essouira... OH Rasta!

Hello again dear internets. Long time no see. I will admit that sometimes I wonder if I’m being silly by not being connected to the internet more often, considering I’ve often found myself bored this week, also I realize that it’s hard to feel connected to my friends and family back home, especially when I’m online so infrequently. I’m trying to write more letters, but it’s often easier said then done and in an attempt to be fair and equilateral I end up writing the same letter over and over again just to different people, the more I write the more rambly I become, and no one would like to get a letter filled with my distractible stream of consciousness, trust me. I just wish the internet wasn’t so frustrating. Because concrete and 3” thick earth walls surround where I currently sit you could imagine signal isn’t so hot down here on the ground floor of my living area so I have to go on the roof. In the winter it was too cold, now it’s too hot and to top it all off there’s the dust and the wind to contend with.  I could be logical and make a nice little area up there, but that would be too easy and require more cleaning then I want to deal with. The roof always will have little rocks and exponentially more dust and dirt then my courtyard. Anyways, enough complaining- I guess my point here is that for peace corps morocco I am in the minority of people in terms of my internet usages, and at times I feel guilty for that because it means I often have so little contact with the people I love most. To be fair though, peace corps did ask me about 10 times if I could survive a life sans internet, so I’m just fulfilling their expectations. It’s not my fault morocco has decent internet services. ;) (well decent everywhere except my living room, bedroom and courtyard… also decent is a bit of an exaggeration  seeing as I’ve been trying to connect to skype for approximately an hour now from my rooftop. )

a view of our street 

So… news about my life… hmm... The last weekend in June I went to the beach town of Essaouira for a few days with great friends and an African music festival known as Gnaoua. My fellow volunteers found an amazing little apartment called “the cave” with cute little nooks for our beds a living room with surround sound speakers, a flatscreen tv hooked up to cable and a kitchen and 2 bathrooms with hot showers to boot- posh for sures. The weather there was so nice. Super windy, but more in the 70-80 range then my sites 90-100 range. I was actually cold! It was a nice break from the heat of the summer.

 Most of the weekend was spent wandering the old medina/city walls , shopping, eating good food and hanging out with good friends.  We didn’t see as much music as anticipated, but Morocco is so nocturnal! All the concerts started at around 9:30pm and some didn’t end until 3am- and I’m having difficulty transitioning into a nighttime creature. I’m used to falcon ridge where we sit in the hot sun all day and night. I’m assuming Moroccan concerts start later in the evening because of the “smsh” or sun, much Moroccans tend not to be too keen on (now that it’s summertime I totally understand though). We caught 3 or 4 shows including a Moroccan ska band from Casablanca that was really popular with the local youths  as well as a traditional gnoaua band. The ska band put on a really fun show, and it was on the beach stage, which made it even cooler. Nothing like dancing along to music on a sandy beach! We also had our own dance parties, so we were ok.

the beach stage

getting down during one of our dance parties in the apartment

check out he new hairstyle and delicious food

 Our apartment had shared rooftop access with the other people in the building and we were able to see and hear the ocean. Hearing “shared rooftop” can be a little scary in terms of who else is using it and we got really lucky! There was a small group of british guys who generously offered to cook us dinner. They made a delicious spread of stew with green beans and wonderful oven potatoes. We contributed to with a Moroccan salad of tomato’s and onions as well as cookies.

sitting down to eat the delicious food

sarah's checking out our tagine

The next night we got even luckier when Sarah’s Moroccoan Tamslohte posse cooked us Tagine. Super duper tasty. Nothing like going on vacation and having other people cook for you

getting ready for our tagine feast! 

I also baked and brought with me 3 different types of bread, both to use up the food in my house before I traveled and because I love sharing food with others. I made cinnamon-raisin carrot bread, a sweet-ish tomato carrot bread and a garlic and onion artisan loaf. They were all a big hit. Besides the food that was generously cooked for our us the food we had out was also amazing. I had fish curry from a super cute restaurant run by a couple of Americans and brits on one day.  Then we also went out for phenomenal Italian food the night before we left. 

eating lunch

Being a beach town we obviously had to indulge in some fresh fish. We were later told by the Moroccans that we paid a bad price but to steal my friend Sarah’s pun by the end of our 50 dirham (6 dollar) meal we were stuffed to the gills (get it! Fish… gills… man she’s good).  The guys there were really nice and we watched the guys grill our food as plate after plate found its way to the table. The fare included squid, baby squid, sardines, and a couple other types of fish whose names I didn’t inquire after. It was served in a very Moroccan way; served with a salad of tomato’s and onions and green peppers and non-stop bread. It was a tasty and very satisfying meal.

look at those smiling faces (also check out my hair bling)

tentically.... 

the set-up and our enthusiastic server

the fish

the grill

my set-up for de-seeding raisins

This is kind of tangential I’m aware, but see that mention of that bread I made up there? Well now I’m going to distract both myself and you for a second here to talk about my raisins. Now generally one doesn’t put much stock in raisins. You get them usually on elementary school field trips or shitty box lunches. They come in those quasi-cardboard containers with the plastic lids and are pretty tasty. Well I never put much thought in raisins either, when I started baking I started trying to discern what ingredients I could obtain in site and which ones I would have to travel for, and up until recently I didn’t think I could get raisins anywhere near me and had imported them from the supermarkets of Marrakech. So you could imagine I was PUMPED to see them at souk. They’re expensive (50dh a kilo) so I bought 20 dirham worth and skipped home all excited to make some delicious raisin bread. That was until I grabbed a few and mowed down. My raisins were crunchy. Now. All of my fellow peace corps volunteers do not feel like this is a big deal. But when you expect a certain consistency or texture from something, and get something else I find it disconcerting; i.e. biting into what you expect to be a sort of smooshy raisin and getting a crunch as an added bonus. What I didn’t consider is that raisins come from grapes, and most grapes in morocco have seeds therefore most raisins have seeds. Misery. I decided that instead of wasting my money and ditching the raisins I would de-seed all of them. So I poured myself a drink, popped on a movie (turned out to be more like 3 movies before the job was done) and de-seeded all of my raisins- I’d say a little over 2.5 cups in total. It was rewarding to finish the task, but really time consuming and sticky, and definitely something I will not be doing again. But definitely a Peace Corps experience to share with you all… ok now back to your scheduled programming of Essaouira adventures.

One thing I like about traveling is how much stuff there is around. Especially considering Essouira is a touristy city there are tons of cool shops and fun things to window shop and purchase. I got some really wonderful and Moroccan-ish clothing as well as some really cool strands of beads that cost me $1.25, woot! I love cheap beads. Also wearing new clothes especially on such a limited stock is so nice.  Also another “souvenir” from Essouira was the fact that a met a fellow PCV who used to have dreads and who generously taught me a new way to wear my hair- which is almost like getting a new haricut for someone with dreadlocks. It’s great because it requires no hair ties and keeps my hair off my neck in this heat. It’s a little wild in most standards, but I’m doing it in site anyways.

enjoying the shopping

i had a little photo shoot with my new clothing. 

my moroccan mumu

my moroccan jlaba- my host sister sewed it for me!

some hair bling

Another cool thing about being in the city for a music festival was all the other “Rasta’s” ! Dreads aren’t totally un-common here I wouldn’t say they’re rampant,  The  more rebellious Moroccan’s combined with vagabond Europeans who travel here mean there’s a decent number of “rasta’s” in country. Whenever I’m in toursity cities I usually get “OOOOOOOOH ! Rasta! “ or “rasta pasta a la nasta” or “ hey  Bob Marley!” shouted to me by passerby’s or shop owners. But there were so many Rasta’s in town for the festival I was almost the majority. Not that I mind the attention altogether, in terms of harassment in country it’s really tame (in fact I usually try and keep a count of what I get called every time I’m out and about, and I keep a mental note if someone comes up with something new) but it was nice to be somewhere I could be more relaxed and a little more wild with my hair- notice the strands of beads I wore – something I would definitely do in America, but definitely wouldn’t do in my site. So yes…. Shopping +new hair = awesomeness.

As you all may or may not know I will be traveling home in august. I will be in Mass/on the East coast from around aug 10th-aug 22^nd- so start thinking about when you want to see me ;) in that time I’m hoping to be getting up to Maine to visit KP and re-visit some of my favorite restaurants in Portland then ill be going out west to Portland for my friend Tina’s wedding. I’m super excited, but a little nervous-  I'm not sure how mobile i'll be seeing as im a peace corps volunteer with no car and limited funds but I’d love to see as many people as possible before I come back here to start my second year. So… don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

taking a rest from shopping

the girls

I hope everyone is well wherever you are. Enjoy the pictures! 

the group

me and lauren