Revolution In The Streets...

Living in North Africa these past months has seen much upheaval of governments that once were thought to be unchangeable, yet when they fail their people then time for a changes goes from a whisper to a roar, as poverty, unemployment and a class system that keeps the masses in a downward spiral must be tossed aside and new ideas and leadership given the chance to make the citzens of these lands a better existence and hope for a better life for their children . I will not speak about the current conditions in Morocco as I am a guest in this country and representive of the US government... but I watch with interest the reactions of Moroccans to what has and is unfolding in countries all over North Africa and the Middle East. They watch the current event as if it was football game... engrossed and rooting for their team to bring home victory.

As an foreigner and American living next door to many of these events I keep my ears and eyes open to the daily news and talk to my local friends about the chance such things could happen here. I have packed a small bag and have started to read and take more seriously the protocol and plans if an evacution of my site becomes a reality versus a far-fetched idea. I feel very safe, but I have noticed an occasional look on the streets that I did not notice before... changes are good but at the same time if these events happened 22 months from now I would not mind one bit... the closer these events get to my host country, the more likely I will have to leave for obvious reasons.
bsalma

Been Gone So Long...

Well actually not really... Another month has come to the end and I mark the days off and count the months until end of service and wonder is this normal? After three grueling months of training, another month living and breathing every waking moment trying to secure a place of my own to live, furnish it and finally feel complete again... I have actually only been an active PCV for approximately 30 days and yet I know I only have 22 months more in country. These thoughts are not mine alone, other PCVs are having the same reverse clock ticking off in their heads, as we miss home and friends and wonder what in the world the Peace Corps isthinking at times... Inshallah I will countdown to ZERO.

Things that have happened since I last wrote here... my home is furnished and looking nothing like a moroccan home, it has the feel of an American ex-pat with a touch of an artist loft... I almost feel ay home in my little apartment. I will post photos soon. Next, I took a spill down a flight of stairs while getting my bike... ended up with a banged up elbow, bruised ribs, very sore backside and tweeked my knee. All will heal, but a little concerned with my knee, it is hurting and I wonder what I did, getting old and years of ice hockey have taken their toll without taking a tumble down a wet marble stairway. Finally getting some work done that I feel good about, working is important to me and without it I might just go crazy so I look forward to adding as much as I can.

But the best news I have saved for last... Saturday my easle was delivered... to backtrack, I decided to commission a local carpenter to make me a basic tripod easle versus building it myself, drew up the design, we discussed the dimensions -yeah like I can talk to him in a common verbal language... most of our conversation was with drawings and sign language in between "Salam...labas, bixir... lhamdulah" ..............sukran, bsalma, llay eaoun. My easle is in my front room, positioned so I am lookingout the front window, next to my desk and across from the whiteboard... time to start working... but first I need paint, brushes and canvas... time to travel to Rabat.
Time to put my keyboard away for now... llay eaoun!!

News Flash...

In case you hear the news that the Peace Corps has suspended the program in Niger (the details are vague) I just want to reassure you all that at this time Morocco is fine and I do not see any reason to be concerned about mine or anyones safety and security here.
Salama.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programs...

3500 Light Years from Home

I found out my team lost yesterday with a one o'clock skype from Stephen, I had dozed off and neither of us wanted to dissect the lose too much. Yes my football team lost yesterday and the only thing that is helping ease the pain is that I have been so far removed from their outstanding season that I did not have the week-to-week investment I would normally have... so the pain will not linger. I have to quote a friend who said after the game something to the affect of "... we have 8 picked in the top 100 in the spring draft... we will be back in the big dance next year..." I for one believe that the next 4 years will be as good as any in the Brady era...

Today I finally got my fridge and spent two hours cleaning it and found a few roaches in the bottom... not a good way to start a relationship with the one piece of equipment that holds all your food. So now I keep checking my kitchen and on the alert to kill and destroy any crawling creature. Shit is nothing simple here... can't I get something that is right the first time... this is why it is so hard to find booze here, because I need a shot of Johnnie Walker...deba!!

Been slacking off on my drawings and promise to get another one up soon. Trying to get a carpenter to make me my easle, when to his shop today but he was gone... I hope to see him tomorrow.

Baseball season starts soon...

Cows in the street in the city of Sefrou...

What day is it? Sleeping in on any morning here is really not as easy as you would think, there is the call to prayer at 5:30, then the sound of buta tanks being dropped off at the hanot below my place and the basic morning noisy of a city's major thoroughfare waking up... all of these things I knew when I took this place, I exchanged peace and quiet surroundings along with hot water for what was exactly what I envisioned when I thought about my place in a foreign country.

But this morning as sun streamed in the windows of my salon it was actually quite peaceful and as I laid within the warmth of my sleeping bag in that state of sleep where we all love to be in on a sunday morning I heard the "mooooowing" of a cow or did I? I am dreaming of milk or thick beef steak? So I lay there and shrug and think... no way and pull the bag over my head but then it happens again and again, as if a herd of cows are outside my window! I am thinking WTF, this can't be happening... Sheep yes, but cows no way! Now the battle begins in my head do I get up and look out the window and confirm what I know must be true or do I stay in my mummy-like confines of my sleeping bag. I just have to see! I have to know!, so like the father in the poem "twas the night before christmas"..."I sprang from bed to see what was the matter, away to the window I flew like a flash (well no I walked half asleep), tore open the shutters and threw open the window..." COWS!! in a city of 80k... cows in the streets of Sefrou.

Well that is how my day started and now I am having a decent cup of coffee, listening to Billie Holiday and wishing I had the Boston Globe in my hands... inshallah i will again someday.

Light up the night...

This is what I see every night out my window (actually went to the roof for this shot... so I stretched the truth... big deal). Time is around 7:00PM on a Saturday, the runpawn (rotary to us in MA) is one busy intersection and crossing the street reminds me of George from Seinfeld when he was trying to get the frogger video game a cross a busy street. Many a morning I watch the cat and mouse game betwen cars, trucks and people. The minaret is from the mosque... every morning at 5:30 the call to prayer commences, the first of the five call to prayer each and everyday. Now the first of the day can go on for 30 minutes, it would be one thing if the chant and prayers were sung by some one with a nice voice, but that is not the case... the strangling of someone's vocal chords are what wakes me up every morning. This morning as I laid there, I wanted to open my window and yell "are you kidding me... haven't you hear of bells". But I stand out in a crowd as it is so hanging out my window yelling in english is not the best way to blend in.

An update on my home, I purchased some furniture this week, the place is coming together and I am beginning to make it feel like mine. The floor has been washed a few times... things are hanging onthe wall (unheard of in morocco) and in general I am happy here. Yes it is noisy but the light

Come Monday...

Monday came early today... I rolled out of my sleeping bag, made a pot of coffee and thought about doing my laundry. Which means heating a pot of water filling a tub with cold water and soap, adding the warm water so my fingers will function later and getting elbow deep into the tub, rinsing and ringing by hand and then up to the roof to dry on the line. Not my idea of a fun way to start the morning but I refuse to have someone else do what I can do... stubborn or cheap.... yeah both.

After laundry or I should say in between "loads" I erased the whiteboard and did another sketch out my window... this time a little further down the road... at first I was a little hestitant to just wipe out what i had done the other day... but I can't get attached to them it is a whiteboard after all. This one is about 11AM looking down at Cafe Argentina... one of the busier cafes in this square, it also has a pool hall... sefrou has more pool halls the Fall River and I did not think that was possible. I must look into why so many.

So here is my latest enter from Sefrou... I hope you all like it.

Yesterday's Papers...

Today for the first time I am missing my Sunday morning routine that I lived every 7 days for all my adult life. Up early (ok not that early) make a pot of coffee and get the two city papers as the rest of my house laid nestled in bed for the next hour or so. Then they would come down one at a time and grumble good morning (we were never very talkative first thing) and I split up the paper... Carolyn went for the sports, Stephen started with the funnies or entertainment as he waited his turn for the sports page to be free... and Ryan well as he got older I am not sure he ever got out of bed...haha. Then maybe a little breakfast as the "talking heads" came on TV and we would sit there half listening, reading and have a running conversations about the current events of the country and the world. Yes we Flynn's love to talk politics and read about our sports... actually I think it is the other way around. I am missing my sons very much this morning I guess and those days...

Reading news on the computer will NEVER be the same as reading a newspaper... I can not put into words my feelings about why but there is something missing for me... maybe I am just old-fashion in my ways.

Yesterday I draw-up rudimentary plans for an easle and gave them to a local carpenter to build, he is going to give me a price and unless it it outrageous I will get it done. I had grand plans to build it myself, but the process of aquiring all the tools, bargaining for wood, building sawhorses and so on could take months and just as much money... after all I am an artist not a carpenter, so logic dicates that I not spent the time building it, but rather using it.

Today I need to buy a rug for my home, a cheap, not too ugly rug... but it has to be about 2m x 3m and that will cost. Been pricing them all week and think I can get what I want for under 400Dhs. The weather is getting wet and raw (but still not like back in Boston) and my tile floors are lbrd bzzf on my feet.
Salama.

Saturday Morning...

is all right for drawing. Here is a view out my window of the lqhwa and the buildings... time is about 10:00AM and the square is slow to start. Whiteboard sketching is going to take a little getting use to, but I believe it will only improve as I understand the way the ink take to the surface. What i need is a maul stick, right now I am using a small straight edge, but I am looking around the streets and shops for a stick, cane or something that is about 3 feet long sturdy and straight. My best friend Susan is sending me some colored dry markers...YIPPEE so soon I will start rendering in basic colors... need to fine a way to create grays... not sure it is possible.

My goal here is to post a new drawing every day or at least a couple each week... nshallah. But it feels great to be drawing again.

A Day in a Life...

The other day I was sitting in the cafe next to my home sipping my coffee and sketching the people as they walked by. Now Morocco is a very different world then your everyday American city... street vendors sell everything for food and fruit to secondhand everything. Well today a man came up holding a few large whiteboards.... yes i said whiteboard, like the ones in every corporate office I have ever been in. Iam thinking damn I could use one of those... so i ask the price he of course gives it to me in ryals, then francs and last french dirhams... i finally do the math and figure ok he is as 250Dhs. No way "gali bzzf" so I tell him no and off he goes. Later he comes back the price is now 200Dhs... I offer 150Dhs and we settle on 160Dhs with markers. Ten minutes later it is on the wall in my home and the image above is my first primitive sketch out my window.

Sweet Home Morocco...

First, it has been awhile since I last posted, between the holidays and finding a place to live, life here has been topsy-turby. My holidays were great for being 3500k from family and friends, but the never seemed like Christmas or New Years, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy myself and everyone I celebrated the season with, it felt more like a party and less like what it should feel like... it that makes any sense. So I am not sure I want to be away from family again on these days... something was missing and I believe everyone was feeling the same way.

Now onto my home for the next two year... nshallah. After looking at many places most of them very zwin (beautiful) but to expensive, I was beginning to see the shade pulled on the month of December and the real possibility of having to extend my host family stay. So between looking for a place, the holidays and talking to PC Admin about how I go about telling my host family I need a place to stay in Arabic, what it will cost me and if I can keep sane during an extended stay. The idea of not getting ones own place here it trantamount to a prison sentence, no matter how nice the family is or your relationship with them, three months of living in someone else home is... indescribable.

So on December 27th as one place fell through, another opened up by chance. A women walked by the snack shop of my friend and tutor Ali, he ask if she knew of a place rent... she happened to have just moved out and was on her way to give the keys to the owner... I got up and she showed me the place and two hours later I paid my first months rent and had the keys. Renting in Morocco... what an experience.

Now to describe my place... it sits in a small square in the BenSeffar section of Sefrou, from the outside it reminded me of VanGogh's Yellow House that he lived in Arles with Gaugain. It sit above a sandwich shop and hanot with many cafes around it. Across the street is a mosque with a small vegetable souq attached. It is busy and noisy and I like it. Inside it is full of light, huge windows open floor plan and actually warm by Moroccan standards. The down sides would be no hotwater, shower and turkish toilet along with lights fromthe street streaming in the front windows (need curtains) and lots of noise in the AM but that isn't too big a deal.

So as of the first of January I have my own place to live and furnish... it makes it so much easier on oneself to have the comfort and santuary of a place of my own. Bought my first piece of furtinure... a desk, it is wood, old and looks like it has been through a war... PERFECT!