On Fashion

You know how sometimes you put on a skirt that you think is an appropriate length and then you walk somewhere, say, to work, through a predominately Muslim city, and you realize your navy blue skirt has hiked up and your white slip has fallen down?  Well, you certainly can’t keep walking like that because a short skirt (over green tights mind you) is still better than part of your underwear hanging out.  So, I slipped behind a few trees next to Thai Sushi this morning, waited until I couldn’t see anyone passing, and pulled my slip off under my coat and over my boots.  It was not pretty, but it was fast.  Now the cat calls will remain at a normal level instead of the “I can see your lacey slip” level.

In other clothing related news, we went to our first fashion show a few weeks ago and felt like complete frauds.  We sat on the front row in our black outfits and nodded our heads knowingly after the show when people said things like Can you believe those models?  They were amateurs or Wasn’t that velvet jumper just divine?  For the record, it was.  The fact that I know luxurious fabrics, Indian inspired brocade and Asian shapes are “in” this year is beyond strange to me.   But I have to say, the whole thing was a lot of fun.  I fussed and fussed about what to wear and in the end wore a black cocktail dress.  Boring, I know, but the idea of showing up in a purple prom dress surrounded by Casablanca’s elite clad completely in black gave me nightmares (literally).

At first it was a bit strange to see these girls, because that’s what they were, parading down a white carpet with steely eyes directed towards the slew of press at the end of the runway; but after a few girls walked past me, close enough to reach out and touch them, I noticed they didn’t really look like the airbrushed waifs we see on TV.  Up close some had frizzy hair, bad skin, bulges, and one had a gnarly looking thing on the top of her left foot.   Not that I sat on the front row and tried to pick out flaws in the models to feel better about myself, but seeing them up close made me re-visit the lie the media tells us about bodies – our bodies and “their” bodies.  The lie that ours are gross and “theirs” are flawless.  I actually left with a better sense of confidence in my own body and the idea that we all come in different shapes, skin tones, and foot health.      

I also reached packing nirvana weekend before last when I went to Paris with my Mother for the weekend and packed the exact minimum amount of clothing needed in my small bag.  Nothing smelled and nothing went unworn and yet, I maintained enough diversity and practicality for The Louvre, Sainte Chappell, the Metro and long wandering walks in the cold.  I mean, Paris was awesome, but packing my bag with perfect economy was really the highlight :)   

Sheep and Monkeys in the Mahgreb

Last Friday morning Max and I pulled out of our garage to see a large sheep, hanging from a tree with most of its skin yanked down around its hooves.  A man, a nice man we have come to know and really like, stood next to the sheep in a bloody apron wielding a large, very sharp knife.

“Aid Mubarak!’  I said to Max as we drove past our neighbor instructing a small child how to release the flesh from the meat of the animal.

Last weekend was Eid Al Adha when Muslims all over the world commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his first born son Ishmael.  Each family who can afford to do so must purchase a sheep and slaughter it on the morning of “L’aid” as it is referred to here.  The meat from the sheep is divided into three parts: one is kept by the family, one given to friends or relatives and one is given to the poor. 

What this kind of ritualized mass butchering looked like to non-Muslim observers like myself that Friday morning was a kind of zombie-esque end of days scenario on the streets of Casablanca.   Men walk around covered in blood, 12 inch knives, still dripping, carried in front of them and buckets of sheep guts at their side.  They wear galoshes to protect themselves from the rivers of blood that claim the gutters.  Small groups of teenage boys roast sheep heads on open flames all over the city and carts of freshly removed sheep skins are ferried about for sale.  Outside of the impromptu bbq’s and weapon wielding men the streets are empty and the shops are all closed.  

It’s not that we don’t like religious observances, we do, but I am not the hugest fan of blood so we carried on right past our friendly neighbor-come-butcher and escaped to the mountains.  Morocco has great cities with amazing recorded histories, but it also has great undeveloped areas.  These areas were once referred to by the French as “Bled-al-siba" which translates roughly to “The wild places”.  Places where sultans, chieftains and kings never could quite get a handle on the population and Berber tribes pretty much kept to themselves.  These places are much more developed than they once were, but there is still an “off the grid” kind of feel to them.  And sometimes in Casablanca you need to get off the grid for a few days.        

I should have seen it coming, but what started as “Let’s just drive to the mountains for a few hours, run around with the dog, and then come back to Casa” turned into an overnighter and then two nights. We can bring the dog, they will feed us AND give us a discount?  How can we NOT stay all weekend? 

Our first night a very well intentioned café owner emerged from the neighboring tent with an apple and an orange for desert.  Out of sheer self preservation I snatched up the orange before Max had a chance to notice the apple was swimming in water that I was sure hadn’t come from our laser purified tap at home.  Max, loyal to hospitality at all times, ate part of the apple while the man was looking and then slipped the rest into his coat pocket.*  We try to stick to a fresh fruit code while eating on the streets: If it has a peel you can risk it, but if not….make sure you are staying somewhere with a nice bathroom.  Max did indeed spend the first night of our weekend away in the beautifully tiled bathroom, hovered over the toilet.  “Away”, “Secluded”, and “Retreat” all sound awesome until you imagine yourself waking up the guest house proprietor and making him drive you 4 hours back to civilization in the middle of the night.  With a dog who will no doubt bark the whole way . 

But my man is resilient and he was right as rain the next morning.  We spent the weekend hiking around the falls, haggling for carpets and trying to avoid the Barbary Apes that a nice French man told us sometimes attack dogs.  If you think it’s ridiculous for two Americans to hike around the Atlas Mountains with a small Yorkshire Terrier tucked under one arm - it is.     

*A note to foreign service hopefuls:  Be prepared to eat food you know will make you sick.  Diplomacy is as much about getting diarrhea from a generously offered apple – probably more than once - as it is anything else.  

    

Americain

(It says "American.  Saturday")

For some reason this note pinned to the back of the pants I picked up at the tailor's on Saturday made me so happy.  It probably shouldn't have since this nice man has tailored almost everything I own at this point and we should be on a first name basis...but he's taught me all the french words for "please take the waist in a million inches and let the rear out about as much" and that's good enough for me.

It's kind of funny, now that I think about it.  I pass his shop most days on my way to work and we say hello and exchange greetings (sometimes copious amounts of greetings) and he doesn't know my name.  Maybe he's too embarrassed to ask after measuring all my body bits...

But either way, it makes me happy to have established routines and familiarities with the people in my neighborhood.  Even if they do know me simply as "American".

I'm also not concerned that he's spelled it in the masculine form...should I be?

Don't Eat Pete

Anyone think this looks like a picture from a parody folk album cover?
Maybe this one?

We had at least some idea of what we were getting into when we joined the Foreign Service.  We lived in Jerusalem before joining and picked the brains of all the Foreign Service officers we went to church with on a regular basis.  We figured out what things we could do without, what made our house a home, and tried to articulate and grow the characteristics that made for successful Foreign Service experiences and less successful experiences - to the extent that you can tell those kinds of things from being a nosey norah.

We focused on things like resilience, flexibility, emergency preparedness, ingredient substitution, and of course, amazon shopping.  But we never thought about pets.  And then last year we got an adorable puppy who took over my heart and is slowly taking over my bed.  And then the other night he hopped up on the table when I wasn't looking and ate the last bit of tagine I made for dinner: beef with caramelized onions and raisins.  Both of which are highly toxic to dogs.

Of course we panicked and then googled around and then panicked some more.  Evidently, some dogs who eat even a small amount of raisins can go into acute renal failure within a short period of time and if not aggressively treated, they can die.  We called our local vet's emergency number (since it was almost midnight at this point) and he assured us that since everything was cooked and Buckley hadn't thrown up he was fine and he'd see us in the morning.  But the internets told me that being cooked didn't matter and that we should induce vomiting (which I only now know I can do at home with a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide).  So we called our vet in the US.  She told us to take him in immediately and induce vomiting.  Then we called our state's Dog ER number (yes, there is one of those) and they told us to take him to the vet immediately and induce vomiting.  We called our vet back and explained that if we could get the stuff out of Buckley's system in the first two hours he wouldn't have time to absorb the toxins and we could avoid IV's and dialysis machines later on.  But you know what he said?  He'll be fine, I'll see you in the morning.  And then stopped answering our phone calls.  So we called another vet in Morocco that we'd worked with and he said the same thing*.

So that was that.  I just kept having images of the poor pupperoni going into kidney failure in the night and my hopes that the vet had all necessary doggy dialysis equipment, should it come to that, were not high.

"I'm sure they don't medivac dogs"  I said to Max in a panic, "What will we do?"

After thinking for a minute he said "We'll drive him to Spain.  We'll leave first thing in the morning and be there just after lunch."

And don't think either of us wouldn't have done it.  I really wrestled with whether to let my inner crazy person out on these vets and demand that they come to my house immediately because my dog needs you and don't you know my husband's a diplomat?, a course which I abhorred the moment I thought it...but still wanted to pursue on some level, and just trusting the local vets who have, no doubt, kept many dogs alive after they ate things the shouldn't.  We watched Buckley for a few more hours and after he fell asleep we did too.  The vet called us in the morning to see how the night went and told us he'd cleared time to see Buckley.  Maybe he'd felt my death lasers coming for him in the night.  After a few shots and a blood test he was given a mostly clean bill of health.  We have to administer something to him every morning to help his body flush the toxins, but he's back to his table hopping self.

I'm pretty sure when it's my child I will let my crazy person out, but it's not something I'm looking forward to.  Maybe we overreact in America about this kind of stuff sometimes, but not having the option to overreact feels terrible.

Anyway, all's well that ends well.  We are dog sitting this weekend and a puppy sleepover was just the thing to set everyone's crazy meters back to normal.
 

*It might seem like I overreacted, but I'm a first time dog owner.  Cut me some slack.  

The World That We Live In

I’m pretty good at writing about silly things like omelets and trips to the market, but when it come to things that matter I feel a wee bit paralyzed.  Bare with me.   

It’s been a little over a week since the tragedy in Libya took place and violent protests at US Embassy started spreading around the Middle East and North Africa. 

I was swimming alone in the Consul General’s pool when I read that the consulate in Benghazi had been attacked and one person was suspected dead.  Between every three or four laps I pulled myself from the pool to check my blackberry.  It seemed the news was worse each time I checked.   About half way through my swim I got a text message from Max, no details, that simply said “I’ll be home around 2:30”.

When we were in Jerusalem trouble was much easier to spot than it was last week.  We experienced several “Days of Rage”, tenuous check-point crossings and bus rides through Mea Sherim lined with burning garbage cans.  We received frequent warning texts from the University and the city was tense on a regular basis.  Everybody felt it on busses and in the streets – no one was exempt.  In Casablanca last week, the sun was shining, the streets were calm and the pool was the perfect temperature.  It’s unnerving to be singled out.

The protests in Casablanca were not very large in scale or violence compared to other countries in the region.  We were incredibly supported by our local police and since Friday things have remained fairly calm around here.  All the same I spent the better part of last week reviewing emergency procedures and updating our go bags.   And thinking about and checking in with friends.  We NEA-ers are a small bunch and my heart is with everyone who has been a victim in these attacks.  Not just those who have lost loved ones, for which I can’t express enough sympathy and support, but for all those who have lost their sense of peace and safety as well.  Hang in there.    

The first afternoon Max spent at home, the day after the attacks when people started to realize how big this thing was getting, I began a distance Arabic course I had signed up for in June.  You know, so we can go to more Arabic speaking countries.  I have all sorts of statements of noble commitment to the Middle East running around my head, mixed with a little bit of fear, confusion, sadness and anger at the lives that were lost.  I’m not sure what to do with it all, but I imagine a good chunk of  the Foreign Service career is spent trying to work through stuff like this – on a global scale as well as on a personal.

Lazy Days

 I’ll admit it.

We are pooped.  Burned out.  Kaput. 

We had a rip roarin’ summer and are paying the price.   

All we want to do after work and on the weekends now is pull the shades down and catch up on whatever show we are obsessing over that week.  Downton Abbey, you are in my sights.  But I wonder  if this isn’t just a post summer breather and if this kind of thing happens when you find out your next assignment in the Foreign Service.  We hit Morocco pretty hard our first year and a half and now it feels like our exit is just around the corner.  I’m hesitant to grow more roots as they are soon to be torn out.  But to be completely honest, we’ve also blown most of our travel budget for the year.  We’ve taken to calling our self imposed hermitage “_______ Family Austerity” (names changed to protect the innocent) and we mean it.  Birthday trips to Thailand don’t grow on trees. 

BUT this down time has reminded me of all the lovely, simple things that add up to daily living.  I’ve been making ice cream and prepping the last of the summer vegetables for winter soups.  I’ve remembered that I like to read and even started writing again.  We’ve revived the family band and started working on new songs.  Max and I finally tackled the sorting and organizing of our massive book collection – this being the first time they’ve all lived together – and it was as satisfying as we’d hoped.    

And we’ve been rediscovering Casa .  Over the labor day weekend Max and I took the Pupperoni out to the beach by Dar Boaza.  A dread locked French hippie runs a little store that sells stinky cheeses, gluten free products, cured meats and imported goodness like curry paste and fish sauce.  It also offers a menu-less café.  After ordering crepes, salmon and ham n’egg respectively, we were led to the cafe's back yard where a rustic picnic table with hemp place settings greeted us.  So did two older French men smoking and drinking coffee, as the French are want to do.  The French man closest to us was so delighted to see Buckley that when he jumped up on the picnic table bench the French man grabbed him by the cheeks and kissed him square on the mouth.  Ahhh, kisses from strangers.  Wait, that's not a thing...                  

I went to the Marif market on labor day to search out some herbs that have been evading me for weeks.  (And when I found that mountain of basil, I bought it.  All of it.  I’ll not dwindle away in a basil-less winter).  As I picked out shrimp for our green curry (thank you dread locked French man) I started asking about the other fish on display.  The fish monger was very helpful, even explaining how to prep and cook different fish.  I was just starting to feel warm and fuzzy about my trip to the market and my ability to engage with locals when he asked “Are you married?”  We went from “This is Red Snapper, cook it with lemon” to “Are you married?” in seconds.    

Bien Sur!  I said.  Even though of course! is a bit of a strange answer to that question.  Plenty of people aren’t married.  My husband is at home with the dog.  I said in French.  He laughed and put my shrimp into a purple plastic sack. 

And that’s a nice thing.  A husband at home with the dog.  Dinner to cook, books to read and nowhere to go.