Dislocated - My life away from home - A personal rite of passage

And the winner is…

Just spent the whole afternoon in Amsterdam… through Skype. Sitting behind my laptop inside a darkened room here in Marrakesh I felt like being seated in the midst of my fellow jury members for the Dutch Bloggies: the awards for best Dutch weblogs of the year.

After a good 4 hours of heated discussions, we have winners for all categories. And we have a big winner for the best blog of 2009! Curious? The award ceremony is on the 1st of December, at Het Paard van Troje in The Hague.

Antoine - here I’m recognized as an outsider

Last week in the South of Morocco with my friend Joanneke, we stayed at Dar Raha, a traditional clay house - owned by Antoine from France. He first visited Amezrou about 25 years ago: a little village in the Moroccan Sahara that’s hot and dusty most of the year.

What drew him back to this place, and made him decide to settle here, 10 years ago? Antoine: -’it’s a hard question to answer… I grew up in an strictly religious small village in the North of France…’
(more…)

Living inside and out

Hace a look at my temporary home in Marrakech?

(more…)

‘Dear travelling Corinne’

I am taking the liberty of translating this email that Dutch film maker Rolf Orthel wrote me:

‘Dear travelling Corinne, 

Actually, I realise I don’t really know what you’re going through. There are encounters, stories, time passing by slowly, the excitement of unexpected things that occur…

And then I wonder: what will this lead to, when in time (in a couple of months, or maybe four years from now) you come to the conclusion of what your dislocation was all about. (more…)

Mags and Dave - from Hong Kong to Mongolia

Last May I wrote a story on Mags and Dave - global teachers. They were my Dutch/English couch surf hosts in Hong Kong, who explore the world working on international schools. They moved to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia 11 weeks ago, and will be staying there for a period of 3 years.

photo: Mags and Dave - hiking near Manshir monastery, Mongolia

Curious to find out how they are doing, I asked Mags a couple of questions by email.

(more…)

Capturing seaguls

Last weekend at a roof terrace in Essaouira, on the coast.

It was weird to see the ocean after so much desert. In the morning at breakfast I felt extremely relaxed, the sound of the waves, the seaguls watching closely for a chance to grab a bite too. A perfect moment in time always makes me melancholic. What can we do to capture a moment, a place?

(more…)