Explore the 'Miz

Spring is well on its way here! The near-daily rain showers have the almond trees a-blooming and the wheat fields a-growing. Last March and April were quite a sight to behold; lush, vivid green grasses and wildflowers like I'd never seen, a stunningly beautiful landscape bordering on surreal. It's exciting to see it all happening again-- knowing what to expect, recognizing the feel of the changing season in the air. If you've never tried a premature almond straight off the tree, I'd highly recommend it. After cracking open the fuzzy green shell, you find a white almond-shaped thing-- an almond. Unlike the dark and crunchy ones we are used to, these are soft, crisp, and juicy. Very refreshing.

An update on the class situation: Indefinite hiatus! Due to some possibly shady dealings or relationships gone sour, the landlady of our garage-turned-classroom slapped a padlock across the door. Soon after, we were able to use a spare room in an empty house owned by the uncle of one of the students who happened to be living abroad for the time being. Classes were picking up and shaping up, in fact; the presence of a few "older" people really helped to dispel the riff-raff of those who came just to be social, and we were back to having the thoughtful discussions and eager participation of days of yore. It was not to be so, apparently, as the uncle has decided to move back, thus necessitating our evacuation. Hm. There is talk of communally renting a small venue or even better, talking someone into letting us use a place for free. Craigslist, perhaps?

And now....... it is time to officially unveil the Explore Amizmiz Project website! Remember that cultural tourism idea I mentioned awhile back? Despite a lack of much blog attention we have been working on it here, specifying ideas and gathering participants to form a somewhat cohesive structure to the whole thing. We are pretty much ready to go. It seemed that a website would be necessary for publicity purposes, so I got to work building this one from scratch. It took me about a month as I got the hang of how to assemble it tastefully and ripped off good ideas from other sites. Many thanks to my family, friends and girlfriend for the constructive criticism and design expertise! Now I'm figuring out how to best get the site seen and listed on other travel sites, so if you happen to know of anything (or notice any typos)...

http://www.wix.com/amizmiz/exploreamizmiz

1157th Place

I participated in the Marrakech Marathon January 31st, running the half-- 13.1 miles (21k) with three other PVCs and my friend and training partner from Amizmiz, Abderrahim.

It all went by in a blur for the most part. It was a beautiful morning-- sunny and cool, perfect running weather. Memorable moments include when our route diverted into an olive grove where people darted off the trek left and right behind trees to use the "facilities", and the walls of honking buses, angry taxi drivers and revving motorbikes, barely restrained by policemen as we cut through the city.

Thanks to a few previous weeks of pretty strict training and a fortuitous lack of any injuries, aches or pains on race day, it wasn't very difficult. I didn't have to stop to walk or rest, and was able to finish in the time I had roughly shot for-- 1h, 55m. (http://www.racetimer.se/sv/race/resultlist/298?rc_id=1984, http://www.racetimer.se/sv/runner/show/792956?race_id=298) It helped having the crowds of supporters (and hecklers) lining the streets, and the exhilaration of finally participating in the race I'd been imagining for weeks. The first runners finishing the full marathon were coming in just 10 minutes or so after me. I seem to be seriously lacking those Ethiopian genes.

There's another marathon in Casablanca this October. It would be nice to train for it and run the full thing, though I'm not sure what will be happening as far as work or other PC-related business. Training for that would mean not fasting for Ramadan, which I was also hoping to do this year, so....we shall see.