Today it is with honor that I share with you the blog of a poet: Nasamat min bilady, who went to all the trouble of writing a (wonderful) poem about my husband and I in the comments of my last post, here.

Thank you!

Oh, how I love articles like this. Every foreign Jew I’ve met in Morocco has had little or no problems, Moroccans are quick to point out their history with their own Jews (which is not as pretty as they make it seem), and Morocco and Israel have all sorts of ties.

But God forbid they send Israeli dates to Morocco!

Cheers to blogger Larbi, who was recently named one of 100 people who move Morocco in TelQuel magazine!

While this is really in no way related to Morocco, it’s the best US Ramadan story I have yet.

Yesterday, I was in a shoe store about an hour before lftour. In front of me in line was a black girl wearing hijab, carrying two copies of the Qur’an (one in English, one in Arabic) and buying a backpack. Suddenly, a man that can only be described as a “pimp” walks into the store - white suit, head to toe, white fedora, and gold teeth. I’m not kidding. He actually had a grill.

Then, the aforementioned Muslimah sees him, squeals and says hello! A conversation ensues. He asks if she’s going to [fill in event name here]. She says yes. He invites her to go along with him. She says no, but says she’ll follow three steps behind him.  Maybe it’s the grill?

But the best part? The salesgirl in the shoe store was Chinese, and as the Muslimah paid for her shoes, she started chatting up the salesgirl…in Chinese.

I think I love Boston.

Project Gutenberg, which offers free online books, and which I truly, dearly love, is now offering Edith Wharton’s In Morocco, which I also truly, dearly love.

Apparently I stirred up some poo (hey, I have a professional job now) over at Global Voices
when I shared some of ya’all’s blog posts (okay, and my own, I couldn’t resist) about M6 being a bit too rich.

“Long live the king!” says one of my commenters.

What do you think?

A Moro in America reports that King Mohammed VI is the 7th richest royal in the world - while I am left here wondering who the first 6 are, the Moroccan monarch’s salary blows my mind, but not as much as the amount he apparently spends daily on clothes and car repairs: $960,000.

King of the poor my left arm.

Recently, a friend of mine saw this article on Al Jazeera English and asked me if that’s really what I saw in Morocco - and the answer was, unfortunately, yes.  Homeless or street children are just unbearably commonplace in Morocco, and there are precious few programs to help them.  Most Moroccans I’ve spoken to about this issue say that there are simply other issues to deal with, including their own or those of their families.  Although Moroccans are very generous and often philanthropic people (though not in the Western sense, necessarily), most of their zakat (charity, a pillar of Islam) tends to go to the mosque, or feeding people in their neighborhood, or buying a sheep for a family for Aid El Kabir (which I personally find far less important than say, getting kids off the streets, but to each their own).

Anyhow, an excellent article that shows where the problems truly lie for the newly elected parliamentarians.  If only more journalists would dare to draw attention to this issue.

As I just said over at Global Voices, Moroccan bloggers have little to say about the actual election results, preferring to talk about the low voter turnout (estimated to be between 37 and 41%) instead.  So I’ll do the same, briefly - basically, that’s not bad for a country with so little democracy, if we’re talking in comparison to the U.S., say.  What’s the percentage of voters there?  Anyone know?  Take a guess (preferably without looking it up!)

In other news, I bought a jar of “Moroccan pitted olives” at Trader Joe’s today for $1.99.  I daresay they’re actually cheaper there than at Frenchy Label ‘Vie.

I’m pretty happy, I must say, with the preliminary results of the Moroccan elections, but that’s all I’ll say for now…don’t want to invoke the evil eye.

Apologies for my lack of posts of late - in the middle of a move/starting a new job/no home internet, but will be back on my proverbial feet within a few weeks.