Tuesday, December 31, 2013

A very German Christmas

People warned us that if we weren't intentional about celebrating Christmas, everyday life in Morocco can make it seem as if Christmas doesn't even really happen.  Not wanting to miss out on Christmas goodies---- and, at the same time, wanting to take advantage of our close proximity to Europe--- we spent Christmas in Germany with good family friends.  We are incredibly grateful to the Mann family for their love, their home, their food, and their hospitality. 

What have we always said is the most important thing?  Family.  And breakfast.
Ursula and Klaus picked us up at the airport with a "Welcome Pete and Britt!" sign and had a champagne toast waiting for us at the house.  That's just where the hospitality began.  The next day, as Ursula whipped up a delicious feast (including many pork-related treats that are hard to come by in Morocco) while Klaus took us on a tour of a nearby mountain, castle, and Roman bath ruins

Pete and Klaus explore the castle.


 
The view from the mountain.  Past the Black Forest you can see the Alps!
 
Klaus is a very good tour guide.
The next day, we took a trip into Frieburg to check out the local Christmas Markets and to exlore the beautiful Munster Cathedral.   Six years ago, I came to visit Ursula, Klaus, and their son, Ramon, and I spent most of my time in Freiburg with Ramon.  It was fun to be reacquainted with the city.



Just as lovely as I remembered it.


By Christmas Eve, the whole family was together.  We enjoyed a feast of raclette, opened presents together, and made our way to midnight mass (thankfully, at the reasonable hour of 10pm).  Pete and I felt so lucky to be part of the family on this special holiday. 

Henna is still going strong!

 
Ramon and grandma, looking adorable.

Typical Christmas scene.

The ladies sporting their artisan-made Moroccan scarves from Zajal Designs!

All in all, if we had to be away from our families, there was no better way to do it.  Being in Germany with these wonderful people made Christmas feel just as it should: a season full of love and joy, peace and hope.   We hope yours was just as lovely.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to our favorite Germans!




Saturday, December 21, 2013

Henna Party

In a few short hours, we will leave Morocco and head north.  For Christmas, we're trading couscous and tagine for brats and spaetzle, and we're excited to have the opportunity to spend the holidays with some of our favorite Germans.

In true Moroccan fashion, no big trip out of town is complete without a henna session.  So last night, me and the girls gathered and covered our hands in pretty designs.  This isn't my first round of henna, and it certainly won't be my last.  Plus, this time, even Pete got to get in on the action a bit.

A sample of henna: circa Halloween 2013

Henna application is a laborious process.  First, you have to sit still while the henna artist draws designs swiftly across the tops and the palms of your hand.  Then, after the henna dries a bit, someone else takes cotton and dabs an oily blend of olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice all over your hands.  This is supposed to help bring out the henna's best colors, I think, plus it makes you smell like pizza (which I'm all for).  After a while, the wet, semi-sticky henna is covered in cotton (this time, from cotton padding ripped right out of a diaper).  Next, it's best to slip socks over your hands---- this ensures that you will look like an insane person while you comfortably sleep all night and let the henna soak into your skin.  


Sock hands!
And pudding cups---- when frozen, it almost tastes like ice cream.

The next morning is the hardest part.  Squatting over the turkish toilet (it's easiest to clean up all the henna crumbles this way, I promise), you have to rub the dried henna off of your hands and arms.  In some places, it scrubs off fairly easily.  In other spots, it's sort of like pulling a sticker off of your arm--- a sticker that is caught on every single little arm hair. 

But the final result is lovely and vibrant, and the henna usually lasts about 2 weeks.  Check out some photos from our holiday henna party.  Note the pro-Raja henna---- there's a big soccer game tomorrow!






As Christmas approaches, I hope you are able to make time for whatever rituals help best get you into the holiday spirit.  Watching It's a Wonderful Life?  Chain-eating Candy Canes?  Playing Sufjan's Christmas album on repeat?  Gathering up the ones you love and swapping stories over cranberry nut bread?  Do it, do it all, and know that we miss you.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Outdoors-ing in Morocco

It was during our two-year stint in Berkeley, CA that our love for hiking really blossomed. The redwoods were practically in our backyard, and we took advantage of all the regional, state, and national parks that dot Northern California.  After a super-fun summer family vacation to Grand Teton National park, I decided to audit an undergraduate environmental biology class at Cal Berkeley (because grad school just isn't busy enough).  Honestly, the professor spent more time chatting about the protests over public school funding that were raging across campus that year than he spent lecturing about watersheds and carbon footprints, but I was still smitten.  Leaves! Bovines! Nature!  A welcome break from Durkheim, Weber, and my other sociology of religion friends (whom I still adore, but sometimes it's more fun to read about insects).  Once we were back in Texas, I enrolled in the Cross Timbers Master Naturalist program and eventually earned my official certification.  Pete and I pulled invasive species from local parks on the weekends (why oh why do people insist on planting privet?!), and I got to do fun things like lead wildflower hikes for families during the Fort Worth Prairie Fest.


One of many trees we've hugged.
I've provided this background information so that you can fully understand how elated we are to be living where we live in Morocco.  Our little town of 12,000 is nestled in the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains, and there are plenty of trails criss-crossing the area.  Sure, it was 110 degrees in the summer and we hid in our home whilst binging on television and young-adult fiction.  But those days are behind us, and the season of exploring the outdoors is here!

About once a week, Pete and I hike up to a place called Tizikhoran.  I don't know what that means, I just know that it's a 40-minute hike that provides a lovely bird's eye view of our town.  There are logs to sit on, shade-a-plenty, and giant yucca plants.  




This fall, our English class has also been eager to hike up into the mountains.  A few weeks ago, we hiked up to Ait Ourit, a place we've visited before.  The hike takes about two hours, and we did it with backpacks full of vegetables, soda, snacks, and a tagine and a teapot.  We filled the afternoon with games, food, and music (turning anything and everything into a drum).




No Moroccan outing is complete without tea!
Trekking home after sunset.

This past weekend, we headed into the mountains again with our English students.  And, just this week, we showed off the hiking trails to our good friends Sarah and Mustapha (she took a lot of great photos, so be sure and check out her blog!).  Seriously, we just can't get enough of the outdoors now that the weather is cool and crisp.

Hiking with some of my favorite English students.
They understand my terrible Darija better than most.

Headed for the mountains.

Firdous diligently watches over the snacks.

Pete and Khalid take in the view from the top.

I feel like I end nearly every blog this way, but I'm going to say it again: this is not easy.  Living in a new place, learning a new language, waiting for our workspace to open, and adjusting to new expectations--- these are hard things.  But having mountains and having friends helps, and we are grateful for all the time we get to spend with people and in the outdoors.

Who needs a fancy toddler backpack?  Malika shows us how it's done.





Monday, December 9, 2013

Make Your Own Fun

Thanksgiving came last week and like most of the world, we found ourselves in the race for second place. This is what the all-time undefeated Turkey Day world champions were up to:
Defending their title in the bouncy castle.

But luckily for us, Peace Corps Morocco staff threw a really nice get together, inviting all the volunteers in country to Rabat on the flimsy pretext of mandatory vaccinations, and since we were in the neck of the woods, a turkey dinner potluck for 200+ volunteers, staff and hangers-on.

We came up via train with our friend Sarah, backs nearly broken from hauling 30 kilos of couscous on behalf of the Omnia Women's Co-operative, which we sold in short order to some generous PCVs. I guess they had a Black Friday itch. 
Bombs away, Sarah.
Even in my most elemental element, I wilt at the prospect of trying to socialize with 200-odd people. Never mind that I only ever speak English to one person anymore, and she and I have developed our own cloistered twin-language, and we were already pretty weird to begin with. But I had fun, in part because I landed at a really good table full of serious eaters -first group through the line, and frequenters or the dessert table- and in part because I hid out in the lounge and looked at the free bookshelves any time it got too hot for me.
The food was a surprisingly good mash-up of classic American and Moroccan dishes (though no actual mashed potatoes, to my great sadness). Couscous works well for soaking up turkey juice and cranberry sauce.

The next day we got our shots, three shots for me in fact, and caught a bus with our PCV friends Leah and Carly to Carly's site, a tiny town between Ouazzane (which Carly ironically calls "Land of Dreams") and Chefchaouen (which she earnestly calls "Land of Dreams"). 

There, we did typical PCV things like eat stuff from Carly's care packages, watch movies and youtube videos, play games at the Dar Chabab and walk around in the pretty countryside. We also took advantage of our Jewish contingent (and us, the Judaism enthusiasts) to celebrate Hanukkah.
Carly and Leah sang prayers in Hebrew.
We ate delicious latkes and applesauce, with plain yogurt subbing for sour cream.
That's a Frisbee Menorah. The world's first?
Carly's site is out of control pretty.
Looks an awful lot like northern California
At the Dar Chabab. The guy in the middle kept slapping our legs in this hilarious game/Three Stooges sketch.
After that we headed to to Chefchaouen, which we knew of only as the funky city with the blue and white medina and a heavy Rasta influence. The guidebooks have oversold those aspects. Yes, there's blue everywhere, and yes our waiter tried to sell us drugs at the dinner table. But Chefchaouen's real charm comes from the dramatic green mountains it's nestled against; the cleanliness of the streets and low-key hassling of tourists; the incredible fact of the presence of goat cheese. We were dazzled. Our new favorite city in Morocco.

A taxi to a bus to a train to a taxi to a bus later we were back in site, getting ready to teach an English class. Homesickness is pretty much a fact of daily life for us here is Morocco: we got a good home waiting for us back in the U.S. Thanksgiving and the holiday weekend, though? We made our own fun. No time to be homesick when you're too busy getting motion sick.