Venturing beyond the Medina Walls

Tajines for sale in Damnate

Here we are again - another week gone by and more adventures in the book. With adequate planning behind me on Monday (as well as my first faculty meeting at the university, in which I understood only 50% of what was said and successfully managed to avoid being volunteered for any committees), it was time for a real day off.

Somehow, late on Monday night, we had managed to track down the contact details for the "car rental guy" and make the connection that may very well save us this year. Rachid arrived on the dot of 8:55 on Tuesday morning, as promised, delivered a miniature and very functional car to us, and told us to call him when we got back to Marrakech so he could come pick it up. A dream. With parking etiquette still being somewhat of a mystery (there are sidewalk guardians watching cars and helping people park and exit into traffic who seem to require tipping), Rachid's door-to-door service was most welcome.

Andy picked the short straw and had to drive. I graciously volunteered to read the map and give him lots of positive encouragement from the passenger seat. Brianna briefly provided moral support from the back before falling asleep. Andy managed to get us out of Marrakech without a single bump. He smoothly avoided cars, taxis, motorbikes, donkeys, horses, bicycles, and bold pedestrians. He merged into the roundabouts with just the right balance of authority ("don't let them sense your fear") and caution. We made it to the city limits unscathed and headed due east for a taste of the Atlas Mountains. Our first destination was the town of Demnate, a gateway to the Central High Atlas Range. We drove through a couple of large towns and miles and miles of olive groves and prickly pear cactus plants. We continue to marvel at how anything can actually grow in the dry, rocky soil. As we got closer to Damnate, we saw piles and piles of olives next to the road waiting to be stuffed into giant water bottles and sold or waiting to be pressed into oil.

Demnate from above

Demnate

The town itself provided a rest stop and taste of life outside of the city. We no longer blended in with the throngs of tourists in Marrakech, and we struggled to find a spot to sit down for a snack. Cafe after cafe were filled with only men, so Brianna and I tried to decide if there was a rule of some kind. Eventually, a friendly cafe employee clearly gestured to us to come in and sit down, so we took him up on his offer. The three of us were starving, but the cafe offered only drinks. We went for a round of mint tea (with enough mint leaves to pass as food). Still in search of real food, we managed to find a bakery with bread sticks for sale. We stocked up, unsure what the rest of the day would bring. We wandered around the alleys of a market area for a little while and decided to carry on in our quest for mountains.

Imi n'Ifri

The road wound up out of Demante, and, just 6 km later, we arrived at Imi n'Ifri, a natural bridge that formed over a gorge millions of years ago. We hiked down into the gorge and through the stalactite-decorated grotto for our first real glimpse at Morroco's natural side.  Then we hopped back in the car and headed into the Ait Blel Valley, a valley that our guide book described as "untouched by time" because the road is fairly new. This is where we saw glimpses of Morocco off the beaten path. We marveled at the buildings - both old and crumbling and relatively new. We saw very few other cars and lots and lots of donkeys. The landscape was brown and red and dry. Little villages nestled into the hillsides were barely visible from the distance as the red clay homes blended in perfectly with the hills. The mosques were the one thing that stood out in every town - often painted yellow or, in some cases, white. We got lots of friendly waves as we passed, and we all found ourselves wondering about what people do all day in these places. We wondered about schools and jobs, money and food. It was a world apart - separated from all that we know as essential to everyday life. People seemed content to sit and chat and sell fruit. The madness of Marrakech felt a million miles away.

   

   

    

The Ait Blel Valley

Eventually, with no end to the mountain road in sight, we decided to turn back and head for the Cascades d'Ouzoud, dramatic waterfalls that are a popular day trip for Marrakshis seeking a break from the city heat. First we had to deal with the situation of food again. The best bet seemed to be a gas station meal. Most gas stations have a large plaza with restaurant, toilets, mosque, and, of course, gas. So, we decided to test one in the middle of nowhere at a station called Afriquia. It was a one-plate deal - bread, tomatoes, fries and meatballs. The vegetarian among us struggled a bit, but she put on a happy face and made a tomato sandwich.

We headed north toward the waterfalls and arrived, parked, and wound our way to the overlook. This was no Niagara Falls, but there were also no safety precautions apart from signs warning you to stay away from the top of the falls. We watched a man perch in a small, slippery pool at the top of the falls to wash his feet. My legs turned to jelly just watching him. The falls were impressive from above, and we could see monkeys playing on the walls down below. We decided that we had to make the trek down into the gorge to get the full effect. The narrow stairs all the way down were lined with restaurants and souvenir shops. It wasn't exactly a "nature experience," but it was really fun. The collection of colors, smells, and views was almost enough to distract us from the fact that we would eventually need to ascend these stairs in order to get back home. At the base of the falls, there were pontoon boats that looked as though they might float you around the pool at the base of the falls, lots of large rocks and some beautiful views. There are supposed to be rainbows every afternoon, but, as the sun was setting on our day, we didn't catch any magical glimpses of color. After taking lots of pictures, we started the trek back up the stairs. We paused halfway to go out on a platform where the monkeys were playing.  Some were cute and some were just huge and scary. We put Andy (our token rabies vaccine sporting member of the party) between us and them and made for the stairs to continue our climb.  Panting and sweaty, we eventually emerged from this little adventure and returned to our car just in time to negotiate the 200 km back to Marrakech in the dark. Two and a half long hours later, we made it back to the city unscathed - dodging horses, donkeys, motorbikes without lights, and pedestrians hidden in the darkness by their long black and brown robes. Rachid's friendly smile welcomed us back to our apartment building, and we breathed a sigh of relief at having survived our first successful adventure outside of the city - the first of many yet to come, insha'Allah.

Li Fat Mat

"Let bygones be bygones," or "What's done is done." My favorite Darija phrase of the week sums up where the last seven days have gone. It's fun to say and easy to remember: Li fat mat.

In fact, this week has flown by, and I am hard pressed to remember where the days have gone. It has been busy! With the start of my "official teaching job" looming at the end of the week, I had one of those days that every teacher dreams of - the one where you glue yourself to a chair with your computer and don't move until you've got a solid plan for the whole semester. It was refreshing. That was Monday. Tuesday would be the day that I went to the university to ensure that all of the tech equipment in my classroom would be set to go for my classes on Thursday.  Tuesday would test my cultural adaptability (and, honestly, my patience) to the limit.

I am not a big fan of wasting time. I have already had to adjust my attitude and learn to better appreciate small talk and greetings, drinking tea, and, in due time, getting down to business. I have learned that a meeting that would take ten minutes at home will probably take two hours here. I am practicing. I know I need to slow down, check in with people, expect interruptions, and eventually (in the ideal case) my questions will get answered. So, Tuesday morning I took a deep breath and took on my first challenge of the day - the solo bike ride to the university. All of my previous rides had been with Andy as a buffer - both a social buffer for the weird girl on the bike and a literal buffer for the  crazy traffic. I struck out on my own, uncertain of the route to the university, with Google maps to guide me. I channeled the inner Vietnam-biker in me that I cultivated 5 years ago, and I biked out into the world of swerving taxis and motorbike exhaust. It quickly all came back - the ability to just go with the flow and the realization that there is, in fact, some method to the madness that somehow manages to work for everyone. I found my way to the university, where the very sweet security guard suppressed his smile as he kindly took my helmet to keep it safe in his booth for me. The Moroccan gods were smiling on me.

That was the end of the good karma. I took care of the greetings, waited out a few interruptions, spent a long time talking about course content, and finally made it to the classroom to test the tech equipment. Despite all assurances to the contrary, the projector did not plug into my computer. The audio speakers did exist, but there was no cable to connect them to the computer, and there was no Internet connection. My handy little web-based semester-on-a-flash-drive that I had worked so hard to create on Monday suddenly felt useless. The little voice in my head said, "They warned you about this at orientation. Expect the unexpected, and then go with plan D." So, I pasted on my happy face (which may have briefly been clouded with my exasperated face) and decided that I had a whole day to revamp things and remember how to use a chalk board.

The sea of chairs

I decided to tackle the next practical teaching preparation task, which was to purchase index cards. The first step was to explain what I was looking for, then to figure out the word in Darija, then to figure out where I could buy this oddity. A kind professor in the English Department made a phone call to a "librairie" (which is like a bookstore stand) and determined that they could help me. I followed his directions, hopped on my bike again, and discovered that they carried card stock and would be happy to cut it into smaller pieces for me. I would need to come back the next day to pick them up. I was beginning to understand that lesson planning in Morocco could be a week-long affair.

Wednesday morning was a well-deserved morning of distraction. Our good friends, Gabi and Trevor, were in Marrakech for a work conference, and Brianna and I signed up for a Moroccan cooking class with Gabi. Together we went to the Amal Center, a non-profit helping disadvantaged women to build life skills through employment training, where they teach cooking classes and serve lunch daily. Along with three other groups, we went through the motions of making delicious Moroccan tajines. Gabi and I made a chicken tajine with lemons, and Brianna made a vegetarian tajine. We sniffed spices, chopped onions, marinated meat, measured and poured magical ingredients, and eventually had a simmering pot of of goodness cooking on hot coals. While we waited for the food to cook through, we had  a tour of the Amal Center and worked hard not to pass out from the heat. In the end we enjoyed the fruits of our labor for lunch. Gabi and I concluded that we should go a little lighter on the "fruit" in our labor next time. The preserved lemons that we cooked with were like injections of pure salt in our stew, and we consumed enough sodium for the month in our one lunch sitting. Once my blood sodium levels have returned to normal, we'll attempt to replicate the effort at home over our gas flame!

Wednesday night brought first day of school nerves and very little sleep. Thursday was the big day. It started with Brianna giving a presentation about public speaking skills at a conference for undergraduate English students. In the process, she introduced them to the magic of Ben & Jerry's. She agreed to spend the rest of the day with me at the university as my tech trouble shooter as I launched into my first classes. Armed with a different computer, my own speakers, a gigantic extension cord, power adapters, downloaded videos, and screen shots of websites, I attempted to introduce my students to online applications for language learning (without ever getting online). In some ways it was teaching at its worst. I cringe to think of the number of times every year I remind students to "show not tell." The best I could do was "tell" and try to generate enthusiasm for the potential that the Internet brings to language learning. This year is going to stretch my teaching and creativity skills in ways I had never imagined. I am learning how to teach through Facebook to students who primarily use their cell phones as a means to access information. It looks like plan D has become plan FB.

My two classes numbered 100+ students each. The students were amazing, friendly, engaged, and energized. I left exhausted and excited at the same time - feeling reassured that, despite the challenges, this promises to be a fun adventure. The weekend brought a three day training workshop for Moroccan teachers at a local hotel. Many meals, a few presentations, and lots of new faces later, I am ready for a new week which promises a day off and a trip to the mountains for a breath of fresh air Moroccan-style. Li fat mat!

Yella! Yella!

New Darija word of the week: Yella!  It is to be said with enthusiasm and accompanied by an electric cow prod. "Yella" means "Let's Go," and it is burned into my memory by the experience that Brianna and I had at Project Soar on Sunday.

Project Soar is a non-profit organization focused on empowering Moroccan girls to continue their education by providing academic support, life skills, and leadership training. They also offer a range non-academic activities aimed at empowering girls. If you want to check them out online, visit www.projectsoarmarrakesh.org, or check out the CNN documentary that aired last week in the U.S. titled, "We Will Rise" (http://edition.cnn.com/shows/cnn-films-we-will-rise).  It stars girls from Project Soar that we met this weekend.

I had been looking to bring the spirit of "Girls on the Run" to Morocco in an effort to shamelessly give myself an excuse to run as part of my job and to help empower Moroccan girls through exercise. When I discovered Project Soar, based in a village about 30 minutes outside of Marrakesh,  I decided to see if we could join in on the fun. I figured Brianna would be the perfect candidate to lead a running group given her stellar Girls on the Run history from third and fourth grade. Her participation, at that time, was reluctant, at best, and obstinate, at worst. She dreaded the weekly lap running routine and was a ring-leader in the corner-cutting club. She whined and complained with the best of them as she shuffled along with her exasperated attitude. She, like most of the girls, dreaded the official 5K that loomed at the end of the season. On race day, though, all of the whining and attitude disintegrated into a flurry of face paint, ribbons, and water bottles. She moved on to the cross country team in fifth grade, where she prided herself on walking in every race. As soon as the season ended, she announced that her running career was over. Seven years removed from the trauma, I figured there was no better way to resuscitate her interest in running than to join forces with her in a hot Moroccan desert and put her on the other side of the cow prod. Empowerment at its best I'd say!

Brianna rose to the occasion and loved it. We both showed up at Project Soar in the 90+ degree temps clad in the recommended modest running wear - leggings covered with shorts and t-shirts covered with sweaters. We met the founders of Project Soar, the Peace Corps Volunteer who works with them full-time as the Field Manager, some other staff members, and 50 energetic girls. They arrived early and shot baskets, jumped on a trampoline, skate-boarded, and roller-bladed in gigantic roller blades. When we gathered together to get started at 10:00 a.m., one of the girls who had just returned from a dream trip to Washington D.C. for the premier of CNN's documentary shared the details of her adventure with her friends. Then, we were off and running.

The group split in two, and Brianna and I gathered our first running group together. We tried our best to introduce ourselves in Darija and asked each of the girls to do the same in English. Then we got down to business. Brianna took over as Cattle Prod Queen and tried her hand at motivating teenage girls to run (fully covered) in the hot, dry sand. I loved every minute of it. It was a return to the days of Girls on the Run with walkers, flip-flop wearers, sprinters, and shufflers. There were smiles and high fives all around. In the universal language of running (and motivating runners) all you really need is one big cattle prod and one magical word of Darija. "Yella!"

Friday Funnies and the Fiefdom of Harrison Ford

"I had a friend who lived in the United States once. New Jersey. She didn't like it there, so she moved to Indiana Jones. She likes it better there. It's hotter." I smiled and suppressed my giggle, as I was being escorted by an extremely friendly woman to the university where I will be working. She had been enlisted by her husband to give the clueless American a campus tour and to deliver her to a conference room before 9:00.

My corner of the American Corner 

Things are starting to get rolling on the job front, and I find, more often than not, that I am not really sure what to expect as my day unfolds. I have appointments and meetings with people I don't know in places I don't know how to find. So, I was more than grateful to have a personal escort to the university to help me find the building and room where I would attend a lecture. Amal showed me the gate to the university and where to park my bicycle (assuming I can find my way there on my own at some point). She got someone to unlock the library, so I could see the piles of books and the computer lab. She got someone else to unlock the American Corner so I could see that space as well. And, finally, she delivered me to my lecture on time with a promise to take me for Friday couscous at her family's home after I had finished with my meetings. I realized I had met a Moroccan Fairy Godmother and did a little happy dance to celebrate my good fortune.

After a lecture, a few different meetings to plan teacher training and to get my class assignments for the semester, I had a tour of the campus to meet all of the important people who will make my job run smoothly. I met the "paper guy," who distributes the paper, the "copier guy," who makes the photocopies once you have visited the "paper guy" to get your paper, the "key guy," who will open my classroom door,  and the "microphone guy," who will give me the microphone before my class. With lots of luck, I will remember all of these players and where to find them when I need them most next week. Inshallah.

The morning provided many opportunities to put my three phrases of Darija to use in an effort to make friends with all of these key players. Next, the real Moroccan treat of the day was waiting. I met Amal, and we drove to her mother's home, where they welcomed me to enjoy Friday couscous with the family. It was a treat to have a glimpse inside a Moroccan home - built four stories high around a central courtyard, with the dog and the pet turtle lounging on the uppermost floor. I was relieved to learn that the turtle (which the dog uses as a toy) was just a pet. We have seen many caged turtles in the medina and were unsure if they were for sale as soup ingredients or as pets. Amal assured me that they are just pets.

On the third floor, where the family spends most of their time, we enjoyed a family-style couscous feast. Amal offered me a spoon and plate, but the rest of the women and girls dug in with their hands. The four-year-old giggled at me because I was using a spoon. Apparently men normally use spoons while women use their hands. Amal explained the ingredients of the delicious looking dish, which featured two types of meat: the meat from the sheep which had been slaughtered for Eid (in September) and the contents of that sheep's intestines which had been cooked and wrapped in the sheep's stomach lining. They generously offered me the latter. I smiled and dug in with my spoon, chewed, and washed it down with a gulp of leben. Never has fermented milk tasted so good!

After returning home, I decided it was time to put my new wheels to use and test my traffic dodging skills on the bike. After a perplexing 15 minutes of agonizing over what I could actually wear to go biking (nixing bike shorts, running shorts, all shorts, form-fitting leggings, and baggy pajama bottoms), I ended up in an odd outfit of long hiking pants with rubber bands at the ankles and the most floppy shirt I could find. When I asked Brianna if I could use her grey sneakers because I didn't want to wear my bright red running sneakers with my outfit, she gave me a once-over and sighed. "Are you really worried about fashion when you are looking like that?" Whatever. The girl had a point. I looked part clown, part fashion disaster. The good news is that someone in Rabat told me during my orientation that if I planned on biking in Marrakech it would be fine, since I was really considered a third sex anyway - freaky, tall American woman. Add a bike to the mix, and it really wouldn't matter. It's all just weird.

With a day of biking under his belt, Andy took to the road in front of me and I tried to stay close and stay alive. My sweet little bell sounds woefully inadequate in the buzz of traffic, and, quite honestly, I usually forget how to ring it when I need it most. We managed to weave our way through heavy traffic for a couple of miles, and then we were out - moving beyond the madness of the city and into the Palmeraie, where we could see blue sky and mountains, palm trees, camels, golf courses, and resorts. It was a nice change from the bustle and busyness of downtown Marrakesh. Old men and young boys make up most of the biking population on the roads in Marrakech. When we hit some open road in the Palmeraie, a young boy looked over his shoulder and saw me coming behind him. He crouched down and pedaled as fast as he could. Of course, I took the bait and raced behind him, as he looked back over his shoulder laughing and then returned to the effort of keeping me behind. When he finally ran out of steam, and I cruised by, we shared a high five and a laugh. Third sex? Maybe. But I'll make sure they remember I'm fast as well as fashionable!

The things you find when you go out for a ride. This is NOT the 802.

And, yes, we did tip the photographer for this headless camel shot.

Ana mashi tourist!

Heh. Well, maybe just a little bit. As much as we want to blend in and act like locals, sometimes we just have to get our tourist vibe on and embrace it.

So, I took advantage of our very first visitor, my wandering soulmate and college roommate, to enjoy a whirlwind day of medina meandering and a return to the Bahia Palace. Michele arrived early on a flight from Geneva for a 24-hour taste of Marrakesh. This is a girl who gets me. If you are already in Switzerland, then, of course it is normal to just pop over to Morocco for the day. It would be silly to pass up that opportunity. So, we browsed the souqs, sniffed the spices, fought off the snake charmers, pried off the monkey handlers, dug into couscous, and sampled the nightly mayhem of the Jemaa el Fna. It was wonderful to have out first visitor to out shabby-chic digs in Marrakech.

Rooftop dinner in the medina

In an effort to immerse ourselves in the local culture, Brianna and I went to a storytelling cafe, where they are attempting to preserve the art of storytelling for the next generation of young Moroccans. We listened to two young Moroccans recount traditional Moroccan tales in English, and Brianna got pulled into the act as the storyteller returned to her time after time to repeat the details of the story. Then, we were treated to a performance in Darija by the master storyteller. We enjoyed his expressions and tried to imagine what he was saying, but, unfortunately, the meaning of his tale was lost on us.

Storytelling

We followed up this cultural effort with our first Darija language lesson. A lovely woman came to our apartment and spent an hour schooling Brianna and me in the basics of Darija. We learned important things like how to greet people and how to say, "I am not a tourist," despite the fact that every fiber of our beings screams tourist. Sigh. In the meantime, Andy keeps plugging away at French. Between all of us, we can usually manage a conversation in three languages that accomplishes our mission in the market.

Today we put those mad language skills to use at Bab el Khemis (Thursday's Gate) Flea Market. We had managed to find out that the place to buy used bikes was at this flea market that happens on Thursdays at one particular gate to the medina. We wound our way there with the steady guidance of Google Maps (the mere fact that this app works in the medina never ceases to boggle my mind), and, after a few false starts, managed to locate a few bicycle sellers with a hodgepodge of bicycles and bicycle parts.  We tested a few, bargained the best we could in a weird mix of French and English, with a few polite words of Darija thrown in in an effort to win over the bike's owner. In the end, I left with a bicycle and Brianna (despite the seller's best effort to get her thrown in as part of the deal), and a promise to get the "papers" when I return with the final part of the payment on Saturday. When I asked what "papers" there are for bicycles, the vendor (through his friendly translator) let us know that most of the bikes at the market are stolen. Fabulous. Chances are that I probably overpaid for a hot bicycle that will get confiscated the first time I ride it past a police station. Ana mashi tourist!

Andy somehow managed to do his own wheeling and dealing on the bike front and made a friend of his own at a real bike shop. Somehow he is riding a top of the line cyclocross bike without having paid a dime (yet), and he doesn't even possess mad Darija skills like the girls. For the record, I have both a basket and a bell on my very hip urban bike. He has neither. That bell might come in handy if I have to ring it to get someone's attention from the jail cell for bike thieves. Oy (I don't know how to say that in Darija).

The very best hostess gift you can get when
in Morocco (although the Swiss chocolate was
pretty sweet too)!

Sqeaky Clean and Seventeen

Can you think of any better way to spend your birthday than trapped in a room with your mother? Naked. Being scrubbed raw.  Well, that is what you get when you sign up for a birthday hammam in Morocco to celebrate the big day.  Initially it seemed like a good idea - a luxurious cultural excursion to celebrate Brianna's 17th birthday. 

We did a little research online to find a "tourist hammam" to ease ourselves into this cultural phenomenon which involves steaming, lathering, scrubbing, and rinsing away dead skin until your entire body is soft (and sore). The public hammam generally requires you to be a practicing Muslim in order to enter, so we had to cross the truly authentic experience off our list. However, there are hammams that cater to the general public which provide a more traditional experience - think giant steam room filled with naked customers and a collection of scrubbers-for-hire who will scrub you down with a special mitt that peels away more skin cells than you thought you owned and, then, dump buckets of water over you to wash you down. I am generally uncomfortable with public nudity, so that did not sound like a viable option in my book. I am still traumatized by the "couples massage" experience I had with my sister-in-law in Vietnam a few years ago, so a public scouring in my birthday suit did not sound the least bit appealing. 

Brianna and I chose the "spa hammam" experience. It began with our choice of soaps and oils, some mint tea, and a glass of water. Then, things went downhill quickly. They left us in a small locker room to change into our bathrobes and disposable, paper thongs. The last time I sported underwear that sexy, I had just had a baby. Brianna was the grown-up in the situation. She kept saying, "It's just a body, Mom. It's natural. Get over it." I couldn't stop laughing and fretting over what was still to come. As anticipated, it got worse. We were led to a steam room with two marble slabs and told to lie down. Two women came in an sprayed us down and rotated us on the table. Then they left us to steam. I couldn't stop laughing at the awkwardness of the situation. They returned to lather us up (everywhere) with black argan soap and left us to steam again. Once again, the giggling started. Then, there was nothing left to giggle about; It was time to cry. Those ladies came back with their hammam mitts and an attitude. I felt like a five year old who had been playing in the sandbox all day, and whose mother had called her in for a long overdue bath. My scrubber took to my skin with an enthusiasm that seemed mildly masochistic. She scrubbed and scoured places that I am quite sure should be neither scrubbed nor scoured. She left me raw and pink. I couldn't tell if I felt good or wounded. And, then, she sprayed it all away. Brianna was enduring the same treatment on the table next to me. I wanted to ask her if this was natural too, but I was afraid my lady would take the opportunity to scrub my tongue if I opened my mouth.  Finally the scrubbing came to an end, and we were rinsed and bundled back into our robes to enjoy more mint tea and cookies.

We lounged on gigantic pillows and listened to soothing music before being led away into separate massage rooms for our massages. Why the scrubbing had to take place in a party room, while the massage got to happen in a private space, I have no idea. It gave me something to contemplate while the craziness of the Marrakech medina was being massaged into blissful oblivion by the lady with the verbena covered hands. Sixty minutes later, I emerged from the massage room a changed woman. Brianna had a matching goofy, happy smile on her face, so I assumed her massage was equally as enjoyable. We reclined again like Moroccan princesses and enjoyed more mint tea before being sent off to the changing room to transition back to reality. As a parting gift, we were each handed our used hammam mitt in a little plastic bag. It was disgusting. We could only speculate that they wanted to prove to us that each customer gets a fresh mitt, instead of being scrubbed with remnants of somebody else's dead skin (kind of like when the garage offers to give you your old car parts back to show you that they actually replaced them). I resisted the urge to help myself to a supply of those sexy paper thongs on the way out and decided to chalk this experience up to moving way beyond my comfort zone in honor of Brianna's birthday.

Next on the Moroccan birthday list was a stop for henna at the Henna Cafe. This adventure was much more my speed (with the added bonus of leaving all of my clothes on). We spent over an hour at the cafe while Brianna chose her pattern and waited patiently while one of the henna artists worked her magic.  We found so much more than beautiful henna here, though. We met the artist/owner of the cafe, who comes from the United States. She proved to be a wealth of knowledge about many things Marrakech and provided us with some leads on finding bicycles in the local market and tasty places to eat. Her staff helped us learn a few more words of Darija and shared some local nuts(?) that we had never tried before. Brianna left with an arm covered in amazing henna and lots of fun memories.

The party continued at home where I attempted to make a birthday cake from a box. We had to buy a cake pan for the occasion, but I had neglected to notice that we didn't own a mixing bowl. The coffee pot served as a makeshift bowl. The broiler pan/oven rack proved worthy when tested, and the cake came out just fine. Andy tried his hand at making whipped cream from half and half shaken with sugar in a water bottle. After a few minutes of shaking, we wondered whether it would turn to butter, so he went to beating it with a fork. After about ten minutes, we concluded that the cake would be served with liquid cream as a topping option. As we dug into the chocolate cake and reminisced about the day's adventures, Brianna ran her hands over her smooth legs to confirm the success of the hammam treatment and discovered that the henna artwork would not be her only souvenir of the day. The red-striped abrasions on her calves were just starting to show - a visible reminder of the day's sweet pain. Never did a birthday hurt so good.

La Means La

La. One of the most useful Darija words to have handy in Marrakech, has been employed regularly in the past three days. La means "no," and I find myself saying "no" a lot these days.

Touching down in Morocco

Brianna and Andy touched down in Marrakech on Tuesday afternoon. I had spent the morning getting ready for their arrival by wiping the ever-present coating of dust and sand off the furniture again and stuffing the last of my belongings into every nook and cranny in an effort to make it look like home. I was nervous about negotiating with my first taxi driver in a city notorious for hard-bargaining drivers who don't like to use the meter. Miraculously, the first driver quoted me the official rate to the airport, and I could relax for a few minutes as we wove through Marrakech traffic.

Bri and Andy emerged from the airport on time and unscathed from their travel. Then, they got to watch as I struggled to get a taxi back to our apartment for even close to the "official rate" as we piled all of their bags into the back seat and trunk. When I proceeded to direct the driver to drive the wrong way down a few one-way streets to get to our apartment (oops - I usually walk everywhere), I decided to be a bit more generous with the fare. Eventually, we all made it back to the apartment, and Bri and Andy got their first taste our dimly lit, dusty home for the year.

First glimpse of Koutoubia Mosque

After quick naps, they both rallied to take on the mosque, the Medina, and their first Moroccan dinner in a bit of a jet-lagged haze before crashing hard for the night.

Since their arrival, we have had a mix of necessary relocation chores and some serious tourist time. We've grocery shopped and hauled things home on foot. We found the hardware store and waddled home with two greatly-needed fans. I spent a hot hour at some kind of city office getting my lease stamped with some kind of official stamp. Then, we spent three hot hours at Maroc Telecom signing up for Internet service and setting up an appointment for installation (which yielded no Internet service and necessitated a return to Maroc Telecom the following day). For the first time ever, I appreciated the short 45 minute wait in the air-conditioned Verizon store that I used to whine about. We have sweltered in the sun and have even felt rain and watched crazy lightening from our balcony. Abdul, our go-to for all things Morroco at this point, tells me that this is the beginning of winter, and this stormy weather is normal. I am struggling to understand how 95 degrees and "winter" go together. Things are slowly coming together. We now have lights in all of the light sockets, our own WIFI connection, and a door handle on Brianna's room. Tomorrow holds the promise of towel racks, and, then, all of my dusty desert domestic dreams will have been fulfilled.

Jardin Majorelle

It hasn't all been work and waiting around. Yesterday we toured Yves St. Laurent's gift to Marrakech,
the Jardin Majorelle, an eclectic collection of plant species and an electric blue artist's studio in the heart of the city. Then we returned to the Medina for a second pass-through, which resulted in another three hours lost in the maze of alleys. We came upon the yarn/cloth dyeing souq and were whisked into a world of colorful powders, deep pots of dye, and silken scarves. We stumbled through the blacksmiths' souq which echoed with pounding and smelled of burning fires.

Blacksmiths' Souq

There we saw the magical Moroccan lanterns that I had imagined as I dreamed of Marrakech. We wound our way through endless quiet residential alleyways where locals find peace in this labyrinth of chaos. Brianna tried out her French skills in the back alleys in an effort to get a pain au chocolat. She handed the vendor thirty cents and walked away with four and a giant smile. Andy decided that, if you keep trying, you just might be able to acquire a taste for olives.There are surprises at every turn.



And...there are cats at every turn - gnarly looking street cats and adorable kittens, curled up in the sunshine in every nook and cranny. This is where the Medina "la" comes in. Not only have I been fending off vendors of every kind with my most polite (and then slightly more irritated) "las," but I have been fending off Brianna and her pleas for a cute, cuddly something to make our apartment feel like home. In between "las," I remind her that rabies are endemic in Morocco. She is undeterred.

I am willing to embrace all that Morocco has to offer - couscous, olives, lanterns, carpets, spices, henna, souqs, and hammams - but not a cat. La means la. Darija lessons start next week, and I will make sure our first lesson covers all of the possible ways to firmly decline a request.

Learning to tie a scarf in the "Berber way"

Tagine, Couscous, Pastilla

Jardin Majorelle

Medina Donkey