Eid al-F'tour Long Weekend!

Huzzah for getting both American and Islamic holidays!

The month of Ramadan ended Sunday, with the traditional huge feast and family visitation, so both Monday and Tuesday are given off from school, because none of our students would have shown up anyway. With the four-day weekend, we Americans decided to have some adventures!

Friday evening, I ended up venturing out by myself (before the F'tour) to wander the Mellah between the new city and the Medina. It's close enough to be a fast walk, but has fun winding streets and bustling markets. I had some of my first positive experiences with strangers (particularly males, because almost ALL experiences with local men are negative.) in talking with the shopkeepers, and it was great language practice.

I walked home down Hassan Tanni, the big boulevard in my city, and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The following morning, I set out with Suzanne, Candace, and Ethan, and Hassan Tanni had a funny smell of lacquer. All of a sudden, there was a lion! Surrounded by gawkers, a bronze lion on a rectangular base covered in bronzed grass had been plunked down in the center of the boulevard! We stopped to take our pictures with him, and to speculate on his purpose. Of course, we had to poke various parts to find out what was still wet, and Suzanne came away with some of the gravel that was embedded in the bronze-coloured goo stuck to her palms.

-- We had a nice walk around the Medina, traveling Bab (door) to Bab. The Medina in my city is apparently the oldest walled city that has been inhabited since its establishment in the 8th century. It was interesting being there with the four of us after walking in smaller groups. We got a lot of hassle by kids wanting to be our tour guides. Ethan told them he was our tour guide, and they mostly believed him. He knows the Medina well enough to be a guide. I bought a kilo of fresh figs from the fruit-souk for the US equivalent of $1.50. Sooo tasty.

The plan was to meet at my place for F'tour before the salsa party, but the message didn't get out to all involved. I hosted my first semi-official F'tour, with milk and dates, figs, khobz and cous-cous, and Ethan brought malawi from the F'tour stand near his house. Candace had already eaten, and rested up for the salsa, and Abdul was running late, so Ethan and I stood around outside, unable to enter the apartment above suspicion with just the two of us! Oh dear! Suzanne came over, and we all figured three people was close enough to the culturally appropriate gender requirements... plus we were hungry.

The salsa party was lots of fun, if pretty tame. I had about 10 people come, and taught a short routine, and then we just put on music and danced - well, a few of us danced. We've already decided on having another one, just so more people come and feel comfortable with it. It was great to get in some dancing, and everybody did so well, but I missed all my Schenectady dancers! We ended up partying until about 4am, although the last several hours comprised significantly less movement and more chatting from the couches. An eventful and exciting day, and church seemed very early the next morning...