pageant

last night, reading Mrs. Dalloway by the streetlights (for the Book Club I am chaperoning with the 11th & 12th graders), I rode in a taxi out to quartier Californie, the upscale neighborhood that houses my school. my co-passengers were a woman covered by a headscarf, a chatty man and his adorable toddler who played with the fringe on my pashmina (alas, our only other exchange was "salaam"), and our bespectacled driver who wore a khaki Gilligan hat and was uncharacteristically even-keeled. the easiest way to travel around Casa is via the dusty red petit taxis, who are quite cheap and ubiquitous, albeit borderline reckless at times (a 20-minute ride from the centre ville out to Californie was 20dirhams or $2.25). their plucky and speedy manoeuvering of the city's supersatured streets is exactly their art and their pride, danger and all.

safely deposited at school, I watched a severely abridged production of The Taming of the Shrew, starring most of the truly international students at our school and the handful of Moroccan kids who were willful enough to perform Shakespeare's words with their third language skills. it became almost alien to hear the comedy's playful banter in the voice of our one British ninth-grader. because they were too busy/lazy to really learn their lines, their director reduced the play to its basic plot. surrounded by wealthy and entitled Moroccan families, I wasn't sure quite how to feel about Kate's too-simplified championing of submissive wifedom at the play's end. but the audience had been amused, had clapped and congratulated our actors on their sport, and went home with our evening playfully passed.

the sweetness of evening

'the cries of the newspaper vendors in the already languid air, the last few birds in the square, the shouts of the sandwich sellers, the screech of the streetcars turning sharply through the upper town, and that hum in the sky before night engulfs the port'
-camus's algiers

light adventuring

yesterday felt like summer, like Saturday. i spent the majority of the day in the neighboring city of Mohamedia, keeping company with three other lady-teachers and their children (all students at my school as well) as we explored the medina and the coastline. this city is like the retirement home version of Casablanca: very manicured, calm, free from the clutter, litter and randomness of its big bully older brother. the usual dissonances are just as visible, the mange of stray animals and the eerie desperation of beggars and misfits, the bright shiny schoolhouses and universities intermingled with shanty swellings, squalor and exotic plantlife for sale. but more than less the streets feel like this image above, palm shadows quietly gracing a mosque in the afternoon. i walked throughout the medina with a very loud and obviously north american entourage and found myself some penny candy - fava beans, clementines, walnuts. we walked barefoot along the coastline toward the home of one CAS family, tracing an island with a few poles and cloths as makeshift dwellings, for fisherman perhaps. we stopped to watch the gynmastics of a group of young men, and then again with alarm to protest a group of small boys swimming in briefs who were maniacally dragging a dog around in the water by his front paws. they reflected that indeed they would not appreciate being handled this way themselves, and promptly abandoned their sport (or at least while we were in view). back at the Skadsen's home, i had promised a vegetarian feast - there is almost no support or community for me here, so i insisted that we few vegheads at school reaffirm over a table together. i confected a meal for eight people, which was deemed a success and a delight by all (including two very fussy junkfood-itarian nine-year-olds) despite the three hours prep delayed by blown fuses and ruined food processor. children and homemaking are totally exhausting! but of course it was sweet and satisfying. and because being in Mohamedia was so easy, i was able to be pretty camera-happy. here's the update for your perusal.

today is a big day in the city. soccer is the most impassioned national sport in Morocco, and apparently Casablanca's two rival soccer teams, Widad and Raja, have been barred from competition for years because of the intensity of their animosity and violence toward each other. today they are renewing their play, and the effect on the city of 6+ million people is so significant that the Warden from the U.S. Consulate sent out a warning email. stay indoors!...

Soccer season is well under way in Morocco, and with it, many local fans
wishing to attend the games.
The U.S. Consulate General has learned that a soccer match is scheduled
between rival Casablanca clubs Widad and Raja this coming Sunday,
November 16th. The game is scheduled to begin around 14:30 and will be
played at the Mohamed V Stadium in the Maarif area. Officials expect as
many as 80,000 fans from both teams to attend. A large traffic jam of
fans and supporters is expected to head toward the stadium beginning
Sunday morning, and away from the stadium late Sunday evening. Because
of the large number of fans expected to be in the area, and their
potential for rowdy and exuberant behavior, especially after the game,
U. S. citizens are cautioned to avoid the Maarif area on Sunday,
November 16th.

lucky for me, the Maarif is where i reside, and so i woke to the revelry of chanting drums and tubas this morning. curious, i went to visit a newly-discovered coffeeshop (that sells real coffee, ground me some Ethiopian beans earlier today) located in the direction of the stadium. i walked parallel to flocks of young men singing and shouting with a militant energy, all funneling into one major road with their eyes ahead on their stage. fortunately i went ignored, and there were uniformed men everywhere as well. we'll see what the post-game emotions of this evening turn out. meanwhile i am tackling a to-do list, and most importantly planning a lesson on the sonnet tomorrow to be observed by the director of CAS. it's international school job fair application time and i need a good recommendation. much to do, lots of important content to present to bored adolescents! lately i've been guiltily absent from email life and from writing in general, but i promise more soon, or sometime, avec plaisir.

a daily dose of

this week I am standing in for the Drama teacher while she tours the theatre scene in London with her IB kids, and boy is it a hyperactive time. good for me to bounce around a little bit more, right? it's almost over, of course, and today is International Day, when each member of the CAS community will participate in a parade around grounds to celebrate their national costume. I am going to wear jeans + this white tshirt to feature America's special blend of self-importance and image obsession. teacherly, no? :) it's pretty cute to see the flocks of pointy shoes and fancy djellabas, so maybe I'll try to take a few pictures.
I should get back to the morning's preparations, but meanwhile, here's what accompanied my evening preparations of fennel bulb sauteed with some precious cardamom I bought from a Fesi herbalist in October:

echo's answer

I recently bit the expense bullet and joined a gym in the neighborhood. Casa is full of spas and fancy fitness centers, healthfulness being a la mode, new and trendy to Moroccan lifestyle. this one is a relatively simple establishment but still more self-possessed than what the independent North American is accustomed to (e.g. during my first visit, I was applying my puny arms to the biceps bar machine[?] and a woman came over to grill me about my status here in Morocco and as a member of the gym. only living here three months, and mon premier fois en Cap Forme! she proceeded to guide me through several different sets and repetitions, presuming with some fairness that I had no idea what exactly to do, and insisted that I return on mercodi. it was sort of sweet to be so cared for, actually).
it has been a challenge to find time in the workweek to exercise, especially with the sunset now at around 5:30pm, and so now I've been trying to restore my modicum of muscle tone after it's total depletion during my amoeba infection this past month. in keeping with the modernized private v. public conventions of Islam, it is only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays that the facilities are open to women, and on Saturday to a mixed gender crowd (though only the men can use the locker room). while the gendered access can seriously diminish the value of a membership, it does have its own sort of easy rhythm. tonight at the gym I left the cardio room and escaped the pounding disco of the aerobics dance class to the weight room upstairs. it was empty. I found a mat and let my eyes glaze as my breath fogged my glasses and I moved into pavanamuktasana, a yoga pose that I like to use to equalize myself pretty much anytime. soon the music downstairs subsided, and I noticed a purple blur come into my right periphery a few feet away. looking closer, I saw that it was a woman covered completely in one floral cloth, kneeling on a small rug by the wall to pray towards Mecca. surrounded by barbells and mirrors, there we each were in a distinct and natural brand of private routine meditation. we stayed together this way for several minutes.

extra thrills

being a sore thumb here often means inflated prices in markets and constant attention or demand from beggars and bored boys and cityfolk, and one grows accustomed to regular fighting through alterity to keep some path or individual orientation. it is equally likely that foreignness invites a welcome to Morocco with a certain status and access to a surprisingly small and connected world of ex-patriots. and so I found myself invited to be an extra for the Green Zone thriller in its frantic post-production filming in Rabat, there joined by thirty-odd internationals who also offered the "American/European look."

in most ways the weekend of shooting was a bust. both mornings I woke up at 4am to drive from Casa with three other extras to our 5:30am meetingplace in Rabat before our trek over to a military base in nearby Kenitra (pictured left). this endeavor felt a little crazy in itself (especially following a Halloween party Friday night - I went as Olive Oyl!) and was amplified by the impasse of the rainiest weekend early November in Morocco has ever seen. not only we were stuck careening down the highway amidst drunk truck drivers without headlights during the wee hours, but we also stuck sitting inside the costume or food tent all day long in hopes that the sky might clear for long enough to convince a filmgoer of a sunny Iraqi summer setting for the shoot.

it was lazy but lovely. for 1600 dirhams a day (i make 6000 dirhams in one month's salary at school) i ate delicious catered meals, read some curricular material in front of a space heater, and played seven-card draw with a bunch of jolly old Irish men. most of the extras live in Rabat, which is a much more peaceful and community-minded spot for the ex-patriot as the home to all of the country's embassies and government agencies. I met so many people doing interesting work in Morocco, attempting to implement national water treatment methods with government backing, analyzing parliamentary procedures to determine the possibility for growth in Morocco's many backward systems, overviewing transport and civic development countrywide, etc. everyone was so friendly and interested to stay connected - one little posse of Italians adopted me and my surname into their camaraderie.

and after several false starts, we did manage one shoot with all of the extras and the stars. I was hired to be an insensitive American drinking a cocktail by a poolside, to be an iPod-clad jogger running next to a bomb crater, and to be a journalist-type milling around Baghdad. the major scene involving everyone was a helicopter landing on an airstrip, so I spent a lot of time wearing a heavy PRESS vest waiting for the bustle of this moment. because the scene would require 2 hours of setup alone after a cessation of the rain, the overcast skies barred any real confident movement from the crew. they instead spent their time shooting several small scenes with the actors in front of a blue screen - scenes they could have shot anywhere in the world, but that had to be taken up because they were spending pounds by the second in occupying this military base with their outfit. this meant I got to watch a lot of the filming process, and to discuss much of it with the assistant director Michael Michael, who worked for the four Harry Potter movies as well - he tells me how this was a medium-sized outfit, and how the accountants run the real daily business of the craft.

still, their attention to detail was amazing! all of extras were given individualized treatment in order to look worn and dirty from the environment in Baghdad. over and over they shot thirty seconds of dialogue between Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear in this scene above on the side of a jeep. the director (who you may know from the Bourne trilogy) was very fussy and has already scrapped some 30 million dollars of material and changed the script nine times. it can't help that the recent Iraq film Body of Lies featuring Leonardo Dicaprio and Russell Crowe was an utter flop -- I guess there are not very many people interested to entertain themselves through two CIA agents failing to find WMDs in Iraq, social commentary and all. so things were a little anxious and pressurized for the crew (who joked that they could be doctors by now if you added up all of the industry's hours of idleness), and the scenes for which we were needed are apparently crucial to the film's completion.

finally the sun broke through on Sunday and we were able to shoot the pool scene with a blue screen. we were the backdrop for a conversation between Matt Damon and Amy Ryan, milling around in swimwear struggling to ignore our goosebumps and shivers in the 55 degree weather. i walked past them dozens of times, almost colliding with Matt Damon once, all of which was not terribly interesting after 30 seconds :) Matt Damon has a great smile, if you are wondering. but I'm not sure if I'll end up in the scene and I can't say I'm too fussed - it was a fun little adventure, and most importantly well-paying and full of conviviality! certainly not so glamorous as a budding starlet on her way to discovery, though you all are sweet to say so. Hollywood is quite full of dull nitty-gritties, turns out. I probably won't have access to the film when it is released next summer, so someone tell me if they notice the ennui and pallor of one bespectacled tourist passing through the pool scene.
it was all part of a natural randomness that predominates life here -- I learn to embrace it more every day.

southpaw and warm drinks

the BBC is full of funny studies, charming, but suspect. I like to frame my mornings with some playful reporting.
I've been thinking not of blogging this week, running around, elated and busy, and I know the same is true for you. I've missed America and its incredible energies these past few days. please feel free to share your stories from Tuesday and Wednesday - I would really love to hear them!
but from here, I owe you three things: tales from the film shoot last weekend, an election recap from Casa's Rick's Cafe and metropolitan victory vibes, and a window into the panacean black market, Derb Galif, where I solved more than all of my little needs yesterday during the citywide holiday in celebration of Morocco's continued imperialism (Green March). I wonder: how did this incredible amount of stuff arrive into such a place?

hump day

busy week, ya'll. we're back in the grind at school after the week of "Explore Morocco" trips, and it's certainly nicer to feel school-wide pressure as the end of the trimester looms than the quietude of surveillance over an Upper School all but emptied out.
plus we're moving flats this week! just across the major downtown boulevard Zerktouni, home to the tallest two towers in Casa, the Twin Center (they are very centering indeed). once we're settled, I'll be living with the other two interns at school, Rebecca and Alex, in a cozier and newer three-bedroom apartment. it's also even closer to the main bustle-- located on the same street as the beloved European shop Zara and across from the nicest marche-- while Gauthier is actually pretty relaxed for its location. I'm a bit bummed to move away from the Parc du Arab-Ligue, where I've made a habit of jogging after school, but if I can manage to cross the most dangerous road regularly I hope to sustain the haunt.
like many developments with our school personnel, this information has been belatedly and not entirely settled, and oops, it's happening tomorrow. so for the evening I must prioritize the battle with amoebas, nausea, and human acquisition and relocation. not terribly interesting, I know, but my quotidian is dull and practical as any much of the time. I also just decided to hold the due washing of my only set of bedsheets indefinitely because their drying time on the lines outside in the late October cold and gray is inestimable! bienvenue.

bonsoir

some coastal hotel in the casa twilight; click to go to an updated flickr photostream

and here's some reading material until my next post

let's begin

it's an autumn Saturday and the open window offers it usual sunny haze, exhaust symphony, view of transplanted palm trees and tall, whitewashed buildings. as dear as the flurry of individual correspondences has been during these last two months, today my disconnected feelings have ripened enough to lead me here. while I cannot seem to resolve my equivocations about keeping a blog, it's clear that it will offer a tidy outlet for our distant communications (and with a bit of self-honestly, I can be confident I will grow into the upkeep here; reading the poor and underdeveloped writing from my students leaves me itching for nuances of style, vocabulary, syntax...)

yet it is such a challenge to describe this place enough to cast the landscape for you! the mixture in this metropolis is thorough and disorderly, lacking those quintessential spots to help direct the foreigner to le coeur of citylife. there is much I've yet to explore, and so gradually I've been learning to know it by neighborhood. I am quite fond of mine, the very central Quartier Gauthier. it is host to more stray and diseased cats than perhaps any other downtown area, but also to so many cafes, bakeries, chocolatiers, marches, parks, and even an art museum. capital-c culture is all but nonexistent (or invisible) in Casablanca, so I think I may finally go explore this one Ville de Beaux Arts today.

still, it has been a quiet week for me. since my early October travels to Fes and the Middle Atlas mountains I've been plagued by some persistant intestinal parasites, and only just this week have managed to sort out the correct medications (20 days of antibiotics, yikes) via two different doctors and a laboratory. they are not debilitating except by the randomness of their symptoms, which means I've been sort of stuck taking it easy and sleeping whenever my energy and nourishment are sucked away. I was supposed to help chaperone a trip with the eighth grade trekking and camping along the south coast of the Atlantic and toward the charming port city of Essaouira, but I stayed behind instead for rendezvous with the doctors and for the few stragglers who needed some lessons to keep their week at school "curricular." we read some short stories, researched global warming, practiced foul shots. charming, right?

I'll explain more about school soon, but for now I'll just say that the work routine in such a populated and smelly city usually makes me a little stir-crazy. while of course we cannot expect a lifestyle replete with exploration and adventure, exoticism and alterity, etc., the enormity and intensity of Casablanca demands a small, routine escape, like a (sometimes literal) clearing of the air. the peace of laundrylines straddling the rooftop terrace often serves this end. cooped and recuperative, I am especially missing my small adventure this weekend.
but patience: tomorrow I am headed to Rabat (the capital city, a one-hour trainride away) to be fitted for costuming, as I am set to be a film extra in Green Zone, featuring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear. (I am to be prepared to wear some "smart casual" clothing on a Moroccan military base and to drink a cocktail by a poolside in a bathing suit) the shooting is next weekend, and while I imagine it will mostly involve waiting around and being shepherded for some minuscule compensation, it will certainly be a sort of adventure! exotic-locale (read: Iraq) films are commonly shot in Morocco, so many of the teachers at my school have found themselves as extras in Hollywood outfits. maybe I'll meet someone good (the casting agent is a British chap called Michael Michael).

it seems most natural to approach this project by the regular accumulation of finite bits into a composite, as happens for the foreigner attempting to settle into a Moroccan home. et nous sommes tant s'en faut! so, here's today. off to le musee -- a European cinema exhibition, I hear?...