Happy Valentine's Day!

We got lost this morning. Walking around with no idea which way was which. It only happened for a few minutes on a few roads, but man, it was embarrassing. (We did, however, keep from having to retrace our steps, so no one knew but us... I trust you'll keep our secret.)

The walk that so threw us was from our taxi to the Fez Café, a somewhat new restaurant in the Batha area of the old city. The place is physically huge - another reason for our inability to grasp the possibility that we couldn't find it - thanks to a giant garden that consumes most of the space within the walls. It's open air, very French, and they feed you food fresh out of the dirt. Today was our Valentine's Day, and the Fez Café's chalkboard full of today's options (which, unlike much Moroccan cooking, did not come out of a pressure cooker) was the proper choice. I even enjoyed my simple cup of hot water with orange flower water.

In other Valentine's Day weekend news (we like to spread our celebrations out as much as we possibly can) we got tickets to go to Paris in March! While it seems gluttonous to head to Paris less than a month before a trip to London, we have to. I promise. It's all about the visa (we have to leave and return every 90 days, and the trip to London is 95 days from our Italian excursion). Any recommendations?

Happy New Year!

So I decided that this deserves a blog post.

Annie and I are sitting in our living room at 8:42pm waiting to find out if we have classes tomorrow. If so, we have to get up to get to school by 8am, and I probably won't have my homework finished. But if we don't, we sit and relax for a day.

See, tomorrow is "ras al-'am" or "ras as-sina." The head of the year, or the Islamic New Year. We should be singing "Auld Lang Syne," but instead I need to find out if I have to write a dialogue in Moroccan Arabic about going to the doctor for my early morning classes. I feel so not-festive. Earlier I told someone that we might come visit tomorrow since it's the New Year and we may not have classes. He thought I was crazy, and told me "It's only December 6th." "Hijra!" "Oh yeah, that's right." With a potential day off of work, you'd think people would be more interested!

So the change of the Islamic month depends on the moon (it's a lunar calendar). You can't tell when a new month begins until you have a sighting late at night. If you have a TV, you find out quickly, but if you don't (like us), you have to go around asking people whether or not it's the new year.

Our Advent wreath, burning bright

Keeping with the holiday season, we started an Advent wreath. The only candles that we could find on short notice, however, were from near the Moulay Idriss mosque. Shopkeepers line the neighboring streets selling these candles (and much bigger ones), all varieties of incense, prayer beads, rosewater, scented oils, and items from the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). All of these things are for specific uses during ceremonies and rituals, so we figured that we were alright using them for a wreath. Eh? You make do. Purple candles aren't very popular for some reason or another.

Turkey dinner!

Thanksgiving was a treat as well! Thursday afternoon we found ourselves turkey paninis. With great french fries. Yes, nothing says American Thanksgiving like a turkey panini and french fries. The next evening, though, we were invited to a Thanksgiving party that included a roasted turkey (brought live from Marrakech) and PB&J sandwiches.

PS: Just got a call from a friend, it's New Years! Happy New Year everyone!

Eid Mubarak Said!

He has no idea... Or maybe he does.

Today was day one of Eid al-Kabir, the celebration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. Each family finds themselves a nice "kabsh" (ram) for the household, and this week has been full of people asking us if we have yet to get our own. "Mazal," not yet... I never knew that rams were so loud, and I never got so much enjoyment from watching people attempt to convince these large animals to walk down the street. But all that is over now - this morning the unbelievable ram population here in Fez diminished rapidly.

The man with the plan, and the deed is done.

Preparations throughout the city were extensive. Men selling grains (for the short-term pets) and offering to sharpen knives (also for the short-term pets) filled the streets. There is an entire mini-economy around the Eid, especially considering that the animals go for a small fortune, $200-400 each! No, we did not get our own, although they are pretty cute.

Annie with Hiba, the youngest daughter.

A family invited us to their celebrations, they have been kind and welcoming to us for a few years now, smothering us with their generosity. We woke them up this morning (whoops), after the hour-long call to prayer. We didn't want to miss the sacrifice, of course! Following a quick breakfast, the man arrived who was to do the deed... The mini-economy also includes a number of wandering butchers, going from house to house and taking care of business. This fella, however, was a friend of the family, much more trustworthy than a rushing butcher! You can't mess around with your ram.

Cleaning up the blood, in heels.

The entire family went upstairs, and of course I brought the camera. I'll spare the gory details (but not all of the gory pictures), and just say that it took a while to get everything taken care of, and this family, like the rest of Fez, is going to be eating meat for a long time. The highlight: the mother decided that it'd be funny to scare Annie with the ram's head.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Mama Boujma goes after Annie...

Eid Day 1 involves sacrificing the animal (you only get two cuts, so you better make them good), skinning it, and getting all the organs out. The skin, now inside out, gets salted and saved for later, when it's given to the leather workers and made into decoration, a prayer rug, or sold. Kids  in the street spend the day roasting heads for the neighbors, which become breakfast for the next morning. (If we visit anyone tomorrow, we're going to be sure to be late...) The liver and heart turn into brochettes (kabobs), which, for our lunch today, were cooked over an open fire in the living room. Unexpected. Then, nap time. At this point, we found our way out and came home. I believe that the stomach turns into dinner (slow cooked), and the meat becomes a consistent meal for days to come.

One down (on the right, hanging), one to go.

The man of the house.

My secret hope for this whole process? I want to get a pair of ribs, so I can play the "bones" in the bluegrass band when I get back to the states. Tomorrow? We're heading back - Annie's getting henna (I'll post pictures) and we're going to partake in the more "meaty" meal, now that the liver's gone.

Eid mabarak said!

Liver brochettes for lunch. They were quite good! And followed with liver-stuffed heart.

Suq al-Rsayf

Our seafood man.

The weekend menu? Fresh seafood. Despite the fact that Fez is far from the ocean, there are deliveries of fruits of the sea every Tuesday and Saturday. I prepared to make shrimp with chermoula, a mix of spices (paprika, saffron, others), lemon, cilantro, and garlic. When we got there, though, we just couldn't resist the idea of trying shark. Yes, shark. We had shark. It was tasty, not quite like fish, not so flaky, but still fishy. Curious, eh?

The Rsayf (often spelled Rc'if) market is smack in the middle of Fez's medina, the old city. It's still operating in much the same way that it did in the past, with the addition of margarine and boxed milk. The butchers have cows hanging in the back of their small stalls, they cut a piece off, grind it up with spices, garlic, onion, and cilantro. The chicken sellers are in stalls full of chickens running around. (They smell.) The best part? They weigh the chicken alive, to make sure that's the one you want, before they do what they need to do. The struggling, and loud, poultry is a sight to see. PS: You can also get pidgin, duck, turkey, and quail. The camel seller advertises with a giant hanging camel head (see the photo).

The sign says "ground camel." Note the hanging head.

My favorites, however, are the spice guys and the parsley/cilantro sellers. The spice men know what they're doing. You walk up, tell them what you're making and what flavor you want, and they mix the appropriate spices into a small packet of rolled newspaper. To get cilantro or parsley, however, you need to speak with old men and women sitting on the ground, usually with a crate of some sort, surrounded by greens and mint. This particular woman refused to sell me one (huge) bunch of cilantro. I just must have two. Why? I only need one! Six dirhams for two. And for one? Six for two. I don't understand. The Eid, of course, everyone needs two bunches of cilantro! Oooooh, well, I just need one. In fact, only a half. Oh, ok (she says as she must assume that I'm a terrible, terrible host). The conversation took longer that I could have possibly imagined, but I'm going to make sure I return to her next time I need anything from her carton.

She was quite concerned with my Eid preparations. But her cilantro was great.

Fighting through the crowd of women in an attempt to find thyme and oregano.

Mandarins are in season!

The Other Saint Louis

She finally found one she likes. She has since found many more.

Left yesterday morning, 7am, for what was supposed to be a 3 hour trip. The destination, Saint Louis, was the previous capital of the region. The French used it as their center for the entirety of French colonial West Africa. Saint Louis was the hub that administrated over Mali, the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal, etc. As a result, it's booming with old colonial architecture.

Well, it was. And maybe is, but not during Ramadan.

Conducting business.

After the 5 hours that it took to get there, we dropped Annie off at the university, where she was to conduct a whole slew of interviews. Dirt roads, dirt parking lots. The things that you take for granted. I couldn't imagine the University of Florida with goats wandering the main lot. Later in the afternoon, though, Annie had to worry for her hair as they started to get closer...

(Her hair is ok.)

A moment of repose.

It was good to get out of the big city. We passed people waiting for buses, small-scale farmers collecting their wares, thatched huts inside concrete compounds, twisted trees that seemed to jump right out of a film, horse-carts, children porting water, and the most well-dressed hitch-hikers that I've ever imagined. Especially the women, decked out in expensive fabric, home made dresses.

Most everything was closed for the holy month. The hotels in Saint Louis date back to its glory days, but alas, I was denied entrance. I had two qualifications in finding a place to spend my afternoon.

1: Air conditioning.
2: A toilet with a seat. (I didn't even need TP, had my own tissues.)

First try: small bakery, coffee shop. No air con, no seat on the toilet. But it was inside, and I was hungry, so I sat. Even got some WiFi. Since I had some work to do, I decided to give it a chance. After a half hour, they closed and kicked me out. Dang.

Second try: ran into the taxi driver, who wandered into another restaurant. Looked good, but lacked, again, on both necessities. Plus, I had just eaten a slice of pizza, so no need to stick around. I was hot.

Third try: the riverside pool bar. Yes! Toilet seat! Outside, boo! It was hot, but I was done of wandering. So I sat. A few hours of writing online course materials for UF, and it was time to move on. So, three tries, and no one really passed my two-teired test. I believe that the city has much, much more to offer, and I'm sure I'll be passing through again sometime to check out the old hotels and bars.

Hiding from the heat and hunger of late-afternoon Ramadan.

Ride home? Lots of pictures. Also, waaaaay too long. We managed to find the only taxi driver who wasn't in a rush. He even slowed down to close to a stop whenever he saw an animal to photograph! We were ready to get back to our posh hotel. We eventually did, where we sat on the roof and ate a delicious dinner to make up for the unprecedented hassle of the day.

Tonight we're off to Accra. We leave at 12:55am. Hopefully it will go better than last time...

La Fourchette (The Fork). We found a way to spend over $50 on dinner, enjoying a meal that would have been impossible to afford stateside. I had a "tornado" of beef with vanilla sautéed and puréed potatoes with a glass of cab. Annie had a type of fish that was cooked in such a way that it caramelized on the outside. And, the obligatory giant bottle of water...

Lost and Found

Mohammad "playing" the n'goni (not the kora) at our point of repose, Hotel Tamana. He had no idea what he was doing, but was amazed when I could play some tunes from our bluegrass band on it!

We found the restaurant. We finally had dinner. For the second day in a row, we spent over an hour searching back roads, or what we thought were back roads, for our dinner recommendations. Yesterday we set out for a French restaurant called Le Campagnard, supposedly the talk of the town. The cabbie, however, didn't know where it was. C'est la vie quelquefois. Angry, he dropped us off on a corner, yelling about how we lied about the location, and we began our valiant search. Over and hour later we had wandered down every road that extended from what we though was the traffic circle. It was a big circle with traffic around it, and a statue. It was dark, we were in a seedy neighborhood, so we grabbed a cab. Turns out that the "traffic circle" was actually not the circle with the traffic, but an intersection with a square foot of grass in the middle. Either way, we made it.

Today's trick was that the fancy Italian place was NOT on the paved road, but a quarter mile down a red clay road that felt like moguls. Bikes were having a hell of a time traversing the fun park that was Rue 250. But we found it thanks to a cabbie who we had asked earlier. He had no idea what we were talking about (but he was busy eating his cake after breaking the day's fast). About 15 minutes later, he found us again, drove up, and took us. The guy actually went, asked around, found it, and came to get us! Viola!

Both places were fantastic, but the food isn't what's worth telling about in Mali. Like Morocco, there are few good restaurants, the best food is at home. Sadly, we don't have the access to homes - that takes a bit more than a few days. So, we get what we can, and it's all been great. Today's pizza was just what we needed after, well, an hour looking for pizza...

The bigger news of the day, though, is that I got a kora! I went to meet Ledye Diabaté, Toumani Diabaté's brother at his house, where he showed me the koras that he builds. We talked a bit, I took some photos, and off we went to get a bag made for it. The tailor took some measurements, and Ledye's going to pick it up tomorrow. Part of me is frightened that I'll end up with some hot pink vinyl or something similarly ridiculous. I'd deserve it since I didn't make any requests on material.

Afterward, we headed over to Toumani's house (he wasn't there), where Ledye showed me around, introduced me to the room of hyperactive children, and proceeded to point out each of the (many) posters that they've collected over the elder brother's prestigious career. His latest recording, with Ali Farka Touré, won him a Grammy (Touré's second, if I'm not mistaken). It's worth a listen, I hear - I plan to pick it up tomorrow.

The top floor was his recording studio, where the Symmetric Orchestra rehearses and records. According to Ledye, it's the best in Mali, a claim I'm tempted to agree with. We sat on some couches outside the studio, where it was much more peaceful than downstairs, and he taught me two songs. One, "Kaira," I was able to pick up fairly quickly. The second, "Bani," was much trickier, and gives me something to work on tomorrow morning. Right now I'm uploading a video of Ledye playing "Kaira," which will give a great sense of the kora's sound. I'll post it in 145 minutes, when YouTube decides it's ready.

All is well, time is moving faster than we could have expected, as it always does on a trip like this. Annie's work is coming along, she's getting plenty of help, and everyone is cooperating. Ask her about the zebra restaurant if you'd like to see an impressive demonstration of what might be poor taste (or might not, who am I to go against the wind?).

She's lookin' sleepy, so it might be time to move on. Peace.

Walking to lunch. It seems that I only have photos of busy streets - but that's probably because we only really get to see busy streets. Note the large garden just off the main road...