Morocco - mint tea

I like mint tea.  It is my second favorite tea after chamomile tea.  I had read that Moroccans drink a lot of mint tea.  They really do, or at least we were served a lot of mint tea, while we were there.  Our guide Mohammed said several times that it is good for digestion.

Obviously waiters love to show off pouring the tea and here was our first example of this.  Whenever we were served tea, it was usually in a pretty small glass and several places we were able to get it unsweetened, although usually it was sweetened or served with multiple cubes of sugar.

I almost bought some mint leaves to bring back to make tea, since I really liked this tradition. Obviously Moroccans have for thousands of years served and consumed mint tea.  Every house we visited had the tray of glasses ready to be poured.  I don't think we ever finished a meal, without the mint tea.  When we were being shown rugs made in Morocco, the men there walked us through the entire process of making mint tea.  Part of the reason to pour it from a height, it to cool off the tea.  In fact, I watched a man in a restaurant with a single serving of tea and he poured his from a height.  At first I thought that with the heat I would not like to drink the hot tea, but in the two weeks there, I grew to love this wonderfully centering ritual.

Our guide had to be very diplomatic, when he knew we should not be drinking the tea a few places.  One time in the semi-nomadic tent in the dessert, he knew we should not drink it, so he said we had just had some.  The nomads put away their already prepared tray at that point.  Little rituals like this were precious and became more so as they were repeated continually during our time in Morocco.  I just might plant some mint and use fresh mint instead of my tea bags for my evening tea in the future.

Morocco-plastic bags and bottles

Plastic bottles and bags have been a pet peeve of mine for years.  Annually I examine what I can commit to in terms of using less raw materials.  I use canvass bags at the grocery store, pretty much refuse to buy water in a plastic bottle, try to bring my reusable mug or glass with me, etc, etc, etc.

I knew this would be an internal battle for me in Morocco and one which I could never win.  We were handed a 2-liter bottle of water every morning on the bus, were coached to not drink any water and in fact not eat fresh fruit and vegetables except in a rare restaurant within a rare hotel. I get it, and I did not want to get it (the travelers GI bug).

That one I had to accept, salute, comply and move on.

However, the use of plastic bags is not one I had to accept.  I had my little reusable bag tucked in the corner of my backpack and when I bought something I handed it to the vendor.  I got really weird looks from almost all of them!  "Why is this strange American giving me this bag?"  During our drive over the High Atlas Mountains, or along almost every road we were on, blue plastic bags, or remnants of them clung to tree branches and bushes.  I knew I could not go and collect them off the trees and bushes but I was reminded of the first Vermont Clean up day in the late 1960s when I collected trash from one mile along Route 73.  I felt powerful that day and honestly, I think we have less trash with the bottle deposit.

20-30 years ago we did not use so many plastic bags and neither did they in Morocco I suspect.  Plastic does not disintegrate, ever! We recycle plastic bags now and I worry that they still end up in the landfill.

I felt such despair in Morocco as I stared out at each beautiful landscape dotted with shreds of plastic bags.  I suppose they have many bigger life issues than these bags on their flora.  I am a Polyanna and feel like I can do something about these bags and bottles, my little part of refusing plastic bags and bottled water.  Many of our improvements of modern life are not really improvements, they are taking a step backwards, and use of plastic bags and bottles is one of these.  I will continue to fight my own little private battle here in the US and try to ignore the despair I felt when I go through my pictures of that beautiful country.

Morocco-toilets

Our tour company Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) has an online area where people share information.  One tidbit shared was; whenever you leave the bus and are headed to the WC have three this with you, a 1 dirham coin, toilet paper and purel.

This was such good advice for the countless trips to the WC.  Even if you forgot your coin, or paper or purel, the others would bail you out and lend you one of the three.  

I was a bit nervous about the toilets and I did not need to be.  I only once had to use a squatting one and the ones I used were "pretty" clean.  It was just not an issue for me.

On my return to the U.S. I actually miss tipping the attendant.  Oh sure, I could tip them and will when there is one but in Morocco, even if the attendant were not there, a dish was, or our group looked for a dish.  It became so expected and routine for all of us.

Two clever entrepreneurs, removed our 1 dirham coins immediately as we placed them in the dish, and left a 10 dirham coin in the dish, hoping we would see just the 10 and think we should leave another 10 dirham for them.

Bottom line is we should tip well the workers who clean our johns and keep our WCs supplied with paper and soap, no matter what country we are in and no matter whether there is a dish there or not.  Just my opinion.

Online photo-a-day class

I signed up for an online class run by a friend.  She sends out a one word prompt for each day and all of the members post their photo in a closed Facebook group.  It has been just over a week since this started and I am really enjoying it so far.

I find myself looking at the world in a different way.  Before this, I often saw an image that would make a great quilt.  Now I see things through the prompts.  "That would make a great picture for yesterday's GOLDEN prompt."

The first day, I tried to get into a routine and take a morning meditative walk, looking for inspiration for the daily prompt.  That routine lasted one day.  I should know better than to try to introduce a rigorous routine into my day.  My myers-briggs personality is much more go with the flow.  What has worked really well is to have the prompt in my mind for the day.

With GOLDEN, I was shopping with a friend and took a ton of pictures of yellowy golden items.  They would have been OK, but on a walk with Rod and Bethany this man got off the bus and put his umbrella up.  That was GOLDEN.  Rod and Bethany thought I was crazy, whipping out my iPhone to take a picture of what.  What is Mom up to now?

Rod once told me that he likes to learn one new thing a year and I have adopted that as well.  This year I am going to learn from this class and it will increase my spirituality as well.  The creation of my theology is sparked by connections between myself and others, and this is already happening within our Facebook group.  Stay tuned for more blog posts as this class continues.

Fairpoint Customer Service - LOUSY

For those who follow me, I blog about horrible and superb customer service experiences and everything in between.  I am finally online today so I can write and publish this blog.

OK, we have a house in Vermont because of the lifestyle.  We have no TV at our house (House has the name of Coniston), and we did not have internet for about the first 6 months.  We added satellite for a few years and a year ago, we caved in and switched to Fairpoint.  It was about 1000 times faster than Wild Blue Satellite and we have been very please for a year.  We do not live here full time but when we are here, the speed of the DSL has been adequate.  Rod can watch Netflix, which is the largest connectivity we need.

Yesterday morning, we both got up and tried to check email, and neither of us could get mail.  Our modem was live but we could not connect to the Internet.  We shut off electronic equipment went on our way.  2 hours later we checked again and still nothing.  We had our iPhones if we really needed to call of find something.

Last night at 8, when we got back from the activities of the day, still nothing.  We are going on 12 hours now, and truth be told we were both twitching a little bit.  I called customer service and they knew nothing about when we would be back up.  The rep at that point said to call back in the morning and there would be more information.  Again, we are in Vermont, we don't encourage technology at our house, and we could live another 12 hours, AND I have my 3G iPhone still.  Yes, I still have a 3G iPhone which is getting replace as soon as Apple releases their next iPhone and I will buy a 5S.

This morning I called at 8am, and got this message "We are sorry but due to the high volume of calls we cannot take your call."  I have worked in technology, and I have taught customer service and this was like waving a red flag to a bull.  There was no way to talk to anyone, nor leave a message, nor ask a question.  Their website was not up-to-date with outage information.  Yes, it is pretty slow to surf the web on my 3G phone but I did while my coffee was brewing.

I called back at 10 and got through to a live person in Texas, Brittany.  I asked her if she knew when we would be back up.  NOPE.  I asked her if anyone in Fairpoint knew when we would be up.  NOPE.  She started being very defensive and definitely had an attitude.  I asked her why she was being defensive.

In my experience, and in customer service training, you never are defensive with the customer.  I reached my limit and asked to speak with her supervisor, Curtis.  He was teflon, in that nothing stuck to him.  He had no information, did not know who did, did not know what the problem was, etc.  Rod at this point emailed the CEO of Fairpoint, and I started tweeting (which I never do but I have a Twitter account).  Down Detector have both of our tweets and face books posts on their page about Fairpoint.

Two things astound me.  That we are some of the few tweets and Facebook posts on the Down Detector site.  AND That Fairpoint is still in business.  Maybe the lifestyle in Vermont is really such a lay back one that people would not complain about the Internet being down for 36 hours.   I am sure there are people in Vermont who have Fairpoint and Twitter.  Do Vermonters not complain like we flatlanders from Massachusetts?  Is Fairpoint's reputation such that people are used to being down? The few tweets out there indicate that it is down a lot.  Does Fairpoint has few enough customers in Vermont that there is no one to complain?  If this is the case, please leave a note about which provider you are using in Vermont for internet connection.

I worked in technology and was on calls for 24 hours at a time where tech support was trying to solve a problem.  What we learned was to give customers information, be transparent, let them know when you would give them an update, and give them one.  The first outage we did not do that, and we suffered the repercussions, on twitter, blogs and other social media.  The later outages, customers thanked us for the transparency on twitter, blogs and other social media.

So, I told Curtis that I blog about customer service, both good and bad and here it is.  One person's experience with Fairpoint DSL and today my experience was LOUSY!  AND I got online by changing DNS settings on my computer, a solution which I found from a poster on the Down Detector website.  He can figure out how to get around the problem but the Fairpoint tech support cannot.  HMMMMMMM?

Liam, snakes and gardening

WOW, I really thought that I had already blogged about this.  One of our first years at Coniston, Christopher walked up the boardwalk to the house and jumped back when a snake slithered out of the woodpile.  My sister stayed here for a few weeks and named the snake Liam.

Rod said when Christopher jumped back "He is a lot more afraid of you than you are of him."

Christopher said "Then he must be shitting his pants."

We have retold this story many times since that day.

Today while out gardening, weeding actually, a snake slithered out of the weeds and I jumped back and screamed loudly.

Rod said "What, a snake or a spider?"

Sally said "A snake, I don't scream for spiders, and only call you for wolf spiders."

So, Christopher comes by this fear of snakes honestly and I have yet another reason not to garden or weed.

Packing for a Month

This is a crazy summer.  All good things are happening but maybe just too many of them all packed into the same summer.

In light of that I reflected on packing for all of these trips.  We went to Star Island last week, and I usually reserve my Star t-shirts to wear for the week.  After Star we will primarily be staying at Coniston so rather than pack again for Vermont and Coniston, I am going to wear my Star t-shirts all summer up there.  EXCEPT, I will need a few collared shirts for golf if I want to play golf this summer up in Vermont.  OK, so when I go home this week for 3 days, I will have to remember my golf clubs and because I want to sew some quilts I will have to remember the correct fabric and all the right accessories for those quilts.  YIKES, this is getting very complicated.

I wonder how Mom used to pack for the summer when we went to stay most of the summer on Gardiner Island on Lake Champlain.  Did we just throw all of our clothes into a duffel bag? did we pack our own bag or did we pack with a sibling?  We always seemed to have enough clothes although we spent most of the summer in our bathing suits so maybe it did not matter.

For our first wedding of the summer we had to pack for a black tie wedding.  Evening gown and tux.  For our second wedding of the summer, just a regular dress sufficed, and a suit for Rodney.  For the 4th of July, I remembered to pack my red, white and blue hat.

So it will be a miracle if I remember everything, and if everything is in the right place, but when it comes down to it, as long as I have something to wear, I can rent golf clubs and sew something with the fabric already up at Coniston, or I could go buy more fabric.  These are all first world problems.  I carry the essentials in my backpack and everything else is just an add on.