When Words (and Pantomime) Fail

Communication is hard. We use words as our main means of communicating, but that doesn't always work. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Boardwalk

Alrica and I are in Mohammedia, Morocco. It's a city a bit east of Casablanca. It isn't exactly a suburb of Casablanca, but it is becoming one. It's one of those situations where the city of Mohammedia existed as its own place. But as Casablanca grows and people want to live near but not in the big city, they move out to other nearby cities. I think that's what is happening to Mohammedia.

The White Mosque of Mohammedia

The city has a beach on the Atlantic and a big port right beside the beach.

Does anyone know what these white birds are?

Along the beach there is a long boardwalk that is called "Le Corniche". Our landlord was explaining that we should visit it, but couldn't think of the English word for Corniche. I couldn't either, so we did a web search. The translation given was cornice, but that's an architectural feature. It made no sense. Eventually, we figured out from context that it had to mean "boardwalk."

Even signs can be hard to read. I think this means birdbath used to lure prey for snakes. Alrica disagrees.

Tacos

Picture of a "taco"

Mohammedia has outdoor shopping areas and restaurants with covered outdoor seating. Alrica and I got "tacos" but, again, the word "taco" is misleading. Let me explain. In verse.

A taco in Morocco
Isn't what we'd call a taco.
It's delicious and its neato
But in shape it's more burrito.
Though inside it's not burrito
Sure, it does have spice and meat
Only there's also fries, not teeny.
Plus it's grilled like a panini.
You should absolutely try one
If you get the chance to buy one.
Only don't expect a taco
From a taco in Morocco.

Matches

We live very near an Aswak Assalam. This is a big store, a grocery store and more. It has electronics, house goods, and clothing. It's like Target or a Walmart Supercenter in the United States. But they also serve prepared foods and there is a seating area. We ate there yesterday, though it wasn't our intention.

Those most alluring aisle in the grocery store.

We planned to cook lunch at home, but we had a problem. We have a gas stove, but it doesn't have an automatic starter in it. So you have to light it with one of those long lighters that is vaguely shaped like a rifle. Only when we turned on the gas and clicked the trigger of the lighter, nothing happened. The lighter we had was out of fuel. Well, we are nothing if not flexible.

You can buy hummus in a can

We went to Aswak Assalam both to get some lunch and to buy either a lighter or matches so that we could cook going forward. The lunch was amazing. Alrica got Asian noodles with a ginger infused soup and a shrimp egg roll. It was fantastic Asian food in Africa. I had a pasta dish which was fine, nothing spectacular.

After we had eaten, we set about the challenge of trying to find matches or a lighter. It's a big store and we were failing, so we decided to ask someone for help. Here's the thing: I don't know the word for matches in either French or Arabic. And Google translate failed me. The problem is that the English word "matches" means a lot of things:

• Wooden sticks with phosphorus on the end used to start a fire
• Pairing or couplings
• Sporting events or contests
• An opponent of nearly equal ability
• Having colors and patterns that complement one another

You see my problem. My translate app is giving me a translation of matches, but not the wooden stick with phosphorus kind. But in such times of trouble, when words fail, we can always fall back on pantomime and sound effects. So here I am trying to pantomime striking a match and trying to make the sound of it flaring to life.

It would appear that I am bad at this game. The man helping us lit up, certain he knew what we were looking for. I felt very accomplished in my pantomime abilities until we arrived at our destination, a corkscrew. He took my striking a match to mean opening a wine bottle.

It wasn't a total loss, because in the same aisle, as we were walking toward the corkscrew, we passed lighters. So we did, with a bit of luck, find our quarry.

Look at that sensuous, serpentine curves of that hydrant. Almost as alluring as the grocery aisle.

Today, as I write this, I have just finished the lunch we planned to make yesterday. So good news, we can cook! Even if we can't always communicate.

Let Fes Be Fes

When I was a kid and I liked a particular thing, maybe a color or food or movie, and person X did not like it—more often than not person X was my brother, Adam—or when I was the disliker and person X was the liker, my mother would often remind me that it's good that we aren't all the same. She would explain that if everyone were the same it would be a very boring world.

She was right, of course, as moms often are. When I ask my mom how she got so smart she tells me something about mother school. I'm pretty sure that one is a lie. My hypothesis is that when a child comes out of the mother, it creates a vacuum and knowledge rushes in to fill it. The problem with my hypothesis is that the women who adopt children can also be maternally wise and my proposed mechanism can in no way account for that.

The Medina of Fes

Ignoring at present the question of how or what or where the wisdom comes from, I need to take the wisdom to heart. And that's why I want to talk about Fes. More specifically, the Medina of Fes. Even more specifically, Fes El Bali, but I won't limit myself only to that subsection of the city.

Let me explain what all these parts are. Fes is a city. Sometimes it is written as Fez, though I'm not sure why. The Arabic name definitely ends with a letter pronounced as s. The city is large and much of it is very modern. That's because the city has grown out from its historic beginnings. Fes, as we know it today, began in the ninth century. It was a big city for its time and place and it was a walled city. The gates were closed at night for protection.

That oldest walled precinct is today Fes El Bali, which means Old Fes. But in the fourteenth century, another walled city was added adjacent to Fes El Bali. This is Fes El J'did, meaning New Fes. That's a bit ironic since the much larger unwalled city of Fes is even newer (quite a bit newer) than New Fes, but we'll let that go. The two walled cities together comprise the Medina of Fes. (Medina is the Arabic word for city.)

Alrica and I stayed for four nights in a riad in Fes El Bali. This was a hotel of sorts in one of those ancient buildings in the narrow and labyrinthine streets of the oldest party of the city. Ryan and Michelle were in the other room on the same floor as ours.

When we arrived, Ahmed, our night host, served us mint tea (Alrica generously drank mine for me,) gave us an explanation of sites in the Medina, and carried the bags up the very steep staircase.

I had to meet a student at midnight that night, meaning I had to stay up late. Before the meeting, Ryan and I went out in the night and just got ourselves purposely lost in the twisting streets and then got ourselves purposely found again.

How brilliant is this branding?

The next morning, Alrica and Michelle wandered the Medina and did some shopping.

Ryan and I saw some of the sites. We walked to the Royal Palace. You are not allowed inside but you can go to the outer walls and see the beautiful golden gates.

The King (sometimes) lives behind those doors

Next we wandered in the Mellah, the old Jewish quarter of the city. In the days of caravans, the Jewish traders collected and traded salt and they liked to live near the palace with the theory that it was the safest part of the city. Certainly no military force would let invaders reach the home of their king.

From the Mellah, Ryan and I went to a part of Fes El J'did that isn't often visited by tourists. It was a great chance to see how the locals lived. It was here that encountered the hydrant picture that can only live in in my mind, the one that got away.

Unexpected optical illusion in the non-tourist area

There are surprisingly few fire hydrants in the Medina. But in this neighborhood I saw a beauty, shiny red, and butted right up against the wall of one of the old buildings. Why didn't I get the picture? Sitting beside the hydrant was an elderly Moroccan woman all decked out in traditional dress. The contrast of her clothing with the fountain would have made for a fantastic photograph. But I didn't know enough Arabic to ask her permission to take the picture and I didn't want to spook her or upset her. So the image will have to live on in my mind. (Maybe in Ryan's mind too.)

Next we saw the Jardin Jnan Sbil. There were some white water birds mingling with (or truthfully trying to avoid) the geese. I'm not sure what the white birds were.

I did get a hydrant picture in the Jnan Sbil Garden. You're relieved, right?

These were all in Fes El J'did. When Ryan and I reached the Blue Gate, we crossed back into Fes El Bali.

The Blue Gate is one of the ancient gates of Fes El Bali. It's name in Arabic is Bab Boujloud. Bab is pronounced close to Bob or Baab and it means door or gate. Boujloud doesn't mean blue however. It may mean Father of the troops (though there is not full consensus about this.) And originally it wasn't blue. The French built the current gate at this spot in 1913. Also the Blue Gate is only half blue. Or better to say it is only all blue on half the area. The outside, the Fes El J'did side, is decorated in blue. The inside, the Fes El Bali side, is decorated in green. But you can't call it the Blue Green Gate because none of it is in turquoise or teal or aqua or any such color. I guess it could be called the Half Blue Half Green Gate, but that's unruly. The Blue Gate will have to suffice.

The Blue Gate (the blue side)

Here we met up with Alrica and Michelle.

The afternoon found all four of us together in Old Fes. Ryan and Michelle did some shopping and Alrica assisted in the haggling process. We also visited the Nejjarine Museum of Wood Arts. It was full of lovely examples of decorative woodwork. But it also had wooden tools made for craftsmen of other arts or industries, like farming, leather working, or making music.

For dinner we had pizza, all of us needing a break from tagines after the desert tour.

Other activities included watching a football (meaning soccer) game with Ahmed at a coffee shop, eating "tacos" which are closer to shawarma than what we consider tacos at home, and enjoying the Fesness of it all.

This arch in the old city comes up to my jaw. And there are homes on the other side.

Let me explain what I mean by that. I love to travel and to experience new places, new cultures, new people, and new foods. There are so many interesting differences.

I don't know what the bottles of oil are here for, but there must be a reason, right?

But what I also see is how many of those differences are being blotted out or smudged. In some ways, big cities are big cities. Bangkok and New York City have different language, but seem so alike in so many ways. For many tourists that's good. They know what to expect. They can have similar beds to the ones at home. They can expect similar service to that of home. But if we ever reach a point that Tokyo is just another London filled with Japanese speakers (or London is just another Tokyo,) Quito is just Spanish speaking Denver, and Fes is only Montreal in Arabic, then we will have lost something. As my mom explained to me all those years ago, if every place is the same, this will be a very boring world.

I like the colorful stones leading to the door here

That's what I love about Fes El Bali. It has the same crowded streets, the same tiny shops, the same street food, and the same feel as it has for centuries. Sure, there has been some modernization: electricity and running water and sewers. But its character has remained true to itself. And I hope that no matter how much some tourists want it to become more like the other places they go or more like where they are from that it won't, but instead it will keep on being the Old part of Old Fes. It's different; that's what I appreciate most about it. Good golly, keep the Bali in Fes El Bali.

Frisco and Needle and Weeble and...

At the end of my last post, I mentioned that we were on a three-day and two-night trip to the Sahara Desert. I wasn't lying, but I forgive you if you thought I was. I know, pics or it didn't happen. Well, I have pics and stories.

That's the Sahara Desert. Now I have been to the Sahara Desert.

Our story begins in Marrakech where Alrica, Ryan, Michelle, and I were picked up at 6:50 AM, (a good hour and a half before sunrise,) bundled into an extended van with incredibly stiff seat belts, and driven around the city to pick up the other nine guests who would share the journey with us. Our guide was Mohamed and our driver was Mohamed's brother, Ayoub.

Mohamed in Tinghir on Day Two (without any notice I was going to take his picture)

First, we went up. Not straight up, this was a van, remember, not a rocket. So first we went west and up. We drove up into the High Atlas Mountains which we had to cross. The Atlas Mountains are in three ranges: the High Atlas, the Middle Atlas, and if you guessed the Low Atlas, you would be wrong. Insert Wahwah sound. No, the third range is the Anti Atlas.

High Adventure in the High Atlas?

We came down (not straight down, read above) and eventually reached Aït Benhaddou. Here we had lunch and then toured Ksar Aït Benhaddou. Breaking that down, "ksar" means castle and "aït" refers to the Berber tribes (more on that term in a moment), "ben" is son of or descendants of, and "Haddou" was the first great chieftain of this place. The ksar is across the river from the modern new village of Aït Benhaddou. There are still four families living in the old village, but it doesn't have electricity or running water. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so nobody is going to bring in running water. Though there are some solar panels these days. Because of this, almost all the families have moved to the new village with those amenities and roads and schools.

The guard tower is the top, the kasbahs at the bottom right

We climbed the peak, seeing the two kasbahs (complexes that have four towers) which were the homes of the wealthy, the middle region which held the homes of the regular people, the mosque, the synagogue, the chief's tower, and at the very top, the guard house.

The chief lived in the left tower. The two on the right were used for the judicial system.

This was a major destination in the trading route between Timbuktu, Mali and Marrakech, Morocco (starting long before those two nations had the borders they do today.) It was peopled by Berbers, though the Berbers don't like the term, the Berbers. That was what the Romans called them, a variation on barbarian. So while, in English, it is what we call these people, it isn't what they call themselves. They are the Amazigh. (That "gh" at the end is pronounced like the French "r". It's softer than a regular "r", more of a purring sound. It's hard to explain in writing.)

Those are the kasbahs seen from above

The other people who lived here were Jewish. The Jewish citizens would mine salt and bring it Aït Benhaddou. Here they would trade it with the caravans from Timbuktu for all kinds of goods. Traders had to travel 52 days to get from Timbuktu to Aït Benhaddou. They would stay for as many days as they needed to complete their trading, and then go for 3 more days to reach Marrakech. The caravan trade ended about 140 years ago, so it is not what the village is known for today.

What is it known for? Ksar Aït Benhaddou is a popular spot for making movies that are set in the desert. For example, parts of Lawrence of Arabia and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were filmed there. Recently, Gladiator 2 was filmed there. (Gladiator 1, which was only called Gladiator since they didn't know at the time it would have a sequel, had also been filmed there.) For the filming, the production company built an arena next to the hill on which the old village sits. And then when filming was over, they had to tear it down and remove every vestige of it. World heritage site, right.

From Aït Benhaddou, we traveled to the city of Tinghir. (Again, that "gh" is the soft French "r" sound.) Here we stayed in a hotel. And I have to get a bit into the less fun tour part of the story now.

That Time Erich Ran Out of Spell Slots

I once read about this description of introverts who have to do extroverted things in terms of how many spoons they have available. But I've seen another description that I prefer, spell slots. In Dungeons and Dragons, a wizard has spell slots of different levels. Maybe the wizard has six slots for first level spells, and six slots for second level spells, but only four slots for third level spells and so on for other higher level spells. In this description, if the wizard is out of second level spell slots, a third or fourth or higher level spell slot could be used to cast a second level spell. But then you have one fewer slot in the higher level.

I want to apply this model to "things Erich doesn't normally do." I only have so many slots at various levels to do things that are uncomfortable for me or outside of my norm. The further outside my norm, the higher level spell slot that is necessary. For example, my appetite in the morning is negligible to non-existent. But if I have to eat breakfast anyway, that's a first level spell slot used up. If I have to eat cucumber or watermelon, that's a second level spell slot burned. If I have to eat cucumber or watermelon for breakfast, that's both a first and second level spell slot gone. If I had to share my toothbrush with someone else, that would be like an eighth level spell slot, and I'm not sure I get slots that high. (In reality, I would just throw that toothbrush away and start anew, but if that weren't a choice, high level spell slot.) But you understand my meaning. I hope.

I can regain spell slots. I don't know exactly what replenishes them, but things like enough sleep, playing a puzzle game, writing a mathematics problem, writing a song, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You know, moments of comfort, familiarity, and fun.

In Tinghir, Alrica and I were given a room that holds two people. Ryan and Michelle were given a room that holds four people. I started unpacking only to have Mohamed show up and say there was a mistake. There wasn't a separate room for each of us. We were all in the four person room. But we had paid for two separate rooms with two people each. So this was a surprise.

That means I have to pack back up and move. Having to pack up quickly and unexpectedly is about a third-level spell slot. It's stressful. What did I unpack? Did I get it all. Also, I now have to share a room. (Yes, I was going to share one with Alrica, but we're pretty comfortable with each other's quirks. It's different with people who don't live with you normally.) This night was going to be a fourth-level spell slot. Okay so we move. Ryan and Michelle go out to an ATM. Alrica gets on the phone with the tour company. I need a shower. I decide that while Ryan and Michelle are out, that would be a good time for a shower. But I want to be done by the time they get back, so I go super fast. That's only a first level spell slot, but it is still a spell slot. While I am drying off, Alrica gets a call back and now the hotel has a different room for the two of us. Great, I don't have to share, but... You guessed it. I have to pack quickly again. But the rest of the night is fine. However, I don't think sleep recovered any spell slots for me.

The next morning I have to wake up unnaturally early. What's more, I have to go eat breakfast. And then pack into the reasonably uncomfortable van seat. Spell slots, spell slots! We had a fun tour that morning, and I will talk about that in a moment, but I want to keep on my spell slot theme. These tours have a racket for lunch. You are taken to a particular place to eat. It's in a small village. There's nowhere else to go. So you have to eat there. You are trapped, literally tourist trapped. And now you are going to pay way more than you would pay in Marrakech or Fez for similar, but inferior, food. Your only other choice is not to eat. And I was tempted not to eat, but I didn't know how long until I would eat again, so I ate and overpaid. Burn another spell slot.

After lunch, we are on our way to the desert. And we make a stop at a place that you can buy traditional desert garb, a jilaba and a turban for a man. It's different names for a woman, maybe a kaftah. I'm not sure. Mohamed wants to get a picture of all of us in this desert garb. But that means you have to let the people in this shop dress you. I am not fond of other people dressing me, especially strangers. Sure, when I was very young, I'm sure my mother dressed me often, but I've lived enough years to fall out of that habit. When I'm in a play and I have a quick change, I will let the dresser dress me, but this is someone I've worked with and built up trust in. I could accept Alrica dressing me. As I said before, we're comfortable with each other. Now I am being told to do this dress up game for a turban and jilaba that I know I am not going to buy. But I said no. This will probably cost me a fourth level spell slot, and I know I have camel riding and sleeping in a frigid desert in a tent yet to come. So I said, "No." I couldn't afford the spell slot. And even then, I got pressured about my decision and had to stand my ground, costing me a lower level spell slot. But I just couldn't do it. I couldn't let total strangers touch me and dress me, and wrap a piece of colored cloth around my hair that was probably wrapped around a different person's hair thirty minutes earlier when the tour group before ours arrived. I just didn't have the spell slot I could spare.

Back to the Happier Parts of the Tour

Let's jump back to the morning tour. We were driven into a canyon with a guide named Abdul. Abdul lived in a village along the Tudra River. Our van stopped at the source of the river which comes up from underground and is surprisingly warm. Abdul told us about the river, the life along the river, the canyon, the rock climbers. He led us on a hike downstream and we reached the mouth of the canyon. Here we kept walking along the river, among the gardens maintained by the people in Abdul's village. Everyone has a plot. They grow many crops like almonds, alfalfa, green beans, and more. The people trade with one another. If one villager needs more alfalfa for his donkey but has cabbage to spare, he trades with someone else with the opposite problem. And the big product of the village is true Berber carpets. We got to learn about the process, the dyes, and see many of the finished carpets. (Quick note: I did have to take off my shoes in the house where we saw the carpets. For me and my flat feet, that's another spell slot right there.) But it was a great tour, Abdul was a wonderful guide, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Tudra Canyon stretching before me

The village garden with canyon wall backdrop

Jumping back ahead, we finally reached the Sahara Desert. This is in the southeastern part of Morocco, not too far from the Algerian border. Here, we left most of our belongings in the van, taking only a day pack. And we mounted camels. Yes, I rode a camel (thank goodness I previously saved a spell slot to do it.)

Giddy-up, Frisco!

I will be honest: I loved riding the camel. I loved seeing our shadows stretching on the dunes. I loved the stark beauty of the sand all around us. While it might have cost me high level spell slot to do it, I was repaid in the riches of fun. I named my camel Frisco, because I was like the Frisco Kid, riding through a foreign landscape. Michelle was right in front of me. She named her camel Weeble (because it wobbled, but it didn't fall down.) In front of Michelle was Alrica who named her camel Needle (because its fur was so full of hay, Alrica felt she was riding in a haystack.) And in front of Alrica was Ryan, who didn't name his camel at all. Of course, if you are a regular reader and you've read about The Car That Shall Not Be Named, you might be surprised, having assumed it would be Alrica who refused to name her camel. But keep in mind, Ryan is her cousin. So maybe the non-naming trait is genetic.

Sunset in the Sahara

After dinner in the desert, I walked out alone on the dunes. I wanted to get over a dune to block the lights of the camp. There I laid on my back and gazed at the stars. Even here, there was some light pollution, but far less than most everywhere else I ever find myself. We must never forget how many stars there are out there.

Our tent was spacious. The night was cold, but we had a lot of blankets. My nose and whichever cheek wasn't on the pillow got very cold though. And when I had to wake up horribly early once again, I did not want to step out of the warm bed. I stepped out, of course, I didn't have much choice, but it was cold. Deserts get notoriously cold in the night, and it being January here in the Northern Hemisphere, this drop in temperature was aggravated. I had breakfast, again, and then rode the camel back (I was on Weeble this time) as the sun rose while we were out on the dunes.

The last day was tough. It was nine hours drive in an even smaller bus to get across the Middle Atlas Mountains and then to Fes. Our driver spread out the stops, so if you had to pee, too bad, you were waiting a long time. We didn't have lunch until nearly 2 PM. That wasn't a problem for me, since I had eaten breakfast which I don't usually do. But Alrica was starving. What was different this time was we were in a real city, the city of Midelt. But what the driver did was pass through the city, going past shopping and restaurants and ATMs and anything with options. Then he got out to some lonely road and dropped us at a place that had no locals eating in it, where once again we could pay way too much for the same food we had been getting everywhere we had been. I was fed up with this and refused to eat there. So instead, Alrica, Ryan, Michelle, and I walked about ten minutes to reach a more major road. Here we found a place selling sandwiches for a much better price.

The afternoon drive was again long. We did pass through Ifrane National Park where we saw some Barnaby macaques. They are interesting to see, as they seem to have no tails. But they are actually monkeys. Some Barnaby macaques don't have tails, and some do, but they are very short. After this stop, we headed to the city of Ifrane which looks like an Alpine village in its architecture. Here we were able to visit an ATM and a mini market.

It's a macaque-aque-aque-aque-aque-aque-aque-aque. You outta know by now.

Finally, we made it to Fes, found our riad, and gloriously slept.

I now have some spell slots saved up again. Maybe writing blog posts helps to regain them.

Times Change, Companions Change, Thank Yous Fluctuate

Recently, I had to change my password at work. This is a painful process, because for the next several weeks I go through the states of password grief. First, there is denial: where my fingers and brain forget I have a new password until I have entered the old one and failed. Next is anger where I've still forgotten to use the new one and it ticks me off that I have to. Then instead of bargaining, I now move into waffling. I start to enter the old password and somewhere in the middle I stop, hit backspace a bunch of times and put in the new password. In place of depression we have inconsistency where I think I have it and for several days I do use the correct password but I really have to think about it when I reach the password screen. Then comes a day where I forget to think and use the old one. Not a linear process.

Finally we have acceptance where I intuitively use the correct new password. Two days ago I was in the waffling stage. I think I am the inconsistency phase now, but time will tell.

The password change doesn't happen often but there is another similar process that I go through more frequently. That is the change of thank you process.

We were in Albania for months and I got very used to saying falemenderit. When we then reached Italy, I kept saying falemenderit and had to correct myself to grazie. We were in Bosnia, Montenegro, and Serbia long enough that I got very used to saying hvala. This continued during our single day in Spain where I said a lot more hvala than gracias. And now I am in Morocco and trying to acclimate to saying shokhran.

Of course all the words change, but I say thank you the most often.

Speaking of changes, another changing element is time. Here, technology is a huge help. I entered the times that my classes for this semester were going to meet into Google calendar. I entered them in Eastern Time and it then shows them in the time zone I am in. But it also adjusts for all time changes. This semester, if we remain in Morocco there are three changes. The middle one is when the United States goes to daylight savings time. But what were the other two?

Mickey Mouse, wearing a Moroccan Flag cloak, and stalking me

Morocco uses permanent daylight savings. But there is one exception. For Ramadan, they shift back to standard time. During Ramadan, Muslims fast while the sun is out. By shifting back to standard time for that month, it means that they break their fast with an evening meal earlier (on the clock. The sun doesn't care what we call the time.)

This year, Ramadan almost perfectly corresponds to March. So, on the last Sunday of February, the clocks will jump back. Then, on the first Sunday in April, they will jump forward again.

Guess what else. I changed my hair! That is to say I got a haircut here in Marrakech. My barber spoke some Arabic and French and, as I was to learn, Spanish. I only discovered that when another customer came in. Turns out, the new customer was from Barcelona. My barber felt compelled to tell him (the customer) that he (the barber) is a fan of Real Madrid. At one point in the haircut, before the man from Barcelona arrived, a woman said something excitedly in Arabic to my barber and they both ran out of the shop. I was the only one still inside. I suspected this was not the usual practice. When my barber returned he explained there had been a fist fight outside in the street. I'm not sure if my barber broke it up or just wanted to get the best view.

I decided to try an experiment at the barber shop. Everyone likes to ask where I am from. And everyone has an opinion about America, Americans, and American politics. I have little desire to discuss said topics in broken French. First, the barber guessed I was French but no. Then he guessed Australian. I guess I could have said yes to that. But instead I said I was Albanian. Why? My reasoning runs thus: nobody outside of the Balkan region seems to know anything about Albania. It is very unlikely the barber would know Shqip (their language) or anything about their politics. And I was right.

I told him Albania and he was trying to figure out where that was. He thought it was near Slovakia or Czechia. I told him it borders Greece. But at least he was in the right part of the world.

Yes, it was a lie, (though that is the last place in the world I lived for more than a month,) but a lie with no harm done and a bit of peace for me.

One more big change. We have two additional companions this week. Alrica's cousin, Ryan, and Ryan's wife, Michelle, are adventuring with us.

In fact, as I write this, we are riding through the Atlas Mountains. We are on a three day two night tour that goes into the Sahara Desert. When it ends we will be in Fes. I'm sure I will have more to report about the tour when we reach Fes. You know, unless my password changes or something.

Haggling for Socks

In Reno, I would often make pizza, homemade, from scratch. I made a fantastic red sauce and also a pretty good garlic ranch sauce. The toppings were easy to make and, of course, cheese was easy to scatter about. But the one thing that I could not master was making the pizza dough. When I made the dough, it never came out round. It was in these weird oblong bent shapes that our family referred to as tectonic plates, or continental pizza.

I remember one time that we had homemade pizza and the pizzas were so nice and round. My son, trying hard to be kind, complimented me on how beautifully round the pizza dough was this time. And I had to admit, "That's because your sister made the dough." So let's just say pizza dough is not my strength, unless you like geological landmass shapes. And who doesn't? (Well, maybe not for pizza.)

We have now gone from one geological landmass shape (let's call it Europe) to another (and why not name that one Africa). But before I tell you about that trip, I have one more Balkan mystery for you.

Okay, maybe, maybe, I could see how this means the Women's Bathroom

But in what way does this indicate a Men's Bathroom?

We left Belgrade on Thursday, super early in the morning. Syarra flew to Copenhagen and then from there back to New York, as today is the first day of her semester. Alrica and I flew to Barcelona, Spain where we had a one day layover.

Did we see amazing sites? Did we have incredible adventures? No. The reason why we lacked any noteworthy accomplishments was that I frittered away much of the day napping. After all the activity in the Balkans, the early morning awakening to get to our flight, and the journey, I was exhausted. In my defense, I could argue that I was actually becoming culturally acclimated to the Spanish tradition of siesta.

On Friday, we flew Morocco. We landed in Rabat and then took a train to Marrakech. (So here, I have to decide which spelling to use for Marrakech. In pronunciation, it is Mare-a-kesh and so maybe Marrakesh is the way to go. Certainly the spell checker wants me to use Marrakesh. The Arabic language doesn't have a "ch" sound, but it does have a "sh" sound. So to truly anglicize the name, it should be Marrakesh. But the English weren't the ones who first translated the name from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin alphabet. That was the French. And in French, the "sh" sound comes from the "ch" spelling. Think of Charlemagne or champagne or nouveau riche. That's where the Marrakech spelling comes from and that's the one you see on maps or even here in Morocco when it is written in Latin characters. So I will go with Marrakech.)

That was a massive proportion of the previous paragraph inside the parentheses. Are there rules about how much of a paragraph can be inside parentheses? Who enforces those rules? If convicted, what are the possible sentences. (Sentences! See what I did there?)

We have been to Marrakech before, when we traveled with the kids. It was almost exactly nine years ago that we came here. But it is a wonderful place. The people are very friendly to foreigners, appreciative if I know any Arabic at all (and I know only a little), and also communicative in French (which I know a bit more of than Arabic). But actually our lack of Arabic skills helped Alrica pull off a spectacular bit of haggling.

I needed socks. I left the United States with five pairs of these small black socks which are great in that they dry fast, but also being so small and thin, and me having such flat feet, I was ripping through them. After five months, I had thrown out seven of the ten socks, and I arrived in Marrakesh with one more that exposed my entire heel and would need to go. So I was really down to one pair.

We passed a man who was selling various articles of clothing on the sidewalk, you know, like you do. And one thing he had was socks. It was a pack of three pairs of similar small socks to what I already owned. He barely spoke any English, and one thing I do not know in Arabic is numbers. I did look them over once, but they are hard to remember. I can count to one: wahid. Okay, we've exhausted my knowledge. The names of the numbers are so different than any other language and so many of them are long words.

I held up the socks and asked, "Dirham?" That is the name of the Moroccan currency. And in English he said "Forty." That is about four dollars and I was going to pass on that price, so I set them down and prepared to leave. There were other places to buy socks, it wasn't a big deal. But the man didn't want to lose a sale, so he asked something that we understood to mean how much would we be willing to pay.

Alrica replied "thirty" but he didn't apparently know what "thirty" meant, so his next bid was "twenty". So I bought the socks for twenty dirham, half what I had originally been asked. Of course, if he had understood thirty, I would have paid thirty, but sometimes you get lucky. (I recognize that when he was so willing to go down to twenty, that means the socks are probably worth ten, but I'm happy with them so far.)

On another note, they do have pizza here. And it's round much like you would expect. So no one is going to hire me as a pizza chef in Marrakech. Not that I was looking for culinary employment. But it's nice to know your limits.

What about Elevensies?

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Pippin asks about eating breakfast and is told by Aragorn they already had it. He asks about second breakfast and Merry tells him, "I don't think he knows about second breakfast." Hobbit culture is very different than any culture that Aragorn is used to.

I posted a couple weeks ago about how I enjoyed being in Sarajevo for Christmas Day because the city is still open. Being a place of many religions and cultures, not everything shuts down. In doing so, I spoke too soon, or blogged too soon. I guess I was the Aragorn of the story. Because now I am in Belgrade, Serbia, and today is "Second Christmas." In the Serbian Orthodox religion, Christmas is celebrated on January 7, not on December 25. And here, everything does shut down because this city is big time majority Serbian Orthodox. So I get to live the nothing open on Christmas experience after all.

St. Sava's Cathedral

Belgrade is an interesting city, a mix of very bland architecture and then in parts some beautiful architecture as well. If you are ever here, the one site you must visit is the Cathedral of St. Sava. The building is impressive as a huge domed structure that was modeled after the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. But beyond the engineering marvel of it, stepping inside is magical.

The rules of the cathedral say no cell phones, so I didn't take pictures of the inside. But almost every surface is decorated. There are carvings along the arches, beautiful marble pillars, stands coated in gold which hold portraits of saints. And the walls, ceiling, almost any available surface is a work of art. There are paintings and mosaics everywhere. They depict characters and events from Christian history, which is not my forté. Many of the characters shown have words above their heads that say who they are, but this is written in the Cyrillic script used in Serbia and with the Serbian names of those characters. I was able to work out a few of them, like St. George, and the Virgin Mary, and Jesus himself. But many of the names weren't recognizable to me.

They built the stage in Republic Square around the statue of King Mihaelo

We visited the National Museum in Republic Square. We went on a Sunday and the museum is free on Sundays. That was nice. The ground floor, which they called floor zero, has an archaeological exhibit that starts 300,000 years ago and traces hominid and human activity in the area of present day Serbia. There were many artifacts like chipped axe heads and small blades and eventually pottery. The timeline goes on and on up to more modern times, but abruptly ends in the 1800s.

The walls don't have eyes, but the poles do

One floor up from that, the first floor, has paintings from medieval times onward that were painted by Serbian artists and mainly for the Serbian Orthodox church (or on those themes.) And the second floor houses their collection of other European artists. There were works by some famous names like Picasso, Gaughin, Degas, and more.

We also visited the Historical Museum of Serbia. This museum really made me think about teaching. As a teacher, you have to decide how to present topics. Do you group them thematically, chronologically, or in some way that involves foundational lessons and then extensions. With mathematics, you primarily want to do the last of these, make sure you have covered foundational ideas, and then move into the more advanced topics that use those foundations. But even then, the order of some topics could be arranged in several ways.

That says Starbucks in Cyrillic

Why did the Historical Museum of Serbia remind me of this pedagogical question? You enter in the center front of the museum. The exhibits are in the front left room, the front right room, and the back room. And museum goers follow a path, first to the front left, then through the back room, and end in the front right room. It's much like going through IKEA.

This museum is very wordy, most everything is just panels with written information in both Serbian and English. There are a few artifacts, though most of the crowns and scepters of various kings are not original but rather recreations. So already this museum was hard, lots of reading, tons of names of this royal person and that royal person, many of whom have the same name as their grandfather so you have to keep track of which Alexander or Peter you are thinking of. But what I found most strange was the choice of what to put where.

The Crest of Belgrade (literally "the white city")

The two front rooms dealt with Serbian royal families in the 19th century. There were two families, the Karadžordžević family, and the Obrenović family. Chronologically, the crown bounces back and forth between the two families as one gets ousted and the other takes its place. This back and forth happens several times. But the museum doesn't choose to present this chronologically. Instead, in the front left room, the first one you enter, you learn only about the Karadžordžević family. So there are gaps between this king and then next king, and it mentions that someone took over from the Obrenović family. I kept looking back, thinking, wait, but that king wasn't mentioned. There's nothing about him here. But in the front right room, the last room you come to, that room tells you all about the Obrenović family. So the museum made the choice that, rather than present things chronologically, it would be better to group the rooms based on which family they were talking about.

The Crest of Belgrade on the back of a fire hydrant

In their defense, perhaps if I were already versed in 19th century Serbian history, I would have understood better. Maybe kids here learn all about this in school, so a trip to the museum makes sense to them. But remember that back room I mentioned. Well, the back room covers Serbian history from the 10th century to the 15th century.

So I am reading about lots of Alexander Karadžordževićs and Peter Karadžordževićs and I finally reach the 1900s and step through an archway to the next room. Suddenly, I have gone back by a millennium and I am learning about kings in the 900s. By the time I reach the front right room, I've lost the Karadžordžević thread entirely, but now I am back in the 19th century learning about Obrenovićs (which does include an Alexander, but we've added several men named Milan and Mihaelo as well.)

The point is that I got next to nothing out of this museum. It was static, it was dull, and it was arranged in such a way that I couldn't retain any of the narrative of Serbian history. And it also stopped telling tales at the beginning of the 20th century. That's interesting, because Serbia's 20th century history is much more controversial. And the sense here is that none of the controversial things actually happened. Or at least, they don't get mentioned.

But there is some controversy which is being mentioned. Just this past fall, on November 1, 2024, a tragedy occurred in Novi Sad. That's the second largest city in Serbia. The concrete canopy of the train station there collapsed and fell on people who were sitting in benches underneath. A rescue began, but it took time to get people out. Fourteen were found dead, three injured, and one of those three later died of her injuries. Of course, the Serbian government is investigating what happened. But many Serbians are furious with their government. They claim the system is corrupt, inspections are not performed, officials are bribed to let things slide by. There have been protests in Novi Sad and in Belgrade.

These posters mean you have blood on your hands

Then, at the end of December, a week or so before we arrived, some graffiti went up over many buildings in Belgrade which reads 1.11.2024. Zoran Kesić Show Must Go On! You see it all over central Belgrade. I didn't understand it, so I did some research.

The graffiti I mentioned

Zoran Kesić is one of the most influential satirists of the region. He is a Jon Stewart or Jimmy Kimmel of the Balkans. And like most satirists, he is often critical of the government. He was doing a show in Sarajevo on November 1 (which is 1.11.2024 because in most of the world the day comes before the month.) During the show, he referenced the tragedy and talked about how the government must be held accountable. He did use the phrase "The show must go on" while talking about it.

And I still don't know what the graffiti artist intends with this graffiti. Is it agreeing with Kesić and saying the Serbian government must be held accountable? Is it angry with Kesić for going on with his show when something terrible had occurred earlier in the day? I'm not sure. It might be neither of those.

I don't have enough context to make out what it means. It may be very understandable to the people of Serbia. And that's interesting. I see the same thing they see. I read the news articles and do some research to find out the backstory. But I just don't know the character of the people here. And it makes me wonder how often we misinterpret things we read, especially those things written for an audience of another culture or time or place.

When I read Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, I enjoy them. I understand they are also commenting on modern society. But how much am I missing? I'm not British, I don't know London culture. What extra meaning would I understand if I did? Or when I read Don Quixote, not only was I even further removed from the time and place, that was a translation. I don't know what Cervantes wrote in his native language, nor what elements of his society he was satirizing. Or even worse, when we read a book of the Bible, how much of our interpretation is correct? That's like Don Quixote taken to the nth power. This is something written thousands of years ago for a completely different audience with a wildly different worldview, and I'm likely reading a translation of a translation of a translation. How can I have any context to know what the author meant? How can I interpret the imagery that author used, imagery that could have meant something very different to the people of the author's time than it does to people of my time and my culture?

So here I am again, feeling like Aragorn trying to fathom the ways of Hobbits. Don't even start on Elevensies.

Whistling in the Dark

We are now in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. This requires that we somehow traveled from Podgorica to Belgrade. You know the saying: Getting there is half the fun. It's pretty close to true. Getting here was fun. Was it half? I'm not sure of the exact fraction (it could even be irrational), but it was fun.

We took a train. This train starts in Bar, Montenegro and then comes to Podgorica, from where we embarked, and then travels through Montenegro and Serbia (and for a few kilometers the train is in Bosnia, but it never stops there). The Bar to Belgrade train is considered one of the most beautiful, most scenic train routes in all of Europe. Poems could be composed about the lofty mountains and the graceful valleys. And we got to ride this magical path.

Was it beautiful?

I don't know.

Why don't I know?

In the off-season, which includes the winter, the train only runs at night. It leaves Podgorica at 9:20 PM and you sleep on the train, arriving into Belgrade somewhere around 7:00 AM. So those mountains may have been as lofty as tales claim, the valleys could have possessed even greater grace than words can impart. But I didn't get to see to any of that because of the awkward orientation of the Earth, placing its bulk between myself and the major light source.

And still it was fun. We got a sleeper car which slept three people. This was a tiny little cabin. There were three beds, one above the other above the other. Syarra generously took the top bunk, which isn't a full length bed. Somewhere around the thigh, it changes from bed mattress to metal rack, but there is a cushion you can place under your ankles and feet to keep them above the metal. I had the middle, which is full length. Alrica had the bottom which is easiest to use, but has the least space above you. Also with the ladder in place which allowed Syarra and I ingress and egress, it became something of an obstacle to Alrica's easy access in and out of her bed.

Our Sleeper Cabin

And still it was fun. The train rocked and moved, and when it hit a curve, you could feel the curve. Einstein would explain that throughout the trip, you knew you weren't in an unaccelerated frame. Most of the journey, I slept. Though I did have to wake for border control when we were leaving Montenegro. I expected to be awakened a second time for border control in Serbia, but that never happened. I'm not sure what this will mean when I try to leave Serbia in less than a week, but I suspect they won't stop me from going away. Plus any border control officers will be able to see the stamp that tells them when I left Montenegro. So that should establish I haven't been in Serbia for longer than is allowed.

I'm not entirely sure what made this journey fun. It wasn't the WC (the bathroom) which was passable but not pristine. It wasn't the mattresses or the pillows, both of which were passable but not plush. It wasn't the corridor outside the cabin which was passable, but you had to squeeze to pass others. It wasn't the interaction with my fellow passengers as there wasn't any such interaction. I guess it was just the adventure.

I would love to redo this trip someday in the summer, when one could ride in the day and see some of the spectacle. But even at night, it was novel for me to sleep on the train. Wow, did that rocking lead to some crazy dreams. I can't really remember many of them in detail. I recall that one of them involved Melissa Taylor directing Murder on the Orient Express, an ancient Greek pillar which had fallen over, and an announcer voice-over, but I can't piece together how those things connected. I can only assume that the train experience led to the Orient Express reference, and who knows how brains work from there.

On a less enjoyable note, we left Podgorica on January 2. But on January 1, there was a mass shooting in another city in Montenegro, a city called Cetinje. This was a tragedy on a national scale. It was unprecedented, even though Montenegro has a huge proportion of gun owners. It shocked the nation.

Both January 1 and January 2 are national holidays in Montenegro. This is perhaps their biggest holiday of the year. It's secular, so all the various religious groups can enjoy it together. But after the tragedy, Montenegro declared a three-day period of mourning. The super festive Podgorica New Years Bazaar (Montenegro's version of a Christmas Market) was shuttered and a makeshift memorial for those who died was erected in its place. Even though this was one of their most celebratory times, the country cut the party short and mourned.

Being a holiday, Parliament was not in session, but immediately some of the politicians spoke about enacting some sort of gun control. As I said, Montenegro has a lot of gun owners, they are ranked third for the proportion of the population who own a gun. Yet, after one mass shooting, they are considering what to do to assure it never happens again.

The U.S.A. is ranked first for the proportion of the population who own a gun. If we declared a three-day period of mourning after each mass shooting in our country, we would probably be in a continual mourning state. And we never enact anything to try to keep it from happening again.

I don't know what the solution to gun violence in America is. But becoming so used to it that we merely shrug and say, "Just another Wednesday" is not a solution. Have we become so inured to the deaths of innocents, the deaths of children? Maybe we have.

Just declaring that America is the safest, the best, the most exceptional land in the world, well, that's somewhat like saying I experienced the most beautiful train route in Europe. I don't really have the evidence to back that up.

We're all, like a night train, just whistling in the dark.

You Only Get One

Welcome to your one and only perfect square year. We have entered 2025 which is 45 squared. It is, for most of us, the only time we will ever live through a year that is a perfect square. It is your once in a lifetime event.

The last time it happened was 89 years ago, in the year 1936. So unless you are already 88 or older (turning 89 or older this year) you haven't reached your second of these rare events.

It will happen again in 91 years, in the year 2116, and most of us aren't going to live to see that occur. Maybe some preschoolers now will, but I suspect preschoolers aren't members of my reading audience.

The thing is it has probably been a once-in-lifetime event for most people throughout history. Perhaps you are saying: hold on, Erich, what about in the first few centuries. I mean between the year 1 and the year 4, there were only 3 years. And from 4 to 9 is only 5, surely lots of people lived for that long.

That's true, but in the year 1, they were not using the Anno Domini designation of years. It wouldn't be invented for centuries. In those times, usually years were marked based on when the current ruler became the current ruler. So the year might be the eleventh year of the reign of Emperor Penguin the Second, or whatever the ruler's name was. But eventually scribes and the educated found this annoying. It was pretty hard to figure out how long ago things happened when you kept restarting at 1 each time your king died or your land was conquered. The intelligentsia wanted some sort of fixed system that would just keep counting.

In sixth century Christian Europe, a monk named Dionysius Exiguus wanted to figure out what day Easter would fall on in the upcoming years. So he decided to set up a numbering system for years based on something having to do with Jesus. Today we think of it as being when Jesus was born, but it isn't clear that this is what Dionysius was considering. It may have been the conception of Jesus or some other event in the early life of Jesus or the life of Mary slightly before the birth. Anyway, according to the system invented by Dionysius, this was in the year 525.

It's also not clear that Dionysius was the first to do so, nor that it was his system which eventually spread and became the one used today. It's all murky. Where there are sufficient records, we know that somewhere in the 8th or 9th century, monks in England were using AD to denote the year. Still no one knows exactly when in the 8th or 9th century this began.

But let's be generous. The first perfect square in the 8th century would have been the year 729 (which is 27 squared.) Let's assume that this system was being used at that time. Then the following perfect square would have occurred 55 years later in 784. So yes, some people probably did live through both of those years, though average life expectancy was much much lower than this (probably somewhere around 24 years.) But keep in mind that is the average, and it is brought down by the fact that so many people died of childhood ailments. So the ones who did make it to adulthood, some of those could have reached ripe old ages like 60.

Still, it wouldn't have been most of them. It would have still been rare to live through two perfect square years, even back when they were closer together.

Because perfect squares get further and further apart in a predictable way. If you want to know how long between two consecutive perfect squares, you can just add the two numbers they are square of. Like today is 45 squared and the next perfect square is 46 squared. But 45 + 46 = 91, and that is the distance between those perfect squares. The distance between 27 squared (729) and 28 squared (784) is 27 + 28 = 55. Another way to think of it is that the nth perfect square is just the sum of the first n odd numbers.

I am not, in general, a big time New Years' Resolutioner (or Resolutionary, maybe?) If I really want to resolve to do something, there is no reason that January is the best time. In some ways, it is the worst time, because I would only be making a resolution because I felt like I was supposed to make one and not because I wanted to accomplish it.

That being said, maybe I should reconsider that this year. After all, this is the only perfect square year I will ever see. So join me: let's embrace this year, this rare event, this moment we are lucky to live through. Let's make 2025 a signature year for each of us. Let's accomplish our most square deal in this most square year. Let the rarity of this moment remind us all that life only gives us so many opportunities. It's certainly a lesson I need to take to heart.