heres a little story to illustrate how moroccan approach to life and construction intertwine. the village is currently building a 3-floored, concrete mosque and the entire community volunteers labor to finish building of the ceiling. on a recent sunday i went down to help, after the cement mixer broke down a couple times and was quickly fixed with a combination of bubble gum and clothes hangers, the wheelbarrow's wheel fell off for the 51st time, and the shovel i was using bent completely backwards, i peered inside the mosque to see that the entire multi-ton cinder block ceiling was supported by arm-thick wooden poles precariously balanced on piles of randomly gathered rocks. i heard a loud crash and everyone rushed inside to see that a 90 sq ft section of the roof had collapsed and a worker had fell 25 ft through the void onto a pile of rebar and cinder block. as the semiconscious man lay in the corner mumbling in pain and clutching his back the other 30 men decided that a good argument would be appropriate. after everyone had voiced their opinion 10 minutes later, the mixer was fired up again and everyone returned to work, seemingly unconcerned with the tremendous structure failure that had just occurred. meanwhile the man who had fell was loaded into the one transit van in town and carried off, but as they drove to the hospital i saw the driver stop every time he saw someone to say hello and exchange pleasantries. quite moroccan of them i thought, no need to rush and deal with problems (extremely!!!!) pragmatically.
heres a little story to illustrate how moroccan approach to life and construction intertwine. the village is currently building a 3-floored, concrete mosque and the entire community volunteers labor to finish building of the ceiling. on a recent sunday i went down to help, after the cement mixer broke down a couple times and was quickly fixed with a combination of bubble gum and clothes hangers, the wheelbarrow's wheel fell off for the 51st time, and the shovel i was using bent completely backwards, i peered inside the mosque to see that the entire multi-ton cinder block ceiling was supported by arm-thick wooden poles precariously balanced on piles of randomly gathered rocks. i heard a loud crash and everyone rushed inside to see that a 90 sq ft section of the roof had collapsed and a worker had fell 25 ft through the void onto a pile of rebar and cinder block. as the semiconscious man lay in the corner mumbling in pain and clutching his back the other 30 men decided that a good argument would be appropriate. after everyone had voiced their opinion 10 minutes later, the mixer was fired up again and everyone returned to work, seemingly unconcerned with the tremendous structure failure that had just occurred. meanwhile the man who had fell was loaded into the one transit van in town and carried off, but as they drove to the hospital i saw the driver stop every time he saw someone to say hello and exchange pleasantries. quite moroccan of them i thought, no need to rush and deal with problems (extremely!!!!) pragmatically.
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