"Postcard From Paris"

Would you settle for "Photos From Florence"?  Well, you'll just have to anyway, because seeing the City of Lights ain't in the budget!  But, I can, and am, jetting off to Italy tomorrow morning!  WOOHOO!  Multiple cities with world-famous attractions are on the agenda.  Hence, next week there will be no posting, but in two weeks I promise there will be a multimedia extravaganza!  Ok, I'll have some pics from my dinky camera... 

Anyway, this week's title references a tune from The Band Perry about ditching a sweetheart for lust at first sight.  I've been going steady with Barcelona for quite a while, but if I can't resist Rome's charms?

Did some traveling last week, also.  Went with about a dozen colleagues a few hours drive away to a beautiful little town in the Middle Atlas Mountains called Ifrane, which is Berber for caves.  Modern Ifrane was developed by the French protectorate and resembles an Alpine village; today it is a popular spot for outdoors and winter activities.  Again, it is gorgeous.

There is a school in Ifrane called Al Akhawan University, Arabic for The Two Brothers University.  That is a reference to former kings Fahd of Saudi Arabia and Hassan II of Morocco.  In 1995 there was a huge oil spill by a Saudi tanker off of the coast of Morocco, and the Saudi leader pledged $50 million for the cleanup.  A fortuitous wind blew away the oil, rendering the aid offer moot.  The money was used instead to found an American-style liberal arts university where the language of instruction is English.  There is tolerance for all faiths and many international programs.  The campus is lovely.  Many of the buildings resemble Swiss chalets.



We went to the university to see an Advent and Christmas program at the campus chapel.  Groups came from Christian churches in Rabat, Meknes, Fes, Tangier and Casa to read lessons and sing carols in multiple languages and perform interpretive dance routines.  Lots of very talented young people.

Speaking of talented people, I played Santa Claus yesterday.  Unfortunately, I didn't need to put a pillow in the uniform :(  You can stop laughing now.  Really, you can.  I gave out gifts to several K/pre-K classes.  Then, I went to the Upper School assembly and helped lead caroling.  Yes, I sang on microphone in public.  I'm just full of surprises anymore, huh?  Thank God my vice principal really led the way.  I then posed for pics with my fans.  Seriously.  I was in demand, baby!

Joyeux Noel!

"The House That Built Me"

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself...

Miranda Lambert, known to some of you perhaps as Mrs. Blake Shelton, is our host this week...

I live on the top floor of an apartment building which itself is perched atop a hill.  As I type this in my living room, I can raise my head and see the ocean.  If I walk about the place, I can see for miles across Casablanca.  Pretty neat.  What I find much more interesting is the area that immediately surrounds campus, campus being an appropriate yet misleading term.  The school and adjacent apartments are surrounded by a tall wall and patrolled by guards.  What with the buffer of fields, the police substation outside the front gate and the nearby soldiers guarding the king's compound across the road, I'm not losing any sleep over my safety.

What captivates me are the buildings at the edge of the fields.  I believe I can fairly describe them as slums.  So-called poor people in the U.S. sitting on their asses in their subsidized apartments with cable tv, yapping on their wi-fi smartphones about how bad they have it with their subsidized medical care, food stamps, welfare - I hate them even more than before if it were possible.  Come over here and see what poor looks like!  From my unique perch, I am closely surrounded by grinding poverty yet not of it.  I try not to stare - these people aren't zoo animals - but I will sit and people watch from my window, or just look around as I travel about the city and just be amazed at what some people do to eke out a living.

I'm not a bleeding heart; I'm just the opposite, whatever that term is.  But it's hard sometimes to see people who have absolutely nothing, through no fault of their own, working like dogs, and knowing it ain't never going to get any better for them.  I guess its because of some of the things I 've experienced in recent years, that I get emotional real easily, like from sad songs or scenes in a movie.  Makes me crazy, but maybe it's a good thing, letting your self just go and do its thing.  I'm sure some of my friends and family are picking their jaws up off the floor right about now...

It is still a real trip when I see people here, in this cosmopolitan city, in this more liberal of Islamic nation, try to be like Westerners.  I almost forget where I am, until maybe when I see someone wearing a djellaba or hear the call to prayer.  The conversations I have with locals about Islam, or with my many colleagues of faith about Christianity have opened up my mind about religion like never before.  I am almost certain I will try attending Mass after winter recess.  I'm taking a trip tomorrow to a university in the city of Ifrane for a Christmas concert by the school choir, if I remember the details right.  Should be interesting - given where the city is located, it may be the only chance I have this year to see snow.  I loved seeing the Christmas decorations in my new neighbor's apartment last night.  Being away from home, little things like that have actually made me care about the holiday at all for the first time in years, a decade at least.

Something else about the people here has struck me.  Actually, it's probably the other way around.  I am largely surrounded by a sea of colored faces, in every and all shades of brown.  I am the minority.  That doesn't bother me; I only get frustrated, at myself, when I cannot communicate effectively.  Anyway, not just visiting here, but living here, it has also had an effect on the way I see race.  Morocco is every bit the melting pot that the U.S. is, just in a different way.  It is generally easier to see back home what someone "is".  Black, Asian, whatever.  Here, it's a lot trickier, if you're stupid enough to even try.  Everyone here looks the same to me, even if they aren't.  They're all just people to me - a whole bunch of different things, none of them being brown...

If I could just come in I swear I'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.

"Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Atitudes"

Nothing remains quite the same...

All weekend I've tried to write this blog entry.  Under normal circumstances, writing is torture for me; when the little mental air traffic controller in my head goes AWOL, it's r-e-a-l-l-y tough to sit and do this.  So many thoughts have been bounding about my cranium that I've wanted to organize and get out through the keyboard.  If I had to say in a sentence what the theme of all these thoughts is, I'd have to refer you to this week's post title, which is the name of a 1977 Jimmy Buffett tune...

I'm a people watcher.  The examination of human nature fascinates me.  As an undergraduate student, I majored in history, but studied all of the social sciences.  I almost switched my major to psychology.  Sociology was also very interesting.  I'm an avid follower of politics.  I'd read up on education even if I wasn't a schoolteacher.  Religion, anthropology, economics - I'll have 'em all.  In my travels, I love to talk to people from all walks of life and learn something new from them.  I find myself now in a very large, very cosmopolitan city in an Islamic nation in North Africa.

I couldn't ask for a cooler social laboratory to pursue my interests, right?  Well, there are some complications.  I am, literally, starting life anew.  I'm back to square one in my adult life, with some awfully peculiar personal circumstances to make things far more challenging.  I'm not here on holiday - this is now where I live.  Starting a new job.  Living with a roommate.  Most residents here at the complex are younger than I am, by up to 20 years.  Did I mention I'm in Casablanca, Morocco?  99% of the population are Muslims, and they speak Arabic and French.  I am Catholic and speak English.  I am 6'3, 250 lbs, with a pale complexion.  I tend to stand out.

I knew coming in this was going to be a wild ride; I've gotten every bit that I expected, and then some.  The emotional swings have been frequent, and way up and down.  There are also my professional demands and new life experiences.  In this juggling act, they would be, respectively, the chainsaw, bowling ball and orange.  Let's talk about the orange...

I have learned more about race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, society and life in general in the last 43 days than in my first 43 years.  People who know me well are cringing in anticipation of what's coming next.  I am fervently anti-PC, and my social commentary pushes the boundaries of the NC-17 rating.  I believe I will surprise those people.  I've been peeling the orange that is my new life surroundings, and what I've found is staggering.  Talking to and watching students and native staff, and increasingly immersing my self into my new culture has led me to rethinking my values, atitudes, norms, conventions - virtually everything I ever thought I knew about life, and the world.  I have been literally staggered by where I have found myself of late on all the above social matters; I don't even know where to start, but I'll try next week...

If I couldnt laugh I just would go insane...
 

"Who Says You Can't Go Home?"

Jon Bon Jovi recorded a country version of this tune with Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland that reached the top of the charts in 2006.  He is talking about his New Jersey roots in the song.  In an aside, my native South Jersey made the national news this week for a toxic train derailing and hidden sex cams in a Catholic school.  Sigh.  Anyway, what I was thinking of this week were the things that make me miss being back home.  Some are obvious, others maybe less so...

Over the Thanksgiving recess, a colleague travelled to Spain.  When she walked into the airport terminal she was greeted by Christmas carols.  You're thinking to yourself: big deal, people are celebrating Christmas earlier every year.  I agree; that is the case - in Spain, a Catholic country.  Or the U.S.  How many Christmas carols do you think I've heard?  The answer rhymes with hero.  Or the guy that fiddled while Rome burned.  Know what I'm saying?  I don't have much in the way of family to speak of; basically, I could give a crap less about the holidays, for the most part.  Right or wrong, Christmas is just another day in the life.  This year, for reasons I haven't yet fully explored, I miss the trappings of the holiday season.
This morning, a pair of colleagues and I drove to a Christmas bazaar at the Churchill Club.  In the words of an informational sheet, it is a membership club that serves as a relaxing meeting place for English speakers, both Moroccan and ex-pats alike.  It has a bar, restaurant and garden - nice place, seems worth checking out sometime...anyhow, this opportunity to purchase Christmas gifts by local merchants was organized by the American International Women's Club of Casablanca and benefited various charities in the area.  Nice.
This was a little detour on the way to our final stop at the medina, the small, walled, older section of the city that predates French colonization of Morocco in the early 20th century.  By all accounts, it isn't too much to speak of, especially as compared to ones in other cities in Morocco.  Today, it is an interesting little place with cramped stalls and tight winding paths where one can buy souvenirs or haggle to purchase all sorts of goods that, um, either fell off of the back of a truck or aren't quite the real deal.  A smaller name brand gym bag from an Asian sweatshop sold in one of your nicer Casa sports stores retails for about 400 dirhams (about $50 USD).  The Adidas bag I got for 50 dhs, well, I don't know where the sweatshop of origin is.  The counterfeit logo and noticeable lack of quality is laughable, but will work just fine for my purposes, which would be travelling to Italy 3 weeks from tomorrow.

One of the things I am most anticipating about my trip is being in Rome on Christmas; you know, that is kind of a big thing to Catholics.  Some people reading this are chuckling, wondering just what does that have to do with me.  Well, something that has struck me as of late, is a desire to perhaps begin attending church here.  There is one Catholic church I'm aware of in this city of almost 4 million people.  Mass is conducted in French on Sunday at 1030 and in English at 1800.  Those who know me as a lapsed Catholic probably find it curious that I would want to put on my nice duds and hoof it halfway across the city during football-watching time to sit, stand and kneel in a pew.  Simply, I'm missing something, and I don't know what it is.  Attending church, I think, might help me figure out what that is, maybe...

Went down into the city last nite to meet up with a bunch of colleagues who live in that area to go to a place called Jackrabbit Slims.  It is a joint inspired by the establishment of the same name from the movie Pulp Fiction.  Had me a real good burger (not the Big Kahuna, but still) and Mia's $5 milkshake (35 dirhams, and a real bargain - it was good!)  After the soccer game was over, they threw ESPN up on the screen.  I honestly didn't know what to do.  Burger, milkshake, ESPN.  It had been 4 months since I had enjoyed any of those things, then I get all 3 at once!  USA!  USA!  USA!
When I got here I swore I would be the type to immerse myself into the Moroccan culture, and I have.  Actually, there a couple of art studios at which I would like to take some classes.  If I could only read the French-language websites, though I'm quickly improving via my weekly private French lessons.
A fellow employee here is originally from Chicago.  He married a local gal, had a kid - the whole nine.  That includes becoming a Muslim.  We have some very interesting conversations about Islam, and I can talk to this guy, who, being a U.S. native, understands exactly the nuances in my questions...

This morning, while handling some of the not-so-lovely streets of Casablanca, my colleague driving observed: "3 rights don't make a left".  True - figuratively, any given day here you don't know where life will take you.  Some days, I think to myself that I could make a career here, or somewhere else abroad.  Other days, I wish to God I were home.

I went as far as I could, I tried to find a new face
There isn't one of these lines that I would erase
I lived a million miles of memories on that road
With every step I take I know that I'm not alone...
It doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter where you go
If it's a million miles aways or just a mile up the road
Take it in, take it with you when you go,
who says you can't go home...