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Published: October 19th 2008
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Clean teeth, Dirty face!
Waffa learning how to brush her teeth. The relaxing atmosphere of Erfoud and the Dadani's Cafe/appartment caught up with us last night and we slept so good! We may have even slept in a little...
We went to one of the Kasbah's today and we were overwhelmed by the children. We brought 80 toothbrushes with toothpaste and we didn't have enough for them all. We did what we could to do some teaching about oral hiegene but the kids were so excited that I don't know how much they will have soaked in. I did one on one teaching with Aziz's niece and hopefully she will teach the other kids. Some of the older children have the worse cavities that I have seen, but in the few mouths I looked in, I didn't notice any infections or abscessess. Some of the children's gums bled when they brushed them, but it was amazing to see how much more white their teeth were with just one brushing!
The traditional Kasbahs, like we were in today, have one door. When you first walk in there is a big room and I think that we were told that this is where they do a mini-market for the families living there.
So many toothbrushes!
I was a little bombarded by all of the children. We couldn't get them in groups of only three or four, they were too excited and all tried to come at once. Then you walk down a hall, the middle is a trench for the water to drain out and the outer edges are slightly raised to walk on. There are doors that lead into each family's home. They are sort of like one-room appartments with a hole in the center to drain any water that may leak into the room from the roof. The roof in each room has a round "sky-light", but today ours was covered as it was raining out today.
The people here are happy about the rain, but they say that they have now had enough. They are getting nervous because the older buildings don't do well with so much rain and they are at risk of falling apart. Just last week in Erfoud, the rain caused a house to collapse and two children were killed. Out of respect for those who died, the people have decided to cancel their annual date festival, which was due to be just finishing up as we arrived.
As I mentioned we got to meet more of Aziz's family, and the president of the Association we will be working with in the Hanaboo Kasbah. We ate Tagine, but this
time with our hands like the local people do. Mom had a hard time eating because they consider eating with your left hand rude. It didn't work so well, and after many appologies and explainations, the woman let her eat with her right. I think that Aziz's sister took pity on her because she is also left-handed.
Because the Tagine is a very large part of the culinary culture here I will try to explain what it is like:
The Tagine is eaten twice a day, once in late afternoon and once in late evening (definately something we are having to get used to). When you eat the Tagine in someone's home, you sit on the floor next to a low round table. The Tagine itself has all of the veggies on top and the meat is on the bottom. The women take large pieces of flat(ish) bread and tear them into pieces and divide them up between everyone at the table. Because the Tagine is also round, you eat only from the area directly in front of you, sort of like an imaginary pie. The bread is your spoon and you eat all of the veggies with it. When the vegetables are finished, one of the woman (most likely the mother) will take all of the meat out and break it apart and then hand each person a portion. For those who know me, they know that seeing bones in my food makes me gag... so I did my best to not watch while Aziz's niece sucked the marrow out of a piece of bone right beside me (yuck!). Aziz just tells them that I am a vegetarian, I wonder what they will think when they feed me the Kefta and I eat it.
Tomorrow mom and I will go to the association to teach them how to used their new sewing machines. If mom is making out okay, I am going to steal Aziz and we will head to the school. Aziz thinks that hopefully by going to the school we can teach without the kids getting too overwhelming. He thinks that maybe they will listen a little better. We bought another 200 toothbrushes and paste. It was hard to leave today knowing that we did not have enough for everyone.
Mom and I are both not feeling well tonight. I think that all of the new food is taking our systems some getting used to. We can't say enough about how hospitable Aziz and his family are and we are very greatful to now include them among our friends.
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