some of this and some of that..

…trying something new with the color scheme for easier reading. What do you think?

I am the Featured Post this week over at TopBlogMagazine. Ta da. Go, read, comment.


One of the things we have come to observe in Morocco is the love of high drama, from Othello to the love affair with soap operas. You see the soap operas playing on the televisions in the cleaners, the hannuts, and almost any home you visit. Q’s tutor, when discussing a particular story line (she knows all the characters, and the details of their television lives) said, “He cut his wrist for her love. Don’t you love that?" Sigh.
Q of course thought she had fallen right off her cracker. In the bookstores I have noted a 3:1 ratio in the popular books section in favor of romance novels, in Arabic, to any other theme. In order to attain true popularity the romances must be tragic.

I was watching “I Robot”, again, and not only to see Will Smith in his underwear, albeit that does not hurt, but to observe how in some science fiction, with notable exceptions like “Blade Runner”, the directors and writers picture the far, and even the near future as having technology advance all in one even motion, such as the highway system. “I Robot” is set in 2035, which is not really that far in the future. Now I will buy the advancement of robots to that level, but the Brooklyn Bridge torn completed down and all the highway systems and cars converted to the new modern automatic system shown? I don’t buy it. Both in India and here in Morocco I see the technology of the 20th, and 21st centuries lurching forward, not progressing in a smooth line. Everyone has a mobile and a satellite television, but very few have a computer or libraries. Transportation in the larger cities here is more even than that in Delhi where you still find the donkey and the Mercedes stopping side by side for the red light.

Moroccans drink orange juice with pastries.

Q’s Arabic tutor has never read Homer's the Iliad and The Odyssey.

I saw both runners and walkers in all manner of dress, djellabas to shorts, in the park with the eucalyptus grove in 32 to 35 degrees C and more heat! I’m not at all sure but that is taking the beneficial effects of exercise to a new low.

The private veterinarians in Rabat volunteer and rotate time at the free clinics in town.

Speaking with a man over coffee, who is a teacher, about politics he said, “I would like to be king.” He said this eyes shining, with true longing in his voice. When I gave him my view, that it is much more fun and safer to a degree to be the power behind the throne, such as the prime minister, he could not comprehend my reasoning. His view of being the King is that it is all fun and having lots of money with no responsibilities.

All over Rabat stand huge walls for the forts and palaces making me feel quite at home. It reminds me that the Welsh are the true great builders of defensive castles.

Walking along any given boulevard at four to ten in the evening the men are lined in at the sidewalk cafes three to four deep, with no women, and I think, “Mercy chaps get yourself a girl!” But this is the way here, and you do see the occasionally woman and at different times of the day more of them, yet the overwhelming majority of those taking their leisure from morning through the evening are men.

In the Medina you see children running and snacking on donuts (sfinj) that are mounted on strings tied in a circle for eating. They are delicious and come in the larger hand held size as well. You stand at the hannut while they make them hot and fresh. When you sink your teeth into the hot, fresh, sugary, dough it is delightful.

Moroccan men, unlike their American counterparts, have no trouble asking for directions. They still don’t stop, but rather roll down the window and shout to the nearest man in a car. The conversation can continue for some blocks.

Shopkeepers in the Medina will not tell you the price first on any item when you ask, the reply is, “It is very inexpensive, very cheap.” No matter what you are looking at.

Watching the young daughter of the orange juice man brings a tear to my eye. The earnestness in her actions, the measured actions of squeezing the oranges, cut the foam off the top, and wiping the bottle with such pride in her work as she substitutes for her father to take a break in his long day.

The Oudayas has the oldest mosque in Rabat

The housekeeper continues to make the beds with the sheets along the latitude rather than longitudinal! Why is that?