Call to Prayer, 1:40pm, Friday, Aug 14th.

The Cobles have just started up their blog. We call our blog Coblemaroc because Maroc is the French spelling for the country, and that is the way we see it here on official signs and literature when it is not written in Arabic (when it is called il-Mamlaka al-Maghrebiyya, the Kingdom of Morocco, or il-Maghreb for short. Maghreb means simply the Abendland or Occident, the place where the sun sets, the West). The name Morocco/Maroc is actually derived from the name of the city of Marrakech (in Arabic, Maraksh).

We promise to try to create an interesting blogread out of our Morocco experiences, and we will try to include messages from our children. We understand that life is short and many folks won't have time to peruse this very often if at all--that's how it goes! An occasional superficial glance from any of you is already far more than expected, and highly appreciated. In other words, please feel welcome but never obligated to peruse our posts.

As I write this (1:40pm) the (recorded) Muezzin is making the midday (dhuur) call to prayer. The late afternoon prayer (asr), which takes place at about 5:10 at this time of the year, is the last of the five prayers incumbent upon Muslims to perform daily, since the first prayer takes place just after sundown. The reason for this ordering of the prayers has to do with the Muslims' use of the lunar calendar, according to which the calendar "day" technically begins after sundown, or so I read. (Thanks to Ansar Ahmed for clearing some of this up.)

Right now we are having some troubles with our camera (we can't get a lithium battery with the right voltage and the alkalyne batteries aren't working). So after we have bought a new camera and taken some pictures, we will make a new post. We promise that the town is extraordinarily photogenic, so hopefully we will be able to take some pictures worth checking out. Until then, cheers!