November 17th - Happy El Aid Kbir!

Happy Birthday Theresa tomorrow and Lora Thursday! Love you!!

I am glad today is done. We had a Monday and a "Friday" this week! LOVE IT!! Tomorrow is a huge holiday for the Moroccans, so we have the rest of the week off! Yippee! Three of us are headed to Florence, Italy  for the next five days! Our fourth traveling friend left to go home for two weeks to Atlanta, Georgia for her daughter's wedding. We miss you already, Judy! I'm so excited to see Italy.......the art, the wine, the architecture, the statues...all of it!

We had conferences yesterday and today. I was pleasantly surprised that 22 out of my 24 showed up for conferences and they all went very well! There were several I had to have an interpreter in the room to translate Arabic or French, but that seemed to go smoothly as well. Glad to have them over with...it is always stressful and a lot of work to prepare for.

Well, part of the reason we are going out of the country this weekend is because of the activities that occur tomorrow here in Morocco. Each family tries to buy at least one sheep to kill tomorrow morning. They do this, as I said earlier, to ask forgiveness for their sins..... The whole process seems very gory and very inhuman to me. I have a feeling we may see some of the sights even on the way to the airport...we'll see.

 This was the advertisement in the local grocery store called the Marjane.

So here are the sights around our little village of Dar Baouzza this week as the folk are buying up the sheep. We tried to whisper to as many sheep as possible to run and hide, but I don't think there are too many hiding spots for them.

 I love this street. I'm really not sure of the real name...I call it "Cow Street". On any given day one might see cows or donkeys or chickens or goats or.....just "hanging out" in the median of the road!

 This week there are tons of hunoots selling bags of large chunks of charcoal for the big BBQ tomorrow! They will cook the lambs all day for the celebration tomorrow evening!

 Just a typical day of selling fruits and veggies along the side of Cow Street!

 This is one of the many, may places one could go to for purchasing your sheep this week!

 This was the little place set up two blocks from our house. They have sheep corralled inside that are for sale. It was quite the gathering place for adults and children alike! Choosing just the right sheep is a big job, I guess!

 "Why me??!!"  

This was a pretty crazy week even though it was only two days. I had all sorts of things happen (nothing too out of the ordinary for Morocco)! Let's see.... 

I hit a dog on the way to school yesterday. I really thought the two dogs (they are everywhere.....stray dogs) where headed off the road and then at the last minute he turned and ran right in front of me. I saw him running away, so I don't know if he lived or not.... 

I gave the kids fall leaves to color to help add some decorations to the room today and they said, "But Miss.....why not a sheep?" .....opps! So when they finished the leaf I said they could draw a sheep to hang up. One boy asked if he could draw the sheep getting his throat cut and I said no....then I remembered why I didn't want to include the sheep!! :)

Then right before my last six conferences I...
...fell UP a step and skinned my knee...AGAIN! (will I never get too old for this??)
...opened a soda and it fizzed all over my foot and the floor!
....my all time favorite flip-flops broke!! (Marcia tried to make me feel better by telling me that Italy is known for their great shoes....just buy new ones she tells me!

But, all in all....today was another sunny, lovely day in Casablanca! Blessings to family and friends back home!

Fishermen out catching the big waves as they splash in........the ocean is so wonderful!