Marhaban ya jamaa3!
This weekend CLS took a trip to Merzouga in the Sahara. The whole ride out, my eyes were peeled, there was so much to see. It seemed like we were surrounded by mountains on the horizon at all times, even when we were in the desert! (which can't possibly be true but it seemed that way..). The terrain varied a lot. There were vast plantations filled with little trees polka-dated with pretty pink peaches. The planes were peppered with perky poppies (I'm enjoying my P's today..). I don't think I had ever seen poppies in person before..
There were fields upon fields of lush green, small cities, villages, and the reef (countryside in Arabic (and yes I'm spelling it that way for you and Siri, sharjeel :-p ) . I even saw several small communities in the reef living in tents which I thought was interesting. They were definitely some of the most colorfully dressed people. I saw lots of shaggy goats and turkeys and thousands of sheep. The people in tents manage to keep hundreds of animals without fences or anything. I wonder how they don't all just wonder off ...
It would seem that mosque minarets are in high demand among the storks in this region of Morocco. I mean you've gotta know a guy who knows a guy to get that kind of real estate!
The most amazing thing was that in the mountains, no matter how forested or barren they were, there was always a green valley below, often with a small river running through it. We did pass a very densely forested area where we passed a monkey crossing sign! and on the way home we stopped and fed some monkeys, so that was fun. There were two little itsy bitsy monkeys too! I had completely forgotten that there were monkeys in Morocco, I don't know how.. (on a side note (monkeys reminds me of Merakesh reminds me of dancing cobras) there are dancing cobras in the sooq near our school, but you have to pay to see it, so that's probably not going to happen..)
Anyway, to sum it all up, the Atlas mountains are gorgeous and mutanawa-a (varied) . It was really cool because almost everywhere you looked you could see the different patterns of cleavage on each slope and mountain.
The actual time in Merzouga was alright. We stopped at - and I kid you not - "The Nomad Depot" where we were required to buy a Berber scarf and we had ourselves all Lawrence of Arabia-ed up in true orientalist fashion It was ridiculous.
I thought that the ride on the camels was going to feel ridiculous too but to my surprise I actually found it pretty fun. Although camel riding is not, as I guessed, good for tendinitis..
When we got to the camp site, we were immediately greeted by howling and screaming because there was a large group from Texas A and M (yes? is that a school?) who saw the sweatshirt of one of my colleagues from a rival school. They began trying to pick a fight with us but we told them that we weren't from the same schools. So they just banded together and sang their school songs as loudly as possible. So we all left the tents (which were in a deep ditch) and struggled to make it up to the top of the dunes. But some of the Texas students followed us, hollering all the way. So we descended the dune and luckily it was time for dinner.
At dinner it was the 27 of us chatting at a reasonable volume, a group of three women from Columbia, and the group from Texas laughing obnoxiously, cheering school cheers, and singing loudly. After dinner there was Berber music (Merzouga and the region around it is Berber, not Arabic). But the texas students left and didn't come back to listen to the music. They said they had been in Meknes for Arabic since May. But how is it that they are here for Arabic, and for so long, and they had absolutely no interest whatsoever in the little bit of culture that was around them?? All of us were just like *Americans.. * -_-
The stars were great. I caught one of my colleagues (doesn't that make me sound important :-p ) sitting in his tent doing nothing and I invited him to sit outside, between the tents and watch the stars with me. Eventually more people sat down and we ended up having a really deep discussion on mental health of all things. But then our resident director came up to us and told us that the next day we'd have to go back to speaking only in Arabic, and that ended the conversation prematurely. I overheard one of the girls saying later that she doesn't know how to talk about mental health in Arabic and that she was unhappy that the conversation ended so abruptly.
We're supposed to stay in Arabic all the time, but no one does. It's getting a little annoying. People aren't advancing in their skills because they're not allowing themselves to work through linguistic challenges. My roommate and I were doing pretty well until something complex happened in her class and I asked her to clarify in english. Since that day, we virtually only speak in English. It doesn't help that she's in the level 2 class and I'm in level 4 (did I tell you guys? I'm in the highest class here, so that's interesting..)
On the ride back the next day, my saddle was off balance and it was pretty awkward trying to stay on top of the camel. I could have said something, but I'm not sure that I or the camel driver knew enough arabic to work out the problem..
At the end of the day, I was just excited to be back on the bus and headed home. We moved from Merzouga to another town where we spent the night in a really nice hotel. We saw a few things but I wasn't really interested in any of it. I just wanted to be home.
So all that said, I'm home now and happy about it. Family and roommate and food and a bathroom with a toilet I've finally figured out how to flush properly! :-p it really shouldn't have to take you two weeks to figure out a toilet.. haha..
All said and done this trip was nothing compared to my trip to Siwa in Egypt. It certainly wasn't an adventure, nothing was up in the air, and there was no time to rest and enjoy anything. Also, we were baaaaarley in the desert at all. Like, the sand started and there was the hotel, and a half mile in were the tents (I don't know, how far can you walk on sand in a half hour?). But being in the middle of no where there were no lights, so that was nice as far as the stars were concerned.
One great thing was that we had Saharan pizza! Basically a stuffed pizza filled with meat and onions and spices! Definitely the best thing I've eaten in Morocco to date.
That's all for now. Time to start slowly uploading pictures - I mean doing my homework!!...
bisalama!
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