fantasia!!

Fantasia is a traditional equestrian performance practiced during cultural festivals. Fantasia is an imported name, the actual traditional term used is "Game of gunpowder".

It consists of a group of horse riders, wearing traditional clothes and charging along a straight path at the same speed so as to form a line, at the end of the ride (about a two hundred meters) all riders fire in the sky using old gunpowder guns. The difficulty of the performance is synchronization during the acceleration and specially during firing so that one single shot is heard. The horse is referred to as fantasia horse and is of type barb. Gunpowder is called 'Baroud' and traditional gun 'moukahla', hence the name "la3b el baroud" or "game of gunpowder".

The performance is inspired from historical wartime attacks of berber and desert knights. Nowadays, Fantasia is considered as a cultural art and a form of martial art; it also symbolizes a strong relationships between the man and the horse, as well as an attachment to tradition.

Each region has one or several fantasia groups, called serba, totalling thousands of horse riders nationwide. Performances are usually during local seasonal, cultural or religious festivals, also called moussem ('season' in Arabic).

water seller making the rounds at the show

ladies' group making their run

we liked her shades

preparing for the run and then nicely executing the routine below

men prepared the guns with powder between runs

nice!

june boom III

a few of us ladies had the joy of hosting/organizing a graduation party for one of the lovely gals here. her mom asked us to use the family crystal-ware. it was such a blast!
this reminds me of a sorority photo:) it was a great ladies only tea party to celebrate the recent high school grad! all the ladies contributed yummy treats and it was a fun time to get all dressed up, too.

my roommate is really close to the graduate and i just enjoy helping organizing and decorating for these kinds of things, so we enjoyed helping host the party. it was fun to get into our snazzy outfits and celbrate! i found this totaly rockin' dress here and paid under $15 for it! sweet!

the same night as the tea party was i guess the USA embassy's fireworks display. i was totally stoked to get out of the taxi on my corner and look up to find these in the air. it was my own little fireworks show. happy 4th!

i met up with lesley's crew again on the train to ride down with them and then i went to dinner with them the night before they flew out. i had promised lesley that we would try these yummy ice cream bars: magnum bars! i think they may be better than dove bars! it was a great night to spend with her and her peeps again. what a joy:)

trip up north...way up there

i was so delighted to get the invitation to go up north to visit my best NA friend's aunt. it was a very beautiful city! it was much cooler too as the wind was a-blowin' the whole time. it took maybe six hours to get up here. actually we took a bus from here to a major bus terminal up north and then took a city bus to her aunt's place. well, on the way the bus broke down. we were sitting up front and were waiting see what would happen. we noticed many people getting into grand taxis (mercedes benzs) and we turned around to see who else was on the bus and everyone had gotten off! so, we did like everyone else and got a grand taxi to take us to the round point close to her aunt's house. we walked the rest of the way. see, i didn't realize that her aunt's city was so close to the coast as there are a couple of towns that have similiar names and i had the wrong one in mind before we went. i was absolutely delighted to be so close to the sea!! we arrived, had some lunch and went out on the town. this place is very close to import/export spots, so it had a great, great clothes market! i enjoyed it:) this picture shows a Spanish enclave (the hill in the distant). we didn't go, but it was cool to see it so close. there were lots of different foods i hadn't seen around much in our part of the country--i found Sunny Delight!

we took an afternoon and went to the beach. it was within walking distance of my friend's aunt's house! it was so cool. her little cousin was so happy that i was going swimming as it was just me and her from our group that got in the water. i enjoyed the calmer water to actually get to swim around in. the water was pretty stinkin' cold, but it was so refreshing!
my friend's fabulous little cousin is such a sweety. she got all dolled up in her tiksheta! this is waht you wear to weddings here. i loved hers. so beautiful!

and no visit to a home is complete until the foreigner does a fashion show in the local garb! i actually liked this tiksheta. i was blingy, but sweet. i am usually not a big fan of gold, but it seemed pretty here. i also tried on a caftan that her aunt had. it was fun and velvet:)

it was such a joy to be with my friend and her family. we definitely maxed out our time there walking all over and shopping.

one of the days we went to a neighnoring city that had a fishing port. i loved these plastic crates. i just loved all the colors. it was a really great trip to take with my friend. i ended up going back to my city solo. it was a pretty uneventful bus-ride. just got to take in all the sites.

i am so grateful for each and every place i get to explore here. it was a gift to spend this time away with my friend as she is now in the States for the next 8 months or so. i miss her.

june boom part 2

well, it is time for another post. i hope i am still keeping some of your interest with just some of the day in and day out stuff that goes on here. if you have any other ideas or if you have specific questions that you would like me to write about...please let me know! i would love to make this your blog, too. so, i am still trying to catch you up on the month of June. check out these fun times: we had gotten an email months ago about a fun day at a water park to the south of us and i decided to jump in on the fun. it was so fun as i think the adult count actually outnumbered the kids:) i was impressed with the park and how nice it was. i didn't take my camera in, so this is the only shot i have from the day, but it had a wave pool, a lazy river, several slides that you could ride down on either with a tube or without one. some of the rides were prety creative, so were loads of fun. one thing that suprised me as their policy of not being able to wear a tank over your swimsuit. they asked me to take it off before i would go down a slide, which was kind of weird as i haven't worn just a suit since i have been here. it was very interesting to see that our crew was in the minority wearing one-pieces or trying to wear a shirt or tank over two pieces. many of the local gals were sporting bikinis. it was kind of culture-shocking. some have asked if it was required for the guys to wear speedos...actually no it was not. there was one dude that was, but all the others had trunks on. a great day all around!

we decided to have a couple of local friends over for a southern lunch as a way to prepare these ladies for what the food will be like when they go to study in the States. both are going to the south, so we fried, mashed, and baked up a nice meal. i decided to make up some root beet so we could have root beer floats. it was so fun! we also had...

fried chicken, mac & cheese, green beans, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and a homemade dumpcake. totally yummy! the girls loved it. oh, and the gals got to try cold, sweet tea. i think they liked it. it was funny to watch them drink it for the first time:) it was a great day full of good conversation and laughter. yeah!

later in the month i was so, so, so happy to get to meet up with a friend. we were roommates for a while back in the 'delphia. how cool!! i met her crew at the airport, which after i watched so many tear-filled reunions at arrivals, i just about teared up when i saw my lovely friend. i got to hang out with them that night and then i rode the train with them and just got off in my city. she was such a champ, too, bringing me a load of goodies from home, inlcuding my b-day gift from my mom, an iPod! i was so thankful!!

here is the whole crew at the beach. after they got settled at their hotel we all went down to the McDonald's on the beach and had dinner. then we walked along the beach to the big mosque. i had never seen the big mosque before at night. they were a great crew that really encouraged me. what a joy!!

as we approached the bog mosque one of the ladies asked if it was always busy like it was. another lady said it seemed like a carnival was going on. well, you can tell that it is summer here as the people stay in during midday (hottest part of the day) and then wait to go out and socialize, shop, and visit at night. this place was hoppin'. i had never seen it like this either. it was really interesting for sure.

well, i hope this post finds you and yours well. i think about you guys often and appreciate all the emails, phonecalls, and words of encouragement. love you!

june boom part I

hey there! i am almost caught up...how exciting! we had our weekly pow-wow canceled tonight due to a surge of sickness running through our crew here, so i had some unexpected time to get another post up. thanks so much for you truckin' along with me. it means a lot. totally.

it is so fun to be able to celebrate birthdays! this is one of the guys that is here studying for the summer. it was his birthday like the first week they got here. yeah! happy birthday T!

of course you have to get a food shot in this post. so, NAfricans totally have some great ideas when it comes to food. their love for seafood totally resonates with me and my dream burger became a reality in the Gambas burger found at our McDonald's here. oh yes. a patty made from shrimp...does it get any better than this? i am not sure. i also appreciated how i got basically a side-salad on top of the patty:) definitely a winner in my book.

i got to help out with our Int'l ch's version of VBS for a couple of Sundays. it was really fun to meet some new kids and hang out with those that i see more often. the organizers did a fantastic job. above the kiddos are working hard at making some crafts. the youth did a great job of volunteering, too. bravo!

so, local elections took place around here during June. thankfully they don't campaign years in advance, but just go super-hard for the week leading up to the elections. they are also really big on flyers here. so much so you can see the very sad waste from them. this was definitely the most i saw in one place, but this particular street is a pretty popular one and the supporters walk up and down the streets handing out their flyers and singing their songs. most of us younger folks here decided to pick out a campaigning group based on their logo. there are many groups (at least 10 or more in some places) here to choose from. i chose the group with the symbol of a tree--i thought it was only appropriate:)

i was told all these flyers were cleaned up over the course of the next two days after this photo was taken.

so, this was totally fun. i got an email about two weeks before this group of students were passing through. they had an 11 hour layover in our main airport city, so i went to meet them hoping we could go take in a site or two during their time here. well, they had to actually claim their bags, which limited our options in trying to go anywhere outside the airport, but as you can see i was still able to bust them out! so, i went up to the airline's office in the airport to see if there was a place to hold their luggage and turns out that there isn't such a place, but instead the airline gave us a free shuttle to a hotel, gave them two hotel rooms and they fed us lunch at the hotel...all for free! it was really exciting. i got a lot of language practice in that day. we ventured across the street from their hotel (which was kind of out in the middle of not much) and grabbed some of the fabulous ice cream bars here and we also went up to the cafe' so they could grab a glass of hot mint tea (a staple). it was a lot of fun to meet these new friends and get to help them out, too. they made it to their final destination for the summer, so exciting!

know that if you ever have a layover here, i would love to meet up:)