We went to a traditional wedding a couple of weeks ago. The bride changed dresses 4 times! Each time displaying new, fancy jewelry. As was at the last party they are really into hoisting people above their heads and dancing with them. This happened several times. Weddings last all day and dinner wasn't served until 11:30 p.m.!
The second picture is the groom giving the bride her gifts. He put bracelets and jewelry on her and they exchanged rings. He kissed her on the forehead but there were definitely no lips touching! Instead of cake they fed each other dates and milk with rose water....mmm yum. For dinner they brought out one sheep per table and we dove into it with our bread. There was tons of dancing and food and it was quite exhausting. As soon as I got in the car I took down my hair (got it done at the salon with my friend) and felt like the baby in the picture next to me!! Everyone has to wear those dresses you see the women wearing and that belt around the waist is super tight! I had to take it off to eat my dinner. Anyway it was fun and a really good cultural experience.
We took a trip down south last week to port city and ate TONS of delicious seafood, among the likes of shark, stingray, squid, and some other know sea creatures. Here are some pics from our experience.
This city offered camel or horse rides on the beach.
Hand holding among men is popular in a lot of Eastern cultures. Whereas in America men holding hands is clearly a sign homosexuality, here the thought doesn't even cross anyone's mind. Good friends walk down the street interlocking fingers or arms around each other. Touch is a big deal and there is no such thing as your "personal bubble." On the contrary, men and women generally don't hold hands in public and certainly don't kiss (unless it's family or good friends then you you kiss on the cheeks when greeting).
This is a port city we were at and they offered tons of variety of fresh seafood.
Of course we have to include a picture of us. This is at an exotic locale in the biggest city here, it's name is McDonald's. If you have trouble pronouncing this word it's Mac-Do-Nawlds. Say it with me now...
No, all of those things in the title are not related.
Tuesday night Carrie and I went to the circus with some friends that are in town. It was me (Cody) and 6 girls. Yes, I am a lady's man. Anyway, the circus was cool, there were flying acrobats, people who could pull all of their joints out of socket, tigers, and ... midgets. There was one midget that would come out in between acts and do really goofy things that all of the kids would laugh at. At one point he came out with 3 daggers and a very large piece of wood (two men carried the wood out, it was about the size of a door). We were sitting in the nosebleeds, off to the side of the ring, but we could see that he was throwing the knives as a sort of act. He was throwing them at various places in the door and making them stick. Then the announcer (who spoke only french) started talking over the loudspeaker. All of the kids started jumping up and down and raising their hands. I was sitting down with my chin in my hands, just observing all that was going on. Carrie, right next to me, started raising her hand yelling "Pick me, Pick me!" Now, i must make a sidenote here that everyone knew that we were there at the circus, it was 6 pretty white women and 1 tall lanky white guy. So as Carrie was yelling this the announcer was looking all over the rink and started running in our direction. He started up our section of the grandstand and was moving towards Carrie. Knowing Carrie for over 6 years now, I was not surprised, she gets picked for a lot of things. But as he got near us, the spotlight fell on me. The announcer grabbed my hand and said something in french. Everyone was looking at me, so I followed the announcer to the middle of the ring. As I got up there they said something to me in french and I said "Does anyone speak english?" The midget said "Inglese? No." Another guy said the same thing, but the announcer said, "I speak a little. They are tying you to the door for safety." Then they tied my hands to the door. Then the announcer said "Just be still." So he started talking to the crowd and the midget got all of his knives and started to throw one, then his assistant stopped him. His assistant proceeded to blindfold him. The midget started again, but his assistant stopped him again. The assistant took the blindfold off of him and placed it on me. I seriously couldn't see a thing. The announcer started to talk in french again, I could tell it was about to happen, then "THUD!", right next to my head. They took the blindfold off and I looked next to my head and there was a dagger there about 4 inches from my nose. I smiled for the crowd, but my knees were definitely shaking, not kidding folks. Then they blindfolded me again and another "THUD" in between my hand and waist. They took off my blindfold and now, for some reason, the seriousness of the whole matter starts to hit me. I start just praying "God, I trust you, if you are going to take me here, so be it." But seriously, I'm smiling for the crowd, but my knees were shakin! The assistant then brings out a balloon and starts acting like he is going to put it on my head. Everyone is laughing it up in the audience and then the assistant proceeds to move my legs apart and put it between my legs. I wasn't going to let that happen and I kick it right back out. They then say something to me in french and put it back in. I didn't feel like I had much choice, so i just left it there. Then the midget pulls out a hatchet from behind the door i am attached to. He is grinning like mad and eyeballing me. They blindfold me again and again I am just standing there praying "I'll go right now if this is what You want. I trust you." Then "POP, THUD" and they take the blindfold off and the hatchet is laying at my feet with the remains of the balloon. Everyone starts clapping and the assistants lower the door that i am on, tip it back wards and carry me and the door offstage. Backstage they untie me and say "Thank you" with heavy italian accents and someone leads me back to my seat. When i get there all the girls are laughing and I tell them how stinking scared i was. Then Carrie says "Why? The assistant was just taking the knife from the midget each time and driving it into the board after they blindfolded you." Wow, i am an idiot.
This is a picture of me in the ring.
This is a video of the highlights. Sorry no sound. I tried to slow down the parts where he is jamming the knife into the board.
In other news, Carrie went to a circumcision this past weekend. Here is a pic of her and the mother of the poor little boy.
Also, here is a video of one of the maids doing some traditional dancing. Enjoy :)
Okay I am not even gonna start with the whole "sorry ya'll we haven't posted in so long to our weekly blog" speech, instead I'll just give ya'll a whole bunch of pics from the last couple weeks. (No but seriously we are soooo busy!! :)
Happy Independence Day!
There is nothing like celebrating your nation's independence in a another country. Folks could seriously care less that 230 years we received our independence. Hmmm imagine that. Anyway, to celebrate we met at a friends house and grilled out. As you can see from the picture we had greasiest possible concoction. It was a pork sausage wrapped in bacon (not easy to find here) and grilled to perfection! People, the thing was oozing grease with each bite! God bless America!
Weekend Trip
We headed north for the weekend to a beautiful coastal city on the Mediterranean. In the old city we visited an apothecary with all these herbal medicines and folklorish stuff. It was really neat. The gave us presentation (in English!) of all the different things. I bought some ginseng, orange tea tree oil, and some lipstick that changes colors on different people.
The beach was SO much nicer than ours. You are surrounded by mountains on the side and no huge gouging rocks to step around.
Cody's 25th Birthday!
Cody celebrated his birthday on June 25th and we had a big ol' party at our house. We even moved all the furniture out and had a country dance. It is tradition when you come into someone's home you remove your shoes so here's what it looks like beside our door.
More Rooftop Views
We don't have a dryer so whenever we do laundry we have to hang it on the roof. The last few times I have been up there at sunset and it as been gorgeous because you can see the ocean from up there.
Arabic Notes
I just thought ya'll might want to see what my class notes look like. One is a paragraph I wrote and the other is verb conjugation. Cody has much nicer handwriting than me and he wants to post his too so you can compare, but he is asleep right now!
We are attempting to be consistent with our blog postings but with that comes some random posts. These pics are not related but just some I wanted to add. Please feel free to comment and give suggestions on what you would like to see on the blog. More text and less pictures...? (You don't have to have a blogger account to post comments)
Here is what we see out of our windows everyday. We live in and apartment building on a large main street and across the street is a wall or...aka toilet. Constantly throughout the day men use the restroom here. They could be walking by and stop for a break or even pull their cars over and get out and use the restroom. It's not one particular spot on the wall, just the wall in general. Anywhere a man wants to drop his pants and go is okay here. I have come upon many a times a man using public places as his own personal toilet. So there you have it, a little bit of cultural insight into our world.
It wouldn't be the Cody and Carrie blog without our traditional "bowling" pics. We went with our students from America this weekend and for some reason we always take tons of pics at the bowling alley. I mean it is a treat to go. So here is our third bowling post. Cody has been working on his form. Looks good huh?
This is one from when my parents came to visit last month. My Mom just sent it. This is the Roman ruins in our city.
I started this blog 5 years of ago before we went to Morocco to keep friends and family informed of our adventures. I don't update as often now, but it's just a place to talk about what our little family is up to. And of course lots of pictures of Nellie Jayne!
We went to a traditional wedding a couple of weeks ago. The bride changed dresses 4 times! Each time displaying new, fancy jewelry. As was at the last party they are really into hoisting people above their heads and dancing with them. This happened several times. Weddings last all day and dinner wasn't served until 11:30 p.m.!
The second picture is the groom giving the bride her gifts. He put bracelets and jewelry on her and they exchanged rings. He kissed her on the forehead but there were definitely no lips touching! Instead of cake they fed each other dates and milk with rose water....mmm yum. For dinner they brought out one sheep per table and we dove into it with our bread. There was tons of dancing and food and it was quite exhausting. As soon as I got in the car I took down my hair (got it done at the salon with my friend) and felt like the baby in the picture next to me!! Everyone has to wear those dresses you see the women wearing and that belt around the waist is super tight! I had to take it off to eat my dinner. Anyway it was fun and a really good cultural experience.
