Obama's inaugration

For the historic inaugration earlier this week, I went with a friend to a Spanish club (looked like a country club) and convinced them to change the channel from the soccer game to the news channel in the bar.

Folks who came in after us were respectful of us and went into the adajcent room to socialize. One man sat down at the neighboring table and watched along with us.

No one asked to change the channel even though we were there for quite a few hours. This was especially nice, because, these were some of the proudest hours I've had in a long, long time and I was glad to celebrate them in public.

Salads

A special meal
Originally uploaded by Born2fly

Here's a better view of the salads we ate as the entree.

And I've now successfully posted a photo from Flickr using the Flickr tool!

Nadia's cooking

This is the meal that Nadia made during Eric's visit. There was a salad in each of the round salad dishes. She also prepared a chicken for him and French (Moroccan?) fries for both of us. What a feast! It took her all day to make it, and the flavors were outstanding.

Yes, BTW, that is my living room. It's a very typical (and well-executed) "salon marocain" if I must say so myself.

Blogué avec le Navigateur Flock

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Kudos to Moroccan Peace Corps Volunteers

More and more, as I talk to educated people here, it becomes clear that a lot of Moroccans' first expericences with meeting Americans come from meeting Peace Corps Volunteers. It's also remarkable that everyone who tells me about a Peace Corps Volunteer talks about 1) what a great person s/he was and 2) how gifted the person was in languages.

My landlady's husband: "Yes, they just send them into the mountains and they come back in three months speaking fluent Berber. It's amazing."

On a train from Fès: "My buddy (a Peace Corps volunteer) spoke Arabic like I do -- and it was Moroccan Arabic. Not Classical!"

Before I came to Morocco, I met with one of these former miracle workers, Kay Cassell who'd been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco some time ago. We're fortunate to have Kay as a lecturer at Rutgers, and she was a very giving and knowledgable resource person for me. Kay was familiar not only with life in Morocco from a Volunteer's perspective, but also from a librarian's. She was the first to tell me about the founding of ESI and to explain the involvement of UNESCO and of the American library school at Pratt.

It's good that I have knowledge about the founding of ESI, because references to Nasser Sharify, then Dean at Pratt and frequent visitor to Morocco, are not sparse around ESI. I hope to meet Mr. Sharify on one of his trips to Morocco before this year is out. I'd also love to run into some Peace Corps folks, but I don't know how likely that really is, since Agdal isn't one of the remote places where many of these folks seem to like to work.

Indoor temperature and ESI

The weather has been consistently cold and rainy since the beginning of the new year. Normally to avoid cold temperatures at home, I'd be tempted to go somewhere: my place of work, office at school, shopping, the car, the gym, a coffee shop, etc.

Here in Morocco, though, none of these are warming options, and folks just keep their coats on indoors and buck up. However, it's been recognized by a few of the ESI instructors that it's simply too cold to work in our offices; my neighbor professor brought a heater from home and blew a fuse last week. I, like the other profs, was without a computer or printer for quite a few days. Now the computer works, but my small wall space-heater is on the blink. At least now I, unlike the students in the lab where I took this photo, can "chatter" online if I want.

The temperature problems are a shame, because I would like to work at school. It would be nice to talk to M. Alli about our Cataloging classes next semester, for example.

In the mean time, at home, I use the two space heaters that I have and I wear gloves that Kirstin brought (I cut off the fingers so that I can type). My favorite way to combat the cold is by taking a bath in my jumbo bathtub. The hot water heater turns off about three times per bath, and the water in the tub is usually cold by the time it warms the porcelain. However, it's by far the warmest things get in my house, and I love it.

In fact, of the things/people I'd like to bring back to the States with me, the bathtub ranks way up there. Maybe Nadia and the pharmacist can carry it onto the plane... and perhaps they can fill it with the delicious Moroccan yogurt that I just love!

The medina in Rabat

I've been doing a lot of shopping in the medina in Rabat... a new (used) cell phone, clementine oranges, gifts for friends, etc. The deals are great, but it takes a long time to bargain.

Luckily, the weather's been nice recently and I've been shopping for things like Moroccan spices (pictured here). Now if only Nadia will teach me how to make that rice she made for me last week...

Midyear updates

As I think about the upcoming end-of-semester rituals ("mid-year" collaborative pathfinder wikis for third years, final exam for the Masters students, etc.), it only seems right to fill in a few blanks in terms of this blog.

Most of December I was either sick, travelling, or entertaining visitors. Here's Eric pictured with my students after his stellar presentation on OCLC.

Also:

Jallal kindly explained to me that, for the question of how best to care for one's baguette overnight, the answer is simple. Either go to the boulangerie in the morning or freeze the bread overnight. I've tried the bread-freezing trick, and I must say, it works like a charm.

Although there is plenty of concern over the situation in the Middle East, classes have not been interrupted at ESI.

The 2 kilo ball of Edam cheese that I bought when visiting Tangers is almost finished. I gave some to Nadia about a month ago, but ended up eating most of it myself. I really don't care to look at Edam again for a very long time.

Although the subtile spices in Moroccan cooking are good, they're aren't hot (not so much cayenne). I like spicy foods, and finally discovered harissa. Here's a stand selling some in the market at Fès. There's a jarred version at the supermarkets made with cayenne and lemon. It's heavenly.

December was much less cold and rainy than November, but now the cold and rain are back. At least I now have a second space heater.

Visa Electron and Moroccan Banking

Yesterday I went to the Air France agency in Rabat to buy plane tickets. I handed over my Société Générale Visa card (a debit card), and was very politely refused by the tri-lingual sales agent. Despite the fact that the bill was in dirhams and my Visa card works at the local grocery store chain, apparently big purchases (?) with companies headquartered outside of Morocco don't work with this system. Alas, it is a Visa Electron card, and we don't have these in the United States.

As I was walking to the local Société Générale, Morocco bank machine, I had plenty of time to reflect on the problem of hard currencies and purchases. Libraries, not unlike their patrons, apparently have a difficult time of making purchases through companies outside of Morocco. My debit card clearly states that it is not for use outside of Morocco, but not even for use inside Morocco?

Already to pay for my Skype line using PayPal, I have to ask folks in the States to log on to my account and to pay for me. PayPal won't allow transactions from computers in this IP range in payment for Skype.

Booking hotel rooms in France for my upcoming spring break trip is going to involve a trip to a travel agent. Remember those? I haven't been to a travel agent since 2000 when I wanted to price shop for good student-rate travel deals. They had nothing of interest, and I've been my own travel agent ever since.

All of this leads me to wonder how Moroccans leave the country at all. They can only buy tickets on the "expensive" airlines since those are the only ones the travel agents contract with. Ditto for the hotels accessible via travel agencies. Moroccans pay the travel agent in dirhams, and pay an additional conversion fee. Once they get to the destination, I have no idea how they go about paying for meals, taxis, etc. Makes me admire all the more Moroccan colleagues at ESI who are involved in international librarianship, IFLA, and international travel. What a burden!

Moroccan demonstrations

I left the house today briefly to get a baguette from the neighborhood bakery for lunch and dinner. That will be the only time I leave my apartment until tomorrow. Moroccans were scheduled to demonstrate in downtown Rabat today against the violence in Palestine, and Fulbrighters were encouraged to stay away from the area if possible. Two days ago, before the land raids began, officials were expecting 30,000 demonstrators; I haven't heard if more turned out with the new developments.

Several friends have reiterated that I stay in, and a few more folks have made sure I feel safe. I do feel safe, and really have no reason to stay in other than the million or so papers I have to read for my upcoming quals. Moroccans are very tolerant, and I've never felt endangered or even unwelcome for the color of my skin or my presumed religion or nationality. Different, here, is not bad. How wonderful is that!

And organized and peaceful demonstrations are most certainly the right of any people. I'm not clear, however, whether protests today have the potential to disrupt classes tomorrow (such things can happen in France, for example). I've seen on Facebook that several of my students are very engaged in aid efforts. Stay tuned to find out if classes actually meet tomorrow after all of this.

St. Peter's Cathedral in Rabat and "the holidays"

Over the past few months, I've had the honor of seeing some important Muslim holidays through the eyes of Moroccan hosts. This week and last, however, I was able to experience Western holidays through the lens of the Moroccan experience.

I went to Christmas Eve mass at Rabat's Cathédrale St. Pierre. It turns out, I know the priest who said the mass -- he's in my Derija class on Wednesday and Friday and I had no idea that his profession was actually of the cloth. The service itself was in French, largely catering to the sub-Saharan communities that are evident in somewhat small numbers in Rabat. A few French where there, as well as a diplomats in a limo and a television news crew.

I nearly missed the service because the train from Fès was running late. The Casaouis in the train car with me were every bit as concerned as me that I be on time ... they checked their watches right along with me, and were very adamantly hoping that I make it, in'shallah.



On Christmas day, I taught Cataloging and Document Analysis for 4 hours, as part of my usual Thursday routine. One of my students realized it was a Western holiday and brought a chocolate cake for us to share, which was very kind, indeed.

And now, on New Year's Day, Moroccans and I finally converge in terms of our holidays, and I have a day off for New Year's Day. Shopping's been open, but it's a government holiday and the schools are closed. The Muslims also just celebrated their new year's holiday, in accordance with the Muslim calendar, this past Monday. The bombings in Palestine are being acknowledged by religious leaders in the Muslim world, and Moroccans have been instructed to act in solidarity instead of celebrating at this point in time.

Despite concern over the Middle East, today has been very enjoyable. The day was sunny and dry; it felt like spring. Surely the good weather can't last, but one can be tempted to hope.