Paris and Sacrifices

Wow, it's been a long time... I went to Paris, it was my first trip to Europe, I was so excited. Paris is beautiful. It's interesting how many people I know that have gone there and were disappointed. They must have done something wrong. Granted, since being in Morocco, my concept of what dirty is has changed, I've truly seen filth here and I appreciate how much Casa is relatively clean. I wouldn't eat off the floor or anything... Anyway back to pretty Paris, so let's see, in order to get to Paris we took a train from Casa to Fez then a grand taxi to the airport, took a plane, then a bus to the subway to our hotel, later I rode a boat and a bike, so I've only missed four legged transportation on this trip, I'll try better next time :)! Once we arrived at our hotel, which by the way was owned by a Moroccan family, and we arrived late so the only sandwich shop open was a Moroccan restaurant, there is a few bits of irony there, (so this was Thursday). Friday we got up early to catch breakfast, a hunk of bread with jam and butter, and hot chocolate, walked around the Latin Quarter, saw St. Michel, then walked to Notre Dame to meet our bike tour group. We biked through 6-8 neighborhoods in Paris, it was a great tour, biked along the Seine, and got to see lots of awesome architecture. We toured through Notre Dame and got to see the crown of thorns. Then we went to Sacred Heart, which was beautiful but you won't see any pictures, you aren't allowed, but they were doing an adulation music service 24/7, it was beautiful. From there was got to see the layout of Paris, which from above looks very gray. Then we went to the Eiffel Tour, we took lots of pictures, from daylight through dusk until dark, the tour "sparkles" the first 5 minutes of every hour, I got to take one picture of it until my camera died. We ate at a crepiere and went for a drink at an Irish pub. The next day we to the Louvre, and I'm sorry to say that it's just too much to take in... and I'm not that much of an art nut anyway. After an hour, we had covered the Latin wing and the Roman/Greek wing, saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus di Milo and a ton of other amazingly beautiful things. I wondered how the people that work there consider what is beautiful since they are surrounded by the worlds most beautiful things on a daily basis. After the Louvre we walked to the Hard Rock Cafe to get a friend a souvenir. Then we went to La Defense, a large mall. After that we went back to the Latin Quarter to have diner then went on a boat tour. I took the best pictures on that tour, it was amazing, raining and cold but very awesome, this was Saturday. Sunday we got up early took the subway to meet our bus to go back to the airport, but our connecting line was shut down, so the only well known thing that we hadn't been able to see and do was walk down the Champs d'Elysee and see the Arche de Triomphe which we did in search for a way to our bus! We ended up taxiing back to the airport flew to Marrakech and trained back to Casa.

Since our trip to Paris, work has been tough, we have a lot of changes coming up that we've announced but haven't fully communicated to the staff, so we will be starting that this next week. It's been a lot of work, but will be good and necessary for the future.

This week we had a 5 day weekend for the Aid (which is the largest holiday in Morocco) it's the holiday of Sacrifice, where each family gets a ram or bull and kills it, roasts it and gives part to the poor and part to neighbors and eats the rest. So during this holiday I'm working at home each morning. But on the Aid I went to some friends' apt to spy on the neighbors to see how this all happens. We watched one family from their patio. I should give some background, the last two weeks, sheep pens have cropped up all over the city like fireworks stands around the 4th of July. You see guys stuffing sheep into taxi trunks and carrying them all over the city. It's actually humorous. My neighbors had a sheep, noisy thing, bah'ed all night, I think he knew he wasn't going to live much longer. So on the morning of the Aid, I got up quickly as I didn't want to be in the street when the sacrificing began as the mosque across the street was still doing chanting. On the way to my friends' apt it seemed like every guy that I saw was carrying a large knife and a bucket. All I could think was today wasn't the day to make anyone mad. So back to the spying... we watched as the men rigged up meat hooks to drain the rams. But the best part was when we decided to walk around, we walked out of their 4th story apt and 3 stories below on the landing were the neighbors doing their sacrifices. So from a safe (3 stories up) we watched as they slit the jugular, drained, hung, skinned, and gutted 3 rams. I'll have to get some of the pictures from my friends. If this wasn't disturbing enough we eventually ventured out and apparently they roast the heads whole, if that isn't a site to see a rams head complete with horns on a homemade spit. So needless to say it was worse than any branding day or butchering day that I've every participated in as a kid even if they were put in the same day. We went to the roof and found that was the best place to see a lot of sacrifices taking place. Its odd to be 8 stories in the air watching all the other people killing animals on their roofs. So the whole city smelled like burnt fur, and was hazy. I was so grateful for the rain that day to clear the air because that would have just been an awful stinky mess later, and frankly it still is. I was in my friends' neighbors building and the hallways and elevator stink like blood.

Last night some girls and I went to a cafe to meet a friend that one of them has made from France, we hung out with him and his Moroccan friends, it was the first time we've been able to sit and talk like adults with any Moroccan males. I know this sounds weird but, it's just discouraged of women to do, as being seen with a man other than a male relative could ruin her reputation. I'm very glad that my culture has moved past that. So we were asked to attend a rugby match, and we stuck a deal as a lot of us girls would like to go to a soccer game, but don't have enough male co-workers willing to go to a game to be safe. So I told them we'd go to the rugby match if they took us a to a soccer game (as 8 Moroccan guys with 3 American girls wouldn't be too noticeable versus a large group of Americans), little did he know that I like rugby and we would have gone anyway. But this way we get to go to a soccer match too :)

So today I'm going over to watch a Pride and Prejudice (the BBC version) marathon today. I miss everyone a lot and have started a list of things that I want to do when I'm back visiting.