I was sitting here this morning drinking my usual 4 cups of coffee when I heard a disturbance in the street outside my apartment–lots of squabbling, arguing and raised voices, but I couldn’t see what was going on, since it was happening on my side of the street and I can’t see directly below the apartment out of my window. Folks on the other side of the street were staring intently toward my side of the street at whatever was happening. I went back to reading email, but the level of noise picked up. I went to the window and saw that the National Police had arrived with a paddy wagon. They “escorted” two people into the back of the van; one was a man in handcuffs, probably in his mid-20s and the other looked to be an older lady, not cuffed, wearing a shawl, so I didn’t get a good look at her. I don’t know what they were doing to cause them to get arrested, but it was an interesting highlight of the morning. Now excuse me while I finish with my caffeine fix.
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I got my Thailand airplane ticket from the travel agent the other day. I’m flying out of Casablanca on the 23rd of March at 10 a.m. on Qatar Airlines, so I’ll have to go up a day early or catch the 3 a.m. train out of Meknes, putting me in Casa around 7:30, close enough. I’m not too sure, though, about walking the deserted, silent streets of Meknes at that time of day. The railway station is about a 5 minute walk from my apartment, so it’s not too far away. Still . . . From Casa I fly to Doha, the capital of Qatar. There I’ll stay overnight, being put up in a 5-star hotel, according to my travel agent, and furnished with 2 meals. But, I won’t get into Doha until around 10 that evening, and my flight to Bangkok leaves at 8 the next morning, so I won’t get much benefit out of the stay. I suppose it’s better than hanging around the airport for that length of time (more on that below). The flight arrives in Bangkok at 6:50 p.m. The next evening I’ll hop on the overnight train to Nong Khai and meet Nai there the next morning. I haven’t really got anything concrete planned, but I’ll probably visit lovely Vang Vieng again and, hopefully, Luang Prabang. On the 14th of April I’ll take the train back to Bangkok, stay in the City of Angels for a day, then fly out of there on the 16th, with a long stay (12 hours!) in Doha on the 16th, but no hotel furnished this time. It’s a daytime stay, so I suppose I’ll wander around, read a book, eat and do whatever else I can find to stay out of trouble. I’ll get back to Casa on the morning of the 17th, jet-lagged and with classes to teach the next day. I’ll definitely have all my lesson plans finished before I leave! We had a few nice days, but now the forecast calls for 2-3 days of rain. After that, though, Meknes is supposed to have sunny days with temperatures approaching 70. Fantastic! Speaking of good weather, I got email notification about my Major League Baseball TV subscription today. I’ll be able to watch spring training and regular season games over the computer again this year, so I’m looking forward to the start of another baseball season. Go Yanks!! More later. Once again today I noticed that the large number of baseball style caps that have American baseball logos on them exclusively sport the Yankee logo. I have seen no other caps in Meknes, and in the other, admittedly, limited parts of Morocco I’ve visited, that have another baseball team’s symbol represented. None. Seriously. This is also a phenomenon that I noticed in South Korea. Though there were other teams represented on caps in the Land of the Morning Calm, the overwhelming majority of baseball caps had that famous NY on them. Boston fans may wishfully and mistakenly refer to Red Sox “Nation,” but Yankee World is a reality. When my friend Karen, a Bostonian to the core and, regretfully but understandably, a devout and worshipful fan of that “other” team, reads this, I’m sure I’ll get an earful. But, dear Karen, it’s true about the caps. Red Sox fans must console themselves with their ONE World Series win since 1918. I’ll bask in the glory of the (still) Great Dynasty that the Yanks are. There’s also a young lady, Jill, from the Northeast, teaching at the American Language Center in Meknes who is a Sox fan. I showed her my Yankee cap the other night and she immediately got into “that” attitude that all of us Yank/Sox fans have. Thus, I’ll have someone to jibe at this season. I love it!! (However, if both teams end up like they did last season, perhaps we’ll be commiserating with each other.) I started the new CALL class today at Moulay Ismail U. and it went ok. Despite the lack of access to the technology that I am supposed to be teaching, I think the course will be beneficial to my students. They’re an older group than my CPR students, but only by a few years; I would guess their average age at between 28-32 years. Some are English teachers, some teach other disciplines, and some are there to learn about the subject matter. More interesting, though, is that 6 of the 25 students are from other countries. There are four students from Mauritania (a country to which the Peace Corps had assigned me in 2002 but to which, unfortunately, I was unable to go to due to physical problems), one from Chad (information here and here) and another from Yemen. To me, that’s exciting and motivating. I gave them a short political spiel about how they should use the knowledge that they will learn and take it, from a position of authority, to their administrators and bureaucrats and push for funding to incorporate the technology into their schools and universities. It’s one of the few things that I get political about in a formal classroom setting. Too many governments, including the U.S., say that they need funding for military budgets, or for corporate tax breaks, both of which are b*ll sh*t excuses for not funding education like it should be funded. In other locales, corruption steals the money from the people. (Benin Peace Corps friends know what I’m talking about, though this particular practice is not confined to the nations of Africa.) Ok, I’ll get off my soap box now, but the subject of the paltry amount of money provided for education is really one of my pet peeves. Still raining quite a bit in Meknes. Montanans, enjoy your wonderful weather. Where’d all the snow go? More later. I went out to get some handouts for my students photocopied and to buy a rotisserie-broiled chicken, and it was raining cats and dogs. It was coming down hard enough that the drainage system couldn’t handle all the water, so crossing some of the street intersections was quite the aquatic adventure. Yesterday morning we even got a bit of sleet/snow, which melted as soon as it touched the ground. Ah, well, I could be in Montana enjoying a winter snow advisory–2-4 more inches of snow expected in Great Falls and Glendive and 8-14 inches in the Missoula area. Fun! I wonder how much they got already. I’m sure someone who reads this will let me know. More later. Finally, I got the new hot water heater in today. It’s not actually installed yet; that will be done tomorrow afternoon. The heater itself cost about $145, which I paid for, but I’ll deduct that from the 3-month rent money due in the middle of March. Now I’ll have to retire my primitive living skills, meaning I don’t have to heat water on the gas range anymore. I know that for the past week I’ve been saving on my utility bill because I love to take a nice, long, hot baths, something I’ve been unable to do recently. Maybe I’ll cut back on those; my electricity bill for December is HUGE–close to $180!!! I’m not real sure what the main problem is, but I suspect it’s the ‘fridge–it seems to run 24/7. I’ve tried turning down the thermostat, but it still runs all the time. Hmmm, I didn’t have any refrigeration in Benin and I managed ok, sort of. Maybe I shouldn’t retire those skills after all. Speaking of cold, spring has given way to winter. Cold with lots of rain today and yesterday, and the forecast is calling for more of the same into the weekend. Lucky me, though, I’m pretty sure I’m going to take three weeks off at the end of March and head on over to Thailand and Laos. The plane ticket is quite expensive, but well worth it. Those of you who know me, know how much I love that area of the world. If I’m approved for the position in Morocco for next year, I’ll have plenty of time to travel around here, but for the time being, I’ve got Southeast Asia on my mind. I’ll probably spend most of my time in Laos with my friend Nai. Right now the poor guy’s fighting a bout of diarrhea–at least that’s what it sounds like according to the description (I promise, no details) he gave me when I talked to him yesterday. Hopefully, we’ll get the opportunity to visit Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage site. But that’s a ways off. For now, I have to get busy and prepare for a new class I’ll be teaching at Moulay Ismail University here in Meknes starting Friday. It’s a 10-week course on Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). It should be interesting, fun and, I hope, informative for the students there. Though Internet access is provided by cyber cafes in many of the neighborhoods, I get the feeling that most people can’t afford to spend too much time and money developing their computer skills. Despite the omnipresence of computers elsewhere, there are still many places in the world, like Morocco and Laos, where they are not taken for granted. Some of my students at the CPR don’t have email addresses and, perhaps, don’t even use computers. There are times I wish I didn’t, either. More later. Not that I spend a lot of time at Label Vie anyway, but on the second floor a Lebanese fast-food restaurant opened, complete with shwarmas, hummus and other goodies! But, that’s not all. There will be future openings of Domino’s Pizza, the Bangkok Cafe, Tex-Mex Cafe, an ice cream parlor and many others whose brand names aren’t posted yet. Watch out waistline! There, now that I’ve got your attention . . . Sorry, I haven’t posted in a while. Busy? Lazy? A combination of both, I suppose. I took a nice bike ride last Sunday into the countryside, pedaling about 6 or 7 miles outside of town. It was a gorgeous day, warm (hot, going uphill), with blue skies dotted by cumulus clouds. It was more like a late spring day than the middle of February. A lot different than Montana weather right now. I see that they’re “enjoying” sub-zero temperatures, at times reaching -25F (that’s -31C). I don’t miss it a bit. Here are a few shots from the trip.
So, I rode around for several hours, stopping to take numerous photos of the interesting cloud formations that sailed across the deep blue skies. I probably had a total ride of 20-25 miles and was getting pooped when I started to return to Meknes. I decided, however, to take a short journey down one of the back roads to Rabat. It’s a two-lane highway with wide, paved shoulders, so it’s not a problem to ride a bicycle–lots of traffic, though. I had gone about 3 miles down the road when I decided to turn back because of an approaching storm.
I got about half way to the outskirts of Meknes when I heard a police siren ahead of me at the top of a hill. It looked like he had pulled someone over, perhaps for speeding. All of a sudden a farm truck peeled off the pavement and started barreling down a dirt track to the right of the main road, heading right toward me. I was on the pavement and in no danger. Right behind him came the cop car, siren wailing, lights flashing. I caught a brief glimpse of the truck driver’s face and he looked frightened, but determined, as they raced passed me. I watched them speed down the hill a ways, then the truck zoomed onto the pavement hell bent for leather and sped away in the distance, the squad car right behind him. Then, two police motorcycles joined the chase, zooming past me. Off the high-speed chase went over the top of the hill behind me, disappearing from view. Crazy. I resumed my ride to the top of the next hill. All of a sudden, one of the motorcycles sped past me, heading for town, probably to get reinforcements, I thought. Then, I heard the police car siren again, and I got off the bike and turned around to see the farm truck careening up the road with the cop right on his tail and the other motorcycle not far behind. Away they raced toward Meknes and I thought it’s going to get pretty hectic trying to maneuver through the busy streets of the city. I never did see them again, though. What was the guy trying to hide? Smuggling, perhaps? A wanted criminal? I suppose I’ll never know, but it was a strange experience, like a Moroccan version of the Key Stone Cops. With all the traffic it would have been difficult to block him, but I still wonder how the guy ever got the truck turned around. Since it all happened so fast, I didn’t have time to take my camera out of my pack and snap some shots. Maybe the fellow will end up in the prison I stumbled upon earlier in the day.
You’re not supposed to take photos of this kind of subject, but I was at a distance and used my telephoto lens. Yes, there were guards in the towers, but I didn’t see any barbed wire surrounding the place as I rode past. I assume it’s a prison. Maybe it’s one used by the CIA for “rendition” purposes? (That should get a few page views from the NSA!) Explosion? My water heater kind of blew up, gushing water all over the bathroom. It made a loud pop when it blew, sort of like a champagne cork. I couldn’t find the main shut-off valve and I was getting kind of frantic. I ran downstairs and got Brahim, the building super, to come help me, and eventually we found the valve. I’m lucky I was home when it happened. It hasn’t been fixed yet, but the nephew of the lady who owns the apartment (she lives in the Netherlands) is coming over sometime this morning to see what’s up with it. A fellow already came by and said that I need a new tank (obvious); now the only question is who’s going to pay for it. It should be the apartment owner, but I hope I don’t have to get into a hassle about it. In the meantime, my Peace Corps experience is coming in handy–I heat water on the stove for doing dishes and taking “bucket showers.” Not an undue burden, but a nuisance nonetheless. More later. I took the morning train to Rabat today to try to find an ink cartridge for my printer and to pick up some teaching books that John had for me. It was another beautiful day and a pleasant ride down to Rabat. (Note to self to pose this to my students: Why do I say down to Rabat when Rabat is north of Meknes? Often, we say I’m going down to “somewhere” when it is south of us and up to “somewhere” if it is to the north, as if everything is downhill from the North Pole? Would I say I’m going down to Ifrane, which is south of Meknes but at a higher elevation, or up to Ifrane? How about the Charlie Daniels Band song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia?” From a Christian point of view, the devil wouldn’t go “down” to Georgia (unless, of course, you’re of a certain opinion about Georgia.) A prize to whoever, including non-students, can give the best answers. Ok, sorry to get off on a tangent there. Anyway, I finally found a cartridge for my printer, something I have been unable to do in Meknes and I got the books. As an added bonus, I was able to eat not only one shwarma, but two. They are described by this website as the “Arabian Taco.” Yes, Adnane, if you read this, I did have another one after you dropped me off at the train station. You see, John, Adnane (who works at the Public Affairs Section (PAS) of the Embassy in the same building as John) and I went for lunch at an international food court in one of the malls near the PAS. Quite a number of vendors are there, including Mexican, Thai, Domino’s Pizza, Southern Fried Chicken and others, as well as a sandwich shop which sells shwarmas. Not a bad variety and I had a good lunch. But then, since Adnane needed a computer part also, he was kind enough to take me on my search for the ink cartridge. We finished that a bit early, about an hour and a half before the train departed for Meknes. He wondered if I had anything special I wanted to do, but I asked him to just let me off near the train station and I would wander around. When I first arrived in Morocco, Hakim, John’s former assistant, had taken me to Grill 23, a small, sidewalk restaurant across from the station, that has great shwarmas. I (sort of) joked about stopping there for another shwarma, even though we’d had lunch only two hours before. Well, Adnane, no joking, I had another shwarma! I can get them here in Meknes, but the shops I’ve seen are waaayyyy out by Marjane. However, Label Vie, my home away from home, has advertised that a Lebanese fast food restaurant will be opening very soon in the mini-mall the grocery store is located in. Shwarma’s close to home???!!!!! Yummmmm. More later. Many more. Tonight might be the final match for the Moroccan team in the Africa Cup. They could only manage a 0-0 tie against host Egypt last Tuesday, but they needed to win. Only a miracle puts them in the quarterfinals. Cote d’Ivoire (already guaranteed a spot) must beat Egypt soundly and Morocco must trounce Libya. However, since Egypt is the host country, the chances of them not advancing are pretty slim, my students tell me. Politics, it seems. Both games are tonight, being played at the same time (5 p.m. local) in different stadiums. I assume the Morocco-Libya game will be shown here. (I wonder of Khadafy will be attending.) Lots of rain and wind the last 3 days, chilly but not cold. Not a tropical monsoon type of rain, just a steady drizzle most of the time. The forecast calls for more of the same the next couple of days. I suppose that’s better than a foot of snow and 30 below. As Karen, my friend in Boston, reminds me, the start of baseball spring training is getting closer. It seems not that long ago that both her and I were down in our cups when both of our favorites were knocked out of the playoffs. Ahhh, but this year . . . Mohammed wants me to teach a 10-week course at one of the local universities on the subject of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). It would be just one two-hour class per week, and I think it would be fun and interesting to do. I’ve already planned to do a CALL module at the CPR, so it’s not really an extra burden. I have to get John’s approval first. There are certain guidelines about where I can and can’t teach. I talked to my friend Nai in Laos earlier today and found out that his brother Pui (pooey) got into a motorbike accident and had to go to the hospital. Geez, these guys and their motorbikes. Nai’s had a couple of accidents on his and he tells me about accidents that members of his extended family have had. A few of his relatives and friends have died riding these things. Fortunately, Pui will be ok. Right now they are celebrating the Chinese New Year (Year of the Dog), so there are probably a lot of folks riding around with more than a few Beer Laos under their belt. Even though Nai is not a big drinker, I told him to be careful, especially of other riders, who will swerve to avoid the numerous potholes found on most of the Laos roads. More later. The Africa Cup is currently being contested for in Cairo, with 16 teams making the cut, 4 in each division. Today I watched the match between Morocco and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) on my somewhat fuzzy TV, reception being what it is with only a pair of rabbit ears. I opened up my window, despite the slight chill in the air, because I wanted to listen to the neighborhood’s reaction when (and if) the Moroccan team scored. About the middle of the second half, down 1-0, it appeared that they had finally put the ball in the net. Yup, people in all the surrounding cafes erupted with shouts and cries of joy. I dare say most of Meknes and, indeed, most of Morocco, were tuned to the match. Alas, the camera angle only made it look like a goal; the ball actually went wide, hitting a supporting pole and bouncing into the back outside of the net. Morocco went on to lose by the same margin, 1-0. I’m sure the whole country is disappointed. But, they play again on Tuesday against Egypt and then a few days later against Libya. If they can come back to win those two games, there is a good likelihood that they will move on to the quarterfinals. Saif left a comment on the “Feast Day . . ” entry asking why I didn’t post the photo he took of me with the sheep. Well, even though I love taking photos, I’m a bit camera shy myself, but, if you’re interested,click here. |
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