Scorchio

Well summer has arrived, as evidenced by the cats seeking out the coolest places and lying on their back, exposing as much skin as possible to the air (not very cool looking) and me putting the tent up in the proto-living room so I can sleep at night. Tent = no mosquitoes + cool night air. Ruby just pants all day.

Mohamed has finished his exams and the results in so far look good. He is still in holiday mood though and has not finished clearing the rubble out of the rooms upstairs. (You can tell I have started to nag....)

I think we are going to build the stairs going up to the roof next and get the wall built that will surround the roof and give us safety and privacy. Then, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the building work is complete and we can just get on and finish rooms.

Mohamed has been to see the man in charge of granting licenses and been told that we will not get a license as we are not within the boundaries of the village.... but that is kind of good news as it means we are less likely to get people building next to us. We will just have to go back to plan A and pay the local man in charge so that he loses us when it comes to prosecuting people for building without license. The man in charge of licensing told Mohamed just to go ahead and build as there are people throwing up houses all over the place and we are not the worst offenders so it's not like that anyone will bother us. And it is true, as we drive into Agadir I see a crazy amount of building work going on.

The new draft constitution has been released and there will be a referendum on 1st July. It will probably be passed as there is a lot of pressure from the "establishment" for people to vote yes. Apparently last Friday all the Imans advised people to vote Yes. The No voters will keep on protesting and demanding a true democracy, but I guess that it will take time to get there. I haven't managed to see an english version of the new constitution but I think it is good in parts. eg adoption of Human Rights law, but the king has not given up enough power for it to be called democracy.

On Sunday Mohamed went to join a Vote No rally while Ruby and I went for a walk on the beach. Poor Ruby was travel sick (as usual) but I think she enjoyed our walk on the beach.... apart from disappointment at not being able to chase seagulls - they were all landing on the King's Private part of the beach - or have a walk through the gardens of the Royal Atlas Hotel - I had taken preventative measures and put her on the lead and there were 3 very hostile guard dogs. We got home without any more sickness.

In the village there has been some construction work underway near the village pond, which is apparently related to the water supply, a pump room and a holding tank I think, and in Taazhout the water tower has been built.... so it seems that the next stage must be getting the water pipes in and around the village. Trying to contain my excitement.

June, Moon etc

So did you see the eclipse? For once it was not so late I was asleep or so cloudy there was nothing to see so Yes I did. The moon looked really strange, crepey and spherical instead of diamond sharp and flat.

All the wood (well there are a couple of bits still sticking to the ceiling) has gone - Hurrah. All the rubble is still here - Boo. I have been sweeping out the rooms a bit at a time but I am going to leave the serious rubble clearing to Mohamed and he has had his end of term exams this week.

I haven't been up on the roof yet as the builder took his ladder away. We need to sit down and work out what are the next things to tackle.... stairs up to the roof might be one, my dad's room a definite priority and my office I think.

I have another snake sighting to add to my collection, this time it was a Natrix maura - a completely harmless water snake.

We are waiting to hear what the new Constitution is going to look like... no date but it must be nearly due out and there has been some comment on what is in it on TV (leaks I think).

Bread fail

hmmm... I think I will leave the breadmaking (moroccan style) to the experts. Maybe the yeast was too old or maybe I should have left it to rise but it just didn't cook right. Anyway it sort of tasted OK and Ruby liked it!

I made scotch pancakes for the builder's breakfast.

More Roof

Weel this is taking longer than I thought it would, de-wooding the roof that is. They started this morning and by lunchtime had not quite finished one room. I think the wood is sticking to the concrete too much. Anyway from the bangs and crashes over my head it sounds as if they have moved on to our bedroom.

I think the truck was supposed to be coming today to take the wood away (except what is going to be used by the neighbour for their roof), but it has been put off till tomorrow. Though at this rate they will not be ready for it - unless we find a lot more bodies to throw at it. Mohamed could only find one guy last night.

In meantime I am about to attempt to make bread for the first time since coming to Morocco -- well for a long time really (apart from pizza). My oven is really crap so I am trying to make some flat bread that I can cook in a (dry) frying pan. I have in mind the really delicious bread that Mina and Miluda make while we all sit round the little charcoal brazier in their house in Taroudant. Everyone with a glass of tea waiting for more hot bread to eat, running with just butter or if we are lucky butter and honey. I hope my bread will be half as good... somehow Mohamed's mothers bread isn't as good.

The reason I am making bread is that we have run out and there is no bread in the village shop (they don't get much in as a rule as most women in the village make their own) and I have to give breakfast to the workers this afternoon. (They have about 2 breakfasts here ... this one is breaking the fast since lunchtime!)

Thinking of bread reminded me of the bread that our two guides cooked when we were horse trekking in China. They made a really big, dense loaf in a saucepan on the campfire. About halfway through the cooking they piled charcoal from the fire over the lid of the pan. I think we ate it for breakfast the next day, and lunch, and there was some left over which I suppose we would have eaten for dinner but luckily we had made it back to Songpan by then and had dinner at the guide Yo's beautiful wooden house. The food on that trek was both awful and amazing at the same time.

Anyway enough of the delaying tactics off I go.