Another Move

This weekend, we made another move.  Luckily, this move wasn’t an international one, but still, it has been a “fun” week, trying to get packed, moved, unpacked, settled in, etc.  We moved from a half a villa in Oasis, Casablanca – pretty close to the downtown “centreville” area, out to Boskura – a small area on the outskirts of Casablanca.  It’s not very far – it only takes us 15 minutes to get from one place to the other, but it feels like a word of difference.  It’s much more “rural” and so we see sheep and cows really close by.  Instead of just donkeys and horses in the street, it’s not strange to see some sheep or cows grazing on the side of the road.  There are beautiful farms to see on the drive between the two, and if you want to, you can grab a horse drawn taxi here as well.  (There are also grand taxis – large and white, but only go along one route, and we see blue petite taxis from Mohamadia and Rabat.  The petite taxis are red in Casablanca.) 

Most of the time, this is a really quiet area, although there are many people moving here to “escape the city” and so there is a lot of construction noises going on around us.  Down the road is a huge souk, which is only open on Tuesdays, but draws huge crowds.  We didn’t make it this week, but we hope to go next week.  I can’t wait to walk around!  On Friday, the two huge mosques fill up with people from all around.  People come to pray and to shop afterwards – as all of the fruit and vegetable vendors (and some other vendors too) will be sitting outside the mosque when prayer time is over.

Our new place has two bedrooms, a salon/dining area, a bathroom and a kitchen.  It’s not much smaller than the last place, although it doesn’t have a balcony.  We are on the ground floor, which is good and bad.  It’s good because the boys can take their bikes right outside to the garden area to ride and play with friends.  It’s bad because the laundry lines are 4 floors up, so when the washing machine is done, I have to walk up 4 floors to hang the clothes.  It’s okay, though, there is an elevator which should be working soon – in’challah!  (In’challah is Arabic for “If God Wills It”, but is often used in place of “hopefully”.)

Here are a few pictures of our new place – please excuse the boxes that are all over the place!  I’ll be back in a few days with pictures of the neighborhood.