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
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
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
No comments:
Post a Comment