Ah hahahaha I lived!

Sorry it's been so long my internet connection wouldn't allow me to access my blog (blah) but here it is now.
Ramadan was a most interesting time. I quit fasting after about a week and a half, I gained ten pounds when I switched my daytime habits for my night time habits and it made me very sick, constant headaches, cranky all the time (we know how I can be when I’m hungry), and I felt like crap on the whole. once I was back to breakfast, lunch, and dinner at normal times all was well in the world again; when I attempted to explain to ppl that fasting made me sick they said, “No, it’s good for your health.” There was no discussion, just no, you don’t feel sick, fasting is good for you. So in the end I just lied to everyone and told them I was fasting; no, I don’t feel guilty at all.
Even though I wasn't fasting everyone else still was so there was nothing to be done during the day except wait for that dreadfully boring month to pass, ugh. Imagine if you will a month of undeserved house arrest. Glorious saints be praised for my amazing parents who sent me non-perishable foods and crafts to kill the time. This was an absolute God send, especially when I ran out of fruits and veggies and was in no mood to venture out into the market place where all the cranky, fasting shop keepers were in no mood to try to understand my heavily accented tash.

Having so much time on my hands has also lead to the development of such fascinating time killing hobbies as cleaning house, paper making, and finding new materials with which to make crafts. Yes friends, you read correctly, house cleaning- le gasp! I, who have embraced so dearly the idea of creative clutter, clean my house everyday and sweep it entirely out every other day. The sweeping is necessary only b/c my thatch roof is forever dropping bits of dirt and on the rare occasion it rains I have small rivulets of mud that come through my two windowless skylights; those funny German steins make so much sense now. Actually, mud thatching doesn’t shed nearly so badly as straw thatching so I really can’t complain- The Germans of yore had it much messier; all the same, I do have a newly found appreciation for drywall. No, what has me most alarmed is not that I clean house so often but how thoroughly I do it and the fact that I can’t go to bed until everything is exactly where is should be. I don’t think I’ll ever be my messy self again, I shall have to venture forward ever bravely, and more tidily, I guess.

The crafting with new materials is much more interesting though. I have learned that you can crochet with plastic bags! I feel most resourceful. The idea was given to me from a rumour that women in other parts of Morocco get together and crochet market bags out of used plastic bags; they are then able to sell them to local general store keepers for a little spending money of their own. I thought I might be able to do the same for the women in my site, should they have the free time to get together. The women in my site are constantly working so finding the time to have a crochet circle is improbable. Here’s hoping all the same.

A little background on why this is such an innovative idea out here in the middle of the desert. Very few communities in Morocco have trash pickup, as a matter of fact even my souk town, which, by Moroccan standards is a city, doesn’t have trash pickup. This means that in the less developed areas like mine all non-biodegradable wastes are dealt with in two ways: they are thrown to the side of the road, or are burned. Burning trash in Morocco is illegal... yet there is still no national waste management system... a conundrum- ‘though many ppl burn their trash anyway. Long explanation shortened, the trash that isn’t burned is polluting the countryside; most of this garbage is made up of candy wrappers, plastic bags, and disposable diapers. The most obvious action for a PCV such as myself to do would be to collect the garbage, no? This would be especially significant with the diapers, as they pose an immediate health hazard. The problem with this clever idea is what would I do with the garbage once collected? See above to my options... burn the plastic? Hmm, do we leave the plastic as it is- an eyesore- or burn it- thus creating toxic and environmentally harmful fumes... back to the drawing board. Ah ha! Turn the garbage into a commodity! Corporate America’s done it with all our excess corn (see any ingredient list near you) why can’t this American do it with plastic?

Environmentalists everywhere will tell you to just leave the current mess and turn your attention instead to preventing it from growing. So why can’t I just accept the fate of the environment and focus myself on other tasks? Allow me to answer this question with a story. One morning about two months ago I was sitting on the patio at a cafe sipping an espresso waiting for my friend to meet me. Mozart was playing in the background and I was watching birds as they rose and fell high above me, playing on the spiraling updraft created by the mountains surrounding the city. It was a serene moment as I watched the black birds weaving among the white birds, then I saw a bright blue bird in the group and realized I was watching probably a hundred plastic bags caught in the wind... the serenity of the moment was destroyed; even Mozart seemed garish at that moment. Every time I see a bag thrown to the side of the road I am reminded of that experience and am, therefore, unable to focus my hopes on other projects.

All of you duckies back home might thing of paper making as a quaint passtime, I know b/c I too felt that way when I lived in a country in which there is organized waste management and recycling. Now that I must either break Moroccan law and burn my waste or throw it to the side of the road I find myself seeking ways to reduce not only my plastic waste but all others too. It is with great fervour, therefore, that I recycle my scrap paper into new paper. Of course my means are very rudimentory so I can't get that thin notebook paper we are all so fond of. All the same, if anyone would like to get a letter on some of my very not fancy handmade cardstock be sure to send me a letter w/ a return address, or, of course, post it in a comment here, but I would prefer a letter for a letter. It's much more fun

Unfortunately for my boatloads of free time paper making, developing new crafting materials and cleaning house don't actually take that much time. In America our culture is to sit down with some sort of junk food and a movie at times like this. Now that I have a computer I have been able to buy a few movies but junk food (or any comfort food for that matter) is much harder to come by. For example, if I want chips and salsa I must first travel the 3km to the main road, from whence I take a taxi to the market to buy all the ingredients I need (this requires going to two different stores and one veggie stand). Then retrace all the steps to get home again- now laden with groceries. Now that I’m home I can make my salsa, first I roast the peppers, then dice everything, then mix it and set it aside to let the flavours marry. Now, I have to make the chips, first, I make the tortillas (they don’t have those here) and cut them into chips, then I heat some oil, fry said triangles, and salt them. Now I can sit down and enjoy my chips and salsa while watching a movie. Don’t think I don’t feel smug; I am quite smitten.

A final thought. Remember in my last entry when I vented about the proper use of “beg the question”? I saw it written in the “improper” form the other day and I nearly had a heart attack due to the source. It was written in a book by Michael Pollan, the man who is the Knight Professor of Journalism at Berkeley (that’s a big deal, for those of you who don’t know), a frequent contributor to The New York Times, and one of my favourite investigative authors. The fact that a man of this calibre would use such a phrase leads me to one, humbling conclusion. *le deep sigh* The English language has once again evolved and begging the question now has two meanings.

Begging the question [begıng ðıe kwestſn] 1) To argue a point without first establishing the truth of its basis. 2) To bring something to mind that was not afore mentioned.

Most gracious readers, I admit defeat and bow to the inevitable. Honestly I shouldn’t be upset that the English language continues to evolve. After all, language is no different than anything else; that which does not change with situations will die. Something the French Academy should remember, fun fact, the French Academy (no I don’t know who they are either but apparently they have some sway over the French Language) will not allow the language to change. Pronunciations do not change, meanings of words are never altered, and words are neither added nor subtracted from the official language. I don’t know how they do it but this seems to be their primary purpose in existing.

Until next time my dearest friends.