Catching Up – Photos to Follow

In the interest of not falling so far behind that I give up completely, I’m writing this post to catch up on all that we’ve been doing.  I’ll add some photos later.

Last Friday we scrapped our plans to go to Essaouira because driving from Marrakech to Mohammedia via Essaouira would have taken us 6-7 hours and as usual we didn’t get an early start.  I like to travel at my own pace but that’s extremely hard to do when there’s an entourage involved.  It is 5 hours later here than in Massachusetts, and like the last time we came, our internal clocks really haven’t adjusted.  Without an alarm we wake up around 10, and end up staying up until 2 or 3 a.m.  That seems to be the normal Moroccan schedule anyway.

Instead of going to Essaouira, Ben hung out at the pool with the kids (photos of the pool here, and photos of the hotel here), and I went into the Marrakech medina (old city) with everyone else.  We went to the souk to do a little shopping, and I bought some AWESOME old locks and keys.  That may seem like a weird thing to buy but not if you know me.  One of the locks is from a bag used on camels in the Sahara.  All of the locks are very old and beautiful (at least to me).  We bought a few other things but the effort to bargain, especially in the extreme heat, took its toll.

We went back to the hotel to collect the kids and Ben, and headed north to Mohammedia.  I am not exaggerating when I say that the breeze blowing in the car window felt like a hair dryer on the hot setting.  It had to have been over 100 degrees, but in Morocco I never know what the temperature is or what time it is, and sometimes I don’t know what day it is.  I’ll have to bring a watch and a thermometer next time.  Or not.  We arrived back in Mohammedia without incident.

Saturday we went to Casablanca to see the Hassan II mosque (photos here) which has extremely big doors to match everything else about the place, which is the biggest mosque in Africa.  Then we went to the “fixed price” store to buy some things to take home.  I would prefer to wander through the souks but I like to do it on my own and I have had no alone-time since arriving in Morocco.  I remember when I lived alone Ben’s family felt sorry for me.  I don’t mind being alone at all…although I barely remember what it’s like.

Sunday we had plans to go back to the souk to deliver some photos that we took last week, but my portable printer died.  We had a quiet day and I got some work done.  The aunties took the girls to the market to buy each of them a Moroccan outfit – a caftan, shoes, and belt for $20.  That night was my nephew Amine’s 11^th birthday party.  Everyone got dressed up for the birthday celebration, which started very late – around 10 p.m.  There were decorations and a cake, but it is not traditional to give birthday gifts here.  There was plenty of singing and dancing, but I finally had to call it a day around 1:30 a.m.  It’s much cooler here than in Marrakech, but it was still steamy with all the dancing and carrying on.  I went to our apartment for something and it was so cool and peaceful I couldn’t resist.

Monday morning I took Aliya and Norah to the hammam, along with two of my sisters-in-law.  The hammam is the public bath, and it’s an important part of Moroccan life.  All of our apartments have showers, but everyone still seems to go to the hammam about once a week.  The mens’ and womens’ hammams are separate, and there are 3 tiled rooms which range in temperature from warm to hot.  We settled in the middle room and the ladies who work in the hammam started bringing us 5-gallon buckets of hot water.  Everyone sits on rubber mats on the floor, or on little plastic stools, and spends about an hour scrubbing, shaving, shampooing, and socializing.  Aliya and Norah seemed a little freaked out by all of the Moroccan ladies in their underwear scrubbing each other, but I immediately recognized one of the hammam workers – Malika, from a previous trip.  For a couple bucks Malika used a scrubby mitt to exfoliate me, and let’s just say she left almost no stone unturned.  The hammam is an experience that can’t be missed when traveling in Morocco.

That afternoon we were invited to lunch with Ben’s cousin and her family at a restaurant.  Eating at a restaurant is definitely not a common occurrence here.  The highlight of the meal was the special bread which arrived at the table warm and with stones embedded in it from the wood-burning oven (photos here).  I took the kids to see the ladies making the bread behind the restaurant.  It was SO DELICIOUS.  One of the women we had lunch with was wearing a beautiful shirt that was like a Moroccan caftan, except sleeveless and tunic-length.  I asked where she bought it and it turned out that a seamstress had made it for her.  I had to have one (or two…or three)

But first…the kids had seen what can only be described as giant hamster balls in a swimming pool, at the grocery store (photos here).  Their aunties wouldn’t let them go in…I think because if ourkids suffocated in a giant hamster ball they didn’t want it to happen on their watch.  So we took them and paid 20 dirhams ($2.30) each to have them sealed in a giant plastic ball (like a beach ball), which was then blown up with a leaf blower and pushed into a shallow pool.  They are begging to go again so apparently it was more fun than it sounds.

After stocking up on some groceries we came home and found the house almost empty.  I don’t think the house is ever actually empty but all of the aunties had gone to their own house a block away.  We went to visit and they started preparing dinner despite our insistence that we weren’t hungry, since it was after 10 p.m.  While dinner was in the works they started singing a song that involved drumming, dancing, and exuberant laughing.  I have a great video of it which I will post when I’m back in the land of high-speed internet.

Now, back to my new wardrobe.  Ben and I got up early (7:30) today and went to Casablanca with his brother, sister, and brother-in-law.  We found the area that sells fabric, and went from stall to stall looking at what each merchant had available.  The first guy showed us so many different fabrics that I felt like I had to buy from him, and I bought two pieces of fabric there.  I found another one that I loved at a different merchant, for a total of $80.  The pieces of fabric are pre-cut to about 3 meters.  While we were in the fabric souk a fight broke out between two vendors who were setting up their tables in the middle of the alley.  Now I know where Ben gets his quick temper, although he has never hit me with a board.  At least not yet.

I had a couple of super-soft Moroccan blankets on my list, so we bought those, and headed back to the car.  My brother-in-law stopped for a sardine sandwich and in the process of buying it, the circuit board fell out of his key.  He didn’t realize it until he tried to open the car, and then he ran back and found the missing piece but the doors wouldn’t open.  We tried to use the key instead of the transmitter, but that didn’t work either.

Standing on the sidewalk in the middle of Casablanca with a bunch of bags and a car with only one key in existence and no way to open the doors, I reached relaxation nirvana.  Those of you who know me will realize how amazing this is.  I wasn’t upset, worried, or anxious.  I simply accepted that we would eventually get the car unlocked and get home.  I felt like a kid riding in her parents’ car during a snowstorm…the parents are white-knuckled while the kid is admiring how pretty the snow is as it flies at the windshield, without a care in the world.  I need to figure out how to take this back to the states with me.

While Ben’s brother and brother-in-law went off down the street to look for a solution, the rest of us went to a café for my favorite coffee – cahwah nus-nus.  I did comment on the inefficiency of the brothers’ plan – just walk around and ask people if they know who fixes electronic keys (my alternative plan would be to find an internet café and Google “Casablanca locksmith”), but it didn’t really matter to me.  I enjoyed my coffee and my pastry, and had another adventure with the special Moroccan toilet and the lady who guards it.  Then we went back out on the street to wait, and after about 1 hour total, the guys showed up with a working electronic key and we were on our way.  “Makayn mooshkeel” means “not a problem,” and I use it a lot.

When we got back to Mohammedia we went straight to the seamstress, in hopes that she had nothing better to do for the next 6 days than make my tunics.  She served us fresh juice (despite our protestations again – protesting against Moroccan hospitality is pointless), showed us some of her work, took a bunch of measurements and told us that when her son comes to visit her from Florida in a month, she will send the tunics back with him.  Makayn mooshkeel!

Tonight we (with our entourage of 12) went to a circus in parking lot of the same grocery store with the giant hamster balls.  It was actually pretty good – everyone’s favorite was the 4 motorcycles going at top speed around the inside of a steel sphere.  There were also 4 tigers (2 were obviously VERY well fed), ponies, zebras, crocodiles, snakes, a few aerial acts plus a high-wire act and a trapeze group, some clowns, fire-eaters, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some things.  Before it started there was a guy working the crowd with a lion cub and a camera, but we didn’t have our photo taken.  (There are a few circus photos and a video here.)

We’re nearing the end of our adventure in Morocco…one more shopping day tomorrow and then Ramadan begins!

I will post some photos tomorrow!