Viva Espana

Due to a rather hectic last fortnight (2 weeks to you Americans), there has been little time for updates. I have hit a bit of a wall with work. I keep having to face the dissappointment that comes each time I think I will have a block of free time that will enable me to get ahead, only to fail as I find I have so much more to do than I thought. Each time you tackle one thing it gives rise to another that needs to be dealt with, organised or assessed. It is frustrating and disheartening, but the masses of overtime has to stop so something has to change. The one nice thing is that as there isn’t the same number of distractions here as everywhere else we have lived (apart from Roatan that is), it means that we don’t mind going in to work on Saturdays. It’s peaceful, bright and with huge windows onto the suuny and breezy garden area. Taking a weekend off means that the next week is rushed and disorganised. This would not be so bad if we didn’t have so many duties. Elementary school has 3 hours of duty a week. That rounds our contact hours up to 25+ and doesn’t leave too much time for marking, planning, assessing etc.

Enough about the trials and tribulations of school. Last weekend we did take a weekend off. And yes, we have suffered this week because of it. But it was worth it. Well worth it. We were offered a car for the weekend by a friend who had run out of beer and wanted us to do a booze run to Spain for him. We jumped at the chance, even at short notice. It is about a 400 kilometre drive to Ceuta/Septa the Spanish enclave on the North Eastern tip of Morocco. We invited Sarah and Terry along with us for their first visit to Europe.

We packed as lightly as we could and piled ourselves into our friends small purple Polo 1.2 and set off in high spirits at 7.30 in the morning. We had decided to go the scenic route through the mountains as the highway would add about 100 kilometres to the journey, and we had been told it was the most interesting way to go. We wound our way down to Meknes, navigated through the busy city with remarkable ease considering we had a Google map which was alternately missing pictures then instructions. We drove past Volubilis, the ancient Roman ruins and then seemed to leave civilisation for an hour or two. We passed through small linear villages and Berber communities and the occasional town, but mainly it was open dusty farm land. Our little car didn’t have aircon so we had the windows wide open and were wind blasted the whole way.

 

The route we took was very scenic; we passed the open farm land and then wound our way up into the spectacular Riff Mountains which were amazingly dramatic after our mini hills of the Middle Atlas. Huge soaring ragged limestone peaks ripped up into the sky, collecting a thick blanket of clouds. It was a good job it was so pretty as we soon discovered why it was that people had recommended that we leave Ifrane at three in the morning. The roads are windy and the trucks slow. There are not that many safe places for overtaking and it takes practice and knowledge of the road. What should have been a five-six hour journey took us seven, nearly eight hours by the time we made it through the border crossing into Spain. Spain is two hours ahead of us at the moment. It was 5.30pm, we were hot, tired and well and truly wind blasted and we were arriving in a town with limited accommodation on a Saturday with no reservation or real idea about where to stay. By our holiday planning standards we were completely unprepared and more than slightly concerned that four tall people would be sleeping in one small car.

Passing into Spain we were a bit disappointed. I’m not sure what I had been expecting, but I think I had expected to see a difference straight away. Crossing the border we found the same run-down buildings, dodgy looking hostels and many people in traditional Moroccan dress. As we got closer to the centre of town however, it all started to change. The tatty two story concrete buildings were replaced by grand Spanish architecture, the dirty footpaths by manicured pedestrianised walkways, and the headscarves and Jelabas by shorts, T-shirts, dresses and sunglasses. After nearly three months in Ifrane it was such a refreshing change. I was so excited that for the first fifteen minutes I was totally distracted from the fact that the town centre was an absolute nightmare to navigate and we were unable to find anywhere that resembled a place to stay. Ceuta is a small area of 18.5 square kilometres and it’s town centre is tiny. Perched on a hilly peninsular, the streets are narrow, one way, very very steep and strangely seemed to be lined with police tape stopping us pulling over to look for places. Every corner we went round we were faced with a police officer stopping us turning in the direction we needed. Finding our way around and looking for hotels distinguished only by a small GH plaque somewhere on the front proved to be too much for us after an eight hour drive. We parked in an overnight car park, asked the attendant for the nearest hotel and threw money at the problem. We paid 15 Euros more than we had hoped, but at that point we didn’t really care. And besides, it was nearly 6 pm and we still had to find Lidel; the reason we had driven 400 km in the first place. We dumped our bags, threw water on our faces and went out in search of the cheapest alcohol in Europe.

 

After being in Ifrane with only time shops to choose from, Lidel was amazing. We stocked up on all foodstuffs frowned upon... booze, bacon and chorizo. And a lot of cheese for good measure. There were four of us and we had a shopping list for two others. We walked out with five slabs of beer, 28 one litre cartons of wine (55 cent each, should have bought more), 5 bottles of spirits, 16 bottles of wine and fizzy, 1 bottle of sangria and 1 bottle of Cassis. It was worth the drive. A beer here is about 1 Euro, there it was 25 cent. We didn’t buy a bottle of wine over 3 Euros. I have no idea how we packed ourselves and the shopping back into the car and managed to cross customs when we left, but we did. It seems officials aren’t that interested in desperate expats in search of cheap alcohol because when we did leave (with slabs hidden under blankets) the only question they asked Nick when they looked in the boot was “do you have any guns?”.

We had been advised to keep our watches on Moroccan time as we were only there for 24 hours. When we set out for our evening it was 7pm for us, but 9pm for everybody else. In many countries this might cause you to rush as places would soon stop serving food. In Spain it suited us just fine as they don’t even get going until 10.00. Peak time for eating was about 11.00. We started in an Irish bar. The boys had been talking about their pints of Guinness the whole drive up. From there we went on to the first tapas bar we could find. It didn’t look too busy and we soon found a table by the window. Slowly the small bar filled up, people were standing in the door and out on the street. Within minutes of walking in the bar we noticed that 50% of the tables had children, infants or babies in pushchairs. There were even kids sitting on bar stools at the bar. This was the theme for the night. It seems that unlike other places I have been, in Spain people’s social life does not slow down with the arrival of children. Instead it is the norm to take them to the noisy crowded bars and rock them with your hip while you laugh and drink. I think the kids would have been out later than us that night if we didn’t have our two hour time difference buffer.

While in the bar and steadily working our way through the tapas menu with each round, we noticed out of the window a procession of children dressed in Sunday best making their way up the street. They were swinging incense globes and carrying crosses and at first we thought we were witnessing a funeral procession. It wasn’t until we saw that all the kids were smiling and laughing that we were brave enough to go outside. Well Terry was anyway. He wasn’t just brave enough to go outside, he went and stood in the middle of it to take photos. Over the next hour (as we steadily got drunker as we were now stuck in the bar), a long procession of children, adults, marching band and a 12 foot long gold float with a life size statue of Jesus on made its way past our window. The huge float was covered with candles and carried on the shoulders of overall wearing head bandaged men. We definitely got more than we bargained for when we sat down in that little bar. Our friendly waiter said it was for Semana Santa, but that’s in April so I’m not sure what it was, but the procession was huge and worked its way around the centre. It went past our hotel at about 4 in the morning as we were going to bed and was still causing chaos on the roads the next day. That explained the police tape and presence then.

All in all our trip to Spain was amazing. It was great to stock up on all the things we’ve missed and fabulous to spend a night out surrounded by people who are used to socialising the same way as we do. I think the occasion went to our heads a little as can be seen from sun of the drunken antics we got up to at the end of the night. At least all the tapas we ate meant that we didn’t feel as bad as we could have the next day. Saying that, a six hour drive south in 40 degree sun was going to be unpleasant whatever the severity of the hangover. It’s still not enough to deter us and we are all trying to work out when we can go back.

Kids, carpets and Jedis

Here's to another week done and dusted, they seem to be flying by. 25 working days until our five day weekend. Yes, I am back to checking off the days. I had forgotten just how quick the weeks pass when working, especially in a job as varied as teaching. No two days are ever the same and kids, for all their annoying habits, always manage to do something entertaining. Or rewarding. Or stupid for that matter. Never a dull day.

Last week we had Open House. This is where the parents come to the classroom and you present to them your aims and expectations, plans for the semester and rules. It is always stressful and it amazes me how much fear I get at the thought of standing and addressing a room full of adults. Give me kids any day. They are far less likely to judge. All in all the evening went well. The parents were very friendly and seemed happy with the way things have been going. However one interaction reminded me of that old saying 'I'll believe half the things your child says about his home life if you belief half the things he says about what happens in school'. As with many other places in the world now, it seems that many parents will always take the word of their child over the teacher as their child would never do wrong.

The kids in my class are reasonably good to be fair. I now have ten girls and four boys which makes a huge difference to the classroom. After learning classroom management the hard way teaching large classes of all boys in Thailand, my time in Australia filled me with all these positive ideas about creating a warm and supportive classroom environment that would gently persuade children to behave appropriately. I felt that my days of being a drill sergeant were behind me, replaced by a more forgiving, patient and nurturing teacher. Sadly, as most of the elementary teachers have found, many of the students behave as if they receive little, if any discipline at home and have perfected the art of tuning out all instructions and requests of change from the teacher. Over the last few weeks I have found my inner drill sergeant reappearing. To be fair, this mix of firm but fair has seemed to have worked better than the gentle nurturing did. Now the class are able to behave and we can do all sorts of fun stuff. We have lessons outside, done hands on (and feet on) Science investigations and even made pictures you can feel by painting with sand. No they don't run wild I can plan cool stuff to do. 

 

It dawned on me recently that we are not getting out much. We are working 50 hours a week at the moment and have just had our second 6 day week in a row. We make it into town, to the marche, or to the Azrou at the weekends, but Monday to Friday afternoon we don't even leave the compound. We walk the 50 metres between school and home and that is it. I have never been in this kind of cloistered environment before. We are about two kilometres from the nearest shops and restaurants, and at the end of the day this seems a long way without your own transport. We buy all we need at the weekend and if we run out then we do without. This is a lot easier now we have a water filter and are not having to cart 5 litre bottles around. It's strange that we're not really getting cabin fever. The surroundings are beautiful and my favourite view is the one from my classroom, so the Saturdays in school aren't too much of a hardship. It's only when we go into town on Friday evening or for morning coffee in the square on Saturday or Sunday that we appreciate how nice it is to be out. Now the evenings are getting shorter and there is a crispness in the air going into town is even more enjoyable. The down-town area is unlike any other we have seen in Morocco so far. The central area is immaculate with masses of flowers, lawns that have spotlights shining through sprinklers each evening and enough artfully placed lighting to light from here to Fes if needed. In the mornings the cafés are the perfect place to kill an hour or two with fresh bread, pastries, great coffee and crisp sunny skies. Sitting there it always amazes me how many elderly western tour groups pass through. Morocco never struck me as a place to see coach loads of OAP's. 

 

Last week we were lucky enough to have our first real Moroccan carpet buying experience. The neighbouring town of Azrou is famous for it's Berber carpets woven by women from the fleece of their own sheep. Down one of the narrow back alleys we were taken to a shop by our friends Sarah and Terry who had bought from there already. Walking down the dark narrow hallway, you enter a cavernous and ancient looking set of rooms that are piled up to 10 ft high with carpets. These vary from the antique handmade to the modern mass produced. The guy who showed us around had good English and was very patient with us. After studiously avoiding all but the briefest of glance in the direction of carpet shops up until now for fear of getting dragged into bargaining for things we didn't want, it was a bit overwhelming and hard to know where to start. We went into one of the small back rooms with carpets around every wall. After all the tales of wily salesmen we were a bit cautious when telling him what we were looking for. He was very easy going and quickly started pulling things out for us to look at. It didn't take us long to go from timid and restrained to pulling random stuff out from the bottom of piles every time his back was turned. By the time he came back with the obligatory mint tea, we had a pile of rugs about a foot high in front of us and Nick and Terry were wearing Jedi capes. The guy was really informative, telling us about the regions each carpet came from and showing us the 'signatures' that marked them as antique and expensive (usually cigarette burns or sun bleaching). Unfortunately most of the things we really liked were antique and more expensive. We have no interest in the age of it and quite frankly feel that if it has holes in it we should be getting a discount. Sadly most of those carpets aren't made any more and can't be bought cheaply. We left with a cheaper option. And a 6ft Jedi cape for Nick. Because you never know when you just might need one 

 

 

Beyond the Mountains

It has been an exhausting week. We have been working very long hours to try and stay on top of things. As I have mentioned before we have few hardcopy resources. Our Reading and Science programs are online, and our Math resources have not arrived. For the rest of the Language Arts we are expected to use the internet and design materials to best suit the curriculum. While this is good in many ways, such as you are not tied to one book and potential activities you don't like and it ensures you teach directly to the curriculum, it also means that we are constantly scrambling to get to know the curriculum, plan activities and plan assessment. Today is Saturday and we spent five hours working. Last weekend we were out on Friday and then away for the weekend. This meant that we spent the rest of the week trying to catch up. Combine this with a midweek evening trip down to Fes to see a friend who is leading a photography tour, and our school's Open House evening and this week has felt endless.

Taking last weekend away from school work was worth it, even if it made this week a little stressful. For an anniversary treat we went to stay in a riad in the medina in Meknes. Meknes is one of Morocco's four imperial cities and is 60km away from Ifrane and Fes. We took the bus down for a change, thinking we'd get more space and comfort than in a grande taxi. The increase in space was marginal but we did gain quite a lot of height. While this might usually be considered an improvement with the better views, it also means there is a lot more rolling and movement along the windy road. Having consumed a good share of two bottles of wine the night before I spent the entire 60 minute journey clinging the seat in front and trying to control my breathing to prevent being sick. It was with great relief that we arrived in Meknes. This relief was relatively brief as once there we had to stand in the blazing sun in the big square outside the medina while we waited for the manager of the riad to come and fetch us. As most riads are tucked away in windy back streets and hidden behind big walls, it is near on impossible to find them on your own. While we were waiting for our man we got to take in some of the goings on in the square. This large area was once used for announcements and public executions but is now a haven for cafés, lantern shops and a wide variety of street sellers. The most interesting of these were the African witch doctors. The area is renowned for its medicine men who mix up all sorts of weird and wonderful concoctions. One popular ware is dried ostrich legs and feet, complete with shrivelled skin and claws. Later in the evening the square filled with people watching performers. Snake charmers and dancers tempt people to part with money to get the tiniest glimpse of a performance. We watched a snake charmer for five minutes. There was a whole lot of shouting and parading around but very little action from the snake. If it was a snake at all. It was impossible to know for sure as it remained tied in a bag.

The witch doctors are under the umbrellas.

The riad we stayed in was stunning. At 200 years old it has been lovingly restored by a French family who used it as a home while they were teaching out here. Since they returned home 18 months ago it has been used as a hotel. With only four rooms it is an oasis of calm in the bustle and noise of the walled medina. We stayed in one of the two suites that opened onto the enclosed courtyard. Open to the sky with shade from the orange laden trees, the comfy courtyard loungers provided the perfect place for nursing a hangover. I have wanted to stay in a riad for a long time. It is impossible to know anything about what is behind the imposing doors and high walls from outside. Stepping through the door into a hall and then out into the enclosed haven of the internal garden is kind of magical. The experience was everything and more than expected. 

Our welcome mint tes at the riad.

Some of the beautiful details

The double doors to our room.

 

Compared to the medina in Fes, this medina was small. When we were in the Fes medina we found it surprisingly easy to navigate. This might be due to the fact that we stayed on the main routes. In Meknes we were not so mindful and wandered without too much thought for direction. I can honestly say that within five minutes of leaving the riad for the first time we wouldn't have been able to find our way back. While the shopping area is very condensed and we quickly walked through it, we soon found ourselves disoriented amongst narrow streets and the doors of peoples' homes. We stumbled out the other end of the medina and had to follow the wall back around to find another way in.

The windy alleyways in the medina

Spice stacks

  

We have been advised by a few people that for shopping it is best to look in Fes but to shop in Meknes. With less of a crowd, fewer tourists and a more compact area to cover, prices are also cheaper. Moroccan haggling is legendary. And we were expecting to find ourselves in quite a few long winded bargaining discussions. Surprisingly most people we have tried to bargain with have shown very little interest and are happy to let us leave without decreasing the price at all. Locals and expats alike always say the real price is 50% of the starting price and not to buy at full price. This is somewhat hard when faced with shopkeepers who are happy to let you walk away with no apparent interest in trying to make a sale. We did have one scary experience where a guy was asking about $120 for a mirror and then ended up chasing us down the street offering it us for $30. He had been so hard sell that he scared us away. We ended up leaving the medina with a 3ft black lantern, numerous pairs of shoes and four wall lamp shade to replace our dodgy pink ones. The apartment is still a work in progress but we are getting there. It might just be heading towards the nicest place we have lived in. Now we just need some visitors to show it off to... bring on November.

Bit of a funny one... on the way back we stopped to do some food shopping. In the store there was a food court with a selection of restaurants. Entertainingly one of them was named 'Bangkok Cafe... Japanese Restaurant', specialising in sushi and Chinese food. Looks like I'll be sticking to our Thai food at home still.

Steve Davey photography tours http://www.stevedavey.com/galleries/index.html

Riad La Maison Du Cote Riad La Maison D'a Cote | Booking.com

Getting into the swing of things...

It is early on Saturday morning, way to early to be respectable... before 7 am early. Little sleep was had last night, as seems to be always the case when too much red wine is drunk. We had our first proper night out in town with three of our colleagues. A straight out from work for Friday drinks kind of night... definitely not the done thing in Morocco, but we made it work non the less. We went to the 'pub' with beer garden overlooking the lake. Somewhat disappointingly we were not allowed to sit outside in the empty garden to have a beer and had to sit in the gloomy and empty restaurant style interior where they were blasting out Celine Dion and other dodgy artists. I see a return to my late teens on the horizon, with purchases of coke from the bar to be topped up with vodka from the bag. The early morning and late afternoon weather is too good here at the moment to be cooped up inside on a Friday afternoon. 

This weekend is the weekend we needed last weekend. Last week after surviving the first week of school by holding out for the weekend in desperation, we had to go on a school picnic. This was designed to welcome all the parents to the new American/International school system and for them to meet with the teachers on an informal basis. Our community is strange, you bump into your students and parents at every turn, so it is a good idea to break the ice with something fun. Apart from taking up a Saturday we would have liked free for planning and recovery, it was nice to meet new people and play games with the kids. On that note I have found that quite a few of the monsters who were screaming constantly and causing havoc on the playground all those days before school started are now in my class. The one who screamed the loudest is anyway.

Last weekend we went to one of the apartments across the way for a 'carpet educational'. Arranged by some of the foreign teachers it was designed with new teachers in mind as a way of stopping us getting ripped off when we went and bought the inevitable Moroccan carpets. Apparently most people who live here end up developing quite an obsession with carpets and buy far more than they have the space for. The people who went had around twenty huge carpets to sell or swap. It got quite intense at times with many people getting very into their descriptions of 'earth movement', 'joyous rebellion' and even 'women’s womb' representations, but it was lovely to walk through an apartment door and be handed big wine glasses and a bottle of tasty red and welcomed into the fold of a very established social community. There is so much more going in here than you'd expect. Most of it is far more Americanised than I am used to, but this is said in the nicest possible way as people here are remarkably generous. As well as being offered lifts, church money until the bank sorted our ATMs, and the loan of a car, we also had one lady send her husband back from his Friday evening out just to change our gas bottle. She had mentioned in school that her husband usually kept spares and as ours had run out he would swap it and then go and replace it. She forgot to mention this to him until he was halfway to Azrou to watch a local Berber concert. He dropped her off, came back to ours, collected the empty bottle and then went to the marche to get a new one as he didn't have a spare. He then came back, carried it up three flights of stairs, replaced it before accepting only a beer in reward and then drove 20 minutes back to Azrou. It often amazes me just how far out of their way complete strangers can go for you.

We are learning more and more about our international community, as well as the Moroccan community in the area. We have a mixture of very wealthy, highly educated Moroccans and less educated farming Berber communities. Through the university and the local markets and travelling souqs we have chance to interact with all sorts of people and most are lovely. Sadly I have heard some unpleasant things about some of the more privileged. It is not uncommon out here to hire Filipino teachers or nannies for wealthier children. It is also not uncommon for these international hires who are so far from home and family to be incredibly badly treated. A few years ago there was a case of one woman being locked up and starved and having to be rescued by concerned university staff. Thankfully all the Filipinos I have met so far seem to be happy and treated well, if somewhat overworked. It is something of a dark side to an otherwise friendly and welcoming community. 

Seem to have deleted all my pictures from this week... slipping into slight chaos of ridiculous long hours of planning... working much later than required in order to get organised... hopefully be better in the next few weeks.

First Week of School

Well, the first week of school is over and we are officially exhausted. Perhaps not as exhausted so much by the students as we would have been in Thailand, after all there are only twelve of them in my class and not thirty plus like I’m used to. We are more exhausted by slow bureaucracy and failing technology. Having signed our bank papers about three weeks ago, banked our travel allowance cheque and been paid, we have yet to receive ATM cards. The queues at the bank make it impossible to make it to the bank during school time, and it closes before we finish. This has meant that we have run out of money. We refuse to take any more money out on credit cards when we have our pay sitting in the bank down the road. Yesterday this all came to a head and our boss and superiors at the university heard about the situation. Our boss brought us pizza as she was convinced we had an empty fridge and offered us a loan from the petty cash. The female reverend from the university dropped in to school today to see if she could run us around and help us at the bank. Finally, Hannah, the Moroccan lady in charge of admin at the school arranged with the bank manager to go and collect some money for us. This is really a community that pulls together to support each other.

As for technology, this has nearly broken us this week. Nick more so than me as everything he tried to print, copy, or prepare seemed to fail. We have a photocopier that works about 45 minutes every day, a printer that often runs out of paper or ink and computers that lose connection with the printer for no reason and switch between French and English keyboards without rhyme or reason. When you have no books and no resources this drives you to distraction. It can take an hour to prepare something that the students finish in five minutes. We are with our students twenty-four hours a week and have little preparation time. This means that to get stuff ready for the next day we often have to stay an hour or two late. Writing our year plans and getting everything we need together for the semester is a distant dream right now.

Happily, it is not all doom and gloom. The school is beautiful and the time in the classroom is a pleasure. The school has 47 elementary students and has lots of space for them. A sand playground, football field and the tallest sloping-red roofs that contrast against the most incredible blue sky I have ever seen. There are ceder trees, weeping willows and pampas grass all around. it is stunning.  The students are lovely and have a far higher level of English than I am used to. Having twelve students in the class means that I already know how to get each student to work, how to control them, and what makes them tick. I’ve never had that chance before as there have always been so many kids I only get to know them properly when I tutor them. Here I am able to talk to even the most reclusive. After teaching boys for four years it's also really nice to have girls in the class. By the second day they would attach themselves like Velcro to me at the end of break. They are a really friendly class.

The administration building and lucnh hall. There is a staff room with computers, coffee machine and sofas.

The entrance

Outside my classroom window.

 

 At the end of last week we went to our first authentic Moroccan cous cous meal. Provided by the school, it was an opportunity forall the faculty to get together. With around nine people round each round table, they brought out a high sided plate that was about 50 centimetre diameter. This was piled high with cous cous, baked vegetables and tender beef and chicken. The traditional way of eating it is to all eat with your hands out of the one bowl. You have an area in front of you, like a slice of pizza. This is your space. You pick up the cous cous in your fingers and toss it in a backward motion into the palm of your hand repeatedly until it forms a compact ball. This you can then pick up and eat. This process took me so long and with my coordination meant that more went on the table than in my mouth. I quickly resorted to a spoon, as did most of the locals after the initial display of tradition.

As I mentioned before, one of the big highs of moving into our apartment was the huge great open fireplace that we have. After living in Thailand for so many years we are thrilled at the thought of having real fires when there is snow outside. When the temperature dropped last week Nick was checking the fireplace and found that the chimney had been cemented over. I was horrified. Apparently people couldn't live without the fireplace a few years ago, but now there is central heating it is more of a luxury. The chimneys were blocked up as there was a problem with birds flying down them and the university didn't want to pay for them to be cleaned any more. I’d be happy to pay for cleaning and take my chances with the birds if it meant that I could have a real fire. Sadly it doesn't look like it is an option. Instead we went out and bought some giant pine cones from one of the local souvenir shops. At the shop they went from asking for one cone for 100 dirahms to four cones for 120. When we agreed we were ushered quickly into a back room of the shop where we had to inspect pine cones. We left feeling like for the second time in a few days we had been involved in a back street black market deal.

As for the alcohol... the drought is over... a slab of beer and a couple of bottles of wine were acquired. Definitely not for the connoisseur, hopefully this weekend we'll make it down to Fes for more drinakble stuff.

Outside the classroom

View from the classroom

 

In the classroom

The Magical Middle Atlas

It has been a hectic week. Every time I sit down to write this I keep a few things on my list to write about next time as I’m convinced that sometime soon I’m going to run out of things to say and new events to share. Beyond settling in, exploring, meeting colleagues and getting into school I figured that there wouldn't be much worth telling about life in sleepy little Ifrane. Well, this week included two spontaneous dashes to Fes, dinner out with friends, an adventure to a sheep farm deep in the mountains, escaping crayfish, a snake in the hall, our first Moroccan cous cous experience and an illicit appointment in a hotel car park. This might be a long one. 

Last weekend started well. Having met some friendly returning teachers in school, we were invited down to Fes with our coordinator and his wife. He is from Austria, she is from Guatemala, and they have lived here for a while and know a lot about the area. They took us shopping to Carrefour. This French chain of supermarkets has yet to let us down. As always it was reliably filled with specialist cheeses, meats, mayonnaises, mustards, cereals and other things that you can't find anywhere else. Sadly, the wine section was still closed. When we tried to go to the second supermarket for the things we'd missed we found it was closed for an hour for the breaking of the fast. This gave us the perfect opportunity for us to find a hotel where we could enjoy our first beer in 30 days. Our first Moroccan beer was Spécial. At $2.50 for a small bottle in a hotel, this is the cheapest beer in Morocco... cheap beer really never tasted so good.

At the new faculty welcome meal a while ago, I mentioned to Kim's husband Mustafa that we really wanted some plants for our apartment. Having lived in Thailand with a mini jungle our apartment here seemed to be really lacking something. Compared to steamy Thailand that is bursting with them, suitable house plants are quite hard to find in dusty Ifrane. The cedar trees are nice, but not sure we'd get one up to the fourth floor. On Sunday morning Mustafa phoned us to say he'd take us out to find some, that there was a place about half an hour's drive outside Azrou. Kim and Mustafa own a big old farm about half an hour beyond Azrou, and after bargaining hard for us and arranging for our four big plants to be potted, he drove us out into the country to visit the farm. This was the first time we have really had chance to appreciate just how beautiful and vast the Middle Atlas are. We drove along a track off the main road for about thirty minutes, though fields dotted sparsely with small farms and holdings. We drove deeper and deeper into the hills until we reached the farm. Once there he introduced us to the family that take care of it for them and showed us around the house. With tall, tall palm trees out the front and jagged brown and dusty peaks as far as the eye can see, all you can hear is the wind blowing through the trees and the occasional bleat of a sheep. You are miles from anywhere. As stunning as it is now, in a couple of months, after the rains, the whole place will be green and fertile. While not quite as dramatic, this place equals that Lake District in grandeur just for the sheer scale of the area. We wouldn't even know where to start with walking the area. There are no maps or guides as such, just local herders who know the best places to grace the sheep at different times of year.

After leaving there it felt like we'd been on holiday for the day. It was only when we went to collect the potted plants that we realised we had left ourselves with quite a lot of hard work to do at the end of the day. Once in the pots, with the heavy clay soil, the plants weighed twenty to forty kilos. Carrying them up the three flights of stairs to our apartment nearly ended us. Two of them were so heavy and awkward that I couldn't even lift them. It was definitely worth the effort though as we now have the greenery we've become accustomed to. 

The Farm, they even own the hill behind.

The terrace at the farm

Our plants

 

This week we have had both the best and the worst weather so far. This morning while I type I have the windows wide open, the crickets are chirping and a cool breeze is blowing in. Gone is the dusty haze that we had for our first three weeks. Now most days the sky is crystal clear and as deep a blue as I’ve ever seen and we can see the hills in the distance. It is a high of around 25 degrees and always refreshing. At night it cools enough to need a jumper and appreciate slippers. I have found my perfect temperature. It quite literally fills me with joy and well being every time I walk outside. In Thailand these days came once a year if you were lucky. I’m hoping this is our fall weather for a while. Yesterday was a bit of a shocker though. We had low clouds and horizontal rain for most of the day. They say in the winter when it does snow here, that it just dumps. One day there is nothing, the next day you can have a metre or two. Fingers crossed this will be a snow year. 

Today Mustafa phoned Kim while we were in a meeting. He'd just bought a ton of crayfish and wanted to know if anyone wanted any. Always game to try something new we said we'd give it a go. He bought a dag with about ten crawling around inside. Each crayfish was about the size of my hand... and to me, terrifyingly, seemed to be mostly claws. They waved at me when Nick picked them out of the bag. We left them in a plastic bag sitting on a table by the door while we continued with the meeting. A little while later as Sarah was leaving she found that one had escaped, fallen off the table, and was making a very slow dash for the door. Sarah, is a vegetarian and seems to have a love of animals of all shapes and sizes, has talked about finding a place to keep one of the many sheep or donkeys that live in the area. If she'd had an irrigated tank, two of those crayfish would have found themselves a new home and have been spared from the pot. As it was, we bought our bag of squirming goodies back home with us, via our colleagues flat where we stopped off to see if he wanted any. We ended up stopping in for a chat for a while, during which time repeated attempts were made to escape the bag. We kept imagining his wife walking in to find them scuttling across the floor. Now many know just how uncomfortable I am with anything possessing over four legs, and dealing with crayfish, which not only seem to be all legs, but also antenna and claws. Nick doesn't seem to have quite the same issues as me and was happily chatting away to them while they swam around in the sink, right up to the point of putting them into the boiling water. I had to be on the other side of the room, quickly googling how to prepare and dismantle them. The result from ten reasonable sized crayfish was a handful of meat for a Malay curry, and a tasty cumin and chilli topping for one crostini each. A very small reward for a lot of mess and work. 

To add to our encounters with things that make me squirm, Nick was walking out of his class and into the hall the other day, when he saw what looked like a large worm. It was only as it struck out to try and bite him that he realised it was a snake. It had to be the smallest snake I have ever seen and looked like a tiny puff adder no longer than your hand. It made a dash for it and ended up crawling into a crack in the wall outside the Kindergarten classroom. Thankfully it was seen a few days later and escorted from the building.

Wednesday this week was the end of Ramadan. To celebrate surviving the fast there is a two day holiday where people buy new clothes for everyone in the house, feast with friends and family and generally congratulate everyone for making it through another fast. We had hoped that this would be the time that not only brought life back to normal, but also brought back the owners of the only alcohol store in town from wherever they have been hiding. Sadly it did not. A colleague advised us that on the third day after Ramadan ended that it would be possible to buy alcohol. Every person had a different theory, and even the staff at the big supermarkets in Fes didn't know the exact date. Theories range from 1 day to three weeks. Not what we wanted to hear after waiting so patiently for the end of Ramadan.

Anyway, our colleague was convinced that Friday was the day. We drove to the local grocers and found it still locked up. There we were advised that for sure the shops were selling in Fes. So we drove in slow traffic on the windy road 60 kilometres to Fes. There we faced the unwelcoming view of the shuttered alcohol section. While muttering profanities under his breath our friend got chatting to some guy who said he knew someone who worked in a hotel and if we called him in an hour he'd be able to get us anything. To cut a long (5 hour) story short, first we were directed to meet a guy in the Royal Mirage Hotel car park who never showed up despite repeated promises, then we met someone else who took us to black market sellers in the medina. Sitting around waiting in a variety of car parks waiting made it feel like we were doing something illicit and not just searching for a cool beer to finish off our working week. It was an adventure but I’m not even that bothered about beer so it was a rather long night. It was more of an issue for our friend, he'd given up beer for Ramadan and given us his left overs earlier in the week thinking we'd be able to replace them easily. It was quite a dejected car that drove back. Thankfully we found somewhere yesterday and we had our first proper social night that broke the 11.00pm mark last night. Typing with a fuzzy head from cheap Moroccan red wine hence there are probably even more grammatical errors than normal. Probably wouldn't have drank it in normal circumstances, but beggars can't be choosers. I did find out that the wine was from the vineyard in Meknes and is owned by the parents of one of my students. They own all the vineyards in the area and are one of the biggest wine producers in Morocco. Pretty sure they have some pretty good wines down there if you can afford it, fingers crossed for generous Christmas presents! Not sure how appropriate it would be for me to show interest in my students vineyard though... not the done thing for a teacher, especially not here.