Ca va - Ca March - Sa rhol

In leaving the oceanside for the desert one realizes something about the Moroccan terrain: it is composed of two things almost entirely - dirt and rocks. Along the beach there is rock that runs into water; in the interior there are rocks that turn into dirt and back into rocks again. Children dig in the dirt and play with the rocks. Kasbahs rise out of the dirt, like rocks but made of dirt. Rocks are headstone markers wedged in dirt. An oven is a chamber of dirt sealed by a rock.

Eight hours into the desert we travel through this terrain into the massive Draa Valley when, out of nowhere, sprouts the forest of date palms that characterize the center of southern nomad civilization. As we make our way through the ancient kasbahs of the south the skin tones begin to mimic the many hues of the dirt and rocks that surround them. Limbs and faces start at a cafe bronze and change to a deep chocolate and an even darker ebony as we near the Algerian border. Noses grow flatter and wider for some and the long Arab slope fades to a minority.

M'Hamid is the end of the road in the southwest, from here there is nothing but desert. The bus stops in the evening and Genna and I, determined to make it here without having booked a desert expedition in Essouaira, Orzaozate or en route, are immediately hasseled by flocks of men in traditional blue and gold garb. We make the stroll to the end of the small village and back before negotiating for a cheap room at the center of town. It's kinda like those time share programs older people get sucked into. I'm like my parents, determined to take the free vacation and leave without purchasing. So we sit through the camel trekking schpeel and leave our decision for morning.

From what I have seen of this world, there are very few women that are not confined to the house or to gathering something in a field. So, when Nezha crosses my path with one child in hand and the other on hip and only after translating a lunch invite between me and the girl I am trying to communicate with mentions that she also organizes camel treks I am almost immediately sold.

By the end of the afternoon Genna and I are on the ultimate four wheel drive, vehicle, the donkey drawn cart with a child in each lap. Flies settle in their nostrils and upon their chocolate stained lips as they snooze off, chalky black afro curls pressed into Genna's motherly bosom. The girl can hardly handle the urge to kiss the child. I roll my eyes and laugh at her obvious infatuation. Years of babysitting have left my nigh invincible to cute factors, though French/Berber speaking two year olds are just about the limit. Still, when Genna later gets into a fight over her glasses that the three year old has absconded with I do my best not to chuckle too visibly.

After enjoying a candle lit tajine in the bivouac we head to bed for the exciting adventure ahead of us the next day: a six day foray into the desert to the famed dunes of Erg Chigaga. The morning reveals a mere preamble of what is to come when awake to find our faces covered in sand along with all of our things including a nice sable tinted pair of toothbrushes. The blanket sealing our dirt chamber flaps with the wind swirling up new fresh coats with every gust. We head to the bathroom (pick your palm tree) and begin acclamitization to grit between our teeth.



The morning is spent waiting out the wind after which we meet our chamellier (read: one that takes care of chamels = camels), Mohammed, our cuisiniere/guide (guess), Humza, and our two dromadaires (camels with one hump) who we soon name Arnold and Henry. And so our life is handed into the hands of these tall scrawny men outfited in faux Nike flip flops and a sweater or the traditional robe and a pair of fairly mangy and querulous camels.


It isn't until later that evening that I discover that Mohamed and Humza can hardly understand each other because one is Arab Nomad and the other is Berber. Over the course of the next few days this situation gets even more hysterical as the two argue over just about everything: take 1 Humza and Mhd. argue over spot to pitch tent, take 2 Humza and Mhd. argue about where to put Henry and Arnold, take 3 Humza and Mhd. argue about how to make traditional bread in the sand, take 4 Humza and Mhd. argue about how to pack the water.

The linguistic triumph of the voyage is when, one night after a delicious bowl of harira and a less than tasty glutonous mush of 35 minute boiled macaroni (for some reason that's how they do it here), we manage a joke in 4 languages. As it turns out, the jokes here, even the dirty ones, are about camels. And so it is that Mohammed puts a dirty Berber camel joke into Arabic Nomad while Humza repeats it to me in French and I repeat it to Genna in English. Let's just say that we now all know what the "petite service" means.

So that's how it goes most nights in the desert. Under the banner of the Milky Way we learn to translate "histoires" and share them with our new friends while one of us throws the perfect kindling upon the dry desert flames. Every nomad we meet seems to freely acknowledge his love for this life and has no desire to part from the unpredictable winds, the scorching heat of the sun or the bone dry feel of sand in every fathomable oriface of ones body. One day Genna and I try to explain to Humza what a hamburger is and he counters our claims of delicious saying that his favorite foods are tajine and cous cous - the only two things he eats and most likely has eaten. It's an unimaginable life that one can't help but be awestuck by. Oh yeah, and we also decide we may stop at the one Mac Donald's in the south on our way back to the coast.

While Genna and I do our best to appreciate the terrain change; which goes from mostly rocks and some dirt to just dirt to just rocks and then to mostly dirt and some rocks then back again, the saddle sores given us by Arnold and Henry become so painful that by the last day of our journey we are glad to dismount our new friends (the camels not the guides) and bid them adieu. It isn't until this final day upon meeting a couple of Spaniards at the bivouac for dinner that Genna and I come to realize that the 6 day trip we have just taken is not for the faint of heart. We are in a small minority of people traveling the distance by camel and on foot and not by 4x4. Not only this, but we get rave reviews for helping set up and break down camp even in the swirling winds of our last two days that sneak into your eye sockets, belly button armpits and nostrils despite the constant turban covering head face and neck. We also manage a pretty mean spaghetti one evening much to the pleasure of Arnold and Henry who are expert slurpers.

The desert, in a nutshell, is an unreal adventure that I think one can only understand by fusing observation of it with observation of its people and their love for it. The most frequent request we get out here is not to marry and move a person from their place to ours, but to come, buy a home, and stay there with them. And so it is that we left M'Hamid with the intention of making it promptly back to the beach and up north but instead found ourselves waylaid not far away in another desert town called Zagora.

In Zagora random acts of kindness are more common than they are rare, or at least in our case. One minute Genna and I are discussing saving money because of an unexpected last minute expense in M'Hamid and the next we are offered floor space in an antique shop and a free home-cooked dinner. One night turns into two and one meal into five when the two friendly antique store owners give us gift after gift and meal after meal including a drive to the next town over to discover desert ceramics and the Jewish Kasbah of old. At one point we are let into an ancient cave-like synogue by an ancient man with a stoop where holes are dug into the mud walls for candles and a larger one at the center to house the Torah.

It us only upon tearing ourselves away from these new friends and onto the bus towards Telouine that we truly believe our luck with these people. It is an indescribable friendliness that that spreads like a frosting of kindness over the south of Morocco (ok, weird imagery, but oh how sweet and delicious it is and how well it translates with the Arabic word - beneen).

And that's how it is that we are here in the land of saffron with the sun setting over the rocky hills, adamantly refusing to hurry ourselves out of this bubble of kindness.

Fsheesht?

Escaping Imsuoane is an ipossible feat. We teeter in limbo between staying forever and leaving for good. This means that currently our packs rest in our reserved beachfront room while we take a brief sojourn to the desert. Meanwhile we assure ourselves that this is a huge step towards moving on...either that or learning to surf. About the only thing that can get one to leave Imsuoane other than lack of money is lack of fish. When the wind is high and the sea is choppy the little village turns into a ghost town. The remaining men of the village sit in Cafe Imsouane sucking down green tea without mint, because there is none, and watching the same Berber film that they watch every day. As the film goes: woman marries man, woman falls in love with singer at wedding, singer loves another woman, things then get confusing until the film ends with extended shot of singer riding souped up scooter.

On mornings like this the Imsouane boys open their portals for a few seconds to precisely calibrate the day's swell and wave height and promptly shut the blue door and the light out until mid afternoon. On days like this the sieste is globally enjoyed and while the moon sliver crosses the setting sun you recline on the roof and watch the net of stars begin to appear across the sky.

Also on days like this you are lucky if you eat vegetable cous cous and maybe some secretly purchased chicken from over the mountain; but usually you eat eggs: lots and lots of eggs. Three mornings have been spent perfecting the crepe and perhaps just as many consuming some sort of omelet-like concoction. After a few days of this you are eating rice or plain instant cous cous and can consider yourself really mod if you are given the scoop on grilled octopus with argan oil and tomatos and invited to join. Rain comes and breaks the plaster off the walls and into the pipes drains that collect our drinking water. The day afterward, before everything has settled the well yields a fun confettied liquid that we drink nonetheless.

After so many days of backgammon, weird-rules checkers and bad attempts at the djembe one finally gets late in the morning and decides: today I will really try to leave Imsouane. After another several hours of tea drinking, hanging around and basic loitering you actually get into a car with a backpack and let them take you away thinking to yourself, "What the hell am I doing?"

Upon arriving in Agadir I eat half of a roast chicken with crisp browned skin and the most perfect french fries: soft in the middle, mildly crisp and crunch outside . We don't realize how different life has been until we seek to wash our hands and are surprised and delighted by running water. There is also electricity most of the time, and from the wall not the battery! About the only thing that really matters though is the hamam...

Little Surfer Girl

After a night of entertainment by a country mom who made us the most delicious peanut butter argan oil conctoction on the face of the planet, Genna and I wander lazily down the road that came to join the fishing village of Imssouane with the rest of the developing Moroccan beach fronts. This place, however, seems to be still devoid of your average tourist, rather attracting ambling surfers, van loads of hippies (and their bleach blonde babies) and the occasional caravan of older Europeans in shiny new campers. The day consists of waking up, eating, surfing, showering, eating, surfing again, drinking green tea, smoking, more eating, more tea, more smoking, and occasionally, some gambling. So far Westerners have managed to arouse the locals' interest in both dice and poker, and there's talk of backgammon. If two Imssouanians hadn't swept the French man for 400 durham things would seem different.

With that said, one can say that I'm pretty fluent in French here, as I have the words that seem necessary for life in Imssouane: sable/sand, vent/wind, vague/wave, soleil/sun, la mousse/ white cap, hashish/hashish, palmes/paddle, etois/stars, poisson/fish

And so after 8 days lost in this black hold paradise we come to civilization for one thing only really: ATM.

If only paradise could last like this forever. Enshallah...

Trop de sable, pas de chance

As it turns out, making your own escargot is not nearly the facile qctivity that one might be led to believe. After an hour or two of devoted hunting, reveling in the reverse suction schewp of the snail abdicating its partnership with the beach we arrive proudly with a full bucket. Our friends entertain the whim by throwing it over the tank for 20 minutes of simmering. When the feast arrives to the table we realize our first mistake: everything in the town is eaten with bread, everything except soup. So Brahim dives into his sewing kit and provides 4 sewing needles. This is all we need, it takes everyone 5 snails or so to realize that there is most definitely a rinsing process used by the Marrackech vendors who attract all those young slurp happy children and myself. And so, we sheepishly push the bucket aside grateful that the gifted chefs of Imsuoane know better than to trust an American chef with dinner.