Rabat Archaeology Museum

On Monday, Nancy and I left our apartment at 11:40 am and walked to the Kenitra Medina train station in ten minutes. We bought our one-way tickets for 15 dirhams (just under $2) and took the commuter train to Rabat. We arrived at the Rabat Ville station at 12:40, so it only takes an hour to get to the capital from our house. If we time it right, we can get to San Francisco from Albany in about the same time. The commuter train is cleaner and quieter than BART at home. The Rabat Ville train station is modern and the landscaping on the hillsides next to where the trains stop is quite lush with bougainvilleas of all colors.

We used Google maps on Nancy’s iPhone to get from the station to the Archaeology Museum. It was an easy 15 minute walk to get there. The collection is housed in a nice building built in 1932. The entrance fee was 10 dirhams each. Most of the collection consists of artifacts collected from sites in Northern Morocco. The time period of the objects on display spans from the Neolithic to about the 18th century. The bulk of the pieces were excavated from Volubulis, Thamusida and Banasa. Thamusida and Banasa are just north of Kenitra but the sites are not easily accessible. Almost immediately after entering, we started taking pictures in the ground floor room. After a while, a person came out of the office to tell us that we should not take pictures in that room. He took us down the hall to another room and said that we could take pictures there but to do it quickly! There were elaborately detailed bronze figurines, marble statues, foundation blocks inscribed in Latin, terracotta pottery, jewelry, glassware, etc.

Map of Roman sites in Northern Morocco.

Statue of Ptolemy from Volubulis

Bronze figurines from Thamusida

 

Bronze artifacts from Lixur

 

Juno, from Volubulis

Neolithic arrowheads

 

U.S. Embassy

The U.S. Embassy was a close walk nearby. It is in an unmarked building, no flag in sight. We went through three layers of security to get to a visitors desk. We asked if there were English language materials available and the desk person called the Regional English Language officer to find out. We looked at numerous photographs on the walls in the lobby while we waited for this individual. There were pictures of the Casablanca Conference, held in January, 1943. President Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and General Charles De Gaulle attended. Its purpose was to chart the course of the rest of World War II. There were a couple of striking pictures of General George Patton and Lord Mountbatten. The State Dept official gave us his business card, referred us to a couple of different organizations that might be of interest to us and told us to stay in touch. If we make an appointment with him ahead of time, we will be allowed access to the Public Affairs office, where many hardcopy publications reside. On the way back to the train station, we walked past a couple of other buildings that looked like they might have been embassies but no flags were flying.

 

Dar Chabab (Youth Center)

We gave the mudir (supervisor) of our youth center our schedule for the month of June. Our classes will be finished for the summer on June 13th. Following that, Nancy and I have IST (In Service Training) in Marrakech for the rest of the month. IST consists of more darija language classes and variety of sessions about starting secondary projects, possible funding resources, site progress reports, etc. In addition to our English classes, we are adding a class period for ping pong and chess. There will be a Peace Corps sponsored regional ping pong and chess tournament in Sefrou (near Fez) in October. We wanted to get the students started playing those games before summer starts. 

Nancy’s beginning English class

 I showed a TED Talk about plastics and the huge gyres of plastic trash in the world’s oceans in my Advanced English converstion last week.  The projector had an old style VGA connector and my laptop has the newer HDMI type so I couldn’t use it.  We just watched the talk on my laptop screen.  Many of the students are environmentally conscious so this video resonated with them.  They wanted to talk about it so much that I didn’t have time to show a couple of other related videos. 

The Chicken Story

On the roof of our host family’s house is a large aviary. Hassan, Abderahim’s brother had approximately 40 parakeets in the enclosure when we first began our stay there. There were also some pigeons nesting in another corner of the roof. Abderahim mentioned to us that Hassan had always liked birds and had always kept them.

One day I went up on the roof and I noticed that the aviary’s steel entry door was wide open. I ran down stairs to Hassan’s level and told him, “Hassan, kayn muskil kabir. Sta bab hllit!” (Hassan, there is a big problem. The roof door is open.”) That was the best I could do with darija at the time. He ran upstairs with me and looked in the aviary. Fortunately, he had hung a sheet on the inside of the enclosure, so the parakeets did not know that the big door was open. Only one bird was out on the roof and Hassan picked it up and tossed it back in the aviary.

A week later, Abderrahim told me that the door to the cage had gotten open again and many birds had flown away. He also said that a number of them had died from disease. The next time Nancy and I went up on the roof, she noticed a bucket full of dead parakeets. Hassan’s aviary was completely empty. There were also a couple of chickens over in another corner of the roof, behind some wooden crates and metal buckets. The chickens weren’t moving much, probably traumatized from being transported from wherever they came from. After a few days, the chickens were up and walking all around the roof.

Abderahim told us that the plan was to keep the chickens on the roof and collect their eggs for food. Nancy and I noticed that one small egg had been laid where they had been initially confined. A few days after that, Nuwul (pronounced Noel) and I went up on the roof to check on the chickens. Both the hen and the rooster were up on the parapet looking down at the street below. I joked with Nuwul that they were thinking about flying away. This roof is on top of a four story building, so it’s pretty high off the ground.
After we moved over to our apartment, I texted Abderahim and asked him how the egg laying business was going. He texted back that a few days before, the rooster had flown off of the roof and landed safely on the ground in the street below. Some boys from the neighborhood found him, took him home and after deciding that he was lost, ate him. When Abderahim found out the bird was missing, he asked around the neighborhood. He eventually found out about the boys and went over to their house. The boys admitted finding and eating the rooster. They were sorry and said that they would give Abderahim another rooster. Meanwhile, the hen was too traumatized over the whole event and stopped laying eggs.

A couple of reminders…

The views expressed in this blog are ours.

They do not reflect the views of the Peace Corps, the U.S. government, the Kingdom of Morocco or our pal, Cody.

We miss these faces!

Posh Corps

This is our apartment building. We are on the fourth floor, with the highest balcony. There is a studio apartment on the roof that is currently vacant. The view east from our windows looks out above the rooftops of the neighboring buildings. We can watch the sun come up over the hills in the distance. From the back bedroom, we can see the gates of our dar chabab. There is a nice ocean breeze that comes from that direction. The front of the building is stucco. Moroccan’s are very skilled applying stucco to new buildings except they usually only stucco the front. Cinder blocks or the lightweight terracotta bricks they use are left unfinished. Inside, the floors are all marble tile, the doors are varnished pine and the ceilings have detailed plaster work. We inherited furniture and kitchenware from Shane and Jenay. The street below is busy and usually doesn’t quiet down until midnight. There is a café, two doors over on the ground floor, that overflows with people on the street when there is a soccer game.

View from our balcony down the street.  The red building on the right is Abderahim’s house where Nancy and I spent our first month in Kenitra. The hanut, where we buy our bread in the morning, is on this corner also.

The salon.

The view from the panjas (couches) in the salon, across the room.  This is our wifi connected PC.  We are in the same time zone as the UK, so we stream the BBC news in the morning and download first run movies in the evenings. To all you RPCV’s from the 60’s and 70’s, welcome to today’s Peace Corps!

Kitchen.

Bedroom / office.

Living room looking into the other bedroom.

Nancy and I spent last weekend resolving a few issues with our apartment. We walked around town looking for plumbing parts to fix our constantly running toilet. The hanuts only sold the entire unit, so we finally went to see our landlord, Abdelkarim. He owns a paint store up the street from our apartment. We told him about the problem and he immediately called his handyman. About an hour after we returned home, his handyman arrived. A few minutes later, Abdelkarim, also appeared. They both disappeared into the bathroom for a while to check out the problem. They reappeared a few minutes later to say that it was time for a new mechanism. They both left and the handyman returned a little while later with the replacement kit. He proceeded to completely dismantle the toilet and installed the new mechanism, as it is referred to here. One problem solved.

Jet ski Cafe

Brahim, Abderahim’s friend that manages a place on the river called the Jet ski café, called on Monday to invite us over for coffee. The café is on the river about .5 kilometer from the beach at Medhya. The last time we went to the café, it wasn’t clear to us if the café rented jet ski’s or not. Brahim had said that you could ride the jet skis down to the ocean and back, but he only had two jet skis. Nancy, Youssef and I waited for about 45 minutes for a bus to take us there, but none came. So we took a taxi over to the place, ready to take out a jet ski if that opportunity presented itself. Youssef is one of the students that comes to the Advanced English class at the dar chabab. Brahim was not at the café when we arrived, but had a table set up for us on the lower level by the water. Youssef and I went for a swim in the river and Nancy took pictures while we waited for Brahim. The current in the river is strong, depending on the tides. I had to hang on to the dock the entire time I was in the water. Otherwise, it would have been a wild swim to the beach. When he arrived, we found out that the two jet skis are actually the property of the owner. Next time, Brahim said, we can take one of them out.

 

Ibn Tofail University

The next day, Nancy and I went over to Ibn Tofail University with another student, Nebil. He’s part of an environmental group that was staging a rally to educate students about putting trash in trash cans. There is a bus that runs around campus that charges students one dirham per ride. The problem is when students exit the bus, they toss the bus receipt on the ground and not in a trash can. Subsequently, the bus stops around campus have bus receipts littered all over the place. Tee-shirts and hats were handed out to everyone. Songs, chants and placards were prepared. We walked around the university to various bus stops. The university looked like a campus in America with old oak trees and manicured lawns. A couple of students turned green plastic trash cans upside down and put them over their heads. As students got off the bus, the talking trash cans were telling students to put their ticket stubs in the trash cans. Meanwhile, the rest of the group chanted, “generation sans pollution.” At one point, the president and vice-president of the university came out to join the group. Nebil told them that two Peace Corps volunteers were there. The president and vice-president then came over to Nancy and I, introduced themselves and thanked us for supporting the students.

“Stop children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down.”

– For What It’s Worth, Buffalo Springfield

 

“It’s going to be a bit hot” – Abderahim

By Wednesday, the temperature in Kenitra had reached 100 degree F. Nancy and I traveled over to another part of Kenitra to have lunch with Andy and Anooj, two young volunteers. It was nice to talk to some other people from our group and share some of our experiences.

Storks and other stories

Storks are protected by the Moroccan government. There are many of their nests around Kenitra. It is extremely difficult to get permission to have a nest moved if you want to work on a place where one is located. We’ve been told they are endangered here, hence the restrictions. Favorite spots to build them are on top of street lamps, cell phone towers, roofs and tall trees. These birds make a lot of racket! Their cackling reminds me of the night herons that lived in the trees for a while at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

This building, in what is called the Centerville section of downtown Kenitra, was once a church.  It’s vacant now and falling into disrepair.  If it was restored, it would really enhance this corner across from a busy cafe where Nancy and I sat one morning. With the storks nesting here, it might take quite awhile to get permission to move them.

 

Donuts on the beach

Went swimming for the first time in the ocean at Medhyia Beach last Monday. The temperature seemed about the same or slightly warmer than La Jolla Shores ocean water this time of year. This beach is about the same latitude as Ensenada, in Baja. The waves were about 6 – 8 feet height, with a pretty good current running from north to south. The waves were great for body surfing. The water is really clean and there is a sandy bottom. There were a few surfers in the water further out and some children splashing around up to their knees close to shore. European tourists were also on the beach and in the water. The last time we were here, we saw Moroccan women swimming wearing t-shirts and shorts over bathing suits, but not this trip. The best part of this outing was the man walking on the beach selling sugared donuts for 2 dirhams (16 cents). Later, when we were waiting for the bus back home, we saw the same guy coming out of a bakery with more donuts. He was heading for the beach again, so we snagged a couple more hot ones as he went by.

 

Lunch

On Saturday, Shane, Jenay, Nancy and I took taxis to a student’s house for lunch. We arrived at 12:30 pm. After introductions, we sat down in the salon with the student’s father and grandmother. We drank green tea, ate cookies and waited for Maunun to return from his class at the university. Grandma had quite a bit to say. She looked exceptionally well, considering she had spent the previous day in the hospital after suffering some small strokes. Around 1:30 pm, Maunun came home. We had a couple more glasses of tea and then waited for his brother to arrive after his university class. Grandma was getting hungry and told Maunun that it was rude to keep his guests waiting for lunch. She had Maunun call his brother to tell him that she was really hungry and so were Maunun’s guests. None of us had much in the way of breakfast, so by this time we were starting to fade. Finally, Maunun’s brother arrived and we had some more tea. Around 3:15 pm, Maunun brought out a salad on a large serving dish. In the center was rice topped by a tomato, surrounded by sections of carrots, potatoes, beets and celery. Homemade mayonnaise was served on separate plates. After the salad, the main dish was served. It consisted of two roasted chickens surrounded by mounds of French fries. Refreshments were orange soda and coca cola. Needless to say, it was worth the wait and was a delicious meal. Around 4:30 pm, we decided that we needed to get back, so we told Maunun. He said to just needed to wait 5 more minutes. Shane asked if more food was coming, but did not get a satisfactory answer. Again, we tried to leave but he insisted. After many more 5 minutes, a freshly baked marble cake, milwi – sort of layered pastry tortilla, harsha – an inch thick, dense cornbread and coffee came out of the cusina. Finally, around 5:30pm, we were able to say our goodbyes and walk down to catch a taxi home. The family was sad that Shane and Jenay were leaving Morocco and had gifts for them. After many hugs and tears we departed.

Fatna, Jenay and Shane.

 

Citrus Trees

Worked at the dar chabab on Sunday, cleaning up the garden with five students from our classes. We also planted the three citrus trees we got from the plant nursery last weekend. Casem is the night caretaker at the dar chabab. He arrives in the afternoon and spends the night there. The day we planted the cedar trees, he arrived in the afternoon as usual. We still had a few trees left to plant. When he saw what we were doing, he immediately grabbed the shovel and dug a couple of holes. He made the point that he would water the trees every day and for us not to worry about them. Whenever we see him now, he shows us the places in the garden where he has pruned and cleaned.

View of the garden before the students arrived.

Clean up in progress.

Same view of the garden with citrus trees planted.