Θάλαττα, θάλαττα !

A happy day here, I visited the mediterranean sea and then i spent 160 dirhams on food for the next week when spring camp begins.
The interesting thing is that as I walked past the Auxiliary Forces, a man told me to come--he seemed official--and he said : My name is Amin, and that's Algeria.

I looked and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust. 50 yards away I saw 3 Moroccan flags. Ok. They were on the beach high in the air. Then I looked and 10 yards more were smaller flags, 4 of them. Green and white with the Red crescent of Islam in the center.

That IS Algeria!

So I walked forward and put my toes in, then rolled up my pant legs and went in ankle deep (into the Sea, not into Algeria--I had already gotten crap from a hotel about not having my passport, just trying to use my Carte Sejour like I always do, so no point getting stuck on one side and not being able to come back).

When I finished there I was able to stop the taxi on the way back in order to get some things at the Marjane. Now, everyone has seen movies where the soldier comes home, steps into Walmart and then decides he'd rather go back to war than have to choose between 40 different kinds of toothpaste.

Marjane is like that, but worse. They sell motorcycles in there. And for a PC volunteer, it's great to know that I have the ability to go there to buy a tennis racket if I so need it. And the first time I went there, I did go all out. I spent half of my salary in there, in order to know that I'd have plenty of food in my town once I got there.

This was before I lived in my town, so for all I knew it would be like Candelaria, where I had a choice between green and orange soda, or the salty crackers versus the sweet ones. I figured it would be like that.

And at the beginning it seemed that way, as I reluctantly opened the last package of my falafel mix. But then I looked around at what they had, and I adjusted my diet.

This time, then, I was wary walking into the store. I spent 2 hours there, though I spent about one third what I originally did. And I'm sure I'll be back before leaving to get some cereal and a few other things.

But man, what a change half a year makes!

I stood in line and I looked at what I had. Yes, I had the Hot and Spicy 'lharj' Pringles chips. And a thing called Pina Colada pineapple and coconut juice.

But when I did an inventory of all the other things I bought-- bread, olives, cheese and dates-- I realized I bought everything that I always buy in Nkob, just in nicer packaging. Strange, huh!

Going back to the beach, again-- the strange thing was that as I left I looked at where the 3 Moroccan flags and the 4 Algerian ones nearly are touching. And as I looked I noticed something new. There were 10 people standing along the other side of the frontier. 'Frontier' because that's the French word that Amin used when he spoke to me earlier. Just to help evoke being here. And that was a thing evocative for me on many levels. It reminded me of the barrier I remember from the beach in Barranquilla that bisects the beach into a poor section and the private rich section. But the difference is a great deal more subtle than that. In my mind I thought, that's where Albert Camus was born. And the way I see it, there's much less difference between the two lands on either side, than there are between the people that live on them.

Just growing up and for X no. of years you call yourself something different, something to conform to and differentiate yourself. It's pretty powerful. Or, vice versa, telling yourself over and over again what you're not.

Night! Have a good weekend
*PS I'll send a postcard to the first person that knows what the Greek words mean... even though I think I just spoke to her.