Weekender Edition®
Since this was such an amazing weekend - so amazing that I literally didn't have time to get on this blogger thing since last thursday, I figured I'd do a quick wrap-up.
Friday started off with couscous, ridiculously good couscous made at the office by one of the guys with more culinary experience (by the way, everybody who works in reseau is a guy, as far as I know, despite the fact that my classes are 50% women). Contrary to popular notion, Moroccans ONLY eat couscous on friday, so it's pretty normal to be invited over for couscous by people you meet - sometimes you have to choose between multiple invites. After the couscous, we got down to talking about my big project here in Rabat (besides teaching english and doing cultural stuff at the center). And, suffice to say, it's pretty big, but I think it'll be manageable. To sum it up succintly, the local reseau office that I work in - Nouvelle Rencontre - is starting two soccer teams with all the best players from Akkari that'll be in a national league, in total, 60 kids. These kids, aged 12-14 and 14-16 are going to need shorts, shoes, jerseys, money for transportation to away games (around USD 1500). In addition, they have a piece of land that they want to turn into a soccer field (read: an arid peace of dusty and incredibly uneven land by the ocean). So, I'm going to be getting into contact with the US and German embassy to talk about funding - I am going to contact various sports companies, Nike, Adidas, Umbro, etc also. If anyone has any hints or leads, don't hesitate at all to drop me an email or leave a comment here.
On saturday, we made burgers. Big fat juicy american hamburgers grilled by moi for the Moroccan AIESECers at the apartment to celebrate an early July 4th. Later, we went out to, get this, "El Ranchero," to party (I never thought I'd be in a tex-mex dance place in Morocco...). I rolled with my Johnny Walker Black, and even partook in some dancing, definitely an amazing night, one of those days where you can't wipe that stupid grin off your face.
Today was on par with yesterday, as we went to the Moroccan version of a beach-side barbeque. We swam, made merry, ate fish (the same type as in my previous fish entry) and ate these amazing fish tajines. It was held by my local chapter of reseau, so I got to see a lot of my students - who quickly found out (and exploited) the fact that I am terrified of crabs and little octopi (as another side note, these are the "jumpy" crabs, so you never know what the hell they'll do next). I watched in shame as everybody played soccer ten times better than me, worked on the ol' farmer's tan (still there...) and talked with some amazing people.
Friday started off with couscous, ridiculously good couscous made at the office by one of the guys with more culinary experience (by the way, everybody who works in reseau is a guy, as far as I know, despite the fact that my classes are 50% women). Contrary to popular notion, Moroccans ONLY eat couscous on friday, so it's pretty normal to be invited over for couscous by people you meet - sometimes you have to choose between multiple invites. After the couscous, we got down to talking about my big project here in Rabat (besides teaching english and doing cultural stuff at the center). And, suffice to say, it's pretty big, but I think it'll be manageable. To sum it up succintly, the local reseau office that I work in - Nouvelle Rencontre - is starting two soccer teams with all the best players from Akkari that'll be in a national league, in total, 60 kids. These kids, aged 12-14 and 14-16 are going to need shorts, shoes, jerseys, money for transportation to away games (around USD 1500). In addition, they have a piece of land that they want to turn into a soccer field (read: an arid peace of dusty and incredibly uneven land by the ocean). So, I'm going to be getting into contact with the US and German embassy to talk about funding - I am going to contact various sports companies, Nike, Adidas, Umbro, etc also. If anyone has any hints or leads, don't hesitate at all to drop me an email or leave a comment here.
On saturday, we made burgers. Big fat juicy american hamburgers grilled by moi for the Moroccan AIESECers at the apartment to celebrate an early July 4th. Later, we went out to, get this, "El Ranchero," to party (I never thought I'd be in a tex-mex dance place in Morocco...). I rolled with my Johnny Walker Black, and even partook in some dancing, definitely an amazing night, one of those days where you can't wipe that stupid grin off your face.
Today was on par with yesterday, as we went to the Moroccan version of a beach-side barbeque. We swam, made merry, ate fish (the same type as in my previous fish entry) and ate these amazing fish tajines. It was held by my local chapter of reseau, so I got to see a lot of my students - who quickly found out (and exploited) the fact that I am terrified of crabs and little octopi (as another side note, these are the "jumpy" crabs, so you never know what the hell they'll do next). I watched in shame as everybody played soccer ten times better than me, worked on the ol' farmer's tan (still there...) and talked with some amazing people.
posted by Isaac at 11:08 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home