nomaDZ: "A Franc for your thoughts"

I’m currently sitting in a café in Casablanca, Morocco wondering what time it is… the time was supposed to change today, but apparently GMT decided it is not going to until October now? Weird. I’m drinking a tiny little cup of coffee that I’m convinced must be straight caffeine in liquid form because I’m not usually this wired from three normal sized cups of coffee… Anyways, my flight leaves tonight at either midnight or 1:00 AM back to Burkina where I need to go ahead and plan my next vacation. It’s amazing how much a bit of time can revitalize you. I wouldn’t say I’m quite looking forward to getting off the plane in the mini-hot season, but the past month has really helped a lot with the stress that Peace Corps brings along. Here is a recount of the past two weeks that I got to spend with my wonderful mother in Burkina and Morocco.

The crane with a bad temper at our hotel in Ouagadougou

Mom arrived last Monday midday in Ouagadougou. I picked her up and we went to the hotel to drop off our load of crap. She brought me all sorts of goodies from America including a chair and a bunch of electronics, which is awesome. I now have a functioning iPod again and hopefully I will be able to connect this new one to the Internet full time. We left the hotel, which was beautiful and full of greenery, and headed to a restaurant I have wanted to eat at since I learned of its existence called Gondwana. It lived up to the hype. Wine and cordon bleu was the perfect start to a great two weeks. It was the best meal I’d had in a year.

Our pool at the hotel in Bobo.

The next day we headed down south to Bobo-Dioulasso, the second biggest city in Burkina. We checked into another great hotel with a beautiful pool and a feel of anywhere but Burkina called l’Auberge. Pizza, more wine, and Internet made David a happy camper. It was great catching up with mom after not seeing her for almost a full year (that mark will be October 9^th). We were exhausted from the five hour bus ride on some sketchy roadways, significantly better than most of the roads in Burkina mind you, and after dinner mom went to sleep and went to the bar right next to the hotel. Within five minutes I was approached by a random Rasta Burkinabé who sat with me and talked about life in Burkina and America. It was nice to be able to have a conversation with somebody without being asked for anything. After close to an hour his friend came around who happened to be a Moroccan guy living in Bobo who spoke fluent English. We talked about the same kind of stuff, and I picked his brain about our upcoming vacation to Morocco. He bought us a bunch of beers and the conversation shifted to Israel and 9/11. I tried my hardest to explain to him that there is no way in hell the US government is competent enough to have staged 9/11, but it was to no avail. I guess he’d seen the YouTube conspiracy documentaries a few too many times. He was a Muslim as you would expect coming from Morocco, but we had the same views about Israel and the United States impending involvement in Syrian affairs. He was an interesting guy and genuinely fun to be around… and he bought us lots of beer, which was good. At far too late an hour I headed back to the hotel and conked out.

Mom standing on the roof under the tallest minaret.

From the outside of the mosque

The next day we went to the marché where we were accosted by everybody and their brother, as is the norm when you’re white in a West African market. Mom bought some cool beads and after sweating profusely, we headed out and meandered around town. We went to a boutique where women weave everything out of recycled plastic bags and saw the incredible things they are able to make such as purses, backpacks, laptop cases, full size blazers, and other little trinkets. We had dinner at the hotel and called it a night. In the morning we headed to the grande mosquée. It is the biggest mosque in Burkina Faso and was built 1893. It was completely mud-brick until they decided to plaster it over, which made for an odd effect in the color difference, but it was still cool to see, and it really was quite large. We took a “tour” of the inside and went up on the roof where they have holes in the ceiling to allow ventilation and some sunlight, and we were able to see the minarets up close. Large mud-brick buildings have big pieces of wood that go through them both for structural integrity and as ladders to allow for a fresh coat of paint before the rains come. I wanted to climb them, but fought the urge, as I do not think they would have appreciated it much. After that we headed to the oldest town in Bobo and saw the four quartiers, including the animist sacrifice mounds and the

Note the enormous trash piles filled with horrid things

enormous sacred catfish that live in some water I wouldn’t drink for a million dollars. Naturally the kids were playing in this water and the women were washing clothes.

We headed back to Ouaga the next day, but made a pit stop in Sabou and saw the crocodiles. I was impressed with mom when she stepped up to the plate and grabbed the croc by the tail. It was younger than the one that Clayton and I played with, so our time taunting it was limited. We heeded the advice to leave it alone after about three minutes and then had lunch and headed out to the road to try and catch a bus the rest of the way into Ouaga. After an hour a STAF bus came by and mom got a taste of what travel can be like in Ouaga. There was no way I was going to have her ride in a bush taxi, but a STAF bus is about as close as you can get. It is crowded, very hot, and not particularly comfortable. We were extremely content to get off of the bus immediately when we arrived at the gare in some random part of Ouaga that I didn’t know. We had dinner that night and called it an early night. The next day we went to the artisan market, which is a horrible idea for the two of us. There were too many things and we wanted them all. We bought too much and headed out. We made a pit stop at what the volunteers call Blaise’s Spaceship (Blaise Compaoré is the president, picture of him and spaceship at the bottom). It is essentially a smaller Eiffel Tower and completely random. I’d call it a massive waste of money more than anything else, but it’s pretty cool to see. We got all of our stuff together at the Transit House and prepared for our very late flight to Morocco.

Mom and I grabbing life by the tail

We waited around at the beautiful Ouagadougou airport (that was sarcasm, there is nothing in there, not even a restaurant) and then got on a plane, which I found quite pleasant. It doesn’t take much to make me happy anymore. Air conditioning, a comfortable seat, and a free meal and I could have stayed on that thing for weeks. We traveled through the night with a pit stop in Niamey, Niger and finally arrived in Casablanca. We bought our train tickets, because Morocco actually has a fully functional train system, and jumped on the first train out en route to Marrakech. This should have been easy… it wasn’t. We apparently had to change not only trains, but train stations. Of course, we didn’t know that and ended up about forty minutes past where we wanted to be. We asked a man on the train what went wrong and he told us we needed to go back the other direction. We obliged, and when we arrived back at the right station we hopped in a cab that took us to the correct station and we barely made the train. We decided we didn’t need to go first class, which was a mistake. We were jammed into a compartment with four other people, excluding the two little kids they managed to throw on people’s laps. It was the Moroccan version of a bush taxi in Burkina. The lady across from us was dressed in a full burka, eyes covered and gloves, the whole nine yards. I’ve seen plenty of burkas in Burkina, but none to that extent. There was not one centimeter of skin showing. That woman must have been absolutely cooking, because I was about to die and I had jeans and a tee shirt on. After four agonizing hours that felt more like eight, we arrived in Marrakech. I was instantly blown away. We got into the train station and the sweet, sweet smell of McDonald’s wafted my direction. Needless to say this was our first stop, even before going to the hotel. It was amazing. The employees there are certainly underpaid because there was an absolute hoard of people in there. There was a lady walking around taking orders and punching them into a little receipt machine, which I thought was cool. I had chicken nuggets and fries and could have died right there a happy man. The hotel was beautiful. It had an awesome pool and extremely fast Internet. We

The pool shaped like a palace in Marrakech

hung out in the room until dinnertime, where we decided to go super classy. Mom wasn’t feeling too fantastic so we went to KFC. Once again, I was a very happy man… until later in the night. When you don’t have processed food for a year and then jam two meals into one day, your body just wonders what the hell you think you are doing to it. My stomach was a mess that night, but I was still more than happy.

The next day we headed to the Medina, the old part of town. It was incredible! The first place we went was a department store full of stuff… we wanted it all. There was jewelry both new and old, but all very expensive, old Berber boxes, hundreds of beautiful and incredibly expensive rugs, tables and lanterns, and tons of old artifacts like Berber knifes and swords. It was three levels of beauty and torture, because buying those things would have been a real punch in the gut to our wallets, especially on the first full day in Morocco. We were looking at the old knives when the one of the employees came up and told us the knives were very, very old. Knowing the answer would hurt, I asked the price of one of them. I was truly blown away when he said 120,000 Dirham ($15,000). We

Beautiful, colorful, fresh potpourri!

The ceiling in the rug place, all hand done

scurried away careful not to knock anything over. We escaped from the store managing to keep our expenses to a minimum, which was truly a challenge for mom and I. We wandered aimlessly, looking for the spice market and ended up in some random spice shop where things got a little weird. They explained the spices to us and then told us they give massages there with some of their oils. We said no, we didn’t need them. The door closed behind us and we had to really argue before we were able to escape. It felt a little bit like the movie Hostel when the doors closed and I was waiting for somebody to pop out and slice my Achilles. They were very nice though, and grabbed a random man off of the street who proceeded to tell us he was famous because he was in a tour book that he had conveniently placed in his hood. We told him we wanted to go to the spice market and instead he took us on a tour all over the old Jewish section of the medina. The first place we ended up in was a carpet store. From the outside it was nothing special but it was a perfect example as not judging a book by its cover. We

This carpet was a mixture of Jewish and Arab designs

walked in and were led into a massive, beautiful room with hundreds of carpets. The man explained the difference between the old Jewish rugs and the Arab rugs, and showed us ones that had a mixture of the two. They were gorgeous. Luckily neither of us fell in love with a rug, because when we asked the starting price for one (we were forced to), the man told us $1,500. With amazing haggling skills that would have ended up at around $800… or the price of the whole trip. No thanks. But we did get to see the room, which was incredible, including the ceiling that was made by hand and must have taken hundreds of hours.

The incredible spices in the Medina

We were eventually led into a spice shop where we heard once again what all of the spices were and their uses. When we arrived at the shop the man gave us mint tea. I have learned from living in Burkina that often times a drink is given whenever somebody enters anywhere, but considering we knew none of these people and it all felt like a tourist trap I didn’t drink it, but just pressed it to my closed lips. When the man left the room two things happened. First, I quickly told mom not to drink the tea because I did not want us to end up on CNN as the American tourists that disappeared in Morocco. It was an overreaction, but we were far from any tourists and I’ve seen enough movies to trust my instincts. Then both mom and I said at the same time, “What the hell are we doing in here?” and decided we needed to get back on the beaten path. The man was nice however and gifted us with Berber lipstick for mom, which was actually pretty cool as it is just a rock that when in contact with liquid turns a bright shade of red, and a pumice stone for me, which I will definitely use as Burkina has ruined my feet. We gave him a little something for taking his time to show us these things. As we wandered aimlessly behind the man we stumbled across what we wanted to see, spices piled to double the size of their container in a beautiful conical shape. It was incredibly colorful and neither of us understood how the heck they did it, but it was very cool. They even had what they refer to as,

Berber Viagra!

“Berber Viagra” for a mere Dirham per gram. The last stop was into a tiny nomadic Berber’s shop. He showed us all sorts of jewelry, much of it very, very old. He also hit on my mother. He said he would pay 5,000 camels for her and dubbed her Fatima, such an honor. He named me Ali Baba because I was haggling so much I may as well be robbing him. Mom got a pretty silver antique Tuareg bracelet, and I tried to get out of there without buying anything. Finally we finished our tour with our personal celebrity guide and ended up in another large department store-like place with nothing but antiques from the Berbers and the Atlas Mountains. After haggling with the man a lot, I bought an antique Tuareg knife. The knife itself is nothing special, but the sheath is truly awesome. It is

My Tuareg knife

Mom and I riding camels!

hand-carved and has inlays of camel bone and onyx. We walked around in the Medina for seven hours that day, more than we thought we had in us.

WHAT DAY IS IT?!

The next day we got up early and ventured out to ride camels. If you’ve never seen a camel, they are absolutely massive. When you look at them laying down it does not do it justice. When one stands up and you are on its back you realize how tall they are. As somebody who spent many years diving from a bit of height, I can say it was almost the height of the high dive at your neighborhood pool. When we got there we had our heads wrapped in traditional Tuareg fashion, me looking more Jewish than ever with my long hair coming out the front and curling down. Then we jumped on the camels. It was scary at first, especially when the big guy when down a hill, but after a bit we got used to it. We trekked along for probably two kilometers, stopped and had tea in this random house, and then went back. Both of us were in pain by the time we got back because camels aren’t exactly comfortable, even with the padding provided. Regardless, it was an awesome experience and we got lots of good pictures. We went back with a plan to lounge next to the pool… it didn’t happen. Instead we sat in the room, exhausted. We went to dinner across the street, took a picture of a stop sign written in Arabic, and went to bed.

With our last day in Marrakech we went to Jemaa el Fna, also in the Medina. This is the place you read about in tourist books. Besides the Vatican, I’ve never seen such an eclectic group of tourists. There were

Mom and the water selling man.

people from all over the world, and no wonder because it was incredible. When we got there we were greeted by a Berber water-seller. He wore a crazy outfit (pictured) and had a bag made of sheepskin filled with water. We didn’t want the water, but we got pictures with him, for a nominal fee. The next group that harassed us until we took a picture was the cobra-charmers. Of course, I wanted to do this anyways, but it’s always nice to do things on your own accord. He put a small snake around my neck. I asked him if it was a cobra. He tried to tell me it wasn’t, but wouldn’t let go of the head until I had a firm grasp on it. That combined with the seven or eight cobras in front of us, things I had been told, and what we’d already read made me think the guy wasn’t exactly telling the truth, but I went with it regardless. They put another, much larger snake around me, again making sure I had the head secured, and mom took some pictures. She politely declined when they tried to do the same thing for her.

Those would be cobras around my neck.

We entered the marché and took a few turns and what do you know, we got lost. We saw all sorts of cool stuff, trying not to spend all of our money in an hour. We ended up in an exotic animal section where we saw hawks, chameleons, crazy looking lizards, and turtles galore all for sale. There was also many severed heads ready for purchase. We knew we were in the wrong place because we were the only tourists in the section and there was seemingly some sort of sale going on as the women in the square were in a frenzy. Somebody told us the section was the old slave market. We turned around and failed to go back the way we came. Eventually a kid noticed we were lost and helped us find our way out. We had dinner at some random restaurant in the square and

Chameleons! Sharp little claws on those bad boys

then walked around to experience the square at night. There were men with large monkeys you could hold or put on your head or shoulders for a small fee (I didn’t want to get bit again so we abstained) and storytellers speaking in Arabic with large crowds standing around listening. We tried to listen but realized we couldn’t understand and had no idea what was happening and moved on. We also had very freshly squeezed orange juice that we agreed was the best we’ve ever had. I have now taken another phrase from my mom’s awesome vernacular and will refer to fresh juice as “fresh squozed.” My mother is a comedian. We were tired at that point and got out of there. I went downstairs in the hotel and had a Budweiser for the first time in a year… it was delicious!

Mom with our "fresh squozed" delicious orange juice

We woke up early again the next morning and went and got breakfast at the café across the street form the train station and then jumped on a train back to Casablanca, this time in first class. It was delayed an hour and half, but eventually we got moving. We sat in a compartment with two Moroccans and an Algerian couple. I have never met Algerians before. They were not what I expected and I was a little ashamed of myself for assuming Algerians were all burka and boubou wearing people because of what I have seen on TV, their neighbors being Mali and Libya (who haven’t been the best ambassadors of North Africa), and last year’s siege in southern Algeria where 27 people were taken hostage and some were slaughtered. They were very nice people and I learned once again that whatever we see on television is the absolute minority of people. Most people in most of these countries the American media make look so bad are normal, nice people who are just trying to get by (or in this case were on vacation in Morocco). The minority are just the ones who merit making the news.Anyways, the only difference between first and second class on the train was the amount of legroom. It was still horribly hot in there and hard to stay awake, but it was certainly better than the train going to Marrakech. We also didn’t screw up this time and got off at the right stop.

We checked into our hotel later than planned, and were pleased to find our room on the sixteenth floor, the highest in the hotel. The view was beautiful with the ocean, a lighthouse, and the

From the Sheraton in Casablanca

Grand Mosque in view. We sat around for a bit and went to dinner, looking for seafood. Apparently we couldn’t follow the concierge’s directions and didn’t find the restaurant we were aiming for. Instead we wandered until we stumbled across “Le Cardinal.” As a University of Louisville alumnus and a Cardinal for life, it seemed only appropriate we eat there. Fresh shrimp in an avocado, fish brochettes (skewers), beer, and a La Liga soccer game, and we hung out in there for around two hours before heading back to the hotel. We got lost on the way back since we decided to take a different route back. We were going to ask for directions when we looked up and were right in front of our hotel. Neither of us understood how it happened, but were glad to be off of the dangerous Casablanca streets. Mom went to bed and David went to, can you guess it, a bar. I left the hotel and wandered without an idea of where I was going and when I ended up on a street with no tourists, a lot of people who looked like they wanted to hurt me, and witnessed a drug deal, I turned around and

Looking awkward at Le Cardinal

made haste down the same way I came. I thought a couple different times I was being followed and kept looking back, but escaped unscathed. I’d seen a bar right next to the hotel and went on in where they had cheap beer and free bar food (olives and sliced cucumbers). There were a few ladies of the night in the bar and I did my best to avoid their gaze. After about twenty minutes I have to say I was a bit offended none of them tried their luck… then one did. I declined. I went back to the hotel, determined to stay up to go to the nightclub in the hotel, which apparently started filling up at 1:00 AM. I failed and fell asleep.

The next day we went to the Medina in Casablanca and did more tourist sight seeing. The Casablanca market was nowhere near as impressive as the one in Marrakech and there wasn’t too much variety of things to get. Still we walked, hoping to see something different. We didn’t. We left and headed to La Grande Mosquée Hassan II on the water. It is the third biggest mosque in the world only behind Mecca and another mosque in Saudi Arabia and it is truly remarkable, absolutely massive, and beautiful. There is more marble in that mosque than I’ve ever seen in my life, combined. The chandeliers alone were worth more than most houses in the US. All of it was built with Moroccan materials, except for the chandeliers, made from Venetian silver imported from Italy. The doors were made of titanium in case of flood, as titanium is water repellant. The door opened only for presidents of states and the King of Morocco was 35 tons of titanium, which is more expensive than gold or platinum. The mosque took only six years to build,

La Grande Mosquée Hassan II

which is truly a feat. It was worked on for 24 hours a day for six full years. At Ramadan the mosque fills up with a capacity of 25,000 people. 20,000 of them are men; 5,000 are women. When at capacity, or when the weather is truly permitting, the ceiling retracts to allow ventilation and sunlight. There are 82 washing stations below the prayer floor, also made completely of marble. 41 of them are together for the men, and another 41 for the women. Of the 41, three are very large, and 38 are much smaller, but still very impressive. The mosque is completely self-sustaining as tours run three times a day, and cost a pretty penny. When it was built, the king donated a third of the cost. When finished the price was estimated at $800 million, and that was almost thirty years ago. They believe the price is now triple to quadruple that.

Turkish bath underneath the mosque

Connected to the mosque, but technically not part of it (though reflected in the astronomical price), are two Turkish baths underneath, one for the women and one for the men. Neither has ever been used but they claim they will be opened up every year, or the year after that and so on. Our guide believes it will never actually open, because then people wouldn’t have to see on it on the tour and they wouldn’t be making as much money. It was basically a full size pool heated to hot tub temperature and went five feet deep, though you’d never guess that when looking at the still water. This was truly one of the more incredible things I’ve ever seen in my life, and the archways and doors were absolutely gorgeous. If you ever come to Morocco, you absolutely need to visit that place. Oh, and when we left and were walking to catch a cab, we ran into my buddy TJ, another volunteer on vacation in Morocco with his family. What are the odds!

SO MUCH MARBLE

The hand-crafted, retractable roof

The king's 35 ton titanium door

For dinner that night we went to the famous Rick’s Café (as seen in the film Casablanca). Thanks Rohan for suggesting it because it was great (another plug to see if anybody reads this). We were expecting a burger joint. We were wrong. It was a very high-end restaurant that required reservations that we didn’t have. We sat at the bar instead and enjoyed appetizers of smoked salmon and crab, and then meals of filet mignon cooked to perfection. I also had a Corona and margarita. We sat next to a nice Australian couple and made conversation for about two hours, enjoying the ambiance

Mom and I at Rick's

and listening to the live piano playing. That was the best dinner I’ve had in this my year in Africa by far (yeah, it beat the Cordon Bleu from mom's first night). We went back and tonight I went to the bar much later, certain I was going to see the nightclub in full swing. I succeeded, though I just sat there and watched the people on the dance floor. Nightclubs are not places one should visit alone, ever. It was nice to see that nightclubs on this continent are capable of playing music properly, as it had more an Eastern European feel to it than African. Maybe I’m just jaded because the DJs in Burkina can’t play a song without interjecting their personal thoughts right when a beat is about to drop, or putting on songs with absolutely no rhythm. I headed out of there after about thirty minutes.

It rained on mom’s last day, and we were exhausted at the start of it, but we had plans. We jumped in a cab with another American man here on business who was very nice and paid for our ride to the Morocco Mall. He said we translated for him so we earned it. It was very generous nonetheless. This was one of those situations I was glad I was in Morocco because when you take a cab in the rain in Burkina, you get rained on the whole time. The windows usually don’t go up and the roof is usually leaky, even in the “nice” ones. We went into the mall and stopped at Starbuck’s. I got a large coffee, excuse me, a venti coffee, and mom and I split a big chocolate doughnut. I tried to take a picture of me drinking the coffee to rub in to the other volunteers, as everybody seems to do, and I paid the price for being a jerk by spilling coffee on my nice shirt. I wasn’t too angry; I deserved it and knew it.

We walked around and looked at the stores, Banana Republic, H&M, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and some others. Dior had a large ad outside the store of a man in a suit (pictured). Apparently it is in fashion to look like a Nazi in France right now… get it together Dior. There was also an aquarium in the mall. We stared at the sharks and colorful fish for a while and headed to the food court, the main reason I wanted to go in the first place. I wanted to get Burger King chicken fries and maybe a bacon cheeseburger. I shouldn’t have been surprised to not find either, especially the bacon in an all-Muslim country. I also wanted a Domino’s pizza, which did happen, and surprisingly it had pepperoni on it. It

Surely nobody thinks this looks good...

was glorious. I had some chicken kickers alongside that. It was really cool to hear the call to prayer over the loud speakers. They must have had auditions because the voice was the best sounding call to prayer I’ve ever heard. We left the mall without buying anything ($15 for anything is insane to me now) and grabbed a cab to head to the grand market. We were disappointed to find out the market we’d been to already in the Medina was the grand market. How such a massive city didn’t have a huge market was a huge disappointment, but we were tired and headed back to the hotel. We were going to go the port restaurant for dinner, but we were both absolutely exhausted so instead we went back to Le Cardinal and had a nice dinner (I had a massive chicken Caesar salad as my appetizer and shrimp and calamari sautéed in oil, and mom had the shrimp in avocado again). We came back and packed and I went back to the bar next to the hotel. While I was alone and couldn’t communicate with anybody as they were all speaking only in Arabic, it was still enjoyable to see the city life at night. The people are so friendly and after living in a society where hugging is very strange, seeing everybody greet each other with kisses like the French was a welcomed change.

Today mom and I went to the airport nice and early. The train ride to the airport was significantly longer than we anticipated and we showed up two hours before her international flight. When we got her bag checked there was about 75 minutes left before she took off… I don’t know if she got on that plane or not as we have no means of communication, but I’m assuming everything is fine.

I jumped back on the train and came back to the hotel, checked out, and walked to a café to start writing this bad boy. I hung out in the first café for about an hour and a half and then went a block away for lunch. I finally ate something cooked with a tajine, the Moroccan conically shaped steamer. I had Tajine de Poisson or a tajine of fish. It was delicious, sans the bones that almost stabbed me. I came back to the hotel, watched an episode of Breaking Bad, and continued to write this. My flight takes off

Tajine de Poisson

in either seven or eight hours (I still have no idea) and I still have too much money. I think I’ll head to Le Cardinal again for dinner tonight. The prices aren’t exorbitant, the service is good, the beer is cheap, and the food is excellent, and I know how to get to and from there. Casablanca is not the kind of city you just walk around in, alone, at night. The Moroccan guy I met in Bobo that first night told me Casablanca is the city Moroccans are scared of, so I’m not about to get cocky about my knowledge of the city after three days here. I’ve had my share of delicious seafood and really do not want to get mugged or shanked in my last night in this country, so I’m gonna keep it easy and safe.

It truly was a great vacation. I loved spending time with mom after being away for so long, and we had a rapport like I left yesterday. It was nice not worrying about spending an extra two dollars to get a beer in Burkina (though I still constantly thought about money, it’s the PCV way). It was also great to eat seafood that I trusted to not give me dysentery or giardia. As stated in a past post, the fish that I get in village comes from Mali on non-climate controlled trucks and can be days old before it sees my marché. One landlocked country imports fish from another landlocked country further into the desert… just incredible. After arriving in Burkina I will probably take a buffer day or two in Ouagadougou before moving along. Readjustment can be difficult after a vacation and I don’t want to jump right back into the fray after two weeks away. Thanks mom for an amazing vacation, you are the best. Thanks Grandma for the $20 you sent with my mother. Hopefully I can post this tonight. If not, hopefully I am safely back in Burkina Faso, though I wouldn’t mind if my flight got cancelled and I got a couple extra days in Casablanca on the airline’s dollar… doubtful.

Blaise's Spaceship

Blaise and his old buddy Muammar Gaddafi

Go Cards Go Krogering! And Redskins, please get your first win today, though I won’t find out for another day. I mean come on; you’re playing the RAIDERS! Just win baby. (That was partially a shot at you Sanjay).

Update, they won. Here's some pictures.