"Hey guys look out the window, we're in Africa!"

I have three different journal entries from this weekend that I'll put all together in this blog so it's going to be extra long this time :D

Welcome to Fes
The train ride was comfy since we opted for 1st class, if we hadn't, we wouldn't have been guaranteed a seat for our 2.5-3 hour trip. We shared a compartment with 3 other women who were quite friendly. One woman had an adorable baby that was full of cute noises and was easily entertained by the box full of women smiling, clapping and making funny faces at her. It must be so funny to be a baby :P


We were met at the train station by a friendly cab driver named Mohammed. He held a sign that said "Arlen Gayme Dar Skalli," his attempt at Arlene and Jayme's names made us giggle right away. He was very talkative and did his best to give us a mini-tour of his native town on the way to our Riad. He even offered to take us to Meknes, Moulay Idris, Volubilis, and some place with monkeys. We may bypass our train ticket to Meknes if he comes down to the right price! He stopped to show us a sign that said "Riad Sara" and gestured at me since he remembered my name. 


Riad Dar Skalli was down some narrow winding streets that the car couldn't fit in. Once we arrived we were greeted by two nice women who brought us tea and cakes that were delish! The rooms here are beautifully decorated with bright colors and big windows overlooking the center of the Riad. We can hear almost everything going on in this place because everyone has their windows open and the sound travels easily through the courtyard apparently. All the noises are happy and we mainly hear Maryam, Marie and Heather laughing or talking since their window is right across from ours in the Riad.


The lady recommended a restaurant and got us a guide to make sure we didn't get lost on our way there. We strongly suspected that the place was a tourist drop but it was very nicely decorated and had two very talented musicians playing so we had no desire to go elsewhere. The Tagine Kafta was great! It's like a bunch of mini meat balls in this amazing sauce with egg holding them together. I loved the conversation we had over dinner since it was very girly and about relationships and such :) We also danced in our seats to some of the music which made the musicians pretty happy to see we enjoyed it that much. The only real disappointment so far is that I NEED MORE LAMB! hahah and that's not necessarily something to cry about now is it? Life is good. I'm sleepy. NIGHT!






Aphrodisiac Blankets & Argon Oil
Our day in Fes was incredible and I learned so much that it's overwhelming to try to remember all of it. I really wished I had a pen and paper to take notes... NERD. 


Anywho... Jayme and I had a third boarder in our room last night. A ginormous cockroach who we decided would have to be our bouncer because he was too scary to kill and we assumed that he would scare off anything else that thought about joining our little Moroccan heaven that night. It must have worked because we had no other pests or visitors and haven't even seen him again. And I didn't even get to name him :(


Breakfast was a mix of about 6 or 7 different tasty spreads and a few different kinds of bread. The fresh squeezed OJ was my favorite though. Maryam, Heather, & Marie's guide came right after breakfast so we went to talk to him for a little bit and he asked if anyone has asked how many Camels for me yet. I really hope that A. I don't make anyone in my group mad enough to sell me and B. that nobody really wants Camels really badly. I then retreated to the roof-top by myself to enjoy the sun and incredible view of the Middle Atlas Mountains. There were some very perfume-y flowers up there and a bench swing, so I settled down with a guide book on Fes while I waited to meet up with our guide. PERFECTION.


Our taxi driver, Mohammed, the night before had mentioned that Fes was a few different cities all in one. HE WASN'T LYIN'! This place gives you more city-age for our Dirhams than any other could have. What a deal :D ...Our guide was a beautiful woman named Faridah who is married and quite pregnant with her third kid. We thought she was much younger but she reassured us that she was 38 and uses Argan Oil to keep her skin looking the way it does. Funny story about Argan Oil for those of you who may not know... The way that they make it is they let these crazy goats climb the trees and eat this Argan nut or berry, then they collect the poop of the goats, clean the poop, and finally crush them and make them into the oil. Props to Faridah for her cool skin and all, but I can't see myself EVER putting that anywhere near my face!


We started our tour with a little lecture on the changes in the lives of muslim women. We were walking through the Jewish quarter, which is actually built into the walls of the royal palace for their protection. The difference between Jewish houses and Muslim houses back then was that the muslim houses had windows looking inside to the courtyard only (hence the Riad style) because they weren't allowed to be seen. The Jewish houses however, had porches and balconies outside the house since they were less restricted. She also told us how muslim women's lives have become more difficult in many ways since new laws have passed that give them more freedom. She says that women can work now but they are still responsible for the kids and the cooking and cleaning at home. It is rare for the men to ever help out with those kinds of chores. Also, women have to share their money with their husbands while men are not required to do anything of the sort. This makes the more independent and successful women delay marriage. She wasn't saying that this progress was bad, but she made it clear that it was definitely unrealistic and made things more complicated and difficult. 


She then took us on a tour of a pottery and mosaic place which was so much fun to see how everything works. Our tour then turned into a fragrant, flavorful & somewhat claustrophobic tour of the old Medina which had thousands of twisting streets with everything you could ever imagine being sold there. We saw scarves being made of cactus silk and got to try a couple different styles of headdresses as styled by the scarf salesmen. We then braved the stench as we walked up a narrow spiral staircase to come out on top of the medina to see the dye pits for the leather tannery. Very cool, but sooo hot. It was a relief to leave that place. We also got to try on some traditional dresses and outfits and then went to a berber rug store. The berber sales people gave us tea, water and a presentation of all the different styles of carpet by the different tribes. The one I remember the most REALLY cracked me up because the man selling them called it the aphrodisiac but assured us that women didn't need one!!! wow.. We also had a deep religious discussion with our muslim guide where she explained some things and some of it really got kinda emotional. I couldn't even scratch the surface by trying to describe that, so I'm not even going to try right now.


After bidding farewell to Faridah we rested at the Riad for a bit and bargained for our tour with Mohammed the next day. We headed out onto the streets by ourselves a little later to walk by the fountains and check out the market near us. We passed the Disney Channel Ice Cream Shop and a street with a few men cooking meat on grills. One of the men tried to get us to walk over by waving and saying "YES! McDonalds Restaurant!" hahah... it didn't work. We wandered around the lively streets which were so alive and festive even though it was dark outside. I tried to buy a pomegranate to snack on, but the guy gave me about 6 or 7 of them for 8 Dirhams so I guess he thought I wanted a kilo or something. The pomegranates are sooo good here though so I don't really mind. They are yellow and sweeter than the red ones I get at home. Maryam, Jayme and I sat down for a bite to eat at a little cafe and had some more good girly talk and I got spaghetti bolognese! YUM! 


On our walk home I got the best line I've heard so far on this trip! A boy said to me "If I were a king, I would give you my WHOLE country." Now that, I like. Why aren't other boys that creative! It almost worked. When I got back to the Riad I took a cold shower, not because I was all hot n' bothered by the attention on the street, but unfortunately because the Riad Dar Skalli has their Hot and Cold levers switched... Boooooo :( 


I am now drifting off to sleep to the sound of our travel companions across the way laughing and talking, a kid trying to convince someone to play monopoly with him, and a very vocal french couple having sex. Hahah oh and a cat making this weird growling meow every few minutes. Weird... Rabat is weird!!






A day with Mo Mo!!
Today we decided to take Mohammed up on his offer to chauffeur us around, which was freat because he stopped for all of our photo emergencies along the way and helped us eat all the strange snacks and candies we picked up along the way. Mohammed has a notebook that he keeps in his car and has people sign and leave him a message so we read a part where some French girls referred to him as Mo Mo and of course that stuck :D


He took us to Volubilis, a roman ruins of a whole city! We explored for an hour, but I could have stayed for days to check out every little room in every house on every street. We saw the remains of an olive press, peoples pools, a palace, water ducts and so much more! We walked through gigantic arches and gates and I was majorly impressed by all the mosaics that have lasted this long and still look beautiful. It was unreal!


On our way to Moulay Idris, Mo Mo found out Maryam's name and was like "ooooh Arabi-name!" so a few people started humming the wedding march & we started negotiating how many camels she was worth. He decided that he could give 4 camels and 2 berber carpets! hahahh No dice. When we arrived at Moulay Idris, we got shish kebab sandwiches from a street vendor that were mouth watering. Then we peeked in at the mausoleum which was forbidden to anyone who was not a muslim.. sigh :( We just poked around the little shops and headed out of town.


On the way to Meknes, Arlene told us about a game that her boyfriend plays with his friends at home. They use real words and use them as made up Yiddish words. It was funny and I can't say I've ever played a game like that before! When we got there, Mo Mo had to leave us so we signed his book (He liked that I signed mine in Arabic!) then dropped our bags off at the train station since he couldn't stay with us until our train departed. He then shuttled us to the entrance of the Medina by El Bab Mansour and we said our goodbyes.


Bab Mansour is known as the most elegant and statuesque gate in West Africa! We also checked out a museum nearby that was in an old palace and showed artifacts from what the royal family and rich people's homes that kind-of show us how they lived back in the day. I loved the cool artifacts but I must say that these two adorable kittens in the courtyard stole the show. The followed us and meowed until we couldn't ignore them any longer and decided we should pet them... being super cute and all. The didn't look rabid ;D  We took a break at a little cafe on the medina square and shared a bunch of little funky pizzas. My favorite was their smoothies though. I got an Avocado, Almond, & Banana smoothie! It was sooo so yummy! Afterwards we watched some bands and dancers perform on the square as it began to fill with all kinds of people and the sky began to turn pink. As we looked for taxis, I commented on how cute the Moroccan boys are and Arlene gave me the go-ahead to get myself a Moroccan boyfriend! The search is ON! hahah jusssst kidding people :)


NOW, I'm about to pass out and I don't know how I'm going to make it through work tomorrow, but it's my last day at the orphanage so I'm going to make it count :D

<3 SarahBear