Cat On a Hot Omani Roof

Two days ago, we're coming down the stairs with food in our hands for Ellen's going-away party at school. There, on the landing between the second and third floors is a kitten. It's mostly white with a couple orange spots, very short hair and, like most cats around, a bit scraggly and malnourished.

So what else could we do?

It's Like He Knows Exactly How I'm Pretending To Feel

I have this friend on Facebook, a friend from high school, who updates most of the time with lyrics from painfully-emo songs. I kinda want to leave comment about "how 7 years ago" that is. Admittedly, I know nothing of their personal life, but can it real be all that much of an emotional whirlwind as to necessitate these melodramatic outbursts? And to crib the outbursts of others...it's just all so high school. (Not to mention the possibility that these lyrics are written of fictional emotions and events...all I'm saying is, no one's has so many effed up relationships as to fill several albums...and if these are based on true situations, it's become evident that you're the one with the problem, not the other in the relationship - I'm looking at your Dashboard Confessional guy; even Connor Oberst started penning some non-relationship stuff.)

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(Completely unrelated; a thought I've had a couple times while living in this apartment:)

"Damn; it touched the floor."

"Well you weren't going to put in your mouth anyways, were you?"

Beardful o' Sheesha Smoke

Matthew's mother is in town (or should I say, in the country) and treated us Moore-ites to dinner at Leisure, a restaurant/sheesha cafe in Al Ain. I got the Mexican shawerma which just wasn't as good as I remember it. And for afters I shared with Miriam and "Leisure Special" sheesha, which is who knows what kind of sheesha...Miriam thinks it's just a little bit of everything, from leftovers of other flavors. But it was the best sheesha I've had there. I could taste it, and I barely coughed. I bought a pack of cloves when we were back in America (before the ban went into affect) with the idea that I didn't get much out of sheesha, so I'd go out and smoke the cloves instead. Well, I haven't gone out for sheesha since coming back, and even if I did, I'm not sure I should smoke the cloves if I did. Cigarettes seem a little taboo here. Maybe not taboo, but just not something some one of my "status" (i.e., Westerner; i.e., someone not a Filipino or Pakistani) should be doing, especially when everyone else is sheesha'ing it up. "What, our sheesha is not good enough for you?"

The India trip is coming together. I have confirmation from one hotel (Agra). I haven't heard back from the Delhi hotel (it said to give them 48 hours). And the Goa hotel wants an advance, either by PayPal or putting money directly in their bank account, which is just weird to me. Obviously, I'll go the PayPal route, which I'll probably need Miriam's help because I haven't done PayPal in forever and a half. Oh, and I requested confirmation from Gulf Air for our flight from Dubai to Delhi, and haven't heard anything from them. I know that we've been charged for the tickets, so that's something, at least.

They're showing "LOTR: The Two Towers" dubbed in Fus'ha Arabic right now. I was thinking about how cool it would be to create a world like Tolkien did. But then, to just try and copy what he did...it's bedoon faida, without result. Why try to copy? I think that's what a lot of fantasy writers set out to do, and that's why I don't see the fantasy genre as being all that great. But is it possible to step out of Tolkien's shadow? Or the C.S. Lewis' in the realm of fantasy for younger readers? I think maybe it's easier to say "fuck that" and just write about the future instead.

A Dream I Had Last Night

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.

****

My Year in Arabic, Part I, Episode II: Let's Not Go to the Dogs Tonight

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.

My Year in Arabic, Part I, Episode I: In the Air & On the Ground (mostly the latter)

In Fes, it’s not that it’s not the coldest place I’ve ever been. It’s that it never warms up. There’s a radiator in our room, and it is somewhat effective, but it doesn’t really heat the room to the point where the towels will be dry when you use them the next morning. It’s also raining most of the time, and you know how dampness affects temperature.
It has us wondering, will we be missing this weather when it’s 100 degrees (F) in Buraimi?
Probably not. As much as I like the cold, I never took into consideration the cold in other countries. Where central heating is not available. Where blankets are one to a person. And where driers are a novelty.

Though I am calling this series of blog posts My Year in Arabic, these first 6 weeks in Morocco will be more of an exercise in remembering any French from my undergrad years. The language on the ground is a hybrid of French and Arabic – which we have dubbed “Frerabic.” It’s another mark against sending business students to Morocco for Arabic immersion – not only does the colloquial Arabic differ greatly from the Gulf Arabic spoke in areas like Dubai, but all the locals you interact with speak French.
Montaz! Très Bon! Take your pick.

The story on how we got here is 2 day journey on an unanticipated path and 12 hours of delays.
The new year provided a foggy morning for San Diego’s Lindbergh Field and led to the cancellation of Terminal 1’s first flight of the day: Frontier’s 6:20 to Denver. Our flight. After getting our check-ins as close as we could to 50 lbs. (to avoid a fee of $125), United re-routed us to Chicago O’Hare and then to Frankfurt. We had a last breakfast of Starbucks/McDonald’s with Miriam’s parents waiting for the new flight and then said goodbye to California for at least a year.
When we heard that we’d be flying to Frankfurt, we held out hopes that the flight would be administered by Lufthansa, and kept hoping until the United plane pulled up to the gate in Chicago. We were apparently bumped up to Economy Plus for our troubles in the morning, so the extra leg room was nice – especially when the plane taxied out, then taxied back in and sat at the gate for 2 and a half hours due to a faulty A/C unit.
Once across the Atlantic, we were glad to have our next flight still available, though less enthused to see it 35 minutes late.
Taking off from Frankfurt, we were pretty much resigned to the fact that we would miss our next flight (to Fes). So we got there, unloaded into a bus that took us to the terminal, and Miriam hit up the restroom. As she came out, a man with a walkie talkie calls out, “Fes?” We look at each other and then respond, “Fes!” And he motions for us and starts running down the terminal, and we follow suit. We might just make our next flight! Of course, we’re in Terminal 2, as we came from an international flight, and we’ve got to get all the way over to Terminal 1 (for domestics). So we’re running and running, and he keeps beckoning us with “Fes, Fes.” We hurry through a security checkpoint (no line) and just as we reach the gate, there’s some chatter over his walkie and then he slumps. “Sorry,” he says. “Gone.”
The walkie man leads us back the way we came (back into Terminal 2) and leads us to a counter for Royal Air Maroc. We stand there, catching our breath, as he makes arrangements for us for the next flight out, at 11 pm – it was currently 5:40. He gives us our tickets and a voucher for a free meal at Baab al Maghreb (Door of Morocco). We now have 5 and 1/2 hours to kill.
We trudged towards the passport check. One bit of good news we received was that there was no charge for a visa. Once our passports were stamped, we headed down some escalators to the baggage claim area. This was a real sight. It seemed to be all locals, returning from who knows where, all with carts and carts of not just baggage, but large sacks of what seemed to be food stuffs – grain, spices, etc. And around the corner, at the exit, whole families were waiting to receive their returning relatives with tears of joy and open arms. You may think I’m painting the scene more dramatic then it was, but, there were police there to make sure people didn’t storm through into the baggage area to embrace the exiting travelers. It was like nothing you’d ever see in the States. Even before 9/11, I don’t think you could get Americans to give you a return reception like that. And as we finally pressed through the crowd, I said to Miriam, “Damn, we need to get some Moroccan friends.”
We found the restaurant and I got my first Coke Light since our Turkey trip. (The voucher we received from Royal Air Maroc was good for a special off-menu chicken, rice and veggies plate.) We hung around the restaurant for a while and then meandered into Terminal 1, through a small security check (Miriam set off the metal detector, but the guard just pointed to her watch and waved her off), and then sat down as the first ones at our gate. We each did a little bit of wandering and had plenty of time for a game of Scrabble. Once again, we were put on a bus to meet the plane out somewhere on the tarmac. The plane was mercifully empty (at least in the back) and Miriam and I were able to put a seat between us (we could have even had our own rows). We ended up leaving late (yes, once again), as the plane waited for a couple more people. But the flight was incredibly short – I’m guessing it was no longer than 45 minutes, like a San Diego/LA flight.
As we exited the plane, twice someone looked at us and said to us inquisitively, “Fes,” like maybe we didn’t realize where we were getting off. But we smiled and nodded, “Oui, Fes.” Our passports were checked again as we entered the small and empty terminal. We waited by the baggage claim, hoping that our delay actually put us in step with our luggage (if we couldn’t make it from Casa flight, no way our luggage could…if it was even on that plane from Frankfurt). There was a bunch of luggage sitting in a corner, and as we perused over it to see if ours was possibly there, we noticed 2 cats just lying on a bag. But I don’t think they went along with the bag – they were just two local strays that found a soft, warm place to sleep. They gave us dirty looks as we passed by (as if to say, “Don’t dare bother us.”). After a couple minutes, the baggage started coming out and there was our silver babies! I heaved them from the carousel and after a cursory check of our larger case, we where ushered to a taxi (an old Mercedes) and driven through the night (we landed around midnight) to the Hotel Olympic.