Blogs from Morocco, Africa - page 216

I recently was lucky to recieve a phone call from a classroom I have been corresponding with in Wisconsin. Peace Corps' World Wise Schools program matched me with Mrs. Burge's 2nd grade class in Holmen and we have been corresponding for several months. Last month in celebration of Peace Corps Week and the 46th anniversay of Kennedy's creation, Peace Corps paid for an hour long call between me, some of my English speaking students, and the students at Viking Elementary in Holmen. I promised during the call that I would put my friend Maryam's recipe for couscous on my blog since nobody managed to write it down as fast as she explained it over the phone. Bs-hha u rahha! Maryam’s Couscous serves 7 1 kilo of dry couscous (not instant stuff, real couscous) water olive ... read more

Mohammed veste djellabah e tarboosh ma dentro è tanto occidentale quanto la comitiva di Inglesi pallidi cui mi sono accodato per errore ad Algeciras. Siamo a Ceuta, enclave Spagnola in territorio Marocchino, e Mohammed è la nostra guida. È alto e di costituzione snella solo corretta da una vistosa pancia, chiaro segno di benessere economico. Porta i baffi e un paio di occhiali da sole fumè da pappone anni ’70. Io odio le gite organizzate in genere e le guide in particolare. Per norma generale, alla seconda o terza domanda imbarazzante, anche le guide odiano me. In realtà il Marocco non entrava nei miei piani di viaggio, ma a Cadice avevo scoperto che la nave per le isole Canarie salpa solo di mercoledì e che non v’erano posti disponibili fino alla settimana seguente. Mi ritrovavo così ... read more

Hello dearies! Ok so I apologize for the long delay in the blog post! We arrived back in London at 4 in the morning on Monday morning only to wake up a few hours later to go to class! I definitely thought of skipping but we got free Indian food after class, and I was not about to pass up a delicious free meal in London! And to boot, I have been recuperating from a weird stomach thing for the past couple of days and sleeping has apparently been a higher priority than letting you all know that I am alive and safe…. Sorry about that… Ok, so enough of the lame excuses. Morocco was AMAZING!!! To start off with a bit of the notorious flawed McMillan luck when it comes to flying that I can’t ... read more

MoroccoWe arrived by Easy Jet to Marrakesh and clear blue skies at about 11am on Wednesday 13th December. After waiting in a long queue to get cash from the only cash machine in the airport (you cannot get Moroccan currency before you arrive), we headed outside to get a taxi to the Medina, the old town. We were expecting an onslaught of taxi drivers trying to con us out of our newly acquired money - but instead were left to wander out of the terminal building aimlessly until we found a waiting taxi driver. After some minimal haggling (a taxi ride to the medina should cost you about 70Dh), we were on our way. Arriving at the medina is a bit of a culture shock. The majority is pedestrianised, so the taxi drops you on the ... read more

Historically, the start of my adventures have been fraught with surprises; some of my own undoing, and for others, the airline was at fault. This time, it was Delta (again!) I get to the airport with time to spare. At check-in, the kiosk displays that my flight is "unavailable" (kiosk-speak for cancelled, I later learn) and offers me another some 12 hours later, when I'm supposed to be well on my way to Dakar. At the direction of a ticket agent, I head to a "black phone" to let someone know the flight is unacceptable. Thankfully, my connecting flight from JFK to Dakar was an evening flight. Since I was at National before 10:00 in the morning for my cancelled flight, I had ample time to spend-- * waiting in line to use the "black phone", ... read more