Jake had the opportunity to come see our new house before the rest of us. The one thing he told me was to look up. And up has an amazing view. These are the pictures of some of the ceilings at our new place.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Look Up
Jake had the opportunity to come see our new house before the rest of us. The one thing he told me was to look up. And up has an amazing view. These are the pictures of some of the ceilings at our new place.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
The illusion of safety
Now, its not what you think. This was the term used by a security guy to describe the driving around here. The word I would use is insane!!!!! There is an illusion of safety because there are lines on the road, street lights, and people use their blinkers. Its insane because the attitude is do what ever you want and if Allah wishes you to arrive safely, you will. If not, you will get in an accident. Street signs are merely suggestions, and if there is a motor bike or bike (or donkey drawn carraige - we saw one last night) on the side of the road, just go around. If there are cars there they will move out of your way. And the cars don't watch for pedestrians, the pedestrians have to watch for cars. So you will see people walking in the middle of a busy road, just meandering around trying to get to the other side of the street and they will be within inches of a car. It is frightening to watch, and even scarier to try to cross the street. The only saving grace for me is that they LOVE kids here and when they see me trying to cross with my crowd of kids they generally slow down or stop for me.
But since we are talking about safety, I have to say I have never felt safer in my home. There are security guys who come by the house 6 times a day to make sure the gate is locked, and all the houses with ties to the embassy have special dead bots installed on multiple doors. Our front door resembles one of the doors you see on TV with the 10 locks. And nearly all the windows and doors have iron bars on them. Beautiful, and decorative, but bars none the less. The bars are not necessarily just on diplomat's houses, though. It seems to be a Moroccan thing. Also a Moroccan thing, is 10 feet of wall all around your house with a locked gate in the front yard. Its great for keeping your kids in. Our actual wall is only about 5 ft, but then there are bushes that make up the rest of the height. I live in my own fortress. Its great.
So the long and short of it is, we are pretty safe around here, unless we're driving. lol
But since we are talking about safety, I have to say I have never felt safer in my home. There are security guys who come by the house 6 times a day to make sure the gate is locked, and all the houses with ties to the embassy have special dead bots installed on multiple doors. Our front door resembles one of the doors you see on TV with the 10 locks. And nearly all the windows and doors have iron bars on them. Beautiful, and decorative, but bars none the less. The bars are not necessarily just on diplomat's houses, though. It seems to be a Moroccan thing. Also a Moroccan thing, is 10 feet of wall all around your house with a locked gate in the front yard. Its great for keeping your kids in. Our actual wall is only about 5 ft, but then there are bushes that make up the rest of the height. I live in my own fortress. Its great.
So the long and short of it is, we are pretty safe around here, unless we're driving. lol
Friday, July 15, 2011
Well, we made it!
Life always has its little adventures it throws your way when you are not expecting it. These past few years have had many for us. Our first was Jake being accepted into the Foreign Area Officer's (FAO) program and being assigned to the North Africa/Middle East area. Next came our one year in Monterey, CA for the Defense Language Institute (DLI) Arabic class. Of course, that was really a 16 mo. course, so our year was stretched to 18 mo. Then we were blessed with a little extra surprise (baby David), so Jake was able to add in a French course after the Arabic was over and our 18 mo turned into 2 years. And then came the long awaited announcement of our follow on assignment - Morocco!!!! Which, of course, leads us to the creation of this blog.
I thought I would do a few entries right off the bat about what it took to get us here and my impressions of Morocco. So to begin, our adventure to get here:
One of the first things I need to say is that sometimes the hand of the Lord is so obvious, you must give open recognition of it. Such is our plane trip to get here. We were scheduled to leave Salt Lake City on 30 June and arrive in Morocco on 1 July. The scheduled flight would have taken us to Minneapolis, MN, then Amsterdam, Paris, and finally to Morocco. Our lay over time in Amsterdam was less than 2 hours. This is important to remember later on. Anyway, we loaded up all 24 checked bags, 3 car seats, and 9 carry-on items into the back of our brother-in-law's pick up truck and headed to the airport. We got there 1:45 min before the plane was set to depart. Jake got in line and they had us put all our bags into a roped off section because there was so much. And there Jake stood still as the clock kept moving. About 40 min before the flight was set to leave Jake was only half way through the line. By the time he made it to the counter there was only 15 min before the plane was set to take-off. There was NO WAY we were going to be on that plane! The ticket agent worked very hard to find 8 seats on ANY plane that would take us to Morocco. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find 8 seats on any plane last minute? Well, it took him 2 hours and many discussions with management, but he got us some flights.
And here is where the hand of the Lord is so obvious. Yes, the next available flight for us wasn't for another week, but it was a direct flight into Paris. Only one lay-over and 2 planes. Upon checking in, we also discovered that we could only have checked the bags through to Amsterdam. That means when we would have landed we would have had to collect all the bags, go through customs and immigration, gone to Air France and recheck all the bags. That would have been impossible to have accomplished and so we would have been stuck in Amsterdam instead. And the added bonus to the lay over in Paris was that it was 26 hours, so we were able to get a hotel and Jake was able to take the kids to see the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. They will always remember that trip (at least the girls will, and maybe Joseph. If Jackie remembers it I'll be very surprised).
As for the flights themselves, they could not have gone better. We boarded at dinner time, so after they served dinner I gave all the kids Benedryl and sent them off to sleepy land. Even the baby slept most of the time. We landed in Paris about 10:30 am local time and we successfully kept the older kids awake for the entire day and Jordan and the baby only took about a 1 1/2 hour nap. Perfect. Everyone went to sleep about 9 pm and was up by 9 am. So we were able to get everyone on a good schedule right from the start. Jet lag is over and everyone sleeps during the night and is wide awake during the day. I am soooo relieved. Oh, and as a side note, the airlines did an excellent job of getting all our bags here. Only 3 were lost and they were all returned with in 2 days. I was very impressed and very grateful.
I thought I would do a few entries right off the bat about what it took to get us here and my impressions of Morocco. So to begin, our adventure to get here:
One of the first things I need to say is that sometimes the hand of the Lord is so obvious, you must give open recognition of it. Such is our plane trip to get here. We were scheduled to leave Salt Lake City on 30 June and arrive in Morocco on 1 July. The scheduled flight would have taken us to Minneapolis, MN, then Amsterdam, Paris, and finally to Morocco. Our lay over time in Amsterdam was less than 2 hours. This is important to remember later on. Anyway, we loaded up all 24 checked bags, 3 car seats, and 9 carry-on items into the back of our brother-in-law's pick up truck and headed to the airport. We got there 1:45 min before the plane was set to depart. Jake got in line and they had us put all our bags into a roped off section because there was so much. And there Jake stood still as the clock kept moving. About 40 min before the flight was set to leave Jake was only half way through the line. By the time he made it to the counter there was only 15 min before the plane was set to take-off. There was NO WAY we were going to be on that plane! The ticket agent worked very hard to find 8 seats on ANY plane that would take us to Morocco. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find 8 seats on any plane last minute? Well, it took him 2 hours and many discussions with management, but he got us some flights.
And here is where the hand of the Lord is so obvious. Yes, the next available flight for us wasn't for another week, but it was a direct flight into Paris. Only one lay-over and 2 planes. Upon checking in, we also discovered that we could only have checked the bags through to Amsterdam. That means when we would have landed we would have had to collect all the bags, go through customs and immigration, gone to Air France and recheck all the bags. That would have been impossible to have accomplished and so we would have been stuck in Amsterdam instead. And the added bonus to the lay over in Paris was that it was 26 hours, so we were able to get a hotel and Jake was able to take the kids to see the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. They will always remember that trip (at least the girls will, and maybe Joseph. If Jackie remembers it I'll be very surprised).
As for the flights themselves, they could not have gone better. We boarded at dinner time, so after they served dinner I gave all the kids Benedryl and sent them off to sleepy land. Even the baby slept most of the time. We landed in Paris about 10:30 am local time and we successfully kept the older kids awake for the entire day and Jordan and the baby only took about a 1 1/2 hour nap. Perfect. Everyone went to sleep about 9 pm and was up by 9 am. So we were able to get everyone on a good schedule right from the start. Jet lag is over and everyone sleeps during the night and is wide awake during the day. I am soooo relieved. Oh, and as a side note, the airlines did an excellent job of getting all our bags here. Only 3 were lost and they were all returned with in 2 days. I was very impressed and very grateful.
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