Morocco Revisited

And our Indian programming will now be interrupted for a Moroccan announcement…

More than any other place, people ask for recommendations about visiting Morocco. So I’m going to put the information I sent to a friend on here:

My husband and I spent about 6 weeks in Morocco. I have a couple of negative posts about it.-- But that was because we were there for so long in the hottest time of year and during Ramadan. The people were a bit grumpy during Ramadan. It was also my first experience in a developing country, so the dirt and flies and heat and everything got to me a bit. Now I think I could handle it better since we've been to India. Plus you'll be there in a cooler time of year.

These are the cities we were in:

Ouazazarte: a small town in southern Morocco, we stayed here for a month: http://www.dartuzzalt.com/index.html. It's family run and very nice. The town has a movie set museum and a kasbah. It's very calm and desert-y.

Taroudant: We couch surfed here. If you want a bit of culture it's a great idea to stay with a local. I'm friends on Facebook with the English teacher we stayed with if you want me to get you in touch with him. His name is El Habib.

Marrakesh: The stereotypical Moroccan city that you don't want to miss (with the monkeys and snake charmers) they are extremely aggressive and rude here though. The traffic is nuts.

Rabat: A beach town and the capital city, a nice place to relax (and the only place I know of with a tiny tiny LDS branch) I have their contact information if you need it.

Fez: The religious heart of the country, there's some amazing shopping to be done here. Well, not that I bought anything, but you can get lost in the maze of shops. The place we stayed had roaches so I wouldn't recommend it, haha.

Tangiers: A lot of Spanish influence, more tourists since it's right next to Spain, some charming architecture.

If you're only there for a few days, I'd recommend a camel trek from Marrakesh which will take you to the kasbah in Ouazazarte and some other pretty areas. Here is a contact from a tour we used that we really enjoyed: paul@hostelsclub.com

and a list of possible tours:

http://www.hostelsclub.com/act_step01_country.php?lang=en&country=41&city=0&mese=10&anno=2010&currency=2&type=15

The Sahara desert is something in my opinion you don't want to miss. It's unlike anything I've ever seen, and riding a camel through it is just awesome.

Oh and as far as safety goes, it's extremely safe. The biggest thing will be if you are a woman traveling alone, you will get harassed a little bit more. Just don't let it faze you and dress conservatively. Do you speak French? That would help enormously.

And the food is very good, you'll be able to try all of the main dishes: couscous, harira (soup) and tagines.

I hope you enjoy it! It's very exotic. The one thing I wish I had bought was the clay pot they cook tagines in. They are very expensive to buy in the States. I wouldn't have minded buying Moroccan clothes but the storekeepers are so dang aggressive there I never was able to do it! Until just recently, that is, where I bought something from the airport in Casablanca while waiting for a flight.

Oh and by the way? Don't eat at McDonald's in any city. Jacob and I and our two friends got hit with food poisoning in two different destinations of McDonald's. (I haven't eaten at McDonald's since.) Actually, don't eat raw salad period in Morocco.

http://www.travellerspoint.com/accommodation/22832-Amour-de-Riad/ is where we stayed in Marrakech. You can book it free on any hostel website. It was very cute. If you go on the tours, a stay in a provided hotel is usually included. We camped out in the desert one night (the roaches were sooo huge. They were living off of camel poo!) There are many tours, as you can imagine, so if you don't find one you like with hostelclub you can do a Google search. They were just the best value that I found.

They use their own currency there. You can bring money to convert, but I'd just recommend using an ATM machine. I forget the name of their currency. I think it's dirham. Something like 7dh to the dollar. If you convert cash you'll be losing money to the exchanger, if you use the ATM you'll just get charged a small fee of about $5.

There are ATMs everywhere so you can get cash as you go...most places won't accept credit cards. I don't know how much you'll need. Depends on how frugal you are, I guess. If you take too big a chunk out, you can always exchange it afterwards--but be sure to do that before you leave Morocco, because it's illegal to take any money out of the country. Also, don't carry all your cash in one place. Spread it out in case something gets stolen. We always just take out from the ATM as much as we can at a time because we stay so long in each place.

This is church information that is probably outdated:

Our address is 44 Rue Chemiere #2, Agdal-Riyad, Rabat.

There is a bus stop near the intersection of Avenue Ben Barka and Al Melia.

My phone numbers are (ask me if you need them).

On www.viamichelin.com, If you plug in Rue Chemiere as the street address and Agdal-Riyad as the city, it gets you very close. There is no Chemiere #2 on any map. The #2 refers to the next street over from the labeled street between Avenue Ben Barka and Rocade Rabat (as labeled on the viamichelin map).

Sacrament will begin at 11 followed be Sunday School / Primary. At 1 pm we will have our weekly pot luck lunch.

I hope you will be able to join us. Will you be coming by train, then by bus?

--Mo Hanners

CHARLES M. HANNERS, SA, DAFC

Deputy Chief, Force Protection Detachment

U. S. Embassy, Rabat, Morocco

Amour de Riad, Marrakech, Morocco - Ratings, Reviews & Bookings - Travellerspoint

www.travellerspoint.com

Indian wedding

The reason we returned to Calcutta so soon was because Arnab invited us to his wedding.

Arnab is a friend of ours that we met last time we were here. He gave me a gift of earrings (the same ones he gave his girlfriend, he told me) as well gave Jacob and I as a statue of the Hindu elephant god Ganesh for a wedding gift. He would hand me the phone sometimes to talk to his girlfriend, who lived in Mumbai.

Naturally we assumed Arnab was marrying the same girl.

So imagine our astonishment when we came to Calcutta to find out it was a different one!

Because his original girlfriend’s family forbade their union since she was a Brahmin and he only of the warrior caste, it turns out we were to attend an arranged marriage, not a love one.

Somewhat of a sad story, no?

It was an honor to attend, but we didn’t expect the amount of attention that we received. We were invited to all close family functions and were next to Arnab during some of the most important rituals. As always, we are overwhelmed at the hospitality of people from Calcutta.

The rituals included things like lifting the bride and carrying her around in a circle 3 times, having the groom try to spear something with the point of his hat, and incense and burning. While we didn’t know what was going on, neither, we were assured, did the bride and groom.

Sounds like my own wedding, actually.

The ceremony took place at 3 am. We were all so exhausted, but that was the auspicious time for that particular date.

I had no idea astrology was still so important in India until this trip.

The last wedding we attended in India was much more raw. This wedding, the people were more well-to-do, and rituals were performed because it was tradition. Last time, it felt they married that way because they knew no other way.

So I learned it was a huge faux pas to not wear a necklace with your sari. I made sure to wear one at the reception.

.

The tradition after the wedding is over is for the bride’s friends to bargain aggressively with the groom for him to give them a sum of money for their troubles in helping the bride to prepare for the wedding. Jacob got closer to observe the foray.

I haven’t mastered eating with my fingers yet…nor do I really have any desire to.

They have similar feeding each other rituals to ours

 

We were also invited to the groom’s family luncheon, the bride’s family luncheon, and gift opening. So honored

The gifts Indians give each other are so cute. Like saris folded into cannons, and a ship with the list of who gets what inside

This little boy made up a rap about us, that began, “Jacob and Kalli ran in a rally…” hilarious kid.

These girls asked for workout advice. It’s really amazing to me the lack of physical education awareness for women. Like women just don’t have much opportunity to be active.

And of course, trays and trays of sweets as gifts from the bride’s family to the groom’s.

It was a great experience and we were glad to get to be a part of it.

One of my regrets is that I didn’t attend more of my own friend’s weddings from back home, and that I didn’t make more of an effort to include my loved ones in my own wedding. So I’m going to try to attend as many weddings as I can from now on.

What makes a nation happy?

A nation’s level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels (correlation of .62), followed by wealth (.52), and then provision of education (.51). The three predictor variables of health, wealth and education were also very closely associated with each other, illustrating the interdependence of these factors…people in countries with good healthcare, a higher GDP per capita, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy…

Article from Sciencedaily

Something to think about when choosing a charity to give money to, as well as voting on laws in our own country.

And then…

…and then after my hope to see poverty as not so bad there comes a girl, her voice hoarser and deeper than any girl her age should have, dressed in rags, her hair gnarled, a cut across her forehead. She comes and tugs at my arm and makes motions that she is hungry and looks at my purse and my well-dressed self and begs for money and all the existential questions come back…threaten to overwhelm…why was I born in the circumstances that I was while she will live a life of deprivation, ignorance, and poor health?

I tell her no, accept that there is misery in the world, and walk on. She returns to the gutter where she came from, and I close my mind to life’s injustices, because if I think about her hauntingly big brown eyes too much I’ll lose faith. And I’ll hate that I’m wealthy, and that everyone I know is wealthy, and every single person I am friends with is living a life beyond this girl’s wildest dreams.

The people in India, however, as in Ghana, are so generally friendly, pleasant, and happy, that they make living on the streets seem like a genuinely not-so-bad lifestyle…until someone like this girl comes along and makes my throat feel funny and my eyes start to burn.

The Pink Cross Foundation

On a forum on Feminist Mormon Housewives, there was a man who wrote a post about how he wished that the women in the Church weren’t so quick to condemn their men about pornography. He said at a dinner party, everyone was clamoring to ask a newly appointed Bishop what his biggest surprise was. His answer was the number of men involved with pornography (he estimated 40% of the men in the ward). The outcry from the women was that it was grounds for divorce on the spot; that it was equal to adultery. This man believed their reaction only fueled the problem, and in a way I tend to agree.

I haven’t ever watched it but I know a majority of Americans do. And they see it as a harmless pleasure. 12 % of all websites are pornographic, and Utah has the highest amount of porn subscription users in the US. I don’t understand why this is, because the LDS Church has been among the most upfront to speak out against it. So it’s a strange irony that LDS men have such a problem with it…But so far, condemnation, hellfire and brimstone hasn’t seemed to cut down on it at all.

I’m not interested in condemning people who use pornography. However, I found this website and I think it would be enough to help people to lose interest in it real quickly:

http://www.shelleylubben.com/

This woman is a former porn star who started a non profit called The Pink Cross Foundation to help women leave the industry. You can read the stories of the women on the site, and all of them are heartbreaking.

Just about every one of the women were sexually molested at a young age.

Many of them had alcoholic fathers.

All of them experience brutal violence in the making of the film.

All of them abuse drugs and alcohol on the set of the movie to get through the pain and shame.

Many of them ran away from home and had no way to support themselves.

Most of them will become exposed to diseases like AIDS and STDs.

Many commit suicide.

All of them feel that prostitution is less degrading. And they return to prostitution where most of them got into the industry, only to come back to porn because they need the money.

It may be a harmless pleasure to watch for an non-addicted person— I’m not here to say. I’m no expert on the subject, though I did speak with a marriage counselor in an Israeli hostel one time who told me, in his experience, the greatest destroyer of marriage today is porn.

I just found this stat:

At the 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, a gathering of the nation’s divorce lawyers, attendees revealed that 58% of their divorces were a result of a spouse looking at excessive amounts of pornography online.

I just think people should be aware of what kind of industry they are supporting, and what a terrible place these women (and men) are in their lives to make money selling themselves.

Is it just me, or isn’t that enough for the average person to no longer derive sexual pleasure from watching pornography? And knowing this, can people really justify contributing money and time to an industry which destroys so many lives, even if they don’t feel it affects their own?

I’m “preaching to the choir”  I’m sure because  most people who read this will all agree with me, but I did think this was a new twist to the pornography dilemma that I had never considered.

"Pornography is modern day slavery for thousands of women and the millions of addicts who can't stop clicking.” ~Shelley Lubben (her before and after getting out of the industry pictures)

Return to Daya Dan

I’ve missed the boys at Daya Dan so, so much.

So it was with great anticipation that I returned to Nimtala Ghat Street.

I took an auto rickshaw to Kankurgachi, then one to Maniktola, and finally walked the length of the road to Nimtala Ghat Street because I was early and needed to pass the time.

A typical scene…

One man on the auto asked me some questions, and after every answer he said, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.” I tried not to laugh at his gratitude.  The men on the auto started arguing. Their curiosity stemmed from how I seemed to know my way around. It’s true that Calcutta has ceased to astonish me and no longer gives me culture shock. I feel at home.

I had to wait until 3 pm. When I entered, I saw Joy with a straw in his mouth, no doubt stolen from some empty bottled drink. You may remember him from this story.

To my surprise, he ran to me and gave me a hug. A really long, tight hug. And then he ran away again. And he hasn’t interacted much with me since, except to steal a package of biscuits from me, but I have to say it was an incredibly rewarding welcome back. Because Joy isn’t exactly what I’d call affectionate.

The boys haven’t changed. I just sat on the floor with them crowded around me, sitting on my lap, leaning against me, and I know I’m going to have to come back and see these boys again. Again and again and again. I want to make sure they’re well.

Bernard was there. I got to sit and talk with him. He’s in school now. His hair is longer and curlier. He didn’t say “book” or “Kalli” like I thought he would, but he makes a motion of writing to show he wants to study with me.

It’s just a few short weeks I’ll get to spend with them, but this time I will be able to confidently say to them, “I’ll come back.”

Because I know by now that I think about them too often not to.

Going back to Calcutta

To have returned to Calcutta is both strange and familiar.

It’s not the way I remember it, and I attribute it to four things.

One, the weather is so much more comfortable here in January and it affects everything: now young boys are out playing cricket; people are bustling about with less sluggishness; it no longer bothers me to see someone napping on a sidewalk when it’s so balmy out.

Two, Jacob and I have been in sub-Saharan Africa which is much lower on the scale of human development. Here in India, it is possible to live a posh lifestyle; not so in Accra.

Three, hope and optimism are in the air. People are working hard. There’s a lot going on…Calcutta is westernizing and developing at a fantastic rate. It seems less polluted, less trafficked, less crowded than I remember. Ghana is not changing at this kind of pace. India is supposed to surpass the USA in a few decades. Between China and India, Jacob and I are rooting for India. We think they’d make pretty excellent world rulers.

And finally, my views on poverty have changed.

To feel sorry for someone can mean you are putting them on a lower level than you. It’s slightly supercilious, and as these people don’t pity themselves, I don’t see what business I have pitying them. When I see people sleeping on sidewalks, I remember what Jacob told me about someone he met in Fiji: when given a choice between a bed and the floor, the man picked the floor--he preferred it.

Besides, I envy Calcuttans. Their city’s soul vibrates with mine, and maybe I will live here one day.