“Atmospherics” from Fes

I’m not really sure how to describe Fes to you all. I think the best way to explain it to you would be with this map:

Except that everything on the map that is within the bold maroon line is not a road so much as a walkway, some of which can not fit two people walking past each other at the same time. And also, the roads have no labels. And there are no landmarks because frankly, everything looks the same.

Put another way, when we went out to have what I will remember as one of my “meals of a lifetime,” the restaurant sent a man to fetch us from our hotel and show us the way to the restaurant (which was in someone’s house). When it was time to go back, he delivered us safely to our door. And it was totally necessary– we never would have found it on our own.

The medina walls, facing away from the medina

Bab Boujloud, gate into the medina

Houses and shops in the medina are packed in. You think a DC rowhouse is bad? People have been building, re-building, and morphing houses in Fes for the last 1100 years. It’s so old it makes the phrase “American history” sound like an oxymoron.

Every once in a while, there’d be a break in the beige walls and rows of shops and you’d see a public fountain, still working, and very much used for everything from vegetable washing to hand washing or filling buckets.

I personally was confounded by sewage…or the lack thereof. I know it’s kind of a weird thing to worry about, but how to do you retrofit an 1100 year old city for modern plumbing? Especially considering there are not a lot of places to dig and bury pipes. I was never able to get a satisfactory answer out of her guide apart from “Of course we have modern plumbing, why wouldn’t we?!”– I guess he thought my question was absurd, but I’m still impressed.

I’ve been told that Fes is like a mini-Marrakesh; frankly, I can’t imagine having to navigate a medina much larger than this, especially given the amount of time we had– it would have been (even more) overwhelming.

The Latest Adventure

In March, I abandoned dreary DC for a vacation to parts (previously) unknown: Morocco. Our itinerary was modest, as we only had a week on the ground: fly in to Casablanca, train to Fes, drive to Chefchaouen via Volubulis, drive to Tangier, and then fly to Madrid for a weekend on the way home.

Morocco was my first trip to North Africa. I have a new appreciation for what theextraordinary mix of cultures you can find there– Berber, Roman, Phoenician, Islamic. And I was extremely pleased to see that in addition to French and Arabic, Spanish was fairly common on the Northern coast, and came in handy for an improvised tour of the ruins at Lixus.

That said, it has been a while since I’ve been an average tourist in a country I don’t know, and I found that the touts, price gouging, and general tourist racket ground on me at times. Fortunately, we were there just outside of peak season, so we mostly had the place to ourselves.

More pictures and details to follow!

My Ecuadorian Street Dog

You may recall some months before I finished my tour in Ecuador, I was compelled (mostly by the overwhelming loneliness and isolation one can at times feel in this life) to commit my charitable act of the decade and adopted this dog. I figured it was high time for an update on the little devil.

Popeye had been found wandering alone on the side of the road. He was a mess; he spent his first week of domesticated life at the vet and emerged looking like this:

At which point I got him. If you were thinking he looks dirty in this picture, you’d be wrong. He had such a raging case of mange that he had no hair (and open sores) over a large part of his body. The first few nights I had him, I couldn’t sleep because he was chewing on himself in as he lay in the cardboard box bed I made for him in my room.

Fast forward six months (and many trips to the vet, chemical baths, and shooting vitamins down his throat with a syringe), and Popeye was ready for his great adventure “al norte.” It is surprisingly easy to import dogs into the United States– you basically just need a vet certificate, an export certificate, and proof of rabies vaccination.

Popeye handled the flights well, but I think the sudden change in scenery was a bit of a shock to his already fragile psyche. I’m just going to warn any of you tempted by rescuing stray dogs to consider this: the mange is the least of your troubles. Popeye is a great dog, but he is as neurotic as only an (once) abandoned animal can be. His first month in DC, he had to take anti-anxiety medicine– in fact, he probably would still benefit from it, were I not morally opposed to giving it to him. He chewed through the kennel I flew him home in within the first month and eventually rammed his way out of his large heavy duty metal crate. He has a propensity to chew up foamy things, like pillows and couch cushions. He is absurdly athletic and can jump over my entire couch. Worst of all, he’s very unpredictable, will snap (sometimes) at men he doesn’t know, and I absolutely wouldn’t trust him around children under the age of, oh, 18. I’ve taken him to training, he’s just wild– and having compared notes with other street-dog-rescuers, that seems par for the course– so consider yourself warned.

BUT, he loves going to the dog park and taking walks around Arlington, where many of the stores are dog friendly. He spends most of his day perched like a cat on the window sill, surveying his dominion. He has a walker to play with while I’m at work, an endless supply of chew toys, and a food-dispensing ball. He’s a good snuggler and has been a genuinely great companion.

When he destroys something, I look back at the first photo of Popeye and look at those sad eyes, and how sweet and earnest he is now– and I can’t stay mad for long. The difference is shocking, no?

Postcard from Kosovo

It’s easy to forget how small the Western Balkans are; the drive between Tirana and Pristina was not painful at all. I got dropped off at the border, walked over to Kosovo, and got in another car bound for Pristina via Prizren.

I thought Prizren was beautiful. The city center is pedestrian friendly, with a lovely river running through it. It felt very European, and we enjoyed some delicious kebab and yogurt at an outdoor cafe.

Prizren had several old fountains, including this one located at the entrance the the mosque (presumably for ablutions). Similarly, the mosque was beautiful inside (thus the obligatory ceiling shot):

We visited the American Corner, as well as a cultural preservation project that we are sponsoring. Below, you’ll see an extremely old (i.e., almost 100 years) hydroelectric plant, with most of the original machinery and transmission lines still intact. It is being restored as a museum.

 

 

 

 

 

Postcard from Albania

Since my time was so precious in Albania, I skipped my lunch break and went for a little souvenir shopping at a Venetian mask workshop…coincidentally, my mom was in Venice at the exact same time (probably paying a lot more)! And yes, the only souvenir I brought back from the Balkans was a “Venetian” mask !

Also, in true post card form…this trip was almost six months ago.

Back to the Present

I’m ba-ack! I’m now ten months into my second tour (DC) already, and having a great time! One of the most wonderful elements of the Foreign Service is that embarking on a new tour is like swapping lives with someone else; my new job is as far away as one could possibly get from my first tour…new skills, new region, new everything– and I added two new countries to my ‘visited’ list in 2012.

Back in September, I took a whirlwind tour of my new portfolio, spending two and a half days in both Kosovo and Albania. I wish I could have stayed longer to get a better sense of the place, but Uncle Sam is pinching pennies.

I did get out of the capitals in both countries, albeit briefly. In Albania, we squeezed in a quick day trip to check out a project in Koplik, Albania near the Montenegro border. Albania’s post-communist land reform divided farm plots into small plots, unsuitable for large-scale mechanized agriculture. The best way to make it profitable is to plant high-value crops. Below is lavender:

And this is sage:

Below, a scene from inside the sage processing plant. The machine is separating the different pieces of the dried sage leaves. The primarily purpose of this particularly factory is to produce bulk sage oil, which can then be exported to wholesalers in the United States and elsewhere.

I love the simplicity of this photo, with the contrast of the chimney and spoke against the perfect blue sky:

New Year’s Eve!

…Now let’s wear yellow underwear, eat grapes, run around the block with our suitcases, and most importantly…burn shit!

From my neighborhood’s collective ano viejo burning/fireworks celebration last year…it gets good around 2:10! Unfortunately, I don’t think this is legal in the United States, so I’ll just have to watch the video for the experience