Big Changes coming our way!

Elinor and Barry are really battling with jet lag. Their poor body time clocks are all mixed up and I think they've been waking up at about 3:30a.m., here in Morocco. By the time the kids got up and had breakfast (it was about 7:30a.m.), Barry and Jason were long gone to the jobsite and Elinor was ready for a nap. That worked out really nice, because she could sleep and we got our schoolwork, mostly completed.

After we got school finished and I got ready for the day, I decided that I wanted to take Elinor with the Artisan souk. It's so fun to return to places that are smaller like this and have the workers there recognize me and talk to me like we are old friends. We went around and looked at the sandstone workers, the sandals--Elinor and I both bought a pair that were being hand made while we were there--these people are so creative and talented!! We also watched the pottery makers and looked at the rug and blanket makers. It was a lot of fun and it was fun showing someone else the different treasures and places we have found. After this, we got a taxi and decided to go and get some food at the Marjean. While we were driving to the Marjean, we got the most surprising and shocking phone call of our lives here in Morocco. THE DOME SKIN RIPPED AND CAME DOWN!! I couldn't believe it. We were both shocked. They only spoke to us for a minute, but they told us they didn't know what this meant or what was going to happen. They hoped they would be able to repair the hole and put the dome back up, but we just don't know if that will work. They were busy and had to go. My mind was racing. On one hand, I was so sad that all of the hard work Jason and all the other men had been doing was now "ending" in failure--at least for today. On the other hand, I knew that this meant that our time here would be coming to an early end, and that was thrilling to me. On the other hand, I knew that if Barry was here and could fix it, it would be fixed. I was so glad that he was here to witness how the dome came down and that he had been on-site to see what happened to make the dome come down. I was just filled with questions about what this all meant and what we were going to do. There were so many things that we were going to do before we went home and now, maybe, all of these things wouldn't get done and we wouldn't get to see all the places we had hoped to see. I was so glad we had done so many day trips when we got here and had not left them to the end. Soon after they called, Lyn called from our apartment--she was there with the kids working on poems--and she wanted to make sure that we had heard about the dome.

At the Marjean, Elinor was both surprised by what was there and as confused as I have always been with everything being labeled in French or Arabic. We got some snacks and other foods that looked good, then got another taxi and went home. We sure had a lot of sacks when we got out of that taxi. I was grateful that the taxi driver could drive us so closely to the front door of the apartment.

When we got everything unloaded, we took the kids out to the pool and let them swim. That was good--the weather is so much nicer. After swimming, the boys came up to shower. I went into the kitchen to make dinner. About 20 minutes later, I decided that something must be wrong because I could still hear the water running and I knew that we did not ever have that much warm water. As I went towards the bathroom, I saw the boys all out on the balcony watching some swimmers in the pool. Then I looked down. There was an inch of water everywhere!! I hollered at the boys. They had left their towels in the floor of the shower and the water had no where to drain, so out into the apartment it went. The floors are concrete and covered with tile, so it just ran everywhere. I turned off the water and grabbed our giant squeegy, that the maid uses to mop the floor, and started pushing water out, onto the balcony where there is a drain. It took nearly 30 minutes to get it all cleaned up, but--I guess that's one way to get rid of dust bunnies!

After dinner, Jason and Barry were still not home, so we all walked down to a little store that sold movies for $1.50. We got Tom & Jerry and Dan in Real Life. The kids were so excited to watch Tom and Jerry. I was thrilled about the price of the movies.

Jason and Barry came home and the rest of the night was serious discussions about what was going to happen now. Barry and Elinor were planning on staying until next Wednesday, but now, they decided that they would leave early--on Sunday--and then get to go to Spain and then to Paris, before they had to return home. Even thought I'm thrilled that we get to leave early, it makes me sick to my stomach that Jason is going to have to return again. I wanted to be all done with this. It's a stressful night, but I'm very grateful Barry was here to see what happened first hand.