Sunday 30 October 2011

Getting ready for winter...


We seem to have gone from summer to autumn with a bang. In the space of a week the days went from being crisp in the mornings but still up to 25 degrees T-Shirt weather midday, to max temps of 13 degrees, constant rain and fog so thick we couldn't see the apartment opposite us. Top of our checklist for next place to live after Thailand was a place with seasons. Well we certainly got what we wanted. There has been talk of snow within the next month or so. There are signs of winter preparation all around. Big piles of coats, woollies, snow boots and wellies are appearing at the weekly travelling souq (market). Even bigger piles of wood are appearing for sale and stacked precariously in and around apartments and homes. Out in the fields beyond the edges of town, onions are being hoarded. Moroccans love onions and use them in everything. They have developed a way of storing tons of them through winter. Once the onions are picked they pile them up in head height rows on long low walls. These they then cover with straw and top with a bright yellow tarpaulin. This way they have enough onions to last the winter. Finally, the biggest clue that winter is on its way is the sight of the kids arriving for school every morning dressed as polar explorers. It has been said many times that Moroccans fear the cold, even the ones born up here where temperatures can reach as low as -27 degrees C. If they dress like that when it is about 10 degrees god knows what they'll produce when it drops to freezing. Maybe they'll revert to the traditional and I'll have a class full of heavily caped mini jedis. 

 


 

The leaves on the trees are refusing to turn properly but there is some colour about. The leaves won't last long on the trees anyway. The area is known for a vicious wind that comes screaming across the plateau towards us. The school and apartments are the first line of defence against the wind as we are facing the west on the edge of town. We experienced this wind properly for the first time the other day. The roof at the school is halfway through being replaced and there was loose debris being blown everywhere. It was too dangerous for the kids to go outside. Apparently it gets strong enough to blow the smaller kids over. Well, this is variety at least.

Speaking of the roof, that new roof on the residences that the roofers spent the summer disturbing us while fixing, well it leaks. It cost a fortune and according to many, it leaks far worse than it did before they fixed it. In the school lunch room we have buckets and wet patches all over the place. I was working on the computer on Thursday and heard dripping. Looking to the wall on my left I saw that there was water streaming down it towards the electrics. It is moments like these that I am reminded that I am in Africa. With all the Mercedes, Audis and rich students driving around in a posh manicured setting it is possible to forget which continent we're on.

With the change of the weather and the increasingly frequent and warming wafts of wood smoke, we have decided to knock our blocked fire through. Fingers crossed it works and we don't bring the chimney down, but the thought of a real fire each evening while the wind and rain sheets down outside is just too tempting to resist.

We had miserable weather all week, but this weekend was truly glorious. Chilly in the shade but just warming enough in the sun. Perfect hiking weather. Sick of waiting to get in touch with a guide who can show us the area, we got a friend to drive us to an old dried up lake on the outskirts of town to see what we could find. Once there we set off into the forest not really sure where we were going, just happy to be getting some much needed exercise and fresh air. A randomly chosen path turned out to be a popular runners training route. Morocco's only real claim to fame in sporting terms is for long distance running. They take it very seriously and the high altitude and forest tracks around Ifrane make it a popular training spot for professionals and those just hoping to improve. Sunday runners here pass you like a freight train. They power on no matter how hard or uneven the terrain. We walked the 12km track and were passed by many small and large groups of runners. You see them one minute, they are gone the next. They just flew by. The route took us through grand cedar forest that opened regularly into rocky sunlit clearings and often wound round dried up lake beds. As well as the runners we stumbled upon a troupe of wild Barbary apes which took to the trees screeching in alarm. There were so many of them the tree tops seemed to be moving. Nick thought it looked like a mini Ewok village. Further down the track we saw a dung beetle with its perfect ball of muck. It travelled so fast that it had to keep stopping and climbing on top of its ball to check where it was going. No matter what we tried it was near impossible to photograph. 











Although this week was another tough week at school, tears seemed to be avoided. The walk, shopping at the souq, and a good night out with friends has made this week much more positive. The big night out took us to a new bar (amazingly one with heat, candles, atmosphere, bearable music, food and alcohol all in one place... genius, who'd have thought) and bowling. I sucked as usual at bowling, but redeemed myself somewhat with a game of pool. Pool is a game I play once every two or three years and also truly suck at. Playing Sarah who was thrashing me and only had one ball and the black to go, I then managed to clear my four remaining balls and the black off the table into my pocket of choice with five consecutive shots. I shall never play pool again for that will never be topped. I still am not quite sure how I did it but it shall be giving me positive feelings to start the week with. That as well as the fact that next weekend is a five day weekend and a two day camel ride in the Sahara should get me through the week.

Sunday 23 October 2011

Frustrations running high...


Apologies for a rather negative blog, but this week has been consumed by annoyances…
As seems to be always the case of our time so far in Morocco, this has been yet another week of highs and lows. There have been more than a few tantrums and tears on my part, with one childish moment of standing crying into a classroom wall. Thankfully when there were no students there to witness the madness.
The frustration has come from a few areas. With all the extra work we have been doing in school we keep trying to find ways to reduce the length of time we need to spend doing things. Those who have worked with me know that on a whole I am generally organised and efficient and if there is a way to do it quicker, I’m already doing it. The problem seems to be that here that everything takes much longer than it should. It’s not just the ordering of resources, programs or the processing of documents, it is also just the day to day jobs of printing, copying and using computers. Generally everything will take 2-3 times longer than it should. Last weekend instead of enjoying a relaxing Sunday at home, I spent 5 hours of computer crashing time trying to write and upload the blog. The following morning I went into school and it took me two computers and seven attempts to get a worksheet printed. Walk to the copier and you will generally find that it is out of paper and the ‘paper’ man is nowhere in sight. Result… Monday morning rage before you even see a single child.

We have a strange set-up here as a result of being connected to the university. Everything we want has to be ordered through them. Each order will need approval from one department before hopefully being passed to purchasing and awaiting approval there where at some point the order will generally be lost and the whole process needs to be started again. Take the paper situation, which has caused every teacher to lose it at some point already. The blank paper that we need for printing and copying is kept in a locked room. Only one person is able to unlock this room. This person has many maintenance duties within school and can be anywhere within the school at any point and is generally hidden in a small hole somewhere just when you have a free second and are in desperate need of paper to print. If you are lucky enough to find him he will come, unlock his room, and hand you one ream of paper. By which point there is often a build-up of jobs to print and copy and the single ream so begrudgingly given will disappear in five minutes. The more considerate of us will then have to go off in search of him again. Trying to avoid this situation we have requested that he keep a box of paper in the teachers’ room at all times. His response… ‘not possible, we only have 60 reams to last us until Christmas’. No amount of explaining that we don’t have any books and need to print and copy everything gets us anywhere. The suggestion of ordering more paper through the university is stonewalled. This man guards the paper like a precious metal.

If we were not connected to the university a lot of these problems would not occur. Although, to be fair we wouldn’t have any students either as the majority of them are deans’ and lecturers children. For a university that looks remarkably impressive, has a good sized international body of both lecturers and students, and has gone a long way towards increasing its enrolment figures, it is fairly lacking in forward thinking. At around the same time as they decided to increase the student enrolment, they decided to sell off half of the off-campus residences that are beside the school (about 50 apartments in all). Now they have managed to increase student numbers they have found that strangely they don’t have enough accommodation to house them all. These poor students are put into dorm style accommodation at the Best Western hotel down the road, 3 kilometres from the nearest shop or restaurant, 7 kilometres from the university and out in the middle of nowhere. To be fair, I’m not sure who I feel more sorry for, the students who are stuck out there, or the guests who pay to go on holiday and find themselves surrounded by hordes of uni students.

Having travelled and lived in many different places I know that we should be used to lack of planning and logical reasoning, and yet it seems that while some things are better here, many things are worse. For example, never before have I had to wait a month for an ATM card to be ordered and sent, an ATM card that you then need to take into the bank to activate. Then when trying to use said ATM card for the first time and failing, you check the balance and find that £2300 has vanished, you are told not to worry, sometimes the ATM machine takes a few days to update. A few days??? How about 3 weeks. 3 weeks when everybody else’s cards are working just fine. How can it be a simple case of it not updating when you’ve never made a withdrawal on the account? Where did the money go? Managing to stay calm enough to give their theory a go, we found all systems and balances had returned to normal a few days ago.

On a more positive note, we did finally this week manage to finish early enough to take the shuttle up to the university to go and use the swimming pool for the first time. The Olympic size indoor swimming pool is stunning, surrounded by cedar forest that is viewed through immense vaulted windows. We have been waiting nearly 3 months to get through the bureaucracy and get the swim pass and find the time to use it. Sadly, keeping with the theme of the week we only got to swim 2 lengths before we were told to get out as we had no swimming cap. C’est la vie.

The one absolute saving grace of the week, one which in itself nearly reduced me to tears… tears of relief, justice and joy, was the fixing of our shower. Since we have arrived we have had problems with the shower. It took up to 15 minutes running to get hot water through and often the pressure was so weak that I had to sit on the floor to rinse my hair. In comparison to Thailand where I often showered twice a day, here it was cut to 2-3 times a week interspersed with unpleasant bucket scrubs. When reporting the problem we were informed that this was all quite normal. After 9 weeks of weekly emails and an escalation to a higher power, they finally came and inspected it. I received an email this week to say that they had found one of the pipes to be nearly completely blocked with mineral build-up and ‘sorry for the inconvenience.’ Now we have a possibly one of the best showers we’ve ever had and just need to deal with the small matter of the shower head holder being positioned so high that the new hot and high pressured water jets right over our heads. Baby steps, but we’ll get things sorted.

My apologies for the negativity and lack of pictures. Note to self… must try harder next week at positive thinking.

Sunday 16 October 2011

Viva Espana


Due to a rather hectic last fortnight (2 weeks to you Americans), there has been little time for updates. I have hit a bit of a wall with work. I keep having to face the dissappointment that comes each time I think I will have a block of free time that will enable me to get ahead, only to fail as I find I have so much more to do than I thought. Each time you tackle one thing it gives rise to another that needs to be dealt with, organised or assessed. It is frustrating and disheartening, but the masses of overtime has to stop so something has to change. The one nice thing is that as there isn’t the same number of distractions here as everywhere else we have lived (apart from Roatan that is), it means that we don’t mind going in to work on Saturdays. It’s peaceful, bright and with huge windows onto the suuny and breezy garden area. Taking a weekend off means that the next week is rushed and disorganised. This would not be so bad if we didn’t have so many duties. Elementary school has 3 hours of duty a week. That rounds our contact hours up to 25+ and doesn’t leave too much time for marking, planning, assessing etc.
Enough about the trials and tribulations of school. Last weekend we did take a weekend off. And yes, we have suffered this week because of it. But it was worth it. Well worth it. We were offered a car for the weekend by a friend who had run out of beer and wanted us to do a booze run to Spain for him. We jumped at the chance, even at short notice. It is about a 400 kilometre drive to Ceuta/Septa the Spanish enclave on the North Eastern tip of Morocco. We invited Sarah and Terry along with us for their first visit to Europe.



We packed as lightly as we could and piled ourselves into our friends small purple Polo 1.2 and set off in high spirits at 7.30 in the morning. We had decided to go the scenic route through the mountains as the highway would add about 100 kilometres to the journey, and we had been told it was the most interesting way to go. We wound our way down to Meknes, navigated through the busy city with remarkable ease considering we had a Google map which was alternately missing pictures then instructions. We drove past Volubilis, the ancient Roman ruins and then seemed to leave civilisation for an hour or two. We passed through small linear villages and Berber communities and the occasional town, but mainly it was open dusty farm land. Our little car didn’t have aircon so we had the windows wide open and were wind blasted the whole way.


The route we took was very scenic; we passed the open farm land and then wound our way up into the spectacular Riff Mountains which were amazingly dramatic after our mini hills of the Middle Atlas. Huge soaring ragged limestone peaks ripped up into the sky, collecting a thick blanket of clouds. It was a good job it was so pretty as we soon discovered why it was that people had recommended that we leave Ifrane at three in the morning. The roads are windy and the trucks slow. There are not that many safe places for overtaking and it takes practice and knowledge of the road. What should have been a five-six hour journey took us seven, nearly eight hours by the time we made it through the border crossing into Spain. Spain is two hours ahead of us at the moment. It was 5.30pm, we were hot, tired and well and truly wind blasted and we were arriving in a town with limited accommodation on a Saturday with no reservation or real idea about where to stay. By our holiday planning standards we were completely unprepared and more than slightly concerned that four tall people would be sleeping in one small car.




Passing into Spain we were a bit disappointed. I’m not sure what I had been expecting, but I think I had expected to see a difference straight away. Crossing the border we found the same run-down buildings, dodgy looking hostels and many people in traditional Moroccan dress. As we got closer to the centre of town however, it all started to change. The tatty two story concrete buildings were replaced by grand Spanish architecture, the dirty footpaths by manicured pedestrianised walkways, and the headscarves and Jelabas by shorts, T-shirts, dresses and sunglasses. After nearly three months in Ifrane it was such a refreshing change. I was so excited that for the first fifteen minutes I was totally distracted from the fact that the town centre was an absolute nightmare to navigate and we were unable to find anywhere that resembled a place to stay. Ceuta is a small area of 18.5 square kilometres and it’s town centre is tiny. Perched on a hilly peninsular, the streets are narrow, one way, very very steep and strangely seemed to be lined with police tape stopping us pulling over to look for places. Every corner we went round we were faced with a police officer stopping us turning in the direction we needed. Finding our way around and looking for hotels distinguished only by a small GH plaque somewhere on the front proved to be too much for us after an eight hour drive. We parked in an overnight car park, asked the attendant for the nearest hotel and threw money at the problem. We paid 15 Euros more than we had hoped, but at that point we didn’t really care. And besides, it was nearly 6 pm and we still had to find Lidel; the reason we had driven 400 km in the first place. We dumped our bags, threw water on our faces and went out in search of the cheapest alcohol in Europe.

 






After being in Ifrane with only time shops to choose from, Lidel was amazing. We stocked up on all foodstuffs frowned upon... booze, bacon and chorizo. And a lot of cheese for good measure. There were four of us and we had a shopping list for two others. We walked out with five slabs of beer, 28 one litre cartons of wine (55 cent each, should have bought more), 5 bottles of spirits, 16 bottles of wine and fizzy, 1 bottle of sangria and 1 bottle of Cassis. It was worth the drive. A beer here is about 1 Euro, there it was 25 cent. We didn’t buy a bottle of wine over 3 Euros. I have no idea how we packed ourselves and the shopping back into the car and managed to cross customs when we left, but we did. It seems officials aren’t that interested in desperate expats in search of cheap alcohol because when we did leave (with slabs hidden under blankets) the only question they asked Nick when they looked in the boot was “do you have any guns?”.


We had been advised to keep our watches on Moroccan time as we were only there for 24 hours. When we set out for our evening it was 7pm for us, but 9pm for everybody else. In many countries this might cause you to rush as places would soon stop serving food. In Spain it suited us just fine as they don’t even get going until 10.00. Peak time for eating was about 11.00. We started in an Irish bar. The boys had been talking about their pints of Guinness the whole drive up. From there we went on to the first tapas bar we could find. It didn’t look too busy and we soon found a table by the window. Slowly the small bar filled up, people were standing in the door and out on the street. Within minutes of walking in the bar we noticed that 50% of the tables had children, infants or babies in pushchairs. There were even kids sitting on bar stools at the bar. This was the theme for the night. It seems that unlike other places I have been, in Spain people’s social life does not slow down with the arrival of children. Instead it is the norm to take them to the noisy crowded bars and rock them with your hip while you laugh and drink. I think the kids would have been out later than us that night if we didn’t have our two hour time difference buffer.
While in the bar and steadily working our way through the tapas menu with each round, we noticed out of the window a procession of children dressed in Sunday best making their way up the street. They were swinging incense globes and carrying crosses and at first we thought we were witnessing a funeral procession. It wasn’t until we saw that all the kids were smiling and laughing that we were brave enough to go outside. Well Terry was anyway. He wasn’t just brave enough to go outside, he went and stood in the middle of it to take photos. Over the next hour (as we steadily got drunker as we were now stuck in the bar), a long procession of children, adults, marching band and a 12 foot long gold float with a life size statue of Jesus on made its way past our window. The huge float was covered with candles and carried on the shoulders of overall wearing head bandaged men. We definitely got more than we bargained for when we sat down in that little bar. Our friendly waiter said it was for Semana Santa, but that’s in April so I’m not sure what it was, but the procession was huge and worked its way around the centre. It went past our hotel at about 4 in the morning as we were going to bed and was still causing chaos on the roads the next day. That explained the police tape and presence then.








































All in all our trip to Spain was amazing. It was great to stock up on all the things we’ve missed and fabulous to spend a night out surrounded by people who are used to socialising the same way as we do. I think the occasion went to our heads a little as can be seen from sun of the drunken antics we got up to at the end of the night. At least all the tapas we ate meant that we didn’t feel as bad as we could have the next day. Saying that, a six hour drive south in 40 degree sun was going to be unpleasant whatever the severity of the hangover. It’s still not enough to deter us and we are all trying to work out when we can go back.

Sunday 2 October 2011

Kids, carpets and Jedis

Here's to another week done and dusted, they seem to be flying by. 25 working days until our five day weekend. Yes, I am back to checking off the days. I had forgotten just how quick the weeks pass when working, especially in a job as varied as teaching. No two days are ever the same and kids, for all their annoying habits, always manage to do something entertaining. Or rewarding. Or stupid for that matter. Never a dull day.
Last week we had Open House. This is where the parents come to the classroom and you present to them your aims and expectations, plans for the semester and rules. It is always stressful and it amazes me how much fear I get at the thought of standing and addressing a room full of adults. Give me kids any day. They are far less likely to judge. All in all the evening went well. The parents were very friendly and seemed happy with the way things have been going. However one interaction reminded me of that old saying 'I'll believe half the things your child says about his home life if you belief half the things he says about what happens in school'. As with many other places in the world now, it seems that many parents will always take the word of their child over the teacher as their child would never do wrong.

The kids in my class are reasonably good to be fair. I now have ten girls and four boys which makes a huge difference to the classroom. After learning classroom management the hard way teaching large classes of all boys in Thailand, my time in Australia filled me with all these positive ideas about creating a warm and supportive classroom environment that would gently persuade children to behave appropriately. I felt that my days of being a drill sergeant were behind me, replaced by a more forgiving, patient and nurturing teacher. Sadly, as most of the elementary teachers have found, many of the students behave as if they receive little, if any discipline at home and have perfected the art of tuning out all instructions and requests of change from the teacher. Over the last few weeks I have found my inner drill sergeant reappearing. To be fair, this mix of firm but fair has seemed to have worked better than the gentle nurturing did. Now the class are able to behave and we can do all sorts of fun stuff. We have lessons outside, done hands on (and feet on) Science investigations and even made pictures you can feel by painting with sand. No they don't run wild I can plan cool stuff to do. 


 
It dawned on me recently that we are not getting out much. We are working 50 hours a week at the moment and have just had our second 6 day week in a row. We make it into town, to the marche, or to the Azrou at the weekends, but Monday to Friday afternoon we don't even leave the compound. We walk the 50 metres between school and home and that is it. I have never been in this kind of cloistered environment before. We are about two kilometres from the nearest shops and restaurants, and at the end of the day this seems a long way without your own transport. We buy all we need at the weekend and if we run out then we do without. This is a lot easier now we have a water filter and are not having to cart 5 litre bottles around. It's strange that we're not really getting cabin fever. The surroundings are beautiful and my favourite view is the one from my classroom, so the Saturdays in school aren't too much of a hardship. It's only when we go into town on Friday evening or for morning coffee in the square on Saturday or Sunday that we appreciate how nice it is to be out. Now the evenings are getting shorter and there is a crispness in the air going into town is even more enjoyable. The down-town area is unlike any other we have seen in Morocco so far. The central area is immaculate with masses of flowers, lawns that have spotlights shining through sprinklers each evening and enough artfully placed lighting to light from here to Fes if needed. In the mornings the cafés are the perfect place to kill an hour or two with fresh bread, pastries, great coffee and crisp sunny skies. Sitting there it always amazes me how many elderly western tour groups pass through. Morocco never struck me as a place to see coach loads of OAP's. 
 




















Last week we were lucky enough to have our first real Moroccan carpet buying experience. The neighbouring town of Azrou is famous for it's Berber carpets woven by women from the fleece of their own sheep. Down one of the narrow back alleys we were taken to a shop by our friends Sarah and Terry who had bought from there already. Walking down the dark narrow hallway, you enter a cavernous and ancient looking set of rooms that are piled up to 10 ft high with carpets. These vary from the antique handmade to the modern mass produced. The guy who showed us around had good English and was very patient with us. After studiously avoiding all but the briefest of glance in the direction of carpet shops up until now for fear of getting dragged into bargaining for things we didn't want, it was a bit overwhelming and hard to know where to start. We went into one of the small back rooms with carpets around every wall. After all the tales of wily salesmen we were a bit cautious when telling him what we were looking for. He was very easy going and quickly started pulling things out for us to look at. It didn't take us long to go from timid and restrained to pulling random stuff out from the bottom of piles every time his back was turned. By the time he came back with the obligatory mint tea, we had a pile of rugs about a foot high in front of us and Nick and Terry were wearing Jedi capes. The guy was really informative, telling us about the regions each carpet came from and showing us the 'signatures' that marked them as antique and expensive (usually cigarette burns or sun bleaching). Unfortunately most of the things we really liked were antique and more expensive. We have no interest in the age of it and quite frankly feel that if it has holes in it we should be getting a discount. Sadly most of those carpets aren't made any more and can't be bought cheaply. We left with a cheaper option. And a 6ft Jedi cape for Nick. Because you never know when you just might need one