October

The girls helping clean up a Christian graveyard where residents of Ifrane originally from Italy & France were buried in the 4os-70s. With last year's heavy snows, many branches had come down and needed to be taken out. The graveyard has also been repeatedly vandalized by people practicing witchcraft. Several weeks ago, it was with a creepy feeling that Karen and I stared into a 6-ft deep hole which had been dug into one of the graves leaving only a few leg bones behind at the bottom. Many other gravestones had been torn apart and strewn around. No crosses remain. The city helped re-fill the graves, and we tried to put things back in order as best as we could as well as plant bulbs and shrubs - breathing prayers all over the place! We found a few more bones, two scorpions, and two charms (a charm written on paper, wrapped around a stone, then wrapped in multiple layers of cloth, foil & plastic). But what I thought was most amazing is that there we were - a group of protestants, catholics, orthodox and Muslims -all working together to clean up a catholic graveyard! At one point, I was working with a Muslim friend who was sweating in the hot sun (sorry, Kansans - I know you're freezing over there), lugging huge stones back to a grave and arranging them around the top. I was touched to see her working so hard to restore a Christian graveyard.

Kendra in her first-ever school program. She is in a classroom with two grades and hers is on the left. This was a program for "Africa Day." While Katrina's class was getting ready for the same program, they talked about the skin color of Africans and then someone asked the question: "But aren't we Africans? Our skin is not dark!" Indeed, North Africa seems like an entirely different continent than sub-Saharan Africa! Also in preparation for the day, Katrina's class colored a map of Morocco - but they did not color the Western Sahara. I do hope her teacher (who is French) doesn't get in trouble - for you are not even allowed to have a map here that does not include the Western Sahara with Morocco.

My all-time favorite art project - painting leaves on windows. Lots of mess, true - but the result is so pretty and it doesn't take up any space or need to be stored!

Our friend, Rachida, doing physical therapy on Fadwa who has cerebral palsy while her little brother, Mohammad, sits still because he has so many clothes on. Fadwa doesn't wear diapers so the house smells of - well, I think you can guess. We go out there once a week, but it doesn't seem like enough. We were hoping her big sister who is 16 years old would exercise Fadwa during the week, but we found out Ito is to get married this weekend. Apparently this is a 'love marriage' - both of them begged their parents. Their new house has already been built. It almost had to come down a few weeks ago because it is made of cement blocks and all the other houses are made of rocks, mud, wood & tin. The latter is allowed because they are squatters on the land. But the city government said the cement-block house had to go because it was too permanent. With our friend Karen, helping, the city was convinced to allow the structure to remain - but they can't build any more. Apparently the government wants all these little villages to be removed and their inhabitants to be moved into towns which will be terribly hard because they all take care of flocks of sheep and goats.

Out for a picnic on one of the many lovely fall days we've had here. The kids are smiling because they are holding skeletons of dogs and cray-fish they found lying around. Nice.

For our book club's discussion on "The Storyteller's Daughter" I made Kabuli pilau - with the help of my mother's recipe.

Then there's Halloween when the kids of the residences met at our house to go trick-or-treating and then had a party here afterward. I think my living room is under this pile of kids! There is so little for kids around here, we look for any excuse to have a party!

Kendra ready to go

Katrina the cat with her buddy, Marwa