August - Sept 2011.....on and on and on and on....

Hi Finn,

These weeks through Ramadan are ones that I spend apart from you. It seems to happen every year and is of course understandable given that it's ridiculously hot, everyones a bit tetchy because they can't eat, drink or smoke during the day, and all of your friends are away. So you and mummy go back to the UK and I monitor progress on the chantier, which is slow, so very slow and during these months. even slower than normal. But someone has to. To leave the chantier for over a month without supervision is simply foolhardy...thus.....

Guilty Secrets.

As I said previously, my guilty secret is that I actually enjoy this time alone. It's of course not that I would want to be apart for anything longer, but I at least need a break. Some time alone where I can simply be by myself. On the one side simply to get up and do what I want, when I want...possibly you could call thet hedonism..tho in reality it means I sleep slightly longer and deeper and eat what i want whenever I choose to..little else!

On the other it means that I can just spend time alone and with me...sort of I and I..for you the budding dubstar, and to do other things, which have recently included writing a paper on lessons learnt to improve watsan and hygiene response during urban emergencies, applying for a job in Tajikistan that might suppliment our meagre income, given the collapse of tourism here in Moroc and spending time up on Mt Zalagh trying to plot a project I'm developing for toursaroundfez.com our local tourism company.

Mount Zalagh....Tours Around Fez.

Like xaouen, I really love going up to Zalagh and as I write we've just come back from a night camping up on Mt Sidi Hamid Bournassi. I'm sorry that OI don't have any pictures, but we were there for the full moon and you loved it. I came over to you, having thought you were already asleep in the tent, to find you, head cupped in your hands and looking at the lights from Fez. I gave you a pillow and you looked up at the moon...upside doiwn and simply started talking...in a way I'd never heard. You talked for about 20 minutes, about lights, stars, the moon and your friends, even imaginary brothers and sisters! What a great night, as you said!

But the idea is to get a few routes for walking and also for dinners, organised up there. As such I've been meeting local families to develop low scale tourism. It's Perfect and I've been up with Tariq, a great cook, who may or may not work with me on this, we'll see.

Saying that, right now, I'm just exhausted again, exhausted by what this marathon has put us all through. I know I have to just pull my socks up, but nontheless, ...phew!

Back on the Chantier.

Back at the chantier as I say, things move snail like. Of course not being there for a while leaves everything to chance and I came back to see we'd lost Zak who decided not to work on the walled zuak. As such this was left to Mohammed to do and he took to the job with his classic verv. He may not have been a mwalem at the begining, but he was great by the end.

To say that we thought that we'd be finished by now is to try to say how disappointed we all are that it is dragging on. But of course there is progress. We finally got the mezzanine up in the RDC room, which actually looks great. You'll know the story so far, but in the end, it's all about finishing, which we are trying to do....slowly! Equally we are now seeing progress in the kitchen though it felt that Rachid was going so slow...what can you say? Again, to complain is to risk losing a worker and having to start again...god it's frustrating.

As with Mohamed and his team, we thought that we had managed to find a team who would complete the work martobbing and madluking the walls. This is very much the next step and would make such a difference. These guys were recommended by a friend. We negotiated the price, all agreed and they started doing a great job on the garden walls. But, just as we got our hopes up, they first said that they had a small job to finish at a mutual friend, then that they needed to do something else somewhere else. Then they were attending a wedding, and finally, as we now knew it would, they said that they wouldn't return unless we paid three times the original price!!!

Arghhhhh....and so we lost another couple of weeks, tho fortunately we've started another new team, I just hope that they will finish the job. I think that people can smell the desperation we have to finish, to just get the job done. These guys have now again come recommended, but we are left holding our breath..more news to follow!

Away from the chantier

I came back to get you from Spainland, making the mistake of travelling by train on the last day oif Ramadan...it was packed, filled to the gill and the journey to Tangier from Fez took 10 hours! But then there you were and we went off to meet big Louis and move everything from the cars...yes those cars! Don't ask, more nightmares, but let's move on!

You've come back and there have been quite a few changes. Firstly you've started a new class, which to be honest, your saying you don't like. We're looking in to schools for you and the EFES, a local private school, is good but will be limited. However there you speak french all day and your languages are really quite good. However I've checked the American school which works solely in English till aged 12, or the French school which has a ranking system and a French test, so we'll se how we go. I really want you to benefit from our time here and part of that is a lingual fleuncy, hopefully in French and Arabic...possibly even Spanish in xaouen, but also cultural fluency, with access to both north and southern worlds. Again, we'll see.

You've also really gotten in to taking photos and have been a happy snapper almost everywhere we go. I love this image, possibly because things are currently so difficult and also because any image of us, mummy and I laughing like this is so rare...definately caught the moment, well done!

So, though I currently find it hard to believe we do have a laugh at times and even manage to relax at home, away from the frustrations at Tazi. It will end one day, I just hope it's not left us...me at least, too scarred.

July - August 2011 "Always expect the unexpected"..and other home truths!

Another slow start here finn, but better late than never eh lad?

It feels ages ago now…writing in Oct…but we have lots of images to play with..anyway suffice to say July saw us build up to a crescendo and fall in to anti climax. On the agenda were the scent of final completion of The Albatros and the arrival of Tony and Jackie (T and J)from the States.

July in Fez.....

is hot, very hot and there are many ways to manage that. Our custom has developed to sneak off to the relatively exclusive pool at Al Kantara whenever possible, whilst at home, leaving our own clothes at the front door. Obviously we make exceptions when we have guests, tho I’m not too sure you are currently that bothered with the “have visitors, put on clothes” rule…certainly not when mummy invited a group over for a ladies night in!

Of course Francesca is an exception to many of our rules and for that and many other reasons, she's always welcome. Now whilst I don’t notice your painting nudes as yet, you are without doubt developing a certain style of your own by painting in the nude…but hey ho, and why not...maybe we should all join in? Where's the paint brush!

Yes summer brings many joys in so many ways!Even with BB, there is still time to enjoy some of the finer things, like a drink on the terrace with the call to prayer mingling with the woosh of swooping flocks of birds, or a day out at the pool with friends, just lettiung ourselves go and hanging out......arhhhh bless!

Visitors.

This year, as with others, summer also brings a host of visitors. I'd like to say that it is always a pleasure, but in reality, what with us being so weighed down with this "bloody build" (BB), I truely doubt we are anyway near our best..At least I hope not. If we're going to work in "hospitality", there is room for improvement at least!

However we open doors with arms stretched wide and teeth at times gritted. The difficulty is that somehow when people come here, they expect that we are, like them, going to be on holiday and available...which we try to be..tho too often at only additional stress to our selves. I don't know what it is, but even those who would count themselves as avid travellers, seem to need a hand to hold when in Fez.

Given we are so very tied up with "BB", it's frequently a challenge. However there are some people who have now been here so many times that just the house and a full fridge suffices and Ms Sarah Dewe certainly fits in to that illustrious group...she even made mummy relax for a while, which is good to see! Sarah's seen us doing this right from the begining and it was great to get her feedback on the house and the developments at BB. It's hard to get any perspective in the thick of it, but as with Tim and Michelle, having a peer (my peer, not yours Finn!) tell you you're on the right track, is essential. Thanks sarah, you can come again!

Of course as I say, we had been otherwise sniffing at the proximity of finishing Dar Finn. Mohammed’s Team that do everything were in place and getting on and suddenly there was massive progress. We started planning for a life without builders and building, counted imaginary days until the end of the rainbow would be reached, but always never quite there and forever with the threat that until it’s finished it’s never finished…which is the real world, and a stressful one at that.

So stress levels mounted, but with the end in sight we might have managed ….but it wasn’t to be and life has a way of twisting the knife…just a bit, to show who’s really in charge.

Cars! Nightmare.

One of the tasks I had before Tonys’ arrival was to take Habiby out of the country before her visa expired and then to pick up “the other car” which left Morocco with your cousins as their escape vehical when Europe was clouded by Icelandic volcanic ash, many, many months ago (see April 2010).

This should have been a joy, a small vacation away from said Albatros…but ….

Instead, just as I prepared to leave Morocco, habiby sprang a gasket. 10 days and multiple attempts at repairing her, we nervously stole away. Then “the other car” proved to have been nobbled by the Great British weather and a sturdy little number turned in to a wreck that failed 3 MOTs and cost the best part of a grand, just to get out of the UK. Arghhhh. Fortunately I'd just been paid by UNDP from Guinea Buisseau, tho I didn't expect to spend it all on car repairs and the journey from Litchfield to Fez

Sebastian and I made the trip down not too sure how she’d do. Highlights were definitely Spain and seeing friends in Euskadi, but the bottom line was “it wasn’t supposed to be like this”…of course! What did I used to say in Somalia…”Always expect the unexpected!”

Back in Fez, TnJ had arrived and although we were rushed off our feet trying to tie up the chantier before leaving, and of course with Mohammed and his team having dumped us for a bigger job, we finally got out of Moroc, just, with your mum almost not making it having over stayed her visa also!

Escape Plans!

One of the joys on the way out was passing through Xaouen and having a view at the land there. We haven't been for ages and of course there are plans to do lots of things with it...yes yurts!

However with the BB still on going we're stuck, but going back and seeing how green and beautiful it was, I felt uplifted, inspired. I don't really know what happened...or probably I do...but all along I wanted to do a rural project and some how we have now spent 4 years in Fez! That's not to decry Fez, it's amazing, but not really the original idea. I love going up to xaouen, though it's far better when we have the car kitted out and we can camp.

The national parks, Mediteranian and the Riff mountains are a joy and I can't wait to get going on something there...if there's any money left in the pot for that!!! But just a night away from Fez at a lovely little place called Casa Perleta, Seb on the flamenco guitar...phew it was a start!

In Spain we began down the long road to Relaxville, but not before you got chicken pox and I faut parred, which sort of changed the holiday we were expecting. These things happen, I’m sorry to say. It’s like that at times, this life thing....remember that ol' saying about expecting the unexpected!

When I was in Congo, after almost 2 years of civil war, I left to meet some friends on zanzibar, a gorgeous island in the Indian ocean, where I would later work. However I was so frazzeled by DRC that I ensured that i had a couple of weeks alone to recharge before meeting anyone. Sure enough for the first week I was in my beach hut on Zanzibar I didn't say a word to anyone, simply got my beers and bifter and watched the sea and the days go by. By the end of the second week I was what might be called normal again and had a great time with said friends. But here, there is no zanzibar, no weeks out, just long slog...shame!

Birthdays.

Back in Blighty we arrived to celebrate. First your Grandads 70^th, which was a wonderful affair in which you were perhaps the youngest family member to attend. You had a chance to meet this whole side of your family.

I'm really sorry that you probably won't get a similar introduction to my side of your family, I'll tell you about it one day, it's complicated...or maybe it isn't. It's as it is. What is great however is that you really do get lots and lots of love...and you give lots too...love is the answer!

Then of course we all went to wales and celebrated your birthday, which you are currently saying you want to do again…next week! You must have enjoyed it. It looked as if you did.

Wales is a beautiful part of the world, especially when it's not raining and we are lucky to have the use of your grandads place in Aberdovey, that looks out on to the beach and river estuary.

Wales is renound for it's mountains (proof that size doesn't really matter!), poor weather, dragons and crabs! And you made the most of the crabs, popping off to collect a bucket full or two whenever possible, I'm sure they loved it too!

But when not crabbing we managed to drag you off to the mountains to go walking in Snowdonia…well when I say we, I mean us…you preferred to be carried…which was quite some challenge. However credit where it’s due, you lead from the rear and I would say, had a wonderful time, most of the time, which is all important.

Of course duty yelled and after that I fled back to Fez to over see the chantier during Eid. It’s something of a guilty pleasure having the house to myself when you guys are away, but ooh what a joy it is to wake up without your fingers pulling at my mouth!

Love you tho!

May - June 2011. Not the Chantier 2....jailbreak!

Hi Finn,

I don't know what happened between April and May, apart from that clearly we just slogged on and "tried to get things done", what we didn't do much of was getting away from our sentence of hard labour. You get sucked in to the daily grind and given that we now, and for some time, have worked a six day week again, this leaves time built in for us and you, much too marginalised.

Finn wonders what maps are for?

I think between April and June we barely left Fez at all, perhaps once,when we may have spent a rare, if glorious afternoon on Mt Zalagh........this simply wasn't enough.

In short, too much work makes jack a dull boy. Given that we don't know too many people called jack, you may wonder what the hell I'm talking about...but you'll get used to that, if you haven't already!

But hey, ho life goes on and so did we. A great little event was going to see your school open day. You are loving school at present and whilst you're slightly shy speaking to us in French, when with franco phone friends, you babble away at leisure. At school you spend all day speaking French and at your Open day, there you were, centre of attraction, lead singer in a class song about dogs losing bones. I brimmed pride for you...I still do as I type this, a huge grin over my face.

Infact just on that, I have to say that you are a marvellous little chap and tho I say that myself, so do many other people. You're very generous, loving and cheeky. I love you popping up in the early morning to come in to our bed, as you did this morning, with Ben 10 watch and toys in hand, only to fall deep asleep before we could do anyting with them. But you are so very independant, love camping, insects and animals.....you've a massive vendetta out on all monsters at the moment, whom, in your mind, all need shooting as soon as possible. Hummm, monsters, sometimes, it's as good to just get to know them and make friends, rather than try to kill them off....and sometimes monsters are so very useful, let them live a little.

Anyway, aside from outpourings of love for you, which I am prone to do, whilst equally wondering if we are providing the best we can for you...sic guilt at spending too much time at the chantier, or returning feeling too exhausted to engage in a way that we would want to, somewhere, I have a sneaking suspicion that you are having a relatively good time, and hopefully, once we are finished, will have an even better one. You seem happy and I think have a world of opportunities and security that were certainly unavailable to me when I was your age. I love you.

So, April and May saw us made captive by our own aspirations, June had us begining to break out and looking at a future without builders and building. This not only meant that we hung out with you and your friends at their houses, but also at ours.

One of the great things being here is that you can pop over to see someone and find that you are infact hanging out in, or in part of a near palace. Thus when we go to Dina and Steves house...or should I say, James and Lulu's, we are infact in the Mezria of a huge family house that is splendid, if increasingly dilapidated. But what a place to hang out and play...your very own castles!

Aside from visiting other people's houses, we've finally begun to invite people to ours. Of course we're not recluses, but we do end up feeling too tired to socialise, invariably following you to bed at 20.30, in preferance to doing anything more lively.

Hopefully this will change, but over the past year, it's been very much the case. This is a real shame as we have a great home, which you, Beccie and I love. We've been here a year now, and how much happier we all are in comparison to last year and I assume that without the chantier, things will improve even more, regardless of the current crises in tourist numbers!

But anyway, we've started opening our house up to guests, tho' people have also gathered that we're in a slightly diffierent position to others, running a relatively large chantier, raising a wonderful child and trying to maintain our own sense of sanity, so Robin and Paul were ever so generous and invited us to dinner at our house, with their doing all the cooking...it's great to have mates!

Along with degrees of gregariousness, that have so far eluded us over the past few years...don't worry we aren't really miserable old gits...environment is everything in this context!.....we also began to break out of Fez and out in to the countryside.

Steve and I took you guys for a day away which included a night on Zalagh and a morning running riot, after which we took you to a pool. The summer months have seen all the local swimming pools open and so we tried out what was on offer at the International Camp Site, where we'd previously both camped way back when, and been to see the Congo Massive girating their booty...yummmmmm....

Now however it was the pool that called and t was great, to be recomended, if very busy at weekends, with lots of boys, testosterone and strutting about to magrebbi rave or Chebi. Which works for a while....tho obviously was too much for some of us. Nonetheless the point was and is, that there is fun to be had in and around Fez and we need to get out thee and make the most of it!
But boy is all this fun exhausting!

Out of Fez we took almost every oportunity t get back up to Zalagh with anyone who would come, and even without at times. I popped up for the full moon,which was spectacular, preceeded as it was by a resplendant sunset and sunrise. God I love it up there. Here we are with Andy and is family enjoying habiby's creature comforts amongst the space and peace of the mountain. Their conclusion, as it is so ofetn ours, was that tis was one of the best things they'd done in Fez...all good news for Tours Around Fez!

Anyway, having made the break, there was no stopping us and thus June has seen al sorts of adventures. Of course this has also been because we've had loads of visitors, Andy, John (and France, John...but without France!), Luke and Heather and currently Sarah. This was part of the point of coming to Morocco, that people could visit easilly, and it seems to be the case. Bring on more free time!

Now part of escaping has been to finally to get to one of the multitude of festivals that there are here in Morocco. As ever, we barely saw anything of the Fez Festival of Spiritual Music, but generally I have to say find it expensive, aloof and anything but a festival, more a series of over charged and exclusive gigs. The excpetion to this are the evenings at dar Pasha tazi, which are excellent.

However this year we managed to get to the Cherry Festival in Sefrou, which was a real festival that takes over te town and which is targetted purely at Moroccans. We got there and stayed at the camping site which has definately seen better days but has a great view and is very friendly. Once the pool, bar, electricity and running water are in place, it'll be wonderful!

Some of the highlights of the festival for me were firstly the Fantasia which sees hundreds of horses and riders all bedecked in traditional costume and gold braid charging from one end of an open plain to another in an example of age old Moroccan horsmanship.

I've seen this in a number of places in the Middle Atlas, but this really was something. Given your current penchant for all tihngs gun, thought you'd have loved it. The reality of all those very loud bangs was quite different and you made it clear this wasn't your preference....rather an ice cream, which is also a good call!

After this we went off to see Berber tents and dancing. It was a wild and friendly time, surrounded by women and families you danced and played with everyone and anyone. People were warm and inviting and we snuggled in between extended legs and bodies. But as soon as the music started everyone was up girating and clapping.

It is a useful reminder of what there is when we tear our noses from the walls of our chantier. Let's get out there.