It is getting cool here!!

Before I forget, I did some updating in our Mail Advice and Wish List page, if you are interested, click here!

Okay, so did you know that October is Fair Trade Month? Me either. I’ve been looking into Fair Trade more lately, and since it’s the month and all, I thought I’d share in case you are interested. Mostly I’ll give you some links to learn more, and also to do some shopping, because, well, shopping is fun, especially when you are supporting people in the process!

At Oxfam they have some great information on what Fair Trade is and their Make Trade Fair campaign.

As always, I bring you Wikipedia's Fair Trade info.

Some places to check out...

Global Mamas They have clothes for the whole family, with accessories and stuff for the home.

Sweatshop Free Sneakers. Always a good thing.

There is lots of great fair trade coffee available. Peace Coffee is a Minnesota based company that makes some kick butt coffee.

Check out People Tree for more great clothes.

Finally, Respect, a fair trade sports blog. Of course. :)


Now I said I’d say a little about the holiday that celebrates the end of the month of Ramadan (see the last entry for some Ramadan info if you missed it). Because Islamic months are lunar, no one knows until the holiday has almost arrived, because they have to watch the moon and see. For example, this year we knew Sunday/ Monday-ish that the holiday would be Tuesday.

As with many Moroccan holidays, the focus is on spending time with family. In our part of the country, many of the men leave to the larger cities throughout parts of the year to earn money, and holidays are fun because as many people as are able come home to celebrate.

On the morning of this particular holiday (And maybe others? This is the first one we’ve really celebrated here!) people walk around town and knock on doors to say congrats to each other. The kids wear new clothes, and have a great time running all over town to say hi. We didn’t observe too much other out of the ordinary stuff as far as celebrating goes, but, like others we spent time with our (host) family, and enjoyed having people around we don’t get to see too much of!

That’s about all about that. :) Mike and I have been working lately on our (required) Water Resource Guide for our area. We need to become experts (just by talking to all the current local experts) on what the water situation is in our area. For example, how many water towers (although they are usually on mountains, not towers, in our area) there are and how many people are served by each, and how they are fed, and if there are people without access to public water, etc. We are compiling this info both for use locally and for the government ministry in charge of such things. For example if we were to notice some particular need, our community can use that information to rally the people to solve it, or to apply for a grant, or maybe even just hold some sort of training. The ministry can use the information from all the volunteers to see how things are moving towards their goals.

We’ll write more soon, and Happy Halloween!