Are you for Rial?

It should have been a simple transaction.

How much are your mlhfa?
18.

Really? That's a phenomenal bargain, we think. 18 dhirams a mlhfa is great.

So 72 for four?

No, 16.

What?

16 each.

Ok, so 64?

Yes.

We hand the man 100 dhirams and he laughs at us.

No, no. This will buy one.

But you said they were 18 each?

Yes.

So how much?

360 dhirams.

SELAH

Of course. You omitted to add the word 'hundred' after you said '18' and naturally you are working in a no-longer-used currency, the rial, meaning that your '18' needed to be multiplied by 100, (because your 18 meant 1800) have a zero removed from the end and then divided by two. Silly me. So when you say 18, you mean 90.

Good day to you sir.



Ok then! So
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Culture stress

Not culture shock, I'm past shock but stress I can still do.

It's no different from any other day really but right now I have low tolerance to...well, idiots.

In the last two days I've had guys calling out to me in the street in four different languages, I was directed somewhere that I 'couldn't miss' because it was next to a sign in Arabic. (Unlike all the other signs in Polish?) I've had to refuse to buy a packet of cartridges because some of them had no ink in them. (What else did I expect?) My usual fruit man asked why I'd not been recently, was it because I was visiting Belgium? (Sure, why not?) we caught a taxi and translated everything we said in Arabic and shouted it back to us in French. (Yes, we know what we said, you don't need to explain back to us our own words)

I'm going home and not coming out to play again today.

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7/2

A great birthday is currently being had!

Two wonderful house guests.

A housemate to beat all housemates who made me a LOOM!!


An afternoon at the farm for a barbecue




Did i mention the loom?



Cards from the UK

A good book as a gift

Did I mention a loom?




And of course.... Cake




....and animals





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Gee thanks

This evening we are sorting through the sacks of stuff we have been given by others leaving the country and in a hurry to ditch what they don't want to keep. Mostly given in a well-meaning manner from people I love but that doesn't mean I'm not going to gently mock them.

Recipe books (in Chinese)

Stamping pads (without ink or stamps)

Glue sticks (dry)




Empty envelopes (used)

Enough TEFL material to open a language school



Carpet samples




Dictionaries (in two different Arabic dialects I'm not learning)

Worthy books I have no time to read

Lyrics to songs (in Chinese)

Plastic cable ties (unusable)




Home-burned cd's (in no language I speak or anyone else I know)

Photographs (of someone else's family at a wedding)

Bags I would think twice about giving to charity

Let me know if you need any of this ;)


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Flab attack

Have dieted off the Christmas weight which is good news. Trying to keep going for a bit. Every time I'm hungry, I drink some water. I think I may be drowning.


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Why I'm becoming more religious

Religion. Religious. Contentious words and if you are associated with a very particular, western form of Protestantism such as myself, even the statement in this blog's heading could have been enough for you to miss a heartbeat and reach for the elder's phone number.

The reason why 'religious' has become a by-word for sanctimonious is easy to see and so is the desire of many Christians to remove themselves from any man-made organisation that requires its adherents to pay superficial lip-service to a set of Sunday rules.

But is this what religion means?

For many, it is a negative expression that describes the idea that we must perform duties and rituals in order to receive our salvation. In this sense I would not want to be known as religious. It's an in-joke to insult someone's efforts to look holier than thou. And it is an in-joke, isn't it? Who outside of your church, associates the word religion with a very specific heresy that undermines the sufficiency of substitutionary atonement?

Late last year I was called religious and even as I was taking a sharp breath in, I was laughing at how rude that would have sounded to me a year ago. No, no, I would have wanted to protest. I am not religious! I have faith! I have a relationship with God! Of course this is true but the statement was made with great respect to the sincerity of my beliefs and how I practiced them. And I was glad to have been called religious.

How could I be pleased to be called such by a starchy and self-righteous term?

Clearly it's about context. Living in my current context, being religious is honourable and describes someone who both believes and practices their faith. Quite the opposite of Sunday only lip-service. It describes someone who is changed by what they believe and doesn't just use the name of their faith as a convenience.

My religion is deeply inconvenient, in fact! Because religion with a living God changes you from what you want to be into who He wants you to be.

Trying to be a non-religious believer would be a confusing nonsense to my friends. So are you religious? That's up to you but not all words mean the same thing to everyone.

Salaam
Peace
Shalom


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Festive Oops!

This evening someone asked me if I was glad to be back. I said not exactly glad but it was nice to be back.

I probably shouldn't have followed that up with; 'Cant wait to go back, mind'



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Friday

A baby arrived at my house. I had to play with it. It was snotty

House ran out of water so had shower in one inch of cold water in a bucket

Played new game invented by Hannah to help learn verbs

Got called to the hospital to see friend.

Made mac cheese

Watched Attenborough in minute instalments (terrible Internet)

Heading for 2nds on the mac cheese :)




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Une semaine française

I was going a bit stir crazy before my week off and I wondered if just the 7 days would sort my head out

The journey from here was a pretty gruelling two day affair via 5 airports

I slept til 1pm nearly every day. Activities included; the aquarium, the beach, the shops and dozens of games of cards


I hung out with my boy, made cakes, ate and drank things unavailable back here, got smashed up by big waves and met some of his local friends

He designed the logo for my emerging business; Kumquat






Nearly missed my flight on the way out of 'Ritz as nothing showed up on any of the electronic boards and by the time I went I find out why was going on I was told check in was closed.

Those crêpes the boy made for my breakfast kept me going and I feel quite the human again since getting back!

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Drudgeon required

As all good 'IT Crowd' viewers will know, a drudgeon, if there were such a thing, would be a menial worker.

I need one.

Who would like to work for me for no pay and little recognition?

It's tempting huh?

I need someone who would hold my stock, receive orders and post items out within the UK. I would obviously cover all postage costs.

I'm not expecting a flood of volunteers but I can guarantee that I am an exacting boss who expects a prompt response and has a punishing attention to detail when it involves customer service.

Roll up! Roll up!

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Visual history

Here follows a bunch of pictures I've taken recently that you may have missed;


Coasters or hot mats upcycled from mlhfa.


Upcycled sardine tin





String basket


Posh sack

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I made a bag. I liked it.

If this latest project has taught me one thing, it's that I need a sewing machine!



I spotted cartons of tea wrapped in this rather cool hessian a few days ago and I was in there asking if they had any old ones before thinking.


Surprisingly they gave me three without asking for money. I know where I'll be buying my tea in future!


I sewed on a denim patch that I had created a few weeks previously, using painstakingly cut out stripes from a mlhfa.


It took a good few hours especially the handles and lining in light blue, repurposed mlhfa but I'm pretty pleased with it.


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Achievement

It's all about winning the little battles.

Yesterday we went to negotiate an order with the man who sells building materials and then on to the metal worker's to ask him to put together an item we had designed.

It honestly takes nerves of steel to walk over to a pile of breeze blocks (no, I didn't think it was spelt like that either), sand and cement when there are half a dozen blokes staring at you from the other side of the road, intrigued by a) women and b) foreigners looking at what is something that only men concern themselves with. It couldn't have generated more interest or made us feel more awkward if we'd sauntered over in bikinis. Ugh. As soon as we are there, a man appears to ask what we want. Then begins the ever so familiar nonsense of saying what we want and being offered something entirely different. We want the largest blocks. 'Hey! Hey! Look, there are smaller ones here.' We know and like we have just stated, we want the bigger ones. Between one side of the road and the other, the price per block changes from 4.5 dhirams (30p) to 6 dhirams. Well why wouldn't it? We got them for 4.5. Yes, yes, one bag of sand, just get out of my face. There's now two or three other guys around us suggesting prices. We go over to the the shop area (man sat at a beaten up wooden table in a garage). We add a bag of cement to the list and find that our goods have been loaded onto the back of someone's pick up and we are being asked if we will pay 40 dh (£3) for him to drive it the two minutes to our house.
- No thank you, we have a friend collecting them later.
- But he will take them for you and you can just pay 30 or 40dh.
- But our friend will do it for free.
- But this man can do it for you.
- why would we pay when we can have it for free?
It's not as if transport is part of the deal and we are cheating the system. We now have 6 men crowded round us which is really uncomfortable.
5dh is then added to the bill. Why?
- Because the man lifted and carried all your things.
- But I never wanted him to in the first place
It gets scrubbed off the bill

Next the metal worker...but wait! En route we are followed by a young lad of about 14 shouting 'Boum! Boum!' A kind sexual jeer. We ignore him for the first couple of times. After a few streets we turn round and tell him enough is enough. A street later we pull out a mobile and mimic taking a photo of him and he scarpers! But victory is not yet ours. We walk a block and hear 'Boum Boum' yelled at us again. When he continues following us, we duck into a shop and ask a man to help us because boys are shouting rude things and following us. He kindly comes out and again the boy legs it before the man can speak to him.

And on to the metal worker..!

This is how we do a simple task and get to the end feeling like we've climbed a mountain and deserve some kind of award!

Thankfully the metalworker was lovely but that was pretty much because we had been introduced to him before by a mutual friend who had earned his respect.


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Creativity un/in-spiration

Yesterday; all the time in the world. No inspiration



Today; 2a.m (so technically tomorrow). Mind going crazy with ideas


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Best of blue

Chefchaoun is beautiful. We had two nights in a hostel in the old medina and really slowed things down after a busy summer






We shopped for the new flat we will be moving into when we got back. Following my motto of style over content, we bought beautiful but unnecessary items such as lamps for candles, bedroom throws and antique (looking!) shelving





The hostel owner was a character! Brusque, loud and rather aggressively mothering. Our favourite eatery was on the terrace of a tall building overlooking the whole town. The meals at 85dh were big enough to share and, of particular satisfaction to me, the customer service was good!






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Chef-chaoun

With a location whose name suggests good cuisine we would like to recommend avoiding Lala Mesouda who has about two available items from the menu and still brings you the wrong thing. The vinegar and cabbage based salad is...memorable. Unfortunately.


In a stunningly beautiful location, this restaurant manages to combine clutter, claustrophobia and jarring styles of decor to help you feel miles away from from anything refined or well-designed.


The smell of burning increases anticipation for the next course. The omelettes (it was that or soup) were several minutes apart and came with cooked but cold tomatoes. Only one omelette came with what you could call flavour.

Mind you, it was better than yesterday's Italian that had broken glass in it.

Thankfully we had a fabulous meal last night where we will return to this evening!


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Not many days like today

Woke in the red/orange sands after sleeping under the stars.

Rode camels back into Merzouga, packed and had a quick dip before heading back out and on the road east.



Got very close to the Algerian border but couldn't cross on this trip.

Had a spot of lunch with nomads (real ones, not ones put on for tourists!)


Drove through a bit of a sandstorm




Now heading north...

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Fun times

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The one-donkey town

Akka, in the ante-atlas is a tiny, linear town where the wind blows up a mini tornado of dust at one end of the street and men practice an air of lassitude outside a little cafe at the other.

The heat is unspeakable.

The landrover has its bonnet up to cool down and I'm downing my once-annual Coca-Cola to boost fluids and sugars.



Last night we enjoyed spontaneous hospitality near Guelmim and the night before we went to our friend's oasis. I quickly made friends;



Hundreds more km to go...



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Not a bad day

Got covered in mud from a fight, got feet nibbled by fish in desert salt pools, swam in the freezing cold sea, got sand blasted by high winds, saw theTropic of Cancer, met a stray dog and named her Fenwick (because she had ears like a fennec fox), ate pea soup.






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