I wasn't really happy with the way my WordPress blog was formatting, so I'm going re-direct the link on my website to this blog.
It's not like I had written anything on the WordPress blog. Just one post I deleted due to my aforementioned dismay with formatting. Hopefully, I'll finds this run smoother here.
I had this dream last night that I amazingly remember quite clearly. Maybe it's due to not waking up to an alarm this morning (afternoon?). Here you go:
I was a black man, in his late 30s or early 40s. I had two sons, one a teenager, the other maybe between 8 and 10. Society had broken down, due to what, I didn’t know. It wasn’t all dreary like “The Road” or “Omega Man”. My sons and I were travelers, and the land was nice and green. It was actually more lush than normal, if where we were wandering was America, which I assumed it we were.
One morning we woke up and my youngest son is missng. Somehow we knew that he’s been abducted by what I best can describe as a cult community. They had taken over a small hillside village, which is more European than anything, but I’m still fairly sure this takes place in America.
My teenage son and I, we infiltrated the community. I don’t know how we were allowed in so easily. I think we just found the same clothing that they all wear and stroll right in, undetected, unassuming.
It’s maybe a day or two later when my eldest son and I were searching and we came to a large, spiral staircase that runs around the inside of a large, bluish-gray cylindrical building. There was a guard at the base of the stairs, but he was very old. He seemed to understand what we were looking for, and that maybe we didn’t really belong there, but he was tired and sympathetic to our plight, so he let us up the stairs. At the top, and through a door, we found a very large, and very green, field. There are several gatherings of people, doing various things, mostly recreational.
I saw my son in a group of children. They were on a small, wooden set of bleachers. They were standing and singing something. I didn’t notice an adult leading them, but you’d think there’d be one.
We stood for a while listening to the children. They were good, the song was good, and in a way I was proud of my son. But then a girl in the back pulled out a long broadsword. It was amazing that she could hold up the thing. More pressing, though, was that the sword was meant for my young son. The other children parted, leaving the girl room to bring down her blade down on my boy. He fell forward, onto the grass, and as the girl began to bring the sword over her head, like a sledgehammer, something clicked in me and with an amazing burst of speed I shot forward and grabbed my son before the sword could fall upon him.
It was time to get out of there.
So we ran. I had my younger son in my arms, with my teenage son running just ahead of me. But the guards were upon us quickly, and they had submachine guns. They were gaining on us, so I put down my young son and put his hand in the teenager’s hand and told the teenager, “Don’t let go.”
And to both of them: “Run. Now. Just run.”
And then I turned back towards the guards and at this point my perspective changed. I was no longer the father, but rather the teenage son, and I saw my father run towards the guards, at full charge, without a sound. I could see the bullets coming out of the guns. They were like little white lines flying all over the place. Somehow my dad was not hit, or maybe he did get hit but was on some sort of adrenaline high and didn’t feel the bullets piercing him. He set upon the guard who didn’t have a gun. I was running now, with my brother, and I looked back, and my father bit the guard’s neck like a vampire, but not to suck, just a long bite, and as my father pulled away the guard’s neck began to swell, like a croaking toad’s, and these dark spots started developing on the guard’s bloated neck, and the skin turned orange, and then it burst, and the guard’s body fell to the ground.
It was clear now: there was a virus that had beset the country and killed millions and millions of people. And what was left were wanderers like my father, brother and I, and odd communities like the one that we were running from. Somehow, my father was carrier. He could inflict it, but it had no affect on him.
If it also protected him from bullets wasn’t clear.
My brother and I ran on, down the hill and towards a grassy path that wound along a cliff. I looked back one more time, as my father set upon the next guard.
****
It doesn’t help a country when all you’ve known for five weeks is bitter weather and sickness. I had barely seen Fes in the daylight and then I spent the next two days holed up in our basement room, sick with a stomach ailment not quite flu-ish, but too painful and long-lasting to be called an “ache” or simply be chocked up to gas. I did get better, of course, for a week at least, and then a flu/cold bug started making the rounds, working its way through Miriam to me. I missed at least one full day of classes and two eight a.m. classes. I’ve had problems before with traveling and then catching bronchitis and getting an ear infection. I’m not sure I had a full-blown ear infection, but I’m pretty sure I had bronchitis for a while – the phlegm was neon green and substantial enough to convince me of that.
I turned to the Internet to provide home remedies for the earache. I heated (re: nuked) a half cup of salt and put in a sock, then laid down with my ear upon the sock. It half-worked, at least. The pain was gone, but it still felt all plugged-up with fluid. I suppose the salt is supposed to help evaporate that liquid – so maybe just enough was evaporated to help alleviate the pain.
No sooner do I get better than Miriam starts showing the same symptoms. We basically lost two weekends to our combined illnesses. We put off any trips this weekend (our last before preparing to leave) due to rainy weather.
If there’s anything good to take away from this, I guess it’s that I hope that we’ll be stronger against the elements and local bacterium next time we come to Morocco. It seems like a better deal to be sick when in residence in a country, rather than when vacationing in it. Though, it would have been nice to be sick for less time than we were. Also, the whole raining half the time is a giant bummer.
Fes is split up into three parts. There is Fes al Bali (also known as the “medina,” which is just the Arabic word for “city), which is the oldest and most compact part of the city. Then there is Fes al-Jdid, which means “New Fes”, but really only new in comparison to the medina – so still pre-colonial. The third area is known as the Ville Nouvelle, as this is the expansion of the city started during the French occupation.
Our villa, literally right around the corner from the school, is on the northwest edge of the Ville Nouvelle. I have to believe that this somewhat outskirtish location may have tainted our Fes experience. For one, it’s unhealthily close to the McDonald’s. Another annoyance is that, being at the edge of town, we are bounded on one side by a bypass road and a railroad track. We also seem to be in the corner of town where animals are allowed to get away with anything at any time of the day. There’s a rooster that will crow at any given hour of the day, and night (3 a.m is obviously the optimal time to crow). Then there’s the dogs. Before we moved to the second story room, I was convinced that the nightly dog barking was from a wild pack that descended upon the green space behind the villa every night. I had an image in my mind of a tight pack of dogs, moving as one, barking all the way. As it turns out, it’s just a quartet of yappy lap-dogs in the neighboring yard, who happen to get all riled up every evening at the same time. Somewhat disappointed, and learning that definitely made it sound more like yapping than barking, and thus increased its annoyingness.
I’ve been to the medina (Fes al Bali) a couple times, though only once, the first time, did I explore it at any length – the other two times were to go to a ex-pat-owned café which is sort of set up as a comfortable place for foreigners (much cozier and larger than the local cafés). That initial visit was thankfully proceeded by a couple of clear days, because when it rains, or it was rainy the day before, it is not the time to be in the medina. Remember, we’re talking about a desert town, and the medina is the largest urban area devoid of cars – that means the only mode of transport within is by foot or by mule. So, under wet weather conditions, the cobblestone streets are caked in a layer of mud and Lord knows what (well, donkey shit at the least). It makes taking in the ancient city ambience much less enjoyable. Miriam has yet to go, and I hope that we can maybe get a reprieve from the rain and visit a dry medina at the end of the week.
The muddy streets are not confined to the medina, unfortunately. I think that it may just be something we Americans, especially urban- and suburbanites are now used to. But I have the feeling that it’s pretty standard through out the world. Keeping your streets mud-free is not really top priority throughout the world. In the third- and second-world, there’s much more pressing issues.
I do enjoy the abundance of stay cats. They vary from the incredibly straggly to the amazing sleek and clean. Even the villa has a house cat who I think started as a stray kitten. She’s really sweet, and does this thing where she’ll jump up to meet your petting hand, and if you give her a bit of meat, she takes it and shakes it a bit, as if she has just caught it herself and is finishing off the kill. It makes not being around own out cats a little more bearable.
The cuisine of Morocco (at least in Fes) seemed to be centered one dish: the tajine. It seems anything can be put in there: chicken, lamb, beef, veggies, what have you. Friday is couscous day (yes, it’s not really a regular thing, and you can’t even get it in restaurants any other day besides Friday). There are other, smaller dishes, that are usually pre-prepared (think of them as Moroccan fast food). There’s bisara, a mix of beans, olive oil and cumin; hummus, which here is a bowl of whole chick peas, in a bit of a spicy soup; and addis, which is lentils in a reddish soup. You can also get these sandwiches that are baguettes with your choice of fried potatoes, fried eggs and/or meat, either with or without green olives and “har” (hot sauce). The most available foreign food is faux-Italian, with pizzas and paninis available at most restaurants, and hamburgers are also abound. The are other pockets of foreign food around – a sushi restaurant (been twice), a Vietnamese place and a Turkish place. As mentioned before, there’s the McDonald’s which is just down the street from our villa – but, to me, it just doesn’t seem as good as back in the states, which is contradictory to all I’d heard about McDonald’s abroad. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice McDonald’s – two story, very clean, with employees who, even with the language barrier, are way friendlier than the sad sacks back in the States. Maybe it’s because my recent McDonald’s experience has been centered around the Southwest Salad, rather than the sandwiches. Anyway, I’m looking forward to being near Dubai and it’s FIVE Johnny Rocket’s.
Morocco has one week left to make things better. Can it come through with some sunny days? Will I ever get a chance to wash my sole jacket? I’m sure anyone sitting around me hopes so.
