morocco concluded

Well I have now left Morocco and feel it necessary to see if I can sum up my experiences as they seemed to me.  My observations and conclusions may very well be wrong.

Morocco in 4 words.

Religion - everybody I met except one man claimed to be Muslim, though many  said they did not practice it strictly. Men spoke to me of the beauty of the Koran, how its words were poetic to the point of tears and brought peace and incite to the reader. When translated to English it lost half of the magic in the words. Few people drank alcohol and you would find people down on their rugs in the oddest places, like the middle of the pavement, depending on where it was when prayer time arrived. I found it nice taking part in the Ramadan fast, though I only did 6 days. It creates a great feeling of unity and brotherhood amongst all of the people when you starve together during the day, then feast together in the night, with strangers inviting you in as everyone is excited to feed you.

Simplicity - The Moroccan seems to have little in his life. Few possessions, few aspirations and few recipes (tarjine, tarjine, tarjine, cuscus, tarjine, tarjine and kababs). The houses both rich and poor often had no art or books, just space to eat and sleep and a tiny framed page of the Koran hanging high up where nobody can read it.

Sociability - The people love to sit and talk. Be it in a coffee shop, under a tree, on the street or on a rug in the home. They often  share meals with friends and work together. They always take at least 3 times the required workforce to do a job. One to supervise, one to hold the chair and one to change the light bulb. They don't seem to have much personal time, space or partake in solitary activities. I did miss seeing men and woman socializing together, which seems to be rare both inside and outside the family.

Family - Families live together, share money, and sleep in one room all in a small house. This is largely due to poverty but I think it is still a large part of the culture with a feeling of obligation to look after one another. I can't say I saw much jovial interaction amongst the family or partaking together in leisure activities.

The Music
I am told that lyrical the music is primarily about life, political issues and the rich and poor. Few songs are about love though I was given a translation of one song which went roughly along the lines of "I will never fall in love with an educated woman, but will find my woman in the home." I can't determine what emotion to tie to most of the music other than how one might feel after 10 days riding a camel. It is all rhythmically inspired by a steam train and you are up out of your seat every 10 seconds because you think the CD is skipping. Moroccan musicians have found that you can turn 2 seconds of composition into a 10 minute song simply by utilising the art of repetition. That or they have a very short memory span.

The Home
While the house of the poor is prisonly basic, a bare grey concrete shell with a rug on the floor and a gas bottle and hob in the corner, the house of the rich is decoratively the opposite and the palaces are a like a Muslim Christmas tree. Every possible surface, floor, wall, door, ceiling, is elaborately decorated to the point of nausea. It is as if each room held captive for 50 years an autistic mathematician with nothing but a scalpel and a paint brush. The surfaces are decorated in plaster reliefs, mosaics and painted carved wood. It is beautiful but you must look at the room through a toilet role to prevent a visual overload.

Overall I believe they are a tranquil, friendly, generous people with a diverse beautiful country. I loved my time in Morocco but for now am happy to be back in Europe where church bells ring and shops display Christmas trees and crucifixes for sale.

Burning sheep heads and offal Tarjine

I hitched north away from the warm desert, spent one night with my tent pitched in a village construction site then the next in a cold wet mountain village in the home of what appeared to be a very poor man. We squatted as it seemed, the night in his house with no power around a small fire and drank hot packet soup which to me was the taste of heaven purely because it was not tarjine or a date. Again this man asked for nothing in the morning and did not appear to steal anything from my bag. I bought us some bread for breakfast then hitched on through the snow stormed town of Efrane, receiving a ride just as frost bite was creeping into my hitch hiker thum and arrived in the great old city of Fes with Morocco's largest old Medina. Here I ended up giving the last of of money to a family in exchange to live 3 days with them and eat with them in their Medina home. The first night involved me helping them to move home and lug beds up 3 strorries of narrow stairway. Fes is the capital of artisan work and you can see lots of people working with bronze and silver. Unfortunately I arrived in the days of the Muslim holiday of Eid and nobody was working. This festival required that every muslim family must slaughter and consume a sheep. I was interested to spend the holiday with the famiily and see how the festival was played out. The night before the first day of the fest, I lay under my rug in the lounge with the rest of the family anticipating what I hoped tomorro would be the muslim form of Christmas. Through the window I could hear our sheep which had been purchaced that day, It made a few confused sheep noises from its unlikely new home in the household terrace 3 storries above the city street where it was securely tethered but seemed generaly indistressed and unaware its destiny being forfulled in the morning. The morning came with no special greeting or sign of joy shown by any member of the household. I sat on the roof top and hear the cries of one million sheep radiating from the streets across the entire city. The usual breakfast of bread and oil was served though a small piece of sponge cake was now present as well. At around mid day the other son arrived along with a man with a large knife. The sheep´s throat was slit there on the terrace  and we all watched casually as he kicked and gurgled for a few minutes while filling the floor with blood which the son encouraged me to join him in bathing my bare feet in. The in home butchery continued with the sheep being strung up, peeled of its skin and gutted. I took a walk in the streets and everywhere you looked were sheep skins and burning sheep heads. Back at home a casual unceremonious lunch of offal kebabs was cooked by the mother and eaten by the two sons and I. Later that night a potent dinner of offal tarjine was served. I was disappointed to see very little appearance of other family or friends, no extra time spent enjoying the company of others, very little expression of joy or any of the usual traits one would expect on christmas. This seemed to me, mealy an in home butchery exersize. Never the less it was educational. This night I slept as usual under my rug in the lounge with the rest of the family, except we were now joined by the sheep who lay along side me with two rigid muscular legs protruding from beneath a rug of his own. I woke in the morning to a terrible stomach ache, and offal tarjine diarrhea. The entire city smelt of offal tarjine and I was glad to hitch away into the mountains to Katama the home of hasheesh. This was the last day on my Moroccan visa and I was determined to reach the Spanish border of Cueta to avoid a fine.  At 5pm however I was still standing at the roadside in the cold in Katama unable to catch a ride towards Cueta which was still 3 hours away. A skin headed leather clad man pulled up in a car and offered to take me home for the night. I reluctantly accepted due to the cold night approaching and spent the night waited on hand and food by this enthusiastically hospitable gangsterly dressed host as he poured me tea, covered me in blankets, delivered a television to the foot of my bed and tried to force feed me goat kebabs which I ate very apprehensively with my still unsettled tummy. In the night I woke to vomit on his floor and he was up immediately to assist in cleaning up the mess. In the morning he did not accept my offer of apples, mentioned the word tranquelo and left me to hitch away to Spain hoping that one day over due on my visa would give me no hassles at the border.

Poisoness Dessert Vegetables and Berber Medicine

A few more days were spent in the home of a rastafarian man in the town of Tenirghir with a beautiful oasis of date palms and vege garden and mud kasbah buildings. My days however were spent at the bus station searching for english tourists for my host to take on excersions. I did sneak off into the garden at one stage only to recieve a phone call from my host saying come quick I have some clients. Ok I'm just around the corner I said and sprinted my head off through the palms, past all the old ladies and over loaded donkeys like a frantic superman unable to fly, only to arrive too late and rasta man had taken them to the next town without me. I then left the village intending to see the sahara sand dunes of merzouga and got as far as the roadside camel fur tent of a large black man resembling a giant date selling fossils who convinces me to live with him in his tent and simple family home for a week. My job was to sit by the road side on a small plastic seat. Every 15min a car would aproach and I would jump to my feet and start winding a well winch with great enthusiam, while waving my free arm at the aproaching car of hopefully tourists, pursuading them to come and join in the fun. If they stopped I would reluctantly cease my game and aproach the parked car. If they had still not pulled away I would greet them and ask if they would like a tour of the underground tunnels behind the tent dug to carry water fom the mountains to the date palms. These from the surface looked like a hundred giant mole holes where the dirt had been excavated to the surface from the tunnel by these well winches. I would take the tourists to peer down the holes while abdu the big black man would disapear down one of the holes and pop up another 30m away like a large blue robed marecat. Afterwards the people would hopefully come into the tent and buy a fossil, but alas this never happened. During the long lethargic days a poor man in a camel jalaba, and thick round glasses named sugar or so it sounded would come around and smoke alot of kif. The 3 of us would share meals, talk sex occasionaly pull out Abdu's secret wiskey bottle, and mark out the sizes of ones male member on sugar's kif pipe, marveling at the comparison between that of the western man and that of the nomad moroccan clearly sharing some ginetic information with the donkey. One day I went for a walk in the desert to see a great stair case leading into the sky buit by a german a few years back for unknown reasons. On the way back I discovered a small green desert vegetable. After 3 months of tajine I was craving some raw vitamin C and took a bite, only to spit out the foul sour flesh imediately. I returned to find Abdu and Sugar giggling drunk on the tent floor claiming I had just missed a car load of sweedish girls with 3 bottles of wine. In the nights we would go to a school with a computer and I would de english translations for his web site for excursions. The night of the desert vegetable I slept in the home of abdu's mother who said my feet needed medicinal henna after my previouse weeks walking. So I went to bed with a pultus, news paper and rags on my feet. The next morning I woke horribly sick , with sore stomach, head ahce and achey bones. It turned out my desert vegetable was very poisoness and the locals would not even touch it with their hands. His mother gave me some Berber herbs to swallow. I will always remember my times with Abdu, sitting behind him on his moped zooming through the village streets in the night, past donkeys, children and palm trees and by request singing Tracey Chapman "Run, run, run, run" in his ear and masaging his great fleshy shoulders, but I eventually told him I must leave. It is not you, but I simply must fly and see more of Morocco. 

living with the Nomads

I cry Abdul told me the night before I left. it was hard to determine how depressed he really was and how much was culture. I was heading off to spend the  next week walking in the mountains. After hitching to Nkob I trecked over the mountain mule trail through rocky pinicals, at dusk meeting a young wide eyed mountain gardener tending to olives and nothing else but  a huge crop of leafy green stuff that his family allown lived on and probably little else. " Twa, dormy in Masion avec Mwa"  he comunicated. So I spent the night in his small stone hut. We had a dinner of cuscus,  for my 5th night  in a row  with of course the leafy grean stuff on top, then swapped notes on english and the Berber language. His mothr returned home after dark from her day tending the goats. She wore a wooly dress and socks pulled high. The night was spent between two rugs on the stone floor and in the morning I continued on over the mountain. One  small boy guided me up the slope with his donkey then asked "Une stilo". I think  I must return to Morocco with a thousand pencils as all the mountain childen greet you with this request.  The boy allready had a pocket bursting with stilos and I left him on a rock singin out into the gorge. How many days of his life had been spent on this rock and how many more stiIl were to spent apon it I could only imagion. I spent the night exhausted under the stormy sky but too tired to pitch my tent. Luckely the moon came out but with it the cry of wolves. I heard a nearby patter  as 4 white doglike profiles scampered past a few meteres away.  A few minuts later the noise was heard on my other side. Was I being circled? I gathered a collection of rocks and prayed to fall asleep and let the night take care of itself, but it was of course a long night. The wolves clearly did not want to eat me however. I walked to the Beautiful Dades valley the next morning, and through the 60km long vegetable garden. I was invited to sleep in a house with a farmer one night and then work with him and his tractor the  next morning. This started by me and 5 local men pushing it up a hill so it could roll down to start the engine. Little work is done in this garden but the men mainly sit and have tea parties under the trees by the river. The next night was spent in my tent at the riverside and was the night I descovered that at some stage between Marakech and here, I had lost my secret stash of maybe 300 euro and now had $50NZ to get me the next month in Morocco. It was in a way good to now feel I had nothing to loose. I reached the town of Msmrir 2 days later which was a cold miserable place but I was invited in by a cafe owner and played with local boys in the dust building a mud iglu in which to cook potatoes and then bash in the dirt to bury them. While we waited for them to cook, we showed off our tricks of physical masculunity with karate kicks and hand stands. The next morning an old bearded man in a camel cloth jalaba walked in to the cafe. He had feet like a camel and I could not tell where the foot finished and the leather started. The owner told me this man was nomad and I could follow him in to the mountains and live a few days with him. He was completely unresponsive to my conversation and looked through me with vacant eyes. Never the less I strapped my pack to his mule and followed him out of town. In the first hour he spoke to say, ,"Bulburro" and point at the rock. In the second hour he spoke to say some other long elaborate word and point at water that the mule stopped to drink.  I was sure this word was too long to be something as fundamental as water. He spoke in the 3rd hour to say, "Mzein" meaning fine. I asumed he was refering to my keeping up his fast pace with my pack now on my shoulders as it was not staying on the mules. It was a relief to finaly hear a word that I understood, and some confirmation thast he was aware of my following him for the last 3 hours. The pace was hard with my pack but I was happy to be burning into the small sump  full of syrupy sugar tea which had been accumulating somewhere in the proximity of my liver. He spoke in the fourth hour after unexpectedly collapsing onto the hillside groaning. He indicated throbbing in his joints and spoke what souded like "Taxi". As this was far from down town New York I had as much hope in my success of hailing a cab  as I did of him breaking into a Michael Jackson rendition. Yet I scoured the vast rocky mountains and hoped that he was just a drama queen. I was feeling very close to my quest to touch the remote yet now was hoping to arrive at a sunny plataue camp full of warm tents and freindly smiling topless woman. 20 min later he rose to his feet, recovered the wayward mule and stumbled 10 min over the ridge to a cold slopey hillside with a brown camel wool tent about 25m squared, head height in the middle and sloping down to the dirt floor. A warmly ragged woman greeted me and led me inside. There sat 2 other woman around some burning sticks. The lady pointed me to sit on a dirty rug scattered with goat poo. As I stepped on, she made a noise and indicated that I remove my shoes as if the rug were a prestine surface. There I sat as the woman peered at me like an animal. "Bye bye", said the witchy looking woman. Clearly I was not welcome. " Diram, fluce", she squeaked. "Makain fluce" I replied. I removed 2 loaves of bread and placed them at her feet. At this stage the other woman had left the tent. She glanced around shiftily and stuffed one loaf down her shirt. The other woman returned and continued to croak words to me and cackle with creepy grins. I indicated that I would sleep the night and leave in the morning, which they seemed to accept then left me alown in the tenst sitting awkwardly on my pooey rug. A few minuts later I went out into the cold to help the ladied bash some spikey weed with rocks and scatter out the pieces for the sheep and camels to munch. All the while thet spoke on nothing but fluce. I agreed I would give them money later one the entire family was present. As night aproached a young man returned with the flock of sheep. I introduced myself and was happy to be returned with a welcoming smile and some arabic conversation. That night he fed me generousely on an entre of kebabs of goat fat wrapped in stomach lining, or stomach lining tied up with intestine, followed by a main of mash potatoe soup eaten with bread. I went to sleep under 20kg of camel wool blankets, feeling I had eaten sufficient for an antarctic expodition. I slept next to the old man who snored and murmured while goats walked consistantly accross our lying boddies. All night was the consistant rhythical munch of the goats chewing their cud at my ear. I woke to a breakfast of boiled bread soup then stood by the friendly man as he lit bushes on fire to keep us warm while the sheep dispersed accross the hillside. Every now and then he would throw rocks to heard the sheep up the hill where he would light another bush for us to warm by. I returned to the tent, concerned the woman may be digging into my pack, repeated the fluce conversation, gave them each 10 Dh, a bracelett and a couple of apples. They still asked for more. I then had the old man sign my traveling snoopy doll. He was fascinated by the pen and needed a lesson on how to hold it upright so that the ink would flow to the correct end. He scribbled on snoopey's cheek and mimed that the pen was worth a lot of money. I offered it to him but he refused. The men were most hospitible, friendly and asked for nothing, yet the woman seemed mean and continually wanted things. I put on my pack, said goodbye and trecked off in the direction they said was the vilage of Tamtatuche. I spent the night in a hotel where I worked helping the man to make Tarjine for his guests, then shared a night of music with them. The man said I could stay as long as I liked but the village was too cold for me and I trecked on in the morning. In the Todrah Gorge I stopped to play some guitar with a blind man tending a turbin stall, who then invited me home to his room with an elctronic drum machine, PA, microphones and had a continued jam with him and another great black gimbri guitar player then spent the night for free in his friends hotel. Then next day was spent with and 18 year old boy as we tried to make replicas of my flute usinf babmoo from his garden, plastic bags and a plastic bottle. I phoned a man named Brahm who I had hitch hiked with  to see if I could still work in his garden in Tenighir as he had invited me to do so 2 weeks earlyer. He turned out o have no work for me, but we spent the night together in his shed with his 5 garden woman who married me to one of them using an olive branch ring. Thus was the end of my Nomad wanderings with my feet sore and blistered from one weeks walking.

Chigaga

I returned home to the dune of Abdulah one night to find him out on the rug in the moonlight with a couple of prostitutes and his cousin. I joined the group as we ate nuts awkwardly until the date moonshine apeared. It was nice to finally see men and woman interacting for a change. As the night went on they all slowly got more and more drunk as we waited 4 hours for the Tarjine to cook. Abdulah became fairly sick from the alcahole and was not up for any hanky panky, though it was nice to see him nurtured with his head on the lap of the older woman. Jamel disapeared with one for a while. It now came clear to me why Abdulah had asked me to clean out the other room. He came back saying that he was not interested in the woman, had done nothing with her and she was free for me if I liked. Aside from my conservative stance on prostitution she was old enough to be my mother and seemed infintile in mentality. I said thank you she looks like a good woman but I am not interested either. I tried some friendly conversation with her, however I had allready used one of my 3 arabic questions for small talk by asking her name. The remaining 2, "How old are you" and "what is your job" seemed a little inapropriate considering her proffession. 

I awoke one morning to finally after 5 days waiting, see a group of old french men signing up for one of Abdullas excursions. I was able to go with them by "cut cut" 4x4 to the giant 300m dunes of Chigaga. After 2 hours bouncing around in the back, hitting my head on the ceiling with each bump, we reached the dunes and climbed to the top. I sat with one of the old men looking out as he pointed out all of the womanly bossums and belly buttons in the curves of the sand hills. In the evening I was able to return again to a dune camp with 2 younger english men who had come for 1 brief night of Hasheesh and rum atop of a moonlit Dune which is exactly what they did before retiring to the camel fur tent and heading back to civilization the next morning.

Today I met Abdulahs mother for friday cuscus, then took a village wander. I was invited over to a small group of girls and sat down for a chat unsure weather I was commiting a social crime. 30 min later the group had swelled to a large female crowed around me, I had 2 rings on my finger, one bracelet and 3 telephone numbers. The men here like their woman fat. Aparently this is because they create a bigger shaddow for the taking shelter from the hot sun. Their were a few nice looking thin ones in the crowed but conversation was difficult with the language barrier. I had better head back to Abdulah now and distract him from the moonshine bottle.

The end of the line, Sun, Sand and Date Moonshine

My ride to Mhamed was in a large slow truck with two men who downed 3 beers in space of one hour while driving and gayly threw handfulls of rubbish out the window into the magnificent rocky desert landscape. They were stopped by the police at one stage and I sat on the roadside for 30 min unsure wheather my drivers were off to jail. They let us go and I made it to Zagora where a desert guide quickly snatched me up and threw me with my monstrouse pack onto his moped. I held on tight as we zoomed through water flooded backstreets from a nights heavy rain. I eventually escaped his tour guide office at a brisk pace and hitched with a 21 year old construction worker to his home in Tigounite where I met all of his 7 brothers and many village friends who were suprisingly interlectual and studdied english in Casablanca. I played them all my guitar then spent the night in his concrete shell, windowless house between two floor rugs. In the morning I caught a tractor to the final village at the end of the road and the frounteir of the desert 40km from the Algerian border.I met Abdulahwahed, a slothenly topless man living behind his resteraunt of date palm poles and mud on a small sand dune just out of town. He said I could stay with him in his large house and help to build a new mud brick extension to his resteraunt, though I dont know why as I now see that it only seems to see one wayward tourist every 3 days and is hardley struggeling to accomodate them. We shook on the deal and I told him that I would see him tomorrow after a night and day of much needed solitude in the desert. It seems imposible to be alone as the locals are so hospitable. I trecked a few hours with my compas through the vast date palm forest and out into the sand dunes where I pitched my tent in peace. After a day contemplating in the shade of a palm and eating many wild dates, I followed yesterdays footplints back to Abdulahs little sand dune and told him I was ready for work. "Today" he said, "you make your room", I have big house just for you". I followed him 200m to the ruins of a large old mud brick hotel complex. Many of the walls had follen in and mud bricks lay strewn about. We walked through a sandy wasteland courtyard to a wall of doors. We push open each door and I peer inside to a room which resembles and old sty full of rubbish, a queen sized matress and the floor10cm thick with sand. Loose wired hung down from the log and bamboo ceiling and one tiney window of blue and yellow glass sent a sickly sepia streem of light across the wall enforcing the ambiance of dormant infection which he was clearly striving for. I set to work imediatly by removong all of the rubbish and furniture, then with the aid of halfe a rusty shuvel, the contents of the Shara which had found their way in. Benieth the sand I uncovered a collection on old rugs. I took them into the blazing sun and began a frenzy of beating until the dust fell away to reveal bright colours of red, yellow and green. 3 hours later my room looked beautifull with a semi clean bed, a sofa, table and exsquizite rug lined floor. The evening was spent on Abdulahs floor eating turkey tarjine, watching football an a small TV screen and him smoking hasheesh. The next day my job was to collect all of the wayward bricks from the crumbling hotel and put the, in piles so a truck could take them to his sand hill. He is a tranqueil man who does not seem to want much, but is content with his rug floor, TV, the odd tourist, a steady supply if hasheesh, the ocasional prostitute and his home drew of fermented date moonshine. These men seem content at the fact that their impoverished livlihood requires the, to do pretty much nothing, yet perhaps a hint of depression can sometimes be glimpsed through the shroud of hasheesh smoke. We spent the next night up late talking while I helped finish the last few drops of the days distiled date ethanol. He says he drinks because it changes his mind and is the only thing he has the power to change. I told him that their were other ways to change his mind such as reading books or talking to new people. He seemed rreceptive to the Idea. The next day I cleaned out another old hotel room, perhaps for a friend to stay, then played my travel guitar while him and his friends wailed away passionately in their aribic scales. He gave me 20Dh and sent me off into the village for cigarets and internet where I write to you now. He is happy for me to stay forever it seems and does not expect much work, though I like to stay motovated and only return periodically to dabble in the lethargy of  his sedated sand dune. And thats seDATED of the fermented kinf of course.

Shasa The White Berber

I hugged goodbye to all of my gardener men and my Moroccan wife Hanan the cook who questioned me "mariage" the night before then had a love heart tatooed on my arm. I was informed later that this was an official mariage symbol. I also shook hands goodbye to Cris and Miriam. It is amazing how though I had no english conversation with the gardeners, I had established a much more emotional conetction with them. Perhaps my words only impeede my relationships. We played a lot of shirades and had many jokes together. One boy while we were repairing a wall, disapeared for halfe and hour to return with an arm full of empty bottles saying wiskey and pointing at the house of missure Cris. Some folks are very religiouse and morolistic while others are happy to bend the rules and exersize self indulgence. Finally I hugged goodbye to Thomas my fellow Ben Stiller lookalike woofer friend who arrive halfe way through and hitched away from Peacock Pavilions/panik in Paradice. My destination Ait Benhadoo, an 11th centuary Kasbar village near Ourzorzate where many fims have been shot such as Gladiator and Lawrence of Arabia. The journey took me over the mountains of ston villages to the yellow semi diesert plains with indulatinbg hills and gorges. Ait Benhadoo is like a giand sand castle, or rather mud castle with decorative triangular reliefs. I explored the old town then headed over the hill into the desert where I found a secluded oasis to pitch my tent. As darkness approached I decided to take a walk into the village. I met a man outside his shop of old bereber jewlery, doors, rugs etc. He was dressed in his blue jalaba robe with a grat yellow turbin and spoke resonably good english. When I told him I had pitched my tent in the desert he offered me a spot on his shop floor for the night/ the month. We ventured back into the dark desert to pack up my tent then returned home where a collection of rugs was laid down for our beds. We spent the night listening to Berber Sahara CDs while he smoked a copiouse amount of hasheech until I told him that his eyes were as red as the rugs we lay on. He served us rice with sour milk which he downed literally in weed induced 10 second Swallow followed by another large bowel then fell dead asleep. The next day in exchange for his hospitality, I was to be his hustler to any english speaking tourists. It was very interesting to land on the other side of the salesman/tourist relationship and plunge from being the rude ignoring tourist with the blinkers up to the hounding pushy shop keeper. So I have now had my soal nibbled from both ends. I was not too pushy but simply told people that I was histeling them and would greatly appreciate it if they would follow me to my friend Ahameds shop so that I may forfull my end of the bargain. Imanaged to get a nice old english couple to buy a rug. Unexpectantly they then envited me to lunch and Ahamed gave a a 50Dh commission on my return. I tried to husttle a new Zealand couple from Nelson who happened to be related to my school friiend Laura Roberts. I wrote a letter to her for them to give her when they would meet her in 5 days time and put it in a little leather pouch I had made in Larache. Later that night I remembered that my friends name was actually Emma Roberts. I have no Idea who recieved my warm sentimental letter and handmade gift in 5 days time but I hope she enjoyed it. Ahamed was not huge on conversation but plodded through his daily rituals of laying out the carpets, making sugar tea, listening to music, talking to his passing village friends, husteling tourists and smoking hasheesh. His life seemed to consist of little more. He had no wife but often returned to see hid family in Mezouga. When I asked if he liked sport, his response was that he played smoking. I stayed a total of three night with Ahamen then hitched on towards the real desert near Mhamid.

Shasa The mountain Rug Hunter

I was taken into the Atlas Mountains for 2 days with Khalid the Guest House Driver/ admin man. Our goal was to hunt out antique carpet for cris to sell over the internet. We drove into secluded mud villgages where Khalid would speak to an old woman who would then disapear into her hut and return with an armfull of rugs to spread out onto the dusty earth. Some were colourfull with squares of bunched fabric, others with geometric patterns and some covered with jingly sequence. I think these are the wedding blankets and I supose are intended to make music on the wedding night. Khalid would insnspect them to determine if they were at lest 50 years old. He would then speak to the gathering crowed of local woman, often pointing at me which resulted in a great deal of laughter and me wondering whether I had just been sold to a mountain woman for an old rug. I guess I was not a worthy price as I was allowed to come back home to Marakech with him the next day.

Over the wall and into Marakech

The yoga guests have come and gone and I had my first day out over the wall of the grounds to visit Marakech. I have learnt to say " I want nothing" and "I'm going nowhere" to the many locals who offer to guide you free of charge to your destination, then take you on a three hour hike in an indirect rout past all their friends shops full of things you don't want, then demand dirams for their service. My first invite into a moroccan herbolist shop to share a cup of tea renued my belief in genuine Moroccan hospitality. I watched as Mostapha the obece king of tea brewed his concoction, adding pinch by pinch each medicinal ingredient while explaining the effects they would have on my body. " Eucalyptus for the head", safron for colsaws, ginsing (moroccan viagra), star anis, lemon leafe, and green tea." I sat and sipped this beautifull tea while he went through every herb, spice, soap, cream and oil in the shop either holding them to my nose or rubbing them on my skin. I left the stall 30 min later feeling rather light headed but relaxed and content at not being hounded for money for a change. I said goodbye then walked off smiling sweetly to the next stall owner. Before I knew it, I was in his stall having the whole treatment all over again. Somehow this process happened another 3 times. The last of which I was experienced enough to see what was coming and stepped away as the 5th man tried to apply cream to my eye bags over the 4 layers of existing medicaments. I explored the Jemmaa el Fna a large square full of snake charmers who throw a box over the snake as soon as they notice you looking and demand money before they will carry on, men with monkeys on a leashe dressed in nappies who demand derams for the photo you took, and small boys dressed in colourfull robes who clash metal castinets while swinging their head in circles to wirl the tassel on their little hat. This traditionaly is the dance to attract clients for prostitution but fortunately as far as I could see the dance is now all you get for your money. One old lady grabbed my by the arm and started to syringe a design in henna. "No want, no money" I said trying to pull my arm away. "No money honey" she replied. "For luck." I repeated her reply back to her for the next minut as a henna scorpion emerged on my arm and she then asked for a present of 20 derams. "No money honey I replied" and walked away, my soul now missing another small bite. If I gave in to them all I would soon be broke. I feel I contributed sufficiently throughout the day with the purchaces I actually wanted. I bought a snake charming flute, a christmas present for someone and a lamb, prune, almond tagine for lunch which blew my morocco budget.

A new wwoofer has arrived at peacock pavilions which is nice and he does not seem to be as much of a workaholic as me so is convincing my to actually steel a break in the day as Cris will let you work as much as you like without ever saying "stop now" or "good work." He is american and the splitting image of Ben Stiller with a synical humour to match. I am enjoying his company. I helped Cris to make a skate ramp for the kids. We will finnish the other halfe some time so that they can actually go backwards and forwards. I seem to have gained the respect of the moroccan gardeners and think I am learning some good management skills, or at least sharade and pictionary skills through trying to instruct them. One has invited me to his house next week to have cuscus with the family. The veluptuious cook lady keeps mimicking the action of putting a ring on her finger and stroking my back. The gardeners tell me to stay and marry her. Though it is probably a ticket to New Zealand that she wants. Thats Morocco for now.  Love you all

Shasa

Panic in Paradice

Well I finally left Larache and all conections with my Moroccan Papa Mostafa. My first ride was with a Moroccan family. They spoke no english but it was clear that the 23 year old son was very interested in marrying my sister in NZ. Sorry Keshia but you are very usefull here for me as a means of payment for the people I ride with. I arrived in Rabat and had an epic treck into the City. I asked a businessman for directions and he lead me 15 min to an inscripted pole carved with historical city inforation which he translated and read for me 3 times then pointed me on my way. Rabat is very rich looking with nice gardens and green grass, surrounded by a great mud wall, a giant belt of cemetry and another mud wall. I phoned my couch surfing host many times to only silent answers. Eventually I was told that the number he had given me was for a phone booth, so for the first time I decided to splash out and try a hotel. I entered the old Medina filled with people and shops spilling out onto the street with spices, leather work, silver and brass tea pots and wooden boxes. I asked one shop keeper if he knew of a cheep hotel. I then spent the next 20 min chacing after him through the labirynth of streets as he disapeared into the crowed ducking into every hotel which all had signs up saying "complete". Eventually when I had no idea of my location he found me a room upstairs behind a resteraunt for 80dh. I dumped my pack and headed out into the street to find I was right back where I had started infront of the mans stall. They say people have the choice to pray or not when the signal sounds from the mosques. But they surely don't have the choice of sleeping. At 4:30am I was woken by the drone like a herd of 100 depressed cattle mourning in the streets, one at every mosque tower. In the morning I explored the beach, and an elaborately decorative tomb then trecked beck to the motorway to head to Bensliman. As I passed the petral station a man called out to me "Are you american? Come and join me for a coffee." It soon became aparent that this moroccan man in his 40's was a little crazy and took medication. He explained how he was famouse on you tube with his new invented musical styl of electronic jaz and was good friends with Britteny spears. Look up "Nabil Legend" on You Tube and you will see the room he took me back to in his mothers house. In his bedroom , the floor is lined in cigarete ash,  he is locked away uploading videos of himself to you tube playing 13 min of improvised heavily electronically effected guitar and speaking into a microphone " I love you baby, I love you so much". I asked him to play me some of his live achustic music. He picked up his guitar and played me some very beautiful skillfull blues songs while sweating pationately. He said he had no friends and was very happy to invite me to spend time with him. I eventually managed to pull myself away without leaving him to broken hearted and headed back to the petrol station to hitch a car.

Rabt Medina

I was picked up by a 60 year old Moroccan man who said he had a large majestic house in Casablance and invited me home for dinner, a shower, tv and a bed. On the way he asked many questions about by sister and was sure I could convince her to come to the other side of the world to marry and live with a lonely old non english speaking man in what turned out to be a modest country home with a locked door and no key. He then pointed to variouse spots in a the yard for me to pose as he photgraphed pictures I was to send to my sister so she knew where she would be living. There is one with him smelling a flower. He says that this flower waits for you in Morocco Keshia.  He also asked for her dress size and address so that he could send her some Moroccan garments. So Keshia dont be supprised when a hazel green ( to match your eyes) decorative robe arrives with a love letter from Mohamed in either spannish or Aribic.

Mohamed, Keshias Moroccan Husband

Well he had left the key back in his other home in Meknes with his wife and kids, so my nights accomodation was nolonger possible. He took me back to Bensliman to stay with the wwoofing hosts as I had origionally planed. We arrived late to the end of a rural dirt track, after many phone calls in arabic and with a local street boy in the back seat for directions. The beautifull plump lady Fatima greeted us all and made us all dinner. Mohamed was even allowed to stay the night as he had no access into his home. In the morning I saw the place was beautiful, with olive trees and stretching plains of brown grass. Unfortunately I only had one day to work as my next host in marakech had asked me to arrive early as a group of people were about to arive at the guest house. At 12pm an angry lady arrived saying she was upset I had come for one day and she was taking me emediately to the train station to head for Marakech. She turned out to be quite nice and drove an extra 20 min to a place where I could hitch hike.

Bensliman Home for one Night

I arrived in Marakech late to the Jemafanel, a busteling square of musicians, tourists and outdoor eateries. I saw a crowed around a guitarist with a sweating old moraccan lady dancing in the middle. She spotted me with my obscene backpack and pulled me into the circle, handing me a drum and making me dance. I gave her a few minutes then managed to squeaze my way out to meet my host Cris from Peakock Pavilions at his car outside KFC. He took me back to my current home. It is a grand castle of Moroccan Architecture, filled with tribal relics from all over the world and decorative painting all over the floors and doors.There are big grounds with olive trees, hedges and a pool. It is a high class resort curently with a groupe of 10 for a Yoga Retreat. The family are American and consist of Cris, his wife and two kids. I was emediately plunged into this complex western life of consumer goods and stress, highly constrasting to the laid back loungy lives of the moroccans I have been living with. Oh how we complicate our lives, filling it with beautiful, breakable things and skeems to make us money and stress. My job here is to instruct, and monitor the very lazy moroccan gardeners (very dificult with no english), inpect the rooms after cleaning and refine them by folding the end of the tolet paper into a pretty point and fishing ants out of the flower vase, baby sitting the kids and making sure the guests have music playing as they move from yoga, to breakfast, to pool, to bedroom, etc. I really am full time working and unable to leave the confinds of the estate walls. It is a beautifull place to be imprisoned, but I should get away to see Marakech once the guests leave I hope. Tomorrow I can go to the home of one of the gardeners to photograph his new twins for a Peacock Pavillions Facebook post which is my other job.

Sorry this is so large. Keshia I am so happy you will be with us for Christmas in Paris. Lets hope mum is there too. I think I will stay at least a month there through December, and have a little stability before India. I will be in India January, Feb, Mar doing my tricycle stuff, then will volunteer in the rehabilitation centre in nepal April and travel in May. I would be keen to do some trecking with you then. France may be a bit cold for climbing in December. I am sure you can help in Nepal too. I will send an email to Rob Bucannan to ask if you like. Spain is expensive if you do tourist stuff and hotels. You can get by on $2NZ tapas for dinner though. Morocco is cheeper and I have friends your could stay with most likely. Your wood painting course sounds interesting mum, you can teach me afterwards anyway. Thanks for ringing studylink for me Dad.

Love you all more than a Moroccan man would love a Blonde haired green eyed second wife named Keshia.

Shasa