Beach Retreat

This weekend we took a group retreat to the beach about two hours south. It was still pretty chilly but we still waded in the water, played volleyball and soccer, and laid out in the sand. I chose to do this one in black and white so no one has to be deeply disturbed by my pastey white skin that never sees the light of day. I love Cody's smirk in this one!






This is an old cistern where I am sure important things happened on important dates by important people for important reasons.


I love this AAAADORABLE little girl. She was just the sweetest little thing wandering around by herself.


Here is the North African Sanjaya. If you aren't familiar with this boy, PUH-leeze people get with the times already!

Typewriter Men and Bowling...Again

These are my favorite workers at the market. Their job is to sit under their umbrellas with these ancient typewriters (yes, the kind where you have to zing it back to the left manually) and type up any sort of documents you might want. Seems like a dying art right? Well given the high rate of illiteracy and poverty they seem to keep quite busy. This is definitely a "paper" society and having official documents is important for everything, so if you don't know how to read or can't afford your own, where else do you go?

But alas, these fine men don't enjoy having their picture made. A few observations:

1) The first guy is hiding is face with a tea glass
2) The second is a man surprised by my actions taking a buta gas (our hot water and heat runs on butane) somewhere
3) The third guy doesn't even notice me
4) The fourth guy actually goes to all the trouble of putting a chair up to block is face
5) The doorway in the back is one of the most famous of the old city- The Sunday Gate

Click on the photo to enlarge to see the details :)


I know your day wouldn't be complete without seeing some bowling alley pictures. Like I have explained before, bowling is expensive so we only go on special occasions, which I always have my camera for those :) This week was our friend's birthday and we ate a delicious steak with Roquefort sauce and a type of fish called Sole for dinner at a French restaurant!


Here's my proud baby who just scored his highest score ever in bowling, a 194!!! He was on a roll tonight! (and yes, I made him pose with his ball for this picture)


I took a picture of the scoreboard for proof. For security purposes we use code names, hence the bowler "Antelope" :)


Demotivator of the Day

Return to the Beach

Ahhh, the glorious beach. We haven't been since last summer but needed to get some planning done and what better way than to relax by the beach. We went with a friend and had the brilliant idea of buying a large umbrella to stick into the sand to sit in the shade. When we got to the beach we were the only ones with such an umbrella (in the summer you can rent them for the day for a couple of bucks). I was thinking to myself, "Oh foolish people who have no shade." Well the wind was blowing and the temperature was probably in the high 60's and we were, well...shivering. I was on the edge of the blanket trying to avoid the nice shade we had just purchased until finally we decided it was too cold to use the umbrella. So we took it down and joined the other fools who had no shade.

So I only took two photos this week. One was Cody sitting on the couch in his underwear using the computer and the other was this very beach picture. So this week only one pic, if you would like to see the pic of Cody, please e-mail me and we can arrange that in private! :)


Demotivator of the Day

Tennis Match and Easter Fun

Easter Sunday we went to the forest for 10 hours with about 30 other people. It was our first Easter conducted purely in Arabic!

On Saturday we had a party with our friends and dyed eggs and then went hunting for them!

On Friday we got to go to a professional tennis match right near our house. We watched the best player in the country whoop Denmark's boo-tay! We were sitting behind them and they figured the whities were surely there rooting for them. When we started waving our flag and cheering for the African they turned around in utter disgust.

Professional match for about $5!



Demotivator of the Week

WAAAY Down South

We headed down south this week to take one of my friends home to her village and visit her family. this is there little village on this hill. This handmade adobe type stuff is actually a lot warmer than our cement walls in the city! They had no shower or hot water but it was an adventure!


They are known for their gorgeous handmade rugs and my friends gave me a big one as a gift when I was leaving, it was the sweetest thing!

I had my hands and feet done with henna. I had to sit there for three hours, including eating lunch on the floor with my hands! She did a great job.

It's tradition to cover the bottoms of the feet and toenails but now I am regretting the decision because you have to wait for the toenails to actually grow out, it stains permanently!


Ta Daaa!


Gorgeous scenery, we drove over the mountains and to the desert.


This is a really cool Casbah we stopped at on the way home. It was SOOO windy! But we bought some cool paintings and took some nice pics.














The many faces of Karima.
1)Kaftan, traditional Arab, dressy
2)Jellaba, traditional Arab, casual daily wear
3)Southern Desert Berber, daily wear
4)Wedding Outfit, traditional Berber

Here is a video of the girl doing the henna. I am speaking Arabic with my friends but you'll notice three English words we use "Service, Telephone, and Vee-deo."