Morocco

Asilah Nostalgia

2007-08-17T22:43:00.000-07:00

Movie!

2007-08-15T21:15:00.000-07:00

Cool: the movie Appaloosa, with Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen and Renee Zellweger, is going to be filmed at our ranch! I SO want to be an extra.

Check out the location: http://www.flickr.com/photos/palovistaranch/

... that's what New Mexico looks like, for all of my dear foreign friends :)

Language Frustrations

2007-08-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I've commenced the epic journey: learning Arabic. It's QUITE difficult, needless to say. The letters still look a bit like cool drawings to me, but they are slowly and vaguely starting to look like they are comprised of different letters, rather than just a stream of waves and dots. Frustratingly, the Arabic I learned in Morocco isn't of much use, seeing as the Moroccan dialect is ONLY spoken there, and no one else can understand it. Modern Standard is quite different. Gah! السلام

Aux memes temps, je dois etudier le francais! C'est frustrant. Mais, c'est important. Les americains ne parlent que l'anglais et pour ca, je suis triste. Il faut connaitre les langues (et les gens) du monde.

2007-08-12T23:35:00.000-07:00

America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still.
e. e. cummings

Can we argue that moving in the wrong direction is, indeed, better than standing still? Perhaps I should have plowed on ahead through pre-med after all.

Blogging

2007-08-12T17:58:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to sort of like the idea of keeping a blog. It's a nice way to share thoughts with friends across the miles, if anyone reads it. Suppose I'll just keep this one plugging along, hopefully updating more regularly (doesn't everyone say that?).

I signed up for a couple of months in Morocco as I’d signed up for most things in my life: unthinkingly, in passing, with a jostle of unhesitating fingers scurrying across the keyboard. A few clicks on expedia.com and I was off. I tend not to agonize over decisions until after the fact. This has proven quite practical (as the decision gets made while life gallops along), but also aggravating, as that clatter of hoofs takes on the hollow sound of The Second Guess. My college selection process was this way as well, now that I think about it. Despite my misgivings, I headed off to the other side of the world to rock a few kasbahs.

Sometimes, in quick intervals between the scream of my cell phone, the roar of the microwave, the mutter of the tv, and the buzz of the radio, I hear Arabic music. It drifts into my room through an open window, or seeps under the crack below the door. I imagine that just beyond the room, men are calling blond women “mes petites princesses” and hoping dumpy tourists will pay exorbitant rates for camel rides. Morocco creeps back into my life sometimes and jostles with the routine. I let my eyes droop into an unattractive, half-lidded state and see men in Kaftans and boys with leather sandals. I see Cute Omelet Guy next to those orange juice carts in a drunken, dusty line. Morocco nestles or nettles itself in … I can’t quite figure out which.

I had a dream in French the other night.

I think I'll study Arabic this year. Perhaps it will be another of those one-click decisions, for better or worse. I can't see how it would fit into THE PLAN, but THE PLAN seems to have become more of a "what NOT to do" strategy. All I’ve learned thus far is that everything I thought I was interested in would doom me to live hand to mouth my whole life. Then, after choosing the road most traveled by in order to avoid being a penniless author, it dawned on me that Pre-Med is also the road most abandoned. The woods on either side of THAT mire are mighty thick, however. Brambles and fights and Africa later, I have no more of a clue as to what to study than the day I drooled on my bib and said “Ga.”

We try.

2007-07-18T17:06:00.000-07:00

Kojo's goodbye dinner

Jazz au Chellah

Asilah:

Tracy goodbye dinner

Le Purple Pub

Chez Alex

Links

2007-07-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been forever since I uploaded photos. This is due largely to the fact that every single second of every single day is brimming with real life -- i.e. I don't have time to go on the computer. My good friend Kamil from Poland keeps a blog: http://www.kamil-in-morocco.blogspot.com/ it's fabulous, with pictures et. al

Anyway I leave much too soon -- I already see the countdown looming. What to do? I've toyed with the idea of taking a year off from Yale and actually staying here to work. I don't think I would teach English ... rather, I'd love to work in the US Embassy or for a social foundation here. A dream. A possibility. I've been here for about 50 days, I guess. Not enough time and yet I feel like I've lived here for years.

More photos of mine: http://yale.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000505&l=bf37a&id=1348140066

(some of these are from Asilah, my favorite town in the world, now. Ohh I am so buying a house there as soon as I can afford it!)

these are not as new, some of the same photos but some new: http://yale.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000483&l=b8ea9&id=1348140066

p.s.

2007-06-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

With our blond hair, Natalie and I were the most conspicuous pair you've ever encountered in the Middle East. Men kept offering 2,000 camels for us...

Finally Some New Photos

2007-06-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

My camera was lost or stolen, so I haven't been able to take photos in a while. These are courtesy of Natalie, who flew in from Madrid to meet me for a fabulous weekend in Marrakesh. Despite some crazy adventures (credit-card-eating ATM, meeting random people in the Medina and being called "fish and chips" -- the only English words people knew, for some reason), or perhaps because of the adventures, it was quite a weekend. Snake charmers, monkeys, way too many orange juice carts...

2007-06-05T06:34:00.000-07:00

Ifrane

2007-06-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

2007-06-01T05:06:00.000-07:00

Met my boss -- guy named Aziz. Very wonderful and crazy Moroccan, friendly. I start teaching English this afternoon. So far, four girls. The problem is, I've been speaking to people who speak halting English, or French, so now I'm stumbling over my own language! This weekend one of the Moroccan boys is taking some of us to the mountains. Supposed to be beautiful!

2007-05-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

Today I visited Mosque Hassan, which is literally one short block from my apartment.

Video... view from my window

2007-05-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

2007-05-29T06:16:00.000-07:00

The Beach

2007-05-29T05:42:00.000-07:00