Technical Difficulties for Halloween

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"You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to offer."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

I doubt Eleanor could have imagined some of the situations I've been meeting with my best lately, but her advice still works.
My camera has decided it doesn't like computers anymore, so I can't upload photos until I figure out another way to get them off the camera.

On the bright side, I got to travel to Fès on Sunday with Asmae and spent the night there with her at her aunt's house. It was almost creepy how much her aunt reminded me of my mom's sisters. If my grandmother had had another daughter, she could have looked just like Asmae's aunt. I would post a photo to prove it if I could. While in Fès we went to the suq and I bought a jellaba, one of the big hooded cover-all moroccan robe things. Again, if only you could see it . . . We spent the afternoon at the house cooking, like any other day in the life of a Moroccan woman. I discovered that it is possible to make apple walnut cake with out a recipe or any attempt at measuring the ingredients. It even turned out better than the first one I made. I hadn't wanted to make it, but Asmae really wanted one, so I gave it a shot.

Other Fès observations: Sunday night was "Lwasher" an important night in Ramadan. They burned some special kind of insense and carried it around to every room in the house. Everybody dressed up and we went out on the town after Lftor (the sunset break fast meal). There were a lot of people out, and the people watching was great. There were also a lot of tourists, I couldn't take my eyes off them. It was so interesting to see faces that looked like me. They didn't look back though, Asmae had me all dressed up and I blended into the crowd. With my hair covered it's hard to pick me out as a foreigner - you would believe me if you could see the photos.

So, today when we got up at the crack of dawn to catch a ride back to Sefrou and I actually made it to class on time, I had forgotten that it is Haloween. When Bart reminded me this morning I decided that I'm dressing as a Moroccan this year. Considering my limited wardrobe at the moment, it's the only costume possible.

Tonight I'm teaching a beginner class at the Dar Shebab and I've decided to focus on culture rather than grammar this time. They're going to get a Halloween lesson tonight and learn the phrase "take it easy" because I 'm too tired from the Fès trip to give them the energy I usually put into lessons. I'll explain it's a holiday in my country and we're not going to work too hard at 8pm on a holiday.

Other mentionables:
- The roosters in Sefrou are very loud and often sound like elephants in the distance.
- There are a couple guys in the suq (market) who yell at me every time I go to and from the Dar Shebab, but they haven't figured out which language to hit on me in yet. Every day it's a new mixture of "Ich libe dich" "Welcome la gente" "bonjourno" and other phrases I don't understand. I get a lot of French and English from them too, but since I don't respond to any of it they haven't fixed on one language yet.
- Out of the towns that the other trainees are in, Sefrou is the biggest and the only one with internet cafés. On Sundays there's usually PCTs from other towns visiting Sefrou.

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Comments

[Hanne]

I miss you!!
I remembered getting hit on in Egypt. It was fun trying to have a conversation with those crazy man in every language that they tried to aproach me with. I made up a new identity every day. They were so confused!