These almond flour Chocolate Chunk Cookies are hard to beat

When I was in junior high and high school I used to make chocolate chip cookies all the time. We're hosting a book club or Latin class or a potluck at our house? Chocolate chip cookies. We're going to any event ever and we need to bring a dessert? Chocolate chip cookies. I'm going over to a friend's house to hang out? Let's make chocolate chip cookies together! We just want a nice dessert? Chocolate chip cookies.

But wait... there's more to these cookies than meets the eye!

In our family of nine the process of making cookies took a bit of time... I had to double or triple the recipe, invite a little sister or two to "help", and deal with big ole fingers of three brothers and a dad who'd somehow pass by the kitchen so often when they heard those three magical words. Just scooping out three batches of cookies onto pans, baking them (without burning them!) removing them to cool and repeating at least twice was a handful, but I had the recipe and process down to a science. And my cookies were GOOD. When I went to college I'd often hear about mom making cookies and my little sibs complain how they just weren't the same. Recently my sister Maria has taken up the gauntlet at home and makes some pretty killer cookies, but I flatter myself saying she learned from the best. 

Given this background, imagine my dismay at 21 years old learning that I am allergic to wheat. Bread is hard to live without but cookies??? Seemed impossible. But for four years I managed the impossible and went without. Then not long ago the craving hit so hard that I determined to find a recipe that would work for me. A recipe with honey instead of sugar, with almond flour instead of wheat, and in which I'd cut up a chocolate bar into chunks since normal sized chocolate chips aren't being imported here for the moment. And, despite my conviction I wouldn't find anything remotely resembling what I used to whip up, I did.

These cookies are not only much healthier than the sugar/wheat variety, but I swear they taste better. They're richer and give you a pleasant sensation of heaviness due to the almond flour, meaning you really can't eat more than two at a time even if you wanted. Othman LOVES them too, and he's all about the sugar (and wheat) so that endorsement is a pretty weighty one.

So without further ado, here is the recipe I took from Wellness Mama  and adapted to meet my own needs. 

Almond Flour Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Ingredients:

-2 cups almond flour

-1/2 t baking soda

-1/4 t salt

-1/2 cup melted butter or coconut oil

-1/3 cup honey

-1 large egg

-1 1/2 T vanilla extract

-up to 1/2 cup oats

-1 cup chocolate chunks OR 3/4 cup chopped chocolate bar chunks

-1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Put the first three ingredients into a bowl and mix with a fork to separate any clumps in the almond flour.

In a separate bowl combine the butter or coconut oil with the honey and stir vigorously until it's totally combined and has a creamy consistency (you can use an immersion blender for this if desired).

Add the egg and the vanilla to the wet mixture and mix well.

Pour the wet mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until a dough forms. 

Add the oats until you've achieved the desired consistency, then add the chocolate and nuts if desired. 

Drop small tablespoons of dough onto a silicone baking sheet or well-greased conventional baking sheet, and shape slightly with fingers (they won't really spread or get bigger while baking). 

Bake at 350F for about 10 minutes, but keep an eye on them! When you get them out be very gentle when removing them from the pan (this is why silicone is best) because they will be very soft. After about 5 minutes of cooling they'll be hard enough to pick up and eat!

Enjoy these cookies fresh out of the oven, or the Braga-Henebry way--frozen! Put them in a gallon ziplock bag and freeze them, and when you feel like a treat grab one and eat it straight from the freezer. So delicious. Enjoy!!

Note: to make these GAPS-friendly simply take out the oats, which are important but not essential for these to turn out well.

Of turtles, owls and cultures

Our turtles are cute. Because, well, they are! One downside of working "normal" hours now is I don't get to hang out with the turtles in the mornings like I used to. But on weekends I have fun watching them and taking some pictures. It's really amazing how much Sparkle has grown in just over a year! Take a look at her back in October 2013:

You CANNOT tell me this is not adorable.

And now:

They're almost the same size! Chomper won't be bigger for very much longer. She's grown so much that over the summer we upgraded their large round laundry tub to one of those big under-bed shallow storage containers. 

When I cleaned out my British Council locker in June I decided to be environmentally friendly in this country where non-industrial recycling doesn't exist, and hand shredded what seemed like reams of paper destined for the trash to use as bedding. The woodchips we had been using were gone, we couldn't find another bag no matter how hard we looked, and they had the tendency to get moldy under rocks anyway, so shredded paper is a good option (and easier to clean). Plus Sparkle and Chomper love burrowing into it and hiding. We also give them a couple different boxes (anything from empty tea or rice boxes, to shoe boxes, to this wedding-gift-iPhone-speaker box) to hide in, which they love. Anytime we clean their cage we switch them out though because they can get pretty gross after a while. But it seems that the different images and patterns on the boxes provide some intellectual stimulation for our little guys! Take a look--

She just seems so engrossed!

I love having some other living beings in the house with me when I'm home alone, and I love the fact that turtles are easy to care for, not smelly, very containable/transportable, and cute! I've been thinking about getting a class pet for my Kindergarteners, but I haven't quite worked out the logistics of that yet, and it's far from being a priority. But if I do get one, it will surely be a turtle. Not only do they have all the good qualities listed above, but they're also tough! Meaning I won't be scared of an over-enthusiastic 5-year-old squishing it to death or anything. ;D

I know it's blurry but how great is this? She's a little modern dinosaur! 

An observation Othman and I make on a regular basis is how stemming from my upbringing and backgrounds I have no patience for inefficiency that is so rampant in this country. "New world" cultures are all about practicality, innovation and efficiency whereas "old world" cultures like both of his value traditions, constancy and patience. Why am I mentioning this in a post about turtles? Well because our turtles are most decidedly products of the old world and are very, very Moroccan. Below you can see Sparkle sort of climbing up the side of their box... why? Because she wanted to turn around. And why would she go left where there is tons of empty space when she could turn right and climb halfway up the wall and plonk down again once facing the other direction?

By the by, forgive my using the word "turtles" over and over in a post that is clearly about tortoises and not turtles. In French there is only one word for both--tortue--and in the Franglais that reigns supreme in this household Sparkle and Chomper are always called turtles. Before you look down on the French for not having two names for two very different creatures, be aware that they cannot possibly understand how we can call hiboux:

and chouttes:

both owls when they're so clearly so different. But to be honest I can barely understand the difference. It's all a matter of perception and expectations. 

As another example, a lot of people here say they don't like butterflies, papillions in French. I couldn't understand how that was possible till I learned French doesn't have a separate word for "moth". So when you have moths in your closet or those little tiny moths getting into your dried foods, they are still papillions. Well no wonder! But for us English speakers the pretty ones have a name and the noxious ones another. It seems to me Americans have a fascination with butterflies that the French simply lack. But a difference in perception that comes about as a result of language (or lack thereof) explains it. 

When you only live in one culture you think the way you (plural) see things is the way everyone does... but living abroad for extended periods, as well as learning other languages, really opens your eyes to the amazing variety and difference of perceptions there is in this world, and how that really is a beautiful thing.



Edit-- let's bring this post back to its original subject, shall we?

Chomper being studly:

And Sparkle being complicated yet again as she tries to turn around:

I had no owls or papillions in my head when I began writing, and these two cuties are where it all started. And I really couldn't handle the last image of my turtle post being an owl! 

Two stories of old acquaintances and new bags

Last weekend I had the pleasure to acquire two very lovely articles through an interesting series of events, quite worth recording here.

The first is this beautiful purse that I’m SO happy to have! It’s a product of Mushmina, a brand that I’ve been long acquainted with and in admiration of here, but whose fair-trade prices have always been a bit steep for me. I went to a private sale of theirs on Saturday at a private home here in Casablanca, and got my new purse at 25% off, which put it within the realm of money I was willing to spend on a bag. Othman drove me and though we stayed for a very short amount of time it was nice to re-connect with a few people there and pick through the items on sale to decide on which would be my new bag. Mushmina was represented at the last Pages event, at which I looked at the stock displayed with such envy and dismay at not being able to buy anything, and chatted with the sales representative present about the company. I made the decision there that the first chance I got I would certainly buy a bag from them, and never thought it would be so soon!

It was a great purchase because not only had I been in need of a new purse, but I’ve been wanting a Mushmina bag for ages, since long before the Pages event, which just renewed my desire! The company is owned and operated by two American sisters, one of whom lives here and who I’ve had the pleasure to meet a handful of times (and see again at the sale!), and the other based in Pennsylvania. The fabrics are designed by the Mushmina team, manufactured in a factory close to Casablanca, and the raw materials (including leather from Marrakech) are then transported to a small village in the mountains of Morocco to be hand constructed into beautiful bags, scarves, jewelry, pillows, wallets and more. The women who assemble the products are paid per piece at a fair wage and are able to support themselves and their families much better for it, and the quality is so high that I have no fear that my slightly rough, everyday handling of my new bag will cause any serious issues. 

Check out Mushmina's website here, Facebook page here, and if you live in or around Philly consider stopping in at their American boutique located there! Also, if you have time to kill, enjoy the photos of their spring/summer 2014 collection here (modeled by a friend of mine) and see if you can spot my bag!

The second happy item I now own is this cute little Moroccan clutch—one of those items you never think to buy for yourself, but upon receiving you realize how extremely useful they are. 

I was given it by an old acquaintance—Helene, who was actually a French teacher of mine during my first month studying abroad in Angers, France, in 2009! She was a fun and young Expression Orale teacher who we all really enjoyed learning from. She has been living in Morocco almost as long as I have, but at first she was a few hours south in a small town called Safi, and then moved an hour north to Rabat, so we’ve been remiss and haven’t seen each other at all, even though we did talk about it a while back! She contacted me a few weeks ago with a delightful request for help—she is applying to a program to teach French in the States and wanted some help to prepare for her interview which would be in English. I was more than happy for this reason to get together, catch up, swap teaching experiences (she’s been at the French equivalent of British Council—L’Institute Français—this whole time), and have a Sunday afternoon out of the norm!

We met at a Starbucks, which was not only conveniently located between the train station and our apartment, but which just I love for its non-Moroccan vibe. I’m no fan of Starbucks in the States, but I love going there here, because it transports me to Europe or the US with its free wifi, Brazilian music in the background, plethora of lone laptop users (a decidedly infrequent sight here) and English conversations! The day was overcast and chilly at that, and we both commented more than once how from our table it was hard to believe we were still in Morocco. It's a nice little break from the foreign sensory overload that is constant here.

Towards the end of our time together she presented me with this little big as a petite remerciment for helping her out. It was completely unnecessary on her part because just the pleasure of comparing our respective lives in this country on a Sunday afternoon out of the house was compensation enough, but I was happy to accept it, especially because my new purse deserved a new cute bag to go in it. The old pink bag—a hand-me-down from a little sister—which housed my epipen, inhaler and the like has now been retired to different usages and my medications are now much more stylish!

I've realized that when I am attuned to the opportunities for connection that present themselves in my life I end up benefiting to a great degree. While it's easier to just focus on work and and much-needed rest during my non-working hours, getting out of the house to connect with people brings great rewards, as these two lovely bags are small examples of!

Rediscovering Ms. Austen

I recently posted a link to this great article on my Facebook:

While I truly am looking forward to reading an updated Emma by one of my favorite contemporary authors, there's nothing quite like original Jane Austen. This spree I'm on of her novels has come about due to my mother somehow sharing her Audible app with me, so every book she downloads (read: pays for) appears on my device also for me to listen to (for free)! She happens to have bought all of Jane Austen's novels, and I had been wanting to reread Emma for a while anyway, so I thus began my journey into Austen's world. I started with Persuasion, upon my mother's recommendation, never having read it before. Next came Emma, then Sense and Sensibility, and now I'm just beginning Mansfield Park— again new territory for me. I've been rather shocked realizing how many of her novels I'm unacquainted with! 

This glut of Austen has seen words like "approbation" creep into my vocabulary, which I find amusing. Her works are an interesting testament to the English language— even though they were written about 200 years ago their language remains extremely accessible, because her English isn't all that different. Yea "approbation" may have gone out of style, and I'm still a bit fuzzy about what "sanguine" describes, but I chuckled when I heard "awkward" used— it seems like such a modern word. (This isn't to say it's not a testament to her writing as well, because it certainly is. I read Wuthering Heights last spring, which was published decades later, and Ms. Bronte was unable to enthrall me, in large part because there were so many sentences that were so wholly unintelligible to this modern reader. Dickens as well wrote many years after Austen, yet his excessive language can't begin to compare with the clarity of hers.)

There is something so rewarding about listening to books on tape; I can expand my mind with great literature as I cook dinner, or pick up the apartment, or brave Casablanca taxi rides! Hearing a book read by an accomplished reader does wonders to make the story come alive and makes for a totally different experience. When I read to myself I do so quickly, and really too quickly, and end up missing out on details or discreet messages that the text holds. Othman and I had a conversation a while back about reading, and I realized that when I read I don't do a lot of work myself to make the characters come alive— I don't give them voices, imagine them vividly, or even "hear" their tone of voice, pauses, gasps and the like as I read the words on the page. As I'm a huge reader I obviously have no issue with this, and it works for me, but maybe it explains my lack of patience for poorly written books, and why character development is such an important point for me— I'm lazy and want the author to do all the work! Anyway, having an amazing reader, like the aforementioned Juliet Stevenson, makes the book seem almost like a movie for me. It's really the best of both worlds.

For anyone reading this who hasn't picked up an Austen novel in ages (or ever), consider trying out the Audible app for free, and get one of her works as your first free book—making sure of the narrator—and get ready to discover 18th century England like you've never seen (heard?) it before.

My Kindergarten classroom, version 2.0

Remember the post about my Kindergarten classroom? All the pictures I posted were taken during the first couple days of school, and since then much has changed in our room! 

We've received new materials from abroad, I've gone and done tons of shopping  for classroom materials, and my understanding of my students' needs in the class has deepened as well. A few weekends ago I spent a ridiculous amount of time at school rearranging my classroom, and have been meaning to take pictures to post ever since. This Friday before class I finally got around to it! Everything was ready for our Friday, which is a half day and so lessons are a little different than usual. Down below I'll explain why things are set up as they are, and how the day went! 

Here are some pictures that give a general idea of the class set up to start with.

The view from my (messy) desk.

Usually these tables are in this position but separated,
I pushed them together for a sorting activity.

The white table is usually clear, and used for the writing/art center,
but it was all set up for a sensory tub activity on this day!

In front of my desk is the supply shelf where students help themselves to
pencils, crayons, early finisher activities, coloring sheets, playdough, and
more! They've become remarkably self sufficient in such a short time.
Also, I can't believe I'd ever complain about having too many windows, but
having so many makes wall displays really tricky! Plus the bulletin board seen
here is for the Arabic teacher's use, so that limits my options even more. 

A view from the back corner, you can see the "game center" cabinet
which is filled with puzzles, flash cards and dominoes for the moment.

As you can see the space is much more compartmentalized now, and there is a lot less open (read: wasted) space. The shipment that arrived from Turkey was full of furniture which was very useful as a way of creating boundaries between centers. I only have six students but this room is functional enough in my judgement to fit fifteen or so without an issue, which is a likely class size for next year.

Now I'll explain some of the areas we have in the room. This is the circle time area where we gather first thing in the morning, last thing in the afternoon, and periodically throughout the day in order to regroup or read a book. The rug is not one I would have chosen in different circumstances, but how ridiculously difficult it was to find a decently large circle rug in Casablanca was astounding. In the end my boss kindly got it for me on a Sunday afternoon and picked the most colorful and biggest one he could find. It serves its purpose for sure and the kids love it, but they definitely get distracted by the Cars! 

This is our reading center, which usually looks a bit more inviting with the pillow arrangement, but one thing I hold to in my classroom is that the children must pick up after themselves, and the way they leave a center is the way it stays. They've been extremely good at keeping them looking nice so far, but sometimes their ideas of interior decorating don't match mine exactly. ;p 

This is everyone's favorite center-- the block center. For now it's stocked with toy cars and dinosaurs, two kinds of big blocks and two kinds of smaller blocks. The Jenga blocks have been the favorite of late. I limit this center to two kids because otherwise I'd find all three of my boys there sometimes, and things would get out of hand. There are all sorts of real life physics and math skills that are learned here every day!

Our "home" center is a popular one too, where we have baby dolls, stuffed animals and toy food. I've seen eggs being scrambled, soup being served to the construction workers in the blocks center, the baby dolls being handed from one child to another as if they were real babies with necks supported and everything, and lots and lots of enthusiasm for cleaning the classroom with that little cleaning cart. That cart is probably the single most popular item in the whole room, and the kids love to voluntarily clean the room!

One thing that's important since my class is totally full of ELLs (English
Language Learners) is keeping the center names simple and to the point, thus
this is the "Home" center even though it's more of a supermarket right now!

The centers will be developing and changing throughout the year as I receive new materials and rotate the ones available to keep the students interested. Once I get more materials that are on their way now I will be creating a math and a science center, or possibly a math/science combination center. 

I don't have a sensory table, but last weekend I went to the store and bought a tub to use as a sensory tub. We've used it twice already and the kids loooooooove it. I was silly to have started with confetti as the filler since it's so hard to clean up, but it was store bought and therefore easy to just dump in and start using. It also sets a good precedent, because the kids spend so long cleaning after themselves now, so when we use less messy materials they'll be sure to leave the area spotless.

I was very proud of their hard work with the sensory tub yesterday, because I gave them quite a task! Hidden inside were flashcards and small realia of objects beginning with A, B, C, or D. The students had to:

1) Find the objects and put them in the correct sorting plate, 

2) tally the objects found on their tally sheet, under the correct letter heading (and the sheet had capital letters and the plates were lowercase!)

3) graph their results at the end.

For two of my students I skipped the graphing part, but next time I'll probably change their task as well, since the level of challenge was a bit too much for them. With a lot of teacher intervention they did a good job at the end though! The other four students were able to do all of it themselves with just some teacher guidance, and I was very proud.

Their little faces were so concentrated!

Our daily routine is some variation of the following:

-Circle time (as detailed above)

-Whole-class instruction (usually either alphabet/literacy work or English language learning)

-Center time (I choose centers for students to rotate though, where they do specific work I've prepared for them or just explore the materials there)

-Choice time (students choose what center they want to explore and stay at. There are limits to how many students can be at each center, so both making good choices and accepting the choices of others is a big learning experience!)

I used the sensory tub as part of a Friday-morning center time. Fridays are half days for us so I usually skip the whole-class instruction. The other centers were the reading center (mostly because the kids rarely choose it during choice time, so I need to get them there sometime! Reading to children is not a priority in most Moroccan families and it's clear that most of my kids don't even know what to do with books)...

and the aforementioned sorting activity. One thing we focused on this week as a crossover of language and science/math was "big, little, in the middle!" We chanted and sorted various things all week, and that's how I introduced tallying and graphing. The challenge for this activity was for them to sort the flashcards we'd been working with all week without any teacher help into the big, little and in the middle categories! They did a lovely job.

These two needed absolutely no guidance!

These two sorted the cards by color as well, which I thought was a great differentiated
activity which they came up with themselves! Little minds at work. =]

Wow, well I kind of got carried away in this post! After wanted to share the new set up I was so excited about how the sensory tub introduction is going, and giving an overview of a normal routine just seemed the natural extension!  I promise not to be quite so detailed in the future.

While I do miss teaching at British Council and have been happy to head back there periodically to cover classes etc, I really absolutely love this world of Kindergarten teaching, and am so glad to be doing it this year!

Pages-- Chapter 3!

This is post number 100 on this blog, which has been in existence for less than a year! I'm so happy I started it, as it gives me a great outlet for writing and is such a great way to keep family and friends around the world a glimpse into my life and travels. It's more personal and detailed than Facebook, but less time consuming than personal correspondence, which it doesn't really replace, but in my sporadic conversations with friends throughout the year it's so much easier to just direct them here for a report on what has been happening!

Anyway, for my one hundredth post, it's an absolute pleasure to talk about the very exciting event that happened last Wednesday! I had the opportunity to speak in front of a crowd of Moroccans and expats at a bar in the "old downtown" of Casablanca at an event called Pages. If you missed my previous post about Pages, take a look here.

Photo from the Pages FB and photo credit to Rapax Studios!

The night was fantastic, the other speakers inspiring, and the music enjoyable! Tahir Shah, the author of The Caliph's House which is based on his experience moving to Casablanca, was there and spoke a bit about stories and storytelling to open the night. Having read his book (along with every other expat in Morocco I think...) and been to his house (as the venue for the baby shower of a friend sometime last year), it was really interesting to see/meet him in person. I really enjoyed his thoughts on storytelling, and especially his point about how the same stories, Cinderella for example, crop up in totally different cultures and corners of the world repeatedly. Certain stories and characters are transcendent of time and place, simply because they are so compelling, and are unlikely to disappear any time soon.

I was the last speaker to talk, which was a bit nerve-wracking since I had to wait my turn the entire night, but being a teacher I'm so used to standing up and "performing" in front of a bunch of people that I wasn't too nervous. I mentioned in my introduction at the event that although anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I'm a talker, even more than talking I like to write. So instead of talking in front of all those people, I read something I had prepared. And due to the fact that while here in Morocco I'm most at ease speaking mix of French and English, what I wrote was in that same mix, given that I was privileged enough to be speaking to a crowd who could understand it all. Feel free to use google translate to get the main idea of the French sections. ;D

Photo from the Pages FB and photo credit to Rapax Studios!

 My Maroc

un

3 years.

3 years, 8 months, 6 days.

I’ve lived in this city for 1344 days. Almost two million minutes.

I’ve lived in this city for 192 weeks— that's 18 weeks longer than my college career.

Those weeks have been full of sunshine and tears, white knuckled car rides and donkey pulled fruit carts, hair tearing bureaucracy and toes dancing with seaweed.

deux

The first time I came here was on my University’s account. Bank account. I scrapped together some BS grant proposal as a pretext for visiting that man right there, and getting to know his country, his family, and him. He and I had had some good times en France plus tôt dans l’année, et ça a commencé d’être plus sérieux. Ma première vrai journée à Casa, et il m’amène ou? Bah a Derb Ghallef bien sûr! On a bu du thé marocain dans un magasin de pièces de voiture. J’étais trop excite de montrer ma grande connaissance d’Arabe—atay nana ! Mais non, c’était même pas nana.

The shopkeeper’s sob story how his wife had just left him was translated sporadically, but I was content watching the pitter patter of pedestrian traffic on the small side alley, everyone picking their way to avoid the ablution runoff. I didn’t see any women.

trois

Au début, chômeurs, on a habité avec ma belle-famille. J’ai appris le Français. Mais c’était pas facile.

quatre

Imsouane. Imsouane.

New Year’s. Sunshine beating our skin, Atlantic winds chilling our bones. Nutty argan oil on my veranda breakfast omelette. Blond surfers in the bay, us exploring the shore’s rock formations, afraid of the frigid sea. A fisherman dancing with his dog, silhouetted by the last crimson sunlight of the year. Fish, fish and more fish to eat, and never a complaint from us. The stars. The silence. The next year, we did it all over again.

cinq

It’s the day to day things I find the hardest. My death-defying taxi drivers. My lack of time to form proper friendships. The struggle to get the internet fixed, or the fridge, or the water heater, or to get the electricity turned back on when Lydec turned it off EVEN THOUGH WE PAID.  The birds that poop on the clothes I just hung out for the sun to finish my laundering job. The ear splitting, high-pitched road rage of blameless drivers. Walking on the street with self-imposed invisible blinders, shielding myself from the honks, looks and dirty mutters I don’t understand…. but understand.

It’s the day to day things I appreciate the most. The seagulls perched as regularly as piano keys on the construction crane in front of my school. The way the fruit here pops when you chew it. How the wildflower colors change each month. Le fait que je parle français maintenant. Les couleurs de la coucher de soleil au-dessus de l’océan. How little trash I create here, compared to in the US. No heating needed. Central AC? Pff. Real food is cheap, processed isn’t, that’s how it should be.

six

On Mondays for the past year I’ve headed to la petite église près du Rond-Point du Sports, pour chanter dans une chorale. On est des marocains, des français, des anglais, une danoise, une américaine, et même plus j’en suis sure.  C’est ma thérapie hebdomadaire. Pendant notre spectacle en mai le monsieur chargé d’ouvrir et fermer les rideaux sur la scène a le Rialto était totalement défoncé, et il a fait n’importe quoi. Les rideaux ont ouvert sans le moitié des chanteurs, et après ils ont pas fermer pour que on fait la changement de costume. Embarassing? Ohmygod yes. But this is Morocco, and no one really seemed to pay attention to that.

sept

In a multilingual country such as this, one picks up on things that might not draw attention otherwise. Par exemple comment des voix changent quand on parle dans les langues différents. I imagine my voice to be the same mix of throaty nasal dans les deux langues, but you might not agree. E si eu falo português, a lingua da minha mae, é totalmente differente! Funny how that works.

fin

Part of how I make sense of this world, this life, this country, is through writing poetry. I’ll leave you with a true story.

In the West she’d be locked away

She’s a shadow made of moss and brown,
feet horned and dusty. Her sandals slip
on and off.

She ambles with that monkey gait

through carts of egg vendors,
boys screaming at their goalies,
and the local station de police.
Her chatters and mumbles don’t stop,
going from spider to howler in an instant.

The first time she looked drunk-stoned,

I thought maybe she’s another glue sniffer

or counts among the illicit alcoholics

of this dry and thirsty country.

I saw a man offer her bread at the hanout today.
She didn't seem to understand;
maybe her stomach was sated.

She must have been educated
before the psychosis set in;
her French, spat out with saliva darts,
is better than mine.

I've often wondered if she has anyone,

a sister, uncle, social worker. Him?
But that's just my Western brain,

I think. Because then I remember her wiry hair
tied up with that kind of plastic rope
they string dried figs onto.
She shifts it back onto rough chopped gray
from its flower power place.

There's never a fly too far off.

She is as scenery in this place,
another piece of Oulfa’s puzzle,

and I’m the only one the least bit phased
by her accusing stares.

Photo from the Pages FB and photo credit to Rapax Studios!

A huge thanks to Monika and Amr for organizing another night of fantastic entertainment, which brings so many different people together in such a wonderful way. Already looking forward to Chapter 4!

An inclusive Halloween: the Teal Pumpkin Project

Just a quick post about an article I saw linked to on Facebook and think is really great.

The Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) nonprofit has come up with a lovely idea for this Halloween: offer non-food treats for kiddos who come trick-or-treating at your door this year, and place a teal pumpkin (or this poster) outside your home to alert caregivers that non-food items are available. This can literally mean life and death for kids with extreme food allergies, can also be important for kids with other illnesses like type 1 diabetes. Anyway c'mon, do America's kids, with childhood obesity rates as they are, really need more candy?

Also, I worked with a woman during my time in the food court at Notre Dame who lost her 10 year old niece who died for unknown reasons after eating her Halloween candy a few years ago. Candy from strangers can be scary! And handing out

glow bracelets or necklaces, pencils, markers, boxes of crayons, erasers, bubbles, mini Slinkies, whistles or noisemakers, bouncy balls, coins, spider rings, vampire teeth, mini notepads, playing cards, bookmarks, stickers, and stencils

can still be all sorts of fun for both givers and getters! (Ideas from FARE.) Click on the links and take a look! 

If we were in the US this Halloween we'd definitely be participating. Even if you don't know anyone directly affected by food allergies, or think that kids around you don't have any, cute pencils are still healthier than candy. And you could always have two options-- a candy bucket and a non-food bucket-- and have kiddos choose!