Hello All!

So I’ve been borrowing an internet modem stick from a friend this week, so if you’ve seen me online more regularly that’s why. Before I left for Morocco I told myself I wanted to go internet free in my house for a whole year. When I worked at nature’s classroom I had no problem being disconnected with no cell service and no internet available. The difference between then and now is at Nature’s Classroom I was surrounded by an amazing group of like-minded supportive people and friends, in short I had a wonderful community available to me day in, day out week after week and a beautiful property to go on hikes on, with no one else around for miles. In that situation not being connected was more often then not a blessing; instead of us all sitting there checking our facebook’s over and over again in the living room we played games, colored, wondered at our incense convection currents, watched planet earth and narrated the days adventures with the assistance of the guitar. Here in morocco when I’m at home in my house, I’m alone. I have a pretty great community in my town, but it’s sort of an adventure in itself, and nothing like the communities I’ve experienced at camp and Nature’s classroom, this community is a learning experience and isn’t as ‘comfortable’. For the reason having the internet here is a solace, those communities I’ve left at home, those relationships that are so important to me are sitting across an ocean, but also at the end of my Maroc Telecom USB internet modem. So long story short, I plan on purchasing my own modem by the end of the month and staying connected, even though the service is pretty terrible. A part of me feels like this is selling out, and missing out on a learning opportunity, but another part of me is really excited about al the skype conversations and facebook chats I’ve had in this past week.

This week was long, and not too productive. I got a really bad congestion/sinus problem that rendered me spending all day in my bed last Sunday, and into Monday. Being sick sucks everywhere, but it was sort of a hard time here, being alone in my house, noone to talk care of me, no one to make me soup and nowhere to buy it. It was hard not to sit there and sort of wallow in sadness. I found moments of happiness  last weekend when I was sickest where I ate the luna bar mama crunchy sent me, which meant I got to eat without cooking (if you read this btw thank you so much! ) , and watched the big bang theory non stop. Even with those things it was hard to bounce back from, and the sinus headache that has stayed with me all week hasn’t helped much with my mood.  But these are the trials, and honestly, minus the buying soup at the supermarket thing, there’s no difference from being sick alone in morocco and being sick alone in America, I’ve just never lived alone, so it ranks as a new experience for me.

Even with my sinus headache I ended up at a pretty cool event down at the gardens this Thursday before my English class at the woman’s center. It took forever to figure out what people were trying to tell me, but what I ended up figuring out was go to the gardens, around 3, there will be cous cous. Because I was sick and cranky I was a tool and didn’t bring my camera, but I’ll paint  a picture instead. I found myself at a little gathering of ladies, who were all sitting around drinking tea and drinking the sour milk that goes with cous cous. To the right there were three huge couscous pots cooking on coal fires, when I say huge, I mean these pots were almost waist high. I got handed a handful of cous cous and ate it , acquiring a huge group of children, who laughed at my attempts to eat it successfully (there was a lot there!) and grilled me about my name, where I was from, whether or not I was muslim and the variations of names from Arabic to engilsh (ie zara=sara youssef=joseph miryem=mary) mostly they were disappointed because there aren’t that many equivalents. I tried to tell them more common names were Barbara, and Ashley, which they found amazing. Then a girl I’ve befriended and a group of her friends went for a little walk around the gardens. After our walk, my hair became the main event, and it was a good laugh me making my hair into all different sorts of configurations and sending the kids in all directions squeeling. Finally it was time for the main event, the cous cous was done, and women walked around bringing big plates of it with veggies and a small amount of meat on top to the different groups of people that have formed. I got to experience trying to eat cous cous with my hands for the first time, and I would say it was mostly unsuccessful. The trick is squeezing out some of the moisture, then gently moving it around your hand to make a ball, I think I squeeze too much, but it was fun, and really delicious. I ate a ton of cous cous then made my way to my English class, which as you could imagine was poorly attended because of the allure of free couscous. Turns out it was a prayer for rain, who knew! Next time I know never to leave my house without my camera.

The other thing that happened unexpectedly was the talent show I ended up at at the dar talib, or student house. The dar talib is a place where students who live too far away from the town schools come to live during the week, so they don’t have to make the long commute from home. I really didn’t want to go anywhere on Friday when I was on my way home, but was cornered by one of the guys who is associated with the dar talib. I showed up and found out it was a sort of event, I got almonds and tea, and met some of the girls who live there. Finally we decided on nights I will go to the dar talib and dar taliba to do English clsses and help with homework and the like. Very exciting.

Finally because of y ill ness last weekend, I didn’t do my weekly shopping at the Sunday market. Because of that I had next to nothing in my house. I’m lucky my host sisters brought me one of my favorites, milwi, which is like a delicious, crispy and greasy tortilla, without that milwi I would have been pretty hungry all week. I used up the little I had left in the house , but I was ready for souk (market) this weekend. It ‘s always exciting to have food in the house, but it especially was this week. I was really excited to start trying out some recipes and experimenting with different ingredients as well as my new pressure cooker. I had soaked and boiled some chick peas last week, and then got sick and never used them. So today I decided because it’s been so cold out ( 45 degrees inside most morning when I wake up!) that I would try and make some soup. I was really happy with the result. Here’s the recipe:

Michelle’s Moroccan chickpea soup

1 large onion

5 cloves garlic chopped

2 tomatoes grated

½ c water

2 c chickpeas

¼ kilo pumpkin

seasoning: salt, pepper, curry, basil, paprika, and a pinch of ginger.

Sautee the onions and garlic in the pressure cooker, add the other ingredients. Wait until the pressure cooker is hissing (heat up on high)  and then cook for 15 minutes over medium heat. After 15 minutes turn off the heat and either release the pressure yourself or let it sit and release itself. This is the point where you wouldn’t want to open the lid, or you might blow things up, like your face or your kitchen, the whole pressure thing about pressure cookers. Once the pressure is relieved, open it up, I then added a dash of vinegar and blended it until smooth

Once the soup was done I used this recipe I found online for fried chickpeas, really easy! Though I would suggest a smaller amount of oil rather then a large amount, a little goes a long way. Once they were done I salted them and used them to garnish my soup! A great trade off for a sort of bread product or something of the sort.

Sorry this post is more or less picture free, but here’s what my soup looked like, that’s the orange tree in the background.  I've started decorating my house, so maybe i'll post some pictures of that tomorrow morning when i finish. Hope everyone is well. There’s also a new feature on the right side of my blog if you want to follow it by email, if you tend to be a forgetful type and don’t remember to come to my blog often, please subscribe by email as well! I don’t really know how to send it out to you all by email, so this is my best option for you forgetful types, I know how it is, I’m bad at remembering to check people’s blogs as well.