Last week / This week

Here’s some highlights from last week:

English classes at the dar chabab.

A couple of really nice girls that live in our building.

Nancy and Mohammed (our host Dad) in the morning.

Meknes train station arrival / departure schedule. We went to Meknes again for a day last week. Planning sessions for spring camps this upcoming vacation school week. Schools all over Morocco are out next week. The Moroccan Youth Ministry schedules camps and activities at dar chababs countrywide for students. We will be running camps at our dar chabab all week.

Here’s our schedule for the week.

Last Friday, our language group hiked up to the ruins of a watchtower (Borj) above the old part of Fez. We had a spectacular 360 degree panoramic view of the city and surrounding countryside.

Our Street

We live in a section of Fez called Hay Anis. It’s mostly 3 or 4 story apartment buildings, built within the last 10-15 years, with some older houses from before the building boom. There are streets close by that have a variety of stores, called hanuts (pronounced with a long “u”). There are general hanuts and specialty hanuts. The general hanuts have dry goods, household items, snacks, soft drinks, bottled water, etc. The specialty hanuts range from hardware, electrical, plumbing, poultry, fabrics with a person at a sewing machine, plastic wares, bookstore with school supplies. There are some hanuts with fruits and vegetables but you can also buy them at the daily souk.

We went into a hardware store last week to buy a wrench and some nails to fix a few things at the dar chabab. (We’ve already borrowed a homemade hammer). The conversation was typically a mix of darija and French. The shopkeepers like to give the prices in French but we like to ask for the prices in darija. I really like to ask the shopkeepers their names, tell them my name and go through the Moroccan greeting exchange. They usually remember us and wave when we pass by. We go to the hanut that is close to the dar chabab often to buy drinks and snacks.

New apartment building across the street:

Another view across the street:

Mohammed’s tile delivery truck:

Preschool down the street:

Neighborhood dogs:

Nancy’s Shopping Trip

Everyday, a block away from our house, there is a suk (farmer’s market). Amina took me shopping there this morning. It seemed there were more people than usual, I think because it is Sunday and for most people it’s their one day off. The farmers have their food laid out on carts pulled by donkeys or motorcycles.  At this time of the year there are lots of carrots, zucchini, eggplant, potatoes, spinach, beets, herbs, strawberries, apples, mandarins, oranges and much more. She buys the food everyday so everything in our house is fresh.

Behind the carts there are actual stores.  We stopped at one of the many chicken and egg stores, which was an open room so you could see everything that was happening.  There was one man at the front counter and two guys in the back.  Behind the counter there was a pen with straw on the ground holding about 40 chickens.  Amina told the guy how big of a chicken she wanted and the guy grabbed one and weighed it.  It took a couple tries until he found one she liked.  He took the live chicken and handed it to one of the guys in the back.  This man twisted the neck and then submerged it in boiling water for a minute.  He plucked some feathers then put the chicken in a machine that seemed like it had a tumbler in it.  Afterwards, the chicken came out clean.  He then handed it to a third guy (dressed in a full rain slicker and boots), who gutted it, chopped off the feet, washed it, put it in a bag and handed us our chicken ready to cook.  All and all it seemed like a humane way to get a chicken.

Meknes, Morocco

Last Monday, the 10th, we went to Meknes for a couple days of meetings with Peace Corps. Meknes is about 45 minutes west of Fez, by train. The trains and stations are very modern and comfortable. The one way fare was 20 Dirham, about $2.50. We stayed at the Hotel Transatlantic, a beautiful place with incredible tile and wood work. I found an old picture of the hotel dated 1939, at the end of a hallway, so it’s been around for awhile. There were French and German tour groups staying there also. When Nancy and I drove around this part of Morocco 32 years ago, we visited both Fez and Meknes. Meknes seems to have a more relaxed pace than Fez even though they have both grown considerably since the last time we were here.

Wednesday afternoon, we walked around the medina, the old part of the city. There is a huge plaza, with many snake charmers, surrounded by numerous shops and vendors. There were also these chained monkeys dressed in little suits that some people were holding and having their pictures taken.

The last picture is of the dying vats in the Fez medina. (This picture doesn’t belong with Meknes pictures, I’ll fix this later). Generations of families that have worked here, dye sheep skins in natural colored dyes and then set the skins out in the sun to dry. The dyed skins are then sold to the artisans around the medina to be worked into numerous shoes, hand bags, jackets, etc. In the afternoon, many used articles of clothing are dyed and when they are dry, sold around the marketplace. We saw some of these dyed clothes and they looked quite nice.

Tagine with MoHssine

MoHssine, our darija language instructor, cultural facilitator, community liaison and great guy, made Tagine for our language group last week. Named after the earthenware clay pot in which it is cooked, MoHssine started out with layers of potatoes, carrots, onions, zucchini, tomatoes and a white fish that looked like an ocean perch on top. The dish is cooked on the stove for about an hour. It was delicious!

Nancy’s Birthday Party outing

This is a copy of an email Nancy sent out this week.  Since we are so busy right now, Nancy and I are going to both post entries on this blog until there is more free time for Nancy to start one of her own later. 

 

Wednesday, January 5, 2014

 

Finally starting to feel better from my cold. I’m still a bit congested but feeling better and every so often I can actually smell something,it’s great and stops me in my tracks because I realize I haven’t smelled all the wonderful smells here.  I also think I haven’t been really tasting all the great food Amina is preparing. 

 

My big adventure of the week was a birthday party I went to on Sunday.  In the morning Amina brought out a purple caftan with gold trim for me to try on.  She followed me into the bedroom and wanted to help me undress and then put the caftan on.  The family got really into it, they wanted Scott to take photos and I had to pose for the photos.  It was decided that I should wear that to the party.   There were two other outfits that I had to try on and pose for photos in just for fun.

 

The party started at 4pm.  It was Amina’s friend’s granddaughter’s 1^st birthday.  It was just for women and a few young children.  We walked over to the friends house, from down below you could hear the music blasting.  The salon of the apt was on the second floor.  It was much bigger than ours and much fancier, chandeliers and really nice pangas(couches).  In the adjoining room (dining room?) there was a huge cake with a cut out of Belle from Beauty and the Beast and liter bottles of soda.

 

There were women sitting around the edges of the room on the pangas.  The women ranged in ages from about 25-70.  Their dress also was quite a range, from totally covered to looking like they were going to a Hollywood party!  Some of the young women had their long hair bleached blond.  The music was really loud to the point where no one could really talk.  The only two men in the room were a professional sound guy and videographer.  The birthday girl, Niama, was in what looked like an American wedding dress.  When someone new would enter the party they would go along the edge of the room and greet each person with a handshake and kisses on both cheeks.  After awhile women started dancing in the middle of the room and the women sitting along the edges would smile and clap along. 

 

A woman came downstairs with a platter of drinks that looked like milkshakes; they were pink, green or yellow.  I took a pink one, which was strawberry shake.  I think the green one was avocado because at cafes we see avocado shakes listed.  I should have tried that one.  Then someone would come by with the platter again and pick up all the cups.  About every 15 minutes someone would come by with a platter of cookies or pastries and everyone would take one and put it on their paper plate.  I noticed people were not eating them and they were piling up on the plates but they never refused anything.  Twice they served hot mint tea. This went on for about 1½ hours.  Then more dancing, eventually they got everyone up on the dance floor, dancing, laughing and singing. 

 

We stayed for 4 hours.  There was a huge birthday cake from a bakery with sparklers on it and we sang Happy Birthday in French, Arabic and English.  We all had cake and soda, then it was time to go home.  We covered our plates of cookies and treats and took them home to share with the rest of the family. 

Here’s a photo of us before we left for the party.  Zineb, Amina, Nancy, and Malika.

 

Petit Taxis

City taxis that will take you around town are called petit taxis.  Nancy and I took one of these downtown last Friday after class to a large mall to look for ping pong paddles for our dar chabab.  A 25 minute ride cost 9 Dirham, just over a dollar.  We found a store with paddles but one paddle cost almost 10 dollars.  We decided to look elsewhere for paddles and bought a few household items.  One of the items was a Moroccan version of WD40.  The door to our bedroom had a horrific squeek that I’m sure woke everyone in the apartment at night.  Problem solved. No more squeek.  The taxi ride back to our place was a drag.  It was rush hour, it was raining, it was dark and it took 30 minutes before we could flag one down.  The mall was on a large round about and we tried every corner before success.  We weren’t really even sure which road was the right one back.  Fortunately, we had google maps on my iphone and a really great Moroccan guy picked us up.  Best 13 Dirham we’ve spent so far!

Canal Petit Marocian

At the moment, too much happens in a week with little free time to write it all down.  Today is Sunday, which I may have already mentioned is our day off.  I think I’ll work backwards and see how far back in the week I can get. First, about the picture above.  Events seem to happen randomly at our dar chabab.  Last wednesday, we thought our group was going to meet with a local sports association to see what sorts of activities they might like to have happen here.  Instead, a traveling acting group consisting of three of the nicest people I’ve met here, whose language I cannot speak yet, put on a 1.5 hour show for children ages about kindergarten thru 2nd grade. The theme of the show was something like “changing your behavior”.  The show consisted of short skits using mostly slapstick comedy and a magic show.  The children loved it.  Afterwards, we went to a local cafe with them for coffee.  These actors travel around Morocco like wandering mistrals.  They do public service shows from the backs of flat bed trucks, in auditoriums, school yards, parks, etc.  They once did a show for King Mohammad VI’s children and they had the chance to meet the King and his wife.  They said that they get no government funding, don’t make much money but love what they do. How cool is that?  I friended (is this a real word?) their site on Facebook and now I get way more posts than I can handle in Arabic.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to read some of them sometime.

Yesterday, instead of going to the dar chabab for class we went to MoHssine’s (our language instructor) apartment.  He shares his apartment with one other instructor for another group.  It is much warmer and more comfortable than the dar chabab.  It was language progress check day and each one of us had about a 30 minute, one on one session in darija with MoHssine.  It was rough!  He wanted answers in complete sentences using words we have just started to get a handle on.  Usually, if I could get one word that I remembered I could manage a garbled response.  Even though it was stressful, It’s probably a good idea to have these periodic sessions to prepare us for the language test at the end of the 8 weeks here.

Later, in the afternoon, we walked around his neighborhood buying food for the taco’s that we prepared for dinner.  Along the way, we passed a public school where middle-school aged students were standing by the entrance.  What happened next is where MoHssine really turns on the charm with people.  He approached a couple of students and began to talk about the activities that we were planning at our dar chabab and invited them and their friends to come there next week.  Within minutes, 25-30 students were crowded around with their complete attention.  We told them about the English classes, games and activities, etc that we had planned for them and they seemed genuinely interested.  We shook hands all around, saying “everything is good, glad to meet you, etc.”

We’ll see what happens next week.  I brought a couple of frisbees with me and Ben, another volunteer, brought some card games.  There is a pool table and ping pong table also. Ben and I will be initially running the activity center.  Nancy, Vicki, Sarah and Olivia are going to start with English classes and exercise classes. As I mentioned earlier, we made taco’s for dinner.  Ben has a terabyte hard disk full of movies that he connected to a projector.  MoHssine made popcorn and we watched “American Hustle”.  Not a bad way to end the day and the week. There is a part in the movie where a sheik is speaking Arabic.  We all laughed because we recognized a couple of words.  MoHssine said that it sounded like a combination of Moroccan and Saudi Arabic.

Birthday Party

This afternoon Nancy is going to a birthday party. This morning was dress up for Nancy and this is what our family wants her to wear.

Mosque doors

Mosque doors