Jonesberries

Andrew was reading a book online that included bits about the changing role of women in the western world. I woke up this morning with my mind spinning with observations and questions from my time in Morocco so far. Unfortunately, not many answers but hey if we spend our lives rushing to answers we shortchange the journey and dont ask enough questions or make enough observations. Or we only see what supports the answers we came up with to early. So, in trying to keep my eyes open here are some of my thoughts.

The most obvious thing to look at first seems to be dress. It is difficult to know how to dress. I live in a personal dilema of trying to balance individuality and cultural sensitivity. I have found this has special challenges here. I have found that it is easier to dress like an individual in cultures that we are more comfortable in and are similar to our own. This is only a recent observation as this is a culture that is alot more different than anything I have ever known. So, when we first got here I put on a headscarf everytime I exited the truck. This seemed to work quite well. I enjoyed the rare times I got the headscarf on right and snug. I loved it when Rachel said that I looked Berber when we went into the ladies co-op in the atlas mountains. I enjoyed feeling like one of the ladies. However when I put on the same headscarf and baggie clothes in Aourir I was asked if I was muslim and laughed at. Someone told me that it makes the locals feel comfortable for the tourists to look like tourists. Back to boxes I suppose.

I let the girls dress like they feel comfortable. I encourage them to note the amount of attention they get showing different amounts of skin. After we had been here just a few days TJ was wanting to stay in the truck all day and when I asked her why she said, “everybody stares at me and I find it disturbing.” My 7 year old used the word disturbing. We had a long talk about being different. I am beginning to think we all get lots of attention no matter how we dress because of our hair and skin colour – or is it something else like posture, walk, eye contact or smiling? Trying to nail down something in regards to dress.

One good idea we got from Perine. She bought a man’s Djellaba. She puts it on and pulls up the hood when she doesnt want to be noticed. Like at night. People assume she is a man and leave her alone. So here are my temporary conclusions in regards to dress. Go native in small villages that dont get tourists. Leave your head uncovered but cover up your upper arms, at least, and have something hang over your backside and keep your legs covered at least over your knees.

But, if you are getting ready to go on a 4 hour hike into the mountains on a very hot day your might opt for comfort.

If this hike involves hitchiking in the Sahara, like some of our friends, you might try to incorporate more modesty.

Sometimes I think too much about all this and go out afraid to smile or look a man in the eyes. Then I realize that is walking in fear and that is a place I don’t want to be. Obviously no conclusions yet.

Dang, this is getting to be long and Andrew is up and wanting the internet dongle. I think I will have to limit this post to my observations on dress.

Just found this stop action setting on my camera. Sounds like the cameras that are on the movies when someone is snapping fast photos of a flashy model in a model shoot. Thought I would try it out on Abi. I would be feeling quite clever if it just wasn’t for the fact that I have owned the camera for over a year.

After a sleepless night with Andrew moaning, “i HATE wasting money” after he figured out, with lots of help, that he got solar panels which are for an 18 volt grid system after we asked for 12 volt panels, we are back in Aourir. These panels were never intended to be on the roof of a truck and would never do the job right. Andrew figured out the best way to get the solar guy to come was to go back to Garage Dorf and get Hassan to call. Hassan gets most of his business from his great reputation and this is his solar guy. Hassan gives this guy a LOT of business. So here we are at Garage Dorf again. We have now been waiting 2 days for the solar guy to come “in an hour”. There are also 3 other trucks here waiting to buy solar panels once they see what happens with us.

Moans came from the kids. We are ready to see more of Morocco than Aourir which is more like a large repair yard than a small village. So what do you do? Well the kids have found multiple diversions like… the Wednesday market.

Abigail finally found HER Djellaba. Uh… another activity… posing for strange photos.

Making lots of jokes about the big dog with the nose of a chiwawa and a funny smile. Hannah calls him Ed (have you seen the hyenas in Lion King). I know this dog may look like he is growling or something but this is how his face always looks. Poor dog. I guess it would make him a good guard dog.

The girls have also been continuing to find candidates for dogs to adopt. Cant help but think of the difficulties of travelling with a dog. I keep on trying to tell them that being surrounded by an army of big dogs fighting over who gets to be top dog and “dementor” (our pet name for the resident, crazy, mom dog) running around being all friendly then biting people in the backside as soon as they turn their backs. Well, not the best timing. Timing is important. Even if they name the friendly homeless dog at the market and encourage it to follow them home.

We have also been doing alot of science experiments for our road schooling. Things like checking our pulse after walking to the gate and back, running around and jumping over car parts and charting the results. Among other things. Uh yeah, Abi yells out don’t forget the spitballs. Yes, I am not sure this is a good idea but, uh, in one of the science kits are some rather stiff straws that are great for spitballing. Now I didnt start the spitball competitions but I did give some guidance to add accuracy and speed. Ahhh, brings me back to my old maths teacher in Pennsylvania. The chalkboard would be covered with spitwads at the end off class. Memories.

Alesh and Karim are here getting work done. Yeah! Good friends!

There are a lot of young French here this time. Last time there were older solo travelling french with a bunch of big dogs this time it the younger French travellers who are travelling with more people in each truck – and a bunch of big dogs. A much friendlier group of people but start drinking vodka quite early in the day. A bit extreme. Actually, a lot of the people we have been hanging out with have been so extremely health conscious that they wouldn’t even put cooked food in their bodies much less anything smoked or alcohol or funny teas.

I hope the solar guy comes today. We were thinking about doing a bigger diesel tank but maybe we will wait till Europe for that as we have been told it won’t be more expensive there and we are ready to move on.

The Imam sounded quite nice this morning at around 5ish. He was preceeded by lots of echoee on the wind sort of soft singing, really nice.

So we are now hanging out in Tagazout. It used to be hippie heaven and has turned into a bit of a surfer paradise. The official campsite in town is quite far out and looks quite institutional with its perfectly lined up miniscule trees so we opted for the free place, with no showers, closer to town with lots of trees and more motorhomes and overlanders. We have had a great time here. Andrew has been having a great time hanging with and learning from all the overland men. We are learning so much.

He was hanging with amazing people like Elia from Italy who scored this great big truck from and expedition company and travels with his big dogs. He just took off with about 4 other italian overlanders for Senegal.

And Martin from England who has a full workshop and welding kit ready to go on board his old fire engine to pay for his journey.

In addition to the  30+ white plastics and the 10+ overlanders alot of moroccan families came in for the day. What a great place!  We made necklaces, drew pictures, painted nails.

played on the hammock,

took a camel, oops dromedary, ride.

btw if you are going to take a dromedary ride in Morocco make sure and watch out for the lurch at the beginning and the end of the ride as this tall animal gets up and down.

I tell you the morrocans really know how to picnic. I am used to cold sandwiches. They bring these little gas stoves and prepare elaborate tagines and mint teas. The hospitality cant be beat as well. One family that set up camp at a tree next to our truck served us tea and bisquits and wouldnt stop feeding our kids orange slices. Later in the day was the best by far for me. The mothers and grandmothers and aunties of the little girls we were spending time with came over to their camp behind a wall of veils where they fed me tagines and mint tea. The wall of veils were taken down just before the call to prayer so they could put them on as they took turns to pray while facing mecca. I think they really put us to shame hospitality wise. How often do we open up our celebrations and meals to complete strangers just for the sheer kindness of it and no agenda.

Andrew here. I spent yesterday scouring the truck yards at Ait Melloul, not far from the Agadir airport in Morocco. Its an amazing place. I didn’t buy anything but I might return for a bigger diesel tank.

Its really worth a visit, even if you dont need any parts for your car or truck.

Morocco is a Muslim country so, obviously, Easter does not register as a holiday or holy-day. Although I did see easter eggs for sale at the local Marjane supermarket. Our kids wanted an easter egg hunt like some church did a few years back but I think this is more of a pagan fertility practise than it is Christian and have been trying to talk them out of it. If they just want chocolate, then lets just buy them some chocolate!

We have been known to occasionally attend a Christian church service on Easter Sunday but as far as we know, there aren’t any down here – at least, there are no English speaking services anywhere in the southern area around Agadir and below.

Actually, there has been a lot of talk last month about churches in Morocco where the pastors were arrested and many (I heard 70) foreign Christian-aid workers sent home. Time magazine ran a story on it. Bit scary, actually, especially the idea of turning up at church to worship and then getting arrested and perhaps tourists like us from Christian countries are worried that we might find ourselves caught in the cross-fire. I dont know. It may not be just a Christian thing – there seems to be a lot of bloggers recently arrested and jailed, along with others jailed for various reasons.

AND I STILL CANNOT ACCESS BLOGSPOT BLOGS on Maroc Telecom after a week of trying so the censorship extends far beyond those Christians who are always whinging and whining that its all about them when actually, something much larger than all of them is probably going on.

[UPDATE: i used a proxy - http://hidemyass.com - to visit A View From Fez because this blog, that seems to be blocked by Maroc Telecom inside Morocco, won the best blog award last year and I wanted to see what they said about the situation. Another interesting publication is a local Moroccan paper, translated from the French, in which a local religious leader accuses a family-oriented orphanage shut down last month, and its Christian volunteer workers sent home, of encouraging prostitution - which seems a bit weird to me. Does anyone believe this? And what will happen to the kids now that their parents are taken from them?]

So . . . we decided to just have a nice meal at the beach with lamb sausages and I would retell the Easter story of our Creator who loved us so much that he died for the sins of the world and was raised into life on Sunday – basic Easter story. As it turned out, a number of Moroccan kids were hanging around us and helping with the cooking and their parents turned up later on so by the time we sat down to eat, there was quite an extended family. I told the story but in English (I suck at languages) and so nobody really understood anything but it was a good meal and nice to have locals involved.

Why sausages? Dunno. They were easier to cook than a roast lamb.

Muslims also respect Jesus. The Koran tells them that they will be judged by Jesus one day. I am reading through the Koran at the moment and it is changing my opinion about what I have previously heard about Muslims and Allah. Its amazing how much Christians and Muslims have in common. I highly recommend everyone read through the Koran at least once. I am looking forward to visiting Fez and exploring the Sufi side of Islam.

Anyway, happy Easter from Morocco. AJ.

Solar problem in the Sahara?. Our brand new Tenesol TE2000 solar panels were underperforming, giving only 27.4 open circuit volts instead of 33, which wasn’t enough to charge up our system. Even in the Sahara where sun is never a scarce commodity. And solar is important to us because we keep Abigail’s insulin in our fridge to control her diabetes and no fridge means no insulin which means no more Sahara. Time to go north anyway. We had a technician contact Tenesol but they have not been able to help us yet.

Quick fix? I wired the panels in series rather than parallel (technicians suggestion). That doubles our voltage which I hope our system will handle, and it gives us the load amps of a single panel. If anyone out there thinks this is a crazy solution, please let me know.

Sidi Infi a quiet and peaceful break from the hectic cities and we found ourselves coming back to it again, on the way north from Guilmim. Love this place. If your favourite colour is blue, then Sidi Ifni is your town.

Limited wild camping here, which involves parking on the large market green in the town but it was a souk day so we went to a camping park.

Best place?? Apart from a number of smaller campsites up on the hill, there are three campsites by the beach just north of the town. Camping Solymar was the cheapest for our family (70 DM) and has great bathrooms. We stayed there last time. Camping El Barco is closer to the beach but the extra charges brought the total fee to about 135 DM so we decided against it. Camping Sidi Ifni which sits between the two was the best option. 95 Dms for the night and nice French people, mostly retired. Toilets didn’t work well but it was the best choice. No regrets.

If I was backpacking, I would stay at Hotel Suerte Loca, just up the hill from the campgrounds. Good breakfast there also.

Gotta love that cobalt blue!

TJ has been having a great birthday. We had to do alot of driving on the actual day so we did as we do so many times when we cant fit everything in and have made TJs birthday 3 days long. So, on the day we drove alot while the girls watched a movie on the computer and ate popcorn.

We arrived at a very special campground and waterpark. Yeah! a waterpark. Bright colours and lots of slides and water. We decided to wild camp, as the campground is really expensive, when you count how many people we are. They want to charge the same for all the kids and adults. We will come back in for a full day of playing in the waterpark. Some of our friends, Ales and Karim, have come with us so that makes it a birthday party. TJ has been to pools with slides but never a waterpark. This is TJs big birthday gift – a birthday party at a waterpark.

The wild camping was great. Karim found it. We are just north of Tagazhout (really nice surfing town) at some ruins on the beach. There were lots of little fishing boats out last night as it was a full-moon which apparently makes for great fishing. Abi and Alana made apple pie.

We all ate it from the tin.

Some other wild campers came up in their van to camp with us last night. Melle is a fashion designer. Very cool clothes but a bit fancy for me. She has been living in her van for 5 years and has fixed it up real nice. She doesnt have alot of suff so her van feels really spacious. She sells clothes through her website and her mom sends things out to people. I looked up her website at www.rhizome-fr.com and it doesnt seem to be working right now. Maybe later

It was a great nite. We had great food, great friends and even a guard dog that loyally sat outside our truck all night. When it got dark, Karim made a huge bonfire – as he loves to do and we finished off the night with some jamming.

Mint tea in Morocco is great!!! It is idyllic to share a pot of mint tea at a small table on the side of the road. It is a ceremonial bonding experience in a private home. Moroccan mint tea at my truck is a bitter brew. I blamed the tea, then the lack of sugar, then my poor elephant teapot. I then asked Karim to show me how after another perfect cup of ceremonially prepared brew. I learned alot and can now serve a cup not bitter moroccan mint tea to you if ever you should come to call.

The first thing to do is put your metal or enamelled teapot right on a medium gas or coal flame. The teapot will need to be about a third full of water. No your teapot will not live through the experience without some black marks. After about 5 minutes put about 1 1/2 – 2 heaping tablespoons of gunpowder green tea in. After the tea has come to a boil pour the liquid out of the pot into an awaiting large cup or glass while swirling the tea in the pot occasionally. Discard this tea. Yeah! seriously. This is called “rinsing the tea”. Fill the teapot again with water. This time most the way to the top. Your tea leaves should still be in the pot. Bring to a boil.

After boiling you need to add 4 sprigs of rinsed mint and about 1/2 cup of chunks of sugar broken off from a small mountain shaped hunk of sugar. Normally the sugar is kept in a small tin chest with a rock or a brass sugar breaker inside as well. Like a treasure chest. Karim demonstrated breaking chunks off of mount sugar into the tin chest with a sharp stone.

You do this by adding the mint and sugar to the teapot. You mix the tea by pouring from a great height into the small glasses at least 3 times. Hopefully creating a small foam at the top of each. Serve. Typically Moroccan tea has at least twice as much sugar as this. I have given you the low sugar alternative. Another key is time. Dont hurry the process like I did. The tea turns bitter if you heat up the water or tea too fast. The tea pours out of the lid of the teapot if you try to pour it out of the pot into the miniscule little cups too fast. I have yet to learn to slow down the process enough and have good enough aim to avoid spilling some tea on the tray yet. Practice. Practice. Time and patience. Enjoy!