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?...