Reflections March 2012

Warning: this blog is a few months old now. A lot has changed since, but for some reason I forgot to publish it. Enjoy...

I sort of read through my blogs last night and realized we appear to be totally unstable!!

I never felt that way. It looks like we move every 3 months which isn't the case at all. Xavier's family and friends are always wondering why on Earth he has chosen this lifestyle. These questions come from people who live more traditional lifestyles that are much more stable. Good friends, live in the same house or neighborhood for years. Their kids all keep going to the same schools so they don't have to constantly make new friends.

I asked Xavier if we were making the right decisions or if we should maybe think about doing some things different. Then come all the usual discussions, US versus France. France has much better social and vacations, but we had no money in France and were financially really stuck. That kind of sucks. The taxes are very high, homes in the south are way over priced for what you get, gas is expensive. But, we had a nice quality of life, even if we couldn't afford to fly back to the states or even take a vacation. Not sure how other people managed.

Then we talked about the US which has no retirement. The healthcare system is one hospital stay away from a family filing for bankruptcy. I was looking into going back to the states for awhile this summer and was looking into camp for the kids and it was like $1,000 per child for half a day. That's crazy! The prices are insane!! I've got 3 kids. You kind of forget how expensive life is in the US. There is a lot you can do, but it will bleed your wallet dry.

What I really want to do is go back to work, save money, build a wood chalet in Savoie and put all of our American furniture in it since right now it's in storage and I have no intention to ship it all over the world, it's cheaper to buy new furniture. Then I want to buy an affordable townhome in Chicago near my family. The chalet I want to rent out furnished for holiday goers and the house I want to rent out unfurnished yearly. I want to live cheap and save cash while we're here in Morocco.

I want to have a career now. I still don't know what I want to do besides publish novels. I fear I won't make any money writing, but you never know until you try. I haven't worked on my novel in a little while and have no excuse now. The woman who works for me calls me Jennel the princess...ouch. I agree, I don't serve much of a purpose now that I've hired someone to replace myself since I thought I was going to work for Jacobs, which is not panning out at all. Now, we've just hired a chauffeur to drive our car in the afternoon. I drive with Xavier and the kids in the morning. We leave at 7:30 and I get back around 9:15. The afternoon was torture since I have to leave at 14:45 to get the kids by 15:30, then come home by about 4:15-4:30 and attempt to get their homework going but still give them a little break to go outside and blow some steam before. Then leave again at 17:15 to get Xavier by 18:00, only to get home somewhere around 19:00. The kids sometimes get their homework done but have misunderstood the directions. Most often Xavier doesn't want to stay until 18:00, so I will do back to back turn around trips, or take the kids with me to his office and sit outside in the restaurant and have a snack there while we wait for Xavier to finish his work.

I was always the only one at the restaurant with kids. I got to know the people working the kiosk at the restaurant. They're all very nice there. People in Morocco always get to know you and they remember you, from the guy at l'épicerie, to the guy selling fruits and veggies, to the people working at the restaurant. For example, yesterday I had a coffee with Xavier at the restaurant before work. I was in line waiting to give the drink vendor my order. He remembers I always order café au lait and while I was waiting in line, he already got it made for me, so by the time I got to him, he said, "café au lait, right? I've already made it for you, here," and he handed it to me. Very nice.

Last time I had a coffee at the restaurant with Missy. We were waiting for her husband to come down and we started smelling something burning. We were sitting all the way in the back in non-smoking, but the windows were open. People burn trash and all sorts of crazy things in Morocco so weird smoky smells are the norm. So, we figured someone was burning trash just outside the restaurant somewhere. So, as we sat there drinking coffee, we played "Name That Smell". Is it burning metal? Rubber?

Then the lights went out. We figured they were closing up. I offered for us to move outside but it was windy and cold that day and Missy wasn't well covered so she said, "let's just wait for them to throw us out." I said, "no problem."

Other people started leaving and soon we were the last people in the restaurant. Finally the cashier came over and apologized to us in English and said, "I'm so sorry, you have to leave the restaurant, there's an electrical fire." We're like, oh, well that's explains the smell. No one seemed stressed or rushed. As we left we looked up at the air vents and black smoke was pouring out. We couldn't see it from where we were seated in the restaurant.

Another nice thing that happened not long ago. I usually shop at the nearest little grocery store called le Littoral. There are only 2 young men who work there. Najat knows both of them, I guess she went to school with them. She seems to know everyone in the neighborhood. Anyway, I went in there last week doing the usual shopping spiel and as I got to the checkout, he handed me a teapot and said, "un cadeau pour toi." (Here, this is a present for you.) That was very sweet. It made my afternoon.

Service: people at the grocery store will carry heavy items for you and carry your bags out to the car for you and load it. Very nice. This seems to be a standard practice. Other things, lots of street attendants for parking. You give them a tip and they may even wash your car for you while you're out shopping or doing whatever. Fantastic, since our car is constantly dirty. Of course now that we have a chauffeur, I've asked him if he would be so kind as to wash the car in between car runs.

It's odd. All of my jobs seemed to get outsourced. I'm left now with a whole lotta time on my hands to figure out what the heck I'm going to do. Xavier says, "make money!!!!" Now there's an idea! That was the original plan. I was so smug when I arrived in December because I had a lead for a job and the papers were done, but nothing ever happened. I've never seen anything like it, so it just stagnated and never went anywhere. I kept calling, but nothing materialized. So, to continue with my 13 yr long identity crisis...and running.

There were a few things I really wanted to do in my life in order of importance
1. Travel - leave the US and travel around the world
Check (Beginning in 1998 Paris, Austin TX, Dresden Germany, Munich Germany, South of France, Casablanca - and counting)

2. Find hot guy...oh I mean love
Check (New's Year's Eve 1998 Xavier)

3. Have kids
Check (2003 Anaïs, 2005 Austin, 2008 Nicolas and counting....)

4. Learn a few languages (namely French, Italien, Spanish and German)
Check French, German, beginning Arabic

5. Become accomplished professionally....hmmmm.....not quite there. What to do???

6. Publish novels
Started Isabelle, but not yet finished (or even close, originally I wanted it to be done by feb)
I have 4 other novel ideas in my head that I want to write.  They're all fiction, all are around women, and are all based in the countries I've lived. So, we'll see. It's better to write novels based in a country while you're actually in that country because when you leave, you forget the little things about the culture. You think you'd remember, but you really don't. Half the time I can't figure out how to spell words in English. It's strange how fast you forget words and your spelling. When I reread my blogs I'm horrified by the blatent errors, but am too lazy to correct them after the fact.

Last weekend we flew back to France. We have to leave the country every 3 mos because our residence permits are not yet ready. So, 3 months ended last weekend. We flew to Lyon to spend time with Xavier's family, then drove down to Gréoux to pick up my car and do some more paper work. We spent the night at a friend's house and I went out to dinner very last minute with some girlfriends since this was a last minute trip. My friend's husband was telling us we were probably going to get mugged being out alone. I never had a problem, but you never know, so I emptied my purse of the passports. However, my car papers are roughly the same size as the passports, so I emptied those as well by mistake.

I had a really nice time. I drove my friend there, while Xavier stayed home and ate pizza and drank beer with his friend. I had a nice meal, and drank 2 glasses of wine. On the way home, the police were doing a check. I never knew how much I'm legally allowed to drink, but 2 small glasses of white wine seemed ok to me. My friend said, you're not going to pass the breathalizer test. I thought, "oh, shit." I felt completely fine, but became totally self-conscious. The cop was a chick, she asked me for my papers. Sure, I had them earlier, no problem, I look through my purse, "oh, shit," can't find the papers. I emptied the contents of my purse and wracked my brain since I was the one who packed them in the first place. Now, I'm panicking, but trying very hard not to show it.

I'm thinking, I'm going to get handcuffed and brought to jail, all for 2 glasses of wine!! I'm thinking my friend is going to go down with me, since she had about 2 glasses as well and the cops probably won't let her drive either. I'm thinking I'm going to have to make the phone call of shame to my husband to come and pick me up, but then again he might be drunk off beer anyway. I'm thinking my friend's husband is going to have an issue with me hanging out with his wife if I get us landed in jail. He'll be really, really upset and never let us forget it.

The only reason I could think of is that my husband drove my car earlier that day and maybe he just kept the papers with him. She asked me if I have insurance and if my controle technique was up to date. I never know when my controle technique is expired, so I hoped for the best and said, yes. She checked, it was up to date. Phew... She told me all 4 tires are bald and that they can explode. She said insurance won't cover if your tires are old. I explained to her that I moved to Morocco and that my husband and I came back to pick up my car and bring it into storage in Lyon and that we're leaving tomorrow. She said, "alright," and let me go.

I was very happy. That was the first time I've ever had a traffic control in France.

When we were in Lyon it was cold, windy, grey and wet. The streets all over France were dead. No one was out and about. Oddly, I longed to come back to Morocco!!! I wanted to be in warm sunshine and palm trees. I wanted to come back to Casablanca where life is happening everywhere. People are always out and about on the streets. People seem to live outside. Oddly, I really missed that. I was happy to come back to Morocco. Xavier was very homesick and had a hard time leaving his family. I understand.

The only thing is I think Casablanca is killing me the same way Germany killed me. I've been here 3 months and have hacked my lungs out for 2.5 months. Here there is so much dust in the air and pollution. I'm afraid I have some kind of lung weakness and it's actually damaging me. It might all be in my head, but I feel like it's significantly lowering my overall lifespan. In, Germany, I was constantly ill with sinus infections and coughing. It was on a year round basis, absolutely horrid. Germany had done tremendous damage to my bronchi. Our family doctor in France had me take an x-ray of my lungs and it looked like 30% was damaged from asthma. Xavier also had bronchitis at least twice in Germany. I feel like I was so much healthier in TX. My bronchi are constantly irritated by something, not sure what??

It rained for the first time in a long time yesterday and it was like liquid mud had fallen on the car. I've never seen anything like it. The sky here has so much crap in it, it's actually brown. I think it's a combination of pollution, ozone, dirt, diesel engine fumes, and smoke from people burning their trash. Every morning we get on the toll road and have to take a ticket. Every morning this toll booth is engulfed in smoke, not like nice lets burn a campfire smoke. Imagine a garbage dump being on fire. I want to die every morning. We sit there and choke and sputter out the last remnants of oxygen, then drive further away, roll down all the windows just to change the air in the car. It's awful. It's every single day. We feel for the people who work at the toll booth. I'd love to call the police to complain, but what do I say? Someone, somewhere, the exact location I cannot pinpoint is burning something awfully toxic and a lot of it, please ask them to stop. I think that's not likely to happen.

I'm just shocked by the amount of carbon, Moroccans readily put into the air. When they prune trees, they burn the clippings. You'll see giant blazing fires all along the road underneath large trees that have just been pruned. I'm thinking wild fire, oh my god this is going to get out of hand!

Nothing has burned down yet, including our house. However, electrical fires seem to be the norm. In our area alone, it seems everyone at one point or another has an electrical fire. Apparently there is nothing holding the electrical current stable, therefore it fluctuates. In the west, there is something that keeps the current stable before it comes to your home. Apparently, they are trying to put this system into place, but it's not quite here yet. So, my understanding is this. Because the current in unstable, it literally vibrates the wiring outside. Slowly the vibration shakes the wires loose and given the humidity in the air, the two wires shake themselves close to one another. In conjunction with the humidity, acting as a conductor, the current hops and touches the other wire without being grounded.

Conclusion: We had a sudden voltage of about 300V surging through the house. It literally melted the fuse box outside and fried a bunch of our electrical components. Now, we have to be careful.