Kissing Camels and Sleeping in Sand

Saturday (part 2)

        On Saturday afternoon we drove through miles and miles of black rocky wasteland which began to turn more to sand. We passed tons of fences in grid-like patterns that were an attempt to keep the desert out.  We passed signs pointing down trails (they could hardly be called roads) towards distant hostels and camp sites, some advertised air conditioning. The wind was wild that day and we couldn't see to the horizon... just billowing clouds of sand. We passed a work site with huge trucks and for a few minutes we could see absolutely NOTHING outside of the van, when we had almost made it out of the dust and it began to clear,  the driver had to steer the van back on the road away from a rock pile. Quite exciting! We finally reached the "end of the road" and took the last turn towards a town called Merzouga. The town itself blended into the desert and sat literally on the edge of the Sahara Desert. We took tea at the Nasser Hotel where a man tied mine and Maryam's headscarves since we were failing miserably at wrapping them. He said his headscarf was 10 meters long! It was awfully huge... he pulled it off well though. Very legit :D 
        Our camels waited patiently for us at the gates of the hotel, just laying there blinking their long eyelashes and wearing fixed expressions that resembled peaceful smiles. They began matching us up with our camels and I took off my flip flops so I could ride barefoot. The camel in front of me really won me over for some reason and I secretly hoped (okay... I did tell Hamza that she was cute) that I would get to ride her. To my surprise a man came up, strapped my bag on her handle and motioned for me to climb up. Then, almost before I was ready, he made a soft sound in her ear and she started to unfold her legs to stand up so I grabbed onto the handle in order not to fall off. It was a lot easier than I had thought. They really are extremely graceful creatures despite their clumsy appearances. I had a fabulous view since my camel was at the head of our two trains of camels, each train consisted of about 6 camels tied to each other with the front one being lead by one of the guides. Mine was lead by a man in a dark shiny blue Djellaba and giant turban who took our camels on the easiest paths through the sand dunes. We took tons of pictures of each other, Lori was behind me so we got some good shots of one another, and Hamza (who was on foot) ran up to take pictures of whoever wanted one. I got to take a few with my Grand Valley 50th Anniversary scarf flying in the wind, I'll have to send one in if they came out okay :D 
        It was truly unreal and beautiful beyond words being swallowed up in the sea of orange sand. The wind threw sand in our faces but I was well covered with my scarf wrapped around my face and sunglasses. The sky was a bright blue if we looked straight up and as it became darker our silhouettes on the sand looked extremely exotic. I wish I could have spent more time wandering around the desert, although my hips and inner thighs beg to differ! After a while we started passing other camps and little desert "hotels" made out of tents and animal skins with Camels parked out front. We came over one last ridge and saw a bigger camp with a few palm trees and a good number of tents clustered together in almost a circle shape with a big open space in the middle. 
        After parking our camels out front, we wandered into the largest tent and sat around a big table. There were two other small groups of people there, one group of moroccans and one french speaking group I think. We drank tea and ate salted nuts then went into the "courtyard" in the middle to escape the heat of the tent while we waited for dinner to come. They passed around drums so a few people attempted some beats and the rest of us clapped or made some kind of noise to add into the little jam session. I used my bangle bracelets to add a little percussion to the mix. We tried to sing some songs from the lion king but couldn't remember enough words so they kind-of fizzled out :P Our food came in giant Tagines. There were veggies, potatoes and delicious chicken in them. We also got a bunch of oranges and melon for desert. While we ate, a few of the local guys played drums and sang berber songs to us. It was a beautiful night and only got better when they laid out our mattresses, blankets and pillows in the "courtyard" so we could sleep under the stars. The wind still whipped sand on us, but with my scarf wrapped around my face and a slit for my eyes, I could see the stars and the milky way. 

Sunday

        We woke up at 5:30 with all orifices full of sand and sore seat bones. We immediately went back to our camels who were lazily chewing on whatever camels chew on and found our ride from the previous day. I re-named mine Pookie since I couldn't remember her proper name and she just looked like a teddy bear (a really long legged and long necked teddy bear!). We mounted back up and headed back towards our hotel. Hamza had us stop around 6 a.m. to climb a dune and watch the sun rise but it took too long so after some pictures of the gorgeous landscape around us, we slid back down the hill to our camels. I had Lori take a picture of me pretending to kiss my Pookie but it took more than one try since she decided to lean in, open her lips and BURP in my face! She's a keeper, it was love at first whiff :D As we continued on, one of our guides joked that we were headed to Timbuktu and he would see us later. What a joker. 

        Back at the hotel, I bid farewell to Pookie, changed clothes, stuck my feet in the pool and ate a little bit of a breakfast they had laid out for us. The ride home was a rather smelly and cramped one. I coulda sworn the bus was way bigger on the ride up! It was also freezing surprisingly since heaven decided to unload on us pretty much the whole ride back and Hamza thought we wanted the air conditioning ON and not OFF... sad mistake :/  We passed by a group of nomad tents that he usually takes people to go see and meet some nomadic people. He offered to take us in, but it was so muddy and we were tired, freezing and in no mood to meet anyone unfortunately. I wrote in my journal and slept most of the way back. We only stopped for gas and food so it was a looooong 10 hour drive. 

        It was such a relief to make it back to Home Base. I was sad to leave Hamza, but we all tipped him well and ran inside since it was pouring rain. A lot of people left that night too, and some the morning before, I wish I had known when because I think I pretty much missed EVERYONE who left :/ 

Today!

       WOW! Am I actually back on schedule for my blogs again?! This won't last long I'm sure :P ...I thought that I would be dead today since I was so exhausted last night, but I woke up with a decent amount of energy and was ready for my new class. Our regular classes don't really meet on Mondays so instead, they gave people the option to show up and just talk, ask questions, have discussions etc... I wasn't going to do that though since I had agreed to teach the other English class for the refugee kids. It was a little confusing at first because a lot more students showed up (despite pouring rain!) and Chad couldn't make it today since he is sick with whatever community disease has been going around in this house (I haven't gotten it yet... knock on wood). Jill had a plan for her more advanced students at the Cafe, so the beginner/ intermediate students had nowhere to go. I felt terrible since I was THERE and couldn't teach them because I had about 20-25 other students waiting on me. Luckily Abdullah was there to try to explain the situation and apologize for their inconvenience. 

        The kids I got to work with today were very cool and fun. Most of them came from Congo or the Ivory Coast and spoke little to no English. It was quite a challenge to communicate and give them instructions, though my French definitely came in handy many times. Most of them were 14 or 15 but a few were 20. The class was definitely not long enough and I wished I had more time with them. Many came up to me asking if we had class tomorrow and I had to tell them that I had another class and I would only be teaching one more class next monday. I talked to Abdullah though and he said that there are a bunch of volunteers and three of them will definitely be sent to the East West Foundation to teach, so hopefully one of them will be able to pick up the class!

        After placement I met some of the ladies at their placement (the Children's Hospital) and walked over to a Hammam. Now this is not something I would usually do, but I feel like it's such a huge part of middle eastern (especially Moroccan) culture that I had to be brave and try it. I also feel like I need a good scrubbing after being encrusted with sand and sweat all weekend. For those of you who haven't heard of a Hammam before, it's a public bath house for women (there are some for men too but I think they are slightly different). It started out as a place to get clean since plumbing wasn't always an option back in the day, but now it's more of a tradition where women go once a week or maybe once a month just for the social interaction while others just don't feel properly clean if they don't go. I won't go into too much gory detail but basically a lady tells you to take off your clothes and takes you to a big steamy room (like a big sauna) and scrubs you with a really rough mitt-like thing and something called black soap that's really good for your skin. These women are strong, these women are quite large, these women are naked (except for their underwear) and these women mean BUSINESS. After the initial awkwardness, it is a very relaxing and cleansing experience. My skin is extremely soft now and I may even have to go again before I leave :)

        Our meeting was short, happy and uneventful today. Everyone has a job that they don't hate and feel useful in, so there really weren't any complaints. I laid out on the balcony and wrote for a while since the sun came out for a bit, I may do that more often if the weather holds up :) No exciting plans tonight, just getting caught up on work, organizing my mess of clothes, making tomorrow's lesson plan and sleeping at a decent hour hopefully!

A bientot!