I Hate Chalkboards, But I Used One To Do Something Cool.

The classrooms in Tahnaoute all have chalkboards. In fact, all of my fellow Fulbrighters have reported that they also have chalkboards in their classrooms. This could be a Morocco-wide phenomenon.

I hate chalkboards. They always look dirty. The chalk dust gets all over my hands and dries them out. At the end of class I will inevitably have chalk all over my hips, thighs, knees, backside, or all of the above.

But, I was able to do something cool with a chalkboard last week. I wrote in Arabic.

The students didn't understand the English word "perseverance" in their textbooks, so I wrote the Arabic equivalent on the board.

I wish I could say that I figured out the Arabic equivalent all by myself. Then I would be a linguistic rock star. However, the truth is that Brahim wrote it down for me, and I simply copied it on the board.

For the record, I want to state that I recognized all of the letters, and was able to write them correctly on the first try. The students applauded. I beamed.

I feel quite proud of myself. :)

Public Bath Experience III

I'm starting to feel like a professional hammamer now. I know where to go, I know what to do, and I have my own supplies. I've thought about going alone a few times, but I pretty much like going with Khadija.

It had only been six days since my last exfoliation, and I thought for sure that I had reached the "spaghetti-free zone" (referring to the appearance of the skin tendrils after having my body scraped down by one of the hammam employees). Unfortunately, an abundance of excess skin was still produced. I snuck a glance at Khadija as she was being exfoliated, and she had skin tendrils too. I decided it must be normal.

Observations from an (almost) hammam pro:

-the whole experience is significantly more relaxing when I know what is happening and what will happen next.
-the skin scraping process is still just as painful, but less shocking.


On our way out of the hot rooms and into the dressing area, we saw a white lady standing just outside the entrance. She was already undressed and was clutching her fists just underneath her chin with a scared look on her face. Khadija, being the insanely gracious woman that she is, asked, "Can I help you?"

The girl whimpered (in English), "I don't know what to do..." Khadija hooked her up with one of the hammam ladies, and we went on our way chuckling. In the changing area we found two French women who were also completely clueless. They had no idea what the hammam procedure was and hadn't even brought their own towels. Khadija came to the rescue again (she is fluent in French) and explained things to the women.

Can I just say, I was SO GLAD not to be them? My initial experience was shocking enough without having NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON.

If any of my gentle readers ever find themselves confronted with a hammam experience, allow me to offer the following advice:

-bring your own towel (you DO NOT want to have to use one that the hammam has on hand. Enough said).

-bring all of the things you normally bathe with. Shampoo, soap, shower gel, razor, etc.

-there will be a bunch of buckets near the entry to the hammam. Grab a few of them. You will fill them up with the hammam faucets and use them to bathe

-just walk in, sit down, and do what everyone else is doing. Everyone seems to have their own method of doing things, so you really can't be wrong.

-it will be extremely obvious that you are a foreigner, so the hammam ladies will surely come help you or at least keep you from doing something wrong.

Classroom Charades

It's really interesting teaching English as a Third Language when I don't know the first or second languages of my students.

Their level of English is quite good, but every once in a while they have a question about a word. Since my Arabic is extremely limited and my French is even more limited, I have to resort to charades.

"Cry" was easy. I just put my fists up to my cheeks and made a really sad face.

"Extinguish" was a bit more challenging. Finally I came up with using my fingers as a flame. I blew on them, and they receded.

But how do you act out "polite" or "visit?" Yeah, those stumped me too. I tired offering English synonyms, but they were met with quizzical looks. I whipped out my Lonely Planet Moroccan Arabic-English index, but it didn't have the word polite (although the equivalent for visit was easily understood)...

Turns out, in situation like that you simply wait for your Fulbright partner to come back. Then he can explain what the word means in Arabic.

Maybe someday I'll be able to do that too...

Family Trip to Oukaimeden

Last weekend the whole family took a day trip to Oukaimden.

The car ride took about an hour. It was relatively uneventful except for watching Karim rock out to Sara's I-pod.

This was Karim's face when he realized I was taking pictures of his car dancing.

But, he didn't let it faze him, and he went back to enjoying the music.

At one point during the ride, Loubna, Sara, and I were all listening to our I-pods. We switched earphones so that I was listening to one of mine and one of Loubna's. Loubna was listening to one of hers and one of Sara's. Sara was listening to one of hers and one of mine. It is kind of trippy to listen to different songs at the same time. We thought it was pretty funny and laughed a lot. Pretty much your basic family road trip (minus the fighting and frequent threats to "turn this car around and go back home").

According to my Lonely Planet book, Oukaimden is home to Africa's highest ski lift. That's right, you can ski in Morocco. Due to an extremely unfortunate incident trying to ski in Girdwood a couple of years ago, I didn't really feel like trying my hand (feet?) at African downhill skiing, but Loubna and I rode up the ski lift anyway.

This is Brahim watching us go up. He was hollering at Loubna to put her hat on (dads are the same the world over).

This is Loubna not wearing her hat (daughters are also the same the world over).

This is me. I didn't have a hat, but I wore my hood most of the way up. I just took it off for the picture. (Hey Loubna! Thanks for taking the picture!)

The Oukaimden ski lift is substantially less scary than many other ski lifts because it has a bar that can be pulled down in front of you. Nice to have because Brahim made me promise not to let his daughter fall out of the lift chair. It also let us relax and enjoy the scenery.

This is what greeted us when we got to the top. It was gorgeous. Incidentally, it may have produced the most stunning picture I have ever taken.

I took a picture of Loubna in front of the gorgeousness, even though she didn't want me to.

Then she took a picture of me...

and another one....

and another one...

I used this opportunity to act like my usual dramatic self and pose in front of the camera.

In order to establish a history of myself as the ultimate cheeseball and poser, I dug this old picture out. This picture was taken when I was about ten years old. It is a picture of my Grandma Slaughter with many (but not all) of her grandchildren. Our family had just experienced a baby burst (thanks in large part to my twin brothers). I am the oldest child in the picture.

Several interesting things are happening in this picture. Mandy is wearing tie-dyed stretch pants (Hey Mandy! Was it the nineties or something?). The baby on my lap is screaming. The next baby is throwing up. Joe (the baby in the middle) is about to fall off of Grandma's lap and is probably beginning to cry or at least grunt loudly. Baby Tom loooks like he either died or fell asleep.

As you can tell from the photo, I am oblivious to ALL OF THIS. I am posing and smiling for the camera despite the screaming, vomit, and babies in potentially dangerous situations. It's a talent I've had all my life. So, when you think about mocking me for my fake smiles and poses, consider that there is a lot of history to this behavior, and it's not something I'm going to be able to kick overnight. Thank you.

The ride down offered similarly stunning views.

It was about at this point in the ride that Loubna said, "Pleeeeeaaaaaaase stop taking pictures." So I did. For a few minutes.

We returned safely to the ground to find Brahim and Karim enjoying a donkey ride.

We also got to walk past these cute little mud houses by a creek on a hill!

I convinced the family to stand together for a picture. Unfortunately, The snow in the back got totally overexposed. Oops. I would have taken another shot, but Brahim decided he had enough of picture taking. ~~Shrug~~

We stopped at a little outdoor restaurant and shared a tajine.

And headed home into a beautiful sunset..

that just kept getting better. (Hey Loubna and Sara! Thanks for letting me lay across you in the car to take this picture out of the car window!)

It was a perfect family trip.

The Badia Palace

This is the Badia Palace. Well, part of it. I don't have a lens wide enough to show you the whole thing at once, so you'll have to be satisfied with pieces.

The palace was built under the direction of Ahmed Al Mansour Ad-dahbi of the Saadien dynasty during the sixteenth century.

Apparently, it used to be pretty spectacular. The walls were covered in marble, and the courtyard was full of pools. Moulay Ismail had the marble removed to decorate his palace in Meknes during the seventeenth century. The pools are now filled with orange trees. (Brahim dared me to crawl down and get one of the oranges. I declined for the following reasons: I wasn't sure it was legal, and I wasn't sure I could climb back out of the pool/orange orchard.)

The palace had a prison, and part of it was open to visitors like us! (Again, I have no idea what the green spots are. I tried to remove them using Photoshop, but it was too tedious, so I gave up caring. It happens.)

The creepiest part of the prison is that it was underground. The only light (before they installed the tourist-friendly light bulbs) came in from grated holes in the ceiling. Definitely not a place I would want to spend any significant time.

The palace is currently home to storks. Lots of them.

I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I spent most of my time looking for opportunities to take pictures of these birds.

Carrie and I also tried to explain the legend of storks delivering babies. Turns out, it sounds pretty stupid when you try to explain it to grown men who have never before heard it...

I was dying for this bird to turn around and face me! I even switched lenses for her (him?). I stood underneath the nest for an embarrassingly long time before deciding that the stork hated me.

I like this stork picture because the stork is roosting on top of a minaret. A minaret is a mosque tower. The speaker you see near the bottom of the picture is used to call Muslims to prayer five times a day.

There! This may not have been exactly the shot I was waiting for, but it's one that made my time at the Badia Palace worthwhile.

Jardin Majorelle

Jardin Majorelle is in Marrakech. It's a beautiful garden. It's very quiet and serene. It was fun to wander around with my camera taking lame pictures.

Most of the plants in the garden were cacti.

Since I spent some of my formative years living in Las Vegas, I was prepared not to be impressed. Until I saw these babies. Can you tell that they look fuzzy? Has anybody ever seen fluffy cacti before? I hadn't. I was duly impressed. Two thumbs up.

Jardin Majorelle was also home to significant quantities of aloe plants. I thought about breaking a leaf (is that what they're called?) open, but I wasn't sure what the Moroccan legal policy was on aloe breakage. I'd hate to go to an African prison for the sake of satisfying a curious whim.

The garden also had colorful flowers.

Good thing I spent $900 on a macro lens so that I could get shots like this, huh Steve?

This was my favorite flower shot. I'm kind of a sucker for purple.

This, however, was my favorite shot of the day. Turtles! I heart turtles! They were so outrageously cute stretching their tiny necks that I couldn't resist taking a pictures. Despite my 105mm lens, this was as close as I could get (they were kind of far away).

Fun fact: people in Morocco (probably tourists) carve their names into stalks of bamboo. It never would have occurred to me to carve my initials (or Steve's) into a stalk of bamboo. I guess my love doesn't run as deep as Ronald's (or did Ronald just exhibit a healthy sense of self worth by carving his full name? I really can't tell).

As a bonus, I got this great shot of Brahim's brother Ahmed. This the person with whom I have spent hours walking through the streets of Marrakesh. Two thumbs up.

I Don't Like Dates

It's really too bad that I don't like dates.

Dates grow on palm trees. There are a lot of palm trees in Morocco.

Fresh dates are supposed to be the very best kind of dates.

There they are in gigantic clumps, and I can't care because I don't like them. Every once in a while I'll try another one just to be sure.

It's especially too bad that I don't like dates because Brahim loves them.

He loves them so much that he's willing to stop the car during road trips and climb trees to get them.

He passes the dates to his brother Ahmed. And the only enjoyment I get from the whole process is taking pictures.

I don't feel ripped off...