So this blog post is long overdue and I am really sorry
about that- I had actually written a blog post before my parents came, but my
internet ran out before I could post it, maybe I’ll post it up but it’s kind of
out of date.
As some of you may or may not know
the most difficult time of my service (thus far and hopefully all around ) was
the time following my trip to America. I was legitimately bummed out and pretty
unhappy, and I would be lying to if you I hadn’t been worried I would fall back
into the melancholic pit that was the month of September after my family
visited. Thankfully that was not the case! Getting to see Morocco through the
eyes/experiences of my family made me love and appreciate this country even
more. Morocco was on its best behavior, no angry drivers, pickpockets or
harassers (minus one guy who yelled "condom" at us in the medina of Marrakech) instead my family got to experience what I have come to love here. I realized I had taken for
granted/ just expected the generosity and kindness and hospitality of Moroccans
as a whole- getting a handful of dates, a bundle of mint, an invitation for
food or free cookies from friends and strangers is totally normal for me- but it was really touching to see
happen for the first time for my mother and father. When things like that
happened my mother said “this would never happen in New York!” and I’m hoping
to keep that in mind upon my return to the states, hopefully I won’t become
known as the creepy dreadlocked lady who invites strangers in her house all the
time for food and tea- but for reals the generosity and the amount that people
share here is something that America could benefit from.
So now onto the trip!
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| the square from the side |
After a 2.5 hour line at customs
mom and jack finally made it out of the Marakesh airport in our rental car- Mom
and Jack killed it driving, and Kesh is not an easy place to be a passenger let
a lone a driver- luckily our hotel was close by and super nice! Also within the
first 45 minutes of them being on sovereign Moroccan soil I was asked twice
about my unmarried relationship status. The fam got a great price on the hotel
stateside and they only charged me 30 bucks or so to crash and even brought me
up a bed. We got free tea, delicious snacks (that I actually think we were
meant to pay for) and were even serenaded upon our arrival by a skinny French
lady in a gold sparkly dress singing some jazz- it was all very fancy and
NOTHING like being here as a PCV, we weren’t allowed to carry our bags, I was
afraid to touch things, the food menu had things on it that cost more then I
spend on groceries in a month. I told the ladies at the front desk that they
might have to remove me forcibly because that shower was AWESOME. I jumped them
into morocco head first by dragging us to the Marakesh center Jmee El fnaa-
which was BUMPING. Because of the school break everyone and their brother,
their cousin, their cousins wife and kids and mothers and grandmothers and
everything in between were in Marakesh ( I know of at least 5 people from site
who went to ‘Kesh during the break)- but I was told there was delicious tagine
to be had at a legitimate price so we braved the crowd. I think Jack got a
little overwhelmed, but it was cool to see it at night and so busy. Morocco is
definitely a country worth listening to, especially in the square .
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|
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| some of the marakesh medina |
The next morning mom and I kind of
ditched Jack and took an early morning adventure into the old Medina, and while
not everything was open good god is Marakesh incredibly pleasant at 8am- if you
are overwhelmed by cities get a good early start in the morning and you’ll have
the old medina to yourself. We started the day with a very Moroccan breakfast
of café ns-ns, Milwil/msmin and avocado juice- and while mom was a little
skeptical of the bright green liquid placed in front of her, she was a convert
just like the rest of us! We got to do some shopping; I got to show off my
baller bargaining skills (and was only slightly ripped off). After our shopping
trip we began the climb in our Air Conditioned car over the tishka pass.
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| the very quiet morning in the medina |
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| buying nuts for our car ride! |
I will admit that renting a car was
my idea, and a selfish one. I have gone over the tishka so many gd times and
every time it’s zooming by on a bus, we probably could have chartered taxis
just as easily and have come out a little under the cost of the car but having
the freedom of a vehicle made the trip so much less stressful (at least for
me). Mom and jack both did a great job on the Tishka, and we were able to stop
for fossils, pictures and much needed pee breaks.
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| A storks nest on a mineret |
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| a nice vista |
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| our car and an amusing road sign |
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| one of the many stone/earth villages along the pass. |
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| the waterfall across the mountains after the "layer cake " section of the tishka |
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| at the top of what i call the "layer cake section" |
Unfortunately for the fam, the
managed to be here during the HOTTEST week of the year thus far, dude it was a
crazy heat wave 100 plus degrees- this time last year I was still wearing a
sweater/flannel to keep me warm during the day. Literally the day after they
left it dropped almost 20-40 degrees (though that is now no longer true).
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| mom coming down a set of stairs in n'kob |
OK back to the trip- we spent the next 2 days hanging out in
N’kob- this was the chillaxin part of the trip, we went for walks around town,
the palmerie, played scrabble, ate food of my own creation (pizza and tagine).
We also, of course, visited my buds the cookie ladies and my host family the
bounty of gifts mom and I stressed over in tow. I think the hot pads/ oven hot
hands confused people but were appreciated nonetheless. We also got a very
enthusiastic science talk from my friend Brahim who is an amateur
archeologist. Having my parents
here made me feel good about my integration here, while I watched my family
squirm uncomfortably as we sat awkwardly in one place or another I realized how
normal it felt for me to just hang out on a stuffed flour sack on the side of
the road with a group of ladies speaking a language I didn’t understand.
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| old dude carrying a shovel |
As you all may or may no know two
of Peace Corps goals for volunteers is the exchange of culture back and forth-
and while as a PCV I’ve made a point to become part of my community sometimes
it’s easy to feel like you’re doing it more for your own benefit then anyone
elses- you start asking questions like “does anyone really care?” and “do they
actually want me here?” It’s easy to get wrapped up in this cloud for quite a
time, but while we were at the museum I definitely felt like what I was doing
meant something to people- the museum guide/leader who was fluent in 5
languages found us while we were browsing and offered us a ‘backstage tour’
telling me he wanted to show us how they did things and give us a discount at
the shop (20-40% on everything geez!)
because how important it was that I was there to “learn about their
culture” – people were also impresses when I told them my town, which I’m
learning has a bit of a reputation for being mskin (sad/poor ) . Our impromptu
guide took us into the initial cleaning room where boxes and boxes of rocks
were piled high along the walls with fossils waiting to be uncovered by the
little metal dentists drill. Then he took us to the professional workshop-
equipment and training provided, I believe, by a partner located in Arizona.
Then they took us into the flashy room where they kept the expensive stuff as
well as special commission and museum pieces. It was cool to see creatures that
were 300 million years old that looked like they were still in motion under the
prehistoric ocean. We went a little banana’s at the gift shop and filled up on
ammonite shells and keychains, a gorgeous crinoid for jack and all other sorts
of gifts for ourselves and people at home. I will admit before this trip I was
pretty ambivalent about fossils, but I’m now pretty excited about all of it,
also it turns out the guy who did planet earth came and did an piece about the
fossils in the area, so I’m definitely going to check that out!
Still buzzing from our fossil
purchases and exciting excursion back in time we made our way to a restaurant
for some food before heading out on out camel trek. We ordered cous cous and
I’m disappointed in the fact that that was the cous cous my family had over
here because I love couscous so much! But it wasn’t all bad. After we met up
with our driver/ guide who took us in his 4x4 over glorified ruts in the desert
to the auberge in Merzouga. We had some tea, and chilled by the pool for an
hour until the temps went down a bit and then headed out to our camels! Our
guide Hassan (I think) wore his sahara blue jlaba thing and a bright turban and
led us out into the desert. The dunes were gorgeous and made me miss my days in
lighting design, there were so many blues and purples mixed in with the
expected oranges and whites and yellows of the desert. It was so cool riding
along on a camel into the Sahara. We arrived at our campsite, which was a
little sandless valley among the dunes that was actually a bed of fossilized
coral. For being out in the desert it was super swanky; nomad tents with full
on mattresses, western toilets, hot showers and electricity. We shared the
campsite with three French dudes who were a little rowdy, but in a very French
way. In typical Moroccan fashion we were given tea and peanuts upon arrival and
hung out then were stuffed with food – a salad/veggie plate, tomato stewed beef
a GIANT tagine with some of the best eggplant I’ve had in this country followed
by fruit and dates finally followed by a campfire and some drums and music. The
moon and stars over the dunes were incredible and mom and both witnessed a star
go out/die which was crazy! I’m glad she saw it too otherwise I would have
thought I was crazy. Suddenly this star in the sky got really really bright
then just faded away. In a way, that day was time travel day between the
fossils and the star we traveled back in time (and space! ).
In the morning we were woken up to
catch the sunrise over the desert which was a beautiful (however early) start
to the day. Then we settled down for a very Moroccan breakfast of juice and
coffee and bread and olives with butter and jam and olive oil. After breakfast
we headed back out of the desert astride our camels- in case you were wondering
camels sound like a combination of Chewbacca and a gurgling drain. Our ride
back was uneventful and pleasant, not too hot because of the early start. After
we exited the desert our driver met us in his 4x4 and took zooming back over
the more mars like desert landscape. He had heard us talking excitedly about
fossils so on the way back stopped us off at this small field area where they
mined for the bigger pieces for tabletops and counters and other household
items. This was literally a field of fossils, never in my life would I have
thought I could just bend over and pick up something that lived 300 million
years ago in the OCEAN, but that’s what we did. At first the driver left the
engine idling then realized that we were all to entranced crawling around
picking up fossils that he turned his car off. Before we left we were swarmed
with a few guys holding polished fossils in old display boxes and mom bought
two gorgeous ammonites and jack bought this long spiney guy whose name I
forget. Our guide also assisted us in buying some dates on our return to Erfoud
and I’m talking the big money show pony dates- these puppies weren’t the
shriveled up 1.5inch things I can get here but dates the size of a babies fist that
were absolutely delicious. In another example of the generosity here our guide invited us over for a tagine lunch and so we drove along
the road towards errachidia to look at the palmeries and earth towns of the ziz
valley to pass the time.
We made it back to N’kob that night and prepared mom and
jacks baggage which mostly involved the very difficulty decision-making process
of what rocks would be going back stateside.
The next morning we stopped off for
some bread from the cookie ladies and some laughing cow triangles and made our
way back over the tishka. We spend the night with my love Sarah Quinn who took
us around Tamslohte’s zowei/ancient religious school. We hung out at the café
and ate some cliff bars, and made some chicken tagine. Bright and early the
next morning we packed back into the rental car and made our way back to the
airport.
It
was hard saying goodbye and the trip definitely could have been longer. But it
was amazing to be able to share the place I’ve been calling home for over a
year with people I love.
