For winter break, I had the pleasure of going on an incredibly amazing voyage to a tiny little village on the edge of the Sahara desert called M'hamid. I'll have to say, Morocco was definitely one of the wildest, most culturally different experiences of my life...so cool.
Therefore, this is a pretttty long post. Ha, so feel free to just scan the picture captions. :)
I’ve divided it up into 3 little parts, one giving a general overview of where I was & what i did (for pretty landscape photos go here): generally amazing, one talking about the amazing people and culture: people, food, culture, and then another with some cool tidbits that I forgot to write about: extras.
Here are a few little fun stories (and pictures) about Morocco that just didn't make it into the other posts!
I just realized that I can change the font color of the post's text. So get excited.
camel butts, for your viewing pleasure.
Our last two days in M'hamid were spend volunteering with at a local Association. I forget the exact name of the organization, but it was kinda like an after-school program + provided literacy classes for women in the community. Except, well its ironic that i say "afterschool program" since about half of the kids actually SKIPPED school to come to the association the days we were there. I guess we were a bit of an attraction...foreigners. Haha.
making origami!
We split the kids into several very uneven groups, a couple groups for language skills, one HUGE group playing soccer, and one HUGE group for art. Yeah, so maybe 10 of the kids spoke french, maybe. And they were mostly older, and in the language groups. Thus, none of the 20 kids in our art group spoke french or english, just arabic!
Our plan for the day was to have the kids draw pictures of M'hamid and then make origami!
Teaching 20 restless kids who dont speak french or english how to make origami frogs is probably one of the coolest things I've ever had to do. :) Vocab used: Oui (yes) Non (no), comme ca (like this), and Zuh-wheen (pretty in arabic).
It was just crazy.
And once they realized how to make the little paper frogs jump, oh the room went wild. Frogs jumping everywhere. Smiles everywhere. Yes.
Haha. No one but my family would probably remember this, but for the 4H project public speaking contest in 4th grade i had to give a presentation on how to make origami frogs. hmm, in fourth grade i never thought about how i would adapt it for a room full of moroccan children. :)
ahhhh! yogurt fight!!
Also while we were at the association, they had a little contest/game between a couple of the kids just for fun. So they put on blindfolds and towels around two of the girls, and gave them each a thing of yogurt and a spoon and they had to feed it to each other blindfolded. Yeah, there was yogurt everywhere. haha, so random.
i just think this is a pretty sweet picture.
(fire one night in the desert)
On the second night in the desert, we slept out under the stars and then got up to watch the sunrise. Too bad it was cloudy, but it was still really beautiful.
watching the sunrise
At times things were a little disorganized...so ended up only about 3/4 of the group got to take a shower. American mindset: BIG DEAL. Moroccan/french mindset: Oh. okay, whatever. So by the end of the week, Elliot had a pretty rockin' hair-do.
Product secret: sand, sweat, and soleil.
Olivia trekked in these stylish yellow polka-dot sandals.
get it girl.
dinner in Marrakesh!
MMmmm. They had such great olives...green, black, and even red! We also feasted on some little chicken kababs, wonderful, super spicy salsa (so great b/c the french rarely eat anything spicy), some kind of spinach something, fries, moroccan bread, and some calamari. All for about $3 a person.
Amour d'Auberge ("the love of the hostel")
This is a pic of the inside of our hostel in Marrakesh! Our bunks were right through those blue doors. Ha, the last night we were there it started raining and sooooo much water came through the roof in hte common area. I guess ya just dont know you have leaks until it rains! But the water didnt hurt anything (beautiful, mosaic tile floors) so it wasnt a problem. The staff were so great. If you're ever in Marrakesh....
Besides riding a camel through the Sahara, one of the coolest parts of Morocco was simply the opportunity to be exposed to such a different type of culture. Caution: I may say things that are not representative of the entirety of Morocco, and surely not the entirety of the Islamic or Arabic world, but Ill just describe the Morocco that I experienced, so take it with a grain of salt. J
Zee people:
So we spent the week hanging out with our four nomadic buddies, Barouck, Brahim, Siead, and Mohammad. Oh my gosh, they were so much fun. J It was so fun to watch how they warmed up to us (and of course us to them) throughout the week…especially when we started working at the association (an afterschool program for kids) Ah I only wish we could have spend a few more days with them! Barock was our elder guide, always so calm, haha, helping us learn Arabe, our leader. Brahim was such a jokester…always tripping us and making fun. and then Siead. Haha. He’s a wonderful cook. And has the most calm, soft voice, you’ve ever hear. so cute. We just had so much fun.
The gang!
Every night after dinner we would gather around the fire and sing & dance. The guys would play on water jugs or drums if we had them around and sing, then we would all jam out around the fire…haha after a couple songs, they always wanted us to sing/play something…none of us were really musically talented… so we taught the m the Macarena. Hahahaaa. Wish you had been there. It was HALARIOUS. The nomads loved when we sang Hacuna Matata too. I believe we also taught them “Ain’t no mountain high enough” and The Good Old Song – naturally. Then Carrie showed them a couple “Pom” dances (Pom=competitive cheering, think Bring It On).
dancing around the fire
There was one day when we all got deliriously goofy and were coaxed into creating one of the most impressive Pom moves – The Fan.
"It's a crowd pleaser"
Haha, one day after lunch while trekking, We realized what a great spot sand dunes are for doing Yoga. So we did a few warrior poses, some down dog, etc…the nomads thought it was HALARIOUS. And wanted to join in. And thus, Maggie became a desert yoga instructor. .
Then later in the week, they would just ask to do yoga at random times. Hahaaaa. So great. J
Also, apparently my name is really easy /fun for Moroccans to say. I don’t know why but they really liked saying it. The kids at the association too, they would jsome of them just kept repeating my name! they said it like “maah – Gee” J I love it.
Maah-gee yoggga!
We had so much fun jokin with the nomads in broken French, and attemping to learn Arabic, and singing around the fire and dancing like idiots. It was a great break from prim and proper France.
Muhammad, Elizabeth, and I being goofy while walking down the road outside of M'hamid
I learned some really useful Arabic phrases:
‘ On-a-majee-noom-a “ means “I’m crazy”
“jal-ban-aa “ means “green peas” (I helped shell these for dinner one night)
“zuh – ween” means “pretty” (what I said over and over again to the little kids at eh association who were drawing pictures)
and “Salaam” means hello!
The nomads also taught us the phrase “kkkarack – sing- ta” which Brahaim told us meant “its all good, yo” butttt then no one else we they we tried to say it to seemed to know what it meant or even recognize that it was an Arabic phrase….so I think he made it up. Or maybe its nomad slang. Or maybe you just have to do the special little dance with it in order for people to understand.
Food!
Go ahead and put away that knife and fork, in Morocco - you eat with your hands. Excuse me: hand. Just the right hand. The right hand is for eating and greeting, the left hand is for business. Or that’s what they say. Haha.
Tajine! (this is a small one, haha sorry not the best pic)
The signature Moroccan dish, which we ate about 6 of the 8 nights we were there. Basically they take a bunch of vegetables- peppers, potatoes, carrots, cucumbers, onions- and either beef or chicken and then just cook it for a realllllyyyy long time ( like crockpot style) until everything is just so tender it almost melts in your mouth. The Tajine is then served on a big circular platter, usually with couscous or rice.
Also, in this culture, the men don’t eat with/from the same dish as women they don’t know (aka besides their sister, wife, mother). So it was really cool to see their progression throughout the week...the first couple days they would always eat separate from us, even though we were all out in the middle of the desert, despite me repeatedly asking them to eat with us. Then on our 3rd night in the desert, they FINALLY ate with us! But i was originally sitting between one of the nomads and either Elliot or Farlen, and they had me switch spots so i wasn't eating off the same plate of tajine as the guys! Then at the end of the week, we were just all eating together off the same platters, as if nothing was different! Pretty cool yo.
Lunch consisted of a big veggie salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and other veggies with bread and tuna and sardines, and of course oranges. Then we would always have peanuts and little graham crackers for a little mid-day snack!
a typical moroccan lunch!
It’s a pretty big deal to be invited into a Moroccan home, so at he end of the week, we were really honored that Siead’s family invited us over for tea and figs. And his mom made us fresh bread…mmmmmm, so good.
bread at Siead's
Mr. Bougrabs family also had us for dinner on the last day which was such an honor. We had a Moroccan salad (the chopped veggie salsa) and then Chicken and French friends! It wasn’t like crispy fried chicken like KFC style, but it was really good. And somewhat greasy, in pure, fresh, not American greasy type of way. J I forget the name of it, but this is also a Moroccan dish, they didn’t fix it just cause we were American.
However, if we had wanted some Kentucky fried chicken, I actually saw two KFCs in Marrakesh! Haha. .
Typical Moroccan desert: oranges sprinkled with cinnamon, sounds like an odd combo, but its actually REALLY GOOD.
Try it, I dare you.
Women:
Morocco is a predominately Muslim culture. Although not everyone is necessarily religious, may of their cultural traditions are rooted in the Islamic faith.
I found the role of women in Moroccan society to be very interesting. While we were in M’hamid, I don’t think I said more then five words to a Moroccan woman. We spent tons of time with Moroccan guys, but never women. Also, in mM’hamid, you don’t see Women walking down the street, going to the store, they stay at the home, kind-of hidden.
The dress of the Moroccan women is also very conservative. A headscarf is always worn and a long, floor length dress/robe, so that you cant make out anyone’s form. *it was like this in M’hamid, but on the bus and in the city we did see women with headscarves wearing pants and long sleeve shirts.
In effort to “blend in” a little more (not that there was really any home that we would actually pass as locals) we all wore long baggy pants (well accept Kate but that’s another story) and long, baggy breezy shirts. Yeah, none of the Moroccans wore anything like this., ha. But at least we were conservative and well covered.
Just with the combination of the rude attitude toward women that we found in the city (it was not just to tourist women, they do this to Moroccan women too) and lack of opportunity/activity of women in the society, its really really hard for me to imagine what it would be like to grow up as a Moroccan woman.
Its good for me to be reminded every once in a while me to be reminded how incredibly blessed I am.
M’hamid is a little town of about 4,000 people located in the mid-eastren part of morocco, along the Algerian border. So the first day we flew into Marrakesh, a pretty big city in central Morocco, piddled around for a day (SO SO cool, will explain later), met up with the rest of the group and took a seven-hour bus ride through the night over the Atlas Mountains and into the Sahara to M’hamid.
Marrakesh is in the center-left, then move your eyes southwest
across the Atlas Mts to find M'hamid along the Algerian boarder.
Interestingly enough, we could see the Algerian boarder from one of our campsites. Our guides said they used to trek a major trade route from M’hamid to Timbuktu on camelback all the time, but now, the borders are closed. At one point we were able to see military personnel in the distance. It seems like it would be really hard/kinda pointless to patrol a border in the open dessert!
Anyways, the first day we flew into Marrakesh! Mollie and I came a day earlier than the rest of the group so we’d have time to explore the city before heading into the desert. I was so excited when we crossed over the ocean on the plane…I took a picture of leaving the European continent, and then one when we crossed over onto Africa, woot whoot for continent #3!
After recent events in Tunisia and Egypt, and much talk of a domino effect across northern Africa, we had almost canceled the entire trip twice. Soo we were still a bit nervous about the whole thing...that is until we got on the plane and noticed that over 40% of the passengers were families with young children. Hahaa, there were SO many kids – laughing, crying, running down the plane isles without pants—craziness! Why are all these college kids so worried about going to Morocco when all the French people are perfectly fine with taking their small children?! Haha, silly Americans… J
Looking out over a Marrakesh garden built in memory
of Yves Saint Laurent (apparently famous...i dont know
him but maybe you do)
So, back to Marrakesh. Major tourist attractions: the beautiful gardens (both public and private/built in memory of famous rich people), the mosques (Morocco is predominately Muslim), and the souks – huge markets of spices, leather goods, fruit, pottery, jewelry packed into these little streets/corridors that are like a maze and so easy to get lost in, where you have to haggle with vendors to get the price ya want. Though its kinda stressful, I thought haggling with the vendors was ridiculously fun. They would start out at like 400 durams for a nice leather bag, and then you slowly work your way down, pretending like your friend bought the same one for 70…and then buy it for 110. Conversion rate: 10 durams = about 1 USD. Yeah, so things are pretty cheap. A large glass of fresh squeezed orange juice? 4 durams (40 cents!), a huge plate of chicken tajine (a typical Moroccan dish with couscous, veggies, and meat) with bread and olives? 30 durams (3 dollars).
lovin' the colors!
the souks
moroccan goods (pic credit to Elliot)
The only bad thing about Marrakesh was the attitude towards women…Mollie and I were so annoyed…lots of cat calls, and guys that are like “hello my girl, were you looking for me?” and try to stop you, or pretend they want to practice their French with you…it was really weird, but then the next day when we were walking around with Elliot and Farlen (two guys on the trip) it was much much better.
So to explore the city, Mollie and I just decided to start walkin around and see where we ended up! We found some cool gardens
Mosque in the background, little tourist horse & buggy in front!
And saw this random, huge stone wall in the distance so decided to go check it out..still don’t know what it was.
So on Monday evening, we meet up with the rest of the group at the airport and took a seven hour bus ride in a 15 passenger van across the Atlas Mountains. It was ABSURD. Haaaha the road was so curvy, like almost Valley Crucis curvy—except there weren’t any guardrails, just these little short crumbling rock walls, and it was night time, so you couldn’t really see a lot, but you could just barley make out the contours of the mountains, and could only tell how high up we were/how low the valley was by how deep the darkness seemed or if there was a house with a light on down below. And although I think technically the roads were two-laned…they were pretty narrow, and probably wouldn’t have counted as two-laned in the states! The driver would lay on the horn when we went around sharp curves to warn other cars. And of course he was going really fast. Tom Graham, you would have loved driving like this guy.
As I’m sure you can imagine, it was pretty hard/basically impossible to sleep. Then the driver turned on some really great/funky drum + instrumental Arabic music, and Elizabeth told him it was ok if he wanted to turn it up, so he turned it up a lot, hahaaaa it was great. We couldn't stop laughing. The Party Bus.
Then around 2am, we drove through a little town with no streetlights which was M’hamid, and then kept driving a little ways, now only desert on either side of the road, and then pulled off the road, drove in the sand for a couple minutes, and then got out of the car, and walked over a sand dune to see our camp, a little cluster of white tents lit by candle light. It was really cool. And the stars…oh the stars…I don’t know if I’ve ever seen them so clear!
Since we arrived in utter darkness, it was pretty stunning to get up, open the door of the tent, and see mounds of sand going for miles and miles and all directions, until meeting the cloudless blue Moroccan sky. It was astonishingly beautiful.
the bivouac a.k.a. fancy tents
After breakfast, we packed up the camels with our food, blankets, and backpacks, and left the bivouac for the open desert.
howdy camel!
We were hiking at a pretty relaxed pace, haha definitely not booking it – on Morocco time. We passed through several old deserted communities where many years ago people had tried to set up tourist establishments...and failed. So there were some cool-lookin’ reddish-brown, stucco buildings . I think they were composed mostly of dirt and straw type stuff held together by who knows what. Reminded me of the little model pueblos we had to make it 5thgrade. In the sand near these settlements there were lots of cool broken pottery pieces (not sharp, rounded by years of weathering by the sand) which being a little crafty dork, i just had to collect in hopes of making something out of them when i get home!
Apparently there is a town about 100 miles south of M'hamid that makes this unique green glazed pottery with some minerals that are found in the area. Basically all the dishes we ate on were this same beautiful dark green glaze. Even when we were invited to eat with Professor Boughrab's family (pretty big deal to be invited to dine with a moroccan family) all the dishes were this same color. A lot of the pottery shards i found were also this same green, so what every glaze it is, they must have been making it for quite a while!
On our second day of trekking, we hiked through an oasis. It was really cool walking up to it b/c you just see sand on all sides...and then this little green island in the distance. There were actually several houses, and a school built around the oasis, and lots of little patches of farmland (most just growing a type of hay/grass to feed to the donkeys and goats).
me chillin in the oasis
donkey muchin on some green grass in the oasis
For a good portion of the trek we were actually walking through a dried-up riverbed. This river (forget the name...) ran through the Moroccan desert until 1990 when it was dammed up to create a lake to facilitate irrigation and provide hydroelectric power for communities upstream. As an environmental science major, this is exactly what i study and read about in textbooks...the effect of humans and urbanization on mother earth. I talked with Baoroc a bit about what he thought about hte lake...whether it was a good for the community or not...this is where our language barriers kinda came into play (both speaking french as second language, my first being english, his being Arabic) but he talked a lot about how there used to be lots of birds and wildlife and now there aren't. L Also, I'm not exactly sure whether or not this was like a continually flowing river, since it doesn’t typically rain in the desert, it was probably just certain times during the year corresponding with snowfall/melting in the Atlas Mountains.
crackily mud
trail marker in one section of the riverbed. and yes, i added a rock on top
shell found in the old riverbed
So about rain in the desert – on our last night in M'hamid it RAINED! And not just a sprinkle, quite a bit! Sooo thats when we found out my tent had several holes in it. Hahaa...typical.
Rain in the desert is obviously pretty rare...the last time they had even a drop was over 3 months ago, so normally they don’t really worry about holey tents. So Mollie and I just took all our wet stuff and slept in the dining tent.
All this precipitation coming down as rain in M'hamid was coming down as snow in the higher elevations of the Atlas Mountains. Since there was a bit of black ice on those curvy, guardrail-less mountain roads, so they closed the roads and we had to change our plans for getting back to Marrakesh.
So instead of our private 15 passenger party bus, we got to experience Moroccan public transportation! We got up at six am and took a 10-hour charter bus ride through the Moroccan countryside. It was really long, but the scenery was gorgeous.
looking down on a village from the mountain roads
driving over the Atlas mountians
snow!
It was cool to watch the scenery change as we went through the mountians, at first everything was dry and deserty (first pic) then after we crossed the highest part of the mountains (snowy part) and decended a bit, everything was green and semi-tropical looking! Great example of the rainshadow effect (haha getting science-y on ya...) where warm, wet air comes in from the ocean, and then when runs into a mountain range, the moist air is pushed up to higher elevations. Then the moisture in the air condenses, and it rains. Then, when the air moves to the other side of the range and decends, its not moist anymore, which means no rain (desert).
Lush, eastren side of the Atlas
And then about an hour into the ride, the kid in front of me threw up. And then the girl beside Mollie threw up. And then the two girls across the aisle from me threw up. And then i moved to a different part of the bus.
Hahaa...ohhh what a ride. J
Check back in a day or two, there's much more to come!
Hey guys! Sorry for slacking on the blog writing, life has actually been a bit hectic the past week! So un-french! :-)
This past weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit my dear cousin Catherine in Geneva! There's nothing like quality cousin time.
Here we are looking goofy in front of the fountain of Lake Geneva
Geneva is a beautiful little city, we could look across the lake and see the skyline of the city with snowy mountains in the background.
Friday afternoon we toured around the city. We went window shopping in the old town, stopped by the Alabama Room (where one of the first genevan peace-making events was held - something to do with Britain helping the Confederacy during the Civil war...), and then had tea at this really cute little tea parlor!
Catherine lovin on the world!
Ironic because last time I visited Catherine (in NYC!) we took this nice picture of her with her head in the world.
Then we drove out to Nancy & Jack's house about 15 min outside of the city for the weekend's feature event...the Couscous Cookoff between Jack and Catherine's friend Sondes who grew up in Tunisia. I believe there were about 20 of us around a couple tables in Nancy & Jack's dining room! Since Catherine's university is bilingual, almost everyone spoke both french and english, which meant the whole evening i was switching between depending on who i was talking to and which language they were more comfortable with - franglish fest! :)
After the votes came in, Sondes was the champion! We made her a cute little medal. We took tons of great pictures....but they're all on catherine's camera, haha so after i steal them from her i'll make sure to post them!
Then the next day, we went skiing in the Alps!
We actually ended up going to the same resort that I visited in January, La Clusaz. We accidently got on the wrong lift and ended up on the same Red slope that I kinda freaked out on last time, and tried to ride the lift back down, haha, but they wouldn't let us, so we just had to go on down, and we ROCKED IT. :-) yay.
Catherine on the slopes
Then we went back to Geneva and feasted on some raclatte with Tom, Gina, and Beth. Raclette is kindof like THE french party dish. You melt this type of cheese called raclatte in this special little skillet/fondue type thing, and then put the melted cheese over ham, corn, and these cute little potatos. Mmmmm so good. : -)
the cool elevator in Tom/Gina/Beth's building
This coming week is our winter break, so I will be heading off early tomorrow morning to Morocco!
