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Here are the photos I took today of my students at the CPR–our final regular class together. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Students, click here to view the photos. Click on the small photo to see a larger one, then click on the larger one to see another, larger photo. Here’s another photo from my Sunday morning bike ride.
How the Yankees are maintaining their pace with many of their top-flight players being injured at one time or another or being out for the season is beyond me. I guess we Yankee fans can thank the “Baby Bombers” for coming of age at the right time. Like in last night’s 13-5 shellacking of Boston. Sweeeeeeet! I took a short bike ride Sunday morning, when it’s quieter than usual. I felt in a “colorful” mood and took a few photos, some of which follow. More later. Here is some detail of a lime-colored nursery school I thought was interesting.
And then there is this pink apartment building.
It’s a bit past spring, but there are still many blooming flowers on bushes and trees. (Actually, this is true pretty much year round.) Here are a few examples.
Here’s one of the areas I go jogging. The building in the background is going to be the new city library, I’m told, when it’s finished.
At least I think it was a strike. There was a BIG march today in Meknes, right in front of my apartment–people chanting, carrying banners, and escorted by police, with all vehicle traffic closed off. The apartment concierge told me that it was a strike of government offices, schools, etc. nation-wide, though I couldn’t understand the reason. I’ll have to check the newspapers to see what was going on. It was very peaceful, if noisy. Here’s one photo of it.
Now, look carefully at this second photo. Notice the yellow arrow in the middle on the extreme right hand side? What’s it pointing at? Yes, a Yankee logo on a baseball cap! Though it’s not an official-looking Yankee hat, it does have the MLB logo on it also. Again, another Yankee hat, and I didn’t see any other baseball team represented on any hat. Truly, the World’s Baseball Team!
So, what will I be doing tonight? Since my students, who were probably out there marching today, are out on practicum for two weeks, I’m going to stay up to watch the first game of the Red Sox-Yankee series. It doesn’t get started until 7:05 p.m. Eastern Time, which means 11:05 p.m. in Morocco at MLB.com. I’ll be interested to see the reaction Johnny Damon gets from his old team’s fans. I’ve been busy today sending out applications for jobs in Korea. I sent out 4, with more to come as the month goes by. Most of the major universities will post their job needs on Dave’s ESL Cafe beginning the middle of May on toward the end of the month and into June. I should be able to find something, and the ones I applied to today look pretty good. More later (including the Luang Prabang photos). It sure seemed like it today, anyway, though I’m sure the high temperature was probably only a tad over 70. So, I thought I’d get out and let the bicycle take me for a ride, and I was sweating quite a bit and may have gotten a small sunburn. Love it! I wasn’t sure where my trusty transport would take me, but we ended up riding around the medina, across the wadi from my side of town. This is the first occasion that I’ve spent any amount of time there, and I ended up in places I haven’t been before. What’s behind the door?
Sunday is great for riding around, as the traffic is usually very light, compared to weekdays. Many of the pedestrians are tourists, mostly French from the conversations I overheard. I think sightseeing in the medina is more properly done by walking. There are a lot of things to see, and stopping every 5 minutes on the bike to take a photo gets old. It’s not that far from my apartment, though a complete walk around the old city would take a while. I want to get some souvenir shopping done before I leave for Thailand and Laos, so I’m sure I’ll make that walk soon. Now, I’ve been in the upper reaches of the atmosphere while backpacking in the mountains of Montana, where the sky can be as blue as imaginable, but I have to admit the skies here can be as deeply azure as those in Big Sky Country. The color lends a good contrast to the beige of the old walls found in the medina. Below is one of the old gates (“bab” in Arabic) leading into or out of the medina. I didn’t have my guide book with me, so I don’t know its name, but there are many more, some of which are very impressive; I’ll get photos of them eventually.
One of the favorite resting spots in Meknes is a small, man-made lake. It’s lined with benches and quite a few people (I’m told) pass the time here, though it was very quiet today. Joggers, mothers with baby strollers and older children in tow, and couples talking in the shade populate this quiet area. Ducks and golden fish inhabit the lake. At one end is this crenellated wall, part of the old fortifications built by Moulay Ismail dating back to the 17th century.
All in all, it was an enjoyable couple of hours under the Moroccan sun. Montanans, with your low temperatures dipping into the teens today, are you envious? Since tomorrow’s forecast calls for a bit of rain, I thought I’d take a bike ride today. I didn’t really have a particular destination in mind, so I meandered out to Boufekrane, famed throughout Morocco for its quality beef. I’ve been through the small village a number of times as an automobile passenger, but I’ve never biked there. It’s about 10 miles out through rolling hills, and I’ve always thought doing a bike ride might be a bit tough. Actually, it wasn’t that bad; the most difficult stretch is just getting out of Meknes. It’s a pretty country, very green right now, dotted with vineyards (not yet in bloom) and fields devoted to growing onions and potatoes. Many of the farmers sell their produce along the road; on the way back I stopped and bought a couple of oranges from a couple of guys selling them out of their car. Very juicy and tart!
I’ve had a few people ask why I don’t feature more people in my photos. Today’s ride provides a good portion of the answer. I stopped along the way to take a photo and there was a fellow sitting well out of the shot I took. He was sitting under a tree and I didn’t even see him until he came wandering over. Then he demanded money. I asked why. He said because I took his photo. (We’re talking in French, of course.) I told him he wasn’t in my photo. He still wanted money. I refused. He was a bit of a rough looking character, so maybe I just should have given him a few dirham and let it go. However, I get tired of people asking for money whenever I take a photo of something that has nothing to do with them. If I want to take a shot with someone featured as the subject, I always ask first and give them a little money afterwards if they ask for it. Not much money, the equivalent of 10-20 cents. But I get more than a few people who figure they own the landscape or the sunset or whatever. I always refuse. This guy finally got the message that he wasn’t getting anything out of me, so he wandered away to go back to sitting under his tree. I should have snapped a quick shot of him and taken off on the bike.
Anyway, it was still a pleasant ride, but the round trip total of 20 miles has me a tad tired–makes it easy to daydream about the upcoming trip to Thailand. Bwahahahahahah! 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. Yes, I did go to Fes last Thursday to do the workshop with the Peace Corps volunteers. There were 10 participants, all sharp and eager, as most PC volunteers are. I do enjoy working with them whenever I can. It was my first journey in a Moroccan taxi, and it reminded me quite a bit of my bush taxi adventures in Benin during my time in the Peace Corps. Six passengers were crammed in, 2 in front (plus the driver) and 4 in the back, but it wasn’t bad since it’s only about a 45 minute drive from Meknes to Fes, and it only cost about $2. It was a beautiful day and I would have liked to stay in Fes for a few hours after the workshop, but I was lugging around 40 pounds of books and I had to get back to Meknes, since I was expecting a fax from the Embassy in Rabat concerning reimbursement for my trip to Marrakech some time ago to do a similar workshop. Below are a few pictures of the volunteers, and if any volunteers or friends and family want to see more, click HERE.
After a couple of days of cold and rain, yesterday was gorgeous–mild temperature (about 55) and fluffy clouds cruising across the blue sky. For some reason, when it rains and I stay inside, I find that my pants start shrinking. Perhaps it’s something in the water when I wash them (or in the pastries
This young man is watching over his family’s flock of sheep. He looks pretty serious. There are quite a few people here who don’t like getting their picture taken. This kid was ok with it, but I gave him a couple of dirhams anyway.
According to an Indian newspaper, 4,000 Moroccans demonstrated in Rabat over the “cartoon crisis.” I’ve also read that one of the Rabat papers printed an editorial that slammed the French and called for boycotting their products, but another one actually published one of the cartoons and is now under investigation. I also saw this quote on the BBC News website: “They want to test our feelings,” protester Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu Israra told the BBC. “They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers,” he said. No comment necessary. Meknes, though, has been quiet, as far as I know. There has probably been as much outrage over the football team’s early exit from the Africa Cup. 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. The day of the Feast of Sacrifice, Wednesday, was beautiful. I sat with Saif and his family on the roof of their apartment in the bright sun, waiting for the butcher to arrive. I even got a bit of sunburn. The fellow was an hour or so late, so we sat around talking–Saif, his younger brother, sister, mother, Saif’s friend, his brother’s friend and me. We ate oranges and a dish that tasted a lot like macaroni and cheese, only it was made of bread and milk and baked in the oven. Really quite tasty, as was all of the food I ate the past few days. Try some of the Moroccan recipes here; you won’t be disappointed.
Finally the butcher arrived. He had already had 10 appointments that day. The sheep was well taken care of before, as it was given water to drink and salt to eat. After wrestling the reluctant animal to the ground, it was hogtied and the butcher then sliced its throat, the blood flowing out on the rooftop, though not as much as I expected. It was all very quick, and I don’t think the animal suffered much, thankfully. Muslims feel a lot of respect and gratitude for the sheep, though there was no religious ritual involved. After it was decided that the sheep was truly dead, Saif used a bicycle pump to inflate air into the carcass through a cut made in the leg. It started to puff up like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon; this was necessary to make the separation of the skin from the meat easier. I watched the whole process, from taking the skin off, to the removal of the “innards” and their subsequent cleaning, to the burning of the head in order to remove the horns and to cook the brain. It was quite a long and tiring procedure, taking the most part of two hours, with the entire family and friends involved. I took photos, but I’m only posting a few here (none of the bloodier ones, though). In the photo below, the butcher finishes off the “balloon.” Clockwise from left are Nouaman (Saif’s younger brother), Saif, his mother, and the butcher.
Below, Saif’s brother and sister are roasting the head of the sheep over an open flame. (I cropped out the head, but if you want to see the full photo, it’s in the gallery.) They roast, then scrape off the fuzz or beard, roast some more, scrape off more, roast, scrape, etc. Takes quite a while. Then the horns are chopped off with a hatchet that, to me, resembled a small medieval battle axe. Eventually, the skull is split open and the brain is removed and cooked. I didn’t have any brains, I don’t think. (No derogatory comments, please.)
Afterwards, we ate sheep-liver kabobs cooked over a charcoal grill, stuffed in bread and sprinkled with salt, cumin and mildly hot red pepper. You can’t dine on meat any fresher. . . The sun began to lower in the west, the afternoon becoming chilly, so we went downstairs to the apartment. More conversation followed, and eventually I mentioned that I’d better leave, since I was riding my bike and I didn’t want to ride in the dark, but I was entreated to stay for the evening meal. This consisted of warm bread fresh out of the oven, a stew of various parts of the sheep and oranges. Again, pretty tasty. Finally, I took my leave. I was invited back, though, on Friday for lunch. Because of all the work involved with the sheep, Saif’s mother did not have time to cook a proper meal, so I returned today. Two of Saif’s uncles and an aunt were there, visiting from Casablanca, Tangiers and from a small village just outside of Meknes. Today we ate, guess what? . . . yes, sheep! This was a roast, smothered in prunes and apricots. We tore off chunks of fresh-baked bread and used it to scoop out the fruit and meat, which was so tender it virtually fell from the bone, no knives or forks needed. We also had more sheep kabobs and oranges. I was fairly stuffed. The meal was preceded by tea and followed by coffee. Basically, I’ve eaten more sheep these two days than I’ve eaten in the totality of my life before. It’s pretty good. I think the whole of Morocco and, indeed, most of the Muslim world have been eating sheep for the last three days. I suppose a sharpster could invest in sheep futures and make a small fortune. Of course, my heart goes out to the families of all those lost in the tragedy of the Hajj in Mecca. At any rate, I was very happy and honored to be invited by Saif to his house. This is not unusual in Morocco. The country is reknowned for its hospitality, where the “guest is king,” according to one of my guide books. More later. John, my boss, drove down from Rabat yesterday in his quest for snow. It was a chilly, rainy overcast day in Meknes, so we assumed there would be plenty of new snow in the Middle Atlas Mountains south of here. John wanted to drive up to Lake Afenourir, a protected bird habitat, about 26 km south of Azrou. Lac d’Afenourir It was an interesting drive in the fog and mist, and, after arriving, we walked near the shore for about 45 minutes, looking for exotic birds, but all we saw were the usual assortment of ducks and geese (though I could have been looking right at the rarest bird in the world and not known). It was rainy, windy and somewhat cold, so we scurried back to the car and drove back to the pavement. John’s been itching to give his 4-wheel drive Subaru, the only Subaru in Morocco as far as he knows, a good off-road test, so we picked a dirt road at random and headed into the Middle Atlas, winding ever higher into the mountains. The Road Goes Ever On We got back in a ways, perhaps 10 miles or so, and ended up in a very small, Berber family compound, with the muddy and, in spots, almost impassable track continuing steeply to the ridge beyond. John was getting low on gas, so we decided to go back to the main road. In better weather these roads would be fun to explore to see where they go. Drive far enough, about 150 miles or so, and you’d end up in the Sahara. Again, though, we didn’t see any new snow; the temperature was still just a few degrees too warm. Middle Atlas Mountains We stopped in Ifrane on the drive back and ate supper at a very nice cafe. I ordered a pizza and what I thought would be a small salad. The salad turned out to be rather huge. John looked at it and asked, “What the heck did you order!” I told him I thought it would be smaller. He ordered a Vietnamese shrimp salad (yes, Vietnamese) and a Vietnamese omelet. It turned out his order was also more than he bargained for. We managed to polish off the lot, though. Yes, the restaurant serves Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese dishes, but I don’t know how authentic they are. It was quite an eclectic experience–stopping in a town built by the French to resemble an alpine resort, eating East Asian food and, very briefly, having a group of Chinese tourists (presumably) sit next to us. John recognized the language as Chinese, but the group must have decided not to stay, as they sat for only a few minutes and got up and left. Anyway, that’s how I spent most of Christmas Eve Day. It’s raining again, lightly, today, so I won’t have a white Christmas. But, I’ll have a good one, I suppose. I bought a small turkey breast that I’ll roast, whip up some mashed potatoes and gravy, some frozen green peas and get a loaf of fresh bread from the patisserie. The students are out on practicum this coming week, so I’m in no hurry to make up lesson plans. If it clears up later, maybe I’ll take the bicycle out for a spin. So, wherever you’re at– Korea, the U.S., Canada, Thailand, Laos or Morocco–have a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year! More later. |
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More later.
). At any rate, I decided to get some exercise and take a bike ride into the countryside. With all the rain, the vegetation is greening up very nicely. I got kind of a late start, leaving around 2:30 p.m., so I didn’t go a long way out, perhaps 3 miles beyond the edge of the city. That’s not counting the 5 or 6 miles from my apartment to the edge of the city. I brought along my small, somewhat crappy digital camera, not my good Canon, so if the photos are not up to snuff, that’s my excuse. Here’s a few and there are a couple more on the Photo Gallery. This week’s weather is forecasting sunny skies and temperatures approaching 70 degrees, so I plan to make a more extended ride soon.
