On the Road Again
Monday 16 February:
We drove to the village of Zaouia Nissiriya (don't you act like you've ever even heard of it) and were given a tour by a most attractive man named Sa'iid of a large and beautiful casbah (pretty much an Arab chateau and surrounding small houses). In this particular one we were able to watch a man melt silver and pour it into molds to make jewelery of the hand of Fatima. We were taken to the storage part of the house where the sales are made, and with the help of Fadoua, our program director, we bargained significantly and made off with lots of hand made silver jewelry. The first of the many car problems happened after that. Our tire exploded. It just so happened that this happened in the middle of the transition into the desert with lots of mountains everywhere, so we all climbed the mountain while our awesome driver, Sidi Mohammed, changed the tire. We had a fun time driving through dirt roads to lunch because there was a giant hole in the road but nothing that our desert Jeeps couldn't handle. We ate at a nomad's house. He told us his life story and explained that because of his age he must stay in the house now but that his sons have taken up the nomad lifestyle and go out for two to three weeks at a time to tend to the camels that they breed and come home for a few weeks and repeat. He made tea in front of us, and I was intrigued by the cone of sugar that he used because in the cities it is only sugar cubes. We then went into the desert. There were four people to a Jeep and we turned right off of the road and went through the sand dunes for fifteen or twenty minutes to reach the camp site. My driver was kind of insane, and it was more of a roller coaster instead of a Jeep. Poor Monica bumped her head on the roof of the Jeep because she didn't know how to off-road too well. We reached the camp site complete with giant tents made of rugs sewn together. We dropped off our things and headed straight for the camels. I got to ride a giant white beauty because I myself am tall and have riding experience. What people don't realize is that small camels are the size of a Clydesdale. When my camel stood up, I was probably ten feet off the ground. I was absolutely thrilled to be so high up and I quickly learned how to ride the gait. However, I was very disappointed to realize that we were just lead about for forty-five minutes instead of being allowed to actually ride the camels. I understand that camels are very stubborn animals and kind of difficult to handle, but would it have been so bad to let us do a camel trot for a few meters? We were on the camels while the sun was setting, and it was absolutely stunning. To know that there was nothing for miles but gorgeous dunes and sparse trees creates a sense of isolation - but in a good way. We had a photo shoot on the dunes using the sunset to create a bunch of silhouettes. There will be pictures as soon as everybody starts sharing them. We returned to the tents to have a musical performance by a Berber group. There were women ululating and a bunch of girls in the group tried (unsuccessfuly) to ululate as well. Dinner was served and delicious. We then had a dance party with drums, the musical group, and the two boys on guitar that lasted until about 10pm when the fire outside was lit. We all were on our backs staring up at the incredibly vivid night sky. This sky couldn't even compare to the sky in the middle-of-nowhere part of northern Minnesota where I dogsled in March 2007. The strip of the Milky Way was as obvious as the moon herself. With a little help from my friends, I found six constellations that I had never been able to see before. The boys brought out the guitars and we sat and sang until 1am or something ridiculous like that.
Tuesday 17 February:
A desert sunset is gorgeous, but a desert sunrise will absolutely change your life. The sky was a rainbow for almost half an hour before any part of the sun showed itself but then the great disc was fully raised within fifteen minutes. Almost the entire group trekked to the highest dune we could find and were all wrapped up in blankets (desert mornings are cold!) and sitting on top of it. I really wish that I could do a better job of capturing the awe and glory of that one-hour art exhibit, but I just can't, and I am sorry. We reluctantly went back to camp to have a breakfast involving camel's milk and camel's cheese and desert honey and home-made bread. I have been developing a grudge against American health regulations because there is nothing anywhere near as delicious as fresh milk from a strange animal. We drove all the way back over the sand dunes, back onto the dirt road, back onto the paved road, and then onto the highway all the way back to Zagora. We toured a second casbah complete with goatskin butter churners and baby cribs. Our guide was actually giving us a tour of his own house! We went to a pottery village nearby and, after watching a man spin a candle holder and a few mini tagines on the wheel, a few of us got to try. People took a long time buying pottery afterwards, making us late. Wherever we went, many children followed us. This was never a problem until one time Anna brought out her notebook because the children were all holding out stickers as if intent on putting them on some surface. As soon as the notebook came into view, there was a madness that spread in half a second and all fifteen children started grabbing at it. Anna was very upset and our guide had to come in and bat away the children to retrieve the notebook. Apparently, European tourists give pens, pencils, stickers, and notebooks to children of the small villages. The children had been asking for such from Anna, and it got out of hand because of the miscommunication. We had made it to Nkoub, a small town that no one has heard of whose claim to fame is having the most casbahs in one city, fifty-two. Our hotel that night, a casbah, had the toilets located on the opposite side of the property from the rooms, which certainly made midnight bathroom runs very interesting. There was a fireplace in the "lobby" that made us all quite warm and snug. The casbah was very cool because, being a casbah, it was made of mud bricks.
My Moroccan family wants me to cook an American dish for them. It has been difficult to decide what to make as the vegetable/fruit season is shifting from oranges and squash to other foods. I went with a few girls from the group to a meeting of the VLT (Very Little Theatre) last night, which just so happens to be made up of a bunch of ambassadors, their wives, Peace Corps officers, World Bank employees, and a few Americans teaching in the university here. It took place at the home of the man who is currently serving as the American ambassdor because Obama has not yet nominated one. It was so intense because I had had no idea who would be in it. There was just a flyer that had been posted at the center. It was really intense. Unfortunately, the group wants to perform these one-act plays in late May, so I myself will not be able to perform with them. There is one girl from our group, Susanna, who wants to stay here for a while teaching English, so she will be performing with them, and I intend on following her to more readings and rehearsals.
The weather has been cloudless and 65 for many days. My family is building a restaurant in the bottom part of the house, so there is a lot of excitement in the air. Hanane has been busy planning the baby shower, and her husband is handling the restaurant business.
We drove to the village of Zaouia Nissiriya (don't you act like you've ever even heard of it) and were given a tour by a most attractive man named Sa'iid of a large and beautiful casbah (pretty much an Arab chateau and surrounding small houses). In this particular one we were able to watch a man melt silver and pour it into molds to make jewelery of the hand of Fatima. We were taken to the storage part of the house where the sales are made, and with the help of Fadoua, our program director, we bargained significantly and made off with lots of hand made silver jewelry. The first of the many car problems happened after that. Our tire exploded. It just so happened that this happened in the middle of the transition into the desert with lots of mountains everywhere, so we all climbed the mountain while our awesome driver, Sidi Mohammed, changed the tire. We had a fun time driving through dirt roads to lunch because there was a giant hole in the road but nothing that our desert Jeeps couldn't handle. We ate at a nomad's house. He told us his life story and explained that because of his age he must stay in the house now but that his sons have taken up the nomad lifestyle and go out for two to three weeks at a time to tend to the camels that they breed and come home for a few weeks and repeat. He made tea in front of us, and I was intrigued by the cone of sugar that he used because in the cities it is only sugar cubes. We then went into the desert. There were four people to a Jeep and we turned right off of the road and went through the sand dunes for fifteen or twenty minutes to reach the camp site. My driver was kind of insane, and it was more of a roller coaster instead of a Jeep. Poor Monica bumped her head on the roof of the Jeep because she didn't know how to off-road too well. We reached the camp site complete with giant tents made of rugs sewn together. We dropped off our things and headed straight for the camels. I got to ride a giant white beauty because I myself am tall and have riding experience. What people don't realize is that small camels are the size of a Clydesdale. When my camel stood up, I was probably ten feet off the ground. I was absolutely thrilled to be so high up and I quickly learned how to ride the gait. However, I was very disappointed to realize that we were just lead about for forty-five minutes instead of being allowed to actually ride the camels. I understand that camels are very stubborn animals and kind of difficult to handle, but would it have been so bad to let us do a camel trot for a few meters? We were on the camels while the sun was setting, and it was absolutely stunning. To know that there was nothing for miles but gorgeous dunes and sparse trees creates a sense of isolation - but in a good way. We had a photo shoot on the dunes using the sunset to create a bunch of silhouettes. There will be pictures as soon as everybody starts sharing them. We returned to the tents to have a musical performance by a Berber group. There were women ululating and a bunch of girls in the group tried (unsuccessfuly) to ululate as well. Dinner was served and delicious. We then had a dance party with drums, the musical group, and the two boys on guitar that lasted until about 10pm when the fire outside was lit. We all were on our backs staring up at the incredibly vivid night sky. This sky couldn't even compare to the sky in the middle-of-nowhere part of northern Minnesota where I dogsled in March 2007. The strip of the Milky Way was as obvious as the moon herself. With a little help from my friends, I found six constellations that I had never been able to see before. The boys brought out the guitars and we sat and sang until 1am or something ridiculous like that.
Tuesday 17 February:
A desert sunset is gorgeous, but a desert sunrise will absolutely change your life. The sky was a rainbow for almost half an hour before any part of the sun showed itself but then the great disc was fully raised within fifteen minutes. Almost the entire group trekked to the highest dune we could find and were all wrapped up in blankets (desert mornings are cold!) and sitting on top of it. I really wish that I could do a better job of capturing the awe and glory of that one-hour art exhibit, but I just can't, and I am sorry. We reluctantly went back to camp to have a breakfast involving camel's milk and camel's cheese and desert honey and home-made bread. I have been developing a grudge against American health regulations because there is nothing anywhere near as delicious as fresh milk from a strange animal. We drove all the way back over the sand dunes, back onto the dirt road, back onto the paved road, and then onto the highway all the way back to Zagora. We toured a second casbah complete with goatskin butter churners and baby cribs. Our guide was actually giving us a tour of his own house! We went to a pottery village nearby and, after watching a man spin a candle holder and a few mini tagines on the wheel, a few of us got to try. People took a long time buying pottery afterwards, making us late. Wherever we went, many children followed us. This was never a problem until one time Anna brought out her notebook because the children were all holding out stickers as if intent on putting them on some surface. As soon as the notebook came into view, there was a madness that spread in half a second and all fifteen children started grabbing at it. Anna was very upset and our guide had to come in and bat away the children to retrieve the notebook. Apparently, European tourists give pens, pencils, stickers, and notebooks to children of the small villages. The children had been asking for such from Anna, and it got out of hand because of the miscommunication. We had made it to Nkoub, a small town that no one has heard of whose claim to fame is having the most casbahs in one city, fifty-two. Our hotel that night, a casbah, had the toilets located on the opposite side of the property from the rooms, which certainly made midnight bathroom runs very interesting. There was a fireplace in the "lobby" that made us all quite warm and snug. The casbah was very cool because, being a casbah, it was made of mud bricks.
My Moroccan family wants me to cook an American dish for them. It has been difficult to decide what to make as the vegetable/fruit season is shifting from oranges and squash to other foods. I went with a few girls from the group to a meeting of the VLT (Very Little Theatre) last night, which just so happens to be made up of a bunch of ambassadors, their wives, Peace Corps officers, World Bank employees, and a few Americans teaching in the university here. It took place at the home of the man who is currently serving as the American ambassdor because Obama has not yet nominated one. It was so intense because I had had no idea who would be in it. There was just a flyer that had been posted at the center. It was really intense. Unfortunately, the group wants to perform these one-act plays in late May, so I myself will not be able to perform with them. There is one girl from our group, Susanna, who wants to stay here for a while teaching English, so she will be performing with them, and I intend on following her to more readings and rehearsals.
The weather has been cloudless and 65 for many days. My family is building a restaurant in the bottom part of the house, so there is a lot of excitement in the air. Hanane has been busy planning the baby shower, and her husband is handling the restaurant business.
posted by Athena | 10:26 AM
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