanhaley.com) with a couple new photos from my weekend here. Check them out!

Teaching

2009-08-13T10:13:00.006+02:00

Here is a picture taken by my program director Tony Franklin of me teaching my first class. Look at that handwriting! Yikes! I've been practicing too.

Learning is a funny thing...

2009-08-11T21:53:00.002+02:00

Today, I was the teacher.

That's really weird to write and repeat in my head. Today, I was the teacher.

I was the teacher.

I have been in school for as long as I can remember and a couple years more. It has defined my life to this point. When people asked; what do you do? I chuckled, brushed the question off and responded, without belief and devoid of any seriousness, "I'm a student". In forms filled out at the doctor’s office, DMV, or the bank I have been a ‘Student”. My whole life I have been a student. In preschool, when I was four years old and moved to France with my brother and mother, I was placed in a public school where I learned to be thief, and became quite good at it. When I was in kindergarten, at the age of five I learned that being a thief didn’t feel good and wasn’t right for me. In fifth grade, I struggled to learn what a theme in literature was, and in eighth grade, I learned what it was like to really kiss a girls lips. Highschool and college were periods of learning so vast and fathomless I am too young still to see its true bottom. There were moments full of joys and heartaches, insight and confusion, ruin and reconstruction.

I was always that kid. That bastard of kid that teachers often loathed to see, but at the same time smiled slightly when I would saunter through the door. I am positive, more so than most other things in my life, that I have caused not one, but a multitude of gray hairs in most every teach that has ever come into contact with me. I have been called ‘cavalier!’, a kid with so much unutilized ‘potential’. Those words permeate through most of my youth’s report cards. ‘Potential’, it still makes me smirk. I was a punk, a leader, an opinionated (often wrong, but never in doubt) little shit that somehow got anyway with murder while the other kids seemed to get blamed for it. This kid sounds egocentric, and he was. The world was about him, what child’s world isn’t?

Suddenly, today I found myself teaching my first English class to five eight-year-old French children. I was no longer the one giving the gray hairs, but stepping into the world of receiving them.

I am in a small, crowded, makeshift classroom on a glorified farm outside the town of Plélauff, France. Its mid-August and it is a complete ghost town. There isn’t even a bakery and the church is locked up. A French town without a bakery or a church is something I will not speak of further because mentioning it seems blasphemous to me. I am looking down at Camille, Manuel, Stacy, Mathieu, and Sophie looking up at me with curious, semi-prudent eyes. I introduce myself and try to explain we will be learning about the weather and appropriate clothes to wear in said weather. This seems elementary, and it was, it had to be. Thirty minutes into it the lesson, after I had gone through serious doubts as to why I had even considered a path that placed me in the same shoes of so many adults I had cursed under my breath countless nights before a major due date, we had a moment. It was sweet and short, like most things beautiful in the world. The lesson finally clicked with the kids and a spark came out of their eyes. They became excited about the weather being ‘hot’ and wearing ‘shorts’ because of the heat. I couldn’t stop smiling, I was teaching someone something as insignificant as what hot and cold were, but that felt like a triumph. I finally realized why my childhood teachers were willing to put up with my friends and my bullshit. It was for moments like these. Those sparks, those mental clicks where a students finally understands derivatives, throws a beautiful pot on the wheel, or understands the symbolism behind Rose’s breast feeding at the end of The Grapes of Wrath. It gives teachers something special. I felt that today for the first time and it taught me something. I was the teacher today, but I never want to stop learning, regardless of subject matter.

Updates to start up again

2009-08-07T13:17:00.002+02:00

I am in France now and have been re-inspired to start up the blog. tell everyone who's interested that i will start updating soon. In the meantime check out the new layout of my website www.aidanhaley.com and also you can follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/aidanhaley for all of you who have twitter.

Update

2008-07-25T20:51:00.000+02:00

Have not posted since December, but if in fact people are still reading the blog about morocco then they will pleased to know that www.aidanhaley.com is up and running. check it out to see pictures of not only morocco but other parts of the world.

Mental photos

2007-11-28T18:14:00.000+01:00

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.

Todra in 54 hours

2007-11-20T17:37:00.000+01:00

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

Rural Home Stay Week

2007-11-12T13:43:00.000+01:00

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.

Halloween

2007-11-01T13:42:00.000+01:00

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

2007-11-01T13:41:00.000+01:00

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.

Lazy Weekend

2007-10-29T13:36:00.000+01:00

Spent the weekend laying around the Medina watching alot of soccer and drinking alot of espresso. Friday night was great because, as I was getting ready to go to bed, I walked out of my room on my way to take a leak and the court yard was completely illuminated. I looked up and the moon was looking straight down back at me. It was beautiful, so I just sat in the court yard playing with my camera and the light.

Rabat Rain

2007-10-25T16:50:00.000+02:00

Heavy rains in Rabat yesterday. Loved it even though it was definately to short. I wish it would rain for a day straight. The only thing that stinks when it rains are the streets. All that dry shit and urine that you can't see with the naked eye re-liquifies and stinks up the place. Its this stale, rotten dirt smell that evaporates off the slick tile roads. Smells are hard to describe. Thats all I can think of right now.

Southern Excursion 10/16-10/22

2007-10-24T17:10:00.000+02:00

Getting out of Rabat after two long weeks was a wonderful respite from the monotony of my daily routine. We left really early Tuesday morning on another big tourist bus for a weeklong field trip circling the Atlas Mountains. Day one consisted of driving up to Azrou, a small town nestled in the foothills of the Middle Atlas Mountains. It’s home to the biggest forest in North Africa. We drove up to the forest and had a nice, somewhat boring picnic (same thing we always have: consisting of bread, cheese, olives, potato chips, jelly etc.) in the pine tress with Barbary Apes playing around. It was interesting to be in forest in a country that most people associate with desert. It was nice, but littered with trash that made the stay less aesthetic. We drove back down the hill and settled into our nice hotel above the town. That night some friends and I went for a walk only to be stalked by a police car with its lights off thinking it was being sneaky, and another police man following us on foot. It made us all kind of uneasy, so we headed back to the hotel. No one likes sketchy authority figures.

We woke up really early, and by really early I mean 7 o’clock, to start our first of many long drives. The drive from Azrou to the dunes of Erg Chebbi was beautiful. Starting north around the Middle Atlas, we then turned south and followed the edge of the mountains till we hit desert. Beautiful winding roads through dry but green treed hills reminded me of the drive from Lewiston to McCall, Idaho. This led us to a more arid drive to Rissani, where we stopped for a great lunch of Berber pizza; bread with carrots, egg, and other stuff cut up inside toasted. We then all got into Land Rovers and headed toward the Sahara. We peeled off the paved road at some random spot and headed straight for the dunes. Out of nowhere, villages and small communities started to popup out of what had seemed to be flat, black, rocky land. We dismounted the Land Rovers at our impressively nice hotel/guesthouse on the edge of the dunes, and were herded onto the forty or so camels patiently waiting to take us for a nice sunset stroll into the biggest desert on the planet. These camels were different from the ones I rode in the Gobi in Mongolia. They did not have the two humps and were not as big.

The desert is going to be very hard to explain in words, and the pictures only start to grasp at the expanse of nothingness that unfolds in front of you. Imagine a stormy sea of very fine red sand frozen at its angriest moment by the heat of the North African sun. You have swells of dunes rising up from a shore of black rock that lays to the west. It’s endless; as far as the eye can see, and even when you wander out and find the highest dune in your vicinity you look see another dune in the distance that’s taller. The air has a stale sandbox smell to it and there is no moisture to be had.

I wondered out the farthest to the east and found a high perch where I could enjoy the sunset with no noise from the group. Maggie and Asia came up and joined me 5 minutes later followed by a couple others who left the dune shortly after arriving. Maggie, Asia and I stayed up there as long as we could trying to soak in the breadth on the desert that lay around us. The Gobi had dunes, but they had mountains in the background dwarfing them and did not give the same semblance of vastness that these did.

We made our way back to the inn and stayed up late talking and wandering out into the desert in the pitch black. Scary. You feel like your in some sci-fi movie where a sand creature is going to silently pick each one of your friends off at a time until its just you with the flashlight….alone…….breathing…heavily….and then your flash lights dies and all you have for company is your breath….and then the creatures breath behind you…

Anyway, Henry, Mike, Kelsi, Dan, Steffa, Jules, Hong and I woke up around four in the morning and starting hiking out east into the dunes in search of a high perch to watch the sunrise from. After an hour or so of walking we thought we had found a nice spot. A year ago, I had streaked across the Gobi desert at sunset and thought I should keep the tradition alive. So, the boys de-robbed and ran out into nothingness with nothing. It’s a very freeing feeling when you are in such an empty expanse relatively alone with nothing on you. Its just you, the desert and the stars. It got cold so I ran back to my clothes. The other boys followed.

The drive from the dunes to Ouarzazate is flat out one of the most gorgeous desert mountain landscape I’ve ever seen. Huge ancient fault lines create big flat valleys with southern-Utahish looking swells on either side with palm groves cutting in and out of valleys. I am not going to spoil it for other, just go to Morocco and make the drive.

I woke up the next morning feeling really crummy. The only thing this day turned out to be for me was a painfully LONG haul up over the High Atlas to Marrakech. I threw up and was leaking out of my butt hole in the morning and the twisty, turny mountain roads just added to the problem. Midway through the day I had to pull the trigger again. I wish I could have enjoyed the views more because they were astounding. Looking forward to them in December when I make the drive with the family. The sickness passed and the next morning Hen, Mike and I would be walking around the city all day shopping the souks and drinking fresh squeezed orange juice.

Sunday, I woke up and felt much better. Mike, Hen and I set off to wander the souks of Marrakech. We walked up and down the crowded narrow streets, shopped and bargained, ended up bartering away a set of American playing cards to get a lower price on a present. Pretty funny. That night we had dinner at one of the MANY food stands in the Djemaa el Fan Square and washed it down with the delicious fresh squeezed orange juice. A lot of tourists in the city, but its got a great vibe.

The next morning we departed for Essouria stopping at an Argon oil commune where women work to produce different types of culinary and cosmetic oils. We moved on to the town, which sits in a nice bay on the coast with a big beach stretching down to the south. We played a big soccer game on the beach, which was super fun and everyone was really into it. Still sore from it…ha that’s sad.

The drive back to Rabat was uneventful, stopping in El Jadida for the same picnic on the beach.

So as you can tell I kind of lost steam on this blog….it’s long enough as it is. But it conveys the week pretty well. Exciting up until leaving Marrakech and then kind of blah.

Asilah

2007-10-08T15:08:00.000+02:00

This past week seemed to crawl by, and I cannot believe it's only been seven days since the adventure to the falls of Ouzoud. This weekend I wanted to travel because I knew that next weekend was the end of Ramadan and supposedly it’s a huge party. I do not want to miss being with the family for that experience, so I flipped through the guidebook in search of an easily accessible destination with a beach and a beautiful town. Enter stage left: Asliah; A picturesque, small town that attracts a lot of tourists because of its clean-whitewashed medina streets, the old Portuguese ramparts surrounding the medina and a large amount of art; whether it be found in studios, on murals outside houses, or at the annual art/music festival held there every August. I wanted a relaxing weekend where we could find a beach and just walk around town and ‘be’ or read a book in a park.

My travel companions would again be my trusty sidekick Frenchman Henry accompanied by the lovely Asia and Maggie. I got Byron, a fellow CC student, to come along for the ride. We would conveniently be taking the train there from Rabat. The train ride there is a painless 4-hour ride for about 130 MDH round trip, which comes out to be about 14 bucks, and is direct with no stops or changes of trains needed, so it was a welcome change from last weekend. We got an early start Saturday morning leaving Rabat around 7:45 and sleeping/daydreaming most of the ride to Asilah. When we got off the train we hopped on the bus that brought us 2km into town. A clean, well laid out Nouvelle Ville (new town) with kids running around and fountains flowing welcomed us. We made our way to a nice budget hotel we had read about, but upon arrival passports where mandatory and of course most of us had left ours in Rabat. So, we wandered around finally finding a shadier hotel with stained sheets that would have to do.

We had read about a beach called Paradise beach that boasted of clean sand, no people and a nice 3 km hike along the coast to get to it. Sounded perfect. So we got changed, and started walking along the rampart wall of the medina to the southern end of town where we found the road/path that led along the coast. The hike was beautiful; traversing up and over ridges along the coast, looking down on the crashing waves against the sandstone cliffs and watching fishermen cast their lines into the ocean. We had a little picnic on top of one of the ridges. About two and half hours later and after what was more like 5km, we crested the final ridge and the beach laid out before us. It reminded me very much of the Oregon coast. The beach was long and broad and turned out to be the flattest beach I’d ever been on. The sand was very fine and you could walk out into the water for 100 yards before it would get to deep to stand. We played in the waves and body surfed for a bit. It was getting close to 6 and we knew that if we didn’t want to walk back the way we came we would need to find a ride back to town. After negotiating with a buggy driver we hopped on a horse drawn buggy for a bumpy, but great ride, back to town. We made our way along a dirt road for 20 minutes and then onto a paved road. The highlight was when I saw a man herding his sheep with the help of a Portuguese water dog! Lisbon! Made me miss my dog, but it was great to see a dog move and run the way my dog does.

Spent the evening at an overpriced, small-portioned restaurant, which I don’t really have much to say about. Went to a café with Henry where we enjoyed our regular Fanta Citron while watching Espanoyla beat Valencia. Played some cards in the hotel room and hit the hay after a long but good day.

We all slept in except Bryon. When we finally did wake up the sun was shinning, and we felt rested. We made our way to the ramparts and the entrance of the medina. This medina was the cleanest one I have been to so far and was beautifully painted. We had an espresso and made our way through small streets with interesting murals. The ambience of the town was perfect and calm, and you were always excited to see what kind of mural or paint job the building around the corner would have. We came to this house with a painting of hundred of little black figures called “The Tree of Life”: I think it was my favorite mural.

We had to catch the 2:45 train home so we went back the hotel packed up and decided to walk to the train station. Started reading Al Gore’s new book The Assault on Reason and I have to say I think it’s a good and important read for anyone concerned about the current state of politics and democracy in our country. A very intelligent and well-researched man with important things to say, take a look.

Casa-Blah-ca

2007-10-04T14:55:00.000+02:00

I was looking so much forward to having a long night sleep Tuesday night. We were going to Casablanca the next day in small groups to explore the city on our own, and we weren’t meeting at the train station until 10, perfect. Of course, Tuesday night was also a night were my mind would not stop running with constant thoughts of impending; ISP topics, loved ones, my ‘future’ and of course….doom. Ok, I am joking about the doom, but I had a lot going though my head and couldn’t get the sustained shuteye I was hoping for.

Woke up groggy eyed and put on the same pants and shirt I had been wearing for the past two days because the washing machine had been acting up and decided to die at the perfect moment when I had no clean shirts left or shorts. If West Africa taught me anything, its that hand washing clothes is a horrible chore, I wish upon no human being. I have never been so sore in my life than after the first time I hand washed a load of laundry. Ok, also another gross exaggeration but its tough, and I would rather wear the same shirt until the machine got fixed. There I said it.

I made my way down Mohammad V with unusual ease. Usually, I walk the boulevard at less opportune times when the crowds make it slow going. I was the first to get to our meeting spot and soon was joined by Michael and Kelsi, Henry and then Danny. We were going to be taking the train to Casablanca. The train system in Morocco is very easy and similar to the European lines, just not as fast. Countless games of 13 were played as the train rolled through the relatively uninteresting landscape that connects Rabat and Casa.

The train dropped us off at the port, which is in the city, and we started walking up a broad avenue toward what looked like a more central point of town. The buildings and apartments are the biggest I have seen since Paris and the only semblance of an old city was the median wall we were walking along. An old man said hello in English and then proceeded to try and sell me some hash, charming town.

Disillusioned already, we made our way to the Hyatt because we knew we would be able to get a coffee or orange juice there, it being Ramadan and all. After over priced orange juice and espresso, Mike, Kelsi and I took a cab to the Villa des Arts. It turned out to be under construction. Cool. So, we walked for a while trying unsuccessfully to get a cab for the longest time and finally making our way to the Hassan II Mosque.

The mosque is the biggest in Morocco, and has the tallest minaret in the world. It sits beautifully out on a point jutting into the ocean and hold hundreds of thousands of people for prayer. It was pretty impressive. On a relatively interesting note, the 13-year project to build the mosque was subsidized by forced donations from the people of Morocco, and, as a result of the loss of extra spending money that people had, the inflation rates dropped significantly in Morocco for a prolonged period of time. (see the comment at the bottom for another interesting tibit contributed by Jared Koch)

After that, we decided to walk by “Rick’s” café, a new café built four years ago based on the famous café in that Woody Allen movie made way back in the stone age right?.......anyone?.....Bueller?……jokes. The menu was again over priced, so we moved on preferring to eat at the McDonald’s.

We had had enough, and it was starting to rain more so we decided to call it a day and get back on the train. We were glad to b leaving Casa and knew that a more charming city awaited us up north. Basically, what I took away from the day was that Casa is a dirty European city that lacks its own charm and happens to be located in North Africa. Oh and that the Hassan II Mosque is big and beautiful and unique. If you come to Morocco spend your time somewhere else, you wont miss much. Blah

Cascades D'Ouzoud

2007-10-02T17:17:00.000+02:00

With our first REAL free weekend approaching, I wanted to do something adventurous and in the hills. I wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle that comes with visiting cities and just hike around with friend or alone and breath clean air.

My new American friends Mike, Henry, Brittany, Asia and Maggie were all on board to visiting the Cascades of Ouzoud, the biggest falls in Morocco, and although a very popular destination at peak season, we would be able to enjoy it without the crowds of August. The falls are around three hundred feet high and funnel into a river at the bottom that creates swimming pools and smaller falls for miles down stream.

One big problem for students is figuring out how to get places with both convenience and budget in mind. I had been pushing the idea of renting a small car and packing all six of us in because of the ability to go at our own pace. As it turned out, it was the cheapest of three options we had which were rental, Grand Taxi, and a bus / Grand Taxi combo. So, with the rental we got what we were looking for, convenience and budget. The entire weekend ended up costing us 61 bucks US for transportation, gas, food, lodging, not bad at all and totally worth every penny. We understood the added risk of traveling on the road in a country we did not know, but the pros outweighed the cons. We left Rabat late Friday afternoon and immediately upon leaving the city and getting on the auto route we got pulled over for no other reason than for a cop to just hassle a group of six American students. We talked ourselves out of a 400 MDH ticket (around 50 bucks) and continued on our way. Police stops were pretty commonplace throughout the weekend and we became comfortable with them realizing the cops weren’t going to do anything to us.

We had a small four door sedan with two up front and three in the back with Maggie, the smallest, laying over the three or wedged in the middle between Asia or Brittany’s legs. The ride there took 6 hours. She was a trooper. The drive there took us through the outskirts of Casablanca through flat, rolling, dry hills and many small towns. At one point we were navigating through a bigger town Khouribga and the signs ran out leading us to our next checkpoint when I spotted a white sign (white signs are the ones that point out towns) with Arabic and read the name of the city we were looking for! It was an exciting step forward in starting to understand the language. The whole car confirmed the sighting and the spelling, cheered and we headed on.

The drove soon changed as the sun set and we entered the mountains of the Middle Atlas. Hairpin turns; dodging cows and boar, passing slower cars led us to an amazing overlook where the moon illuminated a reservoir. Dams are very important to the countries water supply so reservoirs have popped up all over the country. The sight was beautiful but we all wanted to get to Ouzoud and still had more driving to do so we pressed on.

Arriving in Ouzoud, we found a humble camping spot with two straw shacks in the back with a mat over the dirt floor. It was perfect. The owner of the campsite generously made us a tangine of tomatoes, onions and egg. It was perfect. We took one shack for all six of us to conserve heat and money. We had all brought heavy blankets from our families in Rabat and thankfully because the nights were chilly.

We woke up, took breakfast of bread, cheese and jam that we had packed and made our way to the falls. Basically the day unfolded into making our way down to the main falls, sitting playing cards at the base for a bit while we waiting for the girls to join us, and then heading off down stream in search of the perfect swimming hole. We hiked for a half an hour and found a nice hole all to ourselves were we hung out, ate, and even swam under a waterfall into a cave. We decided to move on further downstream and see what else we could find.

About thirty more minutes hiking later, we stumbled upon THE perfect swimming hole. It was cleaner water (not as muddy), deeper and had a thirty-five foot cliff. We spent the remainder of the afternoon jumping, flipping and swimming around in that water hole. It’s hard to go into more detail because it was just a great afternoon swimming around in the mountains of Morocco. The water was cold, but refreshing because of the heat.

That night we had a delicious meal in a restaurant with an amazingly genuine atmosphere. All the men were eating Fetor (breaking the fast) when we walked in; the owner kindly stopped his eating, insisted on seating us and having food prepared. We told him we wanted to wait until he had finished his meal, but he was very persistent and even offered us some of their meal. We generously declined, but sat and waited more the soup, couscous, chicken tangine and lamb tangine that was served. It was a feast and after the men started to play music and dance. Everyone joined in as Mike, Henry, and I enjoyed music while playing cards again.

We made our way back to our shack and fell asleep. The morning came slowly and we packed up for the drive home. On the drive home we passed a small village and realized it was Sunday (market day) on our right was a huge market set up, so we parked the car and walked through it briefly. The parked mules and donkeys outnumbered the parked cars about 10 to 1. By parked mule, I mean a mule with his foot tied to a spike hammered into the ground. We took a different, more scenic way home and made back in time to break fast with the family.

Meknes, Moulay Idriss, Volubilis and Fes in a weekend

2007-09-25T18:07:00.000+02:00

This weekend we left on our first group excursion inland to the foothills of the Middle Atlas to see what remains of the four ancient kingdoms that at one point in time ruled Morocco. All 40 of us experienced the “Tour Bus” way to see a country. Not my favorite but it was a good introduction to these places that i'll revisit with the family when they are here in December. The drive to Meknes was uneventful on main highway through dry rolling farmland. Rural morocco in this region doesn’t seem too harsh as the farming infrastructure seems relatively modern and planned.

I wasn’t too impressed with Meknes, although to give it some credit I was only there for half a day. We visited the old granary, which was huge and empty. It was kind of eerie, but cool walking through the columns of it. The rest of our tour around Meknes was briefly rushed over (a mosque, and craft shop), so I didn’t take it in very much, but still interesting to see where the country was ruled from at one point in time. The only thing that really struck me was how big the palace walls were; most of time we were driving it seems to be along some kind of wall.

Next, we moved on to Moulay Idriss a beautiful ancient city that sits picturesquely on a hill overlooking a vast rolling plane of farmland. We parked the van and walked through the narrow streets to a guesthouse where we had a delicious four course lunch and tea and cookies on the rooftop terrace overlooking the city and valley and mountainsides.

After lunch, we drove down the hill to Volubilis where the largest Roman ruins in Morocco are found. We walked through the thousands of blocks strew everywhere. Columns, arches, temples and a reconstructed olive press where some of the remaining sites we could see. It was hot, open and the sun was high so getting back on the bus was nice.

The drive from Volubilis to Fes was absolutely beautiful with the late afternoon sun. Gorgeous reds, yellows, blues from lakes and Utah-ish terrain surrounded the bus, as it drove the windy hilly roads. I was falling in and out of sleep listening to Ratatat, and felt as if I was in a lucid dream. It was a beautiful drive.

Fes is home to one of the biggest medinas in the world, if not the biggest. We started off Sunday by driving up to a restored fort that over looks the medina and most of the city. It’s a massive expanse of monochrome tan square homes with satellite dishes like earrings; two or more hanging to a house. The streets lay secrectly inbetween the building but you cant see them from the hill. The medina has over 9,000 streets summing to about 60 miles in length if put all together. The streets vary in width from two lane roads to 20 inches where only one person can pass at a time or else there is an uncomfortable traffic jam. Donkeys carrying loads creep out of nowhere and almost run you over because they wear rubber shoes for grip on the slippery streets instead of horseshoes. You cannot hear them coming.

We wondered through markets where we saw butchers selling camel meat advertised with a head of a dead camel waiting to be sold. We made our way to the colorful tanneries and then through tightly packed souk streets where dust, donkeys and hundreds of people made the experience claustrophobic at times. Walking through the streets waves of varying smells overwhelm you ranging from shit to sweet dates stacked beautifully in a bowl waiting to be sold. And when you’ve finally made your way out to one of the gates and left the medina you feel like your leaving some world and entering another one less intimate and (I cant think of the word now but its just a sense of being removed from others)

I think of how easy it would be to be growing up in the medina and never leave it. I am sure it has that effect on people living there. There is everything you need there, and I bet once a kid leaves the medina for the first time to travel to say Rabat or tangier they also feel as if they are traveling to a different world.

praise in chant

2007-09-21T01:06:00.000+02:00

tonight i left my house to run an errand stepping out ,y front door into our alleyway street. I heard a rhythmic chanting coming from the main street in front of our house and turned the corner to see noone but a couple moraccans walking home, or to a cafe. i was confused and looked at the building nextdoor to where the chanting now seemed to be coming from. all the windows and doors where open and i could see the beatiful blues of the intricate tile work. I guess i live next door to a mosque. i glanced in the door as i passed only to see cubbies filled with shoes of the devote. Their chant of "ALLAH!" over and over and over again was the only sign of life in the building yet i couldnt see anyone.

I finished my errand and was walking back 20 minutes later and they were still chanting the same word "god".

ill leave it at that. dont really know what i am writing specifically but it was an interestingly beautiful moment where a building which normally is closed up and looks like every other building was protruding light.....chant....and this spirituality and i couldnt see a soul.

i didnt have the thought at the tiume but ten minutes later now its beautiful to think about. hmm

Ramadan Fasting

2007-09-18T17:57:00.000+02:00

On Thursday night the Imams and religious authority of Morocco saw the moon and proclaimed that Ramadan would start the next day. Ramadan is a religious festival that lasts 30 days and starts in mid September. It is one of the five pillars of the Islamic religion to fast during Ramadan. The rules are fairly easy to follow; from sun up to sun down you cannot eat or drink. People are not permitted to swim because they might swallow water and it can be absorbed through the skin. Of course there are some amendments to the obligation to fast. If one is sick, to young or traveling, they are not required to fast. If it endangers your health in anyway, you are not required to fast.

I decided I wanted to see what millions of Muslims around the world experience every year by strictly following these rules for a weekend. My fast started off rough. On Thursday night I ate dinner at 9 pm. And didn’t drink enough water half forgetting what I was getting myself into. My family didn’t know I was fasting so of course they didn’t give me any tips. So, I woke up on Friday, the first day of Ramadan, and went to Arabic class. Everything was good until I walked back to the center where Ibrahim had prepared an amazing looking lunch. I was hungry and thirsty so I went out side to write some emails on the terrace. The rest of the day passed slow, walked to the cliffs on the coast and watched the sun slowly fall. Walked home for the breaking of the fast with a headache because of nonexistent blood sugar and dehydration.

The hardest part of the fast is the hour at lunch (knowing your passing up a delicious meal) and the last five minutes leading to 6:35pm, but the moment the call to break the fast comes we dig in. The meal is already on the table in the salon and the tv is on. The meal consists of eggs (hardboiled/fried) plates of eggplant, fried tomatoes/bell peppers, a bean/lentil soup, bread, fried potatoes, these English muffin with cheese and chicken in them, perhaps some pastries with meat and an assortment of sweets. There are these sweets that look like fried octopus, but in fact its sesame and honey ground up…..they are amazing.

To make the day easier families usually wake up at about 4 in the morning on weekends to eat and drink for the coming day. I found that to be the hardest part. I woke up ate these pancakes things with melted butter and sugar and loads of tee and water. And then you go straight back to bed. Talk about a killer for your health/metabolism.

Sunday night, after breaking the fast (for the last time), I went to the hamman for the first time. Hamman is the word for bath. There are male and female hammans and you walk in strip to your boxers and walk it the room. Its three long tiled rooms split by a hallway, the first room being the coolest and the farthest room being the hottest. You sit on the floor and relax for awhile let the humidity loosen you up and then you go and start scrubbing with this exfoliating glove. Its amazing how much dirt you have on your body without realizing it. Basically because of the humidity and the glove you rub an entire layer of dead skin and dirt off your body! Its amazing. And they you soap up and scrub again, rinse off and your down. The process takes about an hour and is relaxing.

Because of the dehydrated/malnourished stated I had been in for the past three days the moment I exited the hamman I became seriously faint and stumbled my way to a stall to buy some water. Crouched on the side of the street and just drank. Almost fainting was not a nice ending to the weekend, but made me realize that fasting and then going into a steam room for an hour wasn’t the smartest choice. I was just trying to do what the Moroccans do and do it how they do it. Its amazing they do this for 30 days. Its Monday today and I just had an amazing lunch!

Some thoughts on the fast: horrible for your health and metabolism. Eating fatty/sugary food and then going back to sleep! Crazy. The things they eat do not replenish the body the way it needs to be and they consume SO much sugar in their diet. My dad is a diabetic and almost every other American student knows a diabetic in his or her family.

first email to home

2007-09-10T18:34:00.000+02:00

well the first week has passed relatively quickly. i wont say flew by, but it came and went with ease and i am settleing into my new life here in the old medina of rabat. i live on the bottom floor of an old house with my father, mother, two sister and brother. my moraccan father is a journalist that seems to be well liked and respected in the community. my mother is a private practice doctor that deals with bones mainly. My brother mohammad works the night shift as a security guard for a bank and is very quiet. i feel like other than my american friends i will have the closest relationship with my father. this saturday we spent the day watching soccer; witnessing ghana crush morocco 2-0 in a friendly and france sadly tie italy in a very high press euro 2008 qualifier match. I found it only fitting that erica's team beat mine. of course the moraccan team worked the best and hardest throughout the match but could just not finish and the two times ghana, who played with such a sloppy lazy african style, shot on goal they were flawless, effortless strikes that found the back of the net. typical. Erica 1 Aidan 0.

the first week of the program which thankfully is much more of a program than the senegal one ever could hope to be was spent trying to get through the long drawn out orientation seminars with spurts of adventure like finding a 40 foot cliff on the coast and going cliff jumping with local kids and waking up early in the morning to surf with Alex a fellow student. so i have been cliff jumping twice already. surfing twice and my cut up feet to show for it. did catch a wave though! its coming back slowley. its not the north shore of maui but its surfing in north africa right? cant complain.

i am happy to be starting week two even though at some points i go through spells wishing the semester was almost over and i will be skiing at tamarck or watching a movie in my cave or having a big french meal with close friends/family in Dax soon, but that time will come faster than i think and the time spent up till then will make it sweeter when it finally arrives, so for now i am trying to focus on smelling the spices of the old medina as i stroll along the tight enclosed streets, at the lazy pace of the islamic life, of rabat