Latest Painting

We are blessed with a wonderful sky nearly every day.

This panel was inspired by what we see in the morning ...
but painted without reference, last Thursday in the afternoon.
















"Dar Bouazza Sky II"
Thomas Relth
Acrylic on Wood Panel
122 x 95 cm (48 x 38")
December 5 2008

Thanksgiving weekend

We hope that you all have had a great Thanksgiving and were able to spend it with your friend's families, if not your own.

On Thanksgiving Day we went to be with K and D and their 3 boys. Karine is Leslie's best friend, J's niece ... such a small world. They live about 10 minutes further down the coast. They also live about 100 or so paces from the Atlantic. It is a straight ahead surfing beach.

Friday, we made un petite fête (a small party) at our home to thank those who have been so helpful to us in transition.

We had about 20 people; about 1/2 local expat US folks and the rest French and Nationals.
The guest list included our proprietor/landlord. And, the local pastor and his wife.

We had a unique mix of folks, as it is here in our international village. It was a "grazing" type of affair as opposed to sit-down. We have no photos to share.

It has been raining here again and windy. It seems as though we live on a larger freighter at sea. The point on which we live is exposed like the bow of a ship and there is no protection, and with no hills behind us, the wind will kick easily to nearly 100 MPH and seems much colder than the thermometer says it is. The wonderful thing is that in all of our struggles with the elements, everyone including the proprietor has come to help us.

The leaking ceiling, the water running in under the doorsills the power outages, and the broken-down car all have resulted in the Lord blessing us with sweet helpers and new relationships. All of these detours are resolved for now.

The best Thanksgiving meal was on Saturday. We normally have a local man come to help with the gardening. He arrived in a downpour, and proceeded to work the yard as usual but with non-stop downpour.

After an hour or so, I said “enough”, relieved him of his further duties, and drove him to his home in the interior. Once we arrived, he insisted that I come in for tea. After greeting his wife who prepared in the kitchen, and two little ones, we sat without talking for about a half and hour without talking and watched his two-year-old play with his very simple toys. Mr. Gardener poured the three cups and soon required that I stay for a meal. Concerned after an hour-plus of visiting, that I had sent no word to Leslie, I tried unsuccessfully to call her (power out) , Mr. Gardener said that we must go get her to join us, and so we did.

With the rain blasting down and mud everywhere, we drove back the mud-ruts to our home. Leslie (surprised by my long absence and the invitation) and I returned to Mr. G’s home and re-joined he and his wife for a tagine of veggies and chicken breast and “fanta”. Although we hardly spoke any common language, it was the sweetest two-hour conversation of the weekend.

It was coffee and then time to take our leave. Mr and Mrs. G and the children all walked out with us and waved until we rounded the hill on the way home.

That's what our Thanksgiving was about.

We hope that your day was sweet as well.

Bye for now, Love, Tom and Leslie (and Roberta who joined the fete but not the country meal)

Spaghetti and Pumpkin Night

Last month, we announced to the local kids that we will have a pumpkin carving and spaghetti night at our house, last Sunday o' the month.



Tom and Ms. HHCFR (House Helper and Companion For Roberta) drove inland by dirt track to a local farm distribution area and bought 15 big, ... = 105 kilos of pumpkins (about 230 lbs). The farm community uses a completely different currency, but they were pleased to receive my currency anyway. We had about 15 kids and several parents and pumpkin goo everywhere.

It was great fun and a big success. None of these kids had ever done this before and scooping
out the guts was big messy fun.







We scraped out the meat and everyone was sent home with a big "Jack-o-lantern" and lots of pumpkin meat for pies, cookies, couscous or whatever.

We were left only with about 10 Kilos (20+ lbs) of seeds.





Ms HHCFR took them to the small processor in town for roasting and salting .

There was enough spaghetti for seconds! and as you might guess high school boys eat seconds..


















Ms. HHCFR really enjoyed the kids! By the way in our house we say, "never kid around with a Berber woman with a knife". She laughs so much when I kid with her! -Tom

Power "Fun" n NA.

Generally we are having fun in NA.

I haven't written for the last few days because stomach issues and running to the 'boy's room', plus losing our power for a day and a-half, an ant infestation and 2 sections of 23 insane 7th graders and laptop format problems have kept me from it.
(writing now from my classroom ...I am supposed to be doing my prep during 6th period but I am OK with that for today.

More on power fun:
Actually the power came back on after 5 hours but ...unfortunately the major appliances in the house are on only one of the two phase legs and so once the power was turned back on... it blew the fuse on that leg of the power.... And hum...OK, so I have no idea where the "main" panel is and even if I did where to buy fuses.?

OK....the four sub-panels seem fine...to it must be the Main. After 4 phone calls...(plus visits to the neighbors, and neighbors visit us, we will have a "Friend" coming over today in hopes of them fixing the power and providing the fuses and also hopefully ... tell me how to correct this in the future, since we have no heard that many of our co-workers have had intermittent power 6 times in the last 5 weeks. Do you know where your "Main" is and the water shut off?/ ...perhaps I should not mention that. Last night I was laying in bed saying ..."I haven't seen frogs yet? What's next?

One thing for sure.....today after the freind helps us...I will be "re-balancing" the power loads for the refrigerator, coffee pot, toaster, "petite" washing machine etc., now all on the same circuit (with no load on the other circuit) with other circuits using a few new 10 meter extension cords to get from the next room where the outlet for the second circuit is to its new appliance position. ....presently we have a 6 meter (20 feet apprx.) cord tracking across the floor from the lower bedroom, across the entire kitchen floor (with a carpet over it ...so we don't trip) and the cord runs to the basement kitchen refrigerator to help save the groceries!!!


All in all we are so pleased to be here (even with the unbelievable weird surprises) ..
And love to hear from you.
Love to all, T n L

Camera Matters

This was actually written last week....and I am not sure who already I sent it to...so why not post it?

I can only say that registration was finished and yesterday was thelast day to change a class.So, our classes are set. Thank you! (Starting over, backtrackingwith new students as late-adds is a bit crazy making)
Tom has 4 HSclasses in the AM periods 1,2,3, and 4 then a break for lunch and twoclass periods for prep…. till 7th period 7th graders. Please pr y for me.

The typical preparation time is spent in minor lunacy nearly every day….Today, I had to borrow the school digital camera…Why would I do that?…well .. Monday at the end of day, I discovered that my personal digital was missing.
So, after going home and checking ..thinking I'd remembered incorrectly, I found that the camera was not home and therefore must have grown legs at school.
So, at noon today still needing to finish student mug-photos for several student's projects (more on that later), I went to the HS Principal's office to get the digital camera.

I asked the ES Principal; "who knows or has used this, to quickly teach me how to use this camera?"
Well, says Ms. ES Principal, "Ms. Kindergarten knows how and she is in K3, the class with thetrain on the door down there" …so off I go.The class with the train…hum…..I proceed as directed but walk right past the sign as it is a flag sign and I totally miss it. I then walk all the way back to start over to find the room is two doors down fromwhere I started … OK.

Quietly, I open the door ..it is naptime in K3, so I tip toe to theback and wait while Ms. K cares for a little one who is crying . The poor dear wants her mom?

So finally, I ask Ms. K, who I quickly realize, has never seen this camera before, and she says that she only ever uses the video cam…duh.

So, I decide to walk to the Cafeteria to see who might know …as I walk, I look at the camera to see if I can find out how it works by myself. That is when I notice that there are about 10 batteries in the bottom of the camera case and none in the camera, where the batteries go.(What are the permutations of 10 batteries ...obviously some bad some good, in 4 battery slots..to find 4 good ones what are the odds? I'll be here forever.….It needs new batteries.

So past the Caf, to the purchasing department and requisition 4 batteries and that only takes about five more minutes.The purchasing department manager is glad to see me, because she has need to discuss the items on my requisition from yesterday and in fact six of the eight items are readily available at the copier-supply room and so she scratches those six off the list. The other items will need to be ordered,but we can't say how long it might be. Inshallah.

But, anyway after about more 10 minutes I am off to the caf to find help with the camera. I run into the two students who needed the photos and I must ask them to wait because now even with batteries, I can't seem to get the thing to function properly.

But wait … there is Ms. PhotoTeacher. She knows! She is the photo teacher from last year..That's when I remember that I have a meeting that started 15 minutesago with Ms. Photo Teacher and Mr. Yearbook., so we all meet to discuss the yearbook, for which I am an unpaid "freelance consultant" … I advise on some few subjects, being careful not to agree to do anything and so suggesting that I am only volunteering, "If" they want me and please don't feel obligated to me. Please."By the way, Ms. P..., I need YOUR help, can you quickly show me how towork this camera. I mean Ms. P., I am not a simpleton, and these arenormally pretty easy, what do you think?"

She then proceeded to press all of the normal controls for about ten more minutes with zero success. And, so I thanked her and just started pushing buttons myself. The camera displays the old pictures that someone else took…hum…but it will just will not take a photo….I need this thing to work today.!!

After about 5 more minutes I accidentally erase one of the old photos and also accidentally take one photo. How did I do that? …and for the life of me I cannot get it to take another photo.

Then… it occurs to me that it won't take another photo because the memory card is full…so I erase 5 older photos and voila!!!. I can take pictures! But, by now the students have waited all thoughout their lunch and I have already had to send them off to class with a "note" of excuse.

So … I will not be fouled. When I finally get to take those student mug photos, I will be ready to process them and get them back quickly to the students for their project that all others started yesterday, and these two will need at 2:30 today.

So…. I take the camera to my classroom, ..now with 1 hour left to figure out how to off-load a photo from this camera to my computer. Now, (of course now) I notice that there is no fire wire and no USB wire… but there isa USB card reader….Yes!!! I pop out the card from the camera after some struggle, getting the clip to release, and it says 128 MB. OK, its small.

In the camera case, I find a thing that looks like a small spaceship, and I figure it to be the solution. It's a off-market card reader with USB. This is it…well no not exactly. I connect the USB end to the computer USB port and jam the camera memory card into the slot provided the card reader and nothing happens. I remove and replace it three time and the then, little lamp glows red …yikes it works!

So I open up the files on the computer to discover that the card has all seven-month-old, last year, silly pictures of who-knows-what and some very bad shots at that. So I erased all of them and took some tests. Let us say I appropriated this camera…at least for today.

No problem. The whole process took from 12:30 PM to 2:15 PM … that's only one and 3/4 hours. So goes the story of nearly everything we try to do .... nothing too easy…coveting your pr yers, more later, T

Over Crowded (Satellite TV)

I still have to write the story about buying enough wine for a month (not enough, by the way) on the last day before Ramaden and will eventually write that story for the eager consumer...but everyday I am crowded. And, the wine story needs more quality time.

As an example of this "crowded"; yesterday was spent from 10:00 until 13:00 proofreading for a new ex-Parisian friend's website translation from French to English. He had already completed it but it was way to frenchified.

Some easy issues were noun adjective order. But in some places he still used French terms and were more difficult to translate; particularly given that my French is K3. The word for Lavatory and basin were still in French and it was in Marble.. I wasn't sure what to say.

I finished just in time to start the next adventure.

So, afterward I spent almost 3-1/2 hours in town driving, with Local Mr. Computer-friend as navigator, between the petit taxis, the Citroëns, Peugeots, Hyundais Mercedes-Benz, baby-mopeds... and the donkey carts with assorted veggies, to get satellite supplies.

We drove to the outdoor market on the other side of town to get all of the pieces needed to install satellite TV for Mom (that's the excuse but its for Leslie and I too) although I am not a big TV fan ..it seems it could be fun, as we be able to get about 1500 worldwide channels. (another type of crowded).

Anyway we went to a really big outdoor market (Dar Bralif) which is a 2 km square souk (outdoor market) The stalls are semi-permanent; the gutter runs between them and is nicely filled with trash and mucky water. There was everything there: new, almost-new, used, and "black". It is super crowded with elbow to elbow people. (and quite fragrant both good and no so good) By the way its cash only here.

Satellite TV is not controlled other than you have to buy a dish and receiver and other misc parts to install it, all about $200.00 and then use you ol' TV or get a new one. There are no monthly fees but you can buy some chips for special channels that are encrypted. With about 50% free I am not too interested, since TV is pretty low on the list for me.

It was a circus. After we got the parts for the system, my friend decided to go (way too quickly) to see about a mini-iPod, and I followed, but he left me in the dust. I finally climbed up on a high-ground area and found him searching the crowd from about 30 meters up the way...he waited. And then I matched his steps, like a shadow.

Later he said in French "faite attention" as we returned to the satellite booth. I walked in his footsteps once again. I suppose that he is way too comfortable in that environment... and I was being way too polite...finally I just bumped in to people with little "pardon" and kept up.

The wonderful thing about Mr. Computer-friend is that if he says he'll arrive at 13:00, he is there at 12:55 and always has a wonderful smile. Although we communicate in mini-Arabic, mini-French and mini-English and lot of hand signals, it is affirming that we are making new friends.

Mr. Computer-friend and I returned to the house to unload. Voila!
After, this day, I settled for one of those "story" reds and spent the evening in the kitchen.

I am writing this the next day and before he will return ....in 10 minutes so I am off....

but then you knew that.
T