Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Chefchauen, an entire city to match my eyes

Sabah al Kher everyone,

I left off my last blog post with my friends and I departing for Chefchauen, or Chauen as it is called by many Moroccans.
Chauen is a five hour bus trip from Rabat, and this is not a normal five hour bus trip, this is a Moroccan five hour bus trip. That means winding mountain roads, with no guard rails, with a driver who in my mind must have a death wish.

Located in the Northern Rif mountains, in what I have explained was former Spanish Morocco, which means French is not the lingua franca here, Spanish is used for cross cultural communication, which makes me wish i had payed a little more attention in Spanish class.

We got to our hotel late on Friday night, and we were standing outside of the bus station next to a group of tourists from Spain. Unlike busy cities, taxis do not run constantly in smaller towns, and we were having difficulty finding one. Finally we called our hotel, and they sent a car to get us, for a cost of 40MAD, which after arriving at the hotel a few minutes late, I decided was too much.

After checking in, we grabbed some food, and settled in for the night

Waking up the next morning, I realized the water was cold, not just cold, ice cold. Upon asking the man at the desk he informed me the hotel only had a total of 15 liters of hot water...That is 15 one liter water bottles.

Starting our day in the medina was very interesting, everything is blue, the walls, the stairs, the doors, blue is everywhere, which is great because its my favorite color.
The food in Chauen was some of the best I have eaten in Morocco, I think that is mostly because the Spanish influences have given it a western flair that I have missed.








Chauen is situated in the Rif mountains, the actual Marijuana capital of Morocco. Though officially illegal here, it makes up a substantial portion of the economy for those who live in the Rif. We were actually offered a tour including transportation of a Marijuana plantation for only 100MAD, since we were't going to buy anything. We told the man we would consider it and thought that we would avoid the potentially dangerous situation.
Concert on Saturday night

We opted instead to go to a large park, famous for its waterfall. Our hotel deskman offered to call his friend to drive us for 500MAD, and said that was as low as we would be able to find. Some of my friends here don't mind paying the first asking price, as it is significantly less than it would cost in the US, but my mind now works in Dirhams, and I insisted we look for a taxi ourselves, finding one in a few minutes to take us there and back for only 250MAD.
This again took us on a mountain drive, with lack of guardrails, sharp turns, and a driver who seemed to think a winding mountain road was similar to I-95.
After a terrifying half hour of driving, we arrived at the park, which seemed to be very popular with both tourists and locals who were picnicking with their families.

We found out that the large waterfall is about a 90 minute hike from where we were, and we decided we would just walk around, following a beautiful river of clear water upstream.
The scenery was beautiful.









We planned on departing for Rabat on the 7am bust the next morning, waking up at six, we began the walk to the bus station and arrived by 6:40, only to find out that the first rate bus was sold out, and we would have to hope that we could get a seat on one of the budget bus companies.
We did, and when I say budget, this thing was seriously falling apart, the inside of the bus was not maintained, the air conditioning did not work, and someone was vomiting a few seats away...will always buy tickets in advance from now on.

I think this coming weekend we might stay in Rabat, we spend so much time traveling that I don't want to miss out on where we live.

Next weekend we begin our European adventure through Milan, Rome, Dublin and London

And the weekend after that I will be in Madrid

Time is flying here, as we enter our third month later this week

Bislama,
Kevin

Arabic word of the day
ماء- mA- Water

Monday, October 21, 2013

عيد مبارك! My First Eid In a Muslim Country

Aselamu Aleikum Everyone,

DISCLAIMER: An important part of Eid is the sacrifice of the ram, something that is uncommon to witness in America, there may be videos or photos in this post that some may find unsettling, but are now part of my experience in Morocco, and I will share them for those who wish to see.

I want to wish everyone a belated happy Eid-al-Adtha, the holiday commemorating Abraham sacrificing a ram, instead of his son Ishmael (Issac in Christian tradition).
 Omar with our rams
 Last minute purchases

Eid was something I have never experienced before coming to Morocco, and it was incredibly interesting, intriguing, and a glimpse into a tradition only experienced in Muslim countries.

The night before Eid, last Tuesday was when we realized how different the next few days would be, the usually busy streets, filled with vendors, and shoppers, were emptying as the day went on. The only businesses still operating were the knife vendors, the knife sharpeners, and the sweet sellers. There were literal mobs at the last few cookie stands open, as people tried to get what was left for the feast.
 Knife Sharpener 
Charcoal Salesman
Knives for sale
I went to bed late Tuesday night, anticipating that I would be able to sleep in the following morning, this was not the case. I was awoken by the children at around 8am to come downstairs for breakfast. Similar to how American schools have a winter break that coincides with Christmas, Morocco has a break during the week of Eid. Traditional families go to the mosque to pray before breakfast on Eid, my family does not really practice Islam and therefore did not. At breakfast we had fresh baked bread, and something similar to crepes, that I eat often here but have not yet learned the name of. Instead of the usual honey and jams provided, there was a butter-honey that was pretty good, but made me feel very unhealthy. The breads were also different then what we usually eat, these had spices such as rosemary baked into it, and were baked into the shape of what can be described as a star, the points representing the horns of the ram, the cookies were also shaped in this fashion.

Following breakfast we had some time before the king sacrifices the first ram on national television, unfortunately I caught the tail end of that and only saw the king departing the sacrifice site. Following the kings sacrifice, families may begin to sacrifice their rams (and sometimes bulls).

Our host father took us out into the street, where the skins of rams who had already been sacrificed were drying, and there was a large fire for the communal cooking of the heads was taking place.
After this site, we returned to the house.
 Communal fire

After another short pause in activity, the two butchers who would be sacrificing our rams arrived at the house, and we all went to the roof where our sacrifices were enjoying their last morning of freedom. As the butchers prepared the site, I watched on with curiosity.

Finally, it was time for the first ram, and I have to say, I was impressed with the efficiency, and humaneness of the operation. The rams throat was cut, it was bled out, before being hoisted up onto a tree limb for the butchering, which is done by blowing air into the carcass, to make skinning easier.
The whole thing was over in about twenty minutes, and the entire family helped, from the mother cleaning up, the father helping hold the ram, and even Omar (5), my youngest host brother, imitating his father's every action, trying to stay out of the way, and act like he was heavily involved.








The second ram was done in much the same way, after a resharpening of knives, and cleaning of the site.

The organs were removed, and placed in a large bucket to be taken to the kitchen, and the meat was left to drain.

How it works is on day one of Eid, the organs of the ram are eaten, stomach, lung, heart, liver
And on the second day, you eat the actual meat.
A third or the ram goes to the family, a third to the poor, and a third is given away to friends.


Lunch is prepared inside the house, in the middle of the living room on a small grill, with my host father making organ shishkabobs which I did not eat. Thank God my host mother served chicken as well.

Dinner was also organs in a sort of stew, I again declined and opted for the chicken.

Day two was similar to day one, including the early breakfast, and later than normal lunch and dinner, this time however we ate meat shishkabobs and kefta(ground lamb patties).
My host father took the family to the beach to play soccer, something very common on Eid.

That was pretty much my entire experience, some family members came to visit, but not as many as I expected, supposedly this had to do with my host mother's mother being away on the hajj, but I am not entirely sure.

On Thursday I was able to skype with the solid six from back home, and it was great to talk them all and catch up with what is going on back at Catholic

On Friday friends and I departed for Chefchauen, which I will blog about hopefully later today so I will finally be caught up.

Allah Ma3ck
Kevin

Arabic Word of the Day
كبش- Kbsh- Ram

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Assilah, a weekend at the beach

Asleamu Aleikum Everyone,

This is going to be a relatively short post about last weekend, and then I will get to my post about the Eid holiday that we have just finished.

Last weekend was very relaxing, about 18 of us boarded a northbound train and headed to Assilah, a beautiful beach town located right on the coast. We had rented a traditional Moroccan house for the weekend.

After the three hour train ride, we arrived at the station to find only one small taxi (3 person) running people back and forth between the station and the Medina. A group of us decided to walk, and we made it most of the way before scoring another taxi to take us into town.
We made it to the house and we were all very impressed with how clean and well maintained the Medina was. There was no trash in the streets, no strange smells, just walls painted blues and reds, with intricate murals.



An interesting thing about Morocco as I have stated before is the diver languages here. The Spanish had colonized both the far north and the deep south of Morocco, and we were in the former Spanish part. That means very few people speak French, and Spanish is the language of tourists here. A constant flow of tourists from Spain (Only about 1.5 hours away) keeps the language alive in Assilah.

Friday night was quiet, we went to a nearby beach, just outside of the Medina, with not as much trash as usual. I thought the water was going to be cold, but I was surprised how warm it was and jumped right in. After returning back to the house we ate a delicious dinner of pasta and homemade tomato sauce.






Saturday was a much busier day, after eating lunch, a couple of groups broke off to do a few different things. A group of us decided we would go to a place called Paradise Beach, supposedly the place to be in Assilah, we flagged down a taxi driver who told us it would be 300MAD for him to drive us out there, and wait for us to finish and drive us back. A man who ran horse carriages across the street told us he could have it done for 150MAD. Naturally we decided on the horse carriage, but we did not get into one of the nice Cinderella looking tourist carriages, the man let out a loud whistle, and another man came galloping up, pulling his two wheel flatbed.

We all climbed aboard and held on for dear life as we traveled through the town, people laughing at us. It took a moment before I realized that the taxi driver was following us. The horse driver told me that the man was mad and had actually called the police because he felt cheated out of customers. As soon as he could the taxi driver passed us on the left, pulled around in front of us, perpendicular to the road, blocking all traffic. At this point the horse man told us to jump off and move fast, we took his advice and kept walking.

Eventually we passed a small group of kids around 12 years old playing soccer,as we were standing there asking a man for directions, the kids soccer ball kept getting closer and closer, before finally one of them kicked it very hard into one of the girls.
I grabbed the ball, thanked the man for the directions and we began walking again. It took a minute before the kids realized what I was doing. They ran up and asked for their ball back, and I explained that they could have it only after apologizing to the girl, the loudest of them kept denying it was him, but eventually apologized and I threw their ball in the other direction.
I thought this was the end of the incident until I realized they were following us, and we were walking into an unpopulated field. Then I saw something land next to us, and realized they were throwing rocks. They never got closer enough to actually hurt us, but it was a moment for alarm.

As we continued down the coast, we came upon a group of Moroccans jumping from the rocks into the ocean, we decided it looked like fun and headed down to join them.
After reaching the jump spot, I was a little nervous looking down and seeing the bottom in some places, and noticing the Moroccans would only jump the 20 feet down to the bottom after a wave had just come into the crevice.


After watching one of my friends jump, I decided it was safe enough and followed him in, and after a few more jumps from most everyone, we just hung out on the rocks for awhile, before deciding it was time to head back. After crossing what seemed to be an even muddier field and interacting with some not so friendly animals, we all had a fun, more American Saturday night then we are used to in this country.


We woke up Sunday morning to a cleaning lady telling us that the next tenants would be there in two hours, and she was there to prepare the house, this got everyone out of bed as a few people started to cook the massive breakfast we had prepared for. After eating people grabbed their stuff and headed for the train station. This is where we met our horse driver friend for the second time, after he galloped up and tried to take us to the train station for free. 8 of us hopped up into the cart and the horse had trouble even walking, but eventually the driver got him to gallop and we were on our way. It was a crazy ride, but a memory worth having.

We hopped on the train, where at first we had trouble finding a seat in second class, but eventually squeezed into a cabin with an older American couple who had interesting stories to tell.

I will post about Eid tomorrow

Selam,
Kevin

Arabic word of the Day
حصان- HeSahen- Horse

Thursday, October 10, 2013

The tallest mountain in North Africa, why not

Aselamu Aleikum Everyone,

I apologize for my absence for some time, I was very sick earlier this week and am finally feeling better.

This past weekend a group of friends and myself decided we would climb the tallest mountain in North Africa (22nd highest in Africa), Jibal Toubkal. Jibal Toubkal stands at 13,671 feet, and is the highest point between Morocco and Ethiopia.

Our weekend started on Thursday, leaving after our first class for the train station, packing as lightly as possible. The first setback we had was one of our friends forgot all of his money back at his house, causing us to miss the train we had planned on taking and set us back about three hours.
After finally boarding a train and taking our seats in second class, we settled in for a mostly uneventful "4 hour" (at least 5, probably more) ride.
Our second set back came as we were ending our journey and gathering our bags before reaching our stop. As I swung my backpack on, my sleeping bag went sliding out from its holder on my bag, and rolled right out of the open train door, a wonderful treasure for some little Moroccan boy to find the next morning.

After reaching the city of Marrakesh we at the KFC in the train station, exciting at first, and then disappointing, the trend when eating "American style" food here in Morocco.
After eating we left the train station and began the process of bargaining for a taxi to take us to the village of Imlil, about 1.5 hours away. The later it got the more unsure I became that a driver would be willing to drive into the mountains this far into the night.
After taking a taxi from the train station to the "taxi plaza" (where many taxis congregate waiting for customers), we finally secured one to take us to Imlil for 300MAD.
After starting our ride and as we began to ascend from the city of Marrakesh into the mountains, our driver pulled over in small town, talked to a man in another taxi, and then informed us that we would now change taxis so he would not have to drive all the way to Imlil. Now in our third taxi, we finally made it to the village shortly after midnight.
As I have found to be the case in Morocco, it is sometimes the passengers responsibility to know the location of your destination, and the taxi is providing only the driver service. So if he does not know where your hotel is, and you only know the name of it, you are out of luck.
A man in a car who saw us standing outside our taxi pulled over, luckily he spoke English, he also knew of our hotel, and he directed a local passerby, named Mohammed, to escort us there. This was very helpful as Mohammed, like many in the mountainous areas of Morocco is Amazigh (Berber), and only speaks Berber.
Upon reaching our hotel,  which we would never have found without the help of our guide,and Mohammed waking its owner, we finally were able to climb into bed and go to sleep.

Waking up the next morning was amazing, and the night before was the best sleep I have had thus far in Morocco, I think it was the mountain air.
Walking outside onto our terrace, we were able to see our surroundings that were invisible to us the night before. It was beautiful with mountains all around us, snow capped peaks in the distance, and small villages dotting the sides of mountains.
From the Hotel
After a fast breakfast of bread and tea, we paid our bill, said out thank yous, and went into the village where we rented a mule and its handler, sleeping bags, and two tents, and began our ascent of Jibal Toubkal.
Ready to go

The ascent is split into two parts, about a 7 hour trek from Imlil to the refuge base camp, and then about a 3 hour climb to the summit.

The ascent to the refuge is split between slight and moderate inclines on rocky trails with beautiful scenery all around you, and the sound of water rushing, the trail is simple and straight forward, with small huts dotting the way where you can buy water and snacks.

After a very long and exhausting trek to the refuge, I decided to pay for a bed rather then sleep in the tents we had rented, this was a very strange experience as I had never stayed at something like this. The refuge was full of people from all over the world, who had come to Morocco primarily to climb Jibal Toubkal, many who were in training to climb Mt.Everest, and other peaks. And then you had us, 5 kids in basketball shorts and t-shirts, who thought it would be an easy weekend hike.
 The Refuge

We agreed with a Berber at the refuge for him to guide two of us to the summit at 4am, and two others would depart at 6am(they were faster then us). When 4am came and passed, and it was nearly 5am, another Berber exited the guide house to inform us that our guide was sick and would not be able to take us up the mountain (I knew he was just unsatisfied with the price we agreed on). After contemplating what to do for a bit, we walked outside where we met two Moroccan men who were also climbing the mountain, and did not have a guide either, they spoke great English, and one also spoke Berber, we waited together before a large commercial group of hikers was set to depart and we latched on the end of their train.

We immediately realized that this leg of the hike was a different ballgame. Hike is actually not the correct word for it, climb is more like it. For much of it we were climbing, hands and legs, up large rocks up an incredibly steep ascent...in the dark. After going like this for awhile my friend and I stopped for a break, not wanting to hold the Moroccan men back, we told them to keep going, they refused at first, but we convinced them and they insisted we take one of their lights, which we had not even thought to bring with us.

After awhile we began our ascent again, only to figure out that we had lost the trail, and what we were now climbing was not large rocks, but loose rock. The kind of rock that if a certain one moves, it could trigger another movement sending you 500 meters to your death. The higher we climbed the more we realized the danger we had gotten in ourselves into.
We reached a larger rock and were able to sit, and we decided that we would wait for daylight before making any further decisions because climbing either up or down would be too dangers in the dark.
As light came I was able to see the trail below us and where we had missed it. And while we were not far from where it started above us, to reach it we had to continue ascending the loose rock. As I sat there, it was one of the  moments in life where you realize that we are mortal, and as I weighed the time it would save me to climb up to the trail against my mother's reaction to my death, I decided the smartest thing to do would be to slowly climb back down until I reached the trail and then reascend safely.

My friend decided to climb up the loose rock to the trail, and twenty minutes later, I joined him after taking the trail. We continued to climb until we reached a saddle between two peaks, where we hoped it would flatten out a bit. It didn't.

After talking with two climbers who had begun their descent, we decided that we had come as far as we would go. We were roughly 300 meters and about 1.5 hours from the top, but we were exhausted and we still had to hike down the entire mountain that day.
The Highest Point we reached on Toubkal

So in the end, I did not make it to the summit, and I am okay with that, because I have an awesome life, and I am proud of how far we got, and not making it to the summit didn't kill me.
Looking up













We descended the summit climb, met up with our other friend who stayed at the refuge, and then departed for Imlil. On the way back down we met a Christian named Dominic, on the first day of a personal pilgrimage through the mountains, he was an amazing person with incredible faith.

We made it back to Imlil fairly early, and we decided we would attempt to make it back to Marrakesh and try to catch the 8:55pm train for Rabat, we made it, and after another (this time well deserved) stop at KFC, we were on a train bound for home.

We sat in our compartment with three Moroccan men, and enjoyed the phenomenon of Morocco, becoming friends with anyone you are in close proximity with, especially on the trains.

We made it back to Rabat at around 2am, and this ended our exhausting weekend.

I woke up later that night tremendously ill, I won't go into details.

One aspect of culture I want to talk about today is the seemingly lack of ability by Moroccans to estimate time. The train is a great example, if you simply ask someone how far the train is from the next stop, they may say twenty minutes, and in reality it is usually more than an hour. Or on the mountain, when inquiring how far to the refuge, in a matter of five minutes you could hear 30 minutes, an hour, even two hours. I am not sure if Moroccans are just bad at guessing, maybe it is the language barrier, or maybe it is because Moroccans use time very loosely in their own lives, it is very frustrating to an American.


That is all for now
This weekend we have rented a beach house in Asilah for a nice break, today I also booked my tickets for break (Rome/Milan Italy, London England, and Dublin Ireland)
And this week is Eid Al Adha- which entails slaughtering a ram in the living room

So lots to come

I have also uploaded all pictures I have taken thus far onto facebook, so you can view them there, maybe I will see about making a post with all of them on there if possible.

Allah Ma3ck

Kevin

Arabic Word of the Day
جبل- Jibal-Mountain