Sahara

So, I forgot to pack my hat, sunscreen, and my chapstick for my trip to the Sahara. I can almost hear my mother scolding me and marveling at my forgetfulness.  

Like every weekend trip, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go or not. I don’t care about riding camels and I’m not keen on intense heat. But I do love bright stars and calm nights. So, I decided to go because of the potential for an amazing night, and I mean c’mon - it’s my opportunity to go to the Sahara! 

 We caught took an 8pm bus over to Zagora where we arrived at 8 in the morning. We wasted no time getting into the desert despite of the heat. We grand taxi’d over to Mohami’d, which is the last town before Algeria, then we hopped on camels and rode for one hour and a half before reaching camp. I was over the camel ride - I mean dromedary ride (the only way I can remember this word is by thinking of ‘drama’ - because they are noisy and ‘dairy’ because . . .) before I hopped on - I was never one for horse, or elephant rides. Which is why on the way back, I told our guide, Ali, that I would walk the way back with him. And, like Ali, I kicked off my shoes and walked through the softest, finest, cleanest sand I have experienced until it turned on me and started scorching my feet. 

 Speaking of scorching, we (Wade, Terry and I) were all very impressed with ourselves. We made our trip to the Sahara at the end of July, in the middle of summer, in the middle of the day (around 2 or 3pm). “We’re so crazy!” we said, all tough. But it really wasn’t that bad. We were stationary on the camels aside from our flailing legs and there was a rather nice breeze. Ali also mentioned that it was around 50 earlier today. It had cooled off a few degrees by the time we were on the dromedaries. 

 Arriving at camp, we did all that we could in the middle of the desert with huts. We ate peanuts, then slept (second nap of the day), then woke up to an egg tajine lunch, and was subsequently tempted to take a third nap. Instead, I hung around until the afternoon got cooler, and then hopped back on camels with a 18-year old French girl from Brittany, and her father (both of whom looked so stereotypically French - stylish, the girl  was slim with blond hair in a messy bun, and her father still looked youthful despite a greying beard and had blue, twinkling eyes).

   The best part of the trip was chopping vegetables with the French girl and Ali. In similar situations I’ve encountered, the conversations would usually be conducted in English due to my insufficient French or the other party’s sufficient English, or wish of practicing English. That night, however, was all French. As we chopping vegetables Ali told us about his life, frequently saying “inshallah” or “ei yi yi!” He was quite a character. He told me of bread that he bake in the sand, and the cheese of dromedaries (which is how I remember the ‘dairy’ part of the dromedary), which he said to be the best cheese, very strong, eaten by nomads (yes they still exist). I was sad when I heard you could not get it in towns. I guess I wasn’t meant to eat dromedary cheese. We talked quite a bit languages - the four Amazigh languages of Morocco, and of his job, of our lives. Afterwards, we all ate harira, a beef tajine hidden underneath layers of vegetables and the most flavorful melon I’ve tasted. Afterwards, we played a bit of music, then I stared off at the stars before drifting off underneath them. 

Fes . . . again

This weekend I went to Fes . . . again. 

I visited Jess and Youness, two people I met at the Jewish Museum Conference. 

I left Friday evening, after spending the afternoon at the Fullbright office in Rabat. It was my first time traveling alone, and it was wonderful, although I was really just in a train, walked two blocks, got in a taxi, and was met by Youness's smiling face. At any rate, it was nice, and I hope to travel by myself more in the future. 

The train ride back, however, was hilariously crowded. You know those compartments in the Hogwarts Express? Well, Moroccan trains have those too! The only difference with the Hogwarts Express and the Moroccan trains is that the Moroccan trains don't take you to Hogwarts. . . and there are an infinite amount of tickets per train for a finite amount of seats. So people are standing in the hallways that are really only one-person wide, and you have to push yourself against the women to let other people (and, god forbid, the fuller Moroccan women) pass by. And as you are waiting for the trains and they pull up, it is really every-man-for-himself. People barely wait for others to descend the train before cramming on. There is no order. And although the trains brag of air conditioning, they are rarely on. So seat or no seat, everyone will be drenching with sweat.

I always forget to take pictures of my sandwiches. This is a pretty standard one - pita-pocket style with grilled meat, olives, and a spicy sauce. This time I went for something Moroccan. Youness ordered for me, and I ended up with tehal which is apparently mutton liver. It tasted like beef, I promise!  

While in the Medina, Youness and Jess purchased this game with is a framed, Moroccan version of Sorry. 

Youness (on the right), and Jess 

I really liked the patterns of the doors.

Waning Days...

This is my 9th week in Morocco! Days have been flying by, I swear.  

A few weeks ago Sara and I stopped at a whole-in-the-wall kitchen. One of the cheap, home-made Moroccan kitchens that look like they were ripped from their house's walls and installed in the city. I go there almost everyday to get fresh m'smmen ("proper" transliteration), or harcha (the best, in my opinion), or soup, or beans and lentils at lunch. I like coming here for dinner because I can delicious harcha + delicious soup + Moroccan mint tea and feel very full for under $1. Needless to say, we stop here for soup several times a week. And it changes every time with additions or subtractions of meat and other flavorings. 

Close-up of harcha be ahsel (harcha with honey)

Last week we finished painting our center's rooms at al-Mostaqabal. Next week we will begin activities and tutoring in English at a different school in Hay Mohammadi, which has established summer programs. I'm really excited about teaching students how to play kick ball, playing language learning games I remember from French in middle school, and doing arts and crafts (like making monster pals!). It'll be fun to be a kid again. 

The Rabat Genizah Project

The other project I am volunteering for is at the Jewish Museum in Casablanca. It is the only Jewish Museum in the Arab world, and is mostly unknown to the Casablanca population. Even people several blocks away from it often don't know where it is. In their defense, the museum is hidden in a wealthy suburban neighborhood with winding homogenous streets. The gate blends in with other surrounding houses save the few guards that sit outside.

The Rabat Genizah Project was established by Oren Kosansky, an anthropology professor at Lewis & Clark school. Genizah is the jewish custom of treating all sacred texts as human bodies meriting graves or mausoleums instead of the garbage can. Oren collected jewish books and documents fated to the genizah in Rabat in order to create a project that will result in a digital archive of old unpublished and published Jewish documents. These documents are written in French, Hebrew, and all the endangered language of Moroccan Judeo-Arabic, which is essentially Arabic written in the Hebrew script.

Though my job is mostly scanning and compiling inventory lists, it is satisfying to know how many research projects can be initiating because of this collection! I, myself, am tempted to base future research projects off of it. The only problem is my lack of Hebrew knowledge.

Coasting Morocco

Vincent 

Alex

So before we headed off to sleep at the bubbling Rachid's housing, Whalid, Terry, Alex, Nadia (a woman from Germany who we hang out with from time to time in Casablanca) went to meet up with a few couch surfers. There, Alex and I met Alex II, a French man working for three months in Casablanca. After much talk of travel, in particularly the west coast (Alex and I bonded over our love of San Francisco), he mentioned that him and his friend Vincent were leaving the next day for Casablanca...and they had three spots available. Terry and I jumped at the offer of a free, comfortable, and scenic ride of the coast. We spent the better part of Sunday afternoon driving, hours shared by naps and peeks at the coastal view. 

Essaouira

Djenna el-Fna in Marrakech

Our classic Moroccan breakfast with bread, olive oil, and Amlou

After a long day painting and fixing up the center, Terry and I caught the 8:50pm train to Marrakech, destination: Essaouira.

We got in at Djenna el-Fna around 12:30am. There were still grills packed with people engulfed in smoke and dozens of orange juice lines flanked the grills. All the owners beckon you over, so that the only way to choose is eeny meeny miny mo. We slept in the cheapest hotel we could find called Hotel des Amis.

The next day we woke up early to go to a beach town, Essauoaira. Although it is fairly small in size, it is not the small town it used to be. Instead, it's turned into a tourist destination like most cities in Morocco. In the day there are Europeans and Americans buying cactus fruit and wooden souvenir boxes, but at night the Moroccans come out. The streets are packed, there are men throwing out djlellabas yelling "ashreen, ashreen!" "twenty, twenty!" which is quite a good deal. Alex and I finally bought snails from a vendor, after putting off this more adventurous food experience for 6 weeks. We regretted waiting instantly. It was delicious! It comes in a soup that is filled with spices that Whalid, our Moroccan friend who Alex came with, said changes depending on the vendor. This soup was overwhelmingly ginger, which was fine by me. Afterwards, we walked around the medina, spotting a shop making fresh insimin. I couldn't resist, so I bought one with cheezy and honey. It was good. It was sooo good. It was probably the best insimin I've had. So needless to say, I bought another one. I wanted one more after that as well.

Later on we went to a couch surfing meeting, where we met people from Germany, Morocco, Ireland, and France. After much conversation, Whalid, Terry, Alex and I went home with one of the couch surfers, a bubbly Moroccan man named Rachid. I fell asleep that night listening to Whalid play the gimbri and sing.

Meknes and Volubilis Part 2

Our hotel room.

Our hike to Volubilis

Arc de Triumph. It was created in the tax exemption and Roman citizenship victory that the citizens of Volubilis attained in 212 C.E.

Sara and I taking a reading break. 

Nothing was truly off-limits.

After the intense heat of Saturday, we feared Sunday, where we would be spending the day roaming around the Roman ruins of Volubilis. But when we woke up Sunday morning, and went on a morning insimin search, the sky was over cast, with a slight breeze - even cooler than it was in the middle of the night. And the temperature remained in its perfect condition throughout the rest of our trip.

We took a grand taxi to Moulay Idriss, a small city on a hill, in a landscape that I likened to Lord of the Rings. As soon as we got to Moulay Idriss, a man toured us through the city to show us a hiking route to Volubilis, first warning that the hike, "is too difficult for girls." To which I responded, "I am a rock climber."

The walk was beautiful, too easy for us girls, and we couldn't help but obsess over the perfect weather and view. After an hour, or so, we reached Volubilis, where we spent a few hours roaming around the ruins. I'm used to ruins being similar to museums, in the way that the object of your desire is out-of-bounds, or like unattainable places in a video game (you know when you see mountains, rivers, and houses that are blocked by an invisible wall?), because you don't seem to get to experience them. Or maybe I don't get to experience them in the way I want to. At Volubilis, there is no one there to tell you not to climb all over the arcs, and the few ropes situated in front of chosen mosaics are more like suggestions than prohibitions. So, although I respected the roped off mosaics, I couldn't help but climb all over the crumbling stones and arcs.

We realized geting back to Meknes would be difficult. We could either walk back, although the sun was coming out and we were exhausted at that point, or we could call a taxi to come pick us up, drive us to Moulay Idriss, then take another taxi to Meknes, the more expensive route. Luck was in our favor that day, however. As we headed to the main road, in the off-chance we could flag down a red taxi driving to Moulay Idriss, a group of three young people called us back. "Are you going to Meknes?" They asked me, in French. I responded, and they invited us seats in their car - they were on their way to Meknes as well. Thank you kind people of Morocco.

Meknes day 1

After Becca and Alex departed early morning to see a Peace Corps volunteer in a Berber village, and Terry and Wade left soon afer for their Marrakech/driving/cascades adventure in the afternoon, Sarah and I still did not know where our weekend adventure to be. We did have requirements though: somewhere close, somewhere smaller, somewhere cooler. We chose Meknes, as it is an imperial city near Roman ruins! Although our first day, Saturday wasn't very cool (110 degrees with a long sleeves shirt!), Sunday was much better. Sunday was such a contrast. But that will be next day's issue.

With no couch surfing replies from the request we sent out the night before, we wandered around the medina of Meknes. It was rather small, unimpressive, and we couldn't find any hole-in-the-wall restaurants that were open! Midday, we got a call from someone I contacted through couch surfing. He met us in front of the Medina, ushered us into his car, toured us around Meknes, and introduced us to his friend's girl friend who offered us a place to stay. Humdullah. We got out of his car with several hours to kill before a proposed tajine dinner with the girl friend (who was later referenced as "wife"), so we shopped around, and went to a mausoleum. It was so calming and beautiful compared to the medina, that we sat ourselves down on sheepskin rugs in a nook facing a beautiful fountain. There were two muslim men laying down on the floors, and they smiled us as we did the same. We instantly fell asleep. 

I woke up to a man giving a tour of the mausoleum English. As I sat up, Sara held her kindle in her hand, frozen, staring at me. The entire tour group stood in front of the alcove we were resting in, as the guide described the history about the domed room. He was a rather tall, white, middle-aged man with round-rimmed glasses and a pot belly. As a member from the tour group stepped into the alcove to take a picture, the tour guide said, with authority, "Please do not step on the tombs." My eyes flickered to my backpack, which was touching the corners of the tombs, which were marked by mosaics on the floor. He then said, "And the sheepskin over there (yes, the sheepskin we were seated on) is used by the monks for prayer." Way to call us out, you jerk. We remained frozen, like the bodies in the tombs themselves, as a 20-something-year-old attempted to read arabic scripture inscribed on one a columns=. The white, middle-aged tour guide with round-rim glasses, a pot belly, and sun-washed blue jeans prepared to quiz her. "And what does this mean?" He asked her. "Pardon," She replied. "Not bad, not bad," he said condescendingly. 

In contrast, the monks and muslims, as I mentioned before, smiled at us, were sprawled themselves on the carpet, napping, and made no snide remark about our chosen napping place. The American tour guide (or Canadian, I suppose), decided to dramatize the situation - probably because in doing so, he secretly though that it would make him more Muslim, or Moroccan, than he is or can ever be. 

Spice and cookie market

Beautiful architecture of the mausoleum

Door and wall of mausoleum

From our alcove

A cemetery we walked through as the day became cooler.