Blogs from Fès-Boulemane, Morocco, Africa - page 29

Hello everybody Sorry there's no photos for this blog. Many technical issues going on over here. The good news is: I can't say enough how awesome the other people in my group are. Training is a bit like summer camp; but even better. It's a diverse group. Besides being from all over the US and with different backgrounds we're not all recent college graduates. Our youngest is 21 and our oldest is somewhere in his 40s. I can't remember exactly. We lost the oldest of the group we started out with in Philadelphia. Barbara is 77 and she went with the other half when we split in Rabat. It's a fun community of volunteers. Last night somebody got out a laptop and others found DVDs and we borrowed a screan and projector from the PC staff ... read more

Zdravim poprve z Maroka, ne ze by tu nebyly net kavarny, ale tak nejak po vecerech nemame cas. Projeli jsme Casablancou a zustali v Rabatu, Meknesu a Fezu, ktery je zatim nejmaroctejsi. Snazime se splynout domorodci a tak pojidame mistni dobroty a vecery travime v mistnich parnich laznich. Teda jen my pani tvorstva, holky musi odpoledne. Vcera jsme se dokonce nechali namasirovat od mistniho borce. Trochu mi krupaly obratle ale zase jsem se postavil a odesel (odplazil se) po svych. Dneska samozrejme pokracujem, lazne vypadaji ze fugujou uz stovky let a domorodci jsou tam sympatictejsi. Zitra se chystame na cestu do pouste. V planu je Saharske jezero s plamenaky -pokud bude voda, expedice na velbloudech, a nejvetsi duna v Maroku ( pry se tam i lyzuje na pisku). Na fotkach jsou i nektere mistni dobroty, jidlo ... read more

Lep pozdrav iz Maroka. Najprej opravicilo, ker bodo napake, ampak tale arabska tipkovnica ima drugace postavljene crke. Po dolgi voznji preko Sevile do Tarife sva se ze zvecer odlocila, da preckava Gibraltar in piciva v Maroko. S ful hitrim colnom smo preleteli ozino in se znasli v Afriki. Prvi vecer sva se z dvema Italijanoma nasla sobo in zaceli smo okusati afriske care. Cari so bili najprej zelo podobni ciganiji, ampak ker sem bil ze v Indiji, tu ni bilo nic posebnega. Razen Nataliji, ker je bila njena prva izjava: Jaz grem domov. Ampak ni panike. Se je ze skoraj navadla. Tukaj zivijo po mojem okusu. Pozno vstanejo, malo delajo, dolgo lenarijo in pozno hodijo spat. Cele dneve presedijo pred cajnicami in srkajo metin caj ter kavo. Edini problem je, ker je meni najljubsa pijaca - ... read more

Monday morning. The bus to Chefchauoen left Tangier at 8am. A short bald man took over the aisle. Standing right next to me, he started his speech. He shouted and gesticulated as if preaching the Khoran. I couldn't understand a word, but prefered to pay careful attention to him. After much blah-blah-blah, he fished out of his suitcase a handful of small plastic bags: he was just trying to sell his cough pills! An hour and a half later we arrived at Tetouan. Outside, a stranger waived frantically to me. Hesitating, I jumped off the bus. He told me to fetch my backpack and head upstairs to the tourist office. Extremely weird... It took me 5 minutes to realise the guy was nothing but another tout trying to get some money from me, stupid tourist. Back ... read more

This weekend was the big holiday: Aid Al-Kebir, La Grande Fete, The Big Celebration. All last week the streets were full of bleeting sheep, and all last weekend they smelled of roasting sheep-meat. Aid Al-Kebir is Islam's biggest holiday. I think I mistakenly reported in a previous entry that the party after Ramadaan was the biggest, but I was wrong. For the holiday, to honor Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac to show his faith in god, every family buys a live sheep and kills it and eats the meat all weekend. Issac was spared the knife by god who replaced him with a sheep at the last moment, but the sheep, like the several million sheep sacrificed in Morocco on Friday, knew no such mercy. I celebrated with Abd Al-Ali (AKA Abdul) and his family ... read more