This week

Due to all the rain and snow we've had this fall, the waterfall near our home has filled up again much to our delight. The girls got soaking wet running through all the tiny streams running into this cascade today. Our chaplain organizes a huge "Lessons and Carols" event each year. Our pitiful little AUI choir sang some nice, calm songs first. The girls sang a quiet version of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" with their friends, and then came the sub-Saharan African choirs. Immigrants from places like the Congo and Nigeria, these people know how to sing...and dance...and clap. It was a wonderful time of celebration with hundreds in attendance right on campus at the university auditorium. Because the lighting is bad, I couldn't get any choir pictures, but here we are dressed up before the program. Several of Gerald's students came which was a treat. And Gerald played the trumpet for all the carols - often providing the descant. In my completely unbiased opinion, his playing added so much to the program!

Following the performance, two visiting singles stayed the night with us. By morning, all roads out of Ifrane were closed because of heavy snowfall that night (by December 17, we had had 16 days of snow in December). So the two gals along with a few others ended up at our house stranded. The last one left the next day when the road to her town finally opened.

Here is our friend Khadija and her newborn son being carried in the traditional way. Her neighbor's barn had burned down and our church helped pay for repairs so they all invited us over for a meal to thank us. As soon as we arrived, they threw blankets over our shoulders and on our laps to keep us warm. First came the tea. Then the chicken tajine. Then, after we had already stuffed ourselves - the cous cous came. It was then that my Moroccan friend made a great effort in trying to show me exactly how to roll a ball of cous cous in my hand to form into a ball to put in my mouth. I just couldn't get the technique down and showed her instead the Pakistani way of doing it with the fingertips. "That's ridiculous!" she exclaimed.

We had parked our cars halfway on the village road because the road was so snowy and icy that we couldn't get in any farther. The police way down the hill came up and told us to move our cars because the king was passing by and no cars could be in sight (do I look a sniper??). We told them we couldn't move the cars any further in and wouldn't stay long. Finally they agreed to let us stay - and got some cous cous from the villagers.

The king has been in town for over a week now. He didn't give Ifrane much warning like usual and all of a sudden we noticed a mad flurry of activity in preparation. For a few days it was complete chaos because in addition to the huge influx of military, it was also Eid vacation and we had tons of snow tourists. But things have calmed down now - unless of course, we park in the wrong place.