29 November 2005

semantics of dysfunctions

reflections

escaping the real is seen as escaping any way when reality does not fit any more in any form of understanding. i collected myself escapingly from being injected meanings i do not want to hold in my body. i do not want to understand. i want to stay illiterate and enjoy the mysteriousness of latin script and arabic abajadiya(alphabet).
understanding how letters pronounce is work. it becomes more work… hard work as reflection goes beyond meaning or when sight/reading allows for confusion and abcd-ed smantic dysfunctions.
the other day, a friend was talking about original thoughts and he said that no thought is original. by the end of the week, people speak in what they had learned during that week. well enough, what if their is no week , no weekend and no concept of both. oops… What are you going to do, brother?... it is scary.. when the smartest of us get entangled in the packaged understanding.. a semantic packaging.
i have a big problem with academia in this regard. universities sustain an “abcd” culture and leaves no single way for any oral knowledge to continue. we are taught to write and shut up. writing in the way anyone else writes. think in the same way. and eventually conform to the same way of being which can be categorized and easy to militarize. Oops. now i will start thinking where should i start if all the struggle for being is altered by this nonsense usually called religion and knowledge.

27 November 2005

past tense bisklitas

bisklita:
this is a bisklit that had to stay on the roofs (sstah) of a moroccan house in the cemented medina..not needed anymore. well needed in the past mashee now. and all the other bsklitas of the past had to do the same. a bisklitik retirement that had bezzaf to do with awareness about the presence of taxis ad buses when time is not in our ands anymore.
use this means of communication... sorry transportation to go anywhere in cities like rabat and taroudant. now it is becoming almost impossible to use bisklita's if you’re not in areas kike marrakech where they are a structural element of a general being. marrakech can't "be" without the bisklias. anything else is quit added.
initially, the creation of a big city like marrakech required predicting ways of moving round. donkeys, mules, and shoes were the major elements. when the first bisklits came over, they were quit welcome as they changed not many things in the general layout or rather the active configuration of space in the medina. in 1912, the first car did really make it to marrakech. they had to keep it in fes... in the palace. once cars arrived people started hearing different noises... different functions in their acoustic sphere. very annoying to an ear used to "ddeqqa" ritual dance and music as well as the "mluk" of gnawa.
now more sounds are heard... and less sorting is made. sounds do not make sense anymore... hearing moved to big convention centers.. now we are hearing more our past tense.. if utterances make any sense.



21 October 2005

Jadarmiyya d desert

Jadarmiyya d desert

and it was all about the borders again. algeria morocco without capitals. what capitals good for if they do not really translate the concerns of people. i do not personally like capitals specially in the eyes i mean "I" and in the beginnings things like rabat algiers nouakshoot.. did i just misspell again this Victorian transtextual leit motif. i care a little.
the borders are again full of injured hungry people that we all call afraican after having spent a whole lot of time trying to " burn" the borders to a promised land: europa. i know how it looks like to be under the mercy of moroccan jadarmiyya. the gendarmes of the sahara. city dwellers who are pissed off.. angry and hungry for moroccan riyals.
i know the sahara borders from times of camel traffics and now cigarettes and hashish. well sometimes arms well we sell everything in the borders and we buy jadarmiyya. and now our friends the gendarmes have other occupations that have to do with the "black" illegal immigrants. they are not six or seven people, they are thousands of people. scary situation for the gendarmes. but they easiest thing is to throw them out there n what s called the borders of algeria. and start the talk of the regimes. insulting each other. and accusing each other about things done. they never talk about things to do. Things like opening the borders for people to visit each other. or problems of Tiharyyin and other villages that we had to evacuate in the deserts of morocco.
 according to aljazeera, morocco has recently expelled at least 2000 immigrants, sparking concern from international human rights groups and aid organizations about the conditions and speed of the operation."Difficulties are compounded as Morocco has strained relations with Algiers since the latter has backed the Polisario Front during more than a decade of political impasse following a truce in 1992, and hosts Polisario's Saharawi government in exile."
well things get mixed up for the two capitals. and the Polizario issues surfaced here are just a face of shame that the two regimes are showing. who cares about what they think now. the care should fall on these thousands of people thrown out there in the sahara deserts without food or medication. there are pregnant women and sick people women and men who need help.
Mr. jettou, the head of moroccan bureaucracy accuses algeria of letting illegal immigrants cross the borders. he thinks that algeria is trying to foreground the W.Sahara issue by letting all these people in.
well here we are busy talking about how low the contexts are and we so the readings for our PI classes.  we know about the coming frosts more than we know about bread needed for our friends imprisoned in the sahara deserts trying to just reach home. bennaqs.
 
 

25 September 2005

Obi-alaykum

wa-alaykum obi.

well OB One has fnished and all te tasks in line.
all thetown was talking about OB in the last couple of weeks. life had to stop. partners and children had t suffer through the stories told by Obeoners. paople get board and they still had to practice what we like to call emotional support. now they all have time to relax before OBtwo stats.
my group was made of eight small groups of five and they al have showen a great talent in the presetations they shared. serious talents. wow. all kinds of tools showed how much these people can work together. talents in acting singin dancing and painting.
we worked on metaphore and meaning in graoups that are muticultural and how much these mataphores affect positivly or negativaly the group process and the groupe dynaics. and a lot of other things i d not want to talk about right now so you do notsuffer as well.
now that all this is finished you can relax as welland al the world can go back towork. sounds like Ramadan to me wjen every ine waits for this holly month to finish before they could think of what to do. all the questions ave one answer: 'we will talk about this after ramadan/OB1.
and people can be as mean as they want and it is all Ok. they must tired and stressed because of ramadane/obione.
people stay hungtry for all day and they get stressed and they get " les ners" ohhh waaaa and they can become a little bit violent. inside most of the times. you can call it stress if you wish.
now when people finish their papers and submit them they will sucrifice the time and they icon of togetherness like aid elkebeer for the god of Ob. inshallah.          

30 May 2005

Some PCVs know better...

HOW ATLAS MEN MARRY
Chatting up single women all over the world

Once....
The Peace Corps was created in 1961, by President Kennedy, both to assist in international development and to foster better understanding in the world through the work of U. S. Volunteers living among the peoples of developing nations. ( a bit more)

Now ...
an example of understanding this world...

"[in Morocco]... Marriage has always been more of a contract than a joining of souls...
There are certain things a man is supposed to do, certain things a woman is supposed to do, and if they can both do them successfully the deal is half done. They marry for the idea of what kind of life they will have with their spouse rather than how much they love one another. Love comes later, if at all."

therefore...

Read about how moroccans use cyberspace to "hunt" for american "brides" .
The findings os a Specialized Small Business PCV. Published in The WorldView Magazine.

26 May 2005

Style Guide for Online Writing



Michelle Klemens is has very interesting blog about:

Style Guide for Online Writing

Formulating an online writing style guide is an important aspect of developing and maintaining a Web site or blog. The style guide not only serves as a guide for the online writer, but also serves as a map to the reader offering both familiarity and continuity. For the purposes of this class, we have been asked to construct our own online style guide to help support the upcoming research project.

Read More...

20 May 2005

BAKHALIL..

We do not know when Bakhalil was born and nobody really knows even himself. He says he is over 75 and that's it.
a living encyclopedia of the southern deserts of morocco. He knows every inch and every person. He is the oldest son of Khatra, a poet and crafts man. A sahrawi from Tajakant tribe. Bakhlil inherited his father's job(s)." If you master the crafts of your fathers, you will never be defeated by others"(Sahrawi Proverb). As he grew up, he becomes the speaking conscience of his area: Smart, sharp and skillful in carving wood, silver and jewelry, and words.
He lived everywhere. The Hamada of Gir, Zegdu, Lemaider, Tafilalet, Oued Draa; areas that some call "sites" and others call them military "zones".
When Life called for settlement, Bakhalil took his family to M'Hamid Lghouzlan and built a house for them. In the main courtyard, he had a huge tent where everyone sits for Atay (tea)ceremonies. He would be doing his work while someone else is preparing the tea. A daughter, his wife or anyone from the neighboring area. Tea is the only thing people do without thinking of how long it takes nor do they even worry about the details for the acomplishment it's details. As spontaneous as they are, saharawis have acquired the skills of a simple life. A ritual simlicity.
Settlement was a hard shift for most sahrawis nomads even for Bakhalil himself .It was a slide down and a degradation as he still thinks there is nobetter life than the desert and the peace a tent can provide when standing in the Hamada or close to the sand dunes. Nothing can grant peace more than a walk in the afternoon along sand dunes and see the horizon in it's right place at night when the stars cover up the universe and get closer the more you look at them.
in 1979, the psodo-peace of Mhamid, at least the culturally enforced side of it, was disturbed by the invasion of the Polisario army asthey raided over the area and shooting started...
Everybody had to seek refuge in the palm tree forests. People fled to the neighboring villages and had to stay there for days . Bakhalil stayed at home and the next week ,he had his family moved to Zagora, a bigger town 90 miles away. The house like all other houses was deserted. Very few people went back to their homes after the battles finished but Bakhalil didn't.
For the kids to go to school, Bakhalil had to think about another start again." We always start" he say.
He preferred to stay a crafts man. He opens a small workshop in Hassi Barka, not far from Zagora down town. He kept the skill of his fathers alive and kept the poetry and the desert wisdoms he learned as a divine tortch of hope and love forlife.His smile bigger than the univers. He made wooden camels, bracelets, knives, and all kinds of small tools for house holds and for other nomads who still live in the desert.
Bakhalil's house has always been open to everyone. He never had to lock it. And it all looked like he never wanted any locks; although, his wife ,Khalti, always demanded locks for security measures."may be it is the fashion". She knows this is a big town and you do not just keep your house open in a big town.
People do not need to be invited. They just come and this is the thing that gives Bakhalil and other saharawi people a sense of who they are and keeps them informed about things happening anywhere. When they meet, they learn and they teach.
"weld men nta?" (son of whom are you?) is the only key question when you go anywhere. Bakhalil would know who you are sometimes by looking at you. "you have the blood of.. and you must be the son of Mr.X".
Bakhalil embodies all the power of an oral culture that has survived for many centuries needing no graphic representation.

Sharing...


A side of the stories from a Tamazight freak living in Vermont USA for the time being whose main religion is called Sharing.
This Blog is about me and the other me who is usually called "us" or "Nekkweni" in tamazight. Encouraged by Ndesanjo to blog in Tamazight but i still find it good if the western civilization can understand all the things we say. When Gandhi was asked what he thinks of the western civilization he said:"i think it is a good idea".
So this is going to be about me and the woods of Vermont with a loop view at the world of Amazigh Blogers like Elhousine Azergui. The Rebirth of Bees is the blog where he pours his fluid smooth ideas into the cyber stream of every one. Today Lhousine has issues with an ATM in Khenifra, Morocco.