A Literary Critique Part 1

"Why The Sky Is Blue"
A short story from the collection Stories from the Beginning to the End
By Juan C. Mendez

Full Text

One day Squirrel was tired of having green grass and a green sky. The next day, Squirrel still felt the same way. The day after that, Squirrel decided to do something about the sky and the grass so they wouldn't be the same color.

First, he went to the Ferret and told him his problem. Ferret said that he would help, but only if they made the sky blue, since that was his favorite color. Squirrel agreed.

First, they decided what to use to make the sky blue. They agreed to use blueberries since that was the only thing that was blue in the forest. They collected as many blueberries as they could find. Then they went to Bear and asked him if he would help them make the sky blue. Bear said Yes. He took the blueberries and threw them at the sky. The sky was turning blue. It worked!

The next day Squirrel was so happy he had a party and invited everyone in the forest. Everybody in the forest was also happy about the blue sky. And that is why the sky is blue to this day.






First off, the squirrel in this story is a top class dick. I mean, it takes an absurdly high concentration of shit in ones brains to make the decision to change one of the most basic sights of earthly existence, which affects every non-colorblind being on the planet (sorry Mr. Mulaney), just because it isn't the right hue. At the very least he had a victory throwdown where (as it says in the epilogue) Rabbit finally put out.

Secondly, what exactly is Ferret contributing to this operation? All he does is pussyshit around like a 2006 Cooper during pick-up games, and yet he gets to pick the color of the whole fuckin heavens?

Thirdly, this pathetic author needs to realize that if you list two sequential actions, they can't both be "first." Additionally, if there's only one item in the entire forest that is blue, you can't really say you "agreed" or "decided" to use that for your entire azure adventure. Just, shoddy fucking writing.

Continuing on, had this brilliantly thought out, bulletproof plan somehow failed to sapphire the shit out of the cosmos, what would have been plan B? Come on animals get your shit together. This is why people run you over.

The only true BAMF in this story is, of coarse, Bear. Why, you ask? Cause he beasted a dickton of blueberries into the atmosphere, where they subsequently blew up into trillions of little perfectly-sized pieces and scattered all over the place in a very specific pattern so that they would refract light in just the right way. Duh. If you didn't read between the lines and see that, you dumb.

So, this is something else now

In the past four weeks, I have slept in over 20 different beds in three (soon to be four) different countries. Even though I'm on vacation, my current job effectively requires me to bum around Morocco like a slightly-above averagely dressed vagrant. After feeling more or less at home in the semi-rural armpit that is the BZ, I don't currently have a solid home or plan for the any timescale in the foreseeable future. I'm a fuckin drifter.

Home Stretch

In less than a month I will no longer be a PCV. I don't know how I feel about this.

I do know, however, that the fact that it's nearly October and summer is still blazing away is some serious bullshit.

Profiles in Crazy

It was about this time last year that it dawned on me how many absurd characters roam the semi-paved pathways of the BZ. Not wanting to seem ludicrously inappropriate, I accompanied this realization with keeping my mouth shut about it...well, ok so not really. Anyway, a few months ago a local friend made a quip on the subject and then went on to espouse one of the community's many theories aimed at explaining the (much) higher than average rando-crazo (1) population density.

So, apparently, the stream at the local swimming hole was once believed to help cure all-out-head-craze disease (2) and so the town attracted odd travelers by the butt-load. When the maladies went uncured, everyone just kinda stayed put. I can't really decide where on the spectrum of crap to total and complete bullshit this particular piece of lore lies but needless to say, it's less than bulletproof. Regardless, the total lack of mental health facilities to take of these people in the region is a bit depressing. Lucky for them, Moroccan hospitality ensures they never go hungry.

Well, anyway, here is a short list of the heavy hitters currently wandering around town.

• Mr. Problem- This dude's eyes can scare children in a town where burying cats alive passes as a fun childhood outing. He is named such for his impeccable ability to find a problem with whatever you are doing and yell at you for it.
• Miguel- Perpetually drunk dude who was (allegedly) kicked out of Italy for general misconduct. More realistically he was just booted for lack of grafting. Also looks like a Mexican soap opera character and says "no parlo inglezi" to any foreign looking person.
• The mute- Kind of a nice guy actually.
• Berber coat guy- The only BZ male I have ever met who does not speak Arabic. Spews his unintelligible brand of crazy from under a coat he keeps over his head at all times while waving a small branch.
• The nuclear scientist- The next in a series of totally believable back stories, this dude used to be a highly respected nuclear scientist in Europe until he found out too much and had his brain wiped clean by the French government. These days, he spends his time picking up random objects and examining them closely.

(1) the proper scientific term

(2) again, nothing but medically sanctioned nomenclature

Bored and Sweaty

During my interview to join PC more than two years ago, the recruiter asked "What makes you bored" Then she asked "Do you get bored easily?" Minutes later she completed the hat trick by posing "How do you deal with boredom?" At the time I felt it was on odd point to belabor. I mean, how could my life-changing adventure possibly not be non-stop awesomeness?

Fast forward two years. It's the three weeks between Marche Maroc (a PC organized craft fair) and summer camp. I'm sitting in my underwear eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon while a fan blasts my face and I watch the 10th consecutive episode of X-Men the animated series. Boredom, surprising as it may seem to other PCVs, has largely spared me over the past two years, but summer is a time when ennui shows no mercy.

Summer days at home, when the youth center is closed, tend to be long, humid affairs when the temperature can top 115 without anyone making too much of a fuss about it. Add the fact that water and power go out on a daily basis and you've got the makings of a grade-A hellhole.

While this perfect storm of misery only happens a couple of times a year, it is important to always have a set of strategies on hand. With that, here is a list of tactics I've succumbed to in order deal with the desolation:

• stare at the wall
• finally kill colony of cockroaches in bathroom
• spill water on floor, watch it evaporate
• read five-year old copies of The Economist (watch out for this Obama character)
  
• creep on fb
• burn self with water fresh out of the tap
• solve crimes
• use the time productively to better myself as a human through study and personal reflection...just kidding
• sweat buckets
  
• write this piece of shit
  

How to Beat the Heat!

Die.

Silver Lining?

My sink leaked to the point where it flooded half of the house whilst I was occupied. Luckily, it's so infernally hot out that the whole place dried in an hour.

Rejected SPA Grant Proposals

So for those of you who don't know, SPA (or Small Projects Assistance) is one kind of grant that a PCV can apply for to get funds for various projects or whatnot. The following are the titles of some (fake) submissions that were promptly rejected.

Book-It!: A Bible Themed Reading Race

Bribing Your Way to the Middle: A career skills development workshop aimed at preparing youths for being cogs in the bureaucratic machine.

"Don't 'Bounjour' me you little asshole!" : A Youth Education Campaign

(Alternate title: "No I don't have a fucking stylo!")

U!S!A! All the Way!: An American Culture Seminar

(note: Attendants will dine enjoy a Southern style pig pickin' while listening to Satanic death metal and watching a presentation on how Twilight is, in fact, for girls)

"I give you special price!": A how-to workshop for improved tourist scamming techniques in Marrakesh.

Unleashing Your Inner Racist :A content-based seminar for PCVs stressing the importance of full integration

Marche Maroc Boumia: Bringing modern marketing techniques to the world's oldest profession.

Quick Thoughts

You know 'el Clasico' is a big deal when Al Jazeera channels 1-9 are all showing some angle of the same game. Either that or maybe nothing else is really going on in the Arab world. Oh, wait.

Inclined to take extra care of her foreign tenant, my landlady often feeds me cookies, tea, milk or leftover intestines whenever I go over to pay the rent. The most recent of such trips was made upon my return from Tetouan (really friggin far away) and so she felt that the usual bit of incessant instance on having more bread was not enough. As I was about to leave, she sprayed me a sold 10 times with her favorite, and most expensive cologne. Have an old lady make you smell like a French prostitute, check it off the bucket list.

Fake Yet Sadly True Headlines:

Local Children Throw Rocks, Ask for Money, Throw Rocks

Lazy PCVs Secretly Hope Kesh Bombings Prompt Evacuation

Barca Victory Facilitates the Development of Youths' Ability to Take Verbal Beatdowns

Wedding Season

On the surface, Moroccan weddings share many common traits with their US (or even Colombian) counterparts. Mad peeps gather to eat expensive food, chill and greet the bride and groom as a married couple for the first time. There is much traditional music, joy and a whole shit ton of dancing. There is also, however, one major difference. No booze.

The more one thinks about it, the more it astonishes how a simple absence could make such a significant difference. Without any hooch, all of the tiny irritants that come along with the ceremony are exacerbated and all one can do is wonder if it will ever end. I mean, sans sweet nectar, who could possibly put up with up to 10 (seriously) hours of rhythmic chanting set to atonal violin jabs and slightly irregular drumbeats? There are many things I love about this country, but weddings simply aren't among them.

Keeping this in mind, it is not surprising that I had been dreading this year's wedding season (mid-Spring) more than Arab heads of state dread fair elections . With invites typically flying in from all directions (everyone is, after all, curious to see if the white dude can dance) this can be a difficult time to retain both one's sanity and public image intact.

Enter the mudir. When his younger brother finally decided to stop spending money on hookers and weed for a few months in order to save money and get married, I knew I was in for some awful times. Being a close friend of the family, there would be no excuse to miss such an event. No excuse, save for the complete unpredictability of the mudir.

As it turns out, he hates weddings too. In a rare moment of cunning, he walked with me to the ceremony and brazenly explained that I, as a foreigner, was much too feint of spirit to withstand a night full of people yelling at me to dance and eat more chicken, beef and prunes. Stunned, when his confused siblings looked to me for clarification, the only response I could muster was "yea, what he said." And so I was saved. They fed us individually and then granted us our freedom.

All in all, we spent a total of 39 minutes at the locale. I have not yet heard back from the people at Guinness but am reasonably sure that this will soundly crush the previous record for "shortest stay at a Moroccan wedding that included a full meal." God Bless the mudir.

Ways I Have Seen My First Name Spelled

Juan

Wan

Won

Jaun

Khouan

Khwan

Khouane

Djon

Jean

Djohn

Jon

John

Brahim

Memories of a French Presence

To anyone who has even the most casual knowledge about Morocco, it is an obvious fact that France's colonial presence in the 20th century had vast and deep consequences on the social, political and economic structural development of the country. Today, these various effects are looked at with skepticism and feel bittersweet to the palates of many ordinary Moroccans. While some of the results of the European power's rule (investments in infrastructure and education) are acknowledged as beneficial, the legacies of colonialism have still left a sour mark on the consciousness of the average Moroccan.

What follows is merely some of the paraphrased stories of the only friend of mine who was old enough during the time of protectorate to have been affected by it first hand. None of this claims to offer any sort of conclusions or analysis on the (de?)merits of the era. It doesn't even claim to be entirely historically accurate. What it is, is simply a set of memories as they are remembered by someone who has since forgotten his age and place of birth, but not the eye color of the French commandant who was in charge of the local post in Azilal. They were blue.

______________________________________________

Suddenly it seemed as if they were all around, and always had been. Often they would show up in our town and play with us kids by the river-no one would say a thing. They set up shooting ranges and training facilities at the edges of town and we couldn't help but look in with unyielding curiosity. As we were quite young at the time, most of us not yet even 13, they let us come and go as we pleased. No shooting session was ever complete without a small band of kids gathering up the recently emptied shells, still hot, to play with back in town. This is how I first met the French.

______________________________________________

During the second World War the French, much like all parties involved, grew desperate for additional manpower. Before their fall, they used to drive large trucks into the center of Marrakesh and offer anyone willing to jump aboard a job in the fight against Hitler. Two of my brothers were among those who hopped in to be driven away to some makeshift training facility. With hunger and unemployment hanging over the people, there was much lure in a guaranteed post in a foreign developed country, even if it was fast becoming little more than rubbles and ashes. As is probably not tough to believe, however, many of those who signed up were gravely unqualified for full combat duty. I was always told that one day the training officers set up a classic obstacle course, prefaced by a wall with only a single rope dangling from the center, and lined up the recruits for their test. A capable trainee would presumably be able to climb up and over, jumping down on the other side ready to complete whatever the next textbook task happened to be.

My brother was not a capable trainee. Apparently overburdened by the physical stress of the climb, he tripped on the top and landed chest first on the other side, breaking several ribs. Not a week into training and he was already in the hospital, collecting paychecks to lay in bed and be tended to by foreign nurses. My other brother wasn't so lucky.

______________________________________________

When it came to controlling the country, the French had a lot more difficulty subsiding the Berbers, who tended to live in barely accessible mountainous areas. This last point would quickly become a source of countless frustrations for Them. I still remember hearing the accounts of battles at Tilouguite from friends of mine who had been recruited to fight. The supposed simple capture of a meaningless town had become drawn out as French soldiers had started getting picked off through attrition. I can't really recall who won or lost but I can clearly see my friend's face as he relayed the occupier's eventual tactics. To cut down on vital losses, the army began to march with an exclusively local front. That is, everyone on the front line was a recruited Moroccan, fighting either for the pay or to suck up to Them. It was a human shield.

______________________________________________

As a child, I used to work for the French commandante in the regional hub of Azilal. Early on, they had tested my honesty by haphazardly leaving large sums of money under rugs and couches and then instructed my to clean the room. With each time I returned the wad of bills in full, the commandante grew trust me more. Soon after, I became the most relied on assistant at the military's office, a job that came with plenty of monetary benefits. This last part was crucial, the family didn't have much money and the little we were earning all seemed to be coming from the French in one way or another. Whatever the means, we were getting by.

One day in the 1950s, when the political climate changed and the French were on their way out, the commandante called me into his office and made me an offer. If I so chose, I could join his staff in returning to France and start a family while continuing to work for him. When you think about all the people, both then and now, who would do near anything for such an opportunity, it may seem shocking that I didn't think it over much. I couldn't leave- Morocco is my country. Plus, I would have missed my mom.

List of Favorite Shirts I Have Seen Over the Past Year or So

1. F.B.I.

Firm Believer In

Jesus

Explaining this shirt to a Moroccan could probably get me deported. Am I joking?

2. Rhinos

[picture of gray rhino with green ass and orange five-o'clock shadow]

Patrol

Urban Survival Squad

I don't know what one has to drink/smoke/inject to cause anal/facial discoloration, but I don't want it.

3. [Shawn Kemp Sonics jersey]

By the sheer laws of probability, it is a fifty-fifty chance that Shawn Kemp is the illegitimate father of the person I saw wearing that shirt.

4. Real Eyes

Real Lies

Real Lize

Respect.

5. Miss Thick Animals

[Picture of a dragon]

Would be better if the dragon was packing a badonkadonk.

6. [Bright pink collared shirt with Messi in the center. He is holding a sunflower.]

This one is gold cause you can tell that in the real picture he was initially holding a trophy.

7. Enjoy the beach and the fun with

Friends Baby Team

Enjoy it!!!

The funniest babies team

The mudir's son wears this pup at least once a week.

8. 19-0 The Perfect Season

New England Patriots

Super Bowl XLII Champions

Ok, so I've actually never seen this one...but it's on my wish list.

I Wrote This Over a Month Ago and Never Put It Up. My B.

Quick Points on L3id.

- You know it's going to be a pretty odd day when it begins with a live, national broadcast of the Head of State praying and then slitting a pair of sheep's throats at the mosque's entrance.

- Last year I watched the sheep get slaughtered and whatnot, but mos def missed the grossest moment of all. Once the intestines are removed from the body's cavity, they must obviously be cleaned prior to consumption. This involves the glorious process of slicing them open, and then manually removing the massive amounts of doo doo inside. Seriously though, there's a lot of shit in there. Since I feasted at the mudir's place this year, not five minutes after the sheep was cut open we were surrounded by the resident pack of feral cats . Weary of a beating from the resident terrible-two aged toddler, these feline intruders held their positions around the carcass without risking too much...until the poo was unleashed. Suddenly, these mofos could not be restrained and were ravaging our poor sheep's dump fetus. Just another reason why cats suck.

Cats: Nothin' but a bunch of poopmunchers.

[Sigh]

The Atlas foothills are a world of cell phone powered Justin Bieber saturation. I don't really know who this little prick is but I hate his localized ubiquity in the region.

Logic

Earlier, while at the youth center watching a handful of Moroccan teens take part in what they surely thought was flirting, I was privy to a pretty interesting debate between the mudir and one of his good pals (let's call him homeboy) who lives nearby. The whole deal was pretty mundane until a amidst a thicket of travel minutiae arose one stellar little detail. Apparently, while in Rabat for a national exam, the mudir had ran into someone he knew and chanced upon an opportunity to, you know, totally bone her.

Once this was made public, homebro could not be appeased. How could he have possibly passed? The perceived lack of logic and balls that were required to pass on such a silver platter gimme was seriously and visibly affecting our boy homeslice. Forget the fact that the mudir has three kids, a wife and is so painfully awkward that he could never close anyway, the absence of bonosity that day was a crime to mankind. This, at least, was the position being virulently argued by homeskillet who began to look to me for support. I had become the judge for this most prestigious of cases.

Despite the display of finely crafted oratory debate skills from the opposition, I was siding with the mudir until homevideos made his final statement. Struck by satori, homeandgarden stood up triumphantly and dealt what he perceived would be the final blow. "Last month when you needed money to pay for the new fridge I lent it to you. So, you should have thought of me and done plowed* that girl since that is what I would have done."

Had the venue not shared a door with the mudir's house, (where his wife could doubtless hear us) I would have stood up and applauded such a courageous argument, punctuated by the aforementioned checkmate. The contest was over. Homeboy had won.

* there was no actual verb here, just the sound "tan-tan" accompanied by a move akin to what follows Benny the Jet stealing home.

List of Strikes Against Me, Moroccan Perspective

-Occasionally eats day old bread instead of being hungry

-Cites constant diarrhea as reason for not reveling in salted, sun-dried intestines crawling with bugs and missing chunks to various street cats

-Does not slaughter sheep once per annum

-Chooses to live in this town

-Probably laces his inferior "lipton" tea with booze

-Is weary of throwing trash in open pit in the middle of town

-Grows weird facial hair because he is "too lazy." This is not funny.

-Does not conform to dress code (either jelaba, super-tight zipper laden jeans, track suit or dress shirt and pants)

-Is undoubtedly a CIA/FBI agent who does spy shit for the Army on the side

Other Great Moments in Time

Recently, an old woman chastised me for pouring tea like a city boy. Too much flair and risk, she said, and not enough consistency. The whole thing reeked of a hackneyed comedian, spitting out lines like "white people do their taxes like this..." Unsure of where I could have picked up such metropolitan habits, living in a town of 4000 people, I pressed the matter and realized that by "city" she meant "the part of town that has more than two stores." You know that saying "In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king?" Well, in a backwards-ass piss ant foothills town, the part where stuff is open past 7:30 is developed.

The other day I revealed my discovery of the mudir's status as "that guy" in a perversely high percentage of photographs. This week, however, a new facet of his unbearably puzzling persona made itself obvious. As ridiculous as it may sound (and it shouldn't really considering all the other weird shit this dude is into), he is also a crazy cat lady. While eating lunch at his place last Sunday, we began to be approached, slowly at first, by the various kinds of animals which call his little enclosed dirt-patch garden home. Cats, chickens and toddlers alike came to investigate the food scenario, and all were shooed away save for the former. At the height of the meal we were engulfed by an small symphony of meows. Since meals at this dude's house typically cruise tohigher degrees of disorder, such a stagnation, however eerie, was bound to dissapate into further chaos. Enter the mudir's youngest son, aged two, wielding flailing kicks and erratic verbal outbursts. Those little pussies were no match for the terrible-two fueled insanity of little Sa3d who capped of his Van Dammesque performance by snatching a box of tea and hurling it at the last straggler. He then grabbed an apple slice out of my hand, licked it whole and placed it back on the table, never to claim its saliva soaked nutrition.

By this point in our lives, most of us are aware of the all too common, not-so-secret pastime of champions and pervs alike, facebook stalking. Well, earlier I spent a good hour listening to a married friend of mine scour the annals of the world wide web ogling a particular girl who, surprise, he has never met and is actually the equivalent of a junior in high school. Interestingly enough, my initial thoughts were nowhere near the expected "wow this just got creepy" or even the acceptable "ok he's got a point this bridget is smokin." Instead, I couldn't help but be stunned at how someone who types with only one index finger figured out the intricacies of proper online creeping. Remarkable what the man can do when he puts his d to it. This interaction was then followed up by the totally sincere plea to go along with him on a nearly 400 Kilometer trip to Agadir and pose as a wealthy tourist so together we could connive his acquaintance into showing us a pair of gold, diamond inlaid binoculars he had found in the sand but wouldn't exhibit just to Moroccans because of their inability to put in a serious bid for such an item. That last sentence may run on, but it is accurate. Such is my life.

On the day of 3id this year I witnessed the greatest holiday tradition in the history of organized celebrations with my very own eyes. No, not the religiously sanctioned, semi-controlled mass sheep genocide. Old dudes playin' soccer. Apparently, this town has a yearly tradition of gathering up a bunch of old bros and having them scrimmage each other in front of a large percentage of the town's male populace. Honestly, it's absolutely spectacular. These peeps are way past their playing days and have become pretty much sedentary in their later years, but on Independence Day (which happened to coincide with 3id this year) they squeeze into some short shorts and throw down on the dirt pitch. The style of play this yields can best be described as frantic hacking accompanied by crude jokes and constant debate. The entire ordeal was a majestic comedic show put on by some of the town's more respected individuals so that all could come and revel in their bygone fitness. Score and basic rules were barely important as showmanship and misguided attempts at bicycle kicks reigned supreme. Imagine watching the Harlem Globetrotters, except just the opposite. It was truly remarkable to witness so much effort being put forth with such little quantitative outcome. As I watched, I figured those dudes had to have been defying the laws of thermodynamics, energy was clearly being destroyed. By the time the game ended, the official score was pretty fuzzy. But, most in attendance felt that witnessing three missed PKs, a slap fight and countless old men falling was enough reward.

3id Free Agent

At this time last year, my 3id related worries centered mainly around the most plainly obvious obstacle. The whole sheep deal. Who would clean the blood out of my only tie? Would throwing up while eating undercooked sheep lung and heart kabobs hinder my attempts at integration? And lastly, Why did the man carving up a medium sized mammal in our entryway, who did not wash his hands after going to the bathroom and before plunging them into the insides of my extremely raw lunch, just chastise me for coughing into my hand? In short, I was a fool to be concerned over such petty manners.

This year, however, the stakes were much higher. Due to my in-site host family's high rating on the weak-sauce0meter, my plans for the most important holiday of the year were wide open heading into the stretch. I was a break-week bachelor, a religious independent, the Catfish Hunter of 3id in Morocco. I was a free agent. Notice the past tense.

This rare scenario did not bring liberation, but thrust me into the miserable disarray that is Moroccan social life. Only now do I realize the importance of heeding the Spiderman Corollary, "with great power comes great responsibility." Instead of being able to blaze my own trail, my excess of freedom was quickly mopped up by a flurry of invitations (closer to subpoenas really) for any and all of the many sheep filled days. Resistance was futile. Let me tell you something, if there is one thing Moroccans cannot be beat at, it's guilting guests into eating, or more accurately overeating.

So as I look out over my schedule for the next few days I no longer feel like Catfish, chilling as offers poured in, thinking about which ridiculously awesome offer to accept. I feel a lot more like a poor sap who got lit up after entering the wrong side of town thinking how neat and ethnic it seemed. The week now holds a series of commitments which, if broken, will lead to me getting yelled at by lots of fat old ladies. Seriously though they are really good at guilting peeps.

Great Moments in Time

1. I was mercilessly mocked earlier today for not having shaved in over a month. What sort of barbs were people hurling at me you ask? Well, basically it came down to me starting to look like a Muslim extremist. It is becoming an oddly common occurrence for me to walk down the street and have a group of dudes point at me, make a fake beard motion with their hands around their chin, and then laugh uncontrollably. Yes, that's right, Muslims are making fun of me for looking like an Islamist. Clearly these people have never heard of no-shave November.

2. Recently, while visiting one of my favorite families, the resident eight-year old boy decided to gleefully explain the entirety of the 3id AdHa festivities to me while acting out all of its intricacies. As I watched, it seemed spectacularly similar to kids that age back in the states, overcome with joy at the thought of Christmas. The only minor difference, of course, was that instead of being pumped about presents, this little bro was wielding imaginary cutlasses and slicing sheep throats left and right. Then came the Tarantinoesque depiction of blood pouring out of the thing's neck and splashing all over the butcher and any unlucky bystanders. The show, however, did not end there. Interpretations of involuntary spasms and organ harvesting were still on the young thespian's agenda. As is often the case with people here once they discover something which makes me laugh, the stunt was repeated ad infinitum throughout the meal we were having. On the plus side, he did pretend to wash his hands before reaching in for the invisible animal's fresh flesh. And that, my friend's, is what I call youth development.