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| Ifran: Modern Morocco |
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| Bensmim: No-So-Modern Morocco |
Wow. I just had the most eye-opening experience I have yet to have in Morocco. I spent an amazing weekend in the Middle Atlas Mountains and realized why they call Morocco a third world country. We left Friday after Arabic and drove to Azrou for lunch. Azrou is a little town in the mountains that seemed fairly well to-do and functioning. After, we stopped at a Trout Farm on our way to visit Ifran. Ifran is a BEAUTIFUL town, often called “The Switzerland of Morocco”. There were beautiful mountains and I actually felt as though I was in the swiss alps. The town was quite a sight. What was even more amazing than that, however, was that only 7 kilometers down the road was the Berber village Bensmim where we stayed for the weekend. On our long bus rides we have always looked out the windows and seen what seemed like clay-made/mud homes in the middle of the mountains; I never thought I would actually spend a weekend in one. We arrived at Bensmim at around 7:00 and met our host families. As soon as we stepped off of the bus I felt as though I had entered a different planet. We saw a Sheppard herding sheep across the road and walked for about 20 minutes from where the bus dropped us off into this tiny Berber village. It is hard to describe what we saw so you will have to look at my pictures but the village was like nothing I had ever seen before. We went into a little school building and waited eagerly to meet our host families. One thing that I noticed was how eager and excited everyone in the village was for our arrival. All of the mothers who sat in the little school seats waiting for their names to be called to “get” two of us had huge smiles on their faces. I was at first confused as to why they were SO EXCITED to see us but then it dawned on me: we were probably some of the first Americans they had ever seen. Most of these families have never been out of the village and they have definitely never had Americans come and stay with them before. (This is the first time our program has run a trip like this). When my friend Lucy and I’s names were called a petite young woman with an adorable little baby stood up and kissed us each on both cheeks (and twice on the right cheek – meaning were “very close family”). She did not speak any English so it was a bit challenging to communicate (but she spoke Derija as well as Berber so we got by). She walked us up to her home to meet her husband and neighbors. Everyone was beyond excited that we were there for the weekend.
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| Lucy and I with our siblings |
The house had a small salon, tv-room, kitchen and bedroom yet it was probably the size of my kitchen and family room combined in America (very tiny). The walls were plain white and had zero decoration. There was a tiny, narrow bathroom with no shower, but it did have a squat toilet – joy! As soon as we arrived our host mom “mama Aisha” sat us down in front of the TV and gave us bread and tea. The tea was the same delicious mint tea so at least we know there is one thing consistent about all of Morocco! As our mother was cooking dinner, the neighbor (who’s house was ajoined with ours) invited us into her house for tea. Then she put dinner in front of us and instructed us to “kul” (eat). We were extremely confused so in our best Arabic we attemped to ask if we were eating again with Aisha or if this was our meal. She definitely told us that this was dinner, so we ate up (lots of chicken, meat and harira) only to find out that as soon as we came back into our home, there was another dinner waiting for us at the kitchen table. Lucy and I looked at each other and just laughed: Typical Morocco. As we tried to force down dinner number two, we noticed a woman sitting on a bed in the tv-room talking to herself. We were quite confused until we saw her get up to go to the bathroom – she was blind. It was amazing that she could find her way out of bed and feel her way around to the bathroom (a squat toilet, no less!) One thing that was difficult to deal with while staying in the house was the flies. There were flies EVERYWHERE. Not only were they landing all over us, but they kept landing on our food – gross. I tried not to let it bother me and kept reminding myself that these people live here all year round with these flies… I could deal for one weekend. After our second dinner it was pretty late and we were tired so we went to bed. Per usual in Morocco, we were given the only bed in the house; everyone else slept on the couches in the salon or on the floor.
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| some houses in Bensmim |
The next morning we woke up to some fresh Malawi bread (hot off the stove), which was delicious. We were a little tired, however, because there were cows moo-ing, roosters crowing and a very loud baby crying VERY early in the morning. After breakfast, we met the rest of the group and toured three mini-associations within the village. We visited a medicinal herbs association where we got to help in the distilment process, a carpet association and a honey association where we went into the fields to see medicinal herbs and bees. We also met up with a guy who has been in the village for the past 19 months through the Peace Corps. We talked to him for a while about his experiences, and then he joined us on a “mini-hike” (compared to the next day). We finally arrived at another organization, this time for primary school students. The women running the organization made us couscous and then we painted with the primary school kids. We briefly visited the Ifran water factory and then went back to our host families to prepare for the ever-so-cultural HAMAM. Yes, I went to a Hamam. For those of you that are not familiar with the term, a Hamam is a public bathhouse (because they barely have enough running water to use in the sink, no one has showers). When Lucy and I told our host mother we were supposed to go to the Hamam she insisted she come with us. This was quite the process. We brought buckets, scrubbers, mats, shampoo, soap, change of clothes, towels and god knows what else with us to the Hamam.
Basically we walk in and this naked Muslim woman comes over to us and begins to undress us. She takes our buckets and guides us into the bath “room”. The first room we entered was more like a changing room (where we were told to keep only our underwear on) and then we walk into a sauna-type room where there are lots of naked woman sitting on stools scrubbing themselves and pouring buckets of water on their heads. All of the girls on our program went at this time so we felt a little more comfortable. At first I was terrified and did not think I was ready for all of the naked-ness that I was about to witness. But once we entered the actual Hamam it was a lot more normal and natural than I ever would have imagined. All of the girls on my program just sat their on stools while our Muslim mothers came and scrub us down (I know this sound weird, but it is extremely normal for them, so we just embraced it). Surprisingly, we got hot water, and I have never felt so clean!
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| me getting henna |
After Hamam, we came home, had tea, then dinner, and then got Henna! This was turning into quite the day. Henna is a flowering plant used since antiquity to dye skin. One of their neighbors came over and spent about an hour dying my hands with intricate henna designs (see pictures above). It took a while for her to do Lucy AND I, and by the end we were so tired that we just went to bed. We woke up the next morning and our henna had totally sunk into our skin to make this beautiful design. It is black when they first pant it on, but after the black stuff falls off it is a beautiful orange color. It is supposed to be GREAT for your skin and will stay on for about two weeks!
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| the final product |
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| view from the top |
The next morning we got up and said goodbye and thank you to our host families. They definitely gave us the Berber experience. Since we were in the Middle Atlas Mountains, we couldn’t leave without seeing the amazing views and taking a short hike (or so we thought). We hiked for four hours up the mountains, half the time at about an 80-degree angle. I am very out shape and it was quite the workout. Although we complained the majority of the time, the view from the top was incredible. We overlooked not only the citites of Azrou and Ifran, but also tons of little Berber villages all over the mountain range. We ate lunch at the top of the mountain and just hung out for a while appreciating the view and how far we had climbed. It was so amazing to think that we were in extremely modern and civilized cities, and then an extremely poor, rural village, and then on top of these beautiful mountains and they were all within 10 kilometers of each other. It felt like different worlds. The drive back was long but it gave me time to reflect upon the weekend. Although it was not the most comfortable experience, it was definitely eye-opening and one that I will never forgot. I now feel as though I have experienced the “real Morocco”. It is experiences such as this one that makes me really appreciate studying abroad. While living in the main cities is nice, it is also nice to know that there is so much more out there.
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| the camera does NOT capture how amazing the view was |
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