Tuesday, September 28, 2010
I filled out a survey sent by some researchers wanting to know about the 'Motivation of Ultra Triathlon Athletes'. And I thought I should share what I've learned by doing/attempting to do them!
Do you consider yourself an ultra athlete? 1 Strongly Agree ... 7 Strongly disagree
1. Strongly agree. I consider myself an ultra athlete because from the beginning I was already signed up for an Ironman 12 months later. Then, I had never done a run over 5 km, and did not know anything about cycling or swimming. I paid the entree fee as an 18 year old who was attracted to the sport because it was an all day, difficult excursion, uniquely individual, and with the best atmosphere of togetherness that exists in sports. I wanted to do it as a fundraiser, and as a personal physiological experiment, and to demonstrate the power and expansiveness of human potential to others, since I was trying to do this thing while not being an athlete. But in a year, I became an ultra athlete. If I had not aimed my trajectory so high, or jumped in the deep end so ''green'', I never would have found the passion to pursue the work involved to take me there. Paying the money I had a financial obligation to keep working, and I got a charity to sponsor that became an societal obligation. Then, I further anchored myself to the finish line of the Ironman in the day-dreaming that kept the spirit alive, much more than a 10 km or a half marathon race. It ceased being a burden, or a specific distance that must be suffered through, and it became an adventure. And especially since I discovered that it doesnt necessarily require 2x more work to go 2x as far, it was more a race-day mentality of slowing down and going further with less stress on yourself -- ''just get there before midnight'' I told myself on race day, allowing an hour to pass in the massage tent, rehydrating and everything before continuing further. On this first attempt at an Ironman, I even did not finish the half 70.3 race that was in my schedule, but it didnt deter me from still trying to finish the long one. Whether I finished or not, didnt matter, since even just the swim would be worth all the effort of the year before.
How do you define ''ultra'' as it relates to being an athlete?
As an ultra athlete, I take that to mean I am doing this activity, running or swimming or biking, for different reasons than the type-A personality people who are stuck doing 26,2 marathons again and agains. The races are so long that they cease being these highly predictable, organized affairs. You show up at the starting line not knowing what will happen, whereas the 26,2 crowd have distinct goals of shaving off 10 seconds a mile, etc. Ultra people are rarely like this.
In your own words, please tell us why you do ultra triathlon events?
In an ultra, there are so many variables, you never know what will happen, and so there is a great more deal of self-reliance involved, and the necessity to adapt. The pressure is off to run the entire time nonstop as fast as possible. Many races are unusual distances and you can not compare them like its some kind of score card that you carry around to show everyone. Plus, people always have some fascinating story, so sometimes in an ultra it is perfectly appropriate to sit and talk, or to take pictures of a beautiful area. For me, it is never about the competition. Something about going beyond an Olympic triathlon seems to reduce the competition aspect considerably, and the focus becomes on your own unique narrative. I do not feel bad if I dont make it to the finish, because going halfway usually is still a major achievement.
4. Please tell us about what you feel are the personal benefits you gain by training for and participating in ultra triathlon events? (physical, emotional, relationship, etc.)
The biggest benefit is a greater ability to cope, which only comes from practice. To feel at the bottom and then an hour later to still be continuing, with the faith that it will get better again before too long, either ten more minutes before getting my 45th wind, or else knowing at the finish I will be able to look back and be proud. But also: shattering my own preconceptions, discovering with first-hand experience the nature of my limits, seeking new avenues for growth, enjoying the back-to-basics quality and self-reliance of being on your feet for 50 miles with just some food and water. Meeting great new inspiring people, sharing difficult moments and discovering and improving both my ability to cope through repeated exposure to the dark mental aspect that is all doom and gloom. Too much of modern life is too comfortable, flat-lined and stream-lined, and there's no opportunity to get both the ups and downs on a repeated basis. Both are important, exposure to the bad moments that arise in yourself and the chance to try to overcome them in a controlled, almost clinical setting on a race course with support staff nearby to aid you (which similarly ties into what I said before about it being sort of an experiment for myself, both body and mind).
5. Please tell us about any costs or personal consequences you have experienced that are associated with training for or competing in ultra triathlon events? (physical, emotional, relationship, etc.)
Luckily there's not been so much. Just the money spent on traveling, hotels, race entry fees. I've never pushed myself too hard during a race, I've been good about knowing when to quit. For that reason I've never finished a double Ironman. I'd skip classes to travel and race, but only if my teachers were understanding about it. If they weren't, I would miss the race and stay in class, like I did in Chinese class one time. Sometimes I feel like my family or friends have a hard time understanding the allure--the idea that everybody thinks you're crazy for wanting to do something like that--and especially when I mention the different race lengths and there is a tension in the fact that I'd rather keep the distance to myself.
6. Please tell us about your next ultra sport related challenge and what you hope to accomplish?
Maybe a multi-day race in Spain next July, maybe a 100 km ultra. As far as what I want to accomplish, I desire mostly to find myself at the same level I was 5 years ago. Finishing, but more importantly getting back to that level, staying healthy and having fun while pursuing those goals.
Do you consider yourself an ultra athlete? 1 Strongly Agree ... 7 Strongly disagree
1. Strongly agree. I consider myself an ultra athlete because from the beginning I was already signed up for an Ironman 12 months later. Then, I had never done a run over 5 km, and did not know anything about cycling or swimming. I paid the entree fee as an 18 year old who was attracted to the sport because it was an all day, difficult excursion, uniquely individual, and with the best atmosphere of togetherness that exists in sports. I wanted to do it as a fundraiser, and as a personal physiological experiment, and to demonstrate the power and expansiveness of human potential to others, since I was trying to do this thing while not being an athlete. But in a year, I became an ultra athlete. If I had not aimed my trajectory so high, or jumped in the deep end so ''green'', I never would have found the passion to pursue the work involved to take me there. Paying the money I had a financial obligation to keep working, and I got a charity to sponsor that became an societal obligation. Then, I further anchored myself to the finish line of the Ironman in the day-dreaming that kept the spirit alive, much more than a 10 km or a half marathon race. It ceased being a burden, or a specific distance that must be suffered through, and it became an adventure. And especially since I discovered that it doesnt necessarily require 2x more work to go 2x as far, it was more a race-day mentality of slowing down and going further with less stress on yourself -- ''just get there before midnight'' I told myself on race day, allowing an hour to pass in the massage tent, rehydrating and everything before continuing further. On this first attempt at an Ironman, I even did not finish the half 70.3 race that was in my schedule, but it didnt deter me from still trying to finish the long one. Whether I finished or not, didnt matter, since even just the swim would be worth all the effort of the year before.
How do you define ''ultra'' as it relates to being an athlete?
As an ultra athlete, I take that to mean I am doing this activity, running or swimming or biking, for different reasons than the type-A personality people who are stuck doing 26,2 marathons again and agains. The races are so long that they cease being these highly predictable, organized affairs. You show up at the starting line not knowing what will happen, whereas the 26,2 crowd have distinct goals of shaving off 10 seconds a mile, etc. Ultra people are rarely like this.
In your own words, please tell us why you do ultra triathlon events?
In an ultra, there are so many variables, you never know what will happen, and so there is a great more deal of self-reliance involved, and the necessity to adapt. The pressure is off to run the entire time nonstop as fast as possible. Many races are unusual distances and you can not compare them like its some kind of score card that you carry around to show everyone. Plus, people always have some fascinating story, so sometimes in an ultra it is perfectly appropriate to sit and talk, or to take pictures of a beautiful area. For me, it is never about the competition. Something about going beyond an Olympic triathlon seems to reduce the competition aspect considerably, and the focus becomes on your own unique narrative. I do not feel bad if I dont make it to the finish, because going halfway usually is still a major achievement.
4. Please tell us about what you feel are the personal benefits you gain by training for and participating in ultra triathlon events? (physical, emotional, relationship, etc.)
The biggest benefit is a greater ability to cope, which only comes from practice. To feel at the bottom and then an hour later to still be continuing, with the faith that it will get better again before too long, either ten more minutes before getting my 45th wind, or else knowing at the finish I will be able to look back and be proud. But also: shattering my own preconceptions, discovering with first-hand experience the nature of my limits, seeking new avenues for growth, enjoying the back-to-basics quality and self-reliance of being on your feet for 50 miles with just some food and water. Meeting great new inspiring people, sharing difficult moments and discovering and improving both my ability to cope through repeated exposure to the dark mental aspect that is all doom and gloom. Too much of modern life is too comfortable, flat-lined and stream-lined, and there's no opportunity to get both the ups and downs on a repeated basis. Both are important, exposure to the bad moments that arise in yourself and the chance to try to overcome them in a controlled, almost clinical setting on a race course with support staff nearby to aid you (which similarly ties into what I said before about it being sort of an experiment for myself, both body and mind).
5. Please tell us about any costs or personal consequences you have experienced that are associated with training for or competing in ultra triathlon events? (physical, emotional, relationship, etc.)
Luckily there's not been so much. Just the money spent on traveling, hotels, race entry fees. I've never pushed myself too hard during a race, I've been good about knowing when to quit. For that reason I've never finished a double Ironman. I'd skip classes to travel and race, but only if my teachers were understanding about it. If they weren't, I would miss the race and stay in class, like I did in Chinese class one time. Sometimes I feel like my family or friends have a hard time understanding the allure--the idea that everybody thinks you're crazy for wanting to do something like that--and especially when I mention the different race lengths and there is a tension in the fact that I'd rather keep the distance to myself.
6. Please tell us about your next ultra sport related challenge and what you hope to accomplish?
Maybe a multi-day race in Spain next July, maybe a 100 km ultra. As far as what I want to accomplish, I desire mostly to find myself at the same level I was 5 years ago. Finishing, but more importantly getting back to that level, staying healthy and having fun while pursuing those goals.
Monday, September 27, 2010
part of an email from La Mama
''and said she was pretty sure she was going to take the job and we had lo mein from china panda and had two fortune cookies. i opened one and it said IT TAKES GUTS TO GET OUT OF RUTS. so i handed it to beth and said this one is yours. so i opened the other cookie and it said AVOID TAKING UNNECESSARY GAMBLES. is that a mixed message or what? i guess it just shows that life is a toss up.''
I think I can reconcile these two -- notice how the second one qualifies this statement with ''UNNECESSARY'' gambles. So there you go, sometimes you just have to gamble. And when you're in a rut, maybe a gamble is all you got left!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sighted in al-Mgrib*
AP NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
After Vince Young (once presumed a Muggle) floated at shoulder height above the field repeatedly into the opposing inzone in today's match--resulting in a national record for yards-rushed several dozen times larger than the previous holder Adrian Peterson's 2007 performance, who without the use of superior levitational abilities rushed 296 yards in one game--NFL officials were forced to abscond the record, instituting a new rule that would in all hopes would impede the game from gradually transforming into something resembling the so-called Quidditch, a.k.a. Fantasy Football.
--- Simultaneously seen in Morocco: A man in ElJdida wearing a Tennessee Titans jersey and who unwittingly moved me to tears
&
--- The Sunset to End All Sunsets, in Nkob Centre Ville and surrounding areas,
wherein :
- WHEREIN the dark shadows of the mountains framed a picture between sun and sky that resulted in great quantities of feeling like the Double Rainbow guy in all involved (if this reference is found to be too murky, or ungrounded, please refer to the final two videos in this weblog entry for clarification)
- WHEREIN the said shadowy mountains framing the said image before participant(s) were a deep, bruised purple, identified as such both from the participant'(s') first hand observation and also from said person's knowledge of the physical properties of shadows as being not black ever, but rather the complement on the color wheel of the color of the object herein referred to as being 'mountains', as well as owing to the atmospheric properties helping to express the quantity of distance (through deeper and deeper gradients of blue in in relation to participant-- aka, the reason why the sky is so blue is because it is so far away¹)
- WHEREIN immediately ''above'' the aforesaid mountains was a really cool sea of seafoam green², an empty space largely uninhabited by clouds, tranne/ad hoc exemptor those lesser clouds that such space is in the midst of digesting, of a most brilliant and pure golden color
- WHEREIN writing this way is taking way waaay much too long...
So it was beautiful, gorgeous, equal only to two other sunsets seen in Morocco-- one during CBT in Azrou from the roof with Will, and the second during Ramadan when I went to the highest point of our casbah complex to get a panorama view of the sunset stretching towards and beyond each of the horizons. This one today I nearly wrote off until I peeked to my side down the dirt alleyways to the side of the mosque and noticed the most dense set of individually-wrapped cotton fluff-ball clouds of the altocumulus cloud genus. First they were of an overwhelming irridescent gold color but by the time I walked the length of the main drag they'd become fields of pink Peeps® reaching past me towards Tazarine.
Exhibit 1-A
Exhibit 1-B '' Altocumulus clouds in a clear 'mackeral' pattern'' -- but imagine it glowing yellow, then pink with purple edges higher up where there is less difraction and thus a color resulting closer to blue.
Now imagine them fused together with the Pink Peeps, and that's what this sunset was like: Pink Peeps altocumuli! 'NARLY!
Seated with my supper, a lowly can of كريمي -brand yogurt and the spoon I brought for the purpose. A few people in the intervening moments of my Two Rainbows guy-moment likewise stood or seated near me until the last moment of the stratospheric color explosion passed. I wonder if they were as enthusiastic about the show as I was. Regardless, we all got our money's worth (admission cost: taking the time to sit still and look upwards). Though the area behind me deserved a look as well, its palette was composed of softer, muted pastels and not the neon colors that shot down to us from the sky above the purple-shadowed mountains beyond my Dar Chebab youth center.
Wish you could have been there with me, for those in the USA I hope that this streak of color continues in its unending spiral about the Earth-- just like it's five o'clock somewhere, somewhere there is a beautiful sunset and it will soon make its way to you... Inchallah!
*Not the Tennessee Titans; rather, my first akward, lame-in-one-foot attempt at the literary genre known as ''Hysterical realism'' brought forth from the cauldron of post-war literature by Pynchon, and further refined by DF Wallace ^5Notes
2. Near-pun intended
3. A near-pun, cousin of the near-rhyme, and a word coined just now--you read it here first--is one where you use two homonyms in the same sentence in different ways that forces the writer to notice and point to Readers (in case they might have missed it), but which is seemingly missing an essential element to be a veritable pun upon closer examination
4. ''Grays and dark tones are produced by mixing complementary colours. In pure Impressionism the use of black paint is avoided. '' ref. Techniques of Impressionism, wikipedia.org
5. I have a tremendously larger amount of respect now for David Foster Wallace writing the thousand-pageINFINITE JEST in the Year -5 P-W-E* * ''Minus FivePre-Wiki Era''
** PCV1: ''That's what she said***''.***PCV2: ''That's what your Mama said last night... while filing her taxes five-and-a-half months late.''
See below (''Miscellania'') for examplary works:
Miscellania
Haystacks (sunset) 1890-1891, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
by Claude Monet
Later painting by Claude Monet, with more rigid rules governing the use and total absence of black
The Cliff at Étretat after the Storm, 1885, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts
by Claude Monet
An earlier one with more relaxed rules by the same.
Bal au Moulin de la Galette (detail), 1876 Musée D'Orsay, Paris, France
by Pierre-August Renoir
If you didn't know the shading on her dress was done by an Impressionist, one might be inclined to believe that she'd been rolling around with this guy in the mulberry bush.
Woman in the Bath, 1886, Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, Conneticutby Edgar Degas
An even more striking example, in more ways than oneّ.
س. I can tell I've been in Morocco too long -- this painting is tooooo much to handle right now****. I've even forgot exactly the warmth found in the most basic expressions of human touch, let alone nakedness (on that note, the arguments in favor of the veil have a new, largely unethusiastic supporter-- when you're covered from head to foot in cloth with just one/two eyes showing out, and maybe a nose and chin, I have gret difficulty imagining what you're like in coitus) But this painting is otherwise a gorgeous and a great example of the use of complementary colors to achieve the effect of more realistic shading -- either that or she is really dirty and the bath has only just begun. Situationally ironically, this is what 95 percent of Peace Corps volunteers look like when they get their shower on!
**** COUNTER-EVIDENCE: Earlier today though, au contraire, I saw an article in Harper's Bazaar featuring Kim Kardashian in flagrante in order to protest the heinous use of airbrushing and digital retouches to take away their God-given curves. It had a much less pronounced effect on me than this painting, its own merits notwithstanding. That said, maybe they might sell more magazines if they rely less on Photoshop® and more on chiaroscuro.
Another favorite, the cirrus genus, seen while returning home from the bike ride. I'm betting that like me, you didn't know that clouds came in species // Nor did you know that Vince Young's great-grandfather was one of said species.
What is the difference between hysterical realism and magical realism you may ask? One is ''the ordinary done in an extraordinary way'' and the other is the opposite, ''the extraordinary done in an ordinary way''.
And for ye PCVs, fellow brethren that have been here between 2 weeks and 2 years, who are so far from pop culture that the last recorded hit they remember came hearing on American soil was T.I.'s ''Whatever you like'', here is a chance to be filled-in with some more contemporary fanaglia... Stand beholden to the ecstacies of Hungrybear9562:
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Bike trek*
*sometime in the recent past
IMPORTANT NOTE: All helmets in the subsequent photos were taken out of the frame (''placed carefully on the other side of the road'') of the picture in order to increase the aesthetic value of said photo.
Hello again! Today was the first adventure Ive had in a while -- 30 kilometers on bicycle with a gorgeous wind at our back the entire time-- so good that I rode the entire way in my biggest gear, pedaling without any trouble at all!
First, since its been months without a camera of my own, Christa came and let me use her camera to take photos around town. This is the part where the tourists stay, near the parent's bedroom in the corner. The clay jugs store water and also keep it cool all day long, though they use a filter so that nothing in the clay jug comes out with the water!
A few men walking home from the mosque around the corner. The weather has picked up again after a few cooler days last week. Im just happy that I have 6 months of cooler weather to look forward to in the time ahead before it becomes hot again.
I rode with Christa on the way back to her town--I have a guitar student there, the English professor in town, who loves Country music and wants me to always teach him new licks! His favorite is Brandi Carlisle (see below : )
Twenty miles from Nkob to Tazarine where the finish line was for the 2005 Marathon des Sables that I did. Interesting to be back, this time as a local!
I cooked food for the two of us-- my mouth didnt want to work today speaking English. Though I read more in English than Ive ever read in my life, I think the problem is that my tongue gets lazier than my brain and things come out jumbled.This is the Bolivian dish Pique Machu* I describe it as nachos with french fries on the bottom instead of tortilla chips. Then whatever you like, you throw it on top. Today like most days I put sauteed peppers and onions, ketchup, mustard, curry powder and hot sauce, guaranteeing that no two bites would be exactly the same (the same goes for when i have granola with two kinds of fruit AND two kinds of yogurt poured in the same bowl).
*not to be confused with Machu Pichu
Home sweet home -- Christa's been here two years almost. Her host family were arguing about something, and she was proud when her host sister stood up and yelled : "But she's not like them! She's one of us!" Something along those lines.The same thing happened to me yesterday. My host sister needed help with some French homework, and she said how she'll go to class and point to the little things I drew on her page to explain it, and she said she's going to tell them : this was done by mon frere Addi u Zaid! My brother!
And this was the leftovers from last night's sushi. When I go to Italy, I have on my grocery list 1) more seaweed wrappers and 2) a big jar or two of WasabiThats all for now, good nite! Love you all.
As promised at the top:
Racial tension in Morocco
Heard several Berber people expressing how much they dislike/hate Arab people the past week. On the contrary I've heard Arab people say how happy the Berbers were to come and change their culture (similarly, the Berbers are more likely to demonize the French while the Arab people look to the French culture as something to emulate-- one younger man, 20s, showed me with zeal a photo of a 90 year old woman he met in a small village in the mountains near my home, several years ago, and he told me how she was legendary for having killed 125 French people during the struggles in the 30s, when only the Ait Atta continued to fight).
The strange thing is that I feel very strongly in relation to the people that surround me and have a lot of Berber pride.... at the same time, the Arab population here is the one most in tune with the culture that I come from. So that is a conflicting emotion. Maybe I relate more to the Arab people in Morocco, but I have an equal amount of respect and support for the Berber traditions, even if I feel more like an outsider around them. Still, it is a shame to take my girls from Zagora to summer camp and then have the Arab people there marginalize them, especially since Fatima and Hayat were the ones most likely to volunteer and the ones that worked the hardest throughout the week.
The strange thing is that I feel very strongly in relation to the people that surround me and have a lot of Berber pride.... at the same time, the Arab population here is the one most in tune with the culture that I come from. So that is a conflicting emotion. Maybe I relate more to the Arab people in Morocco, but I have an equal amount of respect and support for the Berber traditions, even if I feel more like an outsider around them. Still, it is a shame to take my girls from Zagora to summer camp and then have the Arab people there marginalize them, especially since Fatima and Hayat were the ones most likely to volunteer and the ones that worked the hardest throughout the week.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Crazy night cooking at the Casbah!
The photo is not mine -- I'll try to use my friend's camera at lunch tomorrow to show you the real thing.
Tonite, I was going to enjoy beans and rice. Plains beans, plain rice, maybe some tabasco and soy sauce. But... nothing to write home about.
The rice was already going, the beans I cooked last night in the pressure cooker, just hanging out till it was ready. But I thought of what was in my room and I saw I had other stuff I could do. Better things. A can of coconut milk to make Thai curry. Tempting. OK, I'll do it, after all I just got paid again today and I'd be in Ourzazate soon to buy more coconut milk.
But it was only in my room when a bigger, bolder idea hatched in my brain. I stared in my pantry box, full of cans of mango and not much else. But there was some of the unusual Asian ingredients left to me by Mel from Teftchna, and from Nini in Tinzouline. Walnut oil, sesame oil, dried herbs and spices. Seaweed.
SEAWEED. If only I had a sushi kit and some good sushi stuff. But... the rice I was cooking is super-sticky, the cheapest rice sold in the hanut. It sticks just like japanese rice. Then, on my desk, I nearly wet my pants when I realized I had cucumber and avocado there! I bought them both for different things, but... what if I were to make the simple veggie rolls that I love so much?
An hour later, I was enjoying them and as I write there are three uncut rolls left in the fridge for the morning. They were extra easy to do, and they turned out a million times better than any attempt I'd ever had at home. The rice, after I added a quarter cup of sesame seeds, I spread it thick, as if it were peanut butter to all 4 edges of the entire sheet, then placed two thin strips of cucumber and small pieces of avocado along the center. Rolled it up just with my fingers, and put a small glob of extra rice to stick it together at the end. The knife I used was nice and sharp, easily cutting it into small ovals that I dipped into soy sauce. The same flavor that I always have loved... hallelujah! I'm now sushi-capable!
Now I'll soon be in Italy, I'll pick up a few dozen more boxes of sea weed, and so long as I can find avocado, I'm set!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Brazilian night
I discovered if I put my music videos on here, it makes it easy to find the songs I like later, and get the charging up so I can hear them much more easily.
A little bit of the old, a little bit of the new...
A Felicidade - Ella
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDbJwkfwm_s
Jose Carioca, a little known Disney character!
Sarah Vaughn, the Smiling Hour from a great album I had in the States, COPACABANA
From one of Sinatra's best albums, he really helped bring bossa nova to the US early on
Awesome version of one of my fav's from the Wonder himself
And my favorite guy, and my favorite song by him
Dont cry now, I've guitar and now we're going to sing...
Dont cry now, I've got a reason for you not to sing, my lost friend
A little bit of the old, a little bit of the new...
A Felicidade - Ella
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDbJwkfwm_s
Jose Carioca, a little known Disney character!
Sarah Vaughn, the Smiling Hour from a great album I had in the States, COPACABANA
From one of Sinatra's best albums, he really helped bring bossa nova to the US early on
Awesome version of one of my fav's from the Wonder himself
And my favorite guy, and my favorite song by him
Dont cry now, I've guitar and now we're going to sing...
Dont cry now, I've got a reason for you not to sing, my lost friend
Come to Hurtmut's renovated Casbah hotel!
http://www.hotel-aitomar.de/seiten/e/e_home.html
To abandon the daily grind, get things wind down, come to inner contemplation and tranquillity, get a clear head …
To take time for reflections, recharge one’s batteries, be creative …
To be active without crossing off to-do lists or annoying entertainment …
To get to know the culture and lifestyle of the Moroccan Tamazight (pronounced Tamazirt) and be open for new adventures …
Are you looking for this?At the same time you are tired of ready-made offers and you would like to spend a throughout individual holiday?
Would you like to travel to the south-east of Morocco and enjoy the charm of a Kasbah? Did you hesitate so far because you travel alone, with children or because you are female or restricted in your movability?
Do come to see us!Be inspired by
the oasis N’Kob with its 43 historical Kasbahs,
the varicoloured pre-desertic mountains Djebel Saghro,
the unique sky full of stars at night and
the kindness of the natives from the Ait Atta tribe. 
Experience the charm of an oriental adobe house, the former clan domicile of the Omar.
Our Apart Active Hotel Ait Omar offers the perfect setting. Ait Omar - embedded in a slope on the outskirts of the old village’s centre - not only unveils a splendid panorama but also provides the opportunity of an extraordinary program. Several courtyards and terraces, a traditional Hamam, a modern swimming pool, a fitness and a conference room, internet connection, a library and much more invite you to arrive, take a deep breath and retreat or become active.
Get touched by the muse! Here is the place to read and to write, to paint and to make music.
Enjoy the relaxation of body, mind and soul in our spa.
Use the perfect starting point for walking or cycling tours, trekking, explorations and sightseeing. We work together with a local state certified mountain guide.
In Ait Omar we combine orient and occident, tradition and modern spirit, minimalism and elegance in the sense of simplicity with maximum comfort. Sustainability and conservation of resources are important to us, that is why we use for instance the renewable energy of the sun to heat our water. We save energy and offer safety, because we count on state-of-the-art technology.Our 9 apartments and 2 single rooms are all equipped with a separate shower bath, water-saving taps, dual-flush toilet, floor heating and air-condition. Our water is treated with ultraviolet light.
One apartment in the basement is tailored to the particular needs of people with restricted movability.
A holiday flat with three bedrooms allows you or groups to stay longer.
Courses, meetings or other events can be held in the conference room of an adjoining building.
We offer Moroccan and European cooking in our comfortable restaurant, which is equipped with air-condition and floor heating.
The traditionally styled sale de thé gives you the possibility to retreat and relax after your stay at the hammam.
You can enjoy a fantastic view over the oasis N’Kob and the Djebel Saghro from our large terrace.
Together with our staff we are looking forward to welcoming you!
Dr. Jutta Friess and Hartmut Dahnelt
Ait Omar, Apart Active Hotel N’Kob Province Zagora Morocco
To abandon the daily grind, get things wind down, come to inner contemplation and tranquillity, get a clear head …
To take time for reflections, recharge one’s batteries, be creative …
To be active without crossing off to-do lists or annoying entertainment …
To get to know the culture and lifestyle of the Moroccan Tamazight (pronounced Tamazirt) and be open for new adventures …
Are you looking for this?At the same time you are tired of ready-made offers and you would like to spend a throughout individual holiday?
Would you like to travel to the south-east of Morocco and enjoy the charm of a Kasbah? Did you hesitate so far because you travel alone, with children or because you are female or restricted in your movability?
Do come to see us!Be inspired by
the oasis N’Kob with its 43 historical Kasbahs,
the varicoloured pre-desertic mountains Djebel Saghro,
the unique sky full of stars at night and
the kindness of the natives from the Ait Atta tribe.
Experience the charm of an oriental adobe house, the former clan domicile of the Omar.
Our Apart Active Hotel Ait Omar offers the perfect setting. Ait Omar - embedded in a slope on the outskirts of the old village’s centre - not only unveils a splendid panorama but also provides the opportunity of an extraordinary program. Several courtyards and terraces, a traditional Hamam, a modern swimming pool, a fitness and a conference room, internet connection, a library and much more invite you to arrive, take a deep breath and retreat or become active.
Get touched by the muse! Here is the place to read and to write, to paint and to make music.
Enjoy the relaxation of body, mind and soul in our spa.
Use the perfect starting point for walking or cycling tours, trekking, explorations and sightseeing. We work together with a local state certified mountain guide.
In Ait Omar we combine orient and occident, tradition and modern spirit, minimalism and elegance in the sense of simplicity with maximum comfort. Sustainability and conservation of resources are important to us, that is why we use for instance the renewable energy of the sun to heat our water. We save energy and offer safety, because we count on state-of-the-art technology.Our 9 apartments and 2 single rooms are all equipped with a separate shower bath, water-saving taps, dual-flush toilet, floor heating and air-condition. Our water is treated with ultraviolet light.
One apartment in the basement is tailored to the particular needs of people with restricted movability.
A holiday flat with three bedrooms allows you or groups to stay longer.
Courses, meetings or other events can be held in the conference room of an adjoining building.
We offer Moroccan and European cooking in our comfortable restaurant, which is equipped with air-condition and floor heating.
The traditionally styled sale de thé gives you the possibility to retreat and relax after your stay at the hammam.
You can enjoy a fantastic view over the oasis N’Kob and the Djebel Saghro from our large terrace.
Together with our staff we are looking forward to welcoming you!
Dr. Jutta Friess and Hartmut Dahnelt
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Nkob 5- Boulmane Dades 4
My team won!Spent a nice day after a deluge this morning cheering my homeboys on. Walking back, a guy asked me all about American sports. He knew a lot, and I told him how I played american football in high school (really, middle school but noone's counting). He's Mimoun, a guy from my town that really cares and loves American culture and movies. He later asked what a Yankee means, so this turned into a conversation about the civil war, the North/South divide and the racial makeup of the US. He was surprised to learn that 80 percent of my high school was black and that Latinos are the second biggest group in the US after white people. It's nice when you can immediately get into a more meaningful conversation about US culture, but the people here able to do that are rare. Sometimes instead you argue that
Now I'm ready to go back and dive into a few more chapters of Cent'anni di solitudine.
Something neat my sister shared with me: apparently this is a HUGE new trend in the US
http://www.moroccanoil.com/fr/qui-sommes-nous.html
here's the same thing in English:
from here
http://www.moroccanoil.com/en/about-us.html
Here's more about that from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argan
Now I'm ready to go back and dive into a few more chapters of Cent'anni di solitudine.
Something neat my sister shared with me: apparently this is a HUGE new trend in the US
http://www.moroccanoil.com/fr/qui-sommes-nous.html
here's the same thing in English:
from here
http://www.moroccanoil.com/en/about-us.html
Yes, these Argan trees only exist in Morocco and maybe one other place in the world, so they are very abundant here but are extremely rare outside of Morocco. It is extremely expensive, too and is consumed just like olive oil.The luxury brand, Moroccanoil®, is the originator and leading manufacturer of professional Argan Oil hair products and the fastest growing independent company in the professional salon industry.
Moroccan pride! The Argan tree
A powerful antioxidant and UV protector, Moroccanoil’s proprietary Argan oil blend is rich in vitamins and natural elements that fortify the hair, including Vitamin F (Omega 6), Vitamin A to improve elasticity, Vitamin E to protect against free-radicals, and Phenols to shield against environmental stressors.
Salon-exclusive Moroccanoil® products have a strong following among leading runway, film, television and celebrity stylists who search for the very finest for their A-list clients. Moroccanoil® is a backstage fixture frequently used to create hair for major magazine covers, fashion editorial spreads, as well as for award shows including the Oscars, Golden Globes, Grammys, Independent Spirit Awards and MTV Awards.
Moroccanoil®’s Argan oil is harvested under a fair trade program which provides substantial socio-economic support to thousands of families in the Souss-Massa region of Morocco. Revenue from this project provides income to families and helps improve the working conditions of rural women. It is also used for reading, writing and management classes, as well as for modern infrastructure and technology that help make harvesting easier and more efficient, ensuring long-term management of the Argan forest.
There is only one Moroccanoil® brand on the market. Look for the bright turquoise blue label with the large copper M in the Moroccanoil logo. These are the only genuine, proprietary Moroccanoil® products.
Here's more about that from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argan
In Morocco arganeraie forests now cover some 8,280 km² and are designated as a UNESCO Biosphere reserve. Their area has shrunk by about 50% over the last 100 years, owing to charcoal-making, grazing, and increasingly intensive cultivation. The best hope for the conservation of the trees may lie in the recent development of a thriving export market for argan oil as a high-value product.
Argan is also grown in Israel, in the Arava and Negev.[1][2][3]
The oil contains 80% unsaturated fatty acids, is rich in essential fatty acids and is more resistant to oxidation than olive oil. Argan oil is used for dipping bread, on couscous, salads and similar uses. A dip for bread known as amlou is made from argan oil, almonds and peanuts, sometimes sweetened by honey or sugar. The unroasted oil is traditionally used as a treatment for skin diseases, and has found favour with European cosmetics manufacturers.[citation needed] Argan oil is sold in Morocco as a luxury item (although difficult to find outside the region of production) and is of increasing interest to cosmetics companies in Europe. It was difficult to buy the oil outside Morocco but by 2001-2002 became a fashionable food in Europe and North America. It is now widely available in specialist shops and occasionally in supermarkets. Its price (USD$40-50 for 500 ml) is notable compared to other oilsFriday, September 17, 2010
''Back to normal'' One year update part 1
I'm in the middle of a gray period where I've finished one year but I'm not yet a second-year. The sophomore semester is longer than the others (I'm a Junior when the Youth vols ahead of me vamoose, and then I'm a senior when the new group that replaces me arrives).
So, back to normal. Ramadan is over, the school year has begun again, my preferred baker is back from his month sojourn to see his family in Tinrirt, and I've already bought and consumed a couple of loaves from him. The town is full again, people are no longer spending the majority of the day hiding in the shade while they wait for the sun to go down to break the fast. And they seem so happy about it, the souk has started two days early!
Also, I'm finally processed in the immigration system... this morning I sat for an hour while my chief gendarme finished the last touches and then he handed me my carte de sejour -- the national ID for foreigners residing in Morocco. ''Daba, unta bhal mgribi!'' Not sure if he said it quite like that, but he either said Now you are Moroccan! Or else he said, Now you are like a Moroccan!
So this is nice. The biggest absence, too, was the lack of young people in the streets during Ramadan. Not so anymore, since school is in session, and since they all have different schedules, there's constantly tiny kids with backpacks walking the half mile down the main street, a few dozen coming and a few dozen going.
But this is the normal-normal, but the Ramadan normal was nice and parts of it are missed. Two days after it ended, half of the family we had living in our house left... Osama the 6-year old, Sbah the 5-year old, Iman the 3-year old. Mohammed my favorite guy my age, who went back to study in Agadir at the university there. So while I'm happy to be back on a good schedule, it's not without its bittersweet aspects. And all the people in my region are half checked out, the end for them in sight and their next plans taking shape as the days pass.
Take care! Mbruk l'eid sgir.
So, back to normal. Ramadan is over, the school year has begun again, my preferred baker is back from his month sojourn to see his family in Tinrirt, and I've already bought and consumed a couple of loaves from him. The town is full again, people are no longer spending the majority of the day hiding in the shade while they wait for the sun to go down to break the fast. And they seem so happy about it, the souk has started two days early!
Also, I'm finally processed in the immigration system... this morning I sat for an hour while my chief gendarme finished the last touches and then he handed me my carte de sejour -- the national ID for foreigners residing in Morocco. ''Daba, unta bhal mgribi!'' Not sure if he said it quite like that, but he either said Now you are Moroccan! Or else he said, Now you are like a Moroccan!
So this is nice. The biggest absence, too, was the lack of young people in the streets during Ramadan. Not so anymore, since school is in session, and since they all have different schedules, there's constantly tiny kids with backpacks walking the half mile down the main street, a few dozen coming and a few dozen going.
But this is the normal-normal, but the Ramadan normal was nice and parts of it are missed. Two days after it ended, half of the family we had living in our house left... Osama the 6-year old, Sbah the 5-year old, Iman the 3-year old. Mohammed my favorite guy my age, who went back to study in Agadir at the university there. So while I'm happy to be back on a good schedule, it's not without its bittersweet aspects. And all the people in my region are half checked out, the end for them in sight and their next plans taking shape as the days pass.
Take care! Mbruk l'eid sgir.
Romantic Morocco
From Wikipedia:
Imilchil (Arabic: إملشيل) is a small town in central Morocco, in the Atlas Mountains with a population of about 1858[1]. It is located at an elevation of 2119 m in the valley of Assif Melloul ("white river"). The area of Imilchil is home to the tribe of "Ait Hdiddou" from the confederation of "Ait Yafelman", and all the inhabitants speak tamazight. Some locations to visit are the caves of Akhiam, the Agouni waterfalls, the Ziz Gorges and Valley and the ksars of the area[2].
The Marriage Festival
The town of Imilchil represents a symbol of Berber culture, known for its festival, officially known as Betrothal Festival - the Souk Aamor Agdoud N'Oulmghenni. The legend goes that two young people from different tribes fell in love, but were forbidden to see each other by their families. The grief led them to cry themselves to death, creating the neighbouring lakes of Isli (his) and Tislit (hers) near Imilchil. The families decided to establish a day on the anniversary of the lovers' death - when members of local tribes could marry each other. Thus the Imilchil Marriage Festival was born [3].
In reality, the region is a large scattering of tiny villages, and when young person needs to find a partner, they can't simply go and look for one, due to the conservative social norms. Thus, the festival allows for fathers to show their daughters and find husbands for them. When a woman accepts a man's proposal to marry, she says "You have captured my liver". ( Tq massa nou chemt ) Up to 40 couples take their vows on the same day. The festival is rich with music, dancing, feasts, and colorful clothing. The celebrations attracts many tourists to the area, and though contributing to local economy, there are fears that the rituals can be affected by the foreigners.
This one from Lexicorient.com
September romance
Of all moussems (Muslim festivals) the one in Imilchil every late September has become the most famous around the world. This small mountain village is by itself nothing spectacular compared to other villages in the region, but the festival is a time of colourful clothes, flirting and dance. During the festival young girls and boys from many different villages are allowed to meet, with the purpose of marriage.The start of the festival. Along the front you see four future brides dressed up in local costumes. Future grooms are dressed in white, and three of them can be seen here too. Photo: Nik Wheeler/CorbisThe region around Imilchil is scattered with tiny villages, often inhabited by only one large family. When the young are ripe for marriage, fresh blood must be imported from other families. As the morals are still strict for many, independent search for a wife or husband is not acceptable. But during this festival, the problem of marriage is solved for many. But nobody marries here, they get engaged for marriage, and save the fun of the wedding celebration for later.Conclusion of the festival: registration of new engagements. Photo: Nik Wheeler/Corbis The whole festival, its charm and autenticity, is under the threat by tourists coming to watch. Even if most tourists going to Imilchil are considerate and try to be as invisible as possible, many fathers feel that the chastity of his daughter is in jeopardy. But even more dangerous is the dangers of money. Local profiteers might be tempted to do whatever they can to aid the experience of the visitors, by influencing the rituals or helping tourists to get as close to the action as possible.
Imilchil (Arabic: إملشيل) is a small town in central Morocco, in the Atlas Mountains with a population of about 1858[1]. It is located at an elevation of 2119 m in the valley of Assif Melloul ("white river"). The area of Imilchil is home to the tribe of "Ait Hdiddou" from the confederation of "Ait Yafelman", and all the inhabitants speak tamazight. Some locations to visit are the caves of Akhiam, the Agouni waterfalls, the Ziz Gorges and Valley and the ksars of the area[2].
The Marriage Festival
The town of Imilchil represents a symbol of Berber culture, known for its festival, officially known as Betrothal Festival - the Souk Aamor Agdoud N'Oulmghenni. The legend goes that two young people from different tribes fell in love, but were forbidden to see each other by their families. The grief led them to cry themselves to death, creating the neighbouring lakes of Isli (his) and Tislit (hers) near Imilchil. The families decided to establish a day on the anniversary of the lovers' death - when members of local tribes could marry each other. Thus the Imilchil Marriage Festival was born [3].
In reality, the region is a large scattering of tiny villages, and when young person needs to find a partner, they can't simply go and look for one, due to the conservative social norms. Thus, the festival allows for fathers to show their daughters and find husbands for them. When a woman accepts a man's proposal to marry, she says "You have captured my liver". ( Tq massa nou chemt ) Up to 40 couples take their vows on the same day. The festival is rich with music, dancing, feasts, and colorful clothing. The celebrations attracts many tourists to the area, and though contributing to local economy, there are fears that the rituals can be affected by the foreigners.
This one from Lexicorient.com
September romance
Of all moussems (Muslim festivals) the one in Imilchil every late September has become the most famous around the world. This small mountain village is by itself nothing spectacular compared to other villages in the region, but the festival is a time of colourful clothes, flirting and dance. During the festival young girls and boys from many different villages are allowed to meet, with the purpose of marriage.The start of the festival. Along the front you see four future brides dressed up in local costumes. Future grooms are dressed in white, and three of them can be seen here too. Photo: Nik Wheeler/CorbisThe region around Imilchil is scattered with tiny villages, often inhabited by only one large family. When the young are ripe for marriage, fresh blood must be imported from other families. As the morals are still strict for many, independent search for a wife or husband is not acceptable. But during this festival, the problem of marriage is solved for many. But nobody marries here, they get engaged for marriage, and save the fun of the wedding celebration for later.Conclusion of the festival: registration of new engagements. Photo: Nik Wheeler/Corbis The whole festival, its charm and autenticity, is under the threat by tourists coming to watch. Even if most tourists going to Imilchil are considerate and try to be as invisible as possible, many fathers feel that the chastity of his daughter is in jeopardy. But even more dangerous is the dangers of money. Local profiteers might be tempted to do whatever they can to aid the experience of the visitors, by influencing the rituals or helping tourists to get as close to the action as possible.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
September music part 2
Being here, you sometimes get the new stuff late...
an example is I didnt know Alicia Keys released an album last December till I found this on my friend's iPod:
and I never saw the video for the original because my Internet here isn't really good enough to run YouTube
But I've been homesick some, so I've been diving back into old-timey songs from both my Mom's home, Tennessee, and my dad's, Louisiana.
I'm 99 percent sure @ 2:27 this is the same violin player, Stephane Grappelli
And, the Grand Ole Opry / Johnny Cash Show
an example is I didnt know Alicia Keys released an album last December till I found this on my friend's iPod:
and I never saw the video for the original because my Internet here isn't really good enough to run YouTube
But I've been homesick some, so I've been diving back into old-timey songs from both my Mom's home, Tennessee, and my dad's, Louisiana.
I'm 99 percent sure @ 2:27 this is the same violin player, Stephane Grappelli
And, the Grand Ole Opry / Johnny Cash Show
Music from this September
This is one with the same guy, from ABC News ''Cruising Nashville with Kris Kristofferson'' :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUPxLrkthKY
It's football season (aka Throwball like we say here, to not confuse it with the other football) so I wish I were there, grilling out and watching the game with a giant plate of nachos.
Me and Bobby McGee, there's something that is lost when you hear the covers of it sung by women (Janis Joplin, Sheryl Crow). It's a bromance kind of song and unfortunately when a woman sings the song you might look into the relationship aspect more than what's really there.
It shouldn't be that way, but it is.
A similar change happens when you hear the original Prince version of '' If I was your girlfriend''. The TLC version as good as it is, loses a whole level of pathos from the facts of the original with a man singing it, wanting to be close to you but knowing that in a romantic situation you'll be closer in some ways but not in others to the girl's girlfriends. (Thanks 'Rissa for pointing that out to me)
A person on YouTube wrote it this way:
And if you haven't heard the new Sade album yet, this is the best track on it -- I didnt expect it to be as profound or beautiful as it was so it really jabbed at my heart and loved it immensely by the time I was through hearing it the first time.
I never heard the original of this one till I was at summer camp -- I only knew it from Stevie Ray Vaughn and later a cover by John Mayer (where he really shows his chops). And both of those were just instrumentals.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Amazing weird happening here in Nkob
Can't even begin to explain how unbelievable this was, and how much I freaked out.EVIDENCE No1 : This is the book I was reading, an English copy of 100 Years of Solitude
EVIDENCE A-1 (Detail) This is where I picked it up, the PC Library in Rabat. Picked it up in person, took it home with me.
Evidence A-2 (Detail)
Even more remarkable. I've seen this place a lot-- it's the used bookstore in my hometown, maybe 10K from my house and 5K from where my grandparents live.
But the thing that made my mind explode just thinking about it : I didnt bring this book with me here. And looking at how old it is (at least before 1982, when Marquez won the Nobel prize, judging by the absence of that fact in his biography above), it's been here in Morocco, or somewhere, a LONG time. So, in case you don't understand yet, this book came from Jackson and I came from Jackson, pop 50,000 in the city proper, but we came here independently of each other. But I'm not really reading it, I just grabbed it thinking that I might use it to look up the hard Italian words I don't know in the real copy I'm reading, the Mondadori Italian version (or Bompiani, not sure which).
So it's amazing that I found it here in Morocco. It's more amazing that I would never have known had I just read the Italian version using just my Italian-Spanish dictionary. More amazing, still, is the fact that I had one English copy--very doubtful that it, too, was from the Book Nook--but I got a second copy in English after my first one wasn't stolen. If I still had it, this one from my hometown would still be sitting in the library, unbeknownst to me.
Even, I only opened this version up after I'd read 30 pages, and then I only went to the front to read the bio age again. It would have been just as crazy if I'd had the book and never even known that it came from my home town.
This book, my hometown. When we have tens of thousands of book stores in the United States that this might have come from instead. And it's not even so important that it's 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE, the book I've read more than any other and that propelled me to Colombia, a life-changing experience.
Other crazy ideas--who knows when it got here, how many people have read it, and is this from a volunteer from Jackson that also served in Peace Corps Morocco? Or did someone's aunt or uncle find it here on their way through town and mail it to them, or did a volunteer from Ghana swing through and pass it on after they finished it? THIS is why I always write my name and my Moroccan town, plus the date each time I finish a book. But now I might start writing my hometown, too. : §
You can't imagine the strange thoughts that ran through my mind when I finally stared at this page and I realized it was from Jackson. But before I realized that it wasn't my copy, I was trying to think of when I bought it, where I kept it in my luggage when I flew here, etc etc trying to make sense of it. Finally I just said, no, this can't be mine, this cover is nothing like the cover of my old English copy, and the book looks older than me!
A memorable night, I do dare say.
Giving up on blogger.com
I've got a better site that I'll start using, I'll let you know what it is.
But this site has given me too much trouble with simple, simple things like copy-and-paste between two different windows (and it may be because this is an old version of internet explorer and all of the computers here). But that's what I've got to use so I'll find a better blog site that works better with it.
But this site has given me too much trouble with simple, simple things like copy-and-paste between two different windows (and it may be because this is an old version of internet explorer and all of the computers here). But that's what I've got to use so I'll find a better blog site that works better with it.
The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.... The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't.... The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness.
from David Foster Wallace's THIS IS WATER commencement speech
(i'm into the first 150 pages of INIFINITE JEST, which I've learned is in a style called hysterical realism)
from David Foster Wallace's THIS IS WATER commencement speech
(i'm into the first 150 pages of INIFINITE JEST, which I've learned is in a style called hysterical realism)
Scorpions and Jumping spiders (don't read if you're in the new Morocco group coming in 2 days)
I used to be afraid of jumping spiders. There's no telling how many hours of my life were squandered fter a boy in 2nd grade told me about them, since after that fateful day I no longer would sit down in the loo without having first checked the entire perimeter of the room multiple times.
But times change, I've grown some since then and I realize how much higher up the food chain I am. Even if there ARE jumping spiders, I could care less ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_spider apparently there are 5000 species of them, making it the most common type of spider in the world).
Nor was I scared of scorpions. Unlike jumping spiders, I actually saw a scorpion while I was on the toilet. Luckily my casbah is equipped with both western and squat toilets, so when last week a scorpion jumped out of nowhere at me, I was able to remain in position while I just lifted my feet up until it left the room through a hole in the wall.
No big deal. I was surprised when I saw my first scorpion late one night while I was washing my hands. I turned the faucet on and it was a few inches below my hands in the sink, the water giving it a bath even. No cause for alarm--maybe because at first I didnt recognize it as a scorpion... the tail was flat, not curved, and it was only by watching the pinchers move that I figured out what this 8-inch long black thing was that got itself stuck 4 feet off the ground in my sink--I notified my dad and he quickly stomped it to death.
Seen about 5 or 6 scorpions now, half of them dead. They look kind of mentally slow, especially the one I saw that traveled across the path where I was running one day.
But now I'm terrified of them. Because my host brother told me exactly how it was that the scorpion got into the sink--they can climb walls. That's not so bad, I guess, not like they can jump or anything. But then he said how they are on the walls and they hide when the lights come on. Which is scary. It's like, the dark tower I live in has many walls and few lights. It's basically open to the elements other the door to my room. Knowing that they are waiting and they hide, somehow that makes it worse.
Luckily I have a Nokia 1000, a phone famous among PCVs for the fact that it has an LED light on the end. It's strong enough, it might send the scorpions back into hiding, so long as I give the wall a good sweep with it ahead of me each time I head out the door.
Friday, September 10, 2010
http://www.slate.com/id/2266535/
We Didn't Start the Fire
You aren't responsible for Quran burners. Don't hold Muslims responsible for 9/11.
By William SaletanPosted Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010, at 11:07 AM ET
Two days ago, hundreds of Afghans gathered in Kabul to denounce the United States for burning the Quran. They torched American flags, chanted "Death to America," and carried signs calling for the death of President Obama. Some of them hurled rocks at U.S. troops. A student in the crowd said of the planned Quran burning: "We know this is not just the decision of a church. It is the decision of the president and the entire United States."
He's wrong, of course. The Quran burning is the brainchild of a Florida minister and his tiny fundamentalist church. It has been condemned by the White House, the State Department, the commanding U.S. general in Afghanistan, Christian organizations, and countless Americans. But when clerics in Egypt denounce the incendiary plan, we feel the heat. When thousands of Muslims rally against it in Indonesia, they do so outside our embassy. When an imam in Kabul threatens retaliation, he casts a shadow on all of us: "If they decide to burn the holy Quran, I will announce jihad against these Christians and infidels."
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This is how it feels to be judged by the sins of others who destroy in the name of your faith. You're no more responsible for 30 Christian extremists in Florida than Muslims are for the 19 hijackers of 9/11. Yet most of us, when polled, say that no Muslim house of worship should be built near the site of the 9/11 attacks. In saying this, we implicitly hold all Muslims accountable for the crime of those 19 people.
Now you know how it feels to be judged that way. It's inaccurate, and it's wrong.
Of course the two situations are different. The hijackers killed 3,000 people; the Quran burners would destroy only their own property. The hijackers were organized by a global terrorist network; the Quran burners are acting alone. But the Quran burners claim to speak for Christianity, just as the hijackers claimed to speak for Islam. And the Quran burners have many open supporters on Facebook in addition to others who are quietly cheering them on.
You, your country, and your faith are being held accountable for the deeds of these people. A widely viewed YouTube video combines "International Burn-the-Quran Day" shirts proclaiming "ISLAM IS OF THE DEVIL" (marketed by the same Florida church), satirical cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed, European criticism of Islamic veils, and myths about U.S. troops flushing a Quran down a toilet. The video says these "attacks on Muslims," including U.S. invasions of Muslim countries, expose the "hatred of the disbelievers." It calls on Muslims to "rise up and do something."
The video also features a sign at a rally: "No More Mosques." Our indiscriminate, collective-responsibility campaign against mosques is being used in an indiscriminate, collective-responsibility campaign against us and our troops.
A pastor who preaches at a nearby Florida church is aghast at the global outrage the Quran-burning minister has provoked. "He represents only 30 people in this town," the pastor tells the New York Times. "It needs to get out somehow to the rest of the world that this isn't the face of Christianity."
It will, Reverend. Right after it gets out to the rest of the world that we don't think the 9/11 hijackers are the face of Islam.
We Didn't Start the Fire
You aren't responsible for Quran burners. Don't hold Muslims responsible for 9/11.
By William SaletanPosted Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010, at 11:07 AM ET
Two days ago, hundreds of Afghans gathered in Kabul to denounce the United States for burning the Quran. They torched American flags, chanted "Death to America," and carried signs calling for the death of President Obama. Some of them hurled rocks at U.S. troops. A student in the crowd said of the planned Quran burning: "We know this is not just the decision of a church. It is the decision of the president and the entire United States."
He's wrong, of course. The Quran burning is the brainchild of a Florida minister and his tiny fundamentalist church. It has been condemned by the White House, the State Department, the commanding U.S. general in Afghanistan, Christian organizations, and countless Americans. But when clerics in Egypt denounce the incendiary plan, we feel the heat. When thousands of Muslims rally against it in Indonesia, they do so outside our embassy. When an imam in Kabul threatens retaliation, he casts a shadow on all of us: "If they decide to burn the holy Quran, I will announce jihad against these Christians and infidels."
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss in the FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAILGet Slate RSS FeedsRSSShare This ArticleRECOMMEND...Single PageSINGLE PAGE
Yahoo! Buzz
Facebook FacebookDigg DiggReddit RedditStumble UponStumbleUponCLOSE
This is how it feels to be judged by the sins of others who destroy in the name of your faith. You're no more responsible for 30 Christian extremists in Florida than Muslims are for the 19 hijackers of 9/11. Yet most of us, when polled, say that no Muslim house of worship should be built near the site of the 9/11 attacks. In saying this, we implicitly hold all Muslims accountable for the crime of those 19 people.
Now you know how it feels to be judged that way. It's inaccurate, and it's wrong.
Of course the two situations are different. The hijackers killed 3,000 people; the Quran burners would destroy only their own property. The hijackers were organized by a global terrorist network; the Quran burners are acting alone. But the Quran burners claim to speak for Christianity, just as the hijackers claimed to speak for Islam. And the Quran burners have many open supporters on Facebook in addition to others who are quietly cheering them on.
You, your country, and your faith are being held accountable for the deeds of these people. A widely viewed YouTube video combines "International Burn-the-Quran Day" shirts proclaiming "ISLAM IS OF THE DEVIL" (marketed by the same Florida church), satirical cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed, European criticism of Islamic veils, and myths about U.S. troops flushing a Quran down a toilet. The video says these "attacks on Muslims," including U.S. invasions of Muslim countries, expose the "hatred of the disbelievers." It calls on Muslims to "rise up and do something."
The video also features a sign at a rally: "No More Mosques." Our indiscriminate, collective-responsibility campaign against mosques is being used in an indiscriminate, collective-responsibility campaign against us and our troops.
A pastor who preaches at a nearby Florida church is aghast at the global outrage the Quran-burning minister has provoked. "He represents only 30 people in this town," the pastor tells the New York Times. "It needs to get out somehow to the rest of the world that this isn't the face of Christianity."
It will, Reverend. Right after it gets out to the rest of the world that we don't think the 9/11 hijackers are the face of Islam.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
The most mind-blowing podcast yet from my favorite Mind-Blowing Podcast
This is a short episode is about prosopagnosia (face blindness). It's the strangest thing I've ever heard maybe. Its just two men talking about having it and a moderator.
My favorite part, one that takes a little bit of thought to catch:
''And (in the elevator with your neighbors) what if they've changed dogs that day?''
''Oh, I wouldn't notice.''
It makes sense when you listen, but it's about enough to make you cry!
Podcast is called Radiolab, find it at Radiolab.org. My other favorite episodes are all of the music ones, which I think have Oliver Sachs as well, plus 'Emergence' 'Sleep' 'Stress' and... nearly all of them.
My favorite part, one that takes a little bit of thought to catch:
''And (in the elevator with your neighbors) what if they've changed dogs that day?''
''Oh, I wouldn't notice.''
It makes sense when you listen, but it's about enough to make you cry!
Podcast is called Radiolab, find it at Radiolab.org. My other favorite episodes are all of the music ones, which I think have Oliver Sachs as well, plus 'Emergence' 'Sleep' 'Stress' and... nearly all of them.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Elif Shafak: The politics of fiction | Video on TED.com
Elif Shafak: The politics of fiction Video on TED.com
Paraphrasing :
''The most dangerous thing of our modern world are the closed communities of like-minded people... fiction in part is able to move between those barriers and reduce that threat' not by reading other people's fiction so much as in the act of trying to write from another person's point of view.
''...She suggested, 'I feel therefore I am free. I think it was a wonderful paradigm shift. But why do we teach our creative writing students the very first thing, 'write what you know'? That is not the right way to start at all. Immaginative literature is not about writing who we are, or what we know, or what our identity is about. We should teach young people and ourselves, to expand our hearts and write what we can feel. We should get out of our cultural ghetto and move to the next one, and the next.''
Paraphrasing :
''The most dangerous thing of our modern world are the closed communities of like-minded people... fiction in part is able to move between those barriers and reduce that threat' not by reading other people's fiction so much as in the act of trying to write from another person's point of view.
''...She suggested, 'I feel therefore I am free. I think it was a wonderful paradigm shift. But why do we teach our creative writing students the very first thing, 'write what you know'? That is not the right way to start at all. Immaginative literature is not about writing who we are, or what we know, or what our identity is about. We should teach young people and ourselves, to expand our hearts and write what we can feel. We should get out of our cultural ghetto and move to the next one, and the next.''
Saturday, September 4, 2010
here's some tips i've thought of for people coming. I'm going to put a better version of this on my blog in a few minutes ( www.peacecorpsben.blogspot.com) :
the PC Experience
we'll have a new Country director around christmastime
dont worry about trying to study MSA arabic before you get here. the local dialect is so different, it's not worth it. if anything, brush up on French if you used to study it. it can make the landing a lot easier if you know some. after training, though, french can be a liability since everyone knows you speak it and they'll then always respond just in french.
DO learn to read/ write arabic script. it will help a lot with pronunciation and that makes everything better. The PC transliteration system is a crutch and will run you into the ground... once you get going in your classes, ask the teacher to write words in both until you can follow along with just the Arabic
living in a new place is like starting up exercising : it starts bad and painful and you're sore, but it only gets better and easier :)
we're supposed to start doubling up the bigger sites with vols, so chances are good you may have a site mate in your first year, expect to spend most of your time out of site traveling around. a month and a half in site, then you're gone for two weeks for more training, then gone again another week for spring camp, then you go back to your site for a month and a half and then you're gone again for another training and another camp.
once you get to country and you're trying to find a phone, make sure you get the Nokia one with the small LED flashlight on top. that is a lifesaver i use it every night around my town or in my room
for calling home, i keep a stack of 20 dirham recharge cards handy that i get from the teleboutique, and they always last about 20 minutes calling home directly from the phone... just type in the number 001 then area code and number, and costs more than skype but i end up calling home a lot more often. Skype is too much of a process to get going, leaving my house and going to the cyber and trying to find a computer that's got it and works. Just direct from the phone sounds better, too, and in US dollars its about 3 dollars for a good 20 minute conversation, Plus the biggest benefit is that you can use your morocco money instead of having to from your US bank account. Which leads me to...
--dont save dirhams ( i do save dirhams, but im able to save about 1000 a month because im trying to go to europe several times the next few months. Yes, we are close to Europe but though it is cheap to get there usually vols just have money to GET there and then run out of money once they are there unless you know someone you can stay with)
Morocco experience
--the streets are safer than the sidewalks
--morocco is a shame based society. to shame the person that is bothering you, that means you have to reach a certain threshold in embarassing the person. They teach us the word 'shuma' early, shame on you!, but it doesnt work if you whisper it to the guy that's giving you crap.
you have to yell it loud enough so that everyone and their mama know this guy did something bad.if you dont say shuma loud enough for other people to hear, then the guy might interpret that as not being serious, or even that you're flirting back
--all they care about is that you continue to talk to them. so yell 'shuma', and set an eample early for the others that might do the same thing.
GETTING HERE
--dont worry so much about the weight of the bags. My friend Adriana had both of her bags way over and she paid an extra 50 dollars when she checked in. BUT when you get here you'll get even more stuff and it will be a pain to travel with, though after training they ship things ahead of you
PC didnt give her any crap about it, so if there's stuff you can't live without, dont stress out over it. she made it here fine and didnt have to part with anything.
-stuff id bring if i could do it again :
nearly all major brands of toiletries can be bought, things like nice shampoos and soaps and things. they have supermarkets in all of the big city that sell even more things than Walmart (you can buy motorcycles in them even)
The important exceptions, however :
a big 50-pack of ear plugs (great for host families, traveling, donkeys and chickens screaming at 4AM, the airplane ride, in fact great all of the time so long as noone is talking directly to you)
big bottle of high# sunscreen and of good lotion, In general you ask PC and they give you only generic trial-size versions of everything. Sunscreen is more important to bring than lotion, since Moroccans use lotion but dont use sunscreen, though you'll probably wear so many clothes even in summer that you wont burn.
You'll have a site that is either extreme summer or an extreme winter. not a lot are in between. I'd bring things for Winter just in case because good winter gear is hard to find here, but summer clothes are everywhere
.DONT bring the solar shower that's listed in the welcome book
--bring a couple of decks of UNO or a board/card game that you like. UNO is especially good because you can teach it easily to people even if they dont know English, and its fast and you can play for an hour without getting bored of it. And I used UNO cards in my English classes at summer camp, just telling them to recite the color and the number, then i add extra cards to make bigger numbers or i make them add the two together. its a great flow activity
games are great because you can bond with people even if you dont speak their language
novels are abounding here, if you bring books id bring the ones you love the most, or reference books. i brought a suitcase full and most of those books i could have found here.
a good website is goodreads.com, and the more people in your group that use it, you're able to see what other people are reading and share books more easily that way. seriously works, i use it all the time with people in the next region.
bring something just for fun that makes you smile everytime you see it
eletronic things
NETBOOKs are great because they are cheap and replaceable, rather than a 2000 dollar laptop
bring the simplest possible power adaptor (not to be confused with a transformer, which is not necessary and costs a lot more money)
-- a little hand held fan that campers use, not a bad idea.
a good travel hard drive with lots of GBs makes everything more fabulous especially when your group gets together (for ''media souk''). if its not a travel one, there's too much risk of you bumping it and it stops working, which I've seen happen
maybe you dont like podcasts, but in Peace Corps they are awesome. download all the TED Talks, RadioLab, This American Life, and iTunes University ones while you're still Stateside, because its hard to download them from here.
MY Kindle has been the best here I get TIME magazine each week that i download from the amazon site. A netbook is great, even if you just get one from walmart. they are only 140 dollars now
*cheap battery or battery-free speakers to play iPods out loud, especially nice for classes you may do or just around the roomif you replace a volunteer it makes everything a zillion times easier.
the PC Experience
we'll have a new Country director around christmastime
dont worry about trying to study MSA arabic before you get here. the local dialect is so different, it's not worth it. if anything, brush up on French if you used to study it. it can make the landing a lot easier if you know some. after training, though, french can be a liability since everyone knows you speak it and they'll then always respond just in french.
DO learn to read/ write arabic script. it will help a lot with pronunciation and that makes everything better. The PC transliteration system is a crutch and will run you into the ground... once you get going in your classes, ask the teacher to write words in both until you can follow along with just the Arabic
living in a new place is like starting up exercising : it starts bad and painful and you're sore, but it only gets better and easier :)
we're supposed to start doubling up the bigger sites with vols, so chances are good you may have a site mate in your first year, expect to spend most of your time out of site traveling around. a month and a half in site, then you're gone for two weeks for more training, then gone again another week for spring camp, then you go back to your site for a month and a half and then you're gone again for another training and another camp.
once you get to country and you're trying to find a phone, make sure you get the Nokia one with the small LED flashlight on top. that is a lifesaver i use it every night around my town or in my room
for calling home, i keep a stack of 20 dirham recharge cards handy that i get from the teleboutique, and they always last about 20 minutes calling home directly from the phone... just type in the number 001 then area code and number, and costs more than skype but i end up calling home a lot more often. Skype is too much of a process to get going, leaving my house and going to the cyber and trying to find a computer that's got it and works. Just direct from the phone sounds better, too, and in US dollars its about 3 dollars for a good 20 minute conversation, Plus the biggest benefit is that you can use your morocco money instead of having to from your US bank account. Which leads me to...
--dont save dirhams ( i do save dirhams, but im able to save about 1000 a month because im trying to go to europe several times the next few months. Yes, we are close to Europe but though it is cheap to get there usually vols just have money to GET there and then run out of money once they are there unless you know someone you can stay with)
Morocco experience
--the streets are safer than the sidewalks
--morocco is a shame based society. to shame the person that is bothering you, that means you have to reach a certain threshold in embarassing the person. They teach us the word 'shuma' early, shame on you!, but it doesnt work if you whisper it to the guy that's giving you crap.
you have to yell it loud enough so that everyone and their mama know this guy did something bad.if you dont say shuma loud enough for other people to hear, then the guy might interpret that as not being serious, or even that you're flirting back
--all they care about is that you continue to talk to them. so yell 'shuma', and set an eample early for the others that might do the same thing.
GETTING HERE
--dont worry so much about the weight of the bags. My friend Adriana had both of her bags way over and she paid an extra 50 dollars when she checked in. BUT when you get here you'll get even more stuff and it will be a pain to travel with, though after training they ship things ahead of you
PC didnt give her any crap about it, so if there's stuff you can't live without, dont stress out over it. she made it here fine and didnt have to part with anything.
-stuff id bring if i could do it again :
nearly all major brands of toiletries can be bought, things like nice shampoos and soaps and things. they have supermarkets in all of the big city that sell even more things than Walmart (you can buy motorcycles in them even)
The important exceptions, however :
a big 50-pack of ear plugs (great for host families, traveling, donkeys and chickens screaming at 4AM, the airplane ride, in fact great all of the time so long as noone is talking directly to you)
big bottle of high# sunscreen and of good lotion, In general you ask PC and they give you only generic trial-size versions of everything. Sunscreen is more important to bring than lotion, since Moroccans use lotion but dont use sunscreen, though you'll probably wear so many clothes even in summer that you wont burn.
You'll have a site that is either extreme summer or an extreme winter. not a lot are in between. I'd bring things for Winter just in case because good winter gear is hard to find here, but summer clothes are everywhere
.DONT bring the solar shower that's listed in the welcome book
--bring a couple of decks of UNO or a board/card game that you like. UNO is especially good because you can teach it easily to people even if they dont know English, and its fast and you can play for an hour without getting bored of it. And I used UNO cards in my English classes at summer camp, just telling them to recite the color and the number, then i add extra cards to make bigger numbers or i make them add the two together. its a great flow activity
games are great because you can bond with people even if you dont speak their language
novels are abounding here, if you bring books id bring the ones you love the most, or reference books. i brought a suitcase full and most of those books i could have found here.
a good website is goodreads.com, and the more people in your group that use it, you're able to see what other people are reading and share books more easily that way. seriously works, i use it all the time with people in the next region.
bring something just for fun that makes you smile everytime you see it
eletronic things
NETBOOKs are great because they are cheap and replaceable, rather than a 2000 dollar laptop
bring the simplest possible power adaptor (not to be confused with a transformer, which is not necessary and costs a lot more money)
-- a little hand held fan that campers use, not a bad idea.
a good travel hard drive with lots of GBs makes everything more fabulous especially when your group gets together (for ''media souk''). if its not a travel one, there's too much risk of you bumping it and it stops working, which I've seen happen
maybe you dont like podcasts, but in Peace Corps they are awesome. download all the TED Talks, RadioLab, This American Life, and iTunes University ones while you're still Stateside, because its hard to download them from here.
MY Kindle has been the best here I get TIME magazine each week that i download from the amazon site. A netbook is great, even if you just get one from walmart. they are only 140 dollars now
*cheap battery or battery-free speakers to play iPods out loud, especially nice for classes you may do or just around the roomif you replace a volunteer it makes everything a zillion times easier.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Nice thing from a volunteer in my region she put on Facebook
First:
'RISSA ... is thinking about COSing and what that means. "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." ~Anatole France
Later that afternoon:
You know, on second thought, I don't know if I entirely believe that. It feels like I'll be leaving behind a part of myself in order to create my new self, but my American self didn't die when I came here two years ago. Morocco has unexpectedly shaped me more than I anticipated and I'll be taking some of this way of life with me when I go. Maybe we don't have to die to one life before we can enter another. Maybe limbo will be a good thing...well, inchallah.
'RISSA ... is thinking about COSing and what that means. "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." ~Anatole France
Later that afternoon:
You know, on second thought, I don't know if I entirely believe that. It feels like I'll be leaving behind a part of myself in order to create my new self, but my American self didn't die when I came here two years ago. Morocco has unexpectedly shaped me more than I anticipated and I'll be taking some of this way of life with me when I go. Maybe we don't have to die to one life before we can enter another. Maybe limbo will be a good thing...well, inchallah.
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This song is lyrically BRILLIANT! Lets be honest, alot of us as women will run to our girls, before we confide in our man. Prince GETS IT. Men wonder why women go crazy over this man. This song is why. Men just don't get it sometimes, and to hear a brotha that actually understands the complexity that makes us women is not only refreshing, but comforting. Prince has always shown women love. And for that I love him to death.