Host family relations are back to normal. Actually, only for that span of about two minutes were they strained. That’s just the way it is here. Bill remembers that feeling of being ‘frozen out’ over at his site, and as he mentions, you quickly have to forget because of all the time you are included. The days after l3id were full of meat and family. I met almost all the male members of the extended family, most of whom I didn’t even know exisited.

When Jennifer came to Guelmim last week to work on a Gender and Development Conference we’re planning for the summer, my host family insisted that I bring her over to eat lunch. …

3id l’kabir (the 3 is the Arabic letter عwhich isn’t present in any other language that I know of). The big feast. 3id l’ađħa. The feast of the sacrifice. The most important feast in the Muslim calendar. The feast that was

My eldest host brother comes to my house two days before the feast and we agree that I should mozy on up to their house around 9:30/10:00. Knowing MST (Moroccan [un]Standard Time), I iterate that I will leave my house at 9:30 to arrive for the glory and the gore at 10 am. Upon leaving, he addends that if I arrive and no one is there, just wait because they will be at the mosque …

Today was interesting, like most. Every person I encountered forcifully asked if I had bought a sheep for tomorrow’s slaughtering festivities. With some I joked and said I only had enough money to slaughter a carrot, but for those pushier people, I said that I don’t take part in slaughterings. That was a lie, but I find it interesting that to most people, the aïd al-adha is as much cultural as religious. Do people forget to quickly the reason why every family is required to slaughter an animal, as an offering to God? This info tidbit, brought to us by socialstudiesforkids.com will help us understand why the baaaaaahs must end:

“Eid-Al-Adha is one of …

I’ve been back in Guelmim for a few days and have gotten used to life again, how quickly did I forget that if I have a meeting two blocks away, I should leave two hours early to make it on time because I’ll have to stop in every store on the way to say my greetings and be stopped by every person on the way and asked how my health, family and overall being are being. And while it may be cold and snowy in Boston right now, it’s nice and dusty here in Guelmim. Even though my windows were shut during my vacation, I encountered a dust-infested house upon my arrival. Yuck.

L’3id l’kabir (the big holiday, …

Isn’t it amazing how you have something one day and the next it is gone? Well, I realized yesterday that my old host had shut his site and that joshuahaynes.com was gone! It’ll be back eventually, but until I get back to Morocco and work on retrieving everything that’s been lost, I’ll just have to continue using this format. I’ll make it pretty someday soon because I have to start allll over again…oh well…c’est la vie!