Milawi, Rain, and Berbers

Aselamu Aleikum Everyone,

This past weekend was spent in Ein Louh, a little village high up in the Middle Atlas Mountains.

Our weekend started Friday morning, departing Rabat at around 10:30am, the drive was mostly uneventful until it began to rain and thick fog set it. I have mentioned in my other posts the road conditions in rural Morocco, and when I say conditions, I mean lack of conditions. Many of the roads are dirt or crumbling asphalt, that wind through these mountains with no guard rail and very little room for a two lane road. So when the fog rolled it, and you could not see in front of our van, it got a little scary.

We made it to Ein Louh by 3:30 in the afternoon, and entered the SAFAR center, an association partnered with the local community to bring in tourists and provide income for a deeply impoverished region. Here we met our guides Zacheria and Hassan. Zacheria now lives between New York and Ein Louh, and Hassan spoke perfect English, as he was raised by an American Christian missionary and spent a few years in the United States.

The first thing I noticed when I entered the building was the lack of heat, which is common in Morocco, but I would argue heat is necessary in the mountains, where winter is long and harsh. Instead they had a wood burning stove, which reminded me of cabin camping with the Scouts.

We then waited to be picked up by our host families that we would be staying with all weekend.
A note on the people of Ein Louh and the Middle Atlas Mountains in general, these are not Arab people such as in Rabat and other parts of Morocco, these are Amizigh people (Berbers) the indigenous population of Morocco before the Arab conquest centuries ago, while they are Muslim, they have a different culture and a different language than the Moroccan Arabs.

We were brought to our host family by a neighbor or a cousin...I am not sure, and I came to learn that our host family was actually not Berber, but Arabs and spoke Darija (Moroccan Arabic), this still proved a bit problematic as I speak Fosa Arabic which much of the older rural population cannot speak but for the most part understand.

There was a father, a mother, two twin sisters and an older brother. As soon as we got there we were served bread, cakes, Milwi (which I have everyday for breakfast, it is similar to a pancake and was delicious), and Mint tea as usual.

Following this tea time, we went to a nearby Auberge (hotel) for a Berber music demonstration, in an unheated room.

Returning home we were fed a dinner of kefta (beef with seasoning) and soup, before eventually going to sleep in the only heated room in the house, and being given the two spots closest to the stove.

Saturday morning we woke up to find that it was still raining, and we set out to our meeting point before boarding our buses to take us to the starting area for our "hike".
I use quotation marks because in America you hike somewhere that you cannot drive, here they dropped us off on a road, to walk 1.5 hours in the rain to a village that they drove to slowly behind us, I thought that was a little unnecessary.

Now thoroughly soaked we reached a small village, where would later eat a Tajine lunch as they attempted to sell us woven goods from their women cooperative.

From the village we hiked up a ridge through beautiful deep green scenery, past donkeys, and goats traversing the rock side, seeing frogs, snails, waterfalls that dropped hundreds of feet, it was beautiful and made up for the rain.

We returned back to our homestays where we just tried to stay warm as we watched Arabic cooking shows.

Sunday morning, we board our buses and met up with three Peace Corps volunteers who told us about their experiences in Morocco, certainly something to think about for the future.

We then headed to Azrou, a larger city where we ate lunch and then kept continuing towards Rabat, but first we stopped to hang out with the wild monkeys, known as the Barbary Macaques that inhabit these mountains. Most of them are pretty friendly.

I also got to play with the dog, I tried to bring it back on the bus with me but the bus driver did not like it, dogs are haram(forbidden) in Islam and considered very dirty, I reluctantly returned the dog to the woods.

We continued on towards Rabat arriving home around 5pm, a slow but nice weekend.

I want to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving on Thursday

Selam all,
Kevin

21 Days till home

Paris Next weekend 

Arabic word of the day
قرد-KuRd-Monkey


A video of a protest that I witnessed, very scary to see protesters running towards you, throwing things at the police, and the police chasing them in riot gear

Buenos Dios Amigos, A weekend in Spain

Hola Everyone,

I know I have been getting very slow with these blogs as the semester is nearing its end. We are now down to 22 days until I return home.

In this post I will talk about the events of two weekends ago, and hopefully tomorrow I will get around to posting about this past weekend.

Lets start on Thursday 11/14, this marked the day of Ashura. A holiday celebrated by Shia Muslims for a reason that I have yet to figure out. The thing is Morocco is a Sunni Muslim country, and the holiday is celebrated differently. Here they celebrate it by giving small gifts, eating nuts and raisins, and more scarily setting off fireworks everywhere.
The State Department explicitly warns of terrorist activities in North Africa, and a holiday marked by small explosions is not comforting, as the idea of setting fireworks off in a safe area does not exist, often with M80s being set off right next to you as you walk by. Scary

On Friday 11/15, after our morning Arabic class, I finished packing my things and we made our way to the taxi station and headed to the Rabat Airport. It was a little weird, going back to the airport, the same place I entered Morocco more then three months ago.
I do take pride in the way my bargaining abilities have developed. While some of my peers here think in terms of the American dollar, I think in Dirham...and I will bargain down to what I believe a Moroccan would pay, and I am not afraid to walk away. So we got the taxi rate down below what the sign posted there says is the "Standard rate"....like I have said before, nothing in Morocco has a fixed price.

We got to the airport with plenty of time before our flight, after checking in we waited at passport control for about twenty minutes, as the passport control officer was at lunch. After finally getting through passport control we got to "security", which typically Moroccan, does not hold a candle to American security.

We landed in Spain where we encountered the easiest commute thus far in my European travels between the airport and our hostel. We were able to do the entire journey via metro, for only five euro and less than one hour.
We arrived at our hostel and found out that I was not in the same room as my friends, because I reserved separately. While I was annoyed at first, it worked out in the end, because after the first night, everyone but one other guest left our six person room, leaving me with plenty of space.

One of the first things I noticed in Madrid was the trash everywhere....piles of it.
It was quickly explained to me that the garbageman were on strike, and were only legally required to do the bare minimum of cleaning.

Our first night started with dinner at a Spanish restaurant, it was here we discovered that the bread and water on the table are not free....typical Europe. The only good thing about eating on this continent is that tips aren't a thing.

Spain's night life starts late...really late
The pub crawl didn't start until 1am. While most of our group decided to go to bed, I was able to convince Dom to go with me. And we had a blast. We had so much fun that we ended up getting back to the hostel at around 6:30am.
After a few hours of sleep, my roommates began there exodus out of the room and were determined to keep me awake, even after I let them know how I felt about the lights being turned on.

That Saturday, the art museums were free to students, so we decided we would go to the Prado....a famous one. I really do try and appreciate art, but I just can't, and I found the cafe more interesting.

Stumbled upon a group of Spanish and Italian Scouts

Immediately after leaving the Prado I headed for a church that was within eyesight. This has become a European hobby of mine, and I made my way up to the door of Saint Jerome's. I never had to open the door, because as I reached for the handle, a wedding party began to emerge from the church, and all of the sudden I was in the midst of photographers, shortly followed by a bride and groom. This looked like a royal wedding, talk about bourgeois, these people were dressed in clothes that I am sure cost more than what I make in a year. (After pushing through the crowd and into the Church, and listening to the information audio recording on the wall, I found out that the church is historically used by the Spanish Royal Family...so it is very possible I stumbled into a royal wedding).

We ate lunch at an Indian restaurant.....I did not like it

After this, some of our group continued on to another art museum, and two of us headed back to the hostel to partake in one of the best aspects of Spain, siesta. A three hour nap period in the afternoon.
Post nap, we headed to an indoor tapas market, the name escapes me.

This was another interesting aspect in Spain...tapas.

I got to Spain thinking a tapas is a food, but its not, its a type of food.
It is common for a group of people to order multiple tapas, which is like a small appetizer, and all these small appetizers make up a meal.
After the marketplace we went to dinner at a tapas bar, which sold small beers at inflated prices and served things I did not care to eat, so I held off and got some Chinese food later.

We called it an early night, after hanging out with one of the girls friends who studies in Madrid.

Sunday morning we headed to the Madrid Cathedral for mass, a beautiful church with a medallion dedicated to Saint Mary that the people of Madrid have an incredibly powerful devotion to.

Following mass we headed to lunch, to get paella, a traditional Spanish rice, cooked in a deceptively shallow pan mixed with spices, meats and vegetables.
We then headed towards the Spanish royal palace, which I toured for only 6 Euro

For dinner that night we headed to the Dubliner, supposedly an authentic Irish pub, it was disgusting, and I would never eat there again.

 On Monday we went to the Corpus Christi Monastery, a community of cloistered nuns famous for their baked goods that you receive through a rotating window.

We then had a snack of churros and chocolate syrup, authentically Spanish.

We then took the metro back to the airport, where we boarded a plane and found ourselves back in Rabat again.

Thus far, Madrid was my least favorite European city, I found it to be unimpressive, without much to see, and it was made worse by the 72 hours of constant rain. But I am still glad we went.
I am beginning to lose track of the amount of flights I have been on.

Selam,
Kevin

Arabic Word of the Day
طائرة- taEra- Airplane

Living out a suitcase, 12 days in Europe

Aselamu Aleikum Everyone, Buongeorno, Beannachtaí, and Hello,

I am sorry that I have not been on here for awhile but I just returned from a twelve day Eurotrip that took us to five different European cities in three countries. It was an amazing trip full of amazing memories, great experiences, and great people.

Let me break it down city by city.

Our trip started at 4am in the morning on Friday, November 1rst, with a one hour taxi ride from our neighborhood in Rabat to the airport in Casablanca, Morocco's largest. As is custom in America, we figured we would need about two hours to get through security for an international flight. This was an expectation we should not have had.
Airport Security was at the door of the airport, you go through a metal detector and put your bag in an Xray, sounds standard. But it wasn't. The man was hardly watching the xray machine, and I actually set the metal detector off and was told to continue on anyway. No liquid requirements, no removal of shoes or extensive body scans, it took two minutes....and the things is, nothing bad happened. So you ask yourself is America too tough or is Morocco to lax.

While waiting for our plane we attempted to get breakfast, this did not work out because the airport was extremely expensive. While this is natural, let me put it into perspective. A cookie in the medina where I live costs 1 MAD, a Cookie in the Casablanca Airport costs around 40 MAD...which is only about $4.00USD, but in relation it is forty times the amount it costs on the outside, which is insane. For 40MAD you can almost buy a train ticket, take numerous cab rides, or buy a relatively nice dinner.

We boarded our flight to the Milan airport which became our European base of operations so to speak, we had to switch airports in Milan which was a 1.5 hour bus ride. After another three hours in the Milan Airport we flew to Rome, took a car to our apartment, and officially began our sight seeing the next morning.

 Fountains with drinking water all over Rome

Originally intending on an early start, we were screwed up by the one hour time difference, so we woke up later then we had hoped.
After dressing we had a brunch of Pizza at a nearby cafe. The pizza is quite different from American pizza, it is thin crust and very light, but very good. I immediately started feeling the effect of the Euro on my wallet, as everything was more expensive then it would be in America, and certainly more then Morocco.

We headed to the nearby Vatican and entering Saint Peter's square was amazing, we were immediately swamped by people wanting to be our guides. While I was reluctant at first, my friends fell for the tour guides tricks and persuasions, and we all coughed up 35Euro for a tour of the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel.

While this is a lot, and technically the Vatican tour does not cost this much, it was worth it to be able to skip the lines and have a tour guide with us, instead of just wandering the museums by ourselves. While I was not a huge fan of the museums, it was an experience seeing thousands of years of world history. The tour ended in the Sistine Chapel, where I was in awe, just being in the room where the Holy Father is elected and where great men have sat.

 Sistine chapel

We then wandered into Saint Peter's Basilica, the largest church in the world, and I was again shocked by its size and beauty. A few of us went to confession which is offered in numerous languages.

This concluded our first day in Rome
The following morning we woke up, and three of us headed back to Saint Peter's for morning mass, after getting held up in the "security" (just about as secure as the Moroccan airport) line, we continued into the church and attended mass. Immediately after this, Dom and I paid the 7 Euros to take the elevator and 330 steps to the top of the Dome of Saint Peters, providing amazing views of Saint Peters square. Following this, we returned to Saint Peter's Square and awaited the Angelus, the Papal Blessing at 12 noon, when Pope Francis appears from the Papal apartment to bless the faithful in the square below. It was a very powerful moment as the crowd erupted with cheers as the windows opened, and it confirmed my belief that the Church is truly lucky to have such a leader.

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After the Angelus we went back to our apartment briefly to meet up with the others and headed to lunch. Despite my warning of early closure of the Colosseum, my friends were determined to sit down and eat (I can hardly blame them as Italian food is amazing). We arrived at the Roman forum via the public buses and took in all the sights that is ancient Rome. We arrived at the Colosseum just as they were shutting the gates, and no amount of pleading gained us access. We had to take in the Colosseum from the outside, but from what I have heard, I did not miss much. After enjoying the ruins for a little while longer, we boarded a bus and headed back to our apartment to get dressed for dinner.

For dinner, three of us met up with Father James Williams, former president of Chaminade High School on Long Island, where my buddy Dom went to High School. I cannot say enough good things about this man, if the Church had 1,000 more priests like him we would be in great shape. Pious, spiritual, funny, friendly, and down to earth. He gave us a tour of a few more things including the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish steps, and some nearby churches. We had pasta and meat dinner accompanied by beer and wine, before going to get Gelatto and ending the night at a bar.

 Spanish Steps

Trevi Fountain with Father James

This ended our trip to Rome, which was overall a beautiful city, and as Father James said "Catholic Disneyland".
We left for the airport at 3am that night, and headed back to Milan, then caught a flight to London, and then another flight to Dublin.

I will go on record now and state that I was elated to be in Ireland. For as long as I could remember Ireland was where I wanted to visit the most, growing up in an Irish Catholic family, it had always been of great interest to me.

This puts us at Monday night, arriving in Dublin after an entire day of traveling. We took a bus to our hostel in the Temple Bar area of Dublin and went immediately went to a traditional Irish pub for dinner of fish and chips.

On our second day in Ireland, we boarded a train, and snaked our way through the Irish countryside to the city of Belfast in occupied Ireland. Belfast is a changing city, long rocked by actual warfare between the Catholic Irish Republican Army, and the Protestant loyalist paramilitaries. It is a long history that I will not go into. My mother was terrified of my journey to Belfast, As the peace accords have only been signed in recent years, and the memories of bomb blasts and shootings are still fresh in the minds of many in Northern Ireland, and still sometimes take place.

We were picked up at the airport by a taxi from Paddy's Black Tour Cab company, which was a great time. The cabby took us first into the Protestant side of the city, and then to the Catholic side to show us the differences. He provided an inside commentary of what life is actually like in Belfast, he was a Catholic, married to a Protestant, nearly unheard of in the area.
What people have to understand is there is an actual wall that divides the Catholics and the Protestants, with gates that close at night time and all weekend. Police are not welcome on either side of the wall, and are not trusted or respected by either side, especially the Catholics.
I will say that as an Irish-American it was amazing to be able to see these things I had only heard about, and as a Catholic it was a little eerie being on the protestant side of the wall after hearing the stories of the past.

 Murals on the Protestant Side

The Peace Wall

After the taxi tour, we took a low budget bus tour that was free....and I understand why, because it was not a good tour, but we saw some sights that we had missed earlier.
The cold weather started to take a toll on some members of our group, and we eventually split up, with Dom and I headed back to the Catholic neighborhood in West Belfast, and others staying in a cafe for the warmth and wifi.

Wandering around the neighborhood we got better views of the murals that line the walls, and I talked to some local people, to ask about the conflict, and the change that is taking place with both sides now looking towards peace.

The Catholic Side Murals

 The houses in both sides that back up to the wall have cages that cover the backyards, to deflect debris throw over the wall including bottles, brinks, rocks, and Molotov cocktails

The police vehicle used to drive inside the sectarian areas, highly armored

One of the Gates in the wall

We ended our day in Belfast at the Crown Saloon, one of the oldest pubs in Belfast, made famous by a crown at the door, which was used to show your political affiliation (walk either around or over the crown).

We then caught a train back to Dublin, ending our day in a changing city, where life is still touched by conflict.

The next day we started with a tour of Dublin, which was free and very good, it took about three hours and explained the historical importance of Dublin from British occupation, till present day. It also stopped by Trinity College.

After lunch we headed over to the old Jameson Whiskey factory to learn about the process of making Jameson Whiskey and becoming a certified Jameson taste tester.

The night ended with a pub crawl through five pubs and run by the same company that we had taken our walking tour with. We all had a good time and it was certainly worth the 12 Euro ticket.

Our final day in Dublin began with breakfast and then we headed over to the Guinness factory to learn about one of Ireland's gifts to humanity, Guinness, it was a huge facility with lots to do, including learning how to pour the perfect pint.

We took a horse carriage back to temple bar, gathered our belongings, got into a taxi, drove past the Church where Saint Patrick performed the first baptism in Ireland, and then headed to the airport to fly to London.

We reached London fairly late, arriving at the airport and taking a train to London, and then a taxi to the neighborhood where we were staying. One of my friends who went to high school in England, and has an aunt and uncle still there reached out to them and they were thrilled to have us stay with them. They were wonderful people and it was nice to be in someones home again.

I will say that I was not a huge fan of London, for a few reasons...firstly, the exchange rate. Elsewhere in Europe uses the Euro, which is only worth about .30 cents more than the American dollar. England uses pound sterling, which is nearly .80 cents more than the American dollar. This means things cost nearly twice as much, besides the inflated price of being in a city. It was insane.

Also London is a huge city, and transportation is not economical. Some sites were nearly 20 pound cab rides from each other, thats almost $40USD. The other cities we were in, we were able to walk to most everything...not in London.

England for me was kind of a catch up experience. We got Chinese food (twice), went to Chipotle, and even saw a movie (Captain Philips), I even got steak! First time eating beef since leaving the states.
In this way it was a nice experience.

One thing that I thought was interesting was that November is remembrance month in Great Britain, honoring those who died in the British Armed Forces. We were actually in the UK for their version of memorial day, but during November, everyone wheres a poppy flower. They sell them everywhere and the money goes to help military families. I just thought it was amazing how many people participated....literally everyone had a flower pinned to their chests.

We purchased a 48 hours, hop on-hop off bus tour pass, for 28 pounds. This was a good buy as the first day we rode the bus and saw the sites, and on the second day some of us took the bus again and we were able to get off at the stops that interested us.
We were finally able to go to mass in English, which was very nice.

After all splitting up on our last night to spend time with friends or family who were in London, we all went back to the house to pack as we had a very early flight, having a car pick us up 3am and take us to the airport about one hour away....like I said, London is big.

We flew into Milan for the very last leg our journey, arriving at the airport we placed our luggage in storage, and took the one hour bus to Milan for the day.....which was not that impressive.
Milan did not have nearly as much to see as Rome did, and we spent much of the short day wandering, before reaching Il Duomo, an absolutely gorgeous and huge Gothic style church in the middle of the Duomo Square, we attended the Italian language mass, which was quite crowded for a daily mass.

After this we headed back to the bus station, and took the bus back to the airport, where we decided to sleep for the night instead of paying for a hotel room, we scavenged food from the restaurants that were still open, found a little corner and everyone went to sleep for the night, only to be interrupted by the occasional janitor.

We woke up at 4am that morning and board a plane back to Casablanca.

In recap, it was an amazing experience, and by the end of it I was missing Morocco. The cities that we visited, even though three of them were English speaking, felt foreign to me. I missed the heat of Morocco, the power of the dollar, the people, and my room.

It was incredibly expensive, not so much the airfare as the spending money, but it was the first time I have traveled that extensively, and I am certain I will go back to both Ireland and Italy.

On another interesting note, I found the Scouts in Italy, Belfast, and London...by accident.

 Belfast Scout Shop

 Scouts in Saint Peter's Square

Lord Baden Powell Scouting Center, London England

We will be headed to Spain on Friday and I will blog again after that

Shokrun we Selam,
Kevin

Arabic Word of The Day
سفر- Safar- To travel