Rubber Duckie

So I can't understand most things here (ok, nothing really), but I like to just sit around and watch people interact. Contrary to the images we see and hear across the Atlantic (and well, from this crazy English woman in Fès), people don't seem to go around stabbing foreigners and blowing themselves up. Maybe all the hashish up here makes people relax. I'm in Chefchaouen, in the Moroccan Rif, probably the world's biggest producer region of hashish. I'm not able to talk to anyone, let alone read about anything, so maybe another day I'll fill you in on academic/political stuff. (NEW UPDATE: found some interesting information from the Rif, about a political activist who has been in prison for 4 weeks in Casablanca for denouncing the government's repressive measures against peasants in marijuana-producing regions like the Rif. Read HRW's March 19th communiqué.)

So I'll just write this:

I was in a little restaurant having my lunch before afternoon prayers, and I was finally able to watch some TV in Arabic. Actually, I had seen the Barcelona-Almeria soccer match a few days back, and was amused to hear people yelling "Messi!" every time the master wove the ball near the net. But this time, I was watching some sort of MTV-type station, where everything is unnecessarily in soft-focus. This one video had a pregnant lady measuring her growing belly as she sang. She definitely had a Michael Jackson-style nose job - way too small. And the sexiest part was at the end, when she is laying on her side, her slender arms caressing her voluptuous hips and tight belly; she has something yellow in her hand... what is it? A flower? Maybe soap? No... she so sensually places a bright yellow Rubber Duckie (el patito de goma, hecho famoso por Epi) on her hip, and the song ends... classic.

I'm off to Casablanca tomorrow, and then finally... eastward bound. In sháa alláah.