Soccer Bags

High in the Atlas Mountains a few hours drive from Marrakech you will find very few pieces of land flat enough for a soccer game. The children of Imlil have managed to keep their interest alive, however, by using unwanted plastic bags to make a soft and padded ball which doesnt roll too far down the hill - even when little Hussan deliberately kicks it over the edge!



Just two hours drive from the famous souks of Marrakech are the High Atlas Mountains, world famous for trekking adventures and an absolute must see for visitors to Morocco. Our journey took us to Imlil, a small town at the end of the road somewhere near Toubkal. Imlil is surrounded by little communities nestled into the valley, far beyond road access and reached only on foot. For the less energetic among us the option was available to burden a donkey with our backpacks as we headed up the hill in the fading light of the evening. With delight we accepted the offer and by nightfall we were safely tucked away in our Gite - accomodation of the most basic variety.

Sunrise the next morning brought our first proper view of the surrounds. At last we could see where the sound of crashing waterfalls was coming from. High above us the snow capped mountains resisted the sun's early rays, while down below the river ran a furious pace through the valley floor. Outside our Gite a track cuts into the hillside. In places it becomes quite wide, providing enough room for two donkeys to pass each other comfortably.

These sections of track also function for impromptu soccer games with the young boys of the village. At first the rules of the modified game seemed difficult to fathom. We quickly learned that the basic goal is simply to run around after the ball, kicking madly, screaming and yelling and laughing. We joined in the fun and suddenly it all made perfect sense. Our addition of passing the ball between players was a novel addition to the local style and lead to even more squeals of joy by the young lads.

One little fellow, named Hussan, was playing his own rules entirely, and upon getting his foot anywhere near the ball he would eagerly kick it high and wide. His goal was to clear the rocky path edge and send the ball off down the hill. He managed this several times during our short match, but on each occassion several boys would cautiously grab his arms to make sure Hussan himself did not fly off the edge secondarily.

The ball itself was actually a sturdy plastic bag stuffed three quarters full with other plastic bags. It's design ensured a great deal of dampening when kicked, but equally so the ball failed to roll very far when kicked over the side of the path. Most times it would stop where it landed, unable to bounce or roll as a normal soccer ball would. Each time it went over the edge, courtesy of Hussan's efforts, another boy would climb down a few metres and retreive the ball.

A few weeks later we were back in Marrakech and came across some more conventional soccer balls for sale. We contemplated buying a bundle of them and sending them off to Imlil for Hussan and his friends. We decided against it however. Chances are that with one good toe poke such a ball would simply bounce and roll all the way down to the river, never to be seen again. I cant think of a better use for the plastic bags anyway.

The Name Catchers

Owning your own internet domain name was once the provence of geeks and big business, but the trend for collecting new and interesting domain names is increasingly popular with the masses. The phenomenon is not restricted to enthusists in the manner of bird watching or train spotting, dont get me wrong. And let's not assume such collectors are eccentric recluses with idle money and fancyful thoughts, far from it. They are regular people who live next door, someone you enjoy a sunday brunch with, or maybe even a relative.

Name Catching has come about through the reduced cost and increased ease of owning a domain name. For as little as $20 a year you can register your own domain name and go about finding a home for it. You rarely need to show much justification for the selected name either. Even in Australia the rules governing suitable claim to a domain name have been greatly relaxed. There was a time when a business had to show are clear connection with the name being requested. It was a timely process and not always sucessful. Getting approval also meant having to dig deep for the registration fee each year, in the order of $70 or more. This is no longer the case.

So a lot of people with small businesses, or maybe just an idea for a business, ended up getting themselves a domain name. They didnt always know what they would do with it of course, that's another matter entirely. Thousands of domain names each year are registered and never mature into a fully fledged website. The rush of invention and inception cut short by the realities of a busy lifestyle. Thousands more, however, will join a stable of siblings, belonging to a sole responsible parent who dilligently pays the minor registration fee every couple of years. A domain found by a name Catcher had a pretty bright future.

For many people who already have a website adding new domains to your kingdom is a relatively painless. Each time you are inspired by a new opportunity for expression you simply grab a witty name to define the borders of your creativity. My friend Jo and her partner Micheal were setting up a new collection of photos online and wanted to call it "happy pics". Michael mused that "happy pigs" would be funnier, and www.happy-pigs.com soon followed. This new site joined artpig.com, combinedmedia.net, michaelwhitehead.co.uk, and many others.

This happy tale of new born domains finding good homes is not the full story however. Even in this new world of instant websites there are casualties. Some domains reach their re-registration date and are sadly overlooked. What seemed like a novel idea two years before can become a closed chapter upon the expiration date. Once loved websites such as www.delusionalfairy.com end up nowhere.com. Many companies now exist for no other reason than to pounce on overdue domain names and hold them for randsom in the hope that some of their forgetful owners will have a change of heart and come looking for them once more. Only a small percentage of names are ever re-united with their owners, but a princely and profitable sum is levied in such instances.

For the multitudes of surviving names there is another burden to consider. While they may achieve a modicum of longevity in the short lived world of online names they rarely achieve any great level of fame or fortune. More often than not the latest addition for the Name Catcher is for whimsical purposes and a suitably small audience. You dont build a new Amazon.com everyday afterall! But that's life when you're from a big family - you have to share the attention with everyone else. Unless the Name Catcher has big plans and intends on lavishing devotion your digital destiny is likely to be a dosile one. Just the occasional visitor or email following the initial flurry of interest.

I have enquired among my friends and have been surprised at how many are multi-domain holders. Most have two or more and several are fully realised Name Catchers with between 5 and 50 domains in their grasp. So if you havent managed to secure a few of your own then chances are you're missing out on the trend. Don't worry though. Despite the best efforts of our interent aware generations there are still lots of domain names left, although they are getting increasingly obscure. Perhaps in time you may have to give up on www.happy-pigs.com and add www.jolly-porcine-farm-animals.com to your collection instead. But that's OK, the internet is very friendly to such websites and, since everything is linked to everything else, it's rare that someone will have to actually type it in.

And if you're thinking of setting up a new website for your soon to arrive new child you might want to check for an available domain name first. Funzlrumpit is not such a bad name for a kid really.

Faster Horses

Henry Ford is attributed as saying "if i had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said faster horses". The lessons of a man who changed the world resonate not only in the echelons of corporate success but at the bump and grind level of normal lives too. I look back over a lifetime of striving for a better life and now I can see that all along there was another way.



I'm a photographer. I have other skills, more profitable ones even, but for now the camera is my connection to the world and people in it and thus commands my attention. The lens has yeilded me lots of very fast horses - and a few very slow donkeys. I love those short legged chubby little hee-haws and their stubborn ways. They remind me of myself. But they go places that even the fastest horse wont go. They work and toil in the narrow streets of medinas, they trudge across dry rocky plains laiden with bricks, and they plod up and down steep and trecherous mountain trails to get their owners safely home. Someone recently told me that a mule is a horse that is part donkey, and an ass is a donkey that is part horse. So it seems that even in the realm of equine similies things are not black and white.

I have lived a life accustomed to the horses and their fancy ways, and it's hard to slow down. Horses like to travel well worn paths. They like routine. I too find it hard to give up what I know and divert off into the wilderness. Who will fill my feed bag with yummy treats and give me a nice dry roof over my head at night? To be honest I'm not even sure the life of a donkey is for me anyway. So if it's time to let go of the faster horses then what next? A smelly internal combustion engine doesnt seem like the answer either. Maybe I need a boat?

Talking in Tongues

I got off a plane in Casablanca today and read my Lonely Planet language guide for Morocco. I am floored by the diversity of language I find myself immersed in. And this started me contemplating the greater miracle of language - and I froze with awe.



In this country you may encounter centuries old tongues of the Berber. The very same place may commonly use Morrocan Arabic as well, a form of Arabic sufficiently distinct from it's Middle Eastern brethren to render it indecipheral to an Egyptian. Then we add the liberal use of French, a consequence of protectorate rule in 1912, plus the influence of Spanish in the northern coastal areas. And finally there is the ever present demand for English - the glue of globalisation!

At first glance it seems improbable and impractical to sustain so many languages in a country of just 32 million people. This strikes me as the first miracle of language - it's ability to take on many forms and be distinctly effective.

And here lies the great beauty inherent to language... that each form taken not only meets a set of fundamental requirements, but each form offers an expression of things unique to that tongue. For example, there is no word or phrase in English which truly conveys the Tibetan word 'metabehavna'. Some people call it 'loving kindness' perhaps, but knowing that this fails to express the emotional and physical state that one embraces when practicing this meditation. Only the Tibetan original is simultaneously succint and generous. The word fully blooms in its untranslated form - a gift from the Tibetan language.

The second miracle is to observe individual people proficient in many tongues. This too is a thing of great beauty, and imense wonderment to a linguistics luddite such as myself. How astounding that the human mind can organise and exercise multiple frameworks for talking. Speech is so much more than just a bunch names for objects (I love that the word 'noun' is a name for words that name!).

Speech is the roadmap for our thoughts, reflections of our feelings, and hence the library for our experience. I wonder if our knowledge of vocabulary in some way determines our capacity to remember past events at the experiential level. If I didnt learn the word 'metabehavna' how would I reconnect with experience over and over, let alone discuss it with someone else. Surely the process of learning language redefines my very boundaries for experience. How can I comprehend that which cannot be 'named'? (apologies to Ekhart Tolle who's literature points out that on a higher level there comes a point at which language restricts the act of experiencing 'the moment').

What is characteristic of those fortunate people who are multi-linguistic is a broadening of the mind. They are often more lateral in thought, more flexible in learning, and more subtle in their understanding. I envy the elegance of mind that comes with such a talent.

For the most part I believe language to be a talent lay dormant in those of us confined to the Queen's English. The human brain is a wonderous device full of tricks to amaze in this regard. Even for the untrained such as I there exists a patch of blurry magic from which snippits of useful language emerge without warning. Without rehersal or precedent odd phrases will burst out of my mouth and temporarily bridge the communication gap. Have you never done this yourself and wondered 'how did i know that'? Nestled away deep down are entire phrases and the connotative associations to make them useful.

I am not sure which is more amazing to me. That language comes in such an array of effective forms or that we have the capacity to use them. I heard that Morocco would be a remarkable place to visit. No doubt a diversity of language goes hand in hand with a diverse culture.