Reality Check

A lot has been happening the past two weeks here in Lyon; the weather has turned from cold to sun to spring showers, the trees have begun to show their blooms and the grass is now a radiant lime green, and my life is finally jumping out of the winter slumber as well. Where oh where to start?  =)

I guess with this amazing quote: "Any change worth fighting for will be hard to achieve; indeed if the struggle in which you are engaged is not difficult, you may confident that it is not worthwhile, for you can be assured by that measure that those from whom you need to wrest power are not threatened by your efforts. We will know that our approach is working only when it is violently opposed."- George Monbiot

In honor of all those in the Middle East who are fighting for change; stick up for yourselves, you can do it.

Last week consisted of all sorts of frustration on the work front. The kids were absolutely horrendous with their manners let alone lack of interest in anything I said (or their teachers for that matter). We all vented to one another every recess about the little rascals. I forget who said it, but it hit me so hard that I wrote it down: "C'est fini pour eux. On ne peut pas faire plus pour eux; ils s'en foudrent." (Translation: It's over for them. We can't do anything else for them; they don't give a f***.) That's exactly how I was starting to feel by the end of the week after putting hours of my time into lesson plans. Why am I even here? Luckily this week is a lot better but boy oh boy, I never realized how frustrated elementary school teachers must be. Props to all of you out there who do this for a living; here I was thinking high school would be the hardest. Surely not all schools have this much trouble, but I suppose I never thought that an eight year old would have the attitude of a seventeen year old. All I kept thinking last week was, are they going to just turn into the majority of their parents who take advantage of the nice benefits the French have for the unemployed? Are they going to drop out of lycée (high school) or even worse, college (middle school)? Are they just going to sit around and let their lives waste away? I want to help them all succeed, but goodness its hard to keep that mentality sometimes. And then, last Thursday night I opened this bundle of papers one of the 2nd grade girls gave to me during class and read this:

"Dear Kati, I would like to thank you for all of the classes you've given us up until today.-Juliana"

She's an amazing artist, non?

Furthermore, I found out that it's not just the kids, it's also the local education department that doesn't seem to care. As I've told some of you before, we've had a lot of problems with substitute teachers. If a teacher is not there, we more than likely won't have someone available to come take over the class and then 28 students or so are dispersed into other already rowdy classes. Moving on, last week one of the 5th grade teachers, Olivier, got a letter in regards to his training. It said something along the lines of this: "We regret to inform that your training has been canceled because of the number of pregnant women in your school." Please, feel free to re-read that; it's no joke.

Here are my concerns:

• For one, they're acting very sexist for a country whose government won't allow Muslim women the right to wear the full veil, covering all but the eyes ( a law set into action hoping to promote Women's Rights).
• Second, why should his training be canceled when there were three teachers (one of whom is pregnant) last week at a 2 week long training? His meeting is supposed to be later this year; how does that make sense?
• Thirdly, why does he lose the chance when it's their problem (the department of education) to A) hire enough substitutes, long term or short term B) make sure all teachers get their required training so that the kids get the sufficient amount of education needed to be a good citizen C) THEY SHOULD CARE ABOUT THEIR DAMN SCHOOLS AND HOW THEY WORK. We have more than one classroom where the floor tiles are coming up and the past two days there hasn't been any heat.

Right. Continuing on, I'm reading like my old undergraduate English major self.  The two books I highly recommend for those who are interested are Dambisa Moyo's Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another Way For Africa and George Monbiot's The Age of Consent: A Manifesto For A New World Order. Both have been eye opening experiences and make me sick to my stomach that I'm a part of the process, as you will find out most of us are. I always found it interesting how my favorite writers were ex-patriots, but I never thought I'd look down that path until reading these books (not saying that I favor any other country more at the moment, but I'm also disgusted at a lot of things we do).

In other news and events, I went to Annecy last Wednesday for my day off. It was absolutely spectacular with the sun and warm breeze. I wish I could have stayed there a lot longer ( and ate another amazing ice cream cone). Let's just say summer is going to do me in with the ice cream here in France. 

So pretty :)

Amazing old house that I would buy if I could

Les toilettes au château

Wait, should I go up or down? Ah, France get your sign committee together!

Looking out from the castle towers

Or I could buy this house....

Or even better...this boat on this Caribbean blue lake!

Purple and gold representing in France ;P

Until the next adventure :) Hugs!

Hungry?

Hola Amigos,
 
Life is swell despite my lack of sleep this week (we went out salsa dancing with our Colombian friends until the 7 am metro again- Woops!). I feel like I'm back in Morocco; the sun is shining and warm, the breeze is lovely, and I've got my feet propped up on our (not so luxurious but still convenient) balcony. Hip hip hooray for 70 degree weather in March (although the old lady with the purple hair at the bus stop told me I should cover up or I'll get sick like her daughter. I'm thinking maybe her daughter got sick because of how her mother's lips match her dye job).

Back tracking as always, lets show you some lovely food I've been cooking up lately. On Mardi Gras, I made homemade Jambalaya with fresh sausage. My one roommate thought I was trying to kill her with the spices; then again, she thought my chili was spicy and it definitely wasn't the most thrilling I've tasted.

When I returned from the fatty foods in Strasbourg, I decided to make stir-fry. It's been a while, there's fresh ginger at our market here, and it's relatively easy. Yummy yummy in my tummy.

Finally, last week I attempted couscous. Morocco really has a hold on me to say the least.

More to come in the future; bon appetit :)

Proud to Be A Mélange

As most of us all know, it's that wonderful day of excessive drinking, mounds of mashed potatoes, and cooked cabbage: Saint Patrick's Day. Back home in the US, it's huge, especially around the Philly area, where a ton of Irish descendants live to this day. I'm not sure if I can recreate the atmosphere here in France. It seems almost nonexistent, well asides from us English teaching assistants hyping it up. Let's face it, we all pretend to be Irish whether we are or aren't. But what this holiday really means for me is family history. Where did your family come from? Do you know?

I still have the impression that other countries find our sense of family pride presumptuous. Yes, America was born from a collection of other countries, other histories, other languages. Yes, we are one of the younger countries in the world. Yes, we hang flags on our front porches, we have neighborhoods that are primarily Italian, Irish, Mexican, etc, and of course, we have Saint Patty's Day parades.  But that doesn't mean we think we're better than anyone else. We are proud; but don't hate. We are proud of where we come from and that place might just be your homeland.

So you ask, what will I miss today being in France? My brother playing the bagpipe while my sister and I try to dance, my step-mom's mashed potatoes, making Irish potato candies in school, and being able to say, Yeah my family is Irish. One side comes from Cork, the other side comes from Limerick, without getting the stink eye from the people around me in a bar. And of course, the overwhelming amount of green seen on any street. If any French stereotype is true, it's that they (or at least the Lyonnais) lack in the color department.


Moving backwards in time, this past weekend I traveled to the Alsace region in France. Some of my German and French ancestors come from this area and since the Christmas Markets are over, it seemed to be the perfect time to go. On Friday, I went to Colmar to check out the sights.  Here we saw a ton of the typical Alsatian houses, a restaurant decorated with all sorts of silly looking heads, and the Auguste Bartholdi museum (the famous Frenchman who, you know, gave us our beloved Statue of Liberty in 1886.)

Pretty houses

Amelie's Dad's traveling gnome! Or so I'll tell myself :)

At the Head Restaurant & Inn

St. Martin's Church- A fine example of an unkempt Gothic Church

This would definitely creep me out at night if I looked out my window to see him staring at me!

Saturday morning we opted for Obernai, an even smaller village in the area. The two castles in the area were nixed because we needed a car to get there. After a nice afternoon in the middle of nowhere, we headed back to Strasbourg to see the chocolate museum, Marquise de Sévigné.

Obernai's old fortifications

So old it makes my imagination run wild! 15th century

I want these shutters!

Oh La France: A Merry Go-Round in every town.

I had another first this weekend: Couchsurfing. My travel partner, Amber, told me about it a while back. We stayed at Miryam and Rick's place (a French and an Australian). We stayed up until 1 AM talking with them and their friend Jasper (from New Zealand) about languages (duh), life, jobs, traveling, and food. What was so spectacular about it all was how we were all strangers, but SNAP, just like that, we ate together and shared personal stories like we had known each other forever. The next morning we checked out the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg. Another amazing handmade example of architecture conquering time. We walked in during mass (whoops) and were surprised that the priest alternated between German and French. From there we discovered La Petite France, a few other churches, and a brewery (Au Brasseur) to catch lunch before our 5 hour train ride back to Lyon. The tarte flambée (the regional food) was delicious and the beer was especially hoppy.

La Petite France= It's almost just like Glenside :)

Mozart played this on October 26th, 1778.

Looking out on our way up to the Cathedral's spiraling bell tower.

Looking down. The roofs are so slanted!

Beauty

I couldn't fit it all into the picture that's how high up it goes!

Overall, it was a relaxing weekend getaway that really got me thinking about my family. I missed my hometown a lot seeing similarities in the architecture as well as seeing people that looked a lot more German than French ( who could possibly be cousins of cousins or something like that; it is a small world!). I thought to myself: What was my family like? How did my German great grandfather meet my Irish great grandmother? Were their families disgraced or were they okay with mixing nationalities? Furthermore, what was it like to live on land that was continuously fought over by two different countries? Do you ever think about your family roots like this? Or am I the only one who still cares about this sort of history?

Oh how my literature professors taught me well by ending a discussion with food for thought. Eat up!
And don't forget to wash it down with some Jameson and a kiss :)

Shakran Maroc

I have no idea where to start or go with this post. There's so much to say about my experience in Morocco; I filled up over 30 pages alone in my travel journal. So, let's begin by showing you my home away from home, the one and only Riad DOUZI! Here we quickly made friends with 7 French guys, 6 Dutch students, a Japanese girl, a German girl, and of course our 2 amazing hosts: Majid and Houria. Michele and I spent every night up on the terrace until the early AM discussing politics, women's rights, religion, languages, and music with all of these wonderful people. I'm glad that my first official hostel was such a success; I really did not want to leave on Monday and Majid said the same back to us.

Entrance

Our room

Two floors of tiles like this! Even in a hostel!

Long live Morocco!

So what did we do over there with Aladdin? We ate a ton of tajine, couscous, brochettes (our version of kebabs), orange juice, and my favorite...drum-roll please, Fresh Mint Tea! The most amazing thing about the food in Morocco is how cheap it is; less than 7 euros for a three course meal, all prepared daily with fresh ingredients. In fact,  I saw a man carrying live chickens down the street, that's how fresh it gets!

Honey and butter for our pita bread breakfast. YUM

Berber chicken tajine. This was the best tajine all week :)

Our OJ guy

Moroccan cookies, oranges with cinnamon, and fresh mint tea=HEAVEN

We also bargained a lot for anything and everything we wanted. For example, Michele's lantern started at 100 dirhams:
I'll give you 60. 
No, no. That's mean. And then as soon as you start to walk away....Okay, how much can you pay? 
I told you 60 dirhams. 
But this is good quality. Very good quality for such a good price. 90 dirhams, how about 90 dirhams?
No. Oh well, I'll just go to another vendor.
WAIT, 80 dirhams, 80 dirhams, a good price! 
I said 60, sorry. 
75?
70.
Okay, okay. Are you a Berber?
At heart, yes.

And you've got yourself a deal. The only problem is doing this hour after hour and not getting exhausted from A) standing firm with your decision to only pay X amount B) trying to understand French with a Maghreb accent C) Not staring too much at the vendor if he's cute or else he'll demand a kiss on the cheek (don't worry I didn't fall for it; I told him he already got a free smile).

Looking down a souk

Beautiful spices

One of Hassan's fun facts: the spice cones are not Moroccan. They're used to trick tourists; they actually come from China!

The other fun thing about the souks (markets) is being the eye candy. Constant cat calls of "Ca va les gazelles? Fromage blanc, ça va? Oh la la vous êtes belles" is quite annoying at first but as the week goes on your instant impulse to flip the Flipadelphia finger turns into a game and you smile back and say "Oui ça va, et toi?"


What else? We took a day trip to the Atlas Mountains on Wednesday and then we drove 9 hours through them on Thursday to get to the Western Sahara Desert. Our taxi driver on Wednesday was amazing. The most incredible thing about Hassan is that he has a Master's in History yet wants to be a taxi driver. He explained to us that a History degree in Morocco is not specialized, you have to study the history of every empire, every country, every great leader. Furthermore, he'd rather be a taxi driver than anything else because of the people he meets and the discussions he has with them. As power hungry Americans, our first thought was, "Why would you want to be a taxi driver if you have a Masters? Can't you do better?" He explained to me that his Dad wanted all of his children to be in the Police Force like him, but he refused because he didn't like how crooked you have to be to stay in that position or even think of being promoted. Immediately, it all clicked together and made me feel better about the philosophy to do what you enjoy rather than what someone tells you to be because it pays well. We can all dream in Morocco, right?

Amazing colors

An Arabic prayer written on the mountains

ROCKS!

The Atlas Mountains are breathtaking, again pictures can't do justice. The colors of the rock change depending on the area and history. Some areas really reminded me of the Shenandoah Mountains (shout out to JMU). I thought back to my Geology class and how the continents shifted and all that jazz and thought hmm, maybe it was altogether one point in time. Just checking Wikipedia now... and what do you know? I mean Wikipedia is always right, right?

Dried-out river- reminded me of the Grand Canyon

My favorite picture

When we stopped every so often for bathroom and coffee breaks, every building, even the huts on the side of a cliff, had the Coca-Cola logo painted on the walls. They are truly obsessed here. We also stopped at a few Berber houses, an Argan Oil co-operative, and pottery huts. The Berber houses were very, very simple- made of straw, clay, and stones. What blows your mind is that they work to live, not to make money so to speak. They have handmade irrigation systems, goats wandering up and down the hillsides, rickety bridges across the river, and donkeys to ride up the windy paths. They all just live life day by day, hour by hour. Michele and I noticed that a lot of people were just chillin', relaxin', and soakin' up the sun. So our game in the car was to point out new "chill" places: on top of a cliff, on a guardrail, on a pole, on a donkey, on a bike, on a pile of straw. I already miss looking out for that; not that France is as busy and time obsessed as the States, but Morocco really allows you to think and dream on your own time.

The Argan Oil co-op was very interesting in the same sort of sense: everything is handmade. The women pick the nuts, crack the nuts, grind the nuts, add scents, bottle it up and then give tours to tourists like us explaining all of the beneficial results of lathering your hair and skin with oil (it must work, all the older ladies were lacking in the wrinkle department). They even sold a Moroccan version of Nutella-made of the argan nuts, but even crunchier- let's say half peanut butter, half Nutella- a spoonful of heavenly goodness.

Now onto the camels. It was a bumpy, smelly ride. They are so cute in their "Merrr I'm a camel" way but boy do they fart! And poo and pee! Every minute a different camel was doing his thang. Smelly! Like leftover brussel sprouts and cabbage! And their hump does hurt. Maybe the first 10 minutes weren't so bad but after an hour, my butt was killing! I did like my camel though; his name was Achmed (yes I named him that). He was smaller with black wool and wouldn't walk in a straight line; we got along perfectly.

Once we got to our Berber tents, we were greeted with Berber Whiskey (a stronger version of the mint tea, without alcohol though-most Muslims don't drink). We tried to talk to one of the guys but since he wasn't very good in French or English we all used a lot of arm movements. All of what he did know, he told us he learned from other tourists. Furthermore, he couldn't write it down or read it, just speak the language (a common theme with a lot of the guides here). The best part of the night was asking him about dating. Really, how do you date if you're a nomad in the Sahara Desert? Do you get to kiss a girl before your camel gallops in the other direction or the sandstorm starts up? He told us that if you really like a girl, you go to the closest city with paper, you write down your names, and you get a stamp. And then babies come. Right......

Later after dinner, we listened to them play the drums and sing in Berber. Pretty sick. Even better? Getting free drum lessons. Even better? Being able to see EVERY single star there is in the sky AND the whole Milky Way because you are that secluded from the rest of the world. You want even better than that? How about being woken up by Michele and being told that she's hearing a sound and she thinks something is in the tent and she's going to get sick if it doesn't go away because she's hopped up on adrenaline. As some of you know I can be a complete and utter bitch if woken up from my precious sleep. Between that and not wanting to think about having a snake, scorpion, or lizard sitting on my feet, I told her to go back to bed, she's hearing things. And then I heard it. A mixture between a frog's croak and Lord knows what else. I covered my ears and counted. After a while, she couldn't take it anymore and woke up the whole tent. The two Brazilians with us heard it too.  The only guy in the tent, Marcel, turned into the knight in shining armor, and flashed his cell phone around the tent. He claimed it was outside and we felt a bit better after someone looked around (we were way too scared to even dare to move). And then it started again. It sounded like it was coming from the same spot every time. Marcel got up again, touching the sides of the tents, thinking that was the noise, when Aya (the Japanese girl) woke up and asked what was going.
You know, my friends say I grind my teeth sometimes.
Aya, it's not your teeth, there's a f***in' animal in this tent!
It sounds like this...
Holy Shit. That's your teeth? You need to see a dentist ASAP.

Oh life in the Sahara.

Our infamous tent

Once back in Marrakech, and still hurting from the violent camel whiplash, we decided to try out the traditional hammam. It was so relaxing and my skin was so soft after the 1 1/2 hour ordeal. We were lathered up with so much oil but my skin and hair must be really dried out here in France from the wind, crappy water, crappy French hair products, that it soaked it all up by the end of the night. And smelled damn good.



On our last day we visited the museums, tanners (leather makers), and city gardens. Oh and of course some more bargaining in the souks! We met another Berber guy, who not only made us free necklaces, but polished my Magi box before I bought it. In Morocco, that sort of customer service is rare!

Sick Cactus I shall name Carl.

Random things: There's actually still a pretty decent Jewish population in Morocco (it was the main religion before Islam swept up over the land).

The call to prayer happens 5 times every day. The best is at 5 AM when you're in the middle of your REM cycle and your dream switches settings and you think you're on top of the Jamaa Al Koutoubia mosque with him, but you're not. Bitter disappointment when I woke up.

When country officials come to Morocco, they are offered dates and milk to show respect for the purity of the relations (not sure why dates are purer than figs but that's what I was told folks). Berber language has some pretty cool characters and I want to learn it just so I can write like this (Berber is in blue, Arabic in orange).

All in all, it was probably the best vacation I've ever had and to make matters even better, the cheapest as well. I have a ton of other stories and pictures, so feel free to email me if you want to learn more! Otherwise, I'm off to beddy byes, Strasbourg calls my name for the weekend :)