Since we said goodbye to the 4x4 drivers last night, a new bus was waiting for us. The bus departed our hilltop hotel at 8 am sharp and I finally broke down and began a course of Cipro. Imodium had not helped nor had an anti-amoebal, anti-diarrheal, anti-everything horse pill that Aziz had given me, so it was time for the big guns. Mom is going to try and get a prescription from her friend Cary and have Dad bring it over to Spain to make sure I have enough stuff for the rest of my trip. We headed back to some hills for a drive and walking tour of the Dades Gorge. I was so tired from the 6:30 wake up call and the remnants of my illness that they found me an empty dining room in the tourist restaurant we had stopped in and I promply fell asleep for over 2 hours. During this time they group left in two 8-passenger vans and went up to another gorge. Apparently they returned for a few minutes and then went out again to visit a Berber woman who made them bread "pizzas" over an open fire oven. When Mom came back to wake me up on the characteristic bench/seista seat of the restaurant, she showed me a very colorful embroidered black shawl she had bought for me from the woman. It is so neat! I don't think she had to do much bargaining but I already know that I am going to have to learn a meleya leff dance to use it.
We drove a ways and ended up in Kal'at Mgouna where we ate a lunch of vegetable soup and bread, chicken or vegetarian tagine, and melon at the house of a local imam. During our lecture on Islam while at our second Saharan camp we learned that an imam is just the man who reads the Quran and leads prayers in a mosque. A man can be imam for his family if they don't live within walking distance of a mosque, and the imams in Moroccan mosques do it as a part-time venture and are paid a small stipend by the Ministry of Islam. Religious scholars rather than imams are the ones that deliver the sermons on Fridays, but the imams are the ones that write up the marriage contract. After we finished eating our lunch and had a tead ceremony with the imam's very handsome brother, I suggested Barbie and John, who will celebrate their 40th wedding this Christmas, to be the couple to be dressed in traditional wedding costume and taken through a traditional contract. John promised as his dowry to Barbi 40 camels, 10 cows, and 1 black sheep and once she receives them, the bride can do whatever she wants with them. I signed as a witness (in Arabic) and Margaret from WI signed with a thumbprint. Afterwards Aziz gave us a lecture on courtship and marriage in Islam, and I found it interesting that after signing the marriage contract, having the big party with family and friends can happen up to a year later. Two other points of interet are that gifts are received from family and friends and a record is kept so that when you go to thei weddings in the future you check your list and give them the same exact thing back to them. The other thing he said that was strange to Western ears is that Moroccan men generally do not tell their wives they love them - they don't say such words but will show affection by buying them a trinket or bracelet. Mom & I both looked at each other and smiled --- Dad must have Moroccan blood in him. Since he is mellowing with age, though, perhaps he will become a romantic about the time he becomes an octagenarian.
After saying goodbye, we continued driving east and aziz became a comedian on the bus´s PA system. I think the best one went something like this. A little boy asked his father to explain Moroccon politics to him, and trying to keep things simple his father thought of an analogy to occupy his son. ´Son, think of me as the President, your mother as the administration, and your nanny as the working class. You are the people and your baby brother represents the future. Think on that when you go to be tonight and we will talk about it in the morning.´ The little boy went to bed but woke up in the middle of the night because his baby brother needed his diaper changed and was crying. He stopped by his parents room and his mother was asleep. He then went to the nanny´s room and saw his father in bed with the nanny. He gave up and went back to bed. The next morning when his father asked him whether he thought he understood politics, the little boy replied that he thought he DID understand: The President is screwing the Working Class while the Administration is asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in Deep Shit. Hee hee hee
Next we stopped in another village called Skoura and walked about 15 minutes through damaged palm groves to get to the Kasbah Ait Ben Moro. Built in the 10th century by a local Berber tribe, it currently stands in 3 distinct sections: an unrestored section, a section restored by an Italian film company for one of their movies, and a section restored by the Moroccan government. Walking back we notice many stumps of palm trees that looked burnt and charred, though most were also sprouting new growth. A devastating fungus termed Bayoud has been decimating palmerie in the southern part of Morocco and the only way that people have been able to deal with it was by burning down afflicted trees.
We ended the days journey at a lovely hotel in the crossroads city of Ouarzazate. Unlike the last week in which we have seen nothing but amber and orange-hued desert, this hotel was nestled in and among palm trees, pomegranate, orange, and fig trees, and had a lovely pool surrounded by bouganvilla. I wandered around a bit, soaked my feet in one of the fountains, and then fell asleep during dinner until the phone woke me up at 9 pm by Aziz who had offered to take me into to town to find internet.
Those of you who are reading this blog have no idea what a pain in the patookus it is becoming to get regular computer access, so I hope you are enjoying it! Until next time!
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