A note on Marrakesh

"Oh you're back. How was your trip?"
"It was not too bad... I fell sick on the second day."
"Ohh... (insert reaction)"

So I went to Morocco, landed in Casablanca and then took a 3.5 hour train to Marrakesh. What happened soon after? I fell sick on the second day. How terribly annoying. I blamed it on the hammam bath I took. In and out of steam, a reaction to the essential oils and poof! I literally fell sick on a long awaited vacation. Fever for 2 days was soon followed by a runny nose and a bad sore throat that is still bothering me untill now. I was so keen to clean myself off the dust and dirt of Freetown and my over-enthusiasm hits back big time. In the end, I spent my time just relaxing and loading myself with loads of tea. Which was fine by me, considering that's what all holidays ought to be about.

Stayed at a really great hostel: Equity Point Hostel Marrakesh. It was indeed an AWESOME place! Honest. The best hostel ever. Great atmosphere, friendly service, free Internet, great terrace view... it was really worth it! The other hostelites were a also great bunch. We spent much hanging out in the evening on the magnificient terrace, having random conversations over hot mint tea and smoking sheesha (comes in only 'pom' or 'pom', which is only one flavour I discovered).

I ended up staying at the hostel for the entire vacation. I didn't regret it, not one bit. There was always someone interesting coming in and out. Something to do in the day, places to see in the Medina etc, things to eat, conversations taking place... so it didn't turn out so bad. For a tiny while, I was worried I might have malaria but thank goodness it wasn't the case.

Marrakesh is a lovely, bustling little city, full of colour and vibrancy exploding at every street corner. Boys are always shouting out to you, "Namaste! Miss India?" No - I am not from India and I am not Indian and I don't want to be Indian (no offence).

Marrakesh seems to be a photographers' haven. Bountiful landscape, great visuals. Everything in salmon pink contrasted against the bluest skies. When the night comes, most of us would head off to the Djemma al Fena, figuring out which stall sells the best harira soup, cous cous, tangine... Then we spent time browsing through the souks looking for some cheap bargain. Or whatever strikes our fancy. Other nights include belly dancing, roaming around the square watching snake charmers do their tricks (you have to pay even just to watch), listening to old traditional Moroccan beats..

The Medersa Ben Youssef (the Koranic school) was pretty neat, idyllic if I may use the word. Spent a day at the Tannery and then the Musuem. The Tannery is where the men dyed leather and clean them. You get an awesome view if you go up some roof top (but be careful that no one tries to trick you into buying leather and bringing you into a tiny room especially if you are alone). BUT take note that it smells BAD! Even with my blocked nose, it was nauseating! So hence the usefulness of mint leaves.

Going to Morocco

I am going to Morocco on Friday. For vacation. I am travelling solo and am excited at the prospect of actually being in Morocco, even if it's just a for a week or so. A change of scenery after 6 months in Freetown is badly needed. Also, a friend whom I studied with in Australia will be there and I am equally excited to be seeing her again after many months. I don't really have a plan for Morocco. No. I decided I don't want to have one. I'm just going to take it easy and see what comes. For now, in my head, Morocco conjures images of dusty souks, camel treks in Zagora (yes, I want to take that camel ride!), the famous Djemaa el Fna in Marrakesh with storytellers and snake charmers and even skiing somewhere in Ouka'meden... ooh..

This is a well-needed vacation away from Freetown and the stress. Yes, life here in Sierra Leone can be stressful sometimes. Even getting to the airport is a lot of effort. I actually have to leave my house 12 hours before my flight. Here's why: The helicopter don't work no more due to registration issues as they say although the condition of those things is very questionable, the hovercraft sank months ago, the new boat at Aberdeen is unreliable (they got stuck somewhere cause they don't have fuel I hear!), and the ferry is on the other side of town (or what we call the dodgy side of Freetown although I really like it) and you have to take a fair bit of time to get there with traffic considerations and driving around to Lungi Airport can take about 4 hours on not-so-great roads.

So... considering my flight leaves so early in the morning, I have to leave the day before. Sigh. But I am leaving with a friend, who's been staying with us and who's heading back to Bolivia. Least there's company.

I don't suppose one week in Morocco is enough. But it will have to do for now.

In March 2008

It just occurred to me I never really post anything about what I have been up to. It's not as if I am to my neck with a million things, I just conveniently forget to put in into writing. I mean, that's the very reason why I started out this blog - to let the wide wide world who cares or gives me 5 seconds of their time a glimpse into my life here in Sierra Leone. 

So let me give you a prosaic account into what I've been up to lately since the mid of March..

1. During the Easter break (5 days holiday here!), we went to Mama Beach for a camping trip. The initial idea was to drive up to Conakry (Guinea) and spend the Easter weekend there, bumming around, behaving all touristy. Asaf, T and myself were so keen to do this. Until my bosses' boss who's also my boss technically said "NO". And a NO from this man means something. Soon we found out that it's just not that safe and convenient to drive up there for a variety of reasons (bandits, car registration, boring place, too much to be spent bribing officials, visa etc.). So we shelved the idea aside for another time. Eventually we ended up going camping - German style in African conditions. German style because we went with 3 other Germans and we were all fully equipped with 'army' tents, torches and of course plenty to drink. It turned out to be a great, relaxing and definitely enjoyable trip inspite of the sandy sleeping conditions. 

Mama Beach is a magical place when the sun sets. If you stand along the shoreline, with the warm water trickling your feet, and you looked around you, you see the hills outlined against the dark sky and that I must say was one of the most memorable moment of the trip. In the evening, we had a fire going. Asaf brought his guitar and we sang what we could. We toasted mashmallows, drink and chat the night away.. it's was surreal considering that we are in Sierra Leone, a country so devastated by  a decade of civil war and yet standing there amongst the untouched beauty, one feels so extremely blessed. I was feeling so, for sure. We did a fair bit, cooking fish, barbequing, swimming, a ride on Henry's boat to Banana Island. So that was what we did during Easter. Other than that, I woudn't say I have been up to anything exciting really. Ooh, we hosted a party for our favourite Bolivian, Antonio who's leaving at the end of March. The party was fantastic! BBQ, drinks, good friends and good laughs plus plenty of Latino folks and of course enough salsa music to shake things up! Lovely! You should have been there. 

singapore and burma: friends to the end

Yesterday, 20 years ago, 23-year-old Phone Maw, a Burmese student at the Rangoon Institute of Technology was gunned down by security forces. That resulted in the birth of the 1989 student uprising. Of course, that news never made headlines yesterday. Except maybe only on the commentary of The Irrawady – an independent news agency covering Burma and Southeast Asia. When Buddhist monks went to the streets to protest, the world suddenly took notice and then when the hype was over, eyes were trained to focus elsewhere. Burma was again forgotten.

In Burma, March 13 has been proclaimed by pro-democracy movements as Burmese Human Rights Day. The date was installed to honor the memory of RIT students who were gunned down by the military on March 13, 1988. In 1989, came the student uprising that saw too many dead civilians and many more fleeing the country in search of help and safety. Today, any talk of Phone Maw can result in sporadic arrests by security forces followed by imprisonment. The litany of human rights abuses committed by the Burmese junta under the rule of General Than Shwe has long been a fact known to the international community but too often ignored. In particular, I am ashamed that my government (the Singapore authorities) have done almost nothing to resolve the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the repressive state.

It is a well-known fact that Singapore has strong business interests in Burma and there is a lot to lose should the generals ever lose grip of power. Powerful technocrats in Singapore, specifically those who work for Temasek Holdings, know far too well, how much they have invested into Burma and that this VERY source of funding is what is keeping the Burmese junta alive. From weapons to telecommunications systems, Singapore has been the most prominent supporter propping the Burmese government. Singapore does not care about human rights abuses. After China, it has perfected the art of compulsory executions for drug traffickers. It has also helped to keep drug lords from Burma afloat.

The Singaporean authorities must have been on edge when the entire world was focused on the protests in Burma. They must have heaved a sigh of relief when it was over and quietly retreated back to resuming relations with their Burmese counterparts. Singapore has been contented to put up a diplomatic show but we all know it has been nothing more than the occasional hand-wringing. If I may put it bluntly, we are a bunch of self-interested bastards.

Let me tell you something. Singapore is a pretty, little island-state, with stretches of shopping malls, great food, and cheap electronics. But we are also a country of mandatory death sentence for drug traffickers, where you get fined for a lot of things, where freedom of expression is very much curtailed. So don’t be deluded by the pretty images you see. We are a rich country but very poor in morals.

www.khrg.org
This is a site by the Karen Human Rights Group documenting news and reports relating to their struggle and atrocities committed by the Burmese junta. The pictures in the photosets can get really gruesome but they are perhaps a reality we have far too often simply choose to ignore.

catherine lim

This is Dr. Catherine Lim. She is a writer and a political commentator. She is a Singaporean like me. There aren't many like her today. I wish I was brave like her, tough, focused and bold in so many ways. I met her once in 2003 in a small cafe I used to waitress in. She had a quiet aura about her, which had a calming effect whether intended or otherwise. I merely said a meek hello, I think. She challenges the Singapore government. I think I know what she is talking about. I have never voted and my political liberties have perhaps been non-existent. A few times, when I speak up in public fora, I can feel the eyes glazed upon me in disapproval. I don't like the reasoning used by the government to focus on bread-and-butter issues and leave the rest aside. Times are changing and Singaporeans like myself are exposed to the globalising forces more so than previous generations. We are aware of the effects. We see the world, and we asked ourselves why are we so fearful of the government and why do we let them so? Lawsuits against opposition parties for defamation, no criticisms allowed. Catherine's recent open letter to the Prime Minister was rejected by The Straits Times (it's published on her website). As a Singaporean, I am tired of the overly dependence attitude , I am sick of complying and complying over and over again. Yes, I am proud of where we are today - an extremely successful country that has turned from 3rd world to 1st world status in a leap of a generation. I am proud of that. What I am not proud of and disgusted by is where we are heading, down that slippery road.

I wish we were different. I wish we would become more questioning and more critical.

a thousand splendid suns

This book was an unexpected present from Tim's family in Brussels. I have been meaning to read this for a long time and managed to get around it only recently. This is an essentially captivating book. I wish I had a talent to tell a story like Hosseini does. Old, traditional, reminiscent of the fairy-tales and fables. I wished I could craft words beautifully like he does - smooth, real and flowing. The book is a tale revolving around Mariam and Laila - 2 different women brought up in 2 different environments but entwined unwillingly in the same fate. A fate perhaps common to Afghan women. Hosseini makes it apparent that this is what his intention is - highlighting the plight of "women like us" in the opening pages. His skilled storytelling allows us to picture what daily lives then must be like. His characters may sometimes seem one-dimensional but as you read along, you see some sense of personality. There were times I felt this couldn't be the reality Afghan women had to endure. He makes it real, and it takes a hold on you. You feel for the characters. You get embroiled by your emotions - pity for Laila, hatred towards the misogynist, wife-beater Rasheed and compassion for hobbling Tariq. I enjoyed this book tremendously. I think you will too. I am currently reading The Kite Runner.

taxi drivers

Every weekday morning and sometimes in the evenings as well, my patience is tested. Every morning when I have to get to work and flag a taxi. Without fail. And when my limits are tested, my day is spoiled. With red dust sprinkled over my face, the smells of forgotten garbage along the roadside, I clenched my teeth, I breathed, hoping I'm not about to say all the wrong things when I hopped into the car. I confessed: Taxi drivers are the bane of my frustration here in Freetown. And I have taken a lot of taxis. And each day, I get the same deal, the same story. I go through the same hassles, leaving me very disgruntled. I keep asking myself: why oh why?

There are a variety of them. Sleazy ones, nice ones who speak politely to you, chatty football-crazy ones and so on. The ones I personally cannot stand are those who are are just plain rude and tries to ask you for more money. They will insist the fare is too small to take me that distance and I normally retort by saying that the price has been agreed upon. I tell them I'm aware of the standard rate. If you want a little more, it's fine by me. But not when you try to shake me off 10 times more because my skin colour differs from the average Sierra Leonean. Simply, I hate being ripped off because I'm a foreigner and that equates money.

Some people tell me to just pay the price. Drivers don't get paid that much and that money means nothing to me, some would quipped. That's not the point. It's a matter of principle. To be able to board a taxi without needing to feel constantly at edged, without having to yell at each other and all of that. Taxi drivers provide a service. People like me pay for that service. I pay him to take me from destination A to B. And if I choose to use a different route for a different price, we negotiate the price. That is fine. What is not acceptable is when drivers would argue and raised their voices at me trying and demanding to increase the fee to an absurd amount. There was an incident after work. I flagged a taxi. He asked a price 3 times more than I wanted to pay. I was already offering him a fee 10 times more than what one would pay for an average ride. I told him flatly that that's 3 times more than the standard rate. A guy across the road came over and told me to just pay the driver the amount I asked for. I snapped and told him to shut his bloody mouth up. He is not the driver. The driver, meanwhile sat there and pretended to look almost clueless, which is I must say is a pretty common look around this place. Unassuming, blank, nonchalant, ignorant. I am often disgusted by that look, by such am ambivalent attitude. They insisted I should hire him for an hour and pay the rate. I pointed out the fact that my house is a mere 10 minutes away. At the very most, in traffic, it will only ake 20 minutes. After 10 minutes of arguing and haggling, which left me very very annoyed and ready to spit in his face, I agreed on the price he wants me to pay. When he dropped me home, I gave him the money and told him to shove it up his arse. That's one problem with this country - almost every single one is fucking greedy. Right from the top echelons to the remnants at the bottom.

It's all about the money. I recalled someone once used to say that it's easier to say that when one has never been poor. Don't. Don't even begin to use that against me. Being poor has nothing to do with the need to be greedy and ripped others off in the most blatant way possible at any cost possible. Nothing excuses such a crooked behaviour. Nothing.