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| This is what I woke up to this morning: my first real snow in Ifrane, along with real winter temperatures! |
31 January 2011
Snow
30 January 2011
The "cornfields" part
My blog is called "Cornfields to Casbahs," but I've really just been focusing on the "casbahs" part.
So here's a post about the cornfields.
Apparently some economists did a study to try to determine the "happiest" state in the union. And in true economist fashion (sorry to any economists in my audience), they equated "happiness" with money and financial stability. If one can put aside that problematic logic, it is interesting to find out which state won the contest. Check it out here.
So here's a post about the cornfields.
Apparently some economists did a study to try to determine the "happiest" state in the union. And in true economist fashion (sorry to any economists in my audience), they equated "happiness" with money and financial stability. If one can put aside that problematic logic, it is interesting to find out which state won the contest. Check it out here.
25 January 2011
On hiring a maid
When I was in high school, one of my friends was the son of the richest man in town (town = approximately 2500 people). My friend lived in a big, new house on top of a hill near the edge of town. A major indication that his family was affluent? They actually hired someone to clean their house for them! This was a totally foreign concept to me; before I met this friend, I had never known anyone with a maid.*
And now I have a maid. Hafida has been working for me for several weeks now. Before coming to Ifrane, I had read that many people hire maids to do laundry, clean, cook, shop, etc. Hiring nannies is also a common practice. But the idea still seemed a little silly to me. I wondered, why in the world would I not be able to do these things myself? And I hated the ideas of inequality, servitude and privilege that the word "maid" conjured up in me.
However, it was pointed out to me several times by several different people that earnings that would put my husband and me below the poverty line in the U.S. could afford us quite a comfortable life in Morocco. T's income is several times that of the average Moroccan's income. Do we not have a social responsibility to try to find ways to share our money with the locals? Most of us don't feel inclined to start walking around and handing out money to strangers on the street. But if we can hire a local woman, and if the money we pay can help her buy groceries or medicine for her sick husband or whatever, do we not have a responsibility to hire her?
Also, as I have pointed out before, I really hate doing laundry. :)
So now Hafida comes for three hours on Mondays and two hours on Thursdays. For this (and please don't think me a bad person when I tell you this), I pay her the equivalent of about $15.
At first, even though I was okay with the idea of hiring someone, having her in the house and asking her to do things made me nervous. At one point I found myself helping her make the bed. I just wasn't getting this whole maid thing.
I figured out that it's best if I just write her a list (Did I mention that she speaks some English? Along with Berber, Darija, and French? And she probably didn't go to high school!) and then either leave the apartment or lock myself in my office where I won't be tempted to micromanage. For the most part, she does a great job. Yesterday, one of the items on the list I gave her was "cook lubbiya" ("lubbiya" means "beans," but it's often used to refer to a dish of seasoned white beans). She found what she needed in the kitchen and made us a big pot of delicious lubbiya. T went back for seconds; he never does that when I make lubbiya!
I really appreciate Hafida's help, especially since my course load this semester is so much more difficult than last semester. But that doesn't mean I'm entirely comfortable with the situation. Whenever she's here, and even when she isn't, I find myself trying to imagine what her life is like. I wonder what she thinks my life is like. I wonder how I can justify spending more money on one night in a nice hotel than she earns working for several months. I think about her six-year-old son, who is in school. What will he do when he grows up? What are her dreams for him? What are her dreams for herself?
Maybe someday I will be comfortable enough with Hafida to ask her some of these questions. Insha'Allah.
*If the word "maid" makes you uncomfortable, you aren't alone. That word has connotations that make me cringe. But it's the term that is conventionally used here in Morocco, and in some ways, it accurately reflects the work that such women do. "Cleaning lady," "house cleaner," and "housekeeper" don't entirely reflect the scope of their work nor the class inequality that generally exists between them and their employers. Now I'll bet you're even more uncomfortable.
And now I have a maid. Hafida has been working for me for several weeks now. Before coming to Ifrane, I had read that many people hire maids to do laundry, clean, cook, shop, etc. Hiring nannies is also a common practice. But the idea still seemed a little silly to me. I wondered, why in the world would I not be able to do these things myself? And I hated the ideas of inequality, servitude and privilege that the word "maid" conjured up in me.
However, it was pointed out to me several times by several different people that earnings that would put my husband and me below the poverty line in the U.S. could afford us quite a comfortable life in Morocco. T's income is several times that of the average Moroccan's income. Do we not have a social responsibility to try to find ways to share our money with the locals? Most of us don't feel inclined to start walking around and handing out money to strangers on the street. But if we can hire a local woman, and if the money we pay can help her buy groceries or medicine for her sick husband or whatever, do we not have a responsibility to hire her?
Also, as I have pointed out before, I really hate doing laundry. :)
So now Hafida comes for three hours on Mondays and two hours on Thursdays. For this (and please don't think me a bad person when I tell you this), I pay her the equivalent of about $15.
At first, even though I was okay with the idea of hiring someone, having her in the house and asking her to do things made me nervous. At one point I found myself helping her make the bed. I just wasn't getting this whole maid thing.
I figured out that it's best if I just write her a list (Did I mention that she speaks some English? Along with Berber, Darija, and French? And she probably didn't go to high school!) and then either leave the apartment or lock myself in my office where I won't be tempted to micromanage. For the most part, she does a great job. Yesterday, one of the items on the list I gave her was "cook lubbiya" ("lubbiya" means "beans," but it's often used to refer to a dish of seasoned white beans). She found what she needed in the kitchen and made us a big pot of delicious lubbiya. T went back for seconds; he never does that when I make lubbiya!
I really appreciate Hafida's help, especially since my course load this semester is so much more difficult than last semester. But that doesn't mean I'm entirely comfortable with the situation. Whenever she's here, and even when she isn't, I find myself trying to imagine what her life is like. I wonder what she thinks my life is like. I wonder how I can justify spending more money on one night in a nice hotel than she earns working for several months. I think about her six-year-old son, who is in school. What will he do when he grows up? What are her dreams for him? What are her dreams for herself?
Maybe someday I will be comfortable enough with Hafida to ask her some of these questions. Insha'Allah.
*If the word "maid" makes you uncomfortable, you aren't alone. That word has connotations that make me cringe. But it's the term that is conventionally used here in Morocco, and in some ways, it accurately reflects the work that such women do. "Cleaning lady," "house cleaner," and "housekeeper" don't entirely reflect the scope of their work nor the class inequality that generally exists between them and their employers. Now I'll bet you're even more uncomfortable.
21 January 2011
A poem
… From my friend GB, who is always sending me thoughtful and interesting emails.
Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.
New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.
When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad;
and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:
How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.
When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.
A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.
May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.
May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.
-John O'Donohue
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.
New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.
When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad;
and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:
How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.
When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.
A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.
May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.
May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.
-John O'Donohue
18 January 2011
Bad day
Okay, people, I've been "entertaining" you with this blog for months without asking much from you. Now it's your turn to do something for me.
You see, I'm having a Bad Day.
So, if you have something happy or entertaining or interesting that you can post in order to distract me from my bad day…please post it!
And if you know anything about how to fix problems with HP Pavilion laptop computers, send me an e-mail.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go do some yoga. And maybe eat copious amounts of chocolate.
You see, I'm having a Bad Day.
So, if you have something happy or entertaining or interesting that you can post in order to distract me from my bad day…please post it!
And if you know anything about how to fix problems with HP Pavilion laptop computers, send me an e-mail.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go do some yoga. And maybe eat copious amounts of chocolate.
14 January 2011
Toilets and tofu
Part I: Toilets
Just as part of the "fun" of owning a home is fixing things yourself when they break, part of the "fun" of being a renter is relying on other people to fix broken things. And when you throw in language barriers and different cultural standards related to maintenance and repair, the situation can be even more interesting.
When T and I got back from our vacation, one of the things that greeted us was a small pool of water under the drainage pipe of our upstairs toilet. It has always been clear that this toilet had problems in the past. The pipe from the toilet appeared to be made almost entirely of cracked caulking and was sticking out of a fairly substantial and disastrous-looking hole in the wall.
When the plumber saw the leak, he seemed to suspect the caulking-covered pipe sticking out of the wall. So what did he do? He covered the whole thing with a fresh, thick layer of caulking. Pipe-frosting. I cleaned up after him, put the bathroom back together, and watched for leakage...
Which, of course, there was. The leak wasn't coming from the drainage pipe; it was coming from something in the wall behind the toilet. Remember, this wall has always had a substantial hole knocked out of it, allowing for back-and-forth passage of all kinds of things, including water, between the wall and our bathroom.
So it was back to the apartment office to tell them the leak remained. I took everything out of the bathroom again.
How would you fix this problem? Cover the entire hole with caulking, of course, which is what the plumber took several hours the next day to do. I don't know much about caulking, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't designed for that.
The leak got worse. I took everything out of the bathroom again.
Yesterday, day three, the plumber returned and undid all of his beautiful caulk-patching by pulling out the toilet. He was in there making loud, violent-sounding banging sounds all afternoon. As he was leaving, I asked him "mezyan?" (That means "good"). He responded, "mezyan" and said something else in Darija, and I took it all to mean he was finished.
I cleaned up the bathroom, which took quite a bit of time and even more bleach.
And this morning, when I got up, I found water on the floor. This time, it is coming out of the little metal knobby-thing that you can see in the picture to the right.
I took everything out of the bathroom again.
(Of course, when I told a member of the housing staff about this, he said the plumber told him yesterday that he wasn't done with the work. Well, it's not like anybody needs to tell me that. I just live here.)
Fourth time's a charm?
Part II: Tofu
On a much happier note, I now have – thanks to my husband and some very attentive family members –a year's supply of vegetarian jerky. Go protein!
Just as part of the "fun" of owning a home is fixing things yourself when they break, part of the "fun" of being a renter is relying on other people to fix broken things. And when you throw in language barriers and different cultural standards related to maintenance and repair, the situation can be even more interesting.
 |
| Our toilet with its new drainage pipe |
When T and I got back from our vacation, one of the things that greeted us was a small pool of water under the drainage pipe of our upstairs toilet. It has always been clear that this toilet had problems in the past. The pipe from the toilet appeared to be made almost entirely of cracked caulking and was sticking out of a fairly substantial and disastrous-looking hole in the wall.
When the plumber saw the leak, he seemed to suspect the caulking-covered pipe sticking out of the wall. So what did he do? He covered the whole thing with a fresh, thick layer of caulking. Pipe-frosting. I cleaned up after him, put the bathroom back together, and watched for leakage...
Which, of course, there was. The leak wasn't coming from the drainage pipe; it was coming from something in the wall behind the toilet. Remember, this wall has always had a substantial hole knocked out of it, allowing for back-and-forth passage of all kinds of things, including water, between the wall and our bathroom.
So it was back to the apartment office to tell them the leak remained. I took everything out of the bathroom again.
How would you fix this problem? Cover the entire hole with caulking, of course, which is what the plumber took several hours the next day to do. I don't know much about caulking, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't designed for that.
The leak got worse. I took everything out of the bathroom again.
Yesterday, day three, the plumber returned and undid all of his beautiful caulk-patching by pulling out the toilet. He was in there making loud, violent-sounding banging sounds all afternoon. As he was leaving, I asked him "mezyan?" (That means "good"). He responded, "mezyan" and said something else in Darija, and I took it all to mean he was finished.
And this morning, when I got up, I found water on the floor. This time, it is coming out of the little metal knobby-thing that you can see in the picture to the right.
I took everything out of the bathroom again.
(Of course, when I told a member of the housing staff about this, he said the plumber told him yesterday that he wasn't done with the work. Well, it's not like anybody needs to tell me that. I just live here.)
Fourth time's a charm?
Part II: Tofu
On a much happier note, I now have – thanks to my husband and some very attentive family members –a year's supply of vegetarian jerky. Go protein!
13 January 2011
Miscellany
T and I returned home from The Great Vacation on Saturday night. I could write pages and pages on this blog about the trip. I could write about all the different forms of transportation we took – petit taxis, grand taxis, trains in Morocco and Spain, buses in both countries, a ferry, and a plane. I could write about the miles and miles that we walked in each town we visited because we were too cheap to take transportation when we absolutely didn't have to. I could write about all my parrot encounters, from the friendly Quaker parrots and Indian Ringnecks at the wildlife park in Gibraltar (most of the parrots there were taken from people who were trying to illegally smuggle them somewhere) to the little cockatiel at our hotel in Ronda to the wild Indian Ringneck flocks in Sevilla. I could write about all the great food we had – Chinese, Indian, tapas, and meals at two vegetarian restaurants.
But I don't really have time to write about all that. I started school again on Monday, and this semester I'm taking five difficult courses online.
It remains to be seen whether I will survive that.
But I don't really have time to write about all that. I started school again on Monday, and this semester I'm taking five difficult courses online.
It remains to be seen whether I will survive that.
So I will just leave you with two videos from our trip. The first is a short video of our Spanish New Year's Eve at El Reducto in Tetouan. The second is a short recording I made at the top of the rock of Gibraltar. Enjoy!
09 January 2011
Sevilla, in pictures
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| The Cathedral. It costs money to go inside, so we didn't do that, but it was still very impressive from the outside. |
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| If you knew how long T had been waiting for frozen yogurt, you would understand why I took this picture. |
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| Plaza de España |
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| Plaza de España |
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| Plaza de España, again |
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| There are "wild" parrots in Sevilla! After quite a bit of study, we determined that they are Indian Ringnecks. They seem to be concentrated in the tallest trees in Maria Luisa Park. |
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| The "awesomest" tree I have ever seen (in Maria Luisa Park) |
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| Maria Luisa Park |
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| Same place. Can you tell we spent quite a bit of time in the park? |
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| Sevilla's white pigeons are very well known, and people go to the Plaza de America to feed them. |
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| Happy pigeons! |
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| Orange trees in the park |
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| Isabel II Bridge |
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| See if you can figure this one out yourself. |
Ronda, Spain, in pictures
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| Entrance to Hotel Enfrente Arte, where we stayed for three nights |
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| Breakfast room at the hotel |
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| We got our breakfast dishes out of the back end of a car. |
 | |
| That "hat" is actually a lamp. |
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| I don't really know what to say about this room. |
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| This was our room at Hotel Enfrente Arte. |
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| Outdoor garden at the hotel |
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| Puente Nuevo, "New Bridge," which was built at the end of the 18th century, and connects the two parts of the town to each other. |
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| See the buildings built into the cliff? |
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| Trees in bloom! In January! |
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| Apparently he, along with Orson Welles, really liked Ronda. Can you see why? |
05 January 2011
Gibraltar, in pictures (from the road)
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| Some kind of aloe tree, Alameda Gardens |
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| Alameda Gardens |
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| Gull eating berries of the Dragon Tree, Alameda Gardens |
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| Friendly Quaker Parrots, wildlife park in Alameda Gardens (ask me later for the story of all the parrots in this wildlife park) |
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| Walking up the rock |
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| Barbary ape on the Upper Rock |
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| Walking down the King Joseph (?) steps |
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| Trying not to vomit from fear |
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| Sunset from the rock |
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