Rainy days and Sundays.....

Well, today started out very,very rainy. I took Marcia and Judy back to campus to catch a ride to church and I returned home to take another day "off" from life and just lay low. I'm trying to get over a cold. I started back on Cipro yesterday because I was feeling like my cold that had lasted past the regular week-long-cold was settling in my chest. I'm feeling a little better tonight and hoping this antibiotic isn't too hard on my system. Any of you medical people out there might send your advice this way....am I overdoing the Cipro? I think I'll chat with the school nurse tomorrow and see what she suggests.

Anyway....today started out rainy and cold. I came home and climbed back into bed. The rain was coming down so hard and the air was cool....perfect for staying in bed and working! I finished grading papers, finished writing letters back to my previous Steamboat kids that had written me and then....the sun came out! I decided I needed a little sunshine. So I hopped in the car and went for a Sunday afternoon drive! I love doing that!! The ocean was SO active today! The white caps were HUGE! I tried to capture some of them as well as some of the funky signs around our area! Here's what I came up with:

 Bumps ahead! This one cracks me up!

 Everywhere has a Coke sign SOMEWHERE....right??

This one is out in the middle of nowhere!

 STOP!

 This is my personal favorite!!! I LOVE it!! I'm not even sure what it is for....I think just to keep people guessing....or maybe just to make someone SMILE!!!

 Look out........SLOW down to 20 k.

Opps.......there it is again! :)

 You guessed it...a curve ahead!

 They are constantly ripping up the roads for one thing or another....danger signs everywhere!

 Grand Taxi station....in Arabic. There are also red taxi's (smaller taxis). And in Dar Baouzza there are BLUE taxis!

 Check out the huge white caps on the ocean today. 

 There were a lot of fishermen out today!

 Beautiful big waves rolling in!

 Then I came upon a wedding parade right in the neighborhood! The bride and groom up front, the four cones are covering the wedding gifts, the guards on the back and all being pulled by a beautiful white horse! Happy faces everywhere!!

 The entrance to our favorite place in Dar Baouzza!

But the photo of our favorite sign was taken a couple of weeks ago....Sunny Beach! :)

And with that, Sunday ends and a new week is beginning!

Blessings everyone. Have a wonderful week!

The end of Friday.........

I was totally exhausted when I got home at 5pm from work today. I laid down to take a short nap and just now woke up.......11:30pm!
I'm not sure if it is....

- that Moroccan children NEVER stop talking and it is soooo tiring as a teacher to try to invent a "new technique" each day to get them to stay quiet.

- that ANYTHING different from the normal schedule is TOO much for them.....ALL day all I heard was, "Miss, when is the fall festival today????" "How much longer till the fall festival, Miss?" The last two hours of today we had the fall festival celebration and they were wound for sound ALLLLLL day!

- it is having 24 students in my class this year, as opposed to the great size of 11 or 12 that I got used to having the last 3 years in Steamboat.

- the last time I remember being ALMOST this tired was the days of teaching elementary art at Armstrong in Bettendorf, IA (a new group of 24+ kids every hour on the hour all day long....the elementary kids just suck all of the energy right out of ya!)......

-maybe (I'm just sayin'.... maybe...) I'm getting too old for this!

It is that one little girl that smiled up at me and said, "Miss, this was really a fun day, wasn't it?" that melts my heart and keeps me going! So, I am smiling back at her and saying," Yes it was, Yasmine!"....but thinking......"Really? You had fun even though I was yelling ALL day?" :)
Kids....I love them SO much! ....guess that's why I love teaching! :)

And so.....the end of Friday has come. Good night from Casablanca!

Thursday - Oct. 28th - Tomorrow is FRIDAY!!! Love it!

I think back to this last weekend and all the color and designs we saw! It was truly amazing. I love all the art and beauty this country has to offer. 

Then I got on face book last night and saw photos from my mountains back home....the gorgeous yellow of the aspen and the beauty of the first snow fall (always my favorite!).

There really are so many similarities with my life here and my life back home. Especially when I think of my kids at school and their parents.

Kids are kids where ever and parents are parents.....

I had a parent yesterday pick her son up from school and motioned for me to come over to the fence to talk with her about her son. She asked how he was doing.....I looked at the son and told him to tell her how the day had gone....right, not so great! I continued to talk with her and we found out that he had no homework and no books at all in his backpack to work on that night. (He is way behind in his reading assignments.) She said to me that he has been telling her that I said not to bring books home and that there has been no homework! I explained that that was not the truth and I could see she had tears in her eyes when she looked at him and said, "You have been lying to me!" 

Parents and their children....the same everywhere!

Everywhere parents and teachers are trying to do the best job we can for our children!

 

These are some of the beautiful tajine pots that the pottery place was making this past weekend. They are in two pieces....the bottom is like a plate that you would carefully and creatively place the potatoes, carrots, meat and onions on. Then you would put the top on and cook it over the hot coals. The opening on the top can be closed with a tomato or some other kind of vegetable to control the heat/steam for cooking the meal. After hours of cooking, the meals produced in these unique dishes are delicious!

Notice the beautiful designs in the pots!

It is Thursday night in Morocco. Sometimes I still have to pinch myself to realize I am really here. Ten years ago I never would have dreamt to have had such wonderful experiences. First in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and then Casablanca, Morocco.....wow, what an awesome journey God has me on!

Blessings everyone,

Jill

October 28th - Thursday - Another day in Casa

Well, another week in Casa and again....new things happening!

So far this week, Marcia has been sick and missed the last two days of school. Fever, chills, achy, head and tummy stuff.....NOT fun. She is feeling a bit better and hoping to go to school tomorrow. I woke up this morning with 27 emails and thought....Wow! All my friends back home are emailing me!!....well, a lot of you were, but not for the right reason. My computer was hacked into and someone sent an obscene message to all of you......so sorry for that! The good news is my son, the wonderful young man that he is, emailed and told me what was happening right away and he took care of it for me. Thank you Jim!!

Eric, Jenny and Jim at Josh and Diana's wedding the first weekend in August.

No plans for the upcoming weekend, so I guess I will spend some time starting up a new blog site and a new email. Be on the lookout and I will email all of you my info. Well, all of you family and friends anyway! :)

Last weekend was a lot of fun, except that I caught a cold Thursday of last week and was pretty miserable on Friday night and most of Saturday with not being able to breath and all! :) We gals went to a city nearby called Fez. We left Friday night and traveled by train for four hours. We stayed in a lovely B & B in the oldest medina in Morocco.

The owner was  a wonderful man and the young gal behind the desk was equally as sweet. The place was clean and beautiful. 

Notice the door within a door? It is so cool! The smaller door was used for friends and family. The larger door was used for more formal company.

This was the sign outside the B&B.

On Saturday we hired a guide to take us around the city and show us the sights. Fez is known for all the artists and their many wares. We went to see a pottery place and saw beginning to end from the clay to the finished dishes. The people were all very kind and even let Marcia and I sit on the wheel and try our hand on the clay!

The guide took us to the King's Palace. It was very beautiful with ornate doors, arches and mosaic work on the entry way. The King has many homes in Morocco. One of the many is just across the street from our school right along the ocean.

Saturday it was a bit rainy every now and then so I bought my first umbrella. I have a feeling it won't be my last! They tell me the rain and wind can be very strong at times in the winter and it seems everything here really takes a beating. I think the moisture from the ocean is hard on most things.

Next we went to see a military fortress and had a panoramic view of the city. It was amazing! The city has 9,990 streets! The streets are often walled and very narrow. In the old medina area it is literally like a maze....without a guide it would have been very scary and very likely that we would have gotten lost.

We went through the old Jewish Quarter that began in 500B.C. There were tons of little hunoots there that sold everything from birthday decorations to gold chains to dates and olives.

Every now and then the guide would take us in a religious area and explain a lot of details about the Islamic faith to us. She showed us a lot of details on the art and explained how each one had a religious meaning. We saw where men could go and worship and a separate place that the women would go. Also walls with holes in them where the women could sit behind the wall and listen if there was a speaker.

The window that the women could sit BEHIND to watch and listen to a person speaking at the Mosque.

My favorite parts of the day were all the artists!!
We saw women making rugs...

They were lovely, cheerful women and they let me put on a few of the wool strands of yarn!

women sewing beautiful embroidery..........

This guy was quite the joker! Said things like,  "Oh, I sell you one and give you another one for free....the back! It is reversable!" or "I sell you 6 napkins and give you two more in case my wife and I stop over we can have tea with you too!"

men with tannery goods and colorful leather goods..........

wool makers..........

dye for fabrics...........

nugget candy that had been made.................

men that were weaving fabric......

I thought of you, Elizabeth! Wish you could have been here for this one. The loom was incredible....the work was gorgeous!

The weekend was just full of beautiful sights and colors and interesting people. I knew when I was teaching on Friday and the cold was coming on that I should probably just stay home and rest....but....it was Fez!!! I knew I didn't want to miss out on any of it and I'm glad I went with my new friends. 

Oh, one more photo I thought you might enjoy.....this guy (and many others) was in the middle of the medina.....so you know what it smelled like and what we were trying to avoid stepping in! :)

Seriously....have you ever seen such an overbite!?? :) We got a big chuckle out of this old guy!

That's it from Casa tonight. Have a wonderful rest of your week! 

Blessings, Jill