Bouznika

Yesterday we ventured south to another beach about a 15 minute drive away in the town of Bouznika. It's another beautiful beach, a little more high class it seemed with fancier houses, a golf course in a private community. We spent the morning discovering the joys of what it feels like to have our feet sink into wet sand and getting soaked running away from the ocean waves.

I love people watching at the beach. Especially at our beach in Skhirate you see all the fishermen, groups of men playing soccer, young boys doing their jumping tricks and flips, families with young children, surfers and boogie boarders, people exercising, tanning, building sand castles, girls and young women in bikinis then women wearing djellabas (the traditional Moroccan full-length loose fitting dress with a hood that both men and women wear over their clothes) some with hijab others not.

There is such misunderstanding and misconception in the US about Islam. Like all religions I know of, there are so many interpretations of Islam and what it means to be Muslim. What is so fascinating about Morocco is that there is space for a diversity of interpretations that coexist. The US mainstream media does such a poor job of presenting a realistic view of the diversity within the Muslim world. When I first lived in Morocco, people loved Clinton and there was a real positive view of America. It changed after 2001, Bush and wars in the Muslim world. People here in general seem to support Obama, but there is still mistrust, especially around Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Morocco has always been an ally to the US, but it will be interesting to see more on the ground level how people feel about Americans over the coming years.

Younis is getting close to singing the entire alphabet. We were practicing writing the alphabet in the sand and jumping on each letter while we sang the song. I especially love how he sings LMNOP. He used to be obsessed with the letter X but has now moved on to the letter W as his number one favorite letter.

We brought some sand up to our patio so he could have a little sandbox, just in case he got tired of all the massive amounts of sand on the beach:)